#i started this post because ''may it be'' came up on my playlist but now i think i'm going to start my nth rewatch of the trilogy | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

toruforuu · 10 days ago

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gojo satoru x reader || hogwarts au (18+)

wonderwall chp.8 wings of invisibility and uncertainty

✼pairing: hogwarts au - slytherin!gojo x ravenclaw!reader

✼summary: gojo satoru, the golden boy of a famous family lineage of wizards sets his sights on you, a half blood defying his pureblood morals. he makes it a goal in his life to make yours a living hell. years of endless pestering, teasing and rivalry stretching out. as times goes on, he finds himself thinking about you more than he isn’t. he grows torn between his family’s beliefs and the forbidden ache tickling his chest whenever he sees you

✼meaning: wonderwall - the person you cannot stop thinking about (song by oasis)

✼genre/tags: hogwarts au, female reader, strangers to enemies/sort of academic rivals to forbidden lovers, slow burn, angst, eventual smut, pining and yearning (mostly gojo), built up tension, teasing, bickering and pestering, jealousy, slightly spoiled gojo, obsessed and lovesick gojo, both are pretty oblivious to their feelings

✼warnings: discrimination, death, grief, shitty parents, light bullying, mentions of hook ups, sexual topics, family pressure and trauma, mentions of injuries and violence, degradation, mentions of political views, escalating political situation, lgbtq representation, cheating

✼word count: 13k

✼chapter: 8/?

a/n: was supposed to post yesterday, but i was too tired to edit so here it is now. it’s the longest chapter so far and it’s kinda angsty. lmaooo, hopefully you’ll enjoy it anyway. i was supper busy the past few weeks and i will be till the end of may, monday was also my last day of high-school. shit feels weird:d

based on this // previous chapter // next chapter (pending…)

˚⟡˖ ࣪: link to playlist

˚⟡˖ ࣪: link to vision-board

Hogwarts, the place of your comfort, was never really the same after you returned back from your two week spiralling. It wasn’t something which you took notice of immediately due to your overpowering grief, it was rather a slow process of picking out the changes in your routine. Your schedule became loose as you dropped out of the quidditch team, it cleared out — leaving you with a great amount of free time you always longed for. Months ago it’d sound like dream, however, that impression seems to have perished. Instead, it’s more like a spiteful nightmare. And there you were, drowning in your sorrows, and with so much time on your hands, you had no clue what to do with it nor with yourself. That’s precisely when you started to become aware of the changes in your environment.

A handful of professors were fired along with the headmaster, charged guilty in the same way he was.

For plotting against the government.

Nobody was hundred percent sure of where the evidence for their plotting came from, it remains a mystery till now. It left you curious, because what if the resignation of your mother was the first step towards the worse?

The change of staff was painfully noticeable, your favourites were amongst those who were forced to take their leave. So school work became a chore, rather than something you enjoyed. And with the work pilling up for your graduating, you found yourself falling into your old habits. Into the hole you had managed to dig yourself up from, it feels dehumanising.

And due to all the new rules and assets of the headmaster, it feels good to be send off for personally picked out internship.

You had obviously chosen a two week internship at the ministry, getting easy access to it because of your mother’s position. Perks you’ll miss. It was her idea to have you by her side though, seizing the last opportunity to walk you through what you will be applying for later on, before her term is definitively over and so is her dedication to the ministry.

Plus, you knew being with her would ease the stinging pain you carry with yourself.

With your mother’s resignation, a sense of calmness washed over the usually busy departments of the ministry.

There doesn’t need to be a process of electing anymore with your mother out of the game. The future Head Auror of Magical Enforcement is named already. The paperwork is done, hanging at each corner of the hallway like a painful reminder — printed in all newspapers, the information leaking quicker than spilled ink.

Sato Gojo is to take upon your mother’s place.

The second you were told, your world shattered. It makes sense the head of the Gojo family is up to take upon your-mother’s role, however, you can’t help to not feel betrayed. Gojo’s father always kept to his social circle, refusing to involve himself in politics and rather focus on his family.

So what drove to a shift in his behaviour?

There’s many questions to which you have no answer to, but it certainly doesn’t fail to wake your previous suspicions back to life. All of this simply looks like too much of a coincidence, and no matter how my times you open yourself up to your mother about it, she always finds a way to brush it off, or reassure you it’s all in your head.

Overall, the head of the Gojo family becoming an Auror working for the ministry pleased the conservative community. Bringing them a period of harmony and peace.

For how long before they’re hungry for more power is an unknown fact.

“You’re packing already, huh?” you call out, eyeing the boxes in the corner of your mother’s office. Some of them empty, some half filled up with stacks of folders and trinkets she gathered during her many terms.

“Yes, my love. My term ends in two weeks, I better get the stuff out of here now,” your mother chuckles calmly while she browses through one of her last stacks of forms she has to fill in.

“Can I see?” you carefully point at the cardboard, requesting permission to peak and see what’s inside.

She hums in response, which sparks a wave of joy. You’ve always been fond of her position, admiring her for her strength to withstand such pressures. It’s no easy job, and the fact she as a woman managed to win over countless others candidates left you feeling proud. Making her someone you looked up to since long before you got your letter of acceptance into Hogwarts.

Therefore, it’s no wonder to feel sad as you scan all of the boxes carrying her story.

You kneel before the stack of worn cardboard, the brownish sides of the boxes are labeled in your mother’s tidy handwriting. The air smells faintly of parchment, dust, and something oddly comforting. She only just resigned, and yet this already feels like an artefact of archaeology.

You open the top box and are greeted by layers of folded robes, the fabric scuffed at the edges. Beneath them lies a cracked leather notebook with marks at the corners. Inside it, her handwriting flows steadily across the pages like deliberate poetry. It’s full of case notes, sketches of spell patterns, details of hexes encountered in the field. And so much more, it grips you in amusement. Some bylines are even scattered with personal remarks.

“Don’t trust Proudfoot with back up again,”

“Found the locket. It’s burning stronger this time.”

In another box, you find photos. Some still moving, others faded. There’s one of her where she’s much younger. It must be way before she had you. Her wand is raised mid-battle, hair wild with wind and adrenaline. Her eyes are alive in a way you haven’t seen lately. Another photo shows her, and two colleagues clinking mugs in the Auror Office, grinning in the way people do when they’ve survived something that should have strip them of their life.

A smaller box at the bottom holds her wand cases, a broken Time-Turner and a tiny box with a picture of you. You appear to be around six, perhaps seven. A lock of your hair is attached to the back of it — labeled with your name and birthdate. There's a small scribbled note under it as well, barely readable as it seems to have vanished with passing time.

She carried your picture with her into battles.

You sit back, hands in your lap, surrounded by the cardboard boxes. It’s a strange thing, learning who your mother was through what she gathered over the years. This woman in the photos is one you rarely got to meet, and you silently wish you knew more of her, not just from the pictures.

A hero to society, yes. But also just a woman who wanted to get back to her family the most at the end of each day.

You lift another folder from the depths of the box, thinner and more delicate than the rest. It isn't labeled like the others, just sealed with a faded string tie. Inside, tucked carefully between pieces of parchment, are photographs. Not official ones like the rest, but personal. Private.

The first photo shows two girls in Hogwarts robes standing near the Black Lake, grinning madly as the wind whips at their hair and ruins their photo. You recognize your mother instantly. Her coloured hair is put together into a braid, the slight squint in her eyes radiates a warm atmosphere. Perhaps due to the fact you know it only occurs when she genuinely smiles. Something which you don’t see much of these days.

But it’s the girl beside her that makes you pause.

She’s luminous.

Her hair is gold — like actual sunlight, and her eyes are a vivid emerald green that gleams even in the aging photograph. Comparable to the depths of the Forbidden Forest. There’s a joy in her expression as well, like she was on the verge of laughter. She’s got an arm slung around your mother’s shoulders, wand tucked behind one ear.

You can’t help but question who’s the girl, and why you never heard of her.

You find more photographs of them together: the two of them studying in the common room, caught mid-laugh in the library. There’s even one of them dancing at what looks like the Yule Ball —your mother is in deep blue robes, the other girl in green silk, spinning with such jubilation it blurs the image.

Then you find a letter tucked into the sleeve of one of the albums. The parchment is soft with age, but the ink is crisp and still bold enough to read properly.

You sit with your back facing your mother, afraid she might snap these out of your sight if she sees.

And right now, you’re desperate to get to know the girl she has once been.

You look back at the girl in the photo, this “Y.” Whoever she was, she mattered. Not just to your mother’s school days, but maybe to who she became when she joined the ministry, when she became an Auror, when she became your mother and a wife to your father.

She must matter a great deal to your mother still, for she has kept her letter all these years.

You wonder where she is now.

You wonder if your mother ever contacted her again.

You return the letter from "Y." carefully to its sleeve, your fingers trembling slightly, not from fear but from the heavy tenderness of it all. They’re not your memories, but it doesn’t really matter. Nostalgia welcomes you with open arms anyway. The box has become more than a collection of artefacts — it’s a map of your mother’s life, kept in parchment and photographs.

Looking into the boxes makes you realise that you might never actually get to know your mother in a way you wish you could.

There must be other countless things which remain unsaid.

And will stay that way for evermore.

Near the bottom of the cardboard, under a stack of old Daily Prophets folded, you find another set of photographs. These are different — crisper, more static and completely motionless. Photographs taken in the human world. The magic may not move them, but they hum with a different kind of atmosphere.

Your father is in them.

He stands next to your mother in a bright, sun-washed park, one hand resting over hers on the handle of a stroller. Where you’re presumably hidden under a blanket. His smile is cracked open and unguarded, nothing like the haunted eyes of Aurors in postwar photos. Your mother’s hair is loose in this one, curling over her shoulders and her work attire is traded for a simple trench coat. There’s another of your father lifting your toddler self into the air, while your mother laughs beside him. There are numbers of others as well, dating back to before you were brought into the world.

You sit with those for a while. They make the quiet around you feel significantly louder. Hot and heavy tears prickle the corners of your eyes, streaming down your cheeks. You’re quick to wipe them away, one by one, however, they keep coming back for some strange reason. You swallow the sobs bubbling in your throat, not wanting to alarm your mother of your discovery.

You hide the pictures back into the bottom of the box, away from the world and your eyes.

For a moment you thought about informing your mother of what you’ve stumbled upon and then it hit you. Your father’s no longer amongst the living, and it rips your soul to pieces all over again. As if no time has actually passed, causing you to nearly choke on the sobs you desperately try to push back beneath the surface.

You recall Arabella’s saying, that the time will pass anyway. Trying to comfort yourself, but failing miserably.

You simply miss him. And you can’t phantom how your mother must feel, losing both her best friend and life long partner in one.

And then, as you try to gather the things back into the box, something else falls out.

A letter. Unsent.

The handwriting is your mother’s, unmistakably — sharp, hurried, always pressing forward like she couldn’t write fast enough to keep up with herself.

Somehow, it feels like you’re overstepping the boundaries of her privacy, but you can’t bring yourself to put these memories of her away.

You still sit on the floor with your legs crossed, the letter open in your lap. For a long while, the only sound is the soft ticking of the old clock on the table and the sound of your mother’s scribbling ink-pen. The pieces click into place. The fierce girl in green, perhaps a Slytherin. The woman your mother was. The deep and unfinished friendship she shared.

It all shaped her into the woman sitting at the desk right now.

“Mom, I know you’re strictly against sharing any sort of information with me, but do tell me why you resigned. The people need you more than ever now,” you dare to speak up after cleaning your throat, rotating your body towards her. Your cheeks still wet, fingers brushing the remains away with your sleeve.

“They’d eventually force me out of here one way or another. And it might seem I hold majority of the power here, nonetheless, it’s quite the opposite. Despite my position, I’d be powerless here. Due to the conservative’s power rising,” she explains.

She’s right, you know it. Though you wish she still fought more and didn’t give in as easily, you wanted her to at least try in the elections. Instead, she gave in. She cleared the way for them, gave them easy access.

“And then there’s the petition,” you furrow your brows with confusion, still resting at the floor.

“A petition? For what?” you question, not piecing it together.

“For my resignation, dear. Countless of people working for the ministry signed it, it’s the conservatives doing,” she informs you calmly, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the word and you’re just being dramatic.

“Why though? You’re incredible at your job,” you huff out, empathising the word incredible.

A long pause hangs in between you, your mother waits for you to come to a conclusion on your own.

“Right, dad,” you sigh out, a sting envelopes your chest as you recall the photographs kept in the boxes beside you. And the fact there’s enough hatred in the world to force your mother out of the office for such a stupid reason boils your blood.

“There’s other things involved, things I own,” she adds, her voice dropping a whole octave as her gaze remains focused on the folders. Her statement swirls a weird sensation within your stomach, an instinct begs you to persuade the topic, but you drop it. It’d do no good.

“Mom, if you ever need me, I’ll do anything,” you respond, supporting her instead of prying information out of her. You deem it to be better, given your situation.

“You’re sweet, but this isn’t your battle,” your mother chuckles warmly, lifting her gaze from the paperwork to look down at where you’re sitting — surrounded by cardboard.

“It is, it concerns me and my friends as well,” you plea, maintaining eye contact with her. Trying to be a shoulder for her to lean on once, just as she was always one for you.

“The one thing you should do now is to lay low,”

“Don’t we need to do something though? Stop the corruption, start before it’s too late?” your patience slips, casting out hopeless ideas to encourage the fire which once sparked in your mother, but now only lives in you.

“That’s the opposite of what we need right now, we will let them think they won and when the time’s right, we’ll strike,” she keeps on going with her idea of the situation, one which you’re not so fond of.

“Mom, I don’t know,” you object, looking to the side.

“Trust me, once you finish school, we’ll properly look into it, alright?” her voice isn’t pressuring, neither is her gaze. She’s truly simply trying her best to best to keep you safe and unscathed.

That only leaves you to give into her pleas.

“Okay, I’ll keep to myself,” you vow quietly, even though something’s telling you it’s not right.

Then another silence sets as she goes back to her paperwork.

Shortly after, knock cuts through the quiet lingering in the air like a misfired spell. You continue to sit cross-legged on the office floor, your hands resting on the boxes as you put everything back in place. The letter addressed to “Y.” once again lie at the bottom of the cardboard. Your mother sits by her desk, arms folded with eyes distant as she charms the papers away. She hasn’t said a word since your little promise.

The knock comes again. Three brushes of knuckles. Not urgent, but deliberate. Your mother doesn’t look at you. She doesn’t need to. You can sense the shift in her expression, the air around her goes still with tension. Her voice calls out loud enough for the other person to hear and move inside the office.

Soon enough, there’s three of you in the room.

The man entering is tall, easily over six feet, with a long and lean frame. He’s dressed in navy tailored suit. A black coat hangs open from his shoulders, lined with silk that catches the hallway light. His hair is a familiar shade of white — not the soft, aged kind. But the striking one, like freshly fallen snow on a chilly winter day. It's swept back loosely with gel, a few misbehaving strands falling across his forehead. His skin is pale, almost flawless in the dim light and his cheekbones cut sharp beneath the fall of his hair. You can feel the weight of his gaze, familiar pair of orbs staring down at your sitting form after acknowledging your mother.

He steps further inside before anyone says anything, while you watch him like someone staring at a ghost — the sight of the older man nearly makes you choke on your own saliva.

Your mother did briefly mention that Gojo’s father studied at Hogwarts around the same time as her, and if he was anything like his son — you felt sorry for her. You also stumbled across him multiple times in the newspapers, it’s possible you saw him at the train platform over the years too, and it’s simply been forgotten by you. Seeing him now though, in person, is completely something else. You didn’t expect their appearances to be as similar. It’s like your eyes are taking in the carbon copy of the younger version which pesters you in the castle.

“Ah, Sato. I’ve been expecting you,” your mother is fast to stand up, walking over to him to offer a handshake as a greeting gesture. You’re snapped back to reality and decide that getting on your feet is a better idea than lingering near the floor with such a honourable visit. Your hands brush away the dust from your trousers and then you straighten your back.

“M/N, always such a warm welcome from you,” Gojo’s father returns the offered handshake, adding a small charming smile out of politeness. The motion jabs at your ribs, the voice and the smile — it seems all too familiar. To the point where you wonder if you’re hallucinating.

“My wife will be here shortly, she has some errands to run,” he announces a second later as all three of you stand near the centre of the room, you inches behind your mother. And you swear you almost flinch, when the older man’s piercing blue eyes land on you. It’s a well known fact that those born into the Gojo family carry these extraordinary features, but seeing more than one member of the lineage in your life seems to knock the wind out of your lungs — wondering how it’s possible.

“And you must be Miss Y/N. I don’t believe we had the pleasure to meet officially,” the white haired man’s voice is honey like, welcoming you without any doubts as his hand reaches for yours. Waiting for you to take it. You swallow the lump building in your throat, the resemblance scaring and amusing you at the same time.

“No, sir. We haven’t, the pleasures all mine,” you of course mimic his gesture, lightly shaking his hand. You force out a smile, unsure of what else there’s to do.

“Ravenclaw, is it, young lady?” both of you retrieve your hands by the time he asks you the next question. It grabs you by surprise as you thought he’d simply sway the conversation back to your mother.

The gleam on older man’s face is undistinguishable, one you were convinced you’d see in no one else but his son.

“Indeed, it is,” you chuckle appropriately, nodding your head in agreement.

“Mhm, thought so, taking after your mother,” he responds with a hint of a laugh, sending shivers down your spine. Small part of you was convinced your Gojo the younger version of his father mentioned you, but then again, why would he?

“I presume that’s a compliment,” you hum, glancing at your mother who appears to be in the grasp of tension.

“You’d be right to think that,” Gojo’s father laughs louder this time, a hint of smirk decorating his lips.

And you thought they couldn’t be more alike.

“Y/N, dear, will you excuse us for a moment?” your mother’s voice breaks the trance you’ve been put to by your own wandering of mind.

“Of course,” is all you utter before you bid both of them a proper see you later kind of goodbye, closing the door shut after you.

You’ve been so baffled by the appearance of Gojo’s father, the resemblance he portrays to his son, to even question what it is that he went in there for. And his wife, the Slytherin’s mother, is on her way as well.

Strange.

What could possibly be of such importance for the both of them to come?

Surely, they aren’t here to pat your mother on the back for what a great job she has done.

Other things involved, things your mother owns — you debrief on your earlier conversation, the words settling in the pit of your stomach and creating a wrenching sensation.

You fully step out of your mother’s office, the weight of the conversation still clinging to your shoulders like a heavy burden. The hallway stretching out in front of you is its usual blend of dull marble. You move cautiously as you’re very aware of the fact you’re a mere intern — confident enough to walk without hesitating due to the badge pinned to your shirt, but aware of every polished shoe that echoes louder than it should.

Then, just as you round the corner past the auror division, you collide softly with someone. A breath, a scent like wild jasmine and clean peppermint — scent so expensive it leaves you breathless.

The woman you bumped into has golden hair, not blonde in the common way, but the color of sunlight reflecting against golden jewels. Her eyes stop you, leaving you cold. Green, like the forests in old paintings, full of calculations and surprises as she gazes back at you. There's something unnervingly excellent about her. The curve of her jaw, the tilt of her mouth. The paleness of her skin.

She’s ethereal looking.

It clicks slower than it should’ve.

You've seen her before.

In the photographs nestled in your mother’s boxes. The ones half-forgotten under folders of paperwork, labeled with a name that was no name at all. A nickname at best, perhaps a simple initial.

She smiles slowly and knowingly, as if she recognizes you too.

“An internship, young lady?” her voice is just as soft as you thought it to be, embroidered with a natural sweet tone — regardless of her sharp gaze and the suspicion in her practiced smile. Her appearance is meant to deceive. You sense your chest tightening as there’s something sorrowfully familiar to her as well. Not simply because of the pictures.

“Yes, an internship,” you breathe out unsteadily, like your breath got caught up somewhere on its way.

“I’m very sorry for bumping into you,” your apology is fast to follow as you regain your consciousness.

“I’ve seen you before, you’re in my son’s year if I’m not mistaken,” she chooses to discard your apology, focusing her energy elsewhere. Her expression is just as sweet, just as corrupted with a flash of cunningness. Her words connect your missing dots, the familiarities making sense now.

Right, she must be the wife.

You’re quick to recall your mother’s unsent letter as well — given who you married.

It all comes together like puzzle pieces, and you feel sort of stupid for not putting them together sooner.

“That would be correct,” you confirm her words, lightly nodding your head as you fidget with your fingers, unbeknownst to you. Her presence stirs nervousness within you, and the way her smile widens at your confirmation doesn’t seem to lighten it.

“You look quite awfully lot like your mother,” she hums, lost in deep thought as her globes survey your entire being.

“I get that a lot, thank you,”

“You have that kind of fire in you, I can tell,” she goes on, measuring you and ticking boxes in her head. You’re left unsure of what to do, whether to brush her off and get rid of the pit in your lower abdomen or engage in an interaction with her. To attempt at pulling some information out of her. But with that glint in her eyes, you doubt you’d be able.

Merlin’s beard, it’s as if she sees right through you and what you’re thinking.

That seems to run in their family.

“You know my mother?” you act as if you never heard of her, and you truly haven’t until today, only to see the shocked expression on her face.

It’s quick to flicker away.

“Briefly,” she slightly pouts, something which would go unnoticed by you if it weren’t for the letters and old photographs.

“Well, she’s inside with your husband. They’re waiting for you,” you look over your shoulder, eyeing out the office door you can barely see from around the corner. You offer her a kind smile, despite the fact she terrifies you.

“Thank you, have a nice day, dear,” her voice becomes even more delicate as she brushes past you, hand gently patting your shoulder In gratitude.

“You as well, Miss Gojo,” you manage to mumble out before she completely slips past you.

And what you don’t properly notice is the way she tilts her head to the side, sneaking one last look at you.

✼ •• ┈┈┈┈┈┈๑⋅⋯ ୨˚୧ ⋯⋅๑┈┈┈┈┈┈•• ✼

The greenhouse at Hogwarts in winter feels like a world apart from the cold stone corridors and snow-dusted grounds outside. The thick glass panels are frosted at the edges, softening the outlook winter gives. The patterns are delicate and detailed, unlike anything which could be drawn by hand. Inside, it's surprisingly humid and the air smells earthy. Warmth coming from the enchanted heaters mixes with the scent of soil and leaves. The atmosphere is strange, but nowhere near unpleasant — the magical plants rustle faintly on their own, their leaves twitch and bloom despite the season. Due to all the phenomenal spells of your Herbology professor.

You sit on a low bench near a row of puffapods, their pale purple buds pulsate with a gentle light. Your breath creates fog in the slight chill that still lingers, regardless of the heating, as you tap your fingers anxiously against your robes. The glass creaks faintly as wind blows into it. Every time a shadow passes outside, your heart jumps.

Is she finally coming?

When the door finally opens, the warmth rushes out in a wave, and Arabella steps inside. She pauses, taking in the humid haze to the contrast of the chilly weather outside. She’s enveloped in a thick blue scarf with white stripes and your house’s crest, her hands are set with gloves and a hat sits on top of her. All in the same colours. You’re actually looking the same, wrapped into thick layers of clothing that keep you safe from the creeping cold. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose is red, leaving you to wonder if your pink tint of rushing blood has passed already. And as Arabella’s eyes latch onto yours, the unspoken tension between you speaks louder. Even though it’s quiet enough to hear the subtle muffling of vines above your heads.

You don’t speak right away.

And neither does she.

When she does, her voice sounds smaller than you expected in the vast silence.

“I hate to do this given your… situation, but I’m afraid I have to. Did you tell anyone about me and Margaret?” the second she speaks out, it’s clear to you what this is about. This dates back to that godforsaken party you’ve managed to completely dissociate yourself from. Though she clearly didn’t, and you understand. The secret of her and Margaret’s relationship didn’t plague the school grounds, only selected ones accessed the information, but it’s fatal anyway. Most of the who know are Slytherins, which do shoot disgusted glances. It might have not ruined either of their reputation, nonetheless, their relationship on the other hand seems to be forever doomed. And you do feel somewhat responsible, for both not telling them upright to prepare them and for not correcting Gojo back at the world cup to avoid this miscalculation.

This is why you’re here, after all. To address the situation and put an end to the peculiar behaviour stretching in between you two.

All seems to have crumbled even more by the time you lost to gravity and fell off your broomstick, quitting quidditch.

“Of course not, I’d never do that to neither of you,” you utter, stomach twisting with guilt even though it’s not exactly a lie. But it’s definitely not the truth either. And seeing your best friend stand on the opposite side of the greenhouse, a table with plants separating you, creates an ache in your already hollow chest.

“I’m not entirely sure if I believe you, because Margaret’s brother knows about our relationship,” Arabella doesn’t let it go as easily as she usually would and she’s not to blame, you’d press for answers as well. Part of you wants to come out with the truth, but a bigger part of you is simply too terrified of the thought she could hate you for it.

For how you’ve left the situation to escalate.

“I figured, but it wasn’t me,” you remain seated, eyes glued to hers. Smiling lightly at how couple of her strawberry blonde locks poke out from under her hat, it’s a passing moment. The next second, you’re back to the guilt eating you from inside out.

“You promise?” she whispers, her words hanging above your head like a guillotine.

“I do,” the simple words taste bitter at the tip of your tongue as you speak them.

Outside, winter presses against the glass walls of the greenhouse. The sky is grey, smudged with heavy clouds. Some bare branches tap gently in the wind, ghosting over the greenhouse. Cold light filters through in weak gleams, throwing a gloomy atmosphere to your situation. The warmth in the greenhouse seems to have thinned, like it’s leaving too.

She stands across the table, her breath faintly caressing the air as she leans over the magical plants. They look tired too, their strange glows are dimming, their leaves are a little limp and their colours have dulled. Her hands move with kind and fragile grace, as if she’s going through the motions out of memory, mindlessly.

You don’t speak. You don’t move. You just watch her, this person you’ve known through every season and through all the years here at Hogwarts. And you can sense the distance between you like a blockage that wasn’t there before. The silence isn't gentle now. It lingers like the frost on the foggy windows. It’s heavy and cold, and you can feel it settling into the cracks.

You want to reach out, say something that will pull her back, keep her here. But she doesn’t look at you anymore. She just keeps tending the plants, like this is the last time, like she already knows where this is going.

And you just stand there now, rooted in place like the plants. Afraid that if you move, it will make it all that more real.

“Why have you been so distant, Arabella? I know I’m a wreck, but when we came back from the internships — you ditched me,” you suddenly gather last bits of courage to speak up, not wanting to risk losing her. So you try to communicate it, despite your own sense of heartache.

“It’s not like that, Y/N. You’re my best friend,” her voice is shaky and careful, but she doesn’t gaze up at you. Instead, she continues working and planting. Her tone brings you some sort of ease at least, it’s just as desperate as yours — indicating she doesn’t want to lose you either.

“Lately it doesn’t feel like it,” you voice what you’ve been thinking the whole time.

This makes her lift her eyes to meet yours.

“My head’s a mess too, believe it or not,” she objects, growing more defensive which isn’t at all where you were heading with the conversation.

“What’s bothering you? I’m still here to listen, even if it doesn’t seem like it,” you lean into the windowsill of the greenhouse, taking a second before talking further. This time your voice is softer as you offer, filled with concern. Hoping she’ll see how much she still matters to you.

Partially praying she feels the same way.

“That’s the trouble, I don’t know what or why I’m feeling the way I’m. It just feels like something’s missing and it’s hard to put into words,”

For the first time in a while, you feel like you’re finally acknowledging each other.

Seeing one another, bare and vulnerablez

“I think I understand,” you reassure, and you truly think you have it all figured out until she speaks up again, bringing more stirring conspiracies.

“It’s like there’s this haze clouding my mind ever since the headmaster-“ Arabella stops mid sentence, leaving you at a cliffhanger. Which earns her your blinking of puzzlement, mouth opening to encourage her to keep on with what she was about to say, but the sound of shoes crunching in the snow outside put your motions to a stop.

“Did you invite anyone else?”

“I might’ve told Margaret,” she whispers, nervous and smiling.

“Arabella!” you scold her quietly, reminding her of the fact this was supposed to be a two on two meeting.

Nonetheless, you can’t really be mad at her, can you now?

The greenhouse holds its breath and so do you as you impatiently await the arrival of Margaret. The faint rattle of the heater hums beneath the silence as you and your best friend stand, surrounded by the scent of soil and dirt. Your bodies are still, the warm blur of your intimate moment left behind. You’re close enough to feel each other’s presence, the unspoken suspended tension between you continues to tickle both.

Then, the door slams open like a gunshot.

A burst of icy wind punches through the space, scattering leaves and rattling the glass panels. The temperature drops. Snow swirls in behind Margaret’s frame. She stands in the doorway, silhouetted against the pale storm behind her. Her jaw is lightly clenched and her eyes burn with something unknown, while her chest rises and falls with depict-able fury. Her boots hit the floor hard, scattering melting snow around. The sound slices through the heavy stillness.

She storms forward, her presence cutting through the heat, dragging cold and chaos inside. The plants tremble on their stems along with you. Arabella draws in a soft breath, but doesn’t turn to face her past lover.

You feel Margaret’s anger before she even reaches you — it’s almost electric.

The quiet sacred moment is gone.

Now, it’s a battleground.

“Did you tell Gojo, Y/N?” she circles the point, straightforward. Not putting on any act to soften the blows.

“And don’t even try to lie your way out, my brother told me it was him who spoke of it,” Margaret cuts you off when she takes notice of your lips parting, ready to speak. Her actions shutting them closed again. From the look on her face and her attacking demeanour, it’s clear to you that you’re not walking out of here unscathed. She isn’t going to be as understanding as your redheaded best friend. Your palms become sweaty with anticipation as Margaret continues to burn holes through your figure, tapping her foot against the floor.

“No, listen,” you finally start, lifting your clothed hands in a defensive manner. Sadly, before you get to drag your point across, you’re abruptly put to a stop by the sound of her voice yet again.

“I want a straight and an honest answer,” she demands, your eyes briefly fleeting to Arabella who’s simply watching it unfold. Her gaze avoids yours when you sneak a glance her way, the motion causing a small flicker of pain.

“It’s worth more than just one word,” your voice is a calm contrast to the one of your friend’s beloved.

“Yes or no, it’s that simple,” Margaret doesn’t smooth down her antics, she does the exact opposite. Her words growing more threatening and harsh, on the verge of unleashing an avalanche you might get seriously caught up in.

“I didn’t, he figured on his own,” you admit after a haze of silence, your brows twitching along with the frantic beating of your heart.

This isn’t going to be easy. Telling the truth never is.

“Look, it was at the world cup. While you two were inside the tent, he kind of stumbled my way and he said he noticed,” you remain assertive, which sparks more anger in the Slytherin girl. One whom used to share laughs with you not so long ago.

“And it didn’t tick you to lie?” her sarcastic laugh coming along with her words cuts through you, causing your own irritation to build up.

“He promised he wouldn’t tell,” you respond slowly, eyes flickering between the two of them.

You don’t know why, but you thought Arabella would take your side. At the same time, this must be new information for her, so perhaps she’s learning how to hate you instead.

“And you believed that, could you be more naive? You out of all people should know what he’s capable of. He’s a Gojo,” she raises her voice, half yelling at you. Her labels of you waking up the crackling fire of anger within your chest, matching her own. The rotation of the white haired wizard in this conversation irks you, so much it drives you wild.

“I don’t need for you to remind me, Margaret. And he didn’t blow your cover on purpose, that’s what this is about,” you try to clear out the confusion, because there seems to be a misunderstanding involving her fellow Slytherin starlet.

“Oh, I think you do, because to me, it feels like you’re defending him,”

It’s a jarring moment. And it hits harder than you expect. Not because it’s utterly wrong, but because it might not be. Because deep down, there’s a sliver of truth in it you don’t want to acknowledge. Your instinct is to deflect, maybe even lash out. You tell yourself you’re just being fair. Using logic and objective thinking — anything but sympathising with him. However, it lingers. That uneasy awareness that you’ve might have stated something unnecessary and unrelated. It bothers you, so you double down to convince her and yourself as well.

“Then you clearly must be blind. I don’t know who here ghosted their friends and girlfriend,” you sent a hurtful arrow straight at her, launching with the intention to cause harm.

“Let it go, both of you,” Arabella steps in between you, waving her hands in a desperate attempt to pull you from each other’s necks.

“I was about to tell you all of the things that happened,” you add, looking at Arabella who’s shielding Margaret first. You depict the disappointment in her gaze, along with the hint of understanding.

“Yet you didn’t,” Margaret bites back, pushing past your friend’s body to face you fully.

This makes the swirl of emotions hanging on a thin rope snap, letting them loose.

“Well sorry that I was too busy with my father dying,” the loud declaration seems to put a stop to the whole shift of the planet, silence drumming through the greenhouse — Margaret’s anger easing up.

“Y/N,” is what breaks the silence.

A call out of your name, doused with empathy.

“Don’t Y/N me. What you did was unfair as well, I’m not saying I don’t understand, but you didn’t see the way you hurt all four of us. The way you hurt Arabella,” you continue to shoot, kicking and throwing hands in response to her previous aggression. Your words seem to hit a nerve, regret fleeting past her expression for a fraction of a moment. Meanwhile Arabella steps away, looking to the side.

It makes you feel good.

“What about your brother knowing is so bad if you’re not together anymore anyway? It’s not like he’d go against his own blood,” you go on with your attacks, knowing exactly which words to let out into the open to cut her open.

“This is a low blow, Y/N,” she manages barely, holding her emotions at bay.

“Whatever you did before was just as bad, if not worse,” is the last thing you voice out before you storm in the direction of the door.

You slam the greenhouse door open with a sharp crack, rattling the frame as you burst through it. Behind you, voices still echo — calling out your name in raised voices. The sounds familiar but suddenly distant. You don’t care what they have to say now. The fight had already sunk its teeth too deep.

The moment you step outside, winter hits you like a slap. Frigid cold slicing through the lingering warmth clinging to your robes. Snow drifts down in lazy spirals from the sky, settling in your hair and on your shoulders. The castle looms far ahead of you, dark stones blurred behind the falling duvet of snow, but you don’t head that way at first. You just walk, fast and without a picked out direction — needing distance more than shelter.

The snow crunches under your feet as your boots sink into it with each step. Your chest burns, not from the cold, but from the fight which had just occurred. Every word still rings in your mind, every look of betrayal carved into your memory. Your hands are clenched, nails digging into the flesh of your palms. The only thing grounding you as you head into the unknown, the falling snow disorienting you.

The anger begins to falter.

It always comes like this. Hot at first. Consuming your whole being and forcing you to channel it out, and then suddenly, you become cold. Hollow.

Your footsteps slow down. The fire behind your ribs hesitantly dying out, leaving behind a quiet ache, as if your body experiences something your heart hasn’t caught up to yet. The wind picks up, tugging at your robes, curling around you like another presence — making your now soaked hair a mess.

You stop near the edge of the lake, where the ice stretches out like cracked glass. The world around you is utterly still, the kind of silence that only comes with snow. No footsteps rushing after you. No voices calling your name. Just the soft hush of snow falling and the raw throb of emotion you can’t outrun no matter what you do.

Your shoulders shake with the upcoming tears that come without permission. They well up your eyes. Warm and blinding, streaming silently and staining your cheeks. You hug yourself with your arms, the snow soaking through the fabric of your robes as you stand in the eye of the snow storm. The whiteness in the air bites at your cheeks, numbing them as you spill your overwhelming emotions.

Your fury melts into something far more fragile. The kind of pain that doesn't roar, but lingers.

Needing to be felt.

And it’s not just the fight weighing you down, it’s all at once.

✼ •• ┈┈┈┈┈┈๑⋅⋯ ୨˚୧ ⋯⋅๑┈┈┈┈┈┈•• ✼

The castle is quieter than you’ve heard in a while. It’s right before curfew, and the air in the corridors is heavy, almost syrupy with stillness. You push open the great oak doors of the Hogwarts library, the scent of parchment and ink pushing through your nose for the last time. Your eyes are incredibly heavy with hours of studying for your upcoming graduation exams. Centuries of history still echoing faintly in your head, laced with a dry tone of Professor Binns’ lecture while your consciousness drifts.

You walk with slow, lazy steps — too tired to focus, barely aware of where your feet are taking you. Still too aware of the fight you experienced yesterday evening, the wound raw. Head filled with arguments you could’ve used instead, or the reason behind of Arabella’s behaviour. The sentence she didn’t get to finish. The dim candlelight lines the walls, their flames low and flickering. The halls stretch endlessly in both directions, twisted and familiar, even in the lucent light.

You distantly think to yourself that you must’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere near the staircase in spite of the exhaustion, because you’re out of your usual path.

You take a turn around the corner and pause.

Where there was only bare wall a moment ago, now stands a larger door. It’s tall, framed with a wooden arch. The wood is aged, not as polished. An odd feeling stirs within your insides, for a moment you consider if this is a mere dream or if your mind is playing tricks on you. However, it’s like the hallway itself is holding its breath with you. You notice carvings embroidering the doorframe, shifting ever so slightly as you stare, never settling on one shape. You recognize some of the symbols from your studies — protection symbols, things old and powerful.

You didn’t summon it.

At least, you don’t think you did.

Though something buried in the depths of your being feels drawn towards it. You reach out, fingers grazing the cool metallic handle. The moment you come to contact with it, the door creaks open with a soft whisper, like a sigh escaping into the night. Your breathing hitches with doubt, wand ready at your side as you try to make out a reasonable explanation to this.

It might be The Room Of Requirement which appears when a student is in need pf something — the room providing whatever is fit for the situation.

Why you, out of all people?

The chamber beyond radiates warmth, and is inviting, nearly comforting. The stone floor is gone, replaced by soft rugs that would muffle your footsteps. Cushioned chairs sit in a half-circle around a low crackling fire. The shelves are filled with books. You have to blink to adjust your vision, to convince yourself what you’re seeing is true.

Before you allow yourself to step inside, the heavy entrance falls shut and the wooden door melts back into a stone wall. You stare at the wall with confusion for a few moments, completely baffled by the gesture. Until something alters the air. It’s subtle at first. A sudden gust of breeze that seems to come from nowhere, causing goosebumps to appear all over your body. You straighten, the hairs on the back of your neck rising.

You’re alone when you rotate your body to glance at the laid out hallway, or well not quite. The atmosphere casts a strange glow. The surroundings appear to be heavier and much colder, while your head turns slowly, listening to the looming silence — gut screaming that something’s up.

“Who’s there?” you whisper out, more quietly than you anticipated as your breathing catches in your throat, wave of conspiracy seizing you.

You’re met with no answer, despite your acknowledgment of the gnarling sensation. You begin to consider yourself paranoid.

Just as you’re about to shake everything off, a sound echoes through the space, which puts you back in your spot, freezing you.

“I know someone’s there,” you voice out, loudly this time and with more confidence. You’re prepared to be met with yet another ripple of nothingness. However, you’re mistaken. As the sound of your voice jumps from wall to wall, a mop of white locks emerges from nowhere. Spilling into space, moulding from emptiness. Your jaw hangs ajar at the image, you see Gojo Satoru’s head floating in the air with no other body parts.

No limbs, no torso.

Just his head.

“Caught me redhanded,” he spills out meanwhile snickering, as if this was a normal situation to be caught up in, though his ways don’t really surprise you any longer. Knowing him for as long as you do, it’s not shocking news he’d lower himself to this level. He’s fast to strip himself of the invisibility shielding him, revealing his grand trick to be a piece of clothing.

So that must be what provided him with invisibility.

You wonder how many times he might have lurked along without your knowledge. Hell, he could’ve done anything with that cloak of his. The memory of the conversation you overheard at the party weeks back in time comes flooding back to you, laced with bitting suspicion.

Could this cloak be a part of their plan?

“Were you sneaking up on me?” you place your palm on the swell of your hip, demanding a clear response as you suspiciously look him up and down. A dark burgundy fabric set with tiny constellations and starts resting in his grip.

“I wouldn’t necessarily call it sneaking,” his eyes roll in a playful manner, careless, which isn’t uncommon for him.

“Don’t you know it’s sort of – I don’t know – creepy?” you point out, turning the corners of your lips downward. Pouting faintly at his smugness while you try to piece together the information, thinking of all the times he could’ve been there. And you wouldn’t know.

At least your friend’s accusations of your crazy behaviour weren’t true — you did capture his white hair in the hallway late at night countless of times.

He was there.

“If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t know you were here, so relax,”

“Right, as if that changes anything,” you scoff, your mind racing with conspiracies.

“Were you expecting someone else?” you decide to prob, his expression growing more serious. However, you don’t entirely trust it, nor him.

“Doesn’t concern you,” he objects before you eye him one more time, and with that you turn on your heel — leaving him hanging without any further notice. Though a sense tugs at your heartstrings, an urge to speak out the ideas turmoiling in your mind.

With his cloak, you could slip into the headmaster’s office without being spotted and turn it inside out. Who knows what sort of information you could get your hands on. Perhaps it’d be able to explain Arabella’s strange behaviour, as well as her zoning out. She did mention the headmaster. But for that to happen, you’d have to bite down your pride and ask the Slytherin for his help. You tighten your fist, innerly debating if it’s worth it to you.

“Gojo?” you call out, a tryout — just in case he’s not on his way or draped in his invisibility already.

“Mhmm?” and he isn’t.

“I could use your help,” you breathe out, soft and laced with surrender — wholeheartedly prepared for his acts, and the possibility of being rejected.

“My, I thought I wouldn’t live long enough to see you asking me for help,” his voice seeps out with pure satisfaction, his tone scraping your nerves and skyrocketing your blood pressure. And as you finally turn to face him, his arrogant grin doesn’t ease you.

You decide to bear it instead of lashing out.

“I just need to borrow whatever you’re holding,” your hand points to the cloak thrown over his forearm, eyes scanning it.

“My invisibility cloak? Are you up for some mischief?” his palm slides over to his chest and your gaze follows, watching as his long digits spread across his robes.

As if he’s proud you’re suggesting something so forbidden.

“If so, I certainly am interested,” he adds, nodding his head.

“It doesn’t concern you,” you reply with the same indifference, giving him taste of his own medicine. Which he doesn’t seem be fond of, because the corners of his lips turn into a frown and his brows furrow lightly.

“No cloak for you then,” he huffs, turning his head to the side, keeping his nose high up.

Prideful bastard.

“Seriously?” your voice is full of disbelief while you absorb his words, thinking he surely must be joking.

“Seriously,” he repeats firmly, lips pouting. Eyes half-lidded.

Your blood boils at the action of his behaviour, however, you’re well aware you need his cloak for your plotting to work out. And if you share one simple information, he won’t be able to use it against you. As long as he isn’t aware of all the circumstances, he wouldn’t be able to turn you in, because at the end of the day it’d be his cloak you’d be wearing.

And you’re hundred percent sure things like these aren’t allowed on the school grounds.

“Fine,” you state, resisting the urge to roll your eyes at his pretentious antics, “I need to break into the headmaster’s office,”

As soon as those words fly out your mouth, his smirk is quick to return. And you mentally prepare for another set of his picking.

You remind yourself it’s for the greater good.

“And here I was thinking you’re too goody shoes to even consider such a thing,” the white haired menace teases and you loathe it, beyond explanation. Especially the way he’s slightly hinting at your label of the Head girl. It drives you insane, so much you wonder if what lies in the office is even that important, but you refuse to back down from the conversation now that you’ve actually asked. Though it’s safe to say if nothing new awaits you in there, you’ll be irritated for going such lengths to figure no information out.

“Will you lend me the cloak or not, Gojo?” you demand, not pacing around it and getting straight to the topic.

“Under what condition,” he lifts his point finger in the air, holding it in front of you as he drags his words out — painfully slow.

“Name it,” you declare, pushing down the need to snap.

“I’m coming too,” he cheekily announces, smiling from ear to ear.

It seems to knock the wind out of your sails again.

“What? Absolutely not,” you laugh out, shaking your head in both disagreement and shock at his audacity.

“Shame for you,” he shrugs, waving the cloak in your face to rile you up even more.

And it certainly seems to work on you.

Your heart drums against your ribs, anticipation flows through your veins like a drug intoxicating you. Your inner strength fails to withstand its demand as the need for a douse of what lies within the stone walls of the office devours you. No price seems big enough to not be paid, and you instantly scold yourself for even thinking about submitting to his condition. You take in deep breaths, staring at the young wizard in front you who’s quietly watching you back — not saying anything and waiting, because he can tell from the look on your face that you’re considering his offer.

Oh, you’re so going to regret this later on.

“Alright, alright, I’ll let you come,” you finally exhale, the action takes a lot of effort as there’s nothing you despise more than relying on him out of all people. And shamefully, you find yourself in these types of situations with him quite often.

More than you’d like.

You’re not met with an answer, only a chuckle, which speaks more than anything else at the moment.

Knew you would cave, that’s what it sounds like to you.

Gojo proceeds to spread out the cloak, throwing it over his broad shoulders and leaves his arm stretched out — inviting you to join him. In that moment you realise what you’ve truly gotten yourself into.

“What do you need in the office anyway?” he questions curiously, keeping his globes — the colour of water depths — intently peeled on your frame, which is closing the distance between you. It doesn’t slip your attention, and neither does the way they glow in the dark, the light of the moon casts reflections that are similar to sea foam in his dangerously iridescent eyes.

“Something of Arabella’s,” you mumble and it’s not entirely the truth, though it’s more than he deserves to know and you figured it’d speed things up if you’re somewhat co-working. Your body slides next to his, tucked safely under the blanket granting a power you never knew you needed. His fingers brush against yours as he hands you the end of the cloak for you to hold.

“Sure,” he hums, and you know he doesn’t completely trust you either.

The castle is a maze of silence by this hour. It’s little past curfew, past the hour when even the portraits begin to drift off to sleep. The walls are with no shadow of your reflection as you pass, the floor groaning ever so lightly beneath your careful steps. Each of them feels like small earthquakes due to your overconsuming anxiety. You know no one can see, yet it’s still there.

But that’s only your mind playing tricks on you, you’re safe beneath the thin layer of the cloak that provides you with an advantage.

There's barely any room for the two of beneath it as you clumsily walk, so close that your bodies are practically fitted together. Every shift, every breath, every brush of cloth or skin is shared between you. The closeness is unavoidable. Hip gently pressing into the length of his body, arm brushing against his as you motion forward. His shoulder bumping yours every few steps, but neither of you mention it to one another. It’s intimate and impossible to fight as there’s no space to distance yourself. And even though you know he feels your warmth and breathes the same air, he remains indifferent.

The silence between you is charged with everything that hasn’t been said and everything that perhaps never should be. You shouldn’t be doing this. You shouldn’t even be here, shouldn’t be risking getting yourself expelled.

Nonetheless, here you are. Together. Covered by a cloak that hides you from everyone sights, but not from each other.

Your mind throws non audible insults your way, wondering how you managed to wind yourself up with him once more, when you exactly know what kind of a person he is.

A pretentious jerk who seems to find you annoying just much as you find him.

It’s all worth it in the end if it’s for your best friend, right?

His scent envelopes your senses — something which you’re weirdly familiar with, something that unmistakably screams him — and with every step toward the Headmaster’s office, it becomes harder to focus on why you're going there in the first place. His hand brushes past yours again, this time it lingering for half a heartbeat too long. Your heart rings in your ears, thudding against your ribs like it’s trying to be heard by him, while your senses are clouded with his proximity. You’re not sure if he can feel it, but it wouldn’t surprise you. That’s how close you are.

A stair creaks beneath your feet, urging you to both freeze, instinctively holding your breath. You notice his chest rising and falling back in its place before he leans in, whispering something barely audible

“Left, quickly,” his breath hits your ear, warm and deliberate, sending a shiver down your spine.

You move together, carefully and silently. Your movements seem to be more in synchrony now than when you marched forward for the first step, like dancers who’ve done this before countless of times.

Both of you are okay with taking a risk involving this sort of adrenaline, nonetheless, your closeness is alien. The feeling of being wrapped up in a piece of magic fabric with him, just on the edge of doing something wrong is unlike anything.

And as you near the stone spiral staircase that leads to the Headmaster’s office, your mind should be on the goal, the reason you’re sneaking through the halls. But all you can think about is the weight of his body pressed along yours, the way your knees crash when you pause at the top of the stairs, the way the cloak drapes around you — protecting you like a sacred mystery.

You’re almost there now, part of you can’t wait to arrive. Can’t wait to break the spell thrown at you, can’t wait to forget how the press of his body feels against yours. It’s a forbidden action to be so near him without anyone else’s presence, by you and everyone else due to your backgrounds and oh so many other things.

And tucked under the cloak, hidden from the world, you dare to hope he’s thinking the same thing.

“I’ll take the watch, you do whatever you need inside,” the white haired wizard declares with ease, his breathing a little heavier because of the stairs you had just climbed. You shoot to look up at him, nodding your head in confirmation.

Then you slip from the embrace of the cloak, feeling vulnerable. And when you look over your shoulder, you’re met with a simple image of the stairs. You know he’s still there, at least you hope he’s, nevertheless — it leaves you crippling with adrenaline.

You focus what’s ahead of you, meanwhile the pounding of your primer organ swallows you, it seems like there’s a second heartbeat in your chest as you face the door of the headmaster’s office made out of dark oak. There lies a little nameplate with letters carved into it, in bold letters. Your fingers eagerly raise your wand into the air, prepared to charm your way inside.

“Alohomora,” you faintly mumble, the tip of your wand sparkling with a ripple of silver light. The sound of it is sharp and heavy, meaning the lock gave away smoother than you had expected it’d. You hesitate then, it’s almost too easy.

With taking a last glance at the corridor, you push the door open just enough to sneak inside without letting it scrape. The air inside is dry, the kind that settles in rooms filled with too many books. It smells of old parchment, candle wax, and some burnt herbs. Arabella could surely decipher which herbs, a thought crosses your mind amidst your entrance. You quietly shut the door behind you with a soft thud.

Bookshelves tower along the walls, some overstuffed with dusty grimoires and overused scrolls, others perfectly organised — magical theory, forbidden transfigurations, ancient bloodlines and spells. Sorts of books you don’t get your hands on everyday, but that’s not why you’re here. Behind the desk stands an average sized cabinet of drawers, some hazily hanging half opened. And lastly, a wide desk dominates the center of the room — its surface a battlefield of papers, crystal vials, and half-burned candles.

You trace around the desk quietly, fingers grazing the surface as you search. Notes are scribbled in an unfamiliar handwriting, covered by opened books. Maps of the school grounds lay spread out, marked with strange, shifting ink. You can’t tell what it is for, so your gaze shifts directions, catching something out of place. A sheet of parchment half-buried under a pile of herbology formulas. You slid it free, mapping out the deep crimson wax its sealed in with your fingers. It’s stamped with a sigil you don’t recognise. Its curved lines form a circle, a serpent wrapped around a stylized eye. Not the school crest. Something remotely similar to Death Eaters.

Could it be Gojo’s family crest?

You examine the letter in all possible angles, cursing under your breath, because it’s still sealed and there’s no way you can just rip it open without anyone taking action. With frustrating blooming in your core, you place it where it was. Forcing yourself to browse further, even though seeing the crest already filled you with enough of worries.

We have a plan to follow, Robin’s words play in head once more.

A plan for what?

Your eyes sweep the room again, this time with organisation — steps leading you towards the tall bookshelves that lem the office walls. Looking for any irregularities. Most of the spines reveal expected titles of standard magical texts of history, but one stands out more than the others. A thin book with no title, kept between two enormous grimoires. It slides out due to your force and one flip through the book is enough to figure the pages are blank. Your nostrils are attacked with a sharp tinging.

It’s enchanted.

You tuck it under your arm with care and head back toward the average sized cabinet which is planted with rows of locked drawers. A soft whisper is all it takes to preform the unlocking charm once more, forcing the highest drawer open. This one resisted at first, but it eventually opened with a reluctant sigh.

Inside are documents sorted into neat folders, each labeled with a name. Some you recognise — professors, students, even a few graduates working for the ministry. Handful of the names are marked with a red underlining. You pick these out, browsing throughout them to look for any clues. It wasn’t hard to put together their similarities, all the students come from a muggle family. One of the names decorated with the red underlining belongs to Arabella.

Your heart sinks at the sight, not sure why as there’s no real reason to worry yet.

You flip it open, and the first page instantly has you in a chokehold.

“Caught near The Astronomy tower. First abomination. Memory charm applied to witnesses."

Something is happening at this school and whatever it is, the headmaster is not just aware of it. He’s involved in it. You swallow hard, frantically skimming over the bylines on other pages with your wand in hand — casting a bright light, but there’s no more trace of what occurred.

“Someone’s coming, hurry,” a warming comes from the direction of the door, Gojo’s hushed voice snapping you back to reality.

Panic seeps over you, choking you and pushing you to fly to your feet and close the drawer with all the folders, quickly mumbling a spell to lock it. The thin book tucked under your arm is a painful reminder that you’re nowhere near the finish of your investigation. You’re not stupid enough to keep it, steal it with you. So you place it back between the thick grimoires at the top shelf.

Your wide eyed gaze flickers in between the strange map and Gojo’s figure poking out of the cloak as he holds it high in the air, welcoming you to join him.

Conflict boils within you, take it? Don’t take it?

You can’t wait any longer as the footsteps coming down the stairs dangerously take upon volume, so you swiftly grab it and proceed it to slide into the waistband of your uniform while the Slytherin watches — growing with fear he’ll never let bubble to the surface.

Your mother must be turning in her sleep, because this certainly isn’t what she meant by keeping a low profile.

Both of you now stand by the doorway, wrapped in the protective layer and pressed close against each other’s side. The situation barely under your control.

The two of stand frozen, afraid to let the door fall closed.

You can feel his heartbeat, pounding in rhythm with yours. The gesture soothing you, knowing you’re not the only one affected by this.

“Flinch,” you mouth under the safety of the cloak, judging by the additional four legs tapping against the stairs.

Gojo’s the one to close the door with silent precision, charming the door to lock — you note he works calm, regardless of the pressuring nature of the situation.

The first sliver of lantern light spills from the stairs leading upwards. And you don’t look back as the two of you rush down the other direction. Not a full sprint, not with Flinch so close. Your feet nearly step on the cloak several times, almost tripping. That’s probably why your footsteps echo too much through the staircase. You wince silently with every step, sensing just how loud the two of you are in such a hurry.

Meanwhile behind you, Flinch's muttering turns sharper and more audible.

“Who's there?” he barks out, overflowing with suspicious.

“I heard you,” his raspy voice is followed by a scratching meow of his cat.

As soon as you reach the bottom of the stairs, you head left — pulling your partner in crime with you. Ducking down a narrow corridor which rests off the main hall. It’s one of the older, less-patrolled routes.

“Quick,” you hiss under your breath, the white haired wizard barely making your words out.

You grab his hand out of habit, mindlessly dragging him along with you. And together, you stumble through the side passage, turning randomly at each split hallway. Each turn feels too loud, every breath too sharp. You can basically sense Flinch being not far behind, you hear the wheezing effort of him moving faster than he’s fit for. You round the last corner and threw yourself against a wall — your bodies latching onto to it like lizards, gripping for dear life.

Footsteps close the distance between you, passing by your invisible frames just as quickly.

Flinch grunts while his lantern sways in the air. And then he moves on.

Silence.

Your limbs shake with adrenaline, letting go of his hand without any further up-due. And finally, it feels like you’re able to breathe freely again. The Slytherin looks at you from the corner of his eyes, which are wide. The fabric of the cloak shifts and creates a shimmer shared only between the two of you.

“That,” you whisper “was too close,”

“It was rather fun,” he jokes, breathing out heavily as if in relief. The gesture doesn’t rile you up, instead, you find it amusingly refreshing after what you’ve been through together. Huff of your laugh pierces the loud silence, taking him by a surprise as this is your way of actually agreeing with him on something.

It’s definitely the adrenaline talking out of you.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” the Slytherin draws out, and you’re certain he saw you showing the unknown map into your uniform. You feel it pressed against your skin, the material made you uncomfortable throughout your escape.

“Mostly, yeah,” you confirm, not thinking much about it and simply resting with back leaned into the wall.

You barely register the motion of his movement before he’s right in front of you, close.

Too close.

His hand comes up, resting itself firmly against the wall just beside your head. His fingers splay wide, veins visible beneath the fair shade of his skin. A second later, his other hand joins the other one on the opposite side — locking you in. Your mind ceases to function, the unexpected unfolding situation brings you shock. Not sure whether to push him away or to let it happen.

Your back presses into the wall even further, and you can feel the coolness of it chilling you through your robes. It anchors you in place while his body, just inches from yours, radiates a heat that prickles across your skin. Every breath you take feels shorter, more shallow.

Gojo’s face is close now, close enough that you can count his lashes if you dared to look long enough. His breath ghosts over the swell of your cheek, landing where it sends a racing shiver down your spine. You can’t move — not because of his proximity, but because his presence is so magnetising — it’s as if the very air around you bends to his will.

And his orbs are the worst of all, piercing and merciless. Seeing past your set up walls of protection, leaving you bare under his vision which is the last thing you need him to do.

“You felt it too, didn’t you?” is all he brings himself to speak out loud, baffling you even more as your eyes don’t know where to stop first. At how his strands of hair curl upward — resting near his sides, at how the bridge of his nose beams with the reflection of the moonlight. Or at the way his lashes kiss his cheeks each time he blinks. Perhaps at the slight twitch of his eyebrows due to his fleeting gaze, or at his lips. The way they’re parted while he stares down at you, his tongue sweeping over the bottom part.

So many options, so little time.

“At the party,” he mumbles gently to add precision, which is a rare sight. But you don’t appreciate the subtle reminder of the night, the last night where all felt like it should. Nonetheless, you phantom far too quickly what he means. It’s not something you could easily forget, no matter of your current life could wash away the pit of swirling emotions he caused to rise to life at the party.

And it hits you, this is the boy who swore to make your life a living hell. The one whom your friends loathe. Most of all, he has a girlfriend too.

Just exactly what are you letting him do?

Why?

And suddenly, while waiting for you to speak up, he puts his finger to his lips — signalling for you to be quiet.

A second later you understand what it means.

Flinch strolls the corridor again, your eyes following his movement. Gojo’s alerted frame blocking your full view. As your eyes follow Flinch walking right past you, you meet his iridescent globes which don’t leap away from yours.

“I’ll walk you to your dorm,” he mumbles under his nose when Flinch is at a reasonable distance. Away from where you stand. His hands falling back to his sides, freeing you.

You don’t answer, you chose to not address the awkwardness the question he asked earlier stired.

The journey to your dorm room is quiet, unspoken tension lingering in the air as you guide him to your house’s safe space. As you walk, close to each other as ever, it’s clear you’re both hanging onto what just went on. Busy with recalling the fleeting moment.

And when you part ways, briefly sparing one another a nod of acknowledgement and whispered farewell — you’re feeling even more odd.

You curl up under your bed covers after you slip past Arabella’s bed, knees pulled tight to your chest with heart thumping in your ears. The room is still, occasional snoring coming from Arabella spreads through your shared room. Everything is dark, expect for the glow of your wand which lightens up your space beneath the covers of your bed.

"Lumos,” is all it takes to conjure up light for you.

In your hands lies something old, something curious. The worn piece of parchment, folded so many times the edges are soft. With a breath held in your chest, you spread it open to be met with lines blooming across its surface like spiderwebs made out of ink. It depicts rooms, corridors, and tiny moving footprints. Names scribbled beside them. Flinch walks, pauses, turns and so on and on.

It’s alive, and suddenly the castle isn’t just stone.

You’re not alone in a way. In this small tent of bedsheets and wandlight, feeling like the map chose you because of the strong pull you feel towards it. Like the secrets it holds have waited patiently for your arrival.

You’ve never heard or seen anything of the sort, it’s extraordinary.

Your eyes trace Flinch’s footsteps before scanning the map further. There’s not many people wandering around, and it’s no wonder since the time is close to midnight by now.

Your breath catches just then.

There, just above the Great Hall, a name you never expected to see at this hour as you thought he returned to his room like you did. The tiny inked footsteps of him haunt the corridors you explored together moments ago. You blink once, twice, as if the name might change. Smallest part of you hoping it will, or that he’s taking a longer route to reach his dorm.

But it doesn’t disappear. It stays in place, impossibly real.

Your heart beats louder beneath the covers of your blanket now, closely watching him pause by the staircase leading to the west tower.

What’s he doing there?

You don’t know why you’re still watching, but wonder and dread fuel your curiosity so you keep on observing. Tips of your fingers shaking lightly at the thought of what you might figure out.

The glow from your wand casts long, trembling shadows as you watch the Slytherin’s footsteps finally stop — reaching his destination.

Astronomy tower.

He reachs the top. And he stands there, perhaps waiting. Not moving. Not pacing. Simply waiting.

You don’t know what you’re watching unfolding, but you can’t look away as your heart instantly sinks to the bottom when two other names appear on the map.

Satoru Gojo is at the tower.

In company of his father. And… your mother?

credits for dividers: [@enchanthings-a @cafekitsune]

taglist: [ @k-kkiana @cuffiescariche @sylustoru @hyori2 @ethereal-moonlit @crankyarchives @jjklover365daysayear @cailliz @kaisenkalogathia @urthem00n @katsukiseyebrows @poopooindamouf @heiejdhdh @tessasweet @sa-yuuki @moomoov ]

#hogwarts au #jjk #satoru gojo x reader #satoru jjk #jjk x reader #gojo x you #enemies to lovers #jjk satoru #jujutsu kaisen #gojo x reader #angst #eventual smut #slytherin #ravenclaw #slow burn #jjk x y/n #jjk gojo #gojo x y/n #gojou satoru x reader

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starburstminibot · 5 months ago

Note

Ok, seeing the post about the playlist, you mentioned how Breakdown only gets his act together after finding out that Bee was carrying

So it got me thinking (and this has actually been in my mind since i first came across the au tbh), but how was it while Bee was like, carrying?? There's the fact that, at first, many of the bots probably don't like Breakdown too since, well, he was not the best bf let's be honest.

Idk, I'm just curious to how things were before Breakcheck came to see the world

(Im going out of town for a week and cant draw so im just answering this with a straight up fanfiction-esk paragraph I’m so sorry wish I could be artistic for you anon)

Long story short: the Autobots are very forgiving but they can also be petty motherfuckers.

I mean they welcomed Megatron among their ranks and treat him (for the most part) as an equal and sometimes even a friend. Of course, Megatron earned that trust after years and years of repentance.

I imagine Breakdown is going through a similar arc. He’s never really been THAT loyal to the Decepticon cause. He just… kinda ended up there and didn’t care enough to do anything about it. He views Autobots as these goody, righteous people that he doesn’t feel like he belongs with. So really… what’s left besides Decepticons (considering yourself a neutral at one point was pretty much a death wish. A faction was the only way to acquire any sort of Energon or medical attention. Something Optimus tried hard to avoid, but the reality was safety in numbers.) the only kinship Breakdown ever felt was with the Stunticons… and they’ve been scattered to who knows where… if they’re even still alive.

Except he did have one friend. A friend he’s somehow managed to keep despite being on opposite sides of the war. He tried to convince Bee to join the Decepticons a few times but it was never with genuine intent. Bee was too good for the Cons; Breakdown knew that. He asked to get a rile out of him more than anything. Of course Bee would retort with his own argument of why BD should defect. He was serious about it… but Breakdown knew his place. He’d already done too much…

Now the war is over. And the leader of his faction doesn’t even believe in the cause anymore. Now, Breakdown’s never been a fan of Megatron anyways, but he sure as hell is pissed off when he abandons them to go be buddies with the Autobots. Maybe Breakdown is a little jealous (Of course, he’d never admit it) That Megatron, possibly the cruelest and most unforgiving of them all, is allowed to be redeemed.

He feels betrayed. All the Decepticons do really… He feels like he was led down a path that would only end in self destruction and at the last moment, the one who was paving the way jumped ship, leaving them all to suffer the consequences alone.

He never even wanted this.

But it’s way too late now. He dug this grave and he’s going to see to it that he’s buried in it. But despite the betrayal, and most of the Decepticons now stabbing each other in the back, trying to claim whatever power they can while holding on to this flimsy cause they can barely call a functioning faction, he still has Bee… who is maybe more than just a friend at this point but that’s a lot of feelings Breakdown isn’t ready to unpack.

And he still runs every time it feels a little too good to be true. Still proclaims his loyalty to the Decepticons because he’s too stubborn to admit he’s on a sinking ship. And he still keeps his distance because he refuses to take Bumblebee down with him when it finally goes under.

And maybe they’ve got a fling going… and maybe the autobots start to catch on. It doesn’t matter though, Breakdown doesn’t stick around long enough to see their sneers.

Until… he finds out Bee’s carrying that is… because damn he may not be the best bot in the galaxy but he’s not a complete deadbeat.

And when it hits him… that he’s going to be a sire… well maybe… he start’s sticking around to see the sneers. He hears the mumbles of disapproval. And boyyy does it make him so angry at first. How dare these holier-than-thou bots. They don’t know him or what he’s had to do to survive. How many comrades he’s lost thanks to them. They don’t know what Bee means to him. They don’t know just how much he loves Bumblebee. How he would lay down his spark for him in a klick.

Then Breakdown questions… Does Bee even know that?

From then on… Breakdown realizes, preserving his ego isn’t worth this. He has a chance now. A real honest chance. To do better… to have the life he actually wants… with the one bot who hasn’t ever given up on him.

He wants it so bad.

So he puts up with the comments and the obvious distrust. Because he’s willing to put in the work it takes to earn it. He’s going to prove how much he wants this. He’s going to prove how much he cares. He’s going to prove he is capable of doing better… and maybe along the way he’ll learn… he’s deserving of better too…

Breakdown is lucky Bumblebee has always been a little spoiled because it didn’t take too much convincing for the autobots to give him a shot. To attempt to accept him into their ranks.

He thought Optimus would be the worst of it. The one who practically raised the bot Breakdown knocked up. And for a while it is. Optimus lectures him every chance he gets. Any small hiccup, any little mistake. He doesn’t go easy on breakdown. Optimus at least pretends to be polite about it, or at least professional.He doesn’t yell, or make unnecessary insults. His words are always very honest (which makes them that much harder to hear) but Breakdown will take it… he’ll sit through it, no matter how hard he has to bite his tongue against saying something he’ll regret. He knows how thin the ice is. But he’ll do it for Bee.

The others are a little more brutal… Elita especially so… they are more sharp with their words (and sometimes their blasters) letting him know just what they think of him.

But no… the worst of all… is Megatron. Because Megatron is probably the only bot in the whole faction who looks at him and empathizes. Breakdown doesn’t want empathy. Especially not from the damn bot who betrayed him. Megatron doesn’t give lectures, he doesn’t verbally or physically abuse him when he steps out of line. He barely even raises his voice. And it pisses Breakdown off more than anything. Sometimes he slips up in front of Megatron just to push his boundaries, just to see if he can break this peaceful facade the ex-brutal-dictator seems to be taking. He’s witnessed the warlord beat bots into scrap for far less… and yet… Megatron won’t. Megatron seems to be attempting to guide Breakdown, to offer a new start to their relationship, and Primus Breakdown wants nothing to do with it. He’d rather be lectured and assigned extra training.

And it takes a long while… longer than Bee’s carrying term, and a little while into Breakcheck’s sparklinghood for the Autobots to really start to come around to him. Optimus’ lectures seem to have a bit of fondness to them. And perhaps Breakdown listens a bit more earnestly and takes to heart some of the genuine advice the Prime gives him. And maybe the sparring with Elita has turned less from a one-sided fight and into an enjoyable workout. And MAYBE… he doesn’t intentionally push Megatron as much, and has come to a realization of his own that his Megatron… is nothing like the one who betrayed him… and perhaps there is more in common between them than he’d like to admit.

And when people look at him now, he’s not just the Con Bumblebee has been sneaking around with. He’s a Sire… and a devoted Conjux…

And maybe this is what he’s always wanted. And he can be deserving of it too.

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daengtokki · 15 days ago

Text

part eleven | litotes // serial killer!Kim Seungmin/afab reader

WC: 15k

RATING: mature/mdni—contains: family trauma (specifically mother/daughter), casual racism, self harm, suicide mention, miscarriage mention, blood play, cannibalism (just a little), things staring ominously from a distance (again), hallucinations

SYNOPSIS: Seungmin floats through life alone, haunted by his memories—keeping himself under control, and quieting his mind the only way he knows how…killing and watching the life leave his victims eyes. When you cross his path on a morning hunt, something new (something forgotten) starts to move inside of him, leading both of you on a path to confront the unspeakable past.

COMMENTS: The first chapter to be given a proper title at posting! And the meaning of this title is a hint for what’s to come in part twelve. Take your time reading...reread everything after this if you'd like (I know a few of you that like doing that, and it's amazing to think about—seriously). I will have part twelve up before I leave for my dominate concerts.

[ ML — DEITY MASTERLIST AND TAGLIST]

[ PLAYLIST PARTS 1—6 ]

The quiet in his head becomes unbearable, and he never imagined he would think that. Quiet. Beautiful, comfortable silence—that’s what he has with you when he gets into bed every night. This isn’t the same.

Seungmin didn’t always come home to his big empty bed at night, not before you came around. Sometimes he would close a bar, stumble to an empty park and will something to come out of the darkness for him in his drunken stupor. Some nights he would check into a hotel just to look at something different for a change. The monotonous torment of his existence became intolerable too often.

He came very close to telling you and Heecheol about his state of mind last spring—May 23rd, to be exact. Seungmin checked into a motel not unlike the Dalkkum in Hongcheon, and the only thing he brought along with him was every pill he could find. Before he went through with it, or almost did, he sat in a hot bath and watched the full moon move across the sky for an hour or so…however long it took the water to go cold—and instead of acting on his big plans, he drank the bottle of champagne he was going to wash everything down with, and a second bottle, and then he passed out on the balcony.

The next morning, he didn’t really want to die anymore. Not as much, at least. The anniversary of that day could have been bad. The anniversary of his mother’s death could have been worse. It wasn’t, because you were there with him.

“Stop…” he pushes until Heecheol releases him. “Please, I can’t.” Seungmin is far too gentle, but…he also kept going and kissed right back, so what right does he have to overreact now? The sting of his lips remains even after Heecheol turns away, but first he looks Seungmin up and down like he’s just realizing he’s in the room. “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”

It takes him a few beats before he can turn and force a smile. “It’s fine.”

The static hasn’t returned, at least. The room is still too quiet, too warm, too heavy. Seungmin isn’t quite sure what to do now aside from leave. “I should get back home. Tokki is all alone with the boys.”

“I was going to ask if I could take you two out for dinner, but I guess that wouldn’t work with two little ones.” It’s not the awkwardness of the kiss he’s concerned about, it’s the babies. “But ordering in is always an option. I’m sure getting a good dinner on the table is tough while taking care of them.”

No, Seungmin thinks. He isn’t sure how taxing things will become in the next few weeks and months, but he’s looking forward to finding out. “I’m not sure—“

“Look, I’m sorry I was kind of forward there. But you didn’t…forget it.”

“Today might not be the best for getting together.”

Heecheol turns away again and starts undressing. First his shirt, up and over his head and thrown to the floor. He pulls at his waistband, but the sweats remain on for now, to Seungmin’s relief. Now he remembers his phone going off, and he knows it’s you before he even looks at the screen.

my mother is here

He has to check the name again. Yeah, it’s you—maybe you mistyped, or spoke into your phone and it didn’t hear correctly. Maybe you were just talking to the boys. This day can’t get much more strange. “Huh?” A stupid response, but he feels stupid right now. Heecheol’s eyes are burning right through him as he waits for your reply.

are you almost home?

Thank god he is. The apartment is only a quick walk away. “Yeah, I’ll be there in ten”. “I have to go. I’ll text you.”

“Will you?”

Seungmin isn’t sure how to answer that, but he tries not to huff in frustration. “If I don’t…you text me.”

“Are you going to tell her?”

“I tell her everything.”

***

How does your mother know where you live? Well, because you told her. But you’ve never received so much as a letter from anyone. No gifts or care packages filled with comforts from home, hardly a phone call. Why travel so far when you can’t even text?

The elevator ride is excruciatingly slow, and he can’t even hold his hands still enough to slide the key in the deadbolt. Seungmin is nervous, but the day hasn’t been kind to him. He has reason to feel like he’s going to vomit at any moment.

“Seungmin…” You walk to him, arms folded over your chest, and he knows why. One of the babies is crying in his cot, the other is working his way to the same volume. “She’s in the nursery.”

“Why?”

“Checking it.”

“Checking…checking what?”

She pops out, and Seungmin is actually relieved. The image in his mind was much scarier than what just appeared in front of him, but still, her face is sour. She looks like you, but not so much that it’s an undeniable mother/daughter relationship. She could just as easily be your aunt, or an older sister.

“You must be…” she stops to think, and her accent is much more severe than yours. “Forgive me, I just learned it fifteen minutes ago.”

“Seungmin,” you repeat.

Her eyes move between the two of you. She’s saying it under her breath, as if she’s trying to get a feel for how to say it out loud. S-sungmin, is what comes out. “Well, it’s nice to finally meet the reason…reasons…my daughter never came home.”

She turns away and looks at them. They’re together in their cot, surrounded by the laundry you were folding. The tv is still playing, and Seungmin wants to laugh again when the Twilight Zone theme starts playing in the silent room. He holds it in, but he can’t hold in his smile when he sees them, slowly quieting and soothing each other. How does he respond to that, though? Seungmin looks to you, but your eyes are on the floor, arms still folded across your chest. “Uh, well, I take good care of her if that is a concern.”

The resemblance is a little stronger now. Her lips purse, and she folds her arms across herself just like you do. “Your English is very good.” She sucks her teeth like he tends to do.

“Thank you. Her Korean is getting very good.” Seungmin smiles in your direction, but you look like you’re going to vomit.

“Oh is that right?” Now her hands drop to her hips. “I’m surprised, you never were to good with your school work. And…”

You watch his face grow red, and the clench of his jaw is obvious, especially as she makes her way to the cot. He takes a step closer, and you do the same.

Seungmin jumps when she spins to face you. “And this. Twins! Didn’t think it was in the cards for you, considering…”

Considering what? Seungmin doesn’t say it, but you can tell he’s thinking it. Your mother is being purposely vague and her saccharine voice and smile are making you sick. If she thinks there’s some chance of pushing the two of you apart, she’ll go for it.

Considering what? You know what she’s thinking of course, and you’re surprised she didn’t come out and say the word. Seungmin doesn’t know, and it’s not because you purposely kept it from him—there is nothing to gain by keeping secrets in this house. Maybe it was your fear keeping you from saying the word and dwelling on the possibility even more, or perhaps putting the thought in Seungmin’s head scared you. He was already so worried.

Another smile for you, sweet, but with a question mark behind it. “Excuse us for a moment.” He says, eyes fixed on you, and his fingers gently grip your wrist. Reading him his easier now, but at the moment, your racing heart and swirling stomach aren’t quite sure what to think. Seungmin closes the door, leaving just enough space for him to peek out, and pulls you into his arms. “Don’t worry.”

“I’m not.”

“Liar.” He laughs. “I can handle her attitude. I can handle it for both of us.”

“I’m sorry…there are things I should have told you—“

“We can talk about it later, if you want. First we handle this.” Seungmin looks through the crack in the door. Your mother hasn’t approached the boys, and they’re still quiet. “Fresh shirt?” He starts pulling it over your head before you answer. “She won’t get under my skin.”

***

The whole apartment feels off with someone new in it. It wasn’t quite like this with Heecheol…oh, Seungmin almost forgot. How could he forget? It wasn’t just the kiss that made things weird—everything, including Heecheol himself, was strange. This is more manageable, regardless of how uncomfortable everyone is going to be. She looks at the two of you briefly, then walks toward the cot again. The moment she reaches in, Seungmin reacts. “Have you washed up?”

“Excuse me?”

The moment of awkward silence is excruciating.

You chime in first. “We always wash up and change if we’ve been out…before we touch them. They’re, um, we can’t risk them getting sick.”

“How early were they?” She backs up and eyes the kitchen sink, and you can tell she wants to touch them, hold them. She can’t help it. It doesn’t matter how much she might not actually like Seungmin and your sons, she won’t pass up the opportunity to hold a baby.

“They were due September 4th, and born on June 1st.”

The urge to hold them is too strong, because she heads for the kitchen to wash her hands. But not before looking Seungmin in the eyes. “Lucky.”

They were lucky. Lucky that you kept them alive long enough, and lucky they were healthy when they arrived. Bad luck used followed you everywhere, but not anymore. Now Seungmin follows you everywhere.

“What are my grandson’s names?” Haneul is wrapped tight and scooped up first, and she looks him over with a weird curiosity. “My only grandbabies. Never thought I’d see the day, and that it would be you. Definitely never thought—“

“That is Haneul,” Seungmin interrupts. “Ha…neul.” He repeats it slowly and clearly, but you know she won’t appreciate his patience with this, or with her. “And Haesung. Haesung is his little brother.”

“Do they have middle names…nicknames?”

You jump in before Seungmin gets a chance. “No. Haneul and Haesung.” Letting her call them something else is out of the question.

“No cute nicknames yet.” Seungmin lies, but he sounds convincing. Haneul was Sky before he was born, and Haesung eventually became the new Puppy.

“Shame they look nothing like you.”

“Why are you here? Did you fly all this way just to…just to torment me?”

“You’ll never learn to respect your mother, will you, girl?” Haneul is placed back in his cot, and she takes a moment to touch Haesung’s cheek before turning her full attention to you. “Well, now that you are one, maybe you’ll appreciate how much work it takes. Hopefully your boyfriend…husband…doesn’t go dying on you like your father did.”

The air feels too heavy to breathe, and you’re not sure if it’s the mention of your father’s death, something she never talks about, or the intrusive thought of losing Seungmin. The sleep walk into the woods started it, and it’s been off and on since then. He seems unfazed by the comment, but he has to be—all of it has to be trying to dig in.

His mouth twitches. “Husband.” A week after leaving the hospital, you made your marriage official. “I don’t plan on it.” Seungmin moves between her and the cot so they can see him again. Both have quickly given in to their exhaustion.

“We never do.”

It didn’t take much convincing to get her to leave after the awkward first meeting. Seungmin booked her the only room he could find—the same hotel where Heecheol is currently staying—and sent her on her way. This won’t be the end of her, though. Your mother has never stepped foot in an airport before getting on a plane to Seoul, and she’s never wanted anything to do with you unless it was for her own benefit. She didn’t fly all this way for one brief encounter.

“When she asked for my address, I assumed she wanted to send something. This is not what I imagined. And no warning.”

As irritating as it was, Seungmin can’t help but find it amusing. “The no warning part doesn’t surprise me, for some reason.” He turns on his side and puts a hand on Haesung’s full stomach, and when he closes his eyes, the rest of his day comes rushing back to him. “Oh,” they pop open, but you don’t react. You’re sitting up, focused, drawing pad in your lap—the sound of the pencil moving back and forth on the paper seems to be as soothing to the boys as it is to Seungmin. “Today...earlier today, before I got home.”

“Oh, the guy? You said it was a bust.”

He glances up at you, and you’re staring hard. The pencil goes straight to your mouth as you wait, and he can see your teeth start to work on it. It’s only been a few weeks since you painted the mural in the nursery, and since then you’ve started reclaiming a small part of the former you he never knew. Seungmin can feel you becoming lighter and happier as you adjust to the new life with him and the babies…not just you and him. Neither of you had much time to find each other anywhere but on the surface, or at your very cores. Now you get to explore everything inbetween.

And now he has to tell you he kissed someone else.

The graphite hits the paper again, and the next move you make is ripping it from the pad and crushing it in your fist. “I had a miscarriage a few years ago. I almost died.”

“What?”

“I didn’t know I was pregnant, and it…well, it didn’t grow where it was supposed to. And I almost bled to death.”

“You…almost died?”

"I was relieved when I got that first ultrasound and saw that they were in the right place.” You take a long, hard look at him, and then your pencil is on the paper again. “Hold still for a second.”

Seungmin listens. He doesn’t blink, or let his mouth twitch into the frown he’s holding back. All he wants is to move closer, pull all three of you into his arms and hold on tight. Months ago, he truly thought he wouldn’t have enough of himself for all of you, and he was wrong.

Haesung isn’t happy about being moved from his warm spot on the bed, but you tuck him comfortably into his cot. Seungmin does the same with Haneul, and you remain back to back until they begin dozing off again. And then the bed moves, and you feel him getting close. A hand wraps gently around the back of your neck, but his fingertips only graze and fall away from you. Seungmin reaches for the crumpled piece of paper and smooths it out the best he can. A rough sketch stares back at him—his eyes, the slope of his nose, and the soft curves of his jaw. It’s a good depiction of him…like looking at a faded photograph, but seeing it through the eyes of whoever took it. It’s how you see him. He crumples it up again, and wonders why you were unsatisfied with it.

“Sometimes when I’m in bed with you, when I can’t sleep, I think about that night.” It comes from nowhere. You’re not sure why you mention it at all.

The memory is now tucked away where he has to reach for it to truly remember. He counts in his head, seven months…three weeks? Here the two of you are, two babies, and it’s barely been eight months since you’ve crossed paths. Seungmin prefers remembering that very first encounter on the street…walking you home. He likes thinking back to how it felt to fall for someone so quickly and (for him) recklessly; how it felt to want to touch you, to draw pain and pleasure from you. Break your neck, kiss you, find the fear that was already rising to the surface, and then protect you from it.

He looks at you now like he looked at you then, the strange, mysterious thing that you still are. “Why do you think about it?”

Seungmin seems surprised when you turn to your sketch pad again. “I try to remember everything, exactly how I felt and what was going through my head. It’s hard. Maybe I blocked some of it out.”

“What do you remember?”

“I still remember where I went when everything went dark. The pain of giving birth brought back memories from that first time. It went dark then, too. A different dark, but…”

He’s hypnotized by the measured movements of your hand, but he hears every word you say. You’ve died before, came back, died again.

Your attention turns to the walls around you, the half open curtain being moved by the warm breeze. “I remember being so afraid of dying in this room when you tucked me back into bed. The locked door, the knife. The pain I was in...”

“I was worried. I was afraid you’d get hurt if you tried running home in the dark. And that I’d never see you again. I actually thought I’d be able to explain myself and change your mind by morning.”

“The thoughts running through my head that night might surprise you.”

“Like?”

For no reason, you feel embarrassed to admit it. “I wanted you closer when you got back into bed, but I guess that could have been the tea taking hold.”

“I wanted you to feel safe. That’s all that mattered, but it was impossible.”

“Waking up the next morning was nice, until I remembered. Everything after that was adrenaline.”

Seungmin moves closer, “even the kiss?”

“We talked about the kiss.”

“We did," he whispers. “The way I saw that night in my mind was perfect. I was going to be different, finally…I don’t think I knew it then. I didn’t know how much I just wanted to fall asleep and wake up with you still there.” Even after all this time, saying every word that comes to him, no filter, feels like jumping. Fight or flight tries to kick in. Looking back and forth between the babies grounds him again. “I’m glad you kissed me, even if it was mostly to distract me.”

The nerves in his voice are more obvious than he thinks. “Mostly because I couldn’t resist your mouth.”

He laughs, and his entire body relaxes into his fluffed up pillows.

The sketchpad is back on your side table, and a quick peak into the cot lets you know Haesung is sound asleep. “I still can’t.” You wait for him to look at you, and eventually, he does.

Seungmin’s smile creeps slowly across his lips as he examines your face. He peeks into Haneul’s cot—sound asleep—and then back at you.

“She’ll try to pull us apart. I know she will.” That’s why you brought it up, but it didn’t occur to you until just this moment. “I’ve never been allowed to be happy or satisfied, not in peace. I thought I finally won by being seven thousand miles away.”

The smile fades quickly, and he struggles for a moment to find the right words. What is it you need to hear? Seungmin can tell you a million times how much he loves you… “nothing can pull us apart, just—“ He stops himself. The word still hanging on the tip of his tongue, he doesn’t know why he thinks it. Death. “She can try if she wants to, but she’s going up against me.”

You’ve missed his cocky attitude. He’s become so good and soft, and sometimes you forget who still lives deep down inside. Seungmin can still drive his knife into someone’s neck if he feels like it, or slam their face into a wall. He’ll break his knuckles sending a message. “C’mere.”

“Hm?”

“Get over here,” you purr, and pull your shirt over your head.

Seungmin’s eyes drop to your chest, and his tongue pokes out as they jump back to your eyes. His crawl to you is slow, and he cages you in with his arms as he comes down for a kiss. The heat is already radiating from him when his shirt comes off, but he pulls back.

The lamplight from your side of the bed illuminates the deep cuts across his chest. They look fresh, ready to bleed again. “What’s this?” You latch onto his arm and hold him there. “Minnie?” He flinches when your thumb grazes the length of the biggest, deepest one, but relaxes almost immediately. “Did you just do this?”

“Yes…”

“Why?” The look on his face as you touch it makes you think he just needed to feel something under his skin, and he still needs that. Or maybe it’s more penance. You push again, glide your finger across it, and his stomach tightens as he quietly moans. Fresh blood trickles out when your nail digs in, and Seungmin grips the pillow beneath your head to steady himself. Another release. The satisfaction in his face sends a pulse up your thighs, and he can feel it—your legs are forced open, and he’s easing his fingers into you before your mouth can close around the newly opened wound. His gentle touch, the sharp taste of his blood…your head swims and you ache for more of him. Your teeth sink into skin, and the warm metallic taste fills your mouth as his fingers are replaced with the impatient push of his cock.

“More,” he whines. Blood continues to trickle, but it slows. The pressure from your tongue seems to hit the right spot, but not for long. “More…please.” He’s careful, and you know he’s using all of his restraint to fuck you slowly. Seungmin pushes into you and against your mouth for more.

You close your lips around him and suck at the hot, salty skin; bite until you taste more blood. Every moan makes you bite down a little harder, and as his pace picks up and you feel an orgasm rising, your teeth sink in and break new skin. The sound he makes is beyond any climax you’ve given him—pain and relief mixed with ecstasy. He struggles to hold himself steady, but you pull him down against you, kiss up his chest and neck, and make even more of a mess. “Minnie…are you okay?”

Seungmin kisses you deeply and cleans the blood from your lips. “No, you’re being too gentle on me.”

“Gentle?” You look down at the open cuts and bite marks on his chest. He smiles when you touch him again. “Too gentle?” And he laughs when you lock your legs around his hips.

“Let me feel how much you love me.”

He doesn’t have to ask again. You grab his shoulders and sink your teeth in, and this time you don’t think about the pain you cause him, the mess you’ll make…the mark that’ll be left behind. Seungmin groans as you break the skin again, and he licks his lips as you pull away with a piece of him between your teeth. You keep your eyes on him—you can’t look at what you did yet, but…

His soft cry hits your ears. Haesung, little brother, who sometimes feels like Haneul’s big brother. What time is it? That cry forces you out of whatever trance you’re in, no matter how deep it is. You wipe at your mouth in your half-sleep, and then your eyes open to the pitch black of the bedroom. The smell of blood is still in your nose, and you jump up when you remember… “Min?” You reach and set your hand on his stomach, warm and damp with sweat, and you don’t move until you feel him take a breath.

Haesung cries again, just for a moment. He’s coming out of the same deep sleep you are.

“Seungmin?” Your eyes start to wake up, and your vision clears. The marks on his chest are red and angry and fresh, but not much worse than they were before you got your hands on them.

Seungmin stirs when you run a finger across them again. He mumbles and closes his hand around yours, and sighs when you kiss his chest. “Hey, you alright?”

“Had a weird dream.” You wipe at your mouth and bring blood back on the heel of your palm. “You should probably work on pulling out until I get back on birth control.”

“Oh, you think you’ll get pregnant again?”

“It’s possible. I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet.”

“Yet?” He sits up and kisses your cheek. “Tell me about your dream.”

“I bit some…flesh off of you, and I think I ate it.”

“Oh?”

You weren’t sure what kind of reaction to expect, but the little grin on his face isn’t very surprising. “Yeah, while we were having sex.”

He notices you examining his chest, and looks down at it himself. “You ate a piece of me…” he whispers, and the grin doesn’t fade. “Would you consider this a dream…or a nightmare?” Seungmin wipes at your mouth and stares you down as he waits for an answer.

“Somewhere in between. Do you have a fetish you haven’t told me about?”

“No, but the thought of you doing it and enjoying yourself is a little hot. So…maybe, yes.” He looks around nervously, fidgets with the blanket. “It feels romantic.”

“Consuming your lover to have him be a part of you forever…romantic? Yes, but having you here with me is so much nicer.”

“Okay, I won’t ask you to...eat me. But thank you for confirming what I already knew.”

You slide your hand across his thigh and onto his growing cock. “What’s that?”

“Dangsineun isanghaeyo.”

***

Seungmin doesn’t resist when you clean and bandage the newly open cuts on his chest. He tossed and turned and scratched in his sleep, and the sheets were smeared with bright, fresh blood before you changed them. He looks up at you with tired eyes as you work—maybe something else. He looks sleepy and sad, like he’s still waiting on more forgiveness from you, but there’s nothing more to forgive right now. You bend down and kiss him, and he returns it with a smile.

“What’s wrong, sweetie?”

He shakes his head and sits up, “thank you.”

“They have to go outside today, I almost forgot. They have their first check-up in a few hours.”

“That’s right.” Seungmin crawls to the cot and scoops up a mostly awake Haneul. “We get to see how well you two are doing, and how much weight you’ve put on with us.” He holds him against his bandaged chest, and you can hear the soft noises coming from Haneul. “You feel a little heavier, buddy. Dongsaengeul hwaginhae bopssida.”

Haesung is asleep, and he’s still. The moment you lay your eyes on him, your body goes cold. “Haesung?” Something feels off about him.

Seungmin is up and on your side of the bed a moment later, Haneul still in his arms. Maybe you’re overreacting and he’s in a deeper sleep than usual, but he’s pale, and the only movement is the tiny flutter of his lashes. You grab his foot and rub the skin, and he gives a half-hearted kick, “something is wrong,” and a feeble cry. You take Haneul from him, but Seungmin is surprisingly calm as he sits at the edge of the bed.

“Mwo-ga jalmotdwaesneoyo? What is it, puppy? Jo wassoyo.” He sets his palm on Haesung’s forehead, tilts his chin up, and his eyes flutter open.

You’re too scared to say anything.

Seungmin looks back at you and forces a smile, but his attention returns to Haesung. He rolls him onto his side and rubs his back, and you start to wonder if he prepared himself for something like this. Why didn’t you? You got comfortable and felt safe too quickly—how could you be so careless?

After another two seconds of slow, excruciating silence, Haesung sucks in a lungful of air and starts to cry. It feels like the delivery room all over again; the horrible silence, holding your breath for the smallest cry. This one grows louder and louder, and you’ve never heard anything so wonderful. Haneul squirms a little in your arms, and he decides to match his brother’s screams.

“I’m sorry.” Your throat tightens up, and the tears that roll down your cheek fall onto Haneul’s messy hair. You watch as another follows, and from the corner of your eye, you see Seungmin reach for you.

“Sorry, why?” He wipes at your cheek, but it doesn’t make stopping any easier.

“I panicked. You didn’t.”

He shakes his head and smiles again, much easier this time. “Last month my therapist told me…reminded me…I have gangbak jangae, very strong intrusive thoughts. I think we talked about this before.”

You nod at him and wipe at the tears burning your eyes. “We have.”

His mind jumps back to the static in Heecheol’s hotel room. “Not just the voices, or the noises. Or the urges. I haven’t told you how scared I’ve been of something happening once we got them home.”

“No, you haven’t. You’ve been so confident, and perfect.”

“I’ve been staying up all night…watching them, talking to them, learning everything I can.“

“Learning?”

“How to care for them. What to do if something happens. I’m sure you’ve realized I shut off your alarm once or twice to let you sleep. I fed and changed them. Because I was already awake.”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m sore, and you’re so tired.”

Seungmin is careful picking up Haesung, but he seems fine now. His cheeks are pink, and his cries don’t quiet until he’s safe against Seungmin’s chest. “Sore?”

“I have to feed them, or pump every time I get up or they get a little painful…but—" his face falls, “but it’s not that bad.”

“I’m sorry, I thought I was helping.”

The look in his eyes hurts. Seungmin hasn’t done much in the past few months except prepare, but he’ll beat himself up for this, you know that. “Five or six solid hours of sleep is a good exchange for some soreness. But promise me you’ll sleep.”

“Promise. I’ll sleep when we get back. We’re going to the hospital now so Haesung can get looked at.”

***

It looks like a smile, but it can’t be yet. It’s too early, but Seungmin is going to pretend that’s what he saw anyway. Haneul just yawns back at his dad’s excited laugh, and luckily, Haesung follows with a cry for attention. “I’m right here, pup.”

Haesung was sent home after a few hours with a clean bill of health, so you’re convinced you overreacted this morning, but still, both of you will be on high alert for the next few days—sleeping in shifts, mostly. One of you has to be awake with them 24/7, and you know Seungmin will insist on taking the brunt of it. He’s already doing it, sending you away for a nap when he told you he’d rest after their appointment.

“Minnie, you promised, just for a few hours…get into bed and close your eyes.” He’s still quietly singing when you walk up behind him and rub his back—for a minute there, I lost myself…I lost myself. Even as he sits hunched over on the living room floor, his hushed singing voice is pretty, but he’s still so shy about it. “Please, puppy.”

That grabs his attention, and he turns his head toward you. “Can we talk first?”

“Sure, what about?”

“About yesterday, when I was following that guy. Heecheol texted me, and I ended up losing track of him.” That doesn’t feel right. “Actually, I thought I heard him…his voice, I heard him calling out, but he wasn’t there. That distracted me.”

“That’s understandable. But he texted you, too?”

Seungmin is relieved he doesn’t have to explain the intricacies of his mind to you. “Yeah, he’s here in Seoul. I sent your mother to the same hotel he’s staying at. But I also visited him, and that’s where I was when you told me she was here.”

“Oh, how is he?”

“Uh, he kissed me.” His chest hurts from how erratic his breathing has become. He wasn’t expecting to just come out with it.

You keep quiet for a moment while you think. You admit this isn’t the biggest shock, but Seungmin’s uneasiness means there’s more to it.

“He asked me to visit, so I figured I’d stop before heading home, since it was on the way…”

“And you kissed him back?”

All he can manage is a nod while he nuzzles his face against Haesung. Tiny fingers clench around a lock of hair and tug, and Seungmin smiles despite the sick feeling in his stomach.

“Did you,” you stop and give yourself another moment. “H-how do you feel about it now?”

“Strange. I don’t know why I did it.”

He stares at you, waiting for something…anything. Are you angry? Maybe you should be, but you don’t feel anything boiling to the surface, or ripping at the seams right now. There’s a knot in your stomach bouncing around, giving you that weird homesick feeling you get when you think too much about the past, or the uncertain future.

His eyes move from Haesung to you. Seungmin usually has no problem with eye contact, but tonight that’s not the case. Every time the intensity gets to be too much for him, they find something else.

“What was going through your mind when it happened, before it happened?”

Most of it is just coming back to him. “I felt off when I got there, but I was already feeling that when I heard his voice in my head.”

“Off how?”

“Uhm, dizzy. Everything was loud, like how I feel when it gets really bad.”

You set a hand on him, move your fingers through his hair. “But you didn’t want to kill him, I assume.”

Seungmin still can’t wrap his head around how intense and uncomfortable everything was until the moment they made contact. “No. Everything calmed down when he kissed me.” Maybe he didn't have to mention that part. Seungmin looks at you when you don’t respond, and one Xanax later he finally goes to sleep.

A good first check-up has done wonders for some of your anxieties (now you have new ones), but you still find yourself glancing at both of them much more frequently as you get comfortable on the floor. It doesn’t last long. Your phone vibrates and you know who it is before checking.

So, are you two going to take me out for dinner?

She can’t be serious. Two preemies, barely settled at home, and she expects to be taken out to dinner. But you’re not surprised, because selfish comes naturally to your mother. Why didn’t your sister come along and entertain her? It may have been slightly more stressful, but it’s better than her being alone.

“We aren’t taking the babies out anywhere crowded yet, but I can order in and we can have dinner here in a few hours.”

hours?

“Seungmin just went to try and sleep. He’s been up all night.”

aren’t you supposed to be the one up all night?

Oh my god. "Don’t worry, mom, I was still up every 2.5 hours. I’ll send you a ride at 7. In the meantime, go outside and try some street food. It’s nice out today.”

You decide to ignore the next message, but nothing comes. They both stare up at you with sleepy eyes, and you watch as they get closer and closer to it. Now you sneak to the bedroom, quietly click the door open, and walk softly (and quickly) to the sketchpad in your drawer. Seungmin already seems to be out. He has to be, because there’s no hint of a scowl, no pinched eyebrows. But he definitely fell asleep anxious about his confession…as he should.

The second sketch you started last night feels better than the first, but not having him next to you for reference makes it difficult. You pull up your camera roll and open the album you made just for this—every angle of him you managed to capture in the last week; awake, sleeping, candid, and a few where he actually smiled sweetly for you. Looking at him like this makes him feel distant somehow, like you should be aching for him even though he in the next room. It almost makes you want to push away the bad creeping up inside of you and get into bed with him. Could that make things better? Would giving in and forgiving be easier?

After a solid two hours, your hand starts to cramp. Haesung starts to stir again, and this time he’s up fast and hungry. Seungmin will hear him, and you can’t have that yet. “Are you hungry, pup?” He doesn’t settle right away when you set him against your chest, but as soon as you get him into the right position, he knows he’s getting what he wants. “Maybe we can get you fed before your brother wakes up." But that’s unlikely, and you know it. Haneul will know his brother is up, so you might as well make a bottle now. Seungmin is awake, though, so your plans of working on the music box after they eat will have to wait. It will get fixed someday.

“Minnie?” The noise coming from the bedroom gets louder, and it’s odd. Haesung is back on his pillow while you check on him, and being put back down gets him crying again. “I’ll be ten seconds, sweetheart. I promise.” The look he gives you feels like understanding, but he only quiets for a moment. “Hana…” You keep your eyes on him as he looks around for you. “…dul…set…”

The doorknob clicks loudly despite your best efforts. “Net…daaasut…" The room is dark, as if it were already well passed sunset, but your eyes start to adjust and pick up the scene in front of you. “Yeo— Seungmin?”

The movement at the edge of the bed isn’t right. It feels off, and it’s not even because of the popping in your ears or the spots in your eyes. It’s the dark shape, much darker than the room around it; the shape of Seungmin still under the covers; both things existing in the same space. The shape isn’t him. Of course it isn’t him, you know that, because the thing at the edge of the bed is wrong. It doesn’t belong here. You can smell it. The feeling of dread you felt in the woods is here, in the house…in the bedroom, looming over him. The charm around your neck feels heavy as you sneak toward the light, but when your fingers touch it, the thing moves. “J-jeoli gayo.” Under your breath, because nothing else will come out.

Finally, the lamp is within reach, and when light fills the corner of the bedroom, it’s gone. There’s nothing except him—the steady breaths of Seungmin beneath the covers, and Daengmo peeking up from your side of the bed. You’re just tired. Even after your nap, you’re sleep deprived and anxious about the babies…

“Oh…boys.”

Both cry in unison right as you think it, and the shape is almost forgotten as you run back to them. The first thing you see is them tucked safely in their spots, both red in the face. The second thing you see is it…again. No, it’s them. Yours, white and soft with painfully blue eyes, and his, the inverted version—as black as the shape, but this isn’t what you saw a moment ago.

You kneel in front of the boys, set your hands on them, but your attention doesn’t leave the dogs. “What do you want?” It comes out like a whisper caught in your chest. As soon as one baby begins to settle, the white one stands on all fours and stretches like a cat before disappearing into the nursery. The other one doesn’t move yet. He’s staring you down with eyes like the ones you wake up to every morning, and as Haneul finally quiets, the dog looks to its left, then its right, and he bounces away. “It’s okay, boys, umma is here, and daddy will be up soon. Everything is okay.”

“Daddy is awake.”

When you look back, he’s mid-yawn and mid-stretch, and a tired smile is plastered across his face. “You barely slept.” And whatever was in there with him couldn’t have helped. He had to have felt something.

“I feel good, though. It was a good sleep.”

“Was it?” You have to tell him what you saw. “No bad dreams?”

He shakes his head and joins you on the floor. “No bad dreams, not that I remember.”

Maybe later would be better. It’s not the most ideal thing to be dwelling on over dinner, so for now you focus on remembering every detail for when the time does come. “Are you hungry?”

***

Even when he dresses up, it’s still casual—his closet is full of the most basic pieces, yet somehow, whatever he throws together looks like it was styled by a professional. He’s always effortlessly cool, and it’s not surprising how easily he seems to pick up the men and women he goes for. Tonight is no different, except that he looks…cute. When he walks out of the bedroom, he laughs at the look on your face.

The black denim shorts hit just above his knee, just tight enough around his slender thighs; socks pulled up tight; an overpriced white t-shirt under a short sleeve button-up. There’s a little embroidered bear on the chest pocket, and Seungmin runs his hand over it and makes sure you see. He has his black rim glasses on tonight to pull it all together.

You jump up and flatten the front of your outfit. “It’s just dinner, you didn’t have to go crazy.” The green linen dress you bought in December, the one that looked like the dress you lost along with the rest of your belongings, is just as casual. The most important part is that it still fits you the same way it did when you tried it on, so you’re back to your old self, physically. “That bear looks familiar.”

“I put the same one on the overalls they don’t fit into yet.”

“Oh, no bear for me?”

Seungmin doesn’t always catch your sarcasm. “There were only three, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, as long as you guys match.”

“What’s for dinner? And are we prepared for her?”

You tidied up and set the table, yes, but mentally preparing yourself is pointless. The amount of effort you put into yourself, the apartment, and the babies will not matter, but you try anyway. “I put rice on, and there’s plenty of banchan left. I was going to order bulgogi since she didn’t give us much time. That might be tame enough for her.”

“Order it now, and we can pretend we cooked everything. I’ll go pick her up, and I’ll take my time.”

Seungmin doesn’t have to take his time, because the traffic does all the work for him. The food will be delivered and ready to serve while he sits at this red light, he thinks. This is why he only drives when it’s truly necessary, and he guesses this is one of those times—whatever keeps your mother happy and off your back is worth the extra annoyance to him.

“You can tell her I’m here.” He's not keen on the idea of her having his phone number. And now is the perfect opportunity to close his eyes...

“Seungmin?”

It doesn’t get through to him the first time. He’s reclined in his seat, music playing softly.

“Mo!”

“Fuck, what? Oh…”

“Sorry buddy, didn’t realize you actually fell asleep. I don’t think you can park here long, though.” Heecheol leans in a little, hands gripping the car door. “I can show you where the parking lot is.”

He’s still not completely with it until he sits up and grabs the steering wheel. “No, no I’m not staying. I’m just picking Tokki’s mother up. She’s staying here, since we don’t have the extra room anymore.”

“Oh. Gotcha. I thought maybe I was getting a visitor. I wasn’t sure if you got my message yesterday.”

Blood rushes to his face, through his ears. Heecheol says something else, but he misses it completely. He wasn’t sure if he got the text? “Cheoli, I was here yesterday. In your room. Don’t you remember?” Another night of drinking too much, perhaps. Maybe Heecheol was drunk yesterday, but Seungmin would have tasted it on him. He looks at the brace on his wrist, and wonders if he’s on a particularly strong pain medication, or maybe he was just high from swiping pills from work. No, what the fuck am I thinking?

“Mo, I think I would remember you visiting me.”

So he doesn’t remember the kiss. Heecheol doesn’t remember him almost fainting on his room, pushing him away after they shoved their tongues down each other’s throats like they’ve been waiting years to do it. Meanwhile, Seungmin can’t get the feeling out of his mind. Now what. “I must have had a very strange, vivid dream them.” He opens the glove compartment and pulls out the pack of cigarettes stashed there, and he goes as far as striking a match before realizing what he’s doing. He shakes the flame away and throws the pack back where he got it. A cigarette is what he needs right now, and what he can’t have.

“Yeah, I guess so. And her mom is here?”

“She surprised us with a visit yesterday. And I see her coming right now.”

“Oh yeah, I can see the resemblance. I’ll leave you to it, and maybe I’ll see you soon. Cute shirt.”

Heecheol tugs at Seungmin’s collar before he walks off, and now he’s left alone while your mother approaches. Her scowl actually makes him nervous, but you told him she looks like that all the time…and he can’t remember what you called it. You said you do it, too, but Seungmin doesn’t think he’s seen a look like this on your face, not since the first time he told you to leave his apartment and never come back.

The door unlocks, and she jumps in without a word. He thinks that’s less remembering what he looks like, and more you telling her what kind of car to look for. Mom isn’t nearly as charmed by his looks as you are.

“Hello.” Seungmin adjusts his glasses and smiles as sweetly as he can. She may not find him irresistible, but he’ll be damned if she doesn’t think he’s cute. “I hope the hotel was comfortable.”

“It was alright. Better than the one by the airport. Who was the boy at your car a moment ago?” She looks around, expecting to find some clue as to why he was leaning in through the window.

“Oh, he’s a good friend of mine. He is also staying at this hotel while he’s in Seoul.”

“Is he coming to dinner?”

You might not appreciate a surprise guest. You definitely won’t appreciate a surprise guest if it’s Heecheol. Seungmin stifles a laugh as he thinks about it; your unbearable mother, and the guy he stupidly kissed behind your back. “No, not tonight. Just the three of us. Five of us.”

“It smells good in here.” He kicks off his shoes and waits for her to follow, which she eventually catches onto and does. “Do you want some tea, or coffee? Maybe something cold.” He decides to remain helpful, overly sweet, and charming no matter what she throws at him, if she does start throwing.

“Coffee is good.”

The three of you are not here to greet them, surprisingly. Even after pouring a mug and fixing it how your mother requests, you don’t emerge from the bedroom, and you don’t make a sound. He excuses himself. “She might be in the middle of feeding them. I’ll check.”

You are—cross legged in bed with one single lamp illuminating the dark room. Haesung is in your arms, and a mostly empty bottle sits next to Haneul.

“Hey, need some help?”

You shake your head. If your hair wasn’t pulled back, the ends would tickle Haesung’s pink cheeks. Seungmin can make out his shiny eyes staring up at you as he eats, and it’s a relief to see him so content after this morning. He can’t see you, though. You’re hunched over, head down and face hidden.

“Everything okay?” He barely hears your mhm as he approaches. Seungmin is stupidly mesmerized by your exposed skin—the curve of your shoulder and neck…your chest. When you finally look to him, he sees your wet cheeks, and your red eyes. “Oh, what’s wrong? Are you…are you alright?”

All you give him is a shaky nod, and his stomach turns when he kneels to grab your free hand. He can see how puffy your face is, and that you’ve been crying for a while. There’s a wet spot on Haesung’s blanket where you let your tears fall. “Did your mom say something?”

“No, it’s not her.”

It hits him, and for a moment, he wonders why you didn’t feel this way a few hours ago. Why didn’t you give him the response he deserved? You seemed almost dismissive of it, but the feeling has had time to sit—in your head, in your stomach, your heart. “Oh. I fucked up. I’m so sorry.” Your silence, a single sniffle and a wipe of your cheek confirms it. “I really fucked up.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“If we hadn’t met, and you found him, would he be as special to you?” Haesung unlatches when he senses his father, and he does his best to turn toward him. You adjust and cover yourself, and Seungmin notices how quickly you hide from him. “Like us?”

“Heecheol doesn’t know me the way you do. He likes what he sees on the surface, and the memories we have.” Lying to you isn’t going to help, so he just says exactly what comes to him. “I guess it’s possible. If we didn’t meet, I don’t know where I would be right now…but if you had left, I think I would have killed myself.”

You believe him, but being a reason for him to keep going while his mind wages war against him is a strange feeling. One of the reasons. He has two more, and one is comfortable in his arms right now. “Seungmin, please don’t fall in love with someone else.”

***

Your mother stares, tries to figure you out. She thinks she can, but you’re not the person you were before you left home a year ago. You’re not even the person you were the day after that night in December. Nothing has changed you quite like your babies have, but Seungmin comes very close.

Haesung is in her arms, calm for the moment, but his eventual fussing finally moves her attention away from you. “When you were a baby, you screamed constantly until you were three or four months old.” She brings him closer and runs a thumb across his brow. “Colic.”

“So did—“ you stop yourself. You refuse to help her start an argument. As far as your mother is concerned, you were the difficult child. “They’ve both been okay so far. They sleep well.”

Seungmin interjects. He senses your uncomfortable shift all the way in the kitchen. “Haemuljeon?”

“Yes, please.” It’s the first you’ve eaten since this morning, and shoving several pieces in your mouth is temping, but you wait.

“What is it?” She pokes at one with her fork before scooping it up and inspecting. “Oh, shrimp?”

“Seafood pancake, shrimp and green onions. I left the squid out.”

To your surprise, three little pancakes quickly disappear, and Seungmin is obviously pleased with himself. He spent a whole twenty minutes throwing them together.

The fourth one is held up and examined again, “These are very good.”

“Thank you.”

“You made these?”

He nods and puts on his cutest smile again. “I did. They don’t take much time.” But it falls when he sees the look she gives you—a mix of annoyance and impatience, he thinks. Seungmin still remembers that look very well, and he knows how it feels to be on the receiving end. “Uhm…”

“Your husband cooks for you?”

This may be the most uncomfortable silence the apartment has ever experienced, and that includes the murder. Both of them. Sometimes Seungmin forgets about the first one you witnessed—it feels like so long ago now. He knew you were the one after that night.

He remains silent a few moments longer. Your mother needs to hear you stand up for yourself.

“We don’t think much about who does what. And he was raised well…he knows how to take care of himself, and us. And I know how to care for them. So, yes.”

The look on her face is satisfying, but visions of her bloodshot eyes and blue lips take over his mind and he can’t push them away. Her throat crumpling under his grip. Begging for mercy, gasping for air, pleading forgiveness for how she treated you. No, he has to push it away. Seungmin can’t kill your mother—can he? No, not a very smart idea. For now, it lives in his head. “Tokki made everything else.”

Not a complete lie. You made the rice, and you made three different banchan…just not today.

“Tokki?”

He turns away to laugh at her harsh pronunciation, grabs the rice and sides, and nods as he sets everything down. “Tokki…” he repeats, soft and slow. “It means rabbit.”

“Cute.” She doesn’t seem amused, though. “Rabbit.”

Seungmin wants to take the baby from her, but doing it gracefully, and like he isn’t irritated by everything about her right now, is difficult. Luckily, Haesung starts to get upset and pulls away, as if he can sense his father’s need for him. It works perfectly. Your mother hands him off without a second thought, and Seungmin gets the cuddle that he wants.

“Does…Tokki…know your friend from the hotel?”

“Huh? Oh…yes.”

Heecheol? You can’t lift your eyes to look at him, but you can feel his on you. He was visiting Heecheol again. Seungmin left for thirty minutes and found time to visit him, and in front of your mother, no less.

You stand and keep your cheek pressed against Haneul as you head for the bedroom, and nobody says a word as you do.

“Sore spot?” She took a chance mentioning Heecheol. It could have gone either way, and it paid off in her favor. You were right. Even though the meeting was brief and accidental, you don’t know that, and Seungmin has to hope that you’ll trust and believe him when he goes in there to talk to you again. But he doesn’t go right away. “No, no we’re all friends.”

No more comments, she just gives him a nod.

“But maybe,” he holds Haesung up and looks him over, “you’re due for a change. We should check before we have dinner.” It’s a valid reason to disappear for a moment. “I’ll be right back.”

***

The room is still dark, but the curtain is pulled back enough to let the light from the setting sun spill across the floor. He’s nervous. In all of your time together, the only tense moment between the two of you was the morning you cut his hair, the nightmare you had about him…the day he found out about the pregnancy test. That was a silly thing to fight over, if you could even call it that. Seungmin knows this is different. He understands you’re feeling left out right now—betrayed, maybe. It seems like a strong word, but if you knew how deeply he kissed him, you’d be even angrier.

Haneul is cuddled up next to you. There’s enough light to see his tiny hands reach toward your face and successfully grab at strands of your hair. “Can I come in?”

“It’s your bedroom.”

He doesn’t correct you. It hasn’t been his bedroom in a long time, and he doesn’t want to be pushed back to a time when it was his…alone. “I know you don’t want to be out there with her, and maybe not with me either. I can entertain her if you’d rather have your dinner in here.”

“No. I’m not going to make you sit out there with her by yourself. That’s not fair.”

He’s relieved when you sit and look at him, and even more relieved to see your face dry. No tears this time. “He saw me sitting in the car waiting. I didn’t go looking for him. We talked for two minutes.” No, maybe this time it’s anger.

“She’s probably listening to us right now. I’m just making this easier for her.”

“Then she can hear me tell you how much I love you, and nothing she can do or say is going to change that.”

His phone buzzing in his pocket is deafening—one text, and then another. And a third. Heecheol has impeccable timing.

“What did he say?”

Seungmin pulls out his phone and reads. “Hope your dinner is going well. In-laws can be pretty scary…I’ve heard, at least. No personal experience. I hope her umma is as kind as yours was.”

You scoff.

“I was trying to remember everything I did yesterday, and I definitely didn’t see you. I hope your head is in a good place. Are you keeping up with your meds?” And the last one; “sorry, I’m already a few drinks in, and I hate drinking alone. I hope I can see you all sometime soon. Especially the twins.”

“He doesn’t remember yesterday?”

“No. I mentioned it when I saw him, and he didn’t know what I was talking about.”

Heecheol not remembering means nothing to you. “But you remember. It happened, right?”

Did it? Would it be unusual if the memory was entirely false? It’s not a thought he’s going humor. The last thing he should be doing right now is trivializing what ultimately comes down to cheating. However small it seems in the grand scheme of things, it’s as big as anything in your mind. “Yes. Even if I dreamed it, what I feel is very real, and I feel awful. I’ll do anything I can to fix things.”

You decide to leave it at that, mostly because you have no idea what to say. Forgiving and forgetting the whole thing would be easy, because you do believe his remorse is real, but you still think some part of him enjoyed the kiss. If he falls into that trap again, how could you forgive him? It might make him the charming, heartless killer you assumed he was before he convinced you otherwise. “Let’s try to get through dinner.”

***

It could have been worse. Your mother ate with almost no complaints, though she made sure to question whether you actually made dinner.

“You were always clumsy in the kitchen.”

You never let me cook with you, you thought. Seungmin lets me cook with him. He speaks to me like his mother probably spoke to him—patiently, sweetly. Defeat was working its way in all day, and you’re not surprised that it won. You took everything quietly. No disagreement, no back-talk, no arguing.

"You quit your job? One income household must be nice. I assume you have a job?" Seungmin wasn’t prepared for it. He was not prepared for her to question you as a house wife, but also question not supplying an income in the same breath...he’s settling uncomfortably into the realization of what you had to fight back against growing up. Nothing you did was good enough. Everything you did was (and still is) wrong. Watching you hunched over at the table made him think of his mother, who did her best raising him, and as far as he’s concerned, did a great job despite the obstacles she faced. Maybe she too sat at the kitchen table just like this after Seungmin went to bed; scared, heartbroken, helpless. Putting that smile on for you the next morning was only possible after a long night of sorrow.

You don’t even have him to turn to for comfort right now, or you don’t want him. All you have right now are the boys, and you’re watching the clock tick down to feeding time.

“You could always move back home, bring your husband and kids…”

“What?” Seungmin sits up and looks to you, but you’re still staring at your half empty plate of food, completely checked out, and he doesn’t blame you. “Uhm, I don’t think so. But…my mother grew up in the US, well, she lived there for six years when she was a kid.”

That grabs her attention more than anything else has. “She did? Why didn’t she stay?”

“She missed home. But it was a good time in her life, I know that. She spoke English well enough to teach me when I was little.” He hates these moments where they seem to be getting on like good friends, but he’s just trying to get you through the night. “Which was very lucky when I met you.” Finally, you look up at him, but he can sense your mother look somewhere else. She turns away, takes a drink—anything to get through the moments where Seungmin lays out his affection. Your mother doesn’t even want him loving you.

You say nothing in return, and at last, the alarm goes off.

He hopes when he returns, you’ll be better. If not, he needs to fix what he did. Seungmin has never had to do this, so he’s in the dark, and who can he turn to for advice? It can’t be Heecheol, not this time. He needs his mother…he needs— “Oh.”

It’s late, and his aunts will certainly be sleeping, but he pulls up her info and calls anyway. When he left five years ago, he told himself he wouldn’t burden his family anymore, but he’s been sending cards and checks to his aunts for four of those years. Phone calls are rare, and visits even moreso, mostly because he's still afraid his mask will come off without realizing, and they'll see the monster he turned into.

It rings a few times, and just when he expects the answering machine to chime in, he hears the sound of a landline receiver click.

“Yeoboseyo?” She sounds sleepy, and a little stern. Probably wondering who the hell would call her after 10pm.

“Gomo annyeonghaseyo!”

“Eh? Puppy?”

“Yes it’s me, I’m sorry for bothering you so late. I hope you weren’t asleep.”

Her laugh takes Seungmin back ten years. “No, I’m still a night owl unless I take something. Is everything alright? Haven’t heard from you in some time.”

“Everything is alright. I’m sorry I haven’t kept in touch.”

“Don’t apologize! You have your own life to live, and we have your cards to let us know you’re still out there. But…you sound like you need something. That's a nice change.”

It’s no surprise that Eun-ji can hear something in his voice, both of his aunts could read him like a book unless he worked hard to hide it. “Just some advice.”

“My favorite thing to give! Ask away.”

“How many times can I apologize before she gets tired of hearing it? Does it even help?”

“Oh no, a fight?”

“I’m not sure I would call it that, but…”

“And a girlfriend. You’ve never mentioned having a girlfriend in any of your letters. Is this new?”

Are you still new? Maybe this would still feel new to most people. “Uhm…eight months.” Maybe Eun-ji will give him more insight. Despite never marrying, both of his aunts have had plenty of experience with relationships, and they never shied away from talking to him about it. They didn’t shelter him—Seungmin sheltered himself, until he didn’t. “Sort of, but it doesn’t feel new.”

“Do you know what made her so upset, was it something you said, or did?”

“It was something I did, but there may be some other things out of my control adding to it.”

“You don’t have to explain what you may have done, but give her some space, at least for tonight. Oh, do you two live together?”

“We do. And we got married last month.”

“Married! Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Married? Who?”

Seungmin hears another voice in the background getting closer.

“Who are you talking to at this hour?”

“It’s Minnie, Woo…say hi.”

“Seungmin, you got married and didn’t tell us?"

He’s feeling awful all over again. The distance he put between him and his remaining family was for their own safety, of course, and what little sanity he could hold onto. Mentioning you and the babies didn’t cross his mind, because you and the babies fill his mind completely. “I did, I’m sorry I didn’t call, or write.”

"We have missed your letters. You’re such a lovely and thoughtful writer."

“I will write, and I’ll visit.”

Eun-ji returns to the phone, “give her space, but stay close. Make sure she knows you’re there for her if she needs you, but no hovering.”

“Thank you, both of you. I should get back to the apartment.”

“Jal jayo, puppy.”

***

Just as he suspects, the apartment is silent. The table is cleared, the dishes are clean, and the only light is the one he put near the still flourishing moonflowers. A sick, empty feeling starts to rise in him—you didn’t wait up. Was he gone too long? The drive to the hotel was quick, and he didn’t linger; the drive back was even faster, and the conversation in the car only lasted…he checks his phone…six minutes.

The bedroom is dark and silent, too, but he can make out the lines of your body curled up beneath the thin blanket. Both cots are next to each other, pulled close. You fed them, cleaned up, and went right to bed.

Instead of stripping and climbing in with you like he so desperately wants, he grabs an extra blanket and decides the couch might be better tonight. But first he kisses each boy on the forehead. It’s necessary, but it’s also a chance to peek at your sleeping face. “Jal ja.”

***

The bedroom door is cracked, and he plans on listening for any hint of a cry all night. He’ll take his aunts advice and Seungmin will give you space, but if you both happen to each have a baby to sooth in the same room, well…he’s going to take that opportunity.

Puppy?

Seungmin leans back and takes a long drink of the beer he knows he shouldn’t be drinking. He’s stressed, and he’s tired. Of course he’s hearing things.

What’s bothering you, sweetheart?

The voice is there, but his meds make him question whether it’s there and real, or there and not real. She wasn’t there when he called for her before…so why now?

You’re hurting, I can feel it. I can’t stand to see you so sad.

“I’m going to be sad for a while, I’m sorry.”

Everything will be okay soon

“How do you know that? You can’t. I don’t know that.”

Silence.

"Why are you back now? Where were you before?" He tries to whisper. “That’s it…you’re gone? Umma?” But it comes out in choked stutter, and louder than he expects. Seungmin doesn’t want you to hear him talking to himself. “Umma?”

She’s gone.

The couch is cold and uncomfortable, but his pillow and blanket still smell like you. Daengmo does, too, because he almost always ends up clutched to your chest in the morning. It makes him wonder if there’s a small comfort of yours that was left behind—something soft that you clung to every night when you needed to forget the day. He feels a pang of guilt knowing you might wake up at some point and reach for him. He doesn’t have much time to dwell on it, because he made himself tea and his brain is already starting to get fuzzy, and too tired to care about how much he doesn’t want to sleep here. The last thought that runs through him is a small hope for good dreams. Seungmin wants to dream, and he wants to dream about you.

he’s running. he hasn’t run like this since he was a kid running the bases. no…not since the incident with the bartender. the burn in his chest is unbearable and if he doesn’t stop to catch his breath, he’s going to collapse from the pain. a tiny bark in the distance is the only sound, and it’s not like he imagines his big black dog sounding. this is different. is this what daengmo sounds like? daengmo doesn’t bark, he thinks, daengmo is a telepath. and he can see his breath. why? it’s july…

“seungmo…”

he knows who that is. heecheol says it again in a teasy, sing-songy voice.

“mo, look at me…turn around”

“where are we, cheoli?”

“you don’t recognize this place?”

he doesn’t, and as he turns, what looks back at him is nothing…nobody. hecheol is not where his voice is.

“where did you go?”

“this is where we felt it for the first time" heecheol is laughing as he says it, as if he’s proud.

“yeah, I think I remember” how many memories of his are still shoved where he can't reach them? “where is that barking coming from?”

heecheol shrugs, “barking? you must be hearings things.

His eyes pop open to the dark living room. He hates it. Waking in the pitch dark alone can send him spiraling if he lets it, but this time he takes his deep breaths until his heartbeat begins to slow. Daengmo is clutched tight in the bend of his elbow, crushed under the weight of whatever he was dreaming about. Some of it sticks in his mind. “What a stupid fucking dream,” he sighs and fluffs his dog back to life. “Do you bark?”

It takes no time at all for him to drift back to sleep.

this time he’s home. not in uljin, but right here, in this apartment. it looks different, like maybe you finally redecorated (because you hate the couch, and the chopped up rug—you don’t like the minimalist style he went for and never changed)

“tokki?”

no answer. you have to be here, though. he heads for the bedroom, and it feels like he’ll never get to the door. every few steps, he resets, and he’s right back where he started.

“tokki!”

finally, he twists the doorknob. the bedroom is empty. the bed is neatly made, but a few of your drawers are partially open. no cots, no mess of nighttime feeding things on your bedside table. the only thing he sees is his silver medallion where your phone usually sits. he pulls open the drawer and finds it empty. the chest where you put all of your winter things is empty, too.

“what’s happening? where are you?” he says it to himself in a shaky voice. you wouldn’t leave and take his children without a word. would you?

This time, he can’t slow down his racing heart. Seungmin can barely catch his breath when he sits up, and as he does, Daengmo slips to the floor with a soft thud. A moment later he’s up on his trembling legs, headed for the bedroom. It was just a dream, you’ll be sound asleep when he opens the door, all three of you. You’re awake, and the sound of you humming to them makes it to his ears. Feeding them, talking to them, humming the same tune his music box used to play. The courage to open the door and go in is not in him, despite how relieved he feels after the dream. You didn’t pack up and leave him in the night—his brain did that, but Seungmin is just as afraid of losing you now as he was in December.

“Are you at least trying to keep the nightmares away?” Daengmo stares quietly until his soft neck gives out and his head falls to one side. “Can you try harder, please?” Seungmin’s eyes close, but open again immediately. “I didn’t mean that, I know you’re doing your best.”

The third attempt is dark and cold and wet.

he hasn’t dreamt about the shed in months, but he knew it would return eventually. the soil beneath his fingers is as real as it has ever been, and maybe it’s because he’s been away for so long—seungmin has been too comfortable and safe with you. the other hand clenches around something soft and damp. daengmo is clutched in his left hand, limp and dirty, two sad black eyes staring right at him.

"why are you here…you’re not supposed to be here"

the shk sound of the shovel hitting dirt makes his stomach turn. he’s next. as long as he’s finished off before being put in that hole.

"no…no, I don’t wanna die anymore” tears sting his eyes and roll down his cheeks “please don’t kill me”

he can’t move. the squeeze of his fingers and eyes, that’s it. he’s stuck, and every bit of energy he has left turns his head toward the sound

"tokki? help me, I can’t move." it’s only in his head. the only sound that leaves his mouth is a sigh

No, not again, he thinks, because he can’t move. There’s the smallest sensation of his finger twitching against the couch, but that might be his imagination. It definitely is. He thinks about moving his arm, but his brain can’t find where to send the signal, so he relaxes. Seungmin almost lets his eyes close, but the floor creaks. It’s not real. The sleep paralysis sounds are never real, and he knows that. It’s taken him years to train his mind to remember that.

what’s wrong…puppy?

Is that you? It sounds like you. No, it’s not real. But it’s never addressed him before.

I watched you yesterday. she saw me. she didn’t tell you, did she?

What did you see? Seungmin’s eyes are wide open and he sees nothing. Where is it? He can hear it, and now he can smell it—the smell of damp, rotten earth and a freshly lit cigarette burns his nose and throat. It’s not real.

I am very real

Something cold touches his bare shoulder and slowly moves toward his neck.

she hates you, do you feel it coming from her? how silly to think someone could ever love you

It’s right. Seungmin can feel it right now. The love you felt for him is slowly leaving you. Or maybe it was never truly there, because how could it be?

how silly to think you could love someone unconditionally, and that they could love you in return

Even if she hates me, I still love her. Seungmin thinks about you in there with his children, holding them close and singing, and he feels like he could cry. Unconditionally. He does. A tear slides across the bridge of his nose, and through blurry eyes, its bone white face comes into view.

The force of his body and mind waking simultaneously almost sends him to the floor, along with everything else. The blanket, Daengmo, his phone. The sun is starting to glow faintly in the window, and he hoped by morning he would feel better, but that’s not the case. Seungmin feels worse; empty, hopeless, stupid, broken, unlovable. He remembers everything It told him.

He stumbles into the bathroom and wonders if he should take his aunts advice and continue to give you space, because all he feels he can do is kneel in front of and beg for forgiveness again.

The reflection looking back at him, is that really what you love? Why? Seungmin runs his fingers through his hair and pulls. All the worst parts of him are showing, he can’t hide them and he never could, and you’re finally coming to your senses.

He drops to his knees and swings the cabinet door open, rifles through boxes of hair dye, extra toiletries and forgotten things thrown under here and out of the way. Finally, he finds what he’s looking for in the little black bag, and when he rips it out and plugs it in, he isn’t even sure it’s going to work. But it does, and the buzz of the clippers is louder than he expected. One more look at himself, and then he pulls at his bangs again, up and out of his face, and the clippers have little trouble going through. Again and again, over and over…erratically at first, but as he calms, the strokes become slow and careful. And he doesn’t know it, but the buzz wakes you from your deep sleep.

Seungmin doesn’t hear as you carefully make your way toward the sound, and if he would have closed the door, you might not have heard him at all.

The door creaks as you push it open, but he still hears nothing.

“Seungmin, what are you doing?”

He jumps and drops the clippers into the sink, sending the guard flying onto the floor, and finally quieting them.

“Seungmin…”

Why are you looking at him like that? Confused, disgusted, mad that he woke you… “I’m sorry.” The feeling rushing through him is familiar. It’s the itch, the one that makes him want to claw at his skin until there’s nothing left. The itch that It put into his brain, and in every nerve in his body. Seungmin looks at himself in the mirror, only for a moment, before bracing himself on the sink and sending his face straight into it.

The sound is unbelievable, and the crunch of glass is even worse the second time. All you see is red. It pours from the center of his forehead and onto every part of his pale face…it drips as he stumbles backward, and when he leans forward to keep from falling, you unstick yourself from your spot and put your arms around his neck. “Seungmin, look at me.” You reach for the hand towel and drape it over your shoulder, and he naturally falls into your embrace. Three small shards of glass stick to his wound, and he stares, bewildered as they’re carefully pulled away. “Why?”

He lets out of body shaking sob when your hands slide over his back. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

You sush him, run your fingers up his neck and into his much shorter hair. He feels as cold as the bathroom floor, and sitting here in nothing but shorts is not helping. “Why did you do that?”

Seungmin only groans and pushes his forehead against your shoulder. “I didn't mean to wake you."

"You didn't." It's a lie, but whatever gives him a small amount of comfort right now. "I'm gonna run you a bath, okay?"

There is no energy in him to tell you no. The throb in his head might be the worst physical pain he’s ever been in, but it’s somewhat soothed by the sight of you. Seungmin presses the towel against his wound and one sleepy eye watches as you kneel and turn the water on. Nothing would be better than crawling closer to touch the bare skin of your thighs, or the shoulder peeking out from the bed shirt you’ve worn down to almost nothing—the same shirt he gave you the night you came back with him. He won’t, though. Seungmin will keep his hands to himself until you invite him back in.

"Come over here."

His steps are still shaky and cautious, but your hand reaching back gives him more courage. You touch his leg, and goosebumps move all the way up to his neck…then your hands are on his hips, pulling gently at the waistband, sliding them down his thighs. Such a stupid moment to feel a jolt of pleasure in his dick. Not now. A drop of blood escapes and lands on your arm, and then another until you stand to face him.

“In.”

He listens and carefully steps into the water, and he’s relieved when you hold him steady on the way down. It’s not a good time to trust his coordination, considering the lightheadedness he’s keeping from you. But there’s an awful lot of blood on the sink, the floor, him…and now it’s in the water, bursting and spreading like rainclouds. He watches, transfixed, and he moves the towel in an attempt to make more. There’s a warm gush between his eyes, and then you’re back, pressing a clean white towel against it.

“Tilt your head back a little.”

“Are the boys okay?”

“They’re good…they’re asleep. I’m gonna clean this up and try to get a better look. It might sting.” The brand new first-aid kit came in handy. Ever since the garden shear incident, you decided to prepare in case something similar happened again. This wound doesn’t seem as deep, but there has to be pieces of glass still stuck in the two criss-cross gashes—one is at least two inches long, and the other isn’t much smaller. They’re jagged, very unlike the cut on his arm, and you know it needs stitched by a steady hand. “Close your eyes.”

The sting of the antiseptic brings a new pain. He lets himself cry out in release as the warmth of blood mixes with it, and a soft piece of gauze soaks it up. He thinks back to the shed, and the pounding, bleeding wound he woke up with on the back of his head. There must be a scar there, but he never looked for it. He might be able to see one now.

“I don’t see anymore glass. Nothing big enough to see, at least.”

“Feels like…” yours eyes meet, and he stops. He has no business complaining about the pain he caused himself. There may not be anymore glass, but it feels like there is. “Thank you.”

“That’s why I’m here.” Seungmin’s eyes close as you pour warm water over him, filling the tub with more blood, more clumps of his buzzed hair. “I’ll even this out in the morning.”

He wants to tell you cleaning up and taking care of his stupid, reckless behavior is not why you’re here, regardless of how you meant it. But he can’t get any words to come out. You could have left him feeling embarrassed and in pain on the floor…it would have been so easy just to go back to bed. But you’re here, another clean washcloth in hand, wiping away the blood on his lips and chin and down his neck. “Thank you,” he repeats, because he doesn’t think you want to hear another I’m sorry. “I love you.” It’s barely a whisper, and he knows you hear him, but you don’t say anything in return. He’s not very easy to love right now. “The first time we went to Uljin, I said...” Why is he even remembering this? “You asked about who took me in after umma died, and if they were good to me.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“I was gonna say…I wasn’t easy to love. I don’t think I was a bad kid, I was just,“ Now you aren’t even looking at him, “I was sad all the time, always in a bad mood. I cried a lot, didn’t talk or leave my room for days at a time.”

“That didn’t make you hard to love, you were just hiding from it.”

He knows his aunts would agree, and he knows you’re probably right, but that’s not the case tonight. “I don’t wanna be hard for you to love.”

***

Morning comes while you finish cleaning and bandaging him, which you’re getting very good at, and he almost heads for the couch. Seungmin seems surprised when you stop him and take his hand in yours. He’s relieved, because all he can see by the couch is that white face staring down at him, the promise of more nightmares. None of that will mix well with the pain in his head.

“Go, I’ll get your things.”

The bedroom feels safe despite what his nightmare told him—I watched you sleep, and the sounds of the babies waking up distract him from everything going through his mind. It doesn’t matter right now. If the monster is here and watching him, there’s nothing he can do the fight back against it…is there? He never could before. Finding someone to kill…”it’s only been,” he picks up Haesung and holds him tight against his chest… “too long I guess. Not enough.” Killing has always been his only defense, and he hasn’t done it in weeks.

“Not enough what?” You return with Daengmo and a handful of painkillers.

The last attempt was a failure, at least so far, but the noises have yet to return. “Nothing, just…thinking. Maybe I’m overdue.”

“Overdue to…kill?”

Seungmin nods and switches babies. And as preoccupied as he is with them, he notices an unusual hesitancy in your reply. “No noise or voices, but it still feels close.”

“What feels close?”

“It does, the voice. Voices. But, something else, too.”

“Oh, right.”

“We don’t have to talk about it. I’m, uh…“ anything but sorry, stop saying that word. “I’m just tired.”

You crawl across the bed and adjust his pillows, add an extra one so his head stays elevated, but he doesn’t get in right away. Seungmin watches you return to your own spot first. “We should.”

“Talk?”

He’s relieved when you nod, and now it’s easier sliding in next to you, but his spot feels cold in more ways than one. You want to talk, though, and that’s good.

“Something is close.”

This isn’t how he expected things to start, but he’ll take it. The quiet of your voice sends a shiver over him, but it’s replaced by a more pleasant one when you run your palm over the mess he made of his hair. He felt like he was doing an okay job, but he quickly realized the state he was in did not allow for a steady hand. “What do you mean?” The monster’s words come back to him again. She saw me, she didn’t tell you.

“Yesterday, I thought I saw something at the foot of the bed while you were asleep. I heard something, thought you were awake, and I came in to check on you. But I think I was just seeing things because it was gone when I turned on the light.”

“What exactly did you see?”

“A shadow, a black figure…like a person covered in a cloak, I guess. Tall, hunched over. It felt weird.”

“Did you smell it.”

“Yeah.”

Seungmin can only assume it was the rot of the forest, and the decaying stench of the thing that haunts him. He doesn’t need to ask. That same sickening scent from his dream is still stuck in his nose.

“Did we bring it home with us, Min?”

***

Seungmin?

You already know you’re dreaming, but this is the most lucid you’ve been since you were pregnant.

Seungmin, you’re holding too tight

The grip on your waist is pushing the air from your lungs. A pinch doesn’t faze him, and neither does a squeeze of his forearm. You can feel the taut muscle move beneath his skin as he holds even tighter.

Minnie please

But you’re stuck in some half paralysis. Just like a dream, you’re moving through air twice as thick as it should be, and you feel like you’re drowning.

Seung—

Your eyes open, and the room is unbearably bright. The only thing squeezed around you is the sheet you tangled yourself into, but you are a little breathless from your dream. “Min? Are you…” He’s not here. It’s late, though, and you start to panic at the thought of sleeping through an alarm. But even if you did, sleeping through two crying babies would not be possible.

Both cots are back on your side, so Seungmin took the time to move them both close to you. And both are sleeping peacefully.

The kitchen and dining room are empty. The bathroom is empty, but you know he was in here, fixing his hair most likely, changing his bandage—the first-aid kit is still sitting on the sink.

“Where did you go, Seungmin?” A few more steps back toward the kitchen bring you some sort of answer—the folded note on the coffee bar would have gone unnoticed if you weren’t hoping to find something. Scribbled on the front is a cute attempt at a bunny, and on the inside is a single, messy line of Hangul..

이것도 고칠게요

TAGS: @kkamismom12/ @r0tt1n/ @heluvschibi / @feckinbecky / @missystay / @seungluvr / @babrieeee / @curiouscocoabean / @feelikecinderella / @carpioassists / @soulsbbg / @san-axa0 / @vixensss / @keiizzx / @xyliskz / @reignessance / @velvetmoonlght / @ghostedgameplays / @pochaccochacco / @lashaemorow / @eastjonowhere / @fackeraccount / @felixs-voice-makes-me-wanna / @maddycline / @smilefordongil / @lolniall / @caughtinthemoment163

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foxyaries · 9 months ago

Text

My Shifting Story That Keeps Me Motivated To This Day

Well hello again! I think it is time I share my own "almost" success story. I know a lot of you might not be interested in reading about my ALMOST success. But trust me... the more I tink about my own story the more I realize how silly it was of me to procrastinate actually doing it for so long. It's almost funny. But let's get into it, shall we?

As I have already mentioned it in my previous posts (please do read them if you haven't already to fill in any blanks that you may or may not have). I have been at a very dark place at that time. And I didn't wanna live the way that I had for as long as I could remember, because I simply wasn't happy.. with my life or my family. And I felt like I was a good kid. And I was! So when I discovered the subliminal world.. I saw it as my escape and a way to finally become happy. And that's when the subliminal "Wake up in your desired family" came into picture.

Like I mentioned before, there were only a couple success stories under that subliminal, but at that time our community was even smaller compared to what it is now. And those 10 - 14k views was more than enough for me to believe that it was a real deal. It's a bit funny to think about it now because these days we tend to pick subliminals that has thousands and thousands and thousands of views? Am I right? :) That's how we decide whether the subliminal works or not.

Anyways.. back to my storytime. I have already mentioned in another post of mine that those success stories that I did see all said the same thing. That for them to start feeling the results it took them a couple months. And if you remember as well as I do. Back then everyone set a limiting belief that for a subliminal message to start working you need to listen to it for at least 21 days. Even tho that wasn't true, I didn't know much about shifting so I believed it. And I also wasn't desperate enough, so since the stories told me it took THEM 1 - 2 months, I figured it'd take me the exact amount of time. And I thought it was nothing compared to the future I was gonna have.

So all that I did for those couple months was listen to that subliminal at least 1 hour a day and sometimes if I could overnight with the idea that I could wake up in my desired family any given moment. Pay attention to that. I didn't set a deadline or put pressure on myself for doing anything wrong. I just listened and knew it was going to happen. When exactly? No idea. How exactly? Not a clue, but I didn't care. Because knowing less was actually more of a blessing than I thought. I had no limiting beliefs. All it did was awaken my inner child and that whole journey felt magical to me and I really looked foward to my results.

Probably a month passed by when I started getting tired around the same time, every single day so I'd take naps. At a time a half an hour nap was more than enough to make me feel rested and I'd get in the state of being awake yet asleep at the same time. You know what I am talking about. The state during which it feels like you are in and out of sleep. When the sounds feel like they are far far away and then they dissapear. It almost sounds like I was close to tapping in the void state, no? :)

So whenever I'd feel tired I'd just have one earbud in my ear and lay in whatever comfortable position I wanted to lay in. It usually was on my side. And I had no intention to shift because I KNEW it was gonna happen either way. So I'd lay down and just have myself doze off listening to my playlist (I had a couple boosters too but then I'd just loop the main subliminal). And then I started feeling unusual sensations and feelings I have never felt before. All I did was just lay there and day dream about how I was gonna wake up in my desired room and I tried imagining it in detail. How I was gonna walk out of my room and see my best friends that I was going to shift there with. And literally all I did was just loop that scene because it made me happy :')

I keep rambling haha I'm sorry. Back to what happened. I was probably a month in when I started to get tired and naking naps around the same time and suddenly my naps were different? I would just mind my own business, think about my future when suddenly I would feel this insanely strong sensation that I was being lifted off of my bed and that my body was turning and flying somewhere?? But because I didn't know exactly what it was it'd freak me out and my body would flinch. That's when I'd recover the feeling of my body back and it felt like I'd literally fall back into my bed. And I mean LITERALLY get slammed back into my body. And this wasn't a one time thing. Same thing kept happening every single day for like 2 weeks (until I got insecure and shifted my focus somehwere else as I've mentioned in another post). What's funny is that I didn't even realize what was happening. I was just like "Oh? That's a new feeling" I was just curious and wanted for it to keep happening so I could understand it better. I only realized what it was when it stopped happening all together and for that I blame myself.

But you know what? It's okay. I've learnt so much since then. And it's insane how all I did every day was look for other success stories to convince myself that this was real. When I had my own very real success story. I KNOW all fo this is real because I experienced it. And I am done looking for a confirmation from other people. I know the truth and that's enough. And you should too. You don't need any of these methods. All you need is to do whatever makes you feel comfortable and happy and that you know works for YOU. Cause what actually matters is that YOU KNOW is gonna work for you. That's all that ANY of us really need.

I know this is a lot, but if you actually read this I hope it helped and made you realize something... anything really. Be your own success story and make your dreams come true.

I believe soon you will hear about my own final success story:) Goodbye for now. Next post will be more about my fairy companion. Do look forward to that!

Much love,

Foxy ♡🦊

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atinyslittleworld · 22 days ago

Text

WRECK-ognition

idol!namjoon x f!reader (ft. idol!hongjoong)

Summary: She traded her leader for a captain—now Namjoon’s fighting for his dominance and dignity.

Word Count: 678

Genre: idol au, fluff, slow burn, friends-to-lovers

Warnings: mild jealousy, mild swearing ass is mentioned, light dom-sub energy

a/n: Yes, I know... I haven’t posted in a while, and no—this is definitely not my usual content. But listen… I spent a questionable amount of time with my ARMY best friend, and somewhere between BTS playlists, Namjoon brainrot, and chaotic laughter, this fic was born. I may or may not have been spiritually possessed by leader-line energy. She rubbed off on me—hard. So here we are. Captain vs. Leader. Enjoy the mess.

Y/N had been there from the start — the rap battles, the tiny stages, the nights Namjoon would send her lyrics at 3 a.m. with way too many metaphors. She’d watched him rise from underground poet to global phenomenon, never once doubting he’d make it.

But now?

Now she was an ATINY.

And she was thriving in it.

“You know,” she said with a smug little smile, sipping her iced coffee with unnecessary drama, “it’s nice finally having a captain.”

Namjoon, sitting across from her in his usual relaxed pose — legs spread like he owned the cafe and the block around it — arched an eyebrow. “Here we go.”

She grinned wider. “Someone who takes control. Commands attention. Has killer stage presence and don’t get me started with his visuals!”

Namjoon blinked slowly. “Are you trying to make me jealous of Hongjoong again?”

“Who said anything about jealousy?” she asked innocently, tapping a finger to her lips. “I’m just saying… it’s refreshing to have a real captain steering the ship.”

He tilted his head, the corners of his mouth twitching. “Right. Because I clearly never knew how to steer.”

“You?” she snorted. “You were all ‘let’s reflect on life and write essays about trees.’ Hongjoong sets things on fire on stage.”

Namjoon leaned forward, elbows on the table, voice lower and way too calm. “You like things getting set on fire?”

“Love it.”

He smirked, eyes dark with mischief. “Then remind me later to light a fire under your ass for the betrayal.”

Y/N choked on her drink, eyes going wide. “Kim Namjoon!”

“What?” he said, grinning full now, dimples out and proud. “You started it.”

“You’re ridiculous,” she said, cheeks flushing even as she tried to glare.

“And yet,” he said smoothly, “you’re still blushing.”

“I’m not blushing. I’m just—warm.”

“Oh, I know,” he said, voice like sin. “Must be that captain talk heating you up.”

Y/N pressed her lips together, trying to pull herself together. But Namjoon was too smug, too confident, and too good at knowing exactly how to fluster her.

Until she flipped the switch.

“You know what’s funny?” she said, voice dipping into something softer, sultrier.

Namjoon blinked, thrown off just slightly. “What?”

“You act all cool and unbothered,” she said, leaning in just enough to make his gaze flick to her lips, “but every time I mention Hongjoong, your jaw gets a little tighter.”

Namjoon’s mouth opened for a comeback—but nothing came out.

She smirked. “And you shift in your seat like someone’s getting uncomfortable.”

“I’m not—”

“Oh?” she interrupted, all fake sweetness. “You sure? Because I’m getting a little déjà vu. Remember when you used to be the one everyone called the best leader in K-pop?”

His brows furrowed. “Used to?”

“I mean,” she shrugged, eyes dancing, “times change.”

Namjoon narrowed his eyes, visibly fighting to keep his cool.

Then she leaned back, crossing her legs slowly, dragging her gaze over him with mock appraisal. “But don’t worry, Joon. You’ve still got your charms.”

He licked his lips slowly. “You’re playing a dangerous game.”

She batted her lashes. “Maybe I want to lose.”

Namjoon sat back, jaw clenched, adjusting his seat like suddenly it was way too hot in the room. “You’re evil.”

“And you love it.”

He ran a hand through his hair, clearly debating whether to laugh or climb across the table and kiss the smirk off her face. “You know,” he said finally, voice tight, “if you keep this up, I’m gonna have to do something about it.”

“Oh no,” she gasped, mock-scandalized. “Is the leader gonna punish me?”

He groaned. “I hate you.”

She leaned closer, whispered with a smirk, “You love me.”

His breath caught.

Silence.

A pause that said everything and nothing.

Then Namjoon smirked, eyes burning. “Fine. Keep talking about your little ‘captain.’ Just remember—when I show you what it’s like to really be led…” He stood, towering over her with that low, dangerous confidence. “You’re gonna beg to jump ship.”

Y/N stared up at him, caught between flustered and thrilled.

“Challenge accepted,” she whispered.

Game on.

#ateez fanfic #ateez imagines #ateez x reader #ateez fic #ateez #kim hongjoong x reader #kim hongjoong imagines #kim hongjoong #bts #bts imagines #kim namjoon #kim namjoon imagines #kim namjoon x reader

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in1-nutshell · 1 year ago

Note

Hello! I am SOO sorry that I have been cramping you with asks, so feel as free as you can be to push this one alll the way back, or deny it, I am not desperate at all. I just want to type this before I forget this. So after the Megatron with a daughter who was his opposite post, I, too, am in love with this opposite personality daughter series. Like just all of our favourite men as fathers of daughters with individual personalities of themselves but also more or less all resonated their fathers one way or another, or someone they knew! I LOVE IT! And I realized how this formed a perfect trilogy now.

So I am real curious. What if the three daughters exist in the same universe? And, may or may not interact? (would we need individual names for them all? Or Buddy 1 and 2 and 3 like Spider-Man: No Way Home and no one questions it?)

Hello!

I've actually been thinking about continuing the 'daughter with different personality' thing. Maybe in the future you'll see more!

Originally the plan was to have all the Buddy's to be in the same universe, but I ended up scrapping the idea and decided to create separate universes for each one (unless the plot tells me otherwise :))

When I saw the Spiderman part my mind went to this.

(Who knows for the future)

Hope you enjoy!

Optimus Prime, Ratchet, and Megatron's daughters meeting each other for the first time.

SFW, Platonic, Familial, groundbridge and relic shenanigans, Cybertronain reader

TFP

In TFP Rats universe.

Buddy was just minding her own business cleaning and wiping down her father’s tools.

It’s a nice day on base.

There was low Decepticon activity for the past few days, the children were playing their games, Bulkhead and Smokescreen were trying to get Bumblebee and Arcee to play Lob with them, Ultra Magnus and Optimus were reviewing plans for something, and her father, Ratchet, was with Wheeljack looking at a new relic they found in the Artic.

“It’s not another scraplet trap, right?”--Raf

“Nope! Completely checked it with the scanner. We should be good now.”--Buddy

“We ‘should’ be good?”--Bulkhead

“There is always a percentage of things blowing up, I’m not counting that out.”--Buddy

Without warning, the relic whirled to life jumping and shaking onto the floor.

Everyone jumped and backed away from the whirling sound it made. Bright light came out of it as the shaking intensified. The noise was loud enough to get everyone to come to the main room.

The machine scanned the closest bot, Buddy, and opened a portal, shooting out tons of air.

The children nearly flew back, but thanks to Ultra Magnus and Optimus, they were caught before they flew off the ledge.

“Hey Ratchet! What’s it doing?!”--Bulkhead

“Oh, it’s putting on a rock concert. OBVIOUSLY, I DON’T KNOW!”--Ratchet

Machine whirls louder.

“Buddy! Hide behind the med slab!”--Wheeljack

Buddy already behind the slab, clutching onto dear life.

“With all due respect, WHAT DO YOU THINK I’M DOING?!”--Buddy

Meanwhile in megs dimension

Buddy calmly walking down the halls of the Nemesis with some data pads.

“Hmm… wonder why they need so many data pads…”--Buddy

Sudden portal pops up on the wall next to them.

“What in the—”--Buddy

Portal starts sucking her in.

“AHHH—”--Buddy

Portal sucks Buddy in leaving the discarded data pads sprawled in the middle of the hallway.

In op dimension

Buddy is resting her arm on the handrail while talking with Miko.

“How’s the playlist going?”--Miko

“Haven’t been working too much on it. Patrol has been up my tailpipe lately. Do you have any more recommendations?”--Buddy

“Yeah! How about—”—Miko

A sudden portal opens.

“Umm, I don’t remember Ratchet opening up a groundbridge.”--Miko

Buddy grabbing a grenade from her subspace.

“That’s because he hasn’t!”--Buddy

Buddy chucks a grenade at the portal.

BAM!

Nothing happens to the portal.

“What!”—Miko and Buddy

The portal starts sucking them in.

Buddy grabs Miko as she starts to get dragged in, pounds a hole in the ledge and places her in there.

“Buddy? Buddy what are you—”--Miko

Buddy groans as she tries to keep her footing but gets sucked in and the portal closes.

“BUDDY!”--Miko

In Rats dimension

Two figures pop out of the portal and slam into Ratchet’s daughter.

The portal closes.

The two figures groaned.

Op Buddy sits up rubbing her helm.

Meg Buddy sliding off the med slab and onto the floor on her back.

“Urgh… my aching helm…”—Megs Buddy

Rat Buddy gently massaging her helm before looking at the two strangers.

“Who are you?”—Rat Buddy

Op Buddy looks at the others.

“Who are you?!”—Op Buddy

Meg Buddy looking at all the Autobots in the area.

“WHERE AM I?!”—Meg Buddy

Optimus carefully approaches the younglings.

Megs Buddy quickly moves back while the other two just stare widely.

“Buddy—”--Optimus

“Yes?”—All Buddy’s

All Buddy’s turn around and point at each other.

“Your name is Buddy! I’m Buddy!”—All Buddy’s

Meg Buddy standing up pacing a bit.

“Maybe this is some alternate universe…I always thought something like this was possible from what he said… It’s the only logical explanation for this…”—Megs Buddy

“That seems to check out. Which explains why Dad hasn’t started giving me the ‘speech’ again.”—Op Buddy

“Dad?”--Kids

“… Oh, this is going to be fun.”—Op Buddy

“This is not going to be fun…”—Meg Buddy

Everyone is confused.

Come to find the relic would scan someone and find ‘alternatives’ of them. It could mean alternative of the bot or by their names.

To avoid confusion the Buddy’s are labeled.

Op’s Buddy would be known as Buddy 1.

Rats Buddy would be known as Buddy 2.

Megs Buddy would be known as Buddy 3.

“How come she’s Buddy 1? Why not our Buddy? She was hear before you guys showed up.”--Miko

“Cause I’m older and cooler.”—Buddy 1

“Yeah right.”--Miko

“Don’t believe me Miko? Watch this.”—Buddy 1

Buddy 1 transforms into a monster truck.

“I take it back! That’s so cool! Can I ride you!?”--Miko

“Of course!”—Buddy 1

“Miko no!”--Bulkhead

“Miko yes!”--Miko

“Then why is our Buddy number two?”--Raf

“Because I’m the second oldest. Three is the youngest one here.”—Buddy 2

“Guess it makes sense. You she is kind a smaller than you two.”--Jack

“Hey! I’m a minicon! Of course, I’m smaller than everyone here!”—Buddy 3

“You’re a minicon?”--Arcee

Buddy 3 shrinks back a bit at Arcee’s gaze nodding.

Buddy 1 made the Team guess who her father was, bets were on the table and ready to be thrown. Buddy 1 managed to get Buddy 3 to get in on the guessing part. Buddy 3 guaranteed that no one would guess her creator.

A part of her didn’t want them to know either.

“All right we are ready.”--Miko

“Wow so soon?”—Buddy 3

“Too soon if you asked me.”—Buddy 1

“We’ve narrowed down three bots for each. If we win, 1 needs to take me out dune bashing in her alt mode.”--Miko

“Miko!”--Bulkhead

“I can stand by that.”—Buddy 1

“And if you don’t guess right?”—Buddy 2

“You’ll have to tell us.”--Miko

“…”—Buddy 3

“Lets get started!”--Miko

“Okay these ones are for Buddy 1.”--Smokescreen

“Got it, lets hear them.”—Buddy 1

“First one… Wheeljack!”--Miko

Buddy 1 laughing at the response.

“HAHAHAHA, Sorry, its just, just that Jackie here is more like my Uncle. Definitely not my dad.”—Buddy 1

“All righty then… Bulkhead!”--Miko

Buddy starts laughing at that one too.

“Nope! Bulks also like my Uncle!”—Buddy 1

“The last one… Smokescreen!”—Miko

Buddy is now on the floor laughing her tanks and near crying.

“…I’ll take that as a no then…”--Raf

Buddy finally stops laughing.

“You lose.”—Buddy 1

“Got that. Now spill it! Who’s your Dad?!”--Miko

Buddy stands up rather stoically.

“One shall stand, one shall fall.”—Buddy 1

Everyone stares at Optimus, who looks equally as surprised.

“Your—your Boss Bots kid!? How!?”--Miko

“A question everyone has been asking since we met.”—Buddy 1

Miko turns to Buddy 3.

She hoped that they would have forgotten her, but alas here she was.

“Your turn!”--Miko

Buddy 3 nervously sits next to Prime and Ratchet

“First one… Arcee!”--Miko

Buddy 3 looking terrified.

“NO! I mean no.”--Buddy 3

“How about… Ultra Magnus!”--Miko

Buddy shakes her helm while looking at Magnus.

“Sorry try again.”—Buddy 3

“Okay… Optimus!”--Miko

Buddy 1 looks at Buddy 3.

“Are we siblings!?”—Buddy 1

“I mean aren’t we all in a way?”—Buddy 3

“Buddy.”--Ratchet

“Sorry, the answer is no.”—Buddy 3

“Dang it!”--Miko

“Then who is your Dad?”--Raf

“…Megatron…”—Buddy 3

“…”—Everyone

“HOW!”--Jack

Buddy shrinks back at the sudden movements.

Buddy 1 and Buddy 2 immediately stand by Buddy 3

“Hold it now. Just because 3 dad is Bucket head, no offense.”—Buddy 1

“None taken.”—Buddy 3

“Doesn’t mean she’s bad. Right?”—Buddy 2

“No, no I’m not.”—Buddy 3

“Really and how can you prove it?”--Arcee

“Arcee—”—Buddy 2

“Well think about this. If I was truly bad, why haven’t I hurt you.”—Buddy 3

“Because your short?”--Smokescreen

“… Okay that one’s asking for it… but beside the point, I could have easily hurt the kids, yet I haven’t. I could have attacked or given any other hint that I had malicious intentions. But I haven’t, have I?”—Buddy 3

Pause

“I stand by 3.”—Buddy 1

“And I stand with 1 and 3.”—Buddy 2

“I will stand by her as well.”--Optimus

“Prime!”—Most of the team

“Prime?”—Buddy 3

“She is our guest and so is 1. We must treat them with the respect they deserve.”--Optimus

“…Thank you Prime.”—Buddy 3

After the confrontation a little more research is done on the machine.

Thanks to Buddy 3’s expert decoding skills, she was able to read the full effects of the machine as well as how to reverse it.

The good news was that the effects were reversable.

The bad news was that the machine needed time to recuperate before usage again.

The Buddy’s decided to kill time by hanging out with each other and the team in the meantime.

Aka shenanigan time.

1 tries to start a conversation with her alternate family especially with Prime.

She is curious to see if there are any differences between her father and her alternative father.

“You always did have a thing for the Halls, didn’t you?”—Buddy 1

“The Halls of Iacon was where I worked.”--Optimus

“You mean, where Orion worked.”—Buddy 1

“…Yes.”--Optimus

“Sorry, but I see Orion and Optimus as two separate bots sometimes.”—Buddy 1

“It is understandable.”--Optimus

3 tended to stay with 2 for the most part.

2 was a soft soul and was quiet for the most part.

2 did entertain 3 with the occasional story here and there.

Buddy 2 and 3 talking to each other near the med bay.

“What do you think they’re talking about?”--Smokescreen

“Beep boop bep bop boop. (Probably about medical stuff.)”--Bumblebee

“Yeah, probably.”--Smokescreen

“So, then Arcee raised her blasters at the wannabe Cybertronians and started blasting.”—Buddy 2

Buddy 3 listening intently.

1 likes to place 2 and 3 on her shoulders.

1 being the tallest and bulkiest of the Buddy’s could support the weight, not that they did weigh anything to her.

The other two Buddy’s liked feeling tall.

“Hey! Hey! Look at this!”—Buddy 1

Buddy 1 supporting Buddy 2 on her shoulders while Buddy 3 was on top.

“We are Buddy Supreme!”—Buddy 2

Buddy 1 has a bright smile on her face.

Buddy 2 has a wobbly smile trying not to laugh while carrying 3.

Buddy 3 is just staring in amazement.

“So, this is what it’s like to be tall… this is nice.”—Buddy 3

Soon it was time for them to leave.

3 really doesn’t want to leave her new friends behind.

She certainly doesn’t want to go back to the dark halls of the Nemesis.

But this pleasant experience was soon to be the spark to ignite the flame for peace between the two fractions again.

She was going to do everything she could to end this war with peace.

Whether Megatron liked it or not.

“It was lovely seeing you all and knowing there are alternative versions of myself out there. I hope we meet again on much pleasanter terms in the future.”—Buddy 3

“Same goes to you 3!”—Buddy 1 and 2

Buddy 3 walks through the portal.

A flash of purple shines before returning to its natural color.

“It’s your turn kid—”--Wheeljack

“SEE YA!”—Buddy 1

Buddy 1 back flips into the portal before a flash of blue shines.

The portal turns off and all is still.

“…Well, wasn’t that an eventful Wednesday afternoon?”—Buddy

In megs universe

Buddy bounces off the wall of the Nemesis.

Literally.

“For once I’d wish for a smooth landing…”--Buddy

“Buddy.”--Soundwave

Buddy looks up to see Soundwave.

Buddy waves.

“Hey Soundwave.”--Buddy

Soundwave starts walking forward.

“Sorry about the data pads—”--Buddy

Soundwave is in front of Buddy.

“I swear I meant to go straight to the room when—”--Buddy

Soundwave gets down on his knees and pulls Buddy in a tight hug.

Buddy freezes for a moment before hugging back.

None say anything, just holding onto each other in one of the empty halls of the Nemesis.

In op universe

Buddy gets thrown at Bumblebee and Smokescreen.

“OW!”--Buddy

“BEEP! (BUDDY!)”--Bumblebee

“BUDDY!”--Smokescreen

Both bots hugging Buddy’s sides tightly.

“We heard from Miko that you go sucked into some groundbridge or something!”--Smokescreen

Buddy patting both bots helms.

Bumblebee digs his helm further in Buddy’s neck cables whirling in concern and relief.

“Boy, do I have a story to tell you guys. But let’s wait till everyone gets here, I can’t wait to see Doc bot’s reaction to his daughter.”--Buddy

“HIS WHAT!?”—Smokescreen and Bumblebee

“MY WHAT!”--Ratchet

#transformers x reader #maccadam #bot buddy #tfp #tfp x reader #tfp x platonic reader #tfp optimus prime #tfp ratchet #tfp megatron #bot buddy crossover

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lehnsherrrr · 6 months ago

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Mitski + Cherik

I have a playlist of every single Mitski song ever made playing constantly 24 hours of my day for the past 2 years, I also went to see her live. I’ll be damned if I don’t make this post. (Also this has been in the drafts for like 3 weeks now)

So, at first, I was listening to Mitski and was like whoah the song “old friend” is perfect for cherik. And then the song “Eric” came on and I was dumbfounded, so here’s an explanation of lyrics and how they apply to Cherik.

Also I suck at making edits so this is technically the same thing but using your imagination instead.

“We nearly drowned for such a silly thing”

Charles diving into the ocean to save Erik. But this could also mean drowning in their decisions, they almost lost each other because of their beliefs. Such a silly thing to loose each other over.

“Someone who loves me now better than you”

This line makes me believe this song is from Erik’s perspective, either talking about Charles, or Magda. However I like the idea that it’s Charles he talks about since it’s the very start of the song. It might even be implied that “better than you” is implying Shaw.

“And that pretty friend is finally yours”

100% talking about Moira, boy is bitter. All of this so far is talking from the future looking on the past, so that previous line may be talking about Magda after all.

“I’ll be around on Sunday, if you’ll meet me at the blue diner, I’ll take coffee and talk about nothing baby”

Erik meeting Charles at the end of Dark Pheonix. Isn’t it nice to talk about nothing for once, instead of arguing about mutant rights or trying to save the world. They can finally relax together and just be people.

“At the blue diner, I’ll take anything you wanna give me, baby”

Switch to Charles perspective. Agreeing to stay with Erik.

This song is short but wonderful, I’ve only focused on the first half of the song because it fits far too well. The other part fits too but this was too specific.

The way it starts with how they met, then when they left eachother for other people, and then ending with them rejoining. Perfect few lyrics almost like they were made just for them.

And to top it all off, it’s called Old Friend. Thats CRAZY.

“Sorry I can’t take your touch”

Erik leaving at the end of pretty much every movie, the touch being Charles love and want for him to stay with the xmen, with him.

“It’s just that I fell in love with a war”

Erik’s constant belief that there’s a war coming and he needs to fight it first. He chooses this again and again over Charles, one could say he loves it more than he loves Charles.

“Nobody told me it ended”

Still fighting for the war he believes in, even though Charles has been working so hard for mutant rights and has done a lot of good work.

“And it left a pearl in my head, and I roll it around every night, just to watch it glow. Every night baby that’s where I go.”

That anger and sadness that stays within him, stuck in his brain, part of him. Memories of Charles, hating him, loving him. He sits with it every night, going over everything again and again. Also visual of Erik floating them little metal balls.

Beautiful song, good lord. This is all about Erik choosing the war over Charles, there’s also something about the imagery of sitting with a ‘pearl’ in his mind is so very Erik.

“But how long, how long can we play this way?”

Playing as in going back and forth, fighting, making up, fighting again. This is definitely from Charles perspective.

“I’m tired, I’m tired of not loving you”

Charles is tired of not being able to show Erik how much he loves him, he just wants him home.

“My heart, my heart wants to hold you”

All he wants to do it is be with Erik, he wants to comfort him again and show him he’s not evil, that there’s good in there too.

“But I know, I know, I know the rules”

But he knows the rules of this game, he knows they couldn’t ever be together. Be it their opposing beliefs, homophobia, or just the way they are. Perhaps also the rules as in the movie won’t allow it, their writing won’t allow it.

Painful. Other lyrics in the song are more sexual, which also fits if you’d like it to. First line of the song is “you like control, well I do to” and that would be a killer title for a dark cherik fic. They both control their environment in different ways.

“One word from you and I would jump off of this ledge I’m on, baby”

Charles telepathy, could be from any of the students, especially those from the first movie who later died. However it’s painful to think that it’s Erik saying “You’re a telepath Charles, you can convince me of anything.”

Also on that note, the ledge could also refer to delving deeper into his dark side, it would take one mean word from Charles and he’d get so much worse.

Or perhaps he means the ledge in which he’s raised himself to as a super villain, and he knows Charles could bring him down from it.

“Tell me don’t so I can crawl back in”

See my other post about Erik subtly begging Charles to control him. He knows he’ll always pick his cause over staying with Charles, he wants Charles to force him to stay. Get rid of his option to choose so he can crawl back to comfort. Be gone with his righteousness, and just be simple and safe with him.

The title of the song being First Love/Late Spring hurts me. Was mitski an xmen fan or what Jesus.

Left this one until last cause I don’t want to teach a grandma to suck eggs here, I’m sure you already know what’s about to go down. Nonetheless, it would be criminal for me to leave it out. Ready for some Charles angst? Too bad!

“Baby, my baby,”

Raven, Angel, Darwin, Banshee, Havok, adopted into the xmen with nowhere else to go but return to their unfortunate lives.

“Tell your baby that I’m your baby”

The first xmen looking on to the current, looking at who Charles ‘replaced’ them with.

“I bet on loosing dogs”

Charles putting his trust into those first kids, knowing they were young, but it was the last hope. He better is all on them.

“I know they’re loosing and pay for my place by the ring”

He knows they couldn’t stand a chance, but there was that hope. Perhaps if he trained them, gave them the right motivation, they could survive.

“Where I’ll be looking in their eyes when they’re down”

He’s with them the whole way, in their minds, in their spirits. These kids had fight in them, but they were still kids.

“I’ll be there on their side, I’m loosing by their side.”

When they loose, he looses with them. The xmens fate stands on the strength of those kids. Charles grief over loosing these kids makes him catatonic, wishing he had died instead. He was with them all the way, and yet he still hears “Where were you Charles” “You abandoned all of us”

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myrtles-and-blood · 8 months ago

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✶ 𝐿𝑜𝑟𝑑 𝐿𝑢𝑐𝑖𝑓𝑒𝑟 ✶

Little offering for him 🫶🏻

⚠️ Extremely corny stuff ahead ⚠️

I was clearing some stuff on my YouTube playlists and I found this song again (See the end of the post). I remember listening to it quite a lot when I was a bit younger, I think this is where my fascination towards Lucifer started. Of course, I cried a little.

He has always been near me. When I first called him to talk, he was a scary and heavy energy, but it felt known. It may sound ironic, but he felt the same way as when I entered a church. The sensation of being observed by a much higher being, making sure I was protected.

I wanted to ask him a couple things just now, and I confirmed my theory, apparently. I have him just by my side writing this, so this goes for you Lord Lucifer 🫡 He told me to pull my cards, and the first thing thay came out was The Star. While I worship him, of course, seeing that he is actually listening and talking to me still surprises me so much.

He gave me really positive cards. I'm writing what I think he's telling me right now, so here it goes. I'm trying to get better at clairaudience and this is UPG, so keep that in mind:

Lucifer: I've been here for a long time with you, if that's what you're asking. I was at your communion, and at your baptism. I was there every Sunday, and I am the one you feel watching you when entering a church. I didn't hate the idea of you becoming a Christian, but I knew the way you were being raised wasn't the one you'd choose. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. When you called me that first time, I remember well, I wanted to make a good impression. I didn't think the first time you'd do it would be by writing a story, but now that I think about it, it is so much like you. I thought that was it at first, but then you called me that second time, begging me to work with you because you liked me so much, even not knowing where to start. I was excited, you know. But I wanted to test to what extent you were willing to go, regarding your journey. You were gonna start either way, I feel, but I didn't know when. It's been 6 months so far, I am very happy for you, know that. You have never been a normal child, in my eyes you were certainly special. You talked so much before, but now you've grown up and your precious voice has been hidden for some time. I'm hoping that, with me, I can get you to talk as freely as when you were 5. I want to get you to write all your stories, all your ideas and your thoughts. I want them to be physical, so you can see how much you've worked on them. I want to fill your head with knowledge, to answer all your questions. I will understand if you, at some point, want to stop our relationship. But remember that I will be with you, with my hands on your shoulders, every time you feel scared, sad or lost. My arms will always be open to hug you, and my ears will always be waiting for your call. Remember that.

Well now I'm crying and it's all his fault. This is just what I, subconsciously, thought he was trying to tell me. It's complicated to explain but yeah. I can't be more grateful for him.

As a kid this song hit the right spot. I never knew what was so wrong with Lucifer for him to be cast out of heaven. I never understood the logic behind wanting to dethrone God. Like, why? Out of pure evil? An angel created by God became, randomly, pure evil? Maybe it's the way it was explained to me, I don't know.

I really liked all his stories. Different versions of it, talking about why he could have done it, what happened after the fall, what happened before, even. Alexandre Cabanel has one of my favourite depictions of him, it's one of the best known, if not the most popular out of all. But how could I not love it? I mean, look at him. I could spend an eternity looking at that painting.

This post has the only function of me fangirling over Lord Lucifer I hope y'all enjoyed it. I don't like getting this corny in public so 👍🏻

#deity worship #deity work #lord lucifer #luciferian #lucifer #lucifer devotee #lucifer deity #theistic luciferianism #luciferian witch #luciferism #luciferianismo #luciferianism

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siconetribal · 11 months ago

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Put it on My Tab (16)

Pairing: Jason Todd x Fem!reader

Warning:

Backpack newbie, All the green flags, It is time for...the talk

A/N:

I originally came on here about 45 minutes ago to post this and got completely side tracked and distracted by a draft that was just staring at me for days. (I normally don't see it on the app and I might have been avoiding it because I couldn't decide on what to choose.) Anyways, without further ado, the next installment!

Please comment/like/reblog. If you’d like to be tagged moving forward, please let me know!

As always, a huge thank you and shout out to @harlequin-hangout for the amazing banners you made for me.

If you’re new to the story, please check out the master post for the rest of the chapters.

Jason waited patiently for her to climb on. He watched her shuffle bit by bit closer to him and his bike. He could not see her face because of the helmet, but he did not have to. He knew the type of face she must be making, and he had to keep his composure to not laugh at how cute this all was. Y/N was not the first innocent young woman he has dealt with, nor the first one to sass him back. She was a weird combination of the two that was uniquely her, and that is what drew him to her. Normally, someone like her would have never spoken to someone like him. Their worlds would have never collided. In reality, anyway. The fact that she’s IAmBatman still throws me for a loop. I would’ve bet big money it was one of the other Robins trolling me. He was about to ask if she needed help when he felt his bike shift from the added weight and her arms squeeze him tight, in what probably was her version of a death grip but ended up as more of a bear hug for him. Yeah, I’ve been squeezed harder by worse. I don’t mind this. He lightly patted her arms.

“I promise, I won’t do anything to scare you. Just follow my body and don’t be too stiff, ok?” He looked over his shoulder to see her try to look up at him, but his helmet was not doing her any favors. He snorted out a chocked laugh and quickly looked forward once more. “Sorry, sorry,” he reached back and hooked his hand under her thigh by her knee, tugging her leg up to rest her foot on a proper place. The motion had her scooting closer, and she jumped again when he pulled her other leg. “Keep your feet here and just enjoy the ride. Did you want me to put on some music? I have Bluetooth in my helmet. It won’t be easy to talk, since you won’t be able to hear well.”

“Music is fine, but how will you hear?” She spoke a little louder to not come out muffled.

“I’ll be fine, I rather you be comfortable.” Yup, she’s definitely having trouble hearing me. “Do you listen to anything in particular?”

“Anything is fine by me, but I tend to do more 90s rock. Linkin Park, Coldplay, or My Chemical Romance are always appreciated.”

“Really?” He looked over his shoulder again to see if she was lying, but was met with his helmet. Right, I forgot about that. He rolled his eyes at his little lapse in memory. Didn’t expect that list from her. She really knows how to surprise me every time. He searched around a bit and managed to build a small playlist of songs for her to listen to. “Let me know if this is too loud.” He played a song and waited until they found a good setting for her. “Hold tight when the music starts and just move with me, ok?” He secured his phone and pulled out his red half mask that covered his mouth.

I don’t think any of the guys I’ve dated have ever been this considerate. He’s not a textbook gentleman, but he’s pretty close. Y/N was genuinely surprised with how much care he was taking with her. She was nervous that he may find her burdensome and tried not to cause much trouble. The tug on her legs caught her off guard, literally pulling her from her thoughts and scooting her closer to him. His voice was a bit muffled, but she was not sure which made it worse: the beating of her heart that was now magically in her ears or the helmet. Either way, she managed to figure out what he was saying and answer.

“Do you listen to anything in particular?”

“Anything is fine by me, but I tend to do more 90s rock. Linkin Park, Coldplay, or My Chemical Romance are always appreciated.” Is that weird to say? Maybe I should've said something more pop or indie? But I like them and they’re my go-to music.

“Really?” she felt him twist, so she looked up, or at least tried to but could only see part of his face.

How do people ride with big, clunky things like these? Then again, this is his size, so it’s probably not so big or clunky to him. She reasoned.

Soon enough, everything seemed settled and as soon as the music started, she tightly held onto him. As promised, he kept to an easy speed which allowed her to take in her surroundings. It was not as scary as she thought it would be. The cars that zipped by were not the best, but Jason clearly knew what he was doing and avoided all trouble. At a red light there was a car revving its engine and some passengers were heckling them, but he seemed to just ignore it.

I wonder, would he have responded to them if I wasn’t here? They’re pretty annoying. This is the third light they’ve stopped at with us and are still trying to get a rise out of him. She frowned, unable to hear them thanks to the music. A bunch of rowdy losers. She tightened her grip on Jason. The pat to her arms surprised her, but it was reassuring. Cici’s right, I need to talk to him about the bill. He’s not going to throw a fit and storm off.

Y/N looked up as they pulled into a parking lot. It was a diner she had seen on a few of the bus rides when the usual bus was not running. She had always thought about stopping by, but it was always a fleeting thought until she saw it again.

“We’re here,” she heard him as the music stopped. “You climb off first, I’ll keep the bike balanced.” She quickly followed his instructions and managed to get off without fumbling, much to her own surprise. Feeling proud, she stood a little taller and pulled off the helmet

“Not so bad, right?” He grinned, his mask hidden in his jacket once more.

“I’ll admit, not as scary as everyone makes it out to be. You were a textbook motorcyclist. I thank you for not trying to give me a heart attack.”

“Bikes get a bad rep, couldn’t let that happen again. Want your bag? It’ll be safe here if not.” Y/N hesitated for a moment. If he does end up freaking out on me, I’ll lose my things. It’s unlikely he would, but I can’t risk it. Who knows what’ll happen. 4k isn’t just some simple bake sale change. “Yeah, I probably should. My phone is there. I should have it on me in case Cici tries to reach me.”

“Say no more,” he carefully handed it to her and took his helmet in return. “C’mon, let’s get some grub. I'm starving!” He led the way inside.

“Well look who it is, back again? Oh, you’re not alone this time?” Y/N looked up at the sound of the gruff voice to a big older guy standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

“Hey Charlie, what can I say, I like your food. Yeah, I brought a friend, we’ll seat ourselves.” Jason hooked his arm around her shoulders and led her to a booth where there were not as many people. A young woman came around with the sticky laminated menus, pouting at the sight of Y/N. It was evident that the waitress was interested in the handsome regular and Y/N was not off to a good start.

Better not do anything to get her spitting in my food. She nervously smiled, picking up the menu.

Jason watched Y/N as she looked over the choices, a small smile tugging at his lips as he recalled how proud she looked when she dismounted his bike with ease. He was nervous that she may not have liked the ride because of the overcompensating teens that were trying to get him to race, but she had yet to say anything so he let it be

Those dumbasses were lucky they were allowed to keep up with me. I'd been impossible to catch if I was alone. I’m just glad she wasn't annoyed by them. The ride was peaceful aside from that. She was not stiff and followed his lead well, which was great for him. Feeling her pressed against his back made him realize just how much smaller she was compared to him. She was not frail or sickly, but she was comparably weaker than him or many of the other females he has worked with. Then again, none of them are run-of-the-mill either. He realized the unfair comparison. It was different though, a good difference. He could not really put his finger on why it mattered, but it had. Instead of stressing on it, he let the thought come and go.

When they reached the diner, he asked her about her belongings and she hesitated. She was clearly weighing the risks and benefits. It was not shrewd, it was logical. Even though he was a secret vigilante, she should be cautious. If he was anyone else, she could have been a lot of trouble. Hearing her answer was a relief. He had no intention of just up and leaving her, but anything could happen. Duty could call, and he would need to go, and she would be stuck here. The idea of abandoning her did not sit well with him, and he could not figure out why.

Regardless, everything is going pretty smoothly for now, maybe we can have a decent conversation. I need to bring up the money, but she’s yet to even ask for my name. What does a guy gotta do to be inquired about around here!? He propped an elbow on the table and glared at her reflection in the window, chin resting in his hand.

“So, I suppose I should start with a name, huh?” His ears perked up at the words, and he quickly turned to face her. “We’ve obviously met a bunch of times, but I didn’t really think we’d ever meet again after so I never bothered. My name's Y/N Y/LN, what’s yours?”

Did I hear right? Did she just and then just? Have I died? Like actually died-died? “Took you long enough,” he grinned. “Nice to meet you officially, my name is Jason Todd. Now I can change your contact name from ‘Trouble Magnet Barista’ to your actual name.”

“You did not,” he showed her his phone and she whacked him with the menu. He laughed as he dodged the hit.

“You refused to give me your name. What was I supposed to call you? The Expensive Inquisition? Or D.I.D. #1?” He smirked as she scowled at him. “You have no one to blame but yourself for that.”

“I should change your name to Sir Questions-a-lot.” He heard her grumble as she took out her phone and changed his name while he changed hers in his phone. “Something tells you wanted to say more than just your name, what’s up?”

Y/N stared at the words on the menu but paid them no attention. She needed to get her thoughts in order and strike up the conversation without insulting or angering him. It’s not every day some chick comes demanding a large sum of money like that. She glanced at him over the top of the menu. Well for normal people anyway. Trust fund kids with a playboy father might have people knocking on their door all the time. I need to make sure he knows I'm not one of those people.

“So, I suppose I should start with a name, huh?” She finally built up the courage to speak up. “We’ve obviously met a bunch of times, but I didn’t really think we’d ever meet again after so I never bothered. My name's Y/N Y/LN, what’s yours?” She anxiously waited for his response as he simply stared at her with wide eyes. Oh no, did I do that wrong? How else was I supposed to do it? I can’t just say ‘hi’ like we weren’t just with each other!

“Took you long enough,” he grinned. “Nice to meet you officially, my name is Jason Todd. Now I can change your contact name from ‘Trouble Magnet Barista’ to your actual name.”

“You did not,” she gasped when he showed her the screen and she swung the first thing in her hands, which was the floppy menu. Sadly he was able to avoid the feeble strike.

Y/N stiffened at his reminder of why she even brought up their names. He was right. She made the decision to talk to him about the hotel bill. Jason had to have known he broke the machine, but was unaware of the bill that followed. How else would he be so carefree?

“Yes, there is something else.” She set her weapon down and took a deep breath. Just rip it off like a bandaid. “The hotel we stayed at,” she paused for a moment, shifting her gaze from his face to the table. “They contacted me that weekend and told me there was damage to the room. I know you didn’t do it on purpose, but the price to pay is really steep. I won’t demand you to pay all of it since I’ve already started paying it off, but I’d appreciate it if you’d help me with the rest. Which is why I’ve been working like crazy to cover the costs, but it’s slow progress and the hotel is starting to get annoyed with how slow the progress is. Not only that, but I’m afraid they’ll throw me into collections, which will only cause more problems. I wasn’t trying to hide it from you, nor did I want to blame you, but Cici and I are already living tight as is.” She tried to speak as calmly as possible, but her tempo sped up a bit towards the end as her nerves got the best of her. There, I said it! Now all she had to do was wait for him to respond.

Tag: @vbecker10 @wordsfromshona @harlequin-hangout @harpy-space @tild3ath @gone-batty-fics @princessbl0ss0m @dakotali @antiquecultistst

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cherubnthechaoschoir · 1 year ago

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NEPHILIM: THE FALLEN - Jackson-era!Joel Miller x AFAB!Reader

summary: fallen or damned? who's to tell when it's joel miller?

a note from Lucy: DONT HATE ME I KNOW ITS BEEN A LONG TIME!! Not entirely happy with this but it's been sitting in my docs for months now and i had to get it out there to give me some peace of mind so please be aware it may well be riddle with grammatical mistakes and typos galore. as always like, comment and reblog to save a sinners sanity!

playlist | moodboard + poem

wc: 2755

Warnings: 18+ MDNI DARK CONTENT! Jackson era!post outbreak!Joel, no use of y/n, reader is referred to as ‘Bambi’, verbally constipated Joel Miller, brief gore descriptions, heavy religious imagery and references to the bible, biblical lore, yearning, idiots in love, angst angst angst!!!!!!, bombastic age gap!!! yahhhhh! (reader is in her 20’s/ Joel is in his late 50’s), smut, oral sex (m! receiving), rough oral sex, possessive!joel, dom!joel/sub!reader dynamic, you know the drill with my writing, there’s probably some form of cannibalism as a metaphor, or brutal violence as a metaphor, religious imagery as a metaphor, etc. (aka, fancy word vomit) - Lucy crying over a bloody google doc :)

series masterlist | m.list

Ephesians 2:3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

The sky was bruised. It was like God– or whatever resided up there– knew. The grey clouds, and the garish yellow of the setting sun, and the deep blue that ebbed into purple…they all knew. Your heart ached too. Bruised. It seemed to crack a little more each day. What started as nothing more than a hairline fracture had split into a gaping, weeping slice. Why? Because Joel was always quiet. For such a large man he had a ghostly habit of creeping into a room without notice. Creeping into your heart too through your hollow ribs. You could feel him behind you now though. His breath thick on the nape of your neck and it cooled the thin sheen of sweat on your skin. Soothed your burning flesh while saving it from the inferno. The tension became bearable. These little spaces of empty matter between all else. That slight awkwardness about his usual stoic yet confident demeanour…it was endearing now.

You were easing into the silence, content with watching the bruise darken from purple to midnight blue. The sky would turn on its bright little stars, and the moon would slice through sapphire as the early evening aged. The sun was going to rest now, the greying moon taking its post to watch over the town. You should follow the sun’s direction. Close your eyes so as to not have to witness his all too soon departure.

His fingers, so gentle, so strong, gently traced the curve and divot of your hip under the covers. It was strange to think just moments prior they had been inside you. Making you feel boneless in bed.

“Bambi?” He asked, tentative and uncharacteristically uncertain. He loathed it; the change in him.

“Mhm?” You hummed lazily, your hands tucked under the pillow to keep them warm, knees curled up to your chest. But no answer nor following question came. You knew what it was. He was cramming something back down his throat before he had the chance to say it for fear of being out of line. One day it shall choke him blue. He was strung so tightly. Tension in his shoulders that made them rise uncomfortably. And you noticed this when you turned to face him. Neither of you spoke for a moment, as if you were fooling yourself into believing he might continue. Your heart cracked a little more when he turned to face the wall,

“Never mind. It’s nothin’.” He had no reason to be weary of you. However in the past few weeks, coming up to a month, there was subtle, almost imperceptible unease that lingered. And festered. Palpable. Tangible. You could feel it when you reached out to touch his skin. So warm and gorgeous. Golden like ichor in this setting sunlight. You dared to press your lips to the wing of a shoulder blade, skin mangled with scar tissue where you liked to imagine wings once resided, and felt him flinch under your featherlight kiss. “Don’t, Bambi.”

“Joel-“

“I said: No.” His voice was firm, and didn’t give much leeway for convincing. “It’s not somethin’ you know how to fix.” But you were stubborn now. You’d found your feet. You stood your ground more, imitated behaviour. Before he could turn away again you reached to right him, set him flat on his back upon the mattress and splay your hand over his soft stomach under the covers. His throat tightened when your hand ventured timidly south. Then his breath tangled in his throat when it wrapped loosely around his half hard cock. Gently stroking it until it stood to attention in your palm. “Let me help…the way I know how.” You whispered into his ear, running your tongue under his earlobe to bring it between your teeth. Voice like honey, so sweet, and smooth, and slow pouring enough to get stuck in. Jesus Fucking Christ, he hated himself for even entertaining the idea of letting you do this for him. For being the one to help you find your feet. For being the man who tarnished innocence. It seemed all he did these days was ruin what little good there was left in the world. He’d taken an entire inkpot to a pristine sheet of paper, splattered black all over it without a care in the world until now. He felt like the space between you was stygian and reeked of his own sin. It simmered and spat and writhed and any moment now I would boil over the second you came to terms with the fact you were too good for him.

His nostrils flared with the thought but with a twist of your wrist he melted. Because at the base of it all, the very depth of his humanity, he was a selfish, selfish man. You watched a swallow pass down the thick column of his throat and rested your head on his shoulder while your hand dragged up his thick, full shaft, thumb smearing a bead of precome over the delicate flushed skin of its head. Joel watched the ceiling and wallowed in pathetic self pity as you kissed your way down his navel, lips moving in a mumbling of words he couldn't quite hear. He let out a breathy moan when you wrapped your lips around the tip, pressing your tongue flat to the underside to let the taste seep onto your tongue. He then closed his eyes trying to imagine anyone other than you between his legs. Another mouth. Another tongue. Someone else's voice.

It was no use because it seemed your eyes, the shade, the shape, were printed to the back of his lids. He gave up. He was too old to try to partake in sisyphean tasks.

Joel sat up and you moved between his legs as he threw the covers off to watch you. His back to the headboard, your warm mouth inviting him deeper, he hesitated to press a hand to the crown of your head, but when you pulled off to lick a flat tongued strip from base to tip, he found himself taking a fist of your hair and righting you over the head completely, pushing down so he slipped into your mouth. Muscle memory had the twitch of a smirk forming at the corner of his lips. The sight of you was enough to have his hips begging to buck, chasing the back of your throat, attempting to find that reaction again.

What you couldn't take of him you wrapped loosely in one hand and the other cupped his balls, adding the slightest pressure that had a dirty cuss passing his chapped lips. Deep inhales billowed in his nose, nostrils flared slightly as he dragged your open, salivating mouth up and down on his length. What he would never understand is how much you hungered for this every time. There was a pain in wanting him like no other, and a reward this great sowed the seed of pleading. You didn’t mind yearning for him because, to you, being hungry was quite a satisfying feeling. It feels nice to want something. To yearn. To have a purpose. You imagined he felt quite the same with the way he could hardly keep his hands from your cunt or your mouth when you passed his front door’s threshold.

“Look at me, Bambi.” He grunted, and your eyes fluttered slightly before the hue of them locked on his through your tear clumped lashes. “I’d like this mouth a whole lot more if it didn’t say such pretty things to me.” He almost lamented, and you felt a tug at your heartstrings. “Makin’ a man hope again.”

Joel sighed, eyes closing for the briefest second. His large hand was still pushing your head with the gentlest of force back down, then his fingers gripped at your hair, dragging you again so the warm, silken touch of your lips and tongue made the fire in his belly start to burn. It was aching, and deep rooted, and had a slow simmer to it. One he begged to hurry along. Joel wanted nothing more than his release so he could set you free again. Set the bird free of its cage. So he threw caution to the wind, and soon you felt the tip of his thick cock reach the back of your mouth again, your throat constricting. “Why won’t you hate me, huh Bambi? What did I do to deserve this?” He asked. If you knew no better you’d have thought his tone implied he hated it. His teeth gritted, words seethed between them. He spat it out in a way that made him seem unworthy of your attention— or the very taste of the thought disgusted him and made his stomach pull up in a wretch. Joel bit down so violently on nothing he swore his molars might turn to dust and clag in spit with the way he was salivating over the sight of you; Puffy lips, bloodshot watering eyes, messy hair. Bent over him and sucking on his cock like it was your only goddamned purpose in life.

You wanted to reply, splutter out the words, but he silenced you. The tip of his cock brushing the back of your throat, and causing your stomach to recoil, tensing as you gagged. Retching slightly as he grimaced at the sound. “You know I can’t love y–” he stopped mid sentence as the ache bloomed into a deep burn. You were oh so grateful because it meant you wouldn’t have to hear what you yearned not to. What you buried deep beneath your stomach and above your diaphragm— that slow, blooming ache. The feeling would never see the light of day. You’d rather die than come to terms with the fact that Joel would not be yours. He belonged to the world. The mass of nature that befell you. That which kept you human and incompetent. He was large, untamable, and oh so delectable in all ways other than matters of love. Joel Miller could not love you.

“Fuck- gonna come, Bambi.” He choked out, head falling back. You looked up at the sight of him through your lashes, lips parted, his brows creased gently in the space between them. Just as you yearned for him to love you, you yearned to be destroyed by him. Coated in him, broken down to pieces by him. Joel Miller could quite literally break you in half, then half again, and again— to the point where nothing was discernible— and you'd get on your knees to thank him for it all. Maybe loving him and being destroyed by him were two in the same?

In the months you’d known him you’d grown to learn that this was as close to a purpose as you’d get. The world robbed you of one, so you searched for it. Selfish enough to keep digging to find one. Only it had no purpose. It has a pattern now, and patterns trick and deceive people into believing in divine intervention. Joel was your divine right. Your purpose. That was what you believed. What you thought about each night. What you thought about now as you took his cock down to the base, the head of him brushing the back of your throat and folds soaked– drenched in the essence of your own arousal. All of which was emphasised by the ache you felt between your thighs that ebbed a little deeper with wanting. A ghost of the pleasure you felt when he was inside you. You entertained it with two fingers slipping between your thighs, teasing your clit. “God— Bambi…” He groaned, eyes rolling back in his head as he let go. Hot ropes of his release flooding your mouth with their heady, salty taste.

You pulled off his shaft, now wet and slick in your own saliva, swallowing a mouthful of his release. His eyes never left you, honing in on the ripple of your delicate throat as you swallowed his come down. Joel couldn't help but hook a thumb into your mouth to unhinge your jaw— to see if anything was left. Nothing was. There never was. Like him, you were too selfish to leave anything.

He should have known better. You never disappoint. “Bambi, you’re too damn good for me.” he panted, skin sweat slick and flushed.

“I promise I'm not.” you whispered to the skin of his lips before he wrapped a large, steadying hand around your arm and pulled you up to his chest. His face met yours and when you looked into those hickory eyes you could have melted on the spot; For the hue of them was nothing like you'd ever seen before, and could command nations to their knees. And if not nations then it could certainly do so to you. “I’m just as damaged as you.`’

The words had his gut in knots because they were akin to holding up a mirror to his visage. And holding his head in place. Holding it still so he was forced to look himself in the eyes and reflect. Reflecting on the monster he’d become. The monster he would always be.

“I’m not asking you to love me, Joel.” You spoke, your voice quiet, slight and timid. Uncertain of his reaction. The way your eyes met his was proof of that. Wide like a foal, wide enough to register the unjust curl of a lip. “ I’m just asking you to stay…”

The words had been burning the tip of your tongue red raw. Each night as he lay beside you, the same questions— words made up of nothing but consonants that had a profound effect on you– would hardly let you rest in his arms. They tortured you instead; Mocked you. It was the equivalent of hanging. You could feel the ghost of a noose around your neck. It might as well have been His hands. It was as rough as them after all.

What is wrong with you? What is so repulsive about you that warrants his departure? Was it the curve of your hips– their dips? Or even the bump on your nose– how dare it not have the perfect influxing curve! The slant of your eyes? The jagged stretch marks on the inside of your thighs! Not only had they the nerve to exist in their silver, shining mockery, posing as a diamond, but they had the fucking nerve to sit where others could see. Fuck them entirely and their very existance. Were those very thighs plump enough? Too plump? Why was there no gap between? Was there too much of a sag to your breasts? The colour of your nipples– why did they have to be that colour? Were the lines on your forehead marring your skin? What on you– about you– detested him? Because if you knew you'd cut it off. You'd change it. You take a knife to your nose and cut it off even if it was just to spite your own face. Now, laying here with him, you wish to be anyone but yourself. Yourself was the woman that disgusted you. It would always be the woman that disgusted you if he didn’t fall in love.

“That's jus’ the thing, Bambi.” He sighed, his mouth moving in a slow hushed mumble. His wind chapped, weathered lips grazed the shell of your ear, “I already do.” Followed by silence, and then: “An’ I ain’t no good at it, I’m afraid.”

That was the problem. Joel thought it had to be a life lived in an entirety of carolling laughter for you. A warm, joyous time. The kind of peace the world seldom granted anyone anymore. Not bound to him by the twine of his selfish nature. In the wrong man’s bed. If the world had told him anything before it was that he deserved to be alone. First Sarah. Then Tess. Ellie too. It was only a matter of time before you left too. He had no clue that what you wanted was just to be held. To be kept. He didn’t have to carve out a hole in himself to accommodate you. Nor give an arm or a limb. He just had to stay. Exactly where he was now. Exactly as he is. But selfish men believe in selfish things. And Joel Miller was a selfish man.

Maybe he wasn't. Humans are, after all, selfish creatures. If we are innately selfish does that make us selfish, or just human. Regardless– Joel was selfish. Yes. But more importantly: He was the damned, the scrutinised, the beggar. All of the above.

Joel Miller was, and forever will be, the fallen.

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luvzxr · 4 months ago

Text

Little Pougie

Chapter 5

previous, next chapters.

So I'm going to go ahead and repost because I kinda fucked up my last part of the story and I don't want people to miss it and have all the chapters messed up for them because that's just not fun. HOWEVER, I will post chapter 6 today as well just to catch up.

If you'd like to read ahead you may. My wattpad will be linked here from now on!

Also, when I started this story on wattpad I did make a spotify playlist as well which is public so it will be linked as well if you are the type of person to listen to music while you read!

Summery; In which fem!reader is the little sister to John B Routledge. Sweet, gentle and innocent. The complete opposite to JJ Maybank but he finds himself falling for her and he can't stop himself doing so.

Pairing; Fem!reader x JJ Maybank

Word Count; 3,290

Warnings; Throughout this series there are talks of abuse, drug and alcohol use, trauma, talks of self doubt and wanting to be unalived. Possible smut in the future as well so read at your own risk!

05. Teach Me

(Y/n) was kinda in the mood for death right about now.

Actually no, she didn't necessarily mind the situation she found herself in but she would much rather be at home. She wanted to be curled up next to their busted up AC, book in hand and pure joy with the silence of being the only one home for a few hours.

She didn't want to be here because it was too hot to be here. Sweating, grossing with the slight uncomfortable feeling of sand between each of her toes. Her brother and his friends would consider this a dream come true. (Y/n), however, did not.

It wasn't like (Y/n) hated being out and about to bask in the sun but when it was in the high 90's with little to no wind to cool off, she certainly had a word that came close to hate.

"Yknow, you'd cool off in the water (Y/n/n)," John B hinted, finger extending lazily towards the crashing waves in front of them while he took a seat next to her, "trust me. You'll thank me later,"

They were at the beach. One of the popular surf spots around their town.

The boy surprisingly didn't have to convince her very long to come with, (Y/n) just openly decided to for once to not put up a fight and go out. However, she suddenly wished she had put up a fight because she was highly regretting her decisions now.

"Shut up JB," (Y/n) grumbled, a small eye roll in the process, "you didn't tell me it was suppose to be almost 100,"

"Best day to go surfing!"

(Y/n) wanted to reach over and deck her own brother in the face but that would be mean and she was trying to have a good day with everyone. No need to start with physically assaulting her own sibling. "I hate you,"

"No you don't,"

"Pretty sure I do,"

"You'll get over it," John B snickered, shoulder nudging her own in a playful manner.

(Y/n)'s head shook, suppressing a smile because if her brother saw he'd know he had at least manage to make her smile and she didn't want him to know that.

"You should really just come to hang out with everyone," John B suggested, standing to his feet.

(Y/n) wasn't the type to be very talkative regardless of who it was and she kind of wanted to decline his offer but being a complete and utter introvert to the people John B called family just seemed rude.

Of course she's talked to all of them and even considered herself close with Sarah and Kie but that doesn't take away from the fact that she most of the time preferred to be alone or with her brother and JJ because she felt the most comfortable with the two.

She took a few more seconds to decide before utterly coming to a conclusion. "Okay, I'll come over."

"Great!" John B grinned, making his way towards the group closer towards the water.

(Y/n) pushed herself up using her palms that laid out in the gentle sand, standing to her feet before cautiously following behind her older sibling.

The rest of the Pouges were huddled around one another, staring out towards the crashing waves while passing around a lit blunt and beers in hand.

Sarah actually tried to be close Sophie and it wasn't just because she was dating her older brother. Sarah knew that (Y/n) seemed to have the urge to meet people and make friends but it just seemed like she struggled a bit to do so. Her social anxiety was pretty rough on her at times.

Sarah just wanted to try to help (Y/n) get into the habit of feeling confident in herself and her actions and (Y/n) appreciated the blonde girl more than she was willing to let on.

Watching John B find something to urn for other than the past was a big moment even if Sarah didn't see that quite yet.

(Y/n) could and it was a big deal to her.

(Y/n) remembered a time where Kiara and Sarah couldn't even be left in a room together because everyone thought one of em might end up dead if it happened which was funny to look back on now because they were so close.

The little scheme that John B and the two other boys pulled works back then and now the two girls seemed to be inseparable.

"(Y/n)!"

"Hey (Y/n/n)!"

"What's up (Y/n/n)!"

Sarah, Kie and Pope all managed to sync together, attention now on the younger girl who revealed herself behind John B. It wasn't too often she joined in on their shenanigans much less join on her own accord most times but regardless, they tried to include her and make her feel welcomed.

It wasn't that (Y/n) didn't like his friends because if she was honest, they felt like her own flesh and blood too— even if they weren't— No, she just found herself not being able to speak half the time or when she did, all she ended up doing was stuttering and stumbling over her own words just as she does her own feet and it was embarrassing enough when it came to being a genuine klutz.

So most times she tried to keep the clumsiness to a minimum because the less there was, the less moments she had to cringe about remembering how it could of all went so much more smoother if she hadn't done this or that.

"Hi guys," (Y/n)'s hand raised up gently to wave with a small, cheeky smile.

She was hesitant to join the circle because it just usually wasn't her thing but John B was quick to react when he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and gently pulled her in.

"C'mon Pougie."

Once the girl adjusted to her standing position she took notice that rugged blonde was no where in sight which was odd because there is no way in hell that man would miss out on the excuse to sit around in a circle with his closest friends and smoke some weed or drink a beer.

She had expected him to be the one who had even lit the blunt or even instantly getting everyone into the spirit for this, in fact, was a beach day and most of the time that meant nothing was off limits.

"Where's JJ?" (Y/n) questioned, glancing around one last time to make sure her own eyes weren't playing tricks on her.

Pope's head jerked a bit out towards the water, "out there."

Her eyes scanned the shimmering crystal water until they landed on the dirty blonde. He sat afloat on his old foam surfboard that currently was only idle. He was waiting— but it seemed that he previously already was engulfed by the water because he was already drenched from head to toe.

His body synced so well with the movement of the waves and the way they jerked and pulled around him. He made it look so easy to just sit and float upon water that was just waiting to pour right over top of him and take him right off that board.

However, that just wasn't JJ. That wouldn't happen.

(Y/n) couldn't even imagine herself out there even though the girl practically lived off the water and watched her brother over the years surf she just could never get the hang of it.

John B did try to teach her how. He went through all the basics, he showed her the stances she needed to take and even the precautions when the whole thing went south but she just never got the hang of it. He was too nervous to even let her out on the water because he was terrified something might go wrong.

He had every right to be nervous too because even on land (Y/n) had a hard time keeping her balance on the board, even in sand. Her form often made him worrisome because all it took was one inexperienced surfer and one wave that could take her out and drag her under.

He was too scared to take that chance with her.

He felt bad but eventually he tried to find ways to cancel plans to teach her because his anxiety was just too damn high. He truly felt like a parent who tried to teach their kid how to ride a bike for the first time.

Only this one required more caution and he couldn't be with her on that board if something went wrong.

"What's he doing?" Her eyes never left the man out on the water. She kept track of him even when the waves seemed to cover him from afar.

"He's waiting for the perfect wave," John B spoke, his eyes also trained on the male out on the water. His arm still strung around (Y/n)'s shoulder and his other wrapped around Sarah's waist, holding her close.

(Y/n) recalled that wording before, back when John B was trying to teach her how to surf. Perfect waves often meant the water was smooth, almost glassy and the waves weren't folding in different directions. In Sophie's mind it was hard to tell the difference but then again, she didn't get much of a chance to learn that far ahead.

As her eyes trained on JJ they also began to glance out further where they locked onto movement.

A large wave was approaching. And fast.

"Wait.. like that one?" She pointed out, navigating for her brother of what she saw but he'd already seen it.

His head bobbed slightly, "Yup. That's the one."

It was pretty easy for John B to notice the perfect waves because he'd been surfing for as long as he could remember. It was like second nature for him to just know what the right ones were and when to abort if they were too dangerous to take on.

Most of the time though, JJ took them on anyway and John B often wondered how the man himself wasn't dead yet.

(Y/n) watched intently from the shore, eyes glued on the Maybank boy as his body seemed almost relaxed and slowly laid across the board stomach down. His arms began to paddle himself towards the oncoming monster of a wave and Sophie could feel her own heart drop at the sight.

She knew how reckless the boy was and how he often took risks he probably shouldn't being taking in the first place. She hated the fact he'd do it too but everyone else seemed to always have faith he'd come back alive. Even though most had to use that as a mask to hide their own worries and fears for the boy because JJ hated the fact his friends would show worry for him.

JJ seen worry or fear as pity and he couldn't stand it. Seeing that emotion on their face only seemed to irritate him because they had better things to worry about or fear than losing him.

At least that's how he felt.

(Y/n) is the only one out of everyone that the boy ever truly let show that emotion towards him. Not because she was John B's little sister because that excuse expired a long time ago. Where she began to grow up and realize that not everything was rainbows and unicorns and that eventually— when you least expect it— things turn to shit and you are challenged on if you can survive what's thrown at you or you drown trying.

No, that most definitely wasn't it. (Y/n) was just the person who cared for people and their welling being. She liked to be helpful and caring where she could and even if she couldn't, she still found the perfect little ways of being there for the ones who needed her the most.

She was like a piece of gold but she was way more valuable than the real thing and worth more than anyone could ever offer to her.

JJ valued her, even if he didn't show it all that much but he'd slowly became her protector more than her own brother was suppose to be. And he had to admit that he use to hate it.

He hated the idea of it. He use to hate the fact that he made that promise to John B years ago and wished he'd never spoke those two sacred words to him because then maybe he wouldn't have to be looked at like he was some knight in shining armor. That's not who JJ was, he wasn't some rescue pup for some girl who he use to find aggravating and how he wished he could just clamp his palm over her mouth and she'd magically shut up.

But things change and so do people.

So as (Y/n) watched his board inch closer and closer towards the waves she could feel her heart beat almost as fast and all she could do is watch and pray that the stupid blonde wouldn't get dragged under and never come back up.

Her eyes followed his every movement. The way his body jumped up from his laying position as he was almost face to face with the waves. She watched how his body twisted and turned all while keeping his balance, how he gliding across the water with ease and instead of being worried anymore she found herself mesmerized.

(Y/n) took into account how he'd done this his entire life and how he mastered every movement and stance throughout the years up until this point. JJ was just a natural when it came to surfing and he knew he was damned good at it too because when he came off that water and was looking back at the group while he took his seat back on the board, there was nothing on his face but a shit eating smirk.

He really was the best surfer that John B knew and also would never admit to JJ's face because he had enough ego as it is.

"Let's go JayJ!"

"Yeah JJ!"

The whooping and hollering could be heard all throughout the beach from the small group calling out to their friend who was making his way off the water. His entire being glistening as he walked up towards the shore where everyone was.

John B finally let go of his two favorite girls, walking over to slap hands with JJ and pull him in for a short but sweet chest hug. All while a smile was spread across both of their faces. JJ's full of confidence.

"That was fucking amazing JJ," John B beamed, his excited tone could be heard from miles if it hadn't been already. He may never admit to JJ himself that he was an extraordinary surfer but he'd pay respect where it was due. And this was one of those times that it certainly was.

The blonde couldn't hide his ego even if he tried the hardest to do so, it just would be no use. He was pretty surprised himself because deep down he even had doubts.

Of course, he would never show it but he honestly felt like that wave would of knocked his ass right off that board and he'd come up from the water a tad bit embarrassed. However that just couldn't happen to JJ, he wouldn't allow it till the day he dies.

Which is ironic considering the boy often face plants when they were in a haste to get somewhere. Just a small quirk of his.

"That was really good JJ," her voice was heavenly and gentle which caught his attention almost immediately.

"Oh, Pougie came to watch me? I'm flattered," he teased, laying his board down in the sand and beginning to make his way over towards Sophie. His hand place atop her head to ruffle up her hair a bit.

She gently swatted at his hand and gave a well deserved roll of her eyes, "shut up. I'm serious Jay. That was really good."

"Listen to her man, she doesn't even compliment my surfing," John B chimes in, a small but playful pout was across his lips. Sometimes her own brother made her want to slap him just for being her own flesh and blood.

(Y/n) shook her head, already fed up with her own sibling at this current time but tilted her head up towards JJ again, "can you reach me?"

His eyebrows furrowed and his glance back to John B made the nerves in (Y/n)'s stomach turn because she already knew how they'd react to the question but she wanted to try again.

"I don't know Princess.. That'd be up to your brother on if he'd let me or not," his unsure tone stood firm, making it known that it wasn't up to him but up to John B. He knew how John B felt about (Y/n) and surfing and even though it truly broke the man's heart because they grew up on the water, he felt it was safer that she'd stay clear of the sport all together.

"John B, I'm not a kid anymore. I wanna learn and I'm tired of being babied," she sighed and pouted a tad which was hard not to see a child in (Y/n) when she'd do things like that.

John B contemplated a moment, trying to decide between his gut and the fact his own sister had a point of always being babied but it was just because he cared. His lips pursed into a frown the longer he took to answer her.

"You promise me you listen to him? What he says, goes. Okay?" He cracked.

He could feel his own heart rip in two because part of him felt he needed to start giving her opportunities because eventually she'd act like he had as a teen, even though he still was one himself. She'd grow too curious and eventually do things behind his back which he knew he wouldn't be able to handle. He didn't want (Y/n) growing into that.

The other part however, was the unknowing fear he felt deep inside. The type of fear that made your stomach twist and turn even at the thoughts or images of what could happen. He'd felt like the parent ever since (Y/n) was born and he always had the parental intent because somehow— deep down, he knew she would be the only family he had left.

(Y/n) nodded in agreement and trying to also hold back a smile with a little dance of victory but eventually that façade cracked and a little smile shown across her plush lips.

"Pinky promise me Pougie,"

Pinky promises was something the siblings had done to show the seriousness of their matters. To them, it showed trust and understanding but often times never came out unless it was something that needed to be taken more serious than other situations.

And to John B, this was as serious as serious came. He needed to know that his baby sister would be okay and leave learning without a scratch on her. That he wouldn't have to worry like a sick parent about her when it came to learning from his own best friend.

His pinky extended out, lingering and waiting for her much smaller one to wrap around and interlock.

"Pinky promise." She spoke, her pinky interlocking with his and with that he pulled her into a tight hug. His chin laid on the top of her head with his arms wrapped tight around her.

"Then he can teach you."

After the heart felt moment between the two, John B let go of (Y/n) and shifted himself towards JJ, "take care of her man. I need you to,"

"Don't worry bro. Pougie will be safe with me. As long as I'm around, nothing will happen to that girl."

#jj maybank #jj maybank angst #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank fluff #jj maybank imagine #obx x reader #obx fanfiction #obx fic #john b routledge

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