#life without colour part eight

[gyuswhore]

Cherry Picker [1]

«« "Do me a favour and forget your mouth guard next time. Let the puck punch you in the mouth if I can't." »» 

Choi Seungcheol x reader | part of the winter with you collab hosted by @camandemstudios!

Part 1: 19k | Part 2

warnings: Hockey player! Seungcheol, figure skater! reader, *deep breath* ENEMIES TO LOVERS, angst, fluff, smut [MINORS DNI], toxic friends, cheol has anger issues, kkuma appearance, @miniseokminnies makes also makes a fluffy appearance, injuries, mentions of blood, smut tags in the next part

synopsis: Cherry Picking [ice hockey]: a manoeuver in which a player, the floater, literally loafs (spends time in idleness) or casually skates behind the opposing team's unsuspecting defencemen while they are in their attacking zone. There wasn't much you counted on in life; just your skates, your drive and how it felt to win. And of course, your local ice rink, that is now being colonised by an obnoxious hockey team in all their big, loud, stinking glory. Neither does it help that one particular red donned specimen forgets to leave his cherry picking on the ice.

[a/n] (it's a long one but PLEASE read) : ITS HERE FINALLY this was an extremely bumpy ride and I wouldn't have finished it without all of my friends who quite literally kept me going. I know I made an update saying this was gonna end up being 20k max but it turns out my yap-itis is for life </33

the posting schedule for this fic is going to be a little less predictable, I will try to get part 2 out asap but I do not currently have a date for you.

big thank you to @highvern for betaing and making me feel better about this fic, @amourcheol for talking me out of meltdowns multiple times and for giving me some really good scene pointers, @ugh-yoongi for being so patient w me and explaining how ice hockey works with so much patience. ty to @the-boy-meets-evil @tusswrites @lovetaroandtaemin for also proof reading for me 🥹

HUGE thank you to everyone at @camandemstudios who agreed to be part of this collab and being part of the journey as we grow 🫶 please check out the collab masterlist linked above, there's already so many amazing fics posted ready for you to read <33

that being said, I know more about figure skating than I do about hockey, but even so there are defo some inconsistencies in terms of accuracies in this, please bear with me 🫶 remember to reblog or send me an ask telling me your thoughts, id love to hear what you guys think 🥹 masterlist

“CAN I HELP YOU?”

“I’m sorry,” you gravel out. 

“Sorry isn’t gonna give back my hour and thirteen minutes.” 

The strap of your gym bag cuts into your bare shoulder where the collar had slipped, the tight threading sure to leave a scratch by the time this is bound to be done. You’d managed to avoid coach Carroll’s morning cornering for a couple months, going above and beyond by showing up to the icy rink before she could even pull up in the parking lot in her blaring red Porsche, let alone before her ten minute meditations in her cream coloured seats. 

“There was an accident on the highway. Truck tipped over.”

“It’s eight in the morning,” Carroll points.

“Illegal truck, I guess.” 

Teeth to tongue, you know you’ve done it. 

She’s in her usual tracksuit, green today, that contrasts her bright red hair in its tight curls. Her glasses are her sensible Ralph Laurens, eyes piercing through the tinted lens as she holds her chin in her hands. Silent, calculating. 

“Fine. Change.” 

Your legs want to give out before you can even get your skates on. 

There were many things Isabella Carroll was good at. The industry would have one of them be a good coach; one of the most expensive, the one that squeezed the life out of her students to inject into the golds, silvers and bronzes they would then bring her on an equally diamond encrusted platter. 

She has also mastered the art of impeccable dressing downs. 

The fact she chose to skip out on verbally humiliating you meant you’d managed to strike that cord. She might be leaving in the next 45 minutes, but she has a very particular way of stretching the minutes into years. 

Like a whipped horse, you scurry into the locker rooms, skin crawling. Your gym bag is positively launched into your designated locker, shoes kicked off as you attempt to stick your right foot into your skates, narrowly missing your heel as it grazes right past the toe pick. 

You slow down after that, not needing a scar on your heel to match the large one on the side of your calf. 

By the time you jog back out, unzipping your jacket to throw onto one of the benches, coach is on the ice, following Marina who zips around on the other end of the rink in her step routine. 

It’s difficult to not rush through your warmups when you’re already late, your splits hardly pushed out as you pray all that running around in the desolate locker rooms was enough to stretch everything out. 

There’s a crash on the illuminated ice as you slip off your skate guards, Marina already practising her Salchows. “You’re in the air for enough time, why can’t you rotate?!” 

Right blade first, you step into the cold encircling, gliding into the centre to begin making your usual rounds around the circumference.

There’s a positive screech of your name from across the ice, wind blowing in your hair as you turn to look. “Do I need to hire someone to hold up your free leg? Fix it, girl!”  

Holding your left leg more taut, you attempt to transition into a jump and spin. You fail, landing on both feet. Somehow, falling on your ass felt like a better conclusion to that arc. 

“Wonderfully executed! Let’s try both hands on the ice too next time, really complete the contemporary finish,” coach hollers out to you as she continues to follow Marina at the same time. 

Trying again, you manage to land on your outer left blade. You receive no comment. 

You try the jump again, pushing into a sit spin. 

The momentum is enough to begin the familiar slack in your scalp, your bun loosening its grip on your hair. Biting your tongue would be dangerous right now, but you would if you could, especially considering the ramifications of your hair coming undone in front of her. 

The crouch as you spin burns your thighs like you’re being branded, pulling yourself back up as you finish abruptly. Still no comment, the unintelligible string of nagging coming from the other side of the rink. 

Marina stands hands on her hips, breathing so heavily she’s nearly heaving. Her blonde hair is loosening far worse than yours, strands framing her face. Coach Carroll waves her hands and shakes her head so quickly you wonder how her glasses haven’t flown off. You didn’t get to see what cardinal sin Marina committed to warrant this reaction, but you feel better knowing she’s exhausted enough to let her insults swim past. 

Ten seconds is enough to catch your breath, moving to do something busy enough to avoid another being screamed at across the ice, again. 

By the end of the remaining forty five minutes, you realised your punishment was also punishing Marina. Coach Carroll remained tailing Marina as you attempted to do everything that would please her, far away from her. Not a direction, praise or neutral comment in sight or sound, sealed with her always expected retorts. 

She leaves without a word, leaving you scrambling to the benches for a seat. Putting your skate guards on is torture, your legs refusing to pull up to reach them. You hardly notice Marina slam down into the seat beside you to mimic you slumped down and head lolled back, eyes closed to the bright ceiling. 

“These skates are gonna kill me,” you whine once you’ve caught your breath, unlacing them to inspect the blistering damage. 

“They’re brand new, what did you expect?” she retorts, moving to sit up straighter. Of course, you were grappling at straws expecting anything akin to sympathy from Marina. 

It was your misfortune that the day you had to break in your skates was the day you’d be late, your heavily bandaged foot still aching as you sit idle. 

Your lungs are still burning when you pull yourself back up, knees buckling the absolute slightest bit as you attempt to take the first baby step back onto the ice. 

“We need to get back to it,” Marina says, and you have half a mind to bite that you were up before her. 

She’s faster at slipping off her skate guards though, and you watch her back as she glides back onto the ice. You follow suit, trailing her as you speak. 

“Hey, I’m sorry Carroll was on your ass because of me. My alarm didn’t go off this morning, I overslept.”

She turns to look at you, ghost of a smile on her face. “Time to go old school I guess, I think my brother left behind his old alarm clock from college.”

“I guess—”

“Besides, I needed that. Wouldn’t have known my Salchows were sucky otherwise.”

She doesn’t let you respond and you’re left to watch as she takes off to warm herself back up. 

Strange as it was, you’ve found her behaviour simply doesn’t affect you anymore, choosing to take her as she was. She pushed you to be better, to work harder. Even now, as your ankle burns and your hip screams, you brace yourself into another axel entry, trying your hardest to keep up with Marina. 

It’s another couple hours when Marina leaves for her second appointment with her personal trainer, leaving you alone. 

It’s less crowded now, despite the head count going from two to one, but you appreciate the alleviation as you continue to practise for the rest of the morning. The rink feels more vast and your hip has stopped its incessant aches. 

Having finished a run through of your routine without music, you move towards the sound booth to turn on the tail end of your track, skating back to the echoing rink to brace yourself for the next four agonising minutes. 

You’ve adjusted your starting position about ten times by the time the silence of the song restarting settles. And then it begins, soft piano as you push yourself off into the throngs of this hellsent routine. 

It’s muscle memory by now, but your stomach lurches before you push into a jump anyway. There isn’t much time to ponder when you’re midair, tight yet contorted, trying to land on the right side of the blade. But there’s a phantom pain in your right ankle, right when you’re at the point of your arc, and you feel the all too dreaded panic flood in. 

You land on both feet, less than ideal but with no one to watch the fail, it was better than falling on your ass. There’s been worse outcomes, so there’s little you can do but continue into the step sequence. 

Trying to shake off that bout of panic, you briefly wonder if the music suddenly had more bass than you’d last checked. Perhaps you just hadn’t been practising like you should, but you make a mental note mid-spin to listen to the track again later tonight for any tidbits you’d missed. 

Your heartbeat is trying to accommodate more air than you can let it, especially as you feel the pulse in your ears quicken as you approach your final jump sequence. The music is louder yet muffled all the same, there’s an incessant banging that you can’t figure out is from your head or a corrupted music file. But you find that sweet spot, deciphering through the ruckus in your brain, and you jump. 

It happens again, the strange ache in your ankle that should be long gone, and just like that, all that panic you shook off in the interim comes hurtling back. The world’s gone silent, blaringly so, and for some heaven known reason, you’ve closed your eyes.

You aren’t so lucky this time round, landing directly on your back with a spectacular crash, the ice cutting cold through your thermals as you slide in the direction of your epic fall. Eyelids opening, they’re met with the spotlighted ceiling, head cushioned by the hard plane of ice beneath you. 

The pain in your ankle’s escaped like a fugitive, done it’s damaged and left you crumpled on the floor. The adrenaline is rushing just enough to keep you from identifying any other awakened aches, but you have a sneaking feeling your hip is going to hate you after this. 

You’re still laying flat on the ice when you realise you're laying in mostly silence. Your music is off, and has been since you came to on the floor. The banging, you realise, wasn’t just in your head either. The unmistakable reverberation of the locker rooms is loud and assuming, noises rattling all the way out onto the echoing rink. 

It takes the strength of a village to pull yourself up, but you do it anyhow, ignoring the blatant protests of your mind and soul as you squint across the rink to the sound booth. 

As you skate towards the gate, you assume it’s Hansol trying to get your attention by disrupting you mid session, but the figure shuffling into view is telling you otherwise. 

It isn’t anyone you know, clearer as you grow closer to the gate. It’s obvious he’s the culprit that turned off your music, your laptop shut and the wire to the speakers disconnected from the port. 

You stare at it pointedly as you grapple for your skate guards. 

The man does nothing but remain with his hands in the pockets of his bright red hoodie, hovering over your laptop as he watches you struggle with your skates. SVT stitched onto the back in black. He’s as blank faced as ever, a stark contrast to your heavy breathing as you come round. 

Standing up straight, you dart between your laptop and this person, waiting for an explanation that seems to be lost in the void. You’re still heaving slightly, scowl forming on your face as this strange man offers you nothing.

“Um, did you—”

“Yeah. It’s four,” he responds, like it was supposed to explain enough. 

“And that means…?”

“We have the rink reserved.”

“But it’s Monday,” you respond. It sounds stupid, but it meant something. The rink was reserved on the weekdays for coach Carroll’s mentees, the weekends for the public. 

This man and his big brown eyes gaze directly into your soul as he responds, “And that means…?” 

You’re sweaty and tired, your feet ache with about five new blisters from the last time you checked, and you’re sure you need to get your hip checked out. Perhaps that’s why there’s this unreasonable surge of irritation that rises in the back of your head, irrational and half blinding. 

“That means—”

“Seungcheol! Get your ass in the locker room before I drag you in there myself.” The voice that rings out is heavy and has you flinching, the man’s order echoing from somewhere in the tunnel that leads to the locker rooms. 

The man you assume is named Seungcheol begins to walk away from you without a word or gesture, and you can only blink at his retreating back. 

“Hey! Do you mind not touching my stuff next time round?” you call out as a last ditch attempt to have the last word. He turns his head to you, eyebrows raised and a smirk of mild disbelief growing on his face. Nothing is said as his head turns back to the front, strutting into the tunnel.

He lets you have your last word as he walks away, your gaze the same shade of crimson as his retreating form. 

“AND THEN—THESE—HUGE dudes with fucking botox or fillers in their shoulders storm out—”

Your vent is interrupted by Lorelai who’s burst out laughing mid bite of her sandwich, “What?”

“Botox!” she muffles a shriek through a full mouth.

“They were shoulder pads or something, you get it!” 

The air in the outside seating of this cafe is stellar, the perfect in between you wait for all year. The parasol above you is enough so you don’t have to squint your eyes in the late afternoon sun, the wind perfectly paced in a breeze. Your own sandwich remains untouched, the bread gone stale as you pick at the corner of the crust. 

“Apologies,” she yips. “So you're saying we’re being partially colonised by hockey players?”

“I don’t know! Was it a one time thing, a weekly thing? It can’t be a weekly thing, Monday afternoons are routine practice days.” 

“The routine you’ve been practising for the past year and a half?” 

“I can’t afford getting rusty.” 

Lorelai drops her head like she’s had enough, “Maybe these hockey jocks are a blessing.”

“What?”

“Nothing! Hey, do you want cake, they have cheesecake, I could get some!” 

“Lorry!”

“Okay,” she huffs, dropping back into her seat with blown cheeks. “I’m sorry.” 

Lorelai has a sense of humour that took you more than enough time to decipher, but that wasn’t nearly the first thing you noticed about her. She was beautiful, even more so with the sun gracing her like a loving embrace. The highlights in her otherwise dark hair make the hazel of her eyes pop like two perfectly welcoming cliffs to jump off from. She was the definition of spunk and valour, yet graceful in everything she does. Even now, as she picks up her smoked turkey on honey oat, complete with every fixing and condiment on earth, you question how she can wrench her mouth open to take a reasonable bite; but she does, not a crumb out of place. 

“I have to share a rink with dudes whose hockey sticks are gonna make craters in the ice, why are you not mourning with me?”

“Pretty sure your toe picks do the same thing.”

“Lorelai!” 

“Not the government name!” she wails as though woefully wounded. 

“You’re impossible.”

“Carroll didn’t hate me for no reason.” She smiles in her pride. 

Lorelai’s competitive skating career came to an end sometime last year before the Grand Prix, a decision she announced gracefully with the words BITE ME etched with sharpie on her brand new competition skates. It was difficult to erase the mental image of the scarlet of Carrol’s face when Lorelai marched in with her hair chopped so short it’d be impossible to pull into a bun, marked skates in hand and a mask of determined rebellion on her face. Of course, the whole ordeal could’ve been an email, but it simply wouldn’t have been Lorelai. 

“It’s not like you were trying very hard to please her,” you grumble, nibbling on a fry. 

“Why would I try pleasing that woman?”

“For one thing, your sponsors were paying a bucketload so you could have her.”

“I didn’t want Carroll as a coach. Ever. I wanted Jameson. The only reason they put me with Carroll was because they were putting you and Marina with her.” Her voice is hard, eyebrows raised the slightest bit. 

“What does Jameson offer that Carroll doesn’t?!”

“Oh! I don’t know, let’s see,” she raises her voice as her sarcasm begins to simmer with a lethal edge. “Maybe the fact that an hour training with Jameson doesn’t feel like the subjected wrath of a world war two dictator!”

“Carroll is not that bad!”

“God, you become more like Marina everyday.”

You frown, “What does that mean?”

“It means—!” Lorelai pauses to close her eyes, and you can almost hear her counting in her head. “It means nothing. Eat your sandwich before the bread starts molding.”

“Ew.”

Lorelai smirks. “Bite me.”

You attempt to channel some of that Lorelai energy when you get to the rink past noon on a weekday. You hope you’re reasonable in your hope that Hansol will be in his office as you walk towards the door. 

Three rapt knocks before you hear a muffled voice telling you to come in. The door creaks when you open it. Loudly, might you add. 

“How long is it gonna sing every time I come in here?” you grimace. 

Hansol looks at you from behind his laptop with a tight smile. “For as long as I keep forgetting to oil the hinges.”

Hansol, for as young and qualified as he is, is only the rink manager because his family owns the place. Having graduated the year before with a shiny new law degree, he opted to take a break from moving forward with his career to “slow down” as he put it. The rink was as slow as it could get for him, betting the only important thing on his laptop screen currently was solitaire. 

“Did you also forget that I have the rink during the day on weekdays? 

“Ah. You’ve encountered the hockey team.”

“Yes. They turned off my music mid routine.”

“They're only here till the renovations in their home rink are done, we’re the only other rink in town that’s closed to the public on weekdays.” 

“But they’re cutting into my practice time?” you add, brows furrowed. 

Hansol opens his mouth before closing it again, eyebrows raised. “You clock in here five days a week, ten hours a day.”

“And?”

Hansol huffs out a breath. “Listen, I know you and the other skaters like having the rink to yourselves, and I’d be happy if it was always just you guys. Trust me, these jocks are impossible to clean up after, let alone deal with. Between the launch pad calibre noise and the stupid plastic barriers I have to put up on the railings, I’d love for it to just be you guys. But the only times you officially have the rinks booked is in the mornings when you’re training with coach Carrol, the rest of the week is technically up for grabs.”

“Let me book the rest of the slots then.”

“SVT’s already booked most of the remaining hours.” Hansol’s voice is sympathetic, but his words seemed final. You aren’t sure how bad your face was contorted, because suddenly he’s adding, “But hey, you can look at the leftover hours if they work for you.”

He pulls out the roster on a tablet before handing it to you. It only takes you a minute to scroll before you realise the only viable options were past 10 PM. The rink closed at 11. 

You sigh, shoulders visibly sagging as you let out a bated breath of tension. “It’s fine.” You hand the tablet back to Hansol. “I’ll figure it out.”

Turning on your heel, you make a move to leave the premises. Hansol calls out your name. 

“I’m sorry. Really.” 

You muster a smile, one that you cannot feel the slightest bit. “It’s alright.”

“Only a few months.”

Something in your smile sours, and you nod absentmindedly. “Only a few months.” 

THERE WERE OTHER WAYS the universe could have let it happen, someplace where you might have forgiven yourself. Someplace you had reason to be. 

You were accustomed to physical exertion, how could you not be when you were what you were, but hiking on an incline was never something you fancied yourself with. Gyms and coaches and paved running trails are nothing like rocky terrains and steep mountain paths with no guide but a mobile map. 

The semi finals had passed you by, handing you a gold medal along the way as you thrust yourself into bliss. It was a job well done, so much so that you allowed yourself a weekend of something other than skating rinks and training sessions. So many nights that you can hardly remember, yet flash like lightning under your eyelids. Where you sobbed into your pillow and cursed yourself for ever having the gall to take a step back, to be so arrogant and blustering to announce yourself away from the thing that should’ve mattered the most. 

It only took one tiny crater in the path to twist your ankle so hard you crumple to the ground with a scream you cannot remember. More hands than you have holding on to your searing ankle, like they were holding it together with nothing but their palms and fingers. Lorelai was talking, and talking and talking, but all you could hear was the roaring question in your mind. 

Why did you bring me here? 

Six weeks. 

You watched with your own eyes as the Grand Prix final shuttered away on a reel, like you were watching a movie from an age you could not visit. 

Six weeks. 

Marina sat beside your bed and said words you’d never forget. 

“I’m sorry, but…this is your own fault.”

Six weeks. 

Lorelai wept, and said the same words for an entirely different reason. 

“I’m sorry. This is my fault, it was my idea.” 

Six weeks. 

Carroll kept face, but you could see past the mask. A sigh that said more than any words of reassurance. Disappointed but not surprised. 

Six weeks you were bedridden with an ankle that refused to support your weight on the surface area of your bare foot, let alone on the 3/16th of an inch on a blade. 

Bedrest, meds, physical therapy, and still. The ache in your ankle follows you like a ghost haunting you of your worst mistake. 

It was your fault. You chose to put whimsy above everything you laboured for, for years and years. You chose to look past your shortcomings like they would not become your achilles heel. You chose to get on that trail. You chose to walk out on crutches.

You, who could land a jump on a fraction of an inch of steel, could now barely stand on her own two feet. 

You’d decided on that day, that you were as pathetic as they come.

IT WAS THE MOST natural decision to drag Lorelai out of where she rotted in bed to come with you to the rink. 

“You want me to fight them?” She’s wearing her Winnie the Pooh fuzzy pyjama pants and a university hoodie on top, her short hair concealed in the hood she’s pulled up. “They are hockey players. We are twigs!” 

“Lorry. Have you ever thrown a punch in your life?” you ask her as you pull your hair back into a loose bind. 

“No?” 

“Then why on earth would I ask you to fight goblins triple our size?” 

Her mouth is gaping in disbelief. “Why am I here then?” 

“You,” you start, grabbing your skates and moving out of the locker rooms. “Are gonna sit pretty in that sound booth and make sure nobody touches my laptop.”

“…you realise Hansol has security cameras right?”

“Are you planning on robbing my laptop?”

“No. Although it does have nice specs.” 

You ignore her as you walk towards the benches. “That stupid hockey team needs to know I have reinforcements of my own.”

Lorelai stands there, brows furrowed and in clothes that drown her. She glances down at her outfit and then back up at you. She deadpans, “This is the most unthreatening I have ever looked.”

“Just—” You stand up too quickly and feel yourself wobble. The railing is hardly a foot away, your hand moving over to grab it. Except your palms feel nothing but the flat of something smooth and hard, fingers bumping into the feeling of something unfamiliar. 

You manage to find your balance with a yelp, immediately snapping up to see where you missed the railing. The railing was still there, perfectly within arms reach. There’s a glare in your vision, like looking through a screen. Higher and higher, you realise quickly that you’ve been looking through a clear barrier so high up you can hardly find where it ends in its erect standing. 

Lorelai speaks up first, her voice resonating loudly, “Isn’t that supposed to be on the other side of the railing. Stupid, stupid Hansol.” 

It looks like it stretches throughout the circumference of the rink, wrapping whoever’s inside in a giant plastic fish bowl. 

There’s a clench in your jaw you can’t control, something a little more than annoyance building in your senses. It should be an easy thing to ignore, especially regarding its practically invisible nature, but its presence is all you can think about, even as you step your right blade onto the ice. 

Skating towards the middle of the rink, you feel claustrophobic. 

“Woah! You look like a zoo animal,” Lorealai adds unnecessarily. 

“Just play the track,” you grumble. 

“There should be a don’t tap on the glass sign,” she says, voice muffled as yells from the benches. “You already look like a weasel, can’t have confused people in the stands.” 

“Lorry!” 

“What?” she yells, her voice muffled as she yells from the benches. 

You curse the plastic that cages you as you yell louder, “Play the track!” 

Lorelai nods and makes a noise of understanding, and you watch her as she disappears into the sound booth. 

Taking your starting position, you wait for the quiet lull of the track before the beginning of the unmistakable piano; the low tremor in the beginning existing to prepare you to jump into the routine. You stand there with your arms out like a swan, waiting for your cue that won't seem to arrive. 

You almost yell out at Lorelai again before you suddenly hear the resonating shrill of the piano notes, startling yourself out of your first push. It’s fine, you’ll recover. You’re distracted by your staggered start and it’s enough to have you miss your first jump. It’s fine. You’ll recover. 

By the time the four minutes are up, you’ve missed two of your five jumps, a spin gone wrong, and nearly crashed into the plastic barrier. Not to mention, the aches in your body are enough to seem impossible to geographically pinpoint. 

It’s pointed, the way you make a beeline for the benches, refusing to look at Lorelai. You can almost imagine her expression, the poker face she has when she’s trying to think of ways to structure her next words nicely. 

“What was that?” she deadpans, voice a little far away. Your body hurts enough to take your focus away from her. 

“I don’t know.” 

“I thought your ankle was fine now?” she asks. 

You grit your teeth. “It is.” Lies. The way it was hurting you right now was making sure to remind you of that. 

“You know, you did pick back up a lot earlier than we thought—”

“I said I’m fine, Lorry,” you snap. “Now can you please play the track again.” 

You finally look up, and she looks like she wants to say something. But you’re on the ice before she can. 

You adapt to the excess muffle of the plastic barriers, ears straining to hear the beginning of the piano before you jump into the choreography smoother than last time. This time round, it’s better. The pain in your ankle and the budding one in your hip is apparent, but it’s suddenly easier to drown it out. Focusing on the music, keeping your centre of gravity, pushing into your jumps and spins with enough vigour to hold to what you are. 

Another four minutes pass and it’s over. Immediately, you swing over to the soundbooth to find Lorelai, only to find her joined by an extra set of people.

Impossibly, your blood runs cold. 

There’s a sneaking suspicion you know who it is despite the two men having their backs turned to you, especially judging by the obnoxious red jackets they have on. SVT. You can hear Lorelai speak indecipherably, her voice stern. 

“And you are?” one of them asks. You don’t recognise him, but you do the other one. The one who turned your music off the first day him and his team stepped foot in here. 

“Lorelai!” she yells it for no reason. 

“Gilmore?” The one you recognise snorts. Seungcheol, that’s what they called him the last time you saw him in the sound booth. 

“I’m worse,” she states. 

“Lorry?” you interrupt, arms crossed and gaze directed at her. 

“Lorry?” The one you don’t recognise says. “Like a truck?” 

“You think you’re funny?” Lorelai takes a step towards him, a fair attempt to look threatening if it weren’t for her very unthreatening attire. 

“Oh look at her pyjamas! It’s Pooh bear, Cheol,” he exclaims. That seems to irritate him. 

“Can you replay the track, please, I have to smooth things over,” you intervene. In your mind, ignoring their presence in your space was the best solution, refusing to give them a way to merge into your lane. 

“Woah, we have the rink booked today,” Seungcheol stops you. “4:30.”

Snapping around to find the clock on the adjacent wall, you read the time. “4:17. You can wait.”

He raises his eyebrows. “And thirteen minutes makes what difference?”

“You said 4:30. It is not 4:30 yet.”

The other one thumps him on the back, all smiles. “We can wait, right, Cheol? Besides, we have to put our skates on.” 

His gaze is hard and doesn’t leave yours. “Fine.” 

You break away first to find Lorelai still in the same position, staring at the exchange. You ignore the two men that stand there and address her, “Play the track.”

Before the music begins, you glance back to the benches where the two men have seated themselves, apparently strapping in to watch you. You dig your nails into your palm to reign yourself back in. No point in getting upset. 

The piano begins, and you're determined to not mess up. Especially not right now. 

It goes well for all of 45 seconds, you're hitting the right beats, you feel like water. But then the first jump comes along and you see a flash of red from the stands. An irrational feeling hits you as you push into the first jump, it’s enough to make you stumble when you land. You manage to not fall, but it’s obvious you’ve messed up. 

Somewhere beyond the music you hear a distinct, “Solid 4!”

It distracts you again, and you miss a move. Somehow your second jump ends up worse, and you feel your bottom hit the hard ice. 

“8 point 5! Nice!”

It doesn’t take long for you to realise what they’re doing, anger crashing into you like a flash flood. Scoring your falls? You’re determined to make the next jump combination. You make it fine, but your quad Salchow turns into a triple. The oafs are too shallow to notice, so you hear no jeer. 

But you know that you messed up the only quad in your entire program. 

The last jump goes from a triple axel to a double, and you want to break something. 

The song ends, and you know you have another nine minutes left to yourself, but all you can think about is getting out of the vicinity as soon as possible. Away from all of the eyes that are trained on your hunched form. 

There’s nothing you know about Seungcheol, and yet, the thought of him even looking at you right now is unbearable. Twice you fell, countless times you failed. 

Lorelai says nothing while you pack up, and nothing as you leave the rink. 

“CHOI SEUNGCHEOL, CENTER,” LORELAI reads aloud from your bed with her mouth still full of salt ‘n vinegar chips. 

“Perfect, he already thinks he’s the center of the universe,” you grumble from your position on the floor of the bedroom. Your foam roller feels like heaven under your calves, but the position is beginning to cramp. 

“Surprised you haven’t heard of him, he’s half a celebrity.” 

You turn to her, “I have two gold medals and five podiums for every major skating event.”

“Do I ask for your autograph?”

“He’s not special.”

“Hm. His skill and popularity would beg to differ.”

“Why are you so hellbent on liking him?” 

“Because he’s cute,” she grins wide. “Although the other one was cuter, very angel-like. And he liked my Pooh Bear trousers. Can’t find his name on the team roster though.”

“He was wearing the same stupid jacket—”

You’re cut off by a gasp, a loud one at that. “He coaches the babies!” 

Her face is contorted into something between an “aw” and a sob. 

Lorelai’s phone is dropped dramatically on the bed as she thrashes on your made (now unmade) bed. You swipe the phone and read. His picture is there, the name Yoon Jeonghan, Junior League Coach.

“Good for him.”

“He just got five times hotter,” she states like she’s out of breath. 

“Give it another meeting and he’ll give you five other reasons to hate him.”

“God, you’re so negative,” she huffs. 

“They’re hogging my rink!”

“It is not your rink.”

“It’s as good as!”

“Whatever.” Lorelai rolls her eyes and sets back on the bed, no doubt searching the man up by name. 

“Ow!” you yelp as you stand up from the ground, ankle twisting slightly in the process. 

Lorelai jumps. “What?”

“Nothing,” you mumble quickly, hoping she’d drop it. But she catches your lingering stare on your bad ankle. 

“It’s still hurting, isn’t it?”

“I just twisted it weird,” you defend, walking to pack up your foam rollers. 

You’re met with silence, but you know she’s thinking. Lorelai speaks, “Maybe you should skip out on the shelter today.”

You snort, “Why would I do that?”

Once, sometimes twice a week, you’d volunteer at the local pet shelter. It wasn’t hard work, mostly taking the bigger, more energetic dogs for their runs because it seemed you were the only one who could keep up with their stamina. And now Lorelai is trying to take that away from you. 

“I saw how you struggled at the rink today, there’s not a day you don’t rest. Like, actually rest.”

“That has nothing to do with me struggling!” you retort. 

“What is it then?” she asks, sitting up straighter, defiance in her gaze. “What is it that’s making you skate like you bought your first pair yesterday?”

The irritation is growing into something hotter, her defiance pushing you into a corner. 

“I know what you want to hear from me.” Your voice is shaky. “I’m not going to say it.”

“Because it’s not true? Or because you’ve been convinced it’s not?” 

You know what she’s talking about, and you know you’ve been avoiding the topic like it’s the plague. The ache in your ankle comes alive, and in that moment, you cannot tell if you’re imagining it or not. 

“Convinced by who?” you snap, shoving the box of foam rollers under your desk. 

“Does that have to come from me too?” 

“Lorry, I don’t know what you want from me!” 

“I—”

There’s a knock on your door, loud and demanding. Wrenching it open, you find Marina behind it. 

She has a frown on her face. “You’re still here? I thought you were running with the dogs today?”

“It’s none of your business if she goes or not, Marina.” Lorelai’s tongue drips with venom most commonly reserved for her most hated people. 

Marina, still in her workout clothes and duffel bag, furrows her eyebrows. “Who shoved a pole up your ass?” 

“I’m leaving in five,” you hiss, before making a motion to close the door. 

When you turn around, Lorelai is still on your bed, hands in fists like she’s holding herself back. There’s more behind her eyes than you could even consider unravelling. 

She leaves before you. 

THE ENTIRE WAY TO the rink was just one constant string of prayer. 

All of them go unanswered when you walk in to find the rink full of hockey players in red and black gear. 

The only thing you can do is curse under your breath, only watching frozen in your tracks as a million players skate across the rink passing and yelling at each other. No one you recognise, their helmets and gear eluding any semblance of individuality. 

Where you stand, a little ways away from the plastic screen and the benches, a dark circular puck suddenly slams directly into the boundary at eye level. On instinct, you flinch at the loud bang, half expecting to get hit. 

When you open your eyes, somebody’s skating up to the boundary, and you lock eyes through the cage of his helmet. 

Your blood is suddenly charged with something electric, fingers curling into fists on instinct. 

Suddenly, all that rings in your ears is the distinct jeers of numbers over the muffle of plastic as you continue to fall, and fall, and fall on the cold, unforgiving ice. The amusement in your failure, the joy in your defeat. 

Spinning on your heel, you stalk to Hansol’s office. 

In your blinding anger, you take a wrong turn, looking up to realise you’ve walked into the locker rooms. You’re one step into the men's locker room when you come back to your senses, startling yourself once again as you spin back from where you came, only you’ve been caught. 

For all the luck you’ve received in this life, it seems to opt out at that exact moment as you hear the unmistakable noise of a herd of ogres walking in, the glare of red on the walls surrounding them. Frozen in your spot, you can only grip the straps of your duffel bag harder, tense up like you were preparing for impact. When they turn the corner, the brilliant idea of simply walking towards the women’s locker rooms befalls you. But it’s too late. 

Seungcheol saunters into the hallway, leading the pack. 

His helmet is in his hands instead of on his head, revealing a sopping mop of hair drenched in what you can only imagine is sweat. He’s laughing at his teammate who’s making futile attempts to escape his own helmet, not noticing you in the way. 

Until he does. His smile fades immediately, eyebrows raised as he registers you in the doorway. You feel his gaze on you for a few silent moments, his teammates shushing at the shift in the air. Seungcheol opens his mouth, and you already know all that’s going to leave it is dung. “Didn’t realise the rink had a vacancy. Do I need to show you my ID to take a shower?”

A rustle of chortles and chuckles flitter from the group. “Go ahead. I don’t need an ID to tell you need a shower.”

Somebody ooh’s, despite it not being your best work. You suppose it was your delivery that did it. Deciding to continue riding that high, you simply turn towards the women’s locker rooms, refusing to give Seungcheol the luxury of your eyes on him.

Hurtling into the women’s locker room, you throw your duffel bag somewhere you’ll regret and crumple into one of the seats. You count to ten, attempting to take the image of Seungcheol out of your brain. 

It was difficult to rile you up to this extent, a trait you needed to possess if you were to be coached by Carroll in any capacity. There was so much you heard from her mouth, swallowing it like a prescribed pill and nothing more. Take what you were given, because it was given by the best, bought for you by the best.

Yet for some reason, Seungcheol manages to irk you in ways you previously have never encountered. Irritating people come and go, but you doubt you could place him as something as simple as just irritating. His presence felt like an intrusion, his air was thick like a concentrated gas. Everything he’s said to you so far has come from nothing but disdain and condescension, his haughty personality the only takeaway when he enters a room. 

You’re still in your outdoor shoes and jacket by the time twenty minutes are over, coming to a conclusion as you get up from the empty, soulless locker room. Hansol is in his office when you make the formality knock before barging in. His head is on the desk, like he’s asleep. It takes him a second, by he lifts his forehead from the papers on the tabletop to regard you at the door. You hear him sigh. 

“The hockey team’s done. It’s two.”

“I wanna book a slot.”

“The rink’s empty you don’t—”

“Let me book the slot, Hansol.”

“For fuck’s sake, you’re turning out worse than those baboons,” he curses before setting his forehead back onto the table. “Write it on the sticky note, I’ll put it in the schedule.”

“Now. I wanna book a slot for right now,” you grit. 

Hansol whips his head up again, eyes wide like he’s holding himself back, nodding furiously as he pulls his keyboard towards himself with an unnecessarily aggressive tug. “Fine. 2:16 till closing. Enter. Print. Here.”

He hands you the printed receipt of your slot, ripping it from the printer tray as he does it. You take it from him in the same vigour, hardly a thank you as you spin on your heels and walk out the door. You stop for a minute, turning back around to yell into the office. 

“Go home if you’re just gonna nap on your desk!” 

Not waiting for a response, you stalk towards the locker rooms. Within minutes you’ve tugged on your skates, laptop and shoes in each hand as you emerge out the tunnel to the rink. 

The ice is empty, mostly. Placing your laptop in the sound booth and your shoes under the benches, you step foot on the ice. They’re there, on the other end, sitting on the cold ice with their jerseys still on, eating what looks like cups of dippin dots. 

Seungcheol and Jeonghan, you remember from Lorelai’s squealing, either don’t notice you on the ice, or simply choose not to. Because it’s easy as you skate up to them, gaining speed from across the rink, you slide to a stop, sending a perfect spray of ice from your skates, directly into their ice cream cups. 

Seungcheol’s full spoon hangs mid air, halfway to his mouth, now garnished with ice shavings. 

“Thought you’d have the respect to keep the dippin dots out of this,” Jeonghan comments, disbelief in his eyes as he looks up at you. 

“Ice is booked.” 

“What time?” Seungcheol asks. Your gaze flickers to the left side of his face, a nasty bruise blooming purple and blue that you hadn’t noticed before. 

“2:16. It’s nearly fifteen minutes past.”

“You’re only one person.” He’s significantly more annoyed than when you saw him outside the locker rooms just minutes ago. 

“And?”

“And…you have about 97% of the rink to yourself.”

You raise your brows, hands on your hips. “But I booked 100% of it. So I’m gonna need that plane of ice you’re currently sitting on.” 

“What if I don’t move?” Seungcheol presses. It’s menacing, the way he looks at you, like he’s a lion only waiting to be provoked. Maybe he’s already halfway there, because it sure looks like it. 

“We’ll find out another day,” Jeonghan sings before you can snap back, grabbing onto the collar of Seungcheol’s red and white jersey to yank him up. He continues to glare as he obliges with his friend’s tugs, nearly as angry as you are. “Let’s go, sport.”

You watch as they walk to the exit of the ice, realising they’re wearing their shoes instead of their skates. 

Jeonghan calls from the benches, right before he and Seungcheol move out of view. “Trash those for us, would you?” 

Their half eaten dippin dots cups, with the ice now melting on them remains on the floor of the rink. Once again, the unexplainable urge to kick something befalls you, hearing them laugh and talk from far away as they exit the rink behind their long gone teammates. 

You give in, swinging a leg over to kick the cups and spoons, dippin dots and plastic scattering across the ice. It’s another sprawl of mess you’ll have to clean up, but it feels good to ruin something of his, no matter how inconsequential. The empty rink encourages you, needing to scream so loud the plastic barriers crack and break. You know it’s impossible, but that doesn’t stop the urge. 

You channel it into the most aggressive warmups on ice you’ve ever done. Your spins are faster, your jumps higher. But this also means you crash heavier, fall harder. It’s then, sitting on the bench to take a break, breathing so heavy you can hardly sip your water, you find an unmistakable headline on your browser home page. 

Everything stops. 

!HOT TOPIC! 

SEAT AT RISK FOR SVT HOCKEY TEAM’S SHINING STAR? Read All About It Here! 

!HOT TOPIC! 

SEAT AT RISK FOR SVT HOCKEY TEAM’S SHINING STAR? Read All About It Here! 

Choi Seungcheol’s seat for next season at risk? Insider reports that the hot headed center may be at risk of contract termination due to recent controversy. The hockey player, renowned for his aggressive playing tendencies, seems to be taking his temperament outside of the rink. Multiple games played by SVT have been subject to eventful halves and quarters, the center seen getting violent in the benches with opposing team members, and sometimes even team members of his own! While his short temper has always been a recurring subject in the news, his skills as a player have always remained top notch—we do wonder if he even has to try! The tables seem to turn a little differently this time around, because it looks that SVT higher ups have been fed up with the increasing reports of Choi’s aggressive behaviour. Insider sources report that talks of a contract termination may be coming into order. While he has proven to be an effective player on the ice, it seems as though it won’t be saving him from this particular ramification! 

Stay tuned, hockey fanatics, as we bring you more updates on Choi’s sticky situation! 

BEFORE EVERYTHING, BEFORE YOUR ankle, before it began to feel like your world was crumbling at your feet, came the scar on your leg. 

In hindsight, it feels like it was the very thing that set the ball rolling, the beginning of your demise. 

Coach Carroll was only on her first handful of sessions with you, Lorelai and Marina, all of you still learning her quirks and expectations as a coach. 

It happened when you were on the sidelines, hanging over the boundary as Lorelai handed you a water bottle from the benches. Marina was practicing her routine, taking up most of the ice as Coach followed on the side. It seemed unclear, to this day, whether you’d drifted inwards on the ice as you sipped from the bottle, unaware. But when you felt the hot searing pain in your calf, there were only two people on the scene. 

Marina skated past, her free leg in the air, meeting your calf as she skated past, effectively slicing into your leg in a deep gash. Blood was wiped off the ice, your leg bandaged and wrapped. Not without Coach and her comments, of course. 

You heard her berate Marina from the other room, for moving closer to the boundary than what was required for her routine, heard the way she gave her the blame. And then she round up on you. 

“Idiot! No reason to be on the ice when you aren’t practicing, did you want it to be your ankles too?!” 

It was the first time you realised that Carroll was beyond your perception of the word demanding, her gaze remained in a high place, no regard for what it took to get there. Even if it meant destroying her skaters. 

Marina apologised. “I’m sorry. I swear I didn’t see you there, I would’ve dropped my leg—”

“It’s okay, Marina. Really,” you smiled through the still aching wound. “I know you didn’t mean it.”

She smiled a little too, “Lesson learned, I guess. Don’t loiter on the ice.” 

It was difficult to keep the smile from fading as you heard her say that.

“What shit apology is that?!” Lorelai yelled as soon as you mentioned it to her later. You cringe as you realise what slipped, and to whom it slipped to. 

“It’s the best I’m gonna get from her, Lorry. Honestly, I don’t care.”

“You’re out of service for a week till that slice heals and that’s all she has to give you?” 

Lorelai is breathing heavily, mostly because she’s been practicing her triple axels for her routine, but also because she’s extensively heated for you. You watch her from the benches. 

“Lorry,” you sigh. 

“Listen, I wanna win too but—”

“Are you trying to say she did it on purpose?” you ask. 

“No! Let me finish, woman,” she snaps. “I wanna win, you wanna win. We’re doing everything we can because we want to win—”

“So this was a subconscious attack?” you interject. 

“Fuck this, I’m leaving,” Lorelai begins to skate backwards and away, leaving you on the bench. 

“NO! Wait, okay, I’m sorry I won’t interrupt.”

“Too late.”

“Lorry! Lorelai!”

It wasn’t until you were back in your shared apartment, Marina out doing whatever while Lorelai hijacked your bed that she got to finish her sentence. She was rubbing ointment on a bruise while you changed the  bandage on your calf. 

“Her need to win is ruining her. And it’s like she’s taking us down with her. I know she doesn’t mean it like that, doesn’t want to hurt us. But she thinks this kind of hurt is good, if it’s the kind of hurt that pushes you to win.”

You cringed at the sight of the wound, still red and ugly. 

“She might not have meant to hurt your leg, but—don’t loiter on the ice? Really?”

“She only meant it as a reminder.”

“Exactly! You don’t need that reminder because I think you’ve learned better than anyone else to not stay on the rink when someone is practising. A couple weeks ago she made some stupid comment because I left the gym early. Nothing inherently rude, she’s never actually rude. But it was pointed anyway. I’ve been up since six in the morning I think I deserve slacking off a little, it was nearly midnight for fuck’s sake!” 

Cleaning the wound was taking everything you had, the need to hiss at the contact of the wet cloth was near abominable. 

“Her…her perception’s a little warped. But her heart’s in the right place!”

Lorelai had rolled her eyes, screwing the cap of her ointment tube back on with unnecessary force. “I never said it wasn’t, just—stop defending her! I’m sorry but half the reason she continues to act like this is because you listen to her.”

At that moment, you felt a little offended. Of course, Marina had her moments where she’d say something a little less than healthy, especially coming from a friend. But you’d always thought you handled it better than most. 

You met Marina when you were still only splotchy faced preteens, during a competition where she came second and you came third. She’d been skating for longer, so it was expected, but you also couldn’t conceal your surprise when you’d found the state of her later on. You were ecstatic simply because you managed to make it to the podium, but it seemed Marina’s tears held another thought process for her. 

You found her crying in the locker rooms later on, her coach who looked like she…should’ve been comforting her, but it was more like a stern talking to, to suck it up and work harder next time round. 

When you tried to help her, out came words you felt oh so strange coming from a stranger. “What do you know? You came third!”

It hurt. Possibly the first genuine stab of the feeling you’d ever felt. In the following weeks, when Marina apologised and you’d begun to build a friendship, you felt something peculiar. Practice sessions on the ice became harder, your two hour sessions were suddenly extending to four, sometimes five hours a day. All of it, your own doing. 

It was subconscious when it was happening, the silent tug of You came third! What you first considered an achievement became an intermediate step. 

If there was anywhere that you’d pinpoint the shift, from when figure skating went from fun to a responsibility, you’d pick that exact moment. When someone congratulated you later on, it wasn’t a big smile and a thank you.

“I only came third.”

Your calf healed and all that was left was a scar, but there in the discolouration of your skin, also lay a realisation. 

SEUNGCHEOL HOSTS ABSOLUTELY ZERO thoughts in his mind as he shoves the collar of his hoodie over his head. Slamming the door shut on the rest of his red SVT paraphernalia, he makes quick work of his hair, shoes on and out the door within the minute. Jeonghan is still fast asleep when he leaves, mouth open and drooling onto his pillow when Seungcheol walks into his room to let him know he’s leaving. 

Jeonghan might tag along to practice for the fun of it despite leaving his competitive hockey career behind him, but his distaste for 6 AM practice remains forever unchanged. He’d see him later though, on the rink lingering once the sun is higher in the sky and Jeonghan deems it less of a sin to be awake. 

Seungcheol leaves without a response from his friend. 

By the time he gets to the rink, most of the team has already geared up. The locker room is splotched with red, moving towards the back of the room to get to his own locker. They weren’t assigned, but he liked to have his claim. He had one in the old rink, the one locker everyone knew was his. And now he has one here, despite the temporary nature of the ordeal. The rest of the boys know to steer clear, as does he for the others who have their lucky spots. 

Mingyu bumps into his shoulder when Seungcheol is looking down, immediately whipping around to bow a full ninety degrees. He’s laughing as he apologises, not really sorry, but Seungcheol is too exhausted to humour him too much. 

He’d been up playing games all night, under the covers in the dark, his phone brightness up too high and his eyes too wide open. He could feel the regret when his alarm blared while it was still dark outside, his eyelids stuck together, refusing to open. It cost him fifteen minutes of warming up, but he’d make it somehow. 

Seungcheol can hear coach Mason’s booming voice from outside, moving closer and closer to hustle the rest of the boys out onto the rink. He shoves his foot into his skates, making sure all that’s left is to lace them up. 

“Look alive, boys! I want you on the ice within the minute,” he booms into the locker room. 

Seungcheol doesn’t look up. When he gets up to leave the locker rooms, his hockey stick and helmet in hand, he’s the last straggling few to leave. Chan earns himself a hard thump on the back from Coach as he scurries out. 

There’s a hand on Seungcheol’s chest as he’s about to exit, Coach stopping him from leaving. 

He looks up, expecting a hard look from Mason, ready to hear a mildly violent threat about being late to call time again. Except Seungcheol finds him with his own gaze on the floor. 

“Rink manager said I could use his office. We should talk there.”

Seungcheol could’ve said he knows what this was going to be about. The game last weekend had less than ideal results, not because they didn’t win, but more so because of the WWE level brawl that went down in the benches during one of the intermissions. 

He tenses, but it was more like he was squaring up. His shoulders are hard, his grip on his hockey stick tighter. Of course, he wasn’t about to swing at his coach, but one could say it was simply a subconscious response. 

The entire walk to the office, Seungcheol thinks of new ways Coach could address his issue. But the gist was always simple. 

Choi, stop fucking fighting. 

He’d usually just rip Seungcheol a new one in front of the boys, berate him and verbally throttle him in the hopes that he’d keep his anger under check. But as they turn towards the door to the office, Seungcheol has to remind himself that this was a first. Being led aside, like he was being led into some formal meeting. 

A plea deal, perhaps?

Choi, what is it going to take?

The office is barren, hardly looks like it’s used with how sparse the equipment is. The amount of dark brown gives it enough warmth to not make it look like some sick form of solitary confinement. That doesn't stop Seungcheol from feeling a hint of pity for whoever has to work here. There’s no nameplate. 

Coach doesn’t take a seat, opting to lean against the table in front of him instead. His arms are folded, and he’s not looking him in the eye. A crawl of suspicion creeps up Seungcheol’s neck, as though in an attempt to ambush him. 

It’s silent in the room as he waits for Coach to speak, refusing to be the one to break it. 

When he does speak, it’s not in his usual Coach voice. Without the built in bass and tremors he was born with. 

“There’s no easy way to break this,” he starts, eyes drifting up to somewhere on the barren walls. “But I’m gonna try my darndest.”

Finally, he feels Coach’s gaze lock with Seungcheol’s expecting pair. 

“They wanna drop you.”

“What?”

Coach squeezes his eyes shut, like he’s recalibrating. “Your contract is up by the end of the season. And the tie wearers and the shoe shiners don't wanna re-sign you.”

Seungcheol’s eyebrows furrow. “What do you mean don’t wanna re-sign me, on what grounds?!”

“You’re temperament—”

“I’ve scored at least two goals for every game you’ve put me in, I’m your most consistent player!”

“They have no qualms with you when you’re on the ice.”

Seungcheol knows where this is going. He knows what knocked up alley this is turning to and he hates it. “Which is all that should matter.”

“In most cases.”

“Is this about last weekend? You didn’t hear him, he deserved more than a broken fucking nose—”

“I didn’t need to hear him, because I know. I know he’s a jackass, I know they’re all jackasses! They know that too. You need to learn to let things go, let them chirp—”

“He was coming on to my mother!” Seungcheol bellows, now properly angry. He remembers the guy’s name, Jason or something. 

“His coach came onto my entire bloodline when we were young, this is Kim’s strategy! You’re playing right into their hands like a dog! For fuck’s sake, Choi! Punching someone in the chiclets isn’t always the answer!” Coach Mason is shaking his hands in front of him like some violent prayer. 

Seungcheol drops his hockey stick and helmet, mouth open as he huffs and puffs. He wants to pace, wants to point his fingers at Coach and make a few threats of his own. 

“Just—”

Seungcheol rounds up on him. “Seungkwan punched a guy in the mouth. Wonwoo kicked one in the balls.”

“Seungcheol. This is becoming nearly. Every. Single. Game. Not the occasional tousle we can pull people out of. You can’t keep sending people to the hospital, it’s a wonder nobody's pressed charges yet!”

“So that’s it? I’m being punished because some dick runs his mouth?” 

“This is about you, Seungcheol. You need to get a fucking grip. You’ve started picking at your own teammates, shoving Mingyu around—seriously?”

Seungcheol’s mouth opens but nothing leaves it. He ends up gaping like a fish. 

For all that it was worth, for everything he’d been through, Seungcheol always assumed his seat was safe. Always assumed he’d have the position he does. Because he showed results, won them nearly every game and put up a damn good fight in the ones they didn’t. 

Seungcheol knew he was an asset, but not for one minute, stop to realise that this was all

conditional. 

For everything he did for this team, for every fiber of his being he poured into its chalice, they were spitting it all right back into his face. Chewed and warped and rid of anything worth salvaging. 

The red in his chest, back, stomach, spelling out the unmistakable letters of his team. The red in his helmet that rests beside the red in his hockey stick. 

“Listen, as much of a pain in the ass you are, you’re good fucking player. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s all that matters. But it’s not up to me, so we need to work around that. They’re worried about the repercussions of your behaviour. And you are gonna make sure you keep yourself in check.” 

Coach walks closer, finger digging into Seungcheol’s chest through his jersey. “I want no more fights, no more kicking and punching and swearing no matter how much that motherfucker deserves it, I don’t care. Do whatever it takes. God knows I’ll never forgive you if you make me agree to those prissy hands in suits.”

Coach left Seungcheol in the barren office, stepping over his stick and helmet as he exited the room, leaving him alone. His fingers flex under his gloves, like he’s trying to remind himself to stay in the moment. His exhales are stronger than his inhales, his vision blurring as the desk turns into two, and then disappears for a second. 

He can hear the distinct sound of the puck slamming into hockey sticks. Practice had started. By the time Seungcheol walks out, he’s the last person to go through the mandatory drills. 

The rink is mostly empty as the team gears up for a practice match, leaving Seungcheol enough reign to slam into every puck like he had some personal vendetta against every last one. It’s one after the other, sent directly into the open net, waiting. 

Practice goes fine, as good as it could go with the scrambled eggs that had become of Seungcheol’s mental state. He found himself whipping his head around to Jun when he fumbled an assist, face scrunched under his helmet as he prepared to send him to hell in a handbasket. 

He sees Jun physically tense up in defense, and the insult (for once) dies on Seungcheol’s tongue. 

“Just—keep up, alright,” he says instead. His tone is empty, and on a downward slope. 

If anyone finds it odd, they don’t say. 

It’s a couple more hours of passes, assists and hollers across the ice, regrouping the teams every so often to keep the rotation consistent. 

Over here, everyone is in red, everyone is on his side. The bleachers are empty, devoid of spectators to watch him lose his cool on anything. But he thinks of the way Jun recoiled, like he was preparing for the worst of his teammate’s words. He and Jun are friends. 

Somewhere amidst his thoughts, the puck flies directly into Seungcheol’s face, banging into the cage of his helmet with a noise that resonates across the rink. He’s startled enough to skate back a little, not before hearing another resounding thwack! from next to him. The puck rebounded from his helmet and hit the plastic barrier with a noise that had everyone looking over. 

Skating up to where the puck fell back onto the ice, he looks up to where it hit the barrier. 

Through the plastic he sees…you. You're staring at the same spot he is, where there’s a slight mark from the force of the rubber. 

And then your eyes drift up, locking with his own. 

Like every other person he’s around, he watches you tense up. But it’s laced with something more than just bracing for impact. 

It’s apprehension, your form turbulent and agitated. It’s all he can see when you spin on your heels and walk away in the opposite direction from him. 

The all too familiar irritation sparks in the back of Seungcheol’s mind, as it does when you’re around. All he does is slam his stick into the ice with force, pushing the puck back into the middle of the rink. 

They’re nearly done by that point, and he finds that Jeonghan has graced himself in the benches. He’s wearing his old jersey, likely because he doesn’t want Coach to notice him and accuse him of distracting his players. 

Jeonghan would’ve gotten away with it anyway. 

Seungcheol tells him to wait up, walking towards the locker room with the rest of the rest of the team to wash up. He finds some reprieve in Seungkwan’s attempts at fumbling with his helmet, letting out a laugh as he fights with it. Looking up as they take the turn towards the locker rooms as a group, he somehow finds himself in your presence, again. 

It’s the same thing, like you’ve been connected to a faulty circuit and you’re trying not to show it. You look like you want to say something but all Seungcheol can do is send a snarky remark of his own. 

Even as you walk away after the ordeal, he feels anything but settled. 

It’s like the world has it out for him, because as he opts to stalk back to where Jeonghan was, forgoing a shower, there’s only another calamity waiting for him. 

Jeonghan is in the rink, sitting on the ice with two cups of what looks like dippin dots. He looks up when he hears his treads on the ice, having taken his skates off already. Seungcheol crumples to the ground and on the ice next to his friend. 

The first words he utters are the only ones that’ve been on his mind all day. “They want to drop me.”

Jeonghan only grimaces in response, only running his hands through his hair as he sighs loudly. “I know. I heard.”

Seungcheol perks up, head lifting from the ice. “...How?”

That’s how Seungcheol has Jeonghan’s phone so close to his face he’s hardly an inch away from the screen. He reads and reads and reads. And his blood boils and boils and boils. 

!HOT TOPIC! 

SEAT AT RISK FOR SVT HOCKEY TEAM’S SHINING STAR? Read All About It Here! 

Choi Seungcheol’s seat for next season at risk? Insider reports that the hot headed centre may be at risk of contract termination due to recent controversy. The hockey player, renowned for his aggressive playing tendencies, seems to be taking his temperament outside of the rink. Multiple games played by SVT have been subject to eventful halves and quarters, the center seen getting violent in the benches with opposing team members, and sometimes even team members of his own! While his short temper has always been a recurring subject in the news, his skills as a player have always remained top notch—we do wonder if he even has to try! The tables seem to turn a little differently this time around though, because it looks that SVT higher ups have been fed up with the increasing reports of Choi’s aggressive behaviour. Insider sources report that talks of a contract termination may be coming into order. While he has proven to be an effective player on the ice, it seems as though it won’t be saving him from this particular ramification! 

Stay tuned, hockey fanatics, as we bring you more updates on Choi’s sticky situation! 

Of course, to add to the absolute media pandemonium, you had shown up on the rink itself after Seungcheol had to read through the entirety of that stupid article. Jeonghan was smart to pull him away from the situation before he wrapped both his hands around your neck in an ultimatum. 

The way you stood there, hip popped like you owned the damn place, face haughty and demanding. You stood while they sat, looking down at Seungcheol like he was some pesky ant. There was nothing he would’ve rather done in that moment than swing his leg clean across your ankles, and watch in delight as you crash onto the ice in front of him. 

“What the fuck is her problem?” he grits as soon as he’s in the locker rooms. Collecting his things to leave and take a shower at home. 

Jeonghan walks behind him, hands in his pocket in idleness as he watches his friend pack up. He’s humming a tune that’s possibly too familiar to Seungcheol. “Hm. She does seem a little wound too tight.”

“Wound too tight?! I’ve seen her thrice just today and every single time she looks like she wants to skin my fucking hide!”

Jeonghan only snorts. “Thing two isn’t any better. She’s cute though.”

Seungcheol whips around. “Who gets that territorial over a sound booth?!”

“Down, boy,” Jeonghan soothes, half in jest. “Surprised she isn’t here today either.”

“Yeah, you’d like to see her.”

“I would, actually, yes. What was her name?”

“Something to do with a train or a bus or something—”

“Lorry! Right,” Jeonghan furrows his brows. “I don’t think that’s her real name.”

Seungcheol throws his duffle bag over his shoulder as he motions he’s done. “I don’t think anyone who actually loves their child would name them after a bus.”

Jeonghan halts in his steps. “My dead dog’s name was Lorry.”

Seungcheol is extra nice for the rest of the way home. 

SEUNGCHEOL CAN'T SLEEP.

His dreams are full of voices, of every single teammate he’s ever had. The junior league, his high school team, up to his college team, and finally, his team right now. 

They’re all murmuring like they were paid to do it, uttering the same things, over and over. He doesn’t belong here, they don’t want him here, he doesn’t deserve what he has. 

And with the way his heart is racing when he jolts awake, cold sweat and all, he realises he’s kicked his blanket off of him sometime during the night. He looks over to his alarm clock that glares bright in the dark of his room; 5:08 AM.

He doesn’t need to be up, but it seems his own subconscious has given him a good enough scare to make sure every last essence of sleep escapes him. He lays on his back, catching his breath like he just ran a marathon. 

Seungcheol hasn’t woken up from a nightmare like this since middle school, one that knocks the breath from his lungs and fills his head with all the horrible things in the world. With every moment that passes after that conversation with Coach Mason, his ordeal becomes increasingly real. 

In that moment, laying in his bedroom, staring blankly at the dark ceiling above, he wonders if he’s made the right choice to come this far. 

With all the confidence he’s exuded, the thought is downright terrifying. 

Seungcheol was a difficult child. Too much energy, too much to say, too much to do. His parents didn’t know the first thing about hockey, just that it involved enough hitting and running and practice to let their son let out all that pent up energy, so maybe, just maybe, he’d sit still and do his homework. While they attempted to sign him up at the local rink, he was already zooming out towards the benches to see the fabled giant block of ice his parents told him about. 

And there it was, just like in the movies, a giant expanse of ice that made him shiver even in his thick Winnie The Pooh puffer vest. There’s sounds, loud ones, of deep clacks that echo across the rink. It seems to be coming from the dozens of people skating on the rink, decked out in red gear. 

SVT, he reads on their jerseys. 

His mother chides him for straying when they finally find him near the gate, watching the team practice. The rink manager is there as well, showing his parents around. 

“The SVT’s practice here and have a junior league too, but I’m afraid it’s full. But our coach is great too, I’m sure he’ll do well.”

Seungcheol’s parents didn’t mind, but he wanted those jerseys, wanted his name in red splashed across his back as he glided across the ice. 

It didn’t take long for his coach and his parents to realise that putting him in a helmet was a good idea. He was smoking the rest of the kids from day one, his balance on the ice better than any other his age, his hold on a hockey stick like second nature, his aim as he hit his first puck, dazzling. 

As he got older, entering his preteen and teen years, he had another realisation. That he was as horrible at school as he was good at hockey. 

“Perhaps you should take a break from hockey,” his high school guidance counsellor had said. His grades were displayed in front of her like a case study, the hopeless clear in her intermittent sighs and the occasional purse of her lips. “Utilise that time to fix at least one of your grades. Pour all your eggs in one basket.”

The thought was absurd. No, he would not be dropping hockey when it was the only thing that pushed him to wake up in the morning. 

He’d felt the tremble of irritation rise in himself, sitting there in that office. It angered him, made him feel like his success was measured by a criteria not made for him. He had said nothing as he slipped out of chair and left the room. 

The day before his graduation, sweat dripping onto the ice as he sent free pucks into the net, he was missing more than he was getting in. It was making him more mad than it should, hands shaking with fury as he berated himself for not being able to succeed in something so simple.

His last puck was before him, and he swung his stick harder than ever and watched as it flew directly into the net. The sound is louder than usual, resonating across the rink. Seungcheol looked down at the detached pieces in his hand and quickly realised that he’d effectively broken his hockey stick.

It wasn’t expensive, so the quality wasn’t nearly what it should be, wasn’t nearly as durable. But this was new to him. He’d never broken a stick before. 

Anger. Perhaps that was what he'd forgone, perhaps that was what he needed. To get on his knees from his back, to get on his feet from his knees. 

When he graduated the next day, Seungcheol knew what he was going to do with his life. Finally had an answer for the infinite questions about his future. 

Hockey. Seungcheol was going to play hockey for the rest of his life. He was going to get into SVT, he was going to become the best player they’ve ever had. He was going to make more money than what he would have as a doctor or a lawyer or whatever else the entire world wanted him to do instead. 

Seungcheol was going to be on the ice wearing red if it’s the last thing he does. 

That’s what pushes him out of bed at 8:45 in the morning, his dream that was once in his hands now flitting through the gaps of his fingers. 

The anger that pushed him here, was now pushing him out. 

He packs his things and leaves the house, welcoming the cold of the outdoors. 

There’s the distinct sound of blade cutting through ice when he gets nearer to the rink itself, a shout of a shrill voice he can’t decipher. Official practice doesn’t start for another couple hours, and he doesn’t remember Coach Mason cutting the pitch in his voice for anything ever. There’s only one other person that could possibly be gracing the rink.

Seungcheol finds three people on the rink. The bright red curly mop of hair catches his eye first, her arms folded over her green puffer jacket, apprehension in her entire posture. He assumes this is your coach. 

There’s a blonde one breathing heavily as she straightens out of a spin, listening to the coach as she shakes her head violently as she speaks. 

Seungcheol finds you a little ways away from the pair, practising jumps. 

He doesn’t emerge into the benches, remaining in the shadows where he wouldn’t be so blaringly obvious. There’s no reason for him to hide, but he doesn’t think of this as hiding. 

Seungcheol watches for the next few minutes, watches you make most of your jumps, fall for some. Your coach shouts for particular names for jumps, something about axels and lutz’ that he can’t tell the difference from when put into action. At least he thinks that’s what you’re doing. 

And then he hears it as your coach moves closer to the barriers. “What’s gotten into you? Keep acting this stupid and I’ll excuse myself from the job, I have better people to coach.”

Her tone, her words, the sharp edge of her tongue, it’s all triggering a very specific part of Seunghceol’s brain. 

“Is it your ankle? Because if it is, then I’m here to tell you to get out of your own head. Your ankle is fine, you wouldn’t be able to get on the ice at all if it wasn’t.” 

There it comes. Those words aren’t directed towards Seungcheol, nor could they apply to him in any capacity. But the way this coach is speaking is making him irrationally angry. 

“Are you gonna keep pretending you have a handicap? Because if you are then I have no work here.”

“I’m sorry.” 

For whatever reason, the sound of you apologising makes the fire rage doubly. It’s enough to blur his vision, enough to make him question what on earth this coach could have on you to let her speak to you in that way. 

The choice words are already in his head as he claps back in his own head, like he was the one at the receiving end. 

He doesn’t stay, disappearing even further into the tunnel to where the locker rooms are. He doesn’t understand why he’s huffing and puffing as much as he is. All that occupies him is what possible reasons you could have to just take it lying down. 

Seungcheol’s phone vibrates in his pocket, slipping it out to realise it’s Jeonghan. 

He picks up, and barely has time to say hello before his voice perks up from the other line. “Where are you?” He sounds like he just woke up. 

“I’m at the rink.”

“Why is your angry voice on?”

“My angry voice is not—” he begins to grit, seething, but closes his eyes and takes a moment. “I’m not mad.”

“Do I need to sing?”

“No, you do not have to sing—”

“Everything is honey—”

“Jeonghan, stop!”

“—everywhere I see—”

Seungcheol hangs up before he can go on. To his utmost irritation, he feels significantly calmer. 

The rink is devoid of your red headed coach when Seungcheol makes his way there after a few minutes. The blonde one is nowhere to be seen, leaving you alone in the rink as you skated across the expanse. He only watches as you land the couple attempts at jumps, the ice breaking ground in a spray every time you put pressure on your blades. 

Seungcheol is just standing there, blank faced with an empty head. His mind was quiet for the first time since he’d woken up that morning. 

He doesn’t know what he’s doing there, standing idle as he follows your figure around the rink like a fixation point. 

The sound is more consistent, less of the loud jabs of hockey sticks meeting the ice, more constant lines of scraping as you migrate across the rink. The speakers boom no sound, but the musicality in the noise of the ice is enough to imagine a rhythm. 

No part of him desires getting on the ice to oust you out, no part of him wants to touch his hockey stick that sits in the locker room. He doesn’t need extra practice, not with hockey at least. 

And when you notice him, unmoving in the benches, he watches as something hard overcomes your expression. You skate over, and he keeps his gaze fixated on the ice.

Skating up to the gate, he sees in his peripheral vision as you slip on your skate guards, stepping out into the real world. 

“You don’t have the rink booked, I checked,” you huff, moving to find your things on the other set of benches. 

Seungcheol’s jaw tenses. “I don’t want the rink right now.”

“And yet the ghost loiters.”

“I’m here to tell you to start filling in the stupid craters your skates make in the ice. The guys keep tripping.” 

“You big hockey thugs getting defeated by a toe pick?” 

Seungcheol turns to finally look at you, and you look nothing as graceful as you did on the ice. He wants to scoff. 

You continue, “I have to deal with your stupid barriers fucking up my sound system. I think your guys can deal with a couple digs in the ice.” 

“Great, we’ll just lose a couple teeth, who really gives a fuck.” 

“If this is about giving fucks,” you get up from your water break, leaving the bench. “Do me a favour and forget your mouth guard next time. Let the puck punch you in the mouth if I can't."

Seungcheol’s entire being is ablaze. He reshuffles his footing. “What the fuck is your problem?”

“My problem?” you repeat, voice moving a pitch higher. “My fucking problem is that you and your overgrown posse of baboons drop in here out of the blue and then act like you own the damn place!”

“Right, because it’s your name on the fucking lease. Excuse us for trespassing on public property!”

You’re yelling. Seungcheol is yelling. It’s either that or the hollow of the rink is now carrying your voices farther out. 

“I’ve had enough of you acting like you don’t take up this entire fucking space!” Your arms wave wildly, gesturing to the large area of the rink. “You’re everywhere, all the fucking time, it’s sickening!”

“Everywhere, huh?” He takes a step closer to you. And then another. He revels in the sight of your face turning a splotchy red. “Thought I was only a bother on the ice? Where else have I been plaguing you in mystic hallucinations?”

Seungcheol’s eyes give away nothing but provocation. He knows he didn’t start this, but in the true essence of who he is, he would be the one to end it. 

It’s clear you’re taken aback. At this moment, he’s the closest he’s ever been to you. But it’s for nothing if it isn’t to press on you further, to tower over you and your outburst. 

“Get your head out of the gutter, you brute.”

“Then is it not me taking up all your space?” he asks. “Because there’s three feet of air between us, and yet the least in our very short time together.”

He watches as you take a small step back.

“So where else have I been any closer, so consistently, if it wasn’t part of your imagination?”

There’s a certain kind of venom in your stare, in the sneer that lifts your mouth, enough to ensure that it’d render him six feet deep. But he lives in reality, so he deems it safe to take another step closer. 

“You’re a screw up,” you almost whisper. Appalled and scandalised. 

“So I’ve been told,” Seungcheol breathed. “But something tells me we’re not so different in that department.”

“You don’t know a thing about me.”

“I know that I’m all you can think about,” he says, eyebrows raised. “That feels like a lot. You’d agree, because everywhere, all the fucking time is a lot.” 

Seungcheol has hardly finished his sentence before he feels the light breeze of you gathering your few things, shouldering him hard and walking away from him. Into the tunnel, into the locker rooms, into hell, wherever it was that you ended up by the close of the day. 

He isn’t afraid to admit that he stumbled.

LORELAI HAD MADE IT quite clear that any figure skating talk was off the table, and talk surrounding Marina even more so. You tried not to point out the obvious predicament, but the fact that you lived with Marina did not affect her demand. 

Miraculously, not talking about skating or Marina was the most free you’d felt in ages. It was mildly embarrassing in the beginning, when on a run with Lorealai who was also helping out at the dog shelter, because you realised all you talked about was, maybe not Marina, but definitely a lot of skating. 

You slow down a little to give Kkuma a couple minutes to breathe, but Lorealai is still running at her pace with her significantly more energetic husky, Bennie. 

“Stay there, I’ll catch up!” she yells over her shoulder as she takes the left around the block to circle back. 

You oblige, moving to a walking pace as Lorelai appears from behind you after a couple minutes. She slows to a jog and loiters around you for a minute, you increase your speed to match hers. 

“Jeonghan…” she pauses to take a breath. But your interest is piqued, especially if she was talking about the same Jeonghan you were thinking about. “Jeonghan invited me to the game this weekend.”

Hold. 

“What?” you snap.

“Game. This weekend,” she huffs, still breathing heavily. 

“Like, a hockey game?” you ask, brows furrowed. 

“No, for disney on ice,” she announces. “They’re doing beauty and the beast, Jeonghan’s the beauty, Seungcheol is the beast. It’s a whole production, really. Real good stuff.”

You can only roll your eyes at the elaborate sarcasm. She continues, “Of course, it's a hockey game! What else do they do at that rink all day?”

“Gosh, sorry,” you frown. “Since when do you talk to Jeonghan?”

She looks over, wicked smile on her face. “Since I found him on Instagram.”

“You followed him?”

“No, why would I do that? Bumped into him at the gym a while ago, and we went out for coffee afterwards.”

Nothing of the ordeal is making sense, your brows still knit together and your mouth downturned in confusion. 

“Catch you in a minute!” she yelps as she takes off into a run again, Bennie right next to her as she circles round again. 

The few minutes that it’s just you and tiny Kkuma are flooded with questions. How did she just bump into Jeonghan? Lorelai hardly goes to the gym. Asking her to come to the hockey game? 

And then worst of all. 

Are they dating? 

By the time Lorelai is back, she’s out of breath again, and fully unequipped to answer all of the questions you shoot at her like rapid fire. 

“Why were you at the gym? He’s a junior league coach, he’s not even gonna be playing!”

“God!” she groans, heaving. “Slow…down.”

“Fine!” You stop in your tracks entirely, to which Lorelai is happy to oblige as she crouches with her hand on her knees. Bennie tugs at her leash, the big bounding ball of fluff ready to race the winds again. 

You count to ten, hands on your hips as Kkuma lets out a small, confused yip now that you’re completely idle on the track. 

“Talk.” 

With an all too dramatic flip of her short hair, she pulls herself up and into an explanation. “I couldn’t tell you because we weren’t talking when it all happened.”

It’s true, it did take a while for you to go back to normal after that run in with Marina in your bedroom. You suppose it won’t be happening again with the new no-Marina-talk rule, since she seemed to be quite the common factor in many of your rifts over the years. 

“I went to the gym to blow off some steam—don’t look like that, I’m being serious!” 

You make an attempt at fixing your face as she continues. 

“He saw me first and came up to say hi. Went our separate ways but once we finished up he asked if I wanted to grab a coffee since we were both done working out.” 

“And you said yes?”

“I said yes. Because he is cute, and I had been stalking his very public Instagram and it was just the perfect opportunity!” 

“So you’re dating?” you ask sharply. 

“I don’t know.”

“He asked you to the game?” you point out. 

“Well, yes, but he hasn’t asked me asked me.” Somewhere in her voice there’s the tiniest hint of disappointment. “Besides, he said to bring you as well.”

“Fuck no.”

“Come ooon! Jeonghan’s gonna be in the benches and I don’t know anyone else there!” she whines. 

“Hey, we should switch dogs!” you announce as you yank Bennie’s leash out of Lorelai’s hands, stuffing  Kkuma’s leash into her free hand. 

You take off into a sprint, and Bennie is happy to keep up with you as you quite literally run away from the situation. Lorelai is yelling your name, her annoyance abundant. 

Ignoring her is easy. Just the thought of walking into one of those games is enough to force a scoff, to watch your rink inhabited with like minded buffoonery as they ruin the bleachers and the ice. 

By the time you make it back, the hilarity of the situation hasn’t left you. And it seems neither has Lorelai, who remains standing with Kkuma at her feet, waiting to trap you. 

It’s the easiest thing to do, to turn right back around and circle the other way. 

“You can’t run away from me forever!” she shouts behind you as you disappear again. 

Maybe you couldn’t, but you wouldn’t go down without a fight. 

“You can’t run away from Seungcheol forever! Quit pretending like you aren’t dying to fall into those giant arms!” Lorelai has a very specific talent of injecting all the drama in the world in the tone of her voice. She’s sure to utilize that skill as she hollers after you. 

That seems to do it for you, slowing down, half ready to whip around and holler a profanity or two right back. 

You’re more triggered than usual, but mostly because all the jab does is remind you of the last time you saw him. The arrogance in his demeanor, the way he belittled you with just his eyes, the shadow of his towering frame, caging you like a lost animal. 

You hated it. Despised it. Despised him. His disgusting innuendos, the all so misleading innocence on his face as he cornered you with both his body and his words. 

Lorelai could deal you whatever card there was tied up her sleeve, but getting you anywhere near the rink for the game this weekend was going to require more than just dessert bribes and sweet talking. Dragging you by the ankles could be a possibility, but all for naught when you dig your nails in anyway. 

It was impossible. Not doable. Non-existent in the cards of your destiny. A repelling force. 

So why, would one ask, were you decked out in the most  heinous red scarf with the letters SVT stitched on like a warning, sitting in the bleachers and looking down at the same rink you practice your spins and jumps in everyday? 

Neither you or Lorelai could answer that question, both your stories as blurry as fog as to how either of you managed to get you in that fabled seat. 

You could see the exact place you and Seungcheol had your last showdown, the opposing team in black now occupying that side of the benches. The thought puts you in an impossibly sour mood. It’s not like Lorelai could say anything about it, half because she knows you’re one snide remark away from jumping into the merch table, and half because she was too busy making heart eyes at Jeonghan who’s just spotted her in her seat. 

“I’ll be back,” she informs haphazardly as she positively bounds down the steps to the end of the bleachers, where Jeonghan waits for her. The people in their seats shuffle, annoyed at the overenthusiastic fan who practically slides down in front of their legs towards the railing. But Lorelai couldn’t care less, not with what stood beyond that very railing. 

Tearing your eyes away from the lovebirds, you take in the hustle and bustle of the pregame happenings, most of the bleachers in disarray as they humour the merch stands and the food stalls. The rink smells different because of it, both the added number of food trucks and drink stands, but also with the amount of people that occupy the expanse. 

The only times you see the rink this packed is when you’re too wracked with nerves to notice anything other than your own two feet. Hands wringing and head spinning, the chaos of the world is nothing against the pandemonium in your mind. You’re usually wearing a sparkly dress that glitters even from the very last row of bleachers, hair taut and makeup caked on like a layer of icing. 

Taking your time, you let your eyes flit over all that you forgo the other times. The stands are a mix of red and black, and so are the benches and ice that are occupied by men in full hockey gear. 

You’re too high up to make out the names on the back of all those jerseys, let alone a face underneath the already concealing helmets. The problem is forgotten when you feel the weight of two hands slam against your folded arms, tugging you out of your seat like it was stolen property. 

“Jeonghan said we could sit closer to the benches downstairs!” Lorelai is frantic, like this wasn’t a matter of reserved seats but the last plane to leave hell itself. 

“Lor—” Finishing a sentence when she’s in this state is a luxury you learn quickly to live without, because all that concerns her right now is getting closer to the man that seems to have enraptured her like never before. 

It’s disgusting. But you follow her anyway, down the steps that you nearly eat shit on, gracefully of course, because what figure skater doesn’t fall with an epic crash worthy of an Expendables cameo. You stabilise yourself enough to get to the seats Lorelai is talking about, and sure enough, Jeonghan would barely have to get on his tiptoes to hoist himself into the bleachers altogether. You question the safety of the context but decide that it wasn’t your problem if someone decided to pounce on one of the players. 

Besides, you’d be lying if you said you wouldn’t revel in the absolute scene of Seungcheol getting jumped by an over-passionate fan. You’re suddenly very grateful for the front row seats. 

There’s a bucket of chicken tenders and fries in your lap out of nowhere, matching the one in Lorelai’s hands. “Also Jeonghan?” you hum as you inspect the sauce options. 

“Mhm, he’s friends with the vendor outside,” she grins. 

You narrow your eyes at the revelation, finding it utmost strange how close he seems to be with nearly everyone. “Why is he on the benches, again?” you ask. 

“Because—” she draws before you cut her off. 

“Friends with the coach?”

“How’d you know?!” she exclaims. Her attention is diverted as the speakers suddenly boom with something other than generic pop music. So is yours, when you hear a deep baritone of a commentator’s voice carries throughout the rink. 

The shuffle around you is suddenly doubling in speed, everyone getting into their seats. You look over in front of you, where the benches are in an equally panicked shuffle. You spot Jeonghan easily, mostly because he’s one of the few in the vicinity without a helmet or what looks like a giant space suit. The next thing you note is the person he’s talking to, his back turned to you, but familiar all the same. 

CHOI, 95, reads his jersey. Automatically, your jaw clenches.  “Don’t look over there!” Lorelai chides, grabbing your jaw and moving it to force you to rip your eyes away from him. 

“Lorelai, I’m not sure if you’re aware, but unlike your boy toy, he’s actually gonna be on the ice,” you verbalise through clenched teeth. 

“Don’t look at the ice,” she blurts. 

Rolling your eyes, you only listen as she realises what she’s said. “Okay, um, look at Jeon instead! Or Kim, or Boo, just. For god’s sake, there’s fifty other players on the ice, just don’t let one of them ruin your night!” 

“I’m fine,” you grumble, sinking into your seat. 

It isn’t long before your eyes trail over anyway, and Seungcheol still doesn’t have his helmet on. You can see his face now, and he looks like he’s mad at Jeonghan about something. 

Inevitably, your mind wanders to the fated article that somehow made its way into your recommended, the certainty it put in you that Seungcheol didn’t stand a chance in his team anymore. It seemed true enough, his anger, that he continues to display, seemed to be his default emotional setting. 

Your hockey knowledge was subpar at best, but one thing you did know was the aggression factor of the sport. Of all the things that could cut his career clean down the middle, this was the last of your guesses.  

Even now, as you watch him absentmindedly point and jerk like his supposed friend had managed to bring him something that was personally offensive, it’s all connecting too well. 

But when you snap into reality, you realise very quickly that he was pointing…at you. 

Seungcheol is mad that Jeonghan (effectively) brought you to the match. 

A chortle of disbelief is quick to make itself known, wanting to yell across the throng that you were every bit as upset that he was in your vicinity too. It also brings you satisfaction, a pure grain of hope, that maybe this would be enough for him to completely fuck up on the ice today. 

You say a quick amen before the baritone of the commentator makes itself known again. The echo is too much for you to decipher what’s going on, but you have your answer when you watch the reds and the blacks form what looks like a line across the width of the rink, right in the center. 

You don’t register when the puck landed, or if it was always there, just that the loud clacks and bangs are in tandem with the cheer from the crowds. The puck is an impossible commodity to keep up with, even with just your eyes. It appears for a moment before it’s lost again, shooting around in your peripheral vision like a pesky fly you can never get a hold of. 

“What is happening?” you whisper to yourself. 

Lorelai answers anyway, snorting, “Fuck if I know.”

The numbers on the lit screens are doing nothing to help out your predicament, too much happening for you to even begin to deconstruct. You choose to lay back and enjoy your chicken tenders and fries, complimenting the sauce choices to Lorelai along the way, who continues to calibrate her attention on the man that remains in the benches. Jeonghan looks over periodically to send her a wave and a blinding smile. 

You’ve made a good enough dent in your chicken and fries bucket by the time it’s intermission, about ready for a drink by now. Lorelai makes herself useful and runs down to get you both something, mostly because Jeonghan was now more focused on the team that’s huddled around one another, another man you assume is their coach huddled right with them. 

The scores are 2-2, as provided by the person behind you who was apparently sick of your placid obliviousness. It did feel slightly awkward to be the only person not as excited to be front and center, so you remind yourself to thank him profusely. 

Your attention drifts back to the benches, inevitably as you’ve been so unfortunately placed to be able to breathe down the player’s necks. They’ve dispersed from their huddle, but are not yet on the ice. They’re sitting down, catching their breaths, drinking from water bottles. On the other side, the opposing team, a sea of black and white flooding their own end of the benches. It’s a sinking colour, not an ounce of depth in the shade. It’s taking over the benches. 

Except it’s the players that are moving, like they’re diffusing into the scarlet territory. 

You watch, as one player in black moves his mouth, speaking, upturned and eyebrows cocked. It’s clear he’s gone well past enemy lines, the front lines suddenly at attention. There’s not much you can make out, nothing much besides the very haughty expression on the player’s face. His eyes are covered by the sweaty mop on his head, but you don’t need to see them to find the malice that infiltrates his entire stance.

The scene, where both sides seem to be closing in on each other, has you automatically sitting up straighter. The air is going static, especially as you realise the player's mouth is moving faster as he jabs at — Seungcheol. 

They’re fighting, only verbally for now, but it’s undeniable the way the heat grows by the second. All you can see is the back of Seugncheol’s jersey as he begins to step back from the ordeal, like he was fighting the urge to take a step forward instead. 

Jeonghan’s hand is on Seungcheol’s elbow, and one glance at the rest of the players on this side shows every last one on edge. Their coach is nowhere to be seen. 

But he doesn’t stop talking, still standing in their territory. He yells something loud enough to hear the pitch of his voice, but not nearly enough to understand what he’s saying. 

You could see it on the player’s face. Hook, line and sinker. 

It happens so suddenly. Seungcheol surges forward like a dart, something flies out and hits the player square in the face. 

Seungcheol had spat his mouth guard into his face. 

You gasp out loud as you register what’s happening. The player removes his hand from his face, and for some reason, emerges grinning. 

Seungcheol swings first, his fist rising and coming down on his cheek with a sound you can hear. You feel nauseous. 

It’s pandemonium. You can see Jeonghan practically on top of Seungcheol, a number of other players attempting to get him off the man he continues to grab and shake up like a fugitive. The other player is throwing his own punches.

For one, horrifying moment, the force of the punch pushes Seungcheol’s face towards the stands enough to let you get an eyeful. All you see is red, beyond just his jersey. His mouth is full of blood, the front of his jersey dripped with it, his knuckles clustered with it. 

The hand clasped around your mouth is your own, eyes blown in horror. 

All around you, the world has their phones out like it was some show meant just for them, like this was exactly what they came here for. 

It’s sickening. Sickening. 

You brave another look, and they’ve been yanked off of one another. Seungcheol is being pushed down the tunnel and away from sight. Jeonghan has his hands clutched around Seungcheol like he’s nearly ready for another outbreak, his face grim. 

Your eyes keep away from Seungcheol’s face on purpose.  “Goodness, what is going on, I could barely get through the crowd,” Lorelai’s irritated voice infiltrates your ears, and you’re immediately brought back down to earth. 

Arms full of more snacks and drinks, it only takes her one look at your rattled self to know. 

“What happened?”

“I…they were…fighting. I don’t know, it just—Seungcheol was throwing punches and there was…blood, so much blood.”

She’s gotten a grip on your hand, her fingers warm under your cold, shivering ones. “Do you wanna leave?” she asks slowly. 

One look over her shoulder is enough to tell you it’d be impossible. Everyone was too excited to care to cater to two people going in the opposite direction of the action. So you tell her there was no point, and you attempt to calm your racing heart as she sits next to you. 

Snagging one of the packs from her mountain of snacks, you rip it open and let the sickly sweet smell infiltrate your nostrils. Popping one of the confections in your mouth, it’s hard to not make a face. It’s the sourest thing you could’ve picked, the tartness enough to distract you from the outside world. Eyes scrunched closed, you swallow the rush of saliva to ask Lorelai what the fuck she brought.

You chortle, and it has Lorelai looking over. “Whoops! That one’s mine.”

She snags the bag from your loosened grip, replacing it with a tamer bag of original flavoured potato chips. The chips are trying, but there’s not much you can do besides wait for the residues of the godawful candy to subside. 

The ordeal seems to have calmed you the slightest bit, finally able to turn back to the ice. The rink is back to being occupied, players from both ends pouring onto the ice. You note a minor shoulder shove at the gate, but look away like it’d stop the calamity from intensifying. 

The game ensues as normal, but you note the blatant absence of CHOI in the sea of red and white jerseys. You don’t mention it, and neither does Lorelai. 

You’re about to burst by the time the finals moments are upon the game, the overtime minutes beginning to tick as the crowd grows restless by the second. With the little you’ve managed to grasp, you’re sure that SVT is only one goal away from the overtake. It’s making you nervous, like you’re waiting for your own score to be announced after a free skate. 

The puck is a mere percentage easier to navigate after a couple hours of keeping after it; it skips between players you’re beginning to recognise from the back of their jersey. Kim, Boo, Wen, Kim, Lee. The opposing team intercepts for a moment, and you find yourself letting out an irritated shake of the shoulders. Back to Kim, Lee, Lee, and then, right into the net. 

The jittering crowd suddenly went so silent you could hear a pin drop. 

And then the world around you erupts. It’s impossible to classify the sound as cheers when racketeers off your entire being like an unearthly sound, the stands on their feet hollering and screaming and yelling at their players that are fighting to keep their new overtake in the final seconds before the game officially ends. 

And when it does, you’re sure you need to get your ears checked out. 

Looking over, you catch Lorelai’s eye, and you can’t help but laugh. A delightful laugh that releases itself in the midst of the chaos of red, scarlet and cherry. Somebody’s thrown a red blanket over you, another has begun to hand out congratulatory cherry lollipops (you pass, but Lorealai would be damned if she did), people are hugging each other so tight and you get the inkling they’ve only met each other today. 

The ice is one giant dogpile, red on red as they suffocate one another in celebration. 

Perhaps you didn’t realise how important the game actually was, or maybe every game is like this, loud, proud and exultant. You find yourself imagining how they feel. 

The lost feeling of bouquets and flowers whisked in your direction, stuffed animals and hundreds of other things that scream adoration as your performance comes to a close. It’s a physical manifestation of an adoring crowd, as though making it tangible makes it a little more real. 

The rush, you can feel it resonate off of the scarlet side of the benches, and it’s enough for you to realise that yes, this was an important match. For them anyway. 

The way out of the rink is reasonably packed, but you manage to squeeze through the doors and towards where Lorelai had parked with fewer than expected obstruction. “Thought you might wait to see Jeonghan before we leave,” you hum as you walk to the parking spot. 

“I was going to, but he’s probably dealing with what happened,” she utters slowly. A flash of red at the mention, gone as soon as it came. Lorelai adds with a little extra pep to her voice, “It’s okay! I’ll send him a text, we were planning on dinner tomorrow anyway.”

The side eye you send is met with a light shove. “This one seems serious. Dragging me here for his sake and now dinner with him?”

Lorelai was infamous for taking it excruciatingly slow, the time between the talking stage and the first date stretching for months. She claims it’s to make sure she's not roping herself into something she’d regret, which you’ll admit has seemed to work out in her favour. Her last relationship lasted years before Josh had to move away. 

Jeonghan seems to have her under some warped spell, because Lorelai was hurtling into this relationship like a too compressed cannon ball. There was nothing you knew about Jeonghan other than his friendship with Seungcheol, his position as junior league coach and his habit of loitering on the ice; which means there wasn’t much opinion to be had on the whole conquest. Regardless, you decide to caution her some other day, when she’s not glowing and over the moon like a robust teenager. 

Slipping into the passenger seat, you slump like never before, already dreaming about the bedrotting session you’re about to have; glorious enough for the books. 

“Do you wanna grab food and rot on the couch?” she asks. 

“You’re still hungry after all that?” you huff, your mouth still flavoured with artificial sweetness paired with the savoury of the chicken and fries. You pull out your phone for the first time in nearly three hours, the home screen alarming full of missed notifications. Text messages, mentions and phone calls. For whatever reason, you swipe right past and open your browser. 

“It’ll take about an hour till we’re settled, should be hungry enough by then,” she comments, a gentle growl coming from beneath you as the engine comes to life. 

Somewhere between the lines of the seatbelt sign pinging, and the radio blaring itself into the space, you’ve read a headline that’s enough to halt your world. 

“There’s this new Chinese place that opened nearby here. Or this Persian restaurant but it’s like 20 minutes in the other direction. Or do we just do soup—”

“Lorelai.”

She turns to look at you in the passenger seat, seatbelt alarm still dinging as you remain with your seatbelt off as she pulls out of the parking space, like the official soundtrack to your doom. She brakes, hard. Lorelai is always Lorry with you, her full name only ever when you’re feigning irritation. 

There’s nothing irritating about the situation, but everything is wrong with it. 

It’s like you were in the benches, taking punches while simultaneously throwing a few yourself. You’re out of breath still seated, your skin tingles like a million arachnids crawling under your skin under your layers. You’re in the eddy of a horrifying whirlpool, that’s pulling you down, down, down, down, down, down—

!HOT TOPIC!

FIGURE SKATER OR FIGURINE? NOTHING GRACEFUL ABOUT Y/N L/N’S FALL FROM THE PINNACLE OF THE SKATING WORLD. Read from the Source!

From a pocket princess, to a rising star. From a rising star to the top of the world. From the top of the world to… a bottomless hell? How did Y/N L/N end up here? 

It’s nothing new that L/N’s presence was notable during the flashy ISU Grand Prix held in Beijing last year, the podium notably shuffled as a result. The skater’s ankle injury was never awarded a career ending title, but with the way her comeback remains as foggy as it did since the initial announcement, one must begin to wonder if we’ll ever see L/N on the competitive ice again. 

Or perhaps she’s simply lost her spark? 

Trusted sources report that L/N’s sponsors are growing weary of her extended vacation, and are just about ready to pull the rug! In addition, sources also report her floundering lack of consistency in practice sessions on the ice, her condition beyond someone as onerous as even Isabella Carroll to manoeuvre into success. Talk about futile! 

Now, we’re all hoping that our glittering gold medalist is only a victim of mindless chatter, however, we must concede, neither we nor our sources are holding on to too much hope. 

Keep on the lookout for more updates from us on our fallen (?) star!

[a/n]: hehehehehe remember to reblog and tell me your thoughts

[swtblue]

(This is a picture of the ask).

⚠️ Warnings ⚠️

♪ This post is just pure fiction. This does NOT represent any of them in any way.

♪ English is not my first language so sorry if there's any mistake.

Note: Hi my shining star! First of all I want to apologise because this post was an ask from an anon that Tumblr screwed up while I was finishing writing it. That's one of the reasons why it has taken me so long. Apart from the fact that thinking of eight different proposals based on how I think they would act has been difficult, while I was writing it, Tumblr was deleting some parts because yes and I had to rewrite them. Also, Tumblr hadn't let me publish this several times. I am very sorry for the huge amount of inconvenience this post has caused, my sincere apologies to everyone but, above all, to the person who sent this request.

But now I can happily say that it is finished, with everything checked and ready for you to enjoy. I think they are all so beautiful. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have loved writing it for you. I will be waiting to know which one you like the most. Thank you all for being patient and for all your comprehension🩷

✨ Love and sparkles ✨

✰ Seonghwa… As perfectionist as he is, he surely planned something really beautiful and memorable, his precious sweetheart deserves no less. Probably he would make it in the intimacy of your home, to be an intimate, lovely moment between him and you. Also, I think he could do his proposal on a very special day, maybe propose to you on your birthday. It is so poetic to propose to you to be his life partner on the very day you were born, the day you came to life.

“Happy birthday to you” Seonghwa finished singing, clapping his hands in a comically tender way as soon as you blew out that gaudy candle he had placed on the breakfast.

Just like last year, Seonghwa had prepared your favourite breakfast, only this year he had marked out a beautiful path of different coloured rose petals to lead you straight to the kitchen decorated in a simple but touching way for the occasion where he had been waiting for you for who knows how long with the most beautiful of his smiles and a bouquet of your favourite flowers.

"Happy birthday, sweetheart" your thanks was a soft, warm kiss on the lips. A kiss that could be defined as a fairytale kiss. Surely the kind of kiss from ‘Happily ever after’. And that's how Seonghwa made you feel, he was your happily ever after, the one you've dreamed of since you were a little girl, only a thousand times better than you could ever have imagined.

Those thoughts made you break the kiss with sudden giggles of happiness "What's funny, sweetie?" His arms settled around your waist, pulling your body close to his leaning against the kitchen counter "Nothing” you shook your head, absently glancing at the top buttons of his black satin pyjamas before intertwining your arms around his shoulders ”I was just reminding myself how lucky I am to have you in my life".

Those words surprised Seonghwa, it was what he had planned to tell you as soon as you discovered your surprise. He who had planned a big surprise and in the end he was the one who was surprised.

That very thought made him laugh, “Is that it?” His tone was low and rumbled in his chest in a rather pleasant way. His lips soon met yours briefly, wanting to feel you all the time, not having enough of you “Because that's one of the best things you could have ever said to me” The kisses didn't stop, they only increased in intensity, but without getting to the point of bordering on the indecent, he reserved that for the night. Or for after you said yes, depending on the mood.

“One?” You asked with curiosity, not breaking your hold on his broad shoulders but getting more comfortable in his hold. And here was his chance to follow through with his plan. Everything was going smoothly “And can I know more of those thighs you would want to hear from me?”.

“Well,” he started, swaying your bodies in subtle unison, his semi-long hair swaying from side to side in the most divine way “Another could be that you are pregnant, but I know you are not” A quick glance scanning your face to verify that he was right, which you affirmed with a simple shake. And with all the subtlety in the world, Seonghwa moved your bodies so that you were now facing the counter so that you could not predict his movements, leaving himself comfortably moulded to your figure from behind “And, the last one would be to hear you say that you do want to share the rest of your life with me” As soon as he finished those words, his hand appeared in front of you with a small white velvet box open, revealing a beautiful shiny ring.

The little jewel left you speechless, the only thing you could think of was precisely Seonghwa's words. Had he really just proposed to you? Was it really happening? It was finally happening!

It didn't take you long to burst into tears, hiding your face in your hands as you turned in his arms to hide on his chest in need of his affection. More than he was already giving you. And from your reaction, Seonghwa already knew your answer was yes. He just had to wait for your now agitated emotions to calm down before you could say it. And he would wait as long as you need. That's why he stayed there, listening to your babbling as he held you in his warm embrace until, finally, you raised your head, revealing the purest, most innocent smile you could have ever given him.

"My birthday wish…” you said between sobs and giggles “it has come true" With his thumbs, Seonghwa wiped your tears away, letting you steal as many pecks as you wanted “Really, sweetheart?” You nodded, hugging him even tighter “I have wished for us to be together for the rest of our lives” That answer filled Seonghwa's heart with immense, radiant happiness, his desire to make you the happiest woman in the world growing and growing by the second “So, can I assume it's a yes?”.

“Of course it is a yes, my love” And with that, Seonghwa places the ring on your finger, sealing your silent pact of eternal love with a passionate kiss.

The wait had certainly been worth it.

✰ Hongjoong had clear for a long time ago that he wanted to marry you but due to his work keeping him busy day after day he didn't find a special way or the correct moment to do it. That's why I think Hongjoong would propose with an exclusive song after spending two months far from you on a long tour out of Korea. Being far away from you made him feel empty, realising that your presence in his life meant more than he could have ever imagined with any other person.

Two months being apart from you was insufferable. Not being able to see you every day, being deprived of your touch, not having you near him to brighten his day… It's true that you two talked a lot during those two months but it wasn't sufficient for the idol, he needed to feel you. The feeling of missing you was so strong and heavy in his chest that Hongjoong found himself most of the time thinking about when he could call you again.

Although missing you wasn't that bad in the end because that feeling inspired him to write a song, a beautiful song only for your ears.

Hongjoong dedicated most of his free time putting his love for you into words, describing in the most beautiful way how you made him the happiest man in the world just by being part of his life. As one of the verses of his song said: His love was the ink, his heart the inkwell. He put his heart and soul into the song, after all, it was meant to be his marriage proposal.

He didn't last long to disappear from the airport as soon as they arrived in Korea, running like hell to your apartment with the illusion of giving you his ‘little souvenir’ of this tour.

Obviously you welcomed him with open arms, refusing to let him leave that tight embrace even if it was just to take off his jacket “Let me close the door at least, babe” Hongjoong said between cute chuckles, although he himself did not want to let go of you either, one of his arms was still around you while with the other he closed the door and put his things on the floor to make it easier and more comfortable for you two to hug each other.

After several innocent kisses scattered all over his face which he pretended to not like in a comical way because of his well-known disgust for physical affection but which he actually enjoyed because they were yours, you unwound your embrace, but you would not let him leave your side, nor would he let you either. You led him by the hand to the couch where, once he was comfortable, you two started talking about how the trip had gone, how he was, how successful the tour had been... And then, once you were up to date, he handed you the CD.

"I wrote you a song, jagi" Was all he said, smiling foolishly with that beautiful look of flattery that you were so in love with. And as quickly as he handed you the CD you put it in your music player, falling more and more in love with him with each verse. Halfway through the song you were already crying because of how beautiful it was, until it reached the final verse "Give me an 'I do' and I'll give the whole world to you".

You didn't want to get the wrong idea but, those words.... Was it what you were thinking?

Your heart stopped for a moment, your breathing stopped. If it was a dream, you never wanted to wake up. But then it happened, Hongjoong was kneeling right in front of you, with a beautiful velvet box in his hands, and inside it, a beautiful engagement ring of which you couldn't notice all the details due to the new and much stronger watering of your eyes.

"What do you say, love, will you marry me?”.

You were clearly speechless, you couldn't react, for you, the world had just stopped. You could only look at the ring, Hongjoong's words replaying over and over and over in your head. And he waited patiently, unable to hold back the tears of emotion knowing that your answer was positive, that smile that was slowly growing on your lips told him so. It wasn't until your body betrayed you, making you take a sharp intake of breath, that you threw yourself into his arms, shouting with emotion that long-awaited "I do" that he had asked you for in his song.

✰ Yunho gives me the vibes that he would propose on a date completely spontaneously. No ring, no preparation. He would do it after one of those cute photo shoots he likes to do on his outings, after seeing you smile at him in the most beautiful way in the world, in his own words.

You had both wanted to do something together for a long time but Yunho's busy schedule had prevented you from doing so, so you didn't think twice about going out to the coast for an excursion when Yunho got a day off. You two decided to go for a walk to a place slightly away from the hustle and bustle so you could have a quiet date, a place where you could be alone together and enjoy each other's company to the fullest. And, as always, Yunho brought his camera with him. He wasn't going to miss the opportunity to take new photos for your memory album.

It was certainly a dream date, and the fact that Yunho proposed to you made it even more special.

It was a very entertaining day to say the least. You didn't just stroll along the coast, which was more than enough for both of you, because something as simple as walking while holding hands made you extremely happy. You made a small makeshift campsite. Food, drink and a blanket to eat and lie on to enjoy the clouds. You enjoyed yourselves like children, running around chasing each other, laughing at every little thing you did, even dancing barefoot on the shore, feeling the soft touch of the sand and the swaying of the water accompanying you with each step. Even the part about running away from the seagull that wanted to steal part of your lunch was funny.

And, as it could not be otherwise, Yunho took pictures of everything in sight. But he didn't just take pictures of the landscape, he obviously took the tripod with him so he could take pictures of both of you together. He wanted to immortalise this fantastic evening. He took hundreds of photos of both of you holding hands, kissing, with your backs to each other... You had at least one picture of yourselves in every possible pose and from every possible perspective. Although he also took individual pictures, mainly pictures of you he had to admit. Yunho didn't miss the opportunity to take a new picture of you every moment.

But one in particular was the one that triggered everything.

In that picture you were holding his hand, with your arm outstretched to reveal your full torso, and on your face was the most beautiful and sincere smile Yunho had ever captured in a photograph. As soon as he saw it, he was stunned. He spent like fifteen minutes admiring the beauty of the photograph. You looked so perfect, so beautiful, so… so you. He was a really lucky guy for having you in his life, for having the chance to love you and be loved by you. That moment of reflection only reaffirmed to him that he indeed wanted to see that smile for the rest of his life. How idyllic it would be if that beautiful smile of yours was the first thing he saw when he woke up and the last thing he saw before he went to bed.

"Yunho" You called him, your angelic voice bringing him out of that fantastic future scenario where you were married with two children in which he had lost himself "Are you okay?" you asked between laughs, which rubbed off on Yunho. You were lying on the blanket, on your sides, facing each other. It was such a tender scene to admire "Better than ever, princess" and after seeing you smile even brighter than before he decided that yes, he wanted to be the reason for your happiness for the rest of your days.

“And I would be better if you agree to marry me” He caught you off guard, even making you sit up with one of your arms as support, looking seriously at him "Are... are you serious?" Seeing how your eyes began to shine with what threatened to be tears, he imitated your gesture, sitting up slightly to have your faces at the same height "I've never been so serious, princess. I want to be the reason for your joy, the one who will be there for you in your sorrows. I want to share my whole life with you" each new word that came out of his lips made the tears fall like a waterfall. The sincerity of his words, the love that shone in his eyes, the smile on his face. He was asking you to marry him. Finally it was happening!

“What do you say, princess? Would you be my partner for life?” And at this point you could not resist any longer, you burst into tears of happiness, hiding your face in his chest the moment you pounced on him, making him lie down again "Of course, a thousand times yes!”.

Happiness flooded over you both, melting into a passionate romantic kiss in that beautiful place that from now on would become another witness to your love.

✰ For Yeosang… Our innocent boy is unpredictable, perhaps he would propose in the most spontaneous way possible. Yes, I can see that. And I think it could be during a lovely night in which you two were spending some time together at home. Yeosang would casually pull out the ring and propose to you.

Today had been a day of relaxation for both of you. A day just for Yeosang and you. Without any extravagant or tiring plans, you and your boyfriend had decided to spend the afternoon at home entertaining yourselves with common activities like playing some video games, preparing dinner together or just talking about everything that crossed your minds until it was late at night.

It was without a doubt a successful day for both of you. Quality time spent with your favourite person? A very idyllic plan that you would repeat more times for sure if it weren’t because, unfortunately, Yeosang was most of the time occupied with his idol’s duties. Well, in one way or another, that's precisely what made the time he spent with you even more special.

Yeosang treasured every moment with you, every new memory created, even the most insignificant. Every second with you was worthy of his appreciation and affection simply because of that, because he had enjoyed it with you. And it is precisely because of that kind of thinking that Yeosang had been considering whether or not to propose to you for a few months now.

Yes, marriage.

Yeosang had never been so sure of anything in his life. Seeing you every day as soon as he got home was a blessing for him, it reminded him that you two were already sharing your life, that you were already family in a way. And he was very happy with the beautiful life you had built together, you were his home, but something in him told him that it was time to take the next step.

The boy was already more than clear that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with you, but he wasn't so clear if that was your plan as well. It's true that you two had talked about getting married someday, but you never really looked into it, and Yeosang didn't know if it was among your current plans. What if you weren't looking to commit yourself so young? He would not have a problem with that, he would wait as long as it took until you felt you were ready to take that step. But not so long ago a not so stupid doubt disturbed his plans to propose. What if you didn't really want to get married but you didn't want to hurt him either and that's why you hadn't said anything?

That doubt was immediately dispelled when he heard you say "Wouldn't you think it would be super romantic to get married on the beach? I know it's not very advisable as we have to be very discreet about it because of your job but still, wouldn't it be nice?”.

Apparently you had about three weddings planned but because you had never talked about it in depth you had not told Yeosang. And from what he had recently discovered, you didn't want to overwhelm him with the overwhelming number of ideas you had. That hurt him a little, one way or another, you had come to think that you might upset him with this subject. He hugged and assured you that nothing would make him happier than to plan your special day with you even if you wanted to do it a thousand times.

That was the reason Yeosang bought an engagement ring a few weeks ago, waiting for the right moment to propose, and tonight, after a taste of what married life with you could be like, it was clear to him that he didn't want to wait any longer. So, taking advantage of a moment when you went to the bathroom, he went to get the ring. Pretending that everything was fine even if that goofy grin gave it away. He was so innocent and legible, you loved him with all your might.

“What happened, baby?” you asked with a knowing smile on your lips. You knew he was hiding something but you didn't have the faintest suspicion what it was. And that new cute smile on his lips only confirmed it “Happens that I can’t imagine life without you now” those words made you hold your breath, you didn't expect that at all, after all, Yeosang was very secretive about these things, he used to keep his feelings to himself ”And that's why I want to ask you, will you marry me?”.

And that was what ended up leaving you speechless.

Was it really happening? Was he asking you to marry him? Weren't you dreaming?

You tried to say something but all that came out were indecipherable babble that Yeosang couldn't interpret at first. Were you happy? Were you not ready? Were you about to cry? You looked like you were going to cry, honestly. He was starting to regret it after a long wait of several silent minutes until, finally, you threw yourself into his arms shouting "Of course I want to! You're the best thing that has ever happened to me. Nothing would make me happier than spending the rest of my life with you”.

Without a doubt, proposing to you had been a complete success.

✰ After being surrounded by a love as pure as the one that his family radiates, it is only natural that San has dedicated himself body and soul to make his proposal to the person he plans to be his future life partner the most beautiful moment of your lives to date.

It was one of his free days which just happened to coincide with you having to spend the day out, leaving him the whole day to prepare everything to make the proposal as magical and perfect as he had imagined. He decided not to make a very extravagant event as he had seen in many places, whether it was a hot air balloon proposal, or fireworks.... He wanted something more intimate, more personal, San wanted to make this day unforgettable for both of you. And that's why he decided to make a compilation of all your first moments.

He meticulously left a note scattered for every first moment you had experienced together, notes that would lead you directly to where he would be waiting for you with ring on hand.

The trick to make it more charming was to play with the atmosphere. Soft candle lights illuminating the house, petals of your favourite flower on the floor, a pleasant scent as soon as you walk in the door, your song playing in the background. San had turned your house into the perfect setting for his proposal. All that was missing was your arrival.

His heart almost jumped out of his chest when he heard the front door open, followed by the angelic sound of that excited sigh that escaped your lips as soon as you probably saw the trail of petals leading you to go into your shared house to start that romantic and entertaining game that he had prepared for you.

As soon as you closed the door of the house and took off your shoes you found the first note attached to a beautiful bouquet of the same flowers whose petals adorned the floor “The first flower I gave you”. At this point it was already obvious to you that many more surprises were waiting for you, so, with the bouquet in your arms and your things forgotten at the entrance, you headed towards the living room following the path of petals, finding a large empty space where there was only a huge heart drawn on the floor with those same petals and a note in the middle “Our first dance” that was when you noticed that, effectively, the song that was sounding was the first one you danced together.

You didn't know if you wanted to keep looking for notes or if you wanted to run and find San to love him as he deserved for such a nice surprise. The smile on your face only grew, tender laughs escaping you, making San regret not being able to see your face when he found each new note, but he had to be patient, he knew the wait would be worth it.

Then, you found the third note, on the table, stuck to the cover of a DVD “Our first movie” said the note. You remembered that date as if it was yesterday. You watched the movie at home, cuddling under a blanket while eating popcorn. It was so simple but so special and beautiful for you. It was also the first time you had a date at home. The urge to find you charming prince was unable to hold, you needed to kiss him, hug him, tell him how much you loved him.

And that's how you hurried up, following the petals directly to the kitchen where a very appetizing cake was waiting for you, here your cheeks were already hurting from smiling so much. You didn't need to take the note in your hands to know what that cake represented: your first formal date. You took San to your favorite bakery, you both wanted something simple and nice to remember. That was the cake you both ate that afternoon.

And finally, what you hoped would be the last note before you could meet the love of your life. It was stuck on your bedroom door, you didn't bother to take it in your hands, you just went over to read it. Your heart bursted with emotion when you read those last words.

“Will this be your first ‘Yes, I do’?”.

As soon as you read those words you opened the room, finding San dressed as elegant as ever, kneeling as tradition dictates with the open box in his hands, showing you that ring you had dreamed of for so long. You didn't give him time to formally ask you, your body moved on its own, throwing you without any hesitation into his arms to give him the most emblematic kiss of your entire relationship so far. San wanted to hear your "I do" but that could wait now, the touch of your lips on his professing all your love for him in every gesture was all he wanted to focus on now.

Too bad it couldn't last forever.

The air quickly made you break that kiss, giving you a moment to appreciate each other's features, both of you giving each other a radiant smile. Then San wiped your tears with his thumb, holding your cheek in his palm "I assume that's a yes" you both laughed, you in particular giving him a fleeting kiss before answering "Of course it is" and joining together again in a fervent kiss after he put the ring on your finger.

✰ I think Mingi would propose to you formally a few months after getting you pregnant. Don't ask me why. He just gives me those vibes. His proposal would be so cute in my opinion. It would not be anything romantic like in the movies, not even during one of those heated nights of passion between your sheets. Mingi proposed to you a night where he disappeared for half an hour just to satisfy your twins' sudden craving for melon.

The man had been searching like crazy at two in the morning for the whole town for that dumb fruit that his babies seemed to be infatuated with and did not return home until he found it which submerged you in a spiral of worries and anxiety that only calmed when the long-awaited jingling of keys reached your ears.

Running to the door and not letting your boyfriend explain himself, you yelled at him for not calling you during all that time he had been away while you hugged him tightly in an attempt to avoid him leaving your side again. And Mingi, exhausted from having been searching for that stupid fruit, just let you scream at him all you wanted; after all, that behavior was an effect of your revolutionized hormones due your pregnancy. But when Mingi tried to go to the kitchen to prepare you a huge plate of melon, you refused to let him go anywhere “I don't want it anymore…”.

And Mingi could have gotten angry with you, he could have started an argument for making him go get a melon at such a late hour, losing half an hour of his precious sleep for a stupid fruit that you didn't want now but you were the one who had to bear the extremely heavy task of creating the little lives you both made inside you and the overwhelming effects of it so he, as the father of those little lives, would bear with calm each and every one of the complicated situations in which your hormones made you lose your temper.

“You've had me hanging around for half an hour to get you this and now you don't want it?” He asked in a soft tone between laughs, leaving the bag on the floor to hug you tightly with both arms when you shook “you are so lucky that I love you” You didn't comment at that, only looked up at his face asking for a kiss with that pout and begging eyes you gave him and, being as weak as Mingi is when it comes to you, he leaned pleasantly to press his lips against yours.

The faint movement of your children against his belly, the sweet warmth of your body against his and the more than delicious feel of your lips on his filled his entire self with an overflowing happiness, making him realise that his most pure and truly happiness was by your side. Something that was only reaffirmed as soon as you broke the kiss and he stared at you with that goofy look of a hopeless lover that you loved so much.

That was exactly where he wanted to be.

“Marry me” Those words left his lips like a soft breath, uttering them without even realising it; his mind was already creating different fantasies of your life together as husband and wife with your twins, whom he hoped would look like you. His gaze was completely lost in admiration of every little detail of your being.

Clearly that proposal left you open-mouthed, not knowing what to say or how to react correctly for a few seconds until, after processing the information several times, you gave him a very clear yes before leaning him back towards you to capture his lips again with yours, making sure to charge your every gesture with all the love you felt for him. Needless to say, Mingi clearly reciprocated.

And after that he prepared that awaited plate of melon you and the twins wanted so badly to enjoy it together.

✰ Wooyoung would do his proposal in a very special way to be remembered, more specifically, to be able to be watched as many times as you want. I think Wooyoung would propose to you on your anniversary with a video in which he had collected all your moments together, ending with a video of him proposing to you.

Wooyoung had spent weeks preparing that beautiful documentary video of the course of your relationship that you were about to see, a perfect and harmonious compilation of all those fantastic moments that you had shared and immortalized in photos and videos, with a comical but romantic touch thanks to all those comments he had added like "You looked so perfect that day, even soaked from having to run in the rain because we forgot to check the weather". Obviously the video was ordered chronologically, from the first picture to the last.

He had been so anxious to give you the gift, he almost gave it to you days in advance out of impatience but he was able to restrain himself. Although his trademark ear-to-ear grin was already telling you that the surprise you knew he had in store was going to leave you speechless. But, thankfully, it was your anniversary already. He was finally going to be able to give you that intriguing gift.

The evening began in a restaurant, a romantic dinner to celebrate all these years together in which you gave each other a personalized gift. Then you danced until your feet ached on the balcony of the restaurant in the beautiful moonlight. Laughter reigned supreme and so did kisses. And then came the moment both Wooyoung and you were waiting for, going home to give you the final surprise.

“Come here and get comfortable, jagi” Wooyoung said, opening his arms for you to snuggle into him comfortably on the sofa. And you clearly didn't object to the tempting offer to relax in his arms and watch whatever he had prepared for you. Without a second thought you dived under the warm and comforting blanket in which Wooyoung was waiting for you, hugging him and letting him hug you. "Are you ready?" he asked you as he tucked a strand of hair behind your ear and you nodded, giving him that kiss he was asking for before looking at the screen and pressing play.

The video was beautiful, so well orchestrated, every image calculated to the millimetre to match the song in a special way, as if the phrase described the picture in question. Wooyoung's eyes shifted from the screen to you simultaneously, not wanting to miss a single one of your reactions. You looked so pretty in his eyes with that beautiful ear-to-ear smile that it was probably making your cheeks ache.

So many photos, so many precious memories you had created. And the ones you had left, like tonight. Wooyoung's impatience was suffocating him, he couldn't wait for his proposal to come out, he already had the ring in his hand and everything.

You two commented on several of the photos, reminiscing about that particular day amidst laughter in love. Like the first time you went to the snow together. You had a snowball fight with a comical resemblance to the one in Beauty and the Beast. It was so funny to see how that lump of snow that was supposed to be a huge ball crumbled on top of Wooyoung.

And finally, the long-awaited moment. The last video.

"Happy anniversary, jagi. Tell me, did you like the surprise? I bet you did. Besides, I'm sure you have a beautiful smile on your face for remembering all these wonderful moments we've lived. That's what happened to me while I was editing the video, seeing all that we have lived together, all the memories we have created. And those that we still have to create because everything we have been through is just the beginning of what I want to be my life with you. That's why I ask you, will you do me the honour of being my wife?”.

✰ I don't know why but I think Jongho is a good one to propose to you at Christmas. I imagine him handing you that beautiful little box in the middle of the night while you are sitting on the floor, next to the tree which is the only source of light that illuminates the room.

No sooner had you heard those words than you turned to look at your boyfriend who was already holding the ring up, looking at you with all the love he felt for you reflected in those sparkling eyes "What do you say Y/N, do you accept?" The resounding yes you gave him came to nothing after that thunderous kiss you gave him, cutting it short to take a breath and he took advantage of the moment to put the ring on your finger. After that, words were unnecessary, it was your gestures and caresses that spoke for you.

It was late at night and you two had just come from a family dinner at your parents' house. You and Jongho had been together for years, and when your relationship became serious enough, you decided that you would take turns every year with whom you spent the holidays and important events.

By now you were back in the comfort of your own home and, although you were a little tired, you weren't sleepy so Jongho, with everything already planned since a few months, proposed spending some cuddle-time in the living room, in the warmth of the heater, sitting by the tree in your pyjamas with a steaming cup of your favorite beverages in your hands. It may sound a bit strange because he is not a big fan of physical affection but, after the first year together you started with this cuddle-time thing.

The place was dimly dark, illuminated only by the colourful lights of the tree and a heater, giving a magical touch to the simple but tender moment you were sharing.

You were having small talk about any little thing that crossed your minds, like how you had to go to buy some things tomorrow or about that cute new trend you wanted to do with him about dancing while it was snowing but you knew that you couldn't do it because of the strict politics of having a relationship with an idol. And between conversations there was an occasional silence that was quite comforting to say the least. The calm that flooded the room was lovely, the pleasant atmosphere in which you had immersed yourselves only reaffirmed to Jongho that yes, this was the moment he wanted to remember for the rest of his life every time he thought about your ‘I do’.

So, more than convinced, Jongho decided that it was the perfect moment to act.

“Y/N,” he called subtly for your attention, which you gave him as soon as you stopped taking a short sip from your mug “I have something else for you. I wanted to wait until we were alone to give it to you”. Those words left you a bit confused, you had already given each other Christmas presents, you didn't expect him to suddenly give you anything else. You even felt a bit bad that you didn't have any other surprises for him. But you didn't say anything, you just waited for him to take out that little wrapped box that you hesitated to open for a few moments, looking at him with some hesitation before you opened it and found that beautiful dark box that you hoped was a ring, although you didn't want to get your hopes up too high. Because yes, you had been waiting for the moment when Jongho would ask you to marry him for a while now. A rather long one in your opinion.

"Come on, open it," Jongho insisted subtly, so as not to arouse suspicion, you know. And no sooner had you opened the box than tears began to well up in your eyes. There it was, glowing beautifully thanks to the colourful mix of lights on the Christmas tree. A ring so beautiful, that incredibly beautiful that you didn't know if you could do it justice. Although you already knew that Jongho would tell you exactly the opposite if he knew what you were thinking.

"What do you say, Y/N, will you marry me?" His voice was so soft but he sounded so confident, as if he already had more than assumed that your answer would be yes. And he wasn't wrong either because, effectively, you answered him with a teary “Of course I want to. There's nothing in this world I would love more than to be your wife”. Of course you ended up kissing tenderly once he put the ring on your finger, forgetting everything that wasn't you.

[delirious-donna]

Worthy Sacrifices [Part Nine]

“Your body on the other hand, it’s an open book.”

story summary: Levi isn’t hungry, or so that’s what he claims. A vampire must drink to survive, and his sire refuses to let the man give up without trying every trick up his sleeve. When a new ‘donor’ appears, one who is different from all the rest, will Levi be able to keep resisting?

pairing: Levi Ackerman (vampire) x female reader (human)

warnings: slight NSFW, violence, biting, threatening behaviour (not towards reader), implied murder, Erwin being more of a bastard, plot building, flirting and lots of eye fucking, mention of parental loss and grief, we're starting to really cook now...

Part Eight | Masterlist | Read on AO3 | Part Ten

A line of dark blood rose to the surface of unblemished, pale skin. It beaded along the shallow wound, thick and full of something otherworldly. The nail used to inflict the small hurt was square and perfectly neat, but still sharp enough to cut through flesh like it was tissue paper.

“Mm. You fed well tonight… I can smell them in your blood, on your skin,” he said with a warmth that gave the illusion of being sat by a roaring fire. “Come.”

She did so without hesitation; the naked woman leaning up in the bed to stroke a manicured hand across his chest. Hungrily, she wrapped around his neck and shoulders and took the offering of a kiss with a sultry sigh.

Erwin smiled against her plush lips, encouraging the wet muscle to invade his mouth and feed him the taste of whoever she had fed from earlier. They were sweet, innocent and dead. He felt it assuredly, like he always did whenever someone took the life of their meal.

A sacrifice, but was it a worthy one? That was the question that mattered.

Erwin was not opposed to death if it served a greater purpose, but he had to wonder what impact snuffing out the life of a young woman would have on society. She could have been a bright young mind, someone who could have positively impacted the scientific or medical field. Maybe they were a talented dancer, singer, artist… now the world would never know.

He hummed in contemplation, though he masked it as enjoyment and his lover didn’t seem to notice the difference. She pressed her naked breasts into his chest; the pearls of dark, almost black, blood staining his skin like an ink blot from a Rorschach test.

Her neck stretched out in invitation, long nails scratching at his scalp and tugging more firmly at the roots. Who was he to deny himself a taste?

She let out a high-pitched mewl when he trailed kisses down her jaw before finally biting into the taut flesh being presented like a well-wrapped gift. Erwin held her close as she started to writhe in a sensous dance, pulling her flush over his body until she was straddling him and grinding directly onto his awakening erection. There was no sustenance when vampires fed from their own kind, it was purely a sexual indulgence and one he didn’t allow himself too regularly for reasons he refused to study closely.

Waves of thick auburn hair framed a pretty face. The colour was artificial, as were her looks. Carefully applied cosmetics brightened her complexion, contacts changed whatever her natural eye colour was to a vibrant jade green, and he was willing to bet her lips were not naturally this plump.

From a distance, she was beautiful, but up close, the flaws were obvious.

“You know,” he started, pulling away from the fresh wound on her neck that was already healing, “it’s interesting that Nile would think to defy me so openly like this.”

The woman paused. She frowned, regaining her composure remarkably fast.

“Nile? Who is that? I don’t want to talk about other men when the only one I’m interested in is right here.”

Her perfectly manicured nails tiptoed up his sternum, a sultry move that echoed the purr she effected. Erwin grasped her wrist in a lightning quick movement which made her gasp. He smiled and pressed a reassuring kiss to the fragile skin of her inner wrist. If she wanted to play, then he would be happy to join in.

“Oh, I thought everyone knew Nile. He’s the man who wishes to align himself with the humans and become their special lapdog. He’d rather see his kin tied up in metaphorical redtape and arbitrary laws than allow us to flourish as we always had before the awakening. It really is a shame… we used to be friends.”

“I-I—no, I can’t say that I’ve heard of him before,” she lied. He could smell the deceit, taste the sourness of it on his tongue. His nose wrinkled in disgust.

Erwin struck; sinking his fangs into the wrist still pressed to his lips. The bite was savage this time, no sensual pleasure seeking from the tear of his teeth against the flesh and tendons in the weak little wrist. She squealed, high and terror struck, and tried to pull away, but without success.

He fed from her in sucking pulls until his mouth was full of the disgusting blood pumping through her. Deception. Manipulation. Seductress. Poisoner. It tasted like acid, and he refused to swallow this time.

Instead, he ripped away from her mauled arm and yanked her down until her face was inches from his. There were tears crowding her eyes, sheer panic widening them as she struggled from the hold he would not let up. He kissed her and there was no nicety to it. He forced his tongue deep into her mouth and dumped out the vile blood.

She spluttered, swallowing down the blood and swiping at her mouth with her remaining free hand. Her face and neck were smeared in dirty crimson, and gone was the pretty mask.

“Get away from me,” she screeched, beating at his chest and clawing nails down his tawny shoulders. “I’ll scream! You’re a monster! I don’t know what you’re doing but I’ll see that you’re executed for this assault!”

Erwin couldn’t help but laugh. It was rich and deep, for the right person it would stroke at their skin like gloved velvet, but for a traitorous little whore like this fledgling girl it sounded ugly and utterly wicked.

“Do try, my dear. I’m certain the staff would love to hear me put down a mangy dog like yourself. I could invite them in, and they can watch if you’d prefer. What do you say to that, hm?” His voice was as cold as artic winds, destructive and without a hint of emotion. “I know who sent you and I am well aware of the vial you poured into my wine earlier tonight. Right now, its contents are being analysed and I’m rather keen to try it out on you. Witness firsthand its effects.”

Her struggling intensified, and he could smell the fear on her increase until his senses were drowning in it. She fought like a wounded animal who could sense their own death was imminent. At least she was perceptive.

“You’ve got it all wrong! I swear it. Let me go—I’ll… I can tell you what his plans are, everything, if you’ll just let me go. You never have to see me again,” she bargained before real tears of terror starting to slide over her cheeks and through the mess of blood drying on her skin. “I don’t want to die.”

Erwin almost felt sorry for her—almost.

~

“Did you have to kill her?” Miche asked.

Erwin glanced at him whilst he carefully washed his hands. He was reminded that despite the bloodshed Miche had seen over the years, he was still tender-hearted. At times it was a good trait to have close, it kept Erwin grounded and in touch with his morality, but other times he wanted nothing more than to roll his eyes in derision.

“The woman attempted to poison me with something that even Hange cannot identify. We have no idea what it would have done, it might have even managed the near impossible and killed me, and you’re asking if I acted rashly?”

Miche had the grace to look contrite. “You’re right. I know that… sorry. I guess that means we’re at war now.”

“Nile has made the first move,” Erwin said with a sigh.

“I cannot and will not, overlook this. If he is prepared to take a stand against me then we must assume that he is now fully aligned with the human government and their objectives. I had sincerely hoped we would avoid this, that there would be an alliance of sorts that wouldn’t diminish our interests, but he is forcing my hand.”

“Did the girl have much information to share?”

“Very little, as I expected. She was promised fame and exposure as an up-and-coming actress if she could infiltrate my syndicate and feedback information to whomever in Nile’s employ was acting as her superior. The drug was a new plan after several failed attempts to gain my attention, and I fear it might have truth serum properties. We’ll know that for sure soon enough.”

Erwin hesitated when Miche passed a palm down his face, his head shaking ever so subtly. Maybe he shouldn’t have killed her… maybe he was getting too good at reasoning with himself that his actions served a higher purpose. Perhaps he was becoming delusional and that was not a thought he liked having.

“Whoever her puppet master was, they must be powerful. I couldn’t see their image when I looked inside her mind, it was deliberately distorted, but I’m certain it wasn’t Nile himself. He wouldn’t dirty his hands directly,” he said. “This has only emphasised the importance of returning Levi to the fold, and if my suspicions are correct then it will be in his best interest to comply.”

Miche grimaced. “He’s resisting. I’m not sure why you’re so pushy with this new donor, and I know you’re not about to enlighten me,” he muttered with a wry glance at his sire, “but you need to move fast before things escalate any further.”

“It’s all in hand, Miche, it’s all in hand.”

~

“Can you say that again?”

Levi’s eyes were the darkest grey you had ever seen. They were drowning pools if only you would step inside. His expression was blank, or as blank as he could make it given the skittish energy that leaked from him.

His study was dimly lit by the lone lamp on the desk, it cast shadows along the walls and gave the illusion of a breeze ruffling the heavy velvet drapes. You sat in the same armchair from the first time you met him, but this time he didn’t sit with the desk between you, he was perched against the edge, his knees close enough to touch yours.

“You are my blood singer and that means that I am bound to you. That your blood would sustain my existence forever if you allowed it. I’m stronger because of you. I was able to move not just myself, but you as well because of the small amount I took back in Erwin’s office. That’s how we got here, I’m not certain if I told you that.”

“Only those very old and powerful can move more than themselves. I…” Levi faltered for the second time, he didn’t think he was explaining this well, but it was the best he could do given that there was still so much he didn’t know.

“I would not need to feed as regularly as I did before, not if I was drinking from you. I feel bound to you,” he repeated without pausing to consider what an admission of that magnitude would do to you.

You pulled your legs up, arms wrapping around your knees as if that would keep the cold at bay. It wasn’t the temperature that was the problem, it was revelation of your importance to Levi that pressed icy fingers against your skin. He had made it obvious that there was a connection between you, you knew that from the dreams or memories you experienced, as well as Erwin’s insistence to bring you together, but hearing it out loud was different. It also didn’t help that you weren’t sure how Levi felt about this. He might feel bound, but there was a twist to his mouth that made you wonder if he hated the very idea of it.

Suddenly, you wished you weren’t wearing his t-shirt. You wished your legs weren’t bare. You wished that your neck didn’t throb. You wished your heart wasn’t hammering against your ribs like a wronged man banging on their cell bars.

“Say something,” he asked, hand outstretched as if to touch your arm then thought better of it, dropping his arm by his side.

What could you say? It seemed hypocritical that you would encourage him to drink from you, to explore the evident attraction and suddenly be perturbed when you found out the depth such actions had resulted in. You liked him, were attracted to him, but did you want to be bound to him?

He made it sound like this was a permanent thing and that wasn’t a part of your plans. Sure, you hoped you’d form meaningful connections with the right people, so that when you had made peace with your life you could cross over, but this soon seemed premature.

You were not going to die like your mother.

The genetic test results hadn’t come back yet and there was still hope that the illness your mother had fallen to would not be hereditary, but taking precautions should the worst come to pass made sense to the rational part of your brain.

You refused to follow the same path she had. The love for your mother was eternal, and there was nothing more she could have done (except fight harder, the mean little voice in your head piped up) but that was not going to be your fate. You would not trace her footsteps.

That was a promise you had made to yourself on the day of her funeral. You couldn’t stand the grief that surrounded the event, and the look of utter devastation on your father’s face.

The only man in your life was a ghost of his former self and you despised it. His easy smiles and summer warm eyes were gone, replaced with tight grimaces and eyes filled with winter fog. You didn’t blame him. Of course, you didn’t, but there was a sense of loss for more than just your mother that you couldn’t accept without some amount of blame. Who did it belong to?

Death.

You couldn’t accept that this had for the best and therefore you swore you would defeat death. It was from that day that you looked into every piece of known information about vampires, obsessed with learning as much as you could.

They were the answer.

“What does this change?” you asked finally.

“… I want you come live here instead of with Erwin.”

“Is that everything?” You knew it wasn’t, the weight of the pause before Levi answered told you there was much more.

“No, but I’m not sure who your loyalty lies with. There are things I want to discuss but if they were to be repeated to Hange or Erwin himself, then it would be a problem. A big problem.”

That was understandable, so why did it hurt to think he didn’t trust you? Your cheek rested atop your knee, blinking at him. He was keeping things from you, more than he was admitting to.

“I’m sorry,” Levi said and even to your ears it sounded like a word he was unaccustomed to using, “It’s not that I don’t trust you, more that I have reasons not to trust Erwin. He needs me, and I’m in two minds on how to proceed. Would you consider voiding your contract with him? I’d compensate you.”

“It’s not all about the damn money, Levi. I expected this to be a job that I did for a definitive amount of time then went back to my life, and you’re making this sound like I can’t return.”

Levi cringed.

“That’s… that’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? To be your blood singer is to stay by your side forever,” you said, an icy hand at your throat.

This time when he reached for you, he didn’t stop at the last moment. His hands took yours, moving until he was knelt on the carpet looking up at you. He was offering you something, something you couldn’t define.

“Forever is a long time,” he admitted quietly. “Can we start with the here and now, end your contract with Erwin and stay with me for the month?”

A month.

That didn’t sound too bad.

It was less than you had expected to stay within Erwin’s service, but then again, every one of your goal posts had changed in the space of a few days. As you mulled over the offer, his thumb stroked across your knuckles. Levi was a perfect blank statue except for his eyes. Those eyes swirled like pools of pure mercury, and the longer you stared, the more you wanted to throw all your chips in with him.

“I can do that. A month here, living with you.”

You swallowed thickly; the icy fingers at your throat receded as a heat start to simmer in your belly. The possibilities of how those weeks would be spent were nothing more than the ideations of some prolific smut writer. It reminded you of a comment where it was alluded that Erwin could read what was in your mind, and you wondered if the same could be said of Levi.

“Can you… can you read my thoughts?” you asked, eyes flicking away from his face and back again.

Levi rose to stand, putting your face level with his stomach. The lean outline of his torso was obvious through the thin grey compression style shirt. Your hand twitched in his, and he tightened his fingers. It took all your willpower to lift your gaze, and his subtle amused expression only warmed your cheeks more.

“Why do you ask?”

“Hange said that Erwin would know if I lied. He also made me think that he could read my mind if he wanted to, and I just wondered…”

“It’s possible, but not without you knowing what I was up to. Mind tricks have never been something I’ve dabbled in outside of feeding pleasurable emotions into those giving to me. It’s a line I don’t like to cross, some things should remain sacred,” he said solemnly, and it made you wonder what was behind those words. There was some sadness that wasn’t yet for sharing, maybe it never would be, but you took the answer for what it was.

“Your body on the other hand, it’s an open book.”

He placed your hand on his flat stomach, spreading the palm so you could feel each inhale and exhale. His fingers tangled in your hair, cradling the side of your head and gently moving you so he could look into your eyes. The pink tip of his tongue flicked out to wet his lips and you followed the movement like a cat watching a sparrow.

It was hard to worry when desire ignited like a well-kindled fire. It was hard to care when you looked at Levi and saw the tight mask slip to reveal a mirror of what you felt right down in your very bones. He was a man not accustomed to strong emotions, or at least not accustomed to showing them, and here he was letting you glimpse something very few people ever had.

“What is my body saying?” you asked with an emphatic purr.

Instead of answering, he pressed one knee onto the seat of the armchair you were occupying. He was slow with it, letting you adjust so his thigh wedged between yours, bending at the waist and burying his nose in the silk of your hair. You heard him inhale, felt the contraction against your palm and let your touch lower an inch or two, where the line of his sweats met the hem of his shirt.

Your heart beat a wild dance in your throat, mirrored by an identical throb where his knee brushed against you. Men’s boxer briefs were not your preferred underwear style but given it had been your only option at the time, you half welcomed the barrier between him and your naked skin. The other half cursed the navy shorts for daring to exist.

He was so close and still too far away. You leant in to skim your lips over the small area of naked skin near his hip you had exposed with those inquisitive fingers. Levi shivered and let out a long sigh. It spoke of everything and nothing.

“Your body is telling me a lot of things. It’s hard to—to keep them all straight in my head,” he half whispered, his breath fanning your ear and sending tingles down the length of your spine. “I can smell your arousal, from before and right now. Your heart is racing, and your skin is so perfectly hot and supple.”

Levi traced along your jaw, down your neck and moved his hand ‘til it curled around the slender column of your throat. He felt you swallow, smiled and gave the lightest squeeze, smiling wider when your eyes grew impossibly large with that film of lust covering your sparkling irises.

Glancing down he could see how your nipples had stiffened behind the fabric of his t-shirt, and ideas of kneeling right here to suck them into his mouth one at a time until the khaki green was almost black with his saliva nearly shook him into action. The hummingbird flutter of your pulse acted as an anchor, and he was grateful given how you’d already been interrupted. He didn’t need a further reminder that Hange and Miche were waiting for you both.

Slowly, sadly, he moved back and ran restless fingers through his curtains of hair.

You let him, not giving life to the whine caught in the back of your throat, knowing that you were not as alone as you’d like. Vampire hearing was a thing to be marvelled, and whilst the idea of Erwin bearing witness to the shameless acts of lust and carnal curiosity brought more heat to your core than you ever expected, the same could not be said for anyone else.

“Later?”

Levi stiffened, eyes cutting to you.

“Later.”

It was a promise that you felt right down to your soul, and it made you hide the answering timid smile behind your hand.

Later couldn’t come quickly enough.

~

Hange leapt to their feet with a broad smile when Levi finally arrived in the small drawing room which he spent a lot of time in thanks to the wonderful view afforded from the bay window. Right now, it was shuttered closed, though it would soon open as the sun set in the west. The sight of the modern cities below the small incline that his home sat upon would look like twinkling fairy lights, and he knew you would love it. That thought alone tugged a frown into place, he wasn’t sure where it had come from.

Levi felt your hand curl into his, hesitant and one step behind him.

He watched as a shared look passed between Miche and Hange. Neither said a word, but there was enough meaning in that one look that no words were necessary. Levi was not an affectionate man; he had never indulged in public displays of affection or even acts of reassurance and yet here he was… comforting you without question.

You couldn’t know how strange this one simple act was to his companions, and he was glad that Hange decided to remain tight-lipped for possibly the first time in their very very long life.

“Shall we get down to business? I’m sure you’re expected back soon,” Levi said as he led you deeper inside and gently guided you towards a small loveseat that would only just fit two side by side.

“Pfft. It’s not like we have a curfew! We’re not children.” Hange harrumphed at the insinuation but moved to sit again, this time not glancing at Miche who was silently staring at you without blinking.

Levi patted your knee before stretching an arm along the back of the love seat so you could feel his fingers brushing your shoulder. He watched as you tugged the hem of his t-shirt as low as possible to cover your thighs, chin tucked against your chest as if you didn’t want to look at them yet. Embarrassed at what had been interrupted perhaps? Something else?

He wasn’t telling you everything and you both knew as much.

A sharp pain lanced his temples and for the second time since the events in Erwin’s office, he felt the bond between him and his sire weaken. What once had felt like a ball and chain around his ankle now felt more like a weighted rubber band. It was no longer unmoveable, and perhaps it was not unbreakable as it had been before.

The possibility both scared and excited him. To be free would be the greatest gift, and until now he had believed the only way to achieve freedom would have been Erwin’s death. Levi might not always share his opinions and sometimes he downright hated the man, but never had he considered trying to have him killed.

Erwin Smith was a legend amongst vampires, and for all his misgivings and liberties when it came to morality, he was not an evil man. He believed in the greater good and that no man (or vampire) was an island.

Now, that very man needed Levi’s help.

“Before we go any further, I would like you to make it clear to Erwin that the blood donor contract is to be ended with immediate effect and all personal belongings are to be moved here as soon as possible,” Levi said calmly.

Hange sat forward with an elbow braced on their knee. “Is that what you want?” They asked you directly, their voice softer than seconds before.

You nodded and met their gaze steadily as if you knew that to do anything less would mean they would not believe the conviction. “Yes. I think it’s for the best. But...” There was a pause. Levi looked at you uncertainly, watched as you worried your lip between your teeth.

“I want to meet with him again and apologise.”

“Apologise?” Levi questioned, stunned.

“Mhm. We… uh—I think that it would only be fair to hand in my resignation personally. I have some questions for him too,” you said.

“You do remember what he tried to do back in his office, yes? How he invaded your mind and stole away your self-control. You owe him nothing.”

Levi felt you wriggle uncomfortably, your body pressed up against his in the small seat. There was something you weren’t saying, and he narrowed his eyes.

“What aren’t you telling me?” he asked quietly, too quietly.

“I could ask you the same thing, Levi.”

He scowled but couldn’t argue. Instead, he turned his attention back to the pair opposite and how differently they viewed what was going on. Hange watched with the curiosity of a tennis match, their eyes flicking back and forth as you spoke. Miche never took his eyes off you and that was starting to piss Levi off.

“Anyway…” Hange said after the air had thickened with uncomfortable silence, “We need your help which might make all of this a moot point.”

“What do you mean?” Levi asked, puzzled.

Hange gestured around the room and to nothing specific. “Well, I don’t know for certain, but I am fairly sure that Erwin will ask you to move to the compound until we deal with this threat.”

“What threat?” you asked.

Hange opened their mouth to speak, but Miche raised a hand with a shake of his head. Hange exhaled long and low, rolling their eyes. Levi wouldn’t be cowed by Miche or his misplaced lack of trust.

“From the little I have been told so far, there is a move to eliminate Erwin in the hopes to further an agenda that I am yet to be clued in to. What I don’t understand,” Levi said turning his attention back to Miche, “is why this time is any different to all the other threats made against him and the syndicate? What is so different that I am being called back to his side?”

“This time,” Miche said. You straightened in your seat, having heard less than a handful of words from the tall, powerful looking man in all the time you had known him. “This time the threat comes from someone who could see it through.”

Levi let out a low whistle, his head shaking. “Who?”

Who could possibly have enough power and pull to bring down Erwin? He honestly couldn’t think of a single name that would be crazy enough to try, let alone maybe succeed. He met Miche’s cool eyes.

“Nile Dok.”

A silence ran through the room, not for the first time, but this was a weighty silence full of revelation and understanding. That was not what he expected to hear, but damn if it didn’t make sense. Dawning comprehension dropped his stomach into his toes.

“Well, fuck.”

“Now you get it,” Hange enthused with a crow.

“Pack your stuff, Ackerman. It’s time to return to the nest, both of you,” Miche said, and all Levi could do was nod, dazed and dumbfounded by what this could all mean.

There were too many secrets and if tongues did not start to loosen soon, everyone was in grave danger.

Who would break first?

[yourislandgirl]

*:ꔫ:*ₓₒ SUMMERTIME STRESS ˚ ༘♡ੈ✩ || 김선우 x fem!reader || drabble

— KISS ME, DON’T SAY NO series

summary: feeling the overwhelming weight of your future pressing down on your heart, you were barely present for the relaxing beach day your boyfriend had planned for you, thankfully, sunoo knew how to create the perfect medicine for lingering anxiety using laughter

genres: fluff, romance, non-idol!sunoo x non-idol!reader, est. relationship, ft mentions of other members plus karina

warnings: attempts at humour, swearing/cursing, pet names like once or twice, a little angsty, fear of adulthood, i mention internships in case you’re like .. idk scared of those (i don’t blame you at all), sunoo is king of the sassy men apocalypse and you are not spared

w.c: 2.3k

[archive]

Summer was supposed to be about relaxation. When the days stretched long and far, and you’d wake up without the burden of a schedule or the foreboding feeling of responsibilities. There’s always some sort of beauty in summer, like the glimmer of sunlight reflecting off of window panes or how slushie flavours mix together and colour your tongue. Typically, the emotionally tortured college student would bask in the weeks ahead of absolute nothingness regarding academia. But not you.

No, you were special in a way that felt particularly targeted. Because why, on Mother Nature’s glorious Earth, were you gripping your phone as if it’s overheating metal would sustain your life?

“You hold that thing any tighter, it might explode.”

You flicked your head to the side and gave your boyfriend an expression that read ‘Leave me alone, I’m in crisis’.

more under cut !!

The road to the beach was pleasantly empty, a few cars here and there but for the most part, it was nice. Sunoo had rolled the windows down just a little to let the breeze thread through your hair, a smooth indie tune playing on the radio on your favourite station.

It was instinctual, the desire you felt to sing along, lower the window more and let your fingers stretch out but not too far, take pictures of the ocean as it drew closer and closer. But your instincts weren’t working at that moment.

Your eyes were trained solely on the light pink sheen on your finger nails, picking at them slowly, scraping the nail bed clean.

You didn’t even hear Sunoo sigh beside you, and you barely registered his hand move from the steering wheel to your knee.

“I’m being serious Y/N,” he said softly. “You need to put it away.”

“Fine.” You slid your phone into your bag, your fingers itching to reach for it again but you resolved to simply curl them into a fist and look out the window for the remaining stretch of the drive.

Summer had only commenced for a week, the time ahead was basically beckoning you to embrace it for all its leisure and laze and lethargy. But it was also the last summer before senior year, where things go to shit, classes determine your will to live and every single thing you’ve been working towards will be culminated in the coming semesters. This was it. You were at the start of the end.

Your course counsellor had mentioned offhandedly that internships would be vital to look into — a way to ensure your career straight out of college — you’d left your appointment holding around seven or eight different pamphlets and brochures, your inbox filled with application sites and recommendations.

It was setting in, the cement block of reality, your inevitable future. No more afternoon classes where you’d sit in the back, drawing on Sunoo’s hands. No more late night two minute noodle cups with Jake, Heeseung and Karina. No more hangover breakfast waffles handmade by Jay.

No, you were becoming an adult.

Responsibility wasn’t just an expectation anymore, it was an obligation. There was no room for error, no space for slip up, there was only monotony.

And yet success was just within your grasp, all you had to do was get a head start like the teachers and tutors and parents would always recommend. And that was exactly what you did. Three applications were sent yesterday, you were working on two more and had a final back up in case all else failed.

You were going to succeed. If not…

“Sand in my eyes might be great way to go,” you muttered to yourself.

Sunoo gave you a once over, wondering if he’d misheard you before he went back to parking the car.

You got out of the vehicle, immediately hypnotised by the salty sea air. It tingled in your brain and for just a moment, you felt like you were reliving every time you’d visited the beach — the sight of the ocean would do that a person.

“Pretty, right?” Sunoo had your beach bag slung on one shoulder, his other hand reaching for yours as he gestured to the sea with his eyes. “I can’t want to take photos.”

You took a deep breath in. “Yeah, same.” You didn’t sound convincing, even to yourself. But you were grateful for Sunoo’s simple nod.

It felt grounding to hold his hand as you both walked onto the beach, looking for a pair of beach chairs that were side by side and away from too many people.

It was a little therapeutic to go through the motions of putting on more sunscreen, wearing your hats and taking off your shoes to feel the sand prick deliciously against your bare feet. It gave you something to do, some task to focus on.

Sunoo had stayed silent for the most part, setting your towels against the beach chairs, placing a bag on each one so people knew they were claimed, carefully pulling out the sun spray and holding your arm to spray you first.

It was sweet of him. He was always so sweet. And he was trying so hard to make today worth relaxing for. Your stomach twisted and tugged at you, anxiety running your brain while the little twinge of guilt pulled at your heart.

You needed to make sure Sunoo’s efforts weren’t in vain. “Do you wanna go for a walk on the waters edge?”

His smile could fuel the universe, and even if that wasn’t logically possible, it certainly fuelled your heart.

“Yeah, that sounds perfect.” He pecked your cheek, a lightness in his movements as he pulled you along with him towards the water but far enough that the fast tide wouldn’t splash against the two of you.

Honestly speaking, you tried. You tried your very best. You tried to focus on the sand in between your toes, on the salt in the air, on the sound of the waves, on the words Sunoo was speaking. Nothing registered in your mind. It just kept nagging at you — the incessant need to check your inbox, over and over again.

Sunoo was rambling about the last episode of his current kdrama obsession, its story was so fresh in his mind he could not help but rant about it to you. His thumb rubbed against the back of your hand as you walked in tandem.

“And honestly, I never understood what she saw in the guy,” he said, exasperatedly. His other hand moved in an animated fashion to express his feelings further. “I mean, you remember last episode where he blamed her when— Hey…” He finally noticed your lost gaze.

He slowed down slightly, frowning at the way you slowed down with him as if on pure instinct but remained focused on the sandy ground, deep in thought. “Hello?” He waved a hand in front of your face.

You look up. “Hm?”

Sunoo’s eyes dart back and forth between yours, trying to decipher the muddled string of worries that were tied taught around your mind. He finally pursed his lips and nodded. “Ok, come on. Come with me.”

He made a beeline for your beach chairs, his hand firmly holding yours. When you found yourselves under the adjoined umbrella, Sunoo fished out your phone from the beach bag before moving the bag from his seat to yours. He sat down, shuffling slightly across.

You reached to remove the bags off your chair, halting at the way Sunoo shook his head. “Nope! That’s the beach bag’s seat. Here, sit right here.” He patted the space beside him, arm outstretched to envelope you into a hug as you curled up against him. “That’s better,” he sighed.

He then unlocked your phone and held it between the two of you so you could watch as he refreshed your inbox. Over and over and over again. Repeatedly.

“I— I think I get it,” you muttered, feeling your face heat up as Sunoo giggled.

He placed a soft kiss on your shoulder. “You can’t hang on to this stress because there’s literally no point,” he whispered.

You tried to use his touch and his scent to ground you. “I just… I need to know that I’ve got a shot.”

“You do know! You already applied!” Sunoo squeezed you tighter for a few seconds, hoping to pull that stress out of you through mere contact. “Applying in itself means you had a shot and you took it. Whether or not you pass is now completely out of your hands.”

The seagull squawks and the laughter of children permeated the setting and yet you felt completely cocooned, in the haven of your boyfriend’s embrace.

“You just need to let it go”

Now that made you pause. You sat up a little, turning to look the man in the eyes while you spoke. “Weren’t you the one that stayed up still three because Ben & Jerry’s said they might discontinue their mint chocolate flavour?”

Oh the debacle of the potential discontinuation. The random songs Sunoo had come up with it, singing them every few minutes like they were some tribute to the art of ice cream making. A whole week of mint chocolate flavoured desserts as his method of coping through the unofficial announcement.

Presently, Sunoo smirked a little, humoured that you brought it up. “It’s called Mint Chocolate Chunk, actually.”

“It’s called glorified toothpaste, actually.” You returned the smirk.

“I think I bring you around the other guys a bit too much, because this is unprovoked slander.” He poked your cheek gently before asking, “And anyway, your point?”

You made an expression like your point was obvious. “You got stressed over ice cream! I’m not judging — clearly, it was a big deal for you.”

“Clearly.”

“But my point is, you signed the petition and you stayed up anyway repeatedly refreshing the page.”

He looked away, a small scoff leaving his lips. “Ok, I’m coming off really embarrassing in this story. You realise that, right?���

“Sunoo, you slept the entire day after that. And you complained about your eye bags for the whole month!” Your laughter fluttered out at the memory. Looking back, it was a lot funnier than you’d realised. But your point still stood; “You didn’t let it go, did you?”

“I know, I know, I didn’t.” Reaching forward, Sunoo played with your fingers, frowning at the way your nail polish cracked and broke off on certain spots, a little of it still stuck under your nails. He sighed, understanding. “You need to know.”

“Yeah.”

He looked up and held your gaze, feeling as if he could only get his message across if he knew you saw his own stress, his own worries, about you. “Baby… Are you really ready to live the next few weeks constantly needing to know? You might use up half of this summer in needing to know.”

“Because it’s the only thing on my mind.” You flopped back against the beach chair, covering your eyes with one hand, feeling the heat radiate off your forehead.

They say laptops overheat when you use too much power at once. You scoffed at the realisation that humans were the same.

Sunoo fidgeted with the hem of your shorts, pulling at one of the threads before he perked up slightly. “How about I propose a solution.”

You groaned. “God, anything. Just help.”

“Any time you want to check your inbox, you think of mint chocolate.”

He said it so assuredly, as if it was the most genius response, a new height to healthy thinking habits, the fix to all forms of stress — mint chocolate.

Even when you gave him a withering expression so deadpanned the dead had turned to ashes, he still smirked and nodded.

“Baby,” you sighed, “I need solutions, not subtle brainwashing.”

He scoffed, running a hand through his hair. “Trust me, I’d rather have all the mint chocolate to myself. But I have a plan.”

“Mhm.” You were not convinced.

Sunoo once again opened your phone and reloaded your inbox. “You see this? No change. This was me at 3am on a school week.”

You giggled into his shoulder, remembering his crazed hair and constant muttering.

Sunoo rolled his eyes but continued all the same. “I was anxious over ice cream flavours, Y/N. I can’t even begin to understand your anxiety right now. It’s about your future. I get that. But you cannot sit in one spot refreshing your inbox every minute because you want that ice cream.”

You frowned, not seeing his point.

“You keep opening that freezer, hoping that the ice cream has solidified and is ready to eat. But every time you open the door the hot air is melting it. It’s gonna taste like shit, babe. I’m sorry.”

“I mean, considering the flavour, it already tastes—”

“Don’t even go there.”

Your smile bloomed like a flower under daylight, for the first time in the day you felt the gradual release of stress, with every little circle that Sunoo drew on your shoulder with his finger.

“You need to let the ice cream get cold,” he whispered to you. “If you want a nice treat, you got to wait till it’s ready to eat. Otherwise, you’re gonna be more disappointed than satisfied.”

You bit your lip, finding his analogy amusing and endearing and oh so Sunoo. “I needed to hear that,” you said softly.

“That’s what I’m here for.” He gently nudged his forehead against yours. “Now I think my genius deserves a kiss. What do you think?”

“Hm… Do you taste like mint chocolate?”

He shrugged, easily. Leaning back against the chair. “Only one way to find out.”

Your shoulders dropped, your head stopped pulsing, your cheeks twinged from the stretch of your smile and you felt the summer air breeze past you. You had all summer to find out whether you’d get the internship. Any internship.

But right now, you wanted to find out what your boyfriend’s lips tasted like on a sunny afternoon at the beach.

a.n: next instalment of the kiss me, don’t say no series !! i finished and edited and uploaded this instead of crashing out about university even tho it would have been a totally valid crash out . anyway, i hope you enjoyed it xx

taglist: @oceanstide — @sheepsgf — @itsrinsdrs — @enjakey

2025 © yourislandgirl

[llovely-12]

All I Need

(Let Down part 2)

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Park Jihyo x female reader

Warnings: mentions of alcohol, mentions of cheating, a bit suggestive at the end

Story: What had been broken, could also be fixed.

Authors note: A big thank you to the person who requested a part two! I'm happy for every interaction I get on my fanfics. Big love to everyone who has been liking my posts♡. Enjoy the read♥︎

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'What was broken could also be fixed.'

That's what eight year old Jihyo thought after breaking one of her mothers precious vases. While chasing after her siblings, she accidentally knocked the expensive object over and caused it to shatter into many pieces.

Now she was sitting at the table in her bedroom with a glue bottle in her hand, trying to fix the mess that she had made. It wasn't exactly easy to figure out which pieces belonged together and how to arrange them, but she would invest every second she had to ensure that this vase would be fixed.

The work was hard and painful, but Jihyo put her best efforts into putting the vase together. In the end, she had a decent result. The vase was almost the same as before. No, it was even better. The vase created a completely new image. The colours now create a different picture. It gave the vase a fresh new look.

Jihyo was, of course, scolded for the action. Her mother loved the vase, and she was quite sad after she found out that Jihyo had broken it. To her surprise, the result Jihyo came up with was even better than her previous vase. The new creation gave her so much joy and a whole different perspective that she put it into the entry. Jihyo's mom proudly showed the remade vase to everyone entering the house.

◇

The weeks after the finished collaboration were rough. Jihyo moved out of the once shared apartment. You were not really talking to her. Only acknowledging her when it was nessacery. What broke Jihyo the most were the ripped up pictures she found one day. That was apparently your way of dealing with everything, just breaking stuff out of frustration.

Of course, she understood the struggles you had. She still couldn't figure out what brought her to the decision to cheat on you. Nothing ever made her question her relationship until that point. To her relief, the short fling with the male artist quickly ended after the collaboration. He returned back to the States without messaging Jihyo. What an asshole. She put the most important thing in her life onto the edge just to be ghosted.

Well karma is a bitch and it was all over Jihyos face. The ripped up picture pieces lay secure in her bedside table at the new apartment. She would never let these go or the relationship with you. Everything that had been broken could also be fixed. That mindset burned into Jihyo's head as she made out a plan to win you back.

◇

Work drowned out your insecure thoughts. The books were kind of your saviour. After things with Jihyo partially ended, you felk into a consumerism spiral and bought every book revolving about love, relationship drama, and most importantly, murdering your ex.

You were so pent up with frustration that the poor books and customers had to suffer under the emotional mess of your life. Friends and family were your biggest supporters, but after a while, you found more solitude by drowning yourself into the world of books. They gave you the perfect scenarios to imagine. Scenarios that could've happened with Jihyo, too.

You tried to ignore her or everything evolving around her, but you live in South Korea. The streets are plastered with her face. The internet is filled with commercials that include her or even her voice. The radio plays the same Twice songs. You could never really escape her, even if you wanted to.

◇

Jihyo turned the key to your once shared apartment. There were still things that she needed to get. You were sitting on the couch, almost unbothered. You tried so hard not to care when she was around, but then her eyes met yours, and suddenly, everything started crashing down on you.

She would comfort you, hold you close to her, and you would let her. In the end, you would do everything to keep her. Being back in her securing embrace made you calm down. She always had a calming effect on you.

"I am going to fix this."

Her promise was sure and determined. You know jihyo. She pulls things through until they're done. She keeps her promise.

◇

The bed felt different this morning. Another weight pushed the mattress further down into the wooden bedframe. Her black hair is spread out across the pillow case. Her breathing, soft and gentle, casts through the air like a nostalgic melody. Her fingers wrap around the fabric of your shirt.

Jihyo sleeping next to you in bed was not something you thought you'd be waking up to any time soon. Both of you were still hurt and broken from her cheating. You never knew how much she was affected by her actions, but you also partially didn't care. She made that decision, and now she had to live with the consequences.

You take her hand off your shirt and leave the bedroom. The audacity she had, sleeping in your bed, next to you. You walk into the guest bedroom. The bed there wasn't as comfortable as your own, but you don't want to sleep next to Jihyo. At least not now.

Over the course of the last week, things changed. You started talking to her again and let her back into the apartment. Both of you actually settled for her sleeping in the guest room. That quickly changed, though, as she started sneaking into your room and sleeping next to you.

You started arguments over this, but at the end of the day, it was never enough for you to actually stay mad at her. Everything you tried shattered down the cliffs of her care for you. Ironically, she was the one caring for you when you were crying about the things she did.

Like always, she found a way back into your heart. Slowly but surely, she'd crawl back in like nothing happened. That's what she always did, and you could never hold her back. It's like you needed her more than oxygen. Like the air, your breath wasn't enough to fill you up to keep you functioning. She was like a siren, calling you back into the depths of her ocean at any time she wanted to.

◇

Evenings like these were normal once. A wine glass in your right hand, and a book in your left. The cushion of the couch comforted your back as you were lying against it. Jihyo sits at the other end of the couch. Her actions are the same as yours.

Her wine glass is almost empty. The second bottle of wine has already been opened and put on the small coffee table. Usually, Jihyo was more into beer. She would always order the bitter liquid on night outs. Here at 'home', she would enjoy a nice wine with you.

Her eyes are trained on the book in her hand. She's reading some romance drama novel you got her before the whole breakup drama. She always enjoyed your taste in literature. Her love for reading was actually quite unexpected. In the beginning, you only got to see her love for sports or her job. Yet after the first few walls of your relationship crumbled, she revealed more of her true self.

Things got better now. You could eat dinner with her again, sit next to her, or engage in a casual chat with her without thinking about the past events. Jihyo made a lot of effort to try to win you back. Of course you had noticed. Her actions never really subtle.

While thinking, your eyes were trained on her. Jihyo had to bite back a small smile. She wanted nothing more than to have you back as hers again. Regretting everything that happened and that she wasn't faithful to you. Jihyo wanted you back, more than anything in the world. She had made a fool of herself and mostly you.

Nothing would go back to the way it once was, but she could make something new out of it. You both could, together, like you always used to. Giving life a new perspective.

Every time Jihyo thought things were hopeless, she thought back to the broken vase. The effort she had put into something simple as glueing back together the shards of porcelain would give her the boost she needed. Like she did back then, she would now put her effort into repairing this mess. She would glue your broken pieces back together.

◇

Her kisses felt like little butterflies gracing your skin. You could never get enough of the feeling of her. Another night of enjoying some wine and books turned into kisses and caresses. It shouldn't be like this. You should hate her, and you have every right to.

Her mouth drags over your neck, only stopping to give your skin a wet kiss. A sigh escapes your lips. She knew all of your weak spots. Her hands hold onto your waist underneath your shirt. The skin of her hand is soft and delicate.

Your hands hold onto her tank top, fingers occasionally scratching the tanned skin underneath. Gasps escaped her lips. Jihyo was very vocal about her likes and dislikes. She leaned closer to you, her muscles tensing under your touch, but in a good way.

Your hand meets her cheek and pulls her head up for a soft kiss. The kiss holds emotions you nor she could ever express. Sometimes, actions do speak more than words. Jihyo knew how to transport the right message with her gestures.

"You're all I need." She rasps out, her voice breathless and almost hoarse. Her eyes meet yours, the brown orbs filled with hope and need. You've never seen her look at you like this.

Maybe you just need to let your guard down and love her again. The universe would never send you someone again who would look at you like this. The rawness of love, right in front of your face. Your head nods without much thought, and you lean in for another kiss.

◇

[reagent-leon]

Greetings, Reagents!

EDIT: I've been really overwhelmed by the reaction to this post! Honestly, I feel lucky to be a part of this fandom. Thank you to everyone who reached out. I've found someone willing to work with me, but I'll leave this post up so we can all admire Coyle's posterior.

I’m looking for an artist open to a long-term commission arrangement. I have eight OCs (plus Coyle) “living” in The Outlast Trials universe, and while I probably can’t commission them all at once, I’d love to work with someone on an ongoing basis.

I’d prefer a digital artist—someone experienced who I can show my magpie’s stash of references and trust to bring my characters to life. While I appreciate cartoony art styles, since Outlast has a fairly realistic aesthetic (don’t mind the nanobot swarm), I’ve designed them to fit that same tone. Not photorealism by any means, just not Cal-Arts level of cartoonish. Flat colour or minimal shading is fine by me, I just really want to see my babies 😂

I have tons of lore for these characters, but OCs tend to get overlooked without art, so I’ve never introduced them online before, beyond a few one-on-one conversations (blows a kiss to @misa-bun). That’s where I need an artist’s help! 

I’m looking for someone confident in drawing:

Women with strong jawlines

Men with big, sad, wet eyes

Middle-aged characters (in this house we support MILFs) 

Kids aged 3 to 17

1950s fashion, including old-timey police uniforms

Leland Coyle (pre-Sinyala edition)

Scars, missing limbs, symptoms of chronic illness, other Outlast-ish things

Tumblr’s setup makes it unnecessarily difficult to tell who’s open for commissions, so I’m putting out this blanket request to the community. If you’re interested, either drop a message in the comments (so others looking for commissions can find you too!) or DM me with your rates and portfolio examples. I’d love to discuss pricing and a timeline that works for both of us!

I prefer PayPal but I’m open to other payment methods. I’ve commissioned artwork before, so I promise I won’t be breathing down your neck the entire time. Thank you for reading and I'm looking forward to working with someone!

Now back to our regularly scheduled content: Coyle's butt.

[apollabarnes]

part one // part two // part three // part four // part five // part six // part seven

athena doesn't take the travel mug with her when she leaves. tommy can see it for the trick that it is, a tenuous thread wrapped around him to keep him from running away. he still doesn't go outside and give it back to bobby when they hear the truck rumble into his driveway. he could just throw it out. or keep it. there's no sentimental value to it. is she actually manipulating him if tommy knows it and chooses to go along with it?

he spends the next three days stewing over what athena told him, what she didn't, and the fact that even after that she still wants to keep in touch.

damn it. if she turns into another howie he's never going to know a day of peace the rest of his life. (he'll never, ever get away from evan.) he tries to tell the pulverized muscle in his chest that this is the best it's getting from here on out, but it doesn't take. tommy feels — evan missed him. misses him, maybe. well. at least up until they hooked up and tommy opened his mouth and said the second stupidest thing he's ever said to evan.

tommy looks at cabins up north and wonders if he'd be a good mountain man. probably not. it's not easy to land a helicopter in a forest and flying. oh, flying. the air was the first place he felt like himself.

he looks up cabins in the desert.

tommy wants to run. fuck. he's already wrecked the friendships he had with the 118. it's not just evan he'd have to make it up to. it's everyone. if he runs, if he stays away, nothing changes for them. he'll be some guy who helped them once, a guy that helped evan figure out something about himself, and that's it.

he'll get a call from howie every few years for a favour, and he'll do it without question. tommy knows how to live to the narrative that's been chosen for him. army, firefighter, pilot. it's a miracle he ever made it out of the closet.

every time he even shifts his weight to go the wrong way, there's the tiniest tug under his ribs. that fucking —

"here." tommy is forty years old so he doesn't throw himself into the chair beside athena like a petulant toddler.

"this isn't the one we gave you," athena says, peering in the bag he gives her.

"i bought a new one." the travel mug is a riot of colour. it's the ugliest one tommy thought he could get away with giving her that they'd still use.

"what happened to ours?"

"i'm keeping it." the tug under his ribs gets a little stronger.

"fair enough." athena's gaze softens.

tommy wants to snap at something. showing up isn't — he's literally doing the bare minimum. he spends the entire hour trying not to fidget, which means that he practically rubs the skin right off his fingers.

"you going to say anything else today?" athena asks. they've been at dinner for fifteen minutes and tommy's still frowning at the menu.

"if i took a vow of silence, i probably wouldn't keep fucking everything up," tommy muses. he's going to get a burger.

"don't let buck off the hook," athena tells him. "he knows how to use his words. most of the time."

"this is hard."

"pretty sure that's the point."

"i used to just sit in the corner and listen. i don't —"

"when i asked bobby to move in i didn't see him for forty eight hours."

"…what?" tommy asks. it hits him like a fist to the solar plexus. does she know what happened that night? did evan tell her? has he told everyone?

"we were on overlapping shifts, but i didn't know if he'd come back or if i'd have to start over. again."

it's athena's turn to look away awkwardly and tommy's glad they're on the same side of the booth and he's blocking her from view. he has a feeling she hasn't told anyone the part where she was worried bobby wouldn't come back. "but he did come back."

"with an engagement ring. my jaw nearly hit the floor," athena laughs.

tommy knows the feeling. "athena, you're living an actual romcom."

[kyoshithewriter]

Millennium.

Part eight: Shh..

Warnings: mature themes (18+)

A/n: And I decided to stop being fake woke and just release this chapter because I had it ready lol. The next update definitely won’t be as quick because chapter 9 is still incomplete. Enjoy.

“So this entire time, I was knocked up, kidnapped and confused, he didn’t come get me because he has been busy getting his dick wet?!” Aleena will blame the sudden surge of emotions on her pregnancy.

“Not quite, we found where they were keeping you two weeks after you were taken. Problem was, they had the entire compound surrounded with those little whatever they are that interfere with our speed.” Christian mutters with a frown on seamless face. “We couldn’t take the risk especially when they have weapons that we’re vulnerable to. So we took turns on surveillance; we heard about their plan to move you to a different facility so we took advantage of that. I’m sorry we couldn’t act sooner.”

And Christian really does sound apologetic but it’s not enough. She’s not mad at him- he’s a stranger, so his apology doesn’t mean shit to her. She wants one from the man who changed the trajectory of her life forever and seems to not give a fuck about it.

“I need a nap.” She mutters instead, looking away from Christian’s pitiful face. His shoulders slump, picking up easily on her soured mood.

“Okay.”

********************

Aleena wakes in the middle of the night to harsh, hushed whispers in the hallway. She stretches lazily in the comfortable king size bed, before quietly standing on the tip of her toes on the plush brown rug. The room is large and only contains a bed and a walk in closet. There’s an oval mirror hung on the dark green walls along with two landscape paintings. There’s something so comforting about the space, maybe it’s the colour it’s painted in, the exact shade that reminds her of a rainforest.

“You owe her an apology at least.” The voice obviously belonging to Christian pierces through the quiet house.

“Why? I warned her from the beginning what could happen but she still-”

“Don’t use that card with me, Jude. I remember every single rant about how much you can’t seem to stay away from her. You’ve been watching that poor woman for months!”

“Why are you so defensive of her? She’s a stranger to you.” They descend into silence for a minute.

“You feel it too, don’t you?” Jude asks in an accusatory tone. Christian sighs heavily.

“I do, surprisingly. I always thought men were it for me but with her, I want to…” he trails off for a few seconds and Aleena almost gasps. She knew she felt something when they touched.

“But it’s not uncontrollable at all. I already have a soft spot for her and she’s also with child, so you can stop glaring at me now. Like you have the right with the way you’ve been acting. How’s Samantha by the way?” Christian mutters coldly.

“Samantha is good.” Jude responds nonchalantly. Aleena wants to throw up.

“I can’t say I’m not disappointed in you, Jude. You’ve put that woman through hell and this is how you act? I understand your reasons for not pursuing relationships but when a child is involved I expect you to do better.”

Jude chuckles bitterly; “Why are you talking to me about that child as if it’s mine?”

And Aleena has heard enough. She stomps towards the bedroom door, flinging it open. She’s momentarily pinned to her spot by the two pairs of gold rimmed eyes glowing in the dimly lit hallway but the ire that’s burning hot in her belly breaks her out of it quickly.

“You have some fucking nerve!-”

“Aleena dear, you should be resting.” Christian interrupts her with concern coloring his features. It could have something to do with the backaches she was complaining about earlier after he made her a quick dinner of alfredo pasta.

“No! Fuck him, Christian! You have no idea how they treated me there. Hours of bloodwork and testing like I’m some fucking rodent! Locked away without having any sort of contact with my family or friends! All because you did this to me! And now you have the nerve to stand here and say this after leaving me at those monsters’ mercy for months! While you run around here with whoever the fuck! Then wouldn’t even the decency to ask how I am! To look at me! To touch me!” Aleena breaks down in sudden full bodied sobs; it takes even her by surprise.

“And if you had then you would’ve known that the baby I’m carrying is yours you fucking asshole!”

She falls into Christian’s embrace, quietly sobbing as he gently whispers comforting words in her ear. He turns to lead her back into the room. Aleena looks up at Jude as she’s led away to see him frozen, eyes wide and mouth gaping.

******************

“I had planned to get an abortion you know.” She keeps her voice low to not scare the deer grazing close by. Christian had decided to take her for a walk after breakfast this morning. Jude was nowhere to be seen and that didn’t surprise her a bit. It didn’t make it any less disappointing though and Christian to noticed. So here they sit; after minutes of wandering around the countryside, picking wild apricots and bird watching, they decided to take a break by the river. The grass is lush and green beneath her body, the sound of running water comforting.

“I’m assuming they captured you before you could.”

“Yes.” She keeps her eyes on the tiny deer and for the first time she really thinks about the child in her belly. I hope they have the biggest, doe eyes.

“We should book you an appointment with a doctor.”

“Is that even safe? Are “millennial” pregnancies the same? What if they find something weird in my blood work? Or on the ultrasound?” Her voice pitches higher as panic begins to creep in.

“I can’t tell you. It’s frustrating how little we know about ourselves.” Christian huffs to her side.

“It’s so unfair, because I’m sure the government or whoever the fuck has a lot of information that you can’t get our hands on.” She mutters, picking at blades of grass.

“Unless we decide to take it.”

Even the very wind seems to pause; the swaying of the leaves and grass halt. Almost as if even nature recognizes the gravity of Christian’s words.

“As in…” Aleena trails off keeping eye contact with him.

“Yes. We find one of their facilities and take what we can. My childhood was no different from the other children around me, I think. But I also can’t say for sure if my parents knew something and just wanted to keep me sheltered.” He pauses to take a small nibble from the bottom of a bright yellow apricot. “But we need you and the baby to be safe and we can’t do that if we know nothing about all of this.”

Aleena agrees. It’s going to be dangerous but they can’t risk remaining in ignorance.

“Um, one of the men told me that I have some sort of rare genetic make up and that’s why Jude was able to… he mentioned something about that possibly being the cause for him being so drawn to me.” Us being so drawn to each other but she leaves that part out.

“That would make sense because I am too. I imagine it would be more intense perhaps if you weren’t pregnant.”

She doesn’t know how to respond so she doesn’t. It’s a lot to take in. Silence envelopes them for a few minutes.

“Wait, I wonder if… you know how Jude said you look so much like an old friend of ours? I wonder if that has something to do with this?” Christian has a far away look in his eyes, clearly deep in thought.

“What do you mean?”

“After being alive for so long, it’s not uncommon to see faces in recent times that are a bit similar to some I’ve seen before; I always just figured they might be descendants. What if you are a descendant of Japheth? And what if, instinctually, somehow we just knew? And that’s why we were compelled to befriend her? I could be waffling but..”

Aleena shivers because it does not sound far- fetched at all.

“Did you meet any of her children?”

“No. Jude and I moved away a decade after we met her; she hadn’t had her first child yet. We would drop by briefly every other year or so but we had a rendezvous, we couldn’t risk anyone seeing us and asking questions. The last time we saw her she could barely stand and we knew that would be the last. Maybe we should’ve at least protected her children and their family, I don’t know, but it was too painful to go back there.”

“I understand, and I think she would’ve too.” She reaches over to give his shoulder a comforting squeeze.

“That’s a lovely thought, thank you. But we seriously need to gather all the information we can. We need a plan.”

The steely look of determination on his face is infectious.

“Let’s do it.”

****************

The bed feels so much bigger tonight. Empty. The sides of her belly ache and her breasts are tender. She’s miserable and feeling a little bit lonely. So much so that it brings tears to her eyes. She lies in the dark, tears silently streaming down her cheeks. She cries until her eyes are swollen and heavy. Aleena is on the verge of drifting into sleep when she feels it. Her skin prickles, goosebumps dancing along her arms. She didn’t hear the door open but she knows he’s in the room. She remains frozen in place, holding her breath. Waiting for his next move. She tries her best to keep her breathing steady, feigning sleep. The bed dips gently behind her and for a moment he hesitates. She sees the moment his hand hovers in her peripheral vision and immediately knows what he intends to do.

“Don’t touch me.” Her voice cracks with the harsh command she whispers.

“Aleena, please. I need to. It’s like it-” he cuts himself off with a frustrated huff. “It physically hurts-”

“I don’t care, Jude. You’re a fucking asshole; I’m glad it hurts. I want you to suffer.”

“I didn’t know this was even possible; I just assumed you found someone else and I…”

“You what?”

“I was serious about not pursuing relationships. With my condition it’s setting myself up for heartbreak after heartbreak. I wish some parts of vampire lore were true; I wish I could change people to be like me. But I can’t. But you- it physically pains me to be away from you. So I tried to force you out- I tried getting myself drunk even though I knew it wouldn’t work, I’ve been sleeping around- something I haven’t done in almost a century. But I can’t stop…”

Aleena sucks in a harsh breath. She’s sure it has to do something with what Tim said.

“And now that I know that you’re- you’re having my baby it’s so much worse. I ran away like the coward I am after I heard but I was just so frightened and ashamed. I won’t even insult you by offering an apology, but know I’ll start showing you, every single day if you’ll let me, how much I regret the pain I caused and my unending appreciation for…”

He sucks in a sharp breath as he gently, cautiously places the hovering hand against the small bump of her belly. She lets him. The touch immediately alleviating the cramps.

“Thank you.” He sighs in relief, shifting closer to cuddle her against the soft material of his silk shirt.

“Don’t thank me, I’m only allowing it because it eases my discomfort. I still fucking hate you.” She mutters.

“I understand.”

They stay in that position in silence. Jude rubs her belly tenderly until she falls asleep.

***************

“We need to get to New York without drawing too much attention to ourselves.” Christian says from his seated position opposite of her.

“You could start by not looking like you stepped straight out of a renaissance painting.” Aleena mutters absentmindedly as she nibbles on pickled radishes. The vegetable recently became one of her cravings. She pretends to not feel the way Jude is staring at her from his position beside Christian. He has been following her around like a lost puppy all morning; she’s still ignoring him but that doesn’t seems to matter to him at all.

“Hm, you’re right. Besides, we need to shop for some maternity clothing for you as well.”

“Aleena should stay here.” Jude mutters gruffly.

“What? No way!”

“I agree, dear. It’s safer if you stay behind.”

Aleena’s phone interrupts the heated conversation that was about to ensue from their words.

“Selena?”

“Afraid not, I’m assuming you’re Aleena, yes?” The masculine voice makes her pause.

“Who is this?”

“Let’s just say I’m a good friend of Cameron and Michael.”

“Who?” The names don’t ring a bell at all. The man on the other end of the line chuckles.

“I’m sorry, I’m guessing they told you their names were Tim and Tom, a pair of goofballs they were.”

Aleena’s heart stutters in her chest. Fuck.

“There we go, you know who I’m talking about now. Well, Aleena, I don’t appreciate how you left so abruptly. I especially didn’t appreciate how your immortal lover slaughtered my friends like they were nothing more than farm animals. I don’t have to explain what will happen to your family if you don’t come to the address I’ll be sending you at the end of this call. Oh! And come alone, obviously.” The man ends the call and Aleena shivers from head to foot. She’s so selfish and stupid. She didn’t even consider their safety for a second because she felt far removed from the problem.

“Aleena?” Jude is by her side before she can blink. He gently holds onto the crook of her elbow.

“I have to go to New York.”

*****************

She’s being followed. Aleena can feel it; the man on the phone had given her a specific address to meet him at, but she could feel eyes on her from the minute she got off her flight in New York. Even now, in the cab, she’s aware of the black, armored jeep that has been tailing the taxi the minute she got in. The car pulls up at an abandoned warehouse. The driver shoots her a skeptical look in the overhead mirror.

“Are you sure this is the correct address?” He asks with a thick accent she can’t quite place.

“Uh, yes. Don’t worry.” She forces a small smile before stepping out of the car. The man hastily makes a u-turn and speeds away like he’s afraid of witnessing something he shouldn’t. Smart.

Aleena cuddles further into one of Jude’s many coats as snowflakes flutter around her; partly for more warmth but mostly for the comfort his scent brings her.

“There she is.” A man suddenly steps out the entrance of the warehouse. He’s tall- about 6’3, with a bald head, a full beard and rich, dark brown skin. He’s wearing an all black suit under a black coat.

“You are alone like we agreed, yes?”

“Yes.” She responds curtly.

“No need for aggression, Ms. Aleena. I won’t hurt you or your family.”

“You just want to take my baby away from me to torture them like you did Jude for your own selfish disgusting reasons.” She hisses at him.

“Precisely.” The man responds smoothly with a sinister smile.

“You’ll burn in hell.”

“I guess so, but until then, I have places to be. Come, Aleena. Your mom and sisters are waiting.”

****************

Aleena is handcuffed and transported to a facility in the back of the very armored jeep that she spotted tailing her earlier. The building is huge but seems to be in a remote area. She’s escorted to the entrance of the building where she’s stripped of the coat and thoroughly searched before being led through some automatic glass doors. Her shoes squeak along the clean, white marble floors and their footsteps echo through the huge space. The ceiling is so high and seems to be in the shape of a dome. The building is filled with a lot of soldiers, covered from head to foot in black. They wear black helmets that conceal their entire face and are equipped with numerous weapons. Some of the staff are also made up of women in white scrubs; she’s not sure why there are so many people here and she prays there are no other people here in a similar situation.

“Alright, Aleena. Here we are.”

The man flashes his I.D against a pad by the door and it beeps before sliding open. Inside seems to be an interrogation room. Just four chairs and a table. Her mom and sisters occupy the three in front of the white table and they look completely exhausted.

“Aleena!” Selena notices her first and throws herself at her. Aleena does her best to catch her sister without welcoming too much of her weight. Selena feels the bump and stares up at her with wide eyes.

“I uh, got caught up so I couldn’t go through with it.” She explains quietly.

“Go through with what?” Her mother asks coldly.

Aleena gulps. Her mother is angry and she can’t pretend to not understand why.

“I’m pregnant.” She curls in on herself with the confession.

“So it’s true. And you knew.” She says to Selena accusingly.

“Don’t. I asked Selena not to say anything.”

“And it doesn’t matter! Since when is pregnancy a crime?! It doesn’t explain why we’re being held hostage without a proper warrant! How are you angry at us for this bullshit!” Selena fires back at their mom.

“I’m sorry, little firecracker but your sister’s pregnancy is no ordinary one. We needed to have her and now that we do, you’re free to go.”

“We’re not leaving our sister!” Akeela yells. It brings tears to her eyes. Seeing her teenage sister defend her like this after putting them in this situation.

“It’s okay, you should go. I’ll be fine.”

“What? Are you insane?”

“No!” Her mom and Selena yell simultaneously.

“Listen, you need to go. I’ll be fine.” She tries to communicate with her eyes. She has a plan. Selena immediately understands and gives a subtle nod.

“You said only the baby right? You’ll release her when she delivers?” Selena directs the question to the man by the door.

“You have my word.” He responds solemnly. It’s almost believable but Aleena knows better than to trust his word.

“Then we should go.” Her mother and younger sister gasp at Selena’s words.

“But-”

“This isn’t a fight we can win mom, we should go and not cause more trouble for ourselves and Aleena.”

Selena pulls her into a hug.

“In four days, at 2 am. I’ll need a driver.” Aleena whispers against her sister’s ear. Selena gives her upper forearm a subtle squeeze.

Her mom comes over to hug her next.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

No.

“I’m sure.”

She squeezes her baby sister extra tight, dropping a lingering kiss on her forehead then watches as her family is blindfolded and escorted out the building.

“Now, forgive my manners, you can call me Daniel, and yes this is my actual name.” The man says with a grin. “Let me introduce you to Finn here who’ll be your… companion for the duration of your stay.”

The soldier, clearly a man, steps from behind Daniel.

“He’ll accompany you on your walks around the facility, bring you food and whatever else you desire, you request it through him. Finn, escort her to her room. I need to retire for the evening.” Daniel turns, making his way towards the entrance.

Finn advances on her frozen form and gently grasps at her bare upper forearm. Aleena gasps loudly. The hairs on her body stand on end, a chill racing up her spine. His touch, the reaction her body gives, it feels just like it would when…

Her eyes trail up towards his face hidden behind the black visor of his helmet. The man raises a hand, bringing his index finger towards his face to make a small, quick gesture.

Shh.

[gofishygo]

[PRIDE MONTH- WEEK FOUR] : through green hydrangeas (my heart lies) price x ftm reader (part 2/2) - UNFINISHED

(i will complete this once i am unsuicidal and motivated)

[PART ONE] | notes: medical settings, description of injury, should have a good ending but like rn its not necessarily very bonita for either of them

The next time you and Johnathan price meet each other is indeed, in Burningham.

The doctors treating you had come with a prognosis- a puncture to the intestine. Through the whole eight hours of the surgery, the whole two weeks of an induced coma, he’d shadowed it behind a glass window. His now practically immune to the scent of disinfectants, the lemon-stained chemicals burning at his nose until the chemoreceptors in them saw nothing, felt nothing. He compares it to a black hole, how his sensory limbs have dulled since his career; his ears are now half drowned, all noose shallow and diasporic, left behind at a botched mission in 2002 Moscow. The keenness of his nose now snuffed by a recent disaster with chemicals. His body is trying and failing, pulling the weight of the world on its shoulders and inside the gaping voids of his chest, always consuming, killing, but never truly settled. Never truly sated.

And now his eyes have resulted in you being eaten, now his ears have resulted in you being ripped at your core. His body has chewed you and, and was left to spit out your body, just like Johnny-

He is scared of looking into closed eyes-they remind price too much about him. So, he leaves the living pearls alone, refuses to peel the skin back to see your colours. He never wants to chew again, not after this.

In every other world be should have stayed attentive, should have yelled at you to not mount the doorframe. But now you are here, bandage wrapped vice-tight below your own scars under your chest and blanketing part of your tattoo, and guilt and pity and some dark festering emotion he couldn’t pinpoint layer and boil like bile in his kidneys. Threatens to spill over into his throat and all over the bed when he is finally allowed to take the compression off. It reveals the shooting star of a wound, crusted tail stretching and expanding into arms that seem to try reach across your skin, to take more of the body it had infested. And he fears you will meet the fate of Johnny- that the wound had claimed your soul instead of your life. And it was an early death too, for the man he had met, for the private who’d body he thought he’d fully memorised a decade ago. The short-lived life of the man who smiled with his whole face for the woman who couldn’t. He knows you have changed, have grown up and out of your past life.

But he can only hope that now; you are strong enough to live through it.

On the nineteenth day of your bedrest, John seems to notice that the slow trickle of bouquets and cards of condolence had been wrung dry, petals brown and crusting on the small bundle of roses that Gaz had left on the bedside since the beginning of your stay in the hospital. The colour of the wilt now matched his increasingly darkening eyebags, crow’s feet near buried, shallow dents in the corner of his peripherals. Pads of his fingers rest atop your forehead- and he knows no matter how dysregulated your internal temperature was since the mission, the number of degrees in your body would always be more than the amount of “get well soon’s” you were given. Some stone of pity seems to snowball at the tip of his tongue and lodge in his throat at the lack of a similar last name on any of the unopened cards left to collect dust on the table. Perhaps, since you’d dropped your original name, the people who’d carried your last refused to see you. And maybe, the idea that the number of degrees your body temperature was also outmatched the number of times you’d seen your relatives since your transition. And maybe, you had been alone for that stretch of years, without familiar flesh to grip onto or a face to share your ashtray and lighter with.

(When long-abandoned lawns are left unattended, they seem to flourish. Rainwater fills the cracks of pavement, toadstool and wildflowers sprouting between the roots of household weeds. In miracle, you had thrived in your isolation.) With one of your eyes slightly peeled open and fixed towards him, and voice barely gathering into the creak of a tree deforested, you ask what is wrong. Price swallows: and he replies with silence.

But even in your quarter-dead state, the captain can’t seem to stomp out the embers of your stubbornness. You’d always cared for him, affection growing teeth and latching onto him with a grip near impossible to pry. In warmth, it held him, in cold, it smothered him. “Put a lid on it, private,” its some form of rumbled warning, a predecessor to earthquakes that would split continents open. “Laswell called. All six targets got taken down, thanks to the work of you and the ULF. Another mission cleared, another day of living.” The dynamics of your exhale sound oddly like a rendition of price’s puff of a cigar. He can faintly recognise the lethargy, energy seeped out of your injuries, clearly exasperated by the way he slams shut at your prying. “You don’t need to worry about me,” But you’re attentive, even in your indigence, and notice how his eyes are not focused on the explosion of scab across your torso, but on the scars that adorned the underside of your chest. “Or is there something else on your mind?”

Price- he truly does hope that you register his stifled grunt and the widening of his eyes as shock instead of horror. Your words catch him off guard, a bear trap that ensnares his tongue instead of his legs, and he is left thrashing in desperation for new words. “no, it’s not- its not that you’re transgender. I don’t care for that. Why didn’t you contact me? What made you think that I would despise you, just because you changed? Just because you were happier?” did you think I could ever hate you for that? “no, its not your fault kid. m’ mistake.”

Silence from the only person who’d dared to raise their words to match all his own, isolation from the man whose touch anchored you down to the ground of the earth and the heat of his skin- it’s smothering him still, a phantom weight that chained the both of you to the bones in your knees and the cuffs of your necks. (If love Is liberation, maybe you two could have been set free-)

[transformers-mosaic]

Transformers: Beast Wars - Second Chances - Page 4

Originally posted on February 2nd, 2011

Story - Mike Priest Art - Jeffrey Witty Colours - Jenny Son Letters - HdE

deviantART

wada sez: This was originally meant to be Page 5, with some of the later Waspinator stuff moved earlier. As envisioned by Mike Priest, all of the pages for the comic would have individual titles, but only he seemed to like this idea and none of them made it into the final product. He gave this page the title “Eternal Too”, a reference to the fact that this entire story is an expansion of his previous Mosaic one-shot, “Eternal”. See below for the original script and an early sketch by Witty, along with Mike’s “Writer Spotlight”.

Beast Wars: Second Chances- Page 5

“Eternal Too”

By Mike Priest

-

(FIRST PANEL- Depthcharge’s hand slaps down on wet sand; he’s just pulled himself from the ocean.)

(SECOND PANEL- A full side-view of Depthcharge, on his hands and knees crawling from the surf- wet, caked with dirt, seaweed hanging from parts of his body…we cannot see his chest.)

DEPTHCHARGE: G-geh…

(THIRD PANEL- Close-up of Depthcharge’s head, looking down at the sand, in confusion.)

DEPTHCHARGE: Huh…how?  I-I…thought…

(FOURTH PANEL- Depthcharge whirls and looks behind him in a panic, having heard a voice.  We still can’t see the front of his chest.)

RAMPAGE: (Dialogue bubble unlinked, border color differs) Well…THIS is certainly interesting.

DEPTHCHARGE: (Enraged) X!  WHERE ARE YOU??

(FIFTH PANEL- Depthcharge, horrified expression as he looks down at himself.  We see the pulsing glow of a spark from below off-panel.)

RAMPAGE: Where I’ve always been…

DEPTHCHARGE: (Small text) no…

(FINAL PANEL- Unveiling of Depthcharge’s chest- it is torn open enough for us to see a SECOND spark (smaller; it’s only a half) somehow messily “fused” onto Depthcharge’s larger spark, like some cancerous lump.)

RAMPAGE: …a touch more literally now, it would seem.  AHAHAHAH!

Ah, Beast Wars.  For me, it's a case of "third time's the charm!" Y'see, Beast Wars was Transformers' third coming for me.  And once it hit, I was snared for life.  As a wee lad, I was a fan of G1, from about the age of three 'til the age of seven or eight.  Oh, there was the Real Ghostbusters and Spidey and His Amazing Friends and whatnot here and there.  But Transformers was always the fallback, always something I could go back to when I lost interest with whatever the new fad was on the playground. Around 1991 or 1992, while there were still some Transformers toys on the shelves, I was growing more enamored with Ninja Turtles and Marvel Superheroes, and Transformers was largely on the backburner, possibly for good this time. But my growing love of comic books would bring me to Transformers yet again.  One fateful day in 1993, on a routine trip to the comic store with my older cousin, I saw it on the shelf. Transformers Generation 2 # 1.  Everyone can remember that cover -- Optimus Prime with bullets jutting out of his skull and faceplate and the tag "This is NOT your father's Autobot." I eagerly snatched it up and for the next twelve months, going to the comic store became a regular occurrence.  I loved Spider-Man and X-Men and Iron Man, but Transformers Generation 2 was the comic I HAD to have every month. You can imagine my disappointment when I discovered the book had been canceled after only twelve issues.  Without supporting fiction to give my toy "adventures" some measure of credibility, my interest waned as it had before, and Transformers once again only became a fond memory. Fast-forward to 1996.  My younger cousins tell me of an awesome "computer-graphics" show airing in the morning called Beast Wars.  "It's animals that transform into robots!", they tell me.  I chuckle, inwardly wondering if it is some rip-off of Transformers.  A few weeks pass and I catch an episode.  "The Web", it is titled, but what shocks me most is the "Transformers" subtitle underneath the prominent Beast Wars logo.  It isn't a rip-off, it IS Transformers! Of course, as a bitter, world-weary twelve-year old at this point, my initial reaction is "Turning into organic-looking animals?  Huh, dumb".  This doesn't stop me from watching the show on weekday mornings before going to school, rationalizing that "nothing else is on". Then suddenly, about midway through the first season of Beast Wars, I realize I'm not watching it because "nothing else is on" anymore, I'm watching it because it IS Transformers and it is AWESOME!  Before I knew it, I was hooked again!  And this time would be for good.  Never again would something push Transformers to second or even third-banana status with me.  I was a Transfan through and through and I owed it to Beast Wars for reminding me. To me, Beast Wars represents some of the very best Transformers storytelling has to offer and is unequivocally the best Transformers animated series of all time (so far).  I jumped at any chances to contribute to the Beast Wars universe in anyway, through fanfiction, through Transformers Mosaic, and now, through BEAST WARS: Second Chances. It's funny.  We're calling it "Second Chances".  But for me, Beast Wars was a THIRD chance.  And like I said before, third time's the charm! -- Mike Priest

[futurepastme]

Emrys and the council of the seven

Just another thing I need to throw in the void to see if it leaves my mind alone. This "chapter" is just a rambled info-dump that I started before falling asleep and decided to continue today, so I acctually still have more to this universe and might do a part 2.

Au where Merlin didn't turn his back on his kind and accidentally became the unofficial king of a secret kingdom that he created himself. ≈ 2400 words

Prologue: The vanishing door

Camelot was known to be the strongest kingdom of the five lands that composed what would one day be known as Albion, its knights were fierce and strong, its walls were tall and impenetrable, and its King was imposing and unforgiving.

The knights of the king were trained by their own Prince, a man known for his swordsman skill throughout the five kingdoms.

The knights were strong, noble men, whose family's loyalty to the crown surpassed generations, men who dedicated their lives to the king and to the people, sons of Dukes and Earls and Barons.

All men who came from a noble blood lineage could try for a position as a Camelot Knight.

The common man who didn't, however, could still try for a position as a guard. 

The guards that protected the castle went through rigorous training before being worthy of their station, difficult trials meant to test their loyalty, strength, and resilience would take place through an extended period of time. Only those who could pass them all managed to qualify for the position, and only those who could survive training with the prince could keep it.

The Prince was a man made for war. From a very young age he was trained in the arts of politics, strategy, and combat. He knew how to read an opponent as well as he could read a map, could come out of seemingly impossible situations like no other, and knew how to inspire his men to fight for his kingdom to the death and without hesitation.

Besides training the knights, one of the prince's duties was to come up with the rounds for the guards; they were assembled in a way to be confusing but efficient and were cautiously scheduled just so, so people couldn't figure out a pattern.

All these capable groups of men worked together to ensure the kingdom's safety, to ensure their walls were kept strong and to ensure that no one could breach their defenses without being caught.

It is why, after all this training and planning, it is almost comical that we can see the figure of a man seamlessly passing through every guard like they weren't there.

It was on a normal night, uneventful in its nature, that we could see this hooded figure dancing down the halls of the castle, taking advantage of every guard’s blind spot and every secret passageway known to him.

The figure never ran, he didn't have to. He would count down his steps and easily avoid anything that could possibly get in his way.

One, two, three steps forward and one backwards, to avoid being spotted by using a pillar as cover. Thirteen steps ahead and through the door on the right, waiting for six seconds before going out again, to avoid a group with three guards. Eight more steps and push down the torch bracket to go through a secret shortcut.

Step by step he went on his way through abandoned halls and others not so much, passing by paintings and tapestries, bedchambers and supply closets, down staircases and through secret doors until he reached his goal.

He went through one last door and finally found the abandoned staircase. Dark gray coloured stones formed the uneven steps, spiderwebs covered the broken sconces and a stale flavour weighted the air.

Behind the closed door he finally let himself relax completely, in a way he wasn't allowed during his daily life, and with a soft wave of his hand a floating white ball of light appeared, following him about as he continued his path down the cold steps.

After all this sneaking around, it might surprise you that the biggest crime this man committed so far was in the form of that small floating light.

Camelot was a great, strong kingdom that for over twenty years had been at war with magic users.

The purge, as it is called, has many beginnings. 

The baker that lived in the citadel his whole life, would whisper of how a sorceress enchanted the king into confidence and used this trust to try and kill the unborn prince, taking the queen's life in her attempt.

The shoemaker one town over would tell how the enchantress was actually the king’s old lover, who had learnt magic to steal his heart back and kill the queen to take her place, but botched the order her plan should go and forgot to enchant the king before getting rid of the queen.

A traveling merchant, that now could be found in the kingdom of Mercia, would spread the story of how the queen's own lady in waiting had traded her soul for the secrets of magic, but when the time for payment came she took the queen's life to try and offer it instead, effectively losing her soul and her heart along with what was left of her mind.

The bards would sing the sad prose of a king who had a sick wife with child. He begged an old friend to save his wife and son, not knowing that this friend had lost her soul to magic. The sorceress took the queen's life but was chased away by the brave king before she could get to the prince, and the king swore to protect the land from such evil, to never harm them again.

The court physician wouldn't say a thing, loyal to the king, he is one of the three people who were there the night the queen died. But from his mouth, the most one would hear on this matter is a solemn phrase and nothing more. The Queen died giving birth to the prince.

How many variations can one single story have? It's fascinating how one simple tale, retold a thousand times, can change form and become something so different from its origin that turns into its own thing. 

But if you look closely, all the overlapping facts and the substantial discrepancies draw one single truth.

The purge began twenty years ago, because the king lost his queen. 

After that night, no one with magic was safe. No woman, no elder, no child. The King chased and burned, slashed and drowned. He hunted down sorcerers with every man he had, with every dog he owned. He burned their books and burned their bodies, and no one could escape the rage of his darkened heart.

The ones that survived went hiding, running away from a destiny of pain and death.

As the years went by, the slaughter diminished along with the numbers of magic users found in the kingdom, but that didn't mean the king's hatred was any less latent. The use of magic or association with a practitioner of magic would still be punished by death at the stake, and any rumors related to magic would be met with search parties and red caped knights following a bloody mission by the name of the King.

The hooded figure reached the bottom of the stairs, his floating light following dutifully. 

He found himself inside a great cave covered in darkness. It was so big that he had to make the light shine brighter to be able to see the edge of the cliff that separated the entrance of the staircase from the rest of the abyss that composed the cave.

Once upon a time this cave was home to a great dragon, a magical creature, that was captured by the King during the worst years of the purge.

The dragon waited years to meet his liberator, until the same hooded man came through the gates of Camelot. He then told the man about the prophecies that for centuries predicted his birth, about his duties to his kind and about his destiny.

In exchange for this knowledge and many other insights that helped the man fulfill his part of the prophecy, the dragon was released. And now the empty cave had almost no trace of once being housed by a dragon, apart from the broken chain links that littered the ground and a few claw marks that decorated the walls.

The man approached the edge of the cliff, to an untrained eye there would be nothing but the abyss that dragged down the cold air and unbalanced unprepared men, but the man knew this cave as well as he knew the guards' rounds. 

Hidden by darkness, a barely accessible ledge could be seen a couple of meters lower than the edge of the cliff, big enough to fit a person.

With calculated care, the man jumped down to the ledge. 

If someone were to look down at him from the cliff, they would think our sorcerer was trapped, but the view from the top of the cliff had a blindspot that made it impossible to see that the ledge continued with a narrow path to somewhere under the castle. Somewhere only accessible by that ledge and the unassuming cracked slit on the wall by the end of it.

He continued on his way, slowly gliding through the narrow ledge with his back flushed to the wall, the tips of his feet losing ground for a second before regaining it later on as the ledge broadened slightly when he approached the slit.

Upon reaching the slit one would see that it didn't reach the ground of the ledge, with its bottom sitting at the same height as the man's chest, the slit from up close looked like a narrow tunnel. With the ease of someone who's done this before, the sorcerer jumped up and with a little bit of struggle managed to stand almost straight inside the tunneled slit.

He pushed his way through the tunnel, moving his body to fit through as its space changed size. Turning his body on the side when it was narrower and bending down when it was lower, avoiding sharp edges and tripping holes. 

After all the trouble he went through, one would be disappointed after reaching the end of the tunnel and finding nothing more than another empty cave. Different from the one that once housed the dragon, this cave was barely big enough to fit a dozen men, a frustrating sight to anyone who followed the man's steps hoping for adventure.

Jumping down inside the cave, he continued with confident pace towards the backmost wall of this disappointing place.

That wall was different from the rest of the cave, while the other walls were jagged and uneven, this wall was smooth from the bottom to the top. It resembled the walls that formed the hallways of the castle, except, instead of being made out of cut stones shaped for building, this wall was composed of one single smooth stone, like a vertical tablet.

The sorcerer let out a small sigh as he brought up one hand to glide across the stone's surface, at the same time he raised the other hand to the hood of his cape bringing it down and revealing his face to the emptiness of this secret place.

With dark blue eyes that never left the stone, the sorcerer brought both his hands to a chain that sat on his neck, pulling it out. His brows frowned as the chain got caught on one of his ears, he let a small sound fall from his mouth as he fought the bothersome thing off of him, leaving a small red spot on his ear caused by the aggressiveness he used to pull the chain.

Dangling from the chain was an iron key, simple in its look, the key didn't seem to be of any importance, just another key like many others.

The sorcerer held the key in his hand and took a second to frown down at it, letting mumbled curses reprimand the misbehaving object, as if it were its fault to get caught.

His gaze did a quick once over of the cave, as if daring the walls to say anything about what happened, before coming back to his senses. There was no one but him there, and the walls couldn't possibly be laughing at him. 

He brought his gaze back to the cursed thing in his hand and finally brought it up to the stone wall at the same height a keyhole would be. Once it made contact with the stone, it stopped for a second, before going through the hard surface and sitting in a perfect fit. 

He turned it once, and the little cave was suddenly consumed by a blue light coming from the stone as the frame of a door began to blink into existence.

He waited for a few seconds until the light diminished, and now in front of him was a hard oak door, with hinges, iron straps, a handle and yes, a keyhole. He turned the key two more times and reached for the handle.

The room was rapidly filled with a warm light that came from the open door. 

A waved hand dismissed the ball of light, relieving it from its duty now that the light coming from the door would be sufficient.

The man took the key out of the keyhole, stepping through the threshold inside the lit room before quietly closing the door behind him.

For a couple of seconds the cave was drowned in darkness, only a faint line of light escaped from underneath the door, before it was once again lit up with the same blue light as before.

Slowly, the magical blue light started to fade beginning from the frame of the door towards the middle, and as it went off, the door too began to disappear.

In a matter of seconds the stone wall conquered back its space, it consumed the frame, the hinges, the whole door until there was nothing but the keyhole. It blinked for a second before it too disappeared.

The stone wall was back to its natural form, inside a hidden cave with no trace a doorway could ever have existed, with no magic light to ease its darkness, and with no hooded man staring at its smooth surface.

On an uneventful night at Camelot, a sorcerer waltzes through the defenses of the castle to reach a cave that no one has heard about, with an illegal magic light that followed his steps, towards a secret door that didn't exist.

And as his journey through the depths of the castle reached its end with his magical disappearance through the said inexistent door, Camelot continued with its routine dance: the guards continued their rounds, a few knights drank at the tavern, and the prince slept on his bed, all of them unaware of the shadow man and his magic door.

[evans23]

I Shall Live On

Pairing : David Friedman x OC

Summary : It's twenty-three minutes before seven and the fate of David and his wife is at stake. It's twenty-three minutes before midnight and the fate of David and his wife was decided.

Tag(s)/Warning(s) : Angst. Mention of death.

A/N : Hello dear 😁 So, apparently people like to suffer in this fandom, so here it is. I tried something different, it's why my female character has a name, anyway I hope you still like it.

Also read on AO3

It was twenty-three minutes before seven in the night when the heart of Rose Benson Friedman stopped beating in her chest. She was twenty-eight, walking in the street of New Orleans after a day of work in a bookshop, ready to return to the house she shared with her husband, the detective David Friedman.

She had met David when she was twenty-eight, by a happy coincidence. He entered in the bookshop where she worked during her shift. He was looking for a book except that he didn't know the title. Only a part of the plot and the colour of the cover. It happened that it was the book she had been reading for two weeks at the time. 

"And what do you think of the book ? Does it live up to the good reviews we can read everywhere ?" he asked her.

Actually, David hadn't read any reviews. If he had, he would have known that the press had destroyed the book and his author. He just needed an excuse to talk with Rose. For the first time in a long time, he had felt something strange, warmth, and alive inside him. 

He hadn't felt like that since his divorce. To be true, he hadn't felt like that far before his divorce. He had married too young, his childhood lover, but after fifteen years of matrimonial union, they fell apart. David was so absorbed in his work that he didn't notice the distance that was settling in between his wife and him until he came back after long weeks chasing leads and pouring over shreds of evidence to find his wife in his bed with his best friend and colleague.

If he hadn't killed the man that day, it's only thanks to the alcohol which had numbed his senses. He still remembered how he had stood frozen on the threshold of the door, trying his best to not let the tears fall from his eyes. After all, he was a man, and never before had he cried in front of anyone. It was because of the alcohol. And the betrayal of his wife, of course.

He had run away, ignoring her wife shooting his name. He didn't remember where he spent the night, probably in his car, on the precinct parking since it was where he had woken up. In the morning, he came back to his home to gather all his things and he left while his wife was at work.

Six months later, the divorce was granted and one year later she married that little shit of Matty. 

After that, David dived deeply into alcohol and work. He could have died if it hadn't been for Rose. The day he entered her bookshop was a holy day. It had saved his life. Rose was his redeeming love. 

There was a ten-year gap between the two of them, but when they were together, sharing their thought, talking about their day or simply being domestic during a lazy Sunday, he felt more himself than he had ever been before. 

However, the beginning of their relationship hadn't been easy. Indeed, she couldn't put up with his bad habits to dig his sorrow into a bottle of alcohol. Not that David was violent when he was drunk, but it is not what she strived for in a relationship. Therefore, one day, she gave him an ultimatum : the alcohol or her.

This ultimatum led to an animated quarrel, but eventually, David admitted he had a problem and he sought help. He was afraid to lose Rose, but seeing how hard he was trying to get rid of this addiction, she supported him as best as she could, and after a long fight, he became totally sober.

Now, he only drank grape juice, and never had he touched a drop of alcohol again. All thanks to Rose, who had saved his life in every sense of the word. 

Because he had already got married once, without success, he wasn't up to commit himself again into marriage. After all, he didn't see the point of signing a sheet of paper to prove his love to Rose and she thought the same. However, when he got almost killed during an investigation, owing his life to Sadie, the FBI agent who became his colleague after their first investigation together and her retirement from the secret agency, he decided on a whim to propose to her.

Actually, not totally on a whim. More out of pragmatism. If he came to die, you would get nothing. Neither his money nor the house you were sharing. Maybe not even his ashes. Truth to himself, his proposal hadn't been romantic at all. She came to the hospital, sick with worry, but when she heard David complaining to a nurse before having the time to enter his room, she knew Sadie was right : David was more than fine. 

"You scream quite loudly for someone who had almost got run over by a car," she said with a smirk.

"Rose," said David with a little smile.

His whole face had brightened with her entrance. Only she had this effect on him. 

"Tell him he must rest !" almost ordered the nurse to Rose before leaving the room, slamming forcefully the door behind her.

"David, please, stop torturing the poor nurses," she joked, striding towards the bed where she sat down.

"I told them I was fine enough to go home but they want to keep me under observation for the night," he complained with a pout.

Rose kissed him softly, her fingers running through his blond hair with delicacy. 

"And you should listen to them. You almost got killed today David !" she chided him gently. 

"Talking about that, while I was in the ambulance, I thought seriously about something..."

He started explaining to her all the advantages of being married to a policeman. More interesting, a detective of his caliber. In fact, there were none if it wasn't for the sharing of love they had. 

"David, what if you just told me what's on your mind rather than beating around the bush ?"

He stiffened, his hazel eyes fixing the wall in front of him.

"David ?" she asked, squeezing slightly his hand. 

"I had a great deal of thought about something. Not only today. I've been thinking about it for some time now. But today, I realised I shouldn't delay it for any longer."

He felt silent, his eyes edging towards her suspiciously.

"Okay..."

"You do not have to answer me today. Or any other day. Feel free to say no. Besides, I expect you to say no. What an idea to say yes to such a stupid idea. I would never fathom what you can see in me, but hey, I'm not complaining, I'm lucky that you are smart but not enough to understand you could find someone far better than me..." he said with anguish, his hooked nose casting a shadow on his left cheek. 

"Ok, David, I don't know if you're scarring me or if it's just the drugs the doctors gave you," she cut him off.

David sighed heavily. She wasn't able to understand what he was trying to tell her. To be honest, even he couldn't comprehend what he was saying. Maybe she was right, his mind was dizzy with the morphine he had received earlier to alleviate the pain.

Nevertheless, he hadn't felt more conscious, wishing for her to say the word he really wanted to hear and not the one he was expecting her to say.

"If something happened to me, it would be better if you were my wife."

Her eyes widened so widely that she looked like a fish, that one people could admire in a Japanese garden. If he hadn't been afraid to hear her say no, David would have laughed at her funny face.

"Are you proposing ? To me ?" asked Rose with incredulity.

"Of course to you. Who do you expect me to marry ? The Queen of Saba ?"

Rose ignored his sarcastic comment, too flabbergasted by what was happening. 

"David, why does it sound like a business arrangement ?" she eventually managed to say. 

"I didn't know you wanted me to pull out all the stops. You told me you didn't believe in marriage," he groaned.

She rolled her eyes, reminding him that he had said the same thing to her many times. 

"Yes, yes... Only a fool doesn't change his mind. Don't tell me you want a ring," he moodily said.

"Of course, I want a ring ! A pretty one ! And Elvis," answered Rose with a smirk.

"Elvis ?" asked David, confused.

"Elvis Presley," she clarified.

"Isn't he a little bit dead ?" asked David, arching one of his brows.

"Oh, come on David, everybody knows he's living his best life on a private island. But I was talking about the one living in Vegas."

David had laughed so hard that he had almost popped his stitches. 

"So, will you ?" he said after having calmed down from his hilarity. 

"What ?" she asked, biting your lips.

"Little minx, you know what I'm talking about," groaned David.

"Yes, but I want you to propose to me correctly. Not as if you were trading an important business. We are not living in the Regency David !"

"Oh woman !" he grumbled.

Yet he obliged you by asking properly for her hand. And as a matter of course, Rose had said yes. 

They got married six months later, in Las Vegas, with Elvis acting as a priest and Sally as their witness. Rose had invited her parents, but they were living in London, her birth town, and her mother was too sick to travel so far away and her dad didn't want to leave her alone, something Rose had perfectly understood. She had been saddened by the lack of support of her friends, but since she had moved into New Orleans, she had fallen apart with almost all of her English friends, some of them having been in the green-eyed monster's grip when she had won the green card thanks to a contest, and she didn't have built any strong friendship in America. But none of that mattered anymore since she had David in her life. 

The wedding was everything both of them had dreamt about. Elvis for a bishop was obviously the greatest and misunderstood desire of Rose. David couldn't understand that fantasy of her, but as she didn't ask for much most of the time, he had graciously accepted, more than happy to get married in Sin City. Indeed, he had always wanted to try his poker skills at the great table of a casino. He didn't win that night, but he didn't lose too much either. After that, they ate some cheeseburgers and drank too much chocolate milkshake, then, David drove from Las Vegas to Los Angeles where they had spent their honeymoon.

Rose, who was a well of science in the field of cinema had led him all around the city, talking about all the anecdotes she knew about almost the beginning of the talking cinema. David always preferred books over movies, but seeing her so happy and in her element made him beamed with love and happiness. She had confessed to him once that she had tried three times to be accepted into one of the best dramatic schools in London, without success. She had finally given up, choosing to become a librarian. He never dared tell her that she was far too shy to be an actress, but she was skilled enough in writing to dabble with it and play aptly with words. 

"David, you're far better than me in writing. You should write some thriller. You had seen so many things, you could compete with the best criminal authors," she had said once. 

David had always written, but never before someone had acknowledged his talent for it. Not that he had thought of having any aptitude for that craft, but hearing her telling him how she loved his short story, something he had started to do when he went to therapy to cure his addiction, had made his ego thrive with pride. For the first time, someone was able to see more than his grumpy exterior and his being a detective. For Rose, he wasn't Detective Friedman. He was David, a man of many talents. A good cook, a writer, an affectionate lover, a support, her husband. 

After their wedding, David had been afraid to see her moving away from him as his wife had done. But it never happened. On the contrary, it had strengthened their bond. Rose was always there for him after a hard day of workwhen the horrors his work forced him to see took a toll on him and she never blamed him for his hectic schedule. She understood his job was demanding, but also the importance it had for him. And for that, he cherished her even more. 

For the first time, Rose and David were happy to be alive. Both of them had gone through difficult times, they had tried their best to get their life on track, their love had made him grow stronger, making them appreciate the little things in life, and able to see the hidden beauty of existence.

Unfortunately, life had a strange sense of humour. Five years after their wedding, Rose, thirty-three, collapsed on the ground of a little-used street in the Bayou. Superstitious, Rose consulted a medium twice a year. David always laughed at her, telling her it was all rubbish and she shouldn't spend her money on such a trivial thing, but she couldn't prevent the need to know, or at least having the delusion to know. She was a regular of Soraya, one of the most respected mediums in the vicinity. Rose would never forget what she told her the last time she consulted her. 

"There's a vampire lurking in the shadow. It'll steal what you love the most. It'll fill your soul with murderous torments. It'll take a toll on your fragile heart. It'll make your heart burn with a rancid venom. You'll wish to be dead, but be careful because sometimes, we get what we wish. Yes, this vampire will try to bring you down, but two angels will look after you. One won't be alive, the other one will be your salvation. Both of them will save you from the darkness you will be surrounded by. Yes, Rose, a vampire will encircle your soul with its cold arms, it'll feed your sorrow, but your ghost will help you to see the light and an angel will give back to your mind the peace and love that will save your life."

Soraya often spoke in riddles, and if Rose was utterly honest with herself, she would admit that the medium had never predicted anything true. Until that day. When she had left the little shop with the heady smell of incense, a vampire had touched her heart. A vampire called heart failure. That day, in a dark alley in the middle of nowhere, in the Bayou of the New Orleans, the heart of Rose Frances Benson Friedman had stopped beating. She had collapsed on the ground, with no one to notice her motionless body and the rain started to drench.

At the same time, on the other side of the town, the detective David Friedman was in the middle of a shootout. A madman with a Kalashnikov was shooting in all directions, shooting that he was Rambo. When he saw a little girl, who probably was five or six, totally unaware of what was happening, David, listening only to his courage, ran towards her, grabbed her by the waist, and threw her to the ground. At the same time, his partner, Sadie, had shot the man in the head. The little girl screamed and cried, protected under the tall frame of David. 

When the S.W.A.T. arrived to help the detective, the first thing they saw was a pool of blood. One of them, who had medical training, turned him with precaution. Another one took the little girl up in his arms, leading towards an ambulance while an emergency team was running towards David. It was twenty-three minutes before seven in the afternoon when a bullet reached the heart of David Friedman. 

He was rushed to hospital, when, somewhere in the Bayou, another medical team was choking Rose Benson Friedman with a defibrillator with little hope to bring her to life. Her body was cold, the rain having been of no help to keep her warm. The team didn't know when her heart had stopped.

She had been discovered by a homeless man who had phoned 911, explaining in bad English that a young woman was lying, probably dead, in the street of the worst part of the town. She didn't seem to have been assaulted. She didn't seem to be from those living below the breadline. She was probably one of those crazy people who had her fortune told by a so-called local witch. Maybe the bitchy witch had given her some brew to get pregnant, poisoning her involuntarily. 

Except that the homeless man was wrong. She hadn't been poisoned. It was just her heart that had broken. Little did he know that her life, if they were able to bring her back, would never be the same anymore. 

It was twenty-three minutes after seven in the night when both, David Friedman and Rose Benson Friedman arrived in hospital to undergo surgery. Sadie was in the hospital waiting room, trying to reach Rose, phoning her again, again and again, swearing under her breath against the woman who didn't answer her call. For God's sake ! Her husband was severely injured. Her place was here, in the hospital, waiting and praying for him. 

In another hospital, a medical secretary tried again, again and again, to get an answer from David Friedman, the emergency person of Rose Benson Friedman. After the tenth attempt, the young secretary swore that if it was there how a husband cared for his wife, she would never marry. Rose was dying, she would probably not last the night, she needed someone who loved her by her side. But no one was there for her. No parents, no friends, no husband. 

It was twenty-three after twenty-two in the night when David and Rose had been brought back to life twice and had died thrice. The medical team in both hospitals was doing their best, as did David and Rose. Both of them, even though unconscious, were fighting for their life in the abyss of death. 

Alone, in the little chapel of the hospital, Sadie who had finally been called by the hospital where Rose was losing the battle between the Angel's death, was praying for his colleague and his wife. She wasn't really a believer, but that night, she didn't know what else she could have done. She regretted having cursed David's wife for her lack of answer. But how could have she known the poor woman was in hospital ? 

Thankfully, the medical secretary, well decided to find someone who cared for poor Rose, had looked up David's name on the internet and found out his name in a small article talking of a corrupted Senator. She had given an educated guess and called the local precinct to ask to be put in relation with the detective who was working in another part of the town, for another precinct. It was Matty, David's nemesis, who had answered the call, explaining to the secretary that David was fighting for his own life but that he would tell his partner about his wife, and what he did, letting Sadie decide if she should tell David about it or no when he would come back from surgery.

Sadie wouldn't have to tell anything to David. Instead, she would drive across town to check on Rose who was in a coma. She would have to call her father, a man who had just lost his wife, and she would tell him that he might lose his daughter too in the same years, four months after the loss of his loved one. And if Rose ever woke up, what she hoped from the bottom of her heart, then she would have the heavy task of telling her.

It was twenty-three before midnight when the heart of Detective David Friedman stopped forever. It was twenty-three before midnight when the heart of Rose Benson Friedman had started again. 

[endlessfandomverse]

vamp science!

- this is already so much better than the eight doctors(i am 3 pages in)

- SPEED REFERENCE?????

- also lesbians. yay!!!!!

- green eyed eight???

- described as looking like oscar wilde. his ass is not beating the homosexual allegations

- “tall and narrow” bro is literally average height

- “It always amazes me how everything fits together,’ he said. ‘All the patterns that people would never suspect are there just to look at them. The way that atoms make up a molecule, molecules make up a protein, proteins make up a cell, cells make up people, people make up worlds. The tiniest interactions of these obscure little unrelated parts can change everything on levels you’d never dream of.” man

- deeply enjoying carolyn honestly

- also just the writing style of this book like. Ough(positive)

- kitty walking across eight’s shoulders!!!!!

- the doctor visits a goth club in san francisco. I’m feeling so Normal

- sam is so silly i fear for her life

- i was right to fear for her life and also she’s making me FEEL emotions

- “for her own good. It was always for her own good” man.

- removing his cravat and exposing his bare throat…. 🫦

- what is up with eight‘s changing eye colour. i mean i like it but still

- i love the theatrical nature of it all

- “Don’t ask me. I haven’t been bored since they developed the Internet,’ she said.“ so real queen

- turned vampire eight…. it’s such a good thought oughh

- (about san francisco) “This city hates me” unfortunately it does seem that way

- the butterfly room…. oughhhh 🥺🥺

- “You know, she once talked another Goth out of killing herself? Really talked him out of it. She said that being a Goth was about accepting the world’s sadness, not about destroying yourself to get away from it. She said it was bad manners to kill yourself. Like dropping in on Death without phoning first.”

- man. I care about carolyn

- the doctor’s characterisation here is so so good.

- “ It was the kind of hope Shackle had dismissed as naive, as if a glib cynicism was somehow more sophisticated than a hard-won optimism. As if it somehow took more insight to catalogue each defeat and disappointment than to notice all the successes, small and large, and draw as much joy as possible from them”

- eight not realising his effect on people…. ohhhhh

- this book is genuinely so good

- fuck man

- joanna harris is genuinely so fascinating to me

- this whole sequence is just so good

- “Apparently the Time Lords have a long and honourable tradition of genocide when they think the stakes are high enough,”

- kitties in da pockets…. 🥺🥺

- vampire crack squirrels. that’s it. that’s all

- “He was a hero, a trickster, a dazzling figure who’d risk his life for you and still pick your pocket without a second thought.” they fucking get it.

- FUCKING WEIRD HAROLD?????

- weird harold is so tragic actually?????

- the speed reference….

- catharsis for sam! good for her

- i love eight so much

- “We’ll catch you, Doctor,’ said Slake. ‘You’ll wish you’d held your tongue when I bite it out of your mouth” 🤨🏳️‍🌈

- ohh they are Biting Him. Everywhere. and not in a sexy way. well. vampires. yeah. i’m so fucking tired

- i need to read a vampire eight fic posthaste

- ohhhghghghghgg joanna harris….

- the doctor grabbing ice cream “for his blood sugar” but really because he wants to… iconique i fear

- this book was so good holy shit

[sadly-never-after]

Music in the EAH Universe and who listens to them Part 5.

This is just an excuse to try to make music puns and share music I think the characters would listen to. (Some of these are even canon by the books!) I don't even like a majority of these musicians but I am fully convinced of my choices here. I marked in colours the one that are canonically part of the EAH Universe.

Since Tumblr only allows 100 inline links for a post I have to make different parts.

Part 1 (Alistair, Apple, Ashlynn, Blondie, Briar, Bunny)

Part 2 (Cupid, Cedar, Cerise, Chase Courtly, Daring)

Part 3 (Darling, Dexter, Duchess, Farrah, Faybelle, Ginger)

Part 4 (Holly, Hopper, Humphrey, Hunter, Jillian, Justine)

Part 5 (Kitty, Lizzie, Maddie, Meeshell, Melody, Nina)

Part 6 (Poppy, Ramona, Raven, Rosabella, Sparrow, Tucker)

ᓚᘏᗢ ☾⋆｡𖦹 °✩ Kitty Cheshire ✩° 𖦹｡⋆☽ ᗢᘏᓗ

Godmother, Godmother (Burning Pile, Oh Ana, Verbatim)

The Neverland Experience (Cult of Dionysus, Queen of White Lies, Your New Boyfriend)

Spellanie Martínez (Pity Party, Tag, You're It, Mad Hatter)

Marina & the Diamond Cards (Hermit The Frog, Rootless, The Outsider)

Tailor Hall (You, Ruler of Everything, Turn the Lights Off)

♛ 🂱༺♥️༻🂱 ♛ Lizzie Hearts ♛ 🂱༺♥️༻🂱 ♛

Katy Fairy (Dark Horse, Hot N Cold, Teenage Dream)

Marina & the Diamond Cards (Lonely Hearts Club, I Love You But I Love Me More, Rootless)

Nixie (Your Best American Girl, Goodbye my Danish Sweetheart, First Love/Late Spring)

Yes, Yes, Yeses (Heads will roll, Shame and Fortune, Dragon Queen)

Lana d'Aulnoy (Without You, Dark Paradise, Chemtrails Over the Country Club)

☕ ׂ 𓈒 ⋆ ۪☆⋆｡𖦹°‧★🎩 Madeline Hatter 🎩★‧°𖦹｡⋆☆ ۪ ⋆ 𓈒 ׂ☕

Giantz (19-2000 - Soulchild Remix, Fire Coming out of the Monkey's Head, Pac-Man)

Plucky Tailor (Stout-Hearted Men, It Gets Better All The Time, Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing)

David Longbow (Under Pressure, Starman, Oh! You Pretty Things)

Of Wonderland (Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games, Lysergic Bliss, Peace To All Freaks)

Tailor Hall (Mucka Blucka, Banana Man, The Whole World and You)

𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼 Meeshell Mermaid 𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼

FKA Witch (Water Me, Ultraviolet, Give Up)

Florence & the Mill (Swimming, Never Let Me Go, Mermaids)

Lana D'Aulnoy (Mariner's Apartment Complex, Video Games, High by the Beach)

Nixie (Come into the water, Pearl Diver, Valentine, Texas)

Reigning Spectre (Tornadoland, Us, Samson)

⋆.˚✮🎧✮˚.⋆🐭⋆.˚✮ Melody Piper ✮˚.⋆🐭⋆.˚✮🎧✮˚.⋆

Giantz (Dare, Every Planet We Reach Is Dead, Tomorrow Comes Today)

N-Chant (Shoulda Known, Ball & Lead, Monday)

Lil' Swain (Forever, Annihilate, Mrs. Officer)

Twenty one King's Men (Message Man, Stressed Out, Guns for Hands)

Cage the Dragon (Trouble, Cigarette Daydreams, Telescope)

Tyler the Narrator (Earfquake, Corso, New Magic Wand)

🍄🦋🌸 Nina Thumbell 🍄🦋🌸

ABBA-cadabra (Chiquitita, I Have A Dream, Waterloo)

Dolly Charmton (Coat of Many Colors, Wildflowers, Love is like a Butterfly)

Elvis Princely (Burning Love, You're the Devil in Disguise, Hound Dog)

Ever After Authors (Best Day of My Life, We Happy Don't Worry, Daisies)

Joan Bard (The Night they drove Old Dixie down, Farewell, Angelina, Love is just a four-letter word)

You are trapped on an eight-hour long road trip with these guys and you have to give one of them the aux chord.

[fauxraven]

The Time Paradigm [VI]

pairing: Dream of the Endless x fem!reader

summary: the death of a Dream, the anguish of another

warnings: gore, Dream’s endless (but hot af) anger, character death

word count: 2.9k+

Enter the Dream, weary traveller

Chapter VI: Mutually assured salvation

GaiaPrime-57, Londinium, Half the Lifetime of the Universe,

A window snaps shut.

A droplet drops.

A zipper zips shut.

Zips open.

Chipping nail polish cracks further with every slide of the zip. Zip up; zip down. Zip up; zip down.

The suitcase slams on the floorboards. A frustrated groan leaves the chipping nail polish.

‘’Yes. Yes, I understand that too, Mr. Harris.’’ Up and down and up and down again until it jams. The phone gives a groan under cheap nail polish and exhausted fingers. ‘’Pedro, come—hop on my suitcase.’’

The curly head of a child pops around a corner; small, for his age, smallest of his class, in every aspect. He holds a soft toy that’s half bunny half elephant and about 5% extinct species. He hops on the suitcase silently.

‘’No, obviously, I don’t expect you to hop on my suitcase, Mr. Harris.’’ The zipper draws back, jams again. ‘’Pedro? Remember the Chuck E. Cheese ball pit?’’

The child throws himself onto the suitcase. The zipper is still stuck.

‘’Yes, I know. But the lease said—just one really. Yes, the other intends to stay. I don’t know, a few months. Yes, just me. She’ll stay. Yes—yes! Perfect, thank you, so much!’’ The phone drops on a red faux suede beanbag. ‘’Kid, this isn’t working.’’

‘’It was zipping a bit funny when Aunty Anna tried it too.’’

‘’Anna was within a file-mile radius of my suitcase?’’

The half-elephant half-unicorn dips a head of a cotton into a nod. She pulls him up and throws the suitcase open.

‘’You have got to be kidding me!’’

A pink garment falls to the floor. Followed by a white veil and a cable knit stitch the colour of ebony. Footfalls draw closer with every piece she plucks from the intestines of the suitcase.

‘’Pizza’s ordered. What? You said healthy; veg—what the bloody hell are you doing?’’

‘’You tell me. What part of ‘going there for work’ do you not understand?’’

‘’I understood perfectly! Blimey, I even packed you nice professional clothes.’’

‘’Lingerie? That’s what you call professional?’’

‘’Pleasure and business. Precisely in that order,’’ a lacy thong drops, adding to the growing pile forming on the floor. The child has gone away, thankfully. ‘’What if you meet a hot and loaded British bugger? What then? You’ll be glad I packed the essentials, that’s what.’’

‘’It’s a job in a quiet countryside house; the closest village is eight miles. The only guy I’ll see is pushing ninety and I’ll spend my days wheeling him around—passionately.’’

‘’Just loaded then?’’

‘’Business. I’m going there for business. I’m not like you, Jo. Hell, how many did you—okay, who needs this many thongs?’’

‘’That one’s a stray, actually.’’

On cue, the top layer of the unholy pile shifts into a ginger Tabby cat.

‘’Tell me you did not keep that thing.’’ Johanna snags in a beanbag, hissing at the cat when it tries snuggling up against her leg. She plucks a magazine from the coffee table and starts thumbing through gibberish. She isn’t really paying attention to the words; she isn’t paying attention to anything.

‘’I let you keep the kid!’’ The woman fires back, sitting on her haunches.

‘’Kids aren’t strays, love. Besides, this one’s just using ya for food and free snuggles, hope you know that.’’

‘’Since you’re missing the point, I’ll just cut to the chase—where did you find a whole kid? Where are his parents?’’

Johanna spares her a coy look over the magazine. ‘’Don’t you mean when are his parents?’’

‘’No, I really just mean where are his parents, the people who are supposed to care for him and report him missing should you decide to keep him any longer than you already have.’’

Johanna opens her mouth, tongue fit with a quick retort, but a zipper zips shut and a bell tolls; and life goes on. Without her. Always without her. She ought to move on too.

A sharp snap! rescues her from grim thoughts. A luggage handle is drawn and a decision is made.

‘’Looks like I’m all set. Walk me to the door?’’

‘’Promise to visit for Bommy Night?’’

‘’Sure. Why not Christmas or Easter or any other normal holidays?’’

‘’I want you on Bommy Night.’’

A suitcase is wheeled over the threshold of a small London flat. A dream leaves through the door.

‘’Hun, it happened four hundred years ago, think you can let it go, eventually?’’

‘’Bommy Night?’’

‘’Bommy Night.’’ She sighs. ‘’And do clean up while I’m gone. This place is a mess.’’

A door shuts behind an idyllic picture, a semblance of normalcy, a modicum of love.

In all her lives, Johanna Constantine has never particularly enjoyed loneliness. But loneliness far outweighs death, grief, sorrow, work. So she lets it go. She lets love overflow. She lets her only friend forge her own path through the world. A world cleansed of any demons, ghouls or whatnots that come bump into the night.

Still, she hangs onto the knob. Still, she pauses before the door. Still, she glances at the quiet flat.

A piece of paper and a mess of clothes strewn about a dust-covered couch.

All that’s left of her.

There’s a child in there somewhere, but she doesn’t bother finding him. She knows it won’t last. She knows nothing ever lasts.

An orange cat pushes its head against her calf, purring lightly through her bones.

She might take that gig at Saint-Anne’s. She might blow up the Houses of Parliament. She might phone Rachel.

Endless possibilities.

⌛︎ ⌛︎ ⌛︎

GaiaPrime-57, Edge of the Worlds, Mytikas Peak, Two Millennia Before the End,

He isn’t sure she is breathing.

Granted, his kind do not need to breathe, but nearly all living things do.

In the beginning, breathing was surviving.

Breathing was new, invented by some higher power, meant to be the latest trend in a series of many; holy gifts bestowed upon humanity before it even became humanity.

But in humanity breathing has found meaning.

One’s breathing tells a tale of life—of life and of love and of sorrow and of pain.

In times forgotten but not forgiven, he’d relish in the steady breath of sleepers.

He’d watch the ephemeral rise and fall of a passing chest with great fascination, overcome with a strange mixture of relief and indifference when the fleeting moment inevitably ended.

He’d listen to the soft thrumming of a laboured breath fanning across his own lips, bodies tangled, hearts mingled, minds miles apart. He’d pour his heart into everything that he was and everything that he wanted and he’d breathe them all into his arms… and they would always end up drowning. He’d choke the breath right out of them.

His sorrow was great; but his love was suffocating.

To add insult to injury, evolution has made breathing mandatory; essential.

But she has defied every rule, every law, every principle and sacred promise from day one.

So he is almost certain she is not breathing at all.

And he needs her to breathe.

He isn’t sure why—perhaps because she’s got a kind smile and she’s happy and she’s wounded and she’s saved his life.

A debt he can never repay, to his dismay.

He cannot stand between a flying sword and her lovely face. He cannot mend her wounds with a flick of his wrist. He cannot call out her name so sweetly and stir something buried within the depths of a blazing nova.

But he can save her life.

The hopeful thought digs, and soft golden grains of sand guide him to Chiron’s bedchambers.

He finds the Centaur reading. He calls to him, nearly falls to his knees.

Morpheus, Dream of the Endless, Oneiros, the Shaper of Form and everything he has ever been and ever will be—is utterly devastated.

Strangely enough, nothing gives the King away.

Nothing on the hard face, the wild hair nor deep eyes, nothing in the dark billowing robes and the shining ruby; it’s a feeling in the air, a rapture through time itself that tells Chiron something dreadful has happened.

That, and the dying girl in his arms.

For his usual aloofness, Oneiros proves to be very cooperative.

He lowers her to the cushioned table, per Chiron’s orders and stands aside to let him work.

He watches, powerless, as the doctor tears through fabric and blood-marred skin and frowns.

‘’What is it?’’ His voice is cutting, demanding, that of a sovereign hanging onto his crown with one hand. In the other, lie his wants and desires. Duty warring against something barely blossoming. Something deadly. Something very nearly dead.

‘’The stitches hold still.’’

‘’Is that not a good thing?’’

‘‘Terrible. Very terrible, Milord.’’

Gilded scissors cut deeper, digging into raw flesh and crusted meat alike, dragging unintelligible pained murmurs from the victim’s throat.

‘’She’s coming to, my lord.’’

‘’Not quite. Faster.’’

Scissors chop away, blood bursts everywhere, screams rip free, golden liquid bearing the smell of spoilt milk leaks through veins.

‘’By Zeus—’’ The Centaur curses; the Dream Lord hears it—neither moves an inch.

‘’What is that?’’ Oneiros rasps, anger lacing his even tone as he stares deeper into the leaking wound.

‘’Adiona—‘’ Chiron stammers, wide eyes burning a hole into a gaping canyon. ‘’Go, find Adiona, and any servants and willing gods.’’

Oneiros does not move. His star-filled gaze has darkened; the stars are slowly dying as they gawk at the trickling drops of blood and the large puddle of liquid gold pouring from the wound.

‘’Oneiros, go!’’ Chiron calls to him, they share a glance over the woman and then his eyes sweep over her fevered form again. A pale hand he hadn’t noticed falls from a limp grasp. He is gone in a swirl of sand.

What happens in the split second of his absence is a secret kept between the doctor and the universe.

But for clarity’s sake, the scene is as follows; this tale is not for the faint of heart.

Blood pours.

As a doctor, surgeon, centaur, son of a ruthless beast, he has seen blood. Some might say he is used to the sight of it. Blood and pus and bodily fluids, all fascinating in their diversity. After its inevitable loss, the human body can produce nearly one liter per day. That's two gallons full of pungent blood. He fears she might fill up five pitchers of wine with her blood alone.

But the blood doesn't bother him. It is terrifying.

Blood pours, pours.

Vicious droplets gushing from a gaping wound—a Sunday to him.

He'd operated during the Dhorian Invasion and all that followed humanity's first brush with extraterrestrial forces. He'd served as a soldier for a time, a nurse, a brother, a friend, a gravestone. He thought he'd seen all the world had to give and take.

He hadn't.

He probably still hasn't.

Blood pours pours pours.

Red splotches dot his skin—her skin, the difference is hard to tell anymore.

He reacts mechanically, his body switching to auto-pilot. His arm lifts, a hand reaches and nibble fingers dig through shining flesh and golden remnants of bone. He knows what this is, this gilded ambrosia spreading through her veins. He knows what it is and he knows what it does, so he carries on, hands digging through her entrails as her screams overpower the wet squelching of his crass ministrations.

He digs and he digs until the voice that comes from her throat is nothing but a distant echo carried by a Roman breeze, a flutter of a butterfly's wings.

By the time the doors to his antechamber burst open, he's elbow deep into the angry flesh of her.

A flurry of gods and goddesses and servants stand arrayed about him, gawking eyes narrowing at the sight of the carnage.

''Chiron,'' a voice calls to him, and then two, and then three and a thousand and one. They pierce through the silent spell in the room and noise comes back to him at once, a moist, most disturbing noise.

He carries on; acutely aware that somewhere along his ministrations, she had stopped screaming.

''Chiron, there's too much blood.''

''Is this all from the... inside?''

‘’I could not find Adiona.’’

‘’No matter. Hold her hand.’’

Wordlessly, he gives commands. A world of gods and servants obey, gathering tools and knowledge, changing bandages and spoiling cloth after cloth with dried pungent blood. It just never stops, the flow keeps pouring, rushing over all of Mount Olympus. The rivers of blood spread like gossip on Haloa, splitting into narrow paths, designing warped veins on the pristine floors. The irony.

The servants still the traveller. It is useless. The violent writhing has subsided, only slight tremors remain, faint whimpers and an assembly of gods.

Hephaestus beats her chest repeatedly with brawny arms.

A Cherub's small rounded fingers are pressed against her pulse. With every passing second, they press harder still.

Calliope, ninth daughter of the Hecatae, is sponging up blood and gilded pus from a corpse.

A painting that will never make it to a museum.

Oneiros knows she is no longer breathing. Her hand lays slack in his palm.

Chiron perseveres. Delicate fingers pry him off the body carefully.

The stranger-traveller-lover-of-dreams is... dead?

''It's alright, Chiron. You did your best.''

''You were very admirable. As was she; she shall be remembered as such.''

''Really nothing you could do.''

''Try again.''

A death knell drops. A pipe organ is playing somewhere deep within the bowels of the palace. The eerie melody cannot reach them. Nothing can save for sorrow and grief and the Dreamlord's quiet anger.

''My Lord?''

''Try. Again.''

Chiron holds his haunted gaze. The ninth daughter of the Hecatae raises a graceful hand to the side of his face. ''Oneiros—''

''Save her.'' he repeats, rasping voice never changing in tone. ''You owe her that much.''

''Do I?'' The doctor's eyes sweep over her form again. Just a moment ago she'd been laughing, mocking his customs and reminiscing gibberish. Just a moment ago, she'd been carried in by the prince of stories for whom she obviously harbored a strong inclination. ''Do you?''

Just a moment ago, she'd been more than a cold lump of meat on a decorative table.

''I know when to admit defeat, Dreamlord. Please, forgive me.''

''No.''

''Oneiros, he did all he could.''

Cold, starless eyes barely brush against some ninth daughter. Under his stare, she feels smaller than a grain of sand.

''No,'' Chiron says before the Dream Lord can retort. ''No, I did not.''

''Chiron—‘’

His shoulders deflate, turning away from Calliope's comforting touch. ''She came to see me this morning. After the feast.''

''Well, what did she want?'' a rough, gravelly voice asks. The Cherub hops on a corner of the table, bare legs brushing over the tip of her dead sandaled feet. She is a corpse now, everything about her is dead, expect, perhaps, her heart. It shall live endlessly.

''She asked me to check the wound. I had to remove the bandage and cut her up, I'm afraid.''

The temperature drops, the air turns crisp, burning the doctor's lungs when he draws a deep breath and looks into Morpheus' eyes.

''Tell me, is this your doing?''

''I wish,'' he surrenders, summoning all the strength left in him. His hands are covered in blood, his arms reek of death and his scalp is as damp as that of the victim. The blood has gilded vein-like streaks stretching across his arms. ''This—this is something else. Something impossible.''

He orders the blood-covered servants to leave. As they fill out wordlessly, he watches, scrutinizing them one by one. The doors close on blood and fabric and a forbidden glance.

To the remaining world, he whispers one word.

''Δηλητήριο.''

''Poison?'' Calliope echoes, frowning. ''It cannot be. Zeus had all the hemlock shrubs removed after the Phaedra incident.''

''Only this isn't hemlock, Calliope. This is something else. Something new.''

''Could it be lethal to us?''

''Of course not, dimwit! Why would you even think that?''

''Look what it's done to her, Anteros! A powerful beauty, was she? I mean no disrespect my lord.''

Hephaestus considers himself a man of bravery and honor.

He isn't anywhere near as obnoxious as Plutus, or inconsiderate as Aergia, and twice the man Anteros pretends to be. But he must admit that the tendrils of pure darkness sprouting from the Master of Dreams’ shadow make him a tee tiny bit frightened.

They expand, licking across the polished floors, continuing their creeping journey toward the foot of the table, snuffing out all light and life from the closest particles of this plane. The shadows grow, shape, de-shape and reshape in a senseless and endless twirl.

Calliope has always been braver than him.

She turns and in one graceful twirl places herself between the tendrils of darkness and her half-brother. Between the god and the Endless. She stares him down. He stares right back.

The tendrils tremble around the edges.

Chiron pinches the bridge of his nose wearily. A cherub sucks a thumb into his mouth, watching the game with bright amused eyes.

A shadow stills, the air turns sour.

A gasp is breathed, a heart is released.

A stranger-traveller springs from a table, cheered on by a collective shriek. A toddler tumbles from her table. A palm is pressed to her cheek, lovely brown eyes coming into view. Shadows retreat into the darkest parts of an ancient soul.

She breathes. She lives. She cries.

''Please, please, don't send me off on a burning boat.''

-

A/N: yes I am alive, no, I’m not sorry (a tiny bit still).

Also… finally introducing the premise, how do we feel about that ;)

Gotta sort the rest of my drafts before I update again, but I’m currently working on a Sandman x DBD crossover so updates on this series might take a while. And since the algorithm seems to be against me, I'd recommend a follow to be sure not to miss them!

[samobservessonic]

After the most intense two weeks of my then eight-year-old life trying to guess what would happen next, we return to the narrative where Sonic believes he’s killed his friends. At least enough time has passed that randos in a bar have started talking about it, while a hooded Sonic angstily sips his cola. Is angstily a word? Probably not, but I’m making it one now

Watch out, it’s Sonic the Hedgehog! That guy killed his friends, apparently!

The lighting on this whole scene! Man, I wish we still had the Elson's colouring from this era in the Sonic brand somewhere now

With that, Super Sonic is back. He’s appearing more lately because Sonic absorbed a lot of chaos energy when he fell in that emerald pit, but I doubt the stress of Sonic thinking he’s killed the others is helping him keep very calm in any situation

Thankfully, his very much still alive friends are tracking him down

Super Sonic’s biggest reaction to finding out they’re still alive is that now he gets to kill them again

Amy takes control of the situation, talking to Super Sonic to keep him distracted. It’s no wonder I was immediately drawn to how cool she is in StC as a kid

Remember in the Holiday Special last time when I said the Star Post would be making another appearance again soon? Well, here it is. This Star Post is about to be a big part in the resolution of this arc

There’s a lot of me pointing at stuff in this arc and saying “Look at how cool this is!” but really, look at how cool this is!

Time out time for you, sir

Then we get this glorious page of Super Sonic trying to escape before he’s pulled in. We still don’t have any context for what the Freedom Fighters are trying to do, just that it’ll be bad news if they don’t succeed

And here we have one of the biggest developments in StC - they might’ve managed to rip the chaos energy out of Sonic, but Super Sonic isn’t gone. No, instead we now have the distinct possibility that he has become entirely separate from Sonic. Trust me when I say they’re going to run with this idea

We end on this alarming note, with the Freedom Fighters realising they have to get Sonic out of here before they stop to reflect on it. With their caravan gone, their places to hide are surely more limited than before ALSO while it's on my mind, it shows the strength of Running Wild that we've had this whole arc without any of the villains involved and it still manages to be the most intense story in the comic so far