#i know i mentioned the dire in-law situation like. last week but this is actually an elaborate joke my friends and i made several months ago | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

potteresque-ire · 4 years ago

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This is a response to @rainbowsky ‘s questions about BJYX, as the original post got too long for reblogging (I hope this is okay!). 1) Should we be worried about GG and DD being outed? I often think about what it’s like to be in the closet and I know how it feels to need to be SEEN. But I also understand the reasons why that might not be an option for them. Still, I worry about them being involuntarily outed. There are so many antis after them.

2) What would you speculate is the likelihood of this ever happening, and what might be the consequences if it happened?Is leaving an option for them, even as a distant goal years from now?

3)Does their fame and popularity hold any protective power in the situation (i.e. if they were to come out or be outed, would public opinion about what might happen to them have any impact on the outcome given the nature of the regime)? To what degree would that depend on how much money they are still able to make for interested parties?

My response is under the cut, as it got long, as usual ~

@rainbowsky, you’re among the first BXGs I followed! I’d like to thank you for your insightful posts as well!

Your questions ~ I don’t think I’m qualified to speculate because I’m still a very new turtle and also because of the volatility as well as inconsistencies of China’s sociopolitical policies. I do have a better sense of China’s politics than most international fans, but I also don’t live there and the only way to truly understand how things work at the ground level in a non-transparent country like China is to be there.

(For example, China has officially banned Christmas celebrations for the last several years, but as we saw last week, commercials remain very “Christmas-sy” and Chinese fans happily said Merry Christmas to each other. It takes someone who lives inside to know where to draw the line — what is permitted by the state and what isn’t — when the line shifts and adjusts accordingly.)

Here’re my thoughts, as of today (2020/12/31): if the perpetrator is only some segment of the fandom and the purpose is merely to knock them off the popularity pedestal, outing isn’t a particularly effective way to do so. Homosexuality, being a highly regulated subject in Chinese news and social media, is likely to mean limit transmission of the accusations. The accuser also has to run to risk of being banned themselves first. Also, with BJYX + ZSWW + LSFY being the sizes they are, the people who will most consider turning against gg and dd, ie, the solo fans, have probably already heard something. Some will leave, but the news won’t be a bombshell to them.

The next possibility is if a legal case becomes possible, ie. if China suddenly outlaws homosexuality. This scenario may seem the most dire on the surface but is also one that I least worry about, because with China’s judiciary system being very biased to those in power, if someone wants to frame gg and dd, they do not need to use sexuality as the accusation and subject themselves to the same restrictions as mentioned above. Tax evasion, as @peekbackstage has mentioned with the actress Fan Bing Bing, is far easier, because it tends the turn the audience against the defendant: these stars are making so much money and yet they’re not contributing their share! And as long as the accusers have sufficient power — remembering that commercial and political power are married in the country — the accuser can make up any evidence to suit their needs for any crime.

The third possibility is what I see as the worst case scenario: that the government decides they don’t want their major stars / entertainment industry to be *perceived* as queer — whether the stars are officially out doesn’t matter — and signals the media and commercial companies to stop using any “suspect” star altogether. (Chinese term: 封殺). This is the case of career murder without blood — laws aren’t changed; all the fans will hear are rumours confirmed by nobody. I see this as a possibility because of the Xi regime’s view of The Ideal Men , and my admittedly limited experience with dealing with older generations of Chinese, who I’ve found tend to confuse perceived femininity in men with queerness. I think, and this is only my opinion, that the sheer amount of adapted BL dramas in production (the so-called “dangai 耽改 101” phenomenon) and the heated discussions of them on Weibo will at some point trigger the government (which is made mostly of older generations Chinese). Even if gg and dd don’t do anything, should the government decide these adapted BL dramas, even after the elimination of their queer element, are “non mainstream socialist core values”, all the major people involved with the Untamed—arguably the classic and the drama whose success all these follow-ups are trying to imitate—can be cast as the culprit. If the same officials become aware of BJYX and if they’re somehow convinced that BJYXSZD, it can be easy be used as evidence of the bad influence these dramas can do—“they can turn people gay”—and it doesn’t help that according to reports, gg, at least, used to have a girlfriend.

Something more to consider: Gg and dd are also in a very special position now, in that not only are they immensely popular in China, no other native mainland Chinese stars have achieved this level of international fame with a native mainland Chinese production (ie, not a production from Hollywood, Hong Kong or Taiwan, or with a Kpop band). As such, they are likely subjected to high levels of scrutiny from the state. Depending on who’s in charge in the appropriate department, they may decide gg and dd have to be China’s image; they may have a set idea of what image it is and most likely, it won’t be queer. 2021 and the first quarter of 2022 are special times for China, image wise, both at home and abroad. 2021 is the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, and gg and dd are both starring in its propaganda productions (dd as a police in BAH and gg as an army officer in AT). CCTV, the state-controlled TV station, is already promoting these shows. So, for 2021, gg and dd are slated to not only be the faces of Chinese entertainment, but also the image of Chinese uniformed forces. If gg and dd come out or are outed, their allowing themselves to be being perceived as queer while donning uniforms will most likely to be viewed by the current regime as an embarrassment; a career murder, then, is an apt response to such transgression. 2022 is the year of Beijing’s Winter Olympics, so again, it’s the time where image matters.

You may have noticed a pattern, as I have as I write this up: them being outed is something to worry about, but also ... nothing more than anything else. If someone wants to tear gg and dd down — and there will be, given their massive commercial power right now and the increasing evidence that they’re working more like collaborators than competitors (ie, they aren’t about to tear each other down any time soon) — they do not need their sexuality as a reason.

(And if these accusers really want to use homosexuality as a reason, the unofficial BTS is, IMO, more than enough, as long as the accusers have sufficient power.)

Your other question ~ can gg and dd’s fame, popularity, and ability to draw consumers protect them? My (slightly) educated guess of the answer, then, is that it’s very much a double-edged sword. Indeed, the one major thing that may be going for these adapted BL dramas, and for those who come to superstardom to it — with gg and dd being the prime examples — is the economic health of China, which, by some reports that can no way be verified, are far worse than what has been reported. This is the thing about countries lack transparency; without reliable news, there’s no way to get the facts. Reports on China outside the country tend to be either propaganda or demonising / filled with conspiracy theories, and the truth is probably somewhere in between. If the reports of poor economy are true, the commercial sector — which, again, is tied to those with political power; ie the money made in the former goes into the pockets of the latter — desperately needs stars like gg and dd to move products (based on those recent consumer reports!) and with that, it will want to keep gg and dd and these dramas that can potentially make more gg and dd around. This *seems* to be what’s happening so far, with the the state-run media happy to show gg and dd’s dramas (when it should know, at least, that they got to the height of their fame playing lovers-not-lovers) and gg and dd’s sponsors not-so-subtly wooing the BJYX segment of fandom, so I’m tentatively optimistic. However, the current regime has also shown a willingness to sacrifice the economy for the sake of political ideology, so it’s not something to be taken for granted. (What’s going on in Hong Kong is a good example of that.)

(I always think, eat each candy like it can be the last one. With this regime, it can be. We can wake up tomorrow and gg and dd have to break up BJYX to protect the fans.)

(I always think, treasure, treasure, treasure. Ask for more dy and lz and Weibo posts, but never anymore from gg and dd when it comes to insights of their relationship, even without considering it’s actually their private lives and they’re under no obligation to share.)

(They’ve shared with us far more than enough.)

There’s really no precedence for us to predict the future of an outed gg and dd from, as far as I know. Confirmed queer stars in Chinese entertainment (those with sufficient followers to make news) have all been from Hong Kong, Taiwan and other countries. The successful BL dramas before The Untamed — Addicted (2016) and The Guardian (2018) — didn’t have a real-person cp that truly took off. Addicted, a true BL drama (ie, it retained the queer elements), was banned before it finished its broadcast. The two actors were also banned from appearing together afterwards, and this “signal” from the government almost cost the two actors their career. Bai Yu from The Guardian, meanwhile, already had a girlfriend as he filmed, so there was never a Weibo supertopic dedicated to him and Zhu Yilong. gg and dd, along with their millions of turtles, are treading untrodden ground.

Something I should clarify ~ all the things I said above may sound very scary to international fans, but to those who live in the country, they understand it as the way things are, and they strategise and move accordingly. This is their way of life. What I wanted to say, in my first reblog, is that we who’re outside may not understand why they do things the way they do, why they don’t, for example, come out with all the candies they are spending so much effort to give out, but I do believe that gg and dd have a plan, not in the sense that they’re scheming or trying to trick anyone, but that they are moving things along at the pace necessary to meet the pre-requisites for the outcome they want. What this outcome is is anyone’s guess, mine being that they have the freedom to work together, not necessary in lover’s capacity — most of us are not required to perform our day jobs carrying our identity as so-and-so’s significant other and gg and dd shouldn’t be exceptions — but as colleagues, professionals and friends (lovers are friends).

To some international fans, this may sound implausible, ridiculous: why do they need a multi year campaign for something as simple as this? As working together again? And I suppose, all these words I’ve typed so far is my attempt to answer this question, to ease the … unease, the frustration of those who may not understand. True to its marxist root, perhaps, many things that are considered mindless, effortless tasks elsewhere somehow become battles, grand struggles of sorts in China. That sea of sea lights on the night of Tencent awards, for example? It was the result of gg’s fans fighting, strategising in real time to smuggle those LED banners in when they realised the venue had forbidden their entry. They wrapped the banners around their bodies under their underwear because they were patted down by security at the underwear level; they hid batteries in their shoes. They ran batteries from one zone in the stadium to another during the whole show for whose who only managed to smuggle in banners or batteries. They fought the security guards inside the stadium, who continued to snatch away their banners even after seeing they were merely support material for the idols. They fought and fought, despite their identities were recorded by their COVID pass and facial recognition. Many confessed they had no idea what gg was singing during the show; they were too busy. They were there, some paying scalpers > 10x the ticket price, just because they promised the sea of red would be there for gg when he returned. When some realised dd’s banners were confiscated in high numbers because his fans happened to have seats right by the strictest security, they improvised, found an image of a green block to show on their cell phones to make makeshift green support lights for dd. They used Weibo to spread this trick to fellow fans. All these trouble, all these effort, all these planning and scheming and sweat and tears — all for one night, one concert and they laughed about it, called it a wonderful day.

(There are many ways for lives to be hard.)

The very first thing gg and dd need to accomplish, therefore, isn’t to announce what they do in the bedroom—the very first thing they need, for their plan to come to fruition, is to stay on top of the industry. How can they be on the same stage for the yearly Tencent Awards if either of them fails to make VIP? What’s their negotiation chip for a future collaboration, when the current norm is against cps like them working together again, if they cannot draw enough viewers and consumers, or if they offend Tencent and other media companies by refusing to see to the needs of the other side (for example, the need to promote new dramas)? So far, the two of them have accomplished this in flying colours. The other thing they need right now, the way I see it, is for their fans to get along. I think part of the reason they’ve made BJYXSZD so easy to believe in and love, in addition to their very human need to be seen when their careers may be safer otherwise (yes, I think they know what they’re doing, the candies they’re throwing), is because they want their fans to unite, as they have united. To make sure something like 227 cannot happen again, or at least, if it does happen again, their fans cannot be used as an excuse, as scapegoats. And this union is happening — slowly, but it’s happening. The size of BJYX (>2.8 million as of now, on Weibo supertopic) is a powerful indicator; I also had a wonderful time reading the comments of gg’s solo fans who went to purchase dd’s new song. This is the part gg and dd need their fan’s help. This is the one of the fews things we, as overseas fans who have limited access to their products, can help.

Your final question — sorry, this is getting so long again — about leaving. Of course, it’s always up to the government and It’s impossible to say what can happen so far ahead. But my perception, right now at least, is that gg and dd have no intention to leave, no intention to sacrifice their career for their personal lives and vice versa. After all, this is a pair who has answered those A vs B choice questions with a straight-faced “I want both” and “so annoying” without a follow-up reply. They’re right to want both. I like them for wanting both. And maybe, with their intelligence, charisma and hardwork and ambition and personalities that seem to clash but somehow complements each other’s, they will figure out a way. Maybe they are, as the Chinese turtles call them, the Chosen Pair, and they will be the ones who’ll change the perception fo queer artists in China, and we’ll one day get a biography about them and laugh at the candies we get right, laugh harder at those candies we get totally wrong.

(Dd ~ I want your honest opinion, in your own words, on the ones we get wrong.)

(Gg ~ videos of your expressions while reading the crazy theories the first time will be very much appreciated. By me.)

It’s a good day to look forward to.

#bjyx #yizhan #pie metas

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makeste · 4 years ago

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BnHA Chapter 289: Looks Like the Gang’s All Here

Previously on BnHA: Horikoshi was all “you guys don’t really need to know what’s gonna happen to Deku and Shouto right now” and cut away to Toga and Ochako before anyone could get a word in. Skeptic utilized the power of Freak Shounen Coincidence to magically zero in on Ochako and Tsuyu amongst the fleeing crowd. Toga was all “IS THAT OCHAKO” and immediately leaped down to fight them, ignoring Spinner’s heartfelt speeches about Villain Found Family because fight now, hug later!! Down in the streets of some unidentified crumbling city, Ochako was approached by a sweet old lady and was all “I better help this sweet old lady who is definitely not leading me into a trap”, which unfortunately turned out to be poor decision-making on her part. Anyway so now she and Toga are going to throw down. AND ALSO, P.S., BEST JEANIST IS STILL ALIVE, and that doesn’t really have anything to do with anything right now, but BY GOLLY I JUST HAD TO SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS.

Today on BnHA: Iida and Hadou are all “is it our turn yet”, and Horikoshi is all “yes”, and so the two of them finally burst onto the scene and are all “hello Shouto, Gigantomachia is on his way, btw do you need help” and so they all get ready to fight Tomura together. Meanwhile in Unnamed Ochako And Toga Fight Town, Toga is all “what’s up Ochako, oh is this the All Might doll Deku gave you, I guess you must like Deku as well, just like me, we truly are the same, btw I can use other people’s quirks now” before she vanishes in a flurry of knives and ambiguity, as mysteriously as she came. So that’s a thing that happened. The chapter ends with Gigantomachia and the League STOMPIN’ ONTO THE SCENE, JUST IN TIME FOR ENDEAVOR TO WAKE UP AND BE ALL “OHHHHH SHIT.” YOU’RE DAMN RIGHT, “OH SHIT.” Finally the pieces are in place for Dabi to reveal his true identity to Hadou and Iida, JUST LIKE WE ALL EXPECTED.

before I start, thank you so much to everyone who sent birthday messages on Wednesday!! I had a good day; my quarantine impulse purchase guitar that I ordered months ago but had been backordered finally arrived, and so now I can do something productive with my time as I continue to while away these months in isolation! not to say that capslocking over fictional characters and their shounen escapades doesn’t also count as being productive lmao. anyways, my fingers hurt so typing is kind of a bitch right now, but I’m having fun still. IF KAMINARI CAN DO IT THEN SO CAN I

anyway so let’s see what mishaps my various catastrophe-prone children are getting up to this week

okay there are several things happening in this panel which I want to comment on

IIDA!!!

HADOU!!!

“some time after” jesus fucking christ though, how long have Deku and the rest actually been fighting?? like it’s absolutely absurd to imagine that they’ve been managing to hold off Tomura for more than a few minutes, and yet everything we’ve seen these last couple of chapters suggests that this is indeed the case. which is just pure insanity tbh. excuse me sir, but I have an emotionally maturing son, a homewrecking grandpa, and a sleep-deprived one-legged platonic husband who are all in DIRE NEED of medical attention just FYI

lastly, I direct your attention to these two cool cats in the background who are both riding on hover surfboards. living it up like it’s Back to the Future. why are there two of them. do they both just happen to have the exact same quirk. what are the odds. ARE THEY TWINS. I want to know everything about them dammit

anyway so Hadou is asking Iida why he’s tagging along, because unlike the others, he can’t fly and is thus vulnerable to Tomura’s attacks and such

well Hadou I’ll have you know that it his DUTY AS THE CLASS PRESIDENT to tag along and THAT’S WHY

oh shit you guys IIDA SAID “FUCK THE LAW”

“plus Bakugou-kun, whom I am not particularly close to, but nonetheless hold nothing personal against!” well uh, kind of a weird distinction to make there bro, but okay. listen everyone, it’s a tense situation; if Iida feels the need to clarify the ins and outs of his interpersonal relationships with each of the people he’s rescuing then please just respect that okay

anyways though have I mentioned how much I fucking love Iida Tenya though you guys. feels like I haven’t mentioned that enough. I LOVE HIM. there

FINALLY

AFTER THREE WHOLE WEEKS WE FINALLY CUT BACK. OH MY GOD. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LONG OF A TIME THAT IS TO BE HOLDING YOUR BREATH. [EXHALES]

is it bad that my immediate reaction to this page was A LOT OF LAUGHING, though. fkldlksh this entire situation is SO ABJECTLY TERRIBLE that if I were Shouto I would almost be fighting the urge to look around for a hidden camera at this point. ASHTON KUTCHER WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING HERE. OH THANK GOD, IT WAS ALL JUST A PRANK

anyway so uh. heh. how screwed are we at this point, exactly. oh and also, whose speech bubbles are these. who the fuck would look at this situation and these bleeding children and say “HA!” what kind of monster. just ignore that paragraph right before this one please

OH SHIT, OH SHIT, OH SHIT

TOMURA I CANNOT BELIEVE I’M SAYING THIS, BUT PLEASE LISTEN TO AFO FOR ONCE AND JUST LEAVE

pretty please. we kind of have a situation here. not that I wouldn’t love to see what this icy flamey boi could do if push came to shove, but I also have had just about enough of watching children get maimed for today though

OH SHIT

THE TIMING OF THIS MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE AT ALL BUT I DO NOT CARE!! THE CAVALRY HAS ARRIVED THANK GOD

“WHAT UP GUYS, WE BROUGHT YOU SOME TERRIBLE NEWS” FKLSHLKHLK

WELL GEE IIDA THANKS SO FUCKING MUCH!!

lmaoooo a wild Lida has been spotted what the fuck is this translation though

I don’t know which is better, the “Lida” (DO YOU EVEN READ THE SERIES BRO), or the “CHRIST” gkfhkg. CLASSIC LIDA

OH SNAP HADOU

sobbing at Manual cradling the still-warm corpse of Gran Torino like a tiny baby khlk;h. BUT ANYWAYS HADOU SAW HER TEACHER ALL BLOODIED UP AND IS READY TO THROW DOWN, YESSSSS, THE MY LADIES ACADEMIA ARC CONTINUES

(ETA: listen you guys, there were many things at the end of this chapter that brought me joy, but perhaps none more than the inclusion of Hadou in the final two page spread looking all serious alongside the Todorokis, as if she has any fucking clue at all wtf is going on slfkhlkhgghsl. what I wouldn’t give to see her and Deku and Iida all making frantic bewildered eye contact at each other throughout the next chapter lmao.)

GOD FUCKING DAMMIT DEKU

ARE YOU PROPPING YOURSELF UP WITH YOUR ARM THAT’S IN SPLINTERS, I CAN’T EVEN BELIEVE YOU RIGHT NOW. SOMEONE PLEASE SLAP SOME SENSE INTO THIS CHILD. SIT YOUR ASS DOWN

LMAO TODO’S READY TO TAKE AFOMURA ON. THE SHARED HERO BRAINCELL HAS ALREADY EXPIRED. FUCK IT LET’S DO THIS

“true, I already watched him murder my dad, my boyfriend, my other boyfriend, my teacher, and dozens of other people, but gosh darn it, I just feel like the fifteenth time’s the charm you guys.” shit, I ain’t even mad. who’s up for yet another episode of Todoroki Shouto Attempts to Murder a Bitch

-- “TIME TO CUT AWAY!!” laughs Horikoshi as he gleefully dodges out of reach before I can punch him, that SON OF A --

goddammit. you’re just lucky that I’m invested in the girl power fight too

YESSSSS OCHAKO

DON’T BE SORRY FOR KICKING ASS! NEVER BE SORRY FOR KICKING ASS

damn, looks like she managed to touch Toga’s shirt but not Toga herself. both of them are so fast

now Toga is monologuing from the shadows

we’ve all been there, Toga. sometimes you see someone you really like and it’s just like, ahhhhhh gotta kill them am I right

lol I love Toga so much you guys, but I’m also kind of wincing in anticipation of whatever essays are gonna materialize out of the fandom this week explaining how hero society has failed her utterly and she is just a victim here. CAN YOU NOT SEE HOW SHE JUST WANTED FREEDOM TO BE HERSELF AND MURDER A BUNCH OF PEOPLE flhkklhl

OH SNAP SHE WENT AND TOLD HER THE THING!!

and it was fucking awesome and scary as shit, Ochako. like damn, still sends a chill up my spine just thinking about it

anyway so now Toga is continuing to explain that she can use the quirks of whoever she transforms into

and Ochako is kind of freaking out, which I don’t blame her for, since it’s probably really upsetting to hear that your stolen blood and quirk were used to murder a bunch of people. shit

so now she’s all “WTF WHY WOULD YOU EVEN TELL ME THAT”

??? was this somehow the wrong answer?

for fuck’s sake. Toga you literally came down here to ask her if she would be willing to kill you, and here she is telling you “I would never be happy about killing someone, that’s fucked up”, and you’re all “......”

like come on though, what else do you want her to say?? and why does Ochako look so shocked now

OOP

LMAO

THEIR FACES DKSLHFKG. TOGA NO THAT IS MEAN. and jesus christ Ochako it’s just a toy. I know it has Sentimental Value and shit but is this really the thing to be getting distracted about right now

FOR FUCK’S SAKE

JIN-KUN WHOM OCHAKO HAS NEVER FUCKING MET?? THAT JIN-KUN??!

OM NOM NOM

this entire confrontation makes absolutely zero sense to me you guys. just. Horikoshi was all, “this is the kind of stuff girls talk about when they’re battling to the death, right?” just, are you okay my dude

anyway so Toga has somehow deduced that Ochako got the doll from Deku, which means that she and Ochako are exactly alike in every way, and this is somehow an important plot point, and now they’re finally getting back to the fight lulz

OH SHIT

OCHAKO BOUT TO SLAP THE SHIT OUT TOGA WITH THIS BOOKCASE ON A STRING AND THIS LOUIS BAG OH FUCK

so now Toga’s all excited and she’s all “THERE’S SOMETHING I OUGHT TO TELL YOU, I’M NOT LEFT HANDED EITHER” oh snap

fuck, it almost feels like she’s trying to warn her. Ochako idk maybe you should run shit I do not like this ( ﾟдﾟ)

but of course she is not running, and she’s all “I’ll have you take responsibility for your actions”

HEY NOW

WHAT IS FUCKING HAPPENING, DID TOGA JUST FUCKING MURDER TSUYU, WHAT THE FUCK. I AM TERRIFIED, I DON’T WANT TO SCROLL DOWN, SHE THREW LIKE FOURTEEN KNIVES INTO THE DARKNESS, WHAT THE FUCK

IT’S POSSIBLE THAT I MAY HAVE OVERREACTED

so did Toga just Swip a bunch of knives for no reason and then abscond, lol what. CAN ANYBODY PLEASE EXPLAIN TO ME WHAT THE PURPOSE OF THAT ENTIRE SCENE WAS. ASIDE FROM GETTING TO SEE OCHAKO TRY AND YEET A BOOKCASE AT SOMEONE

fuck, she was crying??

DID MY GIRL TOGA JUST KILL AN OLD WOMAN, NAKEDLY LURE OCHAKO INTO A BUILDING, ANTAGONIZE HER INTO SAYING “I’LL MAKE YOU TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR KILLING A BUNCH OF PEOPLE JUST BECAUSE YOU FELT LIKE IT”, STEAL HER DOLL, GIVE HER DOLL BACK, TELL HER “OH SO YOU LIKE DEKU TOO HUH? BTW I CAN USE OTHER PEOPLE’S QUIRKS”, AND THEN RUN AWAY CRYING??? BRUH

-- OH SHIT, OH FUCK

[SIRENS BLARING WILDLY] [AUDIENCE LEAPING OUT OF THEIR SEATS] [T-SHIRT CANNONS BOOMING IN THE AIR] [VIKING WAR HORN SOUNDS IN THE DISTANCE] FUUUUUUUUUCK

well never the fuck mind about Ochako and Toga and WHATEVER THE FUCK THAT ALL WAS SUPPOSED TO BE, I guess, BECAUSE!! MACHIA MADNESS HAS ARRIVED. SPEARS SHALL BE SHAKEN!!! SHIELDS SHALL BE SPLINTERED!!

AND LOOK WHO WOKE UP FROM HIS NUMBER ONE HERO BEAUTY NAP RIGHT ON CUE, TOO!!! ATTENTION ALL PASSENGERS... IIIIIIIIIIT’S TOUYA TIMEEEEEEEE

#bnha 289 #iida tenya #hadou nejire #toga himiko #uraraka ochako #todoroki shouto #todorokibowl 2020 #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #makeste reads bnha

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kayteewritessteve · 5 years ago

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Beautifully Unfinished - 5/8

Description: One foolish outburst, one moment of weakness at the worst possible time, and everything goes up in smoke. Who knew finally voicing your true, deep-rooted feelings, would lead to the complete destruction of your most cherished friendship?

Masterlist HERE.

Word Count: 4,580 ish.

Pairing: Modern!Steve Rogers x Reader.

Rating: PG.

Warnings: Curse words. Lots of angst. But if you’ve read my stories before, then you know how this will end.

A/N: I sadly don’t own any of these characters. And no beta reader, so I do proudly own all the errors and this story, so there’s that.

First Careers.

You quickly make your way down the busy sidewalk, trying to make up for the few extra minutes it took to get out of work. You’d been working for Avengers Publishing House for 3 weeks now, and were loving it so far. Though it was a lot of work and you didn’t really have much free time anymore. You barely got to see your best friends lately, you all just starting on your career paths and slowly figuring out your own lives and new jobs.

Bucky had just passed his bar exam, and had started at a prestigious law firm about 2 weeks ago. You hadn’t seen much of him lately, but you kept each other informed on your day to day lives via text. He was enjoying the new job, but made it very clear that it was a learning curve and very draining work. Going from school life, to the working force was a shell shock for sure. Yes, you had all the book knowledge, but none of the real word experience, so new jobs were a lot to take in at first. You all figured they would be, but not to this extent. But he was happy, and thriving in his career choice, so that’s what truly mattered.

Steve had gotten a paid intern position at the MoMA, it was a once in a lifetime experience and he was over the moon for being chosen for the spot. But he had busted his ass to get it and you couldn’t have been prouder of him or his accomplishments. This was a huge stepping stone for him and his career, and from here more doors would be opened for him, and he’d have many more exciting and fulfilling opportunities in the future. He’d been there for 3 weeks now, having started damn near directly after leaving school.

And you, we’ll you’d been offered a Junior Editors position with Avengers, a very well known and reputable publishing house in Manhattan. It was the first stop on the climb to your dream job, and you were overjoyed with the opportunity to join their team. You’d always loved reading, and at a young age you’d figured out that being a publisher was right up your alley. And now that you had your foot in the door, you’d been entirely right on that thought. But it was a lot of work, late hours and spending your weekends at home and making your way through the stack of manuscripts you’d been given on a deadline.

So you had barely seen the guys over the last few weeks, you’d have the odd small coffee meets on rushed lunch breaks. Or the odd night you’d get together for your traditional weekly BFMMN™ (Best Friend Movie and Munchie Night.) But lately it was less of a tradition, and definitely not weekly. And when you did manage to come together, you’d all usually be out of it and exhausted, so the conversation was non-existent or minimal, at best. You all just being happy in the presence of your best friends, even in utter silence. It was better than nothing.

But today, you were all meeting for dinner, going out to finally celebrate your new jobs and your introductions to the working force. And in Classic You form, you’d lost track of time and were now running late. As per usual.

The restaurants sign finally comes into view and you pick up the pace a little, maneuvering through the swarms of people that always seemed to crowd the city sidewalks. But especially directly after working hours, all the people moving to and from their jobs, their homes and various businesses along the streets. Going to meet friends, to grab coffee or just take a leisurely stroll.

You weren’t taking a leisurely stroll currently though, you were damn near throwing elbows to get to the restaurant in a timely manner. You weren’t super late, by any means, but late was late, and awarded you less time with your best friends. Which wasn’t okay, at all. Not lately at least, not with how little you’d seen either of them the last few weeks.

You’d planned this dinner with them a few weeks ago, to make sure you all were free and clear, and wouldn’t miss it for anything else. You’d made the guys swear to set reminders in their phones so no one forgot or made other conflicting plans tonight. Come hell or high water, you were having dinner with your friends, and then the three of you were returning to your place after, for a few drinks and a movie. There was no getting out of it this time, you needed a fun, relaxing night with your guys, desperately.

You reach the entrance to the restaurant and quickly pull open the door, finding a beautiful young woman standing behind a podium. She asks for the reservation name, and you give her yours as you’d set it up. She smiles, informing you that only one other person has arrived so far and then leads you to the back where the table is.

As your eyes scan the room quickly, they land on a glorious head of blonde hair and a large involuntary smile takes over your face. Stevie, you should have guessed he’d be here first, he was always on time, or in most cases, early.

You also shouldn’t have been so worried about being a few minutes late, as Bucky always showed up last. You were positive that the guy treated being fashionably late like it was a dang character trait. He took it seriously, and never showed up on time, not even remotely.

He ran on his own clock and you’d actually lied to him a few times over the years, giving him incorrect early start times for important things, so that he’d end up late for the fake start time, but right on time for the real one. He’d always chuckle the second he arrived and saw the smug and satisfied expressions on yours and Steve's faces at him accidentally, yet strategically, arriving on time. Though you couldn’t pull that trick too often, or it would cease to work, so you had to pick your battles, and only use it in important or dire situations.

You make your way towards the table, and Steve, admiring the unfairly beautiful angle, even if it was the back of his head. But that wasn’t a shock, the guy was gorgeous and looked outstanding from all sides. It was wholly unfair and a rather large piss off, if you were honest, the guy didn’t have a bad angle anywhere. All hard lines, muscles and taut tanned skin. Then his perfect blonde hair and mesmerizing deep blue eyes, he was the walking embodiment of perfection in your eyes, and probably in many other people's eyes as well.

As you get closer to the table, you notice he is hunched forward a little and looking down, and it doesn’t take a rocket doctor to guess that he probably has his illusive sketchbook out. You have always known, from early on, that Steve loved to draw. He took his sketchbook everywhere with him and pulled it out whenever he was waiting, or no one was watching. But you’d only ever seen a few of his sketches, he was very secretive about his artwork. He didn’t like to show it off and the odd time he did, he was always humble yet embarrassed by it. Saying that it either wasn’t finished yet, or wasn’t that good.

You’d praise the artwork every time though, and not because you were his best friend, but because it was genuinely always amazing. He had a real talent, if he could just get over his insecurities and actually show his work off to the world, he’d see just how honest your praises really were.

But he’d always shrink away at the mention of showing people, saying he didn’t draw for recognition, but instead just for him. It was his stress relief and he only drew whatever caught his eye or inspired him that day. Like little snapshots of his life that were just for his eyes, and his eyes only.

You gave up trying to persuade him to share his art with the world, hell, to even just share it with you and Buck. And instead you’d just leave the topic entirely alone, it wasn’t your place to demand anything from him, especially if it made him uncomfortable. Or felt like you were pulling teeth. So you’d dropped the whole art thing completely, and instead just left it up to him to decide what, and when, he shared it with you. And each time he’d show you a little something, you lapped it up with eager enjoyment and locked away the mental snapshot forever. Taking any little morsel he offered and loving it as brightly as you could.

The fact he even showed you anything, spoke volumes to you. Made you feel so immensely special to be one of the select few who got to actually set eyes on his artwork.

“Whatcha drawing, Stevie?” You asked abruptly as you reached the table, pointedly not looking at his sketchbook out of respect for his art privacy. You quickly took your jacket off, hanging it on the back of your chair before taking the seat across from him.

Steve calmly, but promptly, shut the book and glanced up at you, no matter how many times you tried to startle him, it never worked. The guy had eyes on the back of his head, you swear. He smiled at you, before tucking the book and pencils away in his messenger bag. “Just the things around me. Ya know, the usual,” he shrugged.

You just nodded, averting your eyes to the menu in front of you, as you picked it up and glanced over the options. “Sorry I’m late, got tied up at work,” you pause, glancing around the table playfully before locking eyes with Steve and smirking. “But I see the Jerk is keeping up his personally appointed job of making me always feel on time,” you chuckled, and Steve did as well.

“Well, you know him, he always has to arrive last so we can all fully appreciate his outfit choice,” he grins and shakes his head, picking up his own menu also.

You both fall into a silence, it’s not exactly awkward, but it’s not exactly comfortable either. You and Steve have sort of drifted since he started dating Hailey, not so much physically but more mentally. You still hang out as a group, but no longer just the two of you. And you still talk, but no longer as deeply, it’s mainly surface stuff now. Your jobs, your families, your day to day lives.

He doesn’t talk about Hailey with you often, if at all, he keeps pretty mum about her actually. Barely even saying her name in your presence unless he absolutely has to. No lie, you're thankful for that, but also not at the same time, especially since their third date they’ve been damn near inseparable. Spending almost all their free time together, but he still makes the effort to join in on the group stuff. And luckily for you, he’s never once brought Hailey along, he’s never even asked, not once. He seems to understand and respect that your group time is just for your little circle of 3.

But it’s not that she wouldn’t be welcome to join, every once and awhile. You’d suck up your stupid jealous bullshit here and there, if you had to. She made Steve happy, from the small things you’d heard, and could perceive in your childhood best friend. So having her around the odd time, you could deal with, you weren’t a complete asshole. But yet you liked that he never brought her around, for the sake of your heart, but not that he did it for that reason. God no, he still had no clue of your feelings, and to this day, you’d still never voiced them aloud.

You guessed he never invited her more for the sake that you and Bucky were his friends, his best friends, and sometimes he just needed time away from Hailey. Time to just be a party of one, with people who truly knew him. He had his separate friends that he shared with Hailey, and she had her own friends that were entirely her own. It was a mutual thing for them, their own ways to escape and get the time they needed away from each other, so that the relationship didn’t feel smothering or overbearing. Little spaces here and there are so important, and needed to keep a relationship healthy and thriving. To keep it from turning toxic and becoming too codependent, because that was never a good thing.

Plus you figured he kept her separated because the three of you had so much history, that Hailey may have felt left out or like an outsider to, as she wasn’t around for most of your friendship. Nor was she present for many of the big, and memorable moments that you all reminisced about or brought up often.

Whatever his true reasonings were, you were just secretly thankful for them. And for the fact you had your guys entirely to yourself, whenever you got together. Yes, it was selfish, but most humans hate change, and with certain things, you weren’t any different. You were entirely human, after all.

“Works going okay?”

“Hmm?” You hum, lifting your eyes to find Steve studying you now, his focus no longer on his menu. How long was he staring at you? You have no clue. Are you positive that your slightly disheartened thoughts were clear as day on your face, and that he probably saw them all? Oh 100%, judging by the concerned look on his face currently. You clearly really needed to work on your poker face, it had obviously deteriorated in the last few weeks, what with your lack of needing to use it. “Oh, yeah,” you plaster on your signature fake smile. “Work is going great. How about you? How’s the prestigious MoMA treating you?”

His eyes light up, like they always do when he is excited about something. “It’s amazing, Y/N. Everyone has been so helpful and very knowledgeable. I’ve learned more in the last 4 weeks than I did in my entire time at school.” He chuckles, “or at least it feels like I have.”

“That’s wonderful to hear, Steve. I’m so happy you are enjoying it so much,” you smile fondly at him. This one a real smile for once. “No one deserves this experience as much as you, as you busted your ass in school.” You grin cheekily at him, “and I’d know, I was the one who had to drag you out of the library weekly, to force you to eat a real meal.”

“Isn’t that the truth,” He laughs at that, “did I ever properly thank you for single handedly keeping me alive back then?”

You place a finger on your chin as you hum, in feigned deep thought then shake your head. “Not that I can remember. But I take praise and apologizes in the form of baked goods, if you forgot.”

He smirks and shakes his head, “oh, I didn’t forget. Not for a damn second, not when a dozen cookies saved my ass more than a few times with you, throughout the years.”

“That they did,” you laugh, nodding in agreement to his words. “How’s Hailey?” The words slip from your mouth unfiltered and you want to kick yourself. Yet, you are curious how things are with them, you just should have waited till Bucky was here to act as a buffer. Because your conflicting thoughts on the topic of Steve's relationship caused you to do and say the dumbest things when she was occasionally brought up.

You were happy that he was, you truly wanted the best for him. But you still carried this ridiculous torch for him, and it hurt a little every time she was brought up. You were selfishly jealous of her, or maybe less of her, and more of the man she got to call her own. The one man you always wanted that privilege with, but would never get. You knew that, but just couldn’t fully come to terms with it. Maybe one day you would, maybe one day she could be brought up and you wouldn’t cringe internally and feel your heart crack a little more each time.

“Ah, good. She’s good,” he nods, focusing back on his menu. “What looks good here?”

You take a silent deep breath in, your abrupt question luckily not sullying the mood. “I was thinking the Cordon Bleu Chicken Burger sounds fantastic,” you hum, glancing over the options, “but then the Teriyaki Chicken Rice Bowl looks amazing as well.” You groan, “ugh, why can I never just pick one? Why do I always get stuck between two choices, and then literally have to decide when the waitress appears and asks what I want?”

Steve chuckles, “and then you instantly regret your choice the second the waitress walks away.”

You are just about to refute that, but a new voice joins the mix. “But then once the food arrives, she goes on and on about how good of a choice she made. And how great the food is.”

You snap your eyes over and see a grinning Bucky walking towards your table. He takes his jacket off and hangs it on the back of his chair before taking a seat in the spot beside Steve.

“Okay, I’m not that bad,” you defend and playfully roll your eyes at the guys chuckling and shaking their head in disagreement of your words.

“Oh, you totally are,�� Bucky reaffirms for good measure.

Which causes you to laugh, “okay, fine, maybe I am. But just a little.”

“Try a lot,” Steve corrects and you sigh deeply, jokingly. Which causes you all to laugh before exchanging your fond hello’s, and asking Bucky the basic life update questions, before you all focus on the menu to make your selections before the waitress appears.

Once the food is ordered, you having once again left the choice to the last minute and then just threw your pick at the waitress like always, the three of you fall into a comfortable and familiar conversation. Taking about the ‘good old days’ and the more in-depth topics.

The food arrives and you all enjoy it, immensely. And once again, you are completely happy with your choice, like the guys mentioned, and your momentary panic for possibly ordering the wrong thing, also like they mentioned, flies out the window. Like every other time, which is so Classically You—as Bucky had pointed out directly after you’d all finished eating. Causing Steve to laugh and you to glare fondly at the large brunette.

Dinner goes well but just as the three of you are paying your separate bills, Steve’s phone rings and he pulls it from his bag, apologizing for forgetting to put it on silent. As was the Rule for group night, that being put in place back in high school when Bucky’s phone had gone off damn near the entire night and he’d ended up essentially ignoring you and Steve to reply to all his ‘fans’ as you’d dubbed them. So you’d implemented a silent phone policy, which basically meant no phones allowed on BFMMN™.

He steps away for a moment, saying it’s Hailey and promising to be quick. You sigh quietly to yourself and stand with Bucky, waiting for Steve to return.

“Hopefully everything’s okay,” you comment softly, slightly irked for the interruption to group night, but also a little worried as Hailey is usually super respectful of your group time. She normally never bothers Steve while he is with you, another thing you are really thankful for. You’re happy he found someone who isn’t overly intrusive or overbearing, she is good for him, as much as you hate to admit it, it’s the truth.

“I’m sure it is, she probably just can’t find the TV remote again,” Bucky shakes his head and his words cause you to furrow your brows and glance up at him.

“What?” You ask confused. Why would she call for something like that? “What do you mean?”

Bucky purses his lips, looking like he just realized he said too much. But why would he feel like that? “Ah, it’s nothing, really. She does it all the time,” he shrugs it off.

What the hell? “Does what all the time? Loses the TV remote?”

“No,” he sighs, scratching the side of his head, it’s a nervous tick of his, he does it whenever he is trying to find the right words. Which only intrigues you more. “Constantly calls him for silly little pointless things. I think she does it to ‘check in’ on him. Make sure he is where he says he is. I’ve mentioned my thoughts about it to Steve, but he just waves them off and says she is just forgetful.”

“Wait, wait,” you put up a hand as if to pause the conversation. “What are you going on about? She doesn’t call all the time. She’s never called him on group nights in the past.”

Bucky gives you a weird assessing look, “yes, she has. Every time, and multiple times per night. But Steve is usually really good with shutting his phone off before he joins us, so that it doesn’t go off constantly while we are all together.” He grins and in Classic Bucky form, he tries to fix the strange awkward atmosphere with humour. “I think you scared the Jesus out of him—or into him, whichever, when you snapped at me that one time for my phone going off all night. Since that night, he’s made it his life’s mission to never be on the receiving end of your cranky outbursts about phone etiquette during group time,” he chuckles. Then jokingly cringes, “You’re scary as hell when you're mad.”

“I had no idea,” you say quietly. Here you’d just finished praising the woman in your mind for her ‘respect’ for group night. When really, that clearly isn’t the case. How did you never know about this?

“I think that was kind of the point.”

“Why does she check in on him so much?” You ask curiously.

“I don’t know. I suspect it might have something to do with you, though.”

“Me?” You quickly ask, “what the hell? Why?”

“She has always had this weird fixation on you, for some reason she thinks there is something more between Steve and you.”

Leave it to Bucky to always give you the real tea, he may not come out and say it right away, but if it ever comes up and you ask him about it, he never lies or avoids the truth. He always tells you how he sees it, how it is, and you’ve always adored that about him. There’s no sugarcoating, and no bullshit, it’s just his own honest opinions on things.

“But we are just friends?” You asked confused, though it’s less a question and more a statement. “What could she possibly be worried about? There are no feelings like that between us.” Which is partially true, from Steve’s side at least. However it’s a complete and blatant lie from yours, but no one knows that—for sure—aside from you. Bucky raises a disbelieving brow at you, but doesn’t comment on your words.

“She seems to think otherwise.” He shakes his head, “But don’t worry too much about it, it’s always been this way and her insecurities are her own. Ya know, since both you and Steve have always been so adamant that you’re just friends.” He pauses, giving you a little side eye before continuing, once again making you aware that he probably does know of your true feelings for Steve. “She’ll either come to realize that, eventually, or she won’t, but that’s on her. Not you. And at the end of the day, it’s between her and Steve, they have to work it out themselves. Don’t stress too much about the things you can’t control.”

You nod, feeling a little guilty for possibly causing an issue in Steve’s relationship. But also slightly irked at the fact you’re just finding out about this now. And at the new realization that she doesn’t come around because she most likely doesn’t like you, when you’ve never done a damn thing to her. Or to warrant her disliking you that much. How fucking rude is that? You may not exactly like her either, but at least you’d suck it up and be civil, you do respect her and Steve’s relationship, and would never interfere with it. Ever. In any form.

Yet, she doesn’t seem to hold those same sentiments, as it turns out, and she tries to interfere with your friend time often. Go figure, you’d have never known that, if it weren’t for Steve forgetting to turn his phone off this time. Before you can think any further on this all, Steve returns looking for a split second like he is exhausted.

But the second his drained eyes meet yours, a light flickers in them and he smiles at you. It almost looks fake at first to your knowledgeable eyes, but you shake your head and ignore that thought as he approaches you both.

“Sorry about that, Hailey just had a quick question.”

Bucky scoffs quietly and you elbow him, giving him a warning look to zip it. “All good, Steve,” you smile at him. Deciding to not pull on this proverbial string for once, because you may not like where it ends up, and you fear that bringing this up to him will only stand to put more of a riff between you two.

“Should we head out?” You ask, glancing between the two guys, receiving nods then the three of you exit the restaurant and head towards your apartment.

Throughout the night, you keep your mouth shut on the topic of Hailey, Steve is never really forthcoming with you about her, and you’re realizing that it’s probably because of her insecurities about you. About your friendship with him, and you can’t be sure of this, but you're willing to bet that anytime you’re brought up, she probably has something to say about it. Or maybe he doesn’t bring you up at all, he’s never been dumb by any means, and he is probably aware of her feelings towards you. And maybe because he filters you out of his conversations with her, he just unconsciously does the same in reverse. Filtering out her from his conversations with you.

Shit, but who honestly knows? You’re so sick of overthinking every little thing in your friendship with Steve, solely because you refuse to ask him about it. You refuse to bring any of it up. But also mainly because you refuse to add anymore stress onto him. Especially this sort of unnecessary and pointless stress.

The last thing you want to do, is to drive him away, or push him away, because he can’t handle the questions and issues from both sides. Do you deserve more answers? Of course. Are you going to press Steve for them? Fuck no. So instead, you’ll just harass Bucky about it later, privately. But Steve will never know any of it, he’ll never know that you know about any of this.

Cause he’s the one that you can't lose. But he’s the one that you can't win.

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

@caps-lockdown @boxofteenageideas @giggleberts @strawberry-gothchild @theonelittleone @agentbadbitch @ratwrites @bandsandanimefreak @rockyroadthepastryarchy @lovvliies @cuffski @icesoccerer @steeeeverogers @zombiepotterfour @ledandan1244 @straightforwardly @denzmallows @xremember-me-notx @gwynethjodie @lollipopdomination @capstopavenger @jemimah-b99 @rcvenqers @justkending @alagalaska @silent-loucidity @sabertooth-potato @pies-wands-and-more @interstellarmess @gabriella69816 @phantom-soilder @viarogers @kaithezaftig @the-kinkiest-goblin @hysterically-original @badassbeckettswan @heyiamthatbitch @zlixlle @givemehopenfandoms @pretendingandpreposterous @frozen-phoenix17 @emotionallysalty @saturngirlz @atomicsludgedonutbiscuit @bohemian-barbie @marvelous-capsicle @ivoryhazlewood @cjhorseback @jessiedaeum @capricornprince118 @pinkleopardss @drayshadow @wiserebelpartypie @dark-night-sky-99 @patzammit @cs-please @troublermalik @anika-ann @wxstedhexrt @rynabarnesrogers

#au fanfiction #fanfiction #long post #long read #marvel au #marvel fanfiction #steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x y/n #steve rogers x you #modern!steve rogers x reader #modern!steve rogers #modern!steve #modern au #steve rogers au #Beautifully Unfinished #Part 5

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elixir448 · 5 years ago

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Good Girls 3x01 Thoughts and A Very Bad Attempt at Speculation

What an episode! I felt like we were moving at breakneck speed and the commercial breaks weren’t enough time for me to catch my breath. It was super fun to watch the episode live with everyone and freak out together, even though I doubt I’ll be able to pull it off next week.

Anyway, if it’s not obvious, I really loved the episode and now that I’ve had some time to digest everything that happened, I have a lot of thoughts.

Opening Montage

This show loves a good montage, particularly an opening montage. This one did not disappoint and really dove straight into the meat of the episode, which was Beth struggling with her guilt over shooting Rio (see below) and the girls trying to perfect their counterfeit cash.

I love that there was no dilly-dallying. No prolonged pretense that the girls are law-abiding citizens now. Nope, they’re trying to do everything they can to get their money-making hustle started up. All the jobs make so much sense:

Beth - she loves crafting, she uses it all the time and she’s good at it. There’s literally no place that makes more sense for her to work at!

Ruby - I recall from last season that she had a friend who worked at a nail salon and did her nails for Thanksgiving and it just makes sense that she would be good at doing nails since hers have always been on point during the last two seasons.

Annie - the shot where she was skidding into view was perfect! The job fits so well with her recklessness and I felt like it was such a good callback to her driving the Porsche in 1x01.

Beth’s Guilt

I know people have had a lot of thoughts regarding this. I agree with some of them and not so much with others. Personally, I think it was well-handled overall and I don’t think we’ve seen everything that this storyline has to offer yet. We’re only on episode 1 of a 16 episode season!

One of the main complaints I’ve seen is that Beth was pretty flippant at times with the fact that she killed Rio, saying things like “I don’t wanna bring him back” and “I think we could take him because I’m guessing he’s mostly skull.” While I agree that these remarks are flippant and disrespectful, I also think it’s really significant that this only happened in the presence of other people, like Ruby, Annie and Dean. In the first instance, with Ruby and Annie, I think she was trying to downplay the extent of how messed up she must have been feeling to have approached Rhea and Marcus in the first place; by saying that she doesn’t want Rio back, it makes it seem as though her only intent was to try to help Rhea and Marcus in some way, rather than because of the fact that she has been profoundly traumatised by what happened. Don’t even get me started on the fact that Ruby points out “It’s not going to bring him back!” This is Beth’s best friend and sister and for her to feel the need to point this out shows that she recognises that there is something extremely unhealthy about Beth’s behaviour but also that it’s about more than just guilt.

With Dean, I think it’s notable that he apologised about the fact he brought up Rio, acknowledging that it might be a trigger for Beth. That indicates that over the 4 month time skip that we’ve had, it’s potentially an issue that has come up. By living in the same household as her, he maybe picked up on the fact that she is not, in fact, okay. Trigger is a word that is very much used in the context of mental health issues and it’s significant to me that even Dean has picked up on this. Furthermore, she never even mentioned that she was going to paint the girls’ room purple to him; she clearly doesn’t value his opinion very much and we know that Beth is a fairly emotionally clammed-up character; I can’t see her revealing the slightest thing to Dean about how she feels regarding Rio’s death, beyond her crying and collapsing into Dean in 2x13 following the shock and trauma of it all.

Another thing that’s important to acknowledge is that nobody, not Dean and not even Ruby or Annie, knew what Beth and Rio were to each other. Hell, Beth didn’t even know what they were to each other. They shifted from antagonists, to two people who were orbiting around one another, back to antagonists, to two people who had sex, to business partners, to friends (and very tentatively on Beth’s part, Rio was a confidante for her), to lovers and then to ‘work’. There was probably so much more in between and a lot of overlap. Even the terminology I’ve used here doesn’t really fit their relationship! I mean, it’s hard to put the label of lovers on Beth and Rio when they had sex twice and never even had a defined sexual relationship. And they were always orbiting around one another. They still are. They never interacted once in this episode and yet Rio’s shadow hangs over almost all of Beth’s scenes. These storylines are driving the plot forwards and this episode basically pulled that rope that’s been around the two of them for so long now even tighter.

Let’s bear in mind Ruby and, in particular, Annie’s reaction to finding out that Beth and Rio had sex; basically, they were shocked, horrifed and, on Annie’s part, judgemental. They never saw Beth and Rio in the moments that we, the audience, saw them in. In 2x09, Dean believed that Beth having sex with Rio was a direct consequence of him cheating when we know it wasn’t; Beth also hit Dean right where it hurts and said that she just really liked having sex with Rio but we know that she was emasculating Dean in that moment.

By acknowledging how torn up she is over Rio’s death, Beth would have to unpack everything she felt for Rio, after she ‘murdered’ him. She was never able to do this even while he was alive; in fact, she struggled to even acknowledge what was happening and the connection between them. If she shared this with the people in her lives, none of whom understood what she and Rio were to one another...well, what would be the point? He’s gone, she feels guilty and the truth is that guilt and remorse don’t bring people back from the dead.

We get it but they don’t and they never have.

The other complaint I’ve seen is that Beth’s guilt seems to be solely tied to taking Rio away from his son. I can partially understand this but I do think that it’s not the sole reason for Beth’s guilt and it certainly wasn’t the only reason for her guilt that was depicted in this episode. The opening montage alone is a terrific example of this.

It starts with Beth in this dimly lit environment and then when she snaps out of it and realises she’s in front of a customer, we see that she’s actually in a shop and the customer is in a brightly lit portion of it, in front of the counter, while it’s much darker behind Beth. It might mean nothing but the way that scene starts really indicates to me that thinking of Rio takes Beth to a dark place.

In the opening scene, Beth reflects on Rio. The man. The fact that this was a man she knew. But did she really? He’s gone now though. And she feels weird. Suddently confronted by the abruptness of death. There’s no mention of his family in this scene at all. She thinks mainly about his death, how it’s haunting her and how she isn’t sure if she ever really knew him. It’s clear to me that she doesn’t just feel guilty because of Marcus. The scene really underlines how much time Beth has spent thinking about Rio and about him alone.

Despite this, she has four kids. The introduction of Marcus in 2x01 gave Beth an insight into Rio’s life that he had carefully orchestrated to make her realise that they were more similar than she wanted to admit and that they had similar motivations. Their children are certainly not the only things in their lives that connect them. Beth and Rio see each other and they always have. They enjoy the thrill they get from crime but they also have families to provide for. It’s justified until it isn’t. Basically, I think Marcus being a major perpetuating factor for Beth’s guilt makes complete sense and it would be strange if this was less of a factor than it was portrayed as in this episode. They were both parents and of course Marcus is representative of the pain she caused when she shot Rio.

Rhea’s Cheque and Rio’s Money

I’m going to include this discussion here just because I think it links up nicely with Beth’s guilt. Also I weirdly love that Beth and Rhea were wearing the same colour in this scene. I don’t really know what it represents but Rhea has clearly opened up to Beth over the past 4 months and Beth opened up to Rhea in this scene, sharing her financial troubles, so maybe it has something to do with that.

It was so difficult to watch these events unfold on screen. I remember thinking gosh, I really hope Beth doesn’t cash that cheque but also kind of hoping she would because of the plot potential with the consequences of such an action.

Beth is at her very lowest here. I think the last time we saw her come close to this was when Dean took the kids in 2x08 and we saw the aftermath of that in 2x09. Emotionally, financially, ethically and morally, she has hit an absolute low and she knows it. She obviously feels like a crap person and spent the entire night thinking about cashing the cheque, about Rio, about Rhea and about Marcus. Honestly, it’s heartbreaking to watch.

I think it’s really important to highlight the financial burden she’s facing at the moment. She risks losing the roof over her family’s heads. Her kids’ heads. Her babies.

It’s also important to point out that, of the three girls, Beth is the only one who is in a dire financial situation right now. Stan is raking in the money at his new job, even though both he and Ruby clearly don’t love it, and the Hills are making ends meet for Sara’s post-transplant medications. Also, as they no longer seem to be paying a lawyer to have the charges against Stan dropped, it looks like that financial burden has been removed too. Annie no longer has to pay a custody lawyer and is not at risk of losing Sadie (I have no clue what happened with the drug felony charges; I think that was dropped as a storyline between seasons 1 and 2); I do think she needs money for hormonal blockade medication but it was not mentioned in this episode. My point is that, in this episode, it’s very clear that Beth is in big trouble financially and is imminently at risk of losing their family home.

I love that the writer’s aren’t shying away from the implications of such an action and that it’s a real moral dillema, both for Beth and for us as the audience. They aren’t portraying Beth as a sanctimonious individual in this episode. She doesn’t know that Rio’s coming for her so she has nothing to fear on that front in this episode. She ruminates for an entire night. Just because she thought long and hard about it doesn’t justify her actions. Of course it doesn’t! It’s still utterly reprehensible and she’s agonising over that. But it’s necessary. And I love that the writer’s are choosing to depict such a complex, deplorable act on screen by a main character!

New and Returning Side Characters

JT - I cannot even begin to describe how happy I was to see JT in the first episode. We knew he was returning from the news during hiatus but this was even better than I expected. The actor had such brilliant chemistry with Retta in season 2 and with Christina and Mae in 2x09. The four of them just clicked and were hilarious in the two scenes they shared in this episode. I wonder if the issue with him using Ruby’s address for access to her school district will be explored further in this season or if that storyline won’t be mentioned again, especially since it seems that scam is just running in the background now!

Lucy - She is just precious! I adore her already and Charlyne Yi is amazing. I am so consistently impressed by the casting for this show and I really feel like Charlyne is going to fill the James Lesure shaped hole in my heart right now. She clearly adores Oju (sorry if I’ve spelt that incorrectly!) and I’m starting to wonder if Annie kidnaps Oju as a way of preventing Lucy from getting in their way, for example, if she demands a cut or if she decides to tell someone about the counterfeit cash or take advantage of the girls in some other way, just like they have with her. Or perhaps Rio interacts with Lucy at some point this season? Oh my god. All the possibilities are making my head spin!

Krystal - What a genuine sweetheart! Noureen DeWulf did an incredible job and I pretty much fell in love Krystal immediately. The fact that she thought to give a gift basket to the Hills? And the whole scene with the gag reflex? I adore her. I’m really crossing my fingers for a Stan and Krystal friendship arc. They are both such wholesome individuals and I hope that Ruby comes to recognise Krystal for who she seems to be so far, which is a genuinely nice gal. Also, we know that Onyx (played by Megan thee Stallion) is going to be up to no good so I’m excited to see her interact with Krystal and Stan on screen! God please give me Krystal and Stan having each other’s backs.

Rhea - Jackie Cruz is a boss. From what I’ve seen bouncing about on Tumblr, she’s supposed to be appearing in 4 episodes of what has been filmed so far. I really loved her and Beth’s friendship in this episode, even though the foundation of it is deceitful and extremely unhealthy on Beth’s part. I’m not sure if Rhea will find out what Beth has done and I can only imagine the fallout and angst should Rio ever share it with her. But I can’t help but love the two of them. I mean they were chatting about hot coaches! We rarely see Beth loosen up like that with people. Just compare it to her interacting with the PTA mums in 2x10. The difference in Beth’s demeanour is striking. I’ve seen some theories that Rhea already knows who Beth is and is playing her, which is definitely possible. My gut instinct says no but my theories for this show have been wrong so many times before. I also just want to see Rio’s face when he realises that Beth has inserted herself into this private part of his life; he’s going to be absolutely furious and I am here for that plot.

Marcus - How were the fandoms predictions and fanfic writers’ portrayal of this character so accurate? He’s an angel. And he and Jane are clearly best friends! Is this what dreams are made of? And he loves planes too. This episode. Oh my god, this episode is feeding me. Please let Rio give Marcus the planes he made in that hotel room. Please! Ahem, moving on. Manny has said several times that their is something that stops Rio from killing Beth in this season, a line that he won’t cross and that it’s addressed early on. I’ve seen some theories that it could be because Marcus adores Beth. It definitely could be! But I wonder if there is another reason why, particularly if the doors into the crime world are really blown off their hinges in this season and they have a common adversary or goal.

The Hills

I cannot emphasise how much I love Stan and Ruby. For me, they are definitely the heart of the show alongside the three girls. This episode really doubled down on that and I missed them so much.

So the Hills are managing to pay for Sara’s meds, particularly with the money from Stan’s new job. It seems that he’s having to step in to prevent people getting too forward at the strip club and is getting into some physical altercations because of it. I am so excited for his storyline this season, especially after Manny said that it is the storyline he is most excited about. I mean, I’m scared. But here for it.

Sara’s struggling with her meds and I remain shocked by how completely adorable lil’ money is.

I’ve already said it but I want a Krystal and Stan friendship. I’m so curious to see how the strip club ties into the overall plot of the season. It has to have something to do with the counterfeit cash right? And maybe Onyx becomes involved at some point?

Ruby’s scene on the phone with Gwen is so incredibly important. I always do my best to be nice to people who I’m on the phone with, even when it’s frustrating. The scene was so well done and I loved the message of how you don’t know what someone else going through. So be nice. And we know Ruby’s nice. But she’s also scared for her daughter and frustrated with Stan’s job and we all get it. Even Gwen does.

Annie and Sadie

Oooooofffft. Could that call out have felt more like a burn? I feel like Annie kind of needed to hear this and what Mae has said in her interview, about Annie becoming more cautious and little more introspective, makes so much sense now. Of course it would be Sadie that would trigger such a shift! Although not for long apparently, given the inappropriate crush that Annie seems to develop (from 3x04 synopsis); I do still think that it’ll be on the doctor that Rob Heaps has been cast as but I kinda wish it would be some else. I am curious to see how the writers handle this moving forwards because Annie’s already done some pretty serious self-reflection in this episode and I really do think that whatever happens, she’s not just going to forget what Sadie said. I imagine it’s something she’ll struggle with this season.

Also, fuck Noah (I posted the exact same thing while watching the episode). He sucks.

That scene with the toothbrush had me hollering. I know some people hated it but I guffawed my way through it. For me, Mae really delivered on the hilarity in this episode, alongside Lucy. Her bickering with Ruby while she was trying to make a dumb point was sooo good.

Agent Turner

I know a lot of people hated Turner and are glad that his character’s gone. But god, I’m going to miss that obsessive, sanctimonious son of a bitch. I adored him as a character and James Lesure was absolutely fantastic. Also, can I just say that he was a total snack? Especially in that suit. Killer. I’m also kind of bitter than I won’t see some of my wishes come true this season, mainly seeing more scenes between Beth and Agent Turner and them having a drink together, even if they were still antagonists. We coulda had it aaaallllllll!!!!!!

I’m really, really going to feel James Lesure’s absence and I wish him well on his next project.

I love that the writers understood the importance of giving him a final scene with Beth. These two have been playing a cat and mouse game for two seasons and I needed a farewell to their relationship. His pop-by on Beth’s place of employment was really well done and Christina and James killed it, although they always do so why am I surprised. Him saying “It’s not easy making an honest living” really takes me back to the moral hypocrisy he displayed with Stan in season 2, stating that he did what he had to, to get to the letter of the law. Don’t get me wrong, I love complex, rich, fun characters like Turner and I really like that writers chose to display this facet of his character again, with him fully believing that he has the moral high ground over Beth.

Rio

Right. As soon as I saw Turner walking with that plastic bag in his hand, I knew he was going to see Rio! The planes! The planes! If he gives a plane to Marcus in the next episode, I will die. Happily.

Also, I was struck all over again by the way Rio moves, talks and his presence in that scene in the hotel room. Manny brings so much to the character and it’s really amazing to watch.

We got some really important insight into Rio’s character in this episode, one of which is that there have been significant periods where he has been absent from Marcus’ life, which is such a great piece of character insight. We saw Beth struggle to balance crime and family in season 2. We saw Rio attempt to comfort her and share his own experience in 2x09 (”It’s lonely at the top.”) and I really loved that this episode shed some light on the fact that Rio is like Beth in this aspect. That he struggles just like her and misses his kid. Retrospectively, it adds this kind of tragic depth to the first bar scene in 2x09.

That last scene. Ohohohohoho. So much to talk about. It seems pretty clear to me that Rio has a pretty solid alibi with how much he interacted with the lady in the hotel lobby. I love that, of all things, he wants to chat loyalty points and EXCUSE ME “NEAT”. I never thought I would hear that word come out of Rio’s mouth but here we are. And I’m into it. Also, the way his voice shifts when he says business. Oh boy oh boy.

So it seems pretty clear that Rio’s spent the past 4 months playing Turner, clearing the board for himself to come in (I think this is going to have repercussions which I love because we always see the consequences of the girls’ actions but rarely of Rio’s actions). I’m also really curious to find out if Carlos Aviles’ character was in the van and if he’ll say anything about it? Maybe to Beth or if we’ll see him and Rio interacting at some point this season.

The whole thing with the billboard was a great touch and really doubled down on how devious but also cocky Rio is. I really got the same vibe from the final scene of the The Usual Suspects, where Kyser Soze uses the items around him in the room to construct an elaborate, convincing lie for law enforcement. And they fall for it. Gosh, brilliant.

Also, loved Rio’s outfit in that last scene. And looks like there’s no nose ring either. I had a feeling there wouldn’t be, even with the video that dropped on Valentine’s day just because of that shot of Rio in the season 3 trailer, without a nose ring.

So that’s it! I have no clue where else to slot this in but Beth’s hair and clothes. A++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++!!!!!!!!!! Like, her hair doesn’t really look like a wig anymore and those sweaters. THOSE WELL-FITTED BLOUSES. I could not stop staring. She’s a literal angel.

Also, quick warning that I’ll probably reblog and add stuff to this because I’ve definitely left some stuff off of this because I’m too tired to finish.

#nbc good girls #beth x rio #gg season 3 #elizabeth marks #annie marks #ruby hill #manny montana #reno wilson #stan hill #and every other character i'm too lazy to tag

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jq37 · 5 years ago

Note

Have you done breakdowns of the last few episodes yet? If not 👀

**spoilers for a new york wedding**

Prologue: I had a partially free day today (as in the day I started writing this which is now two days ago) so I decided to swing by Central Park and check out the Bethesda Fountain where I saw both a proposal and a man on a segway with a live snake around his neck so, yeah, New York is just Like That.

"Here's a possibly magic crown. Why don't we ask the butt stuff guy about that?"

The face Brennan makes when Emily says, "I used to do colonics at the salon," is great. Like, "We are two minutes into this ep, your sentence isn't even complete, and I already can't handle it."

So they get out of the sewers and Bethesda Fountain has been attacked (which is a shame just aesthetically because, having now seen it in person, it's a really pretty fountain). Em is devastated and explains that the fountain is like a Important magical symbol of good change and a source of divine purification magic.

Another side note about the fountain: There are these little cherub figures around it in additional to the Angel. I wonder if those are sentient too. Also-also, the promenade across from the fountain has these cool murals of the seasons. My point is, there's a lot of fodder for possible lore just in that small area of the park.

Misty finds ashes by the fountain (concerning) and wipes it on Kugrash's fur (rude).

I love that Emily thought Pete was pouring one out (one being one bag of cocaine).

"Sophie, your magic is that you're a wonderful person and you jump really good."

"The Bread Wedding"

Kudos to Brennan for all the wide range of crazy voices he had to do in this ep. Don Confetti. The Golem. Perry the Pigeon. That can't be easy on the throat.

Sophie is fully ready to fistfight Don Confetti over their last names which is wild for a lot of reasons we're not gonna get into.

So Brennan has everyone roll a Wis save and everyone did OK except I think Ricky. Brennan never explains why he had them roll that. Concerning. I'm wondering now if it was something that would have needed a nat 20 to save from it or something where the people who saved didn't realized they saved from it and the people who didn't are just ticking time bombs or sleeper agents or something else awful.

Pete is such a dangerous friend to be around when you're emotionally compromised. His solution to everything is drugs.

"It's an off-white!" --Misty upon being called out for wearing white to a wedding.

Brennan has Perry go on a wild 39 second monologue about relationships that Pete interrupts by stuffing drugs down his gullet--see again my previous bullet about Pete.

Sophie notices that a lot of the pixies recognize her which pm confirms her brother is In This which, to use the word of the day again, *Concerning*.

Emily having Sophie get really emotional but also struggling to keep the laughter out of her face is always super funny to watch.

So Pete finds a table of vampires. Brennan spends a couple of minutes describing them before he gets to it outright but it's pretty immediately clear they're vamps. Well, vamps plus a suspicious older guy and a girl (Melissa) who seems to be playing Renfield to the vamps. Getting high so they can drink her blood and get high. Pete brilliantly confirms this by getting the suspicious guy (Rob, as far as we know) to go off on Politics and then deep mind-reading the girl. That's one of the most clever RP things I've seen a player do. Pete also sees that Rob is hanging out with the vamps but he doesn't seem to be one.

Pete fails his wild magic check but nothing happened that we know of. A lot of stuff on the wild magic table is situational though (like the reincarnate spell from Bloodkeep with the potion Sohkbarr drank).

Rob implies he knows what happened with Pete's dad. Pete goes into a tailspin, as if he isn't constantly in one.

Everyone dancing so they can talk in public instead of just, like, having a sidebar. Just that entire sequence is peak comedy.

Ricky, the good boy, is dancing with his pigeon date while everyone else is mystery solving (or, in Soph's case, crying in a closet or something).

Rob is supposedly in finance. Last time there was a character involved in finance/banking in D20 it was the whole KVX fiasco in FH.

"Did I use up my favor? I could have had anything in the world."

Sophie upon seeing anything young woman in any kind of situation immediately springs into action, ready to drag them out by any means necessary. I love her.

Robert works at a hedge fund and Kug recognizes him. Brennan explains how he knows him in a very vague way which the rest of the table clocks instantly. Murph asks if Rob knows Gabriela. He does. Who the hell is Gabriela, Misty and I wonder.

Emily goes galaxy brain and theorizes that the bad guys are laundering souls which is equal parts bonkers and brilliant. The camera unhelpfully *doesn't* cut back to Brennan so I can attempt to read his DM poker face. I am reminded of Emily wondering if [redacted] was in the sword in a recent ep of Naddpod and Murph just deciding that they were on the spot because it was cooler than what he had planned. I know you can't win at DnD but I think Emily is winning at DnD.

I mentioned this in passing I think last recap, but Pete's magic is really interesting to me because Pete doesn't know what his character sheet looks like and he's not someone like Kingston or Ricky who's been doing their thing for a while and knows that they can do and what the things he can do are called. So Ally has to get a little creative about activating abilities (like True Strike in this ep) without being too meta, if that makes sense.

Kug knows Rob from a while ago (from the 80's he later says) but he doesn't seem to have aged. The group is thinking vampire, but he wasn't drinking blood in the memory Pete saw. Suspicious. Put a pin in that with everything else on my conspiracy board.

Misty: Eyyyy Macarena!

Kug kisses the pigeon. Sure.

Misty/Siobhan also does a clever thing and suggests taking a selfie with the vamp table in the background to see who shows up. Only Melissa and Rob do, so they're not vamps for sure.

So they go back to Kingston's place and he, Pete, and Sophie cook for everyone which has basically nothing really to do with the plot but I think it was a nice character beat for them.

Kingston and Misty fought a mummy on Long Island back in the day. As you do. Sidenote, when I was in Central Park today (two days ago), I passed by a big-ass obelisk that apparently exists and that I am *certain* Brennan has lore for, even if it doesn't come up.

Misty, a very wealthy Broadway star: If you pay for the Metropolitan Museum, you're a Goddamn fool.

Sophie had not put together that Misty is a fairy before now and I was like ??? for a second but, actually, with the info she has, that's not necessarily the conclusion she would draw. She could just be a really short lady with magic. It's been that kind of week.

Kingston presses Kug on how he knows Rob and Kug reluctantly confesses that HE USED TO BE A GUY. Zac blindly guesses that he was a stockbroker which is ALSO CORRECT.

"movie horse breeder" is such a specific job to pull out of thin air.

Siobhan, making a choice: Let me tell you about my good friend, John Wilkes Booth.

Brennan's total break of composure when Zac/Ricky says, "I wasn't always a firefighter." Zac lowkey has the best comic timing of everyone on the squad. He's just really understated about it.

Anyway, there are levels to this. How long has Kug been a rat??? I feel like it must have been a while because of all the weird ass stuff that he does. Also, he excuses a lot of his behaviors due to being a rat considering he's actually a rat-MAN, emphasis on the man. The stock broker thing surprised me more considering that Kug is introduced doing some pretty altruistic, non-stockbroker-y things. Did Kug piss off a homeless witch and get Beauty and the Beast-ed? He never actually answered the question about how he knows Rob since everyone got sidetracked by the fact that he used to be a whole-ass HUMAN MAN. Did Rob curse him for less moral lesson reasons? What's going on here????

Esther and Ale have been researching. The grey baby is apparently named Nod, just like the place, and it (it specifically, not him or her) like the ruler of there.

There's this whole group bit Brennan, Ally, and Siobahn do about how you can take the L train really far and then catch a shuttle bus that can only be seen by the pure of heart to get to Nod and it's really funny but how funny would it be if they actually tried to do it in a dire moment and also Ricky could do it for sure send tweet.

Kingston is trying so-so hard to keep everyone on task all episode. Bless him.

Kug asks Esther about her mom, which surprises her. He says they used to be friends (Did *SHE* curse him????). Esther says she hasn't seen her in a long time, since she was 5 or 6. Of course, it's easy to want to connect this to the Gabriela he was asking about earlier but we'll see about that. I think I saw some people speculating that he's Esther's dad which I'm even more skeptical about considering what we learn later but wouldn't that be wild?

Ricky decides to shoot his shot with Esther. His brain is full of love, determination, civic responsibility, and absolutely nothing else, bless his golden retriever heart.

Brennan as Esther drops the best stealth joke (though, it has a very high likelihood of crossing from joke to plot point) in D20 so far with the Imperial Axiom/Sinatra's Law explanation. It was a full, "Wait. What? Oh!" Big gold star for Brennan for that one. I had to take a second and recover from that when I heard it the first time. Beyond the joke, it also seems like a likely hook for the eventual Big Bad of the campaign. First NY, then the world, you know?

The fact that the highways go against the grain of magic leylines of NY in this world is such a good detail and it makes a lot of sense intuitively.

Zac breaks Brennan again with the, "Traffic's really bad," comment.

Please let Ricky's big dumb puppy self win over Esther. "It's really hard for me." Riiiickyyyy.

So Kingston goes to see Willy, the Williamsburg golem about Lazarus from the Bible (New Testament). Aren't golems de facto Jewish? I think. I am correct. However, as much as Willy doesn't know about the New Testament, he *does* know about the Statue of Liberty which is convenient because--shoutout to the people who figured it out in advance--Lazarus is not Lazarus from the Bible. It's Emma Lazarus who wrote the poem on the Statue of Liberty. This of course means that I need to do a close read of that poem at some point but not today baby because I need more information before I start going full Pepe Silvia. Sidenote: What a great place for Kingston to be when figuring out that info. Close enough that Willy can just point out the statue. It's cinematic. Fantastic.

(Also, I made a post about the fact that Siobahn just knew Emma's name off the top of her head, but when it cut to the other side of the table, Emily's eyes got all big too).

Emily gets a nat20 which RUINS her plans because she runs into Isabella aka the woman her husband left her for. They have an adult Means Girls stand-off where Sophie finds out they're getting married (or at least having a ceremony bc Dale didn't send her divorce papers yet). Big ups to Emily for staying in character and ditching all the sleuthing she was going to do because there is no way Sophie would be stable enough for that to be her top priority at the moment (even though I really wanted her to do all that stuff!)

Also, I'm looking forward to watching Sophie rip her to shreds when she inevitably turns out to be a succubus/demon/fiend/whatever. Honestly, she can just barfight her and I'd be satisfied.

So Misty goes home and finds a present waiting for her. It's a big ass mirror. Correction. It's a big ass mirror that Titania immediately uses to angry Skype her. Yikes.

It seems like her shoes of Titania are literally that, stolen from Titania (love that Titania was barefoot in her character art btw). I know they let her cast a certain spell in an earlier episode but I'm wondering why she stole them. Maybe they helped her cross over from Faerie (which happened ~400 years ago we ind out)?

Titania is pissed that Misty is stealing "glamour" that should be hers (via playing her in the new show). Glamour in the fairy sense is like a disguise. Glamour in the DnD sense is a fey-based bard option (which is the class I'm guessing Titania will be if they have to fight her). Curious to get a deeper explanation on that later.

Misty is able to cover back up the mirror but she breaks a hip in the process because of Titania's mojo and has to call Kingston. I already said this but I love their relationship.

(Sidenote, I meant to mention this earlier, but I think whiffs of the undead came up a couple of times in this ep which makes me wonder if the mummy situation Kingston mentioned is going to come back).

"Please, use any one of the guestrooms."

I FORGOT ABOUT KUG'S STUFF AT THE END

Ugh, this ep is an emotional roller coaster

"Wherever you are Rat Jesus, know that I love you. From Wally." What a good boy.

Everyone reacting to Murph's reaction to Wally before they Find Out is like, an experience. It's like that airpods meme.

OK, I'm not going to go through a whole play by play because nothing I could say would be better than watching the scene but I guess Murph/Bren decided in for a penny, in for a pound because we find out via a conversation between Wally and his businessman brother David that he is Kug's SON. HIS SON. S O N.

Wally is convinced that their dad wouldn't have just left them. David thinks Wally is being naive. I want to die.

Everyone around the table except maybe Ally is so visibly upset at this new information and Ally goes, "FUCK!" at the end so you know we all express emotions in different ways.

God, it's so sad! And I'm not gonna say, "I knew it!" because I didn't. I super didn't. But when Wally was introduced (man that scene hits differently now) I remember thinking, this is such an oddly specific NPC. Like, you know when you're playing a game and the stuff you can click is slightly better rendered and you can kind of tell what you should focus on and what's background art? That's how he felt.

Anyway, again, I'm sad. (GMYeah!.gif)

Watching *OVER* you Murph. OVER you. That's how you make it not creepy!

Meanwhile, Pete lets a bunch of bug monsters out of his dream into real New York City which, tbh, I'm not surprised. This seems like the kind of thing that would happen. Pete is exactly the worst kind of person to be the dream avatar in terms of being responsible.

I love that Siobhan is like, “I have a broken hip” as if all but one of them don’t have literal magic powers. That’s a very fixable problem compared to other stuff they’ve dealt with that day alone.

Anyway next time, a wasp centaur (thanks, I hate it) and a nat 20! See you then.

#dimension 20 #the unsleeping city #asks #a-salty-alto #there are for sure mistakes in this but I am on a whirlwind schedule rn #and I wanted to get this out before the next ep #so I wasn't too behind

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torestoreamends · 5 years ago

Text

Mine to Make: Chapter 7

Draco and Scorpius do some boring but useful economic magic, Albus reads the Daily Prophet, and Delphi announces her plans for world domination.

Beta’d by @abradystrix.

N.B. This fic is complete on AO3, so binge read away if you want! Here on tumblr I’ll be posting a chapter every day until it’s all done.

Read it on AO3

VII Stoppable

The kitchen door opens and Harry instantly drops his knife onto his chopping board and turns around, hope swelling inside him, the way it always does whenever someone comes home. Ginny is standing in the doorway, emerging from beneath her cloak, expression sombre. He grips the back of the chair in front of him, Albus’s chair. Already disappointment is crushing his heart, but he still has to ask, just to make sure.

“Did you find-“

She shakes her head. “Nothing. There’s nothing.”

Harry bows his head and nods, tightening his grip on the chair for support. Even after three weeks of this it’s the same torture every day. He’d thought it would get easier but it hasn’t, not even a little bit. There are still the highest highs that come with any hint of a sighting, any new bit of information. Every time someone enters the house, he still desperately hopes that it might be Albus coming home. But every hope turns out to be false, and Albus never comes home. They’re left with devastation and hopelessness that deepens with every passing day.

Ginny shrugs her cloak off and hangs it by the door, then she comes across and puts her hands on Harry’s arms. “I talked to Current Affairs and they’re running another article tomorrow, looking for any political reasons why Albus might have been taken.”

“There are plenty of those,” Harry mutters.

She rubs his arms. “Exactly. And I placed that advert we talked about too.”

Harry nods. “That’s good. That’s- Yeah. And I’ve still got teams in Yorkshire and up on the moors around here. I think we’re going to reassign the Yorkshire team over to the Lake District next week. The Scottish Minister said she’d give us some help with the areas around Hogwarts. It’s just working out where he’d be familiar with, where he’d go.”

“He’ll be right under our noses,” Ginny says softly, wrapping her arms round Harry and resting her forehead on his shoulder. “I know he will.”

“I agree,” Harry says, hugging her tightly. “That’s why I’m keeping teams down here.”

“What about Scorpius?” Ginny asks. “Do we have anyone with him? What if Albus tries to contact him?”

“We’ve had the Manor under surveillance for years,” Harry says, “and Hogwarts is closely monitored for the safety of the students. If Albus goes anywhere near Scorpius I’ll be the first to know.”

“Good,” Ginny murmurs, rubbing his back. “That’s good.”

He nods and holds onto her. She’s been his rock through so much, and right now he needs her more than ever. He doesn’t know where he’d be without her. Normally he’d turn to Ron and Hermione for help in a dire situation like this, but this time Ginny is who he needs. She understands what this is like. She feels the same pain as he does. They’re going through this together in a way that no one else can understand.

“We’ll find him,” Ginny says softly, massaging his shoulders, which he hadn’t realised were so tight and tense. “We will. Even if it takes years.”

“Course we will,” Harry agrees, injecting as much brightness and positivity into the words as he can. If he believes in them hard enough maybe they’ll come true. Magic is a bit like that. You want it and you work at it, and in the end it happens. But spells don’t exist for bringing lost boys home, at least no spell that Harry, Ginny, or even Hermione knows. They’ll just have to wait and hope because there’s nothing else they can do.

“I didn’t know you read the paper.” Delphi flicks the front page of Albus’s open newspaper, jogging it enough that he loses his place. He smiles and looks up at her.

“I don’t. I was just browsing.” Albus shuts the paper and sets it aside. He hasn’t managed to find what he was looking for. There’s no mention of the Dementor attack anywhere, but that doesn’t mean anything. He’s not even that far into the paper.

“What were you browsing for?” Delphi asks, plopping down next to him on the bench at the edge of the training ground.

Albus shrugs. “Nothing much. Just seeing what’s going on in the world.”

Delphi smirks. “Is this new interest in current affairs supposed to impress your boyfriend?”

Albus elbows her in the ribs. “Not everything in my life revolves around Scorpius, you know.”

“Oh,” Delphi says in mock amazement. “It doesn’t? I could have sworn otherwise.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“So why have you been such a stranger then?” Delphi asks, picking up the paper and unfolding it so she can read the front page.

Albus shrugs. “It’s been a busy week. Anyway, it’s not like you haven’t seen me. After seven inseparable years can you not live without me anymore?”

Delphi pulls a face at the paper. “Utter drivel,” she mutters. “No,” she glances up at Albus. “It’s not that I can’t live without you. I’m just worried about your training. And, you know, I miss you.” She gives a little shrug.

Albus grins at her. “Aww, do you really? You’ve never said that before.”

“You’re my best friend,” she says, not glancing up at him as she turns to the next page. “Of course I miss you.”

“Well,” Albus says, patting his hands on his knees as he works out how to deal with this surprising new information. “I’m here now. I’m all yours for the day – Scorpius is at work.”

Delphi glances up at him. “At work work? Not snooping around here?”

Albus nods. “He had to go to the Ministry for a meeting.”

A tiny frown flickers across Delphi’s forehead, just a fleeting glimpse. “You saw him this morning?”

“He may have stayed over at my house last night,” Albus says, giving her a broad, shining smile.

Delphi’s eyes go wide. “You slept with him? Already? Albus Potter, you saucy little-“

Albus’s cheeks heat up and he gives her a friendly shove on the arm. “It was a difficult evening and we both needed company, so we...” He waves a hand.

“A difficult evening?” Delphi asks, brushing a bit of hair out of her eyes.

Albus nods and explains about the Dementors, while she listens with rapt attention. “That’s why I was reading the paper,” he explains. “I wanted to see if there was any mention of it in the news, but I couldn’t spot anything so far.”

“How did you two escape?” Delphi asks softly, eyes wide.

“Thankfully Scorpius managed to cast a Patronus,” Albus says, a golden swell of pride bubbling up inside him as he remembers the shape of the silver bird sweeping through the night. “A really good one too. A corporeal one.”

“I didn’t know he could do that,” Delphi says.

Albus shakes his head. “Neither did he. I knew he’d be able to get it though. He’s brilliant.”

“So,” Delphi says lightly, leaning back on her hands. “Your new boyfriend saved your life and you repaid him with sex. Not a bad arrangement.”

Albus rolls his eyes. “Anyway, enough gossip about my evening. I thought I wasn’t training enough?”

Delphi shakes herself and sits up. “No, you’re not. I was going to punish you by making you do an actual gym session for once.”

“Are you serious?” Albus groans.

She nods. “Deadly.”

He sighs and picks himself up off the bench. “You’re evil.”

She grins at him. “I know.”

“These,” Scorpius says, slapping an enormous heap of files down onto the table in the library. “Are all the league’s financial records. Knock yourself out.”

Draco eyes the pile sceptically. “Do you have any suggested starting points?”

Scorpius shrugs. “Not really. We need to go through everything.”

“And do you expect their bookkeeping to be reliable and truthful?”

Scorpius shrugs again. “Probably not but it’s worth a start.”

“Alright then.” Draco picks up the first file, pulls up a chair and sits down as he reads. “How was Potter today?”

Scorpius perches on the edge of the table and sifts through the files until he finds a bright turquoise one that he likes the colour of. “Not bad, actually. He liked my investigative work.”

“As he should. Is he going to promote you?”

Scorpius sighs. “Not yet. Probably not ever, but I’m doing my best.” He opens the file to the first page and looks down at the long strings of numbers. There are dozens of these files. They’ll be here all night. “I told him about the Dementors.”

“And?”

“He’s going to investigate. I don’t think he knew what you knew. About all the stuff going on.”

Draco smirks. “Maybe they should make me Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Then they might get something done.”

Scorpius rolls his eyes. “He’s not that bad. You just happen to have an unusual amount of nefarious connections.”

“That’s one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me,” Draco says, looking exceptionally pleased.

Scorpius smiles and shakes his head. “I’ll put it on your next Father’s Day card.” He flicks to the second page of his file, eyes already blurred from the amount of numbers in front of him.

“Dad,” he says. “You know about money. Is there some sort of spell we can use to do this faster? To detect anomalies, or even look for specific names and organisations? I know there are spells you can use for book research... would they work on this too?”

“Of course,” Draco says, nodding. “There’s nothing especially easy or user friendly, but I’m sure we can work it out between us.”

“Great.” Scorpius draws his wand with a flourish. “Teach me some boring but useful economic magic.”

They end up having to get several books down from the shelves, because the spell is far more complicated than Draco recalled. They sit on the sofa, trying to memorise the long strings of Latin and testing each other on them. It’s a while since Scorpius has learned any completely new spells, and it’s a fun challenge, especially because he can tell he’s picking it up faster than his dad.

“Wrong word again,” he crows, when his dad mixes up the phrase he’s trying to repeat for the third time.

Draco sighs. “I’m too old for this. If you’ve got it memorised why don’t you do the magic?”

Scorpius frowns. “I could... but what if I get it wrong? Don’t you need to check it for me?”

His dad smiles at him. “The day has long passed when I checked all your arithmetic for you. You’re far smarter and more knowledgeable than me these days. I trust your spellwork.”

Scorpius swallows and twists his wand round in his hands. “Are you sure? No one else trusts me...”

“That,” Draco says, pointing at him, “is their fault and not yours. Go on. The world won’t end if you get this spell wrong. Give it a go.”

“Fine.” Scorpius gets to his feet and flips open the first file. He decides that hesitating and making a big deal out of this will only make it worse so he doesn’t hesitate before tapping his wand on the file and letting the long spell come rolling off his tongue.

It works immediately. He withdraws his wand with the last word and the pages riffle through, until the file lies open on an inside page with a single word, Rowle, illuminated in gold.

Scorpius blinks down at the page. He gives his wand an experimental flick to one side and the file flicks to the next result.

“It worked!” He gasps, then lets out a wild giggle and covers his mouth with his hands. “I thought it’d take a lot more tries than that.”

Draco smiles and squeezes his shoulder. “Confidence, Scorpius.”

“Right,” Scorpius says, returning the smile. “Confidence.” He flicks his wand and flips the pages back to the first result. “Well, I suppose we should get on and do some investigating.”

For the next hour and a half they pore over each and every one of the reports, jotting down notes, checking and double-checking spells and findings. Scorpius’s head aches and his throat is dry from casting the complicated spell over and over again. It doesn’t help that the reports are so mind-numbing that they alone would hurt his brain.

When they’re done with the last report he releases the spell and stumbles back to collapse onto the nearest sofa. He hunches over, rubbing his forehead, and his dad gently massages his shoulder.

“You did brilliantly,” he says. “Would you like a drink.”

Scorpius shakes his head. “No, it’s okay. I’ll live.” He rubs his eyes and lifts his head, trying to peer at the parchment in his dad’s hand. He’s been concentrating so hard he hasn’t had chance to register any of the notes they’ve been making. “What are the results?”

“There’s a very clear connection here,” Draco says, “which is a start.” He crouches down on the floor beside Scorpius and rests the parchment on the arm of Scorpius’s chair so they can read together.

“Here are all the names of the people we’ve been looking for,” Draco says, running a finger down the column. “These are some of the numbers they’re associated with, what they’ve paid in, got back, and so on. And this column, here, shows the Gringotts account numbers of all the accounts they were associated with.”

Scorpius scans the parchment, frowning, then glances up at his dad. “But... there’s only one account number there. Surely we’ve done something wrong?”

“It’s not quite the only account number,” Draco says, pointing out a couple of others in the list, odd anomalies amongst the uniformity of all the other transactions. “And you know as well as I do that your spellwork was impeccable. No, I don’t think there’s a mistake at all. I think we just happen to have found our answer.”

Scorpius rubs the very centre of his forehead and stares at the account number. “Can we find out who this belongs to? Do we already know?”

Draco shakes his head. “We haven’t got it here, but...” He brandished his wand and taps it on the front of one of the files, muttering the same spell as Scorpius had used before, but this time using the account number as their search term. Instantly, the file whips open and comes to rest on an inside page, and there, in the centre, clear as day, it says “the account belonging to Miss Delphini Black.”

Draco pulls a face. “Delphini Black? There isn’t a Delphini Black on the family tree. Who on earth is that?”

“The Blacks don’t exactly have a small family tree do they?” Scorpius asks. “Couldn’t she be some long lost cousin? Half cousin? Second cousin? Whatever?

“But Delphini,” Draco says. “I’ve never heard that name before.” He looks at Scorpius. “Is she someone who’s mentioned a lot around the league? Is she a racer? Organiser? Someone who’s in charge?”

Scorpius shakes his head slowly, trying to think. Delphini doesn’t ring any bells. He hasn’t read the name in any of his papers, or heard anyone, say it, except- “Delphi!” He gasps. “They’re all connected to Delphi.”

“And who is Delphi?” Draco asks.

“She’s Albus’s friend,” Scorpius says, sitting back in his seat, mind racing. “His best friend. She’s his manager or agent or something. I think she sort of took him under her wing when he ran away. They seem close, but I haven’t met her yet. I hope I get the chance to, but...but, anyway. That’s who she is. Our missing link. Delphini Black. Delphi.”

“Albus’s friend,” Draco says slowly and deliberately, “knows and is taking money from all these people.” He gestures to the list of names, and Scorpius reads down it.

It’s not a good list of names to be associated with, and although he thinks Rowle might be the worst, there’s nothing about it that looks positive, no redeeming features, apart from the fact that Albus is connected to her.

“If Albus trusts her,” Scorpius says, “shouldn’t we give her the benefit of the doubt at least?” He looks up at his dad. “Maybe she doesn’t know much about history. These are all rich families, maybe she just went for rich people and is ignorant of what they’ve done.”

“These aren’t the richest,” Draco says. “They’re just the ones who have money to throw at something like this. And this doesn’t look like ignorance, Scorpius. This looks like fraternisation with Death Eaters.”

Scorpius takes the parchment from his dad and studies it. “I want to go to Gringotts and get more details about her account,” he says. “I’ve got permission to get whatever I need. And maybe... maybe I should ask Albus about her?” He looks up at his dad. “They’re friends. He knows her. He’ll be able to tell me what she’s like.”

“He may also be biased,” Draco points out.

“I can ask other people too,” Scorpius says. “But he’s a good starting point.”

Draco nods. “I suppose you’re right. Be careful, though. Even around Albus.”

“But-“

Draco gives him a hard look. “Scorpius...”

Scorpius sighs and holds his hands up. “Alright. I promise.” He waves his wand to clear the files into a neat pile on the table. “I’m exhausted. I think it’s time for bed now.”

“Not quite,” his dad says. “We have things to talk about, remember?”

Scorpius’s heart sinks as the earlier encounter with his dad comes flooding back. “Dad, do we really need to-“

“Yes. We do.” His dad sits down on the sofa next to him. “Stop pulling that face at me, you look like a child.”

Scorpius sticks his tongue out at his dad, then buries his face in his hands. It’s the best he can do to hide from his dad while they’re both in the same room.

“I need to know that you’re being safe,” his dad says, in a surprisingly soft voice that makes Scorpius look up at him. “That’s all I’m concerned about here. You’ve known this boy for four days-“

“That’s not true! He’s been my best friend for over half my life.”

“And the seven year gap in the middle somewhat negates that,” Draco counters.

“Also,” Scorpius says, slumping down in his seat and folding his arms. “It’s been five days.”

His dad smiles. “Five days, then. The point still stands. You don’t know anything about his life now. He doesn’t know anything about yours. People grow up a lot in seven years. They change a lot. Clearly he’s made friends with the sort of people who would be involved in a Ministry investigation-“

“Innocent until proven guilty,” Scorpius interjects.

Draco holds a hand up. “I know. All I’m saying is to be careful... He’s the first person you’ve slept with, isn’t he?”

Scorpius’s face goes hot as Fiendfyre and he glares at his dad. “I’m not discussing this with-“

“Are you his first too?”

Scorpius glares at him a moment longer to make his point then gives a very tiny shake of his head. “No.”

“And did he look after you? Did you use all the right spells, and-“

“For your information,” Scorpius says loudly, cutting across him. “Albus Severus Potter is an excellent teacher.”

“That may be more information than I was looking for,” Draco says, and Scorpius realises the full implications of his words.

“Oh my- Dad!” He buries his face in his hands again. “That wasn’t what I meant. I meant that he’s good at the spells and the-“

“And the?” Draco asks, with just the hint of a smirk.

“I hate you,” Scorpius says, sinking as low as he possibly can in his chair.

“I know,” Draco says. “But I’m glad the two of you had a good time. And I’m glad he looked after you. I’d expect nothing less of him; of anyone my son chooses as a partner.”

“He’s a really good person, Dad,” Scorpius murmurs. “He’s perfect. And he loves me.”

“Has he said that?” Draco asks.

Scorpius nods. “I think we’ve both... we’re on the same page there. He missed me as much as I missed him.” He looks up at his dad. “I know he broke my heart. I know he left me behind. I know all that. I’ve felt it every day for seven years. But I think... I think he felt it too. He’s... He’s really scared, you know? Of coming back. Of people finding him. When he left it wasn’t because of me, it wasn’t about me, but maybe... maybe I can help him now. Maybe I can be the reason he stays.”

“Do you trust him?” Draco asks, looking him in the eye.

Scorpius meets his gaze and nods. “Yes. I do.”

Draco considers for a moment before shaking his head. “You’ve always had good judgement, I know you have. But that doesn’t make it easier...” He sighs. “Will you understand if I keep being sceptical?”

Scorpius smiles. “You’re my dad. Isn’t it your job to be sceptical?”

Draco smiles back. “I suppose it is. You learn by making mistakes and getting your heart broken, and then I’m there to say I told you so and help piece it back together again.”

Scorpius wriggles round and curls up by his dad’s side. “I don’t think I’m going to get my heart broken,” he says. “Not this time.”

His dad wraps an arm round his shoulders and plants a kiss on the top of his head. “I truly hope you’re right.”

Ginny is curled up on the bed, sitting on top of the blankets because it’s too hot to be underneath them tonight. She’s sucking on the end of her quill as she considers the letter she’s writing. Harry know she’s too absorbed in what she’s doing to have noticed him standing in the doorway, but that doesn’t matter to him. It gives him more time to think and work out how to say what he’s going to say.

“Gin,” he says finally. “Can I join you?” It‘s not even remotely what he was trying to say, and now he’s said it he realises how stupid it was.

She glances at the space on the bed next to her, tucks her legs up under her, then shoots him one of her sparkling, mischievous smiles. “It’s your bed too, Harry. You don’t have to ask me to sit down.”

“No,” he says. “I know.”

He crosses the room, twisting his hands together as he does. Even though she’s still writing, he knows she’s got an eye on him. There’s no hiding now. She knows something’s up.

“Who are you writing to?” He asks, as he sits down next to her.

She glances across at him. “Albus. I was going to ask him if he’d like to visit again, or maybe get coffee. If that goes well, I want to invite him for dinner.” She sets the quill and parchment down on the bedside table and shuffles towards him, reaching out to rub his arm. “Are you okay?”

He never knows how to answer that question. It’s been a long time – not since before Albus left – since he’s felt like he could give an unequivocal yes, but at the same time she knows that, and he doesn’t want to worry her even though the answer today is no. Thankfully she understands his silence and reaches up to gently ruffle his hair, flattening the bits of it that stick up everywhere, before dropping her hand to rest on his shoulder.

“What’s up?”

He stares down at his hands. “I had a meeting with Scorpius today.”

Ginny drops her hand from his shoulder and weaves her fingers together with his. “How is he?” She asks softly.

Harry nods. “Okay, I think. It’s always difficult to tell. He’s working as hard as ever. His investigative skills are brilliant. I think he’s better than some of my Aurors.”

Ginny smiles. “That sounds like him.”

“He’s wasted where he is,” Harry agrees. “But I still haven’t been able to persuade any of my recruiters to look past-“ He sighs and shakes his head. “Anyway... He wanted to report a Dementor attack.”

Ginny’s eyes go wide. “A Dementor- But there aren’t any left here, are there?”

“Only a couple,” Harry says. “We’re observing them all though, so we know they haven’t attacked anyone. But he said that these two – a pair of them – attacked him just outside Bristol yesterday night. He fought them off, he said he cast a Patronus, but the fact that they were there...”

“That’s not good,” Ginny breathes. “That’s like when you-“

“I know,” Harry says, looking at her. “It’s definitely a concern.”

“Was he on his own when he was attacked?” Ginny asks. “Did he fight them off alone?”

Harry swallows and doesn’t manage to speak.

“Harry?” Ginny repeats, squeezing his hand.

“Albus,” Harry says finally, in a small, strained voice. “He- he was with Albus.” He looks at her, and she stares back.

“Albus... Albus was attacked?”

Harry nods. “He and Scorpius. They fought the Dementors off together.”

Ginny grips Harry’s hand so hard her fingers turn white. “Is he still in danger? Are they-?”

“I’m not sure,” Harry murmurs. “I’ve got a team on it, but we haven’t found anything yet. We haven’t even found the Dementors. There’s so much that we don’t know...” He releases Ginny’s hand runs his fingers through his hair. “Scorpius told me that Draco thinks there’s something going on. He hears things, you know? He has contacts that we don’t.”

“Do you think there’s something going on?” Ginny asks, crossing her legs and resting her hands in her lap as she looks at him, attentive and curious, not showing any fear even if she feels it. That solidity and courage is what has always helped to keep Harry strong too.

“I don’t know, Gin.” He reaches across and takes hold of her hand. “There are things I haven’t seen before, not in a long time. Movements, whispers, odd stuff. It could mean something, it could mean nothing. But it’s definitely something to keep an eye on. All of it, the Dementors, the strange stuff, everything. You never know when it’ll change from being just a whisper and become a real and present threat...”

Ginny kisses the back of his hand, then reaches across and hugs him. “You’ll deal with it. When it happens you’ll fight it. That’s what you do.”

He rubs her back and rests his chin on her shoulder. “I try. I wish I could do more. I wish I could protect everyone.” He sighs. “I wish I could protect Albus.”

“I know,” she murmurs, squeezing him tight. “I know.”

For a moment Harry sits and holds her, then a thought occurs to him and he pulls back. “Gin... They were attacked just outside Bristol.” He looks at her. “Why would they be in Bristol?”

Ginny shakes her head. “It’s a nice city? We went there on holiday once.“

Harry seizes hold of her hands. “No! It might be where Albus lives. Think about it, we know Scorpius lives at the Manor, Albus has no other connection to Bristol that we know about. Scorpius said they were on their way home. I bet Albus lives there.”

Ginny tugs on his hands. “Harry. Don’t get carried away. It’s the middle of the night, and you can’t go and knock on every door in Bristol on the off chance that Albus lives there. Even if you did, I don’t know if he’d answer.”

“I could break down his door?” Harry suggests.

She rolls her eyes. “I don’t think that would be the best way to convince him to talk to you.”

“I don’t need him to talk to me,” Harry says. “I need to know he’s safe.”

“Well,” Ginny says, giving his hands one last squeeze before letting go of him and shuffling down on the bed. “You can go and wake up everyone in Bristol, but I’m going to sleep.”

Harry shuffles up behind her and puts a hand on her side. “Maybe tomorrow,” he says. “I’ll get an Auror to do it.”

“On a Saturday?” Ginny asks, reaching out to switch off the light.

Harry kisses her shoulder. “I’ll pay them excellent overtime for it.”

Her laugh comes bubbling out of the darkness, then she rolls over in his arms, and he can see her smiling at him through the gloom. “You’re incorrigible,” she says.

Harry kisses her on the lips, slow and lingering. When he pulls back he brushes her hair off her face and looks at her as his eyes adjust to the darkness. “Tenacious,” he says.

“Obsessed,” she counters.

“I prefer driven.”

“Are you really going to knock on every house in Bristol?” She asks.

He removes his glasses and reaches across to put them on his bedside table. “I’m thinking about it.”

She rolls her eyes and kisses him again. “Sometimes I don’t know what to do with you.”

Albus is lying spread-eagled on the gym floor, too exhausted to move. It’s a very hot day, and the single tiny window that’s open doesn’t let nearly enough air into the room. His clothes are all sticking to him, and he knows the whole place reeks of sweat – it always does in here.

“Get up,” Delphi says, nudging Albus’s leg with the toe of her boot.

Albus groans. “I can’t. You’ve killed me.”

“I could do a lot worse than make you work out.” She reaches out a hand, and he grips it and drags himself into a sitting position. “You need to go home and get changed.”

He brushes sweat soaked hair out of his eyes – some of it has grown long enough to start annoying him again – and peers up at her. The sweat stings his eyes, and he has to blink hard to try and get rid of it. “Why?”

“I’m taking you out tonight,” she says, perching on the corner of the weights bench. “You don’t have plans, do you?”

Albus shakes his head. “No, not yet. Scorpius and I haven’t had time to talk.”

Delphi waves a hand. “You can see him tomorrow, or Sunday. Spend all weekend in bed with him, I don’t care. I just want one night.”

Albus folds his arms and looks up at her. “Why do you want to hang out with me?”

Delphi shrugs. “I miss you. And we’re friends! Hanging out is what friends do, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so.” Albus gets slowly to his feet, grimacing as his legs complain at him. “Just don’t make me do anything active. I need to take a million ice baths before I can move again.”

“So you’ll do it?”

“Alright,” Albus says with a shrug. “I don’t see why not.”

Delphi grins and bounces on the balls of her feet. It’s so rare to see her look properly happy that Albus smiles too.

“Is there a dress code for this evening’s activities?”

“Anything that’s not drenched in sweat,” Delphi says, pulling a disgusted face at his current clothes. “You’d better shower too.”

“I’ll do it now. Where and when are we meeting?”

Delphi thinks for a second. “Meet me at eight. Inside the gate of Regent’s Park, near the tube station.”

Albus frowns. “Is this a Muggle date or something?”

Delphi snorts. “Hardly. Just a useful place to meet. Bring a broom.”

Albus grins. “Training isn’t a pleasant evening out, Delphi.”

She rolls her eyes at him. “I’m not taking you training. I thought you liked flying.”

“I know,” he says. “I was kidding. So I need to bring a broom and what else?”

“Two brooms,” Delphi says. “We’ll need two brooms. I don’t have one so I’ll need to borrow yours.”

Albus’s grin spreads right across his face. “You’re going flying? I thought you hated heights.”

“No,” Delphi says, pointing at him. “No, that’s not true. I’m perfectly fine with heights. I just think brooms are unreliable and unwieldy.”

Albus beams at her. “But you’ll get on one for me.” He claps a hand to his heart. “It must be love.”

Delphi picks his bag up from the floor and throws it hard at his chest. “Go on. Disappear. And don’t forget my broom.”

Albus catches the bag, still grinning, and swings it over his shoulder. “Oh don’t worry. I won’t.”

When Albus gets home, there’s a letter from Scorpius waiting for him. Even seeing Scorpius’s familiar handwriting – spidery and loopy, not quite elegant and just on the right side of illegible – is enough to make him grin. He tears the letter open and reads, hoping it’s not an invitation to go out tonight, because he’s not sure he can manage to turn Scorpius down.

Dear Albus,

I was wondering if you’d like to meet up for lunch/dinner tomorrow? I have to go to Gringotts in the morning for work, but after that I’ll be free all weekend.

Sorry I can’t meet up tonight. I’m doing some investigate work with my dad – it keeps him busy.

Thank you for last night. It was perfect, apart from the Dementors, but even they were vastly improved by you being there to help me.

I really hope to see you tomorrow. I also really hope you’re okay with replying to Owls, I suppose I should have checked that.

Happily yours,

Scorpius

Albus knows he’s smiling far more than he should be for such a short letter, but there’s something about Scorpius writing to him that makes his insides glow in the best possible way. Scorpius wrote to ask him out, Scorpius thanked him for last night, Scorpius joked about him being elusive, and Scorpius signed it all ‘happily yours’. Happily. Scorpius is happy, and Albus is overjoyed.

He finds a quill and parchment and starts scribbling a reply before remembering that he doesn’t actually have an owl. He’s spent so long refusing to reply to letters that now he wants to he doesn’t think he can.

With a sigh he casts around for what to do. He could Floo Scorpius, but Draco might answer, and the idea of that is terrifying. He could borrow an owl, or pay a Post Owl, but the post office will be shut by now. Maybe Delphi might have one, or-

A soft hoot from the direction of his sink catches his attention, and he spins round, blinking in surprise as he spots a familiar owl sitting on his draining board. He recognises her as Scorpius’s owl, Ariana.

“Hello,” Albus says, going over to her. “Did he tell you to wait? Your Scorpius is brilliant.”

She gives another hoot, then dips her head and starts clicking her beak under his kitchen tap. It takes him a second before he realises what she wants.

“A drink! Yes. Sorry, it’s a hot day.” He grabs a shallow bowl from his cupboard and fills it with water, then puts it on the side for her. Instantly she starts guzzling it down, and he leaves her to it while he goes and writes his note.

Scorpius,

I’m glad you enjoyed last night. I quite liked it myself. Maybe we could do it again sometime...

It’s fine that you can’t meet up tonight. Delphi’s taking me out on a ‘date’. I have no idea what we’re doing but I have to bring brooms. I think it’s a bonding thing.

If you want to meet up tomorrow you won’t keep me away. I’ll come to Diagon Alley and find you. I might not come as Albus though; I’d rather not cause a riot by having the entire universe recognise me. That might derail our date a little bit.

Have fun entertaining your dad.

See you tomorrow.

Love,

Albus

He rolls it up into a tight scroll before he can cross it all out and start again, casts a spell to seal it since he doesn’t have any wax, and takes it across to Ariana. She’s managed to upend the water bowl in her excitement and is now sitting on top of it, feathers fluffed up and mouth open, glaring at him.

“Well it’s not my fault if you’re going to cause a mess, is it?” He tells her. When he reaches for the bowl she hops off it, and he gives her another quick drink before holding the scroll out to her. “Can you take this to Scorpius for me?”

She eyes him, then snatches it out of his hand.

“I’m guessing that’s a yes. Are you going to carry that in your beak, or do you want me to-“ She takes off and soars out of the open kitchen window before he’s finished his sentence, and he sighs. “I suppose it’s not that far to Wiltshire.”

He puts his quill and parchment away and heads up to his room, where he picks out one of the neatest pairs of shorts he can find and a tank top that he barely ever wears to work out in. He showers and changes, pausing in front of the mirror to run a hand through his hair, which already needs cutting again – it’s growing far faster than it should be – then he digs out his third best broom, grabs his second best broom for himself, and Apparates to London.

Delphi is waiting just inside the park gates, bobbing from foot to foot and watching the passers by with a sharp, intense gaze. She’s so busy staring at a man wheeling a bike between the bright banks of flowers that he manages to sneak up on her and poke her in the arm. She jumps and whips her wand out. The next second it’s pressed hard to his throat, and he has to lift his chin to breathe, hands held up in surrender.

“Delphi, it’s me,” he chokes out. “Sorry. I thought it would be fun to-“

“Sneak up on me,” she says, withdrawing her wand and tucking it away in her pocket. “I could have cursed you, Albus. You should be more careful.”

“You could,” Albus says, eyeing the pocket her wand has disappeared into. “I just wanted to have a bit of- anyway. Thank you for not cursing me.” He holds one of the brooms out to her. “This is for you, as requested.”

“I almost hoped you’d forget it,” she says, taking it off him.

He grins. “Not a chance. I want to see you fly. I can give you some tips if you want.”

Delphi snorts. “I’m not taking tips.”

“Not even from the best broom racer around?” Albus hops onto his broom and looks at her. “Better while we’re on the ground than in the air.”

Delphi lifts her chin and swings her leg over her broom and grips the handle as she steadies herself. “It’s not as if I’ve never flown before.”

Albus frowns. “Have you flown before?”

“I work for a broom racing league,” Delphi says. “Of course I’ve flown before.”

She kicks off from the ground and rises a few feet. Albus can tell from the way she’s gripping the broom, hard enough for her hands to shake, that she’s far from relaxed, and it looks for a moment like the broom is considering rebelling against her. But then Albus reaches across and steadies it and it calms down under the familiar touch.

“Relax,” he tells her. “The calmer you are, the easier it’ll be. Like any magic I suppose.”

“I’m perfectly relaxed, Sev,” she says, wobbling as she lifts the handle of the broom and it rises rapidly, much faster than she’d clearly meant it to.

He laughs. “No you’re not.” He glides up beside her and puts a hand over hers. “Stop holding on so tight. I promise it’ll help.”

“Won’t that make me more likely to fall off?” Delphi asks, glancing across at him and nearly slipping sideways.

Albus grabs hold of her arm and pulls her upright. “Careful.”

“I told you it’d just make me more likely to fall off,” she huffs.

Albus sighs. “Relax your hands, concentrate, don’t look at me, don’t be scared, and you’ll be fine.”

“Oh is that it?”

Despite the tetchiness in her tone, she inhales, looks straight ahead, and slowly relaxes her grip. The effect is instantaneous. The broom levels out and seems to become lighter in the air. It’s not fighting anymore, but obeying Delphi’s touch, so when she lifts the handle it rises smoothly and gradually.

“That’s it,” Albus says, unable to keep a hint of smugness out of his voice. This is the one thing in the world where he actually feels as if he knows what he’s doing. This he’s allowed to be smug about.

“I was just testing you,” Delphi mutters.

“Uh huh,” Albus says, but he doesn’t push it any further. “Where are we going?”

“We’re going to that big Muggle skyscraper – the Shard,” Delphi says. “Right to the top.”

“Are you sure you can make it that high without falling off?” Albus asks, shooting a grin at her.

She raises the handle of her broom in defiance, and they both ascend together, leaving Regent’s Park behind them and skimming away across London.

“My first flying lesson at Hogwarts was a dismal failure,” he tells Delphi as they go. “Did you know that?”

She shakes her head. “No, I didn’t.”

“I mean, everything at Hogwarts was a dismal failure, but that in particular was...” he sighs and shakes his head. “It was an unmitigated disaster. It wasn’t even that I’d never flown before and didn’t know what I was doing. You can’t grow up in my family without flying, it’s in our DNA. But when I got there I was so scared of getting it wrong that I couldn’t get the broom to listen to me. You can’t fly if you’re scared. Those school brooms are flighty at the best of times. They’ll only pay attention to confidence, talent, and sometimes hope. I didn’t have any of those things.”

He looks down at the city below them, at the rivers of cars flowing down the streets, at the tiny green squares, at the sparkling glass of the buildings, at the grass of the parks, drenched in the red sunset. The view is one of the things he’s grown to love most about flying. The world looks different up here. It looks more inviting. You can see how it works, how everything just happens and will continue to happen, how you don’t need to worry because things fall into place. It’s far more difficult to see that when you’re in amongst the chaos and you can’t find your place.

“That was the second time I felt like I didn’t fit in,” he continues. “And that was the worst. Once is a coincidence. Getting sorted into Slytherin... I still had some hope that things might be alright. But then the flying lesson fell apart and that was when I really knew that nothing would work. You can’t be a Potter if you can’t get a broom to obey you.”

“And now the brooms obey you,” Delphi says, “and you don’t want to be a Potter anymore.”

Albus skims his hand down the handle of his broom and bows his head. “I don’t know. For a long time I didn’t. I wanted to be anything else, any other name, any other family. But now... Now I just want to be me.”

“Sev?” Delphi asks.

Albus swallows and shakes his head. “No. Albus.”

Delphi glances in his direction for an instant, eyebrows raised, then looks straight back ahead.

“That’s not what you wanted to hear,” Albus murmurs. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not not what I wanted to hear,” Delphi says. “But it’s unexpected. I thought Albus was your past.”

Albus shakes his head. “I don’t know what he is. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know, Delphi.”

“How can you want to be someone you don’t know?” Delphi asks, pulling a face. “That makes no sense.”

“I know it doesn’t. But... I spent so long trying to be anyone other than Albus, and then I spent so long trying to be Sev... I don’t want to try anymore. I just want to be. I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how to be satisfied with my existence, maybe it’s impossible, but now seems like a good time to have a go.” He shrugs. “If it doesn’t work out maybe I’ll go back to being Sev, but I won’t know that it won’t work until it all goes wrong.”

Delphi nods, carefully considering. “Well firstly, it all went wrong before, so it probably will go wrong again. Secondly, no one’s satisfied with their existence, Sev. It’s impossible. Everyone’s unhappy. That’s how life works.”

“Is it?” Albus asks.

“Absolutely,” Delphi says, and she sounds so certain about it that Albus almost reconsiders. But then he remembers Scorpius. He remembers how happy he’d been kissing him. He remembers the golden glow of joy and contentment. He remembers his stomach swooping as he flew down the gorge the other night, when everything felt glorious and easy.

“I don’t know,” he murmurs. “I really don’t know. And just because it went wrong before doesn’t mean... I’m older now. I think I might be more determined. I’m ready to fix things.”

“It’s going to be a disaster,” Delphi says, throwing him another glance. “You’ll get your heart broken again. We’ll have to fix it all again. Nothing will be better. Take the future you’ve got as Sev and run. Quit while you’re ahead.”

“What is the future I’ve got as Sev?” Albus asks.

Delphi grins. “Yes, about that.” She takes one hand off her broom and gestures to the towering spire of the Shard in front of them. “Allow me to show you.”

They soar up over the lip of the tower, and Albus gently touches down on the flat roof right at the top, nestled between the jagged top pieces of the four glass walls. He waves Delphi in, encouraging her down, and when she gives up and hops lightly off a couple of feet off the ground, he grabs her hand to support her.

“I hate brooms,” she says, glaring at it and shuddering. “Anyway.” She gives him a dazzling smile. “Welcome, Sev, to the roof of the world.”

Albus looks around at the city spread out below them, all streams of twinkling light, fractured and segmented by the dark river and train lines. “What are we doing up here?” He asks. “This is a little bit illegal.”

Delphi tuts. “Your entire existence is illegal. Come and sit.” She takes hold of his hand and guides him to the edge, where she sits with her feet dangling over the endless drop. When Albus hesitates to join her she rolls her eyes.

“You’ll sit on that thing and fly all the way up here but you won’t hang your feet over the edge? Come on.”

“They’re two very different things,” he says, but he reluctantly sits next to her, putting his feet over the edge and doing his best not to look straight down.

“Good boy.” She pats his hand, then twists round and starts rummaging in her bag. “Here. I need a drink after that flight.” She pulls a bottle of Firewhisky and two shot glasses out and sets them down between the two of them.

“We’re getting drunk at the top of a very tall building before flying home?” Albus smiles. “It’s like you have a death wish.”

“And you don’t?” She pours him a liberal helping of Firewhisky. “Drink.”

He sighs, but there’s no real reluctance as he takes the drink and knocks it back in one. It sears the back of his throat and makes his toes curl, but it’s good. It’s delicious. Already he can feel it numbing his senses in the most perfect way, and he grins and leans back on his hands, kicking his heels against the metal beam supporting them.

“So,” he says. “Why have you brought me to,” he gestures the width of the skyline, “the roof of the world?”

“I wanted to remind you what the world looks like from above,” Delphi says, looking at him. She’s holding her own glass of Firewhisky in her hand, but hasn’t drunk any yet. “Do you remember,” she says, “when you first ran away, and that night when you were really upset, we went and sat at the top of the stadium during the race?”

Albus remembers. He remembers like it was yesterday. He hadn’t started racing yet, he was afraid of everything and feeling more inferior than he ever had. The fire all seemed so much hotter back then, before he’d truly been bitten by it. The racers all seemed faster, the crowds noisier, and every time he saw someone in blue robes he’d flinch, terrified that his dad or one of the Aurors had found him. He couldn’t race. He couldn’t do anything. He was worse than useless.

And on the day when he most wanted to go home – when his mum’s first letter to him arrived and he made the mistake of reading it, when he’d spent the whole day crying – Delphi had found him and brought him to the top of the stadium where they’d been racing. It was an old Quidditch World Cup stadium, back from when his dad had still been in school, perched out on a desolate moor side, away from the world. The sides were steep, towering up into the air, an enormous bowl shape, and when he was standing on the pitch Albus felt like an ant, tiny, inconsequential, and more than a little bit lost. But from the top they could look down on everything and everyone. The fire felt less hot up there, the noise less overwhelming, even the race looked slower. Albus relaxed and saw the beauty of it all, and Delphi talked him through it.

“This is your life now, Sev,” she said. “Embrace it. Own it.”

“The future is mine to make,” he murmured, and she nodded and wrapped an arm round him.

“You’re free, so let yourself feel free. Let go. You can do this.”

He took a breath and leaned against her. “I-I can.”

“Whenever you get scared,” she said, “imagine you’re up here. Everything is smaller than you, everything is laid out for the taking. You can do whatever you want.”

“I want to win a race,” he said. “Just one. Then I might feel like I belong.”

Delphi snorted. “You’d better win more than one. But one is a good starting point. And you can do it. I have complete faith in you.” She turned and looked at him. “Make all this yours. Believe that it’s here to let you become who you should be, and nothing will ever stop you.”

“This is your world, Sev,” Delphi says. “This is our world. We can do whatever we want, and nothing can ever stop us.” She downs her shot of Firewhisky in one, throwing her head back, so her silver ponytail swishes behind her. When she’s done, she pours two more shots and hands one to Albus. “You’ve got so grounded over the last week. I can see you forgetting all this. You’re getting weighed down by life again, by people. By Scorpius, your parents, your past. Don’t lose this,” she says, gesturing to the view. “Don’t lose your freedom. Don’t become stoppable.”

Albus braces his hands on the edge of the building and looks down at his knees. He can see the drop beyond, and it makes him feel vulnerable and queasy. “I hate it though,” he says. “This feeling that I’m floating and there’s nothing holding me down. Some days it feels like I could disappear and no one would notice. I suppose in a way I’ve already done that...”

“Sev isn’t someone who could disappear,” Delphi says, patting his hand. “Everyone knows Sev. Everyone loves Sev. Sev is a winner; a hero. You’re not going anywhere.”

“But...” Albus sighs. There’s no point explaining to her again that he doesn’t know if he wants to be Sev anymore. Clearly she doesn’t understand. How can someone like Delphi, who’s so certain and put together, possibly understand what it’s like to feel fractured, to be so many different people but no one all at once. She can’t know what it’s like to feel like he’s playing pretend, like he’s trying to be someone but failing. She knows who she is. She’s nothing but what she appears to be, and that’s the thing Albus has always envied about her most of all.

“Sev,” she murmurs, and she leans across to kiss him on the cheek. “Stop thinking.”

I can’t, Albus thinks, but he doesn’t say it. Instead he knocks back his second shot of Firewhisky.

“Good,” Delphi says. She ruffles her fingers through his hair and pulls back to look at him. “You need to cut it again. It’s got longer.”

Albus sighs. “I know. I only cut it the other day. I quite like it this length, though. It doesn’t look too much like my dad’s, does it?”

“It’s about as scruffy as his,” Delphi says, running her fingers from his forehead all the way back to his neck, examining every inch. “If I were you I’d cut it. But I’m not you, and clearly you’re going to do whatever you want anyway.”

“Sev would want it shorter,” Albus says, tugging on a bit of his fringe to pull it into view. He looks at it for a moment, then lets it ping back into place as he pours himself another shot.

For a while after that they sit quietly, listening to the distant sounds of the bustling city below. A train rattles along the tracks below them, car horns honk as people in bumper to bumper traffic struggle to get home from wherever they’ve been all day, people shout and laugh, an aeroplane soars overhead, a stiff breeze rushes past Albus’s ears. And above it all, the moon and stars hang, utterly silent but ever watchful. They see everything.

Delphi takes two more shots, and is nursing a third between both hands when she speaks again and breaks the silence between them.

“Do you ever think about what it would be like to rule over all this?”

Albus snorts and knocks back his third shot. “No. I can’t say I do. Why?”

“I do,” Delphi says. She takes her shot and picks up the bottle to pour another. “All those people out there answering directly to you, listening to your every word. You get to decide everything. You control it all. Everyone’s lives at your mercy...” She shakes her head and her eyes glint in the moonlight. “That would be... it would be incredible. All that power.” She inhales, tipping her head back like she wants to draw in as much of the sweet night air as possible.

Albus smiles and reaches across to take the Firewhisky bottle from her. “Delphi, I think you might have had enough to drink now.”

“No!” She holds the bottle away from him. “I’m fine. Just imagine it, Sev. We could have anything and everything we ever wanted. We could have palaces, fame, fortune. You could even have Scorpius if you wanted. And you would never disappear. Everyone would know your name. Everyone.”

Albus rolls his eyes and makes another grab for the bottle. “You have definitely had too much to drink. Is this what you think about in your spare time? Being supreme ruler of the universe? Because it’s a bit weird, Delphi.”

“It’s not weird,” Delphi says. “It’s ambitious. You’re a Slytherin. You understand ambition, I know you do.”

“Well yes, but-“

“Then you must have thought about this too.” She pours another shot and downs it in one before relinquishing the bottle and spreading her arms, a manic gleam in her eyes. “When you’re up here everything is laid out for the taking. You can have whatever you want. And I want everything.”

“There’s ambition,” Albus says, putting the bottle as far away from her as he can get, “and then there’s world domination. Those aren’t the same.”

“They can be if you try hard enough,” Delphi tells him, and he can tell that she’s deadly serious. “Can I have the bottle back?”

Albus shakes his head. “You may not have the bottle back. You have to fly down from here and you were bad enough sober. No more alcohol for you.”

“I don’t need the broom,” Delphi says, wrinkling her nose. “I can just jump. Jump and fly.”

Albus reaches out and takes hold of her arm. “Delphi, I’m not letting you jump off a building. We’re getting down now. Come on.”

“But-“

Albus shakes his head. “No.” He scrambles to his feet, holding the bottle well out of her reach, and tugs on her hand. “Up you get.”

Delphi groans and gets up. “You’re such a spoilsport, Albus.”

“That’s me.”

She makes another grab for the bottle, but he just about keeps it away. He fumbles in his pocket for his wand and points it at the bottle to vanish it. Even though he’s never successfully vanished anything before in his life, the bottle disappears in an instant, and he stares at his empty hand in amazement.

“Did you just vanish my Firewhisky?” Delphi asks, sounding as stunned as he feels.

“I-I think I did...” Albus says, still staring at the space where the bottle should be.

Delphi catches hold of his arm and pulls it towards her so she can examine his hand. “Albus Severus Potter. You vanished my Firewhisky. I can’t believe you. I thought we were friends.”

He laughs. “We are. I’ll get you a new bottle, once your feet are firmly back on the ground.”

“But I wanted us to get drunk while we survey our future kingdom.”

“Well,” Albus says. “You’ve succeeded in the getting drunk part. Do you want to go on the back of my broom on the way down?”

Delphi shakes her head and wraps her arms round him, holding him tight and looking at him. Her eyes are dark with her back to the moon, but they burn, hot as coals. She brushes her fingers over his cheek and down to his left shoulder onto his back, where she lets it rest right over the wing tattoo on his shoulder blade.

“Will you be in my future?” She asks softly. “Will I be in yours?”

Albus rests a hand on her back, holding her steady. “Of course. Both. You’re my best friend, Delphi.”

“Will you still think that tomorrow when you’re in bed with Scorpius?”

Albus’s face goes hot, despite the sting of the cold wind. “You saved me, Delphi. You showed me that I have a future. You brought me up here to show me the world and get me drunk on Firewhisky. You’re perfect. You’ve always been perfect.” He runs a hand over her bare back, where he knows her wing tattoo is exposed. “You and Scorpius aren’t in competition. I want you both and I need you both. A future without either of you isn’t a future I’m interested in, so don’t worry about that.”

He kisses her on the cheek, and she closes her eyes and rests her head on his shoulder.

“Good,” she murmurs.

“But,” he says, gently tickling her side to get her attention back. “If you fall off a broom now and die then I’m going to have to live without you, which isn’t a great prospect, so I think we should get down from here now, and I think you should ride on the back of my broom.

“I can fly myself,” she protests, lifting her head.

“Can you?”

She twists round and glances at the brooms. “Okay fine. Maybe I’ll ride with you. I hate brooms.”

Albus kisses her forehead. “I know. Let’s get you home.”

#Harry Potter and the Cursed Child #Cursed Child #Cursed Child Fic #Scorbus Fic #Scorbus #Scorpius Malfoy #Albus Severus Potter #Harry Potter #Ginny Potter #Delphini Diggory #Draco Malfoy #HPCC Fic #Keep The Secrets #My writing #Mine to Make #Mayhem to the nth degree

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hysterialevi · 6 years ago

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When the Devil Cries pt. 14

Author’s note: Just wanted to say a quick thanks for all the support you guys have been giving this story. It’s really great to know you’re enjoying this fic, and the messages you’ve been sending me have all been super encouraging. So thank you guys for taking the time to read this, and I hope you continue to enjoy it :)

From Arthur’s POV

THAT NIGHT

SMITHFIELD’S SALOON, VALENTINE

Well, we were finally here. After what felt like an eternity of chasing them Arlington Twins, and ridin’ from Lemoyne all the way to New Hanover, Eddie and I had reached Valentine at last.

The town seemed to be the same as usual -- sheep shit and all -- and it was actually kinda quiet due to most of the people being asleep right now. But o’ course, the saloon was rowdy as always, and it stood out like a goddamned beacon in the darkness of the night. How anyone got a wink of sleep in this place with all the constant ruckus was beyond me.

I just hoped that nobody would recognize me from the last time I was here. I still hadn’t lived down the fight I had with Big Tommy, and I certainly didn’t wanna renew my status as the town brawler. But perhaps, with Eddie by my side, I would actually manage to be somewhat civilized tonight. ...But that was just wishful thinkin’ on my part.

Approaching the front of the saloon with Eddie in tow, the two of us climbed the muddy steps as I showed the pianist inside, already able to hear the mayhem occurring on the other side of the wall. This was gonna make one hell of a first impression on the boy.

“Welcome to Smithfield’s,” I told Eddie, pushing through the swinging doors as the smell of alcohol slapped us in the face. “What d’you think?”

The boy gazed around for a moment, his line of sight mainly sticking to the piano as he took in the environment.

There was drunken fellers stumblin’ around all over the place, workin’ girls trying to seduce any of the cowboys that passed ‘em by, and an entire circle of men sat down at the Poker table, mindlessly throwing their money away.

Normally, I woulda hated how packed it was in here -- and I could only imagine how Eddie must’ve felt, seein’ as how he was new to this place -- but I actually found a strange sense of comfort in the casually chaotic mood of this saloon.

Somethin’ about being around people who were on the verge of knocking each other’s teeth out but also treatin’ one another as if they’d known them their whole lives just...made me feel at home, I supposed.

Huh. I wondered what that said about my home.

“It’s a lot different from the one in Saint Denis.” He remarked, clearly feeling a bit outta place. I let out a laugh.

“Heh. Sure is,” I joked. “You can actually enjoy yourself in this one. C’mon. I’ll buy you a drink.”

Wandering over to the bar, Eddie and I squeezed through crowds of people as they all knocked back shots of whiskey and tripped over themselves tryin’ to find the exit, slurring random nonsense to no one in particular.

“Woo!” One man shouted, wobbling his way across the saloon as he struggled to keep his eyes open. “...I feel it now!”

Meanwhile, a nearby working girl found herself unable to look away from Eddie as an alluring grin spread across her face, her gaze following his every move.

“Hey there handsome,” she greeted. “Lookin’ for some fun?”

The pianist politely refused, suddenly sticking a lot closer to me than I think he realized. Fortunately though, we reached the bar before anyone else could approach us.

I slid a couple of coins across the counter, getting the bartender’s attention.

“Two beers.” I ordered.

The bartender reached below and grabbed two bottles, popping off their caps with a soft hiss before giving them to me.

“Here. This’ll shoo away your worries for a while.”

Handing one of ‘em to Eddie, I raised mine and gave a brief toast, smiling at the boy.

“To your health.”

The pianist returned the smile, his expression glowing in the warm lighting of the saloon.

“Thank you.”

We clinked our bottles together and took a generous swig, enjoying this short moment of peace while people came pourin’ in and out of the bar. By now, there was plenty of cowpokes passed out on the tables scattered around the saloon, and the ones who were still standin’ were either playing cards, flirting with the women, or too busy regretting their life choices.

There was even one man in particular at the end of the bar who was whining quite loudly to himself as he gave the bartender an earful about his life, his words all slurred and exaggerated due to the alcohol.

Well, I was just glad that someone else was causin’ the scene this time.

“You know,” Eddie thought out loud, bringing me back to reality, “...it’s hard to believe that this is all real.”

I took another sip, peering at him in curiosity. “What you mean?”

The boy leaned on the bar, his elbows resting on its surface as he blankly stared ahead.

“It’s just difficult to grasp the fact that, a couple weeks ago, I was nothing but a pianist with his head in the clouds...scraping to get by in that dreadful city. My only concerns were earning money, and putting on a good show for the people of Saint Denis. I didn’t know a damn thing about living in the wilds, or shooting guns, or hunting -- I was clueless.”

Eddie threw a loving smirk in my direction, his green eyes twinkling daringly.

“But now,” he continued, “here I am. Out in the open, chasing bounties, riding across this beautiful country...with someone I never expected to be my friend.”

I let out a chuckle, lookin’ down my beer bottle.

“Well, if it’s any consolation, I’m a much worse enemy.”

Eddie chortled. “I didn’t mean it like that, you fool. I’m glad to be with you. I mean, I know our situation’s actually quite dire, but...it could be worse. One of us could’ve died at that gala -- or even both of us -- and yet, here we are. We made it. We’re surviving.”

I nodded, raising my bottle to that. “That we are. And we ain’t stopping.”

The pianist took a sip of his own beer, his gaze suddenly flicking over to the Poker table in the corner of the saloon. It looked like two of the seats had just been opened, and judging by the pile of chips sittin’ in the center, the game was at its peak now.

Eddie gave me a hesitant glance, his face covered in excitement.

“Could we...play a few rounds?”

I raised a brow out of surprise, instantly doing a double take. I had to admit: Eddie didn’t seem like the type o’ feller to enjoy gambling.

“...You play Poker?” I asked.

He shrugged shyly, smiling at me. “A little.”

A WHILE LATER

Eddie laid out his cards on the table, presenting a full house as a simultaneous groan of defeat emitted from the other players.

I tossed my hand back to the dealer, muttering under my breath.

“...A little, my ass.”

The dealer stacked the cards back together, passing them over to the next person as Eddie gathered his prize and proudly added it to his collection of chips. I guessed this pianist weren’t as “clueless” as he claimed.

“Whoo...!” one of the players breathed out -- Sidney, I think his name was -- as he leaned back in his chair. “You are one lucky son of a gun. ...Who are you, anyway? I ain’t never seen you ‘round Valentine before.”

The boy slipped his cards into his hands, his expression remaining completely neutral.

“My name’s Nathaniel,” he replied. “Just passing through with my friend here. We don’t plan to stay for long.”

Another guy called Lewis let out a sigh. “Well, I hope you fellas didn’t come here for the gunsmith.”

I threw in my blind. “Why’s that?”

“There was quite a line outside the store earlier today,” he explained, shuffling the cards. “Looks like a lotta people are stockin’ up on guns and ammo recently. Picked the place clean. Not much left.”

“That so?” I asked.

He nodded. “That’s so.”

Sidney jumped back in. “It makes sense, though. You been payin’ attention to the news lately? There’s a string of robberies going across the country right now. Not to mention that hellish gunfight that happened in Saint Denis a few days ago. Accordin’ to the paper boy, loads of people was killed in that shootout. And the ones who survived was robbed of all their money. The law’s on high alert now.”

Eddie’s head perked up in interest at that, and he eyed Sidney with a suspicious glare. “That so?”

Sidney casually nodded back. “...That’s so.”

“Well,” Lewis began dealing the cards, “all I know is I’m glad to be out here and not in the city. Too many rules and regulations in places like that. That’s why common criminals thrive there. Easier to evade written laws than a bullet. Pull somethin’ like that in Valentine though, and Sheriff Mallory will shoot you down. As will the rest of us.”

Sidney took a peek at his cards, tossing in his bet. “I’m hopin’ it don’t ever come to that. Valentine’s a peaceful enough town. Folk work hard here. We live honest lives. Last thing we need’s some outlaws muckin’ that up for us.”

I subtly tilted the rim of my hat down and focused entirely on my hand, suddenly feelin’ as if I was wearing my wanted poster on my goddamned face.

It looked like I had pocket aces. Not a bad start.

I called, placing some of my chips in the middle of the table.

“So...” Lewis continued, taking his turn, “what’re y’all two doing here anyway? Your friend said you ain’t staying here long. You got a destination?”

“Plannin’ to head up north,” I lied. “Try and find some work in Van Horn or Annesburg.”

“Well good luck,” he wished as Eddie took his turn. “I know it’s hard to find a stable job these days. Or a job at all. Annesburg’s a good place to start if you don’t mind breathin’ out coal dust. As for Van Horn, I hear there ain’t really much out there, ‘cept for a saloon that attracts travelers of all types.”

I threw in another bet. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Lewis placed his hand down and laid out three community cards, revealing a pair of eight’s and a jack.

“...Shit.” Sidney murmured, folding upon seeing them.

“You really are an unlucky bastard, ain’t you?” Lewis remarked, earning a glare from the other man.

“Hey, keep your thoughts to yoursel--”

Interrupting the game, a new patron suddenly marched into the saloon with a blatant shove as he prowled through the swinging doors, causing everyone’s heads to turn before falling silent.

The man was considerably well-dressed compared to the other folk in this town and wore a stark-black suit along with a Paragon Town hat, his face mostly covered by its looming shadow.

And as if he wasn’t intimidating enough, there was also a trio of men following behind him, all of ‘em armed and clearly lookin’ for trouble. Shit. Who were these jokers?

Coming to a halt, the man in the front took a moment to scan the saloon like a hawk as he observed every single person’s face, obviously searching for someone.

There was a certain air to him that seemed familiar to me, and I couldn’t help but feel like I’d seen this man before...but where? This man weren’t no enemy of mine. And he definitely weren’t no friend. So who the hell was I lookin’ at?

I squinted my eyes, examining his features closely.

He had a squarish face accompanied by a permanent scowl, a structured nose that had evidently been broken before, a deep, cleft chin, and there was a prominent scar weighing down the right side of his mouth, forcing it into a frown.

I paused, a pang of realization suddenly hitting me.

That was Archibald Hill. The other bounty I saw at the sheriff’s office in Rhodes. Apparently, he was one of them Lemoyne Raiders. What the hell was he doin’ in Valentine?

Hill’s stern gaze landed on me, and his entire body turned in my direction.

He took a few steps forward, the men behind him following his every move.

“You there.” Archibald called out, his low voice booming across the saloon.

I casually glanced around, confused about the whole situation before addressing him.

“...Do I know you?” I asked.

“No,” Hill answered, sauntering towards me, “and I don’t know you either. ...But I know what you done. You the bounty hunter turned them Arlington Twins in. Ain’t you.”

I silently scoffed to myself. Shoulda guessed he was workin’ with that pair. I supposed it only made sense though, considering they was both robbing folks in Lemoyne’s countryside. I just never expected outlaws to cooperate. Usually, gunfire was the only type of communication we used.

I remained in my seat and simply paid the man no mind, not wanting to spark any sort of conflict just yet.

“I ain’t got no clue what you talkin’ about.” I denied. But Archibald didn’t buy it.

“Oh, I think you do,” he countered. “Thanks to your efforts, Minnie and Jesse are now swingin’ on display for all of Rhodes to see, and the crows have already made quite a feast out of ‘em. All for a hundred bucks.”

The men behind Archibald subtly unholstered their pistols, getting ready for a fight. Goddammit. I guessed peace was no longer an option.

I stood up from my chair and confronted the Lemoyne Raider, casually lighting a cigarette.

“...I think you should leave, partner.” I quietly warned, staring him down as I struck a match.

Archibald didn’t move a single muscle.

“Neither of us is goin’ anywhere, cowboy,” he taunted. “Especially not after what you’ve done. See, that train you prevented the Arlingtons from robbing -- it was carrying a whole lotta valuables. Valuables...belonging to me.”

I scoffed in amusement. “You mean valuables that you was gonna steal.”

Hill reached down and swatted the flaps of his coat to the side, revealing an impressive gunbelt as he rested a hand on the grip of his revolver.

“Yes,” he growled, his glare piercing through me. “...Because I take what’s mine.”

Glancing back at Eddie, I let out an annoyed sigh and loosely shook my head, putting out the cigarette underneath my boot as I thought about what to do next.

“Well...” I said with an innocent shrug, “...I don’t.”

Whipping out my revolver, I instantly fired a bullet directly into the center of Archibald’s forehead and killed the man on the spot, causing the outlaw’s mouth to drop open as he froze.

There was a narrow stream of blood now leaking out of his bullet wound, and with every second he spent standing there, the more the other patrons in the saloon appeared to nail their eyes onto him, morbidly intrigued by the sudden shooting.

Archibald’s body slowly began to tilt, and he finally collapsed to the floor with a heavy thud as the entire bar fell silent.

“...H-Holy shit...!” One of Hill’s men exclaimed out of shock, fumbling for their pistol. “You...you son-of-a-bitch!”

Before they even had a chance to aim however, Eddie had already shot their pistol straight outta their grasp with a dead-eye’s accuracy and stepped to my side, leading the other two men to reach for their own guns.

Just as they prepared their weapons though, I immediately cocked my revolver at the hip and fired two extra bullets into their heads, sending them tumblin’ backwards like a pair of toppling towers.

The last remaining raider threw his hands in the air, paralyzed by the barrels of our firearms.

“Ain’t often a man lingers ‘round his own grave,” I threatened him. “You sure you wanna stay, boy?”

Eddie pulled the hammer down on his Schofield, prepared to shoot at a moment’s notice.

Taking a moment to steadily back away from us and get his bearings, the raider visibly gulped and hurriedly broke into a sprint before fleeing the saloon, leaving me and Eddie alone as we stared at Archibald’s corpse in unison.

I put my revolver away and bent down, hoisting the outlaw’s body over my shoulder.

“What are you doing?” Eddie questioned, his gaze followin’ me as I exited the building.

“Gettin’ us an extra seventy-five dollars,” I replied. “You coming?”

The boy hesitated for a minute and looked around the bar in a baffled manner, quickly taggin’ along once he snatched Hill’s gun for himself. Heh. It looked like he was startin’ to pick up my habits. Wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing, to be honest.

I took one last glance at the bartender before walkin’ through the doors, earning a neutral response from him.

“Don’t worry,” he reassured, holding his hands up. “I saw the whole thing. You had no choice. You had to use your equalizer.”

I nodded thankfully. “Appreciate it. Well, I’ll, ah...let Mallory know ‘bout the rest of the bodies decorating this here establishment. In the meantime, I think it’s best if I get as far away as possible from here. Good day.”

MIDNIGHT

OUTSIDE THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE

Strolling out of the office with a brand new clip of cash in hand, I stepped down the short stairs and counted the money, deciding how to split it between me and Eddie while the boy waited by the hitching post.

I couldn’t lie -- ever since that Poker game, the musician’s behavior had been a bit more dour than usual, and it almost seemed like he was angry at me.

Was he upset ‘cause I shot all those men? Did he not want me to do it? I mean, it wouldn’t have been the first time he’d seen me kill someone, and I doubted it’d be the last...but right now, Eddie was actin’ strange. I just had no clue why.

“...Eddie?” I said, approaching the boy. At the moment, he was examining the gun he took from Archibald and mindlessly playin’ with its empty cylinder, flicking it in and out of place.

He stopped at the sound of his name and silently acknowledged me, his expression riddled with a sense of betrayal. What was goin’ on?

“Eddie,” I repeated. “Everything alright?”

The pianist aimlessly stared at the muddy ground, his brow furrowed in deep concentration. He was clearly thinkin’ about something big, and the longer he went without saying anything, the less I wanted to hear it.

Eddie took a deep breath, keeping himself calm.

“During the Poker game,” he recalled, “Sidney said something about the gala in Saint Denis. Said that everyone there was either killed or robbed.”

I stepped in front of the boy, trying to get him to look at me.

“Yeah, he did. What of it?”

Eddie glared at me, coming to a conclusion. “That’s the second time a place I’ve brought you to has been robbed.”

My heart stopped in my chest. What was he implying?

“Eddie...” I whispered, “...what...what’re you saying?”

He let out a heartbroken sigh, clenching his jaw in anger.

“I know I can be naive,” he fired back, “but I’m not stupid, Arthur. You said it yourself -- you’ve committed crimes in the past. So why is it that everywhere I take you to ends up being robbed? First, it was the theater. Then, it was the gala...”

Eddie’s eyes turned glossy with tears. “...Have you been using me, Arthur? Do you even consider me to be an actual friend? Or a lover? Am I nothing but a key to you? A way to open doors that you would otherwise have to break down? What is going on, Arthur? If that’s even your real name.”

I ended up being at a loss for words, not only disgusted with myself for hurting Eddie like this, but also frightened now that he had figured out the truth.

Goddammit, you absolute moron. I scolded myself.

I knew I should’ve told him sooner. I knew I should’ve confessed, and I knew I couldn’t keep this secret forever. But like the snake I was, I cowered away from every chance I got and only strung him along even further, completely taking advantage of the boy.

What the hell was wrong with me?

Out of instinct, I placed a comforting hand on the pianist’s shoulder, only to be swatted away.

Christ. I had really gone and screwed it up this time, hadn’t I.

“Eddie,” I said in a soothing tone, stumbling over my own words, “...listen. You...you got me. Okay? You’re right. The truth is...I am an outlaw. I have been for most of my life. And...I did rob the theater. In fact, the man you was holdin’ at gunpoint backstage...”

Eddie’s head perked up in remembrance, and he let out a shaky breath.

“...That was you?” He asked.

I nodded stiffly, both reluctant and eager to get the truth out in the open.

“Yes,” I confirmed. “And those men I brought with me to the gala -- Kilgore and O’Malley -- they’re outlaws, too. They been at this even longer than I have. I weren’t lyin’ when I said they raised me.”

I gently reached for Eddie’s hand, desperately trying to climb outta this hole I’d dug.

“Look...maybe I should just start from the beginning.”

I led the musician to a nearby bench and sat down beside him, still holdin’ on to his hand as I thought about how on Earth I was gonna explain this mess to the boy.

I knew it was probably stupid to tell this to someone who weren’t even part of the gang -- and I had no doubts Dutch would be outraged if he learned about this -- but after all the bullshit I had put Eddie through, I figured he deserved to know the truth. Even if it wasn’t safe for him to know.

I braced myself for his reaction, deciding to open up about all my secrets.

“...I’m part of a gang, Eddie,” I started off. “The Van der Linde gang. I’ve been ridin’ with them for over twenty years now. Ever since I was a boy. In fact, I was actually the first one they ‘recruited.’ Back then though, we weren’t even considered a gang. It was just Dutch and Hosea, tryin’ to raise this unruly orphan they’d picked up from the streets. You know them as Tacitus and Aiden.”

The boy seemed less agitated now and listened to my story intently, willing to hear me out.

“Go on.” He urged.

“Well...” I continued, “our gang arrived at Saint Denis not too long before I met you. Dutch already had ideas brewin’ about the theater and the bank by then, and the gala was something I discovered on my own. Originally, we planned to just slip in and outta the city before anyone could even figure out who we were, or what happened...but then...I met you.”

Eddie paused. “Wait...so you didn’t befriend me for the sake of the robberies?”

“No. You were never part of our plans, and I never meant to drag you into this nightmare. I didn’t even know you was involved with the theater or the gala. You were just someone I liked bein’ around...no matter how foolish it may’ve been. I truly do care about you, Eddie. More than I probably show it.”

That appeared to relieve the pianist, and he even looked somewhat apologetic for the way he lashed out at me earlier. But it weren’t his fault. None of this was.

“I’m sorry I lied to you, Eddie,” I finally said. “I really thought it was for the best. I thought you’d be safer if you didn’t know. But...you’re well aware of how much of a fool I can be.

Eddie gave me a small, but sincere smile. “Yes, I am.”

He leaned forward and planted a brief kiss on my lips, afterwards resting his head on my shoulder.

“Thank you for trusting me with this, Arthur. I didn’t mean to snap at you like that, but I don’t exactly have the easiest time trusting people. You know this. I was just afraid that nothing we had was genuine. That...this had all been some sort of ruse. But I shouldn’t have doubted you so easily. I see that now. After all, you’ve saved my life more times than I can count. You’ve earned my trust. Just...promise you won’t lie to me again.”

I tightened my hand around Eddie’s and pulled the boy closer as the two of us sat underneath the moonlight, peacefully watchin’ the night pass by.

“I won’t. I promise.”

Letting out a sigh of relief, I quietly thought to myself while Eddie relaxed against me, shutting his eyes in content.

I couldn’t believe I actually managed to save my relationship with him. I mean, the last time one of my lovers found out I was an outlaw, they ended up calling off the engagement and marryin’ another man.

I didn’t blame Mary for what she did -- in fact, I understood where she was coming from -- but at the same time...it did hurt a whole lot to lose her like that. After all, we spent so long falling in love with each other, and trickin’ ourselves into believing that nothing could separate us. So, to have her drop out of my life in such an abrupt manner -- due to a single man’s opinion -- it made me question the foundation of all my relationships.

But now, I could see that Eddie truly was a treasure. Even when he was afraid; even when he suspected that everything I’d done with him had been a lie...he still listened. He still tried to understand, and most importantly, he still gave me a second chance. And I’d be damned if I didn’t take it.

Eddie was the only thing that mattered to me now, and I was going to do everything within my power to protect him. Regardless of whatever happened to us.

Regardless of any man’s opinion.

#red dead redemption #red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 #arthur morgan #eddie ryan #oc #fanfic #story

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eleventoes · 7 years ago

Text

of gold and starlight | oneshot

❮ a oneshot from the all you’d never see series ❯

pairing: prosecutor!jimin x ghost!reader | fluff; also an attempt at mystery word count: 9.5k extra: [ x ] ♪: it’s you - henry warning(s): mentions of blood synopsis:

Park Jimin was known for many things—for being the district attorney’s all-time favorite with the highest successful prosecution rate around, for being the sexiest prosecutor on the 15th floor, and also for being that one guy who never grew out of having imaginary friends.

You took credit for that last one, though.

***

“Jimin, do these jeans make my ass look bigger?”

“Jimin, I’m really craving fried chicken.”

“Jimin, I need money.”

It’s funny really, how everyone else in the office still had their noses buried in the ever-growing stack of case files and settlement documents, all while you were currently half-splayed out on his desk, whining as you usually did whenever you got too bored in the afternoons. Not that anyone except Jimin could actually see the mess you were making on his desk, and that’s what made it all the more aggravating; but he has to give it to you, because there weren’t many upsides to being dead, and he’ll let you take what you can get.

“Not now, Y/N, also I’m broke as hell and you know it,” Jimin hisses through gritted teeth, eyes darting wildly around to see if anyone was paying any attention to his seemingly one-sided exchange. The rumors were bad enough as it is; if it weren’t for his work efficiency, he probably would have been fired for his odd behavior eons ago.

“But it was payday yesterday,” You were sitting up now, playing with the splinters near the edge of the mahogany table and giving him your best pout. Sure, you were acting like a brat, you knew as much, but you were half-joking anyway, because boredom does that to most people, of which included ghosts with practically all of eternity on their hands.

��It was, until you went ahead and bought that stupidly overpriced Balenciaga bag. You know, the same one you’d never get to flaunt in public because floating bags are not a thing,” His voice was up a notch now, and heads were starting to turn. Jimin chose to ignore the knowing glances, fully aware that his assisting officers were probably gearing up their chatroom to discuss his dialogue with thin air yet again. They don’t have hostile intentions; just too goddamned nosy for their own good.

Huffing despondently, you only throw him a look before lowering yourself off his desk and back onto the ground (or as close to the ground as you could possibly be; you never hovered more than a foot off the floor), nearly knocking over the stack of medical reports Jimin had sacrificed sleep for just the night prior as you throw your hands in the air dramatically, “I can’t believe you’re mocking me for being a ghost. A ghost. It wasn’t as if I chose to be dead, Jimin.”

You weren’t actually pissed off, Jimin could tell. He’d have thought that ghosts would be a lot more sensitive about, you know, not breathing, but it took him a whole month of tiptoeing on eggshells around you before you decided you couldn’t take any more of his awkward shuffling and told him you didn’t really care. Suffice to say, the playful banter hasn’t ceased since, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

That ridiculous pout was sitting atop your lips again, and it took Jimin all he had to tame the smile tugging on his. No one in the office would believe his sanity if he were to burst out laughing whilst flipping through the case file of that petty pickpocket from a week ago.

Though, you seem more than satisfied with the ghost (haha) of a smile gracing his features; Jimin was way too stressed out most of the time, and rightfully so, given the weight of his occupation, so you take it upon yourself to loosen him up. The living has to live a little, after all.

And speaking of loosening up.

Prosecutors Jung Hoseok and Min Yoongi were in dire need of some serious stress relief, and Jimin almost couldn’t stand to watch the familiar glint in your eyes as you pranced gleefully over to where they were slaving away at their desks on the other side of the room, hair flinging wildly in your haste. In the past year, you’ve learnt more than the basics of law enforcement and criminal investigation. In fact, you’ve also learnt that Prosecutor Jung Hoseok was hilariously terrified of all that was supernatural despite being terrifying in court himself, and Prosecutor Min Yoongi was a lot more fun to tease than his stoic façade would let on.

Hoseok was easy, you just needed to rearrange his things a little, and that was it, that’s literally all you had to do in order to drive the poor man up the wall. He was always too immersed in his work to actually witness you swapping the placement of everything else on his desk (it was for the better; you weren’t sure if he might pass out if he saw a couple of pens levitating), and today was no different. From across the office, you hear Jimin stifling a laugh, and you think back to all the times he had chided you for freaking out his co-workers before sticking your tongue out at him like the child you were.

As per usual, Hoseok was due to scream a couple of hours later once he was done with whatever case he was handling, so you move on to Yoongi, because he was slightly trickier.

For some reason, you had a soft spot for that workaholic who seemed to never leave his workplace, opting to get his sleep in the form of hour naps during the day. Really, every single one of those prosecutors were workaholics (Park Jimin included), but everyone else agreed that Yoongi does overdo it a little. According to his assisting officer Seulgi and what you can make out of her conversation with Hani, he hasn’t taken the stick out of his ass since a year ago, though no one brings up the reason why.

But he was a righteous guy and you admired that; so you wanted to look out for him, and what better way to do that than to send his girlfriend a breakup text?

Yoongi deserved far better than a cheater anyway.

we’re over. say hi to your boyfriend for me.

Sent from Min Yoongi, 10:03am

With a decisive smirk, you hit ‘send’.

The message was barely delivered before the clattering of metal against concrete was resonating all around, and the phone was this close to slipping from your fingers as Yoongi, as well as everyone else present, scrambled to their feet, heads tilted politely towards the glass doors. Jimin sends you a wary look before angling his gaze towards the man in question—D.A. Kim Namjoon.

The district attorney was intelligent and respectable; and that was a feat in itself, because you couldn’t say the same for any other dude in his position. Nevertheless, his visits were rare and enough to put you on edge; something must be up for him to personally drop by one of the more efficient units in the building.

“As of today, Prosecutor Kim Seokjin would be joining the unit,” He announces pleasantly as his calculating gaze sweeps the room, and you release the breath you hadn’t realized you were holding, “Yes, that’s literally all I have to say, so all of you can relax now. I’ll leave you all to the introductions.”

He takes the resounding silence as his cue to exit through the same glass doors, and now that he was gone, the attention was all on the poor guy he left to fend for himself.

Kim Seokjin.

At one glance, he would have blended in perfectly with his surroundings. A streamline and tailored suit? Check. That briefcase that every prosecutor insists on lugging around? Check. He even wore the same poker face as all the other dorks in the room. His sudden appearance shouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary, but it just was.

There was something about those almond eyes that you couldn’t quite place, something about those soft features that you couldn’t put a finger on, and something about him you couldn’t discern.

And you make your sentiments known immediately, all but projecting yourself across the room to materialize beside Jimin, “He’s strange. That Kim Seokjin guy.”

“You’re dropping honorifics with him already? For all you know he’s probably older than you,” The asshole teases (in a light whisper, of course), but his expression turns somber when he saw that you weren’t kidding, “Strange? How so?”

“He just is. I can feel it.”

“Are you sure? Maybe you’re just hungry.”

“Shut up before I make a run for it with your laptop for all your co-workers to see.”

And that was the end of that, but both you and Jimin knew that you were always right; ghostly senses and all.

Kim Seokjin was strange, and you were going to find out why.

“Jeon Jungkook, did you leave the tap running again? I swear one of these days we’d end up bankrupt and on the streets and your mom would never let me live,” Groaning tiredly, Jimin kicks off his loafers while simultaneously reaching for the matching pair of house slippers, setting them on the ground and shoving them onto your feet before he does the same to his own.

“Ah hyung, you’re home already? Is Y/N with you?” Said devil’s spawn calls out from the kitchen, where he was making ramen, probably. Jimin only hums noncommittedly in response, giving Jungkook the affirmation that he needed, while you drape yourself over the couch. You may be a ghost, but your muscles still get sore when the going gets tough, and your (after)life was tough as hell. Honestly, you deserve a medal for all the cases you had resolved, and Jimin would agree, albeit reluctantly because he liked teasing you like that.

A strangled noise dies in Jungkook’s throat, and Jimin would have chuckled at the sheer peculiarity of the situation if he wasn’t so drained, “Ugh seriously, give me a heads up please? I’m not even wearing a shirt.”

You blink rapidly at that.

Your relationship with Jungkook was a weird one, and that was saying the least. Jungkook was that little kid that was phenomenal at everything he did, and was adored by everyone and their dog even back in Busan where he first met Jimin (next door neighbors and all). He had moved into Jimin’s bachelor apartment a few years ago in order to attend college in the city; fast forward back to the present and he was now attending grad school while doubling as Jimin’s live-in maid (Jimin, for the life of him, could not find the time to clean, and cleaning just happened to be one of Jungkook’s fortes—though anything was his forte, really).

All would be well, except for you feeling horrible for all the trauma you had to put him through every time you forgot not everyone was able to see you, and that it would be mildly frightening to have toilet paper dancing on its own and having the bed make itself.

“Hyung, we have to get out of here,” Jungkook had all but tumbled into the apartment one day, doe eyes unblinking and skin void of its usual glow, “I know you won’t believe me, but this place is haunted, I’m sure of it.”

And Park Jimin had been (and still was) a terrible liar, “Uh, I don’t see any ghosts.”

“Seriously? That’s the best you could come up with?” Stupefied, you had looked to the sorry excuse of a liar, catching on to the nervous tick in his neck whenever he was at a loss and the wavering of his pupils that gave away his uncertainty.

“Well, do we just tell him?” Jimin had shot back weakly as Jungkook stared incredulously at the potted plant his housemate was seemingly having a conversation with.

“You’re talking to me while he’s just standing right there, Jimin, I don’t think we have a choice anymore.”

“You’re right.”

Disregarding the fact that Jungshook looked as if he was about to pass out any minute, Jimin only gestures between the frazzled boy and yourself (though Jungkook could only see the potted plant), “Jungkook, meet Y/N, the ghost that’s scaring you shitless. Y/N, you’ve already met Jungkook, so try not to freak him out yeah?”

Jungkook had been stunned for all of three seconds before he was confronting Jimin with just about a million questions, the first being typical of any other stupid college boy, ‘is she pretty?’, to which Jimin had stuttered a quick ‘yes you horndog’. Not that you remembered that because it had revived your nonexistent heartbeat or anything. It was nothing like that.

Then Jungkook had very rudely shoved his entire arm through your chest in his attempt at a handshake; a sensation that irked you to this very day, and that had been how Jungkook came to find out about you and your obsessive designer bag collection (he had always wondered what the hell Jimin was doing with all thirty designer purses in his room).

“Where’s Y/N? On the couch?” The question was directed at Jimin, and he tries to pretend he wasn’t bothered by how well Jungkook knew you despite not actually being able to see you, so he leaves it hanging, opting to head for a speedy shower instead.

“Y/N, I bought some chicken from that store out front on the way back, have some if you’re hungry,” If Jungkook was miffed at being brushed aside, he sure doesn’t show it, and Jimin detests how Jungkook could easily make you the happiest ghost in the world with just a simple offering of chicken.

You clamber up from the couch, eyes ablaze with excitement, “Jimin! Tell Jungkook he’s amazing and that he’s way better than you’ll ever be!”

Ouch.

“Kook, Y/N says she hates both you and the chicken,” Jimin calls out, not without regret though, because before he knew it, his shampoo was flung halfway across the apartment and you had disappeared, with his towel no less.

But even he couldn’t help but grin at the way your eyebrows scrunch up in the most adorable frown he’s ever seen; so he tells himself he’d allow himself a hint of a smile, just this one time.

I’ll get rid of these feelings soon. I promise.

Except he’d repeated the same mantra at least twenty hundred times already, and each time he only felt himself sinking deeper into the abyss that was your dulcet gaze, incandescent with the brightest of twinkles and shining with the faintest hints of starlight.

He was, in short, fucked.

The first time Jimin had met you had been a year ago, right as the sheets of snow had been reduced to nothing and the cold winds had ushered in warmth and color in the form of bright blossoming buds, abundant with vivacity and joy and all that was good in the world. Spring was when Jimin first met you; when you had been far too cold for it to be considered normal, and when Jimin hadn’t known any better (though these hold true even in the present).

You had crashed head first into him on the busy morning streets of Seoul, your eyes hazy and lips bloodied. It took one look at the vulnerability and fear apparent in your trembling fingers and disconcerted gaze for him to realize that he couldn’t leave you alone.

And it took one look at how literally everyone else on the sidewalk was passing through you without a second glance for him to realize that you weren’t quite human.

And then he almost died from the shock of it all.

The two of you found yourselves at an outdoors café, trying to come to terms with the revelations that had occurred in the meagre span of ten minutes.

Although, you had it a little harder than he did, with all that’s considered.

It was a rough start, but everything spiraled from there, and you fit perfectly into every aspect of his life, as if you were a puzzle piece he never knew he needed for everything to fall completely into place. You had followed him home, of course, because you hadn’t had anywhere you could have gone, not when you barely knew who you were. Within the first couple of weeks, the walls had long started to disintegrate; you were laughing more, you were starting to tease him, and you found that spark that made you who you were at present. Jimin, on the other hand, was still unable to fathom the reason behind him being able to see you, and only you, but counted his blessings regardless and had grown unbearably fond of your light laughter and your playful sarcasm (though he couldn’t say the same for the hole you were putting in his wallet).

Since you’ve pretty much established that you were bored as heck, it took less than a month for you to trail behind Jimin at work, less than a day for you to familiarize yourself with the environment, and less than a minute for the both of you to mutually agree that it’d be a lot easier to have a ghost on his side during investigations.

It was simple. Alibis could be fabricated to a tee, and you’d still be able to rip apart the lies and deceit somehow, either with a thorough search in their homes (prosecution would have difficulty getting search warrants without sufficient evidence) or a sit-in on their sessions with their attorneys, because a couple of law firms loved to play dirty for measly bribes.

It wasn’t as if you got paid (not directly anyway, but Jimin would argue that it was the equivalent to all your spendthrift habits), but you enjoyed it. It was nice, to be able to pin down criminals for their sins, no matter how minute, and to be able to let free men go, because no one deserved to rot in a jail cell for something they didn’t do. Some people were unfortunate enough to be at the wrong place at all the wrong times; you understood that well enough in the past year.

“Jimin, I think I found something that could justify a search warrant for that homicide case you were working on,” You chirp merrily; you were a lot more lively (haha) today, what with the skip in your steps as you followed Jimin into the office, still sipping on your coffee (Jimin had memorized your order well enough by now so that he wouldn’t humiliate himself by asking for it in public). He cracks a soft smile at how earnest you were, and his heart was swelling with so much unspoken affection he could almost combust.

“Did you manage to find something?” He asks unabashedly this time, uncaring of the looks sent his way. You were unbelievably happy and radiant; he wasn’t about to take that away from you.

“Yeah, that bastard had a hideout not far from where the victim lived. If you check that place out, it has all the weapons you’d need to sustain an entire platoon of soldiers,” Grin triumphant, you slid over the post-it containing its address and some simplified directions. Yes, you were beyond euphoric. Nabbing nasty criminals aside, you liked working with Jimin, you liked being helpful and helping to take a load off of his constantly languid shoulders, and you liked seeing him light up whenever it sinks in that he’s actually making a difference in this morbid world.

Park Jimin was practically an angel; you’ve stood firm on that conclusion ever since a year ago, and you had every intention of making sure he had all the happiness he deserved.

“Goddamnit, now I have to get you that Gucci bag you were eyeing the other day,” Or so he says, but you knew that was his little indiscreet way of conveying his gratitude.

“Fried chicken would be good too. Since you devoured the one Jungkook got me yesterday.”

Jimin would have retorted with yet another roll of his eyes, but he caught himself in time, just as Prosecutor Kim Seokjin cleared his throat from where he was positioned before Jimin’s desk.

“Were you on the phone?”

"Uh, yes," Tonguing the inside of his cheek as he usually did whenever he was nervous, Jimin fibbed, and you noted that he had yet to master the art of deceit, "I mean, maybe, yeah."

As much as you enjoyed watching Jimin fumble for words, you had better things to do, such as sizing the new guy up. He looked like he was from a reasonably well-off family, either that or he was rolling in the dough he makes, because you could have sworn you saw those shoes on Saint Laurent's homepage just a couple of days ago, and that blazer probably doesn't cost anything less than a grand.

You were getting all up in his face now (not that he'd realize), making sure to study every little detail as if your life depended on it (well, it didn't, not really) because there was just something about him that made your head spin and your heart empty. All these newfound emotions were planting tiny seeds in the fissures of your mind, taking shape in the amorphous forms of both doubt and hope at the same time.

Jimin was a prosecutor; he couldn't have passed the bar exam if he was anywhere close to being an idiot (you loved to proclaim otherwise, but it was all true and you knew it). He had immediately searched you up once he had gotten hold of your name, hoping to at least figure out your identity while you were alive, or maybe help you recover your lost memories, because waking up in the middle of the street and discovering that you had kicked the bucket wasn't really the best way to go. Refusing to give up even when the search gave him absolutely nothing, he had even spent the following weekend pouring over the newspaper archives over at the library, hoping to find your name in the obituaries somewhere.

But once again, nothing. It was almost as if your existence itself had been nothing but a phantom grounded in reality, and all thought of wanting to comprehend your death or to move on through finding consolation in finding your family gradually faded away into the summer breeze, eventually only surfacing every once in a while whenever you lose sight of your renewed purpose as Jimin's unofficial crime-busting partner.

The terse smile straining at the handsome prosecutor’s lips tore your attention away from the past and back to the present, where he was currently handing over a case file, “This is the case the district attorney mentioned the other day. Sorry, you must be busy enough as you are, but I can’t be the in-charge of this since I’d be violating the rules. ”

Then he just left, though your eyes couldn’t help but to be drawn to his disconsolate silhouette; the man seemed to be perpetually drowning in sorrow, and you feel bad for him, because he seems to be capable of so much more than half-hearted smiles and downcast eyes.

Jimin doesn’t pay heed to your limited attention span, instead giving the case file a brief one-over before deciding that this case would pretty much require an all-nighter, and that it’d be best to get the near hundred cold cases stuffed in his drawer over and done with before he tackled something with that degree of complexity. It was another homicide incident, but what had made it stand out was that the suspect could potentially be linked to several cases that had occurred as far as two years prior, and that meant Jimin would really have to go all out with investigation.

Don’t get him wrong, he adored his job most of the time, but he’d been in the sector long enough to be repulsed by the whole idea of spending his entire night buried up to his neck in work, and it was almost a given that he’d spend the next day downing a whole flask of coffee; not his favorite pastime.

But as he watched you switch up Hoseok’s desk arrangement yet again and hit ‘send’ on a lameass picture on Yoongi’s SnapChat, your cackles filling up the stillness of the office (no one else could hear it anyway), he decided that it probably wouldn’t be that bad after all, not with you around.

And he wasn’t wrong; not when his preferred form of entertainment was you dancing horrendously to all the latest idol bops (he’s just going to pretend that he wasn’t the least bit intrigued by your execution of the backpack kid dance) until you’ve exhausted yourself on the makeshift bed in the office, drooling just about everywhere, but somehow leaving Jimin with a myriad of thoughts swirling nonsensically in that sleep-deprived mind of his; another aspect he resented about all-nighters with every fiber of his being.

Because the rational part of him knew that whatever this was, it had to stop. He had to stop wondering if you had gotten your terrible dancing skills from either of your parents (or maybe both?), he had to stop wondering if you two would have been the same age had you still been alive, he had to stop thinking about all the possibilities that would inevitably lead him to a merciless dead end. No matter how alive you felt, how radiant you were, how electrifying your touch was, ultimately, you were dead. The remnants of a soul long gone, the lingering spirit of a beautiful person who had once been alive.

He had to stop, and yet Jimin was irrational approximately 80% of the time, and there was nothing he would love more than to wrap you up in all the blankets he owned just so you wouldn’t feel as cold as you felt, to hug you and kiss you and love you without some passing loser reporting him to the nearest mental institution, to see how anxious you’d get when he introduced you to his parents even though he knew they would be as enchanted as he was.

But then he’d think of all hundred and one things that could go wrong, like you vanishing one fine day and him being unable to resent you for leaving him heartbroken because you’ve finally moved on, you were in a better place, or like you eventually losing all that remained of your soul, dissipating into thin air and he would never know if you were real, or just another passing dream that had lasted a little longer than usual.

So he stalls.

Perhaps if he waited long enough, his fondness for your toothy smile and your crinkly eyes would diminish into the softest flakes of gentle admiration, much like how the never ending blankets of snow eventually crumbled into dust whenever winter bled into spring.

“Dude. Trust me that I’m not insane when I’m saying this, but this apartment is—” Taehyung’s baritone voice drops to an even lower octave (not possible, but okay), lashes fanning his cheeks at the fastest rate man has ever seen from how visibly alarmed he was, “—haunted.”

It was like Jungkook all over again, and Jimin wasn’t sure if you could handle another person walking through you in his attempt to give you a handshake.

Rubbing a weary hand against his equally weary face, he only looks up at the (slightly) taller man blearily, eyes heavy with well-deserved sleep, “You came over at 4 in the morning just to tell me that?”

“I’m pretty sure any other person would be thankful to have someone telling them about the malicious spirits plaguing their house, Jiminie.”

“She’s not malicious, she helps me pack some clothes whenever I stay the night at the office and she grumbles about making me coffee in the morning but she does it anyway. She’s pretty damned sweet okay?” Jimin ran his mouth off without really considering the consequences of outing you twice, this time to his best friend, but it was 4am, and he really wasn’t in the right state of mind.

“Wha—” Both you and Taehyung started at the same time, except he was cut off because Jimin was slowly shoving him back out the front door, and you just didn’t really know how to respond to that surprisingly nice confession.

No words were exchanged after Jimin sleepily drags himself back into bed, and neither you nor Taehyung ever spoke about the incident to him ever again.

Which brings you to how you never know what exactly to do whenever Taehyung came over, because on one hand, it wasn’t as if he wasn’t aware, per say, but on the other hand, Jimin does say pretty outrageous things from time to time, and no one ever buys it.

“So how’s work?”

Taehyung’s question was normal enough, but Jimin had been swamped with cases left and right recently, and with Prosecutor Kim’s transfer case adding to his exponentially growing pile, he was barely able to even sit down in his own kitchen to make small talk over his daily dose of caffeine with the best friend he hasn’t seen for two weeks, so he only responds with something between a scowl and a grimace.

“Terrible. Stressful. Let’s not go there,” You hear him say as you struggle with stuffing toast into your mouth as discreetly as possible (you wouldn’t die a second time if you didn’t feed yourself, but you love food, so there’s that), hunching low in the event that Taehyung swivels around to be greeted with half-eaten toast suspended in air, “how’s the hospital?”

“It’s been busy these couple of weeks, but I’m doing okay, which is surprising,” As much as you knew, Taehyung was a newly transferred nurse in one of Seoul’s biggest hospitals; a job befitting of his gigantic heart, “it’s interesting too, interacting with the patients and all.”

“I bet you flirted with the cute ones,” Jimin promptly returns, and Taehyung throws a cornflake at him in retaliation.

“That reminds me, do you happen to be in charge of that Kim Janghyun case?”

“The guy on the news every single goddamned day? Yeah I am, was even planning on doing some fieldwork for that today, actually. Why do you ask?”

Jimin hasn’t actually read through much of that particular case, since he had barely ploughed through all of those cold cases last night. All he knew was that the guy was a psycho; though he did intend on getting more ground covered today, because the weather was perfect for a day’s worth of grueling investigative work. Not that he’d ever figure out why the case had to be taken off Prosecutor Kim’s hands and conveniently passed into his own.

“Nah, I’ve heard some stuff about him from the other nurses, we’re taking care of some of his victims after all,” With a shrug, Taehyung concludes any more of work-related conversation, swiftly moving on to much more fascinating topics instead, like his neighbor’s new pet dog.

"The weather's really nice today, Jiminie," You were beaming again, for the hundredth time, but he knew exactly what that conniving yet seemingly innocent smile was hiding, but you continue grinning away like an idiot anyway.

And your smile was contagious too.

"Get to the point, Y/N."

He sounded sterner than he actually was; you could tell because his eyes were already shaped into your favorite crescents.

"The weather's perfect—

Eyebrow raised, he waits.

—for shopping."

Ah, he knew it, of course your shopaholic habits were coming into play, and right in the middle of finally getting around to gathering information on that stupid case too.

"See that convenience store over there?" Fingers already poised in midair, pointing over to your far left, Jimin spoke in a monotone (but you catch the affection laced in it anyway), "That's all you're gonna get, princess. Go nuts."

"You're the best, Jimin, I swear. I won't ever tease you about those insoles ever again," Your voice was ringing in his left ear, tone rushed and sweet, and he didn't need to look to know you were already on your way across the street, "I won't take long, you know me."

Yes, he did know you, and you hit the nail right on the head, because—

"I'll take this, this, this, this, this and this," Rattling off about ten items per minute, you were so excited you had forgotten that no one except Jimin could actually hear your ridiculous demands.

"Uh, she’ll, I mean, I'll take this, this, this, this, this and," Jimin actually felt really sorry for both himself and the mortified shop assistant as he tried to keep up with your pace, echoing whatever you've said ten seconds ago, "and this?"

The only plausible conclusion Jimin could come to was that you were impossibly loaded while you had still been alive, and even then it couldn’t explain everything, because he hadn’t realized it was even remotely possible for someone to spend half a thousand in a convenience store. Blatantly turning a blind eye to the glare Jimin was burning into the side of your head, you wait eagerly as he finishes up payment at the cashier counter, bemused smile quirking at your lips at the sight of him having his hands full with all the bags.

And of course, of fucking course, something had to catch your attention just as you were both about to leave the store (after emptying about a quarter of it), and you stop in your ghostly tracks, gasping at the enormous lollipop you didn’t know you missed.

“Jiminie, let’s get that too.”

“I really need to get in touch with that exorcist, I can’t believe you—

Bless Kim Seokjin’s fantastic timing, thankfully distracting Jimin from his (not) elaborate scheme to murder you (a second time), and the ghostbuster himself struggles to fish his phone out of his pocket to answer the pending call what with the three thousand bags hanging off his arms. You feel terrible for him, really, you do, and you would help, but it wasn’t as if anyone wanted to be witness to levitating bags of food in the middle of a convenience store.

—hello? Yes, I’m working on it, is anything wrong?”

You watch curiously as he mumbles into the phone in law jargon you don’t really care for, features twisting into an unreadable expression that you absolutely detest, because Jimin’s not Jimin if his every emotion wasn’t clearly plastered all over his face, clear as day for only you to see.

The call ends as quickly as it came, and your questioning gaze was answered by an indifferent shrug, “We’re going to have to drop by Prosecutor Kim’s house to pick up some leftover documents from the investigation. They sound pretty important, if he’s so upset about them.”

“He was upset?”

Nodding, Jimin leads the way out the convenience store, easily tossing the products of your impulsive spree into the trunk of his Benz before ushering you hurriedly into the passenger seat, leaning over to get the seatbelt even though the gesture, while largely appreciated, was completely redundant, seeing as how your life could hardly be endangered. He came so close you could grasp the fleeting scent of his wood sage and sea salt cologne, along with the slight hint of fresh laundry detergent, and his proximity alone had you looking everywhere but at the man himself. Suddenly, you were hyperaware of all that surrounds you, though your consciousness could only register Jimin, Jimin, Jimin.

Maybe ghosts were just simple-minded in general (though you could only speak for yourself, since you hadn’t seen anyone else in a similar plight, and neither had Jimin), but your eyes (unsurprisingly) landed on his soft blonde strands and without thinking much of it (unlike what a certain Park Jimin would have done), your fingers were already winding their way through, uncaring of the fact that you had just ruined the same hairstyle that had taken him all of three minutes to style in the morning. Expectedly so, he freezes at your touch (that could be attributed to your unnaturally low body temperature) for a millisecond, almost instantaneously drawing his hand up to encase yours.

Mind you, to any other passerby he would have been a weirdo hanging out by himself while in the middle of getting into the passenger seat of a driverless car, but a moment was a moment, and as of now, you and Park Jimin were having a Moment™.

“Your hands are cold,” He says, dark hazel eyes boring into yours and frankly looking a little sad.

“They’ve always been cold, Jiminie.”

That seemed to have been the wakeup call he needed, because he was climbing into the driver’s seat before you knew it, the warmth of his fingers leaving barely any trace behind, moving to fix themselves firmly on the wheel.

“I know.”

And you knew it too. That the late night snuggling, the spontaneous hugs, and everything good, nice and warm that came along with Park Jimin was transient. If he had thought you hadn’t noticed a thing about the unsubtle glances he’d send you, the muted adoration in his irises, the affection so apparent in every smile he’d send you, he had to be insane.

But then again, he had to be, to some extent, for having fallen in love with a ghost.

On the contrary, you would never think that he hadn’t seen the way you had looked back every time you felt his gaze on you and the endearment reflected in your orbs, because he had.

And you knew he was afraid.

But then again, so were you.

So you turn to stare out the window, observing the city whizz by, bustling with life and with all that you may never be around to see again, soaking it all in and biting back the tears that threatened to spill once you looked down at your translucent skin.

For a moment, your hands had been more transparent than anything, flickering as if it was some florescent lightbulb about to go out sometime soon.

If Jimin had seen anything, he’d aptly chosen not to say a word as he pulled into the parking lot of a luxurious looking building, passing over his identification to the security at the entrance, “We’re here. His place is a lot closer than I’d thought.”

“Holy shit, his place is huge.” You start to say, and Jimin, ever the gentleman, pulls you out from where your ass was firmly planted in that leather seat of his, “He lives here alone?”

“Supposedly.”

Kim Seokjin himself appears not long after to lead the two of you up to his less-than-humble million dollar abode, typically silken hair disheveled and uncombed, emerging haphazardly from the elevator with only a slipper on his left foot. The peculiarity of his unkempt appearance aside, you spend the whole ride up the sixteen floors gaping at the interior of the elevator alone, taking in the stained glass lining the panels and the renaissance-styled paintings littering the ceiling. And that was after you had your fill of the marble floors and that humongous water fountain with a statue of Aphrodite as a center-piece in the lobby.

And yeah, his cozy penthouse with the gold-plated chandeliers and designer bedroom slippers were a delight and all, but the real shocker was the large family portrait, complete with a diamond-studded frame, hung up right smack in the middle of the hallway.

Because next to Kim Seokjin’s graceful yet frigid smile, was yours, though the artificial curve of your lips did little to mask the luminous glint in your eyes.

As you stagger back in shock, you catch Jimin’s squeak of a question, “Who’s the girl in that picture?”

Your fingers flicker once more.

“That’s my little sister.”

And everything comes rushing back, the previously fragmented pieces of the puzzle coming together in glimpses of vermillion stains and the stagnant stench of fear.

Jimin had always been a bit of an overachiever. He’d graduated from law school with first class honors, passed the dreaded bar exam with flying colors, and hey, he did win that 100m relay back in high school.

With a multitude of impressive notches on his belt, no one would ever believe he was nearly at his wit’s end all because you were crying.

Apart from when you first met, Jimin hasn’t seen you cry, like ever. Not even when you had tagged along with him on one of his trips down to the autopsy room and had seen one of the most grotesque victims of murder to exist in history, or when Jungkook had accidentally scratched that Prada crossbody bag you caressed before going to bed every night (you had moped for two days, and Jimin may or may not have ate Jungkook’s cereal on purpose).

The cause for concern was that you weren’t outright sobbing either; you were staring dazedly at your hands, stubbornly wiping at your tear-stained face with your sleeve every couple of minutes and burying your face into his pillow repeatedly.

“Am I going to disappear? Just like that?” You spoke after what seemed like a whole decade later, voice hoarse.

“You’d be in a better place, Y/N,” Jimin moves aside the duvet to make space for himself, sitting down warily and hoping he doesn’t sound as empty as he felt.

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do.”

No, he doesn’t, but Jimin liked to hold on to the sensible part of him that has him fully convinced nothing good would come out of needlessly clinging onto you and dragging the both of you further down this rabbit hole. For all he knew, he could be delusional and you were but a mere hallucination; a hella realistic one.

“You fucking coward,” The tears were falling fast, angrily spilling over your lashline, and your nose was running, making you look like a goddamn mess, but you didn’t care, “You’re a fucking coward, Park Jimin.”

Instinctively, he reaches for your face in an attempt to pad the tears away, but you smack his hand away, eyes flashing with fury. The pang in Jimin’s chest only digs harder, and his hand hangs limply in the air.

“I am,” He says simply, and you cry out in outrage, fists balled up and pounding lightly, though relentlessly, on his shoulders and chest. He doesn’t offer any resistance, only clasping his fingers gently around your wrists to make sure you didn’t hurt yourself, trying not to look any longer at your grief-stricken face and instead focusing on his bedroom ceiling.

You were pinning him down to his bed by now, and Jimin’s face was a mess of your tears and snot all at once, but it’s not long before you were losing both strength and resolve, fingers turning translucent once again before you collapse exhaustedly back on his bed.

Silence ensues, and it’s ridiculously painful.

“I’m afraid,” Jimin speaks slowly, deciding that he must probably be out of his mind, but to hell with his sanity, “Of resenting you when you leave eventually. Of half-dying of loneliness when you move on to the afterlife. Of not knowing what I’ll do if you just vanish out of the blue.”

He exhales. It’s official, he’s downright insane, but he may as well embrace the heck out of it.

“Hell, I’m probably the most selfish coward you’ll ever meet, but this coward is irrevocably in love with you, Y/N.”

The confession lingers hazily in the stilled and frigid air, oscillating in some sort of orbital around your head as you scramble to sit up, eyes wide and mind frantic.

It wasn’t fair to you, Jimin belatedly realizes, that all he was risking was a potential heartbreak yet here you were, laying out your entire heart and soul out for him in all its vulnerability only to have him brush it aside because he’s a pussy and he’s scared. He’s not the one with his life and very existence at stake here; he could hardly fathom the complexity of your emotions, having the one person who could acknowledge your presence dismissing all semblance of your feelings and invalidating the one thing that still made you feel vaguely human.

It wasn’t fair to him either, to beguile himself into thinking he felt nothing whenever your gaze lingered on him a second too long, or to shrug it off whenever he had the urge to kiss the pout off your face.

Truth to be told, it wasn’t fair to either of you, to have what you have dismissed as if it was some sort of liability; an inconvenience that best went ignored and was unworthy of even acceptance.

So fuck it, no one ever said love came easy anyway.

“I thought I was being selfish,” You were biting down on your bottom lip again as you usually did whenever you were nervous, eyes flicking to Jimin’s desk lamp, Jimin’s worn out skateboard on the other side of the room, and then back to Jimin himself, “For wanting some sort of future with you even though no one else can even see me and my hands are pretty much see-through.”

“But think about it, what are the odds of falling in love with a ghost as irresistible as myself? Let’s make the most out of this, Jimin, we don’t have all day,” You continue, that breathtaking smile on your lips again, and suddenly nothing else mattered, nothing apart from you and the flecks of gold that danced fluidly behind your irises, daring him to go ahead and be reckless for once.

Grinning away like some lovesick idiot (guilty as charged), Jimin couldn’t bring himself to look away from your flushed cheeks and bright eyes, his palm cupping your jaw before you could protest otherwise.

“No, oh God, I know what you’re thinking and I really want to kiss you too but there’s snot literally everywhere—”

But then he kisses you anyway and you shut right up.

The atmosphere in court has never been anything less than borderline suffocating, the air thick with unspoken vengeance and rising tension.

All the seats in the courtroom had been occupied; a rare occurrence in itself given that typically only family members or close friends would bother showing up at a trial, of all things. But then again, the case at hand was far from typical; it was one that had shook the nation, plunging fear into the hearts of the people and shedding doubt onto the judiciary system and its efficiency.

And there was Jimin, face devoid of emotion as he dealt the accused with a hardened gaze, circling the podium carefully with a stack of notes in tow; the very ones he had spent the past week pouring over, painstakingly sieving through the information in order to make sure no mistakes would be his to make, and that the perpetrator in question pays the price for his heinous crimes.

At the very least, the trial was about three-quarters through, and he was sure even the defense attorney was unable to dispel the evidence that was so blatantly organized and curated for all to see. The verdict would be likely to go in the prosecution’s favor, and Jimin simply needed to deliver the final blow.

“On the 27th February, Ms. Yoo Sukyung had been stabbed repeatedly in an alleyway not too far from where she lived, by a man largely resembling the accused, as you can see from the black box footage captured from one of the cars parked nearby,” Jimin notes, voice firm as he flashes the acquired footage on screen, and the judge, a pleasant woman in her late fifties, nods.

“The accused, Mr. Kim Janghyun, had been stalking her for the past few months, evident from the candid photos taken from his rented apartment. He had marked her as a victim not long after he had met her at the café she was employed at, and had decided to make his move that night,” He continued, not sparing another glance at the shriveled up frame of the sick bastard, “Unfortunately, he hadn’t counted on there being a witness, Ms. Y/N L/N, who had jumped in immediately in an attempt to render aid to the victim. The ensuing struggle had led them out of the blind spot and into an area where the surveillance cameras had thankfully captured their faces, which you would be able to see here.”

The pixelated camera footage plays, and Jimin tries not to wince each time the silver of the wielded blade comes too close to you for comfort, and had to look away at the 8-minute mark, in which the tip of the blade successfully punctures your gut, and for several times after, drawing spurts of a dark red that seemingly blends into the rest of the night.

You couldn’t stop laughing sardonically when you did see the footage yourself, though; your newly reclaimed memories were what had helped Jimin in his investigation after all, and you had insisted on watching the whole 20-minute video despite his coaxing (and bribes). ‘Run, you stupid bitch’ you would mutter darkly to yourself every once in a while, and Jimin would die a little inside.

“As such, the prosecution would like to indict the accused for 6 accounts of first-degree murder, as well as for 2 accounts of aggravated assault, along with the perversion of justice. Thank you, Your Honor.”

Sitting back smugly in his seat, Jimin shrugs the lose sleeve of his robe back on, content and more confident than ever that justice would be served.

Thinking back, it should have been obvious from the get-go; the way you had been unsettled by Prosecutor Kim’s presence in the office, how there was barely any record of you despite being one of the key players of the attempted murder that night. Heck, even your love for all things costing an arm and a leg had been a big fat clue shoved into his face (as well as his bank account).

The Kim family was powerful; powerful enough to have erased all records of their third-generation heiress, terrified that the attention of the mass media would be detrimental to business and whatnot; the things rich people worried about didn’t often come across as logical, at least not to Jimin. It was, however, good to know that your odd habit of splurging on designer goods hadn’t stemmed out of nowhere; it eased the hole in his wallet ever so slightly.

Even your strange and subtle affection for Prosecutor Min Yoongi had been a clue of sorts. He had been the prosecutor-in-charge back when the sick bastard in question had first been in court for his first victim, only to be unbelievably vexed and swarmed with ill-directed guilt when he had been released due to lack of evidence, hence Prosecutor Min’s eventual marriage to his work life in the later year (till death do them apart indeed).

Park Jimin wasn’t invincible though, he still wailed like a baby when more than half your body had increasingly become more diaphanous ever since you had your memory back, eventually giving way to nothingness, leaving behind nothing but an empty void.

Your farewell kiss had been very much you, only a graze of your lips against his; a ghost of a peck and as ephemeral as anything.

“Don’t cry, you loser. I’ll see you when I see you.”

“Jiminie, what took you so long?” Leave it to Kim Taehyung to have a complaint hanging loosely off his tongue the minute he sees the flustered man emerging from the stairwell. For a nurse, he sure doesn’t have the patience of a saint despite it actually being in the job description.

“I got lost, what the fuck is with all these floors and where is Room 310 again?” Jimin swears he hasn’t been this breathless since that same 100m relay that he had won in high school, and you could cross his heart and hope to die (though that won’t be preferred), and he’d still tell you that yes, he still does his morning runs every Sunday, and yes, it may or may not be in the form of a quick run to the convenience store a couple blocks down for some cup ramen.

“It’s because it’s the VIP floor, you smartass,” Taehyung smirks knowingly, tapping playfully against the clipboard he was clinging onto as he leads his best friend down the winded corridors, “Room 310 is all the way at the end of the hallway.”

Jimin doesn’t even stay around to catch Taehyung’s casual invitation for lunch at the hospital cafeteria, instantaneously bursting into his tenth sprint of the day and breezing past all the large wooden doors to get to the most intimidating one of them all—yours.

Just his luck to get a girlfriend who also happened to be the heiress to a billion-dollar corporation; it wasn’t going to be an easy feat getting past the two burly bodyguards looming over the doors of Room 310, eyes condescending as they glance down at a panting guy in day-old sweats and a beaten up hoodie.

“ID?” One of them had been kind enough to prompt Jimin; and he thanked the heavens that he had remembered to stuff his wallet in his pocket before leaving the house in a flurry ten minutes ago, slipping out his flimsy identification card (with the humiliating photo of his bowl cut and all) and all but scurrying through the doors once those scary dudes had gotten the verification they needed.

“Y/N?” Jimin has no idea why he was whispering, but he was, the pin-drop silence in the spacious ward giving him reason for the tinge of unease pooling in his abdomen.

Diffidently, he approached, steps unhurried and uncertain.

You were there, nestled peacefully in a stack of what appeared to be the fluffiest pillows known to man, long locks splayed out all across the Egyptian 980 thread count duvet and lips looking as soft as velvet, looking every bit as unconscious as you had been for the past few months (more, if Jimin was counting the time he spent with you hovering around). The steady quickening of his heartrate was no longer a foreign sensation for him, and the tiniest of smiles quirks at his lips at your light snoring. Admittedly, your complexion was looking miles better, a sweet pink dotting your cheeks, and wait, was that mascara on your lashes?

Jimin didn’t quite have the time to dwell on the Question of the Year because your eyelids were springing open, a shriek threatening to erupt from your lips at the sudden intrusion.

The lack of recognition in your warm eyes were the equivalent to a good stab in his chest, and the unadulterated fear palpable in your features had him taking several steps back, frenetic questions about to gush from his lips.

“Who are you, and why are you in my room?”

And it wasn’t like Jimin wanted to do it, but he just did; his knees had gone weak from the shock and disbelief and there he was, now a flaccid mess on the floor of Seoul National University Hospital’s VIP ward looking like he’d lost a couple of souls.

Your mellifluous laughter was quick to file into the room, trickling like honey into Jimin’s welcoming ears, and not even a beat passes before he was off the floor and hurling himself into a nearly bone-crushing hug, cradling your head and choking back a sob.

“I’m so glad you woke up,” He says into your hair, disregarding your light chuckle of ‘that makes both of us’, hands fixed on your waist with fingers that had been freezing and trembling with trepidation only moments prior, “I swear, you and your lameass pranks will be the end of me.”

“It was a joke, Jiminie,” You poke back, though still a tad too feeble for your liking, “They’re supposed to make you laugh, not do the opposite.”

Your fingers were carding through his familiar strands, reveling in how soft it felt, just as how you had remembered it to be. Except this time, your hands emanated warmth, loads and loads of warmth; the kind that could make flowers bloom even in the dead of winter, the exact kind that would make Park Jimin putty in your hands (as if he wasn’t already).

The two of you don’t speak, letting the comfort of the silence seep in.

“Hey, Jiminie,” You say after a prolonged pause, “I’ve missed you.”

Jimin smiles into your shoulder, sighing blissfully, “I’ve missed you too.”

Beside you, the pellucid floor-length curtains flutter gently in the late afternoon breeze, reflecting the prettiest specks of gold and starlight onto the stark white walls.

a/n: I just couldn’t not give them the happy ending they deserve askfhakjs and I tried my best not to incorporate a court scene (because I have no idea what i’m doing) but lo and behold i can only hope that it’s not horribly inaccurate. here’s to hoping this was a decent shot at mystery! pls hmu with feedback or lemme know what you think anytime<3 also, HAPPY HALLOWEEN HUEHUE

#sfwbangtan #btswriters #bts fanfic #bts scenarios #jimin scenario #jimin fanfic #bts jimin

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jewrocker · 4 years ago

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Why Can’t A Sitting President Be Indicted? - A Concerned Citizen

If I had a dime for every time a cable news pundit’s used the 1973 memo sent by the OLC (Office of Legal Counsel) as the excuse for why a shamelessly corrupt president like Donald Trump can’t be indicted, I’d have a lot of dimes. Even more, if you add the amount of attorneys, including Special Counsel Mueller’s deputy, Andrew Weissman, who claimed they used the memo as the sole reason for why charging Trump wasn’t directly recommended in Mueller’s Report.

Yet, in spite of everything we’ve seen, in spite of all the crimes against The Constitution committed by this president, so far, he’s been proven right. He is above the law. Thanks, solely, to the above mentioned memo. Yet, the memo, itself, isn’t even a law. Nor does it appear to be an official DOJ mandate. In fact, no one seems to be sure what is. One things for sure, whatever it is, it certainly appears to be a paper tiger. Fake news. A faux premise, given more weight/credence over the years every time it’s mentioned in print.

As Harvard’s SCOTUS expert Walter Dellinger points out in his brilliant 2018 article, Indicting a President Is Not Foreclosed, the memo, sent by OLC head, Robert Dixon, is a procedural anomaly, rife with inconsistencies. Not only was the memo not addressed to anyone specific, or refer to any specific situation, and most likely not even made public, it wasn’t even mentioned by any of the attorneys during the Watergate hearings. Even though those hearings took place just two weeks after the memo was written. Nor does The Constitution ever mention anything remotely resembling conferring immunity upon the president.

Add to that the small fact that Nixon, himself, was named as an unindicted co-conspirator, a charge upheld by a federal judge and defended by United States attorneys, and there’s no basis not to indict this president. Or any other. Yet, Bill Barr’s epically inappropriate and misleading framing notwithstanding, the reason a good portion of the American People think president Trump was innocent is due in no small part to the fact, after years of investigating, the special counsel did not recommend an indictment.

Moments after Trump pardoned confessed traitor, Gen. Mike Flynn, Joe Scarborough exclaimed, “Why can’t a president be indicted?” Well, why can’t he? Why do we keep referring to a memorandum as if it’s the final word? It’s just an opinion. It wasn’t written by the founding fathers, it’s not a Constitutional amendment, it’s not included in any historical document. At best, it’s just a well-worded suggestion. A suggestion offered up by one guy in 1973 - a time when the world was unrecognizable compared to today.

How different were the times back then? Republicans actually chose country over party. Yet, here we are, fifty years later, and this mysteriously vague, unsubstantiated memo is still being referred to and revered by lawyers, government officials, and talking heads on both sides as the End All, Be All in Constitutional Guidance. Seriously, WTF is wrong with us? You’d think if this was such an important subject, which it is, there’d at least be congressional hearings debating its merits/legality. Instead, we take it as gospel.

We appear to have the same dilemma re: Trump’s desperate quest to pardon himself. A Constitutional crisis is most likely just around the corner with this president, yet, thanks to the fact there’s nothing in our most sacred of documents specifically addressing this matter, either, we’re left to once again twist in the wind as we try to interpret what our forefathers meant.

Like crack addicts hoping to find that last bit of rock in the rug, here we sit. A confused, lost nation, desperately searching for anything resembling an official document in the hopes it will guide us through these uncharted waters. No matter how flimsy, flawed or minuscule the 'rock’ might be, we’ll take it. “If it was written by a lawyer, has a lot of pages, and cites a lot of examples, it must be true.” If the greatest country in the world basing some of its most important/Democracy-defining decisions on the equivalent of laws/policies written on the back of a cocktail napkin weren’t so tragic, it’d be funny.

What’s not funny is a criminal president laying waste to our longstanding norms and policies like a prehistoric monster trashing the countryside. As we scramble about trying to stop the thing with our tiny bullets, it crushes everything in sight.

One can’t help but wonder what would happen if a current, sitting DOJ attorney simply sat down and wrote another memo stating a sitting president can be indicted? More importantly, why hasn’t one done so, or at least challenged it, in the nearly fifty years since the original? Why couldn’t Mueller have indicted Trump and, when asked about the conflict that might arise given the 1973 memo, said, “I’m basing my recommendation on the actual law. Or, the lack thereof.”

But, who are we kidding? From what we’ve seen the past four-plus years, even if Congress were to put fourth an amendment updating the inexplicably absent, undefined guidelines relating to such an important part of our Democracy, our spineless Republican leaders wouldn’t even put it up for a vote.

As we now know, a Democracy isn’t good at preparing for something that hasn’t happened yet. Be it Watergate, 9/11, or a Russian asset POTUS. Now that we’ve experienced, firsthand, the damage an unhinged, unchallenged president can do to the fabric of our Democracy, including scaring the very people investigating him into not investigating him too much, perhaps our new president, along with a surprisingly repentant, suddenly patriotic Congress, will make it a priority to update our Constitution to back up the obviously inaccurate claim, “No one is above the Law,” with muscle. However, given our obvious propensity for ignoring sections of our Constitution in dire need of repair, i.e. the obsolete mess that is the Electoral College, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

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littlemisssquiggles · 7 years ago

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RWBY Musings #15: After seeing the title for Chapter 8 of RWBY Volume 5, I’m seriously hoping that part of the episode focuses on Ruby and Oscar.

I told myself I wasn’t going to share another musing for this week til the next episode premieres. After my last musing, I said I was done for the week but damn, the title of that Chapter 8 brought me back. I gotta talk about it.

Speaking of which, before I get into my usual spur of words, I’d just like to humbly thank all the awesometastic people who liked, commented on and shared my ♦last RWBY Musing. Thank you guys so much! It truly means a lot that you take the time to read my jibberjab for real so thank you bunches.

I especially want to give a shoutout to @miraculouscorazone who shared my post with AfterBuzzTV via Twitter. It was quite a pleasant surprise (and by that I mean holy-shizznuggets was that a shocker) to learn that my musing was briefly mentioned and even discussed a little bit in this week’s episode of their RWBY AfterBuzz show. If you tuned into the podcast and remember the part with the hosts mentioning a shared tumblr post with a theory about Oscar’s outburst from Chapter 5 being intentional. Surprise, that was my post they were talking about!

So that’s one of the highlights of my week. Thank you precious star kids and fellow RWBY lovers so much!

Okay, on with the musing now.

Guys, the title of Chapter 8 is ‘Alone Together’. Where do we even begin with this?

Whenever I see a title like this one, it can only mean one thing: A story with two characters who don’t normally spend that much time together suddenly thrust into a dire situation where they only person they have to depend on is each other.

It’s the perfect set-up scenario to force two characters who don’t normally socialize to socialize. It can also be the ideal way for a story’s protagonist to learn more about a centric secondary character whose story is still a mystery to them and the audience after the two suddenly end up...well alone together.

And if RWBY is doing this kind of story, I’m really hoping it’s an Oscar and Ruby focused episode or at least, an episode where we finally learn more about Oscar as instigated by Ruby. I can’t see what other two characters this title can allude to.

Unless it’s involves Blake ending up alone with Sun or maybe Illia as she is separated from her family, then this episode has to be Ruby and Oscar. It just gotta be this time.

I’m worried I may be gearing myself up from some bitter disappointment in that department. I know not everything in RWBY is about shipping but this is one of those moments where I’d like the CRWBY writers to make an exception.

Purely for the fact that they began the season strongly hinting at something between Ruby and Oscar.

You can't give us four episodes of them socializing and then stop. The well has to start flowing water again at some point and I’m eager that this episode will provide an opportunity that they will take. Plus there really needs to be an episode where one of the focus in on Oscar and getting to know more about him.

It would be interesting if we get the reverse of Chapter 5 and have Ruby ask Oscar some deep questions that enlighten us more into his character. If Ruby and Oscar are alone together where it's just them I can definitely see the potential of this happening. We only got 7 more episodes left.

I’m starved for the precious farm boy to get some well-deserved development. I’m starved for my ship to get some development. Don’t start something you don’t intend to continue, CRWBY, especially within the same volume.

I’m hoping this episode presents a case where Weiss and Yang probe Ruby for details on Oscar, probably out of curiosity for the young farm boy but mostly as a means of teasing her about possibly having a crush on him.

They do this only to discover that despite being together for several weeks, Ruby still honestly doesn’t know that much about Oscar.

According to Ruby, other than training together under Ozpin’s watch and what happened in Chapter 5, she and Oscar haven’t exactly gotten any alone time to truly get to know each other.

This will then give a mischievous Yang an idea and long story short, she hatches a plan which results in Ruby and Oscar ending up alone together.

Whether it’s somehow managing to get everybody out of the house for the day so that it’s only Ruby and Oscar alone in the house by themselves or gives them the ole parent-trap and tricks them into meeting each other in the same spot in Mistral and Ruby and Oscar enjoy a day of exploring the town together.

Do you know what would be funny and cute at the same time? What if...Ruby and Oscar bonded over videogames, of all things? Books would be a worthy second choice but videogames is the definite first.

I remember way back in Volume 3 after Qrow was first introduced, we got a scene where he was playing a fighting game against Yang using their scrolls as controllers. It’s been a while since we’ve seen something like that in the show.

Since Oscar was given a grand-spanking new backpack (as evidenced in Chapter 5. Don’t think I didn’t notice the new duds for our little stud muffin in the baking), I wouldn’t be too surprised if he was also given his own personal Scroll. After all, how else was he supposed to communicate with everyone? So if Oscar has a Scroll, Ruby can introduce him to the mystical world of videogames and the two can converse over a few rounds.

Like imagine, Ruby asking Oscar what to do while the two were alone. Oscar, being the diligent bean he is, suggests they should possibly continue their training regiment and spar together in a rematch however Ruby denounces that option by slyly encouraging the farm boy to join her in a spirited round of *Insert RWBY-verse videogame*.

Oscar is, of course, skeptical as he’s never been one to be good at videogames nor has he ever played a videogame before (he strikes me more of outdoorsy, all work and no play book-worm type). This only excites Ruby more as she eagerly exposes Oscar to the fun of videogames.

Not only do the two have their rematch on the gaming platform but the hype and distraction of the game disperses any initial awkwardness between them and the two are actually able to hold a decent conversation between them, discussing everything from their favourite hobbies to foods to family; no talk of any impending wars at all.

Just a nice tête-à-tête between two teens with zero interruption from Ozpin.

We have yet to see Oscar just relax, have fun and truly be a kid. As a matter of fact, the first time fans saw Oscar debut to the story was with him waking up early in the morning to work.

If Oscar’s life was a song, it’d probably be Work by Rihanna. All he does is work, work, work, work, work, work.

He went from working on a farm to working to become a huntsman. Not a day’s rest.

Hard to believe he’s only fourteen.

Can I just have one episode or at least a moment in an episode where Oscar can just be a kid? I want so many things for this precious young avocado bean.

One of them is for him to just be a kid for a day or at least an afternoon and just have FUN. Enjoy the good ole fun times before everything goes to shit in the coming episodes.

And if Oscar can have fun while spending it with Ruby; opening up to her about himself and his life before Mistral, that would be beyond amazing. Let’s face it, Ruby is closest thing to a best friend Oscar has at this point, minus Ozpin (that ancient fart) but he literally lives inside his head so I don’t think that counts. At least if Oscar learnt to genuinely like Ruby and forms a true bond with her, it’ll be of his own choice (the first one he’s made since he became Ozpin’s successor).

I’ve had this cute little idea in my head of Oscar describing his past home life on his aunt’s farm to Ruby, who’s never been on a real farm and the young huntress is surprisingly fascinated by it all, practically bombarding Oscar with questions about what it’s like growing up on a farm. Because Ruby loves the idea of his aunt’s farm so much, in a spurt of confidence, Oscar sort of blushingly invites her to spend the summer with him on his aunt’s farm after making mention of how much more beautiful the farm is in the summer (y’know with flower fields and shit).

Of course, he only meant it as a shy joke at first, not expecting Ruby to take him seriously. However when she does, happy accepting his offer with a flushed face of her own, the two then make a promise to each other; a cute little pinkie-swear pact to spend the summer together on Oscar’s farm after defeating Salem.

I know this will NEVER happen in the show (cause my poor shipping Oscar Pine development pining ass is not the one writing for RWBY) but damn, oh how I wish Miles and Kerry could see this and at least consider tossing it in for us RoseGarden fans.

Do you know what would be interesting?

What if...Volume 5 concludes with the Mistral gang being forced to vacate the citadel and go into hiding somewhere out of Lionheart’s view after that they’ve learnt of his full alliance with Salem?

They can’t go to Atlas because they still need to stay close to Mistral in order to safeguard the Relic of Knowledge and prevent the Fall of Haven Academy.

So what’s a good place for them to lay low and come up with a better plan of action? A place that’s not too far from the city but still pretty far enough and more likely to be in the middle of nowhere where the chances of Lionheart finding them are quite slim?

I’m not making any big speculations here. I’m just saying. Oscar’s aunt sure did look like she had a lot of land on that farm of hers...with a lot of big trees...and two barns...probably more than one which would be the perfect cover to house a couple of people hiding from the law.

I’m just saying. The Walking Dead did an entire season and story arc where the main characters were refugees on a farm. Not saying the CRWBY writers are Walking Dead fans either but...we never did get to learn more about Oscar and his family background now, did we?

Volume 4 gave us some good insight into Ren and Nora’s past, though. Blake and Weiss too. We finally got to meet their respective families in the last volume as well. I’m just saying. Oscar does house Ozpin’s soul. He’s practically a main character now, right? Right.

Sure would be swell if he got some development that explored his family ties just like Ren and Nora...and Weiss...and Blake...and Ruby...andYang...and Qrow! We also got to see Qrow’s family ties last season too. So, when’s Oscar due for his, huh? Jusssst saying.

If Chapter 8 is to be all about Oscar and Ruby bonding but still end on more grim terms, then let Salem send Tyrian to exact his revenge and collect the girl.

May I remind everyone that Tyrian Callows has been surprisingly absent this volume? The last mention of him was in Episode 2 when Salem ordered Watts to create a new tail for him.

As revealed at the end of the last episode, Watts is currently with Cinder and her squad on a mission to attack the Branwen Tribe for Spring Maiden which means that Watts must’ve finished his work on Tyrian’s new tail.

They wouldn’t send Hazel after Ruby since he’s busy babysitting High Leader Adam Taurus. While he may be in Mistral and could offer some assistance if Salem saw him to do so, still, the point is that he’s on his own assignment at the moment that has nothing to do with crossing paths with the Mistral gang.

This only leaves Tyrian and seeing as he has his own personal beef with the silver-eyed girl, I wouldn’t be surprised if Salem has been saving him for now to strike Ruby at her most vulnerable.

Things have been pretty comfortable for the crew during their stay in Mistral so far. And I find it oddly peculiar that we haven’t heard or seen anything new from Professor Lionheart in some time. Since the second episode actually. That’s an awful lot of time to be quiet and quietly waiting lions can be quite deadly. Lionheart must know where these guys are staying in Mistral and wouldn’t be surprised if he would be involved in a sudden staged attack on them.

Oooh you know what? Remember back in the first episode, how Oscar showed up on the gang’s doorstep asking for Ruby cause of Qrow? Imagine a parallel of that same scene where Lionheart surprisingly shows up, all nervous-looking on the gang’s doorstep asking for Ruby Rose and it’s Oscar who answers the door. Of course, he and Ruby are all alone and Oscar becomes especially suspicious of the Headmaster’s sudden presence at the group’s home, even more so when Ozpin warns him to be on his guard like he did with Hazel.

Turns out Lionheart was just the decoy/distraction as Tyrian suddenly comes out of nowhere and goes after Ruby off screen while Lionheart takes care of Oscar. It’d be funny to see Lionheart attempting to subdue Oscar, thinking he’ll get the upper-hand over the boy given his experience even with his rustiness. Much to Lionheart’s surprise, Oscar holds his own pretty well, putting his training to good use.

I want Oscar to fight Lionheart but only in a brief moment for two reasons.

One, I want to get a glimpse of Lionheart’s weapon of choice or at least his fighting style/semblance if possible and two, if a scene like this is done then we can get a sneak peak of Oscar fighting in addition to the look of complete shock on Lionheart’s when he realizes that Oscar is Ozpin.

Admittedly I like Lionheart. His character design is a favourite of mine from this season. However while I’m wondering if there’ll be a chance for him to be redeemed somehow, I can’t help the part of me that believes the CRWBY might be shaping him up to become the Peter Pettigrew/Wormtail of Ozpin’s so-called ‘most-trusted lieutenants’.

Imagine if...Tyrian attacks Ruby during his and Lionheart’s assault on their threshold and though she fights back valiantly, Ruby ends up getting captured this time around as a result of Tyrian’s newly improved tail which come with an added upgrade---A venom that renders its victim unconscious, perhaps?

What if...part of the build up to this volume’s epic conclusion revolves around Ruby being abducted by Tyrian who escapes with Lionheart to be taken to Salem.

I can actually see the build up to the finale of Volume 5 going three ways:

In Menagerie, we could have the ultimate showdown between Blake and Illia as she and Sun fight to protect the Massacre of the Belladonna Household. I figured this moment is too important to Blake’s side of the story and the side of the Battle of Haven with the Faunus for it to be glossed over in just one or even two episodes.

In the Branwen Tribe, it’s Cinder vs. Raven as she attempts to protect Vernal. At first I pegged Vernal and Raven’s relationship as a secretly romantic one.

Not really my ship but the thought did cross my mind. But then I thought that maybe Vernal and Raven have a mother-daughter type of bond and Vernal is Raven’s substitute for Yang, to make up for the fact that she missed out on her own daughter’s life for whatever unexplained reason in the series.

Someone theorized that Raven is bonded to Vernal so that’s how she’s able to teleport back immediately to the tribe campsite with her semblance. So if Vernal and Raven are close, it’d make sense if Raven might sacrifice herself to protect Vernal. Like perhaps Raven is captured by Cinder but before she is taken away, she uses her semblance to send Vernal to Qrow in Mistral.

In Mistral, it’s Vernal who informs Qrow of his sister’s abduction by the enemy around the same time the team learn from Oscar that Ruby has also been captured by Lionheart and Tyrion. This forces the gang no choice but to divide and conquer.

While she would much rather do it herself, Yang entrusts Oscar along with Team JNR to go after Lionheart and Tyrian to save Ruby (my guess is that she’d be held captive at Haven Academy) while she, accompanied by Weiss, Qrow and Vernal would go after Cinder and her forces to save Raven.

The intro did tease Yang fighting Mercury. If Raven was captured by Cinder to lure out the Spring Maiden, it would make sense if we got a rematch between Mercury and Yang after she comes to rescue her mother.

It would be cool to see all these things happen in the series. But, I’m no psychic so who knows how the next few episodes will play out.

One thing’s for certain, I’m really hoping that Chapter 8 is about Ruby and Oscar this time or at least have them be a vocal point at some instance in the episode. Seriously. Then again, while I want to remain hopeful, the CRWBY have stood me up at this dance before.

*shruggity shrug* I guess we’ll see tomorrow then.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2017)

#rwby #rwby volume 5 #oscar pine #ruby rose #rwby rosegarden #rwby musings #rwby volume 5 chapter 8

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shy-fairy-levele3 · 7 years ago

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I Want to Believe

Strange Magic Week- Day 2: Aliens

AO3

“Come along Tough Girl, we got a live one!” Bog declared as he came rushing out of their shared office, nearly crashing into her.

“Careful!” she chided, “I’ve got hot coffee” she held up the two cups to show him.

“Where are we going anyway? I just got here!” she whined as she turned tail and began following him back down the hallway.

Marianne had been Bog King’s FBI partner for the last three years. Most of their time was spent in their tiny basement office, a dark and dingy place where they scoured over old, unsolved cases involving paranormal phenomena. It was Marianne’s job to bring order and ‘real’ explanations to King’s outlandish conspiracy theories.

The walls were covered with pictures of Big Foot, ghosts, and UFO’s, and for Marianne it had become home. There were very few places she felt safe, but in that tiny office with agent Bog King, Marianne always knew she could be herself.

King was shoving his long arms into the sleeves of his long brown coat as he walked, and Marianne had to do a little jog to catch up with his lengthy strides, careful not to spill a drop of the precious liquid.

Bog’s hand stretched out to his side and Marianne inserted the coffee cup. This was routine for them.

“Ah, that’s good coffee Faye” Bog complemented, smacking his lips after tasting the drink.

Marianne rolled her eyes at his gloating. They’d had a little bet going last night on who the killer was on the episode of CSI they were watching, looser buys coffee in the morning. Marianne had lost.

“You know, for some reason, free coffee just tastes better, dornt you agree, Tough Girl?” he asked, still rubbing in his victory as they stepped into the elevator.

“Yes, and I’ll be the one enjoying a free coffee tomorrow” Marianne challenged.

“Oooh, yer on.”

“So, where are we off to in such a rush?” Marianne asked, finally able to take a long swig of her own coffee.

It tingled pleasantly as it made its way through her internal system waking her up.

“A UFO, just crashed landed not too far from here, I figure we could be the first on scene.” Bog said enthusiastically.

He still had most of his coffee to drink but he was already bouncing on his heels.

Note to self, do not bring King coffee on days UFO’s are expected to be sighted, Marianne thought to herself.

“Remember last time you thought you saw a UFO,” Marianne cautioned, “and it turned out to just be an old satellite.”

She didn’t want him getting his hopes up, but still a hard lump had lodged itself in Marianne’s chest. Marianne hated playing the role of the skeptic, hated how everyday she had to come into work and lie to her partner.

“Nah, this is the real thing” he said with confidence, still slightly bouncing, “Ah can feel it in my bones!”

The pair climbed into Bog’s black 1956 Cadillac Sixty Special, a car that Bog’s father had owned and spent a lot of time on. The radio came on, blaring tunes from Bog’s favourite local rock station and the two were off. Yup, just another normal day for agent’s Faye and King.

This was easily Marianne’s most favourite place to be. Riding shotgun while Bog drove, window’s rolled down, all the best classic rock songs filling the air. Yup, there was no place else in the whole universe she would rather be.

***

The crash site looked bad even before Marianne got too close. A deep rut was carved into the ground, the path of destruction about two miles long, trees had been uprooted in its wake. Whatever had brought them down had to be big.

Bog and Marianne glanced at one another and nodded in silent agreement as both of them took out their weapons. Who knew what dangers they might face? They followed along the trail of carnage in silence, both perfectly at ease with each other, since day one it seemed the pair made the perfect team.

As they rounded a slight bend Marianne’s heart leapt to her throat, there was the spaceship, it had come to a grinding halt just short of a river. Marianne knew that make and model, she had one just like it parked in garage at home.

“Dawn” Marianne whispered, her breath shaky, “Dawn!” she yelled running towards the wreckage.

***

Bog was dumb struck, it was real, it was all real, aliens, UFO’s, he had been right! He was so caught up in his own emotions he didn’t notice the panic that had taken over his partner or her fleeing towards the UFO.

When he finally did notice, Marianne was already shifting through the debris. This confused Bog. Since meeting her three years ago Marianne had done everything in her power to prove Bog’s paranormal theories could be explained with science. She had made it quite clear she didn’t believe in ghost, aliens, or things that go bump in the night.

“There is a reasonable explanation for everything” she always told him. He wondered what her “reasonable explanation” would be this time.

Bog jogged over to help her, maybe she thought someone, or something, could be trapped in the wreck and was trying to help free it.

At last Bog caught a glimpse of a shiny blue head, with large black, insect like, sightless eyes. The head was attacked to a slender neck, and shoulders.

“Help me get her out” Marianne huffed as she tried to get her arms around the torso of the ET.

Bog didn’t stop to ask how Marianne might know the being was female, he just did as she asked.

They laid the body out on the ground, it was long and sleek.

There was the sound of pressurized air being released and Marianne removed the alien’s head, no not it’s head, a helmet. Its skin beneath the helmet was a silvery-blue but most surprising of all was the mass of yellow-blonde curls that covered its head.

“Come on Dawn, breathe, breathe” Marianne gently slapped the side of the ET’s face.

Its eyelids fluttered and then it moaned.

“Marianne?” it asked, clearly confused and delirious.

Its eyes opened fully and recognition filled them.

“Marianne! It is you!” the ET cried with joy.

“Dawn, Dawn thank the stars you’re safe!” Marianne pulled the blue alien into a tight embrace.

Marianne rocked slightly, cradling the ET as if it were a child, finally seeming to have had enough of the coddling the alien patted Marianne awkwardly on the arm.

“There, there, Marianne it’s only been a week.”

Marianne pulled the ET off her to look it in the eyes, she shook her head with a sad little shake, “Oh, no Dawn, for me it’s been three years.”

“Three years?”

Bog sat there mouth agape as the two conversed back and forth, at last he had to intervene.

“What?” he growled.

Marianne turned and looked at him, as if seeing him for the first time.

“I’m sorry about this, King, I really am” Marianne said, approaching him and Bog could see the remorse in her eyes.

She pulled her arm back and the last thing agent Bog King of the FBI saw was a tiny fist knocking him on the jaw.

***

“Damn that stings,” Marianne cursed as she sat shaking out her fist.

“Are you sure he’ll be alright?” Dawn asked, not for the first time. Her first human and she had messed up so bad. She looked back at the long prone form at the human her sister called King.

“We must have broken fifty intergalactic laws today” she whined.

“Fifty-one actually” Marianne corrected, “Not that I’m keeping track” she amended at the look her sister shot her way.

“It’s cool” Marianne assured, “I’ve broken like a thousand since I’ve been here and probably have close to two hundred minor infractions.”

Dawn’s jaw dropped at her sister’s casual mention of law breaking.

“Who are you, and what have you done with my sister?” Dawn asked, aghast.

Where was the law abiding, tough love, stern older sister that she had known back home?

“Ha-ha, very funny Dawn. Here hold this, I’m going to check on him.” Marianne said dryly, handing over control of the spaceship to her younger sister.

“Do you really trust me with this thing? After last time?” Dawn asked, taking control with some trepidation.

“Just, stay on course” Marianne huffed.

After knocking out King, Marianne and Dawn had done all they could to hide Dawn’s crashed ship from any prying eyes, they then carried the dead weight of Marianne’s partner back to his car. Marianne then drove them all to the house she lived in where her spaceship, one near identical to Dawn’s sat untouched for the last three years in her garage.

Together the sister’s maneuvered Bog from the back seat of his Cadillac into the rear of Marianne’s spacecraft.

Marianne was still wearing her human skins as she approached Bog and watched him just lying there for a few minutes. All these years Marianne had felt so guilty hiding the truth from him. She had come to care for the human, more perhaps than she thought possible to care for anyone. Of course caring for him meant protecting him from the truth. It was with a heavy heart that Marianne had to wipe Bog’s memory of every ET encounter they had ever had.

Marianne felt the tears spring to her eyes, stupid emotions.

She would have preferred to leave him behind, it was forbidden for humans to get involved in alien affairs, but it was too late, he was already involved. She needed him awake to take his memories and after Dawn had explained the dire situation on her home planet, well they were going to need all the help they could get.

Marianne knelt down next to where he lay, after this she would probably never be allowed to see him again. She was going to lose her best friend, it felt like losing a piece of her heart.

“Bog” she said softly, “Bog can you hear me?”

***

Bog jerked awake and upon seeing Marianne’s face so close to his immediately sprung back away from her. His heart pounded in his chest and thudded in his ears. Bog brought his long legs up in front of him to provide some kind of cover should Marianne start shooing laser beams from her beguiling eyes.

“You lied ta me” he hissed, and the look of shame and hurt in Marianne’s eyes nearly broke his heart.

Bog had found himself enamoured with Marianne almost from the moment he met her. All his protests of not needing a partner, and being better off alone had fallen on deaf ears, and he was so very glad they had. By the end of their first month of adventures Bog was sure he was head-over-heals in love with his new partner, but he knew better than to tell her. He would just scare her away, like every other woman he had met. But Marianne wasn’t like every other woman, she was so different and ultimately that was what had drawn him to her the most.

“Yes, I did” she said, clearly sorry for it.

He watched as she fiddled with a function on her watch and the human facade melted away. Her skin took on a purplish hue and large wings, like that of a monarch butterfly emerged from her shoulder blades, only they were purple where it should be orange. Her usual gray dress pants and blazer were replaced with, what Bog could only describe as a dress, one that hugged her leath frame tight and flared over her hips. The hem of the dress met with tops of boots that came right up to her knees. She still had the same honey coloured eyes though, and the same wild brown hair with its caramel highlights.

Well now he knew just how different she really was. All those times she told him aliens didn’t exist, every time she knocked down one of his “crazy theories” and she had been one of them all along.

“King” she said calmly, as if speaking to a child, and he turned his head.

“King” she said again, more sternly, “look at me!” she finally cried out.

He refused.

“Bog, I’m sorry I lied, but I had to, to protect you” her voice waivered with emotion and Bog thought he heard her sob.

Now he was feeling guilty. He felt empty inside, there had never been an issue the pair couldn’t work through before, was this really so different?

Bog chanced a glance at her and saw that Marianne hadn’t moved. He took in the rest of his surroundings and nearly fainted, they were on a spaceship! Marianne’s spaceship!

Marianne must have seen his eyes dilate in awe because she started giggling at the look of absolute delight that had taken over his dark scowl.

“Bog” Marianne said his name with a tenderness he didn’t think he’d ever heard her use before, and this time he looked at her as she spoke.

“My planet is in danger, my ex-fiancé has led a coup, overthrowing my father, who is the leader there. I ran away to Earth after I called off my engagement but now we have to go back and stop Roland. He’ll blow up every planet in the galaxy looking for me if we don’t. Are you with me?”

Bog couldn’t deny the urgency in Marianne’s voice. She was still the same woman who had captured his heart all those years ago.

Bog was nodding before the words came to his lips.

“Yeah Tough Girl, Ah’m in” he said.

The smile that split Marianne’s face was pure light. That same mischievous joy twinkled in her eyes and Bog knew he was still in love with her. Aliens were real and Bog King was in love with one. Bog was in love with an alien. This was going to be the best day ever.

#strange magic week #strange magic week 2017 #bog king #marianne #human au #alien au #aliens #butterfly bog #lies #dawn #et's #saving the planet #level writes

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