#lets poke this site until something breaks on purpose

[notllorstel]

drafting pl comics made me go check out my others ones, because its been awhile~

Reminding me of how much I am enjoying Francis’s transition from pure photographer to Mr. ‘I shall cause trouble on purpose’ in the HM Au comic.

[suddenlysackler]

Nice to Meet You

How you met each of the boys

Adam Sackler

Adam hit you with his bike

He promises he didn’t see you stepping off of the curb but you think he did it on purpose 

He can’t help but laugh at how dazed you look at his feet, once the initial “oh fuck I hurt someone” wore off

And you were pissed about it 

Scrambling to your feet and screaming and yelling at him, poking his chest and calling him every insult you knew

He’s still laughing because, fuck, you’re fucking adorable

No, you’re stunning

About two minutes into your raving and ranting and his laughing at the absurdity of it all because it was and accident and he did apologize, he notices the scrapes on your arms and knees

Insists that you let him take you to his place to clean you up because it’s not more than a two minute walk and you could yell at him more on the way and he promises he isn’t a weirdo (HA)

And despite your better judgement, you follow him with your tail between your legs, feeling so bad because you’d just chewed out this guy who doesn’t seem like a total asshole 

The ten minutes it should have taken him to clean you up turns into almost five hours perched on his kitchen counter while he sits just below your feet where he had ended up after swiping antibiotic ointment over the last of your scrapes

You just talk, you don’t know how it happens but he’s candid and so fucking easy to talk to, it’s like talking to an old friend

When you see the time you curse and say you’ve gotta get going

He rolls his eyes and tells you to stay

When you ask if his girlfriend will be pissed if you’re here when she gets home he shuts you up with a kiss

After he pulls back he wonders out loud if he misread the room

You answer with a kiss of your own

Clyde Logan

You and Clyde meet through mutual friends

You and your own friends had trekked over to Duck Tape after a long day at work, needing something, anything to take the edge off

And, apparently, one of your friends knew one of Jimmy’s friends, the two hovering around the bar while Clyde worked

You saddled up next to one of your friends, sort of off to the side of the action, and rested your elbows on the bar

Introductions are hastily made between your two smaller groups and Jimmy’s friend mentions Clyde’s name and you almost convulse right there when you catch a glimpse of gentle eyes and just the hint of a smile tugging at pouty lips

Clyde got to you last and could have kicked himself for making you wait, my oh my you were beautiful and someone that beautiful shouldn’t be kept waiting

As he asks what you’ll have to drink, his drawl hits your ears sweeter than honey 

After he brings you back your drink, you bat your eyelashes, talk all soft and such, try just about everything to anchor his attention on you

You’re successful and Clyde swears he hasn’t talked with a customer that wasn’t family so much ever

Duck Tape easily becomes a staple in your week

So does Clyde

But despite your initial boldness in getting him to pay attention to you, you’re just as shy as Clyde is

Who makes the first move at Jimmy’s insistence 

Poor boy is so nervous he asks you to get drinks after he’s done for the evening

As if you weren’t sitting in a bar

So you ask him if he wouldn’t mind coming to your place so you could show him the different drinks you know how to make

When he asks what you know and you answer “I can crack you open a bottle of beer” he gives a hearty laugh

It’s the first time you hear it, the first time you see his breathtaking smile

And after that night, it most certainly wasn’t the last.

Daniel Jones

Dan and you get tasked with running internship programming in the Senate

It’s not exactly what you wanted this summer and you’re begrudgingly participating until your partner walks in all tall, dark and handsome in a nicely pressed suit 

He’s quiet until your supervisor suggests paying by stipend so the interns can be paid less than the minimum wage

Then he goes the fuck off

And shit if you weren’t sold on Dan now, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back

While you can’t necessarily straight out flirt, you slowly start taking lunch breaks with Dan

He’s really grateful for the company

You’re a welcomed interruption in his stream of consciousness while he works

A gentle reminder to eat and take care of himself

And you are more than capable of going toe to toe with him when your discussions get more heated

Dan really falls for you when the interns get there

He likes watching you work with them

You’re patient and willing to teach and explain everything

And when did you get that fucking beautiful

So he starts intentionally walking past your office

Strikes up conversations when he can and even starts figuring out where you’ll be at certain parts of the day (he swears it’s not creepy don’t judge)

At the end of the summer, you finally break and ask him out 

He kisses you right on the steps of the Capitol building when you do

The best yes you’ve ever received

Flip Zimmerman

Flip gives you a jump start after you get stranded in Colorado Springs

You’re driving cross country to meet your new niece between jobs and your car breaks down on one of those quiet country roads and you know the police department isn’t a tow company but you literally don’t know who to call

So you call the police 

And Flip happens to be one of the only people available to come jump you, given the fact that he’s between cases

So he grumbles and heads out to the closest landmark you had provided and just about loses it when he sees you

You’re so perfect, he hasn’t ever seen anyone as stunning as you 

When he gets out to jump your car he flirts, asks you questions and makes you laugh without trying 

And scrambles back to his car for a piece of paper to scribble his number down, leaving you with the promise of a phone call when you reach your destination

After three days and no word he feels dejected

And then the phone rings

It’s you, asking for an Officer Zimmerman 

Honestly? Flip is over the moon and hangs on your every word through the receiver

He asks you to stop by and let him take you on a date on your way back home and you gladly accept and, ultimately, take a permanent detour in Colorado Springs

Ronnie Peterson

Ronnie and you meet after you both argue over the last copy of a new book on it’s first day on shelves

Honestly it’s a bit comical how the two of you go at it 

It’s like watching two middle schoolers

Finally, you two compromise

Split the cost, take turns reading it because neither of you are interested in waiting to read it 

So you buy it and develop a stupid little schedule for you two to read it within the first couple of weeks of buying it

Your little trade offs turn into little book club meetings

Until Ronnie finally asks you to actually get coffee and sit down and discuss it 

When you agree and you’re sitting under the warm lighting of the coffee shop, Ronnie is taken aback at how gorgeous you are

And is pissed that he missed it because he was so obsessed with the stupid fucking book

But absolutely doesn’t regret that your argument had gotten him your number and what seemed to be at least a blossoming acquaintanceship

On the other side of the table, you’re just as taken with Ronnie

And your heart almost bursts when his glasses fog up from his hot drink

So you take a chance and ask if he’d want to see the movie adaptation of the book with you when it came out in a few weeks

He immediately says yes

Even asks if it’s a date

Kicks himself again when you turn bright red because, yeah, you want it to be a fucking date

Needless to say you keep getting coffee in the weeks to come and get to know each other even more

And he kisses you for the first time outside the movie theater

He takes you back to the car early, maybe like half way through the movie

He wants to make out

You want to make out

The movie sucked anyway

Paterson

You accidentally get on Paterson’s bus on your first day commuting to your job by public transportation after your car breaks down 

Pat smiles when you pay your fare, fingers twitching as his mind swirled with the tomes of paper he could fill with prose about your eyes 

He won’t lie, he was more than a little concerned when the bus approached the last stop on the route and you were still in your seat

His concern only heightened when he noticed the tears streaking down your cheeks

And yeah, he’s more of an observer, but he can’t help himself as his feet carry him back to sit next to you after letting the last of the passengers out and pulling over

You explain that you had taken the wrong bus and were now over an hour late to your job as a professor at Columbia 

He m e l t s 

Tells you oh so softly what bus you actually need to get on and even tells you where his route connects with that route 

Fuck he even offers you cab money he feels so awful that you’re late to work

You decline but smile at how sweet he is and even move to stand and hold on to the pole closest to him and chat over the thirty minutes it takes you to get to the right stop

You thank him profusely as you step off and Pat drives away, knowing that he’ll be writing about you at lunch, that much is inevitable

Two days later you get on his bus again and he raises his eyebrows skeptically

You give him a scrap of paper and a smile before moving to the back and sitting down, getting off at the same stop he had shown you before

He looks at the paper at lunch and could have passed out at your number and a request for a thank you cup of coffee, which he gladly accepts

Charlie Barber

You meet Charlie at a Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids volunteer meeting

You run in late with a latte in your hand and plop down right next to him, hair windswept, cheeks pink, and smelling like coffee beans

Literally, Charlie thinks a piece of heaven just sat down next to him

You apologize to him for the interruption, double taking when you see how handsome the man next to you is

And for the next hour, you two nudge each other and make jokes under your breath

You get assigned to the same site for the next fundraising effort just by chance

And while you get to know the other four people in your group, you and Charlie stay stuck to each other like glue

Even though there are plenty of people you both know through work 

You had just kind of clicked

And at the end, you find yourself lingering in the small auditorium the meeting was held in

Neither of you really wanting to split although you’d see each other again soon

So Charlie takes a chance and asks if you’d want another latte

His palms are sweating because he literally hasn’t asked someone out in years

That’s what this was right?

But you say yes and let him pay for your second latte

And hold his hand

“It’s cold and you don’t have pockets on your sweater or gloves”

He walks you home even, laughing when you tell him where your building is and remarking that his building is two blocks away

You give him your number anyway, mumbling something about not wanting rocks thrown at your window at 3:00am

And he hugs you so tight before you head upstairs

It’s the tightest hug you’ve ever gotten

[punkcupcakestyles]

Love Song

Part 13

Catch Up!

“How’s Camille, Harry?”

“Greedy, ain’t he?”

“Well, when you have that face, mate, girls just don’t care.”

The words were still ringing in my ears, even though days had gone by. 

We were back in L.A., and I was back at my house. I didn’t go to his house, I mumbled excuses and went back home, to Cat and my mom. To Sam. 

That was always the plan, to go to Sam, to follow him wherever he went. I was supposed to go to Stanford while he went to UCLA and we were going to visit each other every weekend, go to San Francisco and Las Vegas. We were supposed to live college life like there was nothing else after it. And somehow, someday, he was supposed to realize that I was it for him. I was the one he was looking for. That he loved me almost as much as I loved him (I had come to terms with the fact that I was always going to love him more). 

And then, that night happened and my life turned upside down. 

It could’ve been worse, I guess.

“Your sister wore me off,” Sam complained as soon as he let himself plop down on the bed. 

The mattress shifted its weight and the mascara wand ended up poking my cheek as a result. I scowled, but Sam didn’t notice. He had his face buried into the pillow and his long arms and legs spread open over my covers as if he were a tiny, tired star. 

“Fuck, Sam!”

“Sorry,” he muttered at the same time he rose on his elbows to look at me. “You still look pretty. Where are you going?”

There was a certain edge on his voice as if he already knew the answer to his question and he disapproved of it. I peered down and poked my tongue out at him as he rolled onto his back, drumming his fingers on his tummy as he waited for my answer. 

“Dump his ass.”

“Sam...”

“No, for real, tell him to go fuck himself and dump his ass.”

“I will think about it, Sam. Now stop.”

Sam didn’t know, Sam couldn’t know. The moment he did, he wouldn’t look at me the same way. And I couldn’t stand that. 

“In this outfit?” I asked him, as I tried to remove the black smudge over my cheek. I looked down at myself, at the dark blue cotton shorts and the lavender lace of the teddy I was wearing. I had gotten it as a gift from a brand that wanted me as their ambassador, but I had never really had a use for it, up until now. “I’m going to the library.” Sam was still frowning. He was always frowning lately. “I need to take some photos for my IG. I’m gonna take it off right away.”

“Oh,” he muttered, and I felt a tinge of guilt in his voice. Not enough to say sorry, though. 

I pushed my makeup to the side, and let my fingers run through my hair to mess it up a bit, so it wouldn’t look perfectly sleek. My makeup was dewy and rosy, long lashes and glossy lips as if I had barely done something to my face instead of wearing a ridiculous amount of creams and balms and powders. It looked like I was in the middle of the golden hour when in reality it was past 8 and the sun had already set. 

I had definitely not woken up like this. 

I took a few pictures, trying to pose sexily casual, if that’s a thing, and making silly faces to the camera so I wouldn’t take myself so seriously. It was something I did from time to time, so my Instagram feed wouldn’t just be random pictures. 

Sam burst into giggles as he looked at me and took the phone away from me so he could snap a couple of pictures himself. I posed shyly, now that he was the one doing it, and he handed me my phone back once he was finished, with the photo already chosen. It was simple, I was looking at the camera with my lips slightly parted in a coy smile, and my hand on my neck. My eyes were cast down, and my nose was a little bit scrunched up, so I looked nice and happy.

“That’s the one you should post. You look beautiful,” he mumbled, and I managed to offer him half a smile, feeling my tummy bubble softly with his words.

“Thank you.” I took my phone back and went to post it on Instagram with a quick 🖤 as a caption, before I put it on my bed and fell back on the bed and lie next to him, so close that the tip of our noses was almost touching. 

“Are you gonna tell me what’s wrong?” I asked him softly and he rolled his eyes in response, attempting to get up from the bed before I pulled him back. “Sam.”

He was in a mood, bitter, sour, unbearable. He was lucky I liked him. 

“Annie broke up with me,” he muttered, avoiding my eyes as he did so.

“Oh,” I said. Oh. “When?”

“About a week ago. When I saw the photos of Harry with his ex.”

“Why would she break up with you because of that? That’s none of her business.”

“She said I cared too much.”

“You’re my best friend!!”

“She doesn’t think that’s the only thing going on.”

He finally looked at me and his eyes shone with worry. He seemed like a little kid, hopeful and scared at the same time. Hopeful I might feel the same. Scared I would laugh at him. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t need to, and neither did I. 

Fuck. Fuck. 

I couldn’t think of anything to say, nothing good, at least. I blinked and gulped, looking him stupidly in the eyes as he waited for me. To do what?

This is what I had wanted my whole life. Why wasn’t I jumping on the opportunity?

The sound of the phone almost made me jump out of my skin and I sat up, darting to it to give myself something to do. Harry’s name popped onto the screen and I rolled my lips into my mouth, wondering if I should answer his FaceTime call. Sam waited for me to decide, scoffing as I pushed the green button to take the call. Shut up, I warned with my eyes. 

Deep breaths. 

“Hi,” Harry smiled to the screen, widely and sweetly and I felt myself melt at the sight of him. 

God, I had missed him. It was the first time I was seeing his face, his actual face (he was everywhere, even if his album was not out yet) in a week, and I thought I knew just how much I had missed him every single day, but I was now realizing I had missed him so much more. “How are you, baby?”

Confused would be the right answer. 

“Good.” He was wearing some sort of hoodie, light blue and plush, and his dimpled smile and his bunny teeth made him look adorable. I could see Sam out of the corner of my eyes, and I shifted uncomfortably as he got up from the bed. 

“I’m gonna help Cat with dinner,” Sam muttered, loud enough to be heard. It didn’t matter if he had done it on purpose, cause Harry had notice and the sweetness on his face slowly disappeared.

“Who was that?”

“Uh...Sam.” I shifted on the bed, looking uncomfortable as Harry looked back.

“He’s there?”

No, that was a hologram. Jesus.

“He is, he stayed here while I was away.”

“You’re already back…”

“Harry…”

He looked pissed but didn’t say anything. Instead, he took a deep breath and let his tongue sweep over his lips.

“Come here tonight,” he finally said. 

“I-I can’t.”

“Why not?” 

Cause I had to figure things out. Cause I couldn’t offer him all of my attention. Cause there was a chance Sam loved me back. 

Did I love Sam? 

Fuck. 

“I was thinking about spending the night with my mom and sister.”

“And Sam,” he smirked and I rolled my eyes in response. “Let’s do something, yeah? Spend the night with them and come sleep here. I miss you.”

“I, uh, I’ll see what I can do, H.”

“That’s not a big promise, S.”

“I’m sorry, I have to go and help with dinner. I’ll let you know, yeah?”

He was displeased with my answer, rolling his bottom lip into his mouth and gnawing on the inside of his cheek. His jaw was set and he looked away from me for a second before he nodded. We said short goodbyes, and I grunted as soon as the call ended, and dropped the phone away from me so I could bury myself into the sheets.

I felt bad, so fucking bad. All I wanted to do was to go him and hide my face onto the crook of his neck.

But I also wanted to find out what was happening to Sam. 

Harry’s smile was gone too quickly, I didn’t get a chance to enjoy it. 

***

I put on a hoodie and went down to the first floor, to join my family in the kitchen. It was a mess, Cat had decided to do chocolate pudding and carbonara pasta from scratch so there was flour everywhere and an explosion of melted chocolate was stuck on the wall. I was pretty sure she had broken an egg on the floor. 

“You’re late,” she accused me, and she looked like a ghost with her face plastered with flour. 

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, side-eyeing Sam as he busied himself with the boiling milk. “I got distracted. What do you need me to do?”

“Fry the bacon and beat the eggs,” she ordered and I put myself to work, trying to avoid Sam as much as I could. But still, big as the kitchen was, it didn’t seem big enough for the two of us. 

My mom came home, still wearing her scrubs from the hospital, she looked so happy to see him, as if he were family and that was his natural place to be. She went to take a shower and came back with a big, satisfied smile just as we were serving dinner. 

It was a big, happy family dinner, even though the pudding was clumpy and that the eggs had cooked a little in the pasta sauce. It was easy to forget the problems of the day or the fact that Sam kept looking at me as if he wanted to figure me out. 

“So, when are you gonna bring your boyfriend home?” My mom asked she was finished and I looked at her and then at Sam nervously. 

“We…mmm...He’s not my boyfriend, mom. We’re just hanging out.”

“That’s not what the gossip sites say,” Cat mocked and I turned to look at her with my eyes big like plates. “What? They say you went to London so his ex would stay away. Did you really chase her with a knife?”

“I did not! Stop reading those shitty things and read a real book instead!” 

Cat shrugged her shoulders as my mom gave her a warning look. The thing about Cat was that she was less afraid of us as time went by and she grew older. I guess that’s what happens when you have a mother that’s put together with tape on her broken parts and a sister that’s about to crack. 

“Your sister did not chase anyone with a knife, that’s not the way we raised you, and we don’t beg for love,” my mom said sweetly. 

“Well…” Cat started, but suddenly shut up and whipped her head to look at Sam. She grew red and cast her eyes down as she filled her mouth with some more pudding. 

I was pretty sure what she was going to say. We all were. It was a good thing Sam had stopped her, cause I would’ve had to kill her. 

Dinner was done soon enough and Cat looked to suck up to my mom by helping her with the dishes, while Sam and I went upstairs. 

“Thanks…” I whispered when we reached my door and I leaned onto it, with my palms behind my back. 

“It’s alright,” he smiled. “She would’ve regretted it anyway.”

He barely managed to finish before I kiss him. My fingers pushed into his hair and I brought his closer, which he took as an opportunity to press me to the door. 

It was a nice kiss, more than nice, intense and slow, as I enjoyed the taste of his lips. They were sweet and juicy, just as I had always imagined them.

But the world was still there, I was aware that my mom was downstairs, and that Sam’s hands were looking for a way to sneak under my hoodie. It hadn’t disappeared around us, just like it did when Harry kissed me. 

I slowly pulled apart from him and he untangled his arms from around me. I turned around and opened the door to my room while Sam stood there, his brain probably pounding with a million questions about what had just happened. I knew mine was. 

“Sof…” Sam spoke softly and I turned around as I was about to close the door, to look at him. “Let me in.”

No. 

“Oh, no, you’ll have to wine me and dine me first, Sammy,” I tried to mock, but it came out flat and Sam’s brows furrowed deeply, as he took a step closer so no one else would listen to us. Fuck, my mom and Cat could come up at any second.

“What about Harry? You told me he was your boyfriend…”

“He is…” I nodded, biting the corner of my lips as a sudden feeling of shame filled my chest. Fuck. “It’s, uh, it’s complicated.”

“Do you love him?”

“Go to your room, Sam. We’ll talk tomorrow, yeah?” 

He finally nodded and turned around to go to his room, that was by the end of the hallway. He had always had a room at my place, it was the least I could do after he left us crash at his tiny apartment when we just got to L.A. When my mom was more a robot than a person and I worked as a waitress so we could eat. When I was still afraid every time I heard a police siren, and I saw blood in my nightmares every night.

Fuck me. 

***

@TeenVogue: Imagine looking THIS good🔥🔥🔥🔥

@Sarah1980.: Harries out there be thinking this chick can turn a gay man straight. He likes dick, ma’am.

@MikeG: Only reason I will be watching the new Marvel Era.

@Selenass: Those lips Kylie Jenner could never 💁🏽‍♀️

@pinkbae: 🤡🤡🤡🤡

***

I needed to come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t going to sleep that night.

I kept watching reruns of Law and Order: SVU and I turned the TV from time to time and closed my eyes to see if I could fall asleep. But I tossed and turned on the bed, snapping my eyes open to go back to Olivia Benson and her not-so-calming stories. 

I had fucked up, I was aware of that. I kept coming back to the moment when I decided to kiss Sam, to the pressure of his lips on mine and the sweet taste of the pudding on his tongue. I scrunched up my eyes and buried my face onto the pillow, so it would muffle my groans

I needed to see Harry. 

It was an idiotic idea, but it was well established by now that I was a fucking idiot. I was still wearing the lavender teddy and the blue shorts, so I just put on a gigantic hoodie before I left my room. I hadn’t snuck out of my house in the middle of the night in a long while and I tried to be as silent as possible, stealing Sam’s keys on my way to the door. 

I took Sam’s car and drove around the familiar routes of my neighborhood. I was good there, I felt almost confident even though I was a terrible driver, the problem was when I had to leave the comfort of my zone. Soon enough, I was parking in front of Harry’s house and I pulled out my phone, begging that he would be awake so I wouldn’t have to go back home. 

You up? I wrote.

@H: It’s so late for a booty call. I feel almost used. 

I’m outside your door. 

@H: Oh, so literally a booty call? gimme a moment, I’m naked. 

I didn’t need to know that. 

@H: I’m gonna get naked again as soon as we enter the house, just so you know. 

I smiled for the first time that night, looking at the screen while I thought of something to reply. A billion things came to mind, but I settled with staring at the screen and smiling like an idiot at his words.  Oh, how I wished I was bold. 

The garage soon started to slide open and I tried and failed to start the engine again. I could see Harry standing by the driveway and looking at me with his arms crossed over his chest and a mocking smile on his face, as he saw me struggle for a bit with the car.

“Hi,” I smiled shyly when I finally parked in front of him and rolled down the window to look at him with big, sorrowful eyes, so he wouldn’t have any other choice but to agree to whatever I wanted. “Can I sleep here?”

I had learned that trick from Cat. 

Harry’s hair was messy and he wasn’t wearing a shirt, only his sweatpants that hung low on his hips. He didn’t seem like he had just woken up, he looked divine. It was almost sinful how good he looked. 

“Sure,” he smiled as he leaned into the door and looked down at me with eyes full of curiosity. “but you do know it past 3 am, right?” He asked. A mop of curls fell over his forehead and I had to restrain myself from the need to touch it. 

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, biting my lips as I looked at him. “Should I go back?”

Harry chuckles rumbled in his bare chest and he stood straight to open the door. His eyes made their way down my body as I stepped down from the car and I was painfully aware of the fact that I was barely wearing any clothes. Neither of us had seemed to have gotten the memo of how freaking cold the dawn was going to be. 

“I didn’t know you drove,” he said.

“I don’t. This is Sam’s car. I kinda stole it.”

Like a petulant child, Harry’s rolled his eyes at the mention of Sam’s name and I smiled, pressing my cold fingers to the nape of his neck to bring him closer so I could kiss him, softly, sweetly. The weight of his body pressed up to me, trapping against the car as one of his arms went around my waist.

It was all I wanted to do, all I had been thinking that night: His kisses and the way the world seemed to blur around its edges when he was close to me. He took over my mind and every one of my senses, and a warm feeling settled in my tummy. It was like nothing I had felt before and I was pretty sure that I was probably not going to feel it after he was gone. 

I was starting to think that everyone else would have to compare to him. 

“We should fuck in this car,” he muttered as soon he broke the kiss and I giggled, still pressed up to him, still refusing to let him go. His forehead was against mine and his warm breath rose little goosebumps on my skin, but he looked dead serious about his offer. 

“Why would we do that?”

“So he knows you’re mine.”

“Am I?” I smirked. 

“Yes.”

“Sam’s just a friend,” I said, pushing the kiss we had shared deep into my mind, just for now. I would deal, with whatever that was, later.

“We both know that’s not true.”

That was the perfect moment to tell him about the kiss, or at least it was as good as any other chance I would have. I kissed him, and I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have. But I needed to know. I still don’t really know. 

But it was a messy thing to say, selfish as well, cause I wanted him to forget it right away and not mention it anymore. I wanted to let it out, so my mind would calm down, without having to suffer any of the consequences. 

I didn’t say anything. I let Harry lace his fingers with mine and guide me into the house until we were both in his room, and he walked to his closet to get something to sleep on. It was a shame, I had been promised that he would be naked. I quietly took my own hoodie off and stood there for a second feeling silly as I noticed I would actually have to sleep with the stupid teddy on. It was itchy, what was I thinking. 

I sat on the bed while I waited for Harry to come back, and stared at his phone as it kept buzzing off. His screen was lit up with messages, some from Jeff, some from Mitch and some from Camille. Her name popped up on the screen again and again and I felt my heart pound in my chest as the short moment of bliss slipped away from my fingers. It was so late, why would he be texting her? Had he texted her? Was that why he was naked?

Fuck.

Harry back to the room wearing only a black pair of boxer and he took his phone just as a FaceTime call came in. I pretended not to notice it was her as I lied down on the bed and he silenced it and joined me. His arms went around my waist and he pulled me close, so my  back was pressed to his warm chest and our legs were tangled between the sheets.

“Aren’t you gonna answer?” I tried to ask as casually as I could. “What if it’s important?”

“It’s not,” he mumbled, and his words rose little goosebumps down my arm as they fanned over the nape of my neck. 

“I could go to another room or you could…”

“You’re in my bed, why would I go anywhere, Sof? S’not important, I swear.”

He may be right and I may be his, but he was definitely not mine. 

He was never going to be. 

***

I had no idea what time it was, but it was probably late. It was difficult to tell cause Harry had blackouts to cover the big windows. 

I could feel the weight of Harry’s body against mine as I blindly looked for my phone, which had been buzzing somewhere on the bed for a while now. 

“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath as I squinted at the bright screen and saw Sam’s name on it. 

“Turn it off, baby,” 

“It’s Sam. He probably needs his car back.” Or was wondering why would I take it in the first place. 

“I’ll buy him a new one, just turn it off.” Harry was still more asleep than awake and he turned his face away from the light coming from the phone. I stared at the screen, biting my lip as I felt like the tears started to prick on my eyes. 

What was I supposed to tel Sam anyway? Hey, I’m sorry I kissed you and then stole your car so I could sleep in someone else’s bed? Remember I told you it was complicated? It’s really not, he loves another girl, I’m just keeping her place warm for her. I know it’s pathetic, Sammy, but I’ll take what I can get. Don’t hate me, please. I need someone that would take me back when this is over. I’ll buy us an apartment in Paris, make it worth losing my soul. I’m sorry, I definitely fucked up. 

I silenced the phone and closed my eyes as I laid back down on the bed, staring into the darkness as Harry rolled to his side again so he could hug me. I shifted, until our chest were pressed together and I nudged the tip of my nose against his jawline, pressing sweet kisses on his neck as he sleepily brushed his fingers over my waist. 

“You’re really wearing lingerie?” Harry whispered almost giddily and I wish I could see the smile on his face. “I thought it was just my dream.”

“Were you dreaming about me?”

“Yeah, I was eating your pussy and you kept screaming my name.” Even if I couldn’t see him, I could hear his smirk and a little bubble of fire lit up right by my lower tummy, pressing between my legs. I had been there, it was definitely not a dream.

“You like it when I do that?” 

“Mmmm...I can’t really remember. Maybe you should sit on my face…Freshen up my memory.”

[violetsystems]

#personal

I deposited my first check for my business yesterday at the bank.  I had to go to the teller because it’s an entirely different account.  They repeated the name back to me off the check and asked me if I wanted a balance.  If you look at my life from the right perspective everything seems amazing.  Truthfully, they say the American dream is owning your own business.  They say a lot of dumb shit about America.  Now more than ever.  Which is why it’s nice sometimes to stick around in a neighborhood and let people battle it out in terms of what they think of you.  It’s been about ten months of insane isolation.  I spend most of my time at home alone with my cat.  I talk to my parents every so often but nobody really else intimately.  Other than here.  I live in a city so it’s impossible to be alone once you leave the house.  I sometimes think that’s a hard balance to maintain.  It gets easier over time the less I worry about the outside world.  I know it’s hard to when you live on a planet in the middle of a dense, dark universe.  But these days I pay more attention to space in the news more than anything.  I just bought a few things for my business to experiment with.  A mini drone to learn Python with.  I flew it out on the porch for a few seconds until my neighbor poked their head out.  Everybody out here is always in everybody else’s business.  It’s almost a reflex.  Oddly enough when I fly it indoors my cat just rolls her eyes at it.  I’ve been continuing to apply for jobs and maintain a presence on the job sites.  But everything whiffs in such a weird way.  It’s like I’m invisible until I’m out on the street.  Then it’s everyone wasting my time and energy trying to project some secret messages or agenda.  It’s laughable at this point.  You’d think after years of fucking with somebody on a guerilla level you’d bother to at least acknowledge them with more than a glare.  And yet people can’t be bothered to be kind or understanding.  There’s not enough of it in the world.  So when you walk that path, everyone has their hand out.  Everybody expects it’s a given that we’re all in this together.  When it comes to my physical address behind closed doors most assuredly this is not true.  But considering my business address and my residence are one and the same right now, it’s not too hard to know I’m painted in a corner.  I don’t have friends that even check on me to see how I’m doing other than here.  Everybody in this city is too caught up in a lie or afraid of being exposed.  I can confirm this by simple math.  The people I still keep up with are business transactions at best.  There’s an icy veil between that where you get this feeling you aren’t welcome into any real social circle anymore.  This feels even worse applying for jobs in this city.  I just got out of a twenty year employment opportunity where you get to work with your friends.  Only to find ten months after being let go, none of those people were my friends.  I personally at this point care more about making money than friends.  The teller is friendly enough when they stare at my account from behind the screen.  It’s a nightmare to think over two years ago my life was quite the opposite despite having it all.  Dream jobs are in the past now.  Everybody’s godson is their own personal cybersecurity officer.  The nerds got rid of their IT managers and are locked in their bedrooms on zoom with their cameras off.  I’m more excited about drones on Mars and autonomous delivery.  And I still see no future for me here, there or everywhere.

The biggest lesson for me has been about validation.  There is a point when what you want to do isn’t the clearest road.  I’ve had my share of friends doubt who I wanted to be or become.  I’ve cautiously shared things about my life I couldn’t put into words only to have my concerns gaslighted or dwarfed for the main narrative.  People who lie are really good at one thing.  Continuing to lie.  When I catch people in lies, it makes me angry.  Mostly because the one thing I’ve always tried to do was be transparent, accountable and real.  The way I see America when I walk out my door is severely broken.  A thousand fractured narratives clashing together in selfishness.  I try to keep the peace and bridge things together as best I can.  But I’m no politician.  I’m not even an activist.  I’ve been duct taping my life together for almost a year only to realize everybody else’s is far worse off.  Social distancing through the plague has brought me to extremes.  It helped me distance myself from years of my life I’d been caught up in.  And yet now I find myself caught up in a city rather than a suburban area I crawled out from years ago.  College is so far away.  I actually took masters level courses in Psychology.  I wanted to go into artificial intelligence.  I settled for data analytics and human resources.  Never really did much with that degree other than learn how to spot crazy.  I don’t have any student loans to trade for leverage with an employer.  Everybody follows me around and talks behind my back to the point where I wonder if employers have a red flag tabbed on my LinkedIn profile.  The shit I have seen done with my life is so fucking amateur that people would rather erase me than confront the problem.  And therein lies the lesson.  You have to validate yourself.  Believing in yourself and walking away from the table is a tough thing when everyone negs you to think less.  But there’s a point when my Viking roots throw caution to the wind and I tell the world I’m done.  I’m sure my Gyspy roots concur.  Not sure about the Bohemian side.  I think here is the hidden key to Nationalism.  Everybody falls back on their shallow gene pool for comfort to ease the cognitive dissonance of society being a chaotic fuck show.  Primitive thinking that can’t evolve beyond pattern recognition.  The things I’m supposed to be proud of are very finite to me.  They don’t span generations or even decades.  The last ten months has been the most bleak and soul churning I have ever experienced.  And I experienced it quietly with my family and my real friends in a weird sort of intimacy.  And even my parents don’t really know what goes on with me too deeply.  There’s a point when you have to be your own person.  And some people can’t break free and stand on their own too without fear or pain.  So they’d rather fall back into a crowd.  Where they can stop being judged, negated or feel unsure about where they stand.  That is a crutch.  Sometimes the world is so hurt you need something to stand on.  And sometimes the bones heal you back all gnarled and distorted.  You look inward and all you feel is hate.  And that hate isn’t you.  It’s not a good thing to be angry all the time.  And yet I feel it too.  More so these days when I let myself get angry over things and people outside my control.  The people outside my door don’t ever validate me in a way that’s dignified or respectful.  And that says a lot about the world in general versus how I choose to live.  The real lesson I’ve learned is that this is the way it is.  If you want to change it, you must start with yourself.  And there’s some things you can’t change.  The hell of other people trying to intrude and muscle in on your place on this planet.  

It’s hard to love yourself when everyone else is judging your every move.  It makes you think there is something wrong with you.  And the world is always looking for something to point it’s finger on.  We’re all being judged.  We’re all under duress.  We are all paranoid looking over our shoulder.  I should know because I catch someone with a knowing look out my periphery every ten or fifteen seconds.  That’s a lot to subconsciously prepare for every day I want to live my life.  And yet I know there are people who are simply continuing to live through a lie.  To be further manipulated away from controlling themselves.  The reactionary bullshit in America serves a dual purpose.  Thinning out the herd.  We are so caught up in headlines we never read the fine print.  We are enraged, huddled together through protest and then led further down the rabbit hole with no end in sight.  We complain about government but can’t name a single piece of legislation other than guns that have saved our freedom.  I’ll name one for you.  The CARES act.  We know everything about everyone every second of the day but have never even asked anyone’s name.  And you can seek out that whirl wind circle jerk of group hugs and prayer circles all you want.  People are still just going through the motions.  Saying the right things to avoid confrontation even if it means blatantly warping the truth.  Ask anybody I used to work with.  I would ask them for you but they pretend I’m fucking dead.  And this was how it was supposed to feel I gather.  I was to be taught a lesson.  Freedom isn’t free.  It did teach me a lot about life.  Mostly that I’m not really sensitive to anything other than my own ethics.  There’s things I don’t do.  And these things are observed and never clarified.  I live in a silent void of rumor, legacy and shadow.  I’m living that life you people brag about in public.  Whatever that life is I’m not even quite sure.  I’m terribly alone in all of this and not at the same time.  And it requires me to have confidence enough to simply and effortless believe I’m worth it.  Like some vicious game of poker.  I’m all in at my own kitchen table.  I have no dreams left other than to be free.  And maybe to learn Premiere editing 4k drone videos in my spare time.  I don’t really fucking know anymore what to do other than to continue to not humor anyone’s dumb ass bullshit.  And to be real, this entire experience has taught me firsthand how worthless and fucked up my past is here in America.  Everybody wants some shame to hold over you so you stay a bargain.  Everybody wants to roast you and take your shine so they can look mediocre next to you at best.  Everybody wants to bring everyone down to their level regardless if it’s legal, civil or ethical.  And yet when you do the same, you understand what the problem is.  I’ve walked the walk for years and everybody can’t stop talking their shit.  Now people have run out of bad things to say.  So they either pretend I’m a ghost or speak like I’m some urban legend.  And thinking too much into that can drive an intelligent person insane.  Which is why knowing what I know I stay out of everything completely.  Even when I don’t you can see how much it drags me down to humor it all like a good sport.  These people out here do not play fair.  They never have.  And the only winning move is not to play.  I learned that from Wargames years ago.  Everybody wants to be a hacker now.  If you learn one thing from Hackers the movie.  The M1 is here to stay.  And never try to hack a gibson.  That’s the only ICE you have to fear when it comes to crossing my path.  Flatline your shit and leave you staring at the ground awkwardly with your well meaning intrusive bullshit.  End of line.  <3 Tim

[grimmseye]

A Bird in the Hand: Chapter Seven

Read on Ao3 here!

Rating: M

Fandom: Critical Role

Relationships: Mollymauk Tealeaf/Essek Thelyss, Mollymauk Tealeaf/Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast (eventual)

Chapter Characters: Mollymauk Tealeaf, Essek Thelyss, The Mighty Nein

Chapter Tags/Warnings: Molly Rez, Amnesiac Mollymauk, Oh My God They Were Roommates, Essek’s Ex-Catholic tendencies, Non-explicit sexual content and discussion, (Sexual content is not between main characters sorry)

— — —

Messages from the Nein — more specifically, from Jester — always brought with them a sense of dread. Any amount of joy or amusement or frustration he felt at her jabbering in his mind could always be accompanied by the undercurrent of foreboding as he remembered exactly what he had done. Sometimes he grew convinced they'd found out, a spiral of paranoia leaving him sick and shaking and running through contingencies as madly as a demon's thrall —

Counterspell for Caleb, though maybe Jester would earn it first. They would be the ones to harm him with magic. Caduceus would have to be put down swiftly, an illusion might be enough to hold him in place but then he wouldn't be able to handle the rest — Yasha would fall easily to control, he didn't know her as well and wouldn't suffocate on his guilt if he pried her mind apart and made her into a puppet one more time, trained that sword upon the rest — though again, maybe that was best reserved for Caleb, even if he was likely to shrug it off with the same teachings Essek had faced to turn that fire against his friends had nearly been the end of them before —

No, running would be his best option. Running, hiding. A spell to hold them still or stunned to grant him his escape. Alone, Essek could maybe pick a few of them off, but at the end of the fight he would be dead on the ground. It was best if he just ran.

And now he had someone to take with him just in case they tracked him down.

But every time it was just Jester's voice, overly-friendly as she always was, and the panic calmed into confusion or mirth or exasperation, all depending on the day. Today the dread remained, as he slipped down the stairs to where Mollymauk was lounging across the floor, scratching images onto paper with his tongue half poked out between his teeth. His gaze lifted to Essek's approach, tail curling up into the air. It was a hello, he'd determined, remembering how Jester's did the same.

"The Nein are going to be returning," Essek told him.

It was a curious range of emotions that darted across Mollymauk's face, and none of them looked good. When Mollymauk did not fill the silence, Essek continued, "I am going to be teleporting them to their next destination. It is a visit, not an extended stay."

The silence continued, Mollymauk sitting upright but not speaking, his tail coiling over the floor. Essek hesitated for a moment, then asked, "Do you want me to tell them you're here?"

It was enough to get Molly's gaze to refocus. "That's an option?" He raised his eyebrows.

"Not forever," Essek gave a wan smile. "But for now, if you do not feel ready to meet them again, you do not have to."

"Huh." He puffed out a breath, laying back down in time with the exhale, until he was splayed out across the rug and staring up at the ceiling. "Maybe. Yeah, you know what? Let's call that the plan until I say otherwise."

"Just be sure to tell them you wanted this when they do find out," Essek said, with dry humor. "I do not want them to think I've lied to them." And certainly not to know.

Time was running low. The exchange approached, and then it would be over. The mystery could fade, never to be solved. The Nein didn't need to know, and would never find out. Eventually the guilt would fade. There was hope on the horizon, but he had expected the feeling to be much warmer than he found it.

"They will be here soon," Essek added, after a beat. "It will take a while to complete the circle and travel across the city, but —"

"You won't even know I'm there." Mollymauk rolled over to get to his hooves, gathering up his supplies — they'd made a run to an art store to get more materials for his cards.

With Mollymauk gone, it left Essek in pensive silence as he waited on the Nein. Once upon a time, he'd planned to call in a favor or three, send them in a few separate directions to throw them and anyone else off his trail, use the idiots who'd thrown a wrench in his plan to put the pieces back into place. It would be smart, to cover his tracks, to let them believe the trail had gone cold. Now, he couldn't bear to further his own deception. He made empty threats, promising some dreadful task with no intention of following through. At this point the farce was embarrassing to keep up.

It would be over soon. He only needed to wait for the Peace Talks to conclude. Ideally, whatever they were doing now would eat up the time left over, let them trudge back home to where Essek could finally breathe in the same room as them, to where he had their friend safe and sound, to a brand new day where the past could be left to rot and Essek could —

— what? Sever himself from the Assembly? Impossible. He'd already done too much to break ties now. If he turned his back on their research, then what was the point of any of this? And if he couldn't turn his back, then the deceptions would continue. He would betray the Nein, again and again and again, each new falsehood tightening the noose he'd placed around his own neck.

Ice-cold dread splashed down his back. He clasped a hand to his mouth, wheezing through his shaking fingers. Then what, his mind demanded. Then what?

When the Nein arrived, Essek had cleaned himself up, his guilt and his panic sealed behind a cool facade. They came in their usual whirlwind of chaos, and he wondered if Mollymauk was listening in as they chattered among themselves, talking over each other and at him as always, a trait that had gone from infuriating to only a mild annoyance. Any time their jabbering grew to be too much, spiked anger in his chest, some part of his heart reminded him that he liked these people, and the resentment couldn't take hold.

"Hey. Hey." It was Beauregard's abrasive voice that broke him from his thoughts. She lifted a quizzical eyebrow. If there was anyone to be wary of, aside from Caduceus, it was her. Her eyes were dangerously sharp. "You get stuck up there?" She asked, pointing upwards.

Essek looked up, pausing for a long moment. He knew he was wrong even as he asked, "Upstairs?"

"No the — the sky, the clouds, you know." She waved a hand. When Essek didn't grant her an inch, she blustered, "Head in the clouds? Stuck with your head in — never mind." She deflated with a sigh. Rubbing her temples, Beau said, "You're being weird, what's up with that?"

And that was exactly why he was wary of her.

It would be safest to just brush it off. He could blame it on a project, on stress, on other responsibilities. That would be safe, that would be smart, but curiosity, as always, was present to drag him down.

"Something you asked a while ago stuck with me, that's all," Essek told her. He brushed his hair up and back, out of his face. "Nott asked me about a — Lucien? Molly?" He struggled not to tack the mauk onto the end. It had been Jester who gave that name, hadn't it? Molly had a cult.

He should probably ask Mollymauk about said cult.

It took Essek a moment to notice the others had gone quiet. A few of them looked to Yasha, whose fingers were squeezed tight around her own arms.

Of course. He instantly realized how idiotic he'd been — they still thought Mollymauk was dead.

"Yeah," Beau said, with the kind of casual tone that was audibly forced. He didn't know the details of Mollymauk's death, not even how long ago it had been, but the Nein had arrived without him quite some time ago. They'd likely grown used to the sting, even if the tension in Beau's body was unmistakeable. "He used to travel with us, and then one day he died. Was killed. He — yeah. You know something?" She glared, defensive in the same manner as a dog that bared its teeth when it was hurt.

Essek ignored the question. "I just wondered who he was," he murmured, voice soft. "I... apologize if I've stumbled onto a sore subject."

If anything, it was just tense. They hadn't seemed to mind the conversation much when they brought it up, but it seemed that from an outsider, the question was ill received.

"He was..." Veth piped up with some hesitance. "Kind of a dick, honestly?" , It sent a ripple through the Nein. Yasha tensed, the rest looking torn between amusement and discomfort. "He'd make people squirm on purpose and had a lot of sex when he was rooming with Fjord." Her voice took on a hesitant laugh. "Like. A whole lot —"

"Yes, yes, but let's not speak ill of the... departed." Fjord's interjection petered into something soft. "He was a friend, you know."

"Of course!" Veth gave him a halfhearted glare. "I know that, obviously! I loved him as much as the rest of you. He was an — an asshole, and the fact he's dead makes us all act like that isn't true. But I loved him." Her shoulders sagged. "He danced with me, remember? That was fun."

The silence stretched. It was, of course, Jester who broke it in the end, with a bright, "Molly knew things!" Even through her cheer, there was a watery quality to her smile, while Beau winced. "When we first met, he told my fortune. Look!" She whisked a hand into her back, pulling out a deck of cards. She fanned them out for Essek to see, revealing that they were incomplete, most of them still blank. Several held a different art style from the rest, and the imagery presented made it easy for Essek to guess she'd picked up the legacy. Her art was actually quite impressive when she wasn't desecrating holy sites. "He made these himself!" She beamed. "He was — he was still making them — he —"

Essek's heart jumped. Her smile was broad, but tears were welling up in her eyes as she spoke, her voice starting to crack. He floundered, a hand lifting and hesitating in the air. Beauregard was already sweeping forward, putting an arm around her shoulders to pull her close.

"He was full of shit and every other word out of his mouth was a fucking lie," Beau bit out. "But he made people happy. And then he died." She clenched her jaw. "And I'm sure he's lording it over us somewhere."

The truth had become a jagged thing. It wasn't such an easy secret to hold onto now, barbed with thorns and drawing blood. Not his own, but theirs, it wrapped tight around their throats and threatened to slice. So Essek held his tongue, watching as the Nein recovered from the hurt he'd returned to them. Yasha turned and left, Jester breaking away from Beau to give chase. The rest remained in place, and Essek's gaze panned past Caduceus and to the other one of them who hadn't said a thing — to find Caleb with his eyes shut as he ground his thumb against his forehead.

There was the impulse to question again, wanting Caleb's opinion. What did he think of the tiefling, as ostentatious as he was, far too bright and too loud and yet...

The question would be out of place. And it was inane, regardless. The Nein clearly loved him. There was no reason to question their deeper bonds. But gods if he didn't want to know what the two of them had looked like side by side.

A flush rose to his cheeks, half embarrassment and half outright shame. Whatever depraved curiosity had seized him, this was not the time for it, when he'd just reawakened his friends' grief. It was wrong. And gods help him, Essek wanted to be better for them.

But he couldn't be. Not yet, and maybe not ever. That was something to calculate later. For now, it was just another feeble tally in paying back his debt to them all, as he gathered them up to whisk them away. Whatever he earned was nullified at once, with Jester spending paints of magic beyond even the best conjuration caster, just to make him a parasol. She could use those to open holes in reality, and she had wasted her paint to shield his eyes from the light.

Essek returned home with a burning in his eyes, and he wished it was thanks to the sun.

Working with the Cerberus Assembly did not mean Essek liked them. In return, he knew all too well they did not like him.

They needed each other, however. Mutually assured destruction was an excellent motivator. So as scheduled, Essek strode to the full length mirror in his bedroom. He'd locked and warded the room, so that no sound could pass beyond that door, no nosy tieflings could stick a hairpin in the lock. What Mollymauk was even doing wasn't of much concern right now, not when he'd spent the day scrambling through his reports to make sure he had all the right details in place, what to offer and what to withhold, what questions to ask as well.

The stern form of Ludinus Da'leth shimmered into view. As usual, Essek's gaze was drawn to his eyebrows, elaborately shaped caterpillars that they were. He missed the man's greeting entirely, but offered one of his own, coolly polite.

It was little more than the usual exchange of information. "I will be meeting you as usual, in the guise of Dezran Thain," Essek said, as they'd already established half a dozen times before.

"Yes, yes," Ludinus sighed. "We are all quite aware of the plan by this point. Do not mess it up, Thelyss."

Essek's gaze was cold. "Thus far my pieces of the operation have run perfectly. I've had no annexes gallivanting with demon cults thus far."

Ludinus' face pinched, to his gratification. "I'm sure there is much you could tell me about demon cults," he returned, and Essek hated to feel his lips peel back in a snarl. He schooled his expression, fingers curling into fists beneath his robe.

"After all," Ludinus continued, "you reported attacks by gnolls within the city."

Essek paused, then frowned. "How did you know that?

"Previously, we had seen similar activity in the Empire," Ludinus reported, "though not nearly so dramatic. We have good reason to believe they may be followers of Yeenoghu."

It wasn't really an answer, Essek noted, but let it slide. Yeenoghu was the demon prince of hunger, worshiped primarily by gnolls. Some even believed that gnolls were all demons sent by him to the Material Plane, but some also believed drow all worshiped Lloth. It would, unfortunately, explain the near-feral behavior of Xhorhasian citizens. The Nein had been dealing with demons — or at least fiends — for a long time, after all.

"Regardless, it's being handled," was all Essek said, getting a grunt in return. "If that is all?"

"It is. Farewell."

The mirror blurred an instant later, before returning to a reflective surface. Essek stared at himself, stiff and clean and not a hair out of place, and let out a long groan as he rested his forehead against the glass.

And then what.

He couldn't cut ties with the Assembly. He couldn't admit his sins to the Nein. So then what. One side was going to go up in flames and burn the other with it, and where did that leave Essek except as a wretched creature, sobbing that he'd been burned after reaching into the fire.

Returning Mollymauk was not going to relieve his guilt. He knew that. The lie had been a pleasant fantasy while it lasted.

Essek stepped away, taking a glance at the clock. The entire day had slipped by in a blink, and he hadn't eaten a thing. Nor had he heard from Mollymauk. Perhaps they could find a place to sit down and eat dinner, with Essek too tired to cook and too hungry to wait.

Mollymauk was not in the house. The suspicion settled in when he checked the tiefling's bedroom and the living room, and then the kitchen for good measure, and didn't find so much as a spaded tail. It was when he'd trekked around the house calling for him that Essek felt dreaded confidence take hold: Mollymauk had left.

A string of curses followed Essek out the door. He grabbed a lock of fur out of his bag, burning it to ash as he cast his senses out for Mollymauk's presence. The ley lines that twined through the air reverberated in response, empty of his target.

The cabbie he hired was more than a little confused at Essek's request, but happy to comply for the pay it would earn him. They marched up and down the streets of Xhorhas, combing through that web strand by strand. The spell ran out and he cast it again, irritation building at the sheer waste of magic. It only spiked when the spell reacted to its target.

The spell picked up on Mollymauk within a crowded bar. Essek grimaced as he handed over a handful of coin, waiting for the cabbie to trot away before he burned yet another spell. A drow who did not look nor dress like Essek Thelyss walked inside with a sour look on his face, eyes cast about the bar in search of the easiest person to find.

Mollymauk stuck out, but the tones of his skin actually gave him a vague chance at blending in. Searching for tails wouldn't do him much good, as some elves did have them, tufted instead of spaded at their tips, so it was horns Essek looked for instead.

He found the tiefling at a booth of the bar, seated in the lap of an elf with a hand rested on his cheek. There was a woman at his side, leaning against the first elf to murmur something in his ear, the two speaking conspiratorially as Mollymauk's smile grew broader, leaning away from the man to catch the female elf's lips.

It was a filthy kiss. Essek could see their tongues, an outraged blush rising on his cheeks. He twirled a wire tight around his forefinger, hissing, "Mollymauk, what in the hells are you doing?"

Molly's head twitched. Essek voice was a growl as he added "You can respond in a whisper."

The tiefling relaxed back into the lap of the male elf, tipping his head back on his shoulder and toying with his hair. "I'm having fun. You're free to join." By the movement of his head, Essek knew he was searching the bar. His eyes slid over Essek, not recognizing the disguise. "Where are you?"

"Looking directly at you."

It took a beat for their eyes to lock. Molly smiled, murmured something to his companions, and gave them each a kiss on the lips before sauntering his way across the bar and towards Essek. "I didn't think you were the type!" He grinned. "If I'd known, I would have invited you."

"I'm not," Essek said, voice terse. "I was looking for you because you left without saying a word."

"And you can just track me down?" He looked alarmed at first, then just sighed. "Fucking wizards. Well, apologies for the scare, Mister Thelyss, I'll be sure to at least leave a note next time, yeah?" He cocked an eyebrow.

"You should not be here at all," Essek hissed. Mollymauk's brow furrowed. "Aside from the blatant danger of a tiefling wandering around the city, it's depraved."

Molly blinked at him. "Huh," he said. "You're full of surprises today, Mister Thelyss. It's a little depraved, sure, but it's not bad."

"That —" Essek drew a breath and let it out with a huff. He'd been taught to be careful with such contact. Representing Den Thelyss meant having all eyes on him. Any amount of childish irresponsibility would be seen and remembered. "That is fair," Essek admitted, before his voice sharpened again. "I misspoke, but I still will not have you bringing some..." He waved a hand, "venereal disease back to my home. I am not paying a cleric because you played with the wrong person."

"Fucked," Mollymauk corrected. "Had sex with. Let's use our adult words." He gave a smirk, and in that moment Essek rather disliked Mollymauk Tealeaf. His glower must have translated, because the tiefling put up his hands a moment later, "But, alright. I'll be safe about it, pinky swear."

He dropped one hand, sticking the little finger out on the other. Essek just stared at him until Mollymauk gave a, "Oh for the love of — seriously?" Then he grabbed Essek's hand, bending his pinky up to hook them together. "Pinky swear! Like this! I didn't even have a childhood and I know what this is!"

"I didn't have much of one, either," Essek frowned. "I know what it is, but it seems... inane."

"Gods, you're so sad," Mollymauk breathed, looking aghast. "Are you sure you don't want to come back with me? You need to relax, and they like group stuff —"

"I am fine," Essek hastily interjected. "Thank you, Mollymauk, but I am quite fine."

"What if it was just me, then?"

The offer was stunningly sincere. It was blunt and honest, a genuine question, Mollymauk meeting his gaze with his head tipped to the side.

Essek swallowed.

Did he want to kiss Mollymauk Tealeaf? Yes, far too much. He wanted more than he should, and not just from Mollymauk himself. But it would be wrong, wouldn't it, when Mollymauk's mind was still piecing itself together, when everything Essek presented of himself was deception.

So he said, "No." And Mollymauk just shrugged, seeming perfectly unbothered. "But —" He sighed. He knew his irritation was born of jealousy, and now that he'd just turned down exactly what he wanted, he had no leg to stand on. "Just keep it subtle along with safe, please. I have a reputation, and you are beginning to extend to it. If the Shadowhand is seen with a tiefling with a reputation for being..." He grasped for a word.

"Slutty?" Molly suggested.

"Promiscuous," Essek said. "It will reflect badly."

Mollymauk stretched his arms over his head, and Essek decidedly did not look at how his muscles flexed with the motion. "Alright," he shrugged, going lax again. "That's a tall order, Mister Thelyss, but I'll see what I can do."

"You will?" He blinked.

Molly gave him a bemused look. "Yeah? You asked, so, sure."

"Fjord said you were a terrible roommate," Essek said. "You would invite people into your shared room without his input."

"Hey, he never asked me to stop! I think." Molly pondered it for a moment before seeming to give it up. "Ah, whatever. At the very least I'm respecting your wishes this time."

Essek shook his head, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I suppose that will have to do."

"So if we're done...?" Mollymauk looked expectantly, and Essek sighed as he waved his dismissal. He watched the tiefling rejoin his partners, sinking back into the booth, and turned away before he could witness anything unsavory.

His life had become a stack of contradictions. The Nein were his friends, and yet he betrayed them at every turn. He wanted nothing to do with the Assembly and yet couldn't sever his ties. He wanted... something from Mollymauk Tealeaf, and refused it when it was offered. Essek's heart was heavy as he made his way home, the house quiet and empty and yawning.

Today, he was jealous of the other peoples of Exandria. Humans and halflings and tieflings, nearly anyone who wasn't an elf, they got the luxury of sleep at the end of the day. At least they could escape their thoughts when they rested.

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

Supercorp True Crime AU, Pt 2

(continued from Part 1)

We don’t see Lena’s experience, focusing instead on Kara’s increasingly desperate search for her. Luckily, Lena’s struggles in her apartment leaves them evidence– blood and hair and fibers. They rush it through the labs, plug it into VICAP, and anxiously wait for a hit.

Meanwhile, they pore through CCTV footage of the building and the surrounding streets, anything to try and get a lead as to the unsub’s identity– or his location– as the deadline ticks closer.

They’re too late. The fourteenth day comes and goes, and something in the room snaps, the tension giving way to despair. But they keep looking, waiting for the alert of another body found.

The call never comes.

Before they have time wonder what it might mean, VICAP gets a match to a registered sex offender who’d apparently kept himself clean in the decades since his release from prison– and had inherited an isolated cabin up in the mountains.

They rush to the address listed, and soon find the reason for the lack of body. The man is lying dead in the grass just off his front porch, with an assault rifle in his hands and a kitchen knife buried in his thigh– the cause of death apparently a severed femoral artery.

A search of the cabin uncovers nothing but a hidden room Kara wishes had remained unseen– the only trace of Lena are her shoes tossed carelessly inside a closet.

Their profile indicates the man worked alone, so the only conclusion they can draw is that Lena somehow got her hands on the knife, struck low and hard, and then bolted into the surrounding forest.

It’s soon apparent that the rifle had at least been somewhat effective in its purpose before it’s user had bled out: they find a trail of blood that leads them deep, deep into the woods. There’s no path, and even in daylight the foliage casts such shadow they can barely see the speckles of blood. Eventually, they lose it entirely at a stream.

The search party fans out, and Kara strikes out with her thoughts full of Lena. The unsub has been dead for days, and if the timeline held true, then Lena likely made her escape when he tried to move her to the final kill site. Which means she’s been out in the wild for days.

Alone. Wounded. Terrified.

She’s so deep in thought that she almost walks straight off a sheer drop to a stony riverbed below. Only a quick grab onto a tree at the precipice keeps her from going over, and her ears roar as she stares at the bottom of the ravine.

And then she freezes when one shadow on the rocks below doesn’t match the speckled shade of foliage.

Blood.

Without a second thought she slides down the steep embankment, nearly breaking her neck in the process, but her heart doesn’t truly start to pound until she spots the trail of blood that leads off into the glade beyond.

“Lena? Lena!”

Her voice bounces off the leaves and stones, making her feel very small she picks her way through the brush, following the blood-smeared trail.

She finds Lena at the wide base of an oak tree, curled tightly to conserve heat.

“LENA!!” Kara slides to her knees at Lena’s side, searching for a pulse. Her bare feet are battered and bloody, and the back of her shirt is dark with blood that has slowly pooled against the bark. Kara’s fingers hit metal before they find a pulse– handcuffs. Battered and smeared with blood and dirt, but still intact.

Kara can’t find a pulse beneath the chill skin of Lena’s wrist, but relief floods her when Lena’s chest lifts in a ragged breath.

“Lena! Lena, hey! Can you hear me?” Kara pats gently at an ashen cheek, earning a flutter of eyelashes. “That’s it, Lena open your eyes for me–”

Green eyes peek through dirty lashes, and Kara’s heart lifts for the first time in weeks as she twists to bellow over her shoulder.

“I’VE GOT HER!!”

The radio crackles at her hip, and she scrambles for it to relay their position, even as distant voice lift in response to her shout.

“We’ll need a medical team and travois,” Kara says, her voice still shaking as she stares at the broken bone poking out of Lena’s thigh– no doubt a result of the sharp drop at their backs, which Lena likely wouldn’t have been so lucky to avoid.

There’s something awful about a simple misstep being the thing to render Lena so helpless, after escaping a monster, and a gunshot wound.

“She’s in bad shape.”

A response crackles over the radio, but it doesn’t register over the sound of her name rasping from Lena’s lips.

“Kar…”

She doesn’t quite make it, her eyelids drooping shut as her eyes roll ominously. “No, no, no, hey! Hey, stay with me, okay?”

Kara strips off her pack, immediately digging through its contents for the mylar emergency blanket she’d brought with her. When she settled it over Lena, she saw Lena’s shoulders relax ever so slightly at the instant warmth.

“D'you get ‘im?” Lena asks, unable to muster more than a whisper through lips numbed by exhaustion and shock.

“You got him,” Kara corrects, as the first of the medics comes scraping down the slope. “He’s dead.”

She isn’t sure Lena hears her, but when Kara slips her hand into Lena’s, she feels the slightest pressure answer back.

—-

Kara visits Lena every day– she wouldn’t leave at all if the nurses didn’t enforce their visiting hours with an iron fist.

But the time away from the hospital gives her time to tie up the loose ends of the investigation, and to rest and clean herself up so that she resembled something human the next time visits. Best of all, it gives her a chance to see Lena’s features lift into a smile every time she walks in the room.

“They got you on the good stuff then?” Kara asks the first time it happens– the first time Lena is conscious and lucid and pain-free.

Lena’s eyebrows shrug in muted amusement. “Must be.”

With a concussion, a broken wrist, a compound fracture of her right femoral shaft, and not one but two gunshot wounds, she’s in far better spirits that she might have a right to be. Her leg would stay in traction until she’s well enough to undergo surgery to repair it, and tubes were hard at work draining the fluid that had gathered in her chest cavity courtesy of the bullet wounds.

Kara sets her vase of flowers on the small counter across from the bed, and herself in the visitor chair, passing a large, plush teddy bear to the bed bound patient. Lena accepts it with a thin but genuine smile.

“Thank you.”

“Figured you could use the company when I’m driven away every night.”

Lena hugs it gently to her chest. “It’s soft…”

“And cute,” Kara teases. “Just like you.”

She earns another little smile, but it quickly fades as Lena’s features grow solemn. “I owe you an apology, Kara.”

Kara shakes her head no. “Lena…”

“Please let me finish,” Lena insists, hugging the bear that much closer. Kara’s jaw clicks shut. “I had a lot of time to think in there, knowing I was probably going to die, and… my biggest regret was how I’d left things with you.”

“But you were right, Lena. About everything–”

“Which you admitted a long time ago.” A thin shoulder lifts under the hospital gown. “When you tried to get me to back off, it felt like a power play. I resented your attempt at control, and I was so angry that you turned out to be just like…”

She trails off, pressing her lips together as she searches for new words.

“It’s been so long since anyone cared about me, in that way, that I didn’t realize you said it out of worry. And by the time I did���”

Lena’s gaze falls to the the bear in her arms, her fingers combing through its soft fur.

“By the time I did… I was afraid of much I missed you.”

Kara stares at her, speechless. Lena swallows thickly, and she wipes sharply at her bruised cheeks to dry the tears starting to gather.

“I’m sorry I let it go so long. You deserve better–”

Without thinking, Kara pulls the bear from Lena’s arms and fills the emptied space with herself, leaning awkardly to wrap her arms around Lena with the utmost care. Lena clings to her in an instant, her tears dampening the collar of Kara’s shirt.

“I’m sorry,” Lena murmurs. “I’m so sorry…”

“I’m sorry too,” Kara returns softly. “But I’m so, so grateful to have a chance to fix it.”

When the hospital releases Lena with the caveat she have someone on hand to assist, it’s Kara she goes home with.

By the time Lena’s able to be on her own… neither of them make any effort to leave.

[ticklybtswriter]

unfair

summary: having been dragged to a video shoot by your seven friends, you thought nothing of it. well, until you found out what your true purpose of it was.

author’s note: this is my first tickle fic ever and i’m honestly pretty nervous but also really pumped to write it!! there’s obviously a lot of room to grow and i do accept constructive criticism so if you have any tips, let me know!! but other than that,i hope you all enjoy it!! -rosalie

You knew that something was going on when Jungkook and Jimin practically begged you to come to their next video. They’d even gone as far as to pull out the puppy dog eyes, a surefire way to get you to do whatever they wanted. So, you gave in and accompanied them to the filming site.

In truth, you weren’t really paying attention to what was going on around you. That was probably your second mistake after allowing yourself to be dragged here in the first place.

But it wasn’t really your fault for not focusing either. You had always felt a bit off when on set with them. You weren’t an idol or a staff member who had a specific job to be doing. You were just sort of there... That’s why you kept your head down, staring at your phone for a good amount of time. As far as you were concerned, your surroundings were nothing of importance. Sounds were white noise. Well, they were until-

“Blah blah, tickle-”

Your head instantly shot up, the realm of your phone drifting from your mind in a single second. A sudden tingle opened up in the pits of your stomach at the sound of that dreaded word. A blush took over your face as the man described the game. A game that involved them tickling one another.

Those sons of bitches... this was their plan all along. They begged you to come here so they could get you flustered beyond belief... Those dicks.

Your revelation was soon confirmed when you saw Yoongi, the god of anticipation and probably the mastermind of this entire scheme, send a wink your way. That in itself made you start to subtly squirm.

Ever since they found out about your little secret, the boys would look for any excuse to absolutely wreck you. If you made a snarky comment or you reached up to grab something, you instantly fell victim to their mischievous smirks and tortuous fingers. Hell, sometimes they didn’t even look for a reason to attack you. You couldn't even begin to count the number of times Jin or Jungkook saw you going about your day and decided to trail circles with their fingers across your stomach.

You shivered at the memories.

They wasted no time in starting your their torture. The game was similar to the one they had done a few years ago where they had water in their mouths. In this one, there was no water, and the object was to hold in their laughter, a game that Hoseok constantly made you play.

Jimin was up first. It wasn’t hard for the boys to break him. A few simple tweaks against his sides and to his neck was enough to side him into hysterics.

It was the same with Namjoon. Namjoon puts up this great act, but he is definitely just as ticklish as some of the others. (Don’t get it twisted, though, he will still tickle the shit out of you and is in no way a ler to be trifled with.)

The entire time this was happening, you were stuck in your seat. You wanted to squirm since the faded memories of their hands scratching mercilessly at your skin was returning to the forefront of your mind while at the same time not wanting to attract any attention to yourself. So, you sat there, suffering while imagining yourself in the position of whoever was getting attacked.

Halfway through Yoongi’s turn, a staff member noticed your flushed face and asked, “Are you alright?”

“Hmm? Yeah!” You whispered while waving her off. “I’m fine, thank you!”

“Are you sure? You look pretty red.”

“Yeah, you know, actually, do you know where I can get some water?”

She told you that there was a room in the hallway where a bunch of snacks and beverages were set up for the staff and guys. You saw this as a window of opportunity to inconspicuously leave the set and hide in their dressing room.

The moment you opened that door, you threw yourself onto the couch. You grabbed a pillow and screamed into it. The images of them tickling each other, just to mess with you, were fresh in your mind and were replaying over like a broken record. Those memories only served to push your further and further into a lee mood. Oh, how you wished vengeance upon them...

Perhaps an hour passed before you heard the door open and multiple pairs of feet sounded around you. You couldn’t see them because you had hidden in a large blanket, both as an act of protest against them and to mask just how flustered you really were.

“Aww,” Hoseok cooed. “Is someone being shy?”

“No,” You grumbled.

You felt the couch dip beside you and someone lean against your curled-up self. That person asked, “No? But you seemed so into it before you ran off!”

“Yeah, that wasn’t very nice, you know.” 

You ignored Tae and Jimin’s words and buried yourself deeper into the blanket. You let out a soft curse that you thought would be muffled by the thick fabric, but you were proven wrong.

“What was that, baby girl?”

You knew you were fucked. Why? Because Namjoon had done two things just then. The first was call you ‘baby girl’ because he definitely knew how that nickname made you blush. The second was use the tone of voice that held pure, mischievous ler-ness. The realization kept your tongue firmly in your mouth.

“Hyung,” Jungkook piped up. “I think Y/N is ignoring you!”

“I think you’re right!”

“Well, we have to do something about that!” Jin announced.

Right after he said that, the blanket was ripped from your body. You shivered at the sudden loss of warmth but didn’t have much time to think on it before they pounced. Your arms, after only a few seconds of struggle, were pulled over your head while someone gathered your ankles in their strong arms.

“Wahait!” You giggled. “This isn’t fahahair!”

“Oh, and why’s that?” Yoongi questioned as he inched his nimble fingers towards your now-bare stomach.

“B-Because, you were the ones that put me in th-this mood by bringing me here!” Perhaps you got a little too confident in your accusation. You figured that out when Tae, the one holding your sock-clad feet you discovered, gasped.

“Now you’re accusing us for your behavior?”

“You just dug your own grave, princess!” Hoseok smirked.

“Ple-WAHAHAIT!”

All seven pairs of hands descended upon your body as if they were a singular unit. At once, every nerve was aight with the ticklish sensations.

Namjoon had taken residence beside your head so that he could reach over and scribble at your underarms. You desperately wanted to pull your hands down, but Jungkook, with his great strength, made sure that you couldn’t. He used his free hand- yes, the bastard was only using one hand to keep you in place- to wiggle his fingers into your neck. On instinct, you pressed your head to your shoulder to attempt to ease the ticklish feelings but only succeeded in keeping his hand right where he wanted.

“Aww, cutie!” Jungkook gushed. “You trapped my fingers! I can’t get them out!”

“Yeheheah! I-I knhow!”

“Oh, is the ticklee getting a little sassy?” Hoseok used this as an incentive to squeeze your left side even harder while Jin was busily spidering his fingers on your right.

“N-Nohoho, I-I’m nohoHOHOT!” You exclaimed when Yoongi decided to stop poking at your stomach and ventured to wiggle his finger in your belly button.

You let out a squeak when Jimin decided to squeeze at your knees with one hand and squeeze your hip with the other. It made him break out into this giddy smile, “I’m so glad you like this, angel! It means we get to hear these adorable sounds of yours all. The. Time.” He accentuated each word with another squeeze to your hips.

“He’s right!” Jin shouted over your frantic laughter. “And you’re just so cute like this!”

Hums of approval came from each of the men around you, and if you weren’t blushing furiously before, you definitely were now.

“STOHOP TEHEHEASI-” You couldn’t even get the final syllable out before Namjoon picked up the speed in scratching at your armpits.

“Never.” Yoongi plainly told you with that devilish smile. “You love it too much.”

You were embarrassed beyond words, your body was spent, and you wanted nothing more than to curl back up in that blanket to hide. But at the same time, you were so blissfully happy. That smile on your face wasn’t in any way forced; it really was just a truly adorable sight to behold.

They were right in that you were enjoying every second of it, and they knew that. It was why they were having so much fun, too. They had the power to both wreck and tease you out of your mind while also giving you such joy, a deadly combination.

After a while, though, tears started forming and your breath was a little too shallow for comfort.

“Alright, let’s give her some air.” Namjoon firmly spoke. He ruffled your hair affectionately. “Can’t kill you just yet.”

Jungkook let go of your arms after one more teasing flick of his fingers to your neck. When he finally did, you rubbed at your stomach to ease away the ghost tickles that still remained and you brought your knees to your chest. Everyone around you chuckled at your instantaneous reaction, all murmuring of your cuteness in doing so.

“You ready to go home?” Yoongi asked, taking your hand in his.

So you all can destroy me more? “Yeah.”

[dandeaix-oomph]

incomplete THEY FUCK IN THE COFFIN chapter 4: cooking/drunk

Day Thirty-Two.

Ogata wakes to Sugimoto kissing him on his shoulder.

“Get up,” Sugimoto whispers, his eyes glitter-pen gold in the dim light. “It’s snowing. First snow. Come watch it with me.”

Ogata doesn’t care. He pulls the blanket tighter around him. “I want to sleep.” 

“You can go back to sleep later.”

“No.”

For a moment, Ogata thinks that he has successfully dismissed Sugimoto as the bed dips and lifts as Sugimoto slips away. Then Sugimoto’s shadow falls over him and Ogata is scooped out of bed, blanket and all.

Sugimoto’s grin is too fucking bright for the asscrack of dawn. “You can sleep if you want,” he taunts, carrying Ogata out into the living room. 

The couch is pushed up against the window; it seems Sugimoto has been prepared. He dumps Ogata onto the couch before sliding over the armrest, sliding the windows open as he hangs his arms out.

Cold, Ogata thinks, bundling himself up with the blanket. He hasn’t bothered putting on clothes after last night, what with Sugimoto acting as a human furnace beside him. “Winter sunrises are dreary,” he comments, leaning against Sugimoto. 

Sugimoto raises an arm and hooks it around Ogata’s shoulders. “But I like to watch the snowfall.”

“Hmm.” Nuzzles Sugimoto’s chest. It’s like a memory pillow. “No snow in space?”

“None at all. Only rain and hail and occasionally, flaming debris.”

Ogata snorts. “Flaming debris? Very creative.”

“I don’t know what’s up with that too.” He buries his nose in Ogata’s hair. Kisses his hairline. “Don’t worry, no one has ever been struck by it yet. It’s like those debris have eyes: they don’t strike people.”

“So they are… semi-sentient?”

“Who knows.” Sugimoto stares out of the window again. “As much as sacred sites have their spirits, I suppose.”

-

The mortality rate always goes up during the winter season, but Ogata thinks he can afford to take a break, just for a day.

He switches off his phone and leaves the closed sign on the door, and after turning up the heater, spends the morning sitting on the kitchen counter as Sugimoto tries to prepare them a meal - an attempt quickly abandoned after Sugimoto realises that Ogata has been stealing the sliced sashimi every time he looks away.

“Out,” Sugimoto commands, trying to shove Ogata out of the kitchen. “Or there’ll be no more gourmet dishes for you.”

“Who cares,” Ogata replies, and proceeds to stick his hands down under Sugimoto’s pants.

“You know,” Sugimoto mutters, after they ended up making out on the kitchen floor and leaving Ogata frustratingly hard, “there is something I want to show you.”

“Your dick anytime soon, I hope.”

“Wait, wai -” Sugimoto seizes Ogata’s wrists. “Give me just five minutes. You see what it is, then we’ll get to fucking on a proper bed, ok? Not the, the kitchen floor, we prepare food here, it’s unsanitary.”

“It’s not like any of us don’t swallow -”

“Later!” Sugimoto shouts frantically. Funny how Sugimoto still gets embarrassed about sex even after so long. “The garage first.”

“The garage? I thought I’m not allowed in until you’re done?” That rule is created after Ogata has ribbed him too hard and Sugimoto ended up sulking for the next two days. 

“I am done,” Sugimoto replies gravely. The statement lands with a thud, heavy with finality. “Mostly. I want you to take a look at it.”

Ogata is curious, but he is also achingly hard. “Must it be now?”

“It’ll only take five minutes,” Sugimoto stresses. 

Which is how they end up stumbling into the garage, Ogata still trying to nip at Sugimoto's ear while Sugimoto squirms and chuckles in equal measure.

“Hey, be serious now.” Sugimoto pecks him on his right temple before nudging Ogata around to face the coffin. “What do you think of it?”

“Trashy.”

“You didn’t even look at it,” Sugimoto protests, “honestly, Ogata. This is important to me. Did I do alright?”

“You’ve definitely passed at first glance, at least,” Ogata informs dryly, finally pulling away. “Fine. Let’s have a look then.”

Sugimoto clasps his hands nervously behind his back as Ogata circles the coffin. Ogata checks the seams and the edges. No problem there, as per usual.

The designs, however.

“It… is pretty good, actually.” Albeit rather simple. Nevertheless, it is a far cry from when Sugimoto first started out: Ogata likes the patterns that Sugimoto has etched on the corners instead of merely tolerating their mediocrity. That’s a first. “Although I wasn’t expecting something this minimalistic. Your drafts have been much more detailed.”

“About that.” Sugimoto scratches his neck. “I was hoping that you can finish it for me.”

That is unexpected. Absently, Ogata traces a spiral.  “I think you mentioned it before. Finishing touches, you called it.”

“I did. I wasn’t sure you remember.”

“Surprise,” Ogata answers flatly. “But the way you drafted around this space here...” He finally looks up. “This might as well be a blank canvas for me.”

“It is.” Sugimoto takes a step closer. Tentatively, he flattens his palm against the side of the coffin. “I reached the limits of my skills first, and then I ran out of ideas. I mean, you know what they say: grown-ups aren’t the most creative. Unless we fight to keep it, we will forget the fantasies of our childhood.

Ogata’s childhood has felt like a blanket made of lead, dragging him down until he manages to chip a hole in it so he can finally poke his head out and breathe. “Don’t say it like that��s a good thing.”

“But it can be,” Sugimoto insists. He ruffles Ogata’s hair, laughing when Ogata elbows him. “Just because you don’t throw them out, doesn’t mean that they’re all deadweights.”

“That’s sentimentality speaking.”

“Nothing wrong with that too. Without infusing anything with meaning, they’re all just items.” Sugimoto turns back to his coffin again. “But if you give it enough purpose… Remember how proud we used to be over some doodles when we’re kids? Sometimes, I feel like anything I create can come to life: grab a magic crayon. Draw an apple tree and a ferocious monster to guard it, and then a hot air balloon to fly you home.”

“Scribble a moon and your bedroom window around it, and then a cozy bed for you to sleep in.” Ogata taps on the edge. “And then they nail down the lid and burn you down into ashes at eight hundred degree celsius.”

“That took a morbid turn.”

“An absolute conversation killer,” Ogata agrees. “So are you done? Can we fuck now?”

“Ogata.” 

“You said five min - stop grinning like that.” Ogata squishes Sugimoto’s cheeks with both hands. “I said stop it.”

Sugimoto puts an arm around Ogata’s waist. “You’re ridiculous.”

“No, I’m blue-balled.” Without hesitation, Ogata loops his arms around Sugimoto’s neck and jumps - Sugimoto’s hands dart out to grip Ogata by the thigh, but the suddenness of the movement has thrown off his balance, and Sugimoto staggers back, a leg kicking in the air, before he rights himself and tilts forward.

For a precarious moment, Ogata thinks that Sugimoto will end up dropping him; then Sugimoto has one hand flattened on his lower back and the other gripping the edge of the coffin.

Huh. A very convenient position. Ogata unhooks a leg. It thuds loudly at the base of the coffin.

“Please don’t do that again,” says Sugimoto.

Ogata quirks the end of his lips. “We’ll see.” Then, “Hey, a bed is a bed, right?”

Sugimoto looks aghast as he pats on the coffin. “This is a metaphor."

“You didn’t specify,” Ogata retorts smugly. “And isn’t it tradition to christen a new bed?”

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes.” 

 "Ogata," Sugimoto pleads, "I've spent too long on this coffin to get any dubious stains on it."

"I know eight different ways to bleach out stains from wood."

"That's not -"

"Either you fuck me right now," Ogata interrupts, "or no sex for a week."

Sugimoto does not look impressed. “We both know that’s not going to happen.”

Now that’s not fair. Ogata may have been the one initiating sex more often, but he’s also a stubborn bastard. “Do you wanna bet?”

“I feel like I’ll lose either way,” Sugimoto confesses. Reluctantly, he lets Ogata pull him down, his body a comfortable weight on top as he tucks his arms under Ogata’s lower back.

Sugimoto buries his face against Ogata’s sternum. The tip of his ears are red. “Why do you always do this to me?”

Ogata curls his fingers into Sugimoto’s hair. “Do what?”

“You know what.” Sugimoto stares up at him, eyes accusing before they soften into something, something that Ogata does not want to name. “You’re a handful.”

(It’s insanity-inducing, the way that Sugimoto gazes up at him. It makes his breath stutter, his heart fluttering like those stupid butterflies when they struggle to free themselves from a spider’s web. Sugimoto can probably hear the way that his lungs hollow when Sugimoto smiles, so soft, so fucking tender, and what the hell is this, Ogata doesn’t -)

Ogata jerks Sugimoto’s head back, relaxing when those eyes squeeze shut. He’s going to make Sugimoto fucking cry. “Just shut up and fuck me, Sugimoto.”

“Don’t put it that way,” Sugimoto protests, his eyebrows knitting together even as his lips curl. He kisses Ogata on the left pec, over his heart, and rests his lips there. Badump, badump; the rhythm of human love and human lives. “I am fond of you.”

“Is that a confession I hear?”

“If you wish,” Sugimoto allows. “As I’ve said, It can be anything at all - I could be anything you want me to be, you know.”

Ogata grabs the baby hair at the base of Sugimoto’s skull and tugs until Sugimoto shifts again, a knee between Ogata’s thigh and his face so close that Ogata can barely feel the brush of chapped lips against his. “Can you?”

“Not anymore,” Sugimoto admits. “But once upon a time. Nevermore,” he continues, “unless it’s Neverland. But to visit you’ll need a vessel.” He laughs when Ogata raps his knuckles against the coffin. “Stop that, that joke has gone on long enough.”

Ogata grins. “Then make m -”

Sugimoto kisses him, soft as a rosebud, and so he concentrates on that. Concentrates on the pulse under his fingers, the heat, the flicker of the lashes when Sugimoto pauses to stare at him. 

Lovely, Ogata thinks before he can stop himself, and isn’t given the chance to berate his brain when Sugimoto starts tugging up Ogata’s sweater.

The hands are so hot against his sides, hot like tears, and they stream down to his hips to push down his pants to drip across his thighs and pool at his kidneys. Sugimoto’s mouth burns against his skin, and when he sucks around Ogata’s tit, Ogata feels a tremor rise from his bones, the earth rolling over in its slumber.

Kisses all the way down, cutting deep into his flesh - the thorns of rose vines, he thinks inbetween gasps, and wonders if it is worth the trouble to make Sugimoto run back upstairs for the lube. 

Sugimoto seems to have reached the same conclusion. “Don’t make me,” he begs, before mouthing at Ogata’s hipbone, as though that will drive his point in deeper. “Don’t spoil the mood.”

“You are the one spoiling the mood,” Ogata argues, jutting a knee up to nudge. Sugimoto kisses Ogata’s belly again, and that tickles, the muscles in his abdomen jumping before Ogata can pretend nonchalance. “Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?” Sugimoto has the widest smirk on his face as he rubs his chin above Ogata’s belly-button, the faintest shadow prickling the skin. “This doesn't feel good?”

“Of course not, you fucking tease -” Ogata curls upwards in a squirm that makes him feel more like a cooked prawn instead. “You -”

“Woah.” Sugimoto narrowly catches Ogata’s leg before it can kick him and fracture a bone, or something. Ogata almost wishes it can. “This is for making me do all the chores that you have been putting off for years.”

“You decide to outsource your labour for free, don’t complain.”

[awokenprince-a]

Chapter 2: Night Owls

The path to their destination is an easy one but the journey itself will prove difficult time and time again. Constantly on the look out for Fallen or any other dangers that may lurk nearby, it made him a bit on edge with someone who could barely fend for herself. He learned quickly that the The Hive was another constant fear that was on the back of his mind, but Rory seemed to be most terrified by them. He made note to no longer bring up their horrible stench of foul rot or abysmal treatment of live rituals as the mere mention of their name drained all the color from her face and made her quiet again for some time.

He wondered what she had personally experienced first hand but decided the horror stories were for another time. As they walked he did notice the quickened pace in her steps to be much closer to him after mentioning their fondness of anyone who would be an easy picking and w as alone. A mischievous smirk graced his features as Rory kept up with him. Now he would not have to constantly stop and wait for her to catch up. Next time he offers someone to their destination, he will just take them on his ship instead. Less of a headache.

Dusk began to creep behind them and after hours of silence. Her voice is soft against the silence. "Why are you in this area, by the way?"

He could tell her of the distant war held on the edge of the galaxy and wanting to have a mental break from it. Perhaps how countless other wars were starting to edge itself closer to this quiet part of the blue planet and he wanted to scout it out before it would become another nuclear site. He could also mention how his sister, Mara, wanted any new information on their ancestral home but wanted to keep it bound together in the few shared secrets they had.

"I'm an explorer."

He answered with a half truth. The other half will be kept tucked away. He learned that from his sister. He would ask for a more in depth question of why she wanted to risk her own life for an ocean view, but it did not interest him that much to learn why. The soft imagery of calm waves and crisp air filling his nostrils with a long forgotten nostalgia was a momentary comfort in the humidity of the woods as they drew closer to the edge of the continent. Now he just wanted to see the ocean itself and maybe even spend some time peacefully alone on his side of the shore- oh. She is speaking. 

"- but I doubt that's a reason to call myself that. I just go for myself, not for others." Usually he would be able to answer in a way where it made it seem like he was listening but he kept his broken answers to himself. "But you still haven't answered my question, Uldren."

The way she said his name was more of a statement rather than to  bring his attention for him specifically. He stopped abruptly and he felt a soft bump behind him as he looked down at the short woman. "What was your question again?" I was-"

"Not listening.” She caught on quickly. “It's fine. I tend to talk to much." she waved her hand with a faint smile but a bit of sadness in her eyes. "Let's just keep going." She stepped around him and walked ahead this time while he simply stood back and half watched where she stepped. He is in good company. He should relish in this moment for once. To give himself a  chance to be more  himself. She doesn't argue, expect him to do things, or have this whole regal facade to keep up. She is just a girl he met in the mountains and will soon be the girl he left behind at the shore. If they ever meet again it would be on purpose. Uldren let his shoulders relax and a breath of air that he felt as if he was holding in for far too long escape his mouth. They walked in distant silence for hours until their feet ached. Rory suggested to rest for the night but Uldren disagreed.

"No. Can't you hear the ocean from here? The smell of the salt? Stopping now would be pointless."

The moment the word 'no' slipped from his tongue she was already stepping away into the open to greet the sands. At least she was able to muster the little strength she had left to finish their little adventure. As they made their way to the soft sands she already kicked her shoes off and threw them somewhere unimportant while she struggled to run through the deep sand. He chuckled at her clumsy running but found the upbeat nature of her excitement almost a little too contagious. Keeping his shoes on he did make his way over to the harder surface and eye their current location for camp.

Uldren had to nearly pry the woman out of the water before the high tide would come in and soak her to the brim. A bit of laughter on her end and an eye roll of the century from him, Rory was quick to clear her throat and tone it down again. He caught himself mentally scolding himself for ruining her bit of fun. Rory began helping him gather supplies and find a nice location out of the waves reach they set up a fire. The dark of the night rushed in by the time their respective sleeping areas were settled and a gentle, cool breeze came with it. Rory huddled a bit too close to the fire but even the blanket she had around her did not help the chilly wind. Uldren still walked a bit around the camp and picked up any dried twigs used to keep it going for a bit longer before he would set out to find something bigger for the rest of the night.

"How are you not freezing?" Rory asked through chattering teeth and complained when he stepped in between her and the warmth of the flame. "I'm used to the cold." His answers were kept short as usual and the unimpressed expression on Rory did not go unnoticed. Nor did her shivering in the slightest breeze.

"You get cold easily. There is barely a breeze and the night is perfect." He stood over to her side and looked down at her as he poked fun at her low tolerance for the cold. "I hate being cold... I grew up on hot climate and this is just too cold for me! I'll be fine of this breeze would just stop for a second..." Rory wrapped the blanket over her head huddled a bit closer to herself to try her best to warm up. A sigh lined with a bit of humor left the prince as he sat down by her, blocking the way where the breeze would subtly blow on by. Without word she simply made herself comfortable against the man’s side and huddled against him as much as she could. Uldren did not flinch away from the sudden touch, knowing better than to make a big deal out of it. She is cold and needed to warm up. Nothing else.

The contact is... Welcomed.

◃◃◃ ╰ 🗡 ╮ ▹ ▹ ▹

[baepsaetan]

Inkarnate

Summary: Hoseok is a film student looking for muse, and Yoongi is a tattoo artist looking for money. When they meet, the two find that they could give each other far more than creativity and cash, but soulmate isn’t spelled p.e.r.f.e.c.t, and Yoongi’s tattoos cover up more than just his skin.

Chapters: pt.1, pt.2, pt.3, pt.4, pt.5, pt.6, pt.7, pt.8, pt.9, pt.10, pt.11 -> read on Ao3

Genre: Soulmate! AU, Angst

Warnings: Swearing, mildly suggestive content, implied alcoholism, implied past abuse, seriously a lot of angst, eventual smut, main character death.

Length: 10.2k

A/N: A slightly fluffier chapter to soften the blow of pt. 6. <3 This is where the “eventual smut” tag starts being prodded to life, as a heads up to anyone who’s reading. As always, hope you enjoy! 

The dark presses heavily against his eyes, and though the moon is bright enough to give some hazy guidance, it also throws the woods crowding the path into deeper shadows. Hoseok knows it’s stupid to thoroughly expect to suddenly run into a bear or an ax murderer, but that doesn’t stop his heart from leaping nervously in his chest with every step. A good part of him wants to turn on his heel and just book it back to the cabin, and stay in there until the sun rises, but his friends would rag him for the rest of eternity and besides, who the hell is afraid of the dark? At his age?

Teeth clenched, his hand tightening around the bag of marshmallows he’d retrieved from the cabin, (carelessly forgotten by someone he won’t mention – Yoongi), Hoseok inches forward. Somewhere ahead is the clearing – strains of lowkey pop music come from that direction – a clearing which contains a blessed fire and even more blessed friends. Hopefully. Hopefully they’re over there somewhere, and not lurking in the trees, ready to try to scare the shit out of him. You’d think that after five nights of camping, they would have gotten tired of leaping out of shadows and bushes – you’d think that Hoseok would have stopped falling for it – but neither is the case. He still sees Taehyung’s shape in every log, and Jungkook in every–

A loud crack snaps behind him, and Hoseok whirls, a shriek not – quite – breaking from his lips. Swallowing it – and his heart, too, given that it catapulted into his throat – the film major stops dead, peering into the black that consumes the path behind him. He should have brought the flashlight like Yoongi said, and ignored Jimin calling him a chicken. God, it’s either a bird or a squirrel or one of the idiots he’s invited to his family’s cabin, but what if it’s not? What if he dies because he thinks it’s not a big deal? What if he–

Something seizes his hand, and this time Hoseok does scream, a sharp spike of sound that cuts off half a heartbeat later when he realizes he recognizes the grip. He doesn’t need Yoongi’s voice to confirm it, though the man speaks anyways. “Relax,” he says, a pretty constant refrain where Hoseok is concerned. “It’s just me.”

“I knew that,” he replies quickly, and Yoongi’s low laugh eases the scared pit in his stomach. His heart has already settled down, an immediate reaction to the man’s presence that always happens and has taken some getting used to. It’s stupid to be relieved to have the tattooist next to him, but the fact is that Yoongi doesn’t make him feel stupid about it, and that makes all the difference in the world.

“Sure you did,” is his companion’s easy response, and they start walking together, hand in hand. Hoseok can’t help but steal glances at the other’s striking face, the moonlight washing away the drawn lines so often embedded around his mouth and under his tired eyes. It’s a pretty look, though not as pretty as when Yoongi is napping on his couch, sunlight spilling across his serene expression. Hoseok quickly jerks his eyes away when another ominous crack sounds to the side, thoughts derailed by the noise. Yoongi squeezes his hand, and this time he’s not afraid.

They halt. “You guys can haul your asses back to the fire,” Yoongi calls flatly. “This was only funny the first time.”

There’s a pause, like the woods are seriously considering his words, before a rebellious voice somewhere in the darkness replies, “The second time was funny.”

Taehyung follows Jungkook’s disagreement with sunny cheekiness, emerging onto the path ahead of them. “The third time was pretty funny, too, hyung. I thought Hobi hyung was gonna have a heart attack.”

“Was that before or after you fell off the roof and nearly broke your fool neck?” Yoongi asks dryly.

“Both!” Taehyung replies cheerfully, and some rustling announces Jungkook stepping out of the shrubs and joining them. Hoseok thinks Tae should probably feel a bit worse about prancing around on a cabin roof with the sole intention of scaring him, especially when it had resulted in Taehyung falling off and causing a panic among all of them, but the other guy is irrepressible. As he puts it, his head had stopped bleeding after only a few hours. What an idiot, is Hoseok’s fond summation, because Taehyung wouldn’t purposefully hurt a fly, let alone any of their feelings.

He is kind of getting tired of the attempts at freaking him out, though. He wishes Yoongi would say something harsher as they begin to walk – when he draws a line, the younger guys tend to respect it – but the tattooist is silent. In fact, when Hoseok looks over the other is staring at him pointedly, and he knows deep in his gut what those lightly narrowed eyes mean. It’s like a prod towards the edge of a cliff, only Yoongi keeps reassuring him that if he jumps he won’t fall.

Is this worth digging in his heels, though? Being labelled a killjoy? He’s not a person with a hard stop; leave that to other people like his father, with the ultimatums and last straws. Yoongi’s pointed out (repeatedly) that there’s a difference between being a downer and standing up for yourself, and that his friends are hardly likely to dislike him for saying no, but it’s a difficult line for Hoseok to see and an even harder one to walk.

Except his newly named boyfriend is still staring at him, so much expectant silence in his eyes that Hoseok is surprised no one else can hear it. He sighs to himself. Fingers tightening spasmodically around Yoongi’s – his expression doesn’t change – Hoseok begins tentatively, “Yo, guys…” The younger boys glance back curiously, and though their faces are shadowed, there’s no sign of tension or judgement in the motion. “There’s only a day left of camping and, like… I’m kind of not finding this funny any more.”

“Oh, really?” Taehyung asks, and it’s such a bewildered, innocent question that Yoongi snorts.

It makes Hoseok feel better though, and he nods cautiously. “Yeah… It’s not a big deal or anything but, like, maybe just for tonight…”

Jungkook is quick to reply, as brazen in his apology as he is in his teasing. “Damn, sorry. We really thought you were having fun, hyung! We’ll lay off, sure.” Beside him, Taehyung hums in agreement, and, just like that…

The problem is solved. He blinks rapidly, hand relaxing in Yoongi’s grip, and though he really can’t see well enough to be sure, Hoseok still knows the other man is smirking in that smug way he has. The marshmallow bag clutched to his chest in dumbfounded silence, he doesn’t even care about that. If it feels a little stupid to be so relieved, it doesn’t look like either of the younger guys notice, and Yoongi’s not going to bother him about it. Not much, anyways. Hoseok can only kick himself for not speaking up sooner, though he’s so relieved it’s a half-hearted affair.  

They break into the clearing shortly after, a small, imperfect circle with a scattering of lawn chairs surrounding a crackling fire set into a shallow pit. He sees that – against all advice – Namjoon’s put about five more logs into the flames, and they’re alternating between suffocating in some places and roaring to unholy heights in others. The fact that most of them (with the exception of Kookie) have never been camping before was an excuse for inexperience at the start of the trip, but it hardly flies now. If Hoseok didn’t know better, he’d have suspected that Namjoon was secretly planning on burning the camp site to the ground, and everyone else along with it.

That’s clearly not the case, but this trip has been something of a revelation of Namjoon’s clumsier side. There’s ample evidence for it; there aren’t enough chairs in the circle around the fire, given that the bookstore owner broke his the first day. It worked out – as Hoseok settles into his seat, Yoongi sits in his lap, and has since the incident – but it’s still a little shocking. The broken tent pole had been funny, though the ax head embedding itself in the ground an inch from Jimin’s foot instead of into the log a good half a meter away had been a clear sign that Namjoon was a minor apocalypse waiting to happen.

He’s been regulated to non-dangerous tasks since then, but Namjoon’s adamant about helping with the fire.

It’s a little awkward to poke and prod the logs his earnest, possibly pyromaniac assistant added into a respectable shape (what with Yoongi in his lap and all) but Hoseok manages it and finds that Jin has snagged the bag of marshmallows. The eldest of them is already spearing the white balls onto sticks they’d foraged for that purpose – Hoseok’s offer of metal sticks had been indignantly rejected as not being rustic enough – and he passes them around as soon as the fire is back under control. Jungkook and Taehyung bicker, as per the norm, fighting for the best spot and slashing each others’ rods out of the way, but everyone else is content to lean forward, the warmth of the flames licking hands and faces, and let their marshmallows roast in whatever patch of heat that’s available.

For his part, Yoongi sets his first one on fire, ignores their amused consternation and lets the marshmallow burn into a blackened mess that takes a long time to crumple off his stick.

When Hoseok murmurs a question in his ear, under the rest of the conversation that’s long ago moved on, the tattoo artist replies lightly, “Figuring out how to fuck it up, so I don’t later.” Hoseok wraps his free arm around Yoongi, pulls him closer, and the other man leans back against his chest with no complaint.

He’s glad Yoongi agreed to come. It’s often a struggle to get him out of the studio, and even if Namjoon says he’s gotten better since Hoseok entered the picture, that doesn’t exactly mean the tattooist has turned into a social butterfly. His recent illness – some kind of violent stomach flu – obviously hasn’t helped, but Yoongi seems to be getting over it, and he’s actually been very engaged in this particular outing. It was his idea, after all, to bring tents instead of sleeping in the cabin, and putting those up (including Namjoon snapping one of the poles) had been one of the early highlights of the trip.

It’s good for Yoongi to be here, Hoseok muses, and not just for Hoseok’s sake, either. As the blonde man recites a word-perfect rendition of Tony Montana’s speech from Scarface – much to the delight of everyone, especially Jungkook, who’s giggling hysterically – Hoseok stares into the flames and lets himself be lulled by the sound of his boyfriend’s comically slurred voice. He laughs at the appropriate moments (“Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.”) but he’s thinking about the way the heat is sinking into his skin, especially the skin around his collarbone.

You can’t memorize a bonded tattoo – not when it changes daily – but Hoseok’s still got a pretty good picture of it in his head. It’s never stopped growing – the fringe of flowers now trails up his throat and stretches three quarters of the way across his chest – but it doesn’t look… healthy, either. The petals droop tiredly and the colour is leaching from them, slowly but surely. Unless it’s changed for the better since he was able to look at it, before they left. It probably hasn’t.

He’s caught between a strange – albeit familiar – mix of concern; guilt that he’s not concerned enough, and guilt that he’s concerned at all. He has a boyfriend. He should be focused on and grateful for that – and he is. Sometimes Hoseok’s just afraid he’s doing Yoongi a disservice by thinking about his bonded at all. The thought – a thought that comes to his mind with frequent, uncomfortable regularity – makes him tighten his grip, and without breaking off his speech, Yoongi snuggles back, rests more firmly in Hoseok’s lap.

As always, his heavy presence soothes the unease, and Hoseok relaxes a little, eases himself off the anxious trail of thought. It’s becoming easier and easier to do that, these days – sometimes even without Yoongi’s help – and it also makes it easier to stop desperately throwing himself into crazy antics for the sake of laughter and nothing else at all. Which isn’t to say he doesn’t like fooling around anymore; it’s just that now he’s doing it for himself, and not just for others. That’s a much nicer thought, and Hoseok smiles a little to himself, taking his (only slightly burnt) marshmallow from the fire and pulling it, gooey and still-hot, from his stick. It tastes almost as sweet as being with his friends – and the bitter taste of charcoal barely registers amidst that.

Taehyung apparently likes golden brown marshmallows, but he doesn’t have the patience or the luck to manage them; he sets his fifth or sixth on fire, just like the previous ones, and blows frantically as the rest of them laugh. It looks like he’s going to give up, except then Yoongi hands over his own stick, which he’s been patiently holding at the edge of the fire for the last few minutes. The marshmallow on it is about as perfect as it gets, a hairsbreadth from falling off, and Taehyung exclaims in confused but delighted thanks, a swirl of, “Are you sure?” and, “Wow, thanks!” and “You did this for me?”

Yoongi shrugs, easily riding the excited wave until he can get a word in. “I felt bad,” he eventually says. “It was too pitiful; you wasted so many good marshmallows.” He’s cheerfully unrepentant of his own waste, and equally cheerfully ignores Taehyung and Jin calling him out on it.

It makes Hoseok grin, so affectionate that he presses his face to Yoongi’s neck, just for a moment, just to release the bursting warmth. The tattooist turns in his lap, runs his hand through Hoseok’s hair, and kisses him, a slow press that doesn’t summon fire – not like that disorienting first time – but puts something soft and secure in the pit of Hoseok’s stomach. The displays hadn’t embarrassed him back when they first – officially – started dating, and Yoongi has been surprisingly willing to be demonstrative in public, so long as he isn’t taken by surprise. He says that if it bothers anyone, they can go to hell and send a postcard. It certainly doesn’t embarrass either of them now, not when it’s just their friends who can see. (Not even when Namjoon calls, “Get a room!” with tongue-in-cheek mockery.)

The group’s conversation is a bundle of good-natured teasing, fond memories and idle speculations about the present and future. It’s slow, only spiking occasionally as someone (usually Jin) is baited into an explosion of comic disagreement, and even that quickly subsides. Over their heads, the moon is a bleak source of light, but the fire serves to warm more than just their bodies; it lightens the atmosphere, too, settling a cheerful and intimate blanket over the group of seven. The crackle of the flames fills their scattered silences, the phone music turned off awhile ago, and if Hoseok closes his eyes, the fire remains as a vivid imprint on his eyelids, the voices and low pop of the flames mingling together.

Time passes luxuriously, and no one looks at their phones to check the hour, but it must be getting late. Just as Hoseok feels his eyes beginning to close with greater frequency, his forehead occasionally nodding to rest against Yoongi’s warm back, a long, mournful sound – far away and immediate, all at once – pulls him abruptly wide awake. The howl is taken up by a chorus of forlorn voices, and it sends rapid chills skittering down his back, worse than when he was walking through the dark. They shut up Jin mid-sentence, and after a pause, Jungkook laughs, a hum that dies quickly.

“There’re wolves around here?” Namjoon asks, and to his credit he manages to sound more interested than afraid.

“Yeah,” Hoseok replies, and after his initial reaction he actually feels fond. It reminds him of another time, another place, with other people that he loved unreservedly when he was younger. “They’re not as close as they sound,” he adds, recalling his sister’s reassurances when his father had tried to convince him the wolves were lurking just outside the circle of light, so many years ago. “Their howls can travel a really long distance.”

Jimin’s voice is soft with wonder. “They sound so… free. But sad, too, y’know? I wonder why they –”

Another stirring call ripples out, somewhere in the night, a mounting crescendo of heartrending grief and fierce exultation that cascades into a sorrow so deep it fills the lungs of all the listeners, making it just a little harder to breathe. It’s immediately answered by a different voice, and then another, falling and climbing over each other in a harmony that catches at Hoseok’s breath and shoves it back down his throat, all the way to his heart. The strains of melodic wildness carry on, and the boys sit in rapt silence. Yoongi’s fingers rub in quick, concentrated circles against Hoseok’s thighs, and Hoseok has a feeling that he’s listening in a way that’s different from all of their hushed admiration, though he couldn’t have said why.

The tumult falls off, and the crackling of the fire lingers uneasily in the space left behind, like it’s aware of how severely lacking it is compared to the beautiful noise. Just as Hoseok stirs, about to break the silence he can’t stand, abruptly the man in his lap cups his hands around his mouth, throws back his head – and howls.

It’s not perfect, a bit too high, a bit too hoarse to join the previous chorus of unearthly voices, but it sure as hell scares the shit out of everyone nonetheless. Hoseok jerks, nearly takes them both out as he rocks the chair – cutting off Yoongi’s hair-raising cry – and Jimin, just next to them, literally does fall out of his seat. (Backwards, thankfully, and not towards the fire.) The rest of them are in a similarly startled state.

“Dude!” Jungkook grumbles, caught between reproach and admiration, and Jimin echoes the sentiment as he clambers to his feet.

Jin is sharper, his strained voice coming from across the flames, body hidden in the darkness. “Yah, are you trying to give us heart attacks?”

Yoongi laughs, as wild as the sound he’d made, and he might have replied except the wolves take up their howling again, and it’s hard to tell if it’s a response or merely a continuation. One thing’s for sure; the untamed calls die more quickly this time, and what remains is expectant, tinged with something sharp and poignant, as if every tree is straining to hear the next note. Once again, the resulting quiet aches to be broken, and Hoseok’s pretty sure everyone’s leaned forward, waiting for Yoongi to snap the tension. He doesn’t though, sits still in Hoseok’s lap, and the void of noise presses heavy against them all, a suffocating weight.

Which is about when Hoseok realizes that Yoongi is playing them, his shoulders shaking with unvoiced laughter, and his lips curl in a smile. Quite before he knows exactly what he’s doing, Hoseok tilts his head back, looking up at the black canvas sky painted with streaks of silver and pinholes of white, and the moon really is beautiful, and it’s not so hard to let the edgy feeling in his chest rip out as another howl. Without the benefit of his hands, it carries less than Yoongi’s, but he’s got the enthusiasm for it and the sound is still loud, and Yoongi is laughing and everyone else is joining in, with calls that rise and peak and break apart into baying and barking and even some little yelps, too.

The wolves respond, and it’s a back and forth exchange for a time, no one knowing if they’re the ones eliciting the pagan answers, and not caring, either. Hoseok howls until his lungs give out and his throat is raw with the sound of it, and in between laughing and gasping and reveling in just how special it is to be doing this with these people around this dying fire, he almost misses the absence of the wolves, gone silent for who-knows how long. The otherworldly dearth can’t be filled with human screeches, but it can be filled – and is, filled until it’s overflowing – with human connections and Jin’s puns and Jimin’s giggles, Taehyung’s ingenuous comments, Jungkook’s goofy jokes and Namjoon’s thoughtful remarks.

Most of all, it’s filled by the man in his lap, who set this whole thing off and rode the wave of hilarity for a time until slipping away from the center, easily and naturally regulating himself to the background as an appreciative witness. Even as the conversation lapses, flickering lower just like the flames at their feet, Hoseok can’t help but be aware of just how much he loves Yoongi, how much Yoongi fits in as a part of his life, as a part of all of them. For all his protestations, the artist belongs here, and it makes Hoseok grin into the gathering silence.          

It’d be utterly peaceful... if Yoongi didn’t keep shifting, which he’s been doing since he started howling. The first night – the first hour or so, when Yoongi had done it – Hoseok had just assumed the other man was restless, but there’s something very... deliberate... about the way the artist moves, sometimes, in little bundles of twisting motion. He’s been doing it, off and on, every time they end their day around the fire. And he’d been awfully quick to volunteer to sit in Hoseok’s lap in the first place. It’s not that it’s painful, exactly, but having his boyfriend grinding against his dick does a really good job of putting certain thoughts in his head. Certain expectations which have yet to be met. When he shifts again, Hoseok’s arm tightens around Yoongi’s middle in response. He could have been imagining the tattooist’s quiet chuckle, barely a breath, except he isn’t.

Namjoon spares him from having to throw in the towel, so to speak. “I’m tired,” he announces, clambering to his feet, and Jin is quick to get up too. No need to guess what’s going on there, though it makes Hoseok just a little envious. “You have a time you want us to clear out of here, Hoseok?” Namjoon adds, distracting him.

“Oh – nah,” is his reply. “I’m thinking of leaving around eleven, since it’s such a long drive, but if Yoongi and Jimin wanna hang out for longer…” He glances inquiringly at the two, but they both shake their head. “Either way, I don’t care if you guys wanna stay for longer, as long as you lock up after.”

“I think we’ll probably leave at the same time. Be easier if we’re not driving at night, anyways.”

Jin and Namjoon leave down a separate path that leads to another, larger clearing, where they’d pitched the tents. The younger guys don’t seem inclined to go to bed – Taehyung gets up and throws a few more logs on the fire – and while the event with the wolves has certainly pried him from the jaws of fatigue, Hoseok doesn’t feel like remaining here, either. It’s a little much to be asked to sit still, with Yoongi doing what he’s doing.

“I think we’ll head out, too,” he says after only a little while, and pretends his voice isn’t strained at all.

Someone snorts – he thinks it’s Jungkook – but that’s the only pushback he gets, and Yoongi doesn’t complain about Hoseok speaking for him (though he does complain about it on occasion, which is just blatant grumbling for the sake of grumbling). They untangle from each other and get to their feet, and Yoongi sternly reminds them to put out the fire before going to bed, raising a chorus of indignant protests. He needn’t have bothered. At the very least, Hoseok trusts Jimin not to forgetfully start a forest fire and kill all of them in the process.

As they step away from the clearing, their flashlight guiding the way in the near-darkness, Jimin’s voice floats teasingly after them. “Don’t stay up too late. We’ve got an early start tomorrow.” Yoongi barks a laugh, but for his part, Hoseok can’t help but feel embarrassed at just what his best friend is probably imagining – especially given that it isn’t true.  

It may be the beginning of March, and the days warmer because of it, but the nights are still quite cold. Away from the fire, once he’s kicked off his shoes and stepped into their tent Hoseok is reluctant to pull off the thick hoodie swathing his body, and Yoongi is in a similar state.

“Wah, it’s too cold!” Hoseok complains, and Yoongi agrees.

“Let’s just keep the hoodies on,” he suggests, moving to hook up the flashlight on a line he’s cleverly strung across the top of the tent. In the dangling light, Hoseok plucks at the smoke-saturated fabric of his sweater more than a trifle doubtfully.

“They’re dirty, though,” the student objects, and Yoongi’s low laugh makes him flush. “Yah, seriously, I’ve worn this every night at the fire; I don’t wanna sleep in it too!” he protests, maybe a little too fervently.

Yoongi hums, a carelessly discarded note. “Suit yourself,” he says, and clicks the light off. Hoseok can hear him shoving his phone into his bag and then a rustling announces the other man getting into the blankets. The first day they’d had two separate sleeping bags, but that hadn’t been warm enough – or close enough, if he’s being very honest – so they’d unzipped the bags and used them as padding, stealing a few more blankets from the cabin and lying under them together. Hoseok hesitates, but he really doesn’t want to wear the hoodie; he feels dirty enough as is. It’s actually got little to do with self consciousness – they’ve slept together (in the most literal sense only) plenty of times before – but he’s not keen on smelling like garbage while being next to Yoongi, either.

Pulling it over his head, he’s instantly too cold, teeth jarring together as his bare arms are exposed. His self-pitying yelp provokes another chuckle from Yoongi, before his boyfriend says, “Aw, come on. Get under the blankets before you freeze.”

Only too happy to comply, Hoseok also pitches his phone to the side before snuggling under the blankets that Yoongi helpfully holds open, making a happy sound to get into the warmth. As expected, it’s a whole lot more comfortable, and his boyfriend’s body heat is already sinking into the layers. Wriggling around in excited satisfaction, luxuriating in the way the cold is being driven from his limbs, Hoseok ignores Yoongi’s complaints as he buries further into the blankets. His heart is tripping in his chest, the usual reaction to their sleeping arrangements… although maybe a little exacerbated by what Yoongi had been doing earlier.

Before he can think on that too intensely, the other man shifts, is abruptly leaving the pile of blankets and drawing a confused exclamation from Hoseok. There are more rummaging sounds, and suddenly the flashlight over their heads is back on. As abruptly as he left, Yoongi is back again, sliding up against Hoseok, closer than before, so that if his heart was going fast previously, it starts to sprint now. Even days of sweat and smoke haven’t managed to totally wipe out the other man’s scent, and the wash of citrus and pine crowds his senses with sharp clarity.

“I forgot,” says the suspiciously oblivious Yoongi. “You promised to show me some of the footage you got from this week.” And Hoseok finds his camera being shoved into his hands.

He almost groans. “Now, really?” he asks pitifully, and the light dances across Yoongi’s face, highlighting his grin.

“What, were you planning on sleeping?” the artist asks, and Hoseok can only shake his head.

“I mean no, but, well, it’s our last night, and I thought…” His boyfriend’s face doesn’t indicate any abrupt comprehension, and the other man can only scrabble weakly to find what he means to say. After all that Yoongi’s done, after the hand holding and the cuddling and the making out – and there has been plenty of all three – he doesn’t know why Yoongi hasn’t made a move to take it further. And he doesn’t know how to say that he wants to take it further, when all of his subtler hints have been ignored. And he doesn’t know if he should want to take it further, or talk about it at all, with how Yoongi has been. And he doesn’t know –

“Let’s look at this, first,” his companion suggests archly, and Hoseok can’t understand how they’re on such a different page that Yoongi isn’t picking up what he’s putting down. That hurts, more than a little, the pleasant, tingling joy of before deserting him, and he nods his head because there’s nothing else to say. He’d thought that Yoongi’s teasing at the campfire had meant something, indicated a similar interest, but –

He flips open the screen – this is one of his more expensive cameras, and the resolution is high, clear – and is shortly accessing the folder titled “Woods Wandering.” There are a bunch of videos of varying lengths, and Hoseok chooses one at random, still put out and not paying much attention, berating himself for getting his hopes up only to let them crash down so hard. He can only be tensely aware of the body next to him, of what it’s doing to his own body, and hope that Yoongi doesn’t comment on it… or that he does.  

The sound of Jungkook’s giggling laughter fills their small tent, and he realizes which one he’s picked, from their second day. In the video, the camera pans up a tree, to reveal the youngest of them about a third of a way up the towering pine. He pauses in his climb, still laughing, to lean out and wave down at the camera. Someone (it’s Hoseok) makes a nervous sound off screen, but Jungkook seems to be having the time of his life. He pretends to pick up invisible bugs from the bark and eat them, scratching under his arms like a monkey.

“What an idiot,” is Yoongi’s fond observation, present-tense, and Hobi shifts in muted agreement, unable to laugh like his boyfriend is doing.

For the next few minutes, Jungkook scales the tree like he was born to do it, edged on by various catcalls and suggestions. He gets as close to the top as he should – and keeps going, as the shouts from below quickly turn far more concerned than amused. “Stupid,” Yoongi mumbles, and almost perfectly in step with that judgement, in the video a branch under Kookie’s foot breaks, and it’s too high for the snap to be heard but the camera captures the moment perfectly. He skids down several feet, branches bowing under his weight, until one catches without breaking. For a heart-stopping moment he teeters, off balance and unable to grab anything – Hoseok is shrieking, the camera tilting precariously, Namjoon and Yoongi both yelling something about getting under him – and then Jungkook snatches at another branch and steadies himself. And just like that, disaster is averted and the video ends with Hoseok’s nerveless fingers dropping the camera.

“He really likes to push it, doesn’t he?” For all that Yoongi leans back, seemingly still amused, a small amount of tension has entered his voice, and Hoseok has to agree with that. Jungkook hurtles himself around like he’s invincible, and for all that he is super athletic... one of these days there might not be a branch to stop his fall.

In a couple of weeks or months it’s going to be a funny video – Hoseok knows it’s one of the more interesting parts about videos, how they can change based on time and nothing else – but it’s too close now, and, frankly, his mood’s too low. Instead of replying to Yoongi, he just chooses another entry, and the other man once again leans closer to see, the coarse fabric of his sweater brushing roughly against Hoseok’s bare arms and making his stomach tighten.

The next few entries are a whirlwind of laughter and sunlight, streaming across wild antics and dirt-stained smiles. Taehyung and Namjoon fly kites, fending off the other boys as they tug playfully at the lines. Jungkook, Taehyung and Jimin toss a frisbee around – a video which abruptly ends when an enthusiastic throw by Tae sends the disk whizzing into the camera holder’s shin. Namjoon and Yoongi kick back on lawn chairs, sipping beer in the sun and almost napping, while nearby the trio of younger boys chop up wood. Fast-forward, and Jin is found inside the cabin, taking advantage of the stove and other modern appliances to cook their supper. He shakes a knife threateningly, and the camera retreats.

Throughout it all, as they view the clips, Yoongi makes occasional comments and snorts with amusement, but Hoseok can’t reciprocate beyond a low hum or a brief smile. It’s funny and horrible all at once – he used to be able to lie to everyone (including himself), to mask his sadness if nothing else, but now there are seven people he can’t seem to hide his emotions from, and Yoongi is the worst of them all. He’s the worst because, not only can Hoseok not repress his hurt feelings around him, Yoongi has a way of making him feel like he shouldn’t. Like he deserves to be upset sometimes, which sounds stupid and harmful and is against everything he’s ever learned, but that sure as hell doesn’t stop his boyfriend’s lessons from hammering on the door. So, the dissatisfaction, the uncertainty, it simmers uneasily in his stomach and makes his lips pull down, and he makes no attempt, conscious or otherwise, to pull them back up.

God, does he really care about this that much? Is he really so hurt by the thought that Yoongi apparently doesn’t want to sleep with him? Isn’t that super shallow? But it’s not the prospect of his boyfriend’s disinterest that’s bothering him – at least, not the most. It’s that Yoongi seems so keen on avoiding the subject.

The next entry they view – it’s probably his favourite – challenges but doesn’t quite dispel the unhappy thoughts. Jimin rides on Jin’s broad shoulders, hands clasped around his forehead and partially over his eyes, ignoring the older man’s protestations about not being able to see as they stagger along the edge of a deep running creek that traces through the campground. They end up falling into the water while Hoseok nearly chokes on his laughter as he films. Shortly everyone is in the creek as well, splashing and shoving each other around – everyone but Hoseok, that is, filming diligently off to the side. Until Yoongi says something to Jin, gestures at the screen, and suddenly the florist is rushing out of the water and there’s a brief scuffle, the view tilting crazily as it’s jerked back and forth, until the victorious camera holder prances back several feet and reveals Hoseok scowling on screen, bereft of his shield.

“Go have fun, Hobi-yah,” Jin calls. “I’m not going to drop this, and you need some footage of yourself, too.” Then and now, Hoseok doubts the veracity of that statement, but nonetheless, in the film, he turns away, goes reluctantly to the edge of the water and takes off his shoes. Taehyung tries to splash him, Namjoon attempts to coax him in, and even Yoongi makes an effort to get him to join the fun, but it’s not until Jungkook abruptly surges up and latches onto Hoseok that he’s finally dragged in. Cue a lot of shrieking and swearing (the water was really cold) but he can’t stay mad at a well-meaning friend for long, and quickly they’re back to having fun.

They even have a three-way chicken fight, Tae on Jungkook’s shoulders, Jimin on Namjoon, Yoongi on Hoseok. Doubtless certain other people might disagree, but personally Hoseok is pretty sure they were the winning team overall; at the very least, the video ends with Jimin already fallen, and Yoongi clinging to Tae as they topple each other (and their partners) into the water with a loud splash. Yoongi is laughing even as he falls, his soaking shirt clinging to his body, and he looks so happy, so alive, it makes Hoseok’s heart ache with something like fear embracing fondness.

When he looks up from the camera screen, he realizes the artist is staring, a little crease between his brow, and Hobi shifts, embarrassed by how intently Yoongi is watching him and acutely aware that he’s being a letdown in the cheer department.

Eventually, abruptly, his boyfriend speaks. “You’re pissed about something.” It could have been an accusation, but Yoongi’s voice is softly perplexed, and Hoseok only feels a little prickling of defensiveness – and, maybe, the slightest tremor of gratitude that Yoongi had noticed. Maybe.

Which doesn’t really make it much easier to reply. Fingers twisting around each other as he sets the camera down, he looks away. “No, I – What makes you say that?”

The sound that issues from the other man isn’t quite a laugh. “It might’ve been the fact that I’ve talked more than you in the last half hour. Or maybe that you haven’t laughed once. Or maybe –” His hand reaches up, hesitates. Sometimes, in their private moments, the tattooist does that. It’s like he’s afraid to touch, afraid of what the contact will do. Eventually though, Yoongi's hand cups Hoseok’s cheek, and his thumb skims along the turned down lines of Hoseok’s lips, generating a pleasant tingle.

“Or maybe your mouth always does that, when you’re mad,” Yoongi finishes quietly. “So, don’t bother bullshitting me. What’s up?”

He honestly can’t tell if his boyfriend is lying about his ignorance or not; those cool, faultless eyes don’t give anything away. Still, if he had to trust his gut – which he does with Yoongi, almost always – he thinks that the male opposite him is being largely sincere, and that brings about a crest of frustration, amusement and relief. Regardless of the difficulties, he’d rather deal with oblivious Yoongi than lying Yoongi.

It’s hard to say where that thought comes from – it’s not like his boyfriend is a pathological liar – but it’s true; Yoongi lying makes him more uncomfortable than almost anything else. But Yoongi isn’t lying right now. He makes himself relax, wrestles with the anxiety by the simple expedient of reaching up and gently clasping the other man’s hand, still lingering against his cheek. “It’s just – it’s...” He pauses, but the patient expression doesn’t waver from Yoongi’s face. Tearing his eyes away, he focuses his gaze on Yoongi’s long fingers, moving his touch carefully along the delicate bones, the pronounced knuckles, his fixation an unconscious attempt to trace the lines of his own thoughts. Under his light contact, the artist’s fingers curl a little, the only sign of his impatience, and after awhile, Hoseok manages to get his mind in order.

“This feels nice,” he says nervously, more a confession than a comment. In case Yoongi doesn’t understand what he means, Hoseok brings their entwined hands up higher, his eyes still avoiding his boyfriend. “I... like this. A lot. And I just – I dunno, it’s like I should know, but do you like it too?”

There’s no instant understanding from Yoongi, but he replies too quickly to be doubted, even if his voice is gruff. “I like it, yeah. Of course I do.”

A light sigh flutters from his lips, a mix of pleasure and anxiety. “I – then I want to know if you – if –” Action is so much easier than thinking about it, of trying to explain the muddle in his head, so Hoseok doesn’t let himself hesitate, just throws caution to the night. He abruptly leans forward, his free hand grasping the back of the small man’s neck, and kisses him. Under his lips, Yoongi stiffens for less than a heartbeat, but the surprise is quickly replaced by something warmer, something warm enough to keep out the cold. His mouth softens even as his body does, and before too long his tongue is parting Hoseok’s lips, taking it a step further. The student could – almost – relish the hot feeling of the kiss, of inhaling Yoongi’s breath, but he wants to explain himself.

He pulls back, and in another time, in another place, would have laughed at the other’s disgruntled expression. “That,” Hoseok says, higher pitched and louder than before, unable to stifle the feeling in his chest. “"Did you like that?"” He almost needn’t have asked – there’s so much about his understanding of Yoongi that’s unspoken, below the surface of any kind of words – except that he does need to ask, sometimes, and the normally implicit understanding almost makes him ashamed of his ignorance.

Now Yoongi’s reply is slower, more thoughtful. “I... yeah. Yeah, I liked it. What’s – you’re not just asking to be a little shit, right?”

As always, the words are harsher than the intention behind them, and Hoseok lets himself grin, just a little. “No, not this time,” he agrees. “I’m – I had to be sure.”

“You doubted it?”

It’s Hoseok’s turn to pause, though after a moment he shakes his head. “No, I – I guess not. It’s just, I – I just wanna know what we’re doing, Yoongi.”

The artist makes as though to turn away, but Hoseok still has a firm grip on his hand and doesn’t allow the motion. When that escape fails, Yoongi tries another route. “Camping,” he says archly, almost like he really is that dense. “We’re camping.”

Frankly, by now Hoseok is a pro at bumbling through his partner’s attempts at diversion whenever they talk about something more personal, though he’d also thought – hoped? prayed? – that they were getting beyond that. His smile turns a bit sad, but Hoseok doesn't let it drop when he replies. “Haha. Okay, beyond camping.” Seeing Yoongi’s lips move, he interrupts, “Beyond sitting in this tent. And yeah -– beyond holding hands.” Man, sometimes he isn’t the one who’s the little shit in this relationship. “I mean us, Yoongi. What’re we doing?”

Maybe it’s the poor lighting (it isn’t), but the other man seems pale all of a sudden. Well. Paler than usual. His unclaimed hand rises to rub against his neck, and it’s his turn to look elsewhere. Roughly, more roughly than before, he shoots back his own question. “Where’s this coming from?”

“From last night, when you kissed me before you went to sleep,” Hoseok replies immediately. “From three weeks ago, when we were making out at Jin’s and he dumped that water on us. From tonight, when you – when you were sitting on my lap. From right now.” He speaks passionately, and it’s such a relief to let the words spill from his chest, to know that, regardless of what he says, Yoongi might turn away but he won’t leave. Not like months ago.

And indeed, the tattooist makes no move to get up. He doesn’t even try to turn away again. His shoulders are shaking, just a little, but Hoseok doesn’t know if that’s from the cold (it isn’t) or something else. “I’m just – I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he admits, and then he looks up, meets Hoseok’s eyes, and there’s something pleading in his expression, boarding on the edge of panic.

For once, Hoseok thinks he can actually be the leader, the one to help his boyfriend out of this pit. “I’m not – seriously, seriously, Yoongi – I’m not gonna be mad about it either way, but... I – I really want to be with you, Yoongi. With with you. And I just, I have to know... what that means. Mostly you seem like you’re down for – for the physical stuff,” and his surge of confidence can’t stop his flush at that, “but then – but then we never do more. And it’s – it’s totally okay if you don’t want to, seriously, I –” He stops, but it’s more or less true. He won’t understand – not based on the histories they’ve both shared of the people they’ve enjoyed being with – but he’ll accept it. He’s beginning to think he’ll accept pretty much anything, if it means being the best boyfriend he can be for Yoongi. He just wants to know.

The other man’s shoulders are shaking harder, and for a moment he gets a horrible, plummeting feeling in his stomach as he thinks he might actually have made his partner cry. Until – until abruptly, just as abruptly as earlier tonight, he realizes Yoongi is laughing. It’s not a particularly light laugh, more a callback to months ago, when everything was a sardonic joke, but at least it’s not tears.

“Jesus Christ,” Yoongi breathes through his laughter, his free hand running through his hair. “What a fucking soap opera this is. I thought you were talking about – ah, fuck –” He breaks off, chuckling, and it only gets louder when he sees the look on Hoseok’s face. “Did you seriously just use ‘physical stuff’ to describe fucking around?”

“Well how else would you describe –” the student begins indignantly, only to realize it’s already been answered. Obviously that does nothing to help Yoongi get a hold of himself, and Hoseok is left swamped in a mire of annoyance and relief. This is – not how he pictured this conversation going, though it’s already a better path than the only serious argument they’ve had. Although he kinda wishes this was a serious... something. He’s been stressing out about it for weeks, and there’s Yoongi, laughing so hard he looks like he’s going to be sick!

Maybe he picks some of that irritation up, because eventually his boyfriend sobers, wiping at his eyes where tears – literal tears – have gathered. “Sorry,” is his not particularly repentant apology. “It’s just – shit, it’s too fucking funny. I –” For a second it looks like Yoongi is going to be overwhelmed again, but he smothers the hilarity with a deep breath. “Look, I just – I didn’t want to go too fast. You’re – okay, to be totally blunt, you’re so hot I couldn’t keep my hands off, but I didn’t want to shove you into it. I was...” He stops, searching for the right word, his lips curled irreverently. “...Waiting. Yeah. Waiting. That’s a first for me, but...”

As the full weight of the misunderstanding crashes down on Hoseok, his mouth falls open, and he lets go of Yoongi’s hand, sprawls back to prop himself up on his elbows. “I hate myself,” the wiry man moans, letting his head fall back to stare at the ceiling. “Do you have any idea – it’s been so long – I could have said something. I thought you didn’t want to do – I should have asked. God, I suck.”

“Like you’re being paid to do it, hopefully.”

Whipping his head around, Hoseok glares at Yoongi’s impudent expression, the mischievous twist of his mouth not – quite – enough to burn away the outrage... even if his groin does give a throb at the thought of a different kind of sucking. “It’s not funny!” he protests hotly, and the tattooist schools his face into innocence.

“Nah, of course it isn’t.”

“It isn’t,” he mumbles, running his hand through his hair. “I can’t believe… ‘Like you’re being paid to do it?’ Seriously?” Hoseok asks abruptly. “That’s what you come up with?”

Yoongi shrugs with studied casualness. “I can make a lot of things come up, Hobi,” he says, his pure expression fracturing into another sharp grin when Hoseok laughs – a little apprehensively – at the wordplay. The other man stretches out, picks up the camera again. “Anyways, let’s keep looking at this. It’ll be more fun without that stupid look on your face.”

“Stupid!” Hoseok begins indignantly, but Yoongi sails breezily by.

“How about you show me what you’ve got for your film thing?”  

He’s brought to even greater levels of outrage. “Hell no! I’ve told you that’s not happening until it’s finished!” It’s getting close – only a month or so more of editing left, with almost no filming in between – but he doesn’t show anyone his unfinished stuff, with the exception of his profs.

Not even his boyfriend. That’s been like the tenth time Yoongi’s asked, and while Hoseok is just teasing in his exasperation, the artist is usually quicker to let things go. He must really want to see himself in a documentary, though Hobi knows with no small amount of amusement that Yoongi won’t admit that. He’s equally aware that the other man is trying to rush them by the “moment” – as Yoongi would call it, probably with a scowl – but with the air cleared, Hoseok is happy to move on, if only to ease his boyfriend’s discomfort.

Although he kind of wants to do something other than watching the rest of the videos from this week.

And judging from where Yoongi’s hands start wandering as they settle closer together in the blankets, Hoseok isn’t the only who’s one more than a little distracted.

It’s not until weeks later that Hoseok first wonders what Yoongi had been so afraid of discussing in the first place.    

---

A blur of boring scenery and not much else, the fields on either side bleed by them, Hoseok’s (fucking beautiful) car eating the miles under its tires like it’s starving. Jimin somehow managed to bully the both of them into submitting to his choice of music, and a melodic classic (apparently it’s a classic; Yoongi’s never heard it before) is an admittedly chill background sound as they drive. Not that he’s telling the angelic-looking devil seated contently next to him that. Under his hands, the warm leather of the steering wheel hasn’t exhausted his steady grip, though he’s been driving for close to five hours now. He was supposed to have relinquished his position as chauffer about two hours ago, but…

His eyes flick to the rear-view mirror, checking on the man passed out cold in the back. They’d stayed up late last night, late even by Yoongi’s standards, but Hoseok had been up the earliest of them. He’d cleaned, put most of the camping shit away in the cars or the cabin, and by the time Yoongi himself had emerged from their tent, groaning and squinting in the too bright light of late morning, everyone else but Jungkook was up and had already eaten, curtesy of Jin and Hoseok. Shortly after, they’d packed the tents (threatening to leave Kookie for the wolves if he didn’t wake up and get out) and headed their separate ways with the usual chaos of taunts and well wishes for the drive ahead. For the first couple of hours, the trio in the car had kept up a lively conversation, but eventually the relentless road ground their chatter down. The wiry man in the back, after nodding off and then startling himself awake several times (and no, Yoongi hadn’t been stupidly smiling at that) eventually succumbed to the sleep he hadn’t had.  

Hoseok’s cheek is pressed against the window, red hair falling messily across his forehead, and with his mouth fallen open like that, he looks like an idiot. A really… fucking cute idiot. Shaking his head, Yoongi forces his eyes back to the empty road, unaware of the way his lips remain curled upwards even after his gaze leaves his soulmate. And unaware of Jimin, leaning against the door on the passenger side and very much awake.

The small man speaks after only a short time, his eyes on Yoongi’s face. “I’ve been meaning to ask,” he begins casually, “what’d you end up getting Hoseok hyung?”

Yoongi shrugs, not particularly invested in the vague question. “Get him? You mean like when we went through the McDonald’s drive thru?”

Jimin’s eyes go so wide, and with such mute surprise, that Yoongi scoffs and rolls his eyes. Jesus Christ, what a drama queen. He should have gone into acting instead of –

“Hyung told you about his birthday, didn’t he?”

The car swerves over the middle line, though given the fact that there isn’t a fucking soul this side of hell except for them, it doesn’t really matter. Yoongi yanks the wheel, too hard, and almost overcompensates over the shoulder before managing to straighten out again. His eyes dart back to the mirror, but Hoseok hasn’t budged from his stupidly uncomfortable slump against the window. For a second, angry words stir to life in his throat, but Yoongi savagely bites them back, his teeth clenching over the sharp syllables.

Really? he asks himself. You’re gonna bitch him out over this?

Jimin is way too fucking observant, and the tattooist shifts in his seat, slender fingers drumming the wheel, uncomfortably aware of the other watching him. If it’d been Hoseok, the questions would have poured out, but Jimin is silent and it’s hard to fight that invitation. Too hard.

“I didn’t know,” Yoongi eventually admits, furious at the way the confession creases at the end. Like it actually hurts to say it. Like he actually cares. Still… why the hell wouldn’t Hobi have told him something like that? And when was his birthday, anyways? And why the fuck hadn’t it occurred to Yoongi to ask? Wasn’t that… some kind of dating thing?

Stretching his legs out, Jimin keeps his voice low. “I told him to tell you. He hates celebrating his birthday, but still… he should have said something.”

“Why wouldn’t he have?” Yoongi demands, struggling to keep his voice as quiet as his front seat companion.

“Why?” Jimin laughs, a little chastising. “You know he can’t stand people buying him stuff, and that’s kinda birthdays in a nutshell. Plus, I mean, with you especially, he –” Halting himself, the small man glances at Yoongi sidelong.

Yoongi scowls. “With me especially, what?” His mind flies to his financial situation. He’s got enough money, barely, for everything he needs, and Hoseok still pays for their “sessions” a few times a week, but he’s not some pathetic charity case. He could have afforded to buy something for his boyfriend. Skipped a few meals (and he throws half of them up, anyways, so why not?) and got enough cash to get – what? What could he even have gotten Hoseok that the student couldn’t get himself?

Nothing. The answer is nothing.

Jimin hasn’t replied, and Yoongi swears under his breath, his empty stomach twisting. It was a good thing he’d turned down the cold bacon and toast Jin had saved for him or he might have been pulling over by now. No fucking wonder Hobi didn’t say anything, he thinks to himself, his hands white knuckled around the steering wheel. He didn’t want some stupid shitty gift he’d just throw out later. That’s wrong, he knows it is, but the fact is insubstantial in the face of his sudden, helpless anger.

There’s nothing to vent it on – he can’t beat up his body any more than the cancer already has, after all – but – but – God damn, he would have liked to have celebrated with Hoseok. Just hung out and like… done something sappy. Watched a movie and cuddled or whatever the fuck. Couldn’t Hoseok have just – told him?

“Don’t be too mad,” Jimin advises gently. “It’s not your fault, you know.”

He’d liked to have snapped that he did know, except that he’s not at all convinced of the fact, and he’s more than a little perturbed that his friend is assuming he’s not really pissed off at Hoseok, but at himself. And he’s even more pissed off that Jimin’s right. Fuck, fuck, he should have asked Hobi when his birthday was.  

“When was it?” he asks abruptly. “His birthday?”

“It was February. The 18th.”

“Did you get him something?” Yoongi’s caught between hoping Hobi at least got something, and a curiously sick feeling at the thought of Jimin giving him a gift. A sick feeling that has nothing to do with his current sickness.

“Me? Nah. We worked it out years ago – he gets a birthday favour that he can claim whenever, whatever, and I have to do it, no arguing or anything. That’s my gift. He hasn’t asked me yet, though.” Yoongi honestly can’t say if that’s worse or not, but he swallows hard and tells himself to get over it – even as a niggling voice wonders why he and Hoseok couldn’t have had something like that.

It doesn’t whisper for long. When his gaze goes back to the mirror, to Hoseok slouched against the window, he knows why. As someone who’s only just getting over apologizing for existing, the lean man isn’t going to make something like his birthday into an issue. It was Yoongi who needed to insist on Hobi taking up space – Jimin probably had to do the same thing to reach that birthday agreement.

Some of his tension escapes in a rattling inhale as Yoongi sucks on his spit, and he rubs at his neck. “I’m gonna have to get him something, or do something, or…” He trails off. It’s not that he’s normally bad at this shit – actually, sometimes he’s pretty good – but the artist just… he doesn’t know what he could do that would be good enough for Hoseok. He doesn’t know what would be anywhere near a good enough apology for what’s going to happen in the future.

“You know,” Jimin says, glancing over his shoulder to check that Hobi is still asleep, “there’s some kind of film festival in like three weeks. That’s nearing the end of the semester, so he’ll be flipping his shit and trying to concentrate on projects and whatever. I probably couldn’t convince him to go, but you might be able to.”

“Yeah? What’s it called?”

“The Spring Day film festival,” is Jimin’s prompt reply. Yoongi hesitates – he almost doesn’t want to know how much tickets would cost – but the other man continues. “A senior I’m working with has tickets she got for free – her brother works for the company that’s hosting it or something? – and she said I could have them if I wanted. I mean, I’m not interested in going, so if you wanted to…”

There’s a weirdly nonchalant tone to Jimin’s voice, and it occurs to Yoongi that he’s trying very, very hard to make this seem like not a big deal. That might have made him glower, except he’s trying too hard to hold back his grin to do anything of the sort. Man, if someone had told him a year ago that he’d be meeting a bunch of people who were genuinely cool – and, more shocking, liked him enough to try to help him out – he’d have thought the person was high.

“That might be cool,” he says, and Jimin giggles, and he thinks, Shit, I’m gonna miss this guy.

Those thoughts come, sometimes, and Yoongi does his best to ignore them. Besides, once he’s dead he guesses he’s not gonna be missing anyone. That’s kind of depressing – litres of alcohol kind of depressing – so he shies away from it, forcing his mind to lighter topics. Like his and Hoseok’s talk last night. For a hot second he’d thought they were gonna be talking about – about a heavier topic – but then Hobi was going off about screwing around, and it had been such a relief to focus on that instead. He’d barely lied with that, either, and it’s always nice when he doesn’t have to lie to his soulmate.

He had been waiting – true. He hadn’t wanted to keep his hands off – also true (very, very true). The only lie was omission – the only reason he hadn’t asked Hoseok to sleep with him before was because he wanted to make sure the bond didn’t overwhelm either of them. The teasing, the constant contact, sitting in Hobi’s lap… it’s the only way Yoongi knows how to desensitize the other man to the connection without being painfully obvious. (Plus, it’s fun. Like, really, really fun.) Yoongi had been planning on bringing it up soon anyways – it’d been a pleasant surprise to have Hobi get impatient enough to break through his usual limitations and ask. At least it meant that, if nothing else, he’s enjoying the physical of their relationship.

And he’ll be liking it even more soon, Yoongi thinks to himself, lips curling into a half-smile, and doesn’t think about how much he wants to enjoy more than that, for months and years more. No point in wishing for time he doesn’t have.

Besides, when Hoseok jerks himself awake an hour or so later and groggily asks if it’s his turn to drive yet, it almost feels like any time spent with the other man is enough.          

[ltleflrt]

Recovery WIP featuring Tattooed!Cas, Overprotective!Dean, and Drug Addict!Sam

Sam remembers when sliding a needle into his skin hurt, but only vaguely.  The pain always faded as quickly as the high flared up inside him, wiping away everything except the calm euphoria.  Now as he presses the needle into the vein in his arm, he doesn't even flinch.  The tiny prick and the following pressure as he injects the drug into his system no longer registers as pain because his brain has connected that feeling to the first rush of joy as his blood soaks up the hit and carries it to every nerve ending.

Sometimes he thinks he could probably just poke himself with something sharp and he would get a phantom high.  It's a trick he might try if he ever becomes desperate, but it's not something he needs to worry about now.  Ruby scored some really good stuff and they're going to spend the night blitzed out of their skulls.

He sighs happily at the thought, and then grins lazily when he feels the first edge of the high sneaking through his veins.  

"See?" Ruby murmurs.  "Told you this is some grade A shit."

Sam nods and leans back into the pile of pillows they stacked on the floor in preparation for tonight's little two person party.  He watches through heavy lidded eyes as Ruby doses herself.  Her movements are smooth and efficient, and beautiful to his drug addled brain.   

Her dark hair shines in the light of the single lamp sitting on the nearby end table.  It's silky and lays over her shoulders like a flow of chocolate.  Her nearly black eyes glimmer with joy as she leans back and loosens the band around her arm.  Sam can see it when the high washes through her.  The lines around her mouth fade, and her eyes lose focus.  She takes a deep breath and lets it out in a soft, wheezing sigh.

“You look like an angel,” he murmurs through heavy lips.  They feel dry, and he pokes the tip of his tongue at them, but gives up because it takes too much concentration.

Ruby’s laugh is as soft as she looks spread out among the pillows.  “I ain’t no angel.  I think I’m the opposite of that.”

“You think you’re a demon?” he asks, confused, but unconcerned.  A strange sensation in his fingers makes him look down at his hand, and he finds that he’s running them up and down her bare shin.  Up… down… up.

His whole body feels heavy.  But good heavy.  Like he could sink into the floor, and just keep going.  Maybe he’ll fall through the earth, straight through the core, and pop out in China somewhere.  

“Maybe like I’ve got one in me.”  Ruby’s words are slurred.  Sam forgot he asked her a question until she spoke.  He looks up to find her twirling the ends of her hair between her fingers, staring at the strands like they’re something she’s never seen before.  “There’s something in me.  Something not right.”

There’s something wrong with that.  He’s not sure exactly why he thinks so.  But there can’t be anything bad in Ruby.  She’s strong, and determined.  Funny and caring.  Sassy.  Beautiful.  He can’t stand the idea that she doesn’t think she’s perfect.  

He has to concentrate to move his limbs the way he wants so that he can crawl over and stretch out beside her.  She smells like pomegranate soap and sweat, and he presses his nose against her shoulder so that he can pull more of her into his lungs.  “You’re beautiful,” he murmurs.

A giggle shakes her, and vibrates into him where their bodies touch.  It feels amazing.  

“Shut up, you’re high.”

The grin that tugs at Sam’s lips feels good, so he let’s it get wider.  Wow, smiling feels awesome.  “You’re high,” he retorts.  

“Whoa, you sound like your brother.  Knock that shit off.”

They both break into laughter, and it echoes strangely around them.  Or maybe it’s just that Sam doesn’t recognize the laughter as his own, even though he can feel it rumbling inside his chest.

It tapers off after a moment, and they lean further into each other.  Sam’s eyelids are heavy, so he lets them drift shut.  There’s music playing softly from the other room.  He thinks he should recognize it, but he can’t be bothered to try.  It’s nice to listen to though.  So he allows himself to drift to it’s rhythm, sometimes humming along, sometimes just listening for his own heartbeat in the thump of the base line.  

He has no idea how long he drifts because time has no meaning when you cease to care about it, but eventually Ruby shifts next to him.  When she sits up, his body is cold where she used to be pressed against him, and he let’s out a little whine.

“Shhh, baby.  Do you want another hit?”

He thinks he nods.  He must have, because she coaxes him into sitting up.  He watches as she prepares a fresh syringe.  When she turns to him expectantly, he adjusts his arm across his lap, baring the tender skin where a vein waits eagerly for the pinch of the needle again.

He barely feels it as she pricks his skin, because he’s so fascinated with the way her hair falls over her face.  His fingers are running through it before he’s conscious of ordering them to.  Maybe he didn’t.  It doesn’t matter, because he wants his fingers to be in her hair and he’s not going to complain if they end up there by themselves.  

The thought is carried through his consciousness on another wave of euphoria and his breath catches in his throat.  “I love you,” he thinks he says.

Ruby looks up at him, her dark eyes wide and shining.  Her teeth flashing in a beautiful smile.  “You must feel pretty good right now.”

Yeah, he does.  Where he felt heavy before, now he feels weightless.  Untethered from gravity.  In love.  With Ruby.  With life.  

He closes his eyes and gives himself up to it.  Let’s himself float away.

 Sammy!  Oh god, Sammy wake up!  Wake up man!

Green eyes.  Scared.

Please don’t do this.  Please, please, don’t do this to me, Sammy!

Sam blinks.  His brother’s eyes are green.

Hello yeah, send an ambulance!

Green and a little gold.  Pretty.  But Dean doesn’t like to be told he’s pretty.

Fuck, you gotta hurry!  I don’t think- I don’t- his eyes are open but-

All the girls say it behind his back though.  And some of the guys.  Sam thinks it’s hilarious.  

Hold on, Sammy, hold on.  Hold on hold on please.

His muscle car driving, leather jacket and ripped jeans wearing, and perpetually grungy brother, pretty?  Nah… he couldn’t quite see it.  Not that he’s supposed to, since they’re related and that would be gross.

He’s over here.  I checked her too, but I don’t think… I can’t tell if she’s…

A bright light fills Sam’s vision, and he flinches away from it.  It’s pure and beautiful, but it burns his eyes.  He thinks he tries to lift his hand to cover them, but nothing seems to happen.  

It’s okay, sir.  We’ve got him.  We’re going to get him to the hospital.  

The light flashes again.  God, it’s so white, so clean.  And then he sees burnished brass.  Feels fingers against his face, and neck.  He blinks, and the brass doesn’t go away.  

Eyes.  Light brown, not brass.  Sam concentrates, and sees a man he doesn’t recognize looming over him.  He looks so determined.  So full of purpose.  “Are you an angel?”

“I might be,” the man says.  He looks over his shoulder, and speaks to someone else.  But Sam can’t make out anything he says.

His voice is nice.

Sam thinks it’s pretty awesome that an angel has come to visit him.  He’ll have to tell Ruby.  He’d tell Dean, but he doubts his brother will believe him.  

There are voices, or at least he thinks there are.  Maybe it’s actually the music.

Ruby picks such great music.

He’ll have to tell her so.  Maybe later though.  

He’s tired now.  He’ll tell her when he wakes up.

Maybe later.

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

Wincing at the time on his watch, Dean rushed across the work site towards his truck, waving over his shoulder when his coworkers called goodbyes in his wake.  Normally he might hang around and chat, but tonight he'd promised to pick Sam up from his first NA meeting, and due to a late shipment of cement and an asshole boss bitching about timelines he wad running late.

The old Chevy growled to life when he twisted the key in the ignition, and his lips twitched at the sound.  It wasn't quite the same as his precious Impala, but there was no way he was bringing his baby to a construction site where her paint job would be in jeopardy.  Besides, the truck was just as dirty and beat up on the inside as it was outside, so Dean didn't worry about sitting his cement-splattered ass in the driver's seat.  Sam might complain about the dirt, but until he got his own set of wheels, he could just shut his piehole.

He drove a little too fast getting across town to the rec center where Sam's meeting was, but he was still half an hour late when he pulled up to the curb out front.  He caught sight of Sam standing just outside the doors of the building and waved.  

Sam had been speaking with a dark haired man in a trench coat when Dean pulled up and now he smiled and waved back before returning his attention to the stranger.  His face was animated with a bright smile when he talked to the man and Dean felt a twinge of envy.  Sam hadn't smiled at him like that in a long time.  The fact that Sam didn't smile much in general since his overdose didn't make Dean feel any better.

The man, whose back was turned so Dean could only see the back of his head and the indistinct shape of his shoulders under the bulk of his coat, held out a hand. Sam took it eagerly, enveloping it between both of his huge paws.  He must have said his goodbyes, because then he was bounding towards Dean's truck, long legs eating the distance quickly.  

The man turned to watch Sam go, smiling slightly, almost proudly.

Dean was far enough away that he couldn't see Trench Coat Guy very clearly, but he guessed the guy was good looking.  He narrowed his eyes, worried that Sam might be getting involved with someone so soon after Ruby.

The creak of the passenger door swinging open pulled Dean's attention away from the stranger.  He didn't even wait for Sam to swing himself into the truck before throwing a thumb in the stranger's direction.  "Who's Trench Coat Dude?"

Sam settled into the passenger seat, but leaned forward a bit to look past Dean.  He smiled and waved at the guy again as he answered.  "That's Castiel Novak.  He runs the NA meetings."

Dean glanced back at Castiel -weird fucking name, probably a creeper too with a coat like that- as he put the truck in gear.  He gave the guy a polite nod as he pulled away from the curb then turned his attention to the road.  "Oh yeah?  You two getting pretty chummy already, huh?"  

"Yeah, he's a cool guy.  Easy to talk to."

Dean made a noncommittal sound.  Other than the dude's weird name and poor choice of clothing on a hot day, Dean had no reason to dislike him.  He should be encouraging Sam to make new friends, but it made him nervous that Sam was finding them at a narcotics anonymous meeting.  Then again, who better to buddy up to than the guy in charge of the whole thing, right? It was his job to keep everyone else on the straight and narrow.

"Cool," he said with forced lightness.  It was the right response because Sam relaxed in the seat beside him.  That made it easier for Dean to relax as well and when he flashed a smile at his brother it was genuine.  "So... how about burgers to celebrate?  We'll get lettuce on yours so it looks healthy."

Sam rolled his eyes, but his lips twitched around the edges in a reluctant smile.  "Sure, fine."

-----

Dean was ready to bite someone by the time he got to leave the job site.  Everything tried to go wrong today, from tools crapping out, to late shipments, to Ash's busted arm.  And of course the boss man was bitching about deadlines the whole time.  

As he pulled out of the dirt patch used by the crew as a parking lot, Dean ground his teeth with frustration.  Off course shit like that seemed to happen every week on the days he was supposed to pick Sam up from his NA meetings.  

[kolthebuilder-blog]

You don’t know what it’s like

                                            To not know who you are.

To have lived in the shadows

                                          And traveled this far.

part one – 

Business was quite; as it always was on a tuesday. Kolby had never really worked out why there was always a lull on that particular day of the week. As far as he could tell everything in the city was pretty much the same as every other day. And yet all the deviants who normally strolled down his little alleyway were nowhere to be seen. Not that he was complaining, it gave him some much needed time to get some work done after all, upgrading an iphone didn’t happen by itself.

Not that Kol was even touching the pile of iPhones sat on his makeshift workbench that took up the entire back ‘wall’ of his makeshift workshop. The wall was actually a sheet of metal that he’d found down by the river and had propped up against a large dumpsters on one side and a collection of cardboard boxes on the other. A few well placed bin lids and half broken umbrellas provided a decent roof (meaning it kept the rain off his head until it turned into a storm). Easy to take down at a moments notice – all you had to do was push on a certain area and it would collapse. Or if a good gust of wind came roaring around. But he loved it; his shitty little workshop that he’d made from nothing. A bit like everything else in his life.

Unwanted and unloved? Kol would take it. He was pretty sure that’s what most of the people on the streets thought about him too, which was why they dumped all their useless scrap on is table. 

There was just enough room behind the workbench for Kol to stand or sit comfortably without knocking into anything and conduct business, but also enough room that should things start turning sour for him to bring the whole thing collapsing on the attacker and get away without injury. He wasn’t normally one to plan ahead but after a particularly large fellow had threatened to shoot him in the knee caps unless he handed over everything he had… well it was a learning curve. Always have an escape route.

Kol’s focus was directed solely at the computer screen in front of him and the lines of code that had overtaken it. He wouldn’t have said he was a hacker, but Kolby knew enough about computers and how they worked to be able to get into a few password protected sites. It wasn’t his fault that Northern Ireland didn’t have a better security system in place to protect children's files. If they ever found out he’d been snooping through their files they should be glad it was just him, just a teenager looking for some answers about his past. Not a serial killer looking for his next target. Even if it had crossed his mind for a moment there about looking up the people who he had hated most in the care home and seeing who was in jail.

But he’d pushed that thought aside and focused on the vague hope in his chest that this could be it. This might finally be the moment he found something – anything – out about his family, about where he really came from. This wasn’t his first attempt at digging up the past but it was the first time he’d gotten this far without incident and maybe hope would be his biggest down fall, but Kolby couldn’t help but hope anyway.

Isaac nudged his knee with his head, clearly bored with just sitting around watching Kol type away on a keyboard and not paying him any attention. One hand absently patted his dogs head while the other finished typing in his name and pressing enter. For a moment nothing happened and Kol felt his hopes - hopes that had been rising for the last hour, higher than they had ever been in this situation - falling. But then the cursor in the screen blinked and he was greeted by a flurry of files flashing up on his screen. Kol let out a proud whoop that scared his dog, but Kol’s attention was fully focused on the screen and searching for his name.

It took a while, longer than he had anticipated it taking, but finally there he was, O’NEAL, KOLBY N in bold letters followed by an equally clear CONFIDENTIAL but he ignored that and opened it up. Everything seemed to be out of order with the few pages about disciplinaries at the start and a couple more on the places he had been housed (and kicked out of) and there in the middle was the page he was looking for. The one that would have the names he needed.

CASE FILE OF KOLBY NIGEL O’NEAL

INFANT INFORMATION

SURNAME: O’Neal                                   FORENAME(S): Kolby Nigel         

SEX:   Male      Female

DATE OF BIRTH: August 28th 199       COUNTRY OF BIRTH: Ireland    

TOWN/VILLAGE OF BIRTH: Parsonstown

MOTHER

SURNAME: REDACTED AT REQUEST        FORENAME(S): REDACTED AT REQUEST               

DATE OF BIRTH: REDACTED AT REQUEST    COUNTRY OF BIRTH: REDACTED AT REQUEST    

WERE PARENTAL RIGHTS TERMINATED: Yes

FATHER

SURNAME: unknown         FORENAME(S): unknown

DATE OF BIRTH: unknown                        COUNTRY OF BIRTH: unknown

WERE PARENTAL RIGHTS TERMINATED: unknown

He read it again, and again, and again. But the words didn’t change. Kolby wasn’t sure what was worse  - that apparently no one knew who his father was or that his mother had apparently taken her own name out of his life on purpose. At request.

Actually, he did know.

Before he could think it through he was closing the laptop with a snap and throwing it against the alley wall with shout, feeling satisfied as he heard glass smash and plastic hitting the floor. He threw a wrench next, it was the nearest thing to him but the dull thud of it hitting the wall wasn’t what he needed. The tool box clattered the floor soon after as he swiped his arm across the bench, knock anything in his way off.

Kolby didn’t know when he started crying, it might have been some time around his foot stomping down on the destroyed laptop on the ground, kicking it against the wall until there would be no saving it. But as his fist hit the wall, rough brick scraping across soft skin, Kol felt hot tears on his cheeks as a guttural cry tore through his chest. 

Another hit to the wall and he savouried the pain that shot up his forearm.

Another hit and he could feel skin splitting and blood flowing. 

Another hit. 

Another cry. 

Another scream. 

His thoughts were racing. All the hopes he had kept at bay for so long bubbling to the surface and spilling out in a tidal wave he couldn’t stop. He hit the wall again and again. 

Another hit and -

A bark brought him out of his anger, his sadness. Hair fell into his eyes as he rested his forehead on the wall, palms flat against the surface and his breathing heavy. Closing his eyes he tried to regain his breathing, to calm his racing thoughts, to weld back together his breaking heart. A wet nose poking at his thigh brought him back to earth, back to the moment he was in and the destruction he’d caused around himself. Newtie let out a soft whimper and bumped his head against Kol’s leg again until his hand came down and rested on his head, fingers threading through his fur and holding like a lifeline.

Lowering himself to the ground Kolby buried his face in his dogs side, letting the constant beat of his heart and the warmth radiating from him lull him into a sense of security as he continued to cry. Kolby wasn’t sure how long he stayed like that, but when he finally pulled his face away from his fur hideaway his breathing was even again and his head felt heavy. Wiping his nose on the back of his hand he pulled a slight face at the sight he had left behind on his dogs grey coat. Streaks of copper stood out from the white fur on his head from the splits on his knuckles and Kol let out a choked laugh, “Sorry buddy. We’ll get you a nice bath, I promise.” His throat felt raw, from crying or screaming he wasn’t sure. The fact no one had come to investigate made him think it was from crying.

In his head Kol had always known his mother didn’t want him, had chosen to abandon him and had never looked back. But seeing the evidence so clear in black and white, seeing with his own eyes how she had made sure to cover her tracks… Kol had wished had wished his heart might be right this one time. With a sigh he leaned his back against the wall, pushing the destroyed laptop away with his foot before shaking his head. He’d have to find someway to get a new one now. Just another job to add to his list. Knees up, arms resting on top, head hanging down. If it hadn’t been for Newtie barking again, tail wagging and tugging at his sleeve, Kol would have probably stayed there for the rest of the day, wallowing in his own self pity and let down.

“Okay, okay, I’m coming.” He said with a sigh, pushing away from the wall and up from the ground, wiping the last of his tears away with his sleeve and wincing a little as he caught sight of his hands. He’d have to find some bandages or something too.

As he followed his dog out of the alley Kolby decided he was done trying to find his past, done looking for someone who had wanted nothing to do with him. Maybe his father had never known he existed either, but Kol didn’t care. He would take his name - the only thing his mother had ever given him - and that would be it. The past could stay there. He didn’t want to know who he might have been anymore.

[ephemerational]

Outside looking in (VI)

Somewhere, between the smallish city of Rasten and the adjacent corporate district, a magnet train glides silently through the night. Almost silently. Inside of the third wagon, a soft, almost harmonious whistling is generated by wind blowing past a bullet hole in the window. A middle-aged businessman with a goatee, a revolver and a tunnel from the front to the backside of his head sits in front of it.

"a shame, really, he'd be cute with an intact skull"

"do you think they killed him because he knew too much? Got rid of the brain matter, destroyed the evidence?"

"well they definitely killed him"

The elder of the two girls sitting to either side of the corpse scrolls through the almost comical amount of emails this guy seemed to be getting. I would guess she’s somewhere in her early twenties, while the one who just commented on the attractiveness of a cadaver can’t be older than eighteen.

"poor schmuck had to take care of some assholes shit basically every five minutes. Must have had the patience of a saint to wait until he's on the train to blow his brains out."

"praise be"

She sounds almost sincere as she folds her hands like this is the tragic grave site of a deceased martyr, a temple gliding through the air at 200mph. Were it not for the accurate time indication on the top right of my screen, I would assume that I was somehow receiving some kind of absurd tv show.

The younger girl, dressed in vibrantly colored, trendy though utterly uncoordinated articles of clothing takes a sandwich out of their fellow passenger’s suitcase and beams with joy when she sees that no blood got on it.

"we just ate"

"so what? It'll get soggy if I wait. You wouldn't want his wife to have put in all of this effort for nothing."

"how much would you bet on his marital status"

The young girl cocks an eyebrow

"that's not fair, you have his phone!"

"seems to be purely business though. No pictures, no private calls, nothing."

While poking a finger into the dead man's cheek the younger sister has taken to scolding him. Or maybe they’re not actually sisters? Who knows?

"now that's no way to live mister corpse, you should have at least had photos of your hot naked wife to look at during breaks. Just imagine how happy that would have made her."

"she's hot now? What else do you know about this hypothetical wife, on whose existence you still haven't wagered anything."

"my sandwich then, you can practically taste the love that went into this. And of course she's hot, he managed to go on for this long after all."

"deal, tell me if you find something."

"that wasn't what I meant by did they kill him by the way. I was more thinking conspiracy."

"I know, but that's the first thing your mind goes to every time"

"well it would be so much more interesting"

"we literally saw this guy pull the trigger from the luggage department."

Oh, so that's where they came from. I was already considering befittingly ridiculous ways in which they could have somehow showed up in a train which previously just carried this guy, like entering from the roof of the moving Leviton.

"they still could have blackmailed him or something"

"you don't actually believe that"

"No, but thinking about it is fun"

She checks a pocket on the inside of his suit.

"found his wallet!"

“Excellent, how much did he have on him?”

“About 600 bucks, and no family pictures anywhere. What’s wrong with this guy”

“What will it take for you to believe that he didn’t have one?”

The girl looks to her sandwich, then back to her sister.

“I don’t care, you can keep the sandwich… If you can get the blood out of his suit.”

Her companion rubs the fabric between her fingers.

“Leave it to me!”

They… Oh god, they undress the dead businessman and stuff his suit into a bag. Should I call the police? No. Even aside from the uncomfortable situation that explaining the surveillance equipment I have in one of corporate’s Levitons would create, what would the point be? These girls don’t seem dangerous, just kind of unnerving. And besides, what’s the harm in robbing him, especially if he doesn’t have a “hot wife”? It’s certainly better than his possessions going to corporate. I look over at a picture of my own hot wife as I try to convince myself that this line of reasoning isn’t just a flimsy excuse not to intervene in the events unfolding behind the screen. To keep my distance from the outside word and not be swallowed by it. There would be no point in having the screen to begin with if I were to cross that sacred barrier.

Wait, maybe Mimi knows this guy. Wouldn’t be the first time one of her coworkers “removes themselves from the payroll” as she occasionally refers to it. I haven’t spoken to my wife in about a month, so I’m somewhat hesitant to open a conversation with “Hey, some poor soul committed suicide on the L39, were you acquainted?”, but then again, she is the last person to care about this kind of social decorum, possibly the only person to be more comfortable with this than with small talk. I send her an encrypted image from the video feed and add the question if she wants to come over sometime.

A reply comes instantly, despite it being 3 a.m.

“Never met him, but investigators ask me if I’ve seen these girls pretty much weekly.”

“what do they get up to?”

“Are you actually considering calling the cops?”

“Please don’t, they’re so cute.”

“Probably not, I’m just gauging how guilty I should feel about this inaction.”

“As far as I know they’re just thieves, probably from the huts.”

“Maybe? The way they speak doesn’t really fit.”

“Be that as it may, they’re precious and I’ll be really sad if corporate catches them one day.”

“April 11. Should work.”

“That’s only two weeks from now and you don’t have an exact time?”

“Mimi, are you sick?”

“I’m not giving you a time, because it’s the entire day. We’ll be on shutdown”

“Well I guess I’d better make some preparations then. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

I push my chair backwards to escape the panopticon of monitors which I have constructed in the corner of my bedroom. This surveillance station and the other equipment connected to it easily make up for half of all value in this apartment, which admittedly isn’t much. A quick glance around the corner reveals that the blinds are indeed down, not that anyone is likely to be outside at this time of night in this neighborhood. It still gives me some sense of security, of control. I like being the one in charge of when to interact with reality.

Safe from any and all prying eyes, I get up for some good old-fashioned pacing. There’s definitely something to be said for wandering aimlessly around one’s abode after getting up, reevaluating the events of the past day with the necessary distance, making plans, thinking in general while using the body to stay grounded in the physicality of one’s own world. The subtle sway and rhythmic steps along with the residual sleepiness being conducive to all kinds of ponderings.

Usually I follow this ritual the moment I wake up, but there were some extraordinary circumstances today, starting with a gunshot that beat my alarm by about five minutes. I ducked into the surveillance station to find that someone had shot himself on an otherwise empty train, or a train that looked empty until two girls appeared from what I now know to be luggage department. To add to an already exceptionally strange morning, my workaholic wife revealed to me that she will have a full day off soon, which really only allows for one reasonable conclusion: I am still dreaming. This is way too good.

Then again… I scan the text on a pack of caffeine pills before dropping one in a mug and boiling some water. I’s impossible to read in a dream. You just kind of know what things say and words change when you focus on them. These lists of components and warnings on the other hand, despite partially being in languages I don’t speak stay consistent. I really will be with Mimi for a full day, huh? I should think about hat food to get. The hot water flows in a flawless spiral onto the ground coffee in my filter and drips slowly into the mug, dissolving the caffeine tablet little by little. I lean back against the counter. School starts in about four hours, so I better finish some prep-work work for the lessons, but not before checking back in with those two preliminary graverobbers. I anxiously await the last few drops falling before throwing away the filter in a practiced motion and running back to my monitors mug in hand.

The older girl stands incredibly close to the camera, probably on top of the seats, her face taking up most of the screen.

“That’s an odd position, why would they need additional cameras here?”

“Doesn’t look like corporate hardware.”

“So what, some creep is just spying on passengers? Doesn’t seem like a promising angle for those kinds of purposes.”

Ouch

“Well, it definitely looks expensive, let’s take it.”

What? No!

The screen goes back. I somehow feel violated.

[thebuildingcacophony]

Seeking (8) Revised

(Did not like the original version, decided to re-do it. A lot more detail and more direction was put into the story.) 

Previous Part (Sanctification): Inspiration Music

Breathe.

Just Breathe.

The words stood within Ilyea’s lips as the heaviness in her chest began to collect and fall away. Inhale and then exhale; she felt her mind say as the vigorous ritual had trained almost everything from her but then again, she couldn’t say this was the right time.

Ilyea felt the tightness of the bond which let her know when Aurora was nearby but dared not open it. The more she spoke with him, the more she’d want to crawl back to his side.

But the sanctum needed to be free from void, so that it could contain the void. It required writing the very existence of the chambers with the coding of her magical soul. Her avatar, the spark which creates her to cast magic.

At least that’s what it always felt to her. It was something that slowly become known to her as she trained throughout the years, the fury of flame and fire dissipating under the whirling storms of arcane.

When the contours of her body solidified under the regiments of her steadying breath, Ilyea entered the confines of the room that would later become her sanctum. Previous visits issued runes across the barrier that one would recognize from the trees but further augmented for the ritual. Further runes collected together from the middle creating three circles of runes. The outside having the most space while the other two growing smaller in size. The middle most one where the ritual would be taking place.

Earlier Ilyea collected a few buckets of water from the haven which she dropped off after the failed Black Temple attack. The water was tepid and cooled and carried a bit of the surrounding arcane winds that flowed around Outlands. It would serve its purpose once the ritual was finished, and the sanctum was finally completed.

Bare feet dried with blood slowly traversed the two rings that made up the inner most area of her lab, as Ilyea situated the robes outwards so just the tips of the fabric would touch the circle. Her hands still ached from the wounds from before but like her legs they had dried blood that moved down her skin like red sap rivers of red sap. One would think with the surrounding trees, that this elven was just some dirty nymph covered in grime, leaves and blood with her smudged white robes and wild black hair and not some type of magic user. It was an assumption that was fair to gather considering her surroundings as the mage adjusted herself against the dirt ground.  

Her soul strength had to be stronger if she were to confront the well. Exactly how it worked was anyone’s guess, it had been so long since she had looked within her magical self. Her trainings, her faults. Instinct told her this would work and that was good enough for her.

A few steadying inhale/exhale combos and she steadied her rhythm.

Breathe.

Just Breathe.

Ilyea started to meditate upon her aura that her husband was so fond of. The whirling and electric buzz of how it felt when she conjured arcane blasts. How course it felt when she refilled her mana with a quick burst borrowed from the soul. The swirls and whirls that encompassed her that felt like a moving storm of power. One that that she could just grab a seed of and push outwards until it encompasses the tiny space she was trying to transform.

Though that could be the boring way of doing things, and the mage was never one to follow tradition. Extending her hand out as if asking for permission from an invisible partner, Ilyea closed her hand after a moment taking the silent acceptance and began to dance.

There would be no style associated with it but just steady temperament of twirling. Her foot as the axis, as her limbs extended out in whirling as she called the arcane from deep within. Ilyea watched the blue trickle down her skin, illuminating the veins of her blood with an azure paintbrush.

Each twirl, each sweep of her arms and she felt the runes resonate with Ilyea’s movements steadied herself against the flow of magic as the movement slowly coaxed it open. And within a quick blink of her eyes, it expanded and encompassed everything in a thick miasma of power that the runes seemed to hold onto like a toy. Her partner had become real, as her soul danced before her eyes.

If one could say they were within Terrokar forest, one would scoff at the picturesque blues and purples that seemed to dot the ritual site. It would make one think they were in the middle of netherstorm with the way the magics flowed over the runes, creating waves of power that seemed to center on her and propel outward like a leisurely breeze.

Ilyea breathed in as deep as her lungs could hold air until they started to burn before exhaling in a quick dizzying breath.

Breathe.

Just breathe.

 The flowing cloud of colors seemed to delight and confuse as the mage continued to breath. Ilyea dimly knew something was going to happen but what exactly was going to happen, and what exactly did it mean to confront the well?

Or at least prepare herself for it.

 Love?

The voice came so unbidden it caused the unifying mantra to be caught in her throat. Her blue arcane collected eyes observed the swirling storm she created to peer to where the voice possibly could have come from.

Curiosity dotted Ilyea’s face as she peered around the enclosure. It couldn’t be him, could it?

Her hand reached to her the tattoo which was burned into her flesh that herself and Aurora made for each other many moons past, but she did not feel the tug of its magic upon her own.

Love?

The voice asked again, this time more persistent and desperate. Within the illusion winds, Ilyea watched as the tempest grow dark as what seemed to be millions of milky dark black drops seem to spread and cover the outer layer of the runes like inky puddles. The well would not send its champion so easily but someone whom she’d call her husband first, Ilyea bitterly thought.

The inky puddles slowly turned into some small skittering spiders of illusionary void that piled high upon each other until Aurora was re-created in perfect detail. The black hair that usually hung in a tight fox tail swayed a bit to the winds as he was dressed in his favorite set of yellows and blacks, the tabard that adorned his outfit cut which was fashioned into a loose bracelet around her wrist.

Aurora’s stalwart features gazed upon her but she saw him as he was a few moons ago. Covered in gore and wistful staring at her as she existed within the sanctity of the inner circle. Slowly he outstretched his blood-soaked gauntlet to her belaying the illusion as some of the spiders moved as his arm flowed to keep the creation intact.

“Why don’t you call on me, why do you push me away?”

 His question was a fair one and Ilyea wished more than anything to keep him close to her. Ilyea wasn’t sure how long she’d have to be away from Aurora for the voices to collect in his mind, push him closer to the void but their bond was still intact?

 Was that enough?

 The Aurora creation slumped forward, the yellows staining through with the blood, each drop that fell on the ground breaking the illusion as a spider skittered away.

 “You know what Andy said to us about our connection to each other?” Aurora spoke pitifully as more gore soaked words fell from his lips. His hands reached out to pierce the inner circle but stopped from the invisible barrier that separated the two, his green eyes searching out her own as he rested his palms on the divide.

 Is her best option of beating this menace by isolating herself? Keeping still to the inner ring, and giving herself her best chance by keeping herself pure or trusting others to give the same decision?

 The mage was starting to doubt as she thought of her promise, and then again to the ritual she was currently engaged in.

 “Why don’t you let me be your everything?” Aurora once more croaked, his features as soaked with blood as the sadness that surrounded his eyes. His voice faltered as his form started to melt from the ragged movements.

 Ilyea felt her heart bleed along with him as her words pierced her heart more than any dagger could. As she watched his form dissolve, the mage knew that she had won but it didn’t feel like winning to her. It felt like a cautionary tale of how they could break apart if she continued to act carelessly. Was it more to be cautionary tale, or a distraction?

 Outstretching her hand, Ilyea started to dance again focusing on the mantra as she moved.

 Breathe.

Just Breathe.

The winds continued to shift and swell, the flow rippling her clothes and burning against her dried blood but Ilyea felt at peace. Numbly at peace. As Ilyea turned around in a smooth twirl, the subtle scentof menthol and spearmint alerted her at the next champion the well would call. Their true one this time.

Ilyea turned just in time to watch the inky arachnids dissolve into a perfection of Lledwyn. Or what was supposed to be him, bitterly cold and somber with icy blues eyes that belayed the abomination he became. He was dressed in polished saronite armor, his arms holding onto a large axe that seemed to twirl with souls as much as the netherstorm she had created. The death knight truly looked to be the embodiment of death.

“You are too reckless for your own good.” The man sneered, her iciness perfected despite the shadowy legs that poked out from the sheet of ice. Ilyea could practically feel the disdain dripping from his lips.

To say that his form didn’t strike fear in her heart would be a lie, but it had been ages since they had talked like this; even if it was an illusion. Ilyea felt detached and sad as she looked onto the man.

“You throw yourself against the current without looking at where it leads. You are a disgrace to this house, to my name. I wish you weren’t my sister. I wish the trolls would have killed you.”

The last few sentences they spoke burst into her thoughts mimicking the brightness of the arcane the flowed in-between. The last few words seriously spoken between the pair. Was it his true thoughts?

The sibling shook her head though her eyes showed the hurt. The ritual started to feel like a prison and a cage even if there was protection there.

Was there any sanctity by doing any of this alone? Should we even try?

“Didn’t we promise not to lie to one another? Shouldn’t you trust me more to help you?” Lledwyn whispered and just like Aurora, his form melted as the spiders returned to their inky form before. His dissipation accruing the conflicting feeling in Ilyea’s chest or right versus wrong. Strength of what she has.

But still, Ilyea continued to dance while the mantra rang in her ears.

Breathe.

Just Breathe.

While it had seemed much larger than before when she first started, her dancing felt confined by the ritual circle. The winds piled and moved but Ilyea felt no closer to her goal, in fact, she was starting to feel farther away.

She was starting to feel lonely.

Ilyea should have known that is when the well decided to strike with its next mouth piece. The mage wasn’t  even that shocked when Malefaca’s form came next. The man whom had plagued her for a better part of her early years. An elf that no longer had much of a form but was merely a skeleton of fel enriched power that spoke in the same mocking voice as her fears that the spiders created.

“Where the hell are the people you are so proud of? Where is that fucking shit stain husband of yours?  Anyone that can’t exist without you for a few seconds is weak. What a pathetic loser you have Ilyea, just like Francis.”

 Was that when she opened her telepathic link to Aurora? Or was it when the rage started to fill the link as Aurora spoke. The anger sparked just like cold fire over washing over her shortening her breath. Ilyea didn’t know when she opened or closed the bond but his affirmations of love and support were enough to make her decision.

 “You are weak just like the company you keep. They hold you back, you should get rid of them all.” Malefaca’s voice sneered in mocking contempt.  

 “Prove it then” Ilyea yelled back the residual of Aurora’s anger flowing over her tongue. “Prove to me that the company I keep makes me weak.”

 Having received its challenge, the skeleton began to smirk. Its mouth then opened and closed in a wide gape of movement as the bones simulated laughter clacking together its jaws in chittering movements, the spiders spilling down to the floor as it did.

 The mage knew in many years not to directly challenge Malefaca, it’s how he baits you. It’s how he wins but if winning mean isolation and loneliness, then Ilyea knew she’d rather fail because there were those around her to help her find another path.

 The skeleton rose its hand to start their next dance as Ilyea moved over the protection circles. The illusion felt warm but solid as it folded her into his embrace, before shoving its fingers into her side marking her skin.

 “Then depend on the people that you decide are as worthless as you and die among with them. Prove it, indeed.” The voice chuckled as it tossed her aside to the ground.

Ilyea succumbed to the pain as soon as the ghostly fingers hit her side; her eyes closing against the arcane winds that flowed over her like a tomb not even registering that she hit the floor.

–

It couldn’t have been more than a few hours but when Ilyea moved it was clear that she had done something. The wondrous blues and purples that surrounded the area had faded until the dull blackness as before. It was just her own labored breathing and the muted sounds of what was ahead in the forest.

As the mage slowly leaned up, she felt the pain beside her explode against her side and the she knew that where the apparition had touched her would not go away.

“Then depend on the people that you decide are as worthless as you and die among them. Prove it, indeed.” The mage dimly repeated in her head as she shakily stood to her feet. Was this tie purpose of the test or what the test was trying to tell her?

Trust. Or failure.

Ilyea licked the coppery film that coated her tongue and slowly brushed the dirty locks of black hair from her face. Inwardly, she hoped that Aurora wouldn’t get too angry at her. Maybe she can ask Theron for guidance.

She would prove that she wasn’t worthless, and that her faith wasn’t misplaced.

Ilyea would try again.

 @iamarchme ,  @lledwynlomeriel (  Mentions: @theron-darksunder )

[pre-destinedtoloveyou-blog]

How could you mess me up.

I thought I am strong enough to handle every thing in my way pero mali ako. I guarded myself for a very long time. I was careful in meeting people in my life. Never did I let any stranger talk to me specially on social media sites kasi ano purpose in talking to them anyway? In meeting people naman I always guarded my heart and never let did anyone take a second look. Until one day, naging parang walang kwenta lahat ng pag aalaga ko dito, sa puso ko. One unlikely afternoon, kasagsagan ng lindulan around batangas and some nearby places biglang nag pop up ang messenger ko. Yung wave sign sa messenger and I didn't realize I've waved back. Then yun doon na nagsimula ang paguusap. At first nabigla ako why did I respond but then I thought na maybe it is okay to have someone to talk to noong mga panahon yun and besides alam ko namang nung araw lang na yun niya ko kakausapin kasi wala lang siya magawa. But little did I know lagi pa din siya nagchachat and I have to admit masarap siyang kausap. I enjoyed talking to that alien kahit minsan nonsense na tuloy pa din ako. There were no flirtatious conversation going on kaya lalo akong naging interested sa kanya kasi unlike other guys kaya magchachat kasi naghahanap ng kalandian or whatsoever. Yung impression ko na kaya lang ako chinachat nito kasi wala siya magawa, baka landiin lang ako neto, or alam ko madame to kachat bukod sakin. Nabaligtad lahat kasi as the day goes by mas nakilala ko pa sya. Naging super close kami gawa din siguro madame kaming pagkakatulad. Umabot na nag call siya tuwing may time siya. Nag exchange kami ng daily activity na parang huy alam mo ba, uy grabe kanina. Tinatag niya din ako sa mga fb post then nagtag na din ako sa kanya. Ewan ko pero ang gaan gaan ng loob ko sa kanya na habang patagal ng patagal lalo kami nagkakatiwala sa isat isa. We've talk about each others loved history. We shared stories. We like poke fun of each other! Like that was my favorite part of us we always find reason to goof around. We tell secrets too. We also planned escapades. We.. well I don't know out of the blue bigla siyang nagpaparinig sakin na he's into me pero iniisnob ko lang. By that time I was scared na mag iba yung tingin niya sakin kasi I like our set up. Yung bros kami. He have been worst noon sa past relationship niya and I dont want to be one of his heartaches kaya gusto ko magkaibigan muna kami coz sa totoo hindi pa ako handa sa mga commitment hindi ko alam kung kaya ko ihandle. Kaya ayun denial ako sa tuwing nagpaparamdam siya na gusto niya ako. Alam mo yun sobrang ganda nung effect niya sakin na dahil sa kanya I want to be a good person. Yung mga what ifs ko nawawala na. Then nahanap ko yung worth ko that I even loved myself more. He doesn't know na nakikipagbalikan sakin yung past ko well I did tell him pero di niya alam na sinusuyo pa din ako. Tuwing tinitingnan ko yung sabihin nating ex ko siya yung naaalala ko. Siya yung hinahanap hanap ko. Di ko napansin nahulog na pala loob ko sa kanya na di ko akalain na gusto ko na siya. But I keep on denying the fact that I like him. I know it is so sudden ni hindi pa namin nakikita ang isat isa sa personal or nakasama pero alam mo yun he was so genuine alam mo yun sa tao na kahit usap chat at fb lang kami I was so sure he was not like them. Yung gut feeling ba. Pero ano? Mali pala ako. I dont know what happened pero one night nawala siya bigla. Yes, nagchat naman siya yung last night namin magkachat parang he's not in himself then the day after buong araw di siya nagchachat but I see him online 2 minutes ago or like active now na di tulad dati pagka online niya chat agad siya. Hindi ko masyado inisip na may something different kasi isang beses nangyare yun nung may problema siya hindi siya nagchachat kasi ayaw niya madamay ako sa badtrip niya kaya ayun naisip ko hala baka may problema lang si bro. The next day nagchat siya I was relieved sabi niya nagkasakit siya and I was like kaya pala. Nagkakachat na ulit kami pero parang iba. Parang pawala wala na siya ngayon. Hindi ko ulit inisip pero nagkakafeeling ako na alam niyo yun woman instinct? Pero binaliwala ko pa din. Nagchat ulit siya and he said, "bro pag pray mo ko mag eexam na kami tomorrow." Then sabi ko ahh naging busy siya kaya siguro di makachat ng ayos kaya ayun chineer ko siya instead na magtanong kung bakit parang may iba sa kanya. Before as in kahit walang time gumagawa siya ng time para kausapin ako pero ngayon wala na. And then bigla akong may naramdaman sa my day niya. Picture lang naman siya na usual niyang post pero may naramdaman akong kakaiba parang kumirot puso ko. Hindi ko pa rin pinansin ng pinanuod ko yung live niya kasama mga tropa niya. As usual kengkoy pa rin siya at ng nagsimula ng asarin siya ng tropa nia na "sino ba nagpapauwi na sayo si.. ivy?, oh si jenny ba (tas nagtatawanan yung tropa niya) then binanggit nila din ang name ko.. ah oh baka si ano (insert my name)." Grabe, parang dinurog puso ko. Hindi ko alam pero ang sakit. Hindi ko alam ang dapat ko isipin. Nagflashback lahat. Bakit anong nangyare. Bakit may ganon. Ang masakit lang sakin nakahilera ako sa mga babae niya. I trusted him. Okay lang siguro na bro lang talaga kami pero yung ihelera niya ko sa mga sorry for the term "nilalandi" niya di ko yata kaya yun. Parang gumuho yung mundo ko. Parang nawalan na ko ng hope. Ang laki ng tiwala ko kay bro kasi alam ko di siya ganon iba siya knowing his past. Sobra akong nasaktan na parang lumiit tingin ko sa sarili ko. I was in the edge of breaking down. I want to ask him what the fvck was that pero di ko yata kaya. I have trust issues alam niya yon and I cant believe he will be one of them. From that moment I realized "takte gusto ko nga pala siya at pocha ang sakit sakit." He stopped using his vape then I saw from one of his live streams nag vavape na ulit siya, like what the fvck, what happened to you?. I was so broke. Parang pinupunit yung puso ko. Walang nakakaalam sa nararamdaman ko ngayon kasi gusto ko ikeep tong feelings ko. Ayoko na. Inistalk ko pa kung ano ba talaga and I saw one of the girls post sa ig. Recent post lang yung girl yung puno ng sakura then nakacredits pa siya. Iyak ako ng iyak. Hindi ko na siya kilala. At this point hindi ko alam gagawin ko kung kakausapin ko pa ba siya or maglalaho na lang ako ng parang bula. Nangangatal ako ngayon at di ko mapigilan ang pag agos ng aking luha. Pero siguro nagkamali lang ako. Siguro dapat talaga hindi ko na hinayaan na maging parte ka ng buhay ko. He didn't know I can wait for him kahit straight 5yrs pa siya sa japan. I will not entertain any suitors. I will be loyal to him. Kahit bros pa lang kami. Pero siguro mali lang talaga ako. Too dumb, too young to realize na you are not what I think you are, that everything I know was just for show.

[lovehaswonangelnumbers]

New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/uranus-directunavoidable-shocks/

Uranus Direct~Unavoidable Shocks

Uranus Direct~Unavoidable Shocks

By Jo Tracey 

Uranus has been retrograde for pretty well the last six months. While Uranus was retrograde all of that bubbling, electrical energy that Uranus brings was happening within you instead of to you. Eventually it has to explode.  Suddenly you see exactly what you need to see.

There’s nothing subtle about Uranus. He has neither the time nor the energy to faff around with subtlety and lessons and opportunity. Instead he relies on giving totally unexpected and utterly unavoidable shocks to get you moving out of your rut and into something that’s more authentically you.

He pokes and prods at you until you’ve no choice but to make the changes that are necessary to become yourself. Uranus transits are uncomfortable and indiscriminate. If work is not right, expect stuff like failed projects, difficult clients, problems with money. Likewise if relationships need changing, problems will arise in this area. Get the idea?

If Uranus passes back across a natal planet or chart point for you during this transit your time is …now! Think about the bid for freedom you may have made when Uranus 1st touched that planet. The retrograde period has given the opportunity for those feelings to be directed inward and observed objectively. What went wrong then? What could you have handled differently?

If a break out is still required or a change absolutely needs to be made, when Uranus goes direct over that planet you could have the opportunity to make the change real… or risk regretting it forever. 

The thing with Uranus is that if Uranus thinks that changes need to be made he will not be content with a minor renovation.  If your life needs an overhaul, repainting the metaphorical equivalent of a room will simply not cut the mustard – although it may calm your restless urges for a time. If you think that you can control your environment, think again – the area of life that Uranus is transiting becomes totally unpredictable until you get the message. And, let’s face it, most of us need to feel some discomfort in order to change our circumstances. 

Who will this be affecting the most?

While we all might experience the change in energy as Uranus begins to move forward, if you have planets or chart points at 28 Aries, Libra, Cancer, Capricorn, Uranus will be conjunct, Square or opposite these planets now-ish. I would hazard a guess that you’ll be feeling it.

If you have planets or chart points at 28 Leo, Sagittarius, Aquarius or Gemini, Uranus will be sextile or trine these planets.

If this is you, don’t be surprised if suddenly you see who you want to be, where you want to be, who you want to be with and what you want to be doing – and why the hell it means so much to you… to (badly) paraphrase KT Tunstall. Of course, whether you do anything about it is an entirely different story…

And finally…

If you are in the midst of a Uranus transit one thing that you shouldn’t lose sight of is that Uranus doesn’t necessarily want to cause havoc in whatever part of your life is under his unpredictable influence – that is unless there is something in your life that is holding you back from becoming the person that you forgot to be. Whatever it is that version of you looks like.

While there’s no denying that at times this can be tough period, it can also be exciting.

*****

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***If you wish to send Donations by mail or other methods, email us at motherofallcreation@lovehaswon.org  or  michaelsilver@lovehaswon.org***

  **** We Do Not Refund Donations****

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