#i want to very seriously document what the fuck happened to me because it was super scary and weird

[urproblematicfav-arsonk]

My clit popping out of my lower pelvic area and relieving me of about uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 22 years of pain birthday is coming up on may 13th

I plan on writing an elaborate and extremely graphic detailing of why my body weird and the scientific discoveries I've had over the last year because I want to and also because it's like....actually important to talk about abnormalities and shit and I can't find "entire clit/internal shaft lodged inside, pressing against bladder and other internal organs until it for seemingly no reason popped out normal style, followed by actual hormonal changes" information anywhere so like, ya know.

Had to go through texts to figure out the date. Iconic moment from my really bad swelling and freaking out. Yes I told my mom, and yes she did call me gross.

The bleeding/swelling stopped after a few days and other than some really bad heart palpitations and pain for the first 4 months, I'm seemingly perfectly fine now tho

[solelifauna]

With Bared Teeth & Prayers (Yandere Batfam X Neglected Reader) (Dark!!! Werewolf AU) (PT. 1)

TW: Mentions/allusions to cannibalism, death, and violence.

Three years had passed since that fateful day and your life had only gotten more miserable. Whatever hopes you had for being a part of a family were thwarted as soon as you stepped foot in the household. Bruce doesn't care about you, Dick was straight up mean, Jason (as the pack protector) was aggressive, Tim found you annoying, and Damien simply loathed your existence and would join Dick with his cruelty.

Both Stephanie and Barbara were civil with you, but neither really cared about what you did. Cassandra was nice, sometimes signing to you and giving you scented clothing, but she still didn't really go out of her way to engage with you. The only person who you felt truly cared about you was Alfred.

The first two years you tried your hardest to fit in and get the others to like you. You did whatever they wanted, made sure to learn their interests so you could talk to them, never complained, and made sure to respect the pack's boundaries.

You hoped that eventually, you’d all move past this hurdle and soon you would get along and be allowed in the pack den and other pack activities. Unfortunately, you realized that you would never be considered part of the family or the pack. Which as heartbreaking as it was, was the least of your worries.

You see, there was an ancient custom in werewolf culture concerning new pack members and pack initiation. When a new werewolf is introduced to a pack and their territory, the new werewolf has a certain amount of time to be accepted into the pack; if they’re not, well, they're killed and eaten. 

Yeah… quite terrifying and barbaric if you think about it, but mostly only the old lineages still continue this practice. Which is why you’re absolutely fucked. See, typically when children come to a pack they get accepted immediately, pups were (usually) considered precious.

In your case, being a half-blood severely reduced your chances and well, you guessed the Wayne family just didn't like you. Which sucks because you only have until your 18th birthday to get them to accept you, and considering your 16th birthday was coming up, your time was coming to a close. 

Or, you could always just run away. Hey! It was an option, one that you weren't sure the Bats would even let happen. Still it was worth a try. Which leads to your current situation in Bruce's office; you were trying to cut your losses a little early.

~~~~~~

“Look, I just feel as though this is the best course of action for your pack’s and my own safety.” Came your exasperated and desperate voice.

“Safety?” Bruce questions, causally flipping through some Wayne Industries documents, as if he doesn't know exactly what you're talking about.

“Considering Damian’s tried to kill me five times, two of his attempts almost being successful, and Jason's pit aggression that has him ready to rip my throat out, you can see why someone would feel unsafe.” You state, voice raising slightly in pitch.

He hummed noncommittally, his eyes still focusing on whatever paperwork he was going over.

“I'll think about it.” He replies, still disinterested.

“There’s nothing to think about! I should be allowed to leave if I want to, and if anything I'll finally be out of your pack's way.” You say, finally letting your frustration show through.

Why couldn't he just let you leave? Did he seriously want to keep you here just to kill– sorry, eat you in another two years?

“Excuse me?” He finally looks up from his work, his blue eyes meeting yours. He was unimpressed, you could tell that much at least, coupled with a dark look of simmering anger.

Okay, so maybe you should tone it down a notch.

“Come on, I'm not an idiot. I know me being here is simply a public formality, good fluff bits for the press y'know. But I'm not part of your family, and I'm certainly not part of your pack. You and the others have made that very clear. So please, allow me to do us both a favor and get out of your way.” You add.

“Where would you go?”

“Huh?” You blink in surprise.

“Where would you go?” Bruce repeats again.

“That–that is honestly none of your concern.”

“None of my concern? Aren't I entitled to know where my kid is?”

“No, you’re not. Sure you're biologically considered my father, but we all know I'm not really considered your kid.”

“Is that what you think?” He questions.

“Am I supposed to think any differently?”

“You carry the Wayne surname do you not?”

“I do.”

“Then you belong to the Waynes. To me. Which means that I decide what happens to you.”

There was the familiar darkness that you saw pooling in Bruce’s eyes, the type that left the Joker a tortured mess, the type that disemboweled Ra’s Al Ghul, the type of darkness that reminded you that Batman doesn’t kill. Oh no, he maims and tortures instead.

You unconsciously take a careful step back. 

Bruce’s stare felt like ice, and his words hung in the air, thick and heavy with an authority that was absolute. You wanted to argue, to say something, but every instinct in your body screamed for caution. There was a darkness in his gaze that you had seen glimpses of before, but never directed at you, and now it was there, unblinking, cutting through any hope you’d harbored for mercy or understanding.

Your heart hammered, yet you forced yourself to stand straighter, swallowing down the instinctive fear. 

“With all due respect,” you began, your voice smaller than you intended but steady, “staying here for another two years just for you all to—to follow through with that—custom, doesn’t seem fair.”

Bruce’s expression didn’t soften, but his posture shifted slightly, his gaze piercing through you like he could see every thought you tried to hide. 

“Belonging is earned. It isn’t granted because of blood,” he stated coldly. “If you truly wish to belong somewhere, you work for it.”

“I’ve tried,” you said, voice thick with frustration. “I’ve tried everything. I’ve followed your rules, I tried with everyone, and stayed out of everyone’s way. But nothing I do is good enough.”

“You assume that acceptance is given on your terms,” he replied, voice as controlled as ever. “Pack structure doesn’t bend to anyone’s whims. Least of all a half-blood who hasn’t proven their loyalty.”

The words stung, tearing open a wound that you thought had scarred over. You clenched your fists, feeling the sharp ache of your own nails digging into your palms. “And what exactly does proving myself look like here? Surviving Damian’s attacks? Letting Jason rip me apart every chance he gets?”

“Watch your tone,” he warned, his voice low, cutting through any retort you’d planned.

You took a shaky breath, forcing yourself to take another step back from his desk. Challenging him wouldn’t help. He’d already decided where you stood, and nothing you said would change that. Maybe it was better to save your energy, conserve your strength for the day you’d finally slip away.

“Understood,” you said, swallowing the bitterness in your throat. “If that’s how it is, then I’ll stay out of everyone’s way.”

 But you’d still leave when the time comes.

Bruce’s gaze hardened, like he knew what you were thinking. “Your place is here until I decide otherwise,” he said, a finality in his tone that told you any further argument would only worsen things.

He dismissed you with a look, returning to his papers as if the conversation were over, as if you were no longer there. Every step you took out of the office felt heavier, like the manor itself was holding you down, binding you to this place that was never truly a home.

As you closed the door behind you, the cold emptiness of the hallway wrapped around you, and you knew then—you were on your own. If you were to survive this, it would be on your own terms.

It's like clockwork when Alfred calls you down for dinner. The same time, the same routine.

You show  up to dinner, hands still shaking and mind still reeling from your disturbingly cryptic conversation with Bruce. But, never mind that you’d just eat quietly and leave like you always do. You moved to your normal seat only to find that all the chairs near the end of the table had disappeared. What the actual fuck. Was this some type of powerplay? Something to imply that you didn’t even have a seat at their table anymore? 

You mean, you wouldn't mind eating in the safety and comfort of your own room. With an exasperated sigh, which had a couple of heads turn their attention to you, you grabbed an empty plate and started loading it up with food. You were about to head back to your room when you heard an outraged growl from behind you.

The kind of growl that had you tensing, ready to submit and roll onto your back.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Jason growled out from behind you.

You freeze.

“To my room?” You responded meekly, curling in on yourself as much as you could.

“And pray tell, why do you think that’d be acceptable?”

“Uh–um, ‘cause my seats’ gone?”

Jason only smirked, the feral kind that almost always promised pain to his enemies.

“Oh, but your chair isn't gone, it's right here.” Jason says pointing to a chair right near the head of the table.

You blanked. That's not right. Only pack was allowed that close to the head of the table, where Bruce sat, where the pack leader sat.

“B-But, I can’t–”

“Did that sound like a suggestion?”

You shook your head no, swallowing down a whimper that almost escaped your lungs.

“Then sit your ass down,” Jason growled.

He didn't have to tell you twice.

Immediately you shakily sat down in your new seat, on the left side of Bruce’s seat at the head of the table with Jason sitting at your left shoulder and Dick across from you. Not good, not good at all. You could feel the acidic, green gaze of Jason burning into the side of your face whilst Dick languidly sipped his wine, a sickeningly sweet smile (with way too many teeth to be considered anything but malicious), plastered on his face as he stared at the new seating chart. You let out a shaky breath, trying to get your heart rate back to normal; you were so gonna die tonight.

Thankfully, Bruce arrived and sat himself in his seat at the head of the table; right next to you. You closed your eyes, trying to focus on getting air in your lungs and slowing your racing heart. Unbeknownst to you, Bruce shot a knowing stare at the rest of the table. As much as you tried to conceal it, they could all hear your rapidly fluttering heartbeat and your poorly hidden breathing. Tim and Jason both watched you amused; you looked so darn pathetic, sitting there trembling like a leaf. 

You glanced down at your plate, picking at the food without really tasting it, hoping that staying silent would help you melt into the background.

Bruce, however, remained still and silent, his presence looming over you, radiating the authority that seemed to keep everyone else in check. But even that felt like a facade; the way his gaze lingered on you for a split second too long told you he was watching closely, assessing.

You forced yourself to take a bite, trying to steady your hands enough to appear somewhat composed. But the sound of your own heartbeat seemed to echo in your ears, loud and unrelenting, as if amplifying the anxiety that twisted in your gut. They could hear it too; you knew that much from the way Jason’s smirk deepened, from the way Tim’s lips twitched with barely-contained laughter.

As the dinner dragged on, every clink of a fork, every quiet murmur, felt like it was directed at you. The food turned to ash in your mouth, each bite only reminding you of the eyes trained on you, dissecting you with every chew and every breath.

The rest of the dinner passed in strained silence, every second an endurance test as you forced yourself to stay seated, to keep your head down. When Bruce finally pushed his chair back and dismissed everyone, the wave of relief was almost enough to make you lightheaded. Quick as a whip, you practically ran up the stairs towards the safety and solace of your room.

When you make it, the locks on your door are immediately fastened (not that it would do much if anyone wanted to actually force their way in). You exhale in relief as you try to collect your thoughts. Fuck, everything was going to shit; the worst part being you had school tomorrow (which thankfully you did not go to Gotham Prep; you'd kill yourself if you did). You groaned at the thought, digging the heels of your palms into your eyes to relieve the ache shooting through them.

Looks like another night of shitty sleep.

Taglist!!: @lostsomewhereinthegarden, @the-rouge-robin, @confused-they

[susiephone]

wtf is dracula daily?

i’ve seen a couple people ask this question on my posts about it, so i thought i’d go ahead and clear it up here!

ok so, the classic horror novel “dracula” is an epistolary novel - that means it’s told via letters, diary entries, ship logs, and news articles. (technically the term “epistolary novel” refers to works told solely through letters or emails, but many have expanded it to mean any work that is told via in-universe documents, hence why diaries and logs often get included as well. “frankenstein” is another classic example; the whole framing device is robert walton is recounting the story he heard from victor to his sister via letter. a modern example would be “several people are typing,” which is told via slack messages, or “the perks of being a wallflower,” which is told via letters from charlie to his anonymous pen pal, which is functionally more like you’re reading his diary.)

because of the nature of the narrative, we actually know the exact day nearly everything in dracula happens - the letters, news articles, diary entries, etc. are all dated.

“dracula daily” is a substack project where the novel is broken up into parts, with people who are subscribed to the project getting emails every day something in dracula happens - for example, the novel opens with jonathan harker’s journal entry on may 3, so on may 3, subscribers are emailed that entry. the action of dracula takes place from may 3 - november 6, plus an epilogue set some years later. the project started in 2021 (i think), but fucking BLEW UP in 2022, and they’re doing it again this year! lots of us are very excited - especially people like me who fell behind last time.

why not just read the book?

valid! due to some parts of dracula being told out of chronological order, dracula daily does reorder some things. for example, the first section of dracula is told entirely from jonathan harker’s pov, then the second section switches the pov to mina murray. their sections have some overlap in the timeline, so dracula daily jumps back and forth between their perspectives.

if you want to read the book as bram stoker intended, dracula daily may not be for you. but for a lot of people (myself included!), it breaks up a very long text into easily digestible chunks (....mostly. there is one entry that is 10k words), and the fact that it’s a big project means there are a lot of people reading along with you.

i think there’s also something valuable about experience the slow revelation of wtf is going on along with the characters. the book which you might otherwise get through in a few days is stretched out into months of suspense and agony as you wait for the other shoe to drop, and it’s great.

plus, the whiplash between “jonathan harker’s neverending horror” vs “lucy is basically on the bachelorette” that you get in dracula daily is very very funny.

how do i sign up?

right here! and if you sign up and fall behind in the emails, no worries - the dracula daily website posts past entries so you can catch up.

what if i prefer audiobooks?

have i got great news for you!

like i mentioned before, i couldn’t keep up with the emails last year. part of it is that it is much easier for me to focus on an audiobook or keep up with a podcast than it is for me to sit down and read, especially with longer entries.

this year, there is going to be a podcast titled “re: dracula” that was inspired by dracula daily. every episode will be a dracula daily entry, with a full voice cast! (seriously, if you listen to british podcasts, you will recognize some of these names. the magnus archives and wooden overcoats girlies are WINNING.) you can find that here.

there is also a podcast called “cryptic canticles” that has an already-completed audiodrama of dracula that i’m told is also extremely good, and was also broken up by date. you can find that here.

why do i keep hearing about paprika/the boyfriend squad/lizard fashion/cowboys?

you’ll see.

oh god am i gonna hear about this nerd shit for the rest of the year

yes. sorry.

[angrykittybarbarian]

Things that bother me about Dragon Age: The Veilguard part 3 (final thoughts)

I have finally finished the playthrough. I endured because I wanted to give this game a fair chance. I wanted to see it from start to finish in the hopes it would deliver something, anything capable of redeeming it. But it just didn't. Or more precisely, not in a way sufficient to make its flaws easy to overlook. These are my closing impressions on the game. I have already done two posts about this in which I documented my observations and comments as I progressed. I will link the posts here: Part 1, Part 2.

Let's finish this ride for now.

!Spoilers below the cut!

The music

I don't know what the direction of the music was meant to take. When it was announced Hans Zimmer would compose the OST I had high hopes. Hans Zimmer is a houshold name in Hollywood and skilled at what he does. I listened to a number of movie OSTs of his making and they were all excellent. So what happened here?

The music sounds generic most of the time without a clear theme or a unique piece that got me searching for it on youtube.

The main theme has sort of a recognizable composition but isn't anything outstanding. Emmrich's theme sounds like a halloween piece written for Wednesdsy Adams and the rest of the OST seems to mimic Trevor Morris' work for DA:I, namely the Lost Temple and In Hushed Whispers themes, but without the emotional impact the original pieces created.

It's as someone has already pointed out and I agree: Bioware has bought the name Hans Zimmer but not his quality. It sounds like he didn't even seriously create something but half heartedly whipped something out of his sleeve and called it a day.

The facial animations

The main problem with these is they often don't fit the emotions the VAs are communicating.

The VAs actually did a fantastic job. The scene that touched me the most was the one Rook confronts Solas in after they escape the regret prison in the fade. That was the first time Rook felt involved, raw and real.

But what broke the atmosphere in an otherwise flawless scene was how unmoving their facial expression was. There was the VA shouting their lung out and the animation couldn't even give half a fuck about it.

I don't even see an excuse for this lack of facial animation. It was possible to do since DA:O, hell, even since the first Mass Effect back in '07. Why is it not possible in the year of our Lord 2024, when technology is presumably better?

The handholding of the player

The plot is tightly paced. This is not necessarily a bad thing as I didn't really like the Open World approach of DA:I since it stretched the main plot too thinly and the maps created weren't filled with interesting side content but boring and pointless fetch quests.

But Veilguard went into the opposide extreme as it leaves only little room for the player when and how to do things. The quests are activated and must be completed in a specific order. They have also only one outcome without room to make different decisions.

Rook can never be truly ruthless. They can never disagree and butt heads with their companions.

And I hate how on the side of the screen the game exactly tells you what you have done and how it affects your companions' behaviour. It doesn't bake it into the interaction organically. Instead it has yet again, explained to me what I did and why it has this very specific effect without any of the characters discussing it. But the beauty of consequential decisions lies in the very unpredictability of its outcome. That's what creates the emotional impact. It doesn't work if I am being warned and explained to like a small child.

It's this lack of trust the game puts into the intelligence of its players that is so experience breaking, insulting even. It doesn't trust its players to figure stuff out themselves. It assumes we are too stupid to get any of the things it tries to tell us.

The ting is though, dear Bioware writers, if you think you have to overexplain your story because you think your audience won't get it then that's a telltale sign of the story being actually badly written.

Another area where this becomes appearant are the "puzzles". I used the quotation marks because there isn't really anything to solve. The solutions are obvious and at times your companions go out of their way to tell you.

The romances

Romances have always been a nice bonus on top of the otherweise amazing game content. They added some enjoyable extra fluff purely for enjoyment and some cases even deepened the main storyline.

In Veilguard they don't do that. In almost all of them the flirting is so meaningless that your cutscene with them just proceeds as if nothing happened.

There is no shift or change to their tone towards Rook. You don't build up the relationship with them. There is no last goodbye kiss before the last mission or passionate affirmations of love and trust. It just leaves you cold.

The only romance that seems to have that old depth is Emmrich's. The rest however, they don't add anything significant. There virtually is no difference to the game without the romances.

Companion relationships

Let's begin here with the simple fact that all deeper interactions Rook has with the companions are strictly scripted which ties back into the handholding part of this criticism. Rook cannot initiate a conversation and ask them some general questions about their histories and opinions on certain matters.

Rook only gets to interact with them when they happen to want something from them. Otherwise they cannot be bothered to acknowledge Rook with more than a one sided oneliner.

And then there are the relationships between the companions themselves. They either get along swimmingly or the game feels the need to stage some immature conflict between them without any deeper purpose.

Like Harding not understanding why Emmrich brings so many books on the road despite it literally not being any of her damn business bevause it doesn't personally affect her in any way.

Or Taash not understanding his profession as a Mournwatcher as they call him names so Rook has to point out Taash in turn likes dragons which is an interest he doesn't share only to culminate the discussion with a "We need to respect our differences" sort of statement.

These are not conflicts, these are squabbles of children and like children Roik talks to them which is brought ad absurdum with Emmrich because he is literally old enough to be Rook's father.

Why bother at all with writing conflict if it is only to be something as inconsequential as this?

Varric's death

This one is a .... choice.

I won't go into why the decision to let him die or not is good or bad because I feel like this is highly subjective.

However the impact of the reveal of this fact is only partly executed well.

Why?

Because it only hits hard when the player has known and cared about Varric at least since DA:I if not DA 2. The execution of this plotpoint thus relies too heavily on nostalgia instead of building the tension up within its own setting.

When thinking about Bioware also wanting to be newcomer friendly with this game I am left to wonder then why they didn't introduce Varric properly and didn't give the players time to build up the relationship? Why would a new player care about Varric? They don't know him.

Bioware cannot in good conscience claim they designed the game to be new player friendly while simultaniously heavily relying on knowledge from previous games, dlcs, comics, novels and other spin-off media. They cannot claim this and have anything but DATV do the heavy lifting when it comes to executing their plot.

The final mission

For my final point I also want to lose some positive feedback about this game.

The ending was actually well written.

In relation to Solas it comes full circle. You can actually feel what's at stake and the decisions Rook makes actually matter.

The final questline roughly follows a Mass Effect 2 approach where it is classified as nothing short of a suicide mission.

Companion quests essentially function as loyalty missions and Rook gets to assign various posts in battle. Just like in Mass Effect 2 assigning a companion a post completely outside of their expertise may get them killed.

The dialogue is actually written well at this point in the game. There isn't really much to complain about.

But even this part is not entirely without faults.

For one I don't like the non negotiable sacrifice that has either to be made by Harding or Davrin. Rook doesn't even get a chance to save any of them. But again these non negotiable companion deaths where you only make the choice who's it's going to be isn't anything new (i.e. Hawke and whatever Warden you happen to get, Kaidan/Ashley in ME 1). So maybe a bit if a bummer but nothing experience breaking.

A stronger point however is that Rook will always keep the Veil intact in the end.

I suppose this outcome already is part of the game title itself but was it necessary to take it so literally?

With everything the elves have lost and the discrimination they faced it should absolutely have been an option to agree with Solas and tear the Veil down.

But since we don't talk about racism and slavery I guess Rook doesn't reflect on these points either. So I guess keeping the Veil intact is in line with the game's general sanitization of the world.

So in conclusion?

The game is far from great, not gonna lie. It feels like the devs actually wanted a new IP but were too afraid of the risks that come with such an endeavor and thought gutting an existing franchise that already did the heavy lifting of building a fanbase and using it as a package would save their ideas from flopping. Surely no one will notice it is actually something else if we market it as Dragon Age, right?

But we are not that stupid. This behaviour is insulting to put it plain and simple and I am heartbroken, angry and said that this was done to Dragon Age. I wanted to love this game. I was optimistic before the release. Everything looked fine, nothing in particular to worry about.

But I cannot continue to defend this without breaking my basic brain function.

The most frustrating part is that with the ending the devs showed they can write a story and meaningful dialogues. It left me wondering why it couldn't be done like this for the rest of the game and living with the reality that I will never get what this game could have been.

All in all this is not a good Dragon Age game. It is a massive disappointment and does not live up to the promises made by the devs.

I am sorry for everyone who preordered.

I am sorry for everyone who paid the full release price.

Nominating it for Game of the Year is not justified no mattee how you look at it.

If you are genuinely enjoying the game, I hope you continue to do so and all power to you.

For the rest: let's stop excusing Bioware's disrespect towards the fans and enabling them by paying them too much money for it.

Don't buy at release. Don't buy spin off media. Wait for sales. These people only understand the problem when you give them a good run for their money.

[drdemonprince]

I am very very attracted to my boss and it's driving me insane. There's this amazing chemistry and tension between us and all day long we're just teasing eachother and flirting. We're always gravitating towards eachother and happy to see eachother, finding excuses to work together, etc. He is, however, a straight man twice my age who has a girlfriend and I'm a trans guy who could be completely misreading our interactions. Straight guys often banter and "flirt" with eachother so maybe I'm reading too much into it. Maybe he's just excited to be some sort of a mentor figure to me and he likes to be admired, and likes to see me grow and learn, and that's all there is to it. He calls me his protege which I find incredibly hot. Anyway I'm seriously contemplating whether I should confess my attraction. I'm not really anticipating him to reciprocate, but would do it more so to get rejected so I would be able to stop fantasizing about him all day long and give myself some closure. On the other hand, I don't want to humiliate myself and create a possible distance or awkwardness between us. There would be no consequences for my job so that's not an issue. I was wondering if you have any words of wisdom for me? You always have such a unique yet sobering outlook on things and I would love to hear your thoughts on this situation.

"Unique yet sobering outlook"! That's the kind of compliment I would have put in the word document alongside all my favorite feedback from English professors back in the day when I still needed that. Sincerely, thank you.

I am of several minds with regard to your question. On the one hand, I think straight people are terminally monogamous most of the time and that it would be hell on earth to get involved with this man and draw the potential ire of his girlfriend even if they weren't.

I think it's usually a self-hating maneuver to date a straight man as a trans masc (I have been there, it is terrible) but as a gay man, I support the frisson of danger that comes with seducing a heterosexual and think it would be a baller little feather in your cap to ruin this man's identity and relationship for a fling with you, even if it would be destined to end in agony.

I hear that this misadventure will not affect your job, but I don't exactly understand how that could be true. It sounds as if you work together quite closely and that his flirty banter is part of what makes the gig pleasant, and even if he doesn't have the capacity to fire you (I'm guessing) this affair could devastate the vibe enough that someone else might step in and fire you for its indirect consequences. happens sometimes.

Part of me however does believe in "fuck it we ball" and in being a bit reckless when you find yourself in a moment of raw, transfixing chemistry. chasing after fascinating moments that are destined to shatter our hearts is one of the core aspects of being alive. It keeps us growing, fills us with vigor! Who doesn't want to one day have an interesting story of a love affair like that?

One of my follow up questions would be how rare this kind of connection is for you. If it were me? Someone I truly connect with on the level you are describing is rare, and I've been willing to risk upending my life as i know it over a fleeting few weeks or months of passion before, and sometimes it's been worth it! Some mistakes are worth making, because we will become stronger and more interesting people after they happen!

But another part of me also thinks "straight men flirt with eachother sometimes" makes no sense and that what you are likely experiencing is him not seeing you as a man, or doing the thing some sensitive straight guys do of leeching attention off of queer men to feed their egos. (Which isn't evil, we all need attention sometimes, but it can be devastating.). If he lets you down because he sees you as a man and is not gay, that might relieve the pressure for you and work out fine. If he is into you because he doesn't see you as a man, you two will fuck and it will be horrible in the long term probably. But maybe hot in the short term.

I also think there are probably hotter ways to play this one (and more strategically effective ones) than a straight-up love confession, which would probably force him to bring up his girlfriend as the reason not to pursue it.

I think if you really want to SEDUCE this man you should spend time with him after work, ask him to mentor you on a labor intensive but potentially rewarding project, disclose little personal details that endear him to you, ask him lots of questions about himself, allow him to open up to you about his life... and then strike.

I think it'll be interesting if you go for it, at least. I certainly want to hear the story. But I don't want you to get fired, lose a mentorship that is important to your career, or get your ass beat by the gf.

So I will also tap my followers for their feedback.

[somegrumpynerd]

HEY. POINTS FINGER… any thoughts on how everyone reacted when the other joined the team? as in how did killer react when dust came, how did he and dust react when horror came, how did they all react when cross came, etc. i love love LOVE your bad sanses thoughts way too much they make me so happy. if i write hurt you write comfort and it’s awesome. also how do you think they slowly started to get closer? just.. bah give me your thoughts on them!!!! any thoughts!!!!!!!!!

You fool!! You’ve given me a chance to ramble about my special little guys and now this post will stretch on forever!! Mwahahahahah >:3c

No but seriously this is probably gonna be wicked long cause I have 1 million thoughts about these guys joining and meeting each other so uh, readmore for everybody’s safety and sanity

(^ I wrote that in the document before I started typing out my actual thoughts and uh

yeah no kidding, this is like a fucking essay so proceed with caution)

OKAY SO

I’ve said before that Nightmare got Dust for two reasons; one being that Dream had just recently started working with Ink (and soon Blue) so he and Killer were no longer able to gang up on Dream. He wanted somebody else to bulk up their numbers and give Killer a little back up. He also was starting to realise that Killer didn’t handle being alone very well, since this was when he most often got worked up and broke things around the castle (and sometimes tipped over into stage 3). Dust would be a perfect fit since he had the same amount of lvl and fighting experience as Killer, and since they were so close in circumstance they would be practically like brothers right?

The irony that he thought this about a guy he was recruiting to help kill his brother was apparently lost on him.

They absolutely hated each other. Like, it was instant. Killer saw him as a replacement, why would boss go out and get another sans - one with almost the same backstory as me - when I’m right here? Does he think I’m not good enough? Am I disposable and this is the backup for when I die in combat? He didn’t take it well. He took it all out on Dust too, not cooperating in battle, trying to start fights in the castle, etc. He couldn’t outright kill him because Nightmare had given him strict orders not to, but Killer loves a loophole. If he roughed Dust up down to 1hp and something else happened to finish him off, technically he’d followed orders.

Dust just straight up didn’t want to be there. Nightmare just showing up and yoinking him had worked fine with Killer, but Dust had wanted to sit in his empty au and die, he had no intention of joining a team or doing work of any kind - good or bad. The only reason he didn’t just lie down and refuse the entire time was that he had to fight back against Killer, as much as he wanted to die he refused to give this ass the satisfaction or lvl. He didn’t intend to be any help out in the field either, but again, Killer was making sure he got fired at so he had to retaliate to stay alive.

Eventually it got bad enough that Nightmare had to pull Killer aside and demand answers. In the year or so of knowing him Killer had never willfully disobeyed orders before, so Nightmare needed to know what had gotten into him. He dispelled the replacement rumour right away, he still wasn’t quite softened up enough to be sappy about it but he made sure Killer understood what a good worker he was and that Nightmare had no intention of losing him. It didn’t help a lot, they still hated each other for other reasons, but it eased a little.

Killer still had pretty frequent dips into stage 3, except now he would go straight for Dust usually. Nightmare had tried to explain what he’d learned about it to Dust, but he didn’t really believe that it wasn’t just Killer deciding to try and kill him for funsies. He only accepted it after a particular episode where he attacked Nightmare instead, which Dust knew Killer wouldn’t try in his right mind.

After he came back to his senses he sought Dust out. The air around Killer was very different after a stage 3, sort of sombre and almost calm, so Dust let them sit together and Killer apologised for giving him such a hard time. They actually talked for the first time in months while Killer was still calm (or tolerable, as Dust describes it), and it didn’t magically fix everything but, things were a little better. They still fought and argued and bothered each other but it wasn’t as sharp, there was a lack of real murderous intent in it all, and sometimes after an episode they would talk a little bit. It was the best Nightmare was going to get for now, so he took it.

They were still completely incompetent about taking care of themselves though. Neither of them would eat unless prompted and Nightmare didn’t have good enough knowledge of mortals to know when that should be to stop them passing out from hunger on the job. Not to mention the stars were now a full team, and with the way Killer and Dust would sometimes rather target each other on the field he could do with more backup.

Horror was the first of the group to get a choice in joining. Nightmare had taken note of how much Dust didn’t want to be part of things, and while it was in his best interests in the long run given his situation, Horror’s au was still mostly intact - though a little in disrepair. Horror was also the first in the group to have a good (and ongoing) relationship with his brother, so Nightmare knew he couldn’t just pop in and steal him, he had to be a bit more diplomatic with this one and offer a deal.

He gave Horror some time to think on his proposal - he would set up regular deliveries of food to Horror’s au in exchange for him joining their team - and was quite surprised when Horror agreed, with some stipulations. Horror was equally surprised when Nightmare agreed so easily to his terms (that he didn’t want his brother to know what he’d be doing, and that he wouldn’t kill). A little down the line the terms were altered to add that he would also be left to visit his au every week or so.

Horror was not impressed meeting the other two. He didn’t need his power as judge anymore to sense the lvl coming off them both, and given who they were working for he was instantly distrustful of them both (the uh, brother situation did not help). He was also in a place that had an abundance of food for the first time in probably years, so he was doing a lot of going hog wild in the kitchen and then getting very sick as a result.

Dust didn’t particularly feel anything for him. This guy hated him, sure, but it wasn’t forward and slashy like with Killer, it was just quiet loathing which was fine. That’s how Dust felt about himself so, y’know, mood. He did kind of feel sorry for him though, not just because of the whole famine and everything, but also because he was watching this guy eat like his life depended on it and then get sick and undo it day after day. He was the one who suggested Horror getting his food in moderation to Nightmare, which did help but was an absolute ordeal to enforce. Y’know how some people get hangry? Imagine that but you haven’t had a proper meal in years and now these people give you tiny amounts of food and don’t let you eat more for hours. The hunger mood swings were a sight to behold, you would never have guessed in those days that Horror specified not wanting to kill.

When his ability to eat had evened out and he was in better shape, Horror made a point of apologising to Dust for being aggressive with him. Over time he’d kind of softened up on him from his initial impression, since he could see plainly how wracked with guilt Dust was over his situation. It was a little easier to imagine that whatever he’d done was truly out of desperation and not just for fun, as Horror had assumed at first sight. 

They also both retained that classic sans laziness, so it was easy for them to share a space while saying and doing nothing. It made Horror the first person that Dust willingly spent time around in the castle (and vice versa since Horror was still largely suspicious of Nightmare and Killer - the deal seemed too good to be true and the stage 3 episodes didn’t help). As time went on, Horror kind of became Dust’s emotional support skeleton in a way. Dust had become quite averse to touch in his solitude and Horror very slowly brought him back out with casual gentle touches, until not only did he no longer freeze or stiffen at being grabbed but Dust would seek him out to flop next to on the couch. Horror claimed it was just returning the favour for helping with his eating situation, but really it was nice to have something resembling a friend here.

Killer, for his part, was going through This is My Replacement 2: Electric Boogaloo. Not to the same degree as with Dust, since Horror was quite a bit different, but Killer was still wary of this new addition. He didn’t really instigate anything though since, to be honest, Horror had the intimidation factor. He was like a foot taller than both of them, he had a cracked skull and completely different magic and it seemed like every time Killer saw him he was eating bread like a wolf eats a deer. So while he was going through his food moderating, Killer mostly just stayed quiet and kept his distance.

Horror had not softened on him like he had with Dust, since Killer didn’t openly show remorse. He still watched him with distrust, especially after seeing the way he scrapped with Dust for seemingly no reason other than for violence’s sake. Killer was still mostly targeting Dust in his stage 3s, but Horror had to be careful to stay out of his way since he was still working with much lower hp than the other two. What did start to convince him was seeing how similar Killer and Dust were after a stage 3 episode. Once Killer was slightly more composed (ie stopped crying), he became so tired and quiet and blunt about things he normally joked his way around. It was a little startling, but also started to bring Horror around to the idea that Killer might regret his actions too, just buried under several layers of whatever the hell is also wrong with him at any given time.

Killer and Horror only really started interacting after talking about Dust. Killer was asking how he got Dust to like him since he seems to hate everyone and everything else, Horror told him very pointedly it was because he wasn’t trying to kill Dust. Killer admitted he wasn’t trying to kill Dust, at least not anymore, he just wanted to fight for fun. It opened up a better channel of understanding, knowing that Killer did not actually have murderous intent behind his swings (stage 3 notwithstanding). It made it easier for Horror to occasionally get involved in the roughhousing which Killer delighted in, knowing that the other two knew how to hold back enough to keep him from dusting.

Speaking of stage 3, it was around this time that Killer and Dust made a very important deal. After a particularly rough episode with a little too close of a call, Killer showed up in Dust’s room and begged him shakily to make a promise - that if he ever got too out of control during one of his stages, Dust would kill him. He’d been told over and over by Nightmare that it was impossible for Killer to hurt him since he was immortal, but now there were more people around him where that wasn’t the case, and he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he came out of a stage and found himself alone. Dust promised.

It’s also worth mentioning that, once they were all close enough to be on speaking terms, Horror started bullying the shit out of these two about eating. Now that Horror knew neither of them were going to kill him, he felt safe enough to pick them up by the scruff and set them at the table to say they weren’t leaving until they had at least a snack. He let them pick what they would eat - he wasn’t that cruel about it - but he had to see them eat at least 3 times a day or they would hear about it.

It was by no means perfect or regular, but after about half a year Nightmare finally had henchmen who ate food and worked together (mostly).

Now here’s the problem… I still haven’t really figured out how or why Cross joined the team. Like, obviously there’s some kind of point in the events of underverse where it splits off into an alternate timeline, but I haven’t really figured out where yet so. Leave that one with me just a little longer. Cross joins.

Nightmare really truly didn’t intend to take anyone else in. They were (mostly) getting along, they were pretty well matched to fight the stars, he had no need of more mortals.

…but he was also pretty soft at this point. Every one of them had taken a blow to his I’m immortal I’m an island I don’t get attached to others persona and he’d gotten pretty damn fond of them all. This was why when he felt the sheer weight of loneliness radiating off of Cross, he just couldn’t bring himself to leave him.

So Cross entered the castle. 

He did not particularly intend to stay or make friends, he was trying to get his world back and nothing more. He even revealed a little down the line that he outright refused to kill, and was quite surprised to find that Nightmare was fine with that. At the start he was polite but not friendly with the others and mostly kept to himself.

Dust, as is often the case, did not really have an opinion. Another new guy, this one was self sufficient and didn’t bother him so he had no reason to get involved. He was content to be in the same room as Cross but didn’t start up any conversations.

Horror felt the need to speak to Cross, since Dust would happily stay silent for years and Killer was, well, Killer. Horror was somehow the closest thing to normal they had, so he was the one that made small talk. Mostly asking what Cross would like for meals and encouraging him to pick something he liked when he got the answer of “anything is fine”. As Cross settled in a bit more and actually opened up, they bonded over being the only two to enjoy food. Horror made a point of adding chocolate to the stock they kept in the kitchen and making tacos here and there for Cross.

Horror was also the first Cross kind of warmed to, mostly because he was the one devoid of lvl and Nightmare had mentioned he’d also said he wouldn’t kill. Learning a little about his au’s situation only softened Cross to him more, especially seeing that he still cared a lot for his brother and was trying to protect his home (even if Cross found it unthinkable that he lived away from it). It was through Horror that he also got accustomed to Dust, how being quiet and distant was kind of his default and that he also felt deeply haunted by the loss of his world. They weren’t exactly friends, but it was comfortable enough.

So now boss had taken in another new person, someone who takes orders like a soldier and fights with knives and ruthless precision and aims to be his righthand man, and Killer was ecstatic. By now he’d mostly put his fears of being disposable behind him, Nightmare had gotten a bit less subtle in showing how important they all were to him and Killer felt confident he wouldn’t be replaced. Which was a little bit funny, because the only guy he didn’t feel threatened by was the one who absolutely competed for his spot.

Cross needed to prove he was useful, he had to feel like he earned his keep and that all the training and suffering he’d done was for a reason. When Nightmare sent them on missions, Cross aimed to be the fastest and the most efficient and to report to Nightmare without question. Horror and Dust looking on would have expected Killer to see this 100% as a threat to his position as (self proclaimed) Nightmare’s second in command, and to go for this guy’s throat when nobody else was around.

But Killer was fascinated. Cross was completely different from any of them, bar Nightmare whose au is a whole different kettle of fish, so he had a certain element of unpredictability to him. Horror and Dust were both based on classic sans just like him, so to a certain degree he knew how they would feel about most things and what they might say, the only differences being in what they had experienced through their own timelines. Cross was based on a swap sans and his au had taken wild twists and turns away from usual events, so Killer had to learn everything about him by poking and prodding for answers or observing from a distance, much like back when it was just him and Nightmare. Cross was something new to be studied and Killer loved taking notes.

Cross did not see this as friendly. He was competing with Killer for approval, not realising Killer was playing their contest like a game. When he saw Cross training he would jump in to spar for fun, but Cross saw his rival trying to get a jump on him and take him out of the running. When Killer would hang around and pester Cross in their off time with questions, it didn’t seem like someone taking interest, it seemed like someone being nosy and looking for weaknesses to exploit. When Horror mentioned that Killer was being surprisingly contained and friendly, Cross really thought he was fucking with him.

The first time Cross was willing to even consider this was the case was when his locket came loose on the field and Killer ran back to find it, since one of the notes he’d taken was how the locket wasn’t something Cross would play about (the same as Horror with food). It didn’t make sense for someone who was seriously competing to have him kicked out to just hand his necklace back, no ransoms or attempts to crush it to upset him, just some vague remark about “owing him one” and then right back to Nightmare for orders.

Cross had to give him something of a chance after that, Horror helped a lot by telling him “he doesn’t want to hurt you, he just doesn’t know how to be normal”. It was mostly a playful jab at Killer, but reframing their interactions changed it significantly for Cross. Now they were sparring playfully and having friendly competition on jobs. He wasn’t as put off when Killer went into stage 3 because he knew he could match him in combat and the others were always on hand to help restrain or distract him. Cross also took note of how Killer calmed down a lot for physical touch, not unlike how Dust had warmed up to Horror. It went a long way into not only making him a little less combative for attention every day, but it seemed to put longer stretches between his episodes (which Cross had also started tracking so they wouldn’t be caught out by them as much).

For his part, Killer has disobeyed instructions in the past to benefit Cross, usually ignoring the task to help him if he’s hurt. He’s also given Nightmare nudges towards praising him because he’s noted that that’s what Cross needs in the same way he needs touch (not that Nightmare doesn’t praise them normally, but when Cross is going through it and needs something). He also doesn’t particularly like chocolate but has made a point of not admitting this to Horror so he can give his chocolate to Cross.

(It’s also worth noting that Cross is the only one, besides Nightmare, that has been to Horror’s au. He offered to help out during the food delivery and got to meet Horror’s Papyrus (who he is a little intimidated by but ultimately friendly with, even though it’s a little weird since he’s a good bit different from his own Papyrus). Dust and Killer can’t really visit for a few reasons, mostly because everyone will notice their lvl immediately and know what they’ve done. Dust especially doesn’t know how he would react to having a Papyrus in front of him again and doesn’t want to put Horror's family at risk to find out. Whenever he visits, his Papyrus asks about Cross now and sometimes tries to make tacos for him (key word tries, he’s still a Papyrus after all). He may have joked that seeing Cross sometimes is “like having another brother but younger and less lazy” and when Horror told him this Cross may or may not have cried.)

And that’s where we are now!

They’re a very strange group who’ve been through some inexplicable events and have all changed each other in one way or another. And whether or not it can be admitted, they are a family c:

Now onto how Nightmare was made emotionally open by each of them!! In this essay I will no just kidding could you imagine this is already like 7 pages long

If you got to the end of this post please drink some water and get yourself a snack

[peoniesnro]

In Another Universe

#5. A beautiful memory

Synopsis - When you are just another iteration of Park Jimin’s girlfriend in a different universe.

Park Jimin × Reader

Genre- parallel universe (duh)/ kind of fantasy/ strangers to ??/ SMUT/ maybe romance/ angst/ fluff /Infidelity

Warnings - Language/dirty thoughts

Word Count - 11k

a/n- This is a bit early and serves as a bridge between the previous and upcoming chapters. I hope you enjoy it. Thank you for reading! ♥️

Taglist

Chapter Index

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“You want me to do what?” You shout, placing your palms on the kitchen island. A little bit harshly that a soft bang echoes. Jimin just seriously stares at you. Not even flinching at the sound.

“Park Jimin. Tell me you’re not serious.” You say again as he doesn’t reply. Jimin gives you a tight-lipped smile. “I am spring roll. I am very serious.” Says finally, expression still very serious.

He must be losing his damn mind.

You sigh, exasperated. “But I know shit about business Park. What do you expect me to do there?” You throw your hands in the air. Jimin sighs too. Leans forward a bit over the kitchen island. Interlaces his fingers together.

“Listen Lil, just because Liya doesn’t remember this day, that doesn’t mean that other people too. They are gonna wonder what happened to Kim Liya. She has a business to run, and I don’t want everyone she knows on my doorstep asking where she is. You need to cover her life on her behalf while you are here Lil. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to.” He looks directly at your eyes.

You groan as you look away from his face. Eyes landing on the document on the island. Your ticket to disappear every other day without getting into any trouble. Written proof that you have CFS. You don’t even know what that means. As Jimin explained that means you are experiencing profound fatigue. Which means you’ll need special consideration. The letter is from a non- existent GP. But the hospital he works exists. In your world. Everybody knows it and as long as no one decides to contact this doctor and check for themselves, you are safe. And you know that nobody would walk that length for you. Except for Key. Oh, she is going to be thrilled when she sees this.

Jimin, in that case, did a god damn good job. This letter seems astonishingly legit. He did all that with the details you provided about the hospital. And he did that within a day. Impressive. Scary. Makes you realise he is a fucking CEO. Owns a damn business. Has connections. Still, sits here with a pout on his lips when you call him an asshole. Fuck! He is adorable.

Funny how you don’t see him as the powerful businessman he is. But rather just a man who is couple years older than you. A friendly one. Hot one. Caring one. Looks intimidating sometimes but makes you quite comfortable. See, he is a funny thing. Makes you wonder how he is when he is at work. Is he like this with everyone? Probably not. Maybe he is a very serious boss. You may not know very much about him yet, but you know he must be a successful businessman. He needs to be a responsible and serious leader to accomplish that.

Still, you can’t believe it. Can’t imagine him being, this impressive, grumpy, wise boss when he sits here with you in his sweatpants. His hair all messy and tousled. His plump lips still in a pout. You can’t believe him being a CEO of a company when he always comes up with stupid ideas whenever he is with you. Exactly like now, when he wants you to attend a damn board meeting in place of Liya. As the CEO of The SE, which is apparently the biggest publishing group in this Seoul, South Korea. A part of the Kim Group. You didn’t know what that is until Jimin explained. According to that explanation, Liya’s father owns the half of this country. And he wants you to pretend be his daughter and attend this broad meeting. When you barely understand the basics of business.

You turn back to Jimin. Ready to tell him to fuck off, and you can’t do it at all, but he beats you to it.

“Oh, c’mon. You said we’re friends Rollito. Friends help each other.” Whines. Looks like he might stomp his foot under the island. He doesn’t. Instead, gives you puppy eyes.

That friends part does something weird to your heart. Why did you ever tell you are friends now? Is a good idea though. You’re back to arguing over silly matters. Nobody avoids anyone. No guilty conscience. Just friends.

It was a close call. You were on the verge of spreading your legs for Park Jimin. Getting fucked and become the other woman. Woman who he cheated on his girlfriend with. If that ever happened that would have made you want to drown yourself. Can’t imagine living with such a burden on your shoulders. Even the things that happened made you want to go through a purification to get rid of your sins. Made you think how much of a bitch you are for wanting to kill Kim Taehyung for cheating and doing the same thing with his best friend.

The way thing turns out is good. Very good in fact. Even though you feel heavy whenever he or you mentioned you are friends. It will go away someday. This heavy feeling. It will.

You watch the way Jimin is still giving you puppy eyes. Makes you roll yours as a reply. “Oh, fuck Park Jimin. You’re so annoying. Can we go back to being strangers. I don’t want to be your friend anymore. You’re opportunistic.” You huff when he gasps in disbelief. “An opportunistic?” Clutches his heart and winces. “Can’t believe you’re saying such horrible things to me after I helped you.” Reaches for the document on the table. Takes it in his hand before continuing. Brandishes it in front of your eyes.

“See, I helped you. Don’t be a selfish ass and do this for me in return.” Puts the paper back. You are the one gasping in disbelief now.

“Yah! I didn’t ask you to do that.”

“So what? You could have solved the problem by yourself?” He looks way too smug for his own good. “Yes of course, Park. I’m fully capable of solving my own problems.” You tilt your chin up. His smug look gets worse. “Oh yeah? Do you need rem—”

“No thanks. I’ll do it.” You stand up. Take the letter. “Because we are friends and friends help each other.” Say as you push the chair back. With a screeching sound. “But I want you to know Park, that I can solve my problems most of the times. I’ve been doing that all my life. You’re the one who butts in to everything.” You’re saying the absolute truth. You could have solved this problem by your own. It would be hard. Jimin made it way easier. Still, you would’ve found a solution in the end. You’re grateful for him helping though. Just don’t want to feed his ego.

Jimin opens his mouth to retort when you interrupt him. Point your finger at him. “And just remember if your girlfriend’s damn business went to bankrupt, it’s all on you Park. All on you.” Look him in the eye when they disappear in his cheeks. Like always. You like that a little too much. How mesmerizing.

Jimin is grinning. And then chuckling.

“Fine.” Says through his chuckle. “Trust me, you don’t have to do anything. Just sit at the executive chair.” Stands up too. Rounds the kitchen island to walks towards you. Stops. Smiles again. Ruffles your already messy hair. Only for a second. And then he is going away.

Your heart stops for that second.

Oh fuck! You need to get laid.

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You bite your thumbnail while gaping at the pristine glass building through the window. The building itself is enormous. Shines under the cold winter sun. Majestically. A modern architectural masterpiece. And you are to pretend the owner of that building.

Holy fuck!

This is The SE group. Liya’s father owns this. Liya manages it. She is amazing. The thing is, you don’t think you’re that amazing. Even looking at the building makes your stomach turns and churns awfully. Cold beads of sweat appearing on your forehead. You can think about twelve million things that can possibly go wrong. Oh, shit this is a bad idea. A terrible idea. You start chewing your thumb nail even faster. Habitual flaws that you were unable of letting go. That’s why you have perfectly manicured nails on your other fingers but the right thumbnail looks like it survived seven wars. Can’t help it.

You keep gaping at the building and chomp your own finger when Jimin’s hand reaches for you. After he sighs heavily. It makes you slightly startle and jump in your seat. He grabs your wrist. Makes you stop chewing your nail off.

“Fucking stop it Lil. You gonna hurt yourself.” Says as he yanks your hand down. You turn to look at him. He has a scowl on his face. Is starting at your hand. You follow his gaze. Look at your poor finger. Are about to say that you can’t help it when he cut you down by wiping your finger clean. With his hand. A simple and innocent act. Yet, your nervously beating heart stops again. Just like how it did when he stroked your hair. You shift your gaze back to his face with your eyes wide.

Did he just wipe your finger? Isn’t that gross?

Apparently, it’s not. Not when he is completely unaware and unfazed. Is stroking your finger gently. As if he wants to soothe it. Oh, you and him trying to sooth things are not good. Especially, when you feel these strange sensations in your tummy and your heart is squeezing. In a very bittersweet manner. That’s why you clear your throat and retrieve your hand from his soft grip. Look back at the building.

“I can’t help it.” Say finally. Avoid looking at him. Still, can feel his burning gaze on your face. “Yeah, but it’s bad.” He mutters and shifts in his seat. You just nod. Want to change the subject and the sudden heavy atmosphere.

“This is really bad Jimin. How am I going to pretend like a fucking CEO when I don’t even know which floor my office is. What if I ended up in the bathroom instead?” You question wearily. Finally finding the courage to look back at him. Meet his gaze. He chuckles.

“Office is on the top floor. And you are not gonna miss it Spring Roll. Your secretary, I mean, Liya’s secretary will meet you when you enter the building. She is expecting you. All you have to do is act like you own the place.” He sounds like it’s all easy. Well, it’s easier when it’s said. You’re the one who have to do it for real. You whine pathetically as you slump down. Drowning yourself in the comfy leather seat. You absolutely don’t want to leave Jimin’s car.

Jimin gives you a soft look. Unbuckle his seatbelt so he can lean toward you. You don’t like this. He is way too comfortable with you. How can he be like that? Isn’t he afraid, you’ll mess things up again? Maybe he doesn’t feel like how you feel. You shouldn’t feel this way either. But you do and he makes it worse. You wonder if he solved his horny ass problem. Finally fucked his girlfriend that he will be not horny for a year.

Well, you haven’t solved yours. You still have your horny ass, and he should keep his distance. You wish he would but of course he doesn’t. Brings his face inches closer to you. Breath fanning your face. It makes your nipples ache and panties soak. How pathetic? Suddenly, you want to leave his car.

“You don’t have to do anything Lil. Trust me it’s going to be all okay. Just sit at the meeting and then call your driver when it’s finished. He’ll take you home and all done. Everyone’s happy.” Squeezes your thigh. Makes your skin burn and tummy flutter. You’re crying internally. It’s a painful and deep desire that he ignites within you. You want him to stop and not, at the same time.

Jimin keeps his hand on your thigh for a long minute before reclines from your personal space. How you are glad. It’s not wise to be here with him. Better if you get away even though you’ll have to manage a business. Besides he says it’ll be okay. You’ll trust him with this. So, you nod at last. That makes him grin.

“Yeah? That’s my girl.” Says proudly. You on other hand, are back to stare at him with wide eyes.

Who’s who now?

What the fuck does he think he’s doing. You want to get away from here. Fast as you can. You hand is already on the door handle when he speaks again. “You’re a damn good friend Spring Roll.” Says happily. And you feel that disappointed ache. Fuck it. What’s wrong with you? You need to be on this just like him. That’s how you are going to survive this until you find your answers. Yes. You need to be his friend. So, you take a sneaky breath. Turn to him and scowl.

“Fucking opportunistic.” Mumble and exit the car. Take one final look at him when he wishes you luck. Wait there until he drives away.

How beautiful his little smile is.

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You didn’t mess up. Surprisingly so. Yes, you sat there at an opulent conference room with an ashen face and clammy palms. Yes, you stupidly gape at all professional looking fellas there, whenever they asked something from you. Still, you managed to get through that with yes and nos. Even got the false impression that running a business isn’t that hard when all you have to do is say yes or no. In the end, you managed. Better than you thought, and you could pat yourself on the back for being that good. Being good at acting like you own the place.

Only minor issue you caused was calling Liya’s secretary Mrs. Seong. She appeared stunned. As if you had called her by a insulting name instead her real one. Turned out that apparently Liya just calls her by her first name. She herself told you that. Asked you what is the matter with you. And then of course she nearly had a heart attack when you refused to let her go to bring you a coffee. She is older. Probably good ten years older than you. Doesn’t sit right with you to call her by her first name. And then send her to bring you coffee? You were horrified.

You are extremely relieved now when you finally exited the pristine building after you called your (Liya’s) driver. Jimin had given you Liya’s phone despite your protests. Said it was okay. You are Liya while being at the office. That’s how he managed to get you inside this navy-blue Cashmere knee length skirt and the white turtleneck sweater. A winter coat to keep you warm. Knee high boots on your feet and very expensive looking bag on your hand. You and Jimin made sure that you emulate Liya in every possible way. From your clothes to hair. You thought you did a good job. Jimin thought you did a very poor job.

You smile to yourself when you notice the sleek, white car parked in front of the building. Even though everything went impressively well, you still don’t wish to linger here anymore. Especially, with Mrs. Seong bombarding with you hundred different questions. She just won’t accept your excuse of wanting to meet your boyfriend as a good excuse to cancel lunch plans with a client. An important one in that case.

“It’s a good excuse Mrs. Seong. I need to have a private life as well. You get me?” You sternly say as walking briskly towards the vehicle. The woman in the bob cut following close behind you. “But this is a very rare chance, Miss Liya. Didn’t you want to have another chance with Owen Scott?” Her high heels clatter against the cobblestone floor. She doesn’t let you just disappear. Makes you annoyed. You don’t know what this deal is or how important that is. No that you care anyway. Jimin wanted you to be here. At this one meeting. You have no intention of going through another painful business meeting. Lunch or not. You sigh as you reach the car. The driver gets out to hold the door open for you.

How uncomfortable?

“Please can you reschedule this lunch for me Mrs. Seong. I can’t ditch Jimin today. This is important. Trust me hm? Please give Mr. Scott a good reason.” You finalize and turn to get into the car. Rudely ignoring her protests. You’ll let Jimin deal with this later.

You mutter a soft ‘thank you’ to the driver as you almost get into the car when a voice, which does not belong to the woman, interrupts you. You take the foot you place inside the car back. Turn around. Eyes going wide and then a huge grin breaking out on your face as you recognize the man in front of you.

“Jungkook?” You nearly squeak in excitement but catch yourself right at the time. Eyes raking on his broad figure and then landing on the person next to him. The girl with the purple hair. “J!” You exclaim again. Happily. Jungkook looks the same as you remember. J has cut her hair a little bit shorter. Daring. You like her.

“Noona.” Jungkook squeak loud enough for all of you. Takes a step forward. Nearly touches you when J yank him back. He frowns at her first. Then smiles at you again. “What are you doing here?” Asks excitedly. Both him and J have two banana milks in their hands. You hide your amused grin while shrugging. It feels extremely wrong and weird to lie all over again. “Work, I guess.” You look at The SE building. Their eyes follow you. “Oh, you work here?” J wonders. Her eyes squinted and takin a good look at the glass establishment. Jungkook does the same.

You don’t want to take credit on someone else’s behalf after all. Hence, why you are about to tell yes and let it go. But then J suddenly gasps. “Wait? Aren’t you own this?” She gestures to the building. Well, you don’t at all. You don’t even own a doll house to be precise. And then regarding this building, Liya doesn’t own it either. Technically, it’s her father’s. Yet, you just nod anyway. Easier that way.

Jungkook lets out a low whistle. His eyes in a faraway land. “Can you fuckin believe we clubbed with a bunch of freaking CEOs” Asks from J when she shakes her head. Almost in a pure disbelief. “All thanks to Joonie. I love him. Too bad the bugger is already in love.” J sighs dreamily. You guess they are referring to Kim Namjoon. The acquaintance of Hoseok. Jungkook nods in assent. “Too fucking bad. Even if he isn’t J, J, you still have no chance against me.” Mutters. He looks dreamy just like J. “Wanna bet?” J breaks the stupor and snaps her head to him. Now she looks very serious. Jungkook scoffs. “Fuck yeah, how much?” Challenges.

You think you can watch their bantering for a whole day. There’s a low laughter emitting from inside your cheat. Unfortunate, how a throat clearing interrupts you. You turn around, suddenly remembering the bob cut woman. She is scowling. Displeasure evident on her face. “Your ride Miss. Liya.” She turns toward the car. Driver still holding the door open for you.

Ah yes! The ride.

“Ah yes. I better get going now guys. See you sometime later? Huh?” You grab the door and say to the two people. They are both watching you intently now. You give them a soft yet polite smile. Bow. J reciprocates your actions. Jungkook doesn’t. Takes a moment. Then suddenly, completely out of blue, thrusts his banana milk to you. Surprises you more than a little. Even makes you stumble backward at the intensity of how he jolted his hand out. A soft oh leaves your mouth when Mrs. Seong clears her throat again. This time in warning. You take a look at her disgusted face. And then back at Jungkook.

He is looking at you expectantly. Eyes big and mouth forming a cute ‘o’. You don’t think it’s normal to offer drinks to people like this. So, you don’t think it’s normal to accept them. Yet, he has this eyes that makes it difficult to say no. So, you take it. Chuckle. Ignore the sounds Liya’s secretary is making. “Thank You Jungkook. It’s very nice of you.” Smile awkwardly. Raise the drink hesitantly. J is giving Jungkook a murderous look. “I’ll... go then. See you.” You mumble again. Are about to get into the car. And Jungkook interrupts you again for the hundredth time for these past few minutes.

“Noona wait! Do you like... want to hang out with us?” He blurts that out that all three of you including J and Mrs. Seong, echoes a ‘what?’ in unison. He grins. Why is he so random? “Well, uh… are you heading home now?” Scratches the back of his head. “Yeeeaaah….” You drag that one word hesitantly. Yet, answer before your brain can evaluate it properly and comes up with the best answer. Fuck, you gave the wrong answer. Jungkook is beaming. “Then join us. We can have fun.” Nods to himself. J grabs from his oversized black t-shirt. Hisses.

“What the fuck Jungkook? You can’t ask a fucking CEO to hang out with us like that. Woman probably has tones of works to do.” She looks at you. Then back at Jungkook. Well, you have no work, but you nod. Jungkook visibly deflates. A pout on his lips. “Who cares if she owns a business or not. If she wants to she can.” Mumbles through his pout. “You really have work Noona?” Asks again. You are about to say yes and disappear when he bridges the distance between you two. Startles you and Mrs. Seong. So do to the two men stand guard at the entrance of the building. Ridiculous, how you have to hold a hand up to stop them from coming to you.

“It’s going to be fun. And you owe me a banana milk.” Jungkook peers at your face. You open your mouth in disbelief. Did he just fucking give it to you and asks you for a new one. “You can have it back.” You hold the drink back up to him. He whines. “Oh, c’mon.”

J hisses again. “Fucking hell Jeon.” Almost succeeds dragging him away from your space. Almost though. He shrugs her off. “Isn’t it boring to work all the time?” Doesn’t give up on bugging you. The thing is it’s almost working. Hence, your partially defeated sigh. He knows he is wining. Comes up with some more funny reasons why you should go with them. In the end you give up. He has eyes you can’t say no to.

“Okay Fuck. Let’s go. Not like I’m gonna die.” You try to appear annoyed. Fail when Jungkook is grinning from one ear to other. Step away from the vehicle when Mrs. Seong stutters on her word.

“But Miss Liya... Did…didn’t... you say… what about Mr. Park.” She takes few steps with you when you start to walk away with the intruders.

“I’ll call him Mrs. Seong. Don’t worry. You can go back to work.”

You are not going to call Jimin since he will not expect that. He has works to do. No time to worry about a pretend girlfriend. Not like you really have plans. That was a lie. Besides, it’s okay to have a little fun. Jungkook and J are nice people. You like them. You chuckle excitedly. You’re buzzing with excitement. Jungkook mirrors you. J shakes her head in mock disbelief. Finally joining you to walk side by side.

………………………………..………………………..………..............

“What are you doing wandering around the city?” You slurp the last bit of Jungkook’s banana milk from the straw.

“Eh...” J responds noncommittally. That’s not really an answer. You gape at her face. “Eh?” Repeat what she said. “We are just wandering around. No purpose.” She says. Shrugs. “So, like what? You have nothing to do?” You are curious to know. Look between J and Jungkook. They walk with you in the middle. “We have, normally.” Jungkook answers in place of J. Grabs your full attention.

“What do you mean normally?” You question further.

“Well, normally means if we are at our part time jobs or classes.” J states. You are now annoyed you have to turn your head every time. Yet are happy to know they both can relate to you. Only if you could tell them. “Yeah? Then is this mean you don’t have lectures or work?” You turn to Jungkook even before he answers. Know he is the one who is going to answer your question.

“Oh, we do. We have a class.” He says casually.

“So?” You turn to J.

“We skipped.” She states and points toward a Tteokbokki stall. You gape at her when she starts to rush toward the stall. “Kookie, you want some don’t you?” Asks from Jungkook yet yanks from your hand. Dragging you to the food stall. You are shocked. Do they just happily skip lectures. Like that? Aren’t they worried? You and Key are always worried. So, you voice your concerns. “Aren’t you worried about failing?” Jungkook is the closest to you. “We manage.” He replies before taking your other hand in his. Now they both are dragging you toward the stall.

They manage?

How unfair that there are people who can manage everything. When you are struggling with everything. They seem happy. Jungkook and J. Extremely so. Makes you feel happy too. You watch as J places three orders. Old lady in the stall hustling to give you your food. The smell makes your stomach growl despite not being hungry a second ago. You’re suddenly very hungry. But then that hunger vanishes in a finger snap at J’s next words.

“You gonna pay for us? Won’t you Miss Liya. You won’t make two broken college students pay for you?” She takes the first bowl of Tteokbokki with both of her hands. Bows deeply to the old lady. Looks at you expectantly. Oh, fuck. You have no money. You refused Jimin’s money when he tried to give some to you. The plan was to head home straight after the meeting. God, this is a stupid idea. Why did you ever agree to come here. You feel your throat goes dry as you scramble for a practical excuse.

“Yah! Don’t do that. We invited her.” Jungkook bellows. You absolutely love him.

“You did! Not me. Then pay for us idiot.” J screeches at Jungkook. Click her tongue. You are starting to feel worried that she is starting to be annoyed. For real. But then Jungkook is looking unfazed.

“I will. For her. You can pay for your annoying ass.” He shoots you an affectionate glance. You feel uneasy. Very uneasy. Don’t want to be cause for a fight between two best friends. How humiliating? You can’t figure if they are fighting for real or not. You shouldn’t have come. J clicks her tongue again. Harder than before.

“Then you should write that damn essay by your own annoying ass.” States with her head held high. You look away from her when the vendor gives you another bowl. You take it with a slight bow. There’s an eerie silence. They both glaring at each other. Until Jungkook sighs. “Fuck okay.” He mumbles. Apologetically smiles at the old lady for his vulgar language. Pays for all three of you. You feel extremely bad.

“Gosh, I hate your annoying ass J, J.” He pouts so hard again, poking at his food. J laughs wickedly. “But you love me.” Is excited of the taste. You take a bite too. Very awkwardly and hesitantly. It actually tastes pretty good. That’s why you think Jungkook is really mad. He looks angry. Brows furrowed. Scowling. You open your mouth to apologize even though you have no other options when J beats you to it.

“He isn’t angry don’t worry. Just loves his food little too much.” She snorts after say that. You snap your head to Jungkook. Eyes meeting his when he peers at you from over his bowl. Does he really look angry because food is good? Apparently, he is. The smile he gives you confirms that.

……………………………………………..………………………..............

You and J stare at the soft plushies inside the UFO catcher through its hard glass. Noses nearly press against the cold material as you cheer for Jungkook. His goal is to win the blue penguin. It’s so fucking adorable that your gums ache. Jungkook is weirdly competitive, having already lost around 5000 won for nothing. He doesn’t listen to you or J. Is adamant about wining the price. He is going to pay ten times more for the plushie at this rate. Still, he doesn’t listen. Stubborn.

“To the left. Left, left, left…”

“Fuck Yeah.” You and J both roar when the claw catches the plushie for the sixth time now. You have to fight off the urge to hit his back in excitement. Jungkook lets out his own noise of triumph.

“Now ladies, I’m gonna win this fucking stupid penguin for real this time. If I don’t J, then you can call me cutie pie all you want.” He declares. Tip of his tongue poking out from between his pink lips. Eyebrows turning into a straight line at how hard he concentrates. You take a deep breath and hold it. As if you need to stay stony for him to win. J does the same. Watching intently the way claw moves upward with the blue plushie barely within it’s grasp. Jungkook very slowly moves the claw to the left.

“Slow. Take it slow.” J whispers in his right ear. He nods. Looks like he is defusing a bomb.

“A little bit more. Move it a little more.” You whisper in his left ear. He nods. Again. Beads of sweat appearing on his forehead.

“NOW.... NOW.....”

The way you and J shout makes a woman next to you lose her balance. She catches herself and grimaces at you. You bow to her in apology at the same time the plushie drops into the hole at the bottom. J yells through the top of her lungs as she throws her arms around Jungkook’s neck. Grabbing him to her and nearly choking him to death in the process. He doesn’t mind dying, however. It seems. Not after he won a stupid plushie. He hugs J back in elation. You don’t mind either. Until this very moment, despite all the exciting things you’ve experienced. You tried your best to stay in the Liya’s character. Now, though at the bubbling sensation of triumph. Even though it’s Jungkook’s and is stupid, you break the character happily.

You don’t even realize that you are jumping up and down, hollering. Laughing heartily. You don’t mind at all when Jungkook lets J go and hugs you instead. Picks you up from the floor easily. Making you squeak. Squeezes the life out of you before putting you down. Takes the plushie from the prize bin. Still, grinning happily. Holds the toy to you. His eyes are back to those shiny doe, Onyxes. The eyes no body can say no to. You look at his face and then at the plushie. Dumbfounded. It takes you a moment to understand that he is giving the prize to you. Realization makes your eyes wide. You gape at his face for a second before averting your gaze to J. She is grinning yet rolls her eyes.

“Yah! Are you fucking serious Joen? You give that to her when your best friend is right next to you?” Punches his arm. Playfully. Still, it makes you shake your head furiously. With your hands waving in front of your face. “No, no, I don’t want it Jungkook. You won it. You should keep it or give it to J.” You say embarrassingly when J snorts. Jungkook does the same. “Trust me, Noona, she doesn’t want it. Just being a pain in the ass.” He assures you while pushing the plushie into your chest. “Yah!” J hits Jungkook again. Protesting being called a pain. Especially, in the ass. You are not ready to accept a gift like that. Feels wrong for some reason. Then again, Jungkook made you come here to hang out with them in the first place. That’s why you shouldn’t be surprised when he pushes the toy into your hand forcefully. And tells you to shut it rudely when you try to reason.

……………………………………………..………………………..……......

“You don’t look like a CEO.” J asks offhandedly. You are sitting on a bench under a Gingko tree. Cold air playing with your hairs. Once again, slurping on three banana milks. Jungkook sits next to you. J sits next to Jungkook. So, you have to lean forward to look at her.

“That’s fucking rude J.” Jungkook gives her an annoyed look. She dismisses it. “What? I’m curious. Just look at her. No offense Miss. Liya, but you look nothing like a business owner.” She leans forward as well. Says to your face bravely. Well, of course, you don’t look like a CEO because you are not. Hell, you probably are younger than both of them. Still in your second year at college. And you forgot to be Liya since some time ago. Character was broken.

You feel horrible for eating on Jungkook’s dime, receiving a gift and now to have this drink on him again. He insisted though. But you feel humiliated. Should have taken that money from Jimin. Well, this is your sign to find a job here.

It's fair, in the end, that J thinks you don’t look like an owner of a leading business. All you can do, however, is give pathetic excuses. “Well, I’m a human J. And I know how to keep things separated you know?” You say calmly. Smiling at her. Jungkook nods in assent. As if he knows you. “I am a business owner when I work. Now? I’m a person like you guys. A stupid human who forgot her fucking wallet.” You shamefully mumble the last part. Why do you feel like you are scamming two innocent old people. Jungkook hums disapprovingly around his straw. Takes a good gulp. Then turns to you.

“Don’t say that Noona. We invited you.” He looks pure. Makes you guilty.

“You did.” J corrects him again.

“All right! I fucking remember.” Jungkook harps on.

“I did, Noona. So, it’s okay.” He pats your back, causing you to snort. “Okay but I’ll make sure to buy you something nice soon.” You pat his thigh in return. J peers at your over Jungkook’s large frame. Pouting. “What about me then?” Gesturers to herself. Jungkook mumble something about her being undeserving of anything when she smacks his head. “Ouch you little gremlin, don’t… buy her anything Noona... Not even… Yah!” Rest of his words die on his tongue as J starts to pinch him. They start fighting like two angry cats. Leaving you with no choice but to hold onto Jungkook so he won’t accidentally break J’s neck. Or yours. Your laughter disturbs the peaceful melody of wind.

“Okay shit. Stop it now.” You grab Jungkook’s arm. Trying to control your laughter.

“Jung-”

“Oi! Spring Roll!” Your words and their silly fight all stop at the same time. All three of you turning your heads around to where the sound came. In unison. A livid and exasperated Park Jimin seeps into your view. He is scowling deep. Hands in his pant pockets.

Oh!

“Jimin?”

“Mr. Park?” All three of you exclaim again. In unison. Jimin briefly looks away. Tongue poking the inside of his cheek. Lets out a humourless chuckle. Then his eyes are back on you. Oh, they are dark. Closes the distance between you like he is the wind and stands before you tall. A beat of silence pass. Everyone keeps gaping at Jimin. But he is piercing his gaze through you. There goes your heart beating fast. There goes your mind spinning fast.

Why the fuck is he here? How does he know where you are? Is this a coincidence?

You almost start to believe he is gone mute when he leans down. Takes your hand. Your heart stops again. Breath tangles in your throat.

“Let’s go.” He says with a certain authority. You would have liked it in a different context. Inside a private space. In this context, however, it makes your beating heart calm down instantly. Your breathing turns normal. A scowl, which is similar to Jimin, plastering on your features. He can’t just barge in and tell you ‘Let’s go’. Who does he think he is?

“Baby let’s go.” Jimin mutters again. And just like that your heart is back to racing. Lungs are protesting to breath properly. He thinks he is your boyfriend. Because, you are Liya. He probably is worried about you running the things. You inhale a shaky but sneaky breath. Nod. Get to your feet before turning to Jungkook and J. Both are still gaping at Jimin. You bow to them. Grab your things with the plushie and your banana milk.

“Thanks for these Kookie.” You shake them in your hand. “Let’s hang out sometime later.” Say again and mutter a goodbye to both of them. Bowing again and they do the same after getting up. You miss the death glare a pair of eyes send toward Jungkook. So do they. All busy while waving good-byes.

“Bye Noona!”

“Bye Miss. Liya!”

…………………………………………..………………………..………......

“What the actual fuck do you think you are doing?” Jimin practically yells in your ear. At the very moment Jungkook and J are out of your sight. You wince visibly. “The fuck Jimin. Why are you yelling?” Take a step away from him. Frowning. Jimin opens his mouth to say something. Then decides against it and takes you in for a moment. Takes in your expression which is torn between annoyance and fear. Blows a breath out. Groans. Mumbles an apology. You’re still frowning, however. And pouting.

“Hey Lil, I’m sorry.” He apologizes again as he takes a step toward you. You take a step back.

“Fuck, Lil, I didn’t mean to yell. But you can’t just ditch your secretary and go off with random passersby.” This time he doesn’t take any steps. So, you stand your ground. “They are not some random people. You know them.” You point it out. Watch carefully to see if he remembers. He has a poker face on. “Oh, c’mon that’s J and Jungkook. We met them at the club. Hoseok knows them.” You tries again.

“I don’t care who they are Lil. Hoseok knows them, not you. Not me. You can’t just walk away with fucking strangers…” Jimin hisses through his gritted teeth. Takes a deep breath in. Places his hands in his hips. “And how the fuck you know them just because you met them at a club? You met them this one-time Lil, and you think you know them? How old are you to act like a toddler who gets lured by a candy?” His eyes land on your drink and gift. Gives you the urge to hide them behind you. You badly want to argue. That’s how people meet new people. There’s a first time for everything. Everyone is a stranger once, just like Jimin and you were. Still, you think he has a valid point. Makes sense to say that you don’t know them. It is reckless.

So, you sigh in defeat. Speaks with defiance. “All right, I got it okay?” Just don’t want to accept he is right. “But I’m not a fucking kid Jimin. I know what I’m doing. I’m an adult who can manage herself very fucking well. And fully capable of making my own decisions. And… and… they are good. I had a great fucking day.” Your actions speak the opposite of your words. Especially, when you stomp your foot on the turf. Hug your blue penguin. Jimin huffs at that. “And is very irresponsible.” Mutters.

You click your tongue. Need to turn the winning hand of this argument towards you. “Well, as you can see, I’m perfectly fine. So, tell me Park, did you just run here looking for me? How did you even know where I am?” You feel this satisfactory bubble in your tummy to see Jimin’s annoyance instantly replaces with something akin to embarrassment. “Huh?” You push him more.

“Run here? Looking for you? What do you think? That I have nothing to do? That I have time to run after your stupid ass?” He scoffs while tilting his head to the side. “I was just passing by and saw you.” Says. Looks away from you. Then again, even when you don’t know him, you can read him well. You know he is lying. It’s very scary how you know it. No time to be scared, however. There’s a battle you’re winning. You quirk your brow. “Oh, like that? What a coincidence Park. And then you abandon your work to come here and drag my stupid ass away? How considerate of you.” You say wryly. “Were you driving through this park?” Add that question to your list. Take a good look around. “Where’s your car?” You know you’re winning.

It's very obvious that there’s no way he could just spot you while passing by. Didn’t he tell something about ditching the secretary? He needs better preparations if he plan to tell blatant lies. You keep staring at his face. With a quirky eyebrow. You can taste the win now.

And you do win when Jimin sighs heavily. “Okay, fuck, Seong called me.” Admits it finally. Shifts his eyes to yours again. Looks ashamed. Recovers quickly, however. “Are you saying I shouldn’t be worried when she told me some two passersby dragged you away. And they looked like straight out from hell.” Takes the winning side to him again. You open your mouth in annoyance. “Don’t say that. Jungkook is fucking hot. So is J-” Don’t get to finish that line when he chuckles.

“Yeah whatever.” Mutters and turns around. Starts to walk away while you stand there stupidly. Oh, the nerve of him to be like that. You catch up to him with quick steps. “So, you did run looking for me Park. Why? How did you find me?” Your trails of inquiries makes him stop. He drops his head low. Closes his eyes shut and opens them again. “I was just, worried...” His voice finally changes to soft.

“You are supposed to be Liya Lil. Don’t you think it is weird for someone so busy like her to just run away with two kids? And you had Seong cancel a very important lunch because you and I have plans, and then you toss them away and go with a random man? How does that might seem to people?” He is making sense again. You hate it when he makes sense. And there’s part of you, feel that twisted ache to know he was worried about your pretense ruining. Not about you. Just like you thought. You guessed that might be the reason, yes. Yet it doesn’t hurt any less. “And you didn’t even bother to give me a fucking call?” Asks again at your silence. You force yourself to push that ache away.

“Sorry I was irresponsible. But I already told you I’m not gonna use Liya’s phone for anything else than calling the driver.” You did say that when he gave you the phone. A good thing since it aids you in winning. You don’t want to win anymore though.

“Why are you so stubborn? Then you should have answered my calls.” Jimin turns completely to face you.

He called you?

“I put the phone on silent. Sorry.” You mumble. This time it’s you who walks away, leaving him to stand there stupidly.

………………………………..…………………………..………………......

You look around the high-end store filled with various electronic devices. The shop is in the same mall you once visited with Taehyung and his poor girlfriend. You and Jimin stepped onto friendly ground back again, while you were on your way. It was him doing most of the talking until you cracked up to one of his silly jokes, however. Still, you are not that friendly. There’s a residue of an unpleasant argument lingering between you. A residue that can easily ignite the fire again in any moment. That’s why you wish he had brought you home instead of here.

A boy in a white cap, who had disappeared somewhere inside the store, emerges in front of you again. A white box in his hand. He hands that box to Jimin over the counter with a pleasant smile on his lips. Jimin takes it. You look at the huge QS printed on the box lid. Nobody has to be a genius to know that it’s a phone. And definitely you don’t have to be a prophet to see what he is about to do.

“Why do you need a phone?” You very suspiciously and annoyingly lean toward his ear. At the same time, he unboxes the box and a sleek mobile comes to your sight. Jimin ignores you completely. Instead, talks with the cute boy in the white cap like you don’t exist. So, you wait patiently until the boy fumbles with the phone. Setting it up. And finally, slip the phone toward you this time. You’re not surprised at all. You knew Jimin was doing this all along. From the very moment you enter this shop. Stayed silent because you didn’t want to jump into conclusions. And make a fool out of yourself. That doesn’t mean; however, that you’re not allowed to fume with sudden rage.

You push the phone back toward the boy before you turn to Jimin. “You’re not buying me a damn phone Park. I don’t want it. I’ll buy my own after I find a job.” You state as sternly as you could. Jimin gives you a very unimpressed glance.

“What job?” Asks cockily.

“The job I’ll find soon.”

“Well, pay me back when you find that job then.” Says causally. Pulls his wallet out. “She is buying that.” This time says to the boy. It’s a very sudden reaction how you grab on to Jimin’s hand quickly. “No, I am not. I’ll buy my own. I mean it.” Hiss through your teeth. Trying so bad not to cause a seen here.

Jimin’s unimpressed look changes into a pissed off one. “Jesus Lil. Why do you always have to be so fucking stubborn? Just take it and pay me back.” He shrugs his hand free from your vice grip. Takes that same golden card out. Pushes it to the boy, who looks like he is currently watching a cringy comedy movie. The last of your concerns right now though. So, you nudge Jimin out of the way. “No, don’t make the payment. I’m not buying it.” Say to the boy. Practically leaning toward him over the counter. Ready to snatch the card away. “She fucking is.” Jimin grunts that out. Behind you. Just before his hands slips around your chest. Under your breasts and around your rib cage. And lifts you up like you weigh nothing. A yelp escapes your mouth as he turns you away from the counter.

Did he fucking lift you up like that?

You go through a split second of shock. Mouth agape and eyes wide. Only for a half second though. When that half second passes you are seeing red. “What the fucking hell Park Jimin. Put me the fuck down.” You are hissing like an angry old cat.

“Stop being stubborn like a goat then.” Jimin hisses. His grip tightening.

You can fight his grip. Of course, you can. At least try to do so. The thing is you can see two women gaping at you with disgust, from your reddened peripherals. It’s shameless to act this way in public. You think it’ll be worse for Jimin. So, you just take a deep breath in. Ask him to put you down again, in a much calmer voice. He relents. Keeps his hands around you anyway. You give up.

“I’m gonna fucking kill you, Park.” Mutter under your breath. Yet you know he heard that.

He chuckles.

…………………………………………………………..……………...........

The sky was already dark when you exited the lavish shopping mall. Not uncommon to face sudden rainfall during the last month of the year. At least not uncommon in your world. You guess it applies in this world as well. That’s how you find yourself, sitting on a bench in front of a convenience store. Savoring an ice cream bar. Staring into the water drops kissing the earth graciously. Your anger evaporates due to the coldness in your tongue. Blending with the cold rain drops. And washing away. You feel calm now. Much calmer than before Jimin bribed you with the idea of sweet treats. How weird that he knows how to handle your moods. Is it because of Liya?

It's not that you’re completely on good terms with him now. Still, it feels relaxing to be here. With Jimin’s warmth next to you. The warmth that fight against the coldness of your ice cream and winter air. And rain. The warmth that is enough to melt you down. The warmth that is like an invitation to lean against him. You don’t. Think it’ll be too much. Him just sitting next to you is enough. As weird as it sounds. You like this feeling. Like the way cold breaths swirls inside your lungs. Like the smell of the rain. It’s better when you can smell Jimin’s earthy cologne. What a combination. Jimin and rain. You like the way his knee is touching yours. Like the small electrocutions it sends through your body. You like being next to him. How scary?

You take a look at him. Apparently, he didn’t want any ice cream. But it’s very odd and wrong to eat by yourself.

“Are you sure you don’t want some?”

“Why are you taking that stupid toy with you everywhere?”

You both ask at the same time. Fall into silence. His eyes land on your ice cream, which you’re holding in front of his mouth. Yours land on the blue plushie, which is clutched by your other hand. You are about to answer that when Jimin takes a bite from the ice cream. Makes you grin. Puts you in a good mood. You take your hand and the ice cream back. Inspect the plushie.

“It’s cute, isn’t it?” Show it to him.

“Cute my foot.” Jimin looks away. Your good mood sours. Grin disappears. “Yah! Don’t be fucking mean. It’s cute. Besides, it’s a gift.” You clutch the plushie tight again. Jimin doesn’t look at you. “From who? Jungkook?” Asks in a very passive-aggressive tone. You hum in reply to that question. So, he looks at you. Scoffs. “It’s fine when he buys you something but it’s not when I do?” Gestures to his chest with his finger.

“Oh, c’mon. We both know that’s not the same. This is a fucking… I mean a fucking adorable plushie. Not an expensive phone.” You hold the toy higher. Brandishes it.

“So what? You want me to buy you a toy?” Jimin’s expression morphs into something aggressively endearing.

“No… I don’t… Let’s not talk about you buying me things, Jimin.” You ignore the way Jimin is at wit’s end. “He didn’t buy me this. He won me this.” Say before going back to taste your ice cream. Jimin snaps his head toward you at that.

“Oh yeah? Like it must have been fucking hard.”

“Of course, it’s hard. You know these claw machine shits are rigged right? So, it’s hard to get a price.” You don’t know why you are defending Jungkook. Maybe, you’re enjoying the adorable bewilderment in Jimin’s face. A little too much. Like always.

“I can win something for you too then.” Jimin blurts that out. It’s you who snap your head to him now. His wide eyes tell you that he didn’t mean to say that aloud. It’s out in the air anyway now. Not that he can turn the time around. You gape at him in pure disbelief for a minute.

Why on the earth does he wants to win something for you? Is he jealous? Can’t be. Probably Jungkook is pinching his man ego. Yeah, that must be it. You’re certain. Hence, your loud snort and the head shake. Just because you find it hilarious that Jimin is getting riled up and competitive with a man who he doesn’t even know properly. Jimin, on the other hand, gasps loudly at your reaction. Apparently, reads you wrong.

“What? You think I can’t?”

“No, I didn’t say that, Park.” You give him a horrified look. Your playful mood vanishing to the cold air.

“You don’t need to use words all the time Lil.” He mutters irritated. That makes you feel really bad. Wasn’t your intention to belittle him at all. Are about to explain when he stops you. “Don’t say a word. C’mon we are going, and I’ll show you what I can.” He is already in his feet. Your horrified and saddened expression turns into a judgmental one. Is he serious? He calls you a toddler then acts like this. His irritation spreads to you.

“Are you serious Jimin? Can’t you see it’s fucking raining?” You point out the obvious. Don’t make an effort to stand up. He says nothing but gapes at you. Pushes you to snap. He annoys you to no end. But in a good way.

You don’t want him to do anything to be honest. It’s just he is getting on your nerves by acting childishly. Maybe, you match his energy just fine. You both are childish.

“Okay, fine. You’re fucking ridiculous.” You stand up. Go closer to him. Brain searching for a good idea to challenge him. That’s when your eyes lands on the plum tree behind him. A winter-blooming plum tree. There’s not many blooms. Just one. Out of reach of the hand. Will need little more than jumping to pluck it.

There you go!

A wicked grin breaks out on your face. See, childish. Point your finger toward it. Jimin turns around to see what you’re gesturing at. There’s no need to use words all the time. Indeed. He knows what you’re asking for. Gives you a bewildered look again. “You want me to fuckin pick a plum bloom for you? How’s that similar to winning anything?” Pulls his brows together. Squints his eyes to assess the tree.

“Well, it’s too high. You think you can pick it? That’s the challenge Park. The flower is the price.” You explain smugly.

It's weirdly stupid. Your challenge. Yet is better than watching Jimin lose his entire wealth on a claw machine. Just because some random kid hurt his ego. How pathetic. He sighs heavily. Takes his time and just when you are about thinking he just got his brain power back, he disappoints you.

“Fine, stay here.” Now his look is torn between stubbornness and reluctance. You watch him carefully when he shed his jacket off. Loosens the buttons of the dress shirt. Rolls the sleeves up. You two can be a dangerous duo together, can’t you? Is he really going to get drenched just because of a stupid challenge? Maybe you should cut him some slack. Convince him not to get drenched in the rain. Don’t want him to suffer after all.

He has already stepped into the rain, however. Stubborn. Childish. Adorable. Impish. The cold rain drops start kissing his figure graciously now. Slowly but surely soaking his warm body in coldness. He bridges the distance between the store and the tree in just five steps. Stands under the tree. Turns to look at you. His soft hair staring to fall into his face under the stream of rain. His white shirt becoming see through.

Fuck isn’t he beautiful.

There comes that tug at your heart. A painful tug. You blame it on the guilt of letting him go into the rain. That is the only thing. There’s no longing at all. No there’s none. Still, the tug is too powerful to ignore. You can’t ignore it. Makes you tremble. Makes your heart shatter. Again, in a bittersweet manner.

You find yourself being bewitched by a certain blonde man under a plum tree. He is utterly bewitching. Enchanting when he stands there in the rain. You shed your own jacket and place all your belongings on the bench. Next to Jimin’s jacket. Willingly, follow Jimin’s steps. Let the rain drops freeze your bones. Walk toward him. Never leaving his gaze. As if his eyes are the compass. Don’t take your eyes away until you’re in front of him. Can feel his warmth again. Oh, you missed that. Even for few seconds. You missed him. Turn your head up. Look at the bloom.

“Why are you here?” Jimin mumbles softly. “It’s my challenge.” Adds that too. You smile.

“It’s okay to ask for help sometime, remember? A win is a win, Park. Hoist me up. I’ll pick it, this is teamwork. Friends helping each other. What kind of a friend am I, if I don’t help you?” Takes your eyes away from the bloom. Stare into his soft brown orbs when you say it. Yes. You’re here because you’re friends. You should say the word more. That way you’ll get used to it sooner. The ache will go away soon.

Jimin just stares back into your eyes. You think you can see the stormy clouds in his eyes. Gloomy. Raise questions but he doesn’t let you ask them. “But that’s cheating.” Comes closer to you. You have to battle the urge to close your eyes at the sensation of his hot breath in your face. Battle the urge to look at his plump lips. You can feel your head start to buzz in an addictive way.

“No... It’s not.” You match his soft mumble.

“How?”

“I don’t know. Just let me help you. Hm?” Why are you whispering? You honestly don’t know how to answer his question. Or what he meant by the question. So, you allow yourself to get lost in his enchanting gaze.

Until, he distracts you by nodding. And then bending down to grab you from your hips. Lifts you up without a word. For a second time this day. Higher this time, however. Higher and higher. You stretch your hand to touch the flower. Request him to hold you little bit more high. It is a bit of a struggle. A struggle that needs to bite your bottom lip and merge your brows. In the end, still, you pluck the bloom with your fingertips. Triumphal noises leaving you.

“Got it.” You shout. Excited. Flower secure in your hand. Look down to find Jimin looking up at you. Amused glint in his eyes. Amused grin on his lips. Where are those gloomy clouds? Why do his eyes shine like that? He doesn’t put you down until you ask. But when he does, you think you shouldn’t have asked. Every minute you spend in this world, probably, is becoming the destruction of your sanity. Why do you crave his presence so much? His touches so much? Even when they are just innocent. It’s so damn hard to tear your gaze away from his glinting eyes. From his stretched lips. You do. Somehow. Hold the bloom for him. He takes it. Rolls the stem in his fingers. Now stretches his lips into a full grin. And you find yourself bewitched again. Unable to look anywhere but him. Unable to contain your own grin. So, you grin when he does. Chuckle when he does. Laugh when he does.

There’s nothing funny to laugh about. The thing is you feel content enough to laugh. Guess he feels the same. This is not normal, is it? Well, you don’t care about normalcy. Not when Jimin gives the flower back to you. Holds it out to you.

“You won that.” You never thought you could speak that softly.

“It’s a gift Spring Roll.” He places the flower behind your ear. Steals your breath away. Makes you want to cry for no reason.

Why?

Why would you cry over a stupid gift. See, it’s a stupid gift but you already know you’re going to preserve it for so long. So, so, long.

…………………………………..…………………………..………………

Jimin walks silently behind you. Just a few steps away from you. Hands in his pockets. He and you both are drenched to the core now. Initial plan was to wait until the rain eased. But your challenge changes it. Hence, your decision to walk back to the car in the rain. Jimin can’t believe he was so adamant about winning you something. Wasn’t that immature of him. It is and he knows it. He knew it. Simply was too annoyed to think things through. Or jealous.

No. Nope.

He wasn’t jealous at all. Why would he be jealous for you? Ridiculous. Nah, it was something else definitely. And he doesn’t wish to find out. It’s all fine this way. Just like it’s fine till he never tell you that he knew it was Jungkook who took you away all along. A man with muscles, tats and piercings is engraved in his mind. Fine till you never know that it wasn’t simply because he was worried that he ran looking for you. Will never tell you about the unpleasant twists in his guts he felt. About how restless he had been since the moment Liya’s secretary contacted him. You’ll never know how badly he wanted to reshape Jungkook’s sharp features when you called him ‘Kookie’.

Kookie?

You barely know the man and already call him by a nickname. And then you call Jimin, ‘Park’? Don’t you know him better than Jungkook. Oh, how he wants to punch something when that comes to his mind. He takes a deep breath in. Allowing the cold air to soothe the rage which started to bubble up inside him again.

Well, whatever happened, you’re here now aren’t you. That’s a good thing. He is the one who walks behind you. Eyes gracing over your every curve. Devouring you with his eyes. This is good and bad at the same time. He shouldn’t ogle at your figure like this. Especially, not with the thoughts whirling inside his head.

Then, how can he not? How can he look away from the way that blue skirt hugs your ass like a second skin. It’s drench material clings to your curves. It’s impossible to look away. The way your hips sway when you walk.

How fucking beautiful you are.

How fucking hot, you are. Hot in a criminal way. God, he wants to grab your ass. Knead the plump flesh in his hands. Maybe, spank. Will you like that? Will you drip down if he does that? Or to make you straddle him, and then grind on his hard dick. He wants to mold your ass cheeks when you do so. Control your movements. Have you pliant and whiney. Wants to hear his name chants through your mouth desperately. He can’t tear his gaze away now. It’s plastered into your drenched figure. His brain is malfunctioning. All the blood rushing down to his dick. Making him hard painfully.

Shit, what’s wrong with him?

The thing is, he just knows how your soft skin feels. Knows how it feels to press his hard onto your ass. Has done that before. So, it’s not possible, not to think about it. He badly wants to do it again. Grind against you. Press his hard body against your soft one. Smell your sweet scent. Fuck his dick throbs when he thinks about how you ground back on him.

Fuck, fuck this is where he should stop.

Jimin closes his eyes shut. Begging his improper sinful thoughts to go away. When he opens them back again, it slightly makes him jump to see you looking at him. With furrowed brows and pouting. Eyes narrowed. Fuck, now he doesn’t know what is worse. Is it that he wants to grind his dick against your ass. Or is it that he wants to kiss that pout away from your lips.

Holy shit! He wants to kiss you.

That urge is almost uncontrollable. Uncontrollable, when he finds you to be angelic with your stray wet hair strands framing your face. He likes how drops of water run down your beautiful features. How they gather on the tip of your nose and then fall down. It’s ethereal the way how rain kiss your lips. Unfair. He should be the one to do that. To taste it.

“What are you doing, Park? You’re not staring at my ass, are you?” You turn around. Break Jimin’s beautiful day dreams. Start walking backward. Facing him. He is grateful for the rain that you’ll not see the flush in his face. You have the flower in your hand now. Everything’s drenched. Is so glad that plushie is drenched, however.

“As if you have one to look at.” He retorts. Finding his voice hoarse. He blame it on the rain. That makes you scowl at him. And flip him off. Makes him chuckle. “Look at the road while you’re walking lady.” It isn’t that he simply worried about you tripping over something. Part of him is worried now he can see your plump lips and breasts. Good thing your sweater isn’t see through. He will definitely cross the line again. Isn’t he like a horny teenager? You should put back your coat on. Just for the sake of his sanity. You don’t. Just talk back. Say something about having a perfectly pretty ass before you turn around. He can’t argue on that. It’s pretty. Your ass. You’re pretty. Pretty it hurts. He sighs softly. Needs to stop this. You’re friends now. He has a girlfriend.

He can’t mess things up again.

He can see the car in the near distance now. You’ll reach it in probable twenty steps. There was something in his mind he wanted to ask from you all throughout the day. Couldn’t do it because of Liya’s meeting. Still, he needs to ask you to join the party. Convince you to come if you refuse. This isn’t a good time though. He calls your name anyway. Makes you turn around and stop again.

“What?” You inquire.

Jimin grabs the back of his neck with both of his hands. Watches how you carefully and suspiciously rakes your eyes on him. See, no need to use words at all. You know he is about to pull the friends card again.

“Fuck no Jimin.” You groan. Even before he opens his mouth. Nearly turn around when he grabs from your wrist.

“Oh, c’mon Spring Roll. What kind of friends are we if we don’t help each other.” Whines, ignoring your burning glare. Uses your own words against you. “Okay, if you do this me favor. I’ll help you land a job here.” Bribing you always work. Doesn’t know where that came from.

“I don’t want a job through nepotism.”

“Who said anything about nepotism. I’ll just help you to find a one. Like a good friend.” Bargains. Sees the way your mind whirls around through your eyes. “Please Lil?” One more push and you accept the defeat. Sighing heavily. Pouting. Fuck, he wants to press his lips into that pout. Wans to make you lose your breath. Taste you. Make you moan into his mouth.

“Fucking opportunistic. What is it?” You frees your hand away from his grip. Give him a moment to pull himself together. It’s not like you freed your hand. It’s he allowed you to do that. Jimin pushes himself to give you an answer. To stay focused.

“Well, you know Hoseok is throwing this new year party and-” He starts finally. Only to get disrupts by your annoyance laced honey voice.

“Jimin….”

Despite your loud and angry screech, he finds himself laughing. You’ll come. He knows that.

………………………..…………………………..…………………………..

You stare into your new phone and the plum blossom next to it. Placed on your rusty coffee table in front of your old couch. You made sure you bring them with you to your world. And were very careful not to crush the petals in your sleep. Are glad you didn’t. You pick the bloom up. Smell it. Even now, your heart is picking up the speed. You recall how Jimin looked at you under the plum tree. Standing in the rain. The glint in his eyes. His breaths. Touches.

This is so wrong. You may not do physical touches anymore. Yet it is still wrong to find your heart swoon at the sight of him. To feel so warm with him.

You sigh. Put the flower back. Maybe you should throw it away. Can you? Fuck, you can’t. It’s precious. Too precious. In the end, it’s a memory. Memory to preserve. Good or bad. Moral or immoral. It’s still precious to throw away. Like the memory of Park Jimin. Like every small moment you spent together. And the ones you’ll spend in the future. Like this party he made you agree to go.

Memories are not that easy to toss in a garbage can. Gosh, how will you ever be able to throw the memories away with Park Jimin? When this thing ends? How will you do that? The pathway you’re walking is not going to lead you to a pretty place. It’s better if you can throw the memories away from the beginning. So, it’ll be easy in the end. So, it will not hurt.

You pick the flower again.

Throw it away. No beautiful memories to preserve. No memories to hurt you in the end.

But it’s a beautiful one. It’s the memory of Jimin under the rain. It’s the beautiful memory of feeling him walking behind you. Slowly. It’s the memory of his glinting eyes and sinful smile. Park Jimin isn’t just a memory. He is a beautiful memory. A beautiful memory you can’t throw away. It hurts more to throw it away.

You get up from the couch. You can’t throw it away. Even though it’ll hurt you to look at it one day. If that’s the price, you’ll pay it. You place the bloom inside a little jewelry box. The flower will wilt away. But your memories will not. They will hurt you, but it’ll never wilt away. Will never turn ugly. Will reamin painfully beautiful.

Park Jimin will never turn ugly in your memories. He will forever remain beautiful. As a memory to preserve.

A beautiful memory.

Chapter Index

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Taglist - @chimmy-licious @smoljimjim @graydolan12 @sugas-baby-girl @likemeforme

[jtl-fics]

In honor of April Fools day I will talk a bit about an AU with my favorite fool - (Redacted) Smith that I will probably never write fully but have thought about a bunch of scenes for.

I call it 2 Fluent Freshmen.

Due to a clerical error at both the school and during the local government's push to digitize their documents Smith is noted down as being 2 years older than he actually is and (perhaps a clerical error or maybe no teacher can say if they've had him in class or not) Smith also has enough credits to graduate. Gran has passed away early and there's nothing for him in Washington other than more anxiety.

Wymack & Dan come to Smith when he is 16 and Smith takes the chance to escape from his family IMMEDIATELY. Sure the Foxes are the worst team and sure there's some drama going on with Kevin Day having joined them after his injury but a full ride scholarship is a full ride scholarship!

Smith is rooming with 2 upperclassmen and his only other fellow freshman - Neil Josten. He is not hiding the fact that he can speak Russian, he is hiding the fact that he is 16. Smith ends up pretty close to Seth and Allison due to sharing a dorm / position respectively and just doing his best not to get to close to crazy Andrew Minyard. He does get a bit close with Neil but it's not something he's trying to do.

He's trying to keep his head down and get through the year.

It's a little hard when he is sat on the couch with the Kathy Ferdinand show. It's a lot harder when Riko Moriyama shows up and doesn't realize he's there and just...sits in Smith's lap?? Smith remains as blank faced as ever and what the fuck is Riko supposed to do? ADMIT HE FUCKED UP?

Do you know how hard it is to intimidate someone when you're sitting in the lap of some dude? The answer is VERY. Kevin can't take him seriously at all, especially after Smith made a comment that Riko's ass was bony.

Riko goes after them the same but Smith doesn't really get that his anger is at Kevin. "Hey, I'm sorry I called your butt bony on national television. That was rude of me. You should try some squats though." and like what the fuck is Riko supposed to say in the face of some dude genuinely apologizing to him.

It buys enough time that no one is grabbed or slammed.

Seth and Allison drag him out to the bar that night and after a few minutes sitting with Allison Smith realizes that he actually does have to pee and oh god someone's trying to assault Seth! Smith calls upon the powers of Gracie Hart and Seth has a black eye and a concussion but he graduates.

Neil wants Smith to come with him to the Thanksgiving because Neil has latched on a bit. Smith ends up going and also ends up going upstairs to go to the bathroom because oh god he cannot handle Nicky's parents hearing him take an anxiety shit. He's making his way to the end of the hall and sees a penny on the ground so he bends over to grab it.

And Drake Spears is unbalanced from missing his swing and falls right out the open window to the ground below where he breaks his neck. Naturally, Andrew is watching this scene unfold from the stairs and just starts to laugh his ass off. Smith turns around after flipping the penny over (it was tails side up and therefore not lucky) unaware of what has happened.

Smith asks if Andrew wants to use the bathroom. Andrew insists that Smith goes on ahead. The Hemmicks keep asking if they saw anyone upstairs and Smith has no idea what they're talking about, Andrew does but plays dumb out of spite. A day later it's wild that Nicky's parents got arrested. Like they seemed so normal, how did they kill someone and dump him in the side garden??

The Winter Banquet happens and well...it's dark. It's dark and Neil has brown hair and brown eyes and Smith has brown hair and brown eyes. Riko is not the best at judging heights so he calls Smith to threaten him and tell him that he's joining the Ravens for a Winter Break training camp. Jean is doing the most anyone has ever done not to laugh right now.

Riko only realizes his mistake when he's finished threatening Smith with his father and Smith ruins it. Smith is elated to have somewhere to stay over winter break. He can't mention he has nowhere to go so he'd thought he'd spend the break homeless. Now here comes Riko Moriyama inviting him to a camp where room and board will be provided?

What a nice guy. To thank him Smith compliments the gains he's noticed on Riko's ass. "The squats are really helping you, or are you doing something else?" he asks.

What the fuck is Riko supposed to do? ADMIT THAT HE FUCKED UP? Tell Smith that he's been doing squats and leg lifts before asking that he hand the tickets back and go get Neil???

Fuck that.

He'll just turn Smith against the Foxes and-

Well Riko kept talking about Smith's dead dad and so Smith may have a slight misunderstanding about the full scope of this training camp. He may think that there is some sort of seance element to it at this point and he's kind of excited at the idea of talking to his dad. "I've never spoken to a dead man before, this will be fun." and it's delivered flatly with no expression.

Riko starts to wonder if maybe Smith is the Butcher's son? Did the Butcher have two sons? He's sweating all the sudden.

It does not help that Smith brings a Ouija board to camp or that his dad was a legit Butcher before he died so Riko's tentative questioning only sends him further into an anxious mess about if Nathan had twins and Riko, due to being kept away from the family business, might just not be aware of it?

Smith has a nice Christmas break.

The last scene I've got dinging around in the noggin is in Binghamton. Smith has been left behind at many a stadium at this point. There's a solid and fast rule.

Neil cannot get on the bus without Smith. They are buddies. This is the buddy system. So when the riot starts and Neil seems to be getting pulled away in the crowd?

Well Smith grabs his hand and pulls him towards the bus, "Buddy system."

The bus starts and they're on their way shortly after. Neil's an anxious wreck but that next morning he wakes up to the news that the Butcher of Baltimore died in an FBI raid the night before as well as his men.

Smith watches the news with Neil, "Wow, that's scary." as he sips some orange juice.

[fantasies-fairytales-n-fics]

Code Blue Ch. 53 - Galway Girl

Summary: Josie has another run in with the law which leads to another revelation. She reaches out to a Savior with the new info. Luke plays his violin. A beloved sassy Scotswoman stuns Josephine on her hunt for the innocent Scotsman. An Irish memory rattles Jo. She and Gerry have a HUGE discussion on many subjects. More comes to light about Megan's attack. Emotions go awry when Gerry learns the truth.

*Chapter Warnings* language, angst, mentions of drugs and rape

Stories Stories Stories Masterlist

Salem, Massachusetts

March 22, 2022

The revelation of your ex-fiance's non-infidelity had your mind spinning as you carelessly sped down the freeway, stiff as a board with a white knuckled grip on the wheel and trying not to puke. Over and over, just as you had done 3 years ago, you began dissecting all the events of that painful day when you had awoke to the life altering text that you believed to have been from Gerry. A fabricated text to incriminate him, making it look like he had accidentally sent it to you instead of your sister which put her diabolical plan of entrapment all into motion of deeming him unfaithful and it had worked like a fucking charm. Still etched in your mind as if it were only yesterday, was the look of horror on Gerry's face when you found him in bed with Megan. A look that you now saw in a whole new light and you were so lost in that image that you did not notice the cop parked on the berm of the road, pegging you at 82 miles per hour.

The startling sirens brought you back to the present which you didn't even know where that was at the time, for you had just experienced one of those blackout moments where you didn't remember driving from point A to point B and wondered how you even did it without causing a wreck. You didn't have your seatbelt on either which you didn't realize until after you pulled over.

In your side mirror, you nervously watched the grumpy looking policeman approach your car, wishing it had been Luke because this time, you knew you couldn't cry your way out of it with being almost thirty miles per hour over the speed limit. Was he seriously unsnapping his gun holster???

"License and registration." the officer robotically requested as you rolled your window down.

You fumbled through your purse, then the glove box and handed him the items without question or argument, just wanting to get the humiliating moment over with and go.

He looked over the documents and then eyed you as he asked the usual rhetorical question. "Do you know why I pulled you over miss March?"

"Speeding I assume."

His reply was cocky as car after car sped by, taking advantage of the situation. "You assumed correct. 82 in a 55. Also I see you aren't wearing your seatbelt which is a law in every state other than New Hampshire which you are not in and your tail light is busted out as well which is a non-moving violation and a ticketable offense."

"Wait, what? How did that happen?? Can I go look?"

"You will need to remain in your vehicle while I go back and write up this ticket."

As soon as he was back in his cruiser, you immediately texted Jeffrey.

"I think u were right! Someone was in that car. My tail light is busted out and it wasn't when I was putting my bags in the trunk!"

About 30 seconds went by and he then replied. "Thx for the 411 darlin. Been thinkin bout it more since you dropped me off. Stowaway POS. Prob followed us to the junk yard too. He's toying with us. Busted the light as a warning. Ballsy fucker bit off more than he could goddamn chew. I'll find him and when I do, well I think you know how that will turn out. In the meantime, your best off to stay close to Craig. Sorry bout your trouble, Trouble😉 When you got time, bring your sweet self and that sweet ride to the shop and I'll get that taken care of for you asap. Least I could do for pissin you off. Talk more then."

"Thank u!! I'll text u later to let u know when I can come."

"You're very welcome doll. You can cum anytime."

You huffed and shook your head at his remark and before you could reply, he texted right back.

"Oh damn! Old habits die fucking hard. Told you I'd piss on the floor every now and then. Sorry for the comment. My bad."

You smiled and softly chuckled. "I'll let it slide. At least you're trying. Talk later."

"You rock girl. Later."

Stay close to Craig. Great. Now you had to haul all your stuff back to your apartment instead of going to your mom's as planned... for the time being anyways. You couldn't bring more trouble to her. Megan would surely remain in the hospital for quite sometime anyways and your mom would most likely take up residency in her room. Would they even be safe there though? Elizabeth sure wasn't. You then anxiously texted Luke.

"Hey. Can u please put a guard at Megan's door??? Just to be safe."

His reply was instant and shocking. "Already working on that Jo. No worries. I'm heading there in a few to speak with her as well since I was informed she is awake. Everything ok? Still pissed at me?"

You wanted to be but you just didn't have the energy anymore. "Thank u Luke. For everything. I'm fine. I just want my mom and sister to be safe right now. Please keep me updated."

You wanted to tell him so bad about the bar thugs since they were after him to begin with but you couldn't now that he was a cop. You just didn't know if you could trust him after knowing the little bit you knew about his agent days with Lee. Your list of loyal peers was growing thin anymore.

"I see you've deflected on my last question. I'm sorry things have to be this way. I really am Jo. I'm just trying to turn my life around but all I seem to be doing is making everyone hate me even more. Maybe it was a mistake to even come back here. I wanted to try to fix things and all I do is fuck them up even more. Suppose there's no reform for someone like me. Who am I to be some judge and jury? I'm a loner. Always have been. Better off that way...for everyone involved."

Luke was doing it again and at the worst possible time. Removing the armor and showing his softer side and that was why it was hard to stay angry with him. Just like Lee, he had a sordid past and had been through some bad shit. Knowing what Luke Sr. did to both Luke and Landy, defiling his own sons, was beyond comprehension to you so you couldn't even begin to imagine how that felt for the two wayward brothers. As you stared at your phone, not knowing how to reply to the heart on Luke's sleeve, you nearly jumped out of your skin when the officer appeared at your window, ticket in hand.

"I see that you're the late detective Brady's sister. Good man. So tragic. I am sorry for your loss."

Thinking he may decide to let you off with a warning, you smiled and hoped for the best. "Yes, I am. Thank you. Our family misses him so much."

"Your family, yes. I also am aware that that makes you Jason Morgan's sister. Not a good man, but you know that. He almost took you to the grave with him and here you are, speeding round town like he did on the bike as if you're something special."

"Ex...cuuuse me??!!"

"No, I won't excuse you like you probably thought I was going to just because of your family ties to the precinct."

Oh how you wanted to go all Betty White on him like she did in Lake Placid and call him Officer fuckmeat and then continuing on with her other snarky line of if I had a dick, this is where I'd tell you to suck it, but you would certainly be arrested this time if you did.

"Yeah well, I'm also detective Butler's ex- finacee and we're still very close. I'll be sure to tell him about this."

"I can see why it's ex. Lady, I don't care who you are. There won't be any preferential treatment here. Don't break the law. It's really not that hard. Here's your ticket. Have a good day Ma'am."

He handed you your expensive ass ticket with a court date for the following week and walked away as you sat with a gaping mouth.

"Asshole!" you grunted after you rolled up your window, then finally you were on your way, but before you drove off, you quickly texted Lee to tell him you would come to the cemetery but that you would be late. You didn't mention why though. It had nothing to do with the traffic stop and everything to do with the whopper of a secret that Megan confessed. As far as a reply to Luke, he would have to wait.

You called Gerry as you pulled up to the gates of the Kiriakis estate, but once again, he did not answer so you punched in the code for entry that only very few had. Those without the free pass would have to go through the whole rigmarole of identity verification and approval to be buzzed through, for Victor's security was understandably high with being a man of his nefarious stature and corresponding life. He may as well have been considered a celebrity. Of course ALL the other crime families of Salem were like that too.

The property was enormous and endless, consisting mostly of forestry, open country-like land and bayside access surrounding the mansion and one that did not know it well could easily get lost. It took you almost 5 minutes just to drive up the pine tree-lined path to the main house and then another minute to get back to the two story guest house where Gerry resided on the bay which was only a fraction in size of the stately manor. Even though Victor's fancy fortress had as many rooms as a 5 star hotel, Gerry cherished his privacy and wanted nothing to do with all servant bullshit and the tiresome walking involved in getting from room to room...and of course, papa Vic's business dealings. If the reserved detective could live like a hermit in a surfing shack on the beach, he would, for he loved the water and he had actually built one not far from the guest house that you were surprised he hadn't moved into already. It was more of a trailer located where all the good waves were for surfing and if he wasn't doing that, he was working on cars, one of his favorite pastimes. Maybe that's where he had been when he wasn't at the hospital visiting his father?

Once you reached the guest home, there were two cars parked in the front and neither were Gerry's.

You deciphered at least one to most likely be the maid or gardener, for Victor was OCD on the cleanliness and beauty of his grounds. As for the other, no clue. Maybe he had a girlfriend now? That could explain why he wasn't answering your calls.

After parking by the garage, you peaked in the window and saw Gerry's truck inside, so you headed up to the porch and rang the doorbell. There was no answer so you rang it once more and then glanced through the small window panel to see the television on, but no one was there.

"Gerry???!!" you shouted and knocked aggressively. "It's me, Jo!"

Another minute went by and no one came to the door. "Alright. " you sarcastically rationalized out loud as you took out the key you still had. "If you can walk right into my mother's home, I can do the same here."

You crept inside and quietly closed the door, then made your way to the TV, turned it off and called to him once more. "Gerry! Are you here??"

In the silence, you heard the toilet flush from the bathroom around the corner and then the door opened.

"Hallo?" a woman's familiar voice loudly questioned and then in walked Gerry's mother, gasping as she covered her mouth.

"Josephine darlin, in the name of the wee man!" the petite Gaelic woman with salt and pepper hair exclaimed in her strong Scottish accent.

Ironically, her name was Margaret just like your mother's and they both shared a son with Victor. She even had fiery hair like your mother once upon a time which was possibly what attracted Victor to her aside from the identical names and similar accents. The only difference was, she went by Margie and your mother went by Maggie. Margie lived in the Scottish Highlands and rarely visited the states. Gerry had usually went to see her instead, for he didn't like her braving the big Scotland airports alone such as Glasgow and Edinburgh, so you were just as stunned to see her as she was you. She probably came to support her son over Victor's heart attack which now made sense as to why Gerry had fallen off the grid, but it still pissed you off that he couldn't have sent you a simple text instead of ignoring you.

"Margie?? Oh my God is right!"

In the shared excitement, you both bee-lined to each other and embraced. You had surely missed her, for she had always made you feel like a part of her family. She was so kind-hearted and compassionate with a side of Scottish sass and she adored you. Needless to say, she was just as heartbroken as you and Gerry were when you and he had went your separate ways.

"I had no idea you were here Margie. Sorry for just walking in. I rang the bell and knocked but..."

"Oh, I tried to hurry but I was in the cludgie doin my jobby. It's a wee bit bowfin in there, so I would wait awhile if ye need to pee. It might make ye greet." she warned with a grin and a wink, for it literally meant she was taking a very smelly shit, one that would make you cry. She was usually quite frank about everything.

"I haven't been able to reach Gerry lately. When did you get here?"

"About tree days ago. I told my boy I was coming and there was nothin he could do about it so he flew all the long way to Glasgow and swooped me up in the sky on that fancy Kiriakis jet so I wouldn't have to fly alone. Ye know my Gerard, stubborn as an ox just like his Da. Oh goodness it is so guid tae see ye! Are ye well my darlin girl? Ye know I will always think of ye as my daughter no matter whit's happened."

You smiled and held her dishpan hands. "Of course I will always see you as a mother figure and I've certainly had better days."

"Ye do look a wee bit peely wally and ye been greetin. Yer een are red. Dinnae fash yersel. I won't tell."

"Dinner...what?" you giggled. "Sorry, my Gaelic sucks."

"It means don't worry. Nothin to be sorry about. Look who ye learned it from! Although Gerry knows the Celtic tongue, he tends to haver in the lowland Scot's language." she snarked with an eye roll. "But I suppose, like yersel, no one would understand him around here. His accent has weakened too. He tries to emphasize it more when I'm around and he thinks I don't notice the change but I suppose if I saw him more, it wouldn't seem so drastic now would it?"

"No, I suppose not. How is Edward? He didn't come?"

Her infamous Scottish sass surfaced about Gerry's stepfather. "Oh that old numpty craw. The eejit is probably sittin on his arse with his tap aff, wearin his baffies and clyping to the neebs while sippin on his uisge. He didn't want to come and be a proper crabbit around Gerry, but we all know it's because he don't take kindly to Victor and wouldn't be caught dead in his home."

"Have you went to see Victor?"

"HA!" she guffawed and rolled her eyes again. "I don't give a radan's arse about the old bawbag either but let's keep that between you and me. I'm only here to use the rich bastard's free amenities and to be here for Gerry because only the good Lord above knows why he loves that menace to society."

There was another difference between your mother and Margie. Your mom loved Victor. Margie despised him because he could never get over your mother. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

"Well, I would say your secret's safe with me but it's not like Gerry don't know how you feel. Speaking of, where is he? And.... who's cars are out front? Does he have other guests?"

"If yer hinting around to see if Gerry has some manky hen hiding under his bed, that would be a flat out naw. The only hen in his heart will always be the bonnie lass I'm lookin at, his Galway girl. One of the cars is a rental Gerry got for me so I can come and go as I please. Somebody has got to get the messages around here. Wasn't enough scran for a luch to nibble on. The other is Brady's car, ye know, the son who's name is strangely the same as yer mum's maiden name? or maybe it's Phillip's car? I lose track of all Victor's offspring anymore. All I know is one of his half brothers is here. The skinny malinky long legs and a braw lookin fella there in that picture on the stand. Looks like my Gerard when he was a lad."

You picked it up and chuckled. "Ahh, that would be Phillip, the youngest one. They have the same slanted smile and dimples. Is that where Gerry is? With Phil?"

"Aye, sorry, I don't know where my mind went whit all my haverin. Jetlag has me knackered, sticks with ye longer when yer thairis air a 'bheinn."

You tilted your head at her like a confused puppy. She usually used more of the Scot's English for you but would forget when she was rambling and would blurt out her witty words the way she spoke to Gerry because it was simply what she was accustomed to with being from the highlands. You compared it to playing a game of charades on guessing what she meant.

"Oh sorry darlin. I did it again. It means when yer over the hill. Anyways, Phillip's upstairs sleeping off the lagair. He and Gerry were off their trolley last night after visiting their dunderheid da. Phil got the boke. Poor lad. His heid's mince. He hit a pure whitey come morn. I told him not to have so many swallies but he was determined to keep up with Gerry. My son is out on the docks, up to high doh on fixin the boat while suckin down more of the bevvy and still reefin on those clatty baccy fags, so I've been in here, scrannin ma wee pan in on some mince and tatties, which is whit sent me to the cludgie and I was goin to watch my stories when ye popped in."

She very indiscreetly glanced over your shoulder to see the TV. "Ye mak a better door than a windae. Go on now. Get yer bahookie out there and have yersels a blether. That's whit ye came here for now aye? Whit's fur ye'll no go by ye."

Her smile was devious. You knew she wanted you and Gerry to reconcile but you couldn't even think of things like that when you loved Lee the way you did, but you understood what she last said and you certainly believed it. What's for you will not go by you. There were always signs if you paid attention, which you always did.

With your stomach in knots, you slowly headed out down the lengthy dock where you could see the speed boat up on the lift with Gerry inside of it and you could hear his jeers too, swearing like the Scotsman he truly was.

The day had become dreich as Margie would say and it was getting colder too, even more so out on the water. It felt like a reflection of your emotions. The calm before the storm that was about to become a category 5 hurricane when you found the courage to tell Gerry of Megan's betrayal. Knowing him the way you did, he wouldn't believe it at first and you could already predict his words. Yer bum's oot the windae! Blatantly translated....you're full of shit.

Your phone beeped, causing your already shortened steps of rapidly growing cold feet to cease altogether. It was Lee responding to your text that informed him of your late arrival.

"I have already waited a lifetime for you. I can wait longer because you are worth every aching minute of delay. I will wait forever if I must, just to breathe in your presence."

How? How could any human being possess such power over you? To be able to stop and restart your heart all from one simple text? As you stood there, literally holding Lee's bleeding heart in your hands, you began to feel incredibly guilty for making him wait, especially because you had chosen to go to Gerry first and you knew he wouldn't understand. You didn't even understand.

Forcing down the urge to lean over the rail and hurl, you gripped your queasy stomach and continued on. The closer you got, music became audible. You halted your steps once more, gasping as the song flung you back in time to 5 years ago in Galway when your relationship with Gerry was shiny and new. It was all your eyes could see as you gazed at Gerry working in the boat.

You had been wanting to go back to your roots and he had made that happen for you by taking you to Ireland on the same jet he picked his mom up in. It took a lot of coaxing though to get you on the man-made bird, for that was how your father had died when his plane had went down, something you rarely spoke of. Doped up on anxiety meds and tucked in the safety of Gerry's arms like a baby bird had gotten you through the fear and before you knew it, you and he were in Galway, partying it up.

The song was Galway Girl. Gerry said it reminded him of you and one night at one of the local pubs, the dashing detective showed off one of his many other talents. Playing guitar and singing that particular and very popular song with some guys he used to be in a band with back in his youthful days...and he sang it to you as he strummed the acoustic chordophone and strutted his way through the overcrowded room, embarrassing the hell out of you and then to top that off, he grabbed you up in his arms and kissed you madly. But you loved it and you loved him. It was like no one existed that night but you and him. Everything was so different then. You and Gerry were different, right down to his clean shaven baby face and your red hair with bangs.

You could still feel that kiss, taste it even. Guinness Stout mixed with sweet cologne and salty sweat. You were so happy. He was so happy. You could have had it all, rollin in the deep as the song said. He had your heart inside of his hand and he played it to the beat, or so you had believed no thanks to Megan's malevolence. She ruined everything. If she hadn't, would you now be Mrs. Josephine March Butler? You momentarily glanced down at your ring finger where the glowing golden rock used to be that he proposed to you with. He chose it because it was his birthstone and it reminded him of your amber eyes. He said it proved you and he were born for one another and even with Gerry, you had believed in all the signs so you really took that one to heart, along with both of your mothers names being the same. When everything went to shit, you took that as another sign and even went as far as secretly blaming it on the fact that he was a Scorpio. Low compatibility with your sign, a Sagittarius. Water and fire. It was said to be a very challenging relationship which it eventually became even without Megan's interference. You had just needed some fucking reason to understand how Gerry could ever cheat on you and with your slutty sister of all people or even at all. Would you have ever even met Lee? What would have happened if you had? Because your connection with him was instant and extremely intense, like the striking and igniting of a match. Aries and Sagittarius. Fire meets fire. You literally burned for each other.

As the song ended, the silence brought you back to the present, still staring at Gerry who had now locked his widened blue eyes upon you. Watching him hop out of the boat and casually strut his way to you in a dark baggy tee and a pair of khakis, you resumed your steps and your breathing that you swore had also ceased during your involuntary time travel.

He looked back at the boat and then you. "She's being stubborn. Hope you didn't come for a boat ride."

The ridiculous attempt to downplay his ghosting of you was expected and typical of Gerry, as well as the adorably anxious smile he displayed.

Gerry knew damn well you couldn't swim and would never get in a recreational boat but you couldn't even muster up a snarky retort with the way you were feeling and he noticed it. You noticed something too as he laid the rag on the railing and asked you if you wanted a beer. He was wearing his wedding ring.

"N..no. I'm good." you softly and simply declined.

As he opened the mini fridge under the small kitchen island used for bay parties, he looked back at you with concern.

"You ok?"

"I'm fine Gerry."

He popped the cap off the Heineken and took a swig while staring at you. "You're good, you're fine. Ok. Then why do you look like you've been crying?"

"Why do you look like a bottle of whiskey kicked your arse? Where have you been Gerry? I've been trying to reach you and I know damn well you know that. Why couldn't you answer my texts and calls??"

"Not to evade questioning like you're doing or to be a prick but since when do I owe you any explanations about my life? Last time I checked, we were never married."

"Fair enough...but why are you wearing your ring??"

His lips parted as he glanced down at his hand with a baffled expression, for clearly he had forgotten about it.

"Ohhh...that. Yeahhhh. Phil and I got a bit minced on a few wee drams last night and I woke up wearing it and well...now it's kind of stuck. Fingers got fatter I guess."

"A few shots?" you snickered. "I know how liberal you Scots pour those. According to your mom, ya'll were oot yer tree... errrrr was it off yer trollie?"

Gerry face palmed and grinned, then he sighed as he sat down on the rail. "Both terms would be correct. Look Josie, I'm dealin with a lot. You know that. I got my Mum in there hovering over me as you now know. I got Phil's young, dumb and reckless arse in there to look after and Vic over there in the hospital, still not doing well and now there's you."

You both gazed at each other for a moment, knowing he was reading you like a book and you began to feel sick all over again about what you had to tell him. His eyes already held so much stress and exhaustion and you were about to make it ten times worse.

"Josie...why are you here? What's going on with you sweetness? I can see it in those gorgeous eyes that something's wrong."

He was killing you. Gerry always called you sweetness from day one but it's the first time he had used the term of endearment it in a very long time.

"What ISN'T going on? Like you, I'm being hit at every angle with a new fresh hell every 5 minutes."

"And....you came..to me? Why? Don't you have that pretty doctor to bandage all your wounds?"

Your eyes instantly welled up. "You know what? This was obviously a mistake. I'm sorry for wasting your time."

As you spun around to leave, Gerry leaped off the rail and grabbed your hand, pulling you back. "Wait, wait...I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I..I'm just not used to you coming to me for anything or even talking to me much at all for that matter and now here you are, out of nowhere and...."

Gerry paused as he intensely peered down into your glistening eyes. He was still clinging to the littlest bit of hope that someday you would want him back and he couldn't help but wonder if that's why you were there.

His thumb softly caressed the top of your hand as he still held it. "Talk to me baby. Did...did he...hurt you in some way?"

There he went, reading you again like a psychic with that annoying intuition of his. Gerry was certainly meant to be a cop.

"Just stop!" you cried, yanking your hand from his and turning away from him as you softly sobbed. "I am NOT going to talk to you about Lee, so just stop Gerry. Please just stop."

"It's very clear that I'm right but I will respect your wishes."

His then laid a gentle hand upon your shoulder. "But you're crying and you know what that does to me. Did my mum say something to you? I know she tends to overstep...."

You turned, eyes closed as you sighed, then forced them up to his. "No, she was actually more subtle about you and me this time. God, I'm just so fucking frazzled right now."

"I can see that. Ok, take in deep breath, hold it for a second and then just let it go. Here, I'll do it with you, come on. 1, 2..."

"Gerryyyy...that doesn't work." you whined with an eye roll.

"No, don't argue with me. Just do it. One more time, 1...2...3."

On his count of three, you just began blurting things out. "First off, there's how many experienced cops at the Salem P.D. with murder cases and you left that egotistical rookie partner of yours in charge of Elizabeth's case. Does no one realize it's a conflict of interest?? Luke and Lee are at each other's throats over their own issues so HOW is this fair to Lee being a person of interest when Luke's the investigating officer??!! And let's not forget a little girl is missing and it's all my fault! This is one of the reason's I have been trying to reach you because you can be objective and get shit done and speaking of cops, I got pulled over on the way here by Officer over the fucking hill for speeding and he was rude and mean and insulted me all because Jason's my brother, oh and someone busted my fucking tail light out and rusty water keeps coming out of the faucets!!!"

Gerry's response was of simple surprise as he stared at you, lips ajar. "Wow."

"That's it? Wow??"

"Well Josie, there's all kinds of bad shit in this county going on and we only have so many cops who are on pre-existing cases, not to mention the huge drug shit going on so I felt Luke could handle this while I got my shit together since he's highly qualified and all and no, I was not aware of the personal conflicts with him, but now I am and I'll look in to it. I'm sorry I've been distant but I really didn't think I was needed in your life anymore. Bring your car out to the trailer tomorrow if you want and I'll fix it but as far as your plumbing problem, isn't that your mobster landlord's responsibility?"

"Hilarious Gerry. Craig is not a bad guy. His daughter is missing so don't start in on him like you always did Jason who also isn't a bad person like that cop called him and I'm not going to ask Craig to fix my shower when it isn't even broken."

"But you just said..."

"It's not the plumbing. Just never mind. You wouldn't believe me if I told you and that doesn't really matter right now so forget I said anything."

Gerry looked at you with skepticism. "Ok. But what did you mean by isn't?"

"Huh?"

"You said Jason isn't a bad person. Don't you mean wasn't?"

Oh god. You DID say that and you needed to do damage control real fucking fast because this wasn't the first time you had almost let it slip that Jason was alive and Gerry was too damn smart. You hated lying to him but Jason would tell the world his secret when he was ready. In the meantime, you hoped he would find Ethan sooner than later and especially Blaise, but you hadn't a single clue what your undead brother was even doing or where he and Britt were. Did Jason even know what happened to Megan?

"Of....course I meant wasn't Gerry. It was an accident. He's only been gone close to 2 months now. Still don't seem real." you sniffled and wiped the corner of your eye for good measure.

"Alright. I get it. Sorry. Guess I'm still in cop mode and speaking of, so this cop that pulled you over. What's his name?"

"I...I don't know?"

"You got the ticket on you?"

You dug into your purse. "Yeah. Here."

Gerry stood looking it over and then his eyes popped as he chuckled. "82 Josie? Really? Where was the fire? All of this was that important to get here? Anyways, I know this prick."

He crumpled the pink paper up without a care and chucked it into the water. "There. No more ticket."

"Gerry...what are you doing??! I need that!"

"Not anymore you don't. I'll make it go away. One problem solved."

You knew he could too. You just didn't want to ask him to. "I..you...you would do that for me? I mean, with you being all by the book and stuff, no matter who it is?"

"I think you know you're an exception to that rule. I would do anything for you, especially if I can in some way make up for all the pain I caused you."

Your stomach twisted. You couldn't put it off much longer. The truth about Megan.

"Can you make everything else go away too? Lee didn't hurt Liz and he certainly didn't kill her. Please tell me you believe that."

"I've done my research on Lee and no, I don't think he attacked or offed his ex. Honestly JoJo, I think it could be someone else who Elizabeth pissed off which according to Luke's reports, was quite a muckle amount of people, even including you but of course I know that's not the case. I'm leaning more towards someone who wants us to believe Lee did it since he does have quite the motive, but again...I don't feel it was him. Things just don't add up. I think someone was more pissed off at Lee than Elizabeth."

Gerry didn't suspect you but someone certainly tried to make it look that way by planting all that stuff in Lee's car, but you couldn't tell Gerry about that and now your thoughts swirled like a twister, sucking in every person with means and motive to hurt the two of you. Someone who knew Lee's routines.

"Well, there's a large list of those people too. Ethan will always be my first guess. He hates me and that Lee chose me and not him and we all know what he's capable of. Then there's Angel, Lee's neighbor. Another jealousy, woman scorned thing and there's that Carpenter guy. I mean, you witnessed his rage at Lee and there's even..."

You paused, feeling guilty for even thinking it, but your priority was to always protect Lee, no matter who you had to throw under the bus. "There's...your new partner...Luke. Something happened years ago between them Gerry and I don't know what that was but I do know it was really bad and the two of them, as I said, are not getting along. I just think you don't know everything about Luke and I know I don't either, but from what I've seen and from what I DO know, he has a violent streak in him, especially if provoked. Just like his brother Ethan and maybe Luke is using this cop thing to his advantage?? I mean, he was WSB for christ's sake and..."

Gerry shook his head. "Stop. Stop."

But you didn't stop. "No Gerry! Is it really that far fetched?? He's smart as hell. He can easily hide things he don't want people to know. Trust me."

So could Lee for that matter, but you were way past ever thinking it was him and would forever regret that the thought had ever crossed your mind just like the guilty person wanted it to.

"Or maybe he's just doing his damn job. So let me get this straight. You think a former WSB agent is now a dirty cop and my partner at that, just to seek some kind of revenge on his once good friend."

"I..I don't know! It's possible yes?? He knows Lee inside and out."

"I'm smart as hell too and would like to think I am damn good at what I do and the fact that you're standing here implying that I wouldn't see right through a conspiracy like that is rather insulting. I'm telling you Josie, it's not Luke. Until you can give me something concrete as to why Luke would want to hurt Lee, you need to drop it."

"Ok fine. Maybe it's not to hurt Lee? Maybe it was FOR Lee. Luke hated Liz too for what she did to Lee."

"You know, you're definitely right about one thing. Luke is too close to this and needs pulled from the case. With that said, I think you're forgetting a few others with motive to kill Nurse Webber. I mean...let's not forget her ex-husband who she kept his own daughter from, or so called daughter I should say since he believes Blaise to be Ethan's and if that turns out to be true, it's really damn good motive on his part to off her and let's also not forget his line of work, so there's that."

"Nope. Stop it Gerry. Craig did not do it. Leave him alone already. He wouldn't do that to his daughter no matter how much he despised Liz."

"You seem so sure of that and oddly protective of him. What's that all about?"

"None of your business. Now who else? You said a few others."

"Ok, but you aren't going to like it."

"WHO!" you snapped.

The name that came out of his mouth made your skin crawl. "Peter. He's been making some noise lately from within that 6 by 6 of his."

"W...w...what?" you softly stammered in fear.

"I wasn't going to tell you this but out of the blue, he's been demanding to get word to you to come see him and he won't say why, which I think we all know is because he knows about you being with Lee. The warden let me know about it and I've made sure any letters he sends out with your name are never sent."

You shuttered inside. "Just like he sent letters to Britt, wanting her to give them to me."

"She didn't did she? I was under the impression she loathed her sadist brother."

"She does and no. I never saw the letters and I don't want to talk about Pe..." you sighed, unable to even say his name. "Why are you bringing him up?? You're in good with this warden. Get him to put him in solitary confinement where he belongs, like he did to me!!"

"I'm sorry. I said you wouldn't like it. I know what he did to you, kidnapping you and locking you in that morgue drawer. I was there and saved you remember? Or you would have suffocated and believe me, if I could shut him up, I would, but I can only do so much. I'm bringing him up because we all know he has extreme jealous tendencies and access to people on the outside. I think you know where I'm going with this. If he wants to get to you or Lee, he can."

You wanted to tell Gerry so bad what you knew about Lee's past with Luke involving Peter aka Sam Colin and how Lee was using that alias because Luke told him to, but you just couldn't. You trusted Gerry with your life but not Lee's.

"Yeah, I do. He could easily set Lee up to get him away from me which is WHY his communication needs to be revoked!! He's not only the son of an infamous terrorist, but he's one himself and he shouldn't have the privileges he has Gerry! Besides that, do you really think it's his style to frame someone?? He's more of the eraser type.''

"Then why isn't Lee dead already? Peter is his father's son yes, but he wasn't raised by him, only that other whack job son of his was, Charles Rane, who got blown up across the pond years ago."

You felt sick again, because it was Lee who caused that explosion, killing the Rane of terror. If you only knew what happened. The entire story. You would bet money Peter knew. So did Spinelli from intercepting those letters from Peter to Britt. And of course, Jason knew. If only you had listened to his and Lee's entire conversation instead of interrupting them, maybe you would know the truth.

"Does that make Peter any less dangerous?" Gerry continued. "No, but I had been after Cesar for so long and the two couldn't be more different. You should know since Faison was going to kill you the night you got shot, which not to defend Peter, but he meant to hit his father, not you, in an attempt to save you. Cesar eliminates his threats. Peter toys with them. The sadistic fuck likes to watch people suffer. Big difference."

"I swear if you say his name one more time!! And yeah, I know the difference. It's the real reason, which you already know, that my anxiety issues arose and why I'm claustrophobic and scared of the dark and storms! You have no idea what thunder sounds like inside a cold metal box. But in shame, I tell everyone, even Lee, it's because Megan locked me in a crawl space during a storm when we were kids, which was true, but that never damaged me the way that monster did. I...I couldn't fucking breathe. I could still smell the chloroform and I can still see the darkness all around me, stealing my breath like the grim fucking reaper and hear the echoes of my own cries as I called out for you."

"I know...and Peter claimed he was hiding you from his father because you were my girlfriend and Faison would kill you if he found you. Maybe I should go visit the piece of shit because now I'm angry all over again and want to rip his minging heid aff!!"

There was the full blown Scottish accent and you hadn't even told him about Megan yet. "Well maybe someone in prison will get to him first, shank him over and over and over or slip some rat poison in his coffee or something. I bet you could arrange that."

"Haud yer wheesht! What's gotten into you Josie? Just because you're Jason's sister doesn't mean you have to act like him."

"Now YOU haud yer wheesht!"

"I will when you stap yer haverin!"

Your lips pursed and you went to riposte, but Gerry's phone rang. "Saved by the bell. Guess Luke's ears were ringing. I gotta take this. He fills me in from time to time."

As Gerry walked away to talk privately, you went to the sink for a glass of water. Your eyes were on him, trying to listen as you turned the faucet on but he was purposely whispering. Your hand became wet as the glass overflowed and when you looked down, your hand was stained with red water.

"Gerry!!!" you screeched and dropped the glass in the sink, shattering it.

"I'll call you later!" Gerry barked and ran to you. "Fuck Josie, did you cut your hand? Here baby, let me see it!"

"It's not blood Gerry. It's the water!! This is what I told you about! First at Dave's, then at my place and now here. I...I don't know what the fuck is happening. It's like some supernatural sign or an omen or something. Gerry, I feel like something bad is going to happen."

His eye dropped from yours and he became silent as he dried your hand off with a towel.

"Gerry? W..what's wrong? What did Luke tell you??"

He threw the towel down and grabbed another beer. "When were you going to tell me about Megan being kidnapped and attacked?"

"I...I was going to. We were just, you know, talking about all this other stuff and I got distracted. That's all."

"Luke's at the hospital now and asked me if I could find a guard and..."

"You need to! Because I don't think she was expected to be found considering where she was at. Did he speak to her? What did she say? Because she told me and mom she couldn't remember anything just before it happened and during, just that she remembered Dave finding her and...Gerry...she said she feels like it wasn't Ethan but...I don't believe that. She's either scared to rat him out or it's just the trauma."

"Or it's the drugs they found in her system compromising her memory. Her blood panel showed traces of Rohypnol in her system. It's a roofie."

"Oh my god...."

"That's...not all Josie. They uh...they did a rape kit on her and..."

"No...just...no. Tell me she wasn't."

"I...I can't. I'm sorry Josie. Luke said she don't remember it but she was so distraught from the results of both tests that they had to sedate her."

Your eyes burned with tears as your heart began to pound. "M..mom...what about my m...mom?"

"Luke's staying with her for awhile. Still think he's a cold blooded killer?"

"I...I don't know what to think anymore. Gerry...there's more...and it involves you. I need to get this out. It's the entire reason I came here."

"Why do I feel like I'm the one who's not going to like this now? What is it Joey? Oot with it."

You drew in a deep breath like he told you to do earlier, then exhaled long and hard. "Ok. Here it goes. After speaking to Megan today, she decided to do some kind of conscience cleanse and...she...she claims that you and she...never slept together. That she set you up to hurt me."

Gerry turned around with an incredulous sigh, placed his palm on his forehead for a moment, then turned back to you with his mouth hanging open.

"What? Yer bum's oot the windae." he exclaimed, exactly as you predicted he would and still in shock, he questioned again. "What?"

"It's not nonsense Gerry. Trust me, I didn't believe it at first either, but...her demeanor and how she cried her eyes out...it's true Gerry. She admitted to drugging you and even wearing my perfume to get you excited, but the drugs and the alcohol only ended up knocking you out, so she sent me that text from your phone, then took your clothes off and hers and climbed into bed with you, waiting for me to show up the next morning. It was all a fucking set up Gerry because she was jealous of me. I...I'm so sorry." you cried. "I..I...should have known better...I should have believed you when you said something didn't feel right...I..."

And here it came. The blow up you dreaded.

"That clatty cunt!!! Are you fucking kidding me??!! Oh karma sure bit her in the arse now didn't it eh??!! JEE-sus Mary and Joseph what the fuck is wrong with that girl??!! She should be in a fucking mental institution. I cannot even comprehend this right now. She..she ruined everything for us and for what?? Just to make you suffer?? And don't you dare stand here and blame yourself. I wouldn't have believed me either! She's going to fucking pay for this, so help me God."

"Well, as you said, she's already getting her karma."

"Ohhh hell no. She's going to get MY karma. Why am I the only one that's losing my shit here??!! She destroyed us Josie!! My god, did it ever cross your mind that we might still be together and even married?? You would be wearing the rings that go with the one I'm wearing right now!"

"That's ALL that has crossed my mind Gerry!! I'm supposed to be somewhere else right now but I came here. It's why I got fucking pulled over. I kept spacing out with the memories. I literally kept seeing the look on your face when I found you with her and it hurts like hell, all of it and then I get here and you're playing that damn song and my mind went back to those memories too and then I see you with that ring on and...and...and...I...god Gerry...I'm so confused!!"

He finally calmed down and started a conversation that you knew he would but were in no way prepared for. "Why? Why are you confused? My god, I'm innocent sweetness. Does this mean anything to you now? Does it...change...anything? Because nothing has ever changed for me except losing you. I still love you as much as I did then, if not more and..."

"Gerry...please don't."

He came up to you, face to face, pleading his case. "Don't what?? I never fucking cheated on you baby. I never could. That's why it never made any sense and you and me, being apart never made any sense. Do you not feel anything at all for me anymore? Is it really all gone? Because we were crazy as hell for each other and I know I'm not wrong about that. I mean, look what we had. We had a beautiful life. I know we had been through shit after you were shot, with the whole children thing, but we made it through that. We worked hard for what we had. Let's put some more gas in the tank."

"Gerry...I...I'm with Lee now, you know that and I..."

"Are you? Because I'm looking right at you standing here in front of me. Is that where you're supposed to be right now? But you're not, are you? You came to me. You could have waited to tell me all this. What was one more day of letting me feel the agony of losing the best damn thing that's ever happened to me? You couldn't. You couldn't do it. You had to come tell me right away and why? Because it fucking matters to you. I...matter to you, even now, after all this time, even after you moved on with someone else."

"Of..of course it matters to me Gerry! And no, I didn't want you to suffer anymore, not even for one more day..."

He stepped right up against you and placed his large hands on your cheeks, his face merely inches from yours, his warm beer breath showering your lips. "I...matter to you. Say it Josie. Tell me I still matter. Tell me you feel nothing for me anymore. Tell me you don't still love me, not even a little bit."

Tears raced out of your eyes and over his hands as your lips began to quiver. "I...I...Gerry please sto..."

His lips took yours with a fierce passion like he did on the dance floor that night in Galway and you found yourself succumbing to him like you did on the dance floor that night in Galway. The familiarity of his taste, the way his lips moved, the way they felt, the way HE felt all came flooding back to you and you couldn't pull yourself away.

@redeemer46

[kimetsu-chan]

ik I don’t normally talk abt stuff like this, but it’s been really weighing me down a lot. This is a major vent(rlly bad and prob rlly triggering) and I’m talking to no one in particular, just in general. I would encourage ppl not to say anything abt it or just not read it at all bc I’m mostly just typing what I cannot say out loud.

Okay, so the presidential election is this year. Yeah, I’ve heard abt project 2025 😐 I’ve read about it. And I want to scream. How has trump managed to make something that infinitely worse than Kosa(imo)

because holy fuck, I know this is not what I should be focusing on and it’s low-key selfish, but reversing women’s rights?! I’m not 100% sure what that entails, but I’ve seen a screenshot of the actual legitimate document saying that the only “valid family” is with a working husband and a stay-at-home wife.

Do you not understand how frustrating it is to have the ability to do whatever you want with your life dangled in front of you for your entire life, and be told you could be whoever you want to be, just for it to very possibly be ripped away from you right as you get close to adulthood.

Everything about this is so horrendous?!

I already wished I lived anywhere but the us, but it’s so much worse now.

If Trump becomes president again, and if this project gets put into place, would I even be able to leave the country??! Would I be allowed to live in another country, or would I be forced to stay here, miserable.

like, in all seriousness, completely 100% genuine right now. I might actually just kill myself if and when I get to adulthood if this happens, and if I am forced into a life I don’t want. I’m already suicidal, and the thought that I won’t get to experience life as I told I would be able to would absolutely crush me and would probably be the final straw tbh.

It feels like I’m being toyed with, why are some(<- important, i know good Christians) Christians so fucking entitled and cruel and just horrible. This is going to drive people AWAY from your religion, it’s going to make people hate it! Why does trump think he gets to shove all of his beliefs onto everyone else and force everyone to comply. I don’t want to be a stay at home mom, hell, I don’t think I want to be a mom, period!!

I thought we stepped away from all the toxic stuff before lgbt and women’s rights. But no, apparently not.

I am actually raging and crying over this, you cannot do this to me! Or anyone! It’s not fair!!

I hate this place, I don’t want to be here anymore, genuinely :(

likely will take this down later, but I desperately needed to get this off my chest bc idk if I can trust my dad enough to talk abt it. Bc my family is super religious and I’m guessing my dad is a trump supporter. God, I hope not.

[crystalelemental]

We have finished the Dungeon Meshi anime. I'll type out thoughts, but I feel like I can easily summarize as "It's really good, you should watch it." I was also asked to talk about favorite characters so like. Get ready for that one.

As a whole, Dungeon Meshi is excellent. My wife has an anecdote she likes to tell about it, where before we even watched it, I told her about the general premise and that people were talking about it and it sounded neat and I wanted to pick it up if she'd like to watch. And as happens sometimes, I get the response of "I'll probably look at my phone and just watch it in the background," which is usually "I'm not too interested but put on what you want to put on." And after the first episode she was completely invested. The show is really charming really fast.

Thing is, for as fun adventure as it starts, it does a lot seriously that lands spectacularly well. The first instance of "oh wow, this show is for real" is the well-documented living armor bit. The biology that goes into these monsters is amazing. My personal favorite is still the treasure bugs and mimics interaction, which is just incredible to me, but every time they talk about monster biology and their function it's a treat.

Exploration stuff is also really cool. There's another great post that went around talking about how this party really is more of an old-school dungeon crawler party, where skills for survival like Chilchuck's are essentially the most valuable, rather than combat ability. It does really have that feel, and it's great. I also just love how some of the magic works. Things like mana sickness are cool, but resurrection is my personal favorite. They make a big deal about the black magic kind being forbidden, but watching it in action, it functions just like the stuff that's on the level; blood pools and congeals back in the body, the black magic just involved reconstructing flesh. Marcille's point about black magic not being inherently bad is fair; it doesn't seem all that different. But perceptions are really different regarding it.

They haven't delved too far into it yet, but there are tensions between the fantasy races, and plenty of biases going around. Some are a bit more obvious, like Marcille really not trusting the orcs, while others are more like Shuro's one party member who just refers to the dwarves as just "dwarf," even as she's praising Senshi's cooking. Kabru's got his own hangups regarding how the elves handle things with the dungeons, and openly admits to the imbalance in power between races and how that negatively impacts everyone. I imagine this starts to be more prominent in the second half now that all the establishing stuff is done.

As for cast...they're really strong. Laios' group is all great, I loved them all. Marcille is my favorite, personally, because of course she is. From silly magic elf girl, to oh she's actually super smart, to oh she's super smart in ancient criminal magic fuck yeah girl. Marcille's a delight. Chilchuck was the easy least favorite of the group starting out, but he's really grown on me. Izutsumi is peak cat. Laios is really interesting as a protagonist, I like him a lot. I think the conflicts he gets into are...very real, in a way. Like, he has amazing strengths that make him great at what he's doing, but the flaws in his character inform what struggles they encounter in a really believable way. I like him a lot. Senshi is cool. Falin needs more time, and you have no idea how bummed I am that the season ended with a little snapshot that Chimera Falin and Thistle are having hijinks off-screen, I need that spinoff.

The other groups are less developed, but I'm sure Aera will be happy to hear this: god damn do I love Kabru. This dude rules. I saw people talk about him on Tumblr so I recognized him the instant he showed up, but his first "proper" introduction is stupendous, showing his general people-reading and ability to gather information, and his adherence to a sense of justice that's just as much about meting out punishment as anything else. Him killing those dudes was great, loved that. And the barely concealed excitement over black magic is hilarious. Then he gets to show off that he's basically an assassin class, knowing where to strike for instant kills, has a whole chat with Shuro about recognizing the racial discrepancy in the world at large, and tries to play an entire room full of elves. I dunno, like the guy a lot. He's shrewd, and he's got moxie. I do admit that, while I get the fandom is really attached to Laios and Kabru as a ship, I...have no strong feelings about it. I do, oddly, like him and Rin. Their dynamic in the show was fairly cute, and admittedly some supplemental material I saw posted really got me invested in her. The rest of his party...I have no particular feelings about. It's just him and Rin to me for now.

Shuro's party is even less interesting. I do like Shuro, I think he's a really neat character. But his group hasn't done anything all that interesting to me yet. They kinda showed up to get bodied by Chimera Falin and drive tension as the group that first knows about black magic.

Similar deal with Namari's group? If anything I think the old gnome dude is in the running for general least favorite character. I don't hate the guy, but he's done nothing to endear himself. I have no strong perspectives yet.

For characters that need more time in the oven, there is the question of the Canaries. I've seen a tidbit about them, but my general assumption of them is the whole "Canary in the coalmine," they're the frontliners for dungeons that are sent in and risk death to assess the threat level. Which is neat, would like to know what that deal is. But #1 most invested in learning more about is Thistle. Love that design, love the general vibe he puts out, but also the reveal that he was hired as the court jester who happened to also become the most powerful mage of the kingdom is really, really good. That's both hilarious and awesome. I don't even know this guy and I think he's the shit.

I am wildly invested in season 2, and if it weren't for me working for a school and going through summer months unpaid, I'd probably be buying the entire manga like right now. As it stands I'll have to wait a bit for that, but it's probably happening. I've seen plenty of commentary about things the anime couldn't fit in that are hilarious or interesting, and it feels like one I'd like to read as well, even if I plan to fully go through the anime. Huge fan, glad we got an immediate announcement of season 2, really looking forward to more.

[rixareth]

Fanfiction meme

@doreyg tagged me to answer these fanfiction questions; thank you so much!

How many works do you have on ao3?

On my main account, Riona, it’s 234. I also have 130 works across two pseuds on my secondary account, rionaleonhart (for older works and ficlets), so in total I’ve posted 364 works to AO3.

What’s your total word count?

My combined total on AO3 is 1,136,030 words. If I look at the documents in which I keep all my writing archived, it’s slightly higher – 1,266,834 words – because I haven’t posted everything I’ve ever written to AO3.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

My most popular fic, by a long way, is And Again (Danganronpa, Naegi is caught in a time loop, 7,227 kudos). This was the first fic I ever posted to AO3, and I was startled by the way it blew up! For a while I was slightly intimidated to post anything else in case I let everyone down.

The others in the top five: Life Imitates (FFXV, Noctis/Prompto, 5,566 kudos), Vessels (Deltarune, 2,635 kudos), Visitors (Assassin’s Creed/Sense8, 1,607 kudos) and Memory Error (Doki Doki Literature Club!, 1,551 kudos). Most of these were an accident of timing: I happened to post just when the fandom was starting to get big. The exception is Visitors, which mainly picked up readers because it ended up expanding into a vast cowritten series.

Interesting to note that four of my top five fics are gen; I wasn’t expecting that!

Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

I used to be very bad at responding to comments, back in my Livejournal days – it was a struggle to think of what to say! – but nowadays I reply to every comment I get, unless they’re outright rude or I suspect that they’ve been left by a spambot. A nice comment can really make my day, so I always want to say thanks! Plus a lot of the things I write are a bit niche, so I’m always excited to have the opportunity to talk to other people in the same niche.

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

Probably New Game? (Until Dawn): Mike is caught in a time loop, endlessly trying to prevent his friends from dying, and there’s no way to get out.

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

Hmm! I tend to prefer hopeful endings to outright happy ones; it’s tough to think of an answer that feels right for this. I’ll just say Interweave (Lost, everyone/everyone), which ends with Jack accepting that he’s in love with pretty much everyone else on the island.

Do you write crossovers?

Not as many as I used to, but I still really enjoy crossing things over! I’ve only written one crossover this year (Always Believe, Death Note/Ace Attorney, Phoenix Wright defends Light in court), but in total I’ve written somewhere in the vicinity of fifty crossovers (including fusions).

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Fifteen years ago, I received a comment telling me ‘FUCK YOU. SERIOUSLY. YOU SHOULD FUCKING DIE’ on what I thought was a fairly innocuous Doctor Who/Silent Hill crossover. To this day I don’t know what my crime was.

I’ve had occasional negative comments since then, but that’s the only instance I can think of in which someone obviously just wanted to hurt me. A lot of people hated the concept of In Fainter Ink, my Last of Us Part II fic in which Ellie, Dina and Jesse navigate V-shaped polyamory, but most of the negative commenters were at least making some effort to engage with me in good faith. I still think it’s odd to read a polyamory fic and then tell the author you don’t want polyamory! But the commenters were nonetheless people who had genuine feelings about the story that they wanted to express, rather than just throwing hatred at me as a person.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I can’t write explicit sex at all! Most of my sex is fade-to-black. I do occasionally write ‘onscreen’ sex, but it tends to be very vague.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Three times that I know of! And Again, my Danganronpa time loop fic, was stolen twice; it was posted once to ffnet and once to Amino. Seems like a bad idea to steal my most popular fic; it meant that in both cases it was quickly recognised and people came to let me know!

My Doki Doki Literature Club! fic Memory Error was stolen, posted to Pastebin and shared with fans on some sort of 4chan-adjacent site. I didn’t bother taking any steps to get that one taken down; Pastebin seems such an impractical platform for pretending you wrote a fic that I could only shrug in bewilderment.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

A few times, usually into Russian! I’m always thrilled and honoured when someone wants to translate something I’ve written.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

A small handful of times! I don’t recommend attempting to cowrite with me, because my attention span is a disaster and I may lose focus before the project is finished, but I’ve cowritten fics here and there.

What's your all-time favourite ship?

I can’t say for certain whether Nate/Elena from Uncharted is my absolute favourite ship, but it’s always the pairing my mind goes to first when I’m asked about ships I like, so it’s definitely a strong contender. They’ve got such good chemistry!

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

There are a lot! In particular, I’ve got a thousand words of a Kingdom Hearts/Neon Genesis Evangelion crossover in which Axel, Roxas and Xion are EVA pilots; I still like the idea, but I don’t think I’m ever actually going to get it done, particularly as I’ve forgotten everything about Evangelion by this point.

What are your writing strengths?

I tend to be good at dialogue, I think, and at pinning down what a particular character would do in a particular situation. I’m also strong on technical aspects such as spelling and punctuation.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I struggle with description and scene-setting; a lot of my scenes end up feeling like characters conversing in a void. I can’t plot things in advance, which means I’m terrible at writing anything long; it’s a lot easier to write on the fly with short one-shots. I find it very difficult to write a good opening; I’m more comfortable when writing endings.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Like many things, it can be done well or badly! It mainly depends on how it’s employed, and on the audience for your fic. If you include a lot of text that you don’t expect the audience to be able to read, it might become distracting or frustrating.

Basically, if someone asks the protagonist of your Spanish fic a question in German, and the protagonist doesn’t understand German, it makes sense to write the line in German. If the German speaker then gets into a long conversation with the protagonist’s German-speaking friend, it might be better for the fic’s flow to gloss over the conversation and have the friend explain it to the protagonist later, rather than writing the whole German conversation out word-for-word.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Pokémon! When I was twelve, I wrote a fic about Definitely Not Me going on a Pokémon journey with Definitely Not My Friends and Family. There was a subplot in which Team Rocket were abducting people and turning them into furries.

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

The Coffin of Andy and Leyley is the latest canon to consume my mind. I’m working on a fic about Andrew and Ashley’s time imprisoned in their home together, so I hope to get that finished before long!

What's your favourite fic you've written?

I’ve written a lot; it’s hard to narrow it down! I don’t want to spend hours overthinking this, so I’ll go with the first fic that comes to mind: Shackles. It’s a Death Note fic about Light and L being incredibly toxic soulmates, and I had a lot of fun with it.

[clatterbane]

I really wasn't kidding about the not-quite-side gig thing, though. That's also sort of tied up in my own ongoing special Disabled Foreign Devil version of a midlife crisis, though.

My life has ended up going off in some strange and highly inconvenient directions, due to the person I am. Things would probably be a lot easier in a number of ways if it had taken the actually easier road at several junctions. But, it is what it is. You deal and try to make the best of it, clichéd as that may be.

But yeah, I am now pushing 50 and sitting somewhere that I still kinda suck at the main language--with no completed degrees, no documentation of what foreign formal education I do have, extremely little adult employment history because I stayed too busy being variously disabled over the years, zero other qualifications, and still pretty limited spoons though I am physically doing much better these days. Oh yeah, and I am indeed visibly disabled now, autistic and noticeably weird as hell on top of it, and now pushing 50. Though I can probably skate farther on "eccentric foreigner" with the neurodivergence (and not being a native speaker) than in the UK, that is only one disadvantage mitigated.

(Also kinda hard to have much in the way of longer term "retirement" prospects when you have fuck all employment history or personal savings, and you relocate somewhere that you have absolutely no previous connection to systems when you're already middle-aged. I never really expected to find myself at this stage in life period, much less with very little in the way of prospects or financial independence. But, that's a bit of a side consideration at this point. I just don't want to end up shoved into the shithole tier of nursing homes one of these days, though. And with one leg and no career, that could conceivably happen anytime. Cyanide time, tbqh.)

Working in my favor, I am in one of the "better" tiers of immigrants, as an Anglophone who is pasty as fuck out of the sun and also married to a native. Only part of which is remotely under my control. And I usually come across as smart enough, however much of that may rely on bluffing. That was more of an asset when I was in my 20s than it even counts as at this stage of life, with no easily recognizable achievements to back it up.

Nobody is going to hire me for much of anything, and I'm truly not sure what formal work I could reasonably handle without running myself completely into the ground.

So yeah, that (easier, expected) route is pretty much out. Can't rely on working for anybody else, better figure out how to DIY some kind of financially gainful endeavor. Kinda just leaves us back at having the brain to rely on. Better figure out some way to monetize some of the skills and knowledge that I do have.

I probably am reasonably sharp in my own way, with too many interests, generally a pretty fast learner, and persistent as hell when things line up right. And I do have decent practical backup these days. Not gonna starve in the meantime, and can reasonably expect some support in whatever the hell I do settle on trying to make a buck at. That's what I can see as some things really working in my favor.

While indeed neurodivergent as fuck, in some ways that have ALWAYS made figuring what I might even be decent at, can maintain focus on, and keep up somewhat sustainably, very difficult. Oh yeah, and this should probably be something that somebody would be willing to pay me for. (Not even kidding, this has been a persistent problem since I was old enough to even start seriously considering the matter of what to do with my life.)

The general executive function bullshit, with getting and keeping shit together on your own, pretty much goes without saying. But, at least by now I am much more aware of what is even going on there, and that workarounds do mostly exist. That is one hell of an improvement for my 20s, to put it mildly. Same goes for a lot of the other brain/nervous system bullshit that's persistently gotten in my way.

I feel like I should try to come out with something more upbeat to say, because I know this whole screed is a fucking downer. But yeah, that's kinda where I've been a lot of the time lately. Hasn't been great for my mental health for a while now, and some of the brain loops have been wild. (I kinda keep coming back to that, but this is still significantly easier than around when I hit 25. Or pretty well all of my 20s. A lot better perspective and coping skills.)

But, I'll get over it and figure something out. I always eventually do.

[buckybarnesss]

So, every now and then I bully my husband into watching Teen Wolf with me. This leads to great moments where he loudly declares that Derek and Stiles need to stop eyefucking and such.

But then.

During the episode in season 2 where they're trying to find the bestiary, and Scott pulls a notebook out of Gerard's stuff, my husband pauses and says, "I can't believe that the show expects me to believe that THAT notebook is some ancient book with monster lore in it, it's like brand new. This show is dumb."

I take a sip of beer and start the episode back up. The reveal happens: it's not the bestiary, it's Gerard Argent's cookbook.

THAT is how I feel whenever someone says "Well Teen Wolf is a dumb show." It sure fucking is. But there are moments where you see what the show is going for, when the show gives you a little wink and nudge.

It subverts this expectation that musty old books = knowledge repeatedly! It happens a few episodes later when Peter whips out a fucking macbook and shows Derek a gif/video of a fully formed kanima.

I really just want to grab people and shout "It's smarter than you think it is!!!!"

there is a reason teen wolf has become something of a cult classic ten years since it started and that when people try to replicate it they can't.

there was something very genuine about the show despite the campy silliness which in itself was meant for fun. while the show is a drama it rarely took it self that seriously and poked fun at itself a lot of the time. like, c'mon peter hale's hammy "i am the alpha scene" they knew it was funny but it's so in character for peter's dramatic ass.

under it all though there's real strong themes of grief and loss and abuse and depression and the pain of growing up. they played with tropes and tried to do new things with lore. there wasn't a vampire or witch in sight. the parents even had their own plots, character arcs and importance to the story.

teen wolf has it's faults and problems all of which are well documented but it's fun and silly and often it was pretty sincere and people don't know what to do with sincerity anymore.

also like i can talk shit about teen wolf because it's my baby. it's my favorite problem child. it's my favorite show. other people can't talk shit about it. they don't know. they weren't there in the trenches. creator, executive producer and man who stole my lunch money jeff davis is my mortal enemy but by god i will claim he's a genius to others who don't know the intricate rituals.

[opinated-user]

My guy, do you talk about anything else than about your hate boner towards an indigenous trans woman, can you get a fucking life, why is your trash on my feed, go fucking wash yourself you stinky creep what the hell.

This is one of the most disgusting things I ever saw, you want people to even taje you remotely seriously when this is a behaviour that warants a restraining order? Fucking grow up dipshit.

https://the-e4b.tumblr.com/post/175869079645/the-lily-orchard-fan-pack-google-drive archived evidence of LO sexualizing her own younger underage sister and her own made up dead daughter, who she lied about dying as a toddler.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ct_FNyD0LxPsfLsCnLnoArZOQ-_BwkuUJBMCTpUxXUk/edit archived video evidence of many LO's older videos, including those in which LO defended incest between two underage siblings and openly talked about writing stockholm.

https://gyazo.com/collections/3eae56479eb5e8c0041dd0f6e4317dfarchived conversations that LO had with an ex-friend where she catfished her for years, enough time to get access to nudes of that ex-friends and other women who didn't know who she really was.

https://valorousvixen.tumblr.com/ the blog of that catfishing personality that LO made up.

https://www.tumblr.com/lily-orchard-archives/697942119799832576/2016-09-09 archived of LO encouraging harassment against Ink-Rose, a minor at the time that she helped groom into dating an adult friend of her at the time.

documented debunking of many lies LO has spread, especially regarding Cypher, who LO fancied until Cypher disagreed on headcanons about Sylvannas and then LO cut her off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBgLVWvC0Gk&t=1185s video with proof of LO creating a RPG that is about colonizing and enslaving ponies, added with NSFW images being given as reward. the video goes to greath lenghts to proof irrefutably that the game indeed was created by LO, connecting it directly to her main current account in youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQxnmE2Bdjo proof that ties LO back to the writing of stockholm, a fanfic that justifies pedophilia, rewards abuse and paints a pedophile as the victim of injust harassment.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-5W8XpQFbVtesAwX2McGhmT9frlt86PX archived evidence of LO manipulating a ex-friend into drawing bestiality/revenge porn for her using the ace character of her ex, who she was dating when this happened.

there are more claims (many, many more), but these are all that have direct ties to accounts that we know for absolute sure belong to LO and can't be disputed.

this is the woman you have decided to defend. this is the woman you think nobody should criticize. the woman who did all of this and more does not deserve it, and she'll hurt you if you give her the chance.

at the very least, understand what you're actually doing by defending LO and going to people who call her out like this. truly understand it and make peace with it however you can, because what is me, i couldn't live with myself knowing i let this slide.

[a-queer-seminarian]

cw religious transphobia, Catholic trauma, plus a weird dream involving violence and bombs lol

had another of my dreams about my childhood church last night — probably prompted by the latest shitty Vatican publication condemning "gender theory" :/

...the document doesn't have much new in it, just more of the Roman Catholic Church's usual bullshit with slightly different language. but God i'd take fundamentalism's look-even-slightly-closer-and-it-falls-apart cognitive dissonance any day to the very carefully ordered logic of Catholic bigotry. i always feel physically ill reading through these Vatican documents because the language is so "loving" and "reasonable" — at least for me as someone who was raised into the Catholic logic system; some deep core of me resonates to this specific pitch and aches.

It's like they know exactly what language to use to shatter me — this time it's language about the Infinite Dignity of human beings, which is something i deeply believe in! It's heart-language for me. Tell me queer folk are "intrinsically disordered" or "demonic" and i can mostly scoff it off as outdated unscientific bullshit. But tell me queerness is on par with fucking WAR and POVERTY and XENOPHOBIA in attacking human dignity and that hurts.

...but they also, of course :/, bring in abortion — but also, in a surprising twist, surrogacy??? — as attacking human dignity, and that thankfully snaps me out of my spiral a little bit. Like seriously?? you think all forms of surrogacy violate the *checks notes* child's "right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin..." and the recognition of "every dimension of the dignity of the conjugal union and of human procreation."

It reminds me that the Catholic condemnation of queer sex is like, one level in a house of cards where you take out one piece and it all collapses: the logic they follow to condemn queer sex and extramarital sex requires that they also condemn contraceptives, and priests getting married, and yes, surrogacy and IVF too. To become lax about any one would send the whole logic tower tumbling --

Okay now i'm just ranting incoherently lol. the dream:

my dream was actually kind of interesting? it's the first one where instead of me being scared about my own safety when suddenly finding myself back in my childhood church, i was scared for everyone else —

i was running home trying to escape some kind of violent attack unfolding in a city center (idk the details don't worry about it lol), and realized i had to cut through saint raphael for the fastest route home. so i entered, only to realize the sanctuary was packed full with people in the middle of Mass. (it's the old sanctuary, the one i grew up with, rather than the new bigger one built back in like 2014)

so i'm trying to slink behind the pews so they won't notice me -- and then i suddenly realize someone is up in the choir loft with a bomb. everyone is clueless except for me. i don't want to alert the person with the bomb that i've seen them in case it prompts them to attack, so i start speaking urgently to people in the pews nearest me. some listen, some tell me to shut up, Mass is more important than whatever danger i think is there. very few get up to hurry out the nearest exit. but i keep trying, going pew to pew to warn people, getting closer to the front.

and there is father tim, about to begin eucharistic liturgy at the altar. i'm about to race up to him, to warn him, to beg him to tell everyone to flee, when the person in the choir loft finally speaks. i don't remember what he says, but he hurls the bomb. finally everyone is running for the exits, but it's too late to get everyone out. they'd ignored the violence in their midst far too long.

i don't remember what happens after that except that i get out, get across the street, and turn back to look upon the crumbled mess of my childhood church, one side entirely exploded outward, people soot-streaked and bleeding hobbling from a smoking doorway, shouting.

idk, it just feels symbolic somehow. Catholics who are either very happy with the queerphobic poison the Roman Catholic Church espouses, or who at least shrug and ignore it so as not to rock the boat and cause discomfort / risk their own standing in the church, seem to think they won't be harmed by that poison too. Very "i didn't think the tigers would eat my face" meme-esque. They are happy to let it seep into every crack and crevice in their churches, to swallow it with their Communion wine, to spread it among their children.

But it is poisoning them, all the same. We are just the canaries in the coal mine, dropping first. The queerphobia, the misogyny, the scandals buried under the rug — these warp their ability to experience the Divine, to recognize God's activity in their midst.

The bomb is already activated. Some of them applaud it, almost worship it. Others ignore its quiet, patient tick. And they push out all the queers, all the survivors of church abuse, all the people with pregnancies that will literally kill them, who are desperately trying to help them shut off the damn bomb before it's too late.