#or it's just based on the 1st wave from 3 days ago

[goldenpinof]

a new dan instagram dm for australia

G’DAY D&P DINGOS just a note to say our tour tickets are on sale now and some are close to selling out! https://danandphil.llo.to/i/ibMXYn/5jZ0RAX we're KEEN to be upside down with you soon it's gonna be HECTIC

Sydney Dec 9, i suppose, lmao. thank you so much for telling me! 💙

[choco-pudding]

Space Channel 5 Gyun Gyun Book p. 59-61, 72, 73, 82, 83, 88, 89, and 100. (Translations by @lavoszero and myself. Edit by myself.)

Story Pages. The pages between are more like an actual guide book.

Imgur link to all of the Gyun Gyun Book translations we’ve done thus far.

Plain Text Below

p. 59

Story

The spaceship accident that happened ten years ago still remains vivid in everyone's memories. The catastrophe threw all the passengers into space and it was a miracle that any at all were successfully rescued.

A young reporter from Space Channel 5 who went to broadcast the accident was the one to rescue the only survivor, a little girl. This caused the little girl to dream of becoming a reporter.

It was 2499 when the news of an alien invasion on Earth shook the world. People fell into a panic over the unexpected and dramatic invasion, where strange ray beams forced all earthlings to dance one after the other.

Space Channel 5 was the first to take notice of the incident and quickly sent a reporter to the scene. That reporter's name is Ulala, the same girl that was in that accident ten years ago. She headed to the scene for the sake of peace on Earth!

p. 60

Report 1: Introducing...Ulala! 6:45 pm. We rushed into the space station, the scene of the Morolian invasion incident! The space station, crowded with people waiting to travel, was in complete panic with the sudden appearance of the aliens. It wasn't just the civilians, pilots and rescue police sent to help them were dancing too…

Spaceport 9 A transport station to space that boosts about 340 million passengers annually. There are all sorts of Space Lines in operation; there are arrivals and departures all day long. There are about 58 similar establishments on Earth.

p. 61

Start!

Lobby 1F →Page 62

Control Tower →Page 64 After Lobby 1F in the 1st round and in extra mode (2nd round) if ratings are 79% or below.

Lobby 2F →Page 66 After the Lobby 1F in extra mode (2nd round) if ratings are 90% or above.

Luggage Room →Page 68 After the Lobby 1F in extra mode (2nd round) if ratings are 80-89%.

Boss! Launch Pad →Page 70

60-71 [Channel 5 logo]

Stage Data

Base Ratings

1st round, 15%

Extra mode (2nd round), 70% or more

Rescuable Persons: 28 Persons

Estimated Morolians: 145 Moros

Total Report 1 Commands: 119 Commands

p. 72

Report 2: Spaceship S.O.S.! We snuck aboard the Luxury Spacecraft G, a space luxury passenger ship that travels at the speed of light throughout the galaxy, time to report! The spaceship's captain and crew were all dancing, and the ship was completely taken over by Morolians. I'm worried about the space school children that were on a fieldtrip on the ship…

Long-distance Light Speed Luxury Spacecraft G (JPN: Hyperbolt) It flies through space with mind-blowing speed. It has the impressive ability to station 40 spacecrafts and a carrying capacity of 300 people. The buffet serves foods like space chicken fillet sandwiches and macrocosmic wontons; the corner that reproduces retro foods is super popular.

p. 73

Cockpit →Page 74

Dinning Hall →Page 76 After Cockpit in the 1st round and in extra mode (2nd round) if ratings are 89% or below.

Air Duct/Garbage Room →Page 78 After Cockpit in the 1st round and in extra mode (2nd round) if ratings are 90% or above.

Boss! Observation Platform →Page 80

72-81 [Channel 5 logo]

Stage Data

Base Ratings

1st round, 25%

Extra mode (2nd round), 70% or more

Rescuable Persons: 20 Persons

Estimated Morolians: 49 Moros

Total Report 1 Commands: 90 Commands

[Translator's note: The Spacecraft G is called the Hyperbolt in Japanese]

p. 82

Report 3: Catch the Scoop!! We located the Morolian's secret base in the asteroid belt! It appears that the Morolians, with their terrifying scientific power, drilled into a huge asteroid and built it there. Inside, there was a massive television, and it was sending out mysterious radio waves!!

The Asteroid Belt/Morolian Secret Base Large meteorites block the way in this danger zone. The surface of an especially enormous one serves as the Secret Base's shell. The purple organic material that covers it seems to be of Morolian origin.

p. 83

Start! Asteroid Belt →Page 84

Base Passage 1 →Page 85

Boss! Head Office →Page 86

Base Passage 2 →Page 87

82-87 [Channel 5 logo]

Stage Data

Base Ratings

1st round, 45%

Extra mode (2nd round), 70% or more

Rescuable Persons: 07 Persons

Estimated Morolians: 44 Moros

Total Report 3 Commands: 74 Commands

p. 88

Report 4: Evil in the Galaxy Revealed! The Morolian Base was filled with radio waves coming from a brainwashing program. To everyone's surprise, the Morolians were also "forced to dance" by someone else. Ulala and her companions ventured across the galaxy in order to track down the source of the radio waves, where the shocking truth awaited them…!

Space Channel 5 Headquarters Official name: Space Broadcasting Co. No. 05 A long-established and comprehensive Space Broadcasting Station with 1234 employees. It was once a popular station but has since declined; there really aren’t any hit programs or scoops.

p. 89

Start! Boardroom Corridor →Page 90

Control Room →Page 92 After the Boardroom and Corridor in the 1st round and in extra mode (2nd round) if ratings are 89% or below.

Recording Studio →Page 94 After the Boardroom and Corridor in extra mode (2nd round) if ratings are 90% or above.

Boss! Main Antenna →Page 96

Boss! VS Blank →Page 98

88-99 [Channel 5 logo]

Stage Data

Base Ratings

1st round, 70%

Extra mode (2nd round), 70% or more

Rescuable Persons: 16 Persons

Estimated Morolians: 104 Moros

Total Report 4 Commands: 111 Commands

p. 100

Ending

The one who brainwashed the Morolians and caused the incident was none other than Channel 5's Chief Blank. This series of tumultuous events were falsehoods setup by Blank for the sake of gaining higher ratings.

After a fierce battle, Jaguar gently reaches out to Ulala when she's tossed into space. At this time, she remembers a scene she experienced as a child. That's right, 10 years ago, there was a person that saved her, too.

Jaguar’s words fill Ulala with hope and courage once again. "You're not alone anymore." And then, with the hot dance energy everyone gathered for Ulala, Blank TV is sent flying off to the ends of space.

Thus, this long report finally comes to a close. The ratings for Ulala's reporting debut is an unprecedented 100%! The director's cheerful voice echoes throughout the galaxy. "You were the best in the whole galaxy, Ulala!"

[Translator's note: "You're not alone anymore," is the Part 2 translation of what Jaguar says when he holds her. The official Part 1 English translation he says “You’ll be safe now” but that isn’t as thematically relevant. "You were the best in the whole galaxy, Ulala!" is a more literal translation of what he says in Japanese. In the official English translation he just says “You were the coolest!” but that didn’t seem as sweet.]

[al3x1ss]

Cheerleader Captain {HCs}

Includes: Terushima, Oikawa

THIS IS WRITTEN WITH A GENDER NEUTRAL READER!

Authors Note: This is a sort of collab with @lexysclubhouse based on our conversations LMAO, but seriously go check hers out!

If a part 2 is wanted, leave an ask!

Warnings: Cursing

Terushima

aLRIGHT KIDS LETS GET TO IT

also hello go check out Lexy’s part of this (collab? Idfk)

SO

you two probably met while he was in practice, but since you’re the cheer captain, you needed to get the last jacket for one of your competitions coming up

so they’re on a water break and they just see a random person come in like

👀

are you lost baby gorl 😏

ANYWHO

Terushima comes up to you smirk and all

“Hey gorgeous, you lookin for me?”

You just look up at this man

Bored as hell

And you’re just SILENT

sO HES JUST LOSING CONFIDENCE LMAO

“No.”

YOU JUST SHOVE PAST HIM

HOMEBOY LOOKS LIKE A LOST PUPPY

so you go to your coach, and immediately a smile comes of your face

and he’s like oh my god

Angel 🥺

so you talk with your coach, get the jacket and say goodbye to her

jacket w a v i n g in the wind behind you like there’s literally a fan on but there’s not?

you’re just so cool to him

so he has already fallen like

IMMEDIATELY

was trying to find you but he can’t

He’s over here thinking you’re a 3rd year from how mature you were

(You’re a second year hehehehe)

so the next time he sees you, YOURE at practice!

His team wasn’t told that their gym was gonna be used for a little before practice

So his team got their early and saw your team doing a routine to “Livin’ La Vida Loca”

ONCE AGAIN HE HAS FALLEN IN LOVE AND CANT GET OUT

DUDE

YOU WITH YOUR POM POMS?

YOUR HIPS

MF ALMOST GOT A NOSEBLEED SHIT

LIKE IT WASN EVEN EROTIC

YOJ WERE JUST SO STUNNING AND COOL LIKE SHIT

HE FELT LIKE A LITERAL NERD

the words “I don’t deserve their oxygen” full on came out from his mouth

ONE OF HIS TEAMMATES JUST STARTED WHEEZING LIKE

OH MY GOD

THEIR CAPTAIN?

W I M P

Like you’re practicing in sweats but shit I mean I’d simp 😳

About 2 weeks later he hears about you guys winning your competition

At this point you kind of know him? Like after that small interaction the cheer team and volleyball team were introduced to eachother

Especially since you were going to be cheering at prelims in 2 months

So the next day he pulls you aside and confesses

Stuttering and ALL

HE GOT YOU FLOWERS

LIKE HE GOT ROSES CUZ HES A BASIC BITCH

BUT LEAVE HIM ALONE HES TRYING 🥺

Shit I’d KILL to get flowers from someone

especially him

okay lex not the time

HE TAKES YOU ON A DATE TO THIS REALLY CUTE DINER

YOU KISS HIS CHEEK AT THE END OF THE NIGHT EIRHHTHTYN

YOU LUCKY MF I LOVE HIM SO MUCH

literally the first conversation was about his tongue piercing

And he got REALLY self conscious

BUT

YOU HAD ONE TOO?

WHICH WAS SUPER COOL

LIKE OMG TWINSIES

like of course you took it out for comps and stuff but for just hanging out you had it in

You look so hot with it to him

so two weeks pass and it’s pre-lims!

At this point you’re one of Johzenji’s favorite couples

Like why didn’t y’all get together sooner you cute as FUCK

So you guys are doing a small routine while Terushima goes up to serve

ITS THE SAME LIVIN LA VIDA LOCA ROUTINE LMAO

MANS IS JUST HOLDING THE BALL STARING AT YOU

NOT KNOWING THAT THE WHISTLE BLEW ALREADY

AND THEN HE SNAPS OUT IF IT REALIZING HIS 8 SECONDS WERE UP

HE LITERALLY G A V E A POINT TO THE OTHER TEAM BECAUSE YOU WERE SO PRETTY

Now between switching sides after losing the 1st set, you walk up to him

He’s just staring at you smirking

“So, you wanna talk about that serve?”

“OH IM SOOOOORY, my pretty baby was just so beautiful, I couldn’t look away.”

THIS MAN DOESNT WALK AWAY

HE MF S K I P S

YOURE RED AS HELL

PRETTY BABY?

BEAUTIFUL?

UGH

Oikawa

heheh HES WEARINT MY NUMBER I ALWAYS SCREAM AT THIS

OKAY SO I HAD A DRESM AB THIS

AND I LOVED IT

SO ITS HAPPENING

ENJOY

OKAY

SO

here’s what I’m thinking

Terushima HAS a cheerleading partner?

Oikawa HAD a cheerleading partner

Your schedules just never lined up and it was a mutual break up!!

You guys broke up about 3 months ago so the awkwardness is basically gone?

Like y’all are friends ya know

And yeah both of you do both still think about it randomly

mostly oikawa 👀

So they’re at practice and you come in SPRINTING

LIKE BOYS ARE ABOUT TO BLOW THE WHISTLE TO START A GAME AND THEY JUST SEE YOU ZOOM

SO EVERYONES JUST KINDA WATCHING LMAO

you don’t come out of the office for a while so they end up starting the game

you wanna know who’d up to serve

Oikawa :)

boy serves RIGHT when you come out

Like the universe was like “oh? let’s scare the mother loving SHIT out of ‘em!”

literally hits the wall next to you

“OIKAWA TOORU GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE!”

MAN FREEZES

like shit

He was already gonna get scolded by iwa

but you?

he comes up to you with his arms behind his back, his eyes obviously terrified

“Do you know what you just did?”

“Yes.” 🥺

“And do you realize what you’re gonna do?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Homeboy has never eeen this side of you so he’s terrified.

And when you go to walk away he realizes you’re wearing a captains jacket

“Wait, Y/N, you got promoted?”

“Oh, yeah, I tried for it like a month ago.”

“Congratulations.”

he kinda just stares at you walk out like

Me?

oIKawA tOoRU

missing my ex?

n e v e r

okay maybe sometimes

so the next time he sees you they’re at the prelims against date tech

And he seems you come in in your uniform

wOOSH 🥰

So you guys lock eyes and y’all wave at eachother

you can see his face is r e d so you’re smiling

the game starts, you guys doing simple cheers, but as they get to the transition to the second set, you guys start doing a cheer to “Idol” by BTS that you choreographed

And seeing you as a captain?

H I T THIS MAN

HIT IT TIL IT BREAKS TYPE BEAT

he literally paused to stare at you, iwa was like

“GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER AND DROOL AFTER THE GAME”

stan iwa honestly y’all would make fun of him together whenever you guys had time to hang out

So, end of prelims, they lost to Karasuno

And you’ve been to his house maybe a few times when you guys were dating?

so you remember where it is

his mom?

kinda shocked to see you?

especially in a cheerleading uniform since she never realized you did that?

but you were talking about how you just wanted to see him

so you go upstairs and into his room and he’s just in the corner with his alien plushy sobbing

Your heart is breaking at this point for this man

You go and sit beside him, him not really acknowledging you

“Tooru, I’m really really proud of you and what you’ve become. That will not be the last time you’re on a court, and I will make sure it that as long as I live.”.

he turns to you and turns his alien pushy, instead clinging onto you

You can feel your uniform getting soaked, but you run your fingers through his hair anyway, giving him forehead kisses

after a while of crying, he lifts his head to look at you, eyes still very puffy

You look at him back and you give him a small smile

And he puts his hand on your chin

Gotta get that kiss kiss after missing you for so long

SOFT MAKEOUTS WITH OIKAWA OKAY

so here you guys are at about 2am

Talking about how you missed eachother

“Y/N, I really want to get back together with you.”

😳

“Who would I be to say no to an offer like that?”

You guys go to school the next day

Give the rest of Seijoh 4 sQUEEZES

cuz they deserve it I love them dearly

on Saturday you guys actually went on a date!!

you wanna know what song came on the radio

MF IDOL

HE TURNS TO YOU GRINNING AND GOES

“Ya know you looked really cute doing this cheer, might want to see it again~”“OIKAWA TOORU I WILL NOT HESITATE TO CRASH THIS CAR”

End note: “Just a Friend to You” begins in two days and I’m v excited! (Once again thank you for 100 notes!) (self promotion ✨) But in all seriousness, please go check out Lexy’s stuff! She’s a great writer and is so sweet ❤️

~ Lex 🖤🤍

[beifongsss]

sunset [sokka]

Pairing: Sokka x reader, also sort of the Gaang x reader.

Requested?: Yes! I actually combined two requests and I hope that y’all don’t mind. Anon: “ can you do a sokka x reader where it’s the 1st anniversary of the readers parents death and sokka comforts them?” and @shadylightpandaspy: “hi, can you do a really fluffy, i’m talking tooth rotting fluff where sokka goes to comfort the reader at sunset and they kith  thank you :)”

hi. i would like to say that yes this talks about parents and if you are someone who does not have a good relationship with their parents or doesn’t have parents, i am now your mom. okay? and i love you so very much <3.

.masterlist.

~

After a long day of travel, the Gaang had finally decided to stop and set up camp. An unfortunate run in with Azula and her friends earlier had left half of you exhausted and the other half chi-blocked, thanks to Ty Lee. Luckily, Sokka had managed to save the day by distracting Ty Lee long enough for Aang to get you and Katara onto Appa before flying away.

You had remained quiet for the majority of the time you had traveled, even long after the chi-blocking had worn off. You would only hum in response to some of Katara’s questions, effectively worrying the waterbender as she tried to elicit a response from you.

Once you had found a clearing that Aang deemed suitable, you had silently helped Toph set up, knowing that she was the least likely to nag you. When Katara had approached you to ask if you wanted to help her cook lunch, you had shaken your head before walking over to Appa and curling up on his leg. She had exchanged a worried glance with Aang, who then proceeded to approach you and perch on Appa’s leg next to you.

“Her (Y/N/N),” Aang spoke softly, a small smile on his face. “I was wondering if you’d like to go on a walk? Just us? I saw a cliff that overlooks that valley before we landed and I thought you’d enjoy seeing that.”

You didn’t reply, pretending to be asleep even though your heart was aching. Aang was such sweetheart and he cared so much about his friends- no his family- and ignoring him made you feel bad.

But you just wanted to be left alone.

After receiving no answer from you, Aang wrapped you up in a hug. He hugged you close before leaning in to whisper into your ear. “I know you’re awake (Y/N/N) and I don’t know what’s wrong but I hope you know that we’re all here for you. We’re family and we love you so whenever you’re ready to talk, we’ll be here okay?”

Aang left you alone after that, walking back over to where Katara was standing. You felt tears slide down your face as you took in his words. Family. You were a family, but not a real one.

No, your real family had died a year ago to the day. That’s why you had spent the day being silent and sullen, because the thought of your parents hadn’t left your mind. You couldn’t help but think about how different your life would be now if your parents had never perished.

Perhaps you would have never joined the Gaang. The thought alone made your heart hurt, the possibility of never having met Sokka or any of the others being too sad to even fathom even if you knew it was true. If your parents had never died, then you would’ve been perfectly content living in the small Earth Kingdom town you had been born in. You never would’ve been tempted to leave the town and join the Avatar because if your parents were still alive then you wouldn’t have any bad memories you wanted to leave behind.

But if you had never joined the Gaang, then you never wouldn’t have experienced love on the scale that you had with them. From the hard punches and soft smiles from Toph, to the slight overprotectiveness from Katara, not to mention the lingering touches and “you aren’t eating enough, here have some of my food” from Sokka, you knew that you were lucky to have them in your life.

And how could you forget Aang’s caring nature. He took it upon himself to make sure all of you were okay when he had bigger things to worry about, and he was only 12.

But despite all the love and comfort that the Gaang provided you, you found yourself missing the people who had raised you and given you so much love and support when you were young and bright-eyed.

~

No one tried to approach you for the rest of the afternoon. Appa was your only company and even he could notice that something was wrong, occasionally nudging you with his nose as he tried to get you to cuddle. You petted the sky bison halfheartedly, smiling softly as he let out a low grunt and pushed his face closer to you.

You could hear the faint conversation that was coming from the middle of the campgrounds, Toph’s loud laugh floating through the air. You shifted around on Appa until you heard faint footsteps approaching. A warm hand landed on your shoulder, gently shaking you before you heard a familiar voice.

“(Y/N)?” Sokka asked. “Hey, lunch is ready. You should eat.”

You didn’t acknowledge his words, keeping your eyes closed as you tried to steady your breathing. You heard him sigh softly before leaning over and pressing a kiss to your forehead. Sokka paused as he heard your breath hitch at the kiss, staring at you before turning around.

“I’ll tell the others to leave you alone,” he muttered, finally walking off. You let out a sigh as he finally left, mentally chastising yourself for reacting to the kiss. You opened your eyes and stared up at the sky, watching the clouds float by as you tried to tune out your friends’ laughs. You tried to drift off to sleep but grew restless after a few minutes. Remembering Aang’s earlier words, you slid off of Appa’s leg and grabbed your bag before setting off on a walk.

You made sure to avoid drawing attention to yourself, instead choosing to walk off into the path that was hidden by Appa’s body. You walked for a few minutes, taking deep breaths as you glanced around in wonder. The forest was beautiful, some trees bright with blooms while others towered over you.

After a few more minutes, you found the spot Aang had been talking about. Trees still filled all the space in front of you before they came to an abrupt stop as the floor fell away. Standing at the edge of the cliff, you would see the entirety of the valley. There was a large river snaking through the base of the valley, fields of flowers spreading along one side of the river and a multitude of trees on the other. It was silent and peaceful, the occasional call of a bird being the only audible thing.

You approached the edge of the cliff before kneeling down, clearing the leaves in front of a sturdy tree. You slung your bag off of your shoulder, reaching in and pulling out the picture that you kept with you at all times. Grabbing a rock, you propped the picture up against the base of the tree and placed it on the edge to make sure that it didn’t get blown away. You walked around, picking different flowers as tears slowly streamed down your face.

Gathering the flowers in a small bunch, you grabbed a long piece of grass and tied them all together before placing it down in front of the portrait.

“I miss you,” you whispered before bursting out into tears.

~ Back at the campground, the laughter was dying down as the Gaang finished eating.

“Hey,” Katara said, looking around. “Where’s (Y/N)?”

Aang scrambled up from where he had been sitting, rushing over to Appa before replying. “She’s gone!”

Katara’s brows furrowed in response, a worried look appearing on her face. “What do you mean she’s gone?”

“Well, one moment she was here, and now she’s not,” Toph replied sarcastically, leaning back on her elbows. Katara scowled.

“You mean, you guys don’t remember?” Sokka asked curiously. He was met with blank looks from the rest of the group. “Guys, today is the anniversary of her parents’ death. That’s why I told you to leave her alone.”

Everyone’s expression morphed into one of concern as they remembered your earlier behavior.

“Oh,” Katara whispered. “I-I didn’t know that her parents were dead.”

Aang and Toph muttered in agreement and Sokka flushed as he realized he had revealed information about you. He had no idea that you were the only one he had told.

“Oh, um, can you not tell her I told you?” Sokka asked meekly, an embarrassed smile on his face. The others nodded in agreement.

“I think I know where she is,” Aang finally said, drawing Sokka’s attention. “I mentioned the cliff we passed earlier. I told her she would enjoy the view. She may have gone there?”

”Someone should go get her,” Toph said. Everyone else agreed.

“So who’s gonna go?” Sokka asked after a moment of silence.

“You!” Toph exclaimed pushing him towards the path. “You’re the only one who knew about today, you’re the one who’s gonna comfort her. You’re obviously the one she feels the most comfortable with.”

Sokka stared at them dumbly, nervousness clear on his face as his friends waved him off. He began to walk away slowly, looking back and hoping that someone else would tag along with him. His nerves only got worse when his Aang shot him a thumbs up before turning and walking to Appa.

Taking a deep breath, he continued on his path. He was growing increasingly worried about how to comfort you as he went deeper into the woods. What if he just made things worse? What if you pushed him away and fled? How was he supposed to help when he wasn’t sure if you wanted help in the first place?

His thoughts quieted down when he heard soft sobs. Immediately he sped up his steps, rushing to the sounds as he felt his heart clench.

He found you quickly enough, kneeling by a tree overlooking the valley. You hadn’t noticed him yet, causing you to flinch when you felt someone kneel next to you. The two of you stayed there in silence as Sokka allowed you to let it all out.

After a few more minutes you stood up and made your way over to the edge of the cliff. You saw Sokka’s eyes widen with slight panic and you ignored him as you took a seat, allowing your legs to dangle over the edge. You turned to face him after a few minutes of silence and patted the empty spot next to you. Sokka made his way over to you, sitting down a bit closer to you than he intended to. Before he could shift and put a little more distance between the two of you, you rested your head on his shoulder. He stiffened up slightly as your sudden movement before relaxing, angling his body to allow you to nestle closer to him.

His breath caught in his throat as you pushed yourself closer to him and wrapped your arms around his waist. His arms came to wrap around you as well, pulling you impossibly close as he felt the occasional sob shudder through your body. The two of you stayed like that for a long time, the sun beginning to set as the two of you sat there embracing.

It wasn’t until the sun had dipped dangerously close to the horizon that you finally lifted your head from Sokka’s neck. You kept hugging him close as you looked out at the landscape below you. It looked different now, illuminated by the golden glow of the sun.

“They would’ve l-loved this,” you whispered. Sokka pretended not to notice the crack in your voice. He stayed silent for a moment, not knowing how to reply. You didn’t mind his lack of response; his presence was more than enough. “Sunset was my mom’s favorite time of day and my dad made sure to watch it with her whenever we traveled.”

You turned your gaze to look up at Sokka and he felt his heart break at the sight of you. Your cheeks were rosy and damp with tears; the same tears that were making your eyes shine so brightly even though all Sokka could see in them was pain and sadness. He gently reached up and tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear. Even crying you were the most beautiful person he had ever seen in his life.

“I’m sorry,” you sniffled. “I cried all over you.”

Sokka looked down at you tenderly before resting his chin on top of your head. “Don’t apologize. I remember what today is. You shouldn’t have to be alone today.”

You whimpered softly at his words. “I miss them so much, Sokka. I miss them so much that it hurts. Will it ever stop hurting?”

Tears welled up in the Water Tribe boy’s eyes at your words, both from your pain and from the pain he remembered when he first lost his own mother. He pressed a kiss to the top of your head before speaking. “No, it doesn’t stop. But it gets easier with time, I promise it does.”

You didn’t reply, leaning your head against his collarbone as you listened to him speak.

“When my mother died, I didn’t know what to do. My father wasn’t dead but with him being gone, it felt as though we had lost both our parents. I definitely took it harder than Katara; somehow she was able to bounce back a lot quicker than I was,” Sokka took a deep breath, it felt good to finally speak about his emotions. “Katara is a lot stronger than I am, and I am very lucky to have her. Even when she gets annoying. And you, you’re stronger than the two of us combined (Y/N/N). I know you’ll be able to grow and get through this, and we’ll be here for you.”

You managed to smile up at him, his words running though your head as you thought about the impact the Gaang had had on you ever since you joined.

“You know, other than today I’ve been doing pretty good,” you finally spoke, averting your eyes from Sokka. “Joining team Avatar was probably the best decision I ever made. You guys have helped me so much more than you think you have.”

Sokka didn’t say anything, his eyes never leaving you as you kept speaking.

“I know that if my parents were still around, I never would’ve met you. But I also know that they’re probably really proud of me for stepping up and joining you guys because you’re making a change and doing the right thing,” you paused for a few seconds before looking up at Sokka. “It’s funny really, I lost my family but I ended up gaining a new one just a few days later.”

“We all care about you,” Sokka murmured, his voice low. “You know that right? They’re all back at the campsite worried out of their minds because they want to know what’s up with you.”

You chuckled at his words. “Thank you Sokka.”

“Me? I didn’t do anything.”

“Didn’t do anything?” you asked, looking up at him. “You came all the way out here to check on me Sokka. That’s something.”

“It’s because I love you,” Sokka replied instantly, not even thinking about the words that left his mouth. The statement felt so natural and he couldn’t help the faint blush that spread across his cheeks.

You stared at him for a few seconds before leaning up and pressing your lips to his. He responded in kind, gently kissing back before you pulled away and smiled up at him. “I love you too Sokka.”

Sokka hugged you tightly as you both looked out at the valley. “I can’t promise that things will get easier anytime soon, but what I can promise you is that I’ll be there every step of the way to take care of you and love you unconditionally.”

“My parents would’ve loved you,” you whispered as the sun finally set. You slowly untangled yourself from Sokka and walked over to the portrait of your parents, gently picking it up and tucking back into your bag. Sokka slowly rose as well, standing a few feet behind you.

“Do you really mean that?” he asked. You nodded. Smiling softly, he walked forwards and interlaced your fingers. “Are you ready to go back?”

You took one last look at the view before you and nodded, never letting go of Sokka’s hand as you walked back to the campground. When you got back, you were greeted by a happy Appa, and you smiled as he flopped onto his back. You rubbed his belly with your free hand before reaching into your bag and pulling out a moon peach and tossing it to him.

“You’re back!” Katara exclaimed, finally noticing the two of you. She ran up to you and hugged you. “You’re just in time for dinner!”

A soft smile overtook your face as Sokka led you to the campfire. You sat next to him, close enough for your shoulders to rub occasionally. You took the bowl of food from Katara with a grateful smile and you began eating, looking around at all of your friends.

You watched with a soft smile as Aang told you all a story from his days before the iceberg. Katara looked at him with interest, paying attention to everything he was saying. Toph, on the other hand, kept interrupting and making sarcastic comments, a bored expression on her face as she tried to keep her own smile off of her face.

“Hey, you okay?” Sokka whispered, bumping his shoulder against yours. You turned to face him and leaned up, pressing a kiss to his jaw.

“I will be,” you whispered back, ignoring the way Katara was now struggling to keep a smile off her face at your actions.

Yeah, you were still hurting and you would be for a long time. But with the help of your friends family, you knew that the healing process would be just a little bit easier.

~

taglist!

@musicalkeys, @mywigglybaby​, @bubblebars​, @iguessthefloorislava​, @dekahg​, @boxofteenageideas​

[the-broken-truth]

The Cousins' Meeting

Broken Truth: Imagine like a Lords' Meeting, but...pint-sized. (Starts laughing before I attacked by an unkindness of ravens) OW!! HEY, I'M SORRY! MERCY!!! (Runs off)

Enjoy @snowflakestree

[Location - In the Heart of the Village Forest]

[The forest was vast and thick with trees but also dangerous, no one was really willing to travel into the forest in fear of death. On the edge of the forest rested a lake where the light of the full moon shined upon the water like a mirror. Standing on solid ground was a young girl with long black hair with black eyes and pale skin, clothed in a black dress and upon her shoulder...was a raven with eyes made of glass. She looked at the water and waited until ripples in the water made her smile as another figure smiled - a taller male with dark red hair and red eyes with pale skin, he wasn't wearing a shirt but he did wear long black pants that were soaked as he walked out of the water and closed the gills on the sides of his neck as he walked to the ground.]

Diedre (Looking at her cousin with a smirk): About time you got here, Sebastian; Eliza is waiting for us. (Took a step to the side and pointed at the light brown satchel that bore the crest of House Moreau on the flip) Your possessions are over there.

Sebastian (Walked over to the satchel and lifted it in his hands as he looked at his younger cousin): Sorry for being late. I had to make sure Father was asleep or he was going to know something was up. Thanks for holding on to this.

Diedre (Strokes under her raven's beak with one finger): It's fine, Cousin. Just get dressed and let's get a move on - the only one who hasn't shown up yet is that loudmouth, Heisenberg.

Sebastian (Groans): Of course he hasn't.

[Diedre turned her attention back to the water as Sebastian went into the darkness of the forest and proceeded to dry off with the towel in his satchel before getting dressed in the foggy green shirt with a dark green collar, another pair of black pants, black boots, and his trademark - the dark green cloak-jacket with the House of Moreau Crest on his back.]

Sebastian: I'm done. Let's get a move on.

[Without words - the Young Heirs of Beneviento & Moreau walked down the dark forest path until they reached a large cave that opened up at the side of the mountain.]

[A Few Years Ago - The Cousins found this cave and discovered an entire war room - a large round stone table with maps and cabinets, there were barracks and other rooms where old guns have well rusted, there was even a training room; some of the equipment was useless but there were some Kaleb and Sebastian could salvage and make new. They decided this was going to be their base - their Meeting Location. They rebuilt or bought what they needed to and cleaned the place up so it was more presentable for the Young Lords of the Village and - while it was unspoken - since Kaleb was the strongest out of them, he was considered the leader with Eliza as second in command; that left Diedre was the Surveillance Specialist for new targets while Sebastian kept any tabs their location being discovered by the villagers or their parents. When the disappearances, they agreed to meet once a month on the full moon so that their parents didn't get suspicious.]

[The Children of the 2nd and 3rd Lords walked into the cave and opened the gate with their custom keys - Kaleb made them with his powers - and walked down the hall to the meeting room. Eliza was already there, sitting in her chair with her journal before her on the table, resting on the Dimitrescu Crest on the table; using his artistic skills, Sebastian carved the House Crests in the table so everyone had a place at the table.]

Eliza (Looks at her cousins): About time you both got here, I've been waiting for 30 minutes at most.

Diedre (Sits in her chair - her raven jumping off her shoulder and onto the table): Do forgive us, Eldest Cousin; Sebastian was late because he was waiting for his father to go to sleep.

Sebastian (Sits in his chair): Yes, sorry.

Eliza (Waves her hand in a dismissive gesture): It's nothing.

Broken Truth: Oh, I forgot: Eliza is the Oldest of the Cousins, Followed by Kaleb, then Sebastian, and lastly is Diedre. Sorry for not explaining that...AHH! (Runs from the unkindness of ravens coming for me)

Sebastian (Opening his satchel and pulls out his journal): Where is Heisenberg? Shouldn't he be here by now?

[Just then - Kaleb Heisenberg comes in with his hat and his jacket over his shoulders.]

Kaleb: Hello, peasants! Your King has arrived! (Sits in his chair with a smirk)

Eliza (Eyebrow twitching): You may be the so-called leader and the strongest out of all of us but that doesn't make you a King, you metal-brained fool.

Sebastian (Nods): Praise Mother Miranda on that.

Kaleb (Stands up and points at them): You're just haters!

Eliza (Stands up and glaring at him): No, you're just an idiot!

Diedre & Sebastian (Watching them & thinks the same thing): 'They are just like aunt and uncle...'

Diedre (Clearing her throat): Can we please get to the purpose of this meeting? We've already wasted enough time and there is much to cover.

[The air got dense and the children of the 1st and 4th Lords silenced themselves and sat down. Kaleb removed his hat and glasses, showing the seriousness on his face, placing them both before him on the table before reaching into the inside of his jacket and pulled out his own journal.]

Kaleb: Who wants to go first?

Eliza: I'll start. (Opens her journal and gives her report) The rumors of multiple male deaths have reached the ears of my older sisters, thus the ears of my mother at Castle Dimitrescu. The problem is that Mother and my sisters ask me if I know anything about the murders, I deny knowing anything but mother gives me that look when she knows I'm hiding something. I think she's starting to suspect me of something.

Diedre: The same with me - I used mother's veil to masquerade as her, I took Angie along to. I found some rather...distasteful things that were being said about my mother; this is the day I was in the company of Eliza.

Kaleb (Looks at them): What's the damage report?

Diedre: There were 4 - the one male Eliza killed for disrespecting her mother, the one female whose body I broke to make an example of those who disrespect House Beneviento's Head, and the other two got away threatened but scarred for life, I'm sure.

Kaleb (Nods): Understood. (Looks at Sebastian) What about you, Sebastian?

Sebastian: I took on 2 casualties - both male. They spoke ill of my father and they paid the price for it.

Kaleb: Understood - I took one 3 but I haven't killed them, not yet; I'm currently using them to make a Lycan Serum that is stronger than my father's.

Sebastian: You mean My Father - He is the one who made the Lycan Serum and Uncle Heisenberg took it from him.

Kaleb: As wise as he is, Uncle Moreau was not a capable master for the lycans. He wouldn't know what to do with the Lycans; he couldn't even control them. I'm not speaking down on him, Sebastian, but even our parents have limits; you know this.

Sebastian (Opened his mouth to speak but closed it and nodded): Yes, I am aware of this.

Eliza: Speaking of the Lycans - did you send any to deal with the bodies at the disposal site?

Kaleb: Yes, I have a group of 5 there; the bodies should be taken care of in 3 days if they are hungry enough.

Diedre: There's also something I need to mention - Angie almost outed me to mother as to why I took her with me into town.

Sebastian: That could be a problem.

Kaleb: Indeed, Diedre, it would be best if you left Angie with Aunt Donna from now on - we can't risk our parents or even Mother Miranda knowing about this.

Diedre: Understood. It's with pleasure that I announce my project is ready. (Gestures at the raven)

Kaleb: A Fake Raven?

Diedre: Not just that. I was able to use a bit of my own power to create an unkindness of ravens that can keep an eye on things for us and let us know when there are those we need to be taken care of. With the cameras and microphones Kaleb supplied me with, we shall know if someone disrespects our parents without being there.

Eliza: Sound good - the most horrible things are said when they think they are safe.

Kaleb: Okay, this project is perfect for surveillance but try to keep any interactions with the ravens out of sight.

Diedre: Understood.

Kaleb: Now, onto other matters.

[The Cousins talked for a few hours until Sebastian and Kaleb decided to blow off some steam and began fighting in the training room with Eliza and Diedre watching from the sidelines.]

Eliza (Uncaring): Do you think they can ever get along?

Diedre (Unsure): Well...

Kaleb (Dodging Sebastian's punches): Is that all you've got, Moreau?! Are you sure you're worthy of the House Name?

Sebastian (Getting angrier and faster with his strikes): Shut it! Shut up!!!

Diedre: Let's just hope they get along...

[virgil-is-a-cutie]

All The Good Girls Go To Hell

This is based on the ask I got of Snow being the bad guy and which turned to Snow White Going Evil AU. Also the title is from Billie Ellish's song. Also thanks to @thegayestasexual for helping me with the title. Also genna base Mira's looks on the comics but add the parts from the show as well. As well as change a few things.

Warnings: none so far really just slight mention of alcohol use

Diana was excited for her story to start right away. Her class had graduated a few months ago and she was eagerly waiting for her fairytale to start.

Mira hadn't even enacted anything on her which was strange really.

She must be planning something spectacular!

She was pacing the walls of Good Castle when she curiously looked out a window and furrows her eyebrows.

A black horse, which oddly had a skull crown decorating it, with knights guarding it, which was somewhat odd since the only person in the land of Ever After who had a black horse with skulls delicately placed on it was...

Oh.

Mira Queen.

Diana frowns, 'why would Mira be here?' she thought before she lit up at the realization.

Every past telling of the Snow White story had the Evil Queen of the story marry into the White family. However, that really couldn't be the explanation

She rushed her way downstairs and skidded as she heard the giggles of Mira Queen who was smiling at something Snow's father, Good King (Edward King), had said.

The giggling caught her off guard, but she shook it off.

"Hey dad," Diana said with a bright smile before furrowing her brows as her father looked at her nervously before smiling big again.

"Diana dear! The person I was looking for," he said with a kind smile.

"What for?" she asked curiously as she glanced at Mira who was wearing a lovely dress that had more bright color in it really.

"I have some news to tell you my dear," he said softly as he glanced at Mira before looking at his daughter, "Mira and I are courting," he says.

Diana blinked and took a step back at the news. Sure her mother died when she was just a few days old and sure it had to do with her birth combined with how her Evil Queen made the poisoned apple a bit too strong.

Or so they say.

That and because they had to start the tale early because Diana's mother had gotten pregnant at 15 years old with her Good King and didn't want word of what Alice White had done.

Of her being pregnant, so Grimm had told her parents and the Evil Queen of their tale to start the tale early. So as to not have a scandal.

No one suspected anything really.

Mira's mother, Miranna Queen (who was in a way Diana's step grandmother), had been 21 years old because Mira's grandmother had Miraralla first while Alice's mother had Alice 6 years after the birth of Miranna Queen.

So all this time her father spent his time raising her with her maternal grandmother, who was resurrected for the specific purpose to raise Diana, by his side. Never getting in a relationship with anyone, since he was raising the next Snow White.

So to hear that her father, who is 34 years old, is dating Mira is a shock.

Especially since Mira is the same age as Diana.

Even though past tellings had Queens marry that age as well.

Or a bit older.

She smiles weakly, which went unnoticed by Mira and Good King who were holding hands.

She was weary now.

She... didn't think this would happen at all really.

___

"They make such a lovely couple," Diana jumps as she turned to look at Red Ridding Hood, Crimson Hood, and The Big Bad Wolf, Remus Badwolf.

Mira's bffas of course, whom came to the party dinner Good King had hosted.

How odd she had friends who were supposed to be enemies.

Diana smiled weakly and glanced at Diana who was with Edward, the couple were happily talking with Fiona Thorn, better known as Maleficent, and Valarie Goodfairy.

Mira wore purple fish tail skirt that had black stitching that helped make it seem as if animal bones were decorating the skirt, a black queen Anne top with black platform heels. Her hair was done in a fishtail braid, her small crown with the bone of a raven sitting on top delicately on her head.

The sight of beauty.

Diana pushed down the burst of jealousy she had for Mira.

It was ok, she was Snow White, the most fairest, of course Mira would be the fairest 1st. That's how the story goes.

She looked away after a minute to look back at Crimson and Remus and smiled wearily, "indeed."

Crimson bit back a smile, she and Remus knew from Mira that she felt as if Diana was uncomfortable with the relationship of her enemy with her daddy dearest. However, to Crimson and Remus it was clear Mira truly did love Good King. The man had wooed her well and he didn't care at all about her being his daughter's enemy.

The two have been dating for over 5 months, well 7 if you count the 2 months when they kept their relationship a secret, and they looked to be going strong.

"Nothing wrong with it," Diana said with a smile that didn't reach her eyes as she looked back to see Good King place a kiss on Mira's cheek.

Diana wished Willow was there, but her tale was already in progress and well... she wasn't really allowed to dinner parties or anything really.

She did see the ugly stepsisters and their evil mother. So there was that. However, they left after a while once it was 9 PM, she just hoped Willow was ok.

The poor girl never had a chance to leave the home she was now trapped in.

Emerald Lockes was here though, but the woman was so annoying with how she silently criticized the palace each time she came for a visit.

Diana bit back a groan before putting on a dazzling smile and walked up to Emerald.

At least she could talk with her.

Albeit probably not that of interesting things.

___

A year in a half (or almost 2 years and a month really) to Mira and Good King's relationship and Diana was getting impatient.

When the heck will their tale begin?!

She was thinking this during a ball that her father had thrown for Mira's 21st birthday and everyone was invited.

Diana wore a sweetheart gown

With her hair in a curls, but she felt a bite of anger seeing what Mira was wearing.

(Mira wore this)

With her mint blonde hair in waves with a small braided part in it.

It was a simple but elegant look that she had somehow been able to pull off with the many animal bone jewelry she wore.

She smiled sweetly to guests and danced with random Charming princes before pausing in confusion as the music stopped.

A spotlight flashed onto her father, who was smiling at Mira who had her hands on the pockets of her dress, whom held a microphone.

The next few things her father said caused her to stand there frozen as the whole room cheered and clapped.

Her father proposed to Mira.

Mira was marrying her father, the Good King, Diana's daddy dearest.

She felt her stomach clench before breathing deeply.

A few hours after the ball ended she paced her room and took deep breaths.

"It's no problem! Plenty of Queens have married a Good King to progress or create a story before poisoning their Snow White," she whispers to herself as she chugged on the bottle of wine that she had sneaked out of the wine cellar.

Her lips were a light blue, the bottle half empty, it was full when she entered the room.

"Yeah...no need to worry! Plenty of them even divorced their Good King," she giggles nervously.

Not remembering that it was a rare few of Queen who did end up divorcing their Good King, but that was years and years after their tale was done.

"Our tale is meant to start," Diana hisses before taking another drink as she remembered how her father called Mira beautiful.

"He's speaking out of love of course," she mumbled to herself.

____

Diana stat there frozen as Mira walked down the isle.

A week had passed after Mira's 21st birthday and the wedding was happening.

Everyone who was important was invited, even the common folk.

Much to the surprise of no one, Mira opted to wear a black wedding gown.

Her blonde mint hair now dyed black was in curls and she held the black roses close to her as she reached Edward. Remus having walked her down the isle.

It very much suited her.

The rest of the wedding was a blur, all Diana remembered was feeling ice in the pit of her stomach.

'Just part of the story,' Diana chanted in her head throughout the whole day.

3 months later Dia- no! Snow White was now in the woods with the seven dwarfs.

In the glass coffin they made her.

3 months after she had been awoken by her prince, Prince Draiden Charming, and married him she was now living the best life.

She had her own kingdom, well... the kingdom that all past Snow Whites were able to rule over once their story finished.

Her grandmother had given it to her after she got back from her honeymoon.

She fixes her hair when she pauses a little.

"I haven't seen father for almost 4 months," she whispers shocked before finally deciding to go over to Good Castle to visit her father. Surely Evil Queen and him have already divorced.

The story already ended, no need for them to be married!

Snow made her way to Good Castle, she hopped off the carriage and in excitement threw open the doors. She looked around furrowing her eyebrows.

There were many dark knights guarding the place.

....that could only mean one thing.

Evil Queen was still here.

"Ah! Snow! What a lovely visit!" Mira called out from the top of the stairs, her mint blonde hair in a messy braid as she wore a black and violet fish tail skirt with a long sleeved button up black shirt with slingback heels.

"Hello Evil Queen," Snow said with a weak smile which wasn't noticed by Mira who smiled as her husband hugged her.

"There's my beautiful wife! The fairest in my heart," Edward said playfully.

Snow freezes at that. Evil Queen? The fairest?

But.... she was the fairest! Her! Snow White! She, Diana White,THE Snow White was the fairest!

She felt as if she was splashed with cold water.

But she felt as if a damn had been broken.

Mira couldn't still be married to Snow's father unless.... unless their story hasn't actually finished.

If it did then Mira and Good King have to have divorced by now....

"Snow?" Snow blinked and fought off the urge to sneer at her enemy as shr looked up st Mira.

"Yes?"

"Would you like to stay for lunch? Me and Edward have a few things to do later on so really lunch time is the perfect time to catch up," Mira said with a bright smile.

"Sure!" Snow said ignoring the hisses in her mind as Good King cooed at Mira and called her beautiful.

'Draiden never calls me beautiful,' Diana thought bitterly.

'Surely our tale isn't done,' Diana thought darkly as she was handed her plate.

The anger inside of her continued to grow the whole week as she kept visiting and watched how wonderful her father and her enemy's marriage was. Her marriage wasn't like that at all.

How unfair.

Mira couldn't be the fairest. Snow White was!

But Good King kept calling her beautiful! He HAS to call Snow that.

She is his daughter. It's fair.

But he never did it.

How unfair.

Jealousy continued to grow.

She was the fairest.

All of Ever After knew that.

But it looked like they needed a reminder.

Tag: @2sunchild2 @thegayestasexual @unmaskedagain @captainrose35 @falling-electricxangel @calliopeia @mlbchaosqueen @animalgirl05 @alicesangelofmusic @thyladyanput

[cg29]

Because of link issues with this site I’ve decided to paste my WIPS onto here as well as AO3 & FFNet. Starting with the 1st 3 chapters of the fic I’m currently working on, and have also most recently updated.

Reflections

Set after Virgil's crash during the original series episode of 'Terror in New York City.' (Season 1 episode 4) Short reflections from each of the family on nearly losing a brother and son.

Thank you to @janetm74 for the Beta on C3.

Chapter 1: Scott.

Italic/Bold speech is not mine and comes from the original episode.

“The wheels have gone; I can’t hold her… I’m… I’m going to crash!”

Scott’s heart lurched at the pure panic emanating from Virgil’s voice, but there was nothing he could do as he watched Thunderbird Two squeal across the runway with dark heavy flames springing forth. Finally, and thankfully she came to a stop and the pure white foam rained down on her distinguishing the blaze… But his little Brother was still inside… “What’s going on,” he yelled over his communicator, “why is no one getting him out?”

‘T…They’re on their way Scott,’ Brains replied, ‘I’m h…here to a…assist you with l…landing.’

‘I don’t need any damn assistance, get the med bay prepped for my brother!’

‘FAB!’

Okay, a bit harsh maybe, but Virg was in there… He’d attended too many fire related incidents, he knew the consequences if someone wasn’t rescued quickly… God damn it, they had to get him out… Finally, bringing Thunderbird One into the hangar, Scott unbuckled and shot out of his chair. The further procedures he was required to run through could wait… Virgil needed him more.

…

“How is he?” He puffed out, racing over to his father just as his two brothers were bringing Virgil out of his singed bird.

“Unresponsive… Head injury, smoke inhalation, possible broken ribs,” Gordon reeled off.

“Let’s get him to the infirmary,” Jeff said, allowing his two youngest to go ahead with Virgil before looking back to Scott, “are you coming?”

Scott heaved out a breath and nodded. “Yeah, I’m coming!”

…

A few days later…

He stared down at his sleeping brother, it could have been so much worse, and the words from that moment still danced in his mind…

“Thunderbird Two from Thunderbird One, come in Virgil... Virgil are you okay? Virgil, pull her up… Can you hear me? Come in Thunderbird Two... Virgil, you’re crashing… Pull her up… Virgil, get a grip on yourself, you’ve got to pull out of that dive!”

If his brother hadn’t dragged himself out of that dive at the last second, he wouldn’t be here… And to be honest, he didn’t know if he would be either. He would have dived Thunderbird One in after her sister ship, and tried everything within his power to pull Virgil out, but it wouldn’t have worked, and both of them would have gone down…

“You did good son.”

“Ha?” Scott mumbled, looking to his father who was standing beside him.

“You did a good job. You talked your brother through a very severe situation, and you got him home. You saved his life Scott, and because of that he will be back to himself before we know it. Now, stop thinking about the alternatives.”

“How did you know?”

“I know you,” Jeff nodded towards Virgil who was shifting in his bed, “looks like he’s waking.”

Virgil groggily forced his eyes open.

“How, are you Virgil?” Jeff questioned.

“Welcome back to the land of the living!” Scott added.

Virgil sat himself up. “What happened to Thunderbird Two?”

‘TYPICAL!’ Scott inwardly chuckled while his father went on to answer. If his brother was already worrying about his bird, then his dad was definitely right… Virgil would get better, and soon they would both be out there together again.

Chapters 2 & 3 featuring John & Gordon below the cut.

Chapter 2: John

“Thunderbird 5. My home away from home. I love being here, the solitude suits me and because of that I’m the one who is up here the most. Don’t get me wrong I adore my family and I enjoy spending time with each of them when I’m on leave but being here amongst the stars that I’ve gazed up at in wonder since I was a small boy makes me feel so peaceful. Four days ago, that tranquillity was shattered, and for the first time ever I am finding myself wishing that someone could replace me, someone could come here and take me home.

You see my first younger brother, the one who holds us altogether with his natural calming and added creative abilities was nearly killed while I was sleeping. I know, I know, me sleeping didn’t cause his crash, but if I had been awake then maybe I could have done something to help him, like hacking the Sentinel and stopping them from firing on his bird. Instead, I was on ordered downtime after two back-to-back missions which had kept me awake for over forty-eight hours. The first required Thunderbird fours assistance, the second was in space with Alan. After I called in the third requiring just Scott and Virgil my dad, believing it was a rescue that wouldn’t require my expertise, ordered me to communicate any vital information I had to my brothers, then relay Thunderbird Five’s communications to Tracy Island so I could spend the next ten to twelve hours asleep. I managed the full twelve and after a shower and food I was ready to return to work. Except, the reply I received when contacting base wasn’t the one that I was expecting.

Ten minutes it took for me to make contact, I can’t begin to explain the thoughts that had rampaged through my mind when no one was responding, Alan finally answered looking slightly pale and very tired. Immediately I demanded to know what was going on, the answer drained me completely. The Sentinel had fired missiles at Virgil, thankfully dad had been able to reach Washington and stop the meaningless attack, but the damage that had already been received was great and my little brother was extremely lucky to make it back to the island. Well, I say lucky… Head injury, smoke inhalation, broken ribs, several cuts, and bruises. Yet, it wasn’t until the following day that he regained consciousness… But he was still alive, and that’s what mattered.

After a long chat with the youngest to make sure he was coping I signed off and instantly logged into our islands security feeds so I could see the crash. Yes, I know it sounds a little morbid, but the reality was probably not as dramatic as what was playing through my mind. Thankfully, although extreme, it wasn’t. However, what seeing that crash didn’t do was alleviate the need that I still have now to see and talk to Virgil.  What it did do was produce another need, one that I could do something about, and that was to make sure that the man who recklessly fired at the kindest person you could ever wish to meet receives some sort of justice. Nothing too malicious of course, we are in the business of saving lives and not taking them, but maybe I’ll put my hacking prowess to use and make sure he gets discharged from his position. Whatever I choose though won’t be pretty but will be fully deserved…

…Oh, one moment, I seem to have a call coming through from home - - - - It’s Virgil… Sorry, but I have to go, he still looks really groggy and probably won’t be able to talk for too long, but I’ve desperately been needing this chat… Catch you guys later, Thunderbird Five out.”

Chapter 3: Gordon.

The ocean before him was calm, the turbulent thoughts raging inside his heart were not. All caused by his current location. The Sentinel… Gordon had arrived two hours before and introductions had immediately been made between himself, the crew, and the Captain. The same Captain who had given the damn order to shoot Thunderbird Two down. Yes, they had presumed that an attack was possibly imminent. Nonetheless, they should have done a comprehensive check before going all gung-ho. Then they would have realised that it wasn’t a strike vessel, it was an International Rescue aircraft, and a person was on board. A person who was loved. Loved by a family who had already been torn apart by the loss of a mother and wife. A family that didn’t deserve to lose anyone else.

They had been reckless, and even though most on board had asked after the wellbeing of his teammate, the Captain, the idiot who had ordered them to fire had not made any queries. He had approached him, introduced himself, and then begun immediately filling him in on their trajectory and any further details he might need. After he had contacted Scott, the Captain had ordered one of his officers to assist, then sheepishly made his excuses and left, guilt plastered all over his face. Five minutes later Gordon was being shown to the sleeping quarters where he could get some shut eye in between any updates he needed to make.

He would probably take some downtime soon. For now, he just wanted to gaze at the ocean. The sea made everything better. Here he could switch his attention from the surface to air missile launchers that had taunted him with their sickening capabilities upon arrival, and instead concentrate on his mission. A mission that would normally be routine. Instead, two men who were trapped and injured had to wait just over twenty-four hours. Two lives might be lost because they shot his big brother down. Gordon gripped the rail and slowly breathed out while focussing on the rhythmic pulse from the ocean waves, and the fact that Virgil, although severely injured and definitely needing some time to recuperate, had survived the atrocious crash.

However, it had come so close to being a different outcome and the gut-wrenching, mind-swirling sickness at the thought of ‘what could have been’ had buried itself deeper and deeper into his heart and refused to release its grasp. Needing to go inside to retrieve Virgil had made those feelings more horrific. Sure, he had saved countless lives from fires, but to have to rescue a brother, a member of his own family, ‘that’ he wasn’t used to. His brother had been crumpled over, a deep cut on his head was bleeding, and his eyes were tightly closed. For a horrible moment, both himself and Alan had stood there before moving forwards. He thought he had lost Virgil, that his big brother was already dead. Thankfully, upon reaching him a pulse was discovered. Virgil was alive. Professionalism immediately kicked in, and he and Alan worked together to get him on a stretcher and out of there as quickly as possible.

Since then, Alan had avoided Virgil. Obviously, the kid was still in shock and processing what had happened. Hopefully, by the time he returned his little brother would have gone to see Virgil, otherwise he would need to drag him in there. Of course, he had done the complete opposite and had not wanted to leave his brother’s side. He needed to ease up though. Virgil knew what his game was and had tried to reassure him several times that he wasn’t going to disappear on him. Yes, he would need to step back a little when he returned, after he had once again checked that his kind-hearted, generous brother was still alive and well.

His ever-forgiving brother, who never held a grudge, had even suggested that they use the Sentinel to save lives. Okay, that made sense, the two men were trapped; their lives were what mattered, not how he felt about the Sentinel. Unfortunately, Gordon wasn’t that big of a person, and boy was he stewing over his feelings right now. A yawn emitted from him, and he looked at his watch. There was still just over two hours to go before he needed to check-in with Scott. Plenty of time for a power nap in the quarters. He certainly needed one. During the past week he’d either been helping out with two, doing his usual maintenance checks or sitting by his brothers’ side and he hadn’t managed a lot of downtime.

Tomorrow would bring a tough rescue and he needed his full alertness to save the two men, especially with the lack of time they would have left. There was also Virgil’s ‘big brother’ voice inside his head yelling at him to get some down time. He breathed in the fresh air, allowing the knowledge that he would continue hearing his brother’s nagging to engulf him. A smile formed. That’s what mattered, not his infuriation towards the Captain, or his current location. Virgil was alive. Thunderbird Two would be restored to her former glory. His eyes switched from the azure sea to the vastness overhead. Then, one day soon she would be soaring with her pilot, his best big brother, through those illustrious oceanic blue skies.

chapter 4 Here...

[trashyswitch]

One Simple Mistake

It has long been decided one rule: NEVER leave the coffee grinds can out on the counter. One day though, someone forgets to put the coffee grinds away and suffers the DRASTIC consequences...

This is LATE! But, it's still relevant. Therefore:

Tickletober Day 23: Asking For It

It had started off like any other morning. The coffee-drinking sides had gotten their coffee, and put them back in the usual hiding spot. This was to prevent certain people from getting tempted into overdosing themselves on caffeine. It was always known that certain sides shouldn’t touch coffee grinds. Not even with a 10 foot pole! Cause they’ll find a way to get the coffee grinds into their system and go insane from an overdose. To prevent such overdoses, the coffee-drinking sides made a rule: after using the coffee grinds, always put the coffee away or hope you have the energy to handle the consequences…

But this morning, someone had accidentally left the can of coffee grinds out on the counter. It was one simple mistake...One tiny mistake…but even a simple mistake like that, had DIRE consequences:

“Mmmm! That’s that GOOD! SHIT!” someone reacted in the kitchen.

“ACID, BEER, COCAINE, AND DICK!” someone else shouted loudly.

“HAHAHAHA! You’re worse than Remus!” the 1st person laughed.

Logan groaned from tiredness and put his glasses on before walking out of his room. The people in the kitchen were gonna wake up the whole imagination at this rate! Logan was already awake. Did anyone else wake up yet?

“Logan?” someone asked beside him. Logan looked to his left, and smiled when he recognized the slightly blurry kitten onesie. “Was that you shouting profanities?” Patton asked.

Logan scoffed. “Oh please...I would say no such thing.” Logan replied.

“Then...who is?” Patton asked.

“I would suggest it was Remus, but...the last loud statement had proven me otherwise.” Logan told him.

“I FEEL AMAZING! LIKE I COULD KILL A PERSON!” Roman shouted.

Virgil bursted out laughing. “A KILLING SPREE: REMUS! VS. ROMAN!” Virgil joked and continued to laugh hysterically.

Patton dropped his jaw. “ROMAN?!” He shouted. He looked beside him and blinked in surprise. “AND VIRGIL?!” Patton shouted at him as well.

Virgil turned around and gulped. “Oops…” He thought aloud.

“QUICK VIRGIL! ATTAAAAACK!” ” Roman shouted, grabbing his hand and sprinting towards Patton.

“What the- OHGODNO!” Patton did a full 180 and took off screaming in horror! Roman was shouting a war cry and chasing Patton, while Virgil was screaming from being pulled absolutely everywhere. Logan, realizing he wasn’t enjoying being pulled, grabbed onto Virgil’s waist and pulled him out or Roman’s hand. Thankfully, Roman didn’t complain about losing Virgil and just continued to chase the screaming Patton.

“You okay, Virgil?” Logan asked.

“Ihihi...Ihi’m fine...I think.” Virgil replied. “I don’t think the coffee has kicked in yet. I had a couple cups of coffee a few minutes ago, so...I just have to wait.” Virgil admitted.

Logan looked at him. “H-...How did you find the coffee can?” Logan asked.

Virgil shrugged his shoulders. “I dunno. It was out on the counter this morning. Thought a cup wouldn’t hurt. But then one cup became 2.” Virgil explained, before lifting up his mostly empty cup to finish his coffee.

Logan pointed at the mug. “What number was that?” Logan asked.

Virgil lowered the mug, revealing his slight coffee mustache. He looked at Logan and blinked. “Number 4.” he replied before putting some tap water into his mug.

Logan sighed and rubbed his nose. “...And how many cups has Roman had?” Logan asked.

Virgil made an ‘I don’t know’ humming sound before dumping the slightly coffee-colored water down the drain. Logan walked up to the can of coffee and placed it in the secret hiding spot. “Oooooh...So that’s where it’s been?” Virgil muttered out loud.

Logan turned around and pointed his index finger at him. “Don’t tell Roman.” Logan warned.

Virgil smiled. “Okay.” He replied.

[An Hour Later]

“COME ON AND SLAM! AND WELCOME TO THE JAM! COME ON AND SLAM! IF YOU WANNA JAM!” Roman shouted, pretending to play basketball.

Virgil was giggling and laughing at the man. “Got any other songs you remember?” Virgil asked.

Roman gasped and snapped his fingers at Virgil. “THERE’S A HUNDRED AND FOUR DAYS OF SUMMER VACATION, AND SCHOOL COMES ALONG JUST TO END IIIT!” Roman shouted.

“AND THE ANNUAL PROBLEM, FOR OUR GENERATION IS FINDING A GOOD WAY TO SPEEEND IIIT…” Virgil continued.

“LIKE MAYBE!”

“BUILDING A ROCKET,” Roman shouted.

“OR FIGHTING A MUMMY,” Virgil continued.

“OR CLIMBING UP THE EIFFEL TOWER!” Roman continued, while Virgil conducted the ‘trumpet band’.

“DISCOVERING SOMETHING THAT DOESN’T EXIST-” Virgil shouted and pointed to Roman.

“MY GIRLFRIEND!” Roman shouted back.

Virgil bursted out laughing! “HAHA! OHOR GIVING A MONKEY A SHOWER!” Virgil continued.

“BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM! SURFING TITLE WAVES,” Roman shouted.

“CREATING NANO BOTS, OR-”

Roman joined Virgil. “LOCATING FRANKENSTEIN’S BRAIN!”

“IT’S OVER HERE!” Virgil added. “FINDING A DODO BIRD,”

“CREATING A COTTON LAYER, AND-”

Virgil joined Roman. “DRIVING OUR SISTER INSAAANE!” They shouted.

“PhInEaS!” Roman screamed in a mock girly voice.

“AS YOU CAN SEE, THERE’S A WHOLE LOT OF StUFF TO DO BEFORE SCHOOL STARTS THIS FALL,” Virgil sang.

Roman pointed to Patton. “COME ON, PERRY!” Roman shouted.

“SO STICK WITH US CAUSE PHINEAS AND FERB ARE GONNA, DO IIIT, AAAALLLL!” Roman sang.

Virgil pretended to rock the electric guitar while they both started screaming the last part: “SO STICK WITH US CAUSE PHINEAS AND FERB ARE GONNA, DO IIIT AAAAALL.”

To end it all off, Roman ran up to Logan and started waving and puppeteering the man’s arms. “MoOom! PhInEaS aNd FeRb ArE MaKiNg A tItLe SeQuEnCe!” Roman said in his mock girly voice. Roman put Logan’s hands down as Virgil strummed the last loud guitar note.

Patton giggled and clapped his hands. “That was great, you two!” Patton cheered.

Virgil got back up and snuggle-hugged him. “Thank you Pat.” he replied happily.

Roman was just laughing and pointing at Logan. “Good job playing Candace, by the way!” Roman complimented.

“I had no choice.” Logan reminded him.

“That’s besides the point.” Roman muttered as he lightly punched his shoulder.

Patton was squeaking and giggling at the affection he was getting. “Yohou’re so affectionate like this!” Patton reacted.

Virgil smiled at this and playfully shook his hair right into the side of Patton’s neck. Patton squeaked in surprise and let out some giggles! “HEHehehe! Vihihirgihihil! Thahahat tihihihicklehes!” Patton giggled up a storm.

Virgil brought his head back. “Awww! Ticklish, Pat?” Virgil asked with a smirk. Patton giggled more and nodded. “Perfect!” Virgil declared as he tickled Patton’s belly.

Patton doubled over and guffawed. “HAHAHA! WAHAHAHAIT! LOHOHO HEHEHELP!” Patton shouted.

Logan walked up to help him, but was stopped by a prince with a shit-eating grin on his face. “One single step forward...and I’ll tickle you till you lose all touch with reality.” Roman warned.

Logan lifted an eyebrow as he took a step forward. “Sounds like attempted murder to me.” Logan added.

Roman tripped Logan from behind and laid him down. “Not if it’s screams of laughter!” Roman declared. Roman started skittering his fingers on Logan’s ribs and sides. Logan jolted in surprise and tried to hold his laughter in. “Ooooh! Gonna hold out on me, huh? Tell me: how many times have you simply laughed on the Sanders Sides channel?” Roman asked as he paused his tickling.

Logan let out his breath and breathed somewhat heavily. Then, he tried to think. But the truth was, Roman was right: He has never truly laughed on screen! The one laugh he DID let out, was simply a half-assed ‘Ha’. And knowing Roman, that won’t count.

“That’s right! A big, flat, none! Therefore: LAUGH FOR ME!” Roman shouted before immediately blowing a raspberry right onto his core!

“GAHAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA! AAAHAHAHAHEHEHEHEHEHE!” Logan bursted out loudly.

Roman gasped and only continued to tickle him with his fingers. “YAY! AFTER ALL THIS TIME, YOU HAVE A LAUGH! VIRGIL! LOGAN HAS A LAUGH!” Roman shouted happily.

“I can hear that!” Virgil reacted. “And so does Patton!” Virgil added as he blew a raspberry on Patton’s neck.

“EEEEEEHEHEHEHEHEhehehe!” Patton laughed, curling his neck in.

To get Patton on the ground, Virgil gently tripped him and laid him down right beside the laughing Logan! But seeing Logan laughing like this, only made Patton wanna tickle him too!

But Virgil decided to squeeze his hips anyway. “Coochy coochy coo, Patty!” Virgil teased.

“WAHAHAHA-WAHAHAHAIT! IHIHIHI WAHAHAHANNAAAA-HEHEHEHELP!” Patton shouted to Virgil.

Virgil lifted an eyebrow in confusion. “Help? With what?” Virgil asked, pausing his tickling for a moment.

As Patton breathed heavily to regain his oxygen, Patton gave Logan’s closest side a squeeze. Logan squeaked! “AAAAHAHAAA!” Logan turned himself onto his left side. PAHAHAHAHAT!” Logan yelled.

“Whahat? Can’t handle another tihickle monster?” Patton asked, still slightly giggly himself.

“NOHOHOHOHOHO! TOHOHOHO MAHAHAHANY!!” Logan shouted.

Patton, Virgil and Roman all attacked Logan from all angles! It was now 3 to 1, (a completely unfair fight), and Logan felt like he was gonna die laughing! And yet...He was loving it! Something about laughing really hard after not laughing for years, seemed to feel amazing to the nerd. Maybe...psychological based? Logan may have to review the psychology theories again to come up with a more specific answer.

“THEHEHE MOHOHORE YOHOHOU GUYS TIHIHICKLEHE MEHEHE, THEHEHE MOHOHORE REHEHEVEHEHENGE IHI’LL DIHISH OHOHOUT! IHIHI HOHOPE YOHOHOHOU KNOHOHOW THAHAHAHAT!” Logan warned.

“Oh No! I’m So ScArEd!” Roman teased.

“YoU pOoR bAbY! pOoR lOgEy Is TiCkLiSh!” Patton teased.

“It's a shame that EvErYoNe is taking advantage.” Virgil added.

Everyone continued to destroy Logan with tickles just about everywhere on his body. Logan was LITERALLY GOING INSANE! YES! MORE TICKLES! If this is what it’s like having Roman and Virgil on caffeine highs, Logan needs to leave the coffee out a lot more!

Suddenly though, all the tickling stopped! And a bunch of yelps and shouts of surprise filled the room for a few seconds! Logan opened his eyes little by little and adjusted his glasses. What...happened?

Logan’s eyes widened when he noticed the 3 sides being held up against the wall by octopus arms! “I KNEW this would happen! No one can truly handle the GREAT, POWERFUL ROMAN on CAFFEINE!” Someone shouted in front of him. Logan sighed as he recognized the manic voice.

Remus.

“REMUS! LET GO!” Roman shouted at him.

Remus gasped and placed a hand on his chest in offense. “Such anger running through your veins! I must change that as soon as I can.” Remus declared as he summoned some floating green feathers.

Roman shrieked in horror and watched nervously as the feathers fluttered around his body and leaned in closer to his ticklish spots. Roman couldn’t stop the wobbly smile from forming on his face.

Remus giggled evilly and summoned more feathers to surround the two other sides. “Any last words before your ticklish fantasies finally come true?” Remus asked the three of them.

Patton gulped as the feathers neared his feet and belly. Those spots were the ILLEGAL spots!

Virgil tried to glare at the dark side, but his glare was quickly turned into a wobbly smile due to the feathers fluttering right over his neck and belly button.

And Roman’s whimpers faded into giggles as his ears were touched only the slightest bit.

“Would you like to help, Logan?” Remus offered.

Logan stood up and watched as all 3 of his friends were overcome by laughs and giggles, thanks to the many fluttering feathers. Logan had the mental sense to save them. But when Logan thought about it more, he realized his 3 best friends were also the 3 lers in the group, who were just asking to be destroyed! So:

“Okay.” Logan replied.

Logan happily helped Remus and the feathers with the tickles, and reduced his friends into wholesome messes of laughter all in the name of revenge. Logan knew the boys were gonna get it eventually. What Logan DIDN’T expect, was Remus’s eventual involvement.

But to be honest: He couldn’t have it any other way.

[lideria]

Wayfaring. | Winter.

➥ characters: genderneutral!reader, mark, johnny, jaehyun, yuta, taeyong, haechan; to be added

➥ genre: apocalyptic!au (apocalypse based on the game “the last of us”), very much angsty, kind of action-y, sad, sometimes fluff 

➥ warnings: violent themes, blood&gore (detailed depictions), gun use, mentions of killing/m*rder, mentions of s*icide, depictions of corpses, swearing, zombies ofc, i would like to guess that that’s it but please contact me if there is anything i need to add, and as always English is not my first language so if there are any errors, please excuse me!

➥ word count: 19.3k

➥ summary: every little thing you had, had been built and preserved in the pool of nothingness. and now, you lost it all.

➥ author’s note: !!PLEASE READ!! hoping after all this time that i’ve not posted this doesn’t get taken off the tags. after much thinking i decided to make this big story a series, because i’m pretty positive the overall product will be over 60k words. this is the 1st part and there will be 3 parts. to make it a bit more meaningful, i’ll be releasing the winter part now (in winter for where i live), spring part in mid-spring (possibly around april), and summer in again, around mid-summer. the playlist will also be revealed then. i am hungry for feedback, any and all is much appreciated! also, i’m not over tlou still haha fu- there’s also going to be a taglist since the updates will be so slow, so please drop by my asks if you like it and i’ll gladly add you to the taglist!

➥ taglist: @nct-writers

i hope everyone enjoys this, have a great morning/day/evening/night!

The night was freezing cold.

You walk through the streets of a mix of stone and wooden buildings, lights mostly dim because of the scarce population. Most of the people were at the city square. They were laughing and dancing the night away as groups of people sang for them with the old, occupied instruments that belonged to who-knows-who all those years ago when all of this first started. ‘This’ as in survival of the fittest, as some would say. And from what science could explain, a fungal infection that took over the brain and body that eats away at your tissues until it has completely taken over your motor functions and skin, and can spread its spores to others freely. An infection that could basically ‘zombify’ and fungi-ify people.

That is what everybody who has experienced the outbreak day would tell you, at least.

Being born into it is apparently easier, that is what the older adults tell. Because people have it figured out, there are communities like the one you are in; nobody has to roam around alone and lose so many people in the process. You did not agree to that. Nothing was easier, except for maybe gathering the knowledge of handy survival skills.

Perhaps living in a community was easier, as well. You loved it. You specifically loved your community. The stone and wooden houses, the olden cafés and restaurants, actual electricity that was not a thing outside of the gates, fairy lights hanging across porches and roofs, kids and bicycles around, horses, elderly people. Schools. A whole cinema and market places. People who were hunters, people who were guards, people who were wanderers, people who were recruiters; people who had the luxury of just being parents or students or more. And people, perhaps after seeing the world fire up and fall apart, were filled with love towards each other. Compassion, respect; a lot of things that the outsiders did not have. For the most part, of course. Evil was still a thing even within the community.

You smile at the children hurrying towards the square with a few apples in their hands, laughing and skipping around with joy— one of them waving at you as they pass you by. You wave at them as well, chuckling at one of the boys’ claims on how he will make a run for the sugar in the cafeteria so they can caramelize them.

This is why you love it. Even though it is hard.

Just as snow starts to fall from the sky that was clear with visible stars just moments ago, you take your last turn and make your way to your destination. The light shines from their porch and emphasizes their house as you pick your pace up with your boots that are crunching the asphalt that is too old for its own good, cracked and overgrown with the unkempt vegetation.

And surely enough, he is there. You cannot see him clearly since his silhouette’s too dark with the light hitting from behind, but there is only one person who can be as tall in that household even when they are doubled over.

Not making eye-contact even once as you approach the house, you take big strides through their garden and get on the porch. He does not turn to you and opts to stay silent, still doubled over with his elbows placed on the somewhat high fence. You do the same and let out a huff; a laugh too airy and low to be considered one. “What are you doing out here all alone?”

Johnny smiles, still not meeting your eyes. “I freaked out.”

“Over a kiss?” One more huff. “Sounds nothing like the Johnny I know.”

“Yeah,” He nibbles on his lip a little, and smiles at their neighbor whose kitchen window is just across their porch that is grabbing a glass of water in greetings. “I just don’t like the idea of kissing someone and having it not mean anything anymore. Feel like I’ve passed that stage.”

Your eyes lock on a star in particular when he turns his head to look at you. “Reasonable,” You let out nodding your head. A witty smile creeps up onto your face at that second, and you turn to look at him also. “I guess it comes with growing old.”

That makes him giggle and playfully punch you on the side of your shoulder, prompting you to let out an ow, motherfucker, because he is too strong for his own damn good and he seems to never realize that. “I’m not old.”

“Yeah, yeah,” You brush him off, massaging the side of your shoulder, the smile still on your face. “Tell me though, was the kiss good? It looked good.”

His brows furrow in unfiltered concern. “You watched me kiss?”

“Well if you just adhere onto someone’s lips like they glued you to each other in front of the bar I’m trying to get a drink from, Johnny, I’m kind of obligated to see it for like a second at the least.” He laughs at your ramble and breaks the furrow of his brows. As if he is defeated, he nods at the end a little. “It was amazing.”

“Oh so it’s like that,” You lean into him, hardly containing your giggle. “What does that mean?” He asks back with his own smile still on his face, clearly amused. Your eyebrows furrow this time albeit not seriously. “You damn well know what that means.”

Johnny sighs. Long and deep. Then, he speaks. “I love you, you know. You’re the best annoyer I never would’ve asked for.”

At that you chuckle, letting your shoulders shake with the force of it. “Good thing they didn’t ask you then.”

He does not say anything after that for a while. The two of you stand in silence, you looking at the stars and him looking at the street— or maybe the overgrown plants, you do not know. He fiddles with his calloused hands slightly, and it is only then that you realize that the house is much quieter than how it usually is. His parents must still be at the square, even though you have not seen them at all that day.

That night, to be more honest. During the day it was not really like you could see a lot of the folk.

Johnny must have somehow read your mind, because he speaks up again with only a heavy huff. “I heard about this morning,” His gaze is directed at you again. You break your smile and lean further, letting your head drop lower to the fence as you sigh yourself. One of your hands instinctively go to your face and to the spot where everything aches right on your cheekbone, tracing over the few burn scratches you got when you fell onto the ground. “It was nothing.”

“That wouldn’t have been believable even if I hadn’t known you.” He stands upright then. You see his hands come into your vision before they pick your arms off the fence and force you to straighten up as well. He inspects your face for a bit, tracing your red spots and scratches with his fingertips, and frowns. “Sometimes I think you’re a bit too careless.” Johnny mumbles just above a whisper, making you smile. Not particularly with happiness or being flattered, but something rooted more from embarrassment. “You say that a lot.”

“Yeah, because I want you to come home in one piece.” He takes his hands off of your face. “So you can finally get it on with Jaehyun.”

He immediately receives a shove to his chest and full on laughs at that, watching your pissed off face that is rather scary for anybody else. After years of knowing you ever since you first walked into this place only with another survivor, coming from a smaller settlement that went to absolute chaos, Johnny could not ever fear you. Fear you in a respectful sense, yes, absolutely. Because he has seen what you are capable of doing outside to survive. And in actuality, it is not the capability that made him fear you in that respectful sense; it is that he has seen you melt into the nature of it all, sometimes losing yourself in the things that surround you and the things you are feeling. Johnny has always differentiated himself from everything, so seeing that was what made him fear you.

The very same things made people fear you, as well. A lot of people stayed away from you, which always made him feel bad. He found it extremely admirable that as a teenager you were able to look for a settlement without any guardians and with only a companion, even though your earlier settlement was not too far from the city. At the same time, he could not fear you knowing how you can get with people when you care about them. He had learnt about it all first-hand when he was the first to approach you at the grey and distressing identification center after you arrived, after his parents encouraged him to ask you over for dinner, after visiting you many times at the lonely dorms and helping you fall asleep by tiring you out with his jokes and conversations, after helping you move into your own place when you were old enough, after going on patrols with you and much, much more.

“You’re disgusting, does anybody ever tell you that?” Your annoyed voice almost echoes to his ears after the many shouted singings and overall shouts he had heard that night. “The word you’re looking for would be ‘teasing’ and I just know it’s on the way. That relationship is long overdue.”

“Hey!” A familiar voice interrupts your bickering, and when you turn to the direction it is coming from, you see Yuta just behind the fence. He climbs up a bit and hangs off the railing, not fully climbing onto the porch. “Hey, man. Why don’t you just come to the porch?”

Yuta holds a hand up and waves it around, and both you and Johnny fear that he will fall down with only one hand on the fence helping him sling over, so you both take a step towards him in a hurry. But he does not fall and places his hand back. “I’ll just go home. I’m very cold and kinda drunk.”

Johnny mumbles a we can see that under his breath, but he cannot say it louder because Yuta points a finger at you, prompting you to take another step. “You are patrolling with me tomorrow.”

You finally get a hold of his arm and Johnny takes care of the other one, so now his feet are planted to the ledge of the porch and you two are basically holding a whole grown man up on his feet. That does not hold you back from complaining, though. “What, why? I was out just today.”

The drunken man shrugs. “Don’t know why you, but I think I saw Jaehyun sign your name up with us.”

A closed-mouthed snicker comes from Johnny at Yuta’s words and you snap your head at him, looking into his eyes, warning him not to do the very thing he is doing right now and to shut up about it afterwards. “Fine, I’ll come with you tomorrow.”

“You didn’t exactly have a choice.”

The knock on your door wakes you up the next morning.

Groggy a little from drinking the night before, and from the soreness of your face, you are not the happiest when you open the door up to greet Yuta and Jaehyun. They are standing on the thick snow that has covered the ground overnight, all equipped up and ready to go. The two of them look noticeably more content as well whereas you are just there basically ready to beg them to let you sleep some more. Actually, ready to beg them to leave you alone altogether.

You could really use a day off after falling face-first to the concrete yesterday. It has been long since you have had a day off anyway. Lately it was either you were going out on a patrol or sweep, or you were training the new recruits and the volunteers. You kind of did not remember the concept of sleeping in at this point.

“I would say good morning, but your morning looks far from any of that.” Yuta says in an annoyingly bright tone, and then he points at your face. “Your face didn’t swell up. I don’t know if you can tell, but that’s magical.”

Your fingers reach up to your sore cheekbone once again. Yuta is all true, there is no swelling up although it hurts so bad still as if you had not cleaned it up, when you did. Multiple times. “Just come in. I’ll wash up and grab my coat.”

They walk in when you hold the door open for them and scoot to the side, and make their way to your couch, plopping down on it without any care. You make your way to the bathroom in silence and quickly wash your mouth and face, only bothering to change your clothes because you see a change hanging over the shower cabin. After doing so you hurry over to your wardrobe in your room and grab your coat along with your gear, and make your way to the pair of boots you had been wearing for quite long. You ask your question while you are struggling with putting them on. “Why are we going out anyway? I thought every spot was clear.”

“Someone said that the crops are dead already outside the walls,” Jaehyun answers. “Means the winter’s coming faster and harder. And that means herds may come in faster. Taeyong just wants to make sure nothing’s out of control.” Which does make sense that him and the council would decide on something like that, especially after the chaos that was a couple of years ago. Uncontrollable increase in infected meant uncontrollable increase in herds moving around, and that meant uncontrollable fullness of areas, which meant hunting for supplies were almost halted, which meant there was a serious shortage in supplies. “Plus, we’re running low on medicine. So if we find any on the way,”

“Yeah, okay.” You nod as you let your foot fall after tying the last knot. “Is it only us three?”

“No,” Yuta jumps at the question, almost. “Donghyuck’s coming as well. Said he needs to let off some steam.”

“Why?” You chuckle. He looked dandy fine last night at the square, warming himself up by the fire and chatting and laughing with people. “I heard they fought with Mark.” Jaehyun, once again, answers.

“Again?” Grunting as you wear your coat, you zip it up before opening the door and holding it out once more. The boys stand up and walk towards the door. “Why can’t they keep their stuff to themselves?” You laugh, dearly hoping this fight is not another one feisty enough to keep them from talking to each other for months.

“Wouldn’t know.” Jaehyun mumbles, and waits for you to close your door before starting to walk with you. You smile at the close proximity he keeps with you as you two walk behind Yuta, following him to the stables near the big metal gates through the lively streets.

Donghyuck is already waiting for you when you arrive. He complains about his horse being taken by someone else first thing when he spots your group, prompting the stable staff to laugh behind him, presumably at the fact that he is not complaining that he will be going out for a patrol in the freezing cold, no, but that he is complaining about ‘his’ horse that is technically not his being taken away. He does not really bother to greet you as well. It is a common theme with him, so you do not take offense.

Once you are handed your horses over to you, you make your way to the gates, holding them from their reins— just in case if they ever get freaked out from the sounds the gates decide to make.

You spot a familiar face at the gate. Walking over to him is basically an instinct. “Hey,”

“Hi.” Mark smiles at you, and pets your horse on the nose a little.

Mark is important to you.

He is the person that has accompanied you on your way here after your last settlement got raided by a large group of people that belonged to a community called Nox— the largest community ever established after everything went wrong with the world, and the most developed, as well. Their recruiting process was very disciplined, they had spread all over the country in years and mostly aimed specifically for the big cities, which allowed them to have plenty of resources and people with ‘greater’ professions (like doctors, scientists, military officials, agents, anything that was deemed to be handy in an apocalypse) in their communities.

That had been what happened. It was supposed to be a recruitment, but once people denied to be a part of them and stood up for themselves, they did not like that. At least the branch that they had sent out did not like that.

Your settlement was up in flames by the time you and Mark made it out of there. The night had brightened up as if it was the morning.

Then, it was a month full of almost-dying. The two of you had been out of your settlement before, but not for long periods where you also had to look for some place that would take you. Infected wanted to get you, and if they did not, it was the people. Sometimes they would take you in for a short while, letting you use their resources before changing their paths and letting you go with a bit of a help; maybe weaponry, maybe food, maybe medicine.

Mark and you would have to find hiding spots and places to sleep, and a lot of the times you would just make do with sleeping under a vehicle in the cold in unpopulated areas. Although hard to believe, those spots were one of the least visible and most secure.

The two of you had saved each other perhaps countless times from dying. You were not friends before you ran away from your settlement. You did not exactly know a lot about each other beforehand, only acquainted as a familiar face you would see on the street. Yet when you ended up together, you cared about each other so unexpectedly much.

After you came to the city, though, it had changed a lot. They put you on schedules and dorms and houses that mostly did not go with each other, so the communication had broken— except for slight communication through Johnny who was your middle ground with his role of being a mutual friend. The sheer care you had for each other had stayed the same, though. It would have been difficult to let go of that.

“What happened to your face?” Mark asks and instinctively reaches out for it, making you hiss when his fingers come into contact with the sore red spot. He immediately retracts. “I fell.”

His brows furrow as if he is not believing it, so you laugh to calm him down. “No, I really fell. Planted face first onto the concrete.” That makes him chuckle, but his brows are still furrowed. “Of course you’d do that.”

Mark takes a deep breath. “You have everything you need?”

Someone shouts from behind, one of the watches. “Herd patrol, open the gates!”

“Yeah, I do.” You answer him, and he smiles a bit more reassuringly. “Be safe out there. Let me see you from the gate when you come back.”

There is the screeching sound that the gates do whenever they open that would surely attract some infected if there were any of them around, so you could only hope there were not. Your hold on the rein gets tighter when your horse gets a bit agitated from it. “I’m coming back and you know it, Mark.” Smirking, you step on the foot hold and mount onto the saddle.

He says only one thing before he lets you go. “I do.”

Outside the gates could have been just as pretty as it always was if it was not for the thick snow that coated everywhere and made it hard to travel.

Underneath the thick cover of snow would be overgrown grass and wild plants and flowers that definitely were made to not be natives of the land before any of this had happened, but were now claiming their home to themselves and growing freely without any control. You did not know what most of the plants or flowers even were, even though they had taught you back in school— but you knew you would never be a farmer or a wanderer. You knew you would never have to rely on that knowledge so giving up on it was pretty much an instant thing.

Above the snow, though, were pines and willows thriving in the humid cold. Corkscrew willows, narrow leaf willows and glaucous willows were painting the very much white and grey scenery some lighter shades of green and pink, glistening with the snow sitting on them when the silver but blinding sunlight hit their surface.

You were pretty much on watch the whole time as the possibility of a herd passing through occupied your mind. There were the occasional wildlife passing through the valley, mostly rabbits, dogs and squirrels, and the occasional deer. They run around, sometimes passing under the horses or too close to them and scaring them a bit off. It was nothing that you could not take care of though.

Through a mutual agreement, you go to the town first since it is a good distance away from the city still and is one of the places that is sure to have any signs of a herd if they are coming in. That was because there were not a lot of traces of the infection since there is no people that still live in that town, and the infected would just roam through to potentially find a host.

Some of them would just die on their own from the cold and spew out spores in hopes of reaching something. They usually did not.

When you are in the Western-looking, red and brown brick-borne town, you divide the sections and go your separate ways. You probably would not have done that had the entrance of the town been crowded, but it had not been anything close to that. Yuta insists on his advice for all of you to do everything as quietly as you can just in case, and you all seem to agree on that, considering this is only a patrol and not a sweep and you do not have that much ammo.

The South of the town was mostly empty to your delight. Definitely more crowded than how it usually was this time of the year, but nothing you could not take care of. You did not even have to waste too much of your ammo taking out the infected that were already there— ones mostly freshly infected. Runners, who could still see you and who could still run and who still looked like humans except for their blood covered mouth and hands. They looked alive. They grunted, they made humanly noises, they twitched in their place. It almost looked like whoever they used to be was still inside them and was trying to fight that damn thing off.

It made your blood go cold at the thought every single time.

Once you are done with the infected you could see so far by the help of your trusted stealth skills and dagger and only some of your ammo, you check on a couple of buildings that were on your list that had not been explored yet. But after being open for anybody to come and loot year after year, there was not much that you could find. Some rubbing alcohol hiding away in a stash of unusable supplies, some canned food that were very suspiciously still not out of date, and a few more things. Nothing too useful.

Within a bit over a couple of hours at the least, you make it back to your meeting point at the main street of the entrance, the supplies stacked behind your horse and on the board she was equipped with that would help her in being able to drag everything comfortably. To your relief, everyone is already there, and there are no infected in sight. “Anything useful?” Jaehyun asks, and you shake your head.

“I could get some rubbing alcohol and some gas for the generators, but that’s about it.” Yuta nods at your words. “Same here— except I found this stash of ammo and some meds, but I didn’t take any of it.”

Donghyuck glares at him with an obviously visible amount of anger in his eyes, which makes Yuta further explain himself. “I don’t want to mess with them if they’re a trespasser. I’ll give it a week, and if it’s still there then, I’m just gonna dive in because the prick had some good stuff in there.” He sighs. “I also left a note, saying you’re kind of fucked, friend, because the herd’s coming. Told them to head down to the river following the valley and that the place with working lights and big metal gates would welcome them if they’re smart about it.”

Sometimes Yuta could be extremely innocent, wanting to believe everyone is good, but he had something about him where most of these people he left notes for would actually turn out to be decent people that would join your community. So you could only hope whoever this was would be the same. “That is so sweet of you, but I think some of the herd is already here.” Donghyuck says, and all of you turn your heads to him. “You know the hotel half of it’s said farewell? It was flooded with infected. Of all kinds.”

“Sounds like a fucking dream.” Jaehyun murmurs, kicking around the snow a bit with his boots, looking down. You lay a supportive hand on his forearm. “Sweepers will be lucky though. Some of them are loaded with stuff— backpacks on and everything.”

But his words still hold a heavy weight to them, because these poor souls just did not survive for as long as they planned for. And it makes you wonder, wonder if they were alone or in a group, moving or not moving, had a family or not, had friends or not; what was their original plan? Did they even have a plan, or did everything just happen when they were hidden away in somewhere?

“I found a safe, like a whole dark room,” Jaehyun says. “Inside an apartment. I guess they were a pharmacist or a doctor or something— there are a lot of bottles and boxes of medicine and compounds. And I hardly think they belong to anyone at this point because the door lock was literally rotting away.”

“You think it’s okay to take?” Donghyuck asks Yuta, who nods promptly. “Let’s not take all of it just yet, though. Leave it for the next patrol or the sweepers, they can get the remainder later.”

And then he clears his throat. “Why don’t you two go ahead?”

You two. Jaehyun and you.

Before you know it, you are already sent that way and are trotting your way down to the apartment with your horses. The apartment is definitely not close to the meeting point, especially had you been on foot, but with trotting your way down it was much easier to access. You see the infected Jaehyun has taken down, and again, most of them were Runners; the only explanation you could come up with was that the actual herd had had a feast in another settlement or an area ridden with survivor groups, and since they are Runners they can move faster which is why they are already here with the cold. Basically that they are the herd before the herd.

You dismount when you arrive at the brick and brown, dirty looking building and follow Jaehyun up the stairs that by some miracle do not just collapse, watching him easily open up the doors after having broken into them.

Like he said, the room is there, mostly dark but only lit when its door is open and light spills in through the shutters, and it really is packed with medical supplies.

“I randomly inspected some of them, most of it’s not out of date yet.” You nod at him when he looks at you. “Okay.”

But something genuinely pisses you off. It has been pissing you off for some time, so the only thing you can do is confront him when you are alone. “Jaehyun,”

“Yeah?” He kneels onto the floor and starts inspecting things again, placing some of them into the bag he had grabbed from the side of the saddle before you made your way in. You kneel in front of him and sigh, looking down at his hands and spotting the slightly scarred knuckles. Probably from subconsciously pushing on doors while breaking in. “I know it was weird a few nights ago because everyone was around, but it’s weirder right now because you have a thing where you go awkward and quiet when you feel that way,” His eyes bore into yours. “And I really can’t stand that,” You let out an airy chuckle, and he kind of smiles as well. “So either kiss me like you mean it next time or never do and let us stay as friends.”

It was supposed to be a basic thing.

Jaehyun had kissed you a few nights ago at a movie screening. He had asked you to watch the old sci-fi movie with him, and had waited for you in front of the cinema, stuck between the crowds of people of all ages. Throughout the movie you had just whisper-chatted back and forth, almost none of your attention on any of the scenes even when they got louder. The topics of your chats had been lighthearted and fun as well, gossiping a bit about your friends and telling each other about funny encounters you recently had with people around the city or outside. Sometimes the chats were about the movie, with questions of what would you do if you were living in that universe instead of this one, which one would you prefer and more, debating on the questionable answers; throwing your dried and seasoned corn at each other if either of you thought the other had absolutely ran out of any sanity.

After the screening he had just asked you if he could kiss you as if it was the most normal thing he could ask, saying he could not wait any more, and you had let him because the mutual attraction had been there for too long and you wanted him to kiss you just as much as you had been wanting to kiss him.

But he had gotten shy about it— crowds were never Jaehyun’s thing, and that was fine. The thing that was not fine was how he acted around you for days after that, quiet and somewhat cold and awkward, when you were okay with it all and had expected him to make a move last night at the square.

He breathes out a laugh through his nose and looks down, playing with his hangnails and the traces of the rein that is left on his fingers, not deep but definitely visible still and a bit pink around the outlines. He smiles under his nose, you can see it because the lines of light that hits his face illuminate the side of his lips that is curled up, and when he picks his head up and the lines hit his brown eyes, you are smiling too.

Because Jaehyun places his hand at the back of your neck and kisses you.

Firmly, with care, and like nobody else is there— there is nobody there, but this time it feels like even if there were people he would have been fine with it. He lets you place your hands on the spots between his chest and shoulders, and lets you pull him further down with ease, spreading his other hand that is holding you on your back to give you better support. He opens his mouth first for you, maybe to show he is meaning this and he means so much more, and you give into it. That goes on for a while with hands roaming wherever they can. You only come back to your senses when his teeth scratch your bottom lip.

He stops when your hands push against him lightly. “Any longer and Yuta will never let this die down.”

Nibbling on his lip with his teeth, Jaehyun huffs a smile and nods. “He really won’t.” And he leans in again, only pecking you this time.

Johnny and his predictions that gave you the bravery and encouragement to do these kinds of things could go fall face first onto the concrete.

The rest of the patrol and getting back to the city go almost seamless, except for the fact that you had to pass by a couple of groups of infected— some Runners who had spotted you and alerted the Clickers (one of the older stages of infected where the infection has taken over most of their skin and has made its way out, taking over their eyes and using echolocation with the clicking sounds that comes from their throats) with the sound they made. They caused a bit of a hassle, but nothing you could not take care of; not with Jaehyun’s quick bow skills as you galloped through the occupied areas of the valley and all of your leftover ammo. “You’re losing a lot of arrows, don’t you think?” Donghyuck asks Jaehyun, shouting a bit out of breath since the galloping motion is taking a toll on him.

Jaehyun pulls the reins to himself harshly. “Yeah,” His horse halts without any discomfort, and you see him from the corner of your eye before he is left behind. “I’ll meet you at the gate!”

And he starts galloping to the opposite way.

If it was anybody else, any and most probably all of you would have started screaming some sense into him. But it was Jaehyun. Whose way of doing things outside, although stealthy, was very impulsive. So you do not take your gaze away from the road ahead of you, locking your eyes on the city just now visible as you make your way down.

It is already dusk by the time you are at the gates and the watches see you, asking where the hell Jaehyun is and offering to open the gates when Yuta tells them he is collecting his arrows back from a small area, so he should be back any minute. All of you agree that you do not want the gates to open before he comes so the noise does not attract anything more than it needs to.

Just as you expect, the missing person of your quad comes sooner than later. A proud smile is on his face as he goes on about being able to get back five of the seven arrows he had used, waiting for all of you to make your ways in before walking in himself.

“We have some gas and some meds,” You tell the watch who is there the second you walk in, to unleash the supplies behind your horse. “With plenty of infected on the side.” Donghyuck adds, too upbeat for the news he is delivering. One of the gatekeepers is quite mortified to hear that which is why he feels inclined to add more to his words. “Not a dooming amount, but we definitely need a few sweeps. It’d be worse if the herd caught up to them.”

“Why don’t you just go tell that to Taeyong?” Mark cuts in, and you can immediately tell how irritated Donghyuck gets. His face gets red, his eyes drop and squint, and he completely forgets about getting off his horse which all of you do at that point. “Oh would you look at that,”

Mark tries to hold a snicker in, you can tell, because his lips curl inwards. “It’s almost as if that’s not exactly what I was about to do. Fucking asshole.”

Mark finally gives in then, letting his shoulders shake when he greets you, giggling. He tries to check if you have any bites since it is a procedure he needs to do, but he cannot do it effectively with how much he is giggling— which was fine, because he could very clearly see you did not have any bites. None of your clothes were torn, and your face, hands and neck that was not covered up was just very visibly in quite okay condition.

“I’m having dinner at Johnny’s tonight,” You tell Mark as he lets go of your hands, making him pick his head up. “Just saying.”

“I’ll see if I can pay a visit.”

You smile at him and make your way over to Jaehyun, letting him put an arm around your shoulders and walk away with you, planting a kiss on the side of your head.

He does pay a visit.

The night is pierced through with Mark’s laughter when Johnny’s mouth drops open. He stops mindlessly strumming his guitar when it takes over him. “Dude, I’m telling you,” He says between his laughs. “They didn’t even look at each other when they were leaving, and somehow they were all lovey-dovey by the time they got back.”

“Fuck you,” Johnny nudges you rather hard in your side, and this time you are snickering along with Mark just at the sight of his face. “You called me creepy when I knew all along.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry, Johnny. I apologize for not crediting you enough on your talent of predicting relationships.” Your smile dies down a little after that, and your voice goes a bit quieter with the confusion. “Well I don’t know if it’s a relationship yet. It just happened, sort of.”

Johnny shrugs at that and puts his arm around your shoulders, pulling you closer to him on the couch with one of your legs dangling over and one of them propped up. “That’s fine. You guys can let it brew for a bit more. Just test the waters.” A breath of a chuckle makes its way out of your nose at his words and how the high you had felt a few hours ago had crashed down into this weird oblivion, but Mark nods in agreement.

You do not see it, but Johnny smiles down at you while you fix your eyes on the photographs on his wall. Some of his, some of his parents’, some of his newborn days— the final days just before the infection started taking all over the country and the world. There are a few with you and Mark, too, a couple of them looking downright awkward with Mark and you too numb to the friendship he was offering you after coming to the brink of death maybe tens or maybe hundreds of times, and another couple of them where the photos are just blurry with how much you were laughing and it made steadying his parents’ old camera harder.

He turns his head to the opposite side, facing Mark. “You got any sick raps, Mark?”

“What is that question?” Mark howls out, laughing his chest off like he always does. “When you say it like that I don’t wanna rap ever again.”

But he does, because Mark is like that.

Johnny and you do your best in hyping him up, shouting and howling and springing in your place to the beat of his lyrics. You two let him rap until he really does not feel like it anymore, and you listen to him when he goes back to strumming his guitar, softly singing some things every now and then. So quietly that you almost do not even hear it.

The night goes on like that. You just lounge around, Johnny between you and Mark, cozy and warm.

If there was anything about them two, it was that they made you feel normal somehow. Which is maybe why you cherished them so much, and what the three of you have.

Unfortunately, you wake up early once again in your own room in the morning even though you do not have any reason to.

There are some upsides to that when you have the day off, as much as you hate it. You get to take a shower with all cold, yet much appreciated water, and properly change your clothes into new ones after a long while, to make a breakfast with what you have stored away in your cupboards, and maybe even do laundry if you had any leftover homemade soap.

Sometimes you paid a visit to the dorms, checking up on lonely recruits if there were any that you had grown some kind of attachment to.

That morning you do all of that, too. You get your hair and body feeling and looking all clean, eat somewhat of a nutritious breakfast that is much better when compared with just going with an all empty stomach, change into some of your newest clothes that Johnny and Jaehyun had gifted you once after an outing for hoarding. Except while you are making your way to the dorms just to check on the newest recruits, you stumble upon a group of people lining in front of the entrance to the stables.

Your interest peaks when you spot Johnny, who is writing his name down on the board at the gates that open to the place. You hurry over to him as best you can in your still sleepy state. “Morning,”

He hears you but does not bother to turn his head to look at you, knowing you would come to stand next to him. “Hey.”

As expected, you halt when you are there. You look at his name on the board and his signature along with the date, and you know for a fact he is going out. “Sweep?”

“Yeah,” He lends the pen to the person next to him, and moves out of the line, prompting you to move away with him. “Signing up last minute. Taeyong and Yuta can’t make it out today, so.”

“Why?” You furrow your brows, and he shrugs a little. “Yuta’s needed at the training grounds today, and who knows what Taeyong has to take care of.”

He watches you as you sigh, truly tired of it, but the inner conflict is louder than any type of exhaustion you could possibly have. “Well I’m coming with you.”

When you try to walk into the line he steps in front of you, and puts a stop to whatever madness you are planning. His hands physically stop you as well as he places them on your shoulders. “No you aren’t,” Johnny’s voice is firm, and his brows are furrowed just slightly. “You need a day off. Your whole face looks purple with the cold, the lack of sleep, and the scar— and you look awful.”

He smiles then as if he had not just dragged the way you look all over the floor. “Just go and relax. Maybe spend some time with Jae, hm?”

You bite down on the insides of your lips and nibble on them, and furrow your eyebrows at the squeeze of your heart. “Just do me a favor and be careful. There are a lot of Runners around,” One of your hands come up half-bothered to point at the people in the line. “Tell that to the group as well.”

There is a silence that lasts a couple of seconds, but then Johnny pulls you in for a hug. “You know,” He mumbles. “If you actually talked to more people they’d like you better.” He knew what you would say, that you do not like the stares that people throw at you anywhere and everywhere, and that it stops you from approaching them. So, he stops that from happening before it can. “I’ll take your horse if that will make you feel any better.”

Stepping away from him, you smile and shove him a little. “Take my horse if it will make you feel any more secure, and send her back if your ass can’t make it.”

“Will do.”

Dusk comes, and the sun sets.

Some people do not return that evening, and Johnny is one of them.

Supposedly, his whole group is missing— which is a good thing, because it is not completely uncommon that people camp in some sort of a hide-out if the infected in the area are too much for them to handle with the amount of people they have and they think it is better to wait it out.

Which is why, although bitter, there is hope inside of you.

His parents are distressed when Taeyong comes to tell them the news, and they remain just as distressed afterwards if not more. Whenever you see them, you cannot help but notice how their faces are overborne with concern. Their brows are always furrowed, their mouths are always pointed downwards in a frown, their eyes always glazed over with what looked like thousands of thoughts racing all around, and the wrinkles on their faces are deepened in some areas with the weight and tension.

You grow distressed and restless as well, as hours— days pass. The concept of night and day loses its significance because you are too distracted during the day when you are supposed to be training the recruits, and too uncomfortable during the night rolling all over the bed without a drop of sleep in your eyes.

And it must be not only you that is feeling that way, because Taeyong knocks on your door in the dead of the night a few days after Johnny’s disappearance. When you open the door his arms are crossed over his chest, and he looks a lot paler than he usually is, his eyes red all around.

He gets straight to the point. “You, Yuta, Jaehyun and Mark. I want you to search for them while another group goes for a sweep.” His voice breaks at some point because of how tired he must be feeling and how scared. You nod slightly, the tension pulling and burdening your face. “Okay.”

After your mumbled, quick and short answer Taeyong turns right back on his heel and walks down the stairs of the porch. You cannot bring yourself to close the door just yet when you see him, a friend of a friend but a figure as protective and wise, walk away with his guards clearly down. “You should try and get some sleep,” You advise after him, even though you yourself are suffering from the same problem he is. “What you do matters.”

Taeyong does not slow down, and is out of your sight within seconds after he leaves your backyard.

Next morning, it is as if you had done a mutual agreement between the four of you, because you are all by the stables with the slightest hue of sunlight.

No one is smiling or looking content in any way or shape, but no one is agitated, either. The most healthy thing at that moment is to force yourselves to go numb altogether and you all know it.

With so much as some collective huffs you write your names down on the board and sign in the hand-drawn boxes next to them, being able to see all of the missing people’s names that were out just before you— it was never a pretty situation. The stables are kind of empty from all the horses that are missing as well and it feels weird to not be able to go out with the horse, your horse that you had considered a companion for years on end.

But Anubis, the black horse assigned to you that day, was a good compensation. He was surprisingly comfortable with you from the get-go.

The stable you were in got too empty after all of the search and sweep groups took their horses with only a couple of them left behind, and before you knew it, you were on them and stationed in front of the gate. Handwritten documents were in Yuta’s hands mapping out yesterday’s group’s sweeping locations.

And as he said just before you all mounted on your horses, no one would be parting ways that day.

When the gates open, you immediately start galloping behind the sweepers— they collectively had more ammo than your group, and they were going in the same direction for a while, so they could be some sort of a shield for you if the groups had somehow started moving much faster all of a sudden. Your group would be heading to the settlement just a bit further away from the town you had gone through yesterday; most probably what used to be its business district if any of your predictions were true. The sweepers would be going to the town, figuring the groups that were saturated behind the town must be at its downtown now.

The way up the valley is rather empty, which is almost more unsettling when you think of how many people are missing.

Six, to be exact, counting Johnny.

You try to focus on different things, like how your backside hurts as you gallop upwards and Anubis pants under you. On the fact that he is a rather strong horse and you had never noticed that when anybody else was riding him. How he is maybe the most elevated horse you have ever had, and how his back is very uncomfortable to ride on even with a saddle. How he is very enduring considering he does not slow down in the slightest even after the valley starts getting a little rough, not falling behind any horses and even passing some of them if it was not for you that took him back under control.

It helps you, focusing on him, because you do not want to focus on things that might get your guard down.

The sweepers part their way with you at the point they need to, making a turn for the northeast once you enter the town, letting you pass straight through. Without any goodbyes because you have officially entered the danger zone.

And you truly have, because there are Runners around with not as many Clickers roaming through in the visible distance where the sweepers are headed. You can only internally wish them good luck.

It takes less than an hour to get to the probable business district that is filled with concrete and glass covered buildings unlike the town, overtaken by vegetation (and snow) that has washed over its blues and greys and beiges and the financial personality it once had— again unlike its brown and red brick counterpart.

All of you make your horses come to a halt once you enter the environment, again, just to make sure there is as little noise as possible. Dismounting from them and taking the reins in your hands is an instinct. “Where do we go first?”

Yuta looks down at the papers with Mark’s question. His fingers trace over the words until they find what they are looking for. “Well,” He huffs, placing a hand on his nape with a wince. “They were going to the law firm, the bank in southwest, the city hall and they would meet at the conference hall. They must be around these areas if we’re lucky.”

“And if they’re lucky.” Jaehyun says under his breath, but you hear him loud and clear. And you have a feeling that everybody does.

Yuta drops his hand that is holding the papers and sighs. “The bank’s the farthest one, let’s go.”

They are not at the bank.

Not in the bank, not around the bank, not in the subway station under the bank where there is a hide-out in one of the conductor rooms, not inside the surrounding business buildings all of which have of their doors opened whether it is one of the back/staff doors or the front entrances as if it is an all-you-can-get open buffet of places to roam around for the infected. When in actuality, your people’s strategy is to close the doors and lightly barricade them after coming into any contact, trying to keep as many infected on the roads so it is somewhat easier to wipe them out by narrowing their moving space. It also helped indicating whether there had been any recent trespassers at all, because most people not acquainted with your settlement would not bother with closing the doors behind them as they lost themselves in all the possible places to hoard.

And it all just means that there must have been trespassers recently, making the infected harder to find since they were free to go into the buildings, which must have messed up with the sweeping.

It does not feel right at all.

The law firm which is a rather small building is of no help as well. No alive, normal human is inside, not in any of the five floors that you have to clear out a little or around, and once again the doors are open. All you can find are supplies lying around the fifth floor that are definitely from the city’s storage so you know that they must have stayed for some time there at some point. You take them back. But there is nothing more.

To be truthful about things, none of you had your hopes up about the city hall. It was an extremely open space and was most definitely not the safest in this situation, nor the most resourceful place to hide or camp in anytime— or to hoard things with nothing but once-fancy tiles all over the interior and no leftover supplies from passing groups. However, they would have gone there to check if there was anybody hiding away, because people (especially in groups) who passed through did that since it is a quite distinctive and low building in between all of the higher buildings for those unfamiliar with the area. They would have brought them back to the city if any of them were there. So it does not surprise you when you find the city hall empty as well, except for the sea of infected that swarm the grand entrance to the hall that make your eyes widen and immediately shut the door close when you first open it up. Plus holding onto dear life pushing against the doors with Jaehyun when some of them are attracted to the noise and make a run for it.

Sweep season was the worst season.

Through a mutual agreement, you barricade the doors a little (a lot) tighter with fire truck hoses that have long been detached from the abandoned truck between the hall and one of the high-rise buildings that most probably was sitting there since the outbreak day, where fire trucks were not only used for the countless fires that started especially in the traffic, but also to rescue people stuck in upper floors of buildings that were taken over by the Runners.

There is no way the infected trapped in the hall can open the doors through layers upon layers of a thick hose wrapped and tied around the handles of the entrance, at least you all would like to believe that.

When your heart rate picks up is when you spot a building with its visible doors closed on the way to the conference hall. “Wait.”

Everyone stops, prompting their horses to do the same as them. The guys look at the direction of your gaze, and they all seem to come to a realization. “Do you think-?”

“I think there’s no reason we shouldn’t.” But Yuta does not look too keen on it, so you have to agree further. “There’s something obvious here, and I think it’s an objective point when I say that.”

He nods at that and clears his throat, looking up at the building for a split second. “Is it okay if you search with Mark? Jaehyun and I’ll be here, I kind of need a second thought as I plan out the mapping for if they aren’t here or at the conference hall.”

“That’s fine.” You assure him, and nod your head at Mark. “Let’s go.”

Inside the building is eerily quiet, but brightly lit with the afternoon sun shining through all the glass. You have never been in this building before, at least you do not think so, because the lobby does not ring the slightest bell to you.

There are bodies of infected that are taken out lying all around. They paint the light creme flooring red with their blood, but it is comforting. Because it is for certain that they have been here, at least.

A fire exit door is all that you are looking for, or a staff room that could possibly lead to the stairway, but it takes a bit of an embarrassingly long time for you two to spot anything in the seemingly open-spaced, bright lobby. You come to learn a bit after starting to walk around that the entry to the stairway beside the elevators just outside of the oval lobby is also blocked with something on the other side.

“There’s a crack in the elevator doors,” Mark suggests, and although ladders are the one thing you hate the most, you agree to take them to the upper floors.

It is so dark and humid inside with years upon years of unventilated air, the smell of rust and rot is absolutely disgusting, and you fear that the years-old ladders will break any second with both you and Mark’s weight on them. Not to mention how tiring climbing up a ladder can be for your arms and legs when you hold onto the thin and flimsy metal waiting for the other to separate one of the elevator doors, most of which are rightfully blocked.

On one of the far upper floors, though, there is no blockage, and you can swing yourselves onto the hallway. Which is scary to be honest, especially when you are all this way up and if you miss anything your way down will be met with an old, hard, rusting top of an elevator on your back.

But god bless the planners (maybe their souls) of this place, because the ladder is close to the opening enough that you can swing onto the floor without too much hassle. Neither of you slip after jumping down onto it.

“Do you think,” Mark dusts himself off as if it would help with anything, takes a deep breath in his tired lungs, and rephrases his words. “Do you think they came all the way up here through that?”

“Maybe they blocked the stairway and the doors,” You suggest instead, and it sounds a lot more like the option the two of you would like to believe in. “Right half yours left half mine?”

“Sure.” He answers, and the two of you go your separate ways on the big office floor.

A few doors open to the empty, messy office rooms and you check through the drawers for anything worthy to take back with you even though there is not much of it. One of them provides you with some scissors and lighter liquid, which end up being the most usable things you get out of them. Some doors do not even budge with whatever is blocking your way.

But there is a room at the visible end of the hall where the door will budge, but will not open.

You resort to using your shoulders to break into the room rather quickly. There is not any particularly loud sound coming from behind the thick, polished wooden door, and something about it being left secure but still accessible made you think there must be something behind that door that is useful. Maybe a stash of actually usable supplies or much preferably, anything that leads you to your missing people.

The door opens with your fifth push, and you hear the sound of a broken lock clink on the ground.

You also hear the shriek of a Runner who jumps you immediately after being attracted to the sound.

With the force of your push you have basically thrown yourself into the arms of the Runner which is never a good thing or in any way close to an ideal situation, and you have to duck away by kneeling lower and throwing yourself to the sharp opposite side of where the infected is facing to make sure it does not grab your arms. You take a few steps away but it is just as fast as you are, so you have to use your quick wit and draw out your gun in the blink of your eyes, shooting it in the head— impractically unable to care whether there were any infected on Mark’s side or not because it was either you or whoever they were with the shock and the pace of things.

The mess of a creature falls down with a slump, your heart absolutely racing but also dropping— because as you look down at it you can see that you know who she used to be. You were not friends or even really acquaintances, but you know for a fact that she lives in the city. So you turn back around to the open-planned office with your fast approaching panic and adrenaline.

Which is when you see it.

Johnny, slumped onto the floor, sitting with his legs spread out. Johnny, whose ankle looks broken. Johnny, who has his gun in his hand.

Johnny, who has a bite mark on his exposed right arm where orange-salmon colored fungi is growing out, extending upwards to his shoulders and neck.

Johnny, who has a hole on the left side of his chest, red spatter over the wall behind him, slumped on the floor with fungi growing out of his arm ready to grow all over his glowing skin until he grows into the wall and starts letting out spores.

Johnny, dead.

You do not know if any air makes its way into your lungs. It surely does not feel like it. Your ears ring and your eyes go dark with purple spots all over your vision and you get dizzy and nauseous, but somehow, you stand.

“Mark!” You shout out, surprising yourself, calling and alerting him when you can already hear his fast approaching steps thumping on the floor at the sound of the gun fire. Before barely a few seconds can pass he barges into the room with his gun in his hand but stops when he sees you frozen in place. Then, he follows your gaze.

Even from the side of your eye, it is obvious he flinches. “What the hell happened here?” His voice is not above a whisper.

You look at the less familiar face lying on the ground, and its shoulder. “The bite marks look similar.” There is no sense of stillness in your voice as you speak. “I guess they just locked themselves away,” Teeth grinding tightly, you let out a silent and choked sob, because you cannot believe any of this bullshit your eyes are seeing.

Mark takes a few steps towards Johnny and picks something up from the ground— a paper— making his way to you. But he stands on his own while he reads with his slightly shaky hands, and crumples the paper once he is done skimming over it. He sits next to you on the hard, carpeted but otherwise concrete floor. “They got bit while they were clearing out the basement,” His lips wobble a bit, but he quickly covers it up by placing his fist over his mouth until it goes away. “Locked themselves in here so they wouldn’t harm anybody.”

“If the trespassers didn’t go through the district leaving every goddamn door open, none of this would’ve fucking happened.” Maybe you were trying to blame it on someone, or maybe you really were mad at them for their ignorance as they went through the city. You did not know for certain, although it felt a whole lot like it was the latter. Because they would not have had to camp here anyway. There would not have been infected in the buildings in the first place.

You sit down where you are standing, looking at Johnny.

All you know is that this was unfair. If anyone deserved surviving long in this world it was Johnny. He was physically strong, and he had a good mental attitude, and he was so purely good that the last thing he deserved was to die the way everybody did, alone and scared and not wanting to turn into one of those things. He deserved to die of old age if anything after living a happy and healthy life, continuing to help lonely recruits like you and Mark— doing what he likes to do until his very last days. Training, falling in love, teasing and pestering his friends whenever and wherever, giving advice, making people’s stomachs hurt with his smooth and not-so-smooth jokes, doing photography as long as that camera of his would survive, spending time with his family and not moving out of their house even though there are available houses until the time comes when he absolutely has to.

But he cannot do any of those things anymore.

He also cannot be there for you or Mark anymore.

Your trembling hand comes up to spread over your eyes and your fingers rest on your temples, and you hitch a breath in. “What are we going to do?” You ask Mark with your just as trembling voice as if he would know. The question is not necessarily about this particular moment in time, but about the far future as well. He lets it linger in the air as his eyes switch between the two bodies.

“Well,” He clears his throat when his voice shakes violently and looks at you, his hands playing with the carpet, picking and tearing away. He chooses to ignore the far future, at least for now. “We’ll have to tell his parents first.”

The hand on your face falls down. You look at Mark, and he notices how wide your eyes are. He knows you cannot comprehend it by the way your eyes look, looking right through him with your shell shocked, hundred-yard stare. “No,” You whisper. “Mark, I can’t.”

“That’s fine,” He looks into your eyes with his own that are glazed over, and nods reassuringly. “I can.”

But it does not feel better. Instead, it makes you feel worse immediately, because you feel like you at least owe Johnny and his parents this. It makes you feel ashamed that you will not do even one thing about it, because you do not think you would ever be able to look into his parents’ eyes again; knowing you joked about it before he left and you were too unbothered to go out after him before you were ordered to do so. There is nothing in your heart, mind, or body, that tells you that you can do it without completely losing yourself in the process.

The two of you collect yourselves and come back to your senses as quickly as you can, because you knew Yuta and Jaehyun would be on you if you were any more late.

Mark helps you in carrying the bodies down the stairs which is an extremely tiring task considering you go down several floors, and the mental toll it has on you. The two of you unblock the fire exit door and push the metal drawers and organizers aside, opening the door and carrying them to the lobby.

Then, you head outside. Yuta and Jaehyun do not spot Mark and you until you get closer, but when they do, their brows immediately furrow. “We need two bags.” You mutter, feeling your chest stutter with the words. Their faces fall at that very second. The grip Yuta has on his map that he is holding tightens and his knuckles go white, and he sighs with utter disappointment. Knowing Yuta, it is at himself.

“One of them’s Johnny.”

The muscles on their faces relax only for their eyes to widen.

It takes a few hours for all of you to get back to the city once you put them in bags and start riding, not galloping nor trotting; deciding not to look for the others knowing it would take a longer time to get back and not wanting to stress out anyone in the city further. A night group could easily replace yours.

When you are at the gates the sun has long set. Questions arise once the gates open and the bags dragged by the horses are seen. You and Mark answer them since you are the ones who found them in that state, where you found them, which building, which floor, was there anything written around them, any symbols, any human spotted around the area— anything useful.

You give them the answers still in a daze, and let them take Anubis from your hand. Without waiting for anybody you start walking, on the way to your house.

Except, you do not end up in your house for a while. You wait in the dark, just around the corner leading to Johnny’s house and you watch Mark deliver the news to them. Although you cannot hear what he says to them, you can see it clearly with the light on their porch. How Mark delivers the news with his hands linked in the front, fiddling with his fingers a little as he looks at their expectant faces. How Johnny’s mother hugs into his father once she hears the situation, both of them shaking with sobs. How Mark’s shoulders drop and how he tries to console them, but stopping when Johnny’s mother does not take a step away from her husband and he waves at Mark presumably wanting some space and time alone to themselves.

You watch as Mark nods and leaves, and you head to your house. Hurrying into your backyard, you swing open the door and kick off your boots. Not bothering to put them in their place, you take your bag off your shoulders and the only reason that you do not let it fall onto the floor is because of the guns packed inside. Then, you make a move to take your coat off.

And the damn zipper gets stuck.

With a sigh, you force it down. But it does not budge. So you try again, but it will not move. You wait, nibble on your lips, give it time to change its mind: maybe it was frozen and it needed to thaw.

But when you try again, it just does not want to move down.

Pissed off, you try to strip out of the coat. But that proves to be almost harder. Everybody wears thin but warm, lightweight coats to make their movability better, especially outside. But moving your whole arm to yourself and then down while holding the two layers of clothes, one thick sweater and the thin coat on top of it was undoable— because then they were fully limiting your movement.

And you had to take it off. You need to take it off.

Your hands then start picking and grabbing at the coat trying to rip it off, and that is when your door opens without any alert beforehand and Jaehyun walks in.

“What are you doing?” He whispers and walks over to you near your couch. You only stop struggling when he stands in front of you. “I can’t get it off, it’s stuck.”

He notices how you will not look into his eyes in the dark, and he notices the tears streaming down your face that you probably are not realizing. “Okay.”

Jaehyun walks over to your bathroom and takes a bar of soap you have. He walks right back to you in complete silence and dabs at your zipper with the sleeves of his hoodie up and down to take off the excess moisture, and starts slathering on the soap along the zipper until its sharp corner has visibly softened and the zipper looks white with the coat of it. He then fumbles with the zipper for a few seconds before it slides right down.

It makes you feel a mixture of embarrassment and anger, and you sniffle, only then realizing that you are crying after feeling the wetness in your inhale. Your lips waver as you try not to let a sob out. “There you go.” He mumbles as he helps you out of the coat and places it on the arm of your couch. He picks your boots up and places them next to the door.

“Let’s wash your hands.” He suggests, and you look down at your hands, seeing the blood from that Runner.

Jaehyun is almost late to hold you once your face violently scrunches up and you start fully letting it out, shaking with choked sobs.

Because your crying does not subside for several minutes, he ends up going to the bathroom again and comes back with a couple of wet rags, soaping one up and cleaning your hands delicately before wiping them off. He leads you to your bed then and lets you lie down, pulls the cover up, and kneels down in front of your face. “Try to sleep, okay? Force yourself to if you need it.”

You nod at him, and let him leave after he smiles at you.

His eyes had looked empty, which was always the worst for Jaehyun.

The next morning you hear your door lightly opening in your sleep, and being carefully shut. A few steps make their way over to you slowly and the empty side of your bed sinks with a somewhat loud huff.

Whoever it is waits for a bit, lets you sleep a little more even though you are not deep in it. That goes on for a few minutes before your bed sinks closer to your back, and it sinks a bit less than before— an elbow.

Fingers start running through and playing with your hair. It must be Jaehyun. And you are right. “Taeyong let me and Donghyuck take over you and Mark’s work for a couple of days, so you don’t have to go in today.” He softly whispers, and you nod slightly. “How’d you know I wasn’t sleeping?” You ask in hopes of distracting yourself from the thoughts and views that race over your eyelids, and open your eyes when it does not exactly work out.

He answers with a slight smile. “Your lashes fluttered when I walked in.” You feel him place his chin on your shoulder. “You slept any?”

Gulping, you shake your head. “Just got some shut-eye.”

“That’s okay.” Jaehyun whispers. “Better than keeping your eyes open. I’m happy you got some sort of rest.”

He sighs and takes his hand off your hair then. “Yuta wants to see you and Mark eating so he’s preparing breakfast. I have to leave, but head out soon and try to eat for me. A few bites is all I’m asking for.”

“Okay.”

Porridge and bergamot tea.

The breakfast Yuta has prepared for you and Mark, with some dried plums and apples inside that he fried on the pan a little. It smells nice, looks less so.

There is no one to greet and welcome you initially when you are in front of his house that is on the same street as Johnny’s. But it does not matter because you barge in to avoid being seen by his parents, taking big strides from the start of the street. You hear the stir of the wooden spoon inside the metal pot, and the fruit that spills in while you make your way to the kitchen.

Mark is sitting at the island counter of Yuta’s kitchen with his elbow on the surface, his head leant against his hand.

Yuta turns away from the cream colored counters and his electric stove once he hears the footsteps. “Morning.”

You see Mark’s head only tilt a little, but not fully to the extent that he can look back at you. “Hey.” Your voice does not really come out, so you clear your throat. Yuta’s face falls a little at that. “Is there tension in your throat?”

“Yeah.” You sit down next to Mark. With your hands placed on the surface, you turn your head to look at him but his face is covered by his hand and arm. “There’s some powdered ginger you can take in the pantry. But you should try and relax your muscles first.”

With that he pours the porridge into the bowls he has taken out for you, and serves them with a slight smile on his face. Then he pours the hot tea inside two small jars and hands them out as well. “Dig up.”

It does not feel right. The atmosphere is too heavy, but you know you will not get out of it unless you really eat something, so you pick up the spoon and take a spoonful of the meal, gathering a piece of everything. Letting it steam for a few seconds as you watch it, you contemplate putting it in your mouth because ever since yesterday you feel this sickness in your stomach. It is more fragile than it ever could be on any given normal day.

Even so, you take a bite. At first it feels like you will throw up at the sheer hue of sweetness in it.

But you chew, and continue chewing, and you do not throw up.

“I heard you’re going out again today.” Mark mumbles, which makes you perk up, looking at Yuta. His eyes widen in the slightest. “I am,” He says, his eyes looking boringly only at Mark.

You chuckle drily. “Are you out of your mind?”

“Taeyong wants me there. He’s going out too.” His explanation does not calm your heart, which feels like it is being squeezed, at all. You turn back to your bowl and continue picking some porridge. Just to avoid his gaze.

Yuta does not say that he would come back or that he would be okay. Because he knows that those words do not hold any meaning to them whatsoever, especially now. “I have to go soon, so you should better be finished with these before I do. I’ll let you drink the tea by yourselves.”

Mark and you start eating in complete silence. Mostly because Yuta is watching you eat and it is extremely uncomfortable, and it would be awkward to just talk as if he was not there.

It makes you both rush your meals as well. The bowls empty out in a matter of minutes and your stomach feels heavy, though in all honesty, it was a pretty good breakfast Yuta had prepared for you. It was a fact that you would not have bothered to cook or even to prepare something that did not need to be cooked.

When the two of you are done with your meals, Yuta smiles and takes the bowls away to wash them quickly. Mark tries to intervene and says that Yuta could go out and he would take care of the dishes, but Yuta shuts him right up saying he needs the distraction anyway.

You can see Yuta’s hands shaking slightly.

It is always difficult to know for sure what he is feeling. But if you had to give it a shot, you would say he is feeling either anxious or shocked, or both. He is the type to live his emotions very secretively, and you could never recall an instance where Yuta’s grief was noticeable. Maybe only when he had lost one of his recruited, young survivors on the way back home. That had changed him as a whole; losing someone (especially much younger than him) under his responsibility.

He leaves once the bowls are washed, not looking at your way or telling you goodbye. You are simultaneously thankful and angry at him for doing that.

The bergamot tea is still steamy. It somewhat burns your hands when you put them around the jar to warm yourself up and start looking into the dark substance, looking so deep into it that you start feeling as if you are part of the dark liquid.

Mark clears his throat. “You’re wearing the same things as yesterday.”

That is true: even though there is nothing that you want more than to take them off and trash them to never see them again. But at the same time, there is something inside of you that does not want to let go of them. Even if it is just taking them off.

You look at the side of his face, and see him taking a sip from the jar. “Could you sleep?”

He shakes his head with a gulp. “No, no. You?”

The two of you make eye contact when he finally properly looks at you, and you shake your head as well. “I kept seeing it like a picture— like something projected at the backs of my eyelids.”

Mark nods, and that is it for a while. No one speaks for some time and you sip your beverages together as if it is a chore that you have to do, as if Yuta would see you two if you spill the tea into the drain of the sink and would come after you, trying to get done as quickly as possible so both of you could leave to be by yourselves. And it goes on until Mark decides to speak in a low voice. “They buried him early in the morning. His parents didn’t want anybody to see.”

Your eyes burn and the lump forms back in your throat because you can understand why they would not want anyone to see, but at the same time, you cannot. “Some of his older recruits left him flowers and letters, seeing that made me feel a bit better.”

You nod. “He deserves that.” And so much more. Despite yourself you smile slightly, and Mark joins in understandably grim, nodding. “He does.”

The day goes by extremely slow, yet so fast once you are back at your house.

You let yourself take refuge on the bed and do not move much throughout the day, trying to sleep. Expectedly, you are not too good at doing that. You toss and turn and huff and look up at the ceiling meaninglessly until you can no longer hear kids playing outside and the adults going about with their daily duties; until daylight loses all of its significance. Until you realize you have melted into this state of mind and have completely forgotten about your needs, using the toilet, eating, or drinking water.

Yesterday’s clothes are still on you. And you cannot bring yourself to change out of them, again, even though there is nothing in this world you want more than to never see them again.

The night would have not had any significance whatsoever as well if it was not for the sounds of hurried shuffles through the snow that were coming out of your room’s window at whoever knows o’clock. Before you could even show any type of physical response to it- whether it be surprise or suspicion- there were loud and hard knocks on your door.

It takes probably all of the strength you have in you to get up and walk to the door. You laze your way over to it and swing it open, rubbing your eyes.

You would have expected it to be Jaehyun, since he must have gotten done with his duties. But it was not him. It was Mark.

Mark, whose eyes and face were lit up with adrenaline. There is not a single emotion you can make out from the way his face looks. The world could actually be ending for all you know, or the community might have been getting raided.

You cannot make anything out from the way his voice sounds, either, when you hear him speak the millisecond after the door knob turns. “They found the trespassers.”

The look in his eyes- whatever it was, shifts into concern for a split second before he carries on with his words. “One of them’s the one Yuta left a note for, they were making their way over here when Yuta found them.”

Those words spark a light in your chest because of course. Of course they were the ones that caused this whole thing in the first place and it sounds stupid to you now that you had not even thought about them when you noticed the doors were open.

Which is because the doors at the nearer town were, in fact, closed while you were there.

Now it does not make sense. “Wh- how- that doesn’t make any sense. The doors were closed when we were out earlier.”

Mark shrugs. “I don’t know, I guess they got the theme by the time they were there. Yuta told me about the whole interrogation,” He chuckles humorlessly, shaking his head. “They claimed everything before they could even ask the questions.”

“Do they know they fucking killed people?” You ask, and Mark flinches at the harshness of the words. However, he nods promptly. “Yuta told them. They said they were sorry-”

It makes you laugh at the sheer comedy of it. “They were sorry? That doesn’t bring them back or make up for anything.”

“Nobody ever said it does-” Mark defends, but you are too angry at them to stop. “You know how fucking miraculous it is to survive twenty five years- the whole ordeal, especially when you go outside frequently. His parents pushed through thick and thicker with a newborn baby just to get to where they are now, to give him a damn chance at life and this is how Johnny goes? Because of someone else’s stupidity and inconsideration?” Shaking from anger, you wipe at your eyes that have gotten a little wet while your blow-up was going on. You gulp and shake your head, feeling the tension in your jaws. “They should save their apologies because not even a billion of them,” Faster than lightning, you hold a finger up in the air in between you and Mark. “Would make up for a single hair of Johnny’s that got hurt nor for a single tear of his parents.”

Mark, your poor friend and companion, only nods a little. He knows how you get when you are angry, and he knows how fed up you must be feeling, and he can see how tired and out-of-it you look, so he does not talk. He knows that if he were to say anything you would spill words from your mouth you would either regret saying or would only upset you more, and he did not want that to happen.

Though, Mark did have to say one thing. A part of the truth that would concern the two of you. “They’re from the Nox.”

He watches your eyes slowly widen. In a matter of seconds, you look awake and aware as if you did get all the sleep you had lost the past two days within those few moments. You lean your shoulder against the door for support or from the shock, he cannot be sure. “What?” You whisper.

Mark shifts from his place, the tips of his shoes touching your socks as he leans in much closer- most probably to drown his voice out. The neighbors should not hear more than what they might have already heard so far, even though you had been conversing in low tones. “From the headquarters,” He whispers, looking into your eyes. “They came to recruit people from this area. The others are with them.”

Your brows furrow with the oncoming nerves. “So there were more of them and they just joined?”

After a second’s hesitation, Mark nods. “Seems so.”

“Why would they?” Upon the question, Mark takes a deep breath and pushes his shoulders back much like a school kid being questioned on a topic they have not studied, and looks at the side. The yellow lights from other people’s windows hit his face as he nibbles on his bottom lip indecisively. When he turns back to face you, the lights still illuminating the right side of his face, he shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

Mark does not get surprised when you chuckle humorlessly. “Well I think it’s pathetic to run with people who’ve killed your own.”

It is quiet for a few seconds as he nibbles on his lip some more, but in the end something- that looked much like defeat- washes over him before he just nods a little. “Yeah, you’re right.”

Maybe five seconds of quiet before he speaks, looking down at his hands where his fingers are picking at scabs formed over his knuckles that seemed to be there every living day. “Um,” He swallows the words that would come after that at first, but he thinks, and thinks some more. It takes a couple of seconds, but he does decide to speak up. “You know what, nevermind. Maybe later.”

You get a bit taken aback but he cannot tell, because your brows are still furrowed a bit angrily and there is no other emotion over your face. “Do you know where Jaehyun is? He said he’d come straight after his duties.”

Mark’s mouth opens but no word leaves it. “He uh,” It closes and opens once again, his eyes widening a little. “He’s- he volunteered,” He clears his throat and looks down. “He volunteered for filiation.”

“Of what?” Your heartbeats have gotten significantly faster, stronger and heavier, but you cannot say if it is worry or the oncoming anger. “The trespassers’ base. Taeyong was looking for someone he could trust and he-,”

“Amazing,” You chuckle and shuffle on your feet, crossing your arms over your chest. “That’s amazing.” Mark sees you lower your head and your tongue swipe over your bottom lip as you smile bitterly, and when you raise your head back up, he can see the unshed liquid shine with the moonlight. “Why does nobody act responsible?” You whisper, and he sees the falter in your furrowed brows- the stutter.

But Mark knows you better.

He knows this is not how you truly think. He knows you out of all people want to move at the front, he knows you want that the most, and Mark knows you blame yourself for the things you are (in his opinion, rightfully) unable to do. He knows it is because you are scared. He knows you are terrified. Because it has been long, so long since either of you two have even gotten close to properly surviving outside and in all honesty: through these years of routinely going out for shorter periods of time and not having to dwell on things out of the gates, you two have grown accustomed to the feeling of homely safety. It really had felt like nothing and nobody would be able to reach you or anyone around you, even if it felt like it just inside the walls. The bubble of routine reality hidden in the much chaotic and unforgiving reality that was this community had slowly but surely implanted the expectation of seeing your loved ones get back home as if it was just a shift of a pre-apocalypse job- what they called 9-to-5.

And Mark knows this is almost like a reset, and that the sense of security and whatever this place has brought you feels like it is gone. He feels like it too.

Mark hates to see you this way. He hates to feel this way. He hates that Johnny was the one who had to go out of everyone, because he was the best of you.

But he knows he should take care of who he has left. In whatever way he can.

When he looks at you, the concerned look in his eyes from a few moments ago is back. “Have you slept any?”

You shake your head. “No.”

He nods as if he expected the murmured answer. “We’re going back to duties tomorrow, you need to sleep some.” Mark sees you chuckle just once and hears you mutter an ‘Easy to say.’ while tilting your gaze down, but he interrupts you by pointing inside, albeit a bit reluctantly. “Do you want me to help?”

“Would you?” He nods, the genuinity somehow visible from the way he does, and steps in gladly when you get away from the door and open it wide enough for him to walk in.

It had been long since the last time he had helped you sleep. It was a few years ago when you were on your own, having just separated from a group of survivors the two of you had become somewhat attached to. Their goals with life were much different than Mark’s and yours- two mere teenagers whose only wish was to not be much farther from home in hopes of reuniting with the people you had grown with.

Who could ever know that a little over three weeks of traveling on foot would already be too far from home, and too impossible to ever cross paths with? A miracle, really, ‘for kids your age’ (as people who were around the age of your parents would say).

Some nights the hopelessness and the feeling of never belonging to any group would take over you. Mark was the only person you could depend on, and you were the only person he could depend on. With how young you both were it was only natural that both of you had times where the cycle of hunger, loneliness, the paranoia of surviving and being infected, almost-dying but being saved, seeing the only person you depend on almost die but saving them, either being showered with love from other survivors or being hated for whatever reason, and getting left behind either way would get too much to deal with.

The two of you were camping overnight inside a completely empty water tower, warm and dark in the winter night- the last gift of the survivor group you had tagged along with had been an old map marked all over with safe and hopefully clear places to settle in. Plus the groups you should never encounter.

So he had done what he was doing right now. He made you lay down like right now, that time on the hard concrete and now on your kind of soft mattress that was slowly rotting away, knelt in front of you unlike in the past when he laid down beside you, started playing (more like softly scratching) with your hair and scalp because he knew it worked well to make you sleep, and sang in a low tone because he knew you loved it, and found comfort in it.

His voice sounds rougher than ever when he starts.

“Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life,” This song is much too familiar, and it is Mark’s favorite verse of it. It means so much to him, having been brought up with faith in a world he once stated he felt was ‘too far from it’.

“And I will dwell on this earth forevermore,” His voice is soothing and soft, even though you knew he preferred his rapping much better over his singing. “Said, I walk beside the still waters and they restore my soul,”

He stops a little to take a breath, an unnecessary one, yet heavy. “But I can’t walk on the path of the right because I’m wrong.”

Mark’s voice is working its charm- or maybe it is knowing you are not alone, you do not know. But your head was getting clouded and dazed with the sleep creeping up to take you over already. He, however, continues. “Well, I came upon a man at the top of a hill,”

His voice cracks a little. “Called himself the savior of the human race,”

Through the cloud of sleep, you try to reach him. Only mentally, but you try to reach him. You wanted to hear him until the end. “Said he come to save the world from destruction and pain, but I said ‘How can you save the world from itself?’”

You barely make it to the end of the line, only hearing a glimpse of his sporadic whistling.

When you open your eyes you see Johnny sitting down next to your hand laid in front of your face, hugging the pillow. He smiles down at you, ruffling your hair for a bit. The room is dim- only the wall lights are on. The environment is mostly dark, even Johnny’s face that is much closer to you than anything. You can still see him pretty well, though, in the dim, warm yellow lighting.

His clothes are relatively clean. A few stains and tears here and there, but nothing unusual. Him and his parents’ ways of doing laundry were always superior to many others. You wanted to learn how but Johnny said you would have to come and do it with them once to properly learn once you are out of the dorms. Sometimes he would offer to do your laundry for you when the queues and waiting periods of the laundry got too long in the dorms- it was easier to have problems with water at a rather small place where a lot of people lived, and when they got their clothes really dirty almost every single day while getting educated on survival skills and agriculture.

His face is bright. His eyes are puffy just the right amount; he looks energetic. His smile is of genuine fondness towards you, and it makes you smile as well.

“Sleeping too deep?” He asks quietly. The dorm room is unoccupied excluding the two of you; your roommate had gotten a bad cold and was kept in the small hospital ward. You shake your head at his question but the yawn you let out contradicts with the motion. “I was just taking a nap.”

Johnny nods and looks down for a second, sighing a little before looking back at you and slightly raising his hand which held a tea cloth, showing off the little pouch. “Eomma sent some cornbread. I brought some dried figs as well.”

Excitement washes over you, and you take the cloth out of his hand gratefully when he holds it out for you. Unable to hold yourself back, you break a small piece off of a slice of cornbread and happily put it inside your mouth- giggling in delight when you notice the fresh corn taste and the fluffy texture. Johnny chuckles at your reaction and coos only a little.

His smile dies down pretty fast despite its brightness just a moment ago. Which is unusual for him, who likes to stretch his smiles out for as long as he possibly could.

“Can I lie down?” He asks and points at the pillow reluctantly. You nod and scoot closer to the wall, arching your back a little and tilting your head back to secure the tea cloth of snacks inside the small, empty vase placed on the windowsill. It operated as a whatever-holder: sometimes it was actual flowers, sometimes it was small jewellery or gifts you had gotten on your birthdays, sometimes the very occasional letter from Mark even though he was just two buildings down, but usually it was snacks from Johnny.

He lies down next to you and does not bother to get under the blanket, placing his hands on his stomach as he looks at the ceiling. You watch his chest rise and fall three, maybe four times before he can start speaking. “Did you ever observe one?”

“An infected?” He hums at your question. You look at the ceiling and try to remember a time you might have but nothing resurfaces. “Not really. Was too busy trying to save my ass. Or Mark’s.”

“You never went outside before the raid?” Johnny asks, quite curious. You shake your head again even though you are not sure if he would see it. “Not never, but we were in school mostly. It was high up in an apartment so it was the safest place. I did not have to worry much about them until we were older.”

An exhausted sigh makes its way past your lips and it is not only because you are physically exhausted. “And then we ran.” Turning your head to the side to look at his face, you smile. “And now I’m in a different kind of school.” Calling the dormitories a school was simultaneously a far reach and not. It was mostly to train people to not be shenanigans until they became adults, and to be responsible with their duties and communal living once they were one.

A hand laid on his stomach reaches out for one of yours and he holds it, squeezing in a way that could not be described as tightly but rather, strongly. In a way that reassured you and calmed you down, in the way that made all your past worth the present. “You’ll get to be a Wanderer soon enough. Just a few months more.”

“I just like the idea of having my own place,” You chuckle as you shrug, acting like being a Wanderer was the least of your interests. “A bathroom all to myself, a less shitty bed and having the freedom to walk around whenever…”

“Just make sure you don’t forget about us when you get your luxury.” He smiles and looks at you, and you smile back at him devilishly. “I couldn’t if I wanted to,” At that, Johnny’s mouth drops open in surprise and happiness, but you cut him off before he can even start, playing your game further. “You see, unfortunately most people I consider friends in here aren’t peaceful, calm farmers or healers or-”

“Yeah, we all have a fucked-up liking of the outside,” He nods as he talks to himself, eyes slightly squinted. But he comes to his own rescue with a protest. “It’s not like anybody can blame us. Being lost in the old world is quite dreamy when there aren’t screeching mushrooms running around.”

It makes you laugh the way he addresses once-people back from the dead, even snort a little. It had been long since you had seen one. Young recruits, or recruits that basically were not at the age of maturity, were not allowed to go on patrols, research scouts, or sweeps unless it was absolutely necessary. From what Taeyong had told you the first time you ever stepped foot into the dorms and were told about the way things went around the city, it was to give people, especially teens, a chance.

A chance to live at least until the day they were considered adults.

“Speaking of,” Johnny’s smile dies down once more. He takes a big breath, and his chest rises with it, and he holds it there for a few seconds. When it is let out, it sounds sad more than anything. Maybe even a bit depressed. “When we were out on a patrol today with Taeyong, there was this small group of Runners at one of the checkpoints,”

He looks at you, but you do not say anything, so he continues. “So we were clearing the place out as we do, and I went upstairs while Taeyong stayed behind just to be safe. I went into the studio to write down the report,”

With that he turns his gaze back to the ceiling, scrunching his eyebrows slightly. “And there was this.. Runner, it- he didn’t hear or see me so I hid behind a table. But he wasn’t moving around, you know? Just standing at the same spot. It was very early stage, he had just turned. Maybe a couple of days ago, I don’t know,”

He starts fiddling with his fingers. “He looked around the same age as me, or maybe a bit younger. Wasn’t flimsy, didn’t look like he’d been starving- he just looked healthy otherwise. But as I looked at him and the way he flinched, the way his hands moved and his shoulders cramped; the way he grunted.. it sounded too human.”

There is silence for a second or so, but he picks his words right back up. “And his eyes- his eyes,” Johnny breathes, and the sound that comes from his nose sounds a bit too stuffed and wet to be normal. “They didn’t look completely empty. Not even meaningless.”

He looks down at his hands that are still fiddling, his lips hanging out a bit the way they did whenever he was sleepy or sad. Then, he nods a little, confirms whatever is going through his mind. “I think he was there,” His voice cracks and stutters. “Inside. Trapped and waiting until it consumed his brain whole. Trying to fight back as if it would be any help.”

“And I couldn’t help but think, as I shot him down,” He shrugs and shakes his head. “That I’d never want to be trapped in my own body and have to wait until I have no control over it, if it ever happened to me.” And he looks at you.

Johnny looks at you.

With his sad, brown, dark eyes. His empathy for the Runner and for his own self. He looks at you so deep, almost like he is frozen.

Because he is.

You reach out your hand to touch his arm, and find it to be extremely cold, and stiff.

He is gone.

You wake up breathless and almost shoot yourself out of your bed with the force you are sitting up. Mark is gone, and nobody else is there. You are completely alone. The sky is just turning a bit grey, signalling the coming of the morning.

Sighing, you try to relieve some of the pain in your jaws and chest; trying to forget the memory of Johnny that was now your nightmare. You had clenched up too much, it felt stiff everywhere. Now, your head was hurting too.

There is not a single drop of sleep left in you- even if there was, you hardly think you would be able to go back.

So you get up.

Walking to your closet in a hurry, you pick out some clothes in the dark. In all honesty you do not even know what you are picking, but it does not matter. There would be very few people outside at the dead of the night if at all, and you could not care less about how they thought your outfit was.

This felt like the only time you could actually visit him. You just wanted to be alone with him, and the silence.

Once you wear your coat you are already half outside. You shut your door as quietly as you possibly could in your hurry, which was undeniably a little loud even if it had been a reasonable time to leave your house, but it was not like people would care. Unless someone or something was screaming, nobody really cared.

From your house to the cemetery took around ten minutes of walking, which was a reasonable distance given how spread out this city was. How it came to be this big you did not exactly know. Johnny had told you sometime that the bigger series of stone buildings belonged to a winery- the wines would be fermented in the summer and then shipped out here in the fall to age before being sold, which was what his parents told to him. It made sense, because the stone buildings all had underground basements that were all connected, some of which were used as a hospital ward and some of which were used as a communal living space for people who did not really have families nor a role in the community like a Farmer, Wanderer or Sweeper. Basically for people who were deemed unqualified to have their own houses.

It kind of sucked, but then again, some people actually preferred being there. The director of the basements and dorms, this lovely woman called Sarwendah, had told you once that even though it was not the majority, some people found comfort in living with other people openly since it made them forget the reality of everything as long as they were in that bubble.

The wooden buildings were either built after the gates were built- which, the gates were built after the army claimed the zone to themselves at the start of the outbreak, whose control over the area for something around 11 years, Johnny remembered those times in his childhood- or they were the ones already built for the winery’s workers and their families.

Johnny. That bit of knowledge came from Johnny too, as well as many others.

And when you are in the cemetery walking through the graves, looking for his name and spotting it without much time passing, you see a silhouette standing right at the foot of the grave.

Who, upon walking closer, turns out to be Mark.

Who, also upon walking closer, seems to be fully equipped with bags and his gun.

“Why so equipped?” You ask, and it startles him, but he does turn around and watch you as you walk over to him. “You’re going outside to join Jaehyun?”

He clears his throat. “No, he got back,” There is a split second of silence that feels a bit too long in your confusion for how long it actually is. Mark rolls his shoulders back and takes a deep breath, lets it out, creating a rather long-lasting vapor. “But yeah, I’m going outside.”

“Where?” You ask further, and he visibly winces. He avoids the question to play with the stones around Johnny’s grave with his foot, nibbling on the inside of his mouth before mumbling. “I should’ve told you before but I couldn’t.”

Your brows furrow as a string is pulled at your heart with the suspicion and the piecing of things together. “What were you going to say?”

One more exhale, but this time sharp and clear-cut. Controlled. He looks at you, looks in your eyes, and tells you the words you would have never imagined he would. “They’re releasing the trespassers and I’m leaving with them.”

Everything kind of slows down at that moment if that is even possible with the lack of action-filled things around you. Shock, was it? Or utter betrayal? “I’m sorry?”

Mark takes a step closer to you and fully turns his body to face you, towering above you not so much with his height but more so with his body language. “They’re working on a vaccine. They trust what they’ve got in their hands and they’re traveling around recruiting people to guard the headquarters. They’re afraid someone might-”

It was all too much.

“Mark, what the fuck are you talking about?” You snarl, and it shuts him up effectively. Yet, after that, you do not say anything. You wait for him to explain himself and after a couple of overwhelmed inhales, he takes the opportunity. “I’m going there to work as a guard. They’re afraid of the possibility of someone stealing the samples, or worse, attacking the lab. They need every volunteer they can get right now.”

Anger.

Pure anger is what you are feeling, and it is indescribable. It covers you from head to toe, right to left, inside and out; it feels hot and yet, icy cold. “Johnny’s blood hasn’t even dried yet, and you’re leaving with the very people who caused his death?”

Mark looks taken aback. “Be sensible. They couldn’t have known about the doors, they’re the first group from the headquarters to come here in years. It’s life or death out there, and they probably didn’t have the time for details.”

You take a step closer to him as if it is possible, and hit his shoulder lightly. “How about you be a little sensible? How can you trust them so easily? What if they’re saying these just to recruit all those people- and to travel all the way through there-”

“They have a car. Takes three days.” Mark cuts in, which makes you chuckle humorlessly. “Okay, great. What if they just recruit you to use you as a scapegoat for when they encounter bandits? Or, like I said, they just recruit you to have more guards? The vaccine has been a word since forever, Mark, and we know it. It’s a stupid hopeless rumor.”

“I’m telling you, they have scientists and they have evidence-” Mark starts, but you cut him off. “Yes! But their people also raid towns, and these people themselves are inconsiderate enough to screw up our whole system and kill our friends along the way-” You are basically trying to make sense to him with your whole body, pointing at the grave and getting closer to him and looking at his eyes to make him regain some of his sense. Just enough to keep him here, where he should be. “How can you trust them with your own life when they’ve been so inconsiderate of the others’ time and time again? You walk out of here with them and the next thing you know, you’re dead, Mark.” You point to your left, which is the direction of the big gates where the trespassers must be leaving, as they need to leave under the Leaders’ watch.

He is silent upon that. It takes him a few moments to come up with the words he is going to say, and his eyes flicker around under the confused sunlight signalling the coming of the early morning.

But he comes up with them nonetheless. “I owe it to people and to him,” He points at the grave. “To do whatever part I can to end this someday. And if I need to go to great extents and forgive them, so be it.”

And with a determined gaze in his eyes you had never seen from Mark before, he says what he really thinks. “I’d rather die running after something I believe in than live with the shame every day.”

You understand.

Not him, but that he is going.

That maybe, he is already gone.

“You leave,” You look at the grave and bite the inside of your cheek before looking back at Mark. “And I’ll come looking after you.” You whisper.

He looks away and bites down on his lip, placing his hands on either side of his hips. And then, he shrugs, not even trying to think it through. “That’d be up to you.”

And he starts walking towards the left, leaving you at the cemetery.

For the first time, you are alone.

[lorei-writes]

Ikesen Masamune Analysis #3

1st part: the trauma & the grief 2nd part:  discovering the new meaning to love & getting in touch with himself

For the 3rd part, I want to focus on what makes Masamune's dramatic route really tragic.

Major route spoilers ahead.

To start with, getting familiar with the second part of my analysis may be necessary for an in-depth understanding of the events. To just summarise it briefly: Masamune loved MC at least as long as she loved him, but it took him way longer to actually understand his feeling and to realise it was love. I'd say it's only after battle with Kenshin that he finally knew what to call this strange happiness he had never felt before to that extent. Let's remember, that's pretty late in the route itself.

Now, finding this new, deeper meaning of love (love being both physical and emotional; I suppose he considered lust to be love before meeting MC) allowed Masamune to make another discovery - he wanted his future. He wasn't content with just the present anymore. Masa reclaimed part of himself, the one he had sacrificed long ago for the sake of the Date clan.

Let's look at how much (or rather, little) time passed between this revelation and MC getting swallowed by the wormhole right back into the future.

Personally, I think that about half of the pain comes from the emotional distress. Masa, after finally being able to actually desire something for himself, something authentic, something long-lasting, had it all taken away from him. He tasted the unconditional love, just to have to look helplessly as it was taken away. He was powerless, yet in the way also powerful - he did follow his code of the good lord and silenced his pain, just to ask her to keep smiling.

On the physical plane, his body hurt as well. As we can suspect, the shot wound wasn't quite healed yet and the rubble from the collapsing temple did fall on Masamune's shoulder. The fire spread fast and burned him. Also, keep in mind that in the future, MC was in the hospital for a couple of days due to the smoke poisoning - and Masamune was in the building for so much longer than her.

I think we can more or less guess how that year passed for Masamune.

Firstly, he had to recover physically - considering what we know of his scars, it would take at least a month for the burns to heal (he got scarred, but he still had feeling in the skin, so it's reasonable to think he got 2nd degree burns, maybe less severe 3rd degree burns). Meanwhile, Masamune would also have to deal with a rather heavy blow to his pride - he wouldn't had survived if Yukimura wasn't there. The possibility of them clashing one day in battle wasn't slim.

Then, he had to explain what happened to MC and arrange a rather unexpected move to Kyoto. And how exactly do you convince others that your beloved just traveled in time and that changing your base of operation was totally rational, just like that? Even if the Azuchi warlords believed him instantly, not all people would - I wouldn't be surprised if rumors arose, if people just assumed the princess died in the fire. Though that's frankly the least important thing, as I suppose it wouldn't bother Masamune much.

After all, she promised to come back and in turn, he promised to wait for her, even if it meant waiting forevermore. Oh, and he was ready for that eternity, even if it was to be full of uncertainty and painful hope - because maybe he had to wait just another day, maybe just another hour, maybe she'd come back tomorrow.

I suspect Masamune wouldn't be able to ever fall in love again like that. MC was the only woman ever to see him as just a man and that came from her upbringing in the future. She didn't perceive him through the lenses of what may be beneficial to her - she wanted him as a whole, the ugly, the weak, the scarred and the traumatised included. Even if Masa found a woman as bold, brave and stubborn as MC, it would be almost impossible to recreate that sort of tender, kind, warm and unconditional love. After all, MC lived in the time where political marriages weren't a thing anymore, where people could provide for themselves and didn't have to marry into prosperity. Not to mention the fact that he'd have to bare his heart to another again, after breaking a promise. Which just isn't like him.

Now, imagine a day of pain, intensified by it being the anniversary of her disappearing, and combine all of the above into one wave of feelings. The moment MC came back and crashed into Masamune, he got engulfed by it all - the longing, the pain, the happiness. After all this time, it felt surreal to him - and once this dream came true (or much rather, his nightmare had ended), it was so overwhelming he couldn't keep his veneer anymore. The very Masamune who rode into battle while heavily injured, the man who'd hide his injuries, who'd smile when sad and who'd laugh when about to cry - that very man would tremble, while holding his beloved, he missed so painfully for the past year. Being torn away from her was just too much.

That, I believe, is where the pathos of the dramatic route lies.

[fulcrumahsokaamidala]

Saturday Spectacular #3

Happy Saturday!!! So this is me thanking awesome fanfic writers for their amazing work and all the time they put into their fics. ♥️ I want to recommend spectacular fanfic stories I read this week! ♥️ They are posted in the order I read them. All posts will be tagged #saturday spectacular fic rec

Drunk Cuddly Oliver by @stephswims | Arrow | WIP

Emerald Archer Martial Arts by @alexiablackbriar13 | Arrow | Complete

Summary: In May 2019, a tired Oliver Queen and four months pregnant Felicity Smoak retire from their vigilante duties and move to the redwood forest town of Bloomfield with their son William, to raise their family in peace.

Along the journey, they build their own successful companies, increase the size of the Smoak-Queen clan by a couple more, train their kids in self-defense, and live out a blissful existence.

This is the story of 7 years of their happiness and family antics, after 7 years of crime-fighting and hardship to save their city.

Semper Fidelis by @oliversmuse | Arrow | WIP

Summary:  Oliver Queen is a member of the Bravo Squad, a team that specializes in search and rescue, covert infantry and translating foreign documents. He is known as one of the best and even though he is one of the youngest recruits he advances quickly. While serving he meets Lance Corporal Felicity Smoak, a young woman with skills in hand to hand combat. Despite the fact they butt heads they fall in love and soon start to talk about a future together. However, when her plane disappears on a mission in China and she is presumed dead, Bravo Squad searches frantically for her, only to find her plane and her bloody dog tags. Five years later Oliver runs into "Megan" at a coffee shop near that gym he has been running with his friends. She has lost her memory from the plane accident but has had dreams of Oliver and the Bravo Squad. With the help of his friends and team mates, can he help her reclaim her past and fall for him once again?

Airplanes, Coffee and Deadlines by @hope-for-olicity | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Felicity begins working at a national newspaper where she has always dreamed of working. On her first day, she meets a very interesting photojournalist. The two will eventually work together but sparks fly immediately.

and we're somehow caught up in a web of lies by inlovewithimpossibility | Arrow | WIP

Summary: After their encounter with the Count and Moira's release from prison, Thanksgiving is upon the residents of Starling City but when an article arises in the gossip magazines that throws both Oliver and Felicity under scrutiny, the two of them somehow find themselves caught up in the most elaborate lie they've told. What was supposed to be a relaxing week at the Queen cabin in New Hampshire for Oliver and a week celebrating Hanukkah and Thanksgiving alone for Felicity turns into a week at the cabin of acting, the Queen women and bubbling not-so-platonic feelings.

You Can't Afford Him by @quiveringbunny | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Oliver and Felicity, still strained after returning from Lian Yu following the takedown of Slade Wilson, take on roles that challenge their buried feelings when they go undercover to investigate a dangerous arms dealer. A Macau casino. A luxury suite. Suspenders. Lucky red panties. What could go wrong?

The Morning After by @stephswims | Arrow | One-shot

Providence by @so-caffeinated | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Will Queen has struggled in silence in the year since he was shot. But when a shadowy crime lord known as Domino targets the only woman Will’s ever truly loved, fate forces him to confront his demons in ways he never could have imagined… Whether he wants to or not.

Amelia Prescott has fought to take control of her life since learning two years ago that her personal and professional worlds were manipulated by others. But nothing can prepare her for just how hard she'll have to fight to set her own course, especially when her heart belongs to a damaged man and a crime lord threatens her every professional move... And her life.

Destiny brings them together, but as chaos reigns and personal demons haunt Will and Amelia both, it may also threaten to tear them apart. 

(i want to) save that light by @callistawolf | Arrow | WIP

Summary: What if one little thing changed in the history of Arrow? What if, instead of going to Laurel's apartment after discovering the extent of Merlyn's plans for the Glades, Oliver stayed at the foundry and talked to Felicity instead? This series of short vignettes explores some of the ripple-effect changes that could take place throughout the next season as a result of this one, fortuitous change.

The What If Harassment Alternative by portlandborn | Brooklyn Nine-Nine | WIP

Summary: What would have happened to Peraltiago And our intrepid detectives, if Amy had reported her mentor captains ugly behaviors?

bliss within madness by @alexiablackbriar13 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: “Hey, Mia. It’s your dad,” he whispered. Pausing, he added, “Mia or Lucas. We don’t know exactly who you are yet. But I promise you, your mom and I are gonna love you to the stars and back no matter who you turn out to be. I’m gonna call you Mia for now, though.” He kissed Felicity’s stomach softly, humming under his breath at the heat coming from her skin.

give all my secrets away by LiteraLital | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Before returning to the Waverider, Sara shares a drink with Oliver and Felicity as they reminisce about old times and some secrets are revealed, old and new... Based off the 7x18 sneak peek.

let me do this by @alexiablackbriar13 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: 7x18 Spec. Mia arrives back injured from a mission and Felicity patches her up.

I'll take care of you by  felicitybettx | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: Oliver finds out his pregnant wife braved not one, but two death-defying explosions while working with the canaries. He doesn’t handle it super well.

a once-in-a-lifetime love by  inlovewithimpossibility | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Felicity squeals a little as he lifts her into his lap with the utmost care, nuzzling her neck before planting a few kisses there. “Oliver?”“I ordered your fries and a chocolate shake.” He tells her and Felicity grins, pulling back to grasp his face in her hands.“You’re the best husband ever.” She tells him seriously and the smile that spreads across his face makes her feel like she’s a kid again.[extended scene from the end of 7x18 - takeout, sleepy cuddles and daddy-daughter chats with their unborn miracle]

i need you to be safe by @alexiablackbriar13 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Post-7x18. Oliver does not react very well when finding out about the danger Felicity and their unborn baby were placed in. Felicity always knows exactly how to reassure him.

Can't Help Falling in Love  by @smoaking-greenarrow | Arrow | One-shot Collection

Summary: Collection of fluff fics based on Tumblr prompts! Some are angsty, but most of this is fluffy. Enjoy!

I wear high heels (she wears sneakers) by @mogirl97 | Supergirl | WIP

Summary: “Lena. It’s not just about football.” Kara waved her hands around emphatically, “It’s about school spirit and hanging out with your friends—“ Lena didn’t want to bring up the fact that she didn’t have any friends to hang out with. “—and watching me obliterate a bunch of guys’ egos and going out for celebratory Big Belly Burger afterwards.” ~A Supercorp High School AU~

for you, i will withstand the pain by @alexiablackbriar13 | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: Strange feelings of dread and hope associated with his baby's ultrasound photo prompt Oliver to make a crucial trip back in time to stop his past 2017 self from making a decision that threatens everything he's built with his family and by extension, the universe itself.

1st Night of Forever by @theartofbeinganerd | Agents of SHIELD | One-shot

Summary: Three years after the wedding that changed both of their lives forever, Jemma and Fitz are finally getting married, and officially becoming the family that they've built with Evelyn over the past few years - and they (and everyone around them) couldn't be happier about it.*The Fitzsimmons Wedding in my 1 Night 'verse, first started in 1 Night (+9 Months)*

whenever you're ready by @alexiablackbriar13 | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: Mia and William from 2040 travel back in time to 2019 to access an uncorrupted version of Archer. Oliver and Felicity investigate a break-in at the bunker only to find their children from the future bickering. Emotional confrontations and conversations ensue.

Artemis by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: When the Queen's Gambit sank, two people were stranded on Lian Yu. Five years later, four came back.

Daughter of the Demon by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: What if in 1988 while traveling through Las Vegas Ra's al Ghul bumps into a nice waitress named Donna Smoak and they have one-night stand together? A little bundle of joy named Felicity Smoak is the result. In 2014, the Demon Head becomes aware of his youngest daughter's existence.

The Ravager by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Slade Wilson's plan for revenge against Oliver took time, money and no shortage of lives to pull together. His plan didn't anticipate Felicity Smoak. How will his plan change now that his lost-lost daughter is working with the very man he's trying to destroy?

The Daughter That Was Left by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Before the Gambit, Oliver Queen met QC intern Felicity Smoak. When he boarded the Gambit, he left something behind. Now, five long years later someone is waiting for him.

Felicity of Themiscyra by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Years ago, Donna Smoak left the island of Themiscyra and her sister Queen Hippolyta behind to live in man's world. She never told Felicity the truth about where she came from. As a result of the Undertaking, Felicity discovers some of her Amazonian abilities and makes an interesting new friend: Diana Prince.

I Scream But No Sound Comes out by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: When Oliver returns from Lian Yu after five years, he comes back different. What happened there damaged more than just his body. How will his friends and family deal with this new Oliver?

The Perfect Summer Day by cali-chan (girls_are_weird) | Stranger Things | One-shot

Summary: "Why didn't you go into the water with the others?""Because I want to go in with you." Joyce and Hopper take the kids on a day trip to the beach, and El helps Mike conquer one of his biggest fears. PG, fluff/romance, post-S2, Mike/Eleven.

Breathe Me In by cali-chan (girls_are_weird) | Stranger Things | One-shot

Summary: "So breathe me in so deep. Breathe me in, I'm yours to keep..." The two of them dancing through life together, as they had been since the beginning. PG, romance/fluff, post-S2, Mike/Eleven.

Carry Her Weight by cali-chan (girls_are_weird) | Stranger Things | One-shot

Summary: Something Mike had mentioned piqued her curiosity. "What's a piggyback ride?" PG, romance/fluff, post-S2, Mike/Eleven.

PB&J by @realityisoverrated-fic | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: After weeks of getting the silent treatment, Tommy tries to lure Oliver out to breakfast by sending him messages and pictures of how much fun he and Felicity are having. Oliver is still angry with Tommy and is refusing to take the bait.

[migleefulmoments]

I don't think anything of what the cc fandom posts anymore is "continued optimism". It looks like sheer terror that they're losing their game. Abby is in pure desperation mode, trying to rally the troops because she can see Darren's life is turning out to be nothing like she predicted. She can no longer validate that Darren NEEDS her, he keeps going against her. They're losing their grip. This isn't optimism, it's because everything Darren is doing equals Abby losing control of the narrative.

I agree with that they were in panic mode since the wedding but the 72 hours or so after Hollywood was announced they were euphoric that this was proof that Darren would be coming out soon.  That has worn off already and they are back to their normal crap but for a few days, they were giddy. They were even speaking about a divorce in very near future.

I am going on record, I like AW and I like her a lot.  She is team D, I really have no doubt and everything she is showing is that she is on his side and around to protect him often and frequently. 

Yes she is giving us the illusion that she and PBB are besties that love to take intimate photos together but in reality she is showcasing exactly who M is, how much she lacks chemistry with D, some really not so pretty moments behind the scenes btwn D&M (there was some golden footage from European trip number 1 includng that video from the fireworks where E is all snuggled into her man and D&M look like virtual strangers), she flew to that island to babysit, and she announced the business family honeymoon.

Keep your friends close, your enemies closer. 

AW is team d. She is a hard working, extremely successful men’s stylist with a pretty impressive client list at this point.  And while she would absolutely have loyalty toward D, as she built her career styling him, she should not be this involved. A friend just reminded me that her other client, FW is currently promoting the J/udy Ga/rland movie.  That is something AW usually would accompany her clients to, she follows D everywhere.  yet no one questions why instead of being with FW she spent 2 days in a row with PBB.

I think she and d are working together and i believe she provides d with comfort. She babysits M, she works as a buffer, and unlike so many other enablers, she has D’s back.  She is smart, she knows how to play M and her stans.  On the surface she looks like she might almost be in love with M (seriously she has way more chemistry with her than D), but it is all a mirage, done for show. And if you look behind a lot of what she posts, it is harmful to m/iarren.  

I know I have repeated the same think a lot over the past 48 hours, but I am so scared to allow myself to believe that change is ahead. And i got burned with ACS because I BELIEVED with my entire being this was the beginning of change and then everything escalated to full on disaster.  But I still think no one got burned more than D&C because I am fairly certain they thought change was ahead as well.(Again the narcissism just has to rear it’s ugly head). 

But I cannot stop myself from being optimistic and it is not just the RM partnership.  It is the totality of the circumstances. It is watching the past 7 months since the sham mockery.  It is seeing how they past 7 months were designed solely to promote her, not D, and done mainly using people only seen by fandom (her employees/friends, SK, PBB’s team).  She got the massive exposure and the press from the “wedding” and some RCs as the “wife” but not much more and has now been relegated to mainly being promoted by the aforementioned. And that is only seen by fandom. Add, for the past several months, D himself has hardly tried.  A random good pic here and there, but otherwise he orchestrated group honeymoons, barely touched her even when kissing, the jerk, bitch glare, the back turn.  D has gained nothing until now. He certainly did not do this for a show he sold 3 years ago that is being written by, like them or not, Hwood novices.   I hardly think he needed a wife to score the TB commercial. And SA doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who cares who d’s partner is, it was just a great collaboration.

And here we are, September, D is filming R/oyalties and we get the announcement that he is collaborating with RM again, not just as the star, but exec producer of a show that largely involves, based on early press, LGBT+ themes.  And I have to HOPE.

The stage is set.  D “married” her.  He has been set up to take the blame as well as his team, thereby absolving RM.  And it would make a lot of sense for RM to now step in and play the “hero.”  We know the truth. D and C know the truth.  But RM has the power to smooth what is going to be a difficult narrative to navigate. And it is a win for D&C and a win for RM.  The m/iarrens are going to be devastated, as they are so invested in being right and D being straight (No we aren’t)(again the narcissism and her soul-crushing need to be right-is this about Darren or Abby?).  And even if we just get a separation it will all be questioned. Because M is the only thing that makes him straight (not true, Darren identifying as straight is what makes him straight).  Everything else points at the opposite.  Add the press has not helped him at all on his path to come out, so it is going to be difficult to navigate.  Having the “king of television” in his corner speaks volumes.

And then there is his horrific, abusive, incompetent team. And they haven’t just fucked with him, it seems with their no queer article they fucked with RM.(Huh? What?) I really hope they live to regret it.

Karma is a bitch.. May she rear her ugly head and finally give these people what they deserve. If i am sitting here a year from now and nothing has changed, I will be heartbroken for him.  And wonder if maybe he did choose career.  I just can’t believe that is who he is. I think he is a fighter and everything he has ever shown confirms that (DELUSION-ville) thought even if there was some confusion when the fraud in NOLA first occurred.  

Here is hoping nonnie.  Here is hoping.

I think a major decision like this was made together.

Read the book when it comes out in Oct 1. I thought c references RM. now I’m near positive.

And Hwood itself was initially announced in February.  I immediately thought this was the project RM was cooking up (curious if FW and CF join the cast).  But then there was silence for months,

And the first 8 months of 2019 were a complete shitshow that included that absolute fiasco in NOLA, excessive PBB promo, ads, ads, ads, TB, and SK.  Not a single one of which were worthy of D’s time and attention.  And to all onlookers, we were dazed and confused.  utterly and completely and not sure what to think or believe.

But putting the pieces together prior to last nights announcement, logically and rationally looking at everything, it seems to me that finally D was tying up loose ends.  While I do think D himself was dazed and confused in the first few weeks after that fraud occurred, it has been clear to me that starting with the work family group honeymoon (I think of all the arrows to m/iarren that have been shot, this might be my favorite) something shifted.  How anyone can not see that that woman was being way over promoted is beyond me (Because “promotion isn’t a thing, Abby”). But clearly the 1st 8 months of 2019 were devoted to giving her everything and anything she ever wanted.  Add in SK, the biggest enablers, that are being rewarded, first by raising an obnoxious amount of cash, and now with R/oyalties with D’s writers being his partners in the business. All of these things are massive pay out.

And last night we get this announcement from D.

notes-from-nowhere

do you want to know what I find very intriguing in all of this? The fact that all of that has been said in this topic pretty much sums up what we have said in the last 15 months if not more.

The latest news only uncovers the thread that keep all of “out theories” together. Of course something might be wrong, misplaced or misunderstood but the big picture is there for all to see (No, you don’t say?).

I do think it is too soon for me to fully embrace the idea that finally things are on the right path but well, please, excuse me for my optimism after a year and a half of struggle.

I’m going to root for D to have back his life and to finally be free to make his own choices. I hope this career advancement (or for better wording: this career extension) will give him what he wants and the power to just be his fully self and spread his wings.

I will watch what’s unfold in front of my eyes with interest from now on and a reneview wave of hope. 

I do trust D is going to take the best decision ever among those available to him. My only fear is that those options may not be the one I hope for him but all I can do right now is wait and see. Hope for the best and expect the worst. Is the wiser thing I can do

ajw720

@notes-from-nowhere it’s impossible to not be skeptical. I didn’t see that “wedding” a 1000 miles away. (SMH) I care way too much (a me problem). I felt like my heart broke that day and I need to take care of me and be cautious. But I’m leaning this is good and I do think the public evidence to date supports this.

This is what euphoria looks like in cc fandom.  

It’s interesting that she convinced herself this is Darren coming out when she thought he would come out during Hedwig based on this:

He and C were very relaxed, joking at interviews when G/lee was ending, both in France at the same time, the C/ol-Fur joke, the repeated telling of mandate.  Everything seemed to point to a positive resolution.  C even scheduled his book tour to be finished the day prior to d’s last performance. and then D was nominated for an emmy and everything seemed to shift and spun out of control and here we are, 4 years later.

She “rationally analyzes” the data and comes to the conclusion he’s coming out rather than understanding he’s just living his life. 

[irageneveart]

The Act of Being

Pairing: 2018 Michael Myers x OC

Chapter 1

Words: 2850

Warnings: violence, blood, death, mild gore

A/N: Hi <3 it took me forever to build up the courage to write something for this beautiful community, but here I am with the 1st chapter for Michael Myers’s story. There are plenty more things to see in the following chapters and I have plans for other slashers as well. Please let me know what you think and if you’d like to see more, constructive criticism is always welcomed!

31 October 2021

  For a moment she didn't understand what was going on. Her shoulder felt numb and she felt the t-shirt sticking on her skin, wet. Everything happened too fast, she bolted forward and only when she reached the other room she felt the pain, the blood, and everything clicked. Her friends weren't hiding and her imagination wasn't playing tricks when in the corner of her eye she saw a glimmer in the moonlight. The knife that was meant to strike straight to her heart hit her arm instead, and that only because she wanted a bit of that pistachio.

  She kept running, quickly looking around for a place to hide or something to defend herself with, not realizing she was holding her breath all this time. She felt herself shaking, anxious and nervous as if she saw a ghost. And that was the weirdest part, because she did see a ghost. One that had a pale white face with cold void eyes, wielding a kitchen knife covered in her friends' blood. She slipped into a little hall, trying to be as quiet as the wooden floor would let her. The door closed soundless behind her, and she let out a deep sigh. Straightening her back, she knew exactly where she had to go.

  Three years ago the Shape of Haddonfield escaped, determined to finish what he started 40 years ago. That determination was something anyone would envy, if they had the nerve to joke about Michael Myers. What once was only a tale of the Boogeyman, for some it was too real to even think about. There was a problem though, he didn't manage to do it, and he ended up in a huge fire locked in the basement by the very one Laurie Strode he was trying to kill.

  She slowly reached the kitchen and the fact that the house was completely silent behind her made her stomach heavy. Where is he? The kitchen door opened with a slight crack, making her bite her lower lip, a reaction that came in handy when it stopped her from screaming as the room revealed itself to her. Melanie was there on the table, with her neck wide open and her beautiful green eyes lifeless, staring into nothingness. She slowly got closer, chewing on her own lip to stop herself from tearing up, and she closed her friend's eyes, hypnotized by how perfect and deep the flesh was cut. The blood was still slightly pulsing. Poor thing, she thought as she moved past her, Melanie always liked the color red. The blood was dripping from the blonde's neck onto the table and then on the floor, a gruesome cascade thriving underneath the corpse.

  After that Halloween night, Michael's body was never found, and Laurie with her daughter and granddaughter disappeared. Teachers, classmates, workmates, no one knew where they were. And maybe that was for the best, maybe it was the sign that it will finally end.

  Passing the kitchen without looking back was the heaviest task she had to do, but there was someone else in the house and there was no time for mourning. Not yet. She will mourn later if she managed to get out alive, she promised.

  She cursed under breath; Evan's house was too big. She only made it to the main stairs after what felt like forever and a day, thoughts bouncing in her head the entire way. A feeling was choking her. She pressed her back against the wall, walking upstairs as close to it as possible to avoid any sound from the wooden stairs. The feeling of guilt was so heavy in her throat she couldn't even swallow well. Probably all her friends were dead, was she supposed to escape? Was it fine for her to live while they died in the room next to her, while she did nothing? Every muscle in her body was tensed, and she often found herself holding her breath with every step. There was a paranoid fear that he would jump from anywhere, as if any dark corner had a Michael Myers clown box waiting for her. Fear, guilt, anxiety, adrenaline, pain, too many emotions were going to make her puke.

  The following two Halloweens happened like usual: some people died here and there from some bad jokes or too much alcohol in the organized parties, but nothing out of common. And that was the problem; none of them happened in Haddonfield and none of them had Michael's style. That was driving people insane, where was he and what was he doing? Was he really dead this time? Was he planning his revenge or did he change his branding? The thought of uncertainty was much worse than knowing what was going on, therefore people decided to declare him dead for good. And to be fair, they had no evidence to prove he wasn't, so people accepted it.

  She knew in her heavy beating heart that Michael Myers was pretty much alive, there was no mistake about it. She felt a sudden anger towards those who lied and acted based on their own fears, maybe Mel would still be alive if they prepared the masses better. But nothing changed the fact that he was there in the house and that he was hunting his last victim for tonight.

  She finally reached the end of the stairs. Looking down, the house looked abandoned, haunted even. Ghostly grains of dust were dancing in the moonlight, and that was the only source of light around her. She came here with a purpose, but it was almost impossible to find the attic door without light. That was the only place she could think of that was safe. With no other choice anyway, she tried her best to tip toe with just one foot, feeling around the ceiling.

  The door, where is the goddamn attic door. Seconds were passing by and her movements were getting hectic, she started to panic. He was there, she was sure. Did he find her? Was he just finding the good angle to gut her for making him wait this long? Was the attic door even there?

  Her breathing rate increased when she felt the handle. Butterflies hit her entire chest from the wave of relieve, she was going to survive. But as soon as she let out a nervous smile, she realized she's far from being safe. Trying to open the attic door as silent as possible seemed like a child's play at that moment, because the real problem was to reach it enough to push it upwards and to climb inside. She needed something, a chair or a table or-

  Fuck.

  In the frame of the staircase was him, a towering shape in flesh and bones, the knife held so tight in his hand she could see his white knuckles even in the dark. There has been few seconds where neither of them moved, seconds when she could hear her own pulse. They both were waiting. The slightest movement from him made her bolt like a deer escaping the wolf's fangs, limping straight to the bedroom at the end of the hall. The door closed behind her and any chair, furniture, anything she could move was now in front of it. Moments after there were loud bangs into the door, the man behind it trying to break in.

  She ran out of rooms to hide and the annexed balcony didn't offer much support in the matter. The balcony doors were crystal clear and the house was taller than the average second floor. She quickly got in the surrounding: Evan's bed, not tall enough. BANG! His wardrobe, not big enough. BANG! Desk, posters, clothes, a ball. Nothing. Nothing to help her. Where was her head when she was in the kitchen, she could take a knife or anything!

  Then she suddenly heard it: far off into the distance the police sirens were screaming in panic, and she inhaled so sudden she almost choked herself. She knew he heard them too. There has been a short pause before the hits in the door became more hurried, heavier. He needed the job done.

  Everything was now a matter of time. If she could delay him until the cops were there, she would survive the night. The thought didn't even have time to settle in; Michael's crazed hand broke into the wooden door to push and throw whatever was holding it. The next second she was out on the balcony, the cold stinging on her still wet wound. She grabbed one cloth from the floor before switching rooms, trying to knot it around the doorknobs from outside, anything that could hold him back a little longer. She closed her eyes shut finding a baseball bat and holding it tight, just a little longer.

  Michael Myers made his way into the bedroom quickly after and he didn't look pleased. His chest was wavering in anger and even if the sirens were getting closer, all she could hear was her mind buzzing like 100 bees at once. It's alright, it's fine, there's still one more door - she kept whispering to herself holding the baseball bat with all her might. He came in front of the balcony doors, looking at the cloth around the handles and then up to her. She felt proud of her little cheat, and the police seemed like just few streets away. The moment the glass door shattered under the masked man's strength, without even trying to open it like a normal person would, her knees went soft giving up underneath her. No! That's not how you open a door!

  His heavy boots cracked the broken glass under his steps and her hazel eyes were wide and teary, fixed on the holes of his own. She could only push herself backwards; this was the end of the line. He grabbed her foot pulling her closer, momentarily losing his balance from the force when he only pulled out her prosthetic and a scream. Michael tilted his head looking at the fake leg he was holding.

  "Give me back my leg!" his attention was brought back to her, her face red and her eyebrows furrowed. The cops were all just driving in on their street, the lights coloring Michael's white mask in shades of red and blue. He threw the leg away, walking up to her holding his knife up. One strike and everything was going to end. When the knife was seconds away from penetrating her skull, it stopped in front of her suddenly raised hands. In her shaking palms, two candies.

  "The-These are my Halloween treats! I'm sharing!" she said with trembling voice, her gaze held down while her hands were up above her head. She was so desperate that even the candies in her jacket seemed like a good idea at the moment. When she actually felt one of the candies getting picked, she raised her head with so much hope in her eyes, only to meet despair seconds later as the knife cut deep into her palm. She cried out as the cops parked the cars and rushed inside, breaking the front door of the house. Michael pulled back the knife, and she jerked herself away, holding her wounded hand and moaning in pain. Switching the angle of the blade he was ready to give the decisive blow, while the girl was supporting herself on the steel bars of the balcony to stand up, whimpering and groaning. She grabbed the bat she dropped earlier and locked her gaze with his. She wasn’t going down yet, her lower lip trembling, but her eyes filled with nothing but determination. He lounged on her and she threw herself to the side, hitting Michael with the bat over the back of his head using all her body weight. He dropped the knife, stumbled upon his own steps and disoriented holding his head. The girl gave one last hit with the bat over the back of his knees, making him lose balance. He tried to grab on the balcony edge for support but the blood she left on the bars made them slippery. Michael Myers fell and hit the steel full on with his cheek, emotionless dropping on the floor.

  She was breathing heavily, cold tears falling down her cheeks but her face was screaming anger and pain and triumph. She was still holding the bat, ready for another attack. When the moment didn’t come, she dropped the weapon and gasped for air. She did it, she was alive. She was breathing so fast and so loud she couldn't find her voice to scream for help. Michael wasn't dead, his chest slowly rising and falling, but he wasn't moving and that was good enough. Exhaustion suddenly hit her, eyelids begging to be closed. She inhaled deeply, relaxing her shoulders and exhaling loud and heavy, clouds forming in the cold in front of her. She could hear the cops downstairs, finding body after body. They will come up there too, and she would be finally safe.

  She lazily moved her gaze towards the killer, to his mask's eye sockets. The Boogeyman was there, lying flat next to her, hot breathing slightly clouding the front of his face. A sudden thought made her reach out, her body complaining in pain. She wanted to see his face, the face of pure evil. "Please, don't wake up" she whispered exhausted, moving on top of his chest and placing her hands on top of the mask. She suddenly got nervous, everything she heard on TV about him playing all over again in her head. Swallowing hard she slowly raised the dirty mask off his face.

  The moment the mask was gone her jaw dropped.

  He was...human. She almost felt disappointed. His left eye was heavily scarred, lost probably, and his face was spotted by burned scars badly treated, if treated at all. But there was nothing to scream pure evil, he seemed tired if anything. Her bloody fingers feathery traced his features, afraid not to wake up the beast. From his eyebrow, to his sharp cheekbone that was now bruised and black, and down to his grey beard. There was a tint of sadness in her eyes seeing the white in his beard and his scanty hair. "40 years and other 15 before that, huh..." she quietly said, absently staring to his closed eyes and furrowed eyebrows. A question suddenly popped up in her head, her breathing pacing up against his steady one. What are they going to do to you now?

  Loud voices on the stairs snapped her back to reality. What are they going to do to him now? It's not her problem, he killed people. He killed Mel. He killed his own sister and hundreds of other people. He was evil, uncontrollable, with no morale of good or bad. Right? That’s what they said, everyone said that. She glanced up through the broken glass that lead into the messy bedroom, waiting the cops to barge in every moment. Was he truly the evil incarnated? Was this man touched by old age and wounded beyond repair everything they said? He never spoke, he never showed them what they wanted. “They just always wanted something from you…” she whispered to herself looking down on his slow breathing chest, almost like a bottom line that just clicked with her. She felt some kind of sympathy staring at him. She furrowed her eyebrows trying to understand the conflicted feelings in her chest. Next to his hand was the candy he took from her, lemon flavored. His hand was missing two fingers and the wound was looking plagued and old. Too many emotions flitted through her mind, unable to make sense of it all. “Did they give you any chance?” She heard her voice cracking in another whisper. A shout in the hallway, a man's voice through the open door "Here! There’s a broken door here!” Her pulse started to race once again. She couldn't let them take him back to the Smith's Grove. Not again. That has never been a good thing. "That's not a way to live." she said through clenched jaw looking at him, with her last powers hiding the mask along her bra line hoping it won't fall down, and starting to scream.

  "Here, please!" She needed a lie, something, anything to fool them. "Please help me and-" she paused suddenly, her eyes big. "my father" she whispered in sheer panic, instead of her own voice hearing one of a child, crying and begging to anyone who had ears to hear. The cops surrounded her and Michael, the girl only whispering while staring into nothing, burning tears falling down her cheeks.

  "Please help my father, please anyone please help my father" she repeated over and over, not hearing the cops' words of encouragement, not hearing her own voice, not seeing or feeling anything.

  Five men raising Michael from the ground was the last thing she saw before a comforting darkness took her.

  She could rest, at last.

[sansanficrec]

Q&A  with ladytp

Grab a glass of wine and get to know @ladytp!

How long have you been writing fanfiction?

I actually went back to the folder of my first posted fanfic, and it was almost 6.5 years ago, September 2012… That was my first ever creative work I wrote as well, as I started quite late – being already adult, established professional and all that. So never too late to start, one doesn’t have to have grown up writing!

Did you write before that?

No I didn't - unless scientific publications are counted as 'creative' writing (well, to be honest, sometimes there was an element of creativity when trying to make one's data make sense, LOL!)

How long ago did you join Tumblr?

To be precise (as I like to be!) I joined March 1st 2013 – so almost six years ago… But it took me four months to make my first post (an awesome music video about ASOIAF and GoT), being initially a ‘lurker’ to observe and learn. I migrated there from Livejournal when things started to quiet down there – like a moth I was drawn to bright lights, moving images, and more of my fandom content!

What is the meaning behind your username?

My username is from the Livejournal times as well, as when I joined it, I didn’t grasp the significance of one’s url or username and just picked the first one that came to mind when filling in the details: “lady” and my initials. D’oh! Luckily I have been able to successfully have the same name in other platforms as well, which is great – it is easier than have many different names. I am also glad that it is not fandom specific, as my interests are many and varied…

What was your first fandom? First pairing?

Definitively ASOIAF – that was my introduction to the whole cultural phenomenon of ‘fandom’, devouring fics and joining communities (yeah, I am so far behind of everyone else – I used to have a life, LOL!). Sansan was my first ship, but I also had a brief period when I was very interested in Daenerys and Jorah (this was before I saw the show). Even though the show had a big negative impact on Sansan experience for me (not due to Rory, I hasten to add – but the storylines), it has still stayed my OTP in a sense that I feel most comfortable about writing them and their dynamic still fascinates me above anything else.

How/when did you first notice (or start to ship) Sansan?

My story is very typical; first reading their interactions after the Hand’s Tourney, then the scene of the Battle of the Blackwater – and I was hooked. Googling and finding fics, Livejournal communities and all the metas…no getting back from there! I mean; it is so blatantly obvious that I wonder who can read the books and NOT get the vibes??

Is there a SanSan fic you’re particularly proud of?  Chapter? Paragraph?  Plot?

Hmmm…’Which one of your children you love the best?’, in other words – always a difficult question! I guess I am still the proudest of “The Triangle”  It was one of my early fics, it was a long-fic, and it was about the subject I had been fascinated with for years and years; the complicated Arthurian relationship between 3 people who loved each other for different reasons (Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot in the original, Sandor, Sansa and Jaime in the fic). Chapter-wise I am very happy with the last chapter of the “Kiss of the Blade”, as hard as it may be for some due to the character death implied. It has melancholy but also beauty, I thought when I wrote it. Plot-wise I am excited and happy about my current WIP “This Time, We’ll Do Better”, as although it has some common trope elements, I think they have somewhat cool applications and it is nice to write something more plot-orientated for a change!

Any comments you’ve received that stick out, even now?

I have to admit that again, “The Triangle” inspired some absolutely wonderful comments, probably because of its unusual premise. Towards the end, and especially with people who had read it in one go long after it had been completed, there were some wonderful convos going back and forth. I especially enjoyed the ones where people either told that they had had some reservations starting it, but then ended up really enjoying the fic, or the ones where they might have had some queries and doubts and questions, leading to a mutually fruitful and eye-opening discussions on both sides. Those conversations really blew my mind!

Do you use a beta?

I have had the privilege of working with two wonderful betas, of which I am eternally grateful. The first one was wildskysheri / wildsky, whom I “met” via Livejournal, and who betaed for me for “The Triangle”, “A Chance Encounter” and “A Premediated Reunion”.  She taught me – a non-native English speaker/writer – so much about writing and what to pay attention to and what to look out for. I owe her so much! After our ways parted amicably as she moved on to other things, I was without beta for a long time, not really actively looking for one, but when my path crossed with the lovely @hardlyfatal, I have once again had the pleasure of getting my words scrutinised by someone knowledgeable, making them better on “This Time, We’ll Do Better”. I honestly can’t speak highly enough for a beta who can make any writer and fic so much better!

Are there tropes/styles/genres you struggle with?  Any that are almost too easy?

I do struggle a bit writing babies and children, and hence haven’t written much about them… I don’t generally care for modern AUs either and would struggle to write a full story in a modern times – although who knows, maybe in a right setting, replicating the high stakes situation of the canon, it could work. Haven’t tried so can’t say for sure! Very fluffy genre is also something I don’t feel particularly comfortable with, nor anything where the characters are very young. And porn without plot is neither a genre I relish. The most comfortable genres for me are the slow-burns, where mature people interact with each other in a mature way (whatever that means…). First realisations of feelings, hesitancy, and all that. I also do like plot-driven stories that have a start, middle and ending. I am all open for fake marriage, bed-sharing, ‘there was only one room at the inn’ kind of genres – any kind of ‘forced’ situations where the characters are obliged to spend time together!

When you start a fic, do you know where it will end?  Or do you figure it out along the way?

There have been fics along both scenarios – some were started at the spur of the moment, with only vague ideas of where and how far they would go (”The Prophecy” comes to mind, which I started as a random holiday scribbling – and repeatedly apologised and updated my chapter number as it grew and grew and grew…). And there were the ones where even at the end I couldn’t decide what the ending should be, so I wrote two (for example “Past Was Such A Long Time Ago“). But for most I would have some idea about the ending at the start, and for some I would gain it somewhere early along the way. So yeah, it varies!

Do you have any rituals/conditions for ‘getting in the mood’ to write?

I mostly write over the weekends when I have more time, after getting up and having breakfast, reading my emails and checking on Tumblr and doing all the routine stuff one does – and then I open my doc and start writing… With my internet radio blasting on the background on some jazz or lounge or classic channel. I find it hard to write during the weeks after getting back from work and being distracted by mundane home things and TV and such.

Have you ever had writer’s block?  Any tips for overcoming it?

I did have a period well over a year ago when I felt I had ‘lost my mojo’. It was largely to do with the way the Game of Thrones show had progressed and changed the characters so much that I couldn’t recognise them anymore, and my initial inspiration of writing about them consequently suffered. Especially as the show canon started to take over the original book canon so strongly in many platforms, including fics. The way I got over it was to distance myself from the show and partly, unfortunately, also from the fandom (so largely focused on show). I had a nice break, didn’t read many fics, focused on books and generally took a step back. Then I challenged myself to write a new type of story, a plot-focused ‘action & adventure’ story instead of romance focused only. That inspired me to write again, and I have been riding on that inspirational wave ever since with my latest long-fic WIP!

Aspirations of publishing one day?

No, not really. It is a tough world out there, especially as writing has become more reachable to many people who previously might not have even considered it (yay, fanfic and other forms of creative writing and platforms encouraging it!), and publishing world is awash with submissions and self-published stories alike. Although I don’t know for sure, I suspect that wanting to become published would take much more effort and determination and will than what I have for now, as for me this is a lovely hobby, nothing more.

What are your other hobbies?

My absolutely biggest hobbies are food and wine. I have loved cooking, eating and learning about food and wine for most of my life and it’s really important for me. Cooking meals ‘from the scratch’ from their base ingredient is what I love, as well as learning to master new techniques, new cuisines and difficult recipes. When I travel, food is one of the main drivers for that too, and holidays are largely built around restaurants, regions, cuisines and wineries. Holidaying in wine regions and wine tasting is the favourite kind of holiday! Yet I also love everyday cooking – the beauty of this as a hobby is that I get to do it every day and can challenge myself, be inspired by it and practice it all the time!

As for other hobbies…not really… I follow the transformative artform that is WWE, especially Dean Ambrose, and love visiting historical sites and reading about history, but that can hardly be called an active hobby… I also make some photo and video edits for fun, but lately my writing has taken much of the time I used to dedicate to that. Yet I feel that what I have is enough – I have no desires for an active life with lots of different hobbies and activities.

Any tips for writers looking to post their first (or second, or twentieth) fic?

I hope this doesn’t sound too harsh, but it would be really cool if even those who write only for ‘shits and giggles’ would do some basic formatting and language checks… Things like how to indicate dialogue, spacing between paragraphs and when to apply them, and of course, basic grammar. There are nowadays so many websites advising about those things, as well as free tools (for example Grammarly), that they are accessible to every person with access to sites posting their stuff – and a simple Google search is your best friend. I recommend this because ignoring those things may easily drown even the most amazing story in these times of fic over-abundance.

Other than that, write the stories you would like to read yourself, and the scenarios you would like to see in the canon. Study the writing style of the writers whose stories you admire and see if you could pick up a trick or two from them (but not plagiarizing, naturally). And if you can, get a beta – it is not absolutely necessary, but would give you a second opinion and advice from a trusted person. Oh, and give yourself a break between writing and final editing – ideally have a buffer of chapters in a draft phase before starting to post, so whenever you write something new, you can afford to let it rest for a while before getting back to it with fresh eyes. And have fun!

Anything you’d like to say to writers in general?

Don’t get hung up on statistics or comparisons. Think why you are writing – is it because everyone does it and you feel you should too, or because you truly enjoy it, or because of the stories themselves, or because you have an internal urge to do it, or it is part of your social networking activities… all are valid reasons, but once you define what they are for you, the easier it is to focus on it and the satisfaction it gives to you.

Anything you’d like to say to readers in general?

If you like a fic, don’t be shy about commenting, as it truly means so much to the writers… Even simplest comment is gratefully received. If you feel like wanting to pass on constructive criticism, first ensure the writer welcomes it, then formulate it in the politest possible way with positivism thrown in as well (and of course, make sure it is actually constructive). Marvel the choices and abundance of fic availability and acknowledge what a joy it is to live in this time and age when all that is possible. Enjoy!

Anything you’d like to say to the SanSan fandom in general?

Do not give up hope – Game of Thrones is over soon and we can get back to canon content, hopefully soon with The Winds of Winter. Whatever the further story of Sandor and Sansa is there, we know how important it has been already and nothing can take that away!

Read LadyTP’s SanSan here!

Read LadyTP’s full library here!

[medea10]

Medea Rambles...It’s Reality

I would really love to put up a review today. Really, I would. And I would love to talk about the latest Pokemon episode, really I would...But, I'm not in the mood. Because of certain events, I'm not in any mood for my usual Sunday shenanigans.

Whenever I pick up my phone and see that damned CNN Alert message, I think one of three things has happened.

1. Trump said or did something incredibly stupid, illegal, or dickheadishly stupid.

2. A celebrity from my childhood died.

3. A massacre has occurred and was caused by gun violence.

And in the past seven days, that third option has come up more often than not. Now, by no means am I fully against guns. It's not my thing, if you like hunting, by all means. If you feel you need it for protection, I don't give a flying fig. However, there are certain guns that really shouldn't be in the hands of anyone. Period! And each time I hear about what a gunman uses, it's usually an AK or an AR-15 or some other monstrosity that really shouldn't be in the hands of (what it seems like) very unstable men. And in a lot of these massacres including the last three prominent tragedies, these very unstable men are under the age of 25.

That is fucking frightening.

Why would anyone want to go to an open place like a school, a Walmart, a gay nightclub, a concert on the Vegas strip, a church, a mosque, a synagogue, a local pub, a college campus, or a garlic festival to shoot up innocent people?

Oh yeah, all of these places have been shot up in the last couple of years. And again I need to say, THREE OF THESE HAPPENED JUST THIS WEEK ALONE!

I remember being in middle school when the Columbine shooting happened and in shock over what I was witnessing. Now it’s by no means the first gun massacre in our country and sure as fuck wasn’t the last. But the mere fact that this was a high school and these were students being slaughtered raised a lot of eyebrows. Now not much action was taken at the time, but there were plenty of back-and-forths over who was to blame for this. Being in middle school, they pretty much blamed all the things I liked including video games, South Park, and Marilyn Manson. Seriously, just because Dylan and Eric listened to Manson, all Manson listeners were going to go on a killing rampage? Fuck you then and fuck you now!

Then I remember 12 years ago with Virginia Tech and freaking out because, hey, I’m a college student. Who’s to say UNM wouldn’t end up on the national news one day because of a tragedy involving gun violence? Then again, I’m just a paranoid, autistic person and I worry over everything.

But then it wouldn’t just be at a school...it would be in places you wouldn’t expect. A strip mall in Arizona. A theater in Aurora, Colorado. And even an elementary school in Connecticut.

Yes, I have to talk about Sandy Hook! Twenty 1st graders and their educators were gunned down. That should have been the final straw in taking some freakin’ action! These were six and seven year olds going to school. AND RIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS FOR CORN SAKE! Because of this, my cousin has a quiet room in his home where his daughter used to play and sleep.

Yeah, not-so fun fact about Medea. I have a relation to one of the victims in Sandy Hook.

So imagine my disgust with pukes like Alex Jones attacking these families, calling them out for faking their children deaths. Alex Jones can just drop from the face of the earth and I’ll sleep like a baby at night. But like with Columbine, not much action was done. Even though President Obama tried, he couldn’t get Congress and Senate to pass any kind of gun regulation laws.

I would like to blame it on the fact that both the house and senate were Republican-led at the time and whatever the black president wanted to happen, they told him to sit and spin because fuck your needs! Yeah, I want to say that they’re all a bunch of racist crackers, but most of them are still kinda lobbyed by the NRA. And when I say kinda, I mean, these guys are willing to lick boots for the NRA and screw the safety of the people.

So, no gun regulations happen and more tragedies continue happening. It wasn’t really until the San Bernadino tragedy that lawmakers wanted to do something. But not about gun regulation! No, because in that particular tragedy, the people causing the mayhem were part of ISIS (or so they claim). If the shooter is someone from a different place other than the U.S., they hate us for our freedom and this is terrorism. But if a white guy from Ohio does it, it’s just a sad day in America.

Now there are many of factors to these killers. Mental health is a big factor played in many of these tragedies. Yes, that is a biggie in general. Because people suffering from mental illness are statistically more likely to be a victim of gun violence than to commit one. People only bring up mental illness if the shooter is a white, American-born boy and soon enough, they’ll drop the subject of helping folks with this problem. How about we talk about gun regulation?! Have weapons of war off the streets and out of our homes! No one needs guns that can turn a body into swiss cheese in a matter of seconds given to a regular joe. Oh and once again, nothing happens. Even after we get some of the worst shootings after Sandy Hook! Because while 20 1st graders being gunned down in a classroom was pretty fucked up, we ended up with more obscene tragedies.

Just to name a few, the Pulse Night Club shooting in Orlando, FL where 49 people lost their lives (during Pride Month no less), an outdoor concert on the Las Vegas strip where 58 people died, and another high school shooting in Parkland, FL where 17 students lost their lives. At least with the last shooting I mentioned, the surviving students had ENOUGH and demanded action. In some ways, change did happen. We have a new generation ask the questions my generation didn’t and the generations before ignored it all.

With the swearing-in of a new Congress in January (the first time it was Democratic majority since 2010), the first issue they took up was on gun regulation. And it passed the house! The only problem is that the leader of the senate has refused to let ANY of these bills pass. He just let’s it die. And then you have that same sonuvabitch send out thoughts and prayers? The Congress is trying to do something so we wouldn’t have to go through these horrible tragedies time and time again! Fuck you Mitch! No seriously, fuck you and shove those thoughts and prayers up your ass because we know what you’re all about! We saw you during the days of Sandy Hook!

And so we continue with this wave of gun tragedies! Only now, a lot of these recent shootings seem to have a certain, controversial thing in common. All of them either liked Donald Trump or praised his rhetoric. I know I shouldn’t tie any tragedy to any serving president. I didn’t blame Clinton for Columbine. I didn’t blame Bush for Virginia Tech. And I never blamed Obama for Aurora, Phoenix, or Sandy Hook. But Donald Trump is a whole ‘nother level of blame.

It’s safe to say we’ve NEVER had a president quite like this. Someone who would rile up his supporters in some frightening ways. I don’t want to repeat ANYTHING of what this fool says. He carefully words his statements to his base and watch these fringey people go off the deep-end. When you have a president blaming Mexicans, banning Muslims, and criticizing African-Americans, there’s a lot of toxicity to absorb. And I am sick of it!

A lot tragedies in the past two years have had the essence of Trump lingering around it. The man who sent bombs to Trump’s enemies last fall was a staunch Trump supporter. The man who shot up a Jewish synagogue last year, also believed in Trump’s words. As did the Parkland shooter! Oh, let’s not forget the man who shot up the mosque in New Zealand earlier this year, he believed in Trump too. And same with the two of the three shootings that has happened in the last 7 days. People trying to enjoy themselves as they eat garlic-flavored foodstuffs in Gilroy and families buying things they need for the upcoming school year in a Walmart in El Paso...all of them taken out by white supremacists guided by words of a lunatic leader who believes black and brown people are the enemy.

His words are not helping. His words are damaging.

I know gun violence has been a major issue way before Donald Trump became president. But this recent onslaught of violence is too much to bear. If he was a decent person, he would put an end to his disturbing rhetoric. No more of these “Go back to where you came from” tweets. That means calling out white supremacy when you see it! And cut the shit about good guys on both sides! When you have one side marching and shouting, “Jews Will Not Replace Us” and the other side finding offense to those words, this shouldn’t be a fucking debate!

This country needs to fucking change and change now. Whether it’s through legislation, replacing political representatives with people willing to give a damn, or overthrowing a dictator. Do it and do it now!

Sorry for this rant, but...I’m just tired of this happening over and over again. I’m almost to the point of being numb by these tragedies. And that shouldn’t happen.

[onestowatch]

Governors Ball 2019: 10 Ones to Catch (Who Aren’t Tyler, the Creator or The 1975)

We are only days away from New York’s premier music festival. We are of course talking about The Governors Ball, which is set to take over Randall’s Island Park in New York from Friday, May 31 to Monday, June 3. Featuring multiple stages hosting some of the best names in music, from The Strokes, Tyler, the Creator, to The 1975, there is no shortage of must-catch acts at this year’s festival. 

So, while we are all obviously going to be shouting out every lyric to IGOR before cry-dancing to A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, the question is who are the hidden gems yet to be discovered on 2019’s Governors Ball lineup? Well, we have your list of future stars right here, as well as a helpful playlist to familiarize yourself with each and every one of them.

Easy Life

“I’m trying to lock doors with these musical keys,” is a standout line on Easy Life’s “Pockets” and in many ways defines the band’s musical manifesto. The project of five of the finest lads from Leicester, England, Easy Life exists in an era where genres have given way to innovation and fluidity. Jumping between the vintage vibes of J Dilla, the lackadaisical indie rock of Rex Orange County, and the top-of-the-head storytelling of Arctic Monkeys, Easy Life’s blend of a myriad of genres, influences, and sounds are nothing short of intoxicating.

NJOMZA

The fact that the name NJOMZA translates to “fresh” in Albanian makes perfect sense given a single passing glance at this R&B star on the rise. With a series of ever-changing neon hair, a Kill Bill aesthetic, and an otherworldly blend of R&B and soul, NJOMZA is not just another artist coasting in on a renewed interested in the timeless genre; she is positioning herself to constantly be a step ahead. Her futuristic and constantly evolving sound comes through in spades, whether it be in her own solo work or electrifying collaborations with Party Favor and FKi 1st.  

Elohim

Elohim is the very definition of a commanding one-woman show. The electronic singer, songwriter, producer, and musician entered the music scene a few short years ago, and, in that timespan, has grown to be one of its greatest innovators. Nowhere is this notion more realized than with the recent release of her lauded EP Braindead. Released in support of Mental Health Awareness month, with 100% of the May proceeds going to charities focusing on providing outreach and supporting for those living with mental health issues, Braindead further cemented Elohim as an artist to watch and most certainly catch.

Cautious Clay

“Ever since I started playing music, it was always about the feel,” shares New York–based artist Cautious Clay. It is this intangible, perfectly indescribable feel that begins to explain the wonder of Cautious Clay’s music. Blending experimental indie with R&B and hip-hop, the New York artist crafts utterly mesmerizing works that are often rooted in deeply personal introspection. The end result plays out like an artist vulnerable enough to wear both his heart on his sleeve and let his mind unfurl like loosely-tied-together poetry.  

Chelsea Cutler

Like the best of modern-day artists, Chelsea Cutler got her start with a series of self-produced work on SoundCloud before realizing she had a hit on her hands with “Your Shirt.” The single, which has been streamed over 65 million times on Spotify alone, is only one of many impeccably heartfelt electronic pop gems the artist currently holds in her repertoire. Then there is the fact that Cutler recently dropped a joint EP with Jeremey Zucker earlier this year, the same Zucker who is also on this year’s Governors Ball lineup. Special guest surprise anyone?

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever finds themselves in the unique position of both having the longest name of any artist playing Governors Ball this year and being one of this year’s best-kept-secrets. Self-described as a “tough pop/soft punk” outfit, the Australian band delivers dynamic rock and roll that is underscored by a penchant for dry wit and sprawling lyrical tangents. It is the sort of music perfectly fit for losing yourself in, whether that be in an island off New York or in the band’s fondness for expansive instrumentation that calls to mind the heyday of the art punk movement.  

Ric Wilson

If you were to ask Ric Wilson to describe his music, chances are you would find yourself on the receiving end of a list of genres that are as expansive as the music the Chicago artist creates. Nouveau disco rap, electrified motivational funk hip-hop poet, gospel rapper, and more may begin to explain the colorful world of Wilson, but it feels like we are still only scratching the surface of one of Chicago’s future stars. So why should you go see Wilson? Well, if the above did not make it apparent enough, no one else is quite making music like he is.  

Injury Reserve

Injury Reserve is an alternative rap trio whose music traces a line from the golden era of hip-hop, á la A Tribe Called Quest and Black Sheep, to the daily and political struggles of modern day living. Championed as the next wave of underground rap, the Arizona-based trio will be hitting Governors Ball hot off the heels of their acclaimed self-titled album, which features everything from Elon Musk references to features from Freddie Gibbs, Rico Nasty, DRAM, and Aminé. Plus, as anyone who has been to an Injury Reserve show can attest, there is no shortage of energy to be found in that mosh pit.

Calpurnia

In many ways, Calpurnia reads as act one of a yet-to-be-conceived nostalgia-laden indie film. The project of four teenagers and close friends who all found a shared bond in the classic music of the Beatles, Nirvana, and David Bowie, it felt like destiny that they would come together in the hopes of creating a generation-defining rock band. And with the release of their debut EP, Scout, Calpurnia proved they were well on their way to do so. A phenomenal collection of emotionally-driven garage rock with lyrics that touched upon subject matter well beyond their years, Calpurnia is undoubtedly here to stay.  

Tobi Lou

There is a pervasive effervescence to the music of Tobi Lou. Hailing from Chicago by way of Nigeria, the rising rapper crafts music that is as lively as the animated cover art and visuals that often accompany his idyllic sonics. Yet, this is no mere child’s play. Behind the buoyancy of Tobi Lou’s work is an undeniable gift for spirited hip-hop that is equal parts infectious and brimming with lyrical depth. If you do not want to be kicking yourself come Monday, do not miss out on catching Tobi Lou at Governor’s Ball.