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astaroth1357 · 5 years ago

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Brothers Finding Out a Lesser Demon with a Crush is “Moving In” on MC

You know, I like to show the good sides of our boys a lot… But how about the ugly for today? Let's let them just being mean, nasty, possessive little demons, huh?

Full disclaimer: I almost didn’t post this because I received an answer post from @diavolosthots that ended up being distressingly similar to this idea about 3/4th of the way through drafting it. I’m posting it anyway because of the time I’ve already sunk into it but in exchange I will absolutely encourage you to read from @diavolosthots if you aren’t already. They’re a big reason why I’m making content to begin with and I love what they’ve done. Warning: their blog is a LOT less fluffy than mine (they probably wouldn't be into my stuff 😅) and has NSFW content so be prepared for that going in. If that’s not your thing then just give them a pass, cool?

Check out the Masterlist for more!

Warnings: Violence, Bullying, Cyberbullying, Cannibalism(?), Murder, Yandere-ish

This is all for the purposes of fantasy and in no way an endorsement for these behaviors in real life. Be nice (and smart) with your lives, my friends.

Lucifer

Is honestly offended for them.

Don’t they know the caliber of demon MC rubs elbows with every day? Do they honestly think they’d stand a chance? Any one of his brothers would be more deserving than some lesser demon suitor and that even INCLUDES Mammon.

But of course, the real reason they’d stand no chance is because he wants the MC too and he’s not planning on sharing with or losing to someone who isn’t even worthy to be stuck under his boot...

He may lay down some… “discreet” hints for the poor demon to look elsewhere.

Things like advising Diavolo to make some emergency changes to the classes at RAD so they no longer share any class together or watching the demon extra closely for any minute slip up he can flag them for. If he could have them expelled for a dress code violation, he’d do it no sweat.

Okay, "discreet hints…" Flagrant misuses of power… Same difference right?

He may never come right out and say they should leave MC alone (why dignify the guy with such a response?) but if looks could kill then his “competition” would be utterly decimated by now. Especially if he ever catches the two in the same room... Yikes.

Mammon

Oooo buddy, he ain’t happy. He doesn’t even like sharing with his brothers and now some rando wants a piece too?? Nuh-uh. No way.

Takes the more direct approach and just confronts the guy when the MC isn’t around. It's good for the demon that Mammon doesn’t like resorting to violence if he doesn’t have to. Heated words and a threat or two will be exchanged then they can go their separate ways.

That can be the end of it if the guy backs off (as anyone with sense should). But if not…

When he makes a threat, and he’s serious about it, Mammon makes good on them.

He’ll come back to the House one night a little beat up, maybe with a few nicks and scratches. Of course he’ll want the MC to play nurse for him and he’ll be delighted if they accept (even if his tsundere ass won’t say it).

The lesser demon apparently dropped out of RAD the next day. No explanation given. He didn’t even step foot back on the school grounds to do it...

Of course, everyone’s sure there’s no relation between the two. I mean, this is the same Mammon we’re talking about… right...?

Leviathan

It’s a miracle he even found out but now that he knows he’s pissed. He’s not the Avatar of Envy for nothing.

Look, he might be a shut-in and not worth all that much but he’s got to be better than some lesser demon guy! He’s the third born and he has a freaking navy for crying out loud!!

Will likely leave his room for the first time in who knows how long to follow the MC to RAD. Once he’s got a face to the name, that’s all he needs for his hatred to really get going...

He will make this dude’s life a living hell with the best tool a shut-in has, the Internet.

He’ll dedicate a freaking week to digging up dirt on this bozo then start releasing it out to everywhere he frequents. Not a single sock of that dirty laundry is getting left out. All of his most embarrassing secrets are laid bare for the Devildom to see.

He’d cover his tracks, of course, so nothing can be traced back to him. The MC is probably none-the-wiser to who’s spreading all this hot gossip but his brothers know right away.

Once the dude’s social life and pride are in utter ruin, he’ll invite the MC over for a movie marathon to celebrate! He might even get a little more cuddly than usual... His MC is with him and that’s how it ought to be.

Satan

Pffft… That’s cute. Real cute they think they stand a chance. He’d wish them luck but he also kind of wants to stab them so…

On the one hand, he knows he probably shouldn’t waste his time but on the other he just can’t resist the call to absolute devastation that his inner rage is forcing on him...

His new goal is to utterly undermine the new competition in every way, mental and physical, which means he will take every opportunity he can to demonstrate just how much on another level he is.

Gets nitpicky and corrects the guy’s every move. If he says something wrong in class, he’ll berate him for it. Make a social faux pas? Well now the whole school is going to know about it.

Doesn’t stop there, though. He will do everything in his power short of throwing the first punch to try and instigate a fight with the him. He knows that if he technically starts it then the punishment will be on him, but the other way around he can say, “Hey, he’s the one who punched Wrath incarnate. What was he expecting would happen?”

Any resulting fight between the two would be a very one-sided bloodbath. He will not hold back at all and stop when he damn well feels like. The guy will be in whatever the Devildom equivalent to a hospital is for weeks...

If the MC tries to ask him about his behavior, he’ll gaslight them and change the subject. He doesn’t really like indulging in the more violent side of himself in his day-to-day life but some things just can’t be helped, can they?

Asmodeus

Honestly not as bothered as the others are. He knows they stand zero chance, so why worry? It’s bad for the skin.

But that doesn’t mean he’s going to sit back and do nothing. Oh no, a zero chance could always become a one, even five percent chance if you’re not careful.

Asmo’s preferred method of ridding competition is like a mixture of Satan and Levi, but Oh. So. Much. Worse.

Lesser demons can be astonishingly easy to charm without them noticing and he is the best charmer of the family. He’s pretty popular to start with but suddenly he’s talking to almost everyone he comes across until, well, he’s got the whole school listening.

From there it’s child’s play. Suddenly, the demon’s friends won’t talk to them. People stare and whisper about them in the hallways, is what they’re saying true? Doesn’t matter. Asmo could feed them anything and they’d believe it.

He’ll make sure they feel isolated, alone, and hated by everyone they speak to and they won’t even know why. Going to RAD at all will be like walking into a prison. Ideally, they’ll just stop going, and then tada! Competition no more.

Of course, he could just charm the competitor to look elsewhere, but then who’s going to be the example to the others? Nobody needs any more “Zero-Chancers” popping up around the MC, right? You’re welcome, sweetie~! 😘

Beelzebub

He’s trying not to be that guy, he really is… but since the MC is involved… Really? You actually think you got a shot there, buddy?

Probably going to be the brother most likely to try and let the guy down gently at first, but make no mistake he will make sure he knows it’s a lost cause.

If the other demon still insists on being a competitor though… Alright.

MC pretty much goes under his “protection” from that point on. If they’re at RAD at all, Beel is not far behind. Not exactly looking outright intimidating but always just…. there.

But if the dude so much as enters a room with them he’ll be sure to stare him down and mention that he’s hungry a little louder and a lot more often.

To the MC that may just be typical Beel, but everyone else there knows Beel has swallowed lesser demons whole in the past. And for a lot less reason than this...

When Beel gets territorial he can be a subtle about it, but terrifying nonetheless.

Belphegor

Would laugh in their face and give zero shits about it.

Like, even as the weakest sibling he could snap them like a toothpick and that’s not even getting to how they probably know jack all about the MC anyway. What even is this idiot??

Starts pulling some casual “pranks” on the guy to grief him at first. Little things like tripping him up with his tail or taking his things and hiding them in inconvenient places.

The lazy part of him hopes he’ll get the message and back off but that sadistic side really hopes he doesn’t so he’ll never talk to him directly...

When, of course, the dude doesn’t back off because he doesn't know he's supposed to, his pranks start escalating. A textbook in the school pool suddenly becomes an explosive curse put on their backpack. A kind of homicidal passive-aggression, if you will.

By some unholy miracle the guy manages to last a couple days after a barrage of progressively lethal murder attempts pranks, Belphie’s inner laziness and frustration will finally get to him and he’ll cut the passive from his aggression.

Much like with Mammon, everyone finds out that the demon dropped out of school quite suddenly. But he’s also seemed to have gone dark from all his socials and his friends can’t seem to find him anywhere...

Concerns were raised with Lucifer but he doesn’t seem very enthusiastic about starting an investigation... It’s not the first time he’s covered for his brothers after all. 🙄🤷‍♀️

#obey me #obey me shall we date #shall-we-date-obey-me #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me asmodeus #obey me satan #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me scenarios #obey me headcanons

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lokilickedme · 3 years ago

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The Way

I’m writing horror again. I guess it’s that time, you know, that time that has nothing to do with Halloween or the seasons or whatever, that time when it just hits me for some reason. And just like I always do, I’ll say I don’t know why.

Even though I know why, and you know I know why.

Because the truth is always so much weirder and worse and more disquieting than any excuse I could make up for it, and sometimes I just feel the need.

Today I felt the need, and I couldn’t make it go away.

And so I sat down, and words I didn’t want to write were written.

8592 words I would rate this Mature 18+ if it was a fic, strictly because of the subject matter.

Warnings: Death, mostly. Religious trauma, brief descriptions of abuse, mentions of mental illness, domestic violence, grief, familial dysfunction, religious abuse, emotional abuse, medical conditions, brief mentions of drug use/abuse, mild gore in reference to corpse decomposition, psychological unease and mild terror, child abuse (mental/emotional/psychological), brief allusion to physical child abuse, cult references, loss of faith, attempted murder, possible actual murder.

A Note: I love you guys, you’re always so quick and willing to be helpful and offer advice and suggestions and such, and I adore that about you.�� But on this piece of work I ask that nobody offer any theories about what happened to my brother - medical, criminal, or otherwise - and please no suggestions on things we could do to pursue investigation, that ship has long sailed. It’s been 23 years and he’s a cold case. We spent years trying to sort it out but in the end it’s just something that happened, and we moved on because we had to. There are a lot of open ends, a lot of question marks, a lot of suspicious details that never connected to anything - and we tried, we truly did. If anyone out there knows the truth, they’ve never shown themselves to us. We do have our theories, but my brother was a secretive person living a life none of us knew about, and the people he knew weren’t people we knew. Everyone involved is either dead or moved on or got away with whatever it was they did, and there are only three of us who still care. It’s over.

Until today, I’ve never put these events into words.

It was something I needed to do, finally.

This is PART ONE. There may not be a part two, unless doing this ends up making me feel better.

Please feel free to comment if you wish. As you can see, pretty much nothing triggers me. I just ask that you please refrain from the type of comments noted above.

And thank you.

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This is, regrettably, a true story. Nothing has been changed but the names, because the dead don’t like being talked about, and James was just enough of a shit to haunt me for it.

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They made up their minds And they started packing They left before the sun came up that day An exit to eternal summer slacking But where were they going without ever knowing the way

They drank up the wine And they got to talking They now had more important things to say And when the car broke down They started walking Where were they going without ever knowing the way

Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved in gold And it's always summer They'll never get cold They'll never get hungry They'll never get old and gray You can see their shadows wandering off somewhere They won't make it home But they really don't care They wanted the highway They're happier there today, today

Their children woke up And they couldn't find them They left before the sun came up that day They just drove off and left it all behind them But where were they going without ever knowing the way?

You can see their shadows wandering off somewhere They won't make it home But they really don't care They wanted the highway They're happier there today, today

- The Way, Fastball, 1998

That was the year James died in his sleep.

Or that’s what they say, anyway. Asthma, the likely cause based on his medical history, our first and least disturbing assumption. Undetermined, the official determination based on the hastily scraped-together autopsy, the best that could be done under the circumstances. We tell people he had breathing problems, and they nod their heads and agree because they knew he did, and now he’s been gone so long that nobody asks. Most of the people who ever met him have long moved on or disappeared or died themselves, or just remember him as the enigmatic middle son from the Keithley family that nobody really knew very well. You know, the odd one, the one that showed up at meetings maybe once a year and smiled nervously but didn’t really talk to anyone and always seemed anxious to leave? The one who died under mysterious circumstances? That one.

He left the way he always came in. Quietly, unexpected, without anyone being aware of either his entrance or his exit.

But me and mom know some things, and she’s not talking. She probably never will.

So maybe it’s time I did.

December 1998. I’d gotten married two years previous and moved back to the family land with my new husband. He hated it there, but we had an affordable place to live. It wasn’t bad. He’d tell you otherwise. The land never sat right with him, but I’d lived there too many years to see it. I’d been fifteen when my father uprooted his large family from the city and hauled us out to the great back door to nowhere, and even though I’d left several times to wander elsewhere, I always came back.

I didn’t realize why at the time, at any of the multiple times. But now I know. That place gets you, and it holds you, and unless you’re goddamned devoted to staying gone you will always be pulled back. It took me till I was 49 to funnel the necessary amount of devotion away from the religious dedication I’d had jackbooted into me and turn it toward getting out, but against a great number of overwhelming odds I finally did it.

But this isn’t about that, not yet anyway. This is about my brother James, and how he went to sleep one night and found his own way out.

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It was snowing, had been for days, a bit unusual but not unheard of. The part of the state we lived in was notorious for extended ice storms and we knew a bad one was coming, but until it hit we played in the snow like it was a gift and we were deprived children who knew it was all going to be taken away soon. My brothers and I were adults but you wouldn’t know it, watching us sneak around in the woods staging elaborate commando attacks on each other. James was the best of us, a stealth king who could stand in the middle of a room for an hour without a single soul seeing him. Perception bias, he said. Your brain ignores me because I obviously don’t belong, like those puzzles where you circle what’s wrong but it takes you forever to find them.

He crept around in the forest scaring the shit out of people, dropping his long tall self out of trees, appearing from nowhere to administer a well aimed snowball to the face of whoever happened to cross his path and then disappearing just as quickly. We called him a wraith and it wasn’t a good natured jibe. We meant it. He made people nervous. He was the stealthy kind of quiet you associate with danger, and he knew how to do things an average person doesn’t ever have any need to know. It was a quiet cool that we admired him for, because none of the rest of us had it.

The religion we were raised in kept a tight lid on us, but me and James, we never really let it get into our bones. We were the smart ones, in retrospect. I went through the motions by force of habit and a sense of self preservation, doing what was expected and demanded of me, following the rules and making myself a perfect example of a young member of the church so I wouldn’t bring shame on the congregation and my family. But mostly the congregation. It was always more important than anything else. And I had behaving down to an art form, but mostly when people were looking. Usually also when they weren’t.

But sometimes, not quite.

And then I prayed for forgiveness about it later because God was supposed to forgive you if you asked him to, right? The tenet of willful sin being unforgivable never took root with me even though that was what the church conditioned into us through fear and constant repetition. They said it from the stage two nights a week and again on Sunday to hammer it home. Two nights a week and again on Sunday my head silently disagreed. God’s not like that. And then I did the praying for forgiveness thing even though I knew I was right, because I was disagreeing with the church, and the church was God’s channel here on Earth, wasn’t it? I committed a mortal sin at least three times a week on that subject alone, and though the dread of divine punishment was hardwired into me, I never could reconcile the concept of a loving and forgiving God destroying me simply for knowing better.

I’m not sure the comprehension of an overwatching deity ever actually established itself in James’ brain. A moral code, yes. But isn’t that what God is, really? Maybe he understood more about God and forgiveness than the rest of us. But he was considered an unapproved fringe member of the church because he couldn’t suffer people and noise and being looked at and he refused to preach, and he was soft-shunned as a result. Because if you weren’t all in to the point of being willing to die at any moment for your faith, you were as good as faithless.

And faithless meant condemned. And the congregation couldn’t be bothered with condemned people, regardless of their reasons for not having both feet in the water. The first and only option on their list was to put the person out and let them find their own way back once they realized they had nobody left in the world who cared about them.

James escaped that somehow. He was supposed to be shunned whole scale, but he wasn’t trying to convince anyone to leave the faith and he presented no threat to anyone’s strength of belief, and so far as anyone knew he’d committed no grave sins other than disinterest. So the rule that dictated we cast him out was bent enough to allow him to remain living on the family land, though at one point during a fit of overzealous righteousness my mother had tried to have a family meeting to vote on whether or not we were going to let him stay. I refused to vote and when I walked out of the house the meeting fell apart.

I’ve never forgiven her for that. Her son’s life being put to a vote with her presiding over the proceedings, vengeful and unfeeling and devoid of compassion on behalf of God himself. It takes my breath away, the anger, still to this day. The only thing I ever truly learned from my mother about parenting was a long and intensely detailed list of what not to do to my own children, and I suppose I should be grateful for that. It’s a bitter thank-you to have to give, but it’s something.

We knew James as much as he would allow us to, and not an inch further. Which meant the extent of our knowledge of him pretty much stretched to include the singular fact that he was different. What that meant, I still don’t really know - but it was there from the day he was born, that slight off-ness, the oddly off center calibration that you can’t really see so much as sense in a person. I know now he was likely on the autism spectrum and he walked through life seeing and reacting to everything differently than most of us, but that wasn’t a thing back then. You were just weird, or you weren’t. And I’m not convinced that was a bad thing for him, strictly speaking. But in the confines of our religion and our family’s devout and sometimes violent dedication to it, it took its toll almost daily.

He stood out, and he was very much a person who didn’t want to. He wanted to fade into the background, to not be seen, to not be known. And our religion didn’t tolerate that kind of nonsense, because we were commanded to be bold bearers of The Word Of God, and no exceptions were made.

None.

I’m going to stop calling it a religion now. I beg your indulgence as I shift to calling it what it is, because calling it a religion is an insult to actual religions that don’t destroy peoples’ lives with callous indifference and murderous glee.

We were raised in a doomsday death cult. There’s no other name that fits.

And we were trapped in it and its ugly cycle of neverending mental and emotional manipulation and abuse until we were adults, and some of us are still bound to it. My oldest brother worked his way up to the upper levels of oversight in the local congregation and was solidly entrenched in it until his death, which is a story for later. My youngest brother, the last remaining living blood sibling I have, is still deeply in it to this day and will likely never leave it.

I took the hard way out, three years ago, by walking away.

James, though. He took the easy way. He simply closed his eyes, and he was free.

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December 22, 1998. Three days before Christmas, though that meant nothing to us. The cult told us Christmas was a filthy demonic pagan ritual that was condemned by God, so to us the season was just a nice chilly time of year with lots of time off from work. We’d had an unusual amount of snow, the most we’d had in years. The roads were impassable and everyone was home except my husband, who worked close enough that his boss at the glass shop came and picked him up that morning with chains on his tires. Lots of windshields had shattered from the sudden violent cold that had struck the previous night and Scott had the only glass shop for sixty miles.

I think it must have been around noon, and likely my mother had sent my dad up the hill to see if James wanted to come down for the lunch she was making. He and his wife had split up against the strict rules of the church after a few years of suffering through an ill advised marriage, an important detail to this story that will come into the tale later, and he was alone up there at the top of the hill a lot. Sometimes he forgot to eat, or he got so busy that he just didn’t bother, so our mother always made something for him because even though he was in his 20′s he was still a kid who needed looking after and her zealous fervor against him had died down with time. I think he let her believe he was helpless because it worked in his favor and there was always lunch waiting for him in her kitchen as a result.

He was different, he wasn’t dumb.

We all lived on the hill back then with the exception of our youngest brother. He’d moved to the city with his new wife not long prior. The locals jokingly called the place a commune, and I guess they weren’t completely wrong. Thirty-eight acres of wooded land far beyond the city limits that we’d painstakingly spent years carving a livable space into, with five houses, all built from the ground up and inhabited by an extended family of well known culties from a well known cult. It’s almost comical, looking back on it, knowing now how they kept an eye on us for years to make sure we weren’t doing anything weird up there.

They should have run us off with pitchforks and burning stakes at the very beginning.

Things might have ended differently for us if they had.

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My grandparents lived at one end of the property, an old couple as simple and solid as salted soup, devoutly religious and devoted to the cult and very much cut from the can survive anything and probably will cloth like so many old country folks of their generation. They were waiting out the end of days up there in their little wooden house, expecting the final hour of this old system to come long before their own demise. I liked my grandmother, she had a sweet smile and fell asleep every time granddad started talking about the Bible and she paid me five dollars every Wednesday to drive her into town to get groceries, and years later, when she was dying, she told me she’d had a dream where she met my unborn son. I was four months pregnant and didn’t know yet that I was having a boy. She died before he was born, but to this day, fifteen years later, he tells me he’s sure he met her, he just can’t remember when.

I was scared of my grandfather. Not terrified, but there was nothing grandfatherly to him and I always suspected he never actually liked kids much. He’d once told us a story about the great Fort Worth flood that wiped out most of the city when my mom was a baby, and how he had told my grandmother to let go of my 2-year-old mother while he was struggling to get them across a rushing flooded creek in water up to their shoulders. My grandmother couldn’t swim. We could make another Ruthie, he said. But I couldn’t get another ‘Nita.

He said it proudly, like he was to be admired for his choice. I was young when he told that story, but it settled into me that this was evil.

Even when he was old as dirt and dying of a brain tumor in hospice care, he made me uneasy. I was never close to him. But for some reason, in his final days, he forgot who everyone was except me. I had been living in another state for years and he hadn’t seen me since before the tumor started taking his life. But when I walked into the room he turned his head and looked at me, and he mouthed my name.

He couldn’t speak. I don’t know what he was trying to say, struggling with words that nobody could hear. And I felt bad. I didn’t want to be the last person he recognized. My cousins adored him and had spent the last few years constantly at his side, and they were angry, maybe justifiably, that I was the one he reached for.

I didn’t want that at all.

I don’t believe he was a bad man, but he never spoke of anything except the cult’s interpretation of the Bible, and it was as tiresome as it was terrifying. Granddads are supposed to be fun. Ours quoted doctrine at us in a deep loud commanding voice that you couldn’t interrupt and you couldn’t tune out, and once he got going you had to just settle in and wait for him to run out of zealous steam. And then he would suddenly stop and command grandmother to turn on a John Wayne movie and bring him some ice cream, and it was over until the next time.

I know my mother resented him. She knew grandmother was the one that had refused to let her go, the one that had held onto her even though she almost drowned by the simple act of holding on. She knew her father had been willing to let her wash away and drown. That he thought she was interchangeable with whatever baby they would have next. How she could spend her entire life with that knowledge and not be deeply affected by it was something that never made sense to me, but now, when she’s in her 70′s and I’m in my 50′s, I finally understand. It affected her. She’ll just be damned if she’ll let anyone see it. And she had stood there in that hospice room watching him mouth my name with resentment burning in her eyes, though she would have rather died than let anyone know what it was for. He’d forgotten her weeks ago.

The house in the center of the hill was mom and dad. The homestead. The house we’d all lived in together, that we’d built with our own hands, the first thing that marked that wild overgrown hill as a place where people actually lived. A long path through the woods connected it to the grandparents’ house, and it was the epicenter of everything in our lives. James and I had lived in the upstairs rooms of that house until we both moved out and married our respective mates years later, a reprehensible act on our part that was never okay with my mother and that she never forgave either of us for. She’d wanted us all to stay. We can all live here together until the New System comes, she always said. That’s how the Bible says it’s supposed to be. We can all keep each other safe and on the right path until the end comes, and then we’ll all be here together forever.

A decade later when I sat up on the hill watching that house burn to the ground, there was as much relief as grief billowing into the sky with the black smoke. It was the end of an era, and it was far beyond time for it.

Nobody saw it but me. James was dead, had been for years. Robbie was dead now too. Dad was gone, so was granddad. Me and my youngest brother David were the last two left of the kids, but he had moved to a neighboring city when he got married and he has never seen things the way I see them. We were of different generations, we weren’t raised the same way, and he’d never experienced the abuse I lived with for the first half of my life. And he had dedicated his own life to the cult with all the honesty and lack of guile that I didn’t have when I’d made my own dedication vows at the too-young age of sixteen.

It was the end of an era, but apparently only for me.

James’ house was up the hill, past a clearing where my dad used to keep old cars that he cannibalized for parts. Our oldest brother Robbie, long married with kids of his own, lived at the bottom on the farthest corner of the land. And my house was on the slope to the west, built on the spot where we’d cleared off an old half-fallen homestead from the late 1800′s, dutifully paying no mind to the fact that a grave was nestled into the slope, right where the yellow daffodils grew. The cult told us superstition was tied up with the demons and false religion, so we didn’t have the built-in human instinct that tells most people to stay the hell away from certain things.

We just pretended it wasn’t there, and put no importance on it. It was just an old grave. The soil was good and the garden I planted next to it did well, though those strange daffodils always wound themselves through everything I put in the ground. My husband said something wasn’t right about it, but I didn’t pay any attention to him. He hadn’t been raised as devout as me.

My dad knocked on my door around lunchtime and I opened it. He backed up, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket, the fancy leather coat the dealership had awarded him when he was designated a five-star Chrysler technician and given the state’s first and only license to work on the new Vipers that had recently rolled off the prototype line. It was a cool jacket. Made him look like the old pictures my other grandmother had shown me of him from the early 1960′s, when he was young and very much a product of a fancier era. He’d never stopped greasing his hair back and was still so thin that he and I wore the same size jeans.

I’ve never understood the look on his face when I opened the door. To this day I can’t sort it. It wasn’t a blankness like so many people who’ve seen death wear without awareness. It wasn’t grief. It wasn’t even shock.

He was sorry.

Those were the first words out of his mouth.

I’m sorry.

I stood there, not knowing what he was sorry for. It was cold. I couldn’t push the screen door open very far because of the snow blocking it. And my father was standing at the bottom of the steps James had helped my husband build, his hands shoved down far into his pockets like a penitent child about to get in trouble, telling me he was sorry.

James is dead, he finally said. He’s in his house. I went up there and he’s dead.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I do now - just now, this very moment in fact, I know that I was the first person he told. He came straight from James’ house to mine and told me my brother was dead.

I don’t know what I said back to him, I just remember sitting down on the top step and feeling the cold bite of the snow through my pajama pants. There’s a vague recollection of putting my face in my hands, and the embarrassing knowledge that I did that simply because I didn’t know what else to do. And dad just stood there, nervously stepping from foot to foot in the snow, because he didn’t know what else to do either.

I think I asked How at some point. He said he didn’t know. He had something in his pocket but to this day I don’t know what it was.

I don’t know if it was important. Something tells me it was. Or maybe it was just the eternally present handkerchief he always kept on him.

I’m sorry, he said again. He seemed to feel like it was his fault somehow. I’m sorry.

What do we do? I asked him. I’ve never felt more blank. What are we supposed to do?

I don’t remember what he said, other than he was going to get my older brother. I remember thinking that was a good idea. Robbie would know what to do. He always did. Brash and blustery and bigmouthed, he got things done while other people stood around debating how to do them. He would get on it, whatever needed doing. He would figure it out.

I went back in the house and dad walked away, headed down the path through the woods that connected my house to Robbie’s, hands still shoved deep in his pockets, the big retro vintage Chrysler emblem on the back of his jacket the last thing I saw before I pulled the screen door shut. I stared down for a minute at the mound of snow it had scooped into my livingroom, still with no clue what I was supposed to do.

No clue at all.

I kicked the snow back outside and shut the door.

----------

It’s an odd thing, watching the coroner’s van drive away with someone you know inside it. Someone you saw just yesterday. Someone who was alive. Someone who should still be alive but isn’t, somehow. And since there’s really no way to earn a ride in a coroner’s van without dying, there’s an awful unsettling sensation to it that you can’t get away from. The last time I saw James he was laughing that devious little laugh of his, his eyes red and bloodshot from the ever present asthma he’d suffered with his entire life. I don’t count the sight of the coroner’s van leaving the hill via our long steep driveway with his cold corpse tucked into a black zippered bag, because I didn’t see him. I never saw him. I didn’t see him dead in his house and I didn’t see them carry him out, I didn’t see them put him in the van. I didn’t see him later, when it was all over with. And if I try hard enough I can imagine that van empty, with that long black bag tossed crumpled in the back without a body in it, and James somewhere else living his life however the hell he pleases.

I hold onto that. Some days it helps. And some days I think I see him, walking by the side of the road or getting out of a car in the post office parking lot, and it makes me happy thinking he escaped. I see him in every hitchhiker, in every wandering traveler making his way down the interstate, in every tall thin man I glimpse from the corner of my eye as I go about my business in town.

He’s out there.

I hope he’s happy.

The ice storm hit the next day.

----------

For the next two weeks we were stuck on our hill. Power out, no electricity, no heat, no lights, roads iced over and impassable. We all piled up in mom and dad’s house, quietly grieving James, trying to stay warm. Most of the state lost power for days, including the city 150 miles away where his body had been taken to the state coroner’s office. There was no apparent cause of death, so the state ordered an autopsy.

His body had just been placed into cold storage to wait its turn when the power grid went down. And then, by some unholy stroke of nightmarish luck, the facility’s generators failed.

Nobody could make it in to work because of the ice. By the time someone finally got into the morgue the cold storage had been down for four days.

Six bodies melted, including James.

----------

No viable autopsy could be done, though they tried their best I suppose. The end report was obtained two months later. It was mostly inconclusive due to the long delay and resultant decomposition of tissue. There was apparent scarring on James’ heart, but it was old scarring and had nothing to do with his death. His lungs were scarred as well, but that was no surprise, he’d had severe asthma his entire life. There was no determinable cause of death, no inflicted trauma, no presence of illicit drugs as far as they could tell from the limited toxicology report they managed with what they had to work with.

No reason.

He’d simply died.

It seemed fitting, to me at least, that the end of him be enshrouded in an unsolvable mystery. He was a secretive person, intensely private. He would have loved knowing nobody had a clue what happened to him.

And so we drew our own conclusion as a family. He’d had an asthma attack in his sleep. There had been an inhaler next to his bed, but it was new and still in the box. He simply hadn’t woken up to use it. Dad didn’t participate in the drawing of this conclusion, his input kept stoically to himself, like he knew something the rest of us didn’t.

We pretended not to see it.

He and mom braved the last of the ice a few days later to make the 150 mile drive to see James one last time.

They came back different.

You couldn’t tell it was him, my mother said. He was melted, literally. It was like one of those science fiction movies where they melt you with a laser beam and you turn to goo.

Dad had nothing to say. He went to bed and stayed there until the next day.

You can go see him, mom told me. I’ll go with you if you want to go. But I don’t recommend it.

I decided not to go.

And so I never saw my brother dead. I never saw any proof that he was gone. He just wasn’t there anymore. There was no funeral, he was cremated and his ashes were sent home weeks later, and I went on with my life with the image in my head of James, alive, somewhere else.

----------

Dad was different from that day on. He’d always been stoic, terse, strict. My childhood had been spent in fear of him, an eternal dread of making him mad and feeling his temper erupt keeping me from showing any hint of a personality during my formative years. The cult had forced him to abide by the violent tenet of Spare the rod, spoil the child and there was never any risk of me being spoiled.

James being gone flipped a switch in him. He was nicer suddenly. Mellow. Kind. After the trauma wore off his humor discovered itself and he was funny. The dour angry demeanor fell off and revealed a man that I was sad never to have known before. He and I became friends. I could sense in his new attitude toward me that he regretted how he’d raised me and respected the way I’d always stood up and been my own person despite it. But my mother was falling off the deep end and for all the newfound easygoingness of my father, she counterbalanced it with an extremism born of the religious fervor of a mother determined to gain enough favor with God to see her dead child again. And she was going to make sure the rest of us did too.

We all had to get good and straight on the path, get completely right and stay that way, or we’d never see James again. He’d be in the New World and we wouldn’t, and how would she explain that to him? She and I worked together in a law office at the time and as she became more unhinged and unpleasant, I reacted by becoming more outgoing and accomplished. Our boss changed my work designation from receptionist to Executive Assistant and started teaching me how to do everything from filing papers at the courthouse to photographing accident scenes. I no longer answered to my mother, the office manager. I answered directly to the boss.

That didn’t go over well. She was a control freak with heavy untreated trauma, and the one person in the world she felt the most obsessive need to control was suddenly no longer under her thumb in a workspace where she considered herself the supreme authority. She countermanded every order the boss gave me and tried to load me up with general office chores that left me no time to do the important assignments he’d given me. I had no choice but to tell her she wasn’t my superior anymore.

She chose that day to have her nervous breakdown over James, jumping out of my car at a red light on the way home and storming angrily through a shopping mall with me trailing frantically along behind her, yelling for security to arrest me while I tried to get her to calm down. I ended up telling her she wasn’t the only person who lost James but that none of the rest of us were allowed to experience our own grief because we were too busy catering to hers.

She sat down on a bench outside the sporting goods store and glared at me with a cold hatred I’ve seen on very few other faces, ever.

I knew it would be you, she hissed at me.

That moment changed our relationship forever. It changed me forever. That was the day I decided my life was my own, that she not only didn’t have authority over me at work, she didn’t have authority over me anywhere else either. She could no longer dictate my actions, my behavior, my thoughts and feelings.

For this she disowned me. It was the first of several disownings over the next few years. I got used to it. We went to work the next day like nothing had happened, and I didn’t do a single thing on the task list she slapped down on my desk. It was a metaphor for the rest of my life, but I didn’t know it yet.

My husband and I moved out of state a couple of months later, away from that hill, away from her increasingly controlling paranoia and bitterness, the first of many small steps toward freedom.

As we were driving away with our trailer full of personal belongings behind us, he said one thing that I tried to argue against, but that somewhere deep inside I knew was probably right.

That land is cursed, he said.

----------

A few weeks before we moved my youngest brother came to town and we went into James’ house together. It was exactly like it had been the day my dad found him. The only thing that stood out as different was the bare mattress on the bed - the men from the coroner had wrapped him up in the sheet he’d been laying on and took it with them, leaving just the naked springform mattress James had bought for Jessica right before her final breakdown and their subsequent separation.

It took me a while to go in the bedroom, but I knew from the moment I walked into the house that I was going to end up there. I needed to see it, the place where James had closed his eyes and left us.

There was a small puddle of dried blood near the foot of the bed, brown and stained into the fabric. James always slept backwards, with his head at the wrong end. The blood had come from his nose.

I touched it. I don’t know why. It was dry.

He was gone.

----------

David and I laughed a lot that day. James had been funny in a way that was distinctly him, quiet and of few words, but those words had always counted. And as we sorted through his things and talked about him and moved some of his stuff into boxes to be stored away, I felt as much awed respect as befuddlement at what was around me. He’d never been a conformist, which I knew was why the cult had never gotten a firm grasp on him. He was unknowable and therefore unbindable. But his house was proof that he didn’t conform to any human expectations either, and nothing in it made sense unless you’d spent time around him.

There was an engine in the bathtub. I’m not sure what it went to. Another engine, in the beginning stages of disassemblage, rested on a blue tarp in the center of the livingroom floor, obviously the last project he’d been working on. There wasn’t much furniture - his wife had taken most of it when she left and it would have never entered his mind to replace any of it. Jessica’s cookware was in the kitchen cabinets, unused, some of it still in the original boxes, some not even fully unwrapped from their wedding shower years before. Jessica didn’t cook, she microwaved. David asked me if I thought it would be okay for him to take a glass Pyrex measuring cup because he’d broken his. I told him to take it. It had never been used.

I didn’t want anything, but knew I needed to take something. One of my husband’s solo CDs was sitting on the entertainment center and the cover, the cover I’d designed, caught my eye and brought me to the CD player to pop the tray open.

Inside was a CD single of The Way.

It was the only thing I took.

----------

My husband told me some time later that my dad and older brother had altered the scene before the police arrived. After the phonecall from me his boss had rushed him home and he’d gone up to James’ house without my knowledge. He’d thought it strange that he’d had to step around at least a dozen empty compressed air cans scattered haphazardly around the place as he entered, like they’d been used and tossed aside one after another. There had been several more on the floor around the bed. My father had told him to go back down and see how mom and I were doing, and when he returned to James’ house after the coroner’s departure, the cans were gone. Other than that he said things seemed different, but he couldn’t say quite how. Just not the same.

He told me my dad didn’t call the police until after he and Robbie had been in there at least an hour, alone with the body.

It’s not something we’ve talked about often, because there’s no satisfactory explanation for it that either of us can come up with. My mother says they probably didn’t want the police to assume the cans meant he was huffing compression fluid and accidentally killed himself, because Look at the shame and reproach that would bring on the congregation if anyone thought such a thing! We all knew he used the compressed air to clear the valves on the engines he was working on, all mechanics do, it’s common. Wouldn’t the police have accepted that explanation? Dad was the only one that spoke to them. They wrote down whatever he said, and then they left, and then the coroner came and took James away and that was that. My father, the most upright straight-and-narrow devoutly dedicated man I’ve ever known in my life, misled the police for a reason that he took with him to his own grave.

The only other person in the world who knew the truth about it took it to his grave too.

At the same time.

In the same car.

Four years later, on October 18, 2002.

----------

The big garbage bag of empty air cans and whatever else that was removed from James’ house that morning had been stashed in my dad’s garage and stayed there until a few weeks after he and Robbie’s joint funeral, when my mother asked my husband’s old boss to come and dispose of it. Scott was a man who knew people who could do things.

The evidence, whatever it was evidence of, vanished.

----------

The mystery around James never dissolved and eventually no one talked about it anymore, I guess because there was no way we could ever truly find out what happened without him here to tell us. There were a lot of details that we could never find a way to weave together into anything that made sense and a lot of it was probably inconsequential anyway. There was a girlfriend that he’d tried to keep hidden from us, a woman that was quite a bit older than him who wasn’t a member of the cult and therefore needed to be kept a secret. In the end she had convinced him to stop hiding their relationship and he’d bought her a ring. We met her all of twice before he died, and within days of his passing she left town with her brother and never came back, taking whatever she might have known with her.

James’ ex Jessica had sneaked onto the hill and broken into his house to put a dead raccoon in his kitchen sink a few days prior to his death. We were shocked when he told us she trespassed on the land often without anyone knowing, and my mother made my father fix the electric gate down at the road so that it wouldn’t open without one of three clickers in the possession of herself, my father, and me. James would have to come to her house and get hers any time he needed to leave the hill, an arrangement he agreed to because Jessica stole things from his house all the time, she would absolutely take a gate opener if she saw it.

He told us the gate wouldn’t keep her out though, and that she didn’t come in that way anyway. The only way to protect ourselves from her was to lock her up and he doubted even that would do it.

He died less than a week later, and twenty three years later we still don’t know how or why.

----------

We never felt safe on the hill again. Jessica was deranged in the worst possible way, we’d known it for a while, and James was her obsession. She’d threatened to kill him multiple times and had tried twice. We hadn’t known this, because James, big strong stoic Clint Eastwood type that he was, wasn’t about to tell anyone he was violently abused for years by a skinny little woman that everyone believed was not much more than a meek dormouse with shyness issues and a case of painful awkwardness. But we knew she was evil. We just didn’t have any proof.

The first thing my mother said after the initial emotional breakdown of finding her son dead was Jessica did this, I don’t know how but I know she did it.

I believe she was probably right. But if Jessica was anything she was wily and devious with a strong survival instinct and an uncanny ability to lie convincingly and draw sympathy onto herself. She’d convinced us for years that she was the perfect combination of sweetly harmless and endearingly clueless, but that only lasted until the day she called 911 screaming that James was beating her and then threw herself face first into a tree in their front yard and sat, calmly singing and coloring in a coloring book on the porch with blood running down her forehead, waiting for the police to arrive. The act she put on when they got there was one for the Academy, but the officers didn’t buy it.

James calmly rolled up his sleeves and showed them his scars where she’d burned him and slashed him with a kitchen knife. He pulled up his shirt and pointed out the marks she’d left on him with her teeth and nails. He hooked a finger into his mouth and showed them the empty hole where she’d knocked one of his teeth out with a baseball bat. One of the officers asked him why he hadn’t killed her and buried her somewhere on the land already.

She left in the back of the squad car, and my mother took James to the courthouse to get divorce papers started two days later.

Jessica came to his memorial service when we finally had it, several weeks after his death. She wasn’t invited but we couldn’t keep her from coming. She wore black like a widow and created a dramatic disruption complete with loud wailing and declarations of undying love, and afterward she stood to one side of the room, smirking at us with the kind of icy malice that you only see on the dangerously deranged, and then usually only in the movies. Several people commented in hushed voices, asking why she’d been allowed to come. At one point she started wailing They killed him!!, but everyone with the exception of her mother ignored her.

Her mother, who was still in our congregation, flitted around the room chatting with everyone, sobbing her heart out like it was her own son we’d just memorialized. She was an ER nurse and had been famously fired from her job at the hospital for taking locked-cabinet medications home by the purse load. She claimed she put them in her pocket to use on her shift and forgot to return them to the cabinet before leaving.

Jessica had been staying with her for a while.

----------

We fed the crowd at mom’s later that afternoon with my husband and his boss guarding the gate, making sure she didn’t try to come into my mother’s house. The police were called preemptively, and because this was a town of 300 with not much of anything else to do, a squad car was dispatched and stationed near the inlet to the main drive.

Jessica showed up not much later, like we knew she would. She drove past the police and parked a few yards down from them in plain sight, just sitting there by the side of the road, far enough away from our property that we couldn’t legally do anything about it. The officers got out and talked to her, warned her not to cause us any problems, and she fed them a woeful tale about being banned from her beloved husband’s memorial service and denied the right to say goodbye to him.

The officers knew there was no body at that service to say goodbye to. They also knew her.

My husband came up the hill and told us she was down at the road and that Scott was blocking the driveway with his truck to keep her out. I told my mother it was time to file a restraining order against her. She was living in fear and Jessica was known to be trespassing on our property frequently. No, she told me with tears in her eyes but not a sign of distress on her face. It was a look I knew, because my mother rarely showed emotion unless she was angry and the rest of the time it was this cold detachment. That would bring reproach on the congregation because everyone knows what we are. I can’t do that. I won’t let her win that way. I won’t let her cause us to bring shame on God’s name.

God’s name. I took it in vain that day.

More than once.

I was leaving in a few weeks, moving a thousand miles away. My husband and I weren’t going to be there to help her keep an eye out, and thirty eight acres of heavily wooded land is impossible to protect and easy to sneak onto from a hundred different directions, James had shown us proof of that.

God will protect us as long as we do the right thing and leave it to him, she said. He knows what she is.

I think it was just a coincidence that nothing terrible happened in the following weeks, because my faith was getting tenuous and a lot of prayers were going unanswered. But Jessica quietly disappeared back to her own world after a couple of infuriating weeks of putting herself in our paths every chance she got, and not long after that my husband and I moved away, and as we left the driveway for what we thought would be the last time he sighed and shook his head with the exasperation of a man about to say I told you so.

“That land is cursed,” he said.

I tried to disagree, though I don’t know why.

----------

Less than a mile up the road we passed a man walking. He was tall and thin and covered in the dust of a long journey with a ratty backpack strapped to his back, and as we passed him I caught his reflection in the side mirror.

It was James, I knew it in my heart every bit as strongly as I knew it couldn’t be.

He was walking away from the hill, toward the west. The way we were going. And I swear on whatever holy relic you wish to place under my hand that he raised his head and met eyes with me in the mirror, and he smiled.

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sevfanfic · 4 years ago

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A Touch in the Dark - Chapter 6: To Complicated Parents

Word count: 1,831

Severus had told you to meet him at his quarters for dinner. You stood outside the door hesitating to knock. Before you could muster up enough courage the door opened. Severus stood aside and gestured for you to enter. As you advanced you noticed the many tall bookshelves that lined the walls. It resembled a library and the warm hues that emanated from the large fireplace made it surprisingly cozy. In one of the corners was a small table with two chairs.

“Have you read all these books?” You examined one of the shelves closest to you and ran a finger along the spines.

“Most of them.” He stood watching you.

“May I borrow one sometime?” You smiled and turned to face him.

“Of course,” he walked to the table that was set and you followed him, “are you hungry?” He spoke softly, it was a voice that you started to notice was reserved for conversations with you.

“Yes, I’m always hungry.” You heard him chuckle at your playful response.

Severus never learned to properly cook so he enlisted a few of the kitchen elves to assist him with dinner preparations. Before sitting, he waved his hand over the table and the candles ignited. You both ate quietly for a bit before Severus spoke.

“I’m curious to know why you only recently learned of magic?” He tried his best to not feel out of place but he couldn’t deny that this was unusual for him.

“My parents hate it, always have.” You sipped from your glass then continued. “There are many practitioners in my family but my parents were both born without any. So when they found out I had magic they forbade me from using it and even refused to let me go to any school of magic.”

“Are they aware of you now?”

“No,” you looked down at your plate, “I haven’t spoken with them in a few years. But It’s fine, they tend to make my life… Complicated.” You chuckled at how true that statement was.

“I see.” He gave you a tenderhearted expression, understanding how complicated parents can be.

“What about you? What are your parents like?” You watched how he thought about what his response should be.

“Complicated.” He spoke slowly and you immediately knew it was not a great topic. You were thinking of something else to talk about when Severus spoke again. “I also have not spoken with my parents for quite some time.” He tried to show you as much of himself as he could but there were pieces that still pained him to speak about.

“Well,” you wanted to lighten the mood so you raised your glass, “here’s to complicated parents and being better off without them.” A small smile stretched over Severus’ face as he brought his glass to yours.

After finishing dinner Severus offered you tea and you agreed. You sat on the large couch in front of the warm fire sipping chamomile tea. The conversation was mostly about students and how you were liking your new job. Your eyes roamed and examined all the small details that made up Severus’ space. He kept it tidy with little clutter. A pile of newspapers caught your eye. It was next to the fire, meant for burning but when you looked closer you saw a photo of someone that looked like Severus on the cover of one.

“Is that you?” You sat forward and reached for it.

“Yes,” he sighed, “That was, it seems, a different life.”

You read the title, New Headmaster for Hogwarts Severus Snape Confirmed. You weren’t completely unaware of the war that took place a little over a year ago but you never knew many details. Many people spoke about a brave man who played an important role in spying on Voldemort when Dumbledore was headmaster but you never knew who. Seeing Severus on the newspaper made you connect the pieces. It was him, the wizard who deceived the Dark Lord. Many details were never publicly shared about who the person was and what they did.

“I don’t know much about what happened during that time,” you spoke quietly, “but I’m here you need to talk about it.” You put paper back and looked at the man sitting next to you. He furrowed his brow in thought.

“Thank you, however I do not wish to talk about it.” He stared straight ahead into the flames. You watched him, hoping that he’d look at you so you could see his eyes but he didn’t. There was a silent understanding between you. He wasn’t ready to divulge those experiences to you and that was okay.

A small yawn escaped from you. Severus finally looked at you and then picked up your cup and said “It’s getting late, I’ll walk you to your room.”

You agreed and walked down the long hallways beside him. You approached your door and turned to say goodnight.

“Thank you for dinner, Severus.”

“My pleasure,” he bowed his head and then took your hand, pecking it with a gentle kiss, “goodnight.”

“Goodnight.” You whispered back with a small smile.

Your racing thoughts kept you awake that night. Most of them about Severus. You wondered what part he played in the war and you wanted to know why nobody ever spoke of it. If he was as important as people said then why did no one really know all the details. It was well known that Severus had been a death eater before switching sides but you didn’t know exactly what that meant. What happened to you? You wondered to yourself.

The next morning you rolled out of bed and groaned at the piercing headache you had. “Dammit,” you massaged your temples. You rummaged in a cabinet for a wideye potion and once you found it a loud knock sounded. In your sleepless state you forgot you had no pants on when you opened the door.

“Miss - Miss Y/L/N,” you heard the headmistress’ voice and you saw her look you up and down, “there has been an incident and you are needed in the hospital wing.”

“Of course, Headmistress. I will be there promptly.”

“With pants I hope.”

Your eyes widened as you realized what had happened. Then you noticed Severus standing behind Minerva, he was looking away from you. His face was flushed but he had tried to hide it by putting a hand over his mouth.

“Yes ma’am.” You shut the door quickly. “Shit.” You hissed at yourself.

You dressed quickly and downed a wideye potion. The doors to the hospital ward opened as you approached them. When you walked in you immediately noticed a group of people hovering around one of the beds. As you got closer they turned to watch you. Severus was among them.

“What’s wrong?” You stepped closer to the bed and saw a girl curled up and whimpering.

“She’s had some sort of mental breakdown,” Madame Pomfrey spoke quietly, “nothing has helped her.”

You looked around at the crowd and then back at the girl. “Can we give her some space?” The group stepped away and Minerva began sending them away except for Severus. He was watching you carefully as you got close to the bed.

“She’s been violent.” Minerva warned you.

“It’s okay.” You knelt down so that your face was level with the crying girl. “My name is Y/N, is it okay if I talk to you for a bit?”

“No, no, he’ll hurt me.” She screamed.

“Who will hurt you?” “You know who.”

“Can you tell me who it is?”

“The Dark Lord,” she hissed between sobs, “he’s here, he’s everywhere.” You watched the girl shake and begin crying hysterically.

“You don’t have to talk, but can you look at me?” You were going to try a meditative spell that you learned travelling through Asia. The buddhist monks used it as a form of mental mending, they learned to extend their thoughts to soothe the minds of others. It took a lot of practice but you could only use it under certain circumstances because it drained your energy quite a bit. At this time you knew you were pushing it due to the lack of sleep but you did it anyways. As the girl looked at you, you locked eyes with her and began speaking the spell. Once you uttered the first words her face froze. You focused your thoughts and felt the spell working. The girl's face began to relax and her breathing slowed.

Severus and Minerva watched with concerned looks. Severus more so was amazed by the spell until he noticed the effect it took on you.

Once you finished the girl was calm and she thanked you for helping her. You smiled softly but then you felt something warm drip from your nose. You brought your hand to your face and you saw blood on your fingers. You stood slowly then quickly started to leave.

“Wait-” MInerva called after you.

“I’m fine.” You continued through to the hall. You heard a set of footsteps quickly approaching. Severus took you by the shoulder and turned you to face him. He looked you over quickly then pulled you by the hand down to his office.

“Sit.” He pointed to a chair then hurriedly went to the storage closet. He handed you a vile and you drank it without asking. He watched you intently. You began to feel better quickly and once he was satisfied that you were okay he crossed his arms over his chest.

“What the hell was that?” He asked sharply.

“What are you -”

“Don’t play dumb with me.” He cut you off and you knew he was upset.

“I didn’t realize how much energy it would take to do the spell. I just wanted to help.” You looked away from his piercing gaze.

“Is that so?”

“Yes,” you started to get up, “now, if you’ll excuse me. I have to go… be a teacher.” Severus took your hand firmly. You looked into his eyes and saw the pain in them. He was worried and your chest felt heavy when you realized how concerned he was for you.

“Y/N, please. I was worried that you,” he looked away, “that you were going to hurt yourself.”

“I was reckless, I’m sorry.”

“Will you go back to bed? You need to rest.” His voice was gentle and your cheeks flushed when you noticed that he kept your hand in his.

“Okay, I’ll go back to bed.”

“Good.” He kissed your hand and then sent you back to your room. He promised that he would take care of your classes so you felt a little better about skipping the day.

While walking, your thoughts wandered back to the war. The damage it caused was wide spread and affected people so young. You had to know everything, you wanted to know. The only person that you thought of that could tell you was Minerva.

#severus #severus x you #severus snape #snape #snape fanfiction #snape x you #fanfic #snape love #severus x reader #snape x reader #severus fanfic #severus lives

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calypsoff · 4 years ago

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Ninety Five.

My smile grew, just being back in Barbados really just makes me happy. My home, my country. I feel so much at peace too when I’m home, I am just glad to be back and to be with my family so I can heal from the bullshit. I am not happy with how things have been, how I have been, and I’ve not been good. Just catching up with calls, texts and emails let’s just say Tina and Jen have done their best. Nobody knew mentally I was going through some shit, besides Chris, that is because I rather be with him than anyone else. I knew in my heart that Chris would have protected me at all costs; so yes I made sure that if I am having this breakdown that it was with the man I love. I would be lying to myself if I wasn’t nervous when I said what I said to chris, I wasn’t sure if chris was going to decide to stick by me or go his own way, I would have let him go but I would be extra hurt by all of it. I am just so glad to be in Barbados, our first night here and my mother should be arriving today, I am so nervous for her arrival because she is going to be doing the most, I know my mother. She’s going to be telling me how bad I am, but she isn’t wrong either, I was being selfish, or I wasn’t thinking but I was going through a breakdown, she needs to understand that part of it but we are here, I am here with my family. Rajad is here, so is Mel, but the rest of the family will be coming today, soon actually. I think the best thing I can do is clean the house for my mother, I am awake early anyways. I am awake reflecting on life, reflecting on things I have done wrong. I just need to see my dad, get that already dealt with but it’s been the most painful experience for me, to mourn a father I’ve always wanted. I wanted that, I wanted a dad that loves me, but I am over it, I will be better than ever. Walking back into the bedroom, I have been on the balcony taking in Barbados, my home but I need to start cleaning. I’m home now so I need too, looking over at Chris asleep in bed, I swear that husband of mine knows when I have left the bed he’s on his stomach laid out in bed, all comfy too. He looks happier anyways, looking over into the crib and my daughter is asleep still, both of my babies are at peace anyways.

I feel much happier, content I would say since I have mourned what I didn’t really have, it’s a hard pill to swallow and nobody will really understand what I went through because it’s my issue, it’s my pain. I hate that people think that I should accept and get over it, that doesn’t make sense to me at all. Why should I accept, why should I just not mourn something I have wanted all my life, it’s my right and I hate that my mother is going to say I taught you better than that, she’s gonna say it and I know it but I am cleaning the home, I hope the cleaning makes up for it, I appreciate my mother so much so what she has to say I will need to accept and let her say it, she will say things to upset me but she does it because she cares, I know she does care about me and I appreciate that so much. I just need to close that chapter in my life, I want to move forward with my husband and child, I want to know that I did try with him. My dad did this to me, but we will see what happens “kind of turns me on when you’re cleaning” looking up from the floor, Chris is awake holding Rylee “so you like me on my hands and knees?” He’s an ass “a little, why are you scrubbing? Since when does a millionaire do this?” Chris crouched down to me “since I have a mother that is backwards and would still beat my ass” I laughed “that is kind of funny to hear but you need help?” Shaking my head “I don’t, I mean I could have got cleaners to come but I want my mother to feel sorry for me” I laughed hoping it worked “you’re so sly, what is she like Rylee. We are hungry by the way” side eying Chris “you know where the kitchen is, I’ll feed you. Just wait” men are annoying, staring at my face for food. He’s literally stood in the kitchen he could make the food himself, but I know that his excuse will be he’s taking care of Rylee, of course so I will leave it.

I made Chris his breakfast, like the good housewife I am. I mean it’s just pancakes but it’s something for him, he is really eating all of it up. I must have made them nice, looking down at Rylee on my lap, she keeps slapping the dining table to get Chris’ attention and it is working, Chris is giving her all the attention she wants “you want daddy attention?” Chris looked at Rylee, she got all happy smiling at him the goofy girl she is “are you nervous for your mom coming? I see you a lot lighter, like you are happy. I know Barbados is your happy place” nodding my head smiling “this is my home; I just love it. I get away from all the drama which is California and New York, it’s away from work. I am also feeling ashamed of how I was, me as a person I wasn’t good. I was being selfish of me, yes I was going through something, but I was neglecting her, you. It was wrong of me” Chris shook his head “Robyn, if you aren’t feeling yourself. If you aren’t happy and you are depressed you ain’t going to be the person you want to be, I mean yes you could have dealt with this in a better manner, you could have said I want to go away for a while, but you didn’t. It happened, but I don’t want you to be ashamed of yourself or anything ok?” Chris is too good “thank you poppa” I said in a whisper “I think it’s something we both needed, we needed to learn. I got you, I see a brighter future for us, I feel we are going to be stronger then ever. We are all human so yeah, let’s just move on. Let’s do this together, we are just going to grow as a family anyways so yeah, be strong with maniac Monica” I gasped “Chris” he isn’t shit, but my mother can be like that.

I thought I would continue my cleaning; Chris is spending time with Rylee so here I am doing this kitchen still. I am honestly trying to get on my mothers’ best side, it’s not even the point that I am scared of her, I just respect her. She has been the best mother she can be to us all; she has tried to protect me from Ronald, but I never listened, that is just me. Stupid me I guess “I love Barbados Chris, of course I was going to come. I love it here” my ears perked up; they are here. I am nervous “yeah, well the maid is here. Don’t mind her mother, she is not in a good mood so please don’t look her way” Chris is an ass “oh the maid, she was lovely the last lady we met” I swear Chris can be so annoying “I know, she is cute though. Like honestly, she is so sexy, don’t tell Robyn that” they are taking their time to come in “son, what did I say. Don’t say these things” Joyce gasped “Chris, you are so stupid. Clinton he is being stupid” rolling my eyes “that husband of mine” walking around the counter “awww you’re cleaning, it’s so good to see you” Joyce came to me and gave me the biggest hug, I love her hugs “same, I am glad you both could come” moving back from the hug “you didn’t need to clean for us, come here” Clinton hugged me, I always get all giddy inside when Clinton shows me his caring side, a father figure to me “how are you feeling?” he asked, nodding my head “I am getting by, I am happy you are all here” I mean that too.

I am wondering where my mother is, everyone has come to the kitchen now to see me. I am here looking a mess for sympathy “why do you look a mess?” Mel asked staring me up and down “oh don’t pay her any mind, I mean we know what she can be like” Chris will not drop that, I think for me that is a good idea and it worked, he is a hater “what is the joke?” Joyce asked, I chuckled looking at Chris “nothing” I giggled and then busted out laughing “you!” feeling Chris’ arm snake around me “you are a pain in the butt” I am not going to lie but I find it funny “awww well I am glad you are laughing, whatever is funny to you both” Joyce is confused clearly, lifting my head up “home sweet home, I am glad to be back” oh my mother is here “Robyn was cleaning” Mel side eyed me and walked off “I love your home so much” Joyce complimented “you ok the both of you” my mom looked at me and then Chris, she is checking her kitchen out. This is her baby right here “Robbie can we talk” those dreaded words “oh goodie” I said under my breath “oh but you’re not dressed, you haven’t even washed your wash because you have been cleaning” looking behind me at Chris trying to make out I have been that hard at work “the dining table isn’t clean” my mother pointed out, looking back at Chris again, I told him to bring the plates “you!” I pointed at him, he laughed pointing back at me, looking ahead at my mom feeling like a naughty school child right now.

I am going to be not weak; I need to just take it and accept what she will say or not say. She may just be sad for me or be very angry and say how useless I am, but we shall see “I have missed Barbados” closing the door behind me “I have been wanting you to come home too, I am glad to have my daughter home” smiling lightly “yeah” I dragged out, this is so awkward because I just want it over with “I am not going to be angry at you, I am just not happy with how you left Rylee. I have been through the worst of the worst Robbie, but I never left any of you kids, I never turned my back on my kids because that is a Mother Robyn. Rylee needed you, she needed you so much no matter what the circumstances, your father should never ever stop you being a mother because he didn’t stop me Robyn, I taught you to be a better person, a stronger person. I have said and said again that man will bring you down, so what happened Robyn. What was your mindset then? Ronald is no good unless he is gaining and you know that” sitting down on the couch “I do but it wasn’t just that mom, I had so much more going on. You know I did; he just broke me, and I needed space that was it” I said defending myself “that’s it huh? You were acting crazy, and I did not raise that. Ronald doesn’t deserve this from you” now I am getting sad, putting my head down “he has always hurt me, I just wanted a dad” placing my hand over my mouth, trying to supress my cry “I know that I know what you want but he is no good to you. I am not going to shout at you, but I want you to be stronger than that, you don’t need to act that way, you’re a married woman and a mother. I just want you to be the woman you are, I am so glad you have a husband that is supportive of you. He was straight there on social media supporting you, I don’t want you to be drinking either, none of that” nodding my head, I know that this could have been worse “I am going to confront dad, I need to close the book” my mother looked at me in sadness as I looked at her “I am sorry baby” that was it, I am crying now “I just wanted better mom” she came over to hug me.

My mother pressed a kiss to my cheek “now you don’t worry about that man, let’s spend some time as a family” nodding my head “I will, thanks for not going full throttle on me” I know she could have been worse, my mother chuckled “get yourself out of those clothes, you not no cleaner now” I think it worked, she did feel sorry for me. Walking to the living room, I can hear everyone talking here “hey” looking at Chris, he is checking me out “I am alive” I laughed it off, my daughter is the most excited thing. Since she has been not well I feel like my daughter has lost her weight, I hate that for her, but she is still my little chunky “you good?” Chris asked, taking Rylee from Chris “yeah I am good, you happy to be home” pressing a kiss to her cheek “I was thinking we should try for a boy, what you think?” I huffed out side eyeing Chris “boy please, talking about a boy” walking off with Rylee “I am being deadass” sitting next to Mel “I think someone is asking for sex more then anything” I know what he is asking, I am not that stupid “I don’t think so, tell him Rylee. Say no more siblings, leave mommy alone” turning her to me “oh my gosh, you look so damn cute” standing her up facing me “you think she has lost weight; she has hasn’t she? It’s when she was unwell” she was my little fatty “she really has, but I won’t front. You both do make beautiful babies, so you need to reproduce again” rolling my eyes, I don’t need Mel agreeing to him.

Now we are in Barbados Chris is pestering me about sex “you want me to put you to sleep?” glaring at him, Chris just stared at me, and I tried to supress my smile “anything, I don’t mind” he wants to impregnant me, I don’t think so “rape me, I don’t mind” I gasped “what is wrong with you” Chris moved back from me looking behind me “dad” he said, oh no wonder he is quiet “I am glad you’re here, he is quiet” shuts him up about it anyways “yeah, I was thinking if you want to take me around Barbados” staring at Chris, I know his ass won’t want to do anything but be under me “you’re so rude, my dad is speaking to you” Chris said, pointing at myself in shock looking behind me “oh me?” I said in shock “yeah, not my stupid son. I was thinking if you want to show me Barbados and I can pay for a meal for us? Be nice to spend time with you, like old times. Minus Chris of course” I am shook “really?” I am shocked “yes, whenever you want. Just me and you” my face softened, I am shocked that Clinton wants to take me out “awww how boring” shushing Chris, he is so rude “aww yes, oh my god. I will get my clothes on, get Rylee changed” getting up from the chair “oh no, just us two” I thought he would want Rylee “oh ok, that’s fine” I am excited about this.

#chrianna fanfiction #chrianna #chriannaff #chrianna ff #fanfic #fanfiction

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bettsfic · 4 years ago

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hi, i was reading your years in review and i noticed that you quit a job of many years to go your own way. i was wondering if you would mind talking about this decision/if you struggled with it? idk i've always told myself that i wouldn't let the idea of a "career" get in the way of what i want (e.g. writing) and that one day (shortly after 30?) i would just quit whatever job i had and go my own way, but as that deadline comes up i find it harder to imagine how i could just uproot myself...

yes, i very much did struggle with the decision to quit (what i thought was) my very stable and lucrative career in finance to get an MFA in creative writing. it’s a bit of a long story so i’m putting it under a cut.

warning for suicidality and sexual assault.

i used to believe i grew up poor, but it was the 90s so poverty looked very different. my dad didn’t work for a long time, and so we only had one income, and we lived in an apartment that was kind of a lowkey hoarder home. as a kid, all i knew was that i didn’t get to have toys, or my own space, and i wasn’t allowed to have friends over. the concept of an allowance was totally alien to me. but it also wasn’t like i ever went hungry. the food we had wasn’t particularly healthy but it was always there.

i didn’t really realize how much that instability affected me until much later, when i noticed other people hadn’t lived their entire lives aware of and obsessed with money. i used to compulsively count the change in my piggy bank and beg my mom to take it so she could pay her taxes (i didn’t know what taxes meant, i just assumed they were the reason we couldn’t afford nice things).

my safe haven was always my grandparents’ house, which was clean and had semi-healthy food and the door was always open. my grandpa was a high school chemistry teacher. my grandma worked at a bank. growing up, i had no idea what she did at the bank, just that it sponsored all the fun things we did, like going to amusement parks and baseball games. my parents never took my sister and i on vacation, but every year, my grandma would drive us to visit our family in missouri, which, even though it only cost the gas to get there, seemed like a wild indulgence to me.

i started working at 16 so i could have my own money. by 17 i was working illegally full-time and getting paid under the table. then i bought my own car, and shortly after i turned 18 i got my own apartment. even though i could pay my bills, i was still terrified about money. i thought about it all the time. i checked my bank account multiple times a day. i was a cashier at a restaurant and i would often open my drawer and just stare at the money or count it when i was bored.

but i hated working at the restaurant, and one day i thought to myself, how can i keep the money part of this job but lose the food part? then i remembered my grandma’s career at the bank (from which by then she’d retired), and that afternoon i sat down and applied to be a teller at the very same bank. obviously the bank was very large and it wasn’t like my grandma was in management. she worked in ATM operations. nobody on my hiring committee knew who she was, and honestly i have no idea how i got the job.

i stayed a teller through college, working 25ish hours a week. it didn’t pay very well and i was still nervous about money, so i picked up a job altering bridal gowns on evenings and weekends, and also an admin job at my university. so i was working 60ish hours a week, plus going to school full-time and trying to keep up my 4.0. in retrospect, i can’t remember how necessary all this was. i know i was living in an apartment whose rent was higher than i could afford, and i lived with my boyfriend who was struggling to find a job. anyway, it was definitely the lowest time of my life, and i was so exhausted that every day i hoped something horrible would happen to me so i could be hospitalized and rest.

then something horrible did happen. my dad died. and even though everyone in my life was telling me to please dear god take a break, i did not.

i got promoted to business finance, which paid what seemed at the time to be an ungodly amount of money. i was still part-time and finishing up my undergrad degree. once i graduated, i got promoted to full-time. for the first couple years, i really did try to be a banker. i was good at my job only insofar as someone who is left-handed can write with their right hand if forced for long enough. it felt very much like i was in the wrong place, but by that point i had so much unchecked trauma that i had convinced myself the highest human ideal was misery and deprivation. i wish i was kidding. i was the definition of ascetic and martyred myself. i didn’t believe happiness existed. work was all that mattered to me.

then i bought a house. so at this point, i had student loans, a car loan, a mortgage, and credit card debt. after my dad’s death, my mom had to file for bankruptcy because of all the medical bills. she abandoned her house. by this point i was 23, single, in six figures of debt with no familial support net, but i was making decent money at the bank, so it wasn’t like i was drowning. in fact i was doing pretty well. the bank was a rock in my very turbulent life. i got a lot of vacation time that allowed me to travel a bit. i had insurance and a matching 401(k). it was really a decent job.

but the bank was also in many ways an abusive relationship. i don’t mean that metaphorically. i had bosses who manipulated me, insulted me, humiliated me in front of other people. i had one boss who went so far as to look at my checking account and ridicule my purchases. i didn’t have any idea what it meant to stand up for myself or say no. in fact i wasn’t allowed to say no. my job at the bank involved solving other people’s problems. i could never say “i can’t solve that problem.” i could only say “i’ll figure it out.”

i had convinced myself working at the bank was a stable career because it was boring and i hated it. but actually it wasn’t stable at all. after 2008, there were mass layoffs and restructures every year while the bank tried to recover from the recession. i worked for a sales team, and so my job was dependent entirely on whether or not the salespeople did their jobs well. if they didn’t make goal, they’d get fired. if they got fired, i’d get fired.

i started trying to date again and was sexually assaulted. after that i really struggled at work because i was dissociating a lot and couldn’t focus. my team, despite my having worked there for years, instead of being concerned for me decided to start complaining about me to my boss. finally i had to tell a coworker what happened and that i wasn’t doing very well. my team started being a little nicer to me but ultimately they didn’t care about me, they cared about how effective i was at my job. my boss didn’t want to fire me, so instead i was pushed onto another team.

that move came with a raise. then that team was dismantled and i was pushed onto another team. that was a demotion, but i got to keep my raise from the previous move. by then, i was working from home, and even though i was more comfortable i was also very isolated and miserable. my “fulfillment through deprivation” attitude was destroying me. i wasn’t eating well or taking care of myself. i was isolated and lonely. i still didn’t believe happiness was real and i constantly thought about killing myself.

but i had started writing fanfiction, and even though i didn’t think i was any good at it, i was beginning to see a way out. i was beginning to learn how to dream, and want things, and give myself the things i wanted. i just couldn’t imagine leaving the bank, or selling my house, or moving out of my hometown. all of that seemed impossible to me.

then i had to go to a business conference where my team had a retirement party for one of my coworkers. she’d done what i was doing for 45 years. by that point i was at the 9 year mark. i’d spent my entire adult life at the bank. and i realized: the bank benefited from my fear and passivity, and nothing in my life was going to change unless i was willing to make sacrifices.

but i still wasn’t entirely convinced. and then came the day i had to physically hold onto my desk to keep me from killing myself. i didn’t end up trying it, because i had another realization: this was a life or death situation now. if i kept working at the bank, i knew i would die. i knew eventually i would get low enough to do it. i didn’t actually want to die; i wanted an escape and didn’t know what else to do. suddenly i was off the hook. my options were not “financial stability or imminent poverty” but “live or die.”

those were the big epiphanies i had, but the process of actually leaving the bank was a slow one. i wrote a bit about it here. i got into an MFA program basically by telling myself repeatedly i would figure out the money stuff later. when it came time to quit the bank, my boss convinced me to stay on working part-time, with the assumption i would move back to full-time once i’d graduated. i agreed to it, because just trying to quit was enough to convince me i could, and that better things were ahead of me. for a year and a half, i stayed on working two days a week while doing my MFA, which involved both coursework and teaching, and it felt a bit like it did during undergrad, having too many jobs and no time to breathe or think or feel anything.

between my first and second year, i had a looooong overdue mental breakdown. there were a lot of causes, but one of them was spreading myself too thin. shortly after, i quit for good. by then it didn’t feel like a big deal at all, i was so far removed from the work and my team and so focused on my degree. one day i turned on my work laptop and the next day i didn’t. i shipped it back to HQ and it was over.

then i graduated from the MFA and suddenly had to face the consequences of this life i’d chosen. my school kept me on as an adjunct, but it felt like being a ghost. i no longer had the community of my cohort. i had no health insurance. i was given my teaching schedule and a contract to sign, that’s it. there was no guarantee i would be getting classes the following semester, and after a year, that was what happened. i remember sitting in my favorite coffee shop trying not to cry when i got the email that said the department had nothing for me to teach the following semester.

i really wasn’t the same after the breakdown. i went from “i can do anything i put my mind to no matter how hard it is or how much it hurts” to “i have to step carefully, and treat myself gently.” i hadn’t fully realized that yet, though, so i tried to get a Real Job. i got the first and only job i applied to, because i am bad at nearly everything but somehow i’m exceptional in interviews. it wasn’t a bank but it offered the same sort of benefits package. it was a full-time salaried position at a non-profit. if i had found it earlier, i think it would have been my dream job. it was the kind of work you throw yourself into because you care so much about doing good.

i lasted a month. during the first week something happened that triggered me in a way i’m very rarely triggered. i realized i needed disability accommodations, but i needed to go to a doctor to get an assessment and i had to be on the team 60 days in order to get insurance. i thought i could white-knuckle it, and i could, sort of, but every minute i was at work, it felt like i was forced away from the thing i should have been doing. i was constantly trying to write a few paragraphs here and there on my phone when no one was looking. i had to find excuses to take breaks and go to my car and breathe. at one point i told a volunteer i was an english instructor, and she looked at me very confused, and i realized i’d said it in present tense, like it was part of who i was and not a job i did for a while. then finally, my breaking point was an after-hours function. when i left i saw a field full of fireflies and thought about how, if i’d just stayed home, i could have sat outside and enjoyed them all evening, not just a glance at them on the way to my car. i liked the job but it was making me miss all the things i’d learned to love about being alive.

i quit the next day. i’d sold my house by then (which was its own feat) and moved in with my grandma, which hadn’t been a possibility until my grandpa passed away the previous spring. i paid off my car. i figured out finally that i would probably never be able to work full-time again unless it was teaching, and that the downside to this life would be accepting fear and instability, only being able to look ahead one semester at a time. staying open to the opportunities that arise. being a little selfish.

i wrote a bit more about the financial realities of the writing life here. i can’t tell you what you should do, because the path i took definitely isn’t the path for everyone, but i do believe we all owe it to ourselves to pursue our best and happiest lives, because we only get one, and there’s no reason not to live it the way you want to.

#writing advice #the writing life #Anonymous

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cloviaglade · 4 years ago

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THE CRIMSON FLOWER ROUTE CORPORATE UNION AU

Yeah it came to me in a dream shared it with a friend and she said I should inflict it on the world so here we go

Warning: It's super long but I broke it up into chunks

(note not all members of the house fall into the categories listed also I'm not the best with corporate terms and positions. Also this was made for fun and isn't that serious)

The houses

The Black eagles generally were in accounting or sales. They dealt with a lot of the customers firsthand and were considered expendable

Blue lions where mostly in HR or IT

Golden deer mostly worked in maintenance and public relations.

Staff and church members are members of the board. Flayn has her position on the board despite her age because nepotism

The Seiros Co:

It's a large company that provide a large array of services and products that promote physical and emotional well-being. The company started out with good intentions but soon became a corporate monster

The company provides a host of benefits to its employees including on site housing, on site restraunts, on site pools gyms ect. They even have the best insurance on the planet. They even have horse therapy.

However they have to pay premiums on the health insurance, their rent is docted from their pay, they have to pay for on-site facilities, and those living on site are heavily encouraged to work overtime.

a lot of this is justified by cover every single health expense and days of for minor colds. Many employees seek mental health care more often than they seek physical care.

The on site living conditions vary heavily. Most are just a small white room with a single bed and a dresser. No visitors after certain hours and forget about outside visitors. However rumors are spreading that the board members have spacious luxury apartments.

The pay without all the benefits is not a wage you could live off of. But with the rent for these rooms doct from your pay you couldn't reasonably save up for different arrangements.

The strike begins:

Edelguard was finally fed up watching her team struggling. She hears constantly about how her workers are not making enough. How they have to scrape because they needed new clothes or shoes. Or worse how Petra wasn't able to support her sick grandfather

She hired a lawyer Hubert to look into information about their contracts and compare everything to labor laws. She needed to know how much of this was legal and if there was anything to be done about it.

Huberts lawfirm dealt with several lawsuits in the past. They are considered ruthless in court however media painted them out to be money hungry and demented

As expected, it was legal (mostly due to lack of regulation for these types of benefits) but really unfair, So Hubert suggested a strike. His firm would handle all the legal matters as they prepared a lawsuit and to unionize.

Edelguard was careful to organize it in private. Nothing was emailed. Nothing to tract them. Flyers were handwritten and posted in the dorms inviting members to secret meeting on slow hours.

Roles

What everyone did on the day of the strike/position they were in the office.

Black eagles

Edalguard: head of sales- she got everyone in her department and many others in different departments to simply stop working for the day when she commanded everyone to stop working via megaphone. She suck in hubert and went to a private meeting room to set up a list of demands.

Hubert: head of Vestra lawfirm- he snuck past security with the help of Edelguard. He brought a laptop and a phone with Hotspot so he could video call the rest of his attorneys from inside the conference room. Once the strike was in full swing he toured the place with Edelguard gathering evidence.

Ferdinand: senior sale manager has the highest customer satisfaction - when the strike was well underway he sent a mass email to everyone in every department including the CEO and founder herself in a very professional tone about how there is a strike. Lornez replied immediately and they when to the breakroom to enjoy tea while on the clock.

Lindhart: IT software specialist - first thing he did was turn off all the bans on websites. Everyone could go on whatever website they wanted to. He left the download blocker up and other safety precautions in place. Others could looks at memes and scroll through social media ect. He then returns to his dorm and takes a paid nap.

Caspar: manager in accounting slow but very accurate and a real team player - he hated the no pets policy with a burning passion so he let all the stray and feral cats that hang around the building in through one of the side doors. They stayed mostly on the ground floor and a few made a mess under the desks. He played with the strays with a few of his co-workers.

Bernadette: customer service rep. - she hated the calls filled with angry people. She clocked out, disconnected he phone, ran into her dorm and screamed into her pillow until calm. Once she calmed down enough she did some embroidery.

Dorothea: sales representative- has the highest upsale rate - she gets into her car and just leaves. She is still clocked in. Nobody knows where she went. Some say she met with a lover, others say she went on a binge. Nobody really knows.

Petra: bilingual sales rep. - she signed her phone off and immediately called up her family overseas. She proceeded to catch up and talk with her family for hours. She rarely got to speak with them due to the difference in timezones.

Blue lions

Dimitri: head of IT - he doesn't actually know much about IT and has little intrest in it. He got the job because his dad recommended him. With the outside website ban lifted and the lost of control of his department he frantically tried to get everything under control

Dedue: cyber security and protocol educator - although the bans are lifted he is still concerned about a cyber attack. He is frantically try to restore the ban but it seems like lindhart deleted the code.

Felix: hardware specialists - he was the one who should've been promoted into Dimitri's position and is a bit smug about how everything is falling apart in front of his boss. He bypasses the download blocker and plays minecraft on the company computer. Dimitri is too busy to notice that felix isn't helping.

Sylvain: HR rep. - he knew from the start that working conditions were shit. He was tired of trying to raise moral by doing everything but paying the employees more, giving them time off, and reasonable working hours. He went to the break room where Ferdinand and Lornez were having tea and ate a bunch of the snacks the company was reselling at super high prices then faxed a picture of his ass and balls to rhea herself as a letter of resignation.

Ashe: new hire in IT - was called down to the first floor to replace a keyboard a cat peed on. Found caspar was the reason the cats were let in. Caspar then persuaded him to play with the cats instead of shooing them out. 3 hours later he completely forgot about the strike and clocked out per usual. He completely forgot about the strike

Mercedes: head of HR - she meets with the board and discussed what to do about the strikers. They can't force them to go home since everyone striking lives on site and has every right to be there. No significant damages is being done to property. The only loss is from those not working (and a keyboard covered in cat piss and $35 worth of snacks) Mercedes is forced to find a way to get them to stop but in a way that doesn't really change anything. She leaves the meeting when it is over clocks out and returns to her modest house she calls out sick for the next couple of months.

Annette: HR rep - she tries to stop the chaos on the floor and to convince everyone to return to work. She is ignored. She wanted to ask for a megaphone to help gain attention but edelguard took the one from HR and the person with the key to one in the event closet is striking as well. She runs around in a paint trying to answer emails and settle everyone down.

Ingrid: IT helpline rep - helping Dimitri reset the ban on outside websites is above her pay grade. She at least know some of the terminology and the basics. She manages to set up a very basic blocker but it didn't block whole domains just the homepage of every website she could think of that's wasn't appropriate for work. Logging into the site allowed you to bypass the block. Ingrid feels like she will be fired for not being able to do more

Golden deer:

Claude: event planner - noticing that there was no work happening he finally decided it was time to actually do his job. He dipped into those sweet event funds and ordered as many pizza's as he could from every pizza join that could deliver. He busted out the sport balls and got employees to clear some room for flag football on the 3rd floor. He got Hilda to organize games of hide and go seek in floors 4 and 5. All games and activities were not officially approved but followed all guidelines.

Hilda: claudes assistant - organized games on the 4th and 5th floors. The cubicle although uniform made excellent hiding spaces and the food plaza just got rid of the old tables and chairs awaiting delivery of new ones so there was a ton of space to run around. Hidia had to jump between floors pretty often which was a workout all on its own but it was worth it to see everyone smile at work for once.

Lornez: head of advertising - he was tired of writing jingles and stupid commercials for the company. He wasn't aware of the strike until he got the email from Ferdinand. He offered to treat him to some tea he brought from home. They had a lovely talk and watched Sylvain stress eat. He tried to talk Sylvain out of resigning but failed.

Raphael: pizza delivery guy - he thought it was a joke at first since they never delivered pizza to the Serios Co but was persuaded by Claude. He got stopped at the front by the front desk clerk who was ordered not to allow any deliveries. Soon more pizza guys showed up and some of them where not as nice as Raphael. He eventually got in and successfully delivered his pizza.

Ignatz: accountant - he wanted no part of this and tried to work despite being on the 3rd floor. He doesn't have any PTO and is frantically trying to get his absence approved because he cannot work under these conditions. He got walled in with desks and chairs and hand to crawl his way out to try to find someone in HR to help him but found their office empty. Worst day of work ever.

Lysithia: Intern- hopes to join the advertising department - She needs this job for school credits so finding out that her boss told her to take the day off because of strike she immediately thought of her record. Lorenz assured her that she would get credit as long as he had any say in it. She played a round of hide and go seek before studying in Lornez's office

Marianne: customer service rep.- she heard the rumors and on the day of the strike she freaked out and when to have a panic attack in her car. She was on lunch technically but she took a 3 hour lunch. She came back in clocked out and decided to try that horse therapy.

Leonnie: pizza delivery guy (not nice) - she knows the customer didn't care that the order took so long to complete and was very understanding that the 30mins or less delivery time but seriously! 50 PIZZAS!! She had to stretch and press dough at top speed for like 45 mins then she burnt her hand while boxing some of the pizza's and she had to deliver all of it to this company just outside of town and now the person at the front door is insisting that the pizza was ordered by mistake oh no! Not today! You will take the pizza and you will pay for it and tip 25%.

Church

Rhea: CEO and founder - she honestly believes her practices are helping the community. She doesn't realize that she doesn't give her employees much choice. She thinks her employees are ungrateful.

Seteth: president - also believes the company is doing the best they can. He knows the dorms are small and brand but they house 78.364% of their employees and they all see a doctor at least 3 times a month. He hates that he has difficulty finding a balance between competitive prices, compensating workers, and turning a profit.

Flayn: secretary - she saw the fun going on in the 5th floor while on her lunch and thought it was organized by staff and didn't connect it as part of the strike.

Catherine: front desk - tried to turn away all the delivery drivers but more kept coming. She kept getting calls from upper management about the social media platforms and tried frantically to get in to make a statement but had little luck. She gave up when Leonnie demanded payment and let all the delivery people in.

Shamir: social media manager- she originally attended the meetings as a mole but soon learned that her fellow employees hardships. She drafted huge posts on every platform exposing the truth, changed all the passwords then took a vacation during the strike.

Hanneman: chief operational officer - he is calling and emailing the IT department about the bans every moment he can. He organized the meeting as soon as the strikers got rowdy.

Manuela: chief financial officer - although she is worried about the finances she has also been pressing about where to cut the budget first. Horse therapy is ridiculous! They own the whole ranch and are responsible for the upkeep of every horse. And all the horses are carefully hand selected and trained too. It's too much nobody uses the horse therapy because nobody has the time off to go to horse therapy!

Alois: Chairman - his title is mostly empty. He joined the strikers in a game of flag football scored a touchdown. Then went back to work as usual. Didn't check his emails about the strike since he only checks them in the morning when he first comes into work.

Gilbert: treasurer - he puts business first. Doesn't know his daughter works for the same company. Was friends with Dimitri's father. He is stressing about how the company will recover financially. He is the reason for the pay cuts so they can fund most of the benefits.

Cyrill: gopher - he gets paid minimum wage and lives on site. He considers himself lucky that he can drive the company car to go pick up office supplies from the store. He was homeless before he got a job at Seiros and feels like he is important.

Results

Since several members of the board were caught participating in strike activities the hubert and his firm counted them at strikers and used this in court.

The dorms were not considered responsible accommodations saying that prisoners in jail cells at least have their own toilet.

The news when crazy with the posts on social media. The account never replied to any dms or comments. When called they said a rogue employee posted them falsely because she was being fired.

Rhea was forced to pay a lawsuit that gave all dormitory workers an allowance of $1000 for rent for life. Even if they choose to leave the company.

Dimitri was fired for not actually having any training. Felix was promoted to the head of IT and everyone respects him.

Rhea looses her company. And most of her assets. She kept the therapy horse ranch and manages that for a living.

With the entire company now belonging to her since everyone above her resigned she made a ton of changes making the company more normal. She pays a fair livable wage to every employee. She repurposed the dorms into offices or solitary break rooms.

Huberts firm gets rebranded as a honest firm that wants to help the little guys. He later goes on to help other corporations unionize.

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ivarthebadbitch · 4 years ago

Text

Strange things can happen

Chapter 3 summary: Ecbert has some advice for the newlyweds on the morning after. Ragnar makes an important announcement.

Canon divergent, everybody lives, arranged marriage AU after 4x14. Read this chapter on Ao3.

Previous chapters: [1] [2]

On Ao3: [1] [2]

Pairings: Ivar x OC, Ivar vs. basically everyone

Warnings: None

Word count: 1755

Tagged: @youbloodymadgenius @heavenly1927 @nukyster-blog @bae-roman (let me know if you’d like to be tagged)

CHAPTER 3: You never know with Saxon women

Ecbert’s head hurt, but it was nothing that a little wine with breakfast couldn’t fix. The evening had been something of a blur after they had put the newlyweds to bed: all he could really be certain of was that Ragnar had taught him some sort of dirty song in his language, and that he had lost a shoe at some point, so on the whole he had to consider the night a success. Though he did need to confirm one thing to truly count it as a success.

“I do hope that Aldreda and Ivar will be here before their breakfast gets cold,” he remarked to his son, who had been quietly eating his porridge. “However...that may be a good sign. It is unusual for a newly married couple to conceive on their first night together, but—” he nodded at Ragnar on the other side of the table, who also seemed a bit hungover—“as we all know, Ivar comes from fertile stock, so I would say that the chances are higher than normal. Wouldn’t you agree, Aethelwulf?”

If it was possible to stir porridge in a resentful manner, then Aethelwulf had surely mastered it. “I suppose so,” he said reluctantly. He looked over at Aethelred and Alfred, desperately searching for a different subject. “Alfred, don’t push your porridge to the sides of the bowl. You aren’t fooling anyone and you’ll just be hungry later.”

“Sorry, Father,” Alfred said. He still did not eat his porridge. He stirred it. Resentfully.

“Father, before Aldreda and Ivar arrive, if I may…” Aethelwulf said in a low voice, leaning in closer to Ecbert. “I know a great deal has been invested in this marriage and...and everyone hopes it will be profitable and agreeable to all. But they are young and no doubt somewhat overwhelmed by these events, and so all I ask is that you show some tact and restraint this morning.”

“Oh, is that all?” Ecbert gave his son a reassuring smile. “I will be very circumspect, I promise you that. Ah, and here they are!”

Aldreda came in first, followed by Ivar, with his arms slung over the guards’ shoulders. They deposited him on the chair next to Aldreda, directly across from Ecbert. Both of them stared intently at their porridge. Neither of them made a move to touch it.

“Please, eat,” Ecbert told them in an encouraging tone. “Both of you must have worked up an appetite by now. I do hope last night was fruitful?”

“Father,” Aethelwulf said through gritted teeth.

Aldreda gave him a pained smile before looking at Ecbert. “We...know each other somewhat better now.”

“Hm.” That did not quite sound like the resounding success Ecbert had envisioned. “In a carnal manner, I hope. There is no need to be modest; we’re all family here. Though it is also good to become better acquainted on a personal level as well.”

Aldreda turned bright red. At her side, Ivar looked like he wanted to slide under the table and disappear into a hole in the ground.

“Of course, it can be difficult to be intimate with someone you have only just met,” Ecbert acknowledged. “You will grow more comfortable with each other over time. After all, you have many things in common, such as...such as your age. Yes. The two of you are nearly the same age. And...hm.”

“Thank you for the advice, Grandfather,” Aldreda said after a moment. Nobody seemed to want to speak after that.

As the silence lengthened, Ragnar suddenly cleared his throat. “I have an announcement,” he said. “Now that my son is married and our treaty is secured, I intend to return home as soon as the weather is favorable. King Ecbert, I trust that I may have use of one of your ships?”

“Certainly,” Ecbert replied. “You are quite welcome to remain as long as you like, but I understand you must have responsibilities to attend to in Kattegat. Rest assured that Ivar will be well taken care of.”

Ivar’s head shot up, his mouth hanging open in dismay. “What are you talking about, old man?” he asked his father in Norse. “You can’t leave me here with these people!”

“Shut up,” Ragnar answered as Ecbert pretended to not understand the exchange. “We will talk about this later.”

The boy sat back in his chair with a sullen expression, and Ecbert moved to intervene. So long as Ivar was sulking and unhappy, there would be little chance that he and Aldreda would conceive an heir. “Perhaps after breakfast, you would like to join Aethelred and Alfred in the training yard?” he asked Ivar. “Ragnar tells me that you have some skill with a bow, and the boys may learn something from your technique. Unless you wish to spend the morning with your bride?”

Ivar looked up at that. “Training,” he said in English, and Ecbert thought he saw Aldreda let out a small sigh of relief. He would talk to each of them separately later, if necessary. But Aethelwulf had made reasonable points earlier that the couple had perhaps been overwhelmed by the turn of events, and Ecbert was nothing if not a reasonable man. There was still time—so long as they didn’t make him wait forever.

***

Ivar finally managed to shake off the guards after dinner. The pair had evidently been tasked with dragging him around anywhere he needed to go—as punishment for something, he assumed—but it had been getting somewhat tiresome, and at any rate, he could get around perfectly well on his own. He ignored the stares he was getting from the passing servants and nobles as he crawled down the hall and banged on Ragnar’s door until his father finally opened it and let him in.

“You can’t leave,” Ivar snapped at him the moment the door was shut.

His father raised his eyebrows. “I thought I was clear about the nature of the agreement with Ecbert,” he said as he took a seat on the floor next to Ivar. “He allowed you to marry Aldreda on the condition you live with them. Me staying was not part of that. My brother Rollo remained at the court in Paris after he married the emperor’s daughter. It is a normal arrangement.”

“I thought Rollo was a great traitor.”

“Well, yes. But my point still stands.”

Ivar’s eyes began to well up with sudden tears and he turned his head away so his father would not see. But if you leave, I’ll be all alone here. “Mother will kill you if you go back without me.”

Ragnar laughed. “I’m willing to take that risk, but I think her heart will soften once she understands the benefits of our new trade agreement,” he said. He clapped Ivar on the shoulder and leaned in close. “Your task here is simple but important. All you have to do is please your bride. I assume you can do that?”

Ivar pulled away. “What sort of an idiotic question is that?” he asked with a scowl. “Of course I can. I will...I will...give her pleasure like she’s never had before in her life at this stupid court.” Even as the words left his mouth, he could feel his cheeks burning with embarrassment. How had his father failed to see through all his lies?

Rather than asking more questions about how exactly Ivar intended to achieve this, Ragnar grinned. “Excellent. Don’t tell your father-in-law, though. He is looking for an excuse to kill you.”

“Aethelwulf can go fuck himself.”

Ragnar positively beamed at him. Then he pulled out a flask, took a swig, and handed it to Ivar, who followed suit. “Well, boy, since it’s our last night together for some time, we can drink to that.”

From there, things became somewhat fuzzy. They both ended up lying on the floor at some point, with Ivar half listening as Ragnar somewhat incoherently recalled his past exploits. He had almost stopped paying attention entirely when his father suddenly said, “Oh yes, that was the time I was with your mother and Lagertha. Now that was a night worth remembering, though I think they enjoyed each other’s company more than they enjoyed mine.”

Ivar propped himself up on his elbows. “What?”

Ragnar shrugged. “Don’t look at me, it was your mother’s idea. She got Lagertha to go along with it. Lagertha would have killed me if I’d made the suggestion again.”

“Again?”

“Oh. Never mind that.” He sat up woozily, cleared his throat, and leaned closer to Ivar. “Listen, your bride must have lady friends, right? It might be worth asking. See if Aldreda would be interested. But you need to be delicate about it. You don’t want her to take it the wrong way.”

Ivar could feel his face growing hot again. “I don’t think she has lady friends. There aren’t that many women here for some reason. Just Aldreda and Aethelwulf’s wife. Some servants.”

“Oh, well, servants can be fun too, but I’m sure you know that.” Ragnar flopped back down on the floor. “You were just a child at the time, you wouldn’t remember, but there was this one slave back in Kattegat...beautiful woman, never seen anyone like her before, she was from...from...well, it doesn’t matter. But I sucked her toes once.”

Ivar stared at him. “She liked it?”

“I think so. Anyway, might be another thing to try with your wife. These Saxon women...you never know with Saxon women...”

Ivar supposed he did not know. He lay there on the floor next to Ragnar for a while, trying unsuccessfully to rid himself of the mental image of his father sucking on a woman’s toes, and then imagining what his life would look like in Wessex all by himself, surrounded by strangers. It wasn’t too late, he thought to himself. He could just tell Ragnar the truth and then Ecbert and Aethelwulf would be more than happy to be rid of him. Aldreda would certainly be thrilled to have him gone. All he had to do was swallow the humiliation of everyone knowing that, on top of everything else, he was incapable of doing a man’s duty. But at least he could go home.

“Father?” he said softly. “I need to tell you something.”

No answer. He turned his head to look. Ragnar was passed out beside him, limbs sprawled and his mouth wide open as he snored.

Great. This was just great. “Fuck you too,” Ivar sighed.

#vikings #ivar the boneless #fanfiction #fic: strange things can happen

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love101imagines · 4 years ago

Text

Bad idea

request: Can u write a fic w Sinan, having a secret crush on Kerem's sister, so Eda, isik and Osman find a way to distract kerem to leave the two alone. your last imagine was very good, I loved it.

tag list: @peraltwolf @zaynlikfalls @wwafangirld

(a/n): these two hate each other so much, I found it hilarious and so ironic if Sinan ended up falling for Kerem’s younger sister, that would be like the tip of the iceberg and the rest just helped that mess to be created.

In a household where your mother expected you to be a dutiful and charming daughter and your father acted like an emotionless soldier, it wasn't a surprise that you were the only one for Kerem.

It was with small things, like patching him up after the many fights that you told him to stop or calming him down after your father's patronizing comments. And he would do the same whenever you would get frustrated with your mother for not hearing you or telling you to act more like a lady.

That was why you two were always for each other, hence the reason you were going to one of his classmates' house after he almost got expelled.

Truth be told, you had a lot of experience in that topic. After all, you had been expelled a few months before from an all-girls' school, making your parents send you to your brother's school.

While he knocked loudly on the door, you bit down on your lower lip to avoid laughing. "Can't believe you're getting expelled now."

He only rolled his eyes before going inside, bumping his shoulder against the boy who had opened the door. "Let's talk about whatever we need to talk."

While the other boy glared at him, you stepped inside. "I'm (Y/N), nice to meet you." You introduced yourself politely, wanting to make up for your brother so you two wouldn’t get kicked out.

That was the first time you had ever talked to Sinan. You had seen him a few times in the hallways, but since you weren't in the same year you didn't share any classes.

Before he could reply, his eyes looking up and down at you in a not so subtle way, another girl entered the house. "Move." She ordered him.

You only gave him a side smile before seating down, wanting to get everything over with so your brother wouldn't get expelled too.

That night you got to know the rest of your new friends. While Kerem found himself interested in Eda, you couldn't tell him that you found yourself staring at Sinan most times when nobody else noticed. You couldn’t tell him specially for how they seemed to dislike each other so much.

Sinan didn't do much to show that he cared, he mocked Kerem every now and then and you usually ended up being the one who calmed things down.

“There’s also this, “That’s how my father used to do it”.” Sinan continued with his rant after school while you tried to convince Işik to come to the rock concert.

“That one is about manners.” Kerem shot back.

Sinan, standing next to you, rolled his eyes. “No, I interpret it as, “I’m a moron. I don’t have my ideas”.”

“Dude, I swear...” Your brother started.

“Kerem.” You warned, standing in front of Sinan so your brother wouldn’t cause a fight.

“Calm down.” Osman tried, pulling him back slightly.

Once he calmed down, you took a sip of your ayran before you shrugged. “I don’t think you’re right.”

Sinan looked at you raising his brows, probably a bit surprised by your attitude. You weren’t annoyed by him, but you still wouldn’t allow him to act that way with the rest.

“Oh, yeah?” He asked emotionless while you bumped your shoulder into his in a teasing way.

“Yeah, well, we all got the same shit taught as kids.” You wiped your mouth with the back of your hand. “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then you shut the fuck up.” You quoted with a smug smile.

He scoffed. “So that’s your life motto.”

“Better than tearing people down.” You replied like it was obvious.

He swallowed hard, clearly confused about why you hadn’t gotten annoyed at him like the rest but still contradicted him with good arguments, different from Kerem. Or at least, that seemed to him. “Even if you have to lie to them?” He continued, trying to get another reaction from you.

“It’s not like being kind will kill you, unlike that hatred that you’re harboring.” You explained, finally making eye contact with him once you finished your lunch.

You two continued like that for a few seconds, the rest oblivious that you had stopped bickering. While you bit the inside of your cheek to avoid blushing, you felt something weird inside of you as you watched Sinan’s face softening, not as frustrated as before.

Before you could think anything about that, Kerem cleared his throat. “Yeah, don’t even think about it.”

“Kerem!” You complained while your brother only shook his head and pulled your arm to stand next to him.

“You’re not going to bother my little sister too.” He announced while you sighed exasperatedly.

You glanced at Sinan, his jaw slightly clenched as he looked away, cheeks slightly pink.

You already knew that if you had an older brother, things with boys would be hard. Having Kerem as an older brother only made things 10 times harder. He wouldn’t let any boy even glance in your direction because of how protective he was.

Not once in his life did he ever turn a blind eye in your direction, and any boy that ever made you a mean comment or made you cry, left with a black eye once he found out.

It didn’t exactly help that he absolutely hated Sinan and how he always mocked him acting like he was more intelligent.

But still, you didn’t have to worry much about it. You didn’t even have a crush on Sinan, you weren’t only hanging out with him to help Kerem avoid being expelled. That’s what you continued saying to yourself whenever your mind went back to the boy.

“You’re too young to go on dates.”

You scoffed, almost stopping in your tracks while Kerem only continued walking towards the school. “Are you kidding me? I’m turning seventeen in a few months, you’re only one year older.”

“But I’m older.” He replied like a fact.

“Yeah, well, I don’t care.” You said sarcastically, stopping at a red light, mentally cursing your parents for not giving you a ride to school, saying that you were old enough now. “Besides, when did I ever say anything about dating? I only told you that you don't need to watch out for me all the time.” You tried to change the topic of the discussion.

He rolled his eyes at you. “Don’t act dumb. I’ve seen how he looks at you.”

“He?” You asked furrowing your brows. “Who’s he?”

Kerem only clicked his tongue as you two stopped in front of the school building. Before he could even answer, Sinan arrived with Osman. You would have to ask him later about that.

“What’s up?” Eda greeted you.

While you fixed your tie a bit, you didn’t notice Eda nudging Osman and clearing her throat.

“Kerem, we um...we need you to...” The girl trailed off.

“To talk with Coach Altuna.” Osman added. “Yes, we need you to talk to him.”

Your brother only shrugged. “Fine.”

When he didn’t even move, Eda sighed. “Now, go.” She ordered him, grabbing his arm pulling him with her.

Before he left, he turned to you one last time. “We’ll finish talking later.

“Yeah, yeah.” You brushed him off, clearly not concerned.

While you leaned against the railings behind you, Işik fumbled with her hands. “I um, I have to speak with Miss Ayse.”

“And I have to make some calls.” Osman said.

It only took them two seconds to leave, leaving you and Sinan alone. You pursued your lips into a line, dropping your bag as you took a sharp breath.

“And then there were two.” You mumbled.

Sinan didn’t answer, only moving to stand next to you and leaning against the wall.

You raised a brow at him, subconsciously fumbling with your hands. “Aren’t you going to leave too?”

He swallowed, shaking his head before looking at the ground. However, he looked at you once you started talking again.

“They left you here with me because they don’t like me, right?”

“What?” He blurted out.

You didn’t notice his incredulous look, so you only continued with your rant. “It’s obvious, they must think I’m only Kerem’s annoying and clingy sister and only hang out with me because I’m new and I don’t know anybody. You don’t have to lie to me, I’m sure they pity me or something, that has to be the only reason they hang out with me.”

“That’s bullshit.” He interrupted you. You finally looked at him, your eyes meeting as he continued. “We aren’t an exclusive club or some shit like that, but you’re part of us.” He explained.

You remained silent for a while, a small smile appearing on your face because of what he had admitted. “Thanks.” You mumbled.

He only gave you another small smile before you picked up your bag and grabbed his arm. “What are you doing?”

“I say we skip school.” You thought out loud. “I’m sure they won’t come back and they already left us. Besides, you really want to class now? Last time you went to the infirmary to sleep.”

“Why shouldn’t I go and sleep now?” He asked even if he didn’t want to.

You smirked. “Because I’m more fun to hang out with. I’m the better sibling, you’ll like me, you’ll see.”

He sighed, slowly picking up his bag and jacket before following you while you grinned. “You’re a bit handful even if you’re younger, I can see why you were expelled.”

“Fuck off.”

Kerem was furious with everything. You tried to hide it pretty well, after all, it wasn’t like you two were dating. You were only friends who were slowly growing closer, just like any friendship.

But still, Kerem noticed every smile, every flirtatious push, every teasing comment that had another meaning, and how you two always stood close to each other.

It was the next days when things started being weird.

“Uf, I’m so hungry. Can we go and buy something to eat?” You asked leaving your umbrella on the ground.

You all had convinced Miss Burcu to work alongside Coach Kemal, and the plan seemed to be going smoothly, which made you proud.

Once you gave Sinan, who was standing next to you, your best puppy eyes to convince him, he nodded, a faint smile on his face that made you cheer on your inside.

“We’ll all go,” Kerem added, glaring at Sinan which made you sigh.

Still, while Işik shifted in uneasiness, she glanced at Eda to do something.

“Kerem, I need your help with something,” Eda said all of a sudden dropping her red umbrella on the floor.

As soon as Eda said that, your brother nodded. You only rolled your eyes with a small smile on your face, amused with how he was acting like a lost puppy.

“I have to see something about a few debts, sorry.” Osman announced before leaving as well, a not so subtle smirk on his face that made you furrow your brows.

Isik grinned. “Osman, I’ll come with you! I have to go to the library. We’ll be back in a while. You two go and have lunch. Bye!”

“See ya.” You mumbled still confused while stretching your arms.

You glanced at Sinan, the only one who didn’t even move an inch from his place. His hands still fumbled with the piece of white paper everybody had already left on the ground, his eyes looking everywhere but you.

You judged him with your elbow. “Hey, I’m starving.” You said with a soft smile as he finally looked at you.

He thought about it for a moment before leaving the paper on the ground and walking alongside you. “Fine, let’s eat.”

Once you two bought some döner kebab, you sat on a bench nearby school, your legs crossed and knees touching.

“Thanks for not being that much of a dick to Kerem the last days.” You mumbled, voice slightly muffled because of your food.

He shrugged like it wasn’t such a big deal. “Maybe you were right after all. The whole kindness thing.” He explained before taking a bite of his food.

You fake gasped. “Don’t tell me I managed to change your mind.”

He bumped his shoulder into yours while you only chuckled, taking a sip from your soda. Forgetting about everything, about your friends, your brother, and your classes, you only focused on the boy and the many shops in front of you.

“Why were you expelled?” He asked curiously. “From your former school, I mean.”

You doubted for a moment, your hands playing with the paper your food was wrapped in before you let out a breath.

“It was because of my grades.” You started slowly. “It was a very strict school and a lot of pressure so I didn’t do that well in tests. Truth be told, I wasn’t really expelled because my parents changed me before everything happened, but they had to pay a lot for me to be allowed here. Ugh, they were so mad that their daughter was such a dumbass.” You said sarcastically, slumping in your seat.

“I don’t think you’re dumb.” He said quietly. “I’m not saying you’re a genius, and high school grades don’t show our intelligence and only work for a system in which we’re classified into different...” He started with his rant a bit nervous to change the subject.

You sighed loudly. “Ah, Sinan, I like you but shut up.”

“What?” He blurted out with his eyes widened.

You didn’t even move to pick up your bag you had dropped on the ground, too shocked with what had just slipped out. Now, he had to be sure that you were absolutely dumb.

“Um, yeah...” You started awkwardly. “I...I like you.” You admitted, carefully reading his expression.

He raised his brows, a smile appearing on his face after a few seconds. “Really?”

“Yes, I do.” You repeated yourself, now a bit more confident.

You finally connected the dots on the many occasions the rest had dragged Kerem away, leaving the two of you alone. As his hand slipped in yours, you smiled at him before you remembered something.

“We can’t tell Kerem.” You said completely serious while he only furrowed his brows. “I mean it, he’s going to break your arm if he finds out. I promise I’ll tell him when the time’s right.”

After sighing, Sinan nodded. “Alright. He certainly won’t be happy that I’m with his little sister.”

You chuckled, playfully bumping your shoulders into his. “Slow down, you haven’t asked me yet to be your girlfriend.”

As he rolled his eyes and pushed you too, you smiled. Things would be hard with Kerem, but you would manage to convince him that you really liked Sinan. Or at least, that’s what you thought while you intertwined your fingers.

#love 101 #love101 #burcu #eda #kerem #osman #sinan #ask 101 #aşk101imagine #aşk 101 #aşk 101 imagine #aşk101 #love 101 imagine #love101imagine #sinanimagine #sinanxreader

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vintagedaydreams · 5 years ago

Text

True Love Never Runs Smoothly Part 5 (Marcus)

Hello, lovelies! You’ve all been so patient – thank you!

Here is Chapter 5 of the Marcus story arc. I wasn’t going to post it yet, but…I’m not sure what else I’d add to it for now, so here ya go. 😊

Enjoy!!

Warnings: Suicidal/depressed thoughts/mentions, language.

@kettnerjanea @jelly-fishy-babie @the-graceful-ace @amwolowicz @batsdothings @waxingmoonstone @littlebabybatthings @mauvette268 @katsav17 @batsuperflashmartianwonderman @imyourapocalypse @chubbybbt

A few hours of reading put you into a much more relaxed frame of mind and when Edward announced it was time to head out to the garden for lunch, you were actually eager. And hungry.

You, Bella and Edward headed out from the library and you were a bit surprised to see Aro, Sulpicia, Marcus and Athenodora already gathered around an honest picnic blanket. Quilted and everything.

(You couldn’t help the somewhat panicked glance for a blonde head, but you breathed a sigh of relief when Caius was no where to be found. Good. You weren’t quite ready to face him yet. He was a lot…scarier than the rest.)

Aro’s sudden laugh at something his mate said, surprisingly had you relaxing from the unknowingly tensed stance you’d taken up.

You could do this. This was totally fine. All these people -vampires- you could trust. They had proven time and again during your short stay here that they were on your side. They believed in you and in your worth.

A gentle, cold hand settled on your back and Edward guided you forward towards the waiting party.Your stomach growled to help propel you the rest of the way. Honestly, your stomach and emotions had ruled your entire moves since you got here.

And you weren’t incredibly thrilled by that.

You really needed to get back to your own, non-supernatural, much less confusing world where things actually made more sense and you were more in control.

The three of you reached the blanket and you narrowed your eyes in suspicion when you were “subtly” maneuvered to sit next to Marcus.

You looked first at Edward and Bella and then to Aro and the Queens – all of whom suddenly found themselves busy with something and couldn’t meet your eyes.

For vampires, they really weren’t all that sneaky. You almost wanted to glance at Marcus to see if he had figured out something was a bit hinky but you were too nervous to do that. It was one thing to…joke?...about being with Marcus with Edward and even Aro, but having the man sitting next to you, a freaking King sitting next to you was a little different.

And whole lot more nerve wracking.

Shaking your head slightly, you decided to just go with it. If you thought it over too much, you’d end up making it all awkward. And since you didn’t want to ruin the good mood you’d been in mostly all day, you sat and started making yourself a plate of food.

The sun was ducking in and out between clouds and you found yourself fascinated by the shimmer of the vampires sitting around the quilt spread out on the perfectly manicured lawn.

Everyone was talking and laughing – all very cozy, all very familial feeling. You and Bella were the only ones eating, obviously, but the five vampires around you were sipping glasses of what you assumed was blood.Edward had one too and you hoped for his sake it was animal blood.

The brief nod the bronze haired telepath sent you confirmed it and you felt yourself relax even more.Edward had been good to you this entire time and you didn’t want him to suffer at all during this…odd situation.

The conversation suddenly seemed to change to include you and Bella even more and you threw yourself into it whole-heartedly. Both because the topic was one you could talk for hours on and also to distract yourself from your own thoughts.

Yet, despite how involved you were in the new conversation, you couldn’t completely shake the awareness you had of Marcus and his every move.

Marcus.

Marcus was…he was an absolute gem.

You didn’t know if he was in on this whole ‘matchmaking’ thing or if he was just a gentleman, but he was attentive. And sweet.

Though he too engaged in the conversations around the blanket, any time you needed anything, he was there with it. More drink? He was already offering you the pitcher. More finger food? The tray was suddenly hovering off to your side to chose from. Whenever you had something to add – which was often – you had his undivided attention.

It was…exhilarating.

It brought up all the things Athenodora had mentioned being Marcus’ mate would entail. And judging by her smirks and knowing looks, she knew you were mentally revisiting her conversation with you.

And she hadn’t been wrong. On any point.

Marcus was attentive, charming and was catering to your every need. If Marcus was this attentive when you weren’t anyone important to him, when you hardly knew each other, just how much more attentive would he be if you were his Bond Mate?

A brief sour feeling swept through your stomach at the thought of your own messed up Bond. Oh, what you’d give to have him as a Mate instead!

This small taste of what a caring Bond Mate could be just drove the proverbial knife in a little deeper. Why was this impossible for you to have even when you had a Mate?

A light touch to your elbow had you looking over at Marcus in surprise.

“Are you alright, Cara?” he asked just loud enough for you to hear over the conversations still going on around you.

You gave a small smile and visibly shook off your dark thoughts. This was no time to get depressed again. These vampires were doing this picnic luncheon – mostly – for you. You would not have their efforts go to waste. Even if you didn’t have anything worth a King’s attention.

“Yes, thank you,” you said after a brief moment. “I’m fine.”

Hazy red eyes started into your own before the vampire king gave a gentle nod and Aro effortlessly included you back into the conversation.

Alright, you took back your earlier thought.

Perhaps they were a little sneaky.

---

That afternoon was one of the best afternoons you’d had in ages.

All of the stories and rumors you’d heard of the Volturi, mostly from the awesome backstabbing, vicious Cullen crew, were blown out of the water as soon as Edward and Aro got into a friendly, yet heated debate over the best vacationing spots in Europe. Of all the things to argue about, they argued about tourist traps. (Though for probably different reasons.)

Edward had finally been declared the victor, (since Aro hadn’t left Volterra in centuries except for dire ruling emergencies), and Aro was good naturedly pouting about it. Which Sculpicia took as an invitation to spirit him away for some ‘comfort’.

Nobody had any confusion as to what exactly that meant.

Athenodora was the next to leave, citing Ciaus as an excuse. You were still super wary of the violent blonde vampire, so you didn’t call her on her obvious escape tactic. But honestly, with all the knowing looks being thrown across the blanket, it was a very obvious ploy.

That left you, Marcus, Edward and Bella.

As soon as Edward opened his mouth, you were already glaring at him.

Seriously? You sent out mentally. And just what is your excuse going to be?

Edward, the bastard, just responded to your mental questioning with a smirk and made up some cock and bull excuse about Bella needing her rest.

This time, you didn’t keep your doubts inside your head.

“Her rest?” you repeated deadpan with a raised brow. “It’s like…not even dinner time yet.”

“Well, I’ve been sleeping less lately,” Bella started and you help up a hand with a dramatic cringe.

“Bella, I don’t want to know. Please. Spare me the torrid details of you and Edward sharing a room.”

You weren’t sure who sputtered in outrage more, Bella or Edward, but it was amusing all the same.

“I shall bring Y/N back inside once she’s ready,” Marcus finally spoke up, a hint of humor in his voice.

Despite the nerves that shot through you at the idea of being alone with him, you gave the still embarrassed Edward and Bella a grin.

“You kids go have fun uh…resting,” you said angelically. If they were all going to leave you with Marcus for some hair brained match making idea, well…you wouldn’t go quietly.

Edward snorted at your thoughts, but dutifully escorted Bella away and back into the castle.

You felt a little of your tension returning as they disappeared from sight. Obviously, you weren’t any good at any of this, or your own Bond Mate would want you. You were a little lost about what to say or do with a King!

But Marcus, once again, proved to be the perfect gentleman and started up a conversation you couldn’t help but join in to.

He smoothly and easily kept it going, not letting any awkward pauses or silences fill the air, (you were sure that with your nerves, especially at first, you made him work hard to accomplish that), and you found yourself relaxing bit by bit.

The more you spoke with Marcus, the less you seemed to remember exactly who you were speaking to.

Honestly, the Vampire world didn’t give this King enough credit. He was charming, witty and ridiculously smart. And yet, he didn’t make you feel stupid by comparison. He valued your input and complemented your ideas and insights.

And if that wasn’t enough, his laugh and sparkling eyes would have been.

You’d heard stories of the King who was heartbroken and had lost all will to live.

Based on what you’d seen today, or since you’d gotten here really, Marcus was now a completely different vampire. Part of you, a very small part of you, flattered yourself in thinking that it was because of you. You tried not to think about that whenever Aro or Edward were around. (Quite honestly, you tried not to think about that period. Because how mortifying would it be when that turned out not to be true? And why would it be true?)

“I just don’t see it,” Marcus broke into your thoughts and you blinked, finding his face closer to yours then it was before.

“Huh?” you asked intelligently, mind struggling to catch up.

“I don’t see how any vampire could walk away from you and the Bond,” the quiet King murmured, red eyes roving every inch of your face in what you’d call reverence on anyone else.

You gave a self-depreciating smile, but it slipped when the handsome face in front of your dropped into a scowl.

“Aro told me about your ideas of your self worth and value,” Marcus said lowly.

You tried valiantly to suppress a shiver at the sudden gravely tone.

“That is also something I do not see. How you can think so low of yourself when you are as amazing as you are is something I do not understand.”

A blush lit fire to your cheeks and your eyes widened comically as cold, gentle fingers brushed against your jawline.

“So beautiful,” came the hushed voice.

You bashfully lowered your eyes, completely at a loss as to what you were supposed to do or say. This wasn’t exactly a situation you expected to find yourself in when you accompanied everyone to Italy.

“It seems that my brother and sister-in-laws have an idea that involves the two of us.”

Your eyes shot back up to meet his gently amused ones.

“O-Oh,” you stuttered out, “I think that was…I don’t think they meant…It’s not—”

An icy finger pressed itself against your lips, silencing your floundering.

“I am myself intrigued at the idea,” Marcus murmured, a small smile flitting across his lips. “My Didyme was the light of my life and when she died, a very large portion of me did as well. But I am finding that pieces of that missing part are coming back. I’d very much like to explore this possibility that they have presented us with. If you are willing.”

You just stared at him. If you were willing? Willing to what exactly? And he was intrigued by their idea? What kind of Twilight Zone was this? Where the King of the Undead wants to…to…have a relationship? With a human? With you?

A zing of arousal shot through you as Marcus gently ran the finger pressed against your lips back and forth – a gentle caress that his hooded eyes followed.

A slight flair of his nostrils and those hooded eyes were now boring into your own.

You swallowed and opened your mouth, watching red eyes glance back down at your lips before moving back up to meet yours.

“I’d…be willing,” you said softly after a long moment, feeling butterflies erupt in your stomach as your lips grazed his finger when you spoke.

He had yet to remove it.

And it didn’t seem like he was inclined to, if the caressing he’d started up again was any indication.

“Good,” came the throaty response, red eyes once again tracking his finger that was softly tracing your lips before he looked back up at you with a somewhat feral grin.

“I promise you that you won’t regret it.”

#Twilight Imagines #Marcus x Reader #Twilight #Volturi #Marcus Imagine

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writemywaytoyourheart · 5 years ago

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Onsra- Chapter 30: Sticks and Stones and Those Three Words

banner by: @envity <3

pairing: vampire!jungkook x female reader (also tae x ga-in oc & jimin x yuri oc)

genre: E2L, romance, angst, drama, horror

warnings for this chapter: uhm, language, a little blood and a bit of heartbreak sorry, also fluff

word count: 8.8k

Onsra: ML, Previous

Idk how I feel bout this one but let's get it.

____________________________________

“Y/n?”

“S-Seungwook?”

You’re staring at your old friend in shock as he drops the arm holding the gun to his side. “Y/n, you’re okay!” His eyes well up with tears of relief and a smile breaks out on his face. He steps forward as you climb to your feet, but Jungkook immediately pushes you behind him.

Seungwook’s eyes narrow as he scans Jungkook up and down, as if he’s just now noticing him. He shines the light at Jungkook, then his eyes widen, and he pulls his gun up, pointing it at his head.

“Get the fuck away from her, you monster.” He seethes, glaring at Jungkook.

“Seungwook! Seungwook, stop this. He’s not a monster.” You speak up, trying to move past Jungkook. But he won’t let you, he keeps an arm out to prevent you from getting any closer to the young man.

Jungkook scoffs, “Who the hell are you?”

Seungwook brings his gaze back to the vampire after glancing at you. “I’m y/n’s friend, who the fuck do you think you are?”

You feel Jungkook stiffen, but before he can answer, a loud crash is heard from outside the door. Gunshots sound and shouts follow, someone screaming to run. Seungwook looks towards the door, his face showing how torn he is, between going out to help or staying with you.

Jungkook reaches behind him and takes your hand, the next second, Seungwook seems to make a decision as he raises his gun again and shoots at Jungkook. You scream, falling to the ground after Jungkook shoves you out of the way. You grab your flashlight that’s still sitting on the ground and shine it towards the two now struggling. Jungkook twists Seungwook’s hand, making the gun drop to the floor as he screams in pain.

He punches Seungwook in the face and pins him against the wall, his eyes turning a deep shade of red as he glares at him. The boy just looks back at Jungkook defiantly, then he spits blood in his face from when Jungkook punched him.

The vampire surges forward, only stopping when you scream.

“Stop it! Don’t you dare bite him, Jungkook!” You stand up and rush over to him, pulling on his arms to get him to let go. Anger flows through him and he shoves you away, causing you to stumble from the force and fall on the ground, your flashlight rolling out of your hands.

A sharp pain flares up your tailbone when you hit the ground and you gasp. Jungkook finally seems to realize what he just did, his face dropping when he sees your face scrunching in pain. He doesn’t let go of Seungwook though, he just pins him to the wall harder as he watches you, needing to make sure you’re alright. When he sees you take your flashlight again, he speaks up, “Y/n, get out of here. Just run.”

Taehyung and Ga-In come running down the stairs at that moment and your best friend gasps when she sees who Jungkook has against the wall.

“Seungwook?”

“Ga-In.” Seungwook sends her a weak smile.

“Get out! All of you!” Jungkook hollers, which sets Tae in motion. He shoves Ga-In towards the door and grabs your arm, dragging you up off the floor.

“Jungkook, stop it. Both of you, stop!” You try to tell them, but Tae opens the door and shoves you out. You stumble but catch yourself, then you feel Ga-In drag you down the hall and out the front door, into the pouring rain.

~ ~ ~

“What did you do to her?” Seungwook hisses, grunting when Jungkook pushes him harder into the wall.

“I don’t know who the fuck you are, but you leave y/n alone.” Jungkook growls angrily, and Seungwook just laughs bitterly, blood dripping from his nose.

“Don’t tell me you’ve brainwashed her into thinking you’re the good guys. You’re fucking disgusting. Have you told her everything you do? Have you told her your plans?” Jungkook squints at him and he chuckles again. “Didn’t think so. I swear, I’m going to kill you one day.”

“Not if I kill you first.” Jungkook glares at him and tries to keep his urge of sinking his teeth into the guy’s wrist under control. He closes his eyes and pictures you touching his arm gently to settle him. When he opens his eyes, his irises are back to the lighter shade.

He shoves Seungwook towards the staircase roughly, making the young man trip and fall, groaning at the pain in his limbs.

“Come near me or any of my friends again, you’ll regret it. Got it?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, he just stalks out of the stairwell and slams the door shut. It’s eerily quiet as Jungkook makes his way to the front, hoping everyone made it out okay.

Jungkook steps outside, the cold rain soaking him through immediately. The rain is so heavy that you can’t see two feet in front of you. He walks down the steps then flinches when a hand grabs his arm. Jimin is standing there, totally soaked with a serious look on his face.

“Come on, now!” He shouts, pulling Jungkook into the rain. The two of them run down the dirt road that’s turned into mud, slipping and sliding but never falling. Finally, Jungkook sees the blue van up ahead, parked on the side of the road and out of the way, and they run for it.

Hoseok opens the side door and Jimin and Jungkook jump in, slamming the door shut behind them as Seokjin steps on the gas and speeds down the road. Rain batters against the car as Jungkook looks around and sees everyone made it out, then he feels himself panic, whirling around to try and find you.

He sighs in relief when he sees you sitting in his usual seat, staring out the window. He has an overwhelming urge to just climb back there and hold you, the fear that something almost happened to you still raw in his mind.

You look at him when you feel him staring, then you send him a glare and look back out the window. Jungkook’s stomach drops at that and he bites his lip, wiping the rain from his forehead and looking out the front as his hands clench and unclench.

~ ~ ~

Seokjin takes a lot of detours and goes in a few circles on the way back to throw off anyone who might be following.

“What the hell happened?” Taehyung growls at no one in particular, he just wants answers, not caring who gives them.

Namjoon has his head in his hands as he mutters. “I don’t even know, it all happened so fast. Yoongi hyung and I were searching for stuff when we heard someone come in the front door. We were about to tell you guys, but we couldn’t get the chance to talk without being heard.”

Yoongi takes it from there, “At first it was only one vampire, so we thought we could take him out and then tell everyone we needed to get out of there. But then more and more came, there must have been at least twelve. We stayed hidden and waited for a chance to alert you guys. That’s when a group of Hunters came in and literally started shooting up the place. I think they followed them.”

Jin’s jaw is clenched as he grips the steering wheel, he’s no doubt fuming over the fact that he was right in the beginning to not go at all.

Hoseok speaks up quietly, “We all hid the second we heard someone walking around on the second level. When we made our way downstairs, thankfully we only encountered one vampire, but we caught him off guard. We didn’t even know there were Hunters until we made it to the ground level.” Tae fills everyone in on what happened on your end, for the most part.

You hear that he and Jungkook found Ga-In on the second level trying to get the door open to follow you. Tae stayed with her to bandage her up because she had twisted her ankle and got cut on the shards of glass on the floor. Jungkook immediately ran downstairs to find you.

Everyone asks you what happened, but you just stay quiet and keep looking out the window. Jungkook doesn’t say anything either, so they eventually stop asking.

By the time you make it home, it’s dark out. The leader parks the car and turns it off, then he slumps back in his seat, his wet hair making a little water mark on the head rest.

The car is full of labored breathing and fidgeting, nobody saying a word.

“That was the stupidest fucking thing we’ve ever done.” Seokjin snaps after a minute.

You couldn’t agree more.

You guys are lucky that you all made it out, it could’ve ended a lot worse.

That thought makes your stomach turn in a sick way, so you push it away and just whisper a quick thanks that everyone is okay.

When everyone climbs out of the car, you come out last. Jungkook and Yoongi are standing outside waiting for you. Jungkook offers you his hand to step out of the car but you brush him off and take Yoongi’s hand instead.

The older vampire helps you climb out, then he shoots Jungkook a confused look. The youngest just looks crestfallen, his shoulders sagging as he watches you move past them and head inside after thanking Yoongi.

“What the hell did you do?” Yoongi asks, but Jungkook just glares at him and stomps inside.

You told Seokjin that you weren’t hungry, so you were just going to head to bed.

Now, you’re towel drying your hair as you sit on your big bed, after changing into your giant white shirt that still has a tear in it and a light pink stain on the chest from when Yuri smeared the blood on you all that time ago. Your hair is still piled up in the ‘braids’ that Jungkook put it in earlier, but the flowers have long since fallen out. Your tailbone is killing you and you’re almost questioning whether you fractured it when Jungkook shoved you, but there isn’t really any way to find out.

A soft knock on the door makes you internally groan. You know exactly who it is, and you’d rather see anyone but him right now. You ignore it and fold your towel before setting it on your dresser. Then you remember that you forgot to give Koko his second round of pellets and you mentally slap yourself.

Stupid! Urgh!

Your nose twitches in irritation as you stomp over to the door and open it, revealing a slightly surprised Jungkook.

“Y/n-“

You move past him and hurry towards the stairs, running down them and into the living room. Everyone else is eating dinner in the dining room, so you walk over to the mantel and drop a few of Koko’s pellets into the water.

“Goodnight, Koko.” You whisper to the little fish as he swims around lazily.

“Y/n? Oh, uh.” You turn to see Seokjin covering his eyes. “Y/n, you don’t have pants on.” He says with his hand still over his eyes.

Again??

You turn red and look down to see that your shirt comes down to your knees but it’s still obvious that you have no bottoms on. You really need to stop running out of your room so suddenly.

“S-sorry, Jin. I just-…I came to feed Koko.” Your voice fades and you see the eldest chuckle, “Alright, I just heard someone running down the stairs and came to make sure everything was okay. I’m leaving now, goodnight.” He turns, one hand over his eyes and the other helping him find his way back to the dining room.

You shake your head, furious at yourself for being so stupid, but you’re glad that Seokjin is so polite and unjudgmental, as humiliating as that was. You move to leave the living room but Jungkook walks in just at that moment.

“Can we-“

You move past him and make for the stairs, holding your shirt as far down as you can as you climb the steps when you hear him behind you.

You make it to your room and you’re about to shut the door when Jungkook grabs it before you can. You glower at him but let go and go to your bed to sit down. Jungkook walks in and shuts the door.

“Turn around and let me put my pants on.” You snap when you see him staring at you. Jungkook’s eyes widen and he gives you a little nod before turning around and waiting for you to tell him he can look.

You grab your sweatpants and pull them on, then you sit on the bed with a huff. “You can look now.” You mutter grumpily. Jungkook turns back around and slowly comes up to the bed, a look of uncertainty on his face.

“Y/n, I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?” You ask coldly. You don’t want to be mad at him, but the way he handled things tonight, by ignoring you and hurting you, makes you angry. Of course, he didn’t mean to hurt you, and you know that. But if he would just listen to you, it wouldn’t have happened.

“For everything. For not being with you and for not listening to you and for h-hurting you.” Jungkook’s gaze is locked on the floor.

“I’m not mad that you weren’t with me, Jungkook.”

He internally groans when you don’t use your nickname for him, knowing he messed up bad.

“I understand that the situation was completely uncalled for, and I don’t expect you to always be there to protect me. I was just as worried for you and the others as you were for me, Jungkook.” You don’t want him to think that all you need him for is protection, because that’s far from the truth.

Jungkook nods as you continue, “I also understand that you didn’t know who Seungwook was. I’m not mad at you for trying to protect me, but you didn’t even try to listen to me-”

“He shot at me!” Jungkook interrupts you angrily, the fact that you brought that guy up is pissing him off.

“I know!” You shout back. “And I was scared to death that he was going to hurt you! If he was here right now, I’d be angry with him too!”

“Oh, lucky for him he isn’t.” Jungkook scoffs, angering you further.

“Seriously Jungkook?! Can’t you even think for a minute why I would be upset?” You feel the tears coming, but you bottle them up.

“No! No, I can’t! He’s a fucking Hunter, y/n! He kills vampires, and I’m a vampire!! Do you even care about that??” Jungkook’s eyes are watering as he rants.

“You’re not a real vampire, Jungkook! All he must have seen are the real monsters, the ones killing people.” You seethe, all your horrible memories coming back. “The ones that murdered innocent humans for sport. I don’t know what he’s doing, and I do care about your safety, how dare you say otherwise.” A single tear slips out and you wipe it away angrily.

“I told you not to bite him because I care about you, Jungkook. He isn’t a bad guy, and I don’t want you to regret hurting another person. Why can’t you understand that? I’m trying to help you.”

Jungkook hesitates, your words slowly sinking in. But you defending Seungwook pisses him off too much for him to let it go. “If he’s such a good person, why don’t go and mess around with him then? Apparently, you’re done with me.”

You freeze at that. Jungkook insinuating that you’re some whore that plays around makes your blood boil and you glare at him fiercely. “Get out of my room.” You spit, disgust clear in your voice. After opening up to him and being so raw, your heart aches intensely.

His words finally sink into his brain as he realizes what he just said after he sees the hurt in your gaze. Jungkook steps closer, wanting to take it all back. “I- I didn’t me-“

“Yeah, you didn’t mean it. I get it.” You say, chuckling tearfully. “I get that even after everything we’ve been through, you think so lowly of me to say such disgusting things and then say you didn’t mean it. Why did you say it then? Get out of my room right now.”

Jungkook swallows the lump in his throat and backs away until he’s at your door.

“I’m sorry.” He mumbles, tears in his eyes.

“Sorry means more than just saying the words, Jungkook. Please get out.”

Jungkook nods and leaves your room, the click of the door echoes in your mind before you let the tears fall. They stream down your face, choking you as you stuff your face into your pillow and let yourself sob loudly.

You’re so angry and so hurt that you don’t even know what to do. Your heart is aching so bad that you feel like you might just be having a heart attack at this point. You hate how much you love him and remembering him say he loves you earlier makes the sting in your heart worse.

You wanted to say it back. You wanted to say it back and now it’s all ruined.

Seungwook was your friend for months, your only friend besides Ga-In, and you know he wouldn’t hurt a fly. He thinks he’s doing the right thing, but he doesn’t understand the truth about Jungkook. You didn’t get a chance to explain. All you wanted to do was make sure no one got hurt, but now Jungkook has misunderstood and thinks you don’t care about him.

Does he even love you?

Maybe he thinks he does, but it’s just because you’re the first person to treat him kindly after being bitten. That doesn’t mean he loves you. You know you love him, but after what he said, you’re thinking it’s all one-sided.

People say things when they’re angry. But it sounded like he meant it. And if he believes you were using him and you would go running to Seungwook at the first chance you got, then he knows nothing about you.

And how can he love someone he doesn’t know?

The thoughts swarming in your head are making it worse, the ache so deep that you just want to stab yourself in the heart to make it stop. Just make it stop.

You grab your pillow and stuff your face into it to drown out the sound, screaming as loud as you can.

~ ~ ~

After Jungkook closes your door, he goes to his room and shuts himself in.

Then he sits on the ground and leans his back against the bed. He pulls his legs up and hugs them, letting a few tears fall.

The guilt at what he said is making him sick. He just wants to go in there and tell you he really didn’t mean it and he has no idea why he said it. He was jealous and stupid, and he didn’t mean it.

He didn’t mean it.

“I- I’m s-sorry.” He chokes out and stuffs his head into his folded arms, beating himself mentally over his rash words.

Jungkook loves you so much that he doesn’t even know how to handle it. He’s never felt this way about someone, even before he was bitten. And now all of his emotions are confusing him enough anyway. He just wants to protect you and hold you forever, you’re so sweet and imperfectly beautiful that it makes his chest hurt when he looks at you.

And now he’s hurt you.

The one person he loves so much that he would do anything for.

Just because his jealousy and anger got the best of him.

“I’m so, so sorry.”

When he hears your muffled scream, full of anger and pure raw hurt, his chest aches and he sobs heavily into his knees, knowing he was the one to cause your pain.

~ ~ ~

Ga-In comes in an hour later. She quietly closes the door and walks over to the bed to see you curled up in the covers, half your face smooshed into your wet pillow while most of your hair is sticking to your tear-stained cheeks. You look at her blankly and she smiles at you sadly, then she climbs onto the bed and pulls you into her lap, wrapping her arms around you.

“What happened, girlie?” She whispers, holding you tight.

“He doesn’t love me, Innie. Not like I love him.” You whimper, then your best friend pulls away enough to get your hair our of your face. She sighs sadly, “Tell me everything.”

So, you do.

You tell her everything that happened after you two got separated up until your fight a little while ago, not leaving out a single thing. Ga-In listens quietly until you finish, then she muses.

“I was wondering what happened to Seungwook. I’m glad he’s okay.” You nod and she continues. “You said Jungkook said he loves you, so why would he say that if he doesn’t?”

You sniffle and wipe your nose, “I’m afraid he thinks he loves me because I was the first person to be nice to him. If he really thinks I would leave him for Seungwook, then he doubts my love for him, and he doesn’t know me at all. How can he love me if he doesn’t know me?”

Ga-In nods in understanding, “I see what you mean. But maybe he really didn’t mean what he said, he was obviously angry.”

“Has Tae gotten angry with you?”

“Well yeah, we’ve had our disagreements.”

“Has he ever said that to you? Accused you of not loving him and just messing with him?”

Ga-In looks thoughtful, then she sighs. “No, he hasn’t. But he also hasn’t been struggling as much with his emotions as Jungkook has for so long.”

You look at her curiously, wondering how she knows, and she squints at you. “You think I haven’t noticed? Taehyung told me how you asked about his heart, and how he had no idea where you got that idea. It’s Jungkook isn’t it?”

You don’t answer and her eyes fill with tears.

“Y/n, how can he be able to control his emotions when his heart doesn’t even beat? Even though, that doesn’t mean what he said didn’t hurt you, and it was wrong. But it’s a miracle that he’s not gone yet, and that can only mean one thing.”

“What?” You whisper tearfully.

“That he really does love you. After he drank that man’s blood, he wouldn’t have been able to hide his feelings of hatred for everyone if he turned. Not unless something real slowed it down.”

Slowed…

Slowed it down…?

Then it hits you like a flying brick.

Fuck.

Ga-In sees your panicked look and she speaks up, “What is it?”

“Oh no…Ga-In I thought it stopped, I’m so stupid.”

“What do you mean, y/n?”

“I- I thought since he didn’t turn then Seokjin was wrong. I thought they were all wrong and he was okay for now, he acted like he was okay. I’m so stupid.” Tears start streaming down your face. “You’re right, Innie. It didn’t stop, it slowed down. The sun, his mood swings…he’s still turning.”

You’re fully crying now as you scramble out of her arms. “Where is he? Where’s Kook?”

“T-Taehyung heard him crying in his room, he said he was going to check on him.”

You jump off the bed and run to your door, flinging it open and stepping across the hall to open Jungkook’s door. You don’t even bother knocking, you just barge in and see him curled up by his bed. He looks up and you see the tear streaks down his puffy cheeks.

“Kookie.” You breathe, your heart breaking at the sight of him.

“Y-y/n. I- I’m so s-sorry.” Jungkook sobs and holds his arms out to you. You hurry over to him and hug him, feeling his arms wrap around you and hold you tightly, as if he’s afraid if he loosens a little, you’ll just fly away.

You stuff your face into the crook of his neck and let your tears fall.

“I love you, Jungkook.” You cry into his neck, relieved that you can finally say it. Jungkook feels his chest aching and he tries to breathe steadily as he strokes your hair. “I love you too, so much. Please forgive me, y/n. I didn’t mean a word I said, I was a piece of shit for saying that to you.”

“I forgive you.” You sniffle and hold him tighter against you.

“Thank you.” He chokes on his tears and takes a few deep breaths to calm himself. You pull away enough to wipe his tears, your own still falling. Then you lean in and kiss him slowly, feeling his hands move up to cradle the back of your head as he deepens the kiss. You taste the saltiness of both your tears as he pulls you in again.

You finally break away for a breath and he sniffles while he tries to clean up your face, using his sleeve. “Jungkook.” You get his attention when you take his face in your hands and he stops dabbing at your tears. His red eyes shine with unfallen tears while you look at him.

“Please talk to me, Kookie. I know that you’re not alright. Please, please just trust me and talk to me. I know you’re afraid and it’s okay.” You whisper, still cupping his face gently.

Jungkook sighs shakily and reaches up to take one of your hands, “I do trust you; I trust you with everything in me. I’m just-…” His voice breaks and he clears his throat. “I’m just so scared.” You nod and he pulls you closer to hug you again.

“I can’t do this, y/n. I c-can’t do this.” His broken sobs make your throat close. “I can feel myself slipping and I’m so scared. I don’t want to be a monster, I’d rather die than be a monster, but there’s nothing I can do to stop it.” His breath hitches. “I can’t stop it, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry y/n.” He cries freely into your shoulder and you feel your heart break more than it ever has.

“Kookie.” You whisper soothingly, petting his head to help him calm down. “I’m here with you, and you can’t get rid of me. You’re going to be okay, you can’t give up yet.” A few tears slip out and you clear your throat.

“I won’t let you give up, not now and not ever. You can do this.”

“I can’t…”

“Yes, you can, Kookie. You can fight it; I know you can. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met, and you’re not alone. You have me, and all your hyungs, Yuri and Ga-In too.”

“They hate me.” Jungkook sniffles sadly.

“What do you mean?” You pull back to look at his wet face.

“Ga-In and Yuri hate me. They’d kill me if they had a chance.” He wipes his nose, refusing to look at you. You stifle a laugh at how cute he looks and kiss him on the nose gently, “They don’t. Yuri is just a spitfire, and Ga-In helped me stop being dumb and see that you really love me.”

He looks up at you, sadness filling his gaze. “Y-you thought I don’t love you?”

“For a minute there, yeah. I thought you meant what you said, but now I know you didn’t. I can see you struggling Kookie, and I’m so proud of you.”

“Why? You shouldn’t be proud of me for struggling, I should have overcome it by now for you to be proud of me.”

“That’s not how I see it. I see it as the fact that you’re still struggling means you haven’t given up yet, and I couldn’t be prouder.” He sniffles again at your words.

“Y/n?”

“Yeah?”

“How did I ever get lucky enough to meet you? I’m sorry I can’t be more for you.” His voice is so quiet you lean in to hear him better. “I just wish I could be better for y-”

You put a finger to his lips to make him stop talking.

“That’s enough, Kook.” You wipe your eyes one last time and stand up, grabbing for his hand to help him up as well. Then you gently push him onto his bed.

“Lie down.”

He quietly follows your request, laying his head on his pillow but keeping his eyes on you. You kneel at the side of his bed, so your face is level with his head. “Close your eyes.” You whisper and he closes them. You stroke his hair and start humming a random tune that pops into your head.

You know you’re not the best singer, and your voice cracks a lot, but the content little smile on Jungkook’s face makes you not even care. You keep brushing your fingers through his hair and singing softly, watching his face relax more until he’s breathing steadily, out like a light. You swallow your tears and keep singing, memorizing every line of his face, the little mole on his nose and one under his lip, his long lashes resting against his pale cheeks, his dark locks falling over his forehead, and the way his eyes flutter slightly when he’s sleeping.

The thought that you might lose him forever lingers in your mind as you try to wipe your tears. You never thought you’d fall in love with him, not in a million years. And now that you’ve found the one thing you never knew you needed, the cruel world is trying to take him from you.

But you won’t let it.

You’ll love him for the rest of your life, whether he turns or not.

You just hope he won’t forget about you or learn to hate you with all that he is. You don’t think you could stand seeing him turn in front of you, losing who he is each second and not being able to stop it. You can’t imagine how the other boys must have felt seeing their youngest become the one thing that destroyed him in the first place.

Before heading to your room, you look at the sleeping boy one last time, rubbing your thumb along his cheek gently.

“I’m going to save you, Jeon Jungkook. I promise.” You whisper so quietly that your voice breaks.

~ ~ ~

When you open your bedroom door the next morning, you see Jungkook right outside and leaning against the wall. The second he hears you, he looks up and his face brightens.

“Hey.” He says hesitantly.

You smile at him and step out of your room, “Hey, Kook.”

He looks a lot better than he did last night. You’re not sure you’ve ever seen him look as vulnerable as he did before he fell asleep. Now, he looks like your old Kook again, but there’s a hesitancy in his eyes, almost like he doesn’t want to upset you.

“Uh, can we talk?” He asks and you nod immediately.

You grab a breakfast bar from Seokjin in the kitchen before meeting Jungkook on the porch. He’s got a hoodie on with the hood up besides it being a nice day outside, and you know that the sun is still bothering him.

You two walk to the little clearing that you always go, and he moves to lean against the trunk of the willow tree. Once he’s in the shade he takes his hood off. You sit close to him on the grass, hating the awkward silence between you two. Jungkook clears his throat and you look up at him, waiting for him to say something.

“I just wanted to apologize again, for last night.” He says quietly and you stand up to move closer to him. “Kook, I already forgave you, and I’m sorry that you thought I didn’t care about you. I could’ve chosen my words better and tried to be more understanding of how you saw the situation.”

He gives you a weak smile and shakes his head. “I just let my jealousy control me, and it was wrong of me. There’s no excuse for my behavior.” He looks at you as you stare at your fingers, fiddling with them.

“I was so scared.”

You look up at his words, seeing his eyes glisten a little. He straightens up and you can see all the emotion in his gaze as he looks at you, “I was so scared that I was going to lose you.”

Your eyes soften and you bite your lip before speaking. “You won’t lose me, Kookie.”

He shakes his head again, “If I hadn’t found you when I did, I would’ve lost you. I would’ve lost you to death or something so much worse.” His voice breaks and you see the tears welling in his eyes. “I don’t know what I would do with myself if you were hurt because of me.”

“Koo, nothing that happened was because of you.” You say softly, hating that he blames himself for something that was beyond anyone’s control. “I’m okay, I’m alive. Because you saved me.”

Jungkook sniffles and wipes his nose with his sleeve before he opens his arms, “C-can I please hold you?” You nod and step into his hold, letting him wrap his arms around you. “I would never forgive myself if I had let something bad happen to you.” He murmurs into your hair.

“I’m okay, Kookie.” You whisper soothingly, patting him on the back comfortingly. You hear him take in a shaky breath. “Please, don’t ever leave me. Please, y/n.”

“I wouldn’t even if you told me to.” You say with a small smile.

“I won’t, I won’t ever. No matter what happens, I’ll always love you, little flower. Please remember that.” Jungkook’s voice breaks as he speaks and you find yourself wiping your eyes, trying to push back the haunting thoughts that plague your mind.

“I will. You need to know that I will never leave you, Kook.” You look up at him, trying desperately to prove that you’re speaking the truth. He can see it in the desperation in your eyes. “I don’t care what you look like or what you need to eat, I love you.”

Jungkook cups your cheeks so gently it’s as if he’s holding a fragile teacup, then he leans down and presses his lips to yours softly. He pulls back to take a quick breath before kissing you again, and again. You start to giggle, and you feel Jungkook smile into the kiss when he goes back in for another. Your hands are holding his shoulders as his wrap around you and move to your lower back.

Jungkook pulls you into him a little more, but the pressure he puts on your sore tailbone causes a pained gasp to escape your lips. Jungkook pulls away, his brows furrowed, concern filling his gaze. “Are you alright? Are you hurt?”

You shake your head and let out a puff of air, “N-no, I’m fine.”

“You’re lying. What’s the matter, y/n? Did I do something?” You can see the panic in his eyes as he searches your face. You shake your head again, “I’m fine, Kook.”

“Don’t lie to me. I thought we were going to be honest with each other.” Jungkook’s voice has a tinge of irritation in it, upset that you’re hurt and not telling him.

You feel a bit of your own annoyance at his words, “You can’t say I’m the only one that’s lying. There are things you’ve kept from me too, you know.” You pull out of his arms and he sighs. “Y/n…I kept some things from you to protect you, telling you wouldn’t do anything but make you upset and worry.” He tries to defend himself.

“Well, why can’t you believe that’s why I don’t tell you some things?” You snap back, irritated that the moment was ruined. Jungkook clenches his jaw, “If you’re hurt, you need to tell me.”

“Why?” Now you’re just being stubborn, and you know it. You didn’t want him to find out, because he would just blame himself. You’re mad at yourself for reacting to the pain and when he accused you of being the only one to hide the truth that just irked you even more.

You hate fighting with him, but all your emotions are in a twist and you can’t help but snap back. Jungkook surprises you though, when he clenches and unclenches his fists and takes a few breaths before apologizing.

“Ok, you’re right.” You look at him in shock. “You’re right, it isn’t fair for me to expect you to be fully honest with me if I don’t give you the same trust back. I’m sorry.”

You blink a few times, then you clear your throat. “I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have been stubborn and kept the fight going.”

Jungkook smiles and steps over to kiss you on the forehead, then he takes your hand. “So, are we good?” You nod. “As long as we agree to actually be honest from now on.” You mumble and he laughs. “Ok, it’s a deal. Now, are you hurt?”

You nod reluctantly and Jungkook brushes your hair out of your face. “Where are you hurt, love?”

“My tailbone.” You whisper quietly and he leans in. “Your what, baby?” You sigh, cheeks turning crimson from the pet names. “Tailbone.” You say a little louder.

Jungkook’s face drops and you internally beat yourself up, knowing this would happen. He takes your chin to lift your face to look at him. “I hurt you, didn’t I? Last night when I pushed you.” His voice wavers and you quickly shake your head. “N-no, Kookie. You didn’t even push me that hard, I just lost my balance and tripped.”

That isn’t the truth at all but knowing the full truth will hurt him more.

Jungkook steps away and brings his hands up to his head. “Fuck, I hurt you. I fucking hurt you.” He mutters, clearly upset. “Kook.” You reach out to him and he pulls you into a hug, careful not to touch your lower back. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“Please stop saying that. You already said sorry and I forgave you, you’re making me feel sad, Kook.” He nods and pulls away to wipe his eyes. He cries so much these days, you think sadly.

“Ok, let’s go home and see if Seokjin hyung can get you something to help.”

“Alright.” You smile at his determined face as he grabs your hand and practically pulls you all the way back to the house.

When you’re about five minutes from home, you see something in the trees from the corner of your eye. But when you look, there’s nothing.

It was as if someone was hiding behind a tree and watching you. You shiver and look ahead, putting it off as figment of your stressed-out brain’s imagination. But the second time you see a flash of black, you look to the side quickly and see a man looking out from behind a tree. Your stomach clenches in fear, then you realize who it is.

Seungwook.

How…how did he find this place?

Your heart races as you see him notice you staring. He tilts his head at you, then he steps back into the trees and he’s gone.

“Y/n? You okay?”

Your head whips back to see Jungkook looking at you curiously, “Y-yeah, just tired is all.”

~ ~ ~

Ga-In grabs you the second you two step inside. Now Jungkook and Ga-In each have a hand and you’re standing between them.

“We need to talk.” Ga-In says, a look of seriousness on her face.

Jungkook frowns, “But, we need to see Seokjin hyung-“

“It’s okay, Kookie. You go ask him if he has anything and I’ll be back soon, alright?” You squeeze his hand and he looks at you before nodding reluctantly. He gives your hand a quick squeeze before making his way to the kitchen to look for the eldest.

Ga-In immediately yanks you up the stairs and to your room, where Yuri is sitting on the bed, fidgeting.

“What’s going on?” You look between them.

“It’s Jimin.” Ga-In says and you frown in confusion, “What about him? He’s okay, right?”

“He’s a human.” Yuri blurts out, still looking at her hands that are clenching.

Your eyes widen and your throat closes. “W-what?”

Yuri doesn’t even hesitate, “He told me he loved me today, and I said it back. A few minutes later his eyes were dark brown, and his color was coming back.”

Whoa, whoa, whoa, what?

“Y-You love Jimin?” You stutter and she nods her head simply. “Yeah, I do.”

“Oh…and you guys didn’t…you didn’t kiss?” You say awkwardly.

She nods, “Well, yeah. But only a minute before he said he loved me.”

Your stomach turns into knots at the news.

“A-and he turned human…just like that?”

“Just like that.” Yuri muses, staring at the wall now.

“Th-that’s great! H-he must be so excited.” You force a smile onto your face and Yuri lets a little smile slip out. “He is.” She whispers.

“Well, why aren’t we celebrating? Let’s go and congratulate him.” You try to sound cheery, but you see Ga-In watching you sadly. Yuri also looks at you, a look of sympathy on her face.

“Why aren’t you guys smiling? Isn’t this a good thing?” You’re beyond confused now. Yuri sighs, never one to beat around the bush, she gets up and walks over to you.

“I heard about Jungkook.”

“Oh.” You can’t think of anything else to say. She smiles sadly and touches your arm, “We don’t fully understand what’s going on at this point for anyone, he might still be okay.”

“O-of course he’s okay.” You force another smile. “He’s alright.”

The tears come before you can even comprehend it; sliding down your cheeks as you turn and grab your sweatpants and your extra floppy t-shirt. “Everything is fine, don’t even worry.” Your tone oozes with fake cheeriness as the girls helplessly watch the tears stream. You turn and start changing your pants, “I’ll get into more comfy clothes and then we’ll go down and talk to Jimin.” You keep rambling, trying not to break down.

You change as quickly as you can and wipe your eyes, hurrying out the door before either of the girls can say something else. You run down the stairs and into the living room where Jimin is sitting on the couch, surrounded by the other members, a very smug looking Tae next to him. Jimin looks up and smiles at you when you come in. You feel tears prick at your eyes again, but this time they’re happy tears.

You walk over and Jimin stands to hug you, “Ah, y/n-ah. Don’t cry, you’ll make me cry.” He laughs and you sniffle while nodding and trying to dry your face. Seokjin is sitting in one of the armchairs, his face lit up with a bright smile.

“You girls sure are confusing the heck out of us.” He says and everyone starts laughing. You snort a laugh while wiping your nose. Ga-In and Yuri walk in and Yuri moves to sit by Jimin, Tae pulling Ga-In into his lap.

You look around and see Jungkook standing against the wall, looking at the ground and fidgeting with something in his hand.

“How does it feel to be a weak human, Jimin?” Hoseok pushes the younger on the shoulder playfully. Jimin grins, “I feel so alive!” That sets everyone into another round of laughter. You see Jungkook smile a little, still focused on whatever he’s holding.

You walk over and side hug him, taking him by surprise. He looks up and smiles, “Y/n, I didn’t see you come down. I- I got something to help with the pain from Jin hyung.” He holds up the little container.

Jungkook leads you to the bathroom down the hall from the living room, “Uh, it’s some kind of pain relief ointment, he said it should help with aches and stuff.” He’s staring at the ground as he hands it to you. You tilt his chin up to look at you again and smile. “Thank you, Jungkookie.”

He smiles sadly and leans against the wall of the hallway to wait for you to put it on. You close the door and take a little of the ointment on your fingers, then you lift your shirt and put it on your lower back. You look in the mirror for guidance and see a tiny little bruise where you fell as you gently rub it in.

You come out a minute later just as Jin announces that it’s lunch time.

~ ~ ~

The rest of the day is spent hanging out in the living room with everyone as you try to quiet your anxious thoughts.

You love Jungkook, you know you do. You love him more than you ever thought you could love someone, so why didn’t it work? You never even thought about it changing him back when you kissed him or when you said you loved him. You just did those because you felt like it was the right time, and you wanted to.

Is he really too far gone?

No, he can’t be.

Your biggest fear right now, is Jungkook knowing how the other boys turned back. You’re afraid he’s going to think that you don’t actually love him because it didn’t work, or that he’s going to blame it all on himself.

You keep spacing out throughout the day, only coming back when Jungkook kisses your cheek and asks if you’re alright.

The other boys watch you two, secretly wondering what’s going on. Jungkook is still cold and short with everyone else, but you. They haven’t seen him being so kind to someone else since before he was bitten.

Jungkook tries not to glower while everyone freaks out over Jimin and Tae every minute. He doesn’t want to think about it. Because he knows what they did, and he knows it didn’t work for the two of you.

And he blames it all on himself.

He knows he’s the reason it didn’t work, because he drank that man’s blood, he’s cursed you to be in love with someone that can never fully give you what you deserve.

He hates himself for that.

If someone were to look in the window from the outside, all they would see are smiles and laughter all around. They would never guess that each individual is obsessing over a problem of their own inside their minds, while they joke and smile to cover it all up.

~ ~ ~

“Will you sleep with me tonight?” Jungkook pleads outside of your bedroom door while he leans on the frame and gives you puppy dog eyes.

You laugh nervously, feeling butterflies swarming in your tummy. “Jungkook, don’t be silly.”

He frowns, quieting his voice when he sees over your shoulder that the other girls are eavesdropping while giggling. “I’m serious. I miss you, and I need to hold you. I don’t want to have nightmares again.”

“Nightmares?” You ask worriedly, you didn’t know he was having bad dreams. Jungkook shifts on his feet, “I- I dreamt that that asshole bit you, that he turned you into a vampire, and-…never mind.” He mumbles in embarrassment.

You step out of the room and close the door, gesturing for Jungkook to go into his room. He goes to sit on his bed and you follow him, putting your hand on his arm gently. “Do you want to talk about it, or do you want to forget?”

He shrugs, eyes shining.

You cuddle into his side and hug him tightly, “Tell me what happened.”

He hesitates for a minute, then he sighs. “Y-you turned into a vampire, a-and you changed completely. You hated me, and everyone else, and you started killing people left and right. The y/n I fell in love with was destroyed, and there was nothing I could do to save you.” His voice cracks and you look up at him, reaching a hand to cup his face and make him look at you.

“Hey, look at me.” He does, a single tear sliding down.

“That will never happen, I promise. You’re big and strong and you’ll always protect me, right?” You feel relief flood through you when he smiles tearfully and nods.

“Lay down, baby.”

Jungkook feels his chest warm at what you call him, then he lays down, pulling you down next to him. Your head is a few inches from his, lying on his pillow as he stares at you. His eyes are so big and bright, and full of so much love that you feel yourself getting choked up. “Will you sing to me?” He whispers and you nod, then you start stroking his hair like you did last night.

Gently caressing his face, you start to sing an old lullaby that you thought you’d forgotten, the words coming into your mind randomly as you sing it for the first time in a long time. Jungkook is sleeping before too long, his little breaths even and slow.

You lay there and watch him sleep, running your thumb along the little scar on his cheek, wondering how in the world you ended up in this position.

Your love for him scares you, when everything around you is telling you over and over again that something bad is going to happen, he’s going to be taken away from you in some way, it’s hard to just relax and feel happy.

Seeing him cry because he wants to be human again breaks your heart in ways you never thought it could be broken. You wish you could just kiss all his wounds away and make him smile all the time, take away all his fears. You stare up at the ceiling after a while, hearing him breathing steadily beside you.

Then a thought pops into your head. You think about earlier, seeing Seungwook…How could you have forgotten?

You sit up and carefully move yourself out of Jungkook’s arms, which is no easy task. Then, you tiptoe across the room and shut the door gently behind you. The house is quiet, so you creep down the hall and the stairs, mentally cursing yourself for being so stupid.

But you just need to check.

You grab your shoes and pull them on, then you grab a jacket and a flashlight and sneak outside. The fear that immediately sits in the pit of your belly makes you second guess your intelligence for the umpteenth time since you thought of this.

You hate the dark. You hate the woods, and monsters, and being alone, and pain. You absolutely hate pain. And if all of this goes wrong, everything you’re afraid of will most likely happen.

With those so very encouraging thoughts to keep you occupied, you start off in the direction of the clearing. You only make it five minutes from the house when you give up, the terror inside you while walking through the dark woods has finally won out over the stupidity of coming in the first place. So, you turn to head back.

“Y/n.”

You freeze at the sound of his voice, then you turn and shine your light on the tall young man who’s stepping out from behind a tree.

“Seungwook…”

“Y/n, I’m so glad you’re alive.” He smiles and you smile back, relieved to see he’s okay, but there’s also a lingering sickness in your tummy that you’re betraying Jungkook by being here.

No.

No, you’re here because you’re protecting him.

You need to explain everything to Seungwook before he does something he’ll regret.

“I’m glad you’re okay, Seungwook. I thought you were dead.” You say quietly, remembering the last memory you had of him being as you were dragged away from your home.

“I thought the same of you.” He smiles again and takes a step closer. “Y/n, where’s Ga-In? We need to get out of here. I can help you get out.”

You swallow the lump in your throat, “I- I don’t need to get out, Seungwook. They aren’t the bad guys.”

His face hardens and he shakes his head, “They’ve brain washed you, y/n. They kidnapped you and done who knows what to you. Why are you trusting them?”

“They saved me, they didn’t kidnap us.”

“Y/n, get your mind together. What are you saying? The vampires are the good guys? Those monsters?”

“They aren’t monsters. Well, not all of them.” You say desperately, trying to figure out how to explain.

“Y/n, please. I can’t stand to see them trick you like this, please just come back with me.”

“I can’t, please just listen Seungwo-“

“I love you.”

Your breath catches in your throat. “W-what?”

He doesn’t flinch as he repeats his words.

“I love you, y/n.”

_____________________________________

a/n: bitch what-

tag list: @jjungkook99 @ditttiii @fekitza @rubinora @xxxanimangxxx @mygukandonly @elliegrace1999tvd @nikikookie @karissassirak @howbizarre @lettersforjoon @krystle1990 @adelina1299 @your-best-behaviour @jeonjungkookismyfuture @squidyelmosquidbutt @hopeworld-baseline

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kkoalaworld · 5 years ago

Text

When you sigh in front of the Karasuno boys 👀

a/n 🐨: hehe so there's this tiktok challenge where you are supposed to film your s/o's reaction when you sigh in front of them and I thought that it would be a good idea to write how the karasuno boys would react to their s/o sighing dramatically/out of a sudden like the challenge!!

trimmed it because it's quite long

lowercase point form

as always, hope you guys like it! 🙆🏻❤

Kageyama

is visibly confused

he was sure he did not do anything to piss you off

yet

immediately gets into self-reflection mode

‘Did I breathe too loud?’

'I am sure I did the laundry…’

apologises even though he doesn’t know what’s wrong

once he confirms that he isn’t the one to cause you to sigh, he puts down the volleyball magazine in his hands and approaches you

he sits down beside you and grabs your hand to put on his lap and rubs his thumb over your hand

“What’s wrong?” He asks with a raised brow

when you don’t reply, he makes you look at him

“Come on, let’s get some rest.”

carries you bridal style to the bed and cuddles with you, placing soft kisses on your forehead

starts to get genuinely concerned when you don’t hug him back

panics a little because he really doesn’t know what to do

someone save this confused boy

nobody taught him how to react so his mind is all over the place

“Babe, I need to know what’s wrong,” He pleads.

“Shall we get some cookies?”

“Do you want to do something together?”

“What do you want for dinner? Shall we go out for food?”

does what he does when he is unhappy (e.g. drink some milk, watch something)

may or may not put you in his hoodie

just cuddles beside you like a baby, hoping that you will get happier with his company

smells your hair

wraps his arms around your neck and pulls you in closer

Hinata

tilts his head and looks at you innocently for five full seconds

just let his brain process this

stops what he’s doing and moves to sit in front of you

is ready to challenge whoever made you upset but also visibly worried for you

“Y/n, are you upset?”

innocent worried eyes

“Are you sick?”

“Are you hungry?”

“Do you need anything?”

“Who upset you?”

you try your best not to laugh at his sudden bombardment of questions

starts to get a little more serious

“Is Something bothering you?”

when you don’t say anything, he goes to the kitchen and takes a tub of ice cream before getting comfortable beside you

“Ice cream always makes you happy right?”

plays your favourite movie/show and just wraps a shoulder around you while watching

cue his bright smile

after a movie, he looks at you with his bright smile

“Just so you know, you’re really cool and awesome y/n!”

his eyes sparkle as he tells you about how great you are and how glad he is to have you

the list goes on and on as he tells you all your positive points and why he likes you with so much excitement

being with him makes you feel so pampered and you also get excited for no reason

totally forgets about that you are filming

pauses and shows a confused frown as he walks to the shelf

“Hey! What’s the camera doing here!”

Tsukishima

doesn’t notice it initially as he has headphones on

after trying multiple times, he looks at you slightly annoyed

there you go again

“What?”

“What is it this time?”

“What is it that you want?”

dramatically sighs louder just to annoy you

asks if you need an inhaler sarcastically

is not taking any of this bullshit

“If you don’t tell me what’s going on, I can’t help you.”

goes back to do his work but is unable to concentrate

starts to get slightly concern when you don’t reply

turns around again and looks at you

he knows that you are doing it on purpose but he just can’t help caring for you even if he hates it sometimes

curse those stupid feelings

has a mental debate in his mind for about ten seconds in which his intuition lost to his love for you

he sighs as he leaves the study table reluctantly

“Okay, what is wrong?” he asks in a slightly softer tone, settling himself on the foot of the bed

when you don’t reply, he kisses you on the lips and then pulls you into a hug

places his chin on your shoulder and straddles you

both of you stay in that position for quite a while, just him hugging you in silence

then, you hear him gruffly say something

“Damn it, I really love you.”

Yamaguchi

looks at you to make sure he’d heard correctly

is very disconcerted and worried as you do not do that on a regular basis and he tries to figure out what’s wrong

“Y/n? Are you okay?”

scoots over to you to take note of your facial expressions

PANIC

is afraid to look at you and starts to sweat a little

starts to overthink

'Is Y/n going to break up with me?’

is upset that you are upset

boy you make him a complete mess

he does not want to probe you further because he is afraid that you will get mad at him

doesn’t know what to do

PANICS MORE

he looks away to avoid eye contact, still trying to figure out what’s wrong

after a quiet minute or two, “Y/n, do you need anything? Please tell me what’s wrong.”

when you don’t reply, he hastily gets closer and grabs your shoulders to make you look at him

“Hey, you alright?” He asks so very gently but his eyes were piercing into yours, trying to figure out what happened

proceeds to hug you and buries your head into his chest as he rested his chin on your shoulders

nuzzles your hair

one or two light kisses on your neck

is enjoying this more than you

“Feel better now?”

Daichi

he stops folding his clothes and look up at you with a small smirk and a raised brow

he knows what’s up

continues to fold his clothes with the smile still on his face

“Y/n, can you let me finish this pile of clothing first?”

and then you sigh again

hands on his hips as he looks at you and asks, “What is it that I can do for you my dear?”

when you don’t reply, he carefully puts the pile of unfolded clothes on the floor

sighs in defeat as he walks towards you

bends down and cups your cheeks, with an endearing smile

“Yes dear? You need my attention don’t you?”

pulls the covers and gets into bed beside you

smells like male cologne

“Do you need kisses?”

gets on top of you and starts planting wet sloppy kisses all over your face and neck

“Is this what you want sweetie? Hmm?”

warm breathes into your neck as he lies beside you

looks at you with total and obsessed love

oh, how you always make him fall in love again

lies on top of your belly

kisses your stomach and blows on your skin

warm cuddles and the smell of detergent on his fresh clothes

Sugawara

is confused too, but rushes over to you

almost trips

“You okay love?”

looks at you with concern, like the worry is literally plastered on his face

you wonder what you did to deserve him sometimes

I assume him to be more dominating when he wants to know what’s wrong

“Come here, y/n.”

moves and pats the seat beside him

squeezes your cheeks as he frowns

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

hugs you and whispers comforting words

kisses your ear lightly

he gets upset that you wouldn’t tell him what’s wrong

flicks your forehead, hoping that your unhappiness will go away #negativebegone

rests his head on yours and wraps his arm around you

starts becoming pouty

talks excessively in attempts to make you talk

may start to bug you a little

pokes your shoulder

when you do not respond to him, he makes you face him

tickles you in attempts to make you laugh

eskimo kiss

drags you into the kitchen and puts on an apron

“Let’s bake some cookies, shall we?”

trust me, with suga around, he will keep you so busy that you will not even remember why you sighed

Asahi

HE SHIVERS

stomachaches

puts down his books and stops typing into the computer

looks around the room, trying to find anything that may have made you upset or annoyed

unsure of what to do

sweats nervously like yamaguchi

smiles in front of you

but in his heart, oh this poor boy is panicking

”U-Uh…Y-Y/n, is everything okay?“

is flustered AF

careful with his words in case anything triggers you

apologises frantically even though he has no idea what is going on

not very good at comforting you because he panics when you panic

is uncertain, but will pull you into a hug

he is a big softie and struggles to find what to say

rubs his face on your shoulder like a cat

smells of fresh mint like those fresh minty toothpastes

rubs his stubble on you

does not know what to say so he just doesn’t say much

but he really cares for you and strokes your head

pulls you in tighter because he thinks that it will make you feel better

kisses you on the forehead after a while

Nishinoya

"Do you want to talk about it?”

looks at you and pouts

“Aww baby, what’s wrong?”

goes over and lies on your lap

looks at you with a gentle smile

you almost failed to suppress your smile because of how contagious his smile is

like how can you not smile at this angel looking at you right now

sits up and rubs your head to comfort you

“C'mon, what’s wrong?”

hugs you and cradles you softly back and forth, bugging you to tell him what is wrong

tries to make you happy by showing you things he deem interesting

when there is not much reaction from you, he stands in front of you so that you look at him

his hands are a little cold but still cups your cheeks

“Y/n, if it is about how you look or anything related to that, I’ve told you so many times that you look perfect and you don’t have to change. I really love you.”

rubs your head affectionately and kisses it

takes in the scent of your hair

“Do you want to do something together?”

gets into his serious pep talk mode and looks at you seriously

it really breaks his heart to see you upset

“Hey, what’s wrong? You can tell me you know.”

when you don’t reply, he leans against you and encourages you to make you feel better

Tanaka

“You’re really awesome you know, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

looks at you and then continues with what he is doing

“What?”

this boy be a little dense

but as soon as he gets it, my my, he gets riled up

first tries to find out what’s wrong

is afraid that he is the source of your disappointment

“Is everything alright?”

“What’s going on?”

he will tackle you into a bear hug and probably not let you go for quite awhile

kisses you everywhere on your face

alike noya, tries to make you happy by showing you new and interesting things

clings onto you like a koala

“Y/n, don’t be sad…”

it may not seem like it, but he takes note of every single tiny expression on your face

cuddles!!

pokes your cheeks trying to get you to talk

strokes your head and offers to give you a massage

“Why is my y/n so cute?”

gives you words of encouragement and tells you that you are the best person ever even though he does not have the slightest clue of what’s going on

when you don’t reply, he starts to get worried

“Do you want to go out for a walk?”

“I can make some ramen.”

wraps you in blankets and more cuddles

plays your favorite game with you/ watch your favorite movie with you

karaoke session

“I am here for you when you are ready to share.”

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valkyrieofsmut · 5 years ago

Text

At Your Service, Alpha 4

Alpha!Kurt Wagner (Nightcrawler) x omega!Reader

Descriptions: Kurt is apartment sitting for his friend and the last thing he expected to find was his one true omega, but there she was. Except she can’t seem to tell they belong together. (Y/n) has dreamed about the day she would meet her one true alpha her whole life. A new, blue, alpha comes to see her every day, and she hates him! Until she starts thinking about him all the time. Her allergies make it so she can’t smell anything, but she knows that her alpha will let her know when he finds her. Won’t he?

A/n- Kurt comes up with a plan... a very plan-y plan of plan-y-ness...

Masterlist

Story!

(Y/n) thought she was safe the next day; he still hadn’t come in, and it was an hour after he usually came.

She was setting a plate of pastries in front of a couple, smiling, when she saw him come out of the trees holding a shopping bag. She had to quickly force herself to regain her composure. “Enjoy,” she say with a gentle, slight bow before taking Kurt a menu.

“What can I get you?” (Y/n) asked.

He looked up at her. “A pot of hot water, for tea,” he answered.

She nodded and asked, “What kind of tea?”

“I brought my own things. Also, a coffee and a danish.”

She nod again and turn, leaving and returning with his items.

He was quiet as he worked, mixing ingredients and putting them in the pot to settle to the bottom and seep.

After enough time, he asked her for a lemon, and she brought it to him, sliced. He glanced at her as he poured the brewed tea into the provided cup, gesturing for her to stay as he took a lemon and squeezed it in the cup.

“Is there anything else I can get you?” She asked uncertainly.

Kurt blew on the cup of tea in his hand and turned to her, holding it up.

She stared at it for a moment, unsure of what he wanted her to do. “D-do you want me to blow on it?”

“If you like,” he told her. “But, then drink it.”

(Y/n)'s brow crinkled in irritation. “Why?”

He raised a brow. “Because I said so.”

(Y/n)'s teeth gritted and she turned away, striding quickly to the cafe.

The cup of tea sat untouched across from him the whole day, waiting for her to sit and sip it.

(Y/n)'s shift was nearly over, again, when Kurt entered the cafe, handing his ticket to her, and a couple of twenties, knowing that it must be enough to cover the bill.

(Y/n) began to ring the bill under his tab, ignoring the twenties.

He brandished them at her again, but she don’t take them.

“(Y/n),” he called to get her attention, but she didn’t take the money, instead finishing the transaction for the tab and making the till pop out. He tried to give her the money, but she still didn’t move to take it, so he reached forward and dropped it on the open till drawer.

That angered her, making her feel like her space was invaded, and she grabbed the bills, angrily thrusting them at him. “It’s covered.”

He put his hands in his pockets, refusing to take the money.

(Y/n) gritted her teeth, feeling her jaw clench tight. “Take it,” she told him. He stepped back so she couldn’t reach him, and she barely kept the growl in her throat. The look on her face was one an omega might give if her pups were threatened.

She hurled the money at him, but it floated down unsatisfyingly.

He didn’t move. “No change?” He goaded.

(Y/n) reached into the till and grabbed half a handful of quarters, throwing them at him, too, though he didn’t even bat an eye.

He smiled and turned, walking out through the door without taking any of the money from the ground.

She growled, glaring after him, snapping at the cooks who were staring at the money on the floor, “nobody touch it!”

After a mental health break, she went out and checked on the customers, stopping at his table to clean it.

She saw a paper folded and tucked under the edge of the still full teacup. She picked it up and opened it, reading, ‘Drink me.’ Aside from being very Alice in Wonderland, she couldn’t think of a reason for it to be there. Except that Kurt wanted her to drink the tea.

(Y/n) let out a yell and threw the pot towards the trees. She heard it crack, but she just went back to the cafe, ringing some charges. “He owes you a teapot, so I’m taking it out of his tab.”

Alex raised her brow. “Oh? And why does he owe me for a teapot?”

“For the one he made me throw across the lawn…”

A concerned look crossed Alex's face. “Ok…”

Jared came and took over for Alex so that she could walk her home since she was worried about her.

They got to the floor (Y/n) lived on, walking down the hall and she pulled out her keys.

Alex hesitated at her neighbor’s door. “I-is there an alpha around?” She asked.

“No, not that I know of, why?” (Y/n) asked.

Alex delicately put her hand to her nose. “An alpha has scented here.”

(Y/n) raised a brow to her. That didn’t make any sense. “What?”

“Seriously-” Alex stepped closer to her door and quickly leaned back. “It’s your door!”

(Y/n) looked at the wood and back to her skeptically. “Nu-uh.”

She sniffed, pointing right to the side of the doorway. “Yes! Some alpha scented your door!”

“Must not be much of an alpha if I can’t smell anything,” (Y/n) snipped, still feeling irritated from the interaction with Kurt only about two hours before.

Kurt growled at the door, (Y/n)'s comment making him want to throw the damn wood open and show her how much of an alpha he was.

He could see it; this is why they belonged together. He’d never been moved to much of anything but hormonal response rutting with any omega before, but (Y/n); (Y/n) made him want to push her down and take it slow, experience every range of it, from making love to hard fucking, whether she were in heat or not.

Including right now.

And every time she yelled at him.

(Y/n) opened the door to leave for work the next morning, pausing to sniff at her doorway skeptically.

She still didn’t smell anything, though it was pretty normal for her to not smell anything.

That morning, when he arrived, he acted as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened the day before.

At lunch, he ordered a bowl of soup and a sandwich, but instead of half and half, he ordered it as two meals.

(Y/n) shrugged it off, he was an alpha after all, maybe he was just more hungry this morning.

As she delivered the food, she moved to set the soup down in front of him, but he gestured for her to put it across from him. She set it down, confused.

“Are you having a guest today?” She asked.

“You are taking a lunch, soon, ja?” He asked back.

(Y/n) clenched her jaw and stormed away.

“It’s here for you, but I’m sure it’s better hot,” he called after her.

(Y/n) growled as she slammed down her tray inside the cafe.

“What’s wrong?” Alex asked.

(Y/n) shook her head. “How can you hate someone so much after only a week?”

“What did he do now?” She asked quietly.

“That soup is for me.”

“Ok…” Alex replied uncertainly.

“He’s trying to make me have lunch with him.”

Alex sighed. “Maybe he’s trying to woo you-” She paused as (Y/n) gave her a dirty glare. “But he grew up only around other alphas. That would explain why- why he doesn’t get mad when you yell at him, or throw things at him…”

When (Y/n) was almost off, he came in to her to pay, ignoring the bills and quarters where they had remained on the floor since she’d thrown them there.

He tried to hand her more money, but she refused to take it, or run his bill until he left.

The soup, much like the tea the day before, sat untouched on his table until she cleared it at the end of her shift, after he had left.

Kurt sighed and leaned back against the door. He wanted to be with (Y/n) so badly it was keeping him up at nights. He was starting to feel the emptiness in his stomach grow.

Why did everything he do make her hate him more? He was just trying to be a good alpha and look after her.

He stayed against the door until he heard her get home safely, then straightened and went to the couch, turning on the tv and slouching down. He flipped through the movies listed, and a new category had popped up; beta romance. He knew that really only female betas watched the romance movies, having known enough male betas who complained that their beta girlfriends made them watch them with them.

He watched the movie, lamenting that it seemed (Y/n) would never take her allergy medicine, or his remedies to clear her sinuses and smell him.

He was pining, the same way those alphas -and, dare he say it? Sometimes the omegas- in the female omega romance movies did…

It turned out the beta romance movie wasn’t bad, just a little strange to him.

Because betas didn’t have mates, per say, they called it one true love instead of one true mate, and they had to work at convincing the other beta that they were the right one for them.

It must be so hard without the certainty of scents telling you so.

Alphas and omegas knew love, too, an alpha, or omega could fall in love with someone other than their one true mate, it happened sometimes, but once they met, it was like everything else was overridden.

Kurt’s head jerked up at a thought.

Maybe he’d have a chance, after all- if he could convince (Y/n) that he was a good mate- no, if he could make (Y/n) fall in love with him, he thought, struggling with the new context. Then she’d be with him, and she’d love him, even if she didn’t know they were destined for each other.

Tag List!

@otakumultimuse-hiddlewhore @racheo91 @tephi101 @lilypalmer1987 @pingu89 @gifsbysimplysonia @omnomsauruswrites @keldachick @Randomfandompenguin @mannls @screeching-student-unknown @lizfawn @ya-lyublu-tebya @their-bibliophile @the-fifth-marauder03 @Jbstans

#Alpha!Kurt Wagner #Alpha!Nightcrawler #abo dynamics #A/B/O verse #a/b/o #kurt wagner x reader #nightcrawler x you #Kurt Wagner x y/n #angst #romance #soulmates #Marvel AU #X-men #x-men au #omega reader #feisty omega reader #valkyrieofsmut #multi part story

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neocityfics · 4 years ago

Text

2096: Zodiac

Chapter: Chapter 2 < ❝ Chapter 3 ❞ > Chapter 4

➥ Chapter List

Genre: Cyberpunk inspired, mafia, not-so dystopian, angst, slow-burn

Pairing: Doctor! Taeyong x Reader

Warnings: Violence, stalking (last part)

Note: This chapter is mostly for getting to know Taeyong and a little bit more about the Zodiacs. Next chapter will be a lot more action packed! I’m also starting a new college term, so updates may or may not be shorter, depending on how classes go. I hope you enjoy!

⠀

▶ Ambience

⠀

9am again on Monday morning, the usual routine and the usual walk, but thankfully alongside Lucas this time. Though not as bustling as it is on Friday nights, the clinic is up on its feet, ready to take in an influx of patients. First thing in the morning after clocking in for the shift and prepping some equipment for the nurses, I check to see where Taeyong might be hanging around. Lo and behold, he’s already been moving hurriedly between wings tending to patients who have been admitted overnight, many for burn wounds from a big fire in one of the cell phone stores at the other side of the building. Nurses in low voices chat about what happened, though I don’t feel the desire to butt in and join the conversations. The weekend was tiresome, and I didn’t want to start my week with more exhausting things than I needed to. For a moment, Taeyong eyes me while preparing a syringe with a pale yellow liquid. It’s justifiable that I can’t look at him the same at work, right? He’s got my best friend and me wrapped around his finger. I tell myself to try to be professional at work, but the icky feelings pop up whenever I see or think about him. That split second of eye contact sends me away, walking over to the receptionist’s desk to ask for more duties until I feel a tug at my scrub. “Dr. Taeyong wants us in Meeting Room 3 in half an hour,” Lucas starts. The serious expression on his face turns into a grand smile as he says, “and he’s got donuts! The really fancy brand from uptown apparently.” I breathe out a long sigh, though a donut sounds good to my stomach right now which is close to empty. My typical breakfast consists of an apple or orange and no more than that. As if on cue, the lions in my stomach grumble. Nodding my head as confirmation, he and I swiftly work on spraying the rooms with a quat disinfectant and wiping down surfaces.

Time’s up, I say to myself looking at the chunky clock fixed on the wall behind the front desk. Lucas and I give each other a fist bump and start towards the meeting room. When we arrive, the door is ajar and the two of us slip inside. As Taeyong promised Lucas, on the table lies a box of donuts intricately designed with fancy yet hard-to-read lettering. Taeyong sits across from us, hunched over a few documents, a small case to his left. “Close the door, please,” he asks and beckons us to sit down. Lucas gives me a reassuring look, closing the door behind us and guides us to our seats. Without another thought, he grabs two donuts, one for himself and one for me. He remembers my favorite flavor, and I happily accept it. “Glad to see you’re enjoying the donuts. Now that the three of us are here, let me show you this.” Taeyong rests his chin in his palm, the other hand sliding a document over to our side of the table. Lucas and I lean over to see the tiny print on the paper. It seems to be a list of tools I recognize instantly. Medical equipment? Scalpel. Vital sign monitor. Centrifuge. Why does he need a centrifuge? Twenty items. I wonder what he’s scheming. Taeyong laughs and I shoot him a glare. I look at Lucas and realize that he and I just gave the same face. “Anyways,” he clears his throat, “I need you two to find all of these things by the end of today. But here’s the catch. You cannot gather them all up at once. Space it out, leave it in my office behind my desk.” He peers over our shoulders as if to check nobody would hear his next words. “If you do that, suspicion will be raised. Remember, this is a tiny clinic and we don’t have much.” Then why steal stuff if it’s important to keep up with the patients? This plan doesn’t make sense to me, but it appears I have to comply.

“So you’re saying that I,” I pause to look at Lucas and correct myself, “we have to go on a scavenger hunt throughout the day, on top of our already tiring work?” A loud scoff escapes my mouth, maybe louder than I thought since Lucas nudged me. But I don’t care, I will air out my opinions. “I’m just a messenger. Why can’t you do this yourself? Plus Lucas shouldn’t have to do it since you’re literally experimenting on him.” Crossing my arms and leaning more forward, I stare down Taeyong who seems to shrink away.

“I know I’m asking for you two to do more than you probably bargained for. But you realize… I’m one of the very few licensed practitioners, right? Most of the others are merely college degree holders.” Those words sting as they remind me that I haven’t finished, same with Lucas whose shoulders I noticed droop at his statement. “Plus, if I do this by myself, the potential for suspicion raises. I need you two.” I rub at my forehead. He makes valid points, annoyingly. Now isn’t the time to be selfish, especially with Lucas and a possible promotion at stake. Looking at it from a broader perspective, I’d be putting my own feelings over the clinic’s as well as patients’ well-being. I’m not going to let those emotions rule over me. Taking Taeyong away from his work here would make others suffer, a scenario that would only lead downhill into chaos.

Lucas finally chimes in, “We’ll get it done! Won’t we?” He looks at me with those damned puppy eyes he does whenever he wants me to be nicer. After an eye roll and a light punch to his shoulder, I agree to take on the mission. Lucas gives me a reassuring pat on the shoulder and pushes himself off the chair. “We should get started.” He stuffs his mouth with another donut and grabs another one of my favorites and urges me to get up. “Let’s make this into a competition!” he excitedly suggests. I don’t think I can turn down a good opportunity to play games, especially since shifts feel so long and tedious. I nod, looking at Taeyong to see if anything else needed to be said. The doctor simply readjusts the glasses on his face and shoos us away. Lucas and I turn and leave the room.

As we leave through the door, I slightly turn to him with a hushed “Also,” I whisper over to Lucas who’s already in a giggle fit, “you’re going down!” With that, we tend to our duties for the day, grabbing things on the way out of rooms we work in, and putting them in the designated area for Taeyong to collect. We keep a mental tally throughout the day, and I’m winning-- or so I thought. Lucas ends up winning the scavenger hunt, finding eleven items. I found nine. The prize? The rest of the donuts at the end of shift, which is a bummer. Though Taeyong, Lucas, and I are heading over to Electric Egg, my stomach growled embarrassingly loud while Lucas snacked on the extra fancy donuts. Shifts at Pearl Park drain you, but they always made trips to Electric Egg much more rewarding.

⠀

▶ Ambience

⠀

We arrive where Sicheng diligently works away at the grill, skewering bits of chicken onto kabob sticks while flames wildly dance beneath the assortment of meats. After Lucas and I hop out of the car, Taeyong drives it down a street to park, uneasy about where the food stalls are for fear of getting hijacked. Three of us place our orders, and Sicheng makes his own food to accompany us for a chat. Now a party of four, we sit at a round table and Lucas introduces Taeyong. “This is Dr. Lee, he’s the coolest doctor at Pearl Park! Smart and handsome guy,” he says, his elbow playfully nudging Taeyong’s arm. The doctor simply sits there and inhales his food, a sight I did not expect from him. But he must be hungry, having the top practicing position in the clinic. Thinking about the things he has seen working there must be nauseating at times, though he’s probably used to it. Sicheng nods, introduces himself as the Electric Egg man, ‘Eggman’ for short, and holds out his hand for the doctor to shake, maybe too unabashedly as the neon lights hovering over us highlight the shiny grease on Sicheng’s hand. Taeyong, who notices the slimy-looking texture, pinches his pointer finger and thumb around one of Sicheng’s fingers. They shake, timidly, and Sicheng lets out a laugh while Lucas hands Taeyong a napkin. The doctor roughly wipes the food oils off his hand. For whatever nostalgia I’m experiencing, this moment feels nice. Two friends, an acquaintance (or boss, whatever he may think I call him), and myself. Right now it feels… normal.

Right after introductions, Sicheng boasts, “By the way, I stole this from a butcher’s shop, don’t tell anyone. It’s premium meat!” Lucas exaggerates a gasp which earns soft laughs from the rest of the table. Taeyong jokingly scolds Sicheng for stealing, though it doesn’t seem he’s totally against it. After all, we live and breathe in Neostone, a hot spot for crime. He shifts in his seat, checks his phone, and the screen turns off in a split second. Repeatedly poking my shoulder, he explains that he’s about to work a graveyard shift.

“Rent’s due at the end of this week, so I’m picking up an extra shift,” he says while he collects his coat. Paying rent at our micro-apartment complex has always been a rough rollercoaster. Some months are easier than others, and it’s getting harder especially with more acid rainfall than usual. Damage to buildings requires higher rent. I nod and tug at Sicheng’s sleeve to let him know of Lucas’s sudden departure. He notices and gets up to grab a container for the remainder of Lucas’s food. I help pack up some of the food while Taeyong also starts to put on his jacket. Lucas and Sicheng exchange goodbyes and Lucas takes off for the clinic. That leaves Taeyong and I next to thank Sicheng for the food, shaking hands as we leave. He deeply bows and goes back to the other customers.

Stopping outside of his car, Taeyong turns to me. “Thanks for taking me here, the food’s really good. Sicheng is pretty cool, too.” He softly smiles, my own lips reciprocating. It came as a bit of a shock hearing those words when I’ve gotten accustomed to his usual harsh tone. I’m glad he’s comfortable around Sicheng. Despite the low chance of them ever interacting further than meals at Electric Egg, it’s good to know he probably won’t involve Sicheng in our state of affairs. Plus, it must’ve been exhausting having to work, work, work all day. Living alone, too, and getting to know other people outside of the clinic bubble might be good for him, though I’m not one to dictate what and who he’s comfortable with. I still am wary of his behavior and intentions, but… I think it might be okay. He seems more warmed up than when we first met. Taeyong opens the door for me to slip into the passenger seat. He takes the wheel on the other side and drives us to his apartment where our plans will be sorted out.

⠀

▶ Ambience

⠀

Taeyong and I trudge up the stairs, lugging boxes of the equipment we gathered from the clinic earlier. Upon reaching the apartment, he sets down his boxes and unlocks the door, pushing through to the interior. The very few times I’ve visited here, there’s such a stark difference between his place and the world surrounding it. Warm, inviting, cozy, luxurious. Not like the cold streets or the dingy micro-apartments, a neverendless blanket of smog and musky smells weighing down on the mega city. But here, it felt like home, the one I used to have, and all the comforts that came with it. Taeyong gently tugs my sleeve to pull me in, taking off a few of the smaller boxes off my stack I’ve been carrying. I utter a low ‘thanks’ before placing the equipment in the room where I first discovered his whole operation on Lucas. Since we’re alone and Lucas isn’t here to stop me from running my mouth, I decided it’s time to get to know Taeyong better. There’s no deadline, no timeframe, no plan provided, so if I have to continue this messenger job under him for a long time, I might as well get to understand him better. For future references. Taeyong plops down on the sofa. “Make yourself at home. You’ll be here a lot from now on, anyways.”

I comply, making myself comfortable on a plush chair adjacent to his seat. He seems tired out, but I decide to press on. “Doc— Sorry. Taeyong, since we’re working together, I feel like we should know the basics about each other. Where we came from, what life was like before 2094, why he’s a doctor, why I’m stuck at the clinic, stuff like that,” I pause, examining any signs from his face. But he’s blank-faced. He points a finger at me, insinuating that I go first. Well, it’s not like I’ve kept my story a secret. Pretty much everyone I’ve become close to, including friends from the food stall street, knows everybody else’s life before all went to shit. Sharing our struggle stories is what makes us closer. Plus, despite being one of the twelve megacities, Neostone felt small, like being trapped in a bubble with no way out. “Me?” Taeyong simply nods, and I begin to tell him every detail, from growing up to college to now after the disaster. I tell him about Lucas and our friendship to which he responds with no words, but a soft expression. Even for someone who’s most likely weary from the day, he seems to listen intently. His elbows perch on his knees, his torso leaning forward and head tilting at different points of my story. When I run out of words, I gesture to him that it’s his turn to spill. A long sigh fills the space.

“You already, don’t you?” I raise a brow at his question, a heartbeat in my chest skipped. “The page of my information, you have it.” I shifted nervously, playing with the trim on one of the arms of the chair. “In any case, you are only aware of my achievements. But I was pushed a lot as a young child by my parents. I do love them, but my childhood felt restricted. From then on, I never sought out others. I either let them come to me, or I never talk to them. Ever.” A faint chortle follows a brief silence. “Though I have one close friend who sticks with me even to this day. Doyoung, you’ll meet him this week when the shipment arrives.” He must have a personal and trusting relationship with this person. I couldn’t imagine this Dr. Lee being anything but playfully mean and cold. Doyoung must be a good person. Taeyong proceeds further, “Oh, also, I was part of the S.O.G Project.”

“What the hell is S.O.G?”

“Special Operations for the Gifted. It was a series of supposedly non-invasive and supposedly safe trials where children who performed extremely well throughout their early education were put to the test. How far can you go without breaking the limits? Natural law?” He removes himself from the prior position and relaxes his back against the sofa cushions behind him. “Do you know why I’m part of the Dragon Zodiac?” The answer is not as evident as I shake my head in disbelief. “Each person in the Zodiac has gone through the S.O.G. Those of similar abilities banded together, and now we have the twelve Zodiacs. Dragons are those who are able to manipulate objects in one way or another. For me, metal manipulation.”

The pieces start to fall in together. That’s why his handiwork is so seamless. Should I be shocked? Taeyong is full of surprises, He speaks again, “There are hundreds of us in Zodiacs. Some children don’t even remember they went through S.O.G. Myself included. Doyoung, who was in mostly the same tests as me, recalls everything. It’s not fun to think about.” Questions run through my mind, but the pain in his face tells me to keep quiet. “These mutations plagued us even before 2094. I don’t know about the progress made or the research done, but the project was abandoned right before the disaster.” He detects the confusion on my face to which he brings up again that he knows nothing else about S.O.G. Another heavy sigh loads the room. “I’m sure you have questions.”

As sure as he is, I don’t want him to feel like he has to expose everything about himself to me. This already appears to be a lot for him, especially now that it’s late. But I do want to say something, though not centered on him. After a small pause to gather my voice, I ask about someone who’s close to him and seems to be comforting, “So what’s Doyoung’s special power? What’s he like? What Zodiac is he in?” Taeyong tilts his head, as if expecting me to ask more about him, but he smiles at the gesture.

“He’s a Rabbit, known for their hyperawareness. Their reflexes are out of the world and their attention to details make them very clever. Doyoung is a very calm and collected person, but is very lucky with getting what he wants. It’s annoying, really.” He rubs the back of his left hand with his right thumb. “But he’s helped me a lot through the S.O.G tests.” Listening to Taeyong talk about Doyoung makes me miss Lucas, though we have not been together for as long as the other two have. But it makes all the difference having someone, especially in your roughest patches and darkest of times. I think I can start to mostly trust Taeyong. Of course, I have to keep my guard up, but listening to him talk makes me feel a bit more at ease about us working together. Taeyong closes his eyes. The ticking of the clock becomes louder as it strikes eleven o’ clock. “Anything else you want to ask?”

It’s time to call it a night, I say to myself. But in that same thought, I remember the encounter with Jaehyun and decide to ask. It might be better to ask now rather than later, to avoid a potentially bigger mess. Johnny warned me not to get myself too involved with the man, but it’s scratching at the back of my head. “Well, do you know Jeong Jaehyun?”

Taeyong’s eyes widened in an instant, snapping his head from its resting position to look at me. “Jaehyun. He’s the leader of the Ox Zodiac. Why?” I gulp. This is serious then. “Was he at Club Zone? Please tell me you did not talk to him.”

My voice lowers to a wavering whisper, “Well… Just a little,” while I hold up to make my pointer and finger close together. Maybe it was more than just a little, but he doesn’t need to know all the details. Just that I met him. The look of concern on Taeyong grows.

“He’s dangerous. You should stay away from him as much as possible.” The uneasy feeling is back. That night is a bit fuzzy from the light drinking, the noise, the dancing, the whole atmosphere. If any information slipped that I shouldn’t have, or if he caught on with what I’m doing for Taeyong, it could mean big time. Taeyong rubs his temples, lowering his chin. “He’s a very important part of our operation.” He inhales sharply and lets the built up air back out the second after, “Jaehyun and I made a promise that if I can show him I can make a fully functional prototype, a.k.a Lucas, he will provide me more of his men. The Ox Zodiac is known for extremely enhanced strength. They’re brutes, not to be messed with.” My head starts to feel dizzy from the amount of information combined with the exhaustion from work. He continues, “He’s an assassin, but covers for himself by working in real estate. Jaehyun is the closest one could get to the top. He’s our only connection that can help, unfortunately.” To my shock, he seems very distressed at this topic. “Word spreads fast between the Zodiacs, and we can’t afford to lose Jaehyun. You need to be careful when you’re doing your messenger duties. But remember, know your boundaries. You work for me, not him. Not the entire Dragon Zodiac either.” He accompanies his demanding tone with a pointer finger firmly pressed to the coffee table. Now, I understand the true gravity of the situation. I can’t risk Taeyong and the operation going under. I can’t be careless.

Speak of the devil.

My phone buzzes loudly in my pocket, lighting up through the fabric. With a vexed sigh, I pull it out and read the name flashing across the screen from the caller ID. Jeong Jaehyun. I take a peak at Taeyong who’s staring at me. “It’s him.” He simply tells me to pick up.

“Let me know what he says.” I nod. Hesitantly, I press the accept button.

“Missed me?” Jaehyun’s voice pierces through the line.

“Jaehyun. Why are you calling me so late at night?”

“So there’s a mansion party, and I have admissions for two. But as of right now, I’m going solo. I was wondering if you’d be able to come with me. It’s a really important event for real estate agents and upper class entrepreneurs.”

I quietly relay the information to Taeyong, the phone pressed against my chest to prevent Jaehyun from hearing. Taeyong rubs a finger to his chin in deep thought. “Are you okay with going? I know I said to stay away, but this is a good opportunity for us to make more connections.” I nod, but a little frazzled at the thought of being put in another uncomfortable situation. Isn’t my job simply to send information back and forth between him and other Zodiac members?

I breathe in deeply. “What time and where?” Jaehyun the describes the location, making it seem very grandeur and huge. This Saturday at 7pm. My stomach starts to hurt again from the nervousness. He says it’s formal attire, but will have something for me upon picking me up. Taeyong paces back and forth across the room. I note all the information in my head, making myself more dizzy than I already am. What makes me freeze is Jaehyun’s next query.

“Are you with Taeyong right now?”

I stood there, Taeyong and I keeping each other’s stare.

“No. Why?”

“You’re lying.”

“How do you know? I’m by myself at home.”

“I see you with him. How’s the brown sofa? Comfy right? And that green coffee table looks exquisite. It looks like it’s from that expensive brand, what’s it called... Boca Do Lobo?”

Jaehyun continues to taunt me, my eyes verifying that the coffee table indeed is from that brand, and then lowering to the floor in perplexity. Taeyong immediately springs into action. He closes the blinds and curtains and ensures all doors are shut tight. He’s locking down the apartment.

“I have my eyes on you. I’ll come pick you up on Saturday at 5PM to get ready for the party. See you soon,” he sings into the call, ending it before I could get another word out.

The blonde-headed doctor and I both have widened eyes at what just happened. My voice croaks out of fear, “How can he see us?” Taeyong presses a palm to his forehead and pushes his hair back, revealing small sweat droplets.

“I don’t know. But you can’t go home. He might follow you and find out about Lucas and take him for himself. You need to stay here.” His tone drops low and gentle as if to not wake up his neighbors in the rooms next to his. There’s no other way, and I obviously don’t want Lucas to be snatched. Taeyong, seeing that I’m visibly shaken and overloaded with information, pulls me into a hug which surprises me. At first, the wariness from the phone call heightened, but this silent embrace makes me feel a bit more relaxed. I trust that Taeyong won’t let Jaehyun hurt me, so I think staying here will be the best option.

“Okay. I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Camping here. This is your apartment.”

“But your safety is most important, I still need you for this project.” Though the reminder that I’m bound to this chaos hurts, I let loose the remaining tenseness in my body. I’m falling asleep in the warmth that radiates from his hug. My head is heavy. My eyes are closing. I feel myself being lifted up. Taeyong’s voice is merely a murmur. “I’ll put you in the guest bedroom. Rest up well.” The plush sheets underneath me feel like I’m laying on a cloud, my hands automatically circling the softness and gaining some sort of consolation. I can no longer string coherent thoughts. Taeyong pulls a comforter up to my chin, turns off the light, and leaves the door ajar. “Let me know if you need anything.”

I was not expecting such hospitality, but I’m damn grateful for it. The day has been a lot, and the rest of the week ahead will be nerve-wracking as Saturday will come closer and closer. There’s no way to avoid it now. I’m going to have to deal with Jaehyun again.

I wonder what Lucas is up to. I’d love to call him, but he’s still at his shift. I hope he comes home safely, unharmed, happy. The phone in my hand keeps slowly dropping, but I try to fight it to press on Lucas’s contact while my surroundings darken. But I didn’t get to press his name. I let the fatigue take over me, at least for now until the next day.

⠀

Jaehyun’s going to pay for this.

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