#room under the stairs deluxe

[grateful-for-zayn]

Zayn is postponing the US leg tour for January of 2025 (October 19th, 2024).

[thefemmeprince]

My Demon Prince - Part 1

Emberlynn X Blitzø

Word Count: 1921

Summary: Emberlynn has an odd interaction straight out of a romance anime, and things sure do happen.

Sunlight pierced Emberlynn's vision from the other side of her heavy eyelids. She hid under a soft plushie of a puppy, pulling it over her head to try and hide from the reality that the morning had begun. She didn't feel like being productive, especially because she had pulled an all-nighter trying to complete all her assignments while watching the new episodes of 'Akuma no Otto' so that no one on the Discord would spoil her.

It was a surprisingly productive night. Most would assume that Emberlynn was procrastinating, but it was just what worked for her. Having background noise was nice. And while there were nights she would get distracted, the previous night wasn't one of them.

After a brief moment of self-gratification, Emberlynn glanced at her phone. It was a Saturday, she didn't have to be productive today!

Look at that! She thought to herself. I've just woken up, and there's already things to be happy about. As long as I don't think about the current state of the world, today is gonna be great.

Emberlynn, deciding to be responsible for once, decided to put off her daily doomscrolling and slide out of bed. As much as she loved her soft, fuzzy blankets and her squishy stuffed animals with silly faces, she was getting hungry. So, she left the dim, cozy cave that was her bedroom and went to her bathroom.

As she rubbed the drowsiness from her eyes with sparkly pink eyeshadow, she felt herself starting to become more energized. She enjoyed her pastel goth makeup and clothing. Maybe it was unnecessary, but it made her feel nice. Lining her eyes with the same shade of black she painted her lips, fluffing up her pastel hair of blue and pink, it was a very intricate routine. Sure, her classmates in high school had made fun of her hair when she had dyed it from dark brown to baby blue and sugar pink. They said she looked like cotton candy. But Emberlynn is in college now, when most of them didn't even make it that far, and she rather likes the look of cotton candy. So, the joke was on them.

She eventually made it down the stairs, greeting her parents before heading to the kitchen to grab a snack. Monica and Brandon Pinkle might not have understood their daughter's interests, but they loved her all the same. Emberlynn's mother had bleach blonde hair, dark roots poking out just like her daughter. Emberlynn's father may not have shared their interest in hair dye, with his own hair practically gone. However, many days spent at a computer gave him glasses. So, he shared his daughter's struggles with blue light and screen time.

Emberlynn leaned over the kitchen counter, snacking on a bowl of overly sugary cereal. She gazed over to the living room television, where her parents were snuggled together and watching a movie. How she wished she could find love like theirs. After so much time, they were still affectionate with each other. That, to her, was a life goal. Just like Setsuki and Michiru from 'Akuma no Otto'. Oh, why must she be surrounded by perfect couples?!

"We need to get ingredients for dinner tonight," Monica said as she turned to her husband.

Brandon looked at his wife, his arms wrapping around Monica's waist. "But I just want to stay here with you!" He playfully whined, holding his wife like a clingy panda.

Emberlynn relished the opportunity to get out of the house. She enjoyed having something to do. Even if she was listening to music the whole time, she loved the summer sun. Besides, she heard rumors of new replicas of the magic wand from 'Cutesy Warrior Deluxe', and she felt like making an unwise financial decision.

"I can go get them! Text me the list, I can go to the store," she said, far too quickly to make this seem nonchalant.

~

And so, Emberlynn was on her way. With her main motive being to go to the local anime store, and possibly to buy that new 'Cutesy Warrior Deluxe' merchandise, she was in a good mood. Her earbuds were in, playing a bouncy electro pop melody from her playlist. She almost envisioned the song as being in pastels, kind of like her. Demonias scraping down the dark gravel on the ground as she skipped through town, Emberlynn was having a lovely day. The sun's light bathing her in warmth, like an oven, was almost comforting. Most resented the Rockview sun in the summer, but she adored it due to her own usually cold form.

It was nicer to get lost in technicolor daydreams than in the preppy beiges and dark navy blues of the buildings around her. She saw it similarly to car dealerships, and how they all had the same whites, grays, blacks, and occasionally dark reds. Sure, some preferred those colors, but it wasn't Emberlynn's thing. Emberlynn would've rather been whisked away to another world of sakura petals, of sparkles, of purples and pinks, and of true love. A world where she would fit right into someone's arms like a missing puzzle piece...

But, a sound of someone running behind her made its way to Emberlynn. She turned around, curious to see what was happening.

In the blink of an eye, a rough force shoved Emberlynn, causing her to stumble backwards into the alleyway and pressing her back to the wall. A small sound of surprise escaped her before she looked up to see what happened. And she was met with the view of a man. Lanky, but not ridiculously tall. Tanned, sun-kissed skin that was dotted with lighter scar tissue that ran over his eye, and a white streak in his raven black hair to match. The most noteworthy thing about this man, however, weren't his scars or his odd, skull shaped pendant around his neck. It was his red eyes.

The rough, uneven brick of the alley wall pressed up against Emberlynn's back, as if threatening to scrape. Sunlight eclipsed by the ruby red eyes of the man in front of her. Those eyes, so dangerous, yet so alluring. Like the fires of Hell. They definitely weren't human, despite the fact that most of him seemed to be.

"The name's Blitz," he said. "The O is silent."

Between heavy heartbeats and small breaths, Emberlynn was suddenly hit by the confusion of what Blitzø had just said. Suddenly, he wasn't as intimidating.

"O? Where's the O?" Emberlynn asked.

"It doesn't matter where the O is if it's silent." Blitzø answered, his brows furrowing in irritation.

"But...that's not true? The B in 'thumb' still counts. You wouldn't spell it T-H-U-M."

"There's a B in 'thumb'?" Blitzø asked, visibly perplexed. He then shook his head, as if trying to get rid of the entire conversation. "It doesn't matter how you spell 'thumb'! What matters is that my name is Blitzø, and you're Emberlynn Pinkle."

Emberlynn's brown eyes seemed to widen in surprise, almost to the size of saucers. Her heart raced in her chest in a way she didn't know it could, but she couldn't tell if it was from fear or something else.

"How do you know my name?" she asked, her voice hushed, as if she was afraid of the answer.

"You'll find out soon enough," the man murmured before the sun went dark.

Darkness filled Emberlynn's vision, and she couldn't see a thing. Just darkness. And just as she was about to start panicking, everything went back to normal. She was still in the alleyway, the sun was shining, and there were plenty of people walking around in town. It was just that Blitz was nowhere to be seen. As if he hadn't been there in the first place.

How...mysterious. Emberlynn thought to herself. She simply shrugged it off, popped her earbuds back in, and walked out of the alleyway to go buy groceries and possibly some figurines.

But her mind kept drifting back to that encounter.

~

"Emberlynn. You cannot be telling me you got kabedon'd by a mysterious bad boy."

Emberlynn glanced up from her sketch of Blitzø. She was trying to commit him to memory. After all, it's not every day that these things happened, and she wasn't the best with words. She found it hard to recall his exact outfit, but she was sure the coat was leather.

"I know! I can't believe it. A mysterious stranger just up and shoves me to the wall?! And he knows my name?!"

"Maybe someone on Tiktok didn't like your ships and decided to take matters into their own hands," said Simon, Emberlynn's best friend.

Simon was busy restocking different boxes with figurines inside. All of different colors, but he was organizing by franchise. It seemed more appropriate. He pushed back his emerald green bangs, sighing in playful exasperation.

The colorful figures that lined the shelves of the store were all in varying poses and expressions. They told stories, some of determination, some of cheer. She admired the figures with dynamic poses and the ones with intricate background pieces. It was like holding a piece of a story she held dear in her hands. And it's not as if Emberlynn had seen every anime. No one could. But she still found herself wondering about the characters she didn't know.

She glanced at a character she hadn't recognized. A ballerina in a purple dress, but she was throwing ninja stars, propped up by clear stands to look as if they were floating midair. Although, they had used cel shading on the paint job to look more like a still from the anime. This must have been one of the more recent, edgier magical girls. Just a reminder that Emberlynn had a very long watchlist once 'Akuma no Otto' ended. God forbid that happen.

Emberlynn whined. "Simon, you gotta believe me! It happened!"

Simon leaned over to eye the drawing, his eyes narrowing in confusion.

"What's this?" He asked, pointing a finger to the heart-shaped mark on Blitzø's forehead. "He had a forehead tattoo?"

"Yeah...?" Emberlynn responded, almost a little shy at the response that she might get. She locked eyes with Simon, embarrassed.

Simon just looked between her and the paper before turning back to the shelves he was stocking. "That's stupid."

Emberlynn's eyes widened to the size of saucers, and she pouted in a small attempt to make her friend feel bad. "That's not nice! Some people have face tattoos. They probably have forehead tattoos! What about Adam Levine?"

"Adam Levine doesn't have face tattoos, and he looks like a Chipotle bag-" started Simon, before he realized the box he was holding in his hands. A light purple box with a clear window, displaying a toy magic wand. A clear heart in the shape of a crystal attached to a pink handle, golden ribbons tied in a bow where the heart and the handle intersected. The box itself was embellished in gold, with the photo of an anime girl on the back. This was the one. "Emberlynn? Was this the thing you were looking for?"

Emberlynn's eyes lit up brighter than the fight scenes of 'Cutesy Warrior Deluxe', which had to be darkened during any international release to prevent seizures. "Yes! That's the one!"

With the intensity of a magical girl's final attack, she slammed her credit card on the countertop and grinned. Tonight, she was going to get to reorganize her display shelves.

[zaynjmsource]

@inZAYN: Introducing Z Sides. ROOM UNDER THE STAIRS deluxe featuring unreleased demos is out now! 💿 http://zayn.lnk.to/RUTS-ZSides

[magicwithineleteo]

guyz u need to stream room under the stairs by zayn. i’m not even saying it bc i want him to get more streams im saying it bc it’s genuinely so good and u’ve GOTTA listen . i literally can’t pick a favorite. oh and if u do stream listen to the deluxe version .

thank me later xoxo

[team-heavenly]

Chapter 24 - The Jewel of Surrounded Sea

Or rather... *clears throat, checks random number generator*

Spoilers: You're A Human

WOW, WAY TO BE BEHIND THE TIMES, PAL. WE BEEN K N E W

This one is going to be like a dozen parts if I don't break it up, so this isn't the entirety of the Manaphy arc. My justification: 1) the main story does this too (ex: the guild expedition is over several chapters), 2) I've kept you guys waiting long enough, and 3) I'm the mod so I do what I want lol

It's an ordinary day around the ordinary Nautical Cottage with ordinary weather and another ordinary list of jobs to tackle... or is it?

"The Questionable Hut?" we ask, unknowingly signing up to go find it somewhere 20,000 leagues under the sea.

Um, yeah that sounds exciting! I'm sure we'll find... uh, a lot of permafrost and stuff... Yeaaahhhh 🎉

...Do they really? How is that thing still standing?!

But what kind of exploration team would we be, passing up the opportunity to check out a place in stasis for over 10,000 years? So naturally, we pick up the torch and make our way over.

Saaaay, this isn't the ocean...! (Also yes, if you're wondering-

(-this was a one-room floor.)

If you would kindly cast your eyes to the blue star below and follow the numbers and colors (yellow, red, green, purple):

LITERALLY if I had gone right instead of left, I would have found the stairs in no time flat without exploring the entire FREAKING FLOOR.

Also I guess this was the first time I picked up a Stun Seed in the wild?! If that tells you anything about the item distribution in this randomizer 💀

Ngl, this one made me pause for a second because it felt like Celebi was talking to me directly about my mental health. God, I love her :')

Speaking of, here's an updated look at her moveset. She's a little low PP-wise, but this combination of moves is pretty stellar! And, as you can see, I linked the first two for maximum effect. It RULED in Monster Houses!

I say this like there wasn't a two-room monster house on this very floor with Andrea in the back, unable to help with Blizzard, while getting our sh*t rocked by Agility, Sandstorm, everyone getting frozen, and the Intimidator IQ skill. I still don't know how we got out of that one alive.

Out of sheer curiosity on my part: what do you all call this kind of floor layout? For some reason, my brain has resorted to calling it a "maze floor" even though this is... literally the opposite of that. What would make more sense? A crossroads floor? A labyrinth floor? Would love to hear your thoughts!

So we arrive at the final floor, pick up our three Deluxe Boxes, and then...

Proceed to kidnap an unborn child. As you do.

Right on cue, we begin to hear some suspect wobbling coming from the nest.

:O!

I'll be honest, I didn't think too hard (if at all) about who I wanted Manaphy to be. Something cute? Something Legendary? Something completely off the cuff?

But as soon as I laid eyes on this little guy, I knew... I didn't want it any other way.

PRAISE BE TO LORD ARCEUS FOR BLESSING US WITH THIS PRECIOUS CHILD!!

...Although it does make all the talk about him being a rare, strange Pokémon kind of hilarious 😂

Amazing, that's 30 images and this is a perfect segway to Part 2.

[thisselflovecamebacktome]

My ranking of the 250 albums/EPs I listened to that released this year

A few things to note before we get into this

This is not an objective 'best of 2024' ranking. God knows it would be a very different ranking if it was. This is simply a ranking of which projects I enjoy the most and am most to least likely to continue listening to in whole in the future. On that note, realistically I enjoyed most of these albums and even most of those close to the bottom had a list moments if not songs or even the project as a whole that I enjoyed, it simply was less so than those near the top. Like in some cases, it literally came down to me not enjoying one aspect (vocals, production etc) as much as the albums above and you will notice when I put out my songs list that some of the albums that are low ranked here have some of my highest ranking songs. Basically, don't be a dick if your faves are closer to the bottom. They weren't/that project was not for me.

Most of the artist names and albums names are not stylised. Sorry I simply am lazy and not willing to go through 250 entries to fix that at this point so sue me lmao but it is not a personal attack on your fave. Likewise, I know I have missed some of the changes of album names between standard and deluxe albums but know that in every instance, I have listened to the most deluxe version that Spotify has to offer.

I have grouped accompanied projects by the same artist into one ranking each. So for example Taylor's album is one ranking, not one for TTPD and another for The Anthology. I have also put Hozier's two EPs together given he has a history of putting his EPs onto the same album when it comes out.

I have not included predominately cover albums but have included Harlequin by Lady Gaga because I felt they were different enough rather than being flat out covers. Realistically all this means is that the Wicked soundtrack and Cascada's albums were not included but if you really must know, Wicked would've been a middle of the road ranking and Studio 24 would have ranked really high. Likewise, with the exception of LANA by SZA which had 15 tracks so was long enough to be its own album, I have not included deluxe versions for albums released before 2024. Again all that you're missing if you care that much is that Laufey and Noah's albums both would have ranked very high.

I'm going to bolden artists I've heard the whole discography of (whether due to my own tastes or my loved ones lmao) and italicise anyone I'd never heard a single song from pre 2024 for some form of reference in case anyone is interested.

I just want to make a note that while they were not my number 1, my biggest growers of the year were Dua and Tyla's albums. The rest of this list has give or take stayed the same, the have jumped over 100 spots each respectively since their first listen.

With that in mind, lets get into it.

What Happened To The Heart? – Aurora

The Second Act – Missy Higgins

All Born Screaming – St Vincent

The Great Impersonator – Halsey

Cowboy Carter – Beyonce

Warrangu: River Story – Dobby

Heart Is Not Beating – Green Apelsin

What A Time To Be Alive – Raechel Whitchurch

Lana – SZA

Hit Me Hard and Soft – Billie Eilish

The Sex Was Good Until It Wasn't – Xana

Blund + Close Your Eyes – Ionnalee

I Just Need To Conquer This Mountain – Sarah Blasko

Deeper Well – Kacey Musgraves

Opus – Ryuichi Sakamoto

What A Devastating Turn of Events – Rachel Chinouriri

Room Under The Stairs – Zayn

On My Own – Ricki Lee

Megan + Act II – Megan Thee Stallion

Harlequin – Lady Gaga

For Your Consideration – Empress Of

Between The Fires – Troy Cassar-Daley

Born In The Wild – Tems

Hummingbird – Carly Pearce

Where The Butterflies Go In The Rain – Raveena

Yours Until The War Is Over – Amigo The Devil

Quantum Baby – Tinashe

No One Gets Out Alive – Maggie Rose

Bird's Eye – Ravyn Lenae

Waku: Minaral A Minalay – Christine Anu

VII – Chrissy Costanza

Prelude To Ecstasy – The Last Dinner Party

Saviors – Green Day

Revenge – Muni Long

Beautifully Ordinary – Tones And I

Dauntless Manifesto – Cupcakke

Radical Optimism – Dua Lipa

Moon Music – Coldplay

Observations From A Crowded Room – Joy Oladokun

Access All Areas – Flo

Mirror Starts Moving Without Me – Pom Pom Squad

Bouquet – Gwen Stefani

The Lost Ones – Florrie

Unheard + Unaired – Hozier

Kissing Death – Mothica

Gloom Division – I Don't Know How They Found Me

Trouble In Paradise – Chloe

Lives Outgrown – Beth Gibbons

No Hard Feelings – Leigh Anne

Sincere – Khalid

Coco By The Fireplace – Coco Jones

The Year I Turned 21 – Ayra Starr

Soaring Heart – Liyuu

Timeless – Kaytranda

Armageddon – Aespa

Short n Sweet – Sabrina Carpenter

Ehhthang Ehhthang – GloRilla

High – Keith Urban

Inhale/Exhale – Rufus Du Sol

Am I Okay? (I'll Be Fine) – Megan Moroney

Submarine – The Marias

Capicu – RaiNao

Glorious – GloRilla

That Ain't No Man That's The Devil – Jessie Murph

In Sexyy We Trust – Sexyy Red

This Is How I Remember It – Beckah Amani

The Greatest Love – London Grammar

For Cryin' Out Loud – Finneas

The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology – Taylor Swift

Late Slap – Dana Gavanski

Orquideas – Kali Uchis

Insano (inclusive of Nitro Mega) – Kid Cudi

Patterns – Kelsea Ballerini

I'm Doing It Again Baby – Girl In Red

The Glorification of Sadness – Paloma Faith

Heaven x Hell – Sum 41

Bando Stone & The New World – Childish Gambino

Postcards From Texas – Miranda Lambert

Carnival – Sheena Ringo

Something In The Air – Elio

Trail Of Flowers – Sierra Ferrell

Blue Dreams – Holly Arrowsmith

Alligator Bites Never Heal – Doechii

Mountain Music – Nina Nesbitt

Tyla+ – Tyla

Gratitude – Mary J Blige

From Zero – Linkin Park

Evergreen – Soccer Mommy

Backbone – Kasey Chambers

Intermission – Maren Morris

Toxic – Yours Truly

Open Your Mind And Your Trousers – Scooter

A Girl With No Face – Allie X

Metamorphic – Stayc

Vertigo – Griff

Satellites – The Script

Forever – Bon Jovi

Bitter Sweet Love – James Arthur

Fireworks & Rollerblades – Benson Boone

The Past Is Still Alive – Hurray For The Riff Raff

How To Build An Ocean: Instructions – Bear In Trees

Yesterwynde – Nightwish

Avenge The Fallen – Hammerfall

Where I've Been Isn't Where I'm Going – Shaboozey

Tiger's Blood – Waxahatchee

Reasonable Woman – Sia

Partynextdoor 4 (p4) – Partynextdoor

Blue Electric Light – Lenny Kravitz

Venus – Zara Larsson

Paradise State of Mind – Foster The People

Dopamine – Normani

Crash – Kehlani

Dark Times – Vince Staples

Winter's Diary 5 – Tink

Coming Home – Usher

Born To Be – Itzy

Feels Like Home – Jessb

With You-th – Twice

In Search of The Antidote – Fletcher

7 – Nelly Furtado

What Now – Brittany Howard

Dark Matter – Pearl Jam

Mayday – Becca Hatch

Rosie – Rose

Muse – Jimin

Smoky Mountain DNA: Family, Faith and Fables – Dolly Parton & Family

What Do You Believe In? – Rag'n'bone Man

Telos – Zedd

Kygo – Kygo

God Said No – Omar Apollo

Big Ideas – Remi Wolf

Ask That God – Empire Of The Sun

Tension II – Kylie Minogue

Willson – Ashe

Infinite Icon – Paris Hilton

The Forest Is The Path – Snow Patrol

Brat + And It's Completely Different But Also Still Brat – Charli XCX

The Surface Seems So Far – Seether

Afters – Adam Lambert

GNX – Kendrick Lamar

Glad You Came – Mario

Eternal Sunshine – Ariana Grande

Boy – Luke Hemmings

The True North – Peter Garrett

When A Thought Grows Wings – Luna Li

Sunday Sadness – Amy Shark

Mother – Logic1000

The Loop – Jordan Rakei

Happenings – Kasabian

Burnt Tapes – Eves Karydas

Between2worlds – Chanel Loren

Romanticism – Hana Vu

Love & Limerence – Olivia O'Brien

She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She – Chelsea Wolfe

Visions – Norah Jones

Charm – Clairo

Believe Me Now? – Becky Hill

Easy – Le Sserafim

Can We Please Have Fun – Kings of Leon

Yours Forever – Jessica Mauboy

This Is Me Now – Jennifer Lopez

Before The Album – Hunxho

For My Dreams – King Stingray

Whirlwind – Lainey Wilson

Glorious – Kate Hudson

How To Be Human – Debbie Dawson

Beep Beep Repeat – Isaac Dunbar

This Is How Tomorrow Moves – Beabadoobee

Blue Raspberry – Katy Kirby

Evolution – Sheryl Crow

Older – Lizzy McAlpine

Gothic Summer – The Veronicas

Chaos Angel – Maya Hawke

Millenials – The Snuts

Zora – Sheppard

The Secret of Us – Gracie Abrams

Heat – Tove Lo + SG Lewis

A Journey Through The Virtual Dystopia – Red Handed Denial

Sugar Honey Iced Tea – Latto

Encuentros – Becky G

Y2K! – Ice Spice

What Happened To The Beach – Declan McKenna

Weird Faith – Madi Diaz

Fe304: Break – Nmixx

Buzz – Niki

Easy Eighth Album – Kaiser Chiefs

Polaroid Lovers – Sarah Jarosz

Honeymind – Ben Platt

Woodland – Gillian Welch and David Rawlings

Viva Hinds – Hinds

Princess Pop That – Anycia

Here In The Pitch – Jessica Pratt

Rayo – J Balvin

F-1 Trillion – Post Malone

Found Heaven – Conan Gray

Troubleshooting – Xdinary Heroes

Daniel – Real Estate

Fourever – Day6

A Dream Is All We Know – The Lemon Twigs

Marmalade – Phoebe Go

Cape Forestier – Angus & Julia Stone

Nu King – Jason Derulo

Shiny New Thing - Cxloe

Romance – Fontaines D.C

Only God Was Above Us – Vampire Weekend

If I Were A Real Man I Would Be Able To Break The Neck Of A Suffering Bird – Lala Lala

Empathogen – Willow

Mountainhead – Everything Everything

Timeless – Meghan Trainor

Young In Love – Kita Alexander

With Love – Snarls

Chapter & Verse – Gabby Barrett

Loom – Imagine Dragons

American Hero – Towa Bird

Nara – Emily Wurramara

Yoyotta – Molly Payton

The Epilogue – Dean Lewis

My Favorite Dream – John Legend

Un-American Activities – Molly Nilsson

Three – Four Tet

Underdressed At The Symphony – Faye Webster

Cure – Erra

Hyperdrama – Justice

Love Heart Cheat Code – Hiatus Kaiyote

Til My Song Is Done – Emma Donovan

Ramona – Grace Cummings

Memoir of a Sparklemuffin – Suki Waterhouse

As It Ever Was So It Will Be Again – The Decemberists

Bright Future – Adrianne Lenker

Troubadour – Taylor Sheridan

Clancy – Twenty One Pilots

Wall Of Eyes – The Smile

Trackhouse (Daytona 500 edition) – Pitbull

Gravity Stairs – Crowded House

Don't Forget Me – Maggie Rogers

American Dream – 21 Savage

Ten Days – Fred Again

1432 – Katy Perry

Light Verse – Iron & Wine

This Wasn't Meant For You Anyway – Lola Young

Safar – Chaii

Bleachers – Bleachers

You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To – Knocked Loose

Supercharged – The Offspring

The Death Of Slim Shady (Coup De Grace) – Eminem

Por Cesarea – Dillom

Tangk – Idles

Right Place Wrong Person – RM

Gamma – Gesaffelstein

Where's My Utopia – Yard Act

[bystreetlight]

Favourite albums of 2024

Kneecap - Fine Art Chromeo - Adult Contemporary (Deluxe Edition) Sabrina Carpenter - Short n' Sweet Various Artists - Twisters: The Album Orville Peck - Stampede Fontaines D.C. - Romance Kacey Musgraves - Deeper Well The Libertines - All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade Childish Gambino - Bando Stone & the New World Thelma Plum - I'm Sorry, Now Say It Back Zayn - Room Under the Stairs Kylie Minogue - Tension II Kita Alexander - Young in Love Tuxedo - Tuxedo IV Sycco - Zorb

[harrison-abbott]

I brought home a glitter globe from this city where I had a

Great time and I gave it to her as a present.

A few months later I found it gathering dust in the

Cupboard under the stairs.

She was coughing all night with some kind of inflamed

Throat thing, so I made her a mug of fruit tea during the night.

In the morning I saw the full cup of tea, having gone cold.

I bought her this antique penguin classic book; from an

Australian writer, a spanning voyage-genre novel …

She never read it and I found it in the spare room with

Other books she’d never been able to finish.

I had just seen this movie on a DVD and I gave it to her

And said Hey you should check out this film; and she

Glanced at it and said oh thanks and never watched it.

I bought her some fancy candies for the card-company

Holiday; they’re still uneaten in the kitchen drawers.

She asked me to pick up some toilet paper from the shop.

And wouldn’t w*pe her a*s with it because it was

The supermarket brand and not the deluxe kind

That you see in adverts, with puppies playing with the

Soft material.

There are many more examples. Just that sense of impossibility.

Too tricky to please. Argues for the sake of being stubborn.

[grateful-for-zayn]

“So yeah right now, It’s gonna be a bit chill I think, for a second, get back into rehearsals and hopefully get a tour together and maybe you know more music, who knows!”

Zayn response about plans for the rest of the year [Sirius XM TikTok Radio, 29.05.24, credit: ZaynReport]

[veneli]

the body remembers (that you're strong, brave, loyal, and courageous)

Asher/Babe post-Inversion comfort || WC -> 1.8k

cw: scar tissue pain, mentions of canon traumatic event, survivor’s guilt

Read on AO3

“Honey, I’m back! I bought pizza and wings from Max’s!” I set the flat delivery box on the counter, shrugging off my jacket and wafting the scent of his favourite Max’s Deluxe down the hall.

I listened for the thundering that was a telltale of him bounding downstairs from our game room. “Asher?” I called up the flight of stairs. “It’s your favourites!”

There wasn’t sound. Maybe he had his headset on and turned up. He’d done that before, amidst my warnings that he’ll damage his hearing.

I waited patiently by the stairs, even texting Ash a “🍕”.

He didn’t read it. Frowning, I started up the stairs. He couldn’t just leave me hanging like this, even when gaming.

“Asher,” I called again. “Have you been gaming for hours aga—”

The gaming setup was powered off. The LEDs were tuned low—like we always left them, for a bit of ambient light. The screens were dark, and the PC was silent. His headset lay next to mine on the desk, just where we left them last night, untouched.

My brows knitted together. He didn’t go out in the afternoon, did he? He didn’t leave me a message—he usually does if he’s got some urgent stuff to do for the pack.

I knocked gently on our door. “Ash?”

I waited for a response, but none came. I cracked it open just a bit.

“Baby? Are you here?”

My eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness, and I made out the lump and the mess of his hair, poking out of the top of the duvet, curled up under the blankets.

I sighed in relief and padded across the space. “Baby?” I whispered, placing a hand on where I assumed his shoulder was under the blanket. “Are you awake?”

The head of hair tilted forward.

“I bought pizza, do you want to come eat?” I sat, Criss cross on the carpet. “It’s okay if you don’t. I can reheat it later, if you want to keep napping.”

“Mhm.” Ash hummed his response. “T-thanks, Babe.”

He sounded exhausted—the usual lilt to his voice gone, replaced by an edge, like he was holding back something. And he doesn’t usually curl up so tightly. Not unless he was anxious.

“Ash, is something wrong? You sound exhausted. And… pained.”

“God fucking damn it, Babe.” Ash poked his head out of the covers, his normally glimmering grey eyes dulled in the dark room. “I can’t hide anything from you.”

“It’s like you have a sixth sense or something.”

“‘It’s like I have a sixth sense or something.’” I quoted, in sync with his response, earning myself a tired grin. “Maybe it’s called recognizing when someone needs help. And when it comes to you, my love, I know better than anyone.”

He smiled, it faded into a grimace, rather. His crow's feet were prominent even when he wasn't smiling, handsome face screwed up in pain.

I slid a hand under the covers , and he found it, holding on tight. It was slick, sticky with sweat, quivering. "Does it hurt, Hun?"

He buried his face into the blanket. "Like a poker to the skin, Babe. It burns."

He gripped my hand harder, a groan escaping his lips. “It’s been six months, Babe. Why does it keep coming back?”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure, Ash.” I peeled back a little of the blanket, so I could see his face. “Scar pains are… scary.”

“I was doing just fine a few hours ago, watching Star Trek again, downstairs.” He gasped. “Then it started to ache a bit. I took some Advil when it got stronger, but it’s- it’s not helping.”

“It’s been six months, Babe,” he said. “I’m trying my damndest to get through this, but every week, I still feel the pain. It’s literally just a scar. David’s got tens of them on his arms from fighting Shades. He’s not getting these. Milo jumped into the Ward and fried his Core, but he’s not in excruciating agony!” He shuddered as another spike shot through his body. “It’s a scar, Babe! It’s stupid of me to make such a big deal out of it.”

A tear fell from his lashes, spilling over the brim with his pain.

I wish I could help, Baby. But I’m no Healer, or a Sadism Demon. I can’t take away your pain.

God wishes I could. It hurts me to see you in pain like this.

“Ash, baby. Will you look at me for one moment? If you can?” I reached out with my other hand, brushing back the curls sticking to his forehead. “Put your hand on my chest. When you feel me inhale, breathe with me, okay? See if it helps, a little bit.”

This is the only way I know how to help. I hope it does, for you.

He reached out with a shaky arm, and I held it in place. I put mine on his chest, over the darkened strip of skin where the scar crossed between his pecs. “In,” I said. I inhaled. I ran my thumb gently over the scar, feeling his chest rise underneath my fingers. “Out.” I felt his cool breath on my arm, shaky with effort.

“Good,” I affirmed. “In.” Rise. “Out.” Fall. “Feeling a little better?”

“A bit,” mumbled Ash. He turned his face away from me. “It still hurts, though.”

I nodded. “Okay. Roll on your back for me, Baby. That’ll take more weight off your chest, rather than being on your side.”

He obliged with a grunt, and I scooted to my side of the bed to join him. “Keep breathing that pattern, Ash.” I pressed my palm to his chest, massaging the spot I knew hurt the most. “You’re doing so well.” I fanned cool air over his torso. “Do you know what might’ve triggered the scar tissue pain?”

He blinked a couple times, still taking in shaky breaths. “I don’t know… maybe I sat around for too long and I didn’t stretch.”

“Okay,” I murmured. “Does it hurt less, now?”

“You’ve got magical hands, Babe. Are you sure you’re unempowered?”

“I’m positive, Baby.” I gripped his hand, and he squeezed back. “One more with me. In… Out. There.”

I pulled his sweaty knuckles to my lips and kissed each one, then resting my cheek in his palm. “Don’t compare yourself to David or Milo, Hun.”

“But they did so much more! I just got in the way, and worried David sick.” Ash said. “I got in the way, Babe, and David had to stop fighting Shades and deplete the last of his magic to save me, rather than other people who needed him more.”

I frowned. “But you did help him, Ash.”

“Yeah, but if I hadn’t, y’know, half d-died, he wouldn’t have needed to save me. He could save so many more people with the drive he had. But instead he wasted it on me. What is one life worth when it’s saved at the expense of many others?”

“Asher.” I cut him off. His eyes snapped to mine, knowing I was serious when I used his full name. “Stop comparing yourself to your best friends. What you all went through, was equally traumatic for all of you. But just because you experienced the same thing, doesn’t mean you all are going to recover the same.” I massaged his knuckles, rubbing in the kisses. “Recovery isn’t linear, honey. There’s no straight path that goes towards the finishing line. There are good days, and bad days. Today might be a bad day, but, there’s always going to be a good one soon.”

“I still burdened hi-”

I pressed a finger to his lips. “Don’t burden yourself. You helped him, Ash. Without you by his side, he probably wouldn’t have had saved as many people. Because you were there, Honey, he could keep going. He knew he had you by his side. You’re special to him. You were there for him when his dad passed away. You were there when you went to college together and struggled through exams and hangovers and summer solstices. You were there for him, when he was under the most pressure he’d probably ever felt in his life, with so many lives on the line when he chose to close the Ward. You, Ash, are important to David.

“However you might downplay your significance to him, you are his best friend, and his right hand in the Pack.” He stared at me, grey eyes still. “Your are important to him. He can’t lose you. You’ve spent, what, like, the majority of your life together, since you were babies in the pack? Yes, several lives are lost because he saved you, and there might be people who argue that it was unethical. But if he’d lost you, he’d lose hope to even keep going. You’re his rock, part of his support system. It would tear him apart to see his best friend bleed out in front of him, when he knew he had the power to save you, with the vamp’s help. He didn’t know how many more lives he could save - but he knew he would, and could, save yours. So he chose to save you. He can’t lose you.”

Tears glistened on his lash line again, shimmering in the light that came from the door ajar. I continued. “The body remembers. It remembers that you are strong, brave, loyal, and courageous.”

“So then why does it have to punish me for it?” Ash mumbled.

“I guess… it’s a reminder to you. To not take that save for granted.” I felt stupid saying it, like it was some sort of scar superstition. “It’s a marker of your bravery and strength you showed while in danger. Like a heavy medal.”

Ash rolled over and buried his face in my lap. “You’re magical, Babe. You’re my support system.”

I stroked his hair. “Much better now? Do keep those things in mind, alright? It’s not your fault, Baby. It’s no one’s fault. Not yours, not David’s, not Milo’s, not the Pack’s.”

“Mhm.”

“Alright. Now, are you hungry?”

“Famished, Babe.”

I chuckled. “I bought pizza and Wings from Max’s.”

“I heard you the first time. I was in too much pain to come downstairs.” He wrapped his arms around my waist, mumbling into my pants. “Can we eat in the other room, pleeaasee? I don’t wanna go downstairs.”

“Alright. I’ll go heat up the pizza in the microwave, then I’ll be right back.” I pressed a kiss to his head, then he rolled over to let me go.

I slid off the bed. “Ash, I can’t go downstairs if you’re still holding onto me.”

“One more kiss?”

I smiled. “One more,” I said, pressing my lips to his. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Babe.”

[haveyouseenthisskeleton]

It's the first Easter for Skelly Boys and S/O hid chocolate eggs, rabbits and chicken in the garden while they were sleeping. They suddenly run into Skelly Boy room yelling : "OMG SANS/PAPYRUS IT RAINED EGGS AND NOW WE ARE INVADED ! WAKE UP WE ARE UNDER ATTACK !" before running to the garden. The main ten reaction ?

Undertale Sans - You have to drag him out of the bed. He didn’t even wake up completely. You pushed him in the garder and then, suddenly, his eyes go wild. “Wh-what...” He took a big chocolate egg in his arms like it’s the most precious thing in the world. Maybe hide some of them for yourself. Once he find the chocolate, there’s no way he give it back to you. 

Undertale Papyrus - He rushed out of the room to join you and is very surprised and suspicious about all these free chocolate suddenly raining in the garden. He invoked a bone and tapped slightly one of the rabbit, you know, in case it’s a bomb or something. He watched MTT shows, he knows how it works ! No one will fool the Great Papyrus. However, since it presents no visible danger, he’ll finally recolt all the chocolate happily and share everything with you. 

Underfell Sans - ????? “Ya’re joking, right ?” You said you don’t. He is even more confused. One egg in the hand, he is scruting the sky suspiciously and stayed silent for two minutes. “Well, f*ck, that’s too early for this sh*t” and then he pushed you back home. He’s not scared or anything, just... That’s too spoopy for him. You’ll have to explain him what Easter is to convince him to go back. You even bought a mustar deluxe bottle. How could he say no ?

Underfell Papyrus - You had to film this. The minute you call, he rushed down the stairs in his armor that he somehow managed to put on in seconds. He invoked a bone and ran outside, letting his best royal guard scream as he went to battle. Well... Once outside, he is very confused. There are chocolate eggs everywhere ! “I saw a rabbit running away with a basket full of these”, you insisted sadically. Uh... Maybe it was a bad idea. He went to his garden’s hut and started to pose beartraps everywhere. The neighbors were not gonna be very happy about it. Even when you said that it was a joke, he didn’t believe you. He’s obseded with that rabbit for WEEKS. At least, Sans helped you taking back the chocolate by teleporting between the traps. Papyrus won’t eat it though. “WHAT IF IT’S MIND CONTROLING ME ? DON’T EAT THAT !”. No more Easter in this house.

Underswap Sans - He’s also very confused and decided to investigate by following the foot prints. “You can see that it’s human shoes”, he said very seriously. “It can’t be a rabbit or a chicken, I know, you are bewildered by my magnificent intelligence”. Then the foot prints leads to you, and now he is even more confused, and hurt. “Are you making fun of me ?” Oh god. You had to explained what Easter was, then he relaxed and happily hunt all the chocolate, so happy you think of him on that day !

Underswap Papyrus - He’s less gullible that the other ones. The second he saw the eggs, he snirked, but decided to play the game. He had fun, and also make joke about how the Easter Rabbit obviously fly since there are eggs in the tree. The next day, he did the same thing for you, except it was all empty bottles of honey he didn’t have the courage to throw in the bin... But hiding them in the garden is fine somehow. I swear, that man.

Horrortale Sans and Papyrus - You made them believe that their chicken layed chocolate eggs. You put one chocolate egg in every nest. You also replaced the rabbits with chocolate ones. They are actually really scared and worry. “Sans, should we took the chicken to the vet ? Oh, wait, I’ll call them.” You tried to stop it but too late. The vet is dying of laughter, and Papyrus is even more confused. After a while and seeing them at the edge of a panic attack, you decided to put an end to their misery and explained them. They are so relieved. “Don’t scare us like that, human !” Papyrus lectured you. Then he happily went hunt the chocolates with Sans. The brothers are very happy to have free food !

Swapfell Sans - Just like Underfell Sans, he locked you up in the house the time he investigated. Well... Except, you know, he decided to eat all the eggs to make sure they weren’t poisonnous. The next day, he is stuck in bed with an stomachache. You didn’t know it was even possible. He also get very excited by all this sugar. What hell of a day.

Swapfell Papyrus - “Oh, but I wanted to film this for my YouTube Channel.” He is so disappointed he missed the Easter Rabbit. He will take all the chocolate though. That’s not really his thing, but he can still share with you and his friends, so it’s fine. He just forbid you to give it to Sans. Sugar is bad for him.

[enoughslices]

Unicorns

Written as part of a Terrible Tropes drunk drabble with @provocative-envy, @scullymurphy, and @pacific-rimbaud Pairing: Sirius/Luna Rating: M, probably? Tags: Muggle AU, Terrible Tropes, Funeral Home Meet-Cute Warnings: Age Difference (both over 18), verrry light bondage, I wrote this while I was drunk so keep that in mind, I am calling this a drabble but it is ?? 1600+ words It’s Sirius’s second Thursday back at the family business when he first sees her.

Fuck, East L.A. is hot. Hot in a different way than Thailand was hot or Aruba was hot or even than Mexico was hot. Those were all a lounge on the beach with your sixth mai tai kind of hot. A fresh white linens in a king resort suite with mosquito netting around the bed kind of hot. This is a depressing, sizzling pavement in front of a strip mall funeral home next to a dubious-looking mattress store kind of hot.

And of course his pride will not allow him business apparel less formal than these black slacks, this pressed black button down, this insufferable gray and purple paisley silk tie, usually beloved but now cursed and damp with his neck sweat. Even without the suit coat his ensemble is murder in this weather.

Lovegood Funeral Services has a sort of dingy and disappointing feeling to it, the same general vibe as if you were leaving your beloved dead to rest at a Greyhound bus station, but at least it is air conditioned. As soon as Sirius steps through the door, he’s blasted with a wave of blissfully cold air so forceful that his sweat-slick black curls, down to his shoulders now, are tossed back like he is in a shampoo commercial.

The girl at the desk is texting furiously, her blond ponytail bobbing. Perky, even in avoidance. A little chime announces his entrance, the same four notes an old clock might make on a quarter of the hour, but she doesn’t look up. Sirius plasters on his best sales smile and glances at the silver magnetic name tag fastened precariously close to the cleavage-heavy bust line of what can only be described as an LBD.

“Lavender,” he says, with his trademark easy charm. “How are you today? Hot one, huh?”

Lavender, presumably, does nothing to acknowledge his existence. Her brow furrows as she stabs at her smartphone.

“Listen, Lavender, I’m sure you’re busy, but I’m out here with Black Family Caskets. We had a contract with you all in the past, and I’d like to talk to you about your renewal options…”

The hairs on Sirius’s neck rise, and he has the curious, prickling, discomfiting sensation that he is being watched. It is definitely not by Lavender, who has merged entirely with her rose gold iPhone 11.

He looks up.

“Jesus fucking Christ!”

At the top landing of the Gothic staircase rising behind the front desk, a woman in her mid-twenties with flowing white blonde hair down to her waist is standing silently in a white linen shift dress, staring at him with somewhat vacant clear blue eyes.

She’s pretty. Kind of disturbing, but definitely pretty.

Lavender finally looks up, and seeing the horror on his face, glances over her shoulder. “Oh,” she says with a shrug. “Yeah. That’s Luna.”

“Luna?” Sirius swallows as Luna, apparently, floats down the stairs and comes to stand directly between him and Lavender, approximately six inches closer to him than social etiquette would deem appropriate.

She peers right into his eyes, and he falls into the blue sea of her gaze, transfixed.

“The dead are … quiet today.” She speaks softly, directly into the deepest realest part of him, then turns abruptly and drifts back up the stairs, sing-songing a nursery rhyme in a minor key.

Sirius stares after her, blinking hard.

“She’s the owner’s daughter,” Lavender says, tossing her hands up noncommittally. “You get used to it.”

“Oh.” Usually Sirius would be able to snap back, offer some friendly retort. Make Lavender like him. But he feels … strangely shaken. Strangely taken with this strange funeral home’s strange daughter.

“If you give me your card,” — Lavender pops her gum and resumes texting, not looking up as she speaks to him — “I’ll give it to Xeno. I know he likes your caskets.” She suddenly beams, a dazzling smile, which is puzzling because she isn’t looking at Sirius at all. Then he hears a digital click and realizes that she is taking a selfie.

Sirius slides his business card across the counter. For the rest of the day, he contemplates Luna’s blue eyes, ponders the silence of the dead.

—

The second time he sees her is on his third Friday back on the job. He’s popped by Lovegood Funeral Services to make sure the caskets were delivered as planned. To make sure they are properly arranged in the display room as befits the Black Family name, under Regulus’s orders.

Lavender, communing with her phone again, and in another black dress that is about four inches too short for the situation, leads him wordlessly to the showroom and gestures him in, then leaves him there under the roar of the air conditioner.

It’s cool and quiet in the showroom. Refreshingly still, the only noise the white noise of the AC. Sirius runs one hand over the Joshua Natural Grained Solid Oak Casket with gray silk lining, admires the Homestead Teak Casket with a tasteful black interior.

And then his neck tingles again. He senses her before he sees her.

Luna Lovegood sits bolt upright from where she has seemingly ensconced herself in the Orion Mahogany Deluxe casket with vermilion satin cushioning. Her smile is jarring, ever so slightly unhinged. Sirius feels his pulse throb in his throat. He isn’t sure if it is fear or desire. He isn’t sure he cares.

“Oh, hello Sirius. I’ve just had the loveliest nap.”

Sirius, who cannot recall ever telling her his name, freezes. Until she beckons him with one milky white hand.

He goes to her as though pulled by invisible magnetic forces.

She grabs hold of his tie. Crimson today, peppered with little gold fleur de lis. She waves her other pale hand in a spiral around his right temple. “You have so many nargles,” she says dreamily. “You do know the best cure for nargles?”

“Nargles?” he asks blankly. She’s wearing another white dress, this one with long lace bell sleeves, and she smells like patchouli, sandalwood, something else he can’t quite place. Her earrings appear to be … a pair of French radishes? Relatively fresh. But he barely registers this before he falls again, transfixed, into her fathomless eyes. “The best cure?”

“Sex of course, silly,” Luna says with a girlish giggle, passing one velvet soft thumb down his jawline.

Sirius swallows and tries, wistfully, to recall the last time he fucked someone. Amy, probably, that swimwear model, in Tahiti. That was three months gone now, before Regulus had called him back.

“I could help you with that, you know.” Luna has wrapped his tie around her hand twice, and she pulls him closer, closer, until their faces are only inches apart. She is still making uncomfortably intense eye contact, still sitting inside the model casket. Sirius’s favorite casket, if he had to choose.

“LUUUU-NA!” Lavender bellows from the other room. “YOUR DAD WANTS YOU!”

She hops out of the casket, steadying herself on his shoulder.

“Come see me,” Luna croons over her shoulder as she skips off with a childish giggle.

At the desk, Sirius passes another of his business cards to Lavender. “Would you give this to Luna for me?”

Lavender rolls her eyes, unceasing in the tapping of her thumb against her phone. “Fine.”

On the forty-five minute commute back to his soulless marble-encrusted bachelor pad, Sirius wonders about nargles.

—

The third time he sees her is on his fourth Saturday back.

This time, he is not here on business.

He parks his Lexus on the street behind the funeral home, looking towards the back door, where she’s asked him to meet her.

While he waits, he scrolls through her texts again. Seven crystal balls. Something apocryphal and indecipherable about nargles. Three sparkle emojis on either side of “you are beautiful.”

What is he even doing?

And then Luna emerges from the battered backdoor of Lovegood Funeral Services, moving past the enormous blue dumpster with so much grace that she almost appears to be hovering off the ground. Her dress is white, of course, but strappy, tighter than he has come to expect. 

It’s so hot that even from thirty feet away, she looks hazy to him through the heat waves rising from the blacktop.

Feeling as though he has left his body, he slams the car door behind him, locks it with the fob. He crosses towards her, and she meets him halfway. Her hand, when it clutches his, is improbably cool.

She leads him next door to the fleabag motel. He does not ask any questions when she produces a key card. He does not ask any questions when she pushes him down on the bed and wraps his tie — a delicate floral in yellow, gray, and black — around his wrists and knots it. He does not ask any questions as she sinks down onto him, moaning more sincerely, more earnestly than anyone he has been with has in at least a decade.

“You have to say my name — mmm —  when you come,” she whispers, bobbing above him. “To — oh — dispell — mmm — the nargles.”

He ejaculates so hard that he almost cries. He comes, of course, shouting her name.

“There,” she whispers after, draping herself over him very thoroughly, and even if it is a bit cloying, she kisses his nose with endearing tenderness. “Your nargles are gone now.”

It is the best sex of his life, and that is saying something.

On the long drive home through the slow crawl of traffic, Sirius considers Luna.

He is ready to believe in nargles, unicorns, ley lines, Tantric orgasms, the various stutterings and silences of the dead. He is ready to buy a dozen dead roses and have them delivered to her door.

Because, you know, she would get it.

Sirius is pretty sure that Luna is magic.

[knightofthecourt]

Love Bites - Chapter 5

Belatrice Gray was a TA at Belgrave University, working hard to stay on top of her marking and trying not to flunk her own studies, when a night out with her bff Randall and his roommates, changed everything.

Hamish Duke x OC fiction with fluff, romance and angst. OC description has been left out to allow for reader personalisation!

The morning after he’d taken her home, Randall appeared at her door with coffee, bagels and a tube of anti-inflammatory gel, which he’d instructed her to apply three times a day to her legs alongside pain killers and bed rest. Bela didn’t need to be told twice - she happily spent the next 24 hours in bed, only moving to visit the bathroom and fetch snacks.

Though she’d slept well in Hamish’s room, she could barely keep her eyes open once she got home.

She still couldn’t remember what had happened, but Randall had assured her that this was a totally normal side-effect of some sedatives, and she’d feel better after sleep.

And he was right. On Sunday morning Bela had woken with a clear head and a spring - well, maybe a hop - in her step. While the rest, cold compresses and pain relief had considerably lessened her discomfort, the bruises had yet to fade. 

With a renewed sense of purpose she took a shower, pulled on her comfiest leggings and fired off a quick text to Randall before heading to the laundry room.   

- - - - - 

 As Bela climbed the stairs to the penthouse hallway she looked around, trying to distract herself from the dull throbbing in her legs. There was no denying that the building was beautiful; lovingly restored exposed brick clad the walls of the stairwell, accented by a highly polished brass bannister, industrial light fittings and a buffed hardwood floor that looked suspiciously like an original feature.

An apartment here must cost more than what Hamish made in a year. Bela was beginning to suspect that the tall blonde had more disposable income than most of the other TAs she knew at Belgrave. 

The only thing that the deluxe block was missing, she thought, was an elevator.

She huffed in relief as she finally came face-to-face with the slick, black penthouse door. She took a moment to catch her breath and then rapped twice. 

After a few minutes a sleepy figure dressed in a casual navy button-down, appeared from behind the door. 

“Bela?” Hamish’s eyebrows arched in surprise as he looked at the woman on his doorstep. “I thought you were resting?… I mean… Hello.” His eyes crinkled slightly as she shifted her weight from foot to foot. 

The corner of Bela’s mouth lifted in a small smile as she raised her eyes to catch his. “I’m fine, promise. Sorry if I woke you, I messaged Randall for your address - I hope that’s ok? I just wanted to say thank you for letting me borrow these.” She held out a stack of freshly-washed clothes towards him. “And for everything else - you know, you kind of saved me”. 

Hamish flushed slightly. “I don’t know about that” he shrugged, “I’m sure you would have done the same for a friend.”

He reached out to grab the bundle, brushing his warm fingers against Bela’s wrist.  

“Ah - right.” Bela pulled her arm back abruptly. She suddenly felt self-conscious. Friend. Of course Hamish was just being polite, as always. Their date plans had been ruined twice now and after the situation the other night he was probably starting to regret asking her out in the first place.

Hamish frowned as a small crease appeared between her brows. 

“Yeah,” she began, “of course. Thanks anyway though, I really appreciate it.” She produced a clear bottle from her bag and thrust it towards him. “Just, as a thank you - taking care of someone isn’t much fun on a night out. Let me know if I can do anything, I owe you a favour now!” 

Hamish barely had time to drop the clothes and grab the vodka before she turned away from the door and bolted down the hallway. He stood frozen for a moment before he rushed after her. By the time he reached Bela she had already travelled down one set of stairs - a surprising distance for someone who was still visibly struggling to move comfortably. 

“Wait! Bels - wait a minute.”

She didn’t stop until his hand closed around her elbow. He wanted to tell her how he felt, how angry and guilty he was that she had been threatened because of him and how glad he was that she was ok - more than glad, but when she spun around her expression caught him off-guard. She lifted her head defiantly, cheeks burning.

His words died under her steady gaze. 

Instead, Hamish raised the bottle. “You can’t expect me to drink this on my own?”

- - - - -

“Liquid Lust” Bela declared with a flourish, handing him a sunset-hued beverage. 

Hamish took a sip and sighed in appreciation “It’s fruity.” He took a second sip, “...and strong”.

Bela grinned. “That’s the tequila. I can’t believe you had hibiscus tea and syrup in your bar, what are the chances?”. 

“A well-stocked bar, is one of life’s essentials.” Hamish smiled back at her from over the rim of his glass. Hours had passed since Bela had turned up at his door. Comfortable conversation over an afternoon drink had morphed gradually into a cocktail-making competition, though Hamish couldn’t say when exactly they’d moved from one to the other, or who was winning.

They’d started with a Cupid’s Arrow, which led to a round of blackberry Potion d’Amours, then on to a pink-tinted Queen of Hearts and finally, the rather interestingly-named, Between the Sheets. Things were starting to get a little blurry around the edges.

Now they were both sprawled across Hamish’s large leather sofa, Bela’s legs outstretched, her feet resting in his lap.

“Your turn.” Bela prompted, waving her empty glass. 

Hamish reluctantly dislodged her and made his way to the open-shelved bar that took up a large portion of the wall in his loft space. He ducked behind the countertop and reappeared after a few minutes with two tall glasses.

“Sex on the Beach.” he said with a wry smile. 

Bela’s eyes widened slightly and then she burst out laughing. “Wait -” she said, setting the glass down on the nearby coffee table before walking to the bar. She emerged moments later with two smaller glasses. “We should drink these first then,” she said with a wink, “best not to rush things”. 

She handed him a smaller glass topped with whipped cream. “It’s a shot.” Hamish felt heat creep up his neck as he recognised the layers of amaretto, coffee liqueur and irish cream. “Yes… a Blow Job shot”. 

Bela snorted. “Take it you’ve had one before then?” 

The sound that came out of Hamish’s throat was something close to a growl. He threw the shot back and chased it with his cocktail. 

“Bottoms up,” he gestured to her to finish her drinks before heading back to the bar. 

Two can play at this game, he thought darkley.  

On some level Hamish acknowledged that his judgement was impaired. Logically he knew his reaction to Bela being in danger, the way he’d lost control, wasn’t normal, but when he was around her he couldn’t find it in himself to worry about it. She made him feel good for the first time in longer than he cared to remember and he deserved to feel good, didn’t he? 

He set down a tumbler filled with clear liquid. 

“Don’t tell me we’re switching to water?” Bela looked a little disappointed. 

“No,” Hamish smirked “Vodka, rosemary syrup and lemon juice, also known as a Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down”. 

It was Bela’s turn to blush.

- - - - -

“Huh?” Hamish raised his head from the sofa to look over to the bar, where Bela’s head was just visible.

“I said, do you have cola?” she asked, looking through the various bottles, jars and garnishes in the bar’s mini fridge. 

Hamish pulled himself to his feet and went to retrieve a bottle from the kitchen. “Here.” He held it out to her as he joined her behind the bar. 

“Of course it was in your actual fridge, not your special cocktail fridge,” she said, nudging him in the side playfully. 

Hamish tried not to focus on the warm tingle that spread through his midriff when she made contact. He closed his eyes briefly, inhaling the vanilla and cinnamon scent from her shampoo as she leaned across him to add a generous splash of cola to the glasses in front of him.

Thanks to his heightened senses her smell was one of the first things he’d noticed about Bela when he met her - warm and rich like freshly-baked pastries. He almost wished she hadn’t washed his clothes before returning them. 

“Soulmate?” 

His eyes shot open. “Yes… uh.” He faltered, uncharacteristically. “Sorry, what?”  

She shot him a questioning look, “It’s a Soulmate.” She gestured to the glasses on the counter, “Rum, cherries, cola. Hey, are you ok Haim? Do you want water instead?”. 

Hamish shook his head, “No, I’m ok - I can handle my alcohol”. 

“Of course you can, Profess- ah!”. 

He caught her as she tripped, pulling her close to his chest to support her weight before she hit the floor. The heat of her body, pressed flush against his, soaked through the thin layers of cotton separating them and spread through him, an instant warmth that sparked what felt like a million minuscule explosions across every cell in his body.      

They both hesitated for a moment before Bela took a shallow breath and pulled herself off him. Through a cloud of embarrassment she dimly registered how Hamish’s hand lingered on the small of her back and how shaken he looked as he reluctantly stepped away.  

“There you go, saving me again.” She glanced up at him and then frowned, turning to the mess on the counter. “Our drinks weren’t so lucky”.

He recovered quickly, producing a stack of cocktail napkins from a nearby draw, which he used to dab the pools of liquid. A smile quirked at the corner of his mouth. 

“It’s fine, I’ll get us a refill - do you think you can make it to the sofa without injuring yourself?” 

Bela rolled her eyes, “I’m not always this clumsy you know, maybe i’m the one who can’t hold my drink.”

“Ok” Hamish nodded firmly, as he busied himself clearing up the mess and adding ingredients to a fresh set of glasses. “Well, this will be our last one then.”

Bela mentally kicked herself as she carefully picked her way back to the living area. The last thing she wanted right now was for the evening to end. She was enjoying seeing the normally buttoned-up Hamish let loose a little, but even in this state he was too much of a gentleman to let her drink too much. Still, flirty-tipsy Hamish might just be her new favourite drinking companion - and she couldn’t deny how good it felt to have his arms wrapped around her when he caught her. 

His thin shirt had done little to hide the broad, muscular outline of his shoulders when he pulled her to him, and even distracted by her own clumsiness, she found herself wanting to run her hands across those shoulders and down his back. 

Caught in her own thoughts, she barely noticed that she had been staring at him, watching the shape of his arms, shoulders and chest, until he cleared his throat, snapping her out of her haze, and handed over her final drink.    

She took it, and quickly swallowed a sip to hide her embarrassment. “Apple juice, gin and... lemon?” she guessed, swirling remnants of the sweet, sharp liquid around her mouth. 

“Impressive.” Hamish sat down and leaned towards her, his eyes deep pools. “I call it Dutch Courage.”

“Oh, really?” Bela placed her glass down. Her heart beat faster as she leaned towards Hamish, noting with interest when his cheeks flushed and he edged closer, as if he could hear the steady thrumming in her chest. His eyes flicked down as she licked a trace of lemony sweetness from her lips. “And what are we going to do with our Dutch Courage, Haim?” 

Hamish growled lightly under his breath. “To hell with it,” he whispered, before leaning forward suddenly, capturing her lips in a kiss. 

[currentlylurking]

Phic Phight: Have Your Kingdom and Eat it Too

Danny goes to investigate a disturbance at Pariah’s Keep. There he finds a ruined sarcophagus, a broken ring, and a very confused man who apparently doesn’t remember his multiple evil deeds.

(Based on prompts by @ghostlyhabato and a lil bit of one by @imperfection-at-itsfinest)

Word Count: 5614

Have Your Kingdom and Eat it Too

Officially, Danny was not the Ghost King.

That was mostly because the Observants hated him, but the fact that there hadn’t actually been a Ghost King prior to Pariah also played a part. Apparently, he’d just up and declared himself the Ghost King and then tried to murder the Observants when he was told he couldn’t do that. While Danny thought they kinda sucked as an organization (reasons A through X were just how poorly about ten of them treated Clockwork), he was well aware how many lines that crossed.

All that aside, while Danny may not be the Ghost King, most of his allies wanted to deal with the Observants even less than he did. So they made him a ‘representative’ for their lands. A few of his enemies had even jumped on board, like Skulker and Walker, who hated the Observants way more than Danny did. It was kind of impressive, considering they didn’t even know Clockwork and how he was treated, but whatever. Government was weird.

Anyway, the point of this whole ramble was that Danny was not the Ghost King, but he was as close as the ghosts he knew could get him. So when something exploded at Pariah’s Keep and scared the nearby ghosts, who did the Observants arbitrarily decide had the stupid thing in his territory and had to investigate?

It was Danny. It was always Danny.

He floated in front of the stupid ugly building, about an hour and a half after said explosion. Nobody had run out and gone on a murderous rampage, or summoned an army of skeletons, or done any normal ‘world domination time’ things, so he was pretty sure he was safe. It had probably just been some teenaged ghosts, poking at stuff they shouldn’t. It happened a lot. Danny, who was also a teenaged ghost, was a prime example of it.

He flew through front door he’d smashed open last time he’d fought Pariah, briefly shifting to human form to dodge some of the traps that had managed to reset. It took him maybe ten minutes to invisibly reach the throne room.

Problem one was super obvious; the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep was destroyed. The top front had been smashed inwards and crumpled into the sarcophagus itself. The hinge was barely keeping the door attached. Scattered around it was ectoplasm and broken stone.

Someone had tried to punch Pariah through the sarcophagus, and then there’d been a fight. Because of course there had.

Still invisible, Danny floated a bit closer. Pariah wasn’t in the sarcophagus, and there wasn’t enough ectoplasm around to suggest that someone had destroyed him. Not that he knew anyone who could – he was pretty sure the only actually surviving Ancient was Nocturne, and that guy was a dick. Anyway, it had taken seven of them and Clockwork just to seal Pariah up that first time. Even if Pariah was still drained from the sarcophagus’ powers, he was not weak enough to destroy.

Danny lifted a chunk of rubble between two gloved fingers, examining it. Bits of blue ectoplasm dripped off it – so, not ghost blood. Leftovers from a parried attack, maybe? He snapped a picture with his phone anyway. Sam and Tucker were better at the detective stuff, he was better at punching stuff.

He set the rubble down, and continued poking around. The Keep was still far too quiet. He rolled a fallen column to the side and revealed one of Pariah’s gauntlets, with the now-smashed Ring of Rage still under it.

“Dope,” Danny said, and snapped a picture of that as well. The Ring of Rage sucked, and Valerie was still super invested in getting ‘a ring that proclaimed her a real ghost hunter’ despite the fact she knew that thing had belonged to an evil ghost. But whatever, Danny had just gotten shot when he asked her if a ring of bruises was close enough. Some people didn’t appreciate quality witty banter.

He shoved the column aside a bit more, revealing plenty of ectoplasm. The image of Pariah getting his hand crushed by a column was so funny that Danny couldn’t help but snort.

“Who’s there?!” Someone shouted. Danny snatched his invisible hands away from the column and glanced back where, unfortunately, his ‘where is Pariah’ question was answered.

The tyrant seemed… smaller now. It wasn’t a perspective thing; he was just closer to the height of a dude with giantism than a literal giant. His hand was also smashed, just like Danny had imagined, and wrapped in bandages. He was covered in other injuries, too; aside from the multitude of scrapes, when he tried to move up the stairs, he did so with a clear limp.

“Who’s there?” He demanded again. That was another thing – his accent wasn’t as pronounced.

What type of accent did he even have? Scottish? Why did the King of Ghosts who’d been in a deluxe sleepy sack for a thousand years have a Scottish accent? Was this one of those ‘pay more attention when Lancer speaks, Fenton,’ things?

Not important. Pariah came closer. He looked more scared than angry up close, though it was almost hidden by the fact whoever had broken him out had chopped up his face pretty badly. He looked like he’d been caught in a lawnmower, and also incredibly terrifying.

He hadn’t noticed the invisible Danny, though. That was nice. Danny used it to float back, over the column, in case he needed to use the good ol’ hand smasher for cover.

After a bit of poking around, Pariah huffed. “If there is anyone here, I just want to talk.” He said, and despite how funny it was that he thought anyone would fall for that, Danny did not snort. Pariah faced the opposite way from him, and looked over the pockmarked walls. “My – my name is Alric.” What. “I just want to know what’s going on.”

Okay, that was past the weird threshold. Danny sat cross-legged on the column and popped back into visibility. A shield was already half-formed in his hand. “Last I heard,” Pariah whipped around, “your name was Pariah Dark, King of Ghosts.”

Pariah stared at him for a second. He didn’t attack. “Are you the one who let me out?”

Danny scoffed. “No. I just had to investigate a disturbance in my territory.”

Pariah frowned. “I… see. I am Alric, and yes, I am the Ghost King. Who are you?”

“Danny Phantom. Your replacement.” He waved, “Sup?”

“Oh.” Pariah’s frown grew. “You’re a child.”

“And you’re a child murderer,” Danny shrugged. Pariah’s face turned ashen. “So, are you going to try and kill me now?”

“I – I’m not a murderer,” Pariah said, and gripped the side of his head with his uninjured hand. Danny hummed in disagreement. “I’d never hurt a child, much less kill one!”

“Yeah, no, I still have a scar from last time we fought.” Pariah gaped at him, then gripped his head harder. Danny watched impassively, shield still at the ready.

“Why did I assault a child?” He asked, and his unnecessary breathing started to get ragged. Danny floated up, watching Pariah for a second. “I – Spirits, why would I do that? Why can’t I remember? I –” he paused. “Clockwork.”

“Huh?” Danny said.

“Clockwork.” Pariah repeated, which was not comforting. “My friend. He – you said you were the next king,” he stopped for a second. Danny raised an eyebrow. “Do you know a man named Clockwork? Blue skin, scar over his eye, likes the colour purple?”

Danny had seen Clockwork last week for help with a history report. Clockwork was entirely unhelpful and had gotten personally offended at how ‘inaccurate and biased’ his history textbook was. He hadn’t mentioned anything about Pariah breaking out.

“No?” Danny said. He wasn’t a snitch, and after three years of ghost fighting, he’d gotten pretty good at not messing up simple lies. “Why?”

Pariah’s face, once again, turned ashen. “Do you… know the Observants? Did they make you Ghost King?”

“I – I’m not –” nevermind, Danny was still a garbage liar. “They didn’t make me anything, it was my allies, they sort of voluntold me to go be, y’know,” he gestured vaguely, “and the Observants had to go with it. There were a lot of them.” Nevermind the fact that he was not the Ghost King.

“But… you’re a child.” Pariah said. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to keep bringing it up. Clockwork is – was my friend.” He had a bit of a weird inflection on the word ‘friend,’ which made Danny trust him even less than he did before. “There’s this item called the skeleton key, it’s very important to him. Do you know where it is?”

Danny raised an eyebrow once again. “Uh, dude, are you okay? I kind of expected you to try and kill me at least once by now.”

“I already said I – Spirits, what sort of things did I do to make you believe that?” He lowered his hands. “Danny Phantom, I give you my word that I will not harm you.”

Yeesh, could this day get any weirder? “Appreciate that, but Pariah, I really don’t believe you.”

“Alric,” he said. “My name is not Pariah. I don’t know why I would have changed it. I can barely remember anything between a dinner gone wrong and waking up not too long ago, my hand stuck under that column.”

“Uh-huh, I saw. Smashed your ring and everything.” Danny said, and pointed down at it. Pariah – Alric? Nah, he didn’t deserve a new name – frowned at the artifact. He took a step towards it. Danny threw up the shield he’d been holding. “What went wrong at the dinner?” He asked. He watched Pariah pull back a bit.

“I – I believe,” he said very reluctantly, “that it was a chef’s fault. My friend I mentioned, Clockwork, he was curious and went to watch her prepare the meal. I came in to check on the preparations as she began to call him horrible things. I was furious. I lost my temper.” He looked down at his hands. “I destroyed her, right in front of Clockwork. He was terrified. How did I not notice it then? Spirits, he must hate me…”

Danny, despite his best efforts, could almost sympathize – he’d nearly punched a few Observants after seeing how they treated Clockwork. The idea of other ghosts doing that was hard to handle. “Am I supposed to feel bad for you? You just admitted you killed a lady.” He said. He stood, dropping the shield. “Who let you out?” He pointed a thumb at the ruined sarcophagus.

“I’m not sure,” Pariah said slowly, and tore his eyes away from the ring. Danny kicked it down the stairs and quickly stepped away. “It was this ghost in a white cloak. I’m not sure what happened, I barely saw him. I think we fought, but after he pinned my arm he left. He didn’t say much. I never saw his face, but he threw these bandages at me when I asked him who he was. Once my mind had cleared I left to patch up my wounds and returned when I heard you.”

“Neat. No idea who that’s supposed to be, but I’ll tell the Observants to keep an eye out.” He caught the flicker of a scowl on Pariah’s face. “Now. If you’re not going to kill me or try and take over the world, what do we do now?”

“That’s your decision, my king,” Pariah said. Danny couldn’t help the face he pulled – Pariah didn’t notice it, though. “If I have any choice, though, I’d like to stay as far away from the Observants as possible.”

“Most people would, hence why they make me deal with them instead.” Danny shrugged. He looked over Pariah’s injuries again – whoever that cloaked ghost was, he had done a number on one of the most powerful ghosts ever. Danny didn’t know if he should be impressed or terrified. “How hurt are you?”

“Quite injured, I think,” Pariah admitted. He examined his bandaged hand. “I have a rather high pain tolerance, but the damage I suffered was significant.”

“Right. So, I’m going to take you to a guy who knows how to ask the right questions to figure out what we do with you, and also fix you up. We should probably make a sling before we do that, though…” Danny trailed off, examining the walls. “We should also disguise you so that other people don’t see you and panic.” He hummed, then snapped his fingers. “Oh, I know!”

.-.

“Great One, what is that?”

“Hello,” Pariah said, from under the tapestry Danny had thrown over him. He looked like a bedsheet ghost, although he wore an evil looking moth-eaten tapestry instead of a white sheet. His broken horn half poked out of a hole, tangled in red thread.

“Good question,” Danny said, and pulled the tapestry off. Frostbite took a step back, closer to the exit of the ice cave they’d been waiting in. “Sorry to drag him here but, uh,” he gestured vaguely to all of Pariah, “help.”

Frostbite continued to stare at Pariah for a moment longer. Pariah, for his part, stayed silent. “Come with me, Great One.” He frowned, “And… you.” He led the way. Danny flung the tapestry back over Pariah as they passed by the other yetis. A few bowed, but more simply waved. Danny waved back and gave wider smiles to the ones who didn’t bow.

Pariah watched the exchanges with a frankly disturbing look in his eye, which Danny decidedly ignored.

Eventually, Frostbite led them to a hospital-like room. “Sit,” he said, and Pariah did. Danny helped pull off the tapestry once again as Frostbite produced some ectoplasmic gloves. “Now. I would like an explanation, please.”

Danny shrugged. “Observants told me the keep was in ‘my territory’ and that something blew up there. So I went to investigate, I found him and a smashed ring of rage, he says he’s not evil anymore and that he won’t hurt me, also that some white-cloaked weirdo broke him out.” Danny frowned, and ran everything over in his mind. “And… yeah, no, that’s about it. Any advice?”

Frostbite frowned and turned to Pariah.

“Your king sums it up quite well,” Pariah said, and Frostbite grinned.

“Oh, so you’ve abdicated and passed the throne on to Danny Phantom?”

Pariah frowned. “I…” he glanced at Danny, and very reluctantly sighed. “I suppose?”

Frostbite whoop’d, and Pariah leaned away from him. “Excellent! I will spread the word, and we will have the biggest party in centuries! This is a wonderful day that will be remembered for ages!”

“Great!” Danny said, despite the fact this was not great at all. “Real neat! Can we focus on this first?”

“Of course, my king,” Frostbite said, and Danny did not sigh. “When you say Pariah is no longer –”

“Alric,” Pariah corrected once again. “Please, I don’t know why I would ever change my name to something as absolutely stupid as that. I –” he stopped, frowned, and squinted past Frostbite. Danny followed his gaze, and watched Pariah look himself over in a wall of shiny ice. “What the hell am I wearing?”

“Armor,” Frostbite offered, and began to unwrap Pariah’s bandaged hand.

“I noticed that part, I just – this is actually revolting. I look ridiculous.” Pariah huffed, ran his unbroken hand through his hair. “Why is my hair so long? And am I –” another pause, and more squinting. Pariah sounded particularly horrified. “Am I wearing eyeliner?”

“Huh,” Danny said, and watched as Pariah rubbed his eye. The raccoon effect around them confirmed that yes, the king of ghosts, a super evil mass murderer, had been wearing cheap eyeliner. He watched Pariah stare at his hand in abject horror. “I mean, it helps you look threatening.” He offered. “My friend Sam likes her eyeliner wings sharp enough to kill a man. And Vlad wears eyeliner whenever he’s out doing evil stuff, says it makes his eyes pop.”

“I don’t want to do anything evil!” Pariah protested. “Is it off?”

“Sit still,” Frostbite scolded. “You can wash your face after I’m done, if that is such a big issue.”

For a moment, Pariah sat there like a pouting child. Danny couldn’t help but snicker – his weird tolerance had been smashed to pieces, now it was just funny. Pariah had nearly killed him and Valerie, severely messed up the Ghost Zone, and now he was sitting on a bed complaining because he’d put make-up on at some point. How did this happen to people?

Frostbite paused his examination of Pariah’s hand. “Huh,” he said thoughtfully. He set the hand down and began to try and comb through Pariah’s hair. “Pardon me for a moment.”

“Like, officially?” Danny asked, grinning. From the look Frostbite shot him, now was not the time for royalty jokes. Not good. He floated over. “What’s up?”

“Do I have lice?” Pariah asked. “Feel free to shave my head if you must. I have no attachment to whatever atrocity happened to my hair.”

“Forget your hair,” Danny said, “what about your hand?” With the bandage gone, Danny could see that Pariah’s ring finger looked black and necrotic, with spiderweb-like black veins curling across the skin. It was also just messed up in general, but those were normal ghost-limb-got-crushed injuries. The weird veins were not.

“I genuinely have no idea,” Pariah offered, “it was like that when I came to my senses.”

“It’s not alone,” Frostbite said, and parted a section of his hair – there were more of those veins across his scalp, centralized at the top of his head.

“Huh,” Danny said. “That’s… huh. I think I have to up my weird tolerance. Do you know what that is?”

“Generally,” Frostbite said slowly as he pulled back, “marks such as that are leftover after a malicious curse has ended.”

“Why would they be on his head and hand, then?” Danny said. It clicked as soon as the words were out of his mouth. “The ring and crown!”

Frostbite frowned. “Great One, are you implying what it sounds like you are?”

“I mean, I would hope so.” He shrugged and pulled back. Pariah watched him, vaguely confused. “Where’d you get the ring of rage and crown of fire, dude?” Danny pulled a face. “Seriously, the names sound super evil. Why would you put those on?”

“I just thought they’d make me more powerful?” Pariah said, and rubbed the side of his head with his good hand. “I don’t understand. I didn’t have them on all the time. I would take them off when I wanted to rest. My memories cut off well after I got them.”

“Curses take time,” Frostbite said thoughtfully. “I could take an ectoplasm sample, and have one of our labs examine it, but it does seem likely Danny Phantom’s theory is correct. The crown was destroyed by the Observants two years ago.”

“And the ring was destroyed two hours ago,” Danny said, and pulled up the picture on his phone to show Frostbite. “So… the curse is broken because of some weirdo in a cloak who wanted to try out property damage, and you’re no longer evil?”

“The Observants cursed me,” Pariah said, quietly.  

“I would not pin the blame on them,” Frostbite said warily, “or on anyone at all. You should do your best to move past this.”

“No.” Pariah said, a bit of a growl burning through his throat. Danny and Frostbite both took a step back. “They did this on purpose.”

“Oookay,” Danny said slowly, keeping himself between Pariah and Frostbite. “How about you take some deep breaths and calm down. I know you’re a ghost, but those help.” He shrugged. Pariah started to scowl. “It’s probably best if you don’t spend your first day as an uncursed dude repeating a murder rampage on the government.”

That gave him a moment of pause. “When did I murder Observants? By the time I had reason to, they were all in hiding.”

“Uh, when you attacked their house?” Danny said. He glanced at Frostbite, who nodded. “Yeah. Early on in your kingship, they said you weren’t a real king, so you tried to kill them. It’s Ghost Zone History 101.”

“No. I never tried to kill any of them.” Pariah’s scowl was more pronounced, but less directed at them. “They did denounce me publicly, I remember that. But I went there to talk, like a normal person, to see if we could find some middle ground.” He scoffed, “That lasted for all of five minutes before they decided it’d be easier to destroy me. I defended myself, but I made no effort to kill anyone. When I returned the next day they were gone, so I raided their artifacts. That is where I got the ring and crown. It was a backup plan, in case their murder attempt failed.”

“Or,” Frostbite said, “it was an unlucky coincidence. As far as I know, the Observants’ view of the timestream is limited. They would not be able to predict that.”

Pariah huffed. He was silent for a second, but Danny stayed on edge. “How long has it been since I was locked away?” He asked.

“A bit over a millennium, I believe,” Frostbite said. “One of my ancestors was part of the ancient seven who sealed you away. I should have the exact date recorded in our history wing.”

“It’s super cool,” Danny said as Pariah leaned forwards, head in his hand. “They have some really neat cave paintings and stuff there.”

“I… I’ll have to take a look at that.” Pariah said. His voice was strained. He sounded a bit like he was three steps from a breakdown. “Is there a list anywhere? Of the people I – I hurt?”

“Of those you destroyed, yes. I don’t believe injuries were registered.” Frostbite said. He guided Danny aside and returned to tending to Pariah’s hand. “It is not with me, but I could request a copy.”

“Thank you.” Pariah said. “Would you – do you know if the name Clockwork is on it?”

Frostbite glanced back at Danny. He’d met Clockwork once, sometime after the revelation that Frostbite’s ancestor had been an Ancient and that Clockwork had helped them. They’d gotten along okay, Frostbite was a – pun intended – super chill guy, and Clockwork, as awkward as he was, had easily found common ground with the yetis. He’d also been impressed that they were nice to him since, apparently, Frostbite’s ancestor had been a real jerk.

Danny shook his head. Frostbite gave a small nod and refocused on Pariah. “I can’t say that name is familiar. Why?”

“He was my friend.” Again, Pariah said friend super weirdly.

“Ah,” Frostbite said. He’d moved on to examining Pariah’s limp and copied the weird tone. “A ‘friend.’”

“Yes, a friend.” Pariah said defensively. He hissed when Frostbite adjusted his ankle. “He was closest to me after the events with the Observants. Physically and otherwise.”

“I’m sure,” Frostbite said.

“I just want to know if I hurt him.” Pariah said, his bowed head coloured by a blush Danny almost missed. “There’s something else that’s just as important. There’s an item called the skeleton key. Do you know where it is?”

“No,” Frostbite lied. He knew just as well as Danny did that it was with the Observants. “Why?”

“It’s important to Clockwork,” Pariah said, and left that incredibly vague statement at that.

“How so?” Danny asked, and floated closer.

“It’s important,” Pariah stressed. “I know it opens any lock in the Zone. I don’t care about that anymore, certainly not if I used it to hurt people. But it belongs to Clockwork, and I had it before the curse took effect. I was closer to him than anyone. I could have hurt him.”

Danny said nothing. He wasn’t sure what he could say that wasn’t just Clockwork’s personal business. But he didn’t like the picture this was painting – Clockwork had, however reluctantly, admitted that the Observants used the key to control him. Danny didn’t know the specifics. He didn’t like the idea of Pariah knowing them, ‘previously cursed’ and ‘friend of Clockwork’ or not. Besides, Clockwork had helped the Ancients seal Pariah away. He wouldn’t want anything to do with him. Even if they’d been friends once, Clockwork definitely wasn’t one now.

Despite Danny’s best efforts, he was about the only friend Clockwork had.

The silence hung for a bit longer. “If, by any chance,” Pariah spoke up, “you’re lying because you don’t trust me, I understand that. I just want Clockwork to be safe.”

“Mood,” Danny said. Pariah frowned at him. He backtracked. “I’ll ask around. See what I can do.”

“Be sure to use your Kingly Sway when you do so!” Frostbite said, apparently delighted by the topic change. He turned to grab more disinfectant.

“Is that even a thing?” Danny asked. “Also, pretty big flaw if it is. Considering, y’know, the thing.” The ‘not actually being the ghost king’ thing.

Frostbite laughed. He stepped over and slapped Danny on the back. “That’s not an issue anymore, Danny Phantom! The Observants have no say in this!” He gestured to Pariah, who just looked confused. “Not when the previous king has passed the throne on to you!”

Pariah and Danny stared at each other for a second, and it was impossible to tell who was more confused.

“He’s a child,” Pariah said.

“I’m only half dead,” Danny said, at somewhat the same time.

“What?” Pariah asked.

“Both can be worked around until they are no longer issues!” Frostbite said. “But this is wonderful news! You should be happy, Great One – finally, the Observants will leave us alone!”

There was a soft ahem. The group looked to the left – a portal had been cut through the ice wall, and in front of it floated a white-cloaked figure. It waved a clawed, green hand, and poorly hidden under the hood was one red eye. “Is this a good time?”

“You’re an Observant,” Danny said. Frostbite guided him closer.

“…Well, I suppose the disguise was pointless then. That’s groovy.” The Observant said. He took off his cloak and slung it over an arm. “Anyway. What’s shakin’?”

“You’re not allowed here,” Frostbite said. He kept his eyes fixed on the portal.

“I’m not staying,” the Observant said, “I’m just here to make a delivery.” He pulled the skeleton key out of his robes.

“You have it?” Pariah snapped, already on his feet.

“A delivery for Danny Phantom, sit down before you hurt yourself.” He floated forwards, eye still on Pariah, and pressed the key into Danny’s hands.

“Thank you?” Danny said. “Are you the one who released Pariah?”

The Observant seemed to frown. “His name’s Alric. If you can turn your back on him, you can call him by his name.”

“Don’t defend me,” Pariah – Alric – said. “I don’t want your help. Where’s Clockwork?”

“Funny,” the Observant said, and backed up significantly. “You needed my help earlier, when I knocked that column over and uncursed you. Oh, and before that, when I lobbied the Overseers enough that they gave in and destroyed the crown. Honestly, they’re artifacts of power that can only be wielded by an ‘evil spirit.’ Everyone involved with that division knew they had some sort of curse; it wasn’t like they were in the dark about it. Why did they need to keep those?” He paused. “This is a bad time to get distracted. Yes, I released him.”

“Why?” Frostbite narrowed his eyes. “Observants are not supposed to intervene, and they don’t act alone.”

“He’s right,” Alric growled, and came to join their line. “Whatever you want with me, I am not interested.”

“Yeah, you are.” The Observant said. “I know my history. You and Danny are the best shot.”

Danny pulled a face. Alric scoffed. Frostbite continued to stare.

“Why are you here?” Frostbite asked. “Where does that portal lead?”

The Observant shook his head. “I can’t tell you where it leads. I would rather not be murdered for doing the right thing. Take a chill pill, dude. You should have plenty of those lying around.”

“Okay!” Danny said loudly, “Observants aren’t allowed to say dude, that’s too weird! Why’d you release Pariah?”

“Alric,” the Observant corrected. “And the same reason I gave you the key. It’s the right thing to do, personal fears or not.” He focused on Alric, “He’s in the same room you found him in before. They shut him down once word got around you were out. Do what you have to.”

Danny looked back when Alric growled. When he refocused on the Observant, all he saw was a closing portal.

“Well!” Danny said, clapping his hand around the key, “That was weird!” Alric’s hand reached over his shoulder. Danny frantically passed the key to Frostbite and whipped around.

“I need that key,” he practically begged.

“No,” Danny said, “not unless I get a more concrete reason why you need it.”

“It’s for Clockwork,” he said, “Please. He’s with the Observants again, and I need to go rescue him.”

“You are not attacking the Observants again,” Frostbite said. Alric scowled, and lunged for him – two blasts of ice froze his feet to the ground.

Danny lowered his hands. “You heard him,” he said, “Why do you need to rescue Clockwork?”

Alric hesitated. “They use that key to control him. He’ll be comatose in a closet again, just like he was last time – I’m not going to kill anyone, I just need to save Clockwork! Please!”

“How am I supposed to trust that?” Danny asked, and refroze the bit of ice that broke when Alric strained. “What do you mean comatose?”

“Exactly as it sounds.” He scowled, “They use that key to shut down his consciousness, and he needs to be… be regularly wound with it, or it will happen naturally. As long as someone else has it, he’s bound to them. He doesn’t have a choice. I need to get him out.”

“No,” Frostbite said, “we cannot trust that. We –” Danny melted the ice at Pariah’s ankles. “What are you doing?”

“He’s right,” Danny said, and held out his hand. “That checks out with what Clockwork told me about his body. We’re going to go bust him out. Key, please.”

“Great One,” Frostbite said, “you can’t be serious. He is still injured and cannot be trusted.”

“Clockwork can.” Danny said. He glanced at Alric. “I lied, by the way. I definitely know Clockwork. He’s great. I’m coming with you.”

“Oh,” Alric said.

“This isn’t wise –”

“Dude,” Danny said, “if you want me to be king, then you need to trust me. Besides, you don’t like the Observants either. Come on, Frostbite.” He smiled, “Just trust me.”

The silence held. Then, Frostbite passed the key back.

“I’ll arrange a ride for us.” He pointed at Alric, “Do not leave without me.”

Alric frowned but made no effort to run down the open door. He looked Danny over. “You know Clockwork?”

“He saved me from the Observants once,” Danny said, “I owe him my family’s life.”

“Oh,” Alric said. “Good for him.”

.-.

In the second basement in the Observatory, Alric ripped the knob off a closet door when he tried to pry it open.

“Oh jeez,” Danny said, “he meant a literal closet.”

They hadn’t run into many Observants. The few they’d seen had taken one look at Alric and flung themselves in the other direction. Frostbite had followed them in, and still stood a few steps behind Danny and Alric as they pried open the door. The bottom hinge snapped with a final tug on the hole that used to hold a knob. Alric pulled it open, and Danny, in all his stick-thin, not-quite-five-foot glory squeezed through the gap.

In front of him was a crumpled form wrapped in purple fabrics, normally blue skin clear to reveal the still gears that made up Clockwork’s form. Danny knelt down and poked him with the skeleton key.

Nothing.

“That’s not how you do it,” Alric said, and took a knee in the small space beside him. Surprisingly delicate, he opened the glass of Clockwork’s case and placed the key in a grove between the gears. There was a click, and then the key lit up. Clockwork, too, lit up – his gears began to move again, and his skin clouded over, blue once more. Alric pulled the key out and took a step back. Danny stayed where he was.

Clockwork groaned as he cracked open an eye. “Danny,” he said, already obviously anxious, “you shouldn’t be here. The Observants –” He stopped. He’d sat up enough that he could see the other two in the doorway.

“Hello,” Alric said, softly, like he thought Clockwork would break. Frostbite raised his eyebrows and muttered something about ‘abuse’ and ‘legalities.’

By the time Danny blinked, he was back in Clockwork’s tower, a medallion hanging around his neck. Clockwork had his hands on his shoulders. Danny had the key in his hands.

“Danny,” Clockwork stressed, “what did you do?”

“Rude. Technically, I did nothing.” Clockwork’s frown deepened. Danny held up the key. “D’ya want this back now? An Observant went rogue and gave it to me. Also he uncursed Alric by breaking the ring, apparently.”

“Alric?” Clockwork repeated. He stared at Danny, eyes flickering over him. “…Yes, I want the key back.” Danny handed it over. “I need you to answer me honestly. What is going on?”

“Uh. Well. For one thing, Frostbite implied I’m actually the Ghost King now.”

Clockwork’s sigh was several seconds longer than it had any right to be.

***

Prompt 1: Pariah Dark got out again! Danny goes to take care of it, but Pariah is acting.... weird. Not-evil weird. Turns out something or someone else caused Pariah (If that is his real name) to be the raging tyrant history knows him as, but the influence has ended and he's a new (or renewed) person now. What changed, and who's at fault? (Ghostlyhabato)

Prompt 2: Danny ISN’T the ghost king. (imperfection-at-itsfinest)

Reasons to be my friend: when you tell me your lore I write you fics about it so you don’t have to! Nocturne doesn’t get to appear in this fic despite being an Ancient bc he’s gross and stinky. No one likes him. He sucks. 

[userarchive]

Unexpected Circumstances Ch 10

Warnings: Language.

Early the next evening you were finally setting out, you swapped out all the cards in your wallet, triple checking that there weren’t any business cards lurking somewhere you didn’t want, securely locking your badge and gun in the safe. A brief stop at a storage locker to pick up a few more things, most importantly your burner phone, you used the cab drive over to shift your focus, breathing out the cop personality and breathing back in the undercover life. At least this time would only be a couple of weeks, and you had SVU very on your side, and fully informed, there’d be no mix ups this time and you’d finally be able to return to real life for a while.

 Alejandro heard the ping of the elevator echoing through the penthouse, glancing up from the island in the middle of the open kitchen, a wicked grin breaking across his face when you emerged from the elevator. You shot him a sly smirk, tugging off your coat to hang on the rack by the door revealing the low cut lace bodice, pushing up the swell of your chest, tucked into a shorter than normal hip hugging pencil skirt. Heels clicking on the floor as you moved in to greet him.

“You miss me?”

“More than you could imagine Chiquita.” He kissed your cheek gently, “I’m glad you came.”

“Did you really think I’d miss out on all this fun? Besides, when have I ever bailed on you before?” 

“I was worried. You stayed in New York this time, thought maybe you were out of the game. And what good is a King without his Queen?” You playfully rolled your eyes at the comment.

“I like the fall in New York. It was easy enough to lay low this time.” You plucked a bacon wrapped scallop off the plate in front of him, popping into your mouth, groaning in satisfaction of how fucking delicious it was. The added bonus of this undercover life, getting to live the high life on the Upper East Side. He chuckled lightly, 

“You want me to order more?”

“Always.” You dropped your bag on the stool beside you, pulling out a thick notebook, dropping in onto the table while he busied himself with his phone quickly ordering more food. “Have you had a chance to start organizing parties?” He tucked his phone back into his pocket, looking up at you.

“A few. I’ve started spreading the word. Lookouts are back in the clubs, contacted our regular customers, rounded up our favourite girls…they’ll be more than happy that you’re back.” His eyes shifted towards your notebook, 

“But you were always the better organizer, I’m sure you’ve got everything figured out already.” You gave him a soft giggle at that, flipping the book open. You’d outlined the hottest and best dates between now and the New Year, organizing each party with specific girls and guests that would satisfy each others needs the best, along with which nights would be best to invite other pimps to get a better circulation of party goers.

“Just a couple of fun nights before we hit New Years Eve…”

“And then we hit the big bank..”

“Exactly…” You husked, giving a cheeky wink to the man across from you, fully seated into your undercover role. You spent the next few hours going over the paperwork as you added the guest lists into the official books, reaching out to guests, pimps and the girls who you’d need, discreetly of course. It took less time than you’d expected to quickly staff your business back up, everyone eager to work at the busiest time of year when the money was at its highest. You picked over deluxe delicious foods and sipped on far too expensive wine and scotch throughout the time, filling in the large calendar between you, marking the dates in colour coded ink. You did your best to stifle a yawn, not used to working such late hours anymore, Alejandro gave you a soft smile.

“Chiquita, I think we’ve done enough for the night. Why don’t you head up to bed? Your room’s ready and waiting for you.”

“Thank you.” You gave his cheek a soft kiss, collecting your things before you made your way up the stairs, happily collapsing against the comfort of the luxury bed. You had to admit, you were saddened by the thought of curling up alone without Sonny’s body wrapped around yours, but you’d have to deal with it for the next little bit.

***

It had already been two weeks since you’d headed back to the penthouse, you’d had very discreet brief contact with Olivia to confirm on a few details, and reached out to Kat at her undercover alias to arrange ‘her girls’ for the New Years Eve party. You were more than impressed with her UC skill when you introduced her to Alejandro, combing through the regular details of working with a new supplier over an intimate 5 star dinner.

Back at the precinct things were as busy as usual, multiple cases covering the squad’s desks, Amanda had just finished interrogating a perp, exiting the room to find Sonny with a scowl on his face.

“What’s bitin’ you? This is a clear shot of a case.” She asked, it took him a minute to register she was even talking to him, giving. his head a quick shake.

“I know, I know, it’s not that…” He trailed off, half turning to her. Amanda could see the tired bags under his eyes, the little worry lines between his eyebrows more pronounced that normal.

“Carisi, she’s fine…you know that.”

“What?” Still a little lost in his thoughts he quirked a brow at the blonde, 

“Sophie…that’s what you’re worried about right?” He gave a half nod, “She knows what she’s doing, she’s been doing it for years. Kat saw her last week, said everything was right on track, there’s nothing to worry about.” She gave his arm a reassuring squeeze.

“Ya. I know. She’s more than capable of handling herself. It’s just…” He took a moment, sighing as he leaned up against the wall, arms crossing over his torso, “I just got ‘er back..” Rollins gave him a sympathetic smile, 

“She’ll be back by New Year’s Day.”

“Yeah…not Christmas..” It was safe to say that Christmas was always a lavish event in the Carisi household, you’d spent plenty with them before you’d gone under with this case all those years ago, but this one would’ve had a little bit of extra special to it that Rollins slowly clued into.

“Oh…oh…she went under on your wedding day…this would’ve been—“

“The first Christmas actually married? Yeah.” He pushed off the wall, following Rollins back into the bull pen, “Now she’s back undercover, in God knows how stingy of a hotel room with a sex trafficker…Not exactly an ideal Christmas.”

“Carisi..” Kat gently cut in, not being able to help but overhear, “She’s in a multi floor, 7 bedroom penthouse on the Upper East Side.”

“And I saw her with Alejandro at the bar, she’s got him so tightly wrapped around her finger, he’s not gonna lay a hand on her or let anyone get near her, believe me.”

“Thanks.” Sonny gave a curt smile, he truly did appreciate the insight from the other two, you hadn’t mentioned much about how things worked. He figured you were in some hide-a-house unless you were hosting parties, then again, this was an elite sex ring on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, it screamed luxury. He discreetly asked Kat if she could keep him as updated as possible, both for his personal sanity, and so he could try to keep up with the case before it broke on a professional level. It wasn’t until Christmas Eve he realized you were your usual uber organized loving self when Kat showed up at his door with a hand written letter from you that you’d passed off to her at the last party. On Christmas Day, he arrived at his parents place with showers of praise coming from his Ma about how you’d snuck over and dropped off an armful of presents nearly a month prior. He couldn’t help but fall even more in love with you at just how attentive you were, even when attempting to organize both major crime, and a major crime bust. At least it was only another week and you’d finally be done with this operation and you’d actually be back together again.

[yminie]

nine-one-one | uno | pjm (m)

pairing: Jimin x Reader genre/warnings: angst, smut (to come), fluff (to come), oldflame!pairing, detective!jimin, firstresponder!reader, mentions of death, mentions of homicide, mentions of murder, mentions of suicide, mentions of mental health problems, mentions of weapons, explicit language, implied stalking. Words: 10.6k summary: when murder and crime threaten the city of Seoul, there’s a team in place to help keep the public safe, but just what do you do when all your training is to help others, and the one that needs help is actually you?

Working in the field that you do, and for as long as you have, you could almost swear you could tell the kind of day it would be just by the way you felt in the early morning. And days like today gave you a harrowing sense of dread right from the get go.

The darkness still enveloping your room along with the rain smattering along your apartment window when your alarm interrupted your rest was only the beginning. The thick, sticky dregs of sleep still pulling at your tired muscles and lingering long after you dragged yourself into the shower, only withdrawing upon your second cup of coffee.

Sore muscles complain when you’re forced to dig deep into the hallway cupboard in an attempt to find the umbrella you’d stashed within, and you nearly poke your eye out on a stray coat hanger before you manage to find it. Water splashes high on your feet on your walk to the underground subway, enough to wet the hems of your trouser legs, and you curse under your breath when a particularly deep puddle has the top of your ankle sock on your right foot starting to dampen. Quickly, you step under the covering of the subway stairs and try your best not to slip in any more stray puddles.

That same wet smell permeates the air within the carriage, and you try your best not to be thrown into the wet back of the man in front of you as you both hold firmly onto the bars overhead. The humidity that moisture carries seems to elevate the body odour that’s so familiar within the tight carriages, and you’re grateful once more that you don’t actually live too far from your workplace, even if it means you live in the heart of the city.

A quick pit stop into the coffee shop on the corner makes the walk along the last block more bearable, and you’re already halfway through by the time you scan your ID and enter the building. It’s still early, only brushing on around 7am, but the station is abuzz with people no matter the time of day. There are people filing both in and out as you make your way through, some starting their day and some coming to the end, but thanks to the dreary weather outside, everyone looks just as somber as each other.

Climbing aboard the elevator, you sigh as you shrug your coat from your shoulders, and just as the doors start to rattle closed, you hear a familiar voice shout from outside.

“Hold the elevator, please!” Hand shooting forward, you just manage to catch the doors before they close, and seconds later Jimin bustles inside. His arms are curled around a box that's filled to almost overflow, and you feel sorry for the knowledge that it’s no doubt paperwork he’s going to file and delegate to his officers.

The one thing you’ve been asked the most during your time within the bureau had to be ‘is it weird working with your ex-boyfriend?’. Not that long ago, just a few years, it’d been ‘isn’t it weird to work with your boyfriend?’ or, ‘are you even allowed to date someone in the force if you work in the same station?’.

Because, yes, Jimin and you had dated long enough for your friends to question the lack of ring on your third left finger, and yes, the two of you had split after seven years together. But no, it was never weird to work with him.

You’d been together for just a year and a half when he’d been recruited into the force, nearly three years when you’d started your position as a first responder. With the mental strain on both of you from working such jobs, it had worked for the other to understand your moodiness and be their for mutual support. A united understanding and appreciation for what the other chose to do as their career, and it’d worked, for a while.

But things changed when Jimin had been promoted to detective. Your once coinciding shifts now clashing, and the absence of the other quickly becoming too hard to bear as the effort of trying your best to spend time with each other became tiresome, and the intimacy you’d once thrived in had disappeared altogether.

Thus, you’d split as a mutual agreement, admitting both to yourselves and each other that it would be far easier to go on alone without that ghost of a partner that never came to fruition lingering over your heads. And it was easier, your downtime free for you to truly relax and unwind rather than stress, but you’d be lying to yourself if you said you never missed him.

You were teenage sweethearts after all, growing up and going through all the biggest milestones of both your educations and careers together. Always having had the other there to cheer you on and inspire you, Jimin’s boyish charm winning you over time and time again along with his thoughtfulness and love for those he cared about. And for him it was your generosity, your giving nature and that sparkle in your eyes whenever you looked at him. The love between you like no other.

It still hurt to know you’d both let it die.

“God, I feel sorry for your team. That looks disgusting!” Jimin’s eyes curve into crescent moons as he glances from you to the box and back again, and you find yourself smiling back at him automatically, his amusement contagious.

“I definitely don’t miss doing this kind of paperwork!” He shuffles slightly in place as he gets a better grip on the box, and the two of you stand in a comfortable silence as the doors close with a ding and the metal box whirs slightly as it starts to move.

“Are you finishing soon?” Jimin nods, looking over you slowly as though inspecting, and you feel your insides warm at the way he still gives you his close attention.

“Yeah finish as soon as these papers are filed. You don’t look like you slept too well last night, make sure you eat a good lunch.” The doors roll open and he smiles gently at you as he prepares to step out onto his floor, the room beyond even busier than the first level as people bustle back and forth while they rush to complete their work.

“Remember to eat before you go to sleep. And it’s getting cold, time to stop turning the fan on too high or you’ll get sick.” Jimin laughs heartily as he steps out of the elevator, turning back to smile wistfully at you before he gets nabbed by one of his officers, and you find yourself grinning even after the doors close on his back and continues on to your floor. You still knew each other so well even after all this time.

Turning a blind eye to the idea that your small chat with Jimin had improved your mood, you walk to your desk with a slight pep in your step, smiling gently at your coworkers as you pass them and offering a supportive nod at those on a call with furrowed brows and shaky voices.

That was the thing about working as a first response attendant; you could never know what kind of call was going to come through next. You yourself had been subject from things as mundane as a pet stuck up a tree to draining calls involving countless minutes of gently spoken words talking someone down from the edge as they contemplated ending their life. Life in the station was truly like a box of chocolates; if some were deluxe caramel, and others were full of sewerage.

Solar comes back to her desk just as you drape your coat over the back of your chair, and she lifts her coffee up in salute before taking a long sip, rolling towards you on her chair as you fix your earpiece onto the side of your head.

“It’s been stupid crazy this morning, I’m warning you. What is it about rainy days that make people so much dumber than usual? Someone tried to call an ambulance from me because they sprained their ankle slipping over, like, what?” She stares at you, baffled, and you chuckle quietly into the back of your hand as you wait for your computer to boot up. Days were always a little less grueling with her by your side.

“The traffic out there today was an accident waiting to happen. Won’t be surprised if we get lots of angry collision-related phone calls today,” Solar nods with a groan, but the two of you are quickly distracted as the line in your ears start to ring, and you quickly jump on your first call of the day.

__________

It’s only an hour or so into your shift when the coffee starts to kick in, and without hesitation you quickly shut your line and put your earpiece aside, fingers massaging around your ear as you arch your back in an indulgent stretch. The office is quiet for now, only the gentlest hum of white noise as many calls and conversations in blend into one, and your footsteps echo louder the further you get down the main corridor, turning into the bathrooms.

Relieving yourself as quickly as you can, you drift around the corner back into the hall, fully intending on heading straight back to your desk, but a dark shape in the corner of your eye catches your attention, and the sight pulls you to a stop in the break room doorway.

“I didn’t see you come upstairs. Are you okay?” The front of Jimin’s hair is getting a bit longer than usual, darkening at the roots as his hair grows out of it’s dye job, and the way it drapes around his forehead betrays the notion of stressed fingers running through the strands. His head automatically lifts upon the sound of someone speaking, but he doesn’t bother to stay guarded when it’s you, composure bleeding away into visible signs of anxiety. “I thought you’d be gone by now.”

His skin is sunken and devoid of colour, the muscle in his jaw ticking as his expression refuses to ease, and you find yourself stepping forward before you can think twice.

“I was getting ready to leave and then...the paperwork for last weeks case came back in.” Jimin lifts his hands to rub over his tired eyes, and the light glints off the same ring you bought him for his birthday four years ago, firmly fit on his right pointer finger.

“Ah, I see.” And you do. You know exactly the one, and you know just how profoundly the suicide case of fourteen-year-old Seo Ju-hyun had hit Jimin. Only fourteen, so fresh and new to the world and yet so rought by struggle and sadness. The day the call had come in you’d been in the office, a first hand witness to just how awful it’d been for everyone, and given Jimin’s personal history within his family, suicide was always going to be a struggle for him.

You’d never met his sister, but the heaviness of her death had lingered within Jimin for many, many years. Park Seo-yeong had been a bright, bubbly girl, who to her parents and brothers’ knowledge had many friends and great grades. But even those things couldn’t stop a certain pain from growing within her as well. She’d been sixteen when she’d taken her own life, and you never ever forgot the dates September 3rd and July 21st, from birth till death, and the little rose scented tealight candles Jimin would light each year beside her photograph in his lounge room; a silent, sweet remembrance of her spirit.

“When are you able to go home?” Leaning your hip against the table he sits at, you ignore the itch in your fingers that urge for you to reach out and brush the messy hair back from his forehead, a force of habit.

“Reports are processing so, very soon. I just...had to get away for a minute.” You know exactly what he means, the buzz and rush of the officer departments downstairs. With Jimin being one of the detective heads, he especially didn’t get much chance to breathe, always someone around the corner to pull him aside or ask him for his advice.

“You know you’re welcome up here any time, Mr Kim Seokjin wouldn’t dare tell you no.” Jimin’s lips lift at one side at the mention of your department head, and the knowledge of his penchant for a soft side, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“And I appreciate it as always.” Jimin stands slowly, the drag of his chair against the linoleum floor grating on your eardrums, and the two of you wince in tandem before he refocuses on you. “And I appreciate you. Thank you for checking up on me.”

This time you can’t help yourself, even if it is just a gentle hand on Jimin’s bicep. The muscle flexes automatically in reaction to your touch, but he quickly relaxes into your comfort, body almost leaning even closer towards you. But you merely pat his arm gently before leaning back and fixing him with a small smile before speaking. “Old habits die hard.”

“_____, sorry I didn’t want to interrupt, but I’m leaving now and we really need you on the floor.” Another of the first responders, Lee Taemin, has popped his head around the breakroom door, and is now regarding both you and Jimin with a sheepish look on his face. The two of you break apart quickly, Jimin clearing his throat quietly, and you walk round the table with a nod.

“I’m coming right now, go clock out!” Taemin smiles gratefully, tilting his head in farewell towards Jimin before disappearing once more, and you only pause in the doorway to look back for a few seconds, finding Jimin with his eyes still on you. “I meant it when I said eat something before bed. And use that lavender aromatherapy scent in your diffuser when you go to bed, it’ll help you sleep.”

“Yes, mum.” Jimin’s face finally breaks out in a grin, and his crescent moon eyes and shining cheeks are the last thing burnt into your brain as you make your way back to your desk with hurried footsteps.

You’ve learnt over time there’s nothing you can say to make the hurt feel better, especially not for those so rawly exposed to it every day. You can only be there should those people need your shoulder to cry on or your hand to hold.

__________

The weather seems to stay consistent for the days following, the storm so strong the sound of rain and thunder reaches you within the building, and you’re just finishing up some emails when Taemin leans around Solar to whisper to you.

“Have you heard about the new case they picked up downstairs?” You glance at your friend between you, hearing her sigh softly as she advises the caller for a third time that he should be calling the non emergency line, before shaking your head at him. “Minho was telling me about it on his break, apparently some wacko is getting around the near suburbs leaving behind young girls they’ve strangled to death.”

“I heard about that this morning.” Solar seems to finish up her call finally, and you’re not surprised that she’d overheard, watching as she throws her earpiece down with frustration. “All the girls look the same right? Same colour hair, similar length, same colour eyes.”

“Bitter over an ex girlfriend maybe?” Your eyebrows are furrowing into a frown as you speak, brain working hard to think of all and any other possibilities. “Wouldn’t be the first time a killer used it as motive. Those poor girls…”

“He’s up to three now. First was found nine days ago.” Taemin and yourself look at Solar in surprise. “The general police service were regarding it as normal homicide but have decided it calls for further investigation. Which is why they’ve only passed it on this week.”

“Nine days...Three girls. That makes one every three days.” Silence falls over the three of you as you finish speaking, and only the beeping in yours and Taemin’s earpieces breaks the haze of sadness that had overcome you. He wheels back over to his desk in a flash, accepting the call, and you pause for a few seconds to breathe before accepting your own. “What is your emergency?”

Two days pass, the week rolling into your last day of work before your two days off, and you can't get your mind off the conversation you’d had with Taemin and Solar. Even knowing how hard the detectives would be working to solve the crime and find the killer, you could suppose it was that classical fear you were taught to have as a young woman that had you pondering the dangers that still lurked in the night.

It’d been the talk of the office since news had broken, everyone and their mother knowing the names of the victims, curious eyes drawn by temptation to peek into the offices downstairs upon passing for the chance to see the faces. But not you.

Perhaps it was due to time, being in the position you were for so long, you’d come to grow out of that temptation of knowing. Now, you didn’t want to know, you simply wanted it to stop. You’d seen, heard, and felt too much loss and pain first hand, and for the wellness of your soul you could only take so much.

Broken from your reverie by the ever grating chime in your ear, you sigh and accept the call, blinking slowly as your hands hover over the keyboard in front of you.”Hello, what is your emergency?”

The line crackles and for a second you think you’re not connected, but you identify the repeated noise a sharp breaths too close to the microphone, and you ask again. “Hello, can you hear me? What is your emergency?”

“Kill me, kill me, kill me.” You almost flinch at the sudden voice, deep, scratchy and thick with distress. “Fuck, please! Let me die, let me die–”

“S-Sir, are you alright? I can get you whatever help you need, you just need to tell me where you are–” your heart starts to pound in your chest, and you can feel your fingers twitch as you try your best to stop them from shaking.

“Don’t need help.” He cuts you off, voice cracking. “D-Don’t need help. Not me, not me–”

“Sir, please take a deep breath and try to stay calm, what is your address?” you speak as gently as you can, taking another quiet breath as an omen to your own advice.

“I didn’t-didn’t want to do it! She m-made me! She made me do it!” There is a scuffling on his end of the line and you can hear his breath rate start to climb again. “S-She made–she made me.”

“What did she make you do, sir?” You can feel eyes on you, a burning gaze on your cheek, but you ignore it in favour of staring deep into the recesses of your computer screen, hands starting to shake.

“Didn’ wanna! Why’d she make me?” The male on the other end of the call starts to sniffle and hiccup, and you don’t have to see him to know he’s crying. “Why?”

Your fingers fly across your keyboard as you type as quickly as you can, and you can hear the computer whirring as it starts to process through the many files needed in order to scope across the phone service. Code after code flies by as it works hard on pinpointing the location of the service tower your caller is closest to, and you try your best to keep things calm as you wait.

“Are you hurt, do you need an ambulance?” His breath rating is further climbing as muffled sobs reach your ears, and you can feel your heart pounding as you watch the processing percentage reach 80%. Thirty seconds more and you’ll be closer to reaching your caller.

“Not hurt, not me.” He takes a shuddering breath that you can almost feel within your own lungs. “B-But she–she made me, I swear!” 89%, 90%, 91%...

“What, sir?” You finally become desperate, preparing to open a joint line in order to contact dispatch. “What did she make you do?” 96%, 97%...

“K-Kill. She made me kill.” 98%...

Your heart stops. And the line drops, dial tone echoing through your ear.

__________

“Did you hear?” Solar asks as she places a fresh cup of coffee beside you, and you nod slowly, feeling the kink still sharp in your neck, a clear sign of the horrendous sleep you’d been suffering the past few days.

“Of course I heard. Detective Jung came and spoke to me about it first thing this morning.” You’d even been requested to come into work early this morning, surrendering your network details in order for the detectives to access the recording of your conversation with the man. You’d been unsuccessful in tracking his call, but they assured you in a case such this, even the slightest points of evidence were crucial and beneficial.

“So it’s true then. They think the man that called you is the killer that’s been getting around?” Solar leans close to you, and you can feel the way the others in the room starting to stare and eavesdrop. “The one that killed those girls?”

“You already know the answer to that.” She finally breaks her stare on you and you see guilt flicker over her expression.

“Sorry, I know you’ve been upset. I shouldn’t have…” She starts to backtrack as you knew she would, but you shake your head and lift your mug to sip the hot caffeine before you.

“It’s fine, I’m fairly sure you’re not the only one that’s been wanting to speak to me about it.” You glance around automatically, not missing the way the occupants of your neighboring desks quickly glance away. You can’t really blame them though, usually the involvement of anyone from first response ends at the ending of the call, rather than directly involved in an investigation.

You leave your desk to relieve yourself in the bathrooms, and when you come back it’s to one of the young female responders talking to Solar, a frown marring her normally pretty features.

“It was really weird, though, I knew the call connected but they hung up straight away.” The girl looks up at your approach, and you immediately join in the confusion, tilting your head at her as she reiterates the event again. And then Solar connects to a call, just to leave everyone frozen in place. “It was just their–”

“What is your emergency?” A few seconds pass, and Solar immediately looks up at the younger girl, mirroring her horrified expression. “Hello? Are you there? What is your–”

Her face transforms into shock, and as you sit back in your chair, she turns to the younger girl. “I–”

“The breathing?” At her nod, you share a look before slipping on your headset, jumping in your seat as it automatically starts to beep with an incoming call. The two girls beside you lean closer almost involuntarily, curiosity swimming in their eyes.

“What is your emergency?” Your tongue suddenly feels paper dry as you speak, sticking to the roof of your mouth, but it’s nothing compared to the way your blood starts to immediately turn cold.

“Why! Why did you do it!” Your eyes shut as flashbacks race through your mind, and your fingers run across the keyboard before you so hard it slips against the desk. “I didn’–didn’t wanna!”

“Sir, I need you to take a deep breath and stay very calm for me okay?” Data levels pop up immediately, and you open up a line with the phone on the lower level, hearing it beep lowly in the background of your call as the line rings and rings. Your lip aches as you chew on the swelling flesh, deja vu hitting you hard as the scanning percentage rises just as slowly as last time, and the desperation rushing through your blood has your skin burning from the inside out.

“GOD, LET ME DIE, PLEASE–” His sudden screams have you flinching hard, breath escaping you, and you can just hear Solar whimper in panic beside you, not bothering to turn and see her distraught expression. “Let me die, please. Kill me, kill me–”

“This is Detective Park, how can I help you response unit?” You’re at work, and you know it, but something in your panic has your brain short circuiting, and you lose all sense of protocol as you barely remember to switch your line to the internal transfer. You can still hear his begging, but you can’t give him the priority.

“J-Jimin! He’s back. The caller is back, he–”

“Are you on the line? Get me his details, _____,” You can faintly hear Jimin turning away from the phone as you watch the percentage continue to rise, and for a few seconds there is nothing but a tense silence on your end as the data peaks–

And you’re in, an automatic scan of Seoul shows on your screen, and you hurriedly type as you do your best to then pinpoint his exact location.

“Jimin he’s pinging within range of the southwest tele service.” Jimin repeats what you’ve said to whoever he has helping him on his end of the line, and you cut away as the system starts to almost erratically scan through each zone, switching yourself back to the receiving line.

“Sir, I need you to take deep breaths for me okay? I’m going to help you, I just need you stay calm.” The man is in hysterics, and you almost feel bad lying to him. But you force yourself to remember he was a killer, and he needed to be caught before he kills again.

“You can’t help. No–no one can help!” You flinch again as you hear him lash out, the sound f something shattering reaching you through the line, and your heart thumps so hard against your ribs you fear it might just break through. “No one, no one, no one!”

He has yet to notice the way you’re going silent ever so often, and for that you’re thankful, but you know it’s only a matter of–

“She made me do it! She made me!” You cant help the way tears are starting to well over in your eyes, and you jump with a gasp as Jimin shouts your name, trying hard to break through the wall you’re muffling it all behind in your overwhelmed state.

“_____! Sweetheart, you need to breathe, okay?” Only now do you notice the way your chest is shuddering as you start to sob, and the heavy hand you feel on your shoulder is inevitably Solar as she stands by your side.

“He’s–” You take a breath, sniffling slightly as you blink the wetness out of your eyes, hard. “Pinging south-westerly refined into a range of around twenty miles–”

Red flashes across your screen, and the silence that’s now resounding in your ear is so loud even devoid of his screaming that it takes you a few seconds to understand.

The signal is gone.

“_____?” Jimin prompts you again, and you feel disappointment give the same rush of emotions from before a heavy shove as you embody the feeling, slumping forward onto your desk as you bury your face into your hands, a sob escaping you. “Oh, darling.”

“–around twenty miles refined, south westerly, pinning him within radius of Incheon and Yongsan-Gu. C-Call disconnected before further identification could be made. Time is 16:23, the eleventh of the fifth, two thousand and nineteen.”

__________

“I am truly sorry to have to bring you down here, _____. I know the calls have affected you quite...profoundly. I can assure you we’re taking every precaution in order to make this as stress free for you as we can.” Detective Jung is telling the truth, but you both know nothing would ever make listening to that call again any easier. But it’s never easy in this line of work, that you’d come to know faster than anything in the force.

“I’ll do anything for these calls and deaths to stop happening, detective.” Jung nods solemnly at your sureness, and for a moment he stands with his lips parted, lungs full as he attempts to say something, only to stop himself and shake his head with a gentle smile.

“And I commend you on it.” He gestures with his hand to guide you back out of his office, joining you as you both walk through the bustling floor outside towards the elevator, and you’re standing before the metals doors waiting as Jimin materialises by your side.

“It’s your day off today. Why are you here?” Jimin shoots a reproachful look towards his partner, and Jung merely smiles sheepishly before stiffening his form and walking away, nodding to you as he departs. “You’re meant to be resting–”

“Aaand I will be the moment I get home, so you don’t have to stress.” You feel strangely underdressed and unkempt in your tshirt, jeans and hair still damp from the rain outside; watching the officers walk by in full uniform and looking at Jimin dressed in his business shirt and slacks. His jacket is missing though, no doubt draped over the back of his chair, and you have a clear view of the utility belt he still has attached around his waist, gun clearly in sight on his right hip and handcuffs shining on the other.

“Are you done here now?” You nod and when the elevator dings, he joins you inside. “Good, have you eaten?”

“Not ye–”

“_____, if you are still on the premises please make your way to the RU. _____, to the RU, priority one.” Regardless of the fact the doors are still open, you hear the PA loud and clear through the speaker above you, and both Jimin and yourself turn to look at each other. Your finger shifts from where it had been preparing to press the button for the ground floor, moving instead to the fourth, and you watch as the little number lights up and the doors close.

“Did they need you for something?” You almost jump at Jimin’s slight nudge to your arm, and he frowns slightly at how jumpy you’ve become, and though you’re ready to blame it purely on tiredness, it’s no use; he could read you like an open book.

Instead, you simply shrug and wait silently as the elevator makes it’s way up, ignoring the perspiration starting to bud along your skin; a clear sign of your anxiety. And the moment the doors open onto your floor, you knew you were right to feel scared.

The second elevator dings open beside the two of you as you step out, detective Jung and a few of his officers quickly stepping out, and Jimin immediately shifts into detective mode as he steps to stand at his partners side. You automatically go to join him as he immediately asks Hoseok what’s going on, but before you can eavesdrop for info, Taemin is running over to you, the young girl from the other day that you’d learnt the name of to be Jung Yein, though no relation to the detective beside you.

“_____! It’s–”

“Happening again!” The two of them are slightly out of breath, and you hold your hands up a soothing manner.

“What is happening again? Guys, breathe, it's okay–” but your attempts at calming them down are ignored.

“The call is coming in but the moment we answer it the caller disconnects!” You share a look with Jimin, and much to his obvious disdain you immediately take off through the floor, weaving through tables until you reach your desk. The group follows you closely, Jimin attempting to advise you to stop, but detective Jung lays a hand on his arm that you don’t see, and it’s enough to silence him for now.

Your fingers work purely from muscle memory as you log yourself into the server, and it’s a tense wait as your computer boots itself up and connects to the service, all of you watching as the little signal pops up in the bottom corner. Faster than you can think, you slot your earpiece onto your head and start to wait, glancing side to side as your coworkers stand in an intense silence right along with you.

The call barely beeps once and your hand flys forward to the answer key immediately, your motion followed quickly by Jimin's arm beside you, and it’s not until you’re answering the call that you realise what he’s doing. “What is your emergency?”

The sound of your voice comes through the landline phone atop your desk, and Jimin tones down the sound until it’s only just comfortably hearable, leaving the entire group to bear witness to the call as it all begins.

“Please, please! I want to die, why won't he let me die?!” Yein covers her mouth in shock, muffling the whimper that immediately escapes her, and somewhere in the back of your mind you compute the motion of her turning to bury her face into Taemin’s shoulder, his own soft features hardened and upset. “Please, tell me! Tell me!”

“Tell you to do what, sir?” Your hands are already shaking, the vividness of memories his voice triggers in your mind, but Jimin’s hand is resting close enough on the back of your chair that you can feel the warmth, and you force yourself to take a calming breath. “I can help you, all you need to do is tell me–”

“You wanna help me?!” You flinch aggressively as his voice comes through loud and dark, harsh enough that the entirety of your group surrounding the desk leans back slightly, varying levels of discomfort marring their features. All except Jimin, who’s gaze you can feel burning against your cheek, and when you turn to glance at him nervously, you find his expression devoid of any fear, pure anger alight in his eyes instead. “Tell me to jump!”

“J-Jump?” Your voice shakes involuntarily as you speak, and your lips stick together firm enough you part them with your tongue, ignoring the pang of pain as the dry skin almost splits. “Where are you, sir?”

“Up high.”

By now your system is up and running, calculating just like every other day his approximate location, and as the scanner moves into the file maximum of 20 miles, your heart starts to pound beneath your ribs. Fine tuning your program, you scan the new radius and watch as the fine tuning starts to roll through every phone service and connect phone within the area. It’s not that slow, around 6% every second, but you know by now that every single second is crucial, and as he starts to wane and sob, you find yourself scrambling for more time.

“I can help you! I promise!” He starts to deny you once more, threatening to jump and end it all, but you refuse to lose. “Trust me, I can make sure you’re nice and safe where he–” you glance at Jimin again, finding his stare still hard and focused on you “–he can’t make you do things anymore.”

“Y-You–” a painful wracking breath choke through him, and for a few moments of silence you think the call has dropped yet again, but then his voice comes through in a hushed whisper, “–you promise?”

“Yes, yes I promise!” The fine scrubbing moves in even closer, now at five miles, and you watch as the zone gets closer and closer to the building you’re all currently in. The group of detectives behind you start to shuffle nervously, the idea of the killer being so close clearly making them uncomfortable and even a little nervous. “You can trust me!”

“NO!”

You jump so hard in your seat, you slam your knee into the underside of the table, and fear freezes you in place as you gasp for air, fingers tight on your earpiece with the temptation to rip the infernal device from your ear. Unable to even feel the pain in your leg.

“Liar! You’re lying! You can’t help me! No one can help me!” Yein is openly crying into Taemin’s shoulder now, and you don’t even notice when he pulls her away, cradling her against his chest as she starts to breakdown into a panic. “All you ever do is lie! Stop lying!”

“Please don’t jump!” You can hear the wind loud in your ear as the air rushes past him on the other end of the line, and watching as the zone closes in, you’re suddenly struck by the idea of him standing atop Banpo Bridge, waiting for his time to jump. “I want to help you, please, let me help you!”

“I don’t believe you–!” The entire room stands stagnantly still as you stare hard at your screen, the infuriatingly familiar dial tone echoing through the room for a few moments until Jimin reaches forward and hangs up the landline.

“_____…” You can feel everyone’s eyes on you as you stay frozen in your seat, your only movement the sharp in and out of your chest as you gasp for air. But that confused, overwhelmed sadness quickly gives way to frustration, and you slip from his grasp before Jimin can hold you tightly in place, feet slapping against the floor as you run full steam ahead down the corridor and into the restroom.

He’d seen the glint of tears welling over your eyes before you’d run, leaving behind the clash of your earpiece landing abandoned on your desk, and he can only sigh softly before ordering his men into action. Jung gets to work on the analytics, immediately in contact with the tech team in order to request the recording of the phone call they’d all bore witness to, and once everything's in order, Jimin let’s himself sneak away after you.

“Knock, knock.” The sound of hurried sniffling and rustling reaches him through the door, and Jimin gently raps his knuckles against the wood, waiting for you to compose yourself enough to accept him.

“Come i-in.” He can’t help but frown, his own heart heavy in his chest at the sight of you all blotchy-faced and teary-eyed. It’s been a good few years since he’d seen you in such a state, but time had done nothing to dull just how awful your crying made him feel.

“I have lunch now. Come, let me take you home, my cars downstairs.” Jimin doesn’t approach the situation at hand, and for that you’re grateful, but you’re automatically shaking your head as he steps into the bathroom, barely sparing a glance for the few stalls to his side.

“Doesn’t detective Jung need to talk to me again?” Jimin continues to walk closer, shoes clicking slightly against the floor, and when he gets close enough he reaches out to grab the tissue roll from beside you, breaking off a piece to dab at a stray tear you’d missed on your jaw.

“Not today.” The finality in Jimin’s voice eases your stress, but something in the back of your mind notes that he’s probably made that decision on his own, rather than having spoken to the other detective about it. “Come. It’s storming even worse outside and I’m not letting you down into the subway in this weather.”

__________

“Another body showed up after the last call didn't it?” Your voice is grating against your dry throat, a mere whisper, but Jimin hears you all the same within the car, only the gentle pitter pats of rain on the windscreen interrupting you. You’re in traffic, as is to be expected of the late afternoon in the city, and sitting in one spot is making it harder to get your mind off what had happened.

“You don’t need to worry about it.” Jimin’s thumbs tap against the inner rim of the steering wheel, and your gaze catches on the bracelet glinting on his wrist, swaying with the slight movement of adjusting his hold. “What you do need to worry about is getting a cold. You should have a proper rain coat on, don’t just rely on the sidewalk awnings.”

He’s referring to the dampness of your hair from being drenched earlier, and you automatically run your fingers through the tangled strands. Not that he’s one to talk, the shoulders of his white business shirt slightly see through from having jogged through the rain to his car in the parking lot in order to bring it round for you to get in.

“Hmm.” You hum, having nothing of substance to say to him, and he sighs in response to your cold attitude, still feeling the stiffness of your undereyes from the salty tears they’d shed earlier.

Another few minutes pass –ten, maybe even fifteen– and the car had come a few blocks, when Jimin finally speaks up again, and his gentle question catches you off guard.

“Why do you do it?”

“What?” You’ve involuntarily turned to stare at him in surprise, finding him already looking at you as the brake lights from the car in front tinge red across his feature. His head is tilted, leant back against the headrest, and the angle he’s resting at leaves his jawline sharp and eyes slanted in the same way they’d first attracted you when he was just eighteen. Albeit now his face is a lot slimmer and more defined, lines from stress and natural age starting to marr his forehead and emphasise the crinkles of his eyes when he smiles. He was nearing on thirty, but he was still just as handsome as ever.

“Try so hard to talk him out of killing himself.” You blink at him in shock, lips frozen apart as you grasp for something to say, but come up empty. At the look on your face though, he starts to backtrack a little. “I know, I know it sounds awful. But he’s a killer, and there’s something about it that just makes me think...you know. Might just be a little easier if he’s choosing that path himself.”

“It’s just not right.” It’s not easy to reason with, because you know where Jimin is coming from, but you’re too set in your ways to think differently no matter what the person has done. “Suicide...it’s the easier way out for him. It’s not a punishment for his crimes by any means. Besides…” you start to trail off, but resolve your hesitance when you lock eyes with Jimin once again, “people don’t just kill themselves for nothing. Something’s not right with him, he’s...sick. And I can’t just stand by and let anyone commit that crime against themselves.”

“I didn’t fail to notice that he calls the emergency line until he gets in contact with you.” Jimin ignores the hesitance in your voice and moves on, the both of you knowing suicide to be a touchy subject for him. “I don’t like that one bit.”

“Jimin, I’m sure it’s not that serious. I spoke to him the first time he rang–”

“No, you didnt.” Jimin cuts you off, and you glance at him sharply, even as he keeps his eyes on the road, speeding up as the traffic starts to ease. “He’d already killed three girls before you spoke to him. And he’d had no bias opinion on who he wanted to speak to then.” Fear is a heavy drop of ice scalding you as it settles in your stomach, and you stay frozen in your seat, unable to look away from his lips and he speaks. “And now he won’t talk to anyone else.”

“Y-you don’t think he–” you can’t help the way you stutter, and Jimin’s eyes flicker to yours quickly before returning to the road. The feeling of his warm palm settling against your thigh makes you jump, but you quickly clutch at his fingers upon realisation, the familiarity of the feeling a small comfort.

“He’s not getting anywhere near you.” Jimin squeezes your cold digits, thumb stroking back and forth on the top of your hand. And you believe him, you really do, but that fear of the unknown leaves you sick to the stomach.

__________

Cold fingers wrap around your throat, burning your skin like fire as the faceless man squeezes your delicate windpipe, and you can feel the heat of his breath hitting your face as you gasp for air. You’re trying your hardest to reach up to his hold, attempting to loosen his grip and give you some sort of leeway to breathe, but your limbs are heavy and slow, sluggishly dragging behind an invisible weight as you kick your ever weakening legs.

“You told me you would help me!” His voice doesn't come from the dark shape before you, but from all around, and sharp pains stab in your ears at the volume of his shouting. “You told me! But you lied!”

“P-plea-suh!” Your head aches as your eyes start to roll back, chest burning with the effort of trying to draw in air but coming up empty, and numbness starts to creep in around the edges, starting in your toes and fingers, spreading through your bones and up your body.

Tap-tap-tap!

The faceless man’s head shoots to the side, knocking against a door somewhere in the distance throwing his attention off kilter, and you eagerly draw in the little bit of breath the distraction grants you.

“H-Help! Help me!”

“Fuck you!” His hold on you returns tenfold, and you can hear the sickening pop in your ears as ligaments and cartilage start to shift under his strength, and your best attempts to struggle become futile as unconsciousness approaches. The knocking of the door is still happening in the distance, becoming harder and harder to hear, and just as you blink your eyes one last time, you hear him once more. “You lied, and now you’re next.”

__________

Gasping desperately, you almost bolt out of your mass of bedsheets the moment your eyes fly open. Your hands are already on your neck, inspecting the damage before you fully come to, and the revelation that it was merely a nightmare has you releasing a shuddering breath, almost relaxing back against your pillows.

But then you hear it, the same noise that had leaked into your unconsciousness, and your body tenses almost painfully.

A gentle knock is echoing through your apartment from the door, and the sound has your skin crawling as you do your best to block out any more images of the horrific sights your nightmare had conjured up. Carefully, quietly, you climb from your bed and wrap yourself in the fluffy dressing gown draped across the end, tying the waist tight as you tiptoe through your apartment onto to come to a pause as the knocking no longer occurs.

You’re almost convinced the knocker is gone, when the sound happens again, a little bit louder than the last, and your fingers close in on the baseball bat resting just beside your entryway as you lean carefully in to hold your eye level with the peep hole…

Only to sigh in relief and shake your head at your own fear.

“Hey!” Your next door neighbor Taehyung greets you heartily, a surprised smile boxy across his cheeks, and you can’t help but smile at him yourself.

“Hey, whats up?” Taehyung gives you a once over, inspecting your state of underdress, and tilts his head curiously.

“I was almost ready to give up on my knocking, but I didn’t hear you leave for work this morning and I’m in desperate need of a plastic bucket if you have one?” You quirk your brow and laugh under your breath, not missing the way he flutters his lashes at you hopefully, and his smile only grows when you nod and invite him inside, immediately heading for your kitchen sink. Opening the cupboard below, you reach inside and take out his requested bucket, emptying it of it contents before you surrender it, a few cloths and a spritz bottle of shower cleaner that you’d forgotten you’d had.

“To what do you owe the requirement of my plastic bucket?” He takes the said item with a smile, a quiet thanks leaving his lips as the two of you make your way back to the front door.

“Got another leak in my apartment and one buckets being used in the bathroom for the one in there.” You screw up your face in an expression of disgust and he laughs. “Yeah, I know right?”

“Isn’t the landlord going to fix that for you? It’s been like that for ages!” You ask him, though you’re fully aware how unreliable landlords could be. But in your experience the older gentleman that owned your building was nothing but lovely, certainly not the type you’d thought to be one to inconvenience his tenants.

“Oh, he is! But in order to get up and fix my roof they need the water to be dried out. Which is kind of hard considering the way it keeps raining every week!” You hum in understanding as you lean against the frame of your apartment door, and the two of you nod in sync as he grins at you again, moving to turn back towards his own apartment before pausing. He seems a little hesitant when he faces you again, but he doesn’t step any closer. “You’re normally at work by now. Is everything okay?”

“Hm? Oh! Yeah, I’m fine just–” you grasp for the right thing to say, waving your hand in the air for a moment before giving up and letting your arm fall, shrugging instead, “–just needed a day off. Back to normal tomorrow, though.”

“Oh, okay.” He stands there for a few more moments, licking his lips as he contemplates saying something else, and you simply wait for him with a brow raised, left leg starting to ache with the way you’re leaning all your weight against it. “I...saw you get dropped off by a guy in uniform yesterday. Made me feel a little worried.”

“Oh, that’s just Jimin! He gave me a lift because of all the rain, didn’t want me out in the subway in this weather.” Taehyung's smile looks a little lacklustre, though he doesn’t give you the time to wonder why.

“Jimin-Jimin? Like your ex Jimin?” You nod silently, starting to feel a little uncomfortable at the displeasure tinging the edges of his voice. “Huh...okay.”

“Taehyung, is everything oka–?”

“I better get this bucket under that leak otherwise I’ll be inviting you over for a swim sooner rather than never!” And in an instant his disdain is gone, eyes alight with humour as he waves sweetly at you and takes the few last steps to his apartment. “Have a good day at work tomorrow! I promise to return your precious bucket as soon as I can!”

You’re smiling, waving him off as he closes his door behind him, but you can't help feeling a little off as you close your own door and lock yourself securely in, unable to get the look he’d given you upon the mention of Jimin out of your head.

What was wrong with Taehyung?

__________

Walking into work the next day is as unexciting as you’ve ever experienced, dread heavy in your stomach as you walk the familiar hallways to the elevator. Officers depart from the building, finished with their days, while others climb on with you, getting ready to start their Tuesday mornings.

Realistically you know that barely any of the officers working within this building know who you are and what’s been happening, but your mind is convinced everyone is staring and talking about you, leaving you to stand silent in the corner of the elevator. Head tilted down, chin tucked tight against your chest and your bag held firmly against yourself, you’re the perfect picture of anxiety.

The desk beside yours is empty, but you’d already known Solar had the day off today, and though she’d still thought to text her her well wishes and promises of your favourite donuts tomorrow, the loneliness hits you hard.

The tech man stops by briefly, updating you on the system and the added features, and you carefully nod along as he shows you a few new things you might need to use, but overall you’re glad; the system was going to run faster, meaning your chances of tracking callers was much higher. A sense of relief fills you both with this new reassurance, and the fact the the morning was quite...boring.

There are some calls you get that make your heart pound and hands shake, but there are even more that happen so often and quickly they almost become mundane. People calling over minor traffic accidents, some more severe than others, the occasional theft or people calling the police on their neighbors prematurely.

As the day drones on and nothing more serious progresses, you find your lack of decent sleep catching up to you, and so you slip from your desk and down to the break room. Your mug clinks as you slot it under the coffee machine, and you insert the caplet into the top with a sigh, waiting with your hip leant against the bench as the machine whirs to life and starts to pour your coffee.

Scrolling through your phone slowly, you’re surprised when a text pops up at the top, with Jimin’s name no less. The coffee machine beside you finishes its job, the low buzzing dying away and leaving you in silence as you chew on your lower lip, pressing the message and watching as the apps switch.

| Jimin (work) | 11:41am (I’m in office all day today.) (Don’t hesitate to call me if you need.)

You can't help but smile a little at his insistence to keep you as comfortable as possible. You couldn’t help but reflect on the past, having spent so much time with Jimin lately, and you’d be stupid not to notice the way the two of you seemed to naturally gravitate towards each other. But like you’d told him just last week in this very room, old habits die hard.

Because you’d always worried about each other. Jimin would worry about your mental state, having to deal with the grating calls every day, and you would worry about him, being out in the field fighting against crime and helping to keep the city safe. It had always been a necessary stress in your household, discomfort for the greater good, but you couldn’t deny it was a contributor to your relationship ending.

You’d loved each other for a long time, deeply so, but some things can’t be salvaged purely by love, and you’d both learnt that the hard way.

| You (mobile) | 11:43am (Of course.) (Thank you, Jimin..)

Blowing gently on the top of your coffee, you carefully walk back to your desk, careful not to spill any nor burn yourself. Settling back into your chair, you stretch slowly, the stiff muscles in your lower back not enjoying the way you’ve been sitting all morning, before picking your earpiece up once more and slipping it onto your head before sipping your drink carefully. The caffeine doesn’t work straight away to perk you up, but the warmth in your tummy feels nice, and you let yourself relax as you switch your channel back to open and answer another call.

Your plan for the coffee to wake you up a bit more seems to go unfulfilled however, as the afternoon comes around and the team sitting around you starts to dissipate. Your eyes ache from looking at your screen for so many hours, and you’re a little ashamed to note that you’re beginning to feel as though you may fall asleep at your desk any second.

“Hey.” It takes your drowsy mind a few seconds to recognize that the voice behind you is actually addressing you, and you slowly turn in your chair to blink up at Jimin slowly. The corner of his lips starts to twitch in amusement at your puffy, lidded eyes, the pout of your lips are clear giveaway to how tired you are, and for a second he remembers a vivid image of you nestled in his bedsheets of a morning, hair tousled and lips softly parted as little snores escape you. “You okay?”

“I feel so tired, I don’t know why.” You go to rub at your eyes before remembering the mascara you’d dutifully put on this morning, choosing instead to gently press down on your eyelid before blinking down at your lap a few times. The blurriness goes away slightly, but not entirely, and you sigh in exhausted frustration.

“You’ve been having nightmares again?” Jimin reaches over to fetch the free seat from Solar’s desk, spinning it until the back faces you before straddling the cushion. His arms are crossed over each other atop the back of the seat, forearms on display where his shirtsleeves are rolled up, and you can see the little scar on the side of his wrist he’d gotten at bootcamp when he turned 21.

And of course he remembers the nightmares, a result of your first ever witness to a murder on an emergency response call, Jimin having been the one to wipe your tears when you awoke in the middle of the night in a panic. It’d been a good few years since you’d been so strongly swayed by a case, and your lost sleep seemed to be more clear on your face than you’d realised.

“Just a bit. Nothing too bad.” You reason, fiddling with the hem of your skirt as he looks you over, and you can feel your cheeks flush under his gaze, baffling you. “Not as bad as they were.”

“Good, you shouldn’t have to go through that.” Jimin sits with you in silence as you listen to the general noise around the room, hearing Taemin at his desk two spaces over on a call sounding very frustrated. He was on the night shift tonight, and you couldn’t help but feel equally as sorry for him as you were thankful it wasn’t you in his place.

“What’s brought you up here?” You notice his bag on the floor behind him, jacket draped over the top, and you figure it’s a sign he’s about to go home.

“It’s nearly 5. You finish in a few minutes. Figured I’d come and ask if you wanted a lift home.”

He says it nonchalantly, but you can see the slight pink in his cheeks as he averts his gaze. He’s never been one to get flustered or embarrassed when it comes to caring for you or others he loves, but you know his nervousness stems from the fact you’re no longer together, and the idea that you could reject him. But you wouldn’t, even if your heart would let you.

“Yeah, actually. That’d be great–” You’re sitting up in your seat, already keen to leave, when your earpiece rings, and you know Jimin can hear it as he tilts his head to the side slightly and smiles. Apologetic, you smile back before turning to your computer and hide a yawn through a careful exhale, accepting the line and starting your usual speech. “Hello, what is your emergency–”

“Little fucking bitch! Fuck!” Your spine stiffens, a burning breath pulled through your nose and you inhale a gasp, and Jimin is immediately at your side. The landline on your desk quickly transmits your call into the room under his hands, and you can feel everyone’s eyes land on you.

The fear from last time is creeping back into your consciousness, cold and immobilising, but you force yourself to push through, not hesitating as you immediately pull up your programs and let your training guide you.

“Sir, please stay calm.” Your voice sounds strong though you’re anything but, and you will your fingers to move faster as you run the backup data programs, determined to end this torture and finally catch this man. But that doesn’t mean he can’t still effect you.

“Why did you do it! Why did you hurt me!” He’s not crying anymore, anger thick in his voice as the sound of impact crashes in the background, and you release a shuddering breath as you try to block him out. The new system update scans through the city almost twice as fast as it did last time, and you can feel a new lightness in your chest as the numbers rise and rise, scrubbing increasing through the city as it zones in faster than ever before.

Jimin is behind you, a quite muttering, and if you were to pause and look, you would see him on his phone. Expression intense as he barks orders to his team, every modicum of the sweet man you’d been looking at not five minutes ago completely disappeared.

“You told me I could trust you!” For a second your fingers pause in their typing, fright shooting down your spine. Up until now, you’d assumed he’d been speaking to his victims, but suddenly...your own words are coming back to haunt you. “T-told me you wanted to help! But you’re a liar! A liar!”

“S-Sir–”

“Lying little slut!” You flinch, the aggression and hate in his words cutting through you, and you swallow hard around the lump in your throat as you start to type even faster, doing your best to ignore the words he’s begun to spit at you. The landline on speaker is low, but the silence in the office could let you hear a pin drop, and you know they’re all focused on you, the air so thick with discomfort that you can almost smell it.

The system flicks through each zone, over and over, and you lean forward in your chair the closer your view gets to the point of identification. But something twists in your gut, a thick, toxicity that has bile rising in your throat, and you faintly hear Jimin murmur your name in alarm behind you.

“All I wanted was you! Don’t you get that? Just you!” The area on the map gets even closer, and you’re starting to panic, the view becoming all too familiar as it zooms in, and in again. “I’ve kept you safe for so long, I’ve watched you all this time–”

“W-what?” Your words are little more than a whisper, and Jimin says your name again a little louder, voice thick with alarm.

“I know you only needed to walk 142 steps from the station to home, but I made sure I watched!” Your hand covers your mouth for fear you may truly throw up over your desk, and you can no longer focus on your computer system, skin crawling as overwhelmed tears start to leak over your cheeks. “D-Don’t do it again–”

“Do what?!” Your voice is raised high enough in pitch that the strain hurts your throat, and even Jimin jumps a little behind you, hands hovering over your shoulders unsurely as his every instinct screams at him to rip you away from this building and hide you away forever.

“Don’t let the detective drive you home again. He can’t keep you safe like I can.”

And then the signal drops, halting your system, and leaving a complete 2,000 feet radius surrounding your apartment building frozen on your screen.