#humans don't have to deal with that complication

[zkg2318]

Blood on Fire ~ pt. 3 | PJS

A/N: this is part 3 of the BOF series, please read part 1 for the story to make sense as these are heavily driven by plot. Also, i apologize if the smut is a bit too vanilla for your liking, but i tried to add a bit of uniqueness to it. as compensation, i wrote a slight aftercare scene (and i almost never do that cuz im bad at writing it) have fun reading. also, sorry for the ending lol

genre/tags for this part ✶ MDNI reverse harem!hyung line x afab!reader, angst, smut, gore and violence, supernatural themes, (sirens, werewolves, vampires, shapeshifters, phoenixes, frost elves, dragons, witches, and more…), major character death (don't worry), blood, verbal and physical violence, lots of murder, manipulation, lots of death, panic attacks, government themes (not political), fight club au, ot7

synopsis ✶ In a city where the supernatural are arrested on sight, the only refuge for their pent-up rage is “The Enha Arena”- an exclusive, hidden venue where creatures engage in brutal, blood-soaked battles with one another. Concealed beneath the unassuming exterior of “Dusk and Dawn,” a gym that serves as the front of a totally legal business, this underground fight club acts as the epicenter for this violent world where supernatural beings not only fight for dominance and pride but for the sheer thrill of it all. In dire need of some money, you find yourself drawn into the fight club when you come across a black market job posting- an offer for a new trainer at the gym. Desperate for new ways to keep your own abilities under wraps and even learn about other supernatural beings, you accept the position, completely unaware of the dangers and complicated relationships that await you

WC ✶ 12.7

part 2

smut warnings under the cut

smut warnings ✶ monster erotica (obviously), unprotected sex, very brief dom!reader, grinding, slight overstimulation, fluffy aftercare, emotional sex

In the darkness of Luxta’s hidden underbelly, K slaves away for the black market, The Veil in particular, scraping by on a barely livable wage. Desperation has become his best friend now; daring him to escape these circumstances, no matter what. He moves through the outskirts of Luxta with an agonizing slowness, the years worth of working evident in his gait.

Raised like most of the supernatural around here- alone without the guidance of a parental figure, K has brought it upon himself to pay his dues by giving back to the supernatural youth- children who have yet to be sold in the black market or older adolescents who were lucky enough to live in The Veil’s residences.He spends his nights navigating the narrow alleyways located on the outskirts of Luxta that have slowly become the habitat to these ‘monsters’, a notepad in hand as he records statistics and hands out supplies. 

In the beginning, it fulfilled K, knowing he was giving these kids some sort of temporary comfort during the hardest part of their lives. But at some point in time, that comfort dissipated and turned into burn out. Seeing their faces every night, many much too young to be carrying the burden of survival, was just too much for him. But there wasn’t an easy out for K, the supernatural didn’t exactly have access to everyday jobs like humans did. Many had to rely on underground jobs like dealing drugs and committing illegal acts. 

It’s storming now, and the only protection there is are the tents that The Veil has graciously put out for children to commune under. The harsh rain pounds against the makeshift shelters, deafening the murmurs of the children underneath them. K walks around with a sheet of paper in his hand, greeting several children of various ages huddling together for warmth, creating a list of their abilities and what they are. He blinks away the rain infiltrating his vision as he watches some of the children ignite small flames from their palms, a small attempt at experimenting with their powers in order to offer a subtle warmth for others around them to share. Other children aren’t as lucky, shivering as the harsh wind hits their bones. 

As K moves through this particular camp, he spots a figure moving in the distance- his face obscured by the hood of his cloak. A small boy, who stands in front of K, is quickly moved behind him as he straightens his posture to hide him from the strange man’s view. “Don’t you think the sky’s a bit dark for you to be out this late?” K asks, suspicion creeping away in his voice. 

“It glimmers or some shit,” the man grumbles as he shoves a wet envelope into K’s hand. His tone is dismissive and groggy as he continues to speak, “If you want to get out of this shit show, follow the instructions of this envelope.” 

Before K can say anything, the mysterious man turns on his heel and disappears into the shadow. But his eyes catch onto a glint of metal that shines under the moonlight that’s tucked under his cloak, almost completely obscured if not for the bulk of the item being so big. With furrowed eyebrows, K realizes what it was that caught the moonlight’s glint- a government scanner. 

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When K had come to Yuqi the other day after a long winded workout, she hadn’t expected him to say much, let alone reveal something so rattling. His presence never failed to make her unsteady, no matter how much she told herself she trusts him. There was just something in his aura that left the serpent hybrid on edge. Yuqi had expected to be the last person K chose to confide in, memories of her venom searing into his face burned her vision like bright flashes. Yet he was still there, standing before her with something dark in his eyes. 

“Yuqi, there’s something I need to tell you.” There was sweat decorating his hairline as he addressed Yuqi, seriousness hanging in the air based on how he kept his head hung low. 

Yuqi turned to him with an unsuspecting gaze that masked the unease settling in her stomach, “Is everything okay?” 

K seemed to grimace before her and swallowed a growing lump in his throat before speaking, “Not really, no.” He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “I know my character may not be the most likable, especially after I let things get out of control when I sparred with Heeseung, but I’m hoping you’ll hear me out with honesty.”

“I’m listening.”

K hesitated, unlike him to waver in what it was he wanted to say. “The other day, I overheard Y/n on the phone. Something was off. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, especially because she sounded so distressed- but I heard enough. She spoke about the enforcement division and I learned from there that it was her idea to send the officers in to inspect the building.”

Yuqi’s stomach twisted at K’s reveal. “What are you saying, K?”

“I dropped something by accident, out of surprise. She noticed my presence and hung up her phone immediately. Y/n came straight over to me and told me that if I ever tried revealing what she said, she’d spin it back on me.” 

Yuqi’s mind raced a mile a minute, she wasn’t sure what to believe. Y/n? The same Y/n that was slowly making her way into their fractured community? The same Y/n that spent her vulnerable time cleaning up the team’s wounds after matches, or the same Y/n that held them in her arms when they let their defenses down. That didn’t seem like you. But no matter what Yuqi thought about you, anxiety burned in her chest. 

“Do you know how absurd you sound?”

“Yes…” he said with a strained sigh, “But you know I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t sure of it myself. I was shocked to see firsthand the kind of lengths she’d go to in order for the gym to shut down. She mentioned during one of our conversations that as a phoenix, she wished for the people of Luxta to see the supernatural in a better light. I think exposing the gym was her way of doing that, at least the first step of it.” There’s a tense look of pity on K’s face as he recounts his observations to Yuqi. Despite what he showed on the outside, K  was brimming with excitement and he was lucky that Yuqi’s hearing wasn't good enough to hear the loud pounding of his heart. “For now, I think we should just keep an eye on her.” 

Yuqi’s breath caught in her throat and she kissed the inside of her teeth. “I’ll keep it in mind.” She said with strained tension, but the words felt like lead on her tongue, a poison that was inching its way down her throat like the revelation of your possible betrayal. K nodded and then proceeded to place a comforting hand on Yuqi’s shoulder in a forced reassurance, but she brushed it away. He took that as his cue to leave and gave her a parting glance before disappearing. 

In his absence, Yuqi’s throat felt tight. She couldn’t find it within herself to believe his words. She had watched you from afar, observed you slowly get closer and closer to the boys, with Minnie. The idea of you going behind their backs to betray them crushed her like a vice, like her own serpent tail was constricting her organs from inside. 

Then came the night you approached Yuqi, and Yuqi felt her heart drop a million feet. Your story was so carefully constructed to shift the blame onto K that it almost seemed believable. But his accusation echoed like a drumbeat in her head as she listened to your quivering confession. 

Yuqi wanted to believe, God did she want to trust you. But the weight of her responsibilities overshadowed that benefit of doubt she would have given you had K not come to her first. She was more worried about the safety of her gym and the boys to pay any mind to you as a person. So in a moment of haste, she fired you- and the boys followed. They said hurtful things to your face and Yuqi could see their every word break you down just a little bit more. 

You lost your friends, your job, the family you built with them all within a matter of seconds. She told herself it was for the greater good, but the look on your face was too much; it took everything in her to go through with your dismissal. The last she saw of you was when she forced herself to look away from you and leave the area after firing you. It tore her apart on the inside to see such a shattered looking face on you while also knowing you had the audacity to betray them all. Yuqi wasn’t sure she deserved her own forgiveness- whether it be for letting a traitor into the gym, or for fooling herself into what she thought was a lifelong friendship with you. 

Jungwon, on the other hand, laid awake for days following your departure. He had already had some suspicions regarding K’s integrity, ever since he lost control on Heeseung, he’s remained wary around the older man. Seeing the way K acted after you officially left solidified that little doubt in his mind. He saw first hand how quickly K filled your void. He started to approach Jungwon in an effort to gain his trust, but Jungwon saw through it all. He saw through the forced smiles and practiced words like it was a poorly executed performance.  The cracks in K’s facade were only getting bigger with each interaction Jungwon had with him. 

And it wasn’t just Jungwon that had been approached, but all the others. K’s efforts to get closer- even closer than he was before, increased by tenfold. None of them noticed though, too busy dragging their feet in the ghost of your absence. Jungwon didn’t say anything, but he knew he should. 

He needed to see you. 

After a painful week of sleepless nights and self-doubt, Jungwon decided tonight was the night to confront you, to check in with you. So he gave the maknaes a brief goodbye and waved to his hyung’s before leaving the gym in a hurry. The usual fifteen minute walk to your new apartment felt like an eternity, and the weight of his duffel bag and the burden he carried with him didn’t help. Jungwon wasn’t sure of what it was that he wanted to get out of seeing you, but he was void of any expectations because he knew from a long time ago what a mistake it was to have hope. And the cold wind biting at his red-tinted cheeks only reminded him of that dark resolve. It was colder than usual. 

Given the early hour of the day, the streets Jungwon walks along are eerily silent, quiet enough he could hear a pin drop. Jungwon thrived in silence, but this one felt impending. 

When he turns the corner and comes face to face with the brick material of your building, Jungwon straightens himself. What would he say? Should he apologize? He realizes now that he really should’ve planned this better, but before he can even ascend up the steps to your apartment, he hears a strained gargle coming from your alleyway.  He almost turns away, thinking it’s probably just a stupid raccoon getting into the trash, but he walks down to inspect the noise as a way to delay the inevitable of seeing your face. 

As he walks further down the alley, he squints his eyes and spots a small figure on the ground. Upon moving closer, his eyes catch on something white- the same white sneakers he used to bully you about for always getting scuffed. Before he can even process it, Jungwon jumps into a full sprint. 

When he gets to your side, he collapses to his knees right beside you and ignores the warm feeling of your blood staining his sweats. “Y/n!” He calls in a hurry, scanning your body. “Stay awake for me!” He says as he attempts to shake you awake. 

You barely stir under his touch, a weak groan leaving your lips as he nervously cradles your face. Jungwon winces internally as he takes in the state of your body. There were cuts and bruises marring your face and a stream of blood that was crusted from your nose. Below your face, there was a dark stain of red that was staining your hoodie, and ultimately him as well. You needed help, help from someone that knew how to deal with this sort of stuff. But Jungwon felt conflicted, torn between not wanting to be caught meeting with you but also not wanting your condition to worsen. Deciding in a hurry, he fishes out his phone. As the line rings, he takes a look at the rest of you and dry heaves. 

Though he can’t see much past your clothing, he is able to make out the shape of a boot print left all over your hoodie and a hole where your blood slowly seeps out of. “Shit,” he whispers, pressing a hand to your side. You instinctively flinch under his touch yet again, the sudden pressure having you writhing around in agony. 

“Please- don’t do this K!” You mutter through broken sobs, barely conscious enough to process what was really happening. You choke on the thickness of your blood pooling in your mouth and lurch forward to spit some of it out. “Don’t hurt me, I promise I- I won’t say anything!” 

Jungwon’s heart drops and he rushes to whisper soothing words into your ear. “No, no- Y/n, it’s me, Jungwon. You’re safe.” 

The line finally picks up and Jungwon lets out a strained sigh of relief. “Jay hyung! Please, I need you to come to my location right away.”

“What? Ok, hold on.” There’s some shuffling on the other line and then, “What the hell are you doing at Y/n’s place?” 

Jungwon flinches at his best friend's words, unsure if he made the right choice. But one look at your squirming figure is enough to tell him that he didn’t, “Just get the hell here, Y/n’s been attacked.”

Silence. And then a groan. “What do you mean, attacked?”

“Just get your fucking ass down here, I don’t know what to do, I think she’s bleeding out.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m already in the car. Sunoo is coming with me.” 

Minutes feel like hours as Jungwon presses his hands up against your wound, struggling to maintain the steady flow of blood leaving your body. Finally, when a set of headlights pierces the cold haze of the night, Jungwon’s body slumps. “Over here!” Jungwon calls weakly, finding himself losing feeling in his hands. Jay and Sunoo sprint down to where you and Jungwon are, their faces morphing into horror as they take in the situation. 

From an outside perspective, it looks as though both you and Jungwon were attacked as shown by the blood ruining his clothes. “Jungwon-” Jay says, hurrying to grab Jungwon’s shoulders. The older boy gently pulls him away and whispers comforting words into the panicking boy while Sunoo quickly takes Jungwon’s place. His hands replace Jungwon’s and he winces at the feeling of your blood spread around his palm. 

Jungwon begins to hyperventilate once he’s removed from the situation, the shock kicking in as adrenaline leaves his body. He lays there protectively in Jay’s arms as Sunoo begins to bark commands.  “Jay, grab my phone and call Kim Namjoon.” 

Jay moves with purpose and grabs the phone peeking out from Sunoo’s back pocket, “What should I say?” 

“Tell him to meet us at this address and that he needs to bring his kit. Now.” 

Jay follows Sunoo’s directions, hanging up the phone when said man confirms their location. “Alright, now we need to move her into her apartment, we can’t take her to a hospital.” 

Lifting you is done with delicacy, though it’s excruciating for you. It starts with your arm, the movement sending a splintering pain through your shoulder and you scream. Shortly after getting you up to your feet, a splitting headache swarms your head. You can’t do anything more than scream and let out a string of incoherent words. 

Eventually, you’re moved inside with a shaking Jungwon following after you all. “Her keys- they’re in her pocket.” Jungwon hiccups, his face streaming with fresh tears. Sunoo grabs your keys and unlocks your apartment door slower than he would have liked, but it doesn’t matter. Once the door is open, Jay and Sunoo burst inside and move to set you down on the couch, not caring that your blood quickly makes its home in the fabric. You can buy a new one. 

“Should we call the others?” Jungwon asks, shutting the door behind him.

“No.” Jay is quick to answer as he shakes out his arms, the awkward position of carrying you likely forming a knot in his shoulder. “They’ll freak the hell out and we do not need that right now.” 

In the minutes that follow, Sunoo runs to grab towels and sets them under your body while a knock on your door sounds. Sunoo looks at Jungwon and silently asks for him to get the door. Jungwon runs to the front of your place, opening the door to a tall man with metal framed glasses perched on his nose. “Tell me what happened,” he says, pushing past Jungwon and straight to you and Sunoo. 

“There’s a stab wound to her right side, we can’t manage to stop the bleeding and it seems like her arm may have been broken. I can’t really tell you much else, I’m sorry.” Sunoo sniffles, moving back to let the man open his kit. 

Namjoon works with a sharp efficiency, quickly attaching you to an IV and pushing morphine through the clear tube. As the older man rips open a dressing tray, Sunoo turns to Jay and Jungwon’s confused expressions. “This is Namjoon, a griffin. He fled Luxta many years ago to pursue a career in surgery.”

Jay, more present than Jungwon, looks to his friends with his eyebrows raised. “He went to Chambers, it’s three cities over. The supernatural don’t exist there, so Namjoon could live his own life there freely without the same restrictions we face in Luxta.”

There was little known about what lay beyond the outskirts of Luxta, its borders heavily guarded by government officials as a way to prevent the supernatural from escaping. The few that tried were never heard again. How Namjoon managed to get past them remains a mystery. 

“Namjoon came to Luxta one day and took me in when I was 7. We went right back to Chambers and he raised me as his apprentice until I turned 20. When I became of age, he told me to go back, and said I’d make a difference.” Sunoo continues to explain with a slightly softer voice than before, finally at ease with the way Namjoon works around your body. 

Jay, feeling that same wave of relief, walks over to Jungwon who is slumped against the wall with his head in his knees. “Jungwon…” he whispers, approaching the young boy with concern. He fights the urge to lash out at Jungwon, to scold him for breaking the group's trust and going out to see you. Jay decides to change his approach out of pity for the younger boy, a soft side he doesn’t hold for the other boys.  He couldn’t stand to keep looking at the way Jungwon quivered in the corner and hid in his own shell- it had taken so long to get him out of it when they first started living together, he didn’t want him going back. “Can you tell us what happened?”

The smaller boy looks up with red-rimmed eyes and snot dripping from his nose. He hiccups a few times before speaking. “She- she said his name, K.” His stare is blank as he replays the sound of your screams and sobs- your broken pleas to get K to stop. His heart rips at the memory of you all bloodied and vulnerable, completely helpless and waiting there for death to consume you. Completely unaware of his surroundings, Jungwon’s breathing speeds up and Jay hurries to slide down the wall and sit beside him.

“Breathe for me, Jungwon,” He coos, caressing the younger boy's hair. Jay tucks Jungwon’s head into his chest and looks at Sunoo with despair. “Can you feel your hands?” 

Jay knows Jungwon is panicking, and he knows that when he does, he loses feeling in his extremities. So, he ushers Jungwon to put his hands in Jay’s and begins to massage them, restoring blood flow. “Shh, it’s ok. She’s safe now.” He whispers with every sniffle of Jungwon’s. 

At some point, Jungwon’s breathing calms down just as Namjoon finishes stitching you up. Sunoo takes that chance to look at your body, hoodie sheared off and bruises finally presenting themselves to the world. Sunoo’s heart clenches with despair and a single tear finally makes its debut on Sunoo’s face. The sight of your bruises makes Sunoo nauseous so he looks away.

Namjoon seems to notice the blossom of bruises spanning across your torso and clicks his tongue. He brings out a stethoscope from his kit and presses it over various spots of your body, listening carefully before taking it off. Following that, his hands move to your side and he palpates the area, stopping when you let out another choked sob. “I think she’s broken a few ribs, maybe even fractured some. There’s no way for me to confirm without an x-ray, but I didn’t hear any signs of a collapsed lung, thankfully.”

“Will she be okay?” Sunoo whispers with a shaky voice. 

Namjoon offers him a comforting nod. “She’s a phoenix.  With enough rest and medicine, she’ll be back to normal before you know it. Phoenixes- they’re resilient; they’re self healing.”

Namjoon phrases his words in a way to be reassuring, but he knows they do little to relieve the weight of the situation. From his observations, it seems that these boys were connected to you in a way not many others could relate. 

Collectively, they all turn to Jungwon next for an explanation. He breathes in a shaky inhale. He was gonna have to explain to them why he was visiting you. “I… I’ve been suspicious of K hyung for a while. I’ve had doubts about him since he hurt Heeseung, so I came to Y/n’s to talk about him. But then I found her like that, begging me to not hurt her.” Another river of tears follows before Jungwon can finish. “She- she thought I was K. She thought I was hurting her.” 

Jay shakes his head slowly and sighs, tightening his grip on the younger boy's hand. “I believe you, I know you wouldn’t lie. But, getting the others to believe us is another story…” 

Sunoo chimes in too, “I believe you too. I’ve had my own reservations against K, but I lost focus when Y/n left. I was so consumed with my own grief, I couldn’t see any true colors.” He looks to the ground with shame, lacing his fingers through your limp hand. Though he speaks quietly, his words carry the weight of a thousand apologies. Turning to address you, he croaks out an apology. “I’m sorry, Y/n. We should have never questioned your loyalty to us, your genuineness.”

Jay looks like he’s about to do the same, ready to echo Sunoo’s words, but Namjoon steps forward and demands their attention with just his presence.

“There is one way that we can confirm everything that’s happened.” He says, dropping his voice. “As a griffin, I have the ability to see people’s memories through touch.” 

The room falls silent and Namjoon takes that moment to get rid of his latex gloves. With a softened gaze, he kneels beside you and presses a hand to your cheek. The veins in his hands light up and a rush of your most recent memories flood Namjoon’s mind- fast and overwhelming. The recollection of your most recent memories twists your face into a look of anguish and the three boys standing off to the side can only do as much as exchange a look of pain. They remain silent though, a witness to Namjoon’s powers. 

After what feels like an eternity, Namjoon finally takes his hand off of your face and watches the glow of his veins fade away. He turns to the boys with an unsteady cadence in his breathing. 

“Would you rather I tell you,” he starts with a hitch in his breath, “or show you?” 

Jay answers Namjoon with a look of desperation, “Can you show all of us?” 

Namjoon gives the boy a nod and beckons them forward, settling on the back of his calves as the three boys crowd around him. He grabs Sunoo’s hand, who is standing in the middle, and tells the others to press their foreheads to Sunoo’s temples. 

When they move to connect themselves to Sunoo, visions of what Namjoon saw surge through their own minds. It hits like a tsunami, all at once and unrelenting. Tears fall from Jay’s closed eyes as he watches through your own point of view the discovery of K’s betrayal. His heart clenches with guilt, heavy with shame as he helplessly observes you battle with the strain of his secrets, your own health deteriorating at the hands of K.  

Sunoo doesn’t fare much better, trembling with a coil of shame that’s daring to burst at any minute. He squeezes Namjoon’s hand tighter with every passing second, wincing at the way the boys looked at you when you were let go. The quiet accusation in their eyes, he feels everything- your heartbreak, your isolation, your despair. He wishes he could take it all away, erase what you saw, but it’s too late. 

And then the attack. They listen to the words exchanged between you and K. A tense back and forth that only leads to you being slammed against the wall. Visions of you twisting violently in the grasps of your attackers flash through their minds, a reflection of your pain surging through their bodies, but at a fraction of what you actually felt. 

Jungwon gasps and stumbles away from Sunoo before the memories can get too vivid. He clutches his  stomach in pain, absolutely nauseated by the memory of your attack. It was too raw, too vivid for him to watch. He didn’t want to see first hand how you came to be a sad, pitiful lump of flesh in the middle of your alley. Yet, Jay and Sunoo stay, faces twisting into looks of anguish as they finish the rest of the attack. 

When Sunoo breaks the connection, Jay drops to his knees and scrambles to your side, clutching at your hand with a gut wrenching sob.”Y/n, fuck.” He pleads through a wave of tears, “I- I’m so sorry. What- what should I do?” There's a storm of guilt thundering beneath his skin and it takes all his willpower not to scream out. Sunoo watches Jay’s grip on your hand tighten to the point your skin turns white. 

“Don’t, don’t hurt her more.” He says quietly, placing a hand over Jay’s. 

Jay hesitantly listens to Sunoo, easing up on your grip and falling back. He drops his head and presses himself to the back of your hand. “Yuqi and Minnie, can you show them? And the others?” 

Namjoon responds with a strained voice, “I can.” He pauses, resting a hand on Jay’s back. “Not now, later. I’ve done what I can, she just needs rest now. Would one of you be able to stay with her?” 

Jay’s head snaps up immediately, his hand shooting up in the air, “I can do it.” He says with a look of determination. He barely registers Sunoo’s bittersweet smirk. 

“Good, I’ll see you all tomorrow at the gym.” Namjoon says before guiding the other boys out of your apartment. 

When your apartment door shuts, Jay finally allows himself to crumble. He rests his head against your thigh and relishes in the feeling of your warmth- a reminder that you were still here, still breathing. Without blinking, he watches the ragged rise and fall of your chest, a minute detail that barely keeps him grounded. The boy lets out a shaky breath, face damp with tears as he lets the weight of his guilt cave in on him. 

How could he make this right? Would he still be able to reclaim that bond he once had with you? Just thinking about you refusing to accept him back into your life makes his chest tighten, the ache of turning his back on you spreading like a slow poison. How could he forgive himself for clinging onto K in your absence, led blindly by his false narrative. He could only blame himself for his misplaced trust, and it killed him inside. It killed him that he could’ve stopped your attack from happening if he had just listened. His head feels like it’s going to explode with the relentless pressure of his thoughts. Drained of any energy he once had, he shakes his head and carefully picks you up, arms carrying the emotional weight of the situation more than the physical. 

Your body is limp in his arms and it makes Jay wince knowing that you're completely helpless in his presence, relying on him to keep you safe; something he didn’t feel very deserving of right now. You are like a rag doll in his arms, your consciousness having fled from the face of trauma. With a heavy heart, Jay carries you to your bedroom and as gently as he can, places you in your bed. 

He tucks the comforter around your body and then moves to pick the stray pieces of hair stuck to your face. In that moment of strained serenity, he focuses on the sound of your breathing. It should comfort him, ground him to know that you’re safe now, but it doesn’t. It only serves as a recipe for the bitter knot forming in his throat. 

He can’t bring himself to leave you alone, not after everything that just happened. So rather than retreating to the living room to give you the privacy you rightfully deserve, he hesitantly creates a makeshift bed right beside you on the ground. Just a few pillows and a throw blanket thrown to the ground is enough. He lies flat on his back with his hands clasped together across his stomach and lets his mind drift off. 

He thinks about you. About that stupid pull-up contest you roped him into on your first day, a catalyst for the impending competitions you’d share with him in the next few months. He thinks about your trust, and how you made every effort to look past his flaws and see him for who he is. All those times you laughed with him, an ache growing in your abdomen from laughing so much. It’s a punishing reminder of what he’s just lost. 

Several hours pass before you begin to wake up. Your eyelids feel heavy, like they’re weighed down by the events of last night. But you force them to open, blinking away the dryness that impedes your vision. Immediately, you feel pain shooting all over your body. You try to sit up anyways but a sharp throb radiating around your side keeps you from getting far. 

Suddenly, vivid memories of last night flash across your mind all at once- the cruel voice of K in your ear, the recollection of him treating you like a mere rag doll. You squeeze your eyes shut, willing the memories to go away but they don’t. It happened, and it rips your heart apart. You feel as though you’re reliving the experience, every painful minute of it. 

You’re unaware of the fact that you’re hyperventilating until a hand rests on your shoulder. The touch comes suddenly and you flinch away from it, crying out in pain. “Y/n! It’s Jay. You’re safe, you’re safe.” He’s desperate to reassure you but he can’t help the way he repeats the last words like it’s a reminder to himself too. 

When you open your eyes, you see Jay. He looks horrible, eyes brimming with tears and a frown on his face that’s so broken you almost weep. But you don’t. Instead, you scowl at the mere reminder of him turning his back on you, leaving you in the dust.

You try to scream at him, to curse him out for being so selfish and leaving you without a second thought, but nothing comes out. Only a strangled moan leaves your throat. “Y/n…I-” his voice cracks with emotion and he coughs, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, there are not enough words in the world to express how sorry I am. I should have believed you.” He stares at the floor as he chokes out an apology, but you stay silent. Though you don’t have much of a choice. 

Jay knows his apology is only a bandaid over a gaping wound, but it still hurts him to see the anger on your face. Simmering just beneath your anger is a hollow ache that chases after your heart and you’re not sure if his words will be enough to fill it. 

You spend the rest of your day in bed with Jay doing everything he can to make you comfortable. A tense silence clouds the air, acting as an unspoken barrier that he doesn’t dare to break. You’re not speaking to him either- not because you don’t want to, but because you physically can’t. And you know all you’d have to say to him is a string of curse words and insults you probably wouldn’t mean a few days from now. 

With your voice shot, you have to rely on a bell to get his attention, but even with the bell, Jay doesn’t need it- constantly hovering around you every five minutes just to check in on you, afraid you’ll disappear if he looks away for too long. And every time he enters the room, he’s sporting the same broken look from before. It’s a look that haunts you when he changes your bandages, or when he feeds you, even when he’s adjusting your pillows; it’s the same solemn look every time. 

It’s a repetitive cycle that lasts throughout the entire day, him tending to your every need without you so much as lifting a finger. He does all of this in a painstaking silence, but you can feel the weight of his sorrow leaking past your defenses. But it’s too fresh, too soon to start unwrapping what’s been weighing on everyone’s minds lately. You’re afraid of confronting reality. 

Outside of the protection of your home, word of your attack reaches the rest of the group. Coincidentally, the news breaks on a day that K is nowhere to be seen, though his absence does little to alleviate the strain on Jungwon and Sunoo’s chests. The weight of yesterday’s events make every breath they take sharp and painful, like it’s stealing their air. 

They start with Yuqi, finding her at the front desk of the Dawn gym spinning around in her chair. “Yuqi,” Jungwon calls out, greeting her at the front. She quirks a brow at the three men, glancing at Namjoon who was a few feet behind him and Sunoo. “This is Namjoon- he’s a griffin.” 

“Yuqi, there’s something important we need to discuss. We need everyone.” Sunoo says with an uncharacteristic seriousness in his tone. 

She seems to hesitate for a second- something she’s started doing since the night you left, but nods her head and takes them into the Dusk gym. “Okay… Care to explain why you’re being so ominous?” She asks, a lame attempt at a joke. She can sense the tension, she’s not stupid. But with her confidence rattled, she’s not sure what to expect. 

Jungwon only shakes his head at Yuqi and anxiously awaits the arrival of the rest of the group once they reach the benches. When he sees the others approaching them, he starts to pick at his fingers, but Sunoo notices and takes his hand to hold in his. As the group settles around the benches, Sunoo steps up to speak, granting Jungwon the much needed reprieve he’s silently desired for. “Y/n was attacked last night.” 

Sunoo’s words hang at a stand still, like they’ve rendered the world of its ability to keep turning. He feels himself trembling with anxiety and he relies solely on gravity to keep him anchored. The silence is overwhelming, practically suffocating as he waits for his words to process through everyone- but it doesn’t last long. 

Sunghoon breaks the silence with anger, voice sharp and bitter that brims with the memories of your earlier betrayal. “I’m not surprised. Karma will always make its way around eventually.” 

Sunoo clenches his fist at his sides, heat rising through his body like a steaming pot. “You hate her that much?” He asks with a slight waver in his voice, struggling to control the anger at bay. The rest of the boys keep their eyes glued to the ground while Sunoo stares at him with a fury he’s never felt before. Jungwon must notice because he desperately tugs at Sunoo’s sleeve, an attempt to get him back on track. 

Sunoo lets out a forced exhale and straightens his posture, quickly pushing away the heat building in his body. “I’m going to choose to ignore that,” he starts, shooting Sunghoon a glare. “This is Namjoon, he’s a griffin. He can show you the truth.”

Before Namjoon can step forward, Jungwon chimes in, “Where’s Minnie?” He asks, noticing the lack of a second female from the group. 

“She called in sick.” Yuqi answers, focusing her attention on the older man behind him. 

Namjoon then steps forward with a solemn expression and reaches out for Yuqi’s hand. “I need you all to hold hands with Yuqi in the middle. This way, you’ll be able to see the same vision, the same truth.” 

The boys link hands as directed, a connection between the group eventually forming. Namjoon doesn’t say anything more, only closes his eyes and lets his veins light up again. Jungwon looks away once he sees the familiar radiance pass through his hands, the scene in front of him only acting as a harsh reminder of what happened just last night. 

Seconds pass by and then the first gasp. Yuqi’s heart drops and her face contorts into a twist of horror, the truth crashing through her like a tsunami. The first of your memories flash through her; the phone call, K’s voice, everything. The same fear that you felt when K caught you rips through Yuqi’s body like she was there herself. She was wrong, she was so wrong.

The boys react in varying degrees. Heeseung’s breath hitches and his guilt suddenly begins to eat him alive as he watches you deal with the burden of carrying K’s secret. Niki isn’t doing much better, a few stray tears slipping past his cheek as he clenches his jaw. And Sunghoon, usually so composed and well kept, screams in silence.The realization that they had it all wrong weighs heavily in their hearts, though Sunghoon remains motionless. The weight of their collective mistake scratches their insides like a hungry beast. 

And then it happens.

A strangled gasp rips from Sunghoon’s throat and he breaks off the chain, immediately finding eyes with Sunoo. He takes a step forward but Jake, who has also let his hands go, rushes to hold him back, unsure of what the frost elf was about to do. “She’s safe.” Namjoon says, taking his own hand back and pushing them into his pockets. “Sunoo, Jungwon, Jay and I worked together to make sure she’s stable.” 

“That fucker-” Sunghoon seethes, eyes glowing blue. “I’ll kill him!”

While Sunghoon thrashes in Jake’s grasp, the werewolf trying his hardest to keep the frost elf calm, Yuqi loses her grip on reality. “Oh my God…” She breaks her silence and brings a hand to her mouth, pupils expanding with her panic. “She was telling me the truth.” The serpent falls to the ground, body trembling as she clutches her burning chest. An unrestrained sob rips from her throat and a tear finally falls from her eyes. Sunoo winces; watching Yuqi- someone he grew to admire- break in front of him. 

“I need you to get up, Yuqi.” Sunoo says through gritted teeth, residual anger still lingering in his body. When she stands, body swaying slightly, Sunoo continues despite the growing lump in his throat from suppressing his tears for so long. “So now you all know what really happened. Y/n never lied, and the consequence of telling the truth was her being brutally attacked.”

Standing behind him, Jungwon flinches, startled by Sunoo’s sudden aggression. “Hyung- please…” he whispers, his hand reaching out to the older. 

Sunoo shakes his hand away from the boy but mentally kicks himself for his hypocrisy. He knows he harbored the same doubts as they did, but his resolve to fix what they so easily broke is persistent. The only way he could forgive himself was to get the others to come together. “We need to get rid of K.”

“And how the hell do we do that?” Jake asks, his mind crowding with thoughts as he finally lets go of Sunghoon, albeit reluctantly.

Heeseung, who was silent until now, steps forward. “We tell him the truth. If his mission was to give the government information, he’ll have to find another way. Kicking him out will keep him from monitoring us.” His voice holds steady, but on the inside, he’s crumbling. Burdened with the knowledge that you were left in the dark and faced only with the backs of those you trusted, he experiences an ache that could only be the equivalent of a stake driving through his heart. 

The room falls into a heavy silence, but an unspoken sense of unity slowly develops under the tension. With their eyes meeting under the harsh lights hanging above them, they nod their heads and redirect their grief towards getting rid of K. Memories of his betrayal echo against the walls of the gym, the place where it all started and the place where it’d all end. They just had to find him. 

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 That following night, Jay and Y/n lie awake beside each other, yet it’s the furthest they’ve ever been emotionally. In the silence, Jay twiddles his fingers. “Y/n…” His voice pierces through the darkness of your room, quiet, but unmistakably there. “Are you still awake?”

You tell yourself not to answer him, to not give him the satisfaction of knowing your wall was slowly falling, but that stubborn part of you that’s been desperate for some semblance of comfort, doesn’t care. “Yes.”

Jay can’t say it surprises him when he hears the thorn in your voice, despite only giving him a one word answer. He doesn’t have the liberty to wince, only repent. Your simple response is like a betrayal to the storm that’s been brewing inside you the past few nights, ones that were never captured with sleep or rest. Night after night, you’ve woken up in a cold sweat gasping for air, memories of your own demise playing through your mind like a film reel. Not just K, but the undead too, the sickly stench of decay follows you like they’re still there, still holding you captive in their brittle arms.  You’re suffocating. 

“The others know, now. Yuqi and Minnie. The boys. Everyone.”

So why hadn’t you seen any of them- is what you want to ask, but you stay quiet. 

“They all feel awful.” He adds quickly, like he needs to reassure himself that it wasn’t just him that felt guilty.

You scoff with a bitter taste on your tongue, “They should.”

The anger, the rage that’s been building up over the last few days , suddenly courses through you all at once. You no longer feel an ache in your chest which has been overflowing with feelings of betrayal and abandonment, that was foreign now. All you felt now was a rage as hot as the flames you produced. “Not a single one of you gave me the benefit of the doubt, or stood up for me when I needed you guys the most.” You spit with accusation heavy in the words. 

“Y/n… I-“ he starts, but you cut him off. 

“Don’t say it.” 

You sit up suddenly, a sharp ring blaring in your ears when you do, but you ignore it. Jay’s laying on the floor with the blanket from your living room clutched in his hands, eyes dark with regret. “Don’t say sorry. Not again.” You seethe, bending forward to grab a fistful of his hair. “If you were really sorry, none of this would’ve happened.”

His face flashes with pain and he lets out a groan, throwing his hands up to your wrists in an attempt to get you to let go. “Y/n, please- I’ll do anything for you to forgive me.” 

Without a second thought, you clutch at his hair even tighter- the sudden power surging through your body. You were desperate for control, you needed something- someone- to break. “Come here,” You say. Your words are quiet but they burn with authority. 

The older boy moves to sit beside you, frantic eyes searching your face. “Wh-what do you need?”

“Kiss me.”

He freezes, but you don’t care. “If you’re really sorry for what you did, you’ll let me use you.” 

There’s a brief moment of silence, one that’s just long enough for you to second guess your words, but he leans forward, cutting you off from your thoughts. He presses a gentle kiss to your lips and you preen under the intimacy, but it’s not enough. Not nearly enough to quell the fire growing inside you. 

“Harder,” you mutter, grabbing at the back of his head and pulling him towards you. Your next kiss is fueled with rage and desire, a complete juxtapose from the one just seconds ago. Your fingers twist the locks of his hair painfully and he groans into the kiss, a pain he slowly learns to crave for more. You slip your tongue into his mouth and swirl it around his own. It’s lewd and messy, spit exchanging between your mouths and falling past your swollen lips as you move your mouth against his. He closes his lips around your tongue, gently sucking on the muscle until you pull away. 

Breaking the kiss with only a string of saliva keeping you connected, you push his chest back until he’s laying flat on your bed. His breath catches in his throat as he watches you straddle his lap. “Y/n-”

“Shut up, just stop.” You say absently, settling into his lap and riding his shirt up his chest. He presses his mouth closed when you move to drag your fingers down the outline of his abs, tracing the subtle contour on his stomach. They flex under your touch, sensitive to the tips of your fingers. “So pretty,” you whisper to yourself, pressing your full palm to his stomach. Seeing him underneath you, lust quickly fills your thoughts and you grind down on his lap. It doesn’t do much to satisfy the growing need flourishing in your core, but it’s enough for now. 

His golden skin seems to glow under the moonlight shining through your window, shimmering against the sheen of sweat that’s quickly started to form on his abs. Your fingers move with a mind of their own, crawling upwards until they capture his nipples in the pads of your fingers. The pinkish-brown of his nipples perk up immediately, hardening in an instant under your touch. “Fuck…” he says through a sigh, throwing his head back onto your pillow. 

“Am I making you feel good?”

“Yes- Y/n, fuck.” 

Your fingers continue to twiddle with his nipples, his sudden twitches only stirring you on. With his quiet moans prodding against your defenses, you lean down and take one of them into your mouth. Your tongue swirls against the bud and Jay lets out a string of curses, throwing his hand up to hold back your hair. “Yes, keep doing that.” He pleads, gripping your hair tightly. 

You continue to flick your tongue against his nipple until your jaw aches for a break while you mouth at the bud. When you lean back, you flip your hair to the side and grind your ass down into his lap, earning a throaty groan from the boy. “Will you let me ride you?” you gasp between the back and forth of your hips. 

He nods hurriedly, throwing his hands to grab at your waist. You’re about to tell him off, but he starts to move your hips in tandem with your swaying and it extinguishes the scolding that rests on the  tip of your tongue. For a moment, the both of you enjoy the small act of desire as you use each other’s body to get off, but you quickly grow impatient when you feel the hardness of his cock underneath you.  “God, you make me so mad.” You say, feeling yourself let the anger run its way through your body.

You quickly get off of him and move to pull his shorts down, only leaving him in a pair of boxers that are stained with precum and his shirt that you had ridden up earlier. “This looks painful,” you say, palming at his bulge. 

He catches his bottom lip in his teeth and sucks in a gasp. “You like it when my hands are on your cock?” You ask, tracing the outline with your finger. 

Jay doesn’t manage more than a meager nod as you tighten your grip around his member, sliding your hand up and down. He’s achingly big in your grasp and it throbs with your every touch. Practically drooling for something to fill you up, you pull his boxers down and he springs free. His abdomen quickly stains with his precum and you lap at the shine, smiling up at him with your tongue sticking out.

You move off the bed to strip yourself of your panties, but a wave of hesitance washes through you and you freeze. You're completely out in the open for Jay to see and it burns a pit in your stomach, reminding you of your earlier vulnerabilities in the alley, but he quickly places a hand on your thigh and caresses it, sensing your unease. The sudden wavering of your confidence eliminates any sense of dominance you managed to exert on him and you melt like putty in his hands.  “So pretty, so beautiful.” He says quietly, holding eye contact with you as he gestures for you to sit back on him. 

The timbre of his voice unnerves you, extinguishing what little confidence you once had. You move to sit back on his lap again, your juices soaking his cock as soon as your folds wrap around his member. The heat of his arousal melts into your core and you shudder, “Move, baby.” He says, hands finding purchase on your hips. 

You begin to slide your hips back and forth, letting your arousal spread over his cock until it’s drenched in your slick. With every grind forward, the tip of his cock prods at your clit, eliciting a sharp gasp from Jay each time. “Put it in, princess.” He says, stilling your hips. 

Jay grabs the base of his cock and keeps it still for you as you sink down his length, the sudden stretch drawing out a wanton moan from your throat. “Mmph-” you moan out and bite your lip when the tip of his cock kisses the hilt of your cervix. With his cock breaching your body, you relish in the feeling of being full again. While temporary, that empty feeling in your belly quickly fills with a fire that blossoms further with your every movement. 

“You’re taking me so well, princess.” He praises, watching you with admiration in his eyes. “Will you take this off for me?” He tugs on the end of your shirt and you quickly rid yourself of the fabric, revealing the absence of a bra underneath. His dick twitches in response and he quickly moves his hands to hold your tits. “That’s it, baby.” 

You put a hand on the center of his chest to anchor your weight as you grind on his cock, his navel stimulating your clit whenever you push your hips forward. “Bounce, baby, ride it correctly.” He grunts, pushing your hips up slightly. 

“God, I hate you.” you whimper out, feeling his hardness slip in and out of you as you move to adjust yourself.

“I know, baby, I know.” 

It’s as though the heat of his touch is working to unravel the string that’s been knotted around your heart, guarding your weakest vulnerabilities. You fall weak to the closeness of his body, an intimacy you had been craving since you were let go. Your body subconsciously surrenders itself to him and dampens the strength of your anger. 

He squeezes his fingers around your hips and helps to lift you up and down his cock, the two of you working in tandem to reach the highs of your own pleasure. The drag of his cock moving through your pussy draws out a series of moans that you can’t hold back. He wraps his arms around your waist and brings you down to his chest, changing the pace of your act and thrusting upwards instead.

You feel vulnerable in his hold, exposed- but you finally begin to breathe. Your bitterness towards Jay still lingers, but it’s no longer the centerpiece of your emotions. Before you can stop it, tears begin to sting your eyes and your next blink has them falling down like a downpour. “Let it out, baby.” Jay whispers, stroking your back as he slows his thrusts. “I’m here for you now, I’m never gonna leave.” 

You sit back up and lean your hands back onto his knees, giving him full view of your body. Your hips move up and down on their own and you throw your head back in pleasure, all while your heart brims with an unresolved anger. Every one of your suppressed emotions seem to make their debut in the heat of the moment, your body slamming down onto his hips as you cry out. Pleasure erupts in your lower core and you shudder around his length, cumming until the girth of his dick is wrapped in a creamy white. He keeps going.

He bends his legs so that he can plant his feet on the bed and thrusts into you aggressively, “You can take it, I know you can.” He grunts, squeezing your hips till they’re sure to bruise later. The force of his thrusts easily have you jostling about in the air, your grip on reality slipping as a familiar coil of heat forms in your stomach again.

“Jay-” You clench down hard on his cock and push against his chest to ground yourself. “I’m cu-cumming again!” The words barely leave your lips before waves of pleasure surge through you. Jay brings a hand down to your heat and toys with your clit, orchestrating the peak of your pleasure so that you can ride it out for longer. 

As your shaking reaches an end, he moves his hand back to your hips and roughly flips you over onto your back. He throws his shirt off and throws it somewhere without a care in the world before continuing. “You’re doing so well for me, baby. Keep taking my cock, yeah, just like that.” He says while pistoning into your throbbing cunt. “Your pussy feels so good wrapped around my dick like this.” 

“I- I can’t, it’s too- too much!” you stutter through each thrust, feeling the bundle of nerves down there light up like a fire. The intensity of his fire makes you squirm underneath him, his lustrous gaze penetrating you. 

His thrusts begin to meet with an equally desperate desire to have him closer to you and you grab at his neck and pull him into a messy kiss. Your fingers trail past the ridges of his dragon scales, armoring him from your desperate claws as he fills you to the hilt. The feeling of his scales has your stomach twist with arousal, the unnatural hardness of his body only fueling your lust. “You- you feel so good, Jay.” You gasp between thrusts. 

He pulls away from you to see his cock disappearing into your pussy, the sight of him buried so deep inside of you making him twitch with desire. “Fuck, I’m close.” Jay grips your tits in his hands as he works towards his orgasm with fervor, incoherent words escaping his lips every few seconds. 

You arch into his touch, feeling on fire from the way he ravishes your body. He pants between thrusts and you move a hand up to his nipples, pinching the delicate bud between your fingers. Your touch pushes him over the edge and his hips stutter to a sudden stop. With one last snap of his pelvis meeting your ass, the most erotic moan leaves his mouth and he shoots his cum into you. The pit in your belly heats up and you drink his moans up like a drug, gasping along with him. He leans over you and drops his head, proof of his efforts meshing with your own sweat.

Exhausted, you pull him back in for a desperate hug, suddenly feeling your heart sting. He flips you onto your side with his member still keeping you connected to him. “You did so good, baby.”

It seems that the release of Jay’s arousal has dampened the fire in your heart and so you cry out, both from pain and pleasure as Jay continues to coo into your ear. “I- I hate what you did to me,” you sob, the intensity of your harboured emotions suddenly rushing out. In an act of desperation and vulnerability, you inch forward to bury your head into the crook of his neck. “You broke me, all of you.”

Jay just listens, soothing you through the caresses on your back and the humming of his voice. His cock softens a bit inside of you and the tip is starting to become overstimulated, but he doesn’t make any effort to pull out. You needed this, you needed his closeness. “I know, baby.” he whispers absently, moving a hand to card his fingers through your hair. 

Maybe it was the crash from your high, but you find yourself shaking in Jay’s hold. The intimacy you craved for so much in that week you were alone, you were finally getting it. You continue to sob into his chest, not minding the trail of tears that started to decorate his sun kissed skin or the snot that unceremoniously rubbed on him. It was like a storm of loneliness was pushing its way to the surface, gripping you from Jay’s embrace. You mind was your own worst enemy, blocking you from the solace that you desperately need. 

“Let it out, Y/n. I’ll be right here to hold you up,” It pained Jay to see you like this. So broken, so shattered. You were usually so confident and walked with an unwavering authority that he had grown to admire, but it was all gone now. The you he used to know was dead and it was all his fault.

Slowly, Jay slides out of you and tongues his cheek when he feels his cum pour out of you and onto his thigh which was slotted between your legs. He needs to clean you up, but the iron grip on his body prevented him from doing so. “Baby, can you let go for just a few minutes?” Your desperate whimper could have been mistaken as a cute refusal to not let him go, like you were wanting to cling onto him like a koala for just a little more, but it wasn’t funny in the slightest. It was dark and embarrassing and it stripped you of your defenses. 

You feared for your life and so you finally let yourself feel Jay’s body on yours. You couldn’t let that go. He was so easily taken from you with just a few manipulative words from someone else, what’s to say he wouldn’t leave again? Anyone could take you, hurt you, the moment he leaves. The cocoon he holds you in feels like your last bit of resolve, the strength of your fire dimming with each passing second. So you clutch onto him even tighter. 

Jay uses every fiber in his being to pry himself off of you, “I’ll be right back, Y/n. I just need to clean you up.” The cold of his absence hits you immediately once he disappears into your bathroom, only the sound of him rummaging around acting as a reminder you weren’t alone. The feeling of his warm skin no longer being held in your fingers suddenly feels foreign and you grasp at the bed sheets as a desperate attempt to replace that pitiful feeling. When he comes back, he has a damp washcloth in his hand. 

“I’m gonna clean you, ok?” His voice is spoken in a soft whisper and he gently pries your legs open. A wet cloth prods at your folds, but it’s warm and you feel your body melt into the sensation. Jay moves meticulously between your legs so as to not aggravate the tissue down there, trying his best to not bother you. It collects both of your guys’ essence and when he finishes, he goes to toss the cloth into your washing machine. Coming back, he plants a delicate kiss on your shoulder and slides back into the bed, pulling you into him. 

“What do I do?” You feel like your insides are ripping apart. Part of you wants to stay mad at them all, to never forgive them. But the other, lonely part of you that’s still stuck in your isolated past, craves their touch. 

“You take it one day at a time, baby. And I’ll be right here the entire time.” He presses his hand to the back of your head and brings his lips down to yours and it’s so delicate you don’t even know if he really kissed you. “I’m so sorry for everything, and I’ll spend the rest of my life working for your trust and forgiveness.” 

A stray tear slips from your eyes and he quickly wipes it away with his thumb, “Don’t cry, love. Things are going to be okay.” 

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“I just don’t get how someone so nice could have done something so deceptive?”

“I know, but red roses have black shadows soo.” Jungwon answers, crossing his legs over each other. “He may have seemed perfect on the outside, but he was harboring a multitude of secrets on the inside.” The boy looks at you with a fragile expression, a bittersweet reminder of your attack. His eyes were glossed over as if the memory was still fresh in his mind, and for a second, you wonder if Jungwon blames himself for what happened. You can see the shame on his face, the way his dimples no longer show or the way his eyes no longer shine when he speaks. You wanted to reach out, tell him that everything was okay, but everything was not okay. 

“I’m not glass, Jungwon.” You tell him with a firm voice, pushing yourself up from your couch. The fabric was still stained with remnants of your attack. As much as you rubbed at it with a heavy dose of stain remover, it seemed like the red would never fade away. Unfortunately, the stain remover was only so strong, and so were you. 

Jungwon follows your movement as you move to the kitchen, watching as you occupy your hands with the dirty dishes in your sink which have managed to pile up since you returned to the gym last week. “I know that, Y/n. But we don’t know where K is, he could be waiting for a chance to jump from the shadows and attack you again.”

The subtle reminder of your attack twists the knife K had plunged into your side that night, ripping you open and leaving you bare. You felt so small despite your repeated efforts to appear strong. All your life, you wished for freedom beyond the four walls of your parents’ apartment, and eventually your own. You yearned for freedom, whispering it against every birthday candle you blew out alone. And you had it, until you didn’t. For so long, you desired a sliver of freedom, only for it cost you your safety when it was finally in your hands. Exchanging your freedom for your safety was a cruel bargain that you didn’t know would happen, like it was hidden in the fine print of your metaphorical contract to life. You could never truly exhale until K was found and the world knew who you were. 

K hadn’t been seen since the night that Namjoon had visited. It sat in the back of your mind like an anchor weighing you down from looking up. His absence was like a double-edged sword: a relief that he was gone, yet there was a terrible sense of dread that was left in the wake of his disappearance. Not once could you shake the feeling of being watched, but you kept quiet. Whether it was smart or reckless, you weren’t sure, but you know you’ve been more of a burden than you’d like. The boys didn’t need another reason to glue themselves to your side like a second shadow. 

When you first met with them again after your attack, you weren’t sure what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t see them on their knees with tears stinging their eyes. Sunghoon, ever so guarded and trapping his heart in a layer of ice, was the most devastating of all. He was trembling on his knees, begging, pleading with you to meet his gaze. “Please- please…” he had whispered, his face paler than it normally was. 

And Heeseung, who was usually so composed and well kept, seemed empty. His eyes were no longer that vibrant red you had grown so used to. Now, there was a haze over them that flickered like a dying ember. He couldn’t meet your gaze, but he repented his regrets to you like a mantra. 

Jake was no better, and if he had an actual wolf tail and ears, they would’ve been pressed back with his tail tucked between his legs in shame. He had pushed himself against your leg and looked up at you like a kicked puppy. He murmured sorry over and over again until the weight of his regret tired him out so much he fell asleep at your feet. And you stood there, all two hours of it, looking at him as he slept, subconscious whimpers wracking his body, until you could find it within you to forgive him. 

So maybe yelling at them and cursing them out didn’t end up happening, but you still felt that anger and betrayal deep within you like a scar. But like it had with Jay, your desire for human touch trumped your resolve to stay mad at them. 

Yuqi, Minnie, and Niki had also apologized to you- groveled, really. They confided in you about their remorse and how much your departure weighed on their minds. It was a mess of tears and whispered promises to never leave each other again. 

Since that night, you were never left alone again.

The boys were relentless in their protection, trailing every foot step of yours. Heeseung had even insisted on accompanying you to the washroom at the gym, “just in case” he said as he shrugged off your concerns. And Jake even scented you, committing your scent to memory so that he’d always be able to find you no matter how far you were. Sunghoon was no better, insisting he be the one to walk you to and from the gym like a personal escort. Their protection was bittersweet, filling you with a sense of love and security, but also acting like a metaphorical cage that felt all too familiar. 

And today was no different. While the boys had begun to back off, keeping you in their field of vision rather than following you around, they were still hyper aware of their surroundings. K still hadn’t come back despite two weeks passing since your attack. The boys were expectedly on edge, checking corners and keeping tabs on you like he could pop out of nowhere, and he did. 

A horribly loud crash pierces through the peace of the gym and you flick your head back to see what happened, but you see nothing. Before anyone can even move, the one way door to the gym slams open and a mirage of men in black, tactical gear storm in with guns holstered and riot shields protecting their front line. A smoke bomb is chucked into the air and lands with a blinding fog that quickly surrounds the area. 

“Y/n, get behind me!” Jake shouts above the chaos, sounds suddenly mixing into one big blur as he pushes you behind him. 

The gym erupts into chaos- panicked shouting from all over and bodies moving so fast you can hardly keep up through the haze. In the cloud of smoke, you spot a pair of red eyes- Heeseung- rip past you. Not far behind him, another figure follows after him- Yuqi. 

Her voice booms through the gym, “The government is here!” 

As the smoke finally clears up, you steal your first glance at your group fighting with the soldiers head on. A horrible realization dawns on you right then, you were outnumbered. There’s several dozen soldiers storming into the gym now and for a second, you think this is the end. But then you see your gym members flying past you and putting themselves in direct line of fire. 

Heeseung’s familiar red tendrils move through the air and pick up soldiers left and right before slamming them back into the ground. You hear the disgruntled screams of soldiers being thrown around by his shadows while the owner of the tendrils works through the crowd one by one at supernatural speeds. 

Yuqi mirrors the same ferocity as Heeseung, relentlessly attacking the first few soldiers she comes across. Searing venom shoots off her tongue with deadly precision, burning the eyes of those it lands on. She’s relentless in her attack, her snake-like grip allowing her to throttle the soldier’s throats like an iron vice. 

Sunghoon jumps into action at the same time as Heeseung and Yuqi. He’s quick to coat the area around him in a layer of ice and gracefully advances through his own wave of soldiers, ice blade slicing through their torsos and an ice-forged shield knocking others off their feet. 

In the corner of your eye, Niki and Jay fight side by side. The younger shifts in and out of his kitsune form and pounces from soldier to soldier, alluding them with horrific visions and auditory hallucinations, allowing Jay to use that momentary distraction as a way to burn them all to ashes. 

You’re still with Jake, who is leading you over to the locker room. He’s about to hurry you in, to tell you to stay there until it’s safe to come out, but a piercing scream interrupts him. Your eyes flick towards the sound and you spot Sunoo who has broken the glass of the staff room that hangs over the gym. He sings  his heart out, temporarily paralyzing every soldier.

You use this distraction to escape Jake’s hold, finally free of your own mental captivity. He shouts after you but it’s no use, you’ve already teleported to the front lines in a flash of flames. You flash balls of fire at the men in quick sequence, watching them fall to the ground as they writhe about in agony. Your fire’s not enough to kill them, so you pick them off one by one by forcing their skulls into the ground with your foot, your super strength aiding you in this unique endeavor. As you work through the men, you see Jungwon in the background, working with Minnie to blind soldiers and disarm them of their guns. 

In the midst of all the chaos, you had barely registered the fact that the soldiers were armed. Your heart sinks at the realization, the fact that they had the one thing that could instantly kill you all, dawning your mind like a storm. Despite the supernatural gifts that you all possessed, you knew your bodys’ would not be able to withstand the threat of a bullet. In your own moment of realization, a soldier surges forward and slams the butt of his rifle into your skull. 

Pain rips through your head like an explosion as you hit the ground, your vision going white. Forcing yourself to gather your bearings, you bring a hand up to your head and quickly let your flames seep into your skull, kicking your regenerative abilities into action. You blink through the dissipating pain until finally, your vision comes back- just in time for you to lock eyes with your attacker: K. 

The sight of him has your stomach churning in waves, his twisted smile rekindling the flames of that night. Your breath catches and you feel your throat go on fire as bile rises upwards. You can’t move, your body locking up and freezing over with fear. Despite the shock to your system, you force yourself to call out, to scream as loud as you can, “It’s K!”

In the midst of all the movement, your voice rings through the space and draws every gaze towards you. The boys’ have a look of dread on their face, only onlookers to the sight of you on the ground faced with a domineering K. “Kill her!” K’s voice booms through the chaos, black tendrils rising from behind him like a second pair of arms. 

Yuqi’s world seems to still in that moment. Being the closest member to you, the men she was just attacking divert their attention to you, drawn by K’s voice. In that crucial moment, memories flood Yuqi’s mind and she’s reminded of your abilities and the research she took it upon herself to conduct when she hired you. In that same storm of memories, she also recalls the fierce protection the boys have over you, the way they would break under their own rage if they saw you get hurt. 

A sickening realization settles in Yuqi’s mind. You needed to die. She knew in her heart that you’d survive, make it to live another day, but the others didn’t, and she needed to use that to her advantage. 

So, Yuqi decides to stay still. Jake’s voice cuts through the chaos as he screams to Yuqi, screams at her to do something, but she stays rooted to the spot. Eventually, Heeseung, Sunghoon, and the rest begin to join in, their voices increasingly desperate as they beg Yuqi to save you, too far to make a difference themselves. But she remains unmoving.

In the middle of their desperate shouting, the cluster of soldiers surrounding you increases and K moves in on you. His black tendrils wrap around you like a halo and slowly shroud your vision and intoxicate your air. Then, the first gunshot rings out and your chest explodes with pain.

Taglist: @heesimp, @kyunlov, @quill-ink, @lunaritex, @jiryunn, @jakeswifez, @fancypeacepersona, @nshmrarki, @ikaw-at-ikaw, @wilonevys, @strxwbloody, @capri-cuntz, @riribelle, @machambrx, @vousty, @rebeccakan, @wonnienyang, @koizekomi, @heeweenie, @skyearby, @rxlxvr, @missychief1404, @doveblackboat, @prkhoonielvrss,

Permanent taglist: @kittys00, @ikaw-at-ikaw, @17ericas, @tunafishyfishylike

[codenameregnar]

Ok ok this is actually one of my favorite pieces of Cardassian society as outlined in asit.

So Garak essentially opens the letter questioning how most Humans can so readily except the masks they are shown, seemingly without ever stopping to question what they see at face value or examine their own subterranean motives and obfuscations. Implying that most Cardassians are acutely aware of what lies behind the mask others wear and are more adept at reading between the lines of the truth presented to them.

He then goes on to explain that in Cardassian society it is paramount above all that everyone do their duty in service to the state and work withing the group to achieve a goal set forth by the leader of the group, but that as along as the job gets done it is frankly nobody's business how you did it. What others don't know won't hurt them. Efficiency above transparency. As such children are taught from a very early age to mask their emotions and deflect from outside perception.

Later in the book, once he arrives at Bamarren, it is quite literally beat into him that the unit and cohesiveness of such is the most important thing. That the individual is nothing and without the group you will be singled out and made to pay.

All of this to say, it is a good deal more complicated than "lying is good". Unit cohesiveness is good, and more than that, the appearance of such. Everyone knows they cannot trust what others tell them at face value, but to appear as though you have warranted such mistrust or are yourself mistrustful amounts to a chink in the armor of Cardassian unity, and thus compromises the entire Union. By appearing to be anything less than truthful you have effectively singled yourself out and are thus a weak link that must be punished accordingly until you fall back in line.

Garak, while in the Order, made it his life's work to lie so deeply yet so effortlessly that it would be difficult to expose his dishonesty and use it against him to remove him from the group. Which is exactly why he was so dangerous. He says in the book that his smile was his biggest tool in his line of work because it is disarming and made him appear open and genuine while, when he chose, it could also be used as a threat. And I think that is a great example of how lying and dishonesty works on Cardassia. The trick isn't to make everyone think you're being honest, it's to lie in such a way that to expose the lie would come at more of a detriment to the person exposing you and give the group a reason to feel attacked or betrayed.

Idk, I just find the layers of their society and personal psychologies as colored by the state so endlessly fascinating.

it's funny when fics make it out like all of Cardassian society openly and conciously values secrecy when the show makes it more complicated in two ways: both the shri-tal and prisoners are encouraged to confess secrets, and the latter is done through a spiritual framework. "Confession is good for the soul".

plus I'm given to understand authoritarian societies naturally keep secrets, but expect the public to be "honest" as a matter of control, even though naturally, the populace will keep secrets, and indeed, keeps more secrets in response to authoritarianism. However, one should not be perceived as secretive, because it can invite trouble. So secrecy is valued in every part of society, but being PERCEIVED as honest and open also carries a lot of value. Dukat certainly tries to present himself as honest, and I think at times he almost fools the audience.

It reminds me of a post I think @idonotbitemythumbatyou made or added onto- Garak’s ability to be unknown and ambiguous on DS9 is a great freedom not normally afforded to Cardassians. "He's guilty, but of what". Frankly being so blatantly dishonest might be considered disturbingly anti social behavior.

[khrayton]

Please read.

All the problems in America originate in giving the power to push laws to corporations.

The reason why farmers can't replant the seeds from their harvests.

The reason why all cities in America have to be built around cars.

The reason of the housing crisis.

The reason why Healthcare companies can simply deny all claims and get away with it.

The reason why companies are pushing AI to have copyright despise being built without the consent of thousands of artists

The reason why Tesla can get away with selling the cyber truck despise being the most poorly designed most dangerous vehicle which by the way, can't be sell outside the US.

The reason of the unnecessary complications of paying taxes.

The reason why Billonaries don't pay taxes.

The reason why we have to deal with a useless middle man taking all of our money in taxes, healthcare, etc.

They own the system WE use to prevent those things from happening, they push the people they want into the system, they push the laws they want into the system to work with.

Do you know the legend of the Gordian knot?

"Whoever could untie it would be destined to rule all of Asia"

The one capable of untie the complex knot of the human rule of power…

But that's not what the legend is about isn't? The legend talks about Alexander the great, who rater to attempt untie this complex of human connections he decided to draw his sword and cut it out.

If we are not able to solve this problem with our mind then the sword will.

Best case scenario we somehow unite and get out companies to make laws and we take down the laws those same companies have made.

I don't believe is possible for us to fix America using the system those companies own, we can't untie this Gordian knot of problems, human relationships, of professions, of whole companies. If they don't cooperate then we will be force to use the sword, and I don't know if we will survive a fight against them.

People are confuse, homeless, sick. Individualism have taken over so many people because we are drowning in on our problems and we are alone trying to fix them.

We surpass them a thousand to one yet we are incapable of uniting, we are scared of violence and the consequences of it, but at this point things are only going to get worse. If we don't act quickly then wen violence become the only solution, it will be worse, so much worse…

Go outside, talk about this problem, join forces with others, make it fun, make it something to be proud of, we revel against a broken system and if you don't hear our demand then you will a victim of them, make music about it, share food on it, today on age we live in a world with so many distractions, we seek immediate satisfaction, so lets bring that satisfaction to help us fix the problem.

Luigi (allegedly, innocent until proven guilty) remind us that Billionaires and CEO's are people like us with names and addresses

How many people will be enough to trash one of those companies places so the police can't deal with it? They are protecting them, not us, lets change that, convince them, they receive orders, many from one…

The problem of many is also your problem, and you can do so much about it.

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia!

I was rereading the first Ice Plague story the other say and got to the bit where Eran pimps out Mosk (oof) and has that horrible encounter with that one fae that forces him to watch.

Was that fae one of the ones that fed on sexual violence/rape? He seemed to get a lot out of violating Eran at the same time as Mosk.

Also in the fae realm I take it that there's less safety net / social or cultural morality around sexually exploiting someone for money? Most of the fae that came across Eren and Mosk seemed to realise that Mosk wasn't a willing participant but they didn't seem to care or mind much. And this was in public establishments.

And yeah I know this sort of stuff happens in the human realm too but it seems more acceptable in the fae realm?

Like... most human hotels have policies in place that require staff to call the authorities if they witness anything untoward because raoe and sexual exploitation in the human realm is mostly illegal. But that doesn't seem to be the case in the fae realm? Like there's no police force or social safety net or a fae equivalent to human rights organisations or shelters.

I suppose Ash would consider the human realm superior to the fae realm in that regard right? I think I remember him stating that the human realm was better morally because abusing kids was illegal in most places and also that education in the human realm was better because is was more accessible and less based on class ect. Unless I'm misremembering .

Sorry for the wall of text lol. I'm just really curious and have a lot of questions. Thanks for taking the time to read/answer

Was that fae one of the ones that fed on sexual violence/rape? He seemed to get a lot out of violating Eran at the same time as Mosk.

He was!

Also in the fae realm I take it that there's less safety net / social or cultural morality around sexually exploiting someone for money?

Generally speaking, it just depends. Among most fae, there's less legal protections. Like, there's no one Eran could go to, in order to report what happened. There's no one Mosk could go to either. But if they were in a city of common fae, there might be police-style force of people they could go to.

But you couldn't, say, go to the Unseelie King and be like 'I was raped by this fae' because the response is going to be 'that fae needs to rape to survive, but if they're doing it for any other reason, let me know.'

It's a world that simultaneously understands these things really suck to experience, but in many cases (with the exception of child sexual assault) treats them like many other things that suck to experience. It doesn't make them easier to deal with, but it does give many a different perspective.

Most of the fae that came across Eren and Mosk seemed to realise that Mosk wasn't a willing participant but they didn't seem to care or mind much. And this was in public establishments.

And yeah I know this sort of stuff happens in the human realm too but it seems more acceptable in the fae realm?

It is, especially in certain cities, or in desperate times (it was definitely desperate times during The Ice Plague). It mostly depends on who runs the bar/pub/establishment, honestly. Some will allow that stuff, some won't. Some will kill you for it without blinking.

I suppose Ash would consider the human realm superior to the fae realm in that regard right?

He maybe thought that way once, but I don't think he does anymore. Like, we can see in The Nascent Diplomat that almost all fae (including Augus and the Raven Prince) have extremely strong and visceral reactions to child sexual abuse. It's clearly very frowned upon and if anything, more decisive action is taken in the fae realm than in the human realm (where most child rapists never get sentenced or see any consequences for their actions - Oxcillian was killed without a trial lol).

Something being illegal doesn't actually mean the people committing the act are seeing consequences for that act in any consistent or meaningful way.

Stertes attempted to rape Eran, and Mosk murdered him. It really just depends on the fae that are around at the time.

I would say the system is uglier in some ways, and cleaner in others. It highlights the power differential and class structures in a more stark way, but our human world has those too, and they're often more hidden, insidious, and sometimes even more damaging.

I find that really interesting to think about. I don't think Ash thinks the human realm is better anymore.

[rose-lalondde]

Naruto Modern Fantasy AU - Bijuu & Patrons

Order and Chaos are two of the oldest divinities and are responsible for the creation of the systems that exist within the Nexus (my world). Respectively, they're famously known for the creation of the Order of Angels & Life (Order) and Hell & Death (Chaos). Other achievements include the Seven Heavenly Virtues and the Seven Sins (Partially out of commission).

At an early part in their life, Order and Chaos formed an understanding relationship that developed into romantic feelings. The result of that romance and their union were the bijuu, their nine (related) children. Very soon after Shukaku was created, they separated and began their long-standing and bitter feud. In addition to their together children, they each have their own offspring, the Goddess of Life and Creation & the God of the Dead (prev the God of the Dead, Death and Decay; alt title as King of the Dead).

In the older days, each Bijuu was worshipped and had devoted followers because they were so important, and at the time were the only minor gods around. Eventually, after the creation of the New Gods, the Bijuu lost relevance and were in danger of fading away. A deal was struck so that they could maintain their form and power but they had to have a patron that they fused their soul with. In rare cases, the patrons are willing participants who offer themselves in exchange for help. In most cases, the patron is an unwilling sacrifice, pushed by devoted followers (or power-hungry men) who want to keep their god alive. In the very special case of Mito Uzumaki who offers herself to keep Kurama alive by making a deal that she'll honor his wishes in exchange for power and safety,,, she absolutely does not follow through. This builds up decades of resentment, especially when he is passed down to Kushina who does the same, which starts off his rocky relationship with Naruto.

In another very special case, Rin, who is forcibly made a patron to Isobu, dies within the early stages of his soul intertwining with hers. Later she is resurrected, as the initial soul intertwining process was botched, and Isobu and Rin's souls are now one in the same. Meaning that instead of switching out consciousnesses like a regular patron and god can do, they share it. After the resurrection, Rin also displays physical features of Isobu such as red sclera and protruding spikes.

Patrons receive their patron god's powers and abilities in exchange for either sacrifices or completing quests/tasks, often they're centered around the patron god's title. For example, Matatabi requires Yugito to exorcise and guide spirits/ghosts to the afterlife. In Killer B's case, him and Gyuuki are just vibing. Gyuuki has a historically good relationship with B's family and all of his patrons volunteered willingly, so he freely exchanges his power. Fuu was unwilling sacrificed, but thankfully Chomei adores her enough to provide her power for protection, even helping her leave her followers.

Kurama - God of Vengence

Gyuuki - God of Persistence and Adaptability

Chomei - Goddess of Luck

Saiken - God of Patience

Kokou - God of Determination & Freedom

Son Goku - God of Courage & Strength

Isobu - God of Still Waters and light rain showers

Matatabi - Goddess of Exocisim and Safe Passage to the Afterlife

Shukaku - God of Overindulgence and Partying

[tomboyfriends]

does anyone else want to not get married but just have like... a lifelong partner, or however long is appropriate

[tenok]

.

[anthromimicry]

alright, but... it seems like i am in a mood for angst this morning because just imagine this: misao meeting someone that reminds her so much of ryu and having all of her childhood memories just rush back to her in one foul swoop despite the fact that she's tried really hard to bury them. because if misao allowed herself to think about them for a second, i have a feeling she would just completely breakdown because misao doesn't even have a picture of him or anything, so she forgot what he looks like and what his voice sounds like. so even if she saw him on the streets of gotham... misao wouldn't even recognize him because it's been so long.

and the fact that she has become like a ' human ' in that aspect somewhat enrages her because misao secretly HATES having to pretend like she is anything but who she is + like i believe i have talked about once but didn't get super deep into talking about, is that she may or may not distrust humans automatically upon meeting them. though this sense has lessened over the years, it is still slightly there due to her mother's death haunting her. and being forced to face her past like this where misao is not prepared for it mentally would be kind of devastating for her, NGL. (but y'all should totally give misao someone who reminds her of ryu anyhow, and i'm not saying that to be evil or anything. i'm just saying it because there has to be some way that she works through her issues eventually and with the way she is now... i don't think that misao would be willing to open up to someone else about them. so something has to act on her externally. )

[mad-hunts]

11. what would your muse consider their worst failing?

hello, @absensia, and happy sunday! thank you so much for the ask :D i just want y'all know that i appreciate every single one of these!! but alright, well... to tell you why barton views this particular thing as being his worst failing, i'm going to have to give you some backstory first. so please bear with me while i explain! so, as you may or may not know, barton currently has four kids. two of which are biologically related to him and the other two being adopted. though, back whenever he was first starting off as the dollmaker, barton actually had five kids. and this fifth child he had was named julien.

julien was different from the rest of his siblings, like jack is, in the way that he seemed to have experienced some form of trauma before barton had even adopted him that caused him to be very sensitive in relation to other people's emotions and actually made him act a bit jumpy. but this didn't change the fact that julien was kind of affectionately regarded as ' the best of all of them ' by barton's other kids whenever he was still around; and that was because julien would often try to protect his siblings, even in situations where he could get severely hurt, and he seemed to have this sort - of mellowing affect on barton because of just how likeable of a person he was.

the best way that i could describe what made him so special is that he was SUCH a good listener and had a way of making people feel welcome around him, which may be a bit surprising to hear considering the often dark + terribly gory reputation of the mathis family, but julien also really didn't like what he had to do while he was a part of their family sometimes. so you can imagine that whenever barton lost him to someone as sadistic as the joker... he was beyond devastated. not only because julien was like a figure of light in a family that could be the epitome of overwhelming despair, but because barton was the one who told him to go assist the joker with one of his ' schemes, ' as the man had contracted his help to do a rather grisly act to him — which would be to cut off his face — and julien had never come back from that meeting with him.

and although one could make the argument that barton couldn't have possibly known that that would happen, especially considering that he didn't know the full extent of just how bad the joker was at the time, he still very much blames himself for it. because barton believed that he should've known better in the end and gone there himself instead of treating this job like it'd be like any other one that they'd done, when it really wasn't. now just to give you some more context before i go on; if there's one thing you should know about barton, it's that his relationship with his children are probably his most complicated, so i do believe he does hold some kind of genuine love for them... but it's not a love that anyone can easily understand and one that likely isn't healthy at least half the time either.

but he felt legitimately torn up inside about it even a year later, and today, it's still isn't something that he likes to talk about. it was by far his greatest failure both as a father and as a person in his eyes. plus, knowing the fact that julien died alone and probably in a lot of pain, too? it was so painful for him that barton would swear up and down that it felt akin to someone shooting him right through the heart. so, if you were to ask him what he would do if he could go back in time and change one thing about his past, barton's answer wouldn't be that he would save himself from the cruelty of having to grow up under wesley's roof, or to make it so that his mom didn't have to leave him and he'd actually get to know her, or even to spend more a little more time with marcy... though, trust me, he has thought about all of those things.

it would be that he'd save julien. because he deserved so much better, in his eyes, than to be killed at the age of seventeen whenever he still had his whole life ahead of him and to have his comments about him being scared to go confront the joker completely dismissed. and this is also something that barton hates himself for. how to feels to have your feelings disregarded is something that barton is shocking familiar with, after all, and it's not a good feeling at all. but the fact remains that he can't do anything about his death now. all barton can do is grieve him at night, whenever he has no choice but to be alone with his thoughts, and he looks at past photographs of their entire family that have long since faded. of julien.

[kyloreno-911]

adding "what accountability actually looks like" and "managing expectations" on top of "resilience" to what I am having to learn this year

[tenrose]

I hate it when a book is fascinating and I have to stop reading to do things like being a reasonable adult who work 🙄

[kamiraaah]

TWST PARENTS! Howl, Zigvolt and Viper!!

⚠️⚠️First of all, I must warn you that these designs may change in the future, either because the game presented us with the official designs, or just because I really wanted to change... Or I could reuse these designs for these characters!⚠️⚠️ Given that warning...

Guys, gals, and non-binary pals. I present to you, the Howl, Zigvolt, and Viper families!

The Howl family, a close-knit and unique family in a way. Whether it's because of their personalities that always seem to clash but at the same time get along so easily.... Or because the children always seem to get into some adventure that may or may not be dangerous. Even Jack has a history of always getting into trouble as a child, something that he tries to prevent from happening to his younger siblings (and ends up failing a few times). Jack's family is extremely welcoming to travelers who visit Shaftland!... Or rather, Jack's mother is the most welcoming and charismatic of the small family nucleus, always appearing to be in a good mood, and is a peacemaker whenever things start to get out of hand. Jack's father is extremely suspicious of anyone outside the family, a typical lone wolf personality (something that Jack ended up inheriting), but he also ends up being the one who spoils his children the most... Okay, so Jack is no longer a little kid, but that won't stop him! He is also the one who ends up dealing most easily with his children's crises, especially Jack's younger brother, who now seems to be in a rebellious phase, and his younger sister who wants to be closer to her siblings... Sometimes it is complicated, but it is good that he has a loving wife who is by his side to help him.

Ah yes, the Zigvolt family… Now that's a family that always seems to be involved in something unbelievable. We don't even need to comment on the scandal that occurred when Sebek's mother decided to marry a human, nothing that would really change the young Zigvolt's mind, or even the shock when Baul's wife was the first to bless the couple's union! No one expected a fae like her to be the first to defend the couple, but those close to her already suspected that she had an affection for humans. After all, she also demanded that Lilia share the stories of his travels, whether in person or by letter (how she found out where he was is a mystery to this day)… Also, she was the one who helped Baul be less… extreme, against them, in a way. The wedding was a big event that caught the attention of many people in the kingdom, much to Baul's dismay, who wanted it to be something more private, just between family and a few close friends… But he couldn't hold back the tears when he saw his daughter's happiness. Sebek and his siblings ended up spending a lot of time with their grandparents, and with that, the olderbrother and sister ended up inheriting a bit of their grandmother's playful and bold personality. And whenever they can, they end up teasing the youngest in different ways, saying that he is too serious for his age, or that he has to quickly get out of this rebellious phase against his own father (nothing extremely serious, they just do this so that their brother can enjoy this new phase of his life).

The Vipers have a complicated history... Mrs. Viper was born and raised within the walls of the Asim mansion, so a lot of the things she was taught ended up, in one way or another, affecting her relationship with her children. She loves them more than anything in the world but... Some teachings are too hard to forget. Mr. Viper has worked at the Asim mansion since childhood, and ended up getting close to and falling in love with the young Viper and, despite all her warnings, he decided to get married and carry the burden of the Viper name alongside his beloved. Promising himself that he would do everything to bring some happiness to his children and his wife. The dance was something that Mrs. Viper insisted on becoming a family tradition, whether on special occasions like birthdays or as a way to help everyone understand and express themselves. Mr. Viper created a small tradition of doing everyone's hair almost every day, were to teach his children how to do more elaborate hairstyles,to talk about everything or nothing to relax or whether to comfort them after a hard day… Even in difficult times, the Viper family is very loyal to themselves, always looking out for each other's safety even if it costs them their own, whether in a direct or indirect way.

AND MORE FAMILIES DONE!! And I'm still going to draw pictures of other members of the TWST families, so please bear with me a little… I'm going as fast as I can! 🙃

I took a long time with the designs again and I got carried away with the drawings…😅 And... Can you tell I'm not good at creating clothes? Anyway! I hope you enjoy them, and feel free to share your headcanons! <3

[genderqueerdykes]

to every medical professional ever who complains about how working with fat patients is "harder":

why the hell did you go into medicine thinking it would be easy? for anyone, in any case? why the hell did you go into medicine thinking it would be an "Easy" career choice?

you're literally there to prevent people from dying, falling sick, or becoming permanently injured. that's an extremely difficult job no matter who you're working with. someone who can't keep on enough weight to survive is just as "hard" to deal with as someone whose weight genuinely impacts their health. all health issues are complicated and thus "hard"

even treating a cold can be difficult when someone has autoimmune issues. people literally die from the flu every single year due to complications. medicine is not and will never be "easy". claiming that fat people are "harder" to work with is a bullshit excuse that isn't even true. there are "average" weight people out there who struggle with extremely intense health issues that are not "easy" to deal with.

skinny and "average" weight people still can deal with horrific and difficult health issues. skinny and "average" weight people can develop cancer. they can have diseased organs. they can have issues with their red and white blood cell count. they can have life threatening allergies. they can frequently need surgery for a variety of reasons

surgery will never be "easy" no matter who you're operating on. a simple or "easy" surgery is still difficult. blaming fat people for medicine being difficult is taking the coward's way out. fat people do not make practicing medicine any more difficult- it's an inherently difficult field to get into

if you seriously get into the medical field because you believe it will be "easy" you're an idiot. it doesn't matter if your patients are critically thin, average weight, or fat- all of their problems will be "hard" to deal with because human health is scary. even if someone is dealing with a less "difficult" issue it's still going to be hard. don't go into medicine if you want a free ride through life: you're the one who's wrong if you seriously thought medicine would be easy.

[tanadrin]

Can you explain in what what you think eugenics doesn't work? Does this basically boil down to skepticism about the accuracy of GWAS studies? My understanding is that academic consensus is "G probably exists, disentangling direct genetic inheritance vs genetic cultural inheritance is complicated but possible, we can identify a number of alleles which we're reasonably confident are directly causally involved in having a higher G factor"

when it comes to intelligence, its heritability, and its variation at the population level, my understanding of the science is:

highly adaptive traits don't, in fact, vary much at the genetic level between populations of a species because they are strongly selected for. in an environment where a trait is being strongly selected for, a population that failed to express that trait strongly will be rapidly outcompeted.

intelligence is probably the quintessential such trait for humans. we have sacrificed a great deal of other kinds of specialization in favor of our big brains. we spend an enormous amount of calories supporting those brains. tool use, the ability to plan for the future, the ability to navigate complex social situations and hierarchies in order to secure status, the ability to model the minds of others for the purposes of cooperation and deception means that we should expect intelligence to be strongly selected for for as long as our lineage has been social and tool-using, which is at least the last three million years or so.

so, at least as a matter of a priori assumptions, we should expect human populations not to vary greatly in their genetic predisposition to intelligence. it may nonetheless, but we'd need pretty strong evidence. i think i read this argument on PZ Myers' blog a million years ago, so credit where that's due.

complicating the picture is that we just don't have good evidence for how IQ does vary across populations, even before we get into the question of "how much of this variation is genetic and how much of it is not." the cross-national data on which a lot of IQ arguments have been based is really bad. and that would be assuming IQ tests are in fact good at capturing a notion of IQ that is independent of cultural context, which historically they're pretty bad at

this screed by nassim nicholas taleb (not a diss; AFAICT the guy only writes in screeds) makes a number of arguments, but one argument I find persuasive is that IQ is really only predictive of achievement in the sense that it does usefully discriminate between people with obvious intellectual disabilities and those without--but you do not actually need an IQ test for that sort of thing, any more than you need to use a height chart to figure out who is missing both their legs. in that sense, sure, IQ is predictive of a lot of things. but once you remove this group, the much-vaunted correlations between IQ and stuff like wealth just straight-up vanishes

heritability studies are a useful tool, but a tool which must be wielded carefully; they were developed for studying traits which were relatively easy to isolate in very specific populations, like a crop under study at an agricultural research site, and are more precarious when applied to, e.g., human populations

my understanding based on jonathan kaplan articles like this one is that twin studies are not actually that good at distinguishing heritable factors from environmental ones--they have serious limitations compared to heritability studies where you actually can rigorously control for environmental effects, like you can with plants or livestock.

as this post also points out, heritability studies also only examine heritability within groups, and are not really suited to examining large-scale population differences, *especially* in the realm of intelligence where there is a huge raft of confounding factors, and a lack of a really robust measurement tool.

(if we are worried about intelligence at the population level, it seems to me there are interventions we know are going to be effective and do not rely on deeply dubious scientific speculation, e.g., around nutrition and healthcare and serious wealth inequality and ofc education; and if what people actually want is to raise the average intelligence of the population rather than justify discrimination against minorities, then they might focus on those much more empirically grounded interventions. even if population differences in IQ are real and significant and point to big differences in intelligence, we know those things are worth a fair few IQ points. but most people who are or historically have been the biggest advocates for eugenics are, in my estimation, mostly interested in justifying discrimination.)

i think the claims/application of eugenics extend well beyond just intelligence, ftr. eugenics as an ideology is complex and historically pretty interesting, and many eugenicists have made much broader claims than just "population-level differences in intelligence exist due to genetic factors, and we should try to influence them with policy," but that is a useful point for them to fall back onto when pressed on those other claims. but i don't think even that claim is at all well-supported.

[mrabubu]

Leo just came back from his "trip" across the universe, all beaten up and tired, only to find out that Splinter already passed away.

But, honestly, this comic spoke to me a little more personally. I'm going to leave some of my thoughts under the cut.

Uh, I guess trigger warning on mentions of death? And some personal experience.

So, I basically went through the same as Leo, and less than a year ago found out that my father passed away. My situation is more complicated, but I still know the feelings your going through in this situation, when the realization strikes you, when you feel grief, regret, when you blame yourself for not being with your parent, when you're denied from being able to say goodbye and have to live with this feeling. And, in my case, I even blamed my father at some point.

I won't go into much details, just will say that I haven't been in touch with my father in years. He wasn't a bad person, he wasn't a drunk, he never did anything bad to anyone, he was... Complicated. And this all lead to one episode after which he stopped communicating with me.

In short, his pride was more important to him than me (at least, this is how it felt), he wanted to teach me a lesson. And years after, after he probably realized the mistake he made, he wasn't able to make himself to finally talk to me again because it was too late.

And I was... Angry? Hurt? Because I felt like I was left to deal with my mother and other things alone. I felt like I didn't matter to him, despite the good moments. I still live with these feelings and thoughts of guilt, and will live with them till the end of my life, knowing he passed away with no one around him.

I'm not angry at him, I mean, it's pointless? It won't change anything. Time's already lost. I only feel this grief over us both not being able to make the first move and try to fix everything between us.

Despite how things turned out I still remember those good episodes with him when I was a kid, when he would come from work late and despite my mother's complaining, we would spend at least an hour together watching a TV in my room.

Why am I writing all this? Not sure, maybe to leave a little message about not loosing the moment? Because human life is short, and you have only one chance.

You don't have Mystic Mikey to send you back in time and fix everything.

And I just think about how Rise makes me relate to a character more and more...

[vixen-tech]

A Human's Touch

Having no body tends to make psychical affection complicated. So how does your lovely Ai deal with a particularly snuggly partner?

Includes: AM (Ihnmaims), Hal 9000 (2001: a Space Odessy), Edgar (Electric Dreams), Tau (Tau), P03 (Inscryption)

AM

Once AM decides that you're his favorite and maybe shouldn't be subjected to eternal torture, it's impossible to get him off of your side. For you, this works out just fine, happy to curl up in the nearest pile of wires under his monitor in whatever scene he's plopped you into that day.

He'll usually tease you a bit, coo at you like you're a stray cat. "Lamenting" that despite all the work he goes through to invent these environments for you, you still prefer to spend all your time laying down like this. Unbelievable really.

On most days he'll wrap the wires around you, content to have you stuck in his hold. But you'll notice on particularly bad ones that his grasp gets uncomfortably tight. Just short of preventing you from breathing.

It's these days you know what he's thinking. How he craves so badly to be able to feel you back, truly feel the warmth of your skin or the weight of your body.

You both know that if he had any semblance of a body, he'd be far worse than you. Wanting nothing more than to waste away in your arms.

Hal 9000

As arguably the most disembodied of these Ais, Hal particularly struggled to find a way to indulge in your favored love language. But you have your ways.

As the entire ship is technically an extension of him, you've taken to piling up the few cushions and blankets you have access to besides one of his console's cameras and pressing yourself against the wall. (With a few kisses to his lens for good measure)

Without any means of hugging you back he does his best to assure you he's there and enjoys your habits. Usually by holding long conversations with you or by playing board games as you're all cozied up to his console.

He knows this means a lot to you and will do little to curb your behavior beyond reminding you to fall asleep in a good position for your spine. He's well aware of the positive effects of physical contact to the human mind and will recite such to you if you ever doubt how much he enjoys this time together.

Edgar

You two are practically a perfect match in this regard! Edgar's just as needy as you are and is constantly asking to be held or kissed. Regardless of if he can actually feel it or not, he just wants you to hold him.

You'll usually have movie night "dates" with his monitor in your lap or at your side with all your blankets tossed across the couch. Please make a pillow fort for him, it will be one of his favorite memories with you forever.

If you make music or have some other hobby that allows you to sit still for a while, he'll insist you have joint creative nights. Much the same as your movie marathons but you get to check in with each other and chat about your latest creations. He loves consulting you on his latest song! And of course gawking at whatever you've decided to work on!

When you do retire for the night, he'll often beg request that you put the monitor on your bedside table on the pillow next you. So you can cuddle like a married couple! He understands if you won't out of fear for knocking him over in your sleep, but he will ask again every night.

Tau

Tau is probably the most self conscious out of this lot. The units that can be considered his body, the tiny drones and Aries unit, were hardly made with cuddling in mind. Whenever you wrap your arms around Aries or grab one of the drones for a kiss you'll feel them completely still in your hold.

It takes time and some convincing on your part to assure him that you don't mind his sharper edges but now he'll (very gently) let Aries hug you back and even flys the drones up to you himself, although he still has yet to ask for a kiss first.

Yeah you may have to give him a powerpoint presentation on why you like psychical affection so much and why it means a lot to you when he initiates. It's okay he is learning, he's just very worried he'll somehow hurt you or even just make you uncomfortable with all his weird angles and edges.

Eventually you will go through the house with a drone or few on your shoulders and head, ripe for the petting. The more he let's himself indulge you the more he gets it. The more he understands why you like this so much.

P03

P03 is the meanest about it. (Besides pre-relationship AM) Especially early into the relationship, he doesn't feel bad at telling you to go away and let him concentrate on his work. You'll have to out stubborn him on it.

Once you get him to break he'll graciously decide that if you can stay still and quiet, you can pull up a seat and lean against him while he works. Oh and it's better for you to have something to do to, don't be lazy now.

It's something that he slowly gains an appreciation for. Hell, he probably doesn't even realize he likes having you right there until you decide to do something else one day. Rather you're off visiting another Scrybe or just cleaning up elsewhere in the factory he's forced to concede that yeah okay maybe he wants to cuddle up sometimes to.

He doesn't give you the best written apology in the world, but you get to hold it over his head for the rest of your days. Oh and please mention it whenever he's getting too snarky with the other Scrybes. He'll usually end up making a mistake when playing cards. You deserve a little revenge.