#it's like fill in the blank cards against humanity sentences

[buttfrovski]

you ever get so used to south park you completely forget that "yeah and then i had to fight off a horde of strippers as well as this one big stripper named "spontaneous bootay", who has an insta-kill butt, with captain diabetes" is like an insane sentence

[primatechnosynthpop]

Wow! Against all odds, I finally got around to actually writing the follow-up to I'm Gonna Be The Anti-Hero that's existed exclusively in my head for months! Well uh here it is :3

---

The secret underground room beneath Plymouth rock was dark and silent as always, save for the faint dripping of water through a crack in the ceiling. It figured that, after living there for countless centuries, the structural integrity would finally begin to erode. That dripping sound, although highly irritating when it first started a month or so ago, had now settled into background noise which John Smith paid no attention to. He was a pilgrim, not a witch; it wasn't like the water could hurt him.

Then again, he realized a few moments too late one rainy spring day, perhaps he should have reevaluated that statement. He was minding his own business sitting in his chair and reminiscing about the very old days (that was the only thing he could really do anymore, slowly decaying as his body was) when the soft and steady dripping suddenly escalated at an exponential rate into what sounded like a small waterfall. He turned his head to see a semi-transparent humanoid figure taking shape out of the water pooling in the corner--strangely tinted red, as though the water were mixed with blood. As the old pilgrim watched, jaw agape, the figure strode purposefully toward him, taking on a more solid form as it did so.

"What are you doing here, intruder?" John Smith demanded, one hand tightening around the hilt of his sword while his other hand reached behind his back to fumble for his musket.

"This secret underground room isn't government sanctioned," the stranger hissed. (Although... was he a stranger? John Smith somehow felt that he'd seen this youngster once before, but he couldn't quite place where or when.) "And you have no official identification registering you as a legal citizen. Not to mention, you haven't been paying taxes... disgraceful."

Before John Smith had the chance to concoct a retort or draw either of his weapons, the masked man's hands were around his throat and crushing his windpipe with a force that could only be driven by an inhuman amount of bloodlust. And within seconds, the life of a pilgrim that had been extended for centuries past its expiration date was finally put to an end.

*

"I can't believe they want us to make a clown movie at a time like this."

"I can believe it," Neil replied without looking up from the shopping list in his hand. "The studio wants a lot from us, remember? They're not going to care how sad we are. Anyway, it's been four months--" The emotions bubbling up within him refused to let his voice stay level, so he gritted his teeth and hissed out the rest of his sentence rather than let himself start crying in the middle of the dollar store. "We should be over it by now."

"Neil..." Kevin began in the way he'd often addressed Neil over the past few months--brow furrowed, voice edged with an obvious and vaguely patronizing concern--only to trail off and shake his head with a sigh. Apparently he'd finally given up on trying to make Neil feel better, which was just fine by him, because things are never gonna go back to the way they were before and it's my fault and I don't deserve to feel good about it.

"Anyway, we've got what we came for," Neil muttered, waving his hand in the general direction of Kevin's shopping basket without looking him in the eyes. "Let's go."

At the checkout counter, the cashier frowned and shook her head when Neil offered her a five-dollar bill. "Sorry," she told them, "But all this is going to cost $29.99."

"What? But we don't have that kind of money!" Neil lamented. "And we got this stuff from the clearance section... plus this is the dollar store, so shouldn't everything just cost a dollar?"

For a visual aid as he spoke, he grabbed one of the items they were ringing up--a bargain pack of multicoloured clown wigs--and shook it in the cashier's face. Apparently unmoved by his bargaining, she pursed her lips and crossed her arms.

"Maybe you should have checked the price tags first, sir."

"Huh? But, but..." Neil trailed off when he looked down at the price tag on the item in his hands. The bright orange tag had the original price, $7.50, crossed out and replaced with $2.35... but then below that, scribbled in tiny and barely legible font, it read "just kidding, it's actually eleven dollars now." "Aw, man," he groaned, tossing the pack down on the conveyor belt and sticking his hands in his pockets. "Just our luck."

Kevin had a thoughtful look in his eyes while he drove them home empty-handed. When he pulled up outside the clubhouse a few minutes later and they climbed out of the truck, he suddenly laid a hand on Neil's shoulder.

"Say, Neil, let's not get discouraged," he said. "I've got another idea for how we could get our hands on some props."

"Really?" Neil asked, perking up despite himself. "How?"

"Well, I think--" Kevin broke off as unexpectedly as he'd started, encouraging smile briefly dipping into a grimace. "...You know what, I'll take care of it myself. You can hold down the fort here, okay? I won't be long."

Neil's brow furrowed. "Okay, but what are you...?"

Without explaining himself any further, Kevin clapped him firmly on the back, hopped back into his truck, and drove off. Neil watched him recede down the road with bewilderment. Being all secretive like that wasn't like Kevin... Unless he's trying to protect me from something, he realized with a twinge of bitterness. That would be just like him, the way things had been recently. Ever since the past winter, and what had happened with Ryan, Kevin's latent big-brother-ish tendencies had escalated; now he watched over Neil like a hawk and freaked out every time he so much as stubbed his toe. Under different circumstances Neil would have relished being fussed over, but now it was more annoying than anything else. The thing was, he didn't deserve it. If anything... his fingers strayed up to absentmindedly fidget with the four-leaf clover pinned to his shirt. I deserve to have bad luck. I deserve to suffer, after what I did to Ryan.

Still, there wasn't much he could do about it now, and he wasn't going to say no to having the clubhouse to himself for a while. With a sigh, he disentangled his fingers from the clover's leaves, ran a hand through his overgrown bangs, and turned to head inside. Maybe he could play cards or something to pass the time.

*

A thick layer of dust had settled over everything in Ryan's house. That made sense, of course. It had been four months--no, five, since Ryan hadn't come home once while he was being a vigilante--since anyone had set foot there. Even so, Kevin was unprepared for the full-scale assault on his lungs when he opened the door, and promptly broke into a coughing fit.

"Man, good thing Neil stayed home," he thought aloud as he batted thick, swirling clouds of dust and spiderwebs out of his face. "The way things have been going for him lately..."

He'd probably choke to death on all this dust, he thought but didn't say aloud, and then felt bad for thinking it in the first place. Kevin didn't understand what had happened to Neil in the course of the past few days, but ever since picking up that clover, he seemed to be having a run of uncharacteristically bad luck. Whether it was random chance or something more suspicious was afoot, it sure wasn't doing much for his already thoroughly frayed nerves.

"Alright, calm down, James," he muttered to himself, shaking his head to clear his thoughts and ideally dispel the rest of the dust. "Focus. Concentrate. What are you here for? Props for your webisode. Right."

Keeping that objective in mind, he made his way past the front entrance and into the living room. There, a few objects were strewn around that caught his eye: a mannequin bust wearing a colourful wig; an eccentrically patterned jacket draped over a chair; a brush dipped into a rusted metal container filled with what he hoped was red paint. After looking around a little more he found a large cardboard box filled with mutilated stuffed animals, which he mostly emptied out and started filling with the useful items he came across.

All the while, a persistent feeling of unease stirred in his gut, becoming increasingly hard to ignore with each belonging of Ryan's he packed away. This is wrong. I shouldn't steal from him. Kevin paused and looked down at the box in his arms with a frown. One of the items sticking out the top, a blank-faced doll head, seemed to stare accusingly back at him. For a moment he saw it not as a plastic figure, but as a human form encased in ice and then broken apart. He blinked and the illusion quickly vanished, but an unsettling feeling remained in its wake. Neil was right; it had been months already. So why did going through Ryan's things make him feel so dirty? Ryan didn't need any of this stuff anymore. He was gone. Wasn't he?

With a weary sigh that, had anyone been around to ask, he would have accredited to the physical exertion of carrying heavy stuff around, Kevin set the box down and stepped back to survey the room he was in now. If he remembered right, this kind of room was called a study--there was an armchair with a few suspicious stains lurking beneath the dust, a desk strewn with papers all scrawled full of nonsense like the ravings of a mad scientist, and an ornate bookshelf. He wandered over to the latter furniture piece and ran his hands along the spines of the books, letting their leathery texture ground him in the present. He noticed several unusual bibles and other ancient texts, and a stash of calendars, some of which he was pretty sure had originally belonged to him or Neil; the up-to-date calendars and one of the more normal-looking bibles went into the box, while he decided everything else was better left where it was.

There was one other set of books he recognized: a teen fantasy series that Neil had often gushed about. Thinking back to the previous fall and all the events he normally tried not to think about, he experimentally lifted one of the fantasy books off the shelf. At once, just as he remembered from when Neil showed him, the bookshelf rumbled to the side and revealed a narrow staircase descending into the basement.

If anyone asked him, Kevin couldn't really say what compelled him to go down those stairs. The secret chamber was as empty as he remembered, with nothing down there that could possibly be of use for the webisode. And without a lantern, he could barely even see the only things that were there to speak of: the paintings of Ryan's ancestors.

"Ryan..." The name manifested on Kevin's lips unexpectedly as he stared, squinting through the dust and darkness, at the row of portraits grinning lopsidedly back at him. He knew the paintings couldn't hear him--hell, they weren't even paintings of Ryan himself, just his relatives. But their faces were practically identical to him, that face he hadn't seen in person for nearly half a year, and that alone was enough to clog up his throat with unbearable emotions.

The thought of It's a good thing Neil isn't here for this surfaced again, and this time Kevin had to agree with himself. Losing a close friend was... well, there was no way not to take it hard. But Neil seemed to have taken it particularly hard, even blaming himself, to the point where any mention of Ryan would immediately send him straight back into a depressive spiral no matter how happy he'd been a moment earlier. That was why Kevin had kept this idea a secret from his friend in the first place--that, and he wasn't sure if it was going to pan out and didn't want to get Neil's hopes up. He figured that if Neil asked where he got all the stuff he'd found, he'd just say it was from a garage sale.

Now, looking into the achingly familiar manic blue eyes of those portraits mounted on the wall, Kevin thought of those news reports about the mysterious killings that had been going on around town. If that really was Ryan, and he was somehow still alive...

"Why?" he whispered. Without really thinking, he reached out and pressed his hand against the painting as if to cup its cheek. "Why haven't you come home, Ryan? Where are you?"

*

The target was at home, alone in her bedroom playing video games. Casual, unbothered by any harm her actions may have caused. Shameful. In an icy swirl of perhaps not-so-righteous fury, the vigilante took form in the corner of her room and crept up behind her. With an average build and no weapons at the ready, she would be no trouble to dispose of.

"Playing dead in order to toy with an innocent man's feelings," he growled. "Some people would call it ghosting. I call it a crime punishable by death."

"Jesus christ, what the fuck?!" Wendy yelped as she spun to face the vigilante. "How'd you get in here?"

"You shouldn't worry about that," he told her, gloved hands already flexing in anticipation of tightening around her neck. Or perhaps this time he'd thrust his hand straight through her chest and rip out her heart--an appropriate punishment for her crimes. "You'll have plenty of time to figure it out once I send you to hell."

"Okay, seriously? What is happening here?" Eyes narrowed, Wendy put her game on pause and got to her feet to stare the vigilante down. "You said something about me playing dead..." Her eyes suddenly widened with recognition, and the vigilante waited for the fear to set in along with it, but instead she shook her head and laughed. A pitying laugh. "Wait, you're not friends with that, uh, that filmmaker guy, are you? Geez, I seriously must have dodged a bullet there."

"Filmmaker..." the vigilante murmured as the word echoed in his mind. Yes, that's right. The man she stood up was a filmmaker... of a sort. (How did he know that? How did he even know who this woman was? Those questions weren't worth dwelling on, he decided.) "You may have thought you dodged a bullet back then, but I'm here to see that the bullet circles back around and destroys you like you deserve."

Wendy crossed her arms and arched an eyebrow, any trace of fear on her face outmatched by her sad, pitying smile. "Sure, keep the edgy sayings coming, Mr. Hot Topic. And what's with the getup, anyway?" she added with a nod to the vigilante's predominantly dark outfit. "Must be kinda warm."

Warm? The vigilante snorted derisively. No, of course he wasn't too warm. His blood, as it always had for as far back as he could clearly remember, ran cold like that of a snake. He couldn't remember a time when he'd been warm. And he certainly couldn't remember a time when he'd worn anything other than his current ensemble. Rather than waste time telling this insufferable woman as much, though, he simply took a few purposeful strides to close the distance between them, hands extended and more than ready to kill.

"Ugh, get away from me, creep!"

In a startlingly swift motion, Wendy's leg shot out and connected with the vigilante's ankles, sending him toppling to the floor. He hissed in irration, though not in pain--when his sensations were already perpetually numb, it would take a lot more than that to hurt him--and got to his feet, dusting himself off with a scowl. In the few seconds this took, Wendy grabbed a baseball bat from the corner of the room. Now she stood brandishing it in perfect athletic form with a battle-ready glint in her eye.

"Not another step, you hear me?" When the vigilante didn't dignify her with a response, she gritted her teeth and gave the bat a twirl--attempting to show off, it seemed, but her hands shook slightly and she nearly dropped the bat, only barely managing to regain her grip on it. "My mom is in the other room right now, and... well, she hasn't done anything wrong, so you don't want to punish her, right? And if anything happens to me..."

He stiffened at Wendy's mention of her mother. An innocent citizen? That was the type of person a vigilante was meant to protect at all costs; otherwise vigilante justice was no better than the police. But no one is innocent in this city. Even so, he understood the implicit threat--not that Wendy's mother would bring him down herself, but that either woman could very well call the police. And the last thing he wanted was to get law enforcement involved.

"...Fine," he snarled at last, turning on his heel with a twirl of his vigilante cape. "You can live a while longer. But I'll be back, and then you'll regret your sins."

He heard her gasp but didn't bother sparing her another glance as he let his form dissolve into a splash of red-tinted ice, sinking through her floorboards and off to thwart another criminal.

*

Slowly and carefully as a technician deactivating a bomb, Neil set the three of spades down across the top of the three other cards he'd lined up on the table. The humble beginnings of a tower stood for a moment, and he held his breath eagerly as he reached for another card to place on top, only for it to suddenly shudder and collapse like an anime girl who'd stood in the rain for too long.

"Dang it!" Neil threw his hands in the air in exasperation. When he did, a droplet of his own blood landed on his glasses, and he realized with a start that his hand was bleeding--just a paper cut, but still, he'd better wash up.

As he ran his hand under cold water, transfixed by the sight of the blood swirling down the drain, a sudden cracking noise rang out just above him. His head snapped up to stare at the spontaneously cracked bathroom mirror. His reflection stared back, stricken and gaunt, as shards of shattered glass rained down into the sink, where they mixed with the water and the blood. Neil shivered, his breath quickening.

Icy water... ice, blood, broken mirrors. All mixed together. Shattered. Blood, guts, ice, mixed together, down the drain. My fault my fault my fault my fault--

"No," he whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut and digging his nails into his scalp as hard as he could. "No! I didn't do it, I didn't... I didn't mean to..."

Deep breaths, a voice in the back of his head reminded him. It sounded like Kevin's voice, worried to the point of being slightly patronizing. Neil grimaced, annoyed at his own brain for manifesting its self-preservation in such a way, but he complied nonetheless. Keeping his eyes wrenched shut, he took several deep breaths in and out until his heartbeat slowed to normal--he hadn't even noticed it speeding up--and his hands didn't shake when he lowered them away from his head.

"Hey, you know what'd really make me feel better?" he said aloud to nobody in particular, putting on a broad smile and wiping his hands off on a towel. "A nice hot bath! Yep, that'll counteract my blood running cold, alright..."

He ran his hands up and down his arms as he spoke, although he didn't know who he was trying to fool; the chill that had settled into his bones had nothing to do with the temperature. In fact, he wasn't entirely sure who this whole performance of forced cheerfulness was meant for... the studio, maybe. He wouldn't put it past them to hide cameras everywhere. Either way, even if it wouldn't fix his psychological issues, a bath really would be pretty nice. He put the plug in and started running the tub, with the water temperature set just hot enough that it would scald him a little at first.

He wasn't sure exactly what happened when he sat down on the edge of the tub to take his socks off, whether he slipped on something or leaned too far back or what, but suddenly he lost balance. And by the time he realized he was falling backward, he only had a split-second to curse his rotten luck before his head connected with the wall and he blacked out.

*

In the end, Kevin managed to get a pretty good haul from Ryan's house. In addition to the stuff he and Neil could use for their webisode, he'd retrieved the calendars and a couple other things it looked like Ryan had stolen from them, as well as their old communicator wristwatches. (He wasn't sure if the watches fell into the camp of things Ryan had stolen, or if they'd just brought them over to his place for a sleepover once and forgotten them there. Either way, Kevin figured it could come in handy to start using them again.)

"Hey, Neil," he called as he stepped into the clubhouse with the box in his arms and kicked the door shut behind him. "I'm back."

There was no reply. Frowning, Kevin set the box down with a slight grunt of effort and wandered through the living room and down the hall. There were a few playing cards scattered on the table, suggesting that Neil had been trying to make a house of cards but given up halfway. Kevin couldn't really blame him for that; assembling cards in such a way that they'd actually stay upright was yet another thing that had been more in Ryan's ballpark than in either of theirs. Still, that didn't explain where Neil was now...

"Neil? You there, bud?" Still being met with no answer, Kevin came to a stop outside the bathroom door, which was ajar with water pooling out from inside. "Oh, man, that's not a good sign..."

He gave a tentative knock, and when there was still no response, grabbed the handle and pushed the door open. The sight that met his eyes when he did so immediately made his breath hitch and his blood run cold. The broken mirror over the vanity reflected his slack-jawed expression as he stared at the overflowing bathtub, the pair of still-clothed legs dangling over the rim, and the smudge of blood on the wall leading down to the head of the man those legs belonged to, slumped inside the tub with his head submerged in the water.

"Neil!!"

Kevin sprinted across the room to lift Neil out of the tub. It then took him a few seconds longer to turn off the faucet and pull the plug, as by that point the shock had turned to dread and his hands were shaking. Once the water was slowly starting to drain, he fell to his knees and pulled Neil tight to his chest, one hand clutching at the back of his soaked-through t-shirt while the other fumbled across the back of his head searching for the source of the blood. It didn't take long for him to find the slightly matted patch of damp hair indicating where Neil had banged his head against the wall. Kevin swallowed hard as dread leapt up to claw at his throat. The only question is... how long was he submerged?

"Neil," he whispered, and was almost embarrassed to hear how hoarsely his own voice came out. "Wake up. Please."

No response. Kevin reluctantly pulled back to hold Neil at an arm's length, and shuddered at how limply his friend's body flopped forward. He noticed, with a white-hot jolt of irrational anger, that the four-leaf clover was still in place. Fat lot of good that thing's done for him. He grabbed the clover and crumpled it in his fist, all the while tears pressed against the back of his eyes; he struggled not to let them fall. Damn it... first Ryan, now Neil... What kind of protector was he? What kind of friend?

He slammed his fist, the useless clover still clenched within, against the drenched floor tiles. At that moment, the lightbulb above his head exploded and sent sparking wires raining down around him. As soon as electricity met water, it sent a nasty shock through Kevin's veins; he screamed out of equal parts surprise and pain and scrambled up onto the countertop, which was barely wide enough to support him.

On the floor below, Neil's body convulsed. Then his eyes snapped open and he drew in a gasp that turned into a scream halfway through. Although touching his friend's hand sent the current through his own body for a moment, Kevin was quick to grab him anyway, and he managed to pull Neil safely out of the electrified water and into a fierce embrace. Neil kept shrieking, and he squirmed frantically around, not seeming to recognize his surroundings at first.

"It's alright, Neil," Kevin assured him despite how hard his own heart was pounding. "I've got you."

"Oh..." Neil's body slackened, and he pulled back to blink slowly at Kevin, realization dawning in his eyes. His cheeks coloured with embarrassment and he ducked his head. "Uh, thanks."

Neither of them said anything else, for lack of ability or perhaps willingness to put it into words. After a moment, Kevin realized he was still holding the clover, and he handed it back to Neil, who took it with a dip of his head and a murmur of acknowledgement, and pinned it to his soaking wet t-shirt.

Somehow out of everything in the room, themselves included, that little scrap of plant matter was still intact. And although he wasn't superstitious, that simple fact was what would stick in Kevin's mind for the rest of the day, turning it over until he could only conclude: Yep, there's definitely something weird going on with that thing.

*

Despite the many months he'd prowled the city, this was the vigilante's first time in the hideout of a proper gang. It looked about the way he expected: dimly lit, no windows, weapons hung up on the wall and cigarette butts littering the floor. The gang members, dressed primarily in leather jackets with a few in denim, lounged in chairs leaning too far back, or on top of tables, or on their motorcycles parked right in the middle of the room. Most of them didn't even notice the vigilante as he approached. They were too caught up chattering and cackling amongst themselves like a nest of overgrown crows. The one gang member who did seem to notice the vigilante from the get-go simply looked up at him with raised eyebrows and addressed him once he got close enough to strike.

"Hey, haven't seen you around before. Looking to join the club?"

"Hardly," he snarled. "This whole place is crawling with criminals."

The whole room broke into laughter at that. The vigilante gritted his teeth, fists clenching at his sides. These people were different from the criminals he'd taken down before; between their numbers and all the weapons they had easy access to, they might just pose a serious threat if he wasn't careful.

"You're the ones, aren't you?" he went on once the laughter had died down and the gang members were all watching him with a mix of bemusement and curiosity. No trace of fear amongst them yet, but that would change... "Throwing bricks at innocent people, even seeking to damage their property. Absolutely detestable."

"Woah, hang on," another of the gang members cut in sharply, reaching for a weapon as they stood. "First off, the whole brick throwing thing was months ago. Second of all, we never did that to innocent people, you know!"

"Yeah!" yet another gang member cut in, pumping her fist in the air. "Only to those losers who blew up our boss!"

...Boss?

The vigilante slowly turned, a deeper chill than normal running down his spine, as a strangely familiar smug cackle echoed from behind him. He came face-to-face with a man in a tank top and baseball cap, sneering at him with his arms crossed. Max. Gulping, the vigilante took a step backward. He's their boss?

(How did he know that name? How had he known Wendy's name either, for that matter? Why, out of all the criminals in the city, did a select few ignite disproportionate resentment within him? He'd dealt with some of these people before, he knew, but when he tried to remember when and how it all just turned to slush in his brain.)

"Yep, those losers got what was coming to 'em," Max said. "Except not really, 'cause they didn't suffer enough. But it's okay, we'll get 'em extra hard next time."

"No..." For reasons he couldn't quite explain, the vigilante's voice shook with equal parts fury and sudden fear. "Don't you dare hurt them."

"Huh?" Max tilted his head, already slightly squinted eyes narrowing further. "Heyyy, wait a minute, aren't you one of--?"

Before he could finish that thought, the vigilante was upon him with a karate chop to the windpipe. It was a more reckless attack than he'd planned, and even as Max stumbled backward coughing, he could hear the rest of the gang grabbing their weapons and running up behind him. But it was fine; the vigilante could take them all on and then some. He could kill any number of people if it was for the sake of defending his friends.

(Friends? Did he have friends? Somehow it felt that he must have, once. But that was strange, because the only thing he could clearly remember himself ever being was a cold-blooded vigilante.)

*

"Don't you see? Society's the one to blame! It's society's fault that he had no choice but to become this way!"

As Kevin delivered this speech, waving his arms dramatically toward the focus of the scene, Neil spun the video camera around to point it toward himself. Hopefully the studio would think of the disorienting cinematography for this webisode as a bold artistic choice rather than thinking of it as amateurish and embarrassing. He then leapt back, breaking into maniacal laughter with his prop gun raised in the air. Under ideal circumstances, this role might have been better suited to Ryan, but... well, they couldn't stay hung up on him forever; they had a job to do.

"Eh-heh-heh! Thanks to society, I have the urge to kill!" Neil twirled around to show off his clown costume, while just out of frame, Kevin hastily put on a wig and fake mustache. "And now... I'll kill this innocent man, who's different than the guy who was talking a minute ago!"

(It was fascinating--fascinating and dumb--how a broken mirror and a bit of blood could set him off, but something as heavy as a gun in his hand only brought him the faintest twinge of discomfort, easily ignored for the sake of making a webisode. After all, as Kevin had assured him many times over the past few months, it was the gun and its villainous weilder who were to blame for what had happened to Ryan. On an intellectual level Neil knew that was true--and besides, if he hadn't deflected that bullet, all three of them would have died. But knowing that did nothing to redirect when and why the darkness in his brain manifested.)

Now, much to Neil's surprise as he took aim with his prop gun, Kevin shouted "Cut!" and walked across the abandoned lot they were filming in to turn the camera off.

Neil lowered the gun, confused, as his costar removed his costume with that now all-too-familiar look of concern etched across his face. "What's the matter?"

"I don't know... somehow I've just got a bad feeling about this," Kevin muttered. "Maybe try firing into the air a couple times first."

Neil complied, and was met with the expected result from the prop: a couple of clicks indicating an empty chamber. "You worry too much these days, Kev," he said as he fired one more blank into the sky and then lowered the prop again. "It's not a real gun; it can't--"

As he spoke, his finger accidentally pressed the trigger again, and he broke off with a yelp at the sudden burst of pain in his right foot. He dropped the apparently very real gun with a clatter and clutched at his injured appendage, losing his balance in the process. Kevin swore under his breath and rushed forward to catch him. Before his friend could reach him, Neil's other foot came down on a wide crack in the pavement. A chill ran through him, momentarily distracting him from the throbbing pain, but it passed as quickly as it arose without seeming to trigger any effects.

"By god, what's happening to you?" Kevin exclaimed as he grabbed Neil by the shoulders and held him upright. "You've been so unlucky lately, it... it almost seems like a curse."

"A curse?" Neil stiffened, but quickly forced himself to shrug and morphed his grimace into a dismissive eye-roll. "Pfft, what are you talking about? There's no curse! I've just been, y'know, having an off-day..."

"Neil." There was that concerned look again, that almost parental tone of voice, as Kevin stared him down and tightened his grip on Neil's shoulders. "A couple hours ago you almost died, and now... you can tell something weird is going on, right? And, look--" He sighed, gaze darkening. "I don't exactly know how to fix it, but whatever's happening, I can't just sit back and watch you succumb to it. I can't lose you, too, Neil... not after..."

He trailed off with a faint warble in his voice, lowering his head. Neil gulped, a heavy weight surfacing in his chest. It was true; though he hated to admit it, at this point it was hard to deny that he was cursed. And yet, even as his foot throbbed around the spot where the bullet was lodged and his shoe was slowly stained from within by his own blood, it was hard to convince himself that he should accept help. On some level, didn't he deserve this? Wasn't this a fitting comeuppance for getting one of his friends killed?

Yet here was his other friend, clutching at him ever tighter to the point where his grip on Neil's shoulders was nearly as painful as hitting his head or getting mildly electrocuted or shooting himself in the foot. I'm not the only one who lost Ryan, he reminded himself--another thing he knew perfectly well on an intellectual level, but easy to forget in practice. Kevin is hurting too. I shouldn't make him hurt any more.

"Fine, I admit it," he sighed, letting his tensed-up shoulders slump. "I'm unlucky, okay? And if you think it's possible--" He tore the clover off his shirt and glared down at it-- "then we're going to beat this thing."

*

For as tough as the gang presented themselves, it must have been most of these people's first time in an actual fight. The vigilante swerved to avoid weak punches, clumsy kicks, poor attempts at stabbing. It all blended together after a while, and he stopped thinking of the gang members as individuals; they were just an indistinguishable swarm of insects whose attacks were easily dodged. Unimportant, save for their leader.

The vigilante had Max pinned to the floor now, holding his thrashing form in place with one arm while he brought his other fist down on the ruffian's face, over and over, as hard as he could. Not every blow connected cleanly, and Max had managed to bite him several times already, but that was irrelevant. Criminals must be brought to justice. That was why the vigilante hated these people, wasn't it? Because they were criminals. Yes, what other reason could he have, when this was all he'd ever been?

And then, just as he managed to land a blow to Max's jaw that left him defiantly spitting out blood and a couple of teeth, the vigilante's spine snapped.

It took a moment for him to register what had happened. He just heard a loud crack, and a sharp pain shot through him, and suddenly he couldn't hold his legs in place and collapsed. Max wasted no time taking advantage; he delivered a kick to the vigilante's gut that sent him flying back across the room, where he hit a wall and slumped to the ground, gasping in breathless agony. At once the other gang members closed in on him. Grimacing, the vigilante drew himself up onto his hands and knees, then braced himself against the wall and, with a far greater strain of effort than expected, dragged himself upright. By the time he'd managed to get to his feet, dozens of knives were inches away from him.

Then, to his surprise, Max pushed through to the front of the crowd and held his arms out to hold back his underlings. "Nuh-uh, this one's mine," he told them, sneering as though oblivious to the blood dribbling from between his lips. "I said I'd get him twice tomorrow, and I meant it."

The vigilante flinched as Max took a swipe at him. But rather than a fist connecting with his face, he was met only with the shock of exposure as the bully grabbed his mask and triumphantly yanked it off his face. He was left dumbfounded, blinking, as his vision readjusted to the light.

Wait a minute, I remember--

And then came the punch, square in the nose. Ryan yelped, pressing his gloved hand over his nose to stop the bleeding. When he dodged another punch, his body failed to cooperate and he crashed to the ground again, back aching furiously and heart pounding against his ribcage.

How and why his back had broken, he couldn't say, but one thing was clear: he was horrendously outmatched. Max was saying something now, gloating as he advanced on Ryan with a dagger in his hands, but Ryan couldn't make out the words over the blood rushing in his head. Why on earth had he gotten into a fight like this in the first place? What was he doing? He had to get out of there!

With that thought, yet another thing happened that Ryan didn't entirely understand. (Ryan didn't understand, but the vigilante did. It was one of the few things the vigilante knew: dissolve, reform, enact ruthless vengeance, dissolve again.) His body shuddered, and suddenly he found his solid flesh and bone giving way to a slurry of blood and ice that slipped through the cracks in the floor and disappeared. Then he was formless, freefalling through the dark, or at least that was what it felt like. When he took shape again it felt like dragging himself out of quicksand. Yet when he raised his slowly resolidifying head and looked around, he found himself in the basement of his own home, staring up at the portraits of his ancestors that had started it all.

No. Not started it all. "I had a life before this," he whispered, voice raw with the shock of memory and too many months spent speaking in an inhuman growl. "My name is Ryan, I have a life and a job and friends, I..."

Yes, that's right. Friends. Where were they? He closed his eyes and tried to remember. Each recent memory that took form in his mind was accompanied by a crashing wave of guilt and regret, and soon his body shook and tears pricked at his wrenched-shut eyes. That's right... I became a vigilante, and I teamed up with such a horrible person, let him manipulate me, all because I was too afraid to go back and apologize. And then...

The last thing he remembered, just after the flash of light and shock of paralyzing cold, was the sound of a gunshot, something shattering, and Neil screaming.

"Oh, dear god," Ryan whispered. He raised his head, opening his eyes and lowering his hands from his newly tear-stained face, and sat back on his heels as though worshipping the paintings before him. "What have I become?"

*

The ropes were just slightly too tight around Neil's limbs to be comfortable; he couldn't resist squirming a little as Kevin laid out the open bible on the end table next to his proton pack and began reading from it.

"Okay, um, let's see... ex-or-ciz-amus te, omnis immunde spiritus..." He squinted at the yellowed, faded pages, biting his lip. "Omni satanica pot-es-tas, omnis incurs--incursio infernalis adversarii... uh..."

"You're doing great," Neil called from his position tied to the bed frame; Kevin gave him a weary smile and thumbs up.

As Kevin continued reciting the verse, occasionally stumbling over a particularly tricky Latin word, the room's temperature eventually dropped a few degrees. Neil shivered, but his heartbeat picked up in excitement. He could feel something stirring in his blood like ripples on a lake, and when the furniture in the room began to quiver, so too did his body in eager anticipation.

"...Crux sacra sit mihi lux! Nunquam draco sit mihi dux..." A chill wind swept through the room; Kevin gritted his teeth, one hand pressing down on the bible to hold its pages in place while he grabbed his proton pack with the other. "Vade retro Satana! Nun-quam-suade mihi vana!"

The furniture rumbled louder. Neil's eyes widened as an entire bookcase lifted off the ground. "Kevin, watch out!"

"Hang on, Neil, I'm almost done. Uh, where was I... sunt mala quae libas..."

"No, Kevin, the--"

"Just one more line, okay? Ipse ven--"

"KEVIN!"

That last terrified yell was what it took for Kevin to finally turn, just in time to see the six-foot block of polished oak fly directly into him. Neil shrieked and thrashed against his bindings with all his might, but even if he weren't tied up, there was nothing he could have done. The bookcase came crashing down, its contents spilling out onto the floor around it in a flurry of paper. And when the dust settled, Kevin was pinned beneath it, unmoving.

"N... no..." Neil whimpered. Dread tightened like a noose around his throat as the horrible thought seeped into his mind: This is because of me. Now I've gotten them both killed.

"Oh, yes, what a tragedy... just your luck, isn't it?"

Neil's blood ran cold. He raised his head to see the translucent, smoke-shrouded figure of a giant clover looming over him. Its four leaves, dark green tipped with crimson and speckled with barnacles, opened down the middle to reveal a row of needle-sharp fangs. For a second, "Where did you come from?" was on the tip of Neil's tongue. But it was just as well that he was too terrified to speak, because no sooner than the question appeared in his mind, he realized the obvious answer. Oh, right. This is the demon that cursed me.

"Don't worry, your friend is alive... for now," the demon jeered. "But that could change. It's so easy for accidents to happen, you know?"

As if to demonstrate, the demon's leaves fluttered and suddenly a fire sprang up dangerously close to the scattered pile of books on the floor. When Neil screamed in protest, the demon laughed, and part of the ceiling gave in, sending down a controlled shower of debris to put out the fire before anything flammable could catch.

"Okay, okay, I get it!" Neil exclaimed with a shake of his head; he'd be almost exasperated if he weren't so terrified. "You're really powerful and want to hurt people, geez, not exactly a challenging concept. So, what do I have to do?"

That question seemed to give the demon pause. "...Do?"

"You know, to appease you or whatever. If you're threatening me with Kevin's life, then there must be something you want from me, right?" An idea occurred to Neil just then, and his already hammering heart beat even harder, to the point where he hoped the demon couldn't hear it and tell how freaked out he was. "Hey, it must suck having to be a clover. What if a lawnmower or forest fire had gotten to you before I did? And if you like hurting people so much..." He paused, smirking as the demon leaned toward him with obvious interest. "Wouldn't it be easier just to possess my whole body instead of wasting time messing with my luck?"

"That's..." The demon hesitated, its leaves curling up in what looked like excitement. "Ah. Ah-ha-ha! You're a clever little mortal, aren't you?"

"But don't get it twisted," he put in, glaring defiantly up at the demon despite hardly being in a position to threaten anyone. "You have to promise not to hurt anyone else. Especially not Kevin."

"It's a deal!"

Before Neil could stop and reconsider whether this was really a good idea, the demon dove toward him, row of fangs wide open as though it were going to bite his head off. He flinched a split-second before something cold and stinging like nettles clamped around him.

When he opened his eyes again, the world was tinted dark green as if viewed through a dingy screen, his head felt hazy... and he couldn't move, at least not of his own volition. Even opening his eyes just then wasn't his decision. He heard himself cackle, felt his arms and legs flex far harder than he'd known he was physically capable of flexing, breaking the ropes that bound him to the bed frame and setting his body free to do whatever the demon wanted.

"Hah..." the demon muttered in his voice as it made him walk over to where Kevin lay, still trapped and unconscious. The demon knelt down and poked experimentally at Kevin's shoulder and forearm. "This one has more muscle. It might have been a better choice for possession, if it wasn't so damaged already..."

For one petrifying moment, the demon grabbed Kevin's head and stared intently at him, stretching Neil's face into a grin so wide it made his whole face ache, and Neil's mind raced with horrible thoughts of things the demon might make his own hands inflict upon his poor helpless friend. But the demon simply laughed and dropped Kevin, who let out a low groan as his head lolled to the side--an indication that at least he really was still alive. But all of a sudden Neil had trouble believing that small mercy was really worth it.

"Ah, well, this body will do," the demon decided. "Let's take it out on the town and see how long it lasts!"

*

This time when the vigilante materialized in Wendy's room, she did little more than roll her eyes and move to grab her baseball bat. However, rather than try to attack her or even growl out any threats, the vigilante took two shaky steps and then collapsed, catching himself against her dresser. Wendy's eyes widened as she took a closer look at his face. His mask was off now, revealing a pair of striking blue eyes glistening with obvious distress, cheeks flushed with exertion, and a streak of half-dried blood running from his bruised nose. And when he spoke, it wasn't in the gravelly tone she'd heard from him before, but in a quiet higher-pitched voice--almost a whimper.

"Please... tell me..."

Wendy hung back, caught between a sharp tug of sympathy in her heart and a very rational wariness based on their previous encounter. The vigilante tried to walk again, and again nearly fell; his face wrenched up and he let out a pained hiss. At that, sympathy won out over rationality. Wendy edged toward him with her baseball bat in hand, and when she was close enough, held it out to him.

"Hey, uh... here. It's not exactly medically sanctioned, but maybe you could use this like a cane?"

"Oh... good idea, thank you!" He broke into a grin, and Wendy shivered; somehow he was far scarier when his eyes were bright and cheerful. "Terribly sorry for how I treated you last time, by the way. I really wasn't myself."

"Uh-huh?" While the vigilante tested out the makeshift cane, Wendy sat down on her bed, arms crossed. "And who are you, anyway?"

"I'm Ryan... or at least I think I still am." His smile faltered, and he looked away, anxiously running a hand through his hair. It was starting to come unpinned, and his hat was askew; evidently he'd been through a lot in the few hours it had been since their first encounter. "It's been... strange, lately. I don't think I'm entirely human anymore, if I ever was. But I came back here because there's something I want to understand."

"You want to know why I ghosted your friend?" It was just a guess, but Ryan nodded; Wendy smiled privately to herself for having figured it out. "Alright, I can tell you..."

She uncrossed her arms and leaned back on her bed, thinking back to the disastrous date she'd gone on several months prior. It was a story she'd recited many times to friends, relatives, other first dates as sort of a half-joking warning ("So, as long as you don't blow it as much as that guy did, we should be good...") and the more she told it, the more warped and exaggerated it became within her memory. But when she really thought back on it now, it hadn't been so disastrous at all--pretty damn awkward, sure, but not even close to the worst date she'd been on.

"Kevin actually seemed really sweet," she recalled, smiling despite herself at the memory of his big dorky grin. "I would have gone on a second date with him. But then, first thing the next morning, I read in the news that some guy got arrested right outside the restaurant while we were on our date. And the criminal's name? Neil. Same name as the 'friend' Kevin had said was helping him out." She shrugged, lips twisting into a frown. "I just got kinda freaked out, you know? Like, 'oh geez, did I go on a date with a drug dealer or serial killer or something?' Of course it probably wasn't anything that serious, and pretending to be dead was probably an overreaction, but... well, what's done is done."

Wendy was so caught up in her own memories as she explained all this that she wasn't really observing Ryan's reactions. Once she concluded her story, she glanced over to find him sitting on the floor with his legs tucked up awkwardly beneath him, the baseball bat in his lap; he was staring at the floor, expression unreadable. He stayed like that for a long moment, not seeming to notice that Wendy had stopped talking, until she cleared her throat. Then he jumped to attention, eyes flashing like those of a woodland cryptid in headlights.

"Ah! Yes, of course... well, I still don't entirely understand, but I think I resent you less now." Ryan tilted his head and shot her another shiver-inducing grin. (Whether it was supposed to be threatening or not, she had no idea.) "And you're right; I almost forgot--we're all criminals too, Neil and probably even Kevin and especially myself! So how can I be a vigilante?" He answered his own rhetorical question with a shake of his head, manic grin softening into a melancholy smile. "It's ridiculous. I've been so foolish."

With that, his body began to ripple, losing a little of its solidity. But before he could break apart and dissolve through the floorboards like last time, a chirpy little beep-beep-beedle-beep noise rang out. Ryan's eyebrows shot up, and he glanced down at an accessory around his wrist... Wait, is that one of those communicator watches like the one Kevin had?

If it was, Ryan wasn't quick to answer it. He simply stared, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, at the beeping device in silence. Although she knew even less about Ryan than she knew about his apparently only slightly more normal friends, and she didn't normally care to get too involved in the personal affairs of strangers, he was still in the middle of Wendy's bedroom. And the longer that little jingle repeated, the more annoying it got. So she cleared her throat again and asked, in as polite a tone as she could manage given the circumstances,

"So, are you gonna answer that, or what?"

*

It was a stupid, pointless idea. Not an idea at all, really. Just the last scraps of... not even hope, that was pretty much deplenished at the moment, but effort. The effort not to let everything fall apart even further than it already had.

Kevin had woken with a throbbing pain throughout pretty much his whole body. Judging by the crushing weight pressing down on his torso, he was lucky to have woken up at all. The only parts of him not pinned down were his head and right arm, and even those hurt to move, though at least the spinning in his head put some degree of separation between himself and his broken body. Forget about trying to wriggle free when it hurt just to breathe.

So there he was, stuck, the shelf slowly crushing the air out of him, and Neil was gone. Where to, he didn't know. When he craned his neck he could see the empty bed frame, and the ropes broken and discarded at the foot of it. The bible he'd gotten from Ryan's house was facedown beside the tipped-over end table, next to a crushed and twisted lump of metal and plastic that he was horrified to recognize as his beloved proton pack. So wherever Neil was now, he must have still been cursed... or worse. And there was nothing Kevin could do about it.

Unless. Grimacing at the way his joints twinged, he raised his unpinned arm above his head. There on his wrist, perfectly intact despite everything he'd been through, was his communicator wristwatch. In all the hubbub of that day, he'd never gotten around to mentioning them to Neil, so his friend wouldn't be wearing his. But what if...?

It was stupid. It was pointless. There was no way in hell. But it was the only thing he could do. In a display so lacking in dignity that he was grateful nobody was around to see it, Kevin used his teeth and tongue for lack of a free hand to dial in the frequency and send off a signal. The watch's screen flashed in affirmation; he let his head flop against the floor with a weary sigh. Now all he could do was wait.

When he was at Ryan's house going through his things, and he found those communicator wristwatches, he'd only found two of them. And although that could have meant a dozen different things, there was just one wild, far-fetched possibility that any last semblance of hope now rested upon: that the third watch was missing because Ryan was alive, and he was still wearing his.

He didn't expect to get a response. By the time he did, he was struggling to stay awake--funny thing, trying to breathe with fifty pounds of wood pressed directly on your chest really takes it out of you. But he snapped to attention, or the closest he could get when his head was swimming and his body was beginning to go numb from lack of circulation, the moment he heard that voice crackling through the speaker.

"H-hello? Kevin?"

The relief that coursed through his veins was so overwhelming, especially on top of everything else, that he could only laugh--only for it to quickly turn into hacking as his ribs offered a sharp jab of protest. He raised his sleeve to wipe away a streak of blood that dribbled from his lips before speaking into the watch.

"Ryan. Where are you?" He regretted wasting time with that question the moment he asked it; he could tell from the way his organs felt like they were curling in on themselves as he spoke that he didn't have the energy for a full conversation. So before Ryan could stammer out a proper response, Kevin continued: "Neil is in trouble. You've gotta help him."

"What?" The shrill uptick of anxiety in Ryan's voice was palpable, and even just hearing that voice in and of itself stirred up a whole miasma of feelings that there was no time to properly react to. "What's going on? Are you okay? You sound--"

"I'm fine," Kevin lied through gritted teeth. "And... I don't know exactly where Neil is, but I know he's in trouble." A choking mix of emotions and his own blood swelled in his throat as his slowly blurring gaze wandered to the facedown bible. "I've tried to do some stuff today that I couldn't do without you. I-- we need you, Ryan. So, please... help."

With that final plea, something broke within him like a dam that he hadn't even realized was cracking. His arm flopped to the ground, wrist landing near his ear, where the communicator watch kept emitting Ryan's voice as it slowly rose in pitch until he was almost shouting. But even as his friend called frantically out to him, Kevin found it harder to make out the words. He groaned, letting his head loll to the side and his eyes fall shut. The last sensation he was aware of as darkness closed around him was that there was something wet on his face.

*

"Kevin, are you still there? Hello? Kevin!"

He wasn't responding. Why wouldn't he be responding, if the situation was so urgent? Maybe because he couldn't respond. Because he was--

"What are you going to do?" Wendy's voice cut into the swirl of panic Ryan was rapidly descending into. She hovered over his shoulder, peering down at the watch with wide, anxious eyes. The watch's screen had gone dark. No signal. Yes, indeed, what to do?

"What else? I have to save Neil."

If Kevin didn't know where Neil was, then there was no way that Ryan should have been able to instantly find him. But when he closed his eyes and let his vigilante instincts take over, he found that he didn't have to know where someone was. Whatever dark magic was infused in him now, letting him exist in this not-quite-human state even after what should by all accounts have been his death, it was hardwired for vengeance. And saving Neil meant exacting vigilante justice on whoever or whatever was harming him. With that in mind, the vigilante dissolved in a flurry of blood-tinted ice and reformed seconds later in the place it somehow knew it needed to be.

The first thing Ryan noticed when he appeared on the rooftop was the storm brewing overhead. He raised his eyebrows at that; earlier that day there hadn't been a cloud in the sky--and for that matter, when he looked around, it appeared that most of the sky was still perfectly clear, with the storm clouds being localized around this building. The second thing he noticed, upon peering over the edge of the roof, was that he wasn't on just any rooftop, but a skyscraper that towered above every other building in the vicinity. Lastly, he noticed a flagpole at the far corner of the rooftop, several feet away from him. And that was when his gaze fell upon Neil.

Neil was laughing as he swayed back and forth, clad in a brightly patterned jacket that wasn't his usual style at all, his arms and legs wrapped tight around the tall metal pole. Above him, the dark clouds lit up in a flash, followed almost instantly by a rumble of thunder. Although these particular stormclouds didn't come with rain, Ryan shivered. An incredulous exclamation was on the tip of his tongue (What on earth are you doing, stop it, you'll be killed!) when Neil locked eyes with Ryan, and he realized with a jolt of horror that this wasn't Neil at all--his body, yes, but someone or something else was controlling it. His mouth was stretched into a grin far wider than what a human face could normally achieve, and rather than their usual brown, his eyes glowed a sickly shade of green.

"Why, if it isn't my dear friend Ryan!" Neil--or whatever was piloting him--called, raising one arm off the pole in an exaggerated wave. "Oh boy, the guy I got this body from is sure surprised to see you alive! And as much as I'd love to send you plummeting off the edge of this building, I did promise not to hurt anyone else, so..." He waved his hand in a circle, unnaturally glowing eyes crinkling with amusement. "How about instead I pull you in a little closer so you can get a nice good look when your friend's body fries?"

With that, a sudden gust of wind blew into Ryan from behind, sending him stumbling forward. When he attempted to regain his footing, his broken spine betrayed him once again and he flopped to the ground with an undignified oof just a few feet away from the base of the flagpole. Grimacing, he pushed himself up and crawled the remaining short distance to grab Neil's ankle. As he did so, he noticed there was a bloodstained hole in his friend's shoe, and that his pant leg was slightly damp and already bore a few singe marks. Between that and whatever had happened to Kevin... he shuddered at the thought of what his friends had gone through in his absence.

"Nice try, vigilante," the thing in Neil's body jeered. "But I've gotta say, you don't pose much of a threat since I broke your spine."

He stomped his other foot down on Ryan's hand; Ryan yelped and instinctively released his grip. And at the very instant he let go, in such perfectly unlucky timing that only a supernatural entity could orchestrate, the stormclouds above them opened up with a searing, crackling, blindingly bright lighting strike.

Neil tilted his head back and laughed at the top of his lungs as countless volts of electricity tore through him. That horrendous laughter drowned out Ryan's screams of protest, not that there was anything he could do anyway in his current state, when he couldn't so much as get to his feet. All he could do was lay there and gape in horror as Neil's body shuddered and his flesh began to sizzle and burn.

Though it felt like an eternity of torture, the lightning strike couldn't have lasted for more than a few seconds. When it ended, Neil dropped like a ragdoll into Ryan's arms. Ryan, too stricken to even check for a pulse, simply stared blankly into his friend's glazed-over eyes. Then Neil blinked, and his eyes were glowing green again, and he laughed, the sound rougher now that it was being produced by a charred set of lungs.

"Ah-ha-ha-ha! I wasn't expecting this body to survive that! Can you believe Neil is still kicking in here?" He tapped a finger against his head, then sat up with a playful kick of his legs. "...Or is he? It would be just like a demon to lie, wouldn't it?" He grabbed Ryan's chin with his burnt and blackened fingernails and forcefully tilted his head up so their gazes met. "You can't tell, can you, vigilante? So, how hard are you willing to throw your broken body around to try and save someone who might already be toast? Maybe you should just give up and go on with your day, hmm?"

While the demon taunted him, Ryan's mind raced to concoct a plan. Some miraculous last-minute solution that would fix everything... Neil would be able to think of one. Perhaps he already had. But that wouldn't do them any good when Neil was trapped and helpless within his own mind. If this really was a demon, and a powerful one at that, the only thing that might work was an impromptu exorcism.

"Crux sacra sit mihi lux! Nunquam draco sit mihi dux! Vade retro Satana!" Reciting the passage from memory as rapidly as he could without tripping over his tongue, Ryan grabbed Neil by the wrists and held him tight while he hissed and tried to jerk away. "Nunquamsuade mihi vana! Sunt mala quae libas. Ipse venena bibas!"

An ungodly noise somewhere between a shriek and a roar erupted from Neil as he tossed his head back and convulsed. It was far too visually similar for comfort to his electrocution less than a minute prior, and Ryan wondered if the demon was doing it that way on purpose in an attempt to scare him into stopping. If so, it wouldn't work. Even if this process was as painful for Neil as it was for the demon possessing him, it had to be done.

Sure enough, as the final line of the chant echoed across the rooftop, Neil shuddered and slumped to the ground next to Ryan. When their gazes met this time, the demonic glow was gone, but Neil was breathing fast and shallow and his eyes were wide with lingering terror.

"Ryan," he whispered. "You're... alive."

"I think so," he replied with a tentative smile. "It's all a little confusing. But we're going to be okay now, Neil."

However, no sooner had those words left his mouth than Neil stiffened up again, eyes momentarily flashing green. "No," he gasped, squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head as if to dispel the demon's grasp. "Not yet. Still gotta... get rid of it..." He grabbed Ryan's hands and held them desperately tight, like a scared child clinging to their parent or older sibling. His eyes flashed once more, and this time when the glow faded, his face bore a strained smile. "I've got an idea. Ryan, don't freak out."

And with that, before Ryan could process what was happening and reach out to stop him, Neil sprung to his feet and took a running leap off the edge of the building.

*

For a while now, Neil had been having unusually vivid dreams. They weren't always nightmares, but they often were. Dreams about different worlds, different realities, different lives. Ones where him and Kevin and Ryan weren't all friends. Or worse, ones where they still were, but that wasn't enough to save them. One of those recent dreams, which began as an exciting fantasy only to devolve into a nightmare, was about some kind of flying vehicle. Ever since having that dream, Neil had made two vows to himself. Firstly, that as soon as he gathered the funds to afford it, he'd go back to school and complete his aeronautical engineering degree. Secondly, to always carry a parachute, just in case.

But the demon possessing him had no way of knowing that, now did it? And it wouldn't want to still be trapped inside a host body that was splattered all over the pavement. That was what Neil was banking on, at least. Otherwise he might really be in trouble.

As he fell, a stinging sensation rippled through his body. He shuddered, yet there was a smile on his face--no longer a grin stretched unnaturally wide, but an expression of his own volition--and his heart pounded not with terror but with exhilaration and boundless relief. Sure enough, the demon leapt forth from him and departed in a swirl of green smoke. And with it gone, he wasted no time in engaging the parachute--just in time to slow his acceleration enough that the fall wouldn't kill him.

Admittedly, he didn't exactly come down gracefully. He landed in a tangle of limbs and fabric that he had to shrug off the borrowed jacket, parachute and all, in order to escape, and the landing was just rough enough to deliver a painful reminder of the electrical burns covering the better part of his body. Still, Neil couldn't stop grinning as he gingerly picked himself up and dusted himself off. He was alive and no longer possessed; that was a win in his book.

When he craned his neck to look up at the roof, he thought he saw Ryan still sitting there. Neil grimaced as he recalled what the demon had said about breaking Ryan's back; hopefully that injury was undone with the demon being vanquished, but since Neil's injuries were still there, maybe that wasn't so. Either way, he couldn't just leave his friend up there alone.

As quickly as he could run with a bullet wound in his foot, he entered the building and took the closest elevator to the rooftop. But by the time the elevator chimed and its doors slid open, the rooftop was abandoned, with no sign of Ryan save for an abandoned hat, cape, and gloves, and a slowly fading dark red stain.

*

If Kevin hadn't already been surprised to wake up alive the first time, he sure as hell was now. The only reason he knew he was alive at all was the deep, persistent ache that wracked practically his entire body. That, and the warmth of the hand laid atop his own.

Forcing his eyes open with a pained groan, he turned his head to see the man sitting at his bedside. Ryan squeezed his hand and flashed him a sad smile when their eyes met. His vigilante costume was gone, traded for a simple dress shirt and tie, and his hair fell unpinned around his visibly tired face; the chair he sat in, upon closer inspection, was an old-fashioned wheelchair.

With some effort, Kevin pushed himself into a sitting position. Looking around, he found that he was laying on the couch in the living room with his chest bandaged. How Ryan had managed to pull him out from beneath the bookcase, he had no idea, but he sure wasn't going to complain about it.

"Ryan, you... you're hurt?" It was a stupid question--why else would he be in a wheelchair? "Did the demon...?"

"It's gone now," Ryan responded. "But..." His gaze lowered, and he dropped his hands into his lap to fidget with the blanket draped over his legs. "It was a costly victory, I'm afraid. In order to defeat the demon, Neil--"

His tearful speech was interrupted by the distant bang of the front door being thrown open.

"Geez, you could've told me you were going straight home!" Neil's indignant voice rang out down the hall. "I wandered all over town looking for you."

Ryan's head snapped up, and he and Kevin turned in unison to see their friend running toward them with a slightly crooked gait. With a cry of joyous disbelief, Ryan opened his arms, and Neil tackled him in an embrace that nearly sent him toppling over; Kevin had to lean forward to grab the back of Ryan's chair to keep him upright as he and Neil clung to each other.

"Neil, you're alive! I-I thought..."

"It's okay, Ryan," said Neil. Then, pulling back and glancing at Kevin with a melancholy smile: "I think we're all going to be okay."

*

"So, what do you think?"

As the ending credits rolled on their latest webisode, Neil and Kevin turned to face Ryan with matching expectant grins.

"Well..." Ryan drummed his fingers against the keys of the laptop and tried to think of something positive to say. "The costumes you used were a lot more fashionable than usual--wait, hold on. Weren't those my clothes?"

They were in Kevin's truck parked outside the studio's headquarters, with Neil in the passenger seat and Ryan in the back. It had taken a little over a week for them to recover to the point where they could comfortably climb inside a vehicle, let alone Kevin being able to actually drive, and the studio had already sent them several notes warning them that their pay would be docked for submitting their webisode behind schedule.

"Ah, yeah, sorry about that," Kevin muttered, rubbing the back of his neck.

"To be fair, if he hadn't broken into your house and stolen a bunch of stuff from you, he couldn't have called you on your communicator watch," Neil interjected cheerfully. "Or tried to do an exorcism... but I guess that didn't really work out for him anyway."

"Hey, c'mon, it wasn't stealing!" Kevin gave Neil a gentle shove, prompting him to briefly wince but laugh anyway. "If we'd known you were still alive, we wouldn't have taken your stuff, Ryan, honest."

"Ah, I'll have to remember that for next time," Ryan quipped. He closed the laptop and handed it back to Neil, who tucked it away inside an oversized shoulder bag. "Well, that may not have been the best webisode we've made, but I can tell you two did your best."

"Yeah, it'll be way better once we get back to making them as a trio," Neil said.

It was still amazing to Ryan that his friends were so quick to accept him back after all he'd done. If anything, it made him feel worse about his prolonged absence, because he knew now that he could have come back at any point and they would have been glad to have him. It was easy to fall into regret when thinking of all that had gone wrong, and all that could easily have gone even worse. But the fact was, they were together again now--altered by what they'd gone through, and not entirely for the better, but still themselves.

And despite it all, the preceding events and the possibility that another horrible thing could happen to them in the future, he found himself agreeing with Neil's hopeful statement.

"Indeed..." Ryan reached out and took Neil and Kevin's hands in his own. They smiled back at him with the same residual traces of relief in their eyes that Ryan had felt every so often over the past week--relief that they were still there to smile at each other. "Gentlemen, I look forward to working with you again."

¤--END--¤

[softjeon]

Falling for you | Pt. 2

• Pairing: Jimin x Namjoon • Genre: fluff, nsfw-content | Rating: Mature | Christmas!AU / Curse!AU • Words: 12k | AO3 • Disclaimer: mentioning of blood, accidents, alcohol

written with @cassiavioletblue​

↳  Everyone told him that love was the highest aim, that it was what completes you and made you happy…but he was never lucky like that. It just took a piece of him and left scars on his heart every time. He was done with that. He had given up on love a long time ago so he should stick to it or else not only he would be affected.

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~

His eyes were narrowed as he watched him with intent.

“You shouldn’t mess with the occult.�� He didn’t even ask, before taking a seat right in front of the stranger, teacup still in hand, while he let his fingers drum against the porcelain in a melodic rhythm. Leaning his head aside, a smile pulled at the corner of his lips. “It usually backfires when you’re a mere human.”

Namjoon startled when the stranger sat down at his table, talking before Namjoon even had time to realize that the other was talking to him. He quickly shut the book, placing it cover down on the table so the other couldn’t read the title even though the vague comment suggested that he already knew what kind of book Namjoon was reading.

“Ah, I’m just reading this for fun, of course I don’t believe in it!” His cheeks heated and he felt strangely caught in the act even though he didn’t need to explain himself to some stranger. 

“Sure, you don’t. That’s what all of them say and then they regret calling for a demon.” He leaned a little more over the table, eyeing the man a little more thoroughly. He was tall, handsome, dark hair falling into his face and he wondered what a man like him could want. “Will you tell me yourself or do I need to tickle it out of you?” Yoongi teased the man, taking another sip from his tea. “Maybe I can help with what you’re looking for.” 

“Demon? I’d never… they don’t exist! And even if why would I risk something like that!” How he wished there were a better solution, a real one that didn’t have him grasping at straws. His life was falling apart, slowly but surely and if he didn’t do something then he would be bankrupt and lost by the end of the months. There was nothing left to do but worse of all...he was alone. He was desperately, utterly alone. The pain seared through him again at the thought of his boyfriend - ex-boyfriend - who had left him there, in the hallway, giving back the ring they had worn for months. Of course, Namjoon hadn’t really thought that they would marry after he had given him that ring, it was just a symbol, just a tiny gesture that he loved him, with all his heart, that he wanted to stay with him, bind his live to him… he stopped his thoughts before the well-known feeling of his throat constricting and his eyes burning would take over and he would started to cry in front of that stranger that had decided coming up to him and talking nonsense was a good idea.

“You know lying to me won’t help when I see right through you. You’re hurt.” Yoongi pinpointed right away, “Awfully hurt and you’re desperate enough to look for an out. I guess nothing else helped. No one else there to share money. So…” He clicked his tongue, leaning his chin on his hands that he folded together, gazing into Namjoon’s eyes. “How can a witch like me help you.”

“Okay, that’s enough, I won’t let you talk to me like th…” His voice died out, his anger fading until it only left a mixture of wariness and hope. “Did you say witch? What do you mean by that? Are you telling me you’re going to read the cards for me? Or wave some pendulum and everything will get better?” He didn't dare to ask the other if he had actual magic powers but anything in him wanted to believe that exactly that was the case that the strange man in front of him could wipe away his pain and sorrow by flicking a magic wand.

“I could do that, yeah...” Yoongi hummed, “But I don’t exactly think you were looking for that so… tell me, what is it I can help you with…” His eyes never left Namjoon’s who suddenly had gotten a glint in them that told Yoongi that he had found a desperate human, ready to give everything.

“Okay, let’s just pretend for a second that you could help me - what exactly would you do? I don’t think you would lend me money and fix my problems for free. What would be in it for you?” He fixated the other who did not look like he was some magical being. His hair had an unnatural color, and he wore strange clothes and jewelry but with a bit of hair day and a shopping trip at hot topic anyone could make themselves look like that.

“That actually depends on what you need. Every spell, every deal or potion is different, just as individual as the one asking for it. So, you need to be clear of what you want. The more I know, the more I can help you.” He put his tea back down, pursing his lips as he noticed it being empty already. Hovering a finger over the empty cup, Yoongi began to swirl it around and slowly with every swirl the tea filled itself up again. “And of course, nothing is for free. There’s always a crux of the matter, but it depends if you’re willing to pay the price.”

“Oh, of course, I should have thought of that, so how much is it if..” Yoongi Swirled his fingers and Namjoon forgot what he had wanted to say. His mind went totally blank when he saw the cup filing itself. His first instinct was that this was a trick, that this was some scam to get people’s money but there was something in that stranger's face, a spark in his eyes that told him everything he needed to know. This was magic! The real deal. Everything he had ever dared to hope for was suddenly within reach. Wild, unadulterated joy filled his heart and he let himself imagine how it would feel to be free of that pain, free of his sorrows, free of everything that had weighted him down these last few weeks and made him feel like there was a noose around his neck pulling tighter and tighter. “I want you to fix my life!” He whispered breathlessly, “I want you to fix everything - and I’ll pay whatever it costs.”

“Everything? Oh,” Yoongi chuckled, “I can’t fix everything. There’s always a loss, so you have to be detailed with me. Do you want money? Luck? Love? What is it exactly that you’re seeking?” Tipping his chin, he studied Namjoon again, “I told you, I need to know more…so spill it, human.”

Namjoon shook his head. “Not love. I’m done with that. Everyone tells you that love is the highest aim, that it’s what completes you and makes you happy… but I was never lucky like that. It just took a piece of me and left scars on my heart every time. And after the last time... I’m just finished. I want to concentrate on myself for once. My rent for next month is due next week and I haven’t even paid it for this one simply because I don’t have any! I will lose the apartment if I don’t get some money soon, because I’ve ignored a letter too many about how ‘this is the last warning’. I have no food left, no friends or family to help because I moved here for my partner and put all my time and energy in the relationship. I’ve gotten none of the jobs I applied for and to be honest I don’t even want to get them because it’s not what I want to do with my life. I have ideas, lots of them, but neither the contacts nor the money to do anything about it. So, I don’t know what exactly it would take to do something about it but if your magic can help then I’m all up for it.”

A smirk appeared on Yoongi’s lips. “Oh, that makes it a lot easier. Fortune, money, knowledge and a little bit of luck is that I can give to you just for one little thing in return.” He licked the remains of tea off his spoon and took his time, before finishing his sentence. “Everyone you love, you truly deeply love, will get hurt. One way or another. But if you’re not up for love anymore, you shouldn’t care about that little, small detail. It shouldn’t bother you.” Yoongi got up, pushing the chair back in place, stretching himself just a little before he walked ahead. He stopped, peeking over his shoulder. “What do you say, Kim Namjoon. Do we have a deal?” 

Namjoon furrowed his brows. “That’s the strangest deal I’ve ever heard of! Shouldn’t you want like… a piece of my soul or my first born or something like that? I’m not in love with anyone right now and if it’s up to me I won’t fall in love ever again. Because I’m sick of ending up lost and betrayed and hurting every time. So even if I might fall in love against my will I dont mind if its them hurting for once. We have a deal, witch!” He held out his hand and the other gripped it with his delicate hand. Yoongi’s grip was strong and relentless and Namjoon swallowed hard when a rush of heat went through his palm, travelling up his arm. For a second fear crept up inside of him as he wondered if he’d made the wrong decision, but he calmed down quickly. This was the best deal he had ever made! He would get what he wanted - without having to pay anything in return. Nothing that really counted for him anyways…

~

…

Jimin blew a string of hair out of his face, looking down at the small mountain of laundry he had collected and was trying to push into the washing machine. He was actually kind of proud how he was holding up so far and Namjoon had shown himself as a kindhearted man - at least when he was around. Usually when Jimin was in his apartment the other was either out working or on his phone, locking himself in his office again. He pushed the button, smiling when the machine began to swirl the dirty laundry and so he turned around with a satisfied sigh.

Jimin yawned tiredly, grabbing his jacket to pull it halfway over his frame when he saw Namjoon's back. The other was still wearing his suit, all dressed up as he usually did. It was no surprise seeing him like that and Jimin wondered if he'd ever seen Namjoon wear anything else but suits at home. The first thing he did was switching his jeans for sweatpants the moment he was home. Did Namjoon sleep in a suit as well?

"Wait for me, please!" He called out, quickening his steps.

Quickly Namjoon reached out to stop the door from closing. “Oh, I didn't know that you were here.” He had needed to get something from his office and because it had been so quiet, and the lights went on and off automatically he had thought that he was here alone. “Did you finish for today?” He asked the younger with a polite smile.

“I was in the laundry room.” Jimin nodded, mimicking his smile as he came to a halt right next to Namjoon. The other was way taller and broader than him and now that he stood right by his side it was even more evident how small he was. “But I’m finished now, so i’m heading home.” His eyes wandered down to where the shirt was straining against Namjoon’s chest. “And you? Are you off to get some drinks...with friends or…?” He didn’t really finish his question, not really sure if Namjoon liked personal questions - but Jimin was actually curious. He hadn’t seen any hints of a lover, nor really any friends. 

“Oh, I’m not finished yet I just needed some papers. “ He couldn’t remember the last time he went out for drinks for fun. He went occasionally with business partners or to discuss ideas if someone preferred to meet in such a location but even then did he only drink what he had to so that his head would be clear enough to still talk business. Work had become his life and he wouldn’t have it any other way! Just sometimes on very rare occasions (like now) could he feel a dull ache in his chest as if he might be missing out on something. However, he knew that he wasn’t.

This was the better version of his life.

Jimin chuckled, “You’re really a workaholic, aren’t you? It’s half past ten and you’re on your way to your office.” He shook his head in amusement. “Hayoung told me how much you’re working but…you’re like…always working… I should kidnap you and take you to a bar.” Jimin winked teasingly at the other, giggling softly as he looked up at the numbers changing on the board showing which level they were.

“Honestly, I’d rather spend my time doing something important than wasting it on small talk and alcohol.” He answered curtly. “One hour at the office can bring me closer to my goals but one hour out drinking can only bring me headaches and a loss of money.”

“Oh, sure, yeah…” Jimin bit his lip, feeling his cheeks blush again. He felt stupid for teasing, for trying to be quirky and ask Namjoon something so personal, when the other so obviously didn’t want to talk to him. “I guess that’s how you’ve got all of this. You seem really focused and that’s good. I’m sorry for my inconsiderate question. I guess, I just wanted to tease a smile from you.”

Namjoon was honestly surprised. “Why would you want that?” Before he could think about Jimin’ strange statement there was a small jolt, and the elevator came to a halt. Automatically Namjoon reached out to open the door when he saw the number that indicated that they hadn’t arrived at their destination yet. It flickered - and then the lights went out.

Jimin let out a scream, jumping aside and right against Namjoon who he couldn’t see in the dark. He was halfway stumbling, falling into Namjoons arms and out of instinct, his fingers digged deep into his arm, holding onto the only thing that was close enough in the dark. The darkness only lasted a second before the lights were back up.

“That’s the emergency generator. There must have been an issue with the electricity.” He swallowed hard, trying to concentrate on anything but Jimin’s body pressed against his. The younger was holding onto him for dear life as if he was afraid the elevator might fall at any second. “We’re safe, nothing will happen. It’s just a technical thing, don’t worry.” His arm started to hurt from how tightly Jimin gripped it, but he didn’t mention it.

Jimin loosened his hold but didn’t let go entirely. “W-what do you mean? We’re stuck?” He sucked in a sharp breath, trying to keep control over his breathing but he failed miserably. Jimin’s eyes flickered to the buttons. “Can we call someone? Oh god…” The panic began to settle in. 

“Jimin?” He could feel the boy starting to tremble and so he took both of Jimin’s hands in his, trying to make the other focus on him instead of his panic. “There is no need to be afraid. I have an automatic security system; someone has already been notified that we’re stuck in here. It might take them a little while to arrive and I’m sure you can think of a better way to spend your free time, but you don’t have to be afraid, really. Why don’t we talk about something nice until they arrive? Would that make you feel better?”

“Y-yes?” Jimin looked up, trying to hide his nervousness behind a strained smile. “I’m sorry…I’m still holding onto you, right.” He wanted to pull his hands away, but Namjoon took them in his and Jimin held his breath. It felt as if the air was getting thinner and the metal box seemed to get only smaller, but his eyes were only on Namjoon. He trusted him. “Something nice, please…” Jimin whispered, “Y-you start.”

Namjoon blinked. His mind was empty. Something nice… something Jimin might enjoy… why couldn’t he think of something outside of work? When Jimin started to worry his lip and look all panicked again he blurted out the first thing that came to his mind. “I don’t like mint ice cream because I think it’s the worst combination of flavors ever combined, and mint rather belongs in toothpaste than into sweets.”

Jimin just blinked at Namjoon for a moment, before snorting, “That’s…not something nice, Namjoon.” He shook his head fondly, breathing felt a little easier now. “I love sunflowers. Especially wild ones when they grow as tall as…as you.” Jimin took a deep breath, slowly breathing out again. 

“Oh, really? I actually know a field about half an hour from here. They don’t all grow that tall because it’s a field where you can buy and cut them but if you visit there late the ones that are left will be the tallest.” He could easily picture it, him and Jimin driving there and taking a walk between the flowers. It would be a sunny day and maybe they could get dinner after...

A sudden jolt of the elevator made Jimin forget everything and wrap his arms around Namjoon without any second thought. Squeezing his eyes shut, he held onto him for dear life, thinking that the elevator was finally free falling – but it didn’t move. Instead, he could feel his knees giving in, wobbling like jelly as he tried to find his grounding again. 

“Maybe we should sit down while we wait?” Namjoon’s throat felt a little dry but he knew he needed to do something before his body reacted to the way Jimin was pressed up against him. He was embarrassingly responsive when it came to soft skin and the hard planes of muscle Jimin combined.

“O-okay,” Jimin didn’t move away, but only let Namjoon guide him down to sit, where he could still stay close by his side. “I’m sorry,” He mumbled, slowly taking his hands off Namjoon, where he had still held on to his arm like the scaredy cat he was. “Again…” Jimin sighed, leaning his head back against the cool wall. “Being locked in like that scares me…”

“There is no need to apologize. You’re doing fine!” He leaned in a little to whisper conspiratorially to him, “I’m only so calm because this has happened before. I was totally freaked out the first time, including some really embarrassing moments where I tried to open the elevator door with my bare hands or tried to open the emergency hatch above us by throwing my shoe at it. It didn’t work by the way.”

It was easier to breathe with Namjoon next to him. Something about him, his voice, and the way he leaned against him, made Jimin feel a lot safer. "It never happened to me before. I have to walk up the fifth floor to my apartment every time." Jimin spoke quietly, relaxing a little more, his shoulder leaning against Namjoons. He could feel the warmth come from him and Jimin had to fight the urge to lean in just a little more. " Can I tell you a secret?" Jimin turned to look at Namjoon, a little smile pulling at his lips, "Dont take it the wrong way, please. I kind of imagined you... differently."

Namjoon hummed in acknowledgement. That’s where the other got his firm ass from, walking all those stairs at least twice every day. It was cozy like this, with Jimin leaning against him as if they were friends. Namjoon wished they were. Or not ...friends, more than that…

He chuckled at the other’s confession. “How did you expect me to be then? Older? Wearing fancy shoes and lots of rings every day?” People were mostly surprised by his age, that’s why he was working so hard. To make up for it. And for the way he had gotten here.

"No, I knew you were kind and.... very structured. Hayoung told me a lot about you." There was a light blush on Jimin’s cheeks, when he thought of the many times Hayoung had tried to tell him how amazing the other was, or how cute they would be together. Jimin had smiled, waving it off as a daydream. No one like Namjoon would be interested in someone normal like him. And still, the moment she had asked for his help to take over for her vacation Jimin hadn't even hesitated. Not for the money per se, but because he was curious. "I didn't think you'd be so..." Jimin bit his lip, "There's only Jungkook and Hayoung... I've never seen anyone else around you. You're always by yourself. I never see you wear sweatpants or anything else but a suit. You're always working, Namjoon. Don't you feel lonely sometimes? What about Christmas? Will you visit your family? " 

Namjoon cocked his head. “So, what you are saying is that you think I’m lonely and unable to relax? And you also don’t like my suits?” He gave the younger an amused look, “Do you really think it’s smart to insult your boss while you’re locked in with him?” He had hoped that Jimin would just let it go but the other’s worried gaze didn’t change and so he sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know what I’m doing on Christmas, actually. We will have an office party a few days prior if you want to come. The food is delicious and Jungkookie always chooses the best decoration.” Or so he had heard.

“No, I didn’t mean it like that...I was just wondering about...you...your life,” Jimin said, turning a little more towards Namjoon. “It’s probably not smart either to wonder about if your boss is happy.” He let his gaze linger on him a little longer, feeling his own heartbeat quicken. “Are you inviting me to a party, Mr. Kim?” Jimin winked teasingly, nudging Namjoon’s side. “If you’ll be there, then I’ll come if you want me to. Will there be mulled wine?” 

“Oh, uhm, yes, of course, as an employee of mine you should totally be there. “Hopefully, he could get to Jungkook before the other told Jimin that he normally never went to the Christmas parties. “Yeah, I will be there.” For Jimin he would put up with Christmas music and fairy lights and glitter and everything else. It couldn’t hurt to talk to him and eat nice food, right? “I’m positive that there will be mulled wine but I can make sure to order some extra so you will definitely get some.”

“I’m just a substitute. That’s not really an employee right? Also, I’m working for you personally, not your office. I’ll be gone after Christmas again and maybe, except for my flowers you’ll have to miss me then.” Jimin laughed softly, liking how easy they were talking. “A Christmas party sounds nice, though you’ll be the only one I know then. I hope you know that means you have to show me around. I’m entirely dependent on you.” He leaned a little more into Namjoon. “Will you let me invite you in return?”

“You’ll get along quickly with the others and you’ve seen Jungkook. I think he’s around your age so you two should get along nicely. However, if there’s really no one that you can talk to I promise I’ll make your stay worthwhile and stick by your side, personally. Deal?” His breath hitched when Jimin talked about inviting him in return. Inside of the building or even under the pretense of a company celebration he could function perfectly but outside, with only Jimin and him and no more pretense? Could he do that? “What... what kind of invitation are we talking about?” He asked breathlessly.

“Nothing big,” Jimin shrugged his shoulders, “But I’m usually working until late afternoon on Christmas and…normally, I go home and watch some movie, make myself some dinner.” Blinking up at Namjoon, he tried to hide the shy smile. “You said you’re at home yourself, right? It’s better not to be alone on Christmas. I’m a pretty good cook.”

“You want to invite me into your home on Christmas and cook for me because …I said I don’t have plans myself?” He was torn between saying yes immediately because he absolutely wanted to be with Jimin on Christmas and have a nice dinner - but he was also scared. Utterly, horribly scared. He hadn’t done this ‘dating’ thing in forever and there was also that thing with the price of his ‘magical help’.. though that should be fine as long as he didn’t fall in love, right? He could like Jimin all he wanted as long as he didn’t lose his heart they would both be fine. “If you really want to spend that night with your boss instead of… wait, so you don’t have any family either that you’ll visit? Please tell me you don’t stay behind to cook for your boss out of pity while your family all meet somewhere else!”

“Actually, I would have invited myself over to your apartment.” Jimin grinned, “My oven isn’t really in the best shape…it takes ages and…I don’t think you’d like my middle class apartment. It’s not really as pretty as yours, though…” He proudly pointed one finger, “I own a lamp designed by you. I got it from a yard sale.” Jimin reached out for Namjoon, laying his hand on his thigh to calm him. “I’m just as alone as you on Christmas night. And you can’t really call yourself my boss anymore on Christmas anyways. We can make a mess for Hayoung to clean then.”

“That might actually be a better idea, there’s lots of space and we could use some of the kitchen utensils that have rested in their drawers since I moved in. They’ll be happy to be used by someone with cooking talent.” It wasn’t like he didn’t want to cook it was just that after a long day at work he wanted something quick and simple - or if he didn’t have the energy to cook at all he ordered food. Jimin being in his kitchen and preparing them food was a nice thought, however he didn’t want to miss out on getting to see how Jimin lived either. “A…a yard sale?” Namjoon placed a hand over his heart as if he’d been lethally wounded. “My precious designs ending up in a yard sale, that hurts! Which one is it?” 

"I was surprised, too but I don't think they knew the value of your designs. I paid two bucks." He giggled when Namjoon pretended to be even more offended now. They were close, sitting next to one another and Jimin still had his hand on his thigh but it didn't feel wrong. His heart began to beat a little faster again when he pulled his hand away slowly. "I mean it though..." Jimin's voice was sounding a little more timid, as if he was afraid Namjoon could see right through his defenses. "Christmas, I mean... That you and me... It's not a big deal, right?" What the hell was he doing? Jimin felt anxious out of sudden. Did he really think Namjoon wanted to invite him somewhere and spend Christmas with him? Someone he only knew from small talk and because he cleaned his home? Jimin wanted to slap himself. Namjoon had been joking around, being a kind boss to invite him and he had to overstep all boundaries again. 

But there was something about him. Something Jimin wanted to know about. A pull, a feeling that the man in front of him was more than he showed on the surface.  

“Hm, please send me a picture of your lamp, will you?” If Jimin really liked his designs then he could get him something nice for Christmas. As a gift for dinner. There was nothing strange about bringing gifts to a Christmas dinner… 

He smiled, “I’d really like to come. Or invite you to cook for me, however you prefer, it’s your choice.”

“You do?” Jimin couldn’t keep from smiling. He liked the idea of having somewhere to go on Christmas eve. For once he wouldn’t be alone. And he wouldn’t interpret anything into this, Jimin promised himself. Just dinner between two lonely people.

There was another jolt and Jimin instinctively reached out for Namjoon, when out of a sudden the lights switched back on and the elevator seemed to move again. 

Namjoon sighed, “Ah, finally!” But he was actually a little bit disappointed that the technician had gotten the elevator to work again so quickly. He would have liked to stay a little longer in here with Jimin sitting so close besides him. Now it would go back to work for him, Jimin would go home and they would go back to being employees and employers, not two people talking about how they would spend Christmas together.

Offering his hand, Namjoon easily pulled the younger up as they finally arrived at level one. It felt awkward to suddenly part again, so Jimin hesitated when the door opened. “I…I guess, I see you tomorrow?” He took a step out of the elevator, turning around to Namjoon as if he were waiting for a definite answer, when it wasn’t really a question that needed one. So, before he could regret it and his mind could follow, Jimin leaned in and got on his tiptoes to place a chaste kiss on Namjoon’s cheeks. 

Namjoon panicked when Jimin leaned in. This was totally what he wanted - but he shouldn’t engage in something like that with Jimin! Not now and not ever! Christmas dinners were fine and talking in elevators was fine too, but he was really, really bad at not developing feelings when he got physical intimacy from someone he liked. He froze up and luckily Jimin didn’t expect him to return the gesture because he felt like he was rooted on the spot.

Jimin quickly turned around, trying to hide his blush and the embarrassment as he hurried out of the building.

“It’s working perfectly fine again…” A man behind him spoke up, wearing a technicians uniform and a hat that covered half of his face. Only when he looked up, Namjoon could see the smirk that was on the man’s lips. “Oh, that was a quick goodbye. I wanted to apologize for the delay…”

“It’s… it’s fine. Thank you for coming here.” Namjoon replied quickly, brushing down his suit to calm himself.  

Taking off his cap, the man cocked his head aside at Namjoon’s quick glance and his nervous behavior. “Ah right, it’s been...what? A couple of months? A year? I guess this uniform makes me look older.” He shivered, turning around swiftly and within a blink of an eye his beige uniform had changed. The beige turned into a black, the uniform into a long winter’s cloak when Yoongi brushed off invisible dust of his arms. “How have you been, Namjoon?” 

Namjoon visibly startled. He had been too busy to look after Jimin to actually look at the other man’s shadowed face but now that he had taken off the cap it hit Namjoon like a ton of bricks. “Yoongi?!” He gasped in surprise when the other so casually changed his appearance right in front of him. Even though he knew that the other had used his magic to help him with his company it still shocked him every time to see it’s effect for real. Some nights he had even managed to convince himself that he hadn’t made a deal with some magical being, that he had drank too much and imagined or dreamed up things - though Yoongi liked to remind him that he was not, showing up like once or twice a year to remind him that he existed.  

“What are you doing here?” At Yoongi’s frown he quickly remembered his manners. “I’m great, thanks for asking. How are you? I doubt that electricity is your new passion. Did you come here for something else then? Or did you just want to take a look at the company?” 

“No, in fact scrying is my new passion.” He said nonchalantly, as he caught up to Namjoon, “You know ‘seeing’ or like you normal boring people like to say: ‘fortune telling’. Though that sounds too funfair-ish to me. I’m sorry I haven’t been around for a long time, but seeing things and Christmas, with all those lovey-dovey people everywhere (he made a gagging sound) made me think of you.” He pointed at Namjoon’s chest, with a big grin on his face as his eyes flickered over to the shadow of the man that had quickly ran away from Namjoon and was now outside the building, waving his hand, already soaking wet from the rain, trying to get a taxi. “Who is that?” 

Namjoon was pretty sure he should be offended by that, but he didn’t want to anger someone who could probably turn him into a poodle with the flick of his wrist. “That’s no one, just someone who works for me.” He answered quickly, hoping that it would keep Yoongi from showing any more interest in Jimin. Maybe he could even crush on Jimin, just a little and it wouldn’t have any consequences if Yoongi didn’t notice. That would be really nice… 

“No one, I see…” The witch hummed, watching how Jimin hurried to seek shelter under a bus station right across the street. “Well,...it’s late, I guess. And I had an inkling that you needed me. Good thing I was there. God knows what could have happened if you’d be stuck there together any longer.” Yoongi chuckled, patting Namjoon’s shoulder, before a sigh left his lips, eyeing the raindrops that were hitting the side of the glass front heavily. Shivering heavily, Yoongi frowned as they walked up to the entrance. “The next bus is coming in an hour,” He looked down at his watch, tapping it once or twice but it didn’t seem like the pointers were moving anymore, showing a different time. “Good thing I have my broom with me!” At Namjoons wide-eyed expression, Yoongi only laughed and stepped out into the dark of the night. He turned around with a grin, waving him goodbye before walking ahead with no raindrop every touching him as it simply dodged him.   

Namjoon shook his head, trying to shake off the strange feeling that Yoongi left whenever they met. He called his driver and then hurried outside to Jimin, trying his best not to get soaked. “Jimin? Please, come back inside! You might drown out here before the bus arrives!”

Jimin startled a little, when Namjoon suddenly stood in front of him again and he immediately jumped up. He giggled, when Namjoon tried to cover him with his jacket, but failed miserably at his attempt. “I’m okay, it’s just rain I’m not made out of sugar…,” His teeth clattered and Jimin wrapped his arm around himself, a little glad that he was back in the warmth of the foyer though. “C-can I wait here? If it doesn’t bother you of course.” It was a stupid question – why else had Namjoon called him in?

“You don’t have to wait here for the bus, I called a driver, he can get you home as well. I don’t want you to catch a cold out there or wait alone in here. Do you live far from here?” They had talked about Jimin’s apartment but not where he actually lived. Not that it mattered, the driver was part of the company, he would drive an extra hour without complaint if he had to.

“Oh…,” Jimin blinked in surprise, “I…eh live a little further downtown. It’s not too far.” His clothes were dripping wet and there was a puddle forming at his feet from the rain. “But I’ll dirty your car with my clothes. I mean…I can clean it tomorrow? I don’t mind.”

“You want to clean my car?” Namjoon blinked at him. “That’s really kind of you to suggest but you don’t have to worry about it, the driver can take care of that and I have more than one car to my service.” He leaned in as if he were about to tell him a secret. “I’m not sure if you noticed but I own a really big company which makes me actually pretty rich and therefore you can relax, lay back and enjoy some luxury once in a while. How does that sound?”

“The driver,…of course,” Jimin mumbled, always forgetting how rich Namjoon actually was now that he knew a little more about him, how all of his furniture, the appearance could fool a person into thinking he had it all. “I just need a hot shower.” Jimin answered with a smile. The shiver that had run down his spine was definitely not because of the cold, but the way Namjoon had breathed against his neck. He really needed to get a hold of himself. 

“You certainly do. You’re shivering already.” Namjoon slipped out of his coat and placed it around Jimin’s shoulders. “You’ll be home in a bit.” As if on cue Namjoons phone chimed that the driver arrived and was waiting for him right outside.

Jimin smiled, pulling the coat a little more over his shoulders, feeling the warmth of Namjoon’s heat warming him up immediately. When the other turned around to open the door of the car for him, his eyes fell onto his white shirt though and Jimin almost stumbled. The shirt was almost see through, sticking against Namjoon’s chest on it’s wet parts and Jimin quickly crawled into the backseat, trying to hide the blush on his cheeks, hoping the other hadn’t seen him stare. 

Namjoon went into the car besides Jimin, informing the driver that they had to make a little detour first to get Jimin home. He turned to ask Jimin to tell the driver his address when he found the other staring at his chest. He looked down only to find that the wetness had turned his shirt into something vaguely suggestive. His face turned hot immediately as he cleared his throat in an attempt to find the right words to apologize but he couldn’t think of any so he just sat back, trying to cover himself up as well as he could by drawing his shoulders up. “Sorry.” He muttered under his breath, looking out of the window to not meet Jimi’s gaze.

“Don’t be. I’m the one who made you wet.” The words were out, before Jimin could realize how they sounded. “I mean…because of me you’re wet. The rain…you took me…I’m making it worse, don’t I?” Jimin laughed, hiding the blush of embarrassment behind his hands. Taking a deep breath, he finally found the right words, “You don’t have to feel ashamed though. You’re still looking good, Mr. Kim.” 

Namjoon choked and only calmed down when he realized that Jimin was just as embarrassed as he was. The other’s words left his skin hot under the wet shirt and he wondered when had been the last time that he had undressed in front of someone - or even wanted to do so. He felt even hotter when he looked over to Jimin again and it hit him that even though he was embarrassed right now he wouldn’t say no if he had the chance. What would Jimin look like without his clothes? Would he look as soft as his face? Did he have any scars or tattoos? He felt the urge to ask, to get to know about whatever had left its mark on Jimin’s skin, to find out how life had formed him so far. 

It was a silent drive, where both of them were a little too embarrassed to say something again. But Jimin didn’t mind. He liked Namjoon’s presence either way.

“Thank you,” He carefully put the coat down on the seat again when they arrived at his apartment complex. It was still raining but Jimin just needed to run up the stairs quick enough to be under the roof of the entrance. “It was really kind of you to take me home.” He opened the door, but before he headed out, Jimin turned back to Namjoon. “Please don’t work for too long anymore.” With a swift motion, Jimin jumped out of the car, waving Namjoon goodbye as he hurried up the stairs.

It had been an eventful evening and Jimin was glad to be home – or almost. At the top of the stairs, Jimin slipped, letting out a loud squeal when he barely caught himself as he fell forward.

Namjoon looked after Jimin to make sure he got home safely, not because he actually thought that something could harm Jimin on the short distance from the car to his door. Surprisingly Jimin managed to injure himself, nonetheless.

“Please wait here for us!” He instructed the driver and then got out of the car to hurry over to Jimin. HIs pant leg was ripped at the shin where he had fallen against the edge of the stairs and he was visibly in pain. “If you wanted my company for the evening there would have been nicer ways to ensure it,” He joked just to tease a smile out of Jimin before he helped the younger up carefully.

Jimin cursed when the pain shot through his leg again, as he got up with Namjoon’s assistance. He could barely walk right now, limping up the last stair with the other’s help. “I didn’t mean to. The stairs are slippery from the rain.” He whined, looking up at the other. “I live on the fifth floor…and there’s no elevator. I swear I didn’t do this on purpose.”

“Hm, sure, you just want me to carry you over the doorstep!” Namjoon would have enjoyed this a lot if it wasn’t for Jimin being in pain. His arm around the younger’s waist held him close and steady - and gave him a feel of Jimin’s small and firm waist. He could easily hold the other in place if he used both hands...

Namjoon swallowed drily, trying to focus on the task at hand which was a little difficult with Jimin’s body pressed against his and the breathy moans that slipped past Jimin’s lips whenever the pain hit him.

It took them a while until they were at his apartment door. Namjoon was stronger than he led on and the way he had almost carried him all the way, made Jimin forget the pain and think about all kinds of different things. “I swear I'm not that clumsy,” He mumbled, as he limped his way in, holding onto Namjoon as he tried to not put too much pressure on his shin again. “It’s like a bad luck streak at the moment.” Jimin tried to explain, sighing when he finally sat down on his couch. His clothes were still sticking to his body, his fingers trembling from the cold. “I’m so sorry about the elevator. It was probably my fault, too.” He giggled, looking up at Namjoon with a soft expression. “If I hadn’t run up to it, you would have probably been at your office already.”

Namjoon laughed. “Good to know! I’ll make sure to stay away from you when I have an important meeting to not catch your bad luck again.” He took the coat from Jimin’s shoulders to put it away and then rolled up his sleeves before he kneeled down to take a better look at Jimin’s knee. “Do you have a first aid kit or something? I could get it while you try to change into something dry and warm without falling and then we’ll meet at the couch again, okay?” He could barely refrain from asking ‘or do you want me to help you get changed’. Somehow he felt like the idea of it was lingering between them anyways.

“You better,” He winked teasingly, pushing himself up again to limp towards his bedroom. “You can look in the bathroom over there but i’m not sure if I really have anything… it’s just a scratch anyways…” Jimin closed the door behind him, easily letting himself fall into bed where he reached for his sweatsuit that he usually wore to sleep and felt like the only thing that was cozy enough to warm himself up right now. He threw his wet clothes onto a towel, wrapping it up before placing it aside to remember to wash it later before he jumped back on one leg. He was still cold, shivering heavily when Namjoon kneeled down in front of him to pull up the leg of his sweatpants. “You really don’t have to do this. Your driver…” 

Namjoon wasn’t prepared for the sight of Jimin in a fluffy sweatshirt with matching pants in a soft pastel color. He looked so soft that Namjoon wanted to pet him. He blamed his dumb reaction on his brain short circuiting because of it when Jimin was talking to him. “My driver? You want my driver to help you?” Jimin looked at him as dumbfoundedly as Namjoon felt before it clicked. “Oh! You mean because he’s waiting! Don’t worry about him, I told him to park, he’s used to it, he always waits for me during meetings and all the other places I have to go outside of the company. It’s his job. He won’t mind it.”

"You've already done so much today." Jimin wrapped his arms tightly around himself, hiding a little more in the oversized sweater. "It's just a scratch and I'll be fine tomorrow. It's just hurting a lot right now." Jimin leaned back nonetheless, letting Namjoon look at the wound that already turned blue. When Namjoon reached out for his cold leg, Jimin’s eyes widened and he immediately sat up again, grabbing Namjoon's hand. "How can you be still so warm?" Without another thought wasted, Jimin took his hand and held it against his cheek, seeking the warmth he was missing right now so badly. 

Namjoon didn’t dare to move when Jimin took his hand, frozen stiff by insecurity and the looming consequences. It all melted away when Jimin leaned into his hand like he had been waiting to be touched by him and he realized that they had long crossed the line of ‘strictly professional’. Carefully he turned his hand until he could caress Jimin’s cheek, just lightly to not spook the other and disrupt their intimacy.

"You're so warm." Jimin inched forward almost slipping from the couch as he yearned for all of his warmth. His eyes were closed, shivering from the sensation. Jimin always had a habit to be a little too touchy with people but Namjoon seemed not to mind as he let him dwell in his warmth a little longer and Jimin loved how soft his hands felt. 

Namjoon’s finger’s automatically trailed where his eyes were, and they were fixated on Jimin’s lips. The other had opened them slightly as he had sighed in contentment. Namjoon carefully brushed his thumb over Jimin’s bottom lip, feeling how soft and plush it was. 

Slowly, Jimin opened his eyes again when he felt Namjoon’s touch on his lips. He didn’t move away, but stayed right where he was, searching for the other’s gaze. Maybe there had been some truth to what Hayoung had said about Namjoon being a good match for him. “D-do you want to…stay?” Jimin asked in a breathy whisper, trying to keep as quiet as he could, as if he could interrupt this moment otherwise. “I still have some Christmas tea I haven’t tried…we could…” His own fingers wrapped around Namjoon’s wrist softly, “Watch a movie, maybe?”

“Why would I watch a movie if I can’t get enough of watching you?” Namjoon answered, low and breathy. He wouldn’t hide the fact that he was mesmerized by Jimin any longer, not if Jimin basically asked him to stay the night. 

“Y-you do?” He sounded unsure, as if all the signs he had given him weren’t enough. Namjoon was flirting right back. His cheeks began to blush in a rosy color, finally gaining some heat back. “Then maybe you should hold me, make sure I’m getting warm and then you can look at me all you want.” He giggled, the pain in his leg long forgotten. 

“Is that all you want or can I... kiss you as well?” Jimin might just be teasing him but Namjoon wanted all that Jimin would be willing to give. He was starved for intimacy and contact, and it looked like Jimin felt the same.

Jimin held his breath, suddenly feeling hot all over. He wasn’t sure what Namjoon was searching for. If this was just a quick thing for him, or something he was really interested in, because Jimin was ready to invest all of his heart. It was almost embarrassing how easy Namjoon had taken a place inside it. He licked over his lips nervously and nodded his head. 

It was easy, the way he sat back onto the couch and pulled Jimin’s towards him. Their lips met in the middle as if they’d done that a hundred times and Namjoon felt so utterly content that for a moment he was sure he was stuck in a dream. But then Jimin moved his lips against his and he knew not even a dream could be that sweet. It was a heavenly kiss and Jimin fell against him easily, letting Namjoon pull him on his lap so he could take as much warmth as he needed from him. He deepened the kiss a little more and it stole his breath away entirely when he let his fingers dip into the collar of Namjoon’s shirt. 

Only now did Namjoon remember that his shirt was clinging wet and uncomfortable against his skin. “Do you mind if I take that off?” He asked, popping open the first button while looking at Jimin’s eyes for permission.

“Oh, let me help you with that,” Jimin’s face was heated from their passionate kiss, replacing Namjoon’s hands with his own as he opened the buttons one by one until they revealed all of his sculpted chest to him. With soft hands, Jimin soothed over his skin, his muscles down to his stomach. With a little push, Jimin pulled the suit jacket and shirt down his shoulders, admiring Namjoon’s arms even more. Slowly, he leaned in to kiss him on the tip of his shoulder, all the way down to his neck. “You’re so god damn warm.” Jimin whispered, slowly coming up and hovering over Namjoon’s lips. There was a slight hesitation, something telling him that they shouldn’t be doing this, that they might regret it the next morning but Jimin didn’t care to listen. With one swift motion, he had pulled the sweater over his head and threw it aside somewhere with a smile. 

“Is that your trick hm? Telling people that you’re cold because you know they’ll warm you up?” He teased him, leaning back to be able to take a better look at Jimin’s body. He was beautiful. Not in the airbrushed, smooth, and unnatural way one could see on magazine covers but in a way that reached something inside Namjoon’s chest and tugged, hard. He reached out to touch Jimin’s skin and brush over his shoulder, his chest, his waist. Jimin felt perfect against his fingertips, as if their contact was filling a hole inside of him that he had long forgotten was there. He wanted him so much it hurt. “You’ll have to tell me to stop because if you don’t I’ll try to seduce you, Jimin.” He confessed with a whisper.

“Then I won’t say a thing anymore,” He leaned in, humming the words against his skin as he left a trail of kisses behind. His heart was hammering against his chest, as he pulled Namjoon more over him, the pain in his leg long forgotten, while Namjoon had made perfectly sure to keep him distracted. His head laid on a cushion of his couch as he looked up at the businessman that had him wrapped around his finger, a smile playing on his lips. “You don’t really have to try, Namjoon.”

Namjoon swallowed hard as Jimin laid his head back, signaling him that he was allowed to touch, to kiss, to do what he hadn’t even dared to dream of. He took it slow, peppering Jimin’s skin with kisses until the other had closed his eyes, anything else forgotten but the sensation of Namjoon’s warm lips against his no longer cool skin. Namjoon kept a hand at Jimin’s waist, just to feel him closer, to guide him towards him when he leaned into kiss Jimin’s sweet mouth again and their bodies touched for the first time. He rolled his hips against Jimin’s, teasing a gasp from the younger that he swallowed down greedily in their kiss.

Jimin dug his fingers deep into Namjoon’s waist, pulling him against him, wanting to feel more of him. He couldn’t get enough of the way he tasted. It was almost sweet and more than addicting. It was shutting down the voice inside of him effectively, that told him that they might regret this. That it wasn’t right to sleep with his boss. 

A little greedily, Jimin pushed his hands down to Namjoon’s pants, opening up his button and zipper effortlessly to slip his hand in. He wanted to tease, to make him moan just as beautifully.

Namjoon broke the kiss, chuckling at Jimin’s eagerness. So much for going slow... “You want me just as much, don’t you?” He whispered in Jimin’s ear, placing a kiss on his neck while he was there. A part of him wanted to mark Jimin up so that everyone would see what had happened, but he pulled away before he could leave a hickey. He was pretty sure Jimin wasn’t keen on wearing a scarf during work.

“How can I resist you?” Jimin licked over his lip slowly, pushing his hand a little deeper so he could feel the length. He almost gasped, when he realized how packed Namjoon was and his cheeks were getting a rosy color. He wanted him! And he wanted him now! 

Namjoon’s breath hitched when Jimin wrapped his hand fully around his cock, making it harden in his grip. He hadn’t expected for Jimin to go for what he wanted like that, but he liked it. Without interrupting Jimin he pushed his pants further down his thighs to give the other more room - and to give him the pleasure of seeing Jimin’s small, soft hand wrapped around him. 

Jimin’s eyes were full of lust, the desire burning in his veins. He began to stroke him as they kissed again, a little more needily this time. With each gasp he tore from Namjoon, the harder he got himself, feeling the need pulsate. Wanting more of him, Jimin pushed down Namjoon’s pants entirely, feeling up his thighs, scraping his nails against the delicate skin until he could wrap his fingers around his cock again.  

Namjoon groaned low in his throat when Jimin teased him like that, stroking him as if he was set on making him lose his mind right away. He had to take a hold of Jimin’s wrist before the other would go too far, placing it securely besides Jimin’s head. “Let me return the favor before I’m too hard to concentrate on anything but how I’m going to sink into your pretty little body.” He leaned down, kissing Jimin’s stomach while getting him out of his pants. It would have been easy to touch him with the sweatpants still on but Namjoon wanted to see as much of him as he could.  

Biting his lip, Jimin’s eyes flickered up to Namjoon who was teasing him while playing with the hem of his pants. He wasn’t as broad as Namjoon, nor as muscle-y and his small frame was sometimes something that made him feel insecure. He shifted a little nervously underneath him. “That's not already all you can think about?” Jimin sounded breathless, when Namjoon pulled the pants entirely off him.  

Namjoon grinned, “I can think of a lot more to do to you then just that.” He stroked along the backside of Jimin's thighs before taking a hold of his hips and pulling him closer without warning. Jimin’s thighs fell open naturally and Namjoon’s face was close enough to the younger’s crotch to place a kiss on the tip of Jimin’s cock. “Will you let me?”

He nodded softly, his breath hitching when Namjoon’s fingertips soothed over his skin delicately, making a shiver run down his spine. His own hands wandered up to Namjoon’s shoulders and over his neck so he could run his fingers through his hair. It was a beautiful sight to see him like that, ready to devour him whole. Namjoon teased him with his fingertips first, to test out how sensitive Jimin was. He waited until Jimin had closed his eyes before he used his mouth to touch him again, letting his lips wander over his length before he swallowed him down.

A moan slipped right from him and Jimin’s fingers digged deeper into Namjoon’s shoulder. The other knew what he was doing and for a moment, the insecurity creeped back in. Did Namjoon have a lot of lovers? Was he used to this? Trying to shake off the thoughts, Jimin opened his eyes again, searching for Namjoon’s warm gaze. 

He was concentrating completely on Jimin’s body, so he felt it right away when the other’s muscles tensed in a way that had nothing to do with desire. He pulled off, meeting Jimin’s gaze. “You know you can tell me to stop anytime. And if you’re afraid that I’ll use my position against you...” He bit his lip, only now realizing that Jimin was risking way more than he, “You don’t think I’d do that, do you? Force you into something you don’t want because I’m your boss?”

Jimin shook his head immediately, apologizing quietly when Namjoon hovered over him with worry written all over his face. “You’re not. I want this, more than you can imagine…” Jimin blushed, letting his hand soothe down Namjoon’s back. “You’re just my boss for one more week, Namjoon.” He winked teasingly, trying to lift the mood a little more but the other still seemed a bit too worried. “Sometimes I get insecure,” Jimin shied away from his gaze, his voice a little quieter. “But I want you. A lot.”

Namjoon cocked his head. He had noticed that Jimin could get insecure pretty quickly he just didn’t know why, and he felt like it wasn’t his place to ask him something so personal. Not...here, like this. He would ask him again over some coffee or tea maybe if Jimin would be up for something like that after what they were doing. He kissed Jimin’s cheek, a gesture that held pure fondness. “You don’t have to be. You can trust me. And you can tell me whenever you need reassurance.”

Jimin took Namjoon’s face in his hands, holding his gaze for a moment. Namjoon was unlike everything he thought he was and much more than he wanted him to be. He had easily managed to let him form a crush on the businessman. Without preparation, Jimin rolled his hips against Namjoon’s, repeating the motion a couple of times as he stole a deep kiss from him. “I trust you.”

“Thank you.” His voice was shaky because Jimin’s movement had caught him by surprise. The other had amazing control over his own body and Namjoon couldn’t wait for Jimin to move like that when he would be inside of him and able to feel him so much closer.

The couch didn’t give them much space, but it was enough to turn around underneath Namjoon’s hold who looked a little confused, when Jimin reached for his small coffee table. While he was opening the drawer, he was perfectly presenting his ass for him, moving a little just to tease Namjoon before he took the lube and condoms. “You want me to turn back around or…?” Jimin looked over his shoulder with a smirk, “Rather want me to stay like this?” 

“Both please! Let me have this side of you while I prep you because you have a damn cute ass but after you can turn around. I’d like to be able to see your face while I fuck you.” He answered honestly, stealing both lube and condoms from Jimin. The bottle had been used before and he wondered what Jimin had used it for. Without the condoms he would have guessed he liked to use it when watching porn on the couch but what did he need the condoms for. He quickly got rid of those thoughts before they could take roots. Jimin could do whatever he wanted with whomever he chose, he had absolutely no right to any part of Jimin.

Jimin’s heated cheeks told Namjoon enough about how excited he was, how he was yearning for his touch. He waited impatiently for Namjoon to get some lube on his hand, the other soothing over the dip on his back over his plump ass softly. To make it a little easier, he propped himself up a little more, letting Namjoon enjoy the view. 

“You have no idea how delicious you look like this”, Namjoon told him in awe. Jimin was rounded and curved in all the best places and getting a good grip of his ass just made him harder. Before he could indulge himself too much he concentrated back on what he was about to do, opening Jimin up for him. He placed a hand on the small of Jimin’s back to steady him while he let the other play with Jimin’s entrance until he felt that Jimin would let him in. His finger sank in easily and Jimin quickly relaxed around him so he could set a faster pace than expected. The younger barely needed time whenever he added a new finger, relaxing into the sensation right away. So Namjoon got a little more daring, pushing deeper and stretching him a little more until he could curl his fingers and reach Jimin’s sweet spot. 

Moan after moan was leaving Jimin’s lips, as he moved his hips just lightly to get a little more of the feeling. His thighs were shaking each time Namjoon stroked him just right. “I need you,” His voice was breathy, pushing back against his fingers as he dwelled in the pleasure that he brought him. Namjoon knew exactly how to play him. 

Jimin’s sweet begging went straight to his groin and Namjoon bit his lip. He was ready to make Jimin beg like this again, just with his cock inside of him. He pulled out carefully, wiping his fingers on the blanket that covered the couch before he reached for the condom. He had almost forgotten it so desperately did he want to sink inside of Jimin to feel him inside and out. When Namjoon had prepared himself, he turned him around swiftly, making Jimin gasp how easily it was for him to manhandle him. But before Namjoon could worry again, he rested his hand on Namjoon’s chest, eyes flickering up to meet his. “You can be rougher with me, I don’t mind…I…I like that, actually,” Jimin confessed quietly, trying to hide the smile as he bit his lip. “Please don’t hold back.”

At first his eyes widened at the younger’s request but then he realized that it meant that he could let lose a little and that Jimin would still be able to take it. It had been a while since he’s had sex with someone he wanted like that, someone that could make his heart stop with just a smile or turn him on by telling him his needs. “As you wish”, he answered with a smirk. Yet, he went slow at first, giving Jimin time to adjust because his cock was still wider than his fingers. It felt so good to sink into him that he lost his breath for a moment, his senses filled to the brim with the sweet bliss that Jimin offered.

“Oh god,” It was all Jimin could utter, when Namjoon pushed in, stretching his hole, and making him see stars for a moment. Leaning his head back, Jimin moaned at the feel of the stretch alone, wrapping his legs tightly around the other’s waist. His hands were soothing down Namjoon’s back, nails scratching over his skin lightly. 

“You ready?” Namjoon asked, waiting for Jimin’s nod before he started moving. He pushed out slowly, just to snap his hips hard and sink back in deeply. Jimin gasped in a way that was addictive and so he did it again and again, harder to make Jimin gasp more, to feel him clenching and trembling around him. Jimin was pliant and yet deliciously responsive. He wasn’t loud but he was vocal, through gasps and soft moans and the short, desperate whines whenever Namjoon pushed in especially hard. Jimin hadn’t lied when he had told him that he liked to be handled roughly and so Namjoon did exactly that, gripping Jimin’s waist tight in a way that he knew must border on pleasure-pain, fucking him hard and quick whenever Jimin showed him that he had found a sensitive spot, one that made him twitched and whimper so nicely. 

It was pure heaven, and it was easy for Jimin to let himself fall and Namjoon to take over control of his body. It was as if they fitted together perfectly and he knew exactly what he needed. Jimin held on tightly to him, teasing Namjoon a little more as he tensed up, tightening his hole around his cock with a teasing smirk. He could feel where his fingers were pushing deep into him, holding him tight and Jimin didn’t mind it. He was awaiting the bruises, a way to let him know that this night had really happened and Namjoon’s driver was still waiting for him. 

It was so easy to forget everything around them, nothing but Jimin’s body under him and the younger’s sweet voice mattered as he indulged himself in those pleasures. He dragged his thumb along Jimin’s plump bottom lip to open his mouth before he kissed him hard and dirty, he teased Jimin’s cock until it was red and swollen and he gripped his plump ass to knead it and feel him up as much as he could. 

Jimin spread his legs a little wider, letting Namjoon push in deeper and making himself moan loudly from the sensation. He couldn’t get enough, kissing everywhere he could reach. Jimin wanted to explore Namjoon’s body even more but he couldn’t, needing something to hold onto while his thrusts were getting harder, making Jimin bounce on his cock. Namjoon had to let go of Jimin to find more leverage on the backrest of the couch but it didn't matter because Jimin was still clinging to him, keeping their bodies closely together. When Jimin’s cock twitched at a particularly harsh thrust Namjoon made sure to keep that angle, thrusting into Jimin over and over to hit that spot.

He couldn’t hold it much longer. His whines and moans turning desperate as he felt the heat coil up inside of him, precum leaking from his tip. “I can’t…, I’m going to come.” Jimin moaned low, leaning his head back when the pleasure hit him hard again, closing his eyes in the sweet sensation. 

“That’s kind of the point, sweetheart.” Namjoon’s sounded low and raspy but still amused as he snapped his hips against Jimin’s in a quick pace. His muscles were straining from the pressure they were under of keeping his weight up and working against the force of his thrusts, but he knew he wouldn’t have to keep going for long now. “You want me to touch you or do you prefer to finish yourself off?”

Jimin was panting, looking up at Namjoon as he pushed in deep with every thrust making him feel all of him. “I want to come with you.” He threw his head back, holding onto Namjoon tightly. “You, please.” Jimin didn’t understand how Namjoon could still smirk at him and talk dirtily, while he was overwhelmed from the pleasure.

“Then you need to hold out a little bit more...” Despite his answer he kept abusing Jimin’s sweet spot without mercy, never slowing down until the younger’s body shook with the force of his thrusts. He was close now too, but he kept himself focused to draw it out just a little bit, just so he could enjoy Jimin’s body for a few more minutes.

Jimin whimpered, the only sound that was coming from him as he tried to hold out a little longer. His thighs began to tremble, and he bit his lip hard. His nails scratched over Namjoon’s chest, leaving marks behind as he closed his eyes, while his hole was tensing around his cock. He was close, really close. And Jimin wasn’t sure if he could hold it any longer. 

Jimin was so sweet like that, whimpering and lost in pleasure, because of him, because of his cock and Namjoon groaned low, starting to lose the grip on his self-control as well. Jimin clenching around him like that made it impossible to keep going like this so he slowed down a little, drew it out until the very last moment before he reached out between them to stroke Jimin to completion. The younger cursed under him, moaning when Namjoon stroked him, giving him no chance to hold out any longer. He was shaking apart under his touch, his lips parted from a silent moan. Jimin could see stars blinking in front of his eyes, feeling dizzy from the pleasure that rippled through him, making him scream out and arch his back beautifully. 

Namjoon’s arms gave out when the pleasure hit him hard and he barely caught himself before dropping his weight on Jimin. He rode out his orgasm while Jimin’s body still quivered and so he shamelessly rolled his hips until the younger was shaking not from his high but from the overstimulation, unable to keep his soft little whines in whenever Namjoon pushed into his sensitive spot again. 

Jimin gasped, whining quietly as he nuzzled his face closer into Namjoon’s neck leaving wet little kisses behind. Feeling Namjoon’s body on him was a dream, something he hadn’t even imagined to happen, especially not tonight. But they had been drawn together. Jimin didn’t regret it, a smile forming on his lips as he leaned his head back that only got interrupted by another whine when Namjoon rolled his hips one last time. 

He carefully pulled out when he was fully spent, leaving the warmth and comfort of Jimin’s body with a sigh. He tied off the condom, placing it a bit awkwardly down where his clothes were because he didn’t know where to discard it - and he didn’t want to get up because he knew he couldn’t just get back to this post-coital intimacy. Now he could still kiss Jimin and hold him close and it would just count as ‘being cuddly after sex’ without risking to be told off for it. He lied back down on the couch, pulling Jimin back into his arms and kissed the younger’s neck. Jimin had his eyes barely open, probably half ways falling asleep already and so Namjoon dared to bury his nose in Jimin’s neck to breathe him in, hoping it would be okay.

“Mhm, still dirty,” Jimin whispered, leaning his head back a little more so Namjoon could reach his neck. He didn’t care, when he wrapped his arms around the other a little more, not wanting to think about consequences as he felt blissfully sated and happy right now. He didn’t want to think about what would be tomorrow.

“Yes, you are - I’m almost clean,” He lowered his voice a little, more whispering his confession against Jimin’s skin than saying it out loud, “Still if it wouldn’t be too risky I would have loved to skip the condom and come inside of you.” Jimin’s breathing was slowing and he was cuddling into him like he was ready to fall asleep in his arms. Namjoon’s heart felt a little funny at the thought of having Jimin fall asleep next to him, maybe even in a proper bed if... if there would be a next time?

…

Leaning against the car, his air formed foggy vapors in the air as he breathed out. The driver’s hat was pulled deeper into his face, as his arms were crossed in front of his chest, a way to keep him warm. It left Namjoon wondering if he’d ever seen his driver smoke before, or why the other was even waiting in the cold, while he could have rested inside the warm car. He hadn’t anticipated to be gone for this long, leaving him waiting but the driver didn’t seem to mind, when he bowed his head, opening the door of the car. 

“Where do we go next, Namjoon?” One could hear the smile on the driver’s lips as he held the door open, waiting while he looked up to the man who had stopped fixing his tie and instead was staring back at him with wide eyes. 

Namjoon startled. That voice did definitely not belong to his driver. When he looked up Yoongi was smirking back at him and Namjoon had to reach out for his car to steady himself. “What are you doing here... again?” There was a surge of fear flashing through him when he remembered the way he had kissed Jimin goodbye right before leaving. It had been a little too fond for a one-time-thing - but Yoongi couldn’t have seen that or know what he had just done right?

“I was walking by and I saw the driver falling asleep and thought no one could drive someone home like that – so I stepped in.” He proudly pulled at his uniform’s collar, standing tall. “And when I saw that it was you, I knew it was fate or…whatever you like to call it.” Yoongi grinned, “How about you?” He raised his eyebrows in interest, leaning in. “What is a busy man like you doing in a place like this?” Turning over his shoulder, he let his gaze wander over the apartment buildings.

“Thank you, that was really.. considerate of you.” He didn’t believe for one second that the other had walked past Jimin’s place solely by accident. “I followed your advice to get my employee safely home.” He answered courtly, not elaborating any further why he’d been inside the building and for how long he’d been there. He even tried to not think of what he had done there because he wasn’t sure if the other couldn’t read minds or creepy stuff like that. Hopefully Yoongi couldn’t because he failed miserably at trying to keep Jimin’s naked beauty out of his mind. “I assume you’ll be the one driving me then?” He quickly got in the car hoping the conversation would be finished at that.

“Oh, right, my advice.” Yoongi’s lips curled into a smile. “I give great advice.” He patted his right shoulder, before slipping into the driver’s seat.

A/N: Oh oh....now you know about the curse ;) 

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[yokelish]

Memento mori.

Oldy but goodie. I finally got the guts to do to Death what I wanted to do from the beginning without making it ambiguous. 

✏ Fandom: Bungou Stray Dogs ✏ Characters: Oda Sakunosuke  ✏ Word count: 4.022 ✏ Warnings: death, smoking, mentions of violence. 

 Memento mori.

He didn’t remember how he got here or why. Loss of time after something stressful wasn’t unheard of. Emotions, adrenaline, and shock. It must have been that what made him lose time and reason. But something told him it wasn’t the case. Not with him and not now. He went after Mimic all by his lonesome and survived. But why this place? What would make him come here once again? The bridge he met the strange fellow that, somehow, knew what a reckless thing Oda was planning on doing. A thing Oda couldn’t come back from. Yet, here he was, on the same bridge again without a scratch. Oda Sakunosuke was good but not that good. No human would be able to walk away from a band of armed mercenaries without a single…

Then he spotted someone. Someone he knew instinctively was there for him. It wasn’t any sort of familiarity to connect them, just the aura coming off was that of an experienced killer. Speaking of fisherman and fellow fisherman. Dressed in all black, with a white bandage around their head, moving towards him. The person in black was approaching him with a dangerous grace in soundless steps.

Speaking of sound, he didn’t hear anything at all. And failed to notice it up until now. It was only him here, not a stray soul to pass by. With everything terribly still, quiet, and unsettlingly peaceful. Not a lost sound to disturb the silent peace. Not even a single dot of a distracting, loud colour. Everything tranquil, frozen, and in greyscale. The person, no, that being dressed in black came closer. Regular face, thought, a bit pale, especially in contrast to dark hair and black closing.

“Oda Sakunosuke?” the stranger asked as a matter-of-factly. A strange feeling of familiarity and danger wrapped around them like cigarette smoke. “Oda Sakunosuke. Not like there are many ways to mistake you for someone else.” The corner of their lips was upturn in subtle mockery. Oda clenched his fist, nodding in agreement. His eyes carefully scanned the being before him, but nothingness talked back. A perfect nobody.

“Oda Sakunosuke,” he confirmed, hesitantly, lost in the beholding. The feeling of wanting to touch their hand, to ask questions he didn’t know he had. All because of one being appearing before his eyes.

They bowed down, “I am here for you.” There was something twisted about such phrasing, danger glimmering in one visible dark eye while the other hidden behind a white bandage. And there was a sharp smile like a glimmering blade, yet alluring and charming, even. It made sense then. In that single moment Oda understood everything. The place, the timing, the unknown entity before him.

“You aren’t from Port Mafia,” Oda spoke calmly. The realization softly wrapped itself around his mind. Comprehending the feeling of danger and familiarity, the questions spilling into his head. The man remembered why and when this feeling was coming from. It wasn’t at all about this being; its dark and twisted origin was his past self. Nothing shocking about remembering that. It came as no revelation. He had known all along. Accepting his own death, incidentally, on this very bridge. The location and the timing putting together a perfect picture of an ending that came as expected, as deserved. Oda Sakunosuke died. He was dead. And this, this was death.

“What’s that?” Death asked without any curiosity. Mockery softly resounding in its voice, sweet and welcoming. A pack of cigarettes appearing in its hand. Oda counted in total to be five cigarettes. With one between its bony fingers, the ember light started to burn on it own. Peacefully smoldering, smoke wandering and weaving shapes.

“Want some?” the Stranger asked, offering a pack. Somehow, Sakunosuke believed it knew the answer before the question. He denied, figuring that a cigarette would be tasteless in the afterlife. Everything else was. No true colours, no sounds. A cigarette would be a cheap consolation, and it wasn’t to say he needed one.

“You are Death,” Sakunosuke stated confidently. In that moment, the mockery from the stranger’s eyes dissipated and turned into something akin to glee. He was wrong, however. While there were no sounds, the colours weren’t in greyscale. They were slowly fading out. Like the ink was being sucked out from the world, leaving it lifeless. Only the blackness that was Death remained untouched and constant, untainted.

“I guess I am,” it nodded along, huffing out smoke. “If you prefer formalities, you can think of me as Death.”

Oda couldn’t see it, just happened to know so. Like a gut feeling, a sixth sense. There was nothing that told him the being standing before him was the Grim Reaper. If Death could be described as person, it was more on a bony side and with an ageless face. However, nothing about it spoke of death. Nothing frightening about them, no empty eye sockets or skull imagery. Nothing repulsive. Nothing to make him reject it.

“You must have accepted your fate,” Death said, measuring him up and down. “Makes it easier. I prefer those who accepted me. The chasing around gets boring quickly.”

“Chasing around?” he raised a brow in question.

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” it grinned.

“Happy to oblige then,” Sakunosuke said, bowing down in respect. Mortality was a constant to living, a persistent threat, one could say. But he didn’t fear the prospect. Not now, not when he was alive.

“Oh no, it makes it easier for you,” Death laughed. It sounded like a normal laugh. He would have expected it to sound like empty skulls battered together. “It’s all the same to me.”

Puffs of smoke coming at his face. Could almost feel it, could almost remember what cigarette smoke smelled and tasted like. But it was fading, it was all fading just like the colours around him. The memories turning to greyscale, to black-and-white, and he knew soon they will become nothing. Only Death remained unchanged. Its eye observing and clever, the voice — sweet, lulling even, but still laughing.

“Come with me,” the Stranger said, shaking off the ash. It never landed anywhere. “Let’s have a walk, shall we? Your last one.”

Oda shrugged. It was phrased as a question, but the answer was never required. After all,

what choice does a dead person have? Wordlessly, he followed the Reaper. There is no arguing with death.

“You look…ordinary,” Sakunosuke said to fill in the silence of everything around. His steps weightless and soundless just like everything about him. Death moving soundlessly just a step ahead. Tall and lean figure hidden in a massive black cloak. Dark cloth was floating as if in the air, as if there was any wind whatsoever.

Oda couldn’t even touch his own face. It was less than air, less than nothing. And worse, he couldn’t remember much of his own appearance. But he remembered some things still. He could recall places, objects, people. He remembered—

“People are ordinary,” Death answered, “but they expect their death to be something out of the ordinary. Strange that, I must say. So many talk about scythe or wings, skull faces or shapeless spirits, as if mortal minds could comprehend such ideas.”

“Sorry?”

“I’m saying, I am decided by you. Even seeing me is your decision.”

The dead man nodded, accepting the answer. Perhaps it was his doing. “Where are we going?” Oda asked, perplexed. The scenery slowly came to nothing but a smudge of greys and shadows. He still felt as solid as a dead person could. No face, no weight behind his steps, but something held him together from being sucked into that surrounding nothingness. Only the figure of Death was unchanging, boldly standing against the smears and stains. It was a bold ink stain signifying the end of the sentence. Everything else, however, was warping, changing, until reaching a state of disorienting void. There was no up or down anymore.

“You are quick to change subjects,” Death noted, begrudgingly. “You should see for yourself. It would ruin the surprise.”

“The surprise?”

“What? Many find their own deaths surprising,” the Stranger laughed, dropping the cigarette. It disappeared midair. “Have some fun, it is your last.”

“Hm, I guess,” he said, unsure of the meaning behind the words. Death spoke them, and Sakunosuke wasn’t a fool to think there was any room for bargaining. It was, undoubtedly, his last walk and yet why should he have a gift of knowing? Death reminded Oda of someone; someone he knew when alive. He remembered the face in a blur, the voice sounding too far away. But the name was escaping each time. Unable to grasp and hold that memory of someone, it was like catching fish barehand in a stream of memories that were passing.

Finally, the scenery started to take shape. The walls built up like a house of cards, the dull colours poured in, and the details filled in the blanks. Oda knew this place, the books scattered around the floor. Unlike the last time he was in here, the place didn’t smell of blood and death. Leaving it a perfect blank memory of a place with no attachment as to why the memory was formed. This was where Oda Sakunosuke killed for the last time, where he picked up that old book knowing nothing about. Nothing special about it but a weathered cover. One book was all it took to change a life.

“You know why I am here?” the Stranger asked, sounding unusually curious. One eye looking at him. The man couldn’t help but feel laughed at. Not in a malicious manner, no, it was akin to friendly joke at his expense.

“No,” Oda shook his head, eyes roaming around the room. He was searching for that book. It was the most important part of this memory. Finding it, he was the last to reach the book as Death snatched it.

“You must know,” it said. “You accepted me.”

It didn’t make finding the answer any easier. Sakunosuke simply didn’t know. A shot in the dark it was. “Are you here to judge me?”

“I am not a mortal, so I can’t do that,” Death shrugged. “It wouldn’t be fair or just for me to judge anyone. I never lived myself. What I am here for is to make you laugh at your own mortality. Or maybe I am here to be a magnificent jerk to you if you think you deserve punishment. Mortals make me a being and give me a face to understand me, to cope with me, to accept me. They give me character and appearance, sense of duty, or wickedness, even simply a job title. You make me a being, so you may not be alone and greet me as a friend.”

“I wasn’t alone when I died. There was—”

Death opened the book at a random page, somewhere in the middle of the story. “People live to save themselves.” Pale fingers quickly and soundlessly were turning the pages forward. Oddly, the Reaper took great care of handling the book. As if precious and fragile. As if a real thing.

“Don’t be surprised,” the Stranger smiled at him. “I am as much a part of you as you are a part of me. You were born, it was inevitable that you would die. I am not an opposition to life; I am but a part of a whole.” It knew what he thought or felt, how he would react. Of course, it knew. It had to. This was just a projection of his own expectations.

“I’m kidding,” Death said. “I can’t read.” It closed the book and offered it. Oda took it with great deal of caution. The feel of the cover, the smell of the paper, and the weight of it, he could swear it was real yet knew better than that. A memory quickly fading. Strange it was how the first thing he forgot was himself. Opening the book felt like remembering a dream long forgotten, gathering it piece by piece, detail by detail. He remembered the name of a story about a man who chose to stop killing because—

Oda didn’t see as the Death circled him. To be precise, he was too occupied to notice the soundless movements of the black figure. He couldn’t avoid the push of its hand against his chest. The force sent him down to the floor as the book disappeared in the air. Sakunosuke looked up. The Stranger standing above with one dark and unforgiving eye measuring him. Its sharp smile turned into an angry frown. He was wrong. It wasn’t the aura of a killer he recognized, but of someone who hated killers. He waited. Being already dead there was no harming him. But Death just stood there, looking down on him, as its expression slowly shifted to that of neutrality.

“I am no god’s middleman,” the Stranger said, offering a hand. Oda hesitated to accept help but, ultimately, what did he have to lose? He gave it up and accepted the loss when he was alive on that bridge. The touch wasn’t there, only action. The pale palm offering help, stunning in its whiteness against the black dress. And no feeling of touch. What warmth or coldness could Death offer? He got up from the floor as the scene started to fall apart bit by bit. The layers of the memory creating the memory pilling off. Nought but cherry blossoms lost in the wind. Then, came the previous void and absence of anything around. No up, no down.

“But you are Death,” the dead man stated calmly. Sakunosuke could stand to face the dark eye of Death staring back at him. It was soulless, true, but not dead. It wasn’t brimming with kindness. It wasn’t cruel either.

“I am,” it nodded in passive agreement. “But if there is god, it wasn’t born and isn’t alive. Not the way people are. There is no way for us to meet, no way for me to know. I don’t know what comes after me, if at all.”

Oda was wrong. The sense of familiarity didn’t come from recognizing a fellow killer or from the distaste it had for killers, he merely knew it all along. He had experienced it so closely, so often, he came to know it by subtle touch alone. Death was with him since the moment he was born: a silent companion, shadow of a friend. He knew it all along because he was once an assassin. He, too, was death. The thought pained him. Strange as he thought nothing could pain in the afterlife.

Death turned around and started to walk away again. There was once again a faint cigarette smoke trailing behind the black figure. The dead man followed, unhurried. Death couldn’t run away from him just as he couldn’t run away from it. The cigarette was thrown into the air, falling but never landing. As before, the scene started to form without any warning. The blank white papers flying together, coming together to bind together pages of a memory. It was aching to observe his life now. Not because he lost it but because he couldn’t truly relieve it. Just bound to re-watch it.

The café, the book, and him reading it. The man whose figure was shrouded, leaving only a silhouette for him to guess at. The man claimed to be the author. That was the man who told him to write a novel. Oda never got to do it. He couldn’t answer why either. One of the first things he forgot was himself.

“I like this memory,” Death said. “Sad to lose it.”

“Do you know who that man was?” Sakunosuke asked. The man who had changed a killer into a man who was only interested in living. He wanted to remember the name even for a second, but it refused to reveal itself.

“I do and I don’t,” the Stranger spoke softly, lamenting. “It will do nothing for you to know it now, truthfully.”

“Is this what is called ‘life flashing before my eyes’?”

“A life review, yes. Unfortunately, posthumous.”

The memory started to fall apart into a million paper scraps and offered nothing to soothe its passing. The papers flying chaotically around as if caught in a whirlwind. Oda could imagine the sound. But it was only his imagination, he knew. The Stranger was smiling fondly, silently watching it being torn into nothingness. The papers flying, flying away, disappearing. One of the million of scraps of the broken and fading memory landed in the Reaper’s hand.

“Yes, I am one and the same,” Death spoke, offering a scrap to him. “And, yes, I’ve met all of them. Or, to be precise, they’ve met me. Way too soon, too. But you already know that.”

“Were they—”

“I was as kind and as gentle as I could be.”

He accepted the words and the piece of paper. It was strange to be relieved by the words spoken by Death, more so to believe it wholeheartedly. The scrap contained an important paragraph from the book, explaining the reason why the assassin stopped killing. It made sense. It all made sense. And Sakunosuke remembered.

“We should go there first,” the Stranger said with certain melancholy. Soft and gentle, kind even — a perfect stranger.

The curry shop unfolded like a children’s pop-up book. Oda could almost smell the aroma of the curry and hear the children upstairs. He swore he could hear the steps on the second floor. But the Reaper placed its hand on his shoulder. “They are not really there, Odasaku,” it said. “You know that.”

The man nodded in understanding. Those were all his memories. Nothing else but his memories. An empty world of his own crumbling, fleeting memories. The faces he could still remember were turning blurry; the voices remembered were getting quieter and more distant. Fading, withering, wilting, dying. He was forgetting, he would forget. This was an end for him. And the names of the orphans were already forgotten. Their faces and voices he could still remember and vividly so. But those details wouldn’t last long. He was dead. And those memories will die with him. Oda Sakunosuke left nothing of value behind in the end. Or—

“Let’s go,” someone said. Oda heard but failed to recognize his own voice. The hand was till resting on his shoulder. It almost had weight to it, an important thing to ground him. It was him who wanted to leave the place he couldn’t go back to it. Once it held something precious, but it was taken away, stolen, ripped away. There was no returning, nothing to go back to. Not after what had happened, not after his own passing. The only thing left was the knowledge he had avenged them.

“As you wish,” the Stranger easily gave in. This change was unlike the previous ones. The scene didn’t fall apart or got erased. Like watercolour mixed, it sank in and transformed into something different. The mahogany wood, the bar stools, the stairway upwards. A replica of his past. Another place to never go back to. Where three people gathered, had drinks and talked about nonsense. Their silhouettes present for a moment. But only the one belonging to Oda Sakunosuke he could recognize.

Accepting his own death was easier than it should have been. It wasn’t something foreign and frightening. Death could never intimidate an assassin,  didn’t scare him. But with it came immense loss, he knew. And he wasn’t sure the loss would be his. He could swear he wasn’t dying alone, his—

“I don’t think we should go to the last place,” Death said, forlorn. There was no hint of a smile on its lips. Its dark eye looking into the cigarette pack. Oda counted one left inside. Perhaps he could not name the last place, nonetheless, there was a keen feeling about it. A memory too painful, too fresh, too deep. It was still bleeding and throbbing, but the mechanism of the injury slowly forgotten. Just pain, dulled pain, forgotten pain….

Instead he came to sit on the bar stool. The situation too familiar, recalled to its fullest. A drink came to rest against his fingers on it own. He didn’t believe he could drink it. It had ice in it but never felt cold to touch. There was no sensation to it. 

“You said you were but a face I gave you,” the man said, looking at half-full glass. “I am surprised you don’t look like me.”

The Reaper jumped on the bar counter. It started to look at its hands as if noticing them for the first time. It touched the pale face, the bandage hiding its other eye, hands sliding down the dark hair. It looked marvelled by its own appearance it could never know of. There was no recognition in those motions. Death didn’t have a face unless given. It couldn’t pretend to be something else unless prompted to. Death’s masks were decided by the dead, remaining forever in their servitude. If the dead were haunted by their lost lives, Death must be haunted by the living.

“Do I look interesting then?” the Stranger asked, sounding strangely delighted. It continued to be amazed by the prospect of having its appearance explained. “Who do I look like? Oh, you probably don’t recall much anymore. But do I look like someone you knew?”

Sakunosuke thought for a moment. Yes, it made perfect sense. He may not be able to recall the name, the face, the voice. But held no doubts about the nature of that person. One of the shrouded figures, without a doubt, belonged to that young man with a bandage around his eye.

“Yes, you look like a friend,” Oda said with a nod and relaxed sigh. The feeling he knew wasn’t a mistake. The feeling he knew Death already was aware of. The sense of a journey coming to an end. The glass and the drink disappeared in a time lapse of an old photograph losing its colour. Fading like an old photograph, with colours seeping out of it and shapes losing their sharpness. From barely recognizable to unfathomable, to blank, to nothing. Swiftly wiped, gone. It was nothing more than a warm breath on glass.

“What now?” Oda asked when the scene of the bar was eliminated. Death closed its eyes and made a few steps towards him.

“Strange one you are,” it said, showing teeth.

No, he thought. He wasn’t the strange one. There was someone he knew who was a true eccentric. Someone who was perplexing, and complex, and very wounded. Someone who reminded him of a child about to burst into tears. That someone was there, and he was—

“You didn’t believe in the kindness of the world,” Death continued, “but you were. You were kind.”

There was nothing he could say to that. Oda Sakunosuke was an ex-assassin and Port Mafia’s handyman. Kindness wasn’t a prevalent thing in the Mafia or assassination business. And the way he died — the way he chose to die — wasn’t about kindness either. It was about brutality and rage and grief. It was about vengeance; it was about giving up.

“There’s nothing more I can offer,” the Stranger said. “Nothing more to show you,” it reached out its arm, pale palm open for him to accept. “But…I can offer you my hand, believing in your grief.”

Oda shrugged again, accepting what little death could offer. Ah, finally he was able to finish the fleeting and interrupted thought. Oda Sakunosuke didn’t die alone, he had a friend. His friend was the very same odd young man. The man who gave Death his appearance, the man who looked like a child about to burst into tears at gunpoint. Sakunosuke said goodbye to his friend. Oda reached out to touch Death’s offered hand. The touch, perhaps, never happened.

When Death opened its eyes again, Oda Sakunosuke was gone. It threw away the last cigarette left continued on its way.

[izzyphantomgamer]

A little something we can do together  ヽ(*・ω・)ﾉ

A little fun idea that we can do (ﾉ´ヮ`)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ Play Cards Against Humanity online  ヾ(・ω・*) If you’re not familiar with the game, it’s basically fill in the blanks to complete the sentence (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) however, you cannot fill the blanks with your own words (＃￣ω￣) you will be given a set of cards that has a word or sentences written on them  ଘ(੭ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ✩‧₊˚ you can choose one to complete the sentence given or chose as many as required to fill the blanks in the sentece! 

However! This game is not suited for people who do not like to use or hear a strong language and are sensitive about NSFW jokes  (ｏ・_・)ノ”(ノ_<、) so you can go ahead and decline if you will feel uncomfortable about it!  ｡･ﾟ･(ﾉД`)ヽ(￣ω￣ )

What do you all think? If some agree then we can attempt to arrange something  ~ヾ(・ω・) The minimum limit is 10 and the maximum limit is 20!  (＠´ー`)ﾉﾞ You can decline if you want to!  (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡ There will be no offense taken in it and I’ll be very considerate of the motives.  ☆⌒ヽ(*'､^*)chu

@artsamber @souremtic @alwaysbeautifultiger @whatshappeningrnow @yagirlmandaa @tokyoghoose @beetleblade @macaronnn @ttttiddy @mariechan123 @burnt-tomato @trashcanweeb @sunshines-and-tatertots @tiredgr3mlin @ewfilthymundane @thechloethings @jaywwriting @hatsukei @lydzisanerd

[naturesloopholednolongerhere]

Send me a scene that happened in canon and I’ll write in detail how my muse felt in it- hope telling alicia who she was in early s2?? (If you want)    //     @carnagebled​

                                     ─────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───────

Starving to the breaking point and hair that hasn’t been properly brushed in MONTHS but that wasn’t the biggest issue in the damn world.   Fighting monsters with Ric again brought a sense of knowledge about who she was,   the girl that will risk herself until she ends up six feet underground.   Hope has a single burger in a bag thanks to Ric,   a good job here have a single thing of food even though you must be starving.  She could go and scarf it down in ten seconds flat,  be done and not even filled but she doesn’t.   Her stomach stopped HURTING for something a while ago.   Everything is doesn’t have a timeline anymore and she can’t tell you the date even though she saw it on Ric’s phone.    Time passed differently in Malivore and she fully expected two years to have gone by but only months.

Her father’s hybrid,  the female copycat of Caroline Forbes was always a comfort in a way that wasn’t like Freya or Rebekah but all the same an amazing source of family.  The long walk to the blonde’s place is filled with swaying movements,  fingers shaking and a coldness in her hands that is almost human.     What if she doesn’t believe ya?   What if no one finds you worth the fight?      Questions swirl around in the tribrid’s brain and it would make a human fucking dizzy.  Emma used to swear that there was more wrong with the tribrid then PTSD but she’s not able to diagnosis and Hope didn’t actually want that answer because what can one do?  Give the pills that she can’t really take,   coping skills that she won’t use?  Yeah, it sounds like a perfect thing to do.   Nothing is more clear though as something is wrong when Hope would rather fight sleep and work around a few hours of sleep instead of watching behind her lids the scenes of horror in her life.          It’s your fault.  Everything bad happens because of you.          

What should be bruised,   bloody,   shredded knuckles hit against the wooden door of the home that Alicia had is when the panic really settles in.  The burger bag dropping from her hands the moment that the door swings open to reveal a comfortable blonde who looks shocked,  like she has a clue what the fuck is going on but can’t be sure.   When Hope said to get rid of everything of hers.        I don’t want anyone to miss me.   To feel the pain of loss.     She had forgotten one small tiny detail,   photos of her in phones across the country,   of the room in New Orleans that was filled with her purple things or Mr. Binx,  her soft worn bunny that right about now she wishes that she could hold.    ❝I’m.....Hope...Hope.....❞    Her Mikaelson crest has never left her neck since she got out of a muddy pit of what felt like a weight,   pull her under for all she cares.     ❝I’m Klaus Mikaelson’s daughter.....the someday soon Alpha of the Crescent wolves...I’m....Hope...❞  Deep breaths,  she’s never used the title she has yet to take on but given that her mama died so that she could live running from the title of Alpha just seemed wrong.    But she did run from it,  tried to die to get out of the pain that was in her heart.   Survivors remorse,  guilt, or whatever.   Is that what drove her to jump into what could have been her death?    The blonde isn’t scared,  or maybe she is and Hope is just so used to strong emotions and worn down that she doesn’t notice because Alicia yanks her into a hug.     

Everything is a blur,   how she ends up on the couch staring into a fire and begging herself not to sob like a child.    Fresh clothes and a cleaned body and hair that had been freshly braided by a blonde since Hope herself wouldn’t move her hand up to get the knots out herself.   Ric’s food was thrown away,   it was cold anyway.   A mug of warm blood sitting on the coffee table begging for Hope to reach out and take it.    Everyone says that turning off your emotions is the worst thing for you.   Your humanity holds you to the world.    Hope remembers wishing that she could have turned them off in Malivore,   to stop feeling so scared and alone.   Jump at every little thing and to just not give a fuck.

Ryan Clarke,   he was an ass but also damaged by his daddy’s neglectfulness and the fact that there was no love going on there.    Landon was the child that Malivore wanted but only for one grand purpose,   reproduction, and to be the breeder of a species.  It’s cruel and disgusting and the way Landon’s voice had showcased that when he was talking about it in fast-paced words on the second level,   minutes before she made the decision to save him from something that he didn’t want,  she didn’t want for him either.    How dare a father be like that,   to want to use his son in any way.    Ryan had been scared of his own father,  hurt, and full of anger.   He was burned by a tribrid that just wanted to leave hell.   No,  Hope wouldn’t mind death right now but she knows the way to do it is to do Malivore’s way out.  Die once and die again by jumping all over again.   Why haven’t you done it yet dumb ass?     Landon and I were in love.      He’s with Josie now,   moved on, and doesn’t remember you.     Reaching out,   Hope finally grabs onto the mug on the table and brings it to settle into hands,    ❝Thank you.❞     For everything.   Alicia won’t remember all the good that she has done for Hope but Hope remembers it all.    A gulp of warmth fills her and it’s a jolt of energy and as eyes flash golden is when she looks away from the blonde.     It’s not like Alicia hasn’t seen golden eyes in the mirror,   no just the whole thing is personal and a form of insecurities after Roman,  who wanted to kill her and any hybrid or tribrid.   Anything that wasn't “pure” was nothing to him.    ❝For the blood...and for you know inviting me in your place.❞    

Funny how her brain can almost imagine the camera roll in the blonde’s phone with images of Hope.   How Hope had hidden a phone under her pillow and would use social media sites /  apps that connect to the internet to talk to her family.   How Landon had been a feature in her private social media accounts   (    as private as social media can be     )   and tiny Hope Marshall had gladly sent her family a few photos of them together because for once she was truly happy.   Happiness dies and maybe it was wrong to place all her happiness into a person and expect there to be a thing like soulmates,  for there to be a higher power that would hold him back from moving on even though she had wanted him to be happy without her.    A sucker punch to the gut though that he seems happier with a Saltzman twin over her.  But she only saw like two snapshots of Landon with Josie,   she doesn’t know everything and her mind is more than happy to fill in the blanks to torment her.

❝I’m Hope Mikaelson...the daughter of Hayley Marshall and Klaus Mikaelson.  The only one of my kind.❞     A unicorn.   A stupid giggle had come from her mouth when Landon would call her that.    ❝I’m a witch,  werewolf,  vampire.  The only parts of me that are in full are the witch and werewolf.❞     I’m to fucking weak to do the last step.   Once upon a time,   Hope had wanted kids and now she isn’t even sure it’s fair to bring a child into this fucked up world she has.   Make a child suffer and if she had ever been with Landon during that time in her life,   in the future it would be cruel because the child would be four things and not just three.   It doesn’t matter,  Hope guesses.   Children and life after twenty just doesn't seem to be in the cards for her.   ❝I’m eighteen.❞    Her birthday passed,  yet another thing this world took from her.      Snaps and pops of the fire cut through the long stretches of silence that Hope gives off because each sentence she speaks HURTS her to the foundation of who she is.

[shiningliive]

Utapri Cards Against Humanity Stream

I will be streaming some Utapri CAH games tomorrow morning (Sunday May 26th 6am AEST), approximately 9 hours from posting this. Google what time that is in your timezone, or check my previous post in my ‘stream’ tag for a timezone converter. Think of it like a cosy evening/morning/night in with friends playing card games, no stress, just fun. 

If you are unaware, we will be streaming/playing Cards Against Humanity with Utapri decks. There will mostly nsfw and meme-y cards, so beware if thats not your cup of tea.

I will post the link to the stream when we start since tumblr refuses to put posts with links in the tags.

Disclaimers and more info below the break:

If you’ve never played CAH or a similar game before, basically you get a black card that is a situation/sentence with a blank or two in it, and every player uses their hand of white cards to fill in the blanks, whoever has the best/funniest response wins.

It is technically a ‘stream’ since it will be on rabbit, I will post the link to the game and the password in the rabbit chat, and the rabbit screen will be set to spectate the game. You can also spectate separately. Chat does not work in the game sadly, so you’ll have to chat on rabb.it like normal.

I believe theres a limit of around 20 players per game, so the current plan is that if we get more than 20 people, I hope yall will swap out and let people who havent played yet in the game and take turns. There is also a 20 spectators limit, but again, since the rabbit stream will be one of those spectators, you’ll all be able to watch anyway.

Since there are 3 different decks, all cards may not match, and there may still be some questionable things or in-jokes in there, but for the most part, theyre complete bangers.

Depending how we go, we might also play some scribbl.io (basically pictionary) if yall want to as a break or at the end. 

[evesbeve]

~All. Of. Them.~ ☺

99 gay-ish asks

… you know WHAT.

FINE.

I’LL DO ALL OF THEM.

LONG ANSWER UNDER THE TAG, HA V E FUN-

1. how tall are you?

I am 159cm aka 5′3ft!

2. what is your body type?

According to the first Google Image result I got, it’s between “Banana Shape” and “Apple Shape”. I have no idea who came up with these terms. But there you go.

3. what is your favorite part about your body?

My nails-

4. is your current hair color your natural hair color?

My hair is brunette, which is also my natural hair color!

5. are you more outgoing or more shy?

I’d like to think I’m outgoing, but we all know the truth rip

6. are you more femme or butch?

Depends on the day-

7. are you tol or smol?

I definitely wouldn’t call myself tol, so smol, I guess!

8. wine mom or vodka aunt?

Sober Mom

9. weird habit?

The door has to be either fully closed or fully open. Don’t fite me on this-

10. favorite meme?

Too many to count, but this is one of my favourites right now-

but also like, most of my faves at the moment are actually memes with pictures of me and my friends XD

11. do you sing in the shower?

Hell yes!!

12. ever used a bow and arrow?

Yep!

13. are/were you a theatre kid?

(Answered here)

14. have you ever seen a broadway musical?

Nope, but I’ve seen Aladdin’s counterpart to broadway in London! So it’s like, the exact same thing, but in London XD

15. do you think musicals are cheesy?

Yes. Do I think it makes them less enjoyable though? Nope.

16. have you ever been a part of a protest or a march?

It’s a complicated story, but I have!

17. favorite Cards Against Humanity Card?

Gooood, it’s been so long since I’ve played CAH! I have no idea ;;

18. last movie you watched?

I think it was Far From Home!

19. behind the camera or in front of it?

I’m usually the one taking pictures and filming my friends (they better thank me in 10 years) but to be honest, I wish they’d take some more pics of me to look back to too. I do enjoy filming though, so I guess behind!

20. favorite tv show?

Right now, it’s definitely The Umbrella Academy!

21. meaning behind your url

My name is Evelina, and I am online

22. reason you joined tumblr

To follow a project I used to like on YouTube ^^

23. who’s your closest tumblr friend?

I mean, @clumsinessinperson, @xxwhisperapplexx, @hollsheadcanons and @spinharmony started out as tumblr friends, but now we’ve known each other for more than a year and they’re my best friends in the world ;w;

24. what’s something most people love that you hate?

Olives. Peas. Crocs.

uPDATE: i READ THAT QUESTION WRONG, I THOUGHT IT SAID THE OPPOSITE, I LOVE ALL THESE THREE THINGS

I do hate BBQ sauce with PASSION though-

25. have you ever taken narcotics?

I mean, only when I got my teeth extracted XD

26. have you had sex?

Nope.

27. have you ever gotten caught sneaking out or doing anything bad?

I’ve never sneaked out before, so nah. My phone caught me on my phone at 5am once, does that count?

28. worst/funniest lie you’ve ever told?

(Answered here)

29. describe your passion without mentioning it.

The ocean’s waves clash at the coast. They drown in themselves. They help the boats move. But sometimes, the ocean is quiet.

30. describe your best friend.

Nearly impossible to describe a 100 people in one sentence, but none of them have braincells.

31. give us one thing about you that no one knows.

NOT AGAIN, ANSWERED HERE.

32. how do you feel right now?

Energetic!!

33. what is your biggest fear?

Dying

34. what’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?

(Answered here)

35. what is the best decision you’ve made in your life so far?

Honestly, uploading my stories.

36. have you ever tried your hardest and then been disappointed in the end?

MANY TIMES. But hey, that’s life. And that doesn’t mean that it’ll always disappoint you. Keep trying, everyone!

37. something you fantasize about.

MEETING MY ONLINE FRIENDS IRL ;W;

38. last time you cried and why

This morning because I had a fight with my mom lmao

39. what was the last thing that made you laugh?

Me.

40. do you really, truly miss someone right now?

Sure do *dabs*

41. who do you feel most comfortable talking to about anything?

@xxwhisperapplexx​, @clumsinessinperson​, @aesthetically-bitching​ and my other irl fren who doesn’t have tumblr but he is a dumbass!!

42. the last time you felt broken?

SEE 38, RIP (I’m okay now tho, dw!)

43. are you starting to realize anything?

I wanna be a director or a scriptwriter or something!! Just work in the movies!!

44. are you more dominant or more submissive?

Dominant, but I can be just as submissive!

45. i’ll only date you if _____. (fill in the blank)

I’ll only date you if I love you?? Why would I date someone I don’t love?

46. do you prefer to date people the same age as you, younger, or older?

Uhhh look, I’m 16, so the same age, lol. And even if I was older, age doesn’t matter as long as it’s not creepy and predatory, you know?

47. describe the person you’re in love with/have a crush on in great detail.

I don’t have a crush at the moment, thANK GOD.

48. do you have any kinks?

Bye.

49. first thing you notice in a person?

(Answered here)

50. how can someone win your heart?

Step One: Stan Ben Hargreeves.

51. been rejected by a crush?

Nop. Never confessed-

52. have you ever had feelings for someone who didn’t have them back?

Yes.

53. would you have sex with the last person you text messaged?

No.

54. is trust a big issue for you?

I mean, I wouldn’t trust someone I just met with my life, but I do have faith in people ^^

55. did you hang out with the person you like recently?

I do not,,, have a crush,,,

56. is confidence cute?

Everything positive is cute.

57. what would you say if the person you love/like kissed another girl/boy?

I don’t like someone right now but if it were to happen, I wouldn’t say anything? It’s their life.

58. would you be able to date someone who doesn’t make you laugh?

Everyone makes me laugh. I must hate the person then XD

59. does the person you have feelings for right now know you do?

I DO NOT HAVE A CRUSH AAAAA

60. ever embarrass yourself in front of a crush?

Yes, like a bazillion times.

61. do you want to get married

I’m open to it!

62. worst thing you’ve ever done?

Honestly, I was trying to think of a serious answer, I PROMISE, but then I remembered that when I was little my parents had pissed me off so badly, and I quoted a Barbie movie that said “You’re ruining my life!” like an angry toddler.

Then they threatened to never let me watch Barbie again because it was a bad influence, anD I MEAN. It was what it was XD

Note: They never banned Barbie.

63. three things that turn you on.

How did you know I was an android.

64. who do you hate?

Hate is a strong word, lmao.

65. favorite term of endearment?

Unironically, it’s “boo” XD

66. who was your celebrity/fictional gay awakening?

I WAS WONDERING IF THERE WAS A QUESTION LIKE THAT, honestly I do not remember. Probably someone from Winx.

67. intimidating girls or kind girls?

Both are valid.

68. what do you look for in a possible partner?

I don’t look, they hit me in the head.

69. do you tend to like more masculine, feminine, or androgynous girls?

All. All the girls.

70. are you good at flirting?

Yes, actually XD

71. who was the first person you came out to?

Probably @aesthetically-bitching​, I think!

72. do you have any friends who are wlw?

yeet

73. is your crush wlw?

don’t have a crush, but used to-

74. last person to make you reconsider your sexuality?

I have no idea, I’ve known I was bi since 6th grade.

75. write a short love poem to your crush/self?

Not all the steps you walked on are stableBut that’s okayReaching the top requires a few

76. do you fall in love easily?

I’ve only fallen like in love twice. Crushes are way different, and I’d say kinda…?

77. is there something that happened in your past that you hate talking about?

Yeah. But I hate talking about it.

78. are you good at hiding your feelings?

Yep. If you notice I’m sad, I want you to notice I’m sad.

79. are you a forgiving person?

Mhm!

80. what is your “type?”

Ironically, Eudora Patch from The Umbrella Academy is a very good depiction of my type. (Note: Personality wise. Looks genuinely don’t matter to me, everyone is BEAUTIFUL.)

81. fall asleep in her arms or rub her back until she falls asleep in yours?

I am a little spoon inside and out-

82. tall girls or short girls?

Doesn’t matter-

83. hugs or kisses?

Hugs!! kisses kinda make me uncomfortable most of the time to be honest

84. twirl her around or get twirled?

b O T H

85. tummy kisses or thigh kisses?

Tummy-

86. hairline kisses or neck kisses?

Hairline,,,

87. play with her hair or stroke her tummy?

Hair!!

88. making out or soft kisses?

Soft kisses, definitely. Not that I’ve kissed anyone before, but oh well XD

89. hugs around the neck or hugs around the waist?

Neck…? I’d say neck.

90. how confident are you in your sexuality?

It took me a while, but I am very confident in it right now!

91. when you like someone do you blush or get butterflies in your stomach?

Butterflies™

92. have you ever liked a friend as more than a friend? did you tell them?

I have, and I told them absolutely nothing

93. how old were you when you realized you were into girls?

*shrugs* young XD

94. most embarrassing thing you’ve done in front of a cute girl?

All girls are cute girls. So many things.

95. do you have a favorite lesbian ship? is it canon?

THIS QUESTION IS STRESSING ME OUT, I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO CHOOSE. Honestly, Alphys and Undyne are a hard one to top, aND ALSO CANON

96. what is the most aggravating thing someone has said to you about your sexuality?

“You’re just confused.”

97. when was the last time a girl made your heart flutter?

… I don’t know what to tell you.

98. what is love to you?

Love is complicated.

To me, it’s not about having a partner. Actually, loving someone regardless of romantic feelings is way more important, in my opinion. These things can co-exist, and loving a friend is just as important loving a lover.

The lack of it can hurt, especially being forced out of it. But feeling love? I don’t know. It’s one of the most beautiful feelings ever. I feel so lucky to be surrounded by it.

I really love this article on it! It’s about the 8 types of love the ancient greeks had, and as I greek person myself, I think highly of it. I highly recommend reading it!

99. ask me anything. (bUt since no one specified, I’ll ask myself: Why do this and what did I learn from this?)

I did this because I am stubborn. Also I genuinely liked the questions XD

What I learned from this experience is that I really love answering questions, oops-

If you made it this far, I don’t know what to tell you. You deserve a golden star, my dude.

ANYWAY, NEVER AGAIN.

[rap-monster-plaza]

You Win, You Lose

Everyone deals with things differently. This was true in social situations. Some handle them with ease. Others, not so much.  You can try to explain it someone, but it may be the challenge of speaking. It could be the fear of being judged about what your fears are. You stumble over your words and your nervousness causes you to wonder about what they were thinking about you. The scowl on someone's face causes you to back down.

"Y/N, let's hang out!" Namjoon's text caught you off guard. You contemplated the offer, not sure what you should do. If it were just Namjoon himself, it wouldn't be a problem. Most of the other guys would be okay, as well.

You don't even remember how you and  Namjoon became friends in the first place. The other guys were bound to be your friends when he would bring you over to their dorm constantly. On his days off, he would text you to come over, knowing it was better for you to text than speaking on the phone.  

"Sure. Give me about twenty minutes, and I'll be over." Your reply was a bit slower than usual. When you pressed send, you realized you hadn't asked who was going to be at the dorm. This caused your heart to race a bit, but you were afraid to ask now. You didn't want to cause any confusion about why you were asking.

It's not as if you didn't like Yoongi, it's the exact opposite. It was his glares, cold demeanor, and constant bickering attitude. These things caused you to want to stay far away from him as possible. Although, for the most part, this wasn't possible.

For Yoongi, it felt to him you were constantly ignoring him. Something about you made him want to be near you.

You contemplated on texting Namjoon quickly to let him know that you were expected elsewhere, but you knew he would know you were lying to him. You didn't want to lie to him this way deciding to try and tough it out.

You gathered your necessities; phone charger, tablet, water bottle, stylus, and your favorite book. You took these with you every time you went somewhere. You would take your old trusty laptop along as well, but felt it would be too much to take with you.

"Alright, I think it will be the four of us here today. I rented a few movies we can watch." Was the response you received, getting nervous about who was going to be at their house when you arrived.

To them, their dorm was a house, and it felt comfortable to be there. When you came over for the first time, you had a hard time trying to find any place to be. You didn't want to be in anyone's way. You didn't want to upset anyone.

*At their dorm.*

"Just move already." Yoongi's words were short as he barged past you going towards the hallway. You stood there feeling your heart race for many reasons; your nerves were on edge, you didn't know of your crush on Yoongi.

In Yoongi's mind, he was being his normal self and didn't want to be bothered. When the other guys would witness these incidents, they would do one of two things: glare or smile to themselves.

Jimin figured it was Yoongi's way of dealing with his feelings. He knew Yoongi was the hardest person to get to open about everything. Did he like the yogurt that he had for lunch? It was okay. No more context other than that. At least that was how it was when they first met. Now the answers range from simple sentences to essay long answers.

This particular afternoon, Yoongi was idly waiting in the kitchen. The smell of the reheated soup filling the air, along with the light chatter and laughter of you and a couple of the guys.

"She danced like this the entire time!" Namjoon was wailing his arms around as if to represent an inflatable tube.

You snorted in disagreement, "That is so not the truth! There was a little bit of this!!!" You moved your arms opposite of him, the both of you laughing heavily.

Yoongi hadn't realized he walked towards the noise. He watched from the entrance way as Jimin sat in front of you on the floor. "Are we going to play the game again?" He smiled brightly as Namjoon looked to you as if to ask if it was okay.

You nodded your head, "Okay! We need another person."

'What game?' He questioned himself, feeling left out. Why wasn't he aware of the game you guys shared without him. Why was there a need for another person, wasn't five people enough for the game?

Namjoon looked over his shoulder, catching Yoongi hiding behind the wall a bit. "Wanna join, Yoongi?" Being called out this way made him tense up.

"S-sure." Yoongi stammered wanting nothing to do, but be back in his room relaxing during his only time off. Why did it feel as if the slightest interaction with someone seemed to be a lot harder than it should have been?

Yoongi walked over sitting on the far end of the couch, the furthest spot away from you. "What are we playing?"  He questioned looking around and seeing you lower your head as he turned towards your general direction.

"Cards against humanities. We need an even number of people because we do it in teams of two. There are two card dealers, and the rest are a team of their own. It's actually really easy to follow. Just follow Y/N, she's the best at this." Namjoon smiled to the both of you. You glared slightly at Namjoon when Yoongi wasn't paying any attention. "This time the stakes are high because the winners have to take a punishment. So pretty much the higher your score, you win slash lose." He quickly added.

"Sure. Who is teamed with who?" Yoongi watched as the guys linked arms with their teammate.

/*The pairings ended up being: Jin and Jimin Namjoon and Hobi Y/N and Yoongi*/

An hour into the game and everyone was rolling over into laughter.  "The game is almost over! Then I will total the score." Namjoon informed everyone as him and Hobi began to get ready for the last round.

"Okay, the next card is: I've designed a spaceship powered by the energy released when you combine blank and blank." Hobi read aloud before stating that each member to only draw one card each.

After a few minutes of everyone debating and presenting your card that was combined with Yoongi's.

"Okay, for the last card winners. I've designed a spaceship powered by the energy released when you combine 'an obscene amount of butter and a moist towelette.' For the win!!!!" Hobi and Namjoon screamed together dying of laughter as they read it aloud.

Yoongi looked to you with a smile on his face and held up his hand for a high five, which you gave him. "Now it is time to reveal the winners and the losers. Namjoon would you do the honors?" Hobi looked to Namjoon who was quickly tallying up the score as Hobi rambled on about something that had happened during the game.

"The winners are Yoongi and Y/N, which also means they receive a punishment! Chosen by the losing team." Namjoon looked to Yoongi with a smirk, and Yoongi just held a face with no expression.

"Their punishment is to have Yoongi kiss Y/N on the cheek!" Jin spoke up and everyone began to cheer asides from you and Yoongi.

"What kind of backward game is this? The winners have to do a punishment?" Yoongi began to complain.

"I mean you could forfeit, and take the worse punishment. Which is letting us shave half of your head. Including your eyebrow." Yoongi glared knowing that the latter would be more unbearable than having to kiss anyone on the cheek.

"Y/N come here!" Yoongi whispered as you sat there with your heart pounding out of your chest, Jimin holding up his phone and it beeps to let him know it was recording a video.

Yoongi began leaning in, his lips making contact with your cheek, no hesitation. After it was over, you quickly began gathering your things to escape from the house. "Y/N! We didn't think he would follow through with it! Just stay."

There were different versions of the statement being called out to you. They all knew how you were when it came to things such as this. You weren't close to people, fear of being hurt by them. You let him get close. He probably hated you. He probably thought you devised this to happen.

Those thoughts continued to spew through your head. You finished finding your things and gathering them. You went to the front door, not caring if anyone was on the street to see you.

A hand on your wrist stopping you from leaving. You didn't want to be rude any more than you already have been. "Y/N, can we talk?" Yoongi's soft voice called to you. You couldn't tell, but his heart was racing just as much as yours. His breath was getting caught in his throat. The look on his face said it all. The look on his face said you could trust him, and that's what you did.

[charlesoberonn]

The Story Of A Girl Who Has A Crush On A Cute Cashier

“It’s okay, you can do this, talk to her. She’s just a girl. Just a gal. Like you. There’s nothing weird about this. She’s human, you’re human. Everything should be fine.” I whispered to myself until I noticed what I was doing and stopped. I approached the front desk and looked at the cute cashier.

I only gave her a glance but it was enough to see what I wanted to see. I saw her beautiful neon blue hair, her adorable freckles and her pink eyes. I saw the little chub to her cheeks and I saw the smirk on her face as she played a game on her phone while waiting for customers. I saw enough to know I was in love.

“Hello.” I said, and my voice cracked. I fucked up. I fucked up so bad. I put down my things on the counter and remained quiet.

“Hey.” she said as she began scanning my items with unnatural speed and grace as her hands glided across the scanner, and the red light reflected in her black nail polish.

After a quiet transaction, she handed me my receipt, which she folded into an adorable little square. How considerate. I love her.

“Thanks for shopping at Electric Bay!” she said as I walked away in my unseen shame.

As I exited the store, I glanced back and saw she returned to her phone, with one earbud on, listening to something. I have to try again.

I returned after twenty minutes and put down a small white box on the counter, it was a pair of earbuds identical to hers. “Hey there, I forgot something before.” I said my rehearsed line perfectly.

She paused whatever she was listening to and took out her earbud. “Excuse me, did you say something?”

I froze.

“Miss?”

“Ugh. Yeah... it’s a uh, I forgot something...” I stuttered. Fuck.

“Oh yeah, you were here earlier.” she grabbed the box of earbuds and slid them across the scanner with ease once again.

I handed over my credit card and watched the gentle movement of her wrist as she slid it inside the cash register. She handed my card back with my receipt. I started walking away but then I heard her speak.

“So, did yours break?”

“Um...” I turned around, stuttering again. I think this is the first time I heard her say something that wasn’t common cashier courtesy.

“Your earbuds, did they break?” she gestured towards my purple earbuds which were still in my ears. Dammit. I’ve been called out.

“No.” I decided to tell the truth. “I just... I saw yours and I really liked them.” I guess that was close enough to the truth.

“Yeah.” she grabbed her earbud and looked at it in her open palm. “They’re pretty good. But I don’t like the white color. It’s too bland. I like your purple ones. Purple is pretty.”

“Pink is better.” I blurted out. And mentally I slapped myself.

“I... okay?”

“Have a nice day.” I replied as I turned around.

“Thanks... Oh! and thank you again for shopping at-” I didn’t hear the end of the sentence as I was already out of the store.

This day was a fucking disaster. I paced around the mall three times thinking about all of the things I fucked up and what I did wrong. I went up to the food court and wallowed myself over an enormous cup of diet cola. And after I was done, I spent twenty minutes chewing at the straw while listening to sad music on my new earbuds.

Why was I such a loser?

And then I saw her. She was leaning against the desk of one of the food stands, chatting with the guy preparing the shawarma, seem like they knew each other. Makes sense she’s be more cultural and sociable than I am.

I hid around the corner of the food court, staring at a window. The window cleaner stared back at me and nodded. At least somebody knew my plight.

“Hey.” I heard a familiar voice and I jumped in my chair.

“H-hi...” I said with the chewed out straw still in my mouth. I spit it out quickly. The cute cashier just stared at it for a second before I quickly stashed it in a nearby trash can.

“Hey, I’m from Electric Bay. The cashier, remember me?” she asked, and her voice was angelic. 

“Yeah, I remember.” I said, and for once I didn’t stutter and my voice didn’t crack.

“I don’t have much time in my break. I was kinda hoping I’d run into you. I have something to show you back at the store. Can you meet me there?” she asked.

My head was spinning and going through cycles of filling up with thoughts and then going blank over and over again.

“Yes.” I said, a bit suddenly. “Yeah, I can be there in ten minutes.” I lied, I had nothing better to do in those ten minutes. I just didn’t want to come off desperate.

“Great, Cya there!” she waved at me as she walked out of the food court.

I spent the next ten minutes tensed up. My back was arched forward and my muscles were wound up. I crossed my fingers together and just stared at my hands. I looked up at the window cleaner. He already moved on to the floor above the food court, but he looked down at me and gave me the thumbs up. I wondered how much he could hear of our conversation, and how much he knew.

I got up and walked towards the store, my steps as confident as much as a girl who just drank an enormous cup of a caffeinated beverage half an hour ago could be.

I opened the front door of the Electric Bay and looked at her. She took out her earbuds as I entered and smiled at me. Oh god, her smile was so beautiful, it melted my heart.

I walked towards her and I was sure my blush glowed as bright as the sun. I went to open my mouth, but no words came out.

“I’m glad you came. Okay, so here...” she looked around and snuck a pink box towards me under the counter. “We’re not supposed to sell them anymore since they’re being discontinued, but we had a few lying around. They’re the same model as the ones you bought, but pink. I didn’t check them, but I think they still work.”

I looked at the pink box and I almost wanted to cry. “Thank you, that’s very kind of you.”

“We’re all about costumer satisfaction here in Electric Bay.”

“Yeah...” I mumbled. “Well, I am a very satisfied costumer.” I chuckled. And to my amazement, she chuckled back.

“That’s great to hear that.” she said. For a second, there was a long silence between us.

I knew I needed to say something. But I just couldn’t. I turned around and started walking towards the door. “Goodbye. Thanks for the gift-” I started saying.

“I’m Samantha.” she interrupted me. And I turned around, staring at her. “Oh, I’m sorry. Um, goodbye, have a nice day.”

“Hailey.” I answered.

“It’s uh, Nice to meet you, Hailey... so...” she started mumbling. “I saw you hanging around the food court a lot. What do you do exactly?” she asked. “I-I hope I’m not being too nosey.”

“No...” I said. I turned around and walked back towards the counter. “I’m a writer. I like the food court in these hours. It’s a relaxing well lit place with air conditioning where I can write in peace.”

“That’s fascinating.” she said, leaning in against her elbows. “I also tried writing, mostly poetry. It never works out. Luckily the Electric Bay is here.”

“Yeah, it’s a really convenient store.” I said. “I just got 2 pairs of earbuds from them.” I said.

Samantha started laughing out loud. I smiled from ear to ear.

We spent the better part of two hours talking about our respective jobs and about some of our writings, as well as a dozen other topics.

Samantha was too shy to show me any of her poems, and I was all too eager to tell her about my current project and how many readers I got online. I thought my boastfulness would turn her off, but she seemed very impressed with me.

As I learned more about her, my love for her only grew stronger.

I looked outside, it was getting late most of the stores were already closing.

“I kinda gotta close down too. So I guess it’s goodbye.” Samantha said, her voice a bit quiet. She yawned.

“Um, yeah... thank you for the earbuds, um, again.” I smiled.

“Don’t sweat it. I was glad to have some company. It can get very lonely in here.”

“Hey...” I said, and my heart was pounding fast. “I can hang out over here tomorrow too, if you want. I mean, this place is even quieter than the food court. Plus, there’s you here.”

Samantha tapped her finger against the counter, stopping for a second before smiling wide and blushing a little. “That would be awesome.” she said.

As I walked out of the store and into the empty mall, my heart was still pounding.

Maybe this day wasn’t such a disaster after all.

[luciferismyhomeboy]

Permanent - Part 1

Word Count: 1726

Pairings: Lucifer x You

Warnings: Spoilers

Author's Note: Sorry for the long hiatus. Had some things happen in my personal life and couldn't work up the motivation to write for a while. Everything is fine now and I hope to have lots more for you all shortly! Enjoy!

                               You knew it was all over the second you heard Lucifer coming down the hallway. The Winchesters were frantic as they ran, but you knew it was no use. They weren’t ever going to outrun the archangel and Cas was nowhere to be found. Your angelic powers had been stripped from you long ago. Sam burst through the door at the end of the hallway and Dean swiftly followed. You ran through the opening and found yourself in a large, empty warehouse that was connected to the building you all had been in. You knew it was now or never.

                “Go!” You shouted at the boys. Then you stopped and turned around, facing the door he would come through in about 10 seconds. “I’ll hold him off.”

                Dean slowed, turned, and looked as though he were about to argue for a moment before seeing the look on your face. He then resumed racing after Sam. You watched as they ran out the door on the far end and relief flooded through you. They were going to be safe. Then you heard the door in front of you open.

                “Well, well, well,” a low voice intoned. “What do we have here?”

                You took a deep breath, and turned to face him. The snakelike expression he wore dropped in an instant and was replaced by one of recognition and surprise.

                “Y/N?” He whispered so quietly you almost couldn’t hear him.

                “Lucifer, what are you doing?” You asked him, your heart wrenching in your chest when he said your name. He didn’t respond and you didn’t know if he was able to just yet. The shock of seeing you after billions of years was still plain as day on his face. So you waited.

                You didn’t have to wait long. Approximately fifteen seconds later, Lucifer’s face slipped into a blank mask and you knew he was back.

                “What are you doing?” You repeated quietly. Adrenaline rushed through your body. Your reunion that had played trillions of times in your mind had been nothing like this.

                “What I have to do.” He responded. His voice sounded casual, but you could hear the tremor beneath it.

                “You have to kill humans? For what?” He just looked at you stonily. You continued, “And a Nephilim? The penalty for that is death Lucifer. Death!”

                “I’m aware.”

                You pleaded with him. “Stop this madness, Lucifer. Come with me.”

                “With you?” He said coldly. “And why would I do that?”

                You recoiled slightly from his tone, but pressed forward. “Because I’m your friend.”

                His eyebrow cocked. “Oh really? How come I haven’t seen you for ohhhhh, a few billion years then? Well, friend?”

                You swallowed nervously. “I can explain everything.”

                “I’m sure you can. I don’t want to hear it though.”

                “Lucifer-”

                He held up a hand, cutting you off. “Nope. Don’t want to hear another word out of you.”

                You paused and he crossed his arms, biting his thumbnail. Some things never changed. He seemed to be debating something as his dark blue eyes bored into you.

                “Go,” He finally said in a low voice.

                You gaped at him. “What?”

                “Go. Leave. You and those two idiots waiting for you out in the car. Get out of here.”

                “You’re…letting us go?”

                “You’re questioning me?” He asked. “Leaving is what you’re good at, right? So go.”

                You opened your mouth to speak and his nostrils flared, a sure sign of anger.

                “Don’t make me change my mind.” He warned.

                Your heart clenched in your chest. You wanted nothing more than to stay and talk to him. To help him. But without your powers, you were helpless if he decided to kill you. And it had been so long since you had seen him that you weren’t sure you knew him anymore. So you turned and fled. 

                You shut yourself up in your room when you got back to the bunker. There had been so many questions from the boys, chief among them was why Lucifer had let you go voluntarily. And so you had to tell them the thing you had wanted to keep hidden from them. That back before Lucifer had fallen, you and he had been best friends, attached at the hip, metaphorically speaking. That you had stood for him at his trial, which resulted in both of you falling from grace instead of his death. That you hadn’t seen him since.

                They were mad, understandably so. You hadn’t lied to them, you tried to point out, but Dean wouldn’t hear it. Sam seemed to be more sympathetic, but neither had spoken to you for days. Cas had been informed that you weren’t to be let out of sight and so he followed you everywhere with a stern look of disapproval on his face. He wouldn’t talk to you either.

                And so you just sat in your room, watching Gilmore Girls on Netflix, and trying very hard to not think of your situation. Cas stood by the door, staring, but you were learning to ignore that. Though you couldn’t ignore it when he stiffened and cocked his head to the side. You knew he was listening to “angel radio”, something you had been without for so long…

                “They’ve got him.” He said in his gravelly voice. “They’ve got Lucifer.”

                You jumped to your feet, all thoughts of Stars Hollow forgotten. “Who does? What happened?”

                Cas fixed you with his blue eyes. “They caught Lucifer. His trial is to be immediately. I have to go.”

                You grabbed the angel by the lapels. “Don’t you dare. You take me with you.”

                He scowled at you. “You’ve fallen, Y/N. You have no right to be there.”

                “I am an archangel, Castiel, and I have every right to be there.” Your voice was steel. You would not compromise on this.

                Cas frowned, but nodded. He grasped your wrist and the next thing you knew, you were standing back in Heaven for the first time in several billion years.

                It was just as you remembered it, ageless, timeless. More angels walked the hallways than you remembered and almost none gave you a second glance. No one knew you. You had been forgotten. Cas walked quickly through the halls and you followed along beside him. You knew these passages like the back of your hand and it was not a surprise when you emerged in the gigantic meeting room. It was ironic that this was the last room you had stood in before you had been cast down.

                You could see your father, known as Chuck these days, up on the podium at the front of the room. The room was filled with thousands of angels and there was barely room to stand. No one noticed you or Cas slipping through the crowd towards the front. You got within a few rows of the front and knelt, as all were required to do in the room when there was a trial. You could see Lucifer kneeling in front of the podium with his head down and his chin against his chest. His hands and feet were connected to chains in the ground and you got the ugliest flashback of a time long ago when you had seen the exact same scene. Your heart was racing a mile a minute. This was not good.

                Chuck held his hands up and all the chatter in the room died down. The few remaining standing angels knelt quickly so he could begin.

                “My children,” He began, his voice somber. “It is under terrible circumstances that we are gathered today. Your brother, Lucifer, is here to answer for his crime of trying to bring a Nephilim into this world.”

                A smattering of whispers could be heard and your heart leapt into your throat. You were trying to pay attention to your Father, but every fiber of your being wanted to run to Lucifer and run away from all this. But Cas still had a death grip on your wrist so you stayed kneeling.

                “The punishment for this offense is death.” Chuck continued. He stepped down from the podium and over to Lucifer. “Look at me, my child.”

                Lucifer immediately looked up and you could see that he was crying silently.

                “Do you have anything to say for yourself?” Chuck asked kindly. Lucifer shook his head, his face full of pain.

                “Will anyone stand for him?” Your father’s voice swept through the room. This was part of the angel trial process. If anyone would stand for the angel, his/her sentence would be mitigated, but would also extend to the one who stood for them. It was how you had kept Lucifer from death at the first trial, and how you had come to fall.

                There was silence in the room for a long, pregnant moment and Chuck’s face fell. He loved Lucifer no matter how many times the archangel broke the rules. And you did too.

                “I will!” You cried, scrambling to your feet ungracefully. “I will stand for him!”

                Lucifer’s head snapped around and his eyes fixed on yours with an unreadable expression. Chuck very nearly grinned. Every single eye in the room was on you, but you couldn’t turn your gaze away from the blond vessel fifty feet away from you.

                “Y/N,” Chuck said. “Please come forward.”

                You inhaled deeply, gathered your resolve, and moved through the few rows of angels until you were before your Father. You stood and Lucifer soon rose up beside you, his chains having been broken. Chuck placed a hand on both your shoulders and squeezed lovingly before returning to the podium.

                “So be it.” He announced. “The punishment for Lucifer was death, but Y/N has agreed to stand for him. Death is no longer in the cards. However, the multiple transgressions cannot be ignored. The punishment is permanent exile.”

                Your heart dropped, but you stood firm next to Lucifer.

                “Lucifer and Y/N will be stripped of their wings and Grace, and will be cast down to Earth to live as humans for eternity.” Chuck looked as if the words genuinely pained him. “Never again will they be allowed to return to Heaven.”

                Chuck looked at you and you could see the sorrow etched in his features. You felt a pang in your heart and you wanted to speak, but the next thing you knew, you were falling.

[giannisbct-blog]

Market Research

After doing a brief google search of what cards game that very much word based are already out there I managed to find the 3 most successful; Cards against humanity, Drunk, Stoned or Stupid and Quiddler. Cards against humanity is phrase based but the phrases are already prewritten and you simply fill in the blanks or play answers to the questions. As I have played this game before I knew to avoid these mechanics or at least not stray too close to them. Drunk, Stoned or Stupid is a little different as the cards are more like labels of things people might do and then each person votes on which person is best defined by that card. So except for the voting aspect it could not be more dissimilar to my game. Quiddler on the other hand is actually quite similar to my game as each card is a letter and the aim of the game is to make as words out of the letters in your hand. You could almost say that mine is a step up as instead of letters, you have words in your hand and instead of words, you are trying to make full sentences. The letters are weighted differently with different amounts of points attached to them which shows a clear winner. I considered this idea originally but decided to go with a voting system as it the game also promotes a bit of communication as you may have to justify why one is better, or even explain the meaning behind the “proverb” you have made. Overall I haven’t found a game which is more or less identical to mine which is either a good sign that I have an original idea (unlikely) or simply that games like mine are not usually very successful.

[liamcreativetech]

Initial concept

Today I started brainstorming and coming up with ideas around creating a ‘card game’. The requirements are that each card must fit into a standard size card protector. Initially I was thinking about traditional card games, but after seeing the past year’s projects I realised the idea of card game is much broader than I had thought. Some early ideas included:

Cards would be made out of clear plastic with maze channels in the middle. A player would tilt the card to move a small ball bearing through the maze. Cards could interlock and attach to each other in any arrangement, and the bearing would be transferred. By shuffling the cards you could create a random maze every time you played.

Transparent cards could contain magnetic black sand or iron filings. In the deck there would also be cards with unique arrangements of magnets inside of them. By placing the filled, see through cards over the magnets, the sand or filings inside would create a pattern depending on the layout of the magnet cards. An evolution of this would be to include a small battery into the cards and have two sets of magnets pulse, creating movement between two patterns.

A set of Spirograph cards, where each card is a frame and has an individual gear pattern and shape on the inside edge. The player could choose which size gear to place inside the card and spin around.

Action cards for planning your day. There would be four decks of cards - each a category of action/activity for that day. By randomly one card from each of the four types, they would interlock and create a square that a player could use to plan/inspire their day. A similar idea is to have four (or more) decks, each for a feeling or emotion. If a player was feeling angry or upset, they could choose a card from the corresponding deck and it would have an exercise they could do to calm down or feel better. The cards could also create a random workout routine, each with an exercise and diagram on it. Alternatively, cards could have different food dishes on them and would have a recipe and ingredient list on the back. All these ideas use the randomness of shuffling and selecting a card to provide ideas that would not naturally be considered by the player.

Some of these ideas would be logistically difficult or impossible, especially considering the absolute criteria of fitting inside a standard size protective sleeve. Because of this I moved away from complex, intricate puzzles and moving parts all together. I wanted to make a simple but fun game that only used printed cards. I analysed traditional card games, specifically poker, and one thing I noticed was the social aspect. Although poker is inherently random and should give (eventually) equal winnings, a good player can profit by not beating the odds, but beating their opponents. Bluffing and keeping a ‘poker face’ are integral concepts to the game. My second major influence was the game ‘Cards against humanity’: a game where players fill in the blanks in a sentence with outrageous and offensive cards. Player compete against each other to make the most entertaining sentence, and the winner is decided by the ‘Czar’, a role that rotates among the players.

My final concept is an ‘endless’ card game. The cards have ridiculous phrases, facts, or pick up lines on them, and the person with the card attempts to slip it into conversation with an unsuspecting target. If they are successful and the target doesn’t call them out, they are given the card and they must in turn try to pass it on. If the person notices the phrase, the player must keep the card. In this way, my card game is not like traditional games. Instead of being played by a pair or group of people, it could be played by hundreds as the cards make their way from person to person.

[elkian]

wassup got a fic out of my docs and out of my system #feelsgoodman

Rating: G

Words: 1,752

Fandom: Voltron Legendary Defender

Characters: All Paladins, Princess Allura, Coran (Paladin-centric)

It’s when Hunk takes a light (but, judging from Lance’s face, not light enough), joking swipe at Lance that they notice.

Pidge realizes just how much they’ve curled on top of Keith, practically sitting in his lap. Keith, who - doesn’t hate, but definitely dislikes touching people, being touched, is slowly and unconsciously carding one hand through their hair. Shiro is hanging over the couch from the back, mock-refereeing Hunk and Lance’s impromptu slapfight, his human arm slung casually across Pidge and Keith’s necks. Lance and Hunk have been practically entwined in each other for the last twenty minutes - and they’re both cuddly, but usually not that cuddly.

The best, oddest thing is that it doesn’t really snap off… the paladins drift to their rooms for lights out, almost glowing in the unusual contact, and though they’re mostly back to normal the next ‘day’, if Lance’s arms slides against Keith’s during breakfast, or Hunk’s back presses reassuringly against Pidge’s during practice, it’s nothing to mention.

---

The next time it happens, they start to realize why. After a long mind-melding session (attempt), the paladins wander into the dining room. Rather than slump at the table and wait for Coran and Hunk to feed them, they decide to follow the yellow paladin into the ‘kitchen’ area.

Keith and Shiro find themselves at a pair of cutting boards, following Hunk’s ecstatic yet clear instructions on how to cut the various alien… vegetables? Pidge has the stove-like thing going and is stirring what appears to be some kind of pasta, while Lance is surprisingly deftly folding spices and herbs into a bowl of cheese-vegetable. Hunk all but dances through the food preparation area, dipping a tasting spoon into this and that and glowingly complimenting everyone’s work. It’s the first time most of the paladins have seen him in action like this, and they realize that to him, food is a kind of engineering - both a science and an art.

And when they settle together at the table (chairs a little closer than usual, as they lean over each other and fight for fritters and pasta, laughing and settling back, their shoulders knocking together), the food tastes sharper and better than ever, complex alien flavors filling their palates and lending an extra helping of cheer and energy to the previously burnt-out crew.

---

“What does this do?”

“How does this work?”

“How much can we alter the gravity in the castle? What about each room?”

“How old are the Lions? Could we make more? What happens if a pilot passes out or something, can someone else sub in?”

Coran looked fit to pull his mustache out.

Pidge glances at the Altean and their mouth curls in a smirk, but they just keep tapping away at their newest project. Allura doesn't even bother with that much restraint, laughing for what feels like the first time in weeks.

The redhead swatted Lance away from poking at a button that  probably wouldn’t eject them all into space. “Alright, that’s it! You are ALL GROUNDED until you can be yerselves properly again! I can’t believe this!” He whipped around and pointed at Pidge, whose smug face instantly fell. “And you! I get that there’s a power rush and all involved but could you try not to dominate yer teammate’s minds?”

Pidge’s expression isn’t quite as blank as they like, but blank enough to make Coran lose steam and (alongside a still-amused Allura) actually explain what’s been happening to them for weeks. They’d all guessed, of course, but it was good to hear someone actually lay it all out.

Shiro clapped a hand on the Altean’s shoulder as he finished. “Well, we’re handling it pretty well so far, Coran. And I don’t think it’s such a bad thing if we paladins - all of us - know a little bit more about what we’re doing, don’t you?”

Coran’s budding confident smile soured as Lance almost immediately appeared in front of him, pointed at his chin, and asked, “Wait, do you shave? How do you shave? Can I borrow your razor?”

---

And then they were Keith.

This far in, the melding started to have more dramatic, or at least easily discernible effects - it was easier to stay oneself, but more nuance was also received.

Hunk felt like his skin was tighter than ever. Itchy, on the verge of doing something. His nervous tics and constant movement increased - it wasn’t enough to rummage through everyone’s things, he was pacing, he wanted to go for a mile run even though they’d just finished training.

Pidge’s tech work becomes even faster, if slightly sloppy. They breach new and barely imaginable ideas, half-crafted code being discarded in favor of transcribing the newest thought. They feel on fire, more intuition than person.

Lance is… Lance is good, in a way no one expected. Something about Keith’s razor instincts and surety just clicks with his hunches and bravado. Of course, it also makes him even more insufferable than ever - though he’s quieter than they’ve ever seen him, what few words do leave him are far more accurate than anyone is comfortable with. He’s making a particularly unflattering observation about Coran when Shiro finally physically picks him up and forces him to go to his bedroom, with a stern but amused “Behave”.

---

Lance’s interconnectivity, Hunk’s interest in and love for all aspects of food, Pidge’s burning curiosity, and Keith’s deeply ingrained intuition all have perks and mostly-proportionate downsides, and Shiro is no different.

Is this truly the first time he’s come through, or the first they’ve noticed? It’s hard to tell, but several of Team Voltron would put their money on the former - while he’s often stern and disciplinary, Shiro does his best not to burden his team, even when it would help him.

It’s difficult to translate years (and desperate, deeply-engraved, half-forgotten months) of experience across a temporary mental connection, particularly in just residue. They do eventually notice, however; Lance thinks a little before he opens his mouth. Hunk remembers Pidge’s discomfort and considers putting the diary back (he doesn’t. But it’s a start). Pidge finds themself a little more aware of the emotions of the people around them, as does Keith, and both find themselves a little more in control of their anger that day.

-

Shiro wakes that night, choking on a scream; same as usual. But he’s barely sat up, intent on getting out of bed and exercising the phantoms away, when the door whooshes open.

Much as he might want to deny it, he lets Lance curl into his body, head butting into his ribs and fingers circling his 'real' elbow and snores already shaking the bed. He lets Hunk and Keith shove a second mattress through the doorway and flop onto the floor, Pidge already slumped with their back against the side of the bunk and snoring (little fingers oh-so-fragile laced with his monstrous ones, and he wants to object but he feels like a person for the first time in months). Hunk’s halfway through a story, an amused (and still fully-clothed) Keith humoring him with a faint smile, when sleep brings him down, and while the red paladin is the last of the four to fall into slumber, he also looks more relaxed than Shiro has ever seen him.

And somehow, that’s what really helps him smile, half-lidded eyes brimming with tears even with Lance sawing logs against his chest and curled like a constrictor around him, that’s what helps him finally sleep, for what feels like the first time in years.

---------

For the rest of his life, Shiro will remember the feeling of Pidge’s pulse under his fingertips as he woke; the quiet and, for lack of a better word, universal breathing pattern that had filled his humble quarters slowing the existential dread that waking brought.

Their dramatic days lessened, but was it because they’d improved or because they were resembling each other more? And was that because of the link, or just because they’d spent so much time together, especially as comrades-in-arms? It wasn’t as if they didn’t find themselves sometimes aping Allura or Coran’s unique alien accents, or unusual turns of phrase - just the other day, Lance had caught himself (okay, Keith caught him and then Hunk and Pidge wouldn’t let him live it down, whatever) using body language from both Alteans, the particular wrist flick Coran might use to indicate something, the foot-tapping Allura did when thinking of something long past.

So, anyways, it might not be anything.

But then again.

When the newest aliens threw them a welcome/thanks/leave-as-soon-as-you’re-done-please feast, and Keith accidentally shoved a chunk of hairy, deeply texturally unpleasant root vegetable in his mouth, it was Pidge, who wasn’t even looking his way, who quietly handed him a napkin and distracted their hosts while he spat it out.

When a piece of the kitchen fell on and trapped Hunk and Lance, weeks after their last mind meld, it was Shiro who stopped in the middle of his workout six levels away and found them, Keith and Pidge appearing almost as soon as he’d gotten the story out of the boys.

When Pidge kicked a piece of unresponsive alien hardware and accidentally broke their toe, Hunk had them in his arms and halfway to the infirmary before they could even get over the shock to yell.

Shiro had a bad dream and Lance started crying in the middle of a joke, and the four collected outside his door before he’d even woken up. Keith sprained his knee in training and Lance noticed before he did; Lance tried to eat something that Hunk had meant to throw out and Pidge stopped him, even though they couldn’t explain why; Lance tried to tell a new joke and Keith ruined it by shouting the punchline a sentence early and laughing hysterically; Shiro got a craving for marshmallows and walked into the kitchen to find Hunk putting the finishing touches on ‘alien s’mores’ or, as Lance liked to call them, Space S’Mores (with pronounced capitalization).

Sometimes it worried them. Allura and Corran seemed to find it normal, but was it? Was it normal for paladins… or for Alteans? Was it making them other than human?

But as time went on, they began to realize that only some of it was the mind meld, the Lions. And a lot of it… was them.

Years after the war, after Zarkon’s defeat, even when far from each other, they would always be a team.

They’d always be family.

[viralnewstime]

To help make self-isolating from your mates a little easier during the coronavirus pandemic, Cards Against Humanity has been made available to play online, ensuring that just because you can’t physically see friends and family doesn’t mean you can’t force them to endure your awful sense of humour online.

If you’re unfamiliar with the popular card game, it’s described as a “party game for horrible people,” that’s kind of an updated mad-libs situation. It involves players completing a fill-in-the-blank phrase as part of a sentence and the best (or worse, as it may be) being chosen by a judge.

As the game’s own website points out, it’s “as despicable and awkward as you and your friends,” and it’s a great way of getting a slightly uncomfortable insight into your loved one’s heads.

The digital version follows more or less the same rules as the IRL one. You can create your own online room and share a link with friends so you can all play together in real time. You’re also able to set up a video chat with everyone in the virtual room.

Cards Against Humanity is now live over at Playingcards.io, which also includes party game standards like Checkers and Go Fish.

The post You Can Now Play Cards Against Humanity With Your Friends Online appeared first on Music Feeds.

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[khaleesikirk]

So, sometimes I play this game in my head I like to call “What would you take with you if the world were ending?”

The premise of this is pretty straight forward, if you had to pack up and leave your home because of zombies, or a disaster or whatever, what would you bring? 

Now sometimes I have a car, sometimes just my big camping backpack. So I envision what my husband and I would choose to bring with us. 

Some things are easy. We’d never leave our cat, he’s our baby. So him, plus all the things he needs, easy. Obviously food, essential supplies like matches, first aid kit, medications. 

Then things get harder. What clothes do I bring? How many sweaters? How many pairs of jeans? But even that’s resolved very quickly. 

Then its usually the other camping gear we have. Sleeping bags, folding chairs, reusable durable dishes, and stuff like that.

But then it becomes a question of personal items. Do I bring some of my books? Which ones do I choose? What about my collectibles? My little figurines or the stuffed animals I’ve hoarded since I was a child? What about the glass flowers I made for my wedding? The pictures of me, my husband, my friends? The cards my mother-in-law makes that my husband has given me for every birthday, anniversary, christmas and valentines day since we met? And what about my notebooks filled with stories? Or my laptop? Is there even power? What about my board games, or video games? 

If you asked me why I played this game, I’d most likely lie and tell you I wasn’t sure why. The truth is I know exactly why I play it, and its not a good truth. The truth is, I’ve always wanted to world to end. I’ve never felt at home in this world, this functioning society. I don’t fit. I never have, its why I write, its why I read, its why I dream. 

So I always told myself: bring on the apocalypse. I can handle myself in a  simple world where survival is the goal. I can cook, I can make a fire, I can handle myself in the wilderness. But this world? This complicated world filled with rules and restrictions. Where it doesn’t matter how good you are if you don’t have the a stupid piece of paper telling everyone you can do it. It doesn’t matter how hard you work if the stress of the test makes your mind go blank. 

This world has always been stacked against me. Even when it seemed I had all the advantages. My family had money to send me to school, but my untreated depression made me physically ill and confined me to my dorm room. So that same family wouldn’t pay for school anymore. Which I understood, at the time. I thought I was a failure. Nobody bothered to ask me why. Why I couldn’t get out of bed. Why even when I made it to class, and even understood the material, I would stare blankly at the test, unable to form a coherent sentence. I’m not stupid. I’m not slow. I learn quite quickly actually, and on most occasions, I function, I work like I’m a human, but sometimes I just come apart.

So let the world burn. I’ll survive and rule the ashes. And it doesn’t matter what I take with me. What matters is I’ll be there, after the people who looked down on me have died in that fire.