#literally i grieved over David HARD | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sollucets · 2 years ago

Text

ocean eyes, vi

previous parts

it’s been a long time! this is my canon-two-steps-to-the-left slowish burn samdarlinangeldavid fic featuring my ocs, and here is an update

this time: ivy, sam, aster, and david meet up all together, about one month post-inversion

usual caveat for ocean eyes for named & described listener ocs: ivy (darlin, they/them) & aster (angel, she/they/he)

on ao3 or full 4.8kish chapter under the cut

“Are you feeling up to visitors?” asks David through a yawn.

“Are you?” they counter, because frankly that should be the more important consideration. After all, it’s David who’s grieving, traumatized, fully recovered from his injuries only last week and constantly swamped in administrative work for people who need him.

“I asked first,” he mumbles almost petulantly, then sighs, tone going more serious. “I can’t guarantee them good company, or… anything at all, really, but. I’d like to see them. Both of them. I can make time.”

Despite everything, Aster can feel the corner of their mouth curving into a little smile at hearing David just admit that out loud. “Okay then,” they say, beginning the arduous task of composing a text reply with one hand. “The usual time?”

“Aster,” he says, and they stop still. David so rarely uses their actual name that it feels weird to hear him say it. Like he’s upset. Is he upset? “Answer the question.”

“I— oh,” they say, frowning, and take yet another a moment to think it through. Do they want company?

💜

01/24/22

from: ivy 🐺💜

sent at: 18:44

do u mind if i bring sam on wednesday

Aster’s been staring down at the text for a solid ten minutes when David comes out of his office, crosses the dark living room, and sits next to them on the couch. The only illumination is the too-bright light of their phone screen; Aster’s been sitting in the same spot since long before it got so late.

Because he’s a literal giant, David sitting so close on their squishy couch has the usual secondary effect of tipping their body into his. As always, as is typical for wolves, he’s a solid line of heat against them. They have no idea how he gets away with claiming they’re the fire elemental in this relationship.

With a little patented David Noise, a bare exhale that’s half sigh and half growl, he shifts around on the couch enough that he can drop his head to their shoulder. His hair brushes soft against their skin where their pajama shirt is stretched out.

“Hi, baby,” they say, soft enough not to bother his ears. If he’s been on those video call meetings again, he’ll have a headache already.

“Hey, angel,” he answers, muffled by the way he’s speaking directly into the fabric of their shirt.

He doesn’t seem inclined to immediately say anything else, and they won’t make him. It’s been a long day for them both, they think, with a certain amount of mental irony.

David’s been hidden away in his home office since he got back from his actual office, dealing with budget suggestions and job reassignments and more. It’s January now, and he’s been helping send out the last of the company’s W-2s, because taxes wait for no massive community-wide disaster and the person whose job that would usually be is on trauma leave.

And for their part, Aster’s had a long, productive day off from work spent waking up at 2 p.m. just to sit on the couch and watch something on Netflix. They genuinely don’t even remember what it was anymore. The TV turned off from inactivity at least half an hour ago.

They’re both tired, is what they’re getting at here.

David just breathes against their shoulder. It’s a little hard to see in the darkened room, but he has to be doing some frankly spine-hurting contortion to be in this position. With the hand not holding the phone, they run their fingers softly through his hair until they’re cupping the back of his head, then push him down onto their lap. It’s just the barest amount of force; he goes easily the moment he feels them moving him.

He’s heavy with his full weight over their legs, like he always is, but it helps. Combination weighted blanket and heater; that’s their mate. They leave their hand in his hair and absentmindedly run little patterns through it, occasionally scratching at his scalp in a way he doesn’t like to admit he likes. (It’s a dog stereotype thing, they think.)

“What are you looking at?” he mumbles after a quiet little eternity.

Instead of answering, they shift the phone down to show him. He makes another David Noise at the sudden screen brightness near his face, but reads it and seems to consider for a moment.

This is the first time they’ve heard from Ivy since — the Games, actually. Three Wednesdays passed in total radio silence; they hadn’t come to any of the two Pack meetings this month, either. Aster knows they’re still in Dahlia only because William apparently let David know. And now, just like the fatal text that kept Aster coming to movie nights in the first place, here they are again. Texting first like they never do, using the casual assumption of someone afraid to ask.

“Are you feeling up to visitors?” asks David through a yawn.

“Are you?” they counter, because frankly that should be the more important consideration. After all, it's David who's grieving, traumatized, fully recovered from his injuries only last week and constantly swamped in administrative work for people who need him.

“Aster,” he says, and they stop still. David so rarely uses their actual name that it feels weird to hear him say it. Like he’s upset. Is he upset? “Answer the question.”

“I— oh,” they say, frowning, and take yet another moment to think it through. Do they want company?

Their immediate, base instinct is no. Anything past both their actual job and their job as David’s partner seems — monumental, right now, too much. They’re so tired.

But it’s Ivy. Ivy, who they’d last seen startling awake in their lap in wolf form then charging away into the crowd. Ivy, who they’d held for hours on the worst day of their life, who they’d called baby, who’d disappeared entirely for weeks after that. No matter how many times they’d tried to logic their way out of it with the plenty of other reasons Ivy might do this, a little corner of their heart had feared. And Aster’s missed them, honestly, just the regular way they’d miss someone they — cared about. Ivy, finally reaching out of their own accord.

There’s Sam, too, soft-spoken and awkward and kind Sam with a wicked side they’ve barely gotten to see, who Aster genuinely likes and had meant to get to know better after the Solstice.

So no, the option doesn’t sound good. But Aster has been here before, in this dark clinging tired nothingness. Everything always seems like too much; they should know better than to believe it by now.

“Yeah,” they say, at length. “I’m up for it.”

“Good,” David grumbles. His tone doesn’t get any less characteristically irritated when he adds, “Your feelings matter too. Don’t just ask me.”

“I love you,” they tell him, since it’s true and they can’t kiss him from this angle. They’re rewarded by a soft, pleased little noise in his throat and, eventually, the tell-tale even breathing of him actually taking a break.

to: ivy 🐺💜

sent at 19:20

We’d love to have you both.

“You sure I’m invited?” asks Sam for the second time that night.

“We’re already here,” Ivy says, glancing at him across the center console as they turn his truck off. “It’s a little late to back out if you didn’t want to come after all.”

Sam makes a face at them, and they soften, as they always do in the face of him. “Why are you so nervous about this? I asked, and they said they’d love to have us both.” They choose strategically not to mention how relieved they’d been to get that response.

Sam is frowning slightly, one hand tapping against the dashboard. “I’m not nervous,” he says, which is a lie, but they’ll let it pass. “Just, Wednesdays were always your thing, darlin’. We do plenty of things together; you don’t gotta bring me everywhere these days just ‘cause I’m—”

“Just ‘cause you’re what?” Ivy asks, sharper than they mean to, and winces. “Look, you wanted to come, right? You get along with Aster good enough, and you and David—” They stop, unsure how to tactfully phrase “recently had a near-death experience together”. “It’s just Wednesdays. We just eat something and watch a movie, it isn’t gonna be high-stress. You don’t even have to talk if you don’t wanna.”

That’s true enough, at least. Ivy has come unwillingly to Wednesdays enough times that they know neither Aster or David will actually make them speak if they’re not in the mood, awkward as that is (or isn’t. It isn’t, really, not just sitting in their living room while Aster and David exchange companionable insults over their head. But it should be, probably.)

Sam is still looking at them with an expression they hate, so they continue, trying for levity. “Besides, you got dinner, so you’re going to be everyone’s favorite anyway.”

“Oh, sure, all that hard work I put in on our takeout order,” Sam says, but his posture shifts enough that he isn’t sitting straight-backed in his seat anymore, like he had been all the way over, and they’ll count that as a win.

Sam grabs the boxes of food out of the back seat and they both head up David and Aster’s front lawn. January is rainy season in California, and everything looks colorful and bright. David really does love his landscaping thing; he talks about it all the time. If it also looks a little overgrown, well. Who's gonna blame him?

Stopping just before the door, they raise a hand to knock (even though it’s unnecessary; Sam’s truck is loud enough that their presence is surely already noted) and then stop. Glancing sidelong at Sam, they murmur, “And all that aside, I want to bring my mate places. Stop assuming it’s not selfish.”

Sam gives them this look, the one that he’s had every single time they say something like that out loud, awe and gratitude and guilty shock, moonsilver eyes all big and round. It’s very cute, but it makes them feel flayed open to their soul, and so they turn away like a coward and knock three times.

“Aster says ‘come in’,” Sam informs them, the edges of his words all curved in so that they know he’s smiling. He loves lording his better hearing over them. They bump their shoulder into his in reproach before opening the door.

Aster comes into the hallway to greet them after a moment, socked feet padding gently against the wooden floor. They look well, bad. Ivy immediately mentally backspaces — it’s in the sense that they look tired and dressed down, not necessarily that Aster looks bad. Ivy’s honestly not sure that Aster’s capable of looking bad.

Their mass of blonde hair is pulled into a loose bun at the nape of their neck, hairs falling out every which way, and they’re completely without makeup, glasses magnifying their green eyes huge and highlighting the little bags underneath them. Even so, though, tired or not, Aster’s just pretty, all the time, all cheekbones and freckles and piano fingers just barely sticking out of the long sleeves of a sweater.

They have the right to look tired, after all. Frankly, Ivy would be a little surprised if they didn’t. They’re sure they don’t look any better, even if they had made something of an effort before coming today. It’s been a long, bad January for everyone.

“Hiya,” Aster says, smiling in the way that sends little lines feathering up towards their temples. “Good to see you, Sam, welcome in. We can set those over on the table.”

“Hey, Aster,” he says, still audibly smiling. “Thanks for having me.”

“Thanks for paying. Come on, Davey’s in the living room being a shitty little work gremlin even though he said he wouldn’t.”

Ivy hears an indistinct noise of annoyance from the living room and finds the corner of their mouth quirking. It has been — they have missed this. Enough to send that text, despite everything (everything here including their general aversion to texting).

On the way over to the kitchen, Aster turns to Ivy and says, very quietly, so unlike usual, "It's a girl day. I know I don't look--"

Ivy resents it violently, for a moment, that sense of something dark so obviously hanging over every interaction that has clouded January. But it isn’t something they can reasonably be mad about; not here, anyway. They’ve told Sam already, and Aster clearly feels bad as is. “Okay,” they say, cutting Aster off to smile at her. She smiles back, like a reflex, and pushes a little hair out of her eyes.

Sam sets the boxes out on the table, and then they all swing into the living room despite the relative ease of just yelling at David to come in. The living room is appointed in the designated ‘movie theater’ way; Aster still hasn’t given up on that dream, evidently. The windows are covered, and blankets drape over most surfaces. One of those surfaces includes David, who’s sitting on the couch with a laptop that he looks up from when Ivy comes in.

David shows the wear much less obviously than Aster does, but it’s there, in the tightness of his jaw and shoulders and the casualness of his clothing. “Ivy,” he says in greeting, raising a hand. “Sam.”

“Good evening,” says Sam. He actively tips his hat next to them, which is ridiculous since it’s just a baseball cap. You can take the cowboy out of the South, they guess, snickering a little.

The laugh dies when they glance down and find one of Sam’s hands idly fiddling with the seam of his jeans pocket. Frowning, they bump into him on purpose as they walk a little further into the room. He’d been nervous at the Solstice, too, sure, but that’d been a lot larger of a gathering. For all their jokes about being selfish, they hope that he isn’t actually uncomfortable to be here.

Over on the couch, David puts a hand on his laptop like he’s about to close it and then clearly gets distracted, and Aster sends a glare that could strip paint. “David Shaw.”

“Yeah, yeah, I— sorry,” he says, obviously chastised, and shuts it with a decisive snap. “It’s not work, it was just Kieran.”

That sends another pulse through that hanging cloud over them all; if Kieran’s messaging David, it’s probably about Milo, who’s had to go back to the healers now that it’s been nearly a month. Aster looks visibly guilty, and David shakes his head at her, expression gone all soft.

Nevertheless, she goes over and stands in front of his place on the couch, taking the sleeve of his t-shirt in her fingers and worrying at it absentmindedly.

“Good to see you," David starts, his face halfway to frowning like it’s a reflex he hasn’t turned off. “I’m sure Aster said something while you were messaging, but we probably aren’t going to be the best hosts today.”

She hadn't, but Ivy shrugs in what they hope is a commiserating fashion, and Sam smiles much the same. “Don’t worry about it none… David.” His obvious trip over using David’s first name is — well, Ivy thought they were past that by now. Maybe it’s the atmosphere.

By the couch, Aster stays quiet, and the cloud over them all deepens a little. Ivy hadn’t realized — well, they had, but never so acutely — just how much Aster carries the socializing at these.

“Should we, then?” Ivy asks, just to break the silence, and when David and Aster both nod they take Sam by the elbow and start back towards the kitchen. In the hall, they make eye contact with their mate; Sam looks a little sheepish. They’d bet ten dollars he’s resisting the urge to apologize. “It’s not your fault,” they tell him, frowning.

He doesn’t have time to respond before they get back into the kitchen. Aster and David come in hand in hand; it is weird to see David dressed like this, honestly. Even on past Wednesdays at home, he still usually wears at least jeans. Sweatpants and a t-shirt feels like Ivy’s seeing something not meant for them.

Sam starts opening the boxes as Aster goes to get plates, and Ivy —

Well, they initiated this, and Aster shouldn’t have to carry everything all the time. They pull out their phone and go to where they know Aster keeps her speaker, putting a playlist on without asking. They keep it quiet enough that it won’t disrupt conversation. It’s a compromise of a choice — Ivy has wildly different music taste from her, although David’s interests trend similar (real guitars or fuck off) and thus a middle ground is acoustic stuff that’s still kind of upbeat. They’ve spent time thinking about this before, though they’ll never admit it.

Nobody talks much as they eat, although David quietly compliments their song choice. Ivy is never going to admit to just how much that little pride curls in their chest; Sam pokes their cheek after, though, so they’d probably been smiling. Bastard.

As she’s clearing the dishes, Aster (and David, after a moment) thanks Sam for his treat, and then it’s cursedly quiet again. Even when Aster’s been in quieter moods before, David usually needles lovingly at her enough to keep things moving entirely without Ivy’s involvement. And it’s okay to be quiet, but this feels so wrong. It isn’t like they want to be quiet, it’s like they’re all just unsure how to talk to people, like everything is so different it’s impossible to be like it was before.

And it is, but—

Ivy sighs, loud and explosive, and Aster turns to look at them with a startled expression from the sink. “Look,” they say, probably again sharper than they should. They have had a lot of practice recently in gentling the edges, in wanting to gentle the edges, but they’re still no good at comfort, at tact. Ivy would never be their own first choice for that. But, well. Someone should say it, right? “We all were in the same boat, you know. Me and Aster, and Sam and David, and all of us together this month. I know it’s a little my fault, the way I texted, but… Pretending we’re all just like normal — it’s not gonna work. We don’t have to talk about it, or we can if you want, but — God, if it’s not normal it’s fine. This isn’t a party, we’re not some people you don’t know, you don’t have to cater to us. It’s fine.”

That just sits there in the air for a long minute. The only sound is the almost perversely cheerful melody from the speaker. Aster’s face, for once, is completely impassive; David just looks mildly surprised. Sam, who’s the easiest for them to read after long study, looks like he expected this. Maybe he should’ve. He’s dealt with a fair amount of their outbursts this month, and that thought leaves a bitter taste in their mouth. Ivy’s pulse picks up, entirely beyond their control, and they swallow loudly.

To their shock, it’s David who cracks first. “Kieran told me they didn’t get any new information from the visit,” he says, voice low. “That it’s just the same as before. They didn’t have a lot of idea what to expect from Milo’s kind of injury in the first place, so it’s not alarming precisely, just frustrating for him.”

“It would be,” Sam responds slowly. “It’s a shit deal from either side of that - to tell someone ‘Sorry, but we don’t know’ and to hear it.”

“Yeah,” says David with a cut-off little exhale. “That’s about the gist of it. He’s doing his best to keep busy. They both are.”

“God, I wish that were me,” Aster says in a half-murmur. She looks a little surprised at herself, and stutters to correct it. “Not, uh, about the healers thing, just — busy. I don’t know. I am, sort of, but no more than usual, but— I’m just— tired.” Wincing, she adds, “Fuck. Sorry.”

Ivy looks at her for a moment, catalogues the apologetic twist of her nose and the worried set of her mouth, and says, “I get that. I wanted to take time off of my stuff to help at the Clan complex while Sam is doing a whole-ass extra job, but if I do it too much he gets all guilty.”

“Ivy,” Sam cuts in, sounding genuinely surprised. “I love having you around.”

“I — know,” they get out, startled halfway through to find it’s true. “You just don’t want me to derail my schedule for you, but you won’t say it, so you just give me these sad eyes.”

There’s another moment of uninterrupted soundtrack in the kitchen, and then Aster laughs a little, an alarmingly choked noise. “Same boat indeed.”

“Well, I meant it,” Ivy says, awkwardly, and sees David smile just a little out of the corner of their eye.

It’s still not fixed, precisely. The air is still heavy, but it’s cleared up a little. When Aster goes back to the dishes and David gets up to help her, Sam hums along to one of Ivy’s songs they’ve played for him before, and the silence isn’t really a silence this time, there’s a difference, and that’s — good, they did that. They’re glad.

They all start to make their way back over to the living room. When Aster and David sit on the couch in their usual Wednesday positions (bracketing Ivy, which they’ve never understood but will never question out of silent fear they’ll stop) and Sam looks like he’s going to take the chair, they tilt their chin a little towards the last open space on David’s left. Sam gives them a slightly betrayed look, but to his credit doesn’t hesitate, and squeezes himself in at the end. They just barely fit, all four of them, but it’s not uncomfortable. Perfect size couch.

Aster puts on something they’ve all seen before at three quarters volume, an inoffensive romcom that actually belongs to David, and silence settles again, but easier this time. David opens his phone in his lap, and Aster glances at him but doesn’t comment; Ivy sees “Kieran” at the top of a text chat and looks away, glancing past David to look at Sam instead.

Ivy doesn’t want to admit it, and won’t comment on it out loud in case it’ll make him never want to come again, but even with all of the heavy awkwardness of this visit, with Sam here it does feel kind of like — well, like a date, really. Ivy’s never been on a double date, but it’s something people do, right? Dinner and a movie and your partner. They don’t think about what that means for David and Aster to have been doing this with just them for months already, because that’s not anything. It’s different, it just is.

After a little while, again to their shock, it’s Sam who breaks the silence. “David,” he says, steadier this time, and the wolf in question glances over. “Vincent told me you’d asked him about his healing coursework.”

Ivy’s eyebrows raise without their prior consent. They had no idea Vincent and David even knew each other, much less well enough to be asking about this kind of thing, but — oh. Right. That whole near-death experience thing.

For his part, David averts his eyes, looking something close to shy. “Yeah, I — I probably shouldn’t have. He’s really busy right now, I should’ve thought of that, and he was good about it but I think I touched a sore spot. It’s not like it was urgent.”

Sam hums consideringly. “It probably is a little tender just now, yeah, but Vincent’s proud of where he got, and he’s right to be. Don’t get too in your head about all that.” He pauses for a second, then just goes right in. “So, did you skip over me on purpose, or…?”

To Ivy’s delight, David’s shoulders hunch up. “No, I just — well. You learned it before you turned, and Marie never went to DAMN.”

“Fair,” Sam acknowledges. Careful, he continues, “Were you askin’ for any particular reason, or…?”

With a shock, Ivy recognizes that tone. He uses it on them all the time, obviously conversationally sidestepping a topic to give them a built-in out if they don’t want to talk about it after all. It shouldn’t be so surprising, it’s just how he talks, but it’s just — funny, they guess, to hear him using it on a different stubborn shifter.

In deference to their conversation, Ivy turns to Aster, meets her eyes in the dim light. She looks back, seems to consider for a moment. Then, in one of the quietest voices they’ve ever heard out of her, she says, “You were gone this month.”

Ivy winces. They’d known after the first week that it wasn’t the sort of thing Aster was used to from them. She’d never had to put up with them being the kind of person who disappeared for far worse than weeks at a time the way David and even to a certain point Sam had, and they’d thought of it that way for a while and felt bad. And then they’d realized that they weren’t really used to being that person anymore, either, and it had all spiraled until they’d given up and sent a text after a reasonable amount of anxious dithering.

“I was,” they answer, hating it. “I’m — sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Aster answers, predictably. “We all had a lot going on.”

“Yeah,” Ivy concedes. That's one way to put it. “Sure. But I could’ve messaged sooner. Or come to meetings. Or… yeah. I’m sorry.”

It doesn’t actually make them feel better, the way Aster tilts her head and looks at them like she’s never seen them before at even a basic courtesy. “I could’ve texted, too,” she says slowly. “Don’t feel bad, Ivy.”

Instead of providing them a useful argument, like how she's always the one texting first, their patently unhelpful brain instead decides to remind them of the last time they’d argued, the last thing she’d called them, the sound of “Ivy, baby” in a tear-thickened voice, and —

No, no, not useful. They were just busy and a shit person who gets like this. It’s not anything.

Ivy swallows, reaches out very carefully, and sets their hand over hers just briefly. Her fingers are cool and much longer than theirs, and she isn’t quite fast enough to return the touch before they pull away. “You can,” they manage, looking at the familiar checkered fabric of the blanket over their lap. “Text me, I mean. I’m much worse at it, you know me, but I could… I can try.”

“You could try it,” says Aster, and they glance up to see her face, alarmed. Is she mad after all, does she —

Oh. She’s smiling, hair all falling into her eyes behind her glasses and top teeth just barely visible. Ivy gets caught, for a second, looking.

Behind them, David laughs, a low rumbling thing, and Ivy feels — good, relieved. Something had been building up in them that they’d both known and not known, and this is what it had needed. Funny how that goes.

With an intake of breath, they look away and back over to Sam, who is paying careful attention to David as he keeps talking about what Milo’s mom Marie had told him, how she’d been self-taught to a certain point then took a community first aid class.

The movie keeps playing behind them all at low-volume, and it’s not normal. They wouldn’t be talking about any of this if it were, and it’s new to have Sam here, but that’s what they’d said. It’s fine like this, familiar but different, because at least they feel — happy.

(David doesn’t make it through the movie. Aster had thought that might happen, after his wake-up time this morning, but it’s even cuter than she’d thought it might be to see him end up sleeping almost diagonal, his arm pressed into Ivy’s and his head leaning at a neck-breaking angle onto the back of the couch, mouth a little open. It’s cute to see Ivy obviously frozen in place to avoid waking him, stiff with indecision and cautious joy, cuter still to see Sam take a picture of them with a lopsided smirk on his face and promise to send it to her. It’s dangerous to her heart, but at this point, she can’t bring herself to care. It’s been a long, terrible month, and this is good, and that’s enough.)

#redacted audio #redacted asmr #my fic tag #f: ocean eyes #hey so yeah i finished this WAY faster than i thought i would #i guess my writing has only off or on anymore lmao #thank u everyone for ur kind reactions to my snippet earlier today and for still wanting these fuckers to kiss #even uh (checks) 23 weeks later #things are looking up again okay? this is a chapter for sure #were Going Places #ahh i edited this very quickly so if you see me in the document or in here fucking around no you didn't #i think it looks okay though. and i wanna be done #kisses <3 #you know i haven't used the redacted audio tag yet!! how things change

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daenerys-targaryen · 3 years ago

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LEAHH!!! i've just finished watching stranger things 4 vol. 1 (and i know you've been blogging about it fairly regularly buuuuttt...) how did you like it?? any hopes/predictions for vol. 2?!!?! 😁💖

AHHHHH I hope you enjoyed it!!!! Yes, I really did enjoy it myself!! Stranger things literally never disappoints in my eyes.

I will say I was super worried and anxious about them possibly bringing Billy back and / or trying to 'redeem' his character but I don't think they did that at all. It was never about Billy and was always about Max and how she dealt with him and his death and the role she believed she played in it. Grief is very complex and grieving the death of your abuser is even more complex, but I think they did a really great job with it.

My hopes are mainly surrounding joyce / hopper / el cause they're my favorites (besides max) so I'm really hoping we get some nice tender emotional moments of all of them reuniting. I'm waiting for my two kind of attractive middle aged people (davids words not mine) to smash faces and then go save their kids. I really hope that someone, either el or hop, beats the living SHIT out of dr brenner and dr owens. I think dr owens had his heart in the right place like maybe he thought that el being with brenner was better than her being studied and imprisoned by the military but... he like everyone else in her life except her family and friends is just using her for her powers. I also do think that Eddie will die, which like eh he’s a cute fun character but it would make since as that’s kind of how it goes with starnger tings. Introduce a new character, allow the audience to grow on them and then kill them off in the last half of the season. They did it with Barb (even though it was in the first half of s1), they did it with Bob in s2 and Alexie in s3. It would make sense! I imagine him sacrificing himself for dustin or steve probably because we’ve seen him say that at the first sign of trouble he runs so he might stay and sacrifice himself somehow. Bylers will be mad at me but I'm upset that they made Wills entire personality this season (so far at least) all about mike. I really hope that they don't use wills sexuality and possible rejection from mike to make him into a villain, that would suck so hard and it would really leave a bad taste in my mouth. I have no idea how vecna will be defeated tbh.. El defeated him once by focusing on the love her mother had for her so I'm hoping that it's sort of the same since obviously El has more people in her life who love her and who she loves to fuel. I'm a sucker for the love over powers hate trope and I don't care how many times it's used I will fall for it EVERY TIME!!!! Other than that I have no idea what's going to happen besides what we see in the trailer and david practically confirming that jopper make out we are in the DARK!!!! In the trailer we see Lucas looking terrified at something and Max looking behind her trapped inside the same house Chrissy was killed in, KIDS GET BEHIND ME!!!! If something happens to any of the kids I WILL be at the duffer brothers doorstep with a pitch fork. I'm super excited though. Not sure if you saw but the writers came out and said that in the final episode there is an hour long sequence of tension and dread and honestly I cannot wait to be sweating my ass off screaming for an hour straight. How did you like it? Do you have any predictions??

#leah has mail #anonymous #st4 spoilers #stranger things #stranger things spoilers

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licncourt · 3 years ago

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Hard one for you: any headcanon thoughts on Louis and David, specifically what the hell Louis thought when he gained a new (prick of a) brother?

I ALWAYS have thoughts when it comes to dunking on David, slimy little fucker. Thank you for the opportunity

I think that Louis would initially be intimidated and maybe even concerned about Lestat losing interest in him in favor of David, but it probably takes like two hours in Rio before Louis' like "oh, this guy sucks lol" and immediately stops worrying about it

He probably goes from smug, disdainful tolerance to full hostility when he realizes just how deep Lestat is in it with David. He's not jealous (like I said, Louis has quickly established that he's better) but he's not a fan of whatever pseudo-incest is happening with the guy he's pretty sure was just Lestat's surrogate father. Louis is definitely a better judge of character than Lestat, who can't see past I am receiving affection!!!!!

Because of that, there are definitely fights over David in the 90s because Lestat is screaming past red flags at the speed of sound. And why? Daddy issues? The desire to keep an obnoxious British buffer between them and hide from emotional intimacy? (He probably accuses Louis of being jealous or threatened by David's intelligence or something stupid)

We know Louis canonically keeps a diary, so I would absolutely love to know what he wrote while David was living with him. "Day 371. Haven't seen Lestat since November. His side piece is still here and has started giving me the look. My name is on the lease. I could evict him if I wanted."

Louis is quite cordial to David in most of the series and that tracks, but I imagine that after Merrick is published, Louis starts feeling even less charitable towards the insensitive douchebag who wrote that he was a sad, pathetic loser for being depressed/grieving. Much to Lestat's dismay, there is a great deal of intellectual posturing and entrapment that follows. ("Your taste is so discerning, Louis, so I must know. What do you think of the Donde lieta uscì from Madame Butterfly?" "Well, Puccini is a master of his craft, but that particular aria is from La bohème. Only a slip of the tongue I'm sure, a distinguished gentleman like yourself would surely know that ❤️")

I wish I had more to say about the fact that Louis had to live for literal years in Rue Royale with his husband's jackass boyfriend as a bizarre throuple with only one happy participant, but I literally can't even begin to imagine why he put up with that. 90s canon breaks my brain

#answered #hc tag #vc

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askintothevoids · 3 years ago

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The Epilogue:

Roman and Virgil:

They never did get married, because they didn’t want to. Virgil believes it to be a british social construct to control women and the lower class, and Roman believes marriage to be bad luck.

They did get into that huge funky war that we were talking about, and had to put Babe with Protection. After weeks of convincing, Valentine, Mac-Kenzie, and Junius fought by Virgil and Roman’s side, and they won after 5 years of fighting.

Virgil fulfilled his lifelong dream of making Bonner regret his words, and plunged his mother’s dagger into his chest. Something about Bonner that Virgil never mentioned was the fact that the man often shared the same words as his former husband, so perhaps that fueled his anger. After a lot of crying, Virgil came to the conclusion that maybe he’d leave the fighting to Angie, and hire a royal therapist.

There was more to Virgil’s story than that though, he did raise Babe with his beloved partner, Roman, after the war. He made an excellent father. Anne even came back and apologized, earning her role back into Virgil’s and his son’s life. He even got to see his nephews more often.

Seeing that his son is now only 12 years away from being a full fledged adult (to him that isn’t very long), Virgil now has to see that Babe is very different from other children. Honestly, he never thought his own very very dead mother would be assisting in the parenting of his child, but hey, Virgil has to remember that he isn’t always right, even if he can see the future.

Meanwhile Roman pursued his love for music and theatre, he even opened a music program for Oteriphanne, showing the lovely folks the beauty of music that isn’t just only about killing the French and Brits in order to stop deculturalization of their land (though that’s not a bad topic, Roman literally just wanted 14th century vampires to enjoy Spice Girls and it worked).

He obviously, but admittedly very awkwardly, learned how to parent a child. Roman wasn’t as picture perfect as he would’ve liked to be, he did after all accidentally make his son cry many times. Like Virgil, he now sees that their kid is different. His son’s ears are full of words that he can’t understand, but hopes to try his best to ease Babe’s worries and hardships in life.

Through five years of virgous studying, Roman became a quarter fluent in Pterannan. With even more studying and training, he finally became a fully trained Knight and earned his spot next to Virgil with his forementioned music program (turns out teaching a population several new skills, means he bettered the population which is a requirement to become a king when you're not blood related to royalty).

Still there’s somethings that Roman still regrets, he never did come to an understanding with his stepfather, who was his namesake. Nor does he see Remus and his husband as often as he wishes he did. And he kinda wants to buy a cow.

Even after being together for almost 10 years, they still love each other, and yes, Virgil still calls a phone, a magic box because some things never change.

Patton:

After he and Logan adopted the children from the Dragonwitch au that they accidently orphaned, Patton certainly was trying his best to keep going, and he did a pretty alright job.

Patton single handedly traveled across the country from Florida to Indiana with four small children whose identities he had to hide along his.

Once he had made it to the David-Dase residence, he explained what had happened and asked for help, and here’s what happened.

Nicholas and James owned property in rural Saskatchewan, which they had inherited from Jane Phoebe David (James’ deceased mother) and never really knew what to do with it. So in order to keep their son’s husband and their new grandchildren safe, James and Nicholas let Patton and their grandchildren live there. It was a good spot for them, it kept the reporters away from Patton and kept people away from Daniel, Jane, Harper and Buddy.

After receiving help from James and Nicholas, Patton had to figure out how to explain his disappearance to the police so that he could gain some form of normality, and a good enough job to support his growing family.

Stuff didn’t exactly go well at first. Still grieving over his separation from Logan, he did often find it hard to smile for his children, nor did he find it easy to explain to them that they couldn’t out in public without being hidden from the world’s view. It didn’t help when his O’Pa (Janus Van Den Bosch-Brzozowski) passed away from a deteriorating body, it was for the best, but it hurt to lose another parent.

He kept going though. His brother, Patton Reyes-Baker, moved in with him and got a job helping a local beekeeper. It wasn’t so bad, grief can strengthen some bonds. His step father, Remus, visited every so often, it was clear that he probably wouldn’t be around much longer either.

He’s doing a pretty good job raising those kids. Still it doesn’t help that Patton wishes he did it with his beloved. There have been many long nights of waiting and crying. There’s a good chance that Patton won’t move on until old age, which could be a good thing for a certain someone. Overall, if he were to describe it, it’s like the worst nightmare and the best dream ever at the same time.

Patton did get to open that diner, he did get to take his puppies home with him, and he did teach his kids how to ride bikes (except Buddy), but it still wasn’t the same. For all he cares, he’s still a married man.

Hymnthian:

Being one of the oldest motherfuckers ever, Hymnthian is still kicking it. Under Virgil and Roman’s rule, he’s pretty happy. He does find some common ground with his great (times a couple hundreds) grandchild though. Babe’s remarkable ability to hear the dead often comes in handy for a grieving widower. In return for hearing what his dead wife has to say, he teaches Babe how to play To-Ouch, an Oterian instrument.

Janus and Remus:

As you might've heard earlier, Janus passed away. It’s important to remember that death is an important part of life. In Janus’ case, they were fine with it. After an aspiring career as a ballerina and potter, not being able to use your hands or foot can often be depressing. When their body finally gave out, Janus figured it best if their sister took their place. Janus died comfortably and happily. What else can I say that will convince you? Death isn’t always a bad thing.

Remus O’Malley-Gator was a different story. After the death of Janus, he found himself once again lost. He visited Patton, Patton, and his step-grandkids every so often. Remus spent most of time adventuring, looking for some kind of fulfillment. I suppose that sounds bad, but I always write a bittersweet ending.

Camila and Lotte:

After spending most of her adult life in the void, Camila was beginning to feel hopeless. Her sons were already grown and had found their soulmates, while she had still had nothing. Camila wandered for a while, universe after universe, she turned up with nothing once again.

With Janus having passed, their replacement would soon have to come in. And well, she was certainly surprised. Camila had no idea Janus had a younger sister! Lotte had been frozen for over 200 years, and arrived fresh from the fridge at the ripe old age of 48.

Camila had her fair share of trying to tell this beautiful, intelligent, strong woman that she was from a soulmate universe and that Lotte was her long awaited soulmate. Let’s just say, it took her a couple years.

Lotte had her share of pining as well. I mean, Camila is an equally beautiful, intelligent, strong woman who was tall (every short lesbian’s weakness).

She found her footing as her sibling’s replacement eventually, while she didn’t wield a shepherd's crook but having arms of pure steel sure did come handy when dealing with the dangers of the void.

Eventually, you know that their had to be an equally cute lesbian void wedding, where Patton and Roman became cousins, so that’s cool.

Logan:

As the only void dweller that actually only lives in the void, his life, honestly, sucks.

As the years go by, Logan’s hair only gets grayer and his yearning only grows stronger. He builds his tough exterior up once more, with some dull hope still intact. Logan knows the probability of never seeing his husband and kids again, and lets the gnawing feeling eat away at him.

But you know what? He did get to be cool Uncle Logan (his Ultra Secret Oterian Code Name was Protection) for about five years. He loved the shit out of Babe, even taught that boy some french and how to clear his mind even when people’s thoughts are louder than all shit.

Then he had to give Babe back to Virgil and Roman, knowing he should take the offer to live in Oteriphanne, he did.

Nothing became of it, he’s just a guy in a country full of vampires. There’s nothing there for him after all. Logan knows Babe isn’t his to parent, and chooses to keep his distance so he doesn’t crowd Roman and Virgil. Maybe in a few years, he’ll risk his life. For now, he’ll just become a grizzled middle aged man.

#tw death #tw death mention #tw loneliness #tw war mention

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365days365movies · 4 years ago

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May 4, 2021: The Host (2006) (Recap)

NO NOT THAT ONE

Stephanie Meyer goddamn sucks. I realize that I’m not exactly the first person to say that, but she’s terrible. Not only is she not a good writer, but she also has some very disparaging views about science fiction and its fans, which led her to make her own science fiction book and film. ANd yeah...it’s terrible! No surprise there.

So, no, not the 2013 critical and commercial flop known as The Host. No, this post is about 2006′s The Host, AKA Gwoemul, AKA 괴물. I haven’t ventured to far into the world of Korean cinema, and with this film, my repertoire includes only the films of director Bong Joon-Ho. And if that name sounds familiar...it should.

Bong Joon-ho DESERVEDLY made headlines last year when his film became the first non-English language film to win for Best Picture, and the first time Asian writers won for best screenplay! His Oscar speech in accepting best director is genuinely one of the best and most sincere speeches I’ve ever heard from a director, and I love the dude.

Oh, and if you’re wondering which film it was, then, like me, you also really need to watch Parasite. And because I’m terrified of spoilers, I’m not gonna look for GIFs of that movie. Instead, I’ll put in a GIF of one of my favorite sci-fi films, and the only other Bong Joon-ho film I’ve seen.

God, I love Snowpiercer. And if this is anything like that, I’m probably going to love this movie. Now, I don’t really know much about this film, other than the fact that it’s a monster film. And if there’s any science-fiction subgenre more iconic than monster films, I don’t know it. Well...OK, aliens, robots, and more, but monster films are still a big part of the genre. But where does that begin? Is it here?

Definitely an argument you can make, since Frankenstein’s Monster is a creation of science gone wrong, from the book to the movie. Fun fact, Mary Shelley based it on a real-world experiment by Italian physiologist Giovanni Aldini, who used a corpse to illustrate the connection between electricity and muscles. Neat, huh? So, yeah, that’s a solid launching point.

But that’s more of a horror story. What about something a little more monster-y? Well, from the UK to Japan we go!

OHHHHHH YEAH, THAT’S THE GOOD STUFF

Toho’s 1954 film Gojira is one of the most classic monster films ever made, and singlehandedly launched the kaiju genre in Japan. And it’s really well-known that it was made as a response to post-World War II tensions about nuclear warfare. Which, in Japan, is kind of understandable, no? But nothing demonstrated the destructive power of science more than that moment in history.

So, Godzilla arrives. And the US also makes more monster movies, most of which take place in contemporary settings, making many of them lo-fi sci-fi. Now, some dipped into horror or fantasy, but the science fiction roots were there. Which eventually would bring us full circle to films where monsters were made and go loose. You know, like this:

It’s a franchise that defines the ‘90s, and lab-grown monster movies exploded around that time as well. At the same time, environmental concerns REALLY started to build by this point, and those concerns leaked profusely into film all over the world. And by the time we get to 2006...well, let’s get into it, huh?

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap

In a mortuary, a U.S. military doctor (Scott Wilson) instructs his assistant (Brian Lee) to dump bottles of formaldehyde down the drain of the facility, which goes directly into the Han River. The assistant protests, but the doctor insists, despite the risk of polluting the river. AAAAAmericans.

In the river about two years later, two fisherman see something strange looking in the river. Then, four years later, in 2006, a suicidal man is about to jump into the river, when he sees something dark in the water below.

Later that year, we meet Park Hee-bong (Byun Hee-Bong) and his son Park Gang-du (Song Kang-ho), who run a food truck and snack bar near the river. Gang-du’s not exactly a hard worker, to his father’s chagrin. His daughter, Hyun-seo (Go Ah-sung), is a student who comes home from school, where her drunken uncle Nam-il (Park Hae-il) comes to her chagrin. She and her father watch TV, where his sister Nam-joo (Bar Doona) can be seen competing in archery.

As he’s bringing food out to customers, he joins them in observing something strange and massive hanging off of the bridge. And at this point, I would be running the fuck away. Literally, the news just said that there was a body found with the legs missing, and these people are throing cans at it after it plunges into the water. One girl asks if it’s a dolphin. Mother...HAVE YOU SEEN A DOLPHIN BEFORE?

NOT THIS

Yeah, this thing just comes bounding along the shore, slapping people into the water with its tail, and batting aside others. Doesn’t look like its actively killing anybody yet, but it’s definitely hurting people at least. That is, until it goes into a trailer where a bunch of people have gathered, and appears to eat a bunch of them. So, yeah, dangerous.

Gang-du, to his infinite credit, actually attempts to confront and hurt the creature, with the help of Donald White (David Joseph Anselmo). And it works, but at the cost of the creature aggro-ing onto him. Back at the snack truck, his sister’s lost the title, much to the chagrin of Gang-du’s daughter and father. She goes outside in frustration, only to be thrown into the midst of the chaos with her dad. He grabs a girls hand in the chaos, only to find that it’s a different child entirely. And...unfortunately...

The creature grabs her with its tail, and leaps back into the river, disappearing. Fuck. Poor Hyun-seo, and poor Gang-du. Gang-du IMMEDIATELY goes to get her back, jumping into the river, but the creature takes her across to an island, out of reach. That night, an impromptu funeral is held for the victims, at which Hyun-seo is being honored as well. There, both Gang-du’s sister and brother also attend, and all four of the break down dramatically and publicly.

Nam-il blames his brother for letting her die, which is unfair, but understandable. The family eventually calms down and discusses the circumstances of Hyun-Seo’s birth and death, both of which were accidental. As they do, a man in a protective suit comes out, and asks who was at the river incident. Nam-il protests this, and asks what’s going on. The man doesn’t explain, and the room is instead gassed, as everyone is ushered towards the entrance.

In the process, Gang-du (stupidly) reveals that he was hit by some blood splatter. He’s immediately stuffed in a bag and kidnapped by the authorities. Meanwhile, the news reveals that the creature is carrying a virus, and anyone who has been in contact with it has been infected. Because of this, the entire family is taken to a quarantine hospital, which oddly has very few actual quarantine procedures in place. And additionally, Gang-du is feeling a bit itchy.

That night, in the hospital, Gang-du gets a call on his cell phone! It’s Hyun-seo! She’s alive! And she’s trapped, in a sewer somewhere near the river. Meanwhile, a group of men in protectve suits are outside patrolling the river. One man finds money on the side of the road, and goes to pick it up, only for the men to be attacked by the creature. But it’s then that we discover that the creature is not killing or eating people, but simply taking them own to its lair. Also in said lair is Hyun-seo, trapped and with a now dead phone.

The next day, the family tries to get an officer to look into the call, only for the officer to be, frankly, an absolute piece of shit to this grieving family. Gang-du tries to explain, and his explanation is ENTIRELY RATIONAL, but the officer and doctors are absolutely terrible about it.

Because nobody’s listening, the family manages to escape from the hospital in order to try and save Hyun-Seo, and they hop into a van, taking it and running. This is a good place to mention that, despite this being a monster movie, it's also...weirly funny sometimes. Like, that whole scene is pretty great. After bartering with a group of gangsters for supplies (and after Hee-bong basically gives away all of his credit cards), the group manages to get a map and a new car. But they pretty quickly get stopped at a checkpoint into the city, and are nearly caught, but manage to escape and get to the riverfront. Once there, they begin searching the sewers to find Hyun-seo. And I gotta say; this may be an extremely dysfunctional family, but they’re a devoted family all the same.

Of course, that eventually gives way to arguments within the sewer itself, but that’s interrupted by a noise heard somewhere around them. They fire at it, using weapons obtained from the gangster but conclude that it was nothing. What it actually is is two brothers, older Se-jin (Lee Jae-eung) and younger Se-joo (Lee Dong-ho), homeless kids who are foraging the sewers in the abandoned city. But, of course, they eventually run into the creature, which attacks them. Meanwhile, an asleep Hyun-Seo dreams of dinner with her family, only to be woken up by the arrival of the creature, who deposits the bodies of the two boys in the sewer with her. Se-joo has survived, but Se-jin hasn’t, sadly.

Meanwhile, the rest of the family is gathered at their snack bar for the night, and prepares to set out or the morning. The to younger siblings appear to not give a single shit about Gang-du, but Hee-bong attempts to set them straight, talking about how he blames himself for the way Gang-du is now. However, the two just fall asleep during his speech. Poor Hee-bong. Also, he can apparently identify Gang-du’s health condition based on his farts because they spend so much time together, it’s dumb, and funny.

Also, poor the rest of them, because Gang-du wakes up to see the creature just waiting outside, watching them. Hee-bong fires at it, but the creature attacks and knocks over the bar. However, Hee-bong manages to hit it directly in the head, knocking it off, but not killing it. The family goes out to finish the job, but it runs away before they can kill it. They run after it, and are almost completely out of bullets. Hee-bong volunteers to go after it himself, but in the process...

Hee-bong doesn’t make it. The creature kills him, and the commotion attracts the military to their location. Gang-du is again captured, while Nam-il and Nam-joo escape, only to later be separated regardless. Meanwhile, the virus kills Donald White, the sergeant from earlier, and it continues to spread across Korea. To kill the creature, the government plans to release a chemical into the river called Agent Yellow, which feels...controversial.

Nam-il meats a colleague, “Fat Guevara” (Yam Pil-sung), who is easily able to provide a location for Hyun-seo using the number, which the cop earlier insisted was nearly impossible to do. Plus, both the sergeant and Gang-du encountered the creature together, and he seems to be just fine. Which probably means that something very wrong is happening now. Even worse, though, is the fact that Guevara’s appeared to trap Nam-il, as a massive reward is sought for his arrest. A gang of people surround hi, with the plan to capture him, but he VERY cleverly escapes by causing an electrical short, and AFTER having found Hyun-seo’s location! Nice, man! He takes off, now knowing exactly where his niece is.

Nam-joo, meanwhile, is literally living inside of the snack bar, and she gets a text from Nam-il with her location. He tags out, and she tags in, running to the location where the call came from. But she immediately runs into the creature, which knocks her down and unconscious. She manages to call Gang-du, who is currently about to be sedated. Now knowing where his daughter is, he tries to escape, only to be tackled by the doctors. He tells them where she is, but they don’t appear to listen. More importantly, the anesthetic doesn’t appear to work, much to the confusion of the doctors. Something is verrrrrrrry wrong here.

An American doctor (Paul Lazar) comes, and asks what’s wrong, and he tells him exactly what’s wrong. However, despite his words SEEMING to be heard, they once again call him crazy and delusional, and decide to give him a lobotomy to isolate the virus once and for all, like FUCKING ASSHOLES. Turns out that the virus? Yeah, it doesn’t exist whatsoever! It doesn’t exist even a little bit! Which means that this entire thing is a wild goddamn goose chase for a virus that DOESN’T FUCKING EXIST!!!

And the best thing is that Gang-du, despite not actually knowing English, still understands the words “no virus”, and know he fucking knows! However, because he knows, they now have to give him a lobotomy. Fuck me, man. Panicking, he cries for them to stop, and cries for his daughter, who’s still alive in the sewer.

Speaking of, Hyun-seo and Se-joo are bonding in the sewer, as they work to make a rope from things they find there. But in the process, they’re attacked by the creature, who know is actively eating the bodies, and presumably other people. Whoof. They manage to escape, but barely.

Back with Gang-du, who’s just gone through the lobotomy, which...hasn’t worked at all. Holy SHIT. Not sure what the hel is UP with this dude, but that’s a question in and of itself. He escapes by taking a nurse hostage, threatening them with a syringe of his blood, full of a virus that doesn’t exist!

Nam-il wakes up at the same time, not accompanied by a homeless man (Yoon Je-moon), who agrees to take him to the bridge to find Hyun-seo. In the sewer, the two kids have survived, and the creature appears to be asleep. Like a GODDAMN BOSS, she runs up the creatures back, and jumps onto a rope that she had made, and that was hanging far out of her reach. Unfortunately...the creature catches her with its tail. Fuck. It sets her down, and...lets her go? But as soon as she runs, it attacks bother her and Se-joo.

Just then, Gang-du gets to the lair, and uses the rope to climb down. Below him is a pile of bones, and no kids to be seen. The creature goes by, and Hyun-seo’s hand is dangling out of its mouth. And once again by coincidence, that’s when Nam-joo wakes up and reunites with her brother. The creature runs to the waterfront, only to be greeted by...a crowd? They’re gathered there to protest the release of the dangerous chemical into the river.

It all collides at once. The creature swims towards the crowd, Gang-du runs towards the creature, Agent Yellow is released over them both, causing the creature to faint. Gan-du runs up and grabs the bodies of his daughter and See-joo from its mouth, apparently too fucking late. Shit, man. This would’ve been avoided if they just HELPED him. Fuck. He carries her body away as more chemical is released onto the flailing creature, and the chemical causes everyone else in the area to violently hemorrhage as well. Meanwhile, Nam-il and Nam-joo arrive to see their deceased niece, grieving all over again. It’s...fuck, man, it sucks.

And Gang-du is fucking PISSED NOW. He grabs a street sign and attacks the injured creature, fueled by pure rage. Nam-il joins in with Molotov cocktails as it runs away. The homeless man douses it with gasoline, and that makes it easier for Nam-il to set it on fire...until he drops the bottle. And then, Nam-joo uses it to light an arrow on fire, hitting the creature with it, and setting it ablaze. It runs to the water, only for Gang-du to stab it through the head with the street sign, finally killing it in revenge for his father and his daughter. Fucking bad-ASS. And also quite tragic, given the circumstances.

And despite the tragedy, there is one happy circumstance: Se-joo lives! In fact, Hyun-seo died saving his life, like the real goddamn hero of this story that she is. Fuck. That’s terrible, but I’m happy that her sacrifice wasn’t in vain. From here, we fast-forward to the winter, where a clean-shaven and well-kept Gang-du is is now caring for Se-joo. The news is on in the background, but the two ignore it, happily eating together after the ordeal they’ve been through.

Whoof. That’s The Host, or Gwoemul! And yeah, that’s one hell of a movie, I tell you what. For a monster movie, it’s quite dramatic, and they don’t try to humanize the monster AT ALL. And honestly, I really like it! A Pyrrhic victory at the end, but nothing wrong with that! I’ll elaorate a bit in the review! See you there!

#the host 2005 #bong joon-ho #song kang-ho #byun hee-bong #park hae-il #bae doona #go ah-sung #gwoemul #괴물 #science fiction may #sci-fi may #user365 #365 movie challenge #365 movies 365 days #365 Days 365 Movies #365 movies a year #korean cinema

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whyweredying · 3 years ago

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YES, WE ARE thrilled for the lovers of Fall, who took their first hit of crisp, apple-pie-cashmere air this morning. DAVID G. Allen, CNN reporter, has declared fall “the season of cozy, delicious, wisdom-inducing rediscovery.” I for one, have always found myself in a sweater, by the fireplace, with the candlestick! and then lost myself in an alcoholic hot cider and whatever I lit with the candlestick. BUT before we literally pull the wool over our eyes, take a moment to grieve Summer! SUMMER is hot, sexy, and popular. HER clothes are skin-baring and non-professorial. HOW freeing! SCHOOL does not exist to Summer, which means it’s okay to be dumb for three months. THIS is why Earth Wind and Fire raged so hard at the disco on the 21st night of September. THEY knew how to grieve. TODAY we find ourselves in debt and plaid, ordering light therapy boxes as we wait on our PSL to steam. SAD!

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starlightafterastorm · 4 years ago

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The Umbrella Academy Season 2

7/10

I feel the same way about Season 2 as I feel about the last episode of Season 1. It’s incredibly entertaining. It’s very heartwarming at times. But it is so much flash and action and style and very little substance. When I actually look deeper at the storylines and the characters it feels a bit hollow. Either we skipped SEVERAL STEPS of character development to get here, or we didn’t move forward at all.

This would have been a FANTASTIC Season 3 IF we had gotten a Season 2 full of good character development only for Season 3 to show a character regression before moving forward at the end.

There were SO MANY storylines in Season 2 and so many characters did literally nothing, twiddling their thumbs while more important stuff was happening with other siblings. And that’s the whole crux of the matter. The siblings spent far too much time separated, their storylines disjointed.

Season 1 had a premise. Dysfunctional but found family. And the end of Season 1 promised that they would actually try to address Vanya’s (and their own) trauma. Season 2 sideswerved HARD and did not meet that promise. Instead they gave Vanya an amnesia storyline to gloss over the painful parts of healing.

There were just so many lost opportunities. More issues with this season and what I would have liked to have seen instead under the cut. I uh... went on a rant.

The Plot

What they essentially did was a soft reboot that just re-treaded out Season 1 with slight differences which is why so many of the characters feel so stagnated. Most of them are not moving forward or are moving forward so slowly, what was the point?

Luthor:

moderate character growth. He has (mostly) broken free of Reginald Hargeeves’ influence and transferred his daddy issues onto any other older male. The underground fighting and being a body man for Jack Ruby was fine but having FIVE become his new daddy figure and then trying to figure out WHICH FIVE to listen to was absolute gold. Also him being heartbroken but SUPER RESPECTFUL of Allison’s relationship with Raymond was A+. I assume he was just as respectful when she was married to Patrick and kudos to him for being the only one to mention Claire all season. Gets points taken off because despite the end of Season 1 being about how to help Vanya process her trauma his immediate reaction to Vanya is to CONFRONT HER WITH A GUN BEHIND HIS BACK which he only puts away when he sees there’s a child in the barn with them. And then he just... walks away.

Yeah he just… is there quietly supporting everyone else this season. Not the best but not the worst.

Diego:

SO MUCH CHARACTER GROWTH. I AM PROUD OF HIM. SOMEHOW JUMPED UP TO ONE OF THE FAVES THIS SEASON. Might have had the best character growth in the whole season. He went to therapy for 75 days and came out of it willing to throw away numbers and be team zero and make amends with most of his siblings. Still snarky and mean and kind of an obsessive dumbass about JFK and went into his thing with Lila way too quickly but I really loved him being a foil to Five. I almost cried when his stutter came back.

Ok but my biggest complaint is that I would have liked to see his own struggles as a hispanic man in 1960’s Dallas, Texas. Tie it to Allison’s Civil Rights plot. Because he and LiIa are two clearly non-white people, Lila with a British accent of all things, in 1963 Dallas going to a fancy gala with rich white men and no one bats an eye. No one says anything to either of them. Not that I want them to be discriminated against but it’s weird to see that juxtaposed with Allison not even being allowed to go into a diner. Because racism towards hispanic men is well and alive in present day Dallas and it sure as hell would have been in 1963. Dallas specifically used to have a neighborhood called Little Mexico that reached peak population in the 60s but was slowly dismantled by gentrification. While not legally segregated, Mexican-American citizens were still considered second class citizens. Places like Woolworth’s (and probably that diner where Allison had the sit in) did not allow Mexican-Americans. Him being put into that asylum was definitely rooted in racism after showing violence, even after helping an old white lady, and screaming about the president being assassinated.

I don’t know how to tie that cleanly to Allison’s storyline considering he already had a lot going on with his plot but like… show us some representation of a history not usually taught. Especially since David Castenada is Mexican-American. It’s literally his history.

Allison:

Started off kind of strong and then... eh. I liked PARTS of her storyline. I really liked her getting involved with the Civil Rights movement. I loved her being taken in by the other women at the hair salon. But I think the reveal of her storyline came too late. We spent multiple episodes with her before getting to her flashback after landing in the 60’s and it should have come earlier if you wanted us to care more about the community she joined.

While I liked Raymond fine, I would have preferred he didn’t exist. Not for shipping or anything but just for the fact that you had such a strong beginning with Allison being saved by this group of black women who took her in and defended her that I feel like you could have built more into that. They had some great scenes with them supporting her after Raymond is arrested and crying out as Allison is being restrained by the police officer but then Raymond is angry at her and denounces her from the community and then nothing. Even after she tells Raymond the truth there isn’t another scene with Allison and the other women.

Allison didn’t need another relationship, sincere or not. Not after Patrick and Luthor. She needed scenes with the women, commiserating over her lost family, siblings and child. She needed the support of other women in order to learn how to support other women so she could learn from her mistakes with Claire and Vanya. And to learn how to use her powers responsibly.

Her whole arc from Seasons 1 and 2 is about not wanting to use her powers because she has a history of personal gain and escalating violence… but then she doesn’t use them at moments where they would be the most helpful. How great would a storyline have been about her using her powers to protect these other black women in the community? And about learning how to use her powers to de-escalate a situation without resorting to violence? (Every time Allison was in a situation I kept screaming at the tv “I HEARD A RUMOR YOU SAT IN A CORNER AND TIED YOUR HANDS TOGETHER”)

Also. Also. Also. Black women often have no voice. Even, or especially, in their own community. They get looked over because of the violence happening to black men or the non-diverse feminism of white women. Show us more about Allison literally having no voice and connecting with these women who metaphorically have no voice. We get such a small taste of it. I want more.

Klaus:

What did Klaus do all season? No seriously? What was the point of him?

I get that the cult is a very Klaus thing to do but then he gets smothered by them so he tries to dip out? Was there… supposed to be a lesson in codependency there? A lesson about creating a new accepting family? About being heard by people who support you but he prefers the Hargreeves who will snipe at him instead?

And he was so mean to Ben all season. ALL SEASON he was mean to Ben. Because Ben can’t leave him and he’s acting as his conscience. Which is fair because that gets annoying after 17 years but maybe you should listen to him a little? Maybe you shouldn’t be making him perform tricks for you to impress your cult?

The Dave storyline was sad and some of the most real moments from Klaus all season. Another storyline that… we knew where it was gonna go and how it was gonna end but I didn’t mind it so much. But if the point of his storyline was to learn to let go of his trauma and just of people he’s grieving in general, Dave AND BEN, then… how does the cult fit into it? I’m still trying to make sense of the cult plot point. It didn’t serve anything with Klaus and you didn’t need it to have Ben have feelings for and try to make a connection with a girl. There’s something there with the cult storyline they were maybe trying to get at and I don’t think they achieved it.

Also his sobriety. The reason Klaus is the way he is is because he takes the drugs and the drinks to not see ghosts. If he were sober for three years (why was he sober for three years? He was in a cult. He should have been off his rocker the whole time because him trying to get sober was to see Dave and Dave han’ died yet) why wasn’t he surrounded by other ghosts asking him for help the same way they were in S1? And then he just… throws his sobriety away. Because of heartbreak? Annoyance at the world and at Ben?

Five:

Repetitive. It’s just a retool of S1’s apocalypse storyline. Which. AGAIN. Five doesn’t even solve this second apocalypse! I stand by Rapaccini’s post saying that Five was meant to be on the stage with the gun in his hand in season one. And he should have been there trying to stop the apocalypse with Vanya in S2. Cool, great, love Diego being taken into the Time Commission. But Five’s the one who’s been putting the pieces together and trying to get them the briefcase and who’s been looking at the newspapers and watching the videos and whatnot. How did no one consider that the second apocalypse revolved around Vanya? Again. And it’s for the same reason: her storyline was removed from her siblings and no one was there to support her until literally the last moment. She was being tortured by the FBI for A WHILE. Did anyone even tell Five that Vaya was being tortured by the FBI? Whie he was having a slap fight with his older younger self?

Old!YoungerFIve vs Young!OlderFive was hilarious. I loved every moment of it except for the fact that at literally the same time Vanya was being tortured by the FBI. Why are you keeping FIve and Vanya so far apart? Their storylines should revolve around each other. They’re the literal lynchpins of the series.

Ben:

Sweet baby. Sweet sad ghost baby. He twiddled his thumbs with Klaus for a while but I don’t mind it as much because he’s so tied to Klaus. So of course Klaus twiddling his thumbs means Ben doesn’t really get to do anything. I like him trying to assert his dominance in their relationship. I love him learning how to possess Klaus and make a real connection with fruit and the mud and getting to see Diego and Vanya one last time. I legit cried during Vanya’s scene with him. I’m so glad that we don’t lose Justin MIn next season because I was very worried. I also was brought to tears when he sat there alone saying he misses his siblings. All of them. So much.

Vanya:

I don’t like amnesia plots and I don’t like infidelity plots. Those are personal squicks for me so I absolutely loathe Vanya’s storyline. Look. I get that Sissy is oppressed as a not straight woman in 60’s Texas and she’s struggling with a husband who is pretty terrible (but standard by 1960’s Texas POV) and her son is difficult. I get where they were trying to go with it. But that doesn’t justify her carrying on an affair with Vanya. She is still married and still sleeping with him while coercing Vanya into keeping their whatever a secret. I don’t consider illicit affairs behind another partner’s back to be romantic.

I did NOT like their kissing scene together because again, she’s married, they’re both drinking and Sissy is visibly upset and drunk and she makes the first move on Vanya after having known Vanya for a month with Vanya having amnesia and Sissy is Vanya’s employer. Vanya has been hired by Sissy to watch over her child in exchange for room and board so by all accounts there’s literally no place to go and no one for Vanya to turn to if it goes south. When. When it goes south. Sissy knew full well that she had no intention of putting in the effort to make their relationship a permanent and sustainable thing as she makes clear to Vanya later. It’s Vanya who puts in the effort to make their relationship a viable thing after they spend the night together. So there’s a power dynamic there that is not ok.

So many of those components DO NOT WORK FOR ME. I don’t like it and I don’t think anyone’s storyline benefited from it. Their relationship was just a whole lot of NOPE for me.

What was the point of Sissy’s relationship with Vanya. Because it swallows up Vanya’s whole plot and we’re never going to see Sissy again so why did it matter? Just to show Vanya is queer? Cool, I love it. That’s great for Vanya. Do it not this way. Not in a way that has some amnesia, coercion, power dynamic issues. She already had that in a worse way with Leonard.

Vanya did not need a relationship this season. Straight up. Just like Allison. Because if you want to show Vanya growing and healing from her trauma to allow her to love another man or woman after what Leonard did to her, GIVING HER AMNESIA AND WIPING IT ALL AWAY SO IT DOESN’T MATTER ISN’T HOW YOU DO IT.

Beyond that. There’s just so much of Vanya’s storyline that is off and terrible and doesn’t make sense. If the whole point of all of this was to have this interesting connection with Harlan because she… transfers some of her powers to him? Is able to connect with him? They’re both special? Then show us that! We weren’t shown that. At all. How capable was Vanya in taking care of Harlan? We’ve never seen her with other children before, let alone a child who is non-verbal and clearly needs special attention and care. We see Sissy struggling with Harlan at one point, did Vanya struggle? As someone who used to work with children, it’s HARD. Adding in non-verbal special children is even harder.

So show us more scenes where this non-verbal child is able to communicate his wants and needs with Vanya. Show us Vanya being able to handle his temper tantrums in a way that connects to Vanya struggling with her own temper because of her trauma even if she doesn’t remember it. Show us Vanya commiserating with this child over a family that doesn’t really understand him and a father who is neglectful at best. The biggest scene I can remember Harlan connecting with Vanya before the finale is when he puts his hands over hers but that’s HARLAN comforting VANYA because VANYA is upset. Which is an interesting moment but that’s due to Vanya’s upset over Sissy and not anything to do with Harlan himself.

Cycling back around to Vanya’s amnesia. Thanks, I hate it.

If you have to have this stupid amnesia storyline, especially if you’re going to have it revealed by Reginald in Vanya’s mind that she is purposefully suppressing the memories because it’s too traumatic, then you need to seed that through the rest of the season. We had one nightmare flashback. Her memories could have been triggered by Carl being a dick about Harlan. They could have been triggered by feeding Harlan a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich. They could have been triggered by her taking Harlan downtown and passing by a music store. Vanya didn’t pick up the violin once this season and that’s a shame considering she’s the White Violin.

I just really don’t like amnesia plots. I made a post saying I am SO FUCKING TIRED of seeing women traumatized in media only for them to keep getting re-traumatized to show their strength or their trauma is swept under the rug. And they swept Vanya’s trauma under the rug. All of Vanya’s interactions don’t mean anything in Season 2. They’re surface level sweet but hollow because she doesn’t fucking remember so what’s the fucking point in them apologizing and being nice to her now? They can afford to do that because she can’t remember and she’s not angry. And the focus shifts AWAY from Vanya after she remembers and the compassion and empathy goes to a different female antagonist who is trying to kill them. Where was this “let’s circle around you and tell you that you are one of us and we’ll accept you even though you just made a huge effort to kill us and almost succeeded” scene for Vanya after they locked her up and she busted out to go to her concert?

#the umbrella academy #tua s2 #tua spoilers #vanya hargreeves #five hargreeves #ben hargeeves #allison hargreeves #diego hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #luthor hargreeves #long post

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ohjaimelannister · 5 years ago

Note

Do you think Hoppers actually dead though?

O K A Y.

I’ve been looking for an excuse to pull all of this together so here we go! NO Anon, I do not think that Chief James Hopper has gone and died on us. There’s no REAL evidence (there are easter eggs though) however and the Duffer Brothers could still pull the rug out from under us but hey.

No I do not believe that Hopper is dead. Although some things can be interpreted as pretty final and if the Duffers really kill him off I will never watch this show again, because it’s horrifically SHITTY writing and im already super tired of that this year lmao.

One - There is no body? We were never showed a body or what’s left of one? We have seen bodies for Benny, Barb, Bob and Billy (and even people who were in it for like 5 minutes). THEY EVEN PRODUCED A FAKE WILL WHEN THEY WANTED US TO THINK HE WAS DEAD. THEY AREN’T AGAINST SHOWING US BODIES!!! Which brings me to my next point!

Two - They also aren’t against to showing us death. Lots of gory detailing death, WHOEVER it is. Billy died horrifically but you saw it even though hes a kid. Bob got ripped to shreds. And even those dudes at the beginning of S3 died horribly? They still showed it. Hopper’s death??? It cuts away. You see NOTHING. AT. ALL. There aren’t even any remnants OF a body where he was standing, and Joyce goes down there and LOOKS. Surely shed find something? Gooey grossness like the bodies at the beginning? Nope. You could argue that they’d be against showing us the death of a beloved hero and a main character but. Again. Bob was beloved and arguably one of the sweetest characters in the show and he was ripped to bits in front of us and Joyce. Billy was a kid for all intents and purposes, still he died a horrible death. Not one bit of that was cut away.

Three - If you look in the shots hes not on the platform when the thing explodes????? like at all? Either that’s badly shot or its done deliberately because he’s just not there anymore? There’s the portal to the Upside Down and you can see a ladder in the shot too, so maybe he either went into the Upside Down or down the ladder and got caught by the russians?? We just don’t know.

Four - We see the devastated Eleven and the aftermath of what happened at Star Court. Then it jumps to three months later? Okay, odd that were not shown anymore of the grieving or the funeral. Then of course Eleven read the SPEECH. Think about the end of it specifically and about LEAVING THE DOOR OPEN 3 INCHES!! You can see from one of the final shots of Star Court that the gates not CLOSED. It was healing but it never fully closes. So Hopper could be in the Upside Down, or travelled through it to Russia on the other end?? Who knows. Point is, they included this line at the end for a reason. Whether the reason is that hes actually dead and they’re just being profound or that its a hint about his fate, its meaningful.

Five - During the ending the song HEROES by Peter Gabriel plays, this is the same song that was placed over them finding Wills fake body, and after all the goodbyes and the ‘speech’ where it ends with “keep the door open three inches” well. Come on.

Six - Then it cuts to Russia and you hear the “not the american” line, and Hopper was called “the American” throughout the series by that Russian baddie. Should I start waving Red Flags here or???? Then again, a lot of people are saying this could be Brenner. Okay I 100% get your logic Im with ya, and for a few days I’ve also thought it could be Brenner. But here’s the thing. Elevens powers. Brenner makes her use them to spy on a russian man in Season 1. Hinting that there’s more going on here than just super powers, kids and other dimensions. Don’t forget that in the 80s the world was in the grip of the Cold War, and things would have started reaching a boiling point for this long before 1985 when it ‘officially’ began. We were never given any answers about why Brenner was spying on this man, or even Russia. Or even if he WAS spying for the US. Nothing, it’s a throwaway scene. Or IS IT? Russians show up in Season Three somehow knowing about the Upside Down, having failed at their own attempts to open a gate in Russia. They somehow know that its Hawkins they need to be in to successfully open their gate and potentially get monsters to use, oh I don’t know, in a WAR???? How would they have known any of this information to begin with?? Oh I wonder. We were told all about Brenner being alive and out there in season two (and we were never told WHERE and this is not referenced again), but as far as I can remember Eleven has never shared this with anyone else, even though it’s completely RELEVANT information. And as far as I can remember (its been a hell of an emotional few days) I dont think were given any explanation about how the Russians knew about the Upside Down, Hawkins or anything. So maybe the reason they knew is BECAUSE BRENNER is the one giving them their directives? Because hes worked for THEM this whole time???

Seven - Interestingly also Eleven lost her powers? JEEZ ISN’T THAT CONVENIENT!!! Because the first thing shed use them for is to look for Hopper even if she was told he was dead. Shed look, 100% for the man who saved her, gave her a home, loved her, worried for her, cared for her like she was his goddamn OWN. Conveniently though now SHE CANT??? Interesting.

Eight - And now. There’s the voicemail message. In one of the episodes (my brains so fried I cant remember which one sorry) Murrays gives out his landline number, and when you call it you can hear him give a message to Joyce. You can listen to it here. You can tell this is after season three, because why would he talk to Joyce Byers? Surely if he was trying to reach someone for information it would be Hopper? “I have an update, its best if we speak in person" an update??? About what??? Why is he coercing with joyce??? Notice how he says “it’s not good or bad but its SOMETHING” and then says “we’ll talk about it in person” (or something like that) why would he be calling joyce with an ‘update’?????????? AND ON WHAT EXACTLY?? INTERESTING!!

Nine - Theres this interview with the cast specifically ABOUT Hopper, the death and the post credits scene. And I love David Harbour but, you cannot lie for shit my angel.

Ten - Millie has said in an interview “ Her dads gone, or so she thinks” COME ON.

Eleven - Again WE KNOW DAVID HARBOUR IS LIKE THE MARK RUFFALO OF STRANGER THINGS. And hes bad at keeping shit to himself. Hes already told us at the end of last YEAR, literally a month after they finished filming season three that the Duffers have told him the ending to the series as a whole. Why would any creator do this for a man they have effectively just fired, because his character died? Why would they tell him? They wouldn’t.

Tweleve - Again. David Harbour, bless his heart, I think its trying to give us HINTS and bread crumbs to follow. Last week he changed his instagram photo from Hopper in S1 to the number 6. Odd. Today he changed it to the number one :

Twelve continued - Basically if he changed it to an 8 next, we know hes trying to hint at Murrays voicemail message and this is a clue for Hopper. Because why else would he bother?

Thirteen - Theres also this screenshot from Cara Buonos instagram where she literally SAYS about him being in Kamchatka, and uses the Russian word for PRISON. (Of course this could just be a joke between the actors

Fourteen - Theres also the fact, which is not evidence mind you, that its incredibly shitty writing to have both the men that Joyce Byers loved/loves to die in front of her? And actually having her put the action in motion that kills the man she loves? No. I wont accept that. And weve been shown her non willingness to believe in peoples death, everyone and their mothers told her Will was dead and she was being crazy. Did she listen? No. And she got her boy back. Will she think once she has a clear head that Hoppers dead? Maybe. Which is why she asks Murray to investigate. Hence the Voicemail Message.

Fifteen - Its also incredibly shitty and hard to swallow, for Elevens sake too. I mentioned already how much she loves Hopper and finally got a true parent in him. Do you honestly think they’d put her through all of that just to lose him NOW? Like i said, its convienent how shes lost her powers at this very crucial moment.

Sixteen - DAVID. HARBOURS. BEARD. RIGHT. NOW.

And SEVENTEEN -Just in case y’all are having trouble with any of that it looks like David Harbour has let sorta slip (my god I fucking ADORE THIS MAN LET ME TELL YOU). I dont know how reliable this is mind you because its not coming from a BIG source, but HERE he hints at knowing who the American is, after telling everyone else (see the interview above ^^) that he doesnt know and he cant say anything.

‘During an interview with David Harbour, I attempted to delicately get around the fate of Jim Hopper. Harbour, however, came right out and gave it to me straight. “This is the question I’m going to have to dance around–” I began, only for Harbour to interrupt me and ask, “The ending?” “Right,” I said. “Is there a way you can talk about the future of Hopper without…” I trailed off here, only for Harbour to ask: “Well, did you see the post-credits scene?”I had, of course. And so I straight-up asked: is that Hopper behind the door? According to Harbour, that’s the most likely scenario. Throughout the season, the main Russian baddie refers to Hopper as “the American”, and having another Russian refer to the mysterious prisoner in the same way was the big giveaway.Of course, knowing that Hopper is alive, and knowing how he survived and ended up in Russia, are two different things. We’ll have to wait for season 4 to get that answer. And we’ll have to wait to see how things unfold from there. Will a big chunk of season 4 involve Hopper escaping that Russian base, and trying to get back to America? Time will tell. One thing is clear: Hopper still has a long journey ahead of him; not just physically, but emotionally.’

SO, basically Jim Hopper has not left us, Joyce or Eleven. And if the Duffer Brothers have done all this to screw with us, well. Im not gonna be responsible for what I do.

I FEEL JIM HOPPER IN THIS RUSSIAN PRISON TONIGHT!!!

THANK YOU FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK!!!!!!!!

#Stranger Things #Jim Hopper #David Harbour #Jopper #strangerthingsspoilers

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k-p-p-d · 5 years ago

Text

From Zero (M)

Summary: When building an empire, start from ground zero.

Warnings: mentions of/allusions to sex work/brothels, body modification, past abusive relationships, homicide, fight clubs, illegal bookkeeping, assassination, grieving, assault, robbery, hacking/invasion of privacy, L** S**nghy*n (had to be included as he is one of the main antagonists in the series)

Length: 15.5k

A/N: This has been in the making for years now, my word. But it feels so good to finally release it to you all. There’s a lot of tragedy befalling several of our versions of these absolute angels, so take care of yourself when reading. Please look at the profiles for each of the members as a sort of refresher/preview to their individual backgrounds and why they come to join XX. I know the tags seem pretty serious and heavy, but I tried to write this in such a way to where there was a balance between subtly and directness when it came to the hard parts so you would have visceral reactions but not necessarily be overwhelmed by them. Still, take your time reading or skip this altogether— just do whatever you feel is best for you. I love each of you as much as I love each of the boys. —Admin Lily

——————

Previously...

——————

“What are you running from?” a deep voice purred from beside him.

Kihyun stiffened at the abrupt accusation, shifting slightly in his chair to toss a cutting side eye at his accuser. “Who says I’m running?”

“You do: You can barely keep your eyes on me, which is automatically a red flag considering I am easily one of the most beautiful people you have ever seen—“

“That’s mighty cocky of you.”

“Deny it. You can’t. Anyway, you keep clenching and unclenching your fists, then slowly wiping one or the other on this very expensive velvet in an attempt to pass off drying your sweaty palms as just enjoying the tactile pleasure this fabric can bring. You haven’t touched your drink yet—which is shameful and in poor taste considering Hyeri has a gift when it comes to cocktails—and it’s blatantly obvious you would literally rather be anywhere but here, despite all the lovely company you could keep. So...what are you running from?”

“I’m not running from anything.”

“Then someone?”

Wonho smirked as Kihyun unconsciously shifted away from him, his eyes widening only a hair before narrowing slightly in suspicion. “I’m not running from anyone either,” Kihyun flatly denied.

Wonho couldn’t help but to loudly laugh, head thrown back and cheeks flushed as bright peals of laughter effortlessly punched through the thick air causing all eyes to turn toward him. At least all the eyes that weren’t already on him. “I needed that laugh, thank you,” he chuckled breathily, miming wiping away nonexistent tears from his observant eyes. “Honestly, if I didn’t know you so well, I might have believed you,”

Kihyun’s expression hardened immediately. “You don’t know me at all,” he snapped through clenched teeth.

Another smirk tugged at Wonho’s lips, this one less amused and far more devious than the other cared for. “But I do.” He gently wrapped his fingers around the tense man’s wrist before firmly yanking him up to stand as he himself gracefully rose from the armrest on which he’d been perched. “Come with me,” he hummed as he began to pull Kihyun along with him, the command simple and clear despite the soft tone he’d used.

Kihyun dug his heels into the floor as best he could. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” he growled.

“Don’t worry,” Wonho giggled, slipping his fingers down from Kihyun’s slender wrist—fingertips brushing along the tiny scar as they moved—to tightly interlace themselves with Kihyun’s fingers, “I’m fully booked tonight so this one is free of charge.” He squeezed his knuckles against the other’s and tugged once, effectively pulling the man closer to himself and shaking him off-balance enough that Kihyun had no choice except to follow behind for a few steps if he wanted to keep from falling face first. And at that point, balance finally regained, Kihyun huffed heavily in defeat and followed along compliantly. There was no sense in playing tug-of-war with the annoyingly persistent, presumptuous man.

Wonho led them up the stairs to his own personal wing. Turning to face the other man so he could better tangle their fingers together, he nudged open the large double doors with his back as he stepped backwards into the lush suite, dragging his prey into his den. Immediately, they were flooded with pale amber light; Kihyun winced at the sudden change in lighting, despite the lights barely being above half their brightness. He blinked a couple times to allow his eyes to adjust. Once he could properly see, he gasped. Wonho stood before him, same as ever, playful smirk still elegantly curling his plush lips and mischievous eyes still smoldering seductively; yet he was practically glowing. The gentle lights were bathing his skin with their subtle warmth so as to shroud him in an angelic haze. He was ’David’ come to life— a living, breathing masterpiece. Kihyun couldn’t understand why, but suddenly he wanted to possess the man before him, body and soul and everything between.

Wonho continued to lead him further into his lair, and Kihyun could barely take in the beautiful blend of creamy linens, charcoal satins, blush silks, mauve tweeds, and golden accents swirling around them. The lush decor and cozy coloring made Kihyun feel welcomed, warmed, whole. It felt like he could properly breathe for the first time in his life. He was so caught up in the airiness sweeping through his body that he didn’t realize they’d stopped moving until Wonho’s airy giggle floated through his clouded senses. Kihyun flushed a little from embarrassment. It wasn’t like him to zone out so completely like that; but he couldn’t help it, he was absolutely enthralled by the ethereal being before him.

Wonho’s smirk deepened as he trailed his hand up Kihyun’s forearm and along his chest before firmly pushing him back onto the oversized bed. Kihyun had barely bounced on the plush mattress before the beautiful man was atop him, stealing his breath away once more with his radiance. Looking up at him, Kihyun felt as if he had just awoken to witness the dawning morning’s warm light delicately slip over the supple flesh belonging to the love of his life.

Wonho tugged him upward by his collar to sit properly so he could swing a leg over his hips, purposefully keeping himself propped up on his knees to maintain enough space between their bodies. It’d only be a matter of time until Kihyun was begging him to close the distance. “Hi there,” he whispered to his enthralled prey, who could only smile dumbly back. Gently grasping the other’s wrist, he delicately ran his thumb along the tiny scar almost everyone aside from Kihyun himself never even knew existed. “This must be from childhood,” he hummed.

Kihyun gave a noncommittal shrug, careful to keep his tone disinterested so as to not give away the fact his statement was correct, “What makes you think that?”

“I have scars like this from childhood, too. They’re not quite as small, but they are just as smooth and lack discoloration of any kind. You might find this very hard to believe,” he grinned, “but no one has ever guessed I had any if I didn’t tell them, even when they’re close enough to see every last hair on my body. And there’s not even much hair to begin with below my neck.” His warm grin suddenly shifted into a predatory smirk as he purred, “Would you like to see?”

“You said this was on the house,” Kihyun huffed, internally forcing himself not to give into the beguiling man’s whims despite his body’s eager responsiveness to even just the gentlest of his touches.

“It is,” Wonho assured without missing a beat, his thumb tracing small circles along the other’s pulse point, “everything after tonight though...”

Kihyun snorted. “You’re beautiful, but you’re not my type.”

Wonho shrugged, the least bit put off, his thumb still continuing its absentminded ministrations, “I know. You like your men tall, tanned, handsome, and mysterious. I’m really only two of those things.” His smirk stretched into a friendly smile, “I’m just glad you’ve given up on lying to me.”

“Yes, well, it seemed a bit rude to lie to you in your home.”

“So you are observant. Very good! I like that in a partner. You sure you don’t want to try to find my scars?” he teased.

“I’m sure,” Kihyun chuckled. Wonho’s pout at his words, as fake as Kihyun’s composure under his magnetic gaze, quickly caused him to add on, “at least not right now.”

“Well, in that case...” His voice trailed off as he slid his fingers from around the other’s slender wrist to march them up his forearm, toward the base of his neck, before halting abruptly at the sharp corners of the collar of his dress shirt. Leveling his most smoldering gaze at the man caught helplessly in his web, he huskily purred, “Let me search for yours.” Leaning himself forward to crowd into the other’s space until there was barely the space of a breath between them, he tapped the forefinger of one hand at the hollow of Kihyun’s throat while slipping the other around to play with the strands of chestnut hair at the nape of his neck, which was beginning to tilt to the side just so without Kihyun even realizing. Just as Wonho had planned. “Will you let me?” he whispered against slightly parted lips.

“Yes,” came the breathy reply.

Wonho smiled softly, gracefully lowering himself fully onto his prey’s unconsciously proffered lap. Most nights he would have made a quip about whether or not the seat was taken, but he knew he didn’t have the luxury of time to really work his magic—both because he had to attend to a regular in a half hour and because he knew it was only a matter of minutes before Kihyun’s mind kicked back into gear and forced him out of this blissful trance. No matter, though; Wonho knew exactly where to look. Ghosting his lips along Kihyun’s razor sharp jawline, he pressed phantom kisses upward onto his cheek, onto his temple, and across his forehead only to begin his descent down the opposite side of his face until his lips hovered over his left ear. Unable to resist the urge, he toyed with the piercings along the man’s ear with his teeth and tongue before pressing his lips right behind the pierced lobe.

There it was.

Wonho smiled to himself as he pressed a tender kiss to the barely raised flesh. Pulling back just enough to line his lips along the curve of Kihyun’s ear, he hummed softly in a teasing yet triumphant breath, “I found it.”

Kihyun’s eyes flew open as panic flooded his system. He dug his blunted nails into the supple flesh of the other’s firm thighs, earning him merely a giggle in response. “Who are you?” he growled coldly.

Wonho pulled back to look him in his eyes, which were narrowed into the thinnest slits possible yet were still wide enough to allow the fires of fury roaring behind his hardened gaze to be clearly seen. Wonho’s smile grew wider as he reached down to grab one of the panicked man’s hands before leading it to press firmly against his right hip. “I’m one of his dolls, too.”

Kihyun’s grip only tightened as he hissed, “Who do you work for?”

Wonho sighed heavily, disappointment clear in his tone as he swiftly pried the other’s hands off him. “As much as I love being manhandled, I can’t have any bruises on me just yet, babe.” He surged forward suddenly to press the bewildered yet still furious man beneath him, clamping his own vice-like grip on Kihyun’s wrists before stretching his arms as far above his head as they could go to effectively render him helpless. “Daddy hates when his baby has a mark from someone else.” Dipping his head down, he breathed in the softest yet raspiest of whispers one of his own many secrets, “Daddy’s why I’m one of Lee’s little dolls. See, I had a birthmark on my hip. It wasn’t big by any means, it was actually pretty cute. I liked it. But Daddy? Well, he’s very possessive. I tried to tell him it was just a birthmark, but he didn’t believe me. He thought someone else had broken me in before him, and that made him very angry. After all, he paid very good money to be my first proper patron. So he demanded that Cerise have me—what was the word he used? Oh that’s right—‘decontaminated’ immediately or he’d have no choice but to cancel his membership, which she certainly couldn’t have since that meant she’d have to refund him for every single visit plus his membership fee. It was fortunate she had the best plastic surgeon in the nation on retainer, don’t you think? Lee came—not in the fun way—that very same night, took one look at my hip, and immediately set to work to remove my ‘only flaw,’ as he said. In its stead, he left his calling card, this tiny ‘ㅈ’—too small for even Daddy to see—that forever marks me as his doll. Just like you, Kihyun.”

“I never told you my name,” Kihyun snapped.

Wonho smirked at him, “You didn’t, but you had to tell Cerise and Cerise tells me everything.”

“What does she want from me?”

Wriggling his hips back just enough so he could rest his head on his trapped prey’s chest, he hummed, “She doesn’t want anything but your money from you, don’t worry. I just find you incredibly intriguing.”

Kihyun huffed a sarcastic “thank you,” earning him a quick bite to the base of his neck with an accompanying sensual, teasing grind against his suddenly very interested dick. A lethal combination that had him struggling to fight off the immediate haze of lust clouding his senses. “What do you want from me?” he growled through clenched teeth.

Leaning up a little to look the other man directly in his eye, Wonho took a moment to carefully consider his own desires, something he’d gotten out of the habit of doing too often over the years. “You are an exceptionally ambitious man, Kihyun,” he began, “dangerously so. Your ambition and drive made you some powerful enemies over the years, the ones you’ve been running from since before you were even one of Lee’s dolls. Yet, it’s also made you some very powerful allies, like the ones you work for now. But as with all those with great ambition, what you have now will never be enough, no matter how much you try to convince yourself otherwise. There will come a time when you will have to decide what your legacy will be. All I ask is that I’m a part of that legacy.”

A long silence stretched between them as his words settled into the air around them before Kihyun spoke, choosing only to ask simply, “Why?”

“I have ambitions, too. Maybe not as great as yours, but still greater than anyone else here. I believe you’re the key to making them happen. So I’m offering myself and my skills to you. You’ve seen only a fraction of what I can do in our regrettably short time together this evening. More than that, I know the darkest secrets of the most powerful people in the nation. I could even tell you some highly classified information that’s been let slip around me in moments of weakness, thanks to the atmosphere of ease and vulnerability I provide. The very same one you fell victim to tonight. Imagine having an upperhand like that on your side. There would be nothing and no one standing in your way. Tempting, isn’t it?” He finally released his grip on the other’s wrists and slid off his lap before extending a hand to Kihyun to help him up off the bed.

Leading him to his door, Wonho clarified, “You don’t have to give me an answer tonight, or any time soon really. But just remember...” Wonho maintained eye contact as he crowded into Kihyun’s space, hands coming up to caress his cheek and slip through his hair so he could pull him closer and closer until his lips were ghosting over the other’s as he spoke, “I know your darkest secrets, too.” With that, he crashed his lips against Kihyun’s in a passionate, soul-shaking, bruising kiss that left Kihyun feeling both thoroughly devoured yet insatiably hungry for the beguiler when they finally broke apart. “Do not make me your enemy, Yoo Kihyun,” Wonho rasped in warning before unceremoniously shoving the bewildered man out into the corridor.

Kihyun stumbled a little before finding himself slumped against the wall, breathing heavy as his mind swam with a million different thoughts. He almost didn’t hear the lighthearted “First time?” tossed in his direction. He glanced up only to find one of the highest ranking generals in all of the armed forces smirking knowingly at him. For some reason, the sight of him made his skin crawl as a whisper of jealousy floated across his heart. Was this the imbecile who had forced the marring of the breathtakingly beautiful man? Kihyun couldn’t understand why he felt such a possessive urge overtake him, so he forced himself to bow in a customary show of respect as he answered curtly yet somehow politely, “Yes, sir, it was.”

“Ah, he has that effect on people,” the general chuckled. “Thankfully, I’ve trained my baby boy enough that his stamina could outlast that of even ten of my best men.”

Kihyun clenched his fists tightly to keep himself from brandishing his switchblade. Wonho was decidedly not his in any way, yet he just could not shake his need to make this smug swine pay for what he’d done to him. Slowly straightening up, he let his own smirk pull at his lips, responding mockingly, “Thank you for your service. I would’ve thanked him for his, too, but he insisted tonight was on the house. Something about needing a break from old,” he stressed the word heavily, “routine. Please tell him I’d love to see him again if he gets tired of the usual.” With that, Kihyun bowed his farewell before turning on his heel to leave before his murderous urges overtook him.

————————————

Hyunwoo was a man of few words, had always been preternaturally quiet as a child. His mother used to worry that, despite doing her absolute best to be as careful and protective of him as possible, something had happened to him when she had carried him in her womb. She would toss and turn, night after night, wondering why her precious bundle of joy made no noise save for his soft snores when he napped and the tiniest grunts when he wiggled, crawled, or waddled to and fro. His father, who had written him off as defective, hardly paid any attention to him—too busy trying to convince his mother to have “a redo” to make up for him. His mother would refuse, argue back that she couldn’t possibly bring another child into this world if she was the cause for her firstborn’s muteness. “Just let me fix him first,” she had pleaded with tears in her eyes and a rough, urgent edge to her voice. “I have to try.” And so she tried, tried her absolute hardest for the first few years of his life to get him to make some noise, be it a little giggle or coo, even a cry or yell. Nothing seemed to work. Pushed to the end of her rope, she held him tighter than normal one night and softly sobbed into his hair, “Mommy is so sorry, baby, so sorry for whatever she did to you when you weren’t here in her arms. I know you don’t understand me but I just hope some day you can forgive Mommy for hurting you. She didn’t mean to, and she wishes she could take it back.”

She was wrong. He understood her perfectly. He always had and always would because he knew her, had been carefully watching her since the day he first opened his eyes. He might not have known the best words to say to comfort her, but he tried his best as he slipped his little arms around her neck and whispered, “It’s okay, Mommy, you didn’t hurt me. I’m okay so you have to be okay, too.”

Hyunwoo couldn’t forget the look in her eye as she pulled back to stare wide-eyed at him in bewilderment, relief, elation, sadness, pain, and love. He would never forget it because it was the same look she gave him on the night she died… The same night he stumbled into the police station, swollen hands hanging heavy by his side as his knuckles—skin split open enough to show slivers of bone—dripped with blood, a mix of his own and his father’s. “I need to report a murder,” he had quietly stated. He hadn’t said much since then, all those weeks ago. It was a very open-and-shut case, the public defender had told him: Between his confession to beating his father to death after he caught him in the midst of slamming his mother’s head against the floor and the evidence that further supported his confession, there was little left to do but await sentencing. He didn’t even blink when he was told he was looking at life in prison, maybe even being placed on death row despite the national moratorium. As far as he was concerned, he died the moment he watched the light fade from his mother’s beautiful brown eyes as he held her cold body in his arms.

So it came as a surprise when a guard—a former fan of his he’d recognized from seeing at a few of his fights—roused him from his sleep the night before his sentencing hearing. “You have a visitor.”

Hyunwoo slowly rolled himself up onto his feet, wrists awaiting to be shackled once more held out before him. He followed the guard to an interrogation room. He narrowed his eyes in suspicion as the guard ushered him into the room, instructing him to sit in the steel chair opposite the two-way mirror. Once seated, the guard deftly did away with the too-small handcuffs with a terse warning of “don’t make me regret this, Son,” before he exited the room leaving a guarded Hyunwoo to scrutinize the mirror.

A few uncomfortably long moments passed until the door finally opened again. Hyunwoo’s head snapped immediately toward it to find a strange man dressed in a finely tailored suit, the sharp lines of the suit seeming dulled compared to razored edge of his jawline and the sharp lines and angles of his deceptively oval face. Stranger still, despite the fact he had never seen this man before, Hyunwoo felt a weird sense of familiarity with him. Carefully, he watched as the man gracefully slid into chair directly in front of him. Another moment passed as the two men simply stared at each other—one with great apprehension, the other with something akin to bemusement—until the strangely familiar man at last opened his mouth to speak. “You’re still as golden as ever,” he greeted warmly, “내 금은 곰.”

Hyunwoo froze in shock. There was only one person in the entire world who had ever called him that, someone he had long thought to be dead. He couldn’t possibly— This man couldn’t possibly be him. But yet...no one else could have possibly known that nickname. “You—?”

“Yeah,” the man huffed out a laugh as he undid the cuffs on his left sleeve to show his wrist, “me.”

Hyunwoo blinked. Then blinked again as another long, silent moment stretched between them, his eyes boring heavily into the puckered flesh nestled along the side of his wrist. That tiny, little jagged scar—barely a couple centimeters long—dragged forth years and years of countless memories of a childhood long-forgotten amidst the chaos of growing up and the pains that came with it. Hyunwoo flicked his gaze upward to search the man’s face. His features were...different, not the kind of different that came with puberty but a different kind of different—one that only came at the sharpened edge of surgeon’s scalpel: The nose was too narrow, the cheekbones too high, the chin a bit too pointed, the forehead too small. This wasn’t his best friend’s face at all. But the eyes... Those eyes were still the same. Gaze always sharp and alert despite the lively flicker of mischief dancing just beneath the depths, yet a tenderness and warmth ever-present if one knew where to look. Maybe this was an odd request of him to make but fuck it, he reasoned internally as he commanded simply, “Smile.”

Now it was his visitor’s turn to blink, confusion clear all over his too-foreign face. “What?”

“Please,” Hyunwoo added gently, “I just...I need to make sure.”

The man, still clearly confused, acquiesced with a nod of his head and smiled wide. And there it was: No matter how exceptional of a job his surgeon had done concealing his identity beneath these new features, he could never get rid of the way his eyes would soften as they collapsed into the thinnest crescent moons this side of a new moon. Overwhelmed in a flurry of emotion he hadn’t known he could or would ever feel again after everything that’d happened, Hyunwoo lunged across the table to envelop his long-lost friend into the tightest hug he could, the squeeze of his arms mirroring the squeeze of his heart now caught in his throat. “Kihyun,” he quietly rumbled, voice too raw with emotion to speak at any volume higher than that.

Only disoriented for a brief moment, Kihyun relaxed into the hug with a breathy sigh, his own arms doing their best to wrap around the broad form of his childhood friend. They stayed locked in their tight embrace for what felt like hours, though it couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes, before Hyunwoo released him. Kihyun almost shivered at the sudden loss of warmth that had surrounded him mere seconds ago. Sitting back down, they continued to stare at each other in a comfortable yet heavy silence. A vast array of questions floated in the air above them just out of reach, yet neither knew which one to pluck down first to present to the other. Not to mention, they weren’t in the most ideal location to have such a heartfelt conversation. So Kihyun, glancing at the dismal worn-down stone walls around them, cleared his throat before beginning, “I was able to pull a few strings to get you out of here.”

Hyunwoo, shrewd as ever, narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “But?” he prompted.

Kihyun grinned sheepishly. “Good news is the case against you has been dropped completely and your record totally expunged, so you are a free man in the eyes of the law.”

“But,” Hyunwoo prompted again much firmer this time.

“But the bad news is you aren’t a free man in the eyes of my bosses.” The sharp look he earned at his decidedly tactful way at breaking the news to his friend spurred him on to explain, “They want you to work for them. Like, work work for them.” Hyunwoo blinked at him. Kihyun kept talking, “It’d mostly be security. Like accompanying me to meetings, overseeing shift changes, bodyguarding a few mid-level members, other things of the like. You wouldn’t have t—“

“I’ll do whatever I need to do to repay my debt,” Hyunwoo interjected firmly. “Please inform your bosses of my decision and relay my deepest sincerities to them.”

Kihyun coughed a little awkwardly, “About that—“ Hyunwoo rose from his chair abruptly, the sound of the chair legs scratching across the floor echoed harshly off the stone walls. He took a couple steps forward toward the two-way mirror. “What are you doing?” Ignoring Kihyun’s question, Hyunwoo lifted his arms high above his head before slowly lowering onto to his knees and bending forward until his forehead and palms rested against the ground.

He stayed perfectly still in his bow for a period of time, well after the door opened and another exceptionally composed man strode into the room until he stopped before him. “I expect your loyalty and your life,” came the softly murmured edict. Despite the quietness of the deep baritone voice, Hyunwoo could feel and hear the man’s power clearly in the words.

Hyunwoo lifted his forehead off the ground just barely enough so his voice wouldn’t be muffled as he pledged, “Please consider them yours.”

The man didn’t respond; instead, he simply turned on his heel and left. It wasn’t until Kihyun reached down to pat his shoulder that Hyunwoo finally lifted himself off the floor. His friend smiled at him, his eyes sparkling bright with happiness as he lightly punched him on the shoulder. “Way to show me up there, man,” he teased. “I had to grovel for them to even consider it; and here you go, proving me right.” Hyunwoo rolled his eyes and reached down to flick him square in the forehead. New face or not, years apart or not, Kihyun still huffed indignantly at the flick just like Hyunwoo knew he would. “I literally save your ass and this is how you repay me? Ungra—“

“I’ll buy you dinner if you shut up.”

“...Deal. But I get to pick the place.”

Hyunwoo knew a trap when he saw one. “We’re not going to any expensive places, Yoo Kihyun, so don’t try it.”

“Well then what’s the fucking point of offering to buy my dinner?” Kihyun snapped with a scowl. “And it’s not like your cheap ass is broke either.”

Hyunwoo blinked at him before pulling his friend into another tight hug. “Thank you,” he breathed gently, “for everything.”

All the fight left Kihyun’s body as he hugged his dear friend in return, “Don’t mention it.”

“I’ve missed you,” Hyunwoo admitted easily, letting him go.

Kihyun, tactful as ever, shrugged, “Come on, I’m starving and I’m sick of looking at these walls. We can catch up after you buy me dinner and dessert.”

“Kihy—“

“Nope, I saved your life. You owe me!”

————————————

Kihyun fought to maintain his composure as Kwon Jiyong, second-most powerful man on the peninsula, morosely slid his (rather outstanding, if he said so himself) monthly earnings report to the side of his desk. Bracing himself, Kihyun waited expectantly for the shoe to drop. Sure, he’d heard the rumors from the underlings, but he hadn’t fully believed them since he was certain the big boss wasn’t a proper fool, despite being foolish enough to get involved with a self-obsessed twat. “We’ve decided to go in a different direction,” Kwon tersely supplied, “and this path no longer includes you or your services. We will honor the original agreement with regards to your severance as long as the conditions we agreed upon are upheld.”

Well, Kihyun stood corrected. Kwon was a proper fool after all. At least he didn’t give him a bullshit excuse as to why he was terminating the very lucrative fight club Kihyun had so viciously (literally and figuratively) fought to establish in the first place. Not that Kihyun needed one. He was more than aware of what the real reason was.

He wasn’t stupid—far from it. He’d seen the termination coming from twenty kilometers away. Always aware that one day his time with the Headmasters would end, he had hustled his ass off so when the day came, he had a name and reputation off which to build his own empire. He just hadn’t expected the day to come so soon, let alone over a fucking moron’s insecurity. Spite, he could handle. Hell, jealousy, he could even admire. But insecurity? Even with the head of the most powerful syndicate in the region being so grossly and unfathomably infatuated with one so far below their usual standards? Pathetic.

It was a miracle that Kihyun managed to keep his voice calm (even respectful) as he bowed deeply before his now-former boss—a seemingly respectable man he had once admired but had now come to pity—and somberly spoke, “I understand. Thank you for all that you have done for me. It is truly a shame our partnership could not have lasted longer, but I will take all that I have learned from my time here with me. I will do all I can to honor our agreement.”

He rose slowly from his bow and turned towards the younger man draped lazily in his chair. Smiling despite the absurdity of the present situation, he sincerely wished, “I hope to see each other soon, Hyungwon-ssi. It has been an honor to see you come into your own. I hope someday we can do more business with each other. Though, more than that, I truly hope that we can become great friends. It’s hard knowing who to trust in this game, but I trust you.”

“And I, you,” Hyungwon returned immediately, all pretense of his signature casual disinterest vanished and replaced with a rare display of sincerity. Kihyun had meant what he’d said when he said it, but seeing so clearly how much Hyungwon had come to value him too as a colleague stoked a fire of urgency to blaze wildly within him. The younger man had so much potential, and it was being squandered fantastically. Kwon was blindly using his greatest asset as a mere babysitter for his useless boytoy. How shameful. Kihyun extended his hand toward him and shook their firmly gripped palms resolutely. If he wanted his own fledgling empire to survive, even someday thrive, he needed to have Hyungwon by his side. And come hell or high water, he would do it. Proper etiquette be damned.

Giving a final bow as he approached the office door, he turned round to yank open the door—

“Kihyun,” a grating voice smugly greeted.

Kihyun immediately slapped a toothy grin across his face at the sight of the reviled, pathetic man who had cost him everything. And for what? A stroke of his overly inflated, downright suffocating and hilariously fragile ego? He couldn’t even begin to count the ways he wanted to carve that repugnant face to pieces. Yet he managed to force himself to respond cordially, “Oh, hello, Seungri-ssi. I wasn’t expecting to bump into you here. You must be here to pick up Hyungwon-ssi for tonight’s meeting. I was just here to drop off our latest figures–they were our best ones yet, maybe the best the boss had ever seen.” He stepped to the side and ushered the other man inside, “Here, please come in; I’d hate for you to be considered late. You know how testy Hyungwon-ssi gets when it comes to punctuality.”

He delighted in seeing the way the asshole visibly faltered, confidence shattering into confusion at the unexpected reaction. Good, Kihyun thought smugly as he let his grin soften into a gentle smile. He reached out to run his fingertips along the fabric of the expensive suit the other wore, carefully engaging the hidden blades in his rings so they’d slice through the delicate threads and permanently mar the suit’s beauty. Gripping the other’s arm, he lied, “I really hope we have a chance to meet again soon so we can properly catch up and such. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“I don’t think that will be possible considering–”

“Oh, relax, Seungri,” he chuckled hollowly, “I’m not hitting on you!” As if he’d ever be that desperate. “That’s wholly unprofessional, and I’m honestly not that shameless. I meant as colleagues; I’d love nothing more than to pick your brains,” he admitted plainly, but continued, “since you used to be an athlete. I think having your insight will make my fight club that much more profitable if I know what to look for, you know?”

Seungri’s eyebrow twitched at the pointed jab. Kihyun’s delight grew at seeing him so visibly frustrated. “I doubt my insight would do much to help your little club since none of your fighters are actual athletes.”

“And you aren’t either anymore so I think it would,” Kihyun retorted with a smirk. “But let’s just agree to disagree,” he offered with a dismissive shrug. “I’ll catch you around sometime, Seungri-ssi. Have a good night.” He let the door slam shut with a satisfyingly loud bang in Seunghyun’s fucking face.

Letting all pretenses of gentility fall from his countenance, Kihyun quickly strode toward the elevator, nodding his head at Kwon’s secretary as he went, and repeatedly stabbed the call button with his finger. He needed to get out of this building so he could think clearly. His mind was reeling with countless plans as to how to begin, but he had one clear goal in mind: He was going to fucking annihilate Lee Seunghyun.

————————————

“Need a ride?” a surprisingly cheery voice called out from beside him.

Hyungwon didn’t even bother to hold back his laughter, “I should have known you would follow us.”

“Well, what can I say?” Kihyun smirked, reaching over to pop open the passenger door, silently beckoning for the younger to get in. “I’m an opportunistic bastard.”

“That you are,” Hyungwon nodded, smoothly sliding into the seat and tossing the wet umbrella into the backseat. Buckling himself in, he dropped all pretenses and asked bluntly, “You saw?”

“I saw.”

“And?”

“And I believe he’s a fucking imbecile and our former boss is a fucking fool,” Kihyun managed to say with minimal disgust in his voice. A feat in itself considering the evening he had.

Hyungwon let his head rest against the cool glass of the window as he sighed, “I never understood what they saw in him in the first place.”

The elder blinked, not expecting that comment, before things clicked in his head. He huffed, his annoyance and disappointment for his friend immediately spiking, “God, I forget how long you’ve been with them. And what do you have to show for it? An umbrella?”

“Excuse you, that is a family heirloom,” Hyungwon sarcastically objected which drew out a bout of bright laughter from his friend.

Regaining his composure, Kihyun pulled the car over to the side of the road. “Listen,” he began as he turned to face the younger, “you and I are a lot alike. Even though we come from different parts of this world, we both know better than most exactly how it works.” He gestured toward the other, “You know how to shmooze the corrupt elite into going against their long-term best interests—don’t look so surprised, I know it was you who brokered that deal—and I,” he emphasized the word as he pressed his hand against his chest, “know how to get a poor man to give up his very last dollar. Our talents were being wasted there, yours more than mine. Even if you didn’t have your family’s name, you bring so much to the table as is, Hyungwon.”

Hyungwon blinked sleepily at him, “But?”

“There’s no ‘but.’ I mean it. You know how to hustle, persuade, manipulate, and adapt. You’re cunning and resourceful enough to drag the best out of the worst.” He scoffed, “I mean, hell, you even got that idiotic little bitch to cooperate for the majority of the time you were forced to be his warden.” That garnered a hum of agreement from the other. Kihyun’s voice softened as he spoke, reaching over and gently gripping his forearm, “You’ve got power, Hyungwon, with and without your name. What’s more is you know how and when to use it.”

“While I appreciate the flattery,” Hyungwon smiled warmly before shifting into a more serious expression, “I need you to get to the point.” He was tired of waiting for Kihyun’s ask, he was tired of being stuck in this dreary city, he was tired of being used as nothing more than an errand boy or a figure head at best, he was just tired.

Kihyun understood him well. He wouldn’t blame him at all if he rejected his offer, but he would be surprised if he did considering it was the offer of a lifetime. “The point is that you came to Seoul to build your own empire. I did, too. I believe that together we can build an empire strong and vast enough to eclipse that of the Headmasters.”

“And why do you think that I’d be interested in partnering with someone, especially a relative no-name like you?” he countered immediately, before tacking on, “No offense.”

“None taken,” Kihyun chuckled. “Your name brought you under Kwon Jiyong’s tutelage, yet it alone didn’t keep you there. My lack of a name got me into the game, but it didn’t move me through the ranks from the very bottom to near the top. Our ambition to create our own legacy, patience to build it bit by bit each day, and ruthlessness to make sure nothing or no one got in the way of our destiny is what got us to where we were. They’re what will get us to where we need to be. Together.”

“What if I don’t want to do it together?”

He shrugged, merging back onto the street, “Then this will be our last conversation about it.”

Hyungwon knew him too well to think he would really leave it at that. “But?”

Kihyun cracked a smug smile, “But I already know I’ve sold you on it.”

“You’re very cocky for someone whose needs far outweigh those of the person they’re practically begging,” Hyungwon yawned.

“First of all,” the elder scoffed, “I don’t beg. Second of all, I’m a bookie: Selling people on the vision against all odds is what I do.”

Hyungwon wordlessly conceded the point, choosing instead to mull over the proposition fully. His mind ran through every scenario possible to assess if this was a risk even worth taking. He was ambitious, yes, but he wasn’t blind to reason. If they did this, they would be going against the largest syndicate this side of the Pacific. Taking them down would require more than just pride and vengeance. It would take years of reconnaissance, libraries’ worth of tactical strategies, armies of manpower, and billions of won to finance it all. They couldn’t afford to make a single mistake, lest they be taken down too. It was beyond risky. Yet…

“If you go, go boldly.” He heard his father’s words clearly in his head as if the man had just spoken them to him. This was as bold as he could go. And, truthfully, nothing would bring him greater satisfaction than to build his empire off the bones and ashes of those who had scorned him. Shit, Kihyun was right: He was sold. He didn’t speak again until they arrived at the airfield, one of his father’s private jets awaiting him already. “Despite recent events, I still respect Kwon Jiyong. While I do not agree with every decision he has made, obviously, he has taught me many important lessons. The first being to keep your allies close enough so they never feel like they’re enemies, even when you’ve taken everything from them. No direct harm must come to him by our own doing. Agreed?”

Kihyun had already figured that would be a condition, so he readily accepted it with a nod, “Agreed.”

“The second most important lesson was to never leave loose ends.” Hyungwon unbuckled his seatbelt, reaching behind himself to get his umbrella. A hint of a smile was on his lips as he followed up, “Fortunately for us, he never takes his own advice.”

The other man’s brow knitted together in slight confusion. “What do you mean?”

“In order for our empire to have any chance of survival, we will need a legitimate front. You cannot provide that as you’re a bookie by trade, I cannot provide that on account of my notorious lineage. But I know of someone who I am certain would be more than willing to join us,” he smirked as he added with great emphasis, “if given the right motivation.”

Kihyun immediately understood what he meant. “Who?”

“Lee Minhyuk, heir of Lee Media Group, Incorporated.”

————————————

A pitiful whine sounded from Minhyuk’s side mere seconds before silvery puppy eyes flooded his vision. “Oh, don’t look at me like that!” Minhyuk huffed. “I ordered you a pizza, too, and it’ll be here sooner than you think, okay? Now move,” he gently nudged his giant fluffball of a pet’s face away, “I have to finish this paper tonight.” He got a quick yet gentle whack to the face by his beloved companion’s tail for his efforts, a chuckle rumbling in his chest at the petty action. Once he was sure Beauty was settled back into her usual lounging spot, he wriggled a bit to wake his butt up so he could comfortably fall back into his workflow and the trancelike focus it brought.

A loud, insistent buzz suddenly sounded causing Minhyuk to glance up from his textbook in surprise. Tucking his highlighter behind his ear, he rooted around a bit through the haphazard pile of cluttered notes for his phone, clicking his teeth in annoyance when he realized that it’d been in his lap the entire time. He unlocked it quickly and checked the time he’d ordered his pizzas. “Huh, I guess I lost track of time,” he commented offhandedly as he pushed himself up off the floor to buzz the delivery guy in, earning a curious yip in return. Warm, soft fur brushed past his thigh as he leaned up against the wall by his apartment door. He leaned down to stare his beloved fur baby directly in her piercing silver eyes. “Now Beauty, remember what we talked about earlier,” he began sternly. “You can’t growl at the delivery guy any more or else I have to leave you alone to go get us food; and it’s already hard enough leaving you to go to class because you, my precious devious angel, like to climb up on things you shouldn’t be on and howl at the rumba when it’s cleaning.” Beauty snorted in response as if she were indignantly denying the (completely true) allegations lodged against her. Minhyuk laughed, leaning forward to bump his head against hers, “You and I both know it’s true! I have video evidence!” Beauty snorted again, turning her head away from him to lift her nose up as high as it could go. “You’re such a brat!” he gently shoved her shoulder before straightening up when three quick knocks sounded against his door. With a quick “behave” to his sassy wolf, he yanked open his door to reveal a very handsome, very pizza-less man. “You’re not the delivery guy?” Minhyuk pointed out dumbly.

“Uh, no,” the guy chuckled, “I’m not. My name’s Yoo Kihyun. May I come in?”

Minhyuk was not in the habit of letting strangers—no matter how attractive—into his home, especially considering his overprotective, four-legged bodyguard would happily rip them from limb to limb if given half the chance. Yet when said bodyguard decides to have a complete personality change within a split second and prance forward to calmly sniff the stranger before stubbornly wedging her large head under his fingertips in a silent prompt for him to pet her, well Minhyuk really had no choice but to let the man in. “P-please, come in,” he managed to stammer out, robotically pulling the door all the way open for his guest to enter. “Um, I’m sorry for the mess,” he apologized sheepishly as he kicked mismatched pairs of shoes closer to the shoe cubby he’d bought only weeks before in a failed attempt to force himself to be a little less of a slob. Thankfully, he did have an unused pair of slippers placed atop the cubby for the guests he never had over. He offered them to the man, who took them with a warm smile and soft “thanks.”

“It’s okay,” Kihyun assured him gently as he carefully placed his shoes in the cubby hole Minhyuk had motioned toward, “I know you weren’t expecting me and I understand how busy a student’s life can be, especially this time of year.”

“Uh, yeah, it can be. But how did you know I was student?”

“Well, if the highlighter and pen tucked behind your ears weren’t enough of a clue, the mountain of books, papers, flash cards, and sticky notes behind you definitely gave it away. That and the way your laptop is precariously perched atop those empty ramen cups,” Kihyun chuckled.

Minhyuk flushed in embarrassment. “Oh,” he said dumbly, “yeah, I guess that makes sense.” Scratching nervously at his neck, he awkwardly shifted on his feet and tried to remember his social graces. “Um, can I get you anything to drink? We—no, I ordered pizza a little while ago and it should be here soon, if you’d like some.”

Kihyun smirked, “As long as there’s no pineapple on it, I’d love a slice, thank you. And water will be just fine.” He motioned to the futon wedged into the corner beside the couch which lay covered in the contents of Minhyuk’s upended backpack, “Is it alright if I sit?”

“Of course! Make yourself at home.” Minhyuk had to tamp down a groan of embarrassment as his blush deepened at the sight of the haphazard mess that was his study nest. “I’m really sorry about the mess, I forget how much of a slob I can be sometimes,” he apologized shyly as he scrambled over to the couch to shove everything back into his backpack, before kicking it into the corner.

“There’s no need to apologize,” Kihyun assured him warmly. “This is your home, you’re allowed to live in it how you please. Besides, I showed up here unannounced, so I should be the one apologizing for interrupting your studies.”

Minhyuk shook his head, “Oh, no, it’s fine. I was almost finished anyway.” Satisfied with his slightly less messy couch, he doubled back to the kitchen to fish out a bottle of water for his guest before returning to the living room. “Here you go.”

“Thank you.” Kihyun didn’t open the bottle, though, placing it instead on the sole coaster Minhyuk had managed to save from Beauty’s jaws. “What’s her name?” he asked curiously as he held out a hand toward the wolf, who sniffed it again before dipping her head down to let his fingers tangle in her fur.

Usually when people saw his precious fur baby, they ran for the hills with panic and fear clear in their eyes. And on more than one occasion, they left with the acrid scent of excrement trailing behind them. So to see someone act so warmly and calmly toward her as instantly as Kihyun did was absolutely mind boggling to Minhyuk. “Her name’s Beauty.”

“As in ‘Beauty and the Beast?’”

“Yeah, exactly! Though I guess she’s both.”

“Then it’s a perfectly fitting name. She really is very beautiful,” he hummed as he continued to pet the surprisingly docile wolf.

“She is, but don’t let her pretty face fool you: She can be quite an ass when she wants to be,” Minhyuk griped remembering all things she’d literally ripped apart in their years together. He loved her dearly, but he still hadn’t quite managed to forgive her for gnawing on his limited edition figurines.

The buzzer rang, jolting him out of his momentary annoyance at her. With pleading eyes, he motioned toward Beauty, “Do you mind holding her? She gets kind of feisty whenever she sees me talking to a delivery guy, or anyone really.” Kihyun nodded, digging his fingers in a little more to scratch a bit more fervently behind her ear, rendering her a large, useless ball of mollified fluff. Once the pizzas were safely in the other’s arms, Kihyun let up on the pressure enough to bring her back to full alertness. “I don’t think I have any clean plates, but again you’re more than welcome to have some. Though if you want any chance at the carnivore’s delight, tell me now so I can distract her long enough so you can get some.”

“I wouldn’t dare come between a lady and her food!”

“Trust me, she’s no lady when there’s food involved,” Minhyuk chuckled as he flipped open the lids of both pizza boxes. He barely managed to move his hand out of the way before Beauty pounced on it, mercilessly tearing into the various smoked and grilled meats that adorned the cheese-less, extra-thin crust. “See, I told you!”

Kihyun chuckled, reaching for his water bottle instead when Minhyuk motioned for him to get a slice, slowly unscrewing the cap and taking a long swig. The chilled water did little to settle the storm rolling within him. He watched the two eat with a small smile on his face as, not for the first time since Hyungwon’s man had delivered the promised dossier, he heavily contemplated whether ambition and vengeance were worth permanently tearing apart the life of someone who had already endured hell at such a young age.

While their lives up to this point were markedly different, Kihyun felt a kindred spirit within the other. He knew well what it was like to hide from the world, retreat into oneself for years on end just to keep sane while staying protected from the cold jaws of a violent, vain death. He was as much an expert as the other in rebuilding oneself and one’s life from scratch after everything had been ripped away in a blink of an eye. And unlike him, Minhyuk seemed to be content with this new life he’d built. Who was he to take that away from him? He knew with a little work and the right phrasing he could persuade the other into joining their fledgling organization, but at what cost?

Before seeing him in his cozy habitat, it’d been so easy picturing Minhyuk as distant and distrusting. The reality of him could not have been in greater contrast: He was warm and caring, open and trusting, dazzlingly bright in all his normalcy. Could he survive, retain his radiance and warmth, in the cruel world of the city’s underbelly? Kihyun knew Minhyuk was strong, he’d read as much in the dossier ten times over; but he also knew primal survival was a completely different beast than surviving betrayals and assassination attempts, which were easily the most mundane parts of his life. He was used to masking his own true self and keeping a wary eye on his own shadow because he’d been forced to survive in this world for so long. That was where he and Minhyuk truly differed; and that was the crux of the matter which tore Kihyun apart: Minhyuk would have to choose to give up his safety and sanity to join Kihyun in the darkness of the dangerous night for a chance that may never come.

He couldn’t—

“Are you okay?” Minhyuk’s slightly raspy voice gently uttering those words gored Kihyun to the heart.

Fuck.

Kihyun sighed heavily, eyes lowering under the heaviness of the truth. “I thought I would be.” He reached into his coat to retrieve the dossier that had weighed so heavy on his conscience since he first opened it and placed it in his lap. Curling his fingers tightly around the spine of it so as to ground himself, he forced himself to stare Minhyuk right in his eyes and spoke with all the sincerity he could muster in an attempt to express some remorse for his presence here. “Before I tell you why I’m here, I need to thank you for welcoming me into your home. You’ve shown me such kindness that I never expected and it pains me deeply, deeper than I ever thought possible to know I have invaded your safehaven. I am truly sorry, I hope you can believe at some point that I am.”

Kihyun didn’t miss the way Minhyuk instinctively leaned back into Beauty, hand snaking down to grip her paw, nor did he miss the way the wolf shifted her head forward should she need to attack. He continued on anyway, heart sinking with every word he spoke, “The truth is I’m here to ask something great of you. Before I can ask you, though, I have to tell you something that will change your life for the rest of your days. I don’t know for certain if that change will be for the better or the worse, though I’m certain it will not be easy to hear or to accept. If you don’t want to know, tell me now and I will leave immediately so you can carry on with your life.”

Minhyuk stared at him hard for a long, silent moment before he spoke again, voice a little less gentle but no less comforting despite everything, “Who are you?”

“I’m a bookie,” he answered simply yet immediately. “Up until a couple weeks ago, I used to work for the most powerful organized crime syndicate in the nation. I was singlehandedly responsible for bringing in billions and billions of won just from my fight club and schemes alone. My immediate success within the organization made certain... persons wary of me, leading them to question whether my services were actually of benefit to the organization despite my very obvious profitability. Enough doubt, so to speak, was cast upon my character and operations that I was let go. All out of jealousy and spite,” he scoffed bitterly.

“The same night I was forced out,” Kihyun continued, “another member of the organization, who was far higher in the food chain than I ever would be, decided he had had enough of cleaning up the messes made by those same certain persons. I saw the opportunity and I took it. I convinced him to become my partner so we could build our own empire. So we could finally have the power we had worked our asses off for, for nearly all of our lives. My partner was born into this life, I was forced into it. Even though we both have our own skills and assets which could get us far, they’re not enough to fully sustain our empire for decades to come. We needed someone else, someone who had all the missing pieces and would be willing to join us. We believe that person is you.”

Minhyuk’s brow furrowed deeply, “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I was sent here to convince you to join us.” He leaned forward to gingerly place the dossier on the corner of the table between them, his movements carefully tracked by two pairs of intensely focused eyes. “In order to do that, though, I must tell you a terrible truth.” He dropped his voice to a gentle hush, “Now is your last chance to kick me out. Just say no and I’ll leave you alone forever. I promise you.”

Minhyuk shifted onto his knees, trying to keep his movements slow and steady despite his overwhelming urge to bolt straight for his front door and never look back, and grabbed a comforting fistful of Beauty’s fur to ground himself. “I-I’m not sure what—“ he stammered out before scrambling to his feet. “I’m sorry, I need a moment.” He didn’t even wait until the last word was out of his mouth; he was already making a beeline to his bedroom, rushing into it as if it were the surface of a rolling sea that he’d been dragged under before he could catch even half a breath. The door slammed behind him as he slammed his back against it, chest heaving and icy bolts coursing through his veins. His hands shakily gripped the hem of his baggy sweatshirt, and he tried to focus past the black spots dotting his vision to look helplessly at his beloved protector. Beauty leaned into him until her head was pressed firmly against his stomach so she could stare seemingly reassuringly up at him. His knees gave out. His tailbone hit the uncarpeted floor hard, but he didn’t even register the pain. Beauty nuzzled up to him, flooding him with her comforting warmth and anchoring him with her familiar weight. Slowly, steadily, surely, he was able to breathe a bit more evenly enough to where he could actually focus on the decision at hand: Yes or no?

If he said no, he could pretend this day never happened. He could continue on with his life as he saw fit, could keep up the same routines that had provided him structure and stability and sanity for all these years. There was no reason he needed to change his life. He was happy, he really was. He had Beauty, he had his apartment, he had his passing acquaintances and casual friends. He didn’t need anything else.

Yet, what did he really have to lose if he said yes? Sure, he was happy with his life, but not necessarily content. He had always felt he should be doing more with his life, should be more in this life. After all there was always his parents’ legacy looming high over his head, constantly looking down upon him and haunting him in all his moments, waking and sleeping alike. He wanted to be the filial son their bloodied ghosts agonizingly begged him to be in the nightmares that jolted him awake in a pool of chilled sweat on many a dark night. He wanted to be able to live up to his name, to make his parents proud, to do what was expected of him. But he was terrified, so terrified. What if he failed? What if he ruined the only good thing that still connected him with his parents? What if he wasn’t good enough? What if he wasn’t meant to achieve more? What if he wasn’t meant to be more?

Beauty shifted a bit to bump her snout against his forehead. Minhyuk pressed into the calming touch with a grateful sigh. “What should we do?” he whispered to her. She didn’t make a noise like usual; instead, she just lifted her paw and pressed it to his chest. “But I’m scared...” he admitted. “What if I mess everything up? What if I—“ Beauty cut him off with a harsh snort as she pressed her paw that much more firmly against his chest, her way of telling him to stop overthinking and trust his gut as it had never lead him wrong. The only thing that he was truly afraid of was the strangely intense pull toward the mysterious man with the terrible secret currently sat on his raggedy futon.

Minhyuk knew the second Kihyun warned him about the hidden truth that he would not be able to carry on with his life without hearing it. Even if he lied and told him to leave, it’d be a matter of days before his curiosity got the best of him and he tracked him down. He was never the type to just let things lie as they were. He had to figure them out, had to find the truth beneath it all. He knew he was damned with every word Kihyun regretfully spoke. So with all the courage he could muster to bid a bittersweet farewell to the life he had known until then, Minhyuk rose from his crouched position and took a long, steadying breath before opening his bedroom door.

Kihyun watched with bated breath as Minhyuk wordlessly crossed the living room to get to the kitchen. Silently, Minhyuk dug around in his cabinets for two shot glasses before quickly retrieving the bottle of soju he kept in his fridge in case of emotional emergencies and reckless decisions, both of which were happening simultaneously then. He strode into his living room with more confidence than he felt he should have had considering the situation and set the glasses down, easily snapping the cap off the bottle against the table edge. He poured the glasses up to the brim and wordlessly handed one to Kihyun, who accepted it silently. “Here’s to handsome strangers with mysterious origin stories,” Minhyuk toasted jokingly with a small smile. He slung the shot back, pounding the glass back down onto the table so he could fill it up again, not even wincing at the burn of the alcohol sliding down his throat. Kihyun followed suit, opting instead though to calmly place his glass down. “Here’s to never being able to say no.” Another downed shot, another poured round. “Here’s to never being the same.” Another round down. “Here’s to the truth and all its devastation.” He finished off his shot and grabbed the dossier before Kihyun could reach for it. “So do you want to tell me or should I just read it for myself?”

Kihyun rolled the glass between his palms as he answered quietly, “It’s up to you, Minhyuk.”

“It seems a shame for you to go through all the hard work of tracking me down,” Minhyuk thumped a knuckle against the dossier cover, “and not tell me yourself.”

The dreaded moment had finally arrived. Kihyun had foolishly thought that when the time came, he would be able to just say the words with as much ease as him reciting his usual burger order. As with many things about that night, he had been wrong. He found himself at a complete loss for words for the first time in his life. No matter how he managed to phrase it—to string the few words that returned to him in a sensible way, to cushion the devastating blow with gentle intonation and calm phrasing—there was no way to escape the hurt he would be bringing to Minhyuk with the truth. And that struck him hard like a brick across the jaw. For the very first time, Kihyun realized the power he had over the life of another. He couldn’t breathe for a moment as the sobering reality and responsibility crashed hard over him.

“Kihyun?” Minhyuk prompted, confusion clear in his voice.

Kihyun’s eyes snapped to meet his at the sound of his name. Then the terrible truth fell from his dry lips:

“Your parents were assassinated.”

A tense stillness stretched between and coiled around them like a massive constrictor crushing them between its mighty scales, gripping them so tightly that neither man felt they could breathe. The silence hanging over them was deafening. It blocked out even the sounds of their frantic heartbeats. The longer they sat, the more unnerved Kihyun became. He didn’t know whether to apologize again and again and again or fully detail the assassination plot or just get up and leave. He was stuck and all he could was wait for Minhyuk to give him some sort of cue as to h—

A shrill CRACK! shattered the silence. It took Kihyun a moment to realize the sound came from one of the shot glasses, a moment more allowed him to locate the broken glass and he gasped. Minhyuk had crushed the glass in his clenched fist, crimson blood dripping freely from his hand a stark contrast to the taut, pale skin of his knuckles. Kihyun made to reach forward to grab his hand but he jerked back immediately as Minhyuk bolted up to his feet. He crouched down, unaware of the glass shards sticking in his flesh, to grip the table’s edge and heaved with all his might to fling it across the room, the wood making a sickening cracking noise as it collided heavily with the wall while all the books, papers, pens, pizza boxes, snack bags, and even his laptop flew through the air to scatter and shatter around the floor.

Spinning on his heel, he grabbed the first thing he saw—his favorite lamp—and threw it to the ground, not even flinching at the sizzling crack of the bulb shorting out as its plug was yanked from the wall. He kicked over his barstools; ripped apart the few decorative pillows he owned; pushed all his video games, figurines, consoles, movies, controllers, any and everything on his shelves onto the ground. He smashed his fist into the glass screen of his television without even batting an eye. Not satisfied with its meager offerings to his raging storm of destruction, he grabbed its edges and ripped it from its mount on the wall. Raising it high over his head, he furiously slammed it down onto the ground, the sheer force with which he hurled it causing it to crack in half once it hit. Not seeing anything else that could be destroyed, Minhyuk grabbed fistfuls of his hair and yanked as hard as he could, the unbearable pain making itself known by ripping a bloodcurdling shriek of agony out his throat. Yet the sound and sensation only made him pull harder at his strands as more screams fell from his lips, all while he sobbed with helplessness and desperation and blinding rage.

Kihyun couldn’t bear to watch this downward spiral anymore. Motioning for Beauty to just stay put despite her pitiful whines, he positioned himself behind the other and reached up to carefully yet firmly pry his hands from his tortured scalp. Once free, he gripped Minhyuk’s wrists so he could guide his arms to wrap tightly across his heaving chest, just barely managing to keep his grip the entire time despite Minhyuk’s best efforts to break free from his hold. He pulled him tight against his chest then wedged a foot between his feet so he could gently nudge them apart before realigning his stance. Slowly, he bent his knees, causing Minhyuk’s to bend in response, and he lowered them down until they were seated on the only debris-free stretch of flooring.

As soon as they were on the ground, Beauty pounced. She immediately curled up in his lap as best she could, rooting her nose around to sniff out any open wounds not yet seen. Kihyun let Minhyuk’s hands go so as to be as non-threatening as possible. He could feel a little of the tension slide from Minhyuk’s shoulders as she sniffed and licked and fussed over him. He rose slowly to his feet and slipped away silently to search for a first aid kit. When he found it, he returned to the living room but stopped short when he saw Minhyuk holding his injured hand as far away from Beauty as possible, his other arm curled round her to keep her at bay. It seemed that Minhyuk still had enough awareness to make sure his beloved guardian and companion didn’t get hurt while trying to care for him. Kihyun reached down to encircle his wrist; Minhyuk flinched at the unexpected touch but relaxed when Beauty managed to lurch forward enough to lick his face again. Kihyun recognized the opportunity for what it was and knelt down beside him so he could begin to gingerly clean his wounds. He worked at it for some time, enough for both men to settle into a relatively confident silence. “You’ll need stitches,” Kihyun softly whispered once the wounds were cleaned as best he could.

Panic flooding him, Minhyuk shook his head vehemently at the thought and he instinctively held Beauty tighter to his chest, “I d-don’t wan— I c-can’t l-leave her alone—“ His voice cracked, the last little bit of light in his eyes fading as he seemed to finally understand the true meaning of the word, let it roll off his tongue like a hopeless prayer set on an endless loop, “Alone...alone...alone...alone...”

“Shhh, shhh...” Kihyun wedged himself against his back so he could be closer to him, provide some sort of sense of security so, he hoped, Minhyuk wouldn’t sink too far down into the depths of despair. Perhaps it was so he could feel of some use, feel a little less like a heartless piece of shit for letting his vengeance consume the sun. “We don’t have to go to a hospital. I know a doctor. I’ll call him, he’s very discrete and he does excellent work. You’ll heal in no time.” His breath caught as something shifted wrong inside of him at his last words. No, he realized, Minhyuk wouldn’t heal quickly at all, at least not his body. He might never heal... Kihyun placed the gauze-covered hand atop Beauty’s head, a sudden overwhelming urge to get the hell out of there overtaking him. “I’ll go call him now.” Kihyun carefully extracted himself, slipping his coat onto the man’s shoulders once on his feet, and slipped into the hallway, shaky hands barely able to dial Hyungwon’s number.

“Kihyun,” came the sleepy greeting.

“I told him,” Kihyun breathed out in a rush.

He could hear shuffling on the other end of the line, presumably Hyungwon moving to a slightly more private area, “You didn’t tell him everything, I take it.”

Kihyun raked a hand through his hair, “I couldn’t. He fucking snapped.”

“Well, no shit,” his partner deadpanned. “What did you expect? Him to just smile and take it on the chin? His parents were fucking murdered in what he thought was just a random, tragic car accident that he should’ve died in too.”

“I’m not a moron, Hyungwon,” he snapped back before heaving out a frustrated sigh. “I knew he wouldn’t take it well but he just trashed his entire apartment and crushed a goddamn glass with his bare fist! It’s like he fucking— I don’t know, like he just—“

“Grieved.” Hyungwon sighed softly. “Listen, I know you care for him, knew it long before you did; and that’s fine. I’m glad you do, shows that at least one of us has a heart,” he chuckled. “So use that to your advantage. Go in there and do your job. I believe in you. Call me when it’s finished.” He hung up.

Kihyun could only stare dumbly at the wall ahead of him for a moment. He knew Hyungwon was right. He’d already done the hardest part, had already cause near maximum damage. He just needed to talk until the deal was sealed. He was good at talking, very good. He breathed deeply a couple times to ground himself, quickly firing off a text to Dr. Lee in the meantime, before he pushed the door open only to be greeted by a surprisingly calm Minhyuk.

“I read it,” Minhyuk said simply, holding out the dossier in question towards the confused man before him. “I will join you under one condition.”

“What is it?”

“Should the time come,” Beauty sat down slowly beside her owner’s leg as he growled, “do not get in our way.”

————————————

“Are you sure about this?” Hyunwoo asked for the tenth time in as many minutes. Based on the long, exasperated sigh that dragged itself from across the other line into his ear, he just knew Kihyun was pinching the bridge of his nose hard enough to bruise in an attempt to tamp down his frustration at being asked the same question yet again. “Sorry,” he rushed out in order to placate his partner as best he could, “it’s just you know I’m terrible at, you know, talking.”

“I know,” Kihyun huffed, “which is exactly why I sent you. The kid’s young, but he’s not stupid. He’ll see me scheming from ten blocks away. You, on the other hand, are just too genuine of a person. He won’t expect it from you. Plus, your face is practically unreadable to anyone who isn’t me; so even if you feel like you’re fucking everything up, chances are he still won’t know anything’s off.”

“Now stop being a scaredy cat and go do your job,” Hyungwon interjected before forcibly hanging up in his face.

Hyunwoo blinked, still not used to the young don’s brazenness, especially considering who he was. It wasn’t that long ago when no one would even dare glance in his general direction; yet now he was routinely subjected to bratty behavior disguised as bluntness for efficiency’s sake. It was mindboggling to say the least. Pocketing his phone, he stuffed his hands into his hoodie and shuffled down the block, seamlessly blending in with the crowd around him.

Just as he was about to reach the arcade, the tell-tale grunts and groans of someone getting their ass kicked caught his attention. Turning to his left, Hyunwoo slipped into the alley unseen to find a group of four men huddled around and viciously kicking at a shaking body curled up on the ground between them. A jumping. How pathetic. Without a second thought, Hyunwoo lunged forward to yank one of the aggressors back by their jacket’s collar and spun them around, taking their momentary confusion to land a right hook across their jaw. The sickening crack of his fist connecting with and cracking the man’s jaw rang through the air, drawing the attention of the other three toward him. Hyunwoo relinquished his grip and only shrugged at them as the man’s body dropped into a crumpled heap at his feet. “Who’s next?” he calmly asked.

He’d never seen people run that fast from him before, especially while dragging the dead weight of an unconscious friend behind them. Chuckling quietly to himself, Hyunwoo leaned over to look down at the kid—no more than sixteen by the looks of it, but he knew better—on the ground who was slowly sitting up and regaining his breath. No visible bruises or significant cuts to the face or hands, a good enough sign. Making a mental note to have Dr. Lee check the younger out regardless of how the evening turned out, he held out his hand to him as he asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” the kid nodded as he reached up to take Hyunwoo’s offered hand. Hyunwoo had to fight to keep his face completely neutral despite being shocked as hell at just how deep the younger’s voice was. He pulled him up and stepped back, giving him enough space to dust himself off and collect himself. “Yeah, I’m fi—HOLY SHIT!” The kid was practically gawking at him, eyes comically wide and jaw agape as he finally looked right at his savior.

Hyunwoo blinked. Huh. “Is something on my face?” he mumbled, dumbly reaching up with his other hand to poke at his cheeks in search of whatever was attached to his skin.

“Oh my God.” He stepped in closer—uncomfortably closer—to Hyunwoo, who reflexively took a step back only to have his personal space erased yet again by the gawking weirdo in front of him. “Oh my God,” the kid practically wheezed, “I’m dreaming, I have to be. Oh my God. Holy fuck, please punch me.”

Hyunwoo blinked again. “You have a concussion,” he concluded aloud. It was the only thing that made sense as to why this child was ac—

“I don’t have a concussion,” he interjected flatly yet resolutely. “I see one of everything, my breathing is fine, I’m not dizzy or nauseated, I remembered everything, and I’m not confused. So please make my entire fucking, like, life and just. punch. me. in. the. FACE!”

The situation was approaching a level of strange Hyunwoo was not at all prepared for (and he spent an unreasonably large amount of time with Minhyuk and Beauty) and did not want to be involved with at all. Crossing his arms, he stared down his nose with a scowl and demanded, “Why would I do that?”

“Because you’re Son Hyunwoo!” the kid exclaimed in equal parts frustration and excitement, his arms flying above his head to flail in air, as if Hyunwoo should have already understood why he’d be asking to be punched in the face. “Aka, the greatest heavyweight boxer in the history of Korea, and one of the greatest of our generation in the entire world. Dude, you’re a fucking legend!” The kid stepped impossibly closer to (very boldly) clap a hand against Hyunwoo’s shoulder, his voice dropping down to what he clearly (and very mistakenly) believed to be a whisper as he added, “And between the two of us, I never once believed that you, you know,” he mimed cutting his neck, “did it.”

Hyunwoo had to laugh. He gingerly picked up the kid’s wrist to remove his hand from his shoulder, eyes sparkling with bemused warmth as he spoke, “While I appreciate your faith in me…” Abruptly, he yanked the captured wrist down to grab the kid’s hand in a crushing, immobilizing grip. All the warmth in his demeanor was ripped to shreds in a hostile sneer as he growled rough and low in his chest, “I did do it, and I’d do it again and again and again.”

A tense moment passed between them before the kid, much to Hyunwoo’s complete disbelief and mild annoyance, let out a long airy whistle between his teeth. “Whoa, man,” he breathed in awe, “consider my mind blown. Can I take you to dinner?”

“What?”

“Nah, bro, not like that,” he clarified, though rushed to add, “though I mean it’s totally cool if you took it that way and I would be really flattered, but I’m not asking you like that ‘cause I’m not into that personally. I’m just really such a huge fan of yours; and since you won’t punch me in the face, the least I could do is take you out, my treat. You like meat? Of course you do. Look at you, you probably eat a cow a day. I know an awesome little grill, it’s right around the corner. Cheap sets but super high quality meat. Not that I’m trying to be cheap or anything, ‘cause we could totally go to a fancier—“

“If I say yes, will you stop talking?” Hyunwoo interjected flatly, his head already swimming from the verbal bombardment.

The kid stared at him for a moment, completely silent for the first time since they’d met (Hyunwoo was certain he’d actually stopped breathing), before he tossed his head all the way back and legitimately chortled. Hyunwoo could only stare in confusion, not quite sure if he should be offended at being laughed at or amused at the funny sound squeaking out of the boy. Just as quickly as the laughing spell washed over him, it faded and the kid snapped his head forward to stare seriously at the other, “I hardly ever shut up so chances are very low. But I might if you, yanno...” He mimed an uppercut.

Hyunwoo let out an exasperated sigh, “I’m not going to punch you in the face, kid, no matter how much you ask.”

“That’s cool, that’s cool,” he nodded, holding his hands up placatingly before hooking a thumb over his shoulder. “Grill’s just around the corner there, but I gotta swing by the ATM first. Should only take a moment.”

“That’s fine,” Hyunwoo shrugged, already resigned to endure more rapidfire rants for the rest of the evening. At least his belly would be full and his job done by the end of the night.

“I’m Changkyun, by the way,” the kid tossed over his shoulder as he stopped at the first ATM he spotted.

Luckily for him, Hyunwoo didn’t even have to try to stop himself from admitting he already knew his name and damn near everything about him already because he was so caught off-guard that he blurted dumbly, “Why do you have four wallets?”

Changkyun turned to blink at him. “What do you mean? You saw what happened.”

“Yeah,” Hyunwoo nodded, gears still trying to figure out what the hell was going on, “I saw you getting your ass kicked.”

“Exactly,” he smirked evilly, “it was all part of my plan. Those asshats were too drunk to even realize what was happening,” he snickered as he fished through each wallet, digging out all the cards he could find and pocketing any bills.

“So you’re telling me,” Hyunwoo began, the gears finally starting to really click in his head, “you baited those guys into fighting you just so you could pickpocket them?”

“Yep!” the kid admitted easily, even going so far as to pop the ‘p’ at the end. “And I was gonna leave it at that, I really was, but they kicked Venom so I have to ruin their lives now. It’s what Venom would want.” He paused for a millisecond, considering. “Well, kinda, ‘cause Venom would just eat them and I’m definitely not a cannibal, but I digress.”

The gears stopped clicking. “What?”

The kid pointed to his shirt where a dirty boot print stain marred the center of the angular spider logo printed upon, “They kicked Venom. So now they have to die. Financially speaking, I’m not really big into murder...like...that...” he trailed off as the profound irony of his words and the moment hit him. A tense silence stretched between the two men as they stared at each other.

Hyunwoo fought desperately to keep his face blank, even though all he wanted to do was double over with laughter. The little shit was bold as hell and absolutely nuts, for sure, but damn it all if he wasn’t actually insanely charming and endearing. Yeah, he’d fit right in with everyone. “So, are you going to rob them blind or just stare at me all night?” he deadpanned after another minute or so of their staring contest.

Changkyun coughed uncomfortably as he finally dropped his eyes and fished out his own bank card—a dummy one, to be sure—, a bright red veil falling over his face. So he wasn’t so shameless after all, Hyunwoo mused to himself. “Um. Do you mind turning around?” he asked. He risked glancing back up as he explained, “You’re a cool dude and all and I know you wouldn’t rat me out to the cops, but I can’t have anyone knowing my proprietary secrets. So...” He motioned for Hyunwoo to turn around, which the elder did without any further prompting. “Thanks!” he chirped before proceeding to obliterate the poor fools’ financial accounts. “Aaaaaaand done!” Chankgyun excitedly announced. Hyunwoo turned his head in enough time to see him stuff an obscene amount of cash into his jacket pocket. “You hungry?” He latched himself onto the awed elder’s arm and shook his head, “Dumb question. Course you are. Who wouldn’t be this time of night? Leggo!” And with that, he all but dashed down the street, dragging his ensnared prey along with him to the tiniest hole-in-the-wall grill.

As soon as the bell of the sliding door tinkled the announcement of their arrival, a little old lady poked her head up from behind her counter. Her heart shaped face immediately spread into a wide, warm grin as she greeted them sweetly, the wrinkles around her eyes and the corners of her mouth bunching just so that it made Hyunwoo want to coo at her. “Oh, hi, Changkyun-ah! Whose your handsome friend?”

“AUNTIE,” Changkyun boomed gleefully as he reached out to try to pat her wrinkly cheeks, but was swiftly (surprisingly so) blocked from doing so with a sharp whack of her fan on his hand, “this is my friend Hy—Shownu! Shownu-hyung, this is my most favorite auntie ever because she feeds me all the best cuts, don’t you?”

He beamed brightly at her, earning yet another whack of her fan and an indignant huff from her. “Of course I do! You’re my most favorite and best customer after all!”

Changkyun scoffed dramatically, clutching his chest as he whined, “Am I only a customer to you? Auntie, I’m hurt!”

“Yes, well, you’re also a pain in my—“

“NEVER MIND! THREE OF THE KING SETS PLEASE AND TWO PITCHERS OF CASS, THANK YOU!” he yelled as he yanked Hyunwoo past her and plopped him down at the last grill along the back wall. As soon as he got comfortable (after scooching and squirming around on the low bench for damn near a minute), he curiously demanded, “So who’s Kiki?”

Hyunwoo, immediately put on high alert by the loaded question, had to physically restrain himself from launching across the table with the pair of meat shears by grabbing the splintered edges of the bench. Changkyun didn’t seem to notice, though, as he kept up the rapid fire questions. “Is that your girlfriend? Kiki’s a really cute name for a girl. What’s she like? Is she pretty? I bet she is.”

Hyunwoo knew his initial instincts were overreactive and unnecessary given the fact he knew full well the boy across him was one of the two best hackers this side of the Pacific (and he certainly wasn’t number two in his book considering what he’d seen). That was the whole reason he was here having an impromptu dinner with him. He knew his habits, his patterns, even his wins record at every arcade in the entire city; yet he still couldn’t shake the feeling he was being played like a goddamn fool right now, especially since there should have been no way for Changkyun to have even had access to his phone all night, let alone long enough to break through all the heavy duty encryptions to access his contacts or read his messages or see his call log. He huffed out a breath and shrugged, “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Oh, you’re a player, huh?” Changkyun nodded in consideration, “I respect that. But why is she—“

“He,” Hyunwoo reflexively interjected. Shit. He hadn’t meant to say that. Damn the boy and his disarming personality.

“Nice. But why is he asking if you’ve sealed the deal yet?” Changkyun blinked. “Wait.” He blinked again, then leaned forward to conspiratorially whisper (quietly shout), “Were you scouting me to be your third?”

“Third?” a curious voice warbled beside them.

Changkyun lurched back, eyes comically wide as fresh panic surged through him and colored his face red once more, and squeaked, “A third pitcher of Cass, Auntie!”

“But I’ve only just brought you your first two, Changkyun-ah. You know you can’t drink that much, especially on an empty stomach!” she chastised while scooting the chilled pitchers closer to a bemused (although still suspicious) Hyunwoo before she went about setting up the grill for them and arranging all the dishes to maximize the limited space at the table.

“Yes, but you see how big my hyung is, don’t you? A growing boy like him needs all the meat and beer he can get!”

“Aye,” she protested as she motioned toward Hyunwoo, “that’s not a boy like you. That is a man! A very handsome, very big, very strong, very se—“

“THANK YOU, AUNTIE. I WILL LET YOU KNOW IF WE NEED ANYTHING ELSE!” Changkyun screeched in an attempt to drown out all the unwanted images of the little old lady going on the prowl like the seasoned cougar he never ever in his life thought she could possibly (definitely) be. Thankfully, she only chuckled at his misery and let them be, returning back to her little cushioned cove behind the register (but only after she gave Hyunwoo’s bicep a very firm, appraising squeeze). “I’m sorry about her. I never thought she could be so...feisty? Ugh, I’m going to have nightmares about this. Wait. What were we talking about before?”

“I am not in a relationship with anyone, I am not a player, and I am not looking for a third,” Hyunwoo responded evenly.

“Oooh, that’s right,” the younger nodded as he replayed the earlier bits of their conversation in his head again while he focused on grilling the meat, garlic, and assorted vegetables that he definitely would not have even bothered touching if he were here by himself. “So then what’s Kiki talking about? I still think that’s a really cute name, even for a dude.”

“I’ll only tell you if you answer my question.”

“Okay, shoot.”

Hyunwoo crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes, “How did you know?”

“Know what?”

“Changkyun,” he said lowly in warning.

“What?”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

“I really don’t. I mean, there’s two things that may be in question here. I need specifics to work off of, hyung.”

“I’m not your hyung.”

“Yet,” he winked as he posited a few pieces of perfectly grilled meat onto the elder’s plate. A bribe if Hyunwoo had ever seen one.

Ignoring the unsubtle gesture, he pressed, “Answer the question, Changkyun.”

“Ugh, fine,” the kid whined, “but at least eat while your food’s hot.”

“Not until you answer.”

“But auntie will be so sad if you don’t!”

“No, she won’t.” Hyunwoo smirked wickedly as he uncrossed his arms and leaned forward to rasp, “Especially if I tell her she can feel—“

“I USED MY DS!” Changkyun blurted out in a rush.

There were a lot of things Hyunwoo had come to learn not to question in his life, but this? He almost couldn’t believe he’d heard right. “Your DS? A Nintendo DS?” he repeated.

“Yeah,” the kid nodded as he poked at a couple garlic cloves.

“Show me.”

“But my proprietary secrets, hyung!”

“Not your hyung, kid,” he huffed while he picked up a couple perilla leaves before adding, “and I will only eat once you show me.”

“Damn, you drive a hard bargain...but okay! I’ve actually been kinda dying to show you all night,” Changkyun admitted sheepishly as he reached inside his jacket. He dug around all the various innerpockets for a bit before he produced a clear Nintendo DS, the sight of it bowling Hyunwoo over with an intense wave of nostalgia. “I rigged it so it’s hooked up to my systems at home so I can hack on the go. And play games. Mostly hack. I use my Gameboy to play games. It’s super retro. I can show you—”

Hyunwoo, having seen all he needed to see, shoved an entire wrap into his cheek and interjected, “You wanna meet Kiki?”

“Only if he has a sister— a cute sister!”

Hyunwoo chuckled around another mouthful and shook his head. “No sister, but he’s got a job for you.”

“A job?”

“Highly illegal, highly dangerous. You in?”

19 notes · View notes

bellamygateoldblog · 5 years ago

Note

best and worst relationships?

There’s a lot of varables to consider here, and I’m feeling sick and bored out of my mind, so i’m going the long way round. This is a nightmare to read on mobile, im so sorry.

‘Best’ and ‘Worst’ labels depend on a number of things:

— Story of the pairing

— General intrigue and how enjoyable their dynamic is to watch

— Chemistry of the two (or more) characters

— Presence (or lack of) valuable relationship qualities (is this relationship healthy according to the world it exists in?)

and the importance of each of those differs from person-to-person.

Note: Sticking to popular relationships. I’ve blocked names, but I’m also throwing it under a Read More because it’s long and negative. It’s largely anticlarke because she’s a terrifying character and her mere existence derails most of her dynamics. Ship and like whatever you like, I hate fandom gatekeeping. But you asked so let’s go.

There’s also no order to this. Welcome to chaos land.

Best ‘Best’ List: objectively good relationships

— Linctavia

— Marper

— Spacekru

— David and Nate Miller

— Raven and Sinclair

Unconditional love, mutual respect and support, found family, would die (and live) for the other. I can’t find fault in them.

Memori

I had a bit more to say about this one because there’s something so highly romantic in two people abandoned by their clan, cast out, finding each other in a literal desert wasteland. Like they’re each other’s oasis. In meeting Emori, Murphy finally found acceptance after spending far too long alone, and being told he was worthless by people who’s approval meant something. And Emori having someone prepared to do whatever it takes to protect her and make her happy is everything I could’ve wanted for her. They’re so deeply in love.

Best List

Becho (pre-season six)

Your local enemies-to-lovers. partnership over co-dependency. Compromise. Affection and emotional support from both sides. Willing to throw themselves right into line-of-fire for the other. A cut ‘i love her’ scene which i’ve personally decided wasn’t cut. I LOVE THEM.

Arguments against:

- ‘killed’ Gina (moreso she aided her death) while acting on orders from her superiors

- ‘killed’ Octavia while acting on orders from her superiors

- killed Ilian/ attempted to help Roan win conclave over Octavia

- almost killed Clarke (season five)

- happened offscreen

Arguments to discredit previous arguments because I’m sick and tired of seeing them in the pro tags:

- Echo was Bellamy’s enemy through those first three listed events. Bellamy had no reason to expect loyalty or respect, or anything else from her. She was always looking out for her people just as Bellamy was his own. That was quite clear.

- In fact she actually tried to help Gina because she was important to Bellamy, apologised that she couldn’t and did save Bellamy’s life despite their enemy status.

- ‘killing’ Octavia was not in cold blood. It was actually an accident.

- This one is nonsense. She wanted to kill Clarke during season five “even though she’s important to Bellamy”…after she just left him to brutally die and held Echo and her family at gunpoint and threatened to kill them. Context matters.

- not a fan of the time jump either, but if you’re able to accept the Madi-Clarke relationship which also developed offscreen, you can deal with this one.

Hard to talk about this one without defending it. Echo deserves better than season six Bellamy, who would abandon her in order to chase a woman he knew for 6-ish months 6 years ago. I say it’s his loss.

Jonty

It was a beautiful relationship and then a beautiful breakdown of one. I really enjoyed their dynamic. About to get controversial and suggest Monty could’ve taken a different approach with Jasper. I’ve never committed genocide and had to learn to live with it while watching my best friend suffer from the decision, but I do have clinical depression and somewhat relate to Jasper. There was this scene, where in the background you see Jasper go to hug Monty goodbye and he avoids it. It was such a small but sad detail. I felt Monty wanted Jasper to deal with his grief in a certain way and got frustrated when he didn’t. Sometimes he could be insensitive and blaming, and i think had there been more communication their friendship could’ve been very healing for the both of them. I think we learn at one point Jasper actually thought Monty was “fine” and didn’t even realise or understand that Monty hurt too. Jasper had this tendancy to only consider his own feelings, and this put a rift between them. Tough love doesn’t work for everyone, and I think Monty’s sometimes cold approach held that rift in place. The simple fact that both sides are so easy to understand and empathise with, and that this gradual undoing of what was once an incredibly strong bond was inevitable, made watching it all wonderfully bittersweet.

Zaven

This was good, but it was so rushed it made me bitter towards them. While it was Raven being thrown with yet another random guy, this did strike me as much more meaningful than her fling with Wick and I think it would’ve been a lovely relationship had it been able to continue. I think this was that love Raven deserved. It’s a damn shame it was used as just another level of torture for her. I think if they had let it develop more naturally and not been so full-on so soon, and of course if the actor hadn’t opted to leave the show, this would’ve been up on my best ‘best’ list.

Dropping this here: being intelligent isn’t actually important when pairing Raven up. Fandom acts like she needs someone “on her level” or “at her speed” (shudders), someone to challenge her, which has always come across as very demeaning of characters with less intellectual capacity, as if they’re less than Raven because of this when they are absolutely not. This mentality also denies Raven of partners that can value her and treat her well just because they aren’t Stephan Hawking. A romance isn’t a competition or a class project. Shaw was good for her, not because of what his brain could do, but because of who he was.

Bellamy and Octavia

This bitch toxic, YEET. I adore it. I really do. It’s such an intriuging and complex dynamic. The poisonous nature of their relationship is neither of their own faults, they’re both a victim of their own circumstances and, in Octavia’s case, a lack of socialisation and, by extension, non-understanding of grey area is also intrinsicaly linked to it. They truely love one another, but aren’t learned in how to show this in healthy ways. Makes that back-and-forth an entertaining watch.

Main grievance:

Beating your brother bloody while he’s chained down and unable to defend himself against you is disturbing and inexcusable in any context, and whether or not you’re grieving is irrelevant.

Neutral List

C//exa

Placing this one here just because i don’t care about this relationship, but did like bits and pieces. I think this one ended before it even started. For me most of it’s appeal is in the gradual moulding of the dynamic and the many phases it went through. I did find intrigue in that journey. However the fact the show reminds me at least a few times a season that Lexa was the one has me digging my heels in. I hate being told what to think.

I don’t really remember it all that well so I don’t necessarily have strong opinions. I know some people do. At this point in the show I was growing more and more annoyed with Clarke, and eventually i went from liking Lexa to being indifferent to her, so a dynamic consisting of them both was the least interesting thing in the world to me by the time it started heating up.

I will say this is probably one of the only significant relationships Clarke has where she doesn’t ultimately have more power than the other half. There isn’t a mechanism there that allows one to use to do harm to the other to advantage themselves; Lexa is the commander, but Clarke is constantly pushing back and Lexa respects and listens to what she has to say. There is literally a shot of Clarke backing the most powerful person on the ground into a table. I think Clarke was a positive influence on Lexa, but during this time Clarke was slipping into worse and worse versions of herself.

Some thoughts:

I found it was innappropriate for Clarke, as a leader of her people who’s primary concern is supposed to be what’s best for them, to have become romantically involved with the commander of the people they hadn’t a stable relationship with, and who ultimately has the power to strip them of all freedoms. It’s so easy for those romantically and sexually charged feelings to cloud and confuse what are extremely important considerations to be made about the people back home. It wasn’t a very responsible relationship.

On the flipside of that, from this relationship Lexa was convinced to grow into peace. Which is quite obviously a positive affect. Though I found it was odd that Clarke, just a random teenage girl from space, would be (successfully) telling the commander how to manage her people when she herself was not at home overseeing the climate of her own. It just has some very weird implications.

Lexa’s betrayal at mount weather, actually a very silly and counter-productive decision, was what forced Clarke to lose her humanity in what was the most traumatic event of her entire life. The fact it was forgiven so easily was hard for me to get over.

M//rphamy

Season five was good for them. It seemed as if they’d grown, were much closer, more respectful, and more affectionate. Then season six happened, and Bellamy was back to treating Murphy like he was beneath everyone. He started again to talk about how therapeutic it would be to hurt him, as he has, physically, many times in the past. Just tearing open old wounds at this point. In season five he reminded Murphy he wasn’t worthless, that he did belong with the group, but in season six he went back on all that, and put Clarke ahead of him at every turn, and prioritied her feelings over his very real pain. They’ve had a complicated history of violence, usually coming from Bellamy’s more hot-headed side.

I put this here because it’s an immensely compelling dynamic. These characters work well together, there’s heaps of chemistry and allure in each of their interactions. It’s just an entertaining time whenever they share scenes. But despite that, I don’t know where I stand with them and I don’t know where they stand with each other as of season six.

Worst List

Be//arke

There is a mess of negative thoughts inspired by this relationship about proportionate to the amount it’s shoved in my face. Clarke is just no good for Bellamy. Is the concise way of putting it.

Here’s a list of some of them which I usually like to bury deep inside my head for sanity purposes:

Ignoring whether or not actions were for the people/the only option and focusing solely on how the relationship is affected by them regardless

- Clarke has a tendancy to view the most important person (pre-season five) in Bellamy’s life as necessary collateral damage. She has brought/almost brought harm to Octavia on multiple occasions, the two most notable being TonDC and the conclave. Both while being on the same side as Bellamy from a political standpoint, and both while his friend who he had reason to expect affirmation, consideration, and loyalty from. Clarke betrays those key values. This happens again in season five when Clarke’s Plan-A solution is to “take her out.”

( this is also what sets her apart from Echo, who was never in the position to make her own choices. Clarke has that agency and control that Echo’s superiors had, but never Echo. )

- and saying that, I think it’s incredibly hard for Clarke to maintain any meaningful relationships being in the position she’s in. How do you have friends when you have to always put them second?

- speaking of the conclave, Clarke held Bellamy at gunpoint in order to prevent him saving his sister’s life. She said she “didn’t pull the trigger” and that was that. All is forgiven. However she did pull the trigger in what was an attempt to scare him into submission so I really don’t even know what to say here. The writers kinda forgot?

- they aren’t equal. They haven’t been co-leaders since season one. He was demoted almost immediately to second-in-command beneath Clarke. Clarke is the leader, the literal head. She makes the choices while Bellamy gets her out of the trouble she usually gets herself into, risking himself and others in the process. It’s a racist trope. It’s the ‘white princess and her brown knight.’ She has agency and power and he’s her loyal soldier, subordinate. Inequality isn’t inherently a bad thing but this power imbalance between them is utilised in harmful ways.

- speaking of “the good knight by his queen’s side,” this comes across as codependency. Clarke relies on Bellamy’s support, validation and loyalty, while ‘the heart needs the head to tell it to beat.’ That’s paraphrased from season six, that’s an actual line in the show. Bellamy needs her to guide him, to “keep [him] centred,” that’s another line from the show. That’s still not enough? He literally tells us in season six that he needs her, and has needed her in the past if his psychosis episode is anything to go by. He has impeccably low self esteem and views himself less than. I mean if you need further convincing of they’re inequality, just look to their places on the ark which are quickly reinstated once it reaches the ground. Clarke is upper class, she’s later the daughter of the chancellor, she comes from a loving family, from one of (if not, the) more well-off stations, she’s educated and she has passions, but Bellamy? From the poorest ark station, raised by an emotionally abusive mother, a janitor, his whole motivation his entire life has been to love and protect Octavia. I think a lot of this devotion he has for her comes from a place of idolisation, of seeing something in her he wants for himself.

- now this ugly trope could also come from an absense of Octavia. The moment they get to the ground Octavia is on a journey of self-discovery. And eventually, she becomes her own protector, and she finds a home in Lincoln. So naturally Bellamy looks for the closest relationship he can find that resembles that old one. It’s Bellamy and Clarke. Now, instead of Octavia, he’s driven by and found purpose in protecting Clarke. In fact, the Clarke-Bellamy dynamic has so many similarities to the Octavia-Bellamy one I can absolutely see the sibling like quality to Be//arke.

- Clarke abandons Bellamy after mount weather. She leaves because she can’t bare the reminder of “what [she] did to get them here.” So she leaves and instead Bellamy is the one forced to see the faces of the 48 every day, reminding him of what he did to get them there. Clarke comes across as completely oblivious in this entire situation. Bellamy and Monty are both written using the word “we” to refer to the mount weather genocide, but Clarke? It’s “I” and “me” every time. It’s as if she truely believes she’s the only one suffering from it, she’s bearing it so they don’t have to, except that isn’t true at all and that fact is so painfully clear. Later she tells him she knew she could leave because the people had him, but who did Bellamy have? He dealt with that weight and that grief alone because the only other person who could possibly understand, the one who pulled the lever with him, ran away. After she had convinced him not to in season one. She then comes back informing him she’d been acting on behalf of her people in Polis, without the people’s own knowledge or consent, but i digress, and he’d just ruined everything. So much for co-leaders. And he blows up at her, and we see how badly this action hurt him.

- In season five she leaves him to die out of spite and took her daughter to the people he saved her from at the beginning of the season. It could’ve been avoided, but she decided to punish him. That’s all it was. Don’t give me none of that “I had to!!!” she screams in season six to mindspace!Octavia. Bellamy was forced into role of father at just 6 years old and has proved time and time again he was prepared to risk it all in order to protect his child, there was nobody more equipped to handle Madi than him and her yelling in his face that he couldn’t understand was perhaps the biggest betrayal of them all.

- In season five she tortured and almost murdered his entire family. After switching sides again at the end of the season, all this pain inflicted was meaningless. You can talk all you want at me about Clarke’s *reasons* but all she did was take the path of most destruction towards the same end-point. It was just unnecessary violence caused because she had this desperation to take the wheel.

- all of this works because the writing is always in Clarke’s favour. The show is framed in a way that makes Clarke sympathetic, emphasises how much causing others pain hurts her, and that means that she’s never held to any of these actions, she might get a stern talking to but she’s forgiven insanely easily and allowed to go on with no actual change.

Pr//ncess M//chanic

Unfortunately, from what i’ve gathered, there’s a lot of racism in this one just as there is in Be//arke. I mean the entire nature of the relationship relies on the elevation of Clarke and the narrative power to demote Raven to ‘second best’ and prop over and over again. Raven, a girl who works her ass off to make most of the victories in the show possible, actually spoke the words “she saved us again” after launching a pod from an exploding planet into space and fixing the ark while space walking. It’s mindblowing. Raven’s (and others’) successes are handed to Clarke on a silver platter and we’re just meant to eat that up and blindly accept that Clarke is our one true saviour. I’m not going into this because it makes me feel sick and Raven deserved better.

Unrelated thoughts:

I don’t see their relationship as friendly at all post-season two. I got the impression Raven actually didn’t like Clarke, but it was all very complicated.

I also think it’s terribly convinient Raven never found out the true nature of Clarke’s relationship with Lexa because I don’t believe she would’ve ever been okay about Clarke again if she had (if the writers were going for realistic).

Madi/Clarke/Abby

Clarke strapped a torture device around her daughter’s neck for means of control and activated it under the guise of protection and that isn’t okay in any world or any context. Madi is a little girl who is dependant on Clarke and Clarke betrayed that trust. Those shock collars were used on her early in the season, she experienced the torture herself and still used it on her child. A lot of Clarke’s more unfavourable and/or unhealthy behaviours and characteristic are also present in Abby, which leads me to believe those are a product of her upbringing. Like mother like daughter, Abby also electrocuted Raven. Abby and Clarke have this strange rival-like relationship and I find it particularly cold, maybe because they’re so similar.

Abby and Raven

Abby has physically harmed Raven more than once. Out of anger and spite, or out of desperation. People hurting each other on this show is pretty standard and while this isn’t as overwhelming a mistreatment compared to others, her hitting Raven while she was acting chancellor was a pretty gross abuse of power. Its a visual display, with Abby’s imposing figure looming over a sitting and emotionally vulnerable Raven. We’re supposed to view this, i think, as mother-daughter. Abby says very early season one that Raven reminds her of Clarke, but she’s never shown treating Clarke in the way she does Raven. I liked the relationship during season one. From then and with Abby’s slow descent into villainy, not so much.

Ontari and Murphy

*She raped him. Next.

Cl//phy

Clarke is a cause/reason, whether direct or indirect, of a huge chunk of Murphy’s suffering, all of which she’s never been held accountable for due to Murphy’s position as undesirable. I, along with Murphy, had to be told she cares about him in season six because her otherwise complete disregard for his life has been pretty apparent.

Notable mention:

Chaining up him and Emori like dogs and promising to sacrifice the woman he loves, against her will, for the greater good after he saved her life. He has to beg her, plead with her and her almighty god complex, and it’s all quite uncomfortable and eery. (She later draws a picture of this event in her sketchbook which is…kinda weird.) And, in true Clarke fashion, she refuses to accept responsibility for this action and hides behind the same old trend of gaslighting and screaming “i had to!!!” I can’t root for a friendship between these two no matter how fun their back-and-forth can be. Especially since I can’t recall a single time they’ve shared a nice moment. Oh, and here’s a post about why Clarke and Murphy will never bond over isolation and survival.

*The clashing of Ontari and Murphy’s personalities was hilarious and I enjoyed watching them on screen together.

#the 100 #anticlarke #antibellarke #anti princess mechanic #anti bellarke #finally free of this question #the100meta #tw; child abuse #tw; rape #ro.answers

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