#becos he always knew where she ran to when she left. he's not stupid. she never really fucking tried to hide.

[biillys]

oh ohhhhhhh ohhh wait. wait a fucking minute. listen. listen!!!!

flayed!billy and neil having an run-in a few days before The End. flayed!billy not scaring as easily, actually not scaring at all, compared to actual real!billy. turning right back on neil. except the mindflayer has a soft spot for his host becos the mindflayers fucked like that, so instead of just killing neil, the mindflayer decides to play with it's food for a bit.

real!billy doing his Thing and managing to get that one tear out. becos his dad may be a piece of shit but surely, surely, out of everyone, he would be able to figure out something's wrong. that billy's not billy. the desperation and the hope that maybe this is it, maybe this is only option, maybe making him just that little bit stronger. maybe him getting a 'dad, help, please' with a few more tears out before the mindflayer takes over again. but neil's a fucking coward at most and a piss poor excuse of a father at best, so he takes one look at billy crying, begging, and shakes off any doubt's and worry's, and treats him like he always does when billy turns to water under his weight.

he makes his voice harder, his grip tighter. his words crystal fucking clear.

and then flayed!billy is shoving him off, stronger than neil's ever felt him, and he's laughing, but not in a way neil's ever heard him laugh. and then he's turning to walk right out the door, camaro keys in hand, even though neil just grounded him for the entire fourth of july weekend, except he turns around just before he makes it outside, face completely blank and familiar, but neil's never seen this person before in his life, and says 'when billy and i have finished what we started, i'll come back for you.' and then he's gone.

and neil picks himself up from where he was crumpled against the kitchen counter, shakes himself off, and denies everything that just happened in the past 15 minutes. grips the bench to stop his hands from shaking, and promises himself that next time he sees billy, then he'll really let him have it. that just because billy thinks he's old enough to throw his own weight around, doesn't mean he's gonna get away with it under this roof.

except billy never comes home, and then it's the fourth of july, and neil and susan are trying to enjoy a nice dinner at home, a dinner that both their children were meant to be home for but aren't, but at least him and susan are having a lovely night. they enjoy it right up until the phone rings late that night, and then they're speeding to starcourt mall, and there's smoke and flashing lights and fucking military everywhere, and max is distraught, hugging susan like she's the only family she has left, and no one will tell him anything about billy except for a brief 'billy didn't make it, we're sorry for your loss.'

they won't let him identify the body. won't even release the body to be buried. won't tell him why all those people were in the mall after opening hours, what max and her friends were doing there. what started the fire. why there was fucking military clearing the scene. won't even give him a cause of death.

and every single time he closes his eyes, he hears 'when billy and i have finished what we started, i'll come back for you.'

he starts hearing it when his eyes are open, too, when he's trying to put together the funeral. when he tries to go back to normal life, back to his job, where his boss pulls him aside and gives him time off until his current family situation can stop effecting his work, back home, where there's no longer loud music shaking the doors, no car flooring it up the street, no fourth place set at the table for dinner, no shitty attitude and lousy excuses and brave backtalk.

everything's suddenly so fucking quiet.

so he fixes it. overcorrects. takes his sleepless nights and his workless days out on susan, is loud and brash and a constant immovable object. makes sure it's never quiet again. susan kicks him to the curb within a month, threatening police involvement if he doesn't leave quickly and quietly.

so, he leaves.

(then, susan and max leave for the trailer park, becos neil Left. and that's all susan will say on the matter. and then the upside down comes back with a new big bad, and max is right back in the thick of things in a way she never was before, but then suddenly billy's back. billy's alive, and he's back, and he's pulling himself with his bare fucking hands out of the upside fucking down before reaching around and helping her pull herself out and he's covered in blood and black goo and scars and injuries for days and, honestly, she probably doesn't look much better, but he's coughing and bleeding yet his heart's still fucking beating. and they somehow fucking found and saved each other.

and max is sitting by his bedside in hospital after every single surgery, and she keeps him company and puts headphones over his ears to listen to music and picks out the comic books that she knows he likes to read and she does her best to just never mention anything home related.

billy makes it a week after being back from the dead before he asks about neil.

'he left,' she says, because that's all that matters.

and billy fucking remembers. he remembers how hard he fought, how it took everything within him to overpower the mindflayer, even for those brief few seconds. how the only thing on his mind was this is it. this is my only chance. this is all i've got. and he remembers neil's eyes, wide, scared, fearful, but the second billy broke through, the moment billy shed a tear, fucking begged for help, his voice cracking over the word 'dad', neil went from speechless to loud. his eyes going from uncertain to cold. how the one time billy remembers asking his dad for help, probably the first time he's asked his dad for help since he was a kid, neil didn't even take even a moment to think about it. just took one look at him begging and crying, and steamrolled right over him, fucking sentenced him to death. all because he asked for fucking help.

billy closes his eyes and nods, doesn't think he could ever face neil again without falling apart for good.)

[randombitchsince1996]

Stupid Cupid: Chapter 1

Characters: Chanyeol, Kyungsoo, Lee Sarang (OC)

Genre: Fluffy, Romance, Comedy, Fantasy

Warnings: None

Word Count: 2,227

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE GO TO MY MASTERLIST

Park Sunhye and Kim Jihoon’s names were painted prettily upon the thick small card, the words gleaming in a sparkled pink. They were my latest mission.

They had been around each other their wholes lives and yet had no idea they were meant to be, they didn’t even know the other existed. In kindergarten, Sunhye had accidentally given Jihoon the flu and they both missed a good week of school as a result. In Elementary school, Jihoon and Sunhye had classes together but never really interacted, they just could recognize the other without placing them. In Middle School, Jihoon‘s best friend tried dating Sunhye and dragged Jihoon into his schemes. Jihoon didn’t play along, further keeping the two apart. Then High School came and their schedules were completely different, they just knew each other as a passing face in the hall.

Now they somehow wound up at the same University and still hadn’t fallen in love, hadn’t had some wistful run-in with each other that sparked something more. It was a fun case, more fun than most the ones I got as a Soulmate Cupid. I was grateful it wasn‘t passed to Baekhyun, though for it to be his case they would‘ve had to have known each other intimately since childhood.

He had an interesting task, a bit more interesting than mine. He got to follow them as they grew; he got to watch their relationship develop from friendship to something more. His was a journey, mine was lighting a match at the end of a line of oil and letting sparks fly as I sent them off. My missions were quick and sweet. Though seeing the couples get all lovey-dovey and completely entranced was always a joy. Hearing Baekhyun brag about his missions was not a joy.

Though I mean, I couldn‘t complain. At least I wasn‘t apart of the learning department. They had to deal with the breakups, the relationships that were meant to be lessons to those involved and sometimes abuse. I was lucky in that sense, I got the pink cotton candy sugary love, they got the dark angsty romance that wasn‘t ever really romance and they were the ones who incited it. I couldn‘t imagine being ok with doing that, but hey I didn’t have to live with those thoughts I was a lucky Cupid.

I pocketed the small little paper and watched quietly. My bare feet brushed the rough, pebbled walkway that branched out from the massive glass front of Seoul University. I couldn‘t feel the roughness, I just assumed it was there—I had to assume most things. I mean Cupids weren‘t exactly of the Human world and so we didn’t feel the world or experience it the way they did we didn‘t even really eat or use the bathroom.

To be honest, toilets were kind of scary. I mean the humans just hit a lever and the loud whooshing sound was enough to set my feathers on edge. Yes, that was the one thing tales about us go semi-right. We had wings, they just weren‘t tiny minuscule things that looked too small for our bodies. Ours were large enough to carry our weight, they were white and pure stretching out several feet. They were muscled and elegant. We were like geese but like, not geese.

I mean for one, I didn’t have a weird, hard orange beak protruding from my face, and I didn‘t squawk at people if they walked past me. I also didn’t flap my wings threateningly to make myself look bigger, besides I don‘t think it would work on a human figure. Then again, I never tried it.

Note to self: Flap wings at Baekhyun threateningly and see how he reacts.

Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah, in front of Seoul University.

The trees and shrubs that decorated the campus rustled as though they were being touched by a cool breeze. I didn’t know, of course, I couldn‘t even feel that, though I had heard of breezes and wind. I got to see its invisible hand at work often. The ruffling of the green leaves was enough to hint at it being a cool summer night. The sky above was darkened and freckled with specks of light. The campus was lit in random spots with towering light poles, the glass front of the school was darkened as well except for a few lights. They let those outside know people were still residing inside, probably late study groups or those who had nothing to go home to—it was weird to think about as most humans might be resting at home by now.

At least from what I had observed. We didn’t really need sleep. We worked day and night with little breaks here and there, we didn‘t even really eat. I stepped forward and slipped through the glass, the sensation tickled a bit as it always did and I was on my way. The campus was one I knew decently enough, though I didn’t need to bother with halls, locks, or any barrier humans would have to deal with so that made it a bit simpler.

It also helped that most soulmates wound up together in college and this was a frequent haunt of mine, to say the least. Though based on the fresh and shining wood flooring, they had definitely done some renovations since I last showed up. The walls were covered in new paintings, and articulate sketches that had student names plastered next to them. It had to have been many human years since I was last here that didn‘t seem possible but I guess time moved a bit different with us.

We didn’t have much of anything in the way of holidays so keeping track of days wasn’t really necessary and if we did have days how would we keep track? I mean we didn’t sleep, and that seemed to be the thing that decided days for humans.

A tingle in the pit of my stomach pulled me from my thoughts, it was what we used to guide us. The sensation and feeling would get stronger the closer we got to one of our targets. It was the main reason I had showed up here; the feeling pulled me here so either Sunhye or Jihoon were here or both. I wandered down the hallway; it was barren though I could hear the mutters of random students here and there-their voices muffled by thick plaster and concrete blocks.

I wandered along in the dark, wondering what going to school might feel like—we didn‘t need much of an education so it was unnecessary. Yet, the idea of College and school, in general, was fascinating in itself. It kind of reminded me of headquarters, we all were there and it was how we made our friends and our connections. It was where we learned to be Cupids. I mean schools seemed to be where they all gathered to make friends though I think they had more drama. I wasn‘t entirely sure. I didn’t get to spy on them for super long periods of time though Baekhyun had the tendency to spill the odd gossip to me here and there.

Like once a girl named Nam Joohyun dog slapped another girl for eyeing her man. But, of course, Baekhyun knew “her man” wasn’t actually her man. Nam Joohyun had no idea she was a Lesbian. In love with her best friend, Baekhyun just had to orchestrate everything appropriately and the pieces would fall in line and she’d be with the girl of her dreams in no time.

Baekhyun seemed to be all about the gossip, meanwhile, I was left out of it for the sole reason that I didn‘t have to follow them for so long. He got to witness human growth, I got to see the result of it.

More soft sounds of people talking in their little night study groups. Words were jumbled and useless to me, so I walked on ignoring them all.

The sensation in the pit of my stomach spread like wildfire, it consumed the entirety of my chest now and was beginning to singe my shoulders. I turned another corner and walked a bit farther into the weird alcove when another sound hit me. It wasn‘t a voice.

It was soft, subtle, and melodic. It carried through the small space and swelled randomly before dipping back into something softer. I spun in a circle for a moment, my senses dulled by the odd noise. Turns out the small alcove bubbled out towards a set of double doors that didn‘t match most of the ones that seemed to be lining the other halls. The sound was emerging from the cracks and crevices the doors left when closed.

The feeling in my chest didn‘t get stronger as I stared at them. However, my curiosity peaked and shot up double. I knew people listened to music, I even knew they had this sorry excuse of a song called Stupid Cupid. However, I never got to listen to it. It was something I only heard in passing and what I usually heard was something reminiscent of hitting babies one more time—which sounded a bit demented. Or songs that went too fast to possibly be speaking any real language. Though in Korea the songs were more lovey-dovey, fitting of us Cupids. I still was a bit perturbed by the one time I heard the hitting babies song, I know humans can be a bit morally bankrupt but that one crossed a bit of a line. I never really wanted to listen to music again after that one.

This music was something entirely different, it was relaxing. It wasn‘t flashy or overdressed, it was bare and raw. The notes were oddly jagged and tilted yet gentle. Like the person creating it was feeling something deep that they couldn’t comprehend. I couldn’t help it, the urge to see the person playing the song was too feral and intense. I slipped through the double doors and came out at the top of a deeply sloped room.

Steps went straight down from where I stood to a raised platform at the very front. The space was enshrouded in black except for a singular light that was on the platform. It silently highlighted the features of the person creating the music. I stepped down and ignored the hoards of chairs that seemed to also be focused on him. It was as though he were performing for an audience despite me being the only one there.

He sat with his legs folded precariously at the edge of the platform. An odd instrument that I think was called a guitar sat in his lap and his fingers ran along the long thing part, his other hand plucked the strings and new notes echoed across the dark room.

I took a couple steps closer. His features becoming more stark and noticeable. His hair was dark and styled messily atop his small face. A perfectly pointed chin rested beneath startingly pink lips. They parted and a beautiful rough voice emerged and blossomed right before my eyes. He was singing. He was singing, and it was beautiful and raw just like the notes he strummed.

I took another step, now being able to see just how tall he was—his limbs seemed to stretch out for forever despite the way they were folded conveniently. His eyes seemed to bulge beneath his closed lids, long lashes feathered out upon his tanned cheeks. He was just as beautiful as the music he created.

My hand raised, my fingers wanting to touch his cheek. I knew I wouldn’t be able to feel anything; I knew it. I heard humans were warm though and in that moment I wanted to feel warmth. The way his voice was making me feel warm, the way his music was making me feel warm. My fingertips rested too far away, and he was higher up than I. I fluttered my wings and let the weightlessness of flight take me, this time the tips of my fingers were so close to him.

I could close my eyes and picture the way he might feel, the way he might smell.

Click

Suddenly the music was gone, the space was gone. The tingling sensation that was linked to my mission was gone. It no longer sat alive in my chest. My chest was barren. The pit of my torso twisted and pinched. I had been pulled, I could feel the way fingers bit into my abdomen pulling me from the Human world and into ours. I could suddenly feel again, smell again and I knew by the subtle strawberry scent that I was at headquarters.

My eyes parted, and I gasped seeing the sleek and elegant curves of the head Cupid, Hyorin. Her sharp eyes flashed as she blinked, her lips didn‘t twitch into a frown or into a cordial smile. She was all business. She read the confusion on my face plainly, I didn’t know what had just happened.

“Wha—” she cut me off before I could voice my confusion.

“We need to talk Sarang.”