#arguably the most heartbreaking kind of angst

[silkhorse]

Darkness shrouded the temple—the shadows curling around the tiles like an endless void. All of the Gods could sense it—the loss. The Chaos. It had only been a year, in mortal terms, since Raelzaroth was exiled. Everyone thought it would put an end to his madness—everyone thought that Order could fix all of this, like how she fixes everything.

"Maekriel," Aeriollis whispered to the Sun next to her—her eyes fixed solely on the ceiling of their room. The Sun in turn faced towards her wife, Order. The latter continued hoarsely. "I miss my brother." She lamented, her face twisting as if in pain.

"Raelzaroth has caused more harm than good, Aeriollis. I wish you could see that I did this to protect us. To protect you."

There was a pause—momentary but significant. Aeriollis did not have to say a word—they both knew that Maekriel's words were hollow. Who could have thought that banishing Chaos would only cause havoc. Order hissed bitterly, turning to face her wife. "I have heard Chariot has gotten diseased. No longer can ze deliver the messages between god and mortal— I fear-"

"My love," The Sun soothed, her voice warm and velvety—her eyes soft. "Seize your worries for it will all fall into place; I will make sure of it. We just... I just need to find a way to contain his core so it spreads this curse no further." Aeriollis shook her head gently before looking back up at the dark ceiling.

"I worry for him, Raelzaroth—despite our differences—is my brother. Fate knows his dogs miss him," Order murmured into the air, gently closing her eyes. "I... Even though he was exiled from our realm—It is as if he is still here-" Her voice became broken with emotion, tears pooling in the closed corners of her eyes.

"Getting rid of Chaos seemed to have only caused more damage and havoc—I fear that my choice was the wrong one—for what good of a god and a sister am I to have tossed away my own kin?"

[loservernon]

𐙚⊹₊⋆☆ nice guy | sim jake

𐙚 idol!jake x student!reader (she/her)

𐙚 angst no fluff, the little fight that snowballs into heartbreak

𐙚 1.6k, mentions of cheating, not proofread oops!

𐙚 note // this is my first time ever writing for a group other than nct so i hope you guys like it ^~^ i’m on a break from school, and kpop bedrot has been my best friend thus this was born!! there will most likely be a part two that’s not depressing teehee

at the second hour of this seemingly never-ending fight, jake has yet to show any sign of giving up. it’s baffling to you, who — just as much as he does — thinks you’re the one in the right. you’re sure of it, which is why you aren’t backing down so easily.

“so you’re saying it’s your job to buy a drink for every person that looks miserable at the bar?”

“i’m not saying it’s my job,” he defends, “i’m just saying i saw her sitting alone looking particularly glum and that i had the capability to do something nice for someone, so i did.”

“so you’re playing the nice guy now, huh? you can’t possibly be at fault because it was simply an act of kindness.”

“(name), don’t put it like that. i’m not trying to play at anything. i’m just telling you what i did and why i did it.”

“and i’m telling you that it was wrong, that it hurt, that it might’ve been a nice act to her, but buying another girl a drink is not nice to your girlfriend.”

jake rises from his spot on the couch. he walks a few steps until his back is facing you. his hands are set square on his hips and his head is hung low in disappointment, or defeat, or just dejection, you can’t tell.

he stays that way for a few moments; the heated tension that once shrouded the room is now replaced with an eerie silence. jake breaks it with the most bewildering conclusion possible. “i get it now. you’re jealous.”

at this, you’re caught off guard, though it only takes a few breaths for your surprise to morph into anger. you stand up as well, and jake turns around just as your anger reaches its climax.

“jealous? you think i’m jealous of a random ass girl who seemed to be down in the dumps?”

the furrow in his brow deepens at the thickness in your voice. jake’s countenance is back to a defensive state, but his tone almost assumes confusion when he queries, “if you’re not jealous of her then what’s the issue here? what reason could you possibly have–“

“it’s you, jake.” you take measured steps towards him, tears springing in your eyes from the sheer emotion leaking through your being. your body is almost shaking, pupils quivering, and fists clenching when you push forward, “you’re the issue. you think you’re such a nice guy for buying some girl a drink, when really you don’t seem to understand the insinuations of your actions.”

“what do you mean i don’t underst–“

“were you flirting with her?”

“no.”

“did you express your interest in her?”

“of course not.”

“then why would she come up to me right before we were leaving to tell me that the guy i was with was hitting on her?”

jake throws his hands up as a show of innocence and frustration, “how am i supposed to know why she lied to you?”

“did you tell her that you had a girlfriend?”

“there was no reason to.”

“are you really that dense?”

“what?”

“single guys buy drinks for girls that they’re interested in at bars. come on jake, you weren’t born yesterday. the more you try to make it seem like you were just ‘doing it to be nice,’ the more it feels like you had other intentions that you’re scared to tell me. just admit that you did something wrong, apologize for it, and never do it again.”

now it’s his turn to be caught off guard. you think he gets it, and he’ll do as you say and you guys will both hug and make up and hurry on to bed. however, it doesn’t seem that way. he’s stuck on a single part, arguably the least important part, of your whole entire spiel.

“you really think i had other intentions?”

jake’s challenging you. you know that look well, the one where he feels so severely wronged that his vision blurs and all he can think about is defending himself.

“jake…” you don’t give in to the challenge because you know it’d only fuel him.

“you think i was cheating on you? in front of you? why’s it so hard for you to believe i was just doing it from the kindness of my heart?”

“no, jake…” you try again, but it’s futile. you know from the look on his face that he’s about to say things he doesn’t mean. you know it’s going to hurt.

“fine. if you really don’t believe that my act of kindness was really just an act of kindness then i should be more mean, shouldn’t i? next time you have a group project with a guy in it, i’m not talking to you until the project’s over. you can’t have guy friends, or else i might misunderstand your intentions towards them. if you ever go up to a guy and talk to him for any reason, we’re over. and i’ll apply the same rules to myself. are you satisfied now?”

it doesn’t just hurt. it breaks you. tears are streaming down your cheeks and your heart rate speeds uncontrollably. you’re standing opposite of him, barely able to breathe, and yet he looks close to normal, save for the sternness set in his brows. it utterly shatters you to know that jake would rather break your heart knowingly than apologize for something that now seems so minor.

through hitched breaths, you force out weakly, “so by your rules, we’re over.”

at first, he doesn’t get it. the placidity with which he had regulated his face falls briefly into panic. cautiously, jake lets, “what do you mean we’re over?”

congestion has clogged your sinuses, so you hold your breath as you clarify, “you’re applying the same rules to yourself, aren’t you? earlier tonight, did you not go up to a girl and talk to her? for whatever reason?” any composure jake held on to cracks. his eyes go wide and he takes a hesitant yet desperate step towards you as you hammer in the final nail to his coffin. “you’re saying we’re over, right?”

you have jake backed into a corner. he’d fallen for his own trap, one that he’d built trying to corner you. he’d say he’s ready for it, your attack. he’d even go as far as to admit he deserves it, apologize for it, beg for it. he can’t take back what he did and he can’t take back what he said, even if he never meant to even remotely cause doubt of his loyalty to you, and even if he had sworn early on in your relationship that he would never hurt you on purpose. but even when he’s backed into a corner, defenseless and entirely at fault, you never land your final blow. instead, you retreat.

“i’m going to stay at yeji’s tonight. please don’t contact me until i reach out first.”

you turn away from him and head towards your shared bedroom. jake’s eyes have unfocused and he’s rooted rigidly in his spot. his mind tricks him into thinking that if he doesn’t move, or speak, or hear, or see anything, then this must not be his reality. for minutes it seems, jake dissociates just like this. but the sound of you packing your bag sets his nerves alight, and he’s jolted into action like the galvanization of a dead man emerging from the ground. he awakens to this reality, and the realization that he has to change it.

jake barely crosses the threshold of the door before he’s stopped at the sight of your zipping closed your suitcase. just how long were you planning on leaving for? you look up at him to catch the disbelief and hurt in his eyes. your face has been washed and you refuse to let up anymore signs of vulnerability on your end, so you look back down.

“please don’t go.”

“don’t push it.”

“i thought we agreed to never go to bed mad at each other.”

with your suitcase zipped close, you still your emotions before looking up at him. “i’m not mad at you, jaeyun.”

at the sound of his full name, jake almost dissociates again. his heart has gone completely still. “then why are you leaving?”

you make your way across the room, and he moves to block the entrance of it. you sigh. “i just want some space to rethink our relationship and what happened tonight.”

jake hangs his head low, “i’m sorry. i’m at fault.” but his head snaps back up when he hears you laugh in response, “it’s a little too late for that, don’t you think?”

he doesn’t put up a fight, for he’s done more than enough of that already. instead, he moves out of the way.

you leave.

jake wonders who’d get the apartment if you guys broke up. he wonders what he’d tell his parents who love you so, how he’d break it to layla that her favorite person in the world will never see her again. jake wonders if he could ever get used to the silence in the room that now sits heavy on his shoulders. mostly he wonders if he would ever forgive himself for being stubborn at the worst moment, and being selfish when it mattered the most.

it’s only now that jake thinks he would prefer you yelling at him any day for any reason, over the silence of your shared apartment for the rest of his life.

copyright © 2024 loservernon all rights reserved.

[likeshipsonthesea]

I don’t know if you take requests for nurseydex fics... but if you do the song “omg did she call him baby” by Beth McCarthy screams a heartbroken Nursey when Dex has a girlfriend

i like really can’t do genuine heartbreak but i CAN do angst that ends happy, so here’s my best shot :)

Nursey’s got a red Solo cup in one hand and a plastic champagne flute in the other and it’s sometime after three but before five and he is definitely not thinking about her or him or them together when he looks up between one sip and another to see the telltale blue hair reflecting the murky spotlights of the basement.

Nursey squints. He could be making things up--his brain is nice like that-- but he doesn’t think he’s imagining things. She’s got very distinctive hair, Dex’s--girlfriend. It’d been rather disappointing, actually, the blue hair. The whole thing had been easier to deal with when he’d been picturing some light-haired brunette going for an economics degree who smiled like a mom at soccer practice. Someone who Nursey could reasonably dislike on grounds of, like, predictability.

But no, Dex had to bring home a blue-haired physics major with a nose ring and good taste in music and the ability to out-argue Shitty while polishing off Bitty’s pie, i.e. perfect. Even Lardo couldn’t pretend like she wasn’t awesome for Nursey’s sake. Even Nursey can’t pretend like Amanda isn’t awesome for his own sake. She’s just so--so--

Nursey squints.

So-- making out with some random girl in a blouse at a frat party.

What the fuck.

Nursey is about two margaritas and three years too deep to be dealing with the emotional ramifications of catching the girlfriend of his best friend (who he’s also kind of sort of possibly maybe totally in love with) macking on some consultant for Goldman Sachs or some shit in the basement of arguably one of the worst frats at Samwell. This one doesn’t even have good music, Nursey’s only here to get drunk without the possibility of Dex calling Nursey Patrol and helping Nursey up the stairs and saying nothing about the poetry Nursey spills or the way his hands linger.

(Fuck does Nursey hate Nursey Patrol, fuck does he hate how much he loves it.)

Nursey downs the rest of the champagne flute--which was probably mostly orange juice at this point anyway-- and hands the red Solo cup to a freshman gearing himself up to talk to a cute boy a few feet away and then Nursey gets the fuck out of dodge. He manages to get a better look at the corporate recruiter Amanda is cheating on Dex with (and really, if you’re going to cheat on Dex, you’re really going to pick a chick in a blouse that probably has opinions on the stock market???) and if he hadn’t been sure before, the distinctive tattoo on Amanda’s shoulder proves that it’s really her.

(“Tattoos? Tattoos? I have tattoos.” “I know you do, Nurse.” “They’re really nice tattoos.” “I know they are, Nurse.”)

Emerging from the basement and then the frat house itself is instantly sobering. The chill from winter hasn’t quite left the air at night and Nursey wraps his arms around himself and doesn’t think about how Dex chirped him about not wearing a coat before he’d left. The frat isn’t far away from the Haus, thank god, but it is slightly farther when he turns left instead of right and then has to a backtrack a bit, but he still gets back in under ten minutes and he can still feel his hands, so overall, a win.

Attempting to get into the Haus quietly is a lost cause, given its one thousand year old floor and the fact that a ladybug could fart in the kitchen and wake up the guys in the attic. Still, Nursey gives it the good college try, which is why he’s creeping ridiculously through the living room when the light turns on suddenly and he screams, much to the amusement of Dex, standing in the kitchen doorway.

“Fuck, dude, what the fuck.”

Dex just smirks in that horribly attractive way of his. “How was the Psi-U basement?”

Nursey thinks of blue hair, washed out in the lights, Amanda’s hand on that girl’s cheek, the way Dex smiles when he’s around her. “Fine,” Nursey says, swaying.

The amusement falters and Nursey wishes he could figure out a way to keep the smile on Dex’s face the way Amanda does. Dex takes a step closer. “Are you alright?”

Nursey shakes his head violently and takes a step back, a step farther away. This is the part where he says yes, yes of course Dexy-darling, I’m right as rain, what about you? This is the part where Dex rolls his eyes and loops his arm around Nursey’s waist, his warm side pressed into Nursey’s. The part where they go upstairs, where Nursey writes his best poetry that he’s too embarrassed to write down when he’s sober, where Dex tells him to sleep well and lingers outside the doorway long enough for Nursey’s breathing to slow and then the floor creaks and Nursey knows he’s gone and wishes he’d held on just a little bit longer--

“Nursey, what’s wrong?”

Nursey shakes his head again. He means to say nothing, he means to say, I’m going to bed, he means to-- “Amanda, she--”

The concern turns to alarm. Why can’t Nursey ever make it better? “Is she alright? Did you see her? Is she okay?”

Nursey shakes his head again. He can’t seem to stop doing that. “She’s fine, she--she--” He swallows, and it’s sticky, cloying, citrusy and sweet on the back of his tongue. “She--there was this girl, she-- Amanda, she--”

Dex won’t stop frowning, concern knitting his eyebrows together with three short wrinkles, and Nursey has wanted to smooth them out with his fingertips every time he sees them since sophomore year, and he shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t be telling Dex this while he’s drunk, shouldn’t be telling Dex this at all, but he’s Nursey’s friend first and Nursey has to believe he’d tell Dex regardless of the love thing, he must--

“She was kissing some girl. In the Psi-U basement.”

The wrinkles smooth out. The amusement returns. Nursey--he can’t make sense of it over the ringing in his ears. Why is Dex smiling? Did--did Nursey do that?

“Did she look like a lawyer?” he asks, and at Nursey’s confusion clarifies, “The girl Amanda was kissing. Did she look like a lawyer?” Nursey nods dumbly. Dex’s smile only grows. Nursey is so, so confused and also more in love than he’s ever been. “Finally. I just won fifty bucks.”

What the fuck. “What the fuck.”

Dex laughs--laughs. “The girl’s name is Tammy. She graduated last year and moved to Boston. Amanda’s been in love with her forever, and I bet her that she’d get with Tammy before I--” Flush appears high on Dex’s cheeks, the soft pink one that means embarrassment and Nursey imagines would taste like cherry pie against his lips.

Nursey is--still quite a bit drunk. He needs--clarification. “You--you bet your girlfriend that she would get with her friend at a frat party?”

Dex’s nose scrunches up in Nursey’s favorite way--the same way it does when he’s trying to write humanities essays, the reason Nursey always says yes when Dex asks for help. “Girlfriend? Did you think Amanda was my girlfriend?”

Nursey remembers the start, hearing about Amanda every other day, then every day, then it was, sorry I can’t come, I’m meeting Amanda at-- and then one day at Annie’s, a girl with blue hair and a sharp grin yelled Babe! from across the room and planted a kiss on Dex’s cheek, her hand lingering on his shoulder, sipping from his coffee cup, getting him to smile like that--

“Well, yeah.” Nursey’s head is spinning and, for the first time tonight, not from the gin. “Is she--is she not?”

“Oh God, no, she’s so fucking gay, dude.” Laughter twinkles in Dex’s eyes. Nursey is drunker than he’s been since freshmen year of high school when Shitty snuck in some of his dad’s hard liquor and the janitors found them on the roof singing Disney songs at the moon. Dex’s girlfriend is gay. Dex’s girlfriend isn’t his girlfriend. Dex is--is smiling at him like he smiles at his girlfriend who isn’t his girlfriend.

“Oh,” Nursey says, dazed, “chill.”

“Oh wow,” Dex grins, leaning into the doorframe, “I can’t believe you thought--and you thought telling me my girlfriend was cheating on me at 3am while shit-drunk was a good idea?”

Nursey says, “Hey, honesty is important, and I’m not--” He stops. He remembers something. He squints. “Wait. If you bet 50 bucks on Amanda getting with Tammy, who did Amanda bet you would get with?”

The cherry pie blush is back. Nursey takes an absent-minded step forward. The room feels so much lighter now that Dex’s girlfriend isn’t cheating on him. The distance between them feels so much sillier now that Dex doesn’t have a girlfriend.

“Ah, well.” Dex rubs at the back of his neck, all country bumpkin sheepish to ask his sweetheart to the dance, and--and--

“I’m the sweetheart,” Nursey realizes with the kind of crystal clarity only afforded by the most copious amounts of alcohol.

Dex’s eyebrows furrow, those sweet little wrinkles appearing between them, and Nursey takes two long strides forward and presses his thumb into them. Dex goes cross-eyed trying to watch, but moves his eyes to meet Nursey’s after a moment.

Nursey grins, likely a bit sloppy from the gin, but he can’t find it in himself to care at the moment. “I’m the sweetheart,” he repeats, beaming.

Dex tries to repress the smile at his lips. “You’re not a sweetheart.”

“Yes I am,” Nursey sings, listing forwards. “You like me.”

“You’re an asshole.” Dex’s smile grows. Nursey watches its progress and sways.

“They’re not mutually exclusive,” he says, tracking the pink lips as they spread, revealing teeth and--and tongue and--

“I hate that you can still say mutually exclusive when you’re this drunk.”

“I’m not that drunk.”

“Yeah?���

“Mhmm. See, I’ll prove it.”

“How do you plan on--”

If Dex’s mouth weren’t so preoccupied, he might say that the taste on Nursey’s tongue is a good indication that he is in fact fairly tipsy, but as it is--well. He’s got other things to do.

(Amanda asserts that they tied since it happened on the same night and only pays $25. Tammy throws in five more and a condom and they call it even. Nursey kisses away Dex’s protest and pockets the condom, much to Amanda’s amusement. Turns out, she’s even cooler when she isn’t dating the love of Nursey’s life.)

[mermaidsirennikita]

Kinda a weird q, but any idea when and why the trend of punny titles for romance novels started? They range everywhere from clever (the rogue not taken for a travel story was kinda adorable) to obvious to downright terrible (how the duke stole xmas just makes me think about fucking the grinch... im sorry). Im curious if you know how it got started and any thoughts you have on it? Would you give your book a punny title?

Sorry for the delayed response, busy couple of days! (Busy couple of weeks.)

I'm not really sure exactly when the trend began, but I know it existed around the late 90s/early 2000s because that's when the Bridgerton books were published. The Viscount Who Loved Me isn't super obvious, but it's also obviously connected to The Spy Who Loved Me, arguably one of the most iconic James Bond movies. In the 80s and 90s I think we saw more epic titles--things like The Fires of Winter, A Kingdom of Dreams, the iconically quick and to the point Julie Garwood titles like The Secret or The Bride. A lot of 90s era Kleypas titles were kind of like... Romantic but not very related to the plot--Dreaming of You, where nobody dreams of anyone, comes to mind. Suddenly You, which was published later, is similarly vague.

Punny titles seemed to have grown over the 2000s, and by the time Sarah MacLean hit it big they were the norm, as evidenced by her Rules of Scoundrels series (A Rogue by Any Other Name, No Good Duke Goes Unpunished, etc).

I think they're catchy and easy to remember, so I'm not against them (though some definitely go a bit too far). But I really like the most recent/upcoming MacLean titles as an example of where trends are going--Bombshell, Heartbreaker. I know they're meant to evoke the old Amanda Quick titles, like Ravished, and I love that. Very dynamic and dramatic. While punny titles work for like, lighter books, for novels like MacLean's which tend to b a bit heavier and more dramatic, they seem a bit off? I imagine this is why you see them less with Kleypas titles, which are similarly kinda dark at times.

I don't know if punny titles would really work for the historical romances I want to write. I really tend towards like, heavy angst, not without humor but more in a "this is batshit bananas" type of way. In the vein of Lorraine Heath (I hope) more than Tessa Dare (though I love Tessa's books, don't get me wrong--I just don't think I could write what she writes). Honestly, I'm all about bringing back the over the top 80s titles like Velvet Promise or Gentle Rogue.

[kreabu]

Illicit Affairs - L.J.Y (Teaser)

Pairing: Juyeon x Reader, Eric x Reader

Summary:  For 10 whole years of your life, Lee Juyeon has been the only truth you’ve known. Every nerve in your body sizzles to life at the sight of him, and you’re so damn sure that there’ll never be anyone else for you. Perhaps that’s why you’re so utterly shattered when the so called love of your life decides to marry your best friend, of all people. But you’re a strong woman, so fast forward to five years later, when you’re happily married and running what is arguably one of the most successful psychiatry clinics in Seoul city. Life could not be more perfect, and there’s nothing more you could possibly wish for. 

Until one day, the door of your office swings open, and Mr and Mrs Lee Juyeon are sitting in front of you, begging you to save the scraps of their marriage. You should know better. You really should. But when old feelings resurface from hidden depths, you’re caught up in a simmering affair with the man who has never quite released his hold on you.

Let’s see how many hearts Lee Juyeon will break this time round.

Warnings: best friends to strangers to lovers, heavy heavy angst that’ll totally be worth it, smut, screaming and crying, cussing, making out, banter, infidelity and heartbreak, jealousy and pining and other slowburn goodies, idiots in love

This story deals with the very problematic concept of adultery. In no way am I glorifying adultery, or even suggesting that the member in question would engage in such an act. This is a work of FICTION, and is in no way meant to replicate real life circumstances. Please do not read it if it makes you uncomfortable in any way.

Playlist:  / Bitter - Fletcher / Feel - Fletcher / Smoke - Bobi Andonov / Let Me Love You - Arianna Grande

Word Count: TBA

Release Date: TBA but coming soon woohoo

Taglist: @shiberrysan​ @fleurseoul

<Teaser Below The Cut>

Will you dance with me? One last time?

There is something so profoundly exquisite about weddings. Something, something about the white dresses and happy tears and cream cakes that dredges up the sweetest kind of pain.

Perhaps you are a masochist, for putting yourself through this. 

Your fingers dance across a sea of ivory keys, butterfly kisses that fill the hollows of the church with a shimmering melody of love. Slowly, slowly they shape the notes, until the familiar three-note strain of Mendelssohn’s wedding march perfumes the rose-scented air. Behind you, the doors slide open, as final as death.

When this song ends, you are forever lost to me.

One by one, the guests rise. The bride flits down the aisle, silhouetted by the late-morning sun. The stained glass windows cast strange shadows, bathing the world in some sort of otherworldly, ethereal glow. Everything is perfect, so, so perfect. 

From the corner of your eye, you see him, aflame and blazing as he regards his wife-to-be. Despite everything, the traitorous organ in your chest flutters against the solid wall of your ribcage like a trapped bird.

Let me free, it seems to say. Let me free, so I may fly home to my love.

Across the sea of guests, you catch Eric’s eyes. There is something somber in them, too solemn for the lightness of this day. The gaze prickles your skin, and suddenly the room feels too cold, too dark, too small, to handle the magnitude of emotion bubbling under your skin, to handle the depth of these unspoken words simmering between you, him, and the man at the altar.

Love is an inferno, coiling tongues flame that suck the oxygen from your lungs and leave them full of ash and stardust.

“Do you, Lee Juyeon, take Jeon Somin to be your lawfully wedded wife?” 

It would be so easy to pretend this was okay, to pretend that every breath wasn’t a blood-drenched ordeal, to pretend that every heartbeat wasn’t the sound of a dying drum that grew fainter with every second that ticked by.

“I do.” 

The words sear into your bones, sliding their dark tendrils into spaces that were once filled with nothing but Juyeon and Juyeon alone. 

On and on they curl, until they reach the embers of that inferno that once blazed bright. It hisses in anger against their insidious kiss, but eventually every light must give in to the night.

Goodbye, your mind whispers, ignoring the roaring of your heart. 

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

[kopikokun]

Star-Crossed Lovers༄ mark l.

↳ You’re not supposed to be so hopelessly in love with a man as dangerous as Mark, especially given the fact that you’re engaged, but you just can’t help it.

pairing: hitman!mark x reader

genre: fluff, angst

wordcount: 1889 words

Request 28: Mark + “I’m so in love with you.” (36) + “I wish we could stay like this forever.” (39) + “I want to take care of you.” (51)

— 𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧. | 𝐫𝐮𝐥𝐞𝐬.

What was that saying? It’s wrong yet it feels so right?

  Regardless of what it is, you can’t deny the exhilarating rush from doing this. You feel a shiver creep up your spine, and it’s not from the cold night breeze. No, it’s from the sight of the lone figure before you, the ends of their robe dancing with the wind, their lithe fingers adorned with the faint gleam of silver rings, and their large, near worn-out hood, draped over their head, obscuring their face.

  The figure on the shingled rooftop with you holds a small knife in their hand, its sharp and pristine blade reflecting the moonlight as they twirl the small weapon expertly around their fingers.

  You should be scared, and you would be bluffing if you weren’t at least just a little. But you know the man would never let his knife even graze your skin. The only sharp thing which makes your heart pound is his smile.

  “Miss me?”

  Mark’s hood falls to his shoulders, revealing that mischievous face that you fall in love with every night. His grin is deadly, arguably even more so than he is as he continues to weave that knife easily between his ring-clad fingers. From the way he so casually does it, it’s as if he was born with a knife clasped in his fist, which wouldn’t be surprising for Mark. You turn away from the sight, a feeling of mild disdain building in your chest.

  You hum vaguely in response, and Mark smiles softly, almost a little sadly, as if he knows what you’re thinking. He tucks his knife away.

  “I hope that’s a yes.”

  You don’t even realise that Mark has taken a seat beside you until he sighs. He’s truly a talented hitman, but you’re unsure if that’s exactly a compliment.

  “I missed you,” confesses Mark, his voice so quiet it could almost be mistaken as the light gust of air which fans your face.

  “Really?” you challenge, raising a brow and turning to face him. “I guess you didn’t miss me enough to come yesterday.”

  Mark holds your gaze. “I-I had something to do.”

  “Something to do...” Your chest tightens, and you debate on whether you should even ask. “Who was it?”

  Mark blows out an unsteady breath. “It doesn’t matter.”

  You would push him further, but doing so would take you nowhere. You know that from experience. “Okay.”

  You decide to rest your head in Mark’s lap. It’s what you usually do when you meet him up here every night. At first, you would sit crossed-legged beside him, relishing in the one-of-a-kind view. Buildings and humble homes stretched out for miles, a few of them emitting a yellow glow from their windows, but most dark and dormant, its inhabitants fast asleep as the moon casts its light onto their roofs. The stars blinking, scattered across the vast and endless canvas of the night sky, whispering to you about the tales of the past, about wars, treachery and greed, yet also of two lovers, just like you and Mark, who had lay under these very stars professing their love and clinging onto one another until the Sun began to rise.

  You’ve got a clearer view of the sky with your head in Mark’s lap anyway. And a clearer view of him too. It’s unrealistic how attractive he still looks at this angle. Unfair, actually.

  “What’re you looking at?” Mark’s hands support his weight as he leans back, staring down at you. His eyes are playful and a familiar brown—intoxicating almost—as they reel you in and drag you under.

  You smile up at him. “You.”

  Though one of Mark’s most impressive qualities is how easily he can slither his way into any woman or man’s heart without any emotional attachment, his breath still catches in his throat despite having heard that line over a hundred times. You don’t miss this fact, smiling coyly, knowing that you have this untouchable hitman wrapped around your little finger. “You’re really pretty,” you elaborate.

  Mark laughs heartily, and though he’s a feared man, painted out to be a ruthless beast with a cold stare and a rugged edge to his voice, his laughter contradicts that belief. It’s joyful, airy and boyish, reminiscent to that of a young teenage boy in love, and in this moment, you’re reminded that he’s hardly an adult. He’s only barely been chaffed by the harsh reality of adulthood, yet his eyes possess a wisdom far beyond his years, one he’s earned from the twenty years of sneaking through the shadows and scaling walls silently, grappling to stay alive. But as you stare deeply into his eyes, roaming their never-ending depth, you can make out that dim glimmer of childlike euphoria, something Mark never had the chance to experience. He’s a crumbling monument, only barely standing thanks to a few make-shift pillars and beams, but there’s something beautiful about him, something that had drawn you in that first night you met him.

  Mark tilts his head, smiling softly. “You think I’m pretty? Look at yourself, darling,” he says, putting those long years of charming others to use. But unlike with them, his words are genuine with you. He giggles again, smiling fondly. “I’m so in love with you.”

  Your hand reaches forward to caress his surprisingly smooth skin. He flinches as the chilled metal of the band which hugs your left ring finger comes into contact with his cheek. “I love you too.”

  Mark grips your wrist, even his own fingers are cold compared to yours and the contrast in temperatures sends a prickling  jolt through your arm. He tugs your hand from his face, inspecting your ring. “Oh, really now? You do?”

  You pull your hand out of his grip, sitting up from his lap. He gives you a pointed look, leaning back in his position.

  “Mark…” Your own fingers subconsciously fiddle with the ring, twisting it around. “You know I didn’t have a choice. I don’t get a say in who I marry…”

  “I know that.” He frowns, his usually light-hearted and carefree expression overcome with a bitter one. “He must be great, huh? Kim Doyoung; rich, handsome, intelligent, son of a prominent figure—he’s perfect for you. Little old though, don’t you think?”

  You roll your eyes. “He’s only three years older than you are, Mark. And how did you—”

  “I’m a hitman. Finding out who your fiance is isn’t exactly the hardest thing I’ve had to do. And it’s not like he’s particularly low-profile or living humbly either.” Mark crosses his arms. “And I figured I should know who’ll be sleeping in the same bed as you every night.”

  Mark’s tone grows sinister, and a muscle in his jaw twitches. You place a cautious, delicate hand on his shoulder and sigh, “Mark…”

  “I know. I shouldn’t be getting jealous or possessive. I don’t have the right to, but I want to.” Mark looks at you, his gaze sincere and his smile, sad—longing. “I want to be the one who marries you, who kisses you before you go to bed, who makes breakfast for you when you wake up in the morning, but I can’t do that, huh?” He laughs humourlessly.

  You grow silent. You can’t even bring yourself to look into Mark’s eyes. You know they only hold sorrow as he grieves for something he’s lost; you. Though, he’s never really had you to begin with, and how could he possibly lose something he’s never had anyway?

  You’re selfish. You knew being involved with Mark would only end in tragedy for the both of you, but you went against your own logic regardless. Something about following your heart, you suppose. How naive of you. Fate isn’t kind.

  “I guess, I,” Mark clears his throat, “I want to take care of you.”

  You laugh dryly, though tears threaten to spill, blurring your vision and those stars that seemed so bright and hopeful look fuzzy now, like they’d vanish with one measly swipe of your thumb. “You want to take care of me? You murder people for a living, Mark.”

  Mark laughs too, but it’s laced with despair. “Killing pays, babe.”

  You curl up beside Mark, resting your head on his shoulder as you wrap your arms around his. He lets his head fall to yours too, stroking your hair gently. “I can’t say you’re wrong.”

  “I wish we could stay like this forever.”

  Your frail heart shatters at Mark’s words. His voice is thick with tears, with heartbreak and with acceptance. You don’t realise that all your pent up tears have finally escaped until you feel a single drop land on your left hand. The ring on your finger glints with malice, and that’s what finally breaks you.

  Mark smoothes down your hair, shushing you gently and whispering reassuring words into your ear. You pay no heed to them, because you know they don’t possess an ounce of truth. Because they’re just words—wishful thinking and momentary delusions to get you through the sobs. And Mark knows that too, because eventually he grows silent, crying soundlessly, his warm tears and muffled hiccups mingling with yours.

  When the Sun begins to peek through the mountains in the distance, Mark stands to leave, kissing you softly as farewell. His lips mould perfectly with yours and you grip his sleeve, willing for him to stay. He pulls away, his hot breath interlaced with yours. He runs the pad of his thumb across your hand, before he’s turning away from you, your arm falling limp and cold to your side.

  As Mark is about to leave and flips his hood up, he glances back at you, a wistful smile tugging at his lips. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.” He pauses, swallowing a lump in his throat. “I love you.”

  “I love you too, Mark.” You brave a smile for him, desperately hoping it looks genuine.

  Mark has spent his entire life observing people’s emotions, perfecting his craft so he can secure the best time to strike. He knows it’s not genuine, but he returns it anyway and it looks just as forced as yours is.

  As you watch Mark’s nimble figure retreat into the jet black landscape of the night, his body skilfully navigating and leaping from roof to roof as he’s done all his life, you can’t stop the tears from falling. Despite that, you’re still smiling from ear-to-ear, rubbing your swollen eyes with the back of your hands.

  When Mark is finally out of sight, the only trace of him he left behind being the inviting smell of his fabric softener, you hug your knees to your chest and lift your gaze to the sky. You begin to wonder, if you and Mark’s circumstances had been different, would you have fallen in love and got to experience the life you yearned for with him?

  With a resentful laugh you realise you probably wouldn’t have. Fate is cruel, and star-crossed lovers will always remain star-crossed lovers. Suddenly, a burning abhorrence towards the illuminated sky grows in your gut, the flames lapping at you and tearing down everything in its path.

  You cover a single, miserable star with your thumb, childishly hoping that you’ve snuffed it out. You screw your eyes shut. The view doesn’t look that great anymore.

[becasbelt]

Words: 4,874 Fandom: Pitch Perfect (Movies) Rating: T Relationships: Chloe Beale/Beca Mitchell Characters: Chloe Beale, Beca Mitchell Additional Tags: Angst, Pining, Canon Compliant Summary:

Chloe is in love with Beca, and Beca is in love with Chloe. Just… not at the same time.

In which Beca and Chloe can’t seem to figure out their timing.

Dedicated to my loving mother @darby-carter <33

* * *

Falling in love with Beca Mitchell isn’t something that Chloe necessarily expected upon their first meeting, but she can’t say that she’s particularly surprised by it, either. Chloe has always been free with her emotions- something that her mother always says she admires about Chloe.

Although she can’t really know for sure, Chloe likes to think that she generally feels things faster and stronger than most people. When she hates someone, she will go out of her way to avoid them at all costs. When she likes a show on Netflix, she will spend every waking moment watching it and looking up any information she can find on it. When she crushes on someone, they become all-consuming; Chloe thinks of them constantly.

So when a small spark of attraction starts deep in her chest for Beca, Chloe knows that it is only a matter of time before Beca completely takes over Chloe’s world.

And take over Chloe’s world she does, with startling swiftness and terrifying completeness.

Because even if Chloe has been in love before, every kind of love she’s felt in the past pales in comparison to how she feels about Beca.

And sometimes, Chloe thinks that Beca might just love her back.

Beca is a naturally prickly person, Chloe has noticed. Averse to almost any form of physical contact, affection, and intimacy. The emotional side of things isn’t much nicer. Beca hardly answers questions about herself and tends to get her way out of any conversation that seems like it may be heading in a sincere direction. It’s almost impressive how well she does at distancing herself from others, both physically and emotionally.

Maybe that’s part of why Chloe falls for her so hard and so fast; she just aches to make sure that Beca feels loved in some way.

So naturally, Chloe inserts herself into Beca’s life.

And Beca, shockingly enough, doesn’t really seem to mind.

At practices while Aubrey is lecturing Amy about her lack of cardio, Beca will slink away from Stacie’s attempts of showing affections towards her, only to allow Chloe’s arms to circle her middle from behind a moment later. Beca will answer Cynthia-Rose with some sarcastic quip when she asks why Beca is in the Bellas if she hates it so much, yet when it comes up in a late night conversation with Chloe a week later, she seems to have no problem opening up about how her dad will help her move to LA after the year is done if she ‘shows some real effort.’

Chloe seems to be Beca’s exception in almost every aspect of life, which thrills Chloe to no end.

Beca kissing Jesse is unexpected and surprising, to say the least.

Chloe didn’t think that Beca even liked Jesse as a person, let alone liked him as a potential romantic partner.

Watching Beca and Jesse kiss quite literally breaks Chloe’s heart. She cries about it on she and Aubrey’s couch for a solid week until Aubrey tells her that she needs to get over it, because it’s not like she and Beca were even dating or anything.

It was just a crush, Aubrey tells her. She hadn’t even known Beca for all that long, Aubrey says. You’ll be okay, she assures her.

But none of those things feel true to Chloe.

It’s funny, Chloe thinks as she watches the Hallmark channel, bottle of open wine cradled in her lap protectively. It’s funny how discovering that someone you have a crush on likes someone else feels like a breakup, even though you were never even in a relationship to begin with. At the end of the day, the person who broke your heart never technically had any obligation to love you back, because they never knew how you felt in the first place. It is an entirely one-sided heartbreak, which makes it all that much worse.

And since Chloe has always felt emotions more strongly than others, she thinks it’s pretty safe to assume that her heartbreak hurts more than it really should.

* * *

Failing Russian lit isn’t something that Chloe necessarily expected herself to do, but she can’t say that she’s particularly surprised by it, either.

The class was hard, and Chloe knew that she had done poorly on a lot of the tests and assignments in it, so her failing isn’t exactly the most shocking news of the day.

There are both upsides and downsides to Chloe having to stay in school another year.

Positives: Chloe has another year to figure out her life before she has to face the harsh reality that is the real world. Chloe gets to be in the Bellas another year, which is arguably her favorite thing in the world. Chloe gets to stay with Beca for another year.

Actually, the whole ‘staying with Beca’ thing could be a downside as well.

It’s a downside because Beca is dating Jesse, and Chloe is still tragically in love with Beca.

The thing is, Beca justmjust it so easy to be in love with her.

It’s in the little things that Beca does. Like the way she makes mixes for Chloe and gifts them to her with a shrug, telling her it wasn’t a big deal. Like how she looks so adorably grumpy cuddled up with Chloe under a blanket during Bella movie nights. Like how her cheeks flush whenever Chloe kisses her cheek, allowing it with only a small amount of grumbling.

Every single little thing that Beca does is endearing to Chloe, which is as frustrating as it is wonderful, because Beca gives Chloe so many reasons to hope that they could be together someday. It’s in the things she says:

“I’ve never known anyone like you before.”

“You’re the only person I feel like I can trust in this world, Chlo.”

“I don’t deserve you.”

If Beca didn’t have a boyfriend Chloe would swear that Beca felt the same way. If Beca didn’t have a boyfriend, Chloe would have absolutely told her how in love with her she is by now. But the reality is that Beca does have a boyfriend, one which she is very much in love with.

So for now Chloe will just ignore all the different ways that Beca Mitchell can make her heart clench and selfishly hope that Jesse and Beca won’t work out in the end somehow.

* * *

Chloe is still selfishly letting herself hope three years later, with no end in sight.

Emily asks them if they’re dating one day over lunch, causing Beca to almost choke on her food. Chloe pats Beca’s back as she tries to fight the blush blooming on her cheeks, avoiding sweet, innocent Emily’s curious gaze.

“What?” Beca squeaks out as soon as her airways are clear again.

Emily blushes deeply. “I was just wondering if you guys are dating, because you’re always holding hands and sharing a bed and saying ‘I love you’ and you just seem to know each other really well.”

Beca laughs as if the idea is absurd, and Chloe ignores the slight pang of hurt that it sends to her chest. “Oh wow, no. We are definitely not dating, Chloe’s just super affectionate.”

She’s still laughing as she says it, as if it’s the funniest thing in the world, which makes Chloe feel slightly offended. “You make it sound like dating me is the worst thing that could ever happen,” Chloe says coolly, raising an eyebrow at Beca.

It’s almost comical actually, the way both Emily’s and Beca’s eyes widen in response to that.

“No no no, that’s not what I’m saying at all,” Beca rushes out. “I just don’t think we’d never date.”

Chloe’s pushes down the tears suddenly threatening her eyes. “And why not? You don’t think we’d be good together?”

Beca shakes her head and laughs in astonishment. “Jesus, dude, that’s not what I’m saying.”

“That’s what I’m hearing.”

“Why are you pushing this so hard?”

Chloe shrugs in an attempt to act indifferent. “I just want to know why you wouldn’t date me.”

“Because you’re my best friend and I don’t think I could ever like you like that.”

Silence follows Beca’s statement, filling the kitchen with tense energy. Emily looks between Beca and Chloe nervously while they stare at each other. And as much as Chloe is hurt by Beca’s words, by her claim that she could never see Chloe as more than a friend, she still can’t help the way that her eyes drift down to Beca’s lips.

“Thank you for the clarification,” Chloe says quietly before forcing her eyes away from Beca’s face. She stands from the table and moves to set her plate in the sink, excusing herself from the kitchen without another word.

Beca doesn’t come after her.

* * *

Somehow Chloe ends up moving to New York with Beca.

Well, Beca and Fat Amy, that is.

Chloe never expected to move to New York, but she can’t say that she really minds it all that much. It’s vibrant and exciting, full of people and possibilities; exactly Chloe’s type of scene.

Except, Chloe usually spends the night in with Beca instead of experiencing all that New York has to offer.

Beca, who is recently single for the first time in nearly four years.

Beca, who came out to Chloe a couple months ago over an intimate dinner at a nice restaurant.

Beca, who will never see Chloe as anything more than her best friend.

And Chloe, being the hopeless, stupid romantic that she is, still can’t help but feel a tiny bit of hope that something will change between them. The hope is small, nearly completely put out at this point, which is exactly how Chloe likes it. Being in love with Beca at this point is more like embers in a fire bit rather than a raging inferno: still there, still warm, just not quite as intense.

Although, some nights those embers spark into a small flame, and those nights are usually aided by alcohol.

Tonight is one of those nights.

And Chloe honestly really hates herself, and hates Beca, and hates emotions, and doesn’t understand what the point of anything is anymore.

But damn if Beca still isn’t just as breathtaking today as she was when Chloe saw her at that activities fair five years go.

Beca is talking about… something. Chloe honestly isn’t sure what she’s going on about, because she’s had nearly a full bottle of wine and it’s making her head fuzzy and right now Chloe is positive that Beca has never looked so good in all the years they’ve known each other, even if she is only wearing sweatpants and an old Barden t-shirt.

“And like, I asked him if he was happy with that take, and he just shrugged so I was like ‘do you want to run it again?’ and he shrugged again, which really made me want to shove his fucking sunglasses down his throat.”

“He’s stupid,” Chloe says distractedly, though she doesn’t know who Beca is even talking about at this point. She’s too busy admiring the earrings lining Beca’s ears, and the curve of her neck so perfectly on display thanks to how Beca's hair is pulled up in a messy bun, and the shape of her lips and how kissable they look.

Chloe was sitting on the other end of the couch from Beca. She knows she was because she purposefully sat on the other end at the beginning of the evening to keep herself from reaching out a touching Beca impulsively.

So Chloe was sitting on the other end of the couch, but she is definitely not sitting on the other end when she pulls Beca in for a kiss by the back of her neck.

As soon as Chloe realizes what she’s done, she is immediately mortified with herself and starts to pull away. Hands coming up to cup her face halt her retreat, however, and a mix of confusion and elation overcomes her when Beca starts kissing Chloe back.

Their kisses become increasingly more frantic the longer they last, Chloe eventually pushing Beca back against the couch cushions to lay on the top of her. Chloe isn’t sure how long this dream that she’s in is going to last, so she figures she might as well enjoy it for as long as possible.

Chloe deepens the kiss, tongue pushing its way past Beca’s lips as Beca groans beneath her. Beca’s hands tighten in Chloe’s hair, not necessarily pulling or pushing in any way; just holding as if Beca is trying to anchor herself. Chloe knows that she’ll have to pull back for air soon, but she’s scared that as soon as they stop the dream will be shattered, so she tells her lungs to suck it up and pushes her lips harder against Beca’s.

Beca is the one to pull back, her head pressing against the cushions beneath her to gain some distance between Chloe’s lips and her own, chest heaving as she tries to steady her breathing. Chloe is panting too, but instead of taking the time to breathe probably she begins pressing lights kisses to Beca’s neck, unwilling to part from Beca quite yet.

Beca’s breathing starts to even out and she lets out little sighs of contentment at Chloe’s ministrations, hands stroking softly through Chloe’s hair. Eventually Chloe’s lips stop moving and she relaxes her body fully on top of Beca’s, enjoying the closeness as she buries her face into the crook of Beca’s neck.

The hands in Chloe’s hair move until they’re running lightly over her back instead and Chloe resists the urge to shiver. She remains quiet, not wanting to shatter the calm that surrounds them. Beca says no words either, and that is the way they remain, tangled up on their shitty couch in their shitty New York apartment until they fall asleep.

* * *

The next morning, Chloe wakes up still entangled with Beca. Beca is still asleep – which doesn’t surprise Chloe, she’s always been the earlier riser between the two of them – so Chloe carefully climbs off Beca and makes her way to the kitchen to make some coffee.

Beca wakes up with a grunt just as the coffee finishes brewing, and Chloe smiles a little at the familiar action as she pours coffee into two mugs, settling down in one of the chairs at their tiny kitchen table.

“Morning, Bec,” Chloe says once Beca is sitting up and looking a little more alive.

Beca grunts again in response and shuffles over to the table, plopping herself down across from Chloe and reaching for the second mug of coffee. She takes a generous sip and curses when it burns her tongue, and Chloe can’t help but chuckle in response.

It’s a few minutes later when Beca is finally awake enough to form actual sentences, and what she says makes Chloe choke on hot coffee.

“So what was last night about?”

Chloe coughs as she tries to clear the liquid from her throat. Beca winces in sympathy. Chloe uses the choking as an excuse to find her words, because she honestly had not expected Beca to confront her about their impromptu make out session.

“Um, I don’t know,” Chloe says hesitantly after a minute. “I was just drunk, I guess.”

It’s a lame excuse. A terrible excuse, in fact.

“Oh,” is all Beca says.

“What about you?” Chloe questions, turning the question on Beca. “You kissed me back.”

Beca shrugs and avoids eye contact with Chloe. “I’m not sure. Like you said, we were drunk.”

Disappointment fills Chloe as Beca opts for the easy cop-out as well. “Right,” she says, looking down at her coffee. “Just a drunken mistake. Nothing more than that.”

And in that moment, Chloe feels those burning embers within her completely die out for good.

* * * * * *

Falling in love with Chloe Beale isn’t something that Beca expected upon their first kiss, and she would be lying if she said she wasn’t surprised.

Because Chloe has been Beca’s best friend ever since her first year at Barden, even if she tried to downplay just how close they were a lot of the time. She didn’t want to say that she saw Chloe as a sister, because there would be a lot to unpack there if that were the case, but Beca definitely never thought of Chloe in a romantic sort of way at all.

Sure, Chloe was kind and thoughtful and always knew just how to make Beca’s day better. She was always there when Beca needed someone to talk to, or a shoulder to cry on, or just a good hug because she’d had a shitty day. And Chloe really did give the best hugs, and Beca always felt so at home in her arms, especially when they were cuddled up together after falling asleep while working on Bellas stuff or homework or just talking until they could barely keep their eyes open. Plus, Chloe has always just understood Beca in a way that nobody else ever has…

Shit. Had Beca been in love with Chloe the whole time?

The realization that Beca had possibly been in love with Chloe for years causes Beca to pull away from the kiss that had grown decidedly more heated than any friendly kiss should ever grow. Her chest heaves as she struggles to catch her breath, both overwhelmed with the passion of the kiss and the way her thoughts have attacked her in such a sudden onslaught. Chloe moves to kiss her neck, seemingly undeterred by Beca’s withdrawal, and Beca is torn for a moment between pushing her away and pulling her closer before ultimately deciding to do neither.

Beca remains silent – save for the involuntary whimpers and sighs that escape her due to Chloe’s lips moving against her body – as she processes her new emotions. Eventually Chloe stops her ministrations and settles her weight against Beca, and Beca waits for the inevitable moment that Chloe pulls away and makes them talk about what just happened.

Except, that moment never comes. Chloe only burrows herself deeper into Beca, apparently content to remain silent for the remainder of the night.

Which she does- which they both do, actually. Chloe falls asleep soon after, leaving Beca to stare at the ceiling in the dark of their apartment and wonder how her heart is still beating so fast in her chest.

* * *

Beca holds off her curiosity about the whole thing the next morning for as long as she can, but ultimately ends up caving only about half an hour after waking up.

“So… what was last night about?” Beca attempts to sound casual, but is painfully aware of how much she’s failing.

She asks the question right as coffee goes down the wrong pipe in Chloe’s throat, causing her to start coughing for a few moments. Beca winces and internally curses her poor timing.

“Um, I don’t know,” Chloe says once she can speak again. “I was just drunk, I guess.”

Beca’s heart sinks. Of course it was because they were drunk, why else would Chloe have kissed her?

“Oh,” Beca says lamely.

“What about you?” Chloe asks suddenly, glancing at Beca. “You kissed me back.”

Panic fills Beca at the question, so she tries for an indifferent shrug and stares into her coffee. “I’m not sure. Like you said, we were drunk.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Beca thinks that Chloe’s shoulders might slump a little. “Right,” she says softly. “Just a drunken mistake. Nothing more than that.”

Beca looks back up at Chloe only to see that Chloe’s eyes are directed down towards her drink. The sun shining in through their apartment's sole window shines over Chloe, bathing her in golden light. Beca’s heart pounds painfully in her chest at the sight and fuck- right there in that moment she feels herself fall hard.

* * *

Being in love with your best friend is difficult, Beca has decided. On top of that, being in love with your best friend and living with them and sharing a bed made it all that much worse. Beca wouldn’t ever wish it upon her worst enemy.

Beca wishes things could go back to the way they were before, when neither of them were secretly in love with the other, and when Beca’s heart didn’t feel like it would burst out of her chest when Chloe came home from work in the evenings, and when Beca felt like she could tell her best friend anything.

Beca wishes she wasn’t in love with Chloe.

But the thing is, Chloe makes it so easy to be in love with her.

It’s in the little things that Chloe does. Like the way she always makes coffee for Beca in the morning, even though Beca has two perfectly good hands and could make it herself. Like how she’s always willing to give Beca a back massage after a long day of Beca hunched over a soundboard or computer for work. Like the way she doesn’t seem to mind Beca’s frequent awkwardness in most aspects of life, telling Beca that it’s ‘endearing’ to her.

Which Beca thinks is unfair because every single little thing that Chloe does is endearing to Beca. Chloe makes Beca feel like the most loved person in the world without trying. It’s the way she says things like:

“You’re my favorite person in the world.”

“I don’t know what I’d do without you in my life, Bec.”

“I’ll always be here for you, no matter what.”

Beca has never had someone that is such a stable in her life like Chloe is. Beca never has to worry about if Chloe has her back, or if she can trust her, or if she’s someone Beca can count on because Chloe has done nothing but be dependable in the six years they’ve known each other.

And while Beca would like to tell Chloe how she feels about her, she can’t. She can’t tell Chloe and risk losing the singular best thing that she has ever had in her life.

* * *

Beca doesn’t know who this Chicago guy is, but she does know that she hates him.

She doesn’t know why exactly she hates him- actually, no, scratch that because Beca actually has many reasons why she hates him. At the very of top of that list is the way Chloe can’t seem to get enough of him.

From the very first moment Chicago stepped into view and introduced himself, he had Chloe following him around like a little puppy. Beca had tried to keep up with them at first, trailing uselessly along Chloe’s side, attempting to jump into their conversation every now and then, but ultimately decided that it was no use.

Chloe was hooked on this guy, which meant that Beca’s presence when she was around him was obsolete.

Beca didn’t like it.

For years now, Beca has been used to being Chloe’s favorite person in any given situation. She’s gotten used to (and fond of) the way Chloe clings onto her in some sort of way when they’re together- holding her hand, looping their arms together, hugging her waist from behind. Except now Chicago is the one on the receiving end of Chloe’s physical affections. Chloe is always pushing his shoulder playfully, or brushing a hand down his arm, tugging on his hand; any excuse to just touch him, it seems.

Beca feels colder than she has in a long time without Chloe’s presence near her.

And Beca has never been one for physical affection. Physical touch is decidedly not one of her love languages. Beca has always been more of a quality time type of person, where no contact or words are necessarily needed for her to feel close to someone, but now that Chloe has stopped directing all her touchiness towards Beca, she realizes just how much she craves that connection with Chloe.

Throughout the course of the entire USO tour, Beca begins to feel like Chloe is pulling away from them- whatever them is. Beca has never felt so much distance between them, both physically and emotionally. The whole situation is rapidly spiraling out of Beca’s control and she has no idea what to do about it.

So Beca decides that she’s going to tell Chloe how she feels. She’s already losing Chloe as it is, so she might as well say fuck it and go all out.

Beca dedicates her final performance to Chloe, even if she never actually tells anyone she’s doing so. She thinks she makes it pretty obvious, though, what with the way she doesn’t take her eyes off of Chloe for the entire first half of the performance before inviting the rest of the Bellas onstage. Their eyes connect and Beca smiles from the stage, thinking that maybe there is a chance that Chloe feels the same way.

When all the Bellas rush to hug her at the end of their performance, Chloe the first one to do so, Beca has to resist the urge to kiss her right there onstage in front of everyone. Beca doesn’t want to rush this, she wants to do it right.

As soon as Beca is able to break away from all the ‘important’ people she needs to talk to afterwards, she starts rushing around to find Chloe. Her thoughts start spinning in her head as she tries to figure out what exactly she’s going to say.

You’re the greatest thing in my life.

I’ve never wanted to be with someone as much as I want to be with you.

I love you, Chloe. I love you I love you I-

Beca finds Chloe.

Chloe is kissing Chicago, looking happier than Beca has ever seen her before.

Suddenly Beca understands exactly what people mean when they say their heart has been broken.

Because she feels it happening to her right now.

* * *

The silence between Beca and Chloe in the car is uncomfortable, which is how all their silences have been since returning home from the USO tour.

It’s an unfamiliar feeling, having uncomfortable silences with Chloe. Pretty much since the first time they hung out, they have always been comfortable around each other. Part of that is because Chloe is a natural at interacting with people and makes conversation easily, but even when they weren’t even talking things were always easy with them.

The silence between them now feels like it’s trying to choke Beca.

Arriving at the airport feels almost like a blessing to Beca, because it means that they don’t have to endure the tension any longer, but it is also most definitely a curse as well.

Because arriving at the airport means that Beca is leaving for LA soon. It means that she is leaving Chloe soon.

They walk through the airport until they get to security, making small talk along the way. Beca stays mostly quiet, though, internally debating with herself the entire way. Because she is quite literally running out of time and now is her last chance to tell Chloe how she feels, but she knows that Chloe is with Chicago now and it would be unfair to dump all of her feelings on Chloe before she jets off to the other side of the country.

And Beca is afraid. Afraid of losing Chloe, afraid of telling Chloe how she feels, afraid of never telling Chloe how she feels.

But Beca figures it’s now or never.

“I have to ask, Chloe. Did you… do you think we ever could have been something together? Something more than friends, I mean,” Beca says quietly, uncertainly. She swallows before adding, “Do you think we could have loved each other?”

Chloe smiles softly and gently laces her fingers with Beca’s. She leans forward and brushes a kiss against Beca’s cheek, and Beca’s eyes instinctively close at the feeling. “Beca, I think you I both know that we loved each other. We just… never seemed to get the timing right is all.”

Beca’s breath hitches at the words. Chloe smile turns a little sad and she squeezes Beca’s fingers once before letting go.

The speakers above them inform Beca that her flight is ready to board, so Beca grips her suitcase handle and prepares herself to walk away.

“I love you,” Beca tells Chloe before she can lose the nerve. “I think I’ll always love you.”

Some expression flashes on Chloe’s face – regret, sadness, clarity, maybe – but it passes too quickly for Beca to tell exactly what it is. “And I think a part of me will always love you, Bec.”

And somehow that’s all they say before Beca is turning around and walking through the gate of her flight, all of her senses feeling completely numb. She wills herself to turn back and rush towards Chloe; to kiss her, to tell her that she can’t go to LA, to tell her that she can’t live without Chloe in her life. She wills Chloe to call out to her and tell her to stay, tell her that she loves her, to give Beca a reason to stay.

Beca doesn’t turn back, and Chloe doesn’t call out.

And maybe that is the most unexpected thing of all.

[lightasthesun]

B4, B6, C3 for the fanfic asks 🌼

Thank you for the ask! 🌺

Who is your current favourite author? What is their best story?

Oh God. I love and hate this question because I don't want to single someone out. I follow so many amazing fic authors for whose stories I'd immediately abandon my real life activities (and already have in the past). I can't just choose one so I won't. These are in no particular order:

@kckenobi is one of those amazing writers and I always run to AO3 as fast as I possibly can whenever she's uploaded yet another incredible piece of art. Every single one of her stories is painful and renders me speechless in their own way. I can't judge which is the best story because they're all fantastic but Light to lean on or Six Feet under have a special place in my heart.

@katierosefun 's multichapter fics are something I look forward to every week and I'm already dreading the day they'll be finished because they never disappoint or fail to captivate me. Simply amazing. I love THG and TCW so really, ever in our favor, is a treat and was basically written for me and to these memories is a different kind of heartbreak every chapter. Still it leaves me craving for more.

I really have to control myself not to geek out.

I'm adding loose stitches and holes by @.katierosefun and @.kckenobi because they're...something else and I'm still not over it and technically it's a collab so I'm using it as an excuse. Now these two stories are arguably their best work because both their writing styles just match perfectly. I didn't expect the feast I would get but I literally lost it when they posted those fics and cried a tiny bit when reading it. Freaking heartbreaking and mesmerizing. (ahhh shit I did geek out a bit)

Now @lazarusii 's stories are holding my heart in a stronghold (collection of Obi-Wan/Ahsoka fics) and especially In the Depths of the Wind and Rain lives in my mind rent free. I've only read it once or twice so far because it's so heavy and emotional and idk if I'm strong enough to feel that kind of pain again but damn I catch myself thinking about it every once in a while. I was hesitant to read it at first because it was tagged as horror and hell am I glad I took the risk because it's the definition of beautifully tragic and dreadful. I love it.

Last but not least @revenge-of-the-shit 's Disconnected Conduit has me geeking out every new chapter and the idea in itself is so fleshed-out and cinematic that I ask myself again and again where the plot idea's are coming from and if I can be let in on the secret. The story is unique and it makes me lose my mind half the time because I wanna see it on screen although the author is doing an amazing job storytelling wise so I feel like I know what everything looks like anyway. I've never read anything like it before and I lose myself in it every time.

What is your favorite story trope? Why?

FOUND FAMILY! If it is even a trope. As I said before idk how this works. But found family and angst are my favorite things to read about. Because, well, they're the most entertaining. They make me feel all warm and fuzzy but also fill me with dread. I'm a sucker for pain if any of you didn't already know that and found family with angst gives me a hurt/comfort vibe even if the fic is hurt/no comfort.

Is there anything that makes you nope out of a story? What is it?

1. The use of endearments like babe, baby, honey.

2. Too big paragraphs.

3. Hello, my name is... (you get my point)

4. First person (I just can't read first person in Fanfiction)

5. Also smut because... I don't like it and I don't get it :'D

from this ask meme

[tvntae]

heartbreak hotel 4

pairing: reader x ceo!jeon jungkook

plot: was sleeping with your boss really such a great idea?

Genre: smut (eventual), angst, fluff

word count: 3.7k ish

A/n: THANK YOU GUYS FOR BEING SO DAMN PATIENT!! I NEVER TAKE THIS LONG WITH UPDATES BUT IVE BEEN BUSSSSSY LATELY. I HOPE YOU GUYS ENJOY THIS CHAPTER!! <3

You shut your eyes tight when you feel Jungkook’s body slightly shift next to yours. Either he was a wild sleeper, or both him and yourself couldn’t sleep. But neither one of you says anything to each other. If you were honest with yourself, you hated that you had sex with Jungkook. Yes, it was arguably the best sex you had ever had, but it didn’t deter you from the fact that it was morally wrong. You chew on your bottom lip as your brain races, nothing making sense, you want to get up from the bed and ran away. Run as fast as you can but what difference would that make really? What’s done is done. It was consensual, something you both had wanted, and now that it’s over you feel sick. You can’t help but wonder if Jungkook feels the same way you do. You know he wouldn’t leave his fiance for you, and besides, that isn’t something that had ever crossed your mind. So, you could bet your life that he didn’t want that either. Jungkook snuggles up closer to you and begins to snore softly; you figure he’s probably comfortable now. This isn’t a bed Jungkook is used to sleeping in. One can assume he rests in a much more expensive, much larger bed than your own. Jungkook’s lips trace the crevice between your neck and collar bone, ticking you. You try your best to move further closer to the edge of the bed but, Jungkook who is most likely not fully asleep just yet groans, loud, might you add and the sound rings in your ears. So used to it being silent for the past hour, expect for Jungkook’s occasional snore. Jungkook smacks his lips to together, gathering saliva to wet his dry mouth. You try to slow your breathing to try tricking him into thinking you’re sleeping.

You don't understand why you’re acting this way if you were uncomfortable you could kick him out. Indeed this is your home. But apart of you likes that Junkook is still here, still holding you, strong arms snaked around you as if he was the one afraid you’d leave him. You hadn’t had a man touch you this way in so long, Jungkook’s affection blinded you and even when you caught wind of how treacherous the situation was becoming you welcomed said danger with opened arms. You could have said no. You had several opportunities to do so and yet you did the complete opposite. Situations like this only end in despair. Moreover, in your case, it could end in losing your job, being homeless or even having to move back home and move in with your parents. You grimace at the fact.

“Please, for the love of God stop moving y/n.” You hear behind you, and your eyes shoot open. You couldn’t possibly be making that many movements for Jungkook to pick up on that fast. You close your eyes again and pray he lets it go.

Jungkook shifts and this time you can tell he got up from the bed. You hear him stretch and yawn, extremely obnoxiously, and for a second you wonder to yourself if he did it to be annoying or because he’s just that much of an ass in the wee hours of the morning. Jungkook is still butt ass naked and for some reason that annoys you more. You don’t even walk around your place naked.

“Want something from the kitchen?” Jungkook ask you, and you’re so damn tempted to turn around to look at him, but you resist, still wanting him to think you are asleep. He huffs and you know he still doesn’t quite believe you're sleeping but, for the time being, it would do. You breathe a sigh of relief once you hear his footsteps tracking down the hallway towards your tiny kitchen, and now you kind of really regret not asking him to grab you a bottle of water from your fridge. With Jungkook now being out of the room, you move your duvet aside and get out if bed, slowly tip-toeing as not to alert Jungkook that you are awake as he had previously suspected. You reach your dresser and pull out a nightie, something you don't usually wear, but you'd rather not have Jungkook see you in your regular sleepwear; which are old dingy sweatpants and a way too big tee.

It's quite dark in your room, only light from the hallway slowly seeping through the crack in your door. You couldn't see much but can quickly dress and promptly crawl back into bed.  By the time you've secured your duvet in walks Jungkook. You close your eyes tight again and relax your shoulders when he too gets back into bed. He doesn't say another word, and soon you hear his breathing even out.

Your alarm is loud as fuck. You nearly fall out of bed when you finally notice that it isn't apart of your dream, or should you say nightmare, but it is indeed time for you to adult today. You had gotten no sleep last night, and you feel shitty. Your head ached, and your muscles were tense. You turn to your side and see Jungkook is no longer in bed and his clothes are gone as well. You don't know how to feel about him being gone so soon, and you can't help but wonder what time he could have gotten up. You would have heard him leave, right? He wouldn't just up and go without saying anything. He's the type to at least leave a note on a girls nightstand after a one night stand. At least you think he is. But your judgment shouldn't be trusted seeing as you also thought Jungkook wasn't the type to hook up with an employee.

Groaning you step out of bed and turn off your alarm. It's 9:00 am, which means you need to get ready and be out of your door within the next hour. The last few days that Jungkook had been staying with you he advised you to stay home since you would have no use in the office without him. He said he was going to take a few days off from work, which fucking surprised you because The Jeon Jungkook doesn't do work breaks. Staying home was boring as fuck, the occasional flirty conversation with Jeon was fun but, Jungkook mostly stayed on his phone and rarely left your apartment.

The plus side was he did cook and did the dishes and cleaned up after himself like the gentleman that you knew was in him all along. Jungkook wasn't a bad guy, but sometimes he just wasn't the best guy.  He had a short fuse, and in the small amount of time he crashed on your couch, and an even shorter time on your bed, you saw just how angry he could get, small or big, and yet you were more than fine putting up with it. You weren't sure if it was because he was your boss and you were afraid of being fired if you got to loose-lipped or if you were growing a soft spot for the guy, you prayed it wasn't the latter.

Finally deciding what to wear today you get dressed and call a cab. You usually take the bus to work in the early mornings but because the weather forecast says it's none stop rain with a possibility of thunderstorms it's best to play it safe today. Besides, you spent a significant amount of time on your hair and makeup today. Just because you feel like hell doesn't mean you want to look it as well.

You walk into your office feeling like a nervous klutz, your palms sweaty, pits itch, the whole nine. You'd been here for 20 minutes waiting for Jungkook to call or at least walk in to tell you his next 'order' and he hasn't. Typically, he at least has some task waiting for you at your desk. Hell, sometimes he's waiting for you inside of your office before you even get there for a quick briefing. So him not making his appearance known is... unsettling. You pace around, your hands covering your face. Your stomach grumbles from the lack of food this morning. You thought having a cup of black coffee for breakfast was a great idea at the time. You were running low on cash so you couldn't stop to get anything on your way here. Ugh, the day was looking to be more and more frustrating.

Two hours pass and Jungkook still hasn't shown up to your office. You scroll on your Twitter and Instagram feed for the 100th time, sighing when you notice your mutuals aren't as active during the morning as they are in the late afternoon and early evenings. You wanted to bang your head on your desk from the anger that has started to boil inside you, Where the fuck could he be? What an asshole. You stand up from your desk chair and decide to make the first move, and that move is heading straight to Jungkook's office. The only time you've been in his office is if he calls you in, which has been less than ten times since you've started this position. You hadn't minded that much about it. A man's office is his personal space, you guess. Jungkook's office isn't too far from yours; it's just a few steps away from your very own much smaller one.

Standing in front of his office door has your heart thumping loud. You're nervous, again for the second time today and it does nothing more than to annoy you further. All you needed to see was if Jungkook was in his office or not and if not then you'd be taking your merry ass on your way. You open the door to Jungkook's office and step inside and what you see makes the blood in your veins completely freeze, actually maybe you freeze altogether.

There's a woman in Jungkook's office; actually, it isn't just any woman. You recognize her as the one from those pictures, his fiance, and he's kissing her. They haven't noticed that you were behind them and you sure as hell don't want to make your presence known. You want to turn around and exit, to pretend like you never came into his office in the first place.  You'd been standing there for 30 seconds too long, and when you belatedly decide to leave, Jungkook turns around to face you. Your eyes bulge out if you head and you can tell he looks slightly mortified that you'd 'caught' him but soon that look of shame leaves his face altogether and anger replaces it.

Jungkook doesn't even give you enough time to let you explain yourself before he's excusing himself from his finance and dragging you somewhat roughly out of his room. He's pissed but rightfully, so are you. You've been here for almost 3 hours already, and he still hasn't given you anything to do. If you knew he was in his office this entire time sucking face with his fiance, then you would have just called in sick or some shit. You feel like the absolute worse human on the planet, when did you become a whore? Okay, whore is a harsh word, but still, you had sex with your boss, your taken boss, your soon to be married with 3 and a half kids boss; alright, that last part you're not so sure about, but your point still stands. You're as much of dick as Jungkook is. Maybe you're an even bigger one.

"What the fuck were you doing in my office?" Jungkook is seething, and the grip on your arm has only gotten tighter. He makes you feel like a child again. Like he didn't just fuck your brains out less than 24 hours ago. The thought only makes you feel guilty. You are silent for a moment, and Jungkook's eyes only get wider as he awaits your answer. You stumble over words in your head, trying to piece things together but your brain is ultimately failing you when you need it the most. "Are you fucking dense? You can't just walk into my office whenever you feel like it." If this were anyone else you'd have kicked their ass by now, but this is Jungkook, your boss and you've learned to bite your tongue when he gets this way.

"So what, you're gonna stay silent the whole time?" You open your mouth to say something finally, but he cuts you off. "Fine then. Get your shit and go home." He deadpans. Wait, for what? "But I haven't even worked half a shift today I-," "Don't care. Out. Now." You wanted to cry, and you never cry. Okay, so maybe you always cry, but this was so uncalled for. You look up at Jungkook, silently pleading for him to let you stay. He was so vague with you, and you weren't sure if he was firing you or just making you leave for the day.  Either way, it was enough for you to drop your head in embarrassment. You mumble an okay, and Jungkook releases your arm. He doesn't say another word and so your spin on your heels and walk to your office to gather your purse and coat. You were sure that if he fired you, he'd outright say so. But you being dismissed early kind of feels worse honestly.  It feels like the walk of shame, and you had nothing to be ashamed about. You hate being unproductive at work and you thought going into Jungkook's office was a great idea. You guessed it would show initiative. That'd you cared deeply about your work. But it didn't seem to appease him; it was the absolute opposite. He's annoyed and specifically with you.

The ride home takes forever. The traffic is terrible around this time. Honestly, you thought the rain would slow the commuters today, but it seems not to hinder them from their daily lives and duties. The rain has eased somewhat but you know soon it will pick up again. At least you can get some more much-needed sleep when you get home or order some takeout since you had little to no food to eat. The rain does distract you from Jungkook for awhile and that you are appreciative for.

You immediately kick off your heels when you enter your apartment and throw your coat on your couch. You know you need a shower, but for now, you want to lounge around. You step into your room and flip your light switch, quickly changing into something less constricting like this pencil skirt that's a size too small for you. You jump into bed after you've put your work clothes in your hamper. Something isn't right because as soon as you land on the side Jungkook was previously laying on the night before a sharp object pierces your ribs. Wincing, you roll over closer toward the edge and pull your duvet back reviling a very shiny, expensive looking Rolex. You pick it up to inspect and roll on your back. Holding it into the air so the light can hit it correctly and you watch as it shines. It's beautiful, and you think it might be custom made. How the fuck can someone afford a gold encrusted watch? Well, that rich bastard Jungkook could. You wonder if Jungkook has noticed that he left it here. Hopefully, you pray he doesn't think you stole it from him. You set the watch on your nightstand and decide to worry about what to do with it later. Shit, you might even toss it in the bin. Serves the bastard right.

You awaken from a nap a few hours later. Going by the time displayed on the digital clock on your nightstand you slept for a good five hours.

You order yourself lunch on your laptop from your favorite takeout place. The restaurant wasn't too far from you so it won't take very long for the delivery driver to show up. You head into your living room to go searching for your cellphone. You usually take it everywhere with you but, because you were so bummed about the Jungkook situation you decided to leave it in your bag.

You had a few unread messages, some from your mom. She frequently texts you during your work hours because of the time difference. It must be nighttime where she is right now. You miss being home, a lot, if you were truthful with yourself. Things were so much different back there, and you were still trying to get accustomed to the life you have here. You would probably be in an excellent relationship by this time if you never left. The guys from your city weren't all bad. There's going to be a few bad apples everywhere you go. You sigh and quickly text your mother back and tell her how your day went, albeit leaving the part where you were sent home early out.

The next few notifications you scrolled through were emails from your Gmail app, as dull as ever. You managed a lot of Jungkook's events and meetings through Gmail, so most of your notifications were mostly work related. You put your phone aside and flop on your couch and start up Netflix.

The takeout you had wasn't as good as it usually is. Today was the perfect day to cry and crawl under your cover for the rest of your days. No one would even notice you were gone besides your parents, but after a while, they'd give up looking for you and go on with their lives. You figure now is the best time to take another nap before you something else uneventful happens. And you're sure your heart couldn't take anymore before it completely stops functioning altogether.

You jolt from your sleep when you hear it. Banging. And it's close, almost like it's coming from right outside of your door. It's loud a fuck and its dark as fuck in your living room, and you can't help but think this is how it ends. You still, too afraid to get up from your couch to check it out. You've watched enough scary movies to know that if you open that door, then you'll be walking into your ultimate demise. This is exactly what your father warned you about when you told him you were moving to South Korea.

"Y/n, open the door I know you're in there," huh? The killer knows your name. "Y/n, come on it's me." Is that... Jungkook? You wipe the saliva from your face and rub the sleep from your dry eyes. What the hell is he doing here? It's 9 in the evening. You turn the lights on so you can see better and unlock the door to see what it is he wants.

"I left my watch here," he says offhandedly and pushes past you heading for your bedroom. "Excuse the fuck outta me." You whisper under your breath. You fold your arms over your chest and follow Jungkook into your bedroom.

He's searching every nook of your room and muttering. You're confident he won't find it at the rate he's going because he hasn't even turned the light on yet. To make this more comfortable for the both of you, he could just ask you if you've seen it. But honestly, you like seeing him struggle, fuck him.

You switch the light on since you're standing right next to it. You just want Jungkook out of your place as soon as possible. You notice he's wearing a completely different suit than the one he had on earlier at the office. As he spins to turn towards you, you see a Chanel brooch on his jacket. How funny, Jeon Jungkook looking for his gold-encrusted custom Rolex in your home while wearing a Dior suit and a diamond Chanel brooch. Your broke ass could never.

Jungkook's hair is slightly parted, and you don't think he's ever looked this good before. Well, he always looks good but right now it's a different type of good. He looks like money and power and you know he probably smells so pure. His beauty always has you at a loss for words.

He notices your staring and scoffs to himself, almost like he's disgusted either at you or himself. And you're more than confident it's directed towards you. Jungkook has everything any man could ever ask for, and he had sex with you, the bottom of the barrel trash. You lower your head in humiliation, and you've never felt this bad about yourself before. You can't help but feel so inferior to him. You're only a few years apart in age, but he's got his whole life together, while you still ask your parents for money from time-to-time when you're afraid you won't make ends meet. You did something so heinous, and now Jungkook can't even stand to look at you correctly.

"Have you seen my watch or what? Don't just fucking stand there, help." He addresses you with such anger and disgust you almost burst out into tears. You point to where you had left the watch, which was on your nightstand and you hear Jungkook walk over and damn near snatch it. He mumbles some more as he wrestles with putting it on and you can tell he's having a hard time. This is the first time you've ever seen him, so ansty and he looks nervous as well. He must have a big meeting or something because why else would he be dressed like this. You walk over to help him, and you're not sure why but you can tell he needs it, and he lets you. You see him visibly relax, and that soothes you somewhat. You're still scared out of your wits, but it isn't like he's about to murder you. At least you hope he isn't.

"I'm sorry about everything, I wish circumstances were different." You look up at Jungkook, and he gives you a sad smile. What does he mean by that? His engagement or your employment. Maybe both? You stare up at him for a while. Pleading with your eyes to get an explanation from him.

You aren't sure who makes the moves first, but in a matter of seconds, his lips are on yours.

[thefieryeclipse]

Tongues of Fire

This is my WIP post for the October WIP Weekly event @alexprompts​ ^.^

                                     “Tongues of Fire”

                                       “No one will believe me.”                                      “Us. No one will believe us.”

_____________________________________________

What if you had lived another lifetime in the span of a day? What if it was all a dream? What if nobody understood what you'd been through, except the one person you should hate most in the world...?

The future is precarious. A secret network of superhuman abilities has been revealed. People are disappearing but nobody seems to notice. In the wake of a shared five year nightmare, Peter Petrelli and Sylar are hunted, considered far too dangerous to be free. Cast out by everyone they used to know, together the two vigilantes must navigate a brave new world that not only condemns the depth of their power, but of their bond as well.

_______________________________________________

This is a post-series fanfiction of the wonderful TV series “Heroes” (2006-2010), created by Tim Kring and aired on NBC. The story is my take on Volume 6 “Brave New World”, the build up to Heroes Reborn, focusing on Peter Petrelli and Sylar and their relationship after the events of the series finale.

If you haven’t watched the show (and you really should, it’s great!), it revolves around ordinary people with extraordinary abilities: a mismatched group of people from all over the world connected by the sudden manifestation of superpowers that they must keep hidden. This show did superheroes before the MCU made it cool again - they don’t wear capes and they don’t have secret identities: think a real-world ensemble character drama but with superpowers thrown in X)

TONGUES OF FIRE - Read here

Please check out my WIP: three years in, currently 360k+ words and 35+ chapters deep.

Rating: M. Action, violence, sci-fi, danger, post-series, forbidden love, m/m, lgbtqa+, whump, angst, hurt/comfort, save the future save the world. (I’ll expand more on the tags and themes below)

TRAILER:

Please keep reading for character descriptions, story context, themes/genres, gifs, a moodboard, more artwork and warnings

GENRES/THEMES/TAGS:

Superpowers

On the run

Sci-fi

Slow burn

End of the world (save the future, save the world...)

Betrayal/heartbreak

Forbidden love

M/M, LGBTQA+

Acceptance and forgiveness

Hurt/comfort

Angst

Whump

Action

Danger

Violence (think broken bones, cuts, gunshots, burns - however some characters have superhuman healing so this isn’t always as permanent as it sounds...)

Grand acts of heroism

Former-enemies to friends to lovers

There are happy and heartwarming parts in here too, don’t worry X)

CHARACTERS:

As Heroes is an ensemble show there are a lot of characters featured in this WIP, but even if you haven’t watched the show hopefully you shouldn’t get lost in the context of the story X) Because this post would be even longer otherwise, I’ll just highlight the central two characters here:

                                               Peter Petrelli

Stubborn, caring and compassionate, Peter will never see anyone in need and not help them. He is driven by a constant desire to make a difference to the world, and will rarely listen to reason. This reckless goodness has gotten him into trouble (and/or killed) many times in the past, but he will never give up. He’s not opposed to violence if pushed to it, and can certainly hold his own in a fight. However, usually he’s the mediator who tries to fight with love rather than war. His love language is touch, and he doesn’t have much sense of personal space, almost subconsciously touching others all the time to show his support and affection.

He invests 100% into everything he does, including his relationships with family, friends and loved ones. Sadly, he’s constantly overlooked, under-appreciated and walked over by almost everyone he has ever known. Despite this, Peter is kind and will always listen to his heart, even if it leads him into danger to save someone else who won't even thank him for it.

Without recounting the entire story of Heroes, let me just say that Peter has been put through the ringer more times than anyone should do and survive. He’s been bruised, shot, killed, betrayed, walked out on, arrested and lied to too many times, but somehow he’s still miraculously resilient in his worldview. He’s impulsive to a fault, leaps before he looks and due to this is no stranger to mistakes. His biggest weakness is his own perceived inadequacy - he thinks he’ll never be good enough. He keeps mostly to himself, despite his golden heart that longs for reciprocation of the love that he gives to others so freely, and tends to work quietly from the sidelines rather than seek appreciation for his efforts.

Ability: Empathic Mimicry.

Peter is an “empath”. His extreme empathy allows him to not only understand and care deeply for other people, but to absorb the abilities of other “evos” (evolved humans) simply by being close to them.

This original ability, however, was stolen from him by his father. Later Peter acquired a synthetic version that isn’t as strong. He can still absorb other evos’ powers through physical touch, but can only hold onto one at a time. He still longs for his true ability although, naturally, he keeps this pain to himself rather than burden others with it.

                                              Sylar

Intelligent, immortal, arguably the most powerful evo on Earth, Sylar has made himself a lot of enemies over the years. Formerly known as Gabriel Gray, his superhuman ability (knowing how things work) and insatiable hunger for more turned him into a killer: slicing open the skulls of people with abilities to access their brains and, therefore, their powers. Until recently he had never had a friend, never known trust, and all he had was the urge to add to his ever-growing collection of superpowers in order to make himself feel “special”. Sylar has killed a countless number of people, evaded capture multiple times, and tried to reign himself in more than once, although nobody ever listened when he begged them for help, until Peter.

Sylar is sarcastic, witty and delights in being a downright asshole at times. Secretly, though, he’s a sensitive and remorse-ridden man, desperate to belong anywhere and to anyone who will accept him for who he is. He has been tricked and manipulated many times due to this vulnerability, which only made him more angry, wounded and violent. His ability comes with a “Hunger”, like a voice inside that “makes” him commit heinous acts. This hunger tends to come and go, however, and is more likely a manifestation of his own mind that gives him something else to blame and hide behind. Though there’s no doubt that he is, at least in part, a victim of a power he had no choice in manifesting.

By the series finale of Heroes, Sylar has finally tackled the painful journey to redemption. Truly repentative for what he’s done, and wanting to be a better person, Sylar is ready to face the world and do good this time, hopefully making amends along the way. Peter’s trust in him is his anchor, and as long as Sylar finally has someone who believes in him then he’ll keep struggling with his demons to be better, and hopefully, in time, become a hero too.

Ability: Intuitive Aptitude

Sylar can understand how things work. His power is based in empathy, like Peter’s, except he collects abilities by looking at the brains of other super humans and assuming them for himself. By the start of “Tongues of Fire” he has a lot of powers, perhaps too many to put here? The full list is on his wiki page: https://heroeswiki.com/Sylar, but basically he’s like a swiss army knife of superhuman abilities X)

CONTEXT (this is real Heroes canon):

Over the past few years Peter and Sylar have been enemies. The Hero and the Villain, like Batman and Joker or Sherlock and Moriarty, they were each other’s equal and nemesis. They faced off many times and have both wounded and killed each other in the past (thanks to the power of regeneration these deaths weren’t permanent). There have been many complicated and intense conflicts in their story, including believing they were brothers for a time; Sylar murdering Peter’s beloved older brother Nathan; and Peter nailing Sylar to a table and trying to erase his mind (seriously, watch the show, there’s too much to capture here!). Also did I mention the insane chemistry and UST between them...?

(Yes, that’s a real scene from Heroes!)

At the end of the series, Sylar was riddled by guilt and the fear that he would die alone, unloved forever. So he turned himself over to a telepath and begged him to block Sylar’s mental access to his abilities so he could stop killing, and maybe have a chance at finally finding a human connection. The telepath, Matt Parkman, tricked him and instead locked Sylar’s consciousness in a mental prison of isolation where each hour in reality is a year he’s lived there in sole torment. Peter found out and, despite their hate-fuelled past, impulsively followed Sylar into his mind to rescue him.

It didn’t work. Instead of being able to pull Sylar out with him, Peter got trapped in the nightmare as well. For five years they were held prisoner in a dead, empty city, with nothing but each other and a hell of a lot of baggage to work though. And eventually, after years of remorse and loneliness and depending on each other to stay sane, Peter forgave Sylar, accepting him as the changed man he’d become. The nightmare shattered and they awoke back in reality, where only 5 hours had passed on the outside, but to them it had been years. Together, united now, Peter and Sylar set out to save the world side by side.

Nobody knows about the other life they lived through together aside from Matt Parkman the telepath, and even he doesn’t believe them. After all, who would believe these two mortal enemies took a nap together and suddenly woke up finishing each other’s sentences, unashamedly defending, trusting and touching someone they’d despised just a few hours ago?

So now they’re faced not only with a world where abilities are in the open; but where their shared forgiveness, trust and friendship is discounted by everyone who knows Sylar only as a monster, and Peter as a heartless traitor who betrayed his late brother by choosing Nathan’s killer over them.

And this is where “Tongues of Fire” begins...

(There are more illustrations from the story available in My Gallery on Ao3)

WARNINGS:

I guess the biggest warning would be for violence. This is canon-typical violence, so if you've watched Heroes it shouldn't be anything you can't handle. And if you've not watched Heroes then imagine the amount of violence that could be aired on a network TV show in 2006-2010.

One surgical scene includes exposed organs. It’s quite graphic, but the patient is participating willingly and eagerly, and the “surgery” is done upon request, as a good thing.

Later on there's restrainment and distressing interrogation of prisoners.

Adult content and sexual scenes, but I wouldn't necessarily call them “explicit”. The focus is always on the emotional aspect more than graphic descriptions of characters’ anatomy.

And I guess that’s it from me for now! Hope you check out the story, and please don’t be shy to get in touch about it in any way, shape or form ^.^

(I don’t take credit for any gifs, they’re gorgeous but not mine. The illustrations are mine, though)

[wackygoofball]

Hey, I’d just like to thanks you for staying positive though these Braime angst times because almost all the other blogs I follow went cRAZY about him “leaving Bri for Cers” and your posts gave me new hope and reminded me of all the wonderful things that happened in that episode, so, thank you so much💗💕💕💗💕

Glad to hear it, anon!

People have their feelings, they are entitled to them, but so am I and I am a very happy customer right now because I am a thirsty bitch for drama. And we are getting it! JB being at the very center *all of a sudden* (*coughs* biggest romance of GoT/ASoIaF *coughs* *coughs*) of the relationship conflict front tells us so much more than having to feel the angst. It tells us to feel the HYPE.

They are finally where we all wanted to see them… I guess ever since Harrenhal??? One of the producers called it something along the lines of “the most reluctant romance in TV history” in his commentary on the Red Tent Scene back in season 6. And I think JB is still living up to that and it’s beautiful and dramatic and I friggin’ love it. They *are* reluctant, have been for so many seasons (books, respectively). Because they are so caught up in self-doubt and for Jaime in particular self-loathing, feeling unworthy of a good kind of life, the kind of life they wanted to have or grew to want to have, feeling unworthy of love and affection and fearing that it could never truly be reciprocated.

I could start crying at the sad beauty of this right now, but my tears can suck it because I am way too much in the HYPE.

Because yes, anon! We were given so much goodness. Brienne smiled so much. Jaime smiled so much! Can you remember the last time he smiled like that?! I mean, we are all hyped to finally see Brienne smile, but think about how often Jaime only ever had a smile to spare only for shit to hit the fan all over. He didn’t have a time to ever truly have a breather and just be happy and fool around with his brother, and he got that, and Brienne got that, too. And they shared that happiness. It was so heart-warming that I felt like Jaime, wanting to nibble off my shirt lol.

Their first time (albeit a wee bit shorter than I as a shipper would have loved it to be, but you know, wishful thinking is one thing, and the rest can be filled with smutty fanfic :) of which our wonderful fandom provides plenty!) was awesome-sauce. The glow, the tenderness, the hesitance, the awkwardness, there was a purity to this encounter that it still has me shooketh.

And even the angst-filled goodbye… LOOK AT THE GUY! LOOK AT HIS FACE! LOOK AT HIS BEAUTIFUL, GORGEOUS, HANDSOME FUCKIN’ FACE! LOOK AT HOW HE BREAKS ON THE INSIDE SAYING THOSE THINGS JUST TO MAKE SURE SHE STAYS PUT!

BTW GIVE NIK ALL OF THE AWARDS! EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM! THAT GUY HAS A REPERTOIR OF EMOTIONS HE STUFFS INTO THREE SECOND BIGGER THAN THOSE OF SOME ACTORS HAVE IN THEIR ENTIRE CAREER! *waves fist in the air*

Sorry, had to get that off my chest. Back on topic:

Jaime has, ever since their roadtrip started, protected this woman. Nikolaj once commented about how Jaime sending Brienne out of King’s Landing back during the Oathkeeper episode was also fuelled by Jaime’s fear that Cersei may be on to something with Brienne after he saw her talk to Brienne and her walking off with a scared kind of expression (not knowing what truth bomb Cersei actually dropped on Brienne during the Purple Wedding aka that she loves him). The show changed the dress to an armor, a type of clothing literally meant to protect from bodily harm. He gave her Oathkeeper. And a squire to keep her company. Jaime has, at every step, tried to protect that woman to the best of his abilities within the constraints he found himself in. Do I believe that suddenly changed? Not for a fuckin’ second. This is Jaime Lannister as he lives and thrives. That guy is as hellbent on protecting the people he loves as Brienne is. Brienne is part of that circle, so of course he protects her, even if that means hurting her.

That is Jaime’s modus operandi alongside looking way too hot for me to handle. Or for him to handle, as last episode proved.

And just never forget him rubbing his thumb against her wrist. That shit still has me weak and whimpering at the beauty of it. That was just... poetic cinema!

The whole scene was a thing of beauty with the visual callbacks to Ned/Cat (arguably one of the few considerably healthy, longterm and strong relationships the entire series has ever seen, despite the fact that Ned was a douche sometimes - more often than not - and kept things from her that clearly made her feel shitty but that’s a topic for another day).

Brienne appearing in a robe that made her look lady-like and womanly and like a fuckin’ goddess rather than having thrown on breeches and a tunic or whatever! It made it all the more heartbreaking to have her feel that way while dressed that way because it just highlighted her vulnerability, but the VISUAL IS AMAZING AND THE NON-VERBAL CLUES THAT GIVES ARE OFF THE CHARTS!!!

Someone made that post and I am totally plagiarising this: this scene of her cupping his cheeks and him holding her wrist was a fuckin’ RENAISSANCE PAINTING. And JB is about to be REBORN. I am telling you!

Nik and Gwen acting the living shit out of themselves in that scene, giving us the rawest of emotions, acting out all with their facial expressions, with their FUCKIN’ EYES! Nik tells us all that we must know the way he looks at her!

So yeah, he ain’t a hateful man. He ain’t creepin’ back to his sister after having realized that Bri was not his jam. He’s doing what he’s always done, what he always does:

Protect, no matter the personal costs.

Not just Brienne, not just his family, it’s his finest act of slaying Aerys and thereby sending his reputation down the drain so half a million people could live that’s on the line! Those people are on the line! And Jaime is not part of that whole castle-swap game Daenerys and Tyrion are playing. If the guy has proven anything, then it is that he, despite of what he may have others believe or tries to make himself believe at times, is one of the few characters who actually give a damn on the smallfolk. He ended the Riverrun Siege without bloodshed (Jaime, seriously, revisit that scene, it’s in supercuts, you clearly got some things mixed up there, hon). He killed one man so half a million could live. It was not without purpose that Varys gave us that callback to how those people matter as much as any of them and how even someone Daenerys claimed to be so much more important because he is so clever, Tyrion, is in the end just as important as any other farmer going about his life. They deserve to live, and I think Jaime’s upset about Tyrion being like “just give him the Reach, what does it matter???” is all the more telling as it reaches beyond his personal conflict. The Reach is the center of food production and we are just giving it up to a sellsword who has no fuck-o to give about either politics or the people who live within the constraints of these? Fuck no.

Jaime wants to protect people. It’s been one of the driving forces in his character all along, even before we got to know him, when we were still led to the conclusion that he was just a douche that needed to be killed off because EVIL MAN!

Jaime wants to protect the people he loves in particular. For them, he goes extreme lengths. That was his family foremost, but that certainly included Brienne long before they got intimate. He’s cared about her for so very long. So I do not believe for a single second that he’d just... forget that, be able to put that aside. Jaime can’t.

And he doesn’t have to. He just has to see that. And Brienne will make him realize that.

Because as much as Jaime wants to protect everyone, factors are now changed. He just doesn’t see it yet.

Because this time, he is in for a surprise as there is someone who will protect him the same way he is committed to that person’s protection. And that will make the crucial difference, it already does. He never had that with his sister. She literally threatened to kill him, literally sent an assassin after him for having the *effrontery* not to act the way she would have liked, not falling in line when she as Queen demanded it. Jaime’s never had anyone step up for him the way Brienne did. Jaime never had anyone protect him that way.

She stood up for him during the trial when Tyrion failed.

She saved him and he saved her during the battle against the living dead.

She certainly had conversation with Sansa to ensure he was welcome at Winterfell.

She will stand up for her man and will protect him - from himself if she must.

“Nothing’s more hateful than failing to protect the one you love.” - she won’t let history repeat itself with the man who finally loves her back.

She will protect Jaime.

Jaime will protect Brienne.

And that is and has always been the very core of their relationship.

And that core is beautiful and pure and no angst gets between that.

Thanks for coming to yet another TED talk.

[seriouslyhooked]

Lost Souls and Reveries (Part 16)

22 part AU written for @cssns​. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6,Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15. Story available on AO3 Here and FF Here. Banner created by the amazingly talented @shipsxahoy​!!

Killian Jones is a wolf shifter without roots, without plans, and without a pack. He’s a rogue, someone humans should avoid and shifters should be wary of given his lineage. But one night years back set him on a path he didn’t realize he was taking, a path leading to a future he is destined for. That future is tied up in one woman – a human named Emma Nolan. Together Emma and Killian will find not only answers, but a love that’s truly fated. But will love be enough to set them free, or will past demons win out in the end? (Answer: love always wins – I am writing this so despite some tiny pockets of angst it’s basically a fluff-filled insta-love fest). Rated M.

A/N: Hey everyone! So we are back after the LONGEST time away I have ever had from fic writing since I started way back when. I know it was such a long break, and so many of you have reached out to see if I am still in this, but I never forgot this story. I just had to pass the hardest year of school ever to get back to my CS happy place! There is so much going on in this story right now, so many pieces that need tying together or resolution on, and in this chapter we are moving full steam ahead (but since it’s been a while you might want to go back and refresh on where we left off before). There’s finally a meeting that so many have you have been waiting for and there’s love, loss, and so many other emotions too… but I won’t spoil much more than that. You’ll just have to read and then let me know what you think! Anyway thank you all so much for continuing to follow along in this story with me. Hope you enjoy!

“Okay, so I know that technically I can do more than make flowers grow, but I have to be honest… this is so freaking cool, I never want to stop!”

The excitement exuding from Anna this afternoon as she and Elsa worked on some magical ‘training’ with Ruby was undeniable. Emma couldn’t blame Anna for that elation either, not when she was watching her friend do something remarkable and almost unbelievable. The beautiful garden that had been here just a few hours ago was now totally over grown, with so many more flowers than there had been before. The colors of their petals were also now touched with an ethereal element. They seemed to glow, and to radiate this precious golden light from within. The veins of each leaf swirled in a pronounced and gorgeous way, and these plants were simply bursting with life and energy and magic.

Over the past three days Anna and Elsa had been doing their best to make progress in their ability to wield their family gift. This had been a fatiguing process, with Ruby having to start from very basic places. There were rules, it turned out, about how to cast spells and use magic safely. One had to remember all of these steps to make sure no one got hurt, and though at times Anna was a little hyper active or distractible, Emma had never seen her friend more studious and focused. She was determined to access her magic and do everything she could with it, and that determination was bringing her leaps and bounds in a very short time. In fact, Ruby was so confident in Anna’s ability to test her gifts and to remember to follow the laws of magic that she’d given her free time to just explore what she could do, thus this impromptu garden party of sorts.

“It’s amazing, Anna. How does it feel?” Emma asked, having a sense herself as she felt the warm and subtle kiss of the magic in the air around them. Emma felt rejuvenated and calmed all at once by this magical display, so she could only imagine what casting the spells that made this possible felt like.

“It feels like…” Anna closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and soaking in the joy around her, and when she opened her eyes they were filled with emotion and a thoughtful quality that spoke to real happiness. “It feels like getting to lick the spoon when Grams makes cookies, or the first beach day with Mom and Dad every summer.”

“That good?” Emma asked, less as a question and more as a statement of awe and true joy for her friend.

“That good,” Anna agreed, her smile growing as her eyes cast around at all she’d created over the past few hours. But eventually her gaze turned back to the house and some of that happiness dimmed. It wasn’t fully gone, but now there was a little bit of sadness in the midst of all this celebration. “I only wish that Elsa felt this way too.”

“She’ll get there,” Emma promised, though she didn’t have visions of the future to check that that was true. All she had was a thorough understanding of her other best friend, and faith that soon the pieces would fall as surely into place for Elsa as they had for her sister. “You two are never far apart for long.”

“And where we go you usually follow,” Anna joked, making Emma laugh even though this time that couldn’t be the case.

“Unless you know of some mystical waters or whatever the heck sparked magical people years ago, where I could get a gift like yours, I’m not sure that’ll be happening this time. I think the flowers only have one new overlord to answer to.”

“Well of course your magic won’t be the same,” Anna said, like this whole conversation was so totally obvious. “But being a shifter? I mean come on, that’s arguably the coolest magic of all. You’ll get to turn into a wolf for crying out loud!”

At the mention of her suppressed shifter status Emma’s heart jumped. That seemed to be a recurring thing since her grandmother had turned up and dropped the bomb of all bombs. Well honestly, maybe the biggest reveal had been the fact that her grandmother was even alive at all, but looking past the magic that was required for all of this to be real, and the heartbreak of the years that Ruth and her Dad had been apart, the reality that there was shifter blood running through Emma’s veins was surreal.

Being a hybrid, even if her ability was currently blocked, changed so much about what Emma knew of herself. It was a blessing and a curse in so many ways. On the one hand Emma was glad to have some things make more sense. The white wolf in her dreams all those years ago and that feeling that not everything was as it should be now made sense, but at the same time there was no guarantee that Elsa could even remove the block in Emma’s spirit as she had for Neal.

Currently Elsa was trying to access those memories with Ruby, but it was slow going. And even if Elsa could recreate the spell, Emma had to think about if that’s what she wanted. It would no doubt be dangerous, and no one actually knew what happened when human/shifter hybrids came of age. She would be the first one as far as they all knew and she was so out of touch with her animal Emma didn’t even realize it was there when she was awake. So how could she ever expect to be a good shifter? How could she hope to learn all that needed to be learned? What if in the end she wasn’t meant to be one? What if -

“Uh oh, and there you go again, over thinking things,” Anna said, bringing Emma’s attention back to the real world. Anna’s hand was now on her hip and she shook her head in an almost chastising way. “You’ve got to stop doing that, Ems. Elsa is going to figure this out, she’s going to find a way to safely lift the block, and then you are going to finally be all you were meant to be.”

Emma didn’t want to argue with her friend, but suffice it to say she wasn’t as convinced. Anna made it sound so simple, but in Emma’s mind it wasn’t. What she had right now was brilliant. Her life was full and happy. She had her family and her friends, and she had a true love, her fated mate, a man who made her experience love in the most blissful of ways. She didn’t want to risk any of that, and she didn’t want to go off hoping for more when what she had right now was more than enough. No one should be this lucky, despite the continued unrest that waiting for Liam was bringing, and Emma didn’t want to jinx things by feeling entitled to being a shifter too.

“It’s like me and my magic, Emma. When we found out, I was excited but I was also really scared. I kept thinking that everyone was wrong. There had to be a mistake, because it wasn’t me who was special it was Elsa.”

“Anna,” Emma said, her earnestness showing through in her tone. “Elsa might be special but so are you. You deserve your magic just as much as she deserves hers.”

“I know that, Emma, I do, but even if I know that, there’s still that voice in my head that doesn’t want to hear it, and I bet it sounds a lot like the one you have telling you that you’re not ready to be or worthy of being a shifter.”

Anna came over and took Emma’s hand in hers in a sign of solidarity. She was right, after all. Those negative thoughts did seem to be something they shared, and though she was nervous, Emma craved the chance to overcome hers just as Anna had.

“So how did you get over it?” Emma asked and Anna laughed.

“I didn’t. It’s still there sometimes, but I just have to tell it to shut up. Fear doesn’t want you to hope for good things, Emma. It wants you to limit yourself and deprive yourself of things that could be great just because they also could be scary. You can either cave to it or you can overcome it, and not so deep down you know that. And you know how I know that you know?  Because you, Emma Nolan, are one of the bravest people I have ever met.”

Emma’s throat tightened at the words, and she could feel her friend’s own emotion starting to get the better of her. Anna’s feelings freely flowed in the air around them just as they always did. She was not the kind of person to stifle her reactions. Instead, she spoke the truth as she saw at, blowing Emma away as she did.

“There’s no one else who faces a crisis like you, Emma. You stay steady, even when everyone else breaks. You did it when we were kids and small scale things happened, like when the Heller boys decided to start bullying Elsa, or when someone had to scale the McNealy’s fence to get our ball back.”

Emma barked out a laugh, thinking about old Mr. McNealy and how he used to scare them senseless as kids. Now they knew he was just a curmudgeonly old guy, but back then he seemed like a real monster.

“And you did it when everything was happening with Neal. You had to take on so much far too soon, and you did it unflinchingly for your brother and for your parents. Then, when we lost Grams, and then lost Mom and Dad so soon after, you were there for us too. Night and day, no matter what, you were our rock. As much as Elsa and I pulled ourselves together, you were right there with us, and you never questioned it. It’s always a given to you that you’ll help everyone you love and anyone you meet.”

“Well when you put it like that…” Emma said, attempting some humor even though her voice was thick with emotion. She was touched at Anna’s words, and it came to a head when her friend pulled her in for a hug. The tears pooling in her eyes fell at that point, quietly but undeniable, and she had to wipe them away as she pulled back. “Thanks, Anna. And just for the record, I don’t think I have that calm in the storm thing all to myself.”

“I know. It was a great pep talk wasn’t it?” Anna asked, prompting more laughter between the friends that continued until some rustling came from the hedgerow and Elsa and Ruby appeared.

“Seems like you two are having fun,” Elsa said, her eyes softening immediately as she saw Emma and Anna. There was still stress there, but Emma could see that Elsa felt better being back in their company.

“Well there’s plenty to go around,” Anna joked, flicking her wrist and launching an ivy vine up into the air and having it rustle against Elsa’s braided hair. “Unless you guys still have work to do. It’s kind of been a lot for one day, don’t you think?”

“About that… we’ve got some good news and some not so good news,” Ruby announced, her hands waving along as she talked, a trait Emma knew she and Killian shared when they were catching other people up to speed. “The good news is that we were able to access Elsa’s memory of when she helped Neal.”

“So you saw the spell?” Emma asked, looking between Ruby and Elsa. A chill zipped through her at their faces, because despite the breakthrough, neither of them seemed super enthusiastic.

“We did,” Ruby continued. “Turns out Elsa did the impossible – she literally removed Neal’s two souls from his body to blend them back together.”

“Removed them... wait, like killed him?” Emma asked, shocked, and Elsa looked so stricken as she quickly explained.

“I didn’t kill him. It was just a few seconds. It happened really quickly. He just went to sleep for a second, that’s all.”

“But technically without a soul a person is dead,” Ruby supplied. “And if they’re not, we’re entering vampire territory.”

“Vampires?!”  The question was yelled out not just by Emma, but Anna and Elsa as well, and Ruby winced in response.

“Sorry, bad joke. Vampires aren’t actually a thing. But then again removing souls from a body wasn’t supposed to be a thing either. So at this point…” Her continued attempt at light heartedness petered off as Ruby shrugged.

“But you can do it,” Emma said, looking to Elsa and her friend nodded.

“Apparently I can. I had no idea what I was doing then, and I can’t find anything in my family’s archives. It’s a mystery.”

“Would you even be able to do it again?” Anna asked and Emma fully expected Elsa to say that she couldn’t, but for the first time Elsa looked certain as she nodded.

“Yes. I can do it.”

“Maybe,” Ruby stressed. “She can maybe recreate a miracle a second time, but I have to be honest guys, this is not magic I know how to wield. It’s a real risk. Anything could go wrong. Your souls could react badly, they could not blend, they could reject any kind of intervention at all, and if they did…”

“If they did, I could die.”

There was no need to say anything else on the matter for a moment. The four of them allowed Emma’s observation to hang in the air, sinking in in a sickening way. Life and death situations were something Emma had faced before, but she’d never willingly put herself in a dangerous way. To do so now would either be incredibly foolish or impossibly brave, and Emma wasn’t sure where she stood yet on that. On the one hand, she could be taking a huge risk only to lose everything she now held so dearly. On the other, this could be the answer to that last missing piece of the puzzle that was her life. Plus it would help not only her, but Neal as well who was going to be facing his first shift just a few more years from now.

“Whatever you decide, Emma, there’s no need to rush,” Anna said, finally breaking the silence that had fallen as she touched Emma’s arm in a reassuring motion. “It’s not like Elsa is going anywhere. We’ve got time to see what you might want.”

“Exactly,” Ruby said with a firm nod. “This isn’t the kind of thing we should be too hasty about. Let’s just tackle one thing at a time. Liam will be arriving any day now. Let’s climb that mountain before staring down another.”

The four of them agreed this was a good place to leave things, and Emma was relieved. Crazy that the impending arrival of Killian’s unknowable brother was of relief to her now when for days it had been so anxiety inducing. But for some reason, that felt like a battle that could be won. For this moment she was part of a team, it was her and Killian and her friends and family. She felt like anything could be accomplished as long as they were together, and she genuinely had hope in her heart that things weren’t as hopeless with Liam as Killian believed. But trying to heal her block… well that would just be her and Elsa trying to do something they had no real clue how to do, and that was scary as hell.

“Ruby, what’s wrong?”

Elsa’s sudden question prompted Emma to look to her new friend, immediately feeling a pang of anxiety again. Ruby was overly alert, and Emma had seen that kind of posturing before from Killian when he thought she was in trouble.

“We’ve got company.”

“Liam?” Emma and Elsa asked at the same time and Ruby shook her head.

“No. I think I’d sense if it were Liam. No I just heard something. In the woods back there.”

The three friends turned to follow Ruby’s gaze, but Emma was shocked when Ruby moved forward towards the sound. She told them to stay back and she’d figure it out, but just as she moved out of sight, Emma, Elsa, and Anna heard a throaty chuckle that came from the opposite direction. They jumped in surprise and whipped their attention over and then Emma and her friends sighed aloud in relief.

“Graham, was that you?” Emma asked, and their town Sherriff grinned.

“Maybe.”

“It was him,” Anna said with an eye roll. “Well I hope you’re happy. You scared five years off my life. Not cool Graham.”

“Ruby it’s okay you can come out!” Emma called. “It’s just Graham. He’s harmless.”

“Oh you wound me, Emma. I like to think I could do some…”

Whatever words Graham was going to say trailed away as his eyes looked past Emma and back to the tree line. Without even having to peer over, Emma knew what he was staring at, or rather who he was staring at. The only person in that direction was Ruby and from Graham’s expression, this was more than a strictly ‘she’s hot’ reaction. Emma flipped her gaze to her new friend and sure enough, Ruby looked just as struck silly as Graham did.

“Ooh, look it’s happening again!” Anna whispered whisper-yelled gleefully. “Love struck, the two of them. It’s like Emma and Killian 2.0. I bet you guys a month of diner lunches that they’re fated mates too.”

Both Emma and Elsa refused to take the bet, instead watching (with totally no chill and no attempt at giving Graham and Ruby privacy) as the two shifters moved toward each other. Emma wondered what it must be like for them, but she had some idea. Killian had detailed to her what it felt like to be confronted with one’s other half if you were a shifter. Everything shifted focus and all of a person’s senses were heightened and needy. It was an instant force of lust and want and adoration. It was really love at first sight, and for most shifters it was just understood. There was no need for small talk or getting to know each other. Nature chose your perfect match, and time would prove that to be true.

Because she knew this, it didn’t surprise Emma when Graham took Ruby’s hand in his and when his other hand came to cup her cheek. They were so close, eyes flashing a wolf’s color and they looked just a split second away from forgetting themselves entirely and making out or doing more. Surprisingly though, words did come, and though Emma and Elsa and Anna were totally forgotten, Ruby did seem to have the sense to ask some critical questions.

“But how did I… there’s no trace of you in town. I should have known about this - known about you.”

“Oh trust me, babe, Tink is going to be hearing quite an earful from me about this.”

“Babe?” Emma whispered to Elsa and Anna, half shocked at the word choice and half uncomfortable. In all her years of knowing Graham he had never, ever, called anyone anything like that before.

“Tink?” Ruby asked, and Emma was really curious now about what having a mate meant for Ruby. There was a chance she was so overwhelmed with Graham that she wasn’t able to tap into her gifts, but this seemed like a relatively straightforward vision. Also, Emma was like ninety five percent sure Tink had been mentioned more than once.

“Girl, she is so gone for him,” Anna said gleefully. “Oh! We should make popcorn!”

“Uh no,” Emma and Elsa said at the same time before Elsa continued on. “If anything we should leave them be. It’s only a matter of time before they start going at it, and we don’t need to be anywhere near seeing that.”

Emma laughed at Elsa’s claims as Anna feigned a sigh. Obviously she wasn’t interested in spying on the intimate moments of two new mates, but Anna really did love love, and Emma knew her friend was hoping for more cuteness before any impending sexy times. But whatever any of them were expecting, it likely wasn’t what happened next. One second Ruby and Graham looked poised to run off together, and the next Ruby’s features changed and her eyes went hazy. It only lasted a moment but she jumped when it was over and she looked to be in actual pain. Graham moved with her, and though Ruby was still alarmed, Emma could see the slightest bit of comfort come form Graham still being there. Still it wasn’t enough to fully calm her, and what Ruby declared next sent ice rushing through Emma’s veins.

“He’s here. Liam’s here, and he just found Killian.”

Shit!

………………………………..

At times like this it was difficult for Killian to know if pacing was a product of habit or an animalistic urge.

There was evidence enough to suggest it could be his animal. Wolves were known for patrolling when they were contained, agitated, or ready to fight, but as the morning light shifted to a mid-day warmth, Killian’s pacing felt like more than that. True, he felt a little held captive; the anxiety of what was coming was getting to him and there might indeed be reason to fight. But this motion right now, this back and forth route in front of his new Storybrooke home, wasn’t caused by his brother or an impending battle: it was caused by a desire so strong it was starting to control him.

As the days passed by, Killian’s love for Emma only grew. Despite the full moon being long gone by now, he felt this continuing clawing need to be near his mate. It was difficult for him to be away from her, and it was damn near impossible when there was a threat not too far off. In fact, the only thing keeping him sane right now was that she was protected and surrounded by other people who loved her. Ruby was a more than capable shifter who had made it very clear that she considered Emma family in the realest kind of way, and with her visions she should see any danger for Emma before it got here. They had been spotty as of late, with larger blind spots than she was used to, but both Killian and Ruby were certain that when the time for Liam’s arrival actually came, Ruby would know of it. That, coupled with Anna and Elsa’s new gifts, was enough to keep Killian from trailing Emma all afternoon and trying to protect her himself.

The fierceness of his need to see Emma safe was one of the strongest things he’d ever experienced, second only to his love for her, and carrying around such immensity of emotion made Killian eager to shift and to run and howl. He’d allowed himself the first two so far this morning already, but eventually he’d been called back to human form and to the house again. Connecting with his wolf right now just didn’t seem to hold all of the power that it once did for his peace of mind, and Killian was relatively certain he knew why. For underneath all of that protective instinct, and beyond the anticipation of seeing his brother again, there was something else clawing at Killian, something he wanted to do so badly but kept having to keep himself in check over.

Opening the small black box that held a symbol of his hopes for he and Emma, Killian looked down again at his grandmother’s ring, his eyes catching the way the precious gem sparkled in the light. It looked just the same as it always had, a classic and beautiful ornament, now fitted to Emma to perfection, and designed to show the world how tied up they were together. It was a testament to love, a symbol that, if she said yes, the two of them would be wed. And even though he knew that’s what Emma wanted, seeing as she’d already agreed to be his mate, it still made his heart sputter in his chest to think of asking her. He knew that he wanted that moment to be perfect. Emma deserved everything from flowers to candlelight. She deserved ambiance and the undeniable truth that he loved her more than anything. She deserved a story, one they could tell forever and look back at with pride. But even though he knew what should be done, it was killing Killian not to just do this now. He hated waiting. His patience was all but fried, and every day that he spent not working towards that forever with Emma hurt him more than he could say.

But here was where it all came back full circle. Because the reality was he couldn’t create that moment. He couldn’t give Emma those things when he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. All of them were anticipating the arrival of his brother and the showdown that would come, and until that was faced and dealt with Killian couldn’t do what he wanted most. It would be too selfish on his part, and he already had regrets about how things had gone with Emma already. Not their being together surely, for he could regret nothing about having Emma in his life and in his heart. But he wished that things could have been a little less harried. Emma was strong and determined. She would stand tall through whatever storm came their way, but he wished she didn’t have to. That essence of normalcy that she was craving? Truth was he craved it too. If they could just have a little bit of peace and quiet to enjoy all that they’d found it would be miraculous. But it seemed too much to ask the universe to have such a brilliant mate and a bit of time to truly enjoy his good fortune.

You’re going to wear a patch in the grass, Killian.

He heard the words in his head and they were said with the loving chastisement that only his mother had ever truly been able to capture. He closed his eyes and stopped, inhaling the fresh air around him and breathing out again. It was rare for him to do this anymore, to hear his mother’s voice as he went about his life. He’d shut off the part that was open to her and her goodness so long ago. When he trained to confront his father, he stifled that old connection. He shut down the little voice inside his head that reminded him what was good and right. But since he’d found Emma and tried to separate himself from that old life of revenge, he was more and more susceptible to it again. That susceptibility was both beautiful and painful. On the one hand he swore he could hear his mom right now. He could picture her in his minds’ eye shaking her head at him with a smile at her lips. But he knew when he opened her eyes she wouldn’t be here. There would just be more waiting and more agonizing over what was next.

“Bloody hell, Liam, I wish you would just get here already and be done with it.”

The words were gruff as he spoke them aloud, nearly yelling with the ferocity of his agitation. He kept his eyes closed and tried to center himself again, but before he could a voice by the tree line responded to him.

“Wish granted.”

Careful not to make any sudden movements, Killian pivoted to where he heard his brother’s voice and looked at him for the first time in so many years, seeing that it was in fact Liam there, and not just some figment of his imagination.

A few seconds passed where Killian allowed himself to take his brother in, and though he was surprised at how clean cut and together Liam still seemed to be, he didn’t let any of that show. If this reunion was going to be anything like last time then he was in for a hell of a fight, but there was a real need for Killian to control himself. Even on the night he was first infected, the bite had made it so Liam was out of control and unable to resist his baser urges. To counteract that, Killian had to be smart. It was the only way to handle this and to see that he, Emma, and the rest of their friends and family were okay. Still, looking at Liam now was like a stab to the heart, for though all this time had passed, he still looked as he always had, and Killian swore he saw a mix of sadness and also love in his brother’s eyes, despite everything.

“It’s been a long time, little brother,” Liam said, filling the space between them with words that were charged in a way Killian couldn’t understand. There was no anger there. No resentment. Just longing and a little bit of pain. “You look different.”

“I am different,” Killian replied. His muscles flexed slightly, and though he hoped to hide it from Liam, Killian watched as his brother tracked the movement. Liam didn’t reply in kind though, instead siding with continued conversation as he moved a bit closer.

“Ah yes. A mate’s love will do that, or at least that’s what they tell me.”

Now Killian couldn’t help tensing up.  He didn’t like it at all that his brother had mentioned Emma, even in the abstract. It was too close for comfort, but when Killian let out a low growl, Liam only laughed. It was a barked out sound, one that made it seem like Liam hadn’t had cause to laugh in a long time, but it calmed something inside of Killian. It wasn’t threatening. If anything, Liam seemed to be enjoying himself. That was unexpected, but it didn’t feel aggressive and that was something to be grateful for.

“Relax, brother. I didn’t come here for her.”

“Then why did you come?” Killian asked, wanting to believe Liam, but knowing that the bite would change any man and that it had already started to change Liam years ago.

“So it’s like that then,” Liam sighed. “Straight to the point. No conversation after all this time? No soft landing?”

“Why bother putting it off? You’re here, and we both know why.”

“I’m not so sure we do,” Liam replied thoughtfully. “I’ve thought of this moment every day since that night. I thought of what I’d say when I saw you again, and damn if I can bring myself to say any of that now. It all seems… not enough.”

“Well why don’t we start with the basics. This control you’re displaying. Is that… permanent?”

“Much as I might like to say yes, I can’t do that. For all my flaws, lying is something I still can’t abide by.”

Killian’s stomach fell at the confession from his brother. It was confusing to say the least, because on the one hand Liam didn’t seem to be doing anything that would signal that he or his wolf wanted to fight. There was no display of dominance, no call to contest. To Killian that signaled that maybe Emma’s more wishful thinking was right. Perhaps Liam was here to make amends and to make things right, as crazy as that seemed, but confessing that he wasn’t actually in control scared Killian. He’d seen the flip switched in his brother before. It was terrible to behold and if Liam couldn’t stop it then it was only a matter of time before Killian bore witness to that beast again.

“So the sickness. You haven’t cured it?”

“No,” Liam replied, his acceptance of his condition heart wrenching to hear. “I am what I am now. A monster, a beast, an abomination: you can call me whatever you like, but the curse remains.”

Killian allowed that truth he already knew to soak in. Again he’d been hopeful, and again his hope was thwarted. Of course Liam was still burdened with this blackness. There was no escaping it, but still it killed Killian to hear it. Listening to his brother berating himself, calling himself a monster – a beast – it was terrible, and yet Killian couldn’t contradict him. He knew nothing of Liam anymore. He knew the man he had been, but what was to say that man truly remained? He appeared to be here, but appearances weren’t enough to build trust on. They couldn’t be, not when the stakes were so high.

“You never were good at covering your emotions, brother,” Liam said witfully, his eyes studying Killian intently. “I can see it all practically jumping off of you. Love. Wariness. Sadness. Fear. Crazy you stayed hidden all these years. You’d think so much energy would be easier to track.”

The mention of tracking put Killian on alert again. There was the reminder he needed that this wasn’t a one off. Liam wasn’t here for a casual visit. He’d been hunting for Killian for years and Killian had known it. He’d lived off the grid as much as he could. He never built a life, never had roots. Hell, he never had dreams of any kind for years and years to stay ahead of that search. His life had been hellish, and that hell was in no small part because there was always the threat of Liam just waiting to take him down.

“What can I say? Ruby’s a powerful witch.”

“Ah she always was. Little Red,” Liam said with another strange laugh. “Remember when we called her that as kids? God she hated that.”

Killian was thrown by the tenderness Liam displayed for Ruby. This whole exchange was honestly giving him whiplash. One moment his brother was kind and trying to connect, the next he was poking Killian with the reminders of the threat he posed. It was confounding and confusing, and it made the wolf inside scratch at the surface, trying to fight this out instead of lingering in whatever strange game Liam was playing here.

“Ruby isn’t the reason you came either. So let’s get on with it. Why are you here, Liam?”

“I’m here because I have to be. We had to meet again. You made sure of it that night.”

“I spared you that night, Liam. I…” Killian trailed off before reiterating the thought, because honestly he wasn’t so sure that’s what he’d done. Had he spared Liam? Or had he just damned his brother to so many more years of this descent into madness?

“You made a choice, a choice that speaks to who you are, brother. You could have killed me, but you didn’t. You couldn’t. It could have all been over. You could have been free, but instead you chose another path. This path, and now we have to face it.”

The ominous words hung in the field between them and Killian didn’t know what to say. Liam was right after all, at least in a way. He hadn’t been capable of killing Liam. There just wasn’t that option, and because of that there had been the risk and that sinking sensation that followed Killian all these years that they’d meet again. But while his brother was resigned and yet also strangely unreadable, Killian was resolute. Things wouldn’t end the same way twice. There were too many other people who needed protecting, and too much more to live for now than there had been years ago.

“I’m sorry, Killian. I’m sorry for that night, and for any night you’ve faced since that you worried about me. I’m more sorry than you can ever imagine. I would have done anything to spare you that.”

Wait… what?

“You’re sorry,” Killian repeated, his mind reeling from the truth he heard in Liam’s out of the blue words. “But you’ve come here to kill me.”

“So you keep suggesting,” Liam replied, his eyes taking on a little humor again.

“And what are you suggesting, Liam? I realize this is all some big game to you, but frankly I don’t want to play. I never did, so if you’ve come to fight me, fight me.”

“You know I thought this would be different, our last time together,” Liam said, his voice a wistful whisper, as it sailed across the breeze to Killian’s ears. “I should have known, even if I hoped for something more. But let me cut to the chase. I came to -,”

The snap of a branch in the woods very close to them claimed both brothers’ attention, and when Killian saw it was Tink his feelings were mixed. There was relief, but also dread. He couldn’t exactly explain why, but the reason would show itself soon enough.

“I caught a new scent in town and thought you might need backup,” Tink said, but her usual confidence was cowed in an instant when a fierce growl sounded out so loudly that it shook the ground around them.

Killian whipped his head back to look at his brother, but Liam was gone and all that remained was the beast in man’s clothing. His eyes were like coal, his face was snarled, his stance was poised for shifting. He heaved for breath, his anger rolling off of him, and just like that the nightmare Killian had been reliving for years was with him once more. Whatever had just occurred was over. The talking was done, the dancing was finished, and now it was time to face this twisted fate once and for all...

Post-Note: Okay I know I know I left this on a cliffhanger and I am terrible! BUT I have some pretty great news – the next chapter of this story is already mostly written and I will be posting it sometime in the next week! I should probably space it out more since the rest of the chapters aren’t completed yet, but trust me – you will all want to see the conclusion of what happens between Killian and Liam.  Anyway thank you all so much for your patience and your continued support. Hope you’re all doing well, and hope you’ll tune in next time!

Tag list: @jennjenn615 @kmomof4 @winterbaby89 @teamhook @ultraluckycatnd @resident-of-storybrooke @coliferoncer @artistic-writer @snowbellewells @eastside-divebar @snarkycaptainswan4 @allofdafandoms-blog

[obtusemedia]

The best songs of the 2010s: #25-1

#25: “SICKO MODE” by Travis Scott feat. Drake (2018)

When music historians look at hip-hop’s late-’10s dominance, I have no doubt that “SICKO MODE” will be viewed as the pinnacle of the era.

Let’s just go through a checklist of what makes “SICKO MODE” an instant classic: The weirdo multi-part structure. Travis Scott’s nearly two-minute long verse with quotable lines galore. Drake somehow managing to make falling asleep on an airplane sound cool. That spooky two-word Swae Lee refrain. Multiple Jamba Juice name-drops (inspiring a hilarious meme video). An iconic, striking music video with whacked-out imagery galore. 

But most importantly, it’s a stone-cold banger that will get any dance floor moving. What more could you want? 

#24: “Dance Yrself Clean” by LCD Soundsystem (2010)

You might have noticed that one of the decade’s biggest musical trends — EDM — hasn’t shown up much on this list. That’s because a majority of it has already aged badly, even just a few years later. Songs like “Don’t You Worry Child” or “Wake Me Up!” certainly have their charms, but unlike the more enjoyable, trashy electropop that preceded it, most EDM hits were plodding and self-serious. And its best artist, Calvin Harris, made his best work when he drifted away from the subgenre’s rigid structure and just made pure pop music.

But my passiveness towards EDM doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a great drop. There’s been plenty of songs on the list with incredible drops up to this point, and there’s still a couple more to come. Hell, I even halfway considered putting some Skrillex on the list just because some of his early stuff still can get your pulse pounding (even if these songs REEK of the early 10s). But there will never be a drop more bonkers than “Dance Yrself Clean.”

Indie legends LCD Soundsystem kicked off the decade with a bang with this song — but they made you wait for that bang. More than three minutes, to be exact. But those who were patient enough to sit through the quiet, drawn-out opening were treated to frontman James Murphy wailing like a madman over a shuffling beat, bouncy bass and a cascading, randomized symphony of analog synthesizers. Although I’m sure Murphy calculated every second of “Dance Yrself Clean,” it sounds like absolute anarchy. And in the moments when his screaming vocals go hoarse over the slamming synths, it’s unreal.

#23: “Born To Die” by Lana Del Rey (2011)

This was the first Lana Del Rey song I heard, back in my junior year of high school. I was immediately floored. The vocals, the cinematic orchestral sweep, the spaghetti western guitars, the tragically beautiful lyrics  — it was an instant masterpiece. There was no way Lana wouldn’t be the world’s biggest popstar within a year.

A couple months later, Lana infamously bombed on Saturday Night Live, which some thought would derail her career entirely. Even after her career has survived and she’s become a critical darling with a cult fanbase, her debut album, Born To Die, and its title track still have a bit of the stink from that SNL performance. Well, no more.

“Born To Die” is a haunting gothic-pop masterpiece that’s aged much better than much early-’10s pop (although I love the corny club stuff from that era, don’t get me wrong). Lana’s smoky voice is unparalleled, the trip-hop production is untouchable.

And although her pinnacle wouldn’t come until 2014 with her sophomore album Ultraviolence, “Born To Die” is still Lana’s most perfect single to date.

#22: “Green Light” by Lorde (2017)

In 2013, Lorde completely upended the pop universe with “Royals,” a minimalist tune chastising radio hits for their un-relatable opulence. By 2017, the culture had fully gravitated towards Lorde’s moodier sound, with greyscale acts like Post Malone and Alessia Cara writing monster hits about being angsty and sad (and not in the artsy, brilliant way that worked for Kurt Cobain or Kanye). It was a far cry from the neon, bubbly world of Katy Perry and Carly Rae Jepsen from a few years prior.

The New Zealand prodigy could’ve cashed in on being ahead of the curve and continued down her minimalist moody path. But she did the opposite with the defiant and proudly energized “Green Light.” Yes, it’s a breakup anthem, but Lorde doesn’t wallow in her sadness here (she saves that for other Melodrama cuts). Instead, she wailed away into the night, playing off of the thundering drums and bouncing pianos of Jack Antonoff’s production (his best-ever). 

With “Green Light,” Lorde let her ex, and the world, know that she isn’t going anywhere. She might not ever reach the commercial heights of “Royals” again, but she’ll be an icon as long as there’s heartbreak that needs overcoming.

#21: “If You Know You Know” by Pusha-T (2018)

Pusha-T’s magnum opus, “If You Know You Know,” is a masterclass in cocaine rap with its effortless wordplay, sinister-yet-charismatic flow and blaring Kanye West beat. It deserved to be the song of the summer in 2018, but the masses chose a C-tier Drake single instead (despite Push absolutely ENDING Drake that summer).

But that doesn’t diminish the achievement Push made with this song. It’s quite a feat to record your best-ever track 17 years after your breakout. It’s even more of an accomplishment when that track kicks as much ass as “If You Know You Know.”

#20: “Teenage Dream” by Katy Perry (2010)

Teenage Dream-era Katy Perry is one of pop’s all-time juggernauts. The five consecutive #1 hit singles that album racked up is a feat matched only by Michael Jackson. Of those five singles, one stands out as the clear masterpiece of the group: the album’s title track (although “T.G.I.F” is also incredible).

I remember feeling a little underwhelmed by “Teenage Dream” when I first heard it in 2010. Her last single was a goofy, bombastic summer jam complete with a ridiculous video. “Teenage Dream” is a much more conventional, timeless pop jam. The chord structure is shockingly simple and the lyrics are lovestruck notes from a ‘50s ballad.

But that simplicity is what makes the song work. “Teenage Dream” has aged well because sometimes, all you need is three chords, a monster hook and yearning lyrics. This song will be Perry’s biggest legacy.

#19: “Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales” by Car Seat Headrest (2016)

“Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales” has to be the only uplifting, U2/Nirvana-style power ballad about DUIs.

Landing smack in the middle of Car Seat Headrest’s indie rock concept album/instant-classic Teens of Denial, “Drunk Drivers” is about the main character taking stock of his entire life and emotional instability. And yes, it all centers around driving drunk — or in this case, refusing that temptation as an impetus to change one’s life.

Naturally, in the very next song on the album, it’s revealed that the narrator drove drunk and got arrested anyways. But for a cathartic six minutes, “Drunk Drivers” provides a fleeting escape from the constant loop of self-hate and depression. Not to mention that it’s a grinding ‘90s alt-rock throwback that probably makes Billy Corgan jealous.

#18: “Harmony Hall” by Vampire Weekend (2019)

I’d never guess that Vampire Weekend’s second-best song (after “Oxford Comma,” of course) would be a hippie-friendly tune combining the Grateful Dead and Screamadelica. But here we are. And awkward combination or no, Ezra Koenig knew exactly what he was doing.

In a very dark, uncertain year, Koenig decided to write a song that doubled both as a blissed-out reprieve and a nervous warning. The music is utopian, but the lyrics detail the anger, confusion and constant obstacles of life in the late ‘10s. Koenig takes a lyric from one of his previous songs — “I don’t want to live like this/but I don’t want to die” — and makes it a rallying cry for anxious Millennials around the world, paranoid that the world might not stick around much longer.

It’s a heavy topic, but the gorgeous instrumentals, breakbeat drums, lilting guitars and bouncy pianos certainly ease the stress. “Harmony Hall” is a late-career masterpiece for the ages.

#17: “Marvins Room” by Drake (2011)

Never before has a booty call sounded so sad.

Way before he ruled the pop universe, Drake was just hip-hop’s resident mope. And “Marvins Room” is peak sadboi Drake. Using a real voicemail message in the hook (that he was later sued for using), “Marvins Room” is a six-minute phone conversation in which Drake drunkenly begs his ex to come back.

On the surface, what Drake discusses are what most rappers brag about — sex, money, wealth. But in “Marvins Room,” Drake seems to view them as obstacles to his ex, who he clearly still isn’t over. When he said he had sex four times this week, he sounds disgusted with himself, not proud.

Drake doesn’t look remotely good in this song; it’s more than a little pathetic. But it feels real and raw and revealing in a way that few R&B ballads are willing to get.

#16: “Pedestrian At Best” by Courtney Barnett (2015)

Courtney Barnett’s grungy masterpiece, “Pedestrian At Best,” is appropriately angsty given its crunchy guitars and yell-y vocals. But the Melbourne singer-songwriter touches on a different kind of angst here than Pearl Jam usually tapped into: the pressure of living up to sky-high expectations.

In the early/mid ‘10s, Barnett was earning lots of hype after witty (and excellent!) early singles like “Avant Gardener” and “History Eraser.” She clearly assumed she’d screw up her debut album following up those breakout songs, as she declares herself “a fake” and “a phony” in “Pedestrian At Best.” 

Arguably her generation’s best lyricist, Barnett nails her expectation to squander the public’s expectations: “Put me on a pedestal and I’ll only disappoint you/Tell me I’m exceptional, I promise to exploit you.” The ironic thing is, she did the opposite. “Pedestrian At Best” is one of the most successful songs about failing.

#15: “Ni**as in Paris” by Jay-Z and Kanye West (2011)

There was some close competition, but I don’t think there was a more quotable rap song this decade than Jay-Z and Kanye West’s crowning achievement from Watch The Throne, “Ni**as in Paris.”

The classic lines don’t stop coming throughout the minimalist banger. Jay’s verse is smooth braggadocio perfected: “I’m liable to go Michael, take your pick: Jackson, Tyson, Jordan, Game 6.” Then Kanye comes crashing in with some truly bizarre bars that are both the dumbest and greatest thing you’ve ever heard. After hearing the song, I never felt the same way about fish filets ever again.

And then, the piece de resistance — Kanye’s inspired Will Ferrell sample from Blades Of Glory. It’s one of the most left-field and iconic moments in hip-hop history, and perfectly described the song itself. “NOBODY KNOWS WHAT IT MEANS. BUT IT’S PROVOCATIVE. IT GETS THE PEOPLE GOING.” Amen.

#14: “Run Away With Me” by Carly Rae Jepsen (2015)

Carly Rae Jepsen deserved to be one of the biggest popstars of all time. She should be selling out the same arenas that Taylor Swift and Beyoncé fill. But, in what is a true tragedy, the British Columbia native is only remembered as being that singer with that one earth-shattering hit and a feverish cult following.

But despite how adorable and fun “Call Me Maybe” is, Jepsen’s true magnum opus is her 2015 album, EMOTION, and its bombastic opening track, “Run Away With Me.” 

The single is a masterclass in blending ‘80s flourishes with modern production. On the thunderous chorus, the EDM synths and roaring saxophone riff work in harmony with Jepsen’s passionate vocals to create pure pop bliss. Combined with the intimate verses, the single perfectly encapsulates that butterfly-feeling of a relationship’s honeymoon stage.

“Run Away With Me” is only one of many, many Jepsen singles that would’ve been #1 smashes in a perfect world. But the lack of chart success for this one especially hurt.

#13: “Formation” by Beyoncé (2016)

Where were you when “Formation” dropped? I bet you probably remember (I was writing an essay in my college’s library).

Sure, Beyoncé’s self-titled 2013 album is the surprise drop that gets all the attention. But “Formation” came out of nowhere too a few years later, and let’s be honest — it was much better. (side note: 4 is also much better than the self-titled)

Mike Will Made It’s beat for “Formation” incorporated some Texas twang into his trap-pop production — a fitting match for a Houston legend like Beyoncé. And Bey takes heat-check shot after heat-check shot here: declaring herself the next Bill Gates; casually dropping a “swag” ad lib and magically not sounding corny as hell; making a trip to a mediocre chain seafood restaurant sound like a cool post-sex reward.

It all works. And that’s because on “Formation,” Beyoncé was as untouchable and fearless as her cutthroat stans had always proclaimed her to be. The fact that it was the triumphant coda to one of the decade’s best pop albums just cements its legend.

#12: “Old Town Road (Remix)” by Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus (2019)

It’s the longest-running #1 hit in U.S. history. An unstoppable juggernaut that held titans like Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran and Drake from the top of the charts. And, oh yeah — it’s perfect.

There are probably a few party poopers out there who hate “Old Town Road.” I am not one of them. By 2019, pop’s grayscale, Post Malone-fueled gloom had gotten out of hand. Then out of nowhere, this teenage Nicki Minaj Twitter stan writes a goofy novelty song that’s both a parody of country clichés and a sincere celebration of the cowboy lifestyle. (It’s also the greatest country song ever written, and the entire city of Nashville can fight me on that.)

Lil Nas X has a pure charisma other artists would kill for, from his warbly, infectious chorus to his endlessly quotable verse (WRANGLER ON MY BOOTY!!). And pulling Billy Ray Cyrus away from Hannah Montana-funded retirement to drop a shockingly fire verse about living the luxury lifestyle in Beverly Hills? There’s no way this wouldn’t be one of my all-time favorites.

Sometimes, when it comes to predicting future classics, you’ve just got to trust the screaming elementary schoolers.

#11: “Midnight City” by M83 (2011)

“Midnight City” sounds like what Space Mountain feels like.

The decade’s best electronic song is so perfect as to be almost alien, yet also remarkably warm and human. And just when you thought the song couldn’t get better, the second-greatest sax solo of all time (only behind “Jungleland”) bursts out of the neon layers of synth.

M83 has a catalogue stuffed with stunning retro synthpop bangers. The fact that “Midnight City” towers above them all is a testament to the song’s sheer majesty.

#10: “All Too Well” by Taylor Swift (2012)

Yes, I’m aware that this is the obvious Taylor Swift pick for this list. But Swift’s literary masterwork, “All Too Well,” hits me too hard to deny it.

“All Too Well” is so packed with vivid details and intense emotional swings that it feels like more like a short story backed by arena-rock instrumentation more than a pop song. From her an abandoned scarf tucked in a drawer, to her ex’s mother embarrassing him with his dorky child photos, to the phone-call breakup that was “casually cruel in the name of being honest,” Swift didn’t leave anything out.

Coupled with her songwriting, Swift’s vocals also make “All Too Well” her pinnacle. She reaches into her upper register so rarely that it sends shivers whenever she does, like on the emphatic climax here. 

If it catches me in the right mood, Swift’s performance, the lilting guitars and cutting lyrics in “All Too Well” brings a few tears to my eyes. (Yes, really.) It’s only fitting that one of the greatest breakup anthems of all time is sung by a master of the artform.

#9: “Ivy” by Frank Ocean (2016)

I was very tempted to put Frank Ocean’s 10-minute synthpop epic “Pyramids” on the list instead. Make no mistake — if it wasn’t for my self-imposed one-song-per-artist rule, both it and “Ivy” would’ve placed highly.

But “Ivy” is a heart-stopper. It’s a fairly simple song, with just Ocean’s raw vocals playing off the languid guitars. To pull a song like this off, you have to be a double-threat, a genius lyrically and a stunning singer. Ocean fits that bill. 

“Ivy” is the decade’s greatest R&B song, a heartbreaking ode to a slowly crumbling relationship.

#8: “The Edge Of Glory” by Lady Gaga (2011)

Lady Gaga’s best songs hit you like a brick to the face. Gaga — the greatest pop star of the 21st century, don’t @ me — has plenty of pop bangers that do this, particularly on the wildly underrated Artpop (shoutout to the insane and insanely fun “G.U.Y.”). But arguably none of her singles provide as much maximalist pleasures as “The Edge Of Glory.”

The track reeks of trying too hard in the best way possible. Gaga reaches into her upper vocal register frequently, scratching her upper limits every time she reaches the chorus. The production is a messy-but-beautiful jumble of slamming synths and drum machines. And that Clarence Clemons sax solo — one of the last musical contributions he made before his death that same year — is just the icing on top of the gloriously sugary cake.

Gaga’s over-the-top synthpop from her early years isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. But for someone like me, who wants pop to feel as massive and inescapable as humanly possible, “The Edge Of Glory” is still a towering high-water mark.

#7: “Pay No Mind” by Beach House (2018)

This spot could’ve been taken by any number of Beach House songs, the modern masters of dream-pop. “Space Song,” “Myth,” “Take Care” — the Baltimore duo honed in on a specific musical style and perfected it.

To me, “Pay No Mind” is the culmination of those years of Beach House subtly tinkering with their hazy, nocturnal sound. It’s like a gothic wedding slow-dance song: the right rhythm and with a romantic feel, but maybe a bit too gloomy for your grandparents. But regardless, “Pay No Mind” is breathtakingly beautiful, like seeing neon lights through the fog.

#6: “m.A.A.d. city” by Kendrick Lamar feat. MC Eiht (2012)

If you haven’t tried to memorize the nearly two-minute uninterrupted opening verse of “m.A.A.d. city,” were you even alive in the early ‘10s?

Kendrick Lamar has written many hip-hop epics in his career so far, but so far none have topped the semi-title track from his major label debut, good kid, m.A.A.d. city. In that concept album about Lamar’s teen years growing up amidst the gang warfare in Compton, “m.A.A.d city” marks the point where the gangsta dream shifts into a horrifying nightmare. 

The song is a blur of murder, violence and police sirens. Lamar sounds positively terrified on the track, his voice cracking while he confesses. And bringing on old-school rapper MC Eiht to play a veteran gang member snapping Lamar out of his haze was a brilliant move. “m.A.A.d city” is an exhilarating tour-de-force that proved how much raw talent, in both flow and storytelling, Lamar had.

#5: “Somebody Else” by The 1975 (2016)

If Vampire Weekend is the most important band of the early ‘10s, then The 1975 is the most important band of the rest of the decade. Their transformation from (really good!) simple pop-rock to tacking incredibly dark subject matter while successfully taste-testing their way through nearly every musical genre was unexpected. And brilliant, seeing as they pulled it off.

But The 1975′s best track is much less capital-I important than most of their epics about Trump or suicide or heroin — it’s a synthpop song about complicated post-breakup emotions. But “Somebody Else” earns its keep as the band’s pinnacle through sheer relatability. It nails that complicated feeling of being over someone...but not really. Or as lead singer Matty Healy puts it bluntly: “I don’t want your body/but I’m picturing your body with somebody else.”

The shuffling drum machine groove and icy synths complete a perfect song for wandering aimlessly at night, longing for a lost love. And although The 1975 might switch sounds endlessly in their career, their sweet spot will always be this moody ‘80s update.

#4: “TiK ToK” by Ke$ha (2010)

“TiK ToK” is still easily the peak of the 2009-12 pop golden age. It has a bit of everything you’d want in a single from that era: Gloriously grimy synths! An uber-catchy chorus with plenty of demands to party! And of course, a charismatic and unforgettable star who can deliver the song. I don’t think anyone would argue Ke$ha fit that role to a T.

When “TiK ToK” first arrived around the turn of the decade, I couldn’t stand it. I thought it was too sleazy. Nearly 10 years later, Ke$ha’s performative sleaziness is exactly what makes this song so fun. Yeah, the hook is bulletproof and the production is buzzy. But Ke$ha’s slurred, drunken delivery and ridiculous lines are what have kept “TiK ToK” in the public consciousness. She single-handedly made P. Diddy and especially Mick Jagger relevant again. She made brushing your teeth with Jack Daniels seem cool (and not insanely nasty, like it actually is). Every single ridiculous line, sung through Ke$ha’s fake valley girl accent, is a gem.

I can understand how someone wouldn’t like the unfiltered debauchery and greasiness of “TiK ToK.” But to me, that’s the entire charm of it, and what makes it stand out amongst a sea of similarly-minded club jams from its era.

#3: “Runaway” by Kanye West feat. Pusha-T (2010)

I was going to ask all of you to forget about Kanye West’s recent stumbles, be it his association with Donald Trump or his insistence that slavery was a choice. But the power of “Runaway” is that it is a semi-apology from a man who knows he’s deeply flawed. Every one of Kanye’s gaffes and terrible decisions makes “Runaway” even more relevant today.

But “Runaway” was originally a response to Kanye’s infamous “Imma let you finish” rant at the 2009 VMAs, where he interrupted Taylor Swift. The song basically operates as a semi-apology to the world for being, as he puts it, a douchebag. An asshole. A scumbag. A jerkoff. He’s somewhat bragging about his misdeeds, while sheepishly asking for forgiveness.

And yet, it’s an extremely vulnerable song. The bridge — “I guess that you’re at an advantage/Cause you can blame me for everything/And I don’t know how Imma manage/If one day you just up and leave” — initially feels like something Kanye is saying to a lover. But really, he’s saying it to all of us. And it’s arguably the most moving moment in his whole career.

#2: “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk feat. Pharrell and Nile Rodgers (2013)

Don’t think about it too hard, folks. 

Considering that Daft Punk are the greatest dance-music artists of all time, it only makes sense that they’d dip their toes into disco and absolutely KILL it. And that’s all “Get Lucky” is. Two French masters making their grand comeback by recruiting one of funk’s finest guitarists and one of the 2000s’ most charismatic vocal presences. 

“Get Lucky” will be a wedding dance staple until the sun explodes. And it deserves that status. It’s a flawless dance track. Just embrace the groove.

#1: “Archie, Marry Me” by Alvvays (2014)

My favorite song of the 2010s wasn’t a part of some major trend. It wasn’t particularly influential. It doesn’t have any profound meaning, and it didn’t try to tackle a major event. “Archie, Marry Me” just happens to be the greatest indie pop song ever written.

Every little aspect of Toronto band Alvvays’ debut single works, from the surf-y guitars to lead singer Molly Rankin’s monotone-yet-yearning vocals. With its lo-fi ramshackle charm and monster hook, “Archie, Marry Me” is all you could want in a dream-pop single. It even has the nice touch of echoing a Neil Young classic in the chorus.

The whole intention of this list — as it is with any of my year-end lists — is simply to measure which songs made me the happiest; which songs never wore out on me. And no single this decade puts a bigger smile on my face than “Archie, Marry Me.” It’s simple, achingly romantic (in a Wes Anderson-esque half-ironic way, but still), and I wouldn’t change a thing about it.

[houseofzoey]

Characters

Zoey Zoey is mostly only talked about in this book, with minimal content told from her perspective. This makes it especially apparent how weird it is for her chapters to be the only ones told in first person.

The little that we do get from her perspective mostly reiterates the same information constantly: She feels guilty for Heath’s death, she can’t remember anything, and her soul is in pieces. The problem is that the book can be pretty selective about when she has memory problems, plus it makes it sound like her soul is shattered – as in broken into several little pieces – but it’s actually only in three pieces. Four, if you count Zoey herself. This means that Zoey is made up of just courage, compassion, joy, and whatever Zoey herself represents.

It’s also kind of weird how her brokenness is conveyed. Beyond just her memory problems, she’s also disappearing. That doesn’t make sense with what Thanatos and others have said about the effects of a shattered soul in the Otherworld. Zoey should be in a Caoinic Shi’, a non-existent Gaelic term for a zombie-like entity. That doesn’t sound like she should literally disappear.

Then we finally get to the part where Zoey actually does something. (Incidentally, the fact that Zoey is almost completely inactive in this book falls completely flat as a demonstration of her brokenness because she’s never been an active character in any previous books.) I know I said this in earlier posts, but this really, really should have been a big dramatic moment. We’ve spent the entire book building to it. I’m not expecting three full chapters or anything ridiculous like that, but more than a single page should be expected. Like, even something as simple as Zoey having to prove her acceptance of each part of her soul, maybe having to remember and feel those emotions before she can call them back into herself. Something more than just saying, “Hey, come back,” and having it happen immediately.

Zoey is also absolutely useless when she confronts Kalona. She summoned wind and didn’t use it to stop the spear. Given that she was able to stop a magically teleporting arrow at the end of Hunted, this is inexcusable.

Also, Zoey is now a queen. For some reason.

Stevie Rae Stevie Rae sort of fills Zoey shoes in this book and boy does it show. She refuses to address problems, has a completely unnecessary love triangle that consumes much of the plot, and throws around her unofficial title as High Priestess (and, occasionally, her affinity) to get what she wants. I used to at least kind of like Stevie Rae, but she’s honestly just as bad as Zoey now.

Seriously, Stevie Rae was supposed to be the nice character, the one who admonished her friends for being too mean or catty. And yet, in this book, she says a man has a “pea brain” because of how he dresses. Let me point out that Stevie Rae’s style of dress is frequently mocked or insulted by other characters and she hates it. Why would she do that to someone else?

I think this shows that the authors struggle to write any actual distinct narrative voice or characterizations unless they’re leaning really, really hard into stereotypes. It’s hard to talk about Stevie Rae’s role in this book without talking about her love triangle. It is such a waste of time! She doesn’t need a love triangle – the very idea of her having any relationship with Rephaim, even a platonic one, should create more than enough conflict on its own! The conflict that comes out of the love triangle doesn’t make sense. Aside from Stevie Rae feeling confused and guilty in a tired rehash of Zoey’s every relationship ever, the love triangle comes to a head with Dallas discovering her relationship with Rephaim and then acting 100% out-of-character and suddenly becoming evil. And guess what? His freak out would have made just as much sense if he was a close friend realizing he’d been lied to for days and feeling betrayed because of what he’d been lied to about. The romance angle adds nothing, especially because their relationship was barely established in previous books. It’s just an excuse for Stevie Rae to make-out sometimes and have a sex scene interrupted.

As for Rephaim, it often feels like the authors don’t know what the focus of that conflict should be. The fact that he killed Anastasia and Dragon wants revenge for it is acknowledged, but it’s more about Stevie Rae’s fear of people discovering her relationship with Rephaim and consequently rejecting her and killing him. There’s not really a sense of expectation for him to actually try and make up for committing murder. The book does also acknowledge that Rephaim is barely humanoid, but only in so far as “beast” and “monster” are being treated as synonymous with a superficial idea of evil. That he’s a giant bird is acknowledged as a problem for their relationship very sparingly. Even Rephaim’s intention to continue serving Kalona and thus Darkness isn’t really addressed – not in a way that grapples with the moral implications of what he’s willing to support and participate in. Stevie Rae cares about his connection to Kalona because of how other people will react.

The situation with Rephaim is status normal for pretty much the whole book – she’s trying to hide him from everyone. The only changes that happen is she bonds her soul even more deeply to his by paying a debt to the black bull, but – surprise! – that’s kind of pointless because she apparently already developed feelings for him anyway. I have no idea what purpose that debt is supposed to serve in the book other than giving her something new to angst about. The only reason anyone finds out about Rephaim is because he storms in on her and Dallas, and that only happens because of the other subplot finally showing up. By the end of the book, she’s right back to square one with Rephaim because Kalona returns and they can no longer be together like they were for much of this book.

Aside from love triangle drama, Stevie Rae really doesn’t do much in this book. She talks to people. A lot. Eventually, she performs a ritual and completely screws it up, but uncovers information about how to get Stark into the Otherworld. Towards the end of the book, she finally does something about the rogue fledglings that have been regularly murdering people, but only because it’s on the news and people might blame the House of Night. And her solution doesn’t stop them from murdering people! She just forces them out of the tunnels so she and the other red fledglings can go back to living there.

The Twins Might as well not exist. After page 134, they are literally not present for the rest of the book.

Damien and Jack They contribute some research and exposition that, honestly, Darius and Thanatos could just as easily have provided. They also might as well not exist. Just like the Twins, they literally aren’t present passed page 134.

Also, Jack has yet to ever use his affinity.

Stark Easily one of the most obnoxious parts of this book. I can’t really even think of what he contributed. Did he come up with any ideas or solutions on his own in this book? Thanatos and Darius brought up the bulls and Isle of Skye, Nyx guided him to say the right words to get on the Isle, Kramisha provided the poem, Aphrodite told him Heath was key to getting Zoey to move on – he couldn’t even accomplish the task of defeating the Other on his own! And he was specifically was supposed to be on his own for that. But no, Seoras slices Stark’s eyelids and gives him strike-line-vision, and then the Other just kills himself.

Oh, wait, sorry. The Other impales himself and “dies”, except he’s not dead, so then Stark is taken over by the sword and cuts him in half. Because that’s honourable, somehow.

Stark defeating the Other is also super anticlimactic. Stark gets cut up a bit and it’s clearly meant to be nail biting and intense, but his wounds don’t affect his ability to fight, he’s somehow able to do everything by instinct, and then he gets magical strike-line-vision handed to him through now effort of his own. As someone pointed out in an anonymous ask, this situation would have been way more dramatic and character building if it actually focused on Stark’s past wrongs and inner demons instead of a bunch of b.s. about recognizing his arrogance and accepting brutality. Let me see Stark facing the wrongs he committed while serving Darkness. Let me see him forced to acknowledge that he’s a rapist without running away or lashing out at the people who call him on it. That would require real character growth.

But that would be haaaard so instead we get b.s. and magical solutions handed to him with no effort or sacrifice.

Well, there is a sacrifice technically, but it’s also stupid. Stark lays on a stone platform and gets cut up a bunch. That’s it. Somehow, he doesn’t bleed to death from having his eyelids, chest, ribs, etc. repeatedly sliced open over probably more than an hour. I get the whole “keep him on the edge of death” thing, but logically he wouldn’t be able to stay on the edge very long like this before he outright dies. Is there no other, less ridiculous way this could have been accomplished? Or were the other ideas not brutal or “manly” enough?

Kalona He had arguably a very significant role in this book but, much like Neferet, barely actually appeared. The two scenes he narrated were both either entirely unnecessary or at least detrimental to the tension and mystery of the conflict. Knowing exactly what he and Neferet were plotting from the outset made all the subsequent chapters of characters talking and hypothesizing particularly mind-numbing.

The real problem with Kalona is that the series does a terrible job of giving proper weight to what, exactly, makes him a villain. You can’t redeem him by showing that he ~*loves*~ Nyx when his heartbreak at her hands is used to justify rape, murder, enslavement, and plans for world domination. Everyone seems to forget or gloss over those details, though, because the authors so desperately want him to be tragic and redeemable.

His fight with Stark is incredibly stupid, too. Why did he summon a spear if he wasn’t even going to use it?! I get the impression that he was torturing/taunting Stark by slowly beating him to death with his bare hands while Stark was armed with a claymore and still useless, but that would have been more effective if he was actually unarmed.

Aphrodite Where once Aphrodite was a character with actual agency, she’s more and more degrading to the point of being a narrative tool. A whole new aspect of her affinity is discovered by Thanatos, who she met less than an hour ago at that point, and who also teaches her exactly how to use this new affinity. She’s told by Stevie Rae about the poems and the words of the white bull. She learns through a vision with Nyx exactly how to get Zoey back from the Otherworld and what will happen if she doesn’t.

Aphrodite doesn’t actually do anything in this book. She’s a conduit for information and nothing else. You could replace her with an unnervingly accurate Magic 8 Ball and the only difference would be less horrendously obnoxious dialogue.

Neferet Neferet’s character has never been particularly subtle – she’s the reason I created the “foreshadowing with neon signs” tag for this blog – but it’s gotten out of hand. Her dialogue is the most over-the-top, dramatic, stereotypical villain crap I’ve ever seen.

This is the first book where Neferet kind of actually has a tangible plan, but she’s still kind of going about it in a ridiculous way. She knows Kalona is a) banished from the Otherworld, and b) has an incredibly strong lust for Zoey. Despite all this, she sends him to the Otherworld with the expectation that he can and will stop Zoey from pulling her soul together and returning to her body. Here’s an idea: Why doesn’t she have Darkness act directly against Zoey instead of using Darkness to bind Kalona to an Oath her very likely can’t fulfill?

Other than that, Neferet is basically non-existent in this book. I have to wonder if the authors are trying to pull of a Voldemort effect – the more infrequent appearances of the villain are, the more dramatic and terrifying it is when a confrontation does occur. With Voldemort, you always know he was up to something and often got glimpses of it through Harry’s visions, Daily Prophet reports, or various Death Eater activities. Plus, enough was established about Voldemort very early on to make him a genuinely terrifying figure. With Neferet, we know she’s responsible for the undead fledglings and a few deaths, but… why? Her goals are so vague and her “evil plots” are often so nonsensical or out-of-nowhere that it’s hard to take her seriously. Why did she target and kill football players in Betrayed? Why did she kill her own professors in Chosen when she obviously knew the High Council wouldn’t support her immediately declaring war against humans in retaliation? How did any of this contribute to her ultimate goal of freeing Kalona? And then, once Kalona was freed, why was her focus on taking over the school that she already had full jurisdiction over? Why is she simultaneously trying to convince the High Council that that she is Nyx Incarnate and that they should elect her as the next High Priestess of all Vampyres? Would one title not suffice?

What is Neferet trying to do? Vague plans of world domination have been mentioned, but we don’t know why.

Nyx

Why did she only ban Kalona’s body? Why leave such an enormous loophole and never intervene when his spirit goes to the Otherworld?

Why does Nyx stop guiding and speaking to Zoey? Zoey is literally in her realm. She’s closer to Nyx than she ever has been in the past, and yet this is the one book in the series thus far where Zoey receives almost no guidance from Nyx. After Zoey pulls her soul back together and Nyx shows up to force Kalona to revive Stark (more on that later), Nyx says Zoey has made her proud again. What’s that supposed to mean? Is she mad at Zoey for grieving? Also, Zoey didn’t have her elements before she pulled her soul back together. I’m not sure if that’s because her incomplete soul made her unable to use her affinities, or if that’s an example of Nyx actually taking away Zoey’s affinities. Nyx did definitely take away Zoey’s tattoos, however, because they didn’t return when Zoey got her soul back together, but rather several minutes after Nyx showed up.

If Nyx respects free will so much, why the hell did she force Kalona to give a piece of his immortality to Stark to revive him? Literally the explanation given as to why she didn’t ban his soul from the Otherworld is because Nyx respects free will too much. This is an absolutely enormous, baffling inconsistency.

Why did Nyx show Aphrodite this detailed vision of everything that will happen if Zoey doesn’t return to her body and specifically include that scene with Stevie Rae and the two versions of Rephaim fighting each other (which has nothing to do with Zoey), but she doesn’t bother explaining or showing Aphrodite that the Native American boy she sees is actually Rephaim. How does she expect Aphrodite to help Stevie Rae if she won’t actually tell Aphrodite what’s happening?

She also Stevie Rae and Rephaim an image of him as a human but gives absolutely no indication of how this might become reality. Why? What are they supposed to do with this completely context-less information?

[mittensmorgul]

This may seem like an odd question, but how do you think destiel originated in the narrative? Was it always written in? Or do you think it was the chemistry between misha and jensen that instigated it? (Or maybe some other reason...?) I'm kind of curious how Jensen, a seriously good actor, would let the "eyesex" we see just happen accidentally... There had to be some level of intentionality in the early seasons, right? Idk, im sure there's a lot we cant know there, but im curious what you think

Hi there! And first off, I think I need to stamp a big flashing disclaimer label at the top of this one, because I see a lot of well-intentioned but often cringingly misinformed or outright stabs in the dark or assumptions presented as “obvious fact,” and heck... 

I am not affiliated with the staff of the show. I don’t know what the inside of any of the writers’ or showrunners’ heads look like, you know? All I know is what I’ve heard from their own mouths over the years, which I’ve tried to piece together logically. I’m not here to present this as some sort of “document of absolute, unassailable fact,” but “this is what logic would lead me to believe personally.”

But there are some important facts to bear in mind while asking oneself how destiel came to be, and how (and why) it evolved.

First off, there’s this assumption which is arguably incorrect that Kripke began Supernatural from the pilot episode with some Grand Vision of a complete five season arc. And he himself has made numerous statements invalidating that belief. We know for a fact that his “original vision” for the show boiled down to “star wars in truck stop america” where two plucky ghost hunters drove around confronting urban legends and myths that were real in their universe. I mean, just look at the first half of s1. It’s all MotW style episodes that lay out the groundwork of the universe’s mythology.

At the start of the series, Demons were so far above the Winchesters’ pay grade, and Kripke joked about how he would never introduce Angels as part of that universe. It was a running theme in the writers’ room from the start of the series. No angels.

And then the writers’ strike happened, leaving them with a truncated s3 and no room to write themselves out of the corner they’d backed themselves into. Dean landed in Hell, and Kripke relented, with “okay, angels, but only if they’re dicks.”

I think it was likely only part of the way into s4 where Kripke stopped fearing that they might or might not get a renewal for s5 when he set about the whole Apocalypse Arc, with 5.22 as a theoretical end of the series. He has said this himself, that it was Misha joining the show that finally gave him a little breathing room to plan for the future of the series in this way.

And remember also that Misha was originally only scripted and contracted to appear in three episodes. At the beginning of s4, even Kripke hadn’t planned out the fate of his universe beyond that.

So while viewers saw 4.01 and the barn scene and immediately began shipping the thing, because that’s what shippers do, I don’t believe that Castiel was (even in Kripke’s wildest imagination) scripted to take on such a large role in canon.

So while Shipper Zero (waves hi at @k-vichan) was already making a case for destiel, Kripke was still focused on making the ratings to even THINK about planning a two season arc to stop the apocalypse. It just so happened that Castiel-- a character that Kripke had never intended to write (NO ANGELS!)-- became the hook on which his vision for the theoretical end run of his little series hung.

From his first appearance, it was clear that Castiel’s closest tie was with Dean. He pulled Dean out of Hell, and as we see unfold over the course of s4, Cas had been charged by Heaven to essentially shepherd Dean through all the necessary paces to make sure that Heaven’s will was served. Even Cas had been misled on what Heaven’s true objectives were, leading to that HUGE moment in 4.22 where Cas was forced to choose a side, and because of Dean’s influence, he rejected Heaven and chose Humanity.

Now, I don’t believe that was written as some sort of great romantic gesture, you know? Because we all know that despite what Dean and Cas struggle through together over the rest of s5, Cas’s duty returns to Heaven as soon as the apocalypse is thwarted. If Kripke’s “original vision” for the end of s5 had stood as the series end, that would’ve been the last time that Dean ever saw Cas. So... not exactly the stuff of shipper dreams, you know?

But Kripke passed the reins to Sera Gamble and s6 marched onward. The intent was to write Castiel out permanently, and thanks to Ben Edlund and 6.20 for giving Cas a voice before his inevitable demise, we end up with this bit of canonical personal betrayal and heartbreak between Dean and Cas.

Granted, going in to s6, Gamble was planning for and writing a single season arc, because she no longer had that assumption of continuing past s6. I think a lot of the romantic tropey stuff in s6 only slipped in because there was the belief at the time that a) Castiel wasn’t intended to survive the season and this is all swell but it’s never going to amount to anything but Manpain for Dean, and b) there was no guarantee they’d even be picked up for s7 to have to deal with the consequences of these choices anyway.

but then... whoopsie... they had s7 to deal with. Including spiraling ratings. By 7.17 when Cas miraculously came back, I think they’d sort of written themselves into this particular corner. Yeah, choices were made in how Cas’s return happened, but after 15 episodes of Dean mourning Cas (and Bobby, and pretty much everything else in his life up to and including Sam by 7.17), the one thing he got back first was Cas. And Cas was the key to beginning to rebuild Dean’s entire life, starting with Sam. And yet... in the same breath Cas returned Sam to him, Cas also disappeared into his own head. He was RIGHT THERE, but he had nothing else to give to Dean right then. All of that led into the buildup to s8, and I think that was really the point at which the narrative began treating Dean and Cas’s relationship as something different, and something more serious.

I’ve been watching early s8 for the last two days, and here’s a little snippet from my angst-ridden chat with lizbob this morning:

mittensmorgulI hate this. Cas, confused: So you think this was your fault?I.e. the moment when it stopped being just Dean and Cas preventing themselves from finishing a conversation, and the narrative itself took over preventing them from finishing a conversation.

mittensmorgulIt may have begun because it was starting to get implausible that they were just that stubborn about talking to one another honestly and openly, but whoopsie that actually made their relationship issues structural to the narrative

elizabethrobertajonesYeah, Ms Tran is like HEY HOW DAREYOU CAN'T FINISH A CONVERSATIONBEEP BEEP

mittensmorguland then in a few more minutes it's Interrupting Moose's turn

elizabethrobertajonesknock knock

elizabethrobertajoneswho's the-INTERRUPTING MOOSE

mittensmorguloh noooooo... go away mooseman! STOP INTERRUPTING.NO SAM, THEY ARE VERY NOT OKAY

elizabethrobertajones:

And their issues went from being a sort of sidebar to the actual narrative structure of the series and became inextricably linked with the larger narrative.

So, fun as it is to go back through the entire series and look for all the destiel along the way, I think that’s most likely when it became a factor that drove the plot, rather than something secondary to the main plot, at least from a structural perspective.

And now, after s13 and going into s14, their relationship and feelings toward one another have become foundational to the actual cosmic structure in their universe. Dean’s grief was powerful enough for Jack to ride across dimensions into the Empty, where even God was unable to tread? Yeah, that’s cosmic. And now Cas is in a similar position dealing with a cosmic, interdimensional dilemma focused on Dean. I mean... it’s literally the foundation of the narrative structure of s13 and s14. Not only are the writers taking their relationship seriously, they’re using it to support the rest of the narrative.

I think this is kinda what you asked, at least? I’ve been typing for a really long time now. D:

[overdrivels]

Hey dear!!! How about some Mei stuff? Maybe how she recovers from her cryo-freeze and deals with everything that happened to her, trying to integrate back into society/Overwatch? Thanks love!!!❤

Hi again!! Oh man, this is an interesting request. I kind of started writing some sort of drabble, but then realized that would get really long, so I put it into a list (is it called a list? Or is it just bullet points? What is something like this called? An imagine?) Please have a boat-load of angst and my bias towards dim-sum. I hope this does your request justice! ♡

When she first awoke from cryostasis, she wasn’t all there. Her mind was still waking up, so she didn’t know who she was, where she was, or what happened.

At first, she was hospitalized. Trying to regain her bearings and have her health checked out, a little bit of physical therapy here and there. Being asleep for almost a decade kind of breaks down your body. But slowly, she was exposed to the history of the past decade.

Hearing about the Petras Act and Overwatch devastated her. Not only was the world’s peace keeping task force banned by the people they swore to protect, the world was in an arguably worse place than she remembered it nine years ago. What was all her hard work for? What was Overwatch’s efforts for? Not only was she in a time she doesn’t know, everything she cared about and loved has taken a nosedive. She can’t contain it.

She reach out to anyone she could, trying to piece together what happened. She got a hold of Winston as he’s a fellow scientist. He went out to meet her personally, he was so excited.

Winston filled her in on everything that’s been happening in the past nine years, gave her files that he thought she’d find useful.  

After the initial shock, she was actually extremely active. She researched the shit out of what’s happened to the previous Ecopoint, visiting them to try and salvage as much data as possible. She spent weeks researching the current status of the world before she ventured out. She needed to see the damage.

She worked with Winston to build ‘Snowball’, she can’t do this alone and defenseless. Besides, she had the knowledge and technology.

Her first stop was Antarctica to get every scrap of information she could find. The absolute worst thing was climbing through the ruins of her once beloved lab and crossing into the cryostasis chamber. She straight-out cried, putting her hands together and offering her respects to the colleagues who can’t be here with her and swearing she’ll continue their research and carry their aspirations to make the world a better place.

Mei was overjoyed when Recall happened. She was in contact with Winston just a little bit before it happened. This means that there’s going to be help, the world can be saved, it can be beautiful again. Awesome!

One of the most heartbreaking things was when she met her family, who long thought she was dead. They cried, she cried, but for more reasons than being reunited. 

(I want to think she had a brother who would say to her parents, “See? If you speak of Cao Cao, Cao Cao will appear.”)

She ate. Cryostasis is no joke, she hasn’t eaten in years, bring on the food. She was fed so much food by her parents. She cried while eating and didn’t even know why. Was it because she just happy to see them again? Or was she pained to have missed out on their lives and making them worry? Or was she just touched by their kindness and love? Maybe the food was nostalgic, who knows. One thing was for sure, no matter how much time passed, her love for food would not change.

Beyond this is a drabble that hints at discrimination and hits a little close to home. So please be aware. 

Mei pours the tea for her parents. Half pu-erh and half chrysanthemum, a childhood favorite. The tea is a pale yellow, a sign that it has not steeped long enough. Her brother finishes ordering their preferred dishes on the holo-tablet that floats just at the edge of their round table.

She pours the steaming tea into a separate glass and hold out her hand expectantly. “Here, give me your chopsticks.”

“Hey, big sis.” Her brother looks just a bit uncomfortably at her outstretched hand where their parents deposit the chopsticks. Quietly, he says, “I don’t know if you know, but water purification has been old news now.”

Her hand curls around the utensils her parents give to her. Slowly, she lowers them into glass, allowing them (and the reality of her brother’s words) to soak in.

“Daughter, government did this,” her father says reassuringly eyes crinkling. “I think, seven years ago. Because much of the water infrastructure was destroyed, they rebuilt. Newer, better. New laws for waste and garbage. Now look, we can drink water straight from sink.”

While there is no sink in sight, her father jerks his stubbly chin at the table next to them. A child with a glass of cold water and ice, drinking it without a care. The numbness in her brain spreads just a little more. She’s been to many countries that’s had purified and drinkable water, but for her home to finally have such a thing in her lifetime, she couldn’t have imagined it.

“That’s…amazing,” she breathes, a shaky smile curling onto her face, flushed pink, somewhat embarrassed. It’s not the first time she’s felt this way since she’s found herself in the year 2076. 

She was one of the first to enter into cryostasis.

Doctors couldn’t tell her why she was the only one who survived. Perhaps her colleagues spent more time calibrating her chamber. Maybe it was just because she was lucky. No one was truly sure. She begged, almost hysterical, to have them contact Overwatch, to let them know what had happened. The nurses had to continue devastating her: in addition to the loss of her team, the world has rejected Overwatch. Everything she worked for was no more.

Doctors tried to get a hold of her family based off her still fuzzy recollection of their contact details. They managed to get a hold of her brother, who couldn’t believe his older sister still lived, and first played it off as a sick hoax. But the truth was evident when they video-chatted each other. She couldn’t recognize the man on the other side of the screen, who looked older than she. He promised to get her at the airport. Their parents would want to see her. 

The trip back to China was far from easy. Winding streets that she once knew like the back of her hand became orderly roads with traffic control bots at nearly every major intersection, directing both human and vehicular traffic. She was heavily berated for rushing across a street she has crossed in the same manner nearly a decade ago.

‘Damn foreigner.’ That stung her so hard, she nearly got hit by a car. 

And even when she returned to her family home, she almost couldn’t recognize her own parents. 

Her mother’s eyes were always bad, but to see her without those thick glasses, it’s like she’s an entirely different person. They widened and shone like marbles when they land on Mei. Her mother rushes at her, a noise of anguish and relief tearing from her throat. Mei clings to her mother tight as they both cried, embarrassingly loud. Mei can’t even remember the last time she’s hugged her family.

Her recollection is interrupted by the sudden arrival of their food.

This got dark in a strange way. But now you also know my preference for tea in dim-sum. Mm.