#could you turn off your cellphone is elite

[bungiri]

bts and making some of their best songs hidden and only available on the cd + youtube when it eventually gets uploaded by fans (path and sea im talking about u)

[invisibleanonymousmonsters]

In Times Past

Character: Bruce Wayne x Fem!Reader

Summary: Bruce Wayne’s life doesn’t exist beyond the fake storylines he performs for the media and citizens of Gotham. Maybe the only person that can change that is someone who knew him before Batman ever even existed. 

Word Count: 8,200+ [One Shot]

Warnings: Violence, mentions of sexual harrassment

A/N: As I teased before, this was inspired by this scene from Batman Begins. 

Bruce could sense Alfred’s tension when he walked into the kitchen that morning. The man was not one to hold back his thoughts and feelings. It was both a blessing and a curse. But Bruce sensed it was the latter today.

Before Bruce could even get a sip of coffee in, Alfred tossed the Sunday newspaper in front of him.

On the front page was a photo of Batman, far too high of a resolution for Bruce’s liking. ‘BATMAN: SAVIOR OR MENACE?’ the headline read.

“A little too close for comfort, don’t you think?” Alfred asked with a hint of sass.

However, Bruce controlled his reaction.

“Not the first time I’ve been photographed, Alfred.”

“You’re dancing with the devil, Master Wayne.”

“So, what? You want me to lay down the cape because everyone in America has the ability to take a photo on their cellphone?”

“Of course not,” Alfred retorted. Though Alfred secretly wished every day that Bruce would say goodbye to the Batman. “I just thought perhaps you should be putting a bit more effort into Bruce Wayne’s life if you really want to throw Gotham off your trail.”

Then he tossed another newspaper. This one of Bruce Wayne, the other mask he wore.

‘Bruce Wayne Lights Up the Room at Charity Ball.’

Alfred points to the date…it was 9 months ago. And it was unfortunately the last time Bruce Wayne was in the press.

“You better start creating alibis, Master Wayne, or the dark web will start to putting two and two together…”

Bruce sighed. He knew Alfred was right. But he hated all that went with what he had to do. He’d rather face off with Gotham’s deadliest criminals than go galavanting around the city as the self-absorbed and reckless playboy persona that he’d created.

“There is a birthday party for Eaton Elliot next weekend. Naturally, being old family friends, you received an invitation,” Alfred explained. “Plenty of press will be there to note your attendance. Seems rather convenient."

Bruce recognized the name. It was the older brother of Thomas Elliot, a childhood friend that he slightly lost touch with. He’d see him or his parents at various events, and things were always cordial.

But it didn’t really matter how absent or quiet Bruce was when it came to maintaining such relationships. Everyone forgave such behavior when it came to saving face with the only living member of the Wayne family. Bruce could spit in the faces of Gotham’s elite and they’d probably thank him for it.

“Black tie affair, as always,” Alfred added as he slipped the invitation to Bruce. “Perhaps you could bring a date…”

Bruce glared up at the butler. “Dates make it harder to make a quick and quiet exit, Alfred.”

“Well, maybe that’s the point, Master Wayne.”

————

Just like he was on patrol or working on an op, Bruce had prepared for every single scenario. He made a plan that would be the most effective in the shortest amount of time. He didn’t want to torture himself any longer than absolutely necessary.

When Alfred asked him again if he was planning on bringing a date, Bruce had only replied with a mischievous smirk.

Because he walked in with a girl on each arm.

It wasn’t the classy or gentlemanly thing to do. And that was exactly the point.

Conversations paused, attention was turned, and flashes went off.

Bruce Wayne made his entrance.

He carefully fell into the groove of being the spoiled brat everyone had painted him out to be. It had been awhile since he played the part, but Bruce always found it easy when he was surrounded by these kinds of people.

Bruce made sure to slightly slur his words. He would get too handsy with his dates. He would rudely interrupt people to share his own useless opinion on whatever topic was leading the conversation. He never looked waitstaff in the eye.

But now it was time for the finale.

Bruce whispered a certain suggestion into the ears of his dates.

They shared a look that proved they were both game.

The three of them stumbled into a bathroom – one out in the open that most of the guests would be steered toward.

The kissing began and clothes were quickly shifted.

There was a split moment when Bruce wondered what this would feel like for a man who actually wanted to be in this situation.

The two woman managed unbuckle his belt, the clanking metal echoing in the all-tile bathroom.

But just as they unbuttoned and then unzipped his pants, Bruce’s cellphone rang loudly.

Right on cue.

“Ladies, ladies, ladies,” Bruce whined. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” his words stumbled out. “But I just have to take this call.”

“Aww. Brucie. You’re no fun,” one of the women fussed.

But Bruce gave off enough dominate energy that they didn’t try to fight him on it.

Hair disheveled, mouth swollen and pink, lipstick stains on his skin and his pants and belt barely put back together, Bruce stumbled out of the bathroom first.

The two women didn’t bother to stay back and spread out their exits, making it very clear what had just happened – or what it looked like just happened.

It didn’t matter that Bruce didn’t actually have sex with them, every woman in Gotham wanted to say they’d shared a bed with Bruce Wayne. His two dates would lie to save face and get street cred. Bruce hated that he knew that, that it was guaranteed.

Dozens of people, who were socializing near the bathroom, stopped what they were doing and watched with judgmental looks. Some men looked jealous. Some women looked disgusted and eyed the two women up and down.

Then there was the flash of a camera.

Bingo.

Bruce wouldn’t have to linger much longer now.  

He played up being somewhat embarrassed.

But just as he put his phone to his ear to take the fake call that Alfred dialed, he saw the last person he expected.

It caused him to do a double take and freeze. 

His focus fell for a moment as they made eye contact.

Why did she have to be here?

Why did she have to be one of his witnesses?

Why did it hurt so much to see how she looked at him as if he were a stranger?

And why did she have to look so god damn beautiful?

Y/F/N Y/L/N.

The Y/L/N family were another one of Gotham’s elite – well, they used to be.

Y/N’s father was once worth billions. But being born into wealth didn’t guarantee intelligence or the skills to properly run the family business. When Bruce and Y/N were in high school, Y/N’s father filed for bankruptcy and confessed that the family was about to lose everything. With the announcement, the press also exposed Mr. Y/L/N’s many lustful affairs.

What came next was a messy and brutal divorce that the media ate up.  

Out of spite, Y/N’s mother remarried her ex-husband’s biggest competitor, maintaining her status and wealth, and making sure she still came out on top. It was the greatest revenge and even Y/N had to give her mother credit for the ingenuity of it all.

Bruce remembered how terrible it all was for Y/N, who was used as a pawn in her parents war against each other.

Having had enough of it, Y/N fled Gotham and chose to live with her eccentric great aunt in London and finished her last year of high school there.

But Y/N didn’t run away from Bruce. They emailed, texted, video chatted, called.

They had always been good friends.

The elites of Gotham always suspected the two would get married. But both Bruce and Y/N pretended to ignore such whisperings.

But when Bruce shifted his life, when he changed his life’s purpose, when he started becoming a vigilante…he stopped taking Y/N’s calls and he stopped returning them.

He told himself it was better that way. He couldn’t handle any distractions. Batman didn’t have time for personal relationships, so neither did Bruce Wayne. But more importantly, Y/N deserved someone who would prioritize her – even just as a friend.

Now Bruce needed to get actually drunk.

Putting the phone back to his ear, he broke eye contact and made a beeline for one of the bars. 

“Did you forget to tell me about the guest list, Alfred?” Bruce muttered evenly to the phone, knowing that Alfred would easily be able to hear his anger and irritation.

“How was I to know who RSVPed yes or no…” Alfred bit back. But he knew exactly who Bruce was looking at.

Bruce frowned as he ended the call abruptly and asked for a whiskey.

“I don’t know, man. She’s not my type,” a man said to his friend.

The two of them were just a foot or two away from Bruce.

“What do you mean ‘not your type’? She’s fucking hot.”

“Don’t get me wrong, she’s beautiful. But she’s so stiff and uptight. Look, she’s had a resting bitch face all night.”

Bruce’s grip on his face tightened as he easily put together who they were talking about. It was moments like these that Bruce hated being lumped together with men like this.

“You’re an idiot,” the friend said with a laugh.

“Oh, yeah? Alright. If you’re so obsessed with her, why don’t you go over and talk to her?”

Bruce saw his window. 

With a sloppy haste, Bruce turned right into the two men and just happened to spill his drink over the man who was about to make a move on Y/N.

Bruce laughed and spilled another drink on the bar as he tried to grab some nearby cocktail napkins. “Gentleman, gentleman…I so dearly apologize.”

Both of them were clearly annoyed, but then realized who he was.  

Bruce gripped them by the shoulders and made sure his eyes were struggling to stay open. “I could be wrong…but it’s possible…that I have been over served.”

He broke out into a chuckle and both men forced their own laughter.

Bruce subtle glanced over to where Y/N had been standing. She’d disappeared.

He’d spared her…for now.

“I think it’s time I go home,” Bruce told them too loudly. “Do me a favor? Wish her congratulations for me?”

The two men looked at one another. “Congratulations? To who?”

Bruce frowned in confusion and looked around. “Isn’t this an engagement party?”

They tried to hide their laughter. “Wayne, this is a birthday party. For Eaton Elliot.”

Bruce’s brows shot up. “A birthday party? Look at that!”

Then he turned around, zigzagged his walk, and threw a wave over his shoulder.

But Bruce wasn’t that lucky.

Because when he made his way to the valet, he found Y/N waiting patiently with her back to him. 

Her fancy dress and gloves seemed to do nothing to help protect her from the cold night. 

Bruce could’ve left. He could’ve left her alone, gone back into the party, and made more of a fool of himself.

But next thing he knew, he was walking forward.  

“Waiting for your car?”

Y/N didn’t turn to him, but it was clear that she heard his question and recognized who it had come from. “I didn’t drive. They’re getting me a cab.”

Bruce nodded slowly even though she wasn’t looking at him.

All charm had left his body now that he had quit the act. It wasn’t going to do any favors for him. He needed to do this on his own, as his real self.

Y/N finally turned with a slight attitude and Bruce was taken aback at how she was even more beautiful up close.

“What are you doing here, Bruce?”

He smirked. “I’m here for the party, of course.” He didn’t want to play the part anymore – not with her. But it was second nature at this point.

Her lips pursed at his response.

“Leaving so soon?” He asked.

Y/N sighed. “Between you and me, I’m only here as a favor to my mother. She wouldn’t get off my back about coming. I tried to leave sooner, but…”

One of the valets hopped up the steps. “I’m sorry, Dr. Y/L/N. It can take awhile to get cabs in the area at this time of night.”

Y/N gave him a sympathetic smile and opened her mouth to say she’d walk home.

“I’ll drive her home,” Bruce spoke before she could. Then he handed the valet his ticket.

Y/N looked at him with confusion and a bit of annoyance. “You really don’t have to do that.”

Bruce just gave her a look that said he absolutely did.

Then Y/N gestured back to the party. “You’re just gonna abandon your dates?”

The way she asked made it clear that Y/N had seen Bruce stumble out of the bathroom with the two of them. He also didn’t miss how she emphasized the plural.

“They’ll be fine,” Bruce told her.

He took a step toward her. “Let me give you a ride, Y/N.”

She took in a deep breath.

She knew she needed the ride. Only an idiot would walk home at this time of night, even if the walk to her apartment was a relatively safe one for Gotham standards.

Y/N just nodded.

A minute later, an Aston Martin drove up.

Bruce offered his arm to Y/N and helped her down the stairs before opening the passenger door for her.

He handed the valet a few bills, not even noticing they were all hundreds.

“Where to?” Bruce asked her.

“Oh, umm…” Y/N quickly gave him her address.

“I know you’ve been gone awhile, but you definitely shouldn’t be walking around the streets of Gotham at night.”

Y/N scoffed. “I’m aware. I moved back awhile ago.”

“Oh. I didn’t know…”

“Yeah. Well, why would you? It’s not like you kept in touch.”

The car filled with silence.

Y/N stared out the passenger window, looking at the skyscraper lights of Gotham

It seemed Y/N had no issue with staying silent for the whole car ride.There was nothing awkward about it for her.

But Bruce knew there were things he needed to say. “I’m sorry.”

This was the last thing Y/N expected and her head whipped to him.

But Bruce kept his eyes on the road. “For disappearing like I did.”

Y/N slowly turned back to the passenger window and said nothing.

Bruce didn’t expect to win her forgiveness. He would have to deal with that. But at least he could apologize.

“Y/N.” Bruce said it ever so quietly, like he was forbidden from speaking it. “This isn’t…I’m not…” Dammit. What was he even trying to accomplish right now? “Back there–”

“Back there?” Y/N interrupted his fumbling. “Oh, you mean the threesome you had in a bathroom at a party?”

Bruce’s jaw tightened.

Everyone bought his performance. Unfortunately, even Y/N.

Bruce pulled over and Y/N realized they were at her building already.

“You can say whatever makes you feel good, Bruce. Have at it.” Then she threw open the car door.

She put her hand on the handle to help herself out.

But she hesitated.

No. She wasn’t going down without a fight.

Y/N spun around to face Bruce, his blue eyes already waiting for her.

“You used to be kind. Strong and brave. You were better than all of them.”

And for the first time, Bruce really saw the damage he had done.

“Is that boy really gone?” She searched his eyes for the answer. “What is the act and what is the truth?” She whispered. “Huh, Bruce?”

He wanted to tell her.

Bruce had never felt the urge to expose his secret ever before.

But right now? Right now, he wanted to take Y/N back to the manor, drag her down to the cave, and show her all of his secrets – every single one.

But he couldn’t. And he knew that.

Bruce kept his face reserved.

His brow furrowed for just a second as he took Y/N in. All of her. Her eyelashes. Her lips. The styling of her hair. The dip of her neck.

“You became quite the woman, Y/N.” He told her. “And a beautiful one at that.”

Y/N blinked at the statement. Her mind desperately tried to decipher the hidden message in his words, in his actions from the night. But she came up with nothing.

She wanted to say that she knew he was using flattery to divert her attention from what she wanted to know. But it was also clear that he genuinely meant what he said as well. His eyes seeming to be taking in every moment of being in her presence.

If Y/N weren’t so irritated, she probably would’ve been more taken aback by his compliment, feeling vulnerable and almost embarrassed.

There wasn’t any point in pushing.

So Y/N took in a breath. “Thank you for the ride, Bruce.”

He just nodded. Then he watched her walk to the door of her apartment building. He probably lingered a few moments too long, but he couldn’t bring himself to once again put distance between them.

————

Alfred brought down food and an espresso to the cave.

When he looked up, Y/F/N Y/L/N’s face was on the giant screen.

“Working on a case, Master Wayne?” He asked with his usual sarcasm.

Bruce ignored the question. “She attended undergrad in Metropolis and then went to grad school in New York City.”

“Yes, I can see that…considering you have her student records exploited all over the screen,” Alfred responded with a smirk. “She’s been living in Gotham again for a few years, working as a psychiatrist. Even volunteers her services at Arkham – pro bono.”

That caught Bruce’s attention. He turned away from the screen to look at Alfred.

“I found no record of that,” he argued.

“Yes. Well, her mother is rather embarrassed by it. Thinks it gives the family a bad image. She insisted Y/N’s philanthropy was kept secret, even approved the NDAs herself.”

Bruce gave him a look, utterly confused how Alfred had access to such information.

Alfred raised an eyebrow. “Never underestimate the power of gossip, Master Wayne. Most family secrets cannot be found on the dark corners of the internet.” Then he smirked. “You would gain quite the knowledge if you didn’t turn your nose up at it.”

Bruce smiled at that and turned back to the computer.

“So, I take it that it was good seeing her?” Alfred pressed.

Bruce tensed at the question. “Not entirely. I’m certain that she hates me.”

“Hates you or hates the character you’ve so carefully created?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m just Bruce Wayne to her.”

Alfred opened his mouth to say more.

“Leave it, Alfred.” Bruce cut off before he could.

“Well, it appears I’m not the one struggling with leaving it alone, Master Wayne.”

Like many of Gotham’s elites, Alfred had humored the idea that Bruce and Y/N would make a marvelous couple. Like Bruce, Y/N didn’t let money and power sway her morals or damage her good and kind heart.

Alfred had always enjoyed having her over and listening to her and Bruce’s laughter as they caused trouble around the manor and entertained themselves.

But he also saw how her departure effected Bruce, no matter how much the teenager had tried to hide it at the time.

Maybe Alfred was an optimist or a romantic, but he still believed there was a chance for the two of them. But Bruce, quite frankly, would have to get over himself and his stubbornness.

————

Bruce was looking down at the city from yet another rooftop. It had been a quiet night. And he hated nights like that. It was always ended up being the calm before a storm.

“Batman?” Alfred spoke into his comms.

“Yes.”

“It appears there’s been a breakout at Arkham. The media hasn’t caught wind of it yet. But law enforcement has already been dispatched.”

“I’m on my way,” Bruce announced as he slid down a fire escape and made his way to the batmobile that he’d hidden in the shadows of an alley.

“Master Wayne…” Alfred knew to only use codenames on comms.

Bruce tense. “What is it?”

There was hesitation from the butler. “Y/N was scheduled to work a shift there tonight…”

Bruce said nothing. But his foot pressed the gas pedal down further than necessary.

—

Y/N was sitting with a patient when the alarm went off.

The people that worked there called them inmates, and corrected her every time she chose not to use that title.

Harleen Quinzel had been sitting across from Y/N for almost 30 minutes when they were interrupted.

“Oh, fun!” Harley clapped and giggled as the sirens filled their ears.

Harley and Y/N had formed an interesting relationship. The criminal seemed to like her and looked forward to her visits. She never threatened Y/N or tried to manipulate her.

Y/N believes she won her over by addressing her as Dr. Quinzel and often asking her professional opinions on trends and news in their industry. 

Most people there only referred to Harley as if she was property of the Joker, no matter how many times Harley clarified that she wasn’t his anything anymore.

“Does this happen a lot?” Y/N asked her, trying to remain calm.

“Not enough, if ya ask me!” She laughed.

Y/N made the mistake of opening the door and seeing that the majority of the cells had been opened and prisoners were slowly making their way into the hallway.

“Not good,” Y/N muttered.

“Don’t worry, doc. I’ll protect ya! Us gals gotta stick together.” Harley said from behind her shoulder.

Y/N whipped around and looked at her and then at the table she’d been sitting at. “Dr. Quinzel! How did you get out of your restraints?”

“Oh, I’ve always been able to. I just leave ‘em on to be polite.”

Y/N sighed. No one had explained any sort of protocol for such a situation.

“Where the fuck are all the guards?” Y/N asked.

Suddenly the lights shut off.

“Yippy!” Harley cheered.

Y/N turned to her and softly grabbed her shoulder, but gave her an insistent look. “Harley, we need to get somewhere safe.”

Her face did dip to serious for a moment. “You don’t need to worry about me. But you’re right. Not everyone in here appreciates a shrink…”

To her surprise, Harley starts pulling her through the darkness with a purpose.

Y/N had no idea where she was planning on taking her. It seemed all the doors were in lock-down mode, leaving her stranded. If she survived tonight, she’d definitely be bringing that up to the board.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Y/N yelped at the sound.

Someone had either gotten a hold of a gun or security guards were opening fire.

Either way, it caused chaos to erupt.

Suddenly the dark hallways were being filled with a stampede of prisoners. Either they wanted to take down the guard who was shooting or they were getting an adrenaline rush at the concept of their peers attacking their wardens.

The crowd ripped the two women apart. Y/N was shoved up against the wall and her head slammed against the cement.

Y/N swore under her breath from the pain.

“Is that…No, it can’t be…”

A voice called out over the madness.

A chill went up Y/N’s spine. She’d know that voice anywhere.

The Joker.

He wasn’t one of her patients. All researchers and doctors were forbidden to speak with him – especially after what happened with Harley.

But that didn’t stop the Joker from knowing who Y/N was. He whined and whined about feeling left out. “All my pals get to chat with her and all I get to do is look!”

Now, Joker was free from him isolation.

Y/N suspected he was behind the breakout.

And he was going to make a slight detour. A detour that was doing whatever the hell he wanted to with Dr. Y/L/N.

Y/N didn’t even bother hiding her fear. With a new found strength and endurance, she started shoving her way through the mob.

“I hear you and my pumpkin’ pie have gotten close.” Then his smile dropped. “Too close, if ya ask me.”

Y/N ignored him as another prisoner shoved into her shoulder.

“I don’t appreciate you putting ideas in her head!”

Y/N stopped, realizing she had miscalculated her escape and had come to a dead end.

So she slowly turned around to face him, putting her back to the wall. “And what ideas are those?”

“Independence. Self respect. A life beyond crime and incarceration,” he spat.

Y/N realized he had his goonies flanking him, only making her odds that much worse.

“Those aren’t ideas. They’re a reality, a possible future,” she defended.

Joker didn’t like that answer one bit. He threw himself against her, once again slamming Y/N into the wall.

He gripped her chin roughly and smiled with his yellow teeth. “You know…she’s not the only doctor I’d like to break in. And in more ways than one, if you catch my drift,” he giggled.

Then his eyes raked over her body, up and down. His hands slid down her hips and the side of her legs until they got to the hem of her pencil skirt.

Y/N shoved him away with all of her strength. 

But that earned her a slap across the face from him.

Joker gripped her waist tightly pressing her between the wall and his body. “I’m in charge now, doc. And I’ve got a few lessons to teach you.”

His hands grabbed at the buttons of her blouse and with one jerk, he ripped open her her blouse.

But before he could go any further, a few of his lackeys cried out in pain. 

Y/N swore she heard the sound of objects whipping through the darkness. 

She didn’t want to let herself feel any relief. But she hoped Harley had made her way back to her. She’d probably pack an even heavier punch once she realized Y/N needed protecting from her asshole ex.

But when Joker turned around and Y/N followed his gaze, Harley was nowhere to be found.

Yet three men were on the ground, unconscious.

“Well, well, well,” Joker muttered in amusement. “Has Batsy come out to play?”

Next thing Y/N saw was a shadow dropping down out of nowhere and taking out even more of Joker’s men.

Joker seemed to be prepared for such an interruption. Because he grabbed a knife from somewhere hidden on his body and ripped Y/N off the wall. He pressed Y/N’s back to his chest and put the tip of his knife to her throat.

“Come out, come out wherever you are,” Joker sang.

To Y/N’s shock, Batman stepped into what little light was in the hallway.

“Long time, no see!” Joker screamed so loudly that Y/N flinched. “Did you miss me, Batsy? And you came all this way to see little old me?! How very sweet!”

“Your attempted escape was a failure,” Batman stated. “There’s nowhere for you to go. All the exits are blocked. Arkham has been contained.”

“What a shame! I really felt this one was gonna work!” Joker laughed.

Batman took a step toward him. “It’s over, Joker.”

“You’re probably right,” Joker shrugged. “But I really wanted to have some fun with doc here. So, if you could give us some privacy.”

Batman’s eyes flickered to Y/N’s for a brief moment. “Let her go,” he warned.

“How about…no?” Joker laughed.

Just as Batman was about to make his move, Y/N grabbed the wrist of Joker’s arm that held the knife. She twisted it and dived in such a succinct motion that it was obvious Y/N had been trained.

Whipping herself out of Joker’s grip, she twisted Joker’s arm so roughly and quickly behind his back that he had no choice but to drop his knife from the pain.

Then Y/N was now facing him, and with one swift swing of her leg, she kicked him right in the groan.

Batman saw his opening and rushed forward, cuffing Joker in place.

While Batman neutralized him, Y/N stumbled for the knife that Joker had dropped, still not feeling safe and out of danger.

She looked around, realizing that the police had filtered in and apprehended all the escaped prisoners. Some were already locked back into their cells. Other’s were in handcuffs with guns being pointed at them in warning.

“Dr. Y/L/N,” his voice made her whip back around.

How the hell did Batman know her name?

She squinted wearily at him.

“You can drop the knife,” Batman told her quietly.

Y/N blinked and looked down at her hand, having forgotten that she even grabbed the knife. And she now had a vice-like grip on it.

Her hands were shaking when she dropped the knife and the clatter echoed in the hallway.

She eyed the Joker, not trusting any sort of weapon to be in his vicinity, despite being handcuffed now.

“He’s not going anywhere,” Batman noted, as if he could read her mind and hear the concerns she was thinking.

Police officers surrounded them now.

“Until next time, doc!” Joker sang loudly.

Batman stepped between him and Y/N, shielding her from even being seen by the lunatic.

Y/N eyed him, wondering if he did that on purpose.

“This way,” he directed lowly as he led her out of the hallway.

Y/N was surprised when he escorted her all the way out of the building.

Wasn’t this supposed to be Gotham’s Dark Knight? A disappearing act? An urban legend that some people still didn’t believe in?

When they got outside, there were even more officers. The night was flickering blue and red from all the patrol car’s lights still being on.

Commissioner Gordon was having a field day with Arkham’s warden, yelling at him about lack of protocol and no protection for the volunteers and workers that had gotten caught in the crossfire.

But finally, the reality of what just happened was starting to set in for Y/N. And she realized that her entire body was shaking.

All of a sudden, a blanket was wrapped around her shoulders.

She looked up to see that Batman had draped it over her. When and where he’d grabbed it, she had no clue. But the warmth was helping, so she didn’t question it.

“Thank you…for saving me back there.”

Was that a smirk on his lips? Was Batman amused by her?

Why was it so comforting when he was a mere stranger?

And his eyes, even when they were surrounded by a cowl and dark paint, they still felt familiar. Y/N had a similar feeling to deja vu.

“Looked like you had it handled,” he replied.

“Oh, I definitely didn’t. But thank god for those self-defense classes.”

They looked into each other’s eyes for a second.

“Make sure you get checked out by the paramedics,” he told her gently, but insistent.

It was far too gentle for his Batman alter ego. But she caught how it sounded like it personally mattered to him.

Y/N looked behind her, where the ambulance was.

But when she turned back around, Batman was gone.

Next thing Y/N knew, she was being surrounded by two paramedics and Commissioner Gordon who was careful not to push her by asking too many questions at once.

“Does he always do that?” She asked him in a daze.

“Do what?” Gordon asked.

“Disappear like that?”

Gordon smiled and nodded. “Annoying, isn’t it?”

———

“What’s the gossip of the privileged this week?” Bruce asked Alfred at breakfast a few days after the outbreak.

“Something specific you’re looking for, Master Wayne?” Alfred asked as he poured Bruce a big mug of coffee.

Bruce glared at him, knowing he was playing coy with him.

But he put his pride aside. “How is she doing?”

Alfred took pity on him. “She took some time off work. But seems to be handling it better than expected. Makes quite a bit of sense, doesn’t it? Her being psychiatrist and all.”

Bruce just nodded with a dazed look.

“You could always see for yourself…” Alfred added.

Bruce snapped out of his daze and looked up him questioningly.

“You could go see her,” Alfred confirmed.

“Alfred, don’t you start.”

“Start what, Master Wayne? Pushing you to form any sort of relationship?”

Bruce sighed and got up from the breakfast nook. He didn’t want to fight with him, so he’d made his exit before that happened.

“Batman has plenty of friends,” Alfred stopped him. “But what about Bruce Wayne, hmm? Who are his friends?”

“You saying we’re not friends, Alfred?”

“I’m all you’ve got, Master Wayne. And that’s my point.”

Before the discussion could go on any further, the doorbell rang.

The two men shared a look. 

No one stopped by the manor.

Alfred made his way over.

Bruce figured he’d wait where he was. But the front entrance was too far away from him to overhear any conversation.

A few minutes later, Alfred walked in with an unreadable expression.

“Dr. Y/L/N is here, Master Wayne. She is waiting for you in the drawing room.”

Bruce opened his mouth to tell him to make an excuse and get her to leave. But Alfred was already disappearing, making it clear that he would do no such thing for him.

When Bruce walked into the drawing room, he found Y/N’s back to him as she looked at the family heirlooms and trinkets that were displayed on the shelved.

She was dressed casually, which caught Bruce off guard since he’d only see her in formal wear and professional outfits since their reunion. Her hair was in a messy bun and she didn’t appear to be wearing much makeup, if any at all.

“Hi,” he greeted softly, making her quickly turn around.

“Hi,” she replied.

Bruce stepped further into the room. But neither of them moved to sit in any of the many seats that surrounded them.

“I heard what happened. How are you doing?” He asked.

She nodded and shrugged. “Alright.”

“I’m surprised to see you here,” Bruce admitted.

Y/N ignored his comment and her eyes went around the room. “I missed this place,” she thought aloud. Then her eyes fell back to his, softening. “I missed you.”

Bruce was taken aback from her confession. Seeing as the last time they were together, she was rather blunt about how disgusted and disappointed in him she was.

The energy between them felt so different than last time.

To his surprise, Y/N stepped toward him. And she didn’t stop until she was at a proximity that most would call rather intimate.

There was a voice in the back of Bruce’s mind, urging him to close the last bit of distance and place his lips on hers. But he managed to ignore it. That didn’t stop his heart from beating faster, though.

Y/N stared into his eyes for a few seconds, almost like she was searching for something.

“I have something that belongs to you…”

Bruce waited, not sure what she could possibly have to give him.

But then she pulled out one of his batarangs from her coat pocket, offering it to him.

She had found it embedded in the wall when she had gone back down to grab her personal belongings that night. 

Bruce kept his face composed. “I’m not sure I understand.” 

But he grabbed it from her anyways.

“He’s you,” she whispered. “Or I guess…you’re him.”

Bruce let out a breath, “Y/N…”

She took step away from him. “Don’t lie to me, Bruce.”

So he shut his mouth and said nothing instead.

“I’ve been doing some research. Things started lining up,” Y/N explained. “The first Batman sightings were right around when we stopped talking. The more Batman was in the press, the less Bruce Wayne was. And when he was, it was never positive – like it was meant to be a distraction.”

Her eyes went sad. “I never understood how the boy I used to love could grow into the man I’m so disappointed in. It never made sense.” She paused. “But when you wonder if the man himself is the mask, it all fits.”

“I’m sorry.” Bruce hung his head slightly. “I couldn’t tell anyone. Not even you.”

“I’d never share your secret.”

“I know,” he answered instantly.

Y/N couldn’t hold back her emotions any longer. Her eyes welled with tears. “Bruce…living like this has its consequences.”

Bruce said nothing.

She stepped forward and grabbed his hand. “You can’t change the world on your own. You don’t have to do this alone.”

Y/N wasn’t giving him advice. She was offering him something.  

Her trust.

Her secrecy.

Her love.

He shook his head, but gripped her hand tightly. “You would just end up in the shadows with me. And I…I can’t do that to you.”

“I’m stronger than you think,” Y/N defended.

“I’ve always known how strong you are, Y/N.” His jaw tightened at even the thought of being selfish. “You deserve more than what I can give. Gotham will always come first. That’s the sacrifice I made. That’s what is required. I can’t be what you need.”

Y/N studied his face, knowing that there would be no winning with him.

She nodded once, not even slightly hiding her heartbreak and disappointment.

Then she stepped closer and gave him a slow kiss on the cheek.

“It’s not a one time offer, Bruce.”

Bruce couldn’t move a muscle. He was rooted in place.

He heard Y/N have a short conversation with Alfred, then the door closed, and she was gone again.

———

Bruce Wayne was a fool.

Alfred could probably make a list, in seconds, with a hundred reasons why.

But, no, Bruce Wayne was a fool for believing Y/N would give up so easily.

Two weeks later, Y/N was at Wayne Manor again.

Bruce knew something was going on when Alfred didn’t seem surprised in the slightest.

In one of her arms was popcorn seeds, twizzlers, sour patch kids, and chocolate covered pretzels. In the other arm was a case of beer.

Y/N barely said hi to Bruce as Alfred helped her out of her coat and took the things out of her grasp so she was no longer struggling to hold it all.

“I’m here to use your theater,” she announced.

And with that, she walked right past Bruce like she owned the place.

Bruce looked at Alfred and silently asked, ‘What the hell is going on?’

“I believe you have a guest to entertain, Master Wayne.” Then he looked at the items in his hand. “And I believe I have some popcorn to make.”

Bruce still didn’t move.

“You successfully closed yet another case last night, it’s Friday night, and you have a beautiful woman who decided she wants to spend her time with you. Best you don’t keep her waiting, Master Wayne.”

Bruce narrowed his gaze as if telling Alfred they’d discuss this matter at another time.

“I presume you shouldn’t go empty handed,” Alfred added quickly and handed Bruce two beers from the case in his arms.

Bruce chuckled, but started walking away. “I’m surprised you even let this stuff in the house, Alfred.”

When Bruce reached the theater, Y/N had already started a movie.

He watched her a for a moment before she could realize he'd joined her. 

Y/N looked like she belonged there. Even after all this time apart, she just burrowed herself a cozy nook in Bruce’s life.

It was something she had been able to do even when they were kids. When Bruce had his mood swings or his depressive episodes, Y/N didn’t scare. She just found her way to stay at his side without upsetting him further.

Bruce grabbed the seat to the left of hers.

They weren’t really seats, more like small beds. A dozen were placed in the theater.

A couple could easily share one, but Bruce wasn’t planning on even approaching that fine line.

When Bruce sat down, he didn’t look at Y/N. But she gave a shy smile at his joining.

It was a long movie – almost a 3 hour run time.

And Y/N almost made it.

Without only 30 minutes left, Y/N had fallen asleep. Meaning Bruce’s attention was now taken from the movie.

He got up and grabbed one of the many blankets in the trunk hidden in the corner and placed it carefully over her, before silently leaving.

This was not a one time thing.

These type of visits continued.

Bruce knew Y/N and Alfred had to be in cahoots together. 

Y/N seemed to always come to the manor when Bruce needed her most. 

Alfred would force Bruce out of the cave and moments later, the doorbell would be ringing.

On the bad nights, she wouldn’t make him talk. She wouldn’t ask questions or try to make him magically feel better. Sometimes she would talk – mostly about mundane things. She’d tell Bruce about her day or how her neighbor always left baked goods at her door or about the new show she started watching. Sometimes she wouldn’t say anything at all, just sit there silently and make sure he wasn’t alone.

Sometimes she would bring coffee and pastries.

Sometimes Bruce would just walk into the library and find her reading.

Sometimes she would sit and chat with Alfred as if he was the reason she was visiting, and not Bruce.

Bruce couldn’t sleep one night. Nothing specific was causing his insomnia. Just the overall weight of being so many people.

It was 3AM when Y/N texted him to open the door for her because she didn’t want to wake Alfred.

When Bruce did so, Y/N was standing on the other door in sandals and a slightly transparent coverup that barely showed the outline of the bathing suit underneath.

He said nothing, but his face clearly showed that he wanted to know why the hell she was there in the middle of the night.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Y/N told him quietly. Then she shrugged a bit,“I decided I wanted to go for a swim."

Whether she was lying for his benefit, Bruce wasn’t sure. But he followed her to the indoor swimming pool like a sailor would follow a siren.

Without hesitation, Y/N kicked her sandals off and tossed her coverup on the nearest chair. And the next second, she was diving into the pool.

Bruce smirked at her nonchalance, but made sure to hide it when she breached the surface once again.

“Doesn’t your apartment building have its won pool?” He asked.

Y/N smiled and tilted her head back to get her hair wet again and out of her face. “They put too much chlorine in it.”

Bruce crossed his arms, “I see.”

“Coming in?” She asked teasingly.

He shook his head.

“At least keep me company,” she requested.

Bruce glared playfully at her, knowing the game she was playing.

But he finally sighed and nodded.

He was in cotton shorts and a t-shirt. But he decided to sit on the edge of the pool and dip his feet in.

He watched as she swam around, looking as natural in the water as a mermaid. She had always loved swimming as a kid and it appeared not much had changed.

“Why couldn’t you sleep?” He finally decided to break the silence.

Y/N swam to him and crossed her arms on the edge of the pool to rest and tilted her head to look at him.

She shrugged, “The usual: stress, nightmares, insomnia, too much caffeine.”

 Bruce’s concern spiked instantly. “Nightmares about what?”

She watched him for a moment, seeing how quickly her subtle comment triggered him.

“You’re not the only person who’s seen fucked up things, Bruce.”

An hour later, Y/N asked for a towel.

When she climbed out, she was taken aback by Bruce wrapping it around her shoulders and rubbing her down gently. It was innocent, but subtly intimate.

As their eyes locked for a prolonged time, and he seemed to realize what he’d done accidentally.

Y/N cleared her throat. “I should head home and let you try to get some sleep.”

“You could stay,” he offered. “I mean, we have plenty of bedrooms here,” he quickly added and saved himself a bit.

“Is that…what you want?” Y/N asked slowly.

Bruce knew what she was trying to ask. He didn’t trust himself to answer the way he should, so he didn’t answer.

“Let me drive you home,” he asked as they left the indoor pool and started toward the front entrance.

Y/N ignored the request until they were at the door. She turned to face him with a smug look, “I’m perfectly capable of driving myself. Thank you.”

She hesitated before kissing him on the cheek. “Get some sleep, Bruce.”

————

Months after Y/N’s visits started, Bruce was doing some research for a case on his tablet as he ate dinner.

“Margaret Caulfield’s engagement party is tonight,” Alfred broke the silence of the manor as he took Bruce’s finished plate.

Bruce looked confused on why he was supposed to care.

“Y/N will be there,” Alfred added.

But Bruce still didn’t understand what he was trying to say.

“Master Wayne, when you attend all those sufferable parties, what is the first question people ask you?”

Bruce thought for a moment. “When I plan on settling down, I guess.”

“Now imagine that, but magnified by about 100…and that is what Y/N’s experience is at those same parties. That young woman is one of the brightest people in Gotham and all those people care about is who will put a silly ring on her finger.”

Bruce leaned back in his chair, now understanding what Alfred was getting at. “I’m not her boyfriend, Alfred.”

“And you’ve made damn sure of that,” Alfred said a little too harshly.

Bruce watched him carefully.

“Y/N has fought off every one of your attempts to be a miserable recluse.”

Bruce opened his mouth.

“And don’t you dare try and tell me her efforts are wasted,” Alfred cut him off. “I’ve seen a change in you. And she has asked for absolutely nothing in return. She’d never ask you to pick her over Batman. Though she bloody well should!”

He wasn’t done.

“You’re not living, Master Wayne. And I won’t apologize for wanting more for you.”

Bruce just sat there and took it.

Alfred took in a breath, calming himself down. “There’s a suit waiting for you in your bedroom. I’ve decided I’m going for a evening walk.”

——————

Y/N didn’t know how many more champagnes she’d have to shrug to start feeling the buzz she so desperately needed.

Not even an hour of being at the party and she’s already been asked 15 times if she was seeing anyone. And when she answered no, half of those ended in them trying to set her up with someone.

As Y/N was trying to think of an excuse to escape, an old family friend approached her – a friend of her grandma’s unfortunately.

“Y/N, dear, let me see those hands!”

Y/N wanted to roll her eyes and snap, but she did as requested.

“No ring yet,” the woman teased, but she was also genuinely disappointed.

“That would be my fault, actually.” A voice said behind Y/N before she felt a hand on her lower back.

“Oh, Mr. Wayne, how nice of you to come!” The woman beamed. “Now, Y/N, why wouldn’t you tell anyone that you and Bruce are an item?”

“My fault again,” Bruce chuckled, “I’ve always enjoyed a good secret.”

Before she could ask more, Bruce smiled politely. “If you could excuse us for a moment.”

He steered Y/N to a private area of the party.

“What are you doing?” Y/N hissed at him. “The press are gonna have a field day. You and I will be every headline tomorrow.”

He smiled at her frantic concern.

“Why are you looking at me like that? I’m serious!”

Bruce captured her lips, silencing any further panic from her.

Y/N was completely caught off guard, but he wasn’t letting her go so easily. And soon, her hand went to the back of his head and she kissed him back. 

Damn all the people who were probably watching them.

When Bruce finally let her pull away, he smirked at her dazed look and cupped her cheek. 

She matched his smirk.

But then reality set in like a splash of cold water and she frowned.

“Am I – Is this your new cover?” She asked shakily, so scared that the answer was ‘yes.’

She could tolerate being Bruce’s friend for the rest of her life. But she wouldn’t survive being used in such a way. She couldn’t live in a fake relationship with a man she actually loved. She’d rather watch his sloppy persona with girls hanging off of him.

“No cover-up,” he muttered to her. “Just me and you – the real me.”

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

I worked so hard on this 😩  Please let me know your thoughts. 

[speechlessxx]

extremely wicked.

[dark!Ransom Drysdale x Reader]

Summary: After abandoning your ex-fiancé during his murder trial, he seeks you out for revenge. 

Warnings: drug use (prescribed tho), language, i could’ve made ransom a little darker but i chicked out, shitty writing, mild violence, mistakes probably 

Word Count: ~1.6k, a bit on the shorter side. 

i originally planned for smut but i pussied out (as usual)

Buy me a Ko-Fi - donations are unnecessary but GREATLY appreciated. 

You were fear stricken as the harsh winds blew against the tree, causing the branches to scrape against your front window. The screeching of wood against glass accompanied by the shadows left you paralyzed with wide eyes.

The advice the FBI agent told you still hung in the air – advice you should’ve heeded to, but you were always stubborn. “It’s unsafe for you, miss,” he told you and now you cursed yourself for being so dismissive of his concern.

You pried your eyes away from the window after a few long moments, staring at the brightly lit television screen that burned your tired eyes. The mindless sitcom proved to be a short-lived distraction as the show abrupted ended to deliver news. The broadcast did nothing to ease your anxiety, but every time you’d change the channel, you were met with the same story:

Breaking News: Serial Killer, Hugh Ransom Drysdale, at Large.

His mugshot was front and center as the anchorman warned the public to not approach him. “It’s unknown if Drysdale is armed, but he’s most certainly dangerous”.

You felt the color drain from your face as you continued to stare at the photograph.

The same pair of blue eyes stared tauntingly back at you. They were colder than you remembered. The smirk on his face was as charming as the day you met. Charming yet cynical.

A loud snap! pulled you from your thoughts, causing you to let out a small yelp. Your eyes immediately searched your surroundings as your breathing picked up slightly. The branch that hung over your window had fallen. The shadow and its silhouette were gone, leaving you a clear view of the full moon in the grey night sky.

You pressed your hand against your chest as you tried to steady your breath. Inhale, exhale… you thought to yourself. Inhale… exhale. You felt your heartbeat against your sternum, thumping against the bone as if it wanted to escape like the man who once stole your heart.

Your fear wasn’t misplaced. You had every right to be afraid.

It was your fault he was imprisoned after all.

The images of the women’s bodies flashed through your mind ever so often. During the trial, photographs of the cadavers were shown to the jury and audience. The audible gasps that were heard throughout the entire courtroom was almost as haunting as the very images that burned through your skull. You dabbed away at the tears as Ransom and his team of lawyers – the “most elite” group that Linda could buy just before disowning her son – congregated in the small office, coming up with a strategy. Ransom looked over at you before dismissing his team to “comfort” you.

It was then you gave back the engagement ring, telling him you couldn’t do this anymore. Despite Ransom’s insistence on his innocence, the evidence was stacking up against him. He looked guiltier and guiltier each day – even you doubted him. No matter how much you loved him, you wanted no part of this trial.

It was then he grabbed you. With a hand to your throat, squeezing the life out of you, he shoved you against the wall.

It was then he seethed his threat that haunted your dreams a year later.  

“If you leave me now, I swear to you… I will fucking kill you.”

He screamed it. Your ears were ringing as you begged him to let you go. When you managed to open the door and free yourself, you fell to the ground, coughing and wheezing. You were too caught up in your fear that you hadn’t realized Ransom’s outburst attracted a crowd.

It was that threat that put the final nail to his coffin.

You shook the memories out of your head. “It’s done, (Y/N).” You reminded yourself. “It happened. It’s over.” You took a deep breath as you turned off the television – it was doing you more harm than good anyway.

You walked over to your kitchen and frowned when the light refused to turn on. The wind whirled outside as you furiously flipped the switch but to no avail. The bulb was dead.

You groaned to yourself, thinking that this night could not go any worse. You poured yourself a glass of water before deciding to call it a night, reasoning you had an early shift.

The stairs creaked beneath your feet as you ascended the flight. As you prepared for bed, you couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. The entire atmosphere of your house had shifted, placing you into an undesired horror film and leaving a strange feeling in your bones. You shuffled through your bedside drawer, in search for the orange Rx bottle containing the Ambien you were prescribed to help you sleep.

You flushed the pill down with big gulps of water, hoping that the sleeping aid would kick in faster. You snuggled into your comforter as a shiver ran down your spine. Your head whirled around the dark room and letting out a shrill shriek.

You swore a figure walked past your bedroom door and disappear down the hall. You blinked several times as if to adjust your eyes to the darkness – although with the power outage, they were already well adjusted.

“Nothing’s there.” You told yourself as you shoved the covers off. You poked your head out the door, examining the hallway. “You’re just paranoid… and tired.”  

Goosebumps rose on your skin as a familiar chuckle rang throughout the empty house. Menacing and wicked like a predator laughing at its prey.

“Oh, (Y/N)…” his voice echoed. Your breath hitched in your throat as you backed into your bedroom and locked the door; though, you knew it wouldn’t keep him out for long.

You fumbled with your cellphone, dialing 9-1-1. Within seconds the operator answered but you didn’t give him the chance to complete his script.

“I’m in trouble.” You whimpered. Your voice quivered and your hands – your entire body – was shaking. “Hugh Ransom Drysdale… he’s in my house. Please…”

“Ma’am,” the operator let out a long sigh. “Did you see him?”

“No, you don’t understand.” You rubbed at your eyes with frustration. “I’m his ex-fiancé. It was my testimony that put him in jail. I’m (Y/N) (Y/L).”

“Miss (Y/L), what’s your address?” He asked. The faint sound of typing could be heard on the other line. You recited it only for him to say, “you’re breaking up… Can you – “his voice began to break, muffled and robotic.

“No, no,” you begged as the line suddenly cut. Your mind slowly became fuzzier and fuzzier as the drug slowly began to take effect. You tried to redial, but the error message rang out throughout the phone’s speakers.

“(Y/N)…” he knocked three times.

“Ransom, please,” you cried. “Please, just go.” Tears rushed down your face as you tried to fight the drowsiness. “I won’t tell anyone you were here – “

The doorknob jiggled. “I just want to talk, my little dove.”

“I don’t believe you!”

“Like you didn’t believe me when I said I was innocent?” He tutted at you. “Open the door, little dove. Let’s talk.”

“No.” You shook your head although he couldn’t see you.

Ransom let out a sigh before a thud slammed against the wooden door. You whimpered before scampering beneath your bed. The slamming continued until you heard the door break. Your eyelids became heavier as heavy footsteps stomped around your room. You pressed your hand against to your mouth, muffling your breath, praying to whatever god or deity that was listening that he’d leave.

The footsteps suddenly stopped as Ransom exhaled. “My dumb, dumb little baby,” he tutted. Two large hands grabbed your ankles and you screamed as you clawed the floor in an attempt to anchor yourself.

Ransom straddled your waist, holding your thrashing legs in place as he grabbed your wrists and pinned them at the side of your head. He leaned over you – faces centimeters apart.

“Do you remember the last thing I told you?” Ransom asked you, ocean blue eyes bearing into yours. You shook your head at him, crying as meaningless strings of pleads escaped your lips. Ransom cooed, nudging your nose with his. “My dumb baby…”

“Ransom, please,” you cried. “Just go.”

“No, little dove,” he smirked. “I’m not letting you go.” He watched as your eyes slowly became a bit glazed over. “What did you take?” Ransom’s tone suddenly became concerned as he pulled away from you. His voice became distanced as Ransom’s face became blurrier and blurrier until you succumbed to the peaceful darkness – hoping that this was only a nightmare and that when you’d wake, this cold blooded murderer wouldn’t be looming over you.

Ransom slapped your cheek lightly at first, hoping that you’d regain consciousness. He called your name again before slapping you harder. He shook your shoulders but was met with no response.

“Well,” he huffed as he pulled your limp body from the floor, throwing you over his shoulder like a ragdoll. “Makes it easier for me, then.”

The stairs creaked louder beneath your combined weights. He hummed to himself as he opened the found your keys sitting at the dining table and waltzing over to the garage. He placed you at the passenger seat, wincing slightly when he accidentally knocked your head against the roof of the car.

Ransom made his way to the driver’s seat as the garage door slid open. He smirked to himself as he drove. He glanced over you, fast asleep with your head pressed against the window, jolting when the roads became uneven.

“Oh, what wicked things I have planned for you, my little dove.”

[wherevermyway]

step out! do what you want (chapter one)

pairing: reader/bang chan rating: explicit | 18+ warnings: smut with plot, smoking, explicit drug use, alcohol, partying, unprotected hookups word count: about 6,100 also posted to my AO3 here! chapter/series navigation

chapter one: my house

after being abandoned by your best friend at a lame party, you run into Christopher Bang, a well-known music producer who was also conveniently abandoned at the same party. you're invited back to his place for some fun, but you end up biting off more than you can chew when you find out who he really is.

hello new readers! this is just a precursor to let you know that this is not going to be an all-smut-all-the-time super happy fun fic. there will be dark elements, especially from chapter six to the conclusion. smut has been marked as noted (chapters one through five) so if you’re just here for that, there you go!

disclaimer: any reference to persons in this work of fiction are purely coincidental. the characters referenced from Stray Kids are interpretations loosely based on their personalities in the group and do not represent the real people behind the personas. if this, or any of the content included in the warnings above make you uncomfortable, please stop reading now.

side note: for the love of minho’s cats, don’t mix party drugs or drugs with alcohol.

I also recommend listening to "true intentions" by takayan, "bet bet" and "I'm in trouble" by nu'est, and "nxt 2 u" by none other than 3racha while listening to this. playlist can be found here!

“Fuck,” you grumbled under your breath as you sat down on the grungy couch behind you. Your feet were killing you because you thought that your brand new high heels were a great complement to your outfit, no matter what the physical cost to you was. Loud EDM music pulsed from the large speakers on the other side of the room, the bass trembling the couch from underneath you.

Leaning back, appreciating the fact that you were finally off of your feet, you sighed a breath of relief. You silently swore to yourself that you were going to kill Minji the next time you saw her. How could she leave you alone for some dude? Hyunjin: was that his name?

Whatever. It didn’t matter. This party sucked; you didn’t know anyone, it smelled like feet, and whomever was controlling the music was horrible. Who plays EDM sandwiched between lo-fi beats?

You were ripped from your thoughts as the couch shifted as some guy with very bright and well-maintained (albeit obviously bleached) blond hair unceremoniously flopped down next to you. He let his face fall into his hands as he let out an exasperated groan. It seemed like tonight wasn’t going well for him, either.

“What’s your deal?” You shouted in his direction, not actually caring if Mr. Blond responded or was interested in chatting with you.

He lifted his head up from his palms, tilting back to look at you. You saw the whites of his eyes quickly glance up and down your torso and head. An uneasy expression briefly passed over his face - you couldn’t quite decipher exactly what it was. You looked him up and down - in the dim lighting, you could tell he was wearing a nice white button-up shirt, casually buttoned only to his sternum, and some skin-tight, shiny black pants that you assumed were made out of mock leather. He looked good.

Mr. Blond sighed and sat back. He opened his mouth, but didn’t make an effort to look at you. “My friend left me. Ran into some chick he used to fuck off and on and I have no idea where he went.” His hand reached into his back pocket, fumbling around until he pulled out a black pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He brought the pack to his mouth, wrapping his lips around one that popped out of the pack and pulled it out, turning the rest of the pack to you.

“Want one?” He turned his head towards you and looked at you with a relaxed, tired look in his eyes. “You look pretty miserable too. Hot, but miserable.” Mr. Blond’s blatant comment elicited an unwanted snort from you as you grabbed a cigarette from the pack.

“What the hell,” you said with an uncommitted tone as you lifted the cigarette to your lips, “this party sucks and I could use something to take the edge off.” The man sat back on his hand, lifting his lighter to your mouth, lighting the cigarette as you breathed in.

The soft flavour of menthol danced around your tongue as the vapour travelled to your lungs. ‘An interesting choice’, you thought, ‘Blondie doesn’t seem like the type.’

As if he could read your thoughts, Mr. Blond chimed in, “I only smoke when I come to these parties.” You watched him as he relaxed back into the couch, entranced as he took a drag from his cigarette, the smoke billowing up from his lips deliberately travelling up his nose. The sight made your stomach tingle with excitement for a fleeting moment. “I fucking hate menthol, though,” he laughed, looking at the cigarette in his hand before looking to you and smiling, “Name’s Christopher. Chan, when I’m here in Seoul, but I prefer Christopher.”

You smile, taking a drag from your cigarette before introducing yourself. “Nice to meet you, Blondie.” It seemed like your night was finally starting to get a little exciting.

Time had passed, although you weren’t exactly sure how long it was. Conversations with Christopher came naturally - you easily chatted about your interests; how he was in the music production industry and was pretty well known, but preferred staying underground whenever possible; he even seemed genuinely interested when you told him about your modelling career, travelling between South Korea and your home country of Japan, occasionally travelling across Europe and the US for some really high-end shoots.

Minji had texted you an hour ago saying she was sorry for abandoning you and apologizing more, admitting in a text ten minutes later with four pleading face emojis and two sets of eye emojis prefacing that she had left with Hyunjin and was turning off her phone for the night. It didn’t bother you in the slightest, and the look on Christopher’s face as he realized that his friend Hyunjin left with your friend made you belly laugh uncomfortably hard for a good minute.

“What a small world,” you gasp out between laughs, wiping the tears from the corners of your eyes. “That bitch left me for your friend! I guess it was fate that we met tonight.”

Christopher smiled and ran his fingers through his hair. You had a feeling you knew what he was going to ask as he turned to you with a smirk on his face, him biting the corner of his bottom lip. You didn’t want to spoil the fun prematurely by interrupting, deciding you’d hear him out. You always enjoyed watching potential one-night stands squirm when they wanted to ask you to their place.

“Yeah, seems like we were meant to meet each other tonight,” he says as he casually reaches his arm across the back of the couch behind you. The stale smell of cigarette smoke doubled in strength as he leaned in closer to you. “What do you say we leave this horrible party and head back to my place? No pressure, it just seems like it’d be more fun to get to know you somewhere that didn’t smell like a locker room.”

Both of you chuckled at Christopher’s lame, but accurate, joke, and you smiled up at him. “Anything beats this place,” you reach down to touch his thigh, and you bring your face next to his ear, whispering, “let’s get out of here,” as casually as you could manage.

‘Oh shit,’ you thought to yourself as the taxi pulled up to Christopher’s apartment building. This was the good part of Seoul: Blondie lived in Cheongdam-dong, which was where the elite and the wealthiest entertainers lived. Surely this was a mistake?

As incredible as it was to actually be going inside one of these apartment buildings, you felt nervous that you were going to break something or offend someone by looking at them for just too long.

Christopher gently pulled you along by your hand, stopping in front of the elevator bays. He looked over at you, noticing that your eyes were darting around and you seemed nervous. “What’s up?” He softly squeezed your hand, looking down at you.

A nervous laugh surprised you as it escaped your lips. “I’ve never been somewhere like this. Gangnam-gu, sure; Cheongdam-dong, yeah - but an apartment here?” You looked up to Christopher, wide-eyed and bewildered, “Who are you really?”

Ding. The arrival of the elevator interjected in your conversation, as Christopher looked down and chuckled. “C’mon,” he said with a non-committal tone to his voice, “I’ll tell you upstairs.”

The ride up to the 32nd floor was tense, and you could feel your hand starting to sweat as every inch of the skin that touched Christopher’s hand was suddenly hypersensitive. ‘Who is this man,’ you wondered to yourself as you stared at him through the corner of your eye.

“32nd floor. Please watch your step.” The soft, feminine voice of the elevator’s AI announced as you reached your destination. Christopher wordlessly pulled you along, through the doors, down the left corridor. You both paused in front of his door as he pulled his cellphone out from his other back pocket, waving it over the keyless entry at his door. 3217 was emboldened in sleek, silver lettering next to his front door. You made a mental note, ‘I should send Minji a text so she knows where to find my body if I go missing.’ It wasn’t a serious thought, but it was something that did cross your mind.

Christopher looked down to his phone, frowning as he scanned his eyes across the screen. He whispered something in English under his breath as he let go of your hand, his voice tense and uncomfortable. With his free hand, he opened the door, holding it open for you.  He pointedly looked down both sides of the corridor, making sure to press the door closed as he engaged the thick physical lock above the handle.

“I’ve gotta take care of something really quickly,” he said in a serious tone, turning to you and offering you an uneasy smile. “Feel free to help yourself to anything in here, I’ll be back in a minute.” With that, he spun on his heel and darted off to a room beyond the kitchen, his eyes glued to his phone the entire walk.

The view from the windows is what you first noticed. You could see the buildings of Seoul reach across the horizon, mesmerized by the twinkling lights across the city. It was a beautiful view, one you figure was worth the money that this surely cost. As you pulled your back to reality, you slipped your shoes off at the entrance and made your way to a barstool towards the kitchen counter. You pulled your phone out of your pocket and shot off a quick text to Minji.

Hey, I’m out with this guy I met at that party. His name is Christopher Bang. Another music producer type haha, oops. Apparently, he knows Hyunjin? Anyway, he lives in Cheongdam of all places! I’ll check in with you tomorrow at some point to make sure I’m still alive lol. Btw, you suck for leaving me at that party alone. I’ll get you back, bitch.

You add in a couple of broken heart and crying emojis at the end of the text so Minji knows you’re not actually mad at her. You also send her a pin of your location - just in case; it was something you both did as a habit. As you lock your phone and put it back in your pocket, you hear some terse yelling come from the room that Christopher is in. You’re not able to make it out from this far away, but it sounds like he’s firmly scolding someone over the phone in a mixture of what you suspect is English and Mandarin.

‘Relax,’ you mentally reassure yourself, ‘you just met the guy, he lives in the expensive part of town, he’s probably just having problems with some music deal or something. It’s fine.’

After a minute or two, you decide to grab a glass from the cupboard and fill it with water, if anything, to pass the time. As you’re turning the faucet off, Christopher comes out of the room, his hair dishevelled and another button from his shirt undone. He walks to the entryway and unceremoniously slips his shoes off. A heavy sigh escapes his lips, then he turns around and walks towards you.

“I’m really sorry about that,” he says with a pleading look on his face, “I’ve just been dealing with some issues with work and it pops up at the worst possible times. Hopefully I didn’t worry you too much?” The upward inflection at the end of his sentence and the smirk on his face as he slowly walks up to you somewhat reassures you. The lighting of the room highlights Christopher’s features in the loveliest way possible - you didn’t notice before, but he has a dimple on the right side of his face when he smiles. He was an honestly attractive man.

“It’s fine, it was just…” you smile, shake your head, and look down to your glass of water as your sentence trails off. Strange? Different? You weren’t exactly sure how to end that sentence.

Christopher picks up on your tension, and lifts his hands to your face. They are soft, and there’s a light woodsy scent that travels with them, like a faint cologne that’s slowly worn off through the night. “I’d like to make it up to you,” he softly lifts up your head, and your eyes slowly trail up to meet his. It startles you how close you are to his face, so close that you can see just how thick his eyelashes are and how deep his brown eyes are.

It happens almost mechanically. Before you really register it, your lips are up against his. It’s pensive and timid at first, but the awkwardness fades as you part your lips against his, letting your tongue travel out to touch his lips, his teeth, then his tongue. It goes from soft and romantic to passionate and intense in a split second. Christopher takes your face into his hands with purpose now, trailing his fingers back into your hair, digging his fingernails into your scalp and pulling you into him.

An anguished moan slips from his lips and it causes your stomach to do backflips. As you take the time to acquaint yourselves with each other’s mouths, Christopher’s hands drop from your head down to your waist. He breaks away from the kiss, looking at you with half-lidded eyes, before he bends down and lifts you up from your hips. You wrap your legs around his waist and giggle excitedly as he carries you from the kitchen into the room he was in earlier.

In a moment, you’re observing the ceiling of this room, as Christopher softly sets you down on the bed. You want to take in the environment, to know more about this mysterious man, but he ruins that opportunity for you as he crawls on top of you, peppering kisses from your lips, to your cheek, down your neck, and across your collarbones. He lifts his head to look at you, smiling somewhat deviously.

“Hey,” he breathes out, “you wanna try something? You can totally say no, but, I think it’ll be fun.” His voice layered in a dark, seductive tone that makes you all the more curious about him, that familiar question popping up in the back of your head: who was this man?

‘Oh no’, you think, worried that he’s going to propose some stupid or weird sexual act that’s going to completely ruin the moment. Christopher must have noticed the look on your face, because he chuckles and sits back on his heels. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing that out of the ordinary. It’s just something that I like to do now and then. Like I said, you can absolutely say no and I won’t judge you or pressure you.” He slips his hand in his front pocket and pulls out a small velvet bag.

You sit up on your elbows, curious as to what the man could possibly have in such a tiny bag. As Christopher opens the bag, he pulls out a small plastic bag with white powder, and another small bag with some baby blue tablets. He outstretches his palm towards you, letting you inspect the bags.

“I might also have an affinity for party drugs,” he says with a nervous chuckle, “comes with the music industry.”

You look down at Christopher’s palm, then back up to meet his eyes. You’re not really upset, just a bit taken aback. However, you would definitely be lying to yourself if you said you weren’t  at least somewhat curious. Part of you had a feeling this was a bad idea, but the less-logical part of you just wanted to let loose and enjoy yourself for once. When would you really, honestly get a chance to have sex with such a good looking man in an apartment you would never be able to afford in ten lifetimes?

As you bit your lip back and looked up at Christopher with a smirk, you knew and acknowledged that there were red flags in the back of your head, but you pushed them aside, sitting fully up, grabbing the tops of Christopher’s thighs.

“Let’s do it,” you excitedly whisper, against your best instincts, before you lean in to kiss Christopher again. His lips curl in a boyish, excited grin as he gives you a quick kiss back, reaching down to grab your hands from his thighs.

“Come with me.”

Christopher lays down generic ground rules before anything fun happens. He explicitly tells you that if anything makes you uncomfortable,  you need to tell him. You reassure him that, yes, you’ve tried cocaine a couple of times because it’s rampant in the modelling industry, but that the ecstasy was something foreign to you. This whole situation was foreign to you, but you continued to stuff that down and ignore it. You needed to live a little while you were still young, right?

You hear Christopher assertively say your name as he waves his hand in front of your face. “Are you listening to me? I won’t do this unless you really want to and you listen to me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you shake your head, coming back to reality. “Sorry, I was just spacing out for a second. Honestly, Christopher, I’m fine. I’ll drink water and I’ll tell you if anything makes me uncomfortable.”  Christopher’s lips tugged into a slight frown as he lifts his eyebrow. “I promise,” you reassure, grabbing his hand from his side.

“Good,” he relaxes, turning back to the kitchen counter. He grabs the blue tablets, handing one out to you. “Take this first. It’s gonna take a half-hour to really feel it, and that’s when you’re really going to want to play around. Make sure you drink the entire glass of water, too. Trust me.”

Excitedly, you grab the tablet from Christopher’s hand and slip it on your tongue, swallowing it down a bit nervously with a few sips of water. Your eyes dart up, taking in how intently Christopher is watching your every movement. When you set your glass down, he follows suit by dropping the tablet into his mouth and taking a single large drink of water from his glass.

“Okay,” he exclaims, a nervous smile on his face, “still wanna do a couple lines?”

You nod your head a bit too excitedly as you tuck your bottom lip under your teeth. Christopher smirks in response as he empties the bag onto the countertop, methodically dividing it into four lines - two for each of you. He spends time spreading it out with a card he pulled out from his wallet, holding a ₩50,000 note in his other hand.

“Alright,” he says as he stands up straight, turning to look at you. He rolls up the note into a tight cylinder and passes it off to you with a soft smile, “ladies first, yeah?” You take the note from him and look down to the countertop. With a quick breath in, you bend down - making sure to wiggle your bum a bit for good measure - and take the note to your nose, lining up the end of it to the first line. You quickly sniff up the first line, take a couple of breaths, then take in the second line.

With a perk in your step, you snap yourself back upright and look at Christopher with wide eyes and a delighted grin. His mouth is slightly agape and his eyes are wide, taking you in. “Oh my god,” he whispers in English, switching back to Korean in the same breath, “you are so much fun to watch.” You giggle and pass the note back to him.

Christopher bends down and looks up at you as he gets close to the countertop. “This one’s for you,” he says with a wink, before he inhales both lines in succession. He stands back up, quickly rubbing underneath his nostril before leaning on the countertop with his hands. He takes a quick breath, then turns back to you with an obvious fire in his eyes.

“Let’s get started, baby,” he demands, a low tone in his voice you haven’t heard yet. Christopher grabs your hand, pulling you back into what you assume is his bedroom. He leads you to the edge of the bed, guiding you down as he presses his lips to yours with a renewed hunger for you. His kiss isn’t as soft and tender as it was before: this is more calculated and determined, as if he needed to kiss you in order to save his life. He wastes no time inviting his tongue into your mouth without warning, exploring your mouth with purpose.

You can’t really help it, but you moan at the assertiveness in Christopher’s behaviour, which causes him to subconsciously grind his pelvis down into yours. There’s an obvious, apparent firmness that comes between you and a breath hitches in your throat. “Chris,” you groan out, “I want you, please.”

Christopher breaks away from the kiss, lifting his head up to look at you. “No,” he says with a wide grin on his face, “we’re going to play for a while first, baby.” He sits up onto his knees and unbuttons his shirt completely, aggressively pulling the bottom of his shirt from the waistband of his pants before haphazardly discarding it on to the floor.

You really don’t mean to stare - especially not with your jaw hanging wide open - but you find yourself transfixed on the man’s very obvious and well-sculpted torso. His abdomen is rigid, and his arms have very well defined muscles that are very distracting. Christopher laughs, stretching his hands out towards you.

“Can I?” He questions, reaching down to the hem of your shirt. You throw all caution to the wind, excitedly nodding, inching closer towards him on your knees. As he smiles at you, he grabs your shirt, pulling it over your head and tossing it to the ground with a bit more tact. A gasp escapes him as he draws his attention up from your abdomen, slowly up your torso, and eventually looking back up at you with a completely dumbfounded look plastered on his face.

You take this opportunity to slip your hands behind your back, grabbing each side of your bra and pushing the clips together to unhook each side, slipping the straps down each arm. The soft fabric falls from your skin as you peel it off of you and drop it off the edge of the bed.

“Wow,” Christopher breathes out, taking his hands from your hips and slowly lifting them up under your breasts. He gently cups the underside of them, and pulls you into his lap. His soft lips come crashing into yours as he sinks his hands down to the waistband of your jeans, fumbling with the button a bit before he’s able to finally undo it and slide your zipper down. Making sure not to break from the kiss, you hook your thumbs in the waistband of your pants and wiggle them off to about your knees.

Christopher guides you onto your back, giving you a quick kiss one more time before he sits up. “Let me help you out with this,” he says with a smirk as he pulls your jeans off, but leaving you in your underwear.  Your jeans easily slip off of your ankles and you can’t help but blush at how exposed you are. Almost as if he can feel your nervousness and insecurities pop up, He smiles and leans down to kiss you for a moment.

“You’re beautiful,” he says with a smile, kissing you again before he steps down to the floor. Your eyes follow him, looking at the way his tongue does a quick pass over his lips before he bites the bottom one and moves to unbutton his pants. The skin-tight material provides a bit of difficulty as he struggles to get the legs to slip down past his thighs, but they come off easily after they pass his knees.

“Man, it’s way easier getting those on than off,” Christopher laughs as he steps out of his pants. He stands upright, and that’s when you realize he’s completely naked.

“Oh my god,” you say with a bit of shock to your voice. It’s a bit embarrassing, you can’t help but stare because his cock is right there and obvious and very hard. It’s larger than you expected, and you subconsciously suck your bottom lip under your teeth as you stare up at him.

He awkwardly laughs as he walks around the bed, sitting at the empty space next to you. “I don’t know if you’re feeling it yet or not, but I really want you to come over here and ride my face right now.”

The sheer bluntness of Christopher’s statement causes a tingling in your stomach and makes your head start to feel fuzzy and tingly. Maybe the ecstasy was starting to kick in after all, because you felt soft and really affectionate. “You want me to do what?” You question, nervously smiling. This was something none of your previous boyfriends or one-night stands had ever done, never mind enthusiastically wanting to try it.

Christopher turns back, grabbing the pillow from your side of the bed, putting it on top of the pillow behind him. He then leans back, resting his head on the pillows, and he tugs your wrist gently, pulling you over him, straddling his waist. “Come on, I promise you’ll enjoy it. If you don’t, then I’ll stop and do whatever you want, okay?”

You have to admit, he has a way with words and you were curious if he could actually make you come or if he just had an oversized ego. “Alright,” you say with a nervous smile, your eyes darting down to Christopher’s chest. His eyes light up and he grabs your hips with a bit too much excitement.

“Really?” The way that he earnestly smiles is really cute. “You wouldn’t believe it, but most women I’ve been with don’t want to try it. It’s something I love doing.” He lets out a giggle and hooks his index fingers into the waistband of your panties. “Can I?”

A wave of excitement takes over - yeah, the drugs are fully kicking in now - and you nod your head a couple of times. “Fuck yes,” Christopher says under his breath as he pulls your panties down in one quick motion, guiding your both of legs out of them. He grabs your hips again and looks up at you with half-open eyes, “Come to me, baby.”

It feels like your inhibitions have completely left you as you shift your pelvis up to Christopher’s face. He reaches his tongue out and takes a quick taste of you, looking up at you very eagerly. A smile comes across his face and he pulls you down onto him fully. Once you’ve rested on his chin, he wastes no time lapping you up.

His tongue is warm and the way it feels on your sensitive skin is enough to make your head spin. A wave of happiness flows up from your toes all the way to your head, giving you a body-wide tingle. As you start to feel warm all around, Christopher takes his tongue and presses it up against your clit, slowly licking you up from the middle of his tongue all the way to the tip. You choke out a moan and slam your hands on the wall ahead of you.

“Oh, fuck,” you groan out, looking down to Christopher, who has a very happy grin plastered on his face.

“Does it feel good, baby?” He moans out in between aggressive licks, taking one of his hands from your hips and slipping it in between your legs. “If you like that,” he says as he slides one of his fingers inside of you, “you’re going to love this.”

Your eyes shoot wide open and you curl your fingers on the wall. A squeak escapes from your lips as Christopher takes another finger and inserts it into you, fingers slowly riding in and out, curling towards your pelvic bone when they’re fully inside of you. Suddenly, the room is unbearably hot and your nerves are on fire. The drugs were having a tremendous effect on you, and everything felt more intense than you had ever experienced.

Christopher took his free hand, grabbing your thigh to steady you. “It’s alright, baby, I’ve got you. You’re not going anywhere, so relax.” His voice is soothing and the calming tone of his voice somehow turns you on more. Your hands slip down the wall a bit and your head falls onto your forearm.

“If you stop one more, ah, time, I swear,” breathy moans accent your words, “I swear I will, ah, kill you, Christopher Bang. Fuck.”

A laugh comes from him, “I’d like to see you try.” As you try to come up with a witty quip, he starts pumping his fingers in and out of you fervently, sucking your clit into his mouth as he gives frequent small licks to you.

The intensity is almost too much to handle. Whines keep leaving you subconsciously and you turn to bite your arm to stifle your moans. Your teeth dig into your skin, and you’re sure it’s going to leave a bruise tomorrow. Christopher is relentless, his fingers and tongue working in tandem, and it’s causing your brain to melt. The heat building up in the pit of your stomach is unbearable; your legs start to shake, and you feel close to climaxing.

“Fuck, I’m gonna,” you squeak out in a panicked voice, “Chris, I’m gonna come!”

Christopher moves his hand from your hip to the small of your back, somehow working you even harder. With one last press of his fingers against your g-spot, your head snaps up, straightening your back. You scream out his name at the top of your lungs as your orgasm takes control of you. There’s something about this orgasm that’s otherworldly, it feels almost as if you can feel every nerve in your body vibrate within you and it feels incredible. In your blurry state, you make a mental note to try this more often, the drugs and the face-riding.

Reality slowly comes back to you as you roll off of Christopher and to the side of the bed. “Holy shit,” you breathe out, “that was incredible.” You turn your head to look at him and his pupils are fully blown out, a proud grin on his face.

“You look like you had a good time, yeah?” He questions, rolling over onto his side and resting his head on his palm. “What’d I tell you?”

“Yeah, you were right,” a giddy smile is plastered on your face that you can’t seem to relax, “I did enjoy myself. I think you might have ruined me from anyone else for a while.” You both share a good laugh and the room falls quiet. The nerves in your body have calmed down a bit, but your heart is still racing.

Christopher rolls over, reaching for a bottle of water on the nightstand. He takes a quick drink and passes it to you. “Here, you definitely need this. And you’re not allowed to say no, remember? Hydration’s important.” Too exhausted to argue, you nod your head and take a couple of sips from the bottle. You hand the bottle back and he puts it back on the nightstand. As you’re about to thank him, he takes you by surprise by crawling over you and crashes his lips against yours.

“We’re not done yet,” he says with an ominous tone, breaking away from the kiss, “Not even close. Are you ready for me, baby?” Your eyes widen and you look down between your legs. Christopher is there and you’re concerned if he’ll actually fit. After staring for a second too long, you look up at him with pleading eyes and nod your head. “Alright.”

He sits back on his heels and licks his hand. Once he’s got enough saliva on his hand, he grabs his cock and starts slowly stroking himself, biting his lip as he looks directly at you. “What? Like what you see?” Christopher smiles, then brings himself back down to your level. “I’m gonna go inside you now, are you ready?” You look up at him nervously and quickly nod your head in agreement a couple of times. “No, I want you to tell me you want it.”

Your face is suddenly hot with embarrassment; somehow, this was more embarrassing than sitting on someone else’s face. Christopher puts a reassuring hand on your cheek, then gives a peck to your forehead. “C’mon, baby, tell me.”

“I want you,” you nervously gulp, but find the confidence you need, “I want you to fuck me like it’s your last day on earth.”

Your words make it seem like a spark is ignited in Christopher: his eyes darken and he suddenly gets a serious look on his face. In an instant, he’s pushing himself inside you, the painful but wonderful sensation of being filled up makes you roll your eyes and head backwards. You reach up your hands haphazardly into his hair, gripping tightly once you have fistfuls in each hand.

“Fuck,” he groans once he’s completely inside you. “Baby, you feel like heaven. I’m gonna move, okay?” You nod your head a bit more excitedly than you were intending to, but it makes him smile. He pulls himself out all the way, then quickly slams his hips against yours. The sudden movement causes you to arch your back and moan louder than you expected you could.

Christopher leans down, his arms on either side of your head. He brings his face to yours and sloppily kisses you as he rocks his hips back and forth, grinding the tip of his cock against your cervix. You open your mouth, letting your tongues explore each other. As he keeps moving, he takes his left hand and brings it up to your hair, gripping it. The tugging of your hair causes a lightning strike of nerves to light up for a split second.

“Chris,” you moan into his mouth, breath hitching in your throat as his pace quickens, “fuck me harder!”

Your request makes him break from your kiss. He reaches his arms down to your legs and places them both over his right shoulder. “Alright, baby, just tell me if it’s too much,” he smiles deviously and starts thrusting into you again. The new positioning takes you by surprise, making every small movement that much more intense.

Profanity punctuates each thrust as you moan and cry almost incoherently. It feels like you’re starting to lose your grip on reality. It’s probably the combination of this position and the drugs, but your body feels like it’s on an entirely different plane of existence. Every single cell in your body feels like it’s going to explode and you can’t stop yourself from crying out Christopher’s name over and over.

“That’s it, baby,” his voice brings you back a bit, providing you a sense of anchorage in your bliss, “you belong to me tonight.” He fucks you faster and a bit more sloppily, his cadence no longer keeping up a steady rhythm. “Fuck, if I keep going like this,” he cuts himself off, moaning out your name, “baby, I’m gonna come, can I come inside you?”

Words just won’t come to you, so you settle for vigorously nodding your head. Christopher puts one of his arms down on the bed next to you and puts most of his weight on to it. “Fuck,” he groans and tucks his head into his chest, “fuck!” He thrusts into you one more time and bottoms out, twitching as his cum fills you up in rhythmic spurts.

You both stay like this for a moment, before he releases your legs down to his sides. He leans in and lazily kisses you before rolling over, panting and clearly out of breath.

“That was,” he sighs, turning his head in your direction with half-open eyes, “that was incredible. Yeah? How are you feeling?”

Normally, you wouldn’t curl up into a one-night stand, but tonight has you feeling a certain type of way. You crawl into Christopher’s chest and smile, “I feel amazing. That was the most fun I’ve had in so long.”

Christopher laughs, wrapping his arms around you and resting his chin against the top of your head. “I’m glad. Let’s do this again in the morning.” You both let out soft giggles and relax into each other. As sleep starts to overtake you, you swear you hear your cell phone buzzing. “Whatever,” you think, “it can’t be that important.”

As you’d find out the next morning, you were wrong. It was incredibly important.

[yamithediaperdork]

Busted, But it’s ok chapter 2 (Power pack)

"JACK YOU CAN'T!" Alex cried out, even as the little sissy was still wetting his diapers, reaching out with his powers and trying to snag the cellphone away. "Ah ah ah, be a good gurl Alex." Jack said, grinning ear to ear. "it's linked to the cloud and saying there. Now I MIGHT think about not uploading..if.." Jack said and paused for dramatic effect. The red faced older brother though not looking the part, that was for sure) slumped his shoulders in defeat, and relaxed his power. "If?" Alex whined. If somebody promises to keep being a good widdle maid and doing alll of my chores. And my homework. Of course to show I'm not a totally heartless monster." Jack said and popped his cellphone in his pocket then walked over and patted Alex's diaper butt, making the sissy squeak. "I'll make sure you can wear your widdle outfit while you d it.~" he said and laughed. "...C-Can I do the chores in my big boy clothes?" Alex mewed. He knew when he was beaten but even then, he had to at least try and save some face..even if the idea of being a little pamper maid had squirming lots. "Of course not! if my -snort- big brother wants to waddle around in his sissy baby maid outfit in private, he can do it in front of me. Heck, I'll sweeten the pot: I'll even change your diapies for you 'sis'" Jack said then paused. "Speaking of, looks like widdle Alex piddled himself." Alex whined and nodded, then looked down at the front of his diapies. the princess had indeed faded from the heavy fear based wetting he'd unleashed. "I um..I.." Alex said and squirmed LOTS while Jack patted his diapered butt, there was just something about getting diaper pats from someone else that was breaking down any form of common sense for poor little Alex. "Yes Little sis?" Jack asked. "I..I set these diapers up for lot's of wettings.. S-So I don't need a change yet...Big brother." Alex said and closed his eyes, his face crimson. "oh I See~ So you LIKE sitting in soggy diapers. Noted." Jack said and took his hand away, then seemed to pause before looking sheepish. "Uh..One little thing though..I mean.. I suppose I'll change them if I have to..but..you don't..you know.." Jack asked and then trailed off. It took Alex a full 10 seconds before it dawned on him what Jack was asking and he let out a cute squeal. "N-NO! I ONLY WET MY DIAPIES!" he Yelped out MUCH louder then he'd meant to them covered his mouth, looking around. "Well thats good to know..though I think half the block knows it now too." Jack laughed. "Finished doing the dishes, I'm gonna go play a few games on your switch..." Jack said and turned to leave. "But..but..I JUST got that and-" Alex started to whine. "I can always go on YouTube instead." Jack called still heading out of the room. "..Try the new Pokemon! it's fun!" Alex called and then turned back to the dishes. Suddenly doing all the chores for everyone didn't seem so fun.

Jack chuckled and sat on the sofa, playing on Alex's switch, which he was going to let the sissy know was now going to be technically HIS, and thought of all the fun he was going to have with his sissy cream puff of a big brother. In hindsight after the shock of just seeing Alex dressed like this, he wasn't actually all that surprised his brother was a little diaper sissy. Alex had always seemed a little well, wussy and had been in good-nites off and on for years. Actually thinking about it, That begged the question was Alex a sometimes bed wetter for real or had been just faking to get his butt diapered and treated like a little boy by their parents. He had been blushing but grinning like a fool when they'd remind him no drinks for a hour before bed after all. Having dealt with the smells of a bed wetting roomie for so long Jack didn't think he'd mind changing the sissies diapers all that much, couldn't be worse then having to take a soggy good-nite to the trash when Alex had leaked and their parents had been calming the sobbing sissy down. That said, he was glad Alex had had such a negative reaction to the thought of crapping his diapers. If it came down to it Jack would do his own damn chores before he'd wipe a poopie butt.

With the dishes done, Alex waddled to the closet and took out the vacuum cleaner then started to head into the living room then paused. the curtains were wide open and while earlier he had loved the thought of being risky he'd had enough thrills for one day. Jack was laying on the couch and from the sounds coming from the switch ('MY switch..' Alex huffed mentally) it was clear he'd taken Alex's advice and was playing Pokemon. "Um, big brother?" Alex called, trying to keep his voice nice and sweet. "Hmm?" Jack sat up and looked over. "Done with the dishes? Oh and ready to clean the living room I see. what's up soggy butt?" Alex squirmed at the name calling but forced a smile on his face. "Um, could you pleasssse close the curtains for me? I..I don't want anyone else to see me." He said. "heh, and I don't think I wanna share your cleaning services yet. though I suppose after the mess I made at Franklin's, I might be able to get back in their good graces by sending you over." Jack teased. "Y-You wouldn't!" Alex yelped and wet his soggy diapers more. "I might." Jack winked then added. "Depends on how well behaved my widdle sister can be for me." He set the switch on the couch and got up, heading over to the curtains and pulling them shut. "oh, by the way, I deleted your file and started a new one. I don't think a little lady like you needs to be playing video games anyways. Don't worry..I'll get you a coloring book of Disney princess to draw in instead.I know, I spoil you." Jack laughed and got back on the couch. Alex fumed, he'd been half way though the elite four and from the sounds of things Jack had basically just claimed the switch that Alex had saved up for for MONTHS as his own. "Is there a problem? don't tell me your gonna be a bad girl and have a fit?" Jack asked, a smirk on his face. "..N-No not at all Big brother." Alex said though clenched teeth. "I bet your SO happy I'm taking your video games away and giving you coloring books instead you wanna thank me don't you?" Jack said, a shit eating grin on his face. 'Son of a BITCH!' Alex thought, fuming and clenching a fist. Instead he took a deep breath and let the fist go and pasted a fake smile on his face. "of course Big brother. Thank you sooo much for taking my video games from me. I'll color you lots of pretty pictures." Alex said. "Your VERY welcome Soggy butt. Oh, before you start cleaning in here, be a dear and go make me a sandwich, and bring me a soda." Jack said and went back to his game. '..I'm gonna murder him.' Alex thought. A wave of submissiveness swept over him though and a little voice in his head reminded him that this is technically a form of what he wanted, and to be a god girl. "Yes big brother, right away." Alex said and did a curtsy as best he could with the swollen diapers around his waist.

Jack swallowed hard as soon as Alex was out of the room. For a second despite how calm and cool he'd looked, Jack had been scared he'd pushed things too far and Alex had been about to throttle him, Video or no video. 'Maybbbe dial it back a little there Jacky boy..and let him play some of his games so he'll think you were just role playing.' He thought to himself. Going back to the game he started to wonder what was taking the little sissy so long in the kitchen when the smell something delicious hit his nose and he sat up. Alex had not only done as ordered, but went about just a cold cut sandwich and had in fact made a bacon and grilled cheese sandwich for Jack and poured him a tall glass of cola with ice in it, carry it in on a tray and setting it on the coffee table and then curtsying again. "Anything else Big brother? Or may I go back to cleaning?" Alex asked. '..Did I fucking break him or something?' Jack wondered in his head then out loud. "Nope, this is good. Good girl soggy butt. Maybe I'll rethink the video game ban after all." Alex's answer caught him off guard however. "That's OK Big brother, little sissies shouldn't play video games." Alex coo'ed and then with anther curtsy went and plugged in the vacuum cleaner, and started to vacuum. '..I fucking broke him.' Jack thought and gulped, then dig into his sandwich worried about his brother.

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Dragon Dancer IV: Showdown

In the silence of the elevator, Pompeii held me up. Exhaustion and hunger finally manifested themselves in weakness and trembling. The stress of keeping the secret, my worry for Ru’Yi, my need for Caesar to pick up the phone had finally reached a breaking point. I lay my head against his chest.

“He’s probably blocked the number.” He said

My voice was squeaking and barely audible, still paralyzed by the poison they’d used to silence my Soul Skills. “Don’t you have a phone?”

“I do! But he never picked up when I called. He’s not talked to me since his mother’s funeral.” He looked down at me, regret lining his features. “He saw me get into a car with another woman. He didn’t understand how my life was back then. He does now but... now it’s too late. Now he’s just determined to be the opposite of me.”

Shock flashed like lightning through my heart as I imagined the scene. Pompeii brought another woman to the funeral? How could he do something like that?

Pompeii let me stand up on my own. “Even though I cared for him more than any of my other children, I accepted how he felt. I never pushed to get close to him. Once Caesar’s made up his mind about you, it’s very hard to change it. I had to content myself to standing and supporting him from a distance.”

I nodded, understanding both sides here. Would Caesar have despised me if I lived the life the Gattusos wanted? Unlikely. He would have pitied me as a woman. He always held men to a higher standard. “We have to try... we have to try everything.”

As the elevator stopped, the reports of gunshots rang through the double sliding doors. Pompeii stood  in front of me, his eyes blazing yellow and I put on the sunglasses again. My eyes were still spotty from the flash earlier.

The elevator opened to the sight of slithering bronze servitor bodies, slick with both their blood and the blood of their victims. The army of highly trained elite hybrids guarding the monastery faced off with them with pistols, but at best, they could only knock them back. 

Servitors were powerful enough to rip a cow in half, armed with razor sharp teeth and claws and muscular tails, they left halls of the monastery covered in blood which they licked up with their forked tongues.

Pompeii let out a tremendous shout and a bow wave of blue light shot from his body with enough voltage to kill a hundred elephants, paralyzing the monsters and felling them, stiff and screeching on the floor. 

“Run! Go!” He seized my hand and we sprinted forward, slipping on blood and dismembered body parts as we headed back towards Pompeii’s apartment.

The servitors that were on the ground rose again, claws making grooves in the marble. They had a remarkable recovery time, barely phased even by that amount of electricity.

“They’re drawn by your blood!” I didn’t know if he could hear me, but he probably already knew the blood oozing from his injury in the basement was a liability. Servitors were driven mad by the smell of hybrid blood. The purer it was, the more potent the lure. 

He stopped running and pulled me forward, throwing me in front of him. “The Code is 1911! The phone us in the desk drawer as you come in. Go! I’ll hold them off!”

I didn’t look back. I ran in a desperate panic, the door to his room feeling too far away. Fear made me fumble the knob. I pushed when I should have pulled. When got it open, I ran inside, shut the door and leaned against it a moment, trying to catch my breath. 

Just then, a force slamming against the door sent me flying onto the carpet. Golden claws pierced the wood and ripped the door off its hinges. The servitor rose up, its serpent body forming an S-curve.

But just as it launched, Pompeii flew like an eagle, both feet forward, face fierce like an animal’s, kicking it in the head.

This was the father that Caesar despised? I shook myself and got to the desk and entered the code on the phone. It opened to an eyeburning image of Pompeii and a woman on full frontal display that made me recoil in disgust. “Pompeii! Why would you do this?!”

I fumbled to get to the contacts. “Where’s his number! I can’t find it!” He didn’t hear me.

I walked out of the apartment to see dead servitors lining the halls. Pompeii, his robe torn with nothing underneath was grappling with a servitor, shocking it repeatedly, its skin smoking and cracking and smelling of fish. I waved the phone. “What’s the number under?”

He looked up at me. “Filius!”

How was I supposed to know that?” I reentered the room and called. This time, the number went through to voice mail. It wasn’t ideal but ... I did my best to gasped out a voiceless message.

“Caesar! It’s Meixiu! I mean... It’s Carli! I have to tell you something! Nono! They’re going to kill Nono!” I forced air through a dead voicebox, praying in vain that something might come out. “She’s in Tokyo with the Hydras and they’re going to kill all the Japanese Hybrids and make it look like Nono was killed in the fighting! They’ll make it look like an accident!”

Pompeii charged into the room and grabbed me. “Did you reach him?”

“It’s just his voice mail...”

“Not enough. Keep trying!” I turned and looked and more servitors were coming up the halls with rabid grinning faces.

“There’s too many of them.” He started to drag me away but now had a slight limp. A piece of the back of his leg was missing!

If he died, I was a sitting duck. 

“The main hall is the most fortified area of the monastery and those old ghouls may be dusty but they’re powerful hybrids.” He said.

I held the phone to my ear and kept it ringing. The servitors were pursuing us pulling themselves along by their hands their mouths open and eager, their eyes golden and focused on us.

As we approached the main hall, I heard an echoing noise. A hollow sound of a hammer knocking on wood. Tok. Tok. Tok.

The Servitors halted their advance suddenly and turned around, looking confused. My heart screamed in an explosion of terror. Herzog’s woodblock!

"POMPEII!” 

My voice wasn’t working but the intensity of the fear that tore from my throat turned his head. He took the phone from me, put it to his ear, and abruptly stopped.

The twelve elders lay slumped over on their thrones. Each one had his throat neatly slit. I was just like the scene from the basement of the Genji Heavy Industries building. The blood was still warm and running down the steps  and over the marble, the smell of it filled the room.

At this moment, Caesar’s voice was heard through the phone. “The hell do you want.”

Pompeii smiled and shoved me hard, so I staggered away from him and fell. “Check your voice mail for that. I won’t be here long, son. I’m just glad I got to hear your voice in the end.”

“The hell are you saying? What’s going on?”

“Caesar... I lo...-”

I blinked and between the time I closed my eyes and opened them, the handle of a knife had appeared in Pompeii’s throat. He smiled and sighed, lowering his hand. The cellphone slipped from his grip. A fountain of red bloomed from this throat and he collapsed, like a puppet that had its strings suddenly cut mid performance.

From the phone, I could hear Caesar’s voice shouting, but the phone suddenly shattered.

I didn’t see Shinnosuke approach me. I only saw the burst of sparks when he collided with an electric field I didn’t realize Pompeii had surrounded me with. He snarled in pain and vanished again, like a vengeful from hell. I turned to run and he was in front of me. 

I staggered back. He was holding Ru’Yi. There was no light in his eyes. He took no pleasure this. In fact, the intense stare as his body shivered with the electric charge told me that Pompeii’s last stand had really hurt.

And now he was mad.

I found myself bound my hands behind my back. He twisted my wrists so hard I feared they might break.

“You still can’t scream. Good.” Shinnosuke’s breath whispered past my ear

I trembled, facing Pompeii’s body now,  watching the running red pool gather beneath him very slowly. Behind him was the door and in the door, rushing towards me in slow motion, was Chu Zihang.

Spider Fang was drawn and angled at Shinnosuke. But he was moving so slowly, it hadn’t registered in his eyes that I had been placed in front of him as human shield.

“You know, the wonderful thing about Time Zero...? Is that you can arrange people... like props on a set. And then like a director, say Action! To see the chaos unfold.”

“Look at him. Look at his rage. How much he loves you. I believe killing you will probably kill him as well. Perhaps afterwards, he will end his own life.”

I swallowed against the swelling in my throat. I loved him too so much. But we had talked about this earlier. That love could no longer be the most important thing right now.

Too many people were dead. Shinnosuke would go to Tibet with that Woodblock sound and set him and Erii on the world. Then... in control of the Secret party, Shinnosuke would conquer humanity.

In the face of this result, our love was inconsequential.

My dragonblood burned like a furnace, I called on it with all my strength. It no longer mattered to me to stay human. I had to use my dragonvoice now, even if it meant losing myself as a servitor.

I felt the knot in my throat unwind as the dragon blood increased my body’s potential, overruling the powerful poison that had held me captive. Scales bubbled up from my skin in a sudden rash. My round brown eyes burned gold and the pupils squeezed in to sharp slits.

“Berengeria!”

The golden light of the ethereal spear lit my face, pointed toward my own body. When it rammed through me and the man behind me, we both screamed at once.

 It was the same tactic that Herzog had used against me in the Red Well. Pinned by Chisei’s sword, I couldn’t escape without killing myself and I couldn’t save my child. But now, were both pinned, like meat on a skewer. Once he said ‘Action’, and Time Zero was released, Zihang’s sword would pierce us both.

“You bitch! You little bitch!”

I smiled, feeling his fist pound against my back. But he could no longer free himself. I looked into Zihang’s eyes. Kill the bastard. Don’t worry about me.

In that moment, I heard Ru’Yi cry. And Zihang vanished.

A tremendous rush of air blew past me followed by a sharp crack. I was free of Shinnosuke’s grip on me. Ru’Yi was suddenly in my arms. I staggered away, falling to my knees in weakness and confusion. I lay the baby on the ground and wrapped my arm against the blood coming from my abdomen.

Ru’Yi’s eyes were golden. She lay still and smiling, like a wise old woman. 

The air around us was filled with blurry dark streaks that vaguely showed the shapes of two men, locked in combat. A severed hand suddenly appeared out of nowhere, spinning along the floor and leaving a crimson spiral pattern.

Shinnosuke lay on the ground. He kicked in a circle, howling and holding a bloody stump. Chu Zihang hauled him by his collar, sliced upward, and severed his other arm. He lifted him, tossed him into the air and made a full circle cut. Spider fang moved through both Shinnosuke’s legs as if cutting through tofu.

Within seconds, Shinnosuke was reduced to a screeching bleeding torso. I gripped Ru’Yi to my chest..

“Time Zero? How are you using Time Zero?!” 

Eyes burning with an light colder than the polar arctic, Zihang responded by angling the sword downward and plunging into the man’s chest, again and again, until blood gurgled like a fountain from his mouth. He then neatly severed his head.

With an expert flick, he cleared the blood from the blade and hurried to my side, engulfing me in a fierce hug. Only then to Ru’Yi and I began cry. He removed my shirt and pressed it against my wound. He was shaking so hard the sweat flew from the ends of his hair.

I turned to the pale form of Pompeii, tears clouding my vision. I wanted to tell Caesar I was sorry. I was sorry this happened.

“Ru’Yi used Time Zero...” Zihang finally said, using his belt to secure my shirt to my injury. “You’re healing so quickly. You’ll be okay in a few minutes.”

He lifted my chin and looked into my eyes. “Blood Rage...”

I smiled at those beautiful golden pupils. “Stage Five.” I gave him a thumbs up. 

“You have to release. You’ll go servitor.”

“I know.” I looked down at my hands they were twisting up, claws pushing out from the tips.

“The wound’s closed enough. Release, Meixiu!”

The urgency in his voice made me hiccup. I gathered my ebbing mental strength, speaking the dragon word to suppress my blood. It raged like a fire in me and for a moment, I couldn’t hear or see or think for the pain. But Zihang didn’t let me go, holding me despite the power coursing through my veins increasing my strength ten fold.

The scales lowered back into regular human skin, my eyes turned back to their normal color. Exhaustion set in for both of us. The only living things left in the massive hall, the sound of our own breathing echoed in the walls.

We were alive. Ru’Yi used Time Zero and we were alive. Chu Zihang’s heart beat against my ear. His chest rose and fell. He was warm. This was so very real, despite how incredible it was that we could be saved by our own child. But if it was a dream, I didn’t want to wake up ever again.

The clicking of heels on the hard marble floor broke the silence. A woman’s frustrated sigh, and a voice. “I hate to rush you, but we have almost no time.”

The voice was familiar. My eyes opened and a woman with blue eyes and cascading blond hair stared down at me. 

Su Enxi... 

What was she doing here?

[sharkbaitsekki]

Request if you're feeling it! It's not on your list so def feel free to ignore: Something with Sylvain and Felix in your mafia au? Dimiclaude can be there too!

“Fe,” Sylvain had once said, watching his boyfriend roll out of bed at 3AM to get dressed. He’d just hung up on their boss’s emergency call, his cellphone still open and giving his tired face a ghastly glow as he took his pyjama pants off. “If you had to pick one day between Dimitri and me... Who would you pick?”

Sitting on the side of the bed, he watched Felix tie his hair up silently, slipping on a pair of sweatpants. He kept his t-shirt on; Sylvain’s, actually, a commemorative t-shirt from one of Azure Moon’s fundraisers, which Felix quickly covered with a bulletproof vest. The clips on the vest were loud in the heavy silence as they snapped into place snugly on Felix’s lithe body. He grabbed his black hoodie, which he’d discarded on his way to bed and threw it over his head, heading off towards the door to their bedroom with focused, determined steps. 

“Don’t worry,” he finally responded, opening the door. The light from the hallway flooded in, making his expression difficult for Sylvain to see. “There’s never gonna be a reason for it to come to that.”

And then he was gone. 

It wasn’t an infrequent occurrence for Felix to pull such escapes in the middle of the night, Sylvain was loathe to say. As the right-hand man to one of the most influential organized criminal groups in the world, he was expected to work at all times, doing all sorts of dangerous things and dropping everything else in favour of doing them. When Sylvain had agreed to date him after his ascension to the position, he knew what he was getting into. 

Still, it hurt to see him go. Sometimes, Sylvain would have to go with, his expertise also required for the job. But sometimes, Sylvain would just have to watch him strap his bulletproof vest on and sweep his handgun off the kitchen table, and try to return to sleep in a bed that became cold all of a sudden.

That was simply the reality of their position as elite members of the Blue Lions mafia, and Sylvain tried not to be bitter about it. 

He especially tried not to be bitter about it while he laid dying in an ambulance stretcher with a bullet hole in his abdomen and nobody at his side but Ingrid and Mercedes. 

“Idiot,” Ingrid seethed, her hands full of blood still compressing the wound in Sylvain’s lower abdomen. “How did you even manage to get shot on the back lines? You were supposed to retreat!” 

“Ingrid, dearest, love of my life,” Sylvain groaned, his head spinning and his voice leaving him even as he did his best to stay conscious. “Platonic soulmate and life partner of mine... you’re giving me a headache. Stop talking.” 

“I’m just worried... Sylvain...” she murmured, eyes sad as Mercedes rolled the stretcher away from the ambulance van. The women wordlessly wheeled Sylvain into the Azure Moon HQ through the back entrance, directly into the hospital area where Marianne and the other nurses were ready to receive their patient. 

“Well, that makes one of you,” Sylvain just muttered, probably, although he couldn’t really be sure because he passed out just as Mercedes said something about surgery. 

Ah, shit. He’d really fucked up this time.

When he woke up, it was to the sound of distant voices, and absolutely nothing else. In fact, when he felt consciousness fading back in, there was absolutely nothing to tether him- complete silence, and white walls around him. 

“Fuck,” he simply said, closing his eyes again. 

“Sylvain?”

“Mm- what?” he groaned, turning his head to the voice and cracking an eye open. Both of his eyes widened in shock, however, when he registered the man at his bedside, suddenly sitting at the edge of his seat with equal amounts of shock on his face. It was an unprecedented look for someone like Felix Hugo Fraldarius. 

“You’re awake,” Felix said, his voice rasping slightly as he rushed to get up and stand next to Sylvain. 

“How are you even so surprised? I didn’t think you had any other emotions than your default frustration, to be honest,” Sylvain found himself saying, not sure where that comment came from. 

“Wha- Dumbass, of course I have emotions.” Felix reverted to his default resting frustrated face. “You’ve known me since we were kids, what was that even supposed to mean?”

“IDK,” Sylvain said, enunciating each letter. 

“.... Are you high?”

“Maybe,” Sylvain acknowledged, noting that he felt very little pain and a lot of dizziness. “Anyway. What are you doing here?”

“Any more stupid questions?” Felix huffed, crossing his arms and letting a blush colour his cheeks. “I came to see you as soon as I could. Of course I would.”

“Aren’t you with Dimitri?” 

“No.” A look of confusion crossed Felix’s face as he loosened up. “Why would I be?”

“He got stabbed in the chest, Felix,” Sylvain said slowly like it wasn’t what had started this entire mess in the first place. “Like, knife through the ribs. Into his lung. Maybe poisoned. He could be dying right now.”

“And?” Felix still didn’t look like he understood. “You’re hurt, too. I want to be here with you, not with Dimitri.” 

“Felix, Mercedes simply took out my appendix. Dimitri could literally be dead by tonight, in comparison.”

“So!?” Getting frustrated, Felix cut him off. “What are you trying to say? If you don’t want me around, I’ll just leave, you know-”

“No!” Sylvain’s high, panicked voice interrupted him, and led into a silence. The two of them breathed heavily for different reasons. “No,” he said again, quieter this time, more desperate. “I’m glad you’re here... thank you.”

“Idiot,” Felix murmured, having lost all his anger. Sighing, he sat down on the side of Sylvain’s bed, laying his hand down on the sheets like an offering. 

Sylvain took it without hesitation, lacing their fingers together. 

“I was worried about you...” Felix admitted, glancing down at their hands. “I rushed in as soon as I could, but you were already in surgery.”

“And Dimitri?”

“Who cares.” Felix’s voice was dry, and firm. “Sylvain... I’m not worried about him right now. He’s got some of the best surgeons in Faerghus working on him, and there’s nothing we can do but wait. But you... you scared me. You weren’t supposed to get hurt. When Ingrid told me, I...”

“Fe...” Squeezing his lover’s hand as understanding dawned on his medicated brain, Sylvain had the decency to look ashamed. “Sorry... I didn’t mean to make you choose...”

“Is that what this is about?” Felix asked, quiet but upholding Sylvain’s gaze fiercely. “Because if you’re still thinking that Dimitri matters more to be than you do, then you’re wrong. And you’re an actual dumbass if you ever believed it to be true.”

Sylvain’s silence was incriminating. 

“Dimitri is my boss,” Felix explained, turning to face Sylvain fully. “He’s one of the people I trust the most in my life and he’s someone I would die for. But he’s not the one I love.” He squeezed Sylvain’s limp hand tightly. “You are.”

“I’m sorry.” Ah, there were the tears. Sylvain was wondering where they’d gone. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe in you. Fe, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Without hesitating, Felix leaned in, down until he could brush Sylvain’s sweaty hair from his forehead and press a kiss to his temple. The tears were hot where they curved down his cheek, dripping onto his chest. “Don’t mention it again. And don’t think there’s anything in this world I would ultimately choose over you.”

The next time that Felix woke up in the middle of the night on Dimitri’s order, Sylvain helped him adjust the bulletproof vest on him and tied up his hair while Felix laced up his boots. 

“Good luck out there, Fe. I love you.”

In the light of the hallway, he watched Felix flash him a smile, and then sweep his handgun off the kitchen table before leaving to do what he did best. Once he was gone, Sylvain made himself a cup of tea and lied down on the couch to wait for his lover’s undoubted return home. 

[ohshcscenerios]

Haruhi falling to her knees bc some bullies from another school accost/shove her on her way home one day, but the other hosts are to the rescue!

Thank you for such an interesting idea! I apologize for the rushed action but I didn’t want this story to run too long. I was dangerously close to 2k words so I needed to stop! 

If you have a request for a one-shot idea please send me a host’s name + a reason why they would fall to their knees to my Ask Inbox! Thank you!

In Haruhi’s second year of Ouran Academy much has changed for the Host Club; Takashi and Mitsukuni graduated at top of their class with respectable honors that would serve them well in Ouran University, Kyoya was officially announced as an official candidate for the Ootori Group’s heir by his father, and Haruhi’s true gender was revealed though that didn’t stop her from participating in host activities. Yes, Haruhi’s second year came with much change and although change is considered good – even necessary – for one’s personal growth and maturity, one cannot also run from change’s inevitable consequences.

At the end of Haruhi’s first year the host club sent a group email to their guests revealing that Haruhi-kun was actually Haruhi-san. As expected, it created an avalanche of reactions. Most were accepting but a rare few felt cheated and lied to. Haruhi allowed them to feel that way, understanding that for a whole year she did lie to her peers and classmates, and so she chose not to explain herself. If they wanted to be angry then she’ll let them be angry. Thankfully, no one as acted out on their anger towards Haruhi, to the Host Club’s relief, but that is until today.

Haruhi shifted her school satchel further up her shoulder as she made her daily tread to the train station a few blocks from Ouran Academy. It was a routine Haruhi could recite from memory and soon even the Host Club could write down her walking directions without looking at a map. When she was first outed to the school a host member walked her home each day to ensure her protection from bullies. After a month of no trouble they didn’t feel the need to walk her home anymore and allowed Haruhi her space again.

Today felt like every other day as she neared a street corner. Just one more block and she’ll be on the train towards home.

“Fujioka!” A voice called from behind her.

Haruhi turned around to see three of her classmates trailing her. She recognized their faces for they were the rare few who didn’t appreciate the Host Club’s dishonesty. Why the three unfathomably rich students would be walking with her instead of riding in their family’s limousines was beyond her.

“Yuri-san, Soma-san, Moria-san,” Haruhi address the students, “can I help you?”

Yuri stepped forward from the group with a deepening scowl contorting her glossed lips, “No, I’m afraid you can’t help us. We don’t want your help, not after you’ve betrayed your loyal customers.”

Haruhi sighed. She was afraid this wasn’t a chance meeting and now her fears were confirmed. They wanted to confront her. She straightened her posture and faced the three students. So be it.

“I apologize for keeping my gender a secret. We have already explained why such actions were made -.”

“We don’t care about a stupid vase,” Moria barked, “any person in your class could have paid for that vase tenfold. It was absolutely pointless to resort to what you did.”

Haruhi casually nodded, accepting her comment but not agreeing at the same time. “I’m sorry you feel that way but what is done is done. We can’t reverse time, we can only move forward. Now if you’ll excuse me.” Haruhi gave a slight bow and turned around to continue her journey home.

She didn’t make a few steps before she felt a fist punch her right shoulder blade. Haruhi stumbled forward but caught herself in time. She turned around to confront to attacker when another fist landed on her jaw. This punch had much more bite and the pain stung, traveling down her neck and making her eyes water. Someone managed to get behind her and they kicked her knees in, forcing her to fall onto her knees.

“Now that you’re kneeling before us, apologize correctly! Beg for our forgiveness!” Soma sneered, bending forward to cast her shadow across Haruhi.

Haruhi rubbed her tender jaw and stared at the three students now standing above her, baffled that the young heiresses could turn so violent. From what she understood about the elite, the women were taught to be graceful, kind, and endearing. Violence was left to designated men who are equipped with skills and social groundings. She has never seen an Ouran lady resort to violence. At most, they would cry and run into a man’s arm begging for his protection. Haruhi didn’t know if she should be concerned for her own safety or impressed that these young women broke through that stereotype.

Soma pushed Haruhi’s head back with a flick of her hand, making her rock back on her knees.

“Start begging you commoner trash.” Soma demanded.

Yuri slapped Haruhi upside the head, “Come one baka, beg!”

“My apologies for interrupting but she will not beg for you today.” A deep masculine voice spoke from behind Haruhi. Her eyes grew wide in recognition as she realized who was standing behind her. His voice alone revealed himself.

“Ootori?” Moria stammered. Having her favorite host witness her less than appealing behavior instantly embarrassed her. “This is not what you think… Haruhi just…”

“Do you think were stupid?” Another voice questioned, sound much more annoyed. Hikaru emerged from the neighboring alleyway along with Kaoru, Tamaki, and Mitsukuni.

“You have a lot of nerve to hit Haruhi like that.” Kaoru growled.

Yuri fixed her posture and flashed the Host Club a mischievous glint in her eyes, “And what exactly are you going to do about it? If you would dare hit a woman you can bet your name will be slandered within hours.”

Kyoya fixed his glasses, “Don’t worry, we wouldn’t stoop so low to your level. We have other ways to take care of you.”

Haruhi felt a strong pair of arms lift her from the ground and realized it was Takashi who saved her from the cold concrete. He carried her as he joined the others and gently brushed his fingers over her swollen jaw. When she winced away at the pain Takashi gave an angry pointed glare at the three students, making them shy away from the normally stoic host.

“This was a bad idea Yuri-san…” Soma whispered to her friend.

“Shut up, this piece of filth needs to pay for what she’s done. She lied to us for an entire year!” Yuri barked back.

“You are only this angry because you developed a crush on Haruhi,” Tamaki explained rather calmly, “We understand your anger but you cannot direct it at Haruhi. We were the ones who forced her to join the Host Club. If you want to beat someone up, let that person be me.”

Tamaki walked forward with his arms stretch out to his sides, palms open and facing up. Haruhi watched him with a strange look of confusion because essentially he was giving himself up in her place.

“We couldn’t hit you Tamaki-kun…” Moria confessed. “We admire you too much. We could never hurt you.”

“But I can,” Yuri said, “If you’re going to take a beating for that rat then so be it!”

Yuri plunged forward with a fist drawn back, winding up for a delicious punch to the cheek. She was about to reach Tamaki when he threw his arms around Yuri and spun her around, lifting her feet off the ground and throwing her off her punch.

“What are you doing? Let me go!” She cried as she wriggled beneath his tight hold.

“I will, once the police arrive.” Tamaki said.

When Moria and Soma heard that the police were called they looked at each other with wide eyes and turned to run off. Before they could make it a few feet Mitsukuni landed in front of them, forcing them to skid to a stop.

“I’m afraid you ladies aren’t going anywhere just yet.” He said with a devious smile.

Kyoya approached Haruhi who was still cradled in Takashi’s arms with a cellphone already pulled to his ear. “I am calling for a doctor to meet us at your apartment to check the injuries. Do not object for I won’t listen. Your jawline is already beginning to bruise.” He studied her face with critical eyes and began speaking to someone on the phone.

“How did you guys get here so quickly?” Haruhi asked her friends.

Hikaru shrugged, “We noticed a note falling out of your locker this morning. We were going to give it to you when we realized it was a threat. So instead we followed you home today, just in case.”

“We’re glad we did.” Takashi admitted.

Haruhi smiled, though it hurt to stretch her bruised cheek, and felt eternally grateful to have the friends she did.

There was much change in her second year and the final change of all was that she gained a second family.

[avoutput]

Final Fantasy VII Legacy || Prequel Crisis

This is the 4th of 3 articles. Find the third here.

There comes a time when the creator realizes they unduly limited themselves by arbitrarily declaring their story is complete. I decided to break my short silence to achieve something closer to my original intent, to scratch an itch that was bothering me. Prequels are always unnecessary (and by the same logic sequels). Even the great Star Wars had to shoehorn episode numbers in later. (To Lucas’ credit, it was added almost 20 years before he would actually make prequels, but still.) But just because something is unnecessary doesn’t mean it can’t be good. It just usually isn’t. Prequels hold even more weight than a sequel because they are narratively bound by their inevitable conclusion, that moment where they meet their origin point, and it would be unsatisfying if it didn’t meet that obligation. Normally, all prequels end where the original begins. But this is Nomura we are talking about. My last article, chronologically, became more of a dumping ground for my feelings on the creator of much of the expanded Final Fantasy VII universe, Tetsuya Nomura. This time we are diving into a game that he technically only worked on from afar, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. This game alters one of the most integral moments of FF7 so profoundly that I am surprised it hasn’t become a greater point of contention. Let me talk to you about the time Zack met Aerith.

There are two ways I imagine they handled Zack and Aerith’s first meeting during the story writing process. Either they were deciding to do it as an homage to the original, wherein Cloud falls through the church roof right onto the flowers Aerith tends to. Or, they wanted to unearth the very foundation of the will-they-won’t-they love story Cloud and Aerith were seemingly meant to be. First, let's examine the nexus point in both games, Aerith. In the original she could be described as mature, sure-footed, and down to earth. In CC, she is much less of all of those things. She's a little more timid, scared of leaving her sector, and way less sure of herself in general. Honestly, this is a good narrative start, we get to see her arc into the person she will become when Cloud meets her, but there was something more sinister at work here. Something they may have even done unknowingly, depending on your point of view. Put a pin in that for the moment because now we can introduce the cause of contention. Now we get to Zack.

To talk about Zack we actually have to investigate the construction of the entire FF7 world. First, Zack is a man of boundless optimism who brightens anyone’s day. Not coincidentally, he and Cloud have a very similar background, both growing up in “the sticks”, the middle of nowhere. And here is where we find a whole new layer to the FFVII universe. The original game has you focused on the pursuit of your goal, which is exactly how all FF’s were built prior to it, but with the sixth entry, world building started to become more important. The character’s lives are always intertwined with the very fabric of their world. This is why Midgar becomes so important to the original because it tells you everything you need to know about the universe in the first hours of the game. CC expanded this idea by sourcing the game in the very same place and having you travel out to jobs, collect information, and return to homebase. In fact, you learn much less about Midgar than you do the rest of the world. In this way, Zack becomes the explorer that Cloud never had the time to be. But in tying both of them to similar origins, Zack also ends up telling you about Cloud’s life. Zack and Cloud are big dreamers from small towns who move to the big city that ends up taking advantage of both of them in the exact same way. They both become pincushions and test dummies. They both fall for the same girl. But the key difference between them is that Zack met Aerith first. Zack had a life changing effect on Aerith that Cloud never really understands. And now, we are at the heart of the problem.

Let me frame my perception of the original Aerith meeting. First of all, Cloud meets Aerith as a flower girl in the aftermath of his very first eco-mission with Avalanche. It was quite the little meet-cute. Boy meets girl, helps girl up, buys girl’s flower, she teases him, they part ways. This is actually important to remember for later, follow me though. On his second eco-mission, an accident sends him flying from the upper-deck, luckily falling on the very bed of flowers Aerith tends to. At this point, she makes sure he has a pulse, then carries on with her work while he gets his stuff together. Cloud puffs his chest and they have a cute little back and forth, cultivating in becoming her bodyguard and escorting her home. During this time, he gets to know her a little better, and she seems playful, insightful, and a little wistful. After some time, she confides in Cloud that she had a boyfriend, he was also in SOLDIER, but he died. This scenario had me believing that Aerith was a girl, somewhat experienced in love, and was building the courage to move on. You get the sense that Aerith can’t help but recognize some minor similarities, though she may have some reservations about Cloud because he is also in SOLDIER, she can’t help but see how helpless he is without her. For a long time in the game, her ex-boyfriend was nameless. Zack was just an idea. But Crisis Core made Zack the progenitor of almost everything that would come to pass in FF7 (seriously, EVERYTHING), and in doing so, it also fundamentally changed the perception of the Tifa-Aerith-Cloud love triangle.

Now let’s rewind all the way back to Zack meeting Aerith in Crisis Core. In a mission at the same reactor Cloud would one day have his fateful accident, Zack meets a similar fate. Everything about the scenarios with Aerith between either Zack or Cloud is alarmingly similar. And it's the similarity that is the problem. Before CC, Cloud and Aerith’s meeting was original and unique. But having Zack meet her in the same exact way before Cloud makes it seem a little cheap. Remember how Cloud’s initial meeting with Aerith results in him buying a flower? This also was hijacked by CC, because it is Zack who gives Aerith the idea to sell flowers to begin with. In CC, Aerith loves her flowers, and she wishes Midgar had more, so Zack tells her to sell them and even rushes off to build her a cart to sell them with. Now Zack not only hijacked one of the most iconic story moments in FF7, he also is the whole reason that it worked to begin with. Without his idea to sell flowers, she never would have met Cloud before the moment he fell through the church to begin with. 

CC pushes our conception of the original narrative even further by having Aerith’s story arc involve her becoming the playful, assertive version of herself. She is confronted with Zach’s boundless optimism and is forever changed by it. We always knew Aerith had a dead boyfriend who was part of SOLDIER, but we never get a good sense of the depth of their relationship or a good idea of what it means to be a part of this company sponsored military. CC lays the groundwork for all of this, but most importantly it lays down a timeline. Aerith and Zack meet, spend somewhere between a couple weeks and 6 months getting to know one another. One day, Zack says he has to go on a mission, an important one, and he doesn’t know when he will be coming back. Aerith asks if it's alright to call him (cellphones) or write to him (email and snail mail?), and she does, but after a while Zack is unable to answer. This is because he would spend the next 2 years in the lab underneath the Nibelheim’s mansion with Cloud, undergoing experiments mastermind by Hojo.

So how did they get there? We have to take a quick walk through the narrative of the other main characters. Throughout the game, the highest members of SOLDIER begin slowly going rogue. I won’t go into explaining much about these characters, but suffice it to say, there are 4 including Zack. First, there was Genesis, a red leather-clad mini-sephiroth, who begins the game MIA, and is later announced dead, despite actually having gone rogue. Shinra knows this, but puts out bulletins through their sponsored media saying he was KIA. At the heart of all this, it should be remembered that Shinra is both a company AND a government. The original hints at the obvious collusion, but leaves it very matter-of-fact. Next, Zack’s mentor Angeal (that is his name), is MIA and then KIA, leaving him the very unique buster sword that Cloud will carry throughout FF7. It turns out Angeal’s family had that sword specially made for him when he joined SOLDIER. It almost bankrupted them. And then, finally, the great Sephiroth follows in turn, MIA turned KIA.

The story jumps ahead a few weeks or months, and now Zack is the most elite member of SOLDIER, carrying Angeal’s buster sword as his own. All this time, he has been running small missions and returning home to spend time with Aerith, a little less optimistic than before, but Aerith tries to help him through it. Then, because of his close ties to the former members of SOLDIER, Shinra sends him away to deal with his former senior members, previously reported as KIA. In the back of Zack’s mind, he has a feeling that this is going to be a sucide mission, that he will deal with his old friends, and Shinra will in turn deal with him. But he longs to know more about why any of this is happening, and follows orders. In a flashback in FF7, we see the moment Cloud confronts Sephiroth for the first time. He is just a regular Shinra grunt, but seeing his childhood friend Tifa laid out in the Nibelheim reactor next to her dead father, Cloud picks up Sephiroth’s discarded blade and goes in for an attack. It turns out that the “real” story was that, before all of this, Zack does battle with Sephiroth, and narrowly loses the fight. The weakened Sephiroth ambles toward his “mother” Jenova in her test tube, crosses over Zack’s beaten body, and knocks away Tifa. Now enters Cloud. Zack tells Cloud to pick up his buster sword and take a shot. Zack and Sephiroth are Mako infused super soldiers, so the battle is stacked against Cloud. Still, regular human Cloud gathers his courage and lunges at Sephiroth, misses, and in turn gets impaled by Sephiroth’s blade. The impaled Cloud finds some inner strength, pushes himself further down the blade, lifts up the stunned and weekend Sephiroth, turns, and sends him falling deep into the reactor, presumably to his death. 

Cloud and Tifa have now passed out, but Zack is still holding on. He is unable to move and just as he is about to pass out, Hojo and a team of scientists show up. Hojo had been watching the whole time, waiting for a conclusion. Hojo expected good work from Zack, but he never expected the SOLDIER reject Cloud to be the one to make the final blow. He decides that Cloud is worth experimenting on and puts both Cloud and Zack into a Mako Reactor tube that makes men into SOLDIER members. It never directly states it, but I believe the purpose of the project was to transfer all of Zack’s abilities into Cloud, and some residual memories of Zack’s life came with it. It turns out, being infused with Mako significantly shortens your lifespan, so taking your best and most loyal SOLDIER’s abilities and passing them on to a new host would be a boon. No need to train them. They would end up spending two years in stasis, all the while Aerith continues to write and call, despite surely hearing in the local news that Zack has been KIA. In that time, the village that Sephiroth burned down has been completely restored and the memories of everyone in town have been erased. The only one who got away before this memory wipe is Tifa. To be clear, I don’t recall if it states that they wiped their memory, but it tracks a little better than the alternative, wherein the townspeople just act like it didn’t happen because they are scared of Shinra.

Now we can begin to compile this. The incredible thing about Zack, despite everything he knows, he remains a company loyalist until the very end. It may be because being on the inside is better than the outside, but it seems that he believes that the only way to be a hero, his dream, is to work for Shinra, making the world “a better place”. We never see him directly betray the company until it directly betrays him. After waking up, he takes a comatose Cloud out of the facility and makes a mad dash back to Midgar. His new mission is to see Aerith and to confront Shinra. But Shinra can not let that happen because it goes directly against their narrative. The game ends with the famous Zack standoff just outside of Midgar. While Cloud is hidden, Zack is killed by a barrage of bullets at the hands of Shinra. Cloud, finally somewhat coming out of his dream state, finds Zack's bullet ridden body, hears his final words, and heads for Midgar. Now, how much time passes between Zack’s death and when Cloud meets Aerith is a bit of a mystery, but it has to be less than a month. So we can imagine that, based on CC, two things are true. Two things that drastically change the perspective one has when playing FF7. First, even up to the moment that Aerith runs into Cloud after the first bombing, it's likely she was still leaving messages for Zack. And the second thing, the most damning of all, is the moment she met Cloud for the very first time was the moment she realized her boyfriend was dead. Why? Because Cloud is carrying the very same, very unique buster sword Zack carried with him everywhere.

Knowing this, it is reasonable to believe that Aerith isn’t drawn to Cloud out of love, but instead curiosity. She wants to know why he has that sword. And when she finds out that Cloud doesn’t even seem to be aware, it must make him that much more intriguing. In FF7, she never does come out and say this, and she also doesn’t in FF7 Remake, but if CC is going to become cannon, it would mean that she would be very aware of this. But that also means that in reality, there was never a love triangle; Cloud never really stood a chance and Tifa never needed to feel jealous. Now, this whole side story is arguably ignorable. It mostly only exists to suck the life out of FF7 in order to breathe life into its own story. There are lots of tangents to this as well. It's possible that Tseng of the Turks, now remodeled to be much more caring of Aerith than in the original, told her that Zack was indeed killed. Not that Aerith has much reason to believe someone who works so closely with Shinra, but even in FF7, she isn’t so much afraid of the Turks, as she is about being put into confinement at Shinra. She is aware she is always being watched. We always knew Aerith knew too much and said too little. She never really ends up trusting the team enough to divulge what she does know. Or maybe she isn’t sure they will understand. In hindsight, she was probably originally created this way because it made her seem more mysterious. But now, with all this information, it just makes her seem… careless.

The day Zack met Aerith is the day the Final Fantasy 7 universe began to bear too much weight. It can’t handle the pressure of all this information, all these connections, because it was built to look cool, not be functional. It was never meant to be a building block for something more. It would be a lie to say I am not excited to see what is going to happen to them in FF7 Remake 2: The Remakening, but I can’t help but feel that their decision to tie all of the various universe additions into one cannon ultimately hurts the original. If a newcomer were to enter the universe at its origin point, which is what most people do when coming to a new series, by the end, they wouldn’t understand where they started from. Compared to Star Wars, a universe where you can enter during any of its starting points 1, 4, or 7 and complete a circle, the FF7 universe is more of a spiral, never connecting to its origin point. In turn, the more you learn about the FF7 universe, the emptier you feel, because it never completes the circle. It isn’t that it's not interesting or even fun, but it's interesting like a twinkie is cake. It's technically true, it is cake, but it's certainly not satisfying. Let us have our cake Nomura. A real cake. A real end. A complete circle.

P.S. I felt I should mention that this is just my take on the story. I did my best to keep the details straight, but admittedly, I may have missed some of the finer details or misremembered them. I also did a fair amount of reading between the lines when it came to my perception of the characters emotions and motives. But the broad strokes are all there. Zack does become the focal point for everything that comes to pass in FF7. There is also way more information about who and what Sephiroth is in comparison to Genesis, Angeal, Zack, and even Cloud. Still, Zack meets Aerith first and sets both her and Cloud on their paths. Zack is the reason Aerith is always laughing at Cloud, not in jest, but in irony. 

[gizkasparadise]

Kdrama review: Vagabond

Master Kdrama rec list.

Series: vagabond Episodes: 16 (14 of 16 aired so far) Genres: Intrigue, action/adventure, SADNESS, drama/tragedy, J U S T I C E, thriller, romance Spoilers in the Review: first episode/basic premise If You Like, You’ll Like: the guardians/lookout!, Taking The Law Into Your Own Hands, four brothers, gu family book, just between lovers/rain or shine, I Lived Bitch, lee seung gi playing yet another wannabe action star that has to run all the time, lee seung gi playing yet another character in love with suzy bae, wholesome high fives, having to run really fast as the bullets go put put ting ting ting behind you, PARKOUR 

Rank: 10/10

“we didn’t die! we didn’t fucking die! high five!!”

-

ok let’s get this out of the way:

do i understand any of the political plot? i do not. is it easy for me to keep track of various Machinations? no i have no idea what’s happening 9 times out of 10. could most of this be solved by singular phone calls? probably. why the hell is a vagabond?  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[puts on aviators]

i don’t give a fuck about all that

premise [SPOILERS for first ep, cw child death]

cha dal gun is a stuntman and martial artist who is raising his nephew after the death of his brother. he has such a signature look in the flashbacks:

a look

he’s not the best in terms of success, but he loves his nephew a lot and does what he can. he teaches his nephew martial arts, and his nephew makes a Super Elite Child Tae Kwon Do Team that pays for him to attend a Diplomatic Tae Kwon Do match in morocco. idk why diplomacy is resting on children’s small fighting shoulders, but okay. 

dal gun’s entire life spirals when his nephew’s plane to morocco unexpectedly crashes, killing everyone on board. Evidence emerges that makes him suspect a cover up, which eventually involves...

go hae ri, a rookie intelligence agent who is not so great at her job. the majority of her coworkers dont expect much from her because they’re awful. hae ri wants to continue her steady government position without obstacles but that doesn’t work when dal gun decides to

P U N C H

his way to 

J U S T I C E

-

main characters

cha dal gun

former stuntman trying to get by turned vigilante roof hopper. he will make you cry. following the death of his nephew, he’ll do Whatever It Takes to uncover the political conspiracy and government cover up surrounding the mysterious plane crash. for justice.

lowkey trying out to be an assassin’s creed player character. does push-ups upside down and shirtless because sbs producers know what they’re about. doesn’t smile much but when he does the lighting on the show increases 17%. he lived, bitch

go hae ri

rookie agent who doesn’t do combat missions. she spends a couple eps Avoiding the Call, but once she gets going she cannot and will not be stopped. brains to dal gun’s brawn. the daughter of a heroic marine who died saving lives, she wants to do the right thing for justice

her hair is so excellent because it’s full of secrets. over sharer. does not know when to recognize that someone has a crush on her. doesn’t think enough of herself. very concerned about people’s dal gun well-being. has the code name elsa? like from frozen?? why???

ki tae woong

a senior at the national intelligence service and you know he’s By the Book because he’s like 1 of 2 people that habitually wears a tie to work. but he also has the Is He A Second Lead? Hair Part so that lets you know he’s actually soft at heart. capable and super cool under pressure, he also, you guessed it, has a sense for justice. 

the blue to dal gun’s red. will do what’s right and if you don’t do what’s right he will scold you for it or be Grimly Disapproving. has the vibe of an intelligence agent who actually submits the paperwork on time in triplicate

some support characters selected by how much they are my favorites

park gwang deok

this man will make you cry. because justice.

gong hwa sook

hae ri’s bff who also works at the national intelligence service. im sure they said what her actual job is at one point, but she’s basically the one who squints at surveillance footage and Finds The Hidden Clue after Enlarging The Image. ride or die, will try to protect you from shame (for justice)

lee jessica / jessica lee

im sure you immediately know who this woman is based on the all-white pantsuit. jessica works for a Company of War that is seeking to get a government contract for providing fighter planes. mmwhatchasay. screams into cellphones a lot while never putting her arms into the sleeves of her designer jackets. has no sense for justice!!

lily

an assassin/mercenary who (gasp) also has a low (low) key sense of justice. is hired by jessica for Reasons. i love her so much. i need more lily in the remaining episodes.

Drawbacks.

does it always make sense? to be honest i could not even tell you a yes or no here

there are many interchangeable evil men in suits

people complain about suzy bae (hae ri)’s acting but honestly i enjoy it so w/e

Reasons to Watch.

THE GRIEVING FAMILY MEMBERS OF THE VICTIMS OF THE PLANE CRASH. one thing vagabond does really well is remember that this isn’t just dal gun’s loss. several family members have important roles in the activism for justice and lmao they make me cry. i cry so much at this show. it’s very human and reminds me of how trauma is addressed in just between lovers/rain or shine

action scenes!!!! it’s all off the fucking chain. like. the production value is so high for this show you can almost see SBS execs figuring out how many subway sandwich scenes need to go into the next drama they write

the mains!!! all three are so great and good and excellent. dal gun and hae ri have some awesome character development throughout -- hae ri especially

the romance between dal gun and hae ri is incredibly sweet and fluffy despite the intense situations they’re in

dal gun is Very Aware that hae ri is Attractive and does a lot of awkward throat clearing while hae ri is just like DID YOU EAT TODAY

Final Thoughts.

power moves! things that make me cry! slow motion action sequences for the aesthetic! battle/power couple! and of course

J U S T I C E

[cowboyshit]

Without Words

I wanted to write something for Hangman after my heart was so sad watching this week’s BTE, so I decided we’d revisit a FOC from a prior bte-inspired fic.  The FOC of choice is Stella, who was in The Cowboy Hat Stays On.  This is purely self-indulgent, but I just... needed it.

Ship: Hangman Adam Page x Stella (FOC)

Summary: (Takes place following the events from 1/8/20 Dynamite and 1/13/20 BTE) After wrapping up pre-show interviews, Stella discovers that her boyfriend, Hangman Adam Page, isn’t anywhere to be found backstage.  The few people she talks to let her know that, once again, he appeared to be drunk before everyone lost sight of him.  Worried for his well-being, Stella tracks him down and their love deepens when she learns how badly he needed her.

Rating: Teen (alcohol use and like one swear)

Warnings: Alcohol use, a bad word, also maybe guard your feels a little bit

Length: 3,918 words

Available below the cut or HERE on ao3

“Thanks Jack, that was great!”

“Anytime, Stella,” Jungle Boy smiled that honest, sweet grin he had and nodded before stepping away from the cameras and heading off after Luchasaurus and Marko, waiting in the wings.

“Are we good for the night?” Stella asked, glancing at the man who’d make the call. He nodded with a happy grin.

“Yeah, great stuff as always Stella.”

“Thanks!” Stella grinned and handed the microphone to a waiting PA before stepping off set. She’d always enjoyed being an interviewer, ever since she could remember. Growing up, she used to use her family’s video recorder to tape herself interviewing her stuffed animals and had made journalism her career focus when she attended university. An interview landed her a job in the world of professional wrestling, of which she had no experience. 

Stella remembered when she’d called her brother, panicking, and begged him to teach her everything he knew about it. Thankfully he was a fan and he’d done what he could, sending her YouTube video after YouTube video and handling her billions of confused questions that’d come after. He’d even directed her toward his favorite professional wrestling interviewers to give her an idea of what exactly she’d be doing. He’d begged her not to mess it up, but halfway through the interview she’d panicked and confessed that she’d barely begun cramming knowledge about professional wrestling in the two weeks waiting for her interview. The eyes of the company heads were pinned on her and she quickly promised to do everything she could to be the best interviewer they’d have. She’d learn everything she needed to know by the time they were ready for her, even if she had to tape her eyelids open to keep watching and never sleep.

It’d been Nick Jackson who’d broken the silence after her confession, grinning from where he reclined in the chair on the opposite side of the long glass top table. “What the hell? I say we give her a shot.”

Stella smiled, remembering that moment as she took off down the hallways, heels clicking against the ground and echoing on the cement walls on either side of her. By now she’d settled well into her job and was actually enjoying herself, too. Well of course you are. You’re dating Hangman Adam Page, after all. Stella bit down on the smile that wanted to spread wide and happy across her face. Friends since she started, it wasn’t until that drunken outburst of his and the subsequent confessing of feelings after that they agreed to start dating.

But lately he was worrying her. Thursday through Monday he was a different man altogether. Happy. Full of laughter. Relaxed. The closer Wednesday drew, the more tense he became. He’d always shrug her touch off if she laid it on his set shoulders and shake his head, blinking as if waking from a daydream when she asked him what was wrong. He’d laugh and assure her it was nothing before leaning in and giving her a sweet, loving kiss. He was believable enough for her not to press any further, but still… it nagged her.

Most Wednesday nights he didn’t meet with her after the show. After she was done with all the post show interviews, Stella would find out he’d already left and said he was going back to his hotel. She’d never thought Adam to be the cheating type, and still didn’t, but the further it went and the worse he seemed to get, the more and more concerned she was. Something was clearly wrong, but she didn’t know what. Was it her? Did he regret their moment of passion and wished they’d just remained friends?  If it wasn’t her, why wouldn’t he tell her what was going on? She’d decided she’d talk to him about it that night. She’d get it together, stop being afraid of driving him away and ask him what was going on with him.

She had an idea of what it could be if it wasn’t her…

“Kenny!” She’d just been thinking about him – well, about The Elite - and Adam’s current relationship with them. He turned around and looked momentarily relieved to see her, then glanced around her, noticed she was alone and looked disappointed.

“Hangman isn’t with you?”  He asked.

 “No… I was hoping you’d have seen him,” she said, worry creeping into her tone.

“Shoot,” he sighed and shook his head, “I was worried about him, I think he was drunk again.  I was going to make sure he got an Uber back to the hotel, but I had to wrap up something for the show and I-” he trailed off before his sentence finished and Stella felt a twist of anger in her stomach.

“And you let him go.” She couldn’t help the coldness that slipped into her voice and she didn’t take it back, either. She was too worried about Adam to care about hurting Kenny’s feelings.

“Stella, it wasn’t like that, I-” Kenny started, but Stella interrupted him.

“I don’t have time, Kenny. I need to find Adam and make sure he’s okay.” She turned away before he could say anything else and started walking faster, steady enough to power walk in heels from how often she’d had to wear them. After asking around to no avail, Stella headed for where she’d stored her purse and went for her cellphone, immediately dialing his number. It went straight to voicemail. Her stomach dropped. He never turned off his phone…

“Hey baby! I just ran into Kenny and he said he was looking for you? No one can find you or seems to know where you went off to. Where are you at? Call me back.” She hung up the phone and looked at it as the screen faded black. What if all these feelings were just her getting too inside her head and he was perfectly fine? Was she being a crazy girlfriend? 

She decided to give him a few minutes to get back to her as she gathered her things and called for an Uber. The only place he could have reasonably gone back to was the hotel, right? She knew the room he was staying in and could at least go knock on his door to make sure he’d gotten back alright. A few of the people she’d asked backstage said he’d been acting a little out of control - like he’d been the night he found her before Christmas… but different.

Stella had watched him mingling with the crowd after his match, and though she’d certainly felt flush, watching the beer dribble down his face and splash on his stacked, muscled chest, there’d been that ever-present twinge of worry. Again, she mentally chided herself, maybe she was being too paranoid. Maybe she was reading too much into things and anticipating the worst.

She fidgeted the entire way from the convention center to the (thankfully) nearby hotel and practically ran from the loading area the driver dropped her off at and into the lobby. A few curious eyes pulled her way and she reminded herself to calm down and pace herself. She glanced back down at her phone. No returned call. She tried him again, but once more, the call went straight to voicemail. Stella made for the elevators and pushed the button for his floor, two above the floor her room was on, and waited.

He hadn’t been acting like himself lately. He’d been shrugging it off every time she tried to bring it up, but it’d always left unease in her gut. She figured it was something he was working through and he’d tell her when he was good and ready. She had to give him that amount of trust, at least. But this? Third week in a row he’d all but disappeared, said to be drunk, and this time his phone was off. If he’d at least texted her and let her know he was going to be okay…

The elevator doors swung open and Stella moved out of them in a rush. Her breath was coming in short gasps, but it was because her heart was pounding the closer she got to his door. She stopped in front of his room and steadied herself before raising her fist and knocking.

“Adam? It’s Stella!”

Silence. Stella glanced down either end of the hall and knocked again.

“Adam? Are you in there? I tried calling you, but your phone went straight to voicemail.”

Silence.

Fuck. If he hadn’t come to the hotel and he hadn’t been at the convention center, where had he gone? Stella glanced around the empty hallway again as if her anxiety would magically manifest him and everything would be okay. He didn’t appear, and Stella was left standing in front of his closed hotel room door, wondering how crazy she’d sound if she asked the person working the lobby desk to give her a key to the room. Maybe he was sleeping? Maybe he’d turned his phone off by accident?

She frowned and looked back at the closed door. Okay. New plan. Stella decided she’d return to her hotel room and try calling his hotel phone a couple times, hoping the ring would wake him up. If that didn’t work – she decided as she got in the elevator and pressed the button for her floor – she’d get ahold of Kenny and see if he’d heard anything. Maybe they’d found Adam somewhere. Maybe they’d be able to get her access to the hotel key card to check his room.

The doors slid open and she stepped onto her floor. Already she was tactically planning who she’d contact to keep this as under-the-rug as possible. The last thing she wanted was to blow the whole thing out of proportion and have one wrong person overhear the ordeal and run wild with it. Adam was a grown man, she reminded herself, he was more than capable of taking care of himself. Wherever he was.

She turned the hallway and stopped short. Just a few doors down, in front of her hotel room door, sat a blond, curly-haired cowboy in a grey-and-black flannel long-sleeve, dark-wash jeans and ostrich leather boots. His head was bent, eyes on his hands, which he had lying in his lap, palms up.

“Adam?” Relief in her voice, his name echoed down the stretch of the empty hall as she hurried her steps to get to him faster. Adam’s head shot up and he blinked a few times as if adjusting to the lights overhead. He looked disoriented, as if he didn’t realize where he was.

“Stella?” He asked, looked down the hall behind her and frowned, lifting a wide palm to flatten for support on the doorframe as he shakily got to his feet. His body lurched and swayed, the way it had the night they’d been walking in the park outside to try and help sober him up. Stella’s heart sank.

“Adam… are you okay?” She couldn’t help the way sadness draped itself over her tone.

“Yeah, I’m alright.” Knee-jerk, gut reaction. He was so used to brushing everyone’s concern away and wanting to put on an appearance of having everything together – now more than ever since he’d decided to leave The Elite – he said it before he’d thought about it. Adam kept one hand on the doorframe to hold himself upright and glanced down his barrel chest at her.

Heartache in those blue eyes of his. Vulnerability. He wasn’t okay. The sight of his sorrow stung her so swiftly, Stella had to suck in a sharp breath, as if all the oxygen had been sapped out of the hotel hallway.

“Adam…” She said gently, stepping to close the few inches of distance between them, and lifted her hand to gently hold his cheek. The short hair of his blond beard scratched her soft palm. Adam leaned his head into her hold and closed his eyes, taking a deep, slow breath. His low brow furrowed. He was trying not to cry, but when he opened his eyes again, Stella could see the soft sheen of tears glossy in his eyes. “Oh, Adam,” she said again, and slipped her hand from his face to instead wrap them around his soft, yet firm midsection. Stella pressed her cheek against his chest, listening to the beat of his heart, and held onto him a little tighter than necessary.

Adam’s large arms wrapped around her and pulled her in just as close, his head bent, and his face buried in her wavy, dark hair. His breaths were low and warm against her neck.  He breathed a shaky breath that she felt the tremor through his whole body.

“Shhh, it’s okay,” Stella whispered, fighting the emotion swelling inside her and the way it tightened her voice and made her eyes burn with tears. “I’m here.” His arms tightened more. “I’ve got you.”

Adam’s wide back, which Stella gently rubbed her hand up and down in a comforting, calming way, shook beneath her touch. With his face hidden in her hair, with her arms wrapped around him, he let go. His tears were wet against her skin, dampening the neckline of her dress.

“Fuck,” he whispered and gasped, and held tight to her still as he cried.

The tears that’d waited in her eyes slipped over her cheeks, but Stella remained steadfast, holding him, comforting him, whispering gentle, sweet words of love and affection. Whatever he needed in this moment, she was there. She would be his light when everything else around him seemed so, so dark.  She was his strength.

“I’m sorry Stella, I-” he started to say in a rough, emotion-raw voice as he finally slipped his arms away from around her and reached to wipe the tears almost angrily from his eyes.

“No, no,” she started almost immediately and grabbed his hands, pulling them away from his face.  Her fingers curled and squeezed tight around them.  Adam’s eyes refilled almost immediately with tears, the edges lined red. And oh, how her heart broke to see him sad. She’d always teased him about having the perfect puppy-dog face with the soft, natural down-turn of his brows, but looking at her now his face was twisted in an expression of anguish and it made a sight she hoped she never had to see. He should be bright with smiles, always. Those sort of smiles he had that ate up his whole face and pushed his round cheeks into his eyes, making the edges wrinkle.

“Baby, it’s okay. You have nothing to apologize for.” Her voice gently reprimanded his feelings of shame for breaking down in front of her. “Come on,” she let one hand go, but kept a tight hold of the other. “Let’s go in my room.”

The last thing he needed was someone from the company coming back to their rooms and catching sight of him drunk and in tears. Quickly, Stella reached into her purse for her keycard, swiped and opened the door. She went in first, Adam close behind, the hold of their hands not breaking until the door closed with a steady click behind them. She looked over at him and gave him a small, kind smile as she kicked off her heels and reached for his hand again.

“Stella, I’m sorry, I don’t even know how I got here… I didn’t mean to ruin your night I just-” He tried to start again, voice a deep, pitiful mumble as he fought through high emotion and the haze of drunkenness to get a grasp on himself.

“Adam, stop.” Her voice was a little firmer this time and it made him blink in surprise at her. “Come here,” she added more gently, tugging his hand and leading him toward the hotel bed. Their grasp broke again so Stella could climb onto the bed, putting her back against the headboard and sitting upright. Adam tilted his head and a frown gently pinched his brow. She smiled and gently patted her lap. “Lay your weary head down, cowboy.”

Barely a turn of a smile at the corner of his lips, but it was something. He shifted to lean his weight onto the bed.

“Ah- wait!”

He froze and blinked at her as she arched a brow and eyed his feet.

“No boots on the bed, you know the rule.”

This time he did smile and even though it was brief, it was enough to lift the heavy weight seeing him in tears had laid across her heart. Stella adjusted herself as Adam crawled onto the bed – boots off – and laid himself down, placing his head in her lap. His forehead wrinkled as he raised his brows and looked up at her. Gently, Stella began to rake her fingers through his soft mane of blond curls, massaging his scalp as she did. He made a soft noise and closed his eyes, sighing out a long, low breath. For a minute that’s all it was, just Adam laying with his head in her lap, eyes closed, and Stella gently brushing her fingers through his hair. She didn’t press him to talk and didn’t care to, either. This was for him. They could have gone on like this all night as far as she was concerned.

His chest rose as he took in a deep breath and deflated as he slowly released it. His eyelids blinked open and he looked up at her again. No tears in his eyes this time, but the evidence of what he’d already cried remained. Stella could see the gentle shimmer on his skin as it caught the hotel lights. She carefully wiped their trails away and smiled a small, reassuring smile down at him. Adam reached to catch her hand before she could return to gently brushing his hair. He pulled her down as he lifted to meet her in a soft, quick kiss before he released her and settled back in her lap.

It was quiet for a little longer as Stella returned to playing with his hair.

“I talked to Jimmy for a bit after the show,” he started, and Stella could tell he was trying to work through what’d brought him to her hotel room door and left him to tears. He’d been excited to see his old wrestling coach the minute they’d announced he’d be a part of it. “He told me…” his voice tightened, and he cleared his throat. “He told me I – uh –” a deep breath that seemed to shake in his lungs, “he told me I have a lot to be running towards.”

“He’s right,” Stella said, but her voice was soft. She knew better than to force him into the realization everyone who truly cared about him could see. He had so much potential laid out in front of him and he was so much better than he gave himself credit for. The more the crowd swelled in volume the moment they saw him, or when he moved around the ring preforming his heart out, the more his confidence grew. It just needed to be strong enough to push the voice of doubt that had remained ever steadfast in his mind, ready to poison any victory he had and tell him it still wasn’t enough. Stella believed in him, believed he’d get there…

But he needed to believe in himself, first.

Adam made a noise in his throat to avoid outright agreeing or disagreeing with her.

“Hey, look at me,” she beckoned, bringing those sad blue eyes her way. “You are one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met, you know that?” Stella didn’t let him pull away from her compliment, her hands gently framing that handsome face that made her heart skip when she saw it. “You have so much to offer. Everyone can see it Adam, but you need to see it too.”

The vision of him blurred as tears suddenly rose in her eyes. She cared for him so much, that the emotions were too strong to control completely.  Stella tried to blink them away and cleared her throat. It was too early in their romantic relationship to say those three little words, but she knew she felt them.  She loved Adam, and she’d already loved him as a friend, but this new venture of theirs together was filled to a depth like she’d never known.

“I’m going to be here every step of the way beside you, and I’m going to be here to remind you how amazing you are, and that when tens of thousands of people are shaking the convention center chanting ‘cowboy shit’, they’re doing that because of you and because they support you. Because you won them over and you keep winning them over. You have so much potential, Adam, but you can’t seem to see it.”  She gently brushed a strand of his blond hair and tucked it behind his ear. “I believe in you and I’m not going to stop complimenting you until you believe in yourself, too. Your coach saw it tonight. Everyone sees it every night. You’re destined for something great, Adam. But you have to believe it for yourself… or this self-doubt is going to eat you alive.”

Stella had a feeling it already was. And she was quickly realizing he was feeling alone, isolated by the worries circling in his head. She needed him to know he was there. She needed him to know he wasn’t alone and he was never going to be.

Adam took a low breath and lifted himself up on the bed, out of her lap. He cheated his body to face her, and those large, calloused palms lifted to gently cradle her cheeks. The bed sank against the weight he pressed into his knees, rolling her body into his as his mouth crashed hard and needy against hers. They kissed until they were breathless, chests heaving when they pulled apart with a loud smack. Adam’s breath washed across her face and he held her, blue eyes on hers. His thumb gently skimmed her cheek.

Emotion was a raw, open wound exposed between them. His insecurities on display and more that hadn’t quite been said, but they both knew. He was so desperate for family, so ready to blame himself for any shortcomings, that he wasn’t letting himself believe it was The Elite who’d wronged him versus his own losses. But stepping from their shadow turned more and more eyes on him, and the crowd rallied. The crowd loved Hangman.

The silence stretched softly between them.

“Could you… maybe hold me a little longer?” He asked, his voice small, but the vulnerable need clear as day across his face. She knew it wasn’t an easy thing to ask, or an easy place to be. The trust in her he showed in that moment lifted her heart, but the fact that he needed it – just to be held – made her determined to do everything she could to constantly remind him how loved he was, and how important he was to those around him. Briefly, she was angry at anyone who’d ever made him doubt his worth.

“Of course, baby,” Stella sighed with gentle relief, and they situated themselves on the bed so she could wrap her arms around him, gently and comfortingly running her hands along his body, showing him all the love she had for him without ever saying the words.

[lostinfic]

6. Boston, Fall

Summary: He’s photographed devastated war zones, refugee camps and child soldiers. She writes for magazines about luxurious resorts in exotic places and five-star hotels in glamorous cities. For both of them travel is an escape, but he’s had enough of this grim reality, and she’s had enough of this disconnected fantasy. Perhaps together they can find something in between, something real, and stop running from themselves. Each season, a new destination and a chance to grow closer.

Pairing: Alec Hardy x Hannah Baxter Rating: Mature~ish (for now) Word count: 5k

A/N: Many thanks to those who commented on the chapter addition I posted this week, it felt really good to see people still interested in this story despite my absence. You’re the best!

Tumblr  |  Ao3

He couldn’t believe he was doing this again: waiting for her, unannounced, in front of the cruise terminal. In Boston, today. But it was different because she’d gone to his exhibition in New York and wrote a message in the guestbook, and that knowledge emboldened him.

He zipped his North Face jacket up to his chin against the cold sea breeze. And waited.

Finally she came out, leather jacket, pink travel mug and hair in lazy curls.

“Baxter,” he shouted, his voice betrayed his excitement, and he immediately buried his hands in his pockets, affecting a casual air. With a head tilt, he beckoned her closer.

Her eyes widened at the sight of him then narrowed to a furrowed brow. “What are you doing here?”

She didn’t look as happy to see him as he’d hoped. His stomach clenched.

“I hitched a ride with a mate,” he said.

“To come see me?”

“Nah, I’m a Red Sox fan.”

Sarcasm to muffle his beating heart.

A small smile appeared on her red lips which she hid behind her thick tartan scarf.

“Miss Baxter!” An Asian man jogged up to them. In his white and aqua tracksuit, the cruise line colors, he looked like a figure skater. The too-wide smile and forced eye contact betrayed his marketing position even before Hannah introduced him.

“Jeffrey Allen, the marketing liaison on board. And this is my— photographer, Alec Hardy.”

“Delighted to meet you, Mr. Hardy.” Jeffrey shook his hand with too much enthusiasm. “Now, Miss Baxter, Mr. Hardy, Festival Cruises is happy to provide its esteemed guests with complimentary shuttles to the heart of historical Boston. You will be boarding one, yes?”

“Actually, we—” Hannah began, but Jeffrey pushed her towards a big charter bus. With mild panic in her eyes, Hannah grabbed Hardy’s sleeve and tugged him along.

He followed her to the very back of the bus. She slouched down, pressing her knees against the seat in front of her. She apologized for yawning, she hadn’t slept well.

“Sea sick?”

She shrugged. “How did you know I was here?”

“Your whole life’s online.”

“Don’t you know you shouldn’t believe everything you read on the Internet?”

“That’s right, you didn’t post about seeing my expo yesterday. Not good enough for you?”

She toyed with the lid of her travel mug, twisting it left and right, then taking a sip.

“So you saw my message in the guestbook.”

“I did.”

“There was a photo of me in your exhibition.”

She sought his gaze. She wanted him to say more about the photo. One photo out of fifty. Aesthetically pleasing. That’s all. Or so he tried to convince himself. Her eyes mirrored his own anxious expectations. He wished she’d say more about his exhibition. What did she think? Why did she feel shaken?

She looked away first, bit the corner of her thumb nail. She flipped back to teasing.

“Besides, you need to pay if you want exposure on my blog.” She bumped him lightly with her shoulder.

He had this feeling again, of something on the tip of his tongue, something about her that escaped him every time.

Jeffrey came on the bus too, and they both groaned at the sight of him.

Yesterday, she’d skipped a special shore excursion to visit the World Press Photo event, she suspected Jeffrey would try to oversee her work today.

The man sat beside her across the aisle and monopolized her attention with talks of museum discounts. She listened with a tight, polite smile.

Hardy observed the other passengers, most of them silver-haired, carrying canes and walkers. It wasn’t adding up. He and Hannah may be very different types of travelers, but from her articles, he’d gotten the impression they both preferred to avoid the main tourist attractions to experience local culture. She ate street food, talked to people, danced to their music. This didn’t seem like her no matter how much they paid. But then again, he shouldn’t believe everything he reads online.

“Didn’t think you were the senior cruise type,” Hardy said, interrupting Jeffrey.

“I’m looking for a husband,” she joked.

“Preferably one on the brink of death?”

“And who loves to travel.”

She grinned, and his stomach unknotted.

“Well actually,” Jeffrey began, unprompted and unwelcome, “the average age of cruise passengers is lower than you would think.” He lectured them on the advantages of sea travel for the whole family.

Hardy rolled his eyes.

“I like to think of it as sampling the best of each port of call,” Hannah summed up.

“While dumping a ton of waste in the harbor,” Hardy said.

Jeffrey squinted his eyes at him. “You’re not one of our esteemed guests,” he realized.

He would have thrown Hardy off the bus if it weren’t on the highway. Hardy couldn’t care less, but Hannah’s glare stopped a lecture of his own.

“Don’t make me lose this job too,” she whispered to him.

Soon, the shuttle stopped near a visitor center. Mid-morning Boston was busy and cloudy. the scent of last night’s rain hung in the air, pigeons bathed in puddles. Shop windows sported pumpkins, real or painted or fashioned into garlands.

Hannah wanted better coffee than the one on board and headed for a coffee shop chain to refill her mug. Hardy coaxed her instead towards a local place advertising Fair-trade coffee.

Seven years ago, he’d photographed children harvesting coffee beans in terrible conditions. Seven years later people still didn’t care. Perhaps if he’d stayed in New York he could have convinced a few more people to choose their coffee brand wisely.

He’d meant to pay for Hannah’s beverage— an indication of his intentions— but work had clogged his mind again, and he found her handing him a cup instead.

They stood on the cobblestone pavement, unable to settle on an activity to do, neither wanting to make a decision the other might dislike. They had both been to Boston before. “As you wish,” was uttered more than once without any action following.

Hardy ran a hand through his hair and shifted his weight. Now that he was in front of her, he didn’t know what to say. It had seemed so easy in Singapore.

“I should probably get some work done,” Hannah said. “Check out a few landmarks, take some photos… “

“Right, yeah, don’t want you to be in trouble with Jeffrey. Sorry, I shouldn’t have come.”

Jeffrey interrupted them once more, coming out of the visitor center with a handful of brochures. He was really pushing for Hannah to join one of their guided tours.

Hardy opened a rideshare app on his cellphone. He had to drop by his friend’s place first, get his overnight bag back, but he might make it to New York City in time for Alys Tomlinson’s conference.

“Are you alright?” Hannah asked with a frown.

He hadn’t noticed Jeffrey’s departure.

“I know it’s not your thing, if you’d rather go…” she trailed off.

“Do you want me to?”

“I suppose not. Look, once that’s out of the way—” she waved the brochures— “we can go somewhere nice, yeah? Hang out.”

Maybe it was the caffeine finally kicking in, but there was a light dancing in her eyes as she said this, things promised but unspoken. His heart sped up like a puppy’s tail.

Hardy grabbed a random brochure out of her hands: the Freedom Trail. He studied the map. “This way.” He hurried away with long strides. “C’mon, Baxter, before Jeffrey comes back.” She laughed and caught up to him.

The trail started in Boston Common. In the park, ancient elm and oak trees fanned out their shades of red and orange. Dead leaves crunched under Hannah’s ankle boots as they walked among morning joggers and giggling preschoolers. They picked the shortest way across the park, took a wrong turn and ended up at the Frog Pond. The water surface reflected the cloudy sky, still but for the brush of weeping willow branches. Their pace slowed to a stroll.

“What did you mean earlier, about losing your job?” he asked.

“Well, I lost my job at Elite Travelers because of you and your bloody work ethic.” She poked him in the chest, and he crossed his arms.

After she’d followed his advice and exposed the magazine’s censorship, she was fired. That was only the beginning. Every other media part of the same conglomerate shunned her too. Magazines, newspapers, websites and TV shows she’d worked with before, now didn’t reply to her emails and phone calls. A secretary she’d befriended finally explained HR had blacklisted her.

As for hotels, anything part of Group Peregrine, the Mahal Kita Resort owners, became off-limits too.

“Don’t blame me for your shitty boss,” Hardy replied, though he did feel a smidge guilty.

“I know, I was taking the piss. I thought I could be like you, you know. That it’d be good for my reputation, I’d be credible, get more interesting assignments.”

“You did it for the wrong reason.”

“Alright, don’t worry, I did it for the people of Pulau Kesuma too. It can be both. I just mean I thought good deeds were supposed to be rewarded.”

“Give it time,” he replied lamely.

The cruise line’s offer was the first she’d received in weeks. They needed her to rejuvenate their image. “And I’m always up for a challenge,” she said, and he smiled at her determination.

“But you don’t like it.”

“I prefer to focus on the positive aspects.”

“Thought you were a journalist.”

“Exactly. I’m neutral. Just because something doesn’t appeal to me, doesn’t mean it wouldn’t appeal to someone else.”

“Fair enough,” he said.

“Really, I thought you’d argue more.”

He would have, but he was trying to make a good impression.

He told her he’d sent her article on Pulau Kesuma to Ellie who had translated it in Indonesian for the island population. “The maids you interviewed asked about you. Did you stay in touch?”

“They did?” She smiled, genuinely touched. “I haven’t… I meant to… did you stay in touch with anyone?”

“I try… I’m not great at it. I tell people letting me take photos will help, I give them hope. I have a responsibility to see that help through.”

“I don’t think I could ever do that. The responsibility…” She blew out a puff of air.

“It’s not all bad. I lived with this family in Kuwait, about— well, early in my career. I was young, the mother she fussed over me. She still writes to me. Yesterday, the youngest son had his first child, and they sent me a picture.”

He showed her the picture, saved on his phone, of Omar with a baby in his arms. Hannah leaned closer until their shoulders touched. Her weight against him made him forget what he wanted to say. She glanced at the photo, then looked up at him.

“You’re a good person,” she said.

He shrugged, embarrassed. He never helped as much as he wanted to, but it felt like false modesty to say so. In fact, the retrospective of his work in New York made him uneasy, and he was relieved to escape it for a day. But he knew he should have stayed to talk about the issues he’d photographed rather than go and have fun.

He was about to offer they sit on a bench and he’d buy her a pastry to apologize for her lost job, when he spotted Jeffrey, in his bright suit, on the other side of the carousel.

“I bet he’s spying on me,” Hannah said in a whisper. “We have to shake him off.”

They slowly backtracked and hid behind the trunk of a large tree.

Hardy looked at the Freedom Trail map. “We need to head that way, but he’ll see us. So we take this road to go around and exit the park.”

“Ok. Got it. Ready?”

Hannah grabbed his hand, and it surprised him so, he froze. She tugged on his arm. His legs remembered how to move, and they made a run for it. They dashed from tree to tree, laughing.

He’d once done the same to dodge bullets. This was much more fun.

Once they’d put enough distance between Jeffrey and themselves, they slowed down and Hannah let go of his hand.

They exited the park and reached the next stop on the trail, the Granary Burying Ground. Samuel Adams and Paul Revere were both buried somewhere beneath the time-worn tombstones. Neither Hardy nor Hannah could remember what made these men famous. As they kept walking, Hannah read out loud about the landmark while Hardy guarded her from colliding with anyone.

Two more landmarks and Hannah realized she’d forgotten to take photos for her blog. Hardy took hold of her camera and swiftly snapped photos of her in front of an old brown-brick building.

“Oi, I wasn’t ready.”

“It’s called street photography.”

They strode the streets, still looking over their shoulders for Jeffrey. The imaginary threat pushed adrenaline through their blood. They slalomed between tourists. Their breaths came quick and cloudy.

Old State House.

Quincy Market.

Hardy took shortcuts through private properties. “The trick is to look like you know where you’re going.” She found it thrilling. Their eyes gleamed, their cheeks flushed.

Paul Revere’s House.

Old North Church.

Inevitably, they talked about US politics, but also about history and their work. What they said didn’t matter. They were like two dogs sniffing and chasing each other. A test of sorts. A trial run.

The few women he’d been with since his separation— accidents, convenience— they didn’t feel like this. The gravitational pull of Hannah threw him off course. She tugged at the very center of him. He knew, and perhaps she did too, that they were on the edge of something great. Something all-encompassing. There would be no going back. But parts of her were wild and unknown. Like a wounded beast hides in the shadows. And so he photographed her, as she walked, as she curled her hair around her finger, as she looked at the city. Moments, seconds, like puzzle pieces that might reveal her heart to him. A hint to give him the courage to step over the edge.

In an hour, they reached the last stop on the trail: the Bunker Hill Monument. They stared at the towering granite obelisk.

“I prefer the ones in Egypt,” Hardy said.

Hannah wanted to climb the 295 steps leading to the top. The view would be worth the effort, but a sign by the door warned people with heart conditions. He stalled.

“What are you afraid of, old man?” Hannah teased.

He bristled at that. He couldn’t tell her about his pacemaker precisely so she wouldn’t overthink the age gap and see him as old and sick.

“I’m not old, I’m experienced.”

She snorted a laugh. “At least you’ve still got all your hair… For now.”

“I’ll show ye, Baxter.”

He opened the door to the obelisk and let her go first under the pretense of chivalry.

A narrow spiral staircase led to the top. Humidity beaded on the cool stone walls. By step 60, they started building up a sweat and gradually shed layers: scarf, coat, jacket, collars were opened.

Over the weeks, Hardy had grown accustomed to the foreign object in his chest, but now his hand flitted to his heart every minute.

“Are you alright?” Hannah inquired, noticing the gesture.

“Fine. Keep going.”

“I need a rest anyway.”

Pity. He gritted his teeth. How could he hope to ever get back in the field if he couldn’t even climb a couple hundred steps. No one would pause for him Syria.

“You’re wearing a suit.” Hannah observed now that he’d removed his windbreaker.

“That bad? I had it for the conference.”

“No, I like it. You made an effort.”

She slid her fingers along his collar to straighten it.

“I almost brought you flowers too,” he said and immediately regretted it— she would think he’s old-fashioned.

“Next time,” she replied with a teasing smile.

That affirmation spurred him on. He resumed climbing before he’d caught his breath. Two steps at a time. Proving a point. His heart raced but at a steady rate. The pacemaker held on.

“295!”

The top of the obelisk was a tight space of gray brick, with only four tiny windows under a high, peak ceiling.

Hardy sagged on the sill of the closest window, and Hannah squeezed next to him. She raked her hair back from her forehead, sending a whiff of floral shampoo his way.

Their panting breaths on the glass fogged the panorama. Hannah drew a smiley face with her fingertip and gave it a little beard. She grinned at him.

The fog faded and they stared at the Charles River and its cable bridge beyond the tiny squares of brown bricks. There were other windows with a different vista, but Hannah was here, honey eyes on the horizon, skin flushed with exertion, warm against his sleeve.

They talked in low, dreamy voices about the highest places they’ve visited: the Petronas towers, a volcano in Hawaii, Lake Titicaca, a rooftop bar in Hong Kong, a suspension bridge in the Alps. Up in the clouds, where humans seem small compared to nature and one’s life inconsequential.

They shared a bottle of water, and only moved when other people arrived.

Hannah begged him to let her take a good photo this time. She meant one over which she had control.

“The light’s rubbish in here.”

“I trust your skills. Just let me fix my face, must be all shiny.” She pulled a pocket mirror out of her purse and dabbed her forehead. “If I’d known you were coming, I’d have washed my hair.”

“Don’t worry, you look great.”

“Really?” she asked coyly.

“You know you do.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know you agreed.”

“I came all the way here, didn’t I?”

“For my pretty eyes?” She fluttered her eyelashes.

“So, are we ever getting to Fenway Park?” he asked with feigned impatience.

“Knob.”

He’d been called that before, but never this fondly.

Hannah reapplied red lipstick. As she smacked her lips together, she glanced at him over the mirror. A sultry look that roused butterflies in his stomach.

He couldn’t tell whether she was serious or messing with him. She’d been straightforward about sex in Singapore, if she still wanted him, she would simply say so, wouldn’t she?

He raised the camera, and, with practiced ease, she flashed the smile he’d seen many times before on Instagram. He didn’t care for it. After a few poses, she asked him to join her for a selfie and his indulgence stopped there.

“Hungry?” she asked.

“Starving.”

Hannah had a list of trendy restaurants in Boston, and he already dreaded the place she would choose. He scowled when she guided him towards a tiki bar, but the restaurant she wanted was at the back of it.

“Half my job is knowing the coolest restaurants.”

“At least Jeffrey won’t find us here.”

Large garage-style doors opened on a courtyard, ensconced in climbing ivy, where small fireplaces and blankets kept the clients warm. It smelled like Guy Fawkes night and camping, green and smokey.

They arrived past one o’clock, tail end of the lunch rush, so a table was available. They sat at the corner of the table to see through the archway offering a view of the river.

The sun had come out, Hannah traded her scarf and leather jacket for a blanket loosely draped over her arms. She wore a tunic underneath with a wide boat neckline, and he was struck by the desire to cover her neck with kisses.

He pulled himself together while the man-bunned waiter explained today’s specials. Hannah asked the waiter what he recommended, and soon they were talking about the creative process behind the menu and his vision for the future of catering. She was fishing for some quirky details to share on her blog, and it fascinated Hardy, her easy smile, the effect of her charm on other people. And on himself. He was just one of many. She returned her attention to him, and the misgivings evaporated.

“Sorry about that. I’m all yours now. What will you have?”

Wherever he traveled, he ate the food laid out in front of him, pigeon stew or roasted guinea pig, he made do and thanked his hosts, and yet in Western restaurants, he became picky. Here, the menu offered only six meals, each one elaborate. Hannah couldn’t decide between duck arancinis and wild boar noodles, and thus his dilemma was solved; he ordered one of the two so she could taste both. They ended up eating out of each other’s plate, a level of intimacy he hadn’t expected to reach so fast.

The coziness of the setting enveloped him. The excellent food, the laughter. He wished the afternoon would never end, but she had to be back aboard the ship at 4pm.

The ticking clock boosted his courage. He touched the tattoo on her inner wrist, a simple black outline of a star or flower, he couldn’t tell. “What’s the story?” he asked. It was a blatant excuse to touch her, and they both knew it. Keeping his thumb there, stroking the delicate skin, filled him with a heady sort of audacity.

“It was supposed to be a compass. Never pick the cheapest tattoo parlor, it’s cheap for a reason. The bloke got bored halfway through, didn’t even write the cardinal points. I used to add them by hand.” She laughed then lowered her eyes. “My best friend, Erin, she got the same so I never had the heart to have it changed.”

“Erin? Is that your friend who passed away? The one you wanted to travel with.”

“Yeah… I was just thinking about her yesterday, your photos they… stirred things up.”

She looked like she wanted to say more, she stroked her collarbone as her eyes flitted between him and the river. He wanted to take a photo to study later and decipher.

“Anyway, how do you know about that?” she asked.

“I read your blog.”

“All of it?”

“You sent me a link.”

“To one article.”

Her knees rested against his under the table.

“You’re a great writer.”

“Really?” she asked, this time no coyness colored her voice.

He leaned on his elbows, towards her, and told her about the articles he’d preferred. The things he’d learned even about cities where he had been. He didn’t feel as out of his depth now, it was professional almost, except her legs were brushing together and it sent a thrill up his spine.

She had written less in-depth articles in the last year as her followers favored shorter pieces with many pictures, and affiliated links generated revenue. She confessed she missed it, sitting with one person and having a real conversation and then finding the words to convey the moment to her readers.

They ordered deserts, despite feeling full; it was a day for gluttony. She insisted on feeding him a piece of pumpkin pie.

She was a great conversationalist, always a funny quip or an unexpected question. She wanted to know people. Yet, when the tables turned, she used humor and flirting to deflect.

He thought of developing photos in a dark room. She revealed herself slowly, like an image in the tray of developer chemical. But if a photo was left in that chemical too long, it turned black, and so did Hannah eclipse herself if pressed too much. However, it was in Hardy’s nature to persist, to question, to get to the heart of things. Of people.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming to New York?”

“You didn’t tell me you were coming to Boston.”

“Fair enough.”

“Kind of silly, isn’t it? I mean we obviously— I think— wanted to see each other. Right?”

“Yeah.”

Hannah’s hand was so close to his. Her pink fingernails scratched at the buttons on his cuff. He opened his hand: an invitation.

“I’m glad I came here today,” he said.

“But you haven’t seen the Red Sox.”

“I’ve seen everything I wanted to see,” he answered, looking into her eyes.

His hand was still splayed opened, and he waited with a lump in his throat. She looked at him as if assessing his honesty. Finally, she slipped her fingers into his palm, and he closed his hand over them. Hannah smiled and tucked her chin in her shoulder closest to him, as if trying to hide her joy.

“I’m glad you came too,” she admitted in a quiet voice.

Affection overwhelmed him, and he impulsively kissed her forehead.

They ordered cups of tea, and continued holding hands as they drank. Her touch warmed him more than Earl Grey.

Clouds drifted in front of the sun and a cold breeze swept the courtyard. Hannah shivered, and he pulled the blanket higher up her shoulders. She caught his hand so his arm remained around her.

He glanced at her lips, within reach, parting delicately, her half-closed eyelids, and he knew she was going to kiss him.

“I’m not…” he began, compelled to warn her but not sure what about.

“You’re not what?” she asked with an amused lilt.

I’m not good at this. I work too much. I shut myself off to the people I care about. I fucked up my marriage. I can’t give you what you need.

Hannah’s expression turned to one of concern, so he pretended to have forgotten what he wanted to say.

His cell phone rang. “I have to get this, it’s my daughter.” He rose and stepped away from the table. His thoughts were scattered. He took a second to regroup before answering. Daisy was coming to join him in New York in two days, and she had some last-minute questions about packing.

While he talked on the phone, Hannah went to the restroom.

*

He was a dad. She’d imagined him as this free spirit, roaming the world, hurtling towards danger to save women and orphans. But he was a dad. She didn’t want to be a step-mother. They were ugly or cruel or evil. She wasn’t ready for that. She couldn’t deal with a teenager. No way. And with the ex-wife— no fucking way.

Why was she even thinking about being a step-mother? This thing with Alec, it was just a fling. Would be a fling. Nothing more. Whenever she slept with a man abroad, she made a point never to see him again after. Hardy was no exception. She wouldn’t see him again and certainly never meet his daughter.

An impatient knock on the door startled her. She quickly pulled up her pants, though she couldn’t remember if she’d peed or not.

As she walked back to the courtyard, Hannah observed Alec who was lost in thoughts. Why did his sad eyes make her want to blow him so much?

She could have kissed him hours ago— should have— but she’d enjoyed the slow blooming of it. The way her touch rippled through him. He was so starved for it, he didn’t even know. Yet he held back, and she couldn’t understand why.

“I’m not with her mum anymore,” he said as soon as he saw her. “Divorced. There’s no going back after what happened.”

If she asked what happened he would tell. He would open up to her. She didn’t ask.

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I just didn’t know you have a daughter.”

“Well, I didn’t mean to keep it from you. Can’t believe I haven’t mentioned her.”

“So you’re a daddy, that’s kind of hot.”

“No.” He inspected her, a wrinkle deepened on his brow. “Did you want to go?”

She was still standing up behind her chair.

Alec paid for both their meals, and then there was nothing to do but leave. She asked him to walk with her to the visitor center where she would catch the shuttle bus back to the ship. She wasn’t ready to part from him yet. The closer they got to the visitor center, the heavier her heart felt. Alec’s eyes were on the ground with serious dimples in his cheeks. She wanted to say something clever and flirty to lighten up the mood.

They rounded a corner and saw the big white charter bus, with Jeffrey standing beside it. They backtracked a little, just out of his sight, under an old-fashioned lamp post.

Once again, they stood face to face on the pavement, without knowing what to say, but for entirely different reasons now.

“I should let you go,” he said even as he stepped forward, closer to her.

Those eyes of his were on her now, wide, almost pleading. He made her feel so warm and soft inside, pliant, in a way she didn’t recognize about herself.

She stepped closer too.

She’d made her desire abundantly clear, twice he’d turned her down now, the ball was in his court.

Hesitantly, he brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. His fingers lingered on her jaw, and she could have melted in that touch.

He straightened his shoulders, and she sensed he’d come to a decision.

“I can’t leave without kissing you...”

“Go on, then.”

He laughed at her impatience. A deep breath, and he dipped his head to kiss her. Just a brush of lips at first, enough to send sparks through her blood. The day’s energy finally released. His fingers carded through her hair, her arms wrapped around his waist. The kiss deepened, and she felt it to her toes. People walked around them and leaves twirled in the wind, and they kept kissing. It was a day for gluttony. She gorged herself on every bit of lust, sadness and hope.

Hannah kept her eyes closed and Alec rested his forehead on hers. She felt peaceful and high-strung all at once. She relaxed her fists that were clenched into his jacket.

He sought her mouth again, with more confidence, hands splayed over her ribs, wide and steady.

Engine noises alerted her to the shuttle about to depart. Hand in hand, they walked over to it. In front of the door, he pulled her into a hug.

“I wish I could take you on board,” she whispered against his neck.

“I can be a stowaway, I’ve done it before.”

She chuckled and they kissed again, holding each other close. Jeffrey cleared his throat meaningfully.

“Where are you going next?” Alec asked.

“Portland, Maine. Why? Do you have another mate you can hitch a ride with?”

“I could find one.”

“It’s a date, then.”

#

Chapter 7: Portland

[heartslogos]

newfragile yellows [716]

Bull regains consciousness knowing full well that he is dead, that there is something wrong aside from him being dead, and that he’s alone.

His vision doesn’t come together so much as he becomes aware that he is seeing things, his eye did not close in death. He is seeing, his eye is open, but there is nothing for him to see right now. It’s dark. It’s an absolute darkness. When he moves there is resistance.

Water.

Over the sound of water in his memory of his last moments of being alive and conscious simultaneously he remembers alarms blaring, people yelling, the gurgle of people already defeated and overpowered, and the crackling of the ship’s system broadcast.

Faintly, the signal already fizzling out, Ellana.

But what if he gets lonely down there?

Her voice, half laughing with shock, half genuinely concerned, and nothingness.

Bull moves. The Inquisition has been infiltrated. He is alone, at the bottom of the ocean — or at least somewhere deep — with an unknown amount of time passing between death and now. He moves, slowly patting down his jacket and pockets for anything useful.

He feels the tangle of his dog tags that haven’t managed to drift off, the useless rectangle of his cellphone, his knife, his gun, a spare magazine, his keys —

He pulls his keys out and flicks the miniature flashlight. If it works it works, if it doesn’t it doesn’t. What’s the worst that can happen? It electrocutes him to death?

It turns on. If it’s trying to give him a shock he doesn’t feel it. His days of having pain receptors that work are most likely over.

He slowly navigates the ship, mostly blind, seeing flashes of silver fish that have already invaded the wreckage. Recent wreckage, some rooms still have emergency lights going, and some rooms haven’t been breached at all creating air pockets. None of the other corpses are overly decayed or bloated. But judging death of drowning victims isn’t his area of expertise.

Bull was the only high ranking Inquisition personnel on this ship. It was a last minute change of plans. Half of them were supposed to be here, half on the other, but this ship had the bigger carry capacity of cargo and there was an unexpected transport issue that meant either they load up on this one or they’d be suffering a shortage.

He doesn’t think that’s true, now.

They wanted this ship slowed down and emptied. Easier to sink while pursuing everyone else on the other ship. The Inquisition loses a great deal of resources and its high command is set on the back foot, if they aren’t cut off entirely.

Or, they could have wanted everyone on the slow moving larger, less armed ship.

He’ll never know now.

He makes his way out of the ship and lets nature’s laws do the rest.

Bull rises.

He thinks.

The Inquisition has rats. Traitors. They’re a lot deeper in than anyone thought and chances are that now that they’ve pulled this stunt off they’re going to start moving onto other targets, taking riskier moves. They’re going to start picking at the higher ranks for real, now that they know that they can. It’s just a question of whether the Inquisition can root them out faster than the infiltrators can hack them down.

It’s going to be hard. How do you find a traitor in your midst? You need to look at it from the outside. You need fresh eyes. Fresh eyes that you can trust.

Ellana’s small voice, cracking half a laugh half a whimper fading in and out over the sound of what was previously his thundering heart and is now just endless water, what if he gets lonely? echoes in his ears.

What if they get her before he can get them?

Bull made a promise. Her parents didn’t hate him, but they also didn’t like him, either. And Ellana loves her parents. Bull loves Ellana. Transitive properties, they had to learn to like each other, and a big part of that was a promise. Bull promised — not on his name, not on his reputation, not any of that, but on this. By this meaning them. By them meaning Bull and Ellana.

He promised.

I’m going to protect your daughter like she’s protected me. He promised them. He looked her mother and her father in the eye — and those words don’t mean to him what they mean to her, but he knew that they loved her as much as he did if not more and he knew that if someone ver hurt Ellana it would hurt him too, and if they loved her like he did t hen it would hurt just as much if not more. He looked them in the eye, serious as anything, as sure as he’s ever been sure of anything in his life.

I love your daughter, he said. And as long as it’s within my ability, I’m going to take care of her.

Bull is dead, but it’s still within his ability to take care of her.

He’s dead and that gives him an advantage of surprise. Granted, he doesn’t have shit except for his useless keys, a knife, and his dog tags. But he has his brain and he has almost twenty solid years worth of experience working as elite intelligence for an enemy nation. He knows how this game works.

By the time he’s drifted to the surface, breaching the water and seeing the glimmering white of the moon he has a plan.

He’s going to find the traitors and kill them.

He just needs to find one, and the rest will be easy. That first one is going to be the hard one. But he’s got time. They don’t know he’s looking. No one knows he’s still, literally, kicking, if not alive.

Bull pulls out the compass in his pocket — a whistle, compass, and, now useless, flint all in one courtesy of the Inquisition trying to arm its people with as much as they can at once — and triangulates what direction he needs to start swimming in.

He’s got a job to do.

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Dragon Dancer III: The Golden Apple

To record the conversation between Herzog and Tachibana, no device could be in the building without being discovered by these experienced conspirators. Fingel suggested an external laser tap to measure the vibration of voices against the window glass. A computer would reverse engineer those vibrations back into voices. 

Fingel would need to be outside the tower, very high up. It was Lu who suggested he use a drone capable of carrying his weight.. Heavy rain was forecast. The rain and clouds would conceal it.

Next was the question of entry and exit to get to them. There were only two ways into the building, an elevator and a metal fireproof stairwell. Both would be well cleared and blocked off by Tachibana.

"Can Fingel get photos of the inside?" I asked.

"Oh absolutely!" Fingel gave a thumbs up.

"Then that's all we'll need. So long as I can see where I'm going I can go there."

"Won't you be at the lab?" Nono asked.

I looked at her. "Remember what I said at the Mambo cafe? I can move both through time and space."

Nono gasped. "You…  plan on being in both places?"

"If I have to. Is there a clock in Tokyo tower?" I asked

"There is!"

"Fingel, be sure the photos you send me as coordinates include it."

Ruri eyes squinted shut with glee. "This is turning out better than even I imagined!" He sobered again. "I don't believe Johann Chu or Nono are capable of taking down  the King. Your job is simply to corner him and control the surrounding areas. In fact, I believe you are very well suited to the job of overwatch Lu Mingfei."

"It is my typical job at this point." He sighed, resting his chin in his hand.

Ruri then turned to me. “I’ve been very interested in speaking with you, Carli.”

I smiled and sighed to myself. “Yeah…”

“You’ve been an obsession for both Herzog and Tachibana for a long time seemingly without reason. Even though Cassell has monitored Japan for a long time, it wasn’t until your arrival that things finally began to unravel.”

Ruri’s voice turned wistful. “And now you speak to me of being sold… because you’re an emperor hybrid.”

“It reminds me of those ancient Greek legends where they throw golden apples on the field to start wars.” I said.

He chuckled. “I couldn’t have said it any better myself. You are indeed a beautiful golden apple. Fiercely desired by all.”

Negative emotions welled up in me. Starting with Anjou, then Caesar, then the Comemnus Corporation, the Devil clan, and Hydra… who would be next? This constant pursuit made me want to end my life, to hide in the sweet embrace of death, away from their grasping hands. “What do you think I should do?” I asked.

“You should keep doing what you are already doing. Using it to your advantage.”

I couldn’t help but pull a sneer. “Bait?”

The smile Ruri gave me was absolutely chilling. I leaned away, remembering that I was the same age as some of his victims.

“I don't have any pictures of the facility. But I do have the address. The lab looks like a dental office from the outside but there's a side door that leads to a staircase. I can give you the access code. Just… " He paused. "Be prepared to destroy whatever you find down there."

He returned his gaze to Lu Mingfei. “The King called Masamune Tachibana shortly after Erii’s arrival back at the Hydra headquarters. Why do you think that is?”

Lu looked up at him, a little surprised he knew that.

“For many years, he has kept her alive at the expense of everyone around him. You were quite close to her. Do you know why?”

I glanced at Johann, but his expression was unreadable. “I just assumed he loved his daughter.” I said.

Johann’s eyes narrowed slightly and then he let out an amused sigh.

Lu looked at me. “Tachibana is a jerk. He uses her. But Herzog contacted him after her return, not the other way around. It can’t be good.”

“The sooner this is all over, the sooner we all can be free. Let’s keep that in mind.” Ruri put away the schematics and the recording device.

Johann took my hand. “We should rest. The night will be long. Especially you, Carli. You’ve been passing too many sleepless nights.” Johann helped me off the stool. I looked out the door. The morning light had intensified. 

I blinked.

I had forgotten it was daytime.

I took a pill and slept through the day, dreamless. The mission was not to begin until 10 pm, but my part of it would start only after we were certain of the King’s preoccupation with the meeting. I would listen in remotely.

I sat underneath a bus station across the street from the dental office. “Come in, Come in” It was Ruri’s voice. “Report your locations.”

“This is Carli. At the lab.” I answer. “It’s quiet here. Not much activity.”

“It’s an older part of town. Not many people live here outside retirees. A perfect place for someone who’s lived as long as him to conduct his research. They ask few questions now that they’re waiting around to die.”

“Are you always this melancholy?”

“Life has made me quite bitter, yes.”

Fingel cut in. “This is all very lovely and tragic. I’m miles off the ground in the cold and rain and I’m miserable enough already! Can you please SHUT UP?!”

“Where are you anyway?” Lu asked. 

Fingel continued his rant. “I’m 60 meters from the window. Wanna come say hi? I’m just hoping I don’t fall to my death here because I’ve never flown on a drone!”

Johann answered. “Meixiu, I will send you a photo of the price time you need to come get us at our location when we’re ready to act.”

My phone dinged. It was a sample photo. He’d taken a digital alarm clock from the hotel to set it up from their hiding spot outside the tower. “Clever!”

“Quiet all lines! Vehicles are approaching the tower!”

That was my cue. I stood up from the bus station, put my hoodie up over my head and walked to the side of the dental office. The key lock readily opened after I put in the access code and sure enough, a dimly lit stairwell led down. I propped the door open and took quiet steps down.

Another heavy door opened into a room. I paused. “Do you see Herzog?”

“It’s only Tachibana for now.” I held back form the door, waiting for confirmation that Herzog had indeed left this lab.

“The lights all went out? It’s a black out!” Chu hissed.

“The whole area is dark. Stand by.” Ruri said calmly.

“That’s the voice of Herzog! He’s here!”

I smiled and nodded and opened the door to the lab. The room lights came on automatically over two rows of incubators lining either wall. Even though Herzog had only purchased five of my eggs, there were at least a dozen babies here!

My cellphone vibrated and I received a video call. But instead of Fingel, it’s a live feed of the Tokyo Tower observation deck!

“You’re welcoooome.” He said smugly.

The audio was amazing given it was only transmitted via laser measured vibrations on the glass. Herzog was sitting at the piano, tinkering lightly on the keys. “If you’re concerned about security, there’s a scanner on the table. Take it and sweep the entire place. There’s no surveillance. We are truly alone.”

Tachibana glanced around. “I trust you have already made that certain. I don’t want to waste precious time.” The elderly man approached him. “Are you still set on world domination? Even after all these years? I’ll say, time has not had any mercy on your body.”

Herzog stood up, his body shimmering. “Does this appearance seem more pleasing to you, dear friend?” His body is changing into a different form, familiar to me.

Before I could stop myself, I said. “The man... with the badges.”

“What’s that?” Nono asked.

“A long time ago, this man approached Isaac’s grandparents to invest in their company to manufacture the dragonsblood serum. His grandfather ended up turning into a servitor because of it.”

The fire stoked in my chest. “They had a little girl. The servitor killed her. Her name was Charlotte… I… ...I was given her name.”

My head was starting to burn now. I took a deeper breath and slowly let it out. Did the Matriarch at Comemnus Corp know that this would happen? Did she know that I would end up here, to take revenge for her daughter’s death? Is that why she named me this? How could that be possible? Was it just coincidence?

Johann. “The audio Ruri gave us mentioned they met twenty one years ago. Does that sound like the same time?”

“No, He would have made the deal with Comemnus before he met Tachibana.”

“I see.”

Mingfei. “Carli… how do you know this?”

Nono shut down the conversation. “Clear comms.”

Herzog chuckled. “We are the ultimate liars and schemers, you know that! How could two devils like us have the gall to ask for salvation?”

Tachibana nodded in agreement. “Yes, you are right. After the myriad of sins I have committed, how could I possibly count on God’s mercy… tell me about your bargain.”

Herzog obliged. “I know Hydra has also been looking for a way to use the blood of the Light King to make the perfect evolution elixir and you’ve found several keys toward that end… but … you still need your teacher’s help.” The spoken smile, smug in its delivery, was apparent despite the mask over his face.

Tachibana didn’t react to it. “You believe that my only goal is to get rid of you in order to rule the world alone? And now that the god is to be awakened, I’m forced to share my throne with you?”

Herzog laughed, shaking his head in dismay. “I know all too well what you’re truly capable of.”

He gestured broadly. “You have controlled the Hydra, your son is soon to be named high patriarch of this Mafia, your mute daughter has the power to destroy the world! For decades, you’ve done everything you could toward your ends. You’ve twisted the intentions of your colleagues, even fooling Cassell elites into murdering the members of the Devil Clan, most of which you created.” He continues to laugh. “You even convinced your son that ordering the execution and destruction of that girl’s family was the way of justice. Just who is the biggest devil here?”

My phone clattered against the tile floor. Fire raged from my chest to my head. 

Johann. “Carli… Carli come in.”

My voice is a bitter whisper. “Everything… Everything I’ve suffered… it’s because of them.”

I looked up at the rows of children lining the walls and I finally understood what Chisei was trying to tell me. Human kindness dictated that a child’s life was sacred, beyond sacred. That these innocent souls had to be guarded at all costs. But the root of their existence could no longer be ignored. They weren’t born because I loved Ruri or Chisei. They were here because that man had created them with a sinister purpose.

My mind flashed back to India, snuggling with Johann. I told him my father was a dragon, that my father had saved my life. “Why?” He asked me, terrified. “What does he want from you? Why does he want to save you?”

I said because he was my father.

“No,” He’d told me. “That was the reason he gave you to fool you.”

“Why am I here... why am I here?” I whispered. “Why am I here?”

“Carli? Carli! Are you alright?” Johann asked me. I’d forgotten my comms were on.

Herzog grew more passionate as he spoke. “To bring back to life the Light King! Only then can we extract her fresh blood. This is the only thing that can evolve a human into a pure blood dragon! But I need all the keys to open the Forbidden Gate. I know that you possess some of them and you know that I possess the remaining others, save one.” He chuckled. “But I believe she will come to me soon.”

“And who gets the elixir?” Tachibana asked, unmoved by the theatrics.

“Equal distribution. One gets the pill, the other gets the world.” He paused. “This daughter of yours, with this treatment, would evolve into a pure dragon. But she will still be your daughter. The same lovely person as before, extending her life greatly..”

Lu Mingfei. “Erii? Turn Erii into a dragon?”

“You really think I would do that to my daughter?” Tachibana asks.

“Of course! She’s a devoted child. She would destroy the world for you. This is why you brought her up isn’t it? To have a dragon at your disposal? The ultimate weapon?”

Tachibana folded his hands behind his back. “Then both you and she would be pureblood dragons. Is that your intention?”

My stomach was roiling. I couldn’t see this situation through human eyes any more. These weren’t just babies. These were lab rats. They were tools. He would take them and turn them into dragons, just like Erii.

“You never had any children… did you?” Tachibana asks, head bowed.

“Silly question. I have no need for petty things like that. In addition, ordinary women do not appeal to me. But your daughter is no ordinary woman. Of 100,000 humans given dragon blood directly, only one can survive. But your daughter has proven herself to be that one.” Herzog’s voice takes on the pleasant tone. “To have her destroy the world at my side would be a genuine pleasure.”

“So you’re going to give it to her. Not to Chime? You raised him as a son.” Tachibana says.

Herzog snorted. “I cannot give the pill to Chime. I can’t trust him to do what’s necessary. Even as he eats at my table, his heart is far removed from my goals.”

“Then, it seems then we have a deal. But you’re not afraid I will betray you?” Tachibana says.

“What king would be foolish enough to assume otherwise? We will battle to be the one on the throne, Tachibana, sooner or later.”

I looked on the rows of incubators. Within one, a soft, tiny hand reached up towards the sky. Is this my purpose? Is this why a dragon kept me alive? To take over the world? 

I picked my phone up off the floor. I found the picture of Erii’s room and texted Chisei Gen.

“You were right. I should have listened to you.”

“Where are you?” Came the reply.

“I’m next to what might be our children. Or might not be. There are so many of them. Herzog isn’t going to turn them into super hybrids. He’s going to turn them into dragons! I can’t save all of them. Thank you for being patient.”

“Don’t worry. I will kill Herzog in a moment. Wait for me.”

I gasped. “Chisei is!”

My comms came alive. “What’s he doing here?!” Nono hissed.

“Brother!” cried Ruri. His voice was the cry of fear and worry, not of anger. “Don’t let him get in! He’ll die!” 

“Carli! It’s time for you to move! We attack the king now!”

“I’m on my way.” I took one more look at the rows of children. I wanted so much to save them, but would it just lead to more suffering? For me? For them? Would it be the first step toward a world full of dragons?

Johann’s photo of their location appeared on my phone. I could teleport there, the time stamp was there.

I approached the first child. They were only identified by numbers. Which one was Chisei’s? Did it even matter? “I can’t... I can’t make these kind of decisions!”

I was only human. A human with human feelings and human thoughts. What would a dragon do? A dragon doesn’t feel these things. They’ll gladly eat their own family if it benefited them. 

I let my dragonblood rise in my eyes, blinking in the dim light that became bright as daylight. I felt my pupils constrict. Immediately, my emotions dampened. The calculation was simple. There were only three bloodlines fit for me.

At the top of the list, Lu Mingfei towered. Second, was Chisei Gen. Third was Chu Zihang. All others were unworthy. When I looked upon the children, I felt a deep offense. None of them. None of them were the worthy ones. These children had a twisted blood.

Herzog’s. He said he didn’t have children. He lied. His dragon mind simply didn’t view them as such.

Likewise, the light spear appeared in my hand. What had been very difficult for Carli to do was a simple thing for Ouroboros.

[cleverfoxhound-writes]

A woman dressed in a black suit sat quietly at one of the small tables located in the Shin-Ra Headquarters, the staff of the Shin-ra HQ moved on with their daily tasks and idle chatter as they enjoyed a cup of tea and more.

The woman at the table brows nearly knitted together as she flipped through the papers in hand.

It was a mission dossier stamped with 'CLASSIFIED'

CLASSIFIED DOCUMENT - SHINRA ARCHIVES -

Chu Minamoto

Age 23

Elite Class Soldier

Hometown: Unknown

Active Status: MIA/KIA

Previous Mission Notes: Mission to Nibelheim.

NONE

First Class SOLDIER, Chu Minamoto has status is now MIA/KIA her last whereabouts are unknown since arriving at Nibelheim. When the retrieval crew arrived at 0300 hours…

"Always so studious Liv, don't you do other things than read?"

Slowly, the woman looked up from the documents in her hands and to the fiery-red haired man that sat across from her. She quickly looked over the man and turned her attention back to the files, the man scoffed at her lack of acknowledgment of him.

"What is it Reno?" Liv questioned as she switched documents.

"The cold shoulder so soon? Ouch," Reno chuckled, Liv continued to scour the documents in her hands. She was looking for something in specific.

"Whatever you're looking for you're not gonna find it in there," Reno said as he watched the female employees in skirts walked pass their table.

"What do you mean?" Liv asked as she looked up from the documents.

"I'm not dumb, I know what you're looking for," Reno smirked as he spotted a blond haired woman dressed in a mini skirt sitting across from their table. Liv sighed and closed the file and leaned back in her chair rubbing her eyes.

"Something is missing…from everything…all of it..." Liv started.

"Well…" Reno started as he winked at the blond causing her to smile.

"Must you flirt when you're talking to me?" Liv asked frowning at the young man.

"You're seriously asking me that question?" Reno asked as he continued to focus on the blonde across from them.

"You're right, that's dumb of me to ask," Liv said as she looked at her phone. Reno stole a quick glance at Liv and winked one more time before he turned to focus on the smaller woman in front of him. The woman in front of him was not the same woman, her appearance, her personality, she was completely different.

He thought back to when she first started, she had short brunette hair with soft curls but now her hair was ebony, straight. The once mischievous smirk of hers was rare, her humorous personality now cold and sharp, it was tough to get the woman to show any type of emotion besides his normal shenanigans.

He could pinpoint it back to when she changed, the incident in Nibelhiem was the turning point and the beginning of her changing.

"Is there something on my face?" Liv questioned as she placed her cellphone on to the table, her blue eyes on the man across from her.

"No," Reno sighed and leaned back into the chair. "You seem to be in a bad mood…"

"I'm frustrated and annoyed at myself," Liv began.

"Why?" Reno questioned.

"I just...wonder if I would have been this way if I would have left with the others..." Liv trailed off.

"I think you would have been a different person, most definitely," Reno replied.

Liv studied the man's face before she turned away, Reno took one more glance at Liv before he turned his attention back to the blonde haired woman again. There were more of the TURKS before things turned for the worst and followed by the life-changing events at Nibelheim.

Where they disappeared.

Where she disappeared.

With a sigh, Liv reached for her cellphone that began to buzz softly she quickly answered the phone as she recognized the phone number, it was Tseng. Reno smirked as he began mouthing off numbers to the blond.

"Yes sir...Reno? He's here,"

Reno waved to the woman before he turned his attention to Liv adjacent to him when suddenly the woman walked over to him and handed him a piece of paper. Reno smirked as he took the paper and watched the woman sashay away. Reno smirked as he placed the piece of paper in his blazer pocket.

"Yes. Alright, sir." Liv closed her cell phone and turned to the red-haired man in front of her. "Tseng wants to see us,"

"Of course he does. I forgot to mention that piece…I got distracted," Reno began.

"Sounds about right," Liv said as she grabbed the files and stood.

"It happens," Reno shrugged.

Liv glared at the man before she turned gathered her blazer and things and headed to the elevator. With an exaggerated sigh, Reno stood and followed after the woman. Within moments the elevator door opened and allowed the two Turks in and with her badge scanned the two were up to the 66th floor.

"You've been so moody Liv…you ok?" Reno asked casually as he looked at the numbers increasing.

"You've been whiny lately…you ok?" Liv replied.

"Look I'm just being a good friend and making sure that you're well," Reno sighed as he crossed his arms, this was her normal reaction when he asked about her well-being.

"I'm fine. I'm here right?" Liv replied.

"That's not exactly what I meant…"

Reno turned to look at the woman and noticed she had turned to study him and his intention. Reno rolled his eyes and focused on the elevator doors that had begun to open.

"I appreciate it, but please stop worrying about me. I am not your concern," Liv replied as she stepped out of the elevator.

"Actually you are but that's fine too," Reno murmured and followed after her.

[nflfanpointii]

These 2018 Saints may beat you fast, or beat you slow. Either way, they will beat you

What Just Happened?

· The 2018 New Orleans Saints are not an enigma anymore, they’re a team on a mission. Could it be the so-called 2017 “Minneapolis Miracle” that is fueling this bunch? Is it the sting of the week one puzzling loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers? Or could it simply be that this is a damn good football team gaining confidence win after win? Whatever it is, the Saints (7-1) have won seven games in a row and just defeated the high-powered and previously undefeated Los Angeles Rams to gain a crucial tiebreaker over the aforementioned Rams in the NFC playoffs race.

In their 45-35 win over the Rams yesterday, the Saints once again displayed all the qualities we’ve seen from them this season: an offense that can score at will, but also one that will score when it most sorely needs to. A defense that will bend and bend but rarely completely break. A unit that is finally starting to cause turnovers, be it on downs or by taking the ball away.

After eight games, the Saints are not just a contender in the NFC: they’re a downright scary team that can beat you in multiple ways and doesn’t seem phased by playing on the road (4-0) or in the friendly confines of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome (3-1). After eight games, let’s stop beating around the bush: the 2018 New Orleans Saints are a Super Bowl contender.

Five Numbers...That Don’t Lie

· 211. Michael Thomas’ receiving yards yesterday afternoon, the Saints’ franchise record for receiving yards in a single game. Thomas is having an amazing season to date, with 70 receptions on 79 targets (a preposterous 88.6% reception rate). He already has 880 reception yards (4th in the NFL) and 5 touchdowns. The Saints’ third-year wide receiver is becoming a superstar in front of our very eyes.

Thomas also had a terrible-yet-awesome celebration yesterday, when he scored his game-clinching touchdown and pulled a cellphone from below the goal post and paid homage to former Saints wide receiver Joe Horn, who pulled that stunt in 2003. Would someone please remind Michael to do that at a moment when the Saints are ahead by like 28 points though? Thank you Mike.

· 90. The Saints’ percentage on fourth down so far this season, after going 2-for-2 against the Rams yesterday. New Orleans has gone for it on fourth down 10 times in 2018 they have converted 9 of them. That is tied for the lead in the NFL and is what you call deadly efficiency.

What this number tells us is that the Saints are not only aggressive in their design to keep crucial drives alive, they are also calling the right plays and going for it on reasonable distances. What that does is put an unbelievable amount of pressure on opposing defenses, as they know that facing the Saints could mean “four-down territory” at any moment of the game. This is the kind of play calling that will help a team win seven games in a row.

· 3. Alvin Kamara scored 3 touchdowns yesterday against the Rams and joined an elite company in NFL history, in none other than legendary former NFL running back Jim Brown. Indeed, Kamaraand Brown are the only running backs in NFL history 23 or younger to record three games in a single season with 3+ touchdowns. Kamara also had 3 touchdowns in week one against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and three touchdowns on September 30 against the New York Giants. With eight games to go, it is not far-fetched to think that the prolific Kamara could break that record before the season is over.

· 1. Linebacker Alex Anzalone’s NFL career interception came at a most opportune moment for the Saints. With time winding down in the first half and the Rams trailing 28-14, Los Angeles had the ball, trying to go down the field and narrow the Saints’ lead to 7 or at worse 11 points. Jared Goff, under pressure, unloaded a pass down the middle from his own 25-yard line. Anzalone lunged towards the ball and intercepted it, twisting himself as he fell to the ground to ensure that the ball wouldn’t be dislodged and ruled an incomplete pass.

The Saints would need only about 30 seconds to find the end zone and make it a 35-14 game. At that moment the game looked to become a laughter. Little did the Saints know how important that touchdown would turn out to be.

· 0. The number of sacks that the Saints allowed to the Rams yesterday. Los Angeles came into the game against the Saints with 22 sacks on the season, nearly 3 sacks-per-game. Yet, in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, a defense that boasts the likes of Aaron Donald, Ndamukong Suhand Michael Brockers couldn’t muster a single sack of Drew Brees.

In the last two games against two stout defenses in Minnesota and Los Angeles, the Saints did not give up one single sack. At only 9 sacks allowed so far this year, New Orleans unsurprisingly leads the NFL. Not only is the Saints’ offensive line a top unit in the NFL, Sean Payton’s scheme coupled with Brees’ quick release of the ball is second to none in the NFL.

Keep Your Enemies Closer

· What do you get for winning seven games in a row? A measly one game lead in your division. The Carolina Panthers are 6-2 after winning a 42-28 game against the Tampa Buccaneers, who at 3-6 look like they will finally settle as the bottom feeder in the NFC South this season. The Atlanta Falcons are (somewhat) back from the dead, recovering from their 1-4 start to win three in a row and get back to .500. With a game against the Cleveland Browns on the docket, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Atlanta get to 5-4 in a week. The division race is far from being determined, which is certainly going to keep the Saints focused on the task at end, which is winning their next game.

If the Playoffs Started Today

· At exactly the midway point of their season, the Saints (7-1) have the number two seed in the NFC, tied in the loss column with the Los Angeles Rams (8-1) who have played one more game than New Orleans. As the third seed in the conference we find the Chicago Bears (5-3) after a 41-9 dismantling of the woeful Buffalo Bills. Following in fourth place are the Washington Redskins(5-3) who were shellacked at home by the Atlanta Falcons (4-4). The fifth seed are the Panthers (6-2) who are lurking behind the Saints, and finally, the sixth seed are the Minnesota Vikings (5-3-1) who rebounded from their loss to the Saints last Sunday night to defeat the mediocre Detroit Lions 24-9.

· Should the playoffs start today, the Saints would enjoy a bye week, then play either the Bears, Redskins or Panthers in the divisional round of the playoffs.

· According to Fivethirtyeight.com, following their victory over the Rams, the New Orleans Saints have the third ELO Rating in the entire NFL. They have a 94% chance of making the playoffs, a 67% chance to win the NFC South, a 62% chance of earning a first round bye and a 16% chance of winning the Super Bowl. Pretty numbers, and they are going up with every win.

What’s Next?

· The Saints travel to Cincinnati next Sunday to face a 5-3 Bengals team coming off a bye. Cincinnati has been an inconsistent team, fresh off a 37-34 escape win over the Buccaneers two Sundays ago, their first win in the team’s last three games. On the other hand, playing on the road in the NFL is always a tall task, and the Bengals will be yet another team with a winning record on the Saints’ road to the division crown. Following yesterday’s thrilling win, the Saints do not have a lot of time to celebrate, not with the Panthers and the Falcons breathing down their neck. However, the way Sean Payton’s team has been playing since week two, it wouldn’t be a shock to see them improve their road-record to 5-0 next Sunday in Ohio. Enjoy what you’re witnessing Saints fan, this is rare stuff.