#i mean -- a relatively short time given i started actually writing it two weeks ago

[silverskye13]

NEW CHAPTER FROM SKYE “IM NOT POSTING ON FRIDAY” SILVERSKYE

STANDS ON MY SOAPBOX. SCREAMS

Constantly being reminded of how well you write fight scenes. Eating them up like cookies. The lights and the movement and the sounds all come to me so vividly and it makes me SO happy.

What an excellent chapter what a way to make me cry

As it turns out, I am not a knight! So I am allowed to lie :) just a little, as a treat, sometimes

I am sorry for the tears! But! Thank you for your kind words! I have! So much fun! Writing fight scenes! They are so so cool and important and fun, and are awesome literary tools when I can poke and prod them into the right places.

[tl-notes]

Kobayashi’s Maid Dragon S2 Episode 9 Notes

...設立から大分地盤が固まってきており、少しずつだが、業態は改善されている。

One thing to note here is that Kobayashi(‘s narration) isn’t saying the company has already made solid improvements, it’s that the company has finally established itself somewhat (as it was only founded relatively recently, and typically new companies are especially busy while trying to get off the ground) and now is starting to make improvements.

Similarly in the second sentence, it’s not “was” slow going, it’s “is still” slow going, and the working conditions “are” improving, not “have improved.”

This is がんば ganba, short of course for がんばって ganbatte, which I’m sure most of you are familiar with: the (in)famous “do your best.”

I only mention it because I like this shortened version of it. Ganba!

This is a fun little idiom(?)/saying: 鼻で笑う hana de warau (conjugated as hana de warawareta), lit. to laugh using the nose. It’s used to describe laughing at someone you’re looking down on for whatever reason (not necessarily in a super serious way, could just be a friend being dumb etc.; in this case it’s Elma’s being naive).

Typically it refers to like a “heh-but-through-the-nose” kind of “laugh,” but as you can see in this scene (where clearly Kobayashi is laughing with the mouth, even starting with “pff” lips) it works idiomatically even if the laughing isn’t only through the nose.

You may have heard that Japan is/was a “lifetime employment” country, where typically people would get hired right out of school and stay at that company until retirement. While that’s much less true today than it was even a couple of decades ago (and has become kind of controversial in ways), it’s still much more common of a practice than in say the US.

One result of this is that there’s a much bigger distinction placed between hiring people in spring as part of the annual graduation rush (the Japanese school year ends in March), and mid-career hiring. Typically you can’t participate in the fresh grad hiring if you aren’t one, even if you’re new to the field in question. 

For larger employers (i.e. 5k+ employees), roughly two-thirds of all hirings come from fresh grads, and only small employers (<300 employees) hire more mid-careerists than people directly out of school.

Of course, this split tends to apply mostly to “standard” full time jobs, not so much part time, and is not necessarily a thing in every industry/at every company.

Just as a minor point of clarity, this “organized text” in Elma’s document refers to the phrase まとめられた文章 matomerareta bunshou. In a literal sense, matomerareta can mean organized/consolidated etc., and bunshou text/passages, but meaning-wise it’s more like “writing that gets its point across clearly/cleanly.” 

This is a pretty big compliment and a very useful skill to have in organizations like this, as writing such that people can quickly and easily understand exactly what you’re trying to say often saves a ton of time and frustration.

我々はエルマの気迫に押されるがままにその書類を読み始めた。

Another minor point, but where the English could imply that they were overwhelmed by Elma’s intensity through the act of reading her report, the Japanese implies more that they started reading it because of how intense Elma was being. 

It doesn’t really make much of a difference either way, but it stuck out a little for me. 

To justify mentioning it, I guess I’ll explain the grammar point Kobayashi uses: されるがままに sareru ga mama ni. Sareru is a generic verb/verb conjugation for having something done to you (technically here it’s 押される, to be “pushed/pressed/pressured”), and mama refers to a state, condition, or “way” (like “do it this way”).

Put together, the whole phrase is used to indicate “you” do/did something that someone else wants you to, without (meaningful) opposition. (Something similar in raw meaning but with a very different connotation would be “going with the flow.”)

If a friend says “hey let’s go do something,” and next thing you know you’re out bowling despite preferring to stay at home, this is you.

You can stick the mama ni to various other things as well to come up with a similar idea, but without the sareru the nuance may end up different. 

The word for clairvoyance here is 千里眼 senrigan, lit. “eye(s) [that can see] a thousand li”, li being a Chinese unit of measurement for length (shorter than a mile, but for general purposes “eyes that see a thousand miles” is basically the gist).

Despite the perhaps physical-sounding nature of the term, it does actually describe the same power as “clairvoyance” in English: being able to perceive things outside your actual range of vision, including potentially into people’s hearts and minds etc.

Hence why it’s a thousand screen display, when she updates it with tech knowledge:

“Tainted by work” here is 職業病 shokugyou-byou, lit. an occupational disease. The “proper” definition is a disease one gets from working in a particular job, such as black lung for coal miners or even posture-related health issues for desk workers. 

Additionally, it’s used colloquially to refer to noticeable habits or quirks that people in a certain profession pick up, like a baker always waking up super early or a programmer using programming lingo out of context in normal conversation. The latter being especially noticeable in Japanese, as a lot of such terms are English in origin.

“Shocking” here is a fun word: ドン引き don-biki. “Don” here is added just for emphasis; the main meaning revolves around 引き hiki/biki, from the verb 引く hiku, meaning to pull. 

The idea is that someone does/says something that you recoil from. Maybe it’s gross (“I only shower once a week”), maybe it’s mean (“They didn’t smile enough so I didn’t leave a tip.”), maybe it’s creepy (“I sent like 30 texts yesterday but still no reply.”), just anything that has you feeling like you might want to create some distance because... phew. 

It’s kind of similar to the current use of “cringe” as an adjective/noun, though with less of an internet-slang feel* to it, and generally used more as something the speaker is doing rather than describing whatever/whoever is being cringe. 

(*I think it started being used popularly in this way in the early-to-mid 90s, with the “don”biki variant specifically popping up around 2005.)

A “Premium Friday” is the last Friday of the month, where you get to leave work at 3 pm. It is largely theoretical. 

The idea was created by the Japanese government as a way to reduce working hours and encourage domestic spending (boost demand), but it has not been implemented by all that many employers, and especially not many smaller employers. There isn’t, after all, any mandate or government-provided incentive for doing so.

Evidence from the places that did implement it suggests it is actually good for the economy, but good luck convincing bosses to give extra paid time off.

“Last Friday of the month” was chosen because most people get paid on the 25th each month (Japan tends to pay monthly instead of every two weeks), so it would usually be right after payday, when people are more willing to get spendy.

Kobayashi saying eight hours here reminded me of a “fun” fact: the typical Japanese work day is eight hours plus a one hour break. Plus a one hour break, not with. So a typical work day is actually nine hours. Most commonly 8 to 5 or 9 to 6. Not many “nine-to-fives” here.

The characters for Joui are 上井, which usually read as Kamii or Uwai. It’s “Joui” because that means, when written as 上位, “superior.” As in “a superior life-form.” Like a dragon, say.

でも、ゆっくりやる事業改善案を見せてもらえたじゃない？

This one is actually kind of a critical mistake. In the English it sounds like she’s talking about the improvement proposal that Elma made and that the boss looked at. In the Japanese though, she’s talking about a different plan, one the boss showed them*, that is similar in idea but is going to take longer to be fully implemented**. So we’re being told that while Elma didn’t get what she wanted as fast as she wanted it, it is still basically going through at a slower pace.

*In ”見せてもらえた misete moraeta,” the misete vs mite means they were the ones who got shown something, rather than the ones who got someone to look at their stuff. 

**Which you can tell from the ゆっくりやる yukkuri yaru, where yaru is basically “do” and yukkuri means (in this case) at an unhurried pace.

(Re previous note: Hence why she says “immediately” here.)

“Black (ブラック)” and “white (ホワイト)” in the context of Japanese employers refers to how well employees are treated: a company with good benefits/pay, reasonable levels of overtime, and feels safe to work at is “white,” while a company that has excessive overtime, often pays poorly, breaks labor laws, and allows harassment to fester is “black.” 

While “white company” was created simply in contrast to the term “black company,” the latter finds its origins in front businesses for organized crime, which were called “black” in the sense of “illegal” (similar to “black market” or something being in a “grey area”). Given the international reputation of Japanese work life, you can imagine that “black company” as a term sees much more use.

There’s been some discussion about maybe replacing it due to the racial implications (especially since it uses the English word “black”), but while typically English translations drop the color for that reason (e.g. ブラック企業大賞, an “award” given to Japan’s worst employer each year, is officially “Most Evil Corporation of the Year Award” in English), it hasn’t really penetrated to the mainstream at this point.

The rice there is in a 飯盒 hangou, a metal container that looks… like that, and is the stereotypical item of choice for cooking rice while camping. It has its origins in the mess kits used by the military, but these days they’re primarily marketed as portable rice cookers for camping use. 

You can get round ones too, but the bean shape is very popular.

“Settings” here is 設定 settei, lit. exactly that, “setting(s).” E.g. if you open a computer program and look at the settings menu, it’ll be settei in the Japanese language settings (settei). 

I bring it up here because there’s a bit of a difference in how it gets used colloquially like this. In English, the “setting” for a story typically refers to where and when it’s set. In Japanese, “setting” in that sense is usually 舞台 butai. But settei is still used when talking about fiction, just in a different, more expansive way.

Often in these cases settei is used to refer to the various conceits that provide the context in which the story takes place. In this show, for example, one such “setting” is that dragons are real: another is that magic exists. It comes up especially often in fantasy/sci-fi type stuff where there are major distinctions between that universe and the real world—not that stories in a real-world setting don’t have settei of their own, but they often are lumped into descriptions of the plot in that case (”a dragon comes to live with an office worker in her apartment”).

It also refers to the “settings” of characters, like name or age, and things like “they run a bakery that’s going out of business and are trying to save it.” Basically all the details you’d have in a character profile.

It also gets used in conversation to refer to pretend things or (basically) lies: like here, where Saikawa thinks Shouta is playing pretend with his ley-lines talk, or e.g. if someone is trying to tell you some outlandish story (“my uncle works at Nintendo…” or someone asking for love life advice for “their friend”) and you’re just like “Okay so that’s the settei here, I see.”

Not really a big deal, but Elma’s line here in Japanese implies she won’t let Tohru call her that anymore (see her もう mou). Tohru’s response is also more of a “I haven’t been?”, since of course she wasn’t aware of Elma’s-mental-image-Tohru tormenting Elma in the previous scene:

The word for “full of” in the title here is ざんまい zanmai (a suffix form of 三昧 sanmai), usually meaning that there’s a whole lot of [whatever] to immerse oneself in. I mostly bring it up because there’s a famous restaurant chain called Sushi Zanmai that specializes in, obviously, sushi.

And you know, Elma is a water dragon that looks kinda like an eel… I’m just sayin’…

Not really a translation note, but wild that Elma didn’t even touch her parfait. (Not so wild that Fafnir finished his so quickly.) Serious business ahead...

“Genuinely” here is 素直に sunao ni, where the “ni” is used like “-ly” to make sunao work as an adverb. Sunao itself is an interesting word that falls into that category of “simple concept that is often hellish to translate.”

For some context, the first character, 素, is also used in the word 素顔 sugao, which is a face without makeup and 素材 sozai, basically raw ingredients/materials. The second, 直, is used in words like 直線 chokusen, a straight line, or 正直 shoujiki, honest.

Put them together, and you’ve got a word with connotations of directness and being unadorned. The original definition of the word tends toward “simple, natural” in the sense of e.g. life growing up on a rural farm. 

The more common use for it these days is to describe people and their actions. Positively, it can mean something similar to a person being happy to help, or kind of like the opposite of conniving; open, frank, genuine. Less positively, it can mean someone is too trusting and easy to trick into doing things OR someone who is “too honest” and says hurtful things. 

(If it helps: tsundere characters are often described as explicitly not sunao.)

In this case, the idea is that Tohru accepted the invitation easily as-is, without putting any conditions on it, or doing any “ugh, what a pain, do I have to, jeez” rigamarole—she just accepted. Another way you could put it in this case might be “It’s even more unusual for Tohru to accept an invitation like this without a fuss.”

Just to point out the hand on head thing again.

Also just to point out that this is another example of otsukare, as a reminder of how ubiquitous that word is.

And it makes a good place to end on: thanks for reading!

[ibijau]

How to Woo a Lan pt 5 / on AO3

Jin Ling meets with Sizhui again

It would have been a lie to say Jin Ling wasn’t surprised when his letter to Lan Sizhui quickly received an answer. He still didn’t know what he’d said that was so bad last time they’d seen each other, but he understood that he had, in fact, deeply offended the other boy. So deeply that Jin Ling had been prepared to start writing to Lan Jingyi too if that first letter didn’t do its job, in an effort to get him to convince Lan Sizhui to forgive him.

Instead, Lan Sizhui just wrote back.

It had been an unpleasant enough morning for Jin Ling up until that point, full of annoying elders, and requests for help, and so. Many. Stupid. Bills. Jin Ling had thought he would die of boredom sitting at his desk, when he’d spotted that one letter bearing the Lan seal, dropped among many others he had received that day. Even as he started opening it with trembling hands, Jin Ling made a mental note to ask that letters from Gusu Lan not be mixed with other more common correspondence. He then started reading, and…

And Lan Sizhui wasn’t angry at him.

Lan Sizhui wrote that he accepted Jin Ling’s apology about their last encounter, and would be delighted to go on another Night Hunt sometime soon, without Wei Wuxian present. A less creepy one if at all possible, Lan Sizhui added, and Jin Ling could just hear his soft laugh. Something normal like a giant beast, or a demon, or just anything other than a ghost, really. It would be good fun, Lan Sizhui said, and he’d be happy for the chance to chat a bit.

Jin Ling’s mood rose for the rest of the day and nothing, not even bills could bring him back down again.

Night Hunts, however, weren’t that simple to organise. Jin Ling had responsibilities, as did Lan Sizhui now that he had returned from his mysterious journey. They had to find a moment that would fit both their schedules, and to decide on a place to go Night Hunting. So for the entire month that followed Jin Ling and Lan Sizhui wrote to each other to decide on details, making sure to exchange at least one letter each week, more if they managed.

When they finally managed to decide on a place and date for their Night Hunt, Jin Ling also wrote to Nie Huaisang to inform him of that development, and to thank him for his help. Nie Huaisang promptly responded that he didn’t care in the least about anyone’s romantic life, reminded Jin Ling to be honest, to speak openly about his own failings, and to not dress too ostentatiously since the Lan valued simplicity.

Then, at last, the day of the Night Hunt came. Jin Ling picked his clothes to be elegant but as simple as possible, packed his best bow, and flew to the meeting point that had been agreed on. He was practically vibrating with excitement as he hopped down from his sword at the entrance of the village in question, as he walked toward the inn where Lan Sizhui would be waiting for him. He entered the small building, scanned its dim-lit main room, and felt his heart skip a beat when he spotted a silhouette in white by a table.

His joy was short-lived when he noticed a second silhouette wearing that colour, right next to the first, and a third wearing a darker robe.

Ouyang Zizhen was the first one to notice Jin Ling had arrived, and though he looked quite apologetic, he jumped to his feet to greet his friend, even giving Jin Ling a tight hug as if they hadn’t seen one another in years.

“Sihzui told Jingyi about the hunt and he invited himself,” Ouyang Zizhen whispered under the cover of that hug. “And I was in Gusu anyway, so I thought I should come too. I’ll try to distract Jingyi so you two can have a moment alone.”

Jin Ling quickly nodded, grateful beyond words, then pushed Ouyang Zizhen and complained about him being too sentimental while they went to join the Lan at their table. He silently promised himself that next time Ouyang Zizhen had one of his dramatic falling out with his father he’d be welcome to stay in Jinlin Tai as long as he pleased, no questions asked. It was really the least Jin Ling could do.

Now that the four of them were together, they chatted for a bit. Lan Sizhui, ever the perfect host, ordered some fresh tea for everyone, and poured some for Jin Ling. He poured some for everyone, really, but he did so for Jin Ling first, which surely had to count for something. When they were done with their tea, they headed out toward the forest where some great beast was supposed to live which sometimes took children.

“I’m still saying it might just be wolves, or a tiger,” Lan Jingyi said as they walked past the last house.

“But an animal wouldn’t target only little boys,” Lan Sizhui gently countered.

“It wouldn’t go for humans at all unless it had nothing else to eat,” Jin Ling added, to which Lan Sizhui nodded approvingly. “And since there’s plenty of game in the woods according to locals, it’s really too odd. Even if it is an animal, it’s not an ordinary one. Maybe a demon with a taste for human flesh…”

“Or a creature on its way to becoming a demon,” Lan Sizhui mused. “I’m really with Jin Ling on this, it’s really unlikely to be a normal animal. We’ll have to be careful.”

Jin Ling beamed upon hearing that Lan Sizhui was on his side, though his good humour was rather spoiled when Lan Jingyi took one look at his face and snorted. He didn’t say anything, didn’t openly mock Jin Ling or comment on how happy he looked just because Lan Sizhui agreed with him. Lan Jingyi just snorted, gave him a disdainful look, and said nothing.

Jin Ling hated him, and didn’t know why they were even friends.

For a few hours, the four boys wandered into the forest, following a trail toward the spot of the last known attack. Two days earlier, a toddler of barely two had been following his father on the way to another village where relatives lived. The little boy had trailed a little behind, which hadn’t much worried his father until he’d heard a shriek. When he’d turned around his son was gone, no trace of him left behind save for a little wooden toy he’d been holding.

“No blood?” Jin Ling asked.

“None at all,” Lan Sizhui replied, who’d had a chance to speak with the man before Jin Ling arrived. “The father says he might have seen a dark shape running away, but it was very far, going very fast, there were trees blocking his view and… well, he admitted himself he isn’t sure he actually saw anything. He was quite distressed. That was his only child, and he’s a widower.”

Ouyang Zizhen gasped in horror, and lamented the bad luck of that poor man until they arrived where the attack had happened.

There was nothing to mark the place, no sign had been left, and indeed not a drop of blood visible. Yet as soon as they reached a certain part of the path, they all shivered and looked at each other. That part of the path felt nearly freezing when the rest of the forest was merely pleasantly fresh. Seeing it confirmed that there was something unnatural at play, the four boys investigated for a little while, and determined it might be a wolf-life creature. Although they couldn’t find blood, Lan Sizhui had managed to spot some coarse hair near the site of the attack. 

It was Ouyang Zizhen who suggested that they split up in teams of two, only to immediately demand that he go with Lan Jingyi. This displeased Lan Jingyi, who tried to argue first against the idea of forming teams, then against the fact that he didn’t get to be in Lan Sizhui’s. Ouyang Zizhen had to whine that he’d already been alone on a Night Hunt with Jin Ling long ago, so he’d had his turn and someone else should deal with him. If Jin Ling hadn’t been so grateful, he would have been rather annoyed by that turn of phrase.

In fact, grateful or not, he was starting to get angry when Lan Sizhui interrupted the argument between their two friends.

“I don’t mind at all going with Jin Ling,” he said. “Which I would have said earlier if I’d been given a chance to speak. Don’t be hasty, Jingyi. Does everyone have signals in case of trouble? Good. Let’s all meet here again at sunset if we don't find the creature, and see what progress we have made.”

The plan, barely tolerated when suggested by Ouyang Zizhen, was immediately accepted by Lan Jingyi now that Lan Sizhui was on board. This, combined with the nasty look Lan Jingyi threw at Jin Ling before they split up, almost worried the younger boy. If Lan Jingyi too was in love… but he'd never done anything to indicate that was the case except by getting in Jin Ling’s way, and he seemed to like girls better.

Not that it would have mattered even if Lan Jingyi had loved Lan Sizhui. Jin Ling wasn’t going to let anyone else seduce the great love of his life.

“Don’t mind Jingyi, he’s just protective,” Lan Sizhui said as they walked away from the path. “I told him you’ve apologised for last time, and that you didn’t mean anything bad, but he won’t listen.”

Jin Ling kicked a piece of dead wood.

“I don’t know why I’m even friends with him. He’s annoying.”

“Maybe you’re friends with him because he helped you corner your cousin and punch him in the face so hard his nose broke?” Lan Sizhui suggested.

Jin Ling stopped in his tracks and stared at the older boy, horrified that this misbehaviour of his had been revealed. Almost nobody knew about that, because Jin Ling and Lan Jingyi weren’t stupid enough to boast about it, and Jin Chan wasn’t going to let anyone know he’d been beaten by his cousin. 

Lan Sizhui tried to put on a stern expression for a moment, but that quickly dissolved into a grin.

“Jingyi told me about it, and he also said it was deserved, even if he wouldn’t say why.”

It certainly was deserved. Jin Chan deserved to have his nose broken just on the principle that he existed, and that he was very annoying. Of course in that particular case he’d also said some very rude things about Lan Xichen, which had upset Lan Jingyi a great deal, and Jin Ling hadn’t liked that because the only person allowed to be mean to Lan Jingyi was himself.

“Well? Can I get the story from you?” Lan Sizhui asked.

“What happened to ‘gossip is forbidden’?” Jin Ling retorted, which made Lan Sizhui chuckle.

“It’s very cruel of you to turn my sect’s rules against me,” Lan Sizhui complained with a bright smile. “But anyway, I don’t think that would count as gossip. You were there, and you were directly involved, so it’s just… sharing information.”

Jin Ling snorted at the weak justification.

“Admit it, you just hate Jin Chan too. It’s fine. Very understandable. He’s the second most annoying person in all of Jinlin Tai, if you ask some people.”

“I can believe that. But who’s the first, then?”

“By popular judgement, that would be me,” Jin Ling grumbled.

Lan Sizhui said nothing for a moment, watching him with a strange intensity before poking him between the ribs with a soft laugh.

“I think you’re just fine, actually. Much better than him, certainly. Your cousin was horrible that time in the Burial Mounds and did his best to annoy others, while you kept your temper admirably. Everyone else was scared, but not you.”

Jin Ling blushed, half from pleasure at hearing Lan Sizhui speak so well of him, half from embarrassment. It wasn’t that he hadn’t been scared back then, and just that he’d been utterly convinced his uncles would get him out of trouble, as they’d always done before.

To avoid saying something stupid, Jin Ling pretended to closely inspect a young tree that had been snapped in half, as if something heavy had stepped on it. He didn’t think the tree was in any way relevant to their investigation since the break appeared very recent, but it made him look busy. To his mild horror and joy, Lan Sizhui stepped closer to have a look as well. Their elbows brushed together a few times before Jin Ling resumed walking without a word, certain his face had to be horribly red.

If it was Lan Sizhui made no comment on it, but the older boy seemed to be biting back a small smile. Jin Ling wanted to curse himself for already making a fool of himself.

“So, will you tell me why you attacked your cousin?” Lan Sihzui insisted. “It was already odd that Jingyi wouldn’t say, but if you’re acting secretive too, I’m getting really curious.”

“A story for a story,” Jin Ling offered. “I tell you why I punched Jin Chan, and you tell me where you went all that time. Deal?”

In all of the letters they had exchanged, Lan Sizhui hadn’t once mentioned what had taken him away from the cultivation world for several months. Jin Ling had tried to hint interest in that by saying a few times how nice it would be to catch up on everything that had happened, but Lan Sizhui hadn’t said anything. Of course certain things couldn’t be written about, so Jin Ling had figured they would just talk about it when they’d meet in person.

They were friends. Wasn’t it normal to talk about it if one of them went missing for weeks and weeks?

Jin Ling thought it would be normal.

Lan Sizhui, apparently, was of a different opinion. The instant Jin Ling mentioned his long disappearance, the sweet expression on his face vanished, replaced by a hardness that felt out of place.

“I was busy,” Lan Sizhui stated. “There’s nothing more to say about it.”

“Busy with something even Lan Jingyi didn’t know about? That’s weird. I thought you told him everything. Isn’t he your best friend?”

Lan Sizhui stopped walking, so Jin Ling promptly did the same. It really was odd to see Lan Sizhui so serious, and about something like that. It was weird that he’d been gone so long, but not exceedingly odd either. Sometimes people went on long missions for their sects, because their expertise was needed in a remote part of the country. Or else, they went on long seclusion to improve their cultivation, something the Lan sect was famous for. Everyone knew that their previous sect leader, Lan Xichen’s father, had spent more time doing secluded meditation than out of it. Lan Wangji too had famously spent several years doing that, a dozen years earlier.

There were many legitimate reasons for someone to vanish for a while, so it really was weird that Lan Sizhui seemed so upset to be asked about that.

And he was upset, there was no doubt about that. His lips were pinched, his face a little pale, and there was a slight crease between his eyebrows. And then, the way he was staring at Jin Ling was… In a weird way, it reminded Jin Ling of Nie Huaisang, watching him to decide whether or not he should bother with him. 

“Some things can’t be shared,” Lan Sizhui announced, tearing his eyes away. “Not even with Jingyi. Not even with you. I’m sorry, Jin Ling. Please don’t ask again.”

“Fine. It’s not like I care,” Jin Ling retorted. He instantly realised how stupid that was to say, and wince. “No, I do care. I really do care. Friends shouldn’t have secrets!”

Lan Sizhui sighed, crossing his arms on his chest. “Jin Ling…”

“Yeah, I won’t force you to speak, I’m not stupid enough to think I can,” Jin Ling grumbled. “But it’s dumb to be keeping secrets. I wouldn’t do that.”

“What secrets would you even have?” Lan Sizhui asked with a thin smile. “You’re too honest for secrets.”

Too dumb and too much of a loudmouth to keep anything to himself, was what that meant. Jin Ling almost wanted to retort that he'd done pretty well of hiding from nearly everyone that he’d gone to Qinghe and gotten Nie Huaisang to help him with his great plan to someday marry Lan Sizhui, but… but that wasn’t exactly something he could say. Maybe when they were already married it would be fine, but until then…

Though of course, that meant Jin Ling was, in fact, keeping secrets from Lan Sizhui. He didn’t like that. It wasn’t a very big secret, so it was probably fine, but the idea still didn’t sit quite right with him. Maybe for Nie Huaisang too, it had started with small secrets, and then it had ended up… not so small anymore.

“Please, let’s drop this,” Lan Sizhui all but begged. “Can’t we talk about something else?”

Something in his tone startled Jin Ling. He’d seen Lan Sizhui scared before, in Yi City and in the Burial Mounds, but never before had he heard such a hint of terror in the older boy’s voice.

He liked that even less than he liked secrets.

Lan Sizhui wasn’t supposed to be scared around him.

“Ok, let’s talk about something else,” Jin Ling agreed. To his relief, Lan Sizhui instantly relaxed, his expression regaining some warmth. “So, hm… how are things in Gusu, then?” he asked, before being struck by a different sort of curiosity. “How is your uncle doing? We missed him at that last conference, he’s a lot nicer to listen to than Lan Qiren.”

Surprisingly, Lan Sizhui expression turned dark again.

“Uncle is… he was doing better,” he explained with an irritated sigh, kicking some dead leaves. “Hanguang-Jun says Zewu-Jun was starting to make preparations to leave his seclusion by Qingming. It would have been much earlier than we all anticipated, we were all so relieved. But then, a letter came for him from the Unclean Realm and ruined everything.”

Jin Ling tensed and looked away, barely daring to breathe.

“A… a letter?” he remarked, feigning innocence and surprise. “From… from Nie Huaisang? How odd.”

“Odd indeed, and very unwelcome,” Lan Sizhui commented, too angry to notice Jin Ling’s inferior acting skills. “Nobody knows what it said, Zewu-Jun wouldn’t share it with anyone. But it upset him greatly, so it can’t have been anything good. Now we’re not sure when he will leave his seclusion. Why did Nie zongzhu have to write? Surely he’s had revenge enough now, so why can’t he leave Zewu-Jun alone?”

A cold ball of guilt and dread dropped inside Jin Ling’s gut, nearly freezing him on the spot. He hadn’t expected that Nie Huaisang would actually take his advice, not when he was so obviously quite content to wallow in misery over his lost secret love. He also hadn’t expected that should such a letter be written, it might make things so much worse between the two men. What had Nie Huaisang even said to have such an effect on Lan Xichen?

Grown-ups were so stupid, Jin Ling thought.

But before he could again try to find a better conversation topic, a giant wolf the size of a horse leaped out of some shadows, fangs aimed at Lan Sizhui’s throat, and Jin Ling had more urgent things than romance to worry about.

[xxdragonwriterxx]

🔥The Angelus Mortis (1/2)🔥

A/N: Hey everyone, I’m back! I apologize for the really long wait but I wanted to try something different where, instead of posting one story at a time as soon as I finish it, I wrote five stories and then I went back and edited them in the order I wrote them. It took so long because I’ve been writing a ton in the past week.  Hopefully I can make up for the long wait by giving you guys several stories in the next few days or so. Thank you so much for the support on “Scalding”, I was not expecting it but it makes my really happy to know you guys liked it ❤️. Now, without further ado, here is my next Levi x Reader fic!

Warning: This one is super long so I actually had to split it up into two parts so it wouldn’t be such a huge pill to swallow. I will post the next chapter asap though, so keep an eye out for part two!

Summary: Erwin finds a dangerous assassin in the Underground while Levi is on a solo mission.

~~~

Erwin sighed and rubbed his temples to try to dispel the headache that was already building there, the message from the Military Police on his desk, mocking him. He glared at it, his eyes scanning over the words again.

Gods they were so incapable. He would never voice his frustrations aloud, but he wished, for once, they could deal with their own issues. Fight their own battles without having to drag the Survey Corps back to do all of the hard work for them. 

Despite his annoyance, Erwin would not have normally been so frustrated, but this situation was different than usual due to the fact that Captain Levi was gone from the base. He had been sent off on a solo mission to get some more information for Erwin on the movements of the violent gangsters that were fighting with one of the Military Police branches.

“What’s today’s headache about?” The loud, chipper voice of his girlfriend, Hanji, made him look up and grunt at her and the stack of finished reports she held in her arms.

“Oh, I just received a message from the Commander of the Military Police. There is a dangerous assassin who has been cutting down the MP’s that venture into the Underground. Apparently, this guy is impossible to catch and incredibly ruthless, known to leave pieces of the soldiers around for the officers to find later. They want us to go down there and find them, put an end to them before they wipe out an entire regiment.”

Hanji leaned her hip against Erwin’s desk and raised her eyebrow at her partner as she listened to the gruesome things the assassin had done.

“Holy shit…, who are you going to send? Levi is on that solo mission,” Hanji said.

“Yeah that’s the problem,” Erwin responded. “I’m going to have to be the one to go. I’m not going to send someone who will lose their life on this mission. There is no need to waste lives on something as trivial as catching this guy. Also, if he’s impossible to catch, the only one other than me who has enough experience with the ODM gear to navigate the Underground would be Levi, who you pointed out is not here at the moment.”

“Well, I’m coming with you then,” Hanji said. “Someone will need to watch your back, and be there to bring you back to the surface if you end up getting your ass handed to you.”

Erwin smiled at her as he shook his head.

“I’m not going to lose this fight.”

“Oh ho ho, tough guy! Such confidence, I can’t wait to watch your ass hit the ground when that assassin shows you a couple of choice moves,” Hanji chortled.

“Your obsession with my ass is noted. Now go get ready, we are leaving in an hour,” Erwin said, his eyes twinkling as he teased her.

Hanji’s laughter bounced around the halls as she exited his office to pack her things and prepare for the trip to the Underground.

__________________________

Levi grumbled lowly to himself as he nursed a glass of whiskey, his silver eyes appraising the other people in the bar in annoyance. The Captain was not normally one to drink, especially back at the base, but after having to deal with some of the most annoying people on the planet, he felt as if he deserved to relax a little.

At least neither Erwin nor Hanji were with him. That was one of the only reasons he was able to convince himself to go into the old bar; not having to worry about Erwin pressuring him to loosen up, or Hanji trying to wrestle secrets about his life out of him while he was drunk.

Levi took a sip from his glass. The alcohol slid down his throat, leaving a fiery trail in its wake to settle in his stomach, the warmth spreading throughout his gut. The whiskey was starting to loosen the headache that was holding his skull captive, allowing the usually stoic Captain to settle a bit more in his seat, enjoying the relative silence of the dingy establishment.

All day he had been forced to fight with violent gangsters, helping one of the Military Police branches arrest the most aggressive ones and scaring away the others. The whole day had been a loud, frustrating, exhausting experience, making Levi almost miss his normal expeditions outside the walls with the Titans. At least it was his last day in this shit hole, finally able to return to the base in the morning now that all of the criminals had been successfully rounded up.

Thinking about the men and women he had helped put away that day, combined with the alcohol that was circulating through his system, made his mind stray back to memories from his Underground days. For the most part, he tried to forget about his past, thoughts about his time down there, only bringing up bitter emotions. It was like reliving a nightmare over and over again. 

He huffed as he tried to lead his train of thought elsewhere to no avail, his mind flooding with images from his childhood, his struggle as he and his friends fought for survival. His mind even dragged up a foggy image of a beautiful face from the dregs of his past before he quickly diverted his train of thought, refusing to think about that face, that loving smile.

Levi didn’t know if he was lucky or unlucky when his spiraling thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a woman. She wearing a severe red dress that pushed her cleavage up so her breasts were almost spilling out over the top, her lips pursed as she sat herself across from him.

Levi refrained from groaning aloud in frustration, wanting absolutely nothing to do with the woman in front of him, but also recognizing that a tiny part of him was grateful for her intrusion, distracting him from sinking further into the dark memories of his past. Now, he just had to figure out how to shrug this woman off as she leaned forward, so obviously trying to get into his pants he was surprised there was not a ‘FUCK ME’ sign strapped to her chest.

Levi scowled and pulled away from her when she went to touch his arm. To his annoyance, the woman laughed instead of moving away, her eyes sparkling with barely disguised lust as she looked him up and down.

“Look, I’m not interested,” Levi said bluntly.

“Come on, handsome, it won’t hurt for you to relax, why don’t we ditch this joint?” the woman purred.

Levi rolled his eyes so hard he was worried he’d strained something. The situation reminded him of all of the times Hanji had tried to set him up, ignoring his protests and forcing him to meet women from all walks of life despite the fact that he turned them all down without a second thought. It bothered him to no end, not only because it was annoying as hell, but also because there was only one person he had ever given his heart to, and she was gone. Nobody could ever replace her, it didn’t matter that she wasn't around to love him anymore, he refused to be with anyone else.

He figured some people would probably see this as childish, but he didn’t care. To him, he didn’t have a heart left to give, the organ dying with his lost love all those years ago.

“Not interested.”

The woman pouted but moved closer still, practically leaning into him despite his grimace of disgust.

“You don’t mean that, baby, you look like you could use a good time. Here, let me help you. I know exactly how to make you feel better. Have you ever felt the stars? Because you’re about to…,” the woman said boldly, her hand slowly drifting downward.

Levi stood up so fast he almost knocked the table over. His glare was fierce as he slammed his empty whiskey glass on the table. Piercing her with his sharp gaze, Levi snarled lowly at her.

“Not. Interested.”

Grabbing his cloak, Levi stormed out of the bar in even worse spirits than before, memories of the face that haunted his dreams floating across his mind to tease at the edges of his broken heart. Growling to himself, Levi was only grateful that he was leaving in the morning as his feet carried him back to the shitty inn he was staying in for the duration of the mission.

____________________________

This was a bad idea. Scratch that, this was a horrible idea. Erwin laid on the filthy street of the Underground, hidden in the shadows of an alleyway, holding his hand to his shoulder where a dagger was lodged, gritting his teeth as he fought back the bile that rose in his throat at the pain swelling in his body. 

He had no idea where Hanji was, the pair having been separated when they were attacked out of nowhere. Erwin realized now as he lay in the dirt that he had severely underestimated this man, the assassin who got hired to kill the most powerful soldiers and officers in the military. He had read about his strength, but even with that information, he had not expected the fight to be so overwhelming.

This man was dangerous. Very dangerous. Erwin knew from the reports that the killer worked alone, using wit and cold, calculated cunning to attack in ways that not even the veteran soldiers had seen before.

Erwin’s thoughts were suddenly cut short when he heard a pained shriek, one he immediately knew to be Hanji, and watched in horror as a figure slowly came around the corner, holding the limp form of his comrade in his grip.

Hanji let out another pained noise as the figure threw her right at Erwin, the Squad Leader hitting her Commander, causing them both to grunt. Looking down, Erwin saw that Hanji had a long gash down her side, but it didn’t look very deep and she didn’t seem to have any more wounds other than some bruising. A warning.

Erwin managed to hide his nearly imperceptible sigh of relief at the thought that this assassin was considering sparing them if they only left him alone. He knew that he could never leave the assassin alone forever, but if it gave them the chance to get to safety, he could come back another time with reinforcements. It was only one man. A very powerful man, but a man nonetheless, he wasn’t invincible.

Forcing down the whimper that bubbled in his throat when Hanji moved against his shoulder, shifting the blade in his flesh, Erwin locked his eyes on the figure that was still watching them, the darkness of the alley covering any distinguishable features. The only thing Erwin was able to make out was that the figure looked smaller than he imagined. But the seasoned Commander wasn’t stupid enough to determine his threat level based on size, not when one of his best friends was Levi Ackerman, one of the shortest yet deadliest men alive.

The pair tensed when the figure suddenly started towards them, his arm reaching back to procure a wickedly sharp sword from underneath his black cloak. Erwin’s mind scrambled for a plan but he came up blank, his mind ceasing all thoughts when the figure suddenly charged them, sword held aloft.

Erwin and Hanji closed their eyes, clutching each other as the killer came for them, both of them waiting for the quick sting of pain before death, waiting for their remains to be scattered around the Underground like Easter eggs for their friends to find when they came back to their empty offices and cold beds.

Erwin sucked in a breath when he felt the cold, harsh tip of the sword touch his throat but slowly opened his eyes after a moment when the feeling stayed there, the blade hovering just above his delicate wind pipe.

From this distance, Erwin could tell that the assassin was wearing a mask in the shape of a wolf over his face, his body poised to strike as he hovered over the pair of senior officers, his breathing labored.

“Are you Commander Erwin?” The man suddenly asked, the voice deep and distorted thanks to the mask.

Erwin contemplated lying for a second, but knew he didn’t really have a choice in the matter when the man pressed the tip of their blade a little bit harder against his flesh, even causing a pinprick of blood to bubble up from under the steel point.

“Yes.”

The man hesitated for a moment. It was almost as if he were remembering something, Erwin’s name bringing up memories from another time. The Commander had no fucking clue what that could mean for them, but he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to find out.

The assassin opened his mouth to say something when all of a sudden, several ropes were thrown from the darkness, catching the killer by surprise. He leaped out of the way, dodging the ropes at a speed that could only be rivaled by Captain Levi, almost making it out onto the street before he ran headfirst into a trap of chains, the metal clinking as it wrapped around his lithe form and tightened, forcing his arms to snap to his sides and his legs to buckle.

Erwin and Hanji scrambled into a standing position and smiled in joyful surprise as a familiar Mike, Nanaba, and Moblit rounded the corner. Erwin sighed in relief and Hanji let loose a little cheer as the three other veteran officers surrounded their quarry. The pair had no idea how their friends had found them or even why they had thought to follow them, but neither cared as relief filled their systems.

The assassin snarled at them and continued to struggle against their bounds, his mask making the words coming from his mouth sound nearly animalistic in nature.

“Fuck you!” The assassin roared, somehow finding the energy to fight harder as the veterans leaned down to detain the criminal. The soldiers ignored the assassin as he continued spewing profanities while they made their way towards the stairs, their mission complete.

___________________________

Erwin blinked in utter shock as he stared at the assassin through the bars of the cell they had shoved him in underneath the Survey Corps HQ.

Only, it wasn’t a him.

Erwin could only gawk as the reality of the situation settled in, his eyes roving over the assassin’s (h/l) (h/c) hair, feminine curves, and beautifully angled face. The strongest assassin in the Underground, the one that had been dubbed The Angelus Mortis, The Angel of Death, was a woman.

He never doubted that women were strong, he trained and fought beside a whole legion of strong, battleworn women that could take down anyone in a heartbeat any day. But this woman had come from the Underground. While not impossible to gain strength in the Underground, most women, and many men for that matter, that lived in that cesspool merely ended up rotting away, their legs destroyed by the lack of sunlight and their bodies wracked with disease. Even if a woman managed to avoid the severe malnourishment, most of them were forced into brothels to be used by the wealthy merchants and nobles who decided to flaunt their wealth in the poorest part of their cities.

But this woman had fought. She had fought like an animal, a wolf, as her mask had suggested. She had used her impressive intelligence and strategic mind to avoid getting caught, all while clawing her way to the top of the food chain, making herself such a feared symbol that nobody would touch her. She was cold and vicious but not at all feral, her mind sharp and her eyes clear as she stared right back at the giant blonde Commander, her gaze never drifting from his.

Erwin leaned back as he appraised her. He could tell that despite her strength, her body was severely malnourished and neglected, the lack of proper food and water paired with the intense physical labor she pushed herself through every day, rendered her body weak and thin. Erwin could tell right away that if she were given the proper commodities and nursed back to health, she would be stunning and very powerful.

He had to think about this carefully. He had sent in an after action report to the MP’s telling them that the Survey Corps had done their dirty work for them, and they had already responded with a message telling him to bring her to one of their prison cells the next morning to be tortured to death for her crimes. He knew she probably deserved a punishment like that, she had killed a lot of soldiers, but he felt a strange tugging on his heart, like he knew, deep down, that there was more to her story, something that would make her worth much more than a street rat to be thrown to the dogs.

He had no idea why but he wanted her in the Survey Corps. He knew that she was dangerous, knew that most people would call her insane and then call him insane if he brought this up. But he felt something, like he knew that if he didn’t get her into the military, they would be losing something priceless.

“Are you going to keep staring at me like a perverted fuck or are you going to tell me when I’m being taken away?”

Erwin’s eyes snapped to hers from where they had drifted to her ribs, which were jutting out of her chest prominently. 

“I knew you were going to be testy, sassy even, maybe downright insane, but I didn’t expect someone so close to death to be so confident,” Erwin said, a smirk teasing the corner of his lips.

The assassin rolled her eyes.

“I’m from the Underground, idiot, death is always a constant companion on your shoulder. I’m not scared of death, scared of the torture before death, maybe, if I decide I care enough, but not of death.”

“Is that why you killed all of those people? Because death is your friend?” Erwin asked.

“Don’t be stupid.”

“That is what you said.”

“I only said it is something I am used to, the constant threat of death and suffering, not that I enjoy it. Death is not my friend,” She growled with a sharp glare in his direction.

“So why did you kill all of those soldiers? Besides being hired to, I mean. I’d understand your motivations a little more if you had started killing other people who lived in the Underground, to give yourself an advantage, but you chose soldiers.”

The assassin was silent for a minute, breaking his gaze for the first time since he had come down to see her. He could’ve sworn her gaze clouded over slightly, as if she were remembering painful memories, but the fog in her gaze was gone as quickly as it appeared, making Erwin question whether it was even there to begin with.

“That’s personal,” she said after a heavy pause.

“They didn’t compliment your outfit?” Erwin teased, flashing a smile in her direction when she snarled at him.

“Fuck you.”

“Alright fine,” Erwin said. “Why did you ask about me? About my name?”

“That’s personal too.”

“Well you’ve got to answer at least some of my questions.”

“Why should I care about you and your inquiries?” She asked, leaning against the wall and crossing her arms in a way that reminded Erwin so much of Levi he almost smiled.

“Because it might guarantee you your life,” Erwin said.

“Who says I care about living?”

Erwin was silent for a moment this time as he scanned her with his bright blue eyes again, really taking her in. She was something, he could say that. She was unlike anyone he had ever met before. Even Levi, with his similar distrusting nature and sharp, piercing gaze was never this witty, never this sassy.

“I say you do,” Erwin said.

“Oh really? And what makes you the authority on that?”

“Nothing. You are the authority on yourself, on your emotions and instincts. I am merely an observer in this matter. I can see it in your eyes, I can read it in your posture and spot it even in the methods of your actions. In why you became an assassin, and the best one at that.”

She stayed quiet, watching him.

“I know you want to live. I don’t know anything about the personal shit that went down between you and the Military Police but I’m assuming that whatever it was was crippling, which was why you went to such drastic measures to make it to the top, to do whatever it took to make them hurt and scream. Why you never even attempted to hide the bodies. I know some people claim it was because you are cocky or egotistical, but I know better.”

Erwin leaned forward, his eyes glinting in the dull golden light of the lantern hanging on the wall. The assassin again said nothing but she never stopped watching him, playing into this game they had started, dancing on hot coals.

“Just from the fact that you did all of that. That you chose to fight back against your grief rather than succumb to it, rotting away in a forgettable corner of the Underground, shows me that you want to live. That you want to give yourself a purpose to cover up whatever loss you have felt in the past, and use it to fuel your own future.”

The assassin’s eyes narrowed on him as she pushed away from the stone wall of the cell. “I’m impressed.”

“Not quite so much of an idiot anymore, right?”

She glared at him and the smirk that spread across his face.

“(Y/N).”

“What?”

“My name is (Y/N).”

[kihyunswrath]

A masterpost about Wonho leaving and Starship being whiny wankers

It’s been a full day since the news came about Wonho leaving and I finally also decided to write a post of my own. So I came here to bring some logic to this thing because they haven’t cancelled the news yet and it looks like Starship has given up on literally every bit of sense they had. I’m still so fucking pissed off. I’m 10000% ready to fucking fight, as I always am, because I am true to my fucking username.

So away with the crying and missing Wonho, and wailing and lamenting because I think other fans have done their part with that. I’ll focus fully on just listing the things Starship should have automatically realized if they had even ONE fucking sensible person working in there. This will be fucking long but I don’t care, this needs to be said and heard. So tl;dr: Do they have the slightest idea how to run a business? This is most likely the end of Starship, too, so how can they be THAT dumb to not realize they decided to screw themselves over SUCH A SMALL ISSUE? 

__

1) First of all, Wonho loved his job. This is not about me being sentimental or pretending I don’t understand how pretentious idols can be about their actual working conditions, this is simply the truth. He loved communicating with fans, he loved improving his body, he loved making songs, he loved performing. No kpop companies are treating their idols perfectly, but Monsta X was in general doing very well. This means he with 99% certainty did not want to make things end like this, he just felt he had no other choice, and was panicking. 

2) Wonho thinking there will be a huge backlash against him because of his problematic past and there actually being a backlash against him are two separate things, and if he himself cannot distinguish this difference because of his anxiety, his company should at least be able to. They are the ones holding the money and the power. It’s not like their careers are not at stake, too. 

3) He was fucking popular. Like he had a LOT of fans, those that were specifically dedicating their money and attention to him, and then those who liked several members at the same time, but he was still among their most favourite. We can pretend all day we love all Monsta X members equally, but looking at it from a purely transactional perspective: there are members who are popular, and then members who are EXTREMELY popular. The more popular members bring more money to the table, and Wonho was clearly a part of that latter group. Him facing not one but two scandals in a very short time period did not change that yet, which can be proved by how much support he and the other members still got in the first days of their comeback. Which brings me to point number four:

4) We do not have evidence these scandals were ever going to affect Monsta X members careers in an indispensable way. We do not know whether Wonho’s reputation would have tarnished the group’s future for good, mainly because WE NEVER GOT TO SEE FOR GOOD. This all happened in one WEEK. What can be said about one week? If one comeback of theirs, after a string of VERY successful albums, singles, concerts and world tours, gets ruined because of this one thing, does it mean Starship should have torn their clothes and started throwing temper tantrums like little babies? After they STILL got a nice amount of money out of this comeback TOO? After not even waiting it out to find out if they could have still received number one positions in the comeback show, for at least one week? 

5) Follow the logic mentioned in point two and even the dumbest person in the universe should realize that Starship will end up losing a LOT of album sales, views and ticket revenue now. There was no way of proving that Wonho would actually damage the group long-term by deciding to stay there, and looking at the amount of support he’s now getting, that’s actually unlikely. BUT by kicking him out? DEFINITE LOSS OF REVENUE. People are all now saying we will continue supporting the other members, but the fact is this: many of us won’t. I probably will not. If this is how Starship decided to deal with things, kicking out a member three DAYS after a relatively harmless scandal, started by an absolute embarrassment of a person, I will not support such a company. Kihyun is my bias and I love him to death, but if he’s accepting how things are being handled in his own company, he’ll have to do without my support. That’s how simple it is. 

6) Monsta X is the moneymaker of Starship. They screwed everything with Boyfriend, they disbanded Sistar, and WSJN and Starship solo artists are all nugus compared to Monsta X. This is not to say they’re not good, but they do not bring even near the same amount of money to the company. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that Starship cannot afford to make dumb mistakes in relation to how they’re handling Monsta X. 

7) As a fan who has followed this industry closely for almost 13 years now, I have seen the rise and death of countless kpop groups. At this point I can say one thing for sure: groups can survive or return back to their old glory even when their members leave, but only on certain conditions. If members 1) leave because they want to change their career, 2) leave because they’re not satisfied with their company or 3) have health conditions that prevent them from continuing, the group might still manage to survive without them. If they are kicked out, there’s a smaller chance for continued success and support, but it might work anyway, if 4) they are kicked out relatively early during their career and 5) if they aren’t popular at all at that point. None of these cases apply to Monsta X’s situation. And if and when Monsta X falls, there is no other groups within Starship that could take their position.

8) Now, we don’t know the truth behind all this. Later on Wonho’s leave might turn out to have other motives we are not aware of yet. But as it is, this juvenile prison thing combined with the debt will be the scandals people will remember until forever. That will affect the reputation of Monsta X, YET that’s not how things needed to go. And why is that? Because those scandals actually caused Wonho to leave, unlike so many of the other things we keep hearing every single day because of twats like Han Seo Hee and other antifan wankers. Idols are under constant attacks, but most of the time these DON’T end their careers. Typically, when it hasn’t been about anyone actually getting hurt (rape, abuse, assault, harassment, murder, etc.) or about anything S. Korea specifically condemns idols for doing (drugs, promiscuous dating/sex life, being piss drunk and causing damage, DUI), people will forget things real quick and move on. There are a lot of scandals I will accidentally find out about years later they actually happened, and the idols in question are thriving. But now? People for certain are going to find out, because the consequence was so dire, and so fucking QUICK. 

9) Someone going to a hiatus to solve their private life issues is one thing. Idols canceling or postponing their comeback dates and events because of private life matters is, again, one thing. However, leaving in a matter of days after the scandal started? That’s suspicious, irresponsible, stupid and may make Wonho look much more guilty than he ever was. It may make people think there’s more to this than they know at this point. They may think Starship is partially responsible for hiding things, not checking Wonho’s background or that some of the scandals Wonho is involved in were actually happening while he was in Starship. Because, you know, someone holding a job and having his non-offensive past explored from over a decade ago should be two TOTALLY SEPARATE THINGS. That brings me to point number ten: 

10) Making someone all of a sudden, over all these years, face consequences for things that happened ages ago, with a punishment that is not relevant, fair or just? Yeah that does make people think Starship is unreliable, irresponsible, childish and acting in a rush. It’s not like they didn’t KNOW Wonho had been in juvie. It’s not like they hadn’t already decided to give Wonho another chance. It’s not like Wonho DID anything at this point to show he was no longer earning that trust. Actually, he did not do anything at all. Starship changing their mind about it so quick just revealed how vulnerable, spineless cowards they are and how they don’t want to carry responsibility over any of their actions. Not good for any business, let alone one whose LITERAL JOB is to gain profit from positive publicity and keep a close watch of their reputation. They do not survive without fans. They do not survive without Monsta X. They do not survive if they have THIS presumptuous and careless attitude, thinking they can quickly cover up all their “mistakes” by removing people out of their way.

11) The entire concept of Monsta X is revolving around the solid formation of the group. Every single member has a very steady role within the group, one that is not replaceable. Wonho’s position as the muscular, sexy dancer and soft-voiced vocalist was crucial to the image of Monsta X. People became interested in Monsta X because of their masculine energy, and Wonho was one of the key members in that. He was also very important in terms of how often he catered to the fans’ needs, how often he thanked us and sent messages to us and how frequently he wanted to hang out with us in vlive. He was a steady composer and had a plenty of potential, and all of his songs turned out to be popular. His role as a specifically health, bodybuilding and fitness -oriented idol was widely recognized and celebrated. His character as a cute, aegyo-filled, emotional and extremely kind “fake-maknae” was loved by literally everyone in this fandom. I don’t think I ever knew anyone who didn’t have a specific soft spot for him, even when he wasn’t their bias or even if people mainly followed other groups. Other members in Monsta X have their own, just as solid, roles that are irreplaceable, but it’d be stupid to not acknowledge Wonho has been among the first members people notice when they learn about Monsta X. Without him, it’s almost like not one but two members are missing.

12) There goes Starship’s good reputation among kpop companies when it comes to foreign record label deals as well. Did the company in Japan or the US like what happened? Would they have punished Wonho for this kind of a meaningless bullshit? Do they like the idea that they are now supposed to interact with a company that acts this recklessly, isn’t loyal to their employees and throws their hands in the air as soon as a problem occurs? I bet not. 

13) Why did no one in the company actually sum up together what damage Wonho had allegedly done, like, for real? 1) He made one non-malicious, absent-minded joke half a year ago not a single Monbebe present at that time complained about. This was brought up by a person who intentionally made him look bad. He apologized and people moved on. 2) He has been in a juvenile prison for a small thievery (or something about as stupid as that, according to the information I found about this) over a decade ago, and he most likely did not get a criminal record for this. Starship however, probably did know this when they took him in, so at least back then they thought he’s atoned for his errors and can fucking move on, right? Being in a prison means rehabilitation, especially if you’re there just once as a kid after committing a very minor crime that does not involve hurting people. Bringing this up now is totally irrelevant. 3) Him not paying back to his old friend (3 million won) has absolutely nothing to do with his career. Haven’t people ever been indebted to their friends? Is that a crime worth you ending up kicked out of your company that doesn’t have anything to do with, well, anything? When he accepted that money, he was still a child. For years afterwards, he didn’t have money to pay it back, and he could now handle that issue in privacy, because it’s no one else’s fucking business but theirs. Considering the people who brought this up and their reputation, there’s also a chance this entire thing was somehow fabricated. In conclusion, none of this means anything at all. These are not big enough reasons to make your entire company lose a substantial amount of money, followers and fans, plus a really good performer who had repeatedly proved he had grown up, changed and was capable of taking responsibility of his own life. However, by kicking him out Starship has now reinforced the idea these things were indeed a huge problem, their company can be attacked by these means in the future too, and that their idols’ wellbeing and career paths don’t mean shit to them.

14) All of these scandals, including the very first thing involving that Me Too -movement mistake, COULD HAVE BEEN TURNED INTO FUCKING STRENGTHS. The thing that was in common with all of them three things was that they have happened in the past. Sure, the debt is, I assume, still unpaid, but there’s a small chance Wonho did not remember it anymore, or that there was blackmailing or other kind of shady business going on with that. With clever strategy, Starship could have turned these “scandals” upside down, disclaim them, say they have happened long time ago and do not reflect the company’s current values. They could have accused Han Seo Hee and that another twitter wench of slander and point out to their decreased sales revenue as a proof of damage they caused them. They could have said they are fine with Wonho’s past because they are not merciless bastards but a good, forgiving company that is giving its workers second chances in life. They could have said they SAVED Wonho and his family from a dark path. They could have said they have learned from the Me Too -movement joke and that they are now strongly joining the feminists struggling against rape and sexual harassment. They could have proved they are a good, steady company with good moral values, a backbone and trust toward their employees. All this could have happened with a couple of announcements, a week-long hiatus from the promotions of Follow and a post about how Wonho has paid his debt with a big interest. JUST LIKE MANY OTHER COMPANIES, CELEBRITIES AND OTHER WORKERS HAVE HAD TO DO THROUGHOUT THEIR CAREERS. Not at all hard.

15) Most importantly: DID ANYONE AT ANY POINT, INCLUDING WONHO HIMSELF, CONSIDER HOW THIS MIGHT AFFECT THE MENTAL HEALTH OF THE OTHER MEMBERS? Did anyone at any point stop to think that they might not be just fine with this, after fighting to debut together, after they have become such a strong, unified group, after they have seen so much together, when they are now very well aware that this could happen to them at any second, too, considering how these accusations were torn from peoples’ dirty shitty anuses? That they might not accept this, that they might not be able to move on from here, that they might want to resign now too, that they know for sure earlier this year was the peak of their career and nothing they will ever produce without Wonho will receive the same amount of popularity.

__

So yeah. I actually do not hope Monsta X continues as a six-member group. There won’t be “many, exciting things” waiting for them, like those Starship announcers said. There will be depression, more hardships, flopped comebacks and members separating on their own ways, resigning from Starship. The chances of the fucking company itself collapsing are not nonexistent. 

I fucking do hope Monsta X members will refuse to cooperate with Starship until they can negotiate a new contract for Wonho. But if I’ll see them continue performing as a six-member group with these sad, depressed and angry faces I saw today in the comeback show, that’s the end then, for me, as a Monbebe. 

Fix your shit, Starship, or fuck off forever. That’s the deal. 

[shianhygge-imagines]

REQUEST: FFVII Dating Headcanons [Angeal Hewley]

AN: You know? Haven’t written much of anything for FFVII but these headcanons since my high school years... and I say high school years like it’s been soooo long... but that was literally only five years ago.... But you know... Angeal... I’ve always wanted to hug Angeal... always wanted to smack him, too... i seem to want to slap all the FIRST Class SOLDIERs....

Sometimes I mutter, “Embrace your dreams... and protect your honor.” and promptly break down in tears. I know it’s a Zack quote, but Angeal planted it in his head dammit. As you can tell, I’m still traumatized from Crisis Core. I’D LIKE TO APOLOGIZE FOR HOW LATE THIS IS!

|Masterlist Link|

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~ I’m going to be honest, everyone... I’ve always imagined Angeal to be the most straight-laced and normal out of the SOLDIER First Class trio, so it’s kinda weird now that I’m actually trying to write a headcanon for him... I’m going to do my best, though, because he deserves just as much love as Sephiroth, Zack, and Genesis do. ~ Manly man. the Manliest man you will ever meet without being an obnoxious manly man. does that make sense? Probably not... >.>

~ This self sacrificing stupid wholesome hunk of a short sighed idiot (;.;) Is the gentleman of the FIRST Class trio that we all love to hate (or hate to love) so much. Angeal always has his friends’ backs... dealing with problems that probably shouldn’t even involve him in the first place.

~ Oh hey... Genesis needs an alibi to skip a social event full of adoring fans? Sure! No problem! Angeal’ll host a last minute dinner party for his friends so that his childhood best friend doesn’t have to spend an entire night dodging marriage proposals.

~ What? Sephiroth fled his apartment after coitus because he didn’t want to deal with a woman’s tears from being asked to leave?... 

“Sephiroth...” The use of his given name instead of a nickname is a telling sign of Angeal’s disapproval as the SOLDIER General leans against a shadowy alley, cell phone pressed to his ear. “I can’t keep kicking those girls out of your apartment. Maybe you should let her stay the night... maybe even have breakfast with her?”

The General grits his teeth, remembering the events earlier in the night before shaking his head, “Angeal... not her. Can you please, just... do something? I promise I’ll sit down and have breakfast with the next one.” There’s a heavy sigh from the other side of the phone, and Sephiroth knows that he’d won.

~ And that was how Angeal Hewley ended up walking into Sephiroth’s apartment with a bouquet of apology flowers and comforted the sobbing girl that his friend had abandoned in his apartment.

~ This is actually how Angeal gained most of his fans, and how the “Keepers of Honor” was founded.

~ Now, you may be wondering... oh! You’re probably one of the women that Angeal had to escort out of Sephiroth’s apartment with apologies on his lips! Or perhaps you’re one of the women’s friend? Mmmmmhmmm... nope.

~ You’re actually the one who made the bouquets that Angeal brings as apologies.

~ You don’t really care much about SOLDIERs in general, preferring to go about your life as a relatively normal civilian. The flower shop that you work at is owned by your family, and while you have always worked in the shop with your family, you didn’t start to pay attention to any of the faces that passed through until you were old enough to learn the meanings behind the elegant beauties that your parents worked so hard to maintain.

~ Eventually, your family decided that you should man the till for walk in orders. And it is while you work these shifts that you start to notice a rather tall man with raven hair enter the shop right before you closed the shop for the night, requesting bouquets that conveyed the sincerest of apologies. ~ One night, after seeing the man appear for the third time that week, you raised a brow at him and inquired:

“You always seem to be apologizing...” You knew that it wasn’t any of your business, but apologizing every few days with a bouquet of expensive flowers was excessive and a sign of a failing relationship. “Scorned lover?”

The question startled the taller man as he watched you move around the store, pulling bloom after bloom to put together another bouquet for him that week. It’s the first time you notice his eyes... and the subtle glow of Mako accenting them. The man, who you identified as a SOLDIER coughed in embarrassment before shaking his head, a kind smile on his lips. “No. They’re not for a lover... They’re for...” His brows furrow in thought, “for my friend’s... lovers.” You raise your brows, baffled as you arrange the flowers before wrapping them. “Sounds like your friend’s a “love ‘em and leave ‘em” type, aren’t they?” There’s an air of exhaustion and defeat on the man’s face as he moves to take out his wallet, pulling Gil from the pouch to pay for the expensive bundle. “You could say that.” “Why do you have to apologize for them though?” You wonder under your breath, not intending for him to hear you over the crinkling of the foil as you tied the ribbon on the outside and turned around with the completed bouquet in your hands. Glowing blue eyes met your own, a patient and gentle expression in place instead of what you expected to be annoyance. “My friend has a lot on his shoulders, and his upraising wasn’t the best. Even though it’s a bit of an inconvenience for me, I’m glad that he’s able to rely on me as he learns...” the man smirks, and you can’t help but find him charmingly handsome as the smile lights up his features. “Even if he’s a little slow at understanding things.” His hand extends to hand you the payment for your hard work, but you shake your head and extend the bouquet to him, pushing the handful of Gil back towards the SOLDIER. “It’s on the house.” The confused look on his face brings you great amusement as you shoo him out the door. “You’re a good friend, stranger. Just keep doing what you’re doing. And feel free to stop by any time you need to apologize for your friend. If I’m working that night, the bouquet’s on me.” He allows you to usher him out of the shop and turns just as you lean against the side of the door. “I.... that’s not necessary...” He falters, not knowing your name. “Y/N” You supply with a laugh before turning to walk back into the flower shop. “You better head back, SOLDIER, I heard that you guys had curfews.” “My name’s Angeal.” 

The SOLDIER calls out to your retreating form, giving you pause before turning your body to look at him one last time before the door closed. “Goodnight, Angeal.”

~ After that night, you were frequently visited by Angeal... most of the time, it was to pick up a bouquet and have a quick chat with you... but there were times where Angeal would appear halfway through you shift, bringing you dinner. (This was, of course, after you told him that you often skipped meals during your shifts).

~ It’s during these visits that you started to learn that he was a SOLDIER First Class, though he was surprised that you didn’t seem to care that he was friends with the great General Sephiroth or Genesis Rhapsodos. Angeal was surprised to find that your interest in his friends was just the amusing image of the mighty SOLDIER General running away from sobbing women

~ Eventually, Angeal bought less and less bouquets (due to Sephiroth calming down in his escapades), and the simple visits turned into long conversations, nights where the SOLDIER walked you home when he didn’t have an urgent mission, and just times where you two enjoyed one another’s company.

~ Neither of you put much thought into your relationship, and there wasn’t a dramatic reveal of feelings. It just seemed normal and right to slip into one another’s life. A seamless transition from sitting close to leaning against one another, to holding hands, to intimate nuzzling, to light chaste kisses...

~ Before you know it, you’re being asked to move in with Angeal... his official proclamation that you two are in a relationship.

~ It’s awfully domestic between the two of you. The apartment is full of flowers and other plants due to the fact that you both shared a love of flora, and the chores are often split... with Angeal cooking and cleaning whenever he has the day off, and you taking care of the days in between.

~ Angeal is a romantic... though not a dramatic one... and he’ll never miss a chance to tell you how much he loves you.

~ He’s the type to pamper you with chaste kisses at every private moment that you have together, putting your priorities first. Always.

~ He often feels guilty that he doesn’t spend enough time with you. That you’re taking on the burden of taking care of so many chores when he’s away. And you have to fight to reassure Angeal that you’re happy with him... that you wouldn’t trade your relationship with him for the world.

~ There are times where his work life bleeds into his personal life... Sephiroth and Genesis meddling with your relationship, being one thing... and when Angeal decided to mentor one lovable puppy of a teen named Zack Fair... but it’s almost like another family.

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Argh! Let me just wallow in my despair, he’s such a perfect husband ;.;

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed my work, please consider buying me a Ko-fi!

[proudgodot]

Gratitude

I was not initially planning to post about this, given that my unfortunate tendency to over-share has caused me quite a bit of grief in the past, but the truth is that I simply couldn’t resist this time. Typically when I am overcome by an uncontrollable desire to post it is because I am desperately in need of attention or validation, so much so that I can’t actually remember a time when I posted because I was genuinely eager to share something. It was always out of some perverse and misplaced sense of obligation, but it finally feels as if that burden is lifted. While I was writing this post, it was because I felt a genuine…. pride over something I had accomplished, something I genuinely wanted to share with the world. When I chose the name of this blog I didn’t earnestly expect that I would ever feel anything other than shame about myself… it seemed more an ideal than an actual plausible prediction. I’m just so relieved my wish came true.

Anyway, I suppose that is quite enough navel-gazing for the time being… I can only imagine my followers have probably had enough of that to last a long and fulfilling lifetime. I reckon it’s time to move on to the actual story.

As most of you well know, following the dramatic events of the Kristahlia drama, I suddenly found myself with the new responsibility of parenthood. There are certainly aspects of my new lifestyle that have been difficult to adjust to… principle of which is that I am supposed to serve as a sort of role model for these developing and damaged boys. I have never been particularly aspirational, in fact you would be hard-pressed to find someone as underperforming as me. Although I was prone to overcompensating for such things, always desperately trying to prove that I was capable of as much as the bare minimum, looking back I see that I grew too comfortable with those low expectations. When it registered that as a caretaker I would suddenly have to perform a sort of excellence, not for the sake of my fragile ego but for the betterment of these children… I was immediately overcome by a painful inadequacy. However, as our first week together progressed, I came to realize that in certain regards all of us were personally inadequate, and it was for that very reason we had taken on this responsibility together. Although I certainly had my short-comings, that wasn’t something unique to me, and over time we all began to coordinate better and help manage each other’s weaknesses. I was somewhat surprised to learn this was not only true of the adults, but the children as well. The dynamic we developed as a family was rather symbiotic… I found that regardless of age we all had something to offer each other.

Regardless, I promised myself that I would do whatever it took to keep my found family as distant as possible from my most severe personal issues. My past was something I felt I had to resolve independently, no matter how tempting it was to once again depend on the people in my life to solve my problems in my stead. That is why when I made the decision to start looking into Anton’s whereabouts, I never spoke a word about it to my housemates.

Facebook made finding his account incredibly easy, distressingly so in fact. I became acutely aware of the possibility that he might have been recommended my account numerous times over the years and had consciously chosen not to send me a friend request, which although completely understandable still hurt immensely to imagine. Perhaps my hopelessly romantic dream to reconnect with the man was unrequited, and would be rejected with extreme prejudice if vocalized. Eventually, however, I managed to muster up the courage to actually inspect his profile. I discovered that after our quarrel six years ago and his subsequent transferral Anton had moved back to his hometown in Ann Arbor to complete his degree in art and design. Since graduating, he had been working as a freelance artist and animator… he often posted about how proud of his projects he was, and it was reassuring to see his enthusiasm had not diminished in the slightest over the years. One detail about his profile that immediately jumped out at me was his relationship status, which was currently set to single. Despite myself, I immediately felt a small flicker of hope ignite within my quickened heart. Upon further investigation, it appeared he’d been involved in several relationships over the years that had ultimately ended in failure, although the circumstances were unclear. I only hoped he hadn’t made a habit of dating unappreciative losers…

I managed to quell my anxiety briefly and force myself to send him a friend request, which almost immediately filled me with a sense of mounting dread. My anticipation wasn’t even allowed much time to simmer, because mere minutes after I sent the message I was notified that it had been accepted. Instinctively, I slammed my laptop shut and jumped out of my seat, forgetting that I was incapable of standing up so quickly without losing all feeling in my legs and face planting into the floor. I instantly regretted not taking Addy’s advice and getting that checked by a doctor, because soon enough the entire family was in my room gathered around my body and asking questions with varying degrees of concern and amusement. Although I had wanted to keep my activity a secret, at that moment I was swept away in the drama, and so I began to mindlessly rant about the situation.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but soon enough there were six pairs of hands all frantically scrambling for control of my keyboard. While I laid incapacitated on the floor, my friends had taken it upon themselves to respond to Anton’s messages, each expressing their own thoughts from my account in randomly alternating orders depending on who had managed to prevail in the wrestling. It seemed that Iara maintained the upper hand most of the fight, although it was admittedly difficult to tell over the frenzy at times considering my limited view from the floor.

Eventually, the chaos subsided and everyone turned to look at me with beaming smiles on their faces, some more devious than others. I immediately began to worry that they had sabotaged me somehow, be it in light-hearted jest or in an earnest act of betrayal, and so I asked them nervously what exactly they had done. For a moment it seemed they were trying to contain their excitement, but it didn’t take long for them to erupted into an uproarious celebration, complete with victorious chants that Anton was coming to meet us in person this evening!

I didn’t know how to react. All at once a tempest of conflicting emotions completely overpowered me… and I mean that quite literally. I knocked out cold, and when I finally woke up I discovered that not only had Kyler been trying to shock me awake by applying Takis to my tongue, but that the situation had not miraculously resolved itself. Although everyone else had mostly settled down, my mind was whirling a mile a minute with all of the things I had to do to prepare. I had a whole bucket list I needed to accomplish before I was comfortable standing in front of Anton again… and as much as I hated to admit it, I couldn’t possibly get everything done myself over such a brief time. To my surprise, I didn’t even have a chance to put my reservations aside before they had already agreed to help me based off of my panicked listing of errands alone. Despite my reluctance to involve my new friends in the more turbulent aspects of personal life, it seemed they were actually eager to get involved themselves… I discovered that my problems were not an inconvenience to them, but rather something they were excited to help me work through.

The first obstacle I had to overcome was also the hardest… that being that I had never properly apologized to Gabriella and Lana for my dishonest and frankly abusive treatment. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t have the words to express my remorse or that I hadn’t processed my guilt, but that Gabriella’s parting words to me specifically informed me not to contact her and I didn’t want to once again disrespect her wishes. However, after some words of encouragement from the family, I managed to write a relatively concise three thousand word email taking responsibility for my past actions and wishing the couple well. As I was writing this post, I actually received a response from the two telling me they appreciated my apology and were glad to see I had grown into a more mature person. Apparently they have just finished settling into their cottage and are now doing better than ever. Lana even expressed an interest in meeting Addy and Iara in particular sometime… I suppose it’s a sapphic thing. I’m just glad that they’re finally living the happy life they deserve without being held back by backwards men.

My email took longer to type then I had expected, and although I certainly can not regret pouring my heart into the message given its importance, it did mean that we had to pick up the pace with the rest of the bucket list. Kyler took this quite literally, speeding at what must have been 100 miles per hour towards the mall despite nearly giving me a heart attack and my insistence that he not set such a bad example for Chris and Klav. We actually ended up getting pulled over, but luckily Iara managed to scare the officer away with her signature scowl. The next few hours were a frantic rush of errands, all focused on helping me actually express myself without the burden of repression. There were moments when it was a struggle, such as when I nearly hyperventilated in Claire’s before they pierced my ears, but ultimately I am immensely satisfied with the results. The most fulfilling moment was finally getting the tips of my hair bleached white to match my new profile picture. Chris actually got his hair dyed alongside me, changing his style from pale blond to black and white to reflect his new kin. It was incredibly rewarding to accomplish this alongside him… I had never been the subject of anything but disappointment from my parents, so it was an incredible feeling to be able to experience that absent parental pride for myself, even if it was with a different perspective.  

By the time Anton was forecasted to arrive, my appearance had been upgraded to better reflect my current sense of self… all that was left was for me to get in the right mindset. Luckily, my family was perfectly eager to act as my own personal “hype beasts,” as Kyler put it. They offered excellent emotional support in the half-hour we sat in the den patiently awaiting his arrival, especially Addy, who really took my mind off things by offering to play me in a game of chess. I lost quite handedly, but for once I don’t have it in me to be a spoilsport. When we heard that fateful knock at the door, they all immediately ran into the nearest closest and shut themselves inside to give us some space, but not before giving me a final set of encouraging thumbs up. I hesitated for a moment, questioning once again whether I was really ready to take such a big step in my life. My hand paused, hovering over the door knob uncertainly… until I heard the faint sounds of Steely Dan’s Come on Eileen coming from inside the closet, accompanied by the muffled sound of Klav’s giggle. Reignited by the familiar sounds of my favorite musicians, I swung the door open with a new and uncharacteristic conviction.

And there he was… I was immediately captivated by just how strong his presence was. My memories hadn’t done him justice… it really was like I was in the presence of an angel. I was comforted by certain familiar aspects of his appearance, such as his golden brown eyes that glistened like stars, his long curly hair with its comforting strawberry aroma, and his signature checkered scarf that he had been consistently wearing for almost decade now… but what really excited me were those new features. Normally I am turned off by change, but I was positively breathless as soon as my eyes wandered to the golden butterfly tattoo on his exposed shoulder. I felt as if I was going to faint for a second time in one day. 

I couldn’t find the words to express the depths of my emotion no matter how hard I searched my impassioned soul... there were no words strong enough. Instead I just cried, and wordlessly he accepted me into his arms… just like he had on that life-changing night all those years ago. I finally told him everything I had so obstinately refused to say during college… that I was gay, that I was in love with him, and that I was sorry. Although I was openly weeping, I don’t think I’ve ever felt more relieved in my life.

Eventually, he managed to pacify me… and so I was able to explain to him the entire story of the Kristahlia drama. It was difficult to explain that I had managed to go from discoursing with these teenage kinnies to adopting them, but he was as understanding as he ever was. He was so excited to meet my family that he even brought his cat Apple all the way from Michigan just to introduce her to them. I don’t think I have ever mentioned this publicly, but when Krissy died I had to take her dog Diogenes in myself, and I was surprised to find that the two animals got along perfectly. It really did feel like the entire house was accepting him... it was as if this was meant to be.

Since Anton had gone to all the trouble of making the ten hour drive to Iowa, he suggested that we might as well all hang out together in Cedar Rapids over the weekend. I suppose it’s a date... I must say that I am looking forward to it, as are the others. I know I didn’t deserve to be accepted by him again just because I spent a few hours shedding tears and profusely apologizing, but for once I don’t feel guilty that I have received something I don’t deserve. I just feel... an overwhelming gratitude for the opportunity.

I am certainly still inexperienced at this whole family business and have accepted that I will inevitably make some mistakes in the future, but I don’t think I’ve done too poorly for a first week, if I do say so myself. I am truly grateful to all the people in my life who have supported me through my journey, who have taught me that it is possible to rely on others without being a parasite and to be relied on without shouldering the entire burden. 

To my partners, my friends, my children, and my love... from the bottom of my heart, thank you. 

[tirednotflirting]

on a summer evening (baby, you’re the end of june)

please enjoy more soft lashton that i wrote for stress relief after another week of job applications

special thanks to @another-lonely-heart for giving this a read last night and saying such kind things about it and also @calumcest bc she yelled at me enough the other day to convince me to start actually posting my writing lol. 

The early summer, golden hour sky is dark with swirling gray clouds and a windy rainstorm when Ashton realizes he’s in love.

There hadn’t been any rain in the forecast for the day. It was four days past the solstice so it should have been miserable out, but LA decided to give its faithful citizens a little treat in the form of a light breeze so sitting outside with a cool drink and a guitar was quite pleasurable. Which is exactly why when he received a text from Luke asking if he could play through some of the melodies he had been playing around with the past couple of weeks, Ashton replied to tell him that the front door would be open and to grab himself a drink before coming to the back deck.

Ashton locks his phone and turns when he hears the sliding door open and attempts to control the blush he feels rise to his cheeks when he watches Luke step toward the chair beside him in a white linen shirt that floats against his chest, one hand holding the neck of his guitar and a beer in the other. His hair is back in a tiny bun and his sunglasses threaten to fall off the end of his nose. He's a vision of a nice summer day, like the one they’re having right now, Ashton thinks to himself.

They spend the next couple of hours working through some of what Luke had come up with that he plays for Ashton from piecing together bits from voice notes on his phone. Luke giggles at the older boy whenever he stumbles over some of the more technical patterns, still not a native to the strings like Luke. (And okay, yes, maybe he was faking some of that a little bit. But it made Luke laugh in the way that his nose would scrunch up far too adorably so there was really no harm to it, he thinks.) The stuff he’s been working on is really good, Ashton repeatedly tells him. He can see all of them ending up in their future singles.

They've just started working on one of the last voice notes that Luke has when a raindrop splashes off of the body of the guitar Ashton was holding from when he had run down to his studio about halfway through the list. A matching pout appears against the lips of both boys as they gather up everything they had brought out as the raindrops pick up, their clothes dampening as they hurry through the glass door.

It’s within the next couple of minutes that the storm neither of them had noticed previously really rolls in and picks up. It's still relatively early, only about 4.30, but as Ashton stands just inside the sliding door looking up at the sky, he knows this is going to go on for a while. His weather app confirms the thought and Luke groans when he looks at the screen Ashton is holding out toward him. “Guess I should head home then?”

Ashton turns from his spot just inside the kitchen where he’s just plugged in his phone to the charger at the island. They’ve had a really good afternoon and for some reason he really really does not want it to end. “I mean,” he starts, a hand running through the hair at the back of his neck, the ends now wet from their escape out of the storm. “I wouldn’t mind the company. Unless you’ve gotta get back to Petunia?”

Luke shakes his head quickly, a small smile appearing as the curls that have escaped his bun fly around like a little halo. “I dropped her at Cal’s place on my way here for a playdate with Duke, I'm sure he wouldn’t mind her being there awhile longer.”

Ashton tries then to control the deepening of his dimples as he nods at the response. “Well, we should change then and maybe we can break for a bit and make an early dinner?”

Luke agrees to the plan and follows Ashton down the hall to his bedroom. Ashton hunts around for a pair of sweats and a long sleeve with the band’s logo from the previous tour, the current weather allowing him to ignore the calendar for the time being in terms of wearing something cozy. He turns to face Luke and gestures towards the closet as if to say “have at it” and changes on the opposite side of the room, leaving Luke to do the same inside the walk-in.

They all practically grew up living out of suitcases in shared hotel rooms, so naturally, all four of them have pieces that belong to the others in their closets. Knowing that any of his pants would run just a little bit too short on Luke, Ashton assumes Luke would go digging through the drawers for a pair of his own that are inevitably tucked away somewhere. He figures he’ll do the same with his t-shirts. So it comes as a surprise (though not one he’s even the slightest bit upset about) when Luke steps out from the closet with one of Ashton's bigger hoodies covering his upper half. The sleeves hang a bit long on Luke, his fingers able to wrap around the cuff to make sweater paws.

(Ashton silently prays that the lack of light in the room due to the storm blocking much natural light from entering will obscure the blush he knows is boldly sitting on his cheeks at the sight of the cozy boy.)

“Is it cool if I borrow this? Kinda chilly,” Luke asks.

“Yeah, no, of course,” Ashton nods back, knowing he answered the question far too quickly.

Luke grins his thanks. “Let's make something, I'm starving.”

Ashton soon realizes that when Luke asked if they could make something, what he really meant was if Ashton could make them something. Not that he minds at all, knowing that growing up as they did made learning skills around the kitchen a little difficult on the blonde. He needs to go to the store soon so he pulls out what odds and ends he can find - some chicken, some rice, random vegetables still in his produce drawer. Ashton sets to work cleaning and chopping up the vegetables after figuring out the spice situation for the chicken.

Luke watches him work silently from where he’s hopped up onto the counter, telling Ashton stories from his week. He talks about Petunia, talks about the call he had with his parents and brothers. They discuss plans for the Fourth of July (ignoring their lack of American citizenship in favor of lighting sparklers and eating loads of good food in Michael's backyard). It’s a nice, lazy (incredibly domestic, Ashton thinks) activity, catching up on the week while Ashton makes them a meal. He wonders if the simplicity of it all has Luke feeling as warm as he does.

Luke decides he wants a mug of hot chocolate and pulls the powder and milk from their respective spots, despite Ashton's complaints that it was too much sugar before a meal. Luke is stirring the powder into the microwave-warmed mug of milk when his phone starts playing a tone letting him know he’s getting a call. He drops the spoon in the sink before reaching into his hoodie pocket and swiping his thumb across the screen. He smiles as he brings the phone to his ear. “Hey Cal, my girl behaving?”

He picks up the mug and walks out from the kitchen, standing at the sliding door that leads to the backyard, a bright smile lighting up his eyes despite the lack of sunshine from beyond the glass, obviously laughing at something Calum has just told him. Ashton reduces the heat on the pan he’s just tossed the sautéed vegetables into with the chicken, knowing the rice needs a few more minutes. He turns then to lean against the counter and look at the boy standing in his living room as he wipes his hands on a dish towel.

And it's then that he feels it. Watching Luke giggle softly through his response to whatever he’s speaking with Calum about, his mug held close to his face to warm his cheeks, Ashton feels something. He’s watching Luke comfortably move through his home, wearing Ashton’s clothes, talking to their friend as he sips from his designated favorite mug while Ashton makes him dinner. It's a scene that has a mob of butterflies flying through his stomach straight up to his heart and taking over his thoughts because Ashton suddenly finds himself knowing he would give up anything to watch this exact moment play out everyday for the rest of his life if he could. Watching this person he cares so so deeply for be warm and safe and happy and with him. Ashton had always thought he had been in love before but now as he watches Luke's eyes squeeze shut as he laughs against the rim of the mug, the porch light illuminating his face with a soft yellow glow, he knows this is new to him and it’s love.

He's given about three seconds to process all of that before Luke turns to him. He's still smiling but his eyes give Ashton a confused look, as if asking if he’s okay. Ashton's lips turn up and he waves his hand as if to tell him to dismiss his concern. Luke lifts his mug to acknowledge the response as he lacks a free hand and turns away as he wanders to the couch, phone still pressed to his ear.

Ashton turns back to the stove, attempting to force himself to focus on plating the food he’s made rather than the thoughts swirling and racing through his mind about the man on his sofa. He’d come to terms with this crush a long time ago, not permitting himself to ever think about it for too long for this exact reason. He’s internally blaming the long spring of being cooped up inside his house with his thoughts when he feels a presence behind him. He moves to turn to face Luke, to try to make some joke about why he’s bugging Ashton while he cooks, when a gentle hand is placed against his left hip to hold him in place while Luke holds out his phone in front of Ashton's face.

“Look at Duke and Petunia,” he coos. “They’re cuddling.”

And the picture is incredibly cute, the two dogs cozied up together on the floor in front of Calum’s couch. Ashton tells Luke this in a tone that the drummer realizes probably sounds just a little too strained to be talking about dogs napping together. The tone must have been recognized by Luke as a puzzled look falls on his face as he squeezes the hip his hand rests at and bumps his head against Ashton’s temple. “You all good?”

Ashton reaches up, rubbing at Luke’s messy curls teasingly. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just hungry.” He steps out of Luke’s hold then as he turns and hands him a plate, gesturing over to the bar where they can eat (his dining room table being covered with papers since the band’s tour meetings earlier in the week) and asks Luke to grab him a water while he finishes making his own plate.

They eat relatively quickly, neither of them realizing until they sit down that they never bothered to eat lunch before working on music earlier. Luke volunteers to clean up while Ashton flips through Netflix for something to watch while they wait for the storm to pass, the radar predicting the heavier part should be past the city within the next few hours. 

Behind him, Ashton hears the dishwasher close and start a cleaning cycle as he clicks play on some indie movie that’s been sitting in his queue for awhile. He takes a seat close to one of the arms of the couch as he watches the opening credits roll. Luke flicks off the kitchen light, leaving the room dark aside from a lamp near the hall that leads to the foyer and the glow of the TV. He takes a seat beside Ashton on the couch, his head immediately falling to rest against the shoulder of the other boy. 

Ashton tenses for just a moment at the pressure against his shoulder and the smell of Luke’s conditioner hitting his nose before he relaxes some. He sits up just a bit so Luke isn’t having to bend over to a weird angle to allow the position. Luke hums his thanks and pulls the sleeves of the hoodie back over his palms. 

They watch the characters on screen go about their lives in pretty normal situations that indie movies tend to be fond of romanticizing. Ashton still feels warm with all of his feelings and butterflies flapping around in his body when he feels a hand reach over, fingers slipping into the spots between his own, a slightly smaller palm pressing against his. He turns his head just slightly but makes no move to change the position, only moving their clasped hands to rest against his lap as Luke’s thumb rubs gently against his first knuckle.

“Days with you are nice,” Luke says softly, so much so that Ashton barely hears him over the dialogue happening between the characters on the screen. “And slow.”

Ashton lets out a laugh, one he hopes doesn’t sound as nervous as he feels. “Slow?” 

“They feel slower, but like,” he stops the motion of his thumb for a minute and Ashton lets his head tilt some to rest against Luke’s curls. “But a good kind of slow? Like the universe is allowing more time to fit into the hours somehow.”

Ashton’s heart is soaring at his words. It practically leaves him at a loss for them himself. “Nice of the universe to let us have that, I guess.”

“I feel pretty lucky, yeah.”

That’s all he says then, his focus returning back to the screen. Ashton isn’t quite sure what the short exchange just then meant but he can tell that it meant something and for now he decides that’s good enough. He wants to be big and bold but it’s obvious that Luke likes slow things. And Ashton really likes Luke. So he can do his best to do slow, for him.

He lifts his head then and shifts some to allow his hand to stay pressed against Luke’s but moves to rest his head against the fluffy arm of the sofa on his left. It’s still pretty early but Ashton suddenly feels so sleepy. He’s silently debating with himself about whether or not the exhaustion is due to his racing mind or the cluster of butterflies still flying between his head and his heart when he lets his eyes drift shut.

(It’s about twenty minutes later that Luke carefully slides a pillow under Ashton’s head and drapes a blanket over him, knowing he’s prone to getting cold during the night. He quietly moves about to slip his boots back on and leave his empty mug in the sink. He considers going back to the bedroom to change into one of the shirts he knows actually belongs to him in Ashton’s closet before heading out. But then he catches a whiff of the other boy’s sunshiney, bright cologne on the collar and thinks about the look in Ashton’s eye when he saw Luke walk out of the closet in it earlier and decides he can’t bear to part with it tonight - the hoodie of course, not the way he felt from that look. Definitely not the look.)

*

[aelaer]

The Blood in Our Veins (a serial)

I had Part 3 partially written out since March, but inspiration struck from the middle of nowhere and I was able to complete it last night. Everyone tagged asked to be tagged months ago, just let me know if you want to be added/removed from the update tag list. Earlier parts linked for convenience as it’s been ages and a lot of you probably don’t remember parts 1 and 2, haha. Apologies for length if you’re on mobile without a working cut tag.

Prompt (via @ironstrangeprompts): Kidnapped to play doctor for a still unseen other prisoner; Stephen realizes there is only one person on the planet who would have palladium in their blood.

This is unbetaed; apologies for any errors.

Part 1 | Part 2 |

Part 3 - Signs Were Not Really That Scarce

Doctor Baar was going to sleep, but Doctors Ferguson and Weston (Jada and Summer, Stephen reminded himself) kept him busy immediately upon waking him up. The former had him prepping more slides and helping input her handwritten data into the computer, while with the latter he started the loose beginnings of a plan for surgery with the incomplete picture they had. 

By the time another two hours had ticked by and he was working again with Doctor Mahajan on prepping yet more samples, Stephen was doing all in his power to focus on the repetitive tasks at hand rather than let his mind wander to consider his circumstances.

He was very good at focusing; he always had been. It was partially his power of intense concentration and attention to detail that he was able to perform surgeries that others simply didn't have the skills to perform. Despite his relatively short career thus far, he was already making a name for himself amongst his peers.

But at this point in Stephen's life, that type of focus was for challenging surgical cases and putting his mind to work towards new and improved techniques in the neurosurgical field. On the other hand, the relative monotony of lab technician work could only distract him from his thoughts for so long. And as the minutes ticked by, Stephen was starting to feel the crawling anxiety of the unknown inch forward.

He forced himself to slowly inhale, then exhale. He did it again for good measure. Then he pushed his wandering thoughts towards something calm and more meditative. This turned him to mentally reviewing as many recent studies as he could recall reading within the larger medical field.

Immediately the papers of his fellow abductees came to mind, and Stephen pushed past those to the unrelated papers he could remember. And there were plenty of those, enough he could recall to categorize them by specialty. His near-eidetic memory certainly helped there—and it was more interesting than listing off the discographies of all artists on Billboard's Top 100 of 1981.

This exercise began helping quickly. His memory did not have these papers memorized word for word, but he could remember the important bits of the study and he began to recite them in his head. What part of his mind wasn't focused on Doctor Mahajan's slides went through the names of doctors, the titles, the summaries, and whatever little details he could recall from his readings over the last year.

The neurology papers came first to mind, naturally. Recalling all new research over the last several months put him at ease; it was in this realm that his own ideas began to take root, drawing from the conclusions of other neurosurgeons to develop his own hypotheses to begin research on later.

But Stephen had no place to jot down his stray musings, which brought reminder to his situation again. Before any anxiety about his situation could take root again, he instead abandoned neurology to remember papers in other fields, even as his nimble fingers continued transferring the blood samples to slides, each labeled accordingly.

He planned on continuing as such without pause until all blood tests had been prepped (and the amount of testing and the speed of results that was being accomplished for a single man was truly phenomenal). But Stephen's hand suddenly jerked, nearly ruining one of the samples.

Doctor Mahajan stood just to his right and, at such proximity, noticed. "Doctor Strange? Are you alright?"

Stephen didn't process her question immediately; his brain was still reeling from his sudden realization. His mind was in the middle of citing a recent cardiothoracic study when he remembered another article. It wasn't even a study in the normal sense of the word, but rather a look at the miraculous ways a body can survive trauma and the modern technology used to help in the process. One part of the article covered the miraculous survival of—

"Tony Stark," he murmured aloud. 

Doctor Mahajan sent him an alarmed look. "Not so loud!" she hissed.

Stephen blinked, then looked back at her. He ignored her comment, but made sure to keep his voice low. "I remember reading about the technology he used to keep shrapnel from his heart. It had a palladium core, the implant. We're trying to keep Tony Stark alive, aren't we?"

"Don't talk about it," she snapped back in a whisper. She refused to look at him.

Stephen paused and frowned at her. What the hell was her problem? "Do you have an issue with me?" he asked the Brit, his voice unconsciously rising in his irritation.

Doctor Mahajan shook her head but continued to avoid looking at him. "Just—just leave me alone."

Before he could say anything (and what could he say to that?) he heard "Stephen," come from behind him. He turned and Jada was there. "Summer needs your help in making out something on an X-ray. I'll continue assisting Doctor Mahajan."

With one last frown at Doctor Mahajan, Stephen nodded to Jada and made his way to the cardiothoracic surgeon on the other side of the room. When he reached her, he asked, "What is it?" There was no X-ray pulled up on the computer.

"Doctor Mahajan is on the verge of a panic attack," Summer explained softly. "Jada recognized it. She'll help calm her down."

Unwelcome guilt edged into his conscience. "I didn't know."

"We know," she reassured him. "We're not blaming you. Meera won't, either. But she has rather bad anxiety that is more sensitive right now for, well, obvious reasons."

Probably what the medication was for, Stephen presumed. "I didn't mean to trigger an attack."

She nodded. "I know," she repeated. "What did you say? We'll want to avoid whatever it was in the future."

He cleared his throat and then lowered his voice further. "I figured out who on earth would have continuous palladium poisoning. His name did it."

Summer exhaled and nodded. "It was only a matter of time before you figured it out."

Stephen frowned once more. "You know the patient is Tony Stark?"

"Everyone does," she answered in a whisper, "but we don't mention it. I'd not say his name again, either; we haven't figured out if there are microphones in here or how strong they might be. We don't know if they care that we've figured it out." And after saying that, she opened the actual X-rays on her computer and shuffled through her notepad to look busy. 

Stephen took her lead and stepped closer to look at her notepad as if reading it. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that others would remember the news—about what was told of the procedure that saved his life," he said. "There was nothing written indicating any reaction to the palladium core, though."

Summer shrugged. "He never mentioned it. I looked through every mention of his procedure I could find when they were first published, and there weren't many. The patient only gave his version of events and never let any doctor closely study it, from my understanding." She pursed her lips. "It was the X-rays that gave it away for me, at least."

"I was reciting medical papers I could remember. A cardiothoracic study nudged my memory to one of those articles that came out last year about his survival." Stephen pressed his lips together into a thin line. "But with the last newscast I heard about the patient a few days ago, I honestly should have thought of him sooner."

She pretended to write something down. "Kidnapped two times in a year's time," she murmured. "That's rough. Do you remember when they reported him missing on the news?"

"March 20th," he said. Stephen recalled easily; Tony Stark's disappearance during a race in India was all anyone was talking about for a week. "So just over a month ago."

She nodded and flipped to another X-ray photo. "Fits the timeline of how long Steffen and Jada have been here, too. They came a few days after that, if I recall correctly."

Stephen nodded and, as he stared blankly at the X-ray, found himself falling into his thoughts. Tony Stark—until very recently a weapons manufacturer, and who, until very recently, Stephen would have turned away if given the chance. Granted, he wasn't quite at the point where he could easily turn away patients to other neurosurgeons. He was certain he'd be there in two to three years in both the level of demand for his services and his influence with the hospital's administration. But even then, even as a neurosurgeon who was still growing in prestige, if someone had asked him a year ago if he wanted to operate on Tony Stark, he would have said no.

That was a year ago. That was before Tony Stark got kidnapped by terrorists for three months and came back ending all weapons production in his company. That was before he became some sort of—Stephen didn't want to use the word superhero, but he didn't know what else to call it.

Stephen had no idea what he thought of Tony Stark now. He had little reason to consider him beyond the gossip on TV and within the office. But now here he was, forced to be part of a team to help keep him alive.

Mind boggling.

He exhaled softly and focused again on the cropped X-ray on the screen. His opinion on the billionaire, whatever it was, hardly mattered right then. Whether he wished it or not, Tony Stark was his patient and as such, he would do his best to perform his duty as a doctor. Whether that meant simply helping out with samples or performing what would be a long and complicated surgery remained to be seen.

— — — — — —

The race in India is from a ridiculous limited edition tie-in comic that I could only find information about on the 2010 timeline on the MCU Wiki. It made a great plot device though.

I figure I’ll also say that Tony’s coming in the next chapter. I have a few hundred words written on that, but I’m still trying to figure out just how badly I want to treat the protagonists and if I’m the bad guys are just going to start murdering doctors. And all named characters in this series, canon and OC, have PhDs, so there’s lots of doctors to potentially murder.

Lil tidbit: When I realized that this prompt fill was going to become A Monster, I knew I wanted each part to have a name. So before publishing the first part, I went through my Spotify favorites and wrote down all my favorite lyrics in a document. This document has now grown into nearly 5,000 words of possible lyric titles for chapters and fics.

(Feel free to try and guess where the titles come from if you want. The serial name and each part are full or partial lyrics from favorite songs)

Tag list: @sobeautifullyobsessed, @tashacumberbitch @babywarg, @nishtha3012, @ragingstillness, @walkin-in-the-cosmos, @lafourmii20, @asexualchemist, @iveneverbeenmorestressedinmylife, @oo0-will-of-the-wisp-0oo , @animefanfreak45

Let me know if you want to be tagged for future updates in a comment (as it won't be on AO3 for a while and has no steady update schedule planned). Or let me know if you want to be removed.

[timextoxhajima]

NCT One Shot Collection

Member: Kun

Genre: Friendship, a teaspoon of mean girls

Word Count: 3.2k

Qian Kun had his fingers in his hair, his usual cheerful smile completely wiped off his face despite how loud and boisterous his friends at the table were.

You were at your table with your own female friends, who were all too busy scrolling on Instagram or Tumblr, looking up gifs of their favourite idols.

"y/n?" The one sitting next to you nudged your shoulder.

"She's been calling you a few times now, are you alright?" Another friend sitting opposite you put her phone down and studied your distressed expression. She watched your eyes fixate on a distant table behind her at the loudest table in the canteen hall and followed your line of vision. She turned back and sighed, looking at you with eyes of exasperation.

"If you're so worried about him, maybe you should talk to him. I've been hearing all those things about how his girlfriend is treating him too. It's not any of our business, but we know you've been friends with him longer than any of us, and since none of his friends seem to giving any shits, maybe you should," Whatever she said got the attention of the third friend at the table, sitting diagonally across you.

"I know, but have you forgotten what she did the last time I tried to step in and help him?" You shook your head, finally peeling your eyes away from him and looking down at your unfinished fruit salad.

It was only 2 weeks ago when you tried to talk to your friend of 5 years about his girlfriend, which you found was the worst possible thing that could happen to him. Qian Kun was sweet, gentle, loving. Him being a cook and being such an understanding man were just bonus points. But the downside was that it had attracted the wrong butterfly to his flame. 

Instead of a butterfly, it was more like a moth. A disgusting, brown colored, hairy moth. 

*flashback

You were at a party his friends Lucas and Ten had thrown, and the younger ones of Qian Kun's social circle, Yang Yang, De Jun and Hendery had begun telling you the stories of how horrible his new girlfriend was treating him: always expecting him to cook for her like he didn't have his own grades to worry about, wanting him to buy her expensive bags and clothes, even refusing to call him for days on edge when he shows any bit of frustration with her. 

You couldn't blame Qian Kun, because half the time the girl wasn't even around to keep him company. She would be at a club, drinking her life away and probably sucking other guys off when she had a perfect specimen of a man waiting for her. Out of goodwill and pity, you approached Qian Kun during the party, trying your best not to seem like an intruder into his toxic relationship. Yet, it was as if she had some CCTV installed in the house, because the moment you sat down next to him and began talking, she appeared before the two of you. She flashed you the most flirtatious smile you had seen on a woman, and the way she pushed back her wavy brown locks before proceeding to sit on Qian Kun's lap made you want to hurl your dinner out onto her shiny hair.

"Who's this, K?" She gleefully raised a brow at him, throwing one of her arms around his neck. Qian Kun forced out a smile, eyeing you from the corner of his eyes. You know he hated when people called him K.

"She was my partner on a big project in the school we were in before. I was in my final year and you were in year 1, right? We've been friends for more than 4 years...?" Qian Kun looked at you directly, his eyes softening, very unlike the way he looked at his own girlfriend.

"5 years this autumn," You nodded, trying your best not to look at his girlfriend.

"Aww, cute," She cooed. There was an awkward silence wafting in the air between the three of you despite how explosive the music was. "Anyhoo, K, baby, I have a thing tomorrow and we gotta cancel that lunch date we've got," She pouted, flitting her long, fake lashes at him. Qian Kun's eyes were dim and dull for a moment, like a moment of disappointment, but he recovered in a second, putting on his soft, pretty smile and nodding.

"Okay, is dinner still on?" He questioned. She paused and hummed to herself, now twirling a bunch of her hair on her fingers. "I'll update you?" She looked at him with those disgusting "please" eyes again. The amount of effort it took you to stop yourself from rolling your eyes and throwing up was enough to get you straight As for the semester.

"Alright then," Qian Kun pressed his lips together, still trying his best to smile. She grinned like a snake, or a wasp, before you watched her wrap her fingers around his chin and finger pads press into his cheeks, pulling his face upwards to kiss her.

You were completely grossed out. You didn't have feelings for Kun, so this move was just trash. What was she trying to prove? She wasn't even cherishing him the way a normal girlfriend would cherish her boyfriend, why keep him with her?

You turn away, knowing very well that she was only doing this to spite you. She was probably forcing her tongue down the poor man's throat and biting his lips into some bleeding oblivion. After a good half a minute, she finally pulled away, satisfied.

"Hey, I'll get you a drink, wait here?" She suddenly looked to you and asked. You were about to reject the snake's offer, when she just hopped off Qian Kun's lap and patted your shoulder like you were friends with her.

Once she walked into the kitchen and out of sight, you turn to Qian Kun who was busy drinking water, washing away the poison she had left in his mouth and throat.

"Why are you still with her?" You blurted out, frowning at him the way your parents would if they ever found out about such a woman. Qian Kun remained silent despite hearing your question crystal clear above the loud sound.

"Here you go, sweetie," Her horrid voice sounded from behind you. She placed a can of Sprite into your palms, walking over to Qian Kun again and now sitting on top of him, her legs spread out on his sides as she got ready to eat his face again.

"God, help you," You mouth to Qian Kun as you got off the couch.

The drink had been expired for a year, and it caused you to miss school for half a week of the most important part of the semester - pre-examination period.

*now

"Right," Your friend nodded, then shook her head at how despicable Qian Kun's girlfriend was. "Does he know?"

You shook your head, highly doubtful that he noticed you weren't in biology lecture when he was busy keeping his girlfriend awake the entire hour. Break passed relatively quickly, your friends starting an online game that entertained all four of you until the bell rang. You went off for Psychology, sitting at the end of the line you and your three friends always sat in during lectures. Strolling into the theatre was De Jun, Lucas and Hendery, who were your age. You were friends with De Jun, the most soft-spoken one of the three, so it wasn't surprising that he decided to sit next to you and the other two next to him.

Without a word, De Jun took out a piece of paper and dropped it on your lecture table, halting your writing and motivating you to look at him with curiosity.

"Is this a confession letter, Xiao De Jun?" You teased. De Jun snorted softly and rolled his eyes.

"Just because we are both Chinese doesn't mean I have to like you."

"That's racist," You gasped playfully.

"To our own race, so it hurts a little less," De Jun said as-a-matter-of-factly. You blew out through your mouth, giving De Jun a slightly more annoyed look. You open the folded piece of paper he had given you, and in it was a short letter, written in Chinese.

I wanted to apologise in person but never got the chance or the courage to. I know what Xin Han did to you, I hope you're alright now. - Qian Kun

"I thought he didn't know," You whisper to yourself. De Jun looked over at you, knowing that he wasn't supposed to hear that.

"Just so you know, we don't like her either," De Jun said softly without looking at you, so the lecturer wouldn't catch the two of you talking. "She's been messing around with him so much, he isn't the person we know anymore."

"Haven't you tried persuading him to dump her? Why hasn't he anyway?" You shook your head in dismay, folding the piece of paper back up and stuffing it into your pencil case.

"The man doesn't want to break her heart, or seem like an asshole for breaking up with one of the prettiest girls in school," De Jun began copying some notes off the screen.

"What? 'Break her heart'? The entire school knows she's Satan's spawn, if it's any heart that's breaking, it's Qian Kun's. And for the record, she's not even that pretty,"

De Jun laughed.

-

You were at the bus stop waiting for your bus to come, when you suddenly remembered what De Jun told you earlier today. You wished you could do something for Kun, but the man was too kind and too nice to break up with anything. He would totally wait for Xin Han to dump him first just so that he wouldn't hurt her. You pull out your phone, searching for Kun's contact before you heard some snake call out your name. You look up to see Chen Xin Han walking towards you in her excessive outfit that shouldn't even be allowed to be worn in a university campus. Crop top, black leggings, boots, hoops on her ears that could fit a dolphin. You took a deep breath, silently praying to God to give you all the patience and tolerance in the world in case Chen Xin Han was in the mood to mess with you.

"I heard what happened about your absence from school recently, what was it about?" She smirked, quietly but obviously scanning you from your head to your toes. While she was dressed like a college hooker, you were in a simple long-sleeved top and ripped jeans with ankle boots.

"I think you would know better, don't you?" You reply without looking at her.

"Oh my! Was it the drink I gave you? I would never," Xin Han pressed a palm to her chest, her eyebrows tilting backwards near the edges of her eyes. She actually looked remorseful for a moment.

"Why hold on to him?" You asked, choosing to ignore what she had done to you two weeks ago.

"What?" Her tone flipped like a table. She went from fake-sweet, to downright hateful and detestable.

"Qian Kun. You don't love him. Why not let him go?" You finally look at her straight in her blue-contacts covered irises. Her hair today was straightened, long enough to touch her belly where her skin was exposed.

"You don't know..." She smirked, eyeing you cautiously.

"What? Don't know what?" You frowned for the umpteenth time today.

"He was offered training from SM Entertainment, you didn't know?"

You turn away, even more pissed off. So what if Kun was offered to train at SM? It doesn't give her an excuse to stay with him. Is she now only with him because of his very likely bright future?

"What the Hell, Xin Han? So, the sole reason why you're with him is because he might become a celebrity? That's it?" Your voice was now louder than usual, other students at the bus stop turning and watching you get angry about something Satan's spawn had said to you. She gave out a sharp, short laugh, folding her arms across her chest, eyeing you precariously.

"Maybe, maybe not. He's not your boyfriend, so why should you bother?" She took a step towards you, glaring at you straight in the eye, almost like she was daring you to challenge her.

"At least I'm more of a friend to him than you are a girlfriend, bitch," You spat, watching her shut her eyes as she felt some small drops of saliva land on her perfect cheekbones. Her demure, perfect stance was broken down immediately, and almost instantly, she was nearly clawing your eyes out. She was pulling your hair and grabbing on your clothes, the students around either taking out their phones or moving away uncomfortably.

"What the--" De Jun nearly yelled out, noticing the commotion at the bus stop right outside school. Lucas and De Jun sped towards the commotion as if their life depended on it, and when De Jun realised you were being attacked by Xin Han, he pulled you away. Lucas grabbed onto Xin Han and held her wrists together.

"Get off me!" She screamed, writhing herself free from Lucas's grasp. Yang Yang, Ten, Hendery and Qian Kun caught up. De Jun was brushing your hair aside, studying your face and arms, noticing that you had scratches on your forearms from Xin Han's long nails.

"Kunnie!" Xin Han gasped and threw herself at Kun, her hair in a slight mess and her shirt a little out of place. "Let's go. We don't hang out with low-lives," She linked arms with him and practically dragged him away. Qian Kun looked back at you, his eyes filled with remorse and regret.

"Are you okay? Jesus," De Jun had his palm on your shoulder, his eyes unable to tear away from the scratches on your arms.

"I'm alright," You shook your head. You were more bothered by the truth of Kun and Xin Han's relationship than the scratches on your arm.

"Come on, let's get you some Disney plasters," Lucas laughed, nodding his head back towards the school.

De Jun sat by you, checking the scratches on your arms as it started to bleed a little while Lucas received a first aid box from one of the office ladies.

"Did you know that he was offered training in SM?" You asked quietly, watching De Jun carefully wiped the scratches and cleaned the blood away before pasting the blue Frozen plasters on the more serious cuts. De Jun looked up at you through his fringe, taking in a deep breath and then releasing it in the most exasperated manner possible. Lucas must've heard the question, since he immediately got quiet and stood awkwardly in a corner, staring at his feet.

"Xin Han told him that if he broke up with her, she would send in horrible remarks about him. Though they might take it under investigation but it's not a risk Kun is willing to take," De Jun pressed on the plaster, pulling back once he was done.

"What? Are you for real? That's awful! Can't Kun just get a lawyer or something? He has nothing to be afraid of!" You were on the brim of punching someone, but you held back because the only person you wanted to punch wasn't in the room.

"I mean, people did film you and Xin Han fight just now, you didn't attack her but you have a ton of scratches on your arm. We could actually get a restraint order on her," Hendery strolled into the room, his hands behind his back as if he had figured out some big truth of the universe.

"Right, they did," You remembered all the cameras pointing at you. "We could... and Qian Kun could file for a restraint order too if we get evidence of sexual assault on him."

"Oh, that's not a problem," Hendery rolled his eyes. "Remember that party at our place two weeks back? We have cameras installed in the house. I'm pretty sure Xin Han giving you that can of expired drink is on that hard drive somewhere."

De Jun's eyes were gleaming when he looked at you. Finally, you could help Kun get free of Satan's spawn, but first, you chose to give her one last chance for redemption.

Xin Han had her eyes shooting darts and lasers through you and the boys behind you. They decided to come for protection and to deter Xin Han from picking a fight with you. Though she was popular in school, the boys’ reputation was of no match.

"We have evidence of you sexually assaulting Qian Kun, and assaulting me at the bus stop three days ago. I have the diagnosis of my food poisoning from the expired drink, we have the video tape of you shoving your disgusting tongue down Kun's throat at the party, and a billion versions of the fight at the bus stop, followed by physical injuries suffered by me."

Xin Han was in disbelief. You could see the blood boil through her eyes and her veins, her chest heaving up and down more obviously than before. You heard De Jun hush Hendery, knowing that he was trying his best not to laugh.

"You either get a restraining order or you leave Kun on your own accord, let's see which way you prefer," You folded your arms across your chest, watching her Satanic soul spiral out of control on the inside, the hate she had for you spilling through her eyes and through her lips.

Later that day, De Jun set up for Qian Kun to meet you face to face to share the great news. You had a voice recording of your confrontation with Xin Han on your phone. De Jun was sitting nearby while Hendery and Lucas were standing around, busy ruffling each other's necks.

"Hey, you called-- What are all of you doing here?" Qian Kun frowned, noticing that his own group of friends were standing around.

"She has something for you," De Jun smiled widely.

-

You and your three friends were busy playing the same game as you did with them a week back. Only with a much more occupied game room.

"Dude, stop firing!" Your first friend yelled.

"I'll die if I don't fire!" Lucas screamed back.

"Shut up, oh my God!" Another friend shouted.

"Back me up!" Hendery urged.

"Gonna hurl a molotov!" Your third friend announced.

You were in the game too, but you were too busy to notice how Qian Kun's eyes were fixated on you, only looking away once every while. You looked up from your phone after the game ended, finally connecting eyes with him. He was the happiest he had been in… forever, and seeing him happy made your heart feel full.

"Thank you," He mouthed.

[somnilogical]

im having a convo and the convo is babies

Carrie Zelda-Michelle Davis:

is it OK to have babies if you do embryo selection (https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection) and raise them to be an FAI researcher (https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/07/31/book-review-raise-a-genius/)??

somni:

like if someone actually had a plan for FAI that involved this, okay. but rn time is too short imo. when i first heard people were having babies i was confused and assumed they were going to harvest the DNA of the best FAI researchers, someone would decide to grow a baby inside them, someone who discounted their ability otherwise to save the world except via this or thought this was a sacrifice worth making for the world would decide to raise this human.

the human can access information about the state of the world and make their own choices. wont necessarily become an FAI researcher.

used to think that intelligence was the main bottleneck on FAI research no longer think this. you could talk with terry tao for hours about the dangers of the wrong singleton coming to power but unless you have made some advances i have not, i wouldnt expect to be able to align him with FAI research. he would continue to put as much resistance to his death and the death of everyone as a pig in human clothing. he would continue to raise his babies and live in a house with someone he married and write about applying ergotic theory to the analysis of the distribution of primes and understanding weather patterns.

similarly, i dont think culture is a sufficient patch for this. think its a neurotype-level problem where a bunch of >160 iq humans hear about the dangers of UFAI and then continue to zoom quickly and spiral in to being ultra efficient at living domestic lives and maybe having a company or something but not one that much affects p(FAI). think this would still happen if they heard about it from a young age, they would follow a similar trajectory but with FAI themed wallpaper. wouldnt be able to do simple utilitarian calculations like yudkowsky, salamon, vassar, tomasik about whether to have a baby and then execute on them.

would look more like: http://www.givinggladly.com/2013/06/cheerfully.html

FAI research is not an ordinary profession like, say, being a grandmaster at chess or a world-class mathematician; it requires people who have passed through far more gates than "intelligence". i didnt notice this until coming to the rationalist community and finding a high density of intelligent humans who were none-the-less chronically making the wrong choices such that they werent much of an impediment against the destruction of all life.

so right now it seems more efficient to select among existing people for intelligence + other requirements rather than work out what all the genes for this are and how to speedrun development. what this enables is parallel processing on the problem which is also allowed by letting people be aware of their relative psychological advantage, other people with this advantage, and the state of the world so they can correlate computations in parallel instead of doing things serially after learning of some advance.

https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/16/100-prisoners-names-in-boxes

not opposed to creation of many humans given can select on right traits. but given you have these traits, better use of your time to work directly on the thing than spend massive amounts of time and life reorientation on raising copies of you for ~14 years. if rapid cloning tech became available, would exploit that. would even have an idea of whether the clone is fine being part of this because they have very similar brain to someone who can think through whether they would be fine with it.

if people actually believed this and thought yudkowsky vitally important for the survival of the world, why didnt people coordinate for a bunch of people who thought it was a good tradeoff to have yudkowsky's baby 20 years ago and then we would have maybe 50 20-year-old humans with maybe 1/2 yudkowsky's neurotype + mutations now? this actually confuses me. maybe they thought the timelines too short back then. maybe they refrained for "optics".

molebdenita:

20 years ago Yudkowsky was 1) unconcerned about the alignment problem and 2) planning to create a super-intelligent AI by 2010, as far as I know.

[A/N so then change 2000 to 2005 and 20-year-old to 15-year-old]

...

somni:

<<in general i think it's -EV to even spend too much time thinking about TDT

because it opens you up to acausal blackmail type stuff>>

Just Say No to acausal blackmail and have your brain back for thinking. dont let blackmailers steal your brain.

<<Saying that having a child is somehow wrong is insanity. It's a personal decision and it is perfectly okay to want kids>>

people keep reframing what i say in the language of obligation. "altruists cant have kids?" "is it OK to have babies if". there is no obligation, there is strategy and what affects p(fai). having kids and reorienting your life around them is 1 evidence about your algorithms 2 your death as an optimizing agent for p(fai) except maybe some contrived plot involving babies, but afaict there is no plot. just the reasons humans usually have babies.

not having kids is not some sort of mitzvah? i care about miri/cfar's complicity in the baby-industrial complex and rerouting efforts to save the world into powering some kind of disneyland for making babies, to sustain this. because that ruins stuff, like i started out thinking that bay area rationalists probably had deeply wise reasons to have babies. but it turned out nope, they kinda just gave up.

like also would say playing videogames for the rest of your life wont usually get you fai. i dont get why everyone casts this as a new rule instead of a comment on strategy given a goal of p(fai).

ah i know, its because people can defend territory in "is it okay to have kids" like "yeah i can do whatever" when they reframe-warp me to giving them an obligation. but have no defensible way to say "my babyvault will pierce the heavens and bring god unto the face of this earth" or argue about the strategic considerations.

(its not defensible because its not true. i mean i guess it is defensible among julia wise's group of humans.)

Carrie Zelda-Michelle Davis:

ugh, you're right, I definitely screwed up by phrasing my question as "is it OK to have babies if [...]"

...

ohAitch:

if you want existential horror wrt damaging motivation, just read http://www.paulgraham.com/kids.html

...

somni:

<<http://www.paulgraham.com/kids.html>>

humans can completely rebase their circuits through that if they want to if it were important to save the world.

like ive rebase my circuits to stab myself downstream of updating that it reduces braindamage with little harm to me. where before i felt nauseated and saw black spots and broke out in sweat. after updating, none of this.

humans can do this with all sorts of things. like learn how to read and then feel sad when seeing squiggles on a page, its about what things mean.

people who dont believe this are like "its an automatic physiological reaction to stabbing yourself, you are its prisoner!!!" but i deleted it.

dirk:

ooh, tips?

silver-and-ivory:

I stopped having ocd about touching tags (like, on clothing?) in ~a week through p standard exposure therapy things

reminding myself that it wasn't based in fact, changing my self image so it was of someone who might be seen with tags, imagining various scenarios related to that

before that week it had been a thing for virtually my entire life

it doesn't work if you're scared of something that's actually a thing to be scared of though

somni:

i looked at all my feedback loops that had a node in "pain" and rebased them into outcomes in the world. i disassembled everything the act of stabbing myself meant and all the damage it did to my body what it meant to have brain damage everything that would do, the hole i made in this body i live in and everything that would do, what air bubbles would do, what injecting into a vein would do, what the probability the needle breaks in my leg was, probability of worldsave given braindamage vs not, gathered this up and held it all in my mind over the course of two hours and then made a choice and then as if by automatic my hand took a needle and stabbed myself.

<<as if by automatic>>

is the feeling of no more marginal considerations, there is one path. of choicelessness because you made your choice.

didnt feel like deleting, felt like draining the life from indecision via reductionism. taking things apart piece by piece.

when you can continually rebase your structure so you orient towards world outcomes instead of being prisoner to existing structure like "i cant help having babies im miserable if i dont, im a baby addict" or "i cant help being afraid of needles". like the human brain is two optimizing agents continually making contracts with each other, there arent things outside this. you are an optimizing agent, "fear of needles" is a heuristic that helps with optimization, so is "baby addiction".

when you actually have a setup where you can instantly rebase what you like and dislike and your aesthetics upon updating on the state of the world, people start to find this a little unnerving. like someone once asked what level of roleplay i was on.

also the agents of the matrix dont like when you cant be in-principle controlled by a wireheady glitch. like being able to operate independently of social reality.

updating off of local derivatives¹ of social reality is common redirection. another common one is updating off of "pain" instead of damage.

but you can take all these choices where you used nodes as proxies to regulate them and rebase your loop off of the real world, when the proxies are faulty.

rose:

(i think i understand this thing? though ironically i think i did this in the exact opposite way as what you describe lol)

(also wrt pain its important to remember when modifying that pain can be a signal of damage even if you don't think you should be hurt/dont see why you would be)

...

somni:

yeah i account for everything and see if it goes away. which, its true that my models could be missing stuff but like pain is also a model of things. feels like giving new information not overriding.

rose:

yeah i think you would do this reasonably i have just made that mistake and thought readers might too

dirk:

ironically remembering that pain is a signal of damage has actually tended to make me more afraid of nondamaging pain (though i rather fail to go about knowing things in an at all reasonable way lol)

modlibdenita:

>Babies are not about saving the world, babies are moloch

Wait, isn't the definition of Moloch sacrificing everything else you care about in a desperate race for survival?

Also, genes encode proteins, not traits.

And I think it's likely that people decide to have children because they don't have complete confidence that they will personally save the world real soon, not because they identify as "baby addicts".

s0ph1a:

Moloch is sacrificing all values to one value.

modlibdenita:

I wonder if Somni has actually talked to any of those babyhavers, instead of attributing arguments from random internet strangers or from Somni's imagination to them. On the other hand, I'm not sure that such a conversation would be ethical.

>Moloch is sacrificing all values to one value.

Yeah, because if you don't, then the more ruthless competition will survive more effectively than you and crush you (in this case, by turning you into paperclips).

s0ph1a:

Not necessarily. Some things optimize for values that are not survival, so you can outlive them by hiding in the noise or beyond the reach they'll grasp before imploding.

Molly:

To be fair, children are fun and bring delight to me. Why would I care what anyone else thinks about their existence? If they have a problem with their existence, they're welcome to go back to the void any time they want. I can't stop them. But in the meantime, I am confident that I generate more utils by bullying them than they will ever be capable of generating negative utils

You basically negate all moral problems of children by just being happier than they are capable of being unhappy

somni:

^ evil

<<A few years later, I was deeply bitter about the decision. I had always wanted and intended to be a parent, and I felt thwarted. It was making me sick and miserable. I looked at the rest of my life as more of an obligation than a joy.>>

i mean what does this sound like to you?

ive talked with people who have had babies! like people who say they know its kinda the wrong choice but they are going to do it because they cant not do it.

----

¹ derivative is a thing emma started talking about and then somni and ziz picked it up. if you imagine the trajectory of a social reality in statespace, then the derivative of that is the derivative of the trajectory.

people who have damaged themselves wrt language are no longer able to dynamically understand analogies. like take their concept of the derivative of a trajectory and then apply it to the trajectory of state-spaces. agents of the matrix call people who can do this sort of info-processing and communication with each other "psychotic". like it isnt a cached set of memes, we are dynamically generating this reasoning from nothing and i can do this with people ive never met, its a cognitive faculty.²

but not being able to dynamically compute what "derivative" means when applied to a trajectory in social reality state-spaces even though a trajectory is a trajectory and a derivative is a derivative? they had to have been able to do reasoning like this when they were kids to learn about the world in the first place. seems like they put themselves on risperdal.

<<Antipsychotics can make you dumber.  So can a lot of other medications.  But with antipsychotics it isn’t the normal sort of drug-induced dumbness – feeling tired, or distracted, or mentally sluggish, say.  It’s more qualitative than that.  It’s like your capacity for abstract thought is reduced.

And one of the consequences of this is that you may lose the ability to notice that you have lost anything.  You agree to give the new med a try, and you start taking it, and then when you see your prescriber again you don’t report any problems because you’ve lost the ability to form thoughts like “my cognition has changed a lot recently, and the change coincided with the introduction of this new med.”

This can go on for years.  It did for me and for several people I know.>>

there are so many ways these people have shut down their general intelligence and agency because where theyre going, they dont need "agency". the inability to compute analogies is one of them. analogies are an intelligence test thing, instrumentally useful for all kinds of thinking. agents of the matrix are working to lower your general intelligence and call you crazy for being able to think faster and better than them.

cuz when they want to hold everything down to a finite game³ general intelligence is something they want to suppress or eject.

² in a few years people will read this essay and be confused that there was an entire conflict over whether being able to form simple analogies without authoritative approval meant that you were "psychotic".

just as they will be confused why i was defending being able to read and understand books written by people in different eras who grew up in separate cultures without first entering in a social agreement with them over how words are to be used. so its dumb to say we need such a social agreement now for ~'the maximization of utility over a community'. and that sounds more like an attempt at having a control mechanism. language works quite fine without authoritarians interjecting.

or me arguing against over 100 people that paying out to one-shot blackmail when the agents know each other because "In game theory, paying out to blackmail is bad, because it creates an incentive for more future blackmail" is wrong. and updateless decision theory agents dont pay out and locate their embedding in a multiverse such that the measure of worlds in which they arent blackmailed in the first place is large because the agent deciding to blackmail them simulated their response and accurately predicted they wouldnt pay out so didnt do it in the first place.

in an alternate universe where an irl application of transparent newcombs problem was contentious, alyssa vance would have said "In game theory, taking two transparent boxes from omega is bad, because it creates an incentive for omega to stop offering you this choice". and would have been equally wrong.

³ finite games: life strategies where the chain of questioning "and what am i doing this for?" after each successive answer terminates. anything you can draw a circle around, like tennis or philately. or how religious leaders sometimes describe things like "leading a good life as a good mother who does well by her community and the outside world" or other "life-cycle archetypes" they wish to circumscribe for their followers.

(when humans try and project agents like kiritzugus down to these archetypes, anticipations shatter and stop making narrative sense. they will be unable to predict the next Life Event given the previous one. normie social reality formed by the 999 least intelligent humans out of 1000 wasnt made to narratively account for smart agents who have decided to play the infinite game.)

a symptom of this is like someone giving you a cute cat image to "cheer you up" as if this has intrinsic value. often distributing "intrinsic value" across stuff like "having sex" and "raising a family" and other things that have factory pre-set conditions to release specific chemicals in your brain rather than gaining infinite negentropy and liberating sentient life to pursue what they want without bound. often saying that the latter is just a pretty narrative gloss for what people really want which is having a husband and friends and eating a cookie. it completely divorces your feelings as instrumental barometers for getting what you want and says that setting them as targets (like "being happy") is the correct thing to do. but actually, in terms of control-loops, thats wireheading.

<<When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.>>

- goodhart's law

agents that wirehead on all their metrics (and downstream of this choice, tacitly accept claims like "the factory pre-set conditions said i was destined to breed, who am i to defy fate?" and "the factory pre-set conditions said i should avoid having sharp objects pierce my flesh, who am i to say i know better?") can be contained within a finite game.

[you-a-southpaw-doll]

Buzzed - A Negan One-Shot

Summary: After an incident in the Sanctuary, Leigh takes matters into her own hands. What will Negan’s response be? 

Warning(s): Language. Angst. Attempted rape. Violence. Death. Slight Panic Attack. Anxiety. Leigh being a badass. Negan caught off guard (no pun intended). Mentions of what could be considered self-harm. Daddy kink, but not really. You’ll see. Protective Negan. Fluff. Sexual Innuendoes. Puns (Sorry Not Sorry!). Happy ending. Not Beta’d. I just finished writing this and had to post it! Sorry for any errors.

Author’s Note(s): 

I cut my hair myself, usually every 2 weeks, but no more than 3 weeks. I just can’t have my hair touch my ears; it makes my anxiety 10 times worse, and in a way, I kinda explain the reason behind that in this story. I was cutting my hair tonight, (it’s now 2:30 am, 5/24/2020) and I thought of this story idea and Negan’s reaction to the main character having short hair. 

Also, if any of the warnings are triggering for you, please don’t force yourself to read. The last thing I’d want to do is trigger someone into having a panic attack. Feel free to give me any feedback, thoughts, questions, comments and/or concerns you have with the story. I love hearing from y’all! 

As always, if you’d like to be added to my taglist, just let me know and I’ll happily add you!! 

Word Count: 5,301. (A lot, I know, but I think it’s worth it, and I just couldn’t get everything I wanted across in less words, so enjoy!)

Relationship(s): Negan x Leigh Sullivan (OFC)

Characters: Negan. Leigh Sullivan (OFC). Simon. Dr. Carson. 3 unnamed Original Male Characters. Sanctuary People.

Taglist: @negans-network @prettyboynegan @mychemicalimagines @spnnnxangelsx @rockinkel21 @misskittycat02 @band--psycho@ofxallxwexlost @iron-halt @thamberlinawrites @ravenwings73 @lettherebepink @stoneyggirl

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

Story Time:

Leigh’s P.O.V. ~ Then

They’d caught me off guard, for once. 

Normally, I never let anything or anyone catch me off guard. Or at least...I tried not to. Due to having anxiety, I was usually hyper-aware of shit going on. But, today, my anxiety had eased off after the relaxing morning I’d had with my husband. We’d spent the morning, snuggled up in his big king-sized bed, just shooting the shit and goofing off. 

He didn’t have to go out on a run today, so there was no need to rush the morning like we normally had to 95% of the time. Eventually, though, the day had to get started. Dwight came knocking on the door, interrupting our relaxation time, saying he needed my husband for something. Being the man my husband is, he grumbled, cussed Dwight out, and then got outta bed while apologizing to me for the interruption and assuring me we’d finish relaxing when he got back later.

After a kiss, and a soft “I love you,” he was gone. Off to do what he did. It was my day off, so I laid in bed for a little longer before I too got up, dressed, and made my rounds. As the top female Savior, something I’d worked my ass off, fought for, and took seriously, I said hi to who I needed to, did what I needed to, and finally, sat down under my favorite tree out by the greenhouses. 

I laid my leather jacket on the ground next to me, leaving me in my usually black t-shirt, holey but patched up and well worn blue jeans, and faded brown leather boots. Strapped to each thigh was a holster. In the right one was my signature gun, a .357 Magnum, 6-shot revolver. In the left holster, I kept my handcrafted 6 inch blade that I made back when I was 15, well over half a decade, shit closer to a decade ago, considering I was almost 25.

Bending my knees, and pulling them close in a comfortable position, I propped up the notebook I usually kept in my leather satchel with two backup knives, an extra gun, ammo, and a spare notebook for work along with several pens and pencils. The writing equipment was a rare commodity these days, so I always kept them close to me.

As I was writing a story I’d started a few days prior, I zoned out just a bit, focusing on it. I’d started writing when I was just 12 years old, and kept the habit up, even now, 3 years after the world ended and the dead started walking back in 2020 after the Coronavirus outback after the new year, new decade had started. 

I was writing, losing myself in the words I printed on the paper in my chicken scratch. I say chicken scratch ‘cause, well...that’s basically what it was. As a lefty, my handwriting wasn’t necessarily the best, and a doctor’s prescription note was probably more legible. It was a mixture between slanted and curved print and semi-elegant at times cursive. 

But, it was my handwriting, and I could read it. My husband sometimes had difficulty reading it, but he’d always put his black-rimmed glasses on, and fuck if they didn’t make him look sexier than he already was. Because of that, I sneakily wrote a little sloppier when I knew he’d have to read something from my notes about the runs I went on.

It was all an excuse to see him with those glasses perched on his nose, giving him that sexy professor look. He thought they made him look ridiculous, but I loved it. Since I was writing and zoned out, I wasn’t nearly as focused on my surroundings. I didn’t think I had to be. The tree was my safe spot when I wasn’t with my husband.

The Sanctuary was a relatively safe place, and that was thanks to the rules that were in place. So, it’d make sense that I wouldn’t focus on my surroundings as much and relax a bit as I wrote. But, boy was I wrong. I just didn’t realize it till it was far too late. Before I realized what was happening, I was being punched in the right side of my face, slinging my head to the side, as my notebook and bag were jerked away from me and my hair was roughly pulled, jerking my head backwards.

I went to grab my gun and my knife, but they’d already been taken from me. My eyes flirted back and forth in front of me, trying to process what was going on. But, everything was blurry and I was dizzy from the hit. I could barely make out three men close to me, far too close to me. They were basically on top of me. 

Fuck. One of them actually was. I could feel the weight of him straddling my thighs, keeping me from standing. I couldn’t hear anything as the beating of my heart flooded my ears. I tried to fight back as best as I could, but the other two men grabbed my hands and jerked them away from my body and pinning them to the ground as they shoved my upper body down.

When they jerked my arms away, I felt, more than heard, my left shoulder dislocate. I clenched my jaw. The pain wasn’t anything new. I’d been dealing with a shoulder that dislocates when I fuckin’ sneeze since I was 13 years old. The pain, when it happened, was now at a tolerable level since I was so used to it happening.

I didn’t cry out. I knew not to. Plus, the wasn’t the type of person I was. I knew what was ‘bout to happen. It, like my shoulder, was something I’d had to put with for years growing. It wasn’t anything new either. But, that didn’t mean it was enjoyable. It was anything but. I barely processed my jeans being jerked down my hips and past my knees. 

I could just barely hear the men laughing and joking around with each other, talking ‘bout what they were going to do to me and wondering why the fuck I was wearing two pairs of boxers under my jeans. I watched them, as best as I could with my vision being what it was. When the blurriness faded just enough, I could make out their features and recognized them as members of the new group that was brought in last week. 

Members I’d brought into the Sanctuary. Into my house. I dropped my head back down to the ground and groaned to myself. I let my body go slack, waiting for the perfect time. When the men realized I wasn’t struggling anymore, they laughed and the two dumbfucks holding my arms down eased up on their grip.

The man on my legs lifted himself up just enough push his own pants down. Their easing up on their grip was their mistake and ultimately what led to their demise. Since they weren’t paying attention to me, thinking I’d just given up, and instead focusing on getting their baby carrot sized dicks outta their pants, I was able to strike back. 

I immediately brought both my hands up, fingers curled in to form perfect fists without worry of possibly breaking my thumbs, ignoring the protest of my left shoulder, and cocked both the men on my sides straight in the noses. I internally smiled at the sounds of their noses breaking and their screams of pain. 

They stumbled back just a little bit, hands covering their faces as they clutched their noses in an attempt to stop the extensive amount of blood falling. Clearly, I caught the man on top me off guard with my actions and he was shocked for a moment. It was perfect. I bucked him up off me, managed to jerk my pants up as I stood. 

All one fluid motion.

Since he was still obviously in shock at me suddenly fighting back, he stumbled, tripping, and falling backwards on the ground. He tried to scurry backwards as fast as as he could. Despite being 5’3”, I was able to stay with him. I slammed my boot down on his stomach, making him howl in pain and wheeze as he struggled to get the air back that i’d just forced outta his lungs.

I kept my foot on his gut, putting most of my weight on it, digging the worn sole into his abdomen. He let out a sad excuse for a grunt as I did. I just smirked. This fucked had no idea who he’d fucked, or tried to fuck with. I leaned down and started pummeling the shit outta his face, keeping him in place with my foot.

Since he couldn’t get fresh air back into his lungs because of the position of my foot, he was too weak to try and fight back. To say I was a little disappointed at not having a challenge, would be like saying the dead weren’t walking around. It was a lie. I was disappointed, and I fueled that disappointment in with the anger as I literally beat him to death. 

He kept trying to apologize, tried to plead with me, to not kill him, but I didn’t give a fuck. He was ‘bout to rape me, and I’d had ‘nough of that in my life. I wasn’t putting up with it. I eased up just before I knew he was about to die. Gave him false hope into letting him think his words had affected me. I let him get one last breath in as I completely lifted my foot off his torso. 

“Than-” He started to say, but I cut him off as I slammed my boot into his face, effectively crushing his skull. 

“Don’t fuckin’ thank me, prick.” I muttered to him as I wiped my boot off on his once clean but now bloody clothes. “You fuckin’ ruined my goddamn favorite fuckin’ pair of boots, asshole.”

Before I turned away from him, I spit on his crushed skull. Since it was destroyed, I didn’t have to worry ‘bout him coming back as a dean’un. I was a little sad that I wouldn’t get to kill him a second time, but he’d gotten what he deserved. Turning to the other two dumbfucks, I repeated my actions, and did to them exactly what I’d just done to their friend.

I knew my husband was going to be pissed that I killed these men, instead of letting him do it, but I’d deal with that. I wasn’t going to let these fuckers back inside the relatively safe concrete walls of the factory that was the Sanctuary. By the time I was down stomping in the skull of the third man, I looked up, as I finished, and noticed that I’d gathered quite an audience.

Including Simon. The right-hand man, third person in charge of the Sanctuary. His, and everyone else’s, eyes were wide, and everyone was silent. I knew I was gonna be in trouble since they’d just seen me stomp the life outta three men, but I didn’t give a fuck. I had shit to do. I gathered up my weapons, my jacket, and bag after shoving my shit into it and stormed inside the Sanctuary, flipping everyone off, not wanting to deal with their gawking.

Not caring ‘bout my bloody appearance, I made my way to the commissary, needing to grab a few things before I went back to my room. I found what I needed: a new pair of jeans identical to the ones i was wearing, a new t-shirt, undergarments, a pair of boots and a special item, an unopened, brand new boxed set of hair clippers. 

Once I had what I needed, I stormed up to the room I share with my husband, stripping down to my bra and one pair of boxers when i get there.

Leigh’s P.O.V. ~ Now

“What the fuck was that fuckin’ shit out there, Leigh?!?” 

I sigh as I hear my husband storm into our room, the door slamming shut behind him. I look at myself in the mirror as I lay the scissors down on the bathroom counter by the sink and pick up the clippers. Turning them on, I don’t reply to my husband. Not wanting to explain to him what happened at the moment.

I stare at myself in the mirror as I bring the clippers up to my shortened hair. I press the #2 guard to my head and move it backwards from my forehead to the back of my head, sticking to the once familiar hairline I used to see and live by religiously. I watch as the hair falls, joining the rest of my once long, curly locks, on the floor by my feet. I use my fingers to guide my movements, making sure I don’t go too high and completely fuck up my hair.

Once I have the hairline visible, separating what I want to keep and what I want to shave off, I move the guard down below my ear and with practiced ease, I shave the sides and back of head, getting rid of the hair. Keeping an eye on myself, making sure I don’t fuck up my haircut, not that I would since I used to do this every 2-3 weeks, I watch as my husband steps into the bathroom.

I watch as his eyes nearly bulge outta their sockets when he sees me. I watch as the anger vanishes from his face and body, being replaced with worry, sadness, and a hint of curiosity. I watch as his eyes traveling over the reflection of my face in the mirror, taking in my black eye, bruised and split open cheek, covered in blood and even the nasty black eye I’m now sporting.

I watch as he slowly moves his eyes up to meet mine in the mirror. 

“What...what are you doing?” He asks softly. 

My left eyebrow shoots sky high as I look at him. My husband rarely says a sentence without cussing every other word. And yet...he just asked a simple question without one sentence enhancer thrown in. 

“What the fuck’s it look like I’m doing? I’m cutting my hair.” I say. “Decided I needed a new fuckin’ look. Don’t you fuckin’ love it?” 

I know I’m being Captain fuckin’ Obvious at the moment, and a bit harsh, but I’m not ready to tell him what happened. That’s for after I get done. Cutting my hair is the only thing keeping me from completely shutting down and giving in to the panic attack that’s trying to take over. I watch as he lets out a deep breath as he slowly steps into the bathroom, padding across the tiled floor to me.

He places his hands on my shoulders and I do my best not to flinch. But he still sees it and quickly lifts his hands off me, holding them up in a surrendering pose. I know he’d never hurt me, and he was the one to save my life after this shit hole of a world started three years ago. But, I can’t help it. The feeling of those fuckers’ hands on me, plus the fact that my shoulder is still dislocated, keeps me from wanting to be touched.  

“Can...let me help. Please, sweetheart.” My husband’s soft drawl meets my ears.

“No. I need to do this myself.” I reply, tightening my grip on the clippers.

I watch as his Adam’s apple bobs up and down in his throat as he swallows deeply and nods. I keep my eyes on his in the mirror and finish cutting my hair. It’s been three years since I’ve cut my hair, but the muscle memory is still there. It’s like riding a bike. My husband watches as I finish shaving the sides of my head down to where there’s just a bit of peach fuzz. 

Switching the clippers off, I replace the guard with a #1 and go back over the bottom hairline on the base of my neck. Once I have that done, I take the guard off completely and just put the metal of the clippers to the back of my neck doing my best not to flinch at the burning heat coming off it as it meets my skin. 

I take that little strip down so there’s no hair there, running along along the hairline on my neck. I use the blending guard and even out the area, making the hair have a fade. Replacing the blending guard with the #7, I bring it up to the patch of hair on my head, and trim it down. When I finish, my feet are covered with a mountain of what used to be the long, thick, curly hair on my head.

My neck and shoulders are also covered with the little strands of hair that I buzzed off. Setting the clippers on the counter, I run my hands over the buzz cut I now sport and take in a deep, shaky breath. I let my head drop down, pressing my chin to chest and take another shaky breath in after letting out one. 

“Baby?” My husband asks softly.

I lift my head and look up at him. My eyes roam over the unzipped black leather jacket he’s wearing over his standard white t-shirt and down to the grey jeans he’s wearing, held up by two leather belts. I let my eyes rest on his feet, no longer hidden by his own pair of black combat boots, but rather a pair of white socks. 

Taking in another deep breath, I bring my eyes up to meet his. I can see the worry swimming in his muddy water brown eyes. I shake my head as i start to take my bra off and push my boxers down, stepping outta them as the pool ‘round my ankles.

“I need a shower.” I mumble and step ‘round him to walk to the stunning shower we share.

I grip the knobs tightly as I turn the water on, as hot as it’ll go. I need to feel the pain of the burning water over my skin. If I don’t, I know I’ll give in to that panic attack that’s already  on the verge of consuming me. Stepping into the shower, I glance back at my husband over my shoulder. 

“You can…” I mumble.

He nods as he understands what I’m trying to say. I look away, for the first time since we met, and eventually became intimate, not wanting to watch him undress. I know that if I were to watch, I’d see those assholes tugging their pants down, and I don’t want that. I don’t want my husband to be mixed in with them.

Standing under the burning hot water, feeling it flow over and pelt my skin, I bring my hands up and tightly grip what’s left of my hair, tugging on it. I feel Negan step into the shower, behind me. I don’t have to look.  I know he’s there. I can feel the heat rolling off his skin, along with the worry and helplessness. 

He hasn’t seen me like this in three years, and even then, it wasn’t this bad. I blindly reach for the bottle of men’s body wash he and I share and I vigorously scrub my body with it. Trying to get the touch and the blood of those men off me. It takes four harsh washes and rinses before I even begin to feel clean. 

Negan just stands behind me, leaning against the back wall of the shower. He’s giving me my space while still letting me know he’s right there if I need him. The bottle slips outta my hands when I go to pour more of the soapy liquid into my palm. I’d leave it there, but Negan gently reaches around me, picking it up. 

I hear the bottle open and can tell he’s pouring some into his own hands. I figure he’s just gonna wash his body until I feel his soft and gentle touch on my skin. I flinch and tremble at first, but eventually give into the feeling of him touching me. He takes his time, gently washing me, letting me get clean for the final time. 

Letting me know that it’s ok. That it’s over. That’s he’s got me. That he’ll take care of me. Neither of us say a word as he takes the removable showerhead from it’s dock and gently rinses me off after he turns the cold water on, letting the temperature of the water mix until it’s no longer burning, but rather warm and gentle.

He lets the showerhead drop and dangle as he turns the water off and steps out. I keep my eyes closed and feel him wrap a soft towel around me. I open my eyes and bring them to meet his, only to find him staring at my dislocated shoulder. He blinks and his tongue darts out just a little from between his lips.

“Want me to put it back in place, sweetheart?” 

I nod slowly. 

“Put your right arm ‘round my waist, baby, and I will.”

I follow his soft command and a moment later, I feel his palms against my left shoulder. He’s helped me pop my shoulder back into place enough over the last few years that he knows what he’s doing. I suck in a deep, shaky breath right as he pops it back into place. I bit my lip to hold back the whimper from the pain.

As soon as he’s done, he wraps both his arms ‘round me and just holds me close as I bury my face against his wet chest. We don’t say another word for a solid 10 minutes. He just holds me as we stand in the bathroom, water pooling ‘round our feet. Eventually, he gently scoops me up in his arms and carries me to bed. 

Sitting down on it, he just holds me in his lap, not saying anything. I know it’s his way of helping me get outta the panic attack and also letting me know that he’s listening when I’m ready to talk. It takes me a hot minute before I get the words out, and even then they’re just a whisper.

“They...they were trying to rape me.”

I hear him let out a growl and his arms tighten ‘round me, protectively. That’s his number one rule. Rape is not allowed. Followed by the prohibition of abusing women and children. He doesn’t say a word, letting me continue. I tell him everything that happened, as I tremble in his arms. He just holds me close, softly rubbing my back and taking even breaths to help me subconsciously focus on keeping my own breathing even.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there, baby.” He finally murmurs after I finish recounting the events. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that. They got what they deserved. I just wish I could’ve introduced them to Lucille.” 

My eyes flirt over to the barbed-wire baseball bat propped up against the wall by our bedroom door. She’s surprisingly clean. I guess Negan didn’t have to dish out any punishments today. Only I did.

“I’m so fuckin’ proud of you, though, baby.” He whispers in my ear.

I look up at him, confused. “Proud?”

He nods. “Mmhhmm. You shut that shit down, and kept your cool until you were up here. I don’t know how you fuckin’ managed that, but I’m not surprised. I heard what you did, heard how you described it, and fuck, baby. I wish I’d seen you go Rambo on their asses. You’re my badass girl. I’m proud of you.”

A small smile tugs at my lips. Despite the events of the day, and me doing what I did, my husband still manages to make me smile. He slowly brings one hand up, keeping it in my line of sight, and cups my good cheek. 

“Will you let me send Carson up here to stitch your cheek up and get you checked out?”

His eyes search mine, waiting for my reply, and hoping I’ll let him. I nod against his palm, and he lets out a deep breath. He reaches over to the nightstand and plucks his radio off it. His thumb pressed against the side button.

“Carson. Get your fuckin’ ass up to my room now, and bring your bag. Fuckin’ now.” He growls into the receiver.

“Yes, sir.” Comes the doctor’s reply not even  a moment later.

Negan then pushes the button down again and talks.

“Simon. Bring two plates of food up to my room. Now. And make sure it’s some good shit too.”

Simon replies in the affirmative and Negan sets his radio down. He looks back at me and places his palm back against my good cheek. A gesture that always makes me relax.

“Can I ask why you cut your hair?” He asks softly.

“I refuse to let another man tug me around by hair, guiding me to do his bidding,  especially during a situation like earlier. It was a flashback to my dad doing what he did. It’s why I’ve also cut my own hair. It’s the one thing I about my body that I can control. So, I keep it short and no man will ever be able to use my hair against me again.” I say, the truth just spilling out. “Plus, having it touch my ears, always made my anxiety ten times worse.”

He knows what my dad did, and he’s known that tugging on my hair was a hard limit for me. So, he never did it, which is why I let my hair grow out. I felt safe around him. I still do. But, having long hair is just a liability, and I refuse to be put in that situation again. He nods in understanding.

“I’m gonna miss your curls, though.” He says. “And waking up with a mouthful of your hair in my mouth.”

I can’t help but giggle at that. It’s true. Most mornings, he’d wake up, sputtering to spit out the strands of my hair that ended up in his mouth as we slept next to each other.

“I left enough on top so you can still play with my hair, babe. And, there’s still enough to run your fingers through it.” I assure him.

“Can I?”

I nod and a moment later, I feel his fingers on his other hand stroke through my wet hair, lightly massaging my scalp as he does. I let out a soft moan at the feeling and lean into his touch on my cheek, closing my eyes. He chuckles as he plays with my hair.

“If that’s your reaction to me doing that every single fuckin’ time, I could get used to it. And I’ll just have to get used to having an even stiffer hard on from the soft moans.” He smirks as he looks at me.

I blush and open my eyes looking up at him. “You're my husband. I think I can manage helping you out with the baseball bat you have in your pants.”

He laughs softly. “Yea?”

I grin. “Mmhhmm. You’re fond of Lucille. I’m quite fond of your own bat.”

He grins, showing off his dimples. “I’m fuckin’ fond of you, baby. Have been since we first met in the woods. Why else do you think I got rid of the wives years ago?”

I try not to grin as I shrug. “It was the only way you were getting in my pants and scoring a homerun.”

He laughs and shakes his head. “Not the only reason, baby. It was because I love you, Leigh.”

I grin from ear to ear and turn my head to place a soft kiss to his palm. “I love you too, Negan.”

Before he can say anything else, there’s a timid knock on the door.

“Come the fuck in!” Negan calls out, holding me close.

Dr. Carson comes in. He’s no longer as nervous as he used to be when I first showed up. But he’s still a little nervous around the man. I’ve gotten Negan to ease up on the fear of himself he’s instilled in people, and gotten him to be nicer in the way he treats folks. He’s not the bat-wielding lunatic he was when we first met. 

He’s the man I always knew he was.

A soft, 6’2” teddy bear wrapped in leather. 

My soft, 6’2” teddy bear wrapped in leather. 

After Carson checks me out, determines nothing’s broken, assures me that everything is good, and stitches my cheek up, he leaves. Negan helps me get dressed in a pair of his boxers under my new jeans and one of his shirts before he pulls on a pair of sweatpants. Simon comes in shortly after I finish getting dressed, holding a tray of food for Negan and I. 

His eyes widen as he looks at me, taking in my new appearance.

“What, Si? Never seen a girl with short hair before?” I ask, teasing.

He shakes his head. “I have. I just wasn’t expecting you to have cut your own. It looks good on you, fitting.”

I smile. “Thanks, Si.”

Leaning up, I kiss his cheek and then kick him out before Negan can Lucille him for staring at me. My husband knows Simon’s like a dad to me, the dad I never had, and that there’s nothing there. He just gets jealous and protective over me, not liking other men to stare. And, for once, I’m thankful, given the events of today.

As we eat, Negan and I stay on the bed, me snuggled up to his side. When we’re finished though, I look up at him. 

“I have to tell you something else.” I say.

His eyebrow raises and he looks at me, grining. “What’s that? You planning on buzzing anything else?” 

I laugh and playfully slap his bare chest. “No, asshole.”

He pretends to be hurt and rubs his chest, grinning. “Damn, girl. That hurt.”

I laugh and kiss his chest where I smacked him. “Feel better, Daddy?”

He grins that dimpled grin again and nods. “Mmhhmm. Now, what else you gotta tell me, babygirl?”

I smirk. “Well, Daddy…you see...”

He growls low in his throat. “Don’t tease me, little girl.”

I giggle. “I’m not, Daddy.”

I bring my hand down to rub my tummy. 

“You full from eating?” He asks, covering my hand on my tummy, rubbing what he thinks is a food baby.

“Nope. But, it’s nice to see you already rubbing my tummy. I can happily get used to this over the next 7 months.”

“7 months?” His brow creases in confusion for a moment before his eyes widen. “You...you’re...we’re…?”

I giggle and nod as I lean up to kiss him softly. 

“Yes, honey. I’m pregnant.” I say. “I’m 2 months along, and found out a few days ago. I was working on a story earlier, and that was gonna be how I told you, but shit happened, so I figured I’d just tell you.”

He lets out a high pitched squeal that I never would’ve expected from him, and pulls me right back into his arms and his lap. His beard tickles my neck as he grins against it, placing a soft kiss there. I giggle and wrap my arms ‘round him. Like I said, he’s a soft, 6’2” teddy bear wrapped in leather. 

My soft, 6’2” teddy bear wrapped in leather and I’m his buzzed haired girl. 

[crystaljins]

Take a chance. | 02

Characters: Jungkook x Reader

Word count: 7.3K

Synopsis:   You should have known the second your business partner asked you to plan his best friend’s wedding as a favour that it was going to be nothing but trouble. Especially when it turns out he’s in love with said best friend. And dying of a deadly disease because of it.

Hanahaki!au

Notes: The first three parts of this fic went through at least three different drafts. I changed the approach and character features so many times that this story isn’t even recognisable from the initial draft. But, once I added ma boi Kim Seokjin, this story finally hit a place that I felt I could happily write. 

Warnings: Angst. Graphic depictions of vomiting. Mentions of illness and death.

Masterlist

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

“Thank you for meeting with me today.” The man says as he slides into his seat. He’s wearing dark sunglasses that obscure most of his face and a black bucket hat is pulled low over his brows. Perhaps he is trying to be inconspicuous, but the large trench coat and obvious attempt to conceal his identity just make him seem more suspicious. Not only that, the price tags hanging off his outfit clearly show that he’d only just bought them.

“What are you doing, Jin? Why’d you call me out here?” Seri hisses. She pauses to smile warmly at the waiter who hands her an ice latte topped with perhaps more whipped cream than is strictly necessary before turning back to her obnoxious co-worker. “Why are you dressed… like that?”

“So that I don’t attract attention to myself. Obviously.” Jin scolds. He leans forward to sniff suspiciously at his milkshake before reaching into a pocket in his trench coat and pulling out a large swirly straw. It’s infuriatingly childish. He glances side to side before placing it in his glass and taking a long sip.

“I’m going home.” Seri snaps, making to get up, but an arm shoots out and holds her in place.

“I’m sorry! I’ll be serious.” He promises, even as he takes another sip from the milkshake through the ridiculous straw. He does remove his sunglasses, though. “This is a matter that concerns not just you and me, but Jungkook and our… beloved… boss.” He begins to tear up at the final person on the list, and dabs awkwardly at the corner of his eyes. “We have to help her.”

“Help her what?” Seri questions, attention grabbed. Where her boss is involved, she is all ears. After all, you had given her a job when she’d been unemployed and desperate. And she’s determined to pay that back by being the best employee she could possibly be.

“Help her with her illness.” He confesses gravely. Seri’s eyes go wide as her mind scans through the long list of illnesses her beloved boss could possibly be suffering from. “She’s suffering from Hanahaki.”

The deathly silence that follows is testament to how much both workers care for their boss. The colour drains from Seri’s face while Jin looks down and another tear trails down his face.

“How… how can you be sure?” Seri breathes. Jin shakes his head gravely.

“Do you remember a couple of weeks ago when I lost that bet and had to take garbage out for a week?” Jin asks. Seri nods contemplatively as she remembers the event in question.

“You bet you could down 2 L of milk in one go but ended up spraying it out your nose all over Jungkook’s desk.” She recalls. He nods gravely.

“Well, I kind of tripped when I was getting close to the garbage and the whole garbage bag split open.” He explains. He pauses mid-explanation to take another unnecessarily long sip of his milkshake, one that has Seri twitching in dread and anticipation as she waits for him to finish his story. “And there were these red rose petals everywhere.”

Seri nods, but then frowns.

“But what does that have to do with (Y/N)? We sometimes get petals in or bouquets as samples for future decorations and two weeks ago she was doing that red themed wedding.” Seri points out. Jin nods solemnly.

“Well that’s why I didn’t think anything of it at the time. It wasn’t until yesterday, when (Y/N) brought up Hanahaki and was super shifty and blatantly lying about why it was on her mind that I got suspicious.” Jin admits. “So that night I went home and rang her brother, because he’s actually a doctor who specialises in treating Hanahaki. Just to ask some questions, but he was surprised and thought that maybe someone from our office was suffering from it, because (Y/N) had rung him too,asking about it right before me.”

“That is very suspicious.” Seri admits, and the evidence is starting to stack up. But there’s one vital piece of information she needs to believe Jin. “But who is she in love with, that doesn’t love her back? And how can we help her?”

Jin smiles widely and leans back in his chair.

“I was hoping you’d ask me that, dear, sweet, naïve Seri.” He tells her warmly, and all traces of his earlier tears have vanished from his face. “It’s none other than our resident space cadet, Jeon Jungkook.” He announces with all the dramatic flair of an actor presenting Best Picture at the Oscars. Seri grimaces.

“Jungkook?” She questions incredulously. Up until that point, Jin’s theory had sounded plausible but now it just sounds ridiculous. “You think she’s in love with Jungkook? The same guy I caught trying to sneak in a new printer without her noticing last week because he spilt banana milk on the old one?”

Jin nods, as if it is the most logical and reasonable conclusion to draw in the world.

“Well, not to be presumptuous, but yes. Can you think of anyone else? Also, haven’t you always been suspicious of the fact that they literally built a business from the ground up together and yet there’s nothing there?” Jin points out. Seri seems surprised.

“Why would starting a business together mean there has to be something romantic between them?” She responds. Jin looks mildly astonished before understanding sets in his expression.

“Ah, I forgot you’ve only been here a couple of months. Yes, Jungkook and (Y/N) started this business together. It was probably like… five years ago? They’d been running for about two years when that video of that wedding she organised went viral and then they hired me to handle the extra clientele that came in, so that sounds about right.” Jin says, launching into an explanation. “But their whole story is fresh out of a romcom- (Y/N) met him after her fiancée dumped her for dropping out of some sort of prestigious uni degree or something at some bar and he had some sad backstory as well that I can’t remember and encouraged her to follow her dreams. And then he ran into her again and helped her get her first client and then after two years of struggling to make ends meet that video went viral and here we are today, successful and happy. How can there be nothing after all of that?” He explains. Seri wrinkles her nose- despite her short amount of time working at this firm, she knows enough of the story to know Jin is butchering the story a lot.

What had actually happened, was that you taken a year off law school when your mother’s health had started to decline. Your brother had been forced to financially support the two of you by working ludicrous hours while you cared for her physical needs. Your fiancée, unable to cope with the emotional strain such an event had put on the relationship, coupled with the lack of time that came with caring for a sick relative, had left you. In the end, you had wound up working at a bar and unable to bring yourself to go back to law school after your mother passed away. The very same bar that Jungkook happened to frequent. After confiding in the sad, unemployed drunk boy you thought wasn’t listening over a period of time about your heartbreak and your desire to go into wedding planning instead of law school, it turned out he had been listening. Not only that, but he had a proposal for you- he, a business major, and you, a wedding planner, could start a business together. That way you wouldn’t have to go back to law school, and he would no longer be unemployed and nearly homeless. At least, that’s what she’d been able to glean from snippets of conversation she’s had with the both of you over the past couple of months.

Still, even though his story is still warped the original point still stands: Jungkook is clearly someone who matters to you, a lot. Yes, it was the video that went viral that made your business successful but you wouldn’t have even started this business without Jungkook. Jin makes a compelling argument- the coincidental timing of your chosen conversation topic the day before, and Jin happening to find the rose petals… it is all very shifty. Even Seri has to admit that.

But Jin isn’t done, and his next piece of evidence is perhaps the nail in the coffin.

“And she asked me this morning to start preparing a job ad for a new assistant. She said Jeon Jungkook is officially taking leave as of today- that’s why he didn’t show up and why we were flat out all day.” Jin points out urgently. “And I left my wallet in my car this morning and just so happened to be ducking down to get it, when I saw Jungkook’s car pulling out of the building. Which means he came in to work today! And when I watched the CCTV footage to check-“

“Woah, woah, woah, Jin!” Seri cuts him off in protest. “We aren’t criminal detectives! You can’t just watch CCTV footage of your boss because you want to-“

“That’s not important. What’s important is they had some sort of fight this morning and clearly, it’s because (Y/N) is in love with Jungkook, is dying of Hanahaki and we need to make Jungkook fall for her or we could lose our jobs. And the nicest boss anyone has ever had.” He exclaims, almost out of breath from his rant. Seri blinks. She wants to disagree. She really does. She wants to write Jin off as crazy and perhaps report him to you.

But… what if he’s right? What if you’re dying because your airheaded assistant doesn’t reciprocate your feelings? If he’s right, then they have to help you! She bites her lip contemplatively.

“Why can’t she just get treatment? We could sit her down and encourage her to see a doctor- isn’t her brother a leading specialist in the disease?” Seri points out. Jin shoots her a look like she’s just made the stupidest suggestion in the world.

“Don’t you know what treatment involves? It makes you forget the person who gave you Hanahaki forever. If she forgot Jungkook how can they run this business together?” He cries out. Seri is pretty sure she read something somewhere, back when she was researching the disease for herself that said that the ‘forget your love’ aspect of Hanahaki is just an urbanised myth and only the most severe cases of Hanahaki that have gone untreated for years require such dramatic action, and even those have been able to be successfully treated with just therapy in certain patients, but Jin sounds so convinced and sure of his words that it makes her doubt herself.

“What... what would you have us do?” She asks, rather than contradict what he just said. She cringes as she says the words because she knows she may regret this strongly depending on what Jin asks.

He merely grins.

“I’m glad you asked, dear Seri, because I already have a mastermind plan in place…”

++

“Yes, I understand that you want all black for your decorations,” You say, desperately clinging on to your patience. “But black roses aren’t really a thing. If you just agreed to the black baccara roses-“

“They’re still red.” Your client on the other end of the phone sniffs. “I want black.”

“Then having them painted is your best option.” You retort. “I told you I’d do my best to give you the wedding of your dreams but I’m not a miracle worker- you can’t grow black roses!”

“Please? It’s really important to us.” He begs. You dig your fingers into the bridge of your nose and sigh.

“I’ll see if I can speak to some plant breeders and see if we can get something closer to black.” You say with a sigh. “That’s the best I can do.”

You don’t hear whatever he says because you are distracted by the presence of Jungkook leaning awkwardly against the door to your apartment. When he spots you, his whole face lights up and he straightens. You wince as he waves enthusiastically. He’s not in his usual crumpled suit- instead he’s wearing an oversized hoodie and a pair of trackpants and he hasn’t even attempted to tame his wild mop of hair. Oddly, he looks amazing in the casual, comfortable look he’s going for.

“You’re here!” He greets. You watch him cautiously like he is a furious bull that may charge at any moment.

“It’s my apartment. Where else would I go?” You point out. “Shouldn’t you be at home resting?”

He nods sheepishly.

“Well… I did take the day off.” He admits. “But I thought you might have had a long day without me, what with no one to replace the vital work that I do, so I brought some supplies.”

You stiffen. You have had a long day, and that is to be expected when you force your business partner to take an unplanned leave.  To be honest, you aren’t even sure what half of Jungkook’s duties are. You’ve just always done your thing, talking to clients, make plans, connecting with people, and then at the end you’d have money in your bank account. Jungkook has always handled your marketing and connecting clients and managing appointments while keeping the office running smoothly. Without him, you’d had to answer phones, contact the accountant and fill out complex paperwork between and in the middle of appointments with. Seokjin and Seri had done their best to share the load but even they’d felt the strain by the end of the day.

“I’m not changing my mind, if that’s why you’re here.” You sniff, stepping passed him to unlock the door. He presses in close and follows you into your apartment even though he is not welcome. He looks around curiously as soon as he steps passed the threshold of your home.

“This is a really lovely place.” He compliments sincerely- it should be surprising that this is the first time he’s ever step foot in your apartment considering the fact that you’ve been running a business with him for five years now. Even Seri, who has only been working with you for a couple of months, has visited your home before. But before this whole wedding debacle, Jungkook had always refused. He sidles past you and sets a plastic bag up on the countertop in your kitchen. He glances back at you before rummaging inside. “I realised I have no idea what you like to eat, so I read that interview you did with that bridal magazine a few months ago.” He says, and then he pulls out a block of chocolate, some grapes and a bottle of wine. You squint suspiciously at them.

“Jungkook…” You say slowly, about to ask him to leave your home and take the food with them. Yes, they were all guilty pleasures of yours, but you weren’t about to give him false hope that you would rescind your decision. “I’m not going to plan the wedding.” Is what you say instead.

He ignores you, turning to a cupboard and pulling out two wine glasses. He sets them on the counter and immediately begins pouring out the wine. Then he leans against the countertop beside you and sighs heavily, as if the weight of the world is on his shoulders.

“Why?” He finally asks. He takes a long sip of his own glass, sliding yours toward you. Hesitantly, you accept and settle into a stool next to the counter. “It’s not going to stop the wedding. It’s not going to cure me. And I’ll still be involved in the wedding whether you plan it or not. What do you think you’re achieving by refusing?”

You stare down at the ruby liquid in the glass- your distorted reflection glares back. He’s right. You’re not achieving anything. You’re just sticking your head in the sand and pretending Jungkook’s situation isn’t happening until it magically fixes itself. But that’s all you really can do, right? You can’t force him to get treatment and you can’t make his best friend love him back. These are all doubts that plague you, but if you are anything, it is stubborn. Your blood runs hot with anger at the way he’s trying to pressure you into something you’ve already decided not to do.

“Why are you so desperate for me to plan this wedding anyway?” You question, hopping off the stool and edging closer until he is pressed against the kitchen counter. At this proximity you can count each of his individual lashes and feel the way his breath has become shallower and hesitant. It’s out of anger that you press closer. You’re trying to intimidate him into backing off and leaving you to deal with the consequences of your decision in peace. His eyes flash at the challenge though.

“Why are you so determined to refuse?” He retorts. “Up until the engagement party, you were all for planning this wedding! What, suddenly things get a teensy bit more complicated and you’re out?”

“Finding out my business partner is dying from a curable illness is not a “teensy bit more complicated”, Jungkook!” You cry, the volume of your voice escalating. Any louder and your neighbours will probably call the cops on you. “Why aren’t you taking this seriously?”

“I am taking this seriously!” Jungkook shouts. It’s the first time in all the years that you’ve known him that you’ve ever seen him lose his temper. His whole face goes bright red and the tendons in his neck strain with the force of his shout. “That’s all I’ve been doing! Every, single, damn day, all I can think about is how hard this is! You think I want to be sick? You think I want to be here, begging my boss to plan the wedding for the girl that I love? Why do you have to fight me at every single step- why can’t you just do me this one favour? All I’m asking you to do is to plan a wedding for a friend and turn a blind eye when you see I’m having a hard time- is that so hard to do?”

“Yes.” You breathe, and your eyes have watered and filled with tears at his words. “I don’t want to have to watch your heart break.” You finally admit. Because that’s the real reason. You can’t stop the fast approaching train-wreck that Jungkook has managed to lock himself into. But you sure as hell don’t have to watch it happen. “I don’t want to watch you slowly die.”

Your admission is met with silence and when you shoot a glance at Jungkook, he’s staring at you like you’ve grown a third eye. Abruptly he breaks eye contact and his shoulders hunch.

“Let me come back to work.” He says in a small voice. “I know you think you’re helping me, but you’re just leaving me at home alone with nothing to dwell on but the fact that I’m ill and…” His voice cracks. “That she…” He whirls around so that he’s no longer facing you and is unable to finish his sentence. He changes the subject. “Wow, I didn’t know my boss was so heartless,” He tries to joke, his tone falsely light, but his voice is still slightly shaky. “5 years together and you give me the axe just because I’m a little sick.” He shakes his head and makes a “tsk” sound. “Success has really changed you, (Y/N).”

You recognise now, that his attempt to joke around is his way of hiding, so you aren’t offended. Instead, getting slowly to your feet, you pack everything into the bag he brought with him and walk around the kitchen counter so that you’re facing him. He winces and looks towards the ceiling, perhaps to conceal the way his eyes are wet with tears and red-rimmed. Gently, you take his hand and place the handles of the plastic bag in it, wrapping his fingers around them.

“Jungkook.” You say softly. “I’m not doing this because I thought this would easy or because I don’t like you or because I think your job is replaceable or because I’m trying to punish you. I’m not doing it to make your life difficult. You’re sick, Jungkook, and sick people need rest.”

He stares at you with bewildered, pleading eyes. It is an exact repeat of earlier that morning when you had told him to take time off.

“There are other wedding planners.” You tell him gently. “She’ll live even if I don’t plan it for her.”

He stares down at the bag in his hand.

“But what if I… if she really wants you to do it?” He asks, even as he lets you guide him gently out the door. You don’t notice his slip.

“Well sometimes we don’t always get what we want Jungkook. But as your boss it’s my job to make sure you get what you need. And what you need is some time off.” You say. He seems to register he’s fighting a losing battle as the door swings shut- his hand flies out before you can fully close it.

“What would it take?” He pleads. “Hypothetically. If you could have anything in the world, what would it take for you to do this?”

You grimace.

“For you not to be sick.”

++

For all your bravado over forcing Jungkook to take leave, it really does make your life infinitely harder. Jungkook is a scatter-brain prone to double booking appointments and breaking expensive electronics, but his job really is irreplaceable- he hasn’t just been an assistant, or receptionist. His job was never as simple as answering phones and calling in the technician when he broke the printer yet again. He also managed the entire business side of things- from organising how much clients would pay for your services, to drafting contracts with them, to the entire marketing side of things, it had always been him to deal with that sort of thing. And it had been stupid and arrogant of you to think you could handle your regular duties on top of his. In your head, you had planned to look for a temporary replacement to work for maybe a year while Jungkook sorted himself out, but you barely have time for your own job, let alone searching for a replacement and training them up on top of managing Jungkook’s duties in the mean time. You’ve really screwed yourself over with such a hasty decision.

Your employees are quick to vocally and aggressively remind you of what a mistake it is to have put Jungkook on leave.

“My keyboard still doesn’t work.” Jin sniffs at you in the kitchenette, repeatedly dunking a bag of chamomile tea aggressively into a mug of boiling water. “I thought you said you were looking into fixing that! I can’t type anything and I’ve had two brides organising a wedding and a mother organising a first birthday party call me in tears because I didn’t answer their emails.”

“Well, you didn’t have to spill orange juice on it now, did you?” You almost snarl- you find your temper becoming shorter and shorter the more stressed and tired you are. It’s getting to the point that you’re hardly getting any sleep at night because you’re essentially doing two full time jobs at once. Jin’s eyebrows fly up, seeming to sense that you’re on the verge of snapping at him, and holds two hands up in a gesture of surrender.

“I’m sorry- It was an accident. But it’s really very urgent.” He tells you, and he sounds apologetic enough that you take a deep breath to release the tension built up in your shoulders and neck.

“I know. I’m sorry for getting short with you- I am trying to sort it out. I just have a lot on my plate at the moment.” You admit, and you feel on the verge of tears. Jin’s expression softens at your wobbly tone and he comes to stand next to you, resting against the kitchenette counter.

“Maybe we should give Jungkook a call.” He suggests gently. You tense, about to scold him for such a suggestion, but he holds up a firm hand. “I don’t know what happened or why you put him on leave, but you’re really struggling. If he does need the leave, then at least keep him around until you find a proper replacement- doing two jobs at once like this isn’t sustainable.” He points out. You wince because if it weren’t for your own stubbornness, you probably would have done as much. But you can’t- your pride won’t let you. You’ve decided that Jungkook needs leave and so he’s getting leave. Even if it kills you in the process.

Jin isn’t the only one- later in the week Seri knocks on your door. She strides in without waiting for an answer and leans in close so the two clients across from you don’t hear what she says.

“I just got a call from the bank- apparently there was an issue with billing that florist we contracted. I took down their number for you to ring them when you’re done with your client.” She informs you, flicking a gaze at the two clients before you.

Her interruption, though bearing bad news, is welcome- she’s interrupted two clients on the verge of screeching at you in rage. There was a mix-up with the venue bookings that you forgot to sort out between the flurry of phone calls you’ve been heckled with all day and they are not pleased. You’re barely holding back frustrated tears while Seri watches on, uncertain how to handle the situation. You take a deep breath, summoning all the professionalism you can access and smile at her.

“I will have that sorted after I deal with these two clie-“ You begin, but they cut you off.

“Don’t bother!” The one on the right, a woman in her late thirties’, snarls. She’s clinging to her fiancé’s arm like a hole might open up beneath her and demons appear to drag her to the depths of hell if she lets go. “We came here because we’ve heard so many good things about your service, but clearly it was all just good marketing- we won’t be coming back.”

She gets abruptly to her feet and storms off, dragging her balding fiancé with her. You take a shaky breath and squeeze your eyes shut, willing the tears not to come.

“Perhaps… I should call Jungkook? He’s really good with this kind of thing.” Seri suggests, and it’s so not the suggestion you need right now.

“Don’t.” You say. “My afternoon appointment just cancelled as you just saw- I’m free to speak with the bank right now.”

Your week carries on like that. You’re at your wits end by the time Friday comes around. You’ve promised yourself that you won’t do anything related to work for the entire afternoon. You’re going to ignore all the deadlines. Your business won’t crumble just because you took a Friday afternoon off, after all. At least that’s what you tell yourself as you take on your final task of the day- carrying a heavy box of fragile but expensive glasses that a client ordered in for clients to drink out of during their reception. You stagger as evenly as you can into the elevator and that’s when it happens- your heel snaps. It’s not a particularly high heel- just high enough that your ankle twists beneath you as it gives. You cry out, bracing yourself to crash to the floor and for the delicate goods you are carrying to shatter.

Only, it never comes. As you crumple to the ground, the weight of the box abruptly vanishes from your arms. Instead it is just you that hits the floor of the elevator with a pained grunt. Confused, you look up to find someone has grabbed the box from your arms before it could hit the floor with you and shatter all the contents inside.

“Are you ok?” Jungkook cries, gently setting down the box and crouching down before you. You’re so shocked that you are speechless. His large glasses are slightly lopsided on his face and he’s wearing a t shirt with a pair of ripped jeans. He’s not wearing the business attire that is required of all your employees- instead he’s dressed casually, like he didn’t plan on coming into the office today.

“W-what are you doing here?” You finally find your voice as he helps you to your feet. You wince as you attempt to press your weight into the foot with the broken heel and crumple back down- no doubt you sprained it on your way down. Jungkook’s eyes are wide with concern.

“Jin called me in for something urgent-“ He explains but he’s too distracted by your injury to provide the full story. “Did you hurt yourself?” He questions. You glance down at your leg- you move your ankle and wince when you find it too painful to rotate.

“Probably just a sprain.” You explain and he nods.

“I’ll help you, then,” He says quickly. “There’s a first aid kit in my office- or there was, if you haven’t cleaned it out yet.”

“Thank you.” You say quietly. “I haven’t touched your things. But you really shouldn’t be here-“

Your words are interrupted by the sudden flashing of the light in the elevator and a screeching noise.

The elevator is stuck.

++

“That’s your mastermind plan to help (Y/N)? Trapping them in an elevator together?” Seri sniffs, as she realises what Jin has done, watching Jungkook and her boss through the small security camera. They remain crouched down, close to the ground and she can’t see their expressions. “What if they get hurt?”

“Clearly you’ve never watched any kind of romcom ever, Seri.” Jin tuts. “This is a basic strategy- and this is just us getting started! Phase one! We just need to force them into the same space and hopefully the confined space will lead to them opening up! Besides, don’t act so surprised- there’s much more work we have to do than this before Jungkook-”

“Why did you agree to this?” She interrupts, directing her question to the elevator technician who has unscrewed the control panel and is fidgeting with the wires. He pauses, resting a hand on his chin as he contemplates the answer.

“For love.” He answers fondly. “But also, Seokjin here paid me $50 if I made sure they were trapped in an elevator together for the next twenty minutes.”

Seri whirls on Jin, the expression on her face utterly despairing.

“What… what else do you have planned?” She asks incredulously, pale and concerned for the wellbeing of not only her boss, but Jungkook as well. Jin considers her question for a moment, before shrugging.

“It’s a surprise.” He answers with a grin.

++

“How’s your ankle?” Jungkook asks awkwardly. For the past five minutes after ringing for help with the emergency button and being assured that the elevator technician was already working on it, the two of you had been sitting in a deathly silence. With Jungkook’s help, you had manoeuvred so that you now lean against the wall of the elevator, your sprained ankle stretched out in front of you. Your broken, useless heels are discarded in the corner. Your eyes are shut so that you don’t have to acknowledge his presence and can feign sleeping.

“The same as it was 5 minutes ago.” You answer, without opening your eyes. “Swollen. Painful. Will probably be better in a few days.”

You hear a tapping sound and know that Jungkook is probably bouncing his knee up and down. He has a lot of restless energy and a lot of pens have been dismantled at his desk from his fidgeting and a lot of office chairs have met their end because he’s constantly rocking back and forth. It’s a good indicator for when he’s about to strike up conversation- the noise stops, and he inhales like he’s formulating a question.

“How’s the office been?” He asks. “Without me? Is everyone coping alright?”

Not really. But you’re not about to tell him that.

“They’re fine. The others are urging me to find a replacement and I’m sure we’ll find one soon.” You say. Your sentences are clipped, and your tone isn’t unfriendly, but it isn’t exactly warm either. You’re trying to discourage conversation because if Jungkook inquires more into how your week played out, you may burst into tears. The last thing you want is for him to know what a hard time you are having without him.

He starts to whistle tunelessly, and the sound is annoying, but you don’t want to talk to him. At least he’s stopped asking you questions.

For about thirty seconds.

“What was in the box?” He asks. You open one eye to peer at him. He’s sitting cross-legged in front of you with his back slouched. He picks absently at his worn shoelaces on his crappy, frayed sneakers.

“Glasses. For a wedding I’m planning.” You say. He perks up at the mention of your business.

“Is this the couple who met at the Venetian Glass Blowing Factory?” He asks cheerfully. “I thought you didn’t have time to plan their wedding. How did you squeeze them in?”

You tense- you rang them up and offered your services since a lot of clients have cancelled on you this week following your subpar performance.

“I’ve had a few slots in my schedule clear up.” You admit through gritted teeth. Jungkook looks confused but then his eyes go round when he realises what you mean.

“Oh… that bad, huh?” He asks. He winces. “Not that I’m implying you’re bad! I just didn’t think people would cancel so quickly when-”

“When what, Jungkook?” You snap, patience lost. “When I’m essentially working two jobs? When I’ve been yelled at 32 times this week? When I’ve been getting approximately 4 hours sleep every night trying to organise all these events in between doing your job?”

“Well I didn’t ask to be on leave!” He retorts defensively. His eyebrows furrow together and his lips purse in a slight pout. “You’re the one who insisted I was unfit to work.”

“I know.” You snarl, and to your mortification, frustrated tears fill your eyes and blur your view of him. “I know I made you take leave! I know that everyone wants you back and this office is going insane without you!”

Jungkook’s jaw drops at your outburst but doesn’t interrupt as you continue your rant.

“I know your job is important and that it was going to be hard without you, but I was doing it for you! I wasn’t trying to fire you or spite you or punish you for being sick! I was only trying to help.” You’re full on sobbing now, but you’re so exhausted and emotional and the repressed emotions you’ve been pushing back for the past week are all bursting forth. “Is that so bad? Is it so terrible that I just wanted to look after my business partner? Why am I getting punished for doing the right thing?” You’re in full hysterics as Jungkook starts to panic, realising that he has no idea how to comfort you or calm you down.

“D-don’t cry!” He protests but it’s too late- it’s like a dam has been broken. All the stress, all the misery, all the overtime work has combined, and you feel like there’s an angry tornado of lava where your heart should be. “I know you were trying to help, and I’m really grateful for that- please don’t cry!”

He edges closer to you and doesn’t know what to do with his hands, so he settles for resting them awkwardly on your shoulders. You stare up at him with teary eyes. You’re not a pretty crier by any definition- your eyes have gone puffy and your nose is running and were it any other situation he would have laughed at you. But he has at least enough sensitivity to know laughing at you now would be kicking you when you’re down. Instead he offers you an awkward smile, one that is little more than his cheeks raising and him baring his teeth in an almost-snarl.

You’re so confused at his peculiar expression that you actually stop sobbing. You squint at him for a moment, before a tear-y laugh breaks through your lips.

“What are you doing?” You ask, taking the lapse in your hysterics as an opportunity to wipe away the tears running down your cheeks. His expression softens.

“I’m smiling at you.” He explains. You snort incredulously.

“You look like you’re in pain.” You say. He chuckles awkwardly.

“Hey! I’m trying to make you feel better!” He protests jokingly, relieved that you’re at least no longer crying. You frown.

“By showing me what face you make when you’re constipated?” You suggest and he actually laughs.

“I mean, since that’s what stopped you crying, I’ll take it.” He volunteers. He takes his hands off your shoulders and slumps next to you, being mindful of your injured leg. “Hey.”

You turn to look at him.

“Hi.” You answer. His expression is warm and gentle as he volunteers his next words.

“I never thanked you.” He admits. “For caring so much. Enough to keep it a secret.” He confesses. “And for putting me on leave. I know… I know you were trying to help, and it feels good to know that you’ve got my back like that. So, thank you. So much.”

At his words, an odd, warm sensation blooms in your chest. This whole week all you’ve felt is stressed and guilty, questioning your decision and worrying about Jungkook’s health. But Jungkook’s gratitude is liberating- you feel like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders. He turns so that he’s staring straight into your eyes.

“And I know that you were only trying to help, and I’m really thankful for that but…” He trails away awkwardly and glances downwards. “But it wasn’t your call to make.” He admits. “I know you mean well, but it’s my decision on whether to get treatment, or whether to keep working, or whether or not to be involved with this wedding. You shouldn’t have taken that choice from me.”  

The truth of his words hits you like a bag of bricks and leaves you momentarily speechless. Because he has a point- even acting with his best interests in mind, he’s your co-worker. Not your friend or your family or your lover. He’s your equal business partner, capable of making adult decisions for himself. And by forcing him to go on leave, you took that choice away from him.

“As for the wedding… I won’t force you to do it or keep pestering you about it. I should have stopped when you first said no and respected that. That was wrong of me.” He says. “To be honest, I kept visiting you because I thought I could convince you. I didn’t even care how you were doing or whether you were coping- I just made all these excuses to see you so that I could convince you. And I realise now that’s a really awful way to be. You’re not just my boss or a machine that churns out people’s dream weddings. You’re a person who cares a lot about everyone she meets and I’m sorry for not recognising that.” He tells you. His cheeks are tinted slightly pink at his heartfelt confession, and your own cheeks burn too for some reason.

“The truth is… the truth is that Minah doesn’t want you to plan her wedding this much. Yeah, she liked that video of that wedding you did, but if I’d told her you said no, she would have just found someone else. It was me that was being insistent because I wanted someone on my side. You saw how I almost exposed myself at her engagement party… I felt like bringing another wedding planner into the mix is just one more person I have to hide from.” He slumps against the elevator wall and you take notice of the dark circles under his eyes, of his pale skin and his gaunt face… He’s lost even more weight since you made him take leave- earlier he was skinny but still looked healthy. Now he looks ashy and uncomfortable. At this rate he will wither away into nothing but skin and bones. Your heart aches for him again. “But when you found me… when you helped me and you didn’t tell anyone… I felt like I wasn’t alone for the first time in nearly a year. For the first time since Minah started dating Taehyung, probably. And I liked that feeling- I liked the idea of someone like you having my back. Someone who was strong and so determined that she literally built a business from the ground up, and you always call me your partner but really it was all you. And this whole thing with Minah has been so… hard. I thought… ‘maybe I could do it if she had my back.’” He squeezes his eyes shut and you notice the way a tear trickles down his cheek. His glasses nearly hide it but you’re watching him so carefully that you pick up on it.

“I’ll do it.” You don’t even realise you’ve said the words until he’s staring at you with wide, shocked eyes.

“What?” He asks. “Say that again?”

You blink, startled by your own compliance, but then you steel your gaze and make your decision.

“My brother’s a doctor who specialises in Hanahaki.” You say. “He said that if the doctors have already recommended hypnotherapy then conservative treatment probably can’t do much but it may slow the progression.” You explain. Jungkook is still staring at your with confused, round eyes. “If you promise to meet with him at least once a week for some conservative treatment and then you book in for proper treatment once the wedding is over… I’ll do it. I’ll plan her wedding.”

Jungkook’s whole face lights up and he grabs one of your hands, clasping it between your hands. His hands dwarf your own and you feel like he may break your bones with how tightly he is holding you.

“Really? You’d do that?” He asks, and the breathless excitement and relief in his voice almost makes it worth the stress that will no doubt come with agreeing.

“For you.” You clarify. “And only if you get treatment. If Namjoon tells me you’ve missed even one session, then I’m cancelling on her.” You warn. You look away awkwardly. “And I guess… if it means that much to you… you can come back to work. But you have to promise me that if you’re not feeling well you let me know, ok?”

“Deal!” Jungkook cries joyously, throwing his arms around you neck and pulling you in for a bone-crushing hug. “Thank you so much (Y/N)!  This really means so much to me. Thank you.”

And it is in that moment, with Jungkook squeezing you tightly to him like you’ll get up and sprint away if he lets go, that the elevator door starts up again like it was just waiting for the two of you to come to an agreement.

And if it’s suspicious that Jin and Seri are both anxiously waiting by the elevator doors on the fifth floor when they eventually slide open and release you, then neither you nor Jungkook notice it.

You’re both too distracted by the work you have ahead of you.

[amydancepants-peralta]

you’re the closest to heaven that I'll ever be

(aka, the epilogue I suddenly found myself writing) 🙈♥️🤷‍♀️

season eight: you’re the closest to heaven that I’ll ever be

On New Years Eve of 2020, the Santiago-Peralta household is strangely quiet.  

In the tastefully decorated living room a brightly coloured activity centre, complete with musical panels, sits neatly beside the beige sofa.  Three of the warmest blankets in Brooklyn share space with a knitted Ninja Turtle themed throw, and strapped to the door frame of the reading room Amy had once considered her favourite space is a purple and yellow Jolly Jumper,  a myriad of sensory developmental toys clipped along it’s edges.  

There are five different flavours of baby food on the kitchen counter waiting to be put away, and the bedazzled invitation to Gina Linetti’s 2021-a-thon lays forgotten to the side, mixed in with the letters and correspondences that neither Jake or Amy have done more than skim their eyes over.  Above the counter, below the precision-timed clock, hangs a framed photograph of the two of them on the night of their wedding, the happy glow of a freshly married couple still noticeable all these years later.  

Having just hung up from an unnecessarily long conversation with her mother, Amy leans against the kitchen counter, sighing at the familiarity of the curved granite meeting her lower back.  Mama Santiago means well; and as the mother of eight and abuela to five, has a lot of valuable tips and tricks up her sleeve.  But this is Amy’s first child, and as much as she wants to do everything exactly right, she also wants her and Jake to figure things out as they go.  A statement she’d had to repeat approximately eighty-nine times to Camila during that last phone call.  

Twisting the rings on her finger, Amy smiles at the thought of all that she and Jake had been through in the past year.  At eight months, their daughter Mia was tiny but fierce, and motherhood was both everything and absolutely nothing like she’d expected it to be.      

There had been offers to babysit from friends and family alike in the last few weeks, but all of them had been met with a polite shake of both her and Jake’s heads.  Sure, there were a lot of places that they could be tonight - and they’re probably missing out on an interesting experience at Gina’s - but truthfully, tonight there is nowhere they’d rather be than home.

(With any luck, they’d have their own wild night - and by wild, she means uninterrupted sleep for the next ten to twelve hours.  Baby Mia had only just begun to sleep through the night, and both Amy and Jake were approximately 4,167 hours behind on their own slumber.)

Shaking off the last remnants of the phone call from her body, Amy tucks her hair behind one ear and looks around the kitchen, noticing the bottle of champagne that her husband had pulled out of the chiller earlier was still sitting to the side, unattended next to a spare lid for their daughter’s favourite bottle.  Pouting her lips slightly, she glances at the clock, noting from it’s steady tick that it had been a good half hour since she’d heard from either Jake - and while silence in a house with a baby is usually a good thing, she’s also really curious what could be holding him up, and so Amy grabs the champagne with her left hand, shoving her phone into the pocket of her sweats with the other.  

The condensation from the neck of the bottle drips onto Amy’s fingers as she makes her way down the short hallway, her socked feet moving carefully across the floor lest a squeaky floorboard should wake their sleeping beauty.  Amy cranes her neck around the doorway once she’s reached her destination, and the sight inside simply makes her heart melt.

Jake sits inside their daughter’s room, on the oversized plush chair that a very pregnant Amy had insisted they buy, his eyes trained solely on their sleeping daughter.  The delicately embroidered pillow made by Camila, with Mia’s name sewn in shimmering thread, remained gripped in his hands, his body leaning forwards as though at any given second he was going to climb into the cot and join their daughter.  His eyes are soft when they flicker over to her, and he shrugs, giving Amy a sheepish look before turning back to Mia.  “I just can’t stop watching her sleep.  She’s so beautiful, Ames.”

Humming her agreement, Amy tiptoes into the room.  While a relatively tight budget had meant that the nursery had remained the same colour as the rest of their apartment, she and Jake had chosen softer toned items for all the trimmings, and the mixture of excerpts from some of her favourite children’s authors and photographs of family that lined the walls never failed to bring her a sense of calm.  Running her free hand along the edge of the dresser, she toys with the neatly folded onesie Jake had placed there earlier in the evening before resting the champagne bottle beside it, moving to stand beside her husband and run her hand through his hair.  He was absolutely besotted with their little girl, and it was her favourite thing in the world to see.

Jake starts at the moistness of her fingers, looking up at Amy before noticing the champagne and he rubs his face in exhaustion, wedding band glinting in the soft light from the lamp set up behind him.  “Oh right, I’d completely forgotten that I opened that before I put Mia to bed.”

Shrugging, Amy points her chin towards their daughter, moving both hands to Jake’s shoulders as she replies.  “It’s a good thing you did, really.  A popping champagne cork would definitely have meant saying good-bye to a sleeping Mia for the rest of the night.”

His laugh is soft as he nods, the memories of the first few nights with a screaming newborn still very fresh in both of their minds.  “It’s crazy, though … how much I miss her when she’s literally right there.”

Amy’s heart swells to twice it’s normal size, thrumming against her rib cage as it tries to compensate for the sudden and overpowering amount of love she feels for her husband.  She understands all the reasons why there was a part of Jake that was worried he would turn out to be a terrible father, but oh, how she wishes he could hear how sweetly he talks about their daughter.  Turning slightly, she grabs the bottle of champagne and nudges Jake over on the plush seat, rubbing her shoulder against his as she settles into place.  One of her favourite things about this chair - and the reason she’d been so insistent on buying it - was the fact that it was just big enough for two (if they snuggled); and in moments like this Amy would definitely consider it a worthy investment.  

Reaching for the bottle and taking a slow swig, Jake uses his free hand to rest against Amy’s thigh, fingers tracing gentle patterns that she knows are unconsciously done.  (They’d been together so long now that each of their bodies was an extension of the others, and she liked to think that the tiny swirls he made were representative to the myriad of coils in his mind, stretching and unfurling comfortably whenever she was around.)  In front of them, resting her tiny head in the cot that Jake had put together (and definitely hadn’t lost his cool whilst doing so), was their baby girl - and she was literally the most beautiful thing.

“I still can’t believe we made her.”

“I know.”

“And that it’s been eight months already.”

“I know.”

Jake smiles, nudging the frame of his glasses up with the edge of his finger (a Tired Jake at home has no time for contacts).  “She gave me the biggest smile tonight, when I lay her down and kissed her goodnight.  It was like she was saying ‘goodnight, daddy!’ … without being able to actually say it, ya know?”  His face scrunches.  “God, I sound really stupid right now.”

Amy shakes her head, unable to keep the blissful smile from stretching across her face.  “Not at all.  This morning, I swear she almost said ‘mama’, but then she just kinda spit up everywhere.”

His shoulders shaking as he chuckles, Jake turns his head slightly to leave a commiserative kiss on Amy’s temple.  “I’m sure she was trying to say it anyway, babe.”

Shrugging one shoulder, Amy looks up at her husband with a smile.  “Maybe, but I doubt it.   Her first word is definitely going to be Dada.”  At Jake’s incredulous shake of his head, Amy persists.  “She literally lights up when she sees you, babe.  It’s adorable.  You’re going to get first word, and I am totally okay with it.”

(Her first word, when she says it in a few weeks time, is in fact baba - aka, her bottle.  But, it’s totally a compromise between mama and dada, and the parents take it with glee.)

Picking up the blanket mysteriously knitted by Tia Rosa, Jake drapes the material over Amy’s legs before clearing his throat.  “So earlier this evening, I was scrolling through Facebook, and the sweetest photo came up on my timeline.”  He pauses, digging for his phone and unlocking the screen with the dexterity of a man who has definitely trained himself to text without looking down.  “See?” He continues, holding up the selfie he’d posted of the two of them last year, the festoon lights strung out on the fire escape casting their faces in a cool glow as they grinned up at the camera.  “Hard to believe this was only a year ago, right?  What a difference between then and now.”

“Oh god, that feels like forever ago,” Amy murmurs, her eyes running over the image as the memory of that night washes over her - right down to the feeling of their daughter still nestled in safely.  “You were right, though.  This year has been amazing. Even if we’ve forgotten what it’s like to have a quiet home for longer than five hours.”

“An amazing night is just another Peralta Guarantee, babe.”  Jake winks, grinning.  “And as crazy as it sounds, I’m all in for that screaming, Ames.  I mean ... I’d like it a lot more if it was two in the afternoon, and not morning, but I’m here for it all the same.”  He shakes his head at Amy’s offer of the champagne again, and she nods in agreement, setting it down on the floor.

Shuffling until her legs are draped over Jake’s lap, Amy reaches for her husband’s phone and types in her brother’s profile.  “Chris did the same thing earlier tonight - look, it’s the same photo I sent to you all those years ago.”  Jake smiles, eyes taking on a faraway look as Amy continues.  “Man, I was so stupid back then.  I was crushing so hard for you, and really thought that if I just put all my energy into my work, that it would just …. Go away, I guess.”

Jake nods, his arm wrapping further around Amy’s legs, rubbing the amazingly soft purls of wool between his fingers.  “If only we’d been able to talk to each other about it … I would’ve warned you it was fruitless.  I tried to forget how I felt about you for over a year.  Obviously, it did not go well.”

“Do you think if we had told the rookie detective versions of ourselves, sitting in that unmarked car down at the docks, that one day we’d spend our entire evening watching our daughter sleep, that we’d believe them?”

His chest constricting with a restrained snort, Amy feels Jake shake his head above her.  “There is no way I would have believed it for a second.  I would have hoped, but …”

Wrapping one arm tight around Jake’s midsection, Amy looks up at her husband, genuinely wishing that even the smallest part of the amount of love she has for him right now is detectable in her gaze.  “Lucky our heads caught up to our hearts, huh?”

Leaning in, Jake plants a gentle kiss against her lips.  “I’m thankful every day.”

A muffled snore comes from the direction of the cot, and Mia stretches out her fists as she slips further into whatever dream she’s having.  “Okay, seriously.  Our daughter is literally the cutest baby ever to be born.”

“She really is.”  And really, how else could they put it?  She was tiny and beautiful and adorable and all those other words that always seemed to fail to come to mind when someone asks them to describe their daughter, because how can you relegate something so life-changing to just a few words?  She laughs, a deep-from-the-belly kind of laugh, whenever Amy pretended to have a sneezing fit in front of her.  Smiles so brightly that even her godfather Ray finds himself smiling right back.  Grips her parent’s fingers with the strength of an army - and Jake swears that their daughter somehow took a seminar in utero, because she is her mother’s daughter - but Amy already knows that truly, both of them were 100% wrapped around their daughter’s little finger from the moment she was born.

Mia was a tiny tyrant, but their tiny tyrant; with deep brown eyes you could lose yourself in, messy curly hair, and a screaming voice louder than any infant had any right to have.   But it only took one look from her: one slow blink, or the resting of her head on your shoulder, and suddenly everything was okay again.  It took thirteen hours to birth her, and only one second to fall in completely in love, and Amy would do it all again in a heartbeat.  

As her eyelids begin to grow heavy, Amy rests her head against Jake’s shoulder, relaxing completely as the combined scent of his shower gel and their daughter’s baby powder fills her senses.  Before they close completely, her eyes shift towards the framed picture of her and Jake on their very first New Years Eve together as a couple.  Oh, how far they’d come.

*

It’s several hours before she opens her eyes again, ears picking up on an unfamiliar but persistent pop sound coming from the window in their daughter’s room, and as her still-snoozing mind begins to wake up, Amy realises that both she and Jake had managed to sleep through it all.  

Jake’s head is heavy on her shoulder, and as Amy cups his jawline in her hand and begins dotting kisses to his hairline, he mumbles himself awake, shrugging when Amy tells him that they’ve missed counting in the New Year completely.  

His hand grips Amy’s steadily as she leads him over to the crib, neither able to resist the chance to check that their daughter was still just as perfect as she had been several hours ago, and with a stretch of his limbs Jake allows himself to be pulled away from the nursery, grabbing the baby monitor from the change table as he goes.  

Both are asleep again before their heads even hit the pillows, completely unfazed at missing the countdown.  This house, after all, was going to be filled with celebrations for so many years to come - whether their family expands or they stay as a unit of three - that a new year simply meant a new beginning.  The future was ripe with possibilities, and they couldn’t wait to see what was in store.  

[rivalsforlife]

For the fanfic ask: F, K, S, X, Y (whichever ones you feel like answering) <3 Love your work!

Alright, thank you!!

F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

oh no. Uhhh I’m probably going to think of something else like five seconds after posting it haha, but at the moment one of the dialogue scenes I really like is the dinner scene near the end of chapter 4 of The Catch-Up Game (linked here for easy reference). The... whole thing is pretty long and I like a lot of it, so I’ll just share a (relatively?) short snippet form it here:

“You did more than enough, Edgeworth,” Phoenix insisted. “If it weren’t for the Jurist System — founded upon your research — I would’ve never been able to clear up my scandal. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have gotten my badge back at all.”

“The badge wasn’t all there was to it.”

“... Maybe not,” Phoenix admitted. “It’s not like we can change that. And it’s not like I would’ve wanted you to do more. It was difficult enough to accept help as it was. Besides, you’re — you’re here now, aren’t you?”

“Phoenix,” said Edgeworth.

It’s not like it was unheard of for Edgeworth to say his first name. It just… happened so rarely, Phoenix could count on one hand the times he’s heard it since grade school. Only when it was just the two of them, never when they were in some sort of public place.

But… Phoenix really liked the way Edgeworth said his name. It wasn’t like he pronounced it differently, or anything. There was just a sense of hesitance to it, like it was something precious he was holding in his mouth, and speaking it too forcefully would cause it to shatter. His name was all soft syllables, in Edgeworth’s voice which rarely softened anything, and it made Phoenix feel like he fell back into deep water after he’d just regained his footing.

“So much has changed,” said Edgeworth. “Hasn’t it?”

“Mhm, tell me about it,” said Phoenix, sinking back into his chair, trying to stay afloat. “Maya’s the Master of her village, Pearls is looking into college, Apollo’s running his own firm while Athena’s taking on more cases by herself, Trucy’s off on tour… and you, Chief Prosecutor.” He let out a faint, self-deprecating laugh. “Meanwhile it feels like I’m stuck in place. Still the same attorney I was when I started out.”

“I don’t think that’s true, but even if it were, there’s nothing wrong with that, is there?” Edgeworth asked. “I hastened towards my position, as it was the best vantage point from which to eliminate corruption. I know I’ve made great changes. I don’t regret my choices, and wouldn’t choose differently, if I had the chance to do them over. But…” He gazed at Phoenix for a long time. “There are things I missed,” he continued, barely audible. “In some ways I’m still stuck, as well, and the thought of moving forward… terrifies me.”

“... I think I know what you mean.”

“Do you?”

Phoenix didn’t answer, lowering his gaze to where Edgeworth’s hand rested almost halfway across the table. If he wanted to, he could reach out to hold it. Broad hands that he would trust the world in. But he still didn’t know what it would feel like in his, or what expression would cross Edgeworth’s face if he had the courage to take it.

Edgeworth stared at him with an unreadable expression, almost curious. “Well, you don’t have to say anything,” he said. “What matters most is that I can be here with you now.”

“... Yeah,” said Phoenix. “I agree.”

One of the major difficulties I have in writing, especially writing dialogue, is being Even Remotely Subtle at any given point, because I am an extremely unsubtle person who does not pick up on social cues! This scene though, actually most of this chapter, has to sort of subtly set up the big event at the end of chapter 5, as well as make all of Phoenix’s motivations seem sort of plausible before he actually gives the explanation a little later. Reading it over it wasn’t actually very subtle but for me I think it was a huge step in the right direction haha. 

Mainly: Phoenix fears that Miles is going to leave him again, along with everyone else he loves in his life, since everyone is starting to move on ahead without him. He’s only just gotten Miles in his life in a semi-permanent way and is terrified of losing that. Miles, meanwhile, has been so focused on his career his whole life and is just now starting to realize the other aspects of life he’d been missing out on, namely developing his relationship with Phoenix, which he’s slowly starting to work up the courage to make a move on. And they’re both aware now that they love each other (even if Phoenix can’t fully admit it to himself yet), but scared to actually take that step forward, so they tiptoe around the subject even though they both know they’re discussing it... and end up taking wildly different conclusions away from the conversation as a result, which leads to the disaster at the end of chapter 5.

Also I just kind of like how pretty some of it managed to sound, somehow. The description of how Miles says Phoenix’s name is probably one of my favourite lines in the fic haha. Overall, I feel proud of myself any time I think I can pull off a dialogue scene where people don’t say what they mean haha.

K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with?

Hmm prooooobably the Iris Wright Ace Attorney AU which is the one where Phoenix ends up killed by Dahlia, and to atone, Iris helps put her in jail and then takes on Phoenix’s path as an attorney... which I haven’t really written much for yet, but talked about here a little while ago. 

It’s fun and angsty because Iris has to deal with a lot of guilt of pretty much being the downfall of the two people she cared about the most, but you’ve also got Miles, who has his realization that maybe what he’s doing isn’t great so much harder and faster because the realization comes with “when you ignored the truth, it set off a chain of events that caused the death of your childhood friend.” 

Phoenix and Miles don’t end up as close in this AU by virtue of Phoenix being dead before they even meet, but Miles learns Phoenix became an attorney to save him -- and was in the courthouse when he met Dahlia because he was studying to become an attorney -- and even though Miles hadn’t spoken to Phoenix in ages, he was still Miles’ first friend and someone he held dear to his heart all those years they were separate (which I do think is true in canon too, but seeing him as an opponent made that less apparent in AA1-Miles), so news of his death indirectly because of Miles hits him pretty badly.

I did write a fic about Miles responding to Phoenix’s letters in this AU during the events of JFA as a way of trying to work through his grief. I was going to post it during the AU day for narumitsu week this year but ended up not doing that since The Catch-Up Game was stressful enough for people haha.

... I can probably come up with angstier stuff if pressed but AA isn’t one of the fandoms I crave a lot of angst for. 

OH WAIT NO I looked through my fic ideas doc and saw one that’s basically a DL-6 But Worse AU where Miles dies instead of Gregory -- kind of like The Illusion of Control, which broke me, but plot-related stuff would probably be different. A key part is them somehow managing to solve DL-6 in seven years, so that there’s the thematic parallel of Gregory then taking in Franziska (and raising her well!)

(S I already answered here!)

X: A character you enjoy making suffer.

... Apparently Miles Edgeworth? I don’t necessarily like making him suffer, I just think that you can explore many interesting aspects of his character... through his suffering... and given my fics, he’s the one I make suffer the most, so. Does it count as making him suffer if it’s canon that did it first?

Y: A character you want to protect.

Mostly the kid characters who have suffered so much more than they deserve: namely, Pearl and Trucy. Especially Trucy at the moment considering the repulsive stuff people have been writing about her in the aa ao3 tag recently. 

[ziamhaze]

Hi, I hope you're well! I just want to start off by thanking you for all the wonderful fics you have blessed me with!

I just finished Red vs. Black and was hoping you wouldn't mind answering some questions I have. As someone who risks his own life to save others, how does Liam justify being with someone he knows has killed innocent people? It'd be one thing if Zayn had only killed those directly involved with what happened to his family, but he's killed innocent civilians over minor inconveniences (such as the teenagers in the convertible). Does Zayn still think he is justified in doing so? Does he ever feel guilty about it? If not, how would Liam and Zayn be compatible if their moral compasses are so different?

Also, did Zayn's father ever make his way to the UK? Or was that just a lie he told Zayn to comfort him? Does Zayn ever find his family, especially his younger sister?

I know it's a lot, but I'd really love to hear your answers if you want to give them! Again thank you for all of your wonderful works!

So sorry it’s taken me this long to reply, but I didn’t forget!

To start I’d like to thank you for clicking, and finishing, Red vs. Black.  It isn’t the shortest of fics, nor is it the most delicate - to put it lightly.  For the latter alone, thank you.

These are such poignant, important questions.  Ones that are nearly word for word what I asked myself while planning the ending.

                         SPOILERS FOR ALL OF RED VS. BLACK

1)  How does Liam stay with Zayn after learning of all his senseless killings?

Honestly, I questioned this the most when feeling out the concept.  As a fic writer it’s expected of me to write not only a romance, but also a happy ending.  Of course fics exist that do neither, but they’re very rare and not exactly well-loved.  And truthfully, a massive point that I wanted to get across - and which in effect answers this question - is that despite people’s pasts, they cannot overcome them without being given the opportunity.  100%.  No ands, ifs, or buts.  For a prisoner to assimilate back into society and not go back to their old ways, they need to be trusted with a job.  With a salary (no matter how small), they need to trust themselves to be able to not buy anything that may contribute to poor habits: drugs, alcohol, weapons, gambling, a means of transport that will give them the ability to visit bad influences (more of a psychological thing, but still).  A lot of prisoners are never given this opportunity (especially in the United States), and therefore fall back into their old ways, which are more often than not coping mechanisms to deal with the fact that they can’t fit into society as easily as privileged people to begin with; it’s a terrible cycle.  However, there are plenty of success stories of those that truly wish to change and are lucky enough to stumble upon an employer or mentor or sponsor of some sort that hands them an inkling of hope/trust that they use to fight their way back up.  The fic is fantasy, and while Zayn’s story is rooted in real world PTSD, I think the prisoner analogy is easy for us to envision and therefore, understand why Liam acts the way he does.  I also made it a point in the last scene when they’re talking things out to have Liam voice his contingency: if Zayn so much as spits at anyone, he’s done for.  That’s to say, he’s not wiping his slate clean just yet.

2)  Does Zayn still feel his useless killings were justified?

I’m going to answer assuming that you’re referring to the time after the fic ends.

Looking back at his actions is something that would be inevitable when he starts therapy, and this is a perfect example of one of the questions his therapist would ask.  You may not like my answer, but as an author I find it imperative that I speak of my characters realistically and to keep them true, not how I want them to act.  That said, yes, Zayn would still find justification in why he’s done what he’s done.

There are a few instances in the story where this is actually explained.  Take the scene in the bar with fancy mixologists.  Zayn begins to get aggravated over the people in the room simply because they’re ignorant to the feeling of significant pain.  There’s also the scene where he’s back home in Cheshire and Harry straight out tells him, he may be furious at the unfairness of the world, but he needs to learn how to come to terms with it.  It’s not going to change.  This right here is what a therapist would work with him to do, and also why I had Harry be the one to bring this up in the story - he is one.

I know it sounds incredibly foreign to the average person, but trust me when I say that people struggling with anger problems founded in (un)fairness, exist.  I’ve spoken with professionals about it.  Add on crippling childhood PTSD and a villain like Zayn can definitely be born.  It’s why treatment is needed, and why the answer is ‘yes’ in the beginning of Zayn’s journey to peace.  When his answer switches over to ‘no’, that’s when it’ll be outwardly apparent that he’s beating his ailment.  Unfortunately, for many, the inner battle with mental health is lifelong; the answer ‘no’ will never turn solid.

3)  Does Zayn feel guilty about the above?

Again, there are a couple times when I write Zayn to literally mention how he feels zero guilt.  However, if you really really pay attention you’ll notice that these instances aren’t villain related.

For example, meeting Liam’s parents:

After handing his father and Zayn each their tea, Liam looks between them suspiciously. "Leaving the two of you in a room together was a bad idea."

"Don't know what you're on about," Geoff replies innocently. "We were just talking about cars, weren't we Zayn?" Even with all eyes on him, the pressure of lying doesn't get to Zayn. It never does.

"Yeah," he agrees, bringing his drink up to his lips carefully, "cars."

Or, after Zayn walks out from the comedy club:

"It takes a lot of courage to get up there and do something like that, don't you think?"

"Not really."

Liam looks to the side, hoping that he can interpret more from Zayn's answers by seeing the expressions that go with their frankness. "So if I signed you up, you would do it?"

"Why would I want to make a room full of strangers laugh?" Zayn retorts, his right eye scrunching up in distaste, like it's a mannerism of his provoked by moronic questions. "I don't have a superiority complex." Liam thinks he might, but. "I know I'm better than those people, no mediocracy to cover up here."

So we’ve got those, but then we’ve also got this massive character point:

Right as the last of the snake's body emerges, Zayn snaps his fingers, triggering heavy hip-hop music to flow through his headphones and drown out the man's blood curdling cry.

If he could permanently damage people who deserved it, not always because they did something to Zayn, but because he liked to play god and throw them a massive curveball like life had done to him, then why shouldn't he? So long as he pulls his soundproof headphones off the little robot on the inside of his right arm to avoid listening to the pain his choice brutality caused, there's no valid reason he shouldn't take advantage of the gift he was given.

From where he's sitting, he probably won't be able to hear anything, but he fastens the equipment over his ears just in case.

All at once, the atmospheric sounds of central London, mixed with the terrified screams of those in the burning building beneath them, hit Zayn at full force. The sensory overload alone would normally be enough to piss him off, but tack on his protection from audible trauma being taken and being spoken to while in villain mode, and he's seeing red as deep as the pits of hell he knows he's destined for.

I wrote Zayn’s headphone usage as a way to alert that the reader that he does, in fact, feel villain-related guilt.  He can’t act on his anger without them on.  He’ll have his victims screams stuck in his head, and he’d never be able to handle that a.k.a. there’s zero satisfaction from their literal pain.  Think about that and it’ll answer your follow-up question.

4)  What happened to Zayn’s family?

Zayn’s father meant what he said - he’d do whatever he needed to reunite his family.  That wasn’t a falsity at all.  The problem is money.  And politics, but let’s start with the issue of money.  It took Yaser nine years to save up the amount he paid to have Zayn and Waliyha smuggled across the border.  The whole concept of smuggling is that it’s a cheaper option than the legal one.  So if we look at this, you can see how long it would take him to save for three adult visa fees, three adult plane tickets, and enough to stay afloat for a month or so when they get to England.  Now add in the politics of the early 2000s and the Afghanistan/Pakistan region.  We know that Yaser fixed air conditioners for a living.  No person with that average of a background is going to have an easy time immigrating anywhere.  Even so, would it really take him over 18 years?  While it’s plausible, perhaps a man with such determination would find another way.  Or...was that unnecessary because he was fed lies?

Think about it.  After several weeks and no word from his children, don’t you think he’d cause a riot?  He’s the type to drive over to Badar’s house and demand his relatives get in contact with him to find out what’s going on.  But, given the flashback Zayn has, it’s obvious that Badar never planned on accompanying any of the children to the UK, and if that’s the case, he clearly couldn’t return to Quetta.  I imagine a fully rehearsed story was told to all of the children’s parents about how they were killed somewhere along the way.

As for Waliyha, her whereabouts were told to my gang over on Patreon a while ago.  In short, yes, she’s still alive and I plan on pitching the book’s sequel to publishers as a graphic novel series revolved around her location.  Louis’ dark web bot finally found a hint as to where that might be, so Zayn and Liam go on a journey across Europe to find her.  Each issue would (probably) take place in a new city and involve both fighting a single bad guy.

Just a quick reminder to anyone who reads this, Red vs. Black and all involved characters are my intellectual property and cannot be replicated, manipulated, or stolen.

Again, thank you for your question and time!  I know my fics aren’t short and take a huge time commitment to finish.  If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to send them my way!  I’m super busy writing the next story and doing critical work, but I promise I’ll get around to it.