#makes everything fuzzy n its hard to think straight i dunno

[auburnfires]

i havent gone to the er yet 🤡

[magicalcrwn]

lost, then found // ksj

pairing: Seokjin x Reader

word count: 2.2k

genre: non-idol, roommates au, requited feelings, hurt/comfort, fluff, angst

warning(s): going in deep here so do not take these lightly, talks of loneliness, existential crisis, mental health issues, implied suicidal thoughts, mostly unedited

summary: “When it comes, the two hands overlap / Then the whole world holds its breath for a moment / Zero o’clock“

Life is hard, sometimes you just gotta take a step back and breathe.

a/n: been feeling horrible this year, so i poured all of my thoughts into this fic to just lighten the load i guess. this could also be considered as a late jin day gift, he’s been my ult and my main emotional support kpop boy for two years now and abyss even got me finishing up this fic. so in a way, it’s more of a vent fic but also a thank you for keeping a smile on my face. with that out of the way, i hope you’re all taking care of yourselves and maybe find some comfort in this. who knows? links: txt m.l || bts m.l

Sleep has always been an escape for you, especially from reality.

Everybody has those days, feeling lost and depressed no matter what happened -- could be out of nowhere, could be from exhaustion -- but today? Today is just too much, and you don’t know why. You feel heavy, drained both emotionally and physically, and want only to sleep the day or maybe the rest of the year or more away. Honestly, that doesn’t sound too bad -- an eternal sleep. In your dreams, you can do anything without a worry. An eternal dream would be heavenly, doing whatever you want with no pressure and stress from the world, doing whatever at your own pace instead of being pressured to keep up with the rapidly moving public.

So that’s what you do, or that’s what you try to do. It’s nearing sundown and you stay curled up under your bed on your phone while scrolling through social media, you only get up to get food and water and to use the bathroom. Anything else? That’s it. You look through every single platform you’re on underneath the blanket while cuddling RJ stolen from Seokjin’s bed.

Speaking of Seokjin…

You’ve been living with him as roommates for the past three years, and you have known him since high school when you were a freshman and him a sophomore. Whenever you two hang out together, some could easily mistake you as siblings, sometimes as lovers. You, however, don’t consider him a lover -- he’s just your best friend who agreed to live in this apartment together. Yep, just friends. Nothing more. Just friends. You don’t pay attention to his cute stupid grin whenever he makes a cheesy dad joke, nor his squishy cheeks that puffs up whenever he smiles. You also don’t pay attention to how he’s humming little melodies you’ve memorized overtime while he cooks, and you don’t pay attention to how he gets all giggly and happy whenever he gets excited. Though you do acknowledge how safe you feel around him, how comfortable it is to be around him.

He’s out today, working late as a recently hired producer and artist for Namjoon’s also recently opened company, MONO Entertainment, leaving your lonesome self the entire day. Speaking of loneliness, it feels more suffocating than usual. Music quietly plays through your phone’s speaker, you pull the sheets closer to your body as you try to dig deeper into the warmth of your safety. This duvet can’t keep you safe and warm, you’re well aware of that, you’ll have to eventually leave and rejoin the overwhelming society you know as reality.

Growing up, you always believed reality is perfect, a place where it has so many possibilities for you to strive for a better future -- or better yet, a better self. Oh, has the world proved you wrong.

The security alarm echoes throughout the apartment, accompanied by the sound of the door unlocking and opening. He's already home? Nevertheless, you stay in your bed, sliding even deeper into the duvet. Your name is called from the entrance, but you shut your eyes as you attempt to sneak in a nap. Today's pretty much not a social day, you just want to keep the talking to a minimum. Especially with your roommate. The door shuts, keys jingling in the distance followed by shoes thumping.

Soft padded footsteps nears your doorway, a crack between the frame and the door peeking into and out of your somewhat messy room. Seokjin, still wearing his fuzzy orange hoodie, gently pushes the door as he tries not to disturb you. Upon spotting the you-sized lump protruding from the blanket, he sighs with a small smile on his face. He walks to the nearest side of your bed, closest to the door, which surprisingly you left space for your full sized bed.

Once more, he calls your name, but you still don't respond. At least verbally. You just shuffle in place and push yourself even more deeper into the duvet. A light chuckle grabs onto your ears. Your friend sits on said empty spot of your bed and gently rests a hand on the lump, landing on your left arm.

"Hey bub," he says while gently rubbing your arm in small strokes. Seokjin moves his hands towards the edge of the covers to pull it down, but you whine as you feel the sudden shift in air once he moves it down at least an inch. A frown dons his face, "C'mon, you can't breathe if you stay down there."

You shake your head. "Come back in 2-3 business days," you mumble.

Surprised by your sudden remark, he lets out an airy laugh a moment sooner. You feel shifting behind you, the heavy duvet being moved around. A warm presence slides into your cocoon, inching closer to you. If you're not getting out, might as well get in.

"Jin," you whine pathetically, "get out."

"Aw, c'mon, can't I at least get a hug?"

You blink your eyes, practically rolling them at the end. He's pouting, you know he is. In fact, if you turn around right now, you'd see his pouty lips especially in the dark. With a straight face, you slowly flop over to your right to face exactly what you expected. A pouty Seokjin with -- oh no -- how dare he use those puppy eyes against you out of all people! Without even realizing it, you hold your breath as you two stare each other for a long, long time. At each passing second, you feel the effects of the forbidden Seokjinnie Pout™ dealing blows at your already rapid beating heart. Your face grows redder and redder as you continue staring directly at his face.

When your ears starts to burn enough, you release your breath and surrender, "Fine, you can hug." His eyes brightens at your words, his cheeks rounding up as a smile pushes through the pout. Has he always been this close before? Just inches away from your faces touching. You blink thrice then stammer, "Just... just once."

An arm suddenly reaches for your curled up body, Seokjin pushes himself towards you with his other arm on the bed. His warmth right against yours as he snakes his limbs around you, pulling you into his embrace. Out of habit, your arms wrap around his torso as you lean further into him and squishing RJ in between.

A hand reaches for your head, gently stroking it. His chest rumbles against your forehead while he asks, "Bad day?" Of course he'd notice, so you nod your head. He hums, still continuing his petting, "Thought so. Did you get up at all?"

"Only to go to the bathroom and eat," you reply back, subconsciously nuzzling into his fuzzy clad chest which steadily moves up and down with his breathing.

"Haven't gone out at all, hm?" This time you shake your head. He lets out a huff, patting your head twice before looking down at you, "What's wrong? You can tell me."

Your lips puckers into a pout, you smush your face closer into him as you mumble, "'s just -- I dunno -- just unmotivated I guess. Like there's nothin' I can do even though I know I can do it but -- yeah. That and just... lonely."

"Lonely? I'm right here, y'know," he lightly jokes as an attempt to lighten the mood.

"I know but like, the different type of lonely. Y'know, the type of lonely where you feel like you're just awkwardly standing in place of somewhere where you clearly don't belong. The type where you feel like you've been left out from everything that's happening no matter how fast or slow time goes by, even getting to the point where you feel like you’re lost." You swallow shortly afterwards, continuing with another mumble. Your arms tighten, "The type where you don't feel like you're alive."

He quietly stares at you, watching you breathe in his arms. Suddenly, you felt yourself being pulled up and out of the covers, being placed on the pillows while still in his embrace. You lift your head and look at him with an exhausted yet confused gaze. Both of you stare right into each others' eyes for a while, the slightly audible music still playing on the other side of yourself on the bed. "How about now? Do you feel alive?"

His sudden question caught you off guard, not even letting you respond with a suitable answer. Seeing your bewildered eyes, he repositions yourselves on the bed -- lying on his back and you resting your cheek on his chest, allowing you hear the faint thumps of his heartbeat. Right when you open your mouth, he immediately cuts you off, "What am I saying, it's much more easier said than done. Alive... It's a strange concept if you think about it. It all depends on how you live it, but how we live it is always the big question."

Leaning his head back onto the pillow, gazing up onto the ceiling, he subconsciously continues stroking his head as he too continues his train, "Sometimes I feel like I'm alive, finally getting a head start on my music career thanks to Namjoon, but sometimes? Sometimes I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know if I enjoy what I'm doing, I don't know if I am doing what I'm capable of doing in this life. I don't know if I'm living a life that I want to live, a life where I feel alive." He slightly tips his head towards your side, lowering just a bit to look back at you. "Even though I'm familiar with the loneliness, I don't mind it. Sure it sucks, but it helps you even when you don't think it would. Gives you time to reflect, gives you time to think, and most importantly, it gives you time to rest."

Turning towards the window, he faces the sky at the blue hour after the sun has set. The faint sound of vehicles moving throughout the streets muffles against the wall and the window. "Yeah, the world's fast, a lot of us are moving fast -- moving onwards without looking back. Whenever I look at those people, I always think to myself, 'Wow, these guys... I can't keep up.' I still think of it to this day. Whatever they did in their day, no matter how big or small, they're always moving at their own pace to keep up with the world. I don't doubt it though, feeling the same loss and loneliness we feel every now and then. It catches us off guard, especially to them at least once in their lives. Just like today." Once more, his gaze falls back onto you. You , who stares with wide eyes as you listen to his philosophy.

His lips curls up into a small smile, warm enough to comfort you. "No matter how many times you feel this way -- everyday or every other day -- you're still you. The loneliness isn't always there to torment you, it's there to guide you, help you. Don't ever try to force it out, like misery, it loves company. Company that it can be useful to. No matter where or what you're doing in the world, you will seek that life again. The life you believe that you will fulfill to the end, the life that will make you feel alive even just by a smidge."

Loneliness. You never thought of it that way, honestly. You'd always think of it as an obstacle, something annoyingly in your way. Something which seems to be impossible to overcome. Shuffling up, moving into a more comfortable position, you rest your ear onto his chest. Hearing Seokjin’s voice say your name, you look up again.

In just a split second, he places a light feathery kiss on your forehead, immediately burning your ears red. "Take a break," he murmurs against your skin, "I mean it."

Underneath your head, you feel him shuffle as he starts to make his way out of the bed. "Seokjin," you instantly call. He pauses, a leg sticking out of the duvet and bare foot planted on the floor, then he looks back. Without even realizing, you ask him, "Can you stay here with me? Please?"

Blinking once then twice, his Adam's apple bobs as he swallows and slowly nod. Zipping off the hoodie, letting it fall onto the floor, he crawls back into bed and repositions himself in the same spot he was in.

You reach for your phone, turning off the music then placing back behind you in its original spot. Climbing up to him, you readjust yourself into your position from earlier, curling up against his warm body. Shutting your eyes, you whisper, "Thank you."

You didn't elaborate nor was there a need to. Seokjin watches you breathe, his gaze soft at the sight. Wrapping his arms back around you, he places another kiss on your head, "You're welcome. Have a nice sleep, love."

Love? Your heart stutters at the word, a grin threatening to burst out.

Tomorrow will be another day, the day where you'll put yourself back on track and pick up where you left off. While the world doesn't wait for no one, the only one waiting for you is yourself and maybe a specific somebody keeping you close to his heart.

a/n: it’s normal to feel lonely, even if you see it as a threat. remember that it will teach you to take care of yourself better. first things first, take a step back and just breathe.

© magicalcrwn 2020. All rights reserved.

[egsreactions]

Single Riders Will Be Paired

Idea for this one came from this prompt. Definitely an AU, wherein Susan and Diane met earlier than in canon.

Diane’s date shrank away a little. “Oh, come on. It sounds like a better idea than puking our guts out all day, doesn’t it?”

“First off - if all it takes to get you to throw up for eight hours straight is riding one thrill ride... ew. Second, I’m not going to neck on Pirates of Lake Michigan.”

“Why not? It’s dark, there’s plenty of room between the boats...” He tried to sidle up to her again. Diane stepped back.

“There are security cameras over every square inch of the ride.”

“They won’t see-”

“Infrared cameras. Second, do you really get turned on around the smell of water that probably hasn’t been changed since this park opened?!”

“I-”

“Look, you want to ride that, feel free. I’m going on something else.”

“O-okay? Uh - where should we meet up?”

“School. Maybe. Later.” She stormed off, pulling her phone out of her bag. The Midwestern Kingdom was a weird park - it had started out as a blatant ripoff of Disneyland, a la Nara Dreamland, and had grown into its own thing in the seventies. The odd ‘WE CAN’T SAY DISNEY BUT THINK DISNEY’ elements were interspersed through thrill rides that were too odd to be picked up by King’s Island or Cedar Point. And while it was normally just open in the summer, it did open its doors for a ‘spring preview’ one week a year. 

Naturally, two thirds of her school was there, despite the lingering chill in the air. 

NoBottleBlonde: Did you make it out here?

If Lucy was there, she could get a ride home with her. Odds were slim, given what she’d said, but-

XenaWasRight: Nope. XenaWasRight: Car’s still broken down.  XenaWasRight: And I never knew fixing it would be this fun.  NoBottleBlonde: Fun? Seriously?  XenaWasRight: Hey, what can I say, the company makes the activity. XenaWasRight: Gotta go. We’re lifting the engine out.  NoBottleBlonde: What? What company? NoBottleBlonde: Lucy? NoBottleBlonde: I WANT DEETS LATER. Well. Crap. Good that Lucy was having a date she was enjoying for once, even if ‘fixing her car’ wasn’t technically a date, but... that left her alone in the park. Unlesssss... NoBottleBlonde: Hey, are you and your dork friends here? TrillHitchhiker: I choose to take that term as a compliment. And yes.  NoBottleBlonde: YES. Okay, my date turned out to be a real creep. Mind if I hang with you guys?  TrillHitchhiker: Oh no. I am terribly offended. How dare you suggest such a thing. Gasp. I think I have a case of the vapors.  NoBottleBlonde: :P  TrillHitchhiker: We’re split up at the moment. Most of us are in one line or another, but we’re meeting in 30 minutes at the entrance to El Torqueno.  NoBottleBlonde: I’m heading there now. Can’t believe that guy was too wimpy to even try riding it... TrillHitchhiker: ...the vast majority of our party is too.  NoBottleBlonde: PFFT. I’m trying it. See you there soon.  She closed down the phone and headed for the new ride. It was an intimidating coaster. A bright orange steel thing that wound in and out of ambiguously-industrial theming. Each pair of seats were also able to rotate around end over end. It was fast. It was intense. And - yes, if you had a weak stomach... but she was made of sterner stuff. She could manage it.  Right? Right.  The line wasn’t especially interesting. She did enjoy the fact that they were at least trying to build suspense, letting the line cut past several stretches of track, so you could hear the screams and roar of the ride and really soak in what was going to happen. She didn’t notice the sign until she was in sight of the boarding platform.  Single riders will be paired.  Oh. Great.  

She looked around rapidly, trying to make sure the creep wasn’t there. No. No, he hadn’t been clever enough to try to pull that. Good. So she had to ride with a stranger, but that wouldn’t matter much. It was just one ride, and then she’d be with her... estranged niece  Cousin by blood friend and her friend’s friends. God. So much easier to ignore the blood relation. The last few minutes of wait were short, and then she was there, waiting on the platform alone as the operator herded her to a seat right at the back, and - then waved over another girl about her age. Shorter. More pear shaped, though she definitely made it work. Also blonde. She said something, though it was drowned out by the sound of the ride and the music over the PA. Diane just shrugged in return. The other girl grinned, rolled her eyes, and gestured to the seat. In they went, and the harnesses clicked into place... and that was it. A minute passed. Two. And then they were heading for the lift hill. The girl next to Diane let out a whoop.  “AWESOME! I’ve been waiting for this for a YEAR!”  “Seriously? Are you that much of a coaster junkie?”  “Maybe? I dunno. I mean, I only ever go here...” Diane craned her head around. The other girl gave a hapless shrug,  barely visible in the harness, still grinning. Diane just laughed once. Eh, what the hell. She could drop the thin veneer of self control and just enjoy this for once. Her enthusiasm was infectious. They crested the lift hill, and for a moment they were all screaming, and then - DOWN. The speed was everything, plunging them through a canyon of rust and gray, before it twisted to the side, and then they were flipping backwards, making it impossible to see where they were going - and the disorientation, the shock, the sheer adrenaline was so good, so pure, so cleansing, that Diane found herself screaming along with everyone else, venting her nerves and her delight and the sheer sensory overload of it.  Somewhere around the cobra roll, she found herself grabbing the other girl’s hand. She had been sort of flailing, and - wow, she had a HELL of a grip, and - she barely registered that for the rest of the ride. Not until they lurched to a stop in front of the station, and everyone started cheering. They were not quite upright, and the cars took a moment to spin them slowly into place before they advanced to the platform to unload with a loud hiss.  The bars were lifted. They stumbled out, dizzy and laughing and flushed, and staggered towards the exit.  “Oh. My. Fuzzy. GOD. That was amazing!” The shorter girl blurted. “That... that was better than I hoped for!”  “I KNOW, RIGHT?” Diane was trying not to gush. “I swear, I - I nearly blacked out for a second. I - holy - frick I can’t even think straight right now.” She stumbled, and nearly fell, only to slump over on the shorter girl, who burst into giggles again - as someone cleared their throat nearby.  “Well. I was going to tell you that we were waiting for Diane, but you found her. Ah - Diane, Sarah. Sarah, Diane.” Susan was standing at the bottom of the ramp, next to Justin, Elliot, and... well... the whole rest of Susan’s little crew. A curvy black girl (Grace, that - that was her name, right?) gave her a MASSIVE smile, grabbing the arm of another girl with a mop of purple hair. She was squeeing in an almost inaudible pitch. “Yeah, yeah, we rode together. You... you don’t know what you’re missing. I swear, I’m still high off the vertigo.” Sarah nudged Diane upright, and - that was when both of them realized they were still holding hands. And that they had been clutching each other so hard that they probably had bruises from each other’s fingertips.  Oh.  Oh.  That... probably shouldn’t have gotten a blush out of Diane, but- “So which ride’s next? We gotta pick something a little tamer for these guys, but - we all up for the Steel Noodle?” Sarah didn’t let go. If anything, she gave her hand another squeeze before pulling her towards the next ride.  She really had to send that creep a thank you letter. A severely passive aggressive thank you letter, but a thank you all the same. (A/N: The roller coaster type in question is probably nonexistent, but is based on the same concept as a ‘4th Dimension’ roller coaster, albeit with more traditional coaster elements.) Fic by Mod Zee. 

[lichlover]

Idk if you’ve done this but: taako just keeps doing dangerous stuff(probably with lup if we’re being real) because his boyfriend is death and it’s no biggie if he dies

tread carefully for discussion of death and suicidal ideation!

There’d been a world that had ended like this, in fire and brimstone and ash clogging up his lungs, clouding his eyes and making it impossible to think, or breathe, or do anything other than wait for the ceiling above him to come plummeting down and turn his bones to dust.

He’d laughed about it on the cycle that followed—“C’mon, Lulu, you’ve gotta admit to the irony there.”

“There were children in there, Taako,” was all she’d said.

“Dead children,” he’d replied, a little too sharply, and the ice that coated his voice provided momentary reprieve from the burning, screaming memory of what had only been seconds ago.

Except this isn’t a memory. He’s far too familiar with the liminal, off-kilter sensations that chase after him in his worst flashbacks, turning the world around him into the dredges of an unreliable recollection; scenery that shifts as suddenly as he does. This isn’t the paralyzing stillness of a night terror that holds him in stasis, pressing through his chest and slowly crushing him alive. He feels the wood beneath him burning through his shirt, and crumpling under his weight, and he can’t move.  He can’t move and everything is burning and the world is ending.

The world is ending, and Taako laughs.

He wheezes into the blackened air, wracked with shuddering fits of mirth and a whirlwind hysteria that would sweep him off his feet if he wasn’t already on the ground. “Well,” he rasps, “we’ll get ’em next time, won’t we? Adios and—“ Taako’s ribcage rattles in a violent, wrenching cough. “And—and sayonara, right?”

He’s—

He saying goodbye but the world isn’t ending, he’s—

He’s made a terrible miscalculation—

What happens next doesn’t fill his vision with light.

Instead, what happens next grabs his collar and drags him headlong into a space that shifts, tilts, and ripples with iridescence. In the next moment, Taako’s lungs are assaulted with fresh air, and he gags and chokes on it; has to turn on his side and hack up congealed smoke. The ground is cool and hard beneath him. Tile. He’s on someone’s floor. And there’s a voice shouting in the background; high, sharp, piercing through the ringing in his ears.

The world isn’t ending. He’s not back on the Starblaster. In fact, he knows this tile, because he’d had it installed himself; it is, after all, the only acceptable flooring for a decent kitchen. And now someone’s on their knees next to him and talking to him, lifting him up, but all he can think about is what a nice shade the ceiling is and how it really opens up the space. There’s a light fixture above him that he recognizes, too, because he’d insisted on it during their first furniture shopping trip. It’s a little gaudy, and slightly too glitzy for an otherwise nondescript apartment, but that too is a work in progress.

And he knows this because—

Taako tries to pull in another breath and realizes it’s getting harder, and he knows what that means, which is that he’s about to waste an afternoon backed up at the offices of the astral plane. Except that makes entirely no sense, because none of this matters—he’s going to reform in hours, if not minutes. Rewind. Reset. The universe will knit him back together, free of scars and burns and the pressure of too much smoke clogging his lungs.

And he knows this because—

He isn’t allowed to finish his train of thought, because a melody drifts overhead and Taako’s eyes grow leaden, weighed down by the promise of sleep. It’s an easy temptation to succumb to. He’s exhausted, and his body even moreso, and regardless of however he dies this cycle he deserves a little R&R. And that’s when something twinges in his gut—wrong, wrong, it whispers, like it knows something he doesn’t. But he ignores it. He lets the song sweep him away, further into unconsciousness.

“Rest, love,” says a man’s voice overhead.

And Taako falls.

“He was just—I mean, shit, he was just lying there, Kravitz. He could’ve gotten up and he just didn’t. I had to drag him to the fuckin’ rift, and he looked like—he didn’t even know I was there.”

“He wasn’t flashing back, was he?”

“No way for me to tell. But if he was, I just… it was a bad one. The building was coming down around us and he didn’t make a move.”

Their voices filter through a thick soup of awareness, muddled and viscous and clinging to him as he fights his way into wakefulness. Taako’s head is light. He tries to sit up and the world starts to spin, so he settles for pushing himself up into a semi-recline. The room around him is still moving like a supercharged Fantasy Tilt-A-Whirl, but this time he can pick out colors and textures—the art on the walls around him, for instance, and the silk of the chaise beneath him. The chaise he and Kravitz had picked out together. The one he’d approved after a heated discussion over the pros and cons of extended sofas.

He’s home.

Taako goes to open his mouth, to say something clever—or literally anything, for that matter, to prove to himself he hasn’t gone and gotten his vocal cords incinerated—but all that comes out is a strangled, grating sound that scrapes against his throat. Immediately the two vaguely fuzzy figures at the other end of the room are on their feet. “Thank the gods,” says Kravitz, and he’s the first to reach Taako’s side, looking faint with relief. “Oh, Taako. We were so worried.”

“Yeah. About that.” Lup’s smile pulls taut across her face as she grabs Kravitz’s arm. She leans in to murmur to him, and Taako’s ears twitch, straining to listen in. “He’s not lucid, y’know? That healer dosed him up with enough potions to knock out an army. We’re not gonna get anything out of ’im even if we do play good cop, pissed-off cop. And believe me, I intend to interrogate the fuck outta him when he’s back to being himself.”

“Oh, hell,” Taako drawls in their general direction. “Somebody’s in trouble. And that, uh, somebody is me. I dunno why I said it like that.”

Lup’s head snaps back around in his direction, and they scrutinize him with bone-deep exhaustion in their faces. He wants to tell them exactly what had happened, that his mind just flaked sometimes and it was nothing more than that, but when he goes to speak the words trip and get tangled up in each other before they can escape. He’s not lucid, Lup had said. Taako’s brain knows what this means, but for the life of him he can’t piece together the implications.

“Oh, c’mon, Lulu,” he says, reaching towards her with a loose hand. “Give it to me—heh—give it to me straight. What’d I… what’d I do this time, huh?”

Lup’s jaw is set, which he knows means she’s angry, but he can’t bring himself to worry about it. “Taako,” she starts, and then, “babe. You, uh… you chose a real bad time to take a nap. Do you remember anything about that?”

He does. “Sure,” Taako slurs. “ ’S, uh… Cycle 61? It was when—when everything was on fire, tha’s it.”

His sister sits back like he’s shoved her. “Cycle 61,” she says to Kravitz. “We, uh… we died together in that one. End of the year, world was going to shit, I went in to try and get some kids out of a burning building. Taako went in after me. We both took in a lotta smoke, I got crushed… I think he did too. It just came down on top of us.”

Kravitz goes pale, and it sticks with razor-sharp clarity through the haze in Taako’s mind. He’s made his boyfriend worry, and lucid or not, Taako knows there’s nothing he hates more. “Hey,” he says, reaching out for Kravitz’s arm. “Hey. Hey. ’S fine. No big deal. ’M all fine now, see? Taako’s all in one piece. Doesn’t matter anyway.”

“What doesn’t matter?” Kravitz catches his meandering hand in one cool palm.

“Oh, y’know,” says Taako. “Dyin’. No… no big deal, right? No big deal during the, uh… the century, no big deal now. Gotta pretty sweet deal when your—your future mother-in-law’s life ’n death ‘n your boyfriend’s gotta handle on alla that, right?”

He’s more than pleased with his line of reasoning there, but Kravitz’s eyes flick to Lup, who’s looking more disturbed by the second. “He was flashing back to the century,” she says. “I thought that was why he wasn’t doing jack shit, but he—Taako, honey, do you remember what we were doing back there? In the burning building?”

Something about spell components. He tries to say so, and it comes out as painfully garbled, but Lup seems like she gets the gist. “He’s got the basics,” she murmurs. “Flashback seems like it’s over, which is good, but…”

“You said he’s not lucid. He might not know what he’s saying.”

“If this were anybody else I’d agree with you, but Taako’s a fucking liar on his best days. If he’s not talking nonsense there’s a good chance he’s telling the gods-given truth.” Lup kneads her forehead with two fingers. “So this isn’t just about the flashback. You dumbass. Taako, what happens when you die?”

“Hachi-machi,” Taako manages, through what feels like a mouthful of cotton. “Tha’s a real deep question, isn’t it?”

“You know what I mean.”

He shoots her a lazy smirk. “Easy. Kick it, drop in on the family, shake up the astral plane. Rinse ’n repeat, back in time for dinner. No… no big deal, ’s what I said. Who cares?”

“Taako,” says Kravitz. He’s not quite meeting Taako’s lazy stare, training his eyes instead on the rings stacked on Taako’s fingers. “Acting as an emissary of the Raven Queen comes with—with its benefits, of course, but if you die, you—you die. I can’t barter with the passage of life and death.”

“Yeah,” says Lup, and she looks furious all over again, simmering with frustration that rolls off her in waves. “So when you pull dumb shit like that—”

“Okay, he’s—he’s high off his—”

“No. He’s talking like—I mean, ‘Who cares’? I thought he was past that. I thought we were all past that. The only reason I agree to do dangerous shit with him anymore is because I trust him, but he’s not—he’s not who I left behind, okay? Treating death like it’s a joke—I mean I get he hasn’t exactly had conventional experiences with it, but this shouldn’t be—it shouldn’t be happening, okay? It shouldn’t—“

She stands up, and the sudden movement sends ripples through Taako’s field of vision, and—well, that’s not normal. Lup presses the heels of her hands to her eyes and breathes out, and he can see her shoulders shaking.

“Fuck,” she mutters into her sleeves. “I’m sorry. It’s been…”

“A rough day,” Kravitz finishes. “I know.”

“You’re a doll.” Lup sighs and looks back at the kitchen. “I’m gonna make everybody some coffee, and, uh… I guess try and get in contact with Merle. Dunno when his adventure thing is ending, but it’s worth a go, I guess. Mocha for you?”

He gives her an affirming smile, and she returns it with a weaker, distinctly un-Lup-like grin before she retreats to the kitchen. Kravitz stays with Taako, thumbing over his knuckles and watching his face with something that walks the line between confusion and knife’s edge concern. And Taako hates it—he knows he hates it, that this is wrong, that he’s made Kravitz worry for no reason. But the reassurances don’t come. Instead he shifts on his side and says, in a conspiratorial whisper, “Lup makes fuckin’ terrible coffee.”

A choked laugh drifts from the kitchen adjacent. Kravitz��s smile morphs into something exhausted but endeared. “She doesn’t need to know that.”

“I think… she already does. She’s real smart, y’know.” Taako’s eyelids are starting to flutter again. “I think she’s upset with me.”

“She’s worried,” says Kravitz. “We both were. You were in bad shape.”

“Yeah, but…” He takes in a soft breath, and his hand begins to loosen in Kravitz’s. “Doesn’t matter, right? N’worries?”

And then the world dissolves into a thick, liquid film, and it drags him down, further from the light and the bitter aroma of burnt coffee and Kravitz’s hand around his. Far from the burning, screaming memory. Far from the century and the flashbacks that cling to him like a layer of cold sweat. Far from the voice that drifts overhead and tells him You do know we’d miss you terribly, don’t you? We care about you—we love you, Taako…

And Taako falls.