#everyone should draw them more methinks

[dryinkpens]

mfw i unleash the unspeakable eldritch horrors that successively plague my inner being and encompass all sense of self to my unassuming yet equally as tormented niece ^ ▽ ^

[unsoundedcomic]

Whumptober 2024 - 08 - "Sleep Deprivation"

Once they were out of the city, the soldiers of Chinoll company made a great fuss over the deep blackness of the countryside, and their new ability to see the bright starfield above, undimmed by the pymaric glow of civilisation.

Lemuel didn't think it so special. The stars were faraway specks of indifference. They had as much to do with him as the diamonds on a rich lady's necklace. Once the sun was setting on another day's march south, towards some purpose no one shared with grunts like him, he kept his eyes on the dirt.

A few hours later, while they were trying to pull the great thirty-man sleeping tent upright and even on both sides, his friend Teeth asked: "Does Ssael ever look out the star holes, you reckon?"

Lemuel shrugged. "Isn't that why they flash? Him and the vaosa ducking their heads in and out?"

Some said the stars were punctures that Riv had stabbed in Yerta's round belly, when they'd fought their grand celestial fights over how long to grow the fur on mice or what colour the sea should be in the morning. But Ssael had ripped that belly away from her when He'd slain the pair. Lemuel guessed He probably hadn't bothered to patch the damage up since He was so concerned about not meddling with anything until He had everyone's say-so. Strange sort of landlord, really. Lemuel had never understood Ssael's choices, but who was a thirteen year old Soud to question Him?

Sartier, the Captain's porter, popped up suddenly and slapped Lemuel's rear end so loud that half a dozen men glanced over. Lem bristled. He burned hot in his face, but ice cold from his neck to his knees. The porter laughed: "The flashing is the vaosa throwing out all the pieces of the gods! They're mincing them up - chop chop chop! - and it'll be a million years until they've cleared that trash from the Outside. Airing out the smell will take another million!"

Teeth grinned merrily at the notion. The final tent stake was beat into the dry earth with the butt of a battered baton, and he smacked his lips in satisfaction. "Where do all the pieces wind up here Inside? In the sea?"

"In the hearts of men, darkening them with superstition and primal terror," answered Sartier, pounding his breastplate and assuming a priestly solemnity.

"Ahaha, you trying out for the clergy then?" asked Teeth, "That's a pretty turn of phrase!"

Sartier put a hand on Lemuel's shoulder. Lem bade himself sternly not to bite it; not to draw his sword and open up the Jet's sweaty neck.

"I've been reading letters from Lemuel's brother," Sartier explained, "He's attending Grattaerin, you know, there on patronage. He'll be a scholar! You tell me another tale of him tonight, goldeneyes."

"Duane writes to you?" asked Teeth, squinting. Lemuel wished he could be as stupid as his friend. It must be the most wonderful thing in the world to be stupid. To gawk up at the stars in the sky like one more goat in a herd of hundreds.

Sartier didn't answer. He whapped Lemuel in the ass again and vanished into the tent, his bedroll slung over one shoulder. Teeth grabbed his own from the nearest hound cart, and looked to his comrade. "I'm beat as a drum, pissmop. Thank the Godslayer we don't have a moonview tonight, my sore toe hit every rock in that road today."

"Go on then," said Lemuel, subdued, "I'm not so tired. I plan to take Eidlard's watch, I know he's been poorly with that hound bite."

"You're mad!" laughed Teeth, "That's your third night watch straight! I thought you didn't care so much for the sight of stars - methinks it a lie, you ever staying up to greet them!"

"Go on then."

Teeth waved a careless hand and was gone. Watching the dirt, Lemuel went to find Eidlard, his backside still stinging. What a privilege to be stupid. What a gift. One more that Ssael had decided he didn't need.

[lynxfrost13]

Master teach me your ways of drawing

Your art is cool do you have any tips for drawing dragon or just drawing ?

Thank you!!! I put together a little thing for you anon!

I’m self taught and what works for me might not be good for everyone, but I tried my best to highlight my process if that makes sense?

I start off with usually one large gesture/motion line because I feel that helps add some life to my poses!

I highly recommend using references of course, even though I freehanded these ones, I used a lizard pic for reference for this one here in order to get a better idea of where legs would go in the front. You can also see some of the sketchy shapes I used in the face and how I kept adding to them to get something more structured.

Something that was also really helpful for me in terms of classic dragon wings, is to consider them like hands and/or bat wings, I just treat the wings like that and it’s great for seeing how they interact with everything else. With the short claw being like the thumb, and the others being freakishly long fingers.

And some general things that I like to do for my dragons, is lots of scales and layering for texture. You can get a lot of diversity in your dragons even by using the same basic shapes if you change the scale patterns, horns, eye placement, etc. At least that’s what I like to do!

My best advice though is to just have fun and get weird with it! There’s really no limit as to what a dragon is, so fuck it, give that beast six nostrils and cooling vents, or whatever you want! I am a firm believer in delighting in the process of creation. It’s good to challenge yourself, but a challenge should be fun too methinks.

And that’s my two cents, thanks again!

[ready-set-shenanigans]

Feel free to pick and choose at your leisure but:

- Break for Nolan

- Desire and/or Midnight for Kris

- Secret and/or Skin for Psy

This got, quite a bit long lmao. It'll be under a read more

Nolan -

Break: What would cause your OC to break down completely? What do they look like when that happens? Has anyone ever seen them at their lowest?

Nolan is, a very tough nut to crack in most senses. Such as like the lab/company he is stuck with often studies with the human psyche and artificial beings. He has been in a position of what counts under psychological torture a handful of times and still stood strong, at least with keeping appearance (to say he'd been completely unaffected would be wrong)

He's been in the heat of battle many a time and at one point had to be a key leader of some. He's learned to keep a level head react less strongly in order to survive. But I do think being forced to watch as those he's closest to (i.e Sterling, Cait, etc.) come to serious harm or worse, would break him.

He hasn't really been in a position to completely break down yet, but I can kinda imagine what his expression would be? Like, absolutely full of devastation with a haunted, hollow look in his eyes. The kind of way one might get when there's a total gut wrenching, stomach dropping, empty pit feeling when something awful happens or intuition of something about to happen? His usual calm anger in most situations now replaced with panicked, anguished pleas and begging. I dunno how to describe it very well atm unfortunately jfdkgs

I might try to draw it at some point possibly.

There'd also only been a few times during a period of adjustment to a whole new universe in which he had felt hopeless at being ripped away from almost all he knew. But this would be more like typical showings of signs depression; hopeless, no interest in anything, struggling with basic care. A few people have seen this from him, but I probably wouldn't say anyone has really seen him at his complete lowest yet. (answer likely to change if i get around to writing more with him)

Kris -

Desire: What's one thing your OC wants more than anything in the world? Are they open with that desire? Why or why not? What would they do to fulfill it?

I want to say it'd likely to have more freedom and to have more exciting things happen in his life. But he wont be very open about it, more likely to have to pry it out of him (if you want any info from him about himself tbh).

He feels like he's unable to express his desires as he grew up in a rich home (most people wouldn't want to hear something like that from someone who grew up rich, cuz y'know, money can resolve most issues for the rich) and fairly uncaring parents (one being emotionally absent and the other caring more for reputation and show-y, wants to know everything but not actually care unless relevant)

In regards to freedom, he's been actively working on it since he started trying to distance himself from his family, trying to make a name for himself but not necessarily in a sense that means to get famous. Working in robotics to keep himself busy, a job that he finds some joy in, something he picked up for himself without the influence of his parents. And he keeps hoping for one day to be more exciting than a project going right, or wrong in an amusing way. (This is likely to be fulfilled sometime if he keeps interacting with Sid (@ace-shenanigans) methinks)

Midnight: What keeps your OC up at night? Do they have nightmares? Fears? Anxieties? What do they do in the small hours of the morning when they should be sleeping?

He does get nightmares sometimes where he gets forced back to being with his mom, and having to be put through beauty pageants again, essentially being a living dress up doll for his mom to fuss over like when he was a kid.

And he's fully aware he acts like a complete jackass to everyone, he just doesn't know (nor really care to fix it usually) how to not be like that. But sometimes it will keep him up for a bit, nervous that one day it'll get him fired from the one place he feels safe to just exist. And when he's unable to sleep at all/stay asleep, he'll usually either be on his computer at home typing away at some coding or he'll drive to work and get started on some small, quick project(s) for a bit with some classical music playing quietly in the background. (On these kind of days, he'll usually look like the living dead for 2-3 days)

Psydon -

Secret: What's one secret your OC never wants anyone to know about them?

Psy technically should be wearing glasses cuz he's nearsighted, but doesn't wear any/keeps his pair hidden away. He doesn't see to much of an issue with this either since a lot of what he does mainly requires him to see things close to him anyway. (He also isn't quite sure why he's cautious/embarrassed about this but he is)

He also isn't super fond of the profession he's basically forced into, as he feels like the things he's learned/learning may come back around to him manipulating others one day.

And this one isn't so much a secret that he never wants anyone to know about per say?? But he does have a crush on both Micha and Ash, that tbh he wont even admit to himself for a while.

Skin: How comfortable is your OC in their skin? Do they grapple with anything that lives inside them—a beast, a curse, a failure, a monster? How do they face the smallest, weakest, most horrible version of themself? Are they able to acknowledge it at all?

It's very hit or miss most days with how comfortable he is with himself. Between the times in which Kris refers to him (and the others, i.e Ash, V0id, etc) as "it" and his coder (an elderly man named Soloman) who originally assigned him as female and will still refer to him as such when he manages to make it in, never really settles right to Psy (and he'd sooner forget about the encounters when they happen).

He also struggles sometimes with the whole, being AI/an Android as it's left him with feeling trapped, almost hidden from the world and unable to really get to experience anything or get to "live" with how his line of work has him busy (basically "new age therapy/therapist") and how the people in charge of him and his case don't actually let him leave the proximity of Skyh Labs all too often.

In the irony of learning about therapy, he doesn't really know how to apply a lot of that knowledge to himself. So he doesn't know how to face another facet of himself outside of being extremely careful on choosing his words, and anything that would be deemed negative or hurtful to others, he bottles up and has an internal existential crisis over it later in the privacy of his own room. He tries his best to not acknowledge it all more often then not.

[pinktwinkiezoppo]

Ramble to me about green glow plus.

-kittenTerror

You're unleashing the beast I love you (This will be long)

They're so similar yet so different. Two green hero boys, one a ghost and one an alien

Ben and Danny were both forced to be heros at a young age which scars both of them for life, everyone has high expectations of them but their experiences as a hero are different

Ben had help with the Omnitrix, Danny had no one to help him at first. Ben was 10 when he found the Omnitrix, he's been struggling longer. Danny was 14 when he got electrocuted but his powers literally come from the fact that he's dead (which is probably worse than an alien watch that morphs your body in horrific ways)

Both are tired and depressed that they're forced into a situation they can't get out of. They understand the others struggles but not all of those struggles

Ben can be optimistic and sometimes arrogant while Danny is more calm, gloomy and occasionally stubborn which I see as a kinda "Opposite Attracts" thing but Ben and Danny obviously both like to joke around so their personalities aren't entirely different

They both got bullied, they both have small friend groups (literally they both have two best friends each), they both have a redheaded sister (Gwen is Ben's sister, fuck you) who loves and supports them, they both technically have clones who are also their siblings (Albedo is Ben's brother, fuck you), etc etc

They also both have an alternate evil future self who's main nemesis is a timelord

Their names are also kinda similar if you think about it... They also dress the same too..

Other things I think about:

Before they met Danny was actually a HUGE fan of Ben, he had merch and everything, he just thought it was relieving to know there was another teen using their powers for good (Danny also had a huge crushon him). He's still a fan but now he's dating the real thing (Ben teases him about the merch all the time tho)

They both can glow, which is the coolest thing a character can do. It's also very romantic glowing in the dark with your partner methinks

I know green is their primary color but Danny wears red when he's not in ghost form and I have a thing for red and green couples

Ben has been to space and is technically part alien, Danny's had a fascination with space ever since he was little. You can't tell me that Danny wouldn't be asking Ben about his space travels and what he's seen

And Ben technically being part Anodite, Anodites draw energy from living beings and have psychic connections with their lovers, Danny being half ghost essentially meaning he has a different sort of energy (or none at all) makes for interesting ideas

Is Ben drawn to the ghost energy? If ghosts don't have energy would Ben still be able to sense when Danny is around? I'm not smart enough to make a full analysis on this >: (

Given their jobs there's obviously a lot of risk so the two are VERY protective of each other

Danny is cold a lot of the time so he likes to snuggle Ben

Occasionally they'll call each other Benny Boo and Danny Darling but it's only when they're alone

Danny and Ben would totally do a fakeout makeout 😏

Ben and Danny's kids have the ability to have ghost AND Anodite powers so....not exactly a good thing for Ben and Danny

I should probably stop now..

[sorryimananti-romantic]

ahh chron :')) welcome back i hope your exams are going well!

yeah it's true that space and sci-fi is not everyone's cup of tea but i'm still so glad that you took your time to read it and enjoyed it! (i was looking forward to your reblog in fact hehe). it was actually really fun to plan and write this- i kept thinking about how to make this a different sort of space au bc i honestly haven't read much of this genre but you know me i have to throw in some plot twist to make it a yumi fic lol. i quite enjoyed the whole process of writing it once i had a clear idea of what i wanted to do and i'm happy with the feedback i got so far! (not much bc yeah space fics are not everyone's preferred genre but i'm glad those who do enjoy this or took a chance with this really liked it. that makes me the happiest :') hehe)

YEAH IM GLAD YOU GOT THE JOKE AHAHAHA out of context it will sound awful oops

coachella yun cameo was the most unplanned thing i've done, once loren suggested that i should add him bc he looks like the nexi i've described in the fic i was like hmmm im gonna try and make an opportunity out of this hehe

wooyoung all alone in the spaceship, so far away from home and singing to himself is sth i didn't realise sounded so lonely until you put it like that :')) and then followed with the dialogue when he asks if the reader is able to feel the emotions associated with the memory- he's so vulnerable there. he wants to know if she felt his loneliness :')))

EXTENDTACLES THANK YOU FOR COINING THIS TERM im gonna use this from now on BUT YES AHAHAHA PLAYED FRUIT NINJA WITH THE GUARDS FR and wooyoung being like hmm that's kinda hawt KJDFGHKDJG

jongho and yeosang duo is the most wholesome side character duo i have ever written for a oneshot methinks AHAHAHA they were literally proud parents throughout the fic

wooyoung coming to space to find the evidence of the humans settling and reproducing with the nexi, finds the reader who's living proof and being like you know what? i like you. i'm keeping you. all to myself.

WOOYOUNG WRAPPED UP IN SILVER. i can draw and i'd love to draw that someday he'd look so 🫠🫠 AND HE'S SUCH A TEASE RAHHH i love tease wooyoung i live to write tease wooyoung

LMAO you know how im attached to my time travels and time loops and inserting them in this fic was a bit unplanned but it just happened like this :') i love my time loops (i lose my mind when i write them but in the best way)

*cries in broke when i show you my own therapy bills* ngl writing this scene broke me a little in the sense that yeah, home is where the heart is, but what do you do when you don't feel at home in your own house? when your heart has no place it can call home? i kind of wanted to explore that, but maybe some other time in some other fic. for now, i explored the brighter side of it- that home is where your heart is, no matter where it may be.

YES giant cute hedgehogs as dogs is very right LMAO

WOOYO KNEW TO SHIFT BLAME and unintentionally won the father over hoho he's a natural at making ppl like him instantly :')

omg yes! i didn't realise how much the lyrics of star 1117 fit i honestly should have integrated the lyrics in the fic :')) thanks for pointing them out! wooyo must have been singing star 1117 alone in the spaceship 🥺🥺

STAR 1117 😭😭 kind of sad to let it go just like that but yeah inevitable fate is a real thing and it's better to make peace with it while you still can :') and reader and star 1117's relation is exactly how you put it. every nexi is a descendant of the original nexi that is star 1117. there's the original nexi (like yunho) but that's just like the more 'purer' bloodline of star 1117 as opposed to the others that is somewhat mixed, if that makes sense. however, it doesn't matter how closely you are linked to star 1117- reader is half-human yet she is probably the one who feels for star 1117 the most. in so many timelines reader tried to save star 1117 not just for the sake of saving her home but everyone including the star.

the heart really is a heavy burden and this whole fic was about coming to terms with what your heart really is. not just an organ that pumps blood, but a repository for feelings :')) and it's wooyoung who makes her realise that!

i'm so gald to see your bubble of thoughts/feelings/ideas. you have no idea how much i adore it. honestly, in this era (do i sound like a boomer yet) no one really reads lengthy oneshots yet here i am, writing monster oneshots and series just for the handful of ppl who appreciate them and give me feedback like this. i will die on this hill- that i will always strive to write quality works and not care about the quantity of feedback but the quality of it! and i am so grateful that i always get quality feedback like this, no matter the amount of notes (yo on a casual note does no one read oneshots anymore LOL)

thank you so much, chron! i love and appreciate you sm <33 if you have anything you want me to write (a member, a trope, an idea, literally anything bc i don't have anything im writing these days except this one series i've been writing for months now), pls let me know! would love to hear what you'd like to read and would def love to write for you <33

Star 1117

human!wooyoung x alienoid!reader

space apocalypse au

genres and warnings: fluff, angst, slow burn, bittersweet i hope, bits of hurt/comfort, alien yeosang and human jongho scs, coachella yun cameos, violence warnings

wc: 26k

synopsis: on your mission to save your home star 1116, and to find the last planet in the temporal nexus galaxy called star 1117, you arrest the human from earth- jung wooyoung. you find that he's been receiving cryptic messages from your galaxy, ones that make you question your purpose. together, you uncover secrets and take big risks to find the truth about the galaxy and star 1117's existence while wooyoung teaches you the true meaning of 'home'.

manager-nim: @eightmakesonebraincell ("or just die bro" "yeah it's not that hard" - famous last words from loren and yumi) (disclaimer: ^said in the context of the fic)

Home is not where the heart is.

You’ve always thought that it was a very human thing to think of the ‘heart’ as anything but the organ that it was. The heart’s only function was supposed to be to pump blood into your body and keep you running. But often, it was romanticised as a repository that stored human emotions in all their hideous glory. That was human nature in its nutshell which eventually doomed your forefathers, resulting in a bitterness that etched itself on the strands of their genes of which you carried generations worth of despite your half-human nature. 

The bitterness was justifiable. Your great-grandfather did not know that when he left his home, the planet Earth, he would get lost in the endless expanse of space and never find his way back. You often wondered if the humans ever even looked for him but you wouldn’t be surprised if they hadn’t. Somehow, he ended up receiving help from the Nexi and ended up on a planet just like his homeland and died trying to find his way back.

It was him who introduced that saying- home is where the heart is. You often read his journals and found it strange how he described everything that was close to his heart- the family he had left behind, a ‘cat’ which was supposed to be some strange, harmless feline creature that often dwelled in the homes with humans, and a lot of other things that made little to no sense but often sparked curiosity in you. He had left his heart back on the planet Earth and he died trying to find his way back. Perhaps, his home was where his heart was. But to you…

Home was Star 1116, the land where your parents gave birth to you and the land where they were never accepted. The planet that resembled the Earth that had been their home had their forefathers never left in search of finding something similar. Home was the land that had raised you with its magnificent, tall, iridescent mountains and deep, dark valleys that glowed from within when it met the golden gleaming soil that lit up your planet. Home was a location- the place where you took your first steps and found out what it meant to be half human- dangerous yet protected. Home was the place they told you to leave because they were scared of what you could do, even though you looked just like them. You had a human heart, which was an insult, not a compliment, even though your father insisted that it was the latter.

Your heart was inside your body. Your home was tem-nex units away, so far that you could not even see it anymore. Your home was not where your heart was.

“Any more reminiscing and you will find that you can blast lasers through your eyes too.”

“Yeah. I’m getting tired of her sighing. It sounds awful,” Yeosang said but you ignored him, shooting a glare at Jongho who shielded himself as if you really were going to blast lasers from your eyes.

“You’ll be the first to know if I do,” you told him, tossing your grandfather’s drawing of his cat on the desk where it landed between a pile of journals. “Any update on our target’s location?”

“Just a few tem-nex units away now,” Jongho said, adjusting his vision glasses. “Wanna place bets? I have a feeling it’s one of our old human friends in a dusty old spaceship running away from the Nexi.”

“I have a feeling that it’s just a poor rock and our systems need a big software update,” Yeosang sounded tired even though all he had done recently was lay limp on his couch. 

“I’m with Yeosang on this one,” you went towards him and he raised his hand to share a fistbump but you just pulled him up, earning a startled yelp from him. “Go check the exhaust outlets and our guns. If it’s a rock we need ammo to blast it. And I’m tired of hearing your tired voice when all you’ve done is rot the last few days.”

“Nothing’s fun anymore,” Yeosang pouted, collecting himself. “Our exhaust outlets are fine, our ammo is all loaded. We still have no clue about Star 1117’s location or purpose. I’m just making the same old mandatory assessments and I’ll come back right here and lie down just like before-”

Your pupils must have contracted in warning because he raised his hands in surrender before scurrying off. Jongho’s low giggles echoed in the control room and you took your seat back, sharing a grin with the human. It was always fun to bully the oldest in the room, especially to Jongho who was the youngest and the only human aboard.

You were both in the middle of checking if all the buttons on the panel of your rather old spaceship were working, with you making a few quick repairs, when Yeosang’s hasty footsteps caught your attention. He took a few deep breaths before he knocked on the metal wall to get Jongho’s attention.

“Is our radar not working?”

“It is,” Jongho confirmed, “What’s wrong?”

“I can spot a spaceship not far from our current location- unidentified,” Yeosang said and Jongho frowned, checking the radar. He looked at you and you touched the panel, allowing the silver, branch-like neurons to extend from your fingertips and read the device, trying to assess any damage but detecting none. 

“Radar’s fine. Are you telling us that it might be an unregistered spaceship?” You asked. 

All the spaceships in your galaxy, the Temporal Nexus, were supposed to bear a location tracking device and if in the rare instance that a spaceship did not have one, it was never a good sign.

“Come, check it out,” Yeosang urged and the two of you uncertainly got up, following him towards the back of your ship to the window. Indeed, you could spot the outline of a rusty old spaceship in the distance and Jongho lent you his glasses so you could zoom in and take a closer look.

It was definitely not a Nexi spaceship, yet it was in Nexi territory, far from where humans had ever dared to roam. The only time humans had attempted to cross over was how your great grandfather made it to Star 1116, which led to a lot of complications with the planet Earth and its humans and eventually, the Temporal Nexus Accords were penned. The crux of it was that both Nexi and humans would follow these rules and regulations for harmony in space- harmony was a funny way to put it when the humans knew that they could easily be outmatched. 

“It can’t be a human, right?” Yeosang asked, his glinting silver eyes indicating that he felt threatened. “It must be someone fooling around. Should we take a look or let it go?”

“It’s still an unidentified spaceship,” you reminded him. “We’re literally space patrol, Yeosang. We can’t let it go.”

“You know it was just an excuse to kick us out of Star 1116 because we were snooping around,” Jongho scoffed and you rolled your eyes- somehow, you were still more butthurt about it than the human himself. “But yes, we should take a look.”

“Alright, steer closer. Yeosang- you and me, dome, now. Get the guns.”

While Yeosang went to the storage, you hurried behind Jongho back towards the control room and pressed the button at the far end to get access to the ladder that led you to the observation dome. You made room for Yeosang and Jongho passed you binoculars. Crouching on all fours, you narrowed your eyes in focus as you peeked through the lens, muttering curses when you found how tinted the viewscreen was. There were human alphabets inscribed on the spaceship which confirmed your suspicions.

“Anything ring a bell?” Yeosang asked as he crouched down next to you, taking the binoculars from you. Yeosang was referring to the ships on the watchlist that you had been monitoring for a while now. 

“Nothing. You?”

“I don’t see anyone inside. What are the chances that it’s abandoned?”

“Only one way to find out,” you smirked and Yeosang shook his head. 

As Jongho decreased the speed when your spaceships got closer, you noticed something odd- almost like a few lights flickering inside the spaceship from what you could grasp, considering the heavily tinted viewscreen. You wondered what that was for. Yeosang warned Jongho to take care of the oxygen levels as he pressed the button on the glass dome, opening it and activating the manual shield just in time-

You got your answer in the form of a rocket colliding with your spaceship which rattled you despite the shield. You gripped at the shaft tightly, allowing yourself just a moment before joining Yeosang outside and asking him to lift the shield so you could prepare for the offensive. Yeosang passed you the revolver and you wrapped your hand around the hilt, a grim smile starting to spread on your lips as you allowed the neuron extensions from the tip of your nails to grow and slide inside the gun to wrap themselves around the bullets. 

While Yeosang provided cover, shooting any rocket that came in your range, you fired and shut your eyes, waiting for the bullet to hit the exterior. As soon as you felt the collision inside you thanks to the neurons, you let the bullets sink into the spaceship so you could read it.

There was a single human on the spaceship, as young as you. Strangely, the fear factor the human was displaying was less than the aliens you had caught on patrol, which was commendable. Perhaps, the human was a fool and had no idea what he had gotten himself into- you may be half-human but that did not mean you were going to pity the intruder. 

“He’s going to run out of ammo soon,” you opened your eyes, switching your weapon and helping Yeosang, shooting bullet after bullet that disintegrated the man-made ammunition in a mere blink. “I wonder how much he brought to have lasted this long- he’s so far from planet Earth.”

“I guess you’ll ask him soon,” Yeosang fired at the last rocket and snickered. You started making your way towards the ladder, preparing to gain access to the human’s spaceship and making sure to keep your revolver with you. Perhaps, the human would like seeing that in your hand.

When Jongho stopped the ship, you opened the hatch on your spaceship to access the ladder so the two of you could walk across to the other. You started knocking on the entry hatch once you reached the human’s spaceship but you didn’t get a response. You placed your hand on the surface and spoke, making sure your voice would be heard inside the vehicle.

“You can either open and welcome us, or we will welcome you. You won’t like that.”

A few moments later, the hatch opened with a loud shudder, allowing you both inside. You waited until it shut before walking forward, observing your surroundings which weren’t much, just equipment, until you heard a shuffle. 

And then came in front of you a man, a human man who felt as familiar as Jongho whom you had spent all your life with, yet so different. Even though he looked at you with a sort of surprised glare, dark tendrils of his hair covering his furrowed brows, his presence had a warm quality about it and you wondered if it was a human thing- you had definitely felt it with the humans around you. Some of them.

He stood his ground, defenceless and squaring his shoulders with every passing second. “Welcome to my humble abode. I’m Jung Wooyoung, at your service.”

Yeosang raised a brow and looked at you- you were far too busy identifying the possible layers within that delicate voice. Your lips parted as if to say something but you couldn’t produce a single sound at the moment so Yeosang decided to take over.

“What in the stars is a human doing here alone?” His voice boomed in the room as he asked. “You’ve violated just about a handful of the Temporal Nexus Accords. Do you have any idea what that means?”

“Well,” he shrugged. “It’s not like I can go back. I’m wanted on Earth too.”

“And you thought it was a good idea to roam around? You’re almost out of food and you just ran out of ammunition-”

“But it looks like I haven’t run out of luck,” he breathed, collecting himself with a wink in your direction which threw you off. “What do you usually do with people like me?”

“Escort them to the station for judgement.”

“Yikes,” he said. “I have so many questions but I’ll hold back.”

You spotted the nervous shift from one leg to another as he put his hands in the pockets of his black trousers. He was obviously considering all his options which frankly were quite limited. He had just about two choices- get escorted to the station or face execution right here.

“How did you make it so far?” You asked, frowning deeply. “Even the Nexi find it hard to avoid the patrol when they try to reach human territory.”

“Let’s say I possess a special set of skills,” he grinned wickedly. “Stealth, for starters.”

“I don’t quite believe that,” Yeosang commented.

“Well, your ship did not catch mine on radar, did it?” Wooyoung asked and Yeosang confirmed that it hadn’t. “Also, when you’re running from two groups of species, you find that there is no better fuel to reach the victory line than desperation.”

“Why are the humans after you-”

“What do you mean by victory line?” Yeosang asked at the same time and you both exchanged glances- this sure was an odd individual. You urged Yeosang to continue. 

“How far did you want to travel with such limited supplies?”

“Not that limited,” Wooyoung began to argue but you raised a hand in the air, making him raise both his hands in mock surrender. “Alright, I’m doomed anyway. Go ahead. Finish your job.”

“Why are you here, and why are the humans after you?” You asked, stepping towards him. “Answer properly this time.”

“I’m looking for someone.”

“In space?” You looked at Yeosang, knowing that the human wasn’t telling the whole truth. “And so far away from your home?”

“Yes, and I’m not sure if that someone is still… well, alive, in one form or another. But I needed to check a few things for myself,” he said in all seriousness. 

“You’re looking for a human? Did your human get lost in space?” Yeosang asked.

“Not my human,” Wooyoung let out a frustrated sigh. “It’s complicated, but I’m not sure if it’s a human or an alien I’m looking for. Could definitely be one of the humans from the group  that got lost around here a few decades ago- a descendant of them. I don’t think they got ‘lost’, by the way, but maybe that’s just me.”

You licked your lips in thought, trying not to look at the very bewildered Yeosang but you both knew that the humans he was talking about must be your ancestors and the group of them. “What’s it to you, then? Who are you to try to find them?”

“Again, I’m not trying to find them, they must be dead by now, but I’m curious to investigate. I was obviously a fool for taking matters into my own hands, but they didn’t take me seriously, the people back on Earth,” he admitted. “And when I started looking into the matter, they tried to get rid of me. Subtly. But I’ve always been known to possess maniacal qualities, and here we are.”

You grimaced at that, “So you’re an idiot. Yeosang, take him.”

“Wait,” Wooyoung snatched his hand away before Yeosang could grab him. “Let me grab my things.”

“You won’t need them,” you told him. “You should have stayed back on Earth. You might have lived longer.” 

With that, Yeosang strapped the vitals regulator watch on Wooyoung and you started to leave the ship, wanting to go back to the comfort of your own ship as soon as possible.

“You’re a human, aren’t you?” Wooyoung asked and you stopped in your tracks, turning back to meet his eyes as a deadly silence overtook. “He’s an alien, this one, even though he looks human, but you… You must be human.”

“I’m an alien,” you glared at him, the neurons from your fingertips branching like claws to prove your point. “And it would do you good to shut your mouth.”

However, you weren’t sure if your words triggered him or if he just had a mouth on him- was it a human thing? Jongho was talkative but a different type- cracking random jokes.

But this man?

He was getting on your nerves. You had to admit that his lung capacity was admirable considering the long string of sentences he sprouted as soon as he entered your spaceship. You caught a few words- something about a ‘cool’ spaceship, some technical stuff that to your horror, Yeosang was happy to provide his input for, and then something about his own rusty old spaceships and how ‘humans could never’.

“Oh, now that’s a human if I’ve ever seen one,” Wooyoung clapped his hands as soon as he saw Jongho. 

“How can you tell?” Yeosang asked. “I thought I looked like a human too.”

“Nah, you’re too pretty,” Wooyoung waved a hand in dismissal and you blinked. “It’s the sheer… presence of him. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh, I know what you mean,” Jongho started chuckling after he recovered from the initial surprise of seeing a human on board- a human that was not a resident of one of the 1117 planets in this galaxy. 

“I don’t know what you both mean,” Yeosang almost pouted.

“Come closer,” Wooyoung called and you watched in horror as Yeosang obeyed, the three of them huddling close to each other. “This human- the warmth, the smell-”

“You’re telling me you could tell I’m human because I stink like one?”

While your crew burst into giggles, afraid to laugh properly in fear you would react aggressively- which you seldom did but you made sure the fear factor was a constant- Wooyoung started profusely explaining that he didn’t mean it like that but there was something about humans that smelt and felt like home to him. He did not comment on how you had admitted that you were human too. 

“Oh, you humans and your associations with the word home,” you spat, getting morbid flashbacks of the time your father tried to explain how association worked and failed. “Lock him in the cell- he’s too talkative.”

“Hey!” Wooyoung yelled at you but Yeosang reluctantly patted his back, telling him the cell wasn’t that bad, just a room where he could take his final rest before being presented in the station for his execution, which did nothing to help the human. Meanwhile, Jongho started going through Wooyoung’s things and you joined him, finding a few strange food wrappers and pens, a compass that made you smile in awe because it looked very much like the one you possessed, a bundle of notes and folders, an odd device that you set aside for the time being, and then his own journal.

You held the journal in your hands and allowed yourself to look at his memories associated with it, shutting your eyes and watching the images that flashed in your mind-

Grass. More vibrant than the grass on Star 1116, decorated by little colourful flowers that you had always heard of but never seen. The laughter of a woman and the laughter of kids, spreading warmth through your chest. Large bodies of water, as blue as the sky, welcoming you in its cool embrace. 

And then… anger and confusion. Screaming and shouting- your face suddenly felt wet. Were those tears? You hear incoherent yelling and loud thumps of things as they smashed against each other. You felt terror consume every fibre of your being and you felt out of breath- you were running. Soon after followed a sense of dread before guilt consumed you-

“Captain- hey, y/n,” Jongho cautiously shook your arm, bringing you back to reality. “You good?”

You retracted the neurons and set the journal aside, realising your face was wet. “He knows about Star 1116.”

Jongho pursed his lips in thought. “Is that really something we should worry about?”

“He knows our ancestors made it to Star 1116,” you added for clarification. “He mentioned that he didn’t think they got lost in space like everyone claimed they did.”

“Ah… that complicates things, doesn’t it?” 

“Are we sure the station wouldn’t have caught his spaceship on their system?” You asked, moving towards the control panel which was displaying normal readings. 

“What are you thinking?” Yeosang’s voice interjected as he entered the room. 

“I need to have a talk with Wooyoung,” you said, looking at your partners. “He intended to find Star 1116 and the humans living there and collect some evidence regarding them.”

“Well… he’s found them,” Jongho raised his hand. “I think his mission was successful in that case.”

“Half successful, and he might not know that Star 1116 is a habitable planet for humans. He might be thinking you’re from Earth.”

“One way to find out,” you stifled a devilish grin.

“Don’t go all kitty claws on him,” Yeosang warned with a chuckle and you hissed at him- he always used that phrase, having heard your father call you that when you were younger and more reckless with the alien traits that you inherited from your mother. 

You told him that you would not need to do that. He was here on a mission and this was the perfect opportunity to use that to gain a possible ally. You took a closer look at his navigation equipment before going to your room to rest, taking the strange device that looked like a radio with you- you didn’t want the boys seeing you get emotional again-

And talking about emotions- why did the human’s overwhelming feelings cause your heart to clench in pain? Why did it bring tears to your eyes? You didn’t despise human emotions- you thought they were beautiful in their own strange way but never did you think you would be able to relate to them on an intrinsic level. Perhaps, it was the human in you. No matter how much you tried to repress it, it would always remind you that it was a part of you, integrating with your Nexi gene as one.

But you soon found out that there were other forms of emotions that involved tears, and not just the embarrassing ‘crying’ you had almost done earlier.

There were tears rolling down the cheeks of both the human and the alien in your crew as they laughed their lungs out. You had heard a bunch of inhumane noises in your sleep which prompted you to wake up and take a look, but the last thing you expected was-

“Are you having a fucking party here?” You grimaced at the sight of the three boys in a circle with half eaten food in between, noticing a bunch of new dishes that you hadn’t seen in a while, the fragrant scent of it filling your nose and almost calming you. Wooyoung looked at your disgusted expression and only laughed harder.

“This one was supposed to be in the cell,” you pointed at Wooyoung as you looked at Yeosang and Jongho in question. “What is going on?”

“He was complaining about being hungry and when he offered to make us food, we decided to check how good a cook he was,” Jongho answered. “Surprisingly good, turns out. You should have seen him in the kitchen, y/n.”

“Since the station hasn’t sent a message yet, that means they haven’t figured out that we have a human aboard. We could use him as our servant,” Yeosang’s eyes gleamed with mischievous hope.

“That’s what you think of me?” Wooyoung smacked his biceps, looking hurt. “I thought we were friends!”

“No one is becoming friends with anyone here,” you clapped, prompting the boys to start cleaning up. “Don’t make me call the station myself, Jung Wooyoung.”

“Aren’t you a boomer,” he clicked his tongue.

“A boomer?” You asked, wondering what that meant. 

“A true boomer,” Wooyoung grinned, passing you a tray of food he had kept for you. “Basically means you don’t know how to have fun.”

“I’m not here to have fun,” you grimaced at the word and he pressed the tray into your hands before resuming tidying the floor, leaving you standing awkwardly in the middle. Yeosang caught your eye and urged you to sit and try the food and you reluctantly obeyed-

And immediately thought of home.

Home, when your grandfather and grandmother were alive and cooked the human dishes for you- the dishes that they had learned from their parents. You could taste the familiar spices that your grandmother loved in the broth Wooyoung made, the scent immediately transporting you to one of your happier memories when you didn’t have to worry about being an anomaly and could enjoy simple moments with your family. You looked at Jongho who was smiling knowingly- he could definitely understand what you were feeling right now.

“I can’t eat this,” you looked at Jongho.

“It’s okay, Captain,” he chuckled. “It’s just like our grandparents made for us, yeah? Go on, have a taste of the vegetables too.”

You hesitated but reluctantly took a spoonful of the vegetables with rice, a sense of dread washing over you but Yeosang’s hand on your back calmed you and you realised that maybe, the feelings of dread were present because you were scared to accept that there was a human on board who was making you acknowledge the human parts in you through food, of all things. 

That’s what you disliked about being human- that you were so easily swayed.

Wooyoung watched you cautiously from a corner while he absently sweeped the floor with a broom- he hadn’t expected you to react that way and it was surprising to see the group of you interact. If you weren’t fully human, he wondered why you weren’t as hostile towards Jongho as you were to him.

You finished your food before you knew it, and though it annoyed you that Wooyoung was proudly grinning, you decided to give it a rest for now and focus on the more important matters. 

“What is this device?” You placed the black rectangular, almost hollow box on the table and Wooyoung pursed his lips, tossing the broom in the corner and joining your crew on the table. 

“What do you think it is?”

“A broken radio?” You asked, opening its back to show how it had no batteries. “I can’t read it.”

“And what would you mean by that, sweetheart?” Wooyoung asked and once again, you had to repress the anger bubbling in your throat at the term while Jongho and Yeosang shifted uncomfortably in their positions.

“I can read memories and emotions or feelings associated with objects, and I can’t read this,” you clarified for him. “And I want you to tell me why unless you want me to read you.”

“That’s… strange, actually,” Yeosang cocked his head, taking the device from you. “Are you sure you can’t read it?”

“I’m sure,” you confirmed, looking at Wooyoung. “So?”

Wooyoung’s hesitation was palpable. You narrowed your eyes in suspicion. “Don’t even think about lying,” you told him, the neurons protracting from your fingernails making him jump a little.

“Whoa, put your murder mittens away,” Wooyoung shielded himself with his hands raised between you. “You probably can’t read because it’s what it looks like- a broken radio. It has no deeper meaning-”

“Everything has a deeper meaning,” you glared at him. “You wouldn’t bring a broken radio to space, for starters. Have you been getting some sort of a signal?”

When he didn’t answer, you knew what you had to do. You looked at Yeosang who nodded and came in front of Wooyoung. “If you really want to get somewhere with her, you better cooperate.”

“I would, but I don’t know if I can trust her- you guys with the information I have,” he admitted, sounding serious. “I do receive signals sometimes, but they don’t really make sense. I’ve been able to trace them, though, and it looks like they come from around here.”

“An alien sending signals to a human on earth?” Jongho looked at Yeosang. “Doesn’t sound implausible. What for, though?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Wooyoung shrugged. “It’s mostly gibberish- I can’t make sense of it.”

“Did you at least note them down?” Jongho asked.

“Yeah, in a notepad- it should be in my bag,” Wooyoung said, getting up and grabbing his bag from the couch, shuffling through it while you made eye contact with your crew, all three of you as sceptical as the other.

“It’s not here?” Wooyoung looked at you. 

“Everything that belongs to you is in that bag,” you said. 

“We didn’t touch it,” Yeosang said, and the boys raised their hands in surrender.

“Did you drop it?” Wooyoung looked incredulous.

“I’m not that clumsy,” you got up, snatching his bag and looking through it yourself but finding no signs of a notepad. You shot him a dirty look. “You left it behind on purpose, didn’t you?”

“That thing?” Wooyoung pointed his finger outside, the veins on his neck and arms popping out in anger. “It contains everything I worked for. It’s the reason why I risked my life to come here, and you’re telling me that we left it behind because you were in a rush?”

“So it’s my fault now?” You scoffed in disbelief. “You could have mentioned you needed to get your little notepad when we were transporting you!”

“Well, I obviously did not want someone to see the contents of it!” 

“Guys!” Jongho butted between you two, making you both sit down on the couch. “It’s okay. Wooyoung, just allow y/n to look into your head so she can copy everything that was on the notepad here for you. Simple! No biggie!”

“I won’t let her do that,” Wooyoung folded his arms. “That’s invading my privacy.”

“You’re invading our privacy by being here too,” you commented. 

“Then throw me outside,” he simply said and you groaned loudly. Yeosang stifled a smile- he had never seen you so riled up and he made a mental note to thank the human later.

“Please, cooperate,” Yeosang requested gently. “She knows the importance of privacy and will do her best to not snoop around in your mind and only look through the contents of the notes. Right, Captain?”

You nodded. You opened your mouth to add that you couldn’t help it if the person you were reading unintentionally pushed a memory your way but Yeosang knowingly ignored you and continued. “Wooyoung, if we think the message you’ve been receiving is important, we might not deliver you to the station at all. You sound like an excellent navigator and… we kind of need that.”

“We don’t need that-”

“Oh, shut up,” Yeosang waved a hand and you pouted. “You can take your time thinking about it- we don’t have to do that now. But we will have no choice but to report you to the station if we can’t find some common ground.”

“Between death and joining you, there’s not much of a choice here, is there?” Wooyoung asked grimly and you almost felt sorry for the human. “Okay, go ahead. I’ll write what I remember from the notes, but you can help me fill the gaps.”

“Wonderful,” Yeosang clapped. “Let’s scatter now.”

—--------------------------

You had to admit, you felt a little sorry for reacting that way towards the human who, like he had said, really had no choice but to cooperate or face death.

Or perhaps, it was the Wooyoung being human and sneaky and making you feel guilty on purpose. You wouldn’t put past humans to do that- sure, you were the daughter of one and a friend of another, but you had seen your fair share of humans hiding behind the excuse of their ugly nature.

However, your guilt solidified when you found the man diligently scribbling in a new notebook with a jug of coffee by his side. You shook your head at the sight- what was with humans and their addiction to caffeine? But you supposed you couldn’t complain- whatever kept the human running and made your job easier. 

You sensed Wooyoung’s body getting tense when he sensed your presence and you knocked on the door right at that time, pretending you hadn’t been standing there for a solid few minutes. He nodded and you entered, sitting down next to him.

“What are you writing?”

“Anything about navigation that I can recall from the top of my head,” he showed you the notes and you made an impressed face. 

“Are humans on Earth that advanced in space navigation already?”

“As of recently, yes, but not many, and they usually keep it to themselves,” Wooyoung told you. “They’re afraid the government and the space councils will exploit their services.”

“Sounds like our government,” you scoffed.

“I guess we do have something in common then,” he grinned. “I was one of the few who kept my research to myself, but I also made the mistake of snooping around and finding things I shouldn’t have learned.”

“You said something about the group of humans who got lost in space,” you asked, shifting on the couch so you were facing him. “Do you remember their names?”

Wooyoung narrowed his eyes slightly. “Those humans settled on Star 1116. Jongho’s one of them, right? A descendant of them?”

You nodded and he wowed at that, taking a few moments to let that information sink in. “And what about you?”

“I’m one of them too,” you admitted. No harm in him knowing. “My mother is a Nexi, though. My father was the grandson of one of the humans who got lost- but why do you believe they didn’t get lost?”

“I heard the superiors talking about how their spy network failed to achieve results,” he sighed and you felt your heart sink. “The plan was  to pretend to get lost and settle on one of the planets in the Temporal Nexus so they would keep reporting back to Earth with their findings.”

“Did they?” You asked, unconsciously holding your breath.

“I guess they felt welcomed enough that they stopped very soon, and my people never looked for them in fear that their secrets had been exposed. The Temporal Nexus Accords happened right after so the humans on Earth had to pretend they had no knowledge of those humans in space and thought they died.”

You fell silent, staring at the rings on Wooyoung’s fingers while you processed that.

Your great grandfather and great grandmother were spies. If anyone were to find that out now… 

“They must have lived well,” Wooyoung said gently with a smile. “I won’t tell anyone, if you’re worried about that. I’d say Jongho, at least, deserves to know the truth though.”

“Thank you,” you said. “I’ll tell Jongho soon. They lived well, but after they had kids and our grandparents were old enough to have their own, the Nexi started discriminating. It got a little messier afterwards, but we’re still here. Just… kind of outcasted.”

“The Nexi are just like humans then. It’s such a human thing to discriminate among races, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, well, I don’t blame them,” you scoffed. “They will have a field day if they learn that they were right about humans all along.”

“But who’s gonna tell them?” Wooyoung pretended to zip his mouth. You smiled at that and he smiled back. “Did you come to read… me?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” you said and he resigned into the couch. “It won’t hurt.”

“That’s not what I’m worrying about, but okay,” he urged you to start and you raised your palms in the air, letting the neuron extensions protrude from your fingernails. Wooyoung watched in awe as the silver steel-like branches curled around each other in an intricate pattern. 

“I’ll touch your forehead and close my eyes when I read,” you felt the need to tell him. “I will try not to look into your private memories but I can’t control what you send me, and unless you have a good mental fortitude I will only see what you show me.”

“Interesting,” he said, gulping when you scooted forward. You locked eyes with him, finding it almost endearing how his mismatched yet beautiful eyes widened when you gently placed your palms on his temples, letting the neurons extend and entangle with his hair to stick on his scalp.

“Ah… that tickles a bit,” Wooyoung muttered and you stifled a smile. “Do I close my eyes too?”

“You don’t have to,” you answered and shut yours. “Think of your notepad, now. I’ll have a general look before I start noting down.”

“Got it,” he said, shutting his eyes to focus.

You saw the notepad, as clear as day, and the last place he recalled using it was the control room in his spaceship. You relaxed when you realised he had indeed been telling the truth. You then saw the navigational reading and glimpses of incomprehensible messages- incomprehensible to him. 

You were about to draw back but you saw a montage of his memories in the spaceship- you felt the loneliness that he had felt being alone in space for so long- a few months and no human or alien contact. You felt a bit of dread as he wondered if he made a wrong decision leaving the Earth in the manner that he did- stealing information and sneaking past them. You felt his will to live fluctuate when it started to feel like he was on a wild goose chase. 

And then you felt just the briefest moment of acceptance when he noted down how long he had to live with the amount of food he had left on the spaceship. He was mostly relying on supplements but he wasn’t sure how long that would keep him healthy.

Before you could draw back, he pushed one memory in focus- the reason he cooked for all of you tonight. He was grateful to be alive and he needed the food more than you- more for the joy of cooking for himself and for others, for the act of simply eating with company, no matter who it was.

When you opened your eyes, you found that you were just as breathless as him. You didn’t know if he had intentionally pushed that memory into focus but it was enough. 

“Well,” you retracted one hand away, keeping the other at its original position. “Might be a little uncomfortable but we should start writing now. You can help me fill in what I don’t understand, is that okay?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure,” he adjusted himself so the notebook was between you two on the couch now. You rested your elbow against the cushion so it wouldn’t hurt. “Shall we begin?”

It took you about an hour of filling in the gaps but thankfully, Wooyoung had done most of the work. The navigation section was finished soon and then you moved to the messages he received from the radio which you realised were in one of the Nexi codes. It required a series of messages to be arranged in a specific numerical pattern to decode it. Thankfully, Jongho had the right device for it so you intended to let him handle that department.

While writing the notes, you learned about his time at the space centre on Earth. Wooyoung seemed to be a talkative person and you listened to his story about how he and a few other astronauts and space scientists always disagreed with the government which ultimately controlled their operations. Apparently, the humans were always on the lookout for a number of things- a planet like Earth, for starters. The secret to stop ageing or extend the age cycle.

“Why would they want to extend their miserable lives?” You grimaced when you heard that. 

“Sometimes, the little things are enough to want to live a little longer, I suppose,” Wooyoung mused, taking the pen from you and finishing a string of messages for you before handing it back. “There’s a race of you that has an unusual cycle, isn’t that so?”

“The Original Nexi,” you told him. “A few descendants of them still live though they are scattered and stay low. They don’t age like we do- after a certain age, I suppose around sixty, they start ageing backwards. They get to be young again but the fun ends there. They’re back to being babies and then one day, they turn into stardust and scatter in the atmosphere.”

“How poetic,” Wooyoung scratched his chin. “I suppose it has its pros and cons.”

“More cons,” you commented. “No one wants to take care of you by the time you become a baby for the second time.”

“Yeah, I bet that’s a sight,” he snickered, asking you to skip an irrelevant section and you started on the last page. “Look at that. We’re almost done.”

“Thank you for cooperating,” you meant it. “Your navigational skills… they’re quite impressive. I might just have a place for you on this ship. Depends on your behaviour though.”

“You are on your worst behaviour, I want it just like that~” Wooyoung started singing and you smiled- his voice really was pretty. 

“You seem to like that song.”

Silence filled the room and you finished writing the last sentence, shutting the notebook and turning to him, finding him surprised.

“How did you know?”

Oh. You had made a mistake.

“What did you see?” Wooyoung asked again, and this time, involuntarily you saw more memories and you shut your eyes because of the intensity of those memories-

Wooyoung’s voice. He was singing the song in a small room with the lyrics on the screen, loud background music blasting in that space along with the sound of uproarious laughter, the bass of the music in synchronisation with his heartbeat. Bright, colourful kaleidoscopes of lights danced with their bodies, swaying around one another. You felt joy, in its pure and raw form, and then-

You were transported to another memory associated with that song- back in the spaceship as he sang it alone, his voice the only thing echoing off the walls with only the dim white light to accompany him. There was no joy anymore- just yearning for something that was not and might never be.

“Get out of my head, y/n,” Wooyoung gently wrapped his hand around your hand that was still placed on his temple. You opened your eyes in surprise at the contact, blinking a few times to let your vision adjust. His words finally registered inside you and you looked into his eyes.

He wasn’t angry. He simply looked tired and perhaps, he knew exactly what memories you had seen. You retracted the neurons from his scalp and now that it was just your fingers tangled in his hair, you unconsciously caressed the soft strands. He moved your hand away softly, placing it in your lap and looking at the joined hands for just a moment before he pulled away.

“I… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“I know,” he nodded in understanding. “It’s okay.”

You nodded, realising you were still leaning into him. Taking a deep breath, you picked the notebook and got up.

“The notes will be with Jongho- he can decode the message,” you told him. “You can rest now.”

“Can I ask you something?” Wooyoung looked at you expectantly. You raised a brow and he took that as a sign to continue. “Do you only read the memories or are you able to feel the emotions or feelings associated with the memory too?”

Your silence was enough for him. He nodded in understanding, having gotten his answer.

As you made your way back to your room, you wished you could have told him that this was the first time you felt human emotions in such depth, in such an unfiltered and almost vulnerable way. Such innocent, humane feelings that almost made you forget that alien blood ran through your veins.

—---------------------------

While none of you had officially announced Wooyoung’s position as a navigator in the crew, he seemed to take on that role naturally. He made home in the control room with Jongho and they learned a lot from each other- Jongho about navigation and what it was like to be a human on Earth, and Wooyoung about the Temporal Nexus Galaxy and what it was like to be a human among the Nexi.

However, the more interesting part was how he managed to make Yeosang warm up to him. Yeosang wasn’t one to talk a lot and none of you in the crew were very physically affectionate, yet it seemed like Wooyoung had claimed the man as his target. He was always clinging to him- holding his hand, clutching his arms as he rubbed his cheek against him, casual pats and ruffling of hair (of which Jongho was also a target), hugs of all and every kind, and smooches. What was funnier was how Yeosang claimed to dislike all of that yet you would find him smiling to himself afterwards. 

Whatever it was, Wooyoung had a magnetic personality and everyone’s eyes followed him, as did yours. You were often in your designated corner with your journals and equipment, making calls to the station to send daily reports, sending messages to anyone who would want to hear your theory about Star 1117 and possibly help you in any way while not reporting you to the authorities. It was hard to be in the same room as Wooyoung and not look at him and lean towards him, you were finding. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t try to be as physically affectionate with you as the rest, or not include you in whatever stupid debate they decided to have for the sake of passing time- he was simply hesitant to touch you because he wasn’t sure if you could read him without your neuron extensions- or ‘murder mitten’, as he referred to them. Kitty claws was not the only term thrown around now.

Jongho’s device had successfully decoded the message but you were all waiting for the next signal as there were still missing parts. The radio was kept in the middle of the room so anyone could hear it if it woke up. Meanwhile, you shared your knowledge about Star 1117, the planet that could not be found. 

In the Temporal Nexus Galaxy, there were exactly 1117 stars or planets in the beginning, as marked by the Original Nexi, the first aliens born out of the celestial matter when the galaxy came into being. While the 1117th planet was never located, it was historically and scientifically accurate information that your galaxy had 1117 cycles. Each complete orbit of the planets around the core marked by the presence of a single sun- almost like the sun in the solar system- caused one planet to disintegrate into celestial matter. 

Wooyoung shared his knowledge of your galaxy and you found out that the humans were also aware that the only remaining planets in your galaxy were Star 1116, which was your home, and Star 1117. Star 1117 existed but it could not be located no matter how much the authorities and everyone else tried- there was too much clutter in the galaxy, they claimed. 

All the planets that finished their cycle disintegrated into rocks and stars. Some of the rocks the aliens made habitable when there weren’t enough planets to accommodate them, while some aliens resorted to pods and spaceships as their home. The further you went to explore in the Temporal Nexus, the harder it got to navigate and find your way back which was why a lot of the explorers who tried to locate Star 1117 or its byproduct (in case they were wrong about Star 1117 still being whole) never returned.

You were just discussing the myths surrounding the star while you ate lunch- Wooyoung was also the designated chef now, and you had to admit that part of the reason you were okay with his presence in the spaceship was because of the food he made for you all and not just because you had delayed your decision until you could properly decode the message. 

“I personally think Star 1117 was the first planet to die and our home is actually Star 1 instead of 1116 and they’re all wrong about the number of cycles that has passed. It’s a reverse order,” Yeosang said. “This, or there’s no Star 1117 in the first place.”

“Yeah, the Space Council could have easily modified the data,” Jongho nodded.

“But I read them,” you said, referring to the council members that you had secretly read. “They don’t think that’s true.”

“Maybe they’re made to think that that’s the truth,” Yeosang pointed out and you shrugged.

“Maybe Star 1117 isn’t a planet like your other planets in this galaxy,” Wooyoung added casually while munching on a potato stick. “Maybe it’s just an ugly old rock and you all think that it has to be a planet like Star 1116.”

“Well, I hope the authorities are looking into that possibility because the current cycle is ending soon. That means there won’t be a habitable planet for humans,” you said, looking at Jongho- while you were part alien, you functioned more like a human and couldn’t just travel in space without a certain amount of oxygen, just like Jongho. “And that also means that we will lose our home.”

Yeosang passed a tight-lipped smile at that- you all had family who lived in Star 1116 and refused to leave even though they were aware that this planet would soon disintegrate. They wanted to live there until the last possible moment before making a decision- die with the planet or move to a space pod. They were too old to do anything to save their home so you were using this opportunity to try to save it for them, along with your crew. While the government did not allow such missions for the common people, you were carrying it out secretly. You would be labelled criminals if you interfered with their mission.

“That’s a shame. I’ve heard Star 1116 is a very beautiful planet,” Wooyoung said and you all nodded- it really was the most beautiful planet to ever exist in that galaxy. “What do you plan to do about it?”

“Honestly, we have no idea, we’re just trying to find more information on when the cycle will end so we have a clue about how much time we have instead of waiting for the government to announce that we have numbered days,” Jongho said. 

He was about to continue when you heard static and you almost thought it was one of your own radios until Wooyoung got up and brought his radio back to the table, the four of you huddling closer to watch the messages appear.

“Pass me a pen,” you asked Yeosang who obeyed and you gave it to Wooyoung who had already opened the notebook to write down the message. It was mumbo jumbo to the three of you but all the colour seemed to leave Jongho’s face when Wooyoung finished writing the message.

“What’s wrong?” Yeosang asked, patting his cheek to make him come back to his senses.

“Uh, let me confirm the message,” he mumbled weakly and you rushed to get his decoding device. He thanked you and started to insert the message in the device while already knowing the final version since he had played with this device enough to not need it anymore. When he typed the decoded message, he looked at all three of you before setting it in the middle of the table.

“‘I am 1118,’” Wooyoung read the message, frowning. “‘Do not save 1117.’”

Silence filled the room as the message hung in the air over your heads, your hands getting clammier with each passing second. You looked at Yeosang who looked just as lost and then at Wooyoung who was checking his readings again as if making sure that he hadn’t made a mistake.

“There is no Star 1118,” you said what everyone was thinking out loud. “Isn’t that right? Wooyoung?”

“I’ve never heard of Star 1118,” he admitted in all seriousness. “Star 1117 has always been the focus of attention, right?”

“Yes,” you nodded. “But someone from Star 1118 is sending you a message and telling you not to save Star 1117? Is that what it is?”

“There can’t be a Star 1118,” Yeosang frowned. “We can’t even locate 1117. I think if there were two missing planets, we would have found at least one, right?”

“Unless the government is hiding something?” Wooyoung suggested. “Wouldn’t put it past them.”

“Yeah, he might be right,” Jongho agreed with Wooyoung. “But I think we should start with locating where this message came from. That would certainly make things easier.”

“I suggest an infiltration of your space council to find information because it looks like you’ve had no luck so far,” Wooyoung raised his hand while looking at you, asking if everyone was in.

“That’s too risky-”

“But you can read the aliens, right?” Wooyoung interrupted and you folded your arms. “You can read objects. You can read their data- all we have to do is sneak past them,” he said, folding his sleeves with a smug face. “And I happen to be a pro at that, as you already know.”

A jab, but also an attempt to smoothen the rocky beginning of your relationship. You scoffed in answer, knowing all too well what he was talking about from the bits you had seen from his journal. “We’ll be labelled space criminals. They would do anything to find us and have us tried in court.”

“Well, from what I’ve heard, you’re all space criminals anyway,” he shrugged. “You’ll only be living up to that title. Besides, don’t you want to save your home?”

“You will help us save our home?” 

“If I can be of help,” he nodded. “I came here to find Star 1117 too. We have the same goal, right? Find Star 1117 and save your galaxy. You get to save your home, and I get to rub this in my government's face and… clear the name of my friends who got caught in this mess without me.”

“Didn’t catch that sob story when I read you,” you told him and Yeosang snorted, resulting in all of you sharing a laugh, the room echoing with nervousness, anticipation and excitement-

And hope. You met Wooyoung’s eyes and he nodded earnestly, his smile making your heart feel warm, a feeling you had forgotten.

You smiled back this time.

—--------------------------

“Wooyoung, I swear to the all one thousand, one hundred and seventeen stars, if you don’t move your knee right now-”

“I’m trying,” he hissed, smacking your back and you let out a horrified gasp at his audacity. “I can’t move it- bear with it.”

“It’s digging into my calf and it hurts,” you sighed. 

“Whose genius idea was it to sneak through the vents again?” Wooyoung asked and that shut you up.

It took you all just about two days to form an elaborate plan that would involve Yeosang getting access inside the Space Council building to present the monthly report physically with the excuse of meeting up with his cousin who worked there. When he called his cousin, the poor guy was quite surprised since they weren’t on friendly- or any terms, per se. He did complain about the strictness of the Space Council and how visitors weren’t usually allowed, but since Yeosang’s parents were ex-employees of the Council, it helped his case and his request to visit was almost immediately approved.

That left Jongho in charge of camouflaging the spaceship and he contacted a few of his friends who happened to be mechanics and had some spare technology that they could share with him. They were sceptical about why the human needed camouflage- it definitely raised suspicion, but Jongho had always been good at shutting people up with money so the mechanics were more than happy to help him out, thanking him for helping their declining business. 

You and Wooyoung, of course, had to be the ones to sneak in. You were hesitant to take the human with you- his vitals weren’t the problem since he was wearing the watch just like you which ensured your vitals remained normal. The problem was the risk of taking an unregistered human inside the very space that made sure all humans were registered in their data. 

Plus, Wooyoung’s claim that he could ‘watch out’ while you read their data wasn’t very helpful- you weren’t sure if he would be able to get you out of a tight spot if you got caught. He claimed to be good with guns so you reluctantly loaded him with as many weapons as possible and when you were almost sure he wouldn’t be a liability, if not a help either, you agreed to let him accompany you.

He was good at sneaking in. He had studied Jongho’s inventory of machines and tools and taken anything he thought was useful. While Yeosang entered from the main door, the two of you turned on the camouflage on Jongho’s illegally obtained wristwatch and took access inside the building through the backdoor while another alien entered. Before you could be scanned, Wooyoung pointed at the vents and you squeezed yourself into the tight space, crawling on all fours with Jongho’s voice guiding your directions. 

“Can you both fight later?” Jongho huffed. “Take a left and then jump down- you’ll land in a storage room. I can’t guarantee that it will be empty, so make sure your camouflage is working and you’re silent when you land.”

“Got it,” the two of you muttered in unison and you angrily tucked your hair back before leading the way again, having Wooyoung follow behind you. You paused before it was time to jump down, extending your neurons to read the room and after finding no signs of life for now, you landed softly with a thud, signalling Wooyoung to come down as well.

“That’s convenient,” Wooyoung pointed at your fingernails. “Can they act as a weapon?”

“Haven’t tried that yet but I suppose I’ll be forced to, soon,” you pointedly looked at him and he stuck his tongue out before Jongho asked you to find your way to the storage room that was across the hall. Wooyoung opened the door just a fraction and you pushed him with your elbow to take a peek.

“No one outside?”

“Doesn’t look like it,” you whispered. 

“Well, that’s what your kitty claws are for. Go ahead,” he said and you sat down on the floor, extending the neurons once again and finding a few men who seemed to be on duty, stationed in front of the rooms that were on either side of this room. You got up and moved away to talk to Jongho.

“Is there no other way?”

“None,” Jongho sighed. “Should I ask Yeosang to do something about it?”

“No, I have a sacrificial lamb right here,” you smirked dangerously at Wooyoung, who pointed at himself with wide eyes and furiously shook his head.

Moments later, he was carrying a bunch of folders and going out of the storage room as if he belonged there. You watched from the crack in the door as he pretended to look at the room number and went just a few steps ahead before dropping everything to the floor.

“Curse the stars,” he huffed angrily. “I’m gonna be late and my boss will kill me.”

One of the guards came into your vision, looking at Wooyoung with narrowed eyes. “Who’s your boss again?”

“Just the angriest one here- no need for names, am I right?” He shook his head and the guard seemed to buy that for the moment. “Asked to get some files,” Wooyoung started gathering them and the guard bent down to help. Wooyoung looked back, meeting eyes with you for just a second before looking at the second guard. “Would you help? I need to grab another bundle from the storage.”

The second guard hesitantly joined the first, grunting as he bent down. Your heart seemed to be beating between your ears as Wooyoung came back inside the room.

“What do you say I knock them out?” 

“Just keep yapping- I’ll make it,” you told him and he signed okay, grabbing another box of files and going back outside. You heard the three talk among themselves and you mustered all the courage before making a dash across the hall, turning the knob-

To find it locked. It would need an identification card to open it, and you didn’t have enough time for Jongho to do his thing. Panicking, you looked at Wooyoung who visibly swallowed and you made a neck-slicing motion.

“Now who’s that?” The second guard spotted you and that was all Wooyoung needed to take out his gun from the jacket and smack the guard’s head with the butt of the gun. The other guard punched him in the stomach with such force that Wooyoung doubled up as he let out a weak exhale-

And before you knew it, the neurons were extending from your fingernails and slashing at the guards while forming a protective barrier around Wooyoung at the same time. Wooyoung yelled an ‘I’m okay!’ which finally made you stop- not after having inflicted enough cuts on the guards to make them clutch at themselves in pain. 

Wooyoung looked at you, half-impressed and half-horrified. You decided to make sense of it later and said, “We should probably… shut them in the storage.”

“Yeah… why don’t you use your murder mittens for that too?” 

You scowled at him but did exactly that and Wooyoung smacked them hard enough to knock them unconscious though you were pretty sure it was petty revenge. He dusted his hands and looked proudly at you afterwards, catching you stifling a grin. He raised a brow and you finally let out a laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

“If you have both had your fun,” Jongho’s voice interrupted though he sounded amused- while he couldn’t see what was happening, the audio was enough. “Yeosang’s almost done and you’re still doing god knows what.”

“Sorry, Wooyoung’s having too much fun,” you put the blame on the human and moved along, ignoring the earfull that Jongho started to give Wooyoung. You used the identification card of one of the guards to open the door, finding yourself in the recent archives section of the control room- you didn’t need to tap into the alien parts to hear the chatter from the main room that leaked into this one.

“I’ll keep watch, you can start,” Wooyoung said and you nodded, wasting no time and shutting your eyes, letting the neurons branch out and touch everything in your surroundings- the shelf where hundreds of files were stacked, the numerous hard disks along with paper notes, the walls that contained memories of the people who had touched it recently, the floor where the employees must have walked a million times-

And where Wooyoung stood, and you almost thought your eyes were open when you saw him watching you in awe while staying alert. Despite not wanting to read him without his consent anymore, you saw the brief flash of what was playing in his head right now-

The sight of you slashing at the guards to protect him.

You pushed that scene and the feelings associated with it aside and let the neurons store every bit of information that they could until you started losing your breath and feeling faint- a sign that you couldn’t take it anymore. You thought you heard Wooyoung call your name before you retracted the neurons and rested your back against the wall, catching your breath.

“Too much?” He asked and you nodded, wiping your forehead. 

“We’re done, Jongho,” you said and he hummed in response, letting Yeosang know so he could leave as well. 

“Good job everyone,” Jongho said as you all started to make your way back out. “I’ll serve you all drinks tonight. And maybe sing for you.”

—--------------------------

If you thought Jongho was a good singer, he certainly had competition now. 

Sure, Jongho could move stars with his voice. You always joked that perhaps Jongho was an alien and his voice was his alien characteristic because there was no way a human could sound so powerful and mesmerising.

But perhaps, it was a human thing to sound so captivating, to sing like you intended to break the heart of the listeners and heal it again, to have your voice flow like the honey aliens only heard stories of- something they could describe and perhaps create association with yet only dream of having. Perhaps, it was a human thing to possess a voice that could make you feel like you were floating among the stars as one.

Or maybe… it was just Wooyoung. 

And just you, feeling all of that and more.

You tried reasoning with yourself- you had been hearing Jongho sing since he could speak so it probably didn’t sound so special to you anymore because you were used to it. If you could experience his singing for the first time again, you were sure you would be as blown away as the other person- as Wooyoung was.

But when Wooyoung sang in a voice so soft and mellow, you could feel your heart melt and you felt the sudden urge to sit out on the deck of the spaceship, in the hollow silence of the space and watch the stars.

“No way he’s the same person who sounds like an animal when he talks, right?”

You exhaled in relief when Yeosang said that but you were sure his drunken heart wasn’t as moved as yours was. 

And it didn’t help when Wooyoung locked eyes with you as he sang about the human emotions of longing, sadness, happiness and love. Of sorrow and bitterness, of peace and hope. 

You had been fine for the most part of the night- after returning to the spaceship, the boys started to prepare a meal while you passed out on the couch, surprising Wooyoung who was told that you were just taking a power nap to recover your energy. They woke you up when the table was set and while you ate, you told them that you were still processing the information you had absorbed and nothing you could process so far was relevant. While Yeosang told you all about his ‘adventures’ and how wonderful an actor he is, the room filled with overlapping chatter and laughter with the tinkling sound of your glasses as you drank. 

And now that the humans had been singing for a while, you silently excused yourself with a smile on your face that had been plastered on your face since you woke up. You exited the spaceship and laid down on the deck to watch the endless expanse of the universe. With your hands resting on top of your beating heart, you let your chest rise and fall in synchrony with the glimmering of the stars around you. 

You could hear your own breaths but Wooyoung’s voice still seemed to be ringing in your head and you found yourself smiling again. You recalled when your grandfather had told you stories of his father and his time on Earth- how humans used to sing at gatherings around fire while they ate candies or drank warm beverages. You had never experienced that but you always thought they might have looked strange doing that, until tonight when Jongho and Wooyoung started singing and Yeosang started clapping along- perhaps, this was what it was like to be truly human. To enjoy the little moments in life and make the most of them.

“Now that’s one way to stargaze.”

You almost jumped, letting out a startled sigh and Wooyoung grinned at that. “Can I join you?” 

“Uh, sure,” you patted the space next to you and he settled down, watching you for a moment before he assumed a similar lying position next to you.

“It’s beautiful,” Wooyoung sighed dreamily. “The stars.”

“Sometimes I wonder which of these stars were planets where we lived,” you said. “I think a lot of people here must look and wonder which one of them is their home.”

“It’s a shame how the cycles here work, but isn’t it somewhat relieving to know that the place that was once your home is now all around you? In the form of celestial matter.”

You turned your face sideways to look at him. “Is it though? To know that you have no home anymore?”

“But home is where the heart is,” he smiled, looking at you.

“Do humans still use that phrase on Earth?”

“We’ve always been using it,” he said. “Where did you hear it?”

“From my great grandfather.”

“He’s still alive?” 

“No,” you chuckled. “I have his journals. He missed planet Earth a lot but he said that home is where the heart is and his heart was here with his family. It never made sense to me, though.”

Wooyoung shifted his body to lay down sideways so he could look at you as you talked. “And why is that?”

“I don’t know,” you shrugged. “Home is a place, not an emotion or a feeling. My home is under the shade of the tree near my house where I grew up.”

“That’s where your heart is,” he told you.

“No, my heart is here,” you patted your chest. “It’s pumping blood.”

“My dear y/n,” he pinched your nose and if you had been sober, you would have smacked him. “Heart is an organ, yes, but it’s also a feeling. You leave a piece of your heart everywhere- back home, with your friends, with the people you lose. It is what makes you a whole person.”

“Still does not make sense to me,” you pouted.

“It will, one day,” he assured you, a knowing look on his face.

“What was your home like?” You asked after a few moments passed.

Wooyoung took a deep breath, folding his arms, his hair beginning to fall sideways slowly. You turned to face him too, unable to resist the urge to tuck them back. He didn’t comment on it, knowing it would remind you of the distance you were always consciously creating. “My home was near the sea- you have it here too, don’t you?”

“Something like that,” you told him, recalling the human sea you had seen flashes of from your great grandfather’s journal. 

“My home was the place where I spent my whole life, where my parents were,” he said and you noted how there was something sad about the way he smiled. “My home is with the friends I left behind, and even though my workplace started resembling a prison… that place is also my home.”

“Was it hard to leave home, knowing you might never go back?”

“Well, I didn’t think too much about it, I trust my navigational skills,” he said and you rolled your eyes. “But yeah. It started feeling like a mistake until I met you guys.”

You nodded- you knew all too well what he was talking about, having felt his loneliness firsthand. “Don’t you want to see your home again?”

“Maybe I’ll go back, but… I think I have a home here with you guys too,” he said cautiously and your brows furrowed as you tried to unravel its meanings. “Don’t you feel like you have a home here too? With the boys?”

You fell silent, pondering over that. “Will you show me your home, Wooyoung?”

“How- oh, with your kitty claws?” 

“I call them neurons, but yes,” you locked eyes with him. “I’ve always wanted to see what Earth looked like from my great grandfather’s mind. His journal doesn’t really give much.”

“What do you want to see?”

“Everything special about planet Earth, and… cats.”

“Cats?” Wooyoung frowned. “I thought you had them here? Yeosang called your neurons kitty claws?”

“It’s just a phrase we adopted from the description of cats and feline creatures we have in his journals,” you told him and he clapped, saying a long ‘ah’ in realisation.

“What about dogs?”

“We have something like that here, but I’d like to see that too,” you smiled.

“Okay, there’s so much to see- do you want to see now?” Wooyoung asked and you shook your head. 

“I’m still processing the information I got from the Space Council. Maybe some other day.”

“Sure, whenever,” Wooyoung said and you watched him for a few moments, the silence surprisingly comfortable.

“Did I scare you earlier?” You finally asked the question that had been weighing on your mind since you came back. “When I attacked the guards?”

Wooyoung stifled a smile. “I think I was more surprised that you went all murder-mode to protect me rather than being scared,” he confessed, “but I won’t lie. It was a little scary.”

You bit your lips, feeling something like guilt wrapping around your heart. Wooyoung inched his hand closer, looking at you for permission before holding your hand and caressing it.

“You don’t scare me,” he admitted, “I don’t care if you are capable of slitting throats with your nails or neurons or whatever they are. I saw how frightened you looked when the guards attacked me. I can’t get that out of my head.”

Now that was new. “Why can’t you get it out of your head?”

“You and your questions,” Wooyoung laughed, bringing your hand closer to inspect. “Hey, your hands look pretty normal. Like human hands. Where do the neurons even come from?”

You showed him by protracting them just a fraction and he wowed, taking both your hands and examining the skin around your nails when they retracted. “Pretty seamless, huh? Can you produce them out of your feet too?”

“Yeah, Yeosang had a wonderful time having me try that,” you laughed at the memory. “I can, but I don’t for obvious reasons.”

“You would look like a frog if you did,” Wooyoung told you.

“What’s a frog?”

“I’ll show you when it’s time, but… I’m scared you won’t like it.”

You narrowed your eyes at him and when he started describing a frog, he finally earned the long due smack, your laughter ringing in the space while Jongho and Yeosang watched from the window.

“Didn’t realise she could laugh like that,” Jongho wiped a fake tear from his eye.

“She laughs with us too,” Yeosang said.

“Oh, you wouldn’t understand,” Jongho waved a hand in dismissal. “Her laugh sounds different.”

“Really?” Yeosang looked at Jongho. “Sounds the same to me.”

“It’s a human thing,” Jongho smiled and Yeosang shook his head at that, knowing all too well what he was talking about.

—---------------------------

“We have a big fucking problem, guys.”

All three heads turned dramatically in succession and you looked away, suddenly feeling overwhelmed.

“Did you finish processing already?” Jongho asked and you nodded, slumping down on the couch next to Yeosang who had been pretending to take a nap. The younger two, who had been playing some board game that Wooyoung had been teaching the boys, rolled their chairs in front of you and you nervously fiddled with the sleeves of your black shirt.

“Yeah, I sped things up and… do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

The boys exchanged glances and everyone agreed on the good news first. You took a deep breath, “The Space Council has identified all of us and are sending out ‘wanted’ posters. They know we stole information and they’ve put a bounty on us.”

“That’s the good news?” Yeosang looked just about as horrified as the rest of them. You let out a short laugh.

“Congrats on officially being labelled space criminals now, I guess?” You offered and Jongho groaned loudly, muttering something about how his parents were going to kill him, bounty or not. “Now, the bad news?”

“Go ahead,” Jongho muttered, folding his arms in bitter resignation.

“Well, I don’t know how bad it is but they have secrets that they’ve hidden so well that even I couldn’t read them,” you started and Yeosang whistled at that. “I kept hitting a dead end whenever I came across something related to Star 1117, and there’s absolutely no way of locating the planet- not that they know of, or if they do know, they’re hiding it a bit too well.” 

“So was our attempt futile after all?” Wooyoung asked.

“Not really- it means that they do know a lot about Star 1117- at least the higher-ups. They’re just hiding it from everyone else.”

“Why are they keeping it to themselves? Do they want to keep Star 1117 all for themselves when the time comes?” Jongho questioned. “Do they not want the rest of us finding out?”

“Or maybe they don’t really know a lot and are just as clueless as us,” Yeosang offered. “Did you find something about how to locate it?”

“I think radio waves are our best option, so Wooyoung’s radio will have to do. I have something that can help with that, so let’s just track whoever is sending us that message and get answers from them?” You suggested.

“Sounds like a plan. We’re already working on using the radio as a navigational device so let us know what needs to be done next,” Yeosang agreed.

“Sure. There’s also something strange I came across,” you added, “but I don’t know if it’s of any value.”

“Let’s hear it anyway,” Jongho leaned forward in anticipation.

“You know the stories about the first aliens in this galaxy? The Original Nexi who are supposedly the first aliens in this galaxy?” 

“Yeah, that bloodline still exists, right?” Jongho asked, having recalled hearing rumours about them. “The Original Nexi who are born, grow up until a certain age and then start ageing backwards until they die?” 

“The humans would love to hear their secrets by the way,” Wooyoung looked both ashamed and proud of his people at that moment.

“Yeah, so,” you continued. “I think the first aliens are from Star 1117- that’s what I read in one of the files. That must mean the planet exists. If we can find one of the Original Nexi descendants who are alive today, we might be able to get some information about Star 1117. Maybe some of them even live there and we just haven’t been able to find them. Maybe that is why they’re trying so hard to hide the planet.”

“Woah,” Jongho exhaled deeply. “Now that’s news.”

“Yeah,” you sighed, a sombre silence taking over while all of you collected your thoughts. You decided to break the silence and give them a heads-up. “Since we’ll be wanted criminals now, let’s cut all contact with the station and destroy any tracking devices on this spaceship. Jongho, I trust you can take care of that?��

Jongho nodded and you continued. “Yeosang, please make sure our families are safe when they go to investigate- make sure they know that it might get messy so they can defend themselves if need be, okay?”

“I’ll let our friends know too- especially people we’ve been in contact with recently,” he said in a grim voice and you agreed, the realisation that you would all be in danger soon washing over you with a crash and you involuntarily shivered. Yeosang patted your back. You glanced at Wooyoung who had an unreadable expression on his face.

“We’ll do everything we can,” Wooyoung assured you and you nodded in answer. “Let’s speed up our radio navigation first.”

You agreed and got up, moving towards the control panel with Jongho, and Wooyoung looked at Yeosang, wiggling his brows.

“I guess my role is still chef?”

Yeosang chuckled. “You can keep doing whatever you’ve been doing. Kind of like an anchor, don’t you think?” 

Wooyoung was pretty pleased to hear that, immediately cheering up at Yeosang’s acknowledgement of his role as an ‘anchor’ when he had previously been referred to things like ‘maid’, ‘comic relief’ and worse. He disappeared into the kitchen knowing he didn’t have a lot of time before he would be called to help with the navigation.

And it was about an hour later that the smell of meat prompted everyone to drop what they were doing and join Wooyoung at the table. The meal was mostly silent, all of you feeling spent now that there was a threat hanging over your heads. Wooyoung could feel the palpable stress in the air but let you all have a moment to yourselves. After clearing the table, he was called to help with the navigation and he worked in harmony with Jongho and you, the hours passing by in a blink and sleep forgotten until-

“A signal!” Wooyoung shouted, making you and Yeosang get up with surprised grunts from your half-asleep state while Jongho high-fived him. 

“And, it’s gone- but it was there,” Jongho quickly input the readings into the radar and got a location. “Just a few tem-nex units away, should take us a few days.”

“Brilliant,” you felt hopeful all of a sudden, laughing in relief as you looked at Wooyoung in gratitude. He smiled in return, hand on his chest as he nodded. Yeosang clapped dramatically when Jongho started to yawn, making the two giggle and you got up, looking at the time.

“I think we should set our route and get some sleep, all of us. It was a long day,” you said and everyone agreed, Jongho immediately taking his place on the couch, pushing Yeosang away with little kicks.

“Go to your own room and get some sleep,” he said. “I’ll sleep here in case something fishy happens.”

“Alright, geez,” Yeosang rubbed his thighs, the youngest smiling as he swaddled the blanket. Yeosang saluted you and Wooyoung mockingly before going to his room.

“Want a drink, Captain?” Wooyoung offered and you gave him the side-eye. 

“Shouldn’t you go to sleep?”

“The adrenaline will take some time to wear off,” he explained and you shrugged. “I’d really like to take the drinks outside this time, and I could do with some company, unless you’re too tired?”

You decided to join- you could do with a drink and some company too, you reckoned. It had been a stressful few hours and your nap hadn’t helped at all- you kept thinking about whether you had been too reckless and doomed your friends and family by infiltrating the council and stealing top secret information. Sure, it could be justified- the government was all but dooming the people with the way they were handling things. If this really was the 1116th cycle, they had done little to nothing to prevent an apocalypse and the people were still in the dark about the ensuing damage which could be anywhere from just Star 1116’s collapse to the whole Temporal Nexus galaxy swallowing itself.

And you had never felt so worthless. You were merely a speck of dust in this vast galaxy and everything that you were doing to save it looked like it was all in vain.

“Cheer up, eh?” Wooyoung said as he clinked his bottle with yours. “It will be okay. We’ll be fine.”

You had to admit, you were rather impressed by his ability to read the room or the emotions of someone. He did it better than you could with your neurons and that was saying something. 

“I just feel like I’m going in circles. It’s not the first time we’ve received a signal that indicated that we might be close to Star 1117, but it’s the first time I’ve felt hope. I don’t know what I will do if it turns out to be nothing.”

Wooyoung hummed in thought. “If it turns out to be nothing, you’ll try again, just like you have for so long now. You won’t give up.”

“I know I won’t give up,” you nodded. “I want to do anything to make sure Star 1116 stays like it is, even if… even if I can’t ever go live there again.”

And perhaps, it was that possibility that had been weighing you down all along- what if you were chasing after something you shouldn’t and risking your chance of ever going back home? What if your last memory of Star 1116 would be when you got drafted as space patrol?

You recalled that day- just another morning with you munching on some snacks while you worked at the office with Yeosang and Jongho. The three of you had always been a unit even in the Space Centre in Star 1116. Your unit was the one in charge of detecting foreign matter around your planet but you were always abusing your power- since you had access to a lot of devices and archives, you were conducting your own research about Star 1117 which almost everyone was aware of. It wasn’t something you did secretly anyway.

But even though you saw it coming, the notice that your unit was transferred to Space Patrol still made your heart sink. You went to the superiors to have them change it- Jongho and Yeosang shouldn’t be dragged into something that you insisted on doing, but the two were already there trying to do the same for you. The three of you laughed like fools afterwards as you processed what this meant-

That you were on to something and the Space Centre did not want you snooping around anymore. That was how you ended up harbouring spite for the Space Council and continuing your mission in secret. It had been a long and lonely journey for the three of you but at least you had each other. And with Wooyoung’s addition to the crew… 

Things had definitely changed for the better.

“I can understand,” Wooyoung smiled wistfully. “I didn’t exactly leave Earth on good terms either. It was quite a similar situation as yours- I would have been imprisoned for trying to expose state secrets if I had stayed any longer, so I just decided to sneak away and collect evidence about their dealings with Star 1116 and their plans for Star 1117. I feel sorry for the people I left behind- they must be dealing with my mess.”

You recalled hearing about his friends earlier- he seemed to worry about them a lot. “Do you want to go back… once you collect your evidence?”

Wooyoung shook his head. “Do you think I’ve been doing my job ever since I met you?”

“Well, I didn’t stop you from doing what you needed to do,” you muttered and he laughed.

“Look… there’s no way I’m going to go back to Earth and tell them that you exist. You’re the evidence I was trying to find, and… I’d rather keep you all to myself.”

“Jung Wooyoung,” you warned but he only took a few chugs of his beer in response. You crossed your legs, shifting to face him.

“I understand how much home means to a person, and I wouldn’t want to be someone who prevents you from going home and clearing the name of your friends. Please, I already feel guilty as it is…”

“Look, I came here to find out if the humans that got lost here were still communicating with my people back on Earth, right?” Wooyoung began. “Turns out those humans had morals after all, from what you told me. They never betrayed the aliens here and lived in harmony with the rest of the aliens here. They made a home here. Isn’t that beautiful?”

“And what about Star 1117?” You asked and Wooyoung’s lips tightened in a smile. “What have you been trying to find about Star 1117?”

“Well, you know why they sent your great grandfather and his group to the Temporal Nexus. Humans have always been in search of anything they can get their hands on; they're greedy like that. Be it slowing the ageing process or finding another planet that they can make their home. After all, Earth will collapse one day. In the solar system, they haven’t had much luck so they’ve always been secretly exploring other galaxies.”

“Is that such a bad thing?” You asked. “We’re the same. Our planet collapses and we go live on another.”

“But you take everyone with you, don’t you?” Wooyoung asked grimly and you frowned in confusion. “You do not leave your people to die, do you?”

You shook your head in denial and when he sighed, you had your answer. 

“Are humans that selfish?” 

Wooyoung stretched his arms, a melancholic smile plastered on his face. “Sometimes. Not all of them, I like to believe. It’s just the power that makes them lose their morals.”

“I guess it’s the same here then,” you shrugged. “The Space Council does not want us finding any information on Star 1117.”

“I have a feeling that they have a good reason for that. Let’s hope I’m right,” he settled the empty bottle on the deck. Yours was still half full and in your hands. You watched Wooyoung trace shapes on the surface of the deck, his dark hair falling down on his forehead. 

“Will you show me your home?” 

Wooyoung looked up at you in surprise. “Now?”

“I feel like this is the moment that I should read you,” you answered in all honesty and he looked a little confused but agreed anyway. You scooted closer and raised your hands in front of him. He awkwardly raised his own, intertwining them with yours before he realised-

“Oh, the forehead, right?” He was about to pull his hands away when you let the neurons extend and wrap around his hands, effectively binding them to yours and Wooyoung raised a brow in response, speechless for once. You stifled a smile and let the neurons wrap along the bulge of veins in his arms, the silver branches sneaking under his sleeves and taking shape along his collarbones before appearing on his neck.

When you felt Wooyoung stiffen just a fraction, you stopped, the neurons curling around his neck. You couldn’t help but notice how beautiful he looked with the silver branches on him, and it awoke a spark deep inside you. You almost felt breathless, as did he, before you asked him the one question that would make or break this moment.

“Did I scare you?”

Wooyoung looked at you for a few moments too long, watching your pupils contract and dilate in anticipation, silver like the extension of you around him. And he asked himself-

Was he scared of you? Did the idea of being so exposed to you make him want to cower away? Did he not like the way you had him trapped under you? Did he not appreciate that you were still asking for permission? 

Weren’t you only human too? Figuring out these unfamiliar feelings just like he was? 

Wooyoung decided to take a leap of faith in you and tightened his hold around your hands in answer- you had read him for a long time when he was first brought in your spaceship but that was a wholly different experience from this moment. This was so much more intimate with darkness enveloping the space, the stars twinkling like an endless glimmer around you, and the shift in your relationship now that you had warmed up to each other. 

A different way than he had warmed up to the boys, he noticed. 

“I’m not scared,” he caressed your hands in answer. “I told you before- you don’t scare me, y/n.”

You smiled in response and let the curled branches extend along his temples, wrapping around his head like a crown. You wished he could see himself in that moment, but you shut your eyes as he pushed his memories to you.

Earth. 

So different from the Earth that you had seen in your great grandfather’s memories. There was more architecture- tall greyscale buildings that threatened to touch the sky. Where was the green grass? Why did the sky no longer seem as blue as it had in the Earth that you had seen?

Suddenly, you saw exactly that- a sky of fluffy clouds with rays of sun emerging through it and painting the lush fields of grass yellow. You saw the flowers that you always loved- the same roses and daisies from your memories. There was the sound of water in the distance- waves. It had to be waves. There was the sound of a woman calling Wooyoung’s name and you looked into the distance at the small cottage. Someone zoomed past you and you twirled around again, taking a scared step back as you saw a little ball of black fur-

A cat.

A startled laugh left your lips as the cat rubbed its soft body on your bare legs. You picked it up and kissed the top of its head before running towards the smell of food- Wooyoung’s food- no, his mother’s food. The person he learned to cook from, the taste that he carried in his hands. 

The scene shifted yet again and this time, your legs were submerged in water and you looked around in confusion- why was the water falling from the sky? You craned your neck upwards to find that it was not the sky where the water was coming from but the top of a mountain, the stream crashing against deep brown rocks just like the one you sat on, a green carpet around it- moss, it was called. You had a stick in your hand and before you could figure out what to do with it, you felt two taps on your shoulders. You turned around to see a child who had a stick just like yours with a tiny creature lodged in it, threatening to fall on the ground. Scared, you cupped your hands and let the creature take refuge in your palm. You watched it carefully, the dark green bulge of its throat rising and falling in quick successions, and its tiny, webbed feet-

A frog. 

You were laughing as the frog jumped out of your palm and landed on the rock near you, joining its own little gang of friends. You washed your hands with the cool water and splashed it on the children around you.

This was what it was like to be a kid on Earth. 

You opened your eyes and saw Wooyoung smiling widely. He grinned before he asked, “Did you see it?”

“I did,” you pouted. “And I do not look like a frog, Wooyoung. Shame on you.”

Wooyoung laughed loudly, squeezing your hands subconsciously. “What else did you see?”

“Well, I saw a cat, thank you very much for that,” you smiled. “I could smell food- your mother cooked for you, right? It smells just like your food.”

“Really?” He seemed pleased to hear that.

“Exactly like that,” you confirmed. “And… I saw tall buildings. What was that?”

“That was the city where I lived before I came here, where I moved to after I grew up.”

“It looked… void of life,” you told him and he agreed. “Earth has changed.”

“We call it ‘modernised’,” he shrugged. “But yeah. Earth has changed, and so have its people.”

“Do you want to see my home someday?” You asked, beginning to retract your neurons and he shivered slightly. “It’s not much, but it’s definitely something like the Earth that my great grandfather left behind. And I wish I could show you like you showed me, but… you can see it in person.”

“You’d take me to Star 1116?” He asked in surprise.

“Yeah, well, don’t think I’m doing it for you,” You started and he scoffed. “It looks like we’ll have to go anyway- at least to warn the people if things don’t work out.”

“Well,” Wooyoung kept his hands intertwined with yours even after your neurons were fully retracted. “I’m not one to give false hope but let’s not give up and stay optimistic about this, okay?”

You nodded and looked at his hands that fit so well with yours, and you found yourself thinking how truly incredible it was to be this fascinated by such a simple thing as your hands in someone else’s. And that led you to think about how much you had changed since you met the human from Earth.

Wooyoung seemed to have noticed that you were deep in thought and he leaned down a bit to enter your vision, gently asking, “What are you thinking?”

You looked at his deep brown eyes that glinted with mischief and curiosity as he held your gaze. You let your eyes travel along the slope of his nose, pausing at his parted lips that were starting to curve into a smirk.

“I’m thinking you’re too close,” you muttered, pushing him back but he only pulled you closer which induced a startled gasp from you. 

You sucked in your breath just as quickly when he caressed your knuckles with his thumb before planting a kiss on both your hands. He then proceeded to look at you, his gaze almost darkening.

“Too close?” He asked, almost as a challenge. You were too surprised to answer, an unfamiliar but pleasant feeling pooling in your stomach. 

“Let go of my hands before I chop your hands into pieces,” you warned and he immediately let go, raising his hands in surrender and he would have thought that you were serious were it not for the laugh that you let out afterwards.

“And you said I don’t scare you?” You scoffed. “Try harder, Wooyoung.”

“Hey,” he scoffed back in utter disbelief. “You played dirty. I cherish my hands, okay? If you shred my hands into pieces I can’t do this-”

He grabbed your wrist and pulled you close- a bit too close, so that your faces were mere centimetres apart. Your eyes widened in surprise and when his initial surprise wore off, he tilted his head a bit, his eyes scanning your face and looking for any signs of apprehension. Upon finding none, he proceeded to cup your face with his other hand.

“If you hurt my hands, I can’t hold you like this, can I?” He whispered.

“Wooyoung-” you began but he shook his head, planting a chaste kiss on your forehead and grinning cheekily afterwards, making you smile shyly. 

“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” he said, letting go and scooting away this time. “Don’t go all kitty claws on me please-”

This time, you decided to show him just what Yeosang had meant when he called your hands kitty claws. If it was the planet Earth, or even Star 1116, his shrieks and laughter would have woken creatures from their deep slumber.

But since it was just your spaceship, it only made Jongho and Yeosang grunt in their sleep and his voice was lost to the stars.

—------------------------

“This is insanity,” you managed to say, your breaths quickening with every second as you monitored the radar, watching not one, not two, but three patrol spaceships enter the range of your spaceship, quickly covering the distance behind you.

“We’re running away, right?” Jongho asked but didn’t wait for the answer, pressing a button and activating the speed boost, though that did nothing to calm you. You climbed up to the dome to take a look at your surroundings, zooming through the glasses that all of you had on since you spotted a spaceship following you. 

A number of things had happened in the last few days which led you to this point, so close to finding out the source of the signal Wooyoung had been receiving on his radio. Your names were circulated among all the residents of the Temporal Nexus with a significant bounty on your head, and even Wooyoung’s face was plastered on the ‘wanted’ posters. That prompted you all to cut contact with everyone including your family and acquaintances, though Yeosang had sent a warning to the families and assured them that you would be okay. However, the anxiety that came with the possibility that you all might not ever be able to go back home gnawed at all of you.

For now, there were more important matters. Jongho worked on camouflaging the spaceship as best as possible while the rest of you worked on tracing the signal to the most accurate location, finding yourself in unfamiliar territories. The Temporal Nexus was a vast galaxy and your spaceship was well-equipped so it allowed you to cover a great amount of distance in a short amount of time but there were some spaces in the galaxy that were considered ‘red zones’ or unsafe, to put it simply. These spaces were usually considered to be a hotspot for mysterious, unexplainable spatial activity and it was thought to be the points where a planet may have completed its orbit in time, resulting in a ‘tear’ in space. To the naked eye, it would seem like a mass of vividly coloured gases with little electrical sparks emerging from it. All the residents of the Temporal Nexus knew to avoid it-

But the residents of Temporal Nexus weren’t nosy like you were. And how could you ignore it when the signal was coming right from that point? It was only a matter of time before the Space Patrol around the red zones would detect your spaceship and be on your tail-

And here you were. Just a few hundred tem-nex units away from the red zone, from the source of your signal, the Space Patrol quickly catching up, the boys preparing to attack while you monitored the situation- it was just an excuse to take a breather and think where did it all start going so wrong. If you got arrested now, it would be the end.

“Captain?” Jongho called. “We’re closing up on the red zone. What do we do?”

“We can’t steer around it, can we?” You asked grimly, climbing down and going to look at the map that highlighted all the red zones in the galaxy- there were about eight red zones in your proximity alone and the only clear path was your way back which was now crowded with space patrols.

“Not really- I don’t think we can lose them,” Jongho took a deep breath.

“I say we keep going,” Wooyoung said. He had been monitoring the radio which started malfunctioning as soon as you entered the range of the red zone. “We’re getting signals from there- all the messages we got are from that mass,” he pointed at the blue cloud of gas not far from you now. 

“It’s dangerous,” Yeosang shook his head. “There’s no telling what could happen once we enter that mass.”

“Only one way to find out,” Wooyoung’s lip curved in a smirk. “I have a feeling there’s a reason the space patrol is hell bent on catching us before we reach the red zone, and it’s not our safety.”

“Makes sense,” Jongho agreed. “There have been instances of people trying to get to one of the red zones but never have the space patrol been so active in trying to stop them. Usually one ship is enough.” 

“We are wanted criminals,” you reminded them. “They have a reason.”

“And what’s the reason?” Wooyoung asked. “That you almost found out information about Star 1117’s location? And now you’re going to the red zone? Hell, if I had to say, it would look like you’re on the right path.”

Yeosang exchanged glances with you- Wooyoung was on to something. It made sense- if you had tried stealing information about any other thing, perhaps the Space Council wouldn’t have reacted so brashly. 

“Alright, forwards we go,” you announced and Jongho nodded, immediately going back to steering the spaceship. “But if at any point we feel like it’s dangerous, we’re going back, space patrol or not.”

“Got it,” Jongho grinned, speeding up the ship once again. You went back to the dome to activate the shield, deciding not to go on the offensive for as long as you could manage- you didn’t want more charges added to your criminal record.

For a few moments, all of you focused on your tasks- Yeosang blasting any rocket that came your way, Jongho focusing on entering the red zone while Wooyoung assisted him, monitoring the radio. You gave directions from the dome, silently praying that this mission would not be a futile one when you heard the familiar static noise from the broken radio. 

Immediately, all of you were hovering around Wooyoung and watching the radio try to display a message on its screen but failing to. It looked like something was disrupting its signals.

“It has to be because we’re near, right?” Wooyoung looked up at you and you nodded. 

“Keep following the source- I’m going to try and get readings from outside,” you told them but before you could move and anyone else could verbally stop you, Wooyoung grabbed your wrist.

“Don’t go outside. It’s too dangerous.”

“I’m only opening the dome,” you told him gently, your heart clutching at the sight of worry in his eyes- for you. “I’ll be right here.”

Wooyoung hesitantly let you go and you gave him a small smile before going back up and opening the dome, taking a little peek out. You rested your palms on the surface of the exterior and let the neurons spread around the spaceship so you could read the air and the surroundings- it didn’t always work but sometimes when there was something foreign in the air, you could read it.

“We’re entering the red zone in front of us in about two minutes, Captain,” Jongho warned. “You sure you want to be out?” 

“I’ll be fine- it’s not dangerous,” you assured him but still shut the dome halfway in case you would have to retreat in an emergency.

However, nothing could have prepared you for what happened next. 

Jongho announced that you were going to enter the zone in about thirty seconds and Yeosang positioned himself beside you with his gun. The two of you were covering the back of the spaceship when the air around you turned foggy, indicating that you were in the red zone’s range. You were just trying to get a reading when you saw something from the corner of your eye-

“Jongho!” You warned but it was too late- another spaceship came out of nowhere from within the red zone and hit the back of your spaceship so that Jongho lost control of the steering. The impact of the collision made your spaceship swerve dangerously to the left, making it spin. Yeosang lost his footing and unceremoniously landed down, shouting in warning and you retracted your neurons just in time to draw your hands back before the domed window fell back in its place. You would have fallen in a painful position but Yeosang managed to catch you just in time, though the rocking of your spaceship still made your head bang against the ladder rather painfully.

“I got it!” Jongho shouted and managed to stabilise the ship, and the gasp that he let out when he finally got a clear view outside made you wonder if something had gone wrong-

But Wooyoung looked just as speechless. Yeosang helped you up, making sure you were okay before you two joined them to look at the scene outside-

It was the same pitch black darkness of the space, void of any stars but surrounded by the blue masses of gas. And right at the centre was a small, glowing thing- it was too far to make out its shape but it looked like a rock from afar.

“Are we inside the red zone?” You asked in confusion.

“We crossed it, and now we’re inside the space surrounded by the red zones,” Jongho settled back in his seat in surprise. 

“And we’re getting a proper signal- look,” Wooyoung managed to add amidst the confusion of the situation, pointing at Jongho’s device that you had used to track the signal from Wooyoung’s radio. 

“There’s no one following us anymore” Yeosang went to check from the dome as if he couldn’t believe the radar readings. “We’re alone here.”

“Did you see the ship that crashed with ours?” You asked and Yeosang shook his head in denial. “Damage report?”

“Minor, nothing to be worried about for now,” Jongho assured. “So? Do we inspect that? Why is it glowing like that?”

You looked at the luminous thing in the middle of the space- this couldn’t be Star 1117, right? It was too small to be a planet. Was Yeosang right then? Was this just a byproduct rock or mass of the star that was once a planet?

“Before we go,” you began, a suspicion gnawing at you. “Let me read the collision real quick. There’s something odd about the spaceship that collided with ours.”

“Right? We didn’t detect it on the radar,” Jongho said. 

“That might have been because of whatever was messing with the radio signals?” Wooyoung suggested but you weren’t sure. You went back to climb the ladder that led to the dome and this time, you sat outside on the surface while you protracted the neurons to read.

And what you saw made cold wash all over you- you must have let out a surprised sound because Yeosang was outside with you, his eyes filled with worry.

“It can’t be,” you shook your head. Nothing made sense anymore. 

“What is it?” Yeosang asked. “Tell me.”

“It was our spaceship,” you told him and he frowned in confusion. “I saw our spaceship- this exact one.”

“That’s impossible,” Yeosang shook his head. “Maybe you’re wrong?”

“I’ve never been wrong,” a grim realisation started to dawn on you and you beckoned him to follow you down. “It wasn’t detected on our radar because it’s our spaceship. And it must have crashed with ours to bring us here, to this point.”

“Are you thinking… duplicates? Time travel?” Jongho looked at you in disbelief. “I could call you crazy if we weren’t here right now, but… you know those are just theories, right?”

“You can choose not to believe me,” you said, understanding his point, “But I know what I saw.”

“Time travel in the Temporal Nexus, huh?” Wooyoung scratched his chin in thought. “Isn’t that what Temporal Nexus means in the first place? A point where different timelines intersect?”

“That refers to the points in our galaxy when the cycle of one planet comes to a completion right when the cycle of another planet begins,” Yeosang said, his eyes narrowing in thought. “Unless…”

“Unless your Space Council decided that’s what you all should know?” Wooyoung smiled knowingly. “Just like they didn’t tell you about that thing? About the red zones? About Star 1117? About Star 1118?”

“Let’s just… inspect that first before we start drawing conclusions,” Jongho said weakly and you all agreed, taking a seat next to the two. You sat next to Wooyoung and looked at him- could he be right?

He seemed to understand exactly what you were feeling, and when he slid his hand in yours, you didn’t draw away. You held it and squeezed it back. You needed that.

And it seemed like he needed that more when you started getting closer to the luminous form and realised that it looked more like a person than a rock or a star.

“Am I… going crazy?” Jongho asked, pressing the side of his glasses to zoom in, “or is that a literal fucking person hovering in the middle of space?”

“Are you sure that’s our source?” Yeosang sounded doubtful as he looked at Wooyoung who was beyond speechless, for once. You checked for him and sure enough, you were on the right path.

“Stop the spaceship,” you said when you saw the figure move and Jongho immediately did. The figure- person- turned around and all of you wowed and cursed under your breaths. 

“That’s just… an Original Nexi, right?” Yeosang stood up to get a better view, prompting Jongho to continue approaching the figure. “Apart from the… glowing part.”

It sure looked like one- it had the characteristic androgynous appearance of one, with a stone etched under one eye like a teardrop. Jongho stopped the spaceship and looked at you.

“Are we inviting them in or are you going out?”

“No way that thing steps inside,” Yeosang shivered involuntarily. “I don’t want my spaceship glowing and sticking out like a sore thumb.”

“I’m pretty sure the glowing isn’t contagious,” Jongho laughed. “But he’s right. It’s better if the two of you go out. We humans can chill and watch, right, Wooyoung?”

“Right,” he sank lower in his seat. “You’re on your own, sweethearts.”

Yeosang scowled at the human before extending his hand for you. 

“Don’t even try to read that thing,” Wooyoung warned in a low voice. You pursed your lips in answer before you joined Yeosang, exiting the spaceship from the dome and climbing down at the shaft that Jongho had opened for you to stand on. 

You were now facing the figure, standing tall and powerful- there was no way this was just one of the Original Nexi- this person and everything about their presence was making you want to sink to your knees. 

“Ah… how many times have we crossed paths now?” Its voice, smooth as silk, sounded inside you. Startled, you looked at Yeosang who was just as shocked, if not more.

“I don’t think we have crossed paths…” you narrowed your eyes as the person smiled knowingly. “Who are you?”

“I take it you got the message, then? It must be our first time meeting,” the person sighed as if the weight of the world was crushing it down. You noticed how up close, the glow from its skin wasn’t as obvious- perhaps, you were engulfed in it now. 

“Who are you?” Yeosang asked. “And how are you here, like this?”

“Who do you think?” It asked, positioning itself so it looked like it was perched on an invisible surface. “You are looking for Star 1118, right?”

“And how do you know that?” You asked. This time, there was no apprehension in your voice but simply curiosity and wonder. 

“Because I am the one you have been looking for,” the smile on its lips was so sad that it made you want to cry. “I am the one you saved and the one you let go of. I am the beginning and the end of this Temporal Nexus- I am Temporal Nexus, in its truest form. I am what you call Star 1117, and what you will call Star 1118 if you make the mistake of saving me.”

This time, your knees did go weak and Yeosang let out a gasp, utterly astounded. The person just watched you both with eyes that were both apologetic and full of resentment.

“Star 1117… is a person?” You breathed. 

“Not really,” Star 1117 shrugged, the golden long hair flowing like a halo around its figure. “Just one of my forms. Just one of my names.”

“I don’t understand,” you said, turning to look at Jongho and Wooyoung who were listening in to your conversation from inside, both equally dumbfounded.

“Sweet child of the Nexi,” Star 1117 began. “I am the Temporal Nexus. I am all the stars in this galaxy and their cycle. I am the Original Nexi, the very first, and all of you are my descendants. At this moment, I am Star 1117- Star 1116’s cycle is almost complete and as a cycle comes to completion, I start assuming the next form. This is my final form, for the final cycle- there are no planets anymore- not after 1116.”

You did not know for how long you simply watched the person’s figure shimmer as if it was also a mass of gas- perhaps, if you touched it, your hand would pass right through its form. You and Yeosang stood in shock, trying to process your thoughts.

Star 1117 was a person, not a planet. This being was the core of the Temporal Nexus.

“If you are the Temporal Nexus,” Yeosang began, glancing at you for a moment before continuing, “you must be the past and the present. Isn’t the last cycle supposed to be the 1117th?”

“As the fates have intended, yes,” Star 1117 nodded. “And you’re out here to change that. In fact, you do. You find a way to save me and have the Temporal Nexus live its 1118th cycle. But that is where everything goes wrong,” the person smiled in a melancholic manner. “The Temporal Nexus is supposed to die with its intended last cycle. If you try to change the design of the universe, the universe finds a way to retaliate.”

“‘Do not save 1118’,” you quoted. “Why?”

“Because you triggered not only the end of the Temporal Nexus but the end of the galaxies surrounding me!” Star 1117’s voice boomed this time, making you clutch Yeosang’s hand. “The solar system is next- it will swallow in on itself, before its intended time. There will only be an end and no beginnings anymore.”

“That’s impossible,” you shook your head in disbelief. “You sent a message- to not save 1118. That means you were alive.”

“Oh, I was alive long enough to find a way to make things right,” Star 1117 smirked. “The human in your spaceship- it is he who sent my message. It is him who crashed into your spaceship just now so you made it here- it is him who gave us another chance to make things right and not make selfish decisions.”

You turned to look at Wooyoung who had an incredulous look on his face as he pointed at himself. You turned back to the Original Nexi.

“How?” Yeosang asked.

“In the time when I’m 1118, I’m weak and I fall,” Star 1117 admitted grimly. “The human who never made it to Star 1117 and never met any of you found my weak form. With his help, we formed the last link to the past and here we are. He does not remember because it is not him- it is the person who crashed his spaceship in yours. His origin and conclusion will remain to be unknown until you make a decision- save me, which will lead me to the human on Earth, or let me go, which will take us to a new path- perhaps, one where the world doesn’t end like that.”

“It was our spaceship that crashed into us,” you said.

“And I always wondered how he came to possess it,” Star 1117 sighed. “I hope you make the decision that leads to that moment in this timeline.”

“The decision to let you go?” You scoffed. “We will have no home- what about all of the Nexi? Aren’t they your children? Do you not care for them?”

“I do. But I have lived long enough, and I have seen what happens if you try to save your galaxy. Do not make the mistakes you have made so many times now,” Star 1117 almost pleaded. “Do not save me. Save yourselves.”

“I will save my home and the people who matter to me,” you said through gritted teeth. Yeosang put a warning hand on your shoulder but you shook it off. “You are the Temporal Nexus. You can’t die like this- you can’t take away my world- our world,” you motioned at the boys inside the spaceship. “I will find a way to save you and the galaxy.”

With that, you turned on your heels, not waiting for Yeosang. You were far too overwhelmed to think or care. 

“There is no other way. You have tried everything. You have failed every time.”

Star 1117’s words were lost to space. Yeosang stood awkwardly, wanting to follow you inside but having too many questions of his own to do that. He turned to the being. 

“If you are the Original Nexi, does that not mean that you grow old and young like your descendants?”

“I did, in the beginning, when I was young. When I was Star 1,” Star 1117 smiled. “After a certain time, when I started approaching my end, I got stuck in this miserable state, unable to age and unable to do anything but exist and die a little with each cycle,” the star raised its hand, proving that indeed, there was a translucence to its body indicating the weariness that dripped from its voice in a physical form. “Your people- the Space Council- they protected me and tried to help me, but to no avail. They realise that there is no answer to this. Some things are meant to die at their time, Kang Yeosang. Tell your friends that I have suffered enough for this world.”

—-------------------------------

You must be human, you thought, because you couldn’t stop crying.

Ever since the conversation with Star 1117, you had been overwhelmed to no end. You came back to the spaceship and shut yourself in your room. You knew the boys let you have your space for a while but it was Jongho who came to knock on your door first. 

“Captain? You alright in there?”

You didn’t respond though you were pretty sure he could hear your sniffles. He continued. “I’m not exiting the red zone until you’re out, okay? Until I have your orders. Take your time, I understand.”

You muttered a thank you and that was enough for Jongho. It was Yeosang who came next to check on you.

“All that talk about not being as emotional as a human. Tsk tsk. Look at you,” Yeosang said, attempting to lighten the mood. You did let out a dark chuckle though that only made you cry some more. 

“Come on. Tell me what’s got you crying so much.”

“I just need a few minutes,” you told him. “I’m sorry for being a mess.”

“It’s okay- just… come to us if it’s too much, okay? You’re not alone.”

You knew that. You were not alone, however, you had never felt more lonely. And you were starting to realise why-

You had subconsciously read Star 1117. While Star 1117 had been making all those claims, your neurons protracted just a fraction. The luminous light around you was a part of the being after all-

And all you got to read was pain. Extreme pain- not the physical kind, but the one that weighed on your soul. You felt utter loneliness- one that crushed you like nothing else. You felt the urge to cease existing but also felt helplessness like nothing else. No wonder Star 1117 had sounded so weary. You couldn’t imagine being in its place.

But then… what about your home? What about your people? What guarantee was there that you could all make it safely out of the Temporal Nexus when the last cycle comes to a conclusion? You had only one purpose in life ever since you understood how your home would die in your lifetime- and that was to prevent it. If you could not stop the unavoidable, you would have liked to have found a new home-

But there would be no home in the Temporal Nexus anymore. This spaceship was not a home. Space pods were not home- besides, you would have to find a place in another galaxy. What if you were never welcomed anywhere anymore? What if your family and friends refused to leave this galaxy?

You must have stopped crying a while ago, staring endlessly at the plain ceiling when a knock sounded. You had no energy to hum a response. The door clicked open and someone peeked in.

“I’m coming in,” Wooyoung announced, sitting next to you on the floor in a similar crouching position, your backs against the wall.

“Drink some water- please,” Wooyoung requested and you finally spared him a glance, taking the water bottle and drinking a few gulps.

The water from Star 1116. That was your home.

“Did you finally process all of it?” Wooyoung asked.

“I don’t know what to do,” you told him, “I’m so lost.”

“You read Star 1117, didn’t you?” Wooyoung asked gently, already knowing the answer. He couldn’t help but slide closer when you nodded with an absolutely heartbreaking expression, tears in your eyes. He intertwined his hand with yours and let you rest your head on his shoulder- he could tell you were tired but he needed to tell you something too.

He told you that he went outside to have a conversation with Star 1117, and he told you what he learned from it- specifically about Star 1118 and Wooyoung’s role in all of this.

“The Temporal Nexus is the point where the past, the present and the future meet,” Wooyoung explained, his voice uncharacteristically soft. “In the past, there was an alien girl who was half-human but had beef with her own human counterpart. Her name was y/n-”

“Wooyoung-” you warned though the two of you shared a chuckle over that. 

“She was the captain of her little crew, with Jongho the human driver, and Yeosang the pretty alien… fighter? Engineer? What even is his role?”

“We don’t have roles, we just… make do with what we can do,” you shook your head. “But carry on.”

“Right. So, the Captain learns that Star 1116’s cycle is about to end, and that Star 1117 is not a planet but a being by infiltrating into the Space Council- this time through the main door, not the vents,” Wooyoung laughed. “She learns about how the Space Council have also been trying to find a solution to save their home but are closer to giving up than to finding answers. Together- because that time you don’t become a space criminal- you find a way to prolong Star 1117’s cycle by concentrating the energy of all the red zones scattered out in the galaxy and transferring it to the last cycle.”

“That makes sense,” you nodded. “Red zones are energy byproducts of the previous planets.”

“Right? Star 1117 reluctantly agrees, and you all succeed- Star 1116’s cycle prolongs and leaks to Star 1117’s. The original last cycle, the 1117th, was supposed to be a shorter one since it’s just the galaxy ending itself before it reaches the 1118th cycle. But this time, the 1118th cycle begins. You all realise that you made a grave mistake and that the galaxy will eat itself like it was supposed to, but since it requires more energy to do that now, it will swallow the neighbouring galaxies and possibly trigger the end.”

You took a deep breath. “I triggered the end.”

“Not you alone, but basically… yeah. It suits you, doesn’t it?” Wooyoung chuckled, letting go of your hand to wrap his arm around your shoulders and caress your arms assuringly. 

“Not helping,” you muttered.

“Well,” Wooyoung huffed in resignation. “You try to make things right. You get this spaceship to Star 1117 and get it on board- its form is weakened by then and it is Star 1118 by that time. You set the destination to Earth, knowing someone on Earth would have figured out that their solar system was going to collapse soon and would do anything to change things. You leave the poor Star alone and go to save your family and friends.”

“And Star 1118 makes it to you?”

“Somehow, yes,” Wooyoung nodded. “I have always studied the Temporal Nexus deeply, so when I receive signals on my radio- yes, the radio I have now- I go to investigate the source and find your spaceship underwater near my hometown. With the help of my friends and the Space Centre on Earth, I recover that ship and find an ethereal being inside- Star 1118. Since the being is the Temporal Nexus- the past, the present, and the future of your galaxy- it finds traces of itself on me from another time.”

“Oh heavens,” you raised your head up to look at him. “It’s a time loop, isn’t it?”

“More romantic than that. We were meant to meet, y/n,” he smiled widely, pinching your nose but you were too surprised to react. “Star 1118 sets the loop into motion- or rather, propels it forwards and backwards, forwards and backwards. Jung Wooyoung now has one mission- to find the tear in space that will transport him to that moment to warn you-”

“The spaceship that collided with us,” you breathed, understanding how it worked. “It must have taken a few attempts.”

“Hence why it is a loop,” Wooyoung nodded. “However, Jung Wooyoung also did something else, which was quite genius of him if I have to say.”

“And what’s that?”

“Jung Wooyoung and Star 1118 worked together to send messages to my radio, which prompted the present me to make different decisions. And here we are,” he concluded with a dramatic sigh. “Things have changed. You can still make the same decisions and it might lead to a time where Star 1118 is not able to go to Earth to warn Jung Wooyoung. That would be the end. Or…”

“Or I could let it be,” you shrugged away from Wooyoung’s arm and buried your face in your hands. 

“I think you already know, but Star 1117 has suffered a lot,” Wooyoung said, and you were once again amazed by how gently he talked to you despite knowing what you had done- what you might do. “It suffered alone for 1117 cycles. You put an end to its sufferings and you might find a new home. A better one.”

“My home is Star 1116,” you said, though the words started to sound like a weight over your heart now. “Not everyone can let go of their home.”

“I thought you understood by now that home is where the heart is,” Wooyoung said and you looked at him to find him smiling. “Where’s your heart, y/n?”

Like the soft embrace of a mother, you felt the answer wrap around the physical organ that was your heart- the answer that was a feeling, an emotion- and not strictly a human one at all. You didn’t have to be human to understand that your heart belonged to the people around you- to your family because they were yours, to Jongho and Yeosang who were your friends, and to Wooyoung- the human who had to be your saving grace. 

Home was also the house and the land where you grew up, but it was not the location or the building that made it a part of your heart- it was the things that you associated with home. Your alien mother, your human father. Their parents who had once lived there, whose memory clung to the walls and was etched in the frames that sat on the mantle. Home was the lake next to your house but what made it a part of your heart was the memories of splashing water on Jongho and Yeosang, and the memories of your parents teaching you how to swim.

Home was where the heart was. And as long as you had the pieces of your heart next to you, you would be home.

“Did you find the answer?” Wooyoung cupped your face to wipe the tears that left your eyes, smiling knowingly. You smiled back, clutching his hands that were caressing your cheeks.

“Home is where the heart is,” you told him, your voice wet with emotions. “And you are my heart, Jung Wooyoung.”

Wooyoung’s eyes curved like moons as his smile grew wider. He nodded, the two of you sharing a laugh. You couldn’t help but notice how beautiful this piece of your heart was. You leaned forward to rest your hands on his neck, surprising him a bit. His hands went to rest on your waist and you pecked his lips, looking at him shyly before pecking them again, unable to look at him any longer so you closed the distance between you two as you hugged him. He let out a laugh of disbelief before he relaxed, burying his nose in the crook of your neck and hugging you back just as tightly, rocking your bodies slightly.

“I found a home with you too,” he whispered. “Thank you.”

You nodded, your heart filling with foreign emotions- like a pleasant tickle to your heart. Perhaps, this was what it felt like to give your heart to someone.

—-----------------------------------

Everything was happening too soon for your liking, but with the help of your friends, you were coming to terms with the fact that you could not save the Temporal Nexus Galaxy- that there was nothing that could be done and the best decision you could make was to let Star 1117 go. 

You stayed in the red zone for a whole day after your talk with Wooyoung. Exiting the red zone would mean confronting the Space Patrol and you had to make a decision before that. Jongho and Yeosang were coping by studying about time loops and talking to Star 1117 about how it worked and if there was any possibility that could work- if Star 1117 was all the past, present and the future of the Temporal Nexus, it would know if any of the decisions the residents of its galaxy made led to a hopeful future. But there was none. 

After exhausting every possibility, they finally came to talk to you and let you know that they had made their decisions- they were going to get their families out of Star 1116 and find a new home. They were also aware that some of their families and acquaintances might choose to stay and disintegrate with the planet, with their home. Now they were just waiting for you to make your decision.

And it was a little conversation with Jongho that made you wonder just what you had been so bitter about.

You joined him by the window as he stared at the blue masses of energy around the spaceship. He smiled to acknowledge your presence before saying, “Wouldn’t it be so good if we could just go back to the past and relive our childhood?”

You smiled back- your childhood really was a fond memory, something you kept very close to your heart. “How young are we talking?”

“Hmm… good question. What would you say is your happiest memory on Star 1116?”

“Honestly? Probably the time when I showed you and Yeosang that I finally learned to swim. We had a little fight afterwards about whose technique was better,” you said and he grinned at that. 

“What do you think? Would you like to go back to the past?”  

You pursed your lips in thought. Sure, your past was a golden memory and saying that you missed that time and wanted to go back wasn’t supposed to hold literal meaning, but if you were offered to go back, would you?

“What about you?” You asked.

Jongho exhaled, putting his hands in his pockets. “I wouldn’t. I like where I am now. I’m still with you and Yeosang. Nothing has changed.”

You nodded- your answer was the same. 

“And I will continue to be where the two of you are,” Jongho added. “Create more happy memories. Hell, maybe we’ll look back to this moment one day, right?”

You nodded slowly. Wooyoung had changed your perspective a lot and you were finally starting to understand Jongho.

“I might even visit Earth and see what the hype is about,” Jongho suggested and you chuckled. “Maybe we can all go to drop Wooyoung. He’s slowly taking over the spaceship. Next thing we know we’ll be calling him captain and he’ll be slaving us.”

“Right? Maybe we can chuck him into that mass and see where he lands,” you pointed at the red zone in front of you, sharing a laugh with Jongho. 

“You know, I thought about it a lot, why in all the timelines that exist, according to Star 1117, you- we keep making the same decision- trying to save the galaxy. Do you know what’s the only difference this time and why we all are seriously considering letting things be?”

“Wooyoung?”

“Yes,” Jongho confirmed. “This is the only timeline known to Star 1117 where he makes a different decision and ends up being a part of the crew. Makes you think about how the butterfly effect works, right?” He ruminated. “In all the timelines, we made different decisions that led us to the same outcome- apocalypse. Things are very different now, and this might be our last chance at making sure we do not trigger the apocalypse.”

“I know,” you folded your arms around you, hugging yourself. “We can’t be the only factor triggering the apocalypse though, right? What if we make the right decisions this time but we still end up losing everything?”

“Well… only one way to find out- if we make the right decisions now,” Jongho looked at you, hope in his eyes. “So. Did you make a decision?”

“I think you know,” you looked wistfully into the space around you. “Let’s go say goodbye to our home.”

Jongho smiled proudly at you. “Star 1117 told me that you were very bitter and hellbent on saving the galaxy in all the timelines. It’s good to see you smile like this, Captain. You seem almost human.”

“I am human,” you said casually but for Jongho, it was the first time hearing you acknowledge your human lineage and he put a hand over his mouth dramatically to stifle a gasp. You only rolled your eyes in response, spotting Wooyoung from the corner of your eye who simply passed you both a cheeky smile and waved before disappearing into the kitchen. You recalled just how adamant you had been about not accepting that you were human too. 

But being human didn’t sound so bad anymore.

And with that decision, you said your goodbye to Star 1117. The being did not thank you for making the right decision. It simply curled in on itself and weeped, the tears escaping its eyelids and evaporating into the air like glitter. You felt the being’s exhaustion and sadness as though it was tangible and that only made you more sure about what you had to do.

Right as you exited the red-zone territory, there was a spaceship waiting for you. It signalled for you to stop and a person stepped out, displaying their Space Council id and demanding to enter your ship. For a moment, you were scared of the consequences of your action- were you going to be arrested now? Would you not get to say goodbye to your home? But when the person made an okay sign, a collective sigh of relief passed and Yeosang pressed the button to open the door for them.

The tall figure clad in a black striped suit with a waistcoat entered, looking around your spaceship with curiosity. You noticed silver extensions on one of his hands, kind of like your neurons except they almost looked like an accessory. The other hand was covered in a black glove and you wondered why.

“Greetings,” he smiled. “I’m Jeong Yunho from the Space Council. It’s good to finally meet you, y/n.”

“Me?” You frowned. “Do I know you?”

“You don’t,” he shrugged, “but I do. From multiple timelines. I’ve been on your case since the very first timeline, working with Star 1117 to find a solution that does not involve exterminating you because Star 1117 insisted that while you and your friends may be its doom, you could also be its saviour.”

You suddenly felt dizzy at his admission.

“Maybe one day I’ll tell you about my adventures chasing your crew,” Yunho chuckled. “But for now… I’d like to accompany you to Star 1116 and make sure you stay on the right track. You will need me if you want to go home because I have not yet lifted your criminal charges. And… you have an unregistered human aboard,” Yunho glanced at Wooyoung who waved his hand awkwardly. “We have a lot to do, folks.”

You scanned his figure with suspicion, your neurons extracting subconsciously wanting to get a reading from him. He noticed that.

“If it helps,” he began. “I’m one of the Original Nexi. There’s a group of us that work in the Space Council solely for the sake of protecting Star 1117.”

“You’re letting Star 1117 die, though,” Yeosang commented in your stead and you silently thanked him. That had been on the tip of your tongue too.

“The Temporal Nexus is called temporal for a reason, isn’t it?” He retorted. “To protect the essence of Star 1117 and this galaxy is to protect its heart- its residents. But I think you all already understand that by now.”

The knowing smile he passed you made you want to ask more questions but he interrupted with clapping and barking orders- you were apparently short on time now and needed to inform the residents of Star 1116 and the rest of the galaxy as soon as possible so everyone could make the big decisions and they could initiate their final operation- to leave the galaxy for good.

And it was no surprise that it was Wooyoung who got the Original Nexi to talk and open up. While Jongho set the spaceship on auto towards Star 1116, the three of you watched from a corner, huddled next to each other. Not too far on the table sat Wooyoung with a warm meal for Yunho, learning anything and everything about the Original Nexi and Yunho himself, learning about his experience with your crew in the different timelines and more. You didn’t even realise that you were biting your nails with narrowed eyes full of scepticism until Wooyoung looked around for you and laughed at the sight of the three of you.

“I guess I’m relaxed because it is actually our first meeting- we haven’t met in any other timeline,” Wooyoung grinned. “Not that I would have known if we had anyway. Right?”

“Right,” Yunho grinned back, shaking his head at the three of you. “Just a reminder that we were friends in some timeline and enemies in the other.”

“Yeah, I think I can understand why,” Yeosang muttered, looking pointedly at Wooyoung. 

“How are you able to remember the timelines?” Jongho asked his first question in a while.

“These,” Yunho raised both his hands and shared a look with you. “We’re quite similar, but I’m able to look into different timelines too.”

You made an impressed face and the blinkers lit up, indicating that you were reaching Star 1116’s territory. Jongho went to steer the spaceship himself and Yunho joined him, striking up a conversation having noticed the equipment on the dashboard. While the two talked, Wooyoung joined you and Yeosang, resting his hand on your knee and squeezing it to make sure you were okay. You nodded in response and pointed at the screen, your heart filling with warmth at the sight of the star.

“We’re home.”

Home. As soon as you could see the lush green fields that surrounded your house, you were on your feet and making your way to the screen, eager to step out. You would have to land at the Space Centre where you previously worked and Yunho made sure you could pass through every security check without any inconvenience. Wooyoung stood next to you and you told him all about the Space Centre and your time as a unit there. 

Wooyoung’s eyes were filled with awe, his mouth parted in surprise as you all stepped out of the spaceship. The view from the screen had been good, yes, but nothing compared to stepping inside that picture, and for Wooyoung who was a human from Earth… you wondered if that was what your great grandparents and their team must have felt when they first landed on Star 1116.

“It’s like Earth, you were right,” Wooyoung nodded, almost jumping when a few will-o’-the-wisps circled his figure and fluttered away. Jongho giggled at his reaction and smacked his back.

“Like Earth but prettier, right?” He said. “That’s what I keep hearing.”

“No, you heard that right,” Wooyoung agreed. “Our grass looks dull compared to this- how is it so vibrant?”

“Wait till you see the lakes,” you told him, knowing that was probably the most surprising part from the memories of your great grandfather. 

“We should show him the cave too!” Yeosang joined you both. “It’s a nice spot to bury him- no one would know. He’ll be dust along with the planet-”

“And he would never make it past the tarantulas that protect the cave,” Jongho chuckled darkly and Wooyoung decided he felt safer with Yunho, falling in step with him while the Nexi shook his head in amusement at the interaction. 

“You should have chucked me in the red zone,” Wooyoung folded his arms and you snickered until you realised that he must have heard that bit from your conversation with Jongho. You exchanged a glance with the youngest who pointed at you, transferring all the blame. Wooyoung’s pout deepened and you took a deep breath.

“Boys, I’m going to steal this one for a while,” you went towards Wooyoung and hooked your arm around his, your crew hooting in appreciation and suggestively wiggling their brows, Yeosang going as far as pretending to gag. You asked Yunho if it was fine and he assured that it was, asking all of you to meet up back at the Space Centre in a few hours. You intertwined your hand with Wooyoung’s.

“What would you like to see first?”

“Hmm…” Wooyoung took a while to think, his eyes scanning everything in sight the further you walked away from the Space Centre, looking at the passersby with curiosity- you couldn’t blame him. The residents of Star 1116 looked far from human in their appearance- from looking almost human like Yeosang to having iridescent coloured skin or accessories like horns or wings.

“Show me your favourite places- all of them,” Wooyoung looked at you, kissing your temple. “Show me the shade of the tree near your house where you grew up, the lake… the places from the journals that you talked about- everything.”

“Would you like to meet my family too?” You asked hesitantly, not sure if the human would be up to it but his warm smile erased any doubts in your heart.

“I would love to.”

“My mother will love you,” you laughed. “My father can be a little… hard to please.”

“Well, I know just how to win his heart,” he winked at you and you accepted the challenge.

You showed him all your favourite places, keeping your house for the last. You walked around the streets without a care in the world for the first time in a while, making him try some local delicacies and showing him the animals unique to Star 1116- it was more of a surprise to him to find that the things you called ‘dogs’ here were more spiky than furry and he told you that you were missing out on the joy of hugging a dog. You grimaced- hugging a dog here would create pokes in your skin unless you had scales or a protective barrier like most of the aliens here.

You took him to one of the bigger lakes in the area and he was utterly fascinated by the way he could see almost every creature inside the lake thanks to the glowing properties of the soil under the lake. He experimentally dipped his hand inside the water, feeling the coolness of the lake quite like Earth’s but somehow feeling more at ease- it always unsettled him when he was near a water body on Earth and could only imagine what was prowling inside. He looked around, noticing the little things that made Star 1116 so beautiful- mountains made of smooth, patterned rocks. Trees with leaves of multiple colours, unaffected by the season and with little gems dangling from the tips of its branches where flowers would have been. The strange birds with their unusually elongated bodies that flew in the sky. The sky that was dark and the ground that he stood on that lit the planet.

It was truly a magnificent sight, and Wooyoung could understand why you- why everyone was reluctant to let go of their home.

Lastly, you walked to your house and you pointed at all the places on the way which had some memory associated with them. You told him about how the humans lived in a little community here- most of them were too old to leave their home. Some of them rarely came home, opting to explore the space instead- like you. Then you told him about your family- your mother was a crime scene investigator and your father was a medical researcher. Wooyoung was impressed to hear that and told you he would love to hear more about that.

When you reached the little cottage by the lake, you paused and took a deep breath, taking in everything. It was still the same- the wooden exterior looking worn out, the smell of wet mud filling your nose, the sound of children in the distance. You pointed at the house.

“That’s me.”

Wooyoung nodded, giving your hand a squeeze to tell you that he was ready. You walked towards the door and pressed your thumb on the lock, the door clicking open and then you heard the familiar footsteps of your mother approach you. Her face lit up at the sight of you and then she paused when she saw your hand in Wooyoung’s. She scanned him with curiosity. You looked back and forth between the two- it would only be a moment until your mother would realise that Wooyoung was not a human. And Wooyoung-

You could tell why he looked surprised- your mother wore her neuron extensions like a crown over her head at all times. Apart from her striking copper hair, she looked very much like you. 

Your mother smiled knowingly at the two of you before spreading her arms and you grinned, walking right in her embrace and melting into it. 

“Well done, love,” she whispered. “I heard about what happened with the Space Council and Star 1117. You did so well.”

“I’m sorry,” you told her, knowing that she didn’t need your words to hear what you were sorry about, nor did she need to read you. She simply knew what you meant. She always did.

“No need for that,” she drew back with a kiss to your forehead. “I see you have a guest.”

“Yes, this is-”

“A human,” your father completed that for you, clad in a mismatched outfit which was indication that he had been holed up in his room with some research again. Wooyoung finally bowed at your parents. 

“Nice to meet you. I’m Jung Wooyoung… from Earth.”

“And what are you doing here with my daughter?” Your father inquired. You may have rolled your eyes if this was any other situation but your mother let you know that she had also heard about Wooyung’s role in the recent events. Relaxing a bit, you let Wooyoung handle the situation.

“She arrested me, sir.”

The room was silent for a moment before your mother snorted, ending up with all of you laughing and you shook your head at Wooyoung- you had never told him about how your parents met but it was something similar. Your father welcomed him with a pat and kissed the top of your head before steering him to the lounge, eager to hear the stories from Earth. 

And just like that, the house became a home with Wooyoung and your mother cooking together while they chatted, your father and you catching up with each other. Not too long after, the doorbell rang and in came Jongho and Yeosang, claiming to have ‘smelt’ Wooyoung’s cooking all the way to their house. They definitely didn’t get a message from your mother to join them.

You had about half an hour left until you had to go to the Space Centre. Your heart felt full watching all the people you loved gathered and Wooyoung fitting right in as if he had always been a part of this little unit. He caught you watching him with a smile on your face and raised his brows in question. You signalled that you were going outside and once he joined you, you asked if he wanted to sit by the lake.

“I’ve been soaking up all the memories of today,” you told him, showing the neurons on your fingertips shaped like nails. “I don’t think I can ever forget today’s events.”

“I did well, right?” He smiled proudly when you nodded in response. “Well, I’ve always been everyone’s favourite even back on Earth.”

You made a face at that and he scoffed. “Read me if you don’t believe me.”

“I do believe you- you have a way of charming people,” you admitted and he grinned. You showed him the spot next to some big rocks where you used to sit when you needed space. 

“This is probably my favourite spot on the whole planet,” you told him, flattening your hands on the ground once you sat, reliving the memories of this place in quick flashes. 

“I can see why,” Wooyoung looked around. With your home on the back and the view of the mountains in the front, he thought he could stay here forever.

“Yunho told me that Star 1116 will die soon, but the galaxy itself won’t end soon- it will take some time and if we’re lucky, it won’t happen in our lifetime,” you sighed deeply. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad. We will still need to find a new home. We can’t make one in the Temporal Nexus anymore.”

“Well… if you hadn’t told me that Star 1116 was your home, I would have assumed the spaceship was,” he said and you raised a brow. “It has such a homey feel to it. We can take all our time to explore the other galaxies and find a new home.”

“We?” 

“You don’t think I’m going back to Earth just like that, do you?” Wooyoung tsk-ed. “Not without you, at least.”

“Really?” You made a face. “I thought I’d be getting rid of you soon-”

Wooyoung leaned forward right when you turned, your noses brushing and your heart fluttering. Wooyoung’s gaze fell on your lips and a little smirk creeped on his own lips. 

“I know why you have your kitty claws out, sweetheart,” he tilted his head just a fraction and you instinctively gulped. “You’ve been saving all the memories of this place- with me this time.”

Well. He wasn’t wrong. Your lack of response was an answer to him and he fully smirked as he drew back. 

You wanted to tell him that you brought him here to make one final memory of this place. You curled your fingers around his hand and when your eyes met, it was like he understood your intentions. He took your other hand and pulled you over him so that you settled on his lap.

You trailed the pointy tips of your neurons along his temple and his spine, making him shiver. He loved it when you watched him with fascination and teased him experimentally as if you were afraid of his reaction. However, he welcomed every little thing you did to him. He let you cup his face and when you kissed him, he groaned in relief before kissing you back, one hand supporting him up while the other curling in your hair. You moved your lips along his in synchronisation and you loved the way he held you.

You drew back once you were out of breath, sharing a grin- this was your first proper kiss. You rested your hands on his shoulders and he lay down on the ground, eliciting a surprised sound from your mouth at the new position. Before you could comment on it, he cupped your face and brought you in for another kiss, the other hand going to rest on your waist. It was slow and sensual, not a care for time or any other thing. Just you, Wooyoung and your favourite spot in the Temporal Nexus. 

When you broke apart and settled down next to him in his arms, you watched the stars together and you showed him one that glowed with a very familiar golden tint.

“That must be Star 1117.”

Wooyoung agreed, absently caressing your arm. You looked at him, finding him deep in thought. You scratched his chin like you had seen him do to the black cat from his home and he smiled at that.

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking… will you watch the stars with me every night from now on?”

You kissed his cheek in response.“Only if I get to sleep in your arms- you are my home, Jung Wooyoung.”

[appaeve]

Hii, I'm absolutely enamoured of your art! The style is so neat and expressive, the colours a delight and overall aaah, you're amazing, looking forward to see your future works :D

I have this question (I hope it doesn't bother you, feel free to ignore in case), have you attended any art school/academy or are you self taught? Because I'd love to learn how to draw, and I know that practice is the key, but I feel so lost thinking about what I should practice exactly. I think that a course would help, but at the same time I think it wouldn't since art is mostly yours to develop and vibe with yanno. Hope you're having a nice (insert moment of the day here)!

hi! first, thank you sm! I know it doesn’t seem like much but compliments regarding the funky way I draw make my day :). And for the second thing- nope! I attended public school that had a basic art class that you drew maybe a still life in and moved on in 8 weeks to do other extracurriculars like gym. Later on I did get the chance to learn some digital/photoshop stuff and paints for more serious courses but yea! mostly self taught :)

Next bit is LONG so we’re breaking it up:

aaaa ok so now when I heard of the “I’d love to learn how to draw, but I feel lost” I resonated with that BIG time. “Starting art” or in your case stating how you wanted to learn how to draw is a personal process that i wholly believe will be different for everyone. For me I started by drawing on rocks I found in the backyard as a kid and grew from there. To jump into drawing (for my personal method!) draw what your interested in or what you enjoy, and then mix that with some studies. Maybe an OC one day, and the next you’ll practice hands/ something from life you don’t really wanna draw. But! by doing this you build skills and grow- then when you redraw that OC maybe their anatomy is better or you drew a nice background with it. Once you learn the basics of some elements of art then you can stylize them!

“Well what do I study?” Anatomy, color theory, composition tricks, fundamentals of art, etc. are all pretty broad things to focus on! I would try to divy it up, maybe you practice shoes, or plant studies one day instead of the whole human figure and a forest painting. Keep it simple and fun, you’re learning and sketches aren’t meant to be perfect! There’s no “order” on what you should study first. As for taking courses vs going with flow with art/more self taught, I would say that if you have the opportunity to learn from masters- take it take it take it. I would never consider learning or taking inspiration from artists cheating. Of course I wouldn’t recommend copying an artists work (and CERTAINLY not positing it online) but maybe as a study draw a work that is based from them/their style and learn from it. I look at the way I draw noses for certain characters and they remind me of they way “x” person drew them, yeah? bits and pieces of inspiration and other artists work helped me create my own art that is personal to me :).

WHOOO okay finally last thing- going back to the no “order” bit. Establish goals! lets say you wanna draw characters first, then I would recommend looking up videos of drawing body types or tutorials online. Maybe clothes next, or you wanna learn to draw trees and do a whole week on that. Some people practice everyday, others do it like once a week- and that’s ok! Art shouldn’t be super stressful methinks. If you think taking an art course is good for your artistic journey, then do it. If you think practicing everyday but more self-taught (still use references, im the biggest hypocrite when it comes to this but they’re so so important), then do it! Yeah I might be throwing in what I personally do as an artist (but I’m still VERY much learning too!) however it is your choice to decide what path is best for you as a creator. Hopefully some of this helped! it seemed like a very genuine ask that I appreciated and wanted to give my input to the best of my ability :)

[deluluass]

hi

could yoy do please some yandere kuroo and kageyama headcanons? 💕

nsfw is welcomed 😊

My first headcanons 🤞🏽

Yandere! Kuroo Tetsuro

Content warnings: markers of a toxic/emotionally abusive relationship; dumbification; daddy kink; sex toy(s); mild public play/exhibitionism

😇SFW😇

This boy has a fascination for messy people.

And by "messy", I mean that Kuroo has a soft spot for those who put up some sort of front. A performative mask to hide their crumbling psyche.

Oh.

Those are his favorites. (Especially when they're not even aware that they’re hiding something.)

Maybe it's because they're so easy to manipulate? (Or perhaps it's a mild case of schadenfreude?)

It's the instigator in him.

He knows which buttons to push and at what time to exactly do it.

Kuroo lives for being that guy who causes a full blown fight by simply dropping a backhanded comment or two.

For being the final straw that eventually breaks the proverbial camel's back.

And then slipping back into the shadows to watch the Drama unfold.

So it's not unlikely for him to form an obsession for someone who's so emotionally vulnerable.

Someone who has the weight of the world on their shoulders; who has everything locked up inside to the point of bursting.

Because then it won't take much to have them falling apart and unraveling before him.

But he's also a caretaker, you know.

He's opportunistic and covertly callous and mischievous, yes.

But you've seen how much he tends to those close to him.

So when you do fall apart, you will do it in his arms.

He will take care of you.

He'll say everything you've always wanted to hear.

You're beautiful and wanted and loved and you don't have to be brave anymore.

Kuroo's here and he understands you.

From the barest changes in your inflection to your most subtle facial expression.

Other people won't catch it.

To Kuroo, though? Tell-tale signs that you're hiding your feelings again.

He understands you in a way that no else had; that no else cared to try.

And eventually that’ll be the very thing that you’ll hold onto.

Never mind that his every word has become an indisputable fact (when it shouldn’t be).

Never mind that the line between Kuroo just being a mindful boyfriend AND Kuroo disregarding your boundaries has become too blurry that it’s impossible to tell which is which.

Never mind that your entire world has narrowed down to just him and you.

Because all your friends have, one by one, made their way for the exit.

They tell you that they're so tired.

They've warned you- begged you, actually- to end this insidiously suffocating relationship.

"I know he's only been nice to you and to us, but there's just...something wrong about that guy," they say.

But until they pinpoint, exactly, what that "something wrong" is; and until you see it for yourself, you're sticking by his side.

Damn whatever people say.

So.

Kuroo's not the yandere who'd chain you up in his basement or something.

Not that he's above it, but because he doesn't really need to.

Not when he has you bound right where it really matters.

😈NSFW😈

Kuroo has perfected being a dom down to a Science.

He knows exactly when to be mean and hurtful and sweet and kind and giving to you.

Kuroo's very generous, methinks! But only if he believes you deserved it.

So you better prove that you earned it!!

He'll having you cumming and gushing into his hand if you pleaded just enough!!

Looked into his eyes all pouty and teary and pliant to all his wishes.

Very into treating you and talking to you like you're not capable of comprehending words.

Oh, darling. I know I'm hurting you. I know I am. But you like it, don't you? That's right. Fuck yeah, you do, you fucking slut.

That's because you're just a dumb little baby, aren't you? You'd be happy as long as daddy makes you cum?

And you'd nod and say yes so obediently as he pounds your little hole even though you can't hear him over the sound of your own moans.

ALSO!!!

HE IS A TEASE!!!!

A FUCKINGN!!!!!!!!! TEASE!!!!

Every seggsy time is edging time!!

Has a thing for slapping your ass until your cheeks are bruised and tender under his palms.

And for sticking a vibrator inside you while you're out in public.

Just to teach you a lesson whenever he feels like you're not learning enough.

"Do you want me to come back until you're ready?" the waiter droned, obviously suppressing the urge to roll his eyes when all you did was grip the napkin in front of you.

You couldn't even look at poor kid; couldn't even make out a sound. You're too busy stifling the tingling within your walls, prompting you to cross your legs beneath the table and squeeze your thighs together.

And Kuroo's just...scanning the menu. Sitting idly before you. He's resting his chin against his open palm, long fingers brushing under his nose, while you're practically grinding down the chair.

You feel yourself leak into the crotch of your underwear, sticky liquid squelching against the crack of your ass as the toy continued to vibrate, burning you up and melting your insides, the buzzing a white noise only you could hear.

His indifference was unflappable. Kuroo even managed to call out, "Excuse me. Sorry about that earlier. We're ready now," so smoothly despite your desperate attempts to catch his attention. Then, he recited a bunch of dishes that you didn’t have the appetite for. Like you’re not outright writhing and earning a few disconcerted looks from the table next to you.

All you wanted was for him to put an end to this. You've learned your lesson. You're not gonna disappoint him again.

Instead, you watched in agonizing fear as he reached for his pocket. And immediately, without a warning, you felt the toy shake violently inside you.

"Ah!" you cried, sharply folding your arms and legs, making the plates and utensils clink against each other as your wrists chafed against your hard nipples.

Your boyfriend halted, leaned closer, and looked at you in a convincing display of concern.

"Are you alright, babe?" he muttered, caressing your knee, his nails pressing down just a tad. Not too hard. Just enough for you to hiss in a heady mixture of pleasure and pain.

You managed a small, quivering "uh-huh" as you begged him with your eyes. Conveying as much message as you could.

"Daddy, I'll be good for you. I swear. I won't lie anymore. I won't make you angry. I won't do anything that you wouldn't be happy about. Everything I do from this moment on will be just for you, daddy. I promise, daddy-"

But Kuroo only huffed out, a small, faint grin tracing his lips as he turned back to the waiter and said, "One cream pie, please."

Yandere! Kageyama Tobio

Content warning(s): rape/noncon

😇SFW😇

Fourth wall break, if you will: thank you, anon, for putting these characters together because I Believe that they’re each other’s foils in terms of yandere-isms. And this is gonna be an interesting contrast to see (at least, I hope it would be).

So Kuroo’s all subdued mind games, right? Like, you have to do a whole routine of mental gymnastics if you want to dig deep and analyze how he had your head spinning. 

But Kageyama? 

Kageyama says fuck that.

Kageyama, genius though he is, is about as subtle as a metal bat to the head when it comes to his darling.

He has no qualms about tying you to his bed once the opportunity presents itself to him.

But it didn’t start out like that.

At first, perhaps Kageyama was just an aloof classmate whose entire life revolved around volleyball.

The one who couldn’t even take a time out of his day to hang out with the rest of the class on a weekend.

Though Kageyama has a knack for attracting hostility from other people, there comes a time (rare it may be) that it is offset by people who are sympathetic to his idiosyncrasies.

His darling falls under the latter.

That's what draws Kageyama to you.

Hearing stuff like "D'you know what they used to call him before? King!" and "King because he's an arrogant dickhead who thinks he's better than everyone" are not new to him.

But hearing these are: "Stop that. It's rude to talk behind a person's back."

"Kageyama's passionate about volleyball. More than anyone we've ever met. Ok so it's alienating for us! Whatever! But isn't it admirable that he's doing his best at a thing that he loves?"

Kageyama did not get it.

You're not his teammate.

You're not his..anything.

You had no cause to try and be nice to him and defend him and..understand him, really.

So the rest was history.

The beginning might have been awkward.

Every time he tried to talk to you, Kageyama, for some reason, always blurted out the wrong things.

But you didn't mind. You just liked being his friend.

And Kageyama liked having you by his side.

Kageyama liked it, especially, when you're in the sidelines and cheering him on. (This caused quite a ruckus in Karasuno.)

It should have been weird. Kageyama had not known anything else besides volleyball.

Your presence should’ve been that of a stranger encroaching on someone else’s property.

Somehow, though, you fitted in so perfectly.

Like you’re made to be there.

So he tells you: “You’re free, aren’t you? You should be watching me play by now” and “You should be waiting for me after class” and “Stop making excuses. You’re not tired. You can still drop by practice” 

You’ve tried to reason with him. (Even contemplated about ending your friendship.)

But it’s not like you’re ever gonna shake him off.

Besides, you know that he wouldn’t accept anything less than perfect.

😈NSFW😈

His darling was his first sexual experience. 

And like any beginner, Kageyama was pretty...uh..bad at it ngl.

Add that to the fact that he’s on the bigger side and your first with him wasn’t consensual.

At that time, all Kageyama knew was that he really, really wanted to touch you and kiss you and fuck you senseless until you acknowledge that there’s no running from him. 

Trust, though, that Kageyama will not settle for being bad or, heaven forbid, mediocre at it.

Nope.

Not. a. chance.

Doesn’t matter that you’ve spent the entire day fucking.

Kageyama will not rest- not let you rest, until he drags out a moan from you; until you’ve ruined the sheets with how much he’s made you cum; until he has you begging for more. 

Will experiment a lot.

Will test out how fast and hard he has to fuck you to get what kind of reaction he wants from you.

Very attentive even to your quietest gasp.

If you so much as show a sign that you’re finding whatever it is he’s doing to your body pleasurable- curl your toe or arch your back- Kageyama will amp it up to the point where you’re screaming.

He’ll have this haughty, shit-eating grin while doing it too.

“Yes, you can,” Kageyama growled. “Spread those legs and show me how you do it.”

You shook your head, your body protesting at the slight movement. You’re already on the verge of blacking out. And you don’t have to check the ticking wall clock to know that, by now, Kageyama, too, should be knocked out and dozing off beside you.

But he only grabbed your wrists, making you howl in pain as soon as he touched the cuts and bruises across the skin. Remnants of the nylon rope that bound them together not too long ago.

“Touch yourself,” he repeated.

Kageyama’s voice is a rasping noise to your ears, his hot breath causing goosebumps all over you as he pressed his lips against the shell.

“No-no more, Kag-Kageyama,” you forced yourself to say, though your throat was dry and aching from all your screeching. 

He clicked his tongue. 

You flinched.

And you didn’t think it possible for Kageyama to be more frightening than he already is. Until you’d done as he’d told and, like a wolf patiently waiting to pounce, Kageyama zeroed in on how you moved your hands, his own reaching for his cock.

He didn’t take his eyes off of you, groaning as you trembled and mewled under your featherlight touch. Kageyama stroked himself, grinding into his fist until pre-cum dripped from the head.

“That how you like it, huh,” he croaked.

Before you could even reach an orgasm, Kageyama had already pushed you on your back, mimicking the way you pleasured yourself. Only this time it was rougher, more unforgiving, and indifferent to your cries of “Stop! Stop it, I can’t- Enough, Kageyama!”

[becausethathappens]

Ok wait im back 🤪, i MUST say that in regards to rhett’s constant concerns abt them breaking up.

i think in rhett’s mind there’s still this.. element of uncertainty in general. this element of things being potentially not secure somehow. this element of their friendship not being quite as Substantial as he wants, NAY, needs it to be. (blood oath withstanding) and not because he doesn’t love link and being his friend. not because it isn’t a great prosperous best friendship. he knows their friendship is important, but he knows they’re also just friends. they’re so much more and also just friends at the same time.

he is missing a puzzle piece in his security, that’s why he gets concerned about them breaking up all the dam time. objectively link could have any friend. he could find another guy, maybe more ‘compatible’ and like-minded than rhett to do things with. he could have another co-host, he could do any number of things with anyone else, Realistically.

and as much as he values their friendship I think he’s learned partially to place ‘real’ relationships above friendship in a sense. not necessarily actively but theoretically. he started in on girls early, he’d kinda phased link out of his life at times getting swept up in a girl. like he knows what’s ‘important’ as a socially acceptable man especially with their upbringing. he knows what is supposed to happen (or so he was told over and over and over and internalized this) and with all these girls and what’s supposed to happen marriage was the ultimate goal.

So subconsciously, i think he always is worried link’s gonna fly the coop on him at some point or whatever, because at the end of the day; Rhett wants to marry Link. it almost sounds like a silly conclusion to draw after all that but like deep down i think he wants to claim him and secure him in a way that matters before the law, matters before God, matters before everyone it needs to matter to. And in return, hear Link do the same. and not even in an inherently romantic way. mostly i think he could use some of marriage’s ‘tangibility’. via how hard ‘real’ relationships and marriage have been pressed so hard as something more important and better than friendship.

and their friendship is more than the average, Mere friendship is not label enough. while they don’t dwell on any sexual or romantic elements within their friendship, it still surpasses the confines of friendship.

if he had the privilege of being able to marry link (even if in addition to his current wife) methinks he’d be better off <3

listen, this reply is about to zag, but only because i agree so much. i'm an ordained minister (yes, fucking really) and the two couples i've married (ah har har, for the couples "whom i've performed a marriage ceremony" i should say, for the mclaughlin-types thinking about thruples in the audience), i did both, first, at their dining room table on a week night for legal purposes. people who are already partners just need a clerical title change showing it on paper.

all these two seem like they need is some kind of promise ceremony. that's why i think they lean so heavily into their own lore. or make such a to-do about their anniversaries, in part. rhett believes that if he can speak their union into existence in some tangible way (in books, in songs, in any of their well-documented origin stories) it makes their love permanent by virtue of how media is consumed. it exists until the last video is watched and that could be ostensibly make it last forever.

i just hope they can understand, at some point, that this is literally all in their head. the "will he leave me?" question, for both. the answer is so loudly NO i'm not sure why it seems so unclear to them. i have rarely seen two people more clearly committed towards staying together. even if one such ceremony could be done completely in secret on a beach somewhere in the tropics with just their wives as witnesses, whatever. it is no one's business but their own, but if that's the kind of thing that's leaving them both feeling insecure about where they stand, by all means, try it. watch how literally nothing changes but your comfort that you are not going to be abandoned growing.

but all that's to say, from literal experience having done the private and the public side of this: it really is just a ceremony. that's not why people are so drawn to watching them and find their relationship fascinating. the day-to-day, the dining room tables they sit around and the life they've built together, that's how people in authentic partnerships really operate when they make commitments. showing up every day as agreed, contractually, or otherwise. the rest is just semantics.

[opinated-user]

Lily to me seems to the epitome of the phase: The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Like Lilly yells at people for making inappropriate MLP comics but it is somehow okay for her to write Poke Madhouse, and possibly other problematic fan fictions like Stockholm and more (assuming she did do that, it is possible that she didn’t.)?

Another example is that she complains that white characters are getting to much attention from the fandom ( a valid complaint). However, she writes a StarWars fanfic that has OC of color, but then pushes the canonical characters of color to the side to get together with a white character and defeating another white character . Should that also count as white characters getting more attention then characters of color? Lily could have used Rose as the love interest instead of Rey for example. Or she could have used Finn as main character too and rule 64 him.

Lily also did the same thing in the Owlhouse with Hunter drawing attention to him instead of drawing attention to Luz.

Does Lily think she is exempt from the rules she puts on her fandoms?

it's a fact that she wrote stockholm. there's multiple archive posts from her blog where she extensively talks about them and even a video where she says "i can't do (a video) on stockholm, i wrote that one." there's a lot more evidence that she did wrote it all and the only thing we have to think she didn't is LO's words now, which doesn't hold any weight with how frequently she has lied and been caught in lies. but you're right, she absolutely thinks that she's exempt of any of the standards that she puts on everyone else, not just in fandom but everything. she's very much aware of this, that's why you see her defending her own hypocresy as something that should never change the fact that she's right, not even when she's actually wrong. the problem of being a hypocrite is that it makes everything you say lose all of it's importance. how much racism there could actually be on TOH fandom when LO doesn't bother to set any example by recommending more fanwork with racebending version of the characters or more works by POC creators? is it really an issue at all if she's not very concerned to do anything about it, except to say that there it is? think of it as a politician who says there is a drought from a pool. at least some people are going to ask themselves if the drought matters at all since it doesn't affect this politician, while other people are going to feel like they can just don't care about the drought either because if the politician doesn't why should they? seeing this doesn't really encourages you to save water at all, does it? the problem of having a platform is that by giving yourself a pass to do whatever you want, you're implicitely giving it to your audience too.

[arctimon]

The Big Hero 6/Pokemon Crossover We All Wish Would Happen

Over the past couple of weeks, members of the Big Hero 6 fandom have been drawing/making mock-ups of the team with their respective Pokemon partners.  Now, in total accordance with being late to every single trend ever, I will now do the same, but I won’t be backing it up with wondrous drawings.

Mostly because I can’t draw. Some of the members were really obvious, and some...weren’t.  Out of everyone, Hiro was actually the hardest one, and I actually am still not really sold on my choice.  That’s mostly because the specific Pokemon is not his schtick.  There’s not really a Robot Pokemon.  There are certain members that were tremendously easy.

And we’re going to start with one of them: Go Go. 1.) The picture I drew of Chibi Go Go and Cinderace (which I still have to finish, for the record) doesn’t actually depict the Pokemon I’d put with her.  Cinderace would be her second choice.  The first?

Falinks, the Formation Pokemon.

Genwunners may not know this one, because it’s from the newest Pokemon games, but it’s very symbolic of Go Go: there’s six of them, it’s pure Fighting-type, and it has a signature move in No Retreat, which is basically a Pokemon version of “Woman up!”.  It raises all of its stats in exchange for it not being able to escape from battle.

But Go Go never escapes from anything, so it’s appropriate.

Plus they have the discs as well. Cinderace would be her backup, mostly because of the speed and rabbit parellels for her roommate, who is up next.

2.) Honey Lemon actually had the most options for her, because she’s the cutesy one.  That means she can be handed literally any Fairy type and call it a day, but what fun would that be?

Especially because there’s another bunny Pokemon that she’d be with...and that’s Lopunny.

It doesn’t really delve into her superhero side because it’s a bunny and cute and furry and all that jazz, but imagine HL’s completelyf amazed face when she gets one.  The squeeing would be nonstop.

Her secondary would be a Fairy type, and something that would change colored flowers based on the mood: Flabebe.

3.) Wasabi was also entirely way too easy, and he gets, in my opinion, one of the coolest Pokemon that was introduced back in X and Y: Aegislash.

I can’t even think of a proper backup for him; Aegislash is just that good.  Plus, if worse came to worse, Wasabi could grab him and swing it around himself.  But not too much, because the Aegislash line have a thing about possessing people with their tassels. His backup is another blade-related one: Bisharp.

Dark/Steel, cool design, somehow got Laser Focus as a level-up move in the latest games.  Pretty much a no-brainer. 4.) Karmi is also an easy one, and her inspiration came from one of the occupants of her lab when Hiro came to offer his help in “City of Monsters”: Mr. Varicella Zoster.

What Pokemon is cute, semi-translucent, looks like something scientific, and is also a psychic powerhouse (you’re assuming Varicella Zoster is not)? You guessed it.

Reuniclus.  The Multiplying Pokemon. The origin of it is based off of cells and amoebas, which is a perfect thing for a very scientific person like Karmi.  And the imaginary story in my head has her getting her partner first through the mysterious means that the team has to investigate. Her back-up plays off of her other project: the tech rose.  And the only Grass/Steel Pokemon (Ferroseed/Ferrothorn) isn’t really much of a fit.  So we’ll play off of her wannabe superheroics with another plant-based masked powerhouse: Roserade.

What’s better than a bouquet that has flowers for fists?  Nothing. 5.) Fred is a mascot for a “living”, and I think it would be funny if his partner would be very similar to a mascot, and that would be Bewear.

No, it doesn’t have cool Fire/Ice-type moves, and it’s not a lizard, but it’s a pun name, and I think Fred would appreciate a Pokemon with a pun name. Plus, I couldn’t really find anything that had Fire, Ice, and was a lizard.

At least with Bewear you can chain-breed Ice Punch onto it from Cubchoo, thus making Cubchoo an even greater Pokemon than before. His backup is one of the Pokemon based off of kaiju: Tyranitar.

Do you think that Fred is actually a Pokemon guy, or is Hiro the Pokemon guy?  Methinks it would be a collaborative effort to try to get everyone else to know what the heck they’re talking about.

6.) You didn’t think I would forget about Baymax, would you?  Now, you’d think that with being a healthcare companion would make me want to go for the obvious choice.

Blissey. And...you’d be partially right. But Baymax can’t just sit on the sidelines and heal, even though that’s his...purpose. Nah, we gotta get something a little more...metal.

Melmetal, to be precise. He’s very Baymax-y in the anime when Ash has him, and plus he’s got a two-fist move in Double Iron Bash.

Oh, and we’ll just give Mini-Max Meltan for funzies. 7.) As I was writing this up, I scanned back through it and was like “Who am I forgetting?”.

Oh nuts, Hiro is the one I was forgetting. So here’s the thing.  I actually really like the idea of giving him Magnezone, because of “lul magnetism” and all that.

And I was struggling to give him a back-up when I saw @baymaksu​ and his drawing of him and Riolu, and it just clicked for me.

Plus the mental image of Hiro manipulating Aura just like Ash gets me excited. So there it is.  My long, exhaustive post about Big Hero 6 and their Pokemon partners, based off my twenty some odd years of being a Pokemon trainer. I wonder if I should do the villains next.  Or maybe the Beta Team. Or both.

[shirtlesssammy]

14x16 Bullet Point Rambles

Ah, making out in the car in the deep, dark woods. A very safe activity. Something mysterious whistles in the woods… I AM READY

Oh my god is it BIGFOOT (Boris: Bigfoot doesn’t exist!)

Sam’s still not sleeping. Poor Sammy

Cas isn’t there because he has wanderlust, hmm? (Or is there something else afoot? Methinks it’s the latter.)

Dean is a terrible liar to the people he cares about. Good lord. They tell Jack to take care of the bunker while they head off to hunt

Dean’s got cat-like reflexes as he leaps away from the corpse (Boris: he always lands on all fours - insert Tobias gif)

Meanwhile, the Local Teens ™ watch Ghostfacers and greet Jack, who’s standing gormlessly outside of the closed grocery store

“What’s a ghost?” Goddamn it, Jack, this clumsy dissembling is why we love you

The Local Teens ™ watch Jack shop and wonder about his life with the Winchesters. “Their whole place must smell like beer, kleenex, and Old Spice.” Lesbians FTW

Hey, look at Jack being extra cute so as to injure us more grievously later

IMPORTANT FACT Movie nights are Thursday and Dean loves Lost Boys

Sam found info on the potential monster - a kohunta (sp?), a legend of the local tribe that loves to eat sweet human flesh.

Oooo it’s like a tree bark monster! It drips bile onto an unfortunate victim’s face. Boris is HEAVILY INTO the X-Files jam

The Sheriff calls off the emergency crews, ordering them out of the woods and thereby confirming our theory that he’s covering for something

At the cabin, the Local Teens ™ are adorable. Jack brings Eliot a ton of lore books from the bunker. Backpack Jack settles in and asks a succession of sweet, clueless questions

This segues into Jack hauling out the ol’ angel blade to teach these kiddos how to hunt, like ya do. We are SO worried for Eliot’s survival at this point

Boris: Hey Jack, if you wanna impress seventeen-year-olds then you should really just buy them beer. None of this weapon-wielding stuff

Meanwhile, Sam and Dean get themselves cornered by the Sheriff in the woods. Dean interrogates him about the monster

Back with the Local Teens ™, Jack starts using his powers to swirl the angel blade around and NOW WE ARE VERY CONCERNED

Jack accidentally stabs one of the girls NOOOOOOOO

He tries to heal her and I am very concerned

OH THANK GOD

She survived! Phew!

Jack gets spurned by the Local Teens ™ and has trouble understanding why he can’t hang out with them anymore

Welp. Cue Jack’s self-loathing arc. (If he can experience self-loathing on account of the ol’ soul.) (Boris: He’s a Winchester. Self loathing comes with the package.)

Over the commercial break, we discuss Cas and his approach to humanity and powers, versus Jack. Cas has a lot of experience backing up his choices, whereas Jack has been established this whole episode as being just a wee baby who knows nothing of the world

Back with the oh-yeah-there’s-a-monster-of-the-week, the Sheriff recounts his own experience witnessing the kohunta.

Backstory: the first white settlers encroaching on the land had a hard winter and the boy ate his family, then tried to eat the people of the local tribe. In retaliation, the tribe cursed him to roam the woods, hungry and monstrous forever. Cursed to eat other people, or else digest itself. They marked the forest to keep people out, the monster in, and starve the monster, but people forgot and...well...here we are some 50+ bodies later

(Boris: Oh hey a cursed boy trapped in a box, you say?)

The Sheriff asks why the Winchesters aren’t running around recording monsters and putting stuff on YouTube. Oooo, this is a great juxtaposition to the GhostFacers snark about the Winchesters from earlier

Sam insists that informing the public is a sure-fire way to see everyone dead. Intriguing

Our other troubled teen heads into the woods to hunt the monster. OH NO

You can kill the monster with a silver blade through the heart. That’s so common, Sam and Dean just have it in their back pocket!

Meanwhile, the whistling draws ever nearer. It is so delightfully creepy the way it echoes through the dark woods. And that still-as-a-tree trunk monster stalking! YIKES

This is a good monster fight with some good teamwork with the Winchesters and Sheriff. They stab it and the monster just melts into…stomach acid, I guess

“Whoa, that’s like full on Raiders!” Dean. Bean

Later in the Impala of Feelings… Dean questions Sam’s suggestion to the Sheriff to tell the truth about the monster to his son. Dean thinks lying is the better approach but Sam pulls out the big guns. When they were kids, they lied to their dad all the time about how they were doing, just to make him happy. Let us all now fall into the quagmire of John Winchester’s A+ parenting feelings

Sam and Dean talk to Jack about how worried they are about his powers. They caution him against using them, and tell him they lied because they care, but they’re telling him now because...they still care. Jack stares into space, then promises not to use his powers. No "oops let me tell you how I almost killed someone” stories here. The music turns grim, so we’re all fine. Everything’s fine

Hey! Lies, lies and omissions. Who’s got ‘em? Jack and his power play, Cas and the Empty, Cas and his secret trip to (as the next trailer showed) talk to Anael/Sister Jo, Dean and his denial… Anyone else get the feeling that mounting lies are gonna crush all the fragile peace they’ve managed to paste together?

[the-scenic-route-stories]

Lost the Plot: A Parenthesis

The Doctor is (politely) displeased.

This follows on from my ACGAS/Fifth Doctor crossovers The Scenic Route and Tea in Bed but do be warned that it is written in a very different style from those previous pieces and is a piece of utter absurdity, inspired by a plot point in A Very Peculiar Practice and my love for ‘Castrovalva’ and the fictional worlds of Jorge Luis Borge as well as for All Creatures. Now with minor revisions.

Features Tricki-Woo and Mrs. Pumphrey, offstage.

The Doctor gently swung his legs down to the floor and used one hand to slowly push himself up into a standing position. Tentatively, he padded in his red socks across the Persian rug, holding on to various items of furniture for support. After his previous attempts, he was anxious lest a wave of dizziness or nausea should hit him, but succeeded in crossing the room without incident. He arrived at the fourth wall and cleared his throat.

“Excuse me,” he said, attempting to bring a tone of polite authority to his voice. “I’ve been lying in bed for a couple of weeks now. It’s been wonderful to be looked after and everything, Mrs Hall is a very kind lady, and I do like that green quilt, but the thing is that I’m stuck here while everyone except me is having adventures and I feel that I’m not really living up to my job description. James and Tristan have been up in space and Turlough is out there on the Eye of Orion – sketching, supposedly – while I’ve been languishing here on earth coughing and collapsing whenever you wanted the readers to feel sorry for me. Now I’m feeling more myself again, it’s getting to be really rather tedious. If you had to give me space flu – what sort of an unoriginal name was that, anyway? You could at least have come up with some fancy Latinate terminology – to facilitate your frankly ridiculous plot mechanics and have young Tristan crash my TARDIS, can’t you at least let me recover properly now so that I can repair her and resume my normal life of dashing about the cosmos? He’s a decent enough young fellow, if a little reckless, but it’s rather trying to look at a mirror image of yourself and be constantly reminded that with regeneration, you never know what you’re going to get.”

“I’m very sorry, Doctor,” I told him. “I had some plot ideas but wasn’t sure how to put them together. It really is a very nice quilt, and I even rescued that dressing-gown from Lady Cranleigh’s for you to wear, although that wasn’t mentioned in the episode at all.” I stopped there, realising that the dressing-gown thing had been pure self-indulgence on my part, based on how absolutely ripping he had looked in it when he wore it in 1925. “Isn’t it better than languishing in a dungeon while the writer figures out how to get you out of there? I thought it would be nice to have someone looking after you for once. In most of your adventures, you end up getting bashed about, locked up or tortured with nobody to take care of you. You just have to dust yourself down and get on with the story. I thought you would appreciate the soft bed, tea and crumpets after all that.”

“That was indeed very considerate of you, and you know how much I love tea. The crumpets were delicious, too. Thank you very much. But I am beginning to suspect your motives in some of this. Can you genuinely say that you have never daydreamed about mopping my fevered brow? Or building your own benevolent version of Castrovalva for me to recuperate in? In which I am not ‘trapped’ in the strict technical sense but develop a strong disinclination towards leaving while there is honey still for tea?”

“Er, well…” I suppose you don’t get to be an intergalactic hero without having a good deal of insight into other people’s motivations, and such insight comes more easily when you’re being written by the person who has those motivations. (It’s almost like telepathy.) “OK, yes. I did want to look after you. But I’m not trying to keep you trapped in this story. I just haven’t got round to writing the next part yet.”

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” he said, arching his eyebrows. He really is such a smart aleck. Pretty much everyone quotes that wrongly, apart from him, of course. Probably picked it up when he was drinking with Shakespeare, or ghostwrote it for him, or something. “'Look how much nicer I am to you than the BBC was', eh? What about the space flu, though? That wasn’t pleasant at all!”

“I’m sorry about the space flu. But if nothing unpleasant happened to you, there wouldn’t be a story, would there? I’m afraid that’s an occupational hazard of being a hero.”

“I suppose you’re right,” he said, with a universe-weary sigh. “Writers of stories really do seem to have it in for one, sometimes. Tea and crumpets are certainly better than Cybermen and Daleks, and you have promised that you are going to give me a chance to play cricket. But as for making me wear this absurd dressing-gown again…”

“I have given you pyjamas too, you know. With your favourite question-marks on them. You haven’t had to spend most of an episode walking down corridors with the dressing-gown open to your chest in my story. Nor wear a Pierrot costume. And in any case, this is just prose, without any visuals. For all the readers know, you could actually be wearing a baggy old cardigan.”

“Hmmm. But what about those illustrations of yours? To be fair, you haven’t done an illustration of me in the dressing-gown yet, but I suspect it’s only a matter of time. I wonder whether these illustrations aren’t something of a pretext for downloading a ridiculous number of pictures of me from the internet. Drawing references, indeed. How many drawing references does anyone need?”

“Have you been rummaging around on my hard drive while I’ve been asleep?”

“You’ve given me so little else to do, and one must keep oneself occupied somehow. There’s only so many hours one can spend doing crosswords. You still haven’t managed to draw me properly, you know, despite all your references. You’re nowhere near as good as Turlough. And you’ve started writing me out of character now, too. I’m not usually quite this sardonic.”

“In my defence, I’m not the first person ever to have done that, but I will try to do better from now on. So, what sort of plot do you want? How do you want me to get you out of here?” (First rule of plotting: consult your protagonist ahead of time about all important plot decisions. Except, perhaps, ones in which he is attacked by monsters that are made of rubber or green versions of Dobbin the pantomime horse from Rentaghost. Sometimes it is necessary to preserve the element of surprise, particularly when the special effects aren’t very convincing.)

At this point, Tristan came in and looked quizzically towards the Doctor.

“Authorial conference,” said the Doctor.

“Aha, I see. Good stuff. Perhaps I can contribute too. I used to read through some of Mr. Wight’s drafts and make notes for him, or rather the real person I’m based on did. Wonderful chap, Mr. Wight.”

“We’re discussing what should happen next in the plot,” said the Doctor. “I was feeling rather grumpy about not having had much to do in this story so far. It must have been the aftereffects of the space flu that made me feel so out of sorts and out of character. I’m feeling much better now, though. Quite my old self.” He rocked backwards and forwards on the balls of his feet to illustrate this, and grinned broadly.

“I didn’t cut a very good figure at all in the last section of ‘The Scenic Route’,” said Tristan, turning towards me. “Made rather an ass of myself sashaying around in the Doctor’s costume and then crashing the TARDIS. Any chance of a rewrite?”

“No, I’m afraid not,” said the Doctor, before I could answer. “Web of time, and all that.”

“Well, I think the first thing to do, since you’re feeling better, is for you to change back into your normal costume. You’ll feel much more like getting back into action, then! It’s laid out on the chair. Unfortunately, your celery buttonhole has wilted and Mrs Hall has had to throw it away. I think it might have caught the space flu from you. It's obviously a very important part of your outfit although no-one seems to have taken the trouble to explain why. But there’s no problem – I’ll bring you a nice new celery stalk from the vegetable rack. ”

“Ah, but my previous celery was imaginary,” said the Doctor. “It came from an Edwardian yacht in space. Imaginary space vegetables keep for much longer than real ones. My first stick of celery, which was produced by by block transfer computations, lasted for a year and a half before it started going a bit brown around the edges.”

“That’s no problem,” said Tristan, breezily. “The celery from downstairs is imaginary too. We’re imaginary. Well, I’m not entirely imaginary, but I’m a fictionalised version of a real person, and this conversation we’re having now certainly never happened in real life. It’s far too silly. We look so similar that we're clearly being played by the same actor - perhaps due to budgetary constraints at the BBC - and are only appearing together in these scenes thanks to CGI. Or smoke and mirrors, since I'm someone from the 1930s who hasn't heard of CGI."

“I meant imaginary in the context of this story. Things that we’re imagining. What we call in the trade second-order imaginariness or the doubly fictional. I would tell you to go and look up the entry on ‘Uqbar’ in James’s musty encyclopaedias in the cellar to give you an idea of what I mean, except that the episode in which James buys the encyclopaedias hasn’t happened yet and the encyclopaedia in question, despite being published in 1902, is the subject of a fiction that wasn’t written until 1940. Continuity can be rather confusing, sometimes, even when you’re not suffering from regeneration sickness.”

“Ah, I’m not sure how we’re going to manage to produce something that’s doubly imaginary in a veterinary practice in 1937. We do have quite a few interesting chemicals in the surgery…” mused Tristan. “Oh yes, I have an idea! I’ll ring Mrs Pumphrey, and ask her to ask Tricki-Woo to imagine one. I’m sure she won’t mind. She’s always been very forthcoming where food items are concerned.”

**********

“Here you are! To dear Uncle Doctor, from Tricki-Woo, Esquire,” said Tristan, bounding up the stairs with a very crisp-looking but entirely imaginary stick of celery. “Nothing but the best from Mrs. Pumphrey. She popped a very decent-looking bottle of port into the package, too.”

“Excellent,” I said. “Now, Doctor, if you’re ready to change, I’ll avert my gaze and insert a row of asterisks.”

Tristan gave a naughty grin. “If I were writing from the omniscient narrator point of view, I’d be sure to make full use of all the privileges that that afforded.”

“Yes, I rather imagine you would,” said the Doctor, with a raised eyebrow.

Tristan blushed and grinned again, a little sheepishly, realising that he must after all have left a copy of Health and Efficiency inside one of the more sedate publications that he had lent to his visitor.

“Tristan!” I said “Be more respectful! He’s very proper, you know. Hundreds of years old, and is supposed to be a good example to the young. No hanky-panky in the TARDIS, and all that.”

“I’m not supposed to be a good example to anyone. Quite the reverse, in fact!” said Tristan, laughing.

************

The Doctor, now back in his usual costume, turned to me: “Pleasant as this discussion has been, we don’t seem to have got much further with deciding on the plot.”

“There have been a lot of distractions. But look, I have got you better from the space flu, now. That’s progress.”

“Yes, indeed,” the Doctor said brightly. “No more shivering and shaking. Definitely an improvement.”

“I have a plot suggestion. You could write yourself into the story as a love-interest for me!” said Tristan. “Of course, our relationship would have to be ultimately doomed to failure because of a disapproving father or a strange obsession with goat dung, because the BBC has it in for me too, but we could have some fun first.” He gave me a very flirtatious look.

“Well… yes… I could do that…” I said, blushing and suddenly feeling very flustered.

“So, would your authorial avatar like to come to the Drovers’ with me this evening?”

It was very tempting, of course, but taking into account Tristan’s overdeveloped sense of humour and the presence of his exact lookalike, I was not at all convinced that I wouldn’t be the victim of some convoluted mistaken-identity prank sooner or later, even without the Doctor’s active collusion.

“Tristan. The author has to concentrate on writing the rest of the plot and doesn’t need this sort of distraction, and you know full well that Siegfried has forbidden you from going to the Drovers’ until we have finished mending the TARDIS,” said the Doctor. “Come on,” he added, putting his arm around Tristan’s shoulders, “Let’s go down to the paddock. While the author is working out where to go next with the plot, we can get started with the repairs, and then if the plot turns out to be too dull, we can fly off and have our own adventures instead.”

[virmillion]

Some Kind of Magical - Chapter 8

Chapter 7 / Chapter 9 / Masterpost / ao3

Warnings: Blood mention (not severe), food mention, fighting a monster animal, let me know if you have any more

Words: 4708

    The last time Roman was awake this early, Pib had accidentally set their shared room on fire with a flaming fox experiment. They swore the mixture was controlled and the equations foolproof, but the charred remains of Roman’s closet door said otherwise. Long story short, Roman was out of the house before the sun rose, and he did not much appreciate it.

    They don’t share a room anymore.

    “Thyrrak, in the name of all that Ceth gazes upon, I am going to hang you by your feet on the board if you don’t pay attention.” Myjhyrr Pentheon taps a pencil on the board meaningfully, drawing a circle around an equation. “The answer, if you would.”

    “It represents the average change in velocity from time ‘t’ equals three to time ‘t’ equals seven.” Roman allows a bored tone, perfected through years of practice, to slip into his voice. He may not understand a word of what he’s saying, but sure as Ceth shines bright in the night can he fake it. If nothing else, it’s nice for people to think he’s smart and focused, even if he’s more concerned with running his thumbnail over the folded piece of paper in his pocket.

    “Oh. Okay. Well, yes. Very nice, Thyrrak. Thank you.” With a wink and a shrug, Roman’s attention returns to the notes on his desk. Entirely blank, mind you, save for the lazy doodles in the margins. To even call them doodles is mostly lip service—they’re more like vain attempts at putting pencil to paper while fighting the urge to fall asleep. In case it wasn’t blatantly obvious, Roman is losing that fight. Miserably.

    Roman continues to lose this fight several times over, his eyes nearly crusted shut by the time lunch rolls around. Thinking back to that lost breakfast apple, his stomach floods with hunger and remorse. He should have at least grabbed a banana to go with it while he had the chance, since Pib is certain to tear through them all once they find the basket, leaving Roman empty handed.

    When he finally makes it to the trudging lunch line, all of the bananas are gone. Such is the way of life.

    “Thanks so much,” Roman says, pulling his loaded tray from the counter. Making his way to the usual table, he swerves his shoulders to and fro in a desperate effort to keep the precarious stack upright. Just as he reaches his seat, the whole thing crashes down, containers and utensils flying every which way.

    “Need some help there?” Patton asks. He sweeps an arm over the table, knocking debris from past uncleaned lunches aside. “Here’s your fruit cup, your milk carton, and your obligatory napkin that no one uses.” Roman barely manages to grunt his gratitude, which his tired mind assumes to be an acceptable medium of appreciation. “How’s your day been, kiddo?”

    “Everything sucks and I want to go home.” Propping his chin on the table, Roman slouches and listlessly drags a spoon in circles around his styrofoam tray. “Why were you and Logan up so early, anyway?”

    “That’s on a need to know basis,” Logan says, appearing out of nowhere with his own tray. “Do you need to? No.”

    “Maybe you should leave the wordplay to Patton,” Roman says. His opinion loses all credibility as Patton bounces in his seat.

    “Logan, you just made a joke based on the pronunciation of hodoprones!”

    “I think you mean homophone, and no, I did nothing of the sort. You’ve no evidence to insinuate the mere possibility that I, a well-respected member of society, could ever even fathom doing such a thing, let alone carry it out.”

    “The lad doth protest too much, methinks,” Virgil mutters. He drops into the seat beside Patton, ignoring the hope on Patton’s face and turning to Logan. “Admit you made a pun and move on with it.”

    Patton bites his lip, glancing at Virgil’s hands as he picks at a tray full of sandwiches, fruits, and chocolate chip cookies. “Virgil, I wanted to apologize for—”

    “Water over the bridge, Pat.”

    Logan holds up a finger, tilting his head to the side. “It’s supposed to be water under—”

    “I know what I said.” Virgil stabs at a piece of fruit, clearly not interested in pursuing Patton’s apology.

    Never one to be outdone with topic jumps, Roman talks over Logan’s frustrated rambling on the semantics of idioms. “More importantly, why hasn’t my question been answered? Waking me up that early has to be, like, some sort of crime. Punishable by giving me a cookie.”

    Virgil smacks away Patton’s hand, which is already extended to offer one. “Your reward for surviving such an atrocity can be me not murdering you in your sleep, of which you obviously need so much.” The threat is accompanied by a truly fearsome transfer of food from tray to mouth.

    “Oh, I’m so scared.” Roman raises his hands in mock terror, idly wondering whether Virgil can tell how much genuine fear his threat incurred. When he lowers them once more, his fingers come to rest on the outline of the folded paper in his pocket. He jolts.

    “Says the guys who didn’t think to come back and get me.” Virgil raps the table, trying to swallow around a thick wad of cookie dough as protests erupt from everyone else. “Hold your horses, be stable, quit horsing around and what have you, I know you knew I’d get here eventually. Nothing personal.”

    Patton takes a shot at dominating the conversation again, allowing a brief reprieve for Virgil to eat his lunch in peace. While the latter sets about peeling a banana—much to Roman’s chagrin—Patton changes topics. Roman’s protests about the apparent reappearance of the banana basket after her went through the line are ignored. “So, we’ve survived this much of the school year already. How are we gonna make it through the rest, and who do I need to schmooze to get us there? I’m armed to the teeth with candy bundles, and I’m willing to part with at least three. Maybe four, if someone else tosses in a few brownies for collateral.”

    “Start by saying hello to this kid. Hope you guys don’t mind.” Logan gestures with his elbow as someone shuffles up to the table, their shoulders looking more like oversized earrings than independent body parts.

    Roman, for all his outer glory and self importance, can’t find it in himself not to let his gaze linger on the newcomer. Their hair drops long and straight to their thighs, which would probably sound more impressive were it not for their barely scraping the bar at five feet tall. The dark green shock streaking the otherwise obsidian hair is rivaled only by the faint twinkle of mischief in their sage green eyes. They brush their hair aside as they draw near, revealing a parade of piercings marching up their ear. Where the line ends at the lobe is a lime green T.

    “Everyone, this is Trilyo. Trilyo, this is Virgil, Patton and Roman.” Logan points at everyone in turn, shuffling his belongings aside when he finishes. Roman reaches for his pocket—and the paper inside—as discreetly as he can, trying to think of a polite exit strategy.

    “Hi. Just so, um, just so you know, the T means, uh, it means to call me Trilyo. And they. Please.” In a voice hardly above a whisper, they continue, “on S-days, it’s Sage and she. Oh, and, um, Helsyirr and he. For H-days, I mean.” Their words gain strength as they start to defend themself from unasked questions. “If people want to get on my case about those things, then I’d, um, I want to make it less difficult than I—than it has to be.”

    “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” Roman says, “but feel free to take my seat. I actually just remembered, I’ve got something to take care of. With someone. Somewhere else.” He slides his chair out, patting the seat like an invitation for Trilyo. “Don’t let these guys starve, okay? I hear that’s not always the best first impression. Don’t quote me on that, either.”

    As soon as he’s through the doors and out of the building, Roman allows himself a disgusted groan. If he’d sounded any more stiff or closed off, Trilyo probably could have mistaken him for someone’s parent, trying to seem cool with the kids having none of it. Were it not for the unwitting damage control his friends would have to do now, Trilyo would probably never want to speak to him again. That’s the only foreseeable outcome within reason, as far as Roman is concerned.

    He draws his jacket closer against the faint breeze, careful not to crumple the paper in his pocket any more than it already is. Whenever fall decides to officially announce itself, he’ll switch over to a heavy coat, but until that happens, a stubborn pout is all he can offer. The stubborn pout quickly turns to a displeased scowl as someone else appears at his side. Roman allows his eyes to slip shut, curious if it might deter any unwelcome conversation.

    “Hey, Roman.”

    Evidently not.

    “Hey, Than.” His words are hardly more than a mumble, drowned out by a sudden gust of wind, which promptly whacks him in the face with a leaf. “Don’t tell me it was you.” The paper crinkles in his pocket.

    “So you found my letter, I gather?” Than’s footfalls are accompanied by the soft crunch of dead grass under his feet. The breeze echoes his words. “The grass is going away quite quickly this year.”

    “Don’t make me say it.” The answering silence is prompt enough. “Ceth, man, you’re really gonna make me say it?” More silence. More wind. A storm cloud grumbles in the distance. “Fine. Whatever. I’m not even mad. I don’t even care. The river reaps souls and swallows hopes.”

    “All because it flows backwards.” Than exhales, an almost laugh that Roman doesn’t return. For all of the hassle Virgil’s been through with Than, the guy sure is thorough.

    Roman has long since learned to take pride in his acting skills. Be it hiding a grade to not disappoint Pib or hiding a TryMyts to avoid disappointing his parents, he’s gotten arguably decent at putting up an unshakeable front. The latest obstacle from Than, however, has provided considerably more difficulty. Nothing Roman can’t handle, of course.

    Coming home to a cold house has always been Roman’s reality. Operating separate from his family has always been Roman’s reality. Working his tail off for no reward has always been Roman’s reality. Finding random letters in his bag, even, has always been Roman’s reality—he’d once offered to be the middleman for hopeless romantics around the school. Long story short, the service petered off around the time he entered his junior year. Everything from senseless pining to obsessive stalking, he’d helped facilitate and, when the situation called for it, de-escalate.

    Unmarked letters would appear on occasion. That wasn’t Roman’s concern. His concern was more in the contents of this particular letter. Sealed with a silvery dragon silhouette and scrawled in gold ink, he would have had to be a fool not to open it. Even now, knowing he was the recipient of thoughtful scribing from the likes of Than, Roman can’t really say he regrets opening it.

    “The grass is going away

    Quite quickly this year,” I’ll say

    So just for me

    If you’ll agree

    Kindly answer in this way:

    I know the line may fit many tropes

    And writing this makes me seem a dope

    But kindly answer

    Thou fair romancer

    “The river reaps souls and swallows hopes”

    Roman smiles to himself, the harsh wind yanking him out of his ponderings. He holds up the letter from his pocket between two fingers, examining the crisply pressed fold. “You know, writing ‘tomorrow at lunch’ at the bottom was really ambiguous. What if I didn’t know where to go? What if I didn’t find it on the right day? Why are you demonizing the river?” Cracking an eye open, he glances at Than. “And ‘fair romancer?’ Really?”

    “Don’t attack the messenger, I just needed a clever way to let you know that the magic is going haywire in more places than just the barriers by that zburator cave.”

    “Yeah, I already—” Roman’s other eye shoots open as he whips his head around to stare at Than. “You saw the cave? How did I not see you? When were you there? By the brightest flickers of Cethyphyirr itself, Than, what happened to your face?”

    Than grins, running the back of his fingers over his scarring cheek. “It’s healing nicely, don’t you think? I suspect it’s something to do with all this wind, making new barriers, sending rivers flowing backwards, all that manner of speaking.”

    “Get to your point, Than, because I know you didn’t lure me out here to flirt over your limerick skills.”

    “To tell the truth, I knew you weren’t about to talk to me of your own volition.”

    “That’s fair.”

    “But with the reversed rivers and the increased zburator activity, not to mention the storm situation over there, I figured someone with more swaying power than me ought to know.” Roman shuts his eyes again, quite finished with the painfully slow progress of said impending clouds. “Logan would have been my first choice, him being so smart and all, plus our mutual connection through Virgil, but I’d never get the chance to talk to him, even if I wanted to. He’s rebuffed every attempt at conversation I’ve ever made since he started talking to Virgil, so I was hoping you might be willing to—”

    Roman backhands Than’s chest, halting whatever he was trying to request. At Than’s protests, he hisses a shushing sound. “Did you hear that?” The building behind them remains calm, save for the regular lunchtime bustle. The same dead grass making the same crunching sounds under the same relentless wind. “It sounded like a yell.” In the hushed silence, a distant shout. Roman casts a pained glance back to the school, from which the warning bell to end lunch chimes. Without giving himself a chance to reconsider, he shoves past Than and sprints in the opposite direction.

    The few scraggly trees ringing the school property offer virtually no resistance as Roman surges past them. With the almost imperceptible cover of the leaves between him and the building, he traces his way around to what’s essentially the school’s backyard. By sheer luck or mere happenstance, he manages to avoid the hawk eyes of the teachers, who always seem relatively Kryntyk-bent on corralling everyone into a ridiculously cramped building. This has never quite made sense to Roman, who’s always been of the mindset that open doors allow for an open mind—that’s the polite way of giving his opinion, at least.

    “You know,” a voice mumbles at his shoulder, “the teachers don’t care as long as you tell them you’re just skipping for TryMyts stuff. You don’t need to sneak around.”

    Roman nearly leaps out of his skin, delivering a harsh elbow to Than’s stomach. “Warn a guy next time, why don’t you? And shut up for a hot second, I lost the source of the shouting.” As if in answer to his latest observation, the faint calls return, more of an echo than a discernible voice. Roman feels his ear twitch. “This way.”

    With reluctance abundantly evident in his posture, Roman tugs Than along behind him, heading for the line of full trees closing the circle of dead ones. The yells crescendo, almost tangible by the time Roman yanks Than through the last of the green. Just on the other side stands a trembling Trilyo, their back to the boys. They raise a shaky hand before them, and that’s when Roman notices the demonic mockery of a bird perched on a branch above them.

    “Why in the name of Ceth itself is a jynthykryk on school grounds?” Roman whispers, his voice a hushed mixture of awe and horror. Calling the creature would be flattery at best, and detailing just how utterly wrong it looks would be an offense in and of itself. Roman’s strongest repulsion is, always has been, and always will be that glaring quintet of eyes, the perimeters just barely distanced enough not to be a trio. Even if the one in the middle, alight in hues of gold, weren’t staring them down, the four framing it are unnerving enough on their own. They’re less like four pupils and more like two diamonds split through the middle and crammed into four separate sockets. All are gold, all are angular, and all ar staring intently down at Trilyo as if they were its next meal. Its head cranes at an unnatural angle, showing off its glinting silver beak in a gaping yawn, which reveals five teeth that may as well be knives crowding around a five-pronged golden tongue. The latter flicks in and out, in and out, as those piercing eyes size up Trilyo.

    “Okay, you get Trilyo out of here, and I’ll go for the jynthykryk,” Roman murmurs. He regrets phrasing it like an order the moment the words leave his mouth.

    “Are you kidding? Bossing me around?” Than huffs with what Roman finds to be an unnecessary amount of self importance. “I think not. Back it up, buddy, and take after me.” With his arms over his head, Than barges in front of Trilyo, easily commandeering the jynthykryk’s attention. “Over here, you pathetic excuse for a bird! What, did Ceth forget what a bird looked like when it spat you out of the sky?”

    Grabbing its attention was the wrong move. Waving his arms about was the wrong move. Daring to make a sound in the first place was the wrong move. Taking all of this into consideration, the absolute worst thing to have done was to compare that monstrosity to a bird, especially to its face. Whether it understands words is largely unimportant—the wrathful gleam in its eyes is far more concerning.

    With a sickening screech, it flares up a wing, showing off a coat of razor-sharp black feathers tipped in silver. The prongs crowning each wing boast gold talons, sharp enough to make Roman’s stomach hurt just from looking at them. It rises on stalked legs, which end in prickling gold claws that could easily tear out Roman’s throat at a moment’s notice. He swallows thickly.

    “Get down!” The words rip out of Roman before he can stop them, his mouth reacting before his brain can finish comprehending what it doesn’t want to register. At another screech, the jynthykryk takes wing, swooping down from the trees to claw at Trilyo’s head. Tha shoves them to the ground, throwing his body over theirs like a shield. With his best imitation of bravery, Roman gives a shout, throwing his arms up to snag its attention.

    To Roman’s dismay, it works.

    The creature whips its head toward him, careening down from the sky to snap at his hair. Roman ducks, catching the plumage of its blade of a tail in his fist. Shards of glass would score his hands less, but it’s enough to faze the animal.

    For a moment.

    Than is no help whatsoever, still yelling directions over a clearly terrified Trilyo. In one of his rare moments of silence, during which Roman is still screaming bloody murder, they manage to scrabble under the cover of the trees. The leaves shimmer at the edges, just enough to declare the presence of magic. Taking this in stride as the reason for why no teachers have come to investigate the hollering yet, Roman returns his focus to Than and the jynthykryk.

    As it ascends for another diving attack, Roman waves Than to his side, ignoring his protests and curses. “If we coordinate our idiocy, we might actually survive this thing, but that isn’t gonna happen unless you work with me and we get our acts together. So look up, keep up, and don’t you dare shut up, not on your life.” Roman wills the fires of Kryntyk into his eyes as he draws Than in by the collar. “If you endanger even one life in that school then so help me, as Ceth is my witness, I will end you. Go.”

    He shoves Than back into the clearing, and he waits. Its feathers shower shreds of leaves down as it literally slices through the enchanted trees, its five eyes all focused solely on Than. Perfect for Roman, who darts out at the last possible moment and latches onto the sharp tail with all his might. The jynthykryk screeches, such a horrible sound to grate against Roman’s ears as it whips into the air. Than watches, stunned just before the point of silence, as it lifts Roman higher and higher, so high up that a fall could very well be deadly. Such is a fact of which Roman is all too aware. He digs his nails in deeper, yanking out more knife feathers as the tail whips him around. Too focused on keeping a tight grip, Roman hardly notices his ears ringing as his teeth knock together—certainly an ache he’ll feel tenfold later.

    That’s when the tail snaps back up, too fast for him to adjust, and he loses his grip.

    Roman feels himself tumbling through empty air, the only purchase his hands can find being the loose blade feathers he’s crushing in a death grip. As the ground rushes up, too fast, nowhere near fast enough, he can just barely make out Than’s voice, splitting the air to reach him. Having no idea what he’s yelling, Roman curls into a ball and sends out every prayer he can think of to Ceth, to another Ejnathryk, even to Kryntyk. How the enchanted trees have gone unnoticed for so long, and still work to this extent, is beyond Roman. He allows himself to uncurl a little as the jynthykryk speeds past him, its eyes locked onto the still ranting Than. Still screaming. Still diverting attention. Just like Roman asked.

    Roman shoots out a hand, snatching the creature by its tail once more, but he’s prepared this time. As the trees thicken with the rising ground, he hooks his shoes around what looks to be a sturdy enough branch, and pulls up with muscles he didn’t even know he had. The jynthykryk hesitates for only a moment before beating its wings with a renewed vigor. The branch snaps.

    Spurred on by Than’s incessant yelling, Roman manages to right his head, this time bracing his sole on the next branch and not waiting to yank. The one oversized feather in his left fist, shining in various hues of silver and gold, lashes about dangerously. In all likelihood, this is just an identifying feather—identifeather, he wants to joke, but no, this isn’t the time—a feather that indicates the jynthykryk’s gender. Nevertheless, something tells Roman to pull it out. He can’t.

    The branch bows under the added force of a teenager fighting a demon monster bird, coming far too close to breaking for Roman’s comfort. That fifth gleaming tooth, curved and poised to attack, gets ever closer to Than’s face, which is bright red for a number of reasons. As the silver beak creaks open and the slithering tongue flicks toward Than, the feather bites jewels of red from Roman’s fingers. He could let go. He should let go. He does not.

    As he screams out to “duck!” from the deepest recesses of his throat, finally, finally, the feather comes out. Roman finds himself launched into the air as his potential energy shatters into kinetic chaos, his stomach taking refuge in his throat. The jynthykryk, obviously unprepared for the sudden shift and the loss of a relatively significant feather, crashes beak first into the dirt. Than. who managed to listen to two whole instructions, is crouched over himself not three feet from where the creature’s scrabbling legs poke out of the ground. This is when Roman remembers that he is not, in fact, on the ground yet. By some miracle, the last branch he’d hassled was close to the dirt, but that little tidbit doesn’t keep his gut from trying to consume itself as he hurtles back down. Than breaks Roman’s fall—against both of their wills.

    Trilyo appears from between the trees, their streak of green tangled in the surrounding leaves. They dart out to meet Roman, snatching the prominent feather in a sleeve-covered hand. He hadn’t even realized he’d managed to hang on to it, instead rolling over to hold his stomach and groan. Than follows suit, burying his face in his knees as he curls into a ball.

    Without so much as a warning to either of the boys, Trilyo latches a hand around the blades ringing the jynthykryk’s neck and frees its head with ease. Trilyo doesn’t even allow it the mercy of one final screech before the plunge the feather tip into its center eye. The creature vanishes with less flair than a puff of smoke, leaving only the sharpest dagger of a feather in Trilyo’s hands. Every other blade-edged feather, from those in Than’s hair to the ones Roman stuck through his skin, every last one disappears. Trilyo turns to head back to the school.

    “Woah, woah, wait, don’t you think we deserve an explanation?” Than demands. He lurches to his feet, curving over his core as he grabs feebly at their shoulder.

    “The biggest and deadliest feather is, um, it’s the only thing that can destroy jynthykryks, and it has to be their own, in the, ah, in the center eye. Make it a set of six to split up the continuity of the, um, the quintets to destroy the creature.” Trilyo tosses their hair over their shoulder. “Everybody knows that.”

    “Okay, but why were you dealing with a jynthykryk in the first place? How did you even know to go through the tree line? Ceth’s sake, Trilyo, I literally just saw you at lunch not twenty minutes ago!” Roman wrings his hands together, wishing he had enough strength left in his arms to tear his hair out.

    “What, you’re really stuck on that? I don’t want to—I mean, I’m not about to just give it away. I don’t want to worry about people, um, about other people stealing—taking, I mean, taking my TryMyts idea. I can’t exactly have that, now, can I?” Ignoring Than’s demands and Roman’s pleas, Trilyo leaves.

    “I guess that could’ve gone better,” Than admits. “But it could’ve gone a lot worse, too. For one, the majority of my face is still intact. At least, what was intact to begin with. I’d rather not think about how much worse it would be if I hadn’t already lost feeling from all those burns.”

    “What Trytsu are you even aiming for, Than?” Roman turns from where Trilyo was to scrutinize his companion, ignoring how his knees ache from kneeling. It hurts too much to stand. “I know it’s out of nowhere, but it’s a fair question. I wouldn’t call that rescuing the creature, it definitely wasn’t hands off, and I’d be lying if I said that constituted actual fighting. If anything, you just covered for me. What Trytsu do you honestly believe is right for you?”

    Than shrugs, letting his hands drift to his shoulders. “Maybe I’ll stick with undecided, work with Virgil and Myjhyrr Senthyirr. Don’t forget, impossible though it may be to believe, Thriyv did have a life before he walked into yours.” He pauses on his way to the trees, one hand resting on a trunk. “And I really hope you’ll pass on that stuff about the magic going haywire. I’m sure you and your friends can do way more with it than me.”

    Roman watches in silence as Than vanishes, gone just like any trace of the jynthykryk. Something in him wants to call after the guy, to demand an answer, to apologize for misjudging him, to thank him for his help, but no. Roman says nothing. Alone again, still picking feathers from his skin, he goes inside.

Chapter 7 / Chapter 9 / Masterpost / ao3

[darrowbyeightfive]

Lost the Plot

The Doctor is (politely) displeased.

This follows on from my ACGAS/Fifth Doctor crossovers The Scenic Route and Tea in Bed but do be warned that it is written in a very different style from those previous pieces and is a piece of utter absurdity, inspired by a plot point in A Very Peculiar Practice and my love for ‘Castrovalva’ and the fictional worlds of Jorge Luis Borges(*) as well as for All Creatures.

Features Tricki-Woo and Mrs. Pumphrey, offstage.

(*) Just please don’t expect anything as good as AVPP, Castrovalva or, especially, Borges, or you will be very disappointed.

The Doctor gently swung his legs down to the floor and used one hand to slowly push himself up into a standing position. Tentatively, he padded in his red socks across the Persian rug, holding on to various  items of furniture for support. After his previous attempts, he was anxious lest a wave of dizziness or nausea should hit him, but succeeded in crossing the room without incident. He arrived at the fourth wall and cleared his throat.

“Excuse me,” he said, attempting to bring a tone of polite authority to his voice. “I’ve been lying in bed for a couple of weeks now. It’s been wonderful to be looked after and everything, Mrs Hall is a very kind lady, and I do like that green quilt, but the thing is that I’m stuck here while everyone except me is having adventures and I feel that I’m not really living up to my job description. James and Tristan have been up in space and Turlough is out there on the Eye of Orion – sketching, supposedly – while I’ve been languishing here on earth coughing and collapsing whenever you wanted the readers to feel sorry for me. Now I’m feeling more myself again, it’s getting to be really rather tedious. If you had to give me space flu – what sort of an unoriginal name was that, anyway? You could at least have come up with some fancy Latin terminology – to facilitate your frankly ridiculous plot mechanics and have young Tristan crash my TARDIS, can’t you at least let me recover properly now so that I can repair her and resume my normal life of dashing about the cosmos? He’s a decent enough young fellow, if a little reckless, but it’s rather trying to look at a mirror image of yourself and be constantly reminded that with regeneration, you never know what you’re going to get.”

“I’m very sorry, Doctor,” I told him. “I had some plot ideas but wasn’t sure how to put them together. It really is a very nice quilt, and I even rescued that dressing-gown from Lady Cranleigh’s for you to wear, although that wasn’t mentioned in the episode at all.” I stopped there, realising that the dressing-gown thing had been pure self-indulgence on my part, based on how ‘absolutely ripping’ he had looked in it when he wore it in 1925. “Isn’t it better than languishing in a dungeon while the writer figures out how to get you out of there? I thought it would be nice to have someone looking after you for once. In most of your adventures, you end up getting bashed about, locked up or tortured with nobody to take care of you. You just have to dust yourself down and get on with the story. I thought you would appreciate the soft bed, tea and crumpets after all that.”

“That was indeed very considerate of you, and you know how much I love tea. The crumpets were delicious, too. Thank you very much. But I am beginning to suspect your motives in some of this. Can you genuinely say that you have never daydreamed about mopping my fevered brow? Or building your own benevolent version of Castrovalva for me to recuperate in? In which I am not ‘trapped’ in the strict technical sense but develop a strong disinclination towards leaving while there is honey still for tea?”

“Er, well…” I suppose you don’t get to be an intergalactic hero without having a good deal of insight into other people’s motivations, and such insight comes more easily when you’re being written by the person who has those motivations. (It’s almost like telepathy.) “OK, yes. I did want to look after you. But I’m not trying to keep you trapped in this story. I just haven’t got round to writing the next part yet.”

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” he said, arching his eyebrows. He really is such a smart aleck. Pretty much everyone quotes that wrongly, apart from him, of course. Probably picked it up when he was drinking with Shakespeare, or ghostwrote it for him, or something.  “Look how much nicer I am to you than the BBC was, eh? What about the space flu, though? That wasn’t pleasant at all!”

“Yes, I’m sorry about the space flu. But if nothing unpleasant happened to you, there wouldn’t be a story, would there? I’m afraid that’s an occupational hazard of being a hero.”

“I suppose you’re right,” he said, with a universe-weary sigh. “Writers of stories really do seem to have it in for one, sometimes. Tea and crumpets are certainly better than Cybermen and Daleks, and you are going to give me a chance to play cricket. But as for making me wear this absurd dressing-gown again...”

“I have given you pyjamas too, you know. With your favourite question-marks on them. You haven’t had to spend most of an episode walking down corridors with the dressing-gown open to your chest in my story. And in any case, this is just prose, without any visuals. For all the readers know, you could actually be wearing a baggy old cardigan.”

“Hmmm. But what about those illustrations of yours? To be fair, you haven’t done an illustration of me in the dressing-gown yet, but I suspect it’s only a matter of time. I wonder whether these illustrations aren’t something of a pretext for downloading a ridiculous number of pictures of me from the internet. Drawing references, indeed. How many drawing references does anyone need?”

“Have you been rummaging around on my hard drive while I’ve been asleep?”

“You’ve given me so little else to do, and one must keep oneself occupied somehow. There’s only so many hours one can spend doing crosswords. You still haven’t managed to draw me properly, you know, despite all your references. You’re nowhere near as good as Turlough. And you’ve started writing me out of character now, too. I’m not usually quite this sardonic.”

“Yes, I’m sorry, I have. In my defence, I’m not the first person ever to have done that, but I will try to do better from now on. So, what sort of plot do you want? How do you want me to get you out of here?” (First rule of plotting: consult your protagonist ahead of time about all important plot decisions. Except, perhaps, ones in which he is attacked by large rubber monsters. Sometimes it is necessary to preserve the element of surprise, particularly on when the special effects aren’t very convincing.)

At this point, Tristan came in and looked quizzically towards the Doctor.

“Authorial conference,” said the Doctor.

“Aha, I see. Good stuff. Perhaps I can contribute too. I used to read through some of Mr. Wight’s drafts and make notes for him, or rather the real person I’m based on did. Wonderful chap, Mr. Wight.”

“We’re discussing what should happen next in the plot,” said the Doctor. “I was feeling rather grumpy about not having had much to do in this story so far. It must have been the aftereffects of the space flu that made me feel so out of sorts and out of character. I’m feeling much better now, though. Quite my old self.” He rocked backwards and forwards on the balls of his feet to illustrate this, and grinned broadly.

“I didn’t cut a very good figure at all in the last section of ‘The Scenic Route’,” said Tristan, turning towards me. "Made rather an ass of myself sashaying around in the Doctor’s costume and then crashing the TARDIS. Any chance of a rewrite?”

“No, I’m afraid not,” said the Doctor, before I could answer. “Web of time, and all that.”

“Well, I think the first thing to do, since you’re feeling better, is for you to change back into your normal costume. You’ll feel much more like getting back into action, then! It’s laid out on the chair. Unfortunately, your celery buttonhole has wilted and Mrs Hall has had to throw it away. I think it might have caught the space flu from you. But there’s no problem – I’ll bring you a nice new celery stalk from the vegetable rack.”

“Ah, but my previous celery was imaginary,” said the Doctor. “It came from an Edwardian yacht in space. Imaginary space vegetables keep for much longer than real ones. My first stick of celery, which was produced by by block transfer computations, lasted for a year and a half before it started going a bit brown around the edges.”

“That’s no problem,” said Tristan, breezily. “The celery from downstairs is imaginary too. We’re imaginary. Well, I’m not entirely imaginary, but I’m a fictionalised version of a real person, and this conversation we’re having now certainly never happened in real life. It’s far too silly.”

“I meant imaginary in the context of this story. Things that we’re imagining. What we call in the trade second-order imaginariness or the doubly fictional. I would tell you to go and look up the entry on ‘Uqbar’ in James’s musty encyclopaedias in the cellar to give you an idea of what I mean, except that the episode in which James buys the encyclopaedias hasn’t happened yet and the encyclopaedia in question, despite being published in 1902, is the subject of a fiction that wasn’t written until 1940. Continuity can be rather confusing, sometimes, even when you’re not suffering from regeneration sickness.”

“Ah, I’m not sure how we’re going to manage to produce something that’s doubly imaginary in a veterinary practice in 1937. We do have quite a few interesting chemicals in the surgery…” mused Tristan. “Oh yes, I have an idea! I’ll ring Mrs Pumphrey, and ask her to ask Tricki-Woo to imagine one. I’m sure she won’t mind. She’s always been very forthcoming where food items are concerned.”

**********

“Here you are! To dear Uncle Doctor, from Tricki-Woo, Esquire,” said Tristan, bounding up the stairs with a very crisp-looking but entirely imaginary stick of celery. “Nothing but the best from Mrs. Pumphrey.”

“Excellent,” I said. “Now, Doctor, if you’re ready to change into your costume, I’ll avert my gaze and insert a row of asterisks.”

Tristan gave a naughty grin. “If I were writing in the omniscient third person, I’d be sure to make full use of all the privileges that that afforded.”

“Yes, I rather imagine you would,” said the Doctor, with a raised eyebrow.

Tristan blushed and grinned again, a little sheepishly, realising that he must after all have left a copy of Health and Efficiency inside one of the more sedate publications that he had lent to his visitor.

“Tristan!” I said “Be more respectful! He’s very proper, you know. Hundreds of years old, and is supposed to be a good example to the young. No hanky-panky in the TARDIS, and all that.”

“I’m not supposed to be a good example to anyone. Quite the reverse, in fact!” said Tristan, laughing. “Anyway, it was you who thought up that bit about the privileges of the omniscient narrator.”

“You said it, not me!”

“You put the words into my mouth! Trying to blame things on a fictional – or semi-fictional – character, indeed!”

************

The Doctor, now back in his usual costume, turned to me: “Pleasant as this discussion has been, we don’t seem to have got much further with deciding on the plot.”

“There have been a lot of distractions. But look, I have got you better from the space flu, now. That’s progress.”

“Yes, indeed,” the Doctor said brightly. “No more shivering and shaking. Definitely an improvement.”

“You could write yourself into the story as a love-interest for me,” said Tristan. “Of course, our relationship would have to be ultimately doomed to failure because of a disapproving father or a strange obsession with goat dung, because the BBC has it in for me too, but we could have some fun first.” He gave me a very flirtatious look.

“Well... yes... I could do that...” I said, blushing and suddenly feeling very flustered.

“So, would your authorial avatar like to come to the Drovers’ with me this evening?”

It was very tempting, of course, but taking into account Tristan’s overdeveloped sense of humour and the presence of his exact lookalike, I was not at all convinced that I wouldn’t be the victim of some convoluted mistaken-identity prank sooner or later, even without the Doctor’s active collusion.

“Tristan. The author has to concentrate on writing the rest of the plot and doesn’t need this sort of distraction, and you know full well that Siegfried has forbidden you from going to the Drovers’ until we have finished mending the TARDIS,” said the Doctor. “Come on,” he added, putting his arm around Tristan’s shoulders, “Let’s go down to the paddock. While the author is working out where to go next with the plot, we can get started with the repairs, and then if the plot turns out to be too dull, we can fly off and have our own adventures instead.”

[shirttrendingshoponline]

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