#guys this is devil town core!!!

[clown-shaped]

they like liiike eachother!

Micha is fucking baffled that Cheetos hair is naturally straight and not curly and ALSO that it's real hair and not cotton candy.

For context: cheeto is a candy amalgamation monster but he's not fully made out of candy. His hair usually looks like cotton candy👍

They're gay btw

[fairyysoup]

the devil i know

chapter seven: fill my mind with dirtiness, i'll invade your dreams

(repost)

fic tag | fic playlist | fic masterlist

pairing(s): crossroads demon!eddie munson x fem!reader

summary: Eddie teaches you a thing or two about possession.

cw: explicit, smut, monsterfucking, fem masturbation, demonic possession, actually really fluffy if you can believe it, mind control, telepathy, making a deal with a demon, inspired by american and european folklore, sacrilegious themes, horror, witch!reader, reader is 21+ in modern day, eddie is immortal, sex pact, marking, possessive behavior, animal death, trauma, reader is ostracized by her very religious hometown, dark comedy, dead dove: do not eat

please check masterlist and individual parts for content warnings before reading. this fic contains dark themes. your media consumption is your own responsibility.

ALL OF MY WORKS ARE 18+ MINORS DNI

Your eyelids press against the throw blanket you’ve pulled across them as a makeshift blindfold. Not that there’s much light in the room to begin with, but if you don’t have something holding them shut they just pop right open and stare at nothing.

You’re tired. Bone tired, but you can’t manage to shut your mind off. There’s a certain electricity in your limbs that keeps you jolting at the slightest sounds, your nerves like livewires, sparking at everything and nothing. Out in your living room, a new dog sleeps on your rug. Somewhere across town, your ex-boyfriend sleeps in the ICU.

You can’t sleep.

You huff and flop over, ripping the throw blanket off of your head. You don’t know if it’s just some sort of infernal caffeine that Eddie pumped into your body, but you can’t stop thinking of the blazing car, the heat of the fire scorching Andy and throwing him across the asphalt. You think back on it, and the feeling of release when the car went up in flames, like a weight lifted off of your shoulders after so long. Your blinding hatred of Andy and a sense of possession over the mark given to you by the fiery eyed demon who kissed your tears away.

Eddie did say that he���d corrupt you. ‘Break you,’ were his words. ‘You wouldn’t be the first good girl that I’ve broken.’ But, you don’t honestly know that he has. You went out into the woods to make that deal with him first. You sent him your petition first– what were you really hoping for? A rock to fall out of the sky and crush Andy in the middle of an intersection? 

A car fire is just as effective.

Flashes of Eddie come to you. The scent of smoke in the air, strong and getting stronger the closer he gets to you. The timbre of his voice in your ear, calling you a good girl, even though you feel like anything but. It’s not… what you’re used to. You’re not used to being praised for anything. Not even being able to take the blows that you’re dealt. Usually you just get insults to go with the pain.

Your hand drifts low on your stomach, feeling a burn between your legs that wasn’t there five minutes ago. You don’t know what it is that has you feeling more high strung than normal– needier than normal. Just the mere thought of Eddie has your thighs pressing together and your core tensing like you’ll never get any relief. You palm your own crotch, tugging on the fabric like some frat guy trying to readjust his junk in front of god and everybody.

Now that you’ve gotten a taste of him– or, rather, he’s gotten a taste of you– it’s like your impulse control is nearly as void as his. Who gives a fuck? You’ve already given him your soul, signed it over to Hell for a bit of happiness. He’s done away with most of the demons of your past and given you what you want. 

What you want right now is him. Eddie. His body, his tongue, his voice in your ear, his touch on your skin. It’s becoming an addiction now that you’ve let him in.

But, he’s… busy, you guess. He said he had some kind of business to take care of when he left you earlier. But there can’t be a special place in Hell for someone masturbating to the thought of their own personal demon, right?

A resigned sigh escapes you as you shove your hand down the front of your pajama pants. There’s no foreplay when you do this, no drawing out the process. Usually, you just try to get the job done quickly.

You dip a finger between the folds of your pussy to feel them drenched, far worse than you figured they would be when you’ve only been thinking about him for– what– two minutes? Ten? Doesn’t matter. You caress the sensitive skin, trying not to overthink why you’re so wet, why your finger practically drips when you spread your arousal over your clit. 

You close your eyes against whatever light is in the room. You move your finger faster, a quick back and forth that just makes you sigh and readjust your hips on the mattress, searching for the right feeling. 

Your mind delivers you an image of shining eyes beneath a curtain of dark, wavy hair. Ring-clad fingers drawing a lock of hair across plush lips in a mimicry of shyness. His warmth pressed against your back. His lips sucking the blood from your arm, healing the small wound on your skin. His tongue between your legs, forked and fucking into your cunt slowly, deeply.

“Motherfucker–” It just doesn’t feel quite right. Your finger feels too small, your own touch practically numb on your clit, even when the skin is so sensitive that it should be doing something. You pull and pluck at the skin, but your fingers feel jerky and uncomfortable, when usually it all feels just fine. 

And everything feels hot. Why is it so fucking hot? Not just your cunt, or the tension in your core that’s screaming for you to just do something, but it feels like you’re breaking a fever. You’re doused in sweat, your skin is radiating more heat than you know what to do with. 

Oh, that’s cute. 

A gasp tears from your throat. You sit up like a shot, your hands scrambling for your bedside lamp. The light flickers on, and… nothing. 

His voice sounded so close. So present in your ears, like he was right next to you. For some reason, you’re disappointed that he isn’t actually there. 

Shivering and sweating and holding your head in your hands, you shake your head with your eyes squeezed shut. “...Eddie?”

You need to relax, you’re working yourself up.

You don’t know why it’s only hitting you now, how fucking odd it is that he’s talking to you. Or, airdropping messages directly into your head. The last time he did, you’d been a little too preoccupied with what was happening in the external world to really focus on the why and how. 

“Where are you?”

I’m inside you.

His voice rumbles through your head, low and smoky like rolling magma in the pit of a volcano. It’s not audible– not to anyone else. It’s not something you’re hearing, it’s something you’re simply sensing. It makes your mind spin and all your muscles below your waist draw up tight and hard.

Do you want me to be inside you?

Oh, it’s not fair. Not fair. The way his voice dips, dripping like melted gold down your spine, making your entire body contract and release like it’s going to have a fucking fit. You don’t know if you’ll be able to stop it, if it does. You don’t seem to be in control of it anymore. 

“Y-you–” you hiccup, trying to retain your calm and finding nothing to cling to. “You know the fucking answer to that.” Knees drawn up to your chest, you hunch over them with your elbows by your ankles, curled into a ball. 

Lay down, sweetheart.

You can feel tears coming– hot, angry, frustrated tears because he’s not here and you feel like your body is screaming for him every time his stupid, pretty voice invades your mind. “Not– not like this–”

Lay. Down.

A hand forces your shoulder back and presses you firmly into the mattress, your head hitting the pillow and your breath leaving your lungs. Your own comes up to swing around wildly in the air, trying to grab for the arm that’s holding you down. There’s nothing. Just empty air.

“God damn it– Why aren’t you here?” You try to sit up again, but some invisible force is still holding you down by the shoulders. Your heart is pounding in your chest, so hard you can hear it in your ears. “I don’t– I don’t know why I feel like this–”

This is normal, your body is just reacting to my presence. The first time is always the worst, baby, it’ll get easier. You’ve just never been possessed before. 

His voice is so soft, so tender that it makes your welling tears spill over painfully. They run down your temples and into your hair while you kick your legs to try and wiggle out of his hold.

“But I– I want to feel you,” you blubber, rigid on the bed with the invisible weight pressing you into it. “I want you now.”

Then, you hear it. Barely audible but still there– a huff of air. A chuckle. A laugh. The sound sends a chill down your spine, the heat of embarrassment warming your cheeks. 

You were so concerned about the full moon rite when we signed the deal– where’d that go?  

“It’s– I–” You sigh, quite literally kicking your feet in agitation. You heel. You’re crying uncle, you can’t take whatever the hell is burning in your veins. “You had your tongue in my pussy, like, five hours ago. Can’t we just fuck? Right now? First time, now?”

He takes longer to answer this time. We could.

Your heart leaps. “Oh, thank Chr–”

But where’s the fun in that?

You stop squirming, and glare directly upwards, at the ceiling. You don’t know why you’re imagining him on top of you, picturing his head being right above yours– he says he’s possessing you, he’s inside your body. 

Just not in the way you fucking want him to be. Dick.  

“You asshole,” you growl. You can barely think straight with all the desire flowing through you, it’s mashing lust and anger together to create some lethal combination. Lethal to whom, you aren’t sure. “You fucking– you want me to die? Is that it? Want me to just fucking die right here on this bed and you’ll never get your full moon rite–?”

You’re not gonna die. Stop being dramatic. 

“I’m not– I’m not being dramatic–”

Dramatics don’t work with me. I invented drama. 

You pause at that. It occurs to you that you don’t… actually know how old Eddie is. “Oh, shit. Did you? Like, for real?”

No, of course not fucking for real. I’m being dramatic.

You try to stay mad. You really do. But a smirk breaks your facade, and then a giggle. And then you’re laughing, and the invisible hand on your shoulder releases you so that you can roll over in your hysterics, curling into a ball on your side while laughter shakes your body.

It’s so fucking stupid. It’s ridiculous. All of this– the inhuman lust consuming you, some physiological effect of his presence in your body. The fear and the arousal and his disembodied voice rattling around in your skull, dragging you toward Hell with him. And he’s fucking funny. Your lord of darkness, or whatever, is a goofball and a fucking tease, and you wonder for a second if you made him up. If you’ve constructed him in your mind, if you’re having a nervous breakdown. 

Sweetheart… There’s a sing-songy tone to Eddie’s voice now, and you feel a pair of fingers walking up and over the curve of your hip. Your muscles jump at the contact, then catch fire when a hand flattens out and slides along the curve of your stomach. It gently pulls you back to center, laying on your back on the mattress, your legs splayed out and arms up by your head.

“You’re a fucking dork,” you murmur, and every ounce of affection you feel for him comes out syrupy sweet in the words.

You’re still biting your lip to quiet your giggles, your eyes searching the room for what you know isn’t there. Dust settles on your dresser. Plaster peels from the ceiling and the walls of your rotten old apartment, the landlord special sitting in cakes on the windowsill and over the handle of your bedroom door. But there’s no Eddie. 

Mm, but what’s worse? The dork, or the one who’s… just so fucking turned on by it…

Pressure cups your crotch, making your breath hitch abnormally in your chest. A hand rolls against the damp fabric between your legs, but when you look down all you see are your own hips bucking up into nothing. 

Fuck, you’re just dripping for it, aren’t you?

A pathetic whine leaves your mouth. With your eyes closed you can roll your hips up against that feeling, and you can pretend he’s there next to you. The invisible hand presses two thick fingers into the seam of your pussy, drawing out all the agony and pleasure with it. Your mouth drops open, a moan caught in your throat when your clit is caught in the mix, dragging slowly against the hard press of those fingers.

This is what your body was wanting. His touch– even if it’s not a physical body, it needs Eddie to soothe the ache. This feels like relief, like comfort, like warmth. Everything feels warm with Eddie. His hands caress you, just the slightest up and down that has you keening.

And then they disappear. Vanish. No easy withdrawal, no warning. 

Your face screws up in frustration, your hands clutching the pillow on either side of your head. You feel like screaming. “Eddie, why– what’re you doing–”

Don’t whine. 

Your hands and arms suddenly feel cold, then hot– and then, you can’t control them at all. They move on their own, completely separate from your mind or will. Your fingers twitch, and then your wrists flex, like they’re getting acclimated just to the feeling of being alive.

And then slowly, much too slowly, your own hands move to your neck. Then, down over your chest. They fondle your breasts through your shirt, making you whimper even though you’re just so fucking confused. 

Let’s have our first lesson in Possession 101, shall we?

“Is this what you did at the diner?” you whisper shakily, while Eddie– your hands– Eddie squeezes your breasts, rolling your nipples between your fingers through the fabric.

No. 

“You talked to me, then.” 

I talk to you when you call me to. I don’t have to possess you to do it.

Your brain fizzles out, reboots, starts again. “Did I–” a breath– “Did I call you? Just now?”

Baby, you were screaming for me.

Eddie feels his way down the curve of your stomach, inching toward your pajama pants. It’s more sensual, more languorous and indulgent of a touch than you’d given yourself in your haste. The need in your body is endless– it stretches on infinitely, and you feel yourself sinking lower and lower, fueled by the unnatural push of your own hands, controlled by some other force outside your realm of understanding.

Good thing, too. You need to be shown how to fuck yourself properly.

“Eddie– don’t tease,” you chide, but there’s nothing real in it. It’s a pathetic whine, a little submissive noise in your throat that really means, Jesus Christ, I don’t know where to put all this lust.

Your hands wriggle beneath your pants, down past your underwear. Then your fingers dip low and part the slick, swollen lips of your cunt. You gasp at just the same time as the demon in your head hums. It’s a deep, resonating sound that slithers around in your skull, swirling and echoing like a call into the cavern of your mind.

Ohhhh, that’s fucking beautiful. His voice in your head is hushed, as if he wants to make sure no one hears his words but you. Your pussy is somehow wetter now that he’s here. You choke on a breath when your finger drags up and over your clit, the most delicate and inquisitive of a touch, but it makes sparks dance along your skin. How long has it been since you touched yourself like this?

“I don’t–” You moan suddenly when your two fingers dip into your entrance, teasing before drawing back over your clit in soft, circular strokes. Your breath rattles in your chest. “I don’t do it like this.”

That’s a travesty. 

A high whimper scratches out of your throat at that. It is a fucking travesty. You never take your time and it never feels like this. It never feels like your body is on fire and your cunt is gushing, just begging for some sort of attention to soothe its crying. 

Two fingers slip down and drive into you to the knuckle. You gasp and squirm, trying to move them, trying to do anything to stave off the ache for a faster pace. The impatience to do it fast and tight like you’re used to takes over, bucking your hips forward, urging your own hands. 

Stop fighting me, baby. It won’t work. 

He slows down, If that’s even possible. He makes your two fingers practically still, deep in your cunt, your palm flush against your throbbing clit. 

The little bit of stimulation you get from the intrusion doesn’t do as much as his voice in your head does, though. It’s as if his mere being possessing you is enough to feed the starving, rabid animal of your body.

He swirls your fingers in a way that makes you keen, tilting your head back against the pillow. Are you paying attention, little witch?

You sob, nodding your head rapidly. You’re flustered, thinking about him watching you, feeling you do this. Your fingers aren’t long enough, or thick enough, to make it feel right. It feels better than it did, but only barely. “I– I liked your fingers m–more–”

I know. Because your body belongs to me, now. Isn’t it fun, being my whore?

You gasp when he pulls your fingers out and back up to your clit, more gentle than you’ve ever tried being to yourself.

He thinks this is fun. You’re suddenly reminded that he’s a demon– historically not a creature known for being nice. Mythologically, a creature that delights in torture. 

He’s torturing you. He’s teasing you and refusing to give you what you want, refusing to fuck you, because this is fun for him. You picture chains and whips, bondage and the like, but you think it’s more than that. It's a mind game.

It’s him being able to control you. It’s you giving yourself over to him entirely.

You like it. 

I can hear your thoughts, sweetheart. Stop overanalyzing it. Stop thinking . 

“Holy shit– ” you rock your hips up when he curls your fingers, slow and hard, dragging them in and out of your cunt. The wet sound that it makes is obscene, even through the layers of fabric barring it from the open air. 

Just imagine, you get to have me all you want. I’ll fuck you open and breed this tight little pussy like you want me to so damn much. Have you leaking my cum, just a messy hole for me to fill, over and over.

You moan, loudly. The image does flash through your mind– but, of course it does. He just said that he can hear your thoughts like this, didn’t he? He knows what to say to make you lose your mind, your frustration giving way to bliss. 

Every day, for the rest of your life and beyond it, however you want it. But for now, you get to have this. 

Your pussy clenches down, squeezing your two fingers. The muscles of your stomach tighten and release, and everything, everything sears. Panting, you stutter out, “I’m– shit– Eddie, I’m gonna cu–”

Cum.

You cry out sharply, falling apart around your fingers. 

This is when you would stop. This is when you’d pull your hand away and say good enough, and let your body settle down. But Eddie continues, pushing your fingers through your spasming walls, grinding your palm against your throbbing clit until your thighs shake and your hips jump. 

It takes a fucking while before he lets up.

Easing out of you, he slides your soaked fingers up and over your clit for good measure, before lifting your hand and shoving them into your open mouth. Your moan chokes out as you close your lips around them. 

There you go. That’s how you finger yourself. I don’t wanna see whatever that other shit was again. 

“Mm… uh huh. Okay. On it, boss.”

You’re a little embarrassed that you came so quickly when he was the one controlling you. You aren’t holding out much hope that you can do the same thing to yourself, on your own. But you’ll make him the hollow promise, in the meantime.

Maybe… maybe you’ll regret this, sometime. Maybe you’ll wake up one day and discover that this has all been some great big mistake, and Eddie is not what he seems. You still don’t know anything about him. You don’t know who he is, or was. You don’t know anything beyond the bond that you share now, and the power that courses through your veins.

For now, you think, it’s enough.

You find yourself nodding as you regain control of your hands. You’re drenched in sweat, panting quietly and letting your body sink into the mattress beneath you. 

You hear him chuckle while you swallow back the dryness in your throat.

C’mon. You need some water, sweet thing.

Two invisible hands wrap around your ankles and yank your limp body out of bed, while you screech and claw helplessly at the sheets. Eddie giggles maniacally within your head when one of them smacks your ass, and your legs force you toward your bedroom door.

“Sweetheart?”

Everything glows pink. The morning sun in your windows makes things rosy, turning slowly to gold and tangerine. You groan and shift sideways, your eyes fluttering open, expecting an empty room. Expecting that Eddie is speaking to you telepathically, in that way he does. That maybe he’s still possessing you.

He isn’t. You blink up at him as he stands over you, long hair dangling in his face and flushed cheeks indented with dimples, looking half-godly like a statue of a fallen angel. You don’t think you’ll ever get over how beautiful he is. He strokes a delicate finger down the side of your face, rousing you gently with a look in his eye that you might mistake as lovestruck, if you didn’t know any better. His eyes are golden.

“Hi, pretty baby,” Eddie murmurs, as you tiredly work the sleep out of your eyes. You feel yourself making little indignant mrrrps, like a cat who wasn’t ready to be woken from a nap. Eddie chuckles, and the sound dances around the room like the twinkling of a bell. “I have something to show you.”

“Can it wait?”

“No.” His voice is soft, but holds enough command in it that you grumpily drag yourself out of the warmth and comfort of your bed. Half-asleep at the ass crack of dawn, like you’re still living with your parents and have to go to school, or something.

Even with your eyes half shut, you can follow him perfectly fine just from scent alone. His smoke and emanating warmth act like a beacon as you stumble over your own feet. He giggles at the sight of you, dragging a soothing hand down your upper arm to guide you into your kitchen. 

“All right, sweet thing,” Eddie purrs, pulling you into his arms to face away from him. He rests his chin on your shoulder, looking over it while you simply let your head fall against his, being lulled back to sleep by his warm embrace. “What do you see?”

“Mmmph.”  

“Okay, well, you have to open your eyes to see it. C’mon.” He pets a soft hand back and forth over your hip. “Let me see those beautiful eyes. You can do it.”

You’re fairly certain your eyes are puffy and crusty and gross. But you do what he says, cracking them open. “I see the counter you tongue-fucked me on yesterday.”

Eddie stops. You feel him turn his head, blinking at you like you’ve completely derailed him. After a long pause, he says, “Interesting how selective your attention to detail is.”

“There’s a bigass bunch of flowers on it.” 

It’s the truth; it’s like he uprooted an entire garden and dumped it on your kitchen counter. You aren’t sure what he means for you to do with all of them– geranium, daffodil, chrysanthemum, daisy. They’re heaped on the granite unceremoniously, looking simultaneously beautiful and decrepit. Over the smell of Eddie’s smoke, you get the earthy and floral notes of a freshly weed whacked flower bed. 

“Where the fuck did you get–”

“Doesn’t matter,” he says quickly, interrupting you. If you were more awake, you might have taken exception, but in your half-asleep haze you’re just happy to let him talk. “Do you like ‘em?”

“Yeah, honey, they’re… they’re real pretty.” You’re sure they were pretty when they were still in whatever garden he obviously stole them from. There’s a dirt clod in your sink. 

“Cool, cool… awesome. Fantastic. So I suppose that means you want to put them in a vase, right?”

What kind of household does he think this is? You don’t have the budget for fancy shit like decorative bowls. The closest you’re getting to a bouquet vase is the crockpot in your pantry. “I don’t– I don’t have a vase–” 

“Au contraire– I happen to be a purveyor of delicate glassworks.” Eddie reaches around you to set something on the counter in front of you. 

It’s a water glass with little lemons painted on it. You bought it at the family dollar last spring. 

“Babe, I dunno if you noticed, but that’s not a vase.”

“So make it one.”

“What?” You’re too tired for this. “Eddie–”

“Humor me, baby,” he whispers. He presses one big hand over your stomach, just beneath your ribcage. “You’ve got the magic to do it. Feel it, in here.”

It’s really hard to feel anything besides his touch, searing you through your baggy t-shirt. Eddie’s fingertips stroke back and forth, apparently trying to get you to focus on… something, but not accomplishing anything other than turning you on. Some instinct you have forces you to press your hips back against his, grinding your ass against his crotch in a sleep-induced urge to have him as close as you can. You make a little sound in the back of your throat that indicates what exactly it is that you’re feeling. 

Eddie hums quietly, a note of amusement in his voice. “Wrong feeling, sweetheart.”

“What the hell else am I supposed to be feeling–”

“I know, I know. You want to fuck me so bad it’s making you dumb. It’s cute, really.” He snickers when you give him a petulant huff, and his teeth wrap around your earlobe to tug playfully. “All in good time. But right now, you need to feel what you want. You want a vase.”

“I don’t want a–”

“You want the vase,” he repeats insistently, tapping your tummy twice. Hot fingertips pressing in, metal rings catching on the fabric over your skin.

You squirm. “Fine. Eddie says I want the vase.” Give me the vase so the goddamn guy will let me go back to sleep for the love of shit—

And then, you do feel it. Some burning in your gut, right beneath the press of Eddie’s hand. A buildup of pressure that isn’t necessarily pleasurable, but nor is it painful. It just builds and builds until you feel full, fit to burst. It lurches in your throat, speeds up your heart, makes you moan at the vastness of it.

“That’s good,” Eddie encourages quietly in your ear, “You’re doing great, sweetheart. Keep going.” 

The warmth of Eddie’s hand on you grows, until you feel as if your cotton t-shirt shouldn’t handle it. It should be burning up into shreds of singed fabric and char, but it just remains as an irritating barrier between his skin and yours. You feel the magic coursing through him and into you, creating some kind of tether that binds you and allows the power to travel between your beings. One with each other. 

And when you fear that it’s too much, that you might explode from the intensity of it, it leaves you. All in one strong gust, enough to knock you back into Eddie, to make you stumble and give a fevered moan of release. 

“Good girl! Look at what you did!” Eddie bounces excitedly behind you, jostling your still sluggish body. He sounds giddy, his arms tightening around you. “I’m so proud of you, you’re a fucking natural–”

“What… in the world,” you breathe, picking your heavy head up to gaze down at where your water glass used to be. Now there’s an enormous, beautiful vase. Still not enough to fit all the flowers in, but it’s a vase that you didn’t have before.

It still has little lemons on it.

“You’re so good for me, baby,” Eddie’s still whispering to you happily, a smile on his lips as he nuzzles against your neck and litters kisses all over your jaw. “You’re so goddamn cool, I swear–”

You giggle, leaning into his kisses with a tired smile. “That could have waited until I was finished sleeping, you liar.”

“Yeah, but it’s easier when you don’t think rationally about it,” Eddie coos at you, turning your head with gentle fingertips so he can lay into your lips with a kiss. “Plus, you’re just so cute and compliant when you’re sleepy.”

[thewritingofspencerrose]

Baby Bear

Jack Hughes x Brad Marchand Sister

sutton.march hey! that's my brother! beating up that guy! (my other "brothers" are much more well behaved, don't worry mom)

bmarch63 thanks kid, thanks. so glad to be your brother when you treat me like this

trevorzegras when i left BC you said you'd root for my team 😠

sutton.march sorry trev, brad works for the big bears so it's kind of an obligation

jackhughes really disappointed in you marchand, you're supposed to be a devils fan

bmarch63 stop flirting with my sister

sutton.march brad, you like him??

jackhughes yeah brad, you said you liked me?

January 15th, the day of the Devils @ Bruins

"Brad, boys, consider this me demanding that you behave tonight. No bullying off the ice, remember?" I warn the boys, all older than I, as someone comes up behind me, placing a jacket over my corset top. Looking back, I can see it's Jeremy, him hiding a small smile and shrugging as I realize the bomber jacket that he gave me for secret santa and I had forgotten at the party last night.

"Sorry, your brother said to grab this from his car. Think he's playing a little extra protective with your little friends in town," he jokes, making me roll my eyes.

Brad is always like this when the Ducks or Devils come to town.

"Sutton!"

"Sounds like your little friend," Pasta jokes with a smirk, the sound of the middle Hughes boys voice earning my attention as I turn with a smile. But before I make any moves, I turn back to my brother and his closet friends. "Behave."

"Yes mom," Sway assures, soluting before taking off towards where the Devils core group was located in the VIP section of the bar, the rest of us following.

"Suttie, how's it going," Luke is the first to greet me, the younger Hughes wrapping me in a hug.

"Always a good night when you hooligans come to town," I greet, hugging the boy back before pulling away, making eye contact with my favorite Bruins opponent. "Mr.Hughes."

"Ms.Marchand," He serves right back, pulling me tight to his chest and kissing top of my head. "I've missed you baby," He whispers, knowing that my "brothers" are all staring us down from the spots they've taken around the table, mingling with the men they were just fighting on the ice.

I'm sure it wouldn't be going this well if the boys in yellow hadn't won 4-3.

"Ok, now you're just hogging her," Dawson grumbles, elbowing both Brad and Nico. "Captains o' captains, one of you has to be able to tell him to knock it off."

The captains share a look as Jack and I look away, him taking a seat in the tight booth and pulling me onto his lap.

In New Jersey, this is never a big deal.

In Boston, you could say there are people against it. At least based on the look of murder on Brad and David's faces as Jack wraps his arms around my waist to keep me in place.

"You guys played great tonight," Jack compliments his elders, Jeremy being the only of the four to actually smile fully.

"Thanks kid, you guys weren't too bad yourselves," Patrice offers, his a slightly more convincing smile than my brother and David's. "That was a great goal you had, Hischier," He adds, nodding slightly at the young captain.

"You can call him Nico, Bergy," I correct, trying to smooth as many divides as I can.

I get four nights a year to encourage these boys get along, plus two for Brad for the holidays I'm able to take Jack too.

And that only goes so well.

"Nico, that was a great goal Nico," Bergy corrects himself, winking dramatically at me.

"Thanks, I was proud of it," Is Neeks response, and although it's simple, it makes me happy to look around and see all my favorite boys smiling (ish) and getting along.

"So," Luke whispers, leaning down to my height. "When are we going to get you into a Devils jacket with Hughes on the back?"

"I like the sound of that," Jack chimes in, having heard his brothers question. "When can we get that to happen?"

"Put a ring on her finger and then she can change her alliances, till then, nuh uh," Brad chimes, Bergy elbowing him and giving him an unimpressed look.

"You can be protective, not a douche bag, Marchy," He scolds, earning an eye roll as Sway and Pasta attempt to hide laughs, Luke, Nico and Daws doing the same.

"Fine."

That wasn't expected, usually he grimes and gruffs more.

"But-" Here we go. "Bruins gear will be warn at all Devils/Bruins games. I do not want to see you in anything red those nights." There it is.

Looking to Jack, he just smiles, knowing my brother doesn't truly dislike him as he likes to put on. Brad's happy for me, but he's 13 years my elder, and has always been more than protective. With his nod of agreement, I reach my hand across the table, Brad shaking it with a nod of his own. "You've got yourself a deal, old man."

a.n. okay, so i got excited and did this piece right after asking y'all about it :) at first i was going to go for a pining sort of dynamic for the two but i wanted to be able to explore the devils x bruins dynamic and brad as an older brother more, so what happened is an established relationship. hope you enjoy, this is my first time writing for the bruins men in any form or fashion <3

[thyme-in-a-bubble]

So for the devil and the angle ;) I think there should be a time when reader is with/has been with, a guy and it was just awful and they mock her (and also make her feel better *ahem*!!)

I realise I'm not sure if they're physical or ghostly or in the mind!!

But thats the humble offering

A/N: sdfghjkl THE HUMBLE OFFERING! what am I, a norse god!?!? long may I reign (I know that's not what you say to gods, but you get the picture)

also, i lowkey wrote half of this first where it was afterwards and they were just going to town with her, but then I got this idea and it was too good not to start all over...

Word count: 584

∼ gentle reminder that feedback, but especially reblogs are the way you support writers on here ∽

masterlist | join my taglist | devil & angel AU masterlist

“Oh my god, what was that?” Eddie mocked your faked moan, nearly bursting out a laugh as he watched you from on top of the desk on the opposite side of your friend’s room, “are you seriously trying to make this guy feel better? Make him think that what he’s doing is actually making you feel good? That’s actually kind of cute.” 

Your shoulders tensed up at the forceful rhythm Jonathan kept his hips to, though none of his clumsy efforts would even be possible if you hadn’t stealthily sneaked a dollop of your own spit down to prepare yourself before he had begun. There were many things about your predicament that you were beginning to regret, however, your position, the regret of that snuck up on you like a thief in the night. You’d thought that being on your hands and knees, unable to look at your friend, would make it all easier and it did, for a time, but then you opened your eyes and saw them. Saw how they had moved and were now just sitting there, watching you. 

“Seriously, you know that we can’t do anything about this, right?” Eddie went on as the novelty started to wear off for him, “that you are the only human we can touch. You trying to piss me off, to piss us off? Do you really want me to rip this thread that tethers me to you, just so that I can get my hands on this guy? Strangle him till I feel his last fucking breath? You wanna see me get jealous? Get angry? Because I can, just you wait, if you keep going like this, whoring yourself out, I promise you’ll regret it, I’ll make sure of that-”

“Eddie, that’s enough!” Steve finally snapped, having previously just gone completely silent, either averting his gaze entirely or flashing you the most heartbreaking of puppy dog eyes, “are you okay?” he asked sincerely, and after you offered him a discreet nod, he took a step forward and kneeled down on the floor right in front of you, “sweetheart, you don’t have to do this,” his pleading voice shook you to your very core, “you can stop, it’s not too late. This doesn’t have to be something you see till the end,” as he gently grasped your scrunched up expression in his hands, you saw the edges of his face quiver in despair, “please, I don’t want you to feel this way, I never want you to feel this way.”

“Dude, you know how stubborn she is, she’s not gonna back down, wouldn’t hurt her friend’s feelings like that,” Eddie growled, then gave up completely, “fuck, at least just give her a hand!”

Steve’s eyes washed over your lightly distressed expression, as he gently caressed the side of your cheek, “do you want that, honey? You want me to help you?” sounding painfully desperate in his powerlessness. It wasn’t something that you had to think about for long, because as the next of Jonathan’s unskilful manoeuvres jolted your whole body with painful stings, you felt your head nod in the angel’s grasp. “Alright, okay, just look at me, sweetheart,” he didn’t hesitate to let one of his hands slide down your body and stop between your tense thighs, just above where your friend’s cock was awkwardly hammering into you, “feel me, not him,” he planted a soft kiss on the bridge of your nose and leaned his forehead against yours, “just me… just us…”

© 2023 thyme-in-a-bubble

[infiniteglitterfall]

Me, looking through books on Palestine: "Ilan Pappé wrote one called 'The Biggest Prison On Earth?!' People in Gaza hate it being called a prison. There's an entire hashtag for it. There's been an account dedicated to collecting pics and videos of #TheGazaYouDontSee for 6 years.

"Is Pappé even Palestinian? oh god wait I can tell already. this is gonna be an 'Israeli apologist' isn't it." Internet: "Yeah, Pappé's Israeli."

Me: "For fuck's--- so people will believe Israelis unquestioningly if they're shit-talking Israel, but in all other situations, Israelis are all liars?"

Internet: "Pretty much. Also, at best, Ilan Pappé must be one of the world’s sloppiest historians."

Me, admittedly in full schadenfreude now: "What?!?!"

Internet: "Benny Morris. That historian who's extremely hard-core about primary source documentation, who wrote that detailed book about how and why each group of Palestinian refugees left in 1947-9. He reviewed three books about Palestine."

Me: "Holy shit. And the book by Pappé is about the Husaynis. The family that Nazi war criminal Amin al-Husseini came from, the guy who fucked absolutely everything up for both Israel and Palestine."

Internet: "That's the one. Morris wrote, 'At best, Ilan Pappe must be one of the world’s sloppiest historians; at worst, one of the most dishonest. In truth, he probably merits a place somewhere between the two.'"

Me: "Why??"

Internet: "He says, 'Here is a clear and typical example—in detail, which is where the devil resides—of Pappe’s handiwork. I take this example from The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine'....

"Blah blah blah, basically in 1947 the UN voted to partition the land into Palestine and Israel, and extremist militias started shooting at Jewish towns and people. David Ben-Gurion was the leader of the Jewish community there, and his journal describes a visit from a scientist named Aharon Katzir, telling him about an experiment codenamed "Shimshon." Morris gives us the journal entry:

...An experiment was conducted on animals. The researchers were clothed in gas masks and suit. The suit costs 20 grush, the mask about 20 grush (all must be bought immediately). The operation [or experiment] went well. No animal died, the [animals] remained dazzled [as when a car’s headlights dazzle an oncoming driver] for 24 hours. There are some 50 kilos [of the gas]. [They] were moved to Tel Aviv. The [production] equipment is being moved here. On the laboratory level, some 20 kilos can be produced per day.

"Morris says, 'This is the only accessible source that exists, to the best of my knowledge, about the meeting and the gas experiment, and it is the sole source cited by Pappe for his description of the meeting and the "Shimshon" project. But this is how Pappe gives the passage in English:

Katzir reported to Ben-Gurion: 'We are experimenting with animals. Our researchers were wearing gas masks and adequate outfit. Good results. The animals did not die (they were just blinded). We can produce 20 kilos a day of this stuff.'

"'The translation is flecked with inaccuracies, but the outrage is in Pappe’s perversion of "dazzled," or sunveru, to "blinded"—in Hebrew "blinded" would be uvru, the verb not used by Ben-Gurion—coupled with the willful omission of the qualifier '"for 24 hours."'

"'Pappe’s version of this text is driven by something other than linguistic and historiographical accuracy. Published in English for the English-speaking world, where animal-lovers are legion and deliberately blinding animals would be regarded as a barbaric act, the passage, as published by Pappe, cannot fail to provoke a strong aversion to Ben-Gurion and to Israel.

"'Such distortions, large and small, characterize almost every page of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. So I should add, to make the historical context perfectly clear, that no gas was ever used in the war of 1948 by any of the participants. [Or, he later notes, by either Israel or Palestine ever.] Pappe never tells the reader this.

"'Raising the subject of gas is historical irrelevance. But the paragraph will dangle in the reader’s imagination as a dark possibility, or worse, a dark reality: the Jews, gassed by the Nazis three years before, were about to gas, or were gassing, Arabs.'"

Me: "Uuuuggghhhhhhhhh. Yeah, it will."

Internet: "He does say, 'Palestinian Dynasty was a good idea.' Then he does some really detailed historian-dragging about the lack of primary sources and reliance on people's interpretations of what they say instead.

"'Almost all of Pappe’s references direct the reader to books and articles in English, Hebrew, and Arabic by other scholars, or to the memoirs of various Arab politicians, which are not the most reliable of sources. Occasionally there is a reference to an Arab or Western travelogue or genealogy, or to a diplomat’s memoir; but there is barely an allusion to documents in the relevant British, American, and Zionist/Israeli archives.

"'When referring to the content of American consular reports about Arab riots in the 1920s, for example, Pappe invariably directs the reader to an article in Hebrew by Gideon Biger—“The American Consulate in Jerusalem and the Events of 1920-1921,” in Cathedra, September 1988—and not to the documents themselves, which are easily accessible in the United States National Archive.

"'Those who falsify history routinely take the path of omission. They ignore crucial facts and important pieces of evidence while cherry-picking from the documentation to prove a case. 

"'Those who falsify history routinely take the path of omission. They ignore crucial facts and important pieces of evidence while cherry-picking from the documentation to prove a case. 

"'But Pappe is more brazen. He, too, often omits and ignores significant evidence, and he, too, alleges that a source tells us the opposite of what it in fact says, but he will also simply and straightforwardly falsify evidence.

"'Consider his handling of the Arab anti-Jewish riots of the 1920s.

"'Pappe writes of the “Nabi Musa” riots in April 1920: “The [British] Palin Commission... reported that the Jewish presence in the country was provoking the Arab population and was the cause of the riots.” He also quotes at length Musa Kazim al-Husayni, the clan’s leading notable at the time, to the effect that “it was not the [Arab] Hebronites who had started the riots but the Jews.”

"'But the (never published) [Palin Commission Report], while forthrightly anti-Zionist, thereby accurately reflecting the prevailing views in the British military government that ruled Palestine until mid-1920, flatly and strikingly charged the Arabs with responsibility for the bloodshed.

"'The team chaired by Major-General P.C. Palin wrote that “it is perfectly clear that with... few exceptions the Jews were the sufferers, and were, moreover, the victims of a peculiarly brutal and cowardly attack, the majority of the casualties being old men, women and children.” The inquiry pointed out that whereas 216 Jews were killed or injured, the British security forces and the Jews, in defending themselves or in retaliatory attacks, caused only twenty-five Arab casualties.'"

Me: "Yeah. I'm looking at that report right now and it says there had been an explosion, and then people were looting Jewish stores and beating Jews with stones, and in one case stabbing someone. Some people said that some Jews got up on the roof of a hotel and retaliated by throwing stones themselves.

"And then it literally says, 'The point as to the retaliation by Jews is of importance because it seems to have impressed the Military and led them to imagine that the Jews were to some extent responsible for provoking the rising.' That's the only thing it really says about anyone blaming the Jews.

"Except.... the very beginning gives some historical context. And it does say that when the Balfour Declaration came out, Muslims and Christians 'considered that they were to be handed over to an oppression which they hated far more than the Turk's and were aghast at the thought of this domination....

"'If this intensity of feeling proceeded merely from wounded pride of race and disappointment in political aspirations, it would be easier to criticise and rebuke: but it must be borne in mind that at the bottom of all is a deepseated fear of the Jew, both as a possible ruler and as an economic competitor. Rightly or wrongly they fear the Jew as a ruler, regarding his race as one of the most intolerant known to history....

"'The prospect of extensive Jewish immigration fills him with a panic fear, which may be exaggerated, but is none the less genuine. He sees the ablest race intellectually in the world, past-masters in all the arts of ousting competitors whether on the market, in the farm or the bureaucratic offices, backed by apparently inexhaustible funds given by their compatriots in all lands and possessed of powerful influence in the councils of the nations, prepared to enter the lists against him in every one of his normal occupations, backed by the one thing wanted to make them irresistible, the physical force of a great Imperial Power, and he feels himself overmastered and defeated before the contest is begun.'

"Wow! What a great fucking example of how 'positive' stereotypes are actually used to fuck people over! We're not antisemitic, we actually think Jews are the smartest, most powerful, richest group with tremendous global power! So positive!! Not at all being used here to justify antisemitic violence!

"Also, immigration from all over the world actually meant that different agricultural and manufacturing techniques were brought into the region, and yes, financial investments to start businesses sometimes, which meant that Arab Palestinians there had the highest per capita income in the Middle East, the highest daily wages, and started a lot of businesses of their own. But go off, I guess."

"Anyfuckingway.... it basically says that the Muslims and Christians were angry and scared, the Jews were too quick to set up the functioning government that the Brits were supposed to be there to help both sides create -- and which the Arab leaders completely refused to create for Palestine, because (1) fascists and (2) didn't want Jews nearby -- and that they were "ready prey for any form of agitation hostile to the British Government and the Jews." Then it says the movement for a United Syria was agitating them real hard, and so were the Sherifians.

"Is that what Ilan Passe, I mean Pappe, meant by the Palin Report blaming the Jews?! That when it says it's understandable the Arabs were freaking out, because antisemitism, Pappe thinks it's saying the Jews were provoking them?!"

Internet: "I don't know. I kinda tuned out after the first hour you were talking."

Me: "OGH MY GOD"

Internet: "So anyway, then Morris ALSO says, 'About the 1929 “Temple Mount” riots, which included two large-scale massacres of Jews, in Hebron and in Safed, Pappe writes: “The opposite camp, Zionist and British, was no less ruthless [than the Arabs]. In Jaffa a Jewish mob murdered seven Palestinians.”

Me: "What the ENTIRE FUCK? There was no united 'Zionist and British' camp! The Brits would barely let any Holocaust refugees in, ffs!"

Internet: "Morris says, 'Actually, there were no massacres of Arabs by Jews, though a number of Arabs were killed when Jews defended themselves or retaliated after Arab violence.

"'Pappe adds that the British “Shaw Commission,” so-called because it was chaired by Sir Walter Shaw (a former chief justice of the Straits Settlements), which investigated the riots, “upheld the basic Arab claim that Jewish provocations had caused the violent outbreak. ‘The principal cause... was twelve years of pro-Zionist [British] policy.’”

"'It is unclear what Pappe is quoting from. I did not find this sentence in the commission’s report. Pappe’s bibliography refers, under “Primary Sources,” simply to “The Shaw Commission.” The report? The deliberations? Memoranda by or about? Who can tell?

"'The footnote attached to the quote, presumably to give its source, says, simply, “Ibid.”

"'The one before it says, “Ibid., p. 103.”

"'The one before that says, “The Shaw Commission, session 46, p. 92.”

"'But the quoted passage does not appear on page 103 of the report.

"In the text of Palestinian Dynasty, Pappe states that “Shaw wrote [this] after leaving the country [Palestine].” But if it is not in the report, where did Shaw “write” it?'"

Me: "I'M ON IT. [rapid-fire googling] OMG. This is.... Not the first time. In 'The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,' he reported that in a 1937 letter to his son, David Ben-Gurion declared: 'The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as war.'

"It's not in the source he gave. It's not in any of the three different sources he's given for it.

"He apparently has never responded to any requests for an explanation, either from the journal he published in, or from other historians. But it says he did "obliquely [acknowledge] the controversy in an article in Electronic Intifada, in which he portrayed himself as the victim of intimidation at the hands of “Zionist hooligans.”'

"This is absolutely fucking wild. THEN it says the chair of the Ethics Committee where he was teaching eventually said that the second part of the quote ('but one needs,' etc) was a (combined?) paraphrase of a diary entry and a speech Ben-Gurion gave, and that the first half is 'based on' a letter to his son.

"And it's so convincing! The chair says, 'Shabtai Teveth[,] Ben Gurion’s biographer, Benny Morris and the historian Nur Maslaha have all quoted this letter. In fact their translation was stronger than the quotation from Professor Pappé: ‘We must expel the Arabs and take their place.’ Professor Pappé has documentary evidence of these quotations and the source will ensure that this is correctly cited in any future editions of the publication or related studies.'

"And IT'S NOT EVEN TRUE?!

"Ben-Gurion's actual diary entry (not a letter) says the opposite.

“'We do not want and do not need to expel Arabs and take their places.... All our aspiration is built on the assumption – proven throughout all our activity – that there is enough room in the country for ourselves and the Arabs.'

"Benny Morris misquoted it as "We must expel the Arabs and take their places" in the English version of his 1987 book The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, although it was correct in the Hebrew version. He corrected himself in the 2001 book Righteous Victims.

"Teveth also misquoted it in the English version of his 1985 book Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs, but again, had it correct in the Hebrew edition.

"And both Morris and Teveth explicitly point out the rest of the entry. The part about all their aspiration being built on the assumption and experience that there was enough room in the country for everyone.

"Historian Efraim Karsh’s 1997 book Fabricating Israeli History pointed out and corrected their mistakes.

"This is apparently a very well-known issue among historians of Israel and Palestine. It was a big deal in 2003, when an evangelist Christian publisher put out a book FULL of disinformation, which not only used the same quote as Pappe does, but also could not give a real source for it.

"But Pappe STILL USED THE MISQUOTE AND DOUBLED DOWN ON IT EVERY SINGLE TIME."

Internet: "Are you done? I know all this already."

Me: "Also, there are literally only two places where the phrase 'twelve years of pro-Zionist policy' shows up online, and they're both about Pappe making quotes up.

"NOW I'm done."

Benny Morris wasn't, though. The review continues at the link below. And the next part starts, "To the deliberate slanting of history Pappe adds a profound ignorance of basic facts. Together these sins and deficiencies render his “histories” worthless as representations of the past, though they are important as documents in the current political and historiographic disputations about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Pappe’s grasp of the facts of World War I, for example, is weak in the extreme."

[tiger-in-the-flightdeck]

📖💜💖

📖: If you had to remove one book from the series, which would you choose?

Okay, let's go with Hellblazer for this one. Not a book, but an arc.

The Good Intentions arc. This is definitely one of those If You Know, You Know things. And if you don't know, I'll include it under a read more at the bottom of this ask.

💜: Which character is way hotter than everyone else seems to think?

COMIC LEONARD SNART. Oh my god, why am I one of only like five people who will look at this scraggly alley cat and go Hnnn??

Seriously, someone needs to sit on that face, asap.

💖: What is your biggest unpopular opinion about the series?

Again, I'll go with Hellblazer, because I know where your tastes lie.

John will always be more interesting when he's not doing magic. Which to me, means that the original Vertigo run is considerably better than any DC run with John. I mean, this is a guy who will perform a 'spell' for a bunch of rich people by just reciting the ingredients of a drink at them in a spooky voice. His magic should always and forever be the last thing he tries, and only after trying to con someone, bribe someone, kick someone in the nuts, or sold his soul to the devil for the seventeenth time has failed.

Now, for the stuff under the cut...

Good Intentions follows John in America, specifically to a tiny place called Doglick, Virginia where he is looking to make peace with the family of a man he was accused of murdering.

In Doglick, we get to know the man's brothers, who are seen locally as sort of heroes for saving the little backwater from complete ruin after the mine was shut down.

John meets up with them and they get him to come with them to do them a favour because someone 'failed to show up' for something (He'd just been beaten, presumably to death, by one of the brothers.) They go to a house out in the woods that's set up for a hard core BDSM porn shoot, and John is drugged.

Over the next few issues, it's teased out what happened-

While off his head and not even able to stand up on his own, they 'coerce' John into performing in a threesome for them which they filmed with the intention of selling.

With a woman and a dog.

Which is how they 'saved' the town. Everyone agreed to take part in these movies which would get sold online, and the women, and presumably some of the men, of the town would take turns 'costarring'

(I absolutely want to add the family to my 'Lucifer tracks down everyone who has ever hurt his magic man and destroys them' fic ideas)

[basedkikuenjoyer]

That's it, Punk Rocks

Score! This is exactly the type of gag I meant last week. For this next leg of Egghead I want Oda to constantly be asking what absurd ancillary antics the Vegapunks can fill time with. Is it too lofty to note the spooky devil symbols juxtaposed with turning water into well, coffee here for a guy who might have let that death be a planned self-sacrifice to get his message out? Maybe, not like we have our series's big Biblical allusion hanging around or anything. Forget that though, I don't even like coffee and I wanna try Vega-coffee. Keep it up, dicking around like this in the background of scenes is what I want.

It's not just that I love this style of humor, don't miss that the shift in focus is revealing how Egghead has elements that fit the performance theming of WCI & Wano. "Punk" Records, a worldwide broadcast, the elements are there. It's not unlike an old anime special where the plot is protecting a final run of a play. Don't want to diminish the rest of what's going on, just this is the kinda undertone thing we've been on about the whole time. Especially when the same core threads keep popping up. Remember what we said about Buggy?

Love how objective focused the Gorosei are. Really solidifies the tone. Big Egg is still holding up which is good, makes me wonder what we aren't privy to going on in there. Still think there's a lot of potential for something truly weird to break this all into an odd direction.

Like a lot of people, pretty impressed by Samurai Gandhi's spooky horse form. he's cleaning up the Pacifista efficiently. This is quite intimidating and while Dorry & Brogy are awesome to see come into play in such a big way you gotta wonder. Sanji's giving the call to run and let them hold the line. Feel like Robonosuke evening up the 5-on-5 has potential. Hard to tell but this is all so wild.

For now though, don't ignore this is still the big themes we've been looking at since back in Wano. The Gorosei have arrived and they're tamping down the morale hit caused by infighting. Infighting that feels generated along a lot of the same lines Tama did. That, the performance, self sacrifice...I said it early on the more you build that the more it narrows down who threads the needle of all of them. That basic concept that Bakura Town still showcased a way of approaching things that would help here, that Luffy discarded some of the real growth we were seeing since hitting G5. It's all still escalating, deeply woven into this story in front of us while there's another one running in the background.

Speaking of leaving, like this panel for both the bamboo visual and uh, I guess that nut shot would hurt Brook...if he had any! Yohohoho! Glad that's resolved. But, there's an interesting mismatch between Sanji giving the order to flee and the change in focus. The Gorosei showed up wanting to stop this broadcast. It's important. Worth mentioning the only big picture idea I've talked about longer than the Grand Fleet was some kind of worldwide story. Hijacking the broadcast or continuing it to expose the Gorosei's monstrous forms? That could be a huge win for the Straw Hats. A possibility no one in play is really thinking about. The broadcast is all in the background. The enemy strategists just leapt into battle to launch their own surgical strikes, right?

I'm just saying, there's still one mystery from the end of Wano I can't help but notice could make good on the anime theme's promise. Reweave time by tying all this off the wall shit together. A more established outlet for mysteries like it was just taken off the table in the front of this chapter. We'll take on the cover serial tomorrow, but very intrigued by all of this still. Even if I don't point it out everytime, we've never left that core wheelhouse lingering just under Wano's surface.

[lily-blue]

Paying the price

☆ characters: patriot!jiung & revolutioner!you ☆ genre: dystopian au, the devil judge au, angst ☆ warnings: graphic description of damaged corpses, mention of blood and violence, vomiting, major character’s death, spoilers ☆ summary: jiung believes in the system, that it has the people’s best interest; you believe that the system is rotten to the core and the people of South Korea need to be enlightened about the truth - as it always is, you two learn it the hard way which one of you is right ☆ words: 15,3k ☆ massive thank you: to @dat-town ♥ for proofreading this monster (i still can’t believe i accidentally made intak older than jiung 🙃) ☆ also: happy name day to the one and only @restlessmaknae​ 💕 it actually made me feel nostalgic when i started to search up these guys for this story, it reminded me of that one yeonjun fic i wrote for you, the one that made me stan txt. i’m not quite there yet with these boys, but who knows, maybe one day. thank you for coming back to my life and showing me new groups and new things this year, too. i wish you nothing but happiness! 💕 ☆ a/n: this story is written for @restlessmaknae’s (dis)harmony collab; you can check out the masterlist with the other stories » here

Despite the country’s shortcomings: the apparent corruption that was planted in its core from the education system through the media to the judicial and political apparatuses, you loved your home. You loved living in a neighbourhood where the grocery store ahjussi gave you an extra cluster of grapes whenever you looked tired at the end of a rough day and the ahjumma from the corner Chinese restaurant knew your order by heart, hence spared you from the headache of making yet another decision when all you craved was a big bowl of warm lotus root soup. You loved knowing the youngsters in your building by their name and the feeling of having half a dozen sisters and brothers, uncles and aunts despite losing your family at an unfairly young age and spending too many lonely years in a government-funded orphanage.

God, you even loved the opportunities higher education was constantly giving you regardless of a handful of your teachers who openly expressed their political views in class when it went against your university’s policies. So why couldn’t you have sat through your Korean History II. lecture with a neutral face like everyone else did? Why did it make your blood boil when looking at Choi Jiung’s slides you realised that he was about to praise your country’s leaders, too, like the three other students before him had already done during their own presentations? Why couldn’t you have shut up and swallow down your opinion when it was time for the audience’s questions?

Easy. Because despite your love for your country and the people around you, it was corrupt to the core and as law students, all of you should have refrained from turning a blind eye to the exponentially growing amount of power abuse that happened in your home. It didn’t matter that half of your classes brainwashed you to bend under pressure.

‘What about those innocent citizens who lost their homes because of the evacuation? There is no clear data available about the rehousing of those families. Were they ever compensated?’ You threw your provocative questions at the blond boy, voice firm and merciless as your words echoed off the pristine walls in the small classroom.

The moment Choi Jiung’s gaze fell on you, you knew he was pissed, although he did a great job concealing his feelings. It was just… you had known the guy ever since you had moved to your current one-bedroom flat right after you had been kicked out of the orphanage. You could read him like he was an open book.

‘While the rate of unemployment increased during the pandemic, the statistics show that the rate of homelessness stayed stagnant. Is that not clear data?’ The blond boy asked back and you could hear your professor’s pleased humming from the first row as you were sitting in the second one, almost right behind Mr. Kim.

You linked your fingers and let your arms fall on your desk while you leaned forwards with a straight back. You didn’t break eye contact.

‘Reports from that period state that due to the pandemic, there were less ongoing projects in the construction industry, which means there couldn’t have been emergency constructions due to rehousing. Where did those families go?’ You pushed, shutting out the murmurs from your side and behind your back. You were already used to the whispering, the wary look in your classmates’ eyes whenever you expressed your opinion.

Unlike what they said, you weren’t obsessed with the spotlight nor did you have a childish crush on Choi Jiung. You picked fights with him because he was an unpleasant part of your friend group, but a part nonetheless, and you believed that Shota wouldn’t have tolerated his presence in your lives if he had been a lost case.

You challenged Jiung repeatedly to help him see the errors in his own beliefs.

‘Less ongoing projects don’t equal to no ongoing project. It only means there were fewer than before the pandemic,’ Jiung stated, voice cold despite the fire in his eyes. ‘Those few projects could have been, or included, the emergency constructions in the countryside,’ he said, your nails digging into the back of your hands because of your frustration as you were listening.

‘Hundreds of thousands of people—’

‘I think that’s enough. We still have one more presentation to sit through and discuss before this seminar ends,’ your professor rose from his seat, exchanging positions with the blond student. If looks could have killed, neither him nor Mr. Kim would have survived your rage. How dared this old, soggy snob cut you off when you were clearly making a point?

You had to bite into your cheeks from the inside to not curse him out, but your opinion must have been written all over your face because before the next student could have started her presentation, the history professor looked at you and shook his head as though he was deeply disappointed when clearly, he was annoyed.

‘It’s my last warning, miss,’ the man stated and you were genuinely surprised that he hadn’t memorised your name by now. After all, it wasn’t your first class with him and you had never been a silent participant. ‘If you keep disturbing the peaceful learning environment, I will need to send you out of my class and mark this lesson as a missed lesson next to your name in the roster,’ he informed you, although it was more like a threat.

Okay, maybe he did know your name. He just didn’t bother to address you respectfully.

You pressed your lips into a firm line, contemplating whether getting into a useless fight with your professor would have been worth it, but ended up biting into your cheek from the inside once again instead of reciting your rights as a student of this institute. It didn’t matter what rights a piece of paper gave you in your country when your opinion differed from what was accepted and encouraged by those above you - expected and demanded if you didn’t feel like sugarcoating the truth.

Consequently, you fully intended to stay put until the end of the class because it was still too early into the semester to waste one of the three lessons you were allowed to miss in each seminar, but as soon as Kang Yohan’s face was staring back at you from the next presenter’s slides, you knew you wouldn’t be able to keep your mouth shut. Thus, you did both yourself and the class a favour when you shoved your laptop into your backpack and walked out of the classroom without a word.

The sound of your steps echoed off the walls of the semi-abandoned hallways, but the relative silence didn’t bother you, nor did the glances you got from those who saw you walking out of a classroom before the official end of the period. Confident, you headed towards the library on the first floor with your chin high and your facial expression unbothered.

It wasn’t the first time you chose your beliefs (and your pride) instead of letting a professor humiliate you in front of a whole class, after all.

You were doing some research for another class, sipping on your iced coffee despite the late hour, reading through statistics about crime rates and the judicial system, when Shota took a seat by the table you had been occupying since your last class for the day. You narrowed your eyes as you let your gaze loiter over his dishevelled figure, but said nothing before you turned back to your laptop. Being neighbours with the guy, you whole-heartedly believed that some things considering him was better left unasked. That way, you weren’t an accomplice.

‘Are you still looking for a way to get inside that institute?’ He asked while he reached out for your drink and took a casual sip of the bitter beverage like it was his.

You tore your gaze from the screen and leaned your back against your chair without making the slightest attempt at getting your drink back from the younger. Instead, you linked your arms in front of your chest and observed his face with caution. The yellowish bruise under his left eye and the cut on his cheek promised nothing good, but you knew Shota meant danger mostly for himself and rarely for the people around him.

‘The Dream House Medical Center?’ You asked just to confirm that you were thinking of the same building and all he gave you was a nod and a lopsided smile. ‘Yeah, I do, actually.’

Even though you still had a whole year before you should have started on your masters thesis, you already had a pretty firm idea of what you would have liked to write about: Kang Yohan, the misjudged judge who had died nearly a decade ago in the explosion of the courtroom where the infamous live court show had been broadcasted. That day, South Korea had lost not only the president and the first lady of the country, but five other powerful and rich people as well, all seven of them corrupt to the core yet labelled as victims of a self-assured psychopath. It boiled your blood whenever you thought of them, how in today’s history books, they were the casualty of an anti-national act conducted in an attempt to overthrow the administration.

Your fists were trembling as your nails sank into the soft flesh of your palms. You swore, you would clear the judge’s name one day in the future and make everyone see those lies that they were constantly fed by the government. Your thesis paper, the detailed research none of your professors would be able to oppose, would be the first step down the road.

But to be able to start marching, you had to get inside the Dream House Medical Center.

‘Any suggestions?’ You asked when the silence got too loud, not breaking eye contact even when you could feel the first tear drops forming in the corner of your eyes. Making a deal with Shota was never easy, the boy did nothing for free, not even for his closest friends, but he wouldn’t have brought up the topic just to tease you. He had something to offer and you knew when to be patient.

‘I got my hands on some interesting intel, so I can get us in and out without any of the guards noticing,’ he informed you, lazily sipping on your drink as though he hadn’t just knocked you off your feet with his statement. You were trying to find a way inside that building for months by then, because while it was supposed to be an abandoned institute - it was a part of a failed charity project after all - it was unreasonably heavily guarded.

Taking a deeper breath to ground yourself, you put your elbows on the table in front of your laptop and leaned forwards.

‘Name your price,’ you demanded quietly, earning a genuine smile from the boy.

‘Help me with the university interview. I need dirt on your professors and those you don’t have classes with,’ Shota negotiated and honestly, the only reason you were able to swallow down the laugh that was scratching your throat was the fact that you needed his help. If you could have afforded him getting sulky, you would have ruffled his messy hair and pinched his cheeks before you told him you would have helped him anyway.

He was clearly doing you a favour for free while pretending that he was a businessman who made no exceptions. It made you wonder whether he had gotten beaten up when he had tried to find information on the Dream House for you or the two things were completely irrelevant. A selfish part of you that didn’t want to deal with the guilt wished it was the latter, but deep down you knew Shota wouldn’t have held back something so huge just to share it with you at the perfect moment.

You had both learned early on in your lives that perfect moments were created; they didn’t just come to those who were patiently waiting.

‘Want it written down or is it enough if I tell you everything I know?’ You asked with a small tilt of your head, playing along and taking on a more serious tone. Meanwhile, you glanced down at your laptop and pulled up a blank document on your screen. The chances that none of your professors would have been present at Shota’s interview was high, so you wanted to make sure you had info on those who might have been possible candidates. For that, you needed to prepare a long list with every professor from the Business Faculty on it and ask around in the KU group chats you weren’t a part of yet.

‘Written down,’ Shota said and you acknowledged his choice with a low hum and a nod as you pulled up your university’s website and copied the names of the listed professors to your document. You also made a second list that contained the names of students you personally knew and would have vouched for, hence could have sought out for help.

‘Consider it being done,’ you preened, scanning through your lists one more time before you closed the tab and saved a couple of important websites regarding your assignment for your class as bookmarks. You made sure your laptop was turned off properly before you shoved it into your bag. ‘About the Dream House…’ you started, trying to sound as nonchalant as you could despite the light buzzing in your veins. ‘When are we going?’

‘Where are you going?’ Choi Jiung’s voice cut off your impromptu discussion before it could have started and you sighed, disappointed that you had let your excitement get the best of you when you should have seen the interruption coming. After all, Jiung was well aware that you preferred studying on campus over writing your papers in your own flat. He also knew that Shota liked tagging along when you had classes after six, because it meant that chances you would stay at the nearby coffee shop until closing time was high and he hated when you walked home on your own so late at night. Thus, when Jiung was looking for his friend, all he needed to do was checking the spots you frequented at.

‘None of your business, Choi,’ you grumbled while you leaned back against your chair and linked your arms in front of your chest.

Frustrated, you rolled your eyes when Jiung put a cup of perfectly untouched iced coffee on the table in front of you, but reached out for the drink when you saw Shota eyeing it like he was seconds away from stealing that, too.

The silence that fell on your table wasn’t new. It was a recurring phenomenon in your friends group whenever Jiung and you were joined by a less talkative person - so basically anyone other than Keeho or Intak. And while at first it had made you anxious, because you had felt as though you should have been able to initiate or at least keep up a pleasant conversation with people you considered close friends, by now you knew silence was absolutely fine as well. In fact! It was rather nice to enjoy the tranquillity around people who accepted you the way you were: stubborn, strong-willed and curt when you had nothing important to say.

‘What got your panties in a twist this time?’ Shota’s snarky question shook you out of your thoughts, his dark eyes fixed on nothing in particular making you wonder whether he was talking to you or the blond boy on his other side.

You opened your mouth for an equally sarcastic answer when Jiung let out a loud huff and cut you off with his own mocking reply.

‘What else? She tried to sabotage my presentation. Again,’ he accused and you rolled your eyes without giving too much thought to the action. All three of you knew damn well that you would have never stooped so low; your morals simply wouldn’t have let you play dirty much to Shota’s disappointment. The younger had tried to make you see numerous times that the world wasn’t fair to those who played by the rules, but you stood your ground each and every time. You wanted to become an exceptional judge just like Kang Yohan and his mentee, Kim Gaon. You were determined to lead by example as well - with the right example!

‘Oh, grow up, Choi Jiung, would you? My questions were spot on,’ you retorted, slim fingers turning white around your drink.

Looking around, you had to remind yourself that just because it was late, the coffee shop still had a fair amount of customers, thus you should have kept your voice low to not disturb their peace. Still, resisting the urge to call the blond boy out on his bullshit, as he wouldn’t have contributed to your daily caffeine intake if he had been indeed pissed, was challenging. He got under your skin way too easily.

‘No. You were once again pressing your false narrative,’ Jiung tried to correct you, talking to you in a condescending way that made you feel like a child. If looks could have killed, he would have been dead even before his gaze landed on you. ‘One day, these types of questions will cost you a lot more than a missed class.’

You gulped down the coffee in your mouth along with the non-existent bile that somehow did scratch your throat.

‘Is that a threat?’ You spat, unaware of the sadness in Jiung’s eyes as you were hyper fixated on the possible implication behind his words. It made you see red, grip tight around your cup and nails digging into the plastic with so much force, Shota had to take the coffee out of your hand and put it on the table before it could have overflowed.

‘Friendly advice,’ Jiung corrected you once again and it was only due to the years of practice the orphanage had given you that you hadn’t screamed it into his face that you didn’t consider him as a friend. Not like you did Keeho and Theo and sure as hell not like you did Shota. The sole reason you let him be a part of your life despite his questionable political beliefs was your respect for the others.

With a resigned sigh, Jiung turned his gaze away and shook his head as though he couldn’t have taken your stubbornness any longer. Well, you didn’t ask him to.

‘I’m done for today,’ you stated, leaving the half-finished drink on the table as you grabbed your bag and slid your gaze to the younger. ‘Shota?’

The boy stood up from his seat immediately and reached out for the abandoned beverage, his smile content as he took a big sip from the iced coffee. He patted Jiung’s shoulder twice in gratitude, then squeezed it lightly for good measure.

You turned away, refusing to feel guilty for putting an abrupt end to the conversation. It was a long day, getting into a heated argument about the government with Jiung for the second time that day was the last thing you needed. Especially at a public place that you loved and where you were a regular.

‘See you tomorrow, hyung,’ Shota bid his goodbye while you sealed your lips and gave Jiung a half-assed bow because it was a habit drilled into your DNA. It was a fundamental part of your culture: you bowed to people at every single encounter, at every goodbye and sometimes in between when the situation required it. You didn’t have to respect someone to follow the most basic rules of etiquette in their company.

If Jiung had said anything to your best friend before the younger boy followed you towards the exit, you hadn’t heard him, but you did sneak a peek at him sitting casually by your table before you closed the door shut.

Not that you would have admitted it to anyone.

Your palms were sweaty while you were waiting with Shota for what you supposed was some sort of sign that you could finally enter the building without getting arrested for trespassing. Admittedly, you had never felt more nervous in your entire life: your current actions going against your moral code while simultaneously aiding your fight against the propaganda that your whole nation was fed with on a daily basis. You needed evidence, desperately so, but the thought of breaking into the Dream House Medical Center freaked you out more and more as the crucial moment came closer and closer to your present.

Only a couple hundreds of metres from the abandoned institute, it felt too real. You weren’t sure you were ready and started to question whether you were made for the job.

It shouldn’t have surprised you that at one point your feet started drumming a clumsy rhythm on their own accord, but your lips still parted slightly when you felt a warm hand on your knee, over your ripped jeans. Staring at Shota’s hand, you lifted your head to look at his face and shot a tight-lipped smile at him as a sign of gratitude for his silent support. You could do this. It had been your idea from the beginning. You were doing the right thing.

So why did the proverb ‘the end justifies the means’ sound like a cheap excuse of a criminal?

‘Nervous, kiddo?’ A familiar voice pulled you out of the self-doubting spiral of thoughts and you turned towards the newcomers with panic in your eyes. Not counting the two of you, no one should have known about your plan. So why were two of your friends staring at you like they were simultaneously doubting your sanity and admiring you for your guts?

You looked around to check your surroundings in search of the others, then let your gaze fall back on Keeho and Jiung when you realised it was only them. 

‘What are you guys doing here?’ You whisper-shouted, unable to decide how you felt about their presence. For 1) since it was your research, you felt like you were responsible for the safety of everyone who got involved in the fieldwork and looking after Shota in itself was already a bit emotionally overwhelming for you under the current circumstances. 2) Because of the very same reason, you were relieved that there would be more pairs of eyes during the investigation that could watch out for the potential danger.

Still, a part of you felt more people meant a bigger risk. It didn’t help that you were already fidgety due to your growing guilt that pressed down on your chest.

‘Supervising,’ Keeho explained, his tone lowkey condescending like he couldn’t believe he needed to spell it out to you. Like it was natural that he was there even though he shouldn’t have known about the trespassing to begin with. ‘Obviously, I won’t just let Shota break into a guarded institute on his own,’ he added, coaxing a displeased scoff out of you with his complete disregard for your presence and capabilities.

You wanted to remind the boy that you were only two weeks younger than him and that you would have made sure Shota didn’t get in trouble even if it had meant endangering your own life, but in the end you swallowed back your remarks. Mostly, because you believed it would have been unwise to start a fight so close to the main gates. Also, because your muscles were non-existent in comparison with the older boy’s. Realistically speaking, he had more potential than you when it came to protecting your friends.

‘What about you?’ You turned towards Jiung, one of your slim brows raised with challenge. For some reason, you doubted he had come with Keeho to help you in any way. If anything, he might have tagged along to give you another unasked, friendly advice.

‘I came to see your face when you realise you’ve been wrong all this time,’ he claimed with a shrug, not putting too much effort into protecting your feelings. Although, had he ever? The thought that he found true joy in your failures left a bitter taste in your mouth.

The retort that he had come in vain had already been on the tip of your tongue when Shota nudged you with his shoulder and pointed at the entrance once he gained your attention.

‘It’s time,’ he said. You gulped before you acknowledged his statement with a nod.

Considering how many walls you had bumped into while you had been trying to find a way inside the building in the legal way, how unhelpful every single one of the government agents had been and how many armed guards you had seen around the building in the last hour, you had assumed that walking inside the medical centre would be challenging despite your best friend’s intel. Blame it on those old school action movies Intak loved so much, but you were convinced that you would be in a race against time, that you would need to run and jump and use your non-existent muscles to get through some hidden back door.

Walking up to the front door with confident strides and opening the huge lock with a key was oddly anticlimactic. You had to pinch your arm to make sure you weren’t dreaming.

‘How the hell did you put your hands on that thing?’ Keeho asked, stealing the words out of your mouth.

Shota closed the double door behind your backs like he had just gotten home, then turned on his flashlight similar to the one in your pocket. You mimicked him and turned on yours, too.

‘I asked for a copy? Don’t you know acting suspicious is what makes people aware you’re up to something?’ He asked, not really expecting an answer based on the way he turned his back on your small group and started to walk down the hallway. ‘It’s all about confidence.’

You put your hand on Keeho’s shoulder and squeezed it lightly as a reminder that you didn’t have time for further interrogation nor was it the most suitable place for a parental scolding, then followed your best friend until you reached the first intersection. There, you waited for the others to catch up with you and you decided to split up. You didn’t have all the time in the world after all, only two hours until the next error in the system of the graveyard shift.

‘I’ll check the basement,’ you volunteered and shook your head dismissively when you saw Jiung open his mouth from the corner of your eyes. ‘Keeho’s babysitting, there are too many floors for just two groups,’ you said, slowly turning towards the blond boy with your entire body.

‘Who said I was about to follow you?’ He retorted with a huff and took the flashlight out of Keeho’s hand as he turned on his heels and marched up the stairs. You kept your eyes on his back until he disappeared, then shot a tight-lipped smile in the others’ direction before you made them promise to take pictures of anything suspicious or interesting-looking.

You hoped Jiung would do the same as well even though he hadn’t waited around for your reminder. You had faith in Shota and his dubious network, you really did, but you genuinely doubted you would have had another chance like this in the near future if you had failed to gather enough evidence due to your slipshod job.

On your way to the basement, you kept your mind occupied with random songs from the last decade they still played on the radio just so it wouldn’t have turned on you and made you see things in the darkness that weren’t there. Your imagination might not have been too wild, but being alone in a building where you assumed poor people had been killed for how much their organs were worth was scary. You didn’t believe in ghosts and other supernatural creatures, but you wouldn’t have blamed their souls for sticking around, angry, if they had existed.

The dust in the air was heavy and it stuck to your skin uncomfortably as you checked each and every door that opened from the hallway underground. Most of the rooms were unlocked, the surgical equipment inside of them outdated and untouched. A part of you - the same part that was convinced of Kang Yohan’s innocence - was eager to see them as evidence of human experiments, but the rational side of you was aware that things like these were normal at a medical facility. If you had shown photos of these to anyone, they would have focused on the fact that you shouldn’t have been in the building.

You gulped, growing frustrated, as you checked the time on your phone and walked up to the next door. You still had some time.

Admittedly, you knew you could have spent an entire day in the building and still felt like you needed more to do a thorough research, but beggars couldn’t have been choosers. Thus, you locked your panicking thoughts in the back of your mind and opened the drawers in the next room that looked more like an abandoned office than a medical room.

‘Come on!’ You groaned when you found the third drawer in a row empty, getting on your knees without much thinking to force the last one open as well. At first glance, it didn’t seem like you should have had a key to open it, so you hoped it was only stuck, preferably due to the weight of the papers inside of it.

Two of your nails broke in the process and your fingertips were burning, but eventually you managed to open the lowest drawer, its content plenty and full of names you weren’t familiar with. However, you did recognise one: Heo Joongse. He had been one of the “victims” of the explosion that had killed Kang Yohan. He had been the former president of South Korea.

Hands shaking nervously, you started to take pictures of the documents, but because of the lack of proper lighting, they turned out to be unreadable. Therefore you shoved them under your sweatshirt on a whim.

‘Noona! Noona, it’s time to go!’ You heard your best friend calling for you and you stilled, contemplating whether you should have pretended that you hadn’t heard him and checked one more room or let him know where you were. He must have calculated with finding you, he knew how you got when you… ‘Noona, we have to get out of here!’

You closed your eyes and let out a displeased sigh. You should have met them upstairs, close to the front door. If Shota was in the basement, it meant you hardly had any minute to waste. Even if the digital numbers in the upper right corner of your phone’s screen said otherwise.

‘I’m coming!’ You shouted on your way to the hallway, giving a resigned look to the rest of the basement, to all those closed doors you hadn’t had a chance to open, then ran towards Shota’s voice. It came from the stairs that led to the ground floor.

The question of what had happened that you needed to leave twenty minutes sooner was on the tip of your tongue, but you didn’t have a chance to say it aloud. The moment you opened your mouth, your best friend grabbed your wrist and pulled you in the opposite direction from the main entrance, confusion making you uncharacteristically obedient and unresponsive.

You didn’t question him when he shoved you inside a dirty restroom, nor did you ask a single thing when Keeho emerged from one of the toilet cubicles. You simply let the older boy take the lead and help with your balance when you stepped on top of a half-broken plastic toilet lid that was supposed to support your weight and made you tall enough to reach the edge of the open window on the tiled wall.

‘You really think I can…’ pull myself up; you wanted to ask, but before you could have finished your question, someone grabbed your arms from the outside and got you out of the building with one swift movement.

With a scream stuck in the back of your throat, you looked down at Jiung with slightly parted lips and gulped nervously when your gaze fell on your palm atop of his chest. You swore, you could feel his heart beating like crazy under your palm, your own mimicking the rhythm and pushing enough blood to your neck and cheeks to turn them ruby red.

‘Get up! We’re running out of time.’ It was Shota whose voice pulled you back to the present, but you were sure, even without stealing a glance at the boy on your right, that it was Keeho who pulled you off Jiung and pulled you towards the iron fences.

You stumbled in the dark, unaware of when you had lost your flashlight and whether the guys had turned theirs off on purpose. By the time your friends deemed that you were far enough from the facility, your lungs were screaming for a break and every breath felt like you were inhaling pieces of broken glass.

‘What the hell happened?’ You demanded, even though it seemed you were the only one who thought your frustration and anger were justified.

‘That your stupid obsession almost got us in trouble, that’s what happened,’ Jiung screamed at your face, a few drops of saliva landing on your burning cheek due to your close proximity. You balled up your fists, your knuckles turning white from how hard you clenched them.

‘Shota said it was safe! And I don’t remember asking you to join us,’ you retorted as calmly as you could manage with the growing annoyance you were feeling.

Sure, you knew trespassing had been a gamble, that you had been going against everything you believed in just to prove a point, but you had done nothing inside that damned building that could have put everyone in danger. Whatever had happened it hadn’t been on you, you refused to believe it.

‘It was the USB. We found a bunch of them in one of the offices, but one of them was still plugged into a smashed PC, so I pulled it out,’ Shota confessed at the same time Keeho said:

‘I think I broke a lock I shouldn’t have.’

You closed your eyes, heaving. Honestly, the second option sounded more possible, but you felt like stating the obvious or calling Jiung out on his freaking tendency to put the blame on you would have done more harm than good. The atmosphere was already tense, making it worse while you were still relatively close to the crime scene would have been stupid.

‘It’s okay, it doesn’t matter,’ you concluded because crying over spilled milk would have been just as idiotic. You had gotten in and out without encountering any of the guards, no one had known your faces, your identities were safe. You might have felt bitter about leaving so soon, but at the end of the day, you were all unharmed and that was what mattered.

You straightened your back and opened your eyes.

‘Let’s go home,’ you exclaimed and shot a genuine smile in Shota’s direction to soothe the guilt that was written all over his face.

When Jiung bumped into your shoulder on purpose, you gritted your teeth, but followed him towards the main road. You decided not to ask him whether he had found anything useful as you were sure he wouldn’t have told you even if he had done, and pointed at your tummy with a mischievous wink when Shota did the same with his pockets where he hid the old USB sticks.

You might not have been able to check everything you had wanted, but your mission hadn’t been a complete failure, after all. And that… that sure as hell made you feel like you had accomplished something.

A couple of days later, you were in the university library, working on your assignment on the live court show’s effects on the judicial system and the shift of responsibility the DIKE app had contributed to when citizens had been given the power to decide the defendants were guilty or not guilty, when Choi Jiung walked up to your table and shut down your laptop with a fixed combination of keys. To say you were furious would have been an understatement. You were livid.

‘Do you want to die? The hell is wrong with you?’ You spat, pushing yourself into a standing position in an attempt to look more intimidating despite still being significantly shorter than the boy. It didn’t matter. Anger could take people farther than one would have thought.

Instead of answering your question with words, Jiung threw a small pile of papers on your desk. You looked down at it with narrowed eyes before you took it in your hand. There was no need for you to scan through the provocatively phrased paragraphs. Just by looking at the header, you knew it was your thesis abstract.

‘Where did you get this?’ You asked, trying not to wrinkle the document in case it was indeed the original copy that you had put on your professor’s table in the teachers’ office after your last class.

‘Do you want to die?’ He threw the question back at you, his tone just as angry as yours even though the flames in his eyes burned with a different colour. He seemed a lot more serious rather than borderline panicking. His reaction closed up your throat, but you kept your chin high to prove a point. ‘I’m serious! You can’t be this stupid, can you?’

You took a shallow breath, then another one and another one for good measure before you crouched down for your bag and shoved your laptop inside of it.

‘You saw that place. They’re guarding it for a reason. Even if you really didn’t find anything on the first floor…’ You took another breath to calm yourself. You still had time before your next class, so you could put the abstract back on your professor’s desk like Jiung had never put his hands on it.

‘You can’t become a judge with this mindset. It’s anti-nationalist,’ he pressed, stopping you with his fingers hanging around your wrist like a chain. You shook it off, his rough touch, and turned around to look him in the eyes.

‘I’m ashamed of you. People like you should never be allowed to become a judge in the first place,’ you said, quiet enough to not draw anyone’s attention, but loud enough to hurt.

You meant it: every word. Those people who deliberately turned a blind eye on the flaws in the stories the system tried to feed you with, on the government’s wrongdoings just because it was easier, shouldn’t have been given power to decide who deserved a severe punishment for breaking the law and who acted upon self-preservation. 

The two of you kept eye contact for longer than it was necessary, therefore you were about to turn your back on Jiung when you got a text via kakao. With furrowed eyebrows, you fished the device out of your pocket and checked the incoming messages.

shota 😤: “don’t come home!” shota 😤: “i’m serious” shota 😤: “stay with the hyungs”

The urgency in his double texts made you feel alarmed, so you sent a quick message to both Shota and Keeho, then threw your phone into your bag and rushed out of the library.

There was no way you would let your best friend deal with whatever trouble he was in on his own when you had a good guess where he was and it was clearly too big for him to handle it alone.

Jiung tried not to think too much into it when you didn’t show up at class the day after you had stormed out of the library. He really tried not to panic when he couldn’t see you at any of your favourite places around campus, although he was familiar with your schedule and habits: when you preferred the university library over the coffee shop, which classes you would have never skipped for the world and how many papers you had to submit before the upcoming midterms.

It wasn’t unusual that you didn’t pick up the phone to him, so he didn’t even bother after the first futile attempt, aware of the line he had crossed when he had taken your thesis abstract that he shouldn’t have even read, but when even Soul refused to read his messages, he knew something was off. The boy would have never ignored his hyungs just because he might have taken your side. At least, he had never done so before and god, the younger sided with you almost all the time.

Lacking any better idea, Jiung dialled Keeho’s number, letting out a relieved breath when the older picked up the phone after the second ring.

‘Have you heard from Soul? His bestie hasn’t shown up at uni since last week,’ he started without beating around the bush, too frustrated (and worried) to prolong the conversation. He wanted to know that you were both okay and his worst nightmare hadn’t come true despite your stubbornness.

Had you gotten in trouble with the authorities because of your big mouth? Who had you been texting to before you had turned your back on him?

‘Not since last week. He said he would be out of town for a couple of days,’ Keeho answered. ‘Same for the firecracker. She texted that she’s worried about Shota, but then she claimed everything was fine, so I didn’t ask,’ he explained, not going into too much detail about why he hadn’t pushed when he was so overprotective of the babies of their group. Jiung knew the older boy was balancing two jobs to provide for not only himself, but Jongseob, too. Life was tough ever since the youngest had run away from home.

If you had told Keeho things were okay, Jiung understood why he had chosen to believe you and stay at his workplace or steal himself an hour of extra sleep.

‘Did he say where he was going?’ Jiung asked, wondering whether he was overreacting or the nagging voice inside of his head was right about you. Even if he doubted you considered him as a friend, he would have liked to believe that he knew the core of your personality. There was no way you would have deliberately ditched your studies when you had worked so hard to get accepted on scholarship.

‘No,’ came the answer after a momentary break, silence filled with pangs of distress. ‘Why?’

‘I’m not sure, but I have a bad feeling about this. I’ll go and check their place,’ Jiung said, checking his timetable and deciding against showing up at his last class as it wasn’t a seminar and most importantly, it wasn’t a lecture he was sharing with you.

‘Now?’

‘Now,’ he nodded out of habit as he threw the strap of his messenger bag over his head and put on his cap.

‘I’ll be there in an hour. Wait for me!’ Keeho asked and Jiung let out a loud, affirmative hum before he hung up the phone.

The blond boy didn’t waste any time. He called a cab with his kakao app and asked the driver to drive as fast as he could once he got inside the car. He promised to double the fare if the old man got to your place in under an hour (which would have been an achievement in itself in the afternoon traffic).

‘We have arrived, mister,’ the taxi driver announced and Jiung indeed paid plenty before he jumped out of the car and rushed upstairs. He had only ever been to your place once, when it had been your birthday in freshman year of uni and Soul had organised you a surprise party with your favourite strawberry cake and a second-hand laptop for your studies. Jiung couldn’t remember anymore what he had bought for you. Had he even bought you anything? 

He shook his head. That wasn’t important at that moment. Making sure you were alright and simply avoiding him was.

The first alarming sign was how easy it was to get inside your flat: all Jiung needed to do was push down the handle and the door was open. He didn’t need a key, a keycard or a passcode. His heart sank into his stomach when he crossed the threshold.

Jiung needed to bite into his lips to not make the mistake most people made on tv whenever they found themselves in a similar situation. Because as ridiculous as it sounded, his first instinct was to call for your name and announce his arrival, which would have been stupid. What if someone was here? He really shouldn’t have done that.

So he didn’t. Instead, he took off his shoes and checked every room as silently as possible until he made sure he was alone. Then, he started to go through your stuff systematically: skimming your mails, searching through your drawers and desk, rummaging your bathroom while simultaneously trying to not invade your privacy and finding clues about where you had been and what had happened. He was in the middle of looking for hidden compartments in your walls when Keeho arrived.

‘Is anyone here?’ The older boy asked, coaxing an unamused scoff out of Jiung with his loud question. Of course, he was acting like every idiot in a horror movie who was about to die.

‘Bedroom,’ Jiung grumbled, keeping his focus on the task in hand. He vaguely remembered Soul bragging about the coolest compartments he had installed in both of your flats, so that you could have hid your cash there and never gotten robbed. They had to be big enough to store a handful of stolen USB sticks. If only he could have known for sure there was nothing on them that would want dangerous people to make you disappear.

‘What happened here?’ Keeho asked, clearly taken aback by the state of your room.

Jiung didn’t bother to look around. He knew damn well the disaster he had left behind when he had started to get more and more frustrated, too impatient to put everything back to its place when they hadn’t given him the answers he was looking for.

‘The kimbap in her fridge went wrong days ago. She wouldn’t have left it there if she’d had a choice,’ the blond boy stated and it was ridiculous really, how sure he was in certain things when it came to you. But he just knew. He had caught you eating food you didn’t enjoy just because you had already paid for it or it had been for free. Even if you had been in a hurry, you wouldn’t have left it there to rot.

‘You sound pretty paranoid. And worried,’ Keeho commented, but walked up to your bedside table without much questioning and moved it aside. Then, he knocked on the beige wall a few times, gaining Jiung’s attention when suddenly, the thud gave a different sound.

Jiung crawled towards the bed on his hands and knees, reaching for the content of the hidden compartment once his friend opened it with ease that showed he knew exactly what he was doing. In small stacks, there were a couple of 5000 and 10000 won bills, less in total than the amount of Jiung’s allowance had gotten regularly in middle school.

Jiung’s throat closed up when his eyes fell on the custom-made keychain he had forgotten a long time ago, the one he had given you for your birthday and the one that sat on top of a pile of dirty papers. He took it into his hand and shoved it into his pocket before he skimmed the documents. On each page, they had the Dream House’s stamp on their upper left corners, which meant you might have found these in the facility’s basement.

Damnit! You had never mentioned you had found something that night, let alone something that looked like trouble.

‘What do they say?’ Keeho’s question came from Jiung’s right, your worn bed cracking under the older boy’s weight. 

‘At first glance? That they are lucky if they’re in the countryside,’ the younger answered, his heart rate picking up because of the dreadful pictures his brain was throwing at him about you and Soul behind bars, the two of you in separate interrogation rooms, powerful people trying to break you to turn against each other.

Jiung looked around in search of his backpack, then stood up and lifted it off the floor, so that he could shove the documents between two books he had been supposed to take back to the university library. They didn’t matter anymore. You and Soul did.

‘Where are you going?’ Keeho asked, and while Jiung had a concrete destination in mind, he was contemplating whether he should have told the other the whole truth. Keeho hadn’t seen the late president’s name on the documents yet and while Jiung would have also needed more time to figure out what you had gotten yourself into exactly, he had a vague idea. He didn’t want to put his friend in more danger in case he was right.

On the other hand, he was aware how important Soul was to Keeho. Obviously, the older boy cared about each one of his close friends, even people he deemed honest and kind, but Soul was like a brother to him. If Jiung had been in his shoes, he would have resented whoever kept secrets this serious from him.

‘I’ll ask Jiseong if he heard anything,’ he settled for the truth, albeit giving a curt answer. He would cross that bridge when he got there. For the time being, he didn’t want to complicate things even more. Not to mention that his step-brother would have scolded him and might have outright refused to tell him any details if he had shown up at his office with someone who had nothing to do with their family or their social circle.

After meeting you, Jiung had started to question whether he was able to read other people as well as his family expected him to, but recognizing the fine mixture of doubt, hurt and worry in Keeho’s eyes was too easy.

‘You will call me,’ the words came out pseudo-commanding, like the boy knew no objection, but Jiung noticed the pinch of uncertainty that made Keeho’s voice crack by the end, turning the statement into a semi-question. He didn’t call him out on his lack of faith in his character, mostly because Jiung himself was unsure of numerous things, too, regarding the situation.

Therefore, he settled for a nod instead of a verbal promise and left the building. The papers in his backpack felt heavy, like rocks that were trying to pull him underwater, but nothing could have compared to the weight of the abandoned keychain in his pocket that you, for some reason, had kept at the same place you kept your treasures.

After a failed attempt at the District Court, Jiung decided to wait for his step-brother at his home office, which was basically a separate room on the second floor in their house, between their parents’ offices and across from his own study room. Aware of the importance of respect and good manners even when one wasn’t out in public, he knocked on the mahogany door and counted to three, seven, ten, before he entered.

Since the boy’s plan was to ask a few questions from his hyung about the Dream House Medical Centre and whether there had been any attempts at breaking into the abandoned building in the last couple of years - the more general his curiosity appeared to be, the safer for you and Soul -, he decided to jot down every aspect he needed to touch upon and tried to make the inquiries sound as academic and neutral as possible while he was waiting. A written list could have helped him make it look like he was working on an assignment of some sort.

Taking a seat by the massive desk in the left corner of the room, Jiung pulled out the upper drawer, looking for a piece of paper. He knew it was a little old-fashioned, that he could have taken notes on his phone as well, but there was something about a piece of blank paper that stimulated his brain. Thoughts and ideas came easier when he could feel the material against the mounts of his palm and the weight of the pen in his hand.

Jiung didn’t intend to pry. Why would he have? He had been raised to trust his family above everyone and everything and put his faith in the system blindly as his relatives had important roles in it for generations. However, it was undeniable that it was your thesis abstract staring back at him from the top of a smaller pile of papers in Jiseong’s drawer. Jiung needed to take it into his hands.

He didn’t have to read through the lines to make sure the paragraphs had been written by you. Even though your name was crossed out with a black marker, he knew it was yours. He had read your abstract before. God! He had told you it would have gotten you in trouble. He had just never assumed that his hyung would have also been involved in this mess somehow.

Desperate to not jump to false conclusions, Jiung put the document back into the drawer and closed it carefully. He leaned the back of his head against the chair and closed his eyes, trying to even his breathing. He couldn’t have allowed himself to act suspicious or else his brother would have kicked him out of his office before he could have uttered a single word.

‘What are you doing here?’ Jiseong’s thunderous voice filled the room, pulling the blond boy out of his messy thoughts. Jiung snapped his head in his brother’s direction, resisting the urge to gulp down the nervous knot in his throat or put on a fake smile.

‘Homework,’ he explained with his fidgety fingers clenched into fists and hidden under the desk. He needed to stop thinking about your abstract in the drawer and how it could have gotten there for not only his own sake, but yours and Soul’s as well. He had never been a man of emotions, he couldn’t have allowed to become one in such a delicate situation. ‘I mean, I need some answers I couldn’t find on the internet, nor in any of the books in the uni library,’ he added when his answer met with silence, putting effort into relaxing his tense muscles.

‘I see,’ Jiseong muttered, not taking his hawk eyes off his younger brother while he walked closer to the desk and along with it, to Jiung. The young man’s arms were crossed in front of his chest; his tailored suit devoid of any wrinkles. ‘Ask away then.’

Jiung wished he had had more time to prepare himself for this conversation. Sure, the boy had wanted to get over with the interrogation as soon as possible when he had decided to seek his hyung out right after he had left your flat, but that had been before he had found your thesis abstract. With this new discovery, he felt unprepared.

‘It’s common knowledge that the Dream House has been abandoned since judge Kang Yohan tried to use it to overthrow the government,’ he started with a well-known statement to steal himself a couple of more seconds. He usually used this method during presentations because talking about things he was certain about did wonders to his jittery nerves, but this time, the academic tone had no positive effect. The lingering uncertainty poisoned his confidence. ‘It’s heavily guarded, though. Why?’

‘Use your brain, Jiung-ah. Why do you think it needs to be guarded up to this day?’ The man asked in a chastising tone. It reminded Jiung of school breaks in the countryside that they had spent with their grandparents. It reminded Jiung of summer days when he had falsely thought he could have acted his age without unpleasant consequences.

He frowned, but gave a serious thought to the question and answered with his chin held high.

‘So people wouldn’t break in,’ he chose, because even before breaking into the Dream House and rummaging through the first floor, he had doubted there had been something or someone kept in there that could have escaped. Which could have only meant that the government wanted to keep people from entering.

‘And?’

Jiung furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, wondering whether his brother knew he had been there, inside the medical centre, when you had put your hands on those documents. Was there a specific answer Jiseong was expecting from him? Or should he have played it safe and pretended he didn’t know about the late president’s involvement in something that had gotten you in so much trouble, you and Soul had disappeared off the face of Earth?

‘There are people in our country who believe Kang Yohan was some sort of saint who wanted to protect the powerless from corruption even though he couldn’t have cared less about the poor and unprivileged,’ the young judge stated, destroying the remaining distance between himself and his brother. Jiseong put his palms on his desk and leaned closer to Jiung with a predatory glint in his hazel eyes. Like he was staring at a pitiful prey instead of someone he had to treasure and protect. ‘It’s guarded, so those with anti-nationalist ideas wouldn’t turn it into their own sacred place,’ he said, forcing the younger to hold his breath and listen. ‘They would crowd it. It would give them a place with meaning for gatherings and suddenly, their preaching would gain more credibility.’

At that moment, as he was staring at his step-brother, the blond boy couldn’t help but think of you and your reaction whenever he had said something to defend the system. He wondered whether he had sounded just as biassed and inimical to you as Jiseong did to him while he was talking about faceless people and their hypothetical actions when they hadn’t committed said crime yet.

He wondered whether the fact that he added that harmless “yet” at the end of the sentence in his head meant he was indeed the same.

‘Has anyone ever broken into that building?’ Jiung asked partly to cut the tension that grew with the silence, partly to check the credibility of his hyung’s words.

Jiseong took his hands off the desk and straightened his back. He shot a small smile in Jiung’s way and shook his head.

‘Never. Like you said, it’s heavily guarded. You have nothing to be worried about,’ he said, slowly loosing his necktie, piercing gaze poking holes into the skin between the younger’s eyes. ‘Any other questions?’

There were. Jiung had plenty of questions starting with why was your abstract in his drawer, what had they done to you and Soul, whether you two had been the first ones who had been dealt with this drastically or there were others, people who had no connection to people like Jiung who came from an influential family. However, putting these thoughts in words would have done more harm than good and Jiung wasn’t an idiot. He might have doubted Jiseong would have been able to make him disappear or it was really him who had been behind all of this, but Jiung knew he wasn’t untouchable.

‘No, nothing. Thanks,’ so he said and stood up from the chair as casually as he could manage before he bent down and picked up his backpack from the floor. He bowed to his brother like he always did when he was greeting his family members or saying goodbye to them, then straightened his back and waited to be dismissed, showing respect to his elder as he had been taught.

‘Go, wash up! It’s almost dinner time,’ Jiseong said and patted his brother’s shoulder once, twice, three times, before he turned his back on Jiung.

The younger didn’t hesitate to leave the room afterwards.

The thing was, whether his step-brother knew that Jiung had broken into the Dream House with you and the boys or not, Jiseong had lied to him. He also had your thesis abstract, the very same document Jiung had given back to you the day he had last seen you, which was more than a little concerning. Therefore, despite his own beliefs, Jiung needed to figure out what was going on and how deep his hyung was in the mess you had also gotten yourself and Soul into.

He needed to know you two were okay. The sooner, the better.

If anyone had caught the boy sneaking into his brother’s home office instead of attending his classes, Jiung would have been cursed out, then dragged into his room and locked up for several weeks. He knew because he had been driven to school and back home for a whole month in high school when his father had found out that he had drunk a beer with his friend in public despite being underaged. They had done it at a park where they had thought no one had been paying any mind to them, but they had been dead wrong as his then-friend’s mother had sent one of her secretaries to keep an eye on her son and they had gotten caught before they could have decided whether they had wanted to open the second can. The tension at home after that had been so messed up, Jiung hadn’t dared to break any rules for years.

That was, until he had met you.

Rummaging through Jiseong’s drawers turned out to be fruitless. Other than stationeries and a bunch of files about ongoing cases at the court, there was nothing to put his hands on, which was weird. Why wasn’t your paper in the upper drawer anymore?

Kneeling on the floor, Jiung leaned his forehead against the edge of the desk and closed his eyes. Looking through his hyung’s things was one thing. Should he have really logged into his computer, too? That sounded too extreme, but then again. The boy had already trespassed on government property just to keep an eye on you and make sure you were fine. He could have always claimed he needed Jiseong’s laptop for whatever excuse his mind would have provided at the time of need.

Letting out a troubled sigh, Jiung could hear your last words to him ringing in his ears. If he had decided to turn a blind eye on the weird happenings now, he would have turned into what you had hated the most in people like him. People with the proper background to make a real difference, but no desire to change what was wrong. He might have refused to believe you had been right about everything, nor did he think he was a bad person just because his values and beliefs were different from yours, but he couldn’t have lied to himself. Something about the Dream House project was fishy.

So Jiung sat on the chair and turned on the computer before he could have lost his courage. He checked every folder and every file systematically, then opened Jiseong’s email services and read through his mails, too. The more he saw, the less suspicious his brother appeared to be and the more guilty he felt, but it was too late to turn back. So he kept reading, until he did find something.

It was a forwarded email Jiseong had never replied to or if he had done so, he had already deleted the evidence. The original letter was a report on the break-in to the medical centre; the person claimed there had been three or four suspects, but no gender, approximate age or physical features had been stated. The first response was about the punishment of the guards who had been working that night; the second one was an ID number; the third said: it’s done. Collateral damage: one person.

Jiung’s hands were trembling slightly when in the last email attached to the conversation there was a follow-up report from his uncle. It had been sent at five in the morning, mere hours ago, and it said they were ready for shipping.

‘What the…’ he murmured under his nose, finding it hard to process that these people might have been talking about you.

Jiung deleted the search history and closed the browser. He turned off the computer and took a moment to think. Should he have visited his uncle’s researcher centre on his own or should he have told Keeho about these emails like he knew the older boy wanted him to? Should he have tried to figure out what was going on in the legal way or gone behind his uncle’s back, too, lacking spare time to waste? What had they meant by shipping anyway?

Before he left the office, Jiung took a quick look at the interior from above his shoulder, then stepped out to the hallway and fished his phone out of his pocket. He called Keeho and when it went to voicemail, he sent the older boy a cryptic text about how he needed him as soon as possible.

A rational part of Jiung was aware he needed backup, but he wouldn’t have waited hours just to hear back from his friend.

Luckily, Keeho had reached out to Jiung within an hour, hence the two boys could meet up at the 7-Eleven across from the research centre around three. If Jiung wanted to be honest, it was the worst time either of them could have picked: it wasn’t close to lunch break nor did it align with anything else that could have drawn the attention from them, but he didn’t want to wait until closing time. He wanted to check every room on every floor as soon as possible in case, for some reason, you and Soul were in there.

The more he thought about it, the more this place seemed like the perfect cover-up and this thought drove him up the wall.

‘Sorry we’re late,’ a familiar voice demanded attention, followed by a loud, screeching sound as the intruder pulled out the metal chair and sat next to Jiung. Intak’s smile was too wide for the older boy’s liking, but at least it didn’t look genuine. The visible distress that blended into his friend’s cheery facial expression made Jiung feel less paranoid even though he would have gladly accepted that he was overreacting and let the guys make fun of him if that had meant you and Soul were chilling somewhere in the countryside.

‘Why are you here in the first place?’ Jiung asked, his gaze sliding from Intak to Theo who also took a seat by the table in the meantime.

‘Duh. Cause I’m the best thief you know and you’re about to break into the enemy’s lair in broad daylight?’ Intak’s question was dripping with sarcasm, his cold tone making it sound more like a statement. Jiung bit back a nasty comment about how Soul would exceed him in no time with his connections all across the city because thinking of the younger came hand in hand with thinking of you and he couldn’t have that.

Jiung put his elbows on the table and intertwined his fingers. He raised a brow as he looked at Theo, the silent question why he was there hanging in the air.

At first, Theo’s response was no more than a shrug, but as the tension became palpable, he let out a defeated sigh. It was clear, he didn’t think he needed to explain himself, especially because both Soul and you were a part of their friends group.

‘Someone’ll need to stand guard.’ It wasn’t something Jiung could argue with even though he would have liked to believe that even if they had gotten caught, his connection to the head of the institute could have gotten them out of trouble. The thing was, he couldn’t say it for sure anymore and this uncertainty and his sudden lack of trust in his own blood were stressing him out. If the boy’s thoughts hadn’t returned to your disappearance every two minutes, he might have already broken down due to the revelations he had needed to face in the last twenty-four hours.

‘Cool. Now, let’s order something and talk about the plan,’ Intak proposed, earning a judging side-eye from Jiung and a frown from Keeho when he pushed his chair back, making more space for himself to be able to stand up and walk up to the counter. ‘What? You chose a café for this group meeting. It’s pretty suspicious if we don’t order anything,’ he put his weight on his palms, leaning closer to the boys over the table.

Jiung let out a scoff.

‘I’ll have one small iced cappuccino,’ Keeho broke the growing silence before he changed his mind. ‘You know what? I’m coming with you. We’ll be back in a minute.’

Instead of following his friends with his eyes, Jiung’s gaze stuck on the massive building on the other side of the road. He couldn’t not feel like in a matter of mere hours, the life he had been living would cease to exist for good. Whether because his own uncle and step-brother were parts of a mafia-like system he had been blind to all this time or because he had chosen to betray them when he had decided to paint them as the enemy, it didn’t matter. Their bond that had been built on trust would break beyond repair once Jiung broke into the research centre. It might have already done so when he had read through his hyung’s emails.

‘You won’t turn on us, will you?’ Theo’s question pulled the blond boy back to the present, his sharp eyes cutting deep into his being. He didn’t blame his friend, though, even if the assumption that he would have left them behind to save himself was offensive.

His pride could take this much.

‘I want to get them back,’ Jiung said firmly, hoping that the sincerity in his voice would be enough and Theo didn’t expect him to come up with a whole monologue about how he was ready to go against his own family and burn Seoul down to the ground to find you. Because honestly, he wasn’t ready for any of those. He wasn’t ready to face the elephant in the room.

‘And that’s what we’ll do,’ Keeho patted the blond boy’s shoulder, taking a seat next to Theo while Intak sat back on the empty metal chair on Jiung’s side. He slid a small cup of black coffee towards the younger and took a sip from his mint choco frappé.

‘Which part of the building we want to infiltrate first?’ Intak asked and Jiung also let out an amused laugh when he saw the other boy fishing out a worn laptop from his backpack. Neat, serious and responsible weren’t adjectives Jiung would have ever used to describe his hyung, but he sure took this job seriously. It was actually pretty impressive.

‘The sixth floor and the basement. You need a special keycard to get to both or the elevator won’t start,’ Jiung said, going into more details about the security system although his knowledge was very limited. He had been in the research centre only twice and both times he had been left with his father’s secretary in the canteen while his father and uncle had been talking about business.

The soft clatter of the keyboard filled the air and embraced Jiung with its normality; he took a sip from his coffee and let the warmth spread in his body. He might have hated the thought of his friends getting in trouble because of his fixation on your sudden disappearance, but a selfish part of him found solace in their presence. He wasn’t alone.

‘Okay guys, we’ll do it this way,’ Intak spoke up after a couple of mumbled swear words and a delighted hum that reverberated through all of them. He pushed the laptop further from himself so that everyone could take a look at the screen, then pointed at the live footage of one of the security cameras inside the building. ‘Based on their social media posts and public appearances, these two researchers are the easiest to lead on. Out of the two, this one here, Dr. Kim Ryeowook is the one who possesses one of the six magic cards to the elevator.’

‘You figured these all out, skimming through a few Facebook posts?’ Jiung raised a brow and it was actually Theo who shook his head first, reaching out to the laptop and clicking on the tab next to the one everyone was staring at.

‘Actually, it’s a text analysis software we still need to work on with Beomgyu for one of our classes. Once it’s finished, it’ll help people make decisions, like solving complex problems for them, based on the imported information,’ he explained, slapping Intak’s hands away so that he could check the accuracy of the information.

‘Oh, okay! That’s cool,’ Jiung nodded to himself, letting the guy overwrite what he needed to overwrite before he confirmed the prediction.

Dr. Kim Ryeowook. The man was currently walking down the hallway on the second floor. If they were lucky, they could snatch his keycard and sneak it back into his coat’s oversized pocket before his shift ended around six.

Jiung’s heart was about to explode when the elevator’s doors closed behind their back and he caught sight of the sterile interior of the sixth floor. As they were running low on time, he was only with Keeho while Intak searched through the basement, his humming deafening even from the other side of the call that kept them connected.

‘Could you please focus? Look for papers, anything about shipping can be important,’ Jiung scolded his friend while they walked down the eerie hallways that led from the elevator to the laboratories. Although they were both dressed in the white coats of the researchers’ uniform, the boy couldn’t have said he felt disguised enough. In fact! He felt as though they were both sticking out like sore thumbs. They were walking too slowly, the caution in their steps almost alarming.

‘I don’t know about you, guys, but I don’t think they’re storing papers in here,’ Intak’s voice sounded almost pained before his words got replaced by a very forced, very loud coughing fit. Jiung furrowed his eyebrows and exchanged a glance with Keeho.

‘What are yo—’

‘Fuck! Is this a freaking liver?’ Intak asked in terror, his question tugging on Jiung’s insides forcefully, making him nauseas. Because while it was a known fact that the employees at his uncle’s research centre were looking for ways to cure incurable diseases, Jiung would have never thought their vaccines and experimental medicines were tested on human organs. Sure, it must have been less cruel than testing them on living, breathing people, but the method still sent an unpleasant shiver down his spine.

Looking at Keeho and listening to Intak’s uneven breathing, his friends had to be of the same opinion.

‘Guys, some of the organs have the same set of numbers…’ Intak didn’t have to finish the sentence, it was obvious what that meant. Yet, he still forced the words out. ‘I think they belonged to the same person. Livers, kidneys, hearts. The list is endless,’ he said.

Jiung hadn’t realised he was shaking until Keeho wrapped his fingers around his wrist and stopped the uncontrollable trembling of his left arm.

‘Don’t touch anything. Take pictures if you can, but stay alert,’ Keeho instructed, then pulled Jiung forwards.

The two picked up their pace and walked down the hallway with purpose in each one of their steps. When they reached the first door on the left side, Jiung reached for the handle with his sweater paw covering his hand, then pushed it down so that they could enter.

Inside, there were two dozens of hospital beds, unconscious people tied to the meal structure of the furniture, high-tech machines monitoring their vitals. It shouldn’t have been as scary as it felt with the eerie silence filling the atmosphere.

‘Do you thin—’

Jiung didn’t let Keeho finish his question. He had to stay focused; if the older boy had asked him whether you and Soul were in one of these rooms, in one of these beds, his thoughts would have tried to come up with an answer and ended up being all over the place.

‘I’ll check the beds on the left,’ the blond boy volunteered, simultaneously praying that you weren’t one of these people and that you were here so he could get you out of here.

Jiung’s movements were frantic by the time he got to the last patient - victim? - at the end of the row without being able to touch you. He snapped his head towards Keeho who was taking pictures of the sick, fighting his frustrated tears, in hope of good news.

Neither of you was in the room. Or in the next one, or in the third.

‘I found him! Jiung, quick!’ Keeho exclaimed, his hands already working on detaching the machine from Soul’s fragile body. Jiung could taste bile in his mouth when he saw the bloody dressing around the pale boy’s torso. He couldn’t see the wound and he had never been particularly good at Biology, but he had a faint idea that the red line across the textile was somewhere around his friend’s right kidney.  

‘Hy-hyung,’ Soul mumbled weakly, his half-lidded eyes barely open and his lips a mixture of lilac and blue as his head fell on Keeho’s shoulder. It took everything in Jiung to not throw his million questions at him about you and his family members like a spoiled child.

‘It’s okay. We’ll get you out of here. You’re safe now,’ the older boy whispered against the boy’s temple, then looked around, searching for something. Jiung couldn’t stop thinking of… ‘That wheelchair! Jiung-ah, we need to put Shota into that wheelchair.’

The urgency in Keeho’s voice pulled Jiung back to the present and he rushed to the other side of the room to get one of the wheelchairs for Soul. Keeho was right, there was no way they could have sneaked their friend out of the research centre when he was in a half-unconscious state. A patient in a wheelchair might have been a tad less suspicious than a lax body hanging from their shoulder. Though, a voice in the back of his mind said neither was a common sight in the building.

Jiung’s entire body tensed up when Intak dropped the phone on the other side of the call. The younger’s curses and his desperate ‘No, no, no!’ froze his blood even though Intak’s voice was barely above a whisper due to the sudden distance between him and the electronic device.

Contemplating whether he should have helped Keeho with Soul or pleaded Intak to give them an explanation of what was going on in the basement, Jiung let out a frustrated sigh while he was keeping the wheelchair in place.

‘Intak! Intak! What’s wrong?’ Jiung tried to gain the boy’s attention, but it wasn’t working. So they exchanged a worried glance with Keeho and came up with a plan: they checked the last room on the sixth floor, then the older got Soul out of the building while Jiung went down the basement to collect their friend (and whatever he might have found or encountered with).

Jiung hoped it wasn’t one of the security guards who had caught him red-handed, but if it had been, he was Intak’s best chance to get out of trouble. And that was the least he could do for his friend as without him, they might have never gotten to Soul.

The thought that he might have been facing his uncle’s rage at any moment should have been more terrifying. Jiung had no doubt about it that under different circumstances, mere weeks ago, he would have shitted his pants from the presumption that he had messed up so bad, the old man needed to be involved in the situation. But as he was running in search of his friend, passing by shelves full of glass containers and what not, he feared whatever triggered Intak’s uncharacteristic reaction the most.

It didn’t take long for Jiung to find the room with the open door. On the contrary, it became pretty easy once he got within hearing range, because Intak’s painful wailing echoed off the walls and surrounded him on the empty corridor.

Trying to regulate his nerves, the first thing Jiung noticed when he crossed the threshold was how the room was slightly colder than the rest of the basement he had raced through. Then, the sour and irritating smell of vomit and formaldehyde.

‘Intak.’ Jiung crouched down in front of the younger boy, cupping his face with his own, trembling hands, so that the boy could take notice of his presence. He had never been particularly good at comforting others, but he had seen Keeho do it to the boys enough times to have a vague idea about what he should have done.

Jiung pulled his friend’s snotty and tear-stained face against his chest and patted his blade bones gently, for a calming rhythm. Meanwhile, he looked around the room with his chin resting on top of Intak’s head, trying to figure out what could have happened.

‘She… she’s… no-hoh,’ Intak cried out desperately as he grabbed Jiung’s arm and held onto him stronger, body shaking from the threat of another pile of bile-filled vomit. Jiung looked down at the boy and closed his eyes. Should he have reminded him that they had to leave the basement soon? Should he have asked for answers?

Keeho would have rocked him back and forth until he calmed down, but Jiung was afraid they didn’t have enough time.

‘Intak, we need to leave. The keycard, we…’ The rest of the words stuck in Jiung’s throat when Intak pushed him away aggressively, shaking his head and screaming frantically as though the blond boy said something unforgivable.

‘We, no! We have to… we need to! No!’ He protested, crawling backwards on his hands and feet until his head crashed against an open compartment in the wall. With bold, palm-sized characters, there was a number written on it: 0327.

Now that Jiung paid more attention to the odd-looking doors on the right side of the room, his anxiety started to pick up. He pushed himself into a standing position and walked past Intak, trying to take a better look at the inside of the compartment. It must have been the younger who had opened it, which could mean that whatever was in there had triggered his hysterical reaction.

Jiung’s brows were knitted together in confusion when he felt a hand on his ankle. He looked down at his friend, who was shaking his head, mouthing his objections so quietly, the blond boy didn’t hear a word.

He turned back towards the compartment and pulled it entirely open. The piece of white clothing that was hiding the thing underneath was as big as a comforter. Although it brought no warmth or comfort when removing it, Jiung’s gaze fell on a pile of chewed out skin. There were no bones, no organs inside the violated corpse, only damaged skin and a head with more stitches, indicating that he couldn’t have found the brain inside of the skull, either.

Jiung fell on his knees when he recognized the ghost of your features on the corpse’s face. He coughed up bile and that little food he had in his stomach before the first tears rolled down his cheeks. He felt sick.

Neither of the boys could have told how long they were cursing and crying in that room with your corpse mere centimetres from them, but at one point Intak’s ringtone overpowered their sobs and pulled them out of their heads. Although Intak was closer, it was Jiung who reached out for the abandoned device and received the call, his voice hoarse and weak that did barely a thing to alarm the caller on the other side.

‘What the hell guys! You have to get out of there! Dr. Kim is already looking for his keycard, they are on their way to the sixth floor and I’m pretty sure the basement will be the next,’ Keeho said, panic and worry evident in each one of his words.

Jiung looked at Intak, then shifted his gaze to the open compartment. A part of him knew that there was no way they could have taken your remains without throwing up at each corner on the way out, that letting the others see you like this, especially Soul, would have traumatised them for life. He was also aware that as stubborn as you were - had been -, you would have wanted him to pull himself together and get the hell out of there before those who had done this to you would have done the same with the people you cared - had cared - about.

But it was so freaking hard to leave you there or to get up from the floor.

‘Are you listening to me? Please, guys, come out! Whatever there is, it’s not worth it, please, guys, please!’ Keeho was pleading, forcing Jiung’s limbs to move.

‘We’re on our way, hyung. Stop worrying so much,’ he forced out the sassy reply to ease the older’s nerves before he hung up the call and shoved the phone into his pocket.

Considering that cleaning up their vomit wasn’t an option, Jiung didn’t bother with checking the room for potential evidence they could have left behind. On the other hand, he put the textile back on your corpse and made sure the compartment you were laying in was closed before he opened another one and took pictures of another damaged body. He didn’t have the heart to do the same to yours.

Dragging Intak out of the basement was time-consuming and by the time they reached the elevator, Jiung’s muscles were screaming for a break, but he pushed himself until they were out of the building. The boy knew that their initial plan had been to sneak the keycard back into Dr. Kim’s pocket or at least leave it at the reception desk as though someone had found it accidentally at one point of the day, but with the mess they had left in the morgue room, these kinds of details had lost their importance.

Instead, they crossed the street to get to the coffee shop’s parking lot at a speed that didn’t draw too much attention, then got in Theo’s old car and refused to talk about what they had found in the basement until they got somewhere safe in the outskirts of Seoul.

The shocking news of your death lingered around the boys like smoke: sickening, ugly, bad. They couldn’t get rid of it and it threatened their health, especially Soul’s who refused to eat or drink anything for days despite his weak state until Keeho aggressively shoved some plain porridge down his throat.

Intak and Jiung weren’t that much better. Jiung just knew you would have lectured him for his self-harming behaviour if you had seen him skip his meals, so he forced himself to chew and gulp without the slightest care for the taste of the dishes Keeho put on the table. They could have been the saltiest, most disgusting soups and porridges of his life, the boy wouldn’t have noticed.

Although they didn’t know whom they could trust, the boys agreed on one thing: they needed to show the country, if not the world, the real faces of those monsters who led their nation since the first wave of the pandemic. They had to make people see how terrible they were, so horrible, inhuman things like this could have never happened again. 

The problem was that even when they tried to upload the pictures they had taken on the web, they got taken down almost immediately. Then, after two weeks of futile attempts at sharing the evidence with the citizens of South Korea, the news was filled with the same lie on every damned channel: a group of young people committing terrorist acts against the country.

Honestly, Jiung knew that he had burnt down all the bridges when he had chosen his friends and the truth over his family, but seeing his ID picture next to those photos that the people in power had chosen to put on display in the media was numbing. He felt too many emotions at once to distinguish any of them properly. He couldn’t even say he was angry: the word itself did no justice to the thunderstorm inside his chest.

‘We can’t give up now,’ Soul said and Jiung tore his gaze from the screen of his tablet to look at the younger. He still looked so fragile, but as he balled up his fists and opened his mouth for Keeho to feed him some soup, he finally had some colour to his cheeks.

‘We won’t,’ Jiung promised and for the first time in weeks, the silence that followed his statement didn’t drain him. If anything, this newfound determination gave them all another reason to find a way to stop this madness.

Not even twelve hours after their faces were plastered all over the capital city, a girl called Elijah reached out to Jongseob, claiming that she and her uncle had seen the photos Jiung had taken of the damaged corpse before they had gotten taken down and that they wanted to help them fight against the system. It was freaking suspicious and at first, they decided to ignore it altogether. However, when Soul pointed out that Jongseob hadn’t been at the Dream House with them, nor had he joined them when they had broken into the research centre, they talked through their options one more time.

And they decided to follow the instructions of this faceless person towards a place that was promised to be safe for them in two groups just in case it was a trap.

Jiung, Soul and Keeho were the first ones to leave the city. They took Theo’s car, saying one of them would come back for the rest of them if things were really safe, then followed the GPS signals given to them real time by this Elijah girl who hacked into its system.

‘What do you think we will find when we get there?’ Keeho asked from behind the driver’s seat, his voice low on purpose to not wake up Soul who had fallen asleep in the backseat.

Jiung shrugged.

‘Dunno. Two more hours and we’ll find out,’ he stated, looking out the window, taking in the scenery. The countryside looked so peaceful and slow from the inside of the car, but he knew it was only the illusion of obliviousness. He refused to believe that there was any place in this country that hadn’t been corrupted by the government. He knew that the outside world was just as rotten as his life was without the rose-tinted glasses he had been wearing all these years.

Shaking his head, the boy tried not to think about the last conversation he had had with you. Still, he wished he had listened to what you had been saying. He wished he had stopped you when you had turned your back on him and walked away, visibly wary. You had given him so many chances to understand. Yet, here he was, figuring out too late:

History was made by monsters dressed as saints.

the end.

[weepingalaxy]

Hello I am asking for ool!Lalna lore 👀👀👀

hi its 4 am and im in a lot of pain so im writing this in a feverish state but i hope you understand how important it was for me to respond on the account of you activating my trap card (letting me infodump about my dnd character)

SO!! for a bit of preamble, he’s from a dnd campaign called Out Of Loop, dm’d by the fantastic @yogsbog !! its based on completely original lore while using a lot of yogs characters within it to populate the world while also being core parts of said lore. an example would be strife solutions tower being a prominent place within the city of evergrove, the “main hub” of sorts for the campaign. strife is even possibly our bbeg, which is fun

for a bit of context, the story so far is that we are all displaced in time through things called The Rifts, holes in spacetime that can lead to basically anywhere and anytime. the party is working together to close these Loops the rifts create, since as it stands, anyone and anythinh can come through these rifts and wreak havoc where they shouldnt. plus the rifts themselves are getting more and more unstable, so who knows whatd happen if they were left alone for too long?

my fellow players in the party in question are @strifesolution and @irished-lads !! the first, emma, playing her original character Scarlet Areleven, a parvill fankid oc whos the heart of the group and part of the reason the partys so kind to people they meet. the second, van/vanilla, plays Xaiden Lazulite, a mysterious elven man who is definitely not based on xephos no sir he is so very different. he’s more of a protector, and the other part of why their party is kind. or, for him at least, why the party Refuses to Kill Humanoids.

then there’s lalna! or, his real name, Layne Lockwood. that’s my character! he’s very complicated and kind of an emotional wreck of a bastard. and also the guy you asked about! so let me give you the rundown on the lore about him even my fellow players know :3

cw: child neglect and abuse, possession, dismembered limbs, gore, death

it’s a bit hard to know whee to start with him, but i guess i’ll go in chronological order with him! and ill do it in an easy to digest list as well

layne lockwood is the youngest child in a family of four, being thalion lockwood (father), clara lockwood (mother), and lomadia lockwood (older sister). thalion is a half elf, while the rest are all human. they lived in a smaller suburban town called East Maple

thalion found a rift inside their own home and begun to study it, with layne often coming into the office just to pretend to read along even from a young age. this turned out to be a mistake, as something came out of the rift and almost SLAMMED into layne, but disappeared out of sight as it did so. this shook up thalion so badly he figured the only safe way to continue his research and to find a cure for this strange new affliction layne has that keeps making him act wildly different, was to go through the rift himself, abandoning his family in hopes of one day coming back to fix everything

meanwhile clara, overworked, stressed, angry, and betrayed by her husband, was left alone with her children when she already didnt have the time for them. laynes strange behaviour was waved off as simply him causing problems, but after a terrifying encounter with the boy, ended with her locking him up in his room for good. he was only eight years old, and was taught from then on he’s something to be feared.

lomadia did what she could for layne, reading books about homeschooling kids and teaching him survival skills shes picked up on herself. he survived almost exclusively on the food she offered him and taught him to make himself (ususlly dried meats). shes all layne had during that time

well, not all.

layne heard a new voice in his head after that day, a voice of someone with no name other than one given on a whim: Livid. livid is a devil from the nine hells, the Something that left the rift, and the soul still possessing him to this day. when lomadia was busy, it was livid speaking to him or pulling at him to influence his actions towards violence. layne didnt understand, but they were his only friend.

when layne was 14, when his mother’s neglect was at its worst, he would finally give in to his friend’s suggestions. after endlessly working to break down the door keeping him locked up, he searched the house in a daze before reaching the kitchen, and grabbing a knife.

that evening was a blur, with layne only realizing what he’d done after the act. he saw his mother lying on the kitchen floor, having been dragged there by himself, with several stabwounds in her chest. layne doesnt think. he breaks a nearby window, and escapes into the forests that surround them, never to be seen again

an unknown amount of time is passed, a wild young blonde reaching a large abandoned office building in the outskirts of Evergrove. he decides to call it home, and with time and growing up needing to learn everything by hand, looting trash and stealing what wont be missed, he develops the office building into his lovingly called Tower. this is where he continues to live and develop until hes reached far past his mid 20s, though his exact age is unknown.

this is where he takes on the name of Lalna, a way for him to further disconnect from his past completely, and live on his own without anyone finding him. without anyone knowing hes still alive

alone

again.

… aside from his little brain buddy, of course. who, with time, has manifested more and more as a visual hallucination for him, too. a slender, staunch figure, as pale as lalna, with dusty blonde hair just like his, but with barbed chains and sunken eyes.

its also in the tower that he lost his right arm! he cut it off himself after livid toyed with him, made him see some form of black ink spilling from a long slit along the arm with an infection spreading in it. lalna panicked, and without thinking, removed it in a haze with a laser cutter he made himself. he then had to create a new one for himself, connecting with the help of magic, and giving him full control of his limb again

he still keeps that lopped off arm in a jar, just in case. and for emotional support

… and thats the last bit of what happened to him before the start of the campaign! that the party knows about, anyway. theres more but :3 secrets.. i hope this was an enjoyable read!!! lalna has been on the hunt for the rest of his family for a while, too, specifically his father as he genuinely believed he had killed lomadia too (but he didnt! shes still out there! hooray!) and he found him!! wow isnt that crazy! anyway yeah im insane over this guy is that at all clear yet

thank you for showing interest, im sorry for how melodramatic it is <3

[akkivee]

bat’s signature thoughts except i’m just spitting straight bs lmao

📿:

compared to his team’s pen calligraphy influences, kuukou picked up a marker and went to town lol

his brush calligraphy experience jumped out tho on those ‘h’ and ‘k’ very bold strokes

kuukou’s ‘u’ is actually derived from ‘प’ which is a sanskrit character found in the sanskrit version of his last name so kuukou’s multilingual with like hindi and/or pali

the six arrows on kuukou’s are symbols of the six perfections, core traits an enlightened person must have

🌙:

the extra dashes jyushi adds to his letters, like the ‘o’s for example, are similar to the dashes in the bb logo jyushi is now the newest bb member

the way jyushi writes his ‘a’s look like a tail with a hook, so a devil’s tail, devil’s flower release confirmed

the strokes above the jyushi’s j actually symbolise amanda, those lines combined with the ‘j’ make up an umbrella shape and it’s not jyushi providing shelter from this storm this rain as his microphone symbolises, it’s just amanda who is also on his umbrella lmao

⚖️:

his pen calligraphy with old english influences says that with his juvenile interest in magic and black and white striped socks, hitoya was witchcore as a teen

he underlined the guni on his last name, the kanji that means nation, so he’s putting on emphasis that this is for the nation guys lol

he dotted his ‘i’s like diamonds so like, diamond eyes hitoya’s eye colour confirmed

or that he’s either a deftones fan or a shinedown fan. or both lol!!!!!!!!

[airkewld]

September 7th 2023 | Cores for Heroes Submission | M. Ford | 1963 Beetle

I served in the USMC from 05-09. I went through boot camp at MCRD San Diego and School of Infantry at Camp Pendleton CA. I was sent to 7th Marines in 29 palms the end of January and February 14th we left for Iraq. I had to learn everything on the go, baptism by fire. My 1st tour was in a town called Husaybah Iraq, on the boarder of Syria, and the Euphrates river. Was a wild west kind of town. My 2nd tour was in a small town called Kubaysah, just outside of Hit Iraq. My journey took me to Baghdad to testify against two bad guys we caught throwing grenades at our patrols. The best part of that trip was swimming in Sadam Hussain's pool, and i have the picture to prove it! My 3rd and last tour was in Karma and NE Fallujah, sadly having to leave my post early I was sent home due to my Dad's untimely passing. Upon arrival back in the States I also lost my great grandmother within two days of being home, grateful I was able to tell her goodbye, wish I could have had that closure with my Dad. My Dad and Uncle Dave brought me up with a love of cars and Racing. My first car was a 69 bug that I drove while in HS and sold it before I joined the USMC. I regret selling it to this day and no pictures remain of it. My favorite past-time was cruising in my 69 bug all over the Columbia River Gorge corridor and county back roads. After moving from Oregon to Texas I decided it was time to build something. So I found a 1963 that I am currently restoring from the ground up. The theme for this bug will be USMC, going to call it the "Teuful Hunden" bug or as most people know it "Devil Dog". It will be painted red, with gold doors and rims, the Marine Corps colors. This build is really helping me find parts of me I left over seas. It's going to be a long build being a disabled veteran and on a budget. I have been ordering all the new body panels first. Was going to order a pro beam with disk brakes and a Freeway flyer with disk brakes from Air kewld but having a chance to win them is really awesome of you guys. Thanks for the opportunity and your time. M. Ford USMC

M. Ford is entered into our Cores for Heroes Program here - https://www.airkewld.com/Cores-for-Heroes-Program-s/2532.htm

To date, we have 12 submissions to win and we have raised $445 dollars of our $10,000 goal.

In our honest opinion, the US Armed Force members, are so under-appreciated. The PRO's are finally in a place to put a plan together that helps everyone that participates, but more importantly, those who served or serving.

Details will slightly change as we get more context, but here's the idea.

I want to give back to those who have fought for our freedoms, regardless of our political beliefs. I didn't fight for my country but my father did and he is fighting PTSD, mental disorders, agent orange, etc., etc. I get to build products for the greatest clients in the world because of it. So, how do I make something happen?

The PRO's need cores. The AirkewldArmy has cores. Within the AirkewldArmy community, reside members of the US Armed Forces that want/need/could use a boost in their life, whether it is financially or upgrades to their favorite VW.

To give some context on our Core Program, the PRO's need certain parts to make our PRObuilt Line of Classic Volkswagen Drive-Train Components. In the past, the PRO's would print out a prepaid shipping label and rebate an order if our client/s sent that core in and it checked out. Payment would be reimbursed to the client, store credit or trade for something else, would take place. With a unique but small twist, a BIG change can make a humongous difference.

If our current or past clients, the AirkewldArmy, sent their cores in, based on a value proposition, the PRO's would give them the opportunity to win two ways. The first, for every $10 in core value, would be one entry on a quarterly drawing to win Airkewld Swag, like work shirts, tee's, hats, stickers and air fresheners, $100 gift cards to Airkewld.com or even a $500 Visa/Airkewld gift card. The second, for every $10 in core value, once the PRO's accrue $10,000 in cores, the PRO's select a Hero, to receive a Complete Airkewld Drive-Train Package or $10,000.00 (Our CEO would fly to them and personally hand them the check), delivered to their door, FREE of charge. Heroes would enter by telling their story, both about their military experience and passion for their Classic Volkswagen.

Airkewld receives usable cores. The AirkewldArmy wins FREE Stuff. Together, the PRO's and the AirkewldArmy show appreciation to someone who deserves better, our Military Heroes.

Who's ready to make a difference today?

[tinytourist]

Utahpia

Aidan is moving from Auckland to London and decided to stop by the States on his way to visit me and explore the US for the first time. Shortly after arriving in Denver, Aidan ventured to Rocky Mountain National Park and was pleasantly surprised with the snowy mountains. Upon his return, we went to Aidan’s first American concert at the Bluebird theater. We danced, sat on the floor, and I hugged the lead singer of the opening band. It was a success.

I planned out a 9-day road trip for us to Utah’s Mighty 5 National Parks starting on Friday

Day 1, Friday: Drive to Arches

Aidan had had a disappointing first experience at Trader Joe’s and I was committed to changing his opinion on my favorite grocery store. We stopped in on our way out of town to pick up snacks for the trip. Our next stop was the Target in Glenwood springs for Kianu’s (my Kia EV6) first charge. As we were approaching Moab we were getting low in charge and decided to get some juice at Green River Coffee.

By this time, the sun was starting to set and we had yet to find a campground in Moab. There were a ton of first-come first-serve spots but we were running out of luck late on a Friday night. We were hungry so we decided to eat at a Thai place in town while we both frantically googled camping options.

I found a guy offering a teardrop camper on Airbnb for too much money so I messaged him and asked if we could camp on his land. He told me he didn’t have any land and instead drove the camper out to a few different Bureau of Land Management (BLM) grounds and asked for my number to drop me a few pins of locations we could camp at.

We took Steven’s recommendations and drove straight to one of the spots which took us down a very hilly dirt road. It worked! We found a safe place to camp for the night (38.7100273,-109.7277553) and set up my tent for the first time.

Day 2, Saturday: Arches

On Saturday morning we awoke to a beautiful campground surrounded by red rocks. Aidan and I took a morning stroll to explore the grounds before heading to our first park of the trip - Arches National Park (ANP).

We stopped at the visitor’s center to plan out our day and Aidan made brekki in the parking lot. Delicate Arch was up first and to this day is Aidan’s favorite Arch. That’s saying a lot since ANP has over 2k arches alone.

Next up was Devils Garden where we saw the following arches: Tunnel, Pine Tree, Landscape, Navajo, Partition, and Double O. Aidan decided to do a side trail to Dark Angel when I realized the heat was getting to me. I took some micro naps in the shade while Aidan got lost.

On our way down, a storm was threatening and the winds began. It did say there was a 30% chance of rain…We were nervous because we left the tent up.

When got back to the campsite, luckily our tent was still there however not exactly where we left it. Hard first outing for my new tent. We didn’t have enough charge to go to Moab for dinner so made a sketchy camp meal of beans, rice, guacamole, and tuna.

We made friends with our neighbor from Salt Lake City and had plans to join his fire when all of a sudden the sand started moving and then a huge gust of wind threw sand all over the car and the tent. We huddled in the tent to wait out the storm. If we weren’t feeling dirty before we certainly were then. At least our skin got exfoliated…

I woke up at 3 am to a beautiful starry night sky and was able to see the core of the Milky Way!

Day 3, Sunday: Capitol Reef

On Sunday morning we packed up camp quickly and went back to Green River Coffee to charge and have a “cuppa”. The cafe was filled with messages about kindness but the barista was not…

A few hours later we arrived at Capitol Reef National Park. At the visitor’s center they told us that most of the trails were closed due to flash flood risk even though there was only a 30% chance of rain.

We parked at the Hickman bridge parking lot and had ourselves a trunk lunch. When we began the trail, the sky was threatening a storm. A woman asked “is it worth it?” to hikers on their way down as thunder crackled. We carried on. 45 minutes later and we had arrived at..another arch! I guess only Arches is allowed to call them that.

We made it back to the parking lot and who do I see? Someone I volunteer with in Denver! What a coincidence! The second we got in the car, the rain finally began. We decided to stay dry and do the scenic drive which was worth it.

We dropped in the local museum which was composed of 3 gift shop rooms and 1 room with some history from the town.

When we got to Capitol Reef Resort, we decided to put away the car keys for the night. With that kind of freedom, Aidan started ripping into some beers. We both finally had a nice shower and then went to explore the grounds.

First, we found the llamas. They all stared at us for a while while we stared at them. I got sneezed on. We then brought our cups to the gas fire pit (disappointing) and chatted up a couple from Vegas.

For dinner we crossed the road to Rim Rock Restaurant which had a beautiful view of Capitol Reef from all sides. There was a bird feeder and Aidan got to see his first humming birds. I had some high quality local Utah trout and Aidan had classic American ribs. We ended the night by taking advantage of the amenities and watching the Office.

[thankeywa]

No Offence or anything but your mum's a bitch the cuntiest foul breathing induced she-devil and i don't know you personally but i know that most people deserve love, feel that they are loved, and to be loved by someone important . And i say most people cuz some just don't deserve it (ur mom for being mean) but you certainly deserved more love than the average just cuz i say so and know that there is always someone out there looking out for you and loves you for who you are (and if they're none they've probably kicked the bucket...i just hope not ...i don't want you lonely) don't let the negativity get you in this day of love ❤❤❤ go make a core memory or sum..a memory that makes you remember every time it's valentines day ❤ ❤🌹

Virtual hugs ʕっ•ᴥ•ʔっ ʕっ•ᴥ•ʔっ ʕっ•ᴥ•ʔっ babes 😘

Anon out here destroying my mom 👩

No, I'm sorry if I painted a terrible picture, I love my mother very dearly, we have a very weird relationship that is definitely getting better, she has a very tragic background and she literally had to run away from home to keep me, my grandfather was quite abusive and he didn't like that she married a man who wasn't Italian like them, so he wanted her to ab*** me. I assure you she has worked her entire life to give me every penny and a good education, she unfortunately wasn't also able to connect with me emotionally in the beginning at all. My dad was mostly there for that, and he is very accepting of me.

She is definitely afraid that I will somehow end up in a dangerous situation like hers, and she doesn't understand that the way she manifests her fear is abusive. For example when I date guys, and they have cheated/abused me, she always finds a way to defend them and try to make me give them a second chance. She shuts me out when I talk about girls.

I'm not making excuses, I let her know when I'm hurt and I try to have those difficult conversations, because I love her and I want to be in my life.

Family is hard and I'm not saying they should always be forgiven, everyone has to make that choice for themselves.

Also, no core memories so far anon, and I'm currently in my pjs ready to go to bed, but now that you've hyped me up, I'm definitely feeling like I should go out on the town and break some hearts. 🤠

[bratbarzal]

On Your Side (NH13) / Chapter Four

Pairing: Nico Hischier x Fem!OC Poppy Jensen*

*I say it's an OC, it's just a name and third person POV. I use minor character descriptions because I don’t get on with writing vague reader inserts/YN for long-form, story heavy fics, but I will generally try to avoid including race and body type or really any physical descriptors. I’m always open to feedback on my writing, or how to be more inclusive.

WC: 10k

18+ MDNI!!

Chapter Warnings: (rushed) smuT!! with the hardest possible T on the end. (finally!!) as if it isn't only chapter four but also this is an accidental pregnancy fic so whatever fingering, oral (both receiving just not simultaneously lmao), heavy petting, (unprotected) p in v (like protection isn't even thought about or mentioned pls I beg be more responsible than this lmao), some admirable displays of endurance honestly, there's a random joke about jumping in front of a car sorry idek how else to write that warning, aaaaaand nico being... an idiot perhaps? he's a man after all, poor decisions are written into the very core structure of his chromosomes unfortunately

Summary: Poppy Jensen’s job with the New Jersey Devils was supposed to be her first big step into adulthood - a way to prove to herself and her overbearing parents that she could make her own way in life. She was never supposed to become involved with any of the players. Becoming best friends with their captain was stupid. Getting her heart broken by him was tragic. Getting knocked up with his child was just plain messy.

Series Masterlist

Previous Part (Chapter Three)

A/N: I'll just let yous crack on this time no yapping on my end hope you like it lmao (but I must say, as always, never proofread)

if you do wanna yap, if you have any feedback you wanna share or criticisms or whatever, my inbox is always open!! 💓

Poppy

Nia: !!! 

Nia: 🚨CODE BLACK 🚨 

Nia: !!!

Poppy wouldn’t usually be the type to sit on her phone at the table in a restaurant, but desperate times had called for desperate measures, and she would say being made to wait 10 minutes with no response to any messages on what was supposed to be a first date counted as desperate times.

She had been flicking through instagram stories, hoping to catch a sneaky glimpse at the guy she wanted to be the cause of her cell’s incessant vibrations, but to no avail so far.

She had been picking at bread rolls and sipping at her water, tapping on her screen every 30 seconds to check when fifteen minutes had passed, and she would have been able to up and leave without feeling bad about it. Would have been able to tell her mom that she had at least made an effort, unlike Mr Evidently Not-So-Perfect Tucker Lyon.

But who needs fifteen courteous minutes when you have a best friend like Nia Auden. 

Nia, who had introduced the Code Black protocol to their friend group when they were teenagers, and who had stressed the severity of it to everyone. Never to be abused, always to be used for the ultimate good.

When they were younger, the two of them specifically had abused it a couple times - to get out of presentations in class, bad dates, or dinners with overbearing parents. 

Nia had once sent Poppy a Code Black text when her dad had thrown some boring party in the family home, and there usually would have been nothing in the world that would have gotten Poppy out of it - but a text from her best friend, who’s parents were out of town, and who desperately needed someone to drive her to the emergency room after she sliced her finger opening a tuna can, had Mr Jensen agreeing in seconds. His heartstrings had been thoroughly plucked by the story of the fake injury and the thought of that poor girl sitting in Norwood Emergency Care on her own with half a finger left. Poppy had only just managed to convince him he didn’t need to help, and the two of them spent the evening binge watching Gilmore Girls in Nia’s basement, concocting a plan for Nia to wear a finger bandage for the next few weeks if she was coming over.

The contingency had been entirely pointless, obviously, because Poppy’s dad was hardly ever around enough to notice such a small detail, back then. And, despite her mother having the perception levels of a hawk, Mrs Jensen cared too little about Nia to notice, either.

In instances like that, the use of the code was mostly pre-planned. The girls would complain about whatever it is they wanted to get out of until one of them suggested it, and it was always a case of waiting for the incoming text without seeming too obvious. But her and Nia hadn’t agreed to this. Not this time.

Sure, she’d droned on earlier in the day about how much she didn’t want to go on the date, but Nia wouldn’t usually go rogue - especially not with a Code Black. This kind of thing takes preparation and a pre-warning.

Poppy: what’s up?

Poppy: you okay???

She had remembered Nia’s plans for the evening - taking a potential client out for drinks, showing them the wonders of the better side of the Hudson River, and hoping that she can charm them into signing with her agency - trying to work her way up the ranks of podcast production until she can hopefully get a job in television or film.

Nia: I’ve just witnessed the saddest sight I’ve ever seen in all my 25 years.

Nia: need to share out the misery before I let it consume me 😢 

Attached to her messages was a pixelated picture, taken from across whatever bar she had found herself in. It was blurry, and bad quality, taken in poor lighting and zoomed in the whole way but Poppy was still able to make out who it was. All too reminiscent of the pictures Jack had sent her a week prior.

Nico, sat alone at a bar, chin in the palm of one hand and a drink in the other.

Nia: he’s about as subtle as a smack to the face, Pop.

Nia: moping and brooding for all of NJ to see

Poppy: this is your code black?

Poppy: six exclamation points and two blaring alarms for nico moping again?

Nia: this doesn’t look like an emergency to you?

Nia: you’ve broken the poor guy

Poppy: why is it always my fault? 😢 

Poppy: you told me to make him sweat??

Nia: he looks like he’s one drink away from throwing himself in front of oncoming traffic

Poppy: wow dramatic much?

Nia: you haven’t seen him in person

Nia: in fact I think I just saw him wipe away an actual tear

Nia: how sad ☹️ 

Poppy: nico doesn’t cry in public

Poppy: only in private to movies about dogs

Nia: your date is clearly going well for you to be replying so quick

Poppy: he didn’t turn up

Nia: stfu

Nia: how rude!!

Poppy: it’s whatever

Poppy: can you tell nico I’m omw so he stops sulking?

Nia: no but I can bully him until you get here 🥰

Poppy: go easy on him pls 🙏 

Nia: 🤷🏽‍♀️

—

Nia was right. Nico is about as subtle as a smack to the face. The kind where the sound of it silences the rest of a room, and the imprint of closed fingers comes out almost immediately into the recipient’s skin surrounded by a hot, burning redness that lingers long after it’s done.

It’s something Poppy had realised as soon as she saw him when she got to the bar, as soon as he saw her, and he couldn’t wait to get to her - leaving Pally with his mouth wide open, mid sentence as Nico ejected himself from whatever one-sided conversation his teammate was having to seek her out.

She’d realised it when they were alone, and he practically had to cuff his hands behind his back to stop himself from touching her, unintentionally making a show of his attempt at restraint. Or when he’d pressed the stiff outline of his evident arousal into her hip, making a show of the complete opposite.

And when Timo had interrupted the two of them, the sharp clench of Nico’s jaw and the whitening of his knuckles by his sides.

Subtlety is far from Nico’s strong suit.

Not when he’s burning holes into the back of his teammate and long-time friend’s head when Timo returns to the group, not when he’s initially giving tight-lipped smiles whenever anyone asks if he’s alright, or mentions that he seems a little out of sorts.

Not when his hand takes up permanent residence on the small of Poppy’s back, and he absentmindedly rubs random shapes into her flesh as the two of them converse with the team. Although, she doesn’t entirely mind that aspect.

Not when she had initially thought he might act the opposite - might keep his distance, pretend their back of the bar rendezvous hadn’t happened and refuse to get too close out of a fear someone might notice something between them. 

He hasn’t left her side for almost two hours now, and she quite likes the quietly possessive stance he has taken up beside her. 

She quite likes a lot about how he has been tonight.

Likes the attention and affections he gives her, likes the way he clues her in on conversations she otherwise would have no business being involved in, likes the way he lets her see little parts of himself she hadn’t got to really see before - not this fully, at least.

Like how he leads his team with gentle authority, wanting to make sure they’re having fun, looking after themselves, not letting their loss from the previous night dampen the joy from the win the night before that. Not caring that they are in fact supposed to be out celebrating him, and knowing that with a short break until their next game, they all deserve to let loose a little. He checks in on everyone, recalls little details she doesn’t know how he juggles in his mind with everything else he has going on, and she can’t help but lack subtlety herself in the way she admires how he deals with Jack.

Nico, who is soft spoken, but assertive, seemingly shy, but comfortingly confident, handles the younger boy with such care it makes Poppy’s heart thud rampantly in her chest.

Jack had suffered a knock to his shoulder in their game against Chicago on the Friday - had missed the game against the Canucks, missed the game against his brother, the whole Hughes-Bowl extravaganza - and is now stressing over missing his first time co-captaining a team during the All-Star weekend at the end of the month.

And Nico somehow manages to calm him down - taking his time to let Jack air out his grievances and coming back on every worry to diminish it with words of affirmation and encouragement.

Nico is reassuring, gentle, understanding of his frustrations, and as they sit across from Jack in a darkened booth, a couple hours after their encounter in the hallway, a few drinks deep into the evening, she starts to think she’s never been this attracted to another person in her life.

With their legs pressed together under the table and his hand, the one that lays free when he uses his other to gesture as he talks, rubbing gently into the flesh just above her closest knee, she’s starting to lose her mind just a little.

She hadn’t been able to stop herself in the empty hallway before from launching herself at him, but 4 days of no contact with Nico had her entire body buzzing with anticipation.

Anticipation of his feelings, of her own feelings, even, and what they could lead to if she just let them take the reins.

Twice they had kissed now - twice her whole world had been rocked off it’s axis with just the press of his lips to hers, and as she’s been pressed to him for the better part of two hours, has watched the indent of his dimples form into his cheek, watched his dark eyes gleam under the poor lighting in the bar, watching him laugh and smile and be his charming, charismatic self, she starts to feel a pressure rise within her. It’s like she’s a shaken up bottle of soda, and one more touch, one more glance, is going to twist the cap straight off of her until she fizzes all over the place.

And when Jack dismisses himself to get another drink, his mood seemingly lifted, able to crack a smile, at least, she leans into Nico, hand on his lap as she cranes her neck to speak into his ear. “I think I’m good to get out of here, now.”

She only just manages to jut her chin away when his head turns to look at her, tongue darting out to wet his lips, dark eyes dashing down to survey her own tucked between her teeth. “Oh yeah?” His voice is a lot lower than it had been when he spoke to Jack, huskier, breathier, and the deep hum of it rings all the way from her ears to the pit of her stomach. “You want me to take you home?”

She nods, and it takes every ounce of restraint she has not to kiss him again, in the middle of the crowded bar, surrounded by all their friends - especially with the way he’s looking at her, his darkened gaze pooling with pure unadulterated lust.

“Let me grab my jacket and we can go.”

“I’m gonna say bye to Nia.”

He squeezes lightly at her thigh as a confirmation before edging out of the booth and lending her a hand to help her out. “I’ll come find you.”

Nia isn’t too hard for Poppy to find, having joined the group in their private section, bringing her hopeful clients along with her and introducing them to the team. She’s stood with John Marino and Nate Bastian when Poppy comes over, and her best friend looks at her with the smuggest grin she’s ever seen in her life.

“Finally broke free of Captain Sexy’s clutches, huh?”

Poppy wishes, not for the first time, she would stop calling him that, especially in front of other people.

“Nico’s gonna make sure I get home okay,” Poppy tells her best friend, immediately cringing at the hollers that break out beside her. 

“Ooh, I bet he is,” John scoffs, nudging Bass in the side, the two of them grinning almost as wide as Nia.

Nate wolf-whistles, before singing, “Poppy and Nico, sitting in a tree-,”

“Whatever word you’re thinking about spelling out,” she hooks a finger pointedly at John, cutting the two of them off before they can carry on whatever childish rhyme they could come up with between them, “Save it before I spare the world of any future mini-Marinos.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he salutes, “A little early to be heading out though, isn’t it, Poppy?”

“Some of us have work tomorrow,” she smiles, regardless of the fact that she doesn’t have to go to work until she has a meeting in the afternoon - but these two don’t need to know the semantics, “I’m just borrowing Nia for a sec.”

She drags her friend a safe distance away so the two of them can’t eavesdrop, and tries to ignore her lack of subtlety when she sings, ���F-u-c-k-i-n-g.”

“Don’t stoop to their level, Ni,” she sighs, rolling her eyes despite the stuttering of her heart, and holds her hand out to retrieve the purse she had left with her when she’d first come into the bar. “You’re better than that.”

“What? It’s catchy,” Nia shrugs, hazel eyes slowly assessing Poppy as if trying to read her like a book. “And you’re so trying to get laid tonight. Don’t think I don’t know what the two of you were up to when you disappeared into the back, before."

“Whatever.”

“Hey, do me a favour?” Nia asks, reaching into Poppy’s purse for her phone and holding down the side buttons until the device powers down. “Don’t turn that back on until tomorrow.”

Poppy doesn’t even have to ask. She has a sixth sense for her mother’s interference, and she just knows she’s been blowing up her phone all night with questions. Nia is right, she doesn’t need to dedicate any precious mind space to that tonight.

Tonight is for her and Nico, whatever may happen.

“You don’t have to ask me twice,” Poppy lets out an uneasy laugh, allowing for Nia to zip the cell back into her bag before stepping away ever so slightly. “I’ll text you as soon as it’s back on, though.”

“Damn right you will.” Nia scoffs, leaning in to give Poppy a quick hug, “I want every last detail, Jensen.”

“Sure thing, Auden.”

“Have fun, Poppy, I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

The two friends part with a quick peck to the cheek, and Poppy retreats in search of Nico, who she finds by the bar, eyes meeting from across the room as if he had been waiting for her to finish.

Once she had made her way over to him, he holds his jacket out to drape over her shoulders, and she tucks herself under his arm as he leads them out of the bar into the cold of the night, wrapping her arms around his middle in an attempt to distribute some of the warmth she has stolen from him by borrowing his coat.

“I’ve got us an Uber,” he says, pulling her into him as they wait by the side of the building. “It should be here in a minute.”

“You don’t wanna walk me home?” They’re in Jersey City, maybe a fifteen minute walk from her apartment, and they could easily warm up if they made pace. The sky is clear, and she wouldn’t mind getting to walk somewhere and hold his hand.

“I’m not piggy-backing you all that way, Poppy,” he scoffs, knowing her better than she knows herself - the mention of a piggyback bringing forth an ache in the soles of her feet. Not a chance of walking fifteen minutes. “We can get the car to stop a block from your place, and I promise I’ll carry you around the corner.”

“If we’re going to my place we should get the Uber straight there, you won’t ride in my elevator and I need to be carried the last two flights of stairs at least.”

“Your elevator is a rickety death trap,” he hums into her skin, nose tucking into the open collar of his jacket draped over her shoulders, nudging at the curve of her neck. “And I don’t feel like dying tonight.”

“Oh, do you have big plans for the rest of your evening?” 

“I have a very pretty girl in front of me and a lot of time to make up for.” The last time he had mentioned making up for lost time, it had made her feel uneasy - this time couldn’t be any further from that. She feels anticipation, excitement, exhilaration - knowing the time he’s referencing goes so far beyond those months apart. 

“My place, then, the whole way,” she confirms, “And I’ll just have to figure out a way to distract you in the elevator so you don’t think about dying.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard for you to distract me.”

She tries not to overthink the meaning behind that - tries not to let her mind wander down paths it shouldn’t go down, where she pictures him thinking about her when he shouldn’t - when he’s with other people, in other places, away from her.

And, just in time to save her from an embarrassing display of public affection, a black Suburban pulls up to the curb in front of them, and Nico nudges her toward it.

They sit together in the back, his arm around her, thighs pressed together, her right hand holding the hand attached to the arm slung over her shoulder and the left fiddling with the fingers of his other in her lap.

The two of them make very brief small talk with the driver, and the drive takes maybe 5 minutes before they both stumble out right in front of Poppy’s building, Nico quick to send the driver off with a tip while Poppy unlocks the main door.

The elevator is already on the bottom floor, and she tries her best to do all the work in getting it to go up. Nico had been mostly accurate to call it a rickety death trap - the type with doors you have to close manually and lights that flicker and hum like something straight out of a horror movie. 

The only surefire way to distract him is to kiss him, and she doesn’t have to use up any brainpower to convince herself to do so.

She pulls him in with soft hands placed on either side of his neck, and he falls immediately into the flow of it - large hands gripping at her hips, pushing her gently into the far wall as the elevator begins its ascent. They don’t part until the elevator stops, and even then, they only do so so that Poppy can yank the door open and pull him out with her, immediately attaching herself back to his lips and kissing him with fervour.

They shuffle down the hall until they’re outside her apartment, and she blindly, one-handedly fumbles around in her purse for her key, manages to slot it into the keyhole after a few tries, and twists until she can hear the lock turn. 

Once the door is unlocked, the two of them stumble into Poppy’s apartment, the thick heels of her boots thudding against the hardwood floor with each clumsy step, and in the very back of her mind she hopes Peter downstairs can’t hear it too loud.

The thought is fleeting, though, because Nico’s hands press firmly into the base of her spine, causing her hips to jut forward and practically thrust straight into his, his tongue taking immediate advantage of the gasp she lets out and prodding into her open mouth. 

He guides them backwards, tangled limbs interlocking until their bodies careen toward the kitchen, he throws his jacket somewhere on the way, and he manages to blindly reach a hand out to stop her colliding with the island counter.

He slowly lets her fall back into it, hand curved over the sharp edges, mouths still pressed together in a sloppy, messy kiss and his body follows suit, aligning to her every curve and indentation. 

She wonders briefly if it would have been easier to just break apart - to allow the dim lighting emanating from her kitchen to guide the way to safety instead of relying on Nico’s hasty memorisation of the layout of her apartment, but as she feels the soft muscle of his stomach roll into her torso, feels the flicker of his tongue against hers, she realises it all adds to the exhilaration. 

Adrenaline is pumping through her very core, and she doesn’t want to break apart, even for a second. 

She’d had a dream about him, once. In the very early stages of their friendship, before the somewhat rational and entirely brutal part of her brain stomped down on her attraction. It went something like this, wandering hands, frantic movements, she doesn't remember exact details but she does remember waking up in a cold sweat.

Regardless, nothing she could ever dream of lives up to the real thing.

To the way his stubble scratches at her skin, the way his hands dig into every part of her they choose to touch, grabbing and clawing with desperation and determination, the way his thick thighs nudge hers apart with subtle dominance so his leg can slot between hers as they both lean into the counter.

The real thing is something else, entirely.

He manages to lift her onto the counter, somehow communicating through touch exactly where he wants her, because as soon as his thick fingers press into her hips, she knows to leverage her hands on the surface behind her and assist him with picking her up, their lips locked the entire time.

Every move is frantic, but intentional, and she is teetering on the edge of rushing this and savouring every moment - and it seems like he is too when he pulls back, their lips parting with a wet smack and his slightly sticky forehead pressing into hers.

The rise and fall of her chest is scattered, while he tries to level out his breathing, trying the in through the nose out through the mouth technique to seemingly calm himself down. 

All she can do is watch. Admire the way his eyes drop closed, thick eyelashes fanning out as he scrunches his face, even thicker brows furrowing as he battles whatever internal dialogue is taking place - one she doesn’t want to interrupt or intervene with. 

“Are you too drunk for this?” He asks, a surprising croak to his usually level voice, his dark eyes opening to gauge the honesty of her response.

“No,” she pants, still a little out of breath, not so used to being able to pull herself back together as quick as he is. “Are you?” 

“No.” 

He sounds a little more certain than she did, although he had been out longer tonight, and had definitely had more to drink. She supposed he has the constitution for it. But she knows she isn’t too drunk - knows she would consent if she hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol all night. She had been ready to jump his bones in that dingy back corridor of the bar, and had been fully sober at the time. 

He flexes his fingers at the sides of her thighs on the countertop, itching to touch as if he’s holding back until he gets the right answer. “Do you want this?”

She nods, gaze flickering between his rich, dark chocolate eyes as if trying to read his mind.

In what world would she not want this?

“Tell me, Mohn,” he commands, knuckles whitening as he clenches his hands into fists.

“I want this.” She breathes out, pressing her forehead back to his, eyes fluttering closed as if too heavy to keep open, and allowing for her other senses to heighten. “I want you.”

She blinks her eyes open to see relief visibly flood through him in a rushed wave, and watches as it washes over his entire being - realising just how much her previous rejection, if she would even call it that, had weighed on him the past few days.

Her hands fall onto his atop the counter, rubbing soothingly until his fists flatten out, and all the tension in them disappears. Her fingers fold over his, lifting and guiding them until his palms lay flat where the bottom of her dress meets the soft skin of her thighs. She can feel how hot she is before she starts to push at his hands, taking a shuddered breath as he takes enough initiative to curl his grip around the curve of the flesh there, and she guides his hands slowly upward, the skirt bunching up as they go. 

She watches as his gaze follows the movement, staring intently as more of her skin is revealed, until he looks up to meet her eyes, seeking permission in a heated glance. 

She feels like she can read his mind when he looks at her like that. Feels like he’s laying out his every intention on a storyboard, visual aids and all, sees it branch off into two potential paths, just like the two she had been weighing up in her own mind.

One where they both take their time, tension building to a euphoric crescendo, where his hands get to memorise every curve and hers get to do the same, where they uncover every unheard sound, every unpracticed touch.

And another where he rips off her clothes and takes her for the first time on the kitchen counter, where she claws at the skin of his back, and he uses his lips to scatter purple bruises across her chest.

He seems to be able to find a middle ground when he starts to help her undress, and keeps one hand slowly caressing the slight dip of her waist as they both push the dress up her body and tug the fabric over her head, with him discarding it off to the side when they’re done.

He flicks teasingly at the strap of her bra until it falls down her arm, gathering and draping just above her elbow, and leaving him free rein to lean down and press his swollen lips to the space where her shoulder meets her collarbone, just about able to feel the subtle echo of her pulse as it travels down her neck.

Her head dips back, granting him full access to her upper body, all the way up her throat and to her jawline, and one of her hands raises of its own accord to the neck of his sweatshirt, fingers tangling in the chain she had gifted him until her nails are tickling and scratching at the skin beneath it. He makes quick work of unzipping her boots, again pulling them off and throwing them away with a heavy thunk.

The moan she lets out is breathy, sparse, but it appears to fulfil something inside him all the same, awakens something greedy as his large palms cup at the sides of her hips and tug her forward, grasping the waistband of her panties and having enough leverage as she slides across the surface to bring them down. She hops slightly so he can pull them over the roundness of her ass, and he steps back a touch from between her legs so that he can dispose of them, flinging them to God-knows where to lay with her dress on the ground. 

She’ll worry about it another time.

He maintains his position, fingers wrapping around her calf to push it to the side, parting her legs until he can see what beauty rests between them. 

He gazes upon her with unabashed hunger, goosebumps rising on every inch of her skin as she takes in the heat behind his eyes. She has never felt so exposed to another person, so admired, so adored.

Her kitchen is illuminated only by the under-cabinet lighting strips behind them, but she can see the way his irises glisten and sparkle with desire. He makes slow, deliberate movements - painstakingly displaying his intention as he steps forward into her space, leaning with a hand down on the counter beside her thigh, and the other remaining on her opposite leg. When he starts to bend, she stops him with a shaky hand on his shoulder.

“Wait,” she whispers, losing her breath when he breaks his gaze from between her thighs to look up at her. “Could you take your shirt off?”

The corner of his mouth twitches upward, a single brow arching in a teasing question.

“Please?” She thinks she almost sounds pathetic, but has little space in her brain right now that she can dedicate to caring about it. “I need to touch you.”

He wordlessly follows her command, straightening up and reaching back to pull the sweatshirt from his body. It drops straight from his grasp to the floor, and the t-shirt he layered underneath follows suit. “Better?” He asks, biting back a smug grin as he watches her eyes trail down his torso, lingering on the faint dark patch of hair just below his bellybutton. 

“Kiss me, again.” She requests with a shaky breath, and he fulfils her command, lifting a hand to cup at her jaw and pulling her face into his. Her fingers tickle at the nape of his neck when their lips press back together, immediately parting them until their tongues collide in the middle. She brings her other hand to his chest, his skin warm beneath her touch as she drags it painstakingly slowly down his torso, savouring the feeling, stopping at the button of his jeans and skilfully popping it open without the need for them to part.

Nico releases a cautioning hum into her mouth, pulling away with a slight pop and taking her hand into his to stop her as her fingertips start tickling at the elasticated waist of his underwear.

“Me first.” He huffs, selfishly, swatting her hand away and bending until he can press a kiss to the inside of her knee, pulling her legs apart with a hand clasped around her ankle and lifting until he can swing it over his shoulder.

She gasps when his nose bumps at her thigh, trailing up at a dizzying pace as all she can do is fall back onto her hands placed atop the counter and wait for him to reach his target. He does so with his tongue first, licking a slow, long stripe upward, culminating with his lips pursed around her clit until he can apply mind-numbing pressure to the bundle of nerves.

A hand soon finds purchase in his hair, scratching easily at his scalp and gently tugging when he introduces a finger into the mix, then another, prodding at the wetness that has gathered at her entrance and easily sliding his middle and index fingers up to the bottom knuckles.

There’s nothing she can do to contain the sounds that tumble out from parted lips, gasps, moans, squeaks, all spurring him on where she cannot mask the pleasure he elicits within her.

He adds another finger, she lets out another elongated whine, hips thrusting forward of their own volition into his face, and he doesn’t even seem perturbed. His mouth maintains the same pressure on the bundle of nerves, tongue flicking, lips pursing, and the noise of it all is downright filthy.

His fingers bend and prod and pulse within her until a knot builds deep in the pit of her belly, and ineligible sounds fall from her mouth, eyes rolling into the back of her head.

So much better than anything she had dreamt.

“You’re trembling, Mohn,” he chuckles darkly once he pulls away for a quick breath, pupils blown when he looks up and meets her eyes from between her legs. “Are you gonna come for me?”

He presses his thumb where his mouth had just taken up residence on her clit, rubbing random little shapes into it as he lifts his head, angling his body to press his forehead to hers. 

The pressure swirling in her stomach is almost too much to bear, and she can’t help the tremors in her thighs as he holds her in place, her mind tumultuously cloudy and the interlink between her brain and her mouth cut off with a staticky disconnect.

Her hand lands upon his arm, nails digging in with a marking pressure until crescent shapes form into his skin as his digits work at her masterfully, that knot within her growing and unfurling into something beyond words.

The sensation rips through every fibre of her being, head thrown back, mouth dropping open, stomach clenching and the entirety of her legs trembling, from the tips of her toes to the apex of her thighs, as her orgasm hits like a tsunami, walls clenching around Nico’s skilful fingers and pulsing into a vice-like grip.

He presses his forehead to her chest, both of their skin slightly clammy with a light sheen of sweat, lips seeking out the flesh of her breasts spilling over the cups of her bra, and with his free hand, he reaches around to unclasp it until they fall free of the fabric, just for the sake of it.

“Are you okay?” He asks after a minute of her catching her breath, smirking into her skin as he presses light kisses around her nipple, avoiding the sensitive area in an attempt to tease, watching as it hardens in anticipation of his lips. She feels the shivers wrack all the way down her spine and shoot straight to the nerve endings there.

“I think I,” she babbles out incoherently, and he chuckles deeply into the valley between her breasts. “Yeah.”

She’s thankful for the moment of reprieve, rolling her shoulders and lifting her head back up to look down at him. She feels dizzy - the cartoon kind of dizzy, where stars whirl around her head and her vision mimics the wavy lines of tv static.

He seems mesmerised by something, too, and when she follows his gaze, she can see the staccato rhythm of her heartbeat bouncing visibly from under her breast, and he’s watching it as if trying to memorise the staggered, spiky flow.

She lifts a hand to run her fingers through his hair, using the clamminess of her palms to push the strands away from his forehead, clearing a path for his heated stare to find hers before he pushes himself the rest of the way up and presses his lips back into her own.

“That was crazy,” she mutters into his mouth, teeth clashing ever so slightly as he chuckles in response.

“Crazy?” He asks, his own teeth tugging a little at her bottom lip, “Not mind-blowing? Incredible?”

“How would you describe it?”

“Perfekt. Herrlich.” His accent is thick with the words spoken into her skin. 

“What does the second one mean?”

“You can look it up when I’m done with you,” he bumps at her nose with his own before pressing his lips to the corner of her mouth, teasingly.

“I’ll be sure to do that if I can remember my own name by then,” 

“Magnificent.” He presses a kiss to her cheek, hands travelling to grip at her hips and sliding her to the edge of the counter until her body presses fully back into his. He lifts her enough for her to drop unsteadily onto her feet, and holds her until she can stand up straight on shaky legs. Her hands immediately drop to the open waistband of his jeans, pushing them until they fall down his legs and he can kick them off with his sneakers. 

“Is it my turn now?” She asks, plucking at the elastic of his briefs with a hooked finger before she takes his hand in hers.

“Whatever you want, Mohn.”

Nico

When Nico had started his evening, never in his wildest dreams would he have imagined where it would end up. When he had been dragging his feet about the party - had taken too long getting ready, had lied about his Ubers cancelling on him when he turned up late, had moped around his friends until he was exiled to getting his own drinks at the bar - he could not have pictured himself finishing his night in Poppy’s presence. And even in the back of the bar, when the two of them had kissed - despite how heated things had gotten, and despite asking her if she wanted to leave with him - he wouldn’t have thought he would be currently attempting to coax a fourth orgasm from her.

He’d asked with the intention of spending the night, sure, but his mind hadn’t let itself wander this far. It had envisioned a night cuddled up on her couch, maybe making out, maybe relieving the tension between them by grinding into her like some love-struck horny teenager who didn’t know how to control his libido.

He’d given her her first sat atop the kitchen counter, leg thrown over his shoulder, the other bent up and resting on the side to give him full access to the heaven between her thighs, where he’d gotten his first taste of the wetness that had been gathering there all night. His fingers had mapped out the path his cock would take, rubbing in and out, bending, curling, pressing at her spongy walls until she came apart in front of his very eyes - her entire body trembling in euphoria. 

The second had come after he’d moved her over to the couch, had sat her on his lap while they kissed a little more, and she’d worked her nimble fingers at taking him out of his briefs, had wrapped them around the base of his cock and worked up and down with a mind-numbing pressure while he struggled to kick his underwear fully off. Before he knew it, she was leaving a wet patch on his thigh, his hands were moving of their own accord to lift her hips and he was easing her down on his length until she was fully seated upon it.

He’d given her some semblance of control at first - let her work at her torturously slow pace while she got accustomed to his size, and he pressed delicate kisses to whatever skin he could reach. Her breasts, her chest, her neck, her jaw - leaving light but memorable marks to evidence his occupation of her body. When he felt her ease up, when she started lifting herself to bounce on him a little, his hands stopped listening to the little voice in his head telling them to be gentle with her, and they grasped at her waist, leveraging her up and down into the perfect rhythm until she was begging, “Nico, don’t stop.”

The sounds she let out, the moans, the whines, the cries, he thinks he’ll be playing back for a long time to come, and the feeling of her walls clenching around him as she came for the second time is a one he never wants to forget.

How he had managed to hold himself back, he’ll never know. How he lasted long enough for her to pull herself off of him, swing her leg over and lean down beside him until she could take him in her mouth, he thinks it’s commendable - especially considering there was a point earlier in the night he had pictured himself coming just in his pants.

Her eyes had met his as she licked him from base to tip, swirled her tongue around the head of his cock before slowly taking him into her mouth inch by inch. He’d held her by her ponytail, gripping tighter the further she took him, watched as her pretty eyes rolled back and her mouth grew sloppier. Her tongue pressed against him, suctioning to his length as she worked up and down with varying pressure and a hand cupping at his balls, and he quickly found himself tugging at her hair to let her know, “Poppy, I’m gonna come,” but she just gripped at his thigh to keep herself in place until he released down her throat. 

He watched intently as she had lifted her mouth from his length with a pop, brought herself level onto her knees next to him on the couch and his eyes followed the bob of her throat as she swallowed - she had even licked her lips to make sure nothing had gone to waste - and the sight of it all contributed to the pulsing feeling that shot straight back to his cock, where he honestly couldn’t remember it even going down after his release.

He’s never been one for kissing a girl straight after she’s gone down on him, always thought there was something a little weird about it - but there was something about tasting himself on Poppy’s tongue that he couldn’t let go amiss, and so he had grasped at her chin, pulled her toward his open mouth and wasted no time in swiping his tongue against hers.

The making out on the couch plan had ended up coming to fruition after all - way less clothing involved, of course. He’d laid her back, cupped her face with one hand and her hip with his other, bodies slotting together as she bent a leg to accommodate him, and kissed her until they both got worked up again, grinding and writhing against each other until it became impossible to restrain themselves. 

“Do we ever make it to my bed in your big plans for the evening?”

Her fingertips had been scratching up and down his back, from the base of his skull to the dip above his ass, some indentations deeper than others, some movements more soothing, but he could feel that he had been marked up - not that he minded.

“You’re so desperate for me to carry you somewhere, huh?”

“Well, if you’re offering, I wouldn’t decline.”

He had snuck another kiss from her before working himself up onto his feet, offering her a hand to help her stand before he had picked her up, her legs wrapping around his middle section and his hands encompassing the backs of her thighs.

She had kissed him while he carried her, stumbling blindly toward the other side of her apartment, freeing a hand to guide himself until he found the door to her bedroom. He clumsily edged into the room, kicking the door shut behind him and stepping forward until he felt the edge of her bed and could let her down onto the thick comforter, her body falling back into it and splaying out like a dream.

“You might wanna cover the rabbit’s eyes,” Nico smirked when he noticed the stuffed animal tucked in between the pillows behind her, “She won’t be able to look at you the same after tonight.”

“Bunny’s seen me do a lot over the years,” Poppy chuckled, reaching back for it and stroking over it’s head with tender eyes, turning it toward Nico as she held it’s ears back and waved it in front of him, “Plus, you’re a teddy bear, you wouldn’t defile me in front of my sweet little bunny would you?”

In a surge of possessiveness at the thought of that damn rabbit seeing Poppy do anything with anyone else, he quickly grabbed it from her hand and tossed it across the room, lunging forward to pin her down and capturing any protest she would give between his lips.

He could hear her sweet laugh, feel the shaking of her chest beneath him, and he felt warm all over - felt like in all the years of knowing Poppy, this is where he had longed to be - soaking up her joy, sharing her space, clothing entirely optional, completely wrapped up in her everything.

The third orgasm had come from slow, sensual movements - slipping into her heat as he kissed her with intent, swallowing her moans and savouring them as he moved on top of her, his hands holding his upper body just above hers, her arms curling under his, clawing at his shoulders as the two of them press completely into each other with burning intensity. Her legs had trembled again, the telltale sign of bliss wracking through her, and had wrapped themselves around his hips as he chased his own pleasure.

And in chasing his second, he wants to give her a fourth, which is how he has found himself holding her legs up, thighs pressing back into the mattress to open her up completely for him, and he gets to look down and watch himself disappear into the heaven between her angled up hips.

“Nico, please,” she whines as his pace quickens, pressing himself deeper and harder into her with dizzying pressure. “I can’t,”

“You can give me one more,” he knows she can, can feel it in the way her walls clench around him, squeezing tighter and tighter, “You’re so good, Mohn, such a good girl.”

If he wasn’t so astute to her every reaction, he might have missed the way her back arched, and her eyes clenched a little more shut at the affirmation. But now that he knows she likes it, he can’t stop himself, leaning down to nip at her ear and keep whispering his every dirty thought until she comes again. 

“My good girl taking my cock so well,” he groans, his own climax approaching quicker than he can control, “My pretty flower, just one more, you can do it, you’re so wet for me, yeah?”

The response she gives is a stuttered mess, and he thinks he could get used to making her speechless like this. 

“All for me, you’re all mine,” he breathes into her sticky neck, and he doesn’t even need her to confirm it, not with the way her fingers clutch at his back and her body arches into his like the perfect puzzle piece. 

She is his.

The 3 prior orgasms prove it. The jewellery adorned on her wrist proves it. The pictures scattered throughout her apartment prove it. The years of shared lives, shared jokes, shared meals, shared friends, shared rides, shared routines - they all prove it. 

The way her first thought after being stood up by someone else was to come to him, to kiss him, to spend her evening pinned by his side and her night underneath him, it’s all the proof he needs.

She is his, and he is hers.

They come together - him with a guttural groan into her skin followed by mutterings of profanities in his native tongue, and her with a pleasured cry, and he all but collapses on top of her as the two of them come down with deep, laboured breaths and shaky limbs.

It takes a good few minutes for their breathing to even out, her rubbing soothingly at his back as he softens inside her, eventually pulling out and causing the both of them to wince at the sensation. Nico rolls to the side, off the top of her, but stays so that he can get a proper look at her in the afterglow.

And glow, she does - despite the mess of her hair, the swelling of her lips, the blooming bruises littered across her chest and neck - she looks like something out of a dream. Especially with the soft smile that erupts when she looks up at him, eyes sparkling like they always do when they are cast in his direction.

He reaches over to swipe a stray wisp of hair out of her face, long enough to tuck behind her ear and he’s able to cup the side of her face, leaning into her for another kiss, still unable to get enough.

“I have to use the bathroom,” she utters once they’ve parted again, pressing a hand lightly to his chest, “Could you get me a glass of water from the kitchen?”

“Of course,” he pushes himself up before offering her hand, and he can’t help but watch as she stumbles toward her en-suite with a proud chuckle.

His bare feet pad across the hardwood until he gets to Poppy’s kitchen, and he quickly rounds up some essentials while he’s away from the bedroom. He slips into his briefs for comfort, picks up the t-shirt he had worn that he wants Poppy to wear while she sleeps, gathers his cellphone from the pocket of his jeans and then gets Poppy her water, taking a large gulp of it himself before topping it all the way back up.

Poppy is still in her bathroom when he returns, and he decides to join her, throwing the t-shirt over to her when he enters. She’s cleaned her face in his absence, and her hair is down now, the comb she had used to detangle it laid beside her sink. 

She takes the top from him with a muttered thank you, and shrugs into it before pulling her hair out. Once she’s adorned in his clothing, he gets a good eyeful of her ass again when she bends to the cabinet beneath her sink and throws a small package at him. 

It’s a toothbrush, red, compared to her lilac that she’s just retrieved from a holder on the sink top, and once he’s unwrapped it, she holds out the tube of toothpaste for him. 

It hits him that he’s never really shared this part of his routine with anyone, before. Never stood side by side, catching each other’s eye in the mirror, holding back smiles every time they do - he’s usually coming back to his previous partners already in bed, getting in late from a roadie, or having to slip out before them in the morning to get to training. He’s never had time like this, doing the little things, having something so usually mundane and established make him feel sparks in the pit of his stomach. 

He can see flashes of other routine things he could do with Poppy. Things like grocery shopping - pushing the cart as she checks items off a list on her notes app - cooking together - him in charge of cutting the ingredients because he doesn’t trust her not to get too cocky with a knife, and her mixing everything together, lifting a spoon to his lips for him to try whatever delicious concoction she had put together - doing the chores - she would vacuum because she knows he hates it, and he’d do all the chemical based stuff, because she doesn’t like when her hands get dry but also doesn’t like them getting sweaty in gloves.

All things he’s never given anyone else the time for, before, he’ll give it to Poppy.

He’ll give her anything. 

He puts the toothbrush in the holder beside hers when they’re finished, and he doesn’t miss the little smile she gives when he does.

For next time, he thinks.

And even though they’ve barely caught their breaths from the first time, he craves the next with every fibre of his being, especially when Poppy leads him back her bed, and they settle in under the thick duvet, tangling up in one another - limbs interlocked, stomachs pressed together, her hands stroking at his hair and his pushing his t-shirt higher up her thighs.

“Do you think you still remember your name?” He asks.

“Just about,” she hums, “Not sure about yours, though. Nick, was it?”

“Still good enough to crack bad jokes, I see.”

“Hey, I don’t ever crack bad jokes, take that back,” she pouts, adorably, swatting at his bare chest.

“Say my name, and I’ll take it back.” He can’t help but be possessive when it comes to her - even the thought of her saying a made up name as a joke in her bed has his fingers itching to hold on tighter to her. His. Not Nick’s. Nico’s. “C’mon, you’ve moaned it enough tonight, Mohn.”

“Stop,” she whines with a bashful smile, swatting at him again. “You’re the one who’s not funny.”

“Say my name, Poppy,” he commands with a playful pinch at her ass.

“Nico!” She squeals, her leg twitching until she lifts it to rest over his. 

“Good girl,” he hums deeply, rubbing soothingly over where he had just nipped at her flesh. She nuzzles into him, and he can’t help the smug smile that breaks out as she once again reacts to the brief utterance of praise he had given her. “Sweet dreams,” he mutters into her hair, breathing in the smell of her shampoo and committing it to memory. 

This is where he wants to be every night, the last thing he sees before he falls asleep being Poppy, her pretty eyes drifting closed, her soft lips parting as her breathing evens out.

And as his own tell-tale signs of beckoning slumber appear, he lets the realisation wash over him that he hasn’t felt this content in a really long time - and it’s that thought that soothes him into a deep sleep, the kind in which he hasn’t been able to have for the longest time, either.

—

Nico wakes to the uncomfortable feeling of a full bladder and a gentle buzz on the nightstand beside him.

The vibrations continue as he tries to adjust to the darkness of the room, the sun still not having risen yet, and when he reaches back to retrieve his phone, he cranes his neck to make sure he can read the time without bringing it too close to Poppy.

05:12am.

He doesn’t have morning skate today, so he knows there shouldn’t be an alarm on there, but his Face ID isn’t picking up his features from this angle to be able to read whatever notifications had interrupted his sleep, so he carefully untangles himself from the peacefully resting girl beside him and tiptoes over to the bathroom.

He flicks the light on and closes the door to, just enough that it doesn’t disturb Poppy, and pads sleepily over to the toilet to relieve himself. 

His phone buzzes again in his hand - the continuous kind of buzz, as if someone’s calling him - and, as if by second nature, he presses to the bottom right of the screen to accept the call, lifting the device to his ear and muttering out a quiet, croaky, “Hello?”

“You’re awake, thank God,” the voice that responds is female, the words uttered in German, and it takes Nico a good few seconds for his brain to connect the dots as to who is currently speaking to him.

“Talia?” He asks, a sudden shot of panic seeping into his previously calm demeanour, his heart rate picking up and pins and needles rushing through his hands.

“I need to speak with you, it’s urgent.”

“It’s 5am.” He sighs, rushing over to close the bathroom door so he can flush the toilet without running the risk of waking Poppy with the sound. “Can’t this wait?”

“No, it can’t. Why are you whispering, is someone there?”

“I’m not whispering,” he tries not to, but again, he doesn’t want to make too much noise.

“Whatever, I need to come over, are you at home?”

“Yeah,” he responds before he can think, knowing any other answer was a sure fire route into an argument. Any other time, any other place, he would have told her the truth, but 5am in Poppy’s bathroom doesn’t seem like the prime spot to be bickering with his ex girlfriend over the phone. “What do you mean, come over, aren’t you in Germany?”

“No, I just landed in Newark. I told you, it’s urgent.” She does sound panicked to give her credit - and why else would she fly back to the States if she didn’t need to talk about something serious. “Can I come straight over?”

Poppy’s apartment is within walking distance to his own, only a few blocks away. If Talia is leaving Newark now, he should be able to make it back before she gets there. They can talk about whatever it is, then she can delete his number and leave him alone, and he can move on with his life.

“Talia,” he huffs, partly ready to reject her as soon as he remembers where he is, remembers who he has yearned for so long to wake up next to, and who would be really upset to find out he had ditched her to go meet up with an ex.

“Please?” She sounds like she’s crying, and if there’s one thing Nico can’t do, it’s say no to a girl in tears. Even if it’s a girl who, not even a month ago, dumped him via text message.

“Yeah, fine, whatever.”

“Thank you. I can let myself up, I still have the key, I’ll see you soon.”

He mutters out a quick goodbye before hanging up, quickly washing his hands, and making his way back into Poppy’s bedroom.

She’s on her back now, arm laid out beside her as if ready to take him back in, and he feels a pang in his chest at the thought of disappointing her.

He knows that he should wake her - should tell her that he doesn’t want to leave her to wake up alone, but that he has to. That he wants to be back - he will be back. But that would all cause her to ask questions, and he’s not sure that she’ll like the only answer he can give right now.

Poppy is understanding, but this has already caused a wedge between the two of them - caused her to doubt herself far beyond what Nico can comprehend, or what she’s been able to share with him. 

He can explain things to her as soon as Talia is gone. As soon as she’s said what she needs to say, has given him back the keys to his building and apartment, and has closed the door on them ever interacting again.

Hell, if it’s quick, maybe he can come back with breakfast from the place around the corner Poppy likes so much, and she’ll never have to know where he had disappeared to, or who he had seen while he was gone.

He presses a brisk, soft kiss to her cheek, quickly surveying the floor of her bedroom before he leaves to retrieve her bunny, slotting the soft toy into her open arm so she can cuddle it in his absence.

He briefly considers leaving her a note as he dresses himself in her kitchen, checking around for something to write it with, but the realisation quickly dawns on him again that he can’t be certain if or when he’ll be back.

He just has to hope that if she wakes up before he is back, she isn’t too upset, and that he has enough persuasive power to get her to forgive him just one more time if he doesn’t make it.

He leaves her apartment with the soft click of the automatic lock behind him, and the sound echoes in his head until he makes it back to his own apartment, the ever-growing weight of dread filling his empty stomach as he waits for his ex girlfriend to arrive.

Next Chapter

taglist: @alwaysclassyeagle @bunbunbl0gs @idgaf-if-youre-here @youflowerr-youfeast @thearchersstuff @bellsdi0r @wonderheartz @jjgsunflower @butterflies35 @kenziepickle @josierosie @laheyxlover @mrsmattytkachuk (sorry if your tag hasn't worked btw)

[maypoleman1]

5th November

Guy Fawkes’/ Bonfire Night

Bonfire Night Celebration in Lewes. Source: Alamy Stock Photos

Today is Guy Fawkes’ or Bonfire Night in the U.K. After an unsuccessful attempt by a group of Roman Catholic radicals to blow up King James I and the assembled members of the Lords and Commons on November 5th 1603, the date became an excuse for patriotic anti-Catholic rallies thereafter with Guido Fawkes, one of the leading conspirators, being burned in effigy. This bonfire based national commemoration of what came to be termed “The Gunpowder Plot” and which was later characterised by the setting off of fireworks, soon enveloped all the late autumn former pagan fire festivals associated with Samhain and the Celtic New Year. One particular survival concerns the Devil’s Stone which is located midway between Barnstaple and Launceton in Devon which supposedly fell to earth from Heaven when Lucifer was expelled, and buried him there. The stone must be turned annually to prevent Satan from getting free and blighting the livestock. Therefore, dutifully, at 8pm every 5th November, the vicar of Shebbear, leads his congregation to turn the stone with the aid of picks and crowbars to the accompaniment of church bells. Given that turning stones is a traditional way of keeping spirits at bay, the “devil” under the Shebbear stone may have its origins in a malign local god which needs to be kept in check.

The town of Lewes in Sussex has retained its Guy Fawkes Night anti-Catholic traditions intact. Although the event has developed into the largest Bonfire Night celebration in the country, with its torchlight fancy dress procession resembling a Halloween party, its core remains firmly sectarian. Its origins lie in popular fury at the execution of 17 Protestant martyrs by the Catholic Queen Mary I in the town which led to an annual protest - which still goes on. The Pope is burned in effigy in several separate bonfires tonight, with the large crowds being egged on by four “Cardinals” in fireproof vestments and mitres, who taunt the crowd and are duly pelted with fireworks in response, in a genuinely dangerous display of Protestant fury. The accompanying chant gives you a flavour of the original intent of the Lewes festival:-

A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope, a piece of

cheese to toast him.

A barrel of beer to drink his health, and a

right good fire to roast him.

The organisers these days are at pains to point out the anti-Pope rituals are just harmless historical fun, but any event remotely resembling what goes on at Lewes on Bonfire Night would be strictly illegal in Northern Ireland and Scotland under their anti-sectarianism laws.

[garak]

ok ill put it under the cut but heres my logic

the downfall of us all - good overarching track what can i say. that town WOULD be the downfall of them all!

the caves of altamira - i have an amv for this one that i might actually make at some point. about them trying to find new ways of living as kids sneaking out together and also being part of the #cycle

somewhere i belong - self explanatory. might have another version of this later to represent the infinite tsukuyomi

the end of nothing - warring states period fighting... lowkey i also want a reprise of this during the fight but i dont think they ever did an alt version or demo or anything so whatever

only a fool would say that - self explanatory. might get moved to being hashirama playlist only but for now it stays.

noise and kisses - the creation of peace... let me see your insides = mdrs whole can two people ever really know each other thing and him thinking hashirama almost killing himself meant they finally had seen each others guts or whatever it is he says

to plant a seed - theeeee founders national anthem. our vision for this world will not die when we are dead

in fate's hands - more founding of the village era stuff. the brief period where they thought they had actually done it

the taste of ink - more them thinking theyve achieved it and broken the cycle lol

crush - this song is on thin ice but when he said war into a truce i was like fine. you can be in there. more village era

with our love - get it guys. the look = the sharingan. otherwise this is a very self explanatory song for the choosing of the hokage

baby blue - hashirama is elected hokage and madara makes his decision to leave. this song is a core pillar of this playlist (nodding)

divine intervention - the building tension between them... this one i imagine the perspective switches between them

king for a day - classic madara song. nothing else needs to be said.

reinventing your exit - you broke my heart again this time :(

anthem of our dying day - mdr leaving the village. ghost to this world foreshadowing his role as the ghost of the uchiha and his erasure from konoha's history. fire motif needs no explanation

speak of the devil - another very self explanatory song. some lines i would tweak but mostly theyre unintelligible so its ok.

fast car - you just have to believe me here. but to me this is a classic madara song. its here chronologically as a final look at their relationship before he leaves for good

the leaving song - ty vince for this one. this whole album is very madara but this song in particular is the perfect leaving the village track.

to hell and back - aftermath of mdr leaving and the buildup to their fight. that day = their final conversation

the plot to bomb the panhandle - this one gets moved around a lot because i cant decide where i want it but its also pretty self explanatory

your betrayal - this is also a core track like you said that wed be together how could you kill me and lie to my face come on... im in your head im in your heart like come on. it's them.

my life for hire - i broke the mold somehow when its them unknowingly repeating the cycle yessss the cycle clap if you love the cycle

it's complicated - madahashi national anthem. rare hashirama perspective track too

turbo lover - fun break. also i think around now in the timeline (around the time of their fight) is when hsrm and mito get married so i like to laugh at tell me theres no other.

the last fight - title says it all...

dance with the devil - end of the fight. hashirama tries to adjust to life without madara. beginning of the visions for us hashirama hallucination truthers

play dead - madara in his damn cave. thank you again vince for this track

you be tails ill be sonic - could they have named this something more serious come on guys. but this track is theeee hashirama after madara's death song like i tried to make us a life here but our foundation was built on sand... and was

until the end - another hashirama after madaras death song. maybe around the start of the first war as he loses faith in achieving full peace in his lifetime

my apocalypse - hashirama hallucination truthers how we feeling

can't be saved - wow it's a lot of hashirama songs here all in a row. killing yourself AND alcoholism? thats the hashirama i know.

last of the real ones - which of you guys had the amv with this song for them. i want to congratulate you on getting me to like a song from mania. i really thought it would never happen

where do all my friends go - madara putting the plan into motion, spying on konoha, recruiting his lackeys, then getting revived only to see his plan has gone to shit lol

light with a sharpened edge - the infinite tsukuyomi fails and they are able to finally be together in death after both their ideologies have been proven to be duds and they ultimately forgive each other acknowledging how far theyve strayed from those kids at the river. this song could go plenty of different places but i put it at the end because it starts you over at the beginning

there are def some periods that i could flesh out with more tracks but thats the current state its in... if you have any suggestions feel free to comment or send me your madahashi playlists to steal from lol

i have TENTATIVELY ordered my madahashi playlist... ive tried to smooth some of the crazier genre transitions but mostly it should be in chronological order besides the downfall of us all which is the thesis track. i have elaborate amvs for basically every single one of these songs in my mind