#no matter how much time I spend on something it *invariably* ends up looking like something scribbled in 20 seconds on ms paint

[eyebrowpunk]

really hate how ‘drawing’ and ‘drawing digitally’ feel like two entirely separate, but equally involved, skillsets

[neoculturetravesty]

falling is not drowning

Pairing: Haechan x Reader, Jeno x Reader Genre: romance, angst, college au, social media au, hurt/comfort, psychedelic, maybe enemies to lovers? Warnings: mature, 18+, strong language, past abuse, nudes, oral (male receiving), compulsive sexual behavior, inappropriate relationships, cheating, use of recreational drugs, alcohol, revenge porn, implied paranoia Word Count: 15k

Summary: Lee Haechan was one fuckboy who, despite your tireless efforts, had never rolled in the hay with you. But you were going to get him in your bed, even if you lost your mind. After all, you needed to fuck him to get to Jeno.

A/N: I wanted to write an unreliable narrator and something less wholesome than what I’m used to writing. If some fluff crept its way in, it’s because I am a hopeless romantic at heart.

God created fuckboys for a reason.

They were as important to the ecosystem as good guys were. They played their part in keeping harmony on this earth by ensuring that the right amount of girls always remained broken-hearted enough to eventually make their ways to good guys; and the remaining, to even more fuckboys. 

But you never had the stomach for good guys. They were entitled, they put you on pedestals you never quite liked, they valued purity to a grizzly amount and at the end of the day, they wanted their bare minimum human decency to be rewarded with sex. The arduous, elongated act of forced chivalry, outdated traditions and black-and-white moralities always ended up with the same demand for sex that all men in the world invariably boiled down to. At least fuckboys were straight up in their true intentions. Fuckboys saved you all the drama from expectations set too high and masquerades that went on for too long. Fuckboys were your choice of poison.

Because despite girls lamenting about the games they played, and despite girls ganging up on, writing about and exposing them all they could, these fuckboys continued to exist. They continued to have more staying power than good guys. And the truth of it was very easy for you to see. Fuckboys existed because girls allowed them to exist. Girls like you. Girls that wanted the thrill of the unknown when it was paired with the accessibility of sex. Fuckboys never turned down sex. And you never turned down a fuckboy.

In some ways, you think you were addicted to them. You liked to think you had a higher sex drive than most, but even so, you needed your nights to be spend in the sharp oblivion of pleasure that these fuckboys brought you. It was your reward for working so hard during the days. You had a roster (rather, a black book) full of them. You had told yourself you’d go through all of them before you graduated and insofar, you had been pretty steady in your ambition. But there was one thorn in your side, that no matter how much you tried, you couldn’t remove. The fucker that had pricked at you for way too long, but not in the way you’d hoped.

Lee Haechan. 

He was one fuckboy, who, despite your tireless efforts, had never rolled in the hay with you. And dammit, tried you had. You had tried to get his attention many times, but he’d never really looked your way. You hated him. Because this thorn on your side had eventually started to mess with your head and your ambition and your roster. Good thing he hated you in return.

You couldn’t say what it was. But the best way you’d explain it is that you had a mental bug that liked patterns and it had made you sleep in patterns and study in patterns and eat in patterns and fuck in patterns. You had gone through your damned black book in patterns and he was. Messing. It. The. Fuck. Up. You hated him.

What was it that made him so arrogant, anyway? 

He wasn’t as good looking as the rest of his friends. He wasn’t that rich or that talented or that special in any way of the word compared to the people he hung around. You knew because you could swear you had fucked half of them.

You knew he hung around with Wong Yukhei. That boy was tall and gorgeous, even if he didn’t come from money. He had a face you could stare at without getting bored, and he was always down to fuck, even during times you’d hear he was seeing someone. So what if looked in the mirror every time you fucked? If you had a face like that, you’d keep looking in the mirror, too.

You knew his roommate was an older student, but he was handsome and had a banging body. He had a talent in fucking with a cock to match, and you suspected that if you had fucked him more than once, you could’ve actually fallen for him. But he was about to graduate soon and your need for a cock between your legs was greater than your need for a grip on your heart.

One of his other friends was Lee Jeno. And truth be told, you needed to fuck Lee Haechan so you could strike him off your roster and finally get to Lee Jeno. You needed to complete that pattern because fuck you, Lee Jeno was getting hotter and hotter by the day and you’d just sat through one of his swimming championships and spent the entire time ogling at the way his briefs clung to his bulge for dear life and your mouth had watered so bad that you’d gotten home that night and rubbed your pussy raw till you knocked out.

So, yes. Lee Haechan was a thorn on your side. He was a roadblock you needed to get past. You needed to put his arrogant prick inside of you so you could get over it and move on and start sleeping around the way God had intended. You fucking hated that he was down to fuck anything that fucking moved but he didn’t want to fuck with you and you didn’t know why. The arrogant fucking asshole. You hated him with everything you had and you needed to fuck him just to wipe that arrogant smile from his face.

It was just as well that the new semester was about to begin, because the break had given you some time to think and organize your plan of action. It didn’t take much scheming effort to find out what classes Lee Haechan was opting for this time around. He always did whatever Lee Mark did and Lee Mark’s girlfriend had a big old mouth when she was drunk and a girls night out with tequilas-a-plenty before school began seemed like the right thing to do and as you knew it, you had a complete list of Lee Haechan’s whereabouts by the time you got home. You were going to be a thorn in his side just like he was till he gave up his arrogant act and just gave it up.

So you came home buzzed that night and signed up for as many classes with Lee Haechan as you could. But it wasn’t enough. The alcohol in your veins was making you want to do something more reckless, so you whipped your phone out and opened Snapchat, only to discover that the motherfucker in question had you blocked.

What an asshole.

But it was okay. Snapchat wasn’t the only SNS you were on. How much more could he hide from you? You went on Instagram instead and shamelessly slid into his DMs. You stood in front of your floor length mirror ass-first and took a picture. You looked cute as fuck. It didn’t matter to you that the hem of your dress was hitching dangerously high. You looked good. You typed in,

‘too much ass for the first day back 🍑?’ as your caption and you hit send.

You smiled to yourself in the mirror. Who could resist you? No one could. Even tonight, on what was presumably a girls night out, men were all over you. Dancing with you in the club, grinding up against your ass in their drunken, lustful haze. Wanting to get you alone. Not many men had ever turned you down. Lee fucking Haechan had to be some sort of a saint. 

You felt the adrenaline in your veins when you heard your phone buzz. Maybe he wasn’t a saint after all. You read his message,

‘Why you asking me?’

You smirked and laid down your bait.

‘wait, who dis? aren’t you lee donghyun?’ you shamelessly typed in.

‘Wrong message I’m guessing? This is Lee Donghyuck.’

‘who tf is lee donghyuck? Idk any lee donghyuck, why r u on my list?’

‘it’s haechan?’

‘ew okay. This wasn’t for you. Don’t be a perv and screenshot or anything okay?’ You were an expert liar.

‘Wasn’t planning on it, L/N,’ was all the fucker sent back. You needed more ammo, so you sent,

‘what if it was for you 😉’

You didn’t get a reply for a while and you thought this was it for the night. But as you were getting ready for bed, your phone finally buzzed.

‘In that case, yeah, it is too much ig’

You smirked to yourself. Operation Fuck Lee Haechan seemed a-go, 

All things considered, you were having the perfect first day back. All your schedules aligned incredibly with all your other socials. You found yourself the perfect outfit that made you look cute enough for college and attractive enough for the boys. As if for a litmus test, you had purposely taken the long route so you’d run into Woobin. He had never been able to resist you and before your second class had begun, you had even fooled around with him a little bit. It was nice to know that the boys hadn’t lost interest in you. Dicks tend to be fickle, and you had wondered if most of your fuckboys had found other flings during the break. But knowing that you still had them riveted gave you the confidence that you still had it. It would’ve been the absolute perfect day, all things considered.

Except when you finally made it to the first class you had together with Lee Haechan, you learnt that the TA had the seats pre-assigned. Which put him next to another girl. It wouldn’t have mattered if he hadn’t kept smiling at her throughout the class. Not that that had ever been a barrier for you. But still, it was another stupid obstacle you’d have to go through if you didn’t do something about it sooner rather than later.

So, as the class ended, you knew you had to get at least one chat in.

“Since when are you called Donghyuck?” you almost inconsiderately barged into his conversation with the girl. She seemed nice enough, but men were creatures of little focus. You needed to block her away from his vision so she’d be out of his sight and out of his mind.

But Lee Haechan was right in your sight. And you saw that he’d caught a nice suntan in the break because his skin was glistening gold beneath the denim jacket he wore. You wondered if all of him was as golden.

“Since birth? Why do you ask?” he replied shortly. He had been talking to the other girl just fine. Why the fuck was he being so rude to you?

“How come people call you Haechan then?” you kept talking.

“None of your business,” he rolled his eyes and the girl behind you giggled. What a bitch she was and what an asshole he was. He had the audacity to quip at you and walk away.

“Okay, ruuude!” you called after him, but let it go. You knew guys usually acted differently around others in particular and in public in general. So you waited till the sun went down--you had learnt that people’s inhibitions tended to lower in the darkness of the night. 

And in the cover of that night, you unbuttoned your top more than you should and zoomed in on your cleavage with your phone and took a picture.

‘Is it my business now?’ you sent.

The motherfucker left you on seen.

The thing with people with dicks is that they seldom use their brain. The moment they start using their minds, one could hypothetically grab them by the balls and make the blood rush to their cocks rather than their skull. That would usually set them right. You were blessed that the TA was a person with a dick. Because a quick handjob in the office was all that was required for him to rearrange the seating plan and situate you right next to Lee Haechan. 

You couldn’t help but smile wide as you entered the lecture hall that day, much earlier than you needed to, and made your way to your new seat. You put your things on Haechan’s seat and waited for the drama to unroll. You saw him entering with that girl and you scoffed when you saw that he was carrying her things. He’d only known her, what? Three days? And he already wanted in her pants. Why else would he be carrying her shit?

Then again, you wanted in his pants, and people often did strange things when their sexual desires and pants were at stake.

“Y/N, this isn’t your seat,” Haechan said impatiently, not even sparing a full look your way. But you looked at him by the eyeful. He was wearing the college hoodie and his legs looked longer than usual. You had two full hours to ogle at him. You could easily take a couple of minutes to revel in the unfolding of your scheme,  just to see the pair of them seethe first.

“Um, yeah it is?” you rolled your eyes at him, because your last interaction had been annoying you more than necessary and you needed to return the gesture.

You heard him let out an exhale. “This is Yeri’s assigned seat. You can keep sitting here but the TA is going to have you move when class begins, anyway,” you could tell he was trying to keep his voice even, exasperated as he sounded.

“Oh, but haven’t you seen? There’s a new seating plan. The TA just posted it!” you held your phone out and showed them the class portal. 

Haechan took your phone and held it closer to see and you saw the slightly sheepish moment of realization when he realized he was wrong. He gave that girl an apologetic look and she shrugged and walked away all the way to the opposite corner of the hall where you had the TA banish her. Having people by the balls was always an advantage. 

You put on your best fake smile as you looked at them and moved your stuff from Haechan’s chair. It felt sweet to be this petty. And begrudgingly, he sat next to you, his body language agitated and his gaze locked straight ahead like he had blinders on. Like he wanted to pretend you didn’t even exist.

But you made your presence known wherever you went. That was something you took pride in. So what if this arrogant fucker wanted to pretend you didn’t exist. You had promised yourself to be a thorn on his side and you were nothing if not consistent. 

“I’ve been trying this new perfume. The one I used to wear got discontinued, which is a travesty,” you began to speak. But the fucker didn’t even hum in response. So you stuck your wrist at him.

“Do you like it?” you waved your wrist under his nose and got the pleasure of getting a reaction out of him, even if it were one of pure annoyance.

“Smells a little like desperation,” he muttered. 

Rude fucking asshole. 

You pulled your wrist back in and straightened in your chair. Why the fuck did he have to be so rude? 

“Now, now, Lee Haechan. All of NCTIT knows you’re not one to turn down a girl in need.”

“And all of NCTIT knows that you’ve got plenty of ways to satisfy that need,” he spoke in an annoyed tone and still didn’t look at you.

“Don’t be rude. I’m just trying to have a little fun,” you lightly tugged on the sleeve of his hoodie but he moved away from your grip.

“Do whatever you want, but get off my back.”

“I haven’t even begun to get on your back, Lee Haechan.”

“What do you want from me?” he suddenly turned to look at your face. He didn’t look angry or annoyed anymore. He just looked cold. You smirked. Some fuckboys were served hot and some were best enjoyed cold. You like them both ways.

“Unblock me on Snapchat.” you smiled at him.

“That’s what’s going to get you to leave me alone?” he cocked an eyebrow.

“Mhmm,” you nodded, smiling wider. You saw that the more you smiled, the more he tried to void himself of a reaction. It was amazing to see him struggle. He pushed his phone to your face just before class began, to show you the proof in the Snapchat pudding.

That night, you sat in nothing but your cutest set of bra and panties and got carried away. Your body looked amazing. You had curves and dips in all the right places and a face to match. Your skin was glowing, your hair looked perfect, and no one wore underwear as well as you did. It wasn’t a secret to you that boys wanted you. What you were seeing in the mirror was proof enough. It wasn’t illegal to flaunt what you already have. So what was meant to be a quick selfie turned into a 30-minute photoshoot. You took so many pictures of yourself that you had enough thirst traps to last you weeks. But these days, you only had one person to trap.

You picked out the cutest picture from the reel, one where the light hit your tits and ass just right and opened Snapchat and sent it to your victim.

‘one before bed x’ 

You didn’t expect a reply back, at least not yet. You didn’t expect that he’d take a screenshot, either. You smirked, even in your sleep because Lee Haechan had taken the bait.

This would’ve been the lamest Halloween party in the world, even if Lee Haechan wasn’t sucking face with that girl. 

He wasn’t even dressed that special. He had put together the laziest Dracula costume that existed, and in a world where you weren’t hellbent on chasing him, you wouldn’t even have noticed him. You had been invited to so many other parties. You could’ve gone to any of them and had a better time. But the 127 party was where you would find him and that’s where you had to be. Now that you were here though, you wondered what good it did to put in all that effort to dress up. This was a perfect waste of your favorite black lingerie. You could’ve saved it for a better party, one where you had more eyes on you. The boys in here were drunk out of their fucking minds to notice you much. You hated being here more than you hated Lee Haechan.

“That is quite the tail you’ve got there,” you heard a voice behind you. 

The voice came from behind a Squid Game Triangle Masked Man, so it wasn’t totally rude to give the rest of the body a once over… you couldn’t exactly see the eyes behind the mask now, could you? You didn’t hate what you could see.

“That’s quite the… pink overall you’ve got there yourself,” you smiled and stood up straighter and pushed your shoulders back. Your lingerie top put plenty of tit on display and it had been irking you all night that not one man had tried to hit on you yet. 

The man unmasked himself and you actually felt the heat grow between your legs when you discovered it was none other than Lee Jeno himself. You had gotten so lost in your schemes, that you had forgotten Lee Jeno was the reason you’d been going through all that bother with Lee Haechan. How strange that he came to you all by himself, without you having to put in any effort at all.

“Oh, what a pity. I thought it'd be Na Jaemin under all of that,” you fake lamented. You knew these two had come together in couple-costumes. You earned a pout and a smolder in return.

“Bold of you to assume Na Jaemin would stay at a party this long,” he said and you actually laughed.

“Hmm. But you’re not meant to unmask yourself. Guess I’ll have to kill you now,” you angled your body towards him, just enough for him to keep flirting.

“Don’t I get a last wish?” he said and this time, he let his gaze travel along your body, too. You had him, hook, line and sinker.

“Lee Jeno has a catgirl fetish. Who would’ve thought?” you said when his gaze finally travelled up to your eyes. You held it.

“Who says it's my catgirl fetish that’s acting up?” he replied and if you were being honest with yourself, you were caught a little off guard. Because you’d been with enough fuckboys to know how they worked. You knew the weight of their words. You understood if they wanted a one-off or something more. And this boy seemed to be leaning on the side of something more. 

“Pity. Here I thought I’d find out what’s hiding behind those pink overalls,” you raised your eyebrows. You saw his eyes darken.

“I could show you,” he grumbled and took you by the wrist and began to move you away. But Lee Haechan had started to walk up to the DJ and the lights were starting to dim. Maybe the party was finally getting started. So you held him back.

“What’s the rush? Let’s dance first,” you said, because you needed to keep Lee Haechan in your sight.

Jeno smiled and led you the opposite way instead. And when the music and the flashing lights and the darkness began to engulf your bodies, he made quick work of his hands. They grabbed at the full flesh of your ass and pulled you into his hard body. He was built, but that much you had seen when you’d ogle at him in the pool. But his hands were thirsty and they grabbed at you with the exact type of want you needed from men. You pressed your chest against him and you danced and the lights flashed and made it hard to think much. He smelled good, too. He was tall and he was handsome and he was into you. The lights were blinding and your mind was slowing. He was a good dancer. He took control of your movements and the heat between your legs grew. You’re sure he was grinding against everything that was right. But the flashing lights lowered your inhibitions and heightened your senses and you could’ve sworn you saw Lee Haechan’s eyes on you. 

But soon, it felt too good. Soon, it was as if all sweaty bodies in the room were merging into one. Soon, it felt like everyone was grinding on everyone because you’re pretty sure you lost Lee Jeno in the crowd. It felt good to just dance in the darkness of the flashing lights. It felt good to feel random hands on your body and just let go. You closed your eyes and you smiled as the euphoria took over. You moved your body and your hips and your ass against everything that came close enough. And then you felt a pair of hands on your waist that only made your smile grow. Somehow, you didn’t need to open your eyes to know who they belonged to.

You took your chance. You easily looped your arms around his neck and pulled him into you. And he didn’t move away. Maybe the blinding lights protected him, too. If just for these moments, he forgot all about his ego. Because he grabbed at the hair at the base of your neck and tilted your head back. And he captured your lips in a hungry kiss. 

You moaned into his mouth and moved your hands under his cape and over his belly. You felt the planes of his abs through the fabric, but your curiosity burnt hotter. His lips tasted like strawberry jam, but you wanted to taste more of him. You tugged at his top and made it untuck from his pants. You travelled your hands up and felt his stomach, skin on skin. He hissed and flipped you around so your back would be to his front and your ass right against his crotch. He held you into him with an arm around your waist. You felt the hardness of him on your back. You felt his breath hot on your neck. You heard the grunt from his mouth as he rolled back and thrusted against you. And standing right here in the thick of this party where everyone was drunk out of their minds and dancing in the dark into oblivion... standing right fucking here and getting dry humped by Lee Haechan was the hottest thing that had ever happened to you. 

The music changed and the lights changed with it and the moment was stolen from you way too soon. You felt him turn and blend into the crowd before you’d even had a chance to look at him. The ache between your legs was wanton and identifiable, but the unease in your chest was what you couldn’t place.

“There you are,” Lee Jeno appeared by your side, “I thought I’d lost you.”

“Here I am,” you replied, though you weren’t. You weren’t really there.

By the time you got home, you had pretty much made up your mind on what you wanted to do next. You slipped out of your panties and stood ass first in front of the mirror once more.

‘this what u wanted?’ you sent, and before you had put yourself to bed, you finally earned your first real reply. You opened the message and your mouth watered at what you saw. Haechan stood in his bathroom with this shirt pulled up to expose his abs and your eyes finally saw what your hands had felt. 

‘and this is what you wanted,’ his message read. You couldn’t argue with that. Though only his jaw was visible in the image, you could tell he had a smug expression on his face.

You rode your vibrator that night as the sensory image of Lee Haechan rolling his crotch into your ass played in your mind over and over. You knew it was game on.

Any normal person could see that it was getting out of hand.

Your pictures to him were getting way out of control but you loved every moment of it. It made every cell in your body come alight. In some ways, the thrill of sending naughty pictures to Lee Haechan felt better than getting fucked in a stranger’s bed. You don’t know what it was.

On Monday, you decided he needed to see how well your back arched. So you put on your favorite bodysuit and kneeled on all fours and took what you thought was a really inviting picture.

‘i know this how you like it x’

You were rewarded with a picture of him laying in bed, even if he still had his clothes on.

‘almost but not really tho’

On Tuesday, you decided to get a little bolder. You took a picture of your bottom half laying in bed with your hand tugging onto your panties.

‘wanna lick my cameltoe?’

You got a Snap of his face wearing a cocked brow and feigned disapproval.

‘unsolicited pussy pics are not it, l/n’

So you put a hand inside your underwear so he’d see the gesture but not the offense.

‘why don’t you tell me to stop then?’

Motherfucker left you on seen that night.

The rest of the week went by in exactly the same fashion. You sending him risque photos and him replying just enough to keep you going without losing faith. It took you a while to realize that suddenly, you were the one being played. Yet, your instinct couldn’t have been totally wrong. Because every night, you’d rile him up with something more shocking than before and every morning you'd sit next to him in class and feel the heat coming off of him. You knew he was more interested than he let on. He hadn’t really been seen with that girl much anymore.

So you decided to amp things up.

On Wednesday, you contemplated going fully topless and just giving him an eyeful of your front. But at the last moment, you turned on the LED lights in your room and decided to cover your nipples with your forearm as you sent him a clip of you swaying to sensual music.

‘wanna dance with you again’

‘careful l/n,’ he sent back a Snap of himself, still too clothed for your liking.

‘don’t i get to see those abs again👅’ you demanded shamelessly.

He had waited a few moments before he sent back an ominous ‘Maybe.’

An ominous maybe was just a yes in waiting and it gave you enough information to know that you were moving in the right direction, but maybe it was time to do something more outrageous. You really needed this to get a reaction out of him.

Because although your nights were spent trying to seduce Haechan, Lee Jeno had been giving you a lot of attention during the days. As it turned out, he hadn’t really thought much of being blue balled that night at the Halloween party because on Tuesday, you found him waiting outside your lecture hall.

“I found you,” he said, smiling. He smiled with his eyes more so than his mouth, and a part of you had to admit that that shit was endearing. It was the kind of shit you could fall for, if you ever became that bitch. You ate lunch with him that day and you sat so incredibly close to him that you smelled like his cologne by the time you made it to your next class.

On Wednesday, Lee Jeno invited you to come see him at his swimming event. He won the competition and you found yourself furiously making out with him in the boys locker room while he wore his medal around his neck, his naked torso pressing into your clothed tits as he pinned you against the wall.

On Thursday, you felt your pussy throbbing for him as you walked past him working out at the campus gym. His sweat ran down the curve of his neck and you wondered what it tasted like. His veins popped angry in his forearms and you wondered how he'd respond if you asked him to choke you with them. He was a sexy beast and you needed to be in his bed. 

But your fucked up brain still needed to go through that darned pattern. 

There were other ways to have fun, you had thought; one that wouldn’t mess with your mental patterns or black book rosters. So, on Friday, it so happened that Lee Jeno invited himself over to your place and you finally decided to throw all your chips on the table.

While Jeno slipped into your bathroom, you stripped yourself of all your clothes and you sat at your vanity. You put your phone against it and you spread your legs and you masturbated on camera. You moaned and you grinded on your fingers and you made your pussy glisten and you hit send on your phone. You didn’t write a caption, not this time. The content was pretty self-explanatory, and if he wasn’t going to reply, you’re sure that at the very least, it would make him hard. You put your phone down and returned to rubbing yourself on the chair because fuck, the idea of Lee Haechan seeing you in heat was driving you crazy, and that’s how Lee Jeno found you.

So, before he could make a move, you kneeled and you took him in your mouth and you blew the living daylights out of him. You didn’t stop to ask how he liked it. You blew his cock and you blew his mind because the grunts that came out of the boy were as sexy as the rest of him and not once did he ask you to stop. You looked up at him even when you took him all the way down your throat and made a show of gagging on him. Guys liked thinking they had a bigger cock than any you’d taken, and you liked him well enough to inflate his ego that way. But by the end of it, you’re not sure whether it was his ego you had inflated or something else. Because most fuckboys would’ve walked out the door the moment they nutted in your mouth. You hadn’t expected that this one would help you with the clean up and keep kissing your mouth and make you hot tea to soothe your aching throat before he left. 

It was a brainfuck in every sense of the world. Lee Jeno had fucked your skull and your brain and by the time he was kissing you at the doorstep, you had no idea what to make of any of it. You hadn’t really planned any pit stops in your black book. Then again, Lee Jeno was the last cock in your roster. You didn’t have any other men after him you wanted to pursue--at least not yet. Unless you added more names to that book, you wouldn’t really know what to do when you finally got to Lee Jeno. Would he really become your final destination in the true way? 

It was a bizarre feeling going to bed that night and wondering how it came to you this easy. Lee Jeno didn’t give you the satisfaction of a chase, neither the gratification that came with the realization that the cock you were fucking belonged to an asshole. He was neither a fuckboy, nor a good guy. He had enough adventure in his stride to be one, but enough decency in his actions to be the other. It was the strangest moment of your life, realizing that a man you wanted between your legs was a good person. Nothing in your life was ever easy. Then how come Lee Jeno was basically yours for the taking?

That night you laid in bed and went through your notifications. You finally had a reply from Haechan, and what you saw confirmed to you that throwing all your chips in really had done the trick. Because Lee Haechan had finally rewarded you with a dick pic. 

You didn’t even give it an eyeful before you closed it. For the first time in your little scheme, it was you that left him on seen. You don’t know what made you cry into your pillow that night.

“It’s literally a cabin in the woods. Depending on how much it snows, we can do a couple of fun things,” Jeno told you as he walked you to class.

“Okay, but how many people will be there?” you asked. That made him stop walking; you only realized as much when you had left him a few steps behind. You turned around, “What?”

“I… I was hoping it would just be the two of us,” Jeno said slowly, watching your face for a reaction.

“Oh…” was all you could say for a while. This request came out of nowhere. You hadn’t really known him that long--a couple of weeks at best. You didn’t know what to say. 

Jeno smiled and stepped forward to close the gap between you two and took your face in his palms. “You don’t have to answer right away. But we’re not getting any other long weekends this semester. It could be fun.”

It felt easy to smile back at him as he held you, even if you didn’t know what to tell him. “I’ll think about it,” you said, because you assumed that this is what normal people said in situations like these. You saw the sparkle in his eye at your words and you felt that unease in your chest once again. A normal reaction from men you’d receive was a stiffening in their pants. A sparkle in their eye was new and unusual, though you weren’t sure you much enjoyed the sensation it brought to your gut. It was almost a relief when he ended the conversation with a kiss to your lips and walked away with a farewell. Because you needed to start thinking straight before you made it to your next class.

But no amount of mental prep made sitting next to Lee Haechan any easier. You had no idea what was happening to you. But the heat you used to feel between the two of you was replaced by an awkward, dark energy. Because ever since you had masturbated for him on camera and ever since he had revealed his cock to you, there had been nothing but radio silence.

You didn’t talk to each other. You didn’t acknowledge one another. When the night would fall and you’d find yourself alone, you didn’t model for him. Lee Jeno had been on the receiving end of your camera skills these days. You had hoped it would be enough to keep him occupied and happy whilst you untied your mental knots. But they were tugged on tight. No matter how much you told yourself that patterns didn’t matter, that black books didn’t matter, that not everything in this world had to be sense and order… those knots in your mind had taken years to form. There was no untangling them any time soon. You’d sooner get Lee Haechan in your bed than detangle your mind.

But you had stopped chasing Lee Haechan, too. What the fuck was it that you wanted? You had no idea. Why were you stuck in this limbo? You hadn’t a clue. Lee Haechan didn’t want you and Lee Jeno wanted you and you couldn’t have one without the other. You were fucked up. That much you had always known; but you don’t remember the last time you’d been this fucked up. Fuck Lee Jeno for waltzing into your life before you had invited him. Fuck him for fucking up the perfect plan in your head--one where you’d fuck Haechan before him. Fuck him for coming to your first and not even making you work for it. Fuck him for being kind and treating you right and not expecting too much. Because look what he fucking did your brain. 

And now he wanted to take you away to a cabin in the woods in the snow. Like you were someone he could wine and dine and treat right and she’d be his in all her faith. What a fucking mess. You had no idea what to do.

Perhaps the universe took pity on you because before the end of the class, you learnt that for this course, you’d all have to visit the field site and the only time they were willing to accommodate so many college students at the same time was during the long weekend. 

You finally had an out. And an opportunity. You didn’t know if you wanted either of it.

Pulling yourself together and putting your mind back in the scheme turned out to be a much easier task than you thought it would be. 

Your dry spell ended when you learnt that for the field site visit, you had to work in groups of three. Manipulating group assignments was your forte, because you’re pretty sure you still had the TA by the balls. It was good to feel like you finally had control over something. So even if the TA didn’t want just a handjob this time, you sank to your knees and took him in your mouth and by the end of it all, the entire class had been divided into groups of three except for you and Haechan who would work as a twosome. It was only later in bed that you realized that you had sucked a man you didn’t really want to suck. You could only go to sleep when you had rinsed your mouth with a whole bottle of Listerine and your tongue seemed raw and blistered. So what? You were back in control. And in the morning, you finally sent Haechan a picture after a week and a half of silence. 

‘heard we were partners,’ the caption read over a selfie that was tame by your standards. Just a regular top with too much cleavage. He had definitely seen more.

‘you heard right,’ you got in return a picture of him presumably just out of the shower, still too many clothes on.

You needed to get a move on or you’d never be able to move on. You needed to pull yourself together and remind yourself that you were a desirable fucking bitch whose heat men couldn’t resist. Lee Haechan was just a man. You needed to treat him like more of a man and less as a roadblock with too much control over you.

So during the trip to the field site, you fucked with his head. Before that girl could even daydream of finding herself next to him, you’d manipulated everyone on this bus to make it so that only you could sit next to him in the back and he couldn’t switch seats no matter what he did. He sulked and stared out the window for the first few minutes, keeping up his tradition of pretending you don’t exist when the two of you were in broad daylight. But this was the man that had dry humped you in the darkness of the dancefloor. So when everyone had settled in their seats and the excitement about being on a trip over a long weekend had died down, you put your hand on his thigh. And you rubbed. Motherfucker didn’t move, even when you saw his jaw clench. You moved your hand higher up between his legs, feeling around for what you needed and that’s when he caught your wrist and silently, but roughly jerked it away. You smiled. You wanted him riled up. You liked him riled up. It gave you so much control.

You fucked with him throughout the time you were meant to be working together. When the coordinator presented you with something to observe under the microscope, you pressed into Haechan’s side till you felt the leather of his belt cutting into your hip. You saw him gritting his teeth but not saying a word as he worked. You put your hand over his when he reached to grab something. You held his bicep to get out of your seat. Later, you made quite a show of bending over to pick something from the ground and grazing your ass against his crotch. Maybe he needed to relive a memory to act on his instinct. But he was colder than you realized.

Or maybe, he really did hate you.

Because you had been chasing him for weeks. You had done everything you could. You had stripped down naked for him and fucking masturbated for him. And he still didn’t want you.

It had to be you. Because Lee Haechan was fine with just about everyone else. When he hung with his friends, he smiled the brightest. When he spoke to that girl, he spoke with kindness. When he was in bigger groups, he’d become the life of the party and the de facto leader. When he was with older students, he had no trouble playing the mischievous little brother. But when you’d walk in, it was as if you sucked his energy like a blackhole. He’d shut off. He’d turn cold. He’d lose his words and he'd avert his gaze. He hated you, but not in a passionate way. He hated you where he didn’t want to spare any emotion for you, because he thought you were that undeserving.

You felt that uneasiness in your chest again, only this time, it travelled up to your throat. Lee Haechan was going to be a thorn in your side in more ways than you could’ve imagined. He loved his friends and his family, he did well in college, he had talent and beauty, he was God’s favorite and you weren’t. His apathy hit you like a dagger and you snuck away, disappearing from the rest of the group and spending the rest of the trip in hiding. It wasn’t going to work. You’d gotten naked for him. You’d gotten to your knees and taken a man in your mouth you didn’t want to take. All for him. But none of it worked. You stole a bottle of liquor from the coordinator’s office and you drank from it till you passed out in your hiding spot. And on the night before you had to leave, you took your chances and sent him a message.

‘I’m out in the woods,’ you wrote, no picture this time.

It was in the dark of the night and in the thick of the trees. And Haechan liked you in secret. That was a hypothesis you had to test. The gentle rustling of the leaves and the soft crunching in the grass confirmed to you as much.

He wore a scowl as he often wore whenever he was around you. He approached you like he was being cautious.

“Where have you been?” he demanded, “I had to complete all the requirements myself.”

“It’s our last night together, Haechan. Don’t you want to have some fun?” you stuck your tongue out. And in the sharp fluorescence of the moonlight, he saw the heart shaped pill sitting pretty in your mouth. 

He leaned in and sucked it from you, his lips closing around your tongue and taking what he needed. His hands roamed down your waist and onto your ass and once again, Lee Haechan wrapped himself around you in the darkness of the night and in the blindness of the moonlight. You were right. This was the only way he liked you.

But his touch kept growing, like his hands were multiplying till they were touching you deep in your skin and you held onto him impossibly tight and moaned into his mouth. His touch was everywhere you had heat on your body like there were many of him and only one of you and he was surrounding you in every raise of the hair that prickled your skin. He was moaning, too. You felt the reverberations of him in your throat, right in your jugular and right in your ribs that were threatening to split open. You wanted to split open for him. 

You were one with the earth. He was you and you were him and you were the earth and the earth was in you. You were suffocating in the scent of him and your breaths were the same. He was breathing in your mouth and taking the life of you. You wanted him to take it all and end it. You were gripping into him and your fingers were sinking into his flesh and bones. You were feeling all of him. You were calling out his name and now he was behind you and you were drowning into the dirt. You felt him in waves and you felt his voice singing in your ear. What was this melody? You felt like you had heard it before. You didn’t know many songs. But you sang his name in return. There was so much pleasure in calling out his name. You felt it in your being and in your insides and you called it out till it felt like you were extorting it out of your body. Like his name was a shard of glass that shredded you from the inside as it came out of you. And you sang it again. And again. And again. You sang it till your throat was bleeding. You sang it till you felt rakes scratching down your skin. You sang it till you felt him on top of you, suffocating you once more and immobilizing you. Haechan, Haechan, Haechan.

Haechan. He could take the life of you and you’d die happy. Haechan. He lived inside of you but never outside. Haechan. He needed you in the dark but never in the light.

You were ripped open for him and he’d seen your insides. Your breaths were gone and your heart was flying. You gripped at him. You wanted everything back. How dare he take so much from you? ‘Give it back to me! Set me free!’ you screamed. 

Haechan, Haechan, Haechan. You were drowning in him and he in you. Haechan, Haechan, Haechan. You could taste the blood and euphoria on your tongue. Haechan, Haechan, Haechan. You never existed and you never could. Haechan, Haechan, Haechan. Nothing was light and everything was dark and you had never mattered to anyone. 

Haechan. 

Haechan. 

Haechan.

You were stumbling even as you laid and that girl was pressing a palm to your head. Was she trying to kill you?

“I checked your temperature because I thought you had a fever. Do you feel anything?” she asked.

Do you feel anything. 

What a strange thing to ask.

Did you feel anything?

You didn’t feel anything.

Nothing at all.

“I think you may have caught a cold out there. Do you want me to get you something?” she asked. You snatched away.

“I’m fine,” you snapped though your throat felt like sand. Had you been looking, you would’ve seen her face look taken aback.

“Okay. The bus is leaving in an hour. Thought you should know,” she said and left you alone.

What happened out there? How did you catch a cold? You’d been hiding and he’d been hiding with you. You’d been laughing and you’d been running. What happened?

You needed to shower.

You rid yourself of your clothes and jumped at the sight of the smooth planes of your skin. He had cut you open. That much you remembered. He had cut you open and felt your insides. But how could he have done it? You weren’t even scratched. You felt the memory of him in every inch of your skin. Had you fucked? Did you finally get what you wanted from him? 

You didn’t remember.

And that thought had you emptying your stomach into the toilet.

You climbed into the bus and he looked up, like he’d been waiting. He wordlessly moved the jacket from the seat next to his. Like he’d been keeping it for you. And you sat because where else would you go? This was your doing. You had nowhere else to go. And when the bus started moving and everyone settled in, he held your hand and he intertwined your fingers.

You just wanted to go home.

You turned a corner when you caught sight of Lee Jeno. He’d been looking for you the whole day and you’d been avoiding him the whole day. You’re not sure what it was: did you not want to see him or did you not want to face him?

‘free now?’ you read part of his message in the pop up notification but not all. You didn’t want to open the text and have him see that you had read it.

‘should I pick you up after class?’ he messaged again and you felt like you were suffocating. You walked around campus, trying to avoid all the places you’d run into him.

‘Is it okay if i come over tonight? I miss you,’ his last message read and you switched your phone off. This was too much. You were suffocating and you wanted to hide. You turned and almost ran head first into the TA’s chest. He held you by the shoulders to steady you and you flinched away. Why were people touching you?

“Trying to skip class, Ms. L/N?” he said in a tone you didn’t quite like.

“No, I’m just getting my things…” you looked away to walk away, but he didn’t let you. Your alarm bells rang hot in your ears. Nothing about this situation seemed right. 

“Hold on, Ms. L/N. I’ve been meaning to discuss something,” he said with a smile on his face. You looked around and maneuvered yourself so you’d be in a spot where people could see you. And who else was going to catch you in your lowest moments but Lee Haechan? You felt his eyes on you and you weren’t sure you felt any safer.

“I know you're failing your classes,” he began. Still smiling. You saw Haechan scowling your way from the corner of your eye.

“I guess I am,” you replied shortly. Perhaps he didn’t like the sudden ice in your stature toward him.

“You don’t have to, you know. I’ve told Professor Lin what a talented girl you are,” he reached in to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear and you felt your skin crawl. 

“Oh? Did you tell him how you knew?” you replied. You couldn’t see Haechan in your periphery anymore. You felt the danger deep in your belly. You didn’t like where this was going. 

His eyes darkened. “I’ve been helping you a lot, Ms. L/N. Sometimes, you need to help me, too.”

“Is there a problem?” you heard Haechan’s voice behind you. But you didn’t stop to hear the rest of the conversation. You turned on your heel and you ran away.

You were good at running away.

But how could you feel suffocated in your own home? 

Lee Jeno kept knocking on your door and ringing up your phone as you sat on the floor with your hands pressed to your ears. That’s how. 

You wanted to scream. You wanted everyone to leave you the fuck alone. Who did he think he was, trying to check up on you? For what? He hadn’t really known you that long. Who was he to think he had any right to check up on you? Who gave him the right to knock on your door and fuck with your head like this? All he had done since the moment he had met you was fuck with your head. 

Why did everyone keep messaging you? Why did you reopen your phone? What did everyone want from you? You felt like you were caged. You needed Lee Jeno to get the fuck away from your door so you could run and hide. You weren’t safe, not even in your own home. 

Eventually, he did, and you shot out. You were losing control, that much you could sense. Everyone wanted something from you. Everyone wanted to fuck you and use you and blame you and shame you. You couldn’t breathe. Your chest was so tight that you pounded on it with your fist as you ran. You needed help. 

You don’t know how you found yourself in the living room of your professor’s house, sipping onto the mulled wine he gave you. But it did good to numb your mind. The fireplace you sat in front of made you feel like you were sinking into a hot bath. Maybe you were finally coming down with the cold you had caught on the trip. But your mind was foggy and that’s how you liked it. Everything was finally slowing. It felt nice to sit in Professor Hwang’s company, in the luxury of his comfortable townhouse. It felt soothing to listen to his voice take over your senses. It felt almost relieving feeling his large hand smoothen over the skin of your shoulder. It felt inevitable to find his lips on yours. 

And when he disrobed and walked into his room, you followed.

The legs you were using to walk didn’t feel like your own. It was far too cold and your dress was far too short. But there was too much alcohol in your veins to really make you feel a difference, let alone have you know your elbow from your ass. How much more could you run? Where else could you hide? You had exhausted all your safe harbors and running grounds. So you walked back home, though by the time you climbed the first flight of steps, you were stumbling. And a figure stood waiting outside your door. But it wasn’t Lee Jeno.

“What are you doing here?” you snapped at it.

He wore the same scowl he always wore when he saw you, but you didn’t have to be totally drunk to know that tonight’s expression was a cocktail of not just disapproval, but also concern. “Where have you been? Everyone’s looking all over for you,” he said.

“Why is everyone looking for me?” maybe they wanted to shame you.

“You told them you’d come to dinner. Why didn’t you come?” his eyebrows were slightly lifted and his head slightly tilted, like he was trying to search your face in the dim light of the street lamp. That’s how he liked you. In the darkness, where the lights could blind.

“Didn’t feel like it,” you said and stumbled on the step. But he strode ahead and caught you. You flinched away.

“Are you drunk?” he asked, and his voice wore only concern. How dispensable.

“What are you doing here?” you angered again and hurried to your door. You fumbled with your key and felt the burning behind your eyes when you couldn’t get it right.

He took it from your hands and unlocked the door. “Why have you been avoiding me?” he returned your question with one of his own and he followed you in. You didn’t want him here.

“What happened between us that night?” you replied in yet another question.

“Nothing,” he said, almost too quickly, like he’d been expecting you’d ask that as soon as you saw him. His head was shaking and his face was solemn. His eyes were round. Fearful.

“It couldn’t have been nothing. You…” he what? What could he have done that night that was more sickening than what you did?

“Y/N… nothing happened…” he inched towards you, shoulders hunched, arms stretched forward, approaching you with caution.

“How can you know?” you asked and you felt you would choke on your tears.

“I didn’t take as much as you, Y/N… I remember everything that happened. I got you back to your room that night…” he stood affront you and placed his hands on your forearms. You felt your chest reverberating from sniffles of tears that couldn’t fall.

“Why don’t you want me?” you croaked yet another accusation at him, much different to what you’d been accusing him of a moment ago. Did he fuck you? He didn’t fuck you. Why didn’t he fuck you? 

You were crazy.

“Y/N…” he whispered and his hands moved to the back of your shoulders, pulling you in. You resisted.

“Fuck me now,” you whispered back suddenly and you grabbed at his shirt and began to unbutton it. He held your wrists.

“Y/N, you’re burning up. You’ve got a fever. Just sit down--”

“Why won’t you fuck me, Donghyuck?” you gripped at his shirt because he didn’t allow your hands to do much else.

“Y/N, just sit down--”

“Why won’t you fuck me? Is it because I disgust you? Is it because you find me deplorable?” 

“Come here--”

“Is it because I deserve everything I get? Is it because not even my family spared my body?” you pushed against him. But he held you in a stronghold. Not letting you go.

“Shh…” he hushed and you felt hot, fat tears on your face. You gripped at him once more.

“Why won’t you fuck me?” he had messed up your pattern and now look what you did. “Please, fuck me,” so you begged.

“Y/N. Come here,” he pushed your face into his chest and held you tight.

“Please, fuck me,” you sobbed and you begged into him. He held you tighter till you felt you were suffocating again. But this was a different kind of suffocation.

“Please fuck me,” your sobs grew more desperate and your pleas more pathetic. But he held you so tight that you almost felt your blood cut off. You found yourself sinking into him and your eyes closing and your head spinning. Maybe you were still begging him. Maybe you were sinking once more. Maybe it was the room that was spinning. Maybe that’s why you were on top of him instead of against him. Maybe that’s why your head was heavy and your eyes still hot and his shirt still wet and his lips still warm. They were so warm on your head. You wanted to drink in the scent of him. But he moved much too soon.

“Don’t go,” you pleaded.

“I’m not. We need to bring your fever down,” he said gently. This boy hated you. Perhaps he pitied you more than he hated you in this moment. “Do you have any medicine?”

You shook your head. 

“I’ll go get some,” he replied and you took his hand and repeated,

“Don’t go.” You didn’t know what you’d do if he went.

He looked torn. Like he didn’t know whether to help your body or your mind. He held your gaze and sank to the floor, sitting cross-legged by your bed as you laid, searching your face.

“Have you eaten?”

You shook your head, “I don’t want to.”

He nodded and when he had concluded his internal battle, he took your hand in both of his and kissed the back of it.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said gently. And you knew what he meant, though he couldn’t possibly have known.

You felt the tears hot on your cheeks once more. Maybe the fever was boiling them in your eyes. 

But how could it not be your fault? Everything happened because you willed it so. Everything that happened was your own doing. You looked away. But he whispered once more.

“None of it. None of it was your fault, okay?”

You intertwined your fingers with his. It didn’t matter if he pitied you or spoke those words from the kindness of his heart. It was nice to hear them as you slept.

You didn’t want to go for any of your classes. You wanted to stay in bed where you were comfortable and hidden. You were already failing everything. You’d probably have to repeat, anyway. What did it matter if you missed a few days?

But you had to get up. Staying in bed would mean that you’d have too much time to think about what you did. So you got up and dressed yourself and you went to campus. There weren’t very many places you could go.

Jeno found you and this time, you didn’t have it in you to hide away. He took one look at your face and he held you in his arms. You leaned into him because you couldn’t really fight it. And when it seemed you were going to break, he shielded you with his jacket and walked you away from a place where there would be too many seeing eyes to the safety of his training room where it was just the two of you. He didn’t ask you why you cried into his chest. He just held you till you cried from being undeserving of him. He was light and you were darkness. You didn’t want to dim him.

“I knew something was up,” he said as he pulled back and wiped your tears with his thumbs.

You looked into his kind eyes. The eyes that you had told yourself you could fall for. You leaned in and you kissed his lips. You didn’t deserve him. But you wanted to know what it felt like to be kissed from love and not lust. To be treated with tenderness rather than irk. Jeno kissed you slow and gave you everything your heart had been yearning for. 

Why?

Why did he give you your heart’s desire? 

You hadn’t really done much for him. 

You hadn’t even known him that long.

But he had decided that he wanted to give you his affection and his actions had mirrored his heart. 

You placed your cheek on the hard planes of his chest and you closed your eyes till you felt you were drifting. Why did you leave your bed? You had no energy left. You were too cold and your head was too light. 

Why did you feel undeserving of Jeno’s kindness? Why did being vulnerable to him feel like you were breaking a rule? What good were rules and patterns when all they had done was fuck with your head and make you…

You couldn’t finish the thought. You just held onto him tighter.

“Let’s get out of here,” he spoke in your ear.

“I don’t have the energy,” you said and it made you feel broken. Your eyes burned. 

He kissed your cheek and made you rest your head on his shoulder. “You’re sick. You should be in bed.”

You nodded.

Patterns, rules, rosters, black books.

It was all fucked up. You had fucked it all up. You hated what you had become. You hated your skin and your body and your very being. You cried in Jeno’s car and all he could do was hold your hand as he drove you. He didn’t know you much. He was playing the boyfriend to a girl he had met at a party just a few weeks ago. One he hardly even knew. Would he still be kind to you once he figured out how fucked up you were? Would he still want to chase you and dote on you once he found out what you had done?

It didn’t matter that Lee Haechan didn’t fuck you.

You had broken the pattern.

You had freed yourself.

Was the price of freedom always this gruesome? 

Jeno kept smiling patiently as you let him in. He sat you on the edge of your bed and crouched to take your shoes off for you.

Were you really so weak that people had to take care of you like this? First Haechan and now him? But Jeno wasn’t people, was he? What else could you have felt when you hadn’t really known the benevolence he was giving you?

Your world was divided into good guys and fuckboys. You’d never give good guys the time of day. Your nights would usually end when the fuckboy would nut. Jeno wasn’t a good guy. Jeno wasn’t a fuckboy, either. He was just a decent fucking human being. 

Could you have him?

What would you do once you had him?

You didn’t know how to keep a person. You enjoyed your solitude. 

He was so pure and you were so vile. He was so gentle and you were so brazen. He was so kind and you were so cruel. He was good and you were evil.

But it felt good to be cared for by an angel. You were going to destroy him. But you didn’t have the energy in you to warn him. So you sat and accepted everything he was giving you. But your lips spoke of their own accord.

“Why are you so nice to me?”

He looked up from your feet and stroked the side of your cheek. “I like you.”

“Why? Why do you like me?”

He shrugged, though the kind smile didn’t leave his face. “I don’t know. Why does anyone like anyone?”

“But you don’t know anything about me.”

He nodded like he agreed but wanted you to see something else. “True. We don’t know each other that well yet. But I still like you, and we can get to know each other.”

You could get to know each other. What a strange proposition. No one had really wanted to know you. And you weren’t sure they’d like you much when they did.

“You don’t know the things I’ve done,” more tears fell from your eyes. He didn’t wipe them this time. He studied your face, like he was choosing his next words.

“We all make mistakes, Y/N. I’ve made mistakes, too. But I still like you.”

He was an innocent. He had no idea what he was talking about. What good would it do him to find out?

“I want to tell you someday,” you whispered and surprised yourself. Would you ever tell him like you said you would? He had no clue what would hit him. He didn’t know you. His idea of you was so different from your idea of yourself. 

“Take all the time you need,” he held your hands.

Maybe you could have this. Maybe it really was this easy sometimes. Maybe love was as easy to give as Jeno made it seem. How difficult could it be to receive it?

“Let’s go to your cabin someday,” you said softly. He smiled the widest smile so far, one that made his eyes disappear into crescents atop his cheeks. It made you smile in return. Your mind slowed and your heart swelled. 

You didn’t know him. 

He didn’t know you, either. Maybe that was a blessing. Because the way he treated you made you hate yourself just a little less.

Patterns were like shackles. Getting up meant brushing your teeth thrice and going out meant scrubbing till your skin burned raw. Eating meant precise calculations and not eating meant having to start all over again. Reds came before blues and yellows before purples and you could fuck the same fuckboy twice but only if it maintained the harmony of your roster. Patterns shackled your wrists and your ankles but kept you from destruction. 

But you had broken your pattern. Maybe you had freed yourself of your shackles. 

Walking to campus didn’t feel numbing anymore. Putting on a pretty dress this morning felt soothing. Brushing your hair without counting your strokes felt comfortable. Stepping on grass and smelling the flowers in the air felt relaxing. You were here. You were present. You were alive. You were okay. You were well.

Your blood had only known how to burn hot in your veins. You didn’t know you had the ability to feel the warmth that you felt as you walked towards Jeno’s training room. Was this the difference between love and lust? One burnt you in a fire and the other slowed the flames to a warmth? You couldn’t be in love with Lee Jeno. You hadn’t known him long. You didn’t even know what love was.

But your heart was full and your mind calm. You were walking to see him. So why couldn’t you find him?

Why did you suddenly feel the eyes of many boring into the back of your head?

Why did the warmth in your blood turn to ice on your skin?

Why did the sweet melody of birds around you turn to murmurs in your ears?

Why was everyone sneaking glances at you?

Why was everyone talking about you?

“There she is.”

“Can’t believe she’s showing her face.”

“The campus slut.”

“What a whore.”

“I knew she was a slut. Didn’t think she was a full on homewrecker.”

“Homewrecker.”

“Homewrecker.”

“Homewrecker.”

“Is it true?” a voice broke through the murmurs, like it was speaking to you, not about you. Lee Haechan stood in your way.

“What’s going on?” you asked.

Lee Haechan pushed his phone to your face. And you saw it clear as day.

You bent over in front of your camera. And Professor Hwang right behind you.

You didn’t say a word.

You didn’t move an inch.

The murmurs grew louder in your ears like they were trying to drown you.

“Let’s go,” Haechan grabbed at your wrist.

“Where?”

“Somewhere else.”

“I have nowhere to go.”

“Come.”

You couldn’t go home. And you couldn’t stay here. So you followed him all the way to his car while the gazes of everyone in your path hit you like daggers. 

You left it all behind, but not before you saw Jeno’s face of betrayal as he saw you ride away with Lee Haechan. 

He kept driving and you kept sticking to your phone like a vice. The videos kept coming. The pictures kept coming. The vitriol kept coming. You had earned it all.

‘She’s always been a homewrecker. She tried to seduce my boyfriend. Here’s proof.’

‘we been knew she a slut, i’ve got a whole library of her nudes lol’

‘weird tits’

‘why is she moaning like she’s dying i'm not even hard’

‘i’ve fucked her she’s boring and kinda loose’

‘lmao has everyone seen her naked? Y’all have receipts’

‘Woobin ur pictures look fake asf’

“yeah ngl, that doesn’t even look like her’

‘are her tits fake?’

‘anyone got pics of her puss?’

‘i do brb posting’

‘Guys, revenge porn is not it’

‘yeah, you can go to jail asshole’

‘shut up slut she sent it to us’

‘yeah but your posting it without her permission sooooo’

‘It’s the criminal act for me’

‘You idiots need to take it down or I'm reporting’

‘who wants pussy pics?’

‘she fucked my uncle’ 

‘fuck off no one believes u’

‘is she even on this?’

‘hi y/n i’m dtf and my dick isn’t as wrinkly’

The vitriol kept coming and you kept reading. You read and you read and you saw yourself in every picture you remembered you took and even the ones you didn’t remember taking. People got it right and people got it wrong. They mostly got it right. Everything they were saying was true. You read on and you felt you could’ve read forever. But Haechan’s hand came in and took the phone from you.

You didn’t realize you had stopped travelling. You didn’t realize you were sitting on the hood of his car. You didn’t realize how far he must have driven to take you here. Away from the city where the river was as clean as nature had intended it to be and the manmade landscape looked like a distant picture behind it. 

“Why did you do it?” he asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” you whispered back. He nodded.

“Did you know he was married?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know he has a daughter our age?”

“Yes.”

He nodded once and looked away. Like he was organizing his questions.

“Why did you film it?” he asked. Not as an accusation. Just a question.

“I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember?”

“I don’t remember filming it,” you spoke barely above a whisper.

“Do you remember posting it?”

“No.”

“Did he know you were filming him?”

“I don’t know.”

“He could lose his job, Y/N.”

You looked up towards the river, unconvinced with your own next words, “We’re both adults.”

“Yes. But you’re a student. And he’s a teacher. You filmed him.”

“Yes.”

He looked down to think. Then he looked ahead with you.

“You could get in trouble, too.”

“Yes.”

“Do you… you really don’t remember filming it? Or posting it?”

“No.”

“Do you often have gaps in your memory?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why did you do it?” he asked again.

Your breath came out in between a scoff and a dry sob. You turned your head to look at him. “Because I’m fucked up.”

“Because you’re fucked up,” he repeated.

“Yeah,” you said in the same broken voice. And perhaps he could see that you were about to wallow in your self pity. Because his tone grew colder.

“That’s going to be your free pass for everything? That you’re fucked up?”

You looked away, ashamed. You shook your head. A long pause stretched between the two of you. Like he didn’t know what to say anymore. So you reached in your bag and handed him a pocket sized, leather bound diary.

“What’s this?” He took it.

“My black book,” you couldn’t speak up.

“Black book?”

You nodded. “A list of all the people I’ve fucked. All the people I want to fuck.”

Haechan’s face didn’t betray any notable reaction. He flipped through the pages and paused only when he saw his name. He didn’t say anything. So you talked.

“It has to be in order. All these names. I need to go through them in order. I’ve had this since the first semester. If I don’t do things in order, it…” you looked away. You sounded crazy even to your ears. But Haechan’s face was unchanged.

“It stresses you?” he tried to understand.

“I spiral.”

“Are you spiraling now?” he asked. 

You nodded. What else would explain any of this?

“Is it because of me?” he traced his name on your book.

You looked at him. Was it because of him? Was it because of Jeno? Was it because of Professor Hwang? Who broke your pattern first? 

What did it matter? What did it matter who broke your pattern? Patterns were fucked up and you were fucked up and all of this was because of no one but yourself.

“This isn’t right, Y/N.”

“Yeah.”

“You need help.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t know.”

You looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“This,” he lifted the black book, “This has been going on since freshman year? The first semester? And you didn’t get the help you needed then?”

You looked at the ground and your eyes burned once more.

“What you told me that night… was it true?” he asked. And it made your heart hurt more than anything you had read on your phone. His question cut you open and made your tears fall and your shoulder shake. Who would believe a mentally unstable girl? Of course he thought you lied. He probably thought you were a pathological liar amongst all the other things.

But you nodded. You didn’t lie to him and he didn’t lie to you. That’s not how you worked. He could hate you and you could hate him. But you didn’t lie to each other. He saw you for what you were and you saw him.

His pupils lifted like he was thinking and he swallowed.

“Who did this to you?” he asked.

You couldn’t answer. You never had an answer. What did it matter who did it? It’s what you deserved. 

Haechan sighed. Like he had thought better of his question. “You need help, Y/N,” he repeated.

“I know,” you agreed, though your voice was hoarse.

“I know some people.”

“Okay.”

“I could take you there right now.”

Your heart dropped. This was soon. This was much too soon. You couldn’t do it. You didn’t have it in you.

“Just let me die,” you whispered.

You saw the clenching of his jaw and the pressing of his lips. And without warning, he flung your black book towards the river with as much strength as his body could muster.

“Face your fucking problems, Y/N,” he said.

You cried. He was right. How could he be wrong? You needed help and no one had ever given it to you. You hadn’t given it to yourself. You had an opportunity to be better. He was giving it to you. Were you really that far gone that you weren’t accepting it? You trusted him. You hated him and you trusted him.

“Take me,” you cried.

He didn’t need telling twice. He got in the car and drove you where he promised.

Clarity is a strange phenomenon. You think you have it in moments you absolutely don’t. Where things feel so real you almost believe them. But when you open your eyes, and really open them, you start to lose faith in everything there ever was.

You lost everything. You failed your classes. You lost the few friends you had. You were put on probation. And your videos and pictures lived in everyone’s phones forevermore. You couldn’t run. You couldn’t hide. You couldn’t even escape. 

But you felt free. For the first time in your life, you felt like you could see. You finally felt regret. You finally started to reflect. You felt the pain you had caused everyone you knew. But most of all, you finally felt the pain you had been causing to yourself.

Haechan was right. It wasn’t your fault.

Yet all these years, you’d lived with the burden that it was. You had punished your body for it. You had punished your mind for it. The food you would eat was to harm or ornate your body. The patterns you built were to enslave or protect your mind. You looked for control in places you couldn’t find it. Because all that control had been taken from you all those years. Your body didn’t belong to you. Your mind didn’t belong to you. You numbed your soul thinking that if you thought any less of yourself, that it would make it all okay. That if everyone hated you altogether, you’d finally be seen the way you saw yourself. You kept punishing yourself. For something you didn’t even do.

You’d been living in the past. Because you never healed from it. Because you had never given yourself the opportunity to heal. Because you thought punishing yourself was how you could fix everything that happened. Because never once did it occur to you that you could’ve helped yourself without waiting for someone to help you. 

You’re not really sure you had clarity. 

All you know is that for the first time ever, you remembered all the things that happened to you. All the things you had done. You had fallen to your knees and confessed like you were begging to a deity. Every day you fell to your knees and cried and remembered and each confession brought with it a new suppressed memory. You cried for all the years you had lost and all the times you had punished yourself for things you couldn’t possibly have controlled. You cried for little Y/N and all the burden she had been carrying for you. She was so innocent. So vulnerable. So young. And you blamed her till she was tainted in your memories. You cried when you told her it wasn’t her fault. How could it have been? She was a child. You cried when you begged for her forgiveness. For not believing her. For punishing her. For hating her. You cried when you forgave her. And when you cried so hard that you couldn’t move, not an inch, not a hair, not a speck, so hard that you felt you’d never breath, never stand, never function, so hard that you felt the life of you weakening beneath your knees, you set her free. You let her go. Little Y/N was free.

And in the darkness of the night when your tears drowned you but didn’t suffocate you anymore, you thanked Y/N as she was now. For being her own savior. 

Maybe you didn’t have all the clarity in the world. But you knew your eyes were wider open than before as you sat in the rose garden of the center and took in the wide expanse of grass around you. You could smell every bit of it. And you could see the boy sitting in front of you on the lawn chair. You looked at the roses and he looked at you.

“Are you sure you don’t want to have this?” he asked, pointing to the vanilla frap he’d gotten you along with other goodies.

“I’m actually not allowed sugar. Or caffeine,” you smiled at him.

“Wow. This place don’t mess around,” his lips pressed into an impressed expression and he took a healthy sip from your glass. “Noted for next time.”

Next time? After everything, Jeno wanted there to be a next time?

“Tell me how you feel,” he asked softly.

“I feel okay,” you nodded and you smiled. His face didn’t change, so you reached for his hand. “Really, I am.”

“When do you get out?” he asked, stroking his thumb on the back of your hand.

“I’m not sure. I like it here,” you leaned back in your chair and inhaled the sweet smell of roses all around you. How nice it felt to smell them. Almost as good as it felt to plant them.

“Y/N…” Jeno trailed away as he looked at his feet. Contemplating. Wondering what he could say and what he could not.

“You can say it,” you smiled at him, though you weren’t sure what he wanted to bring up first. There was too much in the tangles you had left behind.

“The pictures… they’ve… they’ve been taken down. The feminist society filed a report against everyone sharing your pictures without your consent,” he kept stroking the back of your hand with his thumb. You realized he was worried. 

You weren’t. The pictures and videos were the least of your concern. They didn’t bother you.

But Jeno was worried. And he didn’t hate you. And that took you by surprise.

“I heard you hit Woobin,” you said, amused.

“He was asking for it,” he pouted. He looked so cute when he pouted. So you reached in to pull his cheek.

“Jeno, you can’t hit every boy that has been an asshole after having sex with me. You’ll have to go through the entire campus.”

He flinched and brooded cutely for a while while you grinned and stroked his frown with the backs of your fingers. But then, he asked you what you’d been expecting.

“Lee Haechan…” he looked at you. You looked back into his warm eyes. They were confused. Of course they were. You hadn’t done much to reassure them.

“Go on,” you encouraged so he'd know it was alright to talk about this.

“Are you… did you ever…” he didn’t know how to put this. You had told him about your compulsions and your rosters and your black books. You told him all the things you did, even while you were with him. Maybe the information was too much to absorb at one time.

“No,” you shook your head for him.

“Do you… do you… like him?” he asked.

“No,” you shook your head and took his hand again. You liked holding it.

“Then… what’s your relationship… to him?”

“Hmm…” you turned your head up to think. You didn’t have to think much. You knew. “He understands me.”

Jeno was a smart guy. Perhaps in some ways, he felt you, too. Because he didn’t need an explanation beyond what you said. He just squeezed your hand and said,

“I’d like to understand you too, someday.”

It took you by surprise once again. 

“You still want to try being with me? After everything I’ve done?” you asked him without masking it.

“We all make mistakes, Y/N,” he told you what he had told you all that time before, “And everyone deserves a second chance.”

You felt your heart melt. You had been right. Even though you'd been out of your mind, your heart had seen Lee Jeno for what he was. Kind-hearted. Pure. Gentle in his judgments. Sweet with his words. Innocent in his heart. 

You took a deep inhale, like his words were healing you and you needed to breathe them into the deepest pits of your lungs and burn them into your heart. 

“I’m going to get better for you,” you promised him. And his lips met your forehead.

“You need to get better for yourself. And when you do, I’ll be waiting.”

Those were the kindest words anyone had ever told you.

You held onto them in the hours and days and weeks to come till you finally walked down the path of the green grass and left the rose garden behind.

A second chance and a new life. 

You were you and you were reborn and old you and new you could coexist within you. 

This body was yours and it was a gift. You started loving it for all the things it did for you, rather than all the things it could do for everyone else.

Your mind was yours and yours alone. No one could own it or enslave it. Not even you.

Life had second chances, and you had taken it. You gave yourself a second chance. You were deserving of a second chance. You were deserving of all that was good and pure and true in this world.

You smiled bright as you held onto the acceptance letter of your new college. It felt nice to have poured out your story to them and have it be validated in this way. You had new things and kept some old things. Some things were better left in the past, and with some you had to learn to make peace that this was so. You couldn’t change people’s minds about you. But their murmurs would have followed till you could hear no more. So you left them behind. And you smiled at your new opportunity. You had heard that it knocked at the door but once. You welcomed it with open arms.

You decided you needed to share in your joy. So you picked the roses from the garden you tended and tied them together with a ribbon. You didn’t lament that you had never received flowers before. You felt joy that you were about to give flowers to someone for the first time. 

You smiled as you walked, smelling the roses every so often and simmering in the sweet smell of them. Jeno would like them and you were going to be okay. He would see you and he’d smile the smile that made his eyes disappear and you’d be okay. You were okay. You were going to be okay. 

As you walked to Jeno, you could’ve sworn that you saw Lee Haechan drive past you and meet your eyes, if only for a second. Out in the sun, in broad daylight, where no darkness shielded you and no lights blinded you.

And in your heart, you wished him well.

Copyright © 2021 NeoCultureTravesty. All rights reserved.

[ace-of-spaders]

@my-robot-heart once upon a time sent me a prompt "I'm here. I never left." for Lizzington.

It was the kind of prompt I fell in love with from first glance but couldn't decide which direction to take right away, so I left it for a while.

I must admit, I'm rather glad that I did, because the idea I eventually went with came to me only after the season finale (because, like everyone else, I had to fix it somehow), but I'm also sorry, Robot, that it took me so long and can only hope that the end product is worth the waiting)

That is, considering your attitude towards the 8x22, I feel it's fair to warn you that this ficlet is set post-8x22 and is angsty - because Red is suffering and Liz is suffering because Red is suffering - but also hopeful because, guess what, Liz lives, so I really hope you'll like it!

(Also, it was supposed to be just a tiny ficlet but my fingers slipped... a lot, so it's now 2,000 words long))

Last but not the least, I think I need to tag @thetwistedargent, too, because her ghost!Lizzie stories low-key inspired this one. Even though I'm not brave nor strong enough to write dead!Lizzy.

Well, now enough with my rambling and on with the ficlet itself, I guess?)

---

She comes to him every night. Wearing loose sweaters that don’t constrict her chest, Liz slips past Dembe and into Red’s bedroom and invariably scrunches her nose up from the suffocating smell of cigar smoke that hangs heavily in the air.

Red hasn’t left his room in days – ever since Dembe brought him home on that fateful night he lost ( or thought he lost ) the meaning of his life in the form of his beloved Lizzy – wallowing in his grief, choking on his own guilt more than the smoke of cigars he smokes more than ever these days and drowning ( or, at least, trying to drown ) his sorrow in immeasurable quantities of alcohol. Liz is acutely aware of this newly established routine of his and what it does to his health and wishes with all her heart she could do something more about it other than visit him nightly while he sleeps, wishes she could reassure him that she’s alive and well and he doesn’t have to mourn her. But she can’t, not yet. So she crosses the room to the window and opens it wide in ultimately vain attempts to chase the choking odor of cigar smoke away. Taking a deep breath of fresh air to try and quell the storm of emotions raging inside of her, Liz turns her gaze to the loaded gun lying discarded on the desk ( she knows that Dembe tried to take that gun away from Red out of fear he might do something… unreasonable in his grief but Red didn’t let him, speaking up for the first time in quite a while just to reassure his old friend that he doesn’t have any intention of ending his own life… it will end soon enough anyway, even without such act of cowardice ) and runs her hand over the cool metal, feeling her heart clench at the thought of how apathetic, how utterly hopeless Red has become in – because of – her absence. Then, her gaze usually shifts towards the always empty decanter of whiskey, which – she knows – is refilled a couple of times a day by Reddington, the equally empty glass discarded on his nightstand, and only then she finally turns to look at the man himself. He looks awful, to put it mildly, worse with each passing day. The clothes he sleeps in don’t quite fit him in the same snug way they used to, reminding Liz of the fact that it takes a lot of convincing on Dembe’s part ( that man must truly be a saint ) to make him eat every single day and that he does so without any enthusiasm or appetite and continues to waste away despite his old friend’s best efforts. Tears brim in her eyes as Liz moves towards the bed and carefully sits down on its very edge, her eyes roaming over Red’s slack face and taking note of the ever-growing stubble, the deepening dark circles under his eyes, the gauntness of his cheeks, and the sickly pallor of his skin. “Oh, Red,” she whispers hoarsely, unable to keep all the despair and helplessness she feels when she realizes that he’s dying without her and yet she can’t do much about it inside, and reaches out to cup his cheek with her warm palm, to trace the sharpened outline of his cheekbone with her thumb or stroke his head, the smile that stretches her lips at the feeling of his hair – now longer than usual – tickling her palm too wobbly and weak. Sometimes, he sleeps peacefully… or, rather, dreamlessly in his drunken beyond measure state, never once waking or even stirring, and on those rare occasions Liz just sits by his side, holding his hand or stroking his shoulder or head, till the first rays of sunlight come streaming through the window. Most of the nights, though, he suffers, thrashing around, tangling the sheets and throwing off blankets, panting and whimpering and crying, his mind tormenting him with vivid reconstructions of some of the worst moments of his life, and Liz hesitates, unsure of whether she should try to wake him or not, unsure of what he’s dreaming about… until her name – her seemingly long-forgotten nickname – spills from his lips and she knows exactly what he’s dreaming about. She doesn’t hesitate any longer. “Shh, Red, it’s alright,” she hushes him gently, leaning in close and settling her hands on his shoulders firmly but gently or cupping his cheeks with her warm, very much alive hands, “I’m here. I’m here, I never left.” Tears finally spill from her own eyes as Liz whispers quiet reassurances and sweet nothings to the suffering man, willing him to feel her

presence and wishing she could take the memories of that awful night away from him ( even though initially, she thought that it would be a good lesson for him, putting him in what could be her place if she pulled the trigger… but she didn’t think it would affect him that much, to the point where he isn’t really living anymore, just struggling to exist ), until she gets too choked up to speak… until Red jerks one more time under her hands and either finally settles into deep, exhausted, dreamless slumber with a heavy sigh ( in which case Liz picks the blankets he’s thrown off up from the floor, covers him with them again, tucking him in and making sure he’s warm and comfortable, and goes back to keeping her silent vigil, wiping her tears away and fighting the desire to climb into bed with him, wrap him up in her arms and never let go ) or wakes up. She always freezes when he does, when his eyes slowly open and he squints up at her in the dark, because she’s not sure how he’s going to react, even though his reaction is the same each and every time. He frowns up at her at first, his heavy with sleep and hazy from alcohol mind struggling to comprehend what is happening in front of him, but even though he doesn’t recognize her, even though in his eyes she might look like an intruder, he doesn’t even try to protect himself from any possible danger – as if he doesn’t care about what happens to him, if he lives to see another day or not – and Liz’s heart breaks at the thought. ( How did she manage to break him – the strongest man she’s ever known – so hard, so possibly irreparably? ) But then recognition dawns on his face and his lips part softly and he stares up at her with utter disbelief and very tentative hope, slowly reaching his hand up, as if in trance, to touch her cheek. She lets him, leaning slightly into his touch. “Lizzy,” Red breathes, so pained and intensely relieved at the same time that Liz hates herself for doing this to him in the first place and for not being able to go out of hiding ( but it’s not only her life that’s on the line, it’s also her daughter’s and, to a degree, his, so she has to wait out until her fame in the upper and under worlds quiets down ), to console him, to make him understand that she’s not just a figment of his imagination ( she learned pretty quickly that he doesn’t let himself even consider the possibility that she might be real and not just his hallucination or a surprisingly pleasant dream ) just yet, “Lizzy.” And every night when he wakes up to such a vivid, realistic image of his lost love, he begs her for forgiveness – for absolution – and kisses her hands, the scar on her wrist with such tangible, blatant devotion it makes her heart ache. And every night when he apologizes to her, she tells him that she’s already forgiven him for everything but never takes advantage of his fragile, weak, unguarded state to get the long overdue answers out of him ( after all, she had enough time on her hands while she recovered to understand that, at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter who they were in the past… what matters is who they are now – Red and Lizzy – and that he loves her with as much ardor as she loves him ). They always end up in each other's arms, with Red pressing messy, fervent, desperate kisses to her cheeks and forehead and the soft cascade of her shiny mahogany hair and Liz rubbing his back in what she hopes is a soothing manner, their tears mixing and staining his shirt and her sweater. “Lizzy, Lizzy, Lizzy,” Red repeats in between kisses in his low, cracking from the lack of use voice, again and again and again, like a mantra, a prayer that sounds to her ears too much like Don't go, don't go, don't go... She knows she can't promise him that now. But she can promise to stay until the morning, which is why when he whispers softly, brokenly "Stay?" in her hair, his weight settling heavier against her after the emotional turmoil of the past few minutes? hours? – Liz doesn't know how much time they spend sitting there on his bed in the mess of tangled limbs,

the mix of apologies and reassurances and each other's names that sound for all the world like declarations of love, like I'm sorry and I miss you and I don't want to ever let you go spilling from their lips – leaves him even more exhausted than the pain and the grief of the day do, she simply nods and gently pushes him away and onto his back. Red doesn't take his eyes off her as she picks the blankets up and settles beside him and tucks the blankets around them both ( Liz is acutely aware of his gaze, burning with adoration and desperation in equal measure, on her back and the side of her face ). Even as she opens her arms for him in a silent invitation to move closer and he does just that, snuggling up to her side, resting his head on her shoulder and wrapping his arms around her waist tightly but not enough to hurt, he doesn't close his eyes. Liz can tell by the way he's breathing and his body goes practically rigid with tension that he's fighting the undeniably strong pull of sleep long after they've settled in for the night. That confused her on the first day but then she understood. He knows that in the morning she won't be there, that this illusion, hallucination, dream he's having will shatter once he closes his eyes and succumbs to exhaustion. And he doesn't want to lose her again. Not for the third, fourth, fifth, umpteenth time ( when she thinks about it, Liz is not even sure if her visits help him or hurt him more... but she can't stop, she can't go about her days without knowing first-hand how Red is doing ). So Liz does the only thing she can do to soothe him: she cups the back of his head, presses a light kiss to his forehead and lies. "Sleep, Red. I will be here when you wake up." "No, you won't," he whispers back flatly – just pointing out the obvious – with an undertone of finality that haunts her long after he obediently closes his eyes and his body finally relaxes in her arms. Because he's right: she always leaves long before he wakes up, giving Dembe a hug goodbye and asking him – rather unnecessarily but she can't help herself – to take care of Red, with only one thought keeping her going through the day: That one day – and hopefully, not in such a distant future – she will be there in the morning when Red wakes up.

[jademakean]

𝐂𝐮𝐫𝐯𝐲 𝐁𝐢𝐭𝐜𝐡

𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒊𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒎𝒆𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒉𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒐𝒏 𝒎𝒚 𝒔𝒍𝒊𝒎 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆, 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒈𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒄𝒌 𝒘𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒏 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆.

｡･:*:･ﾟ

During most of your years of living, you found yourself to be insecure about your weight. It's not like it was bad (health-hazardous), you just had more meat to your bones, but your past toxic skinny friends always made you think that way.

Their ill-mannered tendencies caught up to you and suffocated you with negative thoughts, not only towards your self but also towards others. Petite people to be specific. It was never hateful of course; you wouldn't body shame them because you knew how much that could damage a person. It was jealousy.

No matter what your relationship with the person was, that one thought was always there, lingering.

The day those thoughts began fading away was the day you began your Art's Program. As you made your way to the diverse class you crossed paths with a handsome boy. He was cluelessly wandering through the building searching for the right room, and if you hadn't caught a glimpse of his disoriented stance then you two would never have met. You offered to help which caused you to be late but you didn't really mind.

Timothée, the boy, would be lying if he said that he didn't salivate the second he laid eyes on you.

It felt sinful for him to gaze too long on a certain if not, any part of your body.

He had never been specifically attracted to a certain type, but when he met you all of that wouldn't matter anyway, because you were the only person he'd ever want.

After many days of gawking at you anytime you were at eye distance from him, he finally broke from his reserved self and asked you out.

And since that tenth date, you've both been the happiest anyone could be.

You now worked at a small diner and sold smooth stone sculptures and paintings online, hoping to get recognized as time went on which you would.

The acting classes that Timothée took in the art establishment paid off and he achieved movie rolls here and there, his last was 'Call Me By Your Name' where he played the main character 'Elio Perlman', from then on he got an increasing fanbase obsessing over his looks and talents.

You honestly didn't mind all the women and men who sought after him because, in the end, you were the who was tied-up with him.

And God did this man treat you like an empress. Like said before, it wasn't until you met him that you began improving your mental health.

Every day he made you feel more and more confident in yourself. His affectionate words would make your heart beat rapidly, filling you up with an amount of love you could only dream of.

It was only after a semi-old picture of you and Timmy was leaked that some 'fans' proceeded to shamelessly insult you and your figure.

Maybe it was out of envy of your relationship or maybe it because some genuinely didn't like your body. But one thing was certain and that was that no matter how much you attempted to maintain positive thoughts circulating through your mind, it invariably overturned.

It was all crumbling, all the progress on evolving into the best person you could be. Deteriorating.

You felt ashamed to avoid consuming food the best you could without Timmy noticing. It obviously didn't work. He soon realized what you were trying to do once you went from exercising a reasonable amount, to spending a harmful number of hours in the gym.

You had now finished taking a shower, your oversized shirt clinging to certain parts of your aching body as you wandered into the living room.

A smile washed over your features once you caught sight of your curly-headed boyfriend, sitting on the couch watching TV.

A yelp erupted from your throat as Timothée snatched you by your hips onto his lap. If today was a normal day, you'd redden from his intimate action. However, this moment you reddened from embarrassment.

Right now you were surprised he wasn't complaining about you crushing him from all of your weight; an obvious overexertion you somehow couldn't comprehend.

You began fidgeting slightly, which Timothée was more than okay with, though it was only until it seemed that you wanted to move away from him that he spoke up. "Are you okay, baby?"

Timmy finally let you sit beside him, his feelings slightly hurt thinking you were mad at him. "Yeah, It's just too hot."

His eyebrows immediately furrowed at your statement "You literally just got out of the shower and still have goosebumps. Tell me the truth."

You diverted your eyes from his green ones, guilt caused your throat to close up from the lie that had slipped from your lips. As you debate whether you should tell him of not, his slender fingers made contact with your bare thigh, the comforting effort caused you to tense up.

That's it. That's when he put all the dots together. "Are you insecure about your body again?"

The softness in his voice triggered tears to well up in your eyes. Timothée's arms wrapped you in a warm embrace, setting his head on top of yours breathing in your scent.

"What happened?" He asked, referring to the fact that you were completely optimistic a week before.

"I just came across some comments." His face softened at your little sniffles, backing away so he could see your face.

"Listen to me. Remember the reason why we didn't want to make our relationship public. There are people out there who's lives are so pathetic that they feel the need to put others down in order to make themselves feel better. This is one of those cases--"

You looked up at him gently rubbing your eye so you could see clearly through the tears. "--And don't think that it's because there's something wrong with you, there isn't. Everyone who's displayed to the public eye will get judged, no matter how 'perfect' they are."

You sighed nodding lightly as he wiped your stained ruby cheeks. You understood, you always have. Yet he's the one who was able to blow away your cloudy thoughts "I just think that there are so many girls better for you that I-" Timothée immediately interrupted you with no hesitation.

"You aren't a girl, you are a woman--"

His hands had now travelled down to your hips, the ones that he adored so much. "--A woman who I was thirsting after for weeks just because of how sweet and gorgeous you were. If anything you've become more beautiful which is something I didn't think was humanly possible. "

You couldn't help but giggle as you listened carefully "I love the fact that you take care of yourself and that you're proud of it. I love that you have more body for me to love, to admire, to grab while we fuc-"

"Okay, Timmy I get it!" You interjected quickly, his words making your body flush as you mirror his laugh.

The man kissed you feverishly wanting to physically express the amount of respect and devotion he had for you.

"I love you for who you are, and you should too. Don't let anyone make you think otherwise."

[robininthelabyrinth]

Would you continue the prompt with the Nie brothers going back in time?

sequel to this

Nie Mingjue started his first week back in time with training.

All those years as a spirit, unable to transcend to reincarnation, had taught him some little amount of patience – he had so much to do, so many things to accomplish, but no matter how much he itched to get started on all of them, it would all go to waste if he didn’t first acclimate himself to this time period, if he didn’t figure out how to pretend that he wasn’t decades older than his current self; if he slipped up, his father would think he was possessed.

Baxia continued to be unusually cooperative, almost as if she, too, knew that they needed to keep up a proper façade – she fought with him, of course, straining in his hands to go destroy things, but it’s playful, a game of tug-of-war rather than a serious attempt to go slaughter the wicked. He smiled at her as he went through the endless motions of saber control while the family elders studied his every action closely to make sure he wasn’t inadvertently heading down the wrong path.

Not his father, luckily; he was preoccupied with Sect matters during this time, and they usually only ever saw each other very briefly over breakfast – it wasn’t that Nie Mingjue wasn’t glad to see his father alive and well, he was, desperately. It was only that he didn’t actually remember what the man had been like at this time, all the good memories he had of him overshadowed by the horrible six months between his saber breaking and his actual death. 

He didn’t remember what it was like, having a father, and that made things awkward in a way he couldn’t quite explain.

The only problem Nie Mingjue had foreseen with his plan was that he would invariably be reluctant to leave Nie Huaisang’s side for too long, but that ended up not being an issue - Nie Huaisang often came to play by the side of the training field. He was too small to train in anything but the most basic arm motions, small weights wrapped around his wrists to slowly strengthen his shoulders as he ran around and mimicked Nie Mingjue’s actions with a stick, but there, always there, and it was an unspeakable relief.

Nie Mingjue wasn’t sure he remembered Nie Huaisang being quite so consistent with his presence, but he assumed the issue was with his memory – it had been so many years, after all.

It was good that it was this way, though. Nie Mingjue hadn’t been sure how else he’d explain why he wanted to keep so close a watch over his brother.

It was only a few days in when he was finally allowed to do more than the basic movements. In a fit of wicked amusement, he did a move that was more advanced than he really should be capable of at this age, prodigy or not,  throwing Baxia out in that most familiar motion that had been burned into him by the war, sending her piercing through the training dummy before summoning her back with a flick of his wrist.

He grinned unreservedly when Baxia returned to him, feeling finally a bit more like himself, and for some reason that was when Nie Huaisang started crying.

Nie Mingjue immediately turned and ran over to him, the decade he’d spent being both mother and father to him kicking in at once to override any other instincts he might have. But there wasn’t anything wrong with him that he could see: Nie Huaisang was fine.

Just – crying. Sobbing unreservedly, as if his heart had broken.

“Shh, Huaisang, it’s all right,” Nie Mingjue said, trying to coax him. Four-year-olds were so difficult! “Don’t worry, da-ge’s here – do you want to hold Baxia?”

Nie Huaisang shook his head and clung onto his clothing, burying his face with a nose full of snot right onto Nie Mingjue’s shoulder. Nie Mingjue sighed a little: if he’d actually still been twelve, he would be extremely uncomfortable right now, a little repulsed, a little helpless.

Twelve, in other words.

It didn’t bother him now. It was amazing what sort of gross bodily functions became boring and ordinary after you’d had the experience of being brutally dismembered, your soul forcefully broken into pieces and sealed so you couldn’t escape.

He ignored the disapproving gazes of his elders – interrupting saber practice for a little boy’s tears was not approved conduct, and he’d probably have to report to the punishment hall later for breach of discipline – and picked Nie Huaisang up in his arms, enjoying that they were both still young enough that the action would not be seen as odd. 

He carried him inside.

“You’re not hurt?” he checked again, and Nie Huaisang shook his head once more. “Hungry?” Another no. “Too hot?” Averted eyes, so maybe. “Do you want to play something else?”

A hesitant nod.

Nie Mingjue still wasn’t sure what had set Nie Huaisang off, but based on the way he’d grown up, he thought he might have a good idea about what he’d like.

He took him up to their mother’s old bedroom – technically Nie Mingjue’s mother, since Nie Huaisang’s sadly short-lived mother had been a concubine – and searched in her things, finally pulling out one of the fans he was pretty sure he’d seen Nie Huaisang gawking over as a child and then treasuring as an adult.

“Here,” he said, smiling as he offered it up, “this is something to play with and keep cool – no, no, Huaisang, didi! Why are you crying now?”

Nie Huaisang clutched the fan and wailed, throwing himself at Nie Mingjue, mumbling something about da-ge being the best da-ge and possibly also something about ‘never knew it was you’ which – what?

Maybe Nie Huaisang had dozed off in the heat while watching Nie Mingjue train and had a nightmare.

Feeling more than a little helpless, Nie Mingjue just gave up understanding the inexplicable and just went about the rest of his day with a small child on one arm, which seemed to work well enough in convincing Nie Huaisang not to cry any more. When he visited the punishment hall to report on his broken training, the elder there – while approving of his principles – couldn’t resist asking him about it, and Nie Mingjue had shrugged and said something about lifting weights.

Nie Huaisang giggled. “I’m the best weight!”

“See?” Nie Mingjue said to the elder, who was fighting a smile. “He’s the best weight. I get stronger supporting him, and he’s never a burden.”

For some reason, that made Nie Huaisang go quiet, burying his face in Nie Mingjue’s shoulder as if he’d once again gone shy, and it wasn’t until they were outside – in view of voluntarily accepting the consequences of his actions, Nie Mingjue was only required to spend some time kneeling in reflection – that he spoke again.

“I won’t be a burden to you, da-ge,” he said, very seriously. He really had surprisingly good diction for a child of his age, which Nie Mingjue hadn’t noticed in his first life. But then, who would have ever noticed a scholarly genius in the Unclean Realm? “I promise. I won’t ever drag you down or – or embarrass you.”

Nie Mingjue thought of the future – years and years of Nie Huaisang, amateur good-for-nothing eventually ascending into the level of professional, followed by years of using that very uselessness as a mask to hide the oriole as it slowly stalked the mantis – and couldn’t resist chuckling. 

“What embarrassment?” he asked, teasing. “Do I look like someone who can’t handle losing a bit of face? Do as you like, as long as you’re happy. Walk whatever path you like; no matter what you choose, your da-ge will hold up the world for you.”

This time around, he promised himself that he’d keep that vow. He might be doomed to die an early death in this life, Baxia conquering his spirit until he entered qi deviation even if there was no poisoned Song of Clarity pouring into his ears, but at least this time he knew it: he could lay the proper foundation to make sure Nie Huaisang would be properly taken care of, this time, put loyal retainers at his side to do the dirty work he’d sullied his own hands with in a previous future life.

“…thank you, da-ge,” Nie Huaisang said, and he was rubbing his eyes again, all red, but at least he hadn’t descended into sobbing again.

Children were so hard to understand.

“You still need to work hard to form your golden core,” Nie Mingjue told him, a little worried – he knew himself, knew that he wouldn’t be able to resist spoiling Nie Huaisang even more in this life than in the last, knew that it had been painfully hard for Nie Huaisang to get his core formed the last time around. He didn’t have a talent for it, plain and simple, but it still had to be done. “It’s important, okay, Huaisang? Even if you don’t really like playing with sabers or training, you still have to do that much. Without a golden core, you’re just a regular person, with a short life and no way to protect yourself…you don’t want to make your da-ge have to bury you, do you?”

That would kill him more assuredly than any qi deviation.

Nie Huaisang quivered all over and shook his head furiously. “I’ll work hard, da-ge! I promise!”

A simple conversation wasn’t going to be enough to mitigate a little of Nie Huaisang’s inevitable laziness, but that was fine; they had time left. Nie Mingjue wasn’t planning on dying so young that he wouldn’t live to see Nie Huaisang properly set down the path of their family’s road to cultivation, even if he knew already that he’d only abandon it later.

-

A couple of days after that, just as he was considering his options in terms of how to convince their father to send someone to search for Meng Yao, who he at least had a general idea of where he was located, Nie Huaisang toddled down to the main room with a piece of paper crushed in his grubby little fist.

“Mail!” he exclaimed happily. “Baba, mail!”

“A-die, Huaisang,” their father said, fond but a little long-suffering already. “Not baba. Your da-ge calls me a-die; you should…Huaisang. Did you wash your hands before you went to get the mail?”

Nie Huaisang blinked up at him, so obviously innocent that he was clearly pretending not to understand the question as if it could erase the misdeed, and Nie Mingjue coughed very hard into his fist in a vain effort to keep from laughing.

His father gave him a stern look that wasn’t stern at all – the twitching lips not entirely hidden behind his trimmed beard rather destroyed the effect – and shook his head at Nie Huaisang, who definitely knew better.

“What sort of dirt were you even playing with this early?” he asked, plucking the crushed letter out of Nie Huaisang’s hands; he sounded as helpless as Nie Mingjue always felt. It was good to know that parenting Nie Huaisang was a challenge no matter who was doing it. “How did you even..? Look at this, Huaisang; the entire thing is almost illegible. It looks like a dog ate it.”

“And then threw it back up,” Nie Mingjue added, aware that he was not being helpful and enjoying it to its fullest. “What is it, anyway?”

“Doesn’t seem like anything much, a request for aid from – uh – Yingchuan…? Mingjue, see if you can read this.”

Nie Mingjue accepted it, suddenly excited: if he recalled correctly, Yingchuan – technically a region that ought to be asking for help from Qishan Wen, not Qinghe Nie, but everyone knew who was more likely to show up without demanding unreasonable things in exchange – was where Wei Wuxian had spent some years as a child, very likely the years without his parents. It had come up in conversation once, Wei Wuxian having been greatly ashamed to discover that certain parts of his speech shared  intonations with Wen Chao’s whore, who also came from that region.

“It must be from the Yingchuan Wang sect,” he agreed, squinting at the truly ghastly calligraphy. It looked as though it had been written by a small child – a very careful one that knew all the right letters, but definitely as though the brush had been clutched in a fist rather than held correctly. “Seeking assistance with…something. It’s just an ink splotch now. A-die, can I go?”

His father blinked, clearly surprised by the request. “You? Why? We don’t need to curry favor Yingchuan Wang, of all people, by sending the heir; I was planning on sending a few outer disciples.”

“If some outer sect disciples can do it, so can I,” Nie Mingjue pointed out, quite reasonably in his mind. “And while we might not need Yingchuan Wang, you know they’ll be unbearably smug about having been so honored – they’ll tell everyone and their neighbor about it, and that’ll make Wen Ruohan waste time wondering what it is that they have that we want.”

“Sect Leader Wen,” his father reminded him, and, oh, right, they hadn’t reached the point of totally breaking ties with them yet – that had only happened after his father’s death. The mildness of the rebuke and the lack of any punishment, though, suggested that things were already quite tense between them. “And I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you to go so soon after you’ve started properly training your spiritual weapon.”

“Training is only training,” Nie Mingjue reminded his father in turn. Nie Huaisang’s head was turning between the two of them like a window swinging in a strong wind. “I won’t be able to actually call her mine until I’ve bloodied her in combat.”

He’d taken Baxia’s first blood himself, of course, cutting his hand on the blade to give her the first taste of blood so that she’d know her master; he’d replicated the action after he’d come back in time, a reminder of the bond between them, and his hand still had a bandage, the palm still a little tender as the scar settled into place – a terrible place for a cut, really, but that was the point. Accepting something as dangerous as a saber should hurt.

But the saber spirits were cultivated through battle with evil, doing battle with resentful energy – if Nie Mingjue truly wanted to become stronger, and he did, desperately, he needed to go night-hunting. Twelve was a bit young to go out solo, most cultivators waiting until fourteen or fifteen so that they could make a good showing, but Qinghe Nie had always been a bit fast on that front.

In the end, fame was only secondary; before anything else, they had to uphold justice and suppress evil.

“Give me your saber,” his father ordered, and Nie Mingjue hesitated for a moment – old memories, bad ones, ones that hurt – but then he forced away his uneasiness and unhooked Baxia from his back to offer it over to his father, saber balanced between his two palms.

His father put his hand over Baxia, his brow furrowing with concentration as he examined the saber, and eventually he frowned.

“She’s very strong,” he said, and from his tone Nie Mingjue knew it wasn’t entirely a good thing; a powerful saber at such a young age meant Nie Mingjue’s talent for cultivation was prodigious – Baxia had always been exceptional, even in his first life, and especially in comparison later on with Aituan, Nie Huaisang’s lazy plonk of a saber – but it would make things harder for him later. “Yes, perhaps you should go. The sooner your saber learns to hate evil, the better.”

Nie Mingjue smiled.

“Da-ge…” Nie Huaisang said, clearly looking worried and also oddly dissatisfied, a twist of his lips as if something hadn’t gone according to plan, but Nie Mingjue leaned over and ruffled his hair until he squeaked. “Da-ge!”

“Don’t worry, Huaisang. I’ll take some disciples with me. It’ll be fine.”

-

The Yingchuan Wang sect was even more annoying than Nie Mingjue had previously remembered them being – they acted as though they’d never written any sort of letter, strutting around as if they were proud (proud!) that there was such a large disaster in their territory that sect cultivators and rogue cultivators alike were making their way over to find the creature that had murdered so many, villagers and traveling passer-by alike.

Nie Mingjue had racked his memory to try to see if he could figure out what type of beast there was here, but he couldn’t remember – it hadn’t made much of an impact in his last life, when he’d been at home focusing on taming Baxia, and no one had ever mentioned exactly what it was later on.

Still, it didn’t make much of a difference. They hadn’t been out in the deeply forested valley for more than half a shichen when Nie Mingjue stepped on the right piece of disturbed soil and immediately knew that there was a mass grave here.

He’d seen too many battles not to recognize the signs.

A mass grave, a sign of many deaths all at once, and yet this was an era of peace with no reported battles anywhere nearby –

“Shit,” he said shortly, and the Nie cultivators with him – all older than him and nominally more experienced – turned to look at him. “There was a plague here. Probably covered up by the local people, the corpses buried without any ritual or purification…and that’s assuming they were all dead when they went into the earth. Best case scenario, we’ll have an entire group of mid-level fierce corpses, possibly high-level; worst case scenario, all that, but with a demon and maybe some guai to join in – dead or sick dogs are often thrown into these sorts of pits as well.”

“Pits?” one of the cultivators asked. “Nie-gongzi, what pit –”

“Look at the earth!” Nie Mingjue snapped. “You can see that all of it has been disturbed, with no plants growing but the ill-omened ones. Smell the air! Blood mixing in with soil, a hint of decay, of sickness in the surrounding trees...you can sense the resentful energy that hangs over this place – it’s a mass grave, recently interred, and without any battles in the area, that means plague. And Yingchuan Wang didn’t say a damn word about it!”

No wonder Wei Wuxian’s parents had died. Nie Mingjue had known he was going to go up against something fierce and brought more help than he would have normally bothered with – his father had agreed on the basis that Nie Mingjue was, well, twelve – and even he wasn’t sure they’d be able to tackle something of this magnitude: a pair of rogue cultivators, no matter how naturally talented, couldn’t fail to be overwhelmed.

“You three, go scout out the full size of the grave,” he ordered, falling easily and immediately into giving orders. This was not a good situation, but he’d met with worse during the war; as long as swift and decisive action could be taken, it could still be resolved in their favor. “You and you, start setting up a five-point suppression array on the parts of it we can see – here, and over by the large oaks there. If we get the array up in time, we’ll be able to keep more corpses from rising and hitting us from behind as we take the ones already risen. We remaining three will each go separately into the forest to begin hunting; take flares with you in the event you encounter something you can’t handle, and if you see any rogue cultivators, bring them back here at once.”

“Rogue cultivators?” Nie Zonghui, one of the ones he’d tasked with hunting, asked, looking dumb, and all of them were staring blankly at him as if they hadn’t understood a single word he’d said. “Why –”

“Are you disciples of my Nie sect or not?” Nie Mingjue roared, ignoring how much less impressive it was when his voice was still young and tender. “I gave you orders, and you’re still here gawking! Get moving!”

They scattered immediately, sect discipline kicking in almost before he finished shouting.

“Rogue cultivators are typically weak; they will only be a burden, and taking the time to rescue them will divert our attention from the main target,” Nie Zonghui said, still lingering a little. “Nie-gongzi, are you sure –”

“No matter how weak they are, they can still form a shield line,” Nie Mingjue said firmly. Nie Zonghui was a cousin and a good soldier; Nie Mingjue could take the time to answer his question, even if he was going to insist that the man submit to punishment later for questioning his commander during battle. He understood, of course – the commander in question was twelve, and the post was meant to be nominal, more a sop to a child’s ego than an actual hierarchy – but that didn’t change the fact of it. “Suppressing evil before it can spread is the priority, but I won’t spend lives cheaply, either ours or theirs. Think of it practically: rogue cultivators don’t have access to the same soul-calming rituals as the major sects, so if they die or are injured, they might become possessed, and the number of our enemies will grow. Now go.”

Nie Zonghui nodded sharply. “Understood, Nie-gongzi.”

It was very strange being called Nie-gongzi again after so many years of being called Sect Leader Nie, Nie Mingjue reflected as he flew into the deeper parts of the forest, letting an eager Baxia guide him towards the thickest concentration of resentful energy. He’d have to learn to adjust, especially if he hoped to keep his father alive this time around…

“Are you insane?” he blurted out, throwing himself down into the ongoing battle that he found there. 

There was a demon, it appeared, the twisted remains of what had been a living man, plague-ridden and thrown into a pit to be buried alive among the bodies of the dead; the resentment had overcome the man before death had taken him, and he rose from his too-early grave. If he had limited himself to those that had wronged him, Nie Mingjue might have understood – the Nie sect wasn’t as inflexible as the Lan sect when it came to allowing the dead to find purification through revenge – but this one had clearly gone well beyond that.

A pair of rogue cultivators, a man and a woman, had apparently encountered the demon by chance and decided to take it on by themselves in what Nie Mingjue could only assume was a combination of sheer bullheaded stupidity and a lack of other options, and it was going about was well as one might expect – the woman was about to be pierced through the neck from behind, having given up her defensive position to shove her husband out of harm’s way.

Nie Mingjue came down at that moment, using gravity to help bring Baxia down on the demon’s outstretched hand with full force; the hand snapped under the strain and the demon roared, furious, and Nie Mingjue engaged it at once to give the other two time to regroup.

“Thank you, daozhang,” the man gasped, grabbing his wife and pulling her back towards him – they both had swords, although she also had a horsetail whisk shoved into her belt – and then he presumably had enough time to actually get a look at who had saved him. “You’re a child!”

Nie Mingjue ignored him; it was true, for the moment, and at least the man hadn’t picked the word for a child under the age of ten. Another thing he’d have to adjust to, he supposed: being treated by the rest of the world as a child. Not everyone had proper sect discipline that he could rely on, after all…

“Whatever his age may be, he saved my neck and your ass,” the woman says, and pulls out her whisk. “Daozhang, there are three of us now, we can suppress it –”

It was a good suggestion, and Nie Mingjue nodded. “North facing mountain array?” he suggested. While not the most efficient, it was the most common three-point array; most rogue cultivators would know it.

“Do you know the budding lotus pattern?” the man asked, and Nie Mingjue took half a moment to realize that he’d apparently just run into Wei Wuxian’s unfortunate parents.

“Yes. Yunmeng style?” he asked, and the man nodded. “I’ll take the center.”

“Are you sure you can handle the strain –?” the man began, and his wife kicked him.

“He’ll be fine, you mother hen,” she said fondly. “He’s neither injured nor tired, unlike us, and that saber of his will keep him stabilized. Move!”

-

A three point array, especially one centered by a twelve-year-old, wasn’t enough to actually suppress a full fledged demon, but the woman used her whisk to good effect and between the three of them they were able to slowly harry it back towards the mass grave.

Nie Zonghui and Lin Tianfeng had found their own targets as well, using their sabers to drive the corpses back into the larger array where they would be trapped; they’d also found some rogue cultivators, who were standing guard around the Nie cultivators focused on maintaining the array. All had rather relieved expressions on their faces.

Nie Zonghui glanced over when Nie Mingjue and his group emerged, a momentary flash of relief at seeing Nie Mingjue unharmed that quickly turned into horror when he realized Nie Mingjue had managed to run into the demon; he shouted for Lin Tianfeng to cover his group of corpses and ran over.

Normally, Nie Mingjue would scold him at once for leaving his appointed position, but at the moment he was breathing too hard to speak, so Nie Zonghui’s actions could be probably be excused as a reasonable concern for the condition of his commander. 

He gestured with his head towards Rogue Cultivator Wei, the weakest of their triangle, and Nie Zonghui changed his direction at once. To his credit, Rogue Cultivator Wei didn’t protest and swapped out immediately, though he stayed close by, sword at the ready.

Once the demon was in the five-point array, Nie Mingjue pulled back and took a moment to breathe – he hadn’t been this tired in years, being twelve was awful, he needed to get back his cultivation as soon as possible – and then shook his head to clear it. “Exterminate them,” he ordered.

“Shouldn’t we try to purify them first?” Nie Zonghui asked.

“No need. I performed Empathy on one of them earlier: they’ve already wiped out the villagers that did this to them and didn’t stop,” Cangse Sanren said crisply. “There’s nothing left to liberate here, and demons that have grown hungry for blood and souls are not easily suppressed. You should listen to your young master’s instincts.”

Nie Zonghui flushed at the rebuke and hurried off to guide the other cultivators in eliminating the target. Nie Mingjue examined his own cultivation and decided against going to help; if they needed his participation, he could, but it would be a strain.

Rogue Cultivator Wei sat down on the ground with a sigh, clearly thinking the same; his wife came over to him and he learned his head against her waist, her hand in his hair. They murmured sweet things to each other for a bit – Nie Mingjue politely pretended to have gone temporarily deaf – and then they both turned to him.

“Thank you, Nie-gongzi,” Rogue Cultivator Wei said. “My name is Wei Changze –”

So that’s what his name was; Nie Mingjue had utterly forgotten it.

“– and this is my wife, Cangse Sanren, a pupil of Baoshan Sanren.”

“Nie Mingjue,” Nie Mingjue said, and tiredly raised his hands to properly salute them. “Well met.”

“It’s a bit more than merely well,” Cangse Sanren said, smiling; there was a great deal of Wei Wuxian in her eyes and the way she smiled, though her tiny button of a nose would have looked very odd on the handsome young man her son would later become. “You saved our lives. Is there anything we can do for you in return?”

Nie Mingjue was tired; his cultivation exhausted, his arms hurting from the strain of supporting both saber and array, and Baxia was complaining that she’d barely gotten a few stabs in the demon and why wasn’t he over there helping everyone out when all he wanted was to close his eyes. 

Those were the only excuses he could give for his thoughtlessly rude response.

“Just don’t leave your son alone when you night-hunt in the future,” he said, churlish with the mental image of Wei Wuxian merging with Nie Huaisang at the same age. “When the food you left for him and the landlord’s patience run out, what do you think will become of him? Do you want to see him fighting wild dogs on the streets for something to eat?!”

They both looked dumbfounded by that response and Nie Mingjue winced; he hadn’t meant to be so blunt about it. His reputation as an excessively straightforward man had always been justified by reality, but he usually managed to remember to keep to the rules of etiquette – being twelve was making him unduly impulsive.

“Forgive me,” he said hastily. “It’s not my business, I know; only it’s been a long day –”

“No, you’re right,” Cangse Sanren said, her eyes wide. “If you hadn’t come in time, we would have both perished, and then A-Ying…”

“Jiang-ge would have come to find him,” Wei Changze said, although he looked disturbed as well. “He would have –”

“How long would it have taken?” she demanded. “We’ve fallen out of the habit of writing letters; the last one we posted was from Tanzhou – it would be months before he realized something was wrong, and even then he would have gone the wrong way entirely!”

“A-Ying could have…no, he’s too young to remember Yunmeng, he wouldn’t have known –”

Nie Mingjue, who had been forgotten, coughed to get their attention. He didn’t quite feel up to walking away, which meant he had to stop this argument or else be stuck listening to it.

“Surely there’s some sect you can house in until your child is old enough,” he said, meaning the Jiang sect but unable to say it so bluntly. “That way he’ll won’t waste time kicking his heels while you’re away on night hunts.”

“I don’t want him to start training this early,” Cangse Sanren objected. “Children so young should be playing.”

Nie Mingjue huffed a laugh. “My younger brother would agree with you,” he said, though in fairness Nie Huaisang hadn’t actually yet reached the age where he’d start complaining non-stop about having to do lessons or training or – well, anything. It wasn’t as though they’d know. “He’s very firm about getting in at least three hours of cloud-watching every day. Says it’s good for his health.”

“You have a younger brother?” Wei Changze asked, smiling. “How old?”

“Close enough to step on your son’s robes,” Nie Mingjue said, then remembered he hadn’t ever asked the age of their son. “I’d guess, anyway. He’s less than half my age.”

Wei Chagnze looked at his wife and she looked back at him, that wordless communication that married couples that liked each other tended to have – Nie MIngjue had once said to Lan Xichen that if they could bottle that they’d never have another information leak ever again, making his friend laugh to tears, and oh, Lan Xichen, he’d be around now, wouldn’t he, but he’d be so small, they hadn’t even met yet – and then he said, “Can we come with you?”

Which – what?

He blinked at them. “Don’t you want to return to the Lotus Pier?”

He’d just assumed that they would: Wei Wuxian had grown up in the Jiang sect in the end, after all.

The two of them looked at each other again and then both smiled wryly, and suddenly Nie Mingjue remembered all those awkward rumors about Sect Leader Jiang having a thing for either one or the other or both of them and then having shortly thereafter married Yu Ziyuan while notoriously still pining; he felt his cheeks grow hot and cursed his twelve-year-old body once again.

“Uh, right. I mean – sure?” he hazarded. “My Nie sect is always happy to host guest cultivators of talent.”

“You saved our lives, and maybe even our son’s,” Cangse Sanren said firmly. “We owe you a life debt, and that cannot be so easily repaid. The least we can do is give your sect any merits that we earn.”

Nie Mingjue wasn’t sure that was how life debts worked – it mostly seemed like his saving their life now meant he had to find a place to house them – but whatever, he’d known that changing the past would cause some other things to change.

He hadn’t expected that it would be his sect that got stuck with the future Yiling Patriarch.

Still, that wasn’t all bad: Nie Huaisang had greatly enjoyed Wei Wuxian’s company while at the Cloud Recesses, and he’d gone to no little effort to eventually resurrect the man – they could be friends from an earlier time, this life. Maybe Wei Wuxian would end up not becoming the Yiling Patriarch at all, or maybe Yiling Wei would end up under his father or mother instead, or – who knows?

Certainly not Nie Mingjue.

“That seems fine,” he said, and stood with a stretch: the array had been successfully converted from suppression to eradication, and the demon and all the corpses were just about gone. That meant it was time to go home, since the Nie sect obviously wasn’t going to go claim any rewards and the rogue cultivators would spread all the rumors he might wish. “Go pick up Wei Wuxian and make your way to the Unclean Realm in Qinghe; you’ll be welcome there.”

“Wuxian?” Wei Changze said thoughtfully. “Wei Wuxian – I like the sound of that.”

“An excellent courtesy name,” Cangse Sanren agreed, smiling. “Thank you for your suggestion, Nie-gongzi. We’ve been arguing for months over what it should be.”

Nie Mingjue, who had entirely forgotten that Wei Wuxian wouldn’t have received his courtesy name yet, flushed red, babbled something polite to make his farewells, and went back with the others.

-

His father was waiting for him inside. “How did it go?” he asked, the question obviously aimed as much at Nie Zonghui as at Nie Mingjue himself.

“It went well,” Nie Mingjue replied. “Yingchuan Wang didn’t give us any useful information, but we were able to find the problem and eradicate it; no serious issues came up.”

“Good.”

“Sect Leader Nie,” Nie Zonghui said, his face and voice both a bit odd. “Might I have a word..?”

Nie Mingjue didn’t have time to think about that: Nie Huaisang had run over and started tugging at his clothing, demanding to hear about the trip, what he’d done, whether he’d met anyone interesting…

“I met a very nice couple, rogue cultivators, with a son your age,” Nie Mingjue told him, taking him off to the side so Nie  Zonghui could speak to his father with some privacy. “They’ll be coming here before the season turns.”

“Coming here? Why here?”

“Adult stuff,” Nie Mingjue said, shrugging helplessly – how to explain the complicated web of affection between people? But Nie Huaisang, with the usual impatience of children, merely went ‘oh’ as if everything was explained. “You can be friends with him, if you like, Huaisang. Wouldn’t you like another brother?”

Nie Huaisang wrinkled his nose. “Well, maybe. Not if he’s not going to stick around.”

That was fair. Rogue cultivators weren’t exactly known for staying put, and the issue they’d faced this time around would only persist until Wei Wuxian was old enough to care for himself – not long at all.

“Mingjue!” his father called, and now he had a strange expression; Nie Mingjue took Nie Huaisang by the hand and walked back over. “You confronted a plague demon on your own?”

Nie Mingjue frowned. “No, of course not,” he said. “There were two rogue cultivators –”

“A demon and nearly two dozen high-level fierce corpses,” his father said. “Arising from a hidden plague pit which you were able to identify before anyone else, and then you took command, ordering the array to be set up, assigning tasks, the entire thing resulting in a successful hunt with no casualties – all of this on your first real night-hunt. And your only report to me was it went well?!”

Nie Mingjue had no idea what his father wanted him to say here. “It did go well, though?”

His father laughed and ruffled his hair, making Nie Mingjue scowl. “It was indeed very well done,” he said, and he looked proud; Nie Mingjue felt an unfamiliar warmth in his chest. “Anything else you want to add to Nie Zonghui’s description?”

Nie Mingjue cast a slightly guilty glance at his cousin, who had apparently been very complimentary, but well, rules were rules for a reason. “While understandable given my age, Fourth Uncle questioned my judgment instead of following orders,” he said. “It wasn’t an issue and I’m sure he wouldn’t have done it if the battle conditions were more imminent, but I would still recommend an evening reflecting on sect discipline.”

Nie Zonghui bowed in acknowledgment; he was grinning for some reason, and his good humor didn’t seem even remotely dented by the prospect. “Of course.”

“Anything else?” his father asked. He looked extremely amused: had he and Nie Zonghui shared some sort of joke? “Zonghui said you had no issues with flying on Baxia, and that you wielded it well; also that you took the center for a three-point array with the two rogue cultivators to drive the demon back towards the large suppression array.”

Nie Mingjue nodded; he’d expected that Nie Zonghui’s report would have included that, so he hadn’t bothered to mention it. Though now that he thought of it, there was something he should share with his father. 

“I invited the two rogue cultivators to become guest disciples here, along with their son,” he said. “Daozhang Wei Changze, formerly of Yunmeng Jiang, and his wife Cangse Sanren, disciple of Baoshan Sanren –”

“They want to be guest disciples here? Not Yunmeng Jiang?”

“I didn’t press for details,” Nie MIngjue said, feeling his face flush red again; seeing it, both his father and Nie Zonghui burst out laughing. “Anyway, I said they’d be welcome. I hope I didn’t overstep.”

“Of course they’re welcome,” his father said, wiping his eyes. “They’re very well regarded, even if Sect Leader Jiang will probably find a way to poison my tea at the next discussion conference…you did well, Mingjue. You may have the remainder of the day to your leisure.”

Nie Mingjue nodded and took Nie Huaisang back to his room, which was about as messy as one would expect from a four year old. His little brother was pouting, so he squeezed his hand. “What’s got that look on your face?”

“You did so well, and all you get is half a day off?” Nie Huaisang said, a cute little scowl on his face. “He should’ve said something more.”

Nie Mingjue laughed. “We’ll probably have my favorite dishes for dinner sometime this week,” he predicted. “I don’t need more recognition than that. Now: what do you want to play?”

Nie Huaisang blinked up at him. “But baba said you had the second half of the day to do whatever you like.”

“And what I’d like to do is play with my didi,” Nie Mingjue said firmly: he’d regretted not spending enough time on Nie Huaisang in his past life, too busy with sect matters and his own issues, and he intended to remedy that this time around. He lifted Nie Huaisang and put him on the bed. “Come on, you pick something while I clean up a bit here so we’ll have space to sit.”

Nie Huaisang beamed, chattering at breakneck speed as to the various options of what they could do, while Nie Mingjue picked up the various toys and books lying around.

One of them was even a book of maps, which was far too valuable to be given to a child as young as Nie Huaisang; he tucked that one up high and reminded himself to take it back to the library when they were done playing, no matter if Nie Huaisang protested – if he wanted to look at pretty pictures, he could pick something else.

It wasn’t as if Nie Huaisang had any need to look up cities in Yunmeng, after all.

Though – now that he thought about it, maybe Nie Mingjue should take a look at that book before he returned it. If he remembered correctly, the page it had been open to had shown an image of Yunping City, where he might be able to find Meng Yao…

[illneverrecover]

swear not by the moon (M) | jhs & pjm

➛pairing: Jung Hoseok x Reader x Park Jimin ➛genre: werewolf!AU, hybrid!AU, slight ABO dynamics (mostly Alpha, tbh), PWP, smut, fluff, a pinch of angst. ➛word count: 6987 (she thicc) ➛rating: M ➛warnings: ~werewolf kinks~, power play dynamics, slight dom/sub (mostly Alpha being in control, but you get the gist), oral (female receiving), dirty talk, marking/biting, brief mentions of blood, cum play, fingering, rough sex, copious amounts of cum, slight degradation (in the form of the word ‘bitch’ because, ya know, werewolves), doggy style (see before reasoning), over-sensitivity, knotting, cock warming, hints of polyamory. ➛summary: Tonight is the night you are consummating your mate bond with your Alpha - if you can prove first to his Beta that you are worthy to do so. ➛notes: OOF. I’ve been itching to do a werewolf piece ever since I had to cancel my @ksmutclub​ submission last Halloween, and my love @jimins-ass-eater​ rolled through with the win! After showing her my original outline, she commissioned for me to finish this fic like the angel she is. This one was originally just a porn without plot, but I tried to rework some more story in while still focusing on the filth, and that’s just the way Suzu likes it. Thank you so much for your support bb and I hope you like this! 🖤 ➛song: Swear Not by the Moon - GOT7 & Teeth (Nightcore version) - 5SOS

Tonight is the night you officially mate to your lover, and you’re shaking like a leaf.

The scarlet dress you chose was short silk, slinky lines grazing the tops of your legs and see through chiffon long sleeves that settle in the middle of your palm. You didn’t even realize that the fabric was that long until this moment, when the delicate cloth was being tested by the tight press of your nails into your fist.

The night air nipped at the bare skin of your thighs, the wind causing you to shiver as you approached the Alpha’s house. Being half werewolf meant that the blood that ran through your veins left you almost feverish, so a jacket had seemed pointless - but clearly, you had overestimated your nerves.

Raising your hand to the door, you only get a single rap in before it swings open, the boxy smile of Taehyung awaiting you on the other side. He was one of the Alpha’s closest advisers and ‘brothers’, one of your dear friends - though you were surprised to see him.

“They’re ready for you upstairs,” he nods, gesturing towards the hall leading to the second floor. You eye him, wondering if he was going to wait around. You know it’s customary for those important to the Alpha to witness the ceremony, but anxiety had your heart thudding painfully in your chest at the thought.

As if sensing your discomfort, he gives you another wolfish grin. “Don’t worry, princess. I’m not staying. The two of them can testify just fine without me.” 

He gives you a slight bow before turning and exiting the home, leaving you in the foyer by yourself to gain courage and climb the stairs.

There was no reason to be this nervous, you told yourself. It’s Hoseok - your Alpha, your mate - who’s waiting for you up there, ready to officially consummate your mating and declare it to the pack, the world. You’ve known Hoseok since you were both young, your human mother being very close with Hoseok’s own purebred mom, making you instant friends. Days were spent running around the compound with Hoseok and his best friend, Jimin, the three of you counting down the months until your 16th birthday when you would go through your first full shift together into wolf form and find your role. You had been an inseparable trio, there for each milestone, for every shift, from confirming that Hoseok was an Alpha, to finding out he was the next pack leader.

You shouldn’t be scared.

And yet your legs shake as you take each step, the excess adrenaline rushing through your bloodstream triggering your wolf senses to activate. You could sense them, their scent intermingling and comforting you, reminding you that there was nothing to be worried about. You knew them, loved them, would do anything for them.

Gaining resolve, you knock twice on the frame, straightening your back and forcing a deep breath in through your nose-

“Hi, beautiful,” a soft voice greets you, a shaky smile on his face. One hand reaches out, palm up. “Are you ready for this?”

Releasing the breath, you grin back, nodding once before placing your hand in his. Your nerves are soothed the minute you feel his skin against yours, and as his thumb rubs against the top of your hand, bravery fills your lungs. 

“Yes, Beta. I am ready to prove myself worthy of the Alpha.” 

You hear Jimin’s growl of approval first, his hand slipping out of yours to pull something out of his back pocket - a thick midnight strip of silk; a blindfold. Eyeing him, you see his deep blue hair styled out of his face, as if he had run his hands through it incessantly, and his cheeks tinted pink - with lust or anxiety, you aren’t sure. 

He moves behind you, exposing your Alpha for the first time, Hoseok’s body folded in the large crushed velvet chair directly across from the bed. His crimson hair was styled in a side part, sweeping back to expose his forehead and give you an unobstructed view of the spun gold of his eyes. He appraises you, gaze dragging from the crown of your head down the exposed skin of your legs, and though he doesn’t speak, you can see the enthusiastic consent shining in his eyes, in the low rumble of his growl.

And then your sight is taken, the blindfold placed over your eyes, secured with a knot at the back of your head before you feel a touch at the small of your back. 

You’re guided into the large room, tentative steps taken with Jimin’s gentle direction as he leads you to stand before the Alpha. Once you are in position he slides away, your senses sharpened when the comfort of his body is no longer close. 

For a moment everything remains still, heavy breathing and the steadily increasing smell of desire the only signs of the two other wolves in the room. Biting your tongue, you fight your instinct to call out to him, to say anything at all, lest you ruin the ceremony.

“Then, my mate,” Hoseok rasps, his voice low and thick with need. “Prove that you are worthy to me. If you are able to take my Beta, then your loyalty and merit to your Alpha will be known to the pack.” 

You knew the words were coming, and yet you gasp, warmth rushing to your cheeks, arousal pooling low in your belly as the implication settles over you.

“Jimin,”

“Yes, Alpha?” 

“Fuck my mate, make sure she is deserving of your Alpha.”

You had always known one of them would be your mate.

It was the only thing that made sense, that explained why you were so drawn to the two boys back in your youth, always being pulled to their sides. Yes, your mothers were all friends, and so time spent together was imminent, but forming bonds between you three had been fate. 

Being a hybrid, you knew how the pack viewed your kind from the time you were born, your parents always reminding you with cautionary tales. Hybrids were looked down upon; the lower end of hierarchy, bottom of the pack. Your father, a pureblood wolf, had found his mate in your mother, a human. While such relationships weren’t forbidden, they were frowned upon, and yet your parents risked it all for the call of their mate, their twin flame.

And while they would never regret their choice, they were worried about what the consequences would mean for you. 

Luckily, once Hoseok and Jimin were in the picture, they didn’t have to worry any longer. They were always by your side, looking out for you, protecting you. Both boys being of pureblood lineage, their families were respected, and by being in their good graces, the same was extended to you - somewhat. It helped that their closest friends within the pack were also so accepting (with perfect pedigrees to boot), the five other boys always around if Hoseok and Jimin were not. Namjoon and Jin were invariably ready to defend your honor at a drop of a hat, Yoongi and Taehyung prepared to console you after a long day. And the youngest of the bunch, Jungkook,  frequently offered to fight anyone you could possibly want him to, often dying for a chance to flex his muscles. They had become a family within the pack of disapproval, and inside the small group you felt like you had a place, a purpose - a home.

It didn’t stop the whispers, the glares you would get the closer you all got to your 16th birthdays, to your first shift as wolves. Hoseok had come from a long line of Alphas, his status basically guaranteed for his first transition, however Jimin was a wildcard. Hybrids weren’t given rank as it wasn’t promised that they would be able to shift at all, and so there was talk about the reputation you would bring them, especially if you didn’t have a wolf.

You’ll never forget the relief that flooded your system during that first shift, the feel of  your bones settling into your wolf and the freedom that your soul felt as you ran alongside your best friends. True to speculation, Hoseok was granted the rank of an Alpha, and Jimin a Beta; the perfect duo. Once you had shifted back into your human skin, you hadn’t been able to stop smiling, your cheeks aching with joy over the success of your friends, over having a wolf.

However, the pack wasn’t nearly as enthused. 

If anything, the rumors and gossip become incessant, whispers following the three of you like a ghost wherever you went. 

‘That Jung boy is an Alpha, he shouldn’t spend so much time with her.’

‘Jimin will likely be his Beta, why doesn’t he say something? He knows it’s not proper.’

‘What if one of them mates with her? What will their parents think?’

They told you to ignore it, of course. Reminded you that times were changing, that old traditions were being disassembled to make way for new ones, that one day it won’t matter what the others think. Jimin was always the first to point out that even if one of them were your mates, that it could be quite some time before the bond even took place; the mating call usually only becoming apparent during a time of high stress or pain. Who knows what will have changed by then? 

 You took solace in the fact that they didn’t seem to care about what others said, that they alongside the other five boys were always ready to reassure you. But it didn’t stop the small, lingering voice in your mind that whispered to you in the dark of night, that slowly dripped poisonous words until they hummed lowly in the background of your thoughts - what if the pack is right? What if you aren’t good enough for them?

That inner voice got louder the day that Hoseok was named next pack Alpha. 

The current pack Alpha was sick, body riddled with a cancer that was only growing, and he had named his successor knowing that his time left was limited, wanting to spend his final days off with his mate instead of settling pack business. He made the announcement nonchalantly, as if he was discussing the weather or other small talk, asking everyone to gather in the center of the compound before calling Hoseok to the front.

You remember how Hoseok had startled at his name, how quickly his heart started racing as he made his way to the dying Alpha, Jimin trailing softly behind him. You remember staring up at him, eyes glossy with pride and fear, nodding reassuringly when he started to recite the pack Alpha creed - and you remember the blinding hot heat of the mate bond suddenly snapping into place.

Hoseok had stiffened, eyes widening as he found your face in the crowd, the red string of fate clearly visible now between you both. Slowly, your scent evolved, undernotes sliding into perfect harmony to match his own, and it was all he could focus on, barely remembering to finish the words cementing his title. True to form, the mating bond had made itself known in a time when the red headed Alpha had needed it most, and it was you - his best friend, his confidant, the most beautiful person he had ever laid eyes on. 

You hadn’t missed the way Jimin reacted; how his brow pinched as if in pain, the way his eyes were swimming in unspoken emotion as he glanced between his Alpha and you. You wanted to call out to him, to explain - as if there was anything to explain - but instead, he gave you a wide grin, stepping forward to then speak the words that would ascertain his place as Hoseok’s Beta.

When the ceremony was complete, Hoseok had stalked towards you with a new softness in his eyes, and all you could think when he wrapped his arms around you for the first time as mates was that you would give him the entire world if he asked - and you didn’t want to let him down.

It didn’t take long for the rest of the pack to find out what had happened, for the unwanted criticism to be hurled in your direction. While Hoseok formed his own counsel made up of his close friends - the boys you had grown with from childhood - as pack Alpha, it didn’t stop the members from the previous court from trying to guide him; encouraging him to deny the mate bond to you and find himself a proper wolf for a male of his stature. He was reminded of all the benefits of a pureblood mating; how powerful his pups would be with another pureblood female, how it would strengthen his claim as pack Alpha, protect everyone from any other nearby packs. And, as if an afterthought, how a pureblood female would be able to handle the official mating ceremony better, wouldn’t let emotions and other unspeakably human traits stop them from performing the tradition.

Hoseok wouldn’t hear it, eyes blazing with a flash of molten gold when he growled back that he had found his mate, and there would be no further discussion on the matter - that the next wolf that dared to insult his mate like that again better be ready to fight, or be prepared to leave. 

But their opposing arguments echoed in your mind for days.

Your sweet Alpha was always there to talk you through it, explaining that the mating ritual was centuries old but not necessary, that if you weren’t comfortable with it he’d abolish it immediately. He never wanted to make you do anything you didn’t want, that he knew and could feel your love and loyalty to him and didn’t need a silly ‘test’ to prove it.

And just when you would start to acquiesce, you’d see another sneer, hear another dirty insult about your hybrid status, and you felt your resolve firm.

You would go through with this ceremony to prove that you belonged by Hoseok’s side. You would prove to the entire pack that you were worthy, that hybrids were deserving and stronger then history would have them believe. That you could do this, that you were to be respected - as was your Alpha. 

And with your declaration, the ritual had been planned for the next full moon.

“Is this okay?”

Jimin’s voice is as soft and tentative as his fingertips grazing your arm, the delicate way his free hand moves to cup your shoulder. You wonder what his face looks like, what’s hiding beneath his stoic and gentle eyes, but instead you just nod.

With a slight push, he begins to walk you backwards towards where you remembered the large bed was placed in the room, directly under the expansive skylight that was currently framing the moon’s bright glow. You swore you could feel the nerves in his touch, in the way he sucks air between his teeth, and you curse that you can’t just rip off the blindfold and console him - even while part of you knows that would make things worse.

Stopping only when the backs of your thighs hit the resistance of the mattress, you reach out to cling to him, pulling him closer to you. Desire is mounting, a slow dull ache beginning to make itself apparent between your thighs, and you just want him to do something, anything-

“Your sight has been taken, leaving you to the devices of your Alpha and his Beta, to prove that your loyalty lies with your mate,” Jimin murmurs, lips dancing around the curve of your ear and leaving you shivering. “With your senses dulled, do you trust your Alpha? Believe that he will make the right choices to protect you and honor the pack?”

It’s a question, you know, but the way Jimin speaks it makes it sound like a fact, a declaration - that they will never hurt you, that you can always rely on them, if you so choose. 

“Yes,” you claim, voice steady for likely the first time all evening. “I trust my Alpha. I trust you both.”

Jimin’s breath hitches in surprise, not expecting your last words, but you could feel his lips grinning against the shell of your ear. 

“Thank you, princess.” He places a chaste kiss at your pulse point, before moving away from your frame once more.

“Your mate has confirmed her stance, Alpha. If you accept this, the blindfold can be removed at this time.” 

Heart thudding in your chest, you await Hoseok’s response, no doubt in your mind that he’ll agree to move forward with the ritual, but unable to stop the voice lingering in the recess of your mind whispering that you aren’t good enough - never good enough, not for him.

As if he could sense your worry, you suddenly feel Hoseok’s presence in front of you, his scent becoming stronger as he reaches out to tuck an errant strand of hair behind your ear. “Yes, I accept her vow, now and always,” he assures, thumb tugging at your lip briefly before his hand moves to untangle the knot holding the blindfold in place.

Blinking, you let your eyes adjust to the room, pupils blown wide at the sight before you. Jimin is flushed, his hand continuously coming up to brush his navy hair away from his face as his gaze turns fierce, eyes flashing to the icy blue color of his wolf. Next to him, Hoseok is every bit the Alpha - tall, broad, imposing without having to lift a finger.  A dangerous smirk is on his face, and you swallow thickly thinking about what comes next. 

Wordlessly, Jimin moves forward, cautious when he reaches out to put his arms around your waist. His eyes are searching, imploring you for assurance that he isn’t upsetting you, and when you give him a quick nod, he rests his forehead against yours. 

You stay like that for a breath, two, before he leans in, pressing his pillowy lips against yours. The kiss is modest at first, easy brushes of his pliant mouth against yours, but when he feels your tongue sweeping out to taste him, he pulls back with a gasp. 

“Are- are you okay? Are you sure this is okay?” he cups your face, fear etched into his brow. “Because if it’s not okay, we can stop, Hoseok understands-”

Rushing forward, you silence him with another kiss, your tongue successfully finding purchase in his mouth, swirling against his own before you pull back. 

“Jimin, it’s okay. I’m okay. Do whatever you need to,” determination shines in your gaze, and you refuse to drop the eye contact until you’re sure he understands. “Do whatever you want to.”

A growl tears through his throat, and gone is the timid man you’ve grown up with, who was scared to touch you - and in his place is a wicked creature, dripping in lust and confidence. His  hands immediately sink into your hair to tug at the roots, his mouth moving against yours voraciously, hungrily. He kisses like a man starved, licking and biting at tender flesh until you’re whining, head rolling to the side to bare your throat. 

He nuzzles down the expanse of your neck, trying desperately not to scent you, even if every instinct he’s ever known is roaring at him to do the opposite. You smell so sweet, so exquisite, and he feels the sharp point of his canine drag along your vein as his mouth waters.

“Fuck, I wish I could mark you, just once,” he rasps, nipping and dragging his tongue against the base of your throat. “You would look so pretty with my mark right here…”

“No marking, Jimin.” 

Hoseok’s voice was like ice water in your veins, and your eyes snap open as Jimin bites at your collarbone lightly, playfully. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to. I’ll be good.” 

He pulls away then, raising a brow at your wanton state, impish grin erasing any signs of shyness that were lingering. Palms slide down the front of your dress until they reach the hem, pausing only to change direction once they meet the softness of your thighs to pull it over your head. He stares at you while he reaches for your panties, ripping them off of you with a flick of his wrist before he throws them over his shoulder. 

Jimin steps into your inseam, moving closer until you drop to the bed, sitting up with the ravenous werewolf standing between your legs. His hand slides to your jaw, turning you to look at him. “But you don’t want me to, do you, princess?”

Forgetting to breathe, your arousal builds rapidly at the predatory tone in his voice, at the lecherous way he stares at your heaving breasts. 

“You don’t want me to be good, to behave,” he purrs, climbing over your waist as he pins you to the mattress. “You want me to do whatever I want, want me to claim you, too. It’s why you agreed to this ceremony, isn’t it?” Dropping his head, he noses the line of your neck, trailing until he’s down between your cleavage. “You wanted to do this because you wanted me, too - right Princess?”

Moaning, you writhe against him, gasping when you feel the hard line of his cock tempestuously close to your center. He sits up long enough to rip your bra from you, kissing his descent down your body until he’s lodged between your thighs, glistening cunt on full display.

You wait for him to say something else, tease you more, but instead he presses his face into your heat, inhaling deeply before his tongue is sliding languidly through your folds. 

“Fuck, Jimin,” you cry, a hand fisting in his indigo locks. His mouth is vicious as it moves against you, flicking and suckling until you are practically sobbing, clit pulsating with lack of friction. No matter how much you tug on his hair, how hard you grind his face against you, he continues his leisurely pace, lapping at you like he has all the time in the world.

“Jimin, please,” you beg, body buzzing with pleasure. Your high was so close, just on the tip of his tongue, and your patience was waning. “Please just make me come, I wanna come.”

Humming against you, he looks up then, icy eyes barely visible over the line of your cunt. “You taste so fucking sweet, Princess. So good, I can’t get enough.” Pausing, he leans closer to your engorged bundle of nerves, pulling it in between plush lips, enjoying the way your body violently contorts. “I could spend all night between your thighs.”

Whining at his words, you paw at him to no avail, body still suffering under the torture his ruthless mouth is causing. Flopping back in frustration, you form a plan in your mind, fingers finding purchase in his tangled tresses to give a few experimental yanks.

Bracing yourself, you pull the wolf up by his hair, using your often ignored strength as a hybrid to your advantage. He detaches from you with a grunt, flipping to his back easily as you exploit his shock to climb on top of him, peering down at him with a grin.

“And I said I wanna come,” you croon, hands reaching between your bodies to yank at the fabric still covering him until it was in tatters. Thrilled satisfaction is a heady cocktail coursing through your veins, making you feel lightheaded as you took in the awestruck wolf below you. With no barriers, you could feel his firm shaft buried between your lower lips, and you rock forward, gliding until your clit nudged his swollen cockhead.   “Are you going to make me come?”

A growl of assent rips through the room, your Alpha’s pride beaming at how you managed to pin his Beta and take control. His pleased sounds just make you feel more drunk with power, and you lean forward to curl a hand around Jimin’s pearly  throat, hips rolling until his length catches on your entrance. 

Jimin lets you push down against him, hands gripping the flesh of your hips to steady you as you impale yourself down on his dick. The lithe hand around his neck squeezes once before slipping to his chest, your head falling forward as you feel every inch of him seated inside of you, pelvis resting flat on his own.

He can feel your cunt fluttering around him, adjusting to the sensation of intrusion. Your bottom lip is trapped painfully between your teeth, eyes closed to the pleasure, and Jimin gasps at the sight. He allows himself a breath, two, to fully drink in this image of you on top of him, full of him - knowing it wasn’t one he would be seeing again. 

Still grasping at your waist, he begins to thrust upwards brusquely, smirking to himself when you immediately cry out a choked version of his name. He likes that - his wolf likes that, needs you to do again. Digging his nails into your side, he pulls you until your body lays flush against his own, breasts trapped against the hard lines of his chest - before bending his knees to drive his cock into you with more force. 

“I’ll make you come, little bitch,” he hisses, pace not faltering. You whine at the nickname - a common one within the wolf community, but one the Beta had never used to address you, until now. His hands trace down and around your hips, grabbing the globes of your ass forcefully. “But you’re going to say my name when you do.”

He’s dragging your pelvis against his own, grinding you against him as he continues to plunge you on his cock, the combination of his ministrations hurdling you towards your impending orgasm. It’s delicious the way the friction lights your nerves on fire, the way he reaches the tender spot of your walls just enough to have your mouth watering, and you find yourself giving him exactly what he wants. 

“Jimin!” you moan, voice pitching as the edges of your vision became blinding white. A satisfied growl rumbles through his chest, his lips suddenly tangling against yours. 

“That’s it,” he murmurs, sweat beading on his forehead as he bounces you on his length relentlessly. “Come for me,”

Another cry of his name tears through your throat, your high cresting into an explosion of burning stars, your cunt contracting around him as if to pull him in deeper. Jimin continues his torture, crushing you against him with delicious friction to draw out the pleasure until you were practically hiccuping against him, boneless. 

“Fuck, that was so hot,” he whines, his cock throbbing with every pulse of your pussy as you milk him through your orgasm, his thrusts becoming frenzied and desperate. He can feel you dripping down his length, your arousal coating him, the scent overpowering the room and driving his wolf to the brink - and abruptly he’s releasing inside you without warning, mouth latching onto your neck as he spills his seed, teeth careful to not puncture the skin.

Sucking in air, you remain collapsed on top of Jimin, mind still hazy from your climax. It’s only when you feel a brush against your brow that you peel your eyes open, see the towering Alpha before you.

Ah, yes. This wasn’t over. 

“You did so good, Princess,” Hoseok coos, smiling down at you as he loops an arm around your naked form to pull you from the Beta. Gingerly, he lays you on the bed adjacent to Jimin, climbing to kneel next to you. 

“And you too, Jimin.” he looks over to the man beside you, pride raging in his gaze. “Thank you for making sure she was worthy of your Alpha. Thank you for treating her so well.” 

Jimin seems to get choked up then, eyes brimming with emotion, but he smiles and gives Hoseok a nod. “Of course, Alpha.” 

He sits up, pausing to await further instruction, but when Hoseok moves to lean over you, Jimin coughs, awkwardly scanning the room. 

“I… I should go. Let me just grab my clothes and then I’ll wait downstairs-”

“No.” Hoseok’s voice is stern, the command evident in his tone. “No, you will stay - in this room, and on this bed.”

You raise a brow then, matching Jimin’s confusion as you peel your eyes open to stare up at the wolf, waiting for him to proceed. 

“We are a pack together. All of us at the compound, all 8 of my counsel - my brothers, of course - but most especially, the three of us.” His eyes flick from you to the Beta, making sure you were both listening before he continues. “It’s always been the three of us. Regardless of status, of mates, of whatever is thrown our way. That isn’t ever going to change.” 

Heart thrumming in your chest, joy takes flight under your skin at his words, at the new declaration he was affirming. It was the three of you against the world, and now it always would be. 

Jimin chuckles in delight, elation shining in his ice blue eyes as he sits back onto the bed, moving to prop himself up near the headboard. “Yes, Alpha,” he resolves, wry grin tugging at his lips as he nods towards you. “Well, don’t let me keep you.” 

“Oh, you don’t need to worry about that.”

Hoseok’s returning snicker has chills racing down your spine, the wolf inside instantly recognizing the power of the Alpha kneeling before you. His eyes glow gold under heavy lids as he begins to undress slowly, pink tongue darting out to wet his lips as he devours you with a gaze. 

His bare chest is tanned, sinewy muscles rippling as he unbuttons his pants, freeing his thick length to bob against his toned stomach. His cock is just as beautiful as he is, girthy and long, a perfect tapered tip, and you wish that you had a moment to lavish it with your tongue, to taste him fully. Every inch of him is lethal, calm ferocity, overflowing in authority, and you can feel the gush of your arousal mixed with Jimin’s seed smearing against the tops of your thighs as you wait for him to claim you. 

Towering over you, Hoseok drops his head to nuzzle at your cheek, turning your head until he can bury himself in the crook of your neck. “So beautiful,” he whispers, lips insatiable against heated skin. “My mate is so beautiful, so perfect.”

There’s tenderness in his voice, controlled carnal lust veiled thinly in the intensity of his love, and you soften at his touch. “You’re perfect, Hoseok. My Alpha.” 

A throaty purr rumbles in his chest as he trails his tongue against your flesh, following the line until he can capture your mouth with his own. The kiss is searing, white hot electric as your tongues intermingle, teeth dragging against swollen lips. His hand travels down your body, nail tracing a thin path until he’s at your sopping cunt.

“Such a messy girl, hmm? Jimin gave you so much of his come, and this is what you do with it?” He clicks his tongue in mock disapproval, fingers sliding in the sloppy mess only to then press inside of you. 

Jolting at the sensation, you whine as he continues to scoop up the viscous liquid before shoving it inside your aching center, body raw and smoldering with each intrusion. When he deems the job complete, he plops his fingers in his mouth, sucking them clean.

“I’m going to fuck it all out of you, princess,” the grin he gives is shameless, causing blood to rush to your cheeks. “I’m going to fuck it all out of you and then fill you up again, until you’re dripping with nothing but me.”

The digits that were in his mouth are now tapping against yours, lips parting to allow him to press against the bed of your tongue. His eyes darken as he watches, a satisfied hum low in his throat. “Do you understand?” 

Nodding, you mumble the words around his fingers, voice thick with need. “Yes, Alpha. I want to be filled with you, want you to ruin me.” 

Just like with the Beta before, you see a bright flash in Hoseok’s topaz gaze before the wolf in him seems to take over, a feral smirk curling his mouth. A famished low growl is your last warning until strong hands are flipping your body, placing you on your stomach before pulling your hips up, presenting your bare center to him. 

His palm reigns down on your ass cheek, blossoming the skin pink, retching a cry from your throat. “Jimin, help hold her in place for me, hmm? I don’t want my perfect little bitch going anywhere.” 

Arousal floods you at his words, and you clench tightly in a poor attempt to keep from leaking all over the tops of your thighs. Wordlessly, you tilt your head up and meet Jimin’s gaze just as he gives you a lecherous smile, hands moving to pull yours to lay in front of your head, wrists pinned by his grasp.

With your head and chest down and ass up, you were exquisitely offered to the Alpha, and the subservience alone has you trembling with anticipation. You can feel Hoseok move to kneel behind you, the scalding heat of his skin so close to yours, large palms kneading and yanking at the flesh of your hips.

The desire to have him inside of you is driving you mad, your body writhing to feel any inch of him. He chuckles at the scene, appeasing you with lazy strokes of his thick length up and down your soaked slit. Mewling, you move to reach behind you, wanting to force him to plunge into your walls, but a quick squeeze of Jimin’s hand reminds you of his presence. 

The Beta clicks his tongue, shaking his head. “So impatient. You’re completely helpless but so desperate for our Alpha, aren’t you?”

Hoseok drags his cock until it barely catches on your entrance, making you drop your head with an embarrassed whine. 

“Good,” he murmurs, rolling his hips so that he slowly sheaths himself in your warmth. “I hope you are ready for me, because once I start, I won’t be able to stop.” 

Unable to take the torture a moment longer, you sway your hips back, sinking onto his length fully with a cry of his name. The tension of your arms being stretched out slowly ebbs into pleasure, your back bowing to ensure every delicious inch of him is now buried inside of you.

“Don’t stop, Alpha.”

Your words seem to be a trigger, and the wolf behind you growls out a rasp of your name before he slides out - only to slam so hard into you that your teeth rattle. 

The pace he sets is punishing, skin slapping on skin as he pistons in and out of you with otherworldly strength. Deep groans harmonize with your high pitched whines, your head turning to the side to gasp for air as you take him fully with each thrust. You understand now why he had Jimin pin your arms - holding you in place as you thrash forward with every assault of Hoseok’s pelvis. 

The Alpha’s hands abandon your hips to press into the mattress on either side of your head, body looming over you. His mouth falls to your neck, biting and sucking marks until they’re blooming in a dark red violet, making your toes curl. Hoseok alternates between marking you and praising you, pressing words of affirmation into each bruise he indulges.

“You feel so good, so fucking wet and tight, all for me,” he croaks against your skin, mouth spit slick and raw. “All for me, my perfect princess, my mate, my mate-”

A high pitched keen rips from his chest, and you feel his canines drag against the thin flesh of your throat as his hips pick up momentum, pounding into your center. You know what’s coming, and you feel the band in your belly tighten at the thought, your cunt throbbing in time to your pulse. 

A hand that was holding himself up moves to grasp at your breast, tugging and twisting the nipple until you sob, hurtling you towards your climax.

“Claim me, Hoseok,” you whisper, turning your head to give him better access. “Mark me as your mate.” 

A sharp howl echoes through the room, your wolf cantering with a needy plea as you bare your throat to the Alpha, giving yourself up to him. Even the Beta answers the cry, your wrists forgotten as he shows allegiance to his leader, tilting his head to expose his neck.

It’s then you feel Hoseok’s teeth puncture your skin, his mouth latching right to the curve of where the column of your throat flows into your shoulder. The hand previously pawing your breast is now at the base of your neck, holding you tightly as he suckles at the wound, drinking deeply from your life’s blood. 

Crisp pain bubbles into mindless pleasure, the mate bond now fully snapping into place as he continues to fuck into you, propelling you to your end. With his mouth working at your neck and cock pounding into you, you’re unable to hold back any longer - letting out a piercing cry of his name as you’re thrown headfirst over the edge. 

The orgasm is intense, blinding, your body convulsing as waves of euphoria crash over you. It seems like hours pass before the high wanes, leaving you dizzy and your mouth dry. Hoseok isn’t faring much better, muttering nonsense as he works you through it, your cunt squeezing him with every ripple until he’s groaning out a warning.

“I’m gonna come, f-fuck,”  he grits his teeth, nuzzling against your cheek. “Gonna knot you.”

The sensation of him swelling inside of you has your eyes widening, body flinching with oversensitivity. “Hoseok, I can’t - I don’t think I can take-”

“Shh, you can take it, I know you can,” he coos, his hand slipping to rub at your engorged clit, causing you to cry out. “My mate, my good girl,”

His mouth finds your mate mark, licking and nibbling it when his hips start to stutter against you, his choked moans ringing in your ear. You feel his release coat your walls, followed by an increase in pressure that’s minor at first, but rapidly increases. Wiggling, you try to move away, but he holds you to him, sweeping the hair out of your face. “You’re doing so well, taking it so well. It’s almost over.”

Just as you plead that you cannot possibly take any more, the swelling stops, trapping him deep within your core. You feel so full, almost uncomfortably so, but your body seems to adjust quickly, a flushed heat smoldering in your gut at the ache. Hoseok presses a lingering kiss on your mark before shifting you so that you’re both on your sides, him cradling your back with an arm slung low on your waist.

To your surprise, he even beckons Jimin over, who immediately comes to lay facing you, hand reaching to clasp your own, sincere smile creasing his eyes. Your chest tightens with affection, heart ballooning as you lie between your two wolves, basking in the love they’ve shown you, bathing under the pale light of the full moon. 

It takes about a quarter of an hour for the knot to deflate, Hoseok wincing when he finally slides his softened cock out from inside of you. The satiety you had felt remained, even as some of his seed begins to dribble from your spent center, and to your delight your mate refuses to allow you to clean it up, instead resuming your previous cuddling positions.

With your body nuzzled warmly between the Alpha and Beta, your lids grow heavy with fatigue, idle chat of the men lulling you into a light sleep. You can hear them whispering, talking lowly over your snoozing form, but can’t bring yourself to focus on the words.

“So, does your earlier declaration mean this could happen again?” Jimin smirks, smugness evident in his tone despite the question.  

Hoseok hums. “Maybe. Who knows? I’ll never say never, though ultimately it’s up to her.”

“Well, we might want to keep that between the three of us, then. I can practically hear Jungkook’s indignant cries about fairness if he finds out.”

The redhead barks out a laugh at that, his chest vibrating against your back. “Good point. The pup did always have a bit of a crush on her,” he trails off, hand reaching to clap against Jimin’s shoulder. “But he isn’t the only one.”

Silence envelops the room then, breaths and heartbeats the only white noise calling for you to give into the siren song of sleep. Blinking, you force your eyes open to peer up at Jimin, wanting to say something, anything to reassure him - but the Alpha beats you to it.

“It’s okay, Jimin. I know. I know she knows, too - and we both love you. Mate bond or not, it will always be the three of us.”

You can’t see Hoseok’s face, but you can hear the sincerity in his voice, the genuine love in his words. However, you can see Jimin’s expression, and your pulse races at the smile you find there, the mirrored adoration shining in his eyes as he stares at the Alpha before dropping his gaze to yours. 

“I know.” His hand reaches out, thumb smoothing the angle of your jaw, giving you a knowing look before he glances back at Hoseok. 

 “It will always be the three of us, no matter what.”

[deathonyourtongue]

Sanguine Nocturnus | 5

Summary: Even after 2000 years, the world can still surprise you. Pairing: AU!Henry Cavill x OFC Word Count: 2.7K Warnings: It’s a vampire fic. Death. Blood. Gore. Sex. Horror. Not for the kiddies or the squeamish. I mean it. A/N : Sorry this took so long. Hope y’all enjoy it!!

The night was cool, despite the sun’s remnants still radiating from the cobblestone roads like a thin blanket, the heat spreading up Henry’s legs as he and Vinicius made their way to a matte black Ashton Martin Vanquish, the car looking as though it had just rolled out of the dealership.

“Spending wisely, I see,” Henry smiled, taking in the car with an appreciation he shared with most mortal men. While it wasn’t a sturdy black stallion, it would certainly do the trick.

“It was a birthday present from Lucy, I had no say in the matter.” Vinicius answered with an equally cheeky grin, unlocking the car with a push of a button, the engine roaring to life simultaneously. It was only once the doors opened that Henry noticed Gregory sitting in the back seat, looking around anxiously, like a junkie looking for a fix.

“I’m afraid he’s still famished. Nearly emptied the vaults of A+, and yet he’s still ready to bite the first thing that moves,” Vinicius explained, nodding towards Gregory, who barely acknowledged him before turning in his seat to look over his shoulder, watching for anything that could pass as food.

“So m’lord, tonight we go hunting for your first real meal!” Vinicius announced as he looked through the rear-view mirror at Gregory.

“I’ve hunted before,” Gregory replied in a defensive, whiny tone, his gaze showing his confusion. In that moment, Henry read the young vampire’s thoughts and had to discreetly move his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing. Hunting, for Gregory, had consisted of going to a nightclub and picking up the most self-conscious girl there. Their new elder hadn’t even bothered to try and pose her in a way that would keep the Carabinieri from asking questions. It was amateur at best, and Henry was certain Gregory’s victim hadn’t gone to her death in ecstasy. 

“Not the proper way. Not even close,” Henry smirked, sharing a knowing grin with Vinicius as the Vanquish sprinted out of the city center, heading North towards the vineyards.

Once clear of the light pollution, Vinicius eased his foot off the accelerator, preferring to take the two-lane roads at a more leisurely pace, something which, judging from how fidgety he was being, was pure torture for Gregory. 

“What have you lined up for us tonight, oh Master of Feasts?” Henry joked as Vinicius began to look around, watching as much for buildings as he was for the road. It didn’t take long for him to find the farmhouse, the small amount of light coming from the dwelling's windows confirming that it was a family owned vineyard they would be enjoying. Henry could hardly keep the grin off his face.

“Lesson number one, Gregory. If you are going to feed on a human, do so with discretion. Pick wisely, and choose only the sweetest of bloodlines.” Henry explained as they veered off the road and onto a gravel laneway.

“And never drink them dry. That’s the easiest way of getting ill.” Vinicius added, glaring jokingly at Henry, both having gone through the undead equivalent of the stomach flu when they were newly-turned. 

As Vinicius pressed a button on the dash, Henry heard a sudden whoosh of air spill from the tire in front of him. Briefly shocked, his smile grew into one of awe and mischief as he realized why Vinicius had kept such a present.

“You fiend! What else does this contraption do?” Henry laughed, knowing that they now had a verifiable excuse to ask for aid. Shaking his head, he could only chuckle as the car came to a slow stop and Vinicius cut the engine.

“We have a flat. Come on boys, it looks like there’s help just up the drive,” Vinicius smirked, motioning for the other two vampires to follow him.

Vinicius exhaled deeply, invigorated by the fresh blood he’d just pulled from the now-limp girl in his lap. Looking around, he found their new Elder still suckling from a hearty old man—the owner of the vineyard—and Henry looking down at the seemingly-sleeping form of the wife that he’d just drunk from.

With a sharp look to his oldest friend, Vinicius pointed out Gregory’s quickly-approaching error. Eyes narrowed, Henry waited until the last possible moment before sweeping in and yanking the man’s body out of Gregory’s grip, a move which was met with understandable hostility and a hiss of aggression. 

“I wasn’t finished!” Gregory lamented, standing and wobbling a bit as the blood coursed through his veins, shooting straight up to his head. 

“You would have been if you’d kept drinking any longer,” Henry answered, shaking his head. “If you’re lucky, you’ll get a stomach ache. If you’d kept on and tried to drink her dry, you might very well find yourself in the ground next to her…permanently.” He explained. No vampire to his knowledge had ever tried to drain a meal, but the warning had been there as long as he’d been a creature of the night, and Henry wasn’t about to take the risk of finding out when the vampire in question was the head of the Roman coven. 

“Good stock.” Henry commended Vinicius on his choice of victims, both men ignoring Gregory’s silent thoughts regarding how they could wipe out an entire family so easily. It was natural for a young vampire, especially one thrust into such an important position, to question the nature of how they came about their food. While many newly-turned preferred to stick with the donation system, those born before the 1900’s were accustomed to feeding from the source. It was imperative for Gregory to become accustomed to both, especially since he would be parlaying with the heads of other covens, most of whom expected the luxury of a fresh meal whenever meetings were held or visits were made. Though it was still too early to tell, Henry didn’t foresee Gregory’s initial reaction being any sort of hindrance to his rule. 

“Dessert is back at the house, so if you two don’t mind, we’ll be on our way.” Vinicius announced, getting up and all but throwing the poor girl to the ground, stepping over her as one would step over litter on a sidewalk as he made his way to the front door.

Gregory's fidgeting only increased on the way home, his mind filtering through both Vinicius and Henry at the speed of sound, most of them relating to food or his fear of being prosecuted for murder. The two older vampires smiled, both restraining their laughter at the new vampire's paranoia and hunger.

"Don't worry. We're untouchable." Henry smirked, allowing the thought to filter into Gregory’s mind so subtly that it would seem like his own idea. He watched in the fold-down mirror as their new Elder’s anxiety diminished, allowing him to slump back against the seat and actually relax for a moment.

Almost as soon as they arrived, Gregory was accosted by no less than six coven members, all of them offering their fealty in the form of gifts, all of them desperate to get on their new Elder’s good side, lest they incur his wrath. In a flash, he was being made comfortable; fresh blood, warmed to perfection, a luxuriant housecoat and the finest tobacco. Like any new child in a household, he was being spoiled, something which would only make Henry’s job of teaching him that much harder. It was bad enough he had to walk a newly-formed vampire through the ways of his new life; to do it with one who would be ruling over all of Italy for the next 100 years would be near-torture. 

The older he grew, the less patience he had for new vampires. Though he did his best to stay in tune with society and culture as it progressed at faster and faster speeds, having to put up with the endless questions, insatiable hunger, and now the endless fixation for social media would be trying for even the most saintly person. It was one of the many reasons he could never be convinced to sire his own fledglings. 

Finding the whole scene distasteful and feeling a touch jealous of the boy, Henry turned on his heel and headed back out into the night, his mind venturing back to a time not long after his own immortal birth, when he was still ravenous and wild.

Four years had simultaneously been an eternity and a single moment. Through it all, his hunger had never abated. Romans who dared live in the darker recesses, or outside the city gates knew to fear the creature that came unbidden in the night. The one who left nothing but terror and blood in his wake. Prayers were useless, as were offerings. Even sacrifices to the gods did nothing to keep him at bay. 

The hunger ruled his every waking hour and removed any notion of sanity, allowing him to commit unspeakable atrocities to anyone unfortunate enough to be in the domos he entered. He drank five to seven bodies’ worth a night, sometimes more if any of them were particularly small. Man, woman, child; It made no difference. They were all massacred, left in pieces, ripped limb from limb in his blind need for satiation. 

When the high of drinking his fill wore off--and it wore off quickly--Herminius inevitably found himself sickened by what he’d done. Many tears were shed over the corpses of those he’d sent to Charon, a litany of apologies whispered over bits of hair and skin before the hunger invariably took over once more, the ache in his belly unquellable.

Night after night, he scoured his birthplace, looking for those who were already near death’s door, those too feeble to cause a scene when his teeth sank into their flesh. More often than not, their blood did little to satisfy, and he would be forced to find a family of young, healthy, Romans to feast upon. It was a vicious, never-ending cycle that Herminius thought would be nearly impossible to break. At his most desperate, he attempted to end his existence, but not a single method he attempted did anything other than temporarily open his immortal vessel. 

When it became clear that Rome was no longer a safe haven, Herminius wormed his way into the hull of a ship heading for Alexandria. By the time it reached the Pearl of the Mediterranean, he was the sole inhabitant of the vessel. Though he’d learned some restraint on the voyage, being in a new city seemed only to amplify his need for blood.

Herminius had only been in Alexandria a few nights when Caesar’s men--his former brothers--set the port alight, maligning any chance of him returning to his beloved Rome without further risk to his life. His maker had only taught him one lesson, and it was one which made travel nearly impossible for one such as himself:

The sun is your death. 

Homesick and famished, Herminius watched as the library of the great jewel burned along with the port, the vast knowledge turned to mere ash by the carelessness of men he’d once fought alongside of. He wondered if any of his brothers had given any thought to what they were doing or, if like him, they’d thrown themselves headlong into the task with blind fury. Though they were now two very different animals, seeing the glee on their faces eased his guilt some; at the base level, all people were bloodthirsty creatures.

His hunger eased some that night at hearing the cries of anguish from learned men who were forced to watch as their life’s work disappeared before their eyes. By the time the fire was extinguished, nearly half the library had been engulfed, tiny scraps of papyrus floating through the air like the snow in Gaul that had so marveled some of his brothers.

He drank from only one soul that night, that of a young prostitute. Unlike the madness of meals past, where anger and desire coursed through him in equal measure, this time, Herminius sought only to drink and enjoy the nubile woman beneath him. For the first time, he heard the sweet music of pleasure come from his prey, her body writhing, begging him for more. Piercing her neck with his teeth as he pierced her core with his cock, Herminius made the girl sing. Her slim figure trembled in his arms as he slowly drank, fingers pressing her down until he felt the familiar ripple of delight sprint its way up her back. 

She took no note of the blood streaming down her neck as he moved his lips down to her small breast, nipping gently until he found the perfect place once more. Sinking his teeth in brought another moan from the girl, Herminius smiling as he drank what little there was left of her. Her final breath came as he spilled his impotent seed, unlatching from her breast just as she went limp in his arms. 

Setting the girl down, Herminius covered her and quietly slipped out the window, feeling solace for the first time since he himself was bitten.

A few patrons still lingered at Romulus when he entered, and though it was accidental, Henry couldn’t help but feel some satisfaction when his scowl had them all scampering for their belongings, not one of them making eye contact as they headed for the door. 

“Wow, you sure know how to clear a room,” the bartender smirked as she dried a row of shot glasses, unphased by her other customers’ quick exits. 

“It’s a gift,” Henry murmured, taking a seat in front of her, still feeling the barbs of anger pushing into every fiber of his being. 

“Long night?” She asked, ducking her head a bit to try and catch his gaze. Henry finally looked up, feeling the edge begin to dull on his mood as he was met with a warm, open smile. 

“You could say that. Glass of the old stuff with a splash of bourbon, if you please,” Henry requested, jerking his chin towards the wall behind her, pointing at the bottles of Sanguinem that held a place of high regard among the other booze.

“You and your buddies are real fond of this stuff, huh? I’m not sure I get the appeal,” Carla chuckled, shaking her head as she got everything ready to go. 

“There’s a certain…generation of us that grew up having sips of it. It became an old habit.” Henry explained, giving her a wink, his smile growing as he saw a blush flood Carla’s cheeks.

He fell silent as he watched her prepare the drink, intrigued when Carla took a shot of the sanguinem before looking over her ingredients. Eyes narrowed, she chose carefully. Henry was hooked as he watched her light a few Cloves until they smoked, quickly turning what he assumed would be his glass over the smoldering herb and a sprig of Thyme before allowing the glass to cloud with the white plume. In her shaker, she put the sanguinem and his requested shot of bourbon, sprinkling cinnamon on top before shaking it up, knowing better than to add ice, as she’d yet to see any of the patrons who ordered it ask for it on the rocks. Finally, she turned the glass over, quickly pouring the drink into it and trapping the smoke in amongst the alcohol. 

“I present to you, the Caligula. Get it, ‘cause the sanguinem tastes like blood?” She beamed, taking a joking bow before watching Henry take his first sip. 

Before he could even let the liquid touch his tongue, the scene brought him back to the Rome of old, Henry’s eyes closing of their own volition as he drank. Savoring it, he did his best not to swoon, memories of meals past coming back as though he’d just finished them, the flavor bringing back with it memories that actually made him smile. 

When he finally came to, Henry’s expression had softened into one of wonder and appreciation. Staring into Carla’s eyes, he felt something he had felt in ages; attraction. Without allowing his mind to crawl into the decrepit place it usually went when it came to any sort of relationship outside of friendship, Henry let his mouth and heart do the work. 

“Carla,” he read her name tag, “my name is Henry, and you, bellissima, have just created the only way I’ll take this drink for the rest of my life.”

[arigatouiris]

i’ll remember you // kuroo tetsuroo (3/3)

Author’s Note: The last chapter! Ummm so I’m a bit worried about publishing on here... It’s a bit demotivating that I don’t hear from people anymore? I mean, I know that this is asking a lot but I’d really, really appreciate it if you guys would tell me if you liked this? I haven’t seen anything like it being written and thought it’d be cool to write it, so... Just drop in a comment or an ask and let me know your thoughts? I’d greatly appreciate it!

Word count: 4k+

Pairing: Kuroo Tetsuroo x Reader [Kimi no Na Wa re-write]

Summary: Everything had been perfectly normal until you woke up as a volleyball captain from a school you didn’t go to, in a city you didn’t live in. Ever since then, Kuroo Tetsuroo has been inching closer and closer into your life, wrecking almost everything that could perhaps be considered normal.

However, you never realized how vital he was to you; because you were sure you would understand upon seeing him.The struggle however, was remembering each other. Because what good would it do if you went to saw him and he didn’t remember you?

Well, the universe turns back time, of course. Until he did.

Warnings: angst, body-swapping, bullying, fantasy, reader is depressed, mentions of suicide, character death, slow burn, bittersweet end, awkward boners, mentions of porn

ｃｈ． ０３ — ｒｅｍｅｍｂｅｒ ｙｏｕ

Kuroo found the note you had written and kept beneath a couple of books. Having arranged everything so neatly. All the anger he had dissipated instantly, and the call with Kenma ended, the note did a great deal to bring his attention to where he needed it the most.

You.

A couple of months passed with the random swapping happening on days no one really predicted. He left angry notes behind whenever you'd done something stupid to embarrass him or scored low on a math test one day; and you'd leave silly notes suggesting that he cut his hair or you'll do it for him, on how you were slowly picking up volleyball and you might possibly have a crush on Yaku. Kuroo would respond with 'Don't touch Yaku', and looked forward to swapping bodies with you more, because somewhere down the line, not only was it to help you, but it was also helping him.

He could feel himself getting closer to his own father, which was rather strange. Their conversations didn't change, but Kuroo didn't complain about toast for breakfast, and even sometimes bothered to make his own. You, on the other hand, had wonderful conversations with your mother, and the cleared desk remained clear. You paid more attention to keeping your hair soft, drinking more water, and spending more time with Naru; sometimes, you'd play with Takeru, teaching him volleyball and seeing that he actually enjoyed the sport. Your slow communication with Kuroo stopped making you feel crippled, as a matter of fact, Kuroo became a part of your routine.

Some mornings after the swap, you'd wake up with a smile on your face; and your first thought would be Kuroo. It was strange, you'd not even met the boy but lately, he was all you could think of. The swaps were getting more and more regular, and you'd see sweet notes scribbled all over your book — 'Why aren't you dating anyone? Want tips?' You rolled your eyes, knowing full well that Kuroo himself was a bit awkward with girls.

You desperately wanted to see how he was in real life, where you were not being him. You wanted to learn how his voice felt against your eardrums, how his fingers might feel when they ruffled your hair; small interactions were all you craved for, and never before had you ever felt like this for someone you had never met.

Kuroo, on the other hand, knew full well that he was straight out in love with you. It didn't take him long to fall for someone, and while he knew his feelings for you were weird, he also didn't forget that you were dead in the present timeline.

He would wake up some mornings with a note on his face that had sweet little things written like, 'Good morning, Kuroo-kun! I took the liberty to iron your uniform today seeing how you had crumpled mine so brilliantly!' He chuckled before feeling his heart race a bit at the work you had done. He knew you were a year younger, but you were a pro-note taker, and your notes had saved him a lot of time for missing these classes.

But with each passing note, each passing swap day, Kuroo's dread slowly increased. You were going to die and he had no clue how to stop it. He wondered what was even causing the swaps with him in the first place. Did he have a significant role to play here?

Perhaps, there was something that was telling him that the swapping was more than just random. With your second note, he had invariably understood a part of you that you apparently didn't often show to others; not that there were a lot of others, to begin with. He wondered how you'd take the change of dialogue he had with your mother, and about cleaning your desk—he wondered why you hadn't done it yourself in the first place. Perhaps, it was a part of you that he deeply wanted to understand, and for that, maybe, living in your skin may help him. However, he needed to know more.

First, he needed to find what happened to your mother. What kind of accident was it that had taken her life? And what happened to Takeru? From what he heard, your aunt had moved houses after your death, which meant that he might have at least seen a kid if there was one. Takeru was nowhere near you when you had moved to Tokyo, which meant that he was somewhere else.

He didn't know why the first person he thought of asking was his grandfather. His grandfather was a renowned gossip, and he hoped to find some sort of answer through the old man. It was thankfully a weekend right then, and ignoring the hordes of messages that Bokuto was sending him about his 'amazing performance' the previous day, Kuroo felt determined to get this over with.

He found his grandmother watching something on the iPad, and his grandfather was sitting in front of the television. He knew his father was out working, so this gave him ample time to bother his grandfather with useless questions.

Apparently useless questions.

    "Yo, ji-chan," Kuroo's grandfather greeted him with a killer smile, "You heard about the girl (s/n) (y/n) from across the road? The one that...died."

His grandfather nodded before humming, "Poor girl. She moved here for school after her mother and brother passed in an accident. They're from a port town, see. They used to harvest salt."

He knew that much, and his heart hurt from thinking of Takeru also passing away. The boy was barely 8 years old.

    "Know anything else? What kind of accident was it?"

    "You seem quite interested in this. Did you know (y/n)-chan?"

Kuroo smiled bitterly, "In a way, ji-chan."

    "I'm sorry to hear that, Tetsu-chan," His grandfather's voice made him feel worse, "(y/n)-chan took her own life because there was no one else left for her. It's truly sad to see young people take their lives. Her aunt wasn't of any help. Made her dream of a good life in Tokyo and brought her here and just... paid no attention to her."

    "Didn't she go to school?"

    "She went to your school, Tetsu-chan, didn't you know that already?"

Kuroo's heart dropped. What the fuck? He felt a cold sweat rushing over his features. Suddenly, he felt as if he was walking toward something that he should actually be running away from. You were in his school? That meant... That meant it had been three whole months since you had been here and he didn't even know. By now, Kuroo had assessed what would cause everything to topple over.

He had to stop your mother's accident. Somehow, he had to reach you. He had to find out what happened to your mother and brother, and stop the accident from happening. And if that happened, you'd continue to live there. You'd continue to live and you'd grow up happy.

If you came to Tokyo, you'd die.

    "Her mother and brother were on a boat, Tetsu-chan," His grandfather's words alerted him from his stupor, "They were returning home after a ferry ride to a museum. It was the boy's birthday."

That was good. This was good enough. He knew when it would happen, and if he could just swap into your body before then, if only he'd be able to choose willingly when the swap could happen, Kuroo wouldn't have to live with the morbid anxiety bubbling in his chest. He rushed outside, ignoring his grandfather's wishes for him to go brush his teeth, and ran to Kenma's door.

    "Kenma! Kenma! Kenma—"

The door opened, revealing a rather annoyed looking Kenma.

    "I'm starting to prefer (s/n) over you."

    "Need to talk. It's important."

Both of them sat behind Kenma's house, the same place they had started to play volleyball for the first time, a long time ago.

    "Did you know she went to our school?"

Kenma blinked before turning to Kuroo with a surprised look. Kuroo merely nodded with a bitter expression on his face.

    "Her mother and brother die in a boating accident. On her brother's birthday. She moves here and... for three whole goddamn months she's here and we don't... we don't know."

    "Kuroo, you can't blame yourself for this—"

    "It's repeating all over again. She just died and I couldn't—"

    "It's stupid if you think you could have saved her," Kuroo almost winced at how cold Kenma's voice was, "But, you can save her now. So, just don't mess it up."

    "I need to go see her."

    "You know that she won't be there."

    "Maybe, there's some sort of hill like in the movie—"

    "Highly unlikely."

    "Well, this fucking seems highly unlikely too, doesn't it?!" Kuroo yelled, feeling his heart rate increase, "Me swapping bodies with a girl that's dead!?"

Kenma sighed, rubbing the back of his neck, "Maybe, the next time you swap, try to figure out when her brother's birthday is and ensure her mom and brother don't go out. That should do it."

    "Why was she not on the boat with them?" Kuroo asked, confusedly.

Kenma shrugged. "Maybe, she was somewhere else?"

    "Where could she have gone?"

    "Maybe, it has more to do with her relationship with her family?"

    "Hm, yeah... I mean, it is pretty strained. But, I did something. I apologized to her mother after learning that she fought the night before the swap."

Kenma's eyes widened.

    "What?"

    "She did the same for you."

Kuroo paused a bit before narrowing his eyes. She did what?

    "Your dad was telling her, I mean you, about how you blame yourself for... you know."

    "Ah, fuck!" Kuroo groaned before scratching his head with both his hands. "Why can't she not meddle—"

    "What are you doing to tell her that?"

    "Well, I'm trying to save her life—"

    "She doesn't know that."

Kuroo let out a breath. Kenma moved away from him as he stood up.

    "Go brush your teeth, Kuroo."

Several thoughts flooded into his mind. Why was it Kuroo's body that you swapped with? In the movie, Mitsuha swapped with Taki because she dreamed of being a boy in Tokyo. Did you want the same thing? Did you by any chance meet Kuroo somewhere in the past and he had failed to recognize you? Were you some girl on a train that he had met and had forgotten about? Did something happen in the past year that he can't remember, and had invariably changed your life so much that it ended everything?

Why was it him?

Throughout the next month, Kuroo desperately waited to swap bodies with you. He tried to recreate your face in his mind repeatedly, not wanting to forget about you, and this latent obsession that he had with you was starting to get Kenma worried. Without even having met you, he started to miss you, he wanted to see you, communicate with you, but how could he communicate with someone from a year ago?

He wondered what would happen if he went to you.

He knew the name of your high school, and he knew that Naru would be someone he could contact right now. Naru would be in her final year of high school, which meant that meeting Naru could give him an idea of what had happened with you. Desperately wanting answers, he knew there was only one way to get them. He had to go to you, even if you weren't there.

Rushing to his bathroom, he quickly brushed his teeth before running over to his laptop and opening his screen. He took a deep breath before clicking on Goto Islands, the largest island being Fukue. He knew that finding Naru would mean he could find where you lived, and if that happens, then perhaps he could understand what had actually happened. He had to get to Hanada Airport terminal and then take a flight to Fukue, which would take him around 3 hours. Reaching Hanada would take him an hour, so he knew he had to leave immediately. Shooting Kenma a message of what he was going to do, Kuroo decided that he had to meet Naru; the anticipation of the entire ordeal was killing him. If fate decided you deserved a second chance, he did not want to mess it up.

On reaching Hanada airport terminal 1, Kenma called him.

    "What are you doing? Kuroo, she's not—"

    "I'm going to meet her friend, Naru. Maybe, she knows what happened. If I know what happened, then maybe I can stop it."

Kenma didn't say a word, "I hope you know what you're doing, Kuroo. I seriously don't think this is anything like Kimi no Na Wa."

    "Yeah, well," Kuroo grinned, "I think I can't let go of my soulmate so easily, right?"

He could hear Kenma scoff, "You're such a sap."

    "Maybe, there's a red string connecting our pinky fingers across time."

    "Good luck, Kuroo."

Kuroo smiled before putting his phone inside his pocket, his heart racing as he headed inside the airplane that would take him to Fukue island. On reaching Fukue, he knew he had to take a taxi to the mainland, but the area was almost barren. Kuroo blinked a couple of times before turning to the left, finding a lone man standing there.

    "Uh, if I want to get a taxi, where should I go?"

    "Ya wait."

Kuroo felt a cold sweat hit him now. He couldn't wait. The more time he spent here, the closer you inched toward death, and he didn't want that to happen. Letting out a breath, Kuroo walked forward, hoping his memories would be enough to let him know where to go. Maybe, he'd spot something familiar, something that would let him guide himself to your old home.

However, luck was on his side, a taxi paused by him and he could finally get to the school because he knew that was his best bet at finding your house. Ten minutes later, Kuroo ran toward your old home, ignoring the looks he was getting from the people around him. His legs carried him faster than ever before, and he quickly came to a halt before his eyes fell on a familiar brown-haired girl, taking out the trash. The time was close to 5 p.m. and Kuroo's heart raced at the sight of the hyperactive Kotoishi girl.

He walked over to her and the height difference made him want to laugh. (y/n) was almost as tall as her, but right then, Naru was shorter than Kenma was.

Naru looked up and her eyes widened, before a faint recognition hit her pupils.

    "Yer the boy, aren't ya?"

Kuroo felt his heart constrict at how mellow Naru sounded. He nodded, because what else could he do?

    "Ya remembered," Naru said, smiling bitterly at him, "But a bit too late."

    "I can still save her."

Naru blinked, "How?"

    "Explaining will take a lot of time, Naru-chan," Kuroo said, rubbing the back of his neck, "Can you take me to her old home?"

Naru nodded and walked him there. However, she knew that he probably remembered the route, considering he had lived as her best friend on multiple occasions. Turning to the taller male, Naru hummed.

    "Yer quite handsome, aren'tcha?"

Kuroo chuckled, "Thank you. I wanted to ask you a few things, actually."

    "Not surprised. Shoot."

    "What...happened?"

They paused in front of your old home and Naru pressed her lips together. It wasn't easy for her to recollect what had happened to you or your family, but she was dreading this day. The day when the boy her best friend's body was occupied by would come and grace her with his presence. It confused her that he came a year too late, but perhaps, magical things in the world worked in a way no one could properly identify.

    "She wasn't really close with 'er mom. She forgot that it was Take-chan's birthday, and that 'er mom and 'im were gonna go check out the museum."

    "Where was she?"

Naru gave Kuroo a smile that could have broken his heart. That one smile made him understand that this was where he would come in.

    "She went to see you."

*

    "I have to go see him, Naru!"

Naru hummed before rolling her eyes, "Yer deeply in love with a boy you've never met."

    "But, I've lived as him. I think I can guide myself to his house and just... tell him! Besides, he knows me too. We've been sharin' notes."

    "But, there's no guarantee that it is him, right?"

    "Of course there is, who else is a Kuroo Tetsuroo from Nekoma, volleyball captain, bed-haired handsome dork?" You giggled at your own words.

    "Just hope ya know what yer doin'." Naru said, narrowing her eyebrows.

You nodded before letting out a breath. "I've booked my tickets to Tokyo too. I land in Hanada and I should probably take a train to Nekoma. I know my way from there."

    "Aren'tcha forgettin' somethin' 'bout tomorrow, though?" Naru asked, pressing a finger to her chin.

    "What could I possibly be forgettin'?"

The next morning, you left quietly and quickly. You hadn't told your mother that you were going to Tokyo, you knew she'd not let you, either way. It felt as if you were doing something daring for the first time; wanting to go to Tokyo as you and no one else. Half of you was excited to see the boy you liked, but the other half was just excited to do something like this for the first time. Your hair felt lighter than ever, your skin was practically glowing and your heart was racing; you were not hoping that Kuroo would return your feelings, though some part of you thought he did, the experience of it all made you feel almost overwhelmed with joy.

On reaching Hanada terminal 1, your first reaction was to take a deep breath. It was a school-day, and you knew how your mother felt about you missing school, but that wasn't what ran in your mind right then. You were going to meet someone that had invariably changed your life; that had been such a big part of how you could transform into a more confident individual—and this was everything you were waiting for, even before you knew you had waited for it.

On entering the train to the station closest to Nekoma, you felt like the crowds were suffocating you, but every pore in your body seemed to breathe oxygen right then and you felt like your lungs were full of air. The happiness that was coursing through your veins was enough to keep you pumped.

I have to change trains now, you thought before opting to get out, but a familiar mop of a bed head froze you to your spot. You were almost out of the train, the pack of people pouring in made it hard for you to keep your standing, but you had seen him— bed hair and gold eyes—entering the train you were in from your right. Instantly, you moved through the crowd to grab his wrist, wanting nothing more than to press yourself to him and to scream his name, but—

What was his name?

Your eyes widened as he turned to look at you, gold eyes penetrating into your (e/c) ones. He blinked questioningly, clearly confused by your sudden appearance.

    "Do I know you?"

You gasped, what was his name? Why couldn't you remember his name?

    "Ah, it's... It's... I'm sorry."

You were pushed out of the train and the doors closed; you kept your eyes fixed on the boy's from outside, and his eyes found yours, but there was not even a hint of recognition there. Suddenly, you had no idea what you were doing in Tokyo. All the hope had exited your body in a matter of seconds, it was merely a byproduct of having a delusion embedded into your psyche as hope; which it wasn't at all. Tears filled your eyes as you shut them, letting your tears fall straight from them.

You do not know how long you stood there before you got the call from Naru. The call that had changed your life.

*

    "I... I met her." Kuroo said, his eyes widening as realization sunk in.

It was a meager moment, a moment so easily forgotten. It felt as if he was crossfading into time right then, every inch of his being became a burden. How was he to remember you when he hadn't met you? Why was fate playing with him the way it was?

It didn't make sense.

    "She came back after I'd called her. She never really forgave herself for it."

    "When was..." Kuroo cleared his throat, "When is the..."

He couldn't bring himself to say 'anniversary of death'. Naru, however, was the smartest person he knew.

    "In two days. The 13th of November. Also," Kuroo turned to her with dead eyes, "You'd once told me that somethin' was gonna happen to her. This means that the future-you didn't remember 'er or didn't come 'ere and that's why she died in the present timeline. If she's gonna live in the past timeline, and if that has to merge into the present, then you have to do somethin' you didn't do before."

It took him a couple of seconds to understand her. Naru smiled before punching his chest.

    "Try talkin' to her now or somethin'. Happens in the movie, donnit?"

    "Where's... Where's her grave?"

Naru led Kuroo to the gravesite before walking away, knowing he had to stay there for a few moments. Kuroo's heart broke at the sight of your grave, right beside your mother and brother's, and tears instantly filled his eyes. He’d always secretly believed that a love as fierce and true as his would be rewarded in the end, and now Kuroo was being forced to accept the bitter truth. You were dead; no matter what he did, what he would do, you would try looking for him at the wrong time, and he would permanently lose you.

The sky was strangely painted orange that evening. An orange blended with hues of pink and purple, scattering above him in a colorful dance that screamed joy—as if to laugh at his misery. The skies were radiant as his heart broke, and for the life of him, Kuroo couldn't understand how the universe had so gladly failed him.

    "Fuck," He uttered before wiping the tears that fell from his eyes, "I wish I could have saved you. I wish I'd remembered you. Somehow, anyhow. I wish I could have saved you. Fuck, this is killing me."

The time was 6:14 p.m. Suggested time for twilight was ten minutes from then. Kuroo had been here before but had left two minutes early. Perhaps, it was by chance that he stayed this time. Perhaps, the universe wanted a different end. No one can really say what these things were. They just happen.

You had made a wish right before closing your eyes for the last time.

I wish the next time he sees me, he'll remember me.

Perhaps, someone in the universe who could make a difference had heard your plea. Perhaps, someone just wanted to see what would happen if two parallels were connected for the first time. As impossible as it sounded, Kuroo had made it possible by staying there longer than any of his future forms had ever done. Those two minutes made all the difference.

Just before twilight, he shut his eyes for a couple of minutes; before reopening them as you.

He let out a gasp before feeling his heartbeat accelerate. A moment ago, he was at the graveyard, mourning for you, but right now, he was in your skin.

   "Take-chan," He called out, "What day is it?"

   "It's the 13th. Two days to my birthday!"

Where the hell is she? He thought before running to where the graveyard was, ignoring your brother's pleas. 13th November. 13th November. Two days before your brother's birthday. He could spot the graveyard from a distance and his heart skipped several beats on seeing himself there. Tears filled his eyes before rushing over to hug him, knowing full well who was inside.

Swap.

Kuroo opened his eyes and spotted your form, hugging him, crying into his chest. You were sobbing, and Kuroo could feel his own eyes burn with tears. Quickly grabbing your cheek, Kuroo leaned down and pressed his lips to yours, not wanting to waste what time was given to him. He could feel you practically shake under his hold, and he knew that this was perhaps the magic of twilight that the movie had spoken about. He didn't have to look upward to see how the orange sky now seamlessly made so much more sense to him. The pinks and the purples, the hues scattering above him in that same radiant dance that welled his heart with inexplicable joy and hope.

    "Tetsu-kun!"

    "(y/n)-chan." He said so fondly, he felt his heartbreaking.

    "I was going to come to see you... In two days, I've booked—"

Kuroo shook his head vehemently, "Please, please don't. Listen to me, it's your brother's birthday on the 13th. Don't go anywhere. It's going to rain, it's going to," He was taking deep breaths now, "Stay indoors, you hear me?"

    "I love you." You said, tears leaking down your eyes.

Kuroo nodded, his hands pressing your cheeks as if his life depended on this very moment, "I love you too, (y/n)-chan, just promise me. Promise me you'll live through this and come see me."

You nodded, "I promise. I'll come to see you—"Your eyes widened, "I... I can't remember your name, please—"

    "My name is Kuroo Tetsuroo."

    "My name is (y/n)—"

Kuroo pulled your hand out and kissed firmly on the back of it. You mentally repeated his name countless times before it slipped your consciousness effortlessly. You were sobbing now, at how you knew you loved his boy but couldn't for the life of you remember who he was.

    "You..." Kuroo could feel his own memories of you vanish, "I'll remember you."

    "I love you so much!"

Kuroo leaned down to kiss you once more, his hands gripping your hair tightly. You kissed back, but a second later—

—you were gone.

*

The day when the sky turned various shades of orange, it was almost as if a scene from a dream; it was a beautiful view.

Once in a while, when Kuroo woke up, he finds himself crying. The dream he must have had he can never recall. But, there was a sensation that he had lost something, and it lingered long after he had woken up.

Working for Japan's Volleyball Association was a task—especially after Hinata was signed into the MSBY Jackals. He knew had to head over and meet the orange-haired runt the next day, but Kuroo believed he'd take his time. It was the weekend after all. Scratching his butt, he ignored Kenma's message before grabbing his coat and walking to the nearest 7/Eleven.

Kuroo's eyes linger for a second longer on the back of his palm before brushing it off and walking out of his house. He had long moved out of his father's home but managed to visit every once in a while. The first time Kuroo had beer with his father, he pictured how far he'd come, how difficult it used to be for him even to look his dad in the eye. Now, after having blamed himself for his mother's death during his teen years, Kuroo could safely say he had put it all behind him.

My name is—

Walking into the store, he noticed a bike waiting outside, not having been locked. He chuckled at the kid's carelessness before heading in to buy that morning's breakfast.

    "Nee-chan, we can get fried chicken for lunch!"

    "Take-chan, are you sure you can be eating such things being a volleyball player?"

Kuroo froze. He gulped but suddenly felt something pricking the back of his throat, making it almost impossible for him to swallow. Slowly, he turned to spot you and your brother, your backs facing him, as you picked out some packed lunches in the frozen section. Suddenly, your brother winced before running outside, muttering how he had forgotten to lock the bike.

Kuroo's heart pounded in his chest as he approached you, tears threatening to spill from his eyes. You looked like he had remembered, but he couldn't place from where. Your hair was longer, a soft blue cardigan adorned your figure, and blue jeans—you were still shorter, but he couldn't remember from when.

My name is (y—

    "Uh," He took a deep breath before noticing you turned to face him, "I know this is a strange question but..."

Your eyes widened upon noticing him. A lone tear fell from your left eye the longer you stared before your mind screamed at you.

My name is K—

    "Have we met before?" You sounded almost desperate, your heart raging inside your ribcage.

And in that second, Kuroo had remembered you.

[tangleweave]

@brooklynislandgirl asked:

{Sinday # 12 & 13: Eddie} Perhaps the most satisfying thing about being friends with Eddie Brock is how very little expectation there is on his end. She's been in situations before where she's asked a co-worker or other associate if they wanted to spend time together, even something so simple as grabbing pizza and watching a movie, or hiking, surfing, any of the hundreds of things she likes to do to blow off steam or give herself a chance to relax after gruelling weeks as a trauma nurse, or in her own clinic as a nurse-practitioner and certified midwife. She knows a lot about birthing babies, just no practical experience making them, or even really being able to.  Invariably, though, there's some expectation of an end-of-date kiss. Or that by allowing someone into her house that she's also making the invitation for them to try to get into her underthings, her bed, her... everything else, which it never is. She's faced disappointment and anger because of that, stared unblinking into a familiar face while being called very insulting but ultimately inaccurate words. Eddie doesn't do that.

She knows now that their rooftop picnic had been a first date. That he was gently putting forth interest in spending time with her. Getting to know her on a more intimate level. But he'd done so as a friend. Any romanticism had been nearly accidental.

And each subsequent meet up carried the same breezy comfort. Eddie would no more demand anything of her than she would be inclined to chop him up and stick him in a freezer for later consumption. She would tease him that it's because she doesn't really eat meat. Even when he's caught her dead-to-rights stealing a piece of bacon right off the plate when he's making breakfast. Eddie is gentle. And as often as he seems down on his luck, there's something terribly sweet about him that appeals to her. So while he's sitting on what is rapidly becoming his side of the couch, game-controller between his hands and the muscles and veins there attract her like those little silvery things that people put on fishing lines ~lures?~ she can't help but lower the really rather torrid romance novel she'd been reading, at least enough that only her eyes peek out over the top of the pages. Hiding the fact that she's biting her lower lip and debating asking what she's about to. "Hey, Eddie?" Innocent enough a beginning and she waits for him to pause the game. "D'you evah...uhm... do... po... erotica? Like I know everyone say men are into dat kinda t'ing, and you're a man, but..." She waves fingers at him, a little pixie like gesture. "I don' wanna assume. But if you do...like wha' kind? Girl on Girl kine, or maybe boy on boy? Couples? Monsters an' barbarians an' swords? An' mebbe...d'you prefer it in like video? Magazine? Written?" She blushes then from roots of her hair down to the tips of painted toes, one of which seems intent now into burrowing itself into one of his thighs. "Like I don' know about mos' of it but...I seen some t'ings..."

It's the little things about their flourishing relationship that really make Eddie's day. At first, it had been the cups of coffee she had brought him in the chill of a San Francisco January, and the caring, slightly sad -- and yet never pitying -- smile that accompanied them. From there, it had been the gentle words from her lips, the questions she would ask him... and the way she would titter behind her hand when he offered searing rimshots on people who could afford to be taken down a peg or two. The way she would make eye contact with him and see a person, rather than just a homeless nobody. The caring way she would assemble a meal at the soup kitchen and offer it to him with not even one iota of judgment on her face.

And then, eventually, talking. Conversations that lasted a few minutes... and then a few more. Until one day had come along he'd nearly made her late to work. And so there had been the picnic... a terrified inquiry into her interest in getting to know him better. A hope beyond hope that it might be a first date, even, though he'd been careful, so very careful, not to allow his hopes to rise into the stratosphere like that, and he'd taken every step to be the perfect gentleman. The kind of guy a girl might actually want to get to know better... by being kind, respectful, curious, and above all, courteous.

It's been months since that fateful night. Months, even, since the first time she invited him into her place as shelter from unseasonable weather. Months of building trust and amiability between them... so much care taken in making sure there weren't deeper expectations. She's beautiful, yes, and within the palace of his own mind he can't deny feeling deeply attracted to her, but foremost, he is grateful just for the quality of her company. Of being someone, who saw him as equally someone. And their companionship takes many forms... up to and including him playing video games on her couch -- on her TV, on her gaming console -- while she reads.

It feels odd, that companionable silence -- and her permission to him to abuse the privilege of using her nice things -- should be such a valuable thing to him. And while it's easy for him to become engrossed in his escapism through her television, he never takes it for granted. On the contrary... his payment to her for such luxury is his instant attention when she addresses him. Because that's the only currency he carries in abundance, and it seems to be the currency she values most.

That's why, when her lips part and she speaks his name, he pauses instantly and turns to look at her with an openly curious gaze. "Hm?"

And then the question.

His eyebrows rise at the inquiry. It's out of the blue, or so it seems. He doesn't remember having any conversations regarding taboo subjects like erotica... and thanks to his Other, his recall is augmented to be better than most. But even without it, this is Beth, after all... he's certain he would have remembered talking about sexualized media with his crush.

"Uh." He lets out a small hiccup of breath that could be qualified as an attempted yet aborted laugh. "I mean. It's, uh... it's been a little while. Scrimpin' an' savin' every last dime, it's not like I can hit up the local Blockbuster, right?" He lets out another of those noises, sort of a scoff but without the dismissive quality. "But, I mean... yeah. When I was in better times. Of course it's somethin' I liked sometimes."

He feels himself get a little flustered as he responds. It's easier, though, for him to admit to it as a past activity than a present one... as if she would care? But it matters to him. "An' I'm not really one for guy/guy action. Guy/girl worked just fine. Girl/girl, too, I mean, it's hot."

He chuckles at the idea of roleplay being involved. "Nah, not so much into the monsters an' dragons scene. I kinda... I like the sort of thing where it's just two consentin' people who want each other. An' it could be hot an' fast, or it could be slow an' sensual. I dunno, I guess it doesn't matter, you never watch videos o' that stuff for plot, but actually, videos ran the risk of makin' me laugh. Can't take 'em seriously 'cause you don't see people actin' like that for real. Honestly? Pictures. Artwork. Or even stories written. I was a writer, right? If it's a video, it doesn't last the same way a single frame does, or words on a page. If it's a picture, you can take the time to appreciate everything in it, foreground or background. If it's written, you can read it as many times as you want, but you might read somethin' different each time."

The way her toe digs into his thigh makes him squirm just a little, and he puts a reassuring hand on her ankle as he gazes at her blushing face. A grin appears amidst his stubble. "Y'okay? Feels like that was as hard for you to ask as it was for me to answer."

[allthingskakashi]

What if Kakashi is with a s/o who grew up in another village and was abused her whole life and people told her that it was her fault so she ends up getting revenge in the other village and Kakashi and team 7 saw her on a mission and not even Naruto's talk no jutsu can help so someone explained to them that Y/N has been through so much pain that no talk about kindness and friendship can help her so kakashi went to go confront her himself? PS I asked you because you know a lot about Kakashi :-D

Dhshshaj you really think i know a lot about kakashi??😩 pls that's the best thing anyone's said to me thank you so much ugh i wish i could major in Kakashi

Also damn not even naruto's talk no jutsu worked huh, that's some deep shit we're in. Also I'm so sorry this ran so fkn long this is almost a short story. Imma put this under the cut lol i got carried away big time

Okay so ig at first Kakashi would try to talk to you too even though he's prepared for it to not work. But it's still worth a shot and he'd try but he also understands why it's difficult for you to believe in something you've never known in life. So anyway whatever he says would invariably not work but that's okay cause he's come prepared. He didn't expect to convince you so easily anyway. So instead, he proposes a deal. He tells you that you don't have to believe him, all you have to do is allow him to let you see for yourself. He asks that you give him one month to prove to you that life doesn't necessarily have to be all bad, that with the right people you CAN feel love and friendship and kindness. And if after the deal is up, you still don't believe him, then you're free to go your own way and he wouldn't bug you again.

You're ofc a little hesitant at first but at the same time what have you really got to lose? So you decide to give him a chance and he suggests that you come over to his village as a guest and give him a month. The village elders are initially against this and say that they wouldn't allow someone who destroyed her own village to enter Konoha but after Kakashi tells them that you're completely his responsibility and he'd fully ensure that you don't bring harm to the village, they ultimately give in.

And so you come to Konoha, along with Kakashi and these other 3 weird brats. One seems like a moron, another an asshole and the other is plain annoying so you don't even know what's so good about them but Kakashi seems to put up with them, even adore them in a way. Once you set foot through the village gates, you see friends of theirs flock to greet them as soon as they come back. It's nothing you yourself have ever experienced and you watch as they all exchange pleasantries and the way these other people look so happy to have them back. You don't expect any of them to spare you a second glance but surprisingly enough, this weird man with horrible eyebrows asks you your name and offers to shake your hand. You're compelled to just blurt out an insult, those eyebrows are practically begging for it, but there's something so genuine about his smile that you feel yourself unable to. So you shake his hand reluctantly and Kakashi introduces you to each other. Afterwards, Kakashi makes sure you check into a decent hotel and promises to come back to pick you up the next morning for a tour around the village.

You almost wonder if you should just leave in the quiet of the night bc what is all this bullcrap good for anyway, what does that stupid guy know of pain or suffering or any of it but as much as you want to leave, you did promise you'd give it a while so you decide to stick through.

Days go by and you almost know the small village inside out in a few weeks, even the names of the man in the ramen store and the girl in the flower shop. They know you by name too and unlike people of your village, they don't look away when they see you. Instead they greet you with a smile, and treat you like their own. With kindness and warmth.

It's almost a routine for you to watch Kakashi and his students everyday when they train. Sometimes you even teach them some tricks of your own and you're pretty sure the look on Kakashi's face counts as 'impressed', even though he does try to be as subtle as he can. You've even kind of warmed up to the brats. Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura. They're not that bad after all and you have to admit that Naruto does make you crack up once in a while. You've never laughed so heartily like that before and the way Kakashi looks at you whenever you do, quickly glancing away the moment you catch him staring.. it's weird but it makes you feel something you can't quite explain.

Weeks pass by in the same way and you're almost like one of the villagers by now. Even the elders who were not so enthusiastic about your arrival have accepted you because of how skilled you are and what a great asset you'd make to this village if you stayed. You have people you can almost call friends now and it's weird what you feel but whatever it is, it makes you want to give life a chance. It gives you a reason to wake up everyday. It makes you feel things you've never felt before. It makes you want to smile and believe that the world isn't rotten.

And Kakashi.. you've been spending more and more time together lately and you've gotten to know so much more about him. Contrary to what you had assumed so arrogantly before, you come to realise that he too has gone through a lot. He too has endured pain in his life. But unlike you, he decided to fight and not give up. You find yourself sharing things with him you've never said out loud before to anybody and just to say aloud the things you've kept suppressed within yourself for years.. it almost made this horrible weight you've carried all your life lift off your heart and make you feel so much lighter.

And Despite how much you don't want to admit, or rather how much it scares you to, it's nice to have people in your life. You begin to think that maybe everyone isn't that bad. That maybe your life doesn't have to be filled with loneliness and suffering. That maybe you too can have friends or even...love. No matter how scary or how far off that seems. You realise that maybe you can still turn your life around and walk the right path, with people who will guide you through it. It won't be easy and may even take you all your life but unlike before, you're not so scared anymore. You're willing to try. Because you know someone who you're certain would be right by your side, holding your hand through it all.

[theculturedmarxist]

@expatiating​

>Literally anyone who lived in a communist or socialist regime: it was terrible..... 16 year old white girl on tumblr: yeah but that wasn’t real communism :///

You mean anyone like this, you stupid fucking asshole?

Oppressive and grey? No, growing up under communism was the happiest time of my life

When people ask me what it was like growing up behind the Iron Curtain in Hungary in the Seventies and Eighties, most expect to hear tales of secret police, bread queues and other nasty manifestations of life in a one-party state.

They are invariably disappointed when I explain that the reality was quite different, and communist Hungary, far from being hell on earth, was in fact, rather a fun place to live.

The communists provided everyone with guaranteed employment, good education and free healthcare. Violent crime was virtually non-existent.

But perhaps the best thing of all was the overriding sense of camaraderie, a spirit lacking in my adopted Britain and, indeed, whenever I go back to Hungary today. People trusted one another, and what we had we shared.

Learn from Cuba, Says World Bank

The island's economy, which suffered devastating losses in production after the Soviet Union withdrew its aid, especially its oil supplies, a decade ago, has yet to fully recover. Annual economic growth, fuelled in part by a growing tourism industry and limited foreign investment, has been halting and, for the most part, anaemic.

Moreover, its economic policies are generally anathema to the Bank. The government controls virtually the entire economy, permitting private entrepreneurs the tiniest of spaces. It heavily subsidises virtually all staples and commodities; its currency is not convertible to anything.  It retains tight control over all foreign investment, and often changes the rules abruptly and for political reasons.

At the same time, however, its record of social achievement has not only been sustained; it's been enhanced, according to the WDI.

It has reduced its infant mortality rate from 11 per 1,000 births in 1990 to seven in 1999, which places it firmly in the ranks of the western industrialised nations. It now stands at six, according to Jo Ritzen, the Bank's Vice President for Development Policy who visited Cuba privately several months ago to see for himself.

By comparison, the infant mortality rate for Argentina stood at 18 in 1999; Chile's was down to ten; and Costa Rica, 12. For the entire Latin American and Caribbean region as a whole, the average was 30 in 1999.

Similarly, the mortality rate for children under five in Cuba has fallen from 13 to eight per thousand over the decade. That figure is 50 percent lower than the rate in Chile, the Latin American country closest to Cuba's achievement. For the region as a whole, the average was 38 in 1999.

"Six for every 1,000 in infant mortality - the same level as Spain - is just unbelievable," according to Ritzen, a former education minister in the Netherlands. "You observe it, and so you see that Cuba has done exceedingly well in the human development area."

Indeed, in Ritzen's own field the figures tell much the same story. Net primary enrolment for both girls and boys reached 100 percent in 1997, up from 92 percent in 1990. That was as high as most developed nations, higher even than the US rate and well above 80-90 percent rates achieved by the most advanced Latin American countries.

"Even in education performance, Cuba's is very much in tune with the developed world, and much higher than schools in, say, Argentina, Brazil, or Chile."

It is no wonder, in some ways. Public spending on education in Cuba amounts to about 6.7 percent of gross national income, twice the proportion in other Latin America and Caribbean countries and even Singapore.

There were 12 primary pupils for every Cuban teacher in 1997, a ratio that ranked with Sweden, rather than any other developing country. The Latin American and East Asian average was twice as high at 25 to one.

The average youth (ages 15-24) illiteracy rate in Latin America and the Caribbean stands at seven percent. In Cuba, the rate is zero. In Latin America, where the average is seven percent, only Uruguay approaches that achievement, with one percent youth illiteracy.

"Cuba managed to reduce illiteracy from 40 percent to zero within ten years," said Ritzen. "If Cuba shows that it is possible, it shifts the burden of proof to those who say it's not possible."

Similarly, Cuba devoted 9.1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) during the 1990s to health care, roughly equivalent to Canada's rate.  Its ratio of 5.3 doctors per 1,000 people was the highest in the world.

The question that these statistics pose, of course, is whether the Cuban experience can be replicated. The answer given here is probably not.

"What does it is the incredible dedication," according to Wayne Smith, who was head of the US Interests Section in Havana in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has travelled to the island many times since.  "Doctors in Cuba can make more driving cabs and working in hotels, but they don't.  They're just very dedicated," he said.

This amazing video and documentary, produced by Neighbor Democracy, details the evolving communal organs within the Rojava Revolution, from security to health care.

This 40 minute video is an in-depth look into the inner workings of the commune system of Rojava and how they work in practice. Rojava is the colloquial name for the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS), a multi-ethnic, pluralist, women’s liberationist, and radically democratic autonomous zone that has grown out of the context of the Syrian Civil War. While there is frequent and thorough reporting on the military aspects of the Revolution in Rojava, especially their fight against Daesh (ISIS) and the Turkish State, the social revolution as it relates to the everyday lives of the people living there is rarely given anything more than a cursory overview, even in radical circles.

This video is one attempt to make up for that gap in easily digestible information about the way the day-to-day autonomous organizing affects daily life in Rojava. It also closes with a call for people in the US and elsewhere to build communes along similar lines, while discussing some possible contextual considerations specific to North America.

The communes in the DFNS are birthed out of tireless organizing by everyday people, predominately Kurdish women, in an effort that started clandestinely in the days of the Regime, but has since led to structures that could fill the power vacuum left in the war. The people of the DFNS are working out in practice through trial-and-error the culmination of 40 years of theoretical and practical knowledge built through the Kurdish struggle, and most thoroughly laid out by the imprisoned PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan.

The communes have many similarities to the neighborhood assemblies that were the focus of the late American communalist Murray Bookchin, who was an inspiration for Ocalan. There are an estimated 4,000 communes in Rojava today, run through direct democracy of all the residents (50-150 families). The work of the commune is divided up into committees which anyone can join. The most common committees are explored in-depth in this video, and their timestamps can be found below. Each committee covered in the video can be found in its own short clip on the Neighbor Democracy channel so that these short, easy-to-digest videos can me shared in discussions about specific topics relating to communal approaches to various aspects of life.

Marinaleda: Will 'free homes' solve Spain's evictions crisis? 

In the wake of Spain's property crash, hundreds of thousands of homes have been repossessed. While one regional government says it will seize repossessed properties from the banks, a little town is doing away with mortgages altogether.

In Marinaleda, residents like 42-year-old father-of-three, David Gonzalez Molina, are building their own homes.

While he burrows with a pneumatic drill into the earth, David nonchalantly says it "should take a couple of years".

However, when his new house is finished he will have paid "absolutely nothing".

Free bricks and mortar

The town hall in this small, aesthetically unremarkable town an hour-and-a-bit east of Seville, has given David 190 sq m (2,000 sq ft) of land.

He and others are only eligible after they have been registered residents of Marinaleda for at least two years.

The bricks and mortar are also a gift, this time from the regional government of Andalusia.

Only once his home is finished will he start paying 15 euros (£13) a month, to the regional government, to refund the cost of other building materials.

Of course, most people do not know how to build a house, so the town hall in Marinaleda throws in some expertise.

It employs several professional builders and plumbers, a couple of whom work alongside David, to help him construct his house.

HOMAGE TO CATALONIA 

This was in late December 1936, less than seven months ago as I write, and yet it is a period that has already receded into enormous distance. Later events have obliterated it much more completely than they have obliterated 1935, or 1905, for that matter. I had come to Spain with some notion of writing newspaper articles, but I had joined the militia almost immediately, because at that time and in that atmosphere it seemed the only conceivable thing to do. The Anarchists were still in virtual control of Catalonia and the revolution was still in full swing. To anyone who had been there since the beginning it probably seemed even in December or January that the revolutionary period was ending; but when one came straight from England the aspect of Barcelona was something startling and overwhelming. It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties; almost every church had been gutted and its images burnt. Churches here and there were being systematically demolished by gangs of workmen. Every shop and café had an inscription saying that it had been collectivized; even the bootblacks had been collectivized and their boxes painted red and black. Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said ‘Señior’ or ‘Don’ or even ‘Usted’; everyone called everyone else ‘Comrade’ and ‘Thou’, and said ‘Salud!’ instead of ‘Buenos dias’. Tipping was forbidden by law; almost my first experience was receiving a lecture from a hotel manager for trying to tip a lift-boy. There were no private motor-cars, they had all been commandeered, and all the trams and taxis and much of the other transport were painted red and black. The revolutionary posters were everywhere, flaming from the walls in clean reds and blues that made the few remaining advertisements look like daubs of mud. Down the Ramblas, the wide central artery of the town where crowds of people streamed constantly to and fro, the loudspeakers were bellowing revolutionary songs all day and far into the night. And it was the aspect of the crowds that was the queerest thing of all. In outward appearance it was a town in which the wealthy classes had practically ceased to exist. Except for a small number of women and foreigners there were no ‘well-dressed’ people at all. Practically everyone wore rough working-class clothes, or blue overalls, or some variant of the militia uniform. All this was queer and moving. There was much in it that I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for. Also I believed that things were as they appeared, that this was really a workers' State and that the entire bourgeoisie had either fled, been killed, or voluntarily come over to the workers' side; I did not realize that great numbers of well-to-do bourgeois were simply lying low and disguising themselves as proletarians for the time being.

Together with all this there was something of the evil atmosphere of war. The town had a gaunt untidy look, roads and buildings were in poor repair, the streets at night were dimly lit for fear of air-raids, the shops were mostly shabby and half-empty. Meat was scarce and milk practically unobtainable, there was a shortage of coal, sugar, and petrol, and a really serious shortage of bread. Even at this period the bread-queues were often hundreds of yards long. Yet so far as one could judge the people were contented and hopeful. There was no unemployment, and the price of living was still extremely low; you saw very few conspicuously destitute people, and no beggars except the gipsies. Above all, there was a belief in the revolution and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged into an era of equality and freedom. Human beings were trying to behave as human beings and not as cogs in the capitalist machine. In the barbers' shops were Anarchist notices (the barbers were mostly Anarchists) solemnly explaining that barbers were no longer slaves. In the streets were coloured posters appealing to prostitutes to stop being prostitutes. To anyone from the hard-boiled, sneering civilization of the English-speaking races there was something rather pathetic in the literalness with which these idealistic Spaniards took the hackneyed phrases of revolution. At that time revolutionary ballads of the naivest kind, all about proletarian brotherhood and the wickedness of Mussolini, were being sold on the streets for a few centimes each. I have often seen an illiterate militiaman buy one of these ballads, laboriously spell out the words, and then, when he had got the hang of it, begin singing it to an appropriate tune.

Feel free to unfuck yourself you class cuck.

[chiconzin]

The unbearable smell of oranges

I

Maybe it was her untied black hair, maybe it was her strange demeanour, or the history of tragedy surrounding the house she lived in. Or maybe it was something more apparent that caused repulsion amongst the small group of children we used to play with: her smell. Eurydice was constantly surrounded by an unmistakable smell, no one could agree on what it was. It was like the smell of citrus, like the smell of rotten oranges. It took me my whole life to identify the source of that smell; that’s what this story is about.

Eurydice belonged to one of the old wealthy families in town. She lived with her grandmother, until one day, she presumably died from tuberculosis. Who were Eurydice’s parents or their whereabouts, no one knew. And because of her strange characteristics and behaviour, she remained an orphan, living in the same decaying old house.

Many of the details of Eurydice’s life and origin remains unknown because of her compulsive habit of lying. Lying was the thing she was best at, and throughout her life, it allowed her to live relatively comfortably without any family. She had a talent with words; she could convince anyone the sky was green if she wanted. Eurydice had a gifted writer’s soul; her stories were capable of stripping people of their most prized possessions. It was a strange relationship between the town and Eurydice. They had a terrific pity for her, but never enough to make a simple quick act of charity. She was an outcast, forever an outcast.

One day, while we were playing, the topic of reading and writing came up. We all were pretty amazed to discover Eurydice could do either. She said she formerly had a private tutor and that she had mastered the art of reading to perfection. Not believing her, I asked Eurydice to give me reading lessons. Surprisingly, she accepted and set a date to meet at her house. I didn’t know what to make out of this in the beginning, but I ended up going. After all, what was the scheme behind teaching someone to read?

II

It was one of the hottest days of the year, not a single soul was on the streets, not even birds would sing. It didn’t take me a lot to find where Eurydice’s home was, after all, it was one of the biggest in town. Like most old buildings, it was made of quarry and tezontle. It was two stories and what seemed like a thousand rooms. It almost looked like a cloister. Above the massive engraved wooden door was a family shield so eroded it was unrecognizable. A hot current of wind was flowing under the door and inside the building, like it was breathing very slowly. Fear travelled through my body as I felt I was in front of an enormous ancient beast. After knocking several times and not receiving an answer, I entered. When I got to the courtyard, I finally saw her.

She was laying on a hammock, reading with that dirty nightgown she invariably displayed, under the most immense orange tree my eyes have ever laid upon. The tree branches grew and spread throughout the balconies without a care in the world and there were thousands of oranges laying on the floor everywhere. The air was saturated by the orange’s scent, an unusual warm smell, maybe a little sweeter than the characteristic orange’s perfume.

This would be the end of the story if the orange tree was the reason behind Eurydice’s fragrance. Although similar, the aroma and aura from the house and the one emanating from Eurydice couldn’t be more different. The house fragrance was old and nostalgic, Eurydice’s one was longing, but a yearning for something not yet experienced.

Eurydice gestured for me to come and join her, so I did. She started by teaching me the alphabet and the sound of each letter, then she made me try to read some old children’s rhymes. She was a completely different person inside that house. Her charismatic tales, her spillable tenderness, and her infinite patience allured me quickly, and soon enough we became good friends. It wasn’t long before I started taking daily lessons with her.

I enjoyed how weirdly affectionate she was towards me and her even stranger ways of showing it. She would do and undo my braid over and over sometimes, other times while we lied on the hammock, she would curiously touch my face as I was the first human being she ever saw. I didn’t like when Eurydice did that. I was an insecure child growing up and my smallpox scars made me inhibited. But thanks to her tenderness, as time went by I started cherishing more of those times of idleness.

III

When I reached my teenage years, I finally started reading my first novel, I was a quick learner after all. As there wasn’t much Eurydice could teach me anymore, the moments of boredom and frivolity in the hammock during her lessons became more frequent. One of those days of sopor, Eurydice started touching my face again, caressing it rather, that’s when it happened. It was so faint and so light I didn’t read it as a kiss until she started engulfing me in them. Without knowing what was happening and unsure of what to do next, I lowered my head and stayed very still. She took notice after a while of my reaction and then abruptly stopped. The air became heavy, the atmosphere unbearably unpleasant and uncomfortable so the lesson of the day was cut short. After that, I stopped hanging with her for a while.

I tried resuming my daily life, but something ensued after I left that decaying house. Slowly but surely I was being excluded from the local social activities, like the atmosphere Eurydice brought with her was always following.My old-time friends started drifting away, and soon people began treating me as a foreigner. As I became more isolated, I started perceiving it too: the smell of rotten oranges. Eurydice’s garden had followed me.

Initially, I thought it was in my hair, in the braid she often did and undid, so I cut it. Next, I thought the odour was emanating from the books she had gifted me throughout our lessons, so I burned them. I started getting rid of anything in my life that was associated with her in hopes the curse would stop. The scent became unbearable; it wouldn’t go away no matter how many times I washed my clothes or myself. I couldn’t eat anything as everything tasted like those unduly sweet oranges, I couldn’t sleep at night as the warm smell suffocated me and made me feel dizzy.

There was only one thing I could do: seek help with Eurydice.

IV

The day I returned to Eurydice’s house the smell stopped. When I entered, she was in crisis. The young girl told me horrible tales of what happened after I had left. Tales blurring the line between fiction and reality. She was delirious! All her charismatic lying started to flop as she would often confuse events described in the horror novels she often read with daily occurrences without order or logic.

I led her to the hammock and started reading to her as we would always do. I held her tight, as if I released her I would lose her forever. As the lecture continued, and we began to be absorbed in the dull descriptions of that badly written book, I finally found peace. The atmosphere didn’t smell like anything in particular, nor anything felt special in a singular way. At that moment I felt like I could deal with Eurydice’s extravagances and daylight nightmares, I could even deal with being labelled as an outcast by the rest of the town just for little moments of peace like that.

After months of not seeing each other, I finally answered to the incident that made me run away from her and kissed her forehead as we lay under the orange tree.

As one often wishes while reminiscing of tales from the youth, I wish I could have made wiser decisions.

V

We would play pretend like when we were children, we would play to pretend to be in love with each other. Her particular talent in lying made her especially good at this. We would become the protagonist in her romantic novels to spend the infinite time that isolation offered us inside the house. The line between fiction and reality was non-existent in Eurydice’s rotten orange garden.

At first, it was fine when it was just Eurydice and me in the bliss of youth, until I had to coexist with the ghosts of her past and her made-up spectres. The more open she became of her past and the enigmatic characters that were her violent parents and intrinsic family drama, the more confusing and inconsistent the overall narrative became.

On one thing she was saner than me: she wanted to abandon the house. But I wasn’t ready to confront the overwhelming smell of the outside world again. After all, wasn’t my fear of the aromatic curse the reason I bear with such a questionable character?

VI

As years passed by, Eurydice’s starchy whiteness started to become more spectral, and her body acquired more translucent properties. Her coal-black hair had grown so much it dragged like the tail of a dress, and when she bent her head to kiss me, I felt like a black rain poured on me. Her sentences didn’t even make sense anymore, and sometimes she would call me by strangers’ names.

She didn’t even remember who she was anymore. Sometimes Eurydice would stay still looking at something that didn’t quite exist. She was tired, a Quijote tired of hunting imaginary giants and offering love poems to Dulcineas.

And just like that, she stopped existing…

…. if she ever existed.

VII

When she was gone, I started repeatedly reading the badly written book that I read to her the day of my return to the house. Always the same story, always the same place. And just like that, one day I again felt Eurydice’s scent now merged together with the scent of the house. I felt the weight of another person in the hammock, but I didn’t care to see who it was as it is useless to talk with those who have already left.

Just then I understood that Eurydice’s scent was the perfume that loneliness wears.

[casually-inlove]

can u share some tianshan hc?

Sure, no problem. But just as a warning, these are not fluffy, sweet or domestic. I use bits of them in writing.

He Tian never learns to let go of his darkness completely. There's a part of him -- a tiny fragment, a sapling -- that invariably longs for darkness. For violence. That's what makes him never truly cut ties with his family. In some twisted sense, violence is too familiar.

Mo is extremely tight-lipped when it comes to his father. Any attempts to ask him about it result in a few brash insults thrown and middle fingers flipped. He can't help it. The defence he puts up goes back to his primary school days when children used his dad as some kind of yardstick to measure Mo's merit and to vilify him at the same time. As much as he loves his father, he can't help feeling bitter towards him. He is a festering would nobody attempted to put a bandaid on, but everyone and their mother poked their dirty fingers in.

He Tian finds his silence to be exasperating. Deep inside he's scared though. Scared to find out the He family was involved in that shit. So he uses his resources to dig up the info on the restaurant bashing. 

The wealth of the He family doesn't sit well with Guanshan. It doesn't seem right he has no idea what kind of business they do. Whether they do anything legal at all. It doesn't seem right He Tian never mentions his parents. More than anything, he resents being kept in the dark. So He Tian can bed him, fuck him -- but cannot be open about the stuff he and his brother dabble in?

Guanshan winds up surfing the net, trying to look up news articles and social networks -- out of sheer curiosity, he swears. Completely innocuous. After all, he has that right, doesn’t he..?

Despite feeling cowed by He Cheng, he is inexplicably drawn to Brother Qiu. Well, it's not exactly inexplicable -- Mo is completely sold on that pimped-out bike and Qiu's flashy style of driving. It doesn't take him too long to start awkward exchanges with the aloof man. Qiu doesn't mind it. Out of all four, Guanshan is the only guy he can stomach, partly because Guanshan doesn't run his mouth much, and partly because Qiu's secretly touched by being addressed as “Mister”.

As it turns out, Qiu runs a smallish bike workshop. His love for motorcycles goes beyond riding one; he's a very good mechanic too. Something is calming about changing the oil and polishing chrome plated parts, tuning engines and fixing tyres. There’s music to motor’s deep rumbling.

At some point, Mo begins to pop by, and eventually, ends up inviting himself in. Qiu sees no harm in it and after a bit of grumbling, he lets the young man help him with simple tasks. Eventually, he starts tipping Mo. It's not much, but it helps him feel better about having a youngster in his garage.

Qiu turns out to be a very patient mentor -- not only does he show Guanshan how bikes work, but he also teaches him the basics of riding one. Mo ends up listening to him with his mouth slightly agape. Any new bits of info he soaks up like a sponge, and Qiu is, in every respect, a wellspring of knowledge. Bikes, engines, self-defence, hand-to-hand fighting, etcetera.

He Tian doesn't approve of their bonding time. He doesn't trust Qiu. That man -- he has never been able to see through him. Heaven knows what kind of orders he's been given, and, more importantly, by whom. There's a nagging fear prickling his nape that Qiu reports to his father. It has always been this way. Someone always kept an eye on He Tian: who he socializes with, what he does, where he goes. His father had him placed in a panopticon.

The one time He Tian tries to tell Guanshan to keep away from Qiu, the red-haired young man casts him a weird look and brushes him off. He Tian doesn't relent though, he pops by Qiu's garage the next evening and catches Mo during his bike routine. The latter doesn't take him seriously though and calls him paranoid. Things escalate pretty quickly when He Tian attempts to tell him that Qiu is dangerous. 

That's when Guanshan explodes. It doesn't look pretty. Nobody has the right to control who he spends his free time with. Shit hits the fan when He Tian calls him on his hypocrisy, and by doing so reveals that he is fully aware Guanshan, too, had been trying to look into his family background. That gets Mo fuming. It’s even more infuriating that he's the one to blame. He never had a controlling father or a brother, he never needed to cover his tracks online, so he never learned. He Tian didn't even have to go out of his way to find that Mo has been poking around -- the latter didn't wipe his browser's history.

No matter. Guanshan still throws a punch. He Tian is the only dangerous person around here. He has no place to call Guanshan a hypocrite when he's been digging the staff on the restaurant incident. He tells him to get out of his face and never to come back again. And so He Tian does.

It takes Mo weeks to calm down. It takes him weeks to realize he was, in fact, snooping behind the other man’s back, which is a dick move by any other name. It takes him weeks to realize he misses the arm around his shoulder and stupid text messages at night. He misses He Tian’s scent and his dumb mouth that utters corny one-liners. He misses that lopsided dorky smile -- the smile that appears on He Tian’s face unbeknownst to him, the kind that tugs at his lips when he’s feeling content. It takes him weeks to realize that shutting everyone out and keeping his past stonewalled just doesn't work anymore. He cannot let his past control him -- and that is true of He Tian as well. That's when he realizes communication matters. 

I just don’t picture them to be the saccharine sweet darlings engaging in cheesy kind of romance. They will butt heads, they will always face a lot of communication and boundaries issues before they settle. Even still, there will always be an edge to their relationship.

[ad1thi]

broken pieces (you and me) fit together perfectly | AU-gust Day 5: Post Apocalyptic AU

AU-gust masterlist

i think this is my biggest fill yet, and i actually had so much fun writing this so please give it some love!!

//

Adjusting to life in Wakanda isn't easy. For one thing, everywhere is a constant reminder of what they faced, what they lost. As a country, Wakanda is not terribly big, its not large and looming and filled with large stretches of land the way the US was. There is no car for Sam to get into, no expanse of road that he can lose himself in.

There is just here, and nothing else.

It hadn't take him and Jim long to make it back to the others, one of his arms slung around Jim's shoulders while the other pressed against the wound in his abdomen in some attempt to stop the bleeding. The minute he got back though, he knew.

He didn't know how, or why, or even when. But he knew. Steve was dead.

He doesn't remember how he reacted, the entire thing is a huge blank in his mind. A week after he found out, Jim visits him in the med bay, and tells him in soft, halting tones, how Sam crumpled to the ground - screaming, and how none of them could do anything. Not Natasha, not Bruce, not even Jim.

He listens with a blank tone, and then turns on his side, mindful of all the tubes stuck inside him. Jim hovers around his head, but eventually lets himself out, leaving Sam alone to his thoughts.

All said and done, it takes him an embarrassingly long amount of time to realise that he's not the only one grieving. It feels like something that should be obvious, because Thanos killed half the universe, because the only news that's being reported these days is of the climbing death rate, because the tragedy is impossible to escape, even in his own mind.

Yet somehow, Sam doesn't realise until almost two weeks after he's been released from Medical that Jim is grieving too. It's almost humiliating, the way he finds out.

He's on his way to the kitchen, because Princess Shuri has graciously given them use of the East Wing of the Palace even though he's certain that everytime she looks at them, she thinks about the brother they've taken from her - the brother she lost because they brought war to her doorsteps; when he hears Jim and Natasha's voices.

"Anything?" Natasha asks, and there's a tinge of panic in her voice that makes Sam pause, "You haven't heard anything at all?"

"Pepper's been trying him for days," Jim says in a resigned voice, but Sam's been a therapist long enough to detect the undercurrent of despair, "Says she lost all contact with him after he boarded the donut. There's nothing -"

Jim's voice cracks, and Sam wants to reach out and hold him. Dimly, he's aware that he should probably examine those feelings closer but Jim's started talking again so he refocuses his attention on the conversation, "..doesn't die. I got so used to him not dying Nat. I don't, I don't know what it means that we haven't heard from him. Part of me wants to hold on, because this is Tony we're talking about he -"

"beats all the odds," Natasha finishes, and there's a rustle of movement, where Sam imagines that she's reaching out and holding his hand. It stirs something ugly inside of him. "He beats all the odds, and you want to believe that he's beaten these ones too."

"Thing is though," Jim says in a dry voice, "Even if he somehow survived space again, I have no way of knowing if he survived the Snap. Thanos didn't just kill half the population on Earth, he killed half the population everywhere. Who's to say that Tony didn't die somewhere on some godforsaken planet, all alone."

Jim makes a chocking sound then, and Sam realises with rapidly growing horror that he's crying. Without quite thinking it through, his feet start moving of their own accord, and when he enters the room, Jim's head is nestled in the crook of Natasha's shoulders.

Natasha looks up when he enters, and her eyes are wet with unshed tears. She mimes keeping quiet in her left hand, her right hand running down Jim's back in soothing motions; and Sam feels like an outsider looking in on their friendship.

He doesn't know what to say, so he says nothing, simply grabbing something from the fridge and walking out. As he's leaving, he can feel Natasha's eyes bore holes into his back, but he doesn't turn around.

/

Staying in Wakanda gets easier, over time. Sam isn't foolish enough to say that it hurts less, or that he gets used to how he can cover the entire country in a couple of days, but it gets more familiar - starts to feel like some semblance of home.

Jim is a huge part of that.

Once he got his head out of his ass and recognised that Jim had lost his bestfriend the same way Sam had, they started developing, something. Sam doesn't want to label, wouldn't even know what to call it even if he tried - but he's been down this road long enough to recognise familiar haunts.

He’d always been friendly with Jim, since they both joined up to the Avengers roster at the same time, post – Ultron. Steve was caught between missing Tony and furiously throwing himself into saving Barnes - and Sam, Jim and Natasha formed this unlikely but solid bond.

That’s nothing compared to what they have now: quiet conversations in dimly lit rooms in the middle of the nights, cryptic touches in the blearing light of day, comfort under covers that they never talk about again.

Sam has spent so much time being the person that people went to for help, that he’s almost forgotten how to ask for it.

Jim changes that.

“Can’t sleep?” he lifts up his head from where he’s absently blowing at his coffee to see Jim leaning against the doorframe, clad in worn out sweats and an MIT tshirt and stretches around his chest and rises up around his waist; revealing a sliver of finely toned muscle and the hint of defined hips.

Sam firmly tamps down the want that’s growing inside him.

“Me neither,” Jim continues, even though Sam hasn’t spoken, “I don’t think any of us are getting much sleep anymore.”

“Might have something to do with the fact that your clothes don’t fit you,” Sam says, in lieu of an actual response. He doesn’t feel like digging deep and exposing himself.

Jim looks down at his tee like he didn’t even realise that he was wearing it, and when he replies, his voice is thick with an emotion that Sam recognises intimately, “It’s Tony’s. Must’ve got mixed up in the wash.”

Tony isn’t in Wakanda, nor is his laundry, but Sam doesn’t call him out on it. He simply reaches out and pats on the seat next to him, and when Jim sits down – knocks their shoulders together.

Jim leans into the touch briefly, and Sam suddenly remembers how tactile Tony used to be, during the few times he would visit the Compound. He wonders how long it’s been since someone has touched Jim like that.

“I hear that Wakanda has crazy infomercials,” he says, before he does something stupid like offer to cuddle Jim, “want to see what’s on?”

Rhodey looks down at his coffee mug, and then up at Sam with an expression that Sam doesn’t want to touch.

“Sure,” he says eventually, “how bad can it be?”

It’s bad. Even worse that the infomercials that Sam remembers from his first year back on American soil, but he doesn’t watch much of it – because he spends most of the night watching Jim’s face; and resolutely ignoring the growing warmth inside his heart.

It becomes somewhat of a routine between them. Not in the regular, let me pencil you into my diary way, but more in the organic way. One of them will be stewing in silence, and the other will enter; and invariably they'll end up on the couch surfing channels.

Princess Shuri offers to get them access to american cable, but they both decline. Neither of them are ready for that yet.

Some nights Natasha joins them. Others, Bruce. Somewhere along the way, the kitchen gets stocked with popcorn and chips and crisps, and the fridge is filled with cans of various drinks.

Most of the time though, its just him and Jim.

As much and Sam loves Bruce and Natasha, these are the nights he likes the most.

It's on one of these nights that Sam finally decides to make his move. He's resting on Jim's shoulder, because they've long since foregone the illusion of space and personal space, and Jim's hand is lightly tracing patterns from where it's resting on Sam's hip.

Someone is selling a spoon that doesn't spill it's contents no matter which way you twist it on the screen, and Sam twists so that he can look up at Jim. Jim looks back at him instantly, and softly, slowly - telegraphing his every move, Sam leans up to cover the last few inches and bring their lips together.

There are no fireworks, there's no sudden and huge realisation.

Jim kisses him back instantly, the hand on his waist tightening. The kiss is sweet and chaste, and when Sam pulls back, he smiles.

Jim smiles back, and Sam thinks to himself that nothing is going to fix what Thanos broke - but maybe he isn't as broken as he thought after all.

Fin

[skysometric]

Creation As Communication

It's not exactly a secret that I was the quiet kid, growing up. I was homeschooled, I was fairly sheltered, and there weren't a lot of other kids in my life – so most of my time was spent around adults. (Even when there were other kids, the reason was usually about the adults.) Add autism into the mix, and you have a very introspective child whose life happens around him, rather than through him. I mostly just sat in the corner and did my own thing, until somebody else reached out to me.

"My own thing," of course, involved a lot of video games and Legos. But at some point, drawing was added to the mix.

It started fairly innocuously – my dad showed me how to make a maze, so I took that idea and ran with it, filling stacks of graph paper with mazes of all shapes and sizes. Eventually I got a sketchbook, and started filling it with Kirbies and other video game things I liked. I didn't have much training with it, not even "how to draw" books; as a result, most of my drawings were fairly simple. But that didn't matter, I just enjoyed the act of creation. In lieu of talking, creation was how I expressed ideas – to myself, mostly.

Now, as I mentioned previously, I was not a major player in the life happening around me. So anytime I was dragged along to something important that the adults were doing, I brought something to do. Quite often, it was a sketchbook. And as I sat in the corner, plotting my latest maze or whatever, sometimes one of the adults would remember I exist, and try to involve me a bit so I didn't feel left out:

"Hey, what's that you're drawing?"

So I turned my sketchbook to show it.

Almost invariably I was met with the same answer: "Wow, that's amazing!"

We would spend a minute looking through the last few pages of stuff I've drawn.

And then they would turn back to adult business.

Now, I need to stress that to the average adult, these were absolutely incomprehensible hieroglyphs. That's not because of their quality or anything – but I was drawing either video game characters and scenes that they weren't at all familiar with, or page-spanning labyrinths that would take several minutes to make sense of, at best.

Even though I knew that their reaction to it was just cookie-cutter encouragement, it always felt like some part of their reaction was... genuine? Perhaps it was their tone, or the fact that they gave it more than just a quick glance – but they really seemed surprised by what I was making, even if they couldn't understand it. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, born out of the fact that I was getting any attention at all.

Whatever it was... I wanted more.

I started bringing my sketchbooks to more places, coming up with bigger ideas, and learning how to talk about what they mean when it was finally "my turn" to speak. I made certain things just to excitedly await the time that I could show it and talk about it and have my time in the spotlight (which was really more like a candle). And then, once it ended – as it always did – I would go back to my corner and draw some more.

Sometimes this was the most communication I had for weeks.

Eventually, I started to become proud of my creations – not just because of the attention they garnered, but because people had really nice things to say about them! I embraced my identity as the quiet creator, both because it was working really well... and because it was all I knew.

Then, my sheltered life came to an end when I went off to gifted school, and a couple of things happened all at once:

At some point I started to have some confidence in my drawing ability – enough to say I was good at it. Then somebody called my bluff.

I got on the internet. As it happens, lurking in the corner on the internet is a great way to be completely forgotten.

Life started requiring that I actually participate in it myself, rather than things just happening around me.

But I didn't just lose a hobby, or struggle with coming out of my shell. No, I have been dealing with the fallout of losing my main method of communication ever since.

All my childhood I was the quiet kid in the corner with his sketchbook, and suddenly I lost all of that. No longer did I have the sketchbook to fall back on, since I "wasn't good at it." No longer could I stay quiet, since I would be left behind and forgotten. No longer could I stay in the corner, since I finally needed to take center stage of my own life.

Not all of these habits were healthy, of course – but I never had the space to grow out of them. Instead, I had to drop everything I knew.

All at once.

Even today I struggle with falling back on these methods. It's why I stay so quiet until I've made something like a drawing or a level. It's why I struggle to keep up with friends that I didn't really have before. It's why I put so much emphasis on "projects" and "making stuff." It's why I spend so much time pushing my creative limits, shooting for the stars in the hopes that more people might notice, maybe even stick around.

Writing this just feels like another one of those Big Things to show people in the hopes that somebody else will know what to do about it... even though I know I'm the only one who can figure it out.

Honestly, in a lot of ways, I have figured it out. Being on the internet taught me how to stand out more, and be supportive of others. Having more friends my age taught me how to be present in the moment, and responsive to others. Livestreaming taught me how to speak out more, and come out of my own shell.

And all of these things taught me who I am not just as a creator, but a person!

...Even still, I struggle to find that piece of myself again.

[kokoinupi]

Jitterbug (Hashiya Nanashi, feat. Hatsune Miku & MEIKO) analysis, from an autistic point of view

Disclaimer: This is based on my personal experience growing up with autism, and the experiences of the people around me. This song is also really gay by nature, so if MikuMei isn't your thing, this is your warning. Obviously this is in no way any sort of official analysis, and actually, ironically due to my autism, I may misinterpret some things or have a hard time not taking lines literally, so don't get mad at me if I get something clearly wrong. I'm just very passionate about this interpretation, and this song comes very close to representing a real (canon) autistic experience. No one else seems to comment on it from that point of view though, so naturally I had to write this up! This is also my first full analysis, and I'm not good at being concise, so please bear with me!

[[MORE]]

Overview: The video, for me, is a major factor in how Jitterbug comes across as an autistic narrative. The name itself, while it is still a reference to a 1920s dance (befitting of the electroswing style of the song), doubles as a meaning for someone who can't sit still, and actually on a personal note was an affectionate nickname my family called me as a kid, so that tipped me off right away. All throughout the video, I noticed most of all, the way Meiko moves her hands while she dances is very close to stimmy behavior, not really like how a neurotypical would normally dance (nor is it a part of the jitterbug itself). While Meiko is moving her hands like that, Miku very often has something in her mouth, either a kind of stick, or the laser pointer, definitely suggesting an oral fixation. Of course, both girls obscure their eyes with sunglasses (I think Meiko's aviators look so cool), and while that definitely has some metaphorical meaning as others have pointed out in their analyses of the song, it's really not uncommon for autistic people to wear shaders and/or noise dampeners to combat overstimulation and sensory issues. None of these things on their own prove anything, of course, as the video is often a small part of a song's meaning, so let's dive into the main course!

Lyric analysis:

I can't talk about any wishes, nor my ideals

Giving out the same, invariant answer all the time

For being the first line in this song, this really already punches home the idea that Miku is dissatisfied with herself, and, as is often the case with autistic people, doesn't even know how she's supposed to navigate the world. She either doesn't know her aspirations in life, or doesn't know how to talk about them without being judged.

You don't need a rotten yesterday

Dump it before you get betrayed

Meiko, being the free spirit in contrast to the masking, frustrated Miku, assures her that she can't just hold onto bad things that happened, being judged or not knowing herself, she needs to dump her perfectionist tendencies and learn to live as herself a little before her own precariously-built persona comes crashing down on her.

Just fully utilize it, tame it

Can't give it away nor dye it tomorrow

I'm fully ready

Meiko tells Miku that she has to learn to work with herself the way she is, find her talents and use them fully, rather than constantly trying to change or push her feelings deep down. She can't give away her personality, and she can't truly make herself different inside, no matter how hard she masks on the outside.

Hungry critics that can't even move

are just glancing at you sideways

The people who would judge Miku for who she is are just hungry for something to laugh at, someone to other or exclude, but when it comes down to it, they're no real threat. If she can just get over that initial hurdle, she'll realize her haters are just pathetically lapping at any entertainment they can get, and they're really not that scary at the end of the day.

Who cares! Ignore those idiots

Given this is the first line they sing together, it almost feels like an admission on Miku's part, she wants to believe Meiko and stand up for herself for once, even if it is just among them for now.

Come at nights, grab my hand and dance

The girls are obviously fond of each other (just gals being pals), and in a way, understand one another on a deeper level than other people understand them, having similar neurotypes. Dancing itself is sort of a wild, energetic activity, that can help express a wide variety of pent-up emotions, and the jitterbug itself is a pretty manic dance that fits the image rather well.

Use your eyes only for me and let's light it up,

Your one and only, scorching laser light

This line is honestly just gay. I don't think there's any deeper meaning to the laser light specifically, but it is a cute thing to call your funky spunky girlfriend, isn't it? It actually may be a reference to how Miku really is on the inside, bright and strange, and often blinding and scorching to others. She hides that side of her pretty well normally, but with Meiko it's not only fine to be bright and weird and full of personality, but actually encouraged.

Fitfully ranking things and aligning them vertically

Abandoning my heart, I convert them to numbers out of impulse

Honestly, upon my first translated listen of this song, I didn't think absolutely anything autistic was happening until this line hit me. This is so autistic in nature, I'm surprised that a lot of analyses leave it out. Miku not only sees the world in sets and orders and numbers like many autistics do, but actually feels (most likely from outside influence) that by her brain being wired to see the world like that, she's abandoned her humanity and become a robot.

The magic gradually faded out

Instead, pessimism flowed in and was entrenched

I'm taking a little liberty here, but many autistics with savant syndrome (and/or gifted kid syndrome) are praised in their youth for the amazing things they can do, such as doing complex math quickly or reading at a faster speed than their peers, but later in life, when those skills are either no longer relevant or have averaged out, the things they used to be praised for become seen as annoying, not something to brag about, or a burden. Miku no longer sees the way her brain works as magical and special anymore, it's a curse and proof to her that she's not like the people around her.

Struck speechless by the awful scenery,

Very clearly overstimulation.

I linger in the raining streets, soaked from head to toe

Some wait for the sun, some grumble about the rain

All pointing at me inside their umbrellas

This line could very well be taken literally, but it's most clearly just a way of describing how different Miku is truly. She doesn't see the same things as bad as other people, she doesn't see the same things as good either. She could be the type that embraces darkness in life, both literally and figuratively. People may not actually point, but she can feel eyes on her, and it makes her feel even more alienated. Even when she tries so hard to fit in, there are some parts of her that are too obvious to change, and she knows she draws attention anyway.

Who cares! Ignore them right now

Let's smile, choose my hand and sing

Feel the rhythm with your heart and dance

I'm not sure exactly why, but the line about feeling the rhythm with your heart made me feel really connected to the song. It might just be because of my own personal music stim habits, but either way it's another line about leaving behind your facade, being as true to your nature as possible, and just dancing out your worries to the beat of the song.

On this rainy stage, as bright as the scorching light

This line embraces the idea of Miku preferring the rain. No one else has to like the stage they set for themselves, because when they're together, it's just about them and what they want to do. Miku can soak herself in rain and bright, scorching light, and just exist with no one around to point and stare.

Eyes go dim and words are lost

While this can just be a reference to depression in general, it's worth noting that many autistics have trouble showing expressions, and/or go nonverbal, often in response to stress or unusually upsetting circumstances.

The colors of today have faded out

Still, it couldn't end because of someone

This can be a way of insinuating that Miku is actually suicidal due to how she's seen by others, and Meiko is the one thing keeping her here, or it could just mean that Meiko stopped her days from getting too bad in a moderate sense. Either way, pretty gay, and shows more how much the girls depend on each other in mutual understanding.

Who cares! Ignore those idiots!

Come at nights, dance and grasp your aspirations

Referring back to the first line, Meiko does assure Miku that not everything needs to be worked out for others' sake, but by spending time with your true self and unpacking your feelings, the future you're supposed to have and the things that truly make you happy will become clear.

I shall dedicate my entire life to you

Let's shine on, like the scorching light

Reach your hands out, until the very end

Miku is in lesbians with her. Ending the song on such a gay note is never a bad thing of course, but it is a little anticlimactic for this analysis. Though, the line of reaching your hands out might actually refer to their hand movements in the video, symbolizing to keep being weird and authentic as long as you can, but that may be a bit of a stretch (or a reach, if you will)

Final thoughts: I have seen other analyses (though not as in-depth) about the meaning of the song, and while they definitely do have some meaning and I can see it from that point of view, there are just some obviously autistic cues that I couldn't ignore that just swayed my perception of the song entirely that direction. I'm not sure if I only picked up that meaning because of my own experiences biasing my view, or if I actually am onto something with the original intention of the song. If you guys have any insight to offer on any of the lyrics, or if I missed or misinterpreted something, feel free to let me know! Thanks for reading this far, honestly! 🌸