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lovelyirony · 5 years ago

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Fic title meme : pulvis et umbra sumus (We Are Dust And Shadows)

On every single document, including the ones that show what actually happened to Howard and Maria Stark, Tony Stark is listed as dead among them.

He is not.

But in not calling in the accident on the abandoned road, Tony managed to find someone else to take his place and escaped.

Tony Stark is dead. A whole family funeral and everything. Obadiah pretends to cry. Tony is at the funeral with shitty dye in his hair and sunglasses that he wouldn’t be caught dead wearing. Ha.

The funeral is closed casket. All their faces are rumored to be impossible to fix with make-up.

He makes new documents. Anthony Jarvis, from Boston. Airtight background. Likes puzzles. Scored damn high on the SAT, but not the perfect score.

(Killed him to answer some of those questions wrong, seriously.)

Anthony Jarvis goes to MIT and requests a single room. He gets one for one semester, and then the room next to his burns and destroys his as well. So he gets moved to Jim Rhodes’.

Jim becomes Rhodey, and he is the first friend of Anthony Jarvis, and nicknames him Tony.

He grins at that.

There are plenty of times that Tony wants to tell him. The thing about secrets is that they need to be shared. No one really wants a secret, nor do they want to keep it. But he keeps his mouth shut and asks if he wants to go for Thai food.

“This is the third time this week.”

“Not my fault it’s good! I’ll pay...”

“Sign me up.”

Tony and Rhodey gets Thai food. It’s good.

Rhodey lets him in on a secret that Tony had actually known about since his room assignment.

(You remember that guy’s room that caught on fire? Yeah, he swore that his microwave hadn’t been on, and nothing had been plugged in. He was right. But Tony needed an accident.)

In other circumstances, Rhodey would have ignored the offer that he had. He had had his heart set on Air Force. But there was something about the man who talked to him.

“It’s a place called Strategic-Homeland-something I can’t remember,” Rhodey says. “Point is, they’re a big deal and kind of shady, but not in the government shady kind of way. The only thing I can find out about them is that they’re an international company who need engineers, pilots, and basically anyone like you and me. I don’t know how I feel about it.”

Tony nods.

“You want me in on this?”

“I mean, you did tell me a couple of weeks ago that you weren’t sure what you wanted to do after graduation.”

(It was two weeks, three days, and fourteen hours ago. Not like he was counting.)

“...thanks. I’ll check it out with you.”

Anthony Jarvis shows up in a nice suit, stupid sunglasses, and impresses the higher-ups by diagnosing a problem with the engine that others had previously marked as “impossible.”

He’s hired on the spot, same as Rhodey.

Tony Jarvis gets his own keycard, finds an apartment in New York that’s within at least biking distance, and gets started on inventing some cute little toys for the spies in Research and Development.

He brings the laser-lipstick to life, poison-drop-earrings, spyglasses that actually work and have HD, and briefcases that use mirroring technology to change color.

“How did you do this?” Rhodey asks, eyes wide. “I swear this is unreal.”

“Aw,” Tony says. “You sap. I got some inspiration from some old comic book ads. I think I’m gonna try a ring decoder next, what do you think?”

“Almost makes me want to go on missions instead of flying them.”

Tony Jarvis is known for working odd yet long hours. He comes up with results. And he keeps his head down and minds his own business.

This is all to find out exactly who killed his parents. As much as his and Howard’s relationship was...interesting, he still wanted to know.

His desire to know the truth leads to somewhere he hadn’t thought was possible: Hydra.

His hands freeze as he looks at the paper file with thick, black lines all over. The information there was sparse. Howard, Maria, and Anthony Stark all died. It was ruled:

And there’s nothing there.

It wasn’t an accident. Sure he knew that, but there was something far more sinister at play. Why wasn’t it an accident?

He gets Alexander Pierce in his apartment with a man in the corner. His arm gleams in what little light from the lamps outside give off.

“Why are you searching for the Stark files?” He asks.

“Why didn’t you just schedule a meeting? I’m available tomorrow at three,” Tony jokes. “Who’s your friend here?”

“Someone you wouldn’t want to shake hands with,” Pierce answers. “You need to stop looking into this before you find yourself in a situation you don’t want to be in.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Accidents will happen,” Pierce says. He gets up from the table, to the counter. Gets out a glass. And makes himself water. He smiles as he looks to the man in the corner. “Do you want any water, Winter Soldier?”

Winter Soldier remains impassive.

Tony stills.

“So, the legends are true. And Hydra is still around.”

“And if you aren’t careful, you won’t be,” Pierce says. “Don’t bring any of this up. Or this won’t be the last time you see Winter Soldier. I know your moves, Jarvis. Don’t think you can surprise me.”

They exit the apartment. Tony realizes that Pierce took his glass.

And he laughs.

Because this? Not according to plan, but god he’s gonna have fun with it.

It starts with telling Rhodey who he actually is.

It does not go as planned.

“So let me get this straight. I’ve known you for years and you just. Never told me?” Rhodey asks. “Why not?”

“To be completely fair, no one knows besides a man in Wisconsin, and he’s from Wisconsin,” Tony says. “Also I was drunk. Drunk me is a terrible person who would sell me for a buffalo nickel.”

“I’m still mad, even if that’s funny,” Rhodey says, trying not to smile. “So. Why tell me now? I’m assuming you need something.”

“I would like your help,” Tony says. “It is not required but I am toppling a secret organization living in SHIELD and I think if I get your help, I will most likely not get fired by the end of this. Fury likes you, he hates me.”

“False, he mildly tolerates you. You’ll be fine. Probably. Who else should we get to help?”

Tony had originally planned for no one.

But then there was Pepper Potts.

She had been deemed by the media as “crazy” for accusing Obadiah Stane, longtime-CEO of Stark Industries, as ordering a hit out on the Stark family.

She had been booted from the company--anticipated--and then Hydra had ordered a hit on her.

Slightly unexpected.

Point is, Rhodey brings her into the apartment and tells Tony casually that the grocery store had run out of his usual hummus brand, was the generic okay?

“That’s like asking if I’m okay with blue pens,” Tony curses. “Also, is that Pepper Potts? Why is she here? Did you run into her at the grocery store?”

“No, as I was coming back. Did you know that she has a hit out on her? Fun times.”

“Oh my god, will someone explain to me what’s going on here?!” Pepper seethes. “I was just trying to get my yogurt without anyone taking a picture of me and some random fucking guy had a knife thrown at me and then this guy took me to your house!”

She then rants for ten minutes about the “questionable design choices going on in this establishment, who honestly thinks shot glasses are a decoration?!”

“Are you done?” Tony asks. “Because if you want to help with a conspiracy plot, you need to be done.”

She is.

Pepper does not get a job with SHIELD. In fact, she mainly just decides to take care of the redecoration in Tony’s apartment.

“You will be paying me for this.”

“Why would I do that? You’re using my money to buy everything. You’re living here rent free for now.”

“Because I’m helping you make better life choices. I also want new shoes.”

What Pepper does is provide very valuable access to Stark Industries: she knows the ins and outs, what employees do and don’t do, and also is very helpful in telling Tony what he needs to do when he takes the company over.

“Who said I was going to take it over?”

“Me,” Pepper says. “Also because I reviewed every single old document and the company was specified to go to next-of-kin. You are. And you’re not dead.”

“My death certificate is literally framed,” Tony says, pointing to his graduation photo that Rhodey took. He had swapped out his official diploma with it as a joke. No one had seen it. He thought it was hilarious.

“Yeah, but they can do DNA testing,” Pepper says. “This is like the twenty-first century Anastasia except this time they don’t find you with metal detectors!”

“I don’t like that you know that story as well as you do,” Rhodey says. “But I’ll leave you a credit card for furniture and groceries. If you get rid of my drinks in the fridge I’m literally never forgiving you.”

“Noted, and I don’t need forgiveness,” Pepper says. “But they’ll stay there.”

So begins the plot.

Pierce doesn’t know three things, which is a lot of things not to know:

1.) Tony Jarvis is not Tony Jarvis.

2.) Rhodey actually likes Tony and most of the time him saying that he would “kill Tony in a variety of ways, starting with sporks and moving forward...” is mostly (mostly) a joke.

3.) Pepper Potts resides in their apartment and is having fun telling Tony she bought new silverware.

“Why did you buy new silverware! It was fine!”

“I recognized all of these forks and knives from restaurants. Why did you steal them from restaurants?”

“They can replace them!”

“Don’t. Anyways now your spoons match and you don’t have the shitty ones from different places. Also I painted the bathroom.”

“My landlord is gonna kill me.”

“I made her cookies and discovered that she likes going to concerts. You’ll be fine.”

(Pepper is a goddess. You can’t convince them otherwise.)

Pierce doesn’t know any of this, but he still holds a key piece of blackmail: Tony Jarvis shouldn’t know about Hydra, and he’ll do anything to make sure that he doesn’t lose his job.

Tony has been recording their conversations for weeks.

(Pierce thinks he doesn’t design things to get around the available technology. Pathetic.)

He also has bugged Pierce as well as his house, and figures out that Winter Soldier is going to be on assignment within the DC area in an effort to kill some higher-up on the foodchain that was SHIELD.

Well.

Tony has always wanted to go and see the cherry blossoms a little more up close.

Pepper, of course, doesn’t like that they left his boots on.

“This couch is new and red,” she says. “Take off his boots!”

“He is unconscious and probably won’t be in the next fifteen minutes,” Rhodey says. “We are not touching him and possibly shortening that fifteen minutes.”

Winter Soldier wakes up to three faces staring at him.

“Mission failed?” he asks, voice robotic.

“Nope, you just got a new one,” says the man on the right. He is wearing a t-shirt. Winter Soldier thinks that in this situation, a t-shirt is not the best option.

(Of course, he’s not supposed to think. But they don’t have to know that.”

“Can you take your shoes off?” says the woman in the middle. “Please. You’re getting germs on the couch.”

He’s confused.

“Who am I killing?”

“No one, yet,” says the man on the left. “Do you know who you are?”

“Winter Soldier.”

“No, like a name? I’m assuming you’ve had a name at some point.”

“Someone has called me Mr. Freeze before.”

The man on the left snorts. Man on the right taps his arm lightly.

“Well, um, okay then. How do you feel about the name...aw shit. I can’t think of a name for you when your mask is on. Can you take the mask off?”

He takes it off. It’s nicer to breathe.

The man in the t-shirt pauses.

“Okay. So your name is Bucky Barnes. Do you know that name?”

Something clicked. But he doesn’t know what.

“Sounds...familiar.”

“Cool! So that’s your name now, do me a favor and don’t google it. I’m Tony, this is Rhodey, and this is Pepper. If you don’t take your shoes off, you’re going to be scared of her.”

Newly-named-Bucky highly doubts that he will be scared of Pepper because she is built like a twig and she is wearing high heels.

(He is wrong about ten minutes later when she forcibly throws a fork at him.)

“Why am I here?” he asks. “Should I be checking back in with Handler Pierce?”

“No,” comes the consensus from everyone else in the room.

“Technically, he thinks you went rogue and went back to Russia. He’s organizing a team to go get you. We hired an actor to play you. It’s been entertaining. He got some plums. Do you like plums?”

“Why is that relevant?”

“It’s vapid and not interesting at all, Tony loves questions like that,” Rhodey says. “Now come on. We need to get you actual shirts. Also some body wash.”

Bucky Barnes learns how to be a person. He stares at himself in the mirror for an hour and smiles slightly when Pepper calls him “vain” and pushes him aside to grab her hairbrush.

He then learns that Hydra is trying to overtake SHIELD and they have a slight window with Pierce out.

This involves two things:

1.) Tony Stark coming back from the dead.

2.) SHIELD panicking that they didn’t know this secret and taking another look at the paperwork, in which case Hydra will be found out.

These are both easier than anticipated. Tony can act like a showman better than anyone, and has been carefully growing a goatee that is eerily reminiscent of his late father’s. Of course he’s had to switch it up.

The media is going crazy. SHIELD as well. They’re scrambling to find paperwork that proves that it happened, and they find that the “accident” was no accident. That Howard hadn’t been working for the “enemy” at the time.

The enemy was in the building, and they had blended in seamlessly.

This all happens on a Wednesday, by the way. Pepper has it marked on the calendar and everything. Rhodey made his coffee.

Bucky is busy slamming people into drywall and listening for any word from Rhodey, who is also slamming people into drywall.

“You know, you’d think we’d get something like a suit of armor for this,” Rhodey pants out, slamming another guy out of his way.

Bucky nods.

“Best I can offer is a grenade.”

“Where in the fuck did you get a grenade?!”

“Supply closet. Second floor. What, you didn’t check?”

“No sorry must’ve missed it--of course I didn’t fucking check the second floor closet!” Rhodey yells.

Bucky says he’s stressed. He should calm himself.

Rhodey chucks a particularly nasty Hydra agent out a window.

(Bucky thinks Rhodey is probably the coolest person he’ll ever meet.)

Tony is fashionably late to the take-down of the century. He’s already foiled a lot of plans, and taken a key-card for Project Insight to work.

He waltzes in and nearly gets hit by a mug.

“So, how’s the party going?” he yells over to Pepper. Pepper is still in her heels. She looks like a goddess still, as usual. It is a Wednesday, after all.

“As fine as it can be,” Pepper says. “We’ve met some resistance. With Pierce gone there’s little infrastructure. You got his plane delayed, correct?”

“Even better. Got it sent to London. Motherfucker is gonna be there for a while,” Tony says. “Also may or may not have said that he was a threat. SHIELD branch there will investigate, find out some questionable things in his file that he will swear up and down were never there.”

“Good,” Pepper says. She launches a stapler at someone’s head. “Do you think we’ll have time to pick up takeout for dinner?”

“Depends on whether or not Deputy Director Hill is Hydra.”

They see Maria Hill pass by in a blur, yelling as she jumps onto a man and sends him crashing down over a railing.

“Lovely, she isn’t!” Pepper cheers. “By the way, I was thinking about redoing our kitchen.”

“‘Our’ kitchen?” Tony says, ducking a bullet and drawing out his personal lipstick-laser, firing it with expert precision. “I told you the living situation was temporary.”

“Oh please, you have an extra room.”

“Which was an office!” Tony tells her.

“Like you can’t have your office at Stark Industries,” Pepper says. “I expect to hear how the reveal went over dinner. Also, please hire me back. I don’t wanna be your interior decorator for forever.”

“Neither do I, you like modern art. Disgusting.”

And so the fighting resumes.

It is done by five-thirty-two, with an official surrender from Pierce.

“Thank god, I already ordered Chinese and they said it’d be here at six,” Rhodey says.

They all sit on the red couch.

Shoes on.

Tony tips four hundred percent.

“So what are we doing tomorrow?” Rhodey asks.

“I am not moving for six hours,” Bucky answers. “Also maybe getting a library card.”

“This is the first thing you want out of the icebox? A library card?” Tony asks, laughing.

Pepper laughs.

“I have errands to run. You can come with me and we’ll swing by.”

“What are the errands?”

“Getting a kitchen mixer and also making sure that my plates match my napkins.”

“A travesty if it doesn’t happen,” Rhodey deadpans. “Pass the lo mein, Tony. You’re hogging it.”

“I had to fight on a Wednesday and run,” Tony says. “Today isn’t cardio day.”

“Literally hate it when you speak,” Rhodey says. “Absolutely abhor your language.”

They go to bed, although it’s more of laying on the floor.

Sure, Tony will have to deal with retaking a business that he knows a bit less about and Pepper will have to be trained (again) and also fight against being made CEO (but she won’t fight much). Rhodey will get a new job with SI because it’s not like Tony will let him work at SHIELD (Rhodey tries, Tony will get him fired at some point). Bucky just...he needs to get a bit more than a library card.

But that’s for tomorrow.

#BUCKLE IN BOYS WE GOT A LONGGGGGG ONE #bucky barnes #tony stark #rhodey #pepper potts #yes this took all day yes i didn't proofread it #but i love this so much #lovelyirony writes

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steppedoffaflight · 4 years ago

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Summer’s a Knife - Chapter 1

“You know, if they’re really buggin’ you…” Van’s voice is quiet, but it cuts through the soft background noise of the street. He gives another one of his shrugs, as if what he’s about to say next isn’t important. “We could head back up to my room,” He finishes.

Your annual birthday trip with your best friend to San Diego ends in a chance encounter with Van McCann.

A/N: Clearly I’ve just created this blog and popped up out of nowhere, but I wanted somewhere separate to post my writing. This is a full length fic that is (almost) finished and I plan to post a new chapter once a week. It’s incredibly long and I’ve been working on this universe forever so if you’d like to come talk about it in my ask please do lmao.

Word count: ~11k

Chapter One

January 2019

Every single year you debate driving down to San Diego for your birthday.

But once you’re there, welcomed into the city by bustling shops and their neon signs, the smell of the ocean and the sound of the waves crashing against the shore, the comfort of your usual hotel and the good company you bring with you, you never doubt this tradition.

It started three years ago, making this your fourth trip down here. At first it had been impulsive, a dangerous combination of your desire to run away after dealing with your family for the Christmas holidays and your best friend Mary’s down-for-anything attitude. You two had packed up and made the 3 hour drive from L.A., making a hotel reservation on the fly. After a relaxing weekend shopping, laying out on the beach, and forgetting about all the chaos of the holidays, you two returned back home refreshed, renewed, and determined to make this a usual thing.

And so it became. The next January you two made your return voyage, this time scheduling the trip so it landed on your birthday, which only amplified the excitement and festivities. That’s how the tradition remained; despite internal debates between you and Mary about whether you could afford it, and whether the drive was worth it when you could easily do something fun closer to home, you two faithfully continued to celebrate your birthday in this fashion.

This year is no different from any other, except for the addition of Theo, Mary’s boyfriend. She was dating him on your last birthday, but not long enough for you two to guarantee he wouldn’t spoil your fun. By this year, however, he was practically a second best friend to you, fitting into you and Mary’s clique nicely.

After a long, afternoon car ride in traffic under the blistering California sun and a two-hour debate over the music, the three of you have finally arrived and checked in to your hotel. And once you’re finally out on the hotel room balcony, looking down at the sprawling view of the beach and sparkling ocean, you know that despite your doubts this was so worth it.

After getting settled in and some light shopping, your first order of business is getting some food, preferably something greasy and carb-y. Thankfully, there’s a bar right across the street from the hotel that has excellent reviews and some amazing photos of bar burgers online, so you three decide to have dinner there.

It’s a quaint place, a narrow building fighting for sidewalk space, but considering its positive reputation and its proximity to the hotel it’s packed. It takes a good forty-five minutes to be seated at a small round table near the outer edge of the room, and still some time after that for someone to be available to place your orders, but eventually everyone has hot food and cold drinks.

And even after the food is gone the drinks keep flowing, the three of you ringing in your annual trip by ordering rounds of whatever drink name sounded the most interesting.

“You know,” Mary starts when Theo brings back a tray of mixed drinks that have sliced strawberries laying at the bottom of the glass, “I think that guy’s been staring at you.”

You roll your eyes. “Stop.”

“I’m serious!” Mary insists, her voice raising slightly. “I thought maybe he was into Theo, but he didn’t check him out when he went to get drinks. He’s been glancing at you.”

“Lost another man to Y/N,” Theo shrugs.

“You’ve lost zero men to me,” you correct him sternly, “Because men are not interested in me.”

“Not true!” Mary argues. “I’m literally watching someone be interested in you!”

“Is he a creep?” You lean forward to whisper. Mary keeps glancing over your shoulder, so you know he’s behind you, and you’re absolutely determined not to turn around and make a scene trying to take a peek at him.

“No! He seems normal.”

You sigh. She’ll never get off your case unless you humor her. “What’s he look like?”

Mary narrows her eyes, takes a long sip of her drink, and seems to mull over her next words. “Really… normal. Floppy kinda hair. But not in a Justin-Bieber-swoopy way, ya know? Clean shaven. Simple clothes. Can’t really see if he’s got tattoos or anything.”

You try to piece together a mental image. “What color hair?”

“Eh. It’s hard to see in this light. I think brown. Maybe black?”

“How do you know he’s looking at me?”

“He’s not like, staring at you,” Mary looks down quickly, pretends to be interested in the drink menu. “Oh fuck, I think he saw me looking.” She points to a random picture of a drink, pretending to look interested. “He’s mostly on his phone, but he’ll glance over once in a while.”

“Who’s he with?”

“Nobody. I think.”

“So he’s just sitting at a table alone?”

“He’s not at a table,” Mary chances a glance up. “He’s sitting at the bar. I haven’t seen him talk to anyone so yeah, I think he’s here alone.”

“Good to know,” you murmur, taking a long sip of your drink. “Anyway…”

Your efforts to get a new conversation going last for a little while, but Mary stays persistent.

“You should go get us another round,” She suggests.

You narrow your eyes at her, lifting your half-full glass. “We don’t need another round!”

“I do,” She insists, and with an obnoxious slurping noise she gulps up what’s left in her glass through her straw.

“That’s lovely,” You nod, “Enjoy grabbing yourself one.”

Theo snorts at that. Mary is not amused.

“Y/N!” She huffs.

“What?” An edge of irritation has crept into your voice from her persistence. “Why are you always trying to matchmake me? I’m just trying to enjoy my birthday weekend!”

“Hey, you’re the one that told me you wanted this year to be different for you! You know, try new things, put yourself out there, get out of your comfort zone, all that good stuff! What better place to put yourself out there than somewhere away from home?”

You let out a long, agitated sigh. Of course Mary would turn the heart-to-heart you guys had last week into excuses for her meddling.

“This isn’t what I meant,” You huff. “I didn’t mean pick up a random creepy stranger the second I get to San Diego! I more meant, like, I wanted to go on more dates! Have more nights out with you! Get a better job!”

“Plus,” You continue, encouraged by her silence, “I was talking about the year in general. No need to rush into this weekend!”

Mary lets you finish, listening carefully to your rebuttal. But you know better, bracing yourself for her next point after she takes a long sip of her drink.

“Obviously, you have all year.” She states it like it’s an obvious fact, adjusting the hair hanging over her shoulder. “But hear me out, and stay with me here: To set up the rest of the year so that you can enjoy yourself, like freely going on dates, you’re going to have to break your dry spell.” She says the last part with her hands pressed together in prayer position, her fingertips pointing towards you.

Mary lets the first part of her message sink in while it’s your turn to sip your drink. When you’re done you fidget with your straw, eager for something to do while your cheeks heat up in a mild blush. It’s not like it’s any secret that you’ve been busy and haven’t been on a date in a… long time, and as a consequence have not been having sex, but you can’t help but duck your head, feeling called out.

“So to enjoy the rest of the year, you’ve got to do some preparation. Like jumping in a pool, right? If you want to swim, you’ve got to get in the cold water first. So I’m saying have some fun this weekend, and then you’ll be warmed up to do all the crazy, uncomfortable shit you want to this year.”

She was right, but you won’t admit it. And even if she’s right, there’s still no chance, ever, in a million years, that you’re going to go hit on a random guy at the bar.

“Mary,” You say sternly, “I am not hitting on a random ass man in this bar. The end.”

Theo, well-accustomed to the bickering that occasionally happens between you guys, finally clears his throat. Mary doesn’t say anything either. It’s obvious that the conversation is over, and the matchmaking topic is best dropped for the time being.

You take the last sip of your drink, surprised when the straw slurps.

“I’m gonna go get another round,” You tell them, and don’t bother to take their orders. You use the moment to collect yourself, heading for the bathroom first, and that’s when you see him.

He’s just as Mary described; hunched over his phone, thumbing the screen while he takes idle sips from a bottle of beer. He’s in a dark jacket, collar pulled tight to his neck, and dark jeans. You can see his knee bouncing anxiously where it’s bent so that his feet can rest on the bar of the stool. As you pass by him, a necessary evil to get to the bathroom, he looks up. He looks away just as quick, but his eyes flit back to yours, the two of you making awkward eye contact for a millisecond before he’s looked away yet again. He sets his phone down on the bar, his fingers nervously running through his hair as he looks to the bartender as if he’s going to order, but you notice he doesn’t. You’re overly aware of the breeze between your bodies as you awkwardly step behind him, but once you’ve shimmied between him and another table you’re in the clear, ducking your head down and trying to make it to the bathroom a little faster.

When you head back to the table you make sure to walk around the perimeter of the room, avoiding the bar altogether.

The rest of the night is as fun as can be. Matchmaking topics are dropped, Mary is in a better mood when you return, and the drinks keep flowing until suddenly it’s last call.

“Aw,” Mary groans as the bartender makes the announcement a second time. “But I’m still having fun! What sort of bar in a city this busy isn’t open twenty-four hours?”

“That is pretty dumb on their part,” You nod. “They could make a lot of money.”

“Should we grab something? Or call it a night?” Theo asks, gesturing to his empty beer bottle.

“We have been here a while,” You realize when you check the time on your phone, which has been forgotten in the business of today. “Maybe we should call it a night.”

There’s a reluctant agreement to that until you guys stand up, shuffling your chairs back in place.

“Wait!” Mary exclaims, eyes shining as she throws her bag over her shoulder. “The hotel bar is open all night!”

Everyone’s mood seems to perk up at that suggestion, and you chew it over as you flip through your wallet, looking for some cash to pay your tab. You should probably be exhausted by now, considering the day you’ve had, but the hustle and bustle of the city at night makes it hard for you to feel tired.

“We could…” You trail off, glancing at Theo. He seems into the idea too, and by the time the three of you have paid your tabs and merged with the crowd of people heading for the doors, your plans to continue the night are set.

The sun had set when you guys make it outside, the sky blanketing the street in a navy blue, barely any stars visible from the light pollution. The neon light from the bar sign shines over the cement, and for a moment in the quiet air the chime of the door opening and closing is the only sound.

“C’mon,” Mary giggles, and you realize you've been swimming in your own thoughts, drunker than you expected to be. She leads the way, fearlessly dashing onto the street as you and Theo stumble behind. You can see headlights making their way towards you, but they’re far enough away and you cross safely.

As soon as the car passes, and the street is shrouded in darkness again, you see him. The guy in the dark jacket is crossing too, a little ways down the road, hands buried in his pockets, head bowed towards the ground.

Instantly his presence sets you on high alert, your stomach feeling uneasy and heart palpitating. Theo and Mary are already headed through the hotel doors and you follow behind them, praying the guy hasn’t seen you. He was far enough down the street that it didn’t seem like he was coming to the hotel, but you can’t shake the fear that there’s a sinister connection between the way Mary and Theo said he couldn’t take his eyes off of you and the way you were both headed in the same direction.

The hotel lobby is warm and glowing, and despite the late hours there are still people bustling about. You usher Mary and Theo away from the doors under the guise of trying not to block anyone’s way. You check over your shoulder in a fit of paranoia, but there’s no strange man in a dark jacket to be seen through the glass. You breathe a small sigh of relief.

“I need to go back up to the room,” Mary announces, and you see she’s examining herself in the black screen of her phone. “My makeup’s smeared everywhere.”

“I’m sure mine is too,” You agree. “Let’s head up there real quick.”

“I’m gonna go have a smoke, then,” Theo says, “So just come meet me out there when you’re done. Don’t take forever!”

You and Mary promise not to take too long before heading for the elevators, unsteady on your feet and overly giggly.

You realize that Mary was right as one of you finally gets the room key to work, and you both dash to fix yourselves up as quick as you can. You didn’t feel the slightest bit tired, and instead you were actually excited to keep the night going. Maybe it was just the alcohol pumping through your veins, but you felt a sudden surge of gratefulness for her as you dabbed away a bit of smeared mascara from your under eye.

“You were right,” you say out loud.

Mary is leaned over the bathroom sink next to you, and you watch her eyebrows furrow. “About what?”

“Tonight,” You say, grabbing for your hairbrush. San Diego humidity has made your hair resemble a frizzy bird’s nest, and you try to smooth it back out. “It’s just got that kind of vibe, you know? You were right about needing a round two.”

“Right?” Mary gestures with her hands, makeup sponge almost hitting you in the face.

“You’re good at getting me out of my comfort zone,” You admit.

“Exactly!” Mary seems overjoyed at this admission, and she turns to you, putting her hands on your shoulders. “That’s what best friends are for! That’s my fucking job! And I’m fucking good at it!”

You two realize how drunk you sound and burst out laughing, steadying yourselves on the marble counter.

“Okay, okay,” You say as you start to catch your breath, “C’mon, Theo’s waiting!”

“Ah, fuck him,” Mary jokes, gathering up her things and shoving them back into her purse before following you out into the hall.

“Speaking of,” Mary groans, before bringing her phone up to her ear. “Hi, babe!” She chirps happily, before rolling her eyes at you. You can’t stifle your laughter.

“We’re headed downstairs right now,” Mary confirms as she pushes the call button on the elevator. “Okay, we’ll come to you.”

Down in the lobby, you two navigate your way out of the hotel and around the corner of the building, based on the instructions Theo had given Mary on the phone.

“Hey,” Mary greets Theo when she rounds the corner. You’re right behind her, but when you turn the corner you stop in your tracks.

“Hey, guys,” Theo greets you both easily. Mary is tucking herself under his arm while another figure standing next to him watches. You recognize the dark jacket instantly, and your mouth goes dry.

You realize you’re an awkward distance away from your friends, and force yourself to step closer, watching the other man take a puff of his cigarette.

“This is Van,” Theo tells you both, taking a drag of his cigarette. He exhales before motioning between you two. “Van, this is Mary, my girlfriend, and this is Y/N, her best friend.”

“Ah, Mary, that’s me mum’s name,” the british accent that comes out of the stranger startles you, and you watch as Van reaches his hand out for a handshake with Mary. “Lovely name,” He laughs. Mary takes his hand happily, and they laugh about her name for a brief moment before he’s suddenly turned to you.

“And Y/N, that’s a great name too,” You can see his grin in the darkness. “Don’t know anyone named that, but it’s a lovely name regardless.” He extends his hand to you, and you swallow thickly as you take it. His hand envelops yours, and there’s a warmth that lingers even after the handshake is done.

“So’s Van,” You say after you’ve realized how impolite your silence must seem. “Never met anyone with that name either.”

“Yeah, It’s after Van Morrison,” He quips, “But when I was born my name was Ryan. Bet you’ve met someone with that name.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Mary speaks up suddenly. You smile at the mention of an ex-fling.

“Bad associations, huh?” Van seems to find it funny, beaming at her. “Well everyone calls me Van, so hopefully that’ll be alright.”

“Anyway, before you guys walked out, I was just telling Van that he should join us tonight,” Theo chimes in. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“Yeah!” Mary, of course, is all for the idea even as your stomach continues to do somersaults. How strange was it that this guy actually was headed for the hotel? And even more strange that he ended up chatting with Theo!

Thankfully nobody notices your silence as Van tries to brush off the invite, Theo and Mary playfully pressuring him into it.

“Please!” Mary begs, “It’ll be so fun. It’s Y/N’s birthday, so the more the merrier!”

Van turns back toward you, face still covered in the grin that hasn’t left from the moment he shook your hand.

“Is it really?” He inquires, cocking his head.

“Tomorrow, technically,” You explain. “As in, it’s past midnight right now, so there’s all of today, and then it’s my birthday.”

“Oh, cheers, happy birthday. How old are ya?”

“Gonna be 24.”

“Ah, I loved 24,” Van lights up, taking a puff of his cigarette before gesturing with his hands. “One of the best years ever. Had the best fucking time.”

“How old are you, then?” You can’t help but ask.

“‘M 26. Gonna be 27 in the summer.”

“Oh. You made it sound like you were way older. Scared me.” The nagging anxiety that he’s some murderer that’s stalking you still tugs at your chest, but something about him keeps the conversation flowing, you volunteering information without thinking about it.

“Nah. Seems like forever ago, though.”

“So you’ll get drinks with us?” Mary cuts in excitedly.

“Well, I guess that’s up to the birthday girl,” Van laughs, gesturing to you. “Am I invited to the party?”

All of the sudden Theo, Mary, and Van are looking at you expectantly, and what were you supposed to do then?

“I mean, why not?” You can’t help but laugh, more in disbelief at how this night is turning out. “Like Mary said, the more the merrier, right?”

“Mary’s are always right,” Van nods in agreement. Him and Theo snuff out their cigarettes on the sidewalk before heading around the corner back towards the main doors.

You and Mary lag behind, Mary silently clapping in encouragement and you widening your eyes in an attempt to portray your anxiety.

“You said I was right about tonight!” She hisses as you two head through the front doors.

“About having more drinks!” You hiss back. “He’s some weirdo that’s been watching me all night and then followed me to the hotel!” You glance around for him, worried he heard, but thankfully you spot him with Theo heading into the hotel bar.

“Because you’re both at the same hotel and went across the street for drinks?” Mary asks, dubious. “He seems super nice!”

Your conversation dies out as you follow the boys to the table. It’s a small four-seater nestled in the corner, and with Mary naturally sitting next to Theo that leaves you next to Van.

In a quick motion Van’s grabbed the back of your chair from where he’s sitting, pulling it out for you.

“Oh, thanks,” You tell him, taken aback as you sit down.

“No problem,” He says casually, turning back towards Theo and continuing their conversation. You and Mary make eye contact, her eyes widening in what you can tell is pure delight.

“Let’s grab drinks,” Mary announces suddenly, hand coming to rest on Theo’s arm. He goes with her easily, leaving you and Van alone for a moment.

“I never get used to this kind of thing,” Van says. He turns toward you, but he’s looking past you at the rest of the bar. “Places being so busy at night.”

“That’s L.A. for you,” You sigh. “I guess technically we aren’t in L.A. right now, though. But still.”

Van nods in understanding. “Are you from L.A?”

“No,” You shake your head. “I’m from the midwest. From a much, much smaller town. But I live in L.A.”

“Ah. I’ve got a place there, too,” He tells you.

“Obviously you’re not from there,” You say, unable to help the smile that makes its way onto your face at the unspoken joke.

Van’s signature grin is back. “Obviously not,” He laughs. “Nah, I’m from somewhere much, much smaller, too. From the U.K., obviously.”

“Obviously,” You echo him, and you two share a smile before drinks are being set on the table, Mary and Theo having returned.

“So, Van,” Mary begins as she hands out everyone’s drinks. Van must’ve told Theo what he wanted, because there’s one for him that he accepts graciously. “What brings you to San Diego?”

“I’m in a band, actually. We’re called Catfish and the Bottlemen,” Van admits, taking a sip of his beer. “We’re on tour right now. Had a show here tonight.”

“No way! Where did you guys play?”

“The House of Blues.”

Mary sputters on her drink. “Holy shit!”

Van laughs, taking another sip. “Yeah, it was fucking incredible.”

“Sounds amazing,” Mary agrees. “We’ll have to check you guys out!”

“Yeah, for sure,” Van nods eagerly. “Y/N was just sayin’ she lives in L.A., next time we’re around there I could get you guys some tickets.”

“That’d be perfect,” Mary beams at him.

“You’re up late!” You can’t help but blurt out. You’d checked your phone while Mary and Van were talking, and it’s closer to morning than you thought.

You realize everyone at the table is looking at you and clear your throat, putting your phone face down back on the table. “I just mean, aren’t you exhausted? After doing a whole show?”

“Nah,” Van shrugs. “It’s such a rush, the adrenaline keeps me going after. I can’t just head back to the hotel and go to sleep. Keeps my heart pumping, you know?”

You nod, even though you can’t personally identify with the experience. Just like that, any awkwardness from your random exclamation is soothed away from Van’s laid-back response, and as conversation continues to flow easily again you can’t help but marvel at his charisma. Maybe Mary was right about him not being a potential murderer.

Van’s the first to notice when everyone’s low on drinks, and politely offers to go grab another round. Everyone else had been too preoccupied in their current discussion, which consisted of questioning Van on the different aspects of U.K. culture and stereotypes.

“Y/N, go help him,” Mary tells you, peering at you over the rim of her almost-empty glass. You blush and roll your eyes, but you listen.

Van’s already standing at the bar, so you try to strategize the least awkward way to come up behind him. Thankfully, he sees you out of the corner of his eye, turning towards you and giving you a small smile.

“Hey,” You start nervously, leaning on the countertop next to him. “Just thought you could use some help carrying this stuff back.”

“I could, actually,” Van smiles gratefully. “I ordered it before I realized there were four of us. Was kinda hoping you’d be the one to come help.”

You blush at his words, but try desperately not to read too much into it. “Sorry,” You say suddenly, and Van’s head cocks in confusion.

“About us grilling you back there,” You explain. “I’m sure you get those questions all the time. It’s probably annoying.”

Van’s easy-going shrug makes another appearance while you two watch the bartender mix up your drinks.

“I don’t mind,” He replies. “You guys are proper funny. Anything you wanna know, I’m happy to tell ya.”

You breathe a sigh of relief, another potentially awkward moment dissolving.

Midway through his beer, Van starts shouldering on his coat, which had been hanging on the back of his chair. Your stomach sinks as you realize this is probably his way of saying goodbye.

“Gonna head out for a smoke,” He tells the table, then nods to Theo. “You need one?”

“Nah, I’m good,” Theo declines, but there’s an edge to his voice that sounds like he’s being dishonest. You mull over why he just wouldn’t go have one when Mary pipes up.

“Y/N, you look like you need some air.”

Your eyebrows shoot up. “What?”

Van hesitates where he’s been pushing his chair back in.

“You’ve been yawning,” Mary explains, and her eyes widen at you for just a quarter of a second, trying to convey an urgent message. “Go get some fresh air.”

You can already feel your stomach tying itself in knots at the idea of being alone with Van. It was one thing to enjoy easy conversation with him in a group setting, never mind how he’s had to iron out your awkwardness more than once. It was a whole other thing to go pester him when you’re sure he wanted a minute alone. You stay frozen in your seat.

“Can’t have you yawning,” Van says from behind you, and you feel the back of his hand brush your shoulder playfully. “C’mon.”

You swallow hard but give in to the peer pressure, slowly rising from your seat. You glare at Mary before you turn to Van, who nods his head towards the door as you two head out together.

It’s a silent walk outside and around the corner, to the same spot you’d first met Van in just a couple hours prior. He fishes a box of cigarettes out of his coat pocket and pops one into his mouth, offering the open box to you.

“You smoke?” He inquires.

“No,” You tell him, and he goes to put the box back. “But gimme one,” You say quickly.

Van doesn’t question it, offering the box to you again. You pick one and Van fishes out a lighter.

“Ladies first,” He hums around his cigarette, and offers the flame of his lighter to you. Once your cigarette is lit he lights his own, and you watch him visibly relax as he takes his first drag.

Off the top of your head, you figure it’s been at least a year since you’ve had a cigarette. You’ve never done it as a habit, but you’re not opposed to having one on occasion, especially on nights like these when your nerves were making you crawl out of your skin. The taste isn’t pleasant, but it’s familiar, and it soothes you.

“I’m sorry about them,” You apologize after you two have had a moment of peace and quiet. “They’re being… obnoxious.”

Van tips his head back, exhaling a puff of smoke and laughing at the same time. “Ah, don’t be. I love ‘em.”

“That makes one of us,” You joke, soliciting another laugh from Van.

Silence lapses over you two, and it leaves too much space for you to realize how attractive he is, sneaking glances at his face the way you have been all night. You catch him looking at you and quickly divert your eyes down to the pavement. But when you look back up, he’s still looking.

Your stomach squeezes, sending any butterflies in there into an absolute frenzy. You stare at him in absolute shock as you try to process what he’s said.

“Or your room, if you prefer,” He tacks on, punctuating his offer with an inhale of his cigarette.

As he smokes you remember your own cigarette and take a puff from it, buying yourself time to try and weigh your options. It was hard to think rationally with your heart about to pound out of your chest, but in general the more the possibility turned over in your mind, the more your mind ticked off reasons it was a good idea; You were attracted to him, and if anything went wrong, you’d be in the safety of the hotel. Plus, besides for the fake-stalking incident you overreacted about, he hasn’t triggered one red flag, which is more than you can say about any date you’ve had in the past year.

“Well, considering we’re sharing a room,” You start, exhaling smoke, “it’s probably best if we go back to yours.”

Van laughs at that, tipping his head back to rest against the brick wall. “My room it is.”

You both finish up your cigarettes with a poignant silence hanging between you. It makes your mouth go dry and your hands shake, nerves getting the best of you, and you conceal it the best you can from Van, who seems cool as a cucumber. He’s looking at you openly now, desire written clearly on his face, and it feels like the temperature outside is rising when you meet his gaze.

“Ready to head back in?” He asks, done with his cigarette first, stomping it out.

You follow suit. “Yeah.”

Van keeps pace with you as you two head back into the hotel walking side-by-side, his hands buried in his pockets. He gets the lobby door for you, gesturing dramatically, and you laugh, feeling some of your anxiety melt away.

“I have to grab my bag,” You tell him as you two head for the elevators, which is past the hotel bar. “And tell them where I’m going.”

“Course,” Van replies, letting you lead the way to the bar.

You turn to him just as you’re about to walk in. “What’s your room number?”

A slight smile tugs at the corners of his lips. “337,” He tells you.

He hangs back as you head to the table, the gravity of what you’re about to tell Mary and Theo finally hitting you.

“Hey guys,” You say nervously as you approach. They’re wide-eyed and silent, obviously curious about how your moment alone with Van had gone.

“So, I’m gonna head up to his room,” You explain slowly, grabbing your bag off of the seat of your chair. “He’s in room 337 in case I go missing.”

“No way!” Mary exclaims, and you see her peering around your body towards where Van is standing. “I can’t fucking believe this!”

“Are you guys gonna be okay without me?” You ask. You’re mostly kidding, but there’s an edge to your voice. “I mean, this is for my birthday and all, so if you wanted me to stick around I-”

“Oh my god,” Mary says, exasperated, but she’s grinning. Theo is too. “Shut up and go! Get on with it!” She makes an exaggerated shooing gesture with her hands, before she mimes pushing you away from the table.

“Remember to use a condom!” Are her parting words as you head back to where Van’s leaned against the wall by the entrance.

“Like I said…” You say as you approach, knowing he’s seen the entire exchange even if he couldn’t hear it. He’s beaming, and when you look over your shoulder you see Theo and Mary giving you both a thumbs up, waving you away. “...Sorry about them.”

Van doesn’t seem bothered in the slightest, leading the way to the elevator. It’s pretty late, the amount of people awake at this hour starting to become sparse, so the elevator comes immediately when Van calls it. Predictably, he lets you on first before he trails behind, punching the button for his floor.

The wait for the elevator to make it to the third floor is about as awkward as it usually is, maybe a little less considering there were no strangers in your breathing space. You flip through your phone even though it’s got no service and nothing will load, and Van opts to gaze around, looking lost in thought. When the elevator comes to a halt and the doors slide open, Van presses his hand to the seam of the doors so you can safely exit before he follows.

“Do you always let everyone go first?” You can’t help but ask as he leads you down the hall and around a corner.

“Um,” He seems confused at the question as he pats his pockets, clearly looking for the room key. “I mean, it’s different with my mates, but usually I do. Is that not something you do here?”

“Holding the door? Yeah, sure, but I’ve never met anyone who does it as… consistently as you.”

Van’s found the key card in the inner pocket of his jacket, and he comes to a stop in front of room 337.

“Raised with good manners, I guess,” Is his explanation as he gets the room unlocked. He turns the knob but still lets you in first, your bodies brushing slightly in the narrow doorway. It gives you goosebumps.

You don’t know what you were expecting to walk into, but you’re pleasantly surprised that his room is just like any other suite. It’s a bit more spacious than yours, but that’s due to the fact he’s only got one bed, a king bed that looks so soft it practically makes your eyes water. It’s still impeccably made, the entire room untouched except for his luggage arranged nicely by the room air conditioning unit.

“This room is nice,” He remarks from behind you after he’s put the chain on the door. “I haven’t been in here yet, not gonna lie, I was a little nervous about what we’d be walking in to.”

“Whose stuff is that?” You ask in confusion, pointing at the suitcases.

“Oh, that’s mine. Someone from the crew brings ‘em up.”

“I see,” You murmur, as Van shrugs his jacket off and slings it over the chair resting at the desk.

“Want something to drink?” He asks, and when you look at him you notice there’s a gift basket resting on the desk, a corked bottle of wine and glasses perfectly arranged inside.

“Yeah, sure,” You agree, setting your purse down on the desk while he procures a corkscrew from the basket.

“I’m gonna freshen up real quick,” You tell him as he goes about trying to open the bottle. You linger for just a moment, watching the way the tip of his tongue sticks out of his mouth in concentration and the fabric of his button up shirt strains over his arms before you walk away.

When you come back into the room Van’s sitting on the bed against the headboard, legs stretched out in front of him and crossed over each other. He’s messing around on his phone, and on each of the bedside tables there’s a full glass of red wine, Van’s with slightly less than yours.

“Jeez, at least take your shoes off,” You laugh, his black boots looking sorely out of place on the white duvet. He looks up at you, then, his gaze following you while you make your way to the empty side of the bed and take a seat.

“Just my shoes?” He inquires, a mischievous smile appearing. But he sets his phone aside, leaning forward and unzipping his boots, chucking them off.

“And your socks, duh,” You joke, and he obeys, and soon his bare feet are exposed.

“That all?” He asks, the pitch of his voice lower than it’d been a second ago. It makes your heart skip a beat, and you swallow thickly.

In a sudden rush of boldness you reach over, giving the fabric of his button up a quick tug. “This too, maybe.”

“Ah, but it’s got so many buttons,” Van says in faux-concern. It’s so cheesy, and you can tell he knows it from the grin on his face, but you climb up onto your knees on the bed anyway.

“I can help,” You try to keep a straight face while you say it, but a laugh manages to bubble up despite your best efforts. Still, it doesn’t stop you from completing the task, undoing his buttons only to reveal a black t-shirt underneath.

“Sort of anti-climactic,” You tell him.

“S’ exactly why I needed help,” He tells you, leaning forward. “Two is just too much work.”

You slide your palms over his shoulders, easing the button up off of him. The slide of your hands against his arms is the first real skin-on-skin contact you’ve had, and the feeling of his smooth skin and soft hairs is strange and exciting.

“There you go,” You hum, tossing the shirt away from the bed. There’s a moment of panic where you wonder if maybe he’s someone who’s particular about his clothes, and you could’ve just thrown some sort of priceless designer shirt on the floor like it was nothing. But from the way he’s looking at you it’s clear a shirt on the floor is the last thing on his mind, and you exhale in relief.

“Alright, round two,” You say quietly, but Van shakes his head.

“I’ve got this one,” He murmurs. “Just needed help with the buttons.” One of the corners of his mouth quirks up, and suddenly he’s pinched the hem of your shirt between his index finger and his thumb and given it a slight tug. “You worry about yours.”

You oblige, trying to get your top over your head as gracefully as possible. Van’s tugged his t-shirt off in record time, and you jump when you feel his cold hands help you get your shirt the rest of the way off.

Instinctually you go for his belt, starting to get into the rhythm of how these things go. He lays there quietly while you get it unbuckled and tuck your fingers against the warm skin of his stomach to unbutton his jeans, and tilts his hips up obediently so you can shimmy them down his legs.

There’s a heavy moment where you take him in, laying back against the headboard in only his briefs. He’s got a smattering of dark hair no matter where you look; over his thighs, on his chest, in a thin line making its way under the waistband of his underwear.

“No fair.” Van finally interrupts your gazing. “I’m the only one not wearing pants.”

It takes all your willpower to rip your eyes away from his form, but you stand up from the bed, unbuttoning and starting to peel your skin tight jeans off of your legs. He watches you the whole time, and you blame his gaze and your self-consciousness for throwing you off balance as you kick your pants off of your ankles, almost falling over.

Van is sitting up straight in a flash, his hand shooting out to steady you. It lands on your hip, his fingers digging into the skin right above your underwear, and you look up at him, gasping in a mix of mortification and surprise.

“Ya good?” Van asks quietly as you steady yourself.

“Yeah, yeah,” You assure him, although you can feel your face heating up from the blunder. Van withdraws his hand and it feels like the most frustrating thing in the world, your body screaming for more.

“Sorry,” You apologize nervously as you get back on the bed, making your way over Van’s long legs and settling down next to him.

Van seems amused at your apology. “No worries,” He assures you, turning his head so he’s facing you. His face is way too close, self consciousness burning through you as you two examine each other from mere inches away.

His hand comes to rest on your side again, this time landing on the skin right under the band of your bra, and before you can inevitably make the moment awkward by any means necessary he’s leaned in, and your lips melt together.

It’s a bit chaste, but definitely not the worst kiss you’ve ever received. After a few beats Van pulls away.

“Sorry,” He grunts, shifting his body weight. “This is such a weird way to sit. My arm’s getting crushed.” He tries to move himself from where he’s pinned his shoulder against the headboard in order to face you.

You make the snap decision in that moment to slide down from where you’re sitting so that you’re laying down.

“Here,” You tell him, “Let’s try it this way.”

From the way Van’s eyes travel up and down your body, you know he’s caught your drift.

“Yeah,” He smirks, laying down next to you. With a few minor adjustments he’s got most of his body weight pressing you down onto the bed, his nose just barely brushing yours. “This might work a bit better.”

Then he’s kissing you again. You’ve already got the chills from the way his body is pressing tight against yours, but once the kiss deepens, Van’s tongue pressing into your mouth, you can’t help but shiver. Van feels it and must think you’re cold, because a second later his palm is rubbing over your arm like he’s trying to warm you up.

Any trace of chastity or awkwardness from the initial kiss has completely disappeared, revealing Van’s true talents as a kisser, and with every second that passes you feel him climbing up your makeout leaderboard. His mouth is absolutely incredible, and tastes like the glass of red wine he’s got sitting on the nightstand, and you can’t get enough, your hand instinctively coming to tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck. You don’t expect him to moan, the sound so satisfying your body reacts on it’s own, your back arching as much as it possibly can with him pressing you down. It only encourages Van, who exhales sharply out of his nose, the hot air brushing over your cheek, the kiss becoming more desperate.

You two separate to breathe, every inhale causing Van’s chest to brush against yours.

“Christ,” Van says quietly, and the way his voice is rough around the edges sends another shiver down your spine. He gets off of you, sitting up and reaching over for his glass of wine. You take the opportunity to sit up too, unclipping your bra and sending it over the edge of the bed. You cup your breasts in your hands, not yet ready for Van to see you exposed, but you work up some courage after a few moments, letting them go in favor of using your hands to shimmy out of your underwear.

There’s the soft clink of Van setting his wine glass back down, and when you dare to glance over at him his expression is neutral, his eyes flitting over you.

“No fair,” You start, but have to stop to clear your throat. Van’s eyes dart up to meet yours, listening intently.

“I’m the only one naked,” You parrot his joke from earlier, and give him a nervous smile.

“Yeah,” Van’s long fingers come up to scratch at his jaw. “I guess that isn’t very fair.” Within a handful of seconds he’s chucked his briefs on the floor.

He changes position then so that he’s resting on his knees, and you hold your breath while you get a proper look at him for the first time.

“Oh-” You start to speak, but you’ve got the common sense to swallow the rest of the sentence.

Van stills, waiting for you to finish.

“You’re… British,” You say sheepishly.

Van chuckles, looking down at himself. “M’ uncut,” He voices your exact thoughts.

You gulp, nodding, hoping you didn’t ruin the moment.

“Same thing underneath,” Van murmurs, wrapping a hand around himself. With the slide of his wrist the foreskin moves back, revealing the flushed head of his dick. “See? Works just the same,” he quips cheerfully, looking up at you.

“Right.” You nod. “Good to know.”

The kissing resumes after you two lay down again and Van can’t keep his hands off of you, stroking at your sides and stomach and eventually your thighs.

“This alright?” He asks, pointedly brushing one of his knuckles against your inner thigh.

“Yeah, yeah” you choke out, spreading your legs so he’s got access to you.

The first press of his soft, tentative fingertips against you makes your eyes squeeze shut, but you can’t hold back your moan when he starts working in tight circles.

He teases his way lower and lower, the only sound in the room your harsh breathing and your heartbeat pounding in your ears. When he starts to feel his way inside, slowly and methodically easing in two fingers, your back arches up off of the mattress.

“Van-” You breathe, and feel his stomach clench from hearing his name.

“You can just-” It’s hard to get the words out with the way he’s pumping. “You should stop,” You manage finally. “We can just get started.”

Van’s fingers still, and you blink your eyes open slowly, greeted to his face mere inches from yours, his hooded eyes watching you.

“Yeah, I…” You breathe out, your face burning in self consciousness at the thought of him watching your face throughout that. “I’m definitely ready.”

“If you’re sure,” Van says slowly, and you feel his fingers slide out of you, leaving an awful empty feeling in their wake.

“Definitely sure,” You tell him, eager to feel full again. “Do you want me to…” You trail off, but Van understands the unspoken rest of your sentence.

“Probably best if you don’t,” He laughs quietly. “It’ll be over before things even get started.”

You nod against the pillows in understanding, and Van rolls over, hanging off of the edge of the bed for a moment until he rights himself, leather wallet in hand.

You watch him procure a condom from one of the folds, and then he’s getting up on his knees, shuffling so he’s in between your legs before ripping the wrapper and sliding it on.

“You settled? You ready?” He asks you, one hand on himself, the other resting on your hip, warm and reassuring.

“Yeah,” You tell him, nervously adjusting the way your knees are bent.

“Alright,” Van says quietly, and it sounds like it’s more meant for himself. There’s a few quiet moments and the sound of the duvet rustling before you feel the head of him press against you, warm and persistent, and your body adjusts for him instinctively, letting him inside.

It’s been a while since the last time you’ve had sex, but thankfully the warm mix of attraction and your drinks from earlier leave your body relaxed. Van looks like he feels the same, any tension in his face dissolving as he eases in, replaced instead by what looks like pure relief. You feel it too, sighing contentedly.

When Van’s done pressing in, the heady feeling making it hard to breathe, you two make eye contact, the spell that had you two so engrossed in yourselves broken.

“Good?” He asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Good,” You affirm. “Now get going.”

You say the last part with a smile that Van returns, and without further ado he starts trying to find the rhythm. He tests a few out while you shift your hips, attempting to find the perfect angle, and after a moment there’s a palpable feeling that you two have gotten it right, punctuated by Van’s sharp intake of breath.

The sound catches you off guard, in sync with another push in, and you gasp in surprise, one of your hands reaching out to grasp at the blankets. It only encourages Van to stay persistent in his thrusts, and you can’t help but groan.

“God,” You croak out. You release your death grip on the blankets, instead putting your hand on his back. You’re careful not to scratch him, but the feeling of him fucking you is amplified with the way you can feel his muscles strain under your hand. “Van,” You breathe.

You kept it quiet, the remnants of your usual self-consciousness still floating around in your head, but you can tell he’s heard.

“Ah, fuck,” Van moans, long and low, and your other hand comes up to grasp at him wherever it can reach as you feel the steady pulse of sparks down your spine.

Your hand lands on his shoulder blade, and it’s as if you’ve given Van some sort of unspoken permission. He leans forward, your lips meeting in a wet and clumsy kiss. It’s more panting in each other’s faces than it is actual making out, but your hand still slides from his shoulder to his jaw, taking care of guiding the kiss while he’s in his distracted state.

You can feel him starting to come apart, missing a beat with his hips every so often and letting out a whine when you take charge of deepening the kiss, tilting his jaw with slightly more force than necessary so you can lick into his parted lips. You’re getting close too, so you decide to let go of his face, instead slipping a hand between your bodies so you can start to rub at yourself.

Van’s head sinks down to your neck, kissing at any skin he can reach while you cry out at all the sensations your body’s trying to take in at once.

There’s a shift of Van’s body weight, his lips leaving your neck. You want to yell at him for taking his lips off of you but you’re too preoccupied with getting your fingers to match the pace he’s set, every moment in sync taking you closer to the edge.

Without any warning there’s the warm brush of the pad of his thumb against your nipple, and your whole body jolts with it.

You’re too distracted to moan but your jaw falls slack. That’s all the approval Van seems to need, starting a very light pace with his thumb, brushing over you back and forth.

“Is it good?” He asks quietly, lips brushing the shell of your ear.

You can hardly form a proper word with your mouth. “Huh?”

“This bit,” Van clarifies, and his thumb rubs your nipple more insistently. “Do you like that?”

“Yeah,” You manage, your eyes squeezing shut, closer than you thought. You can sense that Van understands the gravity of the moment, his movements all becoming very precise and impeccably consistent.

“Don’t stop,” You can’t help but beg.

“Won’t,” Van assures you quietly, and he holds true to his word, fucking into you and circling your nipple without fail as you feel your orgasm start to crash down upon you, squirming and calling out through the entire thing.

You lay there catching your breath when you’re done, Van free to set his own rhythm to get himself to the finish line. He speeds up, setting a frantic pace that you can hear as your skin slaps together with his.

“What do you need?” You slur, removing your hand from yourself in favor of rubbing over his back again.

“Nothin’,” Van answers, his voice tight and slightly higher-pitched. “Nothin’.”

You stay quiet, leaving him to it, and after a few ragged breaths you can feel the way his whole body goes rigid, thrusting fast but shallow as he rides out his climax, burying his head in your shoulder and biting down hard.

You yelp in surprise from the pinch of his teeth, but let him stay there until he’s done, when he releases you with a long, content sigh.

There’s nothing said as you two catch your breath, your brain attempting and failing to find words for the experience.

“Shit,” Van sighs after your breathing has slowed.

“Holy shit,” You agree. You’ve been looking up at the ceiling, but you turn to look at him. The angry red indent from his teeth against your shoulder catches your peripheral vision, and you crane your neck more fully, examining the crooked lines of his teeth pressed into your skin.

“Sorry,” Van says. “I didn’t mean to hurt ya.”

It’s so refreshingly sincere, so different from the few other apologies you’ve received from men during sex, their smug faces usually indicating their value for their pleasure over yours. You actually laugh.

“Totally fine,” You tell him, and you mean it.

Van heaves himself up from where he’d flopped down, half on top of you and half on the bed, and carefully pulls out, the sensation of the heavy condom sliding out of you making you cringe. You watch his long fingers tie it off before he clamors off of the hotel bed on shaky legs, depositing it in the garbage by the coffee maker before nipping off to the bathroom.

“Ugh,” You sigh, starfishing out your limbs on the empty bed.

“Do you care if I don’t go back to my room right this second?” You ask Van as soon as he emerges from the bathroom.

“Whatever you wanna do,” Van shrugs. As he approaches his side of the bed he starts to tug the duvet down. “At least get under the sheets with me.”

You shimmy your way under the sheets, your body melting with the heavenly feeling.

“Mind if I shut the lamp off? It’s starting to give me a headache shining in my eyes.” He asks.

You dismiss his concerns with a wave of your hand. “Go ahead.”

With a click the room is shrouded in darkness, the only exception being the blue glow of Van’s phone.

You yawn. “What time is it?”

“Five.”

“Are you not tired?” You ask him around another yawn. “Even after your show and everything?”

His smile looks tired. “My body’s on a different time.”

“Oh.” You curl up under the covers. “I’ll go in a second, I promise. I’m just fucking exhausted. Unlike you.”

Van snorts in amusement, but you miss his facial expression, your heavy eyelids falling shut.

You wake up to the echo of running water and the glow of the lamp painting your eyelids red.

You squirm, tugging the blanket around your head so you can peacefully return to sleep, but as you start to doze off the water abruptly stops, and you can hear the clatter of Van getting out of the shower.

Soon he comes out of the bathroom, singing softly under his breath as you hear the rip of different zippers through the air.

You kick your legs out, shuffling around sleepily. “What time is it?”

“Seven thirty. Sorry if I woke you. I was trying to let you get a couple hours of sleep in.”

“Did you sleep at all?” You ask him, concerned, as you peer over where he’s bent in front of a suitcase, hair dripping wet and a white hotel towel wrapped around his waist.

“I slept for a good hour,” He shrugs, before he’s gotten what he needs and heads back into the bathroom. “Probably steal a couple more on the bus.”

“Where are you headed next?” You can’t help but ask, raising your voice so he can hear you from the other room.

“Got no idea, to be honest,” Van tells you. He stands in the bathroom doorway, in the process of running a brush through his hair. “That’s a good question for Steve, actually.”

“Our tour manager,” He’s quick to tack on after he notices your blank stare. “He keeps track of our schedule.”

“Oh.” It’s the only thing you can think to say.

“I guess I should get going,” You say awkwardly after a moment of silence. “I didn’t even mean to fall asleep, sorry. I haven’t stayed up that late in forever.”

Van seems to think that’s funny, giving a quick laugh as he goes for something else in his bag.

“God, my contacts are so dry,” You complain, rubbing at your eyelids in hopes of clearing the foggy film clinging to your vision. It doesn’t work, and you flop back down onto the hotel bed, sighing as you try to gather the willpower to get up and get your things.

“What shirt size do you wear?” Van asks.

You tell him, and after a moment feel a soft thud of something landing on the bed. You sit up to see a rumpled lump of fabric.

“One of our shirts,” Van explains.

You grab the gift, holding it up to examine it. “Um… What is it?”

Van lets out a belly laugh at that. “It’s our next album cover.”

“Oh, alright. Thanks,” You tell him, sliding it on immediately. It feels weird to still be naked, and you’re grateful you don’t have to get into the tight top you were wearing last night.

You go through the process of retrieving all your scattered clothes from the night before, made less awkward by the fact Van is preoccupied with getting himself ready. You cram your bra and top into your purse before shimmying back into your skintight jeans and getting your shoes on.

You do a quick once-over, making sure you’ve grabbed everything as Van pulls a fresh button up over his shoulders.

“You, uh,” He starts hesitantly. When you look over, he wipes underneath one of his eyes with the tip of his finger. “You look like you’ve got a black eye.”

You realize in that moment you’d rubbed at your contacts while you were still wearing makeup. “Oh, fuck,” you groan, heading into the bathroom and trying to clean up the mess. “Thanks for letting me know. Mary probably would’ve been worried.”

“Wouldn’t want Theo catching me in the lobby,” Van jokes, and you two laugh for longer than what was probably warranted.

“I was wonderin’, before you go, if I could get your number. For those tickets the next time we’re playing in L.A..”

“Oh, definitely,” You say, extra enthusiastic to assure him of your interest.

There’s a knock at the door, and you hear Van answer it, talking to someone for a moment.

“Got interrupted for a second,” Van tells you, and when you come into the room you see he’s loading his luggage onto a bellman cart. “But perfect. Lemme grab my phone.”

He retrieves his phone off of the bed, typing into it for a moment before he offers you a screen to enter your contact information.

“And y’know, the next time I’m staying in L.A. I’d love to have dinner.”

He says it so casually, no trace of nerves even as the question hangs in silence.

“Me too,” You offer him a smile as you hand his phone back, a satisfied look spreading over his face. “I’d love that.”

“It’s settled, then,” Van punctuates the deal with a nod, walking you to the room’s door and undoing the deadbolt for you.

“Alright. Well, see ya?” You offer as a goodbye, internally cringing.

“See ya,” Van echoes, swinging open the heavy wooden door for you. “Hopefully sooner rather than later.”

With that you step out into the hallway, Van shutting the door softly behind you. You hadn’t realized how awake the outside world was while you were safely cocooned in Van’s quiet room; There are a few doors open, the smell of hotel room service wafting around. There’s a luggage cart supporting a mismatched stack of suitcases that’s haphazardly rolled so it’s blocking a doorway, and you startle when the door behind the cart swings open.

There’s a deer-caught-in-headlights moment between you and the man in the room, before he examines the obstacle.

“Jesus Christ, Bond,” The man groans, struggling to roll the cart out of his way. “It’s too early for this!”

You hear a deep chuckle come from one of the open doorways, before a man in a newscap sticks his head out into the hall. “C’mon, Blakes, food’s here! I got you your ice cold oatmeal and raw eggs in a cup, just as requested.”

The man in the hat notices you standing here, and you watch the way his eyes latch onto the t-shirt Van’s given you. But he’s gone just as soon as he appeared, and you head for the elevators despite the nagging feeling you should’ve helped the guy that was barricaded.

Once you’re on the elevator, you realize with a start that you’d just unknowingly met two of Van’s bandmates.

As quiet as you try to be, of course Mary wakes up as soon as you slip into your shared room.

“How did it go?” She stage whispers, and you notice Theo’s still asleep.

“It was…” You take a deep breath. You knew these questions were coming, and had tried to properly prepare for them, but you still couldn’t comprehend last night.

“Incredible,” You eventually settle on.

Mary’s face lights up at that. “What’d you guys do?”

You chew on the inside of your cheek, trying to hide your smile.

“Did you fuck him?” She asks. “Please tell me you fucked him.”

As hard as you try to conceal it, your smile widens.

Mary gasps. “You did, didn’t you?”

When you nod, Mary leaps off of her and Theo’s bed, sitting cross legged in her sleep shirt on yours.

“Tell me everything!” She begs.

“Hold on,” You shush her. “Let me get out of these damn jeans. And take my contacts out.”

“I can’t believe it,” Mary muses to herself as you peel the denim back off of your skin. “I can’t believe you’ve finally had your first one night stand.”

“Me either,” You admit, screwing the lid on your contact case closed.

“How was he?”

“Amazing. So nice,” You gush, sitting down on the bed with her. “It’s like, no matter how awkward I was, he just thought it was funny! It was the weirdest thing ever!”

You recount most of last night’s details back to Mary, making sure to include the part where you almost fell over, awkwardly called out the fact he was uncircumcised, and almost left his room with racoon eyes before meeting two of his bandmates in the strangest circumstance. You talk until your throat is dry and you’re exhausted, climbing under the covers to resume the peaceful sleep you’d been in the process of getting in Van’s bed.

The next day you get a text from a phone number you don’t recognize while you’re out shopping.

Happy birthday. Van x

Thank you, you send back, but there’s no reply.

Read Chapter 2 here

#van mccann #catfish and the bottlemen #catb #van fic #van mccann fic #catb fic #van #mccann #summer's a knife

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bangtan-madi · 5 years ago

Text

All Of Our Lifetimes — Two: Vase with Honesty

Pairing — Taehyung x Reader

Tags — boyfriend!Taehyung, husband!Taehyung, reincarnation au, lovers to strangers and to lovers again, established relationship, implied soulmate au

Genre — fluff, angst, crime (ish)

Word Count — 2.7k

Summary — Does love ever truly end, or does it simply take another form in a new life? The cycle is like clockwork: your lives end and you’re reborn again. You’ve lived it over and over. Each cycle, one of you loses your memories and is tragically unaware until the other finds and awakens their lover. After all these eons, all these lifetimes, is it possible to find each other again—even when neither of you awakens with your memories?

Part — 2 / 10

Warnings — language, brief mention of murder

Previous — Next

The Friday after your application is sent, you receive a response from Big Hit. Never in your wildest dreams did you ever think you would get a response this quickly, let alone with the contents therein.

"What the fuck!" you scream, nearly throwing your laptop across your bedroom.

Milo storms through the door, eyes wide with panic as she scans your bedroom for signs of an emergency. "What the fuck?"

"Exactly! Look at this!" You shove the laptop in her direction, biting your nails in anticipation.

Though trepid, Milo takes the computer from your grasp and begins to scan the screen. As her eyes reach the bottom of the email, she begins to mirror your exact expression as her jaw drops and curses fly from her lips—in multiple languages.

"Oh my—What the hell, [Y/n]!"

"I know! I know," you laugh, giddy beyond what you can control. "Read further!"

"We'd love to conduct a phone interview with you at your earliest convenience. After which, if both parties choose to go forward, we would like to do an in-person interview in Seoul. [Y/n]! This is practically a yes!"

"Not quite...but it's a start!"

Milo giddily shoves the laptop back towards you, practically bouncing in place. "Call them, call them, call them!"

Two days later, you find yourself alone and on a plane bound for Seoul. The initial interview with Big Hit went extremely well. You were able to converse with a representative in both Korean and English, and went over your resume and other various technical aspects of the position.

"I have to get this out of the way," the woman spoke with a serious tone. "You're not applying for this job because you're Army, right?"

"No," you answered immediately, your voice assured. "Not at all. It's always been my dream to live in Seoul. My roommate can tell you, we've been looking for jobs for a few weeks, ever since graduation."

"Good, because I can tell you right now that we try to screen for that kind of behavior as best as we can. It's part of the interview and background check process. It has to be. I mean, it’s fine to be a fan, but for the safety of the members, we have to make sure that no fanatics are hired and get close to them. A very small percentage of the company interacts with them at all, let alone regularly, but I had to ask."

She seemed overly concerned about that part, and you're not quite sure she believed you. Other than that, you feel that it couldn't have gone better. In fact, you were certain. Why else would they pay for you to fly to Seoul for an in-person interview, which she described as the final part of the hiring process?

You can't help the nervous tingles that travel along your neck and down your spine. The excitement fills your fingers and toes, and you struggle to keep still in your seat. Things are finally moving forward. The dream you've had since you were a child is finally coming to fruition. Everything is falling into place.

But another part of you recalls the literal dream that's occupied your mind for just as long, a subconscious memory or recollection that hasn't left for years. How much longer can you take this nightmare? Isn't it normal for people to have other dreams, not just the same one over and over and over?

The man with the dark, curly hair. The murderer with a gun. The museum halls and flowing blood and untimely demise.

This Taehyung, this member of BTS, what will happen when—or if—you meet? Will he recognize you, too? Will he tell you he has that same nightmare? Will he know why you are connected, despite having never met or heard of each other?

You shake your head, trying to focus on what lies ahead as the plane starts to descend through the air. If you do land this job at BigHit, then you can look for the answers you so desperately seek. If this is meant to be, you'll get what you're looking for. One way or another. Of that, you are sure.

That same part of you is terrified of what you might find when you do.

Or what will become of you if you don't.

You're the first to grab your overhead luggage and exit the plane. After navigating security and international check-ins, you spot a short-haired woman in a suit holding a sign over her head. Your name is written in big, bold letters.

As you approach, the woman smiles and greets you with a bow. "You must be Ms. [Y/l/n]?"

You nod eagerly, offering her the same greeting. "Lovely to meet you...?"

"I am Director Hyeon, I head Human Resources for Big Hit Entertainment. We spoke on the phone earlier this week. Please, follow me."

Doing as Director Misun Hyeon asks, you're escorted to a car parked along the sidewalk outside the airport. The Director tells the driver to take your bags and return to Big Hit HQ. Along the way, she makes small talk about your trip and the life you have in America. She's very professional and reserved, but also very sweet, instantly putting you at ease for your interview.

When the car drives up to the enormous, glass building in downtown Seoul, you're taken aback by the monstrous size of Big Hit headquarters. You knew they were a large company, staffing over five hundred people from your research, but seeing the sight in person has an entirely different effect.

"We just moved into this building this year," Director Hyeon states with a hint of pride. The car turns the corner and descends into the private underground garage. "The company has outgrown the last building, so when our contract was up, we knew we would need to expand."

"How many floors does it have?" you say, gawking at the many floors, both above and below you.

"Nineteen above, seven below," she replies, exiting the car. "Out interview will be on the top floor, so you can have a look at the view."

Director Hyeon wasn't kidding when she said there's a view. The entire penthouse level of the new Big Hit office is lined with floor-to-ceiling windows. Light streams in, ricochetting off the glassy surfaces to toss rainbows across the room. Peering down from the walkway, you see the expansive Seoul City spread out below. Everything looks so much smaller from two-hundred feet in the air. So beautiful, it's enough to take your breath away.

You have to get this job. After seeing this place, there's no other path you can see ahead of you.

The Director escorts you to her office, a room encased by another series of glass panels to give the illusion of privacy. Across from her, you can see several other offices of similar design. She asks you take a seat, getting you a cup of coffee as you make yourself comfortable.

In your mind, the interview couldn't have gone better. You were confident and assured of your abilities, and you have the grades and some experience to back it up. And the fact that you hit it off well with Director Hyeon doesn't hurt either.

As you finish up, she hands you the official memo on the position. "These are some of the tasks you'll be asked to do," she states, then continues to briefly overview what's on the page. "Your position would be Production Assistant, but that can mean doing just about anything, either in office, on tour, or on scene with one of the shows. You would do translation work, both ahead of time for press releases and social media as well as on the spot translations during events or interviews. And as I mentioned, you would handle the BTS official social medias for the English audience. They can post what they want, but they have been told to work with you on captions, tags, content, and the like."

She continues, "We're about to start work on a new album after the boys take a few weeks off from all the work they did on the last tour. When that happens, you might tag along in the studio and assist in various things there. When Bon Voyage or Run BTS begins shooting, you'll assist there. I know that word is vague, but I can promise it'll be more than just doing coffee runs or cleaning up after the boys." She laughs at that last part. "We have other people for that. What we need is someone that can really get into the trenches of the boys' work and help where needed, especially when it comes to the language barrier."

"Hence the bi-lingual requirement," you add.

Director Hyeon nods. "Exactly! So, I know this is a lot to take in, but we really are interested in you. We wouldn't have flown you all the way out here if we weren't. I do have a couple of other candidates I want to interview over the next day or so, but I have a feeling that you're our top pick. If you're willing to hang around Seoul for the next, say, forty-eight hours—all expenses paid, of course—I can give you a definite answer. Are you interested, Ms. [Y/l/n\?"

With a determined smile and eager nod, you reply, "More than you can imagine."

Finding things to do in Seoul isn't difficult at all. In fact, the rest of the day goes by pretty quickly. After the Big Hit driver takes you to your hotel and helps you carry your bags to your room, you take the rest of the evening to go out and explore the city. The food, the festivities, the feelings: if this is going to be your new home, you want to see it all.

The next day, knowing that you probably won't hear from Director Hyeon until the following day, you set back out into the city with a plan to see as many of the sights as possible. The night before, you'd laid in bed and made a plan of attack to take on Seoul. While knowing you wouldn't get to nearly all the spots you wanted, you made a list of the ones closes to your hotel, within walking distance.

The day was absolutely beautiful. Whether or not you got this job, you weren't going to waste your forty-eight hours in South Korea.

In the morning, you visit several historic sites—such as the green space and onetime royal burial ground at Hyochang Park, the architectural and sightseeing wonders of Seoullo 7017, and the restored 1300s fortress wall and the pedestrian gate of Sungnyemun. After grabbing lunch at a local restaurant, you turn towards some of the other sights.

As you pass by City Hall, the building around the corner catches your eye. It's a large, old building crafted from concrete and bricks. It stands out from some of the more modern sights in the area. Edging closer, moving through the greenery around it, you see the name of the building come into perfect view.

서울시립미술관. Seoul Museum of Art.

Without thinking too hard about it, your feet take you towards the museum. You can't put your finger on it, but like the city itself, there's something so alluring and familiar about it. This whole trip has been one big, "Haven't I been here before?" This place, however, gives you heightened feelings. Both positive and negative.

You brush it off, convincing yourself they've arisen due to jetlag and job-related nerves.

The museum is even more awe-inspiring on the inside. The expansive interior is painted white to create more of a contrast between the walls and the art. Galleries stretch out in different directions, but you're drawn to one of the open rooms a little further in.

People flutter about, quietly chatting in various languages about the temporary exhibit that takes up little space but all the focus. It's a set of several still life oil paintings by Vincent Van Gogh on lend from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. They're displayed along temporary glass walls that circulate the wing. A tour guide leads several visitors to each painting.

Your eyes trail from one to the next, but when you catch sight of a piece covered in shades of brown and orange, you halt mid-step. The painting looks so familiar to you, more than anything you've seen so far. If there is anything calling you to this place, this painting has to be it.

The card below the piece says that the name is "Vase with Honesty." Painted in autumn of 1884, it was one of Van Gogh's first still lifes.

"The name 'honesty' may refer to the translucence of the round seed pods, which turn a silvery-white colour in the autumn," the plaque reads. "They then resemble silver coins, and in Dutch this plant is called the judaspenning, 'coin of Judas'. This is a reference to the apostle Judas, who betrayed Christ for 30 pieces of silver. He is said to have thrown the coins to the ground when he hanged himself. Where they landed, the honesty plant later grew."

Minutes later, after the tour guide and most of the patrons have moved on to other exhibits, you're left alone with "Vase with Honesty."

Almost alone.

Another person remains to your right, a few feet between you. Out of the corner of your eye, you see that it's a figure dressed in black sweatpants and a grey hoodie. His face is hidden by the hood, as well as a face mask that covers everything from his jaw to just under his eyes. This man is a half-foot taller than you, you estimate, and while you can't see his face, he also feels inexplicably familiar.

Like you, the art-loving, stranger's eyes are glued to this one particular painting. And like you, his gaze is that of both confusion, realization, and familiarity.

"I feel like I've seen this somewhere else," you murmur, trying to break the silence. Normally, you would've kept quiet, but there's something about this person that leads you to speak up. "It's familiar, isn't it?"

The man nods once, not replying verbally.

"Have you ever seen it before?"

"No," he responds in a quiet whisper, then gestures to the brochure in his hand. "This painting hasn't been here since 1995. It's come back for the first time in twenty-five years."

"Wow, really?"

He nods again. "The brochure says that the Van Gogh Museum hasn't lent out most of its art since then. I overheard one of the tour guides saying something about an accident at this Musem that caused them to recall all their temporary exhibits."

You shift your eyes from the stranger to the painting. "Then how could I know this one so well? I was born in 1995 for god's sake."

"I was, too, so I don't know...maybe we saw it online or something."

"It feels stronger than that," you insist, wrapping your arms around yourself to ease the chill crawling up your spine at the thought of whatever might have happened here in 1995. "Do you know what happened twenty-five years ago?"

"One of the artists working at the Museum was murdered."

Your head jerks back around to stare at the man, wide eyes locking briefly with his dark irises. "Murdered?"

He nods and gestures to the exhibit with the brochure. "That's why they started showing them in glass casings. If you look close to the corner, you can see a tiny, bloody fingerprint."

Turning back to the Van Gogh piece, you step closer, squinting your eyes at the bottom left corner where the man gestured. Sure enough, at the very edge, a smear of crimson in the shape of a fingerprint can be seen.

"What the hell?" you gasp, eyes widening again. "Hey, do you mind if I see that broch—"

Your sentence falls off at the end as you turn. The space behind you where the stranger once stood is empty. He is nowhere in sight, and his familiar aura has gone with him.

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chefjarredjarred · 4 years ago

Text

Anxiety. (excerpt)

People. “They're the worst,” Jerry once concurred with Elaine. And they are.

So I didn't really want a job as a verification specialist for a background check company, making a hundred phone calls a day to anywhere in the country, but there was a time when it was a job I needed; it was remote so I could do it from my living room, it supplemented my main income from cooking and barbacking, and I was allowed to adjust my own schedule around that other work and my Tuesday morning therapy sessions.

But Jesus Christ, the people: the combative, the confused, the cavalier, the crotchety; the mousy, the crazy, the stupid, the lazy; the disgruntled, the bitter, the hateful, the bossy; the scammers, the liars, the paranoid; the unintelligible, or, through no fault of their own, the foreign; the mouth breathers, the assholes; the fast food workers, who are always a grab bag. I got them all, every day. And just one nice old lady from Florida, Ms. Charlene.

I got the job in part by cherry-picking some of my old chef experience and molding it all up into a wad of passable bullshit in the interview. Not lies, you know, just bullshit. I sold the personal importance of always speaking concisely and effectively, and of remaining cool and courteous and logical even when being angrily berated by the most ignorant, disrespectful know-nothings. Okay, so that one tiny lie. I made no mention of smashing saucers, slinging sheet pans, or every chef's favorite, smiting servers. (But come on, FOH, y'all know when you're asking for it.) I gave no indication that my rage, anxiety, and feelings of undeserved victimhood and exhaustion were a nest of coiled snakes, something every person who has ever worked in a kitchen around me could sense. Do your job, leave the attitude outside the kitchen doors, and speak only of pith and pertinence during service. Don't fuck with me, don't get fanged.

A bartender I worked with for years once called me unapproachable. It was in the same breath that she called me a dick, proving that the robotic personality of feigned professionalism and phony positivity (every company has their Stepford Wives, don't they?) on which she prided herself—loathed by so many in the restaurant—could be cracked, and I loved that I had been the one to do it. But the part about being a dick wasn't a bold quotable. My being unapproachable became a favorite running joke for years, perverted and perpetuated by me. Y'all think I'm unapproachable? I am. Fuck off.

But that's truncated, for effect and time. Fuck off, I have a job to do, is the real, full statement, and a linchpin tenet of my style of cheffing. I don't need loud voices, loud noises, disrespect, emotional clouding, confusion, excuses, etc., or that irritable anxiety snake could be disturbed. “Just the facts, ma'am.” There's just no time for the extraneous.

Don't disrupt the flow of food.

That's the principle I emphasized in the interview, just folded into the bullshit wad that made it applicable to phoning idiotic, ornery strangers—and Ms. Charlene. Obviously, I had to omit the venom, violence, viciousness, the vitriol. There was already a tiny stumble in there when the interviewer asked if I would describe myself as an introvert, and I, being honest to a fault at the most inappropriate moments, confessed that I would.

“You do know what this job is, right?”

I actually didn't, right up until about two seconds before that question, but I recovered gracefully, explaining some crap about being able to turn on the smiles and pleasantries when I meant business, something like that.

Fake smiles. Ugh. God dammit. I actively campaign against them. A fake smile is the opposite of Fuck off, of the pith and pertinence, the order and efficiency I expected, of just the facts. It's a capitulation, a white flag.

You know what I absolutely hate more than people? The expectation that I'm obligated to give them a fake smile. It's a banner that says you're willing to accept the extraneous, the unexpected, that whatever they are about to say and the way they will say it has some compelling power over you, and that you have all the time in the world to stand there and graciously let it be unloaded onto you. That your anxiety is not there and not real.

That you are approachable.

Fake smiles are blood in the water. That's right, when it goes from snakes to sharks.

“What we always say here is 'Smile and dial!'”

It was a virtual interview, and he couldn't see or hear my feet double-kick-drumming the floor. But what he did hear and what I couldn't believe was the fake laugh I forced through my fake smile. Jesus, Jarred, you're escalating? Allowance is support. “Sure, sure,” I said, as if I were a lifelong brown-noser. You're a disgrace.

“If you can run a kitchen, I have no doubt that you can do this.”

I didn't either. That's misinformation, that anxiety is simply fear. I wasn't afraid I would fail (literally anyone, barring anxiety, can be a verification “specialist”). In fact, I was totally confident I could succeed...theoretically. He said it: If I could run a kitchen, I could do this. The things that worried me were the scheduling, sleeping, caffeinating, eating, speaking, putting on my fake personality with my fake smile, and juggling and maintaining it all every day without falter, without letting on that there was any internal difficulty. I worried not about my actual job performance, but how I might struggle to simultaneously perform and hide my character flaws, i.e. the stuff that I left hanging out in the open when I was a chef. Does that make any sense?

Anxiety, not fear.

So the job was simple, but not easy, and there was a lot to make an anxious person anxious: the people, of course; the never-ending flood of calls; the quick navigating of the system when someone backpedaled or said something inaccurate or swung their mood in an instant; the software glitches; the hold music. Every second of the workday, even your coffee-caused poop break, was timed and factored in to your production average. You were judged and graded by making a ton of calls and/or closing as many cases as you could, which sounds fine, but is actually decided by chance more than some mathematical guarantee. That angered me the most, watching my closes and “touches” tabulated throughout the day, working against each other, my percentage of success being stretched thinner and thinner as I piled up calls that became mere touches rather than closes. It was the opposite of what we really wanted, and the secret little opposite of what we were trained to believe. The pessimist in me knew that the given goals were just out of reach, of course, so we would unknowingly meet the real goals and feel worthless at the end of the day, like we hadn't done enough. The realist in me hated the pretending that we had any control over it. The fatalist in me knew that it didn't matter, but could not force the crippled, anxious existentialist in me to just shut the fuck up.

...Oh, there is no optimist in here, if you were waiting for it.

I knew the fatalist was right after a sweet, timid childcare worker put me on hold to find something useful for me, which would only be a different number or a different person or, if life were easy, the name of a recognized third party verification website. This was 10:40 in the morning, in my first hour of the workday that was already a little too unfruitful. I watched the timer tick away, and when she returned, she had found...an unrecognized third party verification website. That meant I had to type a message into our Teams chat to request a supervisor's review and approval to put the name of the website in the little box and move to the next call.

Eight minutes had now passed as I waited for an answer. I had let the worker, Taylor, hang up already so she could get her eyes back on what wild heathens she may have had under her watch. It was a personal rule of mine to never hold restaurant workers or childcare workers hostage on the phone, because their work was more important than mine. I thought about the time my mom came to pick me up from one of these daycare facilities, walking in at the same time as another little boy's father, together to catch the perfect and precise moment that I socked that boy right across his jaw with full force, superhero super-spinning into that punch in defiance of his superior strength and grip of my head as he had tried to slam my skull into a wooden shelf for a second time. We were bloody, snotty, and sweaty in the throes of killer instinct, but I still caught the looks of horror on our parents' faces. Why the fistfight happened, I don't remember, but how? Well, because someone who was supposed to be paying attention, wasn't. Kids will go feral and push the boulder on Piggy as soon as your back is turned. I let Taylor off the phone for that reason. I waited for a supervisor's response in the chat, watching the seconds count on and that first hour, and thus the rest of my day and any hope of average achievement, drift away from me. They told me the site was no good and I needed to call poor Taylor back and try again. I sighed, copied the number and clicked the button, explained to her what was happening, and with real politeness she placed me, again, on hold. She came back with a phone number but the same uncertainty.

But in the chat, a supervisor had offered another phone number, different from what I was now taking down on the call. I was urged to try that one instead, so I let Taylor go back to the children a final time, and made my third phone call of the case. An automated message finally pointed me to a recognized third party verification website, and gave the particular employer code needed to access it. The anxiety snake and the rage snake were waking and knotted. I clicked the Other Automated Method button...and the system skipped on to complete the case, without letting me input the website or the code. “No, hell no.” I backed up and tried again. Same result, the skip. I went back to the chat and explained, and typed “Can someone please help me before my head explodes” with no punctuation.

A supervisor called me, and I shared my screen with her. “Let's see what happ—Oh, the client put it on hold, so just exit. It doesn't matter.”

It doesn't matter.

11:01. One close, 13 touches. I was white hot.

The anxiety, the rage, the pessimism, realism, fatalism, the whole nest of snakes was awake and wiggling, tossing, tangling themselves up like a... Well, you know. Like a rubber-band ball. I violently ripped the headset off of me, pushing breath through my teeth like the snarling little Jarred who punched that stupid kid in the mouth in the daycare brawl. I thought about that famed image of the snake eating its tail, whatever it's called. I thought about quitting. I thought about how two days before, my therapist and I had tried to come up with a suitable and available grounding technique I could try to prevent this exact, inevitable moment, this kind of anxiety attack. I thought about telling her how I thought that I was failing at everything. You're a disappoi— Shut the fuck up, Jarred—

It doesn't matter? I thought about that, that every moment of the day was part of the calculation of my performance grade for something ultimately shrugged off. That I spent 20 fucking minutes wasting my fucking time to get something that doesn't fucking matter but earns for me a judgment as if it does fucking matter.

But I thought about how I needed that little bit of extra money, and the other reasons for seeking and taking the job. Breathe, Jarred.

And that was not an isolated incident. Every day I fought for the energy and will to tether myself with the headset, log in, and hear the first ring. It came immediately, every single morning. I'd close my eyes and siiiigh through that first ring, just before being snatched along and pummeled by the frenzy.

I tried earnestly the smile-and-dial one time. I felt like Nicolas Cage in one of those especially wacky scenes of Face/Off. A total psycho, unhinged.

The calls were recorded and scrutinized, for quality and legality, and a handful a month were sent back to me to review whatever I had done wrong, or what I could do better.

Ah, yes. So there was another itchy, irritating thread of anxiety even on the less violent days.

Do you ever hear your own recorded voice and you hate yourself and wish you had never been born? Yeah, me too. So I only ever listened to one call and that was enough of that. I didn't want to hear myself. That voice wasn't mine, it was some cartoon-like, nasally Billy Bob Thornton's voice, reverberating somewhere way up high in the sinuses.

A hundred calls a day is a lot of talking. I began obsessing over how I pronounce—among many other things—the number four. There were fours everywhere, embedded, like chocolate chips in cookie dough, throughout almost every case number, and in our callback number I had to recite on dozens of voicemails per day. I wondered if I could trust my own ears in hearing the way I would say it, or if in reality I sounded like I was four. Fohwuh. Every day I ran this mental gamut of self-critique and insult, concentrating insanely on the most minute and deliberate flicks and curls of my tongue and lips. Any word becomes weirdly unnatural when you pay such specific attention to it. But I put so much (too much) effort into working on a competent phone voice not only so I wouldn't sound like a jackass, but so I could be efficient in my work and thus keep up with the production quota. I needed 20 touches an hour, not 13, so I needed people to understand me so I could get in, get out, and get on the next call. My strategy was to try and emulate the radio voice of Christopher Kimball—polite, proper, pronounced, professional. In my dirty pajamas, sitting on a lumpy pillow on a hand-me-down office chair as it was clawed to pieces by my screaming cats, I wanted to sound like I was wearing a bow tie. Like I was in a real office without cats, with a real college degree framed proudly on the wall. Polished and prepared.

It's hard work, if you can imagine. I'm not a talker. I don't like strangers. They're unpredictable. Any unexpected wrench in the routine could prove how fragile the facade is, that I'm actually a wobbly stack of quivering, anxious gremlins pretending to be a presentable person in, I guess, an imaginary bow tie.

It's hard work, if you'll let me say that again. But I thought I was doing pretty well. I hadn't cussed anyone out and I hadn't hurled the computer through the window, at least.

Then one day I called an office in Shelby, North Carolina. A woman answered, lazily, and I stated my reason for calling. She just said, “Hold on,” dismissively, with no practiced professionalism whatsoever. There's a lot of that out there. A rare treat then it was when I spoke with anyone trying to exude the same level of maturity as I, during business hours. My Kimball voice was for your benefit, lady. You didn't care. I know this because instead of really putting me on hold, instead of pressing a button to leave me in that telephonic waiting area listening to one of those overused cheap songs, like the one with the incessant MIDI claps that makes my toes tense and my teeth clench and jarringly reminds me that the anxiety is always bang-bang-banging at the door of the closet I locked it in, instead of just conducting two seconds of mundane business like a normal goddamn person, this woman just set the phone down on her desk and, evidently sickened beyond composure, blurted to her coworker, “God, I hate when someone clears their throat while I'm on the phone with them.” I did?

There I was, exposed, a bunch of phlegmy gremlins, collapsing and scrambling. Instantly I remembered the time my dad and stepmom asked me if I was on some kind of drug, because I cleared my throat “a lot.” Yeah, I don't know what they were talking about either, but apparently this involuntary habit is remarkably frequent. And a hundred calls a day I was doing this. How many of these people find me disgusting, inhuman, or think I'm on drugs? How about people in everyday life? Do my friends mock me? Who taught you how to function, Jarred? My mind spiraled, the snakes squirmed and seethed.

The rest of the phone call was stiff and clumsy, tears welling like a porn star's while I silently packed down the coughs and chokes congesting behind whatever ball of bile bottlenecking at the back of my throat, because I should die right on the living room carpet, sacrificial and blue, lest I irk this absolute cuntbag's social sensitivities, gurgling grotesque and oozing disease.

But am I crazy or...ahem...is that just trivially fucking inoffensive? If I had frog squatted on my desk and—“Verify this, bitch!”—farted into a metal basin full of Cracker Barrel gravy, then sure, be mad. Slam the phone down. Say to the guy by the copier, “Why me?!” and vow to get me fired. But if a natural, nonchalant throat-clearing infuriates you enough to comment on it, you're honestly just an asshole. It's not a frog squat gravy fart, it's not a rude personal affront. It's somewhere way below open mouth chewing, there around unfortunate but necessary nose blowing. I'm gross, you're gross, we're all gross. Get over it, and then, Fuck off, I have a job to do.

I did briefly wonder if maybe she's an anxious person too, a gremlin, maybe her facade is as fragile as mine, but I don't think so, because her attitude when she answered my call had already indicated to me that she never dressed up in a fake bow tie. She thinks she's a normal person: reckless, careless, unprofessional. No phone tone, no Kimball timbre. And because of that, she gave me another thing to worry about, to nag at me, something uncontrollable that I'd be trying to temper, something unconsciously mechanical now made noticeable and manual and clumsy. Thanks.

I was just worried about my goofy voice.

If you're thinking that it's all just a little silly and ridiculously minuscule, then congratulations, you're one of those “normal” people, like Ms. Shelby North Carolina. You make our lives worse.

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kiligaus · 5 years ago

Photo

Summary

Y/n a great ballet dancer, Jihoon an amazing hip hop dancer. Both are on their school’s dance team, and both are top tier dancers. Except, Jihoon HATES the sight of Y/n and vice versa. The two can’t stand being in the same room with each other until they are forced to. The next school dance competition is coming, and both were forced to compete as a duet. Oh, did I mention their both total opposites?

Genre: Fluff

Warnings: Cursing

Word count: 2.8K

PART 3 (finally)

(note: y/n and jihoon got to yoonbins house around 5:00 after coming from the dance studio) I

stretched back in the chair Jihoon and I shared. “FINALLY! We’re done with the track!” “I know right, finally. It sounds awesome! I can’t wait to start the choreo!” He smiles brightly holding his hand up waiting for a high five. I blushed slightly as I reciprocated the high five. “I’m in awe, you’re incredible with mixing music together! Who knew THEE Y/n was good at something other than dance.” He chuckles. “Hey give yourself some credit too! If it weren’t for you watching me dance and getting this brilliant idea of mixing our styles we wouldn’t be here!” I confess. The boy stares at me for a moment, eyebrow raised. “Hmm, you like it when I watch you dance.” What?! “I- fuck no!” I yelled pushing him off the chair as a reflex. Jihoon glares at me from the ground, rubbing his butt from the sudden impact. “Pfffft, hahahaha!!” We burst out. “Are you guys killing each other yet?” Yoonbin enters the room. “Um, what the heck happened here?” He questions. “Oh, we just finished fixing the track.” Jihoon crosses his legs looking up at the taller boy. “Took you guys long enough it’s been almost 5 hours since you guys started.” The tall boy leans on the door frame. Wow, almost 5 hours. 5 HOURS!! HOLY SHIT I FORGOT ABOUT YEONGUE!! I rapidly grabbed my phone checking the time. 10:45 Shit.

Rat; Ya Kim Y/n Rat; where are you??

Rat; hello

Rat; ?????

Rat; it’s already 10:45 WHERE TF ARE YOU?!?

I quickly dialed up my younger brother. “I am sooo sorry I forgot to text.” I pout from the other side of the call. “Yeah, whatever where are you I’m hungry.” Yeongue responded. I could tell he was annoyed, he hated being alone at night. “Hey, I know you’re mad and I’m sorry, I’ll pick up your favourite ramen from the store just give me a few ok.” I apologize. “Just get here quick.” And after that he hung up. Shit I fucked up so badly.

The boys were chatting away when I abruptly got up and headed for the door. “Y/n? Y/N!” I ignored Jihoons call. I put my shoes on and grabbed my bag ready to head out the door. I felt a hand grabbing my arm and stopping me. I turned around to face the culprit, Jihoon? “Where are you off to in a hurry?” “None of your business.” I deadpan. “Cut the shit Y/n it’s almost 11 pm. As much as I dislike you, I’m not going to let you leave here when it’s pitch dark outside.” Huh? Did I hear that right? Park Jihoon doesn’t want me alone at night by myself!? “Come on.” He says putting on his shoes and dragging me towards his car. “Bin!! Can you send the mix later.” He yells out. Yoonbin his thumb up, giving him the aye ok.

“Where too?” Jihoon asks staring up the car. “Convenience store.” Jihoon pulled out of the driveway and headed towards the nearest convenience store. I still can’t believe he wouldn’t let me leave. Why? A week ago he didn’t give a shit if I left without him. I looked out the window and sighed. Why does my mind keep replaying that moment? My heart fluttered at the thought of it. What no Y/n get a grip! He’s like your enemy, he’s annoying, a show off, and only cares for himself. Or does he? UGH! “Y/N!” I snap back into reality. I turn to the driver’s seat. “We’re here.” Jihoon says. I nod, getting out of the car and heading into the convenience store.

I quickly grabbed 5 packets of my brothers favourite ramen and got back into the car. “Uh, if you just turn here and follow the road-” “Don’t worry I remember.” The boy gives me a small smile. I can’t tell if that’s sweet or just plain creepy. The car ride was quiet until Jihoon spoke up. “Why did you need to leave all of the sudden? It isn’t safe at this hour.” “Yeongue.” “Pardon?” I didn’t know what came over me but, I felt like I owed him the truth. “He doesn’t like being all alone at night. Our mom isn’t really home much cause of her job, so I take care of him.” I confess. “Wow, that’s really mature of you.” I chuckle to myself. “Thanks Jihoon.”

We finally reached my house. Jihoon pulled into my driveway and unlocked the door. “Uh, let me walk you to your door.” He speaks up. What, why is he being a gentleman all of a sudden. “It’s literally a 5 second walk from your car, it’s not like I’m going to jumped.” I try refusing the offer but he insists. “True, but who knows. I don’t want my dance partner to get hurt.” Aww, that’s kinda sweet. “Or else I’ll never hear the end of it from Mr. Yang and Herin.” I take that back. “Wow, thanks.” I rolled my eyes and got out of the car.

Jihoon and I walked towards my front door in silence. No, more like AWKWARD silence. Once we reached the front door the both of us awkwardly turned to each other. “Uh, so this’s me.” I say avoiding his gaze. “Yeah, guess it is.” Why is he acting all coy now? Like a minute ago he was insulting me. And they say girls are the confusing ones. I grabbed my keys from my bag and reached to open the door.

“Y/n! Thanks.” I turned to him in surprise. “Thanks? Thanks for what?” I raised an eyebrow. “I mean for listening to my ideas and with the mix.” Jihoon scratches the back of his neck avoiding my gaze. I stare at him blankly. Huh? Is he being grateful for once? And is he BLUSHING?! No, Y/n get a hold of yourself, he’d never. “No problem Ji.” I smile brightly. He shifted his gaze back to me, eyes lighting up like a puppy. Shit. The boy smiles back. His smile, why haven’t I noticed it before? “Ji, I like that nickname.”

The two of us stood there as if time stopped. It was just me and him, and for once I didn’t really mind the company. “FINALLY! You’ve been gone for so long- Oh. My. God, was I disturbing something?” Yeongue bursts through the door. Both of us jumping back from surprise. “WHAT NO! NOTHING WAS HAPPENING!” I scream. “EXACTLY! GET YOUR MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER GUE!” Jihoon screams. “Nothing would ever happen between us.” I huff. “Yeah.” Jihoon says with slight disappointment in his voice. I stepped into my house beside Yeongue. “Anyways, before we got RUDELY interrupted.” I nudge my younger brother. “I was going to say thanks for the ride.” I say growing quiet. “Anytime.” Jihoon replies. The tall boy turns around and walks back to his car.

“Are you sure~ nothing was happening between you guys?” Yeongue nudges. “Of course NOT! There was just an awkward silence between the two of us.” Yeah, that. Awkward silence. I looked over at Jihoon and sighed. Today wasn’t as bad with him by my side, it was kinda fun. I looked down and smiled to myself trying to keep my happiness to myself. But little did I know my brother notices this. “Hmmm, then you wouldn’t mind if he stayed over for dinner?” “Sure.” I accidentally let slip out. “Great! Oh Jihoon~” Wait. WAIT! “wAIT, I DIDN’T MEAN!” It was too late, my brother snatched the plastic bag full of ramen and ran over to the car. This little shit, I swear to God.

“Jihoon since you brought my sister home, I’d like to thank you by inviting you to have dinner with us.” Yeongue smiles with his eyes practically begging the older boy to stay. “Uhhhh.” He hesitates. Yes, please say no. “What about your mom, I’m sure she wouldn’t like a boy over this late.” He lets out. “Noooo, it’s fine moms not home anyways.” My brother counters. “I- what about your sister, she doesn’t seem to like me.” He glances at me, as I stick out my tongue. He chuckles. “Aww, common she’s always like that don’t mind her! Please stay it’ll be fun common, pLEASE!” Yeongue begs. I glance at Jihoon leaning on the door frame of my house. He seemed flustered at my brothers cuteness, I laugh to myself. No one can resist my brother cuteness. The boy thought about it for awhile, then finally gave in. “Sure why not.” Yeongue really owes me after this. I thought dragging my feet into the house. This is gonna be a long night.

I was currently in the kitchen cooking three packs of ramen I bought, while the two boys were in the living room chatting away with a movie played in the background. I boiled the water and placed the soup base along with the ramen. I sat on the counter watching the movie from the kitchen, sometimes glancing at my brother and Jihoon. I started thinking back to Yoonbin’s house. Man, I think that was the first time Jihoon and I really got along. I look towards the boy sitting on my couch, head facing the tv, once in a while turning to my brother, cracking a joke or two about how the movie was so cringe. He really knew how to treat my brother. I raised my hand to my cheek. Huh? Am I blushing? Park Jihoon what are you doing to me, I’m supposed to hate you. I shook the thoughts from my head and went back to cooking ramen.

“Ramens ready!” I yell bringing the pot to the coffee table, resting it on an oven mitt so the table wouldn’t burn. “Took you long enough.” Jihoon blurts out. “I’m sorry, lemme just tell the ramen to cook faster next time.” I say sarcastically. “Hey, be nice he’s a guest.” My brother glares at me. “hEy, He’S a GuEsT bE nICe, go get some bowls and chopsticks, will ya.” I mock. Yeongue reluctantly gets up and goes to the kitchen. “Hey, Jihoon you know you could’ve declined right?” I say sitting down beside him. “Hmm? Oh I know but, your brother was just so convincing, yaknow with his face.” He says waving a hand over his face, I chucked punching his shoulder slightly. The boy smiles running his hand through his hair. “Got the stuff.” Yeongue says placing the cutlery in front of us. “Alright let’s dig in.” I say sticking my chopsticks into the pot grabbing some ramen.

It was currently 1:25 am. The three of us finished the ramen and the movie. Yeongue was on the couch currently asleep, he didn’t finish the movie with us. While Jihoon and I were on the floor sitting. “Man I love this movie.” I yawn. “It’s alright.” Jihoon lets out. “What? Oh come on! This movie is so good! The way the main character and her crush got together was so cute! I pout. “Ok, fine I give, it was cute.” My eyes lit up as I smiled at him. “I can’t wait for the next movie, the guy from camp comes back.” I start to ramble, not noticing Jihoon staring at me, his cheeks turning a faint pink. “Hey, quiet down your brothers sleeping.” Jihoon cuts me off. Hmmm? “Oh crap right. How am I gonna get him to his room.” I questioned. “I mean I can carry him.” Jihoon suggests. “No, its ok you must be tired, I’ll do it.” I protest. I got up and hovered over my brother preparing myself to carry him to his room. I was about to pick him up when I felt a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry Y/n I got this.” He shoots me a reassuring smile. I took a step back and let him pick my brother. “Uh, follow me.” I slightly blush leading the boy up the stairs to Yeongue’s room.

After tucking my brother into bed we headed down stairs to clean up. “Thanks.” “No problem.” Jihoon says. I headed over to the living room to go collect the dishes left on the coffee table. “Hey lemme help, I help create this mess, so let me help clean.” Jihoon says taking the dishes and heading to the kitchen. “Whatever.” I roll my eyes trailing behind him. The two of us stood at the sink In silence washing the dishes, till I felt something wet on my face. I glared at the person next to me who was holding the detachable sink head while snickering. “Park. Jihoon!” I shout. He sprays me again. “Aye, shut up or you brother will wake up and think somethings going on between us.” He says smirking with his index finger over his mouth. I stared at the boy with rage in my eyes yet my face was flushed from his comment. “It’s so on Park!” I say grabbing a cup of water and throwing it at him.” And thus a heated water battle started. Puddles of water started to form on the kitchen floor, both of us running around the kitchen trying to avoid each other’s attacks.

*THUD* I slipped on one of the puddles of water, laughing my head off, while Jihoon came over to help me up. “Omg, Y/n are you ok!” He says while still laughing. “Yeah I’m fine just a little sore.” I look at him smiling. He stuck his hand helping me up. “I’m so screwed when my mom comes home to this mess.” I say looking around seeing water scattered all over the place. Jihoon chuckles, “Sorry about that.” He scratches the back of his neck with his other hand, as his other is still occupied with holding mine. Honestly, I didn’t really mind.

(Its really been a hot minute since I last updated this au huh? I took uploading once a year literally lmaoo anyways hope yall still like it -Bee🐝)

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dreamofbetterthings · 5 years ago

Text

Fake Out (Sam Winchester x reader)

Celebrity: Sam Winchester (Played by Jared Padalecki)

TV Show: Supernatural

Spoilers: None

Summary: You've had a problem with another student on campus that won't seem to leave you alone. When Sam finds out about your situation, he offers a way to get him off your chest. It's just for the time being though, right? You guys are still just friends, right? What happens after all this is over?

Warnings: Some angsty stuff later in the chapters, fluff in the form of best friends, and fake dating later in the chapters as well.

A/N: So...this is another update, after being gone for 84 years. When you lose your job and finish school work early every day, there isn’t much left to do, so yes, I am back. I was originally planning on using a picture of season one Sam, but I couldn’t find one that fit best with what I was picturing. So, I decided to use another where he looks a little bit older instead. Hope you don’t mind.

"Thanks again for helping me study Sam. There has to be some way I can pay you back.” You speak, rubbing your eyes for the umpteenth time. "It's no problem. You have most of the information down. Sometimes it's just easier to hear it from someone other than the teacher." He shrugs, shutting his notebook. You get up and start collecting your numerous flashcards and putting your books away. "I don't know. I haven't had a problem with Mr. Van since this semester started now all of a sudden, I can barely understand a word of what he's saying in class. It’s like he’s speaking another language." You close your notebook that was filled to the brim with highlighters and a rainbow of different colored notes in pen and put it in your bag. The two of you throw your bags on your shoulder and begin walking out of the little cafe. Your phone vibrates for another time that evening. Pulling it out of your pocket, the screen lights up the texts you have yet to respond to.

Brent

I'll see you tomorrow. Don't run off to class without me. Thu 4:30 PM

Brent

You like coffee, right? Thu 6:25 PM

You were annoyed. Brent had been texting you since class let out, which was at 2 in the afternoon. It was now 6 in the evening. Why in the hell was he always bothering you? Sure, you said hello to him a few times if you saw him around, but you did that to everyone. If you said anything to him then you initiated a conversation and he won't leave. If you don't say anything he will start a conversation himself and never leave. This is a literal lose-lose scenario. Oh god, what if he found your apartment? You don't even notice you've stopped walking until Sam snaps you out of it. "Are uh, are you okay? You zoned out for a bit."

A loud sigh leaves your mouth and you stumble. "I-, it-, it's complicated." His eyes go soft as you two begin to walk again. “What’s on your mind?” You're silent for a moment, wondering how you plan to word everything. "If someone asks you out, and you politely say no, what do you do afterward if they still won't leave you alone? Hypothetically, of course." He raises his brow and asks "Well, that depends." You guys get to Sam's car and he opens the door for you. You thank him and he gets in after making sure you are fully seated. He lets the engine roar to life before driving off and answering you. "I would say you can talk to a campus adviser, but I don't know how much help that will do. If you're alone most of the time then try to find a couple of your friends to walk you to and from your classes, if that isn't too much trouble. Or, since he asked you out, just tell him you have a boyfriend. That should make him leave you alone. Hypothetically speaking of course. Although, part of me wants to think that you aren't being hypothetical about any of this, are you?"

You stay silent and suddenly the music in the background wasn't loud enough. Every bone in your body wanted to just jump out of the moving car and run away from this problem. "It's alright. I won't make you talk about it if you don't want to." Part of your brain wanted Sam to know and you were glad you at least mentioned it. He was your best friend and it didn't feel right to lie to him. The other part of your brain didn't want him to worry and resented the fact that you said anything at all. Sam already knew your answer, even without you telling him. He had managed to see two messages that Brent texted you while you were studying for tomorrow's test. No wonder you needed advice on how to handle the guy, he just wouldn't take no for an answer.

The youngest Winchester made it to your apartment just as the sun looked like it was going to start setting soon. The two of you got out of the car and as you looked up saw purples, blues, and oranges all tangled in dance within the sky. To say it was beautiful would be an understatement. Sam left his bag in the car and walked you to your door. Even though it was only a few feet from the car, he always insisted to make sure you got in safely. As you pulled out your key to the building you turned to face him. "Thank you again for helping me study. I think I'm going to start using the flashcard trick you taught me more often." He grinned and nodded his head approvingly. "I figured you would. That seemed easier than whatever it was you were doing before." After readjusting the bag on your still sore shoulders, you unlock the building to your dorm. Right before you take a step in, Sam calls you back. Turning around, he reminds you.

"You know I'm always here for you, right? I know you've been stressing a lot lately, and I'd be lying if I didn't say I wasn't worried. I just wanted you to know that I'm always available if you need me, okay?" A smile appears on your tired face, and you wrap your arms around the male's much, much bigger frame. "I'd be lying if I said that you worrying doesn’t keep me sane. I appreciate it. I do. But, don't forget to take care of yourself, too. That means stop wearing clothes for two and a half days straight." You pull away and give him a funky face before you both burst out laughing. Sam was one of those students that became so focused on his classes, that was all he ever paid attention to. Which led to him lacking in proper hygiene among other things. Lucky for him, you could step in to remind him whenever he seemed to be slipping up. A bird ringtone erupts from your phone and you playfully roll your eyes. Quickly looking at the text and then putting the phone away, you tell Sam. "That's Andy. They're getting a little impatient, so I gotta go." He nods understanding and gives you one more hug before heading towards his car.

"Hey, are we still going to the drive-thru tomorrow?" He opens his car door and nods. "You know I wouldn't miss it for the World. The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre starts at nine, and then A Nightmare on Elm Street starts sometime around ten-thirty." You nod and point to him. "You buy the tickets, and I'll pay for the snacks." Sam smiles again and as he gets in his car, he rolls the window down to say one last thing to you. "Pick you up at eight, that way we can find a decent spot?" "Sounds like a plan. Now get outta here, I gotta get ready for work." You both wave and he drives off as you enter your dorm building.

Not in the mood for the stairs, you take the elevator straight to your floor. There was a pretty good amount of students going up and down the hallway. Either rushing to get to class from work, students in other programs hauling around sports equipment or cameras, or other things, or students like you rushing to get to work from class. You managed to make it into your room without any trouble, and as you take your school shoes off, you hear your roommate, Andy leaves the bathroom. "So, how was the date with Sam?" They ask with toothpaste foaming out of each side of their mouth. Shaking your head, go over to your bed, and drop your bag.

"It wasn't a date. I have a test tomorrow and Mr. Van is hell-bent on making sure that I fail this semester. Sam offered to help me study on Monday, and we've been going over notes every day since." Grabbing your uniform you quickly change into it and switch places with Andy in the bathroom. "So that's where you've been running off to after class. At least he's cuter than Brent." An annoyed groan left your lips as you finished washing up. "Please don't bring him up again. I am so tired of hearing about that boy." Andy laughs and grabs both your working bags from the hook they're on. "I swear he follows you around like a lost puppy. Didn't you tell him that you weren't interested?" You spray yourself with deodorant and walk out of the bathroom to quickly put your shoes on when Cameron, the second of your three roommates bursts through the door.

"Have you guys seen my laptop?! I had it earlier this week but I haven't seen it since." She runs to her room and starts throwing everything off her bed to look. Andy sets your work bags on the counter. "I thought you were working at the gym today, why do you need your laptop?" The nearly hyperventilating redhead walks out of her room to look through the couch as you head into your room to get her laptop. “I am. Tom was working on the computer that everyone uses to clock in and out of work when it went "pop." He unplugged it and tried to cut it back on again, but then it started smoking and he doesn't know what to do. I told him that the capacitor exploded and that he has to check the motherboard, but he just thinks cutting it off and on again will prevent a computer from smoking."

Andy points out, "It could also be an electric surge from the power supply. You should have a warranty on those computers though. Call the company that he bought them from and see what they say." You walked back in with her laptop in her travel bag. "You messed up on one of the lines of code and put a nine instead of a six. I fixed the other problem you had, too." Cameron smiles ear to ear and takes the bag from your hands. Tossing it over her shoulder, she quickly gives the two of you hugs. "You two are lifesavers, honestly. We have our team meeting today and with all the computers out, Tom asked if I could bring mine since our place is closer than most." Andy checks her phone and tosses your work bag. "It’ll be our own lives we have to save if we’re late for work. We gotta go." After grabbing your keys, the three of you speed walk out of the apartment.

You three take the elevator down to the entrance and towards your respective cars. Cameron gets into her grey 2014 Honda CR-V, while you and Andy carpool in her black 2016 Ford Escape. You two leave first, having the farthest drive, and wave at your roommate as you exit the parking lot. The drive is mostly silent until your phone buzzes in your bag. You pull it out and read the message.

Sam

I think we might have mixed up pencil pouches. Pretty sure the cover of mine doesn't have Bob Ross with sunglasses on. Want me to stop by your job and drop it off? Or would John get upset again? Thu 6:55 PM

You laugh as Andy pulls into the parking lot of your job. Cutting the car off, you both get out. Quickly making it into the smoothie shop, the two of you clock in and grab your hats before relieving Michael and Steve at the front counter. You pull your phone out and send Sam a text back before more customers come in.

You

Sorry, Sam. I didn't even check to see if I grabbed anything of yours. I had to change for work and then help Cameron find her laptop. When I tell you I just barely made it in on time... That was a one-time thing with John lol, but don't worry about it though. We'll see each other tomorrow. Thanks anyway. Thu 7:00 PM

Tucking your phone back into your pocket, Andy gives you a nudge. "So when is he going to pop the question?" Giving her a confused look, she points to your pocketed phone. "When is Sam going to ask you out?" "Never going to happen." You take orders down and get the customer’s payment before heading to the back to make their drinks. Having every recipe on the menu memorized by heart, you already know what exactly to grab for theirs.

Andy makes her way to the blender next to yours and makes her own set of orders. "I mean seriously, you two would be absolutely adorable together. Think about it, the two of you are practically inseparable at the hip as it is anyway. If Sam doesn't shoot his shot now, someone else might." After pouring the newly blended smoothies into their respective cups and capping them, you turn to your friend.

"Look, I appreciate you trying to get me out there, but I don't know if I'm ready for a relationship right now. Even if I was, I don't think Sam is into me like that. He doesn't have the best home life, and right now, all he needs is a friend. That's where I come in. We're friends, that's it." Andy snickers as you walk back to the front and call the names out on the order.

As much as you liked him, there was no way on God's green Earth, would the two of you get together, right?

A/N: Hope you like this first chapter! There will definitely be more ahead. Requests are open as well if you want a story of your own.

#supernatural #sam winchester #sam winchester x reader #x reader #writing #story writing #supernatural au #college au #supernatural college au #college sam winchester #jared paladecki

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dustinjohnson1981 · 4 years ago

Text

my first post

This is my first and maybe only post. I don’t know what to do anymore, I’ve been homeless for 3 months and it doesn’t seem like anyone cares. I’ve tried reaching out for help with shelters, churches, and even government programs and haven’t been able to get any assistance. Shelters won’t help cause I have an 11 year old pit bull dog that I’ve had since she was a few months old. She’s the sweetest dog you will ever meet, but because she’s a pit bull, there’s that stigma that she’s aggressive, which she isn’t. I’m no saint, and I’m not here to try and lead anyone on to thinking that I am, but I am a good person. I’m just an ordinary person, trying to get through this hell we call life. I have a couple people I call friends, but in reality, we’re more acquaintances that have just known each other for like the past 16 years. Maybe I’m just too different from the rest of humanity, but I would do just about anything to help a friend out if they were in my position, but my “friends” don’t want anything to do with me. I feel like I’m a burden and think I would be better off dead. I definitely don’t have any reason, any purpose for living, I’m just a waste of human existence. I’m not really into religion, at least definitely not the go to church every week type, and lately, about all my faith in God is me cursing at him for making me homeless, if God is even real. So of course religious people jump at me for those comments saying it’s the Devil, not God. I’m like, ok, if it’s the Devil, and he was one of God’s angels, why does he allow the Devil to exist still? God is suppose to be all powerful, all knowing, all loving, but he lets humanity suffer here on Earth. Religion will say I was created in the image of God, and that he already knows everything that is going to happen before it happens, so first, it’s like what in the hell was God smoking when he created me the way I am and then knew I was going to end up homeless and contemplating suicide. I never asked to be born, to be raised in an abusive family. I am thankful that at 39 now, I had the common sense to tell myself when I was 8 years old I will never have a wife of children of my own, so that way I won’t risk repeating the cycle of abuse. I feel like whether it is God, or just bad genes in science talk, I definitely got the short end of the straw. Being 5′5 sucks for height when women seem to want tall guys. And I definitely don’t have the skills for social interactions, probably why I’ve never had a girlfriend. I always end up in the friend zone. I compare my attributes to that of Danny DeVito in the movie, Twins, with Arnold Schwarzenegger. If you haven’t seen that movie, I recommend watching it, it’s a good movie. I wonder where I went wrong in life to end up homeless. I grew up being good with numbers, so always thought I was going to be an accountant, but was never good at anything else in school and really hated going. Tried my luck in college and that was a complete waste of time, can’t write 3-5 page essays for English, so was never able to finish my AA degree. I was always a fan of WWE wrestling growing up and that was like my dream to be a wrestler, but again, being short and untalented and uncharismatic, that was never going to happen. I can say I at least tried for it though, trained for almost 2 years before getting a minor tear in my shoulder. I have no real skill set when it comes to work, I’ve spent my entire life working in warehouses through staffing agencies. Not being good is an understatement when it comes to job interviews. No matter how much I try and prepare for the questions, I always just freeze up like a deer in headlights. I hate working in warehouses to begin with, companies just treat employees like slaves, especially if you’re through an agency. They literally need no reason to end your assignment, so if they just look at you and decide they don’t like you, you aren’t going to last very long, that or they’re going to have you do the lowest type of work they have and force you to want to quit. They make you work 12 hour shifts days a week and only want to pay you minimum wage or slightly above that while as a company they make millions of dollars. And they do this to employees year round, regardless of weather conditions. So during summer, when it’s 102 degrees outside and your in a truck loading or unloading, it’s going to be like 110-115 degrees inside that truck and same in winter times, when it’s cold outside, it’s even worse inside, especially if you’re on a forklift, cause now you’re driving up and down lanes pulling pallets and you’re feeling the freezing wind as you drive. So I haven’t worked in about 2 weeks now and not sure when my next assignment will come, or if I’ll even take it. Obviously I need to so I can have money for food for my dog and myself, but it’s so depressing that I have nothing to show for my life. I’m in and out of motels these 3 months of being homeless, my checks barely cover the cost for a week at a motel. So my other bills don’t get paid, or if they do, their constantly being late. Having around $45,000 in bills/debts ain’t fun neither. I don’t even know why I made an account here and am writing this, I doubt anyone will read this and even less likely I will get any help. I’ve heard of Tumblr, but never really knew what it was. I only just found out after watching the Netflix documentary on Elisa Lam. When I have friends that won’t help, family that put me in this situation, why would complete strangers want to help me. I’ve tried GoFundMe and have had absolutely no luck there, I feel like you have to have a huge friend base on social media for that site to work. You post to your friends who share to others and so on and hopefully get people to help whatever the cause that person posted about, so for me, that just was a waste of time. Same with Twitter and TikTok, people respond how they feel bad for me but I can’t get anyone to want to help me with finding a job and a place to live. I can’t rent anyways, as I found out in December after applying to several places and being rejected, my grandmother put something called a judgment on my background so when apartments run a check and that pops up, they immediately decline my application. And renting a room isn’t an option neither as people don’t want my dog. I just feel hopeless and defeated in life and don’t see a reason to go on. I was just reading about the horrific car pile up accident in the Fort Worth, TX area the other day and feel bad for all those people, but at the same time, wish I was one of the six that died so that I could be gone from this world. Same if I could, I would gladly trade places with a child that’s dying from cancer or even if it was for one more day, trade with an someone’s parent, so that they could have that one extra day to tell that parent how much they love them before the parent passes. To be unloved in life, to feel completely invisible and unnoticeable to everyone around is one of the worse feelings I think you can have, and that’s how I feel everyday of my life. I don’t know why I keep hoping my life is going to get better, reality is it only ever gets worse by each passing day. And I don’t fear suicide or death in general, for me, it’s the pain I’ll endure in those final moments that scare the hell out of me. Like slitting my wrist or throat and bleeding out, or drowning. All the things that probable flash through your mind as your body reacts and obviously goes into fight or flight mode and tries to survive. Even jumping off a building or a bridge and watching yourself fall to your death, the panic you probable feel of how much pain you will feel when you hit the ground or get hit by a truck, or taking a gun and pulling the trigger, hoping that the bullet goes through exactly the way needed so that you hopefully don’t feel a thing as you fall to the floor dead. To me, it’s the process of dying that’s scary, not death itself. Death itself is mercy, I no longer will feel any pain, physical, emotional, psychological or any other way. Just nothingness, much how I feel my life is.

#elisa lam

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violetsystems · 4 years ago

Text

#personal

Because of the Internet, cycles of things don’t really follow the same pattern as the older generation is used to. They think they know obviously. Their favorite game is called human capital and we are the pawns, bishops and knights on the chessboard for them to sacrifice. I’m forced to read a lot of financial opinions as an outsider. For somebody in the aforementioned camp, Mario Gabelli had at least acknowledged that the Fortnite generation has been slowly growing up. Apps like Robinhood have opened the market up to steal your hard earned pennies. And then accounts get hacked, money gets stolen, and the older generation laughs and shakes it’s head. You stupid kids and your lack of motivation. If you didn’t spend all your time living your life instead of making us money. I think he forgets like most boomers do that there’s an entire generation after them that was born and bred on Tron. I didn’t land into the stock market after playing Call of Duty with my bros to be honest. I melted down a twenty year pension from a place of employment that ghosted, derezzed and ignored my entire identity. Other people might have traded online through simulations, harvested their bitcoin at the behest of their electric bill or just have rich parents, I’m not like other people. We all have figured this out after how many years of writing these to an invisible tribunal of amazing people. I often read these other perspectives about the financial industry controlled by pundits, investors, and people who generally talk down to the little person like me. We are what people refer to as “the retail investor.” We’re written about like the plague mostly because nobody can really control our strategies or bully us into submission. Much of the idea of retirement is hinged on investments in America. Social Security is about to run out at some point. My generation will probably be the first to see my government stiff the bill and run away. Corporations and working for them at times can be a whirlwind of interconnected dots. Money and loss on paper becomes a zero sum shell game for the rich. It’s not about the work you do. It’s about the money you spend for them. Donald Trump took a loss for almost two decades which is incidentally how long I was gainfully employed. A typical artist in America can take a hobby loss for up to five years. The same artists with no healthcare to speak of. The fiscal cliff that we all dread is nowhere reflected in the markets. Neither is the actual driving force behind their profit. America is a consumer based economy and America is simultaneously shrinking and bursting at the seams. These are all stitched together by a frail, aging ideology that doesn’t want to let go. Generation X’ers like myself are used to being forgotten about. I travelled the world looking for someone to look at me as more than a number. And now people follow me around because I’m a name on their company registry. But nobody really ever speaks to me directly. I’m a dataset and a demographic that only speaks as a number on paper. Until I do things that the financial elite can’t stand. I make a decision that is based on things they don’t value. I choose to put my money elsewhere. And this is why people hate us. Because you can’t speculate on chaos that you do not control. And America is simply profit off of speculation which is a value amounted to 20.83 trillion dollars in debt. Which doesn’t sound much like it’s in control of anything except printing money.

I grew up on computers. My mother helped me start my first bulletin board system. I had my very first phone line in my bedroom around the time wargames came out. I used to post the number on boards before I had even set up a system like Telegard. I would advertise it like a mysterious military site out of a Gibson book. People would call and the modem would pick up the carrier tone and dump them to a blank monochrome screen. From there my twelve year old self would punk people into thinking I was an AI. Years later I found a twenty year career in Information Technology in the Arts which abandoned me in a wholly disturbing way. My knowledge of computers still stayed and those skills kept me alive in these times. I grew up playing games because I had no friends and suffered horrible bullying. I was an only child who was ridiculously intelligent but often quiet and ignored. Years later it’s not so much different. The bullying is still out there. America rewards the loud and the forthcoming mostly because it is too lazy to seek out the nuances. Convenience has warped America’s attention span beyond the regular flow of time. Computers and connection over the years have rapidly accelerated the dominance of these ideals. Jobs exist all over the world these days. Most of the ones I’ve been interested in have been in China. But due to the circumstances of my situation, I was forced to take a larger sum of income this year than I would have liked. Sounds terrible right? No shortage of people trying to scam me into spending it. Any further income accrued this year becomes taxed horribly. Ironically, the Illinois fair tax law changes the game even further as retirement income was not taxed before the amendment. If passed, any retirement income that was not with held will be owed. Another round of layoffs to liquidate pensions from the bottom line in cities like ours will definitely affect people worse than me down the road. I’ve been stumbling through the process alone since the end of July. A lot of what I had done was to part out and budget money in my own way playing a waiting game that I’ve grown used to in my life. I am at the peak of stagnancy at the moment. Staring out at another blank screen typing into the void every week while people lift bits and pieces for their own convenient narrative of me and my value in human capital. Headhunters no longer stalk the internet. They follow you around in the street with forced intimidation expecting you to read into what they think you deserve to spend the rest of your life doing. All the while trying to wrap you up back into an ecosystem for less pay, shrinking benefits, and an economic ecosystem of investments of both human and monetary. Debtors are paired with debtors. Marriages are arranged for tax purposes and rich oligarchs with political ties find more ways to pay less. And yet they never really understand the power of connection they do not have. They don’t communicate. They project. They expect you to believe that we’re all in this together when they never hear a word you say. The only time they listen is when you take your money away. I’m single. Never been married. An only child. And pretty much an exile on Wall Street with more liquidity and equity suddenly than most people in America. And much like everyone paying more taxes to a government that has basically turned into a formulaic limp dick reality show.

A reality show that treats me like the Babadook at best these days. I can’t even leave my house anymore without somebody following me or watching me. I realize this might just be the hazards of my next pivot into global employment. I thought these long forms of prose were enough of a background check for the FBI at this point. It’s called “transparency and accountability” Scully. I realize ethics aren’t a valuable skill in America. But the utter lack of human emotion for my situation speaks volumes to me. And it should be a wakeup call for most who live and work in this dangerous time. They really don’t give a fuck about us in such a comedic way that they don’t realize our power. Our power is confidence and they find ways to undermine it. Tell you that you aren’t beautiful enough so that you spend more money on things you do not need. Ignore and isolate you until you breakdown and ask for their help. Until you treat yourself in bankruptcy so they can print more money. These times are abusive at best in a way that I have never been prepared for. But those on top don’t really understand how it feels to be under the thumb for years. I do. Corporations aren’t human and neither are most rich people. I realize that life here is literally all about money. Last night was a very good example of that when I read the news about a game I played shutting down. I cried because it was the only thing connecting me to anything social without being overbearing and weird. And I had invested a sizeable amount of my pension in the thought that this might keep the ecosystem alive. The lesser of two evils of investing. Put money where you think it will be used fairly and wisely. Water the garden and watch it grow. The amazon stock is literally over three grand per share. They own everything. They’ve shattered their profits due to the shift from COVID to delivery. Small businesses shutter. Hard artistic work is pissed to the wind. And people like myself are left to wonder why the fuck Jeff Bezos needs any more money from me to treat me like a fucking lab rat. These companies do not give a fuck about you as a person. They want your money. They want to leverage your image, your words, your narrative to push something that doesn’t benefit you at all. There is no excuse for me to be invisible after all these years let alone from what happened to me in July. And yet, there is no real way to get back at it. Other than to completely divest from something that only hurts. Capitalism is funny that way. It desperately wants your participation to stay alive. A two trillion dollar company like Apple cares only about the cut for their investors not the art that drives these bricks that become obsolete in two years. The reason the old generation is contentious to us is that we see the scam in broad daylight. We trolled you behind the scenes. And when we learn the truth, it hurts. We can always hurt back. I divest. I decouple. I wonder what motivates me as a human being and not a bottom line for some rich fuck who got their way scamming people into thinking they’re worth less so they could have more. The internet moves pretty fast. It can all fall apart in a keystroke. And these people will still be making excuses and not staring us point blank in the eye. I’ll still be playing video games and you’ll still be investing in what you think you know about me. Which last time I checked is jack shit other than the fact that it’s safe enough to plant a nuclear physicist under my apartment for a year without me knowing. Shall we play a game? See you at the opening bell Jeff!

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prorevenge · 6 years ago

Text

My job is super-easy? Okay. YOU do it.

This is pretty long. Smartass TL;DR at the bottom.

I was telling a Buddy about this sub, and he related this story, I tell it to you with his permission.

Buddy is a very charismatic guy, great friend, and probably a great co-worker. He’s the type of guy that everyone is fond of. Easygoing, and seems to have a knack for personal relationships. Always remembers birthdays, if he hears that a band you like is coming to town he’ll text you the news, that sort of guy.

Buddy works for a company that services industrial machinery. It was a small operation, there was Buddy, GoodBoss, Owner, The Kid in the warehouse, a couple of Technicians, and some Office Ladies who handled administration. Buddy was the pivot man in the operation, he was the point of contact for the Technicians and had great relationships with the Clients and the Vendors who supplied the parts. He knew his job inside out, and everyone likes dealing with him. He gets things done.

Now the way this place worked was that the Technicians would send in their reports for the day after 4:00pm. Buddy would look them over, looking for “Rockets”, these were high-priority jobs that needed to be done ASAP, as opposed to routine maintenance issues. He would then email The Kid a list of parts to be picked. Buddy worked 9am to 5:30pm, and was on-call for emergencies. If a “rocket” came in after-hours, Buddy would email The Kid to add it to the morning order.

The Kid arrived for work at 7:00am, and would pick parts orders for the technicians. These would be picked up by a local courier at 9:00am, and taken to a depot. There were 2 major industrial areas in town, and the “depot” wasn’t more than a large mailbox in a post office in each area. The technicians could avoid city traffic by going directly to the depots, which were very close to the clients. The couriers would get these boxes to the depots about 9:30. Buddy would schedule a call for the technicians, and when they finished the first call, they would head around the corner to the depot to pick up their parts.

Things ran smoothly for years, and then GoodBoss decided he wanted to move on. He was grooming Buddy for the move up, and Buddy learned most of the managerial duties GoodBoss covered, in addition to his own duties, things like QuickBooks and scheduling, etc.

GoodBoss leaves, and Buddy takes over these responsibilities, again things run smoothly.

Until Owner tells Buddy that he’s getting a new supervisor. BadBoss. This guy came from a Sales background, had no experience in operations, and was basically there to help Owner bid on big jobs, but his title was Operations Director, and he was Buddy’s new boss.

Buddy was angry that he had been denied the chance to move up, which in a small operation, doesn’t happen often. Add to that the fact that BadBoss was a jerk, but not a dumb jerk, and quickly figured out that Buddy was a threat. And so the lines were drawn. BadBoss had it in for Buddy, and Buddy wasn’t taking any of his shit.

One day BadBoss comes in about 8:45 and sees Buddy shooting the shit in the coffee room with one of the Office Ladies, and lays into him. “Why aren’t you at your desk? I don’t pay you to stand around talking. Get to work.”

Buddy starts to protest that he’s actually at the office 15 minutes before his shift, but BadBoss cuts him off, “I don’t listen to bullshit excuses. I want you at your desk at 8am sharp, and I want you to send me an email every morning to prove it. Now get going.”

Buddy sends him an email, BCC to Owner, asking BadBoss to confirm that he wants Buddy working 8-4:30. There was also a previous email saying “no overtime”. BadBoss sends a tersely worded confirmation.

Now Buddy comes in just before 8am, sends an email right at 8, confirming he’s on duty, and BCC to Owner. But here’s the problem.

The Technicians send their reports in after 4pm. Buddy lets it be known on the down-low that closer to 4:30, the better. So the parts requests come in at 4:25, and Buddy leaves at 4:30. He doesn’t get a chance to review them until 8 the next morning. He sends the order pick to The Kid, who doesn’t have enough time to assemble the order before the courier comes at 9am.

So what used to be next-day service ends up taking an extra day. If a Technician requests a part on his Monday report, he gets it Wednesday, not Tuesday, the way things worked before.

The customers start to revolt, loudly and energetically. These are industrial production machines, and when a “rocket” is delayed, it means a machine is down for an entire extra day. The customers are losing production and they are NOT happy.

Buddy gets called into a meeting on a Thursday with Owner and BadBoss demanding to know what the hell is happening. BadBoss is in full form, and says that Buddy’s job is super easy, and these delays are unacceptable.

Buddy explains exactly why the delays are occurring, it’s all because BadBoss changed his hours. Owner gives BadBoss the stink-eye after confirming that he ordered the schedule change.

“Okay, fine.” BadBoss concedes. “You go back to your old hours, starting Monday”

“I won’t be here Monday,” replies Buddy.

“What are you talking about?”

“I am on holiday for 2 weeks. Didn’t you check the vacation schedule?”

BadBoss goes red in the face. “I never approved any holiday request from you. You are NOT on holiday.”

“Yes, I am. The request was approved by GoodBoss before you were hired. Do you want to see the emails?”

“I don’t give a shit. Your holidays are cancelled.”

“Sorry, but my brother is getting married, and I am in the wedding party. I fly out to The Dominican on Saturday. I will be back in 2 weeks.”

“Who have you trained to take over your duties?” asks Owner.

“Well, back in the day GoodBoss would cover. I guess it’s up to BadBoss to cover while I am gone.”

BadBoss is stuck. He can’t very well claim that Buddy’s job is super easy, and then claim later in the same meeting that he can’t do it.

Oh, my Lord. What a shitshow.

The Technicians requested, say, a front sensor for a BoomStomper Model 31. BadBoss would ask them for a part number, and the Technician would reply, “I don’t know, Buddy knows all the part numbers.” Then he would go to The Kid, and say he needs to send a sensor to the Technician, and The Kid would point to the racks, where all the parts were labelled by part numbers. “I need a part number if you want to add it to an order”.

Buddy had an exhaustive Excel folder with all kinds of parts lists in it on his desktop. He also had a massive collection of manufacturers binders on shelves behind his desk. The Excel folder was already named something obscure, BadBoss couldn’t find it, so BadBoss was forced to look parts up in the binders. No CTRL-F in Excel to find a part number for BadBoss.

Buddy had bookmarks on his Chrome browser for manufacturer’s and vendor’s websites. He removed all the bookmarks so BadBoss, if he wanted in to log into any of these sites, had to create his own login. Buddy’s were on LastPass, but BadBoss didn’t have the LastPass password.

Buddy was also the adept with computers, so he had been given the access to the phone system portal. He set it up so that any calls to his desk phone or work cell would get “I am on vacation, in my absence, please contact BadBoss at Extension 123.” And then the call would forward to BadBoss’s desk phone, and if unanswered, to his work cell. After hours emergency calls went directly to BadBoss’s work cell, and if unanswered, to his HOME phone.

Buddy set up his Outlook with an autoreply that said to contact BadBoss, and copied Owner in.

Then Buddy shut off his work phone and took two weeks off.

BadBoss found out in a hurry that Buddy’s job wasn’t so super-easy after all. He was getting calls from irate clients, Technicians with the wrong parts, and calls in the evening that he had no way to handle. Remember that they repaired industrial machinery, and some facilities were 24-hours.

When Buddy got back BadBoss was waiting for him by the door and went ballistic. It was a screaming match that drew everyone, even Owner, who literally had to step between them.

Finally Buddy just screamed, “Fuck this shit. I can’t work with this guy.” He turned to Owner and said, “You saw how this place ran when I was doing HIS job, and now you see what it’s like when he’s doing mine. I am going back home, right now, before I do something I regret. So you have a choice to make.

“I’ll come in tomorrow and clean out my desk if this asshole hasn’t cleaned out his first.”

When he arrived on Tuesday, all the staff were grinning and BadBoss’s office was empty. Owner called him into his office and told him that BadBoss was gone and Buddy could get back to work.

“Nope,” said Buddy. “His office is empty, and I want it. I want his job, I want his pay, I want his perks. I have been here for years and you know what I can do. Put me in charge.”

And that’s how Buddy got his promotion. Since then the company has grown, and Buddy has grown right with it. There are now branches in 3 cities, a huge staff, and Buddy is in charge of it all.

And he still reminds me when my favorite band is coming to town.

TL;DR Grow an attention span.

(source) (story by PJMurphy)

#prorevenge #by PJMurphy #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #revenge story #last10

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cheolsaurora · 5 years ago

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Prisons and Palaces

Gif does not belong to me

Word count: 1.1K

Warnings: I mean Yunho is kinda rude but none for this chapter

You can find the prologue here

Chapter 1: Refugee

Hongjoong smirked into his cup of coffee, “So,” he said placing the cup down with a small tink, “do you want to pay up now or later?”

The blonde man across from him smiled. “You’d think I’d have known him long enough to know better.” He reached into his back pocket finding his wallet and pulled out a $100 bill laying it on the table. He then picked his fork up and poked at the untouched omelette in front of him as if he were trying to decide if he were hungry at all. “What do you think his excuse’ll be this time? Or is he even gonna show at all?”

Hongjoong smiled genuinely at the older man in front of him. Throughout their many years of friendship Seonghwa still worried over each and every boy in the tight nit circle like they were toddlers just learning to walk. “Ah, I’m sure he got caught trying to split after another of his one night stands, and well,” he took a large mouthful of food, “you know how he is Hwa. Probably said something stupid and upset the poor girl and now he’s trying to figure out how to shut her up. His track record with women sucks; I’ll never understand how he gets so many.” He was raising his hand in attempt to get the waiters attention for the check when the man of the hour walked in. “Speak of the devil,” Hongjoong said with a chuckle, swiftly lifting the cash off the table before the clearly flustered young man could guess who or what their little bet had been about.

“Hey, sorry I’m late.” The tall boy mumbled as he flagged the waiter down. “Gimme an omelette and an espresso martini.”

“Yunho it’s nine in the morning.”

“Oh really, is it?” Dramatically lifting his Rolex in front of his eyes and squinting “Cause it looks like get-off-my-case o’clock. Like I said,” he shoved the menu back at the waiter, “whatever omelette you have and the martini.” Flashing a cocky smile at Seonghwa, “Your having your coffee hyung, I’m just trying to have mine.”

Seonghwa wasn’t taken aback by his behavior, unfortunately this was all too common. Yunho was one of his best friends since he was a child. He, Yunho, and Hongjoong came from privileged backgrounds and were destined to step up and take a large role in their fathers company. No one had excelled more than Yunho. He was bright, handsome, easy going, an all-around good egg. It took Seonghwa too long to accept the fact that in only a years time his intimidating friend who had graduated top of every class he’d ever taken; turned into the cliche, rich playboy that no one, not even himself liked. In fact, as he was looking at the younger man he wasn’t positive he had come to terms with it quite yet.

“Yo Seonghwa,” Yunho said, rustling Seonghwa’s newly died hair, “I’m telling you a very import story about how I almost killed someone today. You wanna pay attention?”

“Sorry Yunho, please continue”

“So I’m running behind, I won’t go into details as to why I’m running late.” Hongjoong smirks at Seonghwa as Yunho confirmed their earlier suspicions. “But I would have been on time, I really would have; but, I turn onto peach street and there’s this chick just standing there. I mean no thoughts, head empty, just zoned out. I slam on the breaks, get out the car and what does she do?” He takes a swig of the alcoholic coffee as the two older boys look at him expectantly, “She freaking stands there. I finally got the attention of someone that was supposedly with her to come drag her off, but she never said a freaking word.” He slammed the glass down on the table a little too hard, causing some of the other diners to silently judge, but Yunho never noticed.

Hongjoong noticed the shift in the air and quickly changed to subject. “So what’s the name of the girl that had you running late in the first place?”

Yunho groaned as the waiter placed a chili covered omelette in front of him “Oh. My. God. Hyung, she was gorgeous, I mean stunning, and...” he moved closer to the center of the table to make sure the two older men would get his insinuation, “talented if you know what I mean.” Winking and taking a mouthful of omelette he sloppily continued “but I’m telling you. The prettier they are the worse the personality is. She caught me sneaking out and tried to get me to stay and have breakfast. I politely declined but she was not having it. I mean she literally was grabbing on me the entire way out of the house." He wiped his mouth with the nearest napkin “But she only did that because she knows who I am and wants cash. So... that’s what I gave her.”

This shocked Seonghwa. There was no way this was his childhood friend. The person who was kind to everyone, that gave everyone the benefit of the doubt. All he could remember was an innocent little Yunho who knew nothing of the dark, real world that everyone else lived in. Running his fingers through his blonde locks he didn’t try to hide his disgust, “Jesus Yunho, did you ever think that she may not have known who you are and have actually liked you? Or how you throwing money at her after sex would make her feel? You can’t just assume every woman knows who you are and wants your cash. You aren’t that important lover boy.”

Yunho leaned back, tongue in cheek. “Hyung, you may get a higher class of women in your circle, but me, I get the bad dye jobs and fake tits looking to make a quick buck. Don’t act like your better than me when your options are better than mine.”

The older man scoffed and shook his head. “A fisherman usually catches what he fishes for.” For the first time Seonghwa made eye contact with the young man. Maybe he was imagining it but he could swore he still saw the puppy in his eyes, it was a sad, hurt puppy, but a puppy nonetheless. He noisily pushed his chair back and picked up the bill along with Yunhos car keys. “You’re not driving, don’t even argue. My driver will take you to your office. See if you can sober up for the rest of the day. Physically and mentally.”

Yunho looked at Hongjoong with expectation, hoping the older man would come to his aid. Hongjoong shrugged and stood “I’m not gonna argue with Hwa when he’s upset and I suggest you don’t either.” He patted the boys broad shoulders, “He just wants the best for you Yunho, we all do.”

He heard the words but they didn’t sound as if they were loving, they sounded full of criticism and disdain. Yunho stood, removing the silver haired mans hand and pushing past him “I already lost the best of me; sorry you guys have to put up with the leftovers.”

—————————————————————————

Uhm. This was longer than I expected but is it that long? Idk. I know it’s starting slow but let me know what you think 💕 if the formatting is weird I apologize I’m trying to fix it.

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heartfulofsighs · 5 years ago

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Baggage Claim Pt. 4

Description: Seunghoon back from a business trip only has a mind for growing his company. You are in the middle of running from the by the book life that was drowning you. When a minor inconvenience sets you in his path will you be the reason he eases up? And could he be what you need to get serious again?

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10

I’m back and this story is still chugging along. Thank you all for your patience lol. Thanks to @negrowhat and @bbnightengale for always encouraging me! About 2.7k words

It felt like you were doing something really outside of the norm. Riding in a car with a man you barely knew. He turned on the heat for you and turned the radio down. “So where am I taking you?” He asked. You were stuck for a bit staring at his profile as the streetlights flickered by outside of the window. The silence stretched until he took a second to glance at you, “do you feel comfortable with me taking you all the way?” He asked. You looked away suddenly finding the street outside very interesting. “Or do you just want me to drop you in the neighborhood you’re staying in?” He continued. “Cause either way is fine with me.” “You can drop me there. I guess you would have killed me by now if that’s what you wanted to do.” You said. He didn’t answer right away. When you came to a stop he tapped on the touchscreen on the radio until a map came up, “put the address in here.” He said. You did as you were told while the red light dragged on. He rapped his fingers on the steering wheel. You could feel him watching you but it wasn’t a creepy feeling. More like you felt he had something he wanted to say.

“So, how’s your vacation going so far?” He asked. “Really good.” You answered quickly. The navigation started speaking softly. He turned right, “how long are you in town for?” He spoke while he glanced from the screen to the street. He was being very careful. You appreciated that. It relaxed you and you didn’t mind sharing with him, “I’m here for a while, just short of 6 months.” He didn’t react to the length of time. You expected him to look at you sharply or ask why so long but he didn’t. The quiet in the car was only broken by the navigation voice. He guided his car along the freeway, the speed was lulling you to sleep. He didn’t stop you from drifting off. So you did.

He pulled up to a light blue tall building and turned his car off. You had dozed off and it gave him a little time to look at you. Your brows furrowed in your sleep, he was tempted to smooth them out. You sniffed, scrunching your nose before settling further into your seat. “Hey,” he said softly, “wake up, we’re here.” He added. Your face scrunched more. He watched you stretch your arms over your body with a deep groan. When you peeled your eyes open and gave him a lazy smile. He felt his heart pick up speed and looked away to the windshield. “Thanks for the ride.” You mumbled. Your voice held a sleepy quality that made him think of naps and warm covers. “Not a problem.” He answered. He waited but he didn’t hear the sound of the door opening. He fought the urge to look. He kept his eyes on the streetlights and considered what Mino had said at the party. “I think she likes you.” He rubbed his forehead and banished the sentence. He tried to think about work instead, that was a no go.All he could consider was the way you laughed with him at the booth. How that moment made him want to linger near you. He gave in and turned to you. He opened his mouth. A date. He could ask you to coffee or to lunch or dinner, something. When you glanced his way pleasantly waiting for him to speak. “Can I ask you something before you go?” You blinked at him and nodded. He started to list the places he could take you in his mind. They all sounded reasonable. “What’s up?” You asked. He took a big breath. “Is being serious a bad thing?” He asked. How awkward would it be for you if he asked you out in his car late at night? That thought had steered his original question away. He didn’t want you to think of him as a creep. This wasn’t the question you were expecting. He didn’t know what words you had braced yourself for but those weren’t them. Once again your whole face gave it away as you processed. He liked that he could watch you think his question through. You made no effort to hide your emotions and it was refreshing. “No,” you finally said. He looked back out of the window...encouraged. It was nice to know that you didn’t consider one of his dominate qualities a bad one. “Why do you ask?” You whispered. “My friend that you met at the party...he says I’m too serious.” He explained. “He’s always nagging.” “Does your job require you to be serious?” You asked. Did it? He didn’t have an answer for you. All jobs required seriousness right? He frowned, “Don’t all jobs require seriousness?” “Maybe, but you don’t have to carry that seriousness into your personal life.” You mused, “work bleeding out into literally everything you do is a nightmare.” You sounded like you were speaking from experience. You looked down at your hands and played with your fingers, “it can be crushing.” You whispered. He couldn’t decide if he was guilty of letting his business control his life. “I’m sure he’s just worried about your health. He’s just trying to be a good friend.” You spoke with so much positivity. He was comforted. “Yeah, I’m sure you’re right.” He said. He could lighten up a bit. Smile more, make a few more jokes. Maybe actually go out when Mino asked him. Maybe...after the Seungyoon account was secured. “Well how about this…” you began, “if you get a free day and you want to prove to him that you can relax, text me. We’ll go someplace dumb and touristy.” You laughed as you said it but he was instantly consumed by the thought of it. Someplace dumb and touristy. Maybe a theme park? Or one of those pop-up photo instillations with the fun backgrounds. He could picture the two of you clearly. “Ok.” He said. “Dumb and Touristy?” He echoed. You nodded and your face turned serious for a moment, “yeah that’s my one stipulation...don’t forget it.” You added. He absorbed your words carefully. “Thanks for the ride.” You said as you pulled the handle, “I really appreciate it.” “No problem.” He answered. He watched you climb out and walk to the building. You climbed the stairs on the side of the building and walked in out of his sight. He sat for a moment and tried to think of your invitation as nonchalantly as you said it. It wouldn’t hurt to look up something touristy and dumb. Just in case.

The next day you woke up late. You couldn’t help but replay what you two had talked about in the car. What he said rang in your head but you also thought about the way he looked. Seunghoon’s face was distracting. You wanted to lean in. To see if he would really mind you invading his personal space. The more you thought about it the faster your heart went. It was easy to bluff confidence at the booth because there were other people around. But all alone in a car? That was much different. His worry about being too serious, it felt sort of familiar. Familiar enough that all your lusting thoughts had been pushed to the back of your mind. His was worried, his brows scrunched together as he thought about your answer. He reminded you just a bit of yourself. Maybe he was in the beginning stages of what had driven you away from your life? You put your hand over your face and sighed. That crushing feeling. All that seemed so far behind you. But was it behind you and waiting or was it behind you and you were finished with it? Here you were giving advice when all you had done was run. “If you get a free day and you want to prove to him that you can relax, text me....” What was the harm in suggesting it? He probably wouldn’t text you so there wasn’t much to worry about right? You couldn’t help but groan, he probably drove home and laughed at you. Probably was too polite to tell you straight out that he wasn’t interested. You had thought he was going to ask you out when he said he wanted to ask you something. In truth you wouldn’t have disliked the idea of him asking you at. Besides being incredibly handsome, you knew the serious side of him was only one aspect. There was more, and you were so curious. You bet he was a different person once he loosened up. There was no point to doing too much imagining. You couldn’t waste the whole day. The danger was you staying in bed all day and daydreaming about him. You didn’t give in. You hauled yourself up and decided to check on Cherry. You cracked her door and found her cocooned in her blankets. “Cherry…” you called softly. The blankets shifted but she didn’t answer. You decided it was better to leave her be. You sat at the table and did something you hadn’t done since leaving. You opened your Facebook. You bit your lip and rocked back and forth while you waited for it to load. You hadn’t been without friends back home. On the contrary you had a wide circle. A wide circle but you still felt like you were drowning. The screen came up. Not a single message. You scrolled through your feed and found that life was proceeding normally for everyone. Your best friend had posted the same pictures she always did at your favorite bar, just without you. Another girl hung on her arm making funny faces. Of course the world would go on without you. But the pictures still made you sad. You frowned wrinkling your nose but you didn’t put your phone down. Instead of making yourself breakfast or starting to get dressed you looked up Seunghoon. His name wasn’t far down the list. You clicked on past articles incredibly curious. “Start-up Advertising Firm turning industry on its head.” The headline was complete with a sharp picture of Seunghoon and Mino. It was only a few months old. He was wearing his usual suit, hand loosening his tie as he smirked at the camera. Mino was much looser. He smiled brightly hands shoved in the pockets, shirt untucked, and looking just the right amount of messy. You skimmed the article and went on to the next one. The thing you were searching for didn’t seem to be in any of the profiles. None of the articles mentioned if he was single or not. The sound of Cherry’s door opening made you slam your phone down face first. “How are you feeling?” You asked. She made a sound close to frustration before she sneezed. “Still feel like complete shit.” She groaned. “You want me to make you anything?” You asked sweetly. She rubbed at her nose and shook her head, “I’m gonna make myself some tea...I just wanted to ask you how last night went.” “Pretty well.” You granted. She sniffled, “how were the people? Pretty nice?” She went on. She talked as she shuffled to the kitchen, closer to you. “Yeah I got good tips.” you said, “the guy who I switched bags with happened to be there.” You confessed. She stopped walking. The was slowing her ability to process so you got a chance to brace yourself. Once her mind had sorted what you said out she shouted, voice horse from her coughing, “WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT FATE?!” “Calm down, you’re gonna start a coughing fit.” You warned. She shook her head, “did you guys talk?” She asked. You made a very put upon face and nodded. “What about?” She pushed. “His company and such...he’s nervous about being too serious.” You explained. Cherry can’t seem to control herself. You watch her fidget with her blanket. Her eyes widen, and she fights down the coughs that threaten to distract her. “You have his number right?” She asked. “Yeah but,” You pulled your hand through your hair, “I can’t just call him out of the blue...that’s weird right?” You weren’t sure. It had been a long time since you were actually interested in a guy. Back home you had no time and when you did decide to flirt it was just to distract yourself. “I don’t think it’s weird.” She said, “people call me right away.” She pointed out. “Yeah,” you agreed, “because you’re pretty.” It was meant to be something to laugh over. Of course Cherry got called back instantly, she was gorgeous. But instead of smiling or giggling her face froze over. You felt yourself instantly stiffen. “I’m sorry.” You blurted before you really knew what you were apologizing for. “I didn’t mean…” It took a moment for her to come back from where ever she had gone in her mind. But when she did it was with a body shaking sneeze. When she straightened her face was soft again, “it’s not a big deal...maybe I’ll tell you about it later.” She finally said. You opened your mouth to respond but your phone buzzed across the table. You both stared at the black device silently. It buzzed until you picked it up and looked at the screen. “Oh.” You got out. “Is it him!?” She asked. Your grip on the phone tightened as you nodded, “answer it.” She said. For a moment you wondered what the point would even be? You were leaving eventually, wouldn’t it be a huge error on your part to encourage him? But then again, a little fling… “Hello?” You said into it. There was a pause and you could sense Hoon was gathering his thoughts. “Hi.” The pause stretched. There were some paper’s shuffling in the background. “How are you?” Conversation with him last night hadn’t been so drawn out. You waited. He sighed, “not good.” “Oh..well, is there something I can help you with then?” You asked dumbly. More papers shuffling, more sighing on the other end. Cherry crept closer to you while you waited for him to speak. “I just, I’m leaving work early, and I don’t want to think about it for a while.” He said this in a rush, “I wanna think about something fun...and would it be weird if I asked you to come with me?” He asked. You shook your head forgetting that he couldn’t see you. Cherry tapped your arm. You jolted and realized you hadn’t answered. “Well-” “Listen, please tell me if this is weird, I don’t want you to be uncomfortable...shit, be truthful with me...I know we don’t know each other,” his voice was getting farther away. He was talking himself into a frenzy. All his worries tumbling at of his mouth at once. “Wait slow down,” You begged. He did, instantly going silent. “I don’t mind going out...come get me, I’m gonna get dressed.” You said to him. You hung up. “So,” Cherry began. “I guess something went wrong at his job and he’s ditching the rest of his day.” You got up from the table and sighed. “I agreed to hang out with him.” You explained, “he was freaking out about whether it was strange or not.” Cherry shrugged, “everything to do with fate is strange.” She said. You shook your head as you walked passed her. She sounded like a greeting card.

#Seunghoon #deputy lee #lee seunghoon #kpop sfw #kpop fanfiction #winner yg #winner fanfic #baggage claim #Baggage Claim Series #thanks for bearing with me #hope you all enjoy

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prettywordsyouleft · 6 years ago

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Our Christmas - Together

Pairing: Jung Daehyun x reader

Genre: christmas au / fluff / romance

Warnings: none

A/N: Our Christmas is a five part series that starts from first meeting someone to the magic of Christmas through the eyes of children!

I tried a different style with this story, I hope you like it!

Our Christmas: Meeting // Together // Family // Newlyweds // Children

Rolling over in your bed, you stretched out and smiled to yourself at the sleeping man beside you. If someone had told you this time last year that you would fall madly in love with Jung Daehyun and wake up on Christmas morning with him beside you, well, you wouldn’t have believed them.

Back then you had no interest in dating anyone, after all.

You wanted to make a name for yourself, build a career that you could feel accomplished with. Getting out and socialising was the last thing on your mind, you had no time for it. You were always staying back late at the office, drawing up new sketches to show your manager in the next ideas meeting. And then when you had been promoted, you were run off your feet with all the added work that came with it.

Dating, where would you fit that in? You had simply believed you would find love later on in life with someone as equally advanced in their career and ready to step into the next part of their life with you. Someone stable, independent, and calm.

Instead, Daehyun crashed into your world, literally.

~Ten Months Earlier~

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” he exclaimed as he opened the door to your car, his eyes washing over you for any sign of injury. “Are you alright? For some reason, my brakes jammed and I—, are you safe to get out? It might be best, here let me help you.”

He didn’t stop talking to breathe and that was all you could focus on doing yourself.

Inhale, exhale.

The sudden force of your car shunting forward as you waited at the set of lights had made you drop your iced frappe somewhere onto the floor, and you were aware your legs were now cold from it. He was still talking as you slowly looked up at him, but now his words only seemed jumbled up. Why was he staring at you with such a worried expression? He had caused this; he didn’t have the right to be worried for you. Or did he? Should you have demanded he worry for you if he hadn’t? After all, you would be driving off from these set of lights if he hadn’t of rear-ended you. But why did the emotion make you feel so uncomfortable? And what was he even talking about?

“Let’s get you to a hospital,” he said and finally took a heavy breath, his eyes deep with concern. “I’ll call for one.”

“Why do I need to go?” you asked softly, and he paused in pulling his phone up to his ear. The suggestion suddenly made you panic and you felt yourself over for whatever injury he could see that you couldn’t yet feel.

“You’re in shock,” he mentioned firmly and you blinked at his words.

Reality seemed to dawn on you then and you gasped. “I don’t have time to be in shock.”

“What? Listen, you are in shock. You’re pale and you’re--”

“Whether I am or not is irrelevant. My boss--”

“Will understand you have been in a car accident,” he intervened and the look within his eyes made you pause in any rebuttal. Why was he forcing this? And why were you listening? He helped you out of the car and began to call for assistance all the while you attempted meek excuses, each and every one being shut down by him.

You had to admit, whoever he was, he seemed to have a good way of directing you. As you waited at the hospital for a scan he had insisted upon, you wondered what type of job he had. Was he some kind of executive? A head of department manager? Someone who owned his own business? He wasn’t wearing a suit though, and as you stared at his distressed jeans you attempted to guess if they were store bought with the holes or not.

Not that clothing or position always made a person powerful; you were just so used to this kind of judgement. In the world you came from, it was almost second nature to evaluate how much of your precious time you should allocate to someone by how they appeared. And looking at what you saw, well, it conflicted with his direct nature or the way he handled everything during the car accident.

You were confused and your head hurt, but that could very well be from the fact that you had hit it in the accident.

“They said you’re going to be sore for a few days, but the scans are clear. I’ve paid for your visit. Look, I’m really sorry this all happened, and if anything else is a problem to solve outside of insurance, here’s my information. I actually have to get to work; do you want me to call you a cab or something?”

You shook your head and smiled lightly, accepting his business card. “I can manage.”

“Please, if you ever need to, don’t hesitate. I caused this, and I want to make sure it doesn’t affect you any further than it has.”

“Thank you.”

And with that, he smiled widely, waved and walked off, almost banging into a patient who he apologised profusely to before turning and waving again. You couldn’t help but smile at how endearing he was and then glanced down at the card in your hands, blinking slowly.

You hadn’t looked at the card as he handed it to you, but now that he was gone, you wondered why you had never once asked his name. Had he mentioned it? You were sure he had several times, but you were too much in shock to register it. The card had a name of a chicken delivery service on it and for a moment you were confused. Flipping it over you found his information scrawled on the back.

You honestly had no idea how much Jung Daehyun would change your world from that day forward.

“Okay, you are in charge of sorting out the tinsel, and I’m in charge in organising the ornaments!”

You glanced at Daehyun’s smiling face and rolled your eyes. “Says who?”

“Me, you most handsome boyfriend!” he chimed and you couldn’t hide your own smile. He chuckled and hugged you tightly. “See, you can’t resist me. Now, tinsel! Go go go!”

He was always like this with you. It didn’t matter how many months had travelled between you both, he’d always directed you around. You were the one with the job that called the shots. You were normally the firm, authority figure in the office.

But at home, Daehyun had you running around doing all his biddings.

It wasn’t that he was naturally a bossy human or anything. And he didn’t do it to get out of things. Not often, anyway. It was just in his nature to lead you well. You hadn’t realised when you first met him that this behaviour would become something you secretly enjoyed. Your whole life you had been left on your own two feet to make judgements. And you had worked to the bone to get to the point you were at now.

But when it came to the man you loved, well, you would literally do anything for him.

“Always bossing me about,” you chided as you set to work all the same, pouting for effect. Just because you liked it, didn’t mean you were always silent in your obliging behaviour though.

“You’re just so good at sorting things out unlike me,” he oozed and you rolled your eyes again. “Plus, setting up our first tree together like this is important, right? It means we’re celebrating one of the most special times of the year as a couple. We need to remember this, and make the tree look perfect.”

He had won you over right then, a giddy smile crossing onto your face. There was something magical all the time when it came to Jung Daehyun, but this festive season had been anticipated by you as the colder months grew closer. You had dreamed of setting up the tree in your first shared apartment and decorating your home together. Baking cookies and cakes to eat as soon as it was cool enough to, and wrapping presents whilst he sang to you.

Oh, that voice.

You hadn’t expected Daehyun to be a musician back when you met him, and you never had time for music past it being background noise in your car. But that voice had been the next step to getting here.

~Eight Months Earlier~

You walked down the steps into the less than desirable venue, checking your phone for the umpteenth time to ensure you had the correct address. When Daehyun had mentioned you could finally catch him today, you had jumped at the chance to. There had been an issue between the insurance companies and you had come to solve the problem, now two months after the accident. Daehyun had been out of the country so he had said, and then he was busy with work. You didn’t know what he did, but you had half assumed your destination would be a chicken shop given the card he had left with you.

Instead, you had entered a bar.

You hadn’t ever been clubbing, and you didn’t understand the need for endless rounds of drinking either. You were so disconnected from the world of socialising outside of work that you felt your mood darken upon entering the venue.

There was a surprising amount of bustle once you were inside. Everyone seemed to have tasks to occupy themselves with, darting in front of you as you walked in, as if you were in their way. You started to feel uneasy the further you walked inside, wondering where you could find Daehyun in this environment.

You eventually found him up on the stage with four others, all invested in a conversation that seemed rather serious. You saw his hands directing the words he was speaking and let out a small smile, it reminded you when he had flailed them about as he spoke to you during the ride to the hospital.

Some things never changed.

“Sorry, you can’t enter yet, we’re setting up,” a woman’s voice mentioned and you blinked away from your reverie, smiling politely at her. She didn’t return the gesture.

“I’m here to meet with Mr Jung actually. He knows I was coming.”

“Right, well he’s pretty busy setting up for the show,” she responded monotonously, giving your outfit a once-over. You felt your cheeks flush with colour at her casual disdain, and you looked down to see what was out of place with your striped pants suit. The only thing you could find was it didn’t match the décor of this establishment or the people within it. Normally such an outfit insisted on grabbing attention. Here, it was valueless. You sighed and nodded to yourself.

“I’ll wait.”

“Suit yourself.” She walked off with a shrug and you turned back to the stage, attempting to grab his attention, feeling rather out of place to demand it from him. You foolishly waved your hand about but his eyes were glued to a sheet of paper in front of him, not noticing the movement from you at all. You went to step closer, only to stop suddenly when two men lifting a large piece of stage equipment walked right in your path towards him. You groaned, finding a stray seat near the wall and sat down.

You could spare Daehyun twenty minutes.

An hour later and you had barely gotten two words out of him. Oh hey. What were you meant to do with them? You had gone to reply in greeting, slightly dazed by the genuine smile he shot you as he passed you by and spoke to someone who seemed to be producing the show. You were left hanging and you knew you could have turned and stomped out right then. But something made you sit back down, slumping against your bag and hoping Daehyun would be back with you shortly.

He didn’t and you grew frustrated. What were you waiting for? You didn’t need to solve this problem in person, right? You could have simply gotten Simon from accounts to come and do this on your behalf. You had your own schedule that you had cleared this afternoon just to ensure this task was completed.

The longer you waited, the more confused you became. Why had you come? It wasn’t as if you owed Daehyun anything, it was actually him who owed you. Further, why were you still here? You had no reason to wait on someone, even if their smile at you had made you stop in your tracks. Had that been it? The way Daehyun had smiled at you? You remembered back to how you had been in a good mood leaving the hospital because of his smiles as he had departed himself. Were you affected by such a simple charm?

You scoffed; you were too professional to fall for such a thing.

Getting up, you picked up your bag and slung it over your shoulder with more force than needed. No one was paying attention to you, nor would they be interested in your mild tantrum.

You went to turn on your heel, and that was when you heard him call your name.

“Uh-uh-uh, mic test. Oh! Y/N hey, I’ll be with you soon.”

You turned to stare at him in front of the microphone stand, looking every part of a man who knew his place on that stage. You tilted your head all the same and he grinned at you sheepishly. “I’m sorry, just wait for me? Maybe you’ll enjoy the show.”

“What show?” you called out as the music started playing from the other members on the stage, your face cringing at the sound. It was too loud and it vibrated throughout your body. You heaved a sigh, you would wait outside. Moving again, you only took two steps before you were transfixed to your place.

Daehyun had started to sing.

You hadn’t expected a song to sound so intricate with a tone like his. He started out softly, whispering about a love he had lost. As the song progressed, so did his volume, the fluidity of his voice making your heart race. You had spun around at some point, staring right at him. And he had captured you there, his own eyes on yours, little smiles tugging at his lips as he continued to sing for you. No one else was standing there watching, it was just a show for you and when the music signed off abruptly, you were aware of the goosebumps all over your body. Could you really feel this affected by a song?

Daehyun leapt off the stage and came up to you, smiling at you warmly. “See, I told you I would come to you, didn’t I!”

You couldn’t respond to him right then, words weren’t forming properly. His expression softened and he watched you cautiously. “Are you alright?”

Without even thinking about it, you moved in to hug him, holding onto him tightly and felt your emotions ease as soon as you were against him.

And when you felt his own arms wrap around you, it made you smile and bury in deeper.

The flame of desire began.

“If you put another log on that fire you will kill it,” you informed Daehyun right as he threw the log, a groan leaving your mouth in the process. He darted his eyes between you and the fire, smirking when a flame continued up and slowly engulfed his excessive offering. Daehyun soon moved back to your side.

“You were saying?”

You pointed at the fire now promptly going out across the room. “You killed it.”

“Well, it’s not like I normally use a fire,” he stated exasperatedly, throwing his hands up in defeat. “We don’t have one back home.”

“Wasn’t it you who convinced me to come on this cabin retreat with you to kick up our Christmas spirit some more? Talking about making snowmen, playing out in the cold and then sitting in front of a fire drinking hot cocoa? Well, I’m sitting in front of an extinguished fire and I have no hot cocoa.”

“And you say I’m the bossy one in this relationship,” Daehyun quipped, kissing the top of your head before he moved over to the small kitchenette off to the side of the open cabin layout. He held up the water jug. “Would you like a hot cocoa, madam?”

“Of course,” you replied as you shifted to the fire. You used the tools to retrieve the smouldering log, setting it down on the hearth as you stoked up the rest of what was on the grate, smiling at the embers on the coals that promised hope. By the time Daehyun had made the beverages, you had rekindled the fire enough to know it would be roaring again soon.

Teamwork at it’s finest.

Daehyun glanced at the fire and then back at you. “You know, when my friends first met you they thought you weren’t right for me.”

“I remember distinctly that Amanda really didn’t like me,” you agreed, a sigh leaving your lips.

He chuckled as he shifted closer to you, reaching to hold your hand. “It’s because you came in wearing a pantsuit looking like a million dollars.”

“And?”

“Don’t and me, you judged us too,” he retorted and you pouted. “They didn’t think you knew what hard work was. Yet look at you now, able to save a fire that I put out. It’s why I love you.”

“Because I can fix fires?” you asked quizzically and he shook his head, nuzzling into your neck a little as he got comfortable.

“Because you surprise me all the time.”

~Seven Months Earlier~

“Seriously, just let me in!”

You stared at the man banging on your glass office door and shook your head, widening your eyes at the scene he was causing. You weren’t in the mood to deal with Daehyun today.

“Y/N, I’m not leaving until you open this door!”

You ignored his efforts, turning back to the pile of documents in front of you, doing your very best to block out his incessant knocking and chatter. You had been able to do so when you first met him, but since that day, you happened to hear everything Daehyun said to you.

Or about you.

It had happened during the weekend, you had gone to see him play again, having become addicted to Daehyun’s soulful vocals. You had told him since you hugged him it was only because his song evoked emotion in you. And Daehyun had allowed you away with that excuse until the performance in the weekend. He had written a new song and as you listened to Crash you realised it was directed at you. It had overwhelmed you so much that before he could say so much as one word to you backstage you had kissed him.

And that night you had joined the after party for the first time, actually conversing with more than Daehyun, laughing and discussing many topics until it was early into the morning. You had been invited to brunch the following day at a café the band seemed to frequent and for the first time in years you experienced the feeling of butterflies dancing around in your stomach.

You couldn’t believe this was happening to you.

You were eager to see the band again, and Daehyun. You saw them inside the coffee shop and beamed, heading inside and up to the table right as you heard your name in amidst the conversation.

“Dae, she’s just too different for you mate. Are you sure you want to be messing with her?”

“What do you mean? Y/N is awesome,” he had defended and you smiled, only to look at the next person who spoke.

“Bet Daddy will pay you off to leave her alone in a month’s time. Honestly, she’s not from our world. She’s a princess who has an important job and you’re just some novelty she’s picked up temporarily. Girls like Y/N have to marry guys in CEO roles. You’re a singer, stop kidding yourself that this could be something special. I bet she couldn’t even put in a hard day’s work of manual labour.”

You stepped up to the table then, squaring your jaw and glared at everyone in front of you. “Not that I should humour this conversation, but you’re entirely wrong about me.”

“Is that so?” Amanda, the girl who worked as sound tech asked, her eyes challenging you.

“Y/N,” Daehyun started but you raised a hand in his direction, unable to even look him in the eye. Your emotions were barely held back to get what you had to say out.

“My family owns an apple orchard. I spent my entire life studying and helping on the farm until I came to Seoul. I lived in a shoebox of a studio where I held three part-time jobs and put myself through university. And then, I worked damn hard to get where I am, without Daddy’s help. My father couldn’t send me to university, let alone get me to the position I’m in. And I’m grateful for all the hard work that paid for every single suit in my closet. You are right about something though, I don’t belong here, not because of my upbringing or lifestyle, but because none of you were truly honest in giving me a chance.”

And with that you had spun on your heel, ignored Daehyun who came after you, and sped all the way home, knowing that you wouldn’t dare socialise again. You vowed that the only music you would listen to would be classical, nothing with grunt or power like Daehyun’s voice held. You would forget all about the man who had worried about you for no reason at all, and return back to the time before the accident.

Daehyun’s banging was proving difficult to ignore though. You groaned and thumped your hands on your desk, wondering how someone could be so stubborn. Glaring at the man pressed against your door, you walked over to him, unlocked the door and he fell in, stumbling into you in the process.

“You need to leave and not come back.”

“Not until you listen to me,” he breathed heavily and you clamped your eyes shut to calm yourself down. “If you just returned my call-”

“You don’t understand, I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

“So listen then,” he stubbornly retorted, and you shot him another glare. His eyes were just as hard, and you wondered who would back down first.

“Fine,” you eventually said, groaning inwardly at your defeat. You were curious about what his final words were going to be. Stepping over to the door, you shut it and pulled down the blind, turning to face him and waited for his verbal response.

Instead his lips were promptly on yours and you froze, not understanding the situation you were in at all. You wanted to push him off and went to do so, gripping at his tee in both your hands. But then Daehyun deepened the kiss and you seemed to simply anchor yourself there instead, your mouth finally moving against his until you were gasping for air.

He smiled warmly at you when he pulled away, brushing the hair out of your face. “Don’t push me away; I know there’s something special here. I want to get to know you more. Please.”

His lips moved onto yours again and you smiled, nuzzling him with your nose before pulling away. Daehyun looked down at the gift he had just opened and grinned. “Thank you, I love it.”

“Are we seriously going to kiss each other for every gift under this tree?” you asked as you glanced back at the many presents left to go. You had only each opened three and there had been endless kisses this morning so far. Daehyun fingered the collar of your matching pyjamas and feigned innocence.

“I thought it was you who was the one who started this though?”

You clamped your eyes shut momentarily, letting out a huff of air at his need to be right. You had technically kissed him for your first present, yes. But then he had continued and you weren’t going to stop either – neither of you knew when to back down from a proposition.

It wasn’t your fault your boyfriend had kissable lips either.

“If you kiss me after opening your next present, you have to admit you’re enjoying this start to our first Christmas together too much,” Daehyun continued and you lifted your chin high, determined to succeed in not having to admit anything. Your boyfriend handed you another present and you purposely looked him in the eye, smiling as you opened it up.

And then you froze. It was unexpected to see the necklace inside of the box, a love heart pendant that held the letters of both your first names etched into it. You had received jewellery from Daehyun before, but this was different.

You could feel yourself growing emotional.

“You purposely gave me this so you knew I would have to admit it, didn’t you?” you asked as you shot him a watery smile and he shrugged playfully.

“Do you like it?”

“No, I hate you.”

Daehyun chuckled and pulled you into his arms. “I love you too, baby.”

You heaved a steadying breath before you reached for his lips again, kissing him deeply before you pulled back, cupping his face in your hands. “Thank you for crashing into my world, Daehyun.”

“Thank you for not reversing out of mine,” he replied, brushing the hair away from your face and placing the necklace around your neck. You picked up the pendant and held it for a moment, before nestling into his side.

“Merry Christmas.”

“You too, baby. Our first of many.”

You smiled and handed him another present, knowing that you would be kissing all day and night long now.

And definitely all the way up until next Christmas too.

_________________

[Christmas 2018 Masterlist] | [Main Masterlist] | [Request Guidelines]

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gnosticgnoob · 5 years ago

Text

2020 DNC Candidates’ Answers to the Healthcare Crisis

The conversation among 2020 candidates surrounding the future of American healthcare has been confusing, convoluted, heated, and all over the place. I’ll try to be as succinct as possible with my points so as not to add too much to the noise. I mostly want to draw attention to the differences and similarities between the healthcare strategies of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

The important difference has been in the specific wording of the discussion, so I will boil the two messages down with relevant, specific wording: Bernie Sanders’ stated goal is to remove private health insurance companies from our healthcare apparatus, replacing the current system with what is known as a Single-Payer system, as is currently in place in Canada, the United Kingdom, the Nordic countries, Spain, Australia, and South Korea, among others. One of the reasons the conversation around Bernie’s plan has been confusing is that people run into the discord between the idea of his goal and the idea that Medicare as it currently exists now would hypothetically be extended to everybody, a case which would not effectively be a single-payer system.

The name of Sanders’ bill is “Medicare For All”, but the plan includes a lot of restructuring that most importantly removes premiums and co-pays from the current Medicare system, instituting a full single-payer system, i.e. Medicare currently has some of the sticky pitfalls of the current system he seeks to replace, but Sanders’ final intention is that if you, a patient, go to your doctor, or the emergency room, or a specialist for any treatment, you simply receive the treatment and then walk out of the building straight to your car in the parking-lot and drive away without having to mess with any financial details (that isn’t to say the service is “Free” as some detractors might believe or mislead you to believe -- it is simply that the rigmarole of finalizing payment is handled wholly by the gears of the system in the background instead of handled personally by the patient, i.e. it’s not free lunch so much as bureaucratic shuffling around of paperwork).

Sanders’ reasoning for switching to single-payer is essentially that the profit-motive as an operating concept, ethically speaking, does not belong in the healthcare system, i.e. the model similar to Coca-Cola or Ford or Apple where the overall goal is for the company to make a financial return on investment: Ford’s bean counters, marketers, and product development teams come together to design and manufacture a product, they calculate the cost of the product, then they price the product higher than it cost them to make it so they can end up with more capital than they started with. Sanders believes on principle that if it costs $40 to fix a broken arm, then the bill for fixing the broken arm should come to $40, and further that the person with the broken arm should not be bothered with the paperwork relevant to this cost on their way out the door -- this vision is impossible if there are corporations like Ford or Apple or Netflix in charge of handling the bureaucratic ins and outs of processing healthcare costs, because there is always a middle-man-entity with a board of executives whose primary concern is making a return on the investment, and these institutions as they exist put the bureaucratic load on the patient in terms of handling the details of cost and payment, i.e. writing checks, handling invoices, making phone calls to finalize and organize the details between institutions, etc.

I want to start discussing Warren’s approach with spelling out her stated goals and how the wording specifically differs from Sanders’: whereas Sanders’ goal is to institute a single-payer system removing health insurance companies from the process, Warren’s stated goal is: “Universal coverage at the lowest possible cost.” If you are already familiar with some of the differently-worded strategies, approaches, and plans for addressing the healthcare crisis, this fundamental difference may already show important ways the two candidates are taking different approaches, but don’t worry if it isn’t obvious as I will elaborate why the wording is important.

The discussion around Elizabeth Warren’s approach to healthcare has been confusing for several reasons, but one of the main reasons is that she has stated she supports Medicare For All when there are some gotchas in the fine print that call into question what exactly this means. We will come back to why this isn’t as simple as it sounds, but first I will take a slight detour explaining why this is relevant to another candidate: Kamala Harris does not currently support a single-payer system like Sanders and does not support removing private insurers from the system, even though Harris was a co-sponsor on Bernie’s original bill. Compared to the rest of the candidates, it has been particularly confusing pinning Harris’ campaign down on what she really believes to be the way forward because Harris has answered one way and then contradicted herself in subsequent interviews answering differently the next day, for various reasons that may or may not be her fault but instead due to confusion in the way candidates are asked questions about their plans. Harris has since clarified her approach by officially proposing her own plan that is different from Sanders’ single-payer plan, keeping private health insurers in the system, but she introduces extra confusion in calling it a “Medicare For All” plan. So Sanders was previously able to set himself apart as a candidate with a unique approach, simply pointing prospective voters to his Medicare For All plan, but now that situation is more complicated, because Harris can look in the camera and say confidently, “I support Medicare For All” or “I support a Medicare For All system” when it technically means something completely different when she says these words. This could be misconstrued as being even more confusing by accusing her of hedging bets on two different approaches, but this isn’t really the case as it is important to note since Bernie’s original bill will not be passed, in a sense it’s irrelevant who has co-sponsored it, and so we can defer to where candidates stand currently--and specifically where Harris stands currently with her own new plan--as canceling out previous support/co-sponsoring for Sanders’ single-payer approach.

Warren has stated for the record that she supports Medicare For All. Looking at the case of Kamala Harris, we can see why saying such a thing does not necessarily translate to sharing Sanders’ goals. Like Harris, Warren was also a co-sponsor for Sanders’ original Medicare For All bill, but again, looking at the case of Harris, we can see why this doesn’t translate to Warren literally sharing Sanders’ exact goals. In discussions that I’ve seen in the media and on various social media platforms, this is where a lot of confusion, arguing, name-calling, and hostility arise: there is a contingency of voters who support Sanders’ goals who want to know definitively whether Warren shares those goals or might instead be led to diverge with more moderate proposals that are similar to those of other moderate candidates.

Some heated comments read like this: “Why are Sanders supporters either daft or intent on sowing discord: it is clear that both Liz and Bernie support Medicare for All. Their plans are the same. Stop pretending like his plan is somehow better when she has said on record that she supports Medicare For All.” -- For reasons already stated, you can see why this statement is problematic, either misunderstanding or misconstruing the conversation as it relates to their approaches.

If stating support for M4A wasn’t a confusing enough issue, Warren unfortunately confuses the matter further by consistently stating, regarding her stated goal of “Universal Coverage” that “there are many paths to get there.”

An interviewer specifically asked: “Is there room for private health insurance in your vision of the ideal American health care system?”

She answered: “Our obligation is to make sure that everybody gets coverage at the lowest possible cost to all of us. So what does that mean? Right now, it means fighting the Republicans who are trying to sabotage the Affordable Care Act. So job number one is to defend the Affordable Care Act. ...Job number two is to make changes where we need to make them right now: changes to hold insurance companies accountable and lower[ing] the cost of prescription drugs. ...And the third: how do we get universal coverage? Medicare for all. Lots of paths for how to do that. But we know where we are aiming: every American has health care at a price they can afford, and that the overall costs in the system are held as low as possible.”

Rightly not getting the impression that Warren had satisfied his question directly, the interviewer asks again, “But right now, your vision for Medicare for all, would it all be a public option, or would it also include private insurance?”

She answered, “So right now, there are multiple bills on the floor in the United States Senate. I’ve signed onto Medicare for All. I’ve signed on to another one that gives an option for buying in to Medicaid. There are different ways we can get there. But the key has to be always keep the center of the bulls-eye in mind, and that is affordable health care for every American.” This answer similarly evades the actual question as it was worded.

As someone who supports Sanders’ vision of instituting a single-payer system in America, and someone who is very much interested in supporting any/all candidates who display a similar willingness to fight for the well-being of citizens over corporate interests, I am NOT trying to paint Warren into some kind of wily “gotcha” corner in a clumsy attempt to discredit her or sabotage her campaign -- I simply feel: 1) she has been consistently, purposefully evasive in signaling whether or not she would fight as hard as Sanders for Sanders’ specific gold-standard, 2) this evasiveness, while strategically understandable, is unnecessary, and 3) the resulting confusion in and of itself is not only damaging to her campaign in muddying the healthcare conversation but also calls into question her overall integrity as it relates to any other given issue or plan in any other area of policy. If she is someone who wants the bar raised as high as Bernie’s aims and is also willing to fight for it as hard as Bernie, then I want to be able to shout from the rooftops my support for her as clearly and fullheartedly as I do for Sanders’ campaign, but I am frustrated by the consistently misleading media narrative that they are two peas in a pod on this issue when there’s obviously room for contention between the goals and approaches of the two, and I honestly cannot tell whether or not she will lower the bar mirroring the incrementalist approaches of other moderate candidates.

When Warren says, “Universal coverage at the lowest possible cost,” it could be the case that she doesn’t include a single-payer system within her idea of what is “possible” -- if the “lowest possible cost” in her view is the cost we can achieve by introducing a Public Option instead of instituting a single-payer system, then it is the case that her views differ considerably from Sanders’. If Warren wants to then argue as many other candidates have argued that the lowest cost we can “possibly” achieve is via introducing a public option into the current system, the problem is two-fold: 1) the math will always prove this argument as technically wrong, since a single-payer system would hypothetically always cost less than the current system, ergo 2) the argument essentially comes down to what is “achievable” or what is “possible” within the American political system, which is a rhetorical point that merely comes around to what people are willing to fight for, in other words, how high we are willing to set the bar; to argue that setting the bar as high as single-payer is not achievable is a self-fulfilling prophecy and a rhetorical point that merely reveals the mettle of the politician fighting for their preferred reforms.

There are some Warren supporters who prefer her approach over Sanders’ because it seems that she might be willing to take a more incrementalist approach such as a public option, that she might be willing to postpone universal coverage (indefinitely?) as she considers it “Job #3” after Job #1 of restoring ACA and Job #2 passing other pieces of regulatory legislation. The worst case scenario would be that she 1) deprioritizes “Universal coverage” as a long-term-nice-to-have, and 2) that her definition of “Universal coverage” is the same as Obama’s (Romney’s?): an individual mandate for every citizen to sign up for something within the current broken system. If this is the case, how is her healthcare approach any different than Buttigieg or Biden? and how do the supporters and talking heads get away with suggesting that Sanders and Warren have solidarity on the issue? And how do the Warren supporters that believe Bernie and Warren have identical approaches manage to miss the Warren supporters that prefer her approach because it’s not the same Bernie’s?

My intent is not to debate single-payer vs public option. I don’t even discredit altogether the notion that a public option could be construed as a “step towards” single-payer (though I think this is extremely problematic, it’s a whole different discussion). My intent isn’t to paint Warren in a negative light, or sow division among democratic voters, or institute a “purity test”. If where Warren’s head’s at right now is, “I’m not sold on fighting for single-payer,”...I just want to know. If where Warren’s head’s at right now is, “I’m not sold on fighting for single-payer, and as a strategy for my presidential run I want the record to be a little muddy right now because I believe it will help me secure the nomination as well as a victory against Trump”...then I not only disagree, I respect her a bit less. But my point is: I don’t know where her head’s at...nobody seems to know...because that’s just where the conversation is right now...and I find it frustrating.

#social justice #u.s. politics #2020 presidential race #bernie sanders #elizabeth warren #politics

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