#its a given with this au half the cast is dead(!)

[ciciciron]

Thinking about my totally awesome and not unnecessarily complex song fic/animatic idea involving my au and Lear but not my amazing cool Hoopa!Lear just a normal one and this thing will probably never be made because it is so insanely spoilery for the end of my first au fic which will take forever to finish but at the same time

Great angst potential on every front regarding the sequel especially Hoopa!Lear so info dump under the cut maybe I'll try to storyboard a bit of it soon

Laying the ground rules for the au here- pokemon hybrids, multiverse, 10,000 year time skip after the (very different) events of diamond and pearl, this is 3 months after the conclusion of that au in which an organization referred to as the U.P.A. (Universal Protection Agency) has been enstated with the goal of preventing reality from ever getting that fucked again (it was bad)

The song itself is Dead! by MCR which...no twists here you know someone's gonna die, the fic focuses on the protagonist of my au (my beautiful bird boy Akagi, who's named after Cyrus but isn't him and but is kind of his son but also isn't) who's been tasked with assassinating a version of Lear that didn't die when he was supposed to (very bad for Reality she doesn't like that)

But uh oh! Young Prince? Assassination? That's really familiar! Akagi doesn't have the balls to kill a guy in the same way he himself died, uh oh spoilers for that plot point good thing it's chapter 1 and said chapter should be posted to ao3 as soon as this heatwave stops and I can fucking think again and finish the second

He tries to do it anyways, given a 2 week time period before someone else has to step in, but uh oh again! Akagi's getting attached! Now it's even harder to kill this guy

Too bad so sad has to happen BUT what matters most is the angst potential

Because Hoopa!Lear was one of many people who saw Akagi get assassinated (and also missed the entire plot so will be very confused to see him alive and well in the sequel) so that can be revealed and then Akagi with his shit social skills would be like 'That's so funny I just failed at killing a version of you' and because this isn't normal at all it can create issues I can elaborate on severely

This is outside of song fic territory but it ties in both to the sequel plot and my horrific cringe oc x canon side plot sorry it's a legal requirement for people to have to slog through my self fan service for my definitely amazing writing that's why there's 3 versions of Cyrus in the first fic and also why I rewrote the entire lore leading up to the first to include more Volkner, sorry again, if I don't throw everything I have at the wall some poor sap will have to personally listen to me infodump please I love talking to people so much please I promise I'm not cringe

I'm gonna go finish my preobligations and then go draw something totally really good

[delinquentbookworm]

Idea for an au that in my head I’ve dubbed ‘heir Porter au’ where porters family is never fully driven out of the mountains of chaos, instead just to the very edge in a very barren area. This partially done as a reminder of the glory they once had and also so their enemies can just keep an eye in them.

So the now named cliffbreakers (they still change their name mostly because I really like Porter cliffbreaker but also as a constant reminder of their greatest failure and to never be weak enough to let anything like it happen again) bide their time carving out a meagre existence for themselves while researching and planing a way to fight back.

It’s porters birth that acts as a catalyst so to speak, he’s the first genesi born in generations to an otherwise Goliath family and is seen as a blessing and a sign of good fortune (basically a way to make Porter even more arrogant and egotistical than in canon since he’s basically treated like a prince, while also deeply caring about his family and the people he sees as his).

They come up with a similar plan to canon, resurrect ankarna so Porter can kill her and take her place as the new god of war etc. The only problem is that they need someone who has and truly knows magic to help cast and research the rituals and find the dead gods name.

Cue Jace acting as a chaperone to the high five heroes (the rat grinders) for a spring break project in the mountains of chaos, it was so easy to spy on them and almost as easy to lead a stampede of high level monsters their way.

In the confusion they manage to grab Jace while the kids get away, he’s exhausted and confused by the sudden apparent of a group of goliaths and an earth genesi so before he even has a time to question what’s going or fight back his neck is snapped.

When he wakes up he finds a a fiery red gem lodged in his chest and a mage collar (one of the few antiques the cliffbreakers have from their former glory, it severely limits a spell casters ability unless the person who put it on (Porter) allows its) wrapped around his neck.

Porter gives a big epic speech about how he plans to reclaim the mountains of chaos, earn back the name of sunstone and literally turn himself into a god. By the time he’s finished and actually looks at Jace he expects to see fear and awe in the half elf, instead he just looks completely confused and frightened.

That’s when it finally occurs to him, none of his followers have comprehend language, they only speak giant and there’s little to no chance Jace would understand giant.

Porter and a few others do know a little bit of common from traders so they do their best to explain the plan to Jace, this only confuses him more though.

Jace does eventually eventually get the idea of what they’re trying to do, mostly through having a bunch of books written in common on religion, magic and gods dumped on him.

Along with witnessing a lot of the ceremonies they perform on Porter to try and prepare his body for godhood, Jace definitely finally gets annoyed enough at one point to just fully barge his way into a ceremony add some tunes for extra potency, add what little magic he can access to to the circle and reposition Porter to the correct bloody markers! He’s a teacher goddamit and sloppy work still pisses him off.

He fully expects to be killed or punished (he really tries to ignore how both his heart and cock jump at the idea of that) only for the Goliaths to what he thinks is praise him? Slapping him on the back (he’s nearly knocked over by this) pat him on the head etc and Porter to come up to him and clasps him on the shoulders and what in little common he knows say “good magic, good elf”.

Also Jace being a little freak who while yes is a scared and pissed off as a normal person would be in this situation also has had a fantasy of being taken hostage by a group of Goliaths and fucked in front of everyone by their leader in a show of power and dominance for a while now.

And Porter who’s so used to being given everything (he’s basically like their prince do he gets special treatment) while simultaneously being denied the only thing he really wants and feels like deserves (the ability to restore sunstones name and his own godhood) finding himself developing feelings for Jace and just fully not knowing how to cope or what to do with them.

He also has to deal with a group of Goliaths that are very interested in the very pretty little half elf they suddenly have.

Plus I love the idea of your short 5.5 and 110 pounds Jace, especially considering that the average height of a male Goliath is 6.9 xx

This is a really fun au idea! I don't have anything to add myself, but I would definitely encourage you to write and post this on ao3!!!

[tathrin]

Roughly what would a Mirkwood Ghost AU be?

From this prompt-meme.

EDIT: now with slightly longer more polished version on AO3 here.

Sorry for the delay in answering this one, I had so many ideas that I could not sort-out what I actually wanted to do with it, and I for the longest time thought it was going to be something where Legolas was an Unhoused Spirit trapped around Dol Guldur, or even one where all of Mirkwood had been dead for generations, but Gimli strayed into the forest one day and came out with an elvish ghost as his side etc etc...but what I actually ended up not being able to get out of my head was this thing, where it's not so much a Mirkwood Ghost AU but rather the opposite (sorry; I hope you like it anyway).

All the dwarves of Moria were dead—all save one, a bright-bearded dwarf who introduced himself to the Company as Gimli son of Glóin, at your service and that of your family. He helped lead them through the dark, and warned them as best he could (for he could not speak its name, of course; one of the rules of death is that one cannot name that which killed him) of the danger of fire that waited below; and when at last they broke past the last enemy and made to run out into the sun, Gimli stopped. Legolas turned back, his sharp elvish ears hearing the sudden silence where dwarven boots no longer rang upon the stone. "Gimli, come!" he cried. "The orcs will be on us soon, we must hurry!"

Gimli only smiled sadly and shook his head. "I cannot, Legolas. This is as far as was given to me to help the Fellowship, when I begged a boon of my Maker before I go to lay my head down in Dwarven Dreaming forever. You must go on from here without me; I am sorry."

"No," said Legolas. "No, Gimli, you are one of us now, and I will not leave you in this tomb; your kin are dead, and I am sorry for it, but you cannot help them now."

"I am dead too, Legolas. I am dead, and so in this tomb I must remain."

"No," the elf insisted stubbornly, a flare of anger kindling hot within him through the cold weight of grief. If he was surprised to learn that Gimli had been dead even before they met, he did not show it; but he was an elf of Mirkwood, and so perhaps he alone among the surviving Fellowship was not surprised. "No, Gimli, come away with us," he said, and his sad eyes were fierce. "Did you not pledge to aid the Fellowship when first we met you in the dark?" he challenged. "Would you be proved faithless now, when the road lightens?"

For a long time they stood there, living elf and dead dwarf, staring at one another across the dark threshold of Khazad-dûm. Legolas reached back into the shadows of the ancient dwarven halls and held his hand out: steady, waiting. His star-bright eyes did not flicker as he stared at the ghost before him.

Eventually, Gimli met that long hand with his own, and let the elf pull him forward into the light.

He had more than half-expected to dissolve the moment his feet left the stones of Khazad-dûm and his head stood out beneath the sun, able to endure the light even less than living orcs; but Legolas held firm, and Gimli endured his first breathless walk beneath the sun. When he looked into the Mirrormere, he could see the stars shining through the shadow of his face; but by the time they reached the trees of Lothlórien, he was solid enough to cast shadows of his own upon the ground, even if his feet made no footprint in the leaves.

The elves of Lórien were not keen to let a dead thing walk into their woods, but the Lady's power did not bar such a noble spirit from her lands, and so they could do naught to stop him; and so the ghost of Gimli walked forward with the Fellowship of the Ring beneath the golden leaves of Caras Galadhon. He bowed to the Lady there, and she wrapped a charm braided of her own gleaming hair around his wrist before he left—three strands of Tree-lit silvered-gold to anchor his dead spirit to the world so that his ghost might endure in places that were less forgiving to spirits than the Golden Wood.

Thus bound to the living world by the locks of the Lady Galadriel, the ghost of Gimli son of Glóin floated down the Anduin and soared across the plains of Rohan and dragged living orcs to their deaths on the cold stones of Helm's Deep; he shivered through the Paths of the Dead, the one dead-thing there not bound to Isildur's Oath, seeking refuge from the ancient spirits that saw him far too clearly in the warm and living hands of the elf that led him; joined the oath-bound dead as they assailed the living enemy at Pelargir and caught and bolstered the faltering steps of a living elf when the cry of white seagulls lashed the longing for distant shores like whips across his trembling ears; took the fields outside of Gondor alongside Isildur's Heir and marched with the living towards their doom outside the Black Gates.

And when the war was done, and the Dark Lord cast down, and the One Ring unmade, Gimli son of Glóin took the hands of the elf that had drawn him out of the black pit of Moria one last time and whispered his farewells at last, and—

And Legolas caught his dead face between his hands and pressed his living lips to the ghost of Gimli in a kiss, and whispered, "Stay."

And faithful Gimli, who could not bear to let even death break his promises to the living, lingered as he was bid; as he was begged.

He bound dwarven charms to the crystals of the Glittering Caves, creating in their gleaming beauty a space on the edge of life and death alike where a half-housed spirit could wander safely; he fashioned bands of mithril to hold the Locks of the Lady around his spectral wrists until the ghosts of his bones settled solidly into his spirit, as steady as the heartbeat of any living dwarf within his silent, breathless chest. And he walked, dead and devoted, at the side of his living elf, and if fearful superstitious whispers followed them wherever they want, Legolas did not seem to mind them—and so Gimli would not falter to them either.

And indeed, what cared Legolas for the whispers of fear that followed the spectral steps of his dead lover? Legolas was an elf of Mirkwood. He had ever lived among Shadow and Death, his people standing brave and doomed against the Necromancer, defiant to their last breaths and beyond. What cared he when people whispered about the ghost of Gimli now? They had ever whispered such things of Mirkwood, too, and Legolas had ever loved his dark and deadly forest.

Why not love a dead dwarf, too?

And when all of Legolas's mortal friends were dead at last, and only the ghost remained yet by his side, he built a grey ship and sailed for the Straight Road at last, following the call of the gulls to the elven-home that he had never seen. And when the ship crossed the rain-curtain between the mortal and immortal planes of the circles of the world, the shimmering ghost of a dwarf sailed with him, and none in Aman could stop them; for Aman was a place barred to living mortals, yes, but Gimli was no living mortal.

And so they walked onto those white shores together, and Gimli's dead feet made less impression in the sands than the light elvish tread of Legolas, but the grip of their hands entwined was as solid and firm as any living bond.

Mahal wept to see one of his dwarves so twined to an elvish soul that even death would not free him to seek the Dreams of the Dwarves that waited for all his kin beneath the stone—but Gimli held his dead head high in the face of his Maker's tears, and did not falter. He held Legolas's warm living hand within his dead one, and did not falter.

And the Lady of Lothlórien saw her golden locks still gleaming bright around his spectral wrists where he stood there translucent on the sands, and she smiled at them both, and Gimli was content. His Maker would understand someday, and see the love that bound Gimli's dead spirit to the world, and sorrow for him then no more; for was it not Mahal who had first forged his dwarves to be so stalwart in faith and in endurance?

And the heart of Gimli son of Glóin was ever faithful. Even in his death.

[colorsunimaginable]

the spare // chapter sixty-two // death eater ! tom hiddleston oc x plus size ofc - voldemort wins au

story summary: 

While on a mission to avenge the death of her best friend, Ilvermorny graduate Melisa Alder finds herself in the middle of the fight to defeat Voldemort. Upon capture after the Dark Lord's triumph, she's being sold at an auction with other muggle borns and blood traitors. Her only hope is also her only bidder - the tall, dark, and handsome Thomus Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy's younger half-brother. Is he just another Death Eater or is he hiding more than just his face beneath the mask? Will she realize her true potential to be one of the resistance's greatest weapons?

*a Voldemort Wins AU with Tom Hiddleston cast as an OC x a plus size protagonist* *takes place in The Auction universe by Lovesbitca8*

words for this chapter: 4k warnings for this chapter: cunnilingus, squirting

CHAPTER MASTERLIST

Chapter Sixty-Two:

“Did it work?”

God, his voice. Rich, deep, smooth baritone.

After the initial shock that left me frozen, my throat tightens and my face flashes with heat as I try to blink away tears. I sniffle, and the fact that I can hear it forces another crack into the dam.

Footsteps barely register as I quickly raise my fingers to my ear and snap.

Sweet, sweet relief spreads from my chest as the sound comes in clear and tears finally cascade down my cheeks, my face crinkling from the emotion.

Someone kneels in front of me. Strong, warm hands clasp mine tightly in my lap.

“Are you alright?” Thomus presses, his lovely voice close now, in front of me. “Does something hurt? Are you feeling ill?”

I work the muscles in the back of my throat, trying to use my voice, but I don’t think that’s working yet. So I just sniffle again and shake my head.

He brings the backs of my fingers to his lips, trailing kisses over my knuckles. “Then why are you crying?”

I pull my hand from his and fingerspell.

“Happy?” he asks hesitantly and I nod. I point to myself, to my ear, and then to him, barely keeping the smile off my face as my fingers touch his chest. He squeezes my hand before I feel him turn. “H.S.?”

More footsteps approach. “Are you hearing any sort of ringing, dear?”

I recognize the voice as belonging to the Healer he brought me to, Hippocrates Smethwyck. There’s a roughness to it I hadn’t noticed when I first met him, like he smokes. I shake my head in response to his question.

“Muffled sound?”

No.

“Are our words slurring?”

No.

“Any sounds dis –“

“What about her other senses, Rakepick?” Thomus demands, interrupting Smethwick.

An unfamiliar voice joins in from farther away, whom I’m assuming is Rakepick. “As I’ve stated before, the curse Lestrange cast on her is one of his own making,” the man bites out, clearly annoyed.

“So you say,” Thomus snaps back.

“So the evidence says,” Rakepick replies. “The evidence you have given me.” The distinct sound of heels upon hardwood begin from the direction where Rakepick’s voice is coming from. He’s pacing. “His blood was absorbed into her skin. There isn’t a simple counter curse for blood magic. You should consider yourself lucky she’s otherwise unharmed.”

“Unharmed?” Thomus hisses. He stands, turning away from me. “Losing vital senses is what you consider to be unharmed?”

The man’s pacing stops. “Absolutely,” Rakepick states. “She is not dead nor is she actively dying.”

“What else can be done?” Smethwyck cuts in, his tone calmest of the three.

Rakepick sighs. “At this point I’ve exhausted all I can think of. If I attempt to restore her sight or voice, she could lose her hearing again. Or worse.”

“Worse?” comes Thomus’ voice. It’s calmer now, almost… fearful?

Thomus? Afraid?

There’s a pause. “Restoring more than one of the senses she’s lost might trigger a failsafe. I’ve seen it happen with tombs in Egypt and Syria. When the first line of defense fails, a secondary measure takes its place to ensure maximum security.”

“What does that mean for a living being?” Smethwyck asks.

“I’m afraid that since we were able to bypass a part of his curse restoring her hearing, if we attempted to restore another…“ Rakepick hesitates again, “the true effects of the curse would be revealed.”

Someone – Thomus, I believe – starts stomping around, his breaths coming in quick and sharp. “So there’s nothing to be done?” he demands.

“Whatever your next attempt, it should be to rid her of the curse entirely.”

The somber finality of his words settles across the room. Heavy. Suffocating.

I close my eyes, focusing on deep breaths. My chest is so tight with anxiety that it’s painful. My dull fingernails dig into my wrist, distracting me from the dizzying emotional pain. It clears my head enough to shove some positivity in its place.

I can’t say for sure which of the senses I’d rather have gotten back. Hearing or seeing both would come with their own set of problems. I’m sure if I could talk I’d just be talking into the void, as per usual embarrassing myself.

Getting my hearing back isn’t so bad. After all, I can hear Thomus’ voice right? I can listen to music. Maybe communicating won’t be so difficult anymore. At least it’s something, and I’m grateful for it.

“I best be off then,” Rakepick announces softly. He begins walking, sounding like he’s going to pass me.

I blindly reach my hand out, grabbing his arm. He stops abruptly, turning towards me. The tips of my fingers come to my lips, and I move my flattened hand slightly downwards in his direction. My mouth moves around the silent words.

“She’s thanking you,” Thomus says quietly.

Rakepick takes the hand on his arm and puts it in his, shaking it. “Good luck.”

“I best be off as well, Thomus,” Smethwyck says.

Rakepick releases my hand and the pair of footsteps retreat from the room. Their voices along with a familiar female one, come from what I assume is the hallway, and then there’s a soft knocking.

“How did it go?” Narcissa’s voice asks, her heels click on the floor as she approaches. Her tone is hesitant, prepped for the news to be good or bad.

I grin and wave in the direction I think she is, before pointing to my ear. I repeat the same simple signs I used with Thomus earlier.

“You can hear me? Oh, that’s just wonderful!” I can sense the smile on her face just from her voice. “It must be such a relief.”

I just smile and nod.

“Aren’t you pleased, Thomus?” she asks, doubt in her voice. There must be something on his face. It makes my own smile falter.

“I’m downright cheerful, can’t you tell?” he replies acidly.

“What did the Curse-Breaker say?”

Thomus starts striding towards me. “Nothing good.” His hand clasps my elbow and he pulls me to my feet. “I’ll discuss it with you later.” My hands go around his arm as he starts guiding me – to the door, I assume.

“You’re leaving?” Narcissa asks, following behind.

“I’m going to take her to the cottage for a few days,” Thomus replies. His tone is biting – still annoyed. “I want to keep her under surveillance, make sure there won’t be any delayed reactions.”

“Alright,” she relents. “Make sure to bring her here if you have to leave for an extended period of time.” My chest warms hearing her concern for me and I don’t know what I did to deserve it.

After a walk down to wherever, he pauses to grab my arm, where I know the tattoo is. We step forward and I feel hot flames lick at my ankles for a moment before it’s gone, the padding under my shoes softer. When I breathe in through my nose, I recognize the familiar scent of the cottage.

Thomus still holds my arm, but I pull it out of his grasp when I turn to him. Stretching up onto my toes, I slip my arms over his shoulders, pulling him tight against me. His arms wrap around my waist, holding me to him just as tightly. A heavy sigh escapes as I relish the comfort and safety of his embrace.

After a long moment, his grip loosens but I hold firm, not wanting it to end. When he realizes that, he refastens his arms. As my cheek presses into his neck, my nose getting tickled by his growing beard, he lets out a soft chuckle.

“Missed me?” he murmurs.

I sigh again and pull back, bringing a hand up so he can see my thumb and forefinger hover centimeters away from each other.

He releases a sharp, amused exhale. “A little?”

I nod and pull him back into my hug, squeezing tighter than before, then release him. Sensing what he’s going to ask me next, I point to myself and fingerspell, feel fine.

“Reading minds now?” he asks.

I shrug and turn towards the rest of the room. With my arms outstretched, I feel the armrest of the couch, the chair with the tv, and then nothing as I slowly make my way across the room. Luckily, there’s no vases for me to knock over here. One hand finds the base of the stair railing, and the other feels for the doorway to the kitchen.

“Are you hungry?” Thomus asks, his voice close behind.

I shake my head, turning it to show him the W I make at my lips.

“Hm, thirsty.” His hands are on my shoulders and he guides me forward until my stomach presses into the island counter. I hear him move around the kitchen, opening a cabinet and the fridge, water pouring into a glass. Then he takes my wrist and places the cup in my hand.

As I’m drinking, a swooshing comes from the back door before familiar meows and loud purring erupt, moving towards me. Soft fur weaves its way around my legs as Caelan greets me with head-butts. I put down the glass and crouch, scooping Caelan’s cat Animagus in my arms. My cheek nuzzles his while I scratch the back of his head.

Over Caelan’s purring, I hear Thomus sigh. “Just when I thought I had you all to myself.”

A soundless chuckle shakes my shoulders and a bit reluctantly, I put Caelan on his feet.

I assume Thomus is looking at me and so I start to sign. Palms up, I move them side to side in front of me and fingerspell symptoms.

“Symptoms of what?” he asks.

I point to him and spell said delayed reactions.

I know this isn’t complete or proper sign language. When I fingerspell I make sure to keep my pace steady and let my hand go limp at the wrist between words. I do it this way because I definitely don’t remember every sign I need, nor does anyone I’m talking to know sign language – especially American sign language.

“Oh, right,” Thomus murmurs. I hear him step closer to where I lean against the counter. “I might’ve fibbed about that.”

My eyebrows come together as I make a face, showing him the letter Y.

His forearm brushes my hand on the counter as he leans on it, his hand sliding along my waist. I wait a long moment for him to respond, and when he doesn’t, I start signing again.

I sign where, point to him, and spell been.

“Where I normally am, tracking,” he easily replies.

Who?

“Who else?” he says, as I should already know the answer. Which I suppose I do.

I feel Caelan still rubbing along legs and try to find the bravery to voice questions I’ve been dying to know. Caelan will just have to wait.

My pointer finger finds Thomus’ chest, then I spell let Rodolphus take, and I point back to myself. My anger and frustration about it come through when I point back at him and emphasize my letters, let.

His hand at my waist rises as he steps closer, rounding the corner separating us. I sign why as his other hand cradles my cheek. He lets out a heavy breath and touches his forehead to mine.

“I thought he wouldn’t try anything with Lucius there,” he murmurs, his tone laced with anguish. “With me there.” He inhales sharply, his chest rising unevenly beneath my hands. “I’m doing everything within my power to make things right.”

One of my hands slides up his chest to his face, my fingers running through the longer length of his beard.

“I’m sorry,” comes his soft admission. Sincere, vulnerable.

I bite my lip, struggling with a sudden tightness in my throat. Even if I had my voice, I’d still be at a loss for words. Who knew a simple apology would make me so emotional?

He shifts his head back and he glides his thumb across the lip between my teeth, making me release it. The next breath I take is shaky too, and turns into a gasp when he leans in to kiss me. It starts out sweet and tender, but gradually heats up when his hands start down a familiar path along my body. Our panting fills my ears, and when I bite his lip he groans, pulling me tighter against him.

Thomus digs his fingers into my hips, his own rolling his hardened length against my stomach. I release a breathy sigh, mimicking his movements, my fingers finding home in his hair. His thigh presses between my legs, right against that spot that really wants more pressure. I tilt my head back as his mouth latches onto my neck, biting down over my pulse. When he sucks at it, my hips grind down against his thigh, the pleasure combo dizzying.

A mildly distracting thought pops up in the back of my mind: I hope Caelan has left, having put two and two together to see I’m not available to talk.

Thomus brings me right back into the moment with his hot breath at my ear.

“Upstairs,” he growls. “I need my mouth on your cunt.”

When I don’t react, my mind blanking at how fucking dirty his words are, he slaps me on the butt and orders, “Now.”

I leap out of his arms, biting my lip in an attempt to keep the giggly grin off my face. I’d absolutely hate to ruin the moment.

With my arms outstretched, it’s a short distance to the doorway, then to the stairs where I leap up them faster than I normally would have. All I can picture is him chasing me up the stairs, right at my heels.

Which, funnily enough, is not far from the truth as I reach the top and my split second indecision on which room to use makes him guide me to the right, to his room.

“Take your clothes off before I rip them off,” he barks from behind me. I stride into the room and stop when I meet the foot of the bed. I turn to face him, my hands on the hem of my shirt, before I decide against that, bending to untie my shoes first. He groans almost painfully, hopefully at the sight of my ass in the air and my cheeky work-around to his demand.

I hear his clothes landing somewhere as I straighten. Hands back at the hem of my shirt, I lift it over my head while toeing at the heels of my shoes to kick them off. I fling the shirt somewhere on the floor and quickly roll my leggings to the floor, kicking them off as well. I think I’m wearing one of the matching lacey sets today.

“Oh, fuck,” he whines when I’m upright, my hands going around to undo my bra. Before I can he shoves me back onto the bed, where I land with a heavy bounce. “That’s good enough.”

 His hands slide along my thighs, rounding my knees and pushing them open. I lean back on my elbows and try to imagine his face as he hums in approval. His thumb runs down the very damp crotch of my undies.

 “You’re wet, aren’t you?” he says, and I nod. “Show me.”

Shifting onto one elbow, I let my fingers glide down to my pussy, rubbing myself over the material. My fingers find the lacey edge of the panties, slipping beneath it without exposing myself. God, I’m soaked. The slick wet sounds reach my ears as I move my arousal around, circling my clit. My teeth sink into my lip and my eyes close as the pleasure spreads.

“Look at you,” he breaths, his words slow. “Such a tease.”

In addition to my own noises, I can hear his hand pumping his cock, and I marvel at the rush of confidence I feel.

Maybe it’s because I can’t see myself. Maybe it’s because I can only picture what he sees – some glorified, sensual version of myself that’s a stranger to me.

I can’t see him, but I think I enjoy being watched. My body – and what I was doing to it – a magnet for his eyes. All of my flaws don’t exist, because to him they were never flaws in the first place.

I slip a single finger inside my wet warmth, gasping when the pad presses against my g-spot, and that’s when he breaks.

His hands grapple for the waistband at my hips, hooking his fingers in and yanking them down. I hear some threads snap under his eager aggression as the material pulls from under my butt.

I’m not too far from the edge, so when he kneels, his face is right over my cunt. His breaths are hot and heavy before he buries the lower half of his face between my legs.

What would’ve been a moan escapes me in a rush as the rest of my back falls to the bed. His tongue sweeps through my folds, tasting me before lapping at my clit. The noises coming from him feasting on me is utterly obscene. His soft and wiry facial hair rubs at my bear cunt as his jaw works his tongue, adding extra sensitivity to the area.

As he laps repeatedly at my clit, my hips are already rocking, pushing against his face. My fingers clutch the comforter beneath me so hard they ache.

I feel his hand brush over mine as he slides an arm around my leg. My inner thigh presses against the side of his face, cradling his head. His hands destination is my fupa, which he grabs closest to my cunt, and pulls it back. This exposes my clit more and I feel it briefly tingle in the cold air before his lips descend, sucking the sensitive bud into his mouth.

My jaw drops and my hips jerk at the sensation. If I was in my right mind, I’d be embarrassed he’d had to move a shameful part of me, a part of me I hate. However, the way his mouth is enthusiastically devouring me has me delirious and obviously not in my right mind.

Thomus momentarily gives mercy to my clit so his tongue can dip down to my hole, where his other fingers are holding my lips spread wide. His tongue swirls circles over it, building up aching, anticipating pleasure. I flex my muscles down there when his tongue penetrates me and he moans.

His mouth pulls away from me, I’d whine at the loss, but I can tell he’s hovering from his heavy breaths blowing over me. He replaces his tongue with his fingers, first one, then two. I get the sense he’s watching his work, slowly pushing them in, stretching me out. He sinks them deep, up to his knuckles, turning them up so he can press along the top ribbed wall of my cunt as he slides them out. He repeats the motion and this time my walls clench as he pulls them out.

A breathy chuckle escapes him. “Look at you,” he says again, even slower this time, his voice gravelly and hot, melting my insides while sending shivers across my skin. Underneath the cups of my bra, my nipples harden into stiff peaks. “Such a greedy little pussy, begging to be filled. Merlin, you’re so wet.”

He moans again before shifting, mouth returning to my clit. His tongue and fingers work in tandem. My free leg plants its foot on the edge of the bed to push against his face, like what he’s already giving me just isn’t enough.

Without releasing my clit, the hand holding back my fupa lets go to find my clenched hand on the bed. He tugs at my wrist until I let go and he guides my hand to the crest of his head. His fingers press on the back of my hand, encouraging me to grab hold of his hair. I grip his hair and he covers my hand, using it to push his face further into me.

Oh.

With his mouth on my clit, his fingers inside me, pushing just inside my aching desperate hole, and now control over his fucking head, I know I’m this close to losing it. My hand holds his head in place while my hips grind and thrust against him. His tongue flattens and his fingers still, pressing harder against my g-spot while I fuck his face.

My legs are trembling, my back is bowed, and I can hardly breathe. All of my instincts are telling me to release, to let of this overwhelming pressure.

So I do. I let go and I cum so hard I’d have screamed if I had my voice.

My eyes are in the back of my head, my mind so gone I’m barely aware of the sudden rush of wetness flooding my pussy. It flows down over my ass and to the bed where I can feel it soaking. Thomus is moaning, his tongue retreated back to his mouth as he gapes, panting. My hold on his head relaxes, my brain finally registering how fucking wet I sound as Thomus continues to rub my g-spot.

Then his mouth is on me again, sucking my clit so abruptly that I cum again. This time I’m acutely aware of the literal waterfall of liquid coming from me as his fingers move in and out. It’s so fucking hot that it draws out a third wave, less intense, but the orgasm still has my body jerking, helpless to the pleasure.

When I’m finally spent, I manage to pull Thomus away. Though my body feels as though all my bones have melted away, I sit up, bringing Thomus’ mouth to mine. His face is sticky, beard soaked through like he’d spilled water on himself. My hands run over his shoulders, one down his… damp forearm, and the other to his cock.

I expect to find it hard and aching, but when I reach for him, he’s soft. Still sticky and warm, but soft.

The discovery makes my kiss falter, confusion and guilt settling over my face.

Thomus doesn’t let those emotions last because he presses his forehead to mine, a soothing chuckle comes from his chest.

“What can I say?” he murmurs. “I really liked you squirting on my face.”

My eyes widen and he guides my hand to the bed. Down just over the edge, where it’s still wet from me, there’s a separate, globby mess there.

I just sit there in dazed disbelief at the realization that I squirted on his face and he came from it. A full, actual orgasm.

Wow.

He pulls back, sitting on his heels I assume, because his hands glide over my thighs. “Have you ever done that before?” he asks. “Squirted?”

My head feels light as I shake my head. My lips slightly pucker, repeating the word wow.

Wow wow wow.

Lazily, I reach back and finally undo my bra. It slips off my arms and Thomus’ hands immediately cup my breasts. His thumbs roll over my nipples and he leans forward, kissing my shoulder and then my cheek.

“I hope you’re ready to do that again,” he says, hunger still evident in his voice, “except with me inside you.”

I can’t help the smile that breaks out across my face. My face had finally started to cool, but now a new blush heats my skin. I push at his shoulders and shake my head. He pulls back and my hand is up, spelling naptime.

He outright laughs and the sound is music to my ears, filling my chest with… affection. For him.

“I suppose I did wear you out today,” he muses.

I nod, pulling his hand as I scoot further up the bed. He follows, crawling in after me. I settle on my back, utterly exhausted. He drapes himself over me with his head on my shoulder.

Thank god for sleep. It means I can push off analyzing the budding problematic emotions within me for just a little while longer.

bonjour bonjour! y'all are getting this chapter sooner than ao3 today. i realized I never properly announced this, but my posting schedule has changed. i'm now updating every other Monday. if you've made it this far into my fic thank you from the bottom of my heart. as always, let me know what you think! reblogs and comments are much appreciated. enjoy 💕

[power-chords]

totally agree about coffee shop aus. once you work in one they especially lose their shine. what about AU’s in general?

As someone who has also worked foodservice, I just cannot get past the psychological hurdle! LOL

Re: AUs in general, that’s a great question, and tough to grade! On the one hand, they’re intrinsic to the form. Eliminate AUs and you’d probably nuke half the works on AO3, if not more. It’s the premise of every fix-it fic, after all. Any scenario that has you rewinding to a specific point in the original narrative and using that as a springboard for an alternate version of events is technically a canon-divergent AU. These are probably my favorite kind of AUs, because they preserve the basic integrity of the source material – its major plot beats, themes, characterization – while allowing for creative iteration that would not otherwise be possible given the events in the story. (Because your blorbo is dead, for instance. Cough.)

As for AUs that transplant entire settings, timelines, genres, etc… I’m totally open and enthusiastic provided they are additive, so to speak, and that the author has done their homework. What I mean is that it shouldn’t be a cheap device for smashing a set of dolls together in a new diorama. It’s got to expand on the source material in a way that introduces further salience and dimension, it’s got to demonstrate love for and comprehension of the creator’s intentions. Ideally, an AU of this kind is like the original work on steroids, or distilled to its platonic essence. So like, a classic fairytale Star Wars AU makes perfect sense because you are taking the same core components back to their traditional foundation. Or like, and I am just pulling this out of my ass here lol, a James Ellroy style crime noir would be a perfect modern reworking for the Game of Thrones cast, with all its unflinching seediness, violence, and ruthless politicking. The same logic applies to crossover AUs! If it’s a clever concept, well written, and spiritually faithful, I’m always game.

[wtl-archive]

Intermission 03: Monster Line Epilogue

Read all the pages in order here.

Blog Info

Artist Credit: NugatorySheep

Okay. We can finally talk about him. Because this? This is the last you're ever gonna see of him. (Which, to be fair, was the original intention.)

This was always planned. I know I've said that before, but I think it needs to be restated.

Before I had any idea how much I'd fall in love with these characters or their stories, before I had any idea of how I wanted anything organized, before I had any plans to keep Druid around after the first chapter, before I even had the explanation for what happened to Druid's timeline to have it be so bleak in the first place, I had this scene in my head. Its one of the only elements of his story that managed to stick throughout all the changes to the plot and all the additions to the story. This one bit stuck, and I actually managed to keep it close to how I initially envisioned it.

In the grand scheme of thing this isn't some revolutionary moment. I think that's why I managed to keep it at all, because in terms of getting Druid back into the story after chapter one it isn't absolutely mandatory, but it's not detrimental either. It has significance, but if it were never in the story to begin with the entire AU wouldn't fall apart. Besides the fact that it has Cactus' cameo, there's nothing objectively wrong with it. But this still means a lot to me, and it's not something I'm willing to just throw away.

When I first started scripting this AU, it was meant to be a series of snapshots in each of theses timelines. You get a glimpse of what the world is like, but there's plenty of room for people to fill in the gaps with their own interpretations about things. There's cliffhangers and unanswered questions that you're never supposed to get an answer for. You visit for a bit, get a snippet of the world's story, then you leave. Think the Twilight Zone, Black Mirror, or Love Death and Robots.

I like to joke a lot that I was going to kill Druid at the end of the first chapter, and while his death was pretty much an unavoidable ending for him even after I decided to make him a more permanent member of the cast, the original ending for him wasn't quite as simple as that. He would manage to capture White, and he would still get fully corrupted in the process, but that was it. We would never see him again, dead or alive. His final fate would be a mystery.

What we would see however, is where the bubble ended up: back at the temple, where the only sentient life that wasn't a gem monster was waiting. The oldest version of this was not a cactus Steven, just a generic plant Steven with a few other variants that were an array of different plants/veggies/fruits. And, now that all of the other Diamonds were caught, they would begin the process of healing the gems, starting with Pearl. Druid's timeline might be bleak, but this little moment gives a potential way out of the nightmare. Maybe there's still a chance for the gems to find a cure even if Druid can't.

You might think that's terrible storytelling, and that an ending should more satisfying than that. I'll agree to disagree. This story might be unorthodox, but it's not bad. There's things I wish I had done differently, but this isn't one of them.

So much of this AU's story got changed, deleted and shifted around. So much of it got taken out of my hands. That's to be expected of course given the nature of it, and I certainly wasn't expecting to be able to keep all of my original vision intact, that's just unrealistic. I said yes to a lot of things, some of which in hindsight probably shouldn't have. I tried my best to be accommodating at every possible turn. I tried, I did my best, and somehow it wasn't enough. Everyone thought that I didn't care. A year and half of work, but sure, I didn't care!

This first chapter was the one thing I could say was actually mine. Besides some things here and there, it was all me. Its the one territory that I owned, and it was the only thing I had left that I could say with any real confidence I did all on my own. This was me.

I'm saying all of this so you can understand why it bothered me so much when I was told to just delete it. There were so many things that I was okay throwing away prior to this. I removed a bunch of posts from the blog. I gave away two of my favorite characters. I relinquished control of so many things. This was the last thing that was MINE. This was ALL. I. HAD. LEFT. I was so tired of saying yes, or being pressured into doing what everyone else wanted to do. So for once in my worthless life, I said "no". I said no, and I wasn't going to give any other answer, Cappy and Liam be dammed.

Fact of the matter is, Cappy and Liam stopped being a problem for me the second they walked out the door, it was everyone else making it my problem that continued to make working on this AU a fucking nightmare. Cactus' overarching role in this AU was irrelevant the moment Cappy left, but this cameo was decided upon well before then and the original agreement was just this cameo and nothing more. All the stuff that was planned after that was just a bonus. This intermission was finished before he chose to leave. It still would've happened regardless of whether or not Cappy decided to expand Cactus to have his own timeline, and I refused to destroy the one thing I had left because of other people insisting Cappy keep being an issue for me despite him having fucked off months prior.

At the time I said no and left my answer at that. I didn't bother trying to pour out my heart and explain why this was so important to me because, well, every other time I tried to say no and explain why, it didn't matter. Any time my opinion was different, there was nothing I could say that would convince anyone to side with me. Despite being the supposed leader of this project, my voice was completely useless and I had no authority. Whenever I tried to set my foot down, I was the bad guy. It was always a fight and I always lost. This time there wasn't going to be a chance to fight, because I wasn't going to change my mind.

Just for once I wish I could get someone to take me seriously without having to be an asshole about it first.

[moorishflower]

a fic I'm reading in a different fandom references the Chinese fable of the Magpie Bridge a lot, and while reading, I couldn't help but think, okay, but this could also be a great concept for a Dreamling fic 🤔

Two lovers, one a goddess, one human, so their love is forbidden. Separated by the Milky Way, they can only meet once a year when a flock of magpies form a bridge across for them.

Swap in 100 years for 1 year and ravens for magpies and there you have it!

oh this is a GOOD one

there are so many good bird-related fables and folk tales! I've been tooling around with the idea of a Dreamling AU of the Crane Wife story, especially because it's one of my favorite songs/series of songs by The Decemberists.

Like, imagine Hob, poor, humble, a mercenary in a time of peace, laid down his sword, and he's glad of it, he's SO glad, but his sword was what brought him coin, and now he has nothing. He has a little house that was gifted to him, and a little copse of woods in which he can hunt and cut wood, but winter is coming on, and the house wants for repairs, and he has no money to purchase supplies. He's doing the best he can and winter is so cold.

The stars fall like streaks of rain on glass, the twilight sky a scattering of silver and bruisy blue, and it is December 1st, and Hob Gadling chops wood for the fire. Stupid, to let the embers dwindle, and he with no logs to feed it, and the sun sinking deep below the horizon. It's bitter cold in daylight, and already the chill bites into his fingers, and numbs his hold on the axe.

Dangerous, to chop wood at night, in the dark, in the cold. Dangerous, too, to fall asleep in a cottage that's more holes than thatch, where the wind whistles at him through the timbers, with a dead hearth and thin blankets.

So Hob chops wood, and tells himself he's grateful for the chance the king has given him. For services rendered to the crown, a home and a plot of land in times of peace. A princely gift indeed. And perhaps, when winter thaws, they will find his body curled upon the bed, frozen stiff, with a dead hearth and empty pockets. Firewood, he thinks, does not buy food. A run-down cottage does not put clothes upon your back.

He sets the axe down to blow into his hands, and the stars blow like milk across the sky, a beautiful line of white that he tracks with his eyes, as though he could navigate by that curling stream. The temptation to return to his cottage, to bundle up beneath his few blankets and await the dawning, is sorely tempting.

The winter is bitter cold, and Hob reaches for the axe again.

The third sapling is not yet even half-felled before he's interrupted by a shout. Hunters come, sometimes, to his little copse, to flush out partridges and hares, and sometimes he is too heartsick for company to deny them, but tonight he is freezing, and his chest is heavy with anger. He swings the axe upon his shoulder and goes towards the noise, wading through the underbrush, following the bay of a hound, and the sharp whistle of its master.

"Oy!" he calls out, and hears the noises stop. "These are my woods, mine by gift of the King, and if you've felled some hart or hare I'll take my share of it!"

"Fuck off!" comes the answering call, and laughter, and the retreating sound of footsteps. The panting of a dog, disappearing into the brush.

He wants to return to the cottage, where at least he has the illusion of warmth. But he heard the crush of the branches, and the hound's eager signal. The hunter had found something, and he needn't even fully butcher it tonight. The cold will keep it well so long as he bleeds it and takes out the entrails, and, heartened by the thought of a warm meal come morning, Hob pushes through the darkening woods, following broken twigs by the light of the rising moon.

When he comes upon the clearing, the silver gleam of the tumbling stars casts it all in shades of cream and starkly alarming shadow, but even in the dimness he can make out the small body in the center, and smell the hot tang of blood.

"Oh," he says softly, and lets the axe fall from his hand. No hart, nor hare, nor even a fat partridge. Only a raven, glossy and nacred black, thrashing weakly in the rotting leaves of winter. An arrow through its wing. "Poor thing. Sweet little thing. It's all right."

He could snap its neck, he thinks. The meat would be gamey and thin, but even leather, boiled long enough, will make a tolerable soup. And surely it would be a blessing, to put it from its misery. A raven with a single wing cannot fly. A raven that cannot fly is not a raven.

Still, when he goes to it, and kneels beside it in the dark, he reaches not for its neck, but for its tiny, heaving breast. "Hush," he croons, and strokes a finger through its downy feathers. "It's all right. Let's get that out of you."

The arrow is black-fletched, perhaps the reason a hunter would bother to shoot a raven in the first place. Needless fancy, when goose feathers fly straight and true, and afterwards one can eat the goose besides. But the shaft of the arrow is wood, the same as any other, and easily snapped. The raven writhes and croaks, miserable, pained, and blood dampens Hob's hands as he pulls the broken arrow from its seat. He can see the white flash of bone, and the blood that slicks the ground turns dark as the loam of the earth under the rising moon.

"Christ's nails," he says, and the raven turns its head, its eye a perfect, black little button, its mouth open and panting. It makes no attempt to flee, not by wing and not by foot. The ravens in London are uncommonly clever, he thinks -- perhaps this is one of them, blown far off course. Perhaps it senses that he tries to help.

He has no healing salves, nor needle and thread to try and stitch the wound closed, and no knowledge of birds' wings, besides. But he has his tunic, worn but clean. Hob takes up his knife from his hip, and begins to cut long strips from the bottom of his tunic, until he has a loose coil of woolen cloth, and a hole that bares his belly to winter's bite. Gooseflesh raises on every inch of his arms, and he shivers.

"This is my only tunic," he tells the raven. "I hope it brings you some comfort." He puts back his knife, and peels the raven's wing apart from its body, stretching out the pinions full and beautiful, long and slender as fingers. Blood oozes sluggishly from the wound and, one-handed, Hob begins to wind the strip of wool around the shape of the raven's wing, tight as he dares, until red spots it through, but, at least, no longer waters the barren earth.

When he ties off the cloth, the raven yanks its wing back, and tilts its head at Hob. Birds cannot have expressions, but if he were to label it so, he would say the thing was confused. Alarmed. Considering.

Then it shakes its sleek little head, the ruffed beard at its throat puffing out. When it croaks, it almost sounds like a word.

Name, the raven rasps. Name, name, and Hob laughs.

"Funny little thing," he says. "You've spent much time around humans, then. Maybe you are one of London's ravens. Hob Gadling is my name, for what good it does me. If the winter gets much colder, it will accompany me to my grave. No coin for food, nor clothes, nor nails to patch the king's cottage." His laughter turns bitter in his mouth, and he cuts it off before it can become a scream, or worse, a sob. "But I can help a raven. If I do nothing else in this life, I can do a few kindnesses before I go. To make up for all the men I've killed."

The raven tilts its head, back and forth, and back and forth. It fluffs out its feathers, and rights itself upon the ground. It's a fine-looking bird, he thinks. Thin, but so beautifully feathered that one can hardly tell at first glance. The down of its chest and wing had been softer than a woman's breast, and Hob thinks of his straw mattress, and his cold, thin blanket, and wonders if the raven will make it through the night.

"I'd keep you, if you'd let me," he offers, feeling foolish for speaking so candidly to a wild bird. The raven blinks its liquid eyes at him. "The nights are longer and lonelier than ever, and I've no wife to warm me at home. But a raven is a fine companion. And I've got some bread and salt beef left that I can share." He offers it his wrist, expecting nothing.

When the bird steps lightly up, spreading out its wings to balance, he feels some small ember kindle in his breast.

"All right," he says, and dares to try and stroke the raven's throat with his finger. It tolerates him for a moment, seeming as surprised as Hob, and then snips at him with its beak. "Cheeky thing. Pretty thing. Will you be mine, then?"

The raven tilts its dear little head. Blood has oozed through the bandage around its wing, a startling red exclamation against off-white wool.

Mine, it croaks. Mine.

And Hob laughs, and tucks the little thing against his chest to shield it from the wind. His axe he leaves buried to its haft in cold soil. He will return come morning to fetch it. For now, he will make do with the wood he's chopped, and hope it burns the night through. If not for his sake, then for the raven.

And if he passes in the night from cold, well. He hopes the raven makes use of him then, too. It would only be fitting.

The stars are falling still, when Hob trudges through the darkened woods towards his cottage. They gleam like specks of dew on morning grass; they fall like snowflakes in the depths of winter, and in the raven's eyes they reflect in silver splendor, a dozen times refracted into an endless night-blooming sky.

[imaginepirates]

Fleeting Memories

This request isn't really like anything I've done before, but here, the reader is James' child, and, after his death, is comforted by Gillette and Groves. (I've made this a bit of an AU where James makes it past AWE, but only goes on to die later.)

@emdrabbles @tesserphantom @viper-official @hellspawn-brownies @groovy-lady @wordsinwinters

~3,000 words

~~~~~~~

           Your hands trembled, almost ripping the letter in half. You hadn’t finished it yet. You couldn’t quite get past the word:

           Dead. 

           You would not--could not--allow yourself to cry in polite company, but the tears pricking your vision had begun to blur out the men that sat across from you. You wiped at them quickly, trying desperately to compose yourself. You would have time to cry later. 

           The tour was supposed to last a month. A month. Yet even after three, you had still heard nothing of the Dauntless or any of her crew. You had cursed the admiralty, feeling that they’d done nothing to resolve the situation, but you knew the facts. There was nothing they could do, even had they tried. You tried to tell yourself that your father was a capable commander, that he would somehow get his men home. And he had--some of them, at least. But he had not returned. You had nothing but a letter in his place. 

           Admiral James Norrington, killed in action. 

           Across the sitting room table, Gillette picked at a thread on his sleeve while Groves stared into his lap. They looked exhausted. Beyond what you had imagined they must, given all that had happened. Dark circles lay below their eyes, like bruises that had been beaten into them, and there was a pallor to their skin that should not have been allowed by the Caribbean sun. It was perhaps the first time you had seen Gillette without a smile. 

           You had known them both your entire life. Your father had been close to few, but you knew of the warmth between him and Groves, and that he had spent much of his time in the Navy alongside Gillette as well. They had taken care of you, as a child, when your father was off to sea and they were not. You remembered learning songs from Gillette, and walking on Groves’ feet. As you grew older, they helped your father teach you to fight; tutored you in the ways of maps and charts and reading the stars; even gave you their terrible flirting advice. It was hard to imagine a tense moment with them. They were family. 

           But sitting there, on that hard chair, nails digging into the wood, the very air around you held its breath. The tea on the table in front of you had gone lukewarm. You moved your mouth a little, not yet daring to speak lest the words get caught in your throat, but preparing for it. You had so many questions. 

           The letter had not been very revealing. It only told you that your father was dead, and offered what meagre condolences it could, penned by some unfeeling man back in England who had never known your father in the first place. I wonder if his mother got this same letter, copied as if just another part of the weekly news, you found yourself thinking. Then, I wonder if anyone bothered to tell her at all. How awful it must be for her, a husband and son, both lost to the sea. 

           You had managed to work some of the cotton out of your throat. Affixing your gaze to the wall on the opposite side of the room, you managed to croak out a single syllable. “How?” You took a shaky breath of air. “How did it happen?”

           Groves’ head snapped up, torn from whatever imagery had danced before his eyes. He cast a nervous look to Gillette, who, for once, did not look keen on speaking. Groves looked back at you, opening his mouth, then closing it, looking at you helplessly. 

           “I want to know.” It was barely more than a whisper, but it penetrated the air with more weight than a shout. “You can’t leave me wondering. What my mind will come up with will be worse than the truth.” James’ mother had told you that once, when you were discussing the late Admiral Lawrence. ‘My head swirled with so many thoughts, in those days, between knowing that he was dead and how it happened. Each thought was worse than the last. Had he been beheaded? Scalped? Mutilated? I knew those sorts of things happened.’ 

           “It was,” Groves began. “It was a sword, in the end. Right through the chest.”

           ‘In the end, it turned out he had been shot. Not so bad then, after all.’

           “He finally lost a fight, then.” It was hard to think of him that way, the man who had first put a sword in your hand, but you should have known. Even he was mortal, wonderful swordsman though he was. 

           “He didn’t have a sword.” That was Gillette, tone flat. “He didn’t have anything to defend himself with.”

           Ah.

           You couldn’t decide which idea was worse. You hated to think of him losing, losing a battle and then his life, knowing in the last moments that he had been defeated. But you hated too the image of his having nothing to fight with, helpless to whatever fate was chosen for him. 

           “He was trying to protect us.” Groves had returned to staring at his lap, fists clenching and unclenching over his legs. “He was trying to do what he could, but they’d taken away his sword, and he was already injured, and the other captain, he just…” There was a haunted look about Groves’ eyes that you couldn’t bear to see. “It went right through. Like an oar through water.”

           There was nothing more to say. 

           The silence stretched on, interrupted only by the ticking of the clock on the wall in front of you. You fancied that focusing on its hands hard enough would steady you. 

           The room was stiflingly hot. You wanted to be alone--you wanted to run outside, into the fresh air, gasping for it, sucking it in greedily like some kind of purifying ritual. You wanted to run free across the grass until your lungs burned and your feet were sore, and pitch yourself into the ocean’s salty embrace to swim until you collapsed of exhaustion. To feel so, so much, and to make yourself too tired to feel at all. 

           You could not bring yourself to send Gillette and Groves away. You were sure it would be a relief to them, to not have to look at you, a reminder of the friend they’d lost. And it would be a relief to you, not to have to look at them, a reminder of the father swallowed by the sea. But you could not do it. 

           “He always did do that.” Gillette’s voice was soft, uncertain, so uncharacteristic of himself that for a moment you thought you’d imagined that he’d spoken at all. “He always did look out for us.” Gillette drew himself up a little. “Remember that time in Madras?”

           At first, you thought Groves might shush him, but instead, he gave a watery smile. “Yes.”

           This wasn’t a story you’d heard. You suspected that many of your father’s stories went untold--he never had much liked speaking of himself, and hadn't wanted to encourage you into any shenanigans of your own. “What happened?” You whispered. 

           “He never told you?” Gillette looked surprised, though Groves only rolled his eyes.

           “Of course he never told. You think he wanted to admit to that?” 

           And all at once, they were shaking with quiet laughter, the tension in their bodies dissolving just as your letter might, if you dropped it in a basin of water. You felt some weight leave your own shoulders, surrounded by the familiarity of their laughter. 

           “Well,” Gillette began, “we were stuck in Fort Saint George on account of the fact that our captain didn’t want us ‘causing trouble’ with the locals, as he put it.”

           Groves interrupted him. “I can’t say I blame him. We were still midshipmen then, and prone to all manner of things. James was less adventurous than us even then, but the captain should have known that we didn’t actually need to be outside the fort to be ‘causing trouble.’”

           “Well, we were terribly bored. There are only so many card games a boy can play. At some point, someone suggested that we have a bit of fun and--”

           “And that someone was you, Andrew. Getting us all in trouble as usual.”

           “Well,” Gillette huffed, faking offense, “it’s not my fault the rest of you followed suit.”

           You couldn’t help the slight grin growing on your face. Their antics were always so predictable; you had forgotten how much you loved their stories. Always playing off of each other. One could even call it practiced. 

           “I decided we needed something to do. I couldn’t continue to swelter in the heat. Now, Captain Hawthorne was due to be gone from the fort for some time, and we were in India, you understand, where they have some very fine textiles, if I do say so myself, and the captain had bought some dresses he intended to take home to his wife, and one thing led to another. So there I was, in a dress that barely reached my ankles, having a good laugh.”

           You could only imagine it. Of course Gillette would put himself in a dress. And if they tell me Father wore it? I’m not sure I’d believe them.  

           “Yes, and then what happened?” Groves arched an eyebrow, more amused than anything.

          “And then Captain Hawthorne came back early. And I was still in his wife’s dress.”

           “Thankfully,” says Groves, “he would have no way of knowing the dress was gone unless he checked. He didn’t. The dress ended up in James’ room, after we realized we couldn’t get it back to the captain’s. He protested this, of course, but he was the least likely to be suspected of anything if the captain did find out.”

           “And it doesn’t end there!” A smile split Gillette’s face, an honest-to-god smile, and you could have cried to see it. An hour ago, you might have thought the man would never smile again. “Because the captain ordered room inspections. For cleanliness; he still didn’t know about the dress. We were all caught off guard. But it came to be James’ turn, and, well, he hadn’t the time to properly hide the dress anywhere, so a lieutenant found it.”

           “Lieutenant Irvine. Still remember that man to this day,” Groves said. “He was certainly taken aback by it. But there was a saving grace: he hadn’t known about the captain’s dress. He figured it was something James picked up. And who wouldn’t be surprised? Your father, with a woman’s dress? Nobody could imagine him seeing anyone.”

           Your smile grew, splitting your face, and a little laugh escaped your throat, strangled and tired, but there. Before you knew it, your cheeks were damp, caught laughing at the idea and crying at the memories. Groves wordlessly passed you a kerchief. 

           “Well, Andrew may have terrible ideas, but he’s a quick thinker of them. So as James fumbled to come up with an excuse, Andrew told them it was for his cousin.”

           “Oh I did. ‘The man has cousins, you know. And it can be so hard to get textiles like this back in England, the demand is so high, and can’t you imagine how pleased they’ll be? What did you think our dear James was up to?’ By that time, James was red as an apple, and Lieutenant Irvine wasn’t far behind. Embarrassed enough not to bring it up again, at least. Poor man.”

           “And that was that,” Groves concluded. “We got the dress back before the captain knew it was gone, but only because it ended up in your father’s room. Anyone else’s and we might have gotten ourselves into real trouble.”

           The story tasted bittersweet. He had a life, once. You expected there was much of it you didn’t know. Once, you would have jumped at the idea of learning anything about your father that he wouldn’t tell you himself. But stories about him would never be the same, now, without him there for you to tease.

           You wiped a hand over your damp cheeks, doing nothing more than spreading the tears around your face. ‘You will never think of them quite the same again.’ Lady Norrington had run a finger over a small portrait of her husband. ‘You will think of them in past tense. Who knew that tense could be so powerful? They’re just words.’

           Yet words did have power. And no matter how much they hurt, after hearing them, the words spoken about James brought him back to life, if even for a moment. A fleeting moment, where his shadow was at the door, where his hand was on your shoulder, where you were sure you could hear him scoff at his friends’ antics. 

           “What else?” you asked. “What else did he not tell me?”

           Groves raised his eyebrows, turning to Gillette with a smile. “I’m sure there’s quite a lot, actually.” He shot you a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry you have to hear about it this way.”

           “So am I.” Your breath was still unsteady. “But at least I’m hearing it.”

           “Oh dear. Did he ever tell you about the first line-crossing ceremony? As captain, that is?”

           “No.” You knew about such traditions, of course--you had to, living around so many men in the navy. Everyone had experienced one, in the Caribbean, having come over from England or the Colonies. 

           The ceremony was ritual for the navy. ‘Crossing the line’ referred to crossing the equator, and it marked a small turning point in the life of every sailor. There were ‘pollywogs’, or men who’d never crossed before, and ‘shellbacks’, who had been put through their ceremony on some other voyage. You knew of your father’s first ceremony; the others had made sure of it. But as captain, he would have been in charge of the entire scenario. 

           “James was embarrassed about it, at first. Said that dressing up for it made him feel ridiculous.” Groves smiled. 

           “I do believe I reminded him of the dress in Madras,” said Gillette. “He was more game for it all after that. Besides, he knew Theo and I were taking care of most of the setup.”

           “Oh, take care of it we did.”

           The ceremony consisted of interesting mariner’s superstitions, and quite a lot of embarrassment for the poor pollywogs. Firstly, the night before the crossing, the more senior officers of the crew dressed as members of King Neptune’s court. Queen Amphitrite, the royal baby, Davy Jones, and King Neptune himself, usually portrayed by a ship’s captain. There was a talent show, of sorts, where the pollywogs did singing and dancing and skits and poetry recitations for the ‘court’. You knew for a fact that as a pollywog, your father had done Hamlet’s soliloquy.

           Then came a day of trials and tribulations. The pollywogs awoke to breakfast, much too hot for them to eat. I wonder how many of those spices we get from Madras, you thought idly. The men were then taken to King Neptune to be given tasks as proof of their loyalty to the sea. They were usually made to wear their clothes strangely, crawl around through debris, and have the inedible breakfast slop dumped over their heads. It wasn’t about embarrassment, really, just about good fun. And yet father was embarrassed of orchestrating the whole thing; he wasn’t even being put through the ceremony. But he never had liked calling too much attention to himself, you supposed. 

           The last thing was a salt water bath, where every member of the crew got soaked to the bone. The poor pollywogs were often dunked, too, and made to hold their breath. It cleaned all the breakfast off them, though, and then they were done--official shellbacks, awaiting their turn to torture the next pollywogs they sailed with. 

           “We had James all dressed up.” Groves smiled at the memory. “We made him a crown of driftwood, even, and managed to force him into a sash. It was all quite ridiculous. Some of the younger boys were too scared to laugh, though they clearly wanted to.”

           “And what a figure he cut! Giving his speeches in that posh drawl of his.” Gillette tried to replicate the accent your father would take on when he was in command. “‘Now, men, you must be dunked. You can only have the sea in your heart if you’ve had it in your head and lungs, first.’ It wasn’t reassuring.”

           A watery smile crossed your face. You could just imagine him, perched on some sort of fake throne, giving orders to the crew like a king. He would have been terrible at it. Your father never had been a good actor--he’d read to you enough in your youth that you knew how bad he was at acting out different characters and parts. Still, it was endearing that he tried. 

           “James certainly had good stories.” A wistful look settled across Grove’s features.

           Your smile faded. “He’ll never make any more stories. He’s dead and gone, now.”

           “Dead, yes. But not gone.” You gazed up at Gillette, eyebrows knitting together questioningly. “Well, we remember him, don’t we? And so do hundreds of other people. There are people all around the world carrying their own little stories about your father. They, in their turn, will pass those stories along. James will never be gone. Not really.”

           Oh, Lawrence is still here. He’s in the paintings, the silverware, the old books of his study. He’s in the garden, wearing boots and planting a tree. He’s sitting by the window, teaching James to read. He’s in our bedroom, smoking, smiling around his pipe when I joked with him. He’s still here; he always will be. 

    You were another lone Norrington, now, but if you knew anything about lone Norringtons, it was that they faced the years with grace. James’ mother always had. 

           You find strength, even in fleeting memories. 

[sukirichi]

imagining in another world where suna is a soldier and off to fight a war and bc yn’s dad is military she knew him from the regiment and she thought he was dead but he comes back with his cap in hand like they do in the movies and she runs in his arms and it’s wet bc his dick isn’t wet bc he doesn’t cheat on her here😔😔

cw: war, mentions of death, weapons, political conflict. dusk till dawn au where they’re in the older eras. implied reincarnation. implied character death. unedited.

song: its been a long, long time

“May I have this dance?”

Suna’s ears rang at the nth explosion thrown their way. The battlefield was cruel and heartless – uncaring of one’s social status, name, or money. Here, the only thing that matters was who came out triumphant, not alive. Winning this nearly half a century of battles over land and who should be the rightful one to reign over the two split countries needed to end – for the sake of the children who couldn’t go to school, for the fathers who never witnessed their children growing up once they were sent to war, for the wives who never saw their lovers again, but most of all, for that dance you owed Rintaro.

He needed to return home alive and well. He needed to reminisce in the joy of having you in his arms again when he had shyly asked for that dance, to which you hesitantly agreed to after a pleading look with your father, the General.

Crown Prince as he may be, it meant nothing in the battlefield. The promise of ascending to the throne was not nearly as tempting as marching back home with his head held high, knowing he had fought his best and kept to his promise. “When you come home,” you had told him, eyes sparkling both with admiration and fear that this might be the last time you see the Prince standing before you. “We shall...dance again. To celebrate our victory of the war.”

“And if I do not?”

It was merely to lighten the mood, but the Crown Prince could very well see how your heart must have dropped in your chest. Silly, his heart pounded so. He was a Crown Prince about to trudge into war with nothing but a blade and a few explosives strapped to his belt, yet the trepidation in his palms was caused by no one else but the woman smiling hopefully at him. The same woman who was damn near impossible to seek out because of your veteran father, yet here he was. After countless trials to prove his genuine affection, only the Crown Prince had gotten the closest into the finishing line over the battle of winning your heart.

“You must come home, Your Highness. If not, then I shall not dance ever again, not with anybody else.”

You had given him a reason to fight with all his might. How could the Prince not risk life and limb when you sat there back at home, anxiously writing him letters and awaiting his return? How could he have the time to think about anything else when he would rather spend one more night in the dance floor with you than dodging bullets and missing death by a hairsbreadth away?

All he wanted was to have that dance again.

To go back to the time on what it felt like when you both nervously shuffled to the dance floor. Strong, calloused hands gently resting at your waist. Your own cradled to his shoulder and two hearts beating as one. And when the music played, Suna was cast into a trance. No one else but you and him on that dance floor as he locked eyes with yours, swaying you into the sounds of the saxophone and his lips tugged into a smile.

At a better time, he would tell you he had fallen in love at first dance.

In another universe, should he not come home in this lifetime, he would find you and kiss your hand on the dance floor again.

[sugaxjpg]

ghosts just wanna have fun; m

⤷  When Jungkook discovered that he could communicate with dead people, the last thing he expected was that they would be there to give him romantic advice.

✓ Couple: Jungkook x Reader | Psychic!AU & MedSchool!AU

✓ Filed under: fluff, crack (so many ghost puns), light smut (and jungkook being a nervous virgin) 

✓ Words: 20,062

Author’s Note: In which Jungkook is able to see spirits, but it’s just Taehyung and Yoongi giving him dating tips because he sucks at talking to girls. Hope you guys like it, because it has been on my WIPS for over a year and a half and I can’t believe it’s finally out there... emotional, really.

Also, huge thanks to @storytaeme​, who proof-read this mess like a champ. 

 There aren’t many embarrassing situations that can overcome the fact that Jeon Jungkook found out about his psychic abilities as he was about to lose his virginity. 

To say the least, that hadn’t been the most pleasant of scenarios to open the pathway to the afterlife. Really, there was no casual way that he could justify the scream that broke from his lips, or the dramatic spin he took as he turned around on the bed — which, ultimately, had him falling into the small space between the nightstand and the wall, with his legs up in the air, and his butthole fully exposed for both planes of existence to see. 

Still, that hadn’t been the worst part. If those two pallid silhouettes had merely disappeared once he had seen them, it wouldn’t have been as traumatic — perhaps Jungkook could have found a semi-believable excuse about what he had witnessed — but no. Not only did the ghosts remain there, with their arms crossed before their achromatic clothes and eyebrows slightly raised in expectation, they continued their conversation as if nothing had happened. 

“Oh, he was definitely going to put it in the wrong hole,” the shorter of the two murmured, clearly entertained at the idea. 

The other scoffed. “What if he did?” he threw back. “Maybe he likes that, we can’t judge.”

Truth was that, one way or another, Jungkook couldn’t even figure out what he liked — he didn’t even get the chance. He was gone from his (ex) girlfriend’s place before his brain could even attempt to construct a plausible explanation, even less to digest what had preceded that unfortunate revelation. Now, the wrong hole would forever be a source of trauma for him. 

And the problems didn’t exactly stop there. Ever since his cherry-popping session was interrupted, Jungkook hadn’t been able to move further than the first base, thinking that he would embarrass himself all over again or, worse, be frightened by a random demon passing by. Also, the constant mockery of his ghostly counterparts certainly didn’t help his concentration. 

The worst part? Helping Jungkook was kind of their whole point. And they couldn’t even do that right. 

Taehyung and Yoongi were their names — they told him right after the first night he saw them. Jungkook didn’t know what had happened in the afterlife that they had been punished with such a horrendous mission and, frankly, at that point, he was too afraid to ask. 

“But I don’t need your help,” Jungkook had said after one particularly bad date, dramatically throwing himself onto his bed. The furniture creaked under his weight and he wondered if it would snap before his mind did. “I just want you to leave me alone or, I don’t know, help me with something else — something useful.”

The two ghosts were by his desk, looking at his class notes and, at that comment, Yoongi raised his eyebrows. “Useful? Like what?” He asked. 

“I don’t know, solving crimes or something,” Jungkook mumbled, turning around so he would face the wall. God, he just needed two seconds alone. 

Behind him, Taehyung laughed. “You don’t even know how to open a bra, and you're out there thinking of reopening cold cases? Give me a break.” 

“Ouch,” Jungkook whispered. Maybe another time, it would’ve hurt his pride a bit more. That night, however, he was too tired to care. “For your information, I do know how to open a bra. You two just started whispering and it distracted me.” 

“We were whispering to you the instructions on how to open a bra,” Yoongi responded. “Would you need those if you knew what you were doing? No.” 

Jungkook sighed. “I just—”

“This conversation is done, we went over this already.” Yoongi interrupted. “You need us, whether you want it or not. You’re painfully bad at romance, Jungkook, even worse at initiating sex. I’ve never seen something like that before.” 

At that, Jungkook rolled on the bed and faced them. There was only one light in his bedroom that was on — the table lamp — and its clear orange shade passed through them both in an odd mixture of contours and lines. “Maybe if I could do it myself, without you two buzzing around the place, it wouldn’t be so bad,” he responded, aggressive. 

“Calm down. You were already bad enough when we arrived,” Taehyung told him, leaning over to see all the scattered pages on his desk. He frowned once he saw something he couldn’t quite understand, and quickly turned away from it. “Nothing changed much.” 

“Right!” Jungkook sat up on the bed. “Isn’t that enough of a sign for you two to stop trying to help me, then?” 

“No,” Yoongi said calmly. “That’s a sign that we have to try harder. And so do you.” 

He sneered. “I absolutely don’t.” 

“Yes, you absolutely do,” he said. “You know what? Grab your phone and get yourself a date with that girl you like from physiology class. Two weeks from now.” 

There was a second of silence as Jungkook’s mind struggled to piece the idea together. He wasn’t even sure about who Yoongi was referring to, there were a lot of girls in his class. “What? Why?” 

“Just trust us. She’s into you,” Yoongi spoke. 

Taehyung nodded in agreement. “It’ll work out.” 

Jungkook scoffed. “When does it, really?” 

“This time, it will,” Taehyung said. “Really. Do it.” 

“Fine.” He breathed out, reaching for his phone. “What girl?” 

Yoongi looked him up and down. “You know what girl.” 

With a deep breath, Jungkook scrolled over his contact list, struggling to find someone that he would have even the slightest chance with. Truth was, he has no fucking clue of which one of the hundred and fifty people in his class would even look in his direction, much less go on a date with him. 

“You do know… right?” Taehyung asked, clearly worried. “We can’t really give you names, but you… know, right?” 

“What? Oh, yeah, yeah! Sure I do!” Jungkook laughed nervously, clicking on a random name and opening a chat. “Here, I’m sending her a text right now. No reason to worry… no reason at all.” 

“Good,” Yoongi said, distracted. “Now, if you need us, we’ll be watching Gone Girl with your neighbors. We already missed the start of the movie, and I’m pissed off as it is.”

Taehyung nodded. “Amazing movie,” he said. Jungkook pressed send and prayed for the best. “We should have more movie nights over here.” 

��Yoongi said something in agreement and, in a second, they were already gone. Jungkook was left alone in his bedroom, with the light of his lamp casting over his features the desperation that he was feeling inside. 

“This better work,” he mumbled to himself. “You two better not be trying to embarass me.”

_____________

And then, two weeks later, Yoongi and Taehyung were laughing at him as his last failed attempt at romance got up from her chair and basically ran away from him.

Yoongi leaned back against the chair, his ankles crossed over the large table. If someone else could see him then, he surely would have received a few complaints about keeping the mall under semi-sanitary conditions. “Jungkook, I’ll tell you something,” he started, clearly amused. “You’re so bad at romance that I wish I was alive just so I could punch some reason into you.”

Taehyung, who had stayed mostly quiet during the painfully awkward interaction, walked beside Jungkook and chuckled at his distress. Still, he was focused on the other ghost, and the implication of his speech. “That amount of violence is the exact reason why you’re no longer alive, Yoongi,” he pointed out, then turned to Jungkook before he could smirk at the reprehension. “But really, that was awful. If I weren’t spiritually tied to you, I would’ve given up by now. You’re hopeless.”

“Completely out of it,” Yoongi added. “Do you even know how women work?” 

Jungkook rolled his eyes, and reached for his phone: there was no way he would enter a discussion with those invisible pricks in a public situation without something to mask it. Not that it would have been the first time.  

Yoongi materialized on the seat next to Jungkook, his head leaning against his hand. The boy was already used to those sudden changes of position, but that didn’t mean that he liked it. In fact, after Taehyung had appeared next to him during a particularly bad time — in which the incognito tab had already been opened, and a bottle of lotion already waited for him — he could never erase the intense panic of such experiences. 

But of course, Yoongi knew that, and he used his discomfort for his own entertainment. “You can’t ignore us, kiddo,” he said slowly, clearly amused. “And you can’t ignore the fact that you’ll die alone, surrounded by cats, if you don’t start listening to what we have to say. We have been tied to you for a reason.”

“And the reason,” Taehyung added, “is to make you stop cockblocking yourself.” 

With a subdued groan, Jungkook pressed his phone against his ear — an old trick that allowed for him to have a conversation without being seen as clinically insane by passersby. “You two are the reason why this date went downhill,” he told them. “You told me to say all the wrong things. You two set this up knowing I’d fail.” 

“Oh, no.” Taehyung shook his head in disagreement. “The words were right. Your delivery was awful.” 

“Western-movie-awful,” Yoongi added. “And if you want to change that, you have to trust us.” 

“Trust you? Where has that taken me?” Jungkook questioned, irritated. “You’re the reason why I lost my first girlfriend and haven’t had another one ever since.” 

Yoongi chuckled. “The girl from the first night? She never talked to you again after that, did she?” He asked, but, of course, he already knew the answer. “Damn, that was cringe-worthy. Butt in the air and everything.”

“No need to remind me, I was there.” Jungkook clenched his jaw, trying to control his demeanor. It wasn’t fair that there was not much that he could do to make the two men shut up — since they were, quite literally, already dead, he didn’t have many threats to utter. “And whose fault was that?” 

“Technically, yours.” Taehyung shrugged. “We didn’t present ourselves to you, you just saw us all of a sudden. We were just as surprised.”

“Besides, you were the one that had the B.F.,” Yoongi added. 

Jungkook raised one eyebrow. “B.F.?”

“Bitch fit,” Taehyung elucidated. “He watched White Chicks with your neighbors last night, don’t worry about it.” 

Jungkook groaned, pressing his hand against his face. Of course — the cherry on top would be outdated pop references, as expected. Yoongi had always been quite fond of the classic ‘with great power comes great responsibility’, and Jungkook thought that the overuse of that quote would be the ultmost reason for his insanity. Nevertheless, he came to understand that it was nothing compared to movies like White Chicks or even Legally Blonde. He would rather hear Uncle Ben’s famous line a billion times over before Yoongi accused him of having a B.F. once more. 

He took a deep breath and tried to focus on the environment around him. The murmurs and disembodied conversations around the mall had morphed into the sound of irritating insects, and he felt as if the earth could just open up and eat him alive. He probably committed a terrible crime in a past life to be stuck with Tweedledee and Tweedledum like that. 

“Anyways,” Jungkook stressed, “it didn’t seem like the two of you were surprised that I could see you. You just kept… talking about me. And my ass.”

Taehyung chuckled. “You were the one with the ass up in the air.” He vanished, then materialized in the seat in front of Jungkook. “What were we supposed to do? Ignore it?” 

“It was an easy target,” Yoongi spoke, then seemed to realize the words that had left his mouth. “Wait, I didn’t mean the double interpretation.” 

“Why can’t the two of you just fucking help me for once?” Jungkook asked aggressively. In a nearby table, one old man raised his eyes from his vegan burger and stared the boy up and down in disapproval. Jungkook lowered his voice and switched his phone to the other ear. “This is unbearable. You two are only making it worse.” 

With a gesture that Jungkook knew all too well, Taehyung used his thumb to point over his shoulder, towards the path that his failed date had followed. “That one wasn’t good enough for you,” he said nonchalantly. “We can tell. We know stuff.” 

“Then why did you set this up in the first place?” He asked, exasperated. 

“As DJ Khaled says, you played yourself,” Yoongi cited. One more reference and Jungkook would be the one joining the world of the dead. “It’s not our fault that you get nervous and can’t deliver the lines right. When have the two of us ever failed?”

“When you died,” he spoke back. “Or did you forget the stupid mistake you made?”

Yoongi hesitated. As much as he tried to play it cool, he wasn’t the smartest one around. In fact, his tragically premature death was all the evidence Jungkook needed to make his point clear. 

During his living days, Yoongi was pretty invested in rock climbing. On a beautiful summer afternoon, just as the sun was setting over the green-bathed hills, one of his friends dared him to bungee jump from the same cliff they had just climbed, and were standing on. Of course, the man agreed promptly, saying that he wouldn’t back out from such a mundane task; stating repeatedly that the fall wouldn’t be so high up anyway. But that wasn’t the turning point: Min Yoongi, in all his adventurousness, quickly decided that his local shop was too expensive and that he would create his own bungee jump cord instead. 

According to him, making the cord proved itself to be quite an easy task. He had gotten some help from his local adrenaline addicts and the final product was a very good copy of the factory-made ones. He measured the cliff twice just to be certain, compared it to the rope, and made sure to test the sustentation and elasticity as many times as he could. 

Still, Yoongi had overlooked an imperative detail: he shouldn’t use a cord that was the same height as the cliff he was jumping from. 

Needless to say, he only realized his mistake once he was already dead. 

Yoongi scoffed at the memory, ignoring his hurt pride. He swore he could still feel his back hurting when he thought about that. “That isn’t the point,” he said. He often did that: changed the subject once he realized he couldn’t leave with the upper hand. “The point is that you keep delivering lines like you’re a bad boy in a South American novela, then expect us to perform a miracle on you.” 

Jungkook frowned, lowering his head. “That’s actually so wrong.” 

But the problem was: Yoongi was right, and Jungkook knew it. In fact, that had been the exact reason why his date had left him that night — the boy had misunderstood Taehyung’s advice to play off as a mysterious man, and instead projected his image somewhere between a psychopath and a person that had only K-dramas as a basis of how human interactions were supposed to work. Jungkook missed his attempts at romance the entire time, but the breaking point was when Yoongi told him to act as a bad influence because, according to him, girls dig a good bad boy. 

Once again, Yoongi wasn’t the brightest mind when it came to risk-taking. That was why he was more dead than Jungkook’s bedroom. 

Jungkook, however, did not realize his own errors until it was too late. He had chuckled at his date’s embarrassment, using his opening to delicately place her hair behind her ear. “I’m going to tell you something,” he started, voice swift and placid as a river. With his eyebrows raised and his lips vaguely forming a pout, he looked like an off-brand version of Handsome Squidward. “I’m not really a good influence, and surely not the kind of guy you’d like to get with. So why don’t you do me a favor and follow the simple orders I give you, uh?”

Her eyes had widened in a mixture of second-hand embarrassment and fear. From the corner of his eyes, Jungkook saw her reaching for her purse over the table. “No, thank you,” she was quick to say. “I don’t think this will work, sorry. I’ll see you around college.” 

And that’s how they ended at that point. The point they always seemed to end up in. 

“I think I need a break from all of this,” Jungkook said, closing his eyes for a moment of peace. “I have a huge test next week and I couldn’t even study for it because of all the preparation for this stupid date. Can you two just take a step back? Just for a little while. Romance can’t be all that I think about.”

As he opened his eyes, he saw Taehyung staring at him. He couldn’t really read his expression. 

And, without an answer, the two of them vanished. 

_________________

If someone asked Jungkook why the hell he thought going to medical school was a good idea, he’d simply say that, at the time, it made sense. After all, he had thought, he’d be some sort of super-doctor, since he had an exclusive VIP pass to the afterlife — just imagine how many people he would be able to help just by asking a friendly ghost what was wrong with a patient. It would be a game-changer. He could even find the cure of cancer if he tried hard enough. 

But of course, he quickly realized that he should’ve thought further about his decision. Maybe being a detective would have made much more sense — it would have been a lot cheaper, that’s for sure, and he wouldn’t have to sit through almost twelve hours of classes every single day for a diploma that seemed to be too far away for him to care. 

That particular class, however, wasn’t the worst one out there. 

It was Tuesday, and Tuesday meant Pathology. Jungkook loved that class because the professor hated teaching it, so the students had to sit in silence for about three hours trying to read the textbook by themselves. The professor said he would be there to answer any questions, but he was mostly scrolling through his phone and interrupting students every time they tried to ask him something — “That’s in the textbook, just keep reading.”  

Most of his classmates absolutely despised that subject, but Jungkook thought it was wonderful: he often learned better by himself anyways, and the lack of conversation during class brought him some sense of peace. Besides, Yoongi and Taehyung hated sitting in that quiet room for too long, so they mostly left after ten or twenty minutes of trying — and failing — to strike up a conversation with Jungkook. It was the perfect day.

Well, most days it was. 

Just as he was about to move forward to the next topic — Adrenal Insufficiency and Addison’s Disease — , the boy felt something poking his bicep and he was quick to turn to his side. Instantly, he recognized your expectant gaze and something fluttered inside his stomach. 

“Hey, Jungkook,” you whispered, leaning over your desk, “is tomorrow afternoon still up? I really need help in cardiac physiology. I kind of suck.”

He hummed in agreement, fighting against the nervousness that crept up on him. Jungkook’s palms started to sweat just by looking at you, he really was one step away from reverting back to his pre-teen days. “For sure. I’ll be at yours at five,” he managed to get out. 

“Thank you so much,” you said, then moved back against your seat. “I owe you one.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He smiled. If it had been anyone else, Jungkook would’ve had a stroke by then — after all, he wasn’t always invited to a girl’s place so easily. That’s someone that I have absolutely no chance with, he thought. So friendzoning himself made everything much easier. “Are you sure you don’t want to meet up at the library?” 

“I can’t really concentrate there,” you answered. “But if you prefer, we could go.” 

“No, no.” He shook his head. “Your place is fine.” 

You smiled again, and Jungkook thought that maybe being shot wouldn’t hurt so much. “Thanks. See you at five.” 

Jungkook nodded and turned around, facing his laptop. Just as he was about to restart typing his notes, he saw a known reflection at the corner of his computer. Oh, God, have mercy.

Yoongi’s reflection smirked from the back row. “Oh, man, she’s so into you.”

 Jungkook shook his head in denial, eyes still glued to the PDF file in front of him. If anything, his classmates would have just guessed he was finding that subject more difficult than usual and, quite frankly, no one could judge him. 

“No?��� Yoongi raised one eyebrow, reappearing by his side with his hand supporting his cheek. Jungkook didn’t even need to look at him to know that he was just looooving the discomfort that grew inside his limbs. “I know those things, kiddo. It’s my job.”

From the front seat, Taehyung hummed in agreement. He had his arm placed over the chair, and seemed to find that entire situation a bit boring — maybe because he had seen it countless times before. “She definitely wants to get some of that,” he said. “We are proud of you, son.” 

With a subdued sigh, Jungkook scribbled some aggressive words at the corner of his notebook, and showed it to the man by his side. “Look at this, Taehyung, he’s trying to convince us that they’re just friends,” Yoongi mocked, crossing his arms. “That’s cute. Just because you’re that oblivious, it doesn’t mean that we are.”

“Jungkook, we’ve been watching the two of you talk the entire semester,” Taehyung added. “Besides, Yoongi made me follow her around once. She’s definitely into you. In unholy ways.”

Yoongi nodded once again. “She wants to be your boo.”

“Was that a fucking ghost pun?” Taehyung’s nose cringed up in disgust, and Jungkook had to fight back the reflex of laughing at his reaction. “Awful.”

“At least I’m not the one who ghostwrote Jungkook’s ethics essay.” Yoongi threw back. “Yeah, and that was another pun. You’ve got no spirit.” 

“You know what? Now I know why Jungkook can’t stand us anymore.” Taehyung smirked and, then and there, Jungkook knew exactly what was coming. “He can see right through us.”

The other ghost nodded. “Yeah, we’ve reached a dead end.” 

Jungkook groaned in exasperation, hiding his face behind his hands. “This is torture.”

Next to him, you chuckled. “Come on, pathology isn’t even that bad. You’re good at this.” 

“I know, I’m just tired.” He turned around to look at you, uttering the same excuse he had been using this entire semester. Not that it was an uncommon one, especially in the fifth circle of hell that was medical school. “I think I need to splash some cold water on my face. Wake myself up.”

You hesitated, staring at him as he stood up.  Jungkook looked strangely pale, like he was about to throw up all over the classroom. “Is everything okay?”

Fantastic! My bachelor ghosts are just making me have a nervous breakdown. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” He said, almost stumbling over your chair. Some of your pens fell down, but Jungkook couldn’t even bring himself to get them. He’d probably just knock everything else over in the process, and he wasn’t even sure that he could stand back up after. “Shit— Sorry. I’ll be right back.”

Behind him, Yoongi chuckled. “Spook-tacular skills, as always.”

_____________

The sound of running water was all that entered Jungkook’s mind for a moment, his face feeling the coldness of the liquid as he splashed himself once, twice, trying to clear his thoughts. In the end, it was mostly in vain: his class was ruined, his notes were left unfinished, and he couldn’t get a second of tranquility anymore — not even in Pathology. If he weren’t canonized after his death, he would file a complaint for sure. 

Abruptly, he closed off the faucet and the water stopped running. There was a heavenly instant of quietness, in which Jungkook followed the crystalline droplets falling from his hair to the sink, before Yoongi’s voice echoed behind him. “How you doin’, champ?” 

Jungkook sighed and raised his head, looking at his ghost counterpart through the dirty mirror. “Is the bathroom empty?” he asked calmly. 

“Hm? Yeah,” Yoongi said. “The ghost is clear.”

Just like that, his serenity was gone. “Yoongi, can you fucking stop? Your puns stopped being funny after the third attempt,” Jungkook asked, exasperated. He pulled some paper towels, and got even angrier at the way they fell apart in his hands. Good to know his college money was being used wisely. “Jesus. Where is Taehyung?”

“You know he hates toilet paper,” Yoongi told him. “Reminds him of his death.”

Jungkook considered the compelling idea of banging his head against the bathroom wall until he, himself, was part of the world of the dead. As he recalled very well, Taehyung had been a victim of Final-Destination-levels of misfortune: just because he had forgotten to take toilet paper to his camping trip, the boy had been forced to use nearby leaves. Those, as he would soon come to understand, caused an awful allergy on his lower lands, and the punctual bleeding was a sufficient opening for opportunistic diseases. The culprit? Some super strange bacteria that floated around the river. He was dead less than twenty hours after he came back home from septic shock.  

Taehyung had endured, quite frankly, one shitty death. And, yes, Yoongi had made that joke a few too many times before. 

“Doesn’t matter,” Jungkook realized. “What did I tell you two about chit-chatting with me in large public places? Especially my classes? I have to pay attention. And I have a test in two days, I need to be all here, and not thinking about other people.” 

Yoongi giggled — almost childishly so — at the other’s anguished attitude. His teeth, a pallid shade of white, could barely be seen against the olive-green tiles that covered the bathroom walls. “You weren’t paying attention to the processes of intestinal inflammation, that’s for sure,” he teased, forcing himself to hold back his jokes a bit. 

“I wasn’t even studying that chapter,” Jungkook mumbled. 

Even Yoongi, who had a dense personality for such a diaphanous soul, could tell that the student was not in the mood for mockery. “Man, why are you so stuck-up? Taehyung and I are ghosts, but you’re the one with the dead sense of humor.”

Jungkook realized he needed a moment to think before he started yelling at nothing in a public bathroom. He really hoped the other stalls were empty, but he couldn’t be bothered to check. 

“This isn’t about the puns. You two just don’t respect my privacy,” Jungkook said. This time, he was able to pull some good paper towels and proceeded to dry his face. “This has been going on for too long. Why don’t you two just vanish for some time?”

“Wish I could, kiddo, but I’ve got hours to clock,” Yoongi finally admitted. From the mirror, he could see the frown of confusion that was cast over Jungkook’s features. “Don’t look at me like that, I’m only following rules. Talk to the big guy upstairs if you want to complain.”

He threw the paper on the trash and shook his head in confusion. “I just don’t see the point of any of this.” 

“You don’t have to.” Yoongi took a step closer. He often looked so unbothered — the two of them, actually — that Jungkook caught himself wondering which certainties they held, notions that would most likely be given after death. “Just do what we tell you to do.”

“That has only embarrassed me so far,” he said, turning around. “I don’t think I have it in me to trust in you two one more time. It has gotten me nowhere. Or, rather, nowhere good.”  

Yoongi sighed. “Alright, let’s do it like this, then: You go and help Y/N with her cardio whatever stuff, and Taehyung and I just watch. We promise to shut up, unless you’re doing something seriously embarrassing. Other than that, absolute silence.”

Jungkook narrowed his eyes. “You promise you two won’t tell me what to say?”

“Promise.” Yoongi nodded. He looked very sincere. “We won’t talk to you.” 

“I can live with that, yeah,” Jungkook agreed, leaning against the bathroom sink. “Sounds good.”

“Perfect.” He smiled. “Trust me, Jungkook. I only made one mistake in my life.”

Jungkook smirked. “And it killed you.”

“Not the point.” He raised one finger, clearly annoyed, then pointed it at Jungkook. “You’ll do great. It’s not like you’re gonna tell her about us or something.” 

He laughed. “Yeah, that’d be awful.” 

________________

But that was, ultimately, what he did.

To be fair, it was never Jungkook’s intention. He was completely sure that it would ruin not only his friendship with you, as it would also ruin his reputation, both as a student and as a future physician. Come on, how would he even explain that? How could he tell anyone that he not only saw two obnoxious ghosts, but that they were there to give him romantic (and sometimes sexual) advice? That’s insanity. 

Spoiler: he didn’t explain it very well. 

In the cosmic perspective, however, it was kind of Yoongi’s fault too. He had the problem of giving away too much sometimes, especially when he was alone and free from Taehyung’s scrutiny. And it was that extra bit of information that catalyzed the explosion that would become Jungkook’s confession. 

For some reason or another, Taehyung hadn’t joined the two of them that day, as Jungkook crossed the campus towards your place. For the first time in a long time, their conversation — which was, again, masked by Jungkook pretending to be on the phone — was actually quite pleasant. Yoongi had told him a bit more about his life back in the day and explained that he was studying to become a lawyer when he died. 

“I was thinking of dropping out anyways,” he said. “I just picked a random thing to study because I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And, well, I kind of did drop off. Just not from the course.” 

Jungkook could not help but laugh at the absurdness of it all. Sad coincidences aside, it was unusual for Yoongi to make jokes about his death. Taehyung was much more open about it, but Yoongi seemed to be very bitter because of the way and the time he passed. But of course, who was Jungkook to judge? 

“You know,” Yoongi started after a moment of quietude. “Taehyung and I were pretty surprised that day at the mall.”

Jungkook frowned. “Hm? Why is that?” 

The other man chuckled. “Honestly? Because you’re dumber than we thought.”

Seems like pleasant times didn’t last much between the two of them. “We’ve established that I can’t talk to girls, Yoongi, I know.” Jungkook really wanted to change the subject. 

“No, not that,” he denied. “Let’s go back a little. Remember what we told you in your bedroom that night? To get the physiology girl.”

Jungkook nodded. “Yeah, what about it?”

Yoongi laughed, amazed that Jungkook still didn’t get it. “You called the wrong one, idiot,” he explained. 

“What?” Jungkook paused in his tracks and, in a mindless reflex, forgot he was supposed to be talking on the phone, and looked directly at Yoongi, lowering the device away from his ear. “There is a right one?” 

“Hey, pay attention to your surroundings.” Yoongi pointed at a couple that also stopped, confused at the man’s actions. Jungkook cleared his throat, trying to regain some composure after that minor instant of public humiliation, and placed the phone back against his ear. “Let’s keep walking.”

With his heart beating insanely fast against his chest, Jungkook did as he was told. His mind was flooded with fragmented thoughts, working around words that seemed so simple, yet held so much.

“Yes, there is a right one — and you’re going towards her right now.” Yoongi responded, placing his ghostly hands inside his ghostly pockets. Jungkook never noticed that he still used the clothes that he had on when he died, but Yoongi wouldn’t be the first one to mention. “So don’t make a fool out of yourself. Not this time.” 

Jungkook swallowed dry, feeling as panic started to climb up his lower limbs, weighing down on his muscles. His throat was dry as a desert and forming sentences proved to be a far more difficult task than he had anticipated. The air around campus had suddenly become hot for an autumn day, unable to enter his lungs with ease. He really was two steps away from a full-blown anxiety attack. 

Yoongi frowned. “You good?” 

Jungkook licked his lips, only half aware of his actions. “Y-Yeah,” he struggled to get out. “Just kind of a bomb that you just dropped on me, that’s all.” 

Yoongi nodded, uninterested. “Yeah. Get over it. It’s not a huge deal.” 

Only, it was. For Jungkook, at least. What if you two were… you know? Meant to be? Like the soulmates kind of thing; star-crossed lovers. Like in the “we got married after two months of dating and we are still together after sixty years” kind of insane love? That was a lot to process, a lot to think about, especially when he was having like three different crises at once. It was a recipe for a disaster. 

Jungkook really was dumb when it came to anything besides his textbooks, but not for jumping into those conclusions. Frankly, most people would’ve been a bit overwhelmed by that. 

No, his problem would reside on his next thought: If you two were meant to be, you would understand if, for some reason, he had to tell you about his ghosts, right? 

Right?

_______________

To be fair with Yoongi, he did keep his promise. The two didn’t interrupt your conversation once, even if sometimes the moment begged for it, and Jungkook was two words away from ruining everything. Strangely enough, things seemed to work themselves out — the horrible jokes that Jungkook uttered seemed to suit your sense of humor; the shy and nervous demeanor that plagued his dates slowly melted away. It was good — in fact, it was the best talk he’s had with someone in a long, long time. 

The issue was that, as much as the two of them didn’t talk directly to Jungkook, they still talked. 

“What was that thing that she said, you know, to her friends?” Yoongi mumbled, his words coming out as a vague connection of syllables being formed at the corner of his mouth. He had his arms crossed, and his legs pushed up on the couch. “You told me that.”

“Yeah,” Taehyung took a moment to think. He had one of his hands buried deep inside the pockets of his white pants, and the other on the back of the couch. The two of them watched the conversation that unfolded above your living room table, the two of you trying to make sense of a subject that seemed to change every five minutes. “It was like ‘homeboy can like, get it’... or something.” 

Yoongi nodded, satisfied. “Nice.” 

Jungkook cleared his throat, trying to ignore that comment. It wasn’t news that you were interested in him — that had been the only thing Yoongi and Taehyung had told him for the past few hours, but it was very, very awkward to know those specific details. He was sure he wouldn’t like you to know the private conversations that he had with his friends, even less about the things he thought about when he was alone. There was something extremely violating about that, but, no matter how hard he tried to convince them, the two ghosts didn’t seem to care enough to stop. 

The giggle that came from across the table ruptured his thoughts. “Why are you blushing?” You asked.

“I’m… uh…” he struggled, suddenly feeling the heat that emanated from his cheeks. Wonderful. Even when he was just thinking about something, he still managed to make a fool of himself. “Just… thinking about some embarrassing things I did in third grade. The usual.” 

“Yeah, I’ve been there.” You smiled, reaching for the textbook across the table, and flipping through the pages. “I ruined this entire science project once. It was something about the pollination of flowers, but I missed that class. Ended up coming back to a lot of roses around the classroom, and decided to take a few of them home to my mom.”

“Oh no.” 

“Yep,” you nodded, looking back at him. Jungkook thought that he had lost himself in your eyes for a moment, a depth so engulfing that he couldn’t find the right words once he stared at it. He had never noticed how beautiful you were — or, rather, he had, but he had never stopped to think about it — and, now, it seemed as if that was the only thing that he could focus on. “Everyone in class was super pissed, the teacher even tried to suspend me.”

He shook his head, trying to imagine a mini-you justifying your flower thievery in front of the principal. “That’s insane, actually.”

“Kind of.” You shrugged, looking back at the book. You weren’t sure what you were searching for anymore, so you decided to close it. You two had been studying for almost four hours straight, you didn’t think that your brain could handle any more of that. “They didn’t really believe me when I told them it was a mistake. Guess no one even noticed my absence the day before, which is… somehow… even worse, now that I think about it.” 

A giggle reverberated in your throat as you dove into those forgotten memories, and Jungkook followed you. 

“Don’t laugh at child me, that’s so cruel.” You smiled. 

“I’m not.” He shook his head. “I just thought you were cute. Still are, you never really stopped being cute, I mean. You’re actually really pretty now, like a woman—” 

“I got it.” You placed your hands over his, and the shock of your skin against his seemed to spread throughout his entire body. He didn’t know if that was a soulmate thing of if he was just really horny. Probably a bit of both. “Don’t worry about it. You’re pretty cute too. Like a man.”  

“Thanks.” Jungkook itched the back of his neck, trying to find the right words to build his sentence. Panic began bubbling at the bottom of his stomach, sinking its teeth into his flesh as his words left his throat. “Actually, I wanted to ask you something.” 

It was the right time now: the studying was over, the conversation was flowing, you had told him that you thought he was cute — like a man. Now, he just needed to ask you out. Just that. That’s it. Three words. He had practiced: Wanna go out? That’s it. So casual. So playboy-esque. He could do it. No pressure. If you were the one, he didn’t have much to get wrong. 

But, oh my god, what if he got everything wrong? I mean, how many stories are out there of couples who were destined for each other, but something happened and it pulled them apart forever? The wrong time, the wrong place — the wrong words. Jungkook wasn’t psychologically prepared to ruin something so huge with a moment so small. He needed to calm down and focus. Just get the words out. Everything would sort itself out after that. He had faith. 

“What is it?” You asked. 

Jungkook cleared his throat, his eyes still glued to the touch of your hand against his. Outside, birds were chirping, unaware of the absolute shitstorm that was about to ensue. “So…” he started, “I was thinking that maybe I could— I mean, you — I mean we could...”

You tilted your head to the side, confused. “Sorry, what was that?” 

He blinked once, twice, fighting against the wave of sheer terror that had taken over his brain, whitening out his thoughts. He had the sentence ready, but he had forgotten how to form it. “I’m just trying… I’m just trying here to just…” He swallowed dryly. “I was just wondering if you would like to… I mean, if it’s not a problem—”

From the other side of the room, Yoongi groaned. “Just do it! You’re making eternity so much longer.”

And that’s when it happened. 

Jungkook turned around and yelled: “You told me you wouldn’t talk, you asshole!”

The entire room froze. A horrible moment of bewildered reticence followed as  the realization crashed upon him like a gigantic wave. He couldn’t have just yelled at nothing in front of you, like an absolute madman, could he? 

Your eyes widened and you pulled your hand away from his. The lack of warmth was like a dagger being thrown directly into his heart. “Excuse me?”

Yep. He totally did that. 

“Not you!” He was quick to turn around — maybe a bit too quick, too intensely. Even with nervousness clouding his vision, Jungkook could still see the shadow of fear and confusion mingling amongst your features. He had ruined everything, and that was all that he could think about. “I’m just... personalizing my anxiety...”

“Are you... alright?” You spoke slowly, measuring his actions. Jungkook had changed from cute-nervous to absolutely-unhinged-nervous; eyes widened and jaw clenched; hands gripping the wooden chair like his life depended on it. Maybe that study session was a mistake. Maybe you should’ve just googled an online class, like your best friend told you to. “It looks like you’ve seen a ghost.” 

Taehyung chuckled. “That’s pretty funny.” 

And, if the situation wasn’t already bad enough, Jungkook started to convince himself that perhaps it would be a good idea to come clean with you about his psychic abilities — maybe that was actually the only way that he could get out of that mess. If you were his soulmate, you’d understand. It’d all be okay. Yeah, maybe you’d be seriously creeped out for like the first twenty minutes, just like he had been, but eventually you’d understand what had happened. You two would laugh about it later, maybe when you were sixty, on your rocking chairs somewhere, staring lovingly at a cornfield. 

Was he losing it? Probably. But he didn’t have the right amount of mental clarity to fully think about the consequences of his actions in that moment. 

“I… did,” Jungkook spoke sluggishly, barely comprehending the trail of words that dripped from his tongue. His voice was much calmer, but he could still feel like his entire body was engulfed by flames. “I did... see a ghost. Two actually.” 

You frowned. This afternoon couldn’t possibly get any worse. “What are you talking about?” 

“Jungkook, don’t you dare,” Yoongi warned, but his voice seemed to come from miles away. 

Slowly, as if he wasn’t really aware of his own body moving, Jungkook adjusted his position on the chair, looking down at the sea of handwritten notes in front of him. He wished that human interaction was as easy as the types of pulmonary volumes, or perhaps the changes of oxygen inside the hemoglobin. That he knew. That he could deal with.

“Ok so, have you ever watched The Emperor’s New Groove?”

You blinked twice, puzzled. “What?”

“The Disney movie,” he clarified, looking up at you. 

You shook your head, measuring how long it would take for you to bolt out of the door and run away from your own apartment. Maybe you could get out and then call someone for help. You wished you had already taken Psychiatry. “I know what that is, Jungkook, but I just don’t understand where you’re getting at.”

“Maybe it’s in the TV series that came after the movie, I don’t know, but Kronk has these two little beings on his shoulders, a devil and an angel.” He cleared his throat, and looked back at the sheets of paper. It was so hard to stare at you now, when just seconds before, it had been so easy. “I kinda have the same thing, only, they’re dead people. You know, ghosts. And they’re not on my shoulders — that’d be pretty awful, actually.” 

Taehyung mumbled from across the room, “I really don’t think this is a good idea, Jungkook.” 

“You’re making no sense right now,” you said, worried about the effect that your words could have on him. “I think… I think it would be better if you left.” 

“I can see dead people, okay?” Jungkook interrupted, exasperated. You had to understand. You were the right girl from physiology class, you had to understand. 

“Okay, Sixth Sense.” You laughed nervously. Bad time for a joke, you thought, but the boy barely seemed to process it. “Listen, I can tell you’re not doing very well right now, so you should probably leave, maybe clear your head a bit. You already helped me a lot—”

“No, I don’t need that. My head is clear—”

“You know, there is a very good mental health clinic in campus, I’ve gone there already, and I think—” 

“No! I don’t need mental health, it’s true!” Jungkook stood up, walking towards the couch, where the two dead men sat. There was an unspoken contest in the room to see who could be more flabbergasted at the boy’s actions, and you and Yoongi were in a close tie. “I can prove it.” 

You almost choked on air. “You what?” 

Jungkook pointed at nothing. “They’re here right now, I can prove it to you.”

Discombobulated, you shook your head one more time. Maybe if you did that enough, your chaotic thoughts would just fall out of your ears, and everything would be much clearer. Maybe that was a prank, maybe that was a full-blown psychotic breakdown. You just didn’t really know what to do from there. “Jungkook, I don’t think—” 

“Come on, just show yourself to her!” He yelled into the air, more specifically at your white couch. You just wanted to study cardiology, how did it end up like this? “Give me a sign, I don’t know.”

Yoongi chuckled, completely amazed by the way Jungkook continuously broke the Dumb Records that he had previously set himself. No bonus in heaven would be worth dealing with Mr. Smooth Brain over there. He should’ve gone for the orphans instead. “I cannot believe you right now.” He stood up from the couch and sighed, utterly defeated. Maybe he could just get it over with, and then The Big Man Upstairs would show him a bit of mercy. “But I guess now there isn’t much to lose. I’m only doing this because at least it would make this situation a bit better.” 

“How?” Taehyung asked. 

“There’s a slight improvement between psychotic crisis and psychic abilities,” Yoongi responded. He walked towards the window, rolled his eyes at the pathetic presentation of supernatural phenomena, and pulled on the white curtains of your living room. “Here. Boo! Paranormal activity.” 

“Did you see that?” Jungkook asked, excited. 

However, instead of meeting a surprised gaze, he only saw panic and preoccupation swimming inside your eyes. “The curtain moving? Yeah. That was the wind, Jungkook.” You stood up from the chair, measuring your chances at escaping. He was getting more and more erratic, and you didn’t know where the situation could escalate to next. “You’re seriously freaking me out right now. You’re being really aggressive about this.” 

“Yoongi, you’re worse than the spirits in Ghost Hunters,” Taehyung groaned, reappearing next to your living room table. “You have to be bold, that’s what I always say. Make a statement.”

Taehyung’s statement, of course, had been the biggest slap against a lamp that Jungkook had ever witnessed in his life. The ghosts had once told him that it took them a huge amount of concentrated energy to do something as little as move a napkin, so there was no way that Taehyung wouldn’t be exhausted after making that heavy piece of furniture fly against the wall, shattering into a million little pieces with a loud noise. 

“What the fuck?” Jungkook asked. “That was so dangerous! She could’ve gotten hurt.”

He shrugged. “You asked.” 

“What the fuck was that?” You yelled, taking your hands to your face. Was that shared hysteria? What did you just see? Maybe you were the one who needed fresh air and a shrink visit. “You’re pranking me, right? You have like a nylon string wrapped around your hands or something.”

Jungkook moved his head in denial, raising his hands up in a sigh of defeat. “I swear to God, it’s true.” 

“I don’t… I don’t believe you,” you said, clearly terrified. Not at the idea of ghosts, Jungkook realized, but of him. That date surely couldn’t have gone any better. 

Yoongi sighed and materialized behind Jungkook. Lost causes, Yoongi was surrounded by lost causes. “If you really want her to believe you, tell her we can say some stuff about her, but it’ll probably freak her out.”

“They are saying that they can convince you by saying some stuff about you.” Jungkook swallowed dry. Something inside him was screaming for him to just shut the fuck up and leave your building. If there was something he learned by being with the two undead pricks, is that they could always make a situation worse. 

But desperate times require desperate measures. 

You adjusted your posture. Trepidation was still very present in your face, but there was also a small spark of interest swimming somewhere inside your eyes. “I seriously doubt that.” 

“I can show you,” he said. “Just… don’t freak out.”

“Fine.” You licked your lips in anticipation. “The name of my first pet.”

“Is this a password verification?” Yoongi groaned. He just wanted to watch Twitches later that day, but Jungkook just had to start a seance in someone else’s room. Again: the orphans would never. “Fine. It was Mr. Green, a tortoise she killed by leaving to dry in the asphalt.” 

“It was a tortoise, Mr. Green. You left it on the asphalt and it died,” Jugkook repeated without hesitation. 

You blinked twice, taking in the answer. “This is so fucking weird. How did you know that?”

“Yoongi told me.” Jungkook pointed over his shoulder, where Yoongi stared you down. Just by looking in that direction, you felt a shiver run down your spine. You were losing it. “He’s, you know, one of the ghosts.” 

“I’ve never been so exhausted in my life.” You placed one hand against the chair, leaning against it. There was no use to keep that conversation going, and you both knew it — and yet, just like a politician lying, it just didn’t stop. “But you could’ve asked anyone that.”

It was Jungkook’s turn to become completely lost. “Why would I ask such a specific question? I don’t even know your friends.” 

Behind him, he heard another loud groan. “I’m so done with this.” Yoongi placed his hand on his shoulder. “Let me talk, Jungkook.” 

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” He asked.

Yoongi snorted. “We are all out of good ideas. But I think this is the best chance you’ve got.”

“Who are you talking to?” You almost yelled. 

Jungkook looked back at you and, for some reason, the preoccupation in his eyes scared you even further. “Okay, this is going to be really weird, alright? But it’s not gonna be me talking.”

“What?” 

“It’s like… a kind of possession,” he explained, gesticulating a bit more than socially acceptable. “It’s like… uh… One of them is going to use my mouth for a bit. Talk through me.” 

You laughed, and there was a high-pitched sort of timbre to it. That might as well happen. “Sure, of course. What else? Exorcism live?” You asked. 

“Just give me the permission,” Yoongi commanded. 

Jungkook took in a deep breath, and clenched his hands into fists. He hated that part. “Fine,” he consented. 

Gradually, the muscles around his mouth and throat grew numb, as if Jungkook had entered a dream, and his body was responding in autopilot. There was an awful pressure on his shoulders and a ringing in his ears as Yoongi accommodated himself around his body, reaching for control. That was the closest he would ever feel to being a ventriloquist’s puppet, and it was as bad as it could be. 

Yoongi spoke through him with ease: “You told your friends last week that you didn’t care if Jungkook was a shy virgin who played minecraft because he was exactly your type. You also said that your average score in physiology is ninety-seven percent and you didn’t need any help. You just needed an excuse to stay with him. Happy?” 

Jungkook inhaled sharply as the pressure on his body subsided, the numb sensation around his neck growing thinner by the second. “So violating,” he complained. 

“How did you know that?” Your voice shook him back to reality. Both of you were reaching new levels of terror every minute. “Are you stalking me?”

That back and forth was starting to get exhausting. “That wasn’t me. That was Yoongi,” he tried once again. He was starting to think that the whole thing had been a bad idea. 

“Well, fuck you, Yoongi,” you spat. 

Yoongi scoffed. “Fuck you too, princess. Maybe you really don’t deserve this man.”

“I’m not saying that,” Jungkook whispered to him, then turned back to look at you. He wanted to hug you and magically erase your memories for that afternoon, but, in reality, he couldn’t even move his legs without feeling like he could fall face-down on the floor. He really, really, really hated possession. “I’m just… I’m sorry about that.” 

“About what, Danny Phantom?” You asked, throwing your hands up in an exasperated gesture. And there it was: from panic to complete fury. That was all that you two needed at that moment. “About making me scared shitless, or about exposing me like this?” 

He suspired. “Do you at least believe in me now?” 

“Does it look like I believe in you, Jungkook?” You practically screamed. Truth was: neither of you knew that for sure. “I’m a woman of science, you can’t expect me to believe that—”

Taehyung groaned, walking closer to Jungkook. It must’ve been a world record how quickly everyone in that room got angry. “Let me talk,” he requested. 

Jungkook sighed, defeated. How much worse could it possibly get? “Go ahead,” he said.

There it was again: the feeling of being under anesthesia, the weight of an entire other being pressed down against his shoulders. Good times. “Yesterday,” he started, “you masturbated to the thought of Jungkook, but you forgot to recharge your vibrator so you had to use your fingers and you complained the entire time. Explain that, science woman.”

Another deep gasp, and Jungkook was folding over, finding balance on his knees. He really felt like he couldn’t even think straight anymore, his mind covered by a thick fog. 

You didn’t seem to be in a much different situation either. “I’m… gonna pass out.” 

“That was so unnecessary, Taehyung,” Jungkook whispered. His mouth was terribly dry, and his hands were shaking. “You guys really don’t know your limits.” 

“Taehyung? Who the fuck is that?” You screamed. 

Taehyung crossed his arms. “Hey, at least she believes you now.”

“He’s the other ghost. The one with no sense of boundaries.” Jungkook stared at Taehyung, clearly pissed off. Maybe his voice would’ve come out a bit more forceful if he didn’t get thrown around by sadistic spirits. “I’m sorry about that.” 

You shook your head, dumbfounded. “I need you to leave now. And take your ghosts with you.” You leaned over the table, and grabbed his notes, shoving them into a messy pile. Not that you were super worried about the integrity of the paper at a time like that. “This has really crossed like... every line.” 

Jungkook licked his lips, trying to find the right words to say. Someway, he managed to get his legs firm enough so he could start walking in your direction. “Please, I didn’t mean to—” 

You shoved the pile of notes into his backpack, and then the backpack into his hands. Before he could react, you grabbed him by the arm, guiding him towards the exit. “Thanks for helping me, Jungkook.” The door opened with a forceful pull, and you shoved him into the hall. “Never speak to me again. Bye.” 

The bang of the door slamming shut was horribly loud, reverberating inside Jungkook’s chest for a moment longer. Now that the possession daze was starting to move away from his body, the boy could feel the traces of panic crawling inside him. 

Jungkook dropped his backpack to the ground, and started knocking on your door. “Y/N, please!” He called. “I’m so sorry about everything. You have to believe me!” 

Your yell came muffled from the other side of the door. “Go away!” you screamed. “Or I’m calling the cops!”

Defeated, he closed his eyes and placed his forehead against the wood. Now that the situation had already climaxed, the absurdity of it all was starting to become much more palpable. 

How could Jungkook be so stupid? How could he think that you would act normally as you were exposed to the supernatural world? Especially in such distressing, violating ways. Even if you were his meant-to-be, his forever person, it would be ridiculous to believe that anyone would take all  in that with ease. He really outdid himself that time. 

“Let her be, you two can talk another time,”  Yoongi spoke, leaning against the wall. It was possible to see all the places that the pain was starting to crack through his semi-translucent form. “Good attempt, though. I’d give you a star for trying.” 

“This is not funny,” Jungkook mumbled, moving away from the door so you couldn’t hear him. The artificial lights above his head were sharp, buzzing mockingly. “You two keep saying that you’re here to help me, but you keep making stuff like this happen. If she really did like me, you just ruined everything.”

Yoongi raised one eyebrow. “Why do you care so much about that one?”

Jungkook glanced at him. “You told me she’s the one.”

He frowned, crossing his arms. “I told you she was the right girl from physiology class, not that you two were going to die holding hands or something,” Yoongi told him. “You filled the blanks yourself.”

“That’s why we don’t give away all those details,” Taehyung scolded Yoongi, looking at him up and down. Jungkook had never seen him so irritated before — at least not about serious things. “You know we could get in real big trouble if someone heard about that. Which, correct me if I’m wrong, it’s kind of the entire deal of heaven to know about stuff.” 

“I know, I know,” Yoongi groaned, disregarding his preoccupations. Maybe Taehyung didn’t understand his galaxy-brain plan yet, but he was sure that the heavens would. Or at least he hoped so. “But I think there’s something else that we need to focus on. Jungkook wouldn’t care this much about the other girls he dated, even if it was meant to be.” 

“Why are you two talking like I’m not here?” Jungkook asked, annoyed. 

“Why are you talking to yourself like you’re not in a corridor of an apartment building?” Yoongi threw back. Without a second of hesitation, Jungkook picked up his backpack and turned on his heels, walking down the hall, completely done with them. “Hey, come back. Just tell me what’s the fuzz with this one.” 

He didn’t look back. “Aren’t you two supposed to know? All-knowing and shit.” 

“We want to hear it from you,” Yoongi pressed on. 

Jungkook opened the heavy door to the stairwell, allowing for it to hit behind him. Taehyung and Yoongi passed right through it, of course, and kept following him as he quickly moved down the concrete steps. “Y/N is my friend.”

Yoongi hummed. “Go on.”

“Isn’t that enough for a justification? What else do you want from me?” He inquired, aggressive. The sound of his steps echoed like drums through the expansion of the staircase, and he hoped that no one else had been listening to his apparent monologue. “I don’t wanna ruin this friendship by talking about her masturbation techniques, I don’t know if that makes the situation super unique.” 

Taehyung clicked his tongue. “You have other friends.” 

“I care for her, alright?” Jungkook turned around abruptly, making the two ghosts stop in their tracks. Taehyung had almost lost his balance, but it wasn’t as if that could have any serious consequences for him. 

Jungkook sighed, trying to control the anger that had built up so rapidly, and continued speaking. “I care for her more than other friends. Fuck, is that what you two wanted to hear? Besides, it’s not like I know anyone better than her.  I didn’t even think I had a chance with someone like that until you told me. She’s smart, she’s funny, she’s like… super hot when she’s mad—”

“Oh, would you look at that.” Yoongi grinned, satisfied. “Jungkook’s whipped.”

“What?” His eyes widened. “I’m not.”

“Why are you so red?” Taehyung asked.

Jungkook covered his face, feeling the heat of his checks emanating against his palms. “I’m not!”

“Okay, okay, calm down, tiger,” Yoongi raised his hands in a silent request for forgiveness.  They were still a few steps above Jungkook, and the whole scene looked like something straight out of the Book of Revelation. “This is a good thing, we actually thought it would never happen. It’s not like you’ve been this introspective in what… five years? More even.” 

He narrowed his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

Yoongi sighed, and looked at Taehyung for confirmation. The other ghost nodded in a silent agreement, and Yoongi started to speak. “Listen, we’re here to help you, but we didn’t say everything,” he admitted. “We couldn’t, really, otherwise it wouldn’t be so... organic.”

“What?” 

“Jungkook, you were desperate to lose your virginity,” Yoongi explained. “You still are, in a way. And that’s not a good thing, because you’ll get the first thing that moves and you’ll try to stick your dick in it.”

Taehyung chuckled drily, looking at a fixed point. “Which is not a good idea, believe me,” he spoke in a mumble, and Jungkook could not help but think that his advice came from personal experience. That, of course, was a story for other, less sober times. 

“Is that why the two of you always interrupt me?” He asked, a bit offended. “Because those girls weren’t right for me? Like this is a purity cult or something?” 

“Eh.” Yoongi did a so-so gesture with his hand. “Kind of. Not really. Doesn’t matter. What matters is that you actually feel something for this girl, something beyond the thoughts that come from your lower head.”

“And she feels something for you too, even after that trainwreck that we just witnessed in there,” Taehyung added patiently. “Which will help us a lot in the long run.”

“This doesn’t make any sense.” Jungkook crossed his arms, stubborn. He really could look and sound like a child throwing a tantrum when he wanted to. “I still don’t get it. It wasn’t your place to tell me who I could or couldn’t be with, it’s not as if you guys are—” 

“Jungkook, that’s enough,” Taehyung interrupted him. “You don’t think it makes sense? Stop and think for once in your life.” 

He narrowed his eyes. “What did you say?” 

Taehyung glanced at him. “Listen, we just saved you from months of wrong dates and wrong nights. We pushed away people who didn’t really care about you, who just wanted you to use you, or who would end up cheating on you anyways. Not everyone gets this privilege,” he said, completely done with that victim mentality. “So, for once in your life, be grateful. Be grateful for the bad dates,  the embarrassment, the times that it didn’t work out. And, look, we are sorry for the way they had to go down, it wasn’t as funny as it seemed from our perspective. But if you didn’t have those bad dates, you’d have very, very bad months following them. So you’re welcome.” 

“And all those bad dates lead you to the right person,” Yoongi completed, watching as Jungkook’s expression withered into shame. He was staring to get it — they could almost see the hamster in his brain start running. “Now, listen, we don’t know if this is the for-life situation, that’s not the kind of information we have, alright? Do I look like a seraphin to you? No. But does it matter?  No. Most relationships aren’t the for-life thing anyways, but they are here to teach you something. And if the afterlife thought that there was something good for you here, who are we to judge?” 

“Yeah,” Taehyung agreed. “Now, can you  please forget about all those past people and just focus on her? Maybe shut the fuck up while you do that? I get that you wanted to get your dick wet, but there’s a time and a place for that.” 

The boy sighed, and leaned against the red handrails. It took Jungkook a few seconds to speak out. “I feel like I’ve just been lectured by my parents,” he admitted. 

Taehyung relaxed his shoulders. “Good,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to slap some sense into you for months now, but I didn’t really have the permission.” 

“Feel better?” Jungkook asked.

He nodded. “Much better.”

“I’m happy for you,” he said. Jungkook ran one hand through his dark hair, pushing back the strands that had fallen over his eyes. “And about Y/N… There’s no way she’ll ever talk to me after this mess. I ruined everything.”

Taehyung nodded. “You pretty much did, yeah.” 

“You took the worst case scenario and managed to make it even more horrible,” Yoongi said. “It’s pretty impressive, actually.” 

“Thanks, that’s great.” Jungkook chuckled, humorless. He could always count on them for emotional support. “But, I mean… What do I do now? I mean, is there anything that we could do to save this?” 

“Worry not, my child,” Yoongi smirked, crossing his arms. “Taehyung and I are masters of seduction, and we’re here to help you. Just trust us.” 

“And before you say something,” Taehyung interrupted, raising one finger. “You never had the right girl before, so we weren’t really trying. I think we can find some real solid ground here.” 

Jungkook breathed out, and looked down at the grey stairs. Yeah, it’s not like he wasn’t at the bottom of the well already. “Fine. One last chance,” he agreed, looking back at the ghosts. “Just tell me what I have to do.”

______________

Much to Jungkook’s delight, he didn’t need to muster up the courage to talk to you, because you did that first. 

For the first time in their lives (and deaths), Yoongi and Taehyung actually did something right. Jungkook didn’t really know the details of their plan, all that he knew was that they would find a way to “make you see what you were missing” so that you would “come crawling back to him”. Which didn’t sound threatening at all.

 Countless possibilities crossed Jungkook’s head — horror movie hauntings, Taehyung invading your dreams with claws for fingers, Yoongi with a wet wig crawling out of your TV — but, in the end, no matter how much he insisted, the two of them just wouldn’t say a word. Apparently, there was a lot going on backstage that Jungkook had no idea about, so he should just “take it easy” and wait for the sequence of events to unravel. Amazing. Now he knew how the characters in Final Destination felt. 

“Just be patient, young one,” Taehyung had told him, thrown over his couch like a Victorian monarch. “All you need to know is that she will be back. Everything else it’s just… details.” 

And, two weeks after the dormitory incident, you did. 

There was a muffled thud as you placed your large books over the wooden table, and sat down across from him. The silence of the library didn’t allow for Jungkook to foresee your arrival, and to meet your gaze so suddenly was enough for his face to burn up in shame, his heart drumming against his ribcage. His sympathetic system really needed to quit with that bullshit before he collapsed. 

“Hey,” you mumbled, seeming just as uncomfortable as he was. “Can we talk? You know what about.”

The boy swallowed dry, and leaned a bit forward. “Y-Yeah, sure,” he whispered back. “I’m really sorry, Y/N, I don’t know why I thought—”

“For how long?” you sliced his sentence short, making his lips fall shut. 

Jungkook raised his eyebrows in surprise. “What?”

You cleared your throat, and shuffled on your seat. As much as the library was practically empty, neither of you felt courageous enough to use your usual voice tone — especially when dealing with that subject. “How long have you been able to, you know, see them?”

Jungkook took a second to respond, licking his dry lips and looking at the line of bookshelves as if seeking for the right thing to say. He felt awkward enough just interacting with someone from the opposite sex, but talking about the ghosts he saw? Hell, that bordered on a panic attack. Especially after the circus show that was that past study session. “Almost two years now, I think,” he finally answered. “But they told me they’ve been around for a bit longer. I just couldn’t see it.” 

You shook your head in concordance, even if the information was everything but easy to understand. “That’s crazy,” you spoke. “I don’t know how you deal with it.” 

Jungkook let out a dry chuckle. “Not very well, as you can probably tell.” 

 “I don’t think I can judge you. I didn’t precisely react well either.” You swallowed dry, wide eyes flickering on the world behind Jungkook. “Are we alone now?”

As much as he already knew the answer, he looked around just to check. “Surprisingly, yeah,” Jungkook responded, slightly suspicious. Yoongi and Taehyung were always looking over his shoulder and throwing him into messy situations, he couldn’t tell why they weren’t there when, quite frankly, it was their perfect shot at humiliation. Maybe they really were doing their jobs for once. “I don’t know why they’re not here. That’s weird.”

You shrugged as if to say that you wouldn’t know either. “What are their names again?”

“Yoongi and Taehyung,” he answered, then waited another second to see if he could feel their presence. Nothing again. That was really strange — they often responded upon being called. “Listen, Y/N, I hate what we went through. They had no right to say those things. I’m used to the privacy issues, since I have been with them for a while. But you aren’t, and I can only imagine how weird you felt hearing all that. I’m really, really sorry.”

You pressed your lips together which, Jungkook guessed, was a failed attempt to suppress the rubor that exploded across your cheeks. He couldn’t blame you, though, for there were limits that were crossed. “I’m over it if you are,” was what you forced yourself to say. 

“I am,” he lied. None of you were particularly good at not telling the truth, and that was pretty obvious. But ignoring it was a start. 

“Good, okay.” You cleared your throat, placing the palms of your hands against the pile of books. “Sorry for lying about needing help in physiology, and all that. I just needed an excuse to spend more time with you, as you know now. I guess it’s obvious that I kinda have a huge crush on you.”

“It’s fine.” Jungkook laughed, extremely relieved to notice that your last sentence was in present tense. “I kinda have a huge crush on you too.” 

Honestly, even if it wasn’t for life, he’d have to give you props for still liking a guy that had had a borderline psychotic breakdown in your apartment, talked about your pet tortoise, and your masturbation technique, and still had the nerve to expose you to the supernatural world. It was a lot. Good on you for taking it like a champ. 

“And,” he continued, “sorry for using my ghosts to expose your secrets. I just needed to find a way for you to believe me, and I had no idea about what they were going to say. I was pretty much in a frenzied state, I wasn’t thinking straight. It won’t happen again.” 

“Apologies accepted.” You smiled, relieved. You were really beautiful, Jungkook thought in a breathless instant. He could look at you all day. “You know, it’s going to take me some time to get used to all that. I mean, I’m still not a hundred percent sure I believe in everything, but, I… My lamp flew across the room, and you told me things that you simply couldn’t know about. So, if it’s a prank, it’s a really good one.”

“I know how it is.” He nodded in agreement. “It was really difficult for me at first, too. I understand if you’d rather just stay away from me from now on.” 

You sighed, looking down at your books —  the two mammoth-sized volumes of Harrison’s Internal Medicine staring at you in mockery. “Weird thing is: I don’t really want to.” You crossed your arms and leaned back against the chair. Was that the sound of angels singing? Jungkook couldn’t tell. “I’d love to spend more time with you. Alone, if possible. And that counts both planes of existence.” 

“Sounds fair, I’d love that.” Jungkook smiled. As he met your eyes, he was filled with a  warm, rose-colored courage that he had never felt before. “Actually, I was wondering if, you know… you wanna do something? With me? Alone, of course. No ghosts. One of these days, I don’t know. If you’re not busy—”

You raised your eyebrows, interested. “You’re asking me out?”

He sighed, shoulders falling in defeat. “Trying, yeah. You can see I’m not the best at that either.”

Your smile grew a little. “That’s a big yes.”

“Really?” Jungkook stared at you like a lost puppy, his mind going completely blank for a second or two. The hamster in his brain was now somersaulting through his body, landing on his stomach and hitting him with a wave of nausea. “Wow, thanks. I don’t really have an idea of what we could do, though. Didn’t think I’d get that far.”

There was an instant of quietude as you thought for a moment, the space between the two of you permeated by the vague sounds of pages turning. “Movies?” You asked. 

“Sounds great.” Jungkook smiled openly, his shoulders falling in alleviation. He didn’t know what Taehyung and Yoongi had done, but he was beyond thankful for it. Seemed like their sacrifices weren’t in vain, after all. “The film majors are doing this 2000’s marathon this week. I think this Saturday it’ll be either Mean Girls or 17 Again.”

“I’m in,” you spoke excitedly. “I’ll be there, just text me the details.”

Jungkook almost swallowed his own tongue as he watched you stand up, presenting him with a gorgeous view of thighs beneath the level of your skirt. “Great!” He exclaimed a bit too loud, his voice a bit too high-pitched, awakening his inner thirteen-year-old. He cleared his throat, lowering his voice another octave. “I mean, yeah, great. Thank you for… saying yes.”

“Thank you for asking.” You placed your hair behind your shoulder, and leaned in to pick up the heavy pile of books. All nine kilos of Internal Medicine. 

“See you there,” he said. 

You smiled. “See you, Kookie.” 

Jungkook watched you walk away as if he was floating in a fever dream, completely unable to believe what had just unfolded. Did he seriously manage to get a date with you? Of all people? He must’ve been hallucinating. Maybe he ended up falling down the stairwell and died, perhaps that was his heaven, and he would— 

Behind him, Taehyung sneered. “Kookie? You’re getting softer than your dick.” 

Jungkook turned around so brusquely that the chair tilted back and, if it wasn’t for him holding down to the corner of the table, he would’ve fallen to the ground. “You two were there all along?” He whispered-screamed. Before he could land a sermon on them, though, he met the devilish smirk that was plastered all over Yoongi’s features. Oh no. No. The movies. “No, Yoongi, I know what you’re thinki—”

“Get in, loser, we’re going to the movies.” 

_________________

Saturday rolled around and, with it, came your much anticipated movie date. Jungkook had spent the previous night tossing and turning on his bed, completely monopolized by anxiety, thinking about every possible apocalyptic scenario that could go down. What if he tried to take a slip of his drink, but ended up blinding himself with the straw? Maybe he would step on the wrong chord and set the entire college on fire. Or maybe he would trip, fall down on a poor girl, and kill her on the spot. That would be awful, you would never talk to him again after any of that — the imaginary disappointment in your face was like a punch in the gut. 

Was he being ridiculous? Obviously. Did that stop his pre-date panic? Obviously not. 

Still, with the might of a thousand warriors, Jungkook managed to drag himself to your date, his knees almost giving out beneath him when he saw you — he didn’t believe you would actually come, for some of him still thought it was all a sadistic heaven prank. Somehow, he blurted out a compliment about how good you looked while he was having a heart attack, and almost lost his consciousness when you smiled at him. 

Yep, it would be a difficult night. 

The movie marathon consisted of three 2000’s movies, and the two of you managed to arrive right before Mean Girls started, fumbling on your seats as the rest of the room grew quiet. The makeshift classroom didn’t look like a movie theater in the slightest, but it wasn’t as if you were expecting that in the first place — it was nothing more than an agglomeration of chairs and desks, combined with a few puff chairs and old couches scattered around. Much to your delight, you and Jungkook managed to grab one of those couches before another couple returned to their seats, and he could see that his ghost buddies had already found their own place on the empty chairs behind the two of you. 

Surprise! None of the catastrophic scenarios in his mind actually came true. In fact, he had a great time with you, laughing at your jokes and sometimes flat-out stealing Yoongi’s commentary just to make you chuckle, which granted him a few mumbled complaints coming from the back row. 

“Jungkook is so superior, don’t you think, Taehyung?” Yoongi mocked, and Jungkook was sure that he would be kicking his seat if he could. “So smart. So great. But can’t even figure out his own jokes. Has to steal them from a poor dead man. You’re a grave robber.” 

Taehyung chuckled. “Hey, you’re helping him, at least. That’s our whole point here.”

“Grave robber!” he repeated, more aggressively this time. “I can’t believe you’d ruin Mean Girls for me like this. Not even hell would be so cruel.” 

“How dare you say that about hell? If I get in trouble because you can’t keep your mouth shut, Yoongi, I swear to God—”

“Now you’re saying God’s name in vain, you heretic! That’s so much worse!” 

Jungkook had to bite back a laugh as the two continued bickering behind him, only half aware of the scene in which Regina George glued her own picture on the burn book. He didn’t know when exactly he had done it — he had been so on edge the entire night that it was almost as if his own brain was instantly deleting his memories, but he had managed to curl one arm around your shoulders, pulling you closer to him. He was sure that you could hear the frantic heartbeat of his heart against his chest, but he didn’t mind. He didn’t think he could even get that far. 

But he did, and even reached beyond that. 

Once the screen faded to black and the credits started appearing, there was a resounding wave of claps in the room, cheering for the absolute cultural reset that was that movie. One of the students moved to the front of the room, explaining that they would take a ten minutes break, then would return with She’s All That. Apparently, 1999 was close enough to the 2000’s for it to be picked as well. 

“Do you wanna stay and watch it?” He asked, fighting every muscle in his body not to smell your hair. He knew that it would be super creepy, yeah, but your head was right there and it smelled so good. 

You removed your body from his chest, looking up at him. “I would love to, but I have to wake up early tomorrow to study,” you said. “Big test on Monday.” 

“Sure, yeah.” Jungkook nodded, slightly let down. To be honest, he had completely forgotten that information until that point. Seems like he would have a lot to catch up on during the next day. “I’ll walk you to your dorm.” 

You thanked him with a smile, and you two got moving. 

The walk back to your place wasn’t exactly awkward, but it could have also been a lot better. The two of you talked about the movie animatedly, the subject that you had to study — an awful amount of gastric pathology to memorize — and, eventually, landed on your weirdest experiences during hospital rounds. You were in the middle of telling him how two toddlers (twins) managed to puke on you at the same time, and how you thought that was a sign of a telepathic connection between the two, when he felt the back of his hand brush against yours, and everything around him turned into static. Suddenly, it was all that he could think about. 

Jungkook had already spent the entire date with questions flying around his head. When was the right time to pull you close? Could he hold your hand, or would that be too bold? Could you smell how sweaty he was? Or maybe his deodorant was too strong? If he ran away, trained to be an astronaut, and joined the Mars colonization mission, would he be able to avoid embarrassing himself again? 

And, more importantly: would it be weird to kiss you goodnight? 

Considering the fact that he had no clue how to read your body language, and that almost all of his romantic experience came from bad sitcoms and Twilight marathons with Yoongi, Jungkook didn’t judge himself suited to answer that last question. He didn’t know if he should hold your hand, he didn’t know if you were just being polite or if you actually had a good time. Again and again, his anxiety got the best of him. He should really get back to seeing his campus counselor. 

“So… we’re here,” you said, holding your hands in front of your body. You had stopped at the entrance of your block, and Jungkook took that as a sign that you didn’t want him to go all the way back to your apartment. Fair enough. “Thank you for tonight, I had a lot of fun. We should do this again sometimes.” 

“For sure, yeah.” Jungkook nodded, somewhat relieved that you asked for that. At least that was a clear sign that you didn’t completely hate him. “That would be great.” 

You agreed and looked down at your shoes. The darkness of the night enveloped the two of you, only half of your features illuminated by the dim yellow shine of the nearest light post. Jungkook almost fainted when you stared into his eyes, with a faint blush painting your cheeks, and questioned, “So, you’re not gonna kiss me?” 

Windows’ blue screen. Please, hold.

 “I… I, uh—” Jungkook’s mouth felt as if he had just swallowed an entire desert, his brain fighting to keep his voice steady. Your eyes, so focused and expectant, felt like daggers against his chest. “I didn’t know if you wanted to,” he finally admitted. 

Your shoulders fell as a tender smile curled up on your roseate lips. Jungkook thought you were the most beautiful thing he had ever had the pleasure of seeing. “I do,” you told him gently. His heart almost leaped out of his throat. “Do you want to?” 

And that was the easiest question that he would ever answer. “Yeah,” Jungkook said. 

You smiled. “Perfect.” 

The boy barely had time to react before your hand was curling around the fabric of his shirt, and you pulled him towards you in a playful tug. Jungkook’s eyes stayed comically widened for a second after your lips met, but, soon enough, he allowed himself to melt into your embrace, his nervous hands landing on your waist, and his mind instantly calming down. 

He kissed you slowly, carefully, almost afraid that, at the faintest of movements, reality would shatter and he would lose that moment forever. Of course, it didn’t, and he stayed on that instant a bit longer before, at last, he pulled away, slightly breathless. 

“I should’ve done that sooner,” he confessed. 

You tilted your head at him, fingers playing with his hair. “It happened at the right time,” you said. “Some things can’t be rushed. Especially the good ones.” 

Just like that, he understood what Taehyung and Yoongi had been saying all those years. No matter how cliche it was, there was some truth to the saying that ‘what is supposed to happen, will’. And, the better that something is, the more work it will require. 

But, as he kissed you again, Jungkook realized that it was all worth it in the end.

____________

The following months by your side were so amazing that Jungkook constantly brought back his theory that “maybe he was actually dead, and that was heaven.” And, if it was, he would make sure to shake God’s hand himself because, holy fuck, was he one lucky man. 

Okay, maybe the first few weeks together were a bit painfully cringe-worthy, but he was really trying to pretend as if they didn’t happen. Jungkook didn’t really get the memo, and he had to slowly figure out how to behave romantically with you. He got it wrong the first few times — kissing you at the worst possible moment, or sending you a huge bouquet of roses during your microbiology exam — but, eventually, you guided him towards more neutral grounds. Then everything went smoothly. 

Surprisingly, even the undead duo calmed down for a while. Yoongi and Taehyung were still around, since they had no other option, but were much quieter now, only making punctual remarks when Jungkook made a fool out of himself. Hell, they even left the room when things started getting more serious between the two of you, instead of giving Cosmopolitan-worthy advice, and that was a huge improvement. 

But, of course, it wouldn’t be Jungkook’s life if there wasn’t a huge joke waiting just around the corner. Soon enough, another issue would present itself. 

It came in the form of a warm mumble against his lips, and the vague — yet deliciously noticeable — rolling of your hips against his own. “Jungkook,” you called, breathless after a long make-out session. The two of you were on his couch, with you sitting on his lap, straddling him. “I want you.” 

He froze. What else would he do? Jungkook was a panicked virgin. He knew that your intimate times would happen eventually — and he really wanted them to — but he didn’t expect that his mind would completely malfunction once he got so close, with his erection growing inside his pants and the softness of your breasts pressing against his torso. It was just a lot, alright? 

And, lost amidst the tempestuous sea of his sudden despair, all that he could utter back was, “Are… Are you sure you want to do this right now?” 

“Yeah.” You placed a strand of hair behind your ear. Jungkook thought that he could faint on the spot. It was actually a pretty common sensation with him. “You don’t want it?”

“No — I mean yeah! Yeah, I want it.” He choked on his words, looking down in embarrassment, only to meet the contour of your thighs. His youth leader had been right all along: temptation was everywhere. “I’m just… I’ve never done anything before.” 

“Hey, it’s okay,” you tried to calm him down, placing your hands on his shoulders. The heat of your palms seemed to have some effect on the chaotic emotions that boiled inside him, for his muscles relaxed considerably under your touch. “I won’t pressure you, okay? If you want to take more time, it’s completely fine.” 

“No, it’s not like that. I don’t feel pressured.” He shook his head, then looked up at you. You could almost feel the conflict inside his gaze, the mixture of anticipation and fear that you knew all too well. “I want you, Y/N, I really do. I’m just nervous.”

“It’s fine,” you repeated. “We don’t have to do anything now, and we can start slo—”

But he couldn’t listen to the end of your phrase, because a familiar voice damn near hollered from the other side of the room. “Taehyung, come in here! Quick!” Yoongi yelled, signaling through the door like he was controlling the air traffic. “He’s getting some! Jungkook’s about to get his cherry popped the fuck off!” 

You tilted your head to the side, staring him down with preoccupation. “Jungkook? Are you okay?”

“The fuck! There is no fucking way!” Taehyung’s voice got louder as he yelled, signaling his growing proximity. “Call NASA right now!”

Jungkook sighed, throwing his head against the couch. Goodbye erection, and goodbye any chance of having sex that day. “Yoongi and Taehyung just showed up,” he mumbled bitterly. 

You lowered your gaze and took a deep breath, then removed yourself from his lap. Jungkook hated the lack of heat, and he swore he would have drop-kicked the two if they weren’t in a different dimension. The certainty of death was all that he needed to know that he would get his revenge some day. “Of course they did,” you complained, fixing your clothes. “I love being cockblocked by cockless ghosts. Again.”

“Hey!” Taehyung sounded actually offended. 

Jungkook turned around harshly, his voice bitter. “Can the two of you just fuck off? This is not the time.” 

“So you two can fuck?” Yoongi grinned, then looked at Taehyung. “We should, actually.”

“Jungkook… this is too weird now.” You raised your hands in a silent bargain for it all to stop. You could deal with a few psychic sessions every once in a while, but being a voyeurism victim for ghosts wouldn’t be the way you wanted to spend your afternoon. “Let’s do this another time, okay? I should get going anyways. Big day at the hospital tomorrow.” 

He took one of his hands to his face, massaging his temple. You got up from the couch, reaching for your backpack. “Yeah, okay.” The boy pouted, and you leaned in to give him a quick peck on the lips. Disappointing end for a night, to say the least. “Good luck tomorrow. Text me if you get an interesting case!”  

“Thanks! I will.” You threw your backpack strap over your shoulder and started walking towards the exit. Jungkook couldn’t blame you for just wanting to leave that place as soon as possible, he was sure that the discomfort was much worse for you. “Bye, Jungkook! I’ll let you know when I get to my place.”

He opened his mouth to thank you, but you were already out the door. The lock clicked shut, and the silence became thick, mocking him. Even if he already had an actual girlfriend, Jungkook still found himself being left behind by someone that would never want to see him again — dick semi-hard and morale shattered on the ground. Seems like he always found himself back in that position. 

Taehyung materialized on the couch next to him, hugging his knees. He was staring at the closed door, somewhat expecting that you would come back, but knowing very well that you wouldn’t do so. “Okay, I accept that it was our fault,” he said, oscillating his gaze towards Jungkook. “Sorry, man. We are like, super invested in this. There’s almost nothing interesting going on in the afterlife and this is, like, better than any TV show airing right now.” 

Jungkook rolled his eyes, utterly exhausted at the mess that had become his life. He was done giving them sermons: it had basically turned into the world’s worst pastime and gave little to no results. “You know what? Just promise me you’re not going to show up next time.” He stared both of them down. “I don’t wanna be watched, that’s just weird. And I know that Y/N isn’t happy about that either.” 

Yoongi shrugged. “Some people like it.” 

“Yeah, I’m not one of those people,” he told him. “Guys, please. I know you two are as excited as I am about this, and I appreciate your... support, but I think this is something I need to do alone. In peace. Not being watched by spirits. That’s isn’t too much to ask.”  

“He’s right, you know?” Taehyung said, looking back at Yoongi. “We should stay in our lane for now.” 

The other ghost looked down at his feet, which basically morphed into the carpet beneath them. For the first time in two long years, he actually seemed like he was rethinking his actions. “Yeah, sorry,” Yoongi responded. “We got carried away. We’ll leave next time. Maybe try something when your neighbors are having a movie night.” 

Jungkook’s shoulders fell in alleviation.  Maybe not everything was doomed. “Thank you,” he spoke, then nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I’ll probably do that. When is the next one?” 

Taehyung looked at Yoongi, then back at him. “What are the chances that you’re gonna get your virgin shit together by tomorrow night?”  

___________

Slim to none, actually, but he had managed to (kind of) do it. Focus on the “kind of.”

Jungkook had spent the previous night doing in-depth research about sexual intercourse,  and basing his actions in real-life situations. That meant that he stayed up until four in the morning watching porn. Not masturbating. Just watching it very closely and trying to learn what to do — like an actual serial killer. 

“Do you think that this is… a good idea?” Taehyung spoke from the other side of his room, preoccupation plastered all over his face. The whole porn-science was funny for the first twenty minutes, and then it just ended up being terrifying. “You know that people don’t actually have sex like that, right? It’s all exaggerated.” 

“Quiet!” Jungkook raised his finger after a particularly loud moan echoed, his eyes red and glued to the computer screen. The white light from his device was awfully sharp, bathing his figure and making his image border on demonic. It really wasn’t a good look. “I’m researching. I need to know what to do.” 

“You look and sound like a maniac.” Taehyung walked closer to the bed, measuring his movements. After he died, he thought that he would never be afraid of any other living thing — but Jungkook had just proved him wrong. Against his best judgement, he took a peek at the screen. “No! Oh my— That’s not natural. That’s so wrong. You should know, you studied anatomy.” 

“I’m not gonna do this tomorrow,” Jungkook mumbled, closing the video. Taehyung recoiled back to the darkness of the room like a vampire that had just been touched by the sun. “The plot was interesting.” 

“You’re not even hard, man,” he said, pointing at Jungkook’s trousers. “This is like, really weird. You should stop before you have some problem getting it up tomorrow.” 

“What are you trying to say?” He narrowed his eyes, paranoid. “That wouldn’t happen. I know what I can do.”  

“You’re the medical student, take a look,” Taehyung insisted. “There’s research about that, pornography affects young men and women a lot and— Actually, what the fuck am I talking about? This is crazy. I should’ve left with Yoongi.” 

“Wait, I just—” Jungkook closed his computer with a sigh. His hair was disheveled and his gaze was unfocused. It really was the oddest night in Taehyung’s life/death. “I just don’t know what to do tomorrow. I’m about to have an anxiety attack. It’s like the third one tonight.” 

Taehyung pressed his lips together, the discomfort inside him being replaced by a warm sense of understanding. “Man, she knows you don’t have experience. She isn’t expecting a porn star performance, or whatever the fuck you were just watching.” He pointed to the computer, which was now neglected amongst the sea of blankets. “By the way, I’m a changed spirit. I hate you for making me see that.” 

Jungkook would have laughed at his distress if he wasn’t too tired to do that. “Technically, you decided to look at it yourself,” he corrected. “But, yeah, I know she’s not expecting anything great. But I don’t wanna make a fool out of myself, you know? Not like it’s a rare occasion or anything.” 

Taehyung shrugged. Being alive made everything seem so much more important than it actually was, he thought. “Lay back and let her take the lead, then.” 

Jungkook furrowed his brow, his eyes widening at the idea. Of course! That was the big  galaxy brain moment he needed all along. “Are you serious? It’s that simple?” He asked, hopeful. 

Taehyung chuckled. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.” 

Yeah. It was that simple. Who would’ve thought that those see-through idiots actually would have something intelligent to say? 

Really, it was a time of miracles in Jungkook’s life. The following day, the planets aligned and, for the first time ever since puberty, everything went right for him: the class ended a bit early, his neighbors decided to watch two movies instead of one, and his place was perfectly devoid of any paranormal activity by the time you wandered into it. 

He didn’t tell you that he had planned that entire thing before it happened — he thought it would be super strange to schedule his virginity loss out loud — and he was glad to see that everything evolved naturally. One hour and forty minutes after you arrived, you two were already at the same point that you had left the day before — only, this time, you two actually managed to get to his bed.

“They’re not here, are they? You’re sure?” You asked in between kisses for what should’ve been the fifth time. 

“No, I asked them to leave earlier.” Jungkook’s hands pressed down on your hips, the sensation of your center rolling against his erection eliciting a sigh from him. Ha! Fuck Taehyung and his soft dick curse. “I actually… Before we do anything, I actually wanted to know if you could, you know, help me a little.” 

You hummed, taking your face away from his. Jungkook watched as you licked your lips, your eyes dazed, and leaned in to place another kiss against his mouth. “In what way?” You asked. 

“Just... show me what to do,” he said. “What you like, if I’m doing something wrong… everything.” 

With a soft smile, you agreed, arms curling around his shoulders. “Of course,” you told him. “It’ll be my pleasure.” 

That being said, you dove back to his lips, feeling as he both simultaneously relaxed and tensed up under your touches. Jungkook had evolved a lot in those past few months, you realized, since the early-dating version of him wouldn’t find himself in that position without turning into a stuttering, blushing mess beneath you. It was kind of cute, but you’d never say that out loud. 

You felt his hands trailing up your back, underneath your clothes, his palms dwelling in the softness of your skin for a moment before, in a courageous movement, he decided to pull your shirt up. There was a short separation of your mouths as the piece of clothing slid up your arms, and collapsed against the floor in a puddle of cotton. 

Jungkook sighed once he felt the lace of your bra against his hands; the softness of your breasts was something that he continuously daydreamed about. Now, without the barrier of your clothes, all that he needed was to remove that last constriction and he would be— 

“Oh well…” He chuckled nervously, fumbling with your bra. “Sorry, I don’t know how to open this.”

You smiled at the embarrassment that danced around his features. “Relax, okay?” You said, moving your hands to your back and taking care of that problem yourself. You’d teach him about the magic of unclasping bras another time. “It’s fine.”

But Jungkook didn’t have time to think about an answer, for soon your bra was meeting your shirt on the floor. His reaction would’ve been the same if you just moved over and came back with a baby dinosaur in your hands — his eyes widening in amazement as he took in the image of your nude breasts, a small whimper perishing in his throat as he slithered his hands upward, cupping them. 

Your breath stopped for a moment when he leaned in, reluctant, and enveloped one of your nipples with his warm mouth, his tongue delicately coming out to trace circles on your sensitive flesh. Jungkook groaned at the sensation, his cock becoming unbearably hard against his pants, and tilted your body over so he could be on top of you. 

You curled up against the sheets, sighing in delight as the boy continued to work on your breasts, kissing and sucking lightly, taking his time. Every time you looked down, you could see that Jungkook was having almost as much fun as you, the small moans that dripped from his tongue vibrating inside your chest. 

“Does it feel good?” He raised his gaze towards you, expectant. “Am I doing a good job?” 

“Yes, very good.” Your hands curled around the roots of his hair. The action was gentle, but Jungkook shuddered under the sensation — every small movement proved itself to be a lot for him to handle. “You’re doing amazing. Is there something that you want to do, Kookie?” 

The boy licked his lips, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed hard. Part of him (probably the sleep deprived one) still didn’t believe that you two were actually doing that — that it wasn’t just a figment of his horny imagination. No, it was real. You were right there in front of him, beautiful and devastating, caressing his hair as you waited for an answer. 

“I… I want to make you feel good,” he said, wide-eyed and hesitant. His dick felt painfully hard being so constructed by his pants and, suddenly, he became aware of how clothed he still was. No wonder it was so hot. “Just tell me what you want me to do.” 

Your lips curled up at his adorableness, one of your hands meeting his wrist. Patiently, you guided it down, and placed it on the hem of your pants. “Can you touch me?” You questioned. “I can tell you what I like.” 

“Oh, please,” he almost pleaded, his hand already fumbling to open your pants. Much to his delight, those were a lot easier than your bra, and they were soon sliding down your legs with ease. 

He took a moment to take in your form, eyes traveling up from your legs, to your hips, then all the way back to your breasts. As Jungkook met your gaze, he allowed for a suspire of relief to depart from his mouth, shoulders relaxing. “I’m so lucky,” he spoke, “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

The smile that you presented him looked brighter than all of the stars above. “Come here,” you called, leaning against your elbows. “Give me a kiss.” 

Obedient, Jungkook did as you requested, a grunt escaping his chest once you pulled him into a sloppy kiss, nails brushing lightly against the skin of his neck. He had goosebumps at the sensation, his hand moving by its own will, navigating down your stomach and towards your heat. 

His fingers hovered, insecure, over the hem of your panties for a moment. Still, at the sound of his name being spoken against the kiss, he was overtaken by an ephemeral spark of courage. Soon, your panties were on the floor too. 

“Fuck, you’re so wet,” Jungkook whined at the contact, his fingers dwelling just above your entrance. Inside his pants, his cock twitched at the sensation, his lower body already tingling with excitement. He didn’t know how he would manage not to cum in his pants, but he would have to find a way. “What do I do now?” 

“Now...” you said, leaning your head against the pillow. “Move up and find my clit. Make all those hours of anatomy worth it,” you joked. 

Jungkook nodded, but anatomy was much more difficult when he wasn’t actually looking at a certain part of the body — he was much more interested in watching your expression. Embarrassed, he did as you requested, trailing his wet fingers up until you told him to stop. “Right there,” you said, sighing once you felt his hand pressing down on it, starting to trace small circular patterns. “That’s it, baby, great job.” 

His heart leaped at the compliment, and his actions became firmer. Jungkook thought he would go insane when he heard you whimper and cry out at the sensation, your hips bucking up against his hand ever so slightly. “You’re so hot,” he breathlessly confessed, his words coming in a hot puff of air against your neck. His digits slowly trailed down, towards your entrance, and he paused. “Can I?” 

“Yeah,” you agreed. 

Jungkook swallowed hard, adventuring one finger inside you. At the sensation of your walls clenching around him, he moaned, biting his lip. “God, you’re so tight,” he told you, adding a second finger. You raised your hips at the contact, hands curling on his hair. “I can’t wait to feel you around my cock.” 

His mouth came back to your breasts, sucking and licking your flesh. Jungkook was a mess, you realized — pressing down his hard member against your thigh, whining against your skin as his fingers curled inside you, sinking into your wetness. God, you weren’t made of steel. “I want it,” you told him, and he didn’t understand your words for a moment. “I want to feel you, Jungkook.” 

And he didn’t need anything else. The boy moved away from your body and pulled his shirt over his head, tossing it on the floor alongside the rest of your clothes. It was no time for hesitation— he didn’t know how much of his precious alone time he had left. “Condoms.” He pointed at his nightstand. “Top drawer.” 

You turned around on the bed, reaching for the furniture as the boy unbuckled his belt and clumsily removed his pants. The mattress bounced beneath you as Jungkook tossed himself around, finding a way to lose his balance as he threw his pants on the ground. Much to his relief, you weren’t paying much attention to it. 

He was already panting — in a mixture of excitement and his pathetic effort to remove his pants — by the time that you gave him the condom. “Do you put it on, or do you want me to?” You asked. 

Jungkook had trained on enough bananas to know that he could do it, but he wasn’t gonna let the chance to have you touching him down there pass. “You do it, please.” 

You nodded, sitting next to his expectant figure. Jungkook’s chest rose and fell in anticipation, his muscles glistening with the small droplets of sweat that decorated his caramel skin.  His cock was hard and heavy against the fabric of his grey underwear, practically calling for your care. 

Attentively, you watched as his abdomen tensed up at the feeling of one of your hands pressing down against his clothed erection, delicately moving towards his crown. A gasp tumbled from his lips as you rolled your thumb against it, noticing the wetness that had already accumulated beneath your hand, and he rolled his hips against the pressure. Really, Jungkook was too precious. 

“Please, don’t tease,” he begged, eyes following your every move. His cock throbbed in your hands, needy. “I don’t think I can hold it much longer.” 

With a hum of agreement, you moved your hand away from his erection, and pulled his underwear down gently. Jungkook whimpered at the fiction, and the way his cock was freed from its constraints, bouncing back against his abdomen. The smallest of touches was more than enough for him to lose himself. 

“Shhh, it’s fine,” you calmed him down, slowly (too slowly) rolling the condom on him. His hands clenched into fists next to him, grabbing handfuls of the white sheets. Okay, maybe you were being a bit mean. “Just tell me what you want.” 

Jungkook closed his eyes for a moment, holding back a cry of frustration. “Ride me, please,” his words came out in a plea, his expression so permeated by need that you thought that he could cry if you teased him any further. God, everything was so perfect about him — the glistening in his onyx irises, the reddening of his lips as he bit down on them, trying to fight back a whimper as you placed yourself over him. “I— I need to feel you. I’m going crazy.” 

There was no need for more convincing — again, you weren’t made of steel. 

You sighed as you sank down on his member, one of your hands finding support against his pecs, as the other curled around his cock, guiding him inside you. Jungkook closed his eyes and threw his head against the alabaster pillow, his flower-like lips opening to cry out at the sensation. “Oh fuck,” he cursed. “Oh, baby, that’s so good.” 

Seeing him like that, so submissive, so deliciously responsive to your faintest of touches, was, at the very least, extremely erotic. You loved to see the way he flinched and whined at the sensation of your walls clenching around him, his hands unsure of where they should be on your body. Awfully slow, you rose your hips from him, almost letting him slip out, before you shifted your weight back down, watching as Jungkook moaned out your name. 

God, he was really about to fall apart. 

Slowly, you began setting a pace, moving up and down on his cock. It was a lot slower than Jungkook expected, but it was just the right speed to make him appreciate every sensation of your body wrapping his own. 

“Feels good?” you asked, a bit breathless. The sensation of him filling you up was even better than you had anticipated, and, combined with his shameless exclamations of pleasure, you didn’t think that you’d last much longer either. 

Before he could answer, a tremulous sigh ruptured upon his mouth, reverberating just behind his teeth. Jungkook took another second to find his words, inhaling sharply. “So good,” he spoke, and you almost whined out at the lust that ornamented his voice. “Can you move faster? Please?” 

Maybe in different times, you’d take your time to provoke him a bit more. At that point, though, you’d do anything he wanted you to. “Yeah,” you agreed, doing as requested. The sound of your wetness and the slapping of skin against skin was lewd, filling the room alongside Jungkook’s voice. “Like this?”  

“Fuck, yeah, like this,” he cried out, closing his eyes in absolute euphoria. He could feel the movement of your asscheeks against his palms, the sensation enough to drive him insane. Jungkook was already amazed at the fact that he didn’t embarrass himself with premature ejaculation the second that you removed his underwear — but it didn’t mean that he didn’t get close to it. The second his hands squeezed your ass, he was positive he would end the game a bit earlier than the two of you would like. “It— it feels so good. Please, don’t stop.” 

With a moan, you threw your body forward, placing kisses on the curvature of his neck, a sensation that quickly sent shivers down his skin. The new angle made his cock hit even deeper inside you, causing for you both to melt in pleasure. “You feel so good,” you told him, nails digging against his flesh. The knot in your stomach was all too familiar, and you knew that you wouldn’t take much longer. “I love having you inside me.” 

“Oh, yeah, that’s good.” He mumbled, only half aware of the words leaving his lips. Jungkook’s eyes were dazed and unfocused, looking at nowhere in particular, his fingertips digging in your flesh. “You’re… you’re getting tighter.” 

“Y-Yeah,” you agreed, voice coming out in a moan. “I’m close.” 

He swallowed hard. “I can help,” he said. 

Before you could ask what he was trying to do, Jungkook moved his hand back to your center, two of his fingers playing with your clit. You gasped at the sensation, eyes closing as you kept riding him, rolling your hips, feeling as he reached for every part of you. It was all becoming too much, the pleasure that decorated his features, the  delicious friction of his body against yours, the frail moans that dropped from his tongue like honey. He was just too much. 

With a faint call of his name — a melody that would be stuck in his head forever —, you finally crossed the threshold of your orgasm, and came around him; morphing into a trembling and moaning mess. Jungkook watched, in absolute awe, as your face was monopolized by bliss, your teeth sinking down on your bottom lip and your eyes rolling back. 

He removed his hand from your heat, placing it on your waist. Using every final ounce of energy in your body, you continued riding him. Through parted lids, you noticed that his thighs were starting to shake, signaling that he, too, was close. “Baby,” the boy called out, his fingers digging to the sides of your hips. Jungkook was both trying to guide your movements, and hold himself back to reality. It was a beautiful view — the way his expression lingered somewhere between delight and distress; his hips mindlessly trusting up against yours. “I think I’m gonna cum.” 

You breathed out through your nose, trying to ignore the pleasure that, now, was turning into sensitivity. It felt good, in a way, but you were more focused on his relief at that point. “It’s okay, Kookie,” you told him, “you can let go.”

He had been so polite the entire time, with his “please” and “thank you’s. So, of course, when you told him that it was okay for him to cum, he did just as you requested. 

Jungkook came with gasping breaths and a trembling, high-pitched moan, holding on to you as he thrusted his last sloppy advances towards your core. His hands, weak, fell on the bed besides him, clenching the sheets; eyelashes fluttering down as he dwelled on the afterglow of his pleasure. You could stay there forever, looking at the pink shade that colored his cheeks; the beautiful mess that his black hair had turned into; or the tears of relief that accumulated at the corner of his eyes. 

But everything has to end, even the most beautiful ones. 

His tongue came out to wet his lips, and his eyes, still hooded, met yours. Not even the biggest minds in the renaissance could’ve thought of an image so perfect, so ethereal. “You’re so amazing,” he praised. “That was… amazing.” 

You smiled and leaned in to place a soft kiss against his lips. His member slipped out of you at the action, and his arms curled around your waist, keeping you in place. “You did pretty well,” you mumbled as you lazily curled up against his chest. Jungkook’s body was a delicious source of heat, and you could really get used to that. “I see a bright future ahead of you.”

He hummed, caressing your hair. Jungkook could finally smell it without being creepy, so that was a big victory for him. “You did most of the work,” he said. 

“That’s not an issue.” You nuzzled his neck, pleasantly feeling as goosebumps spread throughout his body. Always so responsive. “I’ll let you take the lead next time, if that sounds good to you.”

Jungkook chuckled. “That’d be great, yeah,” he agreed. Part of him thought about using a few tricks he learned during his late-night research, but he wasn’t super sure that it would be a good idea. Maybe he should keep that card up his sleeve for a bit longer in case he needed to surprise you later. “Do you want to spend the night? It’s kind of late to go back to your place now.”

The words fell from his tongue with ease, surprising the boy for an instant. He noticed that he was much more comfortable in your presence, like the pieces of the puzzle had finally fallen into place. Not because of the sex itself, he realized, but because of the vulnerability and intimacy that came with it. It happened just as it was supposed to. 

 “I’d love to.” You smiled, and placed a kiss against his neck. “But I’m going to kick you out if you start snoring.” 

“Out of my own place?” He asked. 

You sighed, voice filled by traces of your upcoming slumber. “Don’t you test me,” you spoke, wrapping your arms around him. “Medical school is killing me, I need some sleep. And I will get it no matter the price.” 

Jungkook laughed at your tired words, one of his hands caressing your head in infinite delicacy. As he held to your body, curling so perfectly against his own, he knew that everything would be okay. And maybe he needed a good night of sleep too. 

A few minutes later, as he started to feel the sensation of his consciousness slowly drifting away to the land of dreams, a bittersweet sentiment overtook his chest. There was an instant, even if ephemeral, in which Jungkook believed he would never see Yoongi and Taehyung again — after all, the two had already concluded their mission: Jungkook got the girl and there was nothing else left for them to do. In between two consecutive breaths, he felt both relief and solitude. Silence wasn’t as welcoming once he realized no voice could break it. 

Though, his melodramatic moment was short-lived. Behind him, a known timbre cheered for him:

“I’m so proud, I feel like a soccer mom.”

[attourney-at-lycan]

lately i’ve been thinking of a sorta zombie apocalypse au for the mcd / mys cast?

ITS LIKE. okay it’s hard to sorta explain because my thoughts are at a constant 400 mph so it’s hard for me to coherently put my thoughts together. it isn’t original tbh but i just rlly like zombie apocalypse stuff and mcd is living in my head rent free so.

it’s small ideas such as:

zane being the leader of a stronghold town that’s extremely closed off and refuses to take any new people usually. he’d be extremely protective of his town and is the type to go on a “my people are alive because i use any means necessary to keep them away from people like you.” kinda monologue.

the idea of aphmau and zoey travelling together with two kids (levin and malachi) trying to find a home because their previous town was either taken over by infected or a gang/organization. and they arrive at a small safe town that’s barely holding together with garroth as its new leader.

the equivalent of “phoenix drop” is a group of people who were taken in by Leader (tm). they were liked because no one usually takes anyone in due to fear that someone might be infected or not enough materials. they settled in a small abandoned town and barely scraped by. garroth was one of the first people they took in and quickly became their most trusted friend/right hand man. this is why when they suddenly die (or suddenly murdered) garroth is the one in charge out of nowhere.

my idea for laurence and shadow knights in general are ppl who’ve been experimented on by The Organization (tm) using the virus to make a cure but somehow have become superhuman who ocassionally get mini temper tantrums and the occasional cannibalism :D i think laurence might’ve been someone who escaped and stumbled into town.

OH MY GOD HEAR ME OUT. okay so what if the organization was looking for “soldiers” to help with a “Clean Up” of infected. garroth and vylad, part of the ro’meave family, were sent in bc they were the most physcally capable and bc it’s an honor to work for The Organization (tm) while zane was forced to stay and take care of the city. garroth would be given a high rank in the group while vylad would’ve been a normal soldier since garte doesn’t really think too highly of him to give him a rank nor let him control a town of people.

due to this, vylad was one of the soldiers chosen for an experiment, along with laurence etc. ofc garroth didnt know this and instead was told he disappeared. i think he did eventually find out about the whole experiment thing bc he couldn’t believe vylad was just gone (either out of grief or had his own suspicions). when he went apeshit, they tried to placate him by saying “he wanted to do this” and then decided to just drop a bomb that vylad is dead. 

i just imagine a scene of garroth standing at the lab’s “morgue” and watching them open a bag, seeing vylad’s “body” and just the look of devastation and misery on his face.

anyway, he ends up going “fuck this shit” and leaves The Organization (tm) but ofc not before committing some arson out of revenge, making him a wanted criminal by The Organization.

ofc, vylad isn’t dead, it was just a trick by the org to get garroth off their back only to completely lose him. (which i feel like isn’t something such a strong org would make such a mistake but this au’s for the shits and giggles and my own indulgence.) i think he and laurence actually planned an escape together but ended up separated

SO IMAGINE. laurence stumbling into this town, he’s growling and shit bc of the negative side effect of the experiment and garroth runs out, hearing shocked screams from people, only to see a familiar ginger hunched over looking half dead. he points a gun at the person and when they meet eyes it’s just “..laurence?” “garroth?!” LOSING IT I LOVE REUNION SCENES LIKE THIS 

ok so i lied w/ the little small ideas.

[jimlingss]

gladiator jk?? 🤭🗡

I’ve written quite a few historicals, but never in the Rome era or quite as far back. So please excuse the historical inaccuracies and all that. I did my best to do a half hour crash course on it.

↳ Spare and Surrender

2.5k || 50% Fluff, 50% Angst || Jeon Jungkook || Gladiator!AU

Jungkook is a star.

He’s won eight games — five against wild beasts and three against other gladiators where he killed two and maimed the other. The entire Colosseum always cheers when he enters. He knows he’s become a favourite, that there are those who bet their life savings on him, and most importantly, he always wins.

The fact that he’s alive is enough proof.

But in spite of the horrors he’s had to face, of the lives he’s had to take, Jungkook still likes it. They give him a place to sleep, three delicious meals a day, and baths and massages whenever he wants. Jungkook is good at what he does too. He isn’t like those elite men from the senate who rigged the fights in their favour and perform simply for their own amusement. The scars on his body are the evidence of his strength and true victories. Jungkook is talented. He was one of the best during training, heard endless praise and even now the roars of the people make him feel alive. Even when asked if he wanted to be free, he refused. Jungkook bleeds competitiveness and the games have become his reason to live.

Today, the crowd is cheering again. But it’s not for him.

“Who’s up there?” he asks a fellow fighter, Darius.

“The new one. You haven’t heard of him?”

The two of them climb the steps, candle fire illuminating their figures and casting their shadows against the underground stone walls. 

“They call him the Mouse Dragon.”

Jungkook frowns. “Why?”

“Because he’s as tiny as a mouse, but as fierce and swift as a dragon.” The clamour of the crowds become louder the closer they get to the center. There’s light from the end of the tunnel closest to Jungkook and curiosity makes him go closer. “He’s already won five games, Jeon. He might take your place soon.”

Darius nudges him with a small grin. But Jungkook doesn’t take it lightly.

He follows the light and peeks out of the barred tunnel to see you. 

You’re in amber armour, silver dagger in hand as you encircle a wounded bear. It growls, leaps forward at the speed of light, but you don’t evade. You lurch forward and before the animal’s sharp teeth can rip into your skin, the dagger pierces into the side of its throat.

The bear roars in pain and you dig the blade into it before pulling out to pierce it again.

Finally, the large creature drops dead at your feet. The crowd bursts into wild howls and screams. It’s deafening. 

Jungkook slinks back into the shadows.

He doesn’t know how he remained so ignorant as to not know you, to not know a fellow gladiator who won so many games. Granted, your number of victories is far from his, but it’s still notable especially when most gladiators died in their first games and few made it past ten. Jungkook plans on making it there. But at this rate, you might as well. And there was no room for two stars. Not when fame was fickle and he planned to become the most famous.

He allowed his arrogance to blind him for long enough. It’s time to make himself known to you, to show you what a real gladiator is and let you know your place.

Jungkook returns underground, darting past the many fighters preparing for their own matches. He brushes past the guards and trainers, ignoring the cry of the animals kept in their cages. 

Down here, there was its own chaos. Chaos that is kept from the eyes of the public. 

But when he gets to the place where survivors usually recover and collect themselves, the hall is empty and much quieter. The noise of the Colosseum is merely muffled faintly above him.

Jungkook whips back the curtain of the first room, but it’s empty. He turns on his heel, calms down his temper and glances through the gaps of the curtains, searching for you. He sees no one in the second room and no one in the third.

He’s about to relent and look for you on the training grounds later on. But at the fourth room, Jungkook’s vision unintentionally trails through the small space between the curtain and the wall.

His eyes grow wide as it lands on you. Unraveling your chest bindings.

You look up on instinct. Your pupils connect with his doe, brown eyes. A gasp rips from your throat.

But by then, he’s gone. Like a ghost or the smoke of a flame.

Jungkook strides back from where he came from, feet moving quickly. He’s in disbelief, utter confusion—

And a hand wraps around his wrist. In an instant, Jungkook’s yanked into one of the rooms.

You’re panting, chest rising and falling as you hold your bindings to your breasts.

His eyes weren’t wrong. “You’re a woman.”

“And you’re Jungkook.”

He blinks. “You know me?”

“Who doesn’t?” You slip the worn tunic on, and Jungkook realizes how small you really are. Up close, your neck is slim and your wrists small. But unlike the others, he knows it’s not because you’re a tiny, frail man. You’re a woman. “I’ve watched your games before.”

“Why are you here?”

“Why are any of us here?” You face him, gaze intense and fierce without once wavering. He can’t be threatened. Not when he’s Jungkook, someone who’s quickly becoming one of the strongest gladiators of Rome. Yet for some reason, he’s held in his spot because of you. “I was a slave and was going to be sold as a prostitute.”

“So you pretended to be a man and train as a gladiator.”

“At least I can win enough prize earnings to pay for my freedom. Or I can die. Either way, it’s better than what was in store for me.”

Jungkook’s taken aback by the determination ablaze in your eyes, by the strength and conviction in your voice. “There are female gladiators, you don’t need to hide yourself.”

“If they knew I was a woman, they’d want me to expose my breasts and fight and no one would take me seriously.” You hiss at him like he knows nothing, “What kind of prize earnings would I get then if they’re pitting me against dwarves for their own amusement.”

Jungkook looks at you — he really looks at you. Beyond a fighter in the Colosseum, beyond a fellow competitor, beyond a heroic gladiator who garners cheers.

He feels foolish.

Small-minded. Short-sighted.

His intentions of intimidation and putting you in your place has long vanished. You and him are so different. He can’t compare to you.

You don’t fight for sport. You fight to escape.

“Don’t tell anyone.” You soften. “I hate owing others, but please. I beg of you. Let me be.”

“I was a slave too.” In the farthest confines of his mind, Jungkook still hears the screaming, the burning city, Romans taking him in the midst of their conquests. And the others. The difference between him and them was that he was stronger. He survived. But he almost let himself forget. “If you made it this far, it means you’re strong as well. I have no business in revealing your secret.”

Jungkook had almost forgotten what life outside the Colosseum meant. He almost forgot the thirst to survive. To live on without needing to fight another day.

But as he looks at you, the memories return. It makes him feel sickly. He pushes them away.

“But for a price.”

The relief on your expression washes away just as quickly as it came. “What price?”

“Tell me your name. Your real name.”

You hesitate before the secret tumbles from your lips. “It’s Y/N.”

...

Jungkook sees you again in the training barracks. Now that your face isn’t simply one amongst the crowd, blurring together with the men, now that he can pick you out by just the back of your head, he often joins you. Whether it be pity or curiosity, he isn’t quite sure yet. But he speaks to you when he has the chance, invites you to sit and eat at the table with him much to the confusion of fellow gladiators, and he trains with you during the day.

He can tell you’re not fond of his attention as it garners the attention of the other men. After all, Jungkook doesn’t often associate himself with fellow fighters and certainly not those that are supposedly lower than he is. But he can also tell that you like his training help. 

“Stab, don’t slash.”

“I know that.”

“But you’re still doing it.” 

“I survived this far without your help, Jungkook.”

“And you’re going to need my help if you want to keep surviving and earn your way to freedom.”

The corner of his mouth tugs when you’re rendered to silence. 

But you’re not the only one to gain from the relationship. Jungkook enjoys sparring with you. He likes it when your sword clashes against his, when your shields are struck. You’re a formidable competitor. While he is sturdy, swift and strong, you are agile and dexterous. He is especially impressed when you tumble away from him like your bones have turned to air.

Jungkook has always liked his women elegant with intelligent eyes, dressed in beautiful clothes that drift through the breeze. You, on the other hand, are rough when you wield weapons. Your words can be crude and he’s never once seen you in finery. Yet, he is absolutely stricken with you.

And maybe that’s why he feels a need to protect you through the fight—

“The Mouse Dragon! The Unstoppable Beast!”

The crowd goes wild as you both enter the Colosseum together. The nicknames given to the two of you are absurd, but Jungkook still feels pride that he’s famed enough to be named.

It was posted earlier today that you’d be fighting together against an exotic animal from the west. A creature with a large trunk, two tusks and whose height towers him twice over.

Perhaps the trainers saw how close he was becoming with you. Maybe the rumours began to take that he was your mentor and you were going to become the next bold gladiator. Either way, you were put together.

Jungkook looks to you and the both of you nod, preparing your stances as the animal is released from its confines. It cries out and decides to trample towards you.

The game lasts ten minutes. It always does and it’s the longest ten minutes he knows.

Jungkook is reckless this time. More than what he is used to.

“You don’t need to protect me—” you spit at him, standing shoulder to shoulder, catching your breaths.

He knows, but he can’t help it. “Who says I am?”

Jungkook strikes when he should be holding up his shield. He surges forward before you can. And he’s clearly more worn than you are. But it’s not for the cheers, not for the crowd to chant his name, and he isn’t trying to steal the spotlight from you.

You narrow your eyes in on him. “I can handle it on my own.” 

You do. 

The creature becomes wounded from your stabs and blood splatters across your face. But in the moment of the animal’s death, it wails out and leans on its hind legs with its last effort. From the force, you’re thrown to the ground. About to be trampled. About to be crushed.

Yet before it can come down, before you can brace yourself — Jungkook digs his entire sword through its side.

The animal falls over. The dust is awakened into a cloud.

The crowd screams all around you and your gaze meets Jungkook’s, knowing he saved your life.

The game is something to remember. So much so that a close trainer, Marcus Namjoon, whispers that the next time the two of you will have to fight a more ferocious beast. The lion.

“How will you manage?” he asks you that same night as you’re seated on the wooden steps.

“I’ll just have to or I’ll die.” The corner of your mouth curls as the light of the stars glow against your face and makes you look like a goddess. Jungkook is sure you must be the child of Ares and Aphrodite. “May the best warrior survive.”

His hand crumples into a fist. He tears his eyes away from your magnificence.

Sooner or later, you will win your freedom or sooner or later, you will die. Or worse. Jungkook knows how the games go. He’s been here for years and he knows why these matches exist. It’s all to distract the public of more important matters and if something happens, if a big enough distraction is needed, sooner or later, Jungkook will be pitted against you.

Then, he will have to kill you or at least maim you. Or he will have to be your sacrifice.

“Take this.”

He drops a leather pouch into your lap and looks away.

It’s heavy and you tug the strings. A gasp pulls on your lips. Gold and silver gleams back at you.

“Jungkook…”

“It’s all of my earnings I’ve saved so far. With what you have, together it should be enough to buy your freedom.” It becomes silent and he lets the peace of the night settle into him.

“Why?”

“Because you desire freedom more than I have ever desired anything.” That might be a lie. There is one thing Jungkook desires most that could possibly contend — and he’s looking at it. Looking at you. “If there’s anyone who deserves this, it’s you. I would not regret it if this is where my earnings went.”

“W-What about the fight?”

“I’ll have a better chance than you do.”

“Jungkook.”

You take his face within your hands to kiss him. He feels your soft lips and in spite of being a warrior, your body is even softer. You feel feminine under his touch and as he years for more, he grabs a hold of your waist and pulls you flush against him. Jungkook inhales your yelp, your tongues sloppy against one another.

A hunger from inside him awakens. Jungkook wants to have you right here, right now. But you part from him, catching your breath.

Under the stars, Jungkook has become entirely enraptured by you.

“I’ll work.” You make an oath to him. “I’ll save enough to free you.”

Jungkook’s never thought of leaving before. Even as a distinguished warrior, when he had been asked if he wanted to be granted freedom, he refused. He likes it here. There’s a roof over his head, he gets three meals and gains attention and fame that he could never get on his own.

Yet, you are a bigger reason than all other reasons.

He has never desired anything more than being with you.

A smile tugs on his lips. “It’s a promise I’ll hold you to then.”

[starburstdragon]

Been rewatching a 999 lp recently, as some of you may have noticed. Now I have an AU for my OCs for it building lol. Maybe I should’ve arranged them in number order in this picture lmao. Other OCs’ll probably get roles when I rewatch VLR or ZTD. Details under the cut

From left to right ➡

Kyle gets bracelet 6, because in the original continuity he survives dying anyways. In this though he’d basically take the role of June almost exactly, down to being half of Zero.

Erin, with bracelet 3, also fills the role Santa has in 999, although instead of being siblings with Kyle like Aoi and Akane, she was a fellow participant in the original Nonary Game who was with him. The pair of them failed a puzzle that managed to get Kyle into the state of quantum deadness, and worked together to run the second Nonary Game to fix it a la the original game.

Vance has bracelet 5 and fills Junpei’s role. Putting him in the seat of the main protagonist had a little cognitive dissonance for me when I first thought of it, but in terms of characterization it actually fits rather well-- The man is self serving as hell. There are very few times that helping the group as a whole doesn’t benefit Junpei in 999, and when it doesn’t the game absolutely lets you choose the selfish option. Vance easily fills Junpei’s role with hardly a waver from his own “canon” characterization.

Lux gets Lotus’ 8 by virtue of their shared technological prowess. Since this cast are much closer in age to each other than the original 999 cast, she was probably another participant in the experiment surrounding the first Nonary Game. Depending on how precise the setup matches the original experiment in 999, she would probably be someone from the other half of it than Kyle, Erin, Vivian, and Zoe.

Vivian as 7 gets Seven’s amnesia. Instead of having been a cop, she was someone without the same morphogenetic qualities as the other subjects who wound up in the original experiment through sheer bad luck, probably in Kyle and Erin’s group. She may have gotten amnesia as a result of acquiring morphogenetic qualities? idk

Elise’s 4 and Zoe’s 2 put them in the roles of Clover and Snake, and their roles don’t really change that much from that. I don’t know why Zoe wouldn’t recognize Kyle, Erin, and Vivian in this since she isn’t blind like Snake is, but this AU is less than a day old and I’m rewatching all this after years of not really doing much with it. I’ll figure something out if I do anything more with this. Maybe I will make her blind for this. Life is an oyster. Elise and Lux do recognize each other but don’t talk to the other participants about it because that would mean explaining things to any of them.

Terrance gets the 1 bracelet, despite having very little in common with its holder from the game. (To be honest, if I hadn’t given him Junpei’s role, Vance would’ve taken this spot in a heartbeat, the decision process of which could easily turn into a character analysis essay for Junpei and Hongou.) I like Terrance enough that I’m hesitant to make him a straight-up bad guy, but I’m also intrigued by what could motivate him to be so. I’ll have to think about that more.

Kathleen’s in a similar position to Terrance with the 9 bracelet, but like Kyle she actually gets her number because of thematic carry-over from their original setting; she has a great power that she isn’t able to use. I’m not sure if she would keep the same fate as the original #9 or if I’d carry the theme through in another way. Again, something to think about.

On a basic level the sequence of events would be very similar to 999. If I do more with this I’ll figure out a more concrete and discrete sequence of events.

[killerskillercaptain]

Forget Me Not - part I

this work is based on this request

pairing : levi ackerman x reader

wc 1,8 k +

themes : reincarnation au, canonverse to modern au, Levi and Reader both reincarnate in modern au, Levi remembers his past life, reader does not.

warnings : lots of angst, death of reader, cursing.

You dragged your blades along the flesh of another titan's neck, tearing through it just enough to kill the giant. You watched the titan fall and crash while you landed on the ground using your ODM gear.

"Shit !" you muttered a bit panicked

Those were your last usable blades, all of the others already broke and the remaining ones were too damaged, weathered by the long and repetitive moves.

You looked around you, there were so many soldiers dead, their bodies lying flat on the ground, but you couldn't spot a single blade fit for use near any of the corpses, all of their swords had either been snapped in half, crushed or are still planted on the giant bodies trying to eat you alive.

Never had a battle been so demanding and tiresome, you don't recall seing a mission this gruesome, and you were a vet ! If there was a hell on earth, this would be it. Even the weather wasn't in your favor; it was raining blood, the air was filled with a repugnant smell that you soldiers were all too familiar with, the smell of titans body fluids and body parts rotting not far away from you. All of this was bearable you thought, grown accustomed to, what was never tolerable was the cries of your comrades getting eaten alive. The sound of their bodies crushed or getting bitten sounded new each time. It was strange, there was all this killing going on, all these horrible deaths happening right now, the rain and the muffled sounds of bones being crushed at the palms of faith, and some last words you could barely comprehend, but strangely enough, time seemed to stop for you, everything around you began to become distant and you could feel what resembled a calmness inside the turmoil inside of you. What was this odd feeling you thought, looking down at your hands, you observed the spoilt blades of your two swords, your hands weren't shaking anymore, and you found yourself in a bizarre state of apathy.

Did you accept your nearing death ? Were you going to stop fighting and let today be your last ? What could you do ? There were still more titans than soldiers, you were on your knees, incapable of making them move, even if there was a blade you could use on a body somewhere, you wouldn't be able to reach it without getting in the visual field of a titan, it would be like rushing to your death. You were stuck, your years of experience had taught you to assess quickly and effectively situations, and you knew you couldn't kill or save now, you could only run for your life, an option you couldn't bring yourself to do, maybe someone will come, someone with reinforcement and equipment.

You couldn't desert a battlefield. Looking up at the sky, you closed your eyes, cancealing the horrors of your surroundings, you prayed for one person to show up, only one person could make a way out of this hopeless situation.

Eyes still closed, you thought about Levi Ackerman, you wondered where he could be right now, you thought about the way he methodically does his job, nice and clean, no one being able to match his skills, you thought about how much he hated casualties and pointless deaths. As foolish and frivolous it was, you thought about his jet black hair and the way it would fall on his face while he escapes from a titan's grip, how his jaw clenches when he's faced with a particularly bothersome specimen, you weren't aware you picked up on those things until now, not to forget how his body spins, like a dancer in a deadly ballet. You also thought about how he always kept an eye on you every time you were together on a field, his eyes always trying to locate you somehow, you caught him so many times throwing worried glances at you, especially in dangerous situations, more than any other of his comrades. Did it mean anything ? You never thought about it that way, come to think of it, you never knew what Levi Ackerman thought of you, were you just a another comrade to him or someone more important ? Those questions were going to stay unanswered. All those times you caught him eyeing you, overprotecting you, asking you if you ate, slept, rested at the most random of occasions.

And him ? Did he know what you thought of him ?

You felt the ground tremble underneath you all of a sudden, you looked beside you and you saw a giant human-like feet, its nails extremely dirty, a long and deep cut carving an opening at its ankle, leaving the insides completely visible. When did you get accustomed to such disgusting sights ? The titan bent over, watching your form, you were looking up at him now.

He has a friendly face you thought.

You pictured Levi in your head, for maybe what you thought was your last moment. He hated futile losses.

"Don't you dare die on me" he always said.

An ear piercing sound blew out of nowhere and a black signal tore the sky apart. You saw a small figure jump from tree to tree using an ODM gear, you didn't recognize who it was until the silhouette landed next to you, only inches away. Blood and rain on his face, Levi pulled you up by your underarm.

"GET UP ! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING ?

"I don't- i don't know what had gotten into me Levi"

"I DONT WANT TO HEAR IT MOVE IT"

He let go of your arm and grabbed you by the collar of your cape and forced you to stand on your now shaky legs.

"I'm out of gas Levi"

"What ?"

If you've never seen Levi panic, you did now. His eyes darted around frenetically, from the titans to the dead bodies then back to you again. He was grabbing you by the arm again, you could feel his long fingers digging into your forearm, he was tense and panicking. Panicking because both of you didn't have horses, but mostly because he had only one gas bottle left.

Levi looked down, trying to asses the situation and come with a plan for both of you to shun the titans and get out safely while having just enough gas for one person. Feeling a hot puff on the top of your heads you both looked up just in time to see two big eyes and a large mouth ready to chop both of your heads off, Levi shot his grapple hooks and pulled you by the waist with him, you escaped this one, but he couldn't guarantee the others, this situation couldn't go one he thought. You landed far enough to be out of reach from the titan who just attacked you, but you could already spot two blonde abnormals noticing you and coming for you. Levi quickly grabbed his gas container and detached it from his gear.

"Here ! Take it ! This should be enough for you to escape far from titan territory !" Levi shouted under the heavy cascade of rain.

"What ? No !"

"Don't be fucking stupid ! Take it ! I can manage to escape without it somehow ! Forget about completing the mission ! We retreat NOW !"

You reached for the container and placed it on your own gear before standing up. One of the abnormal had come so close now you could see the veins on his ridiculously large stomach. Levi grabbed your arm one last time "I'm going to shot my hooks at the nearest tree, i'm gonna distract this one so you can escape ! You take the opposite direction"

You nodded while the ground shook harder now that the titan was in front of you, his gigantic form casting its shadow over you. You actioned your hand grips, your hooks flew right into a tree in the opposite direction of where Levi went, you prepared yourself to use the gas to speed up.

Levi thinking the titan would naturally follow him instead, landed on a giant oak before turning around. His face darkened as soon as his eyes landed on you. You were struggling to get past the titan who was still chasing you and ignoring Levi, how come you weren't moving fast, the amount of gas should have been enough.

Levi's felt his heart stop and sink down his stomach, he instinctively reached behind him and pulled up the container he still had.

It was full.

He had given you the wrong gas container.

He mixed them up and gave you the empty one.

That's why you were so slow, too slow.

Too late.

Looking up, afflicted, he launched forward screaming your name, but it was in vain and he knew it. He couldn't take his eyes off your small figure getting picked up by a giant human hand who didn't have the any struggle catching up with you.

You think you heard him scream

You think you heard him scream your name

You're not sure, but you think you heard him slash the titan's fingers and landing with you on the ground, the titan's blood pouring down on both of you, hot and sticking.

For a moment, you thought you were going to make it, but you got suddenly conscious of the grotesque laceration on your lower abdomen and knew that this was it. You weren't going to make it.

An indescribable pain, a man's cry of misery, and cold blood running through your veins, you watched your vision go black, and for a split of second, the feeling of falling down an immense pit was all you could think of, the voice of Levi's cries resonating against the walls of what you assumed was your consciousness.

"I'm sorry ! I'm so sorry !" "Forgive me !"

***

When you opened your eyes, the sunlight blasting through a nearby window blasted your vision, when your eyes adjusted to the lightening, you realized you were in a room painted with an immaculate white.

How did you get in this hospital room ?

Wait, how did you know this was a hospital room ?

Because it looks familiar

You tried to recall anything prior to this instant, but you couldn't. Your mind was blank, you grabbed your head with your two hands, how come your memory was so blank ?

Outside of the building, you could hear chanting ambulances and honking cars in the distance, making your head throb painfully. You looked at your right, a bed table was there, on top was a bottle of mineral water, your keys, and your purse with a stethoscope dangling from it. There was also flowers dipping in a small amount of water inside a glass.

Your purse ? Your keys ? You don't remember coming here by yourself ! You tried to get up and get out of bed but the thumping inside your head quickly urged you to lay back down rapidly. You closed your eyes to try and shut the pain but heard footsteps shuffling cautiously inside the room, eyes still closed you heard a familiar soft and young voice ask if you were awake.

[sizeshiftingdeath]

Ends and Starts (MCYT G/T Exchange!)

Hello there sizeshiftingdeath! I received your prompts for the gift exchange, and while I tried to start pretty close to your prompt, my ideas kind of spiraled out of control, I hope you don't mind ^^' I can make something else with another prompt if it doesn't fit what you were hoping for, though! There's also a little bit of extra information down the bottom with some stuff I thought of about the au I accidentally made.

Prompt given: ‘A human caught in the rain finds a giant in the forest’

<please put a read-more here!>

The world is pockmarked with evidence of the tragedies of the past. Of warped land that paints the horrors that befell things that came before. The living reminders of them continue to live on in perpetuity, as immortal creatures that were wreathed in the horrors that life on Earth had endured in the past. 

Bask in their horrible might.

There is the Death from Burning and Fire and Falling from the Sky and Cold Choking Death, the End of the Cretaceous. A massive beast, the bloody end of an era of enormous fauna. A destruction made all the more powerful by how quickly it was achieved. It stalks the land and sea and, where it steps, the plants die of lack of sunlight and the ground turns to tar.

There is the Death from Ever Hunting and Chasing and Too Warm Too Bright - Tech, the man-shaped leviathan, death in the shape of something familiar to mankind, the Killer of the Pleistocene. The death of great megafauna in an icy world from the encroaching warmth of a new era, the sharp point of a spear. It hunts the world with spears and arrows of fire and, in the depths of its nest, all water has turned to vapor and the earth itself has become a wasteland. 

There is the Death of Falling Frozen Seas, of a primordial sea strangled to death under a glacier lock, Her Lady of the primaeval oceans, the Death of the Ordovician. The tail-end of an explosion of life, stretched too far by their own hubris. And yet, despite being a beast with a hundred trilobite and eurypterid faces, one that has a herald in the form of a human by Her side, for reasons that have yet to become known. Maybe, just like every other esoteric thing that such beasts may do, it shall remain a mystery forever.

Look and see. A new immortal is emerging from its eggshell of tragedy. The unstoppable bomb and burning oilfield. The death through hubris and a slow choking unraveling of your very being. The death of man from crackling radiation and tainted iridescent-film water and ash filled smoke. The destruction of the Anthropocene.

Except. This is a creature who was born prematurely. Because man is not dead nor feeling its own final throes. It was not born wreathed in the screams of the damned, only the fears held in the hearts of the still-living. It is naïve and curious and did not yet have the star of a hundred million species’ souls to power it yet. It was stunted.

And that is why the first human the newest apocalypse met was so important.

  …

  The forests are deep and dark. Quiet yet shivering with life. Constantly moving and yet trapped in some space between time. Most of all, they expected nothing more from you than for your own two legs to be able to travel. Ranboo liked that. 

It certainly was nicer than what he had to deal with outside of the forest at least. Here he could continue walking and listening and breathing for as long as he still could move forward. This forest in particular was a favorite, with a constant twilight quality to it that played into its timelessness. 

He stumbled over a log, slipping slightly on the slick moss, and focused as strongly as he could on his surroundings. It was hard when he could so quickly slip into his thoughts. He needed to enjoy his surroundings. He needed to stay in the present and not phase out like fog.

Ironically, it was his attempts to ground himself that prevented him from noticing what was slowly growing more wrong in the forest around him. The scent of ash in the air. The lack of birdsong or rustle of leaves. The trees, growing darker and more burnt-looking, and the dead logs that were bristling with fungi.

But when he stepped out into a clearing with an enormous rock embedded into the middle of it, Ranboo really couldn’t help but realize all of the discrepancies. The illusion of an eternal twilight had been broken with the red light that streamed down. The ground was distressingly clear of ground cover, instead dusted with ash. 

Forest fire? He hadn’t heard of any in the area but… What else would it be?

Ranboo looked up at the sun, which had meandered towards the west since he had entered the forest. There were dark clouds gathering above him in worrying amounts, and the air was a little hard to see through with the particles suspended in it. He frowned at it. 

Something was wrong here, he could sense it in a deeply animalistic kind of way. As if there was something screaming in his hindbrain to run.

He didn’t run. This was the forest that he has walked a hundred times before, when did this happen? Why had this happened? He needed to find out.

Overhead, thunder rumbled. A droplet of curiously dark water fell on his face.

Ranboo stepped towards the other side of the forest clearing that should not have been there.

And that's when a living embodiment of a mass extinction came shambling out of the ashen trees.

  Ranboo didn’t know which detail he noticed first about this rogue apocalypse beast. Was it the limp brown hair that was almost black with iridescent oil slick? Was it the enormous horns that curled jutting from its face and looked more like scrap metal than keratin? Was it the uranium-glass green stripes that criss-crossed like cracks in ceramic along it’s skin? 

Or was it the fact that this one was shaped like a man? 

The apocalypse beasts always most resembled the myriad that had died in their creation. The death of the Ice Age looks vaguely like a man,  if squinted at, mostly because so many cousins to humanity had died in its formation. It was more like an enormous boar-beast on two legs that had the arms of a man, if anything. This one did not look remotely like the death of the Ice Age. 

Ranboo took a flying leap from horror and realization to hysteria. This is the death of humans. The death by nuclear bombs and smoke and oil. The fabled next apocalypse beast, the bringer of the end of the world, was already here.

For a moment of absolute blinding terror he wondered if this meant that all other humans on Earth were dead now. That today was the day the entirety of humanity died, leaving just him wandering the forest endlessly. That nuclear armageddon occurred and he was out there worried about keeping himself grounded enough to admire the birds.

The beast - and he was never in doubt that this was an apocalypse beast, even if he had never seen any of the others in person before something shook like a leaf in his soul simply from being near it - loomed over him. It watched him like a bug under a glass with nuclear hazard yellow-and-black eyes, and the spell of frozen muscles snapped in Ranboo. He bolted towards the boulder in the middle of the clearing and pushed his way into a space between it and a smaller boulder at its base, scrambling to find a smaller crack to squeeze himself into to just get himself out of reach of the beast, of the black water, of everything.

He could hear a rasping, clicking-crackling sound. (A Geiger Counter.) He could see glowing green-striped fingers reach under the edges of the rock he had wedged himself under. Could see, in the sickly chartreuse light they cast, fingernails larger than his head catch the rock. Felt the weight of the boulder lift from his back. 

Ranboo was left crouching and shaking, so scared he couldn't breathe (or maybe it was the ash or the slimy water that couldn’t be rain), as the apocalypse beast crouched down further. It crackled and clicked with a mouth that seemed all too human to be able to make those noises, and then it. Crooned? With a voice that was more like a siren shriek turned down, weirdly echoey as if speaking from far away, it clicked and whined and Ranboo was so confused he didn’t even see the hand reach down and pick him up by the back of his shirt.

He screamed and flailed, imagination jumping into overdrive about what horrifying things the beast could do, and just as quickly, he was dropped with a whoomph to the ground and the death of Mankind jerked back. Ranboo gasped and sputtered as half of face got thoroughly soaked with ash-water mud, and hoisted himself up again to get away from the apocalypse beast.

Who was crouching over him, luminous trefoil eyes barely a foot away from his own, still crooning that awful siren tone. From this close Ranboo could faintly see radiation burns pockmarking its skin, and a horrible scar of curled and ridged skin along its face, as if it was victim to a close-range bomb explosion. 

It tilted its head, leaning a tiny bit closer, and Ranboo threw his arms up to cover his face. God, it itched where the ash water had splashed on him. Why was it itching so much?

The death of Mankind stopped again, looking up into the sky and then down at Ranboo again. It seemed to come to a conclusion, because it then slowly - oh so slowly, why was it being careful? - cupped its hands out in front of it and held them out to him.

It… Wanted him to climb on. Into the grasp of a literal specter of death specifically designed with the destruction of his own species in mind.

Ranboo, in a moment of blind panic and stupidity, climbed on. It looked polite, he reasoned. He was already going to die just from being close to this thing. 

It continued to… yes, it definitely was cooing now, in that horrifying voice, and for a moment Ranboo wondered if maybe he misinterpreted. Maybe this thing wasn’t meant to represent the nuclear apocalypse.

His eye had started to itch where the water touched it. He rocked himself in the grasp of this giant, feeling footholds in the craggy radiation-worn skin, and felt the side of his face. 

The moment e touched it, a white-hot flash of horrible burning pain hit him like a truck, knocking him into a stupor of yelling. It was as if his face was burning, was twisting and gnarling just as much as the apocalypse beast’s horns did. Under his hand, stiff with pain and unable to move away, he could feel skin slough off, could feel the cells themselves die off in droves, in response to whatever radiation or toxin was in the ash-water. 

He couldn’t even register the sensation of fingers larger than his torso curling around him and holding him steady, of him being pressed up against a vast chest that beat unsteadily like a stuck clock, of the vast thumps of footfalls against a diseased forest floor.

All he could feel is pain, burning coiling tunneling pain that tried to tear out his face, his hands, his neck, burning him bright and radiant like a star. 

  …

  The creature was screaming in its hands. It hadn’t stopped screaming for a long time. 

It was small and writhing and melting. Creatures usually didn’t like melting. 

The death of Humanity wasn’t sure how to make it stop. It had dashed out of the black-rain (that seemed to make the melting worse, maybe it’ll stop once it’s out of the rain?) to its home cave, hoping that perhaps it could figure something out in the comfort of its own home. 

The creature’s screams had died down, though whether it was from its pain being alleviated or their voice giving out, the death of Humanity couldn’t tell. All it could tell was that it wasn’t getting up, wasn’t looking at it with those wide curious scared-but-interested eyes. 

Most animals ran from the death of Humanity. Land-creatures would yell in fear and flee, birds would rise up into the sky in huge swarms only to be struck down by the black-rain. Even insects would twitch and die when they got near, which led so many to flee this part of the forest entirely. It was a lonely existence. But this human hadn’t run like the other animals had. It had hid, yes, but it had viewed the death of Humanity in all of its glory and it almost, almost, was ok with it being picked up. 

And then something had happened and now the human was dying just like all of the other animals and the Nuclear Apocalypse didn’t know what to do.

Be well. Be alright. Be just like you were before, it thought, delicately laying the twitching human on the ground out of reach of the dripping black-water puddles, in a nest of dried grasses and leaves that had swept into the cave over the years. It prodded the human with a finger, whining softly when all it did was spasm like a dying insect. It wasn’t dying, right? It was just hurt? It couldn’t be hurt, the death of Humanity wouldn’t allow it. Not when it was so curious and didn’t flee like the others. Not when the death of Humanity had a chance to learn from it. Even now, writhing in its palm, it could feel the frantic beating of life and warmth, things it had so rarely seen before.

You will be well. You must be well. I will make you well.

  ...

  When he came to, it was to complete darkness.

Well, no. Not totally. There was a faint glimmer of far away light somewhere to his left. A shuffling shadow, a faint sickly green glow.

His right was totally dark though, and he couldn’t quite open his eye. He almost brought his hand up to touch it before violently flinching as he remembered what had landed him here in the first place. Would it start burning and melting horribly like it did before? That he was even awake to wonder that is a miracle in of itself... Or the start of the second round of his torture.

Horrible curiosity pushed him to touch, as lightly as possible, the skin on his right cheek. It… He couldn’t feel it. Or rather, he could feel the sandpaper surface of extremely rough skin, but he couldn't feel the pressure, the burning bright pain. The entire area was dead to the touch.

Ranboo threw himself as upright as he could make himself, which ended up only being a half kneel before falling back over into a sit. His breath hitched and he felt his face more firmly, the rough scratchy surface of skin that splattered like paint over the right side of his face, over his eye, down his neck and onto his arm. The muted tingling where it met smoother skin along his shoulder and the bridge of his nose. In an act of desperation he even poked at his eyelid, trying to pry it open to see if he could ever see from that eye again. 

His hand passed in front of his working eye in that moment, and at this point his focus had sharpened enough to make out vague colors in the dim light. His hand… It was a black far darker than any human could naturally produce, with a grey-green cast that made him look sickly. 

I feel sickly, he reasoned to himself. What is going on? He waved his hand a little frantically, as if the new midnight shade was something that was just stuck to his skin. Desperately he held up his other (totally numb to the touch) hand, hoping it hadn’t changed too.

Well, good news - it wasn’t midnight black.

Bad news - it was a shade so pale that it looked totally devoid of blood. And the raspy surface he could feel didn’t look any prettier to the eye. It didn’t have that same grey-green tint to it though, which was nice, because it would’ve shown up really well on this pure white canvas.

Why was he even thinking about looks right now? He was in the den of an Apocalypse Beast Ranboo get your head together! This was absolutely not the right time to space out - he needed to stay in the moment!

His hands were shaking uncontrollably as he tried to get himself upright. He had only just gotten himself steady when he felt the rattle of large footsteps shake through the ground. Before Ranboo could even think to run though, the shadows out of the corner of his eyes resolved into the beast, which made its way all too quickly towards him. 

He couldn’t run if he wanted to. And besides, the damage done to him would probably kill him. He was on borrowed time as is. What did he have left to do but to see what the beast did?

It slowed as it came closer, reaching out a vast clawed hand towards him. Despite his resignation towards his fate, Ranboo flinched back as it came way too close way too fast. A movement that the beast obviously didn't notice or interpret or care about, because he was scooped up into its palm without a moment's hesitation. 

“No!” He yelled, wriggling and pushing away from the cage of fingers around him. The beast paused in bringing him up to its face, and if Ranboo was being generous he could call the look on its face a frown. 

In less than a blink the face of the beast was so close way too close and he almost punched it (for all the help that would do) out of reflex. It blinked at him with those lucent yellow-black eyes, laser sharp in their focus upon him. He felt for all the world like an ant being peered at through a magnifying glass. Maybe he’ll be fried like one too. 

“What do you want with me?” He asked, voice cracking in fear. “What is it you want?” 

It didn’t answer in that siren tone again, but instead shifted its weight to the side and turned its palms so that Ranboo was standing squarely in one of them. The other was drawn up and one sharp-clawed finger was pointed at Ranboo. Or, well. The side of Ranboo’s face that he couldn’t see from just yet. 

He trembled with the anticipation of the jagged nail at the end of the beast’s outstretched finger spearing forward. But all it did was touch, very gently, under the damaged eye. The beast frowned even more. 

Then it jabbed at him, hard enough to bruise but not much else, directly into Ranboo’s damaged eye. He yelped and jumped away, tumbling off his feet in the cup of the beast’s fingers and slapped a numb hand over numb face. Even if he couldn’t feel the area, it still surprised him enough to believe for a moment he could sense it again. Except… was that still his imagination? The eye under his pale skin was starting to itch and water, the first sensation he felt from it since he had woken up, and with a gasp he was able to open his eye. 

Fuzz. That’s all he could see from that eye. The beast leaned forward and poked at his face again, softer this time, and when he opened his eye again the world had snapped into focus, tinged with red around the edges. He blinked a few times, and felt a trail of something wet leak from that eye onto his cheek.

What had happened? “You… You healed me?” He asked up at it. It was still frowning even as he had two working eyes again, and muttered softly in a voice that sounded like something crumbling into splinters. Then it poked him for a third time, this time on the shoulder, and Ranboo held back a yell of pain as the area lit up in a blaze of sensation that felt like liquid fire. As he watched, the black skin around the edges of the wound cracked and veins of bright green glowed beneath.

Just… Like… The beast…

Oh no.

The pain of his nerves coming back to life was nothing when compared to the cold horror that had bubbled into his stomach. There was a single case of a human managing to gain immortality as a result of an apocalypse beast. One of the first beasts, Her Lady of the Primordial Sea, the beast of the Ordivician extinction, had taken pity upon an ancient human who was trapped in the glacial ices that herald her path across the Earth, and had gifted it with immortality and a pair of wings that made him as beastly as the Lady he served.

Nobody knew exactly why the Angel of the Deaths had been spared, and why not a single human had ever had that happen before or since. All that was really known about him was his violence, and that he had an uncanny ability to be where an apocalypse beast would be travelling to next. He was just as inhuman and alien as the beasts themselves, if in a smaller form.

It had only ever happened once. Until now, obviously.

Ranboo stared at his white hand, prickling with waking nerves under the surface and twisting with green strands that trailed under his skin like angry snakes, and knew that he was a monster now. Somehow, it was freeing. Like he finally got an answer to a question he had asked over and over. Why him, why now, why is he still alive, why is he not afraid enough…

He stared back up at the apocalypse beast and it blinked down at him. It was no longer frowning, only looking thoughtfully now. “You’re not going to hurt me.” It wasn’t a question.

It reached a hand back up, maybe to poke him again, but this time rubbed his hair very lightly. He did not flinch this time, steeling up his willpower to allow this touch (It won’t hurt him. He needs to keep repeating it until it is true. It won’t hurt him. He was its now it wouldn’t hurt him).

It made that soft crooning noise again, like it had before lifting the rock he had been hiding under, and despite it being underlaid with sounds specifically designed to inspire fear in humans, he could find himself getting used to it. (Would have to. He’s an abomination now after all. The second angel.)

“You’re not so bad, are you…” He slowly pushed himself to his feet, flexing his newly sensated hand carefully. “I still don’t know what you are or why you are here now but…”

The beast tipped its head curiously and warbled exactly the same words back at Ranboo. He froze, because it was so much like his own voice except under deep layers of static, before shaking his head. Best get introductions out of the way - this creature was obviously smart. It was the death of Humanity after all.

He pointed to his chest. “Ranboo.” He gave it a few pokes for emphasis, and the beast poked him too before mimicking his name. He wasn’t entirely sure it actually got what that meant but, well. Baby steps. 

Then he pointed at it. It blinked a few times (and Ranboo really couldn’t help but anthropomorphize its reactions - this thing was just too uncannily human to not) and chirped out another ‘Ranboo.’ He gestured more firmly, pointing at the beast. 

It continued to look with (probably) bafflement for a few moments, before letting loose a cacophony of sounds that sent Ranboo’s hands slapping over his ears. It was all of the sounds of falling trees, of squawking birds, of the blazing sun and frigid cold and most of all the explosive fire and cold falling ash-water and death from sickness. It was everything and more that wrapped up the death of Humanity in a nutshell. 

Ranboo blinked. That might take a while to learn how to pronounce.

  He decided to call it Tubbo for short. 

<End> There we have it! I hope that you enjoyed this - I hope it didn't betray too much how much stuff like this interests me and that this was potentially also 3000 words of me nerding out about mass extinctions.

Anyways, here's some details I had added but had no way of explaining naturally within the story that i was a little proud of ^^'

The Anthropocene apocalypse beast is also called the unstoppable bomb and burning oilfield. Shortened to TUBBO. Ha.

There’s 7, now 8 apocalypse beasts (Great Oxidation Event, Ordovician, Devonian, Permian, Triassic, Cretaceous, Pleistocene, and now Anthropocene). I originally intended there to just be 5 (for the big five mass extinctions) and then a 6th Anthropocene apocalypse beast, but then I thought I really should add in the great oxidation event that almost caused extinction of all non-oxygen breathing creatures on a very early earth, and the death of most megafauna in the Pleistocene era. 

Society is way different with these living eldritch abominations just shambling across the globe, causing a trail of destruction behind them. A lot less large cities, for one.

The Ordovician apocalypse beast is Kristin, yes. She’s uplifted Phil into something similar to what Ranboo is now. I kinda want to think more about her and her story with Phil.

The Pleistocene apocalypse beast is Techno. Idk why I chose to do that but it seemed to fit. Especially since the leading theory on Pleistocene megafauna death is humans hunting them, which I think fits Techno pretty well

The rain is black rain - rain full of radioactive fallout. Bad Stuff, definitely not what you should seek out if you want to keep your body in working order.

I kept referring to sirens in Tubbo’s speech. Just imagine every emergency warning broadcast sound except even more terrifying 

So Ranboo’s skin is majorly fucked up. For one, he’s suffered major radiation damage to the side that is now white (healed over brand new skin). The black half is much more interesting though. Did you know there are types of fungi that can feed off of nuclear radiation? They protect themselves from the effects by secreting a LOAD of melanin, making them extremely dark. Anything that wasn’t newly healed on Ranboo had now become akin to those fungi now. Feeding rather than harmed by the nuclear radiation Tubbo naturally puts off. Perfect for a newborn Angel of the deaths.

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

Thank you so much for this story submission!! I really love this idea and how well you wrote it! this is so amazing! ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

[darkhymns-fic]

Poison

On a dark night, Lloyd feels less like himself - and a strange thing is lurking through the woods. [Werewolf AU]

Fandom: Tales of Symphonia Characters/Pairing: Lloyd Irving/Colette Brunel, Kratos Aurion Rating: PG Mirror Link: AO3 Notes: Happy Halloween! Here’s a werewolf!Lloyd story for the occasion, sort of a second chapter to my Wolf Bite fic. Inspired by the included art from @frayed-symphony​!​

Lloyd is used to the cold nights. The kind where the wind rushes right through one’s vest, not only settling inside the chest, but also bringing with it the debris. The crumpled leaves that fell on the forest floor, the stray wings of dead insects that could not find warm shelter, the scent of winter beginning to make its home.

Something about these nights made Lloyd feel like not himself anymore.

“It’s soon to be the equinox,” Dirk had told him once, on a year he can barely place anymore. The wind had been chilling then too, the sky dragging on the darkness and pushing stars into view. But back then, he was sure that the sky did not pull at his chest like right now, did not bring him to his knees and run his claws into the dirt.

He wonders if Dirk still remembers him, or even still wants to.

The sky hides the shape of the moon in it, and yet everything about his body became tense, became suspect to the cold. He hears resounding thumps, the kind that shake the earth, and breathing that was like the bellows to his father’s forge. For too long, it is all he hears and knows.

It was so easy to lose one’s self within the endless sky.

--

When Colette comes over to visit, it takes Lloyd a worrying second to even recognize her. Her cloak is still as red as the autumn leaves that hang from the branches before they fall, but this time she’s carrying a small lantern with her. It highlights her face, casting it in a glow that reminds Lloyd of the very sunset that would spread across the clouds so wide.

She’s smiling when she sees him, the familiar basket weaved from reeds looped around her right arm, filled again to the top. “Evening, Lloyd. I’m sorry I’m late. It just got dark so fast!”

He nods, half-hidden within the cave he had made his home in. He’s seated on the ground, hands between his knees, still wearing the jacket Colette had given him to help stay comfortable. His face is nearly buried within the collar, ears flicking with the wind gusts that kept swirling around them.

A few seconds passes before he can finally speak, still feeling that strangeness in his chest. “Colette…”

Does she notice? Yet still, she comes even closer, carefully setting aside the iron lantern on a nearby tree stump.

“It’s the same food as last time… but I added in some more sweets. Though, with how cold it is, I maybe having some hot soup would be better.”

The mention of food attracts Lloyd’s attention, the scent of it traveling so easily through the wind currents. Still, he hesitates before he moves close again, motions drawn out, his tail catching the bits of crushed leaves and dirt as he did so.

Everything feels more tangible, like something hot held between his hands. Colette still smiles, and there is something so…he wasn’t sure. Just how her skin still catches the light of the lantern, a picture that he could taste on his tongue.

Moonlight that filters through the branches until it falls like puddles of silver on the ground, the wind that blows between the knots of the trees and whistles through the shadows, the scent of rot and decay that permeates everywhere, in all things, except her and the hands that hold-

Lloyd stops, blinking. Something is wrong. Is it…?

“Pumpkin soup,” the words float to him, so that he raises his head.

“Huh?”

“I just wanted to see… you’d like pumpkin soup, I think.” Colette giggles, the hood of her cloak bunching around her shoulders, looking soft and warm. “My grandmother likes to make some when I come over to visit. I should have brought some with me too.”

There’s something wrapped in her hand, and though he can’t see exactly, he can still catch the scent of meat. It’s hard to not just snatch it, like he used to back then. He doesn’t understand why it was happening now.

But Colette takes his hand, never shying away from his black claws. She even runs a finger over them as she hands him the food, so unafraid.

The pressure in his head is hurting, the waning light still left in the sky now piercing into him.

“Lloyd?” she asks, and maybe he should say something too. Something else besides her name, even though it’s the most tangible thing around.

Then he hears it, and it must have been loud enough that Colette can too. He sees her head turn, the light of the lantern making her hair shine like golden silk, like threads that he wanted to sift through and sink under.

She quickly grabs the lantern in hand.

“Stay here!” she says to him, pulling her hood back up again. “I’ll go lead him away! Um, I’ll be back tomorrow night.”

It is not what she thinks, but Lloyd isn’t able to find the words to say so.

It’s the suddenness of her motion that shifts more of the changes in him. The scent of dead things that littered the ground, the warmth of food in his hands, the dying light of her lantern, showing everything that he ever wanted.

Lloyd can’t think sequentially anymore. It’s all in sudden images, in scents that imprint themselves in his head, in the texture of the brittle leaves that he could still feel underneath his claws.

When Colette leaves, Lloyd is still seated on the ground, the weight of the sky pushing him further and further down.

I want to find you let me find you I want to find you I want to find you

I want you

--

The huntsman has been after him since the day he’d entered this forest.

He was a man with sharp eyes, sharper than most. He had tracked Lloyd’s excursions through the brush as if the wolf boy had left breadcrumbs wherever he went. Could he also catch scents in the air just as easily? So many times had Lloyd needed to stay put in a cave somewhere, or in the knot of a large tree, hoping to wait out the search that this man was always on.

He almost seemed inhuman, and it had made Lloyd question, but in the end, he never came up with any answers.

What Lloyd hears that very night was the same familiar footsteps, the creaking of the wood of the rifle that is always carried. It is not a good night for this now.

Because there is something else lurking with them.

When Colette leaves, Lloyd isn’t sure what to do anymore. He needs to move. He needs to go somewhere. The scent of her hair is still in the air.

Lloyd has…not really hunted, or he tries not to at the very least. Even if he feels the urges at times. A quick scuffle of a long-eared bunny in the leaves once caught his eye, and his feet moved toward it before he stopped himself. He had to clench his hands, dig his claws into his palm to make him stop seeing red in other ways. The beating of his heart, so frantic and excited and terrified, left the memory of its vibrations in his chest.

His heart is doing the same thing now, the same palpitations that tries to crawl up his throat.

He finds himself walking through the dark. Colette’s lantern had long gone away, but he doesn’t need the light to see. His hands place themselves against the surface of the trees, the bark rough against his skin. He wants something – but the food that Colette had given him was still way back there among the grass, the woven basket still holding its contents.

On other nights like this, he would want that food, would do anything for it. But again, his senses yearn for something else.

The same footsteps from before. They stop. And the scent is with them.

“Mr. Kratos…?”

Lloyd hugs into the brush, claws now digging through the soil, gritting his teeth. It feels like his very hair is standing on edge.

There is her scent – but also that of something else. Rotting, but moving.

Lloyd knows what it is. The thing that makes his senses heighten far too much that it hurts him, that made him forget the words to say to Colette before she ran off, thinking it was the same huntsman that had nearly tracked them down some nights before.

But it’s not him.

Through the brush he hides in, the light in front of him wavers. He loosens his grip on the soil, feeling each and every grain of it. He tries to control it, but he worries that any sound he makes would frighten Colette off.

He hears her unease, even through the stronger winds. “Who is there…?”

Colette’s gift of hearing could be her undoing, if he had just said something. Ever since turning, he finds it so much harder to control what he wants. But he finally dares to move through the brush, to move through the gaps between and see the red of Colette’s cloak, her hood bundled around her head.

The lantern sways in her hand, making the light dance. Colette’s gaze is fixated in front of her, towards the bend in the forest road where the light doesn’t reach. She knows that something is there.

Lloyd knows it too, and yet he can’t move. Colette.

The forest falls darker, the shadows creeping along the floor to reach Colette’s boots. It is only her light that keeps it at bay, even if not by much.

Something makes a sound up ahead, and Lloyd nearly buries his head into the leaves before him. It’s that again it’s that it’s that no.

Colette moves away. “I have to tell Lloyd,” she whispers to herself. The light jumps around, stretches out her shadows into the bend behind her, but she runs.

Lloyd prowls after her, finding the want in him to move. The billow of her cloak is what keeps in his sight as he chases to the right of her, his form hidden behind the trees and the bushes that surround him completely. If he had not known better, if he did not still have some human left within him, it would seem as if she was running from him instead, her footsteps quickening the closer he got to her.

Maybe one day she would, if she knew.

Maybe one day, he wants to.

The ground shakes, the closely-knitted boughs above them creaking. Colette rushes and she trips over an unseen root, the lantern flying out of her hand, her red cloak spreading around her like blood-soaked wings. The light then thumps against a bed of tried leaves, casting shadows all around her, and then further back from what she had been running from.

Lloyd acts.

The woods here have dangers, separate from the huntsman that would track Lloyd down, and separate from Lloyd himself. He rushes out, and the thing that Colette was running away from finally makes it into the ring of light from her lantern, reaching further into the abyss behind her.

He shoves it away with claws. But it is like hitting a boulder where no faults are present. His claws only make a light graze against it.

Then the heavy weight and the deep breathing that runs through his head. “Lloyd. You’re here, too.”

In the lantern’s light, the thing that lumbers is in the shape of a bear – but it is a bear that should be dead, with it’s caved-in skull and the dried blood over its fur. Lloyd has seen this bear in his dreams, before Colette came by and made him forget, briefly, that he now has fangs and claws.

The bear opens its mouth and roars. Lloyd jumps back, smelling death and rotten things that are caught between the creature’s teeth. He doesn’t want to look, yet at the same time, he understands it. Even though he has never-

It turns from him to Colette who lies on the forest floor, her body still. “Is this your offering to me?”

There are different wants inside Lloyd; but most of all is anger at the bear’s assurance, the way its black eyes barely catch the light. It doesn’t get to take Colette away.

Lloyd pounces onto Colette, leaning fully into the light that surrounds her. He stays over her, hand pressing to the ground while the other tightens around her shoulder. His entire body is taut, the sounds deep in his throat rumbling through his arm and into the fallen leaves around them that shift from the wind.

Colette is breathing softly in his ear, but she doesn’t say anything. A swift glance shows Lloyd that her eyes are shut. Maybe she fell unconscious from the impact, or from shock. Something inside him feeds into the worry.

And every time the bear looks in his direction, it feels like poison swims through him, burning him.

“She could be another,” the bear says. It takes a step, a giant paw that makes deep grooves into the ground, that crushes the leaves into fine dust. Claws as long as Lloyd’s own hand dig deeper into the earth. It is only a few inches away from the lantern, and Lloyd believes it would crush it too once close enough. “You must be lonely being the only one. Why don’t you turn her too?”

Lloyd bares his teeth, gripping at her cloak, feeling himself so close on the edge of something nameless. He can’t speak still.

When Lloyd had first turned, he had once seen himself in a mirror. But it wasn’t the large ears that had sprouted through his hair that surprised him, the dark claws at his fingertips, the bushy tail that felt like an extra weight to keep him to his knees. No, it was his eyes that reflected the light, that shifted and made him forget he was human – or used to be.

Maybe the bear sees that too – and is pleased.

It lumbers on slowly. “Maybe if you had no choice? Turn her now, Lloyd. Go on.”

Another step. The lantern highlights the white of the skull that peeks through the fur, the eyes that are not eyes at all. They had rotted away, leaving nothing but emptiness. Lloyd remembers now. This dead thing that he had run into one night and-

The bear grins, or snarls. Lloyd can’t tell which is it. “Turn her now or I will eat her in front of you.”

It’s hard to control the sensation of the thing that he is. He presses his cheek against Colette’s chin, watches how the spread of her red cloak engulfs the ground, and the red is everywhere. Something clicks in front of him, but he bares his teeth, lets the light hit his eyes and shine through the part of his brain that can think without the base instinct to survive.

The bear takes another step, seems to rise and grow larger as it lifts itself up. Lloyd never takes his eyes off it, practically hugs Colette to him, and faces the creature that is rotting away. “Mithos-!”

A gunshot rings out through the dark.

It comes from behind Lloyd, and the sound of it gets Lloyd to shake terribly. He recognizes the scent of gunpowder. Lloyd recognizes it because there was a time the huntsman had nearly caught him, when he first entered these woods. A shot that splintered a tree near him, that sent wood fragments into his cheek, that made Lloyd sprint and roll into the thicket as thorns scratched at his legs.

But the shot misses him. Or…

The bullet sails through the dark, through the light and hits the bear squarely in the shoulder.

The huntsman is only a few feet down the forest path, behind Lloyd and Colette, his gun raised high with his shoulder. The force of his shot makes the creature stumble and roar, and the sound of it has Lloyd tighten his hold on Colette. He is about to take her and run, to anywhere. He is about to sink his teeth into the collar of her cloak and drag her away, even as part of him wants to feel her skin against his mouth. There are both wants at play, shredding away at what he can think through.

Turn her now or I will eat her in front of you.

The ringing of the shot, combined with the memory, nearly makes him scream. Instead, he breathes heavily, tightening up the sounds in his throat.

The huntsman stays where he is, but the bear retreats. Blood speckles the ground, and Lloyd’s gaze focuses on it, remembering something that he doesn’t really know. But that part of him does, the part of him that holds onto Colette, wanting something else.

He stays with her, shielding her from the wind.

He only turns to see that huntsman again, his face so impassive. There was the creak of his weapon, a rifle that is large, fashioned of wood and metal. Lloyd remembers how once before it had plunged a hole half the size of Lloyd’s head into a tree’s bark. Cut through as easily as a sword through overhanging fruit.

The huntsman is still holding his gun, but doesn’t move. Neither of them do.

“So you speak,” he says.

But Lloyd doesn’t say anything more.

--

.

.

.

Kratos had been on the trail of his quarry for weeks now, but he had not anticipated he would find it like this.

People had spoken of a wolf in these woods, a strange one that stayed by itself and moved at odd hours of the day. He had, at first, chalked it up to stories until he had encountered the creature himself. A wolf but with gangly arms, that walked on two legs and looked as half-starved as a human in times of famine.

That had been his first close encounter, and a shot that should have hit its mark had missed instead. Ever since, tracking the beast down had been much more difficult. It was being careful, as an animal would do so, but this was far different. It had an understanding that he did not see in other wolves.

He also suspected that the beast had help.

The nozzle of his gun was still smoking as he sat on the ground, keeping it steady. The wolf itself hadn’t moved, poised over Colette as if it was about to rend her flesh from her throat.

Or maybe that is his own bias speaking.

He was uneasy though, for whatever monster he had just shot not too long ago had vanished. It left no tracks behind from what he could see in the dim light. The lantern still lay fallen, and it was a wonder that it was still lit. Neither wind nor impact had snuffed it out.

“Your name?” he asked then. For this creature certainly talked like a human, wore clothes like one as well. Surely it must have a name.

The wolf refused to answer, keeping its eyes on Colette who slumbered peacefully beneath him. His eyes looked nearly bloodshot, the kind that would send any prey running. So, he was careful.

“I am Kratos,” he decided to continue with instead. “A hunter by trade. I know the girl that you are holding hostage.”

That set something off in the wolf. He faced Kratos, eyes shining from the lantern like burning discs in the sky. “I am not!”

He sounded petulant and offended. Kratos guessed this wolf creature was young. As young as Colette?

“I apologize then,” he said, still holding his gun, considering. “You try to keep yourself together, don’t you? Is it a curse then? Or something of birth?”

This only made the wolf nervous, staying near Colette and avoiding his eyes. Maybe he should have been more understanding. This wolf was still a boy, but also a frightened animal. He had seen frightened animals hurt those closest to them.

He lowered his voice and asked, “Will you let Colette go home?”

Maybe the wolf boy can’t really let go of her even if it…if he wanted to, but he saw the guilt in his eyes, the way his strange ears seemed to droop. “I want…”

Colette stirred, then woke.

Kratos was steady as he watched her, seeing the way the wolf stared at her, blinking. Her cloak was wrinkled beneath her, splayed out like a pool of red she had stumbled into. She looked up at the wolf – and the first thing she did was smile.

That answered one of the questions he had about her for the past month.

“You’re here! But…what just happened?” Colette sat up, not at all timid of the claws that was so near her shoulder, or the fangs clearly seen from the wolf’s mouth. She even took his hand – and just then, Kratos thought he saw a transformation. The gleam in the wolf’s eyes seemed to lose its shine, and the fur looked less bushy. Whatever human was left in him seemed to push through it.

“There was that bear! Lloyd, did you see it too?”

Kratos stilled, hearing the name in his head. He couldn’t help but repeat it. “Your name is…Lloyd?”

Both jumped; Colette understandably so, though the wolf boy named Lloyd had apparently completely forgotten his existence already. “W-What’s it to you?!”

“Mr. Kratos! I didn’t know you were…” She looked back to Lloyd, then to Kratos, taking a deep breath. “I…I can explain.”

He held up his hand, hoping to calm them both. “No need. I was aware you were keeping secrets.” He looked to Lloyd, who became more like a boy at each passing moment. And… No, there were more important things right now. “Did the bear attack you?”

Colette blinked. She bundled the collar of her cloak near her neck, trying to shield herself from the wind. “It… chased me. But then I fell and I thought…”

Lloyd was very silent through all this. He must know what that thing was.

But the hour was late, and the night was cold. He did not think he would get answers here.

“It’s not safe in these woods,” he said. “You should head home.”

Colette was hesitant. Lloyd was still so close to her, also confused at what should be done.

“Both of you,” he emphasized. Then stood up, slinging his gun over his shoulder, feeling the wind pick up. “I am still hunting, so I will stay here.”

At that word, he saw Lloyd visibly straighten, his arms tense. The wolf boy was not ignorant, it would seem. “But aren’t you…?”

Kratos gave him a succinct answer. “I have a new game to hunt, it would seem. I can’t spare my ammo for another.”

He didn’t stay, but walked back down the forest pathway, tracking whatever the bear had left behind in its rampage through the trees. The ring of the lantern’s light soon left him, leaving him the wolf boy’s silhouette before it also vanished.

Another day, he thought sadly.

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.

.

--

To Lloyd, everyone’s scents start becoming too much for him.

The huntsman’s scent was sudden, cloaked in gunpowder and pine. The ringing of the shot still lives in his ears, so even when the man spoke, Lloyd had to swim through a sea to even pay attention to the meaning. Though he barely wanted to, hearing the tone in it, irritated at it.

Colette’s scent was nearer, along with the softness of her hair against his fingers, the warmth of her cheek. Always he turns over the memory of a kiss from days back. He misses it, but his chest is too sensitive, thrumming from the pain of the gunshot’s waves through the air, and the bear’s pained roar.

It’s easier to think when Colette takes his hand and it is only them again. “Lloyd?” she calls to him, and her smile is lit up by the lantern that is now standing next to them, keeping them within the warmth. “Why don’t we go home?”

Lloyd can’t help but reach out to her, embracing her tightly and burying his face into her cloak. “Colette!”

She hugs him back just as quickly – and somehow that touch of her makes things…still. Makes it calm. Makes as if all that he was sensing finally stops overpowering him. The strange hunger, the fear, and the memory of the bear that had somehow followed him here.

One day, he will need to tell Colette about the bear. But right now, he only wants to get away from it. He only wants to forget.

He feels her hand runs through his hair, how it touches at the base of his ears, and his heart slows until it is like the steady rainfall on autumn nights. “You saved me, didn’t you?” she asks him. “Lloyd…Thank you.”

He is too afraid to tell her that it was his fault in the first place, that it was really that huntsman that truly saved them both. Instead he says, “I don’t want you to leave me right now.”

Colette leans back but only so she can look at him, and her smile seems to clear away even more of the fog in his head – like it had on the first day they met. “I won’t! Let me take you home… Even Kratos said it was okay.” He sees a relief in her eyes, despite her brush with the bear. She takes his hand. “Can you walk?”

It almost makes no sense with how it is Colette that is helping him, despite what she has been through. But Lloyd lets her, and somehow, he does not see her unclasp her cloak and wrap it around his shoulders. He blinks, looking at it, feeling how his ears poke against the hood of her cloak that she has also quickly put on.

“Uh…” he starts.

“Oh, you just looked a bit cold!” Colette giggles, already reaching for the lantern in her right hand, her left holding Lloyd’s own. She now only wears a white dress, with small frills at the hem, but it still stands out bright against the dark. “I hope it’s okay. My village isn’t too far, then you can be warmer in the house.”

The cloak is…a bit small for him. His big tail sticks out, and with his ears, the hood was about to fall off at any moment. But it’s warm, and it has Colette’s scent. He unconsciously pulls it closer to himself with a free hand, careful to not rip the fabric with his claws.

I want…to stay with you.

The wants in his head from before, but softer, easier to handle, not overpowering him to the point of pain.

I want to stay with Colette.

And with that, he smiles too, feeling more like himself on those other days. “It…feels really nice,” he says. “Thanks. I’ll give it back to you after.”

“Oh, if you want to, you can keep it! I have a set for each day of the week, hehe.” Colette tugs at his hand, through the dark but with the lantern to light their way. “Let’s go home now, Lloyd.”

Lloyd is used to the cold nights, but the moon shows itself through the clouds, and even with its face revealed, he feels steady with Colette’s hand guiding him all the way, down the forest path that he would always see her travel on before.

There is no shape of a bear in his head, and the only red he knows is gentle. Besides, the bear had been wrong. He wasn’t lonely – not anymore.