#sorry to anyone who likes the hobo jacket look but i had to give it a rotten score 😅 he looks like stick in it 😬

[mattmurdeaux]

MATT MURDOCK LOOKOGRAPHY RATING

(As based on Hotness, Appeal, and Overall Yumminess)

HIGHEST RATED: 100 % Black Suit, Tuxedo, Shirtless, Smedium NYPD Shirt

LOWEST RATED: 45% Stick Cosplay

CRITICS CONSENSUS: "Matthew Murdock is an absolute ethereal, beautiful, show-stopping, gorgeous human being regardless of his sartorial choices." (Certified HOT at 100%)

AUDIENCE REVIEW: "Matt ur hot af." (Certified Down Bad for this disaster Catholic man)

[vvatchword]

Ch. 26: From on High

Dr. Lamb’s first speech came that afternoon without preparation at all. She had just stepped outside the office to stretch her legs when a shout went up down the street. Down the block came a vanguard of children shouting insults and throwing rocks; just behind the children, a group of overall-clad workmen surrounded by Sinclairs wielding shotguns; far behind marched a shifting, shivering horde of disgruntled humanity. Men, women, children, all ages, in washed-out clothing that flapped loosely on their limbs, sometimes holding brooms or pokers or chair legs.

The rumble was like that of thunder.

Soon the group had swallowed up her street, as well as the line that crushed itself against her building.

“I’m very sorry; what’s going on?” Dr. Lamb called out into the crowd.

“They’re knocking down our apartment!” a man in black called back. “They’re knocking it down and they’re not paying us back for the leases or nothing!”

“Perhaps I can help,” she said, holding her door open for an entering janitor. “When are they going down?”

“This minute! Now!”

She stepped off her stoop. “I will be back directly. All of you will be seen to.”

The line outside her door stared mutely; no doubt they hadn’t heard her.

Some watched, wondering.

She stepped out into the crowd and it swept her down the block. A group of young men blocked up the space around her without saying a word; she was aware of their eyes, although she never caught them looking at her.

She was never jostled. She was never touched.

In this way, she pushed toward the front of the line, where a square opened organically into a bare patch of raw stone and dumped cement. Men with saws and sledgehammers were arguing with a throng of inhabitants clustered outside one of the Drop’s most cherished rarities—a professionally-built building once used as a flophouse for the construction crews of years past, long since converted to a tenement. Its front door had already been removed from its hinges.

Dr. Lamb broke through the head of the throng, lifting her arms and her voice.

“Quiet, please!” she called out.

Perhaps because she was a woman, perhaps because she reminded one strongly of Sunday school teachers, perhaps because she stood out—prim and proper in a pencil skirt down to her calves, a high collar, pale and lavender and gray against the yellow, the black, the earth—the different sides settled.

The Sinclairs alone moved; although they kept the muzzles down, they slowly lifted their shotguns against their shoulders.

“I come unarmed,” said Dr. Lamb to the Sinclairs, “and am but a single woman. Do you mean to solve your problems with violence instead of reason?”

The crowd muttered, but the Sinclairs burst into laughter.

“This ain’t your place, sister,” said the Sinclair captain, who wore a peaked cap with a brass star. “Why don’t you head back and yak at those hobos instead of bothering honest workers?”

“Violence here would no doubt stretch to the place where I ‘yak,’” said Dr. Lamb. “This is purely self-interest. Please, allow me to help.”

The crowd shifted around behind her. Were the edges of it beginning to press inward?

“We don’t need no help,” said the captain. “Get outta here.”

“I am told you are tearing down this building,” said Dr. Lamb. “This would impact well over a hundred citizens. Who has made this decision?”

“Sinclair Solutions,” said a worker whose nametag read, “Mitchell.” “Take it up with them.”

“Sinclair Solutions owns this site?”

“Well, yeah,” Mitchell said. “What don’t they own down here?”

From the side streets swaggered more brown-jackets, rifles in their arms. Dr. Lamb saw them. 

Dr. Lamb did not express anything other than unsurprised indifference.

“It seems strange that the company would not give these people notice,” she said.

Mitchell shrugged. “Not uncommon down here, ma’am.”

She blinked and stood back. “I beg your pardon?”

“Not uncommon to build or take down a building without letting anyone know,” he said. “Happens all the time.”

“You would throw whole families on the street. Working families, no less.”

“Just doing my job, ma’am.”

Brown-jackets were slipping through the crowd toward her.

Dr. Lamb lifted her voice. “Part of our ‘job’ is understanding and defending the philosophy. And by the philosophy, this is the behavior of a tyrant.”

Silence fell on the square. A brown-jacket had just begun to reach for her out of the crowd. He recoiled.

“This is the behavior of a tyrant!” she said, a woman—a schoolmarm—shining white. “You have every right to defend yourselves.”

The acoustics of the square had been accidental; now they flung up Dr. Lamb’s voice like an end-time trumpet. The crowd had been building up as she spoke. It trembled, edged forward. Too late did the brownjacks and the sledgehammers realize that it was perhaps 300 strong and still growing.

The captain’s jaw tightened. “All right. You had your chat. We’ve got work to do. You get your scum out of the way so we can get it done.”

But Dr. Lamb no longer addressed him. She turned her back on him and faced the crowd shivering but feet away. It seemed suddenly that she towered above them; they shrank, small and earthy and crawling, staring up with eyes like hunted animals.

“You have worked fairly for your bread, have you not?” Dr. Lamb called out. “You have paid for your housing? Your children’s educations? You have signed the papers they asked for? And once they are done with you, they throw you aside; they will find others who will pay because they must. And you have paid and you have paid and you have paid! Where are your returns? Do you not deserve them as much as Sinclair? Are you not as much a man as he?”

The rumble went up. The Sinclair captain’s shotgun shivered; in a moment he might snap it to eye level; in a moment she might lose her head before an army.

Her army. An army he could see trembling at the brink.

“The philosophy should speak for every man,” Dr. Lamb said. “Not merely the strongest. There is strength in variety and death in monoculture.” She whirled on the Sinclairs. “You—shotguns! Take this back to Augustus Sinclair: without these people, the Drop will never heal, and by extension, the whole of Rapture lies dying of a seeping wound.”

A ragged cheer rose up, then swelled high, and hands waved hats. The edges of the crowd bunched up around her, swallowed her up, then crept step by shuddering step, hundreds upon hundreds of feet, shod and unshod, the herd lowering its horns before the lions.

The Sinclair captain met Dr. Lamb’s eyes. He lowered his shotgun. He flicked his hand back over his shoulder. Slowly, the group of workmen and their brownjacks backed away across the square, eyes on the crowd, as it lifted up a deep rumble of discontent.

Dr. Lamb followed their retreat—slowly, enveloped by the crowd, tall, straight-backed, untouchable, shining. She and the Sinclair captain kept their eyes locked on the entire slog down the street toward the train station.

It was he who, red-faced, would stand before his boss and say, without reserve: “Sir, there is something unnatural about that woman.”

It was she who would watch them depart by train, then walk back to her white building, the crowd leaping around her. The young tossed their hats and shook her hand; the older inclined their heads and doffed their caps. She nodded to those whose hands she shook, but no expression passed her face; later, those who had met her would describe her visage as everything from noble to proud to world-weary.

She stepped into her office for the one o’clock appointment.

**

The letter arrived at Dr. Lamb's Family Consultation Center by special courier early that evening. Dr. Lamb had just set her files aside for the secretary. A line still wound out the door, quiet lined faces staring through the glass; most of them would remain overnight, waiting for openings in her schedule. She had not put up bars, even when the plumber had suggested it.

"No," she had said. "It would say we did not have faith in our own cause."

"It would stop a Sinclair from torching the place," he had said, but never brought it up again.

The letter was two pages long. The first piece of paper was printed with the city council's letterhead, crowned by a chain motif clenched between two straining fists.

She scanned it, hand clenching in her lap, digging one nail into her palm at a time. She set the page down.

The second page was from Andrew Ryan.

Her brow knotted. For a moment only her eyes moved. She must have finished at some point, for she sat staring, unmoving, for a few minutes.

Then her brow smoothed. Her lips loosed. She leaned back. She took both pages, folded them neatly, tucked them back in their envelope.

The secretary poked her head around the corner. She was a homely girl, stout, missing her right leg below the knee. Her face was white. Her eyes lit on the envelope, its neatly torn slit.

“What did they say?” she asked.

Dr. Lamb met her eyes. Pinching it between thumb and index finger, she dropped it in the wastebasket.

“It is nothing worth worrying about,” she said. “I will see you tomorrow.”

**

Dr. Lamb stepped through the front door, a bag of groceries in one arm. Almost as soon as she did, Eleanor bowled into her.

“Eleanor,” she said, “what did I tell you about…”

“Mum!” said Eleanor, flapping up a newspaper. “Do you know Johnny Topside?”

“I… Eleanor, do not change the topic,” she said. “Remember, exce…”

“Excessive-emotion-clouds-logic-yes-I-know-but-do-you-know-Johnny-Topside?” Eleanor jumped up, held the newspaper straight out.

Dr. Lamb frowned, took it out of her hand. It was a full-page ad. A man, frowning, staring down as if in thought; his stance wide open, like someone poised for a fight; cigarette clamped between index and middle fingers, a stream of smoke floating up; jacket flared open, thumb smearing something dark from his lip. Behind him, the slouching humps of Neptune’s Bounty.

“It’s Always Time for Nico-Time!” said the copy.

“That’s Johnny Topside,” said Eleanor, and stared at her expectantly.

Dr. Lamb lowered the paper, squinting down at her daughter like she had just been given a toad.

“Why are you showing me this picture?” she asked slowly.

“Do you know him?” asked Eleanor. “Did you meet him in Japan?”

“Of course not,” said Dr. Lamb. “Why, he was probably…” She looked at the ad again. “He might have only been in his teens at that time. Oh, Eleanor. We were at war, and Japan was not a friendly place to outsiders. Why on Earth would you ask such a thing?”

Eleanor’s smile fell. “I just… I just thought…”

“Did he give an interview?” Dr. Lamb paled. “Is Ryan trying to connect us?” She flipped the paper closed, glanced over the front page.

“N-no,” Eleanor said, twisting her hands. “I just thought maybe you…”

She leaned against the wall, took her glasses off, rubbed her forehead. “Oh, Eleanor. I…”

For a moment, both of them stood very quietly. Far away, a minute hand ticked. Dr. Lamb pushed the heel of her hand into one eye, then the other.

No, no, she could not. She would not.

She took a deep and shuddering breath.

“Today was very difficult for me, Eleanor,” she said at last. “I know better than to give in to emotional excess.”

“It’s okay,” Eleanor said solemnly, wrapping her arms around Dr. Lamb’s legs. “You’re only human.”

Dr. Lamb laughed. It was a colorless fluttering sound. Eleanor gazed up and laughed with her as loudly as she could.

UPRISING: BLACK SCRAPBOOK HUB

[dontshootmespence]

As I Watched In Sorrow

Summary: After experiencing an unimaginable loss, Y/N floats through life, living for...she doesn’t know anymore. When it all becomes too much, she’s greeted by a woman in black with a deal so sweet, she can���t bear to let her grief and her morals get in the way.

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Word Count: 6,864

Warnings: Probably one of, if not the saddest thing I’ve ever written. Please heed the warnings! Suicidal thoughts and near actions, death of a child, betrayal, a crisis of faith/hatred for Chuck/God, brief mentions of sex, knives, self-hatred. Lots of shit.

A/N: This fulfills my entries to @stusbunker Lie to Me in Melody Challenge - a prompt from a Carole King song, “As I watched in sorrow, there suddenly appeared, A figure gray and ghostly beneath a flowing beard, In times of deepest darkness, I’ve seen him dressed in black, Now my tapestry’s unraveling - he’s come to take me back” and @covered-byroses​ 3k celebration with the prompt “shadow.” Shadow here is definitely more of an abstract than physical thing. Hopefully it works. Sorry to both of you that this took approximately 8,000 years. This takes place around season 8/9 solely for the fact that I needed the antagonist to have years of pent up rage toward the Winchesters.

Closed blinds did little to shield the slivers of morning light from burning her skin. As she tossed the blankets aside, she inhaled the stagnant air and closed her eyes against the sun. Though little, it was still too much. Turning off the lone lamp she’d forgotten the night before, she slowly ambled into the bathroom, popping open the familiar bottle and downing the necessary pills dry.

A glimpse in the mirror made her shiver. Her skin pallid and pitted, eyes sunken and dark despite the fact that she hadn’t worn makeup in weeks. Wetting her toothbrush, she propped the mirror open, unable to bear the reminder. Lazily, she pulled the brush across her teeth, more a societal necessity than a want or a need. She needed to grab food and it just wasn't okay to walk out of the front door without her teeth brushed.

Clothes didn’t matter though. The gray sweat-suit she wore to bed would do just fine. She dragged her gaze over the entirety of her bedroom, searching for her purse so she could go and get this over with. When the cursory glance didn’t lead to her bag, she began go through the other rooms - the kitchen, piled high with unwashed dishes and half-eaten tv dinners, the living room, where scattered dolls and a teddy dressed in a little pink tutu sat dutifully waiting for the return of their owner, the dining room, where she could practically still see her sitting, excitedly waiting for dinner. It wasn’t anywhere to be seen. 

Shuffling toward the front door, she looked in the coat closet, finding her hobo bag dangling limply next to the small, lavender windbreaker studded with unicorns. Had she not been in such a state after coming home the night before, she would’ve noticed it here, and put her bag somewhere else. She reached into the bag and opened the glasses case, slipping the oversized sunglasses over her eyes. Just because she needed to go out didn’t mean she needed or wanted to be assaulted by the sun. Why couldn’t it just leave her alone? Steady darkness had been her comfortable umbrella for weeks. Couldn’t the light just leave her be? Darkness was an old friend.

She stepped outside and locked the door behind her before heading toward her car. As a neighbor pulled out of their driveway, she glanced at a bumper sticker that hadn’t been there before.

When life gives you more than you can stand, kneel.

“I did,” she whispered.

----

Later that night, another half-eaten tv dinner was tossed on top of the already packed garbage can. Why was she even doing this? Continuing? Was there even a point?

She went through the motions, turning on the television to watch a TV show before she pulled the covers over her body once again. But it was useless. With more purpose than she’d had in weeks, she walked into the living room and reverently picked up the tutu-wearing bear, propping it underneath her arm as she gathered the remainder of her pills from the bathroom. She’d just refilled the prescription; it would be enough. 

Slipping back under the covers, she placed the bear next to where her head would lay on the pillow and reached for the pill bottle slowly, but with no hesitation. 

A faint whisper emanated from the behind her, where the overwhelming shadow of her apartment fought against the moonlight coming through the once-again closed blinds. 

“I can help you.” A whispery voice said, clearer than before.

“Great, I’ve lost my mind.” She heaved a heavy sigh and twisted the bottle cap open.

With a quick flap of what could only be described of as wings, a woman appeared behind her, emerging from the shadows. “I’m not here to hurt you,” she said softly, holding up her hands as a show of her promise. “I want to help you.”

“Who the hell are you?” She asked, getting up from the bed and backing toward the corner of the room. “Why are you in my house? Get the hell out.” To her disbelief, the other woman walked toward her, through the mattress, as if she wasn’t real. “I’ve gone insane,” she said, shaking, trembling fingers combing through her hair. “I’ve lost my mind.”

“You haven’t,” she countered.

“What the hell are you then?”

“I’m a Reaper. You can call me Tessa.”

A tear rolled down her cheek. “What? Like the Grim Reaper?”

The brunette, wearing an unassuming combination of a leather jacket, black tank and ripped jeans, seemingly floated toward her, smiling. Softness radiated from her, welcoming, despite the situation. “That’s what you tend to call us,” she chuckled. “But we aren’t cold, hooded, evil figures. We’re only here to help you cross.”

Cowering in the corner, a realization began to come over her. “When we die. Is that why you’re here? For me?”

“No,” she replied, moving toward the bed and grasping hold of the teddy bear. “Truthfully, you aren’t supposed to die for a long time. I’m here because I think we can help each other.”

She shook with anger. “How could you possibly help me?”

Tessa lovingly stroked the teddy bear’s head. “I can give you back what you want most.”

Her heart skipped a beat, eyes glancing quickly at the worn stuffed animal. “That’s not possible. Why would you bring her back to me if your job is to ferry people to the other side?”

“Astute,” she replied. “Strictly speaking, it’s not something we’re supposed to do. Make deals with the living that is. As Reapers, we maintain the natural order, taking souls to where they remain for eternity because if they remain on this plane, many times, most times, they turn bad, shadows of their former selves. Order is what’s important.” Tessa paused, as if carefully considering her next words. “There are two men - brothers - that over and over and over again, defy the natural order.” The reaper’s voice became louder and louder as she spoke. “They cheat death. Time and time again. Those above me, my bosses so to speak, they don’t believe I can do my job anymore. And I’m at risk of losing it. You see, this is what I am. Without it, I’m lost.”

For the first time since this strange woman entered her home, for the first time in weeks, actually, she laughed. “So you’re about to lose your job and you want revenge on the people you can’t reap? Am I supposed to feel bad for you?” She ripped the teddy bear from Tessa’s hands and clutched it to her chest. “You take innocent five-year-olds from their mothers - to give to a God that strikes down someone so small and I’m-I’m-I’m supposed to care?!” She screamed, sliding down the wall toward the floor. “You and your God can burn.” Sobbing, she buried her head into the teddy bear, ignoring the looming darkness overhead. If she was to die right now, then so be it.

“Reapers have no allegiance to God. Frankly, I think he’s a heartless bastard.” She continued matter-of-factly. “But he is who he is and our job is simply to make sure these soul’s stay pure. Some we take to heaven, some to hell. Wherever it is they belong.”

“My baby?” She asked, chancing a glance at this creature disguised as a human.

“Heaven. I promise you.” Tessa crouched down to meet the woman’s eye. “Everyone has their own personal heaven. In hers, you’re there. Playing with dolls, snuggling in bed together, reading books. She’s happy.”

She clapped her hand to her mouth to stifle another sob. “Why her? She was just a baby. Why did I have to watch her wither away? Why?”

Tessa caressed her cheek with the pad of her thumb. “I don’t know. I can’t begin to understand His logic. But I can bring her back to you, just as she was, free of sickness. You can live a happy life together.”

“But you need me to kill someone.” The prospect hung heavily in the air. What did these men really do besides cheat death? Was that really such a bad thing? Wasn’t in human nature? Did they deserve to die? Her heart raced with possibilities. “How do I know you’re telling the truth? That you’ll keep your end of the bargain?”

Tessa held her hand out. “I’ll bring you to where her soul rests.”

Instantly, she was transported, at Tessa’s side, from her dim apartment, to a never-ending expanse filled with light. Doors came into focus. “You’re kidding,” she said. “Heaven is full of doors?” Tessa quickly walked her around corner after corner, ensuring they weren’t seen by anyone else, until they came to her door. “My baby.” Her fingers slid over the name on the door. And dates. 2008-2013.

“She’s in here,” Tessa whispered. 

Beyond the blinding light, a park came into focus - one she recognized. One she’d taken her baby to time and time again. From behind the playground, she ran, screeching with delight as her mother chased after her. She barely recognized herself. “This is her heaven,” Tessa said softly, her arm link with yours, almost like a friend. “She plays with you.”

“Can she seem m-?”

“No. Not the you standing here. That one is her projection of you.”

Filled with a resolve she hadn’t know since the moment her baby was placed in her arms at the hospital five years ago, she turned to Tessa. “What do I have to do?”

Tessa smiled, a small sigh of relief escaping her. She pulled a piece of paper from her jacket pocket. “This man will come into your life. I need you to let him in. He’s a strong man, but he’ll let his guard down with those he trusts. You need to be one of those people. Once you are, I need you to kill him. He disrupts the natural order, and we...have a history. He doesn’t trust me.”

“Why do I need to get him to trust me first?”

“That’s for me,” she admitted. “This history...he’s the reason I am where I am. It’s purely revenge on my part.” She loathed to admit it. 

“But I-”

Exasperatedly, Tessa held the woman’s face in her hands. “He has cheated death over and over again. And your daughter couldn’t. How is that fair?”

“It’s not,” she seethed, taking the paper from Tessa’s hands. “How long do I have? I’m assuming I’m on some kind of a timeline.” 

“One year,” Tessa replied. “If you can’t do it, the deal is void and I’ll find someone else who can help me.”

“I’ll do it. I promise,” she whispered. Before she knew it, she was back home and Tessa was gone. Unfolding the paper, she read the seemingly innocuous name.

Dean Winchester.

----

The following morning, she woke in her apartment, the teddy bear still firmly in her grasp. “Worst dream ever,” she whispered, sitting up in bed. She glanced toward the nightstand, where a piece of paper sat. Dean Winchester. 

“It wasn’t a dream?”

This man will come into your life.

So he’d just cross her path? She had to sit here and wait? 

Tired and dumbfounded, she pulled the laptop toward her lap and typed in his name, searching for some record of the man she was supposed to let into her life. A few Dean Winchesters came up, a character in a book series, a teacher out of the Midwest, an escaped convict accused of killing a number of women. Wonderful. None but the convict made an impression. Could this man, doing his best impersonation of Blue Steel after being accused of murder, truly be the one who crossed a Reaper? Cheated death?

Closing the laptop, she sighed, dropping her head into her hands. What the hell was she doing? How was she supposed to kill a man? A man she didn’t even know? “No, I can’t. I can’t,” she said emphatically. “This is insane.” It wasn’t real? Right? As if to prove her wrong, she felt a darkness at her back, heavy and insistent, but leading her toward the light nonetheless.

----

For the first time in weeks, she shrugged her army green coat on and headed out to the nearest bar instead of taking a bottle home from the supermarket and falling asleep after downing near all of it. Warm light bathed her as she walked through the door and sat at the far end of the bar. Her usual bartender, Zach, seemed surprised at her presence. “Haven’t seen you around in a while. What brings you back?”

“The quality booze,” she replied dryly. Some people wanted to pour their hearts out to their bartender, not her though. “Sick of supermarket wine.”

Thankfully, he didn’t push, instead bringing over her usual. Maker’s Mark neat. Sipping, she quietly hissed the burn, its warmth feeling different now, teasing. Maybe it was the fires of hell licking at her insides for what she was contemplating, the lengths she would go to in order to see her little girl again. 

The familiar, high-pitched bell chime alerted her to the presence of yet another patron of the bar. He came to sit a few seats away, ordering a whiskey on the rocks. When she looked up, she saw him. The Dean she saw in the mug shot - Mr. Blue Steel. 

Tipping the rest of her drink back, she swallowed her morals down along with the booze and eyed Zach for a refill. When Blue Steel caught her eye, she smiled and gave him a soft wave. He was cute. She could do this. She had to do this. Without her baby, there was nothing. He walked over, taking a seat on the stool next to her. “Hey. I’m Dean. Dean Winchester.”

“Hi, Dean,” she said softly, taking the refill from Zach’s hand. “I’m Y/N.” She frowned into her drink before she continued. “My friends and family call me Sunshine.”

----

Dean was easy to talk to; smooth, like the bourbon she’d been sipping on for near an hour. He was open yet guarded. Secrets lay behind his eyes, just as they did hers. Though they hadn't spoken for more than an hour, she could tell he’d gone through more in life than others did in 10. Behind his mega-watt, ladies man smile sat years upon years of pain. “So Dean,” she started, swirling the amber liquid around in the glass. “What brings you to a bar in the middle of nowhere at 11:00 at night?”

“Bad day on the job...” He replied, gulping down a hefty swig of his own drink. “Really bad day. Just need to forget, you know?”

She nodded, understanding settling into the marrow of her bones. “More than you know, Dean. If you want to get anything off your chest, I’m all ears. Think of me as a sponge.”

“Thanks, Sunshine.” The nickname sounded foreign on his lips; she hadn’t heard it in so long. But from his pouty pink lips the name sounded comforting. She wanted to lean into it. “I’m not sure it’s something you would understand. I don’t mean that in bad way. Just...I don’t think you’d believe me.”

If the previous night’s happenings hadn’t occurred, she might have been shocked, but she wasn’t sure if she could be shocked now. This Tessa wanted Dean dead, so presumably Dean was involved in all manner of shit that she would’ve never imagined. “I’ve seen some shit,” she replied, tipping the last of her drink into her mouth.

Dean’s eyes scanned her quickly, as if assessing how much she’d actually seen and whether or not she could be trusted. “D’ya wanna go for a drive? There’s a lake about 10 minutes from here.”

This was stupid. Following a man she didn’t know, having seen his mugshot before, but there was an aura about Dean and it drew her in. Plus, she had to do this - for her baby. When she nodded, he held out his hand to her and smiled. Maybe he wouldn’t be a good man. Maybe she would be doing the world a favor. Something told her she wouldn’t be so lucky. As they walked to his car, she felt the darkness, the guilt, the shame, clawing at her back. 

----

Outside the bar, the moon hung near full in the sky. “This is my Baby,” he said proudly, running his hand along an old Impala. “Through everything, she’s been my constant.”

Dean opened the passenger side door for her and slammed it closed before sliding into the driver’s side like a hand into a glove. She could see he was made for this car. 

As the engine roared to life and they pulled out of the parking lot, Dean asked the one question she didn’t want to answer. But if she was going to get her back, she had to. “So, what brought you to a bar in the middle of nowhere at 11:00 at night?”

Taking a deep breath, she said her name. For the first time in almost two weeks. “My daughter.” She spoke so softly Dean almost couldn’t hear her over the rumble of the Impala’s engine. “I lost her 43 days ago. Cancer. She’d just turned five.”

“Fuck.” Dean smacked the wheel of the car. “I’m so sorry. No one should have to watch their kid go through that.”

A tear fell from her eye but she quickly wiped it away. “No, they shouldn’t. I hope you’re not a religious man, but...if God’s up there. He’s a dickhead.”

“I’m not a religious man,” he laughed dryly. “I have faith in humanity, most of the time, but God’s a vindictive asshole.”

She laughed and let her head hit the headrest just as they pulled up to the lake. The moon seemed closer here, silhouetting them as they walked toward the pier. “D’ya wanna talk about her?” He asked. “I’m all ears too.”

Sitting on a bench near the lake, she told him all about her baby girl. Her father hit it and quit it, leaving as soon as she found out she was pregnant. “I was petrified to raise her myself, but I wanted to be a mom,” she said, voice catching in her throat. “I brought her into this world by myself. I raised her myself. Worked two jobs to make sure I could give her the life she deserved. She was diagnosed with leukemia just after her 4th birthday.”

At first, she’d tried not to cry, but it was no use. “Sorry, I’m just-”

“Raw still?”

“Yea.”

“I get it,” he replied, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. 

She leaned into it, a warmth she hadn’t felt since her daughter insisted on a goodnight kiss the night God took her away. He wrapped his arm around her like this is exactly where they were supposed to be. “Anyway, she knew what was happening, even though she was so young. She was the one that kept me sane. Somehow. You wanna know what she said to me the night she died? Her last words?”

“What’d she say?”

“She’s the one who called me sunshine. She said my smile reminded her of sunshine. Before she fell asleep, she took my hand in hers and said ‘when I go to sleep, look at the sun and think of me. Then I’ll be with you every day.’”

She heard Dean sniffle and turned her head to see a tear fall from his eye. “It sounds like she was wise beyond her years.”

“She was.” Shaking her head, she pulled herself together and changed the subject. “What about you? What happened on the job that brought you to a random bar in the middle of the night?”

He was hesitant at first, asking if she believed in things that others thought impossible - ghosts, vampires, demons. Before Tessa, she would’ve said no, but now it seemed plausible. “I do.”

“I hunt them. The things that go bump in the night that no one believes in. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid.”

Her heart ached for him. Only a tragedy could get a young boy into such a horrific line of work.  

“Tonight, my brother and I lost a father and son because we couldn’t move fast enough.”

“I’m sorry, Dean,” she said softly. She felt this innate desire to comfort him, to tell him he’d probably done all he could, but something in her told her Dean wasn’t the kind of man to rid himself of guilt with so few words. He carried it with him. “I really am.”

“Thanks, Sunshine.”

----

For the first time in weeks, she awoke the next morning to the burn of the sun, but her instinct wasn’t to shield her gaze. Instead, she craned her neck backward, hair slipping against the cool leather of Dean’s jacket. They’d fallen asleep on the bench. “Morning, Sunshine,” he mumbled. “Didn’t mean for us to fall asleep on a park bench.”

“Me either,” she replied honestly. “But honestly it’s been the best sleep I’ve had in months.”

Dean grumbled in agreement. Apparently, he wasn’t much of a morning person. “Wanna grab breakfast?”

She hesitated a moment before her stomach entered the conversation. “I’d like that.”

At the diner, she ordered bacon and eggs and toast to Dean’s pancakes and bacon. Then they ordered an extra side of bacon to split because neither could get enough bacon. They didn’t speak another word of her daughter or his job. “Favorite color?” He asked. “Mine’s red.”

“Green. Three favorite foods? Obviously bacon is one.”

“Pizza and a big fat juicy burger.”

“Pizza and bacon, and then probably really good sushi.”

Dean made a face and they laughed. He liked grade-B horror movies and Disney movies, though he wouldn’t admit to the latter to many. She loved psychological thrillers and gross out comedies. “The really stupid ones that make you question your intelligence,” she laughed. “I like turning my brain off.”

As they paid, Dean pulled her close. “Maybe one day, we can watch one of those together. Order a pizza.”

“Meat lover’s?” She offered, handing him her phone so he could give her his number.

His smile shone brighter than the morning’s sunrise. “Is there any other kind?”

With ease, they strode out of the diner and back into the worn leather seats of the Impala. She still didn’t know this man, not really. He was a monster-hunting, leather jacket-wearing lover of bacon, pizza, crappy horror and Disney, but she didn’t know him. Yet, she gave him her address without a thought and allowed him to walk her to her front door. “Sunshine, with my job, my brother and I are kinda all over the place, but I’d like to see you again. If that’s okay with you.”

“That’s more than okay with me.” 

Dean returned her soft smile and slipped his fingers between hers, tugging her gently until her lips were mere millimeters from his. She glanced at them, inviting him to kiss her. Whatever she imagined him doing, he took her by surprise, pressing the most of chaste of kisses to her lips before pulling away. “I’ll talk to you soon, Sunshine. Okay?” He squeezed her hands in his, a further affirmation of his promise.

When he began to walk away, she called after him. “Thanks, Dean.”

“Anytime.”

----

It was nearly two and a half weeks before they saw each other again, but in the time apart, they texted and called nearly every day, each time letting the other in on a little more of who they truly were outside of their first meeting. “What do you miss most about being a kid?” He asked, voice low and whispery.

“Sam sleeping?”

“Yea,” he replied with a yawn. “I’m not tired yet.”

“You sound it,” she said. “Would it be too cliche to say not having to pay bills?”

Dean chuckled. “Yes, I mean something that tells me something about you.”

“There was a lake nearby my house when I was a kid. Well, not nearby, more like a couple hours away. But my parents would take me there a couple times a year. We’d build sand castles and look for seashells. I miss that. What about you?”

“I didn’t really have much a childhood. I was learning how to hunt before I turned 10. When we were young though, I read to Sammy a lot. Help him get to sleep, you know? I miss that.”

“I’m sorry, Dean.”

“Don’t be. It’s in the past.” This time he yawned so hard he could no longer deny that he needed to pass out for the night. “We’ll be passing through in a couple of days. Can I take you on an actual date?”

Smiling sadly to herself, she rested her hand over her tightening chest. “Looking forward to it.”

----

As promised, Dean showed up at her door two days later with a bouquet of flowers in hand. “How did you know these are my favorite?” She asked, inhaling the sweet scent. 

“Educated guess. Now, we’re gonna go to one of my favorite burger joints-bar-tavern things in the area. They have this killer bacon cheeseburger with an egg grilled into the middle of it that you have to try. They also have pool, so I can teach you how to play.”

During one of their nightly phone calls, she asked them how they made a living doing what they did. Hustling pool, the occasional credit card fraud. You know, the usual, he’d laughed. 

You’ll have to teach me.

“Sounds amazing.”

Reaching into the closet for her jacket, she glanced at the small purple coat, still hanging there, and felt her heart skip a beat. How was she able to go out and smile and have fun barely two months after losing a piece of her heart? It felt so wrong. And yet being with Dean felt so right, so natural. 

He’s a strong man, but he’ll let his guard down with those he trusts.

She swallowed back bile and quickly pulled her jacket out, closing the door against realizations and realities she couldn’t indulge. Plastering a fake smile across her face, she slipped the jacket over her shoulders and allowed herself to believe for one moment that life wasn’t as cruel as it seemed to be. 

----

“Sunshine, I think you might be the perfect woman,” Dean laughed.

At that moment, she was acutely aware of the grease running down her chin. “What this whole, chipmunk look with food in my mouth, guzzling beer is a turn on for you?”

Dean licked his lips and took another bite of his own burger. “Yup.”

“I can’t help it, this might be the best burger I’ve ever had. And that’s saying something.” 

“I told you,” he laughed. It didn’t take long for them to finish their food. “Burger is filling, but they have killer pie too. Wanna split a piece?”

She nodded and watched as Dean easily flagged down the waitress and asked for slice of “good ol’ apple.” “The best one they have, followed closely by cherry.”

Dean looked horrified when she grimaced. “Not a big cherry fan. Blueberry, peach, apple. That’s about it on the fruit pies.”

Less than two minutes after the pie came to the table, it was gone. “We should probably go,” Dean said, craning his head back to the door where a line of hungry dinner guests were waiting. “I think our waitress might kill us if we stay any longer.”

Chuckling, you stood up and reached for your wallet before Dean insisted he pay. “First date, remember?”

“Thanks, Dean.” 

Hand in hand, they walked out the diner and toward the Impala. It was so easy to be with him and more often than not he found herself smiling when he was nearby. But she didn’t have the luxury of falling in love, not if it meant she never got to see her daughter again. 

Tessa said he needed to trust her before...before she did it. “Up for a surprise?” She asked.

Dean raised an eyebrow, clearly taken aback. “Sure, I never get surprises anymore. Where to?”

Without telling Dean what she was up to, she directed him where to go. Less than five minutes later, she approached a park - the same one she used to take her daughter to. “I used to take my daughter here,” she said, zoning off as a vibrant picture played before her eyes. A little girl in a yellow dress ran across the grass and toward her favorite slide. “Sorry. Got lost in a memory.”

Dean’s easy-going smile from earlier faded away when he saw the sadness in her eyes. “We don’t have to be here,” he offered, looking back toward the car. 

“No, it’s okay.” It really wasn’t. But it was a reminder of why she was here, why she was doing exactly what she was doing despite the darkness eating at her from the inside out. “I wanted to share. There’s no one here at night.”

Dean chuckled and pulled her in to kiss her before running onto the playground set like a giant child. He ran up the metal slide and stuck his head out through a tube. “Come on! Let’s play!”

Allowing herself the opportunity to let go, if only for a moment, she ran up to meet him and chased him around the small area before she tripped and fell, bringing her down with him. “Been a while since I’ve been a kid,” he said, helping her up. They sat on the wood mulch of the playground underneath the slide and he pulled her close. “Thanks.”

“It’s no problem.” For a moment, she hesitated. “You said you used to read to Sam right?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Did anyone ever read to you?” When she looked back, she saw sadness in his eyes. “No?”

“Not that I can remember.”

“Close your eyes.”

Without hesitation, his eyelids fluttered closed. She reached into her pocket for her phone, hand shaking at the intimacy of the moment and the pain she felt. As she read - Vonnegut, considering he’d mentioned it in passing during one of their phone calls - he relaxed into her. Eventually, his head lay in her lap, her fingers twirling his messy brown locks. Hours passed. The only reason either noticed was due to the placement of the moon, now bouncing off the slide and onto the metal of a nearby bench. 

Dean sat up, sleep pulling at his eyes as he kissed her cheek. “Thanks, Sunshine. I can’t remember the last time I felt that relaxed.”

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she replied, softly. “Me either.”

----

Two months passed before they saw one another again, but not a day went by with at least a text. Sometimes it was just “I’m okay. Still alive,” other days they were able to actually talk, asking each other the most random questions in an attempt to know one another inside and out. “Hey, Sunshine,” Dean said as she opened the door.

Smiling, she allowed herself to be pulled into his embrace, his lips finding hers. “Hello to you to, Dean. I’ve missed you.” In the months since they’d seen each other, she’d made an attempt to clean her home. TV dinners were no longer piled up in the kitchen. Garbage was taken out when it needed to be. Occasionally, she would even open the blinds. Still, her daughter’s bear sat on the windowsill as a reminder of what she needed to do. 

Dean was unlike any other man she’d ever met and with him, she found herself content, even happy. But what did that say, if she allowed herself the happiness her little girl never got to experience? 

“Now, I know I said a couple days ago that we’d go get a bite to eat, maybe take a drive, but then I got an idea. Trust me?” There was a boyish glint in his eyes she couldn’t deny. 

Her mouth dropped open when she saw him remove a blindfold from his back pocket. “Kinky!”

“Not like that...not yet,” he replied, eyes full of hope. 

Dean wrapped the blindfold around her eyes and led her to the car. He would entertain a single question about where they were headed until shortly later, he stopped, picked her up out of the passenger seat and placed her on the ground before removing the material covering her eyes. “We’re at the beach,” she whispered in disbelief. “You remembered.” Tears burned at the corners of her eyes, emotion running wild. Despite the beautiful weather, the shadows nipped at her feet.

“Of course.” He crouched down to kiss her and wiped the tears away with the pads of his thumbs. “I made macaroni salad, pie, and I brought all the fixings for the perfect burger, which I can make on this.” He pulled out a small grill. “My George Foreman! This is the best thing in the world.”

As promised, Dean made delicious bacon cheeseburgers with a runny egg in the middle, just as they’d had at the diner months before. After every ounce of red meat was gone, they walked along the beach, toes in the sand and looked for seashells. Given that the nearest real beach was hundreds of miles away, seashells were a rarity, but it was perfect nonetheless.

The sun began to set, blue giving way to purples and pinks as they swayed together on the beach. “My place,” Dean started, “The place I share with my brother between cases, it’s about a half hour from here, do you want to-?”

“Really?” She asked. Her stomach dropped. He trusted her. Enough to bring her home, to the place he shared with his brother, the only other person in world he cared for. “You sure?”

“I am.”

If only she was too.

----

Despite how much Dean talked about him, Sam wasn’t what she expected him to be. She grasped his outstretched hand and feigned shyness, unable to look him in the eye knowing what she would eventually do. “Dean talks about you all the time,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I knew you had to be some kind of woman.”

“Dean’s told me a lot about you. Mostly good,” she replied with a smile. “It’s great to finally meet you, Sam.” 

After she said goodnight, Dean led her down the wide hallways of what they called “the bunker,” his hand heavy and insistent on the small of her back. Inside, he backed her up against the wall, against the shadows, and captured her lips in a kiss so delicate and sincere she would’ve collapsed were it not for him. 

In spite of herself, she sunk into his embrace and wrapped her arms around his neck as he carried her to bed. He trusted her. She knew it in the way he touched her, moaned her name, drank her in. But mostly she knew it in the way he fell asleep peacefully at her side that night.

----

On the morning after their night together, Dean had practically begged her to move into the bunker. “When you leave, I miss you. I hate...being without you.”

She’d been hesitant, but with each excuse he’d countered it. “You make me happy, Sunshine.”

Everything in her had screamed to run, but the earnestness in his gaze pulled her in and she’d complied. While they were away on cases, she would walk around the bunker, gaining more and more insight into the man she’d fallen in love with. Tessa had to be wrong. Dean was a good man - the best she’d ever met.

Screaming into the cold concrete walls of the bunker, she called for Tessa. “I know you’re watching me, you bitch! Answer me!” She slammed her fists against the wall, but no amount of pain could make her feel. “Where the fuck are you?!”

Barreling through the halls like a storm, she gasped when she turned the corner to see her there - the same determination emanating from her as the night they’d met. “Having second thoughts?”

“I can’t do this,” she sobbed, falling to her knees in front of the reaper. “Dean is not the man you think he is. He doesn’t deserve this.”

Disdain radiated from each word. “You only know the man he claims to be.”

“No! I know him. He’s kind. He’s gentle. He does what he does for love. And if he crossed you it’s because you deserved it.” Tears streamed down her face.

Tessa’s gaze melted from soft and endearing into furious and frightening in a matter of seconds. Picking her up by the throat, Tessa tossed her back against the wall. “You’ll follow through on our deal or I will alter it. Get rid of him and you will get your daughter back. She’ll be just as she was and the two of you will live a happy life together. Go back on your promise to me and I will make sure your daughter’s spirit rots in hell for the rest of eternity!”

Sobbing, she clawed at Tessa’s hands. “My daughter did nothing to deserve this! You-”

“BUT DEAN HAS!” She bellowed so loudly it felt as if the walls shook. “And I will use whoever and whatever I need to make him pay.”

“You can’t. You said yourself your bosses don’t trust you anymore!”

“True.” She spoke coolly, her fury gone and replaced with something along the razor’s edge of composure. “But they want Dean dead as badly as I do, if not for the same reasons. Get rid of him, Sunshine,” she said mockingly. “Or I will find someone who will and your daughter will burn.” Without another word, she left her trembling on the floor of the bunker, shadows closing in from every angle.

----

As the weeks passed into months, she awoke each night, screaming, picturing her daughter calling out for her from the fires of hell, begging for her to save her. Dean would lull her back to sleep with made-up stories he used to tell Sam and fervent kisses that said what he couldn’t. 

With the deadline looming large, she tried to think of any way to get the job done. At first, she thought of drugging him with pills. An entire bottle would do the trick and he would fall asleep not knowing the monster that shared his bed, but Tessa wouldn’t allow it, appearing to her again. “I can’t get near him, but you can.”

She was in over her head. Her choices were slim. Either tell Dean, bear the brunt of his hatred and never see her daughter again, or do as Tessa commanded, hate herself and save her daughter’s damned soul. Self-hatred streamed through her veins, but she had no choice.

What started as “kill him in whatever way you can” had morphed into Tessa brandishing a knife she was to use. Every time she tried, pulled the knife from her pocket and attempted to do the unthinkable, she saw his green eyes fade away into darkness. For weeks, she made herself ill, throwing up every day and shivering to sleep in Dean’s embrace at night.

Dean thought she’d been cursed as a way to hurt him, but they couldn’t find any evidence. They’d taken her to the hospital, but unsurprisingly she’d had a clean bill of health. Only she knew the cause of her pain.

“Come on, Sunshine” he said excitedly, “I have a surprise for you.” 

Taking his hand, she followed him out of the bunker to a clearing in a forest just a short way away, where he had another picnic, like the one so many months before, set up underneath the stars. “It’s been 11 months since the first night we met. I probably should’ve waited for a full year, but I couldn’t help myself.”

Awash in darkness, she began to cry. He pulled her close and they began to sway, a clumsy dance that brought a smile to his face. There was no time left. Reaching into her pocket, she grasped the handle of the knife. “I’m sorry, Dean.” Before she could stop herself, she plunged the blade into his chest. 

He grabbed the blade, hissing in pain as she pulled herself away. “Why?” He choked, hands shaking around the knife’s handle. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she sobbed, backing away. “I had no choice.”

A moment years in the making, Tessa made herself known, kicking his phone away before he could call for help. “How does it feel, Dean? Knowing the woman you love betrayed you?”

With a self-satisfied smile, she disappeared momentarily, only to reappear with her baby girl at her side. Dean made the connection. “I could’ve helped you. I would’ve...I-”

Tessa ushered her away, demanding she run as Dean fell to the ground. “I’m sorry,” she breathed, holding her daughter tight to her chest. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, Mama. I’m okay.” She remembered nothing.

Through the tear-stained forest, Sunshine ran from the light - the memories of Dean’s touch, his soothing voice, his gentle kiss - and into the darkness, her constant.

[dear-wormwoods]

Was there a moment in the book between eddie and richie that had you start thinking maybe there were deeper feelings between the two?

Like as in the earliest moment in the book where I started to go ‘hmmm’ on the very first read through?? Anon that was a long time ago!!! 

Okay so, assuming I am 14 years old and reading IT for the very first time, without that much practice interpreting symbolism and without the world knowledge needed to make certain connections that seem so obvious to me now as an adult, and I’m just casually reading the novel having only ever watched the miniseries as a little kid… these are the moments that probably jumped out at me first: 

For Eddie, it was The Dam in The Barrens (aka one of the most meaty chapters for Eddie analysis)

When Richie makes his entrance in the flashback, the first thing he does is pinch Eddie’s cheek. Then we get Eddie quietly observing Richie’s face when he’s being uncharacteristically solemn. Shortly after, Richie winks at him. 

And then we get THIS:

‘Ben, Eddie saw, was looking at Richie with a mixture of awe and wariness. Eddie could understand that.’

And this little reference:

‘….Richie’s sometimes enchanting, often exhausting charm.’

And then this:

“Oh—you mean it was your idea, Eds? Jesus, I’m sorry.” He fell down in front of Eddie and began salaaming wildly again. 

“Get up, stop it, you’re splattering mud on me!” Eddie cried. 

Richie jumped to his feet a second time and pinched Eddie’s cheek. “Cute, cute, cute!” Richie exclaimed. 

“Stop it, I hate that!”

And finally: 

‘A piece of Red Cross adhesive tape was wrapped around one of the bows of his glasses, and the loose end flapped against his cheekbone as he worked. Bill caught Eddie’s eye, smiled a little, and shrugged. It was just Richie.’

This is all in the span of like… four pages, and it’s relevant that our very first introduction to Richie as a kid is through Eddie’s eyes, and that he spends the whole sequence inner monologuing about how great yet confusing Richie is. 14-year-old me definitely picked up on the ‘this guy teases me playfully and I pretend to hate it but I’m actually obsessed with him’ dynamic.

But I need to stop and meta for a second because this chapter is FULL of Eddie subtext and most of it flew over my head 15 years ago:

Before we’re even introduced to kid!Richie, adult Eddie reflects on, and admits to the reader, that he actually liked when Richie called him Eds because it was a secret identity Richie bestowed upon him. He also informs the reader that as a kid people made fun of him by using homophobic slurs, and that Bill was not one of those people. It is so important that the chapter which contains an almost absurd amount of gay coding begins with those two things: that as a kid Eddie had more thoughts about Richie than he let on, and that Eddie was not just targeted by bullies for his asthma, but also for his sexuality. 

As the chapter goes on, it becomes very clear that when Richie calls him Eds, Eddie doesn’t always react to it. He reacts to it only when it’s accompanied by something flirtatious, a cheek pinch or a ‘cute’. This is the part that makes Eddie say he hates it, therefore it’s also the part he secretly likes. Also, when Eddie is watching Richie in that typical Eddie way where he can somehow make poorly taped up glasses sound poetic and delicate - Bill catches him in the act of staring, perfectly nonjudgmental. It’s important that it’s Bill who catches his eye - it connects back to the beginning of the chapter when he specifically states that Bill never called him a “sissy queerboy”. Bill never judges.

And then, of course, this scene leads right into Eddie’s recollection of the hobo sexually soliciting him, solidly drawing a connection between Eddie’s fear of sexuality and his fear of rotting/disease. Sandwiched between the real hobo and the IT leper encounter, there’s a short scene where Eddie tells Bill and Richie about what happened. Richie asks Eddie if he ‘knows about fucking’ and Eddie’s reaction is that he ‘hoped he wasn’t blushing’.

Then - THEN!! - Bill references gay sex, and in the same beat Richie says syphilis makes you rot, inadvertently creating a subconscious connection for Eddie between those two things. Sex gives you diseases.Sex makes you rot. Men can have sex with other men. If you have sex, sex with men, you get a disease, and you rot. It’s not a coincidence that after this conversation, not only is Eddie DRAWN to the house own Neibolt Street and pictures himself as the rotting hobo, when he eventually does encounter IT as the leper, it’s extra rotten and hones in on the blowjob solicitation… I mean, come on. 

For Richie, it was the following chapter, Georgie’s Room and the House on Neibolt Street:

So like, the possibility that Richie had a school-yard crush on Eddie had already crossed my mind before this because of him winking at Eddie and calling him cute and stuff in the previous chapter. But this chapter definitely cemented it because it’s from Richie’s POV and there is one obvious standout…

“They’ll all pinch my cheek and tell me how much I’ve grown,” Eddie said. 

“That’s cause they know how cute you are, Eds—just like me. I saw what a cutie you were the first time I met you.”

The SMOOTHNESS of it all. Richie has this wonderful ability to blatantly confess his feelings without ever being taken seriously for it. Can you imagine if Ben told Bev “I saw what a cutie you were the first time I met you”? It’s true, that’s exactly what happened. But would he ever say that to her at this point in time? NO! Because it’s very obviously FLIRTY LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT SHIT! But because it’s Richie and he’s cultivated a very specific persona where everything is done for laughs, he can just… make that kind of statement like it’s normal. Hiding in plain sight. 

More meta things from this chapter that flew over my head 15 years ago:

First, way before the movie scenes, Richie has to make sure no one is looking before comforting Bill because they are out in public on the street and he assumes that other people would think he’s gay for… patting his friend on the back to try to get him to stop crying. Compare this to his easy physicality with Eddie down in The Barrens - physicality that is much more likely to be interpreted as flirtatious if anyone saw - and it’s very obvious that Richie is hyper-vigilant about being seen, publicly, as anything but straight. In The Barrens, it doesn’t matter - they tell Officer Nell mere pages before this that The Barrens is where they can all be themselves. Richie is himself in The Barrens, when he’s pinching Eddie’s cheek and calling him cute. Out on the street, he can’t even do something as normal and expected as comforting his crying friend without worrying about the potential ramifications of it. 

Second, when Richie meets up with Bev and reflects on how pretty she is, he gets all flustered and shit. And although nothing here involves Eddie, we do get this iconic line and perfect insight into Richie’s behavior:

‘Richie, as he usually did in such moments of confusion, took refuge in absurdity.’

His immediate, instinctual response to this confusing, uncomfortable newfound attraction to Beverly is to… throw himself on the ground and comically praise her, do Voices, and generally act like an idiot. Who does he act this way around the most? You guessed it! Eddie Kaspbrak!

It’s also in this chapter that we’re introduced to Richie’s thoughts on the teenage werewolf:

‘The Teenage Werewolf was somehow scarier, though … perhaps because he also seemed a little sad. What had happened wasn’t his own fault. There was this hypnotist who had fucked him up, but the only reason he’d been able to was that the kid who turned into the werewolf was full of anger and bad feelings.’

At first it’s like, aw, that’s cute, Richie’s showing empathy. But later in the same chapter, when IT appears as the werewolf with Richie’s name stitched into the jacket, it hits different - Riche wasn’t just showing empathy, he was relating to the werewolf’s struggle with ‘bad feelings’ and the sadness of him being a monster through no fault of his own. 

Also in this chapter, there’s a small bit where Richie is lost in thought about Eddie’s trauma with the leper, and when he snaps out of it and talks to Ben, Ben is lost in thought about Bev’s trauma (the bruise on her cheek). Oh the parallels!

Anyway, this chapter functions the same way for Richie as The Dam in the Barrens does for Eddie - it starts out by demonstrating Richie’s discomfort with other people thinking he likes boys, moves into a series of interactions in which he flirts with Eddie and Bev, introduces the reader to his main IT manifestation, the teenage werewolf, and confirms that he relates to being a monster. Like Eddie, he feels an attachment to his ‘monster’ for reasons that are rooted in the way he sees himself. The subtext is much more subtle for Richie and there isn’t as much of it, but it’s there.

SO LONG STORY SHORT!! The moment(s) in the book where I first put two and two together as a casual reader were the ‘school-yard crush’ moments of pigtail pulling and flirtatious teasing. That stuff is obvious. Years later, as an adult, I can see that those same chapters that pinged for me as a teen are literally OVERFLOWING with subtext.

[etherealwaifgoddess]

Run To You - Chpt.5

Summary: Bucky & Steve’s date has some unintended consequences forcing Bucky to make some hard decisions. Master list is HERE :)

Content Warnings: Attempted child abduction. Emphasis on ATTEMPTED. Becca will be fine ya’ll. 

Word Count: 5.5k

Author’s Note: Hello lovelies! Remember last chapter where I was like “oh hey enjoy this unusually large chapter”? Well, I went to write a normally sized chapter and my hand slipped. Whoops! Enjoy another giant beast chapter lovelies! And don’t hate me for the angst!! I promise this fic has a happy ending, it’s just a long road to get there. XOXO - Ash

Chapter Five

Bucky wakes to bright light streaming in his bedroom window and Becca sitting on top of him. “Wake up sleepy head!” she chirps, shoving his shoulder as hard as she can. 

“Whoa, calm it down little miss.” Bucky grumbles. 

“I’m gonna be late!” 

Bucky looks over at the alarm clock and realizes she’s right. “Shit.” 

“Bad word!!” 

“Becca!” Bucky snaps and instantly regrets it. “Quieter, bug. Please. Come on, let’s get moving.” 

Bucky hurries Becca through her morning routine, grabbing her tiny backpack and breakfast on their way out the door. Bucky knows he’s a mess, hair sloppily thrown up in a bun, sweatpants and a hoodie because he just can’t take the time to find real clothes. He doesn’t even bother to throw on his prosthetic. Becca nibbles at her string cheese and mini muffins as they hustle down the busy city sidewalks to her school, just finishing as they round the last corner. He gives her a quick hug and kiss before she runs into the building screeching hello to the teacher at the door. The teacher gives Bucky an odd look that he chalks up to him looking like a hot mess and he gives her a small wave and terse smile in return. 

It’s early yet and Bucky doesn’t have to worry about work for a few more hours so he decides to splurge and stop for coffee and a breakfast sandwich on his walk home. One treat won’t hurt and he’s still holding on to the warm feeling in his chest from last night’s date with Steve. Waiting in line a few other people give Bucky strange looks and he wonders how rough of shape he’s in. He prays there isn’t a giant rip on his clothes or something but after a discrete check he doesn’t think that’s the case. Just a weird morning then. 

The hoodie actually comes in handy once Bucky realizes he can’t carry both a sandwich and his coffee when he’s down an arm. Tucking the sandwich in his hoodie pouch, he sips the pumpkin spice latte slowly enjoying the sweet fall flavors on his way home. His phone starts chirping at him but with no free hand Bucky is forced to ignore it until he gets back to the apartment. It was going off earlier too and he figures who ever needs him so damn bad can just wait five more minutes. 

Bucky stretches out on the sofa to enjoy his breakfast, throwing on a random movie from his queue, when he finally looks at his phone. He wonders if the world is ending and he missed it somehow. Eight missed calls from Steve, two voicemails, and four texts. Two calls from Natasha, one voicemail, and two texts. Three texts from Clint. 

Natasha wants to know if he’s seen the news, if he’s okay, and what she can do to help. 

Clint also asks if he’s okay and tells him he’s an ass for not sharing the deets. 

Steve asks him repeatedly to call him, frantically apologizing in between. 

Still confused and becoming increasingly worried, Bucky brings up the news on his phone and finds his own face on the front page. The picture is from the night before, he and Steve walking back to his place with Becca on Steve’s shoulders. They look so happy that it tugs at Bucky’s heartstrings before the realization of what this means sinks in. He shoots a quick text to Natasha assuring her that he’s fine and he’ll catch up with her tonight. Clint gets two emojis in response: a thumbs up and the middle finger. Steve, he actually calls back. The blonde had sounded so worried in his voicemails. 

“Bucky, thank god.” Steve blurts out in lieu of hello. 

“Well good morning to you too.” Bucky jokes. 

“Are you okay? Is Becca okay?” 

“Yeah, Steve, we’re good. I just dropped Becca off a preschool. I don’t know what you’re worried about, it was a normal morning outside of a few funny looks. But honestly that was probably me going out looking like a hobo because I overslept.” 

“Buck…” Steve falters, “It won’t be long ‘til they figure out who you are. We can keep the press at bay here in the tower but you’re going to have some serious issues as soon as a reporter gets your name. You and Becca could come stay here for a bit or I can have a security team allocated to you both until the news dies down.” 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down a minute. We don’t need security and I’m not dragging Becca to Manhattan just because some dudes with cameras may or may not come pester us. We’ll be okay.” 

“I’m just worried about you guys. You didn’t sign on for the shit storm that’s blowing up right now. I’m so sorry, Buck.” 

“Actually, I did.” Bucky points out, “I’m not stupid, Steve. I knew what I was signing on for the minute we started talking. It’s gonna be okay, nothing lasts forever and Becca is a resilient kid.” 

Steve is quiet for a long moment, trying to compose himself to say what he knows he needs to say. “If you need to take some time apart until this all dies down…” he chokes up and lets the sentence lie. 

“No.” Bucky’s voice is firm. “I’m not running on you again. We’re gonna deal with this together.” 

“Okay,” Steve sighs heavily in relief, “I’m going to be tied up today doing interviews. Apparently there’s no hiding the fact that I’m bisexual now. It’s funny that I’ve never tried to hide it but the news is claiming I’ve been ‘publicly outed’ by the tabloids. I’m not going to say a whole lot about you, about us. I don’t want to speak for you or anything. But if you’re okay with it, I would like to confirm that I’m in a relationship and that I care about you very much.” 

“Aww, you big sap. Yeah, of course that’s fine.” 

“Can I call you later when I have time?” 

“I’m working tonight but I’ll have a chance for a quick break around 10pm.” 

“I’ll talk to you then. If you need anything, I mean it Buck, anything, just call me. I’ll pick up on national TV if I have to.” 

Bucky rolls his eyes and hopes Steve can feel his exasperation through the phone lines. “Get going, ya punk. You have a country full of conservatives to horrify with your secret homosexual agenda.” 

Steve laughs, the first bit of happiness he’s had since waking up to the news. “Will do.” he says quickly and hangs up before his overly dramatic heart can blurt out something terribly stupid like I love you. He pushes down the tender, fledgling emotion, knowing it’s too fast but feeling the gentle flutters nonetheless. 

Natasha arrives at Bucky’s apartment a full hour early that night so he can get her caught up while making dinner for her and Becca, while Becca watches an episode of Wonder Pets in the living room. Natasha apparently watched a few interview clips of Steve’s and teases Bucky over how completely smitten they both are. It’s nice and normal, the teasing and banter over a new relationship with his best friend. It makes him think Steve really was just being overly concerned with his fears.

It’s a blessedly slow night at the ER and no one seems to recognize Bucky as he hops from one patient to the next, getting people stabilized and ready to be seen by one of the doctors on shift. When Steve calls at ten he sounds better than he had that morning. He’s exhausted from the media circus but pleased that he was able to get the story out in his own words. He asked for privacy for all their sakes but knows it won’t last long. Bucky continues to assure him that they’ll handle things as they come and to not worry. Steve can’t help but feel like it’s the calm before the storm. 

The calm only lasts until 2am. Dr. Strange pulls Bucky out of a patient room, pushing Darcy in to take his place and dragging him down the hall to the staff break room. “What the hell?” Bucky demands once the door is shut. 

Strange’s face is grim, “There are currently fifteen reporters in the lobby all asking if you’re working and if anyone has a statement they’d like to make.” 

Bucky’s stomach drops, “Fuck.” 

“Yes, fuck indeed. I’ve already made some calls and the police are on their way to clear house. We don’t expect that to last however. HR is willing to give you the rest of this week off, paid, while we sort out protocol for this sort of thing. Amanda will call you tomorrow to talk details once the board meets and decides what we can do to protect both you and our patients. We obviously can’t have reporters milling around every time you work.” 

Bucky doesn’t even know what to say. 

“If you want to go gather your things, Paul in security will escort you out the back away from the reporters.” 

“Okay,” Bucky agrees, because really what else can he do?

Darcy catches up with him as he’s packing up his locker, “They’re sending you home?” she cries, pulling him into a hug. 

Bucky nods numbly, “Rest of the week, yeah. They have to, there’s too much going on right now. It’s paid at least.”  

“Well that’s something.” Darcy concedes. “How are you getting home? It’s a madhouse out there.” 

“Paul’s gonna have me go out the back. I’ll be okay.” 

“Call me if you need me.” she insists, giving him another tight hug. 

Bucky promises he will and then follows the kindly old security guard through the maze of hospital halls and outside. 

The air is bitter cold and Bucky’s thankful for his heavy jacket as he hurries down the mostly empty streets home. Natasha is tapping away on her laptop when he arrives. She does cyber security work and swears she gets most of her work done after midnight anyway. It works out well when he needs help on his overnight shift rotations. 

“What happened?” she demands and slams the lid of her laptop down. 

Bucky shucks off his jacket and joins Natasha on the sofa. “Reporters showed up at the hospital, like a lot of them. Strange was on tonight, thank god, he’s a tough son of a bitch and he wasn’t putting up with crap from anyone. They snuck me out the back while the cops got rid of the reporters.” 

“But what about tomorrow? Is this gonna affect your job?” 

Bucky shrugs, trying to ignore the low level fear humming in his veins over that exact concern. “I honestly don’t know. HR is gonna call me tomorrow once they figure out ‘protocol’ for this. Somehow Strange got them to give me the rest of the week off with pay. I don’t even know what I’m going to do with myself for the next six days.” 

Natasha raises an eyebrow, surprised and happy for him. “I vote catching up on your Netflix queue and being a lazy ass. You never take a break, Bucky. And you of all people deserve one. Maybe go spend some more time with that gorgeous boyfriend of yours. Some kid-free time, if you know what I mean.” She wiggles her eyebrows until Bucky throws a pillow at her. She ducks easily, laughing. “I’m just saying! It’s been a long time since he-who-shall-not-be-named.” 

Bucky bristles at the mention of his ex. He should have seen Brock for the piece of shit he was, but he’d missed it at first, too wrapped up in the bliss of a new relationship. In the end, Brock’s true colors had come out and Bucky had ended things before it could become even more toxic than they already become. He sighs, pushing the ugly memories away. “It hasn’t been that long. And you’re forgetting Micah from the hospital cafe.” 

“It’s been four years since him. And Micah doesn’t count. That was a year ago and it didn’t go past a lunch date where he, and I quote, kissed you like a St. Bernard.” 

Bucky shudders at the memory. “Okay, so it’s been a while. Maybe I will go see Steve one day while Becca’s at school.” 

“That’s more like it!” Natasha cheers quietly, cautious to not disturb Becca. “So, do you want company or should I scoot and let you get some rest?” 

“I love you for offering but I just wanna crash. If I can get a few hours now I’ll be able to get back on daytime hours easier.” 

“Love you too.” Natasha leans over to hug him before packing up her stuff and heading out. 

It was a crazy day but as Bucky climbs into bed, he’s still resolved that it’s going to be okay again soon. 

Bucky is groggy when his alarm goes off at 7am but it’s better than he would have been if he hadn’t gotten any sleep. Becca is thrilled that he’s home and even more so when he tells her that he’ll be home the rest of the week. They make plans over breakfast for things they can do after she gets out of school since they have all the time in the world now. Bucky compromises with one quick park trip, which he cringes thinking about but he’ll just have to pack her inhaler and make sure she takes breaks, two trips to the library, and one night they’ll grab dinner at the neighborhood diner for their kids eat free night. 

The week flies by and Bucky gets the all clear on Thursday to return the following Sunday once the hospital is able to put additional security in place. He’s thankful they’re not just letting him go to avoid all the hassle but several nurses and doctors apparently made their opinions loud and clear that he was worth the additional security measures. Bucky is eternally grateful for his coworkers and makes plans to take in a tray of thank you brownies on his first shift back. 

A second round of good news comes in a few hours later; Steve is back early from his latest mission. They make plans for the following day, unwilling to wait any longer to see one another again. Steve will be, in theory, just hanging around the tower wrapping up some post-mission paperwork from earlier in the week so he’ll be able to take most of the day to show Bucky around the tower and spend time with him. He also offered to take them all to The Met after Becca gets out of school and Bucky said he’ll consider it. It’s a little extravagant, but something about picking her up together and going on an outing tugs at his heartstrings. It’s so perfectly domestic, like a real family would do. Bucky tries to ignore the longing he feels for something he’s never let himself consider before. 

There’s a lone reporter lingering outside his apartment when Bucky heads out to pick up Becca from school. There were a lot the first two days but their numbers dropped off drastically when they realized he really wasn’t all that interesting. “Hey man.” Bucky gives the reporter a little wave. He has to give the guy credit for determination. “Still not going to do anything interesting, sorry.” 

The reporter huffs a laugh, “Ya never know!” 

Bucky laughs in return and heads off, trying to ignore the fact that the man is following him a few steps back. He gives the guy a few more days before he gives up too. Bucky is a single parent with a full time job, he doesn’t have the time to do anything interesting. 

Rounding the corner to Becca’s school he spies the little girl talking to a man in a long beige wool coat. The man is tall and thin with greying hair and wire framed glasses. His appearance screams of wealth in a way that would make him fit right in as a parent of someone at the school, but something is off and Bucky steps up his pace. Becca hasn’t spotted him yet but he hears the man ask “Your daddy is friends with Captain America isn’t he?” 

Becca, all proud smiles, informs him, “He’s my brother, not my daddy. And Captain America is his boyfriend.” 

“Isn’t that nice. Hey, I have something you can give your brother for me, okay? Can you be a big helper? It’s right over here.” Becca looks unsure so the man smiles brightly and takes her hand, leading her down the sidewalk away from the school. A black van pulls up at the end of the block, a door swinging open and the man hurries her along. 

Bucky screams Becca’s name and breaks out into a full run. Icy fear consumes him, driving him to move faster than he ever has before. Please God no, please, don’t let them take my baby girl. 

The reporter realizes what’s going on and sprints right along with Bucky. They collide with the man and Becca at the same time. The reporter tackles the man, pinning him to the ground, leaving Bucky to grab Becca and roll to the ground shielding her in his arms. A teacher runs over with her phone out yelling “The police are on their way!” to them. 

The man writhes underneath the reporter, trying to free himself while looking panickedly at the van. The van door slides shut and then the vehicle flies off with screeching tires. Once it’s out of sight the man lays his head back on the pavement in defeat.

“Just stay put buddy.” the reporter grumbles. 

Now that Becca is safe Bucky is filled with a depth of rage he didn’t even realize he was capable of. Somebody tried to snatch his baby girl right in broad daylight. Bucky checks her over one more time before passing her off to the teacher who’s still holding on the line for 911. 

Bucky stalks over to where the reporter still has the man pinned. His movements are predatory, his voice low, practically a grow, when he demands, “Who the fuck do you think you are?” 

The reporter just stares at the man, also waiting for an answer. 

“I am one of many.”

Bucky shakes his head. God, he just wants to punch this guy in his smug face. “Fine. Who do you work for?” 

“Cut off one head and two more take its place.” 

“I’m getting real sick of riddles and I still got at least two minutes before the cops show. Last time, asshole. Who the fuck do you work for and why do you want my kid?”

“The child, or you, it matters not. Either will get us the captain. We are everywhere. We will come again, and we will succeed. Hail Hydra.” The man crunches down on something and within seconds he’s foaming at the mouth, his eyes rolling lifeless back in his head.

Bucky looks to Becca, thankful the teacher is shielding her away from what took place. Ice cold fear runs in his veins. He knew there could potentially be a risk dating Steve, but it was an abstract sort of knowledge. Up until minutes ago he’d thought the only real concern was pesky reporters. Most of which, he has to admit, are actually good people just trying to make a living. A real threat, a fucking terrorist threat, is something he’d never really put much thought into. That name too: Hydra. Everyone knows of the Nazi group who Captain America has been trying to destroy since the 40s. A threat from them is very, very real. 

The cops arrive and start dispersing the crowd that’s formed. It seems like forever until they’ve taken statements from everyone and the body is removed. Becca holds up as well as a four year old can trying to answer the police man’s questions, and Bucky fills in gaps as he can. They take his statement too and let him know they can provide a security detail if he wants. The officer looks sheepish but also recommends he call Steve because Shield and the Avengers can likely provide better security than the NYPD can. Bucky thanks the officer and agrees to call Steve as soon as possible. 

Becca is shaking so hard by the time they head home that Bucky scoops the little girl up to carry her the whole way. Two uniformed officers follow them back and do a full sweep of the apartment just to err on the side of caution. Buck appreciates the security but as he stands in his too quiet apartment he realizes he can’t do this every day. He adopted Becca to give her a better life and now he’s put her in more danger than she ever would have been in being raised by their parents. All because some small part of him still held on to the hope that there was someone out there that he could love and would love him back wholeheartedly and forever. That despite his upbringing, he could have a perfect family of his own one day. Bucky feels painfully childish that his pathetic longing for a partner had almost cost him his sister. 

Ever the responsible parent, Bucky stifles the emotions whirling in his chest and puts on a good front for Becca’s sake. She falls asleep halfway through Frozen II and Bucky doesn’t even bother trying to wake her. He knows there’s no fighting the adrenaline crash she’s feeling. His own crash will be equally brutal when it comes, but for now it’s still nowhere in sight. Bucky is too keyed up, restless and desperately trying to find a solution that keeps all of them safe and happy. He drags a cup of coffee and a blanket out onto the fire escape where he sits to watch the sun drop lower and lower among the roof tops. He’s almost finished his drink when a knock sounds on the door. 

The security detail is supposed to be vetting anyone going near his apartment so the odds are good it’s someone he knows, but it doesn’t stop him from slipping a kitchen knife into his hand on the way to the door. Peering through the peephole Bucky sees red hair, black leather, and a very pissed off Natasha. “Let me in.” she says, it sounds like a warning. 

Bucky opens the door and stands out of the way. It’s not worth arguing with Natasha when she gets like this. 

“You turned off your phone.” She comments without emotion. 

Bucky nods. “I don’t want to deal with it right now.” 

Natasha follows him as he heads to the kitchen to return the knife, seemingly pleased by his caution. “By it, you mean Steve.” 

“Amongst other things.” 

“You know I’m here for you. Whatever you need, just name it.” 

“That’s just it, I don’t know. I keep coming to the same answer and I hate it, Nat. I just… I can’t do this to Becs.” Bucky’s voice cracks on the little girl’s name and Natasha wraps her best friend into a tight hug. 

“You’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.” 

“I don’t even know how to do what I want to do. I’m sure it’s not nearly as easy as movies make it out to be.”

“Let me help. You and Becca mean the world to me. Whatever it is we’ll figure it out together.” 

Bucky sighs heavily, still leaning on Natasha. “We need to disappear.” 

Natasha goes still, “Are you sure?” 

“No. Yes. I don’t know. I can’t think of any other way to keep her safe. Even if I break up with Steve, Hydra can still use us as leverage. Feelings don’t just disappear... But people can.” 

“Okay. Give me four hours.” Natasha pulls back and starts texting rapidly on a small cell phone Bucky has never seen before. 

“What the fuck, Nat.” 

“Working in cyber security has some perks.” She shrugs. 

“I don’t think it’s normally supposed to have those kinds of perks.” 

“Well, it depends on who you’re keeping secure.” Nastaha’s smile is cheshire. 

“Damn. Okay, then. What do you need me to do?” 

“Stay put. I’d say try to get some sleep but I know you won’t. Pack a duffel bag for each of you. No more than that, I mean it. Think in terms of what you absolutely can’t leave behind, this is not packing for vacation. You can buy basic stupid shit when you get where you’re going. Two outfits and whatever else you can’t leave that fits in two duffels. Got it?” 

“Okay, got it.” 

“Oh, and your phone. You won’t be needing that anymore.” 

Bucky holds the phone out but doesn’t let go. “I have all of Becs’ baby pictures on there.” 

Natasha gives him an understanding smile. “I’ll move them all to an online cloud storage site. You won’t lose a single one.” 

Bucky releases the phone. “Thanks, Nat.” 

Natasha hugs him tightly again. “Four hours. Be ready.” 

And with that Bucky is left alone in his living room in shock. He supposes he shouldn’t be all that surprised. Natasha has always been a badass. He used to joke she was really a Russian spy and their friendship was just a cover for her real identity. Bucky now wonders now how close to the truth he might have been. 

Four hours later, down to the minute, Natasha is striding through his door once again, a large envelope tucked under her arm. There’s no warm welcome or pleasantries, Natasha has her game face on and Bucky is still too rattled to try for levity. Spreading the papers out on the coffee table Natasha organizes everything quickly. “Birth certificates, immigration paperwork, social security cards, school records, medical records, a resume with work history and references, and a quick life history fact sheet for both of you.” She places a wallet from her pocket onto the table as well, flipping it open quickly to show him it’s fully filled with cards, cash, and an ID card.

Bucky scans over the documents, unable to believe she had pulled this off so quickly and how real everything looked. “Sebastian Stan?” he asks, nose wrinkling. 

Natasha nods, “Yep, you’re Romanian. You moved here with your daughter Elena when she was two months old. Your wife died in childbirth and so you brought her here to start over.” 

He spies the address on the drivers license. “Rochester? Is that where we’re actually going?” 

“No, of course not. You and your daughter have recently moved to Cape Elizabeth, Maine. That’s where you’re headed. You’ll be happy to know their local urgent care center is looking for a new triage nurse. The pay is pretty good and it’ll be enough to cover rent for the cute little apartment that you just put a down payment on.” Natasha pulls something from her pocket, it’s flesh colored and rolled up tightly. She hands it over with a simple, “Here, you’ll need this too. Don’t want that guy drawing too much attention to you.” 

Bucky stares at the silicone sleeve, realizing it’s a perfect fit for his prosthetic. The details are down to an art, from light arm hairs and tiny freckles. It’s soft enough too that as long as you don’t grasp it very hard, it’ll feel shockingly similar to his right arm. “Damn. You don’t miss a thing, do you?”

“Of course not. Who do you think you’re dealing with?” Natasha glares at him affectionately.

Bucky chuckles, of course she’s the best at this. She’s been the best at everything since the day they met. “What happens to Bucky and Becca Barnes then?” he’s afraid to ask but he needs to know.

“They got on a flight to Moscow two hours ago. There’s a few nice security officers and cab drivers who will all verify they were sighted leaving the airport about eight hours from now.” 

“That works for the rest of the world, but what happens if Steve goes looking? He has an awful lot of friends in high places.” 

“Steve isn’t going to go looking right now. And even if he did, the alibi will hold up. Trust me.” 

A tiny piece of Bucky’s heart shatters that Steve would just let him go so easily. 

Natasha recognizes the look on his face and quickly adds, “He called you non stop after the news broke. Sent you dozens of texts too. You very nearly had the full force of SHIELD and the Avengers on your doorstep if it wasn’t for Tony Stark.” 

“What happened?” 

“Tony convinced Steve that if you weren’t calling or responding that he was as good as dumped. The rumor mill always hinted their relationship was strained but Tony really is good at kicking Steve when he’s down and Tony played his cards right on this one. Steve has been holed up in his apartment all night, he’s not doing too great.” 

It kills Bucky to know he’s putting Steve through this pain, but he’s firm in his decision. He’d be more disappointed in himself but he’s too tired. Things got tough and he’s doing exactly what he’s been doing since he was a kid to protect himself: he’s running. “How do you even know all this?” Bucky asks, realizing Natasha shouldn’t have this level of detail on the goings on at the tower. 

“I hacked into the security feed at Avengers Tower. Jarivs was a handful but not more than I could handle. Tony Stark is brilliant but he’s also arrogant, and that’s his downfall.” 

“You are, without a doubt, the scariest person I’ve ever met. I’m gonna miss you.” Bucky can’t hold back the tears at the thought of leaving Natasha behind. 

“What do you mean, miss me? You went to college with Natalie Rushman, you’re even Instagram friends. You haven’t seen me in a few years but we still keep in touch regularly.” Natasha brings out yet another little black phone he’s never seen and shows him Natalie’s Instagram account. 

“How many of those little phones do you have tucked up your sleeve?” he teases.

“The world will never know.” she quips in return. “I do need to go though.” she adds in a more serious tone.

Bucky nods, he knew this was coming. He can’t get words past the lump in his throat.

“You have a train to catch in about forty minutes. That one will take you as far as Boston and there’s more tickets from there. Try and get some rest, you’ll be getting into town in Maine around eight in the morning.” 

“I’ve gone longer without sleep pulling doubles at the hospital, this won’t be nearly as bad.” 

Natasha gives him a half hearted smile, “You’re all set then.” 

Bucky pulls her in for one last hug. “I’ll message Natalie when we arrive.” 

“Mmm, yes. Sebastian would definitely snap a pic of his new hometown when he arrives. I’ve heard it’s very Insta-worthy.” Tears shine in Natasha’s eyes but they don’t fall. She swallows thickly. “Be safe.” 

“You too.” Bucky manages to croak out through the overwhelming tide of emotions. He holds her for one last heartbeat before she slips out the door like a ghost. 

Bucky goes through all the documents Natasha left behind and finds a thin red iPhone in the stack. There’s a post-it note stuck on top warning “do not activate until after you are on the second train”. So much for keeping himself occupied while he waits. In the end he spends most of the time pacing around the apartment and double checking his bags. He checks the time again, making sure he’s down to the final few minutes when he finally goes to get a sleeping Becca from her bed. She barely stirs as he carefully slides her into her warm purple jacket and slips socks and shoes on her feet. He slings her over his shoulder and collects the two duffels with his free hand. It’s a little jarring to see tan skin where he’s used to seeing shiny steel but he appreciates that Natasha thought of everything. 

He worries momentarily about the security detail outside his apartment but quickly realizes they’re distracted helping an elderly woman catch her escaped pomeranian who’s barking up a storm. It’s a good diversion, one clearly planned out. Bucky holds on tightly to Becca and all but runs down the hall to the stairwell. He doesn’t slow down until he’s two blocks away and he realizes he really did escape without being sighted. Slowing his pace to a normal New York hustle, he heads towards the train station and to their new lives.

[letsbenditlikebennett]

Mister, I’ll Make a Wolf Out of You || Ariana & Simon Chatzy

Ariana sniffs Simon out at the farmer’s market and the two become quick pals. @inconvenientsimonstrocity 

Why Ariana was going back to Nightshade Farmer’s Market, she couldn’t quite say. After the whole watermelon debacle last time, she was curious about what sort of other supernatural things they had going on in there. Maybe this time she’d just avoid buying anything unless she actually came across the black garlic she’d been looking for the last time. As she walked around, her nose was confronted with a variety of different smells from seafood to herbs and spices. There was one scent in particular that caught her attention and instinctively her feet followed it. It definitely wasn’t Ulfric or Lucas, she’d recognize them long before she ever neared them. This was someone new and she could feel herself perking up. There was a small grin on her face as the scent of the other wolf became stronger. As she rounded the corner, she saw him standing there at the cursed produced stand with the stupid watermelons. Ariana gave the woman running the stand a dirty look before she approached the man. He appeared to be around Ulfric’s age and had very sharp features. She knew he had to be able to smell her, too. “Hey,” she said, greeting him with a warm smile, “I’m Ariana. I think we may have some important things in common if you’d like to chat for a bit.”

Speaking of the variety of scents, Simon was curious about why he hadn’t thought of this before actually arriving at the market the… girl on the internet suggested to him for finding venison. It was strange how quickly the smells in the air could go from the alluring aroma of garlic to the oppressive odour of fish and the combination as they were were almost enough to make him consider just giving up and going home BUT… he endured. Because he really wanted some deer meat. Hopefully jerky. What he was currently in front of… was not jerky. Rather, he WAS contemplating to see if these watermelons were the aforementioned cursed objects spoken of by others or not, rubbing his nose absently. Suffice it to say, he was caught off guard when he was suddenly approached by a short, younger girl and he jumped back slightly, turning to regard her. “Oh, er… hi,” He replied, noting her smile before her scent, quickly becoming unmistakable to him, backhanded him in the face and he coughed in further surprise, torn between his body’s instinct to take a few generous steps away from her and his minds curiosity to lean in further and try to memorize it. “Ariana,” He replied quietly. He cleared his throat and straightened up. “I’m-- yeah, we might so…” He glanced over at the woman at the stand briefly before looking back at the girl-- the wolf Ariana. “Llllead the way,” He offered awkwardly as if this were the first time he was talking to another person.

Ariana could tell that the man before her seemed to be a little bit thrown off by her approach. She wondered if he was new to this. Could this have been the werewolf that Luke had been referring to. She supposed she would find out soon enough once they found somewhere a little more private. She nodded and led the way to the spot her and Winston had sat down to eat the last time they were here. “Yeah, there’s some tables and stuff that are pretty quiet over this way.” As they passed through the stands, she kept a careful eye and ear out for anyone around them. Could she be putting this wolf in danger by being around him? She wasn’t sure how much truth there was to there being a bounty on her head. Still, this was important. Their kind was meant to stick together. When she found the little area in back with the tables, she was relieved to see no one else was there. “We can grab a seat over here.” She sat down and studied him. “Do you know why I wanted to speak with you and what we have in common?”

Simon couldn’t help but feel a little awkward as he followed Ariana astutely through the market; a tall, scruffy-looking hobo man tailing after a girl who he guessed was likely still in high school probably would’ve turned heads in a more formal environment. Even if he lost her visually, he almost took comfort in the fact that he had picked up her scent well enough that he could probably track her on a better day. And with antihistamines. He’d probably need to tell someone about that one of these days. He tilted his head slightly when they approached the empty area, also internally thankful that there weren’t any bodies to listen in on them and he sat across from the girl. He set his hands on the table in front of him and chose to be invested in her outfit rather than look her in the eye. “You’re… Lucas mentioned you.” He replied softly. “You’re a werewolf. I’m assuming that’s the topic of this discussion.” He said before adding “Unless it’s not that at all and you want to mention my jacket, which I understand. It’s kind of-- it’s no looker,” He chuckled.

Ariana was relieved to have found the man that Lucas told her about. No one should have to figure this out alone. She had been lucky to have not known life any other way. As he spoke, she was sure to keep a close ear out for anyone that may have been approaching. She wasn’t sure how if he had a full grasp on his wolf senses yet. She made herself comfortable at the table and placed her elbows on the table. With a raised brow, she said, “Yes, Lucas mentioned you as well, but didn’t give me a name. He said you were pretty new to this whole thing. I’m sure that’s a pretty big change. How are you adjusting?” Prior she hadn’t actually noticed his jacket, so she laughed and added, “Damn, you found me out. I really just wanted to know where you got your jacket. Looks hella comfy.”

At least she seemed friendly, which appealed to both sides of Simon and the latter felt himself relaxing slightly from his formal position, especially as he noticed her do the same thing. “Yeah, it’s also ‘hella’ ugly and old.” He replied lightly, wishing they could keep talking about fashion instead of things everyone else seemed to think was important. Well, no, that wasn’t correct - he loved to hear about what other people thought were important topics. The more he thought about it, the more he just felt awkward to talk about himself like he had anything interesting to say. “I, uh… can’t complain,” He said mildly, itching his nose as if his body was subtly trying to call him out on the lie. “The deuteranopia is frustrating but that’s really a nitpick in the grand scheme.” He said, not untruthfully. “Oh, um. I’m Simon.” He introduced, thinking maybe he should’ve started with that. “Sorry.”

It was good to see the other wolf relax a bit. Ariana knew if he was new to all of this, the sensory overload may have been a lot to deal with. She wasn’t sure what having human senses felt like, but she knew the hearing and scent was extremely dull in comparison. She couldn’t help but laugh as she said, “You said it, not me.” She rested her head on her knuckles as he spoke. She listened closely, genuinely curious about what his experience with this whole situation was. Her face scrunched up in confusion when he mentioned deuteranopia. “Wait, what’s deuteranopia? I don’t know that word. I know there’s got to be a lot about this that takes getting used to, but it’s good to meet you, Simon.” She needed to get insight to determine if he was safe. He definitely shouldn’t be going through the full moon alone. “So, how long have you been a werewolf? What are your plans for the next full moon?”

“Oh, sorry. It’s uh, red-green colourblindness,” Simon explained. That was the terminology most people were familiar with, after all. BUT at least he couldn’t say he didn’t teach someone a new word. “I didn’t have that until about seven months ago. I can’t tell for sure because I don’t… remember the last handful of full moons,” He admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. “Lucas made a couple of helpful suggestions about the next time, though. He said I should hang out with you guys and we could go for a run,” He couldn’t help but let a small, timid smile cross his sharp features, if only because no one had offered for him to ‘hang out’ with them before. “He told me what it was like, being a wolf. He also said that that was a big part of their family and that he’d been turning since he was a child. What about you?” He asked, curiosity evident in his tone. “I figure you’ve been a wolf a lot longer, too. What does that make you feel? And you can be as honest as you want, I’m obviously not going to judge,” He chuckled again.

“Oh,” Ariana exclaimed, she nodded and said, “Yeah, I guess I’m used to it since I’ve always been colorblind. Throw in some dyslexia and it makes school a blast.” Her tone towards the end hinted at her sarcasm. It had to be strange to go from seeing the world in full color to seeing only part of the spectrum. The rest of her senses were already so sharp, she didn’t quite mind having dulled vision. She noted that it’s been seven months and the not remembering the full moon was concerning. With the hunters out and about, he definitely needed to be with her and Ulfric to ensure his safety. “That means you’ve been a wolf for seven months now then. Spend it with Ulfric and I. There are people in this town who don’t think we should exist. It’s not safe to be out there on a full moon on your own.” It was a relief that danger hadn’t found him yet. Though maybe she wasn’t the best person to be around to avoid danger. She had to remember they were safer in numbers. “Yes, we’d love to have you run with us. It’ll be fun. I’ve been turning since I was a child as well. My parents were both wolves.” She skipped out on mentioning how they were killed. This whole thing had to be overwhelming enough without taking hunters into account. When he asked how she liked being a wolf, she offered a soft smile. “I’ve always been a wolf so I don’t really know anything else. I enjoy it though. I remember the full moons at this point and have fairly good control when it comes down to it. I find the full moon to be liberating. There’s something about running through the wood that just feels… right. I also like the advantage when it comes to strength, smell, and hearing. Comes in handy being well… short. How has the experience been for you? What you can remember of it at least.”

There was a brief glance of sympathy on Simon’s face when she mentioned dyslexia - that combination couldn’t have been that easy. She seemed bright and optimistic though; not the type to let anything keep her down. That was just the impression he got as he listened to her talk about her experiences, about what being a born wolf felt to her - that made at least three wolves now that were born with it. He took a mental note of the name ‘Ulfric’ and the usage of her past-tense mentioning parents - estranged? Passed on? She hadn’t mentioned it so he chalked it up to a negative memory at best. He also noted the similarities of experience between Ariana and Lucas - it felt right. A literal second nature, something Simon and other normal humans only thought they understood. The smile he hadn’t realised was on his face by listening to Ariana faltered when she asked about him, however and his gaze dropped back to his hands. “N-not as… exciting, I don’t think,” His brow furrowed as he struggled to remember even the following mornings of the first moons; he only vaguely recalled the most recent one and he really wished he didn’t. “I don’t remember the nights but… the next day, there’s usually blood and I feel like I got hit by a truck. Or pushed off a rocky cliff.” He explained, trying to sound plain about it but his fingers intertwined with each other nervously.

It dawned on Ariana that the soreness was probably from the transition itself. The body took a long time to get used to it. She wasn’t actually sure on the timeline of that herself. Ulfric grew up with other wolves, he probably had a better idea than she did. She hoped that wasn’t something that lasted too long. When Simon spoke about it, there seemed to be a certain amount of tension. She wished she had more answers, but she knew eventually it would get easier for him. That didn’t make it suck any less that he clearly wasn’t having an easy time with things right now. “I think the soreness is supposed to get better the more you transform. The same thing with your memory. Your hunting drive will be really strong in wolf form. I usually catch deer or some sort of other game.” She shifted away from leaning on her hands to convey what she had to say next was serious. She kept a close ear out for anyone who could be approaching as she spoke. “We have to be careful though. There are people out there who kill our kind. Especially on the full moon, we’ve gotta stick together.”

Though the aspect of it hurting less physically brought Simon a small level of comfort, he still felt himself withdrawing from her. Lucas had said similar things about feeling a drive to hunt, to be on top, about how freeing it felt and about how being together was imperative because of the Hunters, he believed Lucas referred to them as. It all sounded fantastic, for lack of better terminology. Ariana, Lucas and his family, they had an important aspect of this: Control. They had exposure to this side of themselves their entire lives. Simon, frankly, was a nobody and he was perfectly fine by that but he wanted to be a nobody who just happened to be friends with a bunch of werewolves. He didn’t feel free, he felt like his body had been pulled on a torture device. He didn’t feel control, he felt the exact opposite from the lack of memory, waking up covered in blood. He was turning 43 in November; his life was half over and he was just now being pulled into a circle of brotherhood he didn’t even know was a thing until a few days ago. Maybe Hunters existed because of people like him; he was fully ready to acknowledge and defend that Ariana and Lucas were sentient. He wasn’t - when people pictured werewolves, he was that picture. Mindless, aimless killing machines. And he didn’t think it was appropriate to discuss these things with Ariana… She was young and spirited, a promising individual for a good future. He didn’t feel like it was his place to be such a downer, not to her or really anyone else. “Yeah, you’re right,” He said quietly, feeling like he wanted to say more but he couldn’t bring himself to.

Ariana tried to think back over what she said that could have come across the wrong way. The fact people were out to kill them could definitely be enough to make someone uncomfortable. Then again, this whole thing was new to him. She wished she could relate to it a little bit better, but she knew between herself and Ulfric they could help him learn to be more in tune with his wolf side. More than anything, she wanted to make sure Simon was going to be safe. “Yes, I’m sorry if that was a lot to take in. We’ll help with both safety and learning to be more in tune with this new side of yourself.” She hoped it was comforting. It was hard for her to understand just what he was going through, but she wanted to try. She offered him a warm smile and tilted her head slightly, “It’ll be nice to have another wolf around. I’ve actually only recently started to meet other wolves.” She hoped maybe it could help her level with him to some degree though she did hate the look of pity people always gave her when she told them about her parents. She let out a soft sigh and explained, “I was really young when my parents died, so until recently, I hadn’t known anyone else like us.”

Simon’s eyebrows twitched faintly when she mentioned having lost her parents, piecing together more information. She was really young so they didn’t teach her; she had to learn by herself? That separated her from Lucas. She wasn’t aware of other wolves - she wasn’t raised here? The thoughts of Ariana having to grow and learn how to control and embrace the wolf on her own pulled Simon out of his temporary fugue and he lifted his head to look Ariana in the eye for the first time, his gaze conveying empathy with a gentle smile. “And yet here we are,” He said softly. He leaned back and sniffed thickly. “So tell me more about you, Ariana. What do you like, what do you wanna be when you grow up, that sorta thing.” He said as he knuckled his septum, turning his head slightly to keep an eye out on the exposed entryway they arrived from; he wasn’t sure why but he supposed he also wanted to be aware just in case someone who shouldn’t be overhearing their conversation wanted to listen in.

Ariana was pleased with how well this meeting seemed to be going. It even just felt good to be moving on to more normal conversation in the midst of everything that was going on. She leaned forward and rested on her elbows again, feeling eager to find out more about Simon, too. Wolf stuff aside, they were still people with hobbies and lives that weren’t centered entirely around being a werewolf. She started, “Well, I love soccer, cooking, and running a lot. I just started an apprenticeship at Trusty Wood so I’ll be going into carpentry. My sister still has some hope I may actually take some college classes, but I don’t know if I really want to do that.” She never thought she’d actually enjoy talking about school. She’d be happy to go back to a failing Algebra grade being her biggest problem, but that wasn’t how life worked. She solved the Algebra problem at least. Maybe they could solve this, too. She shook that thought. “What about you,” she said, “What do you like to do? And well, I guess you are grown up, so what do you do?”

Soccer, now that seemed like a good way to burn energy. Simon’s constitution never gifted him with an ability to play sports(until now, at least) but he found soccer the most entertaining to watch - it had the least amount of standing around and discussing superfluous things - he would’ve rather read a book during those times. He made a mental note to attend her games in the future. He also made a note that she mentioned having a sister. Didn’t bring her up when talking about wolves so he guessed she wasn’t one. That raised the question: Could one child be given wolf shifting as a trait but not another? Unless they weren’t related but either way, it meant Ariana didn’t spend her time entirely alone as either the wolf or the human. Oh, duh, she probably had an adoptive family-- but wait, did that work with orphaned wolf pups? He would probably learn some more of these answers in the future, so for now, just focus on THE now. “Me?” He asked. “Oh, uh... “ At least it wasn’t talking about being a wolf. “Well, I used to be a forensic technician but I’m a janitor at the Morgue, at the moment,” He decided to be honest with her. “I enjoy reading, learning new things… I need to get back into playing the piano. I’m out of practise,” He admitted, subconsciously clenching then unclenching his left hand as he said that.

Ariana had to wonder if the switch in jobs had anything to do with his transition, but for once decided against spewing out too many questions in one go. She had no doubt that they’d have time to get to know each other. Shifting focus to the piano thing would definitely be wiser. That had more of a physical aspect to it and she didn’t enjoy reading. Audiobooks were okay, but even so she usually preferred the sound of nature or a good song. She wondered if he hadn’t practiced because of the transition, too. She wasn’t sure how wolf hearing compared to human hearing other than it was intrinsically better. Once he got used to it, music at reasonable volumes was enjoyable. She really hated the piccolo though. Whenever she’d hear the marching band practice, the high pitches always sounded cringe worthy. “Piano, huh? Do you still have one you can practice on? I always enjoyed listening to music with piano in it. I’ve never played an instrument unless you count those god awful recorders they make you learn to play in elementary school.” She laughed a bit before she added, “Not sure if it’s our hearing that makes them sound so grating or if they really are just that bad. Is there a particular genre you enjoy playing most?”

Simon also laughed when she mentioned the recorders from elementary school. “You were right the second time; I couldn’t stand them as a child, either.” And he didn’t want to imagine how they’d sound nowadays given how much more sensitive his hearing tended to be. “And call me old-fashioned but I prefer classical - name any pseudo-famous pianist and I probably know a song or two by them.” As he talked, his right hand mimicked the motions of playing a simple tune on the table in front of him for a few moments before stopping as he sighed. “Unfortunately, I still don't… I didn’t bring a whole lot of things with me when I moved here,” He admitted, a dash of melancholy in his tone. “I’d like to acquire one soon though, just to give myself something to do in my spare time.” The feeling washed over him and he looked at Ariana once more. “I’ve never played a sport, myself - aside from what they made us do in P.E.,” He added. “What made you decide to choose… soccer--” He barely got the question out when he turned his head away from her suddenly and dipped it into the crook of his arm, sneezing twice. “Gah! Sorry--” He apologised hastily, keeping a hand over his face while the other fished around in his pockets and he felt something sink in his stomach when he found his packet of tissues but not the familiar bottle of pills. Of… COURSE he forgot them because why wouldn’t he have? It was just too convenient and a brief look of frustration crossed his features. “I’m sorry, that was terribly rude of me,” He apologised again as he applied a tissue to his face. “Um… sports. Yeah, that’s what we were talking about. Soccer.” He plowed right on through. Sports!

Ariana shook her head, shocked that they sounded that bad with human hearing and they were still forced to learn them. “Wow, they made us put on concerts with those things knowing how bad they sounded? Big yikes.” She nodded along and realized half the crap she listened to would probably not be up his alley. Post Malone was a far cry from classical piano music, but he was America’s Sweetheart. She did remember a few piano songs from her music history class though and responded, “The only piano song I remember by name is Moonlight Sonata… which may be for obvious reasons.” She laughed a bit at her own lame joke. Really anything that reminded her of the moon always stood out in her mind. “You should totally get one,” she said eagerly even though she had no idea how much pianos cost, “I’d love to hear you play sometime.” Her face lit up at the mention of soccer again, but quickly scrunched up in confusion at the loud sneeze. He seemed very thrown off by sneezing and apologized. She shook her head and said, “Don’t worry, we all sneeze. Unfortunately, being a wolf doesn’t give us a break from that… Well, clearly as you can see.” He seemed set on bringing it back to soccer and she was happy to talk about her favorite hobby. There was something about being on a team and getting to run around for long periods of time that really just suited her well. “I tend to prefer team sports and soccer is my favorite of them. Always running around and getting to be outside? Definitely a good way to burn off some energy. I’ve played basketball in the past, too, but I don’t enjoy it quite as much. Sports aren’t everyone’s thing though. Music is pretty badass, too. What inspired you to learn piano?”

‘Yeah, being a wolf is part of the problem, I think.’ The thought flitted through Simon’s mind briefly but he expressed genuine interest in Ariana’s enthusiasm for soccer though he made another mental note about her remembrance of Beethoven, giving her a small smile as she made the joke. Be that as it may, it was still a good song. “Tell you what,” He said first. “I’ll play Moonlight Sonata for you sometime if you teach me some of the ins and outs of soccer.” He absently took to scratching at his arms now as if the sneeze reminded his body that though his mind was having a good time, it wasn’t. It was fine, it was supposed to be a new moon. Maybe he was excited, bouncing back from that little pity party he threw. Was it a pity party? He couldn’t never tell. “I was… ffffive, I think, when I started playing and really, I only chose it because my mom told me I couldn’t be a velociraptor when I grew up,” He laughed, recalling the memory. “My parents both work in the medical field but I’ve always loved music.” That was when he wondered how different his playing would sound now given the changes in his… lifestyle. He also wondered how much a piano would cost. He would certainly look into it, now.

Ariana had decided that she thoroughly liked Simon. There was something about him that was sweet and endearing despite the fact he was a good deal older than her. He didn’t talk to her like she was still a kid who didn’t know anything about the world. They could level with each other and she looked forward to helping him learn the ins and outs of being a wolf. She extended her hand out to shake on it and said, “Deal. You play Moonlight Sonata and I teach you soccer. Sounds like a blast.” She grinned widely and was very glad that she found Simon. She noticed he seemed to be a bit uncomfortable as he was scratching his arms. She didn’t want to press too much so she focused back on his story about playing the piano. Five years old was super young. There was no way someone could have gotten her to sit down long enough to learn piano at five years old. “Wow,” she said, “That’s pretty cool you’ve been playing so long. Not quite as cool as growing up to be a velociraptor, but still pretty cool. I’ve always enjoyed listening to music, particularly on runs. What’s your favorite song to play?”

“Yeah, well… I guess there isn’t a lot of demand for professional velociraptors so piano it was,” Simon chuckled as his hand went up to rub at his jaw either out of irritation or contemplation - this question always made him think because he seemed to have a different answer every time. “I think to choose just one would be tantamount to only picking one book or one best friend.” Indeed, books and music WERE his only friends when he was a child. She did not need to hear this depressing-but-factual claim. “I’ll just be broad and say I’ve always preferred Chopin. Again, stereotypical but everyone has something. What kind of music do you like, whether on runs or just in general?” He asked, finding that it was rapidly becoming easier to talk to her; she seemed ambitious, forward, and eager. She had a ‘bull by the horns’ mentality about her, a trait he couldn’t help but appreciate regardless of the source. He recalled just earlier when he felt awkward following her and realised looking back, people might’ve thought that he would’ve been trouble when in actuality, he would’ve been the one IN trouble.

“What a shame,” Ariana said with a laugh, “It would’ve been really cool to meet a professional velociraptor.” Maybe she spoke too soon. Next thing she knew White Crest would reveal some dinosaur like monster that would make her eat her words. Oh, well, she couldn’t let it ruin her A+ jokes. She listened as he mentioned Chopin. “Huh, I’ve definitely heard of Chopin but don’t know if I can actually remember a song from them. Oh well, probably nothing you’d like. Unless you’re secretly a huge Post Malone and Khalid fan in which case, you’d really be full of surprises.” She giggled a bit at the thought of him jamming to Posty. Simon definitely seemed to be opening up a little easier now. He seemed a bit hesitant at first, but now conversation came easily. She had no doubt they’d be an awesome pack.

Simon opened his mouth as if to say something, paused, then closed it again. “Iiiii have never heard of either of those, so we’re even.” He admitted, making a note to look them up later. Was the man’s first name Post? That was interesting, certainly more interesting than his rising frustration with his immune system as he muttered a low ‘excuse me’ and turned his head again to sneeze twice more. At least he had a tissue this time. “Sorry,” He cleared his throat, finally relinquishing what he had been suppressing in the name of good conversation. “But is there any way we could walk and talk to the nearest corner store or pharmacy?” He swallowed what little pride he had. “My allergies aren’t happy with me.” He gave her a sheepish half smile, eyebrow twinging with embarrassment and no shortage of guilt, feeling like he was prioritizing things wrong and cutting their talk short. It was his fault, after all, that he forgot any form of medication.

Ariana laughed along at Simon not knowing who Posty and Khalid were. “I didn’t think you would, they’re pretty popular with my generation. Not sure they’re really up your alley.” They were a far cry from classical piano music. Both artists were fun though and she particularly loved Post. As Simon sneezed again, Ariana gave him a sympathetic look and said, “Bless you.” At the mention of walking to the corner store with him, she nodded enthusiastically. “Oh yeah, for sure! Want you to be comfortable. Seems like the allergies are treating you pretty rough today.” As an afterthought, she asked, “What are you allergic to?”

The weight that always sank to the pit of his stomach whenever Simon felt inconvenient lightened when she seemed willing to accompany him. Then again, part of him figured that she wouldn’t turn her nose up to a bit of walking - she did play soccer. He sniffled and got to his feet, pushing in his chair and he paused for a lengthy moment when she asked her most recent question. He could’ve said anything; indeed, they were at a public market full of conflicting scents and overwhelming aromas. It COULD’VE been anything but… it wasn’t and no matter how embarrassing or detrimental to his character information was, Simon didn’t like lying. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Dogs,” He said first, then exhaled and pointed to her slowly, then turned his finger to point to himself as he gave her a look that said ‘yyyyep’.

Accompanying him to the corner store was really no big deal in Ariana’s book. She was just excited to know another wolf and that her and Ulf would be able to help him adjust to this new life. When he answered the question on what he was allergic to, she looked at him incredulously. Dogs which translated to wolves. Which meant he was allergic to her and himself. Big fucking yikes. “Wow, I’m surprised the bite didn’t like… counteract that. I’m sorry, that’s gotta be not fun. Let’s go get you some allergy meds so you feel better.” Once again, she was directing the way so Simon could have everything he needed to feel comfortable and not sneezy. She didn’t want to be contributing to the wolfy sneezes.

“Yeah, you’d think being mauled then subsequently, er…” Well, Simon didn’t want to call it ‘cursed’ in front of someone who had been born with it though he felt like it would be a long time before he accepted being a werewolf as anything other than a ‘parasitic relationship’ or ‘curse’. “Biologically altered--” Nice save. “Would’ve negated that. I guess we can’t all be so lucky,” He chuckled with another sniff, tending to his face with the tissue again. He still felt guilty and immediately thought about how he could’ve translated that answer better or less awkwardly but he settled for a quiet “Sorry.” He was always sorry. What he was more than sorry right now though, embarrassing admittance of his body’s rejection against his own kind now aside, was thankful that Ariana both stayed and still offered to lead him given how unfamiliar he was with everything in town. Wolves really did stick together but he wondered just how big of a liability he still was - wasn’t the ‘pack’ only as strong as its weakest member? That’s how human groups worked, or… what managers would tell their beleaguered employees to scare them into being more productive. He had to stop being negative. “Er… Sorry if this isn’t the right time but I’m glad you sniffed me out, Ariana,” He glanced down at her with a gentle smile.

Ariana did her best to hold back a grimace at his mention of being mauled. That has to be traumatizing and it made her more determined to help him feel comfortable as a wolf. “We’ll just have to keep a hefty supply of allergy pills and tissues then,” she said with a sheepish grin. More than anything, she wanted to be good support for the transition he was going through. There was pep in her step as she directed them to the corner store. She was happy she found another werewolf and someone that she was actually able to help. Her’s and Lucas’ situations both felt hopeless. It was nice to have things with an easy solution like simply watching out for him and teaching him about being a wolf. “I’m glad, too. I think you and Ulf will be fast friends. Good to have you as part of the pack.” She gave his arm a playful punch as they made their way up the block. Their pack was really coming along and it left Ariana with a warm feeling. Maybe things could work out after all.

[beacon-sanctuary]

Chapter 2: Class decisions and dorm warfare for the win!

introduction, Ch.1

Note to self: next time Bean and Merlin fight, get popcorn, and maybe grab wall rubble, I’m not a hoarder, scouts honor~

     I looked up at the teachers with stars in my eyes, everyone was so cool!  Plus, I got a head pat-so that’s even better!  Ugh, why’d you guys have to make so hard to choose a class, hmmm let’s put our suspects, up shall we?  Looking at the professors, I saw the grumpy Alchemist guy, his pale wood patterned skin shone in the lights above as once more those dang amber eyes of his bore into my mind.  Like chill man, how can putting a baton in your jacket be mind warfare?!  Huff, he looked so cool during the show but ehhh, too strict for me.  

 Well, Rasputin’s a no I guess, number 2, Louis Armstrong, seems like a fun guy, buuut I have no musical talent, got two left feet, voice sounds like a banshee bleh, ain’t a good fit.  It’s not you Louis it’s me, sorry man. Onto suspect 3, Hobo Billy the kid, chill, kinda dusty, but I’m not stealthy, wouldn’t have light-up shoes if I was after all.  Suspect 4 come on down!  Here we have Joan of Arc, awesome sword wielder and dealer of cherished head pats, 9/10 we might have a winner here people.

 Now onto suspe-oh no megaphone man’s back, just in case, I pulled my beanie over my ears, no hearing loss for me.  

 “Ah, jolly good show everyone!  It was quite a sight to see, I must say, now children, if that display did not solidify your choice-well buck up!  We’ve decided to allow our professors the chance to remind you of their profession and the meaning behind each class!  And remember no class is better or worse than the ot-”

 “Guerillas are best, don’t listen to the loudspeaker” Izusa jabbed in

 “Heheheh, Izusa I am glad for your class pride still runs deep, but we are headmasters, after all, we need to be unbiased!  Let our bright youths decide for themselves!”

 “Unbiased, you have your freaking Knight necktie on” She fired back motioning to his stripped blue silver tie which he straightened. 

 “Well, of course, one must never forget their roots after all, and even though I myself favored our knights here, this is not-” Before he could finish, a sharp  “Shush” interjected.  Professor Blum strode forward hand massaging his temple.

 “If we listen to this squabble any longer, we shall not move anywhere, and I would like to return to my facility before night comes if you don’t mind.” Fixing his overcoat, the amber eyes of the earth magi quickly returned to the crowd, piercing them with a cool stare as he began to speak once more.

 “To you lot” he admonished us snapping his arm, “Listen well, for I shall only say this once.  Despite what the news or the media has led you to believe, Alchemists are those who study and pick apart the gears of magic and the world for all its worth.”  When he said news and media he spat out each word as if it were venom in his mouth, and as he began to go on, the methodical style of his speech began to ebb more into a stately passion. 

 “We are no mere scientists, we are alchemists! The fusion of creativity and scientific reasoning to understand, this little thing we call magic.  Despite the moniker of “Youngest class,” Human, Magi, or whatever in between that’s shuffled about on this rock has always been curious of this force in our world.  Whether you trace our origins to the wizards and warlocks of old, or to the Alchemists of which we’ve gained our title, we are both and neither of our predecessors!” 

      Pacing a bit, he calmed his voice back down as he continued on, “Were our ancestors simply explored the capabilities or tried to pick apart magic for their own uses, we have a different goal.  We carry the light of knowledge, illuminating the unknown for our fellow people so that they may find comfort in said findings.  If you choose this path, burn this into your mind! If you have no passion or hunger for finding the secrets of magic and our world, then as soon as you enter my facility, you. shall. be. Gone!  I do not want to hear your complaining, “Oh it’s too hard,” or, “ Oh, it’s too boring” for if I see one hint of uninterest in your eyes, I'll throw you out myself! For if you have no passion or drive in your field what is the point of you?  Now then,”  

 After a long sigh, he quietly composed himself, “if you feel this is right for you, step forward now.” he crooned out. And to my left, I felt a rustle beside me Orion groaned up and walked towards the old magi, he gave me a two-finger salute and lazily walked forward.  And as everyone saw him go, bit by bit more people stood in front of Rasputin, as each was handed some black clothes in a bag.  And as if on cue, a sharp whistle broke the silence, bringing all our eyes on Billy the kid.

 “Alright, kiddos eyes on me for a sec’. Thanks to ole grandpa given that essay, I’ll be straight with ya.  Guerillas are the rebels, outlaws, anarchists, or whatever they call us now.  Where there's some rules we break 'em, were there's laws we go past 'em. We be the judge of those in power, that roarin' flame under they feet that keep our leaders in check. And if they go too far, well, this lil' fire finna burst into an inferno I'll promise ya that.  If ya got freedom and rebellion in ya chest. We yo people, see a riot, we in there, see a protest, we in there, and if you see a revolution? Hoo boy, you sure as heck know we in there! We carry the light of freedom and change, always there to stop a leader if they go too far and if they do, we gon' hold 'em accountable and make somethin' new.  If my words struck home, we be happy to have ya, welcome to the family kiddos.” legs dangling over the stage the professor watched as the future Guerillas approached, heck even one girl flew up and gave a high five to him.  Thanks to her wings, she was an air magi, had some golden-brown wings and storm grey hair, and perched atop the stage as her classmates rushed up too.

             At my right, I heard a grunt as freaking Joan of Arc hopped off her pommel and kicked the sword in her hand like it was nothing!  Yup, definitely joining her I don’t care what anyone says-Imma be a knight!

 “Heh, alrighty, may as well start, hmph” She grunted, holding her sword in a rigid pose.  If I’m being honest her face looked like she was constipated “to be a knight you be gallant, focused measured precise and powerful, my children take up arms your calling is nye it is time for a crusade!  We shall take back the holy land,Deus vult, DEUS VU-pfffft, heheheh, sorry I had to” she chuckled leaning on her sheath “Oh, that never gets old, ok serious time now” she took in a breath to speak but

 “Ah, it seems the impossible did happen, you being serious” Rasputin interjected walking past her, to this he received a light snicker

 “Listen I can be serious sometimes, on occasion, when I feel like it, every few years.  But, as I was saying before mister essay interrupted me, Knights are old as heck alright, we’re the first beacons, defend people for generations, all that good stuff.  But just cause we got knight in our name, don’t mean we’re Chivalrous, glistening warriors who vanquish evil to the ends of the earth that’s only a third of the pie, we’re not just warriors, we’re healers and guardians kids.  The sword, shield, and healing hand, we become that light.  We guard against the dark and give people a haven.  In more than one way!  So,” she said resting her sword over her shoulders,

“If you want to be a knight, grab some chainmail and a tunic from the stage and come to my class tomorrow.  I’d be happy to have you” She winked strolling out.  Yeeep, I’m all in let’s freaking go!  I cheered in my mind, but I had a feeling I had a dopey smile on my face all the same.

             After that, not much else happened, learned about the other two classes, Artificers, basically artists, builders, and all that fun stuff that entertains or helps people. And seekers, explorers, and stuff, always run headfirst into the unknown and hard to pin down.  But by the end I got some bag of clothes and a rune stone. It was a smooth navy-blue rock with a messed-up F burnt into it.  It felt warm and hummed a bit in my hand as I turned a bit, it was like a weird magic compass to my dorm I guess, this is so cool!  Welp, into your prison-I mean my bag little guy.  As I was putting my stone back in my bag, a gun shot made me nearly drop it on the ground.

 “Gah!  what is this, give Eir a heart attack day?!” I mumbled clamping my stone as Headmaster Ortiz cleared his throat.

 “Knights, Alchemists, Seekers, Guerillas, and Artificers, thank you all for continuing in the protection of Human-Magi kind.  This is the first step of your journey as Beacons!  For even having the courage to step up this far, you should be proud!  Bully indeed for you!  I already can see great potential in all of you, all I can say is good luck, and may your lights always shine bright.” He finished his final speech and gave us all a hearty laugh and warm smile before walking into the back as Izusa made her way to speak.

 “Alright Torches, like the headmaster megaphone said, this is your start, remember you all wanted this, so get ready, tomorrow starts four years of hell, have fun~” she sang away into the darkness from whence she came.

             After the speeches of fluff and doom we all dispersed to our new dorms, which for some freaking reason was on the of the fort!  School’s in the middle, makes sense, access to everything, but the dorms. At the very edge of the freaking coast, who designed this and where can I smack them with my bag?  I’m going helicopter them so bad won’t know what hit them.  But still, I walked to my dorm.  Weird F rune dash 5 as the stone in my hand vibrated more and more the closer I got to my door.  The jade-gold rune patterned carpet sat atop a shining wood floor and the air had a scent of strangely chocolate, and fire?  

 “Who’s burning something?” I thought aloud, but right as the words came out of my mouth, the wall right across from me shattered as a flaming girl bulldozed through while a hand patted me on the head.  Whirling my head from side to side I saw Orion standing besides me snickering at the dragon girl.  She had two jagged black horns sticking out of her messy flame like curls.  She was short but had a stocky frame, I think I even saw a few muscles if I’m being honest.  And as I saw her gold eyes stare daggers at Orion(nickname still pending) a wicked smile seared across her face, disrupting the red scales upon her cheeks.

 “Orio get back over here so I can hit ya!” She growled in her rough voice, to which Orion strolled across from me with a playful shrug

 “nahhh, don’t really feel like it sunflower, good offer though, you’re getting’ better at em, I’m proud!”

 “Tsk, I told ya before, I ain’t no little flower, I am the sun!” she yelled crouching down for probably another charge.  Orion chuckled as he held his free hand at his ear

 “Uh, say that again white dwarf, I ain’t hear ya~” he teased, and at that my eyes even glared at him,

 “Please don’t my ears have suffered enough for a day!” I groaned,

       But as at the girl, it seemed like she physically had a tick mark on her head as the whole room heated up to 90 degrees. I had to take off my hat and fan myself, what the freak did he say to make her that mad? But unfortunately, I got no answer as the girl barreled forward with a battle cry.  Careening towards Orion before I saw him poof out of existence in a blue flash before reappearing behind the solar magi.  He placed a hand on her back and caused it to steam, but what instantly caught my attention was two words that slithered from his mouth.

 “Liga Hostem” he said, and yanked his hand back as multiple black and blue chains wrapped around the girl, battling against the fire and the light she gave off.  Making the hallway as wicked battle of heat and cold. Gasping from excitement I rapidly said

 “You used a binding spell!  It’s not the full incantation but that’s still awesome!  Wait, your element doesn’t usually go into that unle-“

 “let’s save this for later, I ain’t tryin’ be bbq magi over here”  to further his point the girl took in a deep breath and bellowed out a stream of flames in the boy’s direction, cursing under his breath Orion slammed his hand on the ground and cried

 “Fortifico!” as a black and blue hexagon of swirling void, blocked the incoming flames, and as soon as the barrier was released, the girl charged forward with an knee aimed at Orion’s fac, he rolled back and threw a punch at her stomach, but she brushed it to the side.  Back and forth they parried and dodged each other’s blows like clockwork.  Oh I wish I had popcorn, this is so good, but sadly before the fight could continue, the door behind me slammed open as I saw a baby face looking Asian guy with, a long, rat tail… Oh its him, time to give him a piece of my wait why is he my dorm mate?!

 “QUIET” the pale faced boy roared, on his face was now a pair of jade, metallic looking goggles, and as soon as he looked at the two magi his face grew a face of sheer disgust. “Ugh, just typical of their kind, arrogant and loud beyond measure. You two, cease this disturbance immediately, I am trying to work. “ he screamed in his childlike voice waving a large wrench at the two.

 “Hey, angery baby man, shush.” Said angery baby man looked agasp and was about to say something before I said

“Oi, ya owe me an apology from earlier, what was your deal?” I demaded looking over my shoulder

 “just my luck, of course I’m roomed with you of all people.” He rolled his eyes

 “Me of all people?!  Square up baby man, lets go!”

 “First of all, I am not, a baby man.  My name is Lin Su-Wang, and I am not fighting a munchkin.”

             And this is how this went for like thirty minutes, four people either fighting or yelling at each other before, nothing, I really can’t remember what happened afterwards, only thing is I woke up with a pain in my neck for some reason.  Weird, buuut yeah, this was one interesting first day.

 Day one-completed! :)

[mythologymonsterlover]

Male! Angel Lover

A girl who wants to be on her own for once, meets a man she never realize always been there for her in her deepest time of need. Welcome to her story about love at first sight~

Warning: sexual content, cussing

Female Reader X Male monster

I say this many times, but I'll say it again, I have stupid luck.

Ever since I was a little girl, I escaped death only by a hair. People always said it was because an angel was watching over me, but I never believed that for a second. Growing up though with this surprisingly good luck and being a restless kid, I managed to turn out as a somewhat normal person. I grew up in Florida but now live in Colorado, with my grandma who owns a flower shop. I moved here since I liked the colleges here more than in Florida, and also to get away from my over possessive mother who I love dearly.

It just hard to grow as a person when your mother is still reminding you to get up for school at the age of nineteen. So moving out to live in a totally different setting seemed like the best way in starting my new independent life. I started working for my grandmother as her store’s cashier, and I do classes in the early morning in order to earn my bachelors degree. everything seemed to be going well...until tonight unfortunately.

I was at my grandma’s store at eleven when I strange man walked in that looked homeless. I didn’t say anything at first since I didn’t want to be rude, but he picked up a glass vase then drop it with shaky hands. It made a loud crash, and shattered into tiny little pieces on the ground. Startled, I rush over to where the man was and pick up the broken vase, and when I look up I already see another vase in the man’s grasp. Before he could drop the other to the ground, I grab it out of his hands gently but forcefully and set it down. The man looks at me wide eyed,

And I keep a smile on my face as to seem less imposing on him.

“Sir, I’m sorry to say this, but I’m going to have to ask you to pay for that.”

I point to the place the shattered vase fell at and his facial expression turns from surprised to annoyed.

“It was just an accident, lady..” He says while scratching at his matted beard, and goes to walk away from me. Being annoyed and startled by the way his acting, I grab the back of his shoulder to get his attention once again. He turns his head slowly, giving me the stink eye, but I don’t waver. I point to the telephone and say, “If you don’t pay for that sir, I’m going to call the police.” With that I turn around walking away from him, back to counter with my arms crossed, and wait for the man to pay for what he's done. The creep gives me a disturbing grin, while shaking his head back and forth as he walks to the counter.

“Alright, so it’s like that…” he says under his breath, reaching for his jacket pocket. This is where I realized I’ve made a grave mistake,

as instead of pulling out a wallet, he takes out a gun. The points the barrel of the gun straight at my head, and I don’t even breathe as the man walks around the counter right next to me. He pushes me roughly to the ground with his other hand, and starts to rummage in the cash register drawer. Being filled with fear, I stay on the ground unmoving as he collects all the money putting it in his bag. After what felt like forever, he finally turns to me, still pointing the gun at my head. He grins mockingly, and with little courage but a lot of anger now I speak up.

“I’ll make sure the cops get you.” I say through gritted teeth, being so damn angry at the asshole I start shaking.

He looks at me wide eyed for a moment, but bellows out a laugh at my pitiful state.

“Oh sweetie, they won’t, since I'll make sure you never get to them.”

Being frightened by his statement I become dumbfounded until I hear a click.

The click of a gun.

He aims it at me with two hands on it now, and I can tell he definitely loaded a bullet in the chamber.

I realize in that horrible moment, that he was going to kill me.

I wanted to cry out, but because I’m so choked up with fear I stay paralyzed.

I’m going to die, and know one will know who did it because we don’t even have security cameras in the store. We hadn’t in years, and the fact that this man properly knew this sicken me to my core.

“See you in hell, sweetheart.” The frightful figure says to me, and i'm ready to feel the pain of the bullet go through me as I shut my eyes so hard, they hurt.

Yet I don't feel a thing.

I waited in anticipation for the shoot to ring out, but instead all I hear is a heavy breath from beside me exhale, and then a sudden thumb like something fell over. Breathing hoarsely by the fact that i'm not dead by now, I open my eyes to see something I never expected to happen in a million of years. Their right in front of me, a man who looks like a librean hold the gun up in the air, and is twisting the hobo’s waist so hard the guy yells out in agony. I don't make a single sound as the tall intellectual throws the gun across the room, and lifts up the jerk by the collar looking him straight in his eyes.

The creep freezes up in fear at being the helpless victim in distress now.

“Went through so much trouble to be a real pain tonight, didn’t you Jeremy?” the weird looking tall guy says with a hint of annoyance, and fixes his glasses on his face as he drops the hobo to the ground. The jerk looks absolutely feartrighten by the other man’s words and backs away to the edge of the room to create as much distance as possible.

“H-How did you know my name!?” He yells out, but before he could say another word the stronger man snaps his fingers, which forms a white gaping hole underneath the hobo. Then just as suddenly, the creep who was once a frightening figure before me, vanishes into a portal into god knows where, disappearing from my sights for good.

At this point, the shop is so silent it hurts, and the only noise I could hear was my own beating heart ringing in my ears. I didn’t know how to react so I just sat there on the ground shivering in fear, feeling tears stream down my face as I try to hold back my gasping sobs. The man who saved me just stands there, and he doesn’t moved from the spot like he should to make sure I’m alright. When I start to calm down to try and assess the situation, is when he finally looks at me. I don’t move again in fear, knowing it’s stupid to be acting like a rabbit caught in the head light, but it was a primal instinct that was natural to me.

I didn't move as the weird looking librean man walk slowly right in front of me, and crouch down to my eye level.

“My, ever since you were young you always seem to be on death’s list.” He mummer incoherently like he was speaking to himself, but not directly at me. Scared of what just happen and by his random closeness, I back away from him and bring my legs to my chest. The man then seems startled by my reaction, and back away from me as well.

“Wait, no, you can't..” He trails off as he reaches out his hand toward me. I react by flicking my head away then by lifting my hands to cover up my face. I don't want him or anyone to touch me, I just want to leave.

“Keep away from me please.” I say with a weak but frighten voice, making sure he got the message that I didn't want to have anything to do him.

This is when things just get even weirder though, as the man gasp backing away from me like I just try to punch him or something. Confused by his response I lift my head up to meet with his eyes. I didn't get a good look at him before, only what his back and side looked like, but that i know see him face first i'm bewildered at his appearance even more the before. He indeed is wearing glasses, but the color of his eyes are what startles me the most right now. Instead of being a normal color like brown or blue, they are a shining gold that looks like the sun. His hair is a deep sliver like an old man hair would be, but his face is as youthful as a man in his prime years. Young and handsome looking, he raises an eyebrow at me and tightens up his back.

“You..can see me.” This time he says directly at me, and I nod my head slowly at his oddness in his voice like he can’t believe it.

“Of course I would..you just saved me, right?”

He nods his head in confirmation, but has a sicking whiteness like he just seen a ghost. With shaking hands he walks towards me, bends down to my eye level once again, and speaks now with emotional strain in his beautiful voice. Feeling like I’m no longer in danger, I let him touch my face, letting him run his fingers down my cheek. I don’t know why, but his entire being feels so familiar that him being so close doesn’t bug me the slightest. As my eyes meet his golden ones, he snaps back from his trance like state and recoils away from me. Being more startled then confused, I get up on my own two feet once again and walk slowly towards him.

“D-Do I know you?” I say sheepishly, feeling like a preschooler asking if she did something wrong. The man though doesn’t make eye contact with me anymore, and turns around to walk away.

“Wait, who are you sir?” I say yelling out, but can’t move my legs to grab him.

It’s almost feels like I’m glued to the spot, so I don’t even attempt to run after him. He looks back only once, and I hear him mummer something under his breath.

“Don’t follow me.” Is what I think he said.

Just like that though, he walks out the door into the night, disappearing like a ghost. I didn’t move for a couple minutes at the very least, but when I finally do, I grab my keys and lock the store door.

I’m pretty sure I had enough for tonight I think.

…

My days after the incident were pretty rough, since I had to call the police and order security cameras for the store. I didn’t want anyone else to deal with what I had to ever again. Especially when my grandmother told me she had problems with that hobo in the past; that just caused me to be afraid. Yet after all the cameras were installed finally, I went back to work. I didn’t want my grandma to worry too much about me, so I promise I would work only in the day time. Also, the man that saved me that night never came forward about who he was. I looked all over town for him, but I couldn’t find the guy and assume he must have been a visitor.

This morning I decided to clear my head by walking into the woods, where there's a path that leads to the shop. I just couldn’t bring myself to drive to the place today since my anxiety was over the roof. Walking down the path this morning seemed to especially calm down my nerves.

That’s until I saw the man again...the man who saved me from that hobo.

I stop dead in my tracks when I saw him, not wanting to startle the stranger. Looking around at my surrounding, I see that we both are in the middle of the forest, which means we aren't too deep or too far from people. He hasn't notice me it seems, and looks relatively calm while sitting on the beach. Knowing this is my only chance to ever thank him for what he did, I walk toward him until I’m only an arms length away. I stand there for a moment, hoping that he’ll notice me any time now..However, he keeps reading a small book, not even noticing I'm near him the slightest.

He must really like that book.

I decide to take initiative and reach out to tap his shoulder. This is when things get weird again, as my hand goes right through him. I pull back startled, and feel my anxiety rise up in my entire being. He must have notice that my hand went through him, as he looks toward be bewildered.

“What are you!?” I yell out, not being able to register what just happened. The man is taken aback by my shouting and drops his book to the ground. Intensely, he just stares right back at me with what I can only describe as awe.

“..You can see me.”

I nod my head, confused as to why he thinks I can’t see him. He said something like that the last time we were together, and was fascinated by me looking at him which caused me to feel a little bashful. Right now, his looking at me like he did when we were in the shop, but I still can’t see why that would be.

“Why wouldn't I be able to see you? I mean, your standing in broad daylight..”

His taken aback for a moment, but seems to regain some composer as he straighten up his posture and adjusting his glasses. He coughs in his fist, like his trying to clear his nerves, and reaches for me to shake his hand.

“I’m sorry ma’am for being so...rude. My name is Chamuel, it's nice to meet you.”

I play nice, and shake the odd man’s hand. As I feel the embrace of his hand touch mine, intense pleasure goes through me. It’s not any kind of pleasure though, but unconditional love for someone that can’t be expressed by words. Not able to understanding these emotions, I pull my hand away quickly and hold it to my chest. Chamuel not being startled by my reaction this time apparently, lets out a small laugh as to calm down me down. I look into his natural golden eyes again, and reflect on his weird appearance. Still needing answers, I repeat the words I said to him just a couple of seconds ago.

“Are you even a human, Chamuel?”

It seems like an crazy question to ask, but not as crazy as when my hand went through his body. Chamuel doesn't look at me weirdly from my question. He picks up his book off the ground and sit back on the beach. His rubbing his chin as he sets his book beside him, while staring down at his lap in deep thoughts. He nods his head a couple of time to himself, then when his done he looks back up to me with more clearness in his eyes.

With a small smile, he says, “Your quite the unique one to be able to see me, and to answer your question, no, I’m not human.”

Feeling a little light headed, I back away from him to comprehend if this is really happening, or if i'm just dreaming. He looks at me concerningly by my reaction, and gets up to grabs my shoulder to ease my balance. He moves me to the beach, than places me right next to him. He keeps his hand on my shoulder, and I feel calmed by his presence more than frightened.

“Have you ever read the bible?” He says with the sweetest voice I ever heard. It literally causes me to melt in shyness in front of the handsome man.

I shake my head back and forth in response, as I never did believe in Christian beliefs. It just seemed ridiculous to believe in a being that seemed so unreal. Even most of my family were atheist, as they saw god as a figure of people’s imagination. The man nodded his head in understanding, and looked out to the green forests. It was so quiet that I couldn't hear a single bird chirping, which also happened at the shop when Chamuel appeared.

“Why are you asking me question? I should be the one asking you.” I say nervously, more to say anything in this uncomfortable silence. I also didn't’ even thanked him; which I just wanted to do and leave.

Talking about if god is real or not seemed to be a waste.

He looks down at me though like he understood what I was thinking, and simply says,

“It’s not important, I was just curious.”

Then with that, he gets up and puts his book under his armpit.

He smiles while waving at me warmly.

“If Jeremy comes back to the shop, just say my name and I’ll be there for you.” He says nicely, and begins to walk away.

I get up to follow him, but before I could even take a step, he evaporates into thin air.

I’m left speechless with only a single thought running in my head: Who the hell is he?

…

I started to do research on what I could have possibly seen, trying to connect theories I have by what he was like.

I’ve been up for a week, and read stories about ghost, demons, and whatnot. It’s only then do I realize he gave me the most important clue to what he was really.

The Bible.

He asked me if I read the Bible, and I think he was actually hinting to me about what he was. When I finally see what I’ve been missing, I go to the library and pick up a copy of the Bible.

It’s when I get home and into my room with the book I see him again. He was laying on my bed, and had a somewhat smug look on his face. I nearly had a heart attack by seeing him, that I grib the door handle as I huff out a angry sigh.

“How the hell did you get in here?” I say walking into my room, putting the Bible on the table.

“You wished for my presence.”

The man who claims to be called Chamuel simply states, and sit upright on my bed.

“Are you some kind of incubus?” I say annoyed, since he looks like his craving something. It would make sense as he is extremely good looking, and has a alluring nature that’s hard to ignore.

Chamuel though seems disappointed in my answer as he lets out a sigh, and gets up on his feet. There, he looks toward the photo of my mother and me which was taken a year ago.

“You grow up with quite a loving mother.” He says quietly, and turns to walk towards me.

I don’t move as he stands before me, and slowly move his hand to caress my cheek. He once again looks deep into my eyes with his golden ones, which causes the world around me to disappear suddenly. I emerge into what I can only describe as a different world, as I see Chamuel standing on a rocky shore looking into a vast ocean. His entire being looks different though - because instead of looking like a normal guy- he has now pure glowing skin and wings that spread across his back. I’m still uncertain about what this means, until a book I never seen forms before my eyes in midair. I grab it reluctantly, and the pages move on their own until they rest on a single page that states:

“I will help you realize judgmental attitudes, even if your unaware of them.

I will help you use your shortcoming as an opportunity to connect with your higher self...

As I am the angel of love and forgiveness, and I’m here to bring warmth into your heart.”

When I look up again, I truly see him.

Standing over my frame with so much love in his eyes, I feel I could break down crying on the spot. I move my hands to touch his face, and very calmly I move my

face closer to his.

I was scared, but I place my lips on his, not knowing why but feeling the need to be closer to him.

Chamuel does not refuses me thankfully, and kisses back with such love in his touch I feel light headed again. We stay like that for only a moment though, as we pull away with admiration in gaze of each other.

“Your an angel.” I say breathlessly, and feel his arms wrap around my back as he brings me back to his lips, sliening me with a kiss. Its deeper this time, and I feel my body react with pleasure from his tough engulfing into my mouth. He sucks on my tough a couple of times that causes me to shudder, and I move my hand to his chest rubbing it with love. When he detaches my mouth from his, he moves his lips to my chest and start sucking on a sweet spot on my breast. I let out a small moan from the pleasure, and move my hand down his pants as he does the same to me. Very soothingly, we stroke each other at our most sensitive spots. I was the first to feel my inner core heat up from his touch, as I felt the sweet release of myself come undone upon him. He kept stroking me even after I already came, and I felt the need to finish this before I passed out from the overbearing pleasure that I was receiving.

More braver than before, I move my hand out of his pants and move my head instead down to his couch. He looks at me bewildered for a moment, but seems to understand what I’m about to do when I pull down his pants. His dick comes out half hard, and with this being my first time doing something like this, I stroke him a little more before I emerge my entire mouth on his shaft. I let it go as deep as I can bear, and slowly move my head up and down with a somewhat strong need in my core still. I keep hearing him mummer unadible word under his breath, which then turn into louder grunts as he grabs the ground around him with his first.

After a few more up and down motions of my mouth, I feel his cum in my mouth and the heavy load it was. I don’t feel comfortable with swallowing it all, so I let some of it trail down my chin onto my bare chest. I look up at him, making sure I didn’t go to far with doing this, but he looks back at me with loving eyes as he wipes my mouth. He bring me up into his chest, and I happily lay there as I hear the claiming ease of his chest falling up and down. Chamuel rubs his hands down my back as I lay there, and I feel myself never wanting this to end.

“Chamuel, will you stay with me?” I speak somewhat afraid, not wanting to be selfish but also not wanting to let this holy man out of my grib ever again. Chamuel stops rubbing my back, and moves one of his hands under my chin in order for me to face him. There, his golden eyes glow radiantly with love, and he places his head to mine.

Then he says the words that I never knew were true, but what I needed to hear my entire life.

“I have always been here with you, and I will never leave your side until the end of time.”

[t-virusimagines]

Christmas with You

A/N: Merry Christmas from both a messy weeb and Dante himself. I had a fantastic Christmas and I want y’all to have a little something from me to you!

Dante X Reader

Snow had been falling around the Devil May Cry over the entire week. The city itself looked beautiful, Christmas lights lined the streets and hung in most of the window. The street lights gave the night a warm and inviting glow. The neon lights of the Devil May Cry even had a dreamy look to them as the snow fell. You pushed the door to the building open, still bundled up in your coat with a bag of gifts thrown over your shoulder.

The blast of warm air hit you immediately with the smell of pizza grease and tropical air freshener. Sure smelled like home. You kicked the snow off your boots before kicking them off and hanging your coat. You looked across the room to Dante, who seemed to be passed out in his chair. Had he even moved since you left yesterday? You shook your head and decided to wake him up.

“Dante! Merry Christmas!” You shouted before pressing a kiss to his forehead, causing him to jolt before relaxing again.

“Wha... oh yeah it is Christmas isn’t it...” He let out a loud yawn and took his feet off the desk.

“This place isn’t decorated. I figured someone as dramatic as you would have rushed all day to get the place looking like this would be the last Christmas ever.”

“I actually don’t celebrate it that much.”

Your face just looked completely dumbfounded at the thought. “You don’t celebrate? Why is that??” You sat on the desk, pushing a pizza box out of the way.

“I dunno. After mom died and pops vanished things weren’t really in line for me to have a Christmas. Never had anyone to celebrate with, save for Lady for awhile. Then I met you but you’re usually at your families for the holidays, and Trish but it isn’t her thing either. Speaking of,” He scooped you off the desk and into his lap. “Why aren’t you with your parents?”

You shrugged. “They decided they wanted to get away from all the snow after dad slipped last year so they took a cruise.” You settled into his lap with a hum. 

“That’s a shame. Sorry you won’t get any of the big, over the top Christmas stuff this year. Had I known you’d be here I would have tried to do something...” He frowned, burying his face in the crook of your neck, the stubble scratching against you and tickling you. 

You squirmed a bit and pushed his head out. “It’s okay babe, I wanted to surprise you anyways. Maybe next year we can worry about all of that. But!” You hopped off his lap, going over to grab the bag you’d brought with you. “I did get you a few things.”

He frowned again. “You really didn’t have to. I didn’t even have time to get you something this year...”

“Don’t worry about it baby. You can always get me something later on. Just being able to spend the holiday with you is enough for me.”

He let out a long sigh as you put the gifts in front of him. “What do I do to deserve you?”

“Protect me, love me, and rail me good. Now open them!”

“Alright alright...” He opened the first one, a small gift card box that had a gift card for his favorite pizza place. His eyes just lit up from the sad state he had been in just a moment ago. “God baby... you really get me, huh?”

You gently hit his shoulder, giggling. “That’s just the first gift too. Keep going.”

He did as you said, opening the next box, a thin rectangular one that had a pair of soft flannel PJ pants and some slippers. As be started to open his last box you snuck over to your jacket, pulling something from your pocket. You hold it behind your back as you see Dante’s eyes go wide at the final gift you got him. 

“Oh (Y/n) you really didn’t have to get me this...” He pulled out the new leather trench coat that you’d given him, marveling at the obvious expensive quality of the coat. One he’d been looking at for awhile. 

“I know I didn’t have to, but I wanted to anyways. Now try it on! I need to be sure it fits!” You gesture your empty hand at him. 

Dante tosses the one he’d been wearing over the back of his chair and slides effortlessly into the new coat. He flexes a bit, stretches, moves himself around and gives it a twirl before scooping you into his arms. You squeak in shock and he just smiles wide. “(Y/n) this was all too sweet of you.”

“I figured a few simple things would make the holiday for you.”

“Just having you here was enough. I didn’t really care about this holiday before but maybe I can learn to like it a little bit for you.”

You put one arm across his shoulders and shrug. “Maybe next year you can tag along to meet my parents. They’ll make sure you feel the Christmas spirit before we go.”

“Don’t know if you should let your parents meet the hobo you gave an expensive jacket to.”

“They’ll love you, Dante, trust me.” You smile, lifting your other hand above your heads, a small bit of mistletoe dangling from between your fingers.

“Whats that?” Dante’s brow quirked up at the little plant above him.

“You watch enough trashy TV to know what this is from all the holiday specials. It’s mistletoe. When people stand under it, they’re supposed to kiss.”

He snickered. “Baby, if you wanted a kiss, just take one.”

“I know but it’s Christmas and you love being dramatic. So this is me being dramatic this year.” You grinned.

He shook his head. “Well, Merry Christmas, sweetheart.” He leaned in, pressing a kiss to your lips as he held you close to him. 

[smokeyloki]

Making-Over vs. Making-Do  -  To Be or Not To Be   (X-Men fanfiction)

Written in part by the loverly @supesofherown, who has offered me much inspiration for this particular X-Men snippet, ft. the one and only Remy LeBeau and some...other...weird mutant.

Whether the entire story will be written remains to be seen.  But I did want to map out at least the introductory scene, see what it looked like in my mind and all that.  

       On the corner of two busy streets, where traffic was heavy and to walk there was a constant struggle of hugging the sidewalk so as not to collide with a speeding car, someone had decided to set up a small antique shop.  It was bursting with little trinkets, many of which were on display behind smudged window-glass.  There were a few rusted toy cars, a typewriter with some of the keys stuck, mismatched earrings, a stack of dusty books, and a few wall decorations (styled as late-1900’s-advertisments) among many other curious objects.  However, out of all the oddities which this corner store boasted, there was only one which demanded attention.  It was a necklace, and it was a fine piece of work, indeed. When sunlight hit the window just so, after working its way past car windows and weaving between the mobs of pedestrians, the necklace would glitter as if it were made of the purest gold.  A few small gems would wink at passers-by from where they rested against the velvet blue neck of the display bust.  It seemed to be calling out, to every person that passed:

         “Pick me!  Take me home!”

         And there was one who certainly heard that call.  

         He had been eyeing the necklace for a few weeks, now, ever since he first saw it on his way to a sandwich shop further down the block.  Whenever he passed by the smudged window, he would pause and look in, just to assure himself that no one else had purchased it yet.  Every time he saw it, the same thought shivered its way down his spine and made his fingers tingle and his mouth crinkle.

         “Rogue would love ‘dat.”

         And why, indeed, wouldn’t she?  Remy LeBeau didn’t know her inside-out, but that necklace had been made for her.  He knew it.

         Of course, in addition to being Rogue’s closest friend and a runner-up for the newly-assembled team of mutants known as X-Men, Remy was also an expert thief.  If he’d wanted to, the necklace would have been in his pocket and back at the mansion the first time he set eyes on it. But it was one thing to give a gift, and another to steal it…at least, there was a difference when it came to Rogue.

         Today he idled a little longer than usual outside the shop, peering at the necklace and trying to gauge the price.  He would have felt better if this were a pawn shop, but he doubted he had enough on him to buy such an extravagant item.  Someone at the school might be willing to lend a little cash, but Remy hated the thought of asking such a favor.  If he wanted to get Rogue a gift so badly, he would do it himself, just like he did everything else.  He could go inside and ask…but that would mean facing the possibility of embarrassment if the price was too high, and he wanted to avoid that scenario at all costs.

         Today, though, Remy was not alone by the shop.  An elderly man stooped on the front steps, rattling a pewter cup against the side of the wall as people stepped past.  No one paid him any heed; he was just one more matted, filthy bit of pavement decoration, not worth the time nor the attention.  Remy would’ve done the same, and was just tucking his hands into his pockets, ready to mingle with a passing crowd, when the man called out him.

         “Eh! Boy!  Got something to spare for an old friend?”

         Remy paused.  “I don’t usually carry anyt’ing on me, sorry.”  

         “Aaaah!”  The man winked at him with one milky-blue eye.  “’Usually’ bein’ the operative word there.”  He motioned with the cup, “And did I ask for money?  No…no..”  his words died into a mumble and he rocked himself back-and-forth on the step.  He looked up, saw Remy again, and his expression split into a wide smile, showing gaps where his teeth were missing.  “Come here, Boy.  There’s one thing you can give an old friend.”

         Despite himself, Remy was intrigued.  He lingered by the window.  “Yeah? And what would that be, ‘mon vieil ami’?”

         The old man laughed; it rattled about in his throat like the cup against the wall. “You can give me a story, Boy. Everyone’s got one of those.”  He looked at him through one eye, the other still closed in his wink.  “Tell me a story about that necklace.”

         Remy’s gaze darted to the window, then back to the man.  “Not’ing t’ say.  It’s just a necklace.”

         “Aaaah…but a special kind of necklace.  Not buying it for yourself, are you?”

         “As entertainin’ as that notion might be…yer right.”  Remy leaned against the window.  What were a few more smudges?  He’d already fogged up the glass by standing too close to the pane. “And I’m not buyin’ it, anyhow.”

         The man chortled.  “You don’t have to tell me, Boy, I’ve figured it out already.  There’s some special lady…hmmm?  Such a cliché story…but I can’t help myself liking it.”  He wriggled excitedly under his ragged clothing.  The coat draped about his shoulders was far too large to begin with, dwarfing his rickety frame.  

         “You guessed it,” Remy admitted.  “But I can’t afford it.”

         “Oh, oh.  That’s a shame.”  The man shook his head and made a “tsk, tsk” sound that hissed between the gaps in his teeth.  “Would’a looked lovely on the girl, I’m sure.”

         Remy nodded absently.  He might have ended the conversation there, but something moved him to keep talking, to get what had gone unsaid off his chest:

         “There’s a lot I wish I could do for her.  Jus’ a few fancy trinkets, maybe…a necklace like ‘dat and a dinner at a fancy restaurant…”

         A better family, he might have added.  A more appealing personal history, a more stable friend…someone she might be able to envision “forever” with…

         “We always want to give away something we don’t have,” the man sighed.  He peered into his empty cup as he spoke.  “Always so ready to make a change, thinkin’ it’ll make the world better for it.”  He looked up at Remy with both eyes, one a milky blue, the other finally open so its dark hue, either brown or black, could be seen.  “Speaking of change…” he extended the empty cup, “How’s about something for me to remember you by?  A little ‘good-bye’ present.”

         Remy slipped one hand into his pants’ pocket, pulling out a few bills and stuffing them into the cup.  He knew what life on the street was like, had favored it and enjoyed it, but it was harsh. Many were the days he’d wanted a little extra help and had gotten none.  

         “Afternoon,” he murmured.  Then he turned to go, thinking the exchange over.  He did not expect the visceral grip around his wrist.

         “Wait!”  The old man bobbed up in front of him, pulling back his flabby lips and making his eyes wrinkled up in an attempted smile.  “I’ll do it.”

         Remy blinked.  “Do…what?”

         “You’ve given me an abundance today: first the story, then the money.”  He pulled Remy away from the shop, towards a little turn as the sidewalk reached the corner and branched off in several directions.  “Now I’ll return the favor.  Friend-to-friend, eh, Boy?”

         Remy tried working his hand from the bony grasp, meaning to explain that he didn’t need anything, he was fine, and it really wasn’t a big deal.  But the man wouldn’t let go.  His grip was like a talon, and his stride surprisingly quick, so Remy had to stumble along behind him to keep from falling on his face.  They rounded the corner and Remy found himself in a dead-end alley, quite deserted and surrounded on both sides by smooth, stone walls.  At this time of day, streets crawled with activity and sound…but even the sunlight seemed to have overlooked this particular spot.

         “Where in ‘da world..?”  He looked over his shoulder, but the busty intersection they had just left had vanished into thin air.  

         “They always know what they want without ever asking the other,” the man mumbled to himself as he hobbled along.  He moved with uneven steps, making him sway to-and-fro.  “It makes me laugh.  Isn’t it funny how they always know?”

         Remy reached into his coat, feeling along the inside jacket for his deck of cards. He grabbed a few – three was more than enough – and filtered a bit of energy into them, just enough to throw this weirdo off his guard.  Before he could flick them into the man’s face, the other stopped, spun around, and snatched the cards from Remy’s fingers.

         “Now, now,” he said with a shake of his head, “that looks a bit dangerous to me. Better not have any explosives for the wish grantin’, should we?  Don’t want to hurt anyone.”  As he spoke, the man took one of the glowing cards and rubbed it between his fingers. It crumbled under his touch, turning into a spray of white dust that he blew from his hand and into the air.  “That’s better.”

         Remy was stunned into silence, a rare accomplishment.  So stunned was he that, when the elderly man tugged off his coat and wrapped it around himself, he couldn’t react until after his coat had been effectively stolen.

         “He-HEY!  What’s the big idea?!”  Remy launched himself forward.  Mutant or no, this hobo was about to learn why it was never a good idea to steal something from a thief.

         The other’s response was to raise his hand in the air, as if to ward off an oncoming blow, and Remy found himself frozen in mid-leap.  His limbs were held in place by some unseen force, and his body hung just above the ground.  The elderly man looked up at him, hand still splayed in the air, the other shuffling through Remy’s card collection.

         “Now…” he muttered, “it was so much easier when the only options people had were three different types of carriages…or bareback.”  He held one of the cards up to Remy, “Does this look like a car you wouldn’t drive?”

         Remy blinked.  The image on the card, rather than a clump of spades, diamonds, hearts, or any normal arrangement one would find on a playing card, had been transformed into the image of a sports car.  He opened his mouth to respond, trying to think of an appropriate response to any one of the numerous things currently happening.  But the elderly man didn’t wait for him to speak, choosing instead to flick the card behind him and draw another one.  A different car appeared on its face.

         “What about this one?”

         He continued in this way for several more seconds, progressing through a series of extravagant and expensive items, ranging from cars to furniture to suits. Remy was silent through the whole ordeal, partially due to the shock of it all, partially because the other wouldn’t offer him enough time to get a word in edgewise.  For as he went, he would mumble to himself between cards, engaged in an intense, one-sided conversation.

          “They always think they know…helping those who help themselves, my foot…Just pick the things that aren’t like him…What wouldn’t he choose, yes, yes…only the things he wouldn’t…”

           When the last card had been tossed to the wind, the old man drew near to Remy, stepping around the cards strewn about the pavement.  

          “I don’t know who you are or watch’a want,” Remy ground between his teeth, “But yer gonna regret it.”

          The old man didn’t respond at first, only stared up at him with those multicolored eyes. They were old eyes, filled with a distant pain that reached beyond Remy and the dark street.

          “Shush, now.  No talking. I have to think.”

          He smiled a bit.  It was wrinkled grimace of smile that twisted his face in all the wrong ways.

         “Has anyone ever told you that change is painful, Boy?”  He placed one hand against Remy’s chest as he spoke, and the other he rested against his forehead.  “Because if they have…they had the right idea.”

         He closed his eyes, curling in on himself, letting a breath of air escape his lips. Then he threw himself back, arching and twisting his body, though his hands remained fixed on Remy’s chest and head.

        There was a blinding light, a rush of sound, and then…nothing.

        Outside the little alleyway, people continued along their respective routes, mixing with mobs of like-minded peers.  A gold necklace winked at strangers in the window of a tiny antique store, and an empty tin cup rested on the steps by the shop’s front door.

[indieks]

Silent Treatment 🔊 Mark Tuan || Part.4 [END]

💭 Pairing : Mark Tuan x Reader

💭 Genre : Angst, Fluff, Suggestive (light), Supernatural-ish

💭 Word count : 24.8k

💭 Synopsis : Ever since his accident, he has forbidden himself from speaking ever again, as his voice hasn’t been useful the time he had needed it the most. Until he meets you, the one and only girl that could possibly help him overcome his trauma, as you make his heart and mind want to speak up again. You, who can hear his deepest thoughts through your special ability, yet still doesn’t see him as a desperate mute, but a mysterious man worthy of your care.

💭 Notice : The sentences written in bold are Mark’s thoughts, and when *written like this between stars*, it means the character can hear them.

Part 01 🔇 Part 02 🔈 Part 03 🔉 Part 04 [END] 🔊

💭 A/N : YES, IT’S OUT! It’s 7 a.m. here in France but I wasn’t going to sleep until I was finished (was it too captivating for me to stop? read and you’ll decide...)

I’m so relieved and touched to share this with you. I’m really sorry for having kept you waiting, and I’m beyond thankful for the support and asks you sent me, showing love for this fanfic.

Endings are always the hardest to be satisfied with, however I did my best and I hope you won’t be disappointed.

‘Til the end : I would never pretend that I know about psychology and how to treat patients! Everything comes out of my pure imagination! And please, if you ever feel bad for any reason, reach out, you matter! ♥

Also, any comments, good or bad, are still welcomed! I love your feedback, really! Thank you again and have a nice time reading!

Disclaimer : I can once again proudly say that the GIF is mine! (and this one definitely kills me)

                        He didn't know what was hurting his body the most right now. Was it his feet because he had been dragging them around the streets for quite a while, or his heart that definitely felt as if it had been pierced by thousands of needles, embodying your words of truth?

The darkness of the night wasn't as black as his mind which had plunged back into the deepest of sorrows, his eyes looking at nothing but the ground in order to help him lose himself into the big city and into a thoughtless state, until he'd breathe properly again without feeling any pain, without feeling anything. Why couldn't he swallow back his emotions like he used to?

Mark's cheeks were burning as his brain full of hatred was sweltering in hell, and he felt like he was drunk, his footsteps messy on the sidewalk, a sarcastic yet sad laugh sometimes escaping his mouth, before it switched to two lonely strand of tears he had denied freedom to earlier, forcing their way out without him realizing – until the salty taste of warm water met his front buds.

*What the- Did you just cry Mark? Seriously?*

He probably looked like a fool, a scary one more than one you could laugh at, but he confidently went forward and forward, down the streets and crossways, letting his body explore the drawers of emotions he hadn't opened for so long. Before you.

You were stepping all over his mind after having trampled on his weakened heart, and Mark might well shake his head from the left to the right like a possessed man, or grip his pale locks of hair so that the pain he would get from it would replace any thought linked to you, he just couldn't help it.

He was reminded of your crying face, of your eyes that had wanted to be apologetic, but most of all, he was hearing your trembling voice over and over again, confessing your sins to him, instead of the ambient rumpus caused by the motors of vehicles driving a few meters away or the laughs of some friends enjoying their Saturday night.

*Why can't I get this liar out of my head? I want it to stop!*

Bzzt bzzt. Bzzt bzzt.

Oh? Finally, he actually felt something else other than pain. A familiar vibration came from the pocket of his denim jacket, right under his hand that had barely been in contact with fresh air ever since he had stepped out of the apartment blocks, confined in this restricted space so that he wouldn't use his tensed fist to smash everything around him, or maybe everyone.

Mark was disgusted by every single human being on earth right now, the sour taste of betrayal making him want to spit at anyone he came across, or ditch a less than appropriated bunch of words, his tongue burning from all the insults and hurtful words he hadn't thrown into your face so that he'd feel at least a little bit better.

Jackson [00:47 AM] : Bro, where you at? It's been almost two hours since you disappeared, we're kind of worried (I said KIND OF) so at least let us know that you're alive if you don't want to tell where you went to…?

Well, maybe not every single human being…

Mark sighed at the sight of his screen as he felt soothed momentarily by remembering the best friends he could count on, with the premises of a touched smile tingling at the corner of his dry lips. Then, before he had taken the time to think back of it, he was already typing something frenetically, biting at his lower lip as he came to anticipate the next message.

Mark [00:47 AM] : Is she still here?

Thankfully though, it seemed that Jackson had been staring at his phone anxiously with just as carefulness as Mark had been doing, because less than a minute after, a text popped up again.

Jackson [00:47 AM] : No, she left. And we won't ask any questions.

Mark [00:48 AM] : I'll start walking back. Don't know exactly where I am, but it's downtown, dw.

Why did his heart feel disappointed that you weren't here anymore? Mark looked up to the street lamps as if they would give him an answer, yet the yellow light wasn't keen on helping him feel better as he didn't absorb any calming sensation from its warm shine, and the fire within him got even more ignited at his question left unanswered.

What would have he said to you back home anyway? His brain was willing to despise you and to regret having met you ; still, somewhere in his heart, it ached. His chest was aching at every single trembling beat of his life organ, because Mark was going under a heartbreak. He had been persuaded he couldn't get more crushed into pieces than he had been ever since his accident, but your impact on him proved him wrong, and it hurt.

It hurt because you had been the glue that had fixed his fragile self, yet everything was falling apart once again, and the price of the pain felt as worse as the one he had faced back in the car. It hurt to realize that, he had cherished you that much in such a mere time, so much that he could come to a comparison between you and his mother that had been supposed to be the only woman filling a special place, but now you had dug yours, and deeply.

It hurt to hear a tiny voice inside his head wishing it wasn't true, wishing he could hear you out once more, wishing he could try to figure it out, when the right choice was supposed to be the one he had made earlier : throw a con-artist out of his life.

"Are you okay, boy?" a raspy voice coming from his left startled Mark who turned around, meeting with a little old man wearing nothing but a brown parka which was half-opened, and a pair of more than used shorts, and when he entered the circle of light, Mark saw how tired his facial muscles were and how tousled was his hair.

The blonde nodded slowly, feeling sorry for this hobo that was smiling gently at him, approaching him until he could smell the strong scent of alcohol coming from his clothes.

"You sure? You don't look like it, boy" the man overbid while hiding his dirty but damaged hands into the pockets of his way too large coat.

Mark nodded once more and would have gladly returned the question, persuaded it would have given a bit of light into the world of this man that surely was darker than his own even during this night of despair. He then opted for a basic sign language to indicate him he couldn't talk, to which the hobo shook his head too, his smile seeming brighter to Mark than all the street lamps.

"It comes and goes, boy, the pain. See, it only takes a smile to feel better! So smile, hm? Put that moody face away and smile! It will go away, and you'll get stronger. You only need to stay positive, see? And to stick by the people who truly love you! That's important, that's really important. I didn't do it, and here I am, boy. Well I don't think I'd be where I am if I had had people by my side those past years, but because I think of my mom up there who loved me and looks upon me, I'm still alive and living, hm? So give me a smile, and get straight home, and tomorrow you'll feel better, believe me. You're young, you still have a lot of tomorrows."

Mark felt his heart constrict in his chest and the remaining tears he had blocked filling back the crease of his tired eyelids, but to thank this man who had helped appeasing his aching even for a few seconds, he swallowed them back once more and he gave that smile he had been asked for.

"That's right, that's right! Good night, boy. I don't want you to end up like me, so go home now!"

Mark felt his lower lip tremble, sign of his intern struggle to fight his urge to cry, so he quickly bowed the hobo goodbye and he spun on his heels before taking his steps towards the climb waiting for him. And even if his ears were deaf because he was bathing under an endless ocean of mixed emotions, those few words of comfort still had made their way through to his heart which suddenly felt lighter than a feather, and with his eyes now looking up to the sky as he, too, thought of his mother now, but with a smile rather than a frown the mysterious man had managed to erase.

                           Tomorrow's a better day, he said. *I won't think of this liar anymore. I won't feel anything anymore. I won't, ever again.*

Park Jinyoung [00:50 AM] : Got some news. He's on his way back, don't worry. Take care, Y/N.

You had been staring at some kind of invisible void on your ceiling for the past two hours, waiting for this very text you had merely asked for before you had went out of the boys' apartment. It wasn't the shame that had made you run away right after your group of friends had come to check on you, once Mark had slammed the door with only your sobs to give a hint about what happened ; it was his voice that you were still hearing, even now that you were secured under your blankets.

You had thought it was because he had probably been roaming around the neighborhood that you were still catching his thoughts, but now that you had finally fled past the limits of your ability yourself, you were truly doubting that Mark could remain in the same perimeter, so close that you could hear his low voice in your head as if he was talking next to you.

What was happening? Was it your power's way to punish you for having used it in a wrong way for so long? Were you condemned to be a sinner by keeping on invading his privacy even from far away?

But I just couldn't stop it.

Or was it another evolution you couldn't explain? But why now, with him? Wasn't his feeling of betrayal and him pushing you away supposed to mute it forever, just like it had back with Myeoli?

It was worse than a living nightmare, as your insomnia was making you wonder if you weren't going crazy and imagining things into your head with a list of reasons to prove its point : because of your terrible guilt, because you were too damn fond of the boy, because during those last three weeks you had been obsessing over your love story he had been about to write the next page of tonight.

Every single note of his voice was making you fall for this paranoia theory as you couldn't accept that your ability would ever do that to you. However, as the pinch marks on your arms went deeper just like the night, and as you tossed and turned on the mattress with a cushion wrapped around your head in order to duct any sound, you were left with no choice except to face it as the truth : you weren't crazy, but constantly hearing him.

*I shouldn't be hurting. I shouldn't be whining like a baby. I shouldn't care. Fuck you, Y/N.* Tomorrow's a better day, tomorrow's a better day. Tomorrow I'll be fine.

You hadn't any water left in your tired body, so you only frowned and caught your breath every time his thoughts seeped into your ears, which meant every single minute of the long night you were trapped in. You wished you could fall asleep, but his beautiful voice was contrasting with his hurtful yet justified words, keeping your eyes wide open and your heartbeat at a fast pace, as instead of dragging you to sleep like any well-told story would, you took it like a horror tale putting you into a shuddering state.

                   You were woken up early in the morning by Mark's voice into your head. It had been empty from any dreams for you to escape to, probably because even when you had fallen asleep at some point, the boy had kept ranting until a late late time, when he had finally decided to take a pill so he'd succumb to his tiredness or else he would have turned mad from his internal torture, just as you had been about to do.

You were glad that your body needs to rest had taken over your mind and put you to sleep despite your head being actively solicited, yet you felt completely worn out. Your eyes were puffy and you almost screamed at your reflection in the mirror ; but thankfully, it was Sunday, so nobody would have the bad luck to come across a zombie trailing its soulless body in the streets, as you were planning to stay indoors and mourn over your love story's death.

*I feel a thousand times worse... I guess it's not for today.*

*Look at you Mark, you look like shit. How are you supposed to face your boss like that? What are you going to tell him? Sorry boss I've got heartbro- What am I even thinking*

You chuckled sadly as you had been sharing the same thoughts as him after eyeing your figure this morning, until the residues of the word "heartbroken" resounded between your head walls, making you gasp. In the middle of all the gloom clouding over your mind, a ray of happiness pierced its way as you came to realize that he sincerely cared about you so that he could use this word ; yet, it was soon replaced by a wave of guilt and regret plaguing your thoughts.

You had broken his heart. Him who was so fragile had let someone enter this secretive and unstable world of his, but that very visitor was the reason why he was even more messed up than before, with her short path having crushed everything on its way to his heart. How great of a work for a future psychiatrist!

Woodam had always told you to deal with your acts and to take responsibilities whenever you'd hurt someone because of your power or whenever you made mistakes under its influence ; but this morning, and the morning after, and the following ones during this new hellish week that turned out to be worse than the ones before, all you felt like was moping around and crying again and again instead of assuming the consequences like a grown-up would do – by dealing silently with the pain that was well-deserved, for example. So you cried on your couch, you cried under your shower, you cried while feeding yourself, and you cried yourself to sleep at night.

You couldn't get over your sadness, even less with Mark's voice proving you how bad of a time he was having ever since you had parted, as he was starting to hate every single thing about his life all over again, not forgetting to curse your name once or twice per day but without failing to betray his feelings for you at the same time, pulling you down at your worst state.

I want to see her...  I miss her. *I hate that I miss her. Why do I miss that girl? Why did I get attached to her? When did I get like that? You need to get stronger, remember*

*Are you hearing me right now, huh? I hope you don't, or else you'll know how bad I am doing because of you, and I fucking can't let you do that. No, I can't. You don't have the right to know…* That I still care about you.

You both liked each other, but you had drifted your worlds too far apart for you to reach out to him.

Everything's my fault. Everything's my fault.

                                               Nevertheless, this situation wasn't meant to last, as you knew you shouldn't keep on drowning into your own sin by letting yourself get a hold of Mark's intimate feelings. So after a few days of enduring it and trying to focus on your classes even when his voice would cover the professors' crucial teaching, your heavy steps trailed you towards the only light at the end of your repentance tunnel : Woodam.

He was the unlucky individual on whom you could transfer the weight of your power by asking for his help, and you craved for it the most right now. It had been a hard decision, to resolve yourself to cut the last bit of a connection you had with Mark that had outdone the distance he had drawn between the both of you, still you weren't in the right to be greedy and selfish. You had wronged him enough while he had been blind to it, so it was just awful to repeat the pattern behind his back, and it was your own way to respect his harsh one of ending things. By letting him go too, definitely.

You were welcomed by an empty waiting room as you came late on purpose, in hopes of being Woodam's last case so that you'd raise your chances to get out of his cabinet with a lighter heart and relieved eardrums, and for that to happen, you were conscious that it would take time. You had only made one phone call in the morning, and your godfather had probably heard the despair in your tired vocals while you had asked if you could meet without explaining your reasons, as he had outright ordered you to come by before the end of the day.

*I knew smiling wouldn't do it. I can't smile all by myself, that's ridiculous.*

*Hey, are you that desperate that you're listening to a hobo's words like it's the law now?*

*The guys would be laughing at me if they saw where I'm going. How come I slept in?* Let's get that medical certificate quickly, he's the only one who'll give it to me.

*I don't recognize myself, seriously. She messed me up so bad.*

You deeply sighed with your head falling back against the white wall behind you, and your knuckles turned the same pale color on your knees as you clutched onto them out of anxiety, your urge to get rid of his voice having a heated fight with your fear of definitely losing him without a way back.

*C'mon, turn around you twat. You hate this place so much.* You'll find a way yourself like you always did, right?

"Where are you going that it makes you so anxious…" you wondered out loud as your livid eyes were fixed on the rank of unoccupied seats facing you.

Yet, if you really would have liked an answer despite your question being rhetorical, you hadn't expected it to be so on point, as the man your heart was crying over passed the waiting room's door, acknowledging you only once he had sat down on the chair precisely opposed to yours.

Your sad eyes met, a crescent light suddenly illuminating his chocolate brown irises and making them livelier than the last time he had looked at your face with all his anger having conquered them. Your heart skipped a beat and your crossed legs started to tremble so much that they refused to take you away and leave his sight even when your mind commanded them to.

You felt scared, scared of what he'd do, what he'd say, what he'd come to think of. You had dreaded this moment as much as you had wished for it to happen, his face with its beautiful traits remaining the most precious souvenir for you to picture in your mind, even when it was painted with the tern colors of sadness, even when it hurt really bad when you did so.

Your lips parted a few times, but your vocal chords had turned sore so no sound came out. You spotted his jaw clenching, and Mark exhaled loudly through his nose before finally letting go of your intense exchange of stares to concentrate on his phone he started to type on.

You couldn't hear anything for the first time in almost a week, and tears of relief that he wasn't hating on you now that he was seeing you again were on the verge of falling down on your steaming cheeks ; however, you repelled them as you knew he'd get mad if you, the one who was actually making him suffer, dared to show sorrow when you had done this to the two of you in the first place.

"You came because you heard I was coming?" his phone speaker relayed his salty message and you rolled your eyes, not spotting how his mouth turned down in disapproval at what had seemed like your nonchalance.

"I came here as a patient too" you answered frankly, crossing your arms on your chest.

Mark chuckled and you dared to eye him again, his smile giving you the chills and constricting your already hurting throat, so you coughed your embarrassment away.

*She's got no shame I swear- You're doing unwell? You? But you were really well all this time when you were scheming this shit so what's going on now, poor girl?*

Bingo.

"I can hear you, y'know" you provoked him this time, feeling hurt in the end by what you had expected to happen, because he would never understand you were actually here for him and not for you, or more accurately, he would never let you tell him about it.

Mark almost cursed at you out loud and you saw his body jolt at your bold confession, before he leaned back in his chair with another long sigh escaping his rosy lips your eyes suddenly fell for again, gazing at them without blinking.

"And no, I wasn't okay with doing this but I just couldn't help it-" you interrupted yourself with a sigh, your pupils going back to his own that were sending a jaded stare. "Whatever, you wouldn't trust me no matter what I'll say."

You quickly had given up on justifying yourself, the guilt evidently twisting your tongue as you knew no excuses could truly make up for how betrayed he felt.

*Exactly. I don't wanna know, I don't care. And no, I don't trust you. How can someone like you can even talk about trust? Do you hear yourself?* he thought while looking at you expectantly, wishing you could hear him this time as well, being too lazy to transcribe his running thoughts.

Mark had accumulated a lot of contradictory feelings during the past few days, and now that he shared the same space and oxygen as you, his mind was telling him to address you in the coldest way he could, the resentment suddenly being dominant ; yet, his heart was crying internally as it was desperate for an explanation, anything, that could make him trust you again. That could make him forgive himself to have fallen for you. That could give him an excuse to still like you and still see something more in you even in this instant.

"I'm sorry, Mark. I really am, I…"

Three words were pending at the edge of your soggy tongue. I like you. I really like you, I've always liked you.

All of a sudden, your nose began to itch as well as your shivering eyelids, some waterworks rolling down your face but you quickly brushed them in hopes he wouldn't catch them ; however, he did. His heart tightened at the mere sight of your suffering once again, but in accordance with his intern contradiction, the blonde also felt incredibly annoyed to be affected by your well-being.

*She did me wrong! How much weaker did I get to continue feeling like this towards her? Less than a piece of shit? What the hell is wrong with me?!*

Unfortunately for him, those distressed thoughts caused you to cry wholeheartedly this time and you really got ready to leave, hands on the armrests to lift your wobbly-self up, when you remembered that distance no longer could save you from this infernal situation.

"Stop crying, would you?" his phone speaker told you and you looked up to him.

"Should I? I was hoping you'd feel satisfied at the sight and stop thinking so hard about me, stop hurting because of me, stop whatever's bothering you with me" you straightly retorted while wiping your face again, your fingertips trembling on your skin as much as your voice that stroke his heart.

*Do you think it's that easy?* he scoffed in his head and his face broke into a mere smile before he poked his cheek with his tongue annoyingly. *Yeah, I truly hope you're feeling guilty for what you've done to me, because that's the least you can do.*

But still, I'm not into sadism, so no, seeing you cry doesn't do me any good…, he tried to appease his budding rage, remembering the wise words of the unknown back on Saturday night as they were the only leitmotiv he was hanging onto so he wouldn't lose his mind.

Be stronger. It'll go away. Calm down. *She's not worthy of your attention.* Calm d-

"Do you really care about what I think or feel about this situation?" you shrugged lazily, his killing stare at you making you reply back instantly as it was absorbing your mind control as well. "Because you won't give me a chance to explain myself nor accept my apologies anyway so…"

Your frustration had spoken for itself, because you were reminded of his melancholic thoughts about you, how he missed you more than he despised you, his issues making your heart soft and vulnerable, and your arms tensed as they were craving to surround his neck and bring your lips to his.

He was so close yet so far, and this push-and-pull situation was going all the way up to attack your nerves, unravelling your desperate want to win his feelings back instead of telling you to lie low as any guilty person should.

*Are you really turning this against me right now? Are we really having this kind of conversation?* Mark got offended as he redressed himself in his chair, making you shy away in yours as you pushed your back further against the wall.

"That's right, I shouldn't have said that, you're the good one here…" you acquiesced with an absent-minded smile pulling at the corner of your lips, your eyes glued to the ground that was blurred by the few pearls of water stuck to your eyelashes. "I know you don't want to hear it, but I swear I'm sincerely sorry about what happened…"

What happened is that I like you now, so *who's to blame in the end, huh? You, or the fool?* Mark regretted as your few words had been able to ease his pain at least a little, showing him he cared about your apologies when he wished he wouldn't.

He couldn't quite decipher what you could hear from what you couldn't, so he only breathed out while shaking his head from the left to the right in defeat, before looking away from your problematic figure in front of him, towards the corridor ending in the magical door from which you both hoped you'd come out in a little less distraught state than now.

The room fell into a thick silence sometimes interrupted by your sniffling or his deep breathing breaking into a sigh, your gaze at each other never meeting as you did your best at avoiding it, still neither of you had the true will to step out. It was as if the tension was attracting your bodies to one another like magnets, keeping them at this safe yet uncomfortable distance.

*… How I wish I had never let myself get interested by her. Everything before her was simpler.* Mark was trying to convince himself as he brushed his fair hair with his ringed and elegantly long fingers, revealing the wrinkles on his forehead as his brows were knotted in confusion.

Your eyes finally found each other and you bit at your bottom lip, accepting his regrets even if they scattered your being, and another time, you wanted to disappear by vanishing from the room right here right now, so that he'd feel at peace. Well, would he really stop thinking about you?

*But was it even better? Was I, without her? I don't know anymore. Shit, you're probably hearing me again, aren't you?* he wondered with his dark eyes scanning your flustered face.

"How I wish I had other words to tell you how I never meant to do you wrong" you hinted at the answer.

*Stop apologizing Y/N, I beg you, you're not having me with this bullshit and those pleading eyes, you said it yourself* he laughed sarcastically in his head while defying you with his pupils that shined with irritation once again.

Calm down. That's it, smile.

The sorrier you felt, the more he wanted to believe in you ; but he just couldn't do this to himself, he couldn't let love do this to himself when it had deceived him so bad. Also, he couldn't find easiness in your eyes that looked at him somehow lovingly, as he only saw his fears of getting trapped into his feelings for you when he was trying to win over them.

*Don't look at me like that.*

Your cheeks got filled with blood but your stare didn't drop under his stern voice. His order resembled a pled, and Mark gulped as he was trying hard not to fall deeper for your face and its perfect details he despite him had been scared of forgetting every time he had thought of it – every single day that is to say.

"Then what can I do? What do you need me to do so you'd feel better? I-I'll just do it! That's all I want and ever wanted!" you rushed in a desperate tone, your heart screaming at you to make up for what you had done, at all costs and by all means before you wouldn't meet ever again.

But you shouldn't have asked what he wasn't able to answer, as it was the most sensitive part in Mark's inner conflict about you. That was the black hole in his universe of wonderings about your sincerity, that he couldn't fill with any fitting solution which would stop the happiness you had procured him from getting sucked up. That was the heart of the matter : did he need you in or out of his life to feel better?

*But you can't do ANYTHING! You put us into this situation, I have to deal with it, so deal with too! That's it, I hate you so much right now! You're here crying when you're responsible for it! I fucking hate your crying face! I can't bear to see it, you hear me? Look at what you've done to me! Look where I am because of you! I'm seeing my psychiatrist because of you! Because you're eating my brain!*

Mark was breathing loudly again, his fists clenched on his thighs while the veins on his temples and going down his long neck had popped out. He couldn't explain his sudden switch of emotions, from a faint irritation to an explosive one, and he slammed his back against his chair in frustration, but with his eyes still locked on yours. He was so confused in the midst of his mixed feelings that he felt like losing it.

Had he just imagined himself kissing you angrily, right after having shouted internally at you?

He definitely wasn't loathing you, but he was loathing himself for having been unable to stay faithful to the pain and disgust you had put him through once he had landed his eyes on you again. As your conversation had unwound, his divided heart and mind finally accorded themselves on one point : the one that deep down, he already knew he was wanting you in his life, not to reject you forever.

Why couldn't he just ignore you and move on?

You were quivering and your head had started to spin under that flood of sentences that had invaded your skull, and your eyes grew wide open, letting Mark know you had heard everything. He let out a shaky laugh just as he had back in his bedroom, his heartbeat being so up-tempo that he believed the bloody organ would explode sooner or later just like a time bomb.

How come you were able to peel it to its deepest, making him confess over and over again his feelings for you even through words that were supposed to be filled with hatred? He knew you knew, however, you knew he didn't know you were feeling exactly the same for him, if not more.

I fucking like you too and I am going crazy because of you too.

But you left your mouth shut, as you clearly couldn't claim his love nor his understanding anymore. He was right, you had to endure it, twice more than him, or surely thrice.

"Well Mark you're here too? Without any appointment? Y/N was supposed to be my last patient, but come along as well!" a familiar voice suddenly cut through the palpable tension and both of your heads snapped towards Woodam who was standing at the entrance of the waiting room, an amused smile plastered on his face.

"Wait what?"

*Is that a fucking joke*

"You're each other's problem, so let's try to solve it in one go" he shrugged with his witty eyes going back and forth between Mark and you, both having your mouth agape.

"How-"

Woodam's frank chuckle cut you through your perplexed interrogation.

"I saw it from the way you were looking at each other the second I approached. You guys didn't even notice me or the previous patient coming out! So come on, both of you!"

Mark and you shared an unsatisfied look before following behind the psychiatrist, each one of you rummaging through your thoughts as this simple declaration sounding too damn well like the truth had made your hearts turn somehow warm. How exactly had you been looking at each other?

                                               Mark took over the famous leather sofa, while you had to go behind your usual desk to take out your personal chair and place it in front of Woodam's office, the furthest possible from the blonde guy who grabbed the writing tools your godfather was handing him.

"I can't do this if he's here" you spoke up solemnly, your eyes supplying the latter desperately, but his quiet laugh indicated you that your request was done for.

"I can't do this if she's here" Mark had written as well, and that's what had made Woodam chuckle in the first place.

You rapidly turned your head towards the fake-mute, who agitated gladly the paper before your two eyes with a hypocrite smile.

"Well I'm not a couple therapist anyway, but I still think we can manage to solve at least a bit of your concerns if you hear yourselves out before being alone with me" your godfather sighed. "And I know what you're realizing right now Mark, but let me be clear : I don't care that she's my niece, she came to consult me and so did you so I'll hear you both out equally, without prejudices"

Mark slowly nodded as he once again faced the talent of perception this doctor had, never failing to hit the right spot without it being expressly exposed to him.

"I still don't want to talk if he's here. I'm embarrassed enough that you know about… Us…"

*Oh because there was an us? Sorry I didn't know, thought I was a toy or something* Mark bitched and when he spotted your look at him from the corner of your eye, he chuckled discretely.

Nothing could stop him and his sassiness anymore, as it was his only shell against your powerful influence on him, and you weren't glad to come across the Mark that had leapt you out of your usual patience the first time you had been reunited in this room.

"Could you please stop making assumptions?! Oh my God I-" you started with your hands up in objection and your eyes shut.

"Y/N, I didn't say anything." Woodam interfered with a serious look that made your hot blood from the frustration at Mark's thoughts turn incredibly cold the second you reopened your eyelids to acknowledge your godfather, and you bit the interior of your cheek. "Wait- Does he know?"

Oops, you had flared up way too hastily and with way too much carelessness once again, betraying your latest secret – or more accurately burden – in no time. You didn't recognize yourself, as you had always been prudent with your actions and words, up till Mark. Love could definitely make one go crazy… You hadn't planned to tell Woodam that you had blown up all his and your parents' hard work at protecting you, at least not like that, and the deep tone of his voice had proved you it had been the right decision.

Mark chuckled another time before writing busily, his hands shaking as he immediately knew what Woodam had been referring to.

"So you know she can hear thoughts and you invite her to your cabinet? She can violate every patient's intimacy and you're okay with that? Or maybe you're using that to make it seem like you know what's up with us? What's wrong with you people?"

You had heard every single word that he had laid on his now almost crumpled sheet as he was holding it in a tensed grasp, and your heart burst at all his wrong and hurtful interrogations. You were about to refute each one of them, but Woodam held his hand up as he knew you and your impulsions as if he was your own father. He then got closer to his desk and looked at the both of you with some kind of tenderness in his eyes, a look that made you want to cry as you felt even more unworthy of this man's kindness.

"Was she there the first day we met and even the following times, Mark?" he simply asked.

The blonde's brows furrowed and he frowned as he didn't even have to think back of the answer he knew to be a no, and he somehow felt displeased to be at a loss of words before your godfather, once more.

"I guess you know the answer, yet didn't I got close to the problem without her? Y/N is my niece, and I'm the only one, besides her parents and unfortunately you, now, to know her secret. They came to me because well, I'm not doing my job that badly I think, so they asked for my help. And I tried to help. I'm still trying to help. But never did I use her talents to do what I have to do, and never has she intended to do so. You might not see it now, and I understand you, but that thing is more of a burden for her than anything else. I'm teaching her to control it thanks to the few things I know from my studies and experience, sometimes even from the Internet, but if you think that lowly of me, you can step out right now" he explained calmly, each one of his sentences picked up with caution and cutting deep through Mark's mistrust as he now felt sorry towards him too.

Seeing that Mark wasn't moving, his eyes lowering to his feet, Woodam nodded in satisfaction before turning his head to you.

"So a crush is all it takes for you to spill it out, hm?"

You didn't know if he was teasing you or scolding you, so you lowered your head and your bust to apologize, your guilt taking over the embarrassment coming from him exposing your – even if evident – feelings for Mark right for his two ears to savor. And secretly, the concerned felt hot flames drool on his body as he had heard what he had wished to be true, even if it came from the mouth of someone else : you liking him, for real.

"I'm sorry." you only muttered, your tears threatening to come out as the memories of all his time spent advising you with consideration were passing right before your two eyes.

"I'm not mad, Y/N. I'm just… Worried. How come you have told him? I just want to understand, you've always been so careful."

You had so much to say, but how would Mark hear it or take it? You hesitated as you played nervously with your fingers between your legs, then you finally straightened yourself to face the unpleasing situation you were responsible for anyway.

Mark's heartbeat was once again going over its capacities and the boy almost whined as he felt like puking, the anticipation of your answer knotting his stomach. If he had hated the idea of sharing the same room as you in the first place, he was now the most attentive and interested spectator. Maybe Woodam's questions would put an end to his own and set him free from his attraction to you?

"I just had to tell him, because my worries went further than where they would have been if I hadn't heard some things. I couldn't help but hear him, Woodam" your voice was trembling as Mark's stare coming from your right was scorching every cell of your skin. "I couldn't stop it like we learned, and what's worse now is that I…"

You nibbled at your lower lip before brushing your face with your two hands, and you did your best to counter Mark's strong aura next to you that would have deported your body towards the exit like a coward.

*What could be worse than that* he thought on a still sarcastic tone, when in fact he was scared to death of what else you could possibly have done to him, scared to be hurt twice as he wasn't sure he could take the pill this time – had he even digested the first one?

"I can hear him all the time, Woodam, and I'm tired. I don't wanna hear him anymore, I've done enough wrong. But distance does nothing to it, and I don't understand, I want it to stop I can't go on like this"

Your head fell as well as your shoulders, and you perceived the sound of Mark standing up pretty brutally next to you, the leather chair grating against the floor.

*What do you mean you can hear me all the time?!* his panicked voice froze you into your seat.

You hated this tone. You hated to hear him lose his mind because of you and what you were made of, and that's all you had been doing for almost a week. Your need to cry was urgent so you looked up to the ceiling, not even landing your eyes on Mark who, on the contrary, couldn't stop staring at you with horror.

"Mark, sit down please" Woodam invited him along with a move of his hand.

With squinted eyelids, the boy did as told as in fact his heart didn't want him to leave this room unless it'd feel at ease, from anything to fit as a remedy, would it be you killing the rest of it.

"I think it's another evolution, Y/N, we haven't faced this one yet. But… How should I put this?" your godfather pondered while rubbing his hands against each other. "I think that, unfortunately, your own feelings are what influences it. Sometimes it helps you duct it when you care about someone, but this time it's the reverse, because you feel…"

"Fucking guilty." you sobbed, two pearls of water tracing straight corridors down your cheeks, and you blinked a few times to chase the followings away.

"I was about to say "things for Mark", actually" Woodam corrected, and your heart dropped in the pit of your stomach while your ears became hotter than the sun itself.

*So you knew what you did was bad, but you still let yourself come close to me? You really are something else, are you a sadist? When you like someone you love to do them wrong, is that it? That's your thing?*

Mark knew you could hear him as you finally turned your body to him, your eyes suddenly shining with anger, and he somehow felt intimidated under your stare. But he couldn't prevent his mixed feelings from shaking him from one side to another, one where he felt sorry for you and for treating you like this because he could definitely hear your sincerity – even if he refused to see it –, and the other where his sense of betrayal was still igniting a fire within his guts.

"Well did you ever think that I did what I did because I DO LIKE YOU and I thought I could help you thanks to this, once again because I DO LIKE YOU?! And you, why are you not really hating me if you're claiming to do so? Why are you not throwing me out of your life when you said "screw you" to me? Because if you really did, I wouldn't be hearing your thoughts right now! Not a single thing! And that would be perfect, you could live your life and I could live my own, so what's happening? I know I cheated, I KNOW, so I don't want to hear you because I don't want to do you wrong anymore, you know that? I DON'T WANT TO, I'M TIRED!" you finally confessed shamelessly, breathing having been an option more than a vital obligation, to the point your head felt like it was inflating like a balloon.

*Wait is it my fault again?! Is this a fucking joke?!* Mark pierced you with two wide-opened eyes that supported your furious gaze.

Yet his justified indignation and pain didn't bring you back to the reality and didn't shut your mouth this time, as you were really as exhausted as you claimed. This vicious circle was sucking up all your patience, and everything you had wished to pour out before him as a last goodbye was coming out of your mouth but twisted with rage, as his words were hurting you more than you thought they would.

You had thought you could take it as you had thought you deserved them, but on the other side, your knowledge of his shared feelings for you was pushing you over the edge. If he liked you as much as he seemed to, why couldn't you win his forgiveness? Weren't you worth it? Were you that devilish?

"Stop thinking about me, forget about me, hate on me, I know I deserve it! I'm not someone worth of your attention, am I?!" you shouted desperately, nothing to stop you now that you had started.

*You must be kidding me! Are you always that self-centered? Did I ever say I needed you? Did I ever wish for you to get close to me? I never asked anything from you. You decided to do whatever you wanted, because you're fucking selfish!*

"So I'm imagining things into my head when I hear your voice?" you replied instantly.

*Yes you are, you're fucking crazy. I'm not interested in you, not anymore. It was nothing to me. You're the one liking me so much you're messing up with whatever your power is. That's not my business* he pursued in his favorite aggressive tone, his fists clenching over the armrest as well as his jaw that could cut even the air.

"It IS when YOU wanted me to pay attention to you all night long at Johnny's party and you were whining about it to the point I was having a headache, it IS when YOU begged me to stay at your place and not to leave you behind and swearing there was more to it, it IS when YOU are thinking that you fucking miss me even this morning and I can hear every single bit of it!" you barked back, in a pure state of bliss as you were assisting to his perfect roleplay all over again, almost making you euphoric.

Mark's eyes widened quickly while his rib cage started to rise up and down powerfully, his loud breathing sounding like a background noise to you now that you were used to his way of containing his emotions. His cheeks and ears had turned red at you pointing out every piece of his heart he had left behind to prove himself wrong, and his lips parted but you didn't flinch under his darkening stare, your own defying any black holes up in the galaxy. Touché?

*I don't like you and I don't need you in my life, do you still hear me? I don't like you, I don't like anything about you because it's everything I hate. Is that enough? I can think of that all day long, if that's what I need to get you out of my head! That's not a problem!*

"So much time to grant a monster like me, thanks" you had the ending word and, somehow, as you weren't looking at elsewhere but him, you noticed that Mark's traits softened at your own pejorative designation.

Every single phrase you had just shared up till now spoke of the uncontrollable feelings you both couldn't admit, and if it was too hard at the moment to let them pave the way to an eventual reconciliation, each one of you was suddenly starting to think of how bad you wanted to kiss those painful events goodbye at the back of your messy heads, as your electric stares were slowly relocking your souls to each other.

Woodam knocked on his desk to interrupt this one-sided argument – at least from his point of view – and you flopped back on your chair, crying out loud for the second time in less than an hour. Mark's world was stopped, your blunt confession about your feelings for him still banging against his head walls and almost being the only thing he could remember, so that his irritation was already gone.

"Alright alright, everybody calm down" the psychiatrist spoke up quietly.

You were trembling in a devastating fury but you still managed to get up, the need to calm yourself down and away from Mark pulling at your body parts.

"You said that's because I like him?" you asked Woodam in a weak voice.

"That's what I think" the latter confirmed. "Sit down Y/N we're going to talk this out"

"No, you know what? If this is the problem, then I don't think anyone can fix this except myself. I should have thought of it sooner. So I'll fix my witch ass, I'll stop liking him or any other man who'll then be lucky enough to be spared from getting close to me, because it's just not okay to do this to someone. Look at what I've done, look. That's what I told you, I'm a witch, I'm a freaking monster. It can't be helped."

Mark didn't dare to land his eyes on you as you stormed out of the cabinet with huge footsteps, and once you closed the door, he let out a sigh before landing his elbows on his knees, the weight of this strong argument finally falling on his shoulders. He didn't feel okay nor pleased with what you had just said about yourself. He hadn't seen you like that even if terrible things had crossed his mind ever since you had dropped the bomb on him ; however he wasn't able to come after you.

What am I feeling, for God's sake? What do I want?

"Mark, let me ask you a question" his doctor suddenly shook him out of his thoughts, and the blonde merely nodded without acknowledging him, his head in his hands facing the ground.

"Did Y/N ever use her powers against you, like to hurt you?"

                                                        "It's your second pill in three hours already, could you slow down Y/N?" Jena asked you as you were gulping down the little white capsule with fresh water, your migraine not seeming to go away.

A new week had started and you were still hearing Mark's torments, and even if you could be happy about the diminution of the number of sentences per day, it appeared that your constant headache would only be satisfied by full silence. You couldn't even decipher what he was torturing himself about sometimes, his trail of thoughts messy, and you even had come to ask yourself if he hadn't been drunk two or three times since you had met at Woodam's cabinet.

But what was still standing out and shooting bullets at your void heart, was him longing for you. He was cursing himself because he kept on thinking about you and wondering what was right or wrong to feel, and you weren't relieved that he liked you back anymore. You were now hoping he'd forget about your awful person pretty soon, so that he'd lead an easier life and leave you to deal with the burden alone.

You were barely bearing yourself, continuously wishing you could switch bodies with someone who was living out of the dark depths of the untold feelings one could have ; who could love somebody without hurting them constantly, without betraying them, without terrifying them ; who could wake up in the morning and go to bed at night while wondering innocently about how his or her lover was doing, not being forced to face the fact that they had marked him or her with bruises taking a long time to heal.

"I didn't know you were subject to migraines…" Joon Hee doubted as she caressed slightly the top of your skull, with a smile as soft as her touch.

"I didn't know either, I think I'm tired because we're approaching the end of the semester" you tried to explain and your friends nodded silently, but their frowns still betrayed their worry about you.

"Your dark circles are really bad babe" Cho A confessed and all you did was let out a laugh as you couldn't agree more. "But what about I hide them with make up tonight, because we're going out!"

"We are? It's Wednesday though" you suspected, your brow arching before you laid your elbows on the campus' grass you were chilling on during a break.

"Yes, Jinyoung's hosting a party at the apartment tonight" Jena smiled and she threw her hands up before you as she saw you were about to growl. "Mark won't be there! He won't be there, don't worry, he's working until late"

You sighed and sat up properly, annoyed by the fact that your heart had hammered against your torso the second his name had slipped past her lips.

"I'm not going. Late means he'll still show up at some point and I don't want to see him, ever again." you rejected firmly, but Joon Hee grabbed your arm and shook your upper body gently.

"We didn't ask any questions because you didn't want us to, but I'm way too curious right now! Even the boys don't know anything, Mark won't talk! All we know is you're both looking like messes, so what happened in the end?!" she moaned while bending forward to catch your stare as you tried to escape this interview.

"I did him wrong and he can't forgive me and he's right, that's it" you resumed, your eyes becoming hot and you almost cursed at yourself out loud as you assumed they wanted to spill water, again.

"I know you Y/N, we all know you, and you wouldn't hurt a fly. I'm fine with ignoring what's going on between the both of you talking about it is uncomfortable for you, it's his loss! Anyway, you're coming! Forget about him for a while and have some fun tonight, with us, hm?" Jena tried to cheer you up, ending with a pout, which made your sullen face broke into a smile. "He won't be there, his friends are nice and I made them promise not to mention him, so please?"

"You said it yourself, it's almost the end of the semester, we have to enjoy before we'll have to study for the exams" Cho A added lazily as she nudged you.

You knew your body and mind would only thank you if you granted them the right to let it go after having used them to lynch and neglect yourself for almost two weeks. How come your friends were always so good at convincing you with poor arguments, even when your intuition was telling you it wouldn't be as perfect as they claimed it would be? Mark lived there so at any hour of the night, you would end up meeting him, and the worse would come out of it.

"We can go once he shows up" Joon Hee offered. "I'll drive you home! Just come a little bit, you need to cool off"

You sighed loudly so they knew that such an exhalation of air was the signal of their victory, and you were embedded into a group hug that soothed your sorrowful heart.

"I'll go the second I see him, even if it's not past midnight" you mumbled into the embrace and they laughed at your grumpy self.

"Deaaaaal" they sung altogether, freeing you from their love with mischievous smiles plastered on their lips.

                                   Two hours or so later.

           You had finally immerged yourself into the party, the dancefloor becoming yours to chase your worries away and the laughs your extra-caring group of friends were giving you helping to forget about Mark for a while. You were surprised by how empty your eardrums had been since you had entered the flat, the music deliciously flowing into them instead, as if the girls had been right about this alternative to make you feel better – in other words to duct your power.

But you should have known better, that your intuition had been the right one just like when it had whispered to you no to go to the dinner last time. Because as you were waiting for Joon Hee to pour you some drinks, your eyes abruptly halted on his silhouette at the back of the living room, and he was staring right back at you.

For how long had he been standing there? You hadn't seen him come through the front door nor crossed his path in this room that wasn't big enough for you to avoid each other forever. How come you noticed him just now?

Mark was wearing a white tank top under an oversized red checkered shirt, and a ripped pair of black jeans. His hair was styled up neatly, but his face had seemed to dug itself, and when his gaze finally dropped a few inches down but not on your own body, you realized he wasn't standing there alone.

                         "Hi, you're Mark, right?" a member of the student council had asked him, with her hair dyed in a soft foxy tone and a pretty black ensemble to embrace her perfect proportions.

You observed their interaction with caution, Mark's eyes going back and forth between your face and hers as he sipped on his something-and-soda mix Jackson had brought him earlier, and you saw him nod at her with a weak smile.

"I'm Hansun, I think we shared the same classes back when you were at the uni" the redhead smiled back as she laid her shoulder against the wall he had been glued to in the dark.

Mark had never went to work ; he had just been hiding in his room with his own bottles of soju to empty, until he had felt tipsy enough to socialize, a few moments after you had arrived. Inevitably, his pupils had found your back merely hidden by your long blouse, his mouth turning dry at the sight, and he had pushed himself at the corner of the room where no spotlight was targeting him and where you wouldn't catch him in this mess of bodies, just to look freely at you.

She's beautiful.

She's so beautiful.

And I missed her.

Not a single insult, not a single hurtful thought had slipped from his mind as he had stared at you in some kind of awe, his heart a little bit appeased by the alcohol he had ingurgitated on his own. It had been three days since he had started to drink in secret in the evenings, chosing to interrupt his brain functions by soaking them, as his sober mind was definitely unable to suppress the image of you.

Alcohol indeed made him feel stronger, because it blurred your face and freed him from any pain, and thanks to the good and dreamless nights of sleep it ensured, he had been able to put up with work and with the boys without being suspected – at least he thought so, because his friends were more than aware of his situation. He knew what he did was the most pitiful thing he had inflicted upon himself in his life, still he found that easy way pretty convenient, at least for now.

He hadn't been able to answer Woodam's tricky question. No, you had never hurt him with your knowledge of his inner demons ; but still, he was scared to trust you right now, so what should he do? He had no fucking clue. So cowardly, he had chosen the path of masquerade and oblivion the liquor traced before him, because thinking about a solution had become too much to ask.

Mark nodded once again as he vaguely remembered that cute Hansun, his eyes scanning her lips that were appealing, with their pretty grape tint.

"Ooooh so you're really as quiet as they said?" she wondered, a sly smile moving her mouth and Mark licked his own at the sight.

Right before him was standing another way to stop thinking about you ; why wouldn't he jump at the occasion? Seeing how amused – and seemingly fired up – the girl was by his disablement, Mark repeated the up-and-down motion of his head, slowly, his eyes finally finding hers even in the dim light. More than her flushed cheeks he had seen the second she had been close enough to him, her eyelids that fell heavily were giving her look something glassy, sign that she was more than tipsy.

"I kinda like mysterious boys you know, I'm tooootally fine with doing all the talking… At least if they know how to use their body" she winked before laughing nervously and Mark laughed quietly with her, amazed by her straightforward invitation to take him under his own blankets. "Just joking!"

This time, there was no buddy to push him into the arms of a female distraction ; it was his own doing, his own choice, and Mark momentarily felt happy about it as he finally was turned on by a total stranger after a while, with his long eyelashes covering the lust that was circling his pupils as he devoured his bait with them.

Little did he know that this lust was only a mirage masking his strong desire to forget about you, betraying the fact that he kept on… Thinking about you, no matter what.

                         "That's it, I'm going" you said in a strained voice, without the need to bore into his burning gaze to get what was bound to happen between the both of them.

You had finally found the answer as to why you hadn't been able to catch a single murmur of his voice : he was starting to move on. It had seemed absurd even for yourself at first, as a few minutes before entering the apartment, you had been struck by his deep voice. However, now that you had had a few drinks and you had spotted him with another woman and a smile on his lips, you couldn't help but think of the worst case.

Jackson, who had been standing near you, caught your reddening stare at his best friend and he immediately made his way behind you as you started to slalom through the sweating bodies, the jealousy and the panic urging you to storm out the room.

"Y/N no no no wait a minute don't go!" Jackson exclaimed over the music and Mark's head snapped up at the faint sound of your name, his eyes searching for you above the crowd but failing to find you as you already were reaching the main door, not even responding to the girls' interpellations.

"I'm going! Don't touch me Jackson, please!" you suddenly vent out as you pushed his hand that had landed on your shoulder away.

"What's going on Y/N?" Jena asked as your group of friends joined the Chinese boy before you, followed by Jinyoung and Jaebum.

"I told you I'll go the second he'll show up, he's here, so I'm out" you tried to explain the calmer you could and with a cynic smile, but your heart was pounding loudly as the image of him and her was still flashing into your head, making you closer to losing it.

You were jealous, dead jealous, like it wasn't permitted to be and you had no right to be, so you better be gone, and quickly.

"No, don't go... I invited you because I wanted you to be there with us, Y/N, so stay. You know, he asked me earlier if you were coming and I told him the truth, and he still went out of his room... He's not willing to avoid you tonight apparently, but you just can ignore him and stay" Jinyoung said in a calm tone, and you got knocked out by his confession.

"I thought we promised him that we wouldn't say this to her…" Jackson mumbled as he scratched the back of his neck, feeling guilty to betray his best friend.

"Of course he doesn't want to avoid me, he's happy to show me he's going to have a nice fuck tonight!" you let your frustration out, before a bell rang into your mind. "Wait, what did you just say? What do you mean he went out of his room?"

Suddenly, the boys looked at each other and they frowned as they realized they had just betrayed the little trap they seemed to have plotted against the both of you.

"I knew it. I knew you would do this, all of you! Don't lie to me Jinyoung-ah! You invited me because you knew he wouldn't be at work! You wanted us to meet no matter what!" you shouted with clenched fists, not even caring about the curious eyeing of the people roaming around your small reunion.

"Y/N we-"

"Did you know about this? Did any of you know? And don't you dare to lie to me as well" you growled at your group of friends and interrupted Jackson's explanation, the unpleasant sensation of betrayal infiltrating your body that started to shiver.

"No we didn't, I swear!" Jena immediately answered in their defense, then harshly kicking the tibia of her boyfriend that hissed in pain while jumping on one foot.

You hurriedly read the shock and confusion on the girls' faces and chose to believe them, but you still had to go, by hook or by crook.

"We're sorry Y/N, but we truly believe this is the right thing to do! He's a complete mess ever since the dinner, and the girls told us you were too! You're not okay being apart! Please stay and try to sort things out with him?" Jackson tried again as he ceased your shoulders and brought you face to face with him.

You were burning with rage so you dismissed him pretty violently, definitely triggered by his explanation that was the clumsiest he could have chosen. They were asking you to do exactly what you had tried to do at the cabinet a few days ago, when it had resulted in a complete disaster. And here they were claiming they were doing the best thing for him and you? What did they even know?

"And why should I be the one to do that?! You've seen him, he's all good having a chat with a girl! Why didn't you wonder if I'm the reason why he's doing worse? Did it ever cross your mind that it might hurt him even more to see me? Why do you meddle with something you don't even know about!"

Every one of them was avoiding your accusing stare wandering from a face to another, before the girls stepped closer to you with an apologetic expression. Your trembling chin was telling you that you were about to cry while your heart was asking you to run away the fastest you could, yet your feet were stuck to the ground now that you were aware of his physical presence between the same four walls as yours, instead of just his voice knocking against the ones of your head.

"If you go now, he'll know that's because of what he's doing and he'll think he's won everything when in fact he's just losing, Y/N. He's playing stubborn right now but we all know you're the one he likes" Jinyoung spoke up diligently but the look he earned from you felt like a barrel of guns was aiming at him.

"He already knows, and he always wins. I'm not in the right to stay, okay? He's better off without me" you concluded as you finally turned away from them, only to bump into a strong torso, and you heard a familiar laugh coming from above you.

"Heyyyyy guys! Y/N, where do you think you're going like that? I've barely arrived!" Johnny exclaimed as he landed his huge hand on your arm.

"I-"

"No no, noooo excuses, just come with me and let's have a talk!"

                              Before anyone could add anything, Johnny was pulling you and taking you straight towards the bar where he asked someone to pour himself a great mixture, refusing to let go of you.

"What's happening, sweetie?" the tall boy asked you, but you were not in the mood to laugh or talk, and that's what he was the best at.

"Johnny I'm sorry but I'm leaving, we'll see each other tomorrow we can eat together I don't know but I really need to go now" you ranted as you put your hand above his grasp, but your friend didn't budge.

"Wanna make him jealous too?" he suddenly offered before tasting the cocktail his friend had concocted, a sigh of contentment then leaving his lips and tinting the air with a sweet scent, and you looked at him with doe-like eyes. "He's the one you kissed last time, isn't he? I saw the two of you, and now he's back there with a girl. I guess that's why you're so pressed to go" he nodded to himself as his squinted eyes had landed on Mark, and your jaw fell at his sense of… Observation.

"I can't even deny" you admitted in a breath, making Johnny chuckle as he led you a few steps away from the bar.

"I've got eyes Y/N, that's all" he shrugged with a smile, his hand going down to squeeze your wrist gently before freeing it, and you gazed at him suspiciously.

"Seems like you're spying on me but well" you mumbled while crossing your arms, this discussion slowly switching your mood to an excited and curious one more than a raging one.

"Maybe I am… So, wanna make him jealous or not?" the brown-haired boy reiterated and you nudged him, almost causing an accident for his cup that would have kissed the ground hadn't it been for his large hands that caught it quickly.

"We're not 12 anymore Johnny, that's what people do in middle school" you scoffed, a smile finally gaining your lips even when your eyes were going back and forth between the man in front of you and the one at the back whose strong aura should have warned you of his presence way sooner.

"And? I'm pretty sure that's what he's trying to do, and I'm pretty sure you've missed my lips too" he said as he wriggled his eyebrows with a smirk you wanted to wipe off his face.

"Ya! We barely shared a peck and it was a long time ago!" you protested in a whine.

You both let out a laugh as Johnny had reminded you of when you had been in the same class back in middle school, you having a crush on him and him asking you out only to date you for three days, just like he had done with every single girl in the playground – even his noonas. You had been great buddies that were more than classmates even after he had dumped you, then you had went to different high schools, before getting reunited in this huge university. You had had a great time catching up during year one, and turned out to be pretty good friends now – he had been the one introducing you to Cho A, actually.

"I remember you were head over heels for me, what happened?" he continued his teasing, his facial expression turning to an innocent one.

"All the girls were!"

"That's right… Anyway I wouldn't mind "pecking" you again, just wondering if you can kiss better after growing up so well" he specified suddenly with his eyes lowering on your lips, and your heart skipped a beat as he was smiling without a veil of humor or mockery falling before his traits this time.

*Her oblivious-self will take it as a joke, as always, perfect…* you unfortunately heard his regret, being the first thought other than Mark's that was welcomed by your ears after so long, and you almost gasped.

Johnny liked you?

"Thanks for the offer, but no, I won't belittle myself to that like him, and I won't grant your flirty ass, I'm too pure" you laughed your confusion out and his chanting chuckle accompanied yours, even soothing you.

"Alright alright! Then just stay, and drink with me? With us?" Johnny proposed once more, leveling his glass up before your smiling lips and agitating it to lure you with the fruity smell suggesting its sweet taste.

With a heavy heart, you snapped your head towards where Mark had been standing like a tree, only for your eyes to meet with an empty and dark corner. Were they gone to do the undoable?

Your panicked wondering wasn't left in suspension though, as someone opened the fridge's door in the opened-kitchen at the other side of the living room, its light attracting your stare that fell on the blonde's checkered back as he was digging between the full shelves, only to seize two soju bottles in each one of his hands. Then, in a lazy pace, he traced his way towards his bedroom without even glancing at you.

And if the suspicious number of drinks he had picked up and his more than suspicious destination had been about to make you bawl your eyes out and run to him to bruise his thin body with unstopping punches until you'd be left out of energy, the muting of the music in your ears helped you cool off, as it left the place to that sound.

That very sound you had missed, the sound that had kept you hoping for him to come back as its frequencies had spoken of how much he liked you too until tonight : his deep and somber voice finally manifested itself.

*Me? Thinking of you? You wish. Never again. I'm peeeeeerfectly fine right now, look at me. I don't give a fuck about you. Zero fucks given. Zeroooo!*

The second he had left the company of his distraction, Mark had fallen back into the contemplation of his unaccepted feelings for you. You were glad that this alternate explanation finally showed up to you, the one that maybe he hadn't been thinking of you just because he had been able to focus on something else than his pain for a while. And what warmed up even more your heart that had frozen ever since you had been struck by his voice again, was your sight of the girl now dancing with her group of friends on the dancefloor instead of walking in Mark's steps towards his bedroom.

"So? What do you say?" Johnny spoke up before emptying his cup, and you finally ripped off your stare from the corridor where your loving eyes had followed Mark's skinny silhouette before it had blended in the dark, to acknowledge your friend.

The first and last time you had been at a party with Mark around, had turned out to be one of your best memories but still tainted with your tears. Was it reasonable of you to tempt the devil by recreating the situation again? But was it reasonable of you to go against your heart that was expecting something to happen tonight despite your oath of leaving Mark's sight?

*Nope, I don't give a fuck. I don't Y/N. Or maybe I should? Can you hear me? Should you hear how much of a mess I am tonight? Should I think of your shitty doing? Will you still have a nice time with that friend of yours tonight?*

"Tsssk, you've got no shame to be jealous…" you mumbled lowly, rolling your eyes at his childish behavior due to his drunkenness that you knew too damn well.

Still, a smile crept up at the corner of your lips as you forgot about your guilt and your first motive that had brought you close to the exit, replaced by a deep satisfaction that Mark was showing interest in you and the boys you got close to.

"Hm?" Johnny asked with his brows up on his forehead.

*Should I give you a headache, hm? I'm having a headache because of you, let's share! It's not fair, right? You said that you'd take all the responsibility! You said you were sorry! So why am I the one like that? Why did you seem fine, huh?*

Mark was apparently planning to nag at you for a few moments more and had you went back home, you wouldn't have had the chance to minimize it by spending time with your friends and blur it with alcohol, as you would have faced another round of panic attacks and survivals against craziness.

"Fine, I'll stay a bit more" you then shrugged, and you were surprised by Johnny's strong arm that headlocked you immediately before he dragged you back to the bar.

"Yeeeeah! I'm such a good negotiator… Listen, if you wanna go, just tell me anytime and I guarantee that I'll be your taxi, that's your reward" he then smiled into your ear as you had straightened up against his side, and you only nodded thankfully, your cheeks getting hot at his closeness as you now knew about his attraction to you.

                                                            "YES! I WON!" you exclaimed joyfully as you were sitting on Jinyoung's bedroom's floor with the very owner of this counter-party's location, the girls, and some members of the student council.

You had been playing whatever alcohol games you could do with cards sprawled on the wood flooring, and you were amazed at how well you had escaped most of the penalties because you were the only one remaining at the border between tipsy and drunk, all the other players already having fallen to the other side.

Mark's whining had not lasted long, your efficient choice of entertainment and him being too intoxicated for you to follow his string of mumblings having helped you to push it aside as a background noise into your head. All you knew by now was that he wasn't sleeping, as you still caught some curses or growls every few minutes, but they only meandered through one ear and slipped out from the other, at least until-

*Y/NNNNNNNN* he suddenly moaned loudly into your head as you were reaching the final round of your fourth game, and your body jolted in surprise.

You snapped your head towards the bedroom's door with your eyes and senses all alert for him again, waiting impatiently for his next signal.

*I'm about to do something stupid…*

After an hour of having played the indifferent ones and him grumbling nonsense from his cavern, the distress in his voice hit you like a train and you finally came to wonder if it had been a good idea to leave him with bitter alcohol to gulp down again and again on his own. He sounded like back at Johnny's party when he had needed you the most, and the souvenir sparkled with chills on your skin.

*I wanna stop this…*

*Why am I doing this?*

"Y/N, it's your turn" Johnny, who was sitting next to you and had been pretty tactile since game one without you being careful of it, gently shook your knee close to his so that you'd turn back to the game.

But you just couldn't, as like a boomerang slamming you right back in the face, your guilt towards Mark had surrounded your heart and mind that were paused while you fixed the slightly opened door separating your group from the heart of the party, as if the next sentence would come to you through it.

What was he talking about? Was he feeling bad because he had too much to drink? Should you go and check on him? Or was it the time for you to leave so that he won't feel uneasy knowing you were around anymore?

*Y/NNNNN…* his supplying voice shot right at your heart like a brisk arrow, and you quaked.

*If you can hear me, come and stop me please*

*Only you can stop me*

*I can't stop myself…*

Finally, you got reminded of something that pulled you up to your feet and dragged them to the living room, but in which you halted abruptly, your brain having a hard time to make a decision through the storm of panic you were swirling in.

*No don't come don't come don't come…*

*I can't see you, don't come…*

*That's because of you…*

His suicide attempt. All these aligning of words were pointing at this fatal issue, but the guilt that had become your second skin for two weeks was holding your guts back from pushing his bedroom's door, as you somehow – irrationally – feared that you could be the trigger to his desperate act if his eyes ever came to meet your silhouette.

*It's not worth it, why should I care*

*Let's finish this already*

"No!" you broke into hot and salty tears.

Your melted brain finally ignored all the scenarios it had been dressing into your head as your fright made you run all of a sudden, but your pace was still feeling way too slow as you wanted to reach him faster than the light. The apartment felt ten times bigger and you pushed past people without apologizing, your tears and your anxiety choking you as you were mumbling his name desperately, his voice having ceased to call for you.

You had been about to engage yourself into the corridor, but a strong grip turned you around and you faced a sweaty Jaebum that looked you over with averted eyes.

"Y/N don't go in he's-"

"Let go of me!" you screamed at him as you struggled to free yourself from his grasp.

"No I swear you shouldn't go Y/N listen to me-"

But you slapped his hand and instantly disappeared in the dark hallway, where the music suddenly turned lower and deafened. Your shuddering breath and your sobs became the only thing you could hear, yet you wanted to hear him. You approached his door on shivery legs, and an urge to puke burned at the back of your throat as you dreaded what you were going to find into this somber bedroom.

"Please please please no please…" you were praying as you gained some courage in spite of your drunken brain that amplified your state of panic and wronged your perception of the situation, making you far from rational.

"Y/N-" Jaebum had followed you, but it was too late for him to stop you as you were pressing the door knob and pushing the panel open, however you wished you had turned blind at the sight of the scene you were welcomed with, instead of letting your eyes adapt to the darkness taking over the room.

On the bed in which you both had shared an intimate and peculiar moment, Mark was in nothing but his tight black boxers that testified of his desire for the red-haired girl in her lingerie right under him, whose hands were stroking his torso, whose legs were at each side of his waist and whose lips were connected passionately to his. The sound of her moans and their sloppy kisses came stronger into your eardrums than any other noise you had heard during the night, and your waterworks stopped from sliding against your cheeks immediately, dried by the shock that electrocuted your brain.

"You gotta be kidding me!" you couldn't stop yourself from spitting at his naked back, and the blonde jumped on his knees in surprise before turning back to see who had interrupted them.

His world started spinning the second he deciphered your silhouette in the doorway, the residues of the spotlights' rays from the living room seeping through his bedroom and revealing how his facial expression decomposed itself, from a disapproving frown to a devastated look.

"Who's she?!" the girl suddenly whined as she grabbed the blankets to cover herself, but your eyes were stuck on him and him only.

Yet, her nosy voice managed to pierce through your bubble, and the only answer that could be given, was that you were no one. Yes, you were heartbroken, this carnal picture having torn your insides apart and cut your tongue, but you were not his girlfriend ; you were someone who owed him a big debt you couldn't repay except by letting him go, so you didn't have a say in this. You turned swiftly on your heels, taking a deep breath doing so, and you started to walk away.

*Y/N wait wait wait wait* you heard him call in despair again, without noticing how he poorly fell from the bed by trying to come after you, the ground seeming to shake and his legs giving up on him as they succumbed to his stress.

"Who the hell is she?! Hey! Where are you going?! What are you doing?! Mark!"

Yet Mark couldn't hear anything but his thumping heart that helped him pass his pair of jeans on his skinny legs and his white tank top over his chilly chest, and once he managed to get out of his bedroom, he spotted you at the end of the corridor, your pace having been slow as you were completely knocked out by what you had just witnessed.

*Y/N please* he pleaded with a shaky voice as he stumbled on his feet while running after you, and you didn't understand why you could still hear him.

Hadn't he traced a perfect line between the both of you by doing this? Wasn't it enough?

You recognized his touch the moment his long fingers enclosed around your forearm, and he walked around your standing figure to block your way. He hadn't zipped up his jeans, his hair was disheveled and his top completely wrinkled, but it was nothing compared to the chaos having broken in his head and trading over his facial features.

"Don't touch me." you warned him, your eyes sending him a jaded stare as you felt like your soul had been sucked up into the abyss of horror.

For the third time of the night, somebody was trying to hold you back and depriving you from your freedom, and you couldn't take it anymore. You needed to go, and right now, so you brutally shook him off and walked past him, thankful that his drunken brain was slow enough for you to escape him. Yet, the sight of your lifeless traits had felt like a cold shower falling on Mark, who successfully ceased your body part once again, making you switch your tone to a more aggressive one as you flip-flopped :

"Why are you coming after me? Who am I? Answer her, who am I? I'm nobody, so why are you there? Go back to your business!"

His eyes were gleaming with lining tears and his pupils were trembling as he shook his head from the left to the right, and you read how scared he was right now, probably because you weren't showing him anything. You even granted him a smile as you teared off his fingers from you this time, his arm falling next to his body while yours was burning because of the mere touch.

*Where are you going* he then chose to display with signs yet you heard it as he was in a complete state of despair, but you couldn't care less.

He then groped his whole body with pressed gestures, looking for his phone to deliver the message to you, and some waterworks prickled at the corner of your eyes as you saw how hard he was trying to stop you.

Your relationship or whatever people could call what you both shared was a complete mess, you hurting him, him hurting you ; you regretting, him regretting too ; you being scared to love someone because of what it made you do, him being scared to love because of what it made him feel ; and you wanted this vicious circle to stop. You were about to depart from him again but Mark's hand didn't miss its second chance to immobilize you in your spot, making you lose it for good.

"Hey, I get it that you want to hate me really bad, but how much of an asshole can you be to call me for help and scare me the fuck out when you're only about to have your time with another girl? You wanted to hurt me that bad? And I'm the sadist one? What more do you want Mark, I thought we were done! I thought you wanted nothing from me, so why did you call me, huh? Why?! Leave me alone now, I got it don't worry you must really hate me like you said, I won't hear you anymore now that I perfectly know! We're through!"

*No I've fucked up I know but wait-*

"Leave me alone! You look like nothing right now so go back to your room!"

In a blink of an eye, you had blend in the dancing mass of people moving on the arranged dancefloor, and your eyes searched for Johnny you quickly found near the kitchen with his phone in his hands, a serious look masking his usual happy traits.

"Oh my God Y/N you're here! You suddenly disappeared with a panicked face, we were all worried! I looked for you in the living room but I didn't find you! Are you okay?"

Those last three words threatened to kill you so you grabbed his warm hand in despair, your hurting eyes not even catching his own that widened for a slight second because of the fireworks he felt burst into his stomach at your skinship.

"Let's go, I beg you" you asked in a faint voice and without a second thought, Johnny nodded in approval as he caught the need in your request.

He finished his drink in no time before putting his cup on whatever surface he found next to him, and he dragged you behind him towards the sofas where he had left his leather jacket earlier, before putting it over your shoulders.

"Here. Let's go" he said in a sweet tone and the two of you stormed to the exit, still hand in hand.

Mark had rushed back to his bedroom, his hand grazing against the wall so that he could walk the straighter he could, and he had jumped into a pair of shoes then grabbed his shirt that had been thrown in the middle of the room. Hansun was busy putting her clothes back on her perfectly proportioned body, and Mark merely bowed her sorry as she ranted about how much of an asshole he was. The second he went back outside, he found you and the last party's host chatting, and he sped his pace closer to the both of you.

"Wait I'm sorry, but I should have asked : are you sure you can drive? You're ok? I don't want to put you in danger" you had stopped your pilot right before the front door, and you were thankful of your reasonable side that couldn't let you down for too long.

"I drank, but don't worry, I'm fine. It's not the first time I did this, and since I'm responsible of you, I'll be cautious" he smiled as his free fingers embraced your cheek quickly, and you both left before Mark could catch you as he was slow in spite of him, the landscape shaking and turning around.

Still, he had perceived the last bit of your conversation, and his fiery blood turned to ice while his panic turned to a total terror : the one of losing you as his lover, became the one of losing you at all because of a car accident. He couldn't let you take this risk, he couldn't let the second woman he had ever loved in his life go when this time he could stop it. He couldn't simply watch from aside as he had done back in the car ; he needed to do something or else, Mark felt like the burden of guilt would be the end of him.

                          *NO! DON'T GO WITH HIM! DON'T GO WITH HIM Y/N! HE DRANK DON'T GO IN!* you unexpectedly heard Mark scream into your ears as you stepped on the sidewalk, and you jumped in surprise.

You looked over your shoulder to see an out-of-breath Mark pushing the front gate, bending with his hands on his knees for a few seconds before he leveled his head up and, the second he saw you reaching the end of his street, he started running again.

"What's wrong?" Johnny asked you obliviously, lightly pulling at your hand as he hadn't heard anything.

You didn't say a thing and unexpectedly sped your pace up, dragging him behind this time, but the confused boy still snapped his head at the back and spotted Mark that was jogging far from straightly to the both of you. He then let go of your hand to enfold your shoulders with his arms, and he guided you to his car that was right in the corner, parked on the main avenue that was still busy with numerous vehicles.

He swiftly opened the door for you and pressed himself to sit before the wheel, and once the doors were closed, you sighed.

"Are you okay? What's happening?" Johnny asked while unlocking his phone to type your address on the navigation system.

"Just ignore him" you barely answered, your throat tightening at the sight of Mark getting closer and closer in the rearview, his blonde hair fighting with the wind and before you even knew it, he was right next to your window, knocking loudly against it.

*Don't go with him you can't go with him he's drunk it's too dangerous Y/N please come out I beg you* Mark shook his head vigorously before he strived on the doorknob he tried to open, but you had been quick to push the lock button.

Surely because of alcohol, Johnny was a bit slow at typing but mostly, you caught the anger in his eyes as he stopped what he was doing to dart Mark with them.

"What's wrong with him seriously? He's going to break my car at this point!" he growled at the blonde's punches against the window that were unstopping.

You couldn't dare to look at him, the worry and the fright in his eyes compressing your already weakened heart so your pupils dropped at your knees, and you did your best at snubbing him and his pleads.

"He's just really drunk, let's ignore him" you tried to calm Johnny down and the latter rolled his eyes annoyingly but it helped him focus back on the navigation, the only key to save you from hell at this point.

*Please don't please don't I can't have you die too in an accident please please…*

This comparison consumed the last bit of a heart you had after all the emotions it had went through. It was as if some ashes were burning your whole insides, and you felt like suffocating.

"It's for the better…" you murmured, your brows knotting as your migraine was back at it, even more with the roistering sounds of Mark's fist slamming against the car body.

*Y/N please come out*

Finally, this tensed situation was going to break as Johnny's car's motor roared, sign that you were ready to go, yet it only caused for Mark to shout louder into your head.

*Y/N!!!! Y/N DON'T DO THIS YOU CAN'T GO PLEASE I CAN'T LET YOU GO PLEASE NO*

As you deported from the sidewalk and engaged yourselves on the road, Mark sprinted on the side with his hands still tapping against the car. You finally acknowledged him, with the shock painting your traits as you wished he would quickly see how dangerous he was for himself and for the other drivers around you. Fortunately, his drunk-self couldn't compete with a car so you drove past him and he stopped following you, running out of breath as he couldn't scream his worries out, the accumulation of feelings strangulating him.

"Pretty intense between the both of you, right?" Johnny broke the awkward silence you had plunged into now that the car's beating up had stopped.

"Intense is the word, yeah…" you restrained a sob and you looked over the rearview on your side, only to see Mark standing up way too close to the automobiles.

His eyes had detached themselves from Johnny's car as his drunkenness was suddenly taking the best of him, immobilizing him in his spot like a zombie and his adrenaline having been emptied up by his vain attempts to make you stay. The city lights were blinding him, and the vehicles’ highlights seemed to be leaving trailing of colors behind them and meddling between each other, to the point Mark's vision was about to make him faint. Everything was so bright and so fast, while the world seemed to be spinning at a deadly pace around his figure.

He didn't feel himself topple to the front, his brain not responding to the primary sense of balance anymore, yet he was lucky that his body still knew about survival instinct, as he would have been hit by a car, hadn't it been from his feet dissociating with his head full of air to step back.

Mark got petrified by the sound of tires screeching against the road due to the driver's safe maneuver to avoid him, and while gasping for air as the car had been to a traumatic proximity for him, he fell in a squat position. He felt like he was trapped in the middle of his nightmares about the accident, where he couldn't do anything except for waiting for it to stop.

He then brought his hands to his head so that he'd stop hearing the lurid traffic noise, and closed his eyes so that he wouldn't see any one of those engines that scared him more than anything. His whole body was shivering, and at each scream of the horns pressed by the drivers angry at him for being dangerously on the road, he smacked his hands against his ears to disperse it.

You had witnessed all the scene, seeing him disappear from the frame of your small mirror as he had dropped pretty brutally to the ground. Without you even controlling them, your tears had made their way out the second Mark had been about to get into an accident, and you didn't hold back your gasp of fear either. Luckily, you hadn't drove too far away from the spot where you had left him, and moreover, you came to stop at a red light.

"What's wrong?!" Johnny had been surprised by your demeanor, and he tried to check on you but you had opened the window, your head popping outside and turned completely to the back, so he couldn't read your tortured expression.

"I have to go" you informed him before unbuckling your belt and strongly opening the door a few seconds before the light turned green. "I'm sorry but I have to take care of him, I-I'll call you, b-be careful, please!"

You didn't grant him the time to answer nor to ask you anything as you slammed the door and treaded the tar, towards Mark who was still squatting between the empty parking place and the road, with his face buried on his knees. You ignored the horns of disapproval as you squatted before him, with your face drenched in tears at the sight of the boy you liked in such a devastated state.

*Please don't die please don't die please don't die please don't leave me don't leave me don't leave me…*

Even at his worst state, he was still thinking of you. Even with his own life in danger, he was wishing for your own to continue. Your stomach dealt with unexpected butterflies flapping their wings against its ramparts, and this sensation somehow relieved your need to vomit that had lingered in your throat ever since you had left his bedroom. You breathed out and wiped your face, spreading some of your makeup of your skin, before landing a hand on his forearm. Never in your life would you have imagined that someone could shiver so much when it wasn't winter ; you had barely touched him that his body quaked even more due to a spasm.

"Mark, I'm here" you said gently as you tried to hold back the rest of your tears so that you could talk properly.

*Please don't-*

Mark's head slowly left his legs and he freed it from his clenched hands, and the moment his eyes found yours that were glimmering more than the stars above you, the landscape around him settled as he found peace in your stare. All of a sudden, you felt two arms surround you as Mark fell onto his knees and brought you close to him, so close that you could feel his insane heartbeat against your chest. His hot breath dispersed into your hair and caressed your skin, giving you the chills, and it wasn't long before you were hugging him back.

His embrace was powerful and desperate, yet he was still trembling like a leaf fighting against a strong wind.

*I was so scared… I'm so scared* he thought as he dug his face deeper into the crook of your neck.

"Let's move, hm? If we stay here I'm definitely going to have an accident" you chuckled and you felt him nod.

You helped him get up on his feet and rejoin the sidewalk where the boy sat back down on the ground, his legs definitely not willing to be cooperative as he still couldn't feel them, and he put his elbows on his knees before letting his head drop along with a sigh. You stood next to him but not too close so that he could breathe, yet your curiosity and worry soon betrayed you :

"What happened to you?" you bluntly asked him, playing with your feet on the pavement.

Mark repeated his frisk on himself to look out for his phone, a frown dressing up his beautiful traits as every move was hard for his hammered body to execute, but you soon interrupted him as you realized he probably wasn't in the best dispositions to talk.

"Forget it, sorry"

*I'm pretty miserable… Not even able to come after you, what a man* you heard him curse himself in a deep but raspy voice that testified of his worn out state.

"I don't like perfect prince charming or valorous knights…" you mumbled to yourself with a pout. "Anyway you look okay now so-"

"Let's stay here for a while" the famous robotic voice cut you through your goodbyes and you gazed down at Mark to see he had retrieved his phone, on which he was already typing something else.

"With the sound of traffic? Are you sure it's a good idea?" you wondered sincerely, your eyes widening.

*Better than go back there and meet that girl…*

"Oh because you think I would have accompanied you by the hand and brought you back to her? I must be dreaming… No sorry, and I was about to say that now that you're okay, I'm going" you answered curtly, but before you could retire, Mark extended his arm and his hand landed on your ankle.

*That's not what I meant. I don't care about her, do you hear me?* he grumbled but without looking back at you as he felt hot flushes fanning his face now that he was feeling you, and he surely didn't want you to see him weaker than what you had just spotted.

"You were about to take great care of her earlier though" you scoffed while crossing your arms, but you didn't chase his hand away as you too felt some thrill at his touch.

"Are you jealous?" the phone took the relay as it was easy to type with one hand.

"Yes" you confessed instantly, and Mark finally snapped his head up to search your face as he hadn't expected neither this answer, nor that frankness. "What? As if you should be surprised"

You caught the premises of a shy smile tingling the corner of his lips, and you couldn't help but find it cute instead of annoying.

"Then stay" he lowered his eyes to write it and showed it up to you.

You hissed through your teeth as your heart imploded at the sight of those two words he knew too damn well to employ with you.

"Don't ask me this again…" you moaned annoyingly, your head turning away from his figure to watch the city life in front of you.

You both hadn't paid attention to it, but some clouds had accumulated above your two aching heads and in less than three seconds, a storm broke out and showered your two bodies that stayed still in unison while all the passersby that had been walking around you or on the other side of the street started to run and protected themselves with whatever they could.

But for the both of you, it felt like a remedy. Your body relaxed and you closed your eyes to face the sky, letting the drops smudge your makeup even more and soothe your eyes that had been burning from the overfull of holding back. The smell of wet tar swamped your nostrils and you exhaled silently but profoundly, forgetting for a while about Mark who on the contrary had been staring at you.

Beautiful. You like her so much man. So so much.

"Do you make rain fall when you're sad too? Like a Goblin?" his phone asked for himself a few moments after he had let go of his grasp, the spot he left turning cold, and you chuckled.

"No, sorry to disappoint you" you smiled with your eyes still closed.

You didn't catch Mark's little nod, nor did you see him stand up painfully, until you heard his feet stumble a bit next to you. You slowly reopened your eyelids and downed your head to the left to meet with his soaked figure a few feet away from you, and your heart that had calmed down went back to work at full speed.

His blonde hair seemed to be close to a light chestnut color thanks to the rain, and the strands were falling perfectly on each side on his face before he pushed them at the back with his hand. You were tipsy because of the alcohol you had consumed to forget, but you now were drunk of his face you loved more than you could admit. His hardened traits that were softened tonight, his pink heart-shaped lips you selfishly dreamed to kiss again when you knew you couldn't, his deep brown eyes that could take you miles away from reality just from the way he looked right through you.

His body revealed by his wet clothes was attracting you to the fullest, and it was hard to hush your incipient desire for him as the both of you were totally quiet, simply gazing at each other with your eyes full of innuendo. His gaze climbed down to the slope of your nose then the curve of your lips you licked out of anticipation, and a glimpse of air shakily escaped Mark's mouth, as he was having a hard time refraining himself from stealing a kiss from you.

*Stay. I won't regret it like last time I'm not that coward anymore, please*

Even without hearing him you would have guessed his plea just from the way he was staring at your face, the despair having made itself home inside his irises.

"You're drunk Mark. You're supposed to hate me and move on, remember? I've hurt you enough and I won't do you any good, so it's time for me to step out…" you answered in a calm tone even if every word had pulled at the strings of your heart.

*No, you know I'm worse without you.* And no, you did me good.

You shook your head from the left to the right in denial, but he began to close the unbearable gap between your two bodies. You couldn't turn away this time as you were no longer angry and because a physical contact with him was what you craved for the most ; however, your guilt helped you to put a defensive hand before you, but only for its poor palm to end up meeting his chest as he took you in his arms another time.

He was scared to be left alone as only you was maintaining him up on his two feet right now : he couldn't see anything else but you, he couldn't hear anything else but your voice, he couldn't feel anything else but your body that glued to his because of the water drenching your clothes. No more chaos around him, no more flashes of the accident, no more desertion of his brain functions.

*I can't do this without you. I can't. I tried but I can't. Stay with me, please.* he murmured into your head walls, his low voice making your frame vibrate and your hand on his heart crumpled the material of his tank top, this grasp being the only thing preventing you from surrendering.

Nevertheless, his arms tightened around your back and waist and you heard him exhale loudly, sign that he was once again struggling with his inner emotions. Mark was indeed fighting some tears but also his urgent need to unite your mouths ragingly right here right now, but somehow he knew this wasn't the right thing to do.

Instead, you felt his lips plant a wet kiss at the base of your neck and you subconsciously sighed in pleasure, your grasp on his top tightening even more, but like a thunderbolt crossing your mind clouded with your feelings for him, your reason recalled you the order.

"L-Let's talk about this when you're sober, ok?" you barely proposed, your voice fainting with your soul he was absorbing despite him.

Mark departed from you to look you in the eyes, and you took this opportunity to step back and let go of the white fabric that fell and stuck back to his torso.

"I'm going. Go back, and do whatever you want with whoever you want but please, don't think about me while doing it that's disgusting" you managed to joke, your lips ignited with desire breaking into a smile before you turned around and quickly walked down the street, and this time the blonde didn't come after you.

As he observed your silhouette becoming smaller and smaller under the street lamps, Mark wondered how you could smile about that awful thing he had done to you.

*I don't deserve you.*

You smiled sadly as you heard that comment above the rain, because you had been thinking exactly the same. You had hurt him so much yet he had been the one begging for your love and running after you, when you should normally be the one to do that. He wasn't deserving you, no, because he deserved so much better ; he didn't deserve to love a liar that had wronged him from the very beginning while he had finally been true to someone. As you sunk into the depths of the night, you resolved yourself to put an end to this the next time you'll see him.

                                               The next day, you woke up with a painful hangover, yet your eardrums were free from any negative thoughts coming from Mark, giving you a smile that went well with the bright day that welcomed you. You felt extremely tired from the past night, but for nothing you would change what happened, not even the image of him with another girl in his arms. You cherished each one of the memories you had built with him up till now, because you knew it would soon be over ; it had to.

Unknown [4:29 PM] : Hi, Y/N. It's me, Mark… What about we meet today at Han River? Around 8 p.m, if that's ok for you. I've got things to tell you.

You broke out into a sob, as you were far from ready to bid farewell to him. But this hard time was necessary for him to trust someone again and love without suffering. A simple relationship with solid roots and not rotten by mistrust and tears. You were way too guilty and full of regrets to let yourself love him.

You [4:30 PM] : Me too, I have things to say. I'll be there.

No need to precise that you counted every minute that passed by until the time to go finally came. You hadn't been that stressed out in so long, the nervousness you had experienced before the boys' flat's door being nothing compared to the bundle of nerves that juddered within you as you were walking on Han River's promenade. A fine breeze was refreshing your hot face, and the sun that was setting slowly appeased your mind. Mark had indicated the zone where he wanted to meet ; it was near the bridge, and when you reached the location, your eyes recognized his silhouette immediately.

Standing in the grass and across a tree, Mark was wearing a black hoodie that was way too large on his thin body, and unlike the past times when you had seen him, his humid hair wasn't styled up but simply covered by the hood. You could only see his profile graced by the sun's rays, but you guessed from afar that he looked better than yesterday, a peaceful expression veiling his facial features.

When he heard some footsteps coming from behind him, Mark turned his head and as he saw you going down the small climb of grass longing the promenade, he broke into a smile you had forgotten he could have. His eyes almost went unheeded and his nose wrinkled, giving off the cute vibe you had found in him only yesterday night.

The sky above the river was turning to an astonishing gradient of red, pink and ending in the traces of blue left from the afternoon. This ambient light suited so well with the warmness that seemed to seep out of Mark's body you were craving to feel close to yours again ; but you stopped a couple meters away from him. You wished you could engrave this image into the solidest rock on earth as it was the last time you would meet, yet you could only trace it into the sand of the souvenirs that were meant to lose in authenticity, because you shouldn't condemn yourself any further with crystal clear pictures of him to haunt you.

All of a sudden, Mark brought the distance separating the both of you to something too close for comfort for you, and you scraped your throat with your stare falling at your feet shyly.

*I can't stand you being that far* he thought, and your heart did a blip.

"Hi…" you saluted as your eyes finally met his that were nowhere close to the desperate look he had given you the night before.

His pupils weren't flinching anymore, and they were shining with something so pure that it took your breath away.

*If you can hear me, I wanted to say before anything else, that I'm sorry*

"I guess that's sincere because I can" you smiled before passing a hand through your hair out of anxiety; you needed to move, or else your tensed body parts would end up cramping.

Mark chuckled then bit his lower lip as his hands dug into the front pocket of his hoodie. He took his time to contemplate your face that was lightened by the orangey sunny tint, yielding you with loveliness.

And that I like you.

Silence followed this confession you couldn't hear, until your impatient one forced its way out your lips to put an end to everything, for the better.

"Look Mark, I-"

*Shit I think I've got no choice, why bad thoughts only, that sucks so much*

Your words got stuck into your throat as you didn't understand the meaning of this thought, and you watched the blonde as he took out a small scratch pad from his huge pocket, before presenting it to you horizontally. Your eyes widened as well as your mouth, and Mark smiled genuinely at your taken aback expression as he prepared himself to flip the first page. You noticed the blood that had filled his cheeks, making you feel shy as well as you didn't know what to expect, then he looked down to ensure he was doing it the right way.

"I know this is cliché and cheesy as hell, but well, I don't feel like talking, not yet" he revealed his handwriting with an expectant expression on his face as he eyed you, and your heart stopped as you read it.

You couldn't help but crack into a smile, forgetting a moment about the sorrow that would fill you and probably him in a few minutes, when it would be your turn to confess.

"As I guessed, you wouldn't hear everything I'd think, so… I had to write it"

He exhaled discretely before flipping to the following page, his head dropping down further along with his eyes that watched cautiously what he had unfolded, and thanks to his hood, you didn't catch how red his whole face turned at the next sentence.

"I like you, Y/N"

"And I don't think I'll ever be able to stop it, just like you can't stop hearing me"

"Maybe you won't unless we're together?"

"I don't know about you but I've been thinking lately, you may have heard it or not, and even more with what happened yesterday, I'm now sure that I'm not better off without you"

"Yes, you hurt me, but I hurt you as well with my behavior and my words. Even when you knew how bad I was doing up there, you weren't scared and stayed by my side. But when I knew about your power, I decided to leave like a coward"

"So because I don't like unequal situations, or being indebted, as you prefer…"

"… I'm willing to give it back, if you'll accept me. Because yes, you've done me more good than wrong"

"We both said we wouldn't love anybody else after what happened between us, so what about we simply love each other?"

"I want to keep sharing things with you, but by myself and not by my head being a mess that's messing with yours"

"And you're the one that started to clean up all this mess, look how I'm opening right now"

"I need you, Y/N"

"So, will you date me?"

When Mark gathered enough courage to acknowledge your reaction, he got taken aback to see you were actually crying a river, silently, with your hands above your mouth.

*What? What what what what's wrong? Don't cry!*

But you just couldn't stop, his declaration having touched you to the deepest of your soul. You had planned to go separate ways, but seeing that he truly liked you as much as you did, you weren't sure that you would be capable of rejecting him, the fear of losing him forever catching up but also the one to break his heart indefinitely. Would you be able to leave with that much feelings for him anyway?

"Will you forgive me, first?" you asked in a trembling voice, between two sobs you couldn't control nor calm. "I can't be the one to accept you, you need to accept me. I don't deserve you, not after what I did"

"I don't deserve you as well, I ignored your feelings that were true" he wrote after having proudly revealed the pen he had thought of bringing before leaving, a satisfied smile dressing his appealing lips.

"They deserved to be ignored after what I did to you" you insisted while wiping your face. "Actually today I came to tell you it was better if we parted ways, because I hurt you too much, because I've been awful to do this to you, because you deserve someone who won't lie to you who won't put you in such a state for weeks who-"

"You're the one I want, Y/N. I don't care about that someone" he revealed before you could finish, and he hid the writing pad and the pen back into his kangaroo pocket.

He then approached slowly, and you felt your core throb just at the sight of him being at a reachable distance. The atmosphere somehow grew romantic, maybe because of the red sky representing faithfully the passion burning inside of you, or maybe because of the loving stare he had on your traits he scanned with pleasure, taking a picture of every inch to save into his mind.

I forgive you, he thought but he clearly saw that you couldn't hear it because your head lowered the more he stepped forward, so he brought his fingers to your chin to make you look back at him.

He then nodded while slowly blinking, an appeasing body language to signal you what you were dying to hear.

I forgive you, he reiterated in his own world and you teared up another time as he didn't let go of your stare, his fingers sliding along your jaw to spread across your wet left cheek.

His left hand did the same with the other side of your face and he grazed it with his thumb, being careful not to rush things. He had longed for this moment to happen deep inside of him ; he was conscious of it as he finally felt like he was living again, like he was breathing at full capacity, like his broken heart was piecing back together, all of this thanks to you and not because of you.

Your hands were itching as they couldn't stand remaining by your sides, so you ended up grasping the fabric of his hoodie that was falling around his waist, and Mark hissed as you were finally responding, even bringing him closer to you. You felt his breath caress your face along with the light wind, and his irises full of desire and love finally disappeared behind his eyelids as he dived on you to finally kiss you.

I forgive you, he tenderly thought a last time as his tongue intertwined with yours, and you got the message without even needing to hear it.

Your hands on his waist crawled up to his back you scratched through the material, while he couldn't stop caressing your cheeks as he kissed you again and again, his breathing being loud once more, but God, you were fond of that sound. The one testifying of the impact you had on him, provoking a combust of passion within his guts just with one look of your pretty eyes or one brush of your lips on his.

When he finally broke the kiss to catch his breath, Mark settled his forehead down on yours.

"Let's start over" you muttered, your lips grazing his as you did so and he nodded slightly before passing his arms around your neck, burrowing your frame into his.

                          It's with wobbly legs but light hearts that you walked side by side to his workplace where he had proposed you to go. Once you entered, you noticed his colleagues murmuring something between them before they walked up to you and escorted you to a table near the kitchens, with a pretty rose in a vase and a pair of their usual sophisticated cutlery waiting for you.

Mark had explained to you that he'd cook for you tonight and that you'd both enjoy the dinner together. He had asked his boss for this favor during his noon service, that the latter had gladly accepted as his hardworking junior had been the most expectant he had ever seen him. The both of them came to you so that the chef would expose the menu, Mark having put his blouse on and you couldn't help but smile at the sight. He looked so dignified and masculine in those clothes, and your eyes already full of stars were now probably shooting hearts at him.

Everyone was looking at you curiously as they remarked the special service and head-to-head with a cook you benefited, and if you had felt embarrassed at first, the second Mark sat in front of you to share the meal, you forgot about everyone else.

"You must have been pretty sure that I'd say yes to organize all of this" you teased, feeling flustered by this small event.

"I just believed in us" he responded on his smartphone, and your heart melted again.

Since when this boy had the last word with you? You had to admit that you had been eaten up by your guilt that had prioritized your pessimistic side, but somehow, him being straightforward and confident was extinguishing all your past fears and wonderings about this relationship. He appeared to be so bright and at peace, and with just the pure smiles he was giving you as you did the talking, or the look he had upon you as he watched you eat deliciously, you felt right where you belonged.

Once you finished dinner, Mark went to the kitchens to help cleaning up, but his colleagues almost kicked him out so that he wouldn't spill any second of the night he had to spend with you and for you only, and he came back to you with his hoodie back on. He offered you his hand without acknowledging you, his head turned towards the entrance, suddenly feeling shy after you had thanked him with your pretty eyelids batting. You ceased it, your fingers finding shelter between his as if they had been molded together, and you caught him biting back his smile of satisfaction.

"I know you like it, it's written all over your face" you laughed as you walked out, and the blonde frowned in disapproval before speeding his pace, your feet jogging behind to catch up.

You were floating on your little happiness' cloud, the path to his home spent quietly, but it was a silence you both appreciated as each one of you was just too busy thinking of how good you felt. Mark unexpectedly turned nervous when he let you in the apartment, as he got reminded of his activity in his bedroom the night before.

Everything was incredibly quiet, the boys apparently having their own occupations on this evening – or maybe it was Mark's doing again? –, and you chuckled at the sight of dozens of plastic bags from the party they hadn't thrown out yet.

*Maybe she didn't want to come here so soon… I'm stupid, shit, what should I do?* Mark regretted as he scratched his chin nervously, standing in the middle of the living room with eyes lost in the emptiness.

"I'm fine. I mean, I'll be perfectly fine if you stop thinking about her already" you answered while crossing your arms and he jumped in surprise before glaring annoyingly at you. "Sorry?"

*Sorry my ass*

"I still hear you" you laughed as he stepped closer to you who had stayed near the entrance, waiting for him to guide you wherever his heart would be pleased to.

*Ohhhh shut up already* he grumbled before stealing a kiss from you, and he felt you smile on his lips before you gave another one back, pecking him lightly.

"I didn't know you could be so at ease with people, like where did the quiet and setback Mark go?"

*Blame yourself* he dared you before turning away, his chin up in the air proudly, and he trailed his feet nonchalantly to his bedroom with his hands in his front pocket.

As you walked behind him, you got reminded of the first time you had been at his place, the pattern being exactly the same ; him inviting you implicitly to follow him, and you at the verge of having a heart attack just because of the intimacy of the room you penetrated, closing the door behind you.

The dim light was on again, and Mark sat on his desk while you went in front of his wardrobe's mirror to check yourself, your eyes feeling puffy after having cried till you were running out of bodily water. But when you spotted his stare at you from behind through the glass, cold sweat rolled down your spine and hot flushes glided over your neck and cheeks.

He had indeed been observing you pretty intensely, enough for your body to shudder as you turned around to meet him face to face. Naturally, an intense atmosphere had settled upon the two of you. You were finally each other's, and the long awaited ending of the push-and-pull situation stirred the both of your cores. Kissing and holding hands had tested your inner desires that you had kept at bay while you had been out in the open ; but now that you were within four walls of pure privacy, the carnal desire plagued over your minds at full force, marking its territory in every single cognition of your brain.

You slowly laid your back against the cold surface, your hands hidden behind your back and your legs crossing, and you withstood Mark's gaze he was according you through half-lidded eyes, while a light of lust took its place in yours. He couldn't explain why his desire for your body to be in his arms and without the barrier of clothes had invaded his senses that quickly, except that he knew you definitely were different.

It hadn't been when Hansun had found him lying on the ground in his bedroom, without any lights turned on, that he had decided to take her to his bed. It hadn't been when she had lied next to him on the floor and talked to him about things he didn't even remember. It had been when she had touched his body almost expertly, aiming at every right spot to awaken his lust that had been swallowed by his jealousy as he had seen you with Johnny. It had been when she had attached her lips to his, the sour taste of the alcoholic drink she had emptied up just before infiltrating his mouth as their tongues had danced together sloppily.

Under her physical stimulation, his human brain had stood by to let the place to a bestial need that had urged him to have sex with her. But deep down, Mark knew it had mostly been to discard his thoughts about you.

However, with you, Mark didn't need a physical contact, at all. You standing in front of him and not being a parasite in his imagination, for him only to admire, was sufficient to turn him on.

He had wanted to make love to you the second his eyes had scanned your curves through the mirror, then the detour of your tinted lips you licked despite you. The sight of you being so reachable and eyeing his features intently was more than enough for some electricity to wave between your two bodies, overriding his flesh to attain his guts.

With you, it took just one look, for Mark to lose against his feelings that screamed at him to worship you completely.

You're going to be the death of me if you keep looking at me like that.

Your lover suddenly jumped off the wooden furniture and charged right at you, giving you exactly what you had implicitly asked for : his mouth devouring yours and his hands roaming over your needy body, needy for his touch that could make you weaker or stronger, flames or ice, stimulated or in bliss. Whatever he would want from you, tonight, he would have it, as you also were ready to love him to the fullest, without holding back.

You moaned into the kiss and he almost did too, his voice vibrating within his low growls of satisfaction, and it triggered you even more to hear something coming from him too, cutting through the silence. Your hands grabbed his nape and your fingers dug into the base of his hair, involuntarily putting some pressure to feel him even closer to you.

The rhythm was slow at first, his mouth gratifying yours with long and tender kisses he sometimes ended with a biting of your lower lip he tugged at leisurely. But soon, Mark felt a need to prove you more, so he sped up this intimate exchange, his kisses becoming breath-catching and messy.

Like the first night you had spent together, his desire for you set fireworks within his body and commanded his every action he wasn't mastering anymore. It felt so unfamiliar to be wanting someone that bad, to the point where kissing was never enough, and Mark realized how much of a zombie-life he had been living up till you and the amazing sparkles you graced him with. Right now, he wasn't like a robot ready to execute the task his primary needs had naturally ordered him, no ; he simply felt alive thanks to the alchemy you both shared and that guided him in unknown land.

His hands had been wandering up and down between your hips and waist, more delicately than his fervent work up on your face, while yours were pulling involuntarily at his locks of hair every time you would feel his teeth clashing against yours or catching your bottom lip. Suddenly, Mark helped one of your legs up and he enclosed it around his waist, causing armies of ants to go down to your feet. He then pushed you further against the mirror, with his body trembling on yours as it was desperate for more and more.

But because it had been so long since he had truly been about to conclude with a girl, he was trying to take his time at exploring you step by step. However, you didn't help him control his impulsions as you deviated your face from his and brought your lips to the side of his neck, on which you marked a love bite. He hissed through gritted teeth as your mouth traced a wet path between his earlobe and his shoulder you tried to expose by pulling at his oversized hoodie, his head lolling at the back as he breathed quickly. A few seconds later, he was strongly picking you up and wrapping your two legs around him to bring you to his mattress.

He landed you delicately on your back before placing himself on top of you, and he kissed you sweetly on the forehead to pause this intense make-out.

*Are you sure about that?* he asked without asking as he retreated to look down at you.

*If that's too soon, I can wait… I don't want to rush you like last time* he got worried into his head, and you gladly caught those caring interrogations that spread a smile across your flushed face.

You took the hand he had been to dig into his jeans' pocket to transcribe his worries on his phone, and you kissed its palm before leaning into his touch as he cupped your face.

"Mark. Kiss me already" you only breathed out, and he bent down to grant you what you had wished for.

The way his name had rolled off your tongue in a whisper had gotten him almost whimpering, his usual quietness becoming hard to handle, though he would only have produced sounds of pleasure rather than full words or sentences ; his mind was blank anyway, only filled with his want to feel you closer. You wrapped your arms around his neck and plunged your stare into his, his strong and shaky breathing resounding in your ears again, and from the way he was gazing at you, his eyes dark but oscillating, you knew he was still apprehensive to touch you more.

You then initiated the next steps bringing you closer to loving each other fully, as your hands went down and under his sweater. At every caress of your fingertips against his burning skin, Mark felt like you were adoring him and praising him silently, your light touch appreciating every inch and skin cell as if they were sacred, and he couldn't describe how good it felt to seem worthy again.

He retained his breathing as you gently began to pull the fabric up until his fit torso was revealed to you, and your strokes traced circles on his upper body, enjoying the softness of his pale skin. When you redressed yourself on your elbows to steal another kiss from him, Mark finally saw the green light you had been sending to him ; he finally knew what to do and how to do, his feelings reviving the dead areas of his brain dedicated to the good use of carnal instincts.

He kissed your lips, down your chin to the valley of your chest that was showing thanks to your V neck shirt he got rid of right after, then in no time, he undressed the both of you completely but still with delicateness. Perfection dwelled in each detail that covered your skin ; that's what popped up in his mind as he watched you over with awe.

His body was trembling with overexcitement as he began to make love to you, sensually and slowly. Never had your skin felt so sensitive to the touch of someone else, as at every caress of his hands on your body while he connected the both of you again and again, it was as if he was leaving a deep print.

You could swear you had caught a glimpse of his voice at every guttural sound Mark hadn't been able to hold back, but you were already in a pure state of euphoria to have him all for you, with his eyes closed and his lips capturing the skin of your neck once in a while, when they weren't on yours.

In a last sigh, you both rolled on your sides, your sweaty bodies steaming hot. Still, Mark didn't last long without having you in his arms, so he scooted over and hugged you close, making you smile against his chest. You heard his heart bouncing against your eardrum, and as your hands made their way to his back, you realized he was still quivering in pleasure. His nose was on the top of your head, and he kept on pecking you.

Never had he imagined he'd feel at peace again. Never had he thought that his body would feel strong again. Never had he believed in tears of joy ; yet he felt the crease of his eyelids turn hot, and indeed some water lined under them, making him frown in the dark.

Thank you.

His lips were itching and so was his tongue, as Mark was getting overwhelmed by his gratitude. He was dying to say those two words that meant so much more to him than an "I love you". He needed to tell you in this perfect instant, as tomorrow you wouldn't get the weight he wanted to put into them. He lowered his face and leveled up yours on the cushion with the help of his hands, and when your eyes bored into each other, his lips parted slightly.

Thank you, Y/N.

He felt like he would have a hard time breathing if he ever kept this to him this time. He took a deep breath and prepared himself to say his first words to someone in two years, but his guts were telling him that now was the right time to do it, even if it draw his energy.

However, when he tried to emit a sound, only some air released from his mouth that brushed your face, making him clench his jaw. What was happening? Had the product of his own will turned into a real disablement? Or was it the anticipation of releasing the prisoner that constricted his vocal chords?

"What's wrong?" you whispered as you read the distress in his unstable pupils.

But you weren't hearing anything and he kissed you desperately, pressing his mouth on yours with more force, until you felt something wet fall on your nose. It was a tear that had rolled down from the corner of his almond eyes, and that had made its way from his nose bridge to yours. Mark was feeling scared that he couldn't overcome his silence as he wanted to.

"What's wrong, Mark?" you reiterated as you ceased the side of his face with your hand, and the blonde closed his eyes with his brows furrowed.

He reopened them and your loving stare gave him the courage to try again, his heartbeat stopping momentarily as he licked his lips.

"T… Thank… you…" he suddenly breathed out in a merely audible voice, but it had been enough for you to hear.

He breathed unsteadily right after, as if talking had strangled him, and tears you had thought you were running out of accumulated under your lower eyelids that widened. Had you heard his voice for real? Those two words he had chosen with justness had your skin covered with chills, then you rushed your lips on his to kiss him a few times, interrupting yourself to look at him unbelievably each time.

Mark's face broke into a smile as his hooded eyes gazed at you once you were done releasing the euphoria he had put you through, his success improving his well-being as he felt proud, and he fell for you even more. He definitely wanted to talk again, if that meant he could see this profound light of love in your eyes another time. He chuckled quietly as you buried your head into his chest to hide your tears of happiness, and that was how you both fell asleep, with bodies that couldn't feel more comfortable than when they were intertwined with each other.

                                              *This is so weird*

"Could you stop being that pessimistic? You were okay with this yesterday!"

*He's still your godfather! I'm fucking embarrassed! I told it to my father, and he found it funny, but I don't!*

"Speaking of your father, he's one of the reasons why we're here, so you should be invested!"

Mark and you were standing outside the cabinet's door, waiting for Woodam to welcome the both of you for his next session. Your hand was in his, but he couldn't stop shaking his wrist out of anxiety.

You had chosen to move forward together, slowly but surely, him confessing to you his wish to speak again and to bid farewell to his mom now that he had another woman in his life he could turn to, but he was well aware that he wouldn't be able to do this on his own as residues of his trauma were still blocking him and had struck him back at the party ; you definitely determined to stop hearing his thoughts all the time, even if they had become rarer than before and that you used them to tease him now.

You lifted up your jointed arms and kissed the back of his hand to calm him down, and Mark turned his head to you to watch you with adoration, as he instantly felt better.

I don't know what you did to me for me to get this swayed seriously, he thought as he mirrored your gesture, but he gave your skin three pecks before pulling at your hand to bring your body right against him.

He enclosed his free hand around your linked ones, and he breathed out one last time as he caught the happy footsteps of the doctor getting closer to the door.

"We're in this together" you whispered in your boyfriend's ear, who landed the side of his head over yours for a few seconds in acknowledgement.

Together.

"Helloooo lovebirds! Come in!" Woodam welcomed you in, and you protested at the lame nickname he had used.

As the door closed behind the three of you, the sound of your joyful laugh faded, but the patients in the waiting room still caught it as it seeped out like a lovely serenade. Unfortunately, they didn't get the chance to witness the beautiful and shining smile Mark was wearing, for the first time ever as he stepped into this cabinet that finally appeared like a solution more than a problem.

Together, he loved this word. As together with you, Mark Tuan was about to give himself another chance to live a brighter life as a son, boyfriend, cook and roommate ; but mostly, a chance to love himself and, as an old man had once said to him, the people that stuck by him through winds and tides and led his way to a better Tomorrow.

                               THE END.

[silviasutton1989]

T.T.K.   Ch. 13 “Let’s Chat.”

A/N: I hope you guys wont be too mad at me for this chapter. It has a lot of dialogue but these things needed to be said. As always I love you guys to the moon and back! Thanks for reading!! *** also there is a back shadowing thing going on towards the end it is after Riley leaves the balcony.

Word Count: 2500

Rating: Mature

Catch Up: Chapter 1  1.2  2  3  4  5  6  7 8  9  9.2  9.25   10   11   12.1   12.2

Summary: Olivia and Riley have a heart to heart leaving Drake and Liam to finally hash out their issues.

Riley was afraid to move. There in her lap was the notorious Olivia, sobbing. She gently stroked her hair afraid to do anything else. Olivia would never let anyone see her like this. But it was too late to worry about that, Riley’s fingers combed through her crimson locks, and the touch was so comforting so securing she didn’t want to give it up just to look strong. She closed her eyes and felt the nails graze her scalp, letting the question she has been asking herself since she was 6 spew out.

“Why am I never good enough?” Her voice was low but Riley heard it.

“You are Olivia. Don’t let Liam get to you he’s confused and—“

“No Riley I’m sick of it. I know that everyone thinks that I pushing myself onto him. That our… whatever the hell this is is one sided… But when he...” She sniffles in between her words “When he kisses me I feel sparks, actual sparks, and then he gives me this look and I know he feels it too.”

In all honesty Riley always suspected it. Before her Tariq scandal she always thought of Olivia as her greatest competition. She never really understood why Constantine black mailed both of them if she truly was Liam's only choice.

 “Just give him time. If you’re right and there really is something between the two of you he’s going to see it eventually….Maybe…maybe you should open up more. You know, sometimes you are so cold and standoffish it’s hard to think you like anyone let alone love. Men tend to like a woman who is warm and…”

Olivia quickly rises from the comforts of her lap. “I never said I loved him, Riley.” She spats, quickly standing to her feet as she looks out her window. “You know what? Screw him! Screw Isaac! Screw all of them! I’m not going to start acting like some docile air head because Liam needs an ego boost to tell me how he feels about me. Men are so fucking strong until a woman with an actual back bone comes their way and they cower like babies.”

“No I didn’t mean it like that I was just—“

“I am a Duchess, I am a Nevarkis for crying out loud! I’ll be damned before I bend to any man… any king. They bend to me or they break at my feet.” She felt the tears starting to form again it was frustrating how she could go through kidnapping with barely a tear but the second the man she loves doesn’t want her she’s blubbering like a teenager.

“I didn’t mean it like that Liv. All I meant was that today you opened up to me. And despite whatever you say in the future I know we are friends…true friends. All I’m saying is give Liam that same openness and then see how he reacts.”

“I don’t think I can…” her words are barely above a whisper.

“I never thought I’d see you afraid of something.” A sly smile draws on Riley’s lips

“What? I’m not---“

“Here I was thinking you are a Nevarkis… well from what I hear Nevarkis’ are not bitch babies. Now are you a bitch baby? Huh? Baby want a bottle, bitch baby?”

“Stop it Riley before I stab you with my stiletto.” Her eyebrow arches and Riley’s chuckle quickly subsides.

“Sorry. How about we go get this luncheon over with, we can do the toast…together.” She wraps her arm across Olivia’s shoulder and they start to walk out the door.

“Hey, Riley…I’m sorry about telling Drake about the kiss. I can see from the look on his face you hadn’t told him yet.”

“Yeah..I guess I was waiting…”

“You know what I’m not sorry.” Olivia states opening the door and walks down the hall. “If we are friends like you say, as your friend I’m warning you you’ve been playing a dangerous game with Liam. If you love that hobo like you say you do be honest with him before he finds another cave to crawl under.”

“Umm…ok” Riley watches her new found friend walk down the hall. She may need to rethink this friendship after all.

The three men stand in the hallway. The girls have long gone but Olivia’s voice still lingered in their heads.

“I guess I should go read over my speech.” Liam tries to walk past Drake but he blocks him.

“No I think you and I should talk… it’s been a long time coming.”  The two are eye to eye, clenched jaws and dark stares. With a cocky smile and narrow eyes Liam responds.

“Sure, let’s chat.”

Drake follows his friend to a vacant room. The second the door closes his fist flies straight into Liam’s jaw. The door knob rattles at the sound of Liam’s shout of pain. Drake hurriedly locks the door.

“Your highness is everything all right in there? Should I call for Bastian?”

“I’m all right Scribes…just give us a minute.” Liam rubs his jaw. He knew Drake held back with that punch which only made him feel even worse.

“You kissed her?” he shouts pacing back and forth trying to keep calm.

“She kissed me.  After her party…you know, after you left her.”

“You took advantage of her. You’ve been scheming to take her from me since day one.”  Drake hands runs through his hair.

“You took her from me!!!!”  Liam screams, his eyes are wide and wet, a vain pokes from the side of his neck as he rounds toward Drake grabbing him by his suit jacket and throwing him to the wall.

“She doesn’t want you Liam.”

“She wasn’t saying that when her tongue was in my mouth.” Liam had a wild smirk that Drake was just itching to knock off. But he wanted to talk, not fight. He needed to calm down; he takes a deep sigh and moves to the opposite side of the room.

“Liam, I asked you this question months ago before me and Riley got serious. I’m going to ask you again one last time and we will never have this conversation again. Do you love her?”

It was Liam’s turn to pace. Answering that question meant he had to be honest with himself. He wasn’t ready to let go of his anger toward Drake when it was so easy to mask it under affection for Riley.

“You know I don’t know.” He spats looking out the window.

“Well then why are you doing all this? DO you hate me that much Liam? Because I love you. I love you more than a straight man should be willing to admit. Why can’t you let me have this? Why won’t you let her go?” Drake takes a deep breath watching his friend stare at the limos pulling into the drive way.

“When Riley turned down my proposal, in all honesty I knew it was because of you. A part of me wanted to be mad, to hurt you, to make her leave, but….” He trails off as he looks at the tears falling from his friends eyes. “I didn’t think you were going to ask her to marry you… at least not this soon. I was hoping you two would date or something, anything but make a commitment. I didn’t get a chance to fall in love with her, to learn her favorite ice cream or how she takes her eggs in the morning.  You took that from me and what makes me so angry is that maybe you think this all just happened like it was fate, but you’ve been wedging yourself between us every time you would sneak away with her, and you know that.” The anger was creeping back, or maybe that was hurt, he couldn’t be sure.

“Liam…”

“Listen I want you to be happy really I do. I love you too Drake. You have done so much for me more than my own brother. But she came to Cordonia for me. Do you honestly think that Riley and I were given a true shot? I can’t let her go Drake. Not until I know for sure what we have isn’t love.”

Knocks pound on the door. “Your highness this is Bastian. Are you alright in there?”

“I’m fine Bastian.” Liam begins to walk towards the door.

“You think you love her so much but you slept with Olivia.” Drake’s words stop him in his tracks. “If you ask me either two things are going on here 1. You are a greedy king who can’t let anyone be happy or 2. You do love someone you're just too stubborn to admit who.”

“That may be true Drake. Maybe I’m in love with Olivia and I have been in love with her my entire live. But Riley kissed me so maybe I’m not the only one who’s hiding feelings here.” With that he was out the door. 

"I can't believe I'm doing this." Riley repeats opening her mouth to Liam's wondering tongue. She tasted sweet, so sweet he wanted more but those words she kept getting in the way.

"I can't believe I'm doing this." 

He watches her walk down the hallway, desperately he wanted to walk her to her room. But the moment was gone and Drake was probably mad enough at him. Taking his drunk girlfir---fiancee to their bedroom wouldn't make things any better. Liam decided to just watch her go.

"I thought you two were going to give me a show tonight." Olivia sat in the darkest corners of the room. The moonlight spreading from the open doors of the balcony didn't reach her but Liam could see her green eyes those red lips perked into a smirk. "What happen Liam? Chickened out of ravishing the woman of your dreams?" There was a hint of sarcasm in her words as she steps into the moonlight.

"You were watching us this whole time? That's pretty sick even for you Liv."

"I was making sure you two weren't going to make a drunken mistake. Drake for some crazy reason is your best friend, sober Liam wouldn't want to ruin that friendship completely unless he knew for sure she is the one."

"So now you are an expert on love?" His tone is harsh but he knew Olivia could take it. That was one of the things he liked about her she wasn't fragile. "Tell me where is Isaac? Has he ran off to host another orgy at someone else's estate."

Olivia walks to the balcony her hands clutching the half full bottle of Crown Royal that Riley left. She takes several swigs before stopping to catch her breath.

"Boy for cheap whiskey this sure can pack a punch." 

Liam walks onto the balcony taking the bottle from her.

"So where is he?"

"Isaac had some family matters to attend to he will be back soon." She said the words all in one breath, he always knew her tales...she was lying.

"Did you two have a lover's spat?" 

"Ha no a lover's spat is what you and Drake will be having when she tells him about that kiss." Olivia tips the bottle at her king before taking a couple more gulps. The whiskey warming her body from the April night air. "What we had is a mutual disagreement on loyaty." she looks off into the dark sky.

"Riley kissed me, Liv" He didn't know why he felt the need to explain himself to her but he did.

"I know I saw it."

"That has to mean something. Right? I think she..."

"Isaac is in love with me." She said it so plainly like saying she was going for a walk. It through him off guard, and all of a sudden Liam felt dizzy.

"What?" he grips the banister for strength, hoping Olivia didn't notice how her words were affecting him.

"He sent me this text the other day. He wants me to wait for him to come back so that he can prove to me we belong together. He said we should go on a proper date and then become official, and..." Olivia trails off a smile on her face he hadn't seen since they were teenagers, but this time the smile wasn't for him.

"When did he say he loved you?"

"Well....he hasn't yet but I know he will say it soon. I just need him to get his shit together. I want to give him an actual chance one where he doesn't have to compete with my adolescent fantasies of you, one where we can trust each other."

"Do you love him?" he quickly looks away from her. This felt eerily like that night with Riley at the Statue of Liberty but worse...for some reason this felt much worse.

"I know I can...I know I want to be with someone that wants me, that loves me. I know he has his problems but, honestly he is the only man I know that sees something in me..."

Liam marches up to her, one hand takes her waist the other holds the back of her neck. He looks square into her shocked eyes before lightly catching her mouth in a kiss. She moans into it kissing him back immediately. That kiss was the most honest thing they had ever said to each other.

"Liam." She takes a step back and he quickly closes the distance. His mouth showering her neck and chest with open kisses.

"Don't tell me to stop. Just...please don't tell me to stop." His eyes meet hers, his gaze open and intense. She cups his check pulling him into another kiss,whiskey and lust playing with their bodies clouding their true emotions, and revealing them all at the same time.

The luncheon went off without a hitch the nobles loved Riley's toast with Olivia and the press took countless of photos of both women. Riley was on cloud nine all through the art show never noticing Drake's sullen demeanor. She knew she would have to talk with him but it could always wait till after the events...right?

The day came to a close as the couple made it to their room. Riley flops onto the bead vowing to sleep right there.

She hears the wheels on Drake's luggage moving out the closet and she looks up to see him packing.

"Drake what are you doing? We aren't heading to Duke Richards estate till tomorrow evening. Why are you packing now?"

Finally their eyes meet. They haven't looked at each other in days...not like this. She could see the tears that had dried upon his check. Had he been crying all day?

"I'm not going to Duke Richard's estate or any other estate for that mater. Riley I'm done with this, all of it I'm leaving tonight."

Tag List:  If you want to be on the tag list permanently (this one is randomly selected with some permanent in as well)  let me know. If you DO NOT want to be tagged ever just send me a message I will not be upset.

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[tinyphantomsoul]

This is AMAZING! I've never seen this photograph before. There were a number of different occasions that I looked through the list of pictures of the three hobos walking to wherever it is they were heading. I never saw this picture. And it looks totally different then the other ones. It's a good quality picture. It even has a bit of a Hollywood feel to it. Like it's staged, perhaps. The man in the Middle looks positively handsome! With his long, confident stride. And his suit is better than the suit I wore to my Sister's Wedding. And they, like the guy behind him - referred to as "Frenchie" has nice shoes as well. His vest isn't as frayed as it sort of appears on the other photos. For some reason in the other pictures the jacket he wears seems stiff and cheap.

But that second guy. He's got Charisma as well. His face as a magnetic quality to it. It's also what gives him away. The man is definitely Sturgis. The "dimples?", the what do you call it? The furrows of his cheek? Anyways, they are an exact match with Sturgis. I will have to go find that picture that clearly shows the match. A picture of Sturgis that is also a side shot. Even his nose and ears are a match. Black and White frontal shots... the side shot is great. The lighting - the sun shows that it is late in the day. Okay, frontal, late-in-the-day, black and white, it was just too hard to get a good read on any of the previous hobo/tramp pictures. Black and White, as the CIA probably knew quite well (in those conditions) well, you can believe just about anyone you want to believe it to be. -Sorry about the terminology: hobo and tramp. But that's how they are known in the world of the JFK Assassination. The Deniers call them hobos for real. The Theorists refer to them that way ironically. The shoes, supposedly gave them away. Not that you could tell before, but those SHOES now!!! (I'm rewriting this little blog here since I pressed a wrong button and poof! so if it sounds a little forced...) 

However, I was really shocked when I saw this. I would have remembered this photo. 

People speculated it was Sturgis. It's impossible to tell really... It makes it really hard to confidently determine who is who. It was also speculated that the middle guy was Woody Harrelson's father. It's not. It's Sturgis of Watergate fame. He was one of the bungling burglars. He was what the media dubbed as being one of the "Plumbers". Actually, I think, in this particular botched CIA operation - the CIA has had a number of these - the "Plumber" label was what they were referred to.  They were also doing a little wire-tapping. As well as breaking into some political office. Sturgis's friend and co-conspirator in Watergate is behind him. The one that's off to the side looking very hard to not be seen. If you blow up the picture - yes, that's how good the photography is - you can sort of see the fear or the nervousness in the eyes of Hunt, the guy that is actually dressed as a hobo. He was a fellow Plumber. Two guys of the three were Plumbers! The other one was actually a hobo. Frenchie. There is a story there. The hobo part. 

Anyway. It seems we haven't been paying attention to the CIA's greatest coup of late. Little breadcrumps to keep us sniffing. Maybe not just crumbs, but a whole loaf. When I saw this shot just a couple of weeks about I just was floored. I shook my head and said "Amazing". And it is!

[alexfeelsalive-blog]

May 12 2014

You endure what is unbearable, and you bear it. That is all. That quote is from Magnus Bane, from the book series The Infernal Devices. That is also the quote I kept repeating to myself in the shower as I broke down, yet again.

The Mother has been on edge lately, I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s stress at work? I don’t know. So, as stress does to a person, she’s been yelling at me a lot lately. It started Saturday night. Eight other friends and I had arranged to play flashlight tag in my neighborhood, and toward the end, one of the neighbors had apparently called the cops on teenagers sneaking around in their yard. The Parents, who were sitting in my front yard, saw the cops first, considering three other friends and I were hiding. Apparently The Mother  had tried to text and call me multiple times, but I didn’t notice since my phone was on vibrate.

After it was all over, and I was inside with just The Parents, The Mother  grabs my phone out of my pocket and when I question it she just says “You must not need it, since you didn’t answer any of The Mother’s Friend or my calls.” I was confused, because I hadn’t checked my phone yet. I tried to calmly explain to her that I didn’t feel it and apologized, which is a lot because, honestly, I rarely say I’m sorry unless I feel it’s needed. I could tell she was still mad at me but must have not been able to come up with a counter argument because I got my phone back.

The next morning, right before we left for church The Mother asked me if I had read the lesson plan for that morning because we teach the 3 year olds in Sunday School. I told “no,” and I will take the fault for that, and I knew she would yell at me. She did. Which didn’t bother me, I understood her anger, I did something wrong. 

 But no, it was the next thing that is causing me to write in here now. She was obviously still angry, and she proceeded to tell me that I did not match, that the cream on the shirt didn’t match the white in my jacket, that my jacket didn’t even look clean in the first place, that I practically dressed no better than a hobo. But the thing is, I dressed like that for her. Just a couple days ago I had gotten new white flip flops, and I wanted to wear them to church. I knew I couldn’t just wear anything with them though, or The Mother would yell at me for not matching (that obviously didn’t work too well). I didn’t even like the shirt I was wearing, I thought it had too high of a neck and looked weird on me. But I though it matched the flip flops, so I wore it. I only have one white jacket, so I wore that, too. I don’t know if it’s ever happened to the person reading this, whoever you are, but feeling like you did something you thought someone would approve of and them throwing it back in your face, it hurts. Of course I could never admit any of this to her, you endure what is unbearable, and you bear it. That is all. But even just moments after it happened, in the car, (even writing this, I feel like I want to hurl my pencil across the room, but deep down I don’t think I have the will to do it anyway) just the sheer weight of it was causing me to tear up. It was better when I got to church, teaching the kids gave me a distraction and I could keep myself busy. But after, we went to Cheddar’s with another family and waiting to be seated allowed it all to come back again and leave me tearing up in the middle of Cheddar’s. To make matters worse, The Mother felt obligated to make it publicly known how poorly dressed I was by grabbing the edge of my jacket and saying “You can tell she dressed for the occasion.” Which did not help my self-esteem or self-control any. Plus, nobody was previously paying attention to me, but because of that comment, they were now. Which meant I had to get rid of my teary eyes fast. I don’t think anyone noticed because they didn’t say anything. Then again, perhaps it’s not mannerly to point those kind of things out.

Today at school I told The BFFs about it because I had gotten my phone taken away because of that and they asked why. As the words left my mouth, it sounded stupid. It sounded like a stupid reason to cry and it was something I just plain old needed to get over. And yet, as I was telling them the story, I was tearing up in the middle of math class. In the book I’m reading, Insurgent, the characters in it give the main characters a truth serum and ask them “What are your deepest regrets?” I’ve been thinking on how I would answer that question, and I think I figured it out: That I ever told anybody about my problems. There are only a select few that know about the things that go on in my mind: me, The Mother, probably The Father, The Angel, The Funny Girl, The Rival, Part 1 of the BFFs, and The Best Guy Friend. And they don’t even know the full story. I only told them what I thought I could handle letting people know. It’s not that I’m depressed, I believe myself to be a perfectly happy person. Or that I’m ashamed of myself. No, if nothing else I think it’s for protection. Protection and pride. I know that once I tell someone something personal about me, that everytime they see me, even if it passes through their mind for just a moment, they’re gonna think about that thing, about that weakness I have, and it kills me. I’m scared. I’m afraid they’re going to bring it up where it’s not wanted or they’ll use it against me, just like The Girl Who Betrayed Me threatened to. After she found out I watched porn, she claimed she now knew my “dirty little secret.” And I’ve been scared of it since then, and I haven’t allowed anyone access to that kind of information since. Plus, I’m supposed to be the strong one. When everyone else is crying, I’m the one who stays calm. It’s happened before. Next is the hot tub scenario. I’ll describe that in the next entry. I need to go clam my nerves. 

[floggingink]

Riverdale, “Chapter Fifteen: Nighthawks”

“DEATH DINER”??????

“Damn good coffee”: you know what I’ve never stopped and considered? how lovely the interior of Pop’s is. the ceiling tiles are styled with gentle Titanic fresco flower wreaths. those hanging lamps? Restaurant: Impossible wishes. the classic black-and-white floor, the framed art on the walls? he has neon letters saying “DINER” inside the diner. just to be fancy, be pretty! there’s a table by the far wall that appears to be stacked only with translucent glass flower vases, or bongs! Pop’s is a classy joint, and Pop is there 24 hours a day, dressed impeccably, like the ancient Greek god of caffeine, whipped cream topping

also he named it and insists on calling it not a diner but a “Chock’lit Shoppe,” because he is an angel

please contrast with Archie Andrews, who cannot use the toaster

Archie > Dawson: I like that he leaves Fred to pretty much clean up the mess, his well-meaning unhelpful morning thus encapsulating much of his Archibaldness

Sheriff Keller, actively avoiding Archie’s earnestness, left the job of calling Archie back to his deputy. what was the message I assume Archie hung up before he could hear? that they KNOW NOTHING?

“side exit”? what side exit?

Fifth period is AP English: “To quote that New Yorker cartoon…” Veronica and Jughead, Veronica and Jughead. Veronica also has an A in English. she reads Oscar Wilde, you know? she and Jughead get partnered together to do a report on Truman Capote, their teacher cannily scheduling them to present on the last day as the final flourish, two of her best students. except then Jughead got transferred. she got drunk that weekend

that cartoon is also from like 1993 so it must be one of those vintage bon mots Veronica drops

Hiram, buff!

Veronica is very snotty with him. it’s her prerogative, but dangerous, no?

Betty’s top knot, Veronica’s blue velvet coat

“Wait, I’m sorry, am I hearing acceptance?” Betty is a NATURAL EXECUTIVE CHEERLEADER

wait, has Jughead not been transferred yet? isn’t this a table outside Riverdale High? how is Jughead there?

Archie’s hand-made wanted poster is preposterously ineffectual and a thousand times more adorable and tragic for being so. Archie wants to help and get things happening SO MUCH that, even though all he knows about are the green eyes, he drew a picture of just a white dude in a cut-out ski mask. he went to Staples to make copies! he’s begging someone to tell him something

also how depressing a walk was it for Archie and Jughead to go to the sheriff’s office together

honestly WHAT PERSONAL INFORMATION did Fred have in his wallet besides the address on his driver’s license? which may have been revoked from his mystery DUI for all we know

“a 53 in Greendale” means a garrotting

FP...looks rough

his charges: arson, destruction of evidence, making a false confession, obstruction of justice, and something that amounts to failure to properly dispose of a human body. to be sure, FP did some crimes, so he could do some times. I hear you. however 20 years, from my years of expertise gleaned from watching Law & Order, seems more appropriate for having, say, throttled a grandma

Jughead, presumably using a key, the first almost-casualty of Archie KEEPING HIMSELF AWAKE for like the seventh night in a row

Sixth period is Intro to Film: “You’re the one who looks like a dream warrior from Nightmare on Elm Street 3.” niche, Jug

if his case goes to trial—for what?? he did all that shit! is he going to plead not guilty for something? make your case at sentencing, dude!

I’m writing a scene where it’s gay.: Jughead needs a hug, Archie. get over there. get over there with your big shoulders

Betty’s gray sweater with the lace Peter Pan collar and her pink almost-pencil skirt is unacceptably good

Veronica also has a vanity mirror table, but just with three white honkin’ mirrors set in a semicircle

the female gaze: Archie feels comfortable opening the door without a shirt on? of course he does. what if it had been the killer? then the killer would have truly known what he was up against

Summer + Blair = Veronica: can you believe it’s the second episode of the second season and until now no in-universe character has suggested plonking Archie down in front of A COUNSELOR OF SOME SORT

Mayor McCoy’s bodycon dresses are always slinky yet pragmatic and she always looks great

she JUST SLIGHTLY flicks her eyes down Jughead, whom she’s heartily sick of

Jughead starts to stammer, his physiological reaction when pitching ideas to beautiful women in power

why is the mayor “all for” closing Pop’s? to put it all behind Riverdale as quickly as possible?

Jughead doubts it: is Jughead being a little hard on his dad’s public defender? they’re shockingly overworked and underpaid

“YOU REMEMBER THIS MOMENT”

Betty’s face: hooooooo, what? oh god

Gay.: Midge Klump’s immaculate leather jacket is from H&M and is gay. her incredible mussy, shaggy lesbian haircut is gay, her watercolor blouse is soft femme, and the way she tosses herself against the locker is just very gay

“the Klumpster”

anything, any scenario, and I mean ANYTHING that means I can both look at Reggie AND hear about jingle-jangle has my full-throttled unambiguous endorsement. Reggie sells jingle-jangle? OF COURSE HE DOES!!!!! remember in the pilot when he asked Archie what kind of performance-enhancing drugs he was taking? WE WERE ROBBED OF AN ENTIRE SEASON OF REGGIE POTENTIALLY SELLING JINGLE-JANGLE

“What’s on your mind, Andrews? Girl trouble? Scabies? Why’re you seeking guidance from Ms. Burble?”

“You look like my nuts after football practice.” PLEASE go after Jughead again!!!!!!!

jingle-jangle is apparently like a miraculous All-Purpose Lysol drug that keeps you awake, keeps you focused, and gives you a hard-on

Reggie slaps Archie’s ass when he walks away, because of course he does

Betty would be the one to say something like “We can’t let the terrorists win” when talking about something like a diner closing

Veronica was rich: Serendipity 3 is on East 60th Street and is the home of the Golden Opulence Sundae, which you must order two days in advance. it is covered in Amedei Porcelana syrup, dessert caviar, and edible gold leaf, and costs $1,000. this is why Marie Antoinette was beheaded and I want one

little Betty did ballet and ice skating

ah, retro Betty, settled on the wrong boy

Betty met Kevin for the first time at Pop’s!

GOOD JUGHEAD KISSING GOOD HAIR JUGHEAD GOOD

Hiram brought Veronica yellow roses, for friendship

Betty and Kevin seeing the Hiram Lodge of myth for the first time, Kevin privately surprised at how much of a snack he is

I’ve forgotten why Hiram was in prison. what is Veronica’s ur-beef with him again? that he bought the drive-in land? oh and Ethel’s dad almost killed himself I guess

Serpent Daddy’s real gang name is Tall Boy, so I will continue to call him Serpent Daddy

he is tolerantly amused at Jughead’s suggestion that they just break FP out of jail

a “snake handler” is someone who is independently invested in the wellbeing of the Serpents and fixes their problems. is Betty a snake handler? discuss

Cheryl and Josie have a metallic choker apiece

Cheryl calls Betty and Veronica “Humpty and Dumpty,” because she has released her past

“But, really, Veronica, were they ever yours?” Cheryl did sort of sign them over under emotional duress, would be a questionable transfer in court, say

“The answer is a double-cherry-on-top no.”

What damn high school in America: a long-faced, kinda fly-looking jock to Archie’s immediate right stares at him during the zoom-in after Weatherbee’s announcement about Ms. Grundy, because his whole class knows they were FUCKING

there needs to be a game of Secrets and Sin toward the end of each season, just so the regular kids at Riverdale can get fully briefed on this one handful of kids’ operatic problems

Mr. Andrews felt no emotion at hearing that Ms. Grundy was killed, he is humoring his son

Penny Peabody is GREAT. I love her voice, her bangs, her filing system, her diminutive Serpent tattoo, and her 80’s bad bitch shoulder pads

time served, that’s what I’m talking about!!!

she also kind of looks like she wants to take a bite out of Jughead

Alice is still very COOL towards Archie. why doesn’t she like Archie? because she delights in not liking anyone. it’s okay

“Fine. I’ll reach out to my ghoulish friend.”

also part of Betty’s pink & gray outfit is a pair of sky-blue Chucks

Alice had to say “You’ll love this,” otherwise Veronica’s rage at hearing “anonymous buyer” would have not been self-aware enough for this show

there’s that gold octopus I liked

Veronica just kept that letter in her purse in case she got worked up!!!

oof I like her sort of 40’s naval-inspired skirt

HERMIONE IS STONE-COLD

Cheryl gets one of the most fantastic lines outside of Clue: “Hobo. Bride of hobo. Welcome to Thistlehouse. Mother’s in the conservatory.”

that blouse? that blouse, Cheryl? yes, Cheryl

the conservatory is apparently the greenhouse from Practical Magic, the greatest cinematic house of all time

Best costume bit: PENELOPE IN A TURBAN

and like a white lace nightie and kimono? yes, Penelope

I’m sitting here trying to see what they’re doing at the table and it looks like Penelope is just stirring tea like a Disney witch, surrounded by long-stemmed candles (lit), stoppered vials, some sort of decorative toucan, and tiny cauldrons full of herbs

Cheryl does have a point in that she like, was living with a killer

of course Penelope wants to watch FP get electrocuted, because she is a Stephen King villain

“If they weren’t literally an orphan and a widow, I would do it.” luckily Jughead you have the best girlfriend ever

MISSED YOU, OVER-ENTHUSIASTIC CORONER

Archie unknowingly paying Reggie back for the black eye? he should’ve just covered with that

okay but Reggie knows what he’s doing so all this indignity on his part is a bit misguided

I like that the only person so far truly feeling in their gut that these two crimes are connected is the town doofus, and he is right

“ChugMo”???

Pop should NOT be walking around saying “I thought I’d be doing this until the day I die”

I FUCKING LOVE Betty’s not even “positive attitude” or “determination,” it’s like a physiological inability to accept defeat. I think the last time she accepted defeat was when Cheryl told her she wasn’t making the cheerleading squad

Cheryl in a Gil Elvgren lingerie set checking herself out in a compact mirror is...powerful

her locker emanates a red light, like the Moulin Rouge?

she has a photograph, I think, of herself

I’ve seen Brick like thirty times: Betty first closes the door very loudly on purpose

Cheryl’s expression at Betty’s threat is everyone’s expression

my knee-jerk superego wanted to be like, Is this kind of harsh, Betty? but like...this is Betty. or this is Riverdale Betty. she’s chaotic good and this is what she needs to achieve her goals. that she does it in a pink cardigan says really everything you need to know. like Archie fucking up trying to make toast for his dad

she’s also kind of tall and has her mother’s left eyebrow, which is cute

Gay?!: Cheryl regroups with commendable speed, respecting who won this round, definite admiration for the game

HOW INTERESTING IS JUGHEAD AND VERONICA

this must be after Betty told Jughead that Cheryl was going to testify, so Jughead was like, THANK GOD, WHO IS BETTY, and felt so much love that he had to go make someone else feel better, because Jughead is a sweetheart

Jughead eats: he takes one of the individually boxed cupcakes presumably left for Veronica by Hiram

“He made an effort.” did he, Jug? he wanted to get on your good side to get your read on a murder. because he knew what you needed to see. oh, Jug. oh, Jughead

“I’m not going to presume what lies in your father’s heart.” JUUUUUGGGGGGGG

Jughead still says his dad is going away for 20 years so maybe this is before Betty talked to him and he’s just being nice!!!!!!!! or he’s not getting his hopes up. let me have this

“Thank you, Jughead. Sorry I broke into your dad’s trailer.”

I REALLY didn’t think Ms. Grundy’s ex was real. but she did have a gun! I don’t know, Christ, I don’t know anymore

Cheryl’s a psychopath: I like the implied scene where Cheryl went home and was like, Mother, I’m testifying for FP Jones, and Penelope was like, You’re doing what? and Cheryl was like, SILENTLY AND WITH MY BLESSING MOTHER

FP sitting there with his mouth opening is everyone

his court-appointed attorney doesn’t understand how this is happening but he’ll take it

“FP’s guilt has been blown out of proportion to satiate what my father’s suicide denied us.”

Cheryl’s sheaths: wait, it’s THIS dress! this dress, Cheryl!!!!!

Cheryl’s pins: Jughead gave her her spider pin back???? to say thank you!!!!

okay what is like the DA’s story here, that FP OUT OF NOWHERE, or for money no one can prove he ever received, did a shit load of dirty work for Clifford Blossom? there were NO extenuating circumstances? like, that’s okay with you?

okay, oh Jesus, Betty raises The Eyebrow at Cheryl on the stand, which I don’t even think was part of the deal!, but Cheryl IMMEDIATELY perjures herself, even though it’s not actually a lie because it’s what actually happened but she doesn’t know that, to get the result Betty wants

Betty is in a textured pink sweater now (with a Peter Pan collar) and Jughead is back in that heavy green knit from the third episode holy moly!!!!!!!

“Is that extenuating enough? Say when.”

Cheryl’s cut-out blousey dress is like Velma Kelly murderess chic, murder me Cheryl

Jughead pulled his hat off, he was so flipping relieved

honestly when he hugged his dad it was so pure, sad, and good, it was so good

Jughead’s fucking long fucking arms can never just hug someone, they like wrap around you and reposition again and again to find the perfect sweet spot

the incredible costume change into the retro waiter stuff

“You’re a fiend, mother.”

does Veronica give them the wrong milkshakes or did they decide to swap? Questions

Cheryl is back in her red velvet leg warmer and red sling-backs

Fwoopy hair is the best hair: JOSIE’S BRAID?

Betty took a page out of Toby Zeigler’s book and just announced that the Pussycats had already accepted the gig

the 2001 Josie and the Pussycats movie was a masterpiece: Valerie has “a norovirus,” so Cheryl gets to sing (like Josie is a Vixen now) “Milkshake” on top of the roof, which Pop’s is probably not insured for

MELODY GETS A LINE

Archie VERY BRAVELY showed up to Pop’s again out of support for Betty and Veronica

Hermione’s shimmery blouse

Hiram is just so handsome. SO handsome, soap opera handsome

Serpent Daddy and another long-haired hooligan and a third fairly chiseled young man enter to show that the Serpents support their local businesses

Every triangle has three corners, every triangle has three sides: what’s up with the finger on Betty’s chin!!!! is he slowing her down??? is it a bossy thing??? what’s up!!! what’s up Jug!!!!!

they disgust Cheryl

“Honor your promise to me.”

Alice is thrilled Pop’s is such a thriving hive of degeneracy

Certified pedigree: “Yeah, no, I fucking bought it.”

OF COURSE HERMIONE WAS COVERING FOR THAT SHIT

Please protect Betty: I like how everyone is like, Betty, you did it. you did all this. this is what did you, thank you. thank you for being the one who did this

the Blossom corpse: “I have a present for you.” they watch the snuff film

Cheryl’s hair: Cheryl’s top knot!

Andre is tasty but we all know Smithers is dead

Jughead went home early to make some sandwiches, which is #lifegoals, but FP really should know better by now how NOT to get Jughead to do something. it’s not by being cryptic. you have to say right-out, “She’s done X, son. She will steal your skin. She stole that woman’s skin.”

Mädchen Amick, MÄDCHEN AMICK: “You do know several drug deals went down here tonight.”

Alice is so vicious with Betty, Alice is gold

Dilton Doiley is a canonically great dancer: PSYCHO DILTON IS BACK BABY!

Archie with a gun is single-handedly the most dangerous idea anyone has ever had. I’m already in mourning for the innocent person he’s going to shoot

apparently one ingests jingle-jangle through a Pixy Stix

I hope the staging of this scene is a callback to the incomparable opening of Zodiac

These students are legally children: OKAY WHY WERE THESE CHILDREN BLOWN AWAY THOUGH

God bless Moose: RIP you bicurious boy!!!!!!!

I officially have zero theories as to what is going on, I am back to being Archie

NEXT WEEK: “THE BLOODLETTING”??????????

[nananaptime]

Hi~ Can I please request a soulmate au for wonwoo? Thank you in advance 😘

What took you so long?

Oooooh, my first soulmate request :D :D :D

MasterlistRules

(Source)

Requested

Genre: Fluff???

Word count: 1 453

Summary: When you stop looking he’ll appear

“Guess what! Guess what! Guess what!” I had never seen my best friend more excited, she was practically jumping on the spot in front of me once she came to a halt after her sprint. Her eyes, big as plates, shone of a hundred stars as she waited for my answer on her question.

“What?” I finally asked making her break into hysterics.

“I met him!  I finally met him! And you won’t believe who it is. It’s Seungwoo, the guy I was so scared of talking to. It’s him!” I was thoroughly confused, both at her vague explanation and the fact that she could say all of this in one single breath.

“He is what?” I asked, trying to remain patient with her newfound energy. She gave me a look that told me I shouldn’t have to ask.

“My soulmate dummy.” She then showed me her wrist where one sentence was written.

You do know you’re going the wrong way, right?

She was smiling so big I didn’t know how her face didn’t hurt.

“I was trying to find my way to the new lesson I had been assigned to and then, all out of nowhere, he said this to me.” She gestured to her wrist, I had to restrain myself from rolling my eyes. It seemed as if she was waiting for me to say something at that but what was there to be said?

“Cool,” I said with a shrug then I started walking towards my locker, retrieving my stuff for the end of the day.

“Is that all you have to say?” She asked, a bit annoyed, once she caught up to me. “You’re not going to ask what he had written on his wrist?

“Nope.” We had reached my locker, I opened it and started gathering my items. Jennie leaned against the locker next to mine, arms crossed over her chest.

“Well, I’m going to tell you anyways.” I inwardly groaned. “It said “Then why don’t you show me the right way?”” She was once again smiling so big her jaw could dislocate any second.

“Sounds like something you would say.” She was starting to get annoyed at my lack of interest.

“Hey, just because you’re tired of waiting doesn’t mean you should disregard it when it actually happens to me.” She gave me a sad look and I knew I should act like a best friend, not an impatient little child.

“I’m sorry, I just don’t even like the thought of it anymore, what is taking so long?” She understood, I knew that thanks to the hug she gave me. It made me feel a bit better.

“It will happen to you too, I can feel it.”

“Keep dreaming,” I said with a laugh before we started heading to our respective homes, which lay in opposite directions. I started walking with heavy steps through the sunshine, at least the sky was happy today, even though I wasn’t. Jennie was two years younger than me and it was usually around that time you met your soulmate. Mine was apparently late.

It seems like we have the same taste.

That’s what was written on my wrist and let me tell you, the person saying that would get a punch to the face for taking so damn long. Taste in what even? Music? Food? Fashion? I don’t even know but that was probably the only thing we would have in common. It didn’t help my frustrations when the key struggled to unlock the front door to my house and eventually, after dips in my mood, I entered my apartment, throwing the keys on the table while sitting down on the couch with a huff. I didn’t want to move, not having enough energy for it, but I knew that I couldn’t sit here for too long; the library closed at six and it was now four. I had books I had to return and more books to borrow, that wasn’t going to fix itself. I whined a bit, letting myself be childish now that no one could see me, before standing up, grabbing the three books and then leaving the apartment once again.

I shouldn’t have mentioned the good weather before because I probably jinxed it, now seeing dark clouds making their way towards the town from east, I didn’t have an umbrella but hopefully, I would be able to make it to the library and back before the rain started falling. Figuring I should start moving instantly for that to happen, I started to walk in the direction of the public library, praying that I would remain dry. I felt stupid for not taking anything to carry the books with, they were currently sitting in my grip, completely exposed to the threatening rain and if it’s something I can’t handle it’s ruining literature. That’s also a reason as to why I never let anyone else borrow my books, especially Jennie, she is one of those annoying people that write their notes on the precious pages of the book and fold the corners instead of using a bookmark. You should respect books, they are sharing their knowledge with you after all.

I was five minutes away from the library when I felt the first drop on my head. After letting out a loud groan I tucked the books close to my body and tried covering them as much as I could with my jacket. Then I started running. The rain made the ground slippery and the risk of falling was lingering over me as I made my way closer and closer to the building that was my destination. As I reached the doors relief washed over me as I had been able to protect both the books and myself from the devilish rain.

Guess what.

I jinxed the shit again.

Just as I was about to open the door someone else opened it from the other side, causing me to ram straight into a firm chest and thanks to the wet ground I lost my footing and fell backwards. Expecting a harsh pain to erupt I closed my eyes only to feel a tight grip appearing on my arms. Opening my eyes again I was met by the intense gaze of a stranger, presumably the one I just ran into. He helped me onto my feet again when I felt the books slip out of my grip. In panic I tried preventing their fall, without success, because the stranger was faster than me and had caught them before I had the chance to. I expected him to give them to me but he was completely fixed on the titles of the literature, then he cracked a smile.

“It seems like we have the same taste.” It was like time stopped, I looked up at him, pure horror showing on my features. He looked extremely confused, probably wondering if he said something wrong, as I ripped the books out of his hands and stalked past him into the library, leaving him standing in the rain. It didn’t take long before guilt overpowered me and I turned around, feeling like I should at least thank him, even though it meant letting him know that I was his soulmate.

“Thank you for saving me and the books by the way.” I caught his surprised gaze right before I turned around and entered the library.

I know I said I was going to punch him, he had made me wait for two years, I was pissed. Two years had gone by where I spent my time looking around every corner for my goddamn soulmate, and then I meet him in the rain, completely soaked to the core. I didn’t plan on meeting him while looking like a freaking hobo. With a sigh I returned my books and started looking for the sequels of the same series, it was the kind of literature you just couldn’t let go, it was the kind of literature you could read over and over again. After finding them I approached the checkout desk and realized something; when was I ever going to meet him again? Did I just push away my soulmate? I borrowed the books in a hurry and ran outside once again only to see him still standing there in the rain, an umbrella held over his head. I felt relief wash over me as I approached him, he saw me and started walking to meet me in the middle. Soon we were both standing right in front of the library, just gazing into each other’s eyes. I could feel the butterflies in my stomach. Then we both said the same thing.

“What took you so long?”