#sorry gang ive been getting ready for college to start up again

[dobythealpaca]

villain engie ougrhrhegehegegeegeg,,,,,,,

[thora-jane]

Twin-Way Mirror (Pt iv)

Series Summary: You've been friends with the Weasley twins since your first train to Hogwarts, but as the three of you start your 6th year, you start to question if your feelings go beyond friendship.

Summary for Pt 4: You begin to feel something is truly off about the twins as you all start to get ready for the world cup

Warnings: gets the slightest bit spicy, someone briefly isn't wearing a shirt but nothing happens lol

Word count: 2,637

female!reader, 2nd person POV

(a/n): We're back to Twin-Way Mirror BUT! I'm still taking requests! I think it'd be awesome to make some stories any of you want to see! Don't be nervous to reach out and send me an ask! Please!!!! I sit in the college cafeteria every morning for hours needing something to do!!!!! Love you all and hope you have a ~magical~ day <3

***

“(Y/n)! (y/n), get up!” Hermione whispered, shaking your shoulders lightly, “We need to get ready to go, could you wake up the twins? I need to get the other boys.”

You nodded, eyes not fully open as you sat up in bed and stretched. By the time you had rubbed the sleep out of your eyes and looked around, Hermione was already gone. Crawling out of bed, you looked over at the twins. Both of them were still fast asleep, and you tried to recall exactly how heavy of sleepers they were.

“C’mon, fellas, we gotta get moving,” You mumbled, nudging the one nearest to you. When there was no response, you sighed. Sitting down on their bed next to them, you leaned over and tucked his hair behind his ear. Freckles. Taking a deep breath, you placed your lips next to his ear. Without whispering, you woke him up, “Oi, Georgie Porgie. Get up, we need to go soon.”

You felt his leg kick out with a start as he bolted upright, his eyes snapping open and looking around before he saw you. You tried to hold back a smile but failed, and with an exasperated groan he grabbed your shoulders and yanked you over to him. You let out a little yelp as he wrapped his arms around you and yawned.

“How dare you,” he paused, squeezing you as he stretched out his legs, “waking me up in such a violent manner! Do you not care about my beauty sleep? It takes a lot of work to be the better looking one!” this got you to laugh, but not long after that a pillow came flying towards your face. George ducked, turning the two of you to shield you from the impact, “Careful love, I think we’ve awakened the savage beast,” He winked down at you before getting hit with another pillow.

“Savage beast? Speak for yourself Georgie. (y/n), where’s my good morning kiss? I dare say I feel a bit cheated,” Fred pouted. You wriggled out from George’s arms and threw a pillow back at Fred before walking to your trunk and taking out some clothes.

“Bold of you to assume George would even get a ‘good morning kiss.’ And if the two of you don’t get up you’re not going to get a good morning, period. Now c’mon, Hermione said we’d be leaving soon,” You picked up the pillow from your cot and threw it so it hit one of them, then ran out of the room before either had the chance to reciprocate your actions.

You changed as quickly as you could and combed your hair. You knew you didn’t have a whole lot of time to spend in the bathroom with a house full of people, but as you splashed your face and let the cold water drip off your nose, you started mulling over everything that had happened since you got here: Being carried into the house, Fred and George’s jokes about the handsomer twin, the moments where you’d make one of them go quiet, not to mention Fred kissing your forehead last night. It was all rather odd, really. You wondered if Hermione or Angelina would have anything to say about it. After drying off your face and deciding that talking to the girls about it wouldn’t hurt, you left the bathroom and headed back to put your pajamas back in your trunk. Apparently you were too used to having a room to yourself, as you opened the door without knocking.

That was a mistake.

“Bloody hell, (y/n)!” you heard one of them exclaim before you slammed the door and clamped your eyes shut. You weren’t sure which twin was still in their room, but whichever it was, they hadn’t exactly finished changing their shirt. A second later the door swung open again and you did everything in your power to not look up at them again.

“Sorry! I’m so sorry,” You winced, trying to duck below their arm and get through the doorway without touching them. He only laughed, and turned to watch you tip-toe through the bedroom out of embarrassment. Walking back towards the door and staring at your feet (either out of embarrassment or fear that he’d see your face turning as red as his hair) you had nearly made it out before he stuck out his arm to block you.

“I’m so sorry, I really am,” you stammered out again, still trying to avoid his gaze, “I forgot to knock and I thought you two had gone downstairs and-”

He only chuckled to himself, “It’s alright, (y/n), nothing that hasn’t happened before, and certainly not something that won’t ever happen again, right?”

At this you looked up, utterly confused, “I’m sorry, what?” you caught a glimpse of his jumper, green with a large letter ‘G’ knitted into the front.

“Oh, uh…” he paused, scratching the back of his head, “I only mean that...I’ve been walked in on before and...It’s bound to happen again and...well better me putting my shirt on than something else, right?” he offered a laugh, but after hearing his words leave his mouth it came out more like a wince.

After some hesitation you gave a weak smile, then nodded, “Right, yeah,” he coughed, and you looked down at your feet before pointing out to the hallway, “Let’s get going, then.”

***

The seven of you left the burrow just as the sun had started to rise, George and Fred had been walking with the other boys, passionately talking about who would win the quidditch match and debating what bets to place on which team. Meanwhile, you lagged behind with Hermione and Ginny. When you were sure the twins couldn’t hear you, you leaned over to Hermione and whispered.

“Have you noticed anything different about them lately?” you nodded to the gang of boys ahead of you.

“Well...Harry did mention having a bad dream last night. And he woke up with his scar hurting. We’re not sure what it is but-”

“No I uh...I meant the twins,” You interrupted, shoving your hands in your pockets as you watched them walking ahead of you. Merlin, they had gotten taller, they were practically twice as tall as Ginny and had to walk with their heads ducked so they wouldn’t be hit by any passing branches. One of them (George, you could see the top of the ‘G’ on his jumper from underneath his jacket) was walking backwards. He caught on that you were watching him, and his face lit up before he stuck out his tongue. You waved back, but quickly turned back to Hermione, “Something just seems a little different.”

“Well they’re much taller than the end of last term, and I suppose their hair has gotten a bit longer since the last time you three would have seen each other,” she thought aloud.

“I’m well aware of that,” you said, tucking your hair behind your ear in hopes that your hand shielded any blush on your face.

“And they are quite excited about the match today, if that means anything,” she added, tilting her head, “But other than that I haven’t really been paying much attention. Why do you ask?” she turned to you, curiosity in her voice.

“They talked about you practically all summer,” Ginny butted in, “Every other thing they said was (y/n) this and (y/n) that,” She stood up as tall as she could and tried to copy their voice to the best of her ability, “Blimey, Freddie, I sure wish (y/n) was here. You know she would appreciate our refined taste. Oi Ron, (y/n) wrote to you, the least you could do is say hi back to her! Look everyone, (y/n) sent me a letter! (Y/n) sent me a letter! Did Eros stop by, mum?” she sighed, shaking her head, “You’d think you were the only person in the world! No offense, of course. They spoke about you like you were some great celebrity.”

“Did they really?” You asked, rather puzzled as you looked back up towards the twins. George turned around again and gave you an exaggerated wave, with Fred following suit.

Ginny picked up her pace to catch up with the others, but before Hermione could do the same, you grabbed her hand, “I walked in on George this morning.” You almost blurted out.

“What?” she asked, rather shocked. You shushed her before she had the chance to say anything louder and draw attention.

“It’s not like I did it on purpose” you said in your defense, “I just opened the door and he wasn’t wearing-”

“I don’t want to know!” she interrupted in a harsh whisper, but after a moment she asked quickly, “What happened after that?”

“I slammed the door shut and probably turned as red as a tomato. Then when I went back in he sort of awkwardly made a joke about it, but he didn’t seem too bothered? He just wasn’t wearing a shirt, so it could have been way more...you know…awkward.”

Hermione rolled her eyes, “Well that’s for sure. (y/n), I haven’t the slightest idea what to tell you. You know George better than I do and by the looks of it, he doesn’t seem to be the least bit bothered,” She started to pick up the pace of her walk to catch up with the rest of the group, and you did the same.

“Hurry up kids, we’re nearly there!” Mr. Weasely called out over his shoulder as he ducked under another branch, “Ah, Amos!”

A man who you assumed was Amos Diggory smiled and loudly greeted Mr. Weasley, the two of them talked and exchanged a brief conversation about the weather before you heard Mr. Weasley ask, “Where is your son? Cedric, right?”

Cedric. That’s where you had heard the name Diggory before. Griffyndors and Hufflepuffs shared a potions class last year, and the two of you had been assigned as partners. He was a rather nice boy, and although the two of you didn’t exactly become best friends, you always waved to each other when he passed you in the hallways.

After making his grand entrance of jumping down from a tree, he greeted everyone with a simple nod. It was then that you caught his eye and he jogged over to walk beside you.

“(y/n), I didn’t expect to see you here. What a pleasant surprise if you don’t mind my saying so,” he smiled, and you could have sworn you saw Hermione and Ginny give each other a look out of the corner of your eye.

You nodded, “Yeah, the Weasleys were nice enough to invite Harry and I. How has your summer been, Cedric?” You looked over at him, trying to ignore the twins entering a small shoving match a few feet away.

“Oh it was quite nice, and you?” Cedric was always so polite, and that had proved helpful in potions with Professor Snape. The class was by default unbearable; the cold and dark and dank dungeon, Professor Snape’s face always glaring down at you over your shoulder, his comments on your insufferable eagerness to learn magic, on most days having Cedric as your partner was what made the actual class time worthwhile.

“Ah yes, the dynamic potions-brewing duo reunited once again.” Fred interrupted, slinging his arms over you and Cedric’s shoulders, startling both of you.

“It’s nice to see you too, George,” Cedric smiled, looking rather ruffled by the surprise.

“That’s not George,” you corrected, swinging one arm over Fred’s shoulder and the other over George beside you, nodding your head in his direction, “this one’s George.”

Cedric looked over at you in casual awe, “how do you do it, (y/n)? How do you tell them apart?”

You pulled the three boys closer, throwing your head back with a laugh, “Well it takes some practice. But it’s actually quite simple, you see-”

“Hurry up now! All of you! Gather round, it’s almost time!” Mr. Weasley called out, getting the four of you to jog up to join the group gathered around an old boot. George turned his head to Cedric, but didn’t take his eyes off you, “Come now, Ced, a magician never reveals his tricks.”

You looked back at him, pressing your back to his chest to reach out and place your fingertips on the boot, “Georgie, we’re all magic.”

Before he could respond, you felt your whole body’s weight lurch forward and your feet leave the ground, gravity hooking around your abdomen as the group of you took off spinning. At one point, you felt you were going to go flying off away from everyone. George must have felt this two, and you felt his arm wrap around your waist and pull you closer. You thought you heard Mr Weasley shout for all of you to let go, and before you could process what it was he was saying, George let go of the boot. You felt him fly away and, with his arm still around you, you were yanked off with him.

The two of you landed with an oof, your back still pressed against George’s back. You could hear him groan from beneath you as you rolled off him and scrambled to your feet, turning back around and offering out a hand to help him up. He smiled weakly, squinting up in the bright light as he reached out and grabbed your hand.

You weren’t sure what to blame, his arms strong from playing beater for Quidditch the past four years, or how you were still dizzy from your ride through the portkey. But what you did know was one moment you were standing, offering to help him up, and the next he had pulled you back on top of him.

The two of you froze, not breaking eye contact. You could see the horror grow on his face and blush creeping up on his ears. And, by the feel of it, your face was about the same. Neither of you moved or said a word until you thought you overheard Fred groan and Cedric laugh from over to the side.

“Sorry!” He cried out, a bit embarrassed as he shoved you off him and got up to his feet, now offering his hand to pull you up, “Let’s try this again, shall we?”

You reached up, clearing your throat as you tried to not look flustered. You weren't quite prepared for how quickly he tugged your arm though. Once again the two of you found yourselves rather close, your chests pressed together from how quickly he pulled you up.

“Oi, you two!” Fred called from behind you, grabbing your hand and pulling you along with him, “We’re gonna lose the others if you two don’t stop rolling around in the grass.”

You slung your bag over your shoulder and jogged to keep up with Fred’s big steps. You could see the big goofy grin on his face and couldn’t help but laugh. You’d seen the twins excited over pranks, but this was a different kind of excited; innocent, wide-eyed, wholesome (or as wholesome as the twins could get). Watching his face strain from all his smiling, you couldn’t help but laugh. He looked down at you with a sort of glint in his eye you couldn’t remember seeing before and he let out a chuckle as he loosened his grip ongeo your hand and spun you around.

“I don’t suppose you’ve been to a quidditch match outside of school. Have you, (y/n)?” He asked, keeping his hand in yours and swinging your arms back and forth.

“No, I don’t suppose I have,” you answered, “but I can’t wait.”

[omgjasminesimone]

Tequila Sunrise Part III

Previous Part: Part II

Next Part: Part IV

Logan x MC

Author’s Note: Part III, one more part after this. I’m going to try to get the last part up by Friday.

Summary: 10 years have passed since Logan and Ellie last saw each other. Emotions run high when they spend the night together in a small hut in Puerta Vallarta, Mexico.  

Rating: NSFW (which I’ve never done before, so if it’s terrible be gentle)

Word Count: 3397

Ellie tugs Logan over to the bed, releasing their intertwined fingers and pushing him so he sits on the edge. He reaches for her, and she straddles his lap. He kisses down her neck, over her collar bone, starts tugging at her borrowed shirt.

She pulls away, standing out of his reach now. “I want to be in charge tonight.” She informs him.

“That works for me.” He leans back on his hands, watching her with lust as she slowly peels off the white shirt, tossing it at him playfully. He catches it, tosses it to the side as his eyes roam over her full breasts spilling out of her lacy black bra, down to her toned stomach, stopping his perusal at her matching black thong. He reaches for her again, but she sidesteps.

“I told you to be good.” Ellie chastises.  

“You know I can’t.” Logan replies. “Your breasts, they’re bigger.” He comments.

“I started taking birth control in college and they grew.” She unhooks her bra, allowing it to fall to the floor. She crouches between his legs, tugging his pajama pants and boxers down in one motion. “Do you like them?” She asks, taking his quickly stiffening penis in her hand and allowing the head to trail down the valley between her breasts.

“Yes.” He chokes out before she gets on her knees and takes him into her mouth. His hands clench in his sheets. “Fuck Ellie.”

She’s never given him head before. He’s surprised how good she is at it. He gathers her hair into a ponytail, guiding her movements as she sucks and licks at him. He throws his head back, closing his eyes in ecstasy. “Ellie, stop…I’m going to…” He tries to warn her. She doesn’t move, gripping his thighs and swirling her tongue around him.

He comes in her mouth with a groan, releasing her hair. She swallows, wiping her mouth on her arm. He flops down onto the bed, feeling drained but extremely satisfied. “Lose the shirt.” She orders. He quickly obliges, tossing his shirt to the floor. He removes his boxers and pajama pants from around his ankles, leaving him bare.  

 She climbs on top of him, straddling his stomach. He can feel how wet she is through her soaked panties.

He reaches to his nightstand for a condom, but she grips his wrist to stop him. “I want to do stuff we’ve never done before tonight. Including having sex without a condom.” She kisses his abs, his chest, his neck. “I want to feel all of you. Don’t worry I’m on birth control.” She’s about to kiss him on the lips but stops. “Are you opposed to kissing after head?” She asks.

He captures her lips, slipping his tongue into her mouth. “I’m never opposed to a kiss from you.” He replies when he pulls away several moments later.

She smiles, kissing him again. He reaches for her panties, trying to tug them down, but she smacks his hand away. “What part of I’m in charge do you not understand?”

“Sorry.” He apologizes, laying back and letting her take control. “So, when you say things we haven’t done, is everything on the table?” He asks.

She guides his fingers between her legs. He pushes her underwear to the side and sticks two fingers inside of her. He groans when he feels how wet and ready for him she is, pumping his fingers faster as she begins to writhe over him.

“What are you...ooohh…asking for?” She questions, biting down on her lip when he finds that spot she likes, moaning loudly.

“Anal.” He responds, removing his fingers before she can come. Before she can complain, he sits up, kissing her shoulder blade. His kisses trail lower, over her breasts. He takes her right nipple into his mouth, biting lightly. He teases her other nipple with his thumb, not stopping until they are both rock hard.

“Can I take these off yet?” He tugs at the waistband of her panties. She nods, and he quickly pulls that last barrier off her, leaving her in all her naked glory before him.

“You’re incredible Ellie.”

“You should get some new lines.” She teases.

He smirks, “But that one always works. And you didn’t answer my question.”

She wraps her arms around his shoulders. “Usually, I don’t like anal. But maybe it will be better with you. So sure, it’s on the table.” She maneuvers her knees over his shoulders, reaching between his legs to guide him into her.

This is so different from their previous times together. She’s so confident now, and it’s such a turn on.  

“Fuck, you feel incredible.” He stammers out, slowly thrusting inside of her, his pace quickening as he’s encouraged by her breathy moans.

“I’m going to buy you a thesaurus.” She promises, rolling her hips in time with his thrusts.

Logan laughs, gripping the back of her neck and pulling her into a sloppy kiss.

“Faster, Logan.” Ellie demands, looping her ankles together on his back to stay in place as he quickens the pace.

He grips her hips, angling her so he can push in deeper. He pulls almost all the way out before slamming back into her roughly. She grips his biceps tightly, probably leaving bruises, but he doesn’t care. He’s so close, the sensations overwhelming, but he wants her to come first. “I love you Ellie, so much.” He confesses.

“I love you too Logan. I still love you.” They kiss frantically, almost desperately, trying to convey to the other emotions that have built up over the last ten years of missing one another.  

He lets his right hand drop from her hip, reaching between them and circling his thumb around her clit. “Oh Logan, yes.” She whispers. He feels her walls tightening around him as she comes undone, shuddering almost violently at the strength of her orgasm. He pumps into her a few more times before he stops suddenly, emptying inside of her.

Her legs fall from his shoulders, and they both flop down onto the bed. They both rest for a few moments, exchanging no words but some soft touches and kisses.

He kisses her forehead. “Are you tired?” He asks.

She climbs back on top of him. “No, we’re just getting started.”

…

..

.

Ellie relaxes, her head on his chest as she listens to his strong and steady heartbeat, slowing down to its normal pace now after their strenuous activities. Logan has lost track of how many times they’ve had sex tonight. He just knows he’s extremely satisfied, and so in love with her. He winces when he sees that there some’s light streaming through his window, the morning coming and the inevitable end to this reunion along with it.

She traces some of the familiar scars on his side. Most from the car accident that should have killed him, but others from street fights, jumping spiked fences, and other illegal activity. She traces a fully healed bullet wound over his right hip.

“You didn’t have this last time I saw you.”

“I robbed a bank in Panama.” He thinks back to when this happened. “Three years ago, I think? Maybe four? The cops shot me as I ran to the car.”

“Is the bullet still in there?” She asks.

“No, there’s an exit wound in my back. Went straight through. Hurt like a bitch. And I couldn’t go to the hospital without getting arrested, so a friend had to take care of it for me.”

“Are you still robbing banks Logan?” Ellie asks, trying to sound nonconfrontational. She hopes he’s not. She worries about him.

“No, I’m not doing anything illegal anymore Ellie. Besides racing. I’m still doing that. But almost bleeding out on my friend’s kitchen floor was a wake-up call. I’m doing construction now mostly. Some auto repairs on the side.”

She kisses the wound tenderly. “I’m glad to hear that. So, Florida, Ohio, Arizona, Texas, Australia, Panama…” She lists. “Where else have you been since Los Angeles?” She asks, turning her gaze up to his blue eyes.

“I came to Mexico after Panama. First Tijuana, but that was a little too close to the border which made me nervous. So, I didn’t stay there long. I lived in Mexico City for almost a year. Then Cancun. And I’ve been here in Puerta Vallarta for almost a year now. I’ll probably move on soon.”

“That’s a lot of moving around.” Ellie comments.

“That’s what happens when you’re on the run. Where are you now? Did you stay on the East Coast after college?” Logan asks.

“I went back to Los Angeles for two years. But then my job transferred me to San Francisco so that’s where I’ve been for the last four years. Pretty boring compared to your adventures.”

“If you want to call them that.” Logan mutters, before changing the subject. “I remember this one” He gently traces the small quill and ink tattoo on her shoulder, “but this is new.” His hand moves to just above her rib cage on her right side, where she has a small palm tree tattoo. She glances down at the brown and green tattoo.

“I got that the summer after my freshman year before heading back to Langston. I wanted to remember where home is.” She pauses, looking like she’s debating telling him something.

“What?” He prompts.

“Colt actually has a matching one. We got them together. We dated that summer.”

He had been tracing the tattoo absentmindedly, but that information immediately makes him stop. He feels himself getting angry, thinking about Colt being with his girl. And putting her in danger by associating with her in the first place. And all this while he was stuck in Ohio trying to make sure the FBI believed she had just been an informant with no lingering connection to the gang life.

The only thing keeping him somewhat calm is the knowledge that she’s here lying naked in his arms right now, so whatever was going on with Colt is obviously over.

“Sorry the relationship didn’t work out for you guys.” He responds, trying to sound indifferent.

Ellie laughs, slowly walking her fingers up his chest. “No, you’re not.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m not. So, what broke you up?” He must be some kind of masochist. He really doesn’t need to know any of the details. Unless she’s going to say Colt is bad in bed, like Trent. That he would like to know.

“I think ultimately I changed, but he didn’t.” Ellie responds after thinking about it for a moment. She glances up into his eyes again, sees the anger he’s trying not to express. “Don’t be mad. He was the only one I could really talk to. The only one who understood.” She explains.

“I’m not mad.” He insists, but his denial must be unconvincing because she rolls her eyes.

“I got a tattoo for you too.” She confesses. She puts her left hand in front of his face. There, on the inside of her ring finger, is a small black spark plug. “The day after you left, I went out to the tattoo parlor and got this.” His gaze meets her’s, smiling softly. His heart feels like it might burst with the knowledge that she tattooed something that reminded her of him on her ring finger. Obviously, he wasn’t the only one back then with daydreams of marriage and honeymoons and babies.

Logan grips her wrist, turning her hand so he can inspect the tattoo. “Your fiancé must have hated that.”

Ellie laughs, pulling her hand back. “You have no idea. He also hated that I keep your necklace on my rear-view mirror.”

“You still have it?”

She looks offended that he would even ask. “Of course I still have it. That was important to you. It meant a lot, you giving it to me.” She stretches, sitting up. “I’m sticky. I’m going to take a shower.”

Logan sits up too. “I’ll join you. The hot water is kind of tricky, so I’ll show you.”

Ellie stands, gripping his hand as he gets out of the bed as well. “You know, we’ve never had shower sex before.”

Logan pushes some of her hair out of her face, where it’s sticking to a light sheen of sweat. “You’re insatiable.” He teases.

She grins, tugging him into the bathroom.

…

..

.

Logan is still sleepy when the sun coming through his curtains wakes him. He glances at his clock to discover it’s 9:00 AM, meaning he only got about 3 hours of sleep. But he didn’t mean to fall asleep at all, he wants to cherish every second he has with Ellie. He glances down at the woman sleeping soundly in his arms, kissing her forehead softly. He wants to stay in bed with her forever. He wishes he could freeze this moment, keep her forever in a world where it doesn’t matter that he’s wanted by the FBI and she has a job and a life to get back to in San Francisco.  

He knows he has to let her go, again, and that it’s going to be just as hard to do as it was the first time. He should start by physically removing his arms from around her now. He allows himself 5 more minutes to hold her in his arms before he carefully replaces his chest with the pillow, scooting out carefully so as not to wake her. He throws on a pair of denim jeans before closing the bedroom door softly behind him.

He heads to the kitchen and looks through his fridge. Usually, it’s pretty barren but luckily for him he took his elderly neighbor Sra. Sanchez grocery shopping last week and she insisted in paying him back for his kindness with groceries.

He gets to work on bacon, eggs, and toast.

As he’s frying the eggs, a pair of arms wrap around him from behind. He smiles, twisting slightly to drop a kiss to the top of her head. “Good morning beautiful.”

She’s thrown his white t shirt back on, and nothing else. He tries not to fantasize about seeing her like this every morning, knowing that he won’t. That he can’t. He turns back to the food, and she gently traces the bullet exit wound on his lower back. She’s so gentle, that he feels tears welling up in his eyes.

Eventually she steps away. “That smells amazing.”

“You hungry?” He asks, flipping the eggs and then turning off the coffee maker which has long since stopped bubbling.

“I am, but I’m supposed to meet my friends for brunch.”

He’s surprised by how disappointed he is that they won’t be sitting around his small table, having breakfast like a normal non-star-crossed couple. He shakes his head, telling himself to get a grip. He really shouldn’t be playing house with her anyway. It’s just going to hurt worse, when she’s gone.

“How about some coffee then? We didn’t get much sleep last night.”

Ellie smiles. “Coffee sounds great.”

They settle on his couch with their coffee, his food on the small coffee table in front of them. She can’t help but take a few bites of his food, but when he offers her her own plate she refuses. “I’ve been told the brunch place we’re going to makes the best sweet bread in Mexico, so I have to save room.”

“Are you saving room for mimosas too? Or were all those tequila sunrises sufficient?” He teases.

“I’ll definitely be having mimosas. And tequila sunrises too if they have them. I love those things. Hey, do you want to join us for brunch? Riya would love to see you again. And you can meet my other friends too.”

“How would you explain who I am?” He questions.

“They all know who you are. I talk about you all the time.” Ellie responds.

“Then they know I’m running from the FBI.” Logan replies.

“Oh, yeah, there’s that.” Ellie says, dejected.

He takes her hand in his, gently tracing the sparkplug on her ring finger. “After such a great night, it’s easy to forget the reality of our situation. That I’m on the run. That you could never introduce me to your friends. That your Dad would probably try to shoot me if I ever saw him again. That you could go to jail just for associating with me.” He pauses, meeting her watery gaze. “That we’ll probably never see each other again after I drop you off at the restaurant where you’re having brunch.” He concludes.  

She cups his cheeks, forcing him to look into her eyes. “That’s not what I want Logan. I want you. I don’t care if we have to move every year. I don’t care if I can’t go back to the States. You’re enough.”

He gently removes her hands, shaking his head. “Ellie, you don’t mean that. You have a life in San Francisco.”

“No, I have a job in San Francisco. Where I work in a cubicle between my ex-fiancé and his mistress. I don’t even like my job Logan.”

“But you like your friends. And being in the same State as your Dad. And your freedom. You’d be harboring a criminal Ellie. I can’t do that to you. I have to stay away from you.”

Ellie swallows as she accepts that hard truth. Nothing has changed from ten years ago. They still love each other, but as proof that he loves her he has to never see her again. Tears silently fall down her cheeks and he gathers her into his arms, fighting back his own tears. They stay that way for quite a while, neither of them saying anything.

The tranquility is interrupted by her ringing phone. She reluctantly pulls away from him, heading to the bedroom to answer it.

Once she’s gone, he wipes at his eyes furiously. Angry at himself for hoping, for wanting, for not being strong enough to stop anything from happening between them last night. She’s under his skin now, and it will probably be another ten years before he’s even close to being ok with losing her. Again.

She comes back into the room, her gold dress neatly folded under her arm. “Do you have anything I could wear? This dress isn’t really brunch appropriate.”

He nods, walking past her into his bedroom. He grabs a Panama Canal tourist t-shirt he bought when he visited and black basketball shorts with a drawstring she can tighten. He hands her the clothes wordlessly, and she changes into them in front of him. He tries to memorize everything about her body, about her in general. She hands him back his white t shirt. He throws it onto his bed instead of in the dirty clothes hamper. He won’t wash it until it doesn’t smell like her anymore. He throws on a white t-shirt.

He intertwines their fingers as he leads her outside to his Ford F-150 truck.

“Where’s your Devore GT?” Ellie questions.

“Stashed it in Detroit.” Logan answers.

They ride to the restaurant in silence, both lost in their own thoughts.

They arrive before either of them are ready. He parks the car, and immediately pulls her into his lap, kissing her forcefully. He leaves her lips and kisses the tears sliding down her cheeks. His own eyes are watering, but he fights to not let the tears fall. “Forget me this time, Troublemaker.”

“I can’t. I won’t.” She promises, gripping his neck and pulling his lips back to her’s. Their lips are slightly swollen when they finally pull away from each other.

Ellie climbs back into her own seat, rubbing at her eyes to try to make herself look more presentable before meeting with her friends. She takes a deep breath to compose herself, looks at Logan one last time, and steps out of the truck.

…

..

.

 taglist:  @choicesarehard @ifyouseekheart @brightpinkpeppercorn @powdesiree0816 @regina-and-happiness @choicelogansbitch @flyawayboo @fairydustandsarcasm @alesana45 @umiumichan @maxwellsquidsuit @professorortegasstudent @god-save-the-keen @mrsmckenziesworld @paisleylovergirl

[jawllines]

Gang Harry blurb???

oKAY IM SORRY I FELL ASLEEP LAST NIGHT BUT YETH HERE SHE IS, THIS IS WHAT WAS GOING ON IN THE TIME BETWEEN Y/N PASSING OUT IN THE CLUB AND WAKING UP IN THE HOSPITAL IN GANG HARRY! 

Harry has never felt such an immense, looming feeling of regret in his life. Like a two ton elephant sat on his chest, suffocating him, keeping him from relaxing at all. Though, even if it hadn’t been his fault, he doesn’t think he’d ever relax. Who could be when they’re rushing their person to the hospital, with a car full of her confused friends wondering what happened as Harry sits in the backseat, gnawing harshly at his lip. He answers none of their questions though, and he won’t for the time being, until he can conjure up a proper story that’s not, “I’m the leader of a gang, and your friend here accidentally got caught up in a ton of shit so now I’m keeping her at my safe house, and she pleaded with me to come out with you guys -- which I was reluctant to let happen in the first place -- but I caved, and we came out, and the man who has a bone to pick with me and subsequently her found her, grabbed hold of her, I saw and beat the shit out of the fucker, but when I turned around she was on the ground.”

That’d surely go over well, wouldn’t it?

So he just kept his mouth shut, letting them theorize as his heart was racing and his chest is twisting with a guilt he’s unable to describe. How could he let this happen? He should have gone with her, walked her to the bathroom despite what it might have looked like. Or better yet, he should have nixed the god damn idea of going out in the first place! But could he really have? That would be fucked -- he couldn’t keep her captive in that way. Couldn’t do that to her, not when she asked so nicely and seemed so excited when he had agreed. But he should have been more careful! God, should have had Grant and Dave scope out the place while Mark kept an eye on Y/N, or just planned it in a way much better than he had.

His thought loop stalls for a moment when they stop outside of bright red EMERGENCY room, and Harry wastes no time in running in. Stops at the front desk, rattles off who he’s here for, and nearly throws a proper fit when they tell him she’s not allowed visitors yet. “What the fuck do you mean she’s not allowed --”

But his phone rings before he can continue, brows furrowed as he stuffs his hand into his pocket to retrieve it, all but smashing it to his ear, “Listen, I don’t have any fucking time for --”

“Harry?” Nick’s voice rings out, “Harry is she okay? Grant called and told me what happened.”

Harry tries desperately to keep his cool, feels the threat of tears prickle at his eyes because despite being his boss, Nick is a few years older and a comforting figure that he can look to often, when things become too much. And right now they're too much -- way too much.

“Fuck, I don’t know Nick,” he walks from the desk, dragging himself to the nook with the vending machines, “I don’t know, she’s -- it’s my fault, innit? She’s never gonna want to see me again.” His voice feels close to wobbling, breathing out a heavy sigh and sucking his bottom lip into his mouth, biting down on it ferociously. Lets his forehead knock against the wall, letting a self-deprecating laugh huff from his chest, “How selfish of me, right? She’s in there unconscious and I’m concerned if she’s ever going to want to see me?” His brows dip in frustration, bumping his head against the wall again, “This is fucked, yeah?”

“Very fucked, Lovie, but listen to me,” he begins, “She’s going to be okay, yeah? Y/N’s a tough girl and a little bonk to the head won’t have her down for the count. And you know she won’t blame you, don’t you? She’ll hear you out.” Harry opens his mouth to tell him that there’s no bleeding way she’s going to even want to hear him speak probably because for all he knows these feelings are completely one-sided. . .Harry has no direct ties to her other than this, there’s no reason for her to want to stay -- but Nick keeps going, “I know you and I know you’re feeling guilt-stricken and think there’s no way she’ll want to speak with you, but if she’s been so understanding up to this point what makes you think she’s going to change tunes when she wakes up?”

Harry twists around, looking along the waiting room and seeing Y/N’s friends all sat in the chairs, looking to him like they’re expecting answers from him and for the first time in a long time Harry has an overwhelming urge to crawl beneath a damn rock. He’s face to face with the roughest, toughest, grizzliest people on a daily but the innocent confusion of his crush’s friend’s faces is enough to have him a damn nervous wreck. “Look, I have to go Nick,” he murmurs, “I’ll message you when I figure out what’s happening.”

He takes one more deep breath, pocketing his phone, straightening out his back and swallowing thickly as he makes his way towards them. They’re just college students. . .stupid college students, who would probably believe whatever bogus story that he fed them and he could only hope they don’t ask too many questions. He’s lied to people before -- has lied to police, to government officials, to opposing gangs and the likes of it. Had he been able to lie to Y/N? No, he hadn’t -- he’d cracked and told her everything at the first word of a question even though she was willing to drop it. So would it be the same with her friends? Did they all carry the same radiating charm that she did? Would he spill an entire load of his story, starting from why him and Y/N were spending so much time together and ending with why his father had pushed this job into his hands in the first place? Would they forbid her from seeing him ever again? Did her friends’ say have enough impact to actually sway her from seeing him?

“Harry,” Greta begins, and he braces himself, “Can I just say, you’re fucking amazing?”

Oh.

Oh?

“Wait, what?” Harry begins, brows dipping in confusion and Greta’s face lights up.

“You fucking rocked him! Right in the face, never seen a guy like that go down with two punches before,” she seems bewildered, giving these eyes that are so similar to Y/N’s -- those wide shocked ones that she gets when something excites her -- and his makes his heart hurt, twisting painfully, “You saved her I bet. She’s always picking fights with people twice her size. Should see her at a frat party when someone gets too handsy; a right devil when she needs to be.”

Adam doesn’t seem as starstruck by what had gone down, looking distraught with glossy eyes swimming with alcohol, popping his bitten nails from his mouth, “Can’t believe someone would just grab her like that. So scary -- m’never taking you lot out to a club again, they’re gross and sticky and have nothing but filth running amuck in there. If you hadn’t been there, I don’t even want to think about what could have happened.”

“Thank you, Harry,” Liam jumps in, “Is what I think they’re trying to say. Thank you for taking care of her.”

This doesn’t make him feel any better. Of course he’s glad that they aren’t trying to dig deeper in what had happened and had settled for Y/N just being a spitfire kind of girl, ready to pick a fight at a moments notice. However, they were thanking him when there was no reason to thank him. He was the one who’d gotten her into the mess, he deserved no thank yous at all.

“I can see why she’s always swooning over you.” Liam then notes and Adam swats him hard in the bicep.

“Shut up! Can’t go around telling her business --”

“But he’s not lying.” Greta notes, and Harry takes the seat from across them, sinking into the uncomfortable fabric chairs.

“Define swooning.” Harry encourages them to continue, his heart sparking, beginning to race.

Liam scoots forward, leaning in, “She’s absolutely head over heels for you,” he tells him, while Greta nods her head in agreement, “Gushes about you whenever she can; goes all starry-eyed when you’re mentioned and tonight -- tonight after seeing you guys together, it just confirmed that she’s gotten struck by cupid’s bow.”

“You feel the same don’t you?” Greta adds, wiggling closer, “You two are so cute together.”

Harry opens his mouth, but he doesn’t have anything to say. Thinks the smile that begins to worm onto his lips might be enough, with a small nod as he agrees. She likes him? Does she? Or are her friends just trying to pawn her off because they thought that she might like him?

He’s not sure of the specifics so he ignores them and decides that this feels too good to question right now.

It looks like there might be more they want to say but a woman walks up with a clipboard, standing before them, says that she’s looking for the group who are here for Y/N and when they all look up she continues, “She’s stable -- there’s no significant damage as of now yet besides a sprained ankle but everything else is fine as of right now.”

“Can we see her?” Harry asks, and the woman looks to him, shaking her head apologetically.

“She’s not awake yet, but visiting hours are over. You’re welcome to wait here but --”

“I’m her husband,” Harry says immediately, standing up, “And I’d like to stay in the room with her until she wakes, if that’s okay.”

She looks at him, brows furrowed, “Sir, I’ll need to see some identification --”

“He is!” Greta nearly shouts, “But Y/N’s new license hasn’t come in yet. All of us went to the wedding. A lovely ceremony, and amazing reception, we all got shit faced and I ended up grinding on his Aunt for the entirety of the Cha Cha slide, sadly -- we have all the pictures of it if you’re interested.”

The nurse still looks skeptical, but she doesn’t care enough to continue any further. “Okay,” she answers, “Follow me.”

And he does -- follows her to Y/N, who is hooked up to an IV with her leg propped up on a few pillows wrapped up in bandages. She looks too small in such a big hospital bed, and his heart wrenches in his chest. Tears beading up in his eyes all over again, as he thanks the nurse and takes his spot besides her. Sits there, wrapped up in all of his guilt, feeling like he’s drowning in it almost, the monitor beeping steadily, in great contrast with the speeding of his heart.

He’s there for a few hours before she begins stirring, a whimper drudging from her chest and he watches as her eyes blink open, looking around her, trying to figure out where she was, “Y/N?” her gaze falls to him, trickling from his face, down to his knuckles, and then a small frown pulls at her mouth, “What’s wrong Baby?”

“Your knuckles,” she answered, her voice all scratchy and deep, reaching for his hand and grazing her thumb over his knuckles that were bruised and bloodied, “You messed ‘em up again. Are you okay?”

Harry’s heart just about bursts.

[skizmin]

minghao!soulmate au

prompt: if someone touches you, your soulmate feels warm where you’ve been touched and can sense how you feel about the contact (uncomfortable, calm etc;)

genre: fluff soooo much fluff, soulmates!au, very very brief and vague ment of sexual harassment its tiny pls dont be put off, college!au

a/n: hey minghao, i miss you, please rest lots and become healthy for seventeens next comeback!!

okay so

throughout your younger years youve never really paid much attention to your soulmate, ofc your parents told you when you were about four that the weird warm things you were feeling was your “one true love that you’ll meet later” and whatnot

i mean of course youd chuckle sometimes when your cheeks got all warm and an annoyed feeling fleetingly passed through you knowing your soulmate must be being coddled by one of his aunts or smth 

but other than that

you just went on with your life

it wasnt until you were sixteen did you start paying more attention to it

sometimes youd get a bit worried when youd feel a warm spot on your arm and a surge of slight anger in your heart but it was always quickly replaced by happiness

you knew it was his friends hitting him by then so you just chilled tf

even when you felt your ass became VERY warm, you felt the same anger/happiness flow through your body so you just shook the fact that your soulmates ass just got BEAt off and continued what you were doing. 

youll have junhui to thank for that later

so by the time you were going into university you had become very aware of the fact that your soulmate was barely ever getting hugs anymore

and you just :^((( poor bby

and an idea popped into your head like !!!

my soulmate feels warm when i get hugged akdfksjla

instantly you were like IM GONNA HUG EVERYONE!!!!! EVEN IF ITS AWKWARD

so like, first day on campus housing grounds you found your dorm house and with that your RA housemate

she was cool and you where like hhhhhhh

i barely know you but

i have this duty of care for my soulmate so im just gonna

and you hugged her rly big and you felt uncomfortable at first but also so proud of yourself like wow

get you a girl like me ;^))

anyway your housemate is like “oooooookay, this is your room here and its just us and three others who’re already here”

youre awkwardly like cool okay see u later

amd ur blushing rly hard but hey at least you did it

anyway fast forward a couple weeks and youre like hugging all your new friends everytime you see them and theyre like wow shes clingy but they still luv you

and youre!!

so!!

comfortable!!

abt doing it now like “hey hugs????? hugs are my shit.” ya feel?

cut over to minghao whos going to the same university as you with junhui

they both moved from china and minghao misses his fam so much :^(((

particuarly his mums hugs which he got all the time and sometimes he thought it was annoying but now hes like hhhh

MUM BRING ME BACK

minghaos mum was also rly open about haos soulmate and loved hearing about her

like one day hao came home (age 18???) fuming bc he felt his chest get warm in class and then his butt and a really strong feeling of fear and uncomfort and disgust filled him and he immediately knew what happened but he didnt feel anything else after that and he was so glad but still and his mum was like hao that happens to girls :^((( im sorry your soulmate must feel awful rn 

and hao felt sick in his stomach and he was like “im gonna kill anyone that does that to my soulmate again mum !!!!!!!!

and his mum was so proud

anyway hes almost fluent in korean by now and luckily junhui is good at making friends and found some that speak madarin and korean too so!!

their new friend jackson and some others are constantly with hao and hui being like “no that means square, this is how you say suspense” n shit

and hao learnt rly easily!! so did hui!! anyway

lately hao has been feeling his soulmate hug a lot of people lately and hed be rly happy except hes sorta 

“is my soulmate dating someone rn?? :^((” 

and hed remind himself you can date whoever you want before you meet him 

but hed still be all emo bc he wants love too and he misses his family and hes in a foreign country and hes failing one of his subjects bc how is he supposed to know all the non latin korean terms for all the flowers and plants they get pop quizzes on

and he just wants to hurry up and meet you bc hes all 

“everythings gonna be fine when i meet my soulmate!!!!!! theyre gonna make everything perfect for me!!!!!”

like, hao sweetie

calm down

but he’d be so determined like legit whenever junhui was with him and they were around people he’d be like JUNHUI TOUCH MY ARM

and he’d look around frantically for someone being like “tf my arm is warm gosh dang wonder what my soulmates up to lol” but he’d be a bit disappointed every time.

anyway tho so jackson invites him and junhui to his friend jaes party after teaching them all the korean slang shit

legit hes like

“guys. i think youre ready for your first party”

junhui nearly cries

little does he know youre??? invited to the same one by your housemate jimin (jyp gang here we go)

anyway you go to the party and are determined like legit hugging everyone you meet and jimins next to you like

im rly sorry about her dont ask

and minghaos in the kitchen like!!!! wth my soulmate keeps hugging people junhui smh smh 

he’s slightly buzzed and hella jealous

anyway he goes to the loungeroom for a sec to find his friend sicheng who just messaged that he was here 

and wow best luck ever you walk up to junhui and jae and meet them both!! youre all 

JAEE THANKS FOR HAVING THIS PARTY IM Y/N and you give him the biggest hug and then you turn to junhui whos all

hi im junhui

and smiling awkwardly and youre like

NICE TO MEET YOU!!!!!

and give him an even bigger hug than you gave jae and jae and jimin are watching you like wtf and junhuis like awkwardly patting your back and IN COMES MINGHAO WHOS GETTING SICHENG A DRINK

hes like jeSuS chRiSt how many time does she have to hug her s/o in the span of an hour!!!!!!!!

and he feels random extra warmth spurt on his back and hes like what sort bf/gf pats their s/os back lmao and then he seens you hugging junhui and he like

pauses for a second 

then hes like haha gtta be a coincidence that i can see a georgeous random stranger hugging my best friend in the same way i can feel my soulmate hugging someone rn

amd junui sees hao and a wave of relief passes over him and he grabs your shoulders and pushes you away like

MINGHAO HEY!!

and you turn around as junhuis like “this is y/n, friend of a friend of jacksons ad jaes”

and minghaos like HOLY SHIT I FELT THAT MY SHOULDERS JUST GREW WARM

and then you meet eyes with the most goRGEOUS boy youve ever seen like HOW can someone look like that

and as soon as you meet eyes your body just gets soWARM and your heart like

fuckin swells and shit

and youre like ohmygodohmygod whats happening

and hes looking at you with the widest eyes ever and everyones like “wow they must find each other pretty hot theyre just staring at each other”

and suddenly minghao grabs sichengs hand and just places it on his chest and sichengs like wtf no homo

and you feel warmth on your chest and a surge of shock, excitement and hopefulness rush through your blood but the first thing you say is

WTF YOU PERV as youre grabbing your chest and junhui finally catches on and walks up and pokes you in the stomach and you yelp and minghao just touches the warm spot on his stomach and smiles SO wide

he legit runs up to you like OHMYGOD YOURE MY SOULMATE TELL ME EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU IVE DREAMT OF MEETING YOU MY WHOLE LIFE 

and he goes to hug you but stops himself

by now everyones gone to give you some privacy 

and youre like wot!!!!! hug me!!!!!!

but he just says “dont you have a partner?? im not doing anything with you until you and them break up” he ain no homewrecker sweeties no cheating in this household

and youre just like

????????? what ?????????

“youre always hugging your partner!! its hard not t notice, youre so proud after too :^(((”

and you start laughing

hes just pouting at you like whattttttttttttt

you say in between laughs

im hugging people for you!!! you havent been getting hugs lately, and i like it when you get hugs i love the feeling so i thought id hug a bunch of people so you could feel warm anf fuzzy inside!!!

he looks at you like,,,,,, oh,,,,,,

and then he swoops you into the biggest bear hug ever and you feel warm and fuzzy except its not the same. it feels so

so real??????

you almost start crying and then he pulls away looking teary eyed too

“y/n was it??? im minghao. and im looking forward to hugging you and being with you for the rest of my life.”

youve never smiled wider as you jumped into him and gave him your first kiss while thinking of how great your future was gonna be.

fin.

hope yall liked that shit!!!!!!

[lanaarwenlazar]

in honor of villain releasing and me starting it later today, here is a special insight into my brain in the form of the notes i made on my phone as i was reading monster last year, completely unedited (so with all my spelling mistakes and freakouts)

there are spoilers for monster, obviously

(keep in mind that i was very emotional about being back in the gone-universe, so don’t judge me lmao)

i ship malik and shade already. can’t habdle them they’re too cute

oh my god shade is basically a true crime fan, thanks i hate it

“WHATEVER MALIK DID IT GENERALLT SOMEHOW WORK” MY LOVE

...it will be interesting to see what people have to say about mg writing his first trans character

transphobic violence already, i think someone will have a problem with this chapter being called “the meet cute”

where

is

dekka

WHAT THE FUCK SHADE WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOURE INSANE

I WAS RIGHT BY THE WAY THE MOVIE SUCKED AND WAS A BAD IDEA AND I HOPE ASTRID AND SAM ARE SUFFERING AND HAVE NO FRIENDS

nooo dekka sweetie :(((

oh my god a dekka chapter what if we get updates on everyone i’m not ready

dekka is broke no :(((

but she drives a motorcycle i’m so in love

dekka has a cat. marry me

“Of those three hundred thirty-two kids, fifty-one developed one supernatural power or another. Only nineteen of you developed major powers and survived. And of these nineteen, seven have since developed serious psychological disorders” NO MY KIDS IM CRYING

“Lana Lazar spent time in a mental health facility” eeelp

“I know, she’s a friend of mine. She’s fine now.” THEY ARE FRIEND.jzoddbfb

“Others’ like Sam Temple, the supposed hero of the fayz, have had-”

HAVE HAD WHA TOM??!!!?!

“’Supposed hero?’ Screw you. You don’t disrespect Sam Temple where I can here it.” I’m 😭😭😭😭😭😭

sam was in rehab has an alcoholic kill me

and he’s on the wagon sober for sixteen months ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

DEKKA REMEMBERINH BRIANNA KILL ME

Hey, Sam’s sober and Astird got her head screwed on straight so leave them out of this - dekka out there defending her people

MG in the online: edilio is the true hero of the fayz MG in the books: sam is the true hero of the fayz me: so what is the truth?

oh my god that just means edilio is still underappreciated

DEKKA WANTS SAM AND ASTRID TO GO TO COLLEGE WORK AND ONE DAY HAVE A BABY GIRL NAMED DEKKA WHAT THE FUCK SHOOT ME

Me @ me: mg loves edilio. he will be in here. mg loves edilio. he will be in here. mg loves edilio. he will be in here. mg loves edilio. he will be-

Four year old Sean is here to cause trouble

Cruz singing my love ❤️❤️

We’ve literally just met him and Justin DeVeere already sounds like a potential school shooter

also how dare mg give him the same name as justin roger’s little brother

He’s so disgusting yikes

I don’t understand what just happened and what erin and justin are up to but WHY do i feel like they just had sex so they could have a gaia-like baby

is justin turning into the hulk or orc

Justins arm is turning into a sword

Is justin turning into drake...

Or orc/britney? Orc/britney/justin?

If Aristotle Arno Adamo is anything like Ari from Aaddtsotu i already love him

oh he’s not

Armo is the Quinn of Monster pass it on

Will Quinn be mentioned in this book?

“Armo was not part of any clique, because there was one, only one Armo at Malibu High School” oh my god he’s awful i love him

“I want to take Danish. My family is danish” bitch mine too

“You understand that everyone in Denmark speaks english right? Usually better than most Americans?” drag america i love t

god i love him

armo just survived a serious accident and he’s crying because he wreacked his car whaya guy

what are they doing to armo :(((

SHADE WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT

noo poor cruz

whyy would mg introduce malik tenerife, the biggest sweetheart and shade’s closest friend and make me fall in love with him, and then in the SAME CHAPTER introduce cruz, a new best friend for shade and then just never mention malik again???? i love cruz but i miss malik

where is knightmare

“I REREAD THE ELLISON BOOK” ASTRID WROTE A BOOK

yikes a milady dude and homophobia all in one page!!

WHY IS EVERYONE IN THIS BOOK JUST TRANSFORMING INTO BOOKS

oh shit i just understood why mg says this is part animorphs

Malik’s back my boy

DEKKAS CAT IS NAMED EDITH WINDSOR I JUST----

DEKKA TOOK THE FRAMED PICTURE OF BRIANNA WITH HER OH MY GODDD

“Only now did Dekka see that those last four years had been a dream, unreal, somehow. The FAYZ was real.” dekka bby no :(((

oh my goooood taylor is back bitches i just got chills

SHE GRABBED THE CELEBRITY GOSSIP MAGAZINES OF COURSE SHE DID I LOVE HER

dekka be nice to taylor she’s had a hard life she deserves to know the goss :))

when they’re only talking baout the kids with power... when will edilio come in

aaaand there is drake ugh. “a violent, sadistic psychopath. A rapist. A torturer. A murderer”

EDILIO WAS THERE TOO THERE TOO THE FUCK

DID MG FORGET EDILIO ECISTS

BRIANNA DEKKA SAM ASTRID TAYLOR DRAKE LANA HUNTER ORC HAVE ALL BEN MENTIONED

WHERE IS EDILIO AND LANA

Drake responsible for 18 instances of rape mutilation and murder in the last year y i k e s

Justin has a lobster claw for one hand and a sword for the other o k a y

oh my god shade could kill tr*mp

“There are three types of superheroes, Shade: Hero, Villain and Monster” *looks into the camera like i’m on the office*

CAINE AND PENNY GOT THEIR MENTIONS

NOW GIVE ME EDILIO

Malik is still in love with shade rip me

oh no cruz bby you’re invisible :((

i feel like this series will be more hard sci-fi with aliens and government and powers than gone was, gone was more of a sci-fi/dystopian/lord of the flies/survival-mix

i’m worried about armo :((

me: had never read an animorphs book in my life also me: wow this reminds me so much of animorphs!

HES A POLAR BEAR NOW

THEY’RE LITERALLY SAYING THE WORD MORPHING

should be interesting to see what kind of shit mg will get for this y i k e s

WHAT THE FUCKKKKKK IS HAPØENING THE SEAN WAS HE TURNING INTO A CATERPILLAR WITH NO MOUTH WHAT THE FUCK HE IS FOUR YEARS OLD

OH THERES HIS MOUTH WHAT THE FUCK

fuuuuck i knew he would be knightmare

at least knightmare really is the name of a shitty pretentious art student dude

a group of girl scouts just fell to their deaths off the golden gate bridge

WHO ARE THE DARK WATCHERS

i actually think they’re aliens

pls get over brianna dekka

at least mg is realizing that brekka was kind of weird

why is dekka watching danish sex. what does that even mean.

this book is unrealistic bc it’s page number 208 and dekka still hasn’t thought about edilio. who goes that long without thinking about edilio.

oh no dekka is morphing with some animal too

DEKKA HAS MEDUSA HAIR WHAT THE FUCK

the cat died WHAT THE FUCK

“Motorcycle gangs and white supremacists and registered sex offenders, that’s who dominated Perdido Beach today” yikes

Dekka mentioned the word gaiaphage and i had a physical disgusted reaction, but not because of the actual gaiaphage, but bc of that fucking website. god i lvoe that gaiaphage.com is dead.

why has mg created a worldwide perdido beach situation but just given is three books to fix it

“I was Sam’s soldier” NO??? You wrre edilio’s soldier the fuck

EVERY TIME I SEE EDITH MY HEART SKIPS BECAUSE IT STARTS WITH EDI AND I THINK ITS FINALLY GOING TO BE EDILIO

Armo and Dekka is my new brotp

WHO THE FUCK IS JEHOVA

LESS VILLAIN POVS MICHAEL PLEASE

“Hey. You. Should. Um.... Stop. Being. An. Asshole.” SHADE

Combining the villains into one villain. Very schmart michael 👌🏻

PAGE 308 EDILIO MENTION OH MY GOD

Edilio on page 309 kill me cant even quote it

GRAVES STILL THERE

IN RESPECTFUL MEMORY TO BOTH THE WISE AND THE FOOLISH WHO STRUGGLED TO SURVIVE UNSPEAKABLE HORRORS IN THIS PLACE im 😭😭

ALBERT GOT HIS DUES YEAH

BUT HOW IS EDILIO TODAY

WHERE IS DINAA LOSER

GRAVE FOR MARY 😭

GRAVE FOR DUCK 😭

GRAVE FOR HUNTER 😭

GRAVE FOR ORC 😭

Grave for Caine 😐 “Caine Soren. “King of the FAYZ. Blaze of Glory”

FIRST DIANA MENTION AND ITS HOW MUU CAINE LOVED HER IM

BRIANNA HAS A LAST NAME SOS. “Brianna Berenson. “The Breeze”. None More Bold.”

DIANA IS HERE I REPEAT DIANA IS HERE IN THE FLESH AND STILL BEAUTIFUL

DIANA PUTS FLOWERS ON THE GRAVES ONCE A WEEK OH MY HOD YOU HAVE NOTHING TO BE SORRY ABOUT I MEAN YOU DID GIVE BIRTH TO GAIA AND EAT PANDA BUT STILL

DIANA HAS A JOB AS A BARISTA HER OWN PLACE IS SEVEN MONTHS SOBER AND HAVENT TRIED TO KILL HERSELF LATELY

WAS HER AND SAM DRINKING BUDDIES

THEY SERVE A SAM TEMPLE CUCKTAIL AND A LANA VODKA

“I GUESS THEIRONY THAT FAYZERS HAVE A TENDENCY TO DRINK TOO MUCH IS LOST ON THEM” TELL THEM DEKKA

“YOU WERE GOOD TO KEEP SAM AND STRID OUT OF IT” NO TELL THEM LOSERS

DOES DIANA LIVE IN PERDIDO BEACH :((((

“THIS IS THE MOST INTIMATE IVE EVER BEEN WITH A DUDE” SAME

When Roger still hasn’t been mentioned and you know he wasn’t really that important so you can’t really complained but you miss him

and how is edilio really dekka hmmm???

Eww this Drake Brittany thing is worse if possible

wait wait wait what hoe did they get there what

if i finish monster and still don’t know how edilio is doing i’ll sue

the villain...breathes fire. he’s a dragon

Shade looks like a the bizzare cross between a flea, a Power Ranger and a teenaged girl w h a t

Vincent Vu: part fish!

noooo not malik :(((

one half of me: where the fck is edilio go talk to him dekka other half of me: edilio deserves a peaceful life thank i for keeping him away from it all

OKAY BUT WOULD EDILIO AND SAM AND EVERYONE SEE DEKKA ON THE FBI MOST WANTED LIST AND HEAR ABOUT EVERYTHING GOING ON AND SAY YIKES NOT OUR PROBLEM??? No tf they would help her!!!!

DEKKA IS WITH SAM DEKKA IS WITH SAM I REPEAT DEKKA IS WITH SAM AND HE IS HER STRONG RIGHT ARM SHOOT ME LET ME DIE

im emo

the end

missing: quinn and roger

[wellhellsbelles]

There Goes Our Love Again

You will get three chapters after this inbetween now and Christmas day. The third chapter is Christmas related. I have more written and more to write, but I just thought it'd be cool to put out a Christmas chapter on Christmas. :)

ao3 link here!

//

iv. God Don’t Make Me Lose My Mind

Farkle blinked and suddenly it was October, almost time for Halloween. He’d been buried in piles upon piles of work at his job, and adjusting to his new environment proved to be a tad difficult, go figure. To be fair, engineering was demanding work, so there wasn’t much time to have an “adjustment period”. He was thrown back into projects almost instantaneously, so he concentrated solely on those.

Luckily for him, the gang all planned an outing for Friday night because they all agreed they needed some fun time since all of their jobs were taking up every bit of energy they had.

Never in his life had Farkle been relieved to be invited to get wasted with his friends. He was a little too focused on his education in college to want to wade in those waters, determined as ever to earn his degree as fast as he could. Of course, he did say yes to the occasional outing, but other than that, he was confined to his dorm very much so.

Now? He’d like to get out of the stuffy, indoor atmosphere and be out on the town, laughing and pretending that he doesn’t have to be a grown adult for just one night.

They all deserve it; they really do.

Unfortunately for Farkle, he arrived last, thirty minutes late to the party because work and blah blah blah. But he doesn’t care; he just plopped down in a seat at their table, immediately ordering a drink and shrugging off his jacket.

“Long day at work, Farkley?” Riley asked, sipping at her piña colada. Farkle buried his head into his arms.

“You can say that,” he mumbled. Maya patted him on the shoulder.

“Oh, chin up, Dr. Farklestein. You’ll get the hang of it. You’re a bigshot engineer, now!”

“And besides, we’re not here to talk about work. We’re here to party! Bartender, a round of your strongest shots, please!” Zay shouted, his voice barely reaching above the rest of the bar. The bartender nodded, fixing up their drinks while they waited.

“I take it you guys have already gone crazy and drank a lot within the thirty minutes I was absent?” Farkle asked, giving the waitress a head nod after she dropped of Farkle’s order.

“Nah,” Lucas said at the same time Maya said, “Of course.” Farkle snorted.

Not much had changed with those two. Not really.

“Okay, we did,” Lucas changed his answer hastily, “But only a couple of drinks. I told everyone to hold off on the getting drunk if only to let you get drunk with us.”

“Thanks, man,” Farkle smiled, taking a swig of his drink. “I have to say, though, I’m not looking forward to the hangover in the morning.”

“Focus on the now, not the future, Farkle. Drink and be merry!” Zay exclaimed right as the shots arrived. Zay grabbed one off the tray and the rest of the group followed suit, all of them raising their glasses in the air.

“To getting drunk!” Maya yelled.

“To getting Farkle drunk,” Zay corrected her.

“I’ll drink to that,” Lucas said.

“Same,” Riley echoed her sentiment. They all downed their shots after that, the liquor burning in Farkle’s throat as it went down.

“I’ll order us another round. It’s time we got this party started!” Maya said, raising her hand for the waitress to come over.

“Another?” Farkle asked.

“Oh, come on, Dr. Farklestein. We’re gonna get you a Phd in partying by the end of this night!”

“That’s not even possible,” Farkle muttered under his breath, but didn’t complain further. The waitress returned and took another order for shots, disappearing shortly afterward. Farkle went back to sipping on his beer tentatively, worried what his friends were going to bring him this night.

He never really could tell.

They all engaged in some small talk before the waitress had returned again, this time a bottle in hand.

“Here you guys go,” she said, relinquishing the bottle to Zay who had a devilish grin planted upon his face.

“A whole bottle?” Farkle griped. Zay nodded his head.

“You bet, Farkle. We’re all going to participate in a drinking game tonight. And you don’t get to Farkle your way out of this.” Farkle shot him a look of disdain.

“Did you just use my name as a verb?”

“We do it a lot when you’re not around, actually,” Riley admitted. Farkle narrowed his eyes at them, unamused.

“You guys are lucky I like you all. Alright, fine,” he gave in, “What’s the drinking game we’re playing?”

“Yay!!!” they all celebrated when Farkle finally agreed. He just huffed in response.

“Okay, so the game we will be playing is—Maya drum roll please,” Zay pointed towards Maya, who began mimicking a drum roll on the table, “. . . NEVER HAVE I EVER!” Farkle leaned back his head.

“Good lord.” Riley poked at his face, a bemused smile on her face.

“Lighten up, Farkley! This’ll be fun,” she giggled, already starting to get tipsy. Farkle threw up his hands in defeat.

“Alright, fine! Just start.”

“Sounds good to me,” Zay said, removing the cap to the bottle of liquor and filling everyone’s shot glasses. “So this is how it’ll go: we’ll all take turns going around in a circle, each stating something we haven’t done. But if you have done this thing, then you take a shot. Whoever reaches seven shots loses the game and gets a punishment of the rest of the group’s choosing. We all on board?”

“Yup,” Maya, Lucas, Riley, and Farkle all agreed in unison.

“Great! I’ll go ahead and start,” Zay announced, cracking his knuckles in preparation. “Never have I ever . . . been in a love triangle.” Maya, Riley, and Lucas all groaned.

“Come on,” Riley pouted. Farkle grinned, happy he didn’t have to take a shot for this round.

“It’s the rules, sugar,” Zay shrugged his shoulders. The three of them all took a shot, holding their glasses out for Zay to refill after. “Alright, Lucas. You’re up to bat.”

“Okay, got it. Never have I ever gone skinny dipping.” Everyone took a shot except for Lucas. He raised a brow at Farkle. “Farkle?”

“I’m not proud of it. It’s how my classmates and I celebrated after we got our doctorates,” he answered.

“Wow, nerds really know how to party,” Maya teased him.

“Ha ha.”

“You’re up, shortstack.” Maya nodded, waiting until their glasses were full again to begin her turn.

“Never have I ever . . . lived outside of New York,” she said. All the boys grumbled, taking their shots.

“Not fair,” Zay huffed, but Maya only smiled at him angelically.

“Sorry, sugar.” Farkle could already feel the room start to spin a bit, the alcohol getting to him quickly.

This was what he signed up for, unfortunately.

“Riley up to bat!”

Riley’s face didn’t change as she tapped her chin thoughtfully, and all Farkle could think was, Oh crap, she’s about to target me, isn’t she?

“Never have I ever . . . gotten drunk at my friend’s party and then thrown up in her kitchen sink,” Riley finally stated, her gaze fully on Farkle.

“You told me you wouldn’t tell anyone!” Farkle whined.

“Sorry, Farkley. I really want you to get drunk.” Farkle took his shot, albeit begrudgingly, thrusting it towards Zay for a refill. He felt himself grow bolder with each drink, his mind becoming wicked as he thought up another “Never Have I Ever” statement.

“Never have I ever . . . lost my top in the ocean while on a family vacation,” he stared back at Riley.

“Oh come on! You said you’d keep that a secret!” Riley exclaimed as her cheeks turned beet red, leaning back with the shot.

“And that was my revenge for you, my dearest Riley,” Farkle chuckled. Riley stuck her tongue out at him in response.

The rest of the game went off without hitch, and eventually Riley and Farkle were the two losers, both of them having reached seven shots. They both groaned together when Maya, Lucas, and Zay began laughing at them because they knew exactly what was next:

Their punishment.

If Farkle weren’t feeling so drunk already he might’ve just left the bar in a hurry, but he was, and so he was feeling ready to take on whatever challenge they had in store for him.

“Our punishment for the two of you is—drum roll again please, Maya—get ready . . . KARAOKE!!!” Zay announced, Maya and Lucas cheering alongside him.

“God, this is going to be terrible,” Riley snorted, and Farkle smiled knocking into her with his elbow.

“Indubitably.”

And terrible it was.

Because, between the two of them, they are godawful singers, exacerbated by the fact that they are indeed drunk. And to make matters worse for Zay, Maya, and Lucas, they’re actually into singing karaoke to the point where the three of them had to pry Riley and Farkle off the stage.

“~I BLESS THE RAINS DOWN IN AFRICAAAAA!!! GONNA TAKE SOME TIME TO DO THE THINGS WE NEVER HAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!!” Farkle and Riley shouted as they swayed together, Farkle’s arm around her shoulders and Riley’s around his as they sung their fifth song in a row.

“Alright, guys, I’m gonna have to insist you get off the stage now. The manager’s pissed,” Maya shouted to them from below the karaoke stage. Riley put her index finger to her lips sloppily, shaking her head.

“Shhhhhh, peaches! Farkley and I are singing a very important song right now!”

��I’m blaming you for this, Zay,” Maya muttered as she trudged onto the stage, dragging Farkle and Riley off along with her. She was lucky they were drunk or the task would be impossible.

“But I wanna sing more songs!” Riley whined, her hand grabbing wistfully towards the microphone.

“Me too!” Farkle cried.

“Nope. Absolutely not. You two are going home. Lucas, help me out here!” Maya called out to him.

“On it.” Lucas was by her side at a moment’s notice, grabbing Farkle’s arm and slinging it over his shoulder while Maya took care of Riley.

“You wanna just drop them both at my apartment? I think that might be easiest,” Zay offered.

“Good point, Zay,” Lucas agreed. “Let’s just do that.”

Together, the five of them loaded up into a taxi (yeah, not very “law abiding”, but the taxi driver agreed to shut up about it if they gave him an extra thirty dollars), and drove off towards Zay and Farkle’s apartment, ready to just crash once the night was over even though it was only half past midnight.

The pains of growing up, alas.

Riley and Farkle didn’t shut up the entire taxi ride to the apartment, much to the rest of the group’s chagrin, but by the time they arrived, the two had fallen asleep side-by-side, Riley’s head tucked neatly under Farkle’s.

“I almost hate to wake them up at this point,” Lucas said after he, Maya, and Zay had all slid out of the car. “They look so sweet and peaceful.”

“C’mon, let’s get them inside,” Maya grumbled, tugging at Riley’s arm. “Riiiiiiileeeeeeey,” she crooned, “We’ve got to drop you off. Come on.”

“Mmmmm . . .” Riley moaned but followed Maya’s instructions, reluctantly sliding out of the car. On the other side, Lucas just pulled Farkle out and slung him over his back, thanking the taxi driver and shutting the door.

“Remind me to never get them this drunk again next time,” Maya said as they carried the dead weight of their friends up inside their apartment, all the way to the third floor.

  The next morning, Farkle was definitely regretting the night. But at least he had fun and he got to spend it with his friends, and for the first time in a long time he felt true, unadulterated happiness course within him once again.

[dotshiiki]

CoL, chpt 4

IV: PERCY

Over the next few days, Bella filled Percy in slowly with more details about the life he couldn't remember. No, he'd never known his parents; they'd died when he was a little kid. He'd met her a few years ago—him a street kid and her a high school sophomore trying to get into college. Now he mostly bummed around her house while she majored in kinesiology at Arizona State. She talked about using her magical powers to help people in physical therapy, which at least explained the collection of prosthetics cluttering up her apartment.

'The demigods won't believe we could do good, though,' Bella said bitterly. 'They just want to drive us extinct.'

The tattoo was a result of something the demigods had done to him when he'd first gotten drawn into Bella's world. Bella wasn't sure why they'd marked him, but she speculated that it was so they could identify him as an enemy.

Percy traced the thin letters curiously. 'Why didn't they just kill me?'

'I guess they didn't realise then that you weren't going to leave me,' Bella said. Her voice grew soft and inviting. 'They thought you'd fall in with them, but you stuck by me. You're so good, Perseus.'

She lingered over his name like it was a piece of candy she was savouring in her mouth. And it was always Perseus she called him—maybe 'Percy' just didn't have the same sweetness. He wasn't actually sure where he'd picked up the nickname. Had he heard it somewhere?

Bella's eyes locked on his. It was like drowning in a pool of gold. All the questions he had about his background faded into it. His thoughts clouded over. He forgot what he had been asking.

Bella lay her head against his shoulder. Her hair smelt like the outdoors: grassy and pine-fresh. It jolted his brain with something he'd meant to bring up.

'I was thinking,' he said, 'maybe I should go out today. You know, go round the city and see if anything jogs my memory.'

Bella's head snapped up.

'No!' The vehemence in her tone made him jump. She took a deep breath and then continued in a more modulated tone, 'You're safe indoors, Perseus. The demigods are still out there, remember? They already got you once. I would just die if they finished the job.'

'Yeah, but…'

Bella shuddered. 'Don't even think about it.' She handed him a glass. 'Drink your water.'

He sipped obediently at it. The taste was starting to grow on him. He'd disliked the warmth of it at first—why she couldn't add ice, with the weather this hot, he didn't know—but it did go well with the soothing calm that always seemed to spread through him while drinking. After he drained the glass, the only thought left in his head was how lucky he and Bella were to have each other.

That night, he had another strange dream. He was standing on the banks of a river that flowed sluggishly towards a setting sun. Although the riverbed was wide, the river itself cut a narrow course down the middle, so that its dry banks extended out a good fifty feet on either side. The ground beneath his feet looked like it might once have been flooded over, but over time, it had forgotten its life as wet marsh and turned into cracked, hardened mud.

On the other side of the dwindling river, a dark-haired man lounged in a blue and white striped deck chair. Next to him, a long fishing pole was planted firmly in a crack in the hard ground. Its line extended into the water, drifting loosely in the current.

The fisherman raised his hand in greeting to Percy.

'Is there even anything in there to catch?' Percy asked. The river looked dangerously close to the end of its life. The scent of salt hung in the air, so thick he could practically taste it on his lips.

The fisherman scrutinised his line. 'Maybe not any more,' he said. He got up, took his fishing rod, and started to walk towards Percy. When he stepped into the water, the river expanded, rising over the banks and filling its bed.

Percy took a wary step back from the water's edge as it lapped towards him like the waves of the sea. The fisherman kept coming closer, wading through the water, which rose only to his waist, as though it was nothing more than a field of wheat. Finally, he reached Percy's side. Up close, the weather-beaten contours of his face stood out sharply. They fell in kindly wrinkles about his mouth and eyes. Eyes that were the same shifting green of the sunlight-dappled water.

The same shade as Percy's own eyes.

'This river won't harm you, son,' the fisherman said, looking at where Percy stood, hanging back from the water's edge. 'The Salt River is kind to those who carry the Curse of Lethe. It runs under the city of rebirth, after all.'

He handed Percy the fishing rod, and then with a warm, fatherly smile, he glowed so brightly that Percy had to avert his eyes to avoid the blinding light. When he looked back again, the fisherman was gone. The river was retreating as well, shrinking back into its narrow path in the centre of the channel.

There was a tug on the fishing line. Percy started to wind it up, but the bite on the other end was so strong, it dragged him forward towards the dwindling river. As though he was the one being reeled in, the line pulled him straight into the salty water.

It was deeper than should have been possible, given that it had only come up to the fisherman's waist. Percy gasped as the waters closed over his head and he kept going down and down. To his surprise, no water filled his lungs—he was breathing as easily as he did on land. The water seemed to clear his head and heighten his senses. His body felt fresh and ready for action.

The currents continued to carry him along underground. Little golden bubbles floated up to him here and there, bearing disjointed images inside them: a grey stone cabin with seashells embedded in its walls; two tiny figures locked in a tight, underwater embrace; a stone statue of a bearded man with a trident, who looked uncannily like the fisherman in the river.

Then he heard Bella's voice calling to him, 'Where are you?'

'The Salt River,' he called back, though he wasn't sure how he knew this.

'I'll find you!' Her voice sounded a long way off. 'I'll find you, Pers—'

The rushing of the water drowned her out. Percy woke up, feeling like he'd just emerged from a long, dark tunnel.

'Where's the Salt River?' he asked Bella the next morning.

Bella frowned. 'It runs south of the city. Well, used to. It's really just a dried-up riverbed now. Why do you ask?'

When he told Bella about his dream, she went so pale, he was afraid she might faint.

'What's wrong?' he asked.

'Demigods,' she whispered. 'Oh Hecate, they're getting to you. Perseus, you need to try and block the dreams. That's how they track you. Oh, I should have guessed they'd try it. I'm so sorry I didn't warn you before.'

'It's okay,' he said. But he couldn't shake the sense that the dream was trying to give him a hint.

The next day, when Bella was in class, he snuck out of the apartment.

Bella had locked the door from the outside, but Percy managed to squeeze out of the tiny window and lower himself onto the fire escape of the apartment below. He felt a bit guilty, sneaking out when Bella had gone to such great lengths to protect him, but he had to know if the clues in his dream were worth following.

Phoenix wasn't the easiest city to navigate; every other block looked like the one before. Percy struggled to keep track of how many turns he'd made so that he could find his way back again. The weather was as hot as ever, and he found himself longing for Bella's water. He was starting to feel a little silly, coming out here. He didn't even have any real idea where he was meant to start looking.

It must have been around noon when he finally realised that the dry, cracked stretch of land he'd just hiked across actually was the Salt River. Unlike in his dream, not even the thin channel of water in the centre remained.

His mouth tasted of dusty disappointment. There wasn't anything to find here after all. For a while he sat by the freeway, wondering if maybe the river was running underground beneath the concrete city. He didn't know why the idea made him feel better. It wasn't like he had the means to find an underground river. But the thought of the river not existing at all had a bitter tang to it.

Finally he got up and headed back into the city.

He stopped to get a drink from a public fountain at a cluster of orange buildings on a street lined with palm trees. There was a stone statue next to it, a carving of some dude with a long beard and a stick in his hand.

No, not a stick. It had three prongs at the upper end.

Percy's eyes widened. He'd seen this statue in his dreams: one of the images in the golden bubbles—the fisherman with a trident.

He didn't have time to look more closely, though. No sooner had he recognised the statue did someone yell at him from across a parking lot.

'Hey you! Punk!'

The girl yelling at him would have fit in well with a biker gang. She was practically twice his size, with biceps like tree trunks and a nasty scowl on her face. Her expression said clearly: I'm gonna pulverise you.

Percy didn't hang around to find out if she really meant to. He took off at a sprint in the opposite direction.

'Wait! Get back here, punk! Percy!'

The use of his name filled him with dread. The biker girl was probably a demigod, one of those Bella had warned him about, who were out for his blood. He turned randomly down side streets, trying to throw her off.

Several twists and turns later, the sound of her footsteps pounding the pavement behind him faded away. He slowed to a jog and chanced a look over his shoulder.

She didn't seem to be chasing him any more. That was the good part.

The bad part: he had no clue where he'd ended up.

And unfortunately, the demigod girl must have known the city a lot better. She appeared out of nowhere, leaping a fence and tackling him from above. Percy hit the ground hard, pinned under her massive bulk.

'Gotcha!'

Percy flailed, trying to buck the demigod off his back. She was obviously an experienced wrestler—her thighs and knees kept his body pinned expertly while she twisted his arms into a painful lock behind his back. With one free hand, she tossed a gold coin into a puddle inches from Percy's head. It landed in a rainbow spill of oil.

'Iris, accept my offering!'

Percy had no idea who Iris was. Probably back-up. He wriggled harder against the demigod's iron grip.

'Hold still, punk!' She pressed his head down against the ground so that all he could see was gravel. 'Annabeth Chase, at Camp Jupiter.'

'Clarisse, what—oh my gods, you found him!'

The voice coming from the puddle sounded so much like Bella's, Percy stopped struggling for a second. No, it couldn't be. There was no way Bella would be in league with a demigod who wanted to kill him.

'Yeah, he keeps trying to run from—OOF!'

The weight lifted from his back. Someone had barrelled straight into the demigod girl, knocking her off. Perseus scrambled to his feet, fists balled. It took him a moment to recognise Bella, who was moving so quickly she was a brown-haired blur, attacking the demigod with one of the prosthetic legs from her collection.

The demigod was quicker than he expected. She met Bella's blow with a spear. The air crackled when it connected with the metal leg. Bella shrieked and flew backwards into Percy. He caught her before she could hit the ground. Her skin prickled with static.

The damn spear was electric.

'That's not fair!' Percy growled, though it was probably pointless to expect an enemy to play fair when they were out to kill you. He grabbed the prosthetic from Bella and ran at the demigod. Surprisingly, she didn't charge at him with her spear.

'What the hell, punk!' she said, dodging his swing. It caught the end of the spear instead and smacked it out of her hands.

'Oh no, not again!' hissed the demigod as she dived for it.

Bella grabbed his arm. 'Percy, RUN!'

He didn't need telling twice. Taking advantage of the demigod's momentary distraction, he followed Bella's lead, once again sprinting away from his demigod pursuer. Either the demigod was tired now—or maybe more hesitant to chase after prey that outnumbered her—or Bella just knew the city and which alleys to take. This time they managed to lose her for real.

They finally collapsed, totally winded, at the entrance to a dead-end alley lined with pipes that ran along both sides of the walls.

'You were right,' Percy gasped. 'The demigod girl, she recognised me—'

Bella flung her arms around him. 'I can't lose you now, Perseus,' she whispered in his ear. 'You're a part of me.'

She kissed him, and this time he didn't fight it. His adrenaline-filled body responded, inviting her in and kissing her back.

It was like taking a gulp of fiery whisky. His legs trembled and threatened to buckle under him. Bella pushed him against the wall, her lips sucking fervently on his as if she were breathing in his essence. The burning intensity of their kiss had an overwhelming gravitational pull. He couldn't break away from it even if he wanted to.

Why had he been fighting this again? It felt good to be a part of her, like they could fuse their very souls together…

'Get off him, empousa!'

It was Bella's voice, but it wasn't coming from her. Bella herself snarled and whirled around to face the intruders, breaking off their kiss. Percy pressed his palms against the wall to steady himself.

Three figures had simply melted right out of the shadows. There was simply no other way they could have appeared there in the dead end of the alley. Two were shorter: a goth-looking dude with olive skin who was holding hands with a buxom African-American girl with wild, cinnamon-brown hair.

The last one…

Percy did a double-take when he saw her. It was like looking at a replica of Bella, if Bella had blond hair and grey eyes that flashed angrily with the threat of storms.

Bella's fingers clamped around his wrist. 'Get back,' she spat at the intruders.

'Get away from him!' repeated her look-alike. The girl drew a sword that looked like it had been made of sharpened bone. Her two companions unsheathed their weapons as well. Goth-boy's sword had a blade as black as night. The African-American girl's was longer, made of silver, and dead straight.

'He's mine,' Bella said. Her arm curved around his neck.

The African-American girl snapped her fingers. 'Show yourself!' she commanded.

The air in front of him wavered like a shimmer of heat. Bella shrieked and released him, hissing angrily at the African-American girl. Percy yelped when he turned to look at her.

Bella's entire form changed. Her brown hair sizzled with orange flames, lighting her eyes a demonic red. Her teeth elongated into sharp fangs and her nails grew out into pointed claws. Her shapely legs gave way to a pair of mismatched limbs: one a shiny bronze prosthetic like the ones littered about her apartment, the other furry and crooked at the knee, ending in a cloven hoof.

'How dare you use the magic of mother Hecate against me?' Bella screeched.

'Please,' said the African-American girl dismissively. 'Hecate taught me to manipulate the Mist herself.'

'What did you do to her?' Percy demanded. 'Turn her back!'

'Percy,' cried Bella's look-alike. 'She's an empousa! She's trying to kill you.'

'Nice try,' he said. 'You realise you're the ones attacking us with swords?'

Bella laughed. 'You see, demigods? This one is mine. I already have his soul.'

Percy stared at her. What was she saying? Was she trying to confuse the demigods? Trick them so that she and Percy could escape?

'You're lying,' said Bella's look-alike.

'Oh no,' Bella assured her. 'I have waited to find the right soul for a long time, the one that can fulfil the legendary promise to my kind. A soul of a true hero…and this one Lethe-clean to boot! Once I finish binding his soul to me, I will be immortal!'

'She's telling the truth,' said Goth-boy. 'I can sense it. But you haven't finished. And we won't let you.'

Bella grabbed Percy's neck again. 'Try and stop me,' she hissed at the demigods.'

'Bella, what—'

'Hush,' she told him. 'Trust me.'

'Wait,' said her look-alike. 'We can trade. You can have me instead.'

Bella laughed. 'Even if I were to believe that, you're a useless girl. No empousa would spare you a glance—except to kill you like the pesky demigod you are.'

Percy's head was ready to explode. Bella wasn't making sense. Nothing about this exchange was making any sense, and it definitely wasn't just because he couldn't remember his past.

The pressure of his confusion built up in him, like boiling water confined in a covered pot. At any moment, he was going to spill over. It twisted sharply, deep in his gut.

Then the pipes along the walls exploded, drenching them in a warm shower that reeked of sewage. They had to duck as metal debris rained down. When he looked up again, Bella's look-alike had vanished. Only Goth-boy and the African-American girl remained, advancing on them.

Percy grabbed the top of a trash can and held it up like a shield. Not that it would do much good against two demigods with swords and magic that could mutate people and make things explode. But he wasn't about to go down without a fight.

Beside him, Bella let out a sharp gasp. Percy turned and watched in horror as the point of the missing demigod girl's sword emerged from her midriff.

'No—Perseus—my soul—' she breathed. Her hands, now scaly claws thanks to the African-American girl's dirty magic trick, stretched out towards him. Percy reached for them.

His hands swiped through air as Bella disintegrated before his eyes into a shower of fine ash. For a moment, it looked like she was returning to her proper appearance. Then he realised it was her look-alike, standing where Bella had been, the sword with which she'd impaled Bella in one hand, a baseball cap in the other.

He heard Bella's last whisper: 'I will find you, Perseus.' Then a stabbing pain erupted in the small of his back. He fell to his knees in Bella's ashes, at the feet of her look-alike. Her murderer. His hands hit the ground and his fingers closed around a small, hard object.

Bella's murderer grabbed his shoulders, supporting him.

'Percy,' she whispered.

Red hot needles radiated up his spine from his lower back. One of his other two assailants must have gotten him. He was going to die here after all, killed by the demigods just as Bella had warned. And he'd gotten her killed, too.

Well, he wasn't going to die in the arms of her murderer if he could help it. Percy grabbed the demigod's arms and twisted them away from him. Then he drew back his fist and punched her in the face—the only revenge he could exact for Bella.

Strong hands pulled him away and held him down. Something hard slammed into the side of his head.

The last thing he saw before he blacked out was the shocked grey eyes of the girl who looked like Bella.

OoOoO

Bella was speaking to someone in a soft, low voice.

'We were almost too late. Will checked him out—he was being drugged the whole time, and she probably twisted the Mist, too. She almost got him. We nearly delivered him straight to her.'

A dream, he thought in relief. Then, more guiltily, I was supposed to block them.

He opened his eyes. He was lying in a soft bed with light blue sheets that smelt of lemons. The room was windowless, lit only by a standing lamp next to his bed, so he couldn't tell what time of the day it was.

Behind the closed door, the two voices were still speaking.

'It was all my fault,' Bella said. 'The whole reason he's in this state—I got overconfident and he got hurt. And then—'

'Stop,' said another voice, this one male. 'Annabeth, you can't blame yourself.'

Annabeth. Not Bella.

Because Bella was dead.

Percy rubbed his forehead. So it wasn't a dream. There really had been that chase through Phoenix, and Bella's fierce, desperate kiss, interrupted by three demigods…

Bella acting like she wanted to kill him, too.

Pipes exploding. Bella with a sword through her middle, dissolving into ashes.

Why wasn't he dead, though? The demigods had caught him. He definitely remembered their swords pointed at him.

He looked around the room, as if figuring out his surroundings might help make sense of the insanity that was his life. Unfortunately, everything in it was as conflicting as his memories. The closet on his right had one door open to reveal jeans and t-shirts hanging untidily off hangers, with a small pile of clothes accumulated at the bottom. At the far end of the room, an overturned skateboard lay under a table. However, a lacy sweater draped over a chair next to it looked like it might belong to a girl. And stacked in the corner between the table and the door was an assortment of battle gear: scuffed bronze breastplates and shin guards, a gold helmet with a blue feather sticking out at an angle, and several other mismatched pieces of weaponry and armour.

Above the table was a corkboard to which a number of pictures were tacked. Percy got out of bed to have a closer look. Many of them were crayon scrawls—squiggly lines that barely connected and made no pattern that he could decipher. Several were polaroid strips featuring different groups of people. He recognised his own face in some of them, but none of the others were familiar: a sweet-faced middle-aged lady holding a chubby baby with wispy brown hair; a grinning teenager with bad acne, a goatee, and a colourful rasta cap on his head; a freckled redhead sticking her tongue out at the camera; an entire group of friends with their arms slung around each other's shoulders.

If that was indeed him in the photos with these people, he couldn't remember any of it.

Or maybe this was all another elaborate hoax.

In the centre of the table was a large framed photo. Percy picked it up and studied the two people in it. He was obviously one of them, dressed in the armour that stood in the corner of this room. He was leaning towards his companion, who also wore armour, but looked far more attractive in it. Her sun-bleached hair was pulled back into a poofy ponytail under a bandanna. She carried her own helmet under one arm. She wasn't looking at the camera but towards him, her free hand reaching for the plume on his helmet. The expression on her face was a mixture of exasperation and fondness.

She was the same girl who had attacked him and Bella in the alleyway. The one who looked like Bella.

The one who had run her through with a sword.

The photo frame slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor, creating a jagged split in the glass between him and the girl in the picture.

The conversation in the other room stopped abruptly.

'I think Percy's awake,' the girl, Annabeth, said. 'I'd better go. Thanks for Iris-messaging, Jason.'

'Good luck,' Jason said. 'And remember, break it to him easy.'

A knock came at the door seconds later. 'Percy'? Are you awake?'

When he didn't reply, the door opened anyway. The curly-haired blonde in the picture entered. He was once again struck by her resemblance to Bella—just like a twin with dyed hair.

Except for the eyes. They were unfathomably deep, like staring straight into the eye of a hurricane.

They darted now to the fallen picture frame. Annabeth swallowed hard, but didn't comment on it.

'How are you feeling?'

'Why didn't you kill me yet?' he blurted out.

Annabeth's eyes widened. 'Percy…' She put a hand to her temple. 'Oh gods.'

'You're a demigod,' he said.

'Yes…'

'You're dangerous—you…' He tried to recall all of Bella's warnings about them. His head buzzed uncomfortably.

'Percy, you are a demigod.'

She didn't say it with any vitriol, but it hit him like an accusation. The words crashed over him in a roaring wave. It was as though the fisherman's line in his dream was pulling him beneath the water's surface again, only now he was drowning in a river of everything he thought he knew about himself. Except the facts that he'd accrued over the past week were slipping away from him like he'd tilted his head and poured them out into the current. Panic pooled in his gut as he tried to scoop them back in. What had Bella told him again? Who was he?

Annabeth was still talking, but his ears were ringing so badly, he could only make out one word in ten—son, Poseidon, camp, monsters…

She kept repeating his name, Percy, like it was a collar she was trying to force around his neck.

I am Perseus Jackson.

The name was his only lifeline; his history was once again evaporating into misty vapour, leaving him with only the events that had happened since he'd found himself in Phoenix. Bella, a vague week at her flat, and—this last the sharpest of all—Bella's final moments.

'You killed Bella,' he said, cutting Annabeth off.

'Bel—oh, you mean the empousa. She was going to kill you.'

He shook his head. 'She was keeping me safe from you. She told me you'd find me if I went out, and she was right. I should've listened.'

'She was drugging you, Percy. She needed you to be compliant so she could capture your soul. I don't know what she told you, but—'

'She was my girlfriend!'

Annabeth looked as if he'd slapped her. Thick heavy silence twisted between them. Percy unclenched his fists, which he didn't even realise he'd balled up in the first place.

When Annabeth spoke again, her voice was slow and measured, as though her words were broken glass that might cut her on their way out

'It was all a lie, Percy. Empousai—they prey on men and drink their blood. They use magic—the Mist—to make things look different. It can make you believe things that aren't true…like false memories. That one—Bella—wanted more from you. That's probably why she kept you alive for so long.'

Once I bind his soul to me, I will be immortal.

There was just enough logic to Annabeth's words to make him question everything he knew—or thought he knew. But even if he did believe Bella had been deceitful, who was to say Annabeth wasn't trying to rewrite his history, too, and recast him into a mould she'd created?

How did he know if her story was any more real than Bella's?

'Percy, you have to trust me. You're safe now.'

'I have to trust you,' he said flatly. 'You're telling me that a vampire demon pretended to be my girlfriend, made up all these lies about who I am, and set up a whole elaborate trap to get me to fall for her so she could steal my soul.'

'Yes!'

'And of course this,' he waved his hands around the room, 'definitely isn't a set-up either. I should definitely trust another hot girl telling me I'm safe with her.'

Annabeth took a step back, as if he'd just taken a swing at her. 'I'm not pretending, Percy.' Her voice was small and hurt and for a second he wanted to take back his harsh words, apologise, and meekly agree with everything she'd told him.

But then his rage and panic flooded back. They churned in his stomach, threatening to boil over. There was a sharp tug in his gut, like the twisting of a knob.

Something outside exploded. Water seeped under the gap of the room door.

Annabeth pushed the door open to find the entire floor of the apartment outside flooded to ankle height. The plumbing had come to life: the faucets in the kitchen went off like a sprinkler system; in the bathroom, a toilet bowl spouted its contents in a lively fountain.

Percy put a hand to his stomach. He remembered the pipes exploding in the alleyway in Phoenix. Just after he'd experienced the same tugging sensation in his gut.

Maybe there was some truth to what Annabeth was telling him. He was a demigod. And his powers were every bit as lethal as Bella had suggested.

The walls of the apartment seemed to close in on him, the jaws of a trap snaring him into an identity the demigods wanted to force upon him. To them, Percy Jackson meant something—but what? And was that who he really was, or was it a clever lie?

Perseus, Bella had called him. Which was his real identity?

He pushed past Annabeth to the end of the hallway, to the exit of the apartment.

Annabeth reached for his arm. 'Percy, stop—where are you going?'

'Out,' he said, pulling away from her. 'Or are you going to tell me to stay inside where it's safe, too?'

Annabeth's mouth opened and closed soundlessly. Percy felt a grim satisfaction at getting the last word. He wrenched the front door open.

There was a soft whisper—'Percy.' Annabeth had found her voice after all. His stomach clenched against the claim she tried to exert on him.

Without turning around, he fired back: 'Stop calling me Percy. My name is Perseus!'

And he slammed the door shut behind him.

Continue to chapter 5 | Back to content page

[hayjeon]

Sutures and Stitches Pt. 3

→ angst, fluff, action, mature (mentions of blood/wounds, medical jargon), smut in future chapters → hitman!jeongguk and medstudent!Y/N, bestfriends!au → It was your secret that your best friend was a hitman, and his secret that his best friend was a girl who was currently $200k in debt and working 80 hours a week saving people. But it worked out somehow. → part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 

How was it that the two people with the most secrets became best friends? 

A/N: thank you everyone for your encouraging comments! heres pt 3! 

And especially thank you to Lu (@nottodayjeon), Lex (@taeuclid), and Alexus (@duck-bonpedro) for taking time out of their day to help me figure out this chapter and the entire storylineeeeee you guys are beautifulllll <3 

Jeongguk’s condition didn’t improve until a few days later. So he’d stayed at your place until the infection was flushed out of his system and he was well-fed and well-hydrated enough. One night you returned early from your shift, and he was sitting on your counter, ready to tell you everything. You found out slowly, in bits and pieces throughout the day the collective story of why Jeongguk had shown up this way, why you, why now. 

After turning down all the great college offers, he’d gone to the city to try and invest his skills into a startup with a friend, Jinyoung. It was a success, immediately the small company was racking in investors, advertisers, and new employees only months after it launched; apparently he and Jinyoung had developed together a new plan of finance computing, a system much more efficient, fool-proof, and useful than the ones used by banks all over the world. Jinyoung’s incredible computer skills and Jeongguk’s incredible socializing and developing skills combined into a product that even the President of Korea began to show interest in. That was why Jeongguk was able to rack in so much money months after he’d left your town. His parents had gushed about his company plans, and it turned out that it was true. Jeongguk had been doing well. 

But as the investors and interested companies increased, so did the number of people willing to buy out the company and the rights to all their ideas. Jinyoung refused, and Jeongguk, willing to respect his partner’s opinion, also refused all offers. But a certain company, YG group was particularly insistent on buying them out, and began offering questionable prices in exchange for Jeongguk and Jinyoung’s ideas. When they refused again, YG began sending threats of hacks, claiming false swindling claims, hoping they’d relent. 

But Jinyoung had held fast against these men, refusing to let go of his prized possession to people who were definitely not going to use their ideas in the right way. In return, YG had sent men one night to ambush Jinyoung and murder him, only leaving a pool of blood in his office and a warning note, with no body. They’d jumped Jeongguk too, slashing him with a knife and leaving him to bleed to death. But at that prime moment, his brothers had come to rescue him, and Jeongguk became one of them, adopting a life as a hitman as a sign of honor for his brothers, but also to train for his ultimate goal: to take revenge on YG. 

He’d come to you that first day you’d met him, with a bullet in his shoulder because of a failed mission. He didn’t start on his revenge just yet. But it was in progress, and he needed to stay under cover in case of being found out by YG or by getting caught by authorities. So he’d come to you. 

And now a hitman was sitting on your kitchen counter, outlining the details of his mission. 

“And so, how are you brothers taking part in any of this?” You asked. 

“They’re great guys, Y/N. They saved me from dying that night, and they brought me back to their place because they also have a similar goal: to take YG down.” 

“Why do they want to take YG down?” 

“Seems like they had many more brothers, before I came in. YG killed them, over something stupid, something that had to do with pride.” 

You shook your head. “Jeongguk, you know involving yourself with this gang isn’t going to help you. It’s playing fire with fire.” 

He’d looked up at your sheepishly, with a look you couldn’t identify. “I have no choice, Y/N. If I don’t go after them, they’re planning to use our idea that they stole to hack into every finance system on the planet. They’re going to drive the economy to the ground, and possibly, start a war in the worst scenario.”

Your eyes widened, “Are you serious?! It’s that big of a system?” 

He nodded, seriously. “Yeah, it was a pretty damn big project. Even the President wanted to know more. But YG got to us before we could even tell him about the finished product.” 

You pressed further, “Then Jeongguk, you could just contact the president or something! Tell him about YG, take him down, bam!” 

He shook his head, smiling a bit at your ignorance. “Y/N, it’s not that easy. YG has connections all over, and will destroy the blue house if they know the President is trying to take them down. All it takes is one click of a button, and bam, Korea’s economy will be driven to the ground.” 

You sigh. “Is there really nothing to do besides just take them out?” 

He nods, grimly. “Y/N, trust me. Everything you’re thinking of, I’ve thought of it already. And everything we thought of, my brothers have probably thought of it too. There’s a reason we had to resort to this.” 

Understanding a bit better, you stopped asking questions, only then noticing how weak Jeongguk looked. Because of your shifts at the hospital, you’d only been able to tend to him at night when you’d gotten back. “Tending” mostly meant checking his IV drips, his wound, and then making sure he was well tucked into your bed before you crashed onto the couch and woke up in a few hours to go back to work. A huge pot of porridge you managed to cook up in the beginning of the week were his main source of meals, and you’d remembered to stock up your instant food cupboard. He’d probably been surviving off of all that. 

He was still dressed in his black zip-up jacket, and you could see the stains of the blood near his shoulder from here. Realizing he must be freezing and also uncomfortable in his clothes, you stood up from the counter and walked around to him. 

“Open the zipper, let me see your wound.” 

He quietly opened it, and you could see that the gauze was no longer soaked through with blood nor pus. Nodding, you unwrapped the gauze, to reveal a healing wound. “Good job, you did a good job of not moving your shoulder around too much. The wound is healing nicely. Let me apply a waterproof bandage first, and I think you can go take a shower now, water won’t bother it too much.” 

He whined, pointing to his shoulder. “But I can’t move this!” 

Rolling your eyes, the mood turned from serious back into the playful and snarky banter you were used to with Jeongguk, from the memories you had with him in high school. As you applied the new bandage, you snapped back “Are you fucking serious? Then what do you want me to do?” 

He pouted, pushing his bottom lip and mocking you, “I want you to help me.” 

Groaning, you threw your hands up in the air. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” 

He grinned, standing up and wiggling his brows. “Awww don’t act like you’ve never showered with a guy before.” 

You blushed, frowning and marching past him into your bedroom to hide your cheeks. What he didn’t know was that being a doctor was incredibly time consuming and you definitely didn’t have time for a boyfriend, yet alone sex, since your undergrad years. 

He obediently followed you into your restroom, and you grabbed your small stool from your table next to the tub. “Get in here brat. Keep your fucking boxers on.” 

He smirked, and then pulled his clothes off and hopped in the tub. Goddam pig was too tall to extend his legs so he dangled his legs off the side and leaned his neck off the other. And again, you were surprised at how buff he’d become, even after his dehydration and wounds, you could see how his bone structure had definitely grown. His shoulders were wide, but his hips slim, and his muscles still were prominent enough under his pale skin. 

Trying to hide the heat on your cheeks, you grabbed the shower hose and aimed it at his torso, turning the knob to the coldest setting possible. 

He yelped, glaring at you as you giggled and turned the knob towards warm. “Fuck Y/N, that was cold as shit. You’re evil.” 

You pulled a strand of his hair, making him wail. “Am I so evil that I’m sitting here during my precious night off washing your fucking hair cause you’re such a baby you can’t do it yourself?” 

He just smiled and settled into the edge of the tub, as you gently ran the water over his hair and began to lather some shampoo into it. It was silent, and the only sounds were of your fingers rubbing the shampoo into his hair as the water ran on the side.

“Doesn’t this remind you of when we were little kids, Y/N?” He murmured. 

You paused, reminiscing of the time when you were two little kids and your mothers let you two swim and play together, and then hosed you down in your swimsuits and you’d lathered each other’s shampoo together. 

Smiling, you rinsed his hair, careful to avoid his eyes, which were staring at the wall opposite you and him. His shoulders slumped as he visibly relaxed. “I miss home.” 

You sighed, running the conditioner through his locks. “You know, after you disappeared after high school, I hoped you’d call or something, to let us know you were okay.” 

He was silent. 

You continued, rinsing his hair. “But you never did.” 

You grabbed a loofah and lathered it with body wash, pushing him up to a sitting position so you could wash his back and neck area, the places he wouldn’t be able to reach with his wounds. He was quiet again for a few more minutes before replying, “I’m sorry Y/N, I—-” he paused, “I had my reasons. But I’m sorry if I ever hurt you.” 

You rinsed him off, smiling and standing up from your stool. “Nah, it’s fine. I assumed you were too busy. Here,” you handed him the loofah. “I washed everywhere that you won’t be able to reach, so you can wash the rest of yourself up and then I’ll help you dry off and I’ll try to find some clean clothes for you to wear.” 

He only nodded and stared at the loofah before looking up at you and smiling, “Thanks, Y/N.” 

You couldn’t help but quirk up a corner of your lips at his small appearance. It was like the elementary baby Jeongguk you’d always remembered. “No prob, Jeongguk. I’ll be outside!” 

You placed a soft towel near the sink, and close the restroom door behind you as you began to dig in your drawers for some clean clothes. Jeongguk was about a head taller than you and definitely needed some fresh clothes. You laid out some thick sweats your ex had left with you in undergrad, and a huge large t-shirt you had only because you slept in oversized shirts. 

When you were laying them out on your bed, Jeongguk came out, covered in nothing but a towel, and you shrieked, covering your eyes. 

“Oh my god Jeongguk, give me a warning or something, you scared the shit out of me.” 

He chuckled and padded over with the stool, and placed it near your vanity. He grabbed the clothes you’d set on your bed, and slowly put them on, and you stepped in to help when he struggled to put his arms through their holes because of the tugging of his wound. When he was done, you grabbed the towel and sat him down on your bed to help towel his hair off. 

You stood between his legs, rubbing his scalp with the towel and fluffing his hair so that it would dry better. He hummed, enjoying the feeling of the towel. He murmured, “Who’s sweats are these?” 

You hesitated, “Uh, they were my ex’s sweats that he left with me in undergrad.” 

He gaped, “You still have these? Hung up much?” 

You nudged his head back, glaring at him. “No fucker, I just kept them because they were comfortable to sleep in. And then I forgot they were his until I had to find some guy clothes for you. Do they fit okay?” 

He nodded, pinching the black fabric in between his fingers. “Feels weird to be wearing your ex’s clothes though. Who is he?” 

You winced, even though you expected this question to come up eventually. “Uh… his name was Wonho.” 

He stood up abruptly, towering over you with your wrist in his hand. He glared down at you, eyebrows knit and eyes hard. “Don’t tell me it was Wonho fucking Shin.” 

You were taken aback and dropped the towel. Silently, you stared up at him and gave a small nod, to which he huffed, a frustrated noise coming from his nose as he let your hand go and placed his own hands on his hips and ran fingers through his hair. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You dated him?!” 

You pushed him back to sit on the chair, rolling your eyes. “I know, I know, yes I dated Shin Wonho in college. So what?” You harshly grabbed his head and began toweling him off. 

He grunted, “Geez Y/N, I didn’t think your stupid little crush on him in high school would ever amount to anything, but to think you dated that motherfucker—” He shook his head. 

You sighed, basically finished with his hair but still running your fingers through them to avoid looking at Jeongguk in the eyes. “I know, I was an idiot. I should have never dated him, it was a big mistake. I lost too much in that relationship.” 

“Wasn’t that your first?” 

You faltered, hands coming to a stop in his locks. “Yeah, yeah it was.” Laughing to try and lighten the mood, you placed the towel on the back of the chair and sat across from the bed cross legged. Snorting, you looked down at your hands as you answered him, “It was a horrible experience.” 

He was just sitting there, not really saying anything, staring at you. Sighing, he ran his hand through his hair and ruffled the fringe. “What did he do to you Y/N?” 

You glared up at him, “Hey! I don’t think you’re in a place to ask me about my relationships when I haven’t seen you in years and you never bothered to call me back or contact me until now.” 

He stared hard at you, “I told you why I had to do that, why I’m the way I am now. So now its your turn. What turned you so bitter?” 

You sighed, and shook your head. He glared at you, trying to press you for answers, but you just avoided his gaze, focusing on the furniture in your room. 

When his gaze didn’t relent, you just whispered as you looked down at your hands, “He cheated on me okay? I-it’s not something I like to talk about.” 

Jeongguk sighed, and clenched his fist, making you look up at him. He met your eyes and saw the pleading stare that you gave him, silently begging him not to press further on regarding the subject. 

If it was years ago, when it happened, and Jeongguk had asked you the same question, you would’ve burst into tears, wailing and ranting until you were empty. You would’ve spilled all of it out, letting the anger and the hurt and bitterness flow out of you, and you would’ve let Jeongguk comfort you like he always did, and forgotten about the situation. 

But the day Jeongguk left was the day you lost a part of yourself, someone who was there for you always. And you had no one to tell, no one to let it all out to, in fear of hurting them just like you were hurt. So your heart had closed in on itself, folding and shriveling inward until there was no space for mistakes, no space for failure, and no space for anyone. 

He just sat and watched you with sad eyes, unmoving. Finally, he relented and tugged you into a hug, surprising you. He sighed, your head moving in his chest that heaved as he took that breath. “I guess it’s my fault for not contacting you, I would’ve known all this if I had just called.” 

You nodded into his shirt. “Yeah, I probably would’ve told you.” 

He whispered, “I-i’m sorry I didn’t call. I promise I wanted to but I couldn’t. I missed you a lot Y/N.” 

You stared up at him, nodding. “It’s fine. I missed my best friend a lot.” 

He smiled a little, “Me too.” 

The both of you settled into a silence, just smiling at each other and remembering the old times when you called each other your best friends. 

When it started to get a little awkward, he let out a sigh, and stood up from the bed and stretched. “You said it was your night off right?” 

You nod, getting up as well, and taking the towel on the chair to hang it up in the restroom. “Yeah, why??”

“Ah, no wonder you smell like you haven’t washed your hair in days.” 

You whip around, and sock him in the stomach, making him double over with a groan. “Fuck you Jeon Jeongguk! I swear I’m going to kill you!” You roll the towel and begin slapping at his calves. 

He giggles, dodging your other fists and the towel at the same time. “Damn Y/N you seriously haven’t changed at all, you still hit like a fucking man, ah shit—- I’m injured!!!!!” 

That night you bundled him up in a sweater and went to the grocery store with him to pick up some materials to feed him with. As you browsed the vegetable section, he lingered near you with the hood over his head, watching you over your shoulder as you sifted through the potatoes to find some good ones. 

You handed him the bag of potatoes, and he placed them in the cart, and followed you diligently around the mart with the cart. And after checking out, he heaved all the plastic bags into his hands and began to walk with you towards your home. 

On the walk back, you bantered over memories in high school, laughing over some stupid embarrassing stories. Suddenly, halfway through, you remembered you were almost out of the ointment you were using on Jeongguk’s shoulder. 

“Hey actually, let me go get some ointment from the pharmacy real quick!” 

He shook his head, still walking toward your apartment, “Nah Y/N I can just snag some from your hospital.” 

You glared, “You know if you get caught then you take me down with you right? I’ll be arrested for stealing materials from a hospital!!!” 

He shrugged. “I wont get caught then.” 

You rolled your eyes, groaning. “Ugh! Just stay here real quick with the groceries since they’re heavy and your shoulder’s still healing. I’ll just run right there and grab it real quick!” And you scurried off before he could protest. He sighed and moved to the side of the road, setting down the plastic bags stuffed with vegetables and fruits. 

He watched carefully as you went across the street to the late night pharmacy and entered the store. The sky was dark, and the traffic lights were dim enough. He sighed, stuffing his hood lower on his face. Eyes were everywhere, and he definitely didn’t want to get caught or seen when he was in your neighborhood, and holding your groceries. 

That was the reason he’d withheld from contacting you after he joined his brothers. There were YG’s eyes everywhere, and if he were seen, they’d do anything to get him. He’d seen what they could do, and he knew they wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone he was seen with to try and get more information. But right now, they thought he was dead, and he had no record, so he was safe. 

That didn’t necessarily mean he was okay yet though. 

He saw a public phone nearby, and took a quick glance at the pharmacy before grabbing the receiver and dialed his brothers number. 

“Hello?” The earpiece crackled to life.

“Joon Hyung?” Jeongguk whispered into the receiver. 

“Shit Jeongguk! Shit shit, Yoongi come over here, its Jeongguk!” 

He could hear Namjoon and Yoongi scrambling over and jostling the phone, probably turning on speakerphone. “Hyungs, I don’t have much time. Listen.” 

Yoongi’s deep drawl sounded. “Are you okay? Where are you? Fuck, Jeongguk. We thought you were dead or something, we’ve been scouring the city for you!” 

“Hyung, I’m fine, I got shot by YG’s men, and so I ran across a friend who’s helping me with the wound. I’m in Seoul.” 

He could hear the other brothers come into the room and listen in on the conversation, their worried voices ringing through his earpiece. “I don’t have much time, listen. I tried doing the mission, but somehow I got shot. And you know YG doesn’t like when his bullets aren’t accounted for. So they might be suspicious and they might’ve seen me head toward Seoul hospital. I think my friend is in danger, but I’m keeping my profile low.” 

Namjoon spoke. “Jeongguk, you need to get back here now. If they really start getting suspicious and start digging around, you might get caught and they’ll know that you survived the first time. And YG won’t let you get away a second time.” 

Jeongguk nodded, glancing back at the pharmacy who’s lights were now off, signaling their closing hours. He rushed to end the call. “I’ll call you again later, but know that I can’t go back until I know that my friend is safe.” 

He placed the receiver back on the handle, and turned around, expecting you to be across the street by now, but couldn’t see you or any signs of pedestrians this late at night on the dark street. Frowning, he picked up the bags and walked over to the crosswalk, but before he crossed the street, he heard a scream. 

“JEONGGUK.” 

You’d successfully bought the ointment before the pharmacy closed, and was crossing the street when you noticed a liquor store. You entered, smiling and greeting the man at the counter before making your way into the back where there was the boxes of ramen. You’d finished a lot of your fast food in the craze of residency rounds, but you remembered in high school that Jeongguk loved eating the ramen you made. You grabbed a pack, paid, and left to go to where Jeongguk was waiting. 

But suddenly, you heard some commotion, and all of a sudden you were surrounded by tall, scary looking boys in uniforms. “Hey noona, wanna play with us?” He slung his arm around you as you tried speeding up your pace. You were only a two minute walk away from where Jeongguk was waiting. 

His friend walked faster and stood in front of you, barring your path. He had a cigarette in his teeth, winking greasily at you as he blew smoke in your face. “Noona, c’mon let’s play. We can go get some drinks and have some fun together!” 

The third boy grabbed the ramen packet out of your hands and began tossing it in the air like a baseball. “Yeah, or if you don’t wanna play, you can just help us get some beer, or cigarettes. That bitch worker man at the liquor store won’t let us buy because we’re underage.” The other boys snickered. 

“Get off of me!” You struggled to move out of the first boy’s shoulder hold and made a move to grab the ramen package. But he held it out of reach, and instead grabbed the wallet in your hand. Wiggling it between his fingers, he winked, “If you want this back, you have to buy us some cigs!” He sang-songed the last part, mocking you and your short stature. 

You groaned. “Look boys, I’m a doctor, I’m the last one who’d buy you those damn cancer sticks. So give me back my wallet and I’ll be on my way. Get the fuck out of here before I report you for underage misconduct, drinking, and smoking.” 

The boys mocked you, letting out some “Ohhhhs!” at your harsh words. “Oh shit! She’s a feisty motherfucker!” One said, and a dark look came over his eyes as he grabbed your shoulder and slammed you against the back wall of the liquor store. 

You groaned, feeling your elbow get scraped on the wall in the process, and watched as the kids loomed in, shoving their faces in yours. You gritted your teeth and yelled back, “I’m going to scream if you do anything to me!” 

They laughed, and gestured to the dark street. The liquor store lights were now off, similar to the rest of the stores and businesses lining the street. It was midnight, and this part of Seoul tended to shut down around midnight. There was no one to help you, and even if you yelled for Jeongguk, he wouldn’t be able to hear you from two blocks away. Your only option was to run. 

You grit your teeth again and glared up at them, your knee coming up to meet the first one’s groin. You knocked your leg up as hard you could, moving to run as he doubled over, groaning and cursing at you. But the other two were too fast, as they grabbed your hair and yanked you back and slammed you agains the wall again. One held your wrists behind you and the other held down your kicking legs. You were now screaming as loud as you could at this point, kicking and trying to yank your arms out of their grasp.

But the stupid high school boys were angry, tall, and strong. And as the first one recovered from the kick to his jewels, he straightened up and glared at you, and gruffed to his friends. “Keep her still, I think we need to teach her a lesson tonight. Fucking bitch, you think you can take all three of us?” He laughed, fist tightly closing, “Well let’s see how you deal with this.” He lifted his fist and you screwed your eyes shut and turned your face away from him, your mouth sounding out the only name you could think of.

“JEONGGUK!” 

You braced yourself for the impact of his fist, but instead you heard a muffled thud and opened your eyes to see the first one on the ground, groaning in pain and cradling his jaw in his hands. The other two boys holding you down threw you aside and rushed to help their friend. 

You groaned as you scraped your hands and knees on the pavement, but looked up to see a super angry Jeongguk plow down the two boys. They put up a decent fight, trying to dodge his kicks and throw in their own punches, but Jeongguk was swift, punching one in the stomach before using his hunched figure as leverage to turn around and swing his leg straight at the other’s face. Both crumpled to the ground, groaning, and the first one stood up, wiping blood from his face and launched himself on Jeongguk’s back, grabbing Jeongguk in a head lock.  

Jeongguk grit his teeth and wrestled with the kid, but the kid had grabbed his neck too tight and wasn’t letting go. You watched in horror as jeongguk stilled for a second before bucking down and launching the guy forward onto the ground. He scrambled to sit on the boy, landing some punches onto his face before getting off of him and dusting off his knees. The three kids were on the ground groaning, and clutching their faces. 

You were panting, shell-shocked at the sigh before you. You’d never seen anyone move so fast, so swiftly, and land such perfect punches. Jeongguk rushed over to you, throwing his hood back to stare you directly in your eyes. 

You peeled your gaze away from the boys on the floor and stared up at him in shock. “Y/N, are you okay? Shit, what the fuck happened? Are you feeling okay?” 

He ran his hands over your shoulders and arms, checking for any other injuries besides your scraped knees and elbows. You stammered back, clutching on to his jacket. “I-I-I’m fine! Sh-sh-shit, that was fucking a-awesome Jeongguk!” You broke out into a huge smile, in awe. “Where the fuck did you learn to do that?”

He stared down at you in shock, at your attitude. You were excited in your tone, but your body was shaking like a leaf, and your voice was wavering as you spoke. He frowned, helping you up and dusting off your clothes, and grabbing the wallet and ramen packet from the floor and handing it to you. 

You winced as you stood up, and he turned back to the high schools kids on the ground. “You ever touch her again you fuckers, I swear I’ll make you so unrecognizable you’ll regret ever being born.” The leader only glared back and scrambled up, huffing while his pals were still on the ground clutching their injuries. 

Jeongguk wrapped your arm around his shoulder, and helped your limping figure back in the direction of home. You stopped him to make him pick up the groceries first, smiling sheepishly as he stared at you incredulous that you’d bother about groceries in the state you were in. But you only smiled up at him and shook your head, complaining about how much time you’d spent to pick the perfect potato or whatever. 

Jeongguk watched as he walked you home, as you cast your eyes downward and your words became few. Your horse was still shaking and quivering, and it wasn’t because of the cold. But when he asked if you were okay, you assured him with a shaky smile that you were fine, that it was so cool how he beat up those boys, but he couldn’t help but wonder what kind of secrets you held behind that shaky smile, that hard exterior. 

He shakes his head as he leads you back to your apartment. 

How was it that the two people with the most secrets became best friends?