#still if they decide to follow the romance way as they’ve been doing for seven seasons there’s no connection as special as the one she | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sunnyupsidedown · 2 years ago

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Time Travel/Immortal AU: Andrew’s Side

This has been in my drafts for ages. Time to yolo post lol

As the title says, I had this AU and well, I’m not gonna finish it, but I still wanted to share it. The plot is completely thought out (kinda). There was a bunch a research that didn’t want to do and I wanted to do a good job (especially with the Native American aspects of the story) so in the end it got scrapped.

This is a mix of notes and small snippets of the story. Some of it is better written than others.

[original snippet] [Neil’s Side]

Andrew is immortal. This will follow his timeline and his POV.

Under the cut because this is a very long post.

The Beginning

Andrew Minyard always knew he was different. He knew this before he met Neil when he was 7 winters old and before he fell into the lake and stopped aging. He knew he was different when he developed an awareness of his surroundings. When he looked down at his pale skin, or caught a glimpse of his yellow hair and blue-green-brown eyes, it was impossible not to see the difference between himself and the rest of the tribe with their dark hair and brown skin. He’s asked about it before. They say he was born from the village chief’s daughter and a man blessed by the good spirit.

Born in year 1007.

Born in a small hunting and gathering community that recently learned how to plant crops so they’ve settled down. A village where he would have to collect fruit as a chore.

So the Vikings came around 1000AD, stayed for a couple years, then left due to hostile natives (see Beothuk). Idk how it happens, romance or something more violent, but Andrew’s mother gets pregnant, the vikings leave, and then Andrew was born blue eyed and blond (that’s probably not how genetics works...). Defs black sheep of the tribe but it was another set of hands for hunting/gathering. (Research note: vikings were from the ‘good spirit’ so because he was an offspring they may have given him a special position?) Everyone in the village is basically family.

Meets Neil(18) at age 7 (1014 AD).

“You’re shorter than I remembered and that’s really saying something.” Andrew instantly dislikes him. “Also, stay away from islands.”

The first time Andrew met the man he would come to know as Neil Abram Josten, it was the year 13 B.I. (before immortality). Which made him the ripe age of seven in mortal years. He's had a lot of time to think about it and he's decided that his life span officially started and ended when he fell into that lake. (Neil has told him at various points in his life that that’s not how the calendar system worked. LIke Andrew cared.)

He also came to the conclusion that finding Neil on that hill was the kick start to all the weird shit that'd happen to him in his stupidly long life. Of course it would all start with him and of course it would all end with him too, but that's not for another couple thousand years.

Anyway he was seven and doing some chores for the chief that involved climbing some god awful hill not once, not twice, not even three times, but as many times as it would take to collect enough cherries to feed the entire village which Andrew could tell you reached a number way over ten. It was somewhere between trip number seven and eight when Andrew noticed the man. Well, it was a little hard to miss the beat up and bloody man in strange clothing sitting by one of the only cherry trees that was short enough to be reached comfortably.

“Who are you?”

The man lifted his head, his eyes were the color of a cloudless sky in the middle of the day. And of all things, he smiled and laughed with blood in his teeth. Andrew waited. The man quieted before finally speaking. Instinctively, Andrew knew he was forming words in some structured way but nothing registered as understandable.

There must have been something on his face because the man said something else. It sounded different but just as unknown. He did it two more times before: “I’m Neil. How old are you Andrew?”

“You’re bleeding,” Andrew stated. His eyes roamed over the way the man’s, Neil’s, right arm draped over his midsection and the spot of blood on his chest.

Neil winced, “Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”

Andrew immediately decided that this man was an idiot.

Andrew takes care of Neil (for the first time and certainly not the last). Notices his skin is like his kinda. His hair is different than the tribe’s and his eyes are definitely different. Neil stays in the orchard for a week and then leaves.

“Thank you Andrew. I’m going to go now.” (Something about how Neil wished he had some chocolate to give him)

“Why?”

“I have to,” Neil said. “The next time you see me, remember, Age and Year if you know it.”

Andrew turned from the cherry tree to look at Neil’s retreat but he was already gone.

Convinced he’s met a god.

Immortality

Immortal doesn’t mean immune to disease. Harder to get sick. Can be killed.

(1027 AD) Goes through trial to become a man after 20 winters (the trial is from ages 15-20. Andrew was held back so long because they thought he would grow taller and there was debate as to whether or not he had to take it).

Trial, he has to travel away from the village and live in solitude for two moons. Then when he comes back he must tell the elder what he has learned.

Travels pretty far. Finds a clearing with a huge lake. Looks fake but I dunno… Somehow falls in. Travels back to village and surprise! He’s been gone for more than 2 months! Weird.

Years pass. Andrew grows and then stops at the height of 5 foot even. Mostly everyone is taller than he is. Trains with the others on fighting (knives, staffs, bows). Not allowed to help with raids because he’s hasn’t done the manhood thing. Asks about it. They say no. They want him to be a little taller. The year he will be twenty winters old, the chief summons him from his cherry picking and tells him that he may go on his journey because obviously he’s not getting any taller. So Andrew packs up his knives and some dried meat and cherries and goes. He heads west and then south for just over one moon cycle. Skirts around some neighboring tribes. Nature stuff. Stumbles into an abrupt cliff. It’s small and at the bottom is a lake. Andrew walks to the edge, heart pounding because you know, heights. Decides to go to the lake’s edge. Slips on moss or something and falls into the lake. He knows how to swim but every second in the water seems to add 10lbs to his body. He’s holding his breath and the moment he cannot any longer, he opens his eyes and he’s lying on his back in some grass dry. It’s now day/night/morning/idk. He sees the cliff. But there’s no sign of a lake. He checks himself and there’s nothing different. He kinda just shrugs and turns in the direction of home.

Leaving the Village

(1302 AD) Out lives his generation and the next 4. Tribe starts treating him differently. Does not like. So he leaves. (Research Note: 6 months to 1 year to walk from village to central america or village to west coast or west coast to east coast)

Travels south where he’s heard stories of land of just grass and holes so large that the dirt that filled them formed hills larger than anything he’s ever seen.

He does go back every couple decades and stays for a year or so.

“Is that the last of the fish?”

Andrew nodded as he passed the string of fish to Kanguyak. She bowed her head slightly, her long braided black hair swept forward. She was his age, or more like she was the same age as his outward appearance. He remembered when she was born. It was spring and a bunch of daisies had just began to bloom. That's where her name came from. He remembered when her mother and her grandmother were born. He remembered learning how to fish along side her grandmother's father. Four generations, however long that was for he had lost count of the winters, was a long time. He no longer had anyone to ask if it was normal to live as long as he has.

“I'm leaving.” Andrew stated. Kanguyak looked up from where she had started cleaning the fish. Her eyes held something that made Andrew uncomfortable. Then she nodded.

“Okay. If you come back tomorrow I'll have some dried fish ready.”

Andrew shook his head. “I'll be gone by tonight.”

(1337) Meets Neil (20) by the grand canyon.

For a while now all Andrew could see was dirt in every direction. It wasn’t the fertile dark dirt of his home, nor was it the rocky dirt of the extremely large hills he just came from, this stuff was sandy, brittle, red, clay. When it rained the mud caked onto his feet and made it hard to walk.

As Andrew walked, he felt something in the world around him. He was coming up to something soon. It was a hollow feeling. Like if he breathed it wouldn’t quite reach his lungs. It was like when he saw the first large hill, how when he walked closer it just got larger and taller. Impossibly so, but it was in front of him and real. It was like when he scaled the large hill and turned the corner and saw the world from height of a bird. How he saw for miles.

He kept on walking straight. And there. On the horizon, it started. It was a line. A cliff he knew. A sudden drop off. But the closer he got, he knew it wasn’t just a normal cliff. It was a chasm. A large one. Like the hills, impossibly large. He looked to the left to see if there was a way to get to the other side. There wasn’t. It stretched on forever. He looked to right to check that side but his eyes caught on a figure sitting on the edge. Fire red hair. It was… Andrew wracked his brain for an answer. “Neil…” Andrew whispered the first word he’s said in probably years.

The man, Neil, turned and smiled. He was older, but not by much. His hair was different, longer on top, shorter on the sides. Curly. His clothes were still strange. Weirdly fitted to his body and colored in strange ways with weird markings. He shouldn’t have been there. Did he not age also? But that wouldn’t explain how he disappeared all those hundreds of years ago, nor did it explain his sudden reappearance now.

“Hello Andrew. How old are you?” his voice was the same but without the tinge of pain.

“Tell me your age and the year if you know it…” echoed in Andrew’s head. He still didn’t really know what he meant by year and his age, well he lost track a while ago.

“I don’t know. Maybe 300 winters. Maybe more. It’s hard to keep track.”

Neil’s smile grew. Andrew’s eyes were drawn to the giant hole of emptiness behind him. Neil followed his gaze.

“Is this your first time seeing the Grand Canyon?”

“Do you know what chocolate is?”

“You’ve mentioned it once.”

“How many times have you met me?”

“This would be the second.”

“You mean you remember a conversation you had over 300 years ago?”

Andrew doesn’t answer. It’s obvious.

(Neil gives Andrew a chocolate bar. First bite: Andrew thinks it’s very sweet, like honey but not. Second bite: He liked it. Third bite: He was in love. Fourth Bite: It was gone.)

Stay on the edge until the sun sets and Andrew notices how the sun reflects on Neil’s eyes and how his hair is the color of the sky at sunset. The way Neil smiles makes him uncomfortable. But it’s not bad.

Idk stuff happens. Neil tells Andrew the story of the giant who dug a hole. The hole formed the Grand Canyon and the dirt from the hole formed the Rocky Mountains. Neil travels with Andrew as he crosses the Canyon [2-3 months]. When they’re across he disappears again.

“Do you know the story of how the Grand Canyon was made?” Neil paused for a second, his head tilted to the side in thought. “And the Rocky Mountains too I suppose.”

“Mountains?” Andrew asked.

“Ah, I don’t think there’s a word for it in your language. It’s, uh, a very large hill?”

Andrew nodded. Mountain. It sounded way better than referring to them as large hills. He nodded for Neil to tell the story.

“So,” he began. “You know the Sun and the Moon gods? They had three children together: Air, Water, and Land.”

Andrew and his Chocolate Adventure

(1353ish) Andrew is hanging out around the Mayan Empire. He’s treated well because the people low key think he’s a god(?) maybe because of his skin/hair/eyes. He fights in tournaments and he wins one and the award him with a drink. It’s chocolate drink and it’s disgusting by itself but to die for with a boat load of honey.

Word spreads that a being with hair of fire has been caught and will be sacrificed to the gods and Andrew’s like “hair of fire? Sounds familiar” and lo and behold it’s Neil (16) (Andrew still low key thinks he’s a god). Andrew breaks him out and they leave south/central america. Once they’re out (2-4 months), Neil leaves again.

A Bunch of Stuff Happens

(1580) Roanoke: Idk what happens here but Neil just turned 19.

(1692) Salem Witch Trials aka the case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time over the course of 70 years.

(1625) There's a little girl Gretta that helps her pa sell supplies to Andrew at the inn they run.

(1640) Gretta has married. Her and her husband decide to move the family to Salem to be closer to some distant relatives. On the way there Andrew runs into them on the road. Gretta thinks he looks familiar but does nothing about it.

(1692) Andrew wonders into Salem to pick up supplies and wow there’s some sort of riot going on. Gretta, an old lady now, sees Andrew and remembers him from earlier in her life and accuses him a witch since he hasn’t aged.

Neil’s (17) there at some point. And they both escape.

(1749) Idk what Andrew is doing but Neil (18) has a shoulder wound.

“Ouch! Stop it, it’s still tender!” “You still have that wound?” “For you it might have been 700 years but to me it’s been like a week. God Andrew.”

(1793) Andrew goes to visit his village again. It’s been about 100 years since his last visit. Finds nothing. He asks around and finds that the village was raided by a neighboring tribe with the help of the foreigners so they had guns while his people did not. This happened 10 years ago. His people were all dead, slaves to other tribes, or absorbed into other tribes.

The Horrors of Early Psychiatric Practices

(1856 Age: 849) Gets captured and put in an asylum.

He’s been living for so long, and his memory is very good. Blessing and a curse.

Had a place and people to call home (even if it wasn’t really anymore)

(1861) Neil (late 19) to the rescue!

The asylum would have been okay if it wasn’t the 19th century.

“Hey Andrew! It’s my turn to bust you out!” “Your turn?” “You’ll see.”

(Side effect of the drugs/immortality)

Becomes a little colder

Neil (19-20) goes on the run with Andrew for a few months so that he’ll be safe from the people looking for them for breaking out.

Some point they get together then Neil leaves again.

A 365 Days of Visits

(1862 - 2227) For 365 years, Neil (30-31) visits Andrew for one day before leaving.

Before Neil leaves they ask each other a question they have to answer the next time they see each other.

(I had a list of questions/answers written down somewhere but can’t find it)

Settle

Sometime in the future Neil (21) settles down and he and Andrew live in peace together for 60 years. When Neil is 30 he has to leave for a year because he lived in that year when he was younger and he can’t be in the same time period twice. Andrew spends that year tracking down the younger Neil (15-16).

The Break Out

Throughout Neil’s life he’s talked about being on the run and being captured at some point. Andrew makes it his goal to break him out. He knows the year and he’s finally figured out the place. So he waits.

It was weird seeing him so young and afraid when the last time he saw him alive and moving he was complaining about aching joints as he helped him into bed that night he died.

The Death of A.J. Minyard

(3000) Andrew gets cancer and dies in a hospital.

“Hey man, should you be out here?” Andrew didn’t give the man an answer. He was just so tired. “Well, okay, if you need anything just tell me. I need something to do while I wait for my sister.” Andrew remained quiet and the man took it as a sign to continue. “You see, she’s pregnant. And she went into labor and it’s already been 3 hours and i can’t believe she just kicked me out, her own brother. I’m the only one here to support her. I don’t see her good for nothing husband anywhere in sight. The trouble I go through for her, she should name her kid Stuart after me. See she’s naming him Nathaniel after the good for nothing dad. Nathaniel Abram Wenisnski. Stuart sounds way better. Don’t you agree? Hey are you okay? Nurse!”

The man said Nathaniel, but Andrew only heard Neil. Neil Abram Josten was born on that day and Andrew Joseph Minyard took the final breath of his very long life.

End Notes: There’s a lot of things that were still getting thought about: Like does Aaron exist? What about Exy? What about the rest of the Foxes? How do Neil and Andrew communicate? Etc. But well, didn’t happen.

I actually did a lot of preliminary research on the Native American tribe Andrew grew up in. (And of course Andrew’s name wasn’t Andrew when he’s born. It was gonna be Anyu and eventually evolve turn to Andrew).

#Andreil #aftg #andrew minyard #neil josten #time travel au #immortal au #scrapped fic idea #write junk #m

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shady-swan-jones · 4 years ago

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I love how tumblr is irrevocably #TeamJosh in the Younger debate.

Let’s manifest it

#younger tv #youngertv #sutton foster #nico tortorella #liza x josh #I’d be happy if she chose to remain single cause it’s a valid and empowering choice #still if they decide to follow the romance way as they’ve been doing for seven seasons there’s no connection as special as the one she #shares with josh #they make each other better #they thought they were from two different worlds but they have the same view and soul

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privateanxieties · 3 years ago

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this dance we always do

Summary: It’s Peter’s birthday, and she’s still holding out hope that this time, they’ll finally cross that line they’ve been dancing around forever. Their friends are in agreement, scheming and plotting. Peter doesn’t react well, so she takes matters into her own hands.

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader (she/her); friends to lovers, pining, extremely fluffy, romance, shit-talking, happy ending;

Words: 6.8K

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The perfect present, she decided long ago, would only be found by enlisting May's help. After an entire lifetime of gift giving between them, coming up with ways to impress Peter Parker was getting more difficult with every passing year.

Comfort items would no longer do, and neither would the nerdy stuff Peter was usually head over heels for, because he could get most of them himself now. The really expensive things… well, they were out of reach for both of them.

Instead of searching for presents this year, she'd go in search of ideas first, and the best stop for that would undoubtedly be May's house. She dropped by with a prior phone call one June afternoon and made sure to wring every last bit of information out of May - subtly, of course. Perhaps too subtly, even, because the woman seemed entirely confused as to why she wanted to talk about Peter's life when she'd known him for most of it.

She came clean over cookies and tea, and May was more than happy to help in unexpected ways. She recounted one of her failed attempts at getting Peter a gift for his 21st birthday that consisted of a long lost wrist watch that had belonged to Ben. Her beloved husband had received it as a gift himself - from Peter's father, when he turned 21. But Ben was also the kind of man who put family above all else, and who would've sacrificed anything for their comfort and security.

The watch had been exchanged for seven hundred and eighty dollars, which made the difference in whether they got evicted or not one year. May found out only when she confronted him about it, and had wanted to find a way to get it back for a long time.

It was not easy to find, and it wasn't easy to purchase either, but finally, on July 22nd, a day before Peter's birthday, she did find it.

Her rainy day fund would have to be rebuilt from scratch, but not buying that watch would have weighed much heavier on her conscience than the hole in her pocket now does.

It's beautiful, and so Peter it hurts. No wonder generations of Parker men have been called to it.

With a brown leather band and gold frame, the most captivating feature was its exposed automatic mechanism. If those little gems within were rubies, then perhaps the price was well worth it. Although, the inscription on the back was likely what would do the trick in impressing the recipient.

Forever family,

Richie and Ben

With May's blessing and a good amount of tears, she knew she had likely the best present she would ever give him. Tough to follow up this act for his next birthday, but she'd cross that bridge when she came to it.

For now, she had to also find an outfit for the party his friends were throwing for him, and buying one was certainly out of the question… until she saw that dress in a shop's display, and like all the clich��s, she just knew it was necessary.

She just didn't know how she would work up the courage to wear it, given that she hadn't worn one in years, probably since before college. Confidence of this sort only came in extremely limited quantities and always in short bursts, but whenever it did, it was tied to him.

She wanted to wear that dress for him, but if she were honest, it was for herself. Maybe his birthday - maybe this birthday… she'd finally say something. Maybe he'd say something.

Maybe, if she showed up looking like she stepped out of a picture book, he'd notice. Maybe they wouldn't keep dancing around each other.

At least, that's what she thought they kept doing, and she hoped it was an accurate perception for the sake of her sanity. Nothing more humiliating than reading into things that aren't there.

To her credit, receiving that much affection from him could have messed with her brain. She didn't know if it was normal, or if it was special. Peter was affectionate with everybody, especially those close to him, but he always seemed to linger with her.

Or indeed, she could have had her wires fried by all the forehead kisses.

Maybe it was the arrogance and pride of knowing she was the only one with whom he'd shared his secret. Maybe it was all the nights he spent at her apartment after being too tired to make it back to his. Maybe it was all the platonic intimacy that always crossed into murky territory.

She still didn't know whether they almost kissed that one time, or whether it was a hallucination of her very enthusiastic brain.

If she didn't find out where they stood tonight, she never would.

The dress almost made her regret not wearing one for so long, because it couldn't be real. She couldn't believe she actually felt good in it, and above all she couldn't believe she liked how she looked.

She'd put in all the effort that afternoon, and it was now paying off, even if she was already kind of exhausted from scrubbing, shaving and grooming every inch of her body.

She kind of understood now - why many women did this all the time, or even just occasionally. She was vibrating in anticipation, and the tiredness was fizzing away the closer the cab got to Harry's townhouse.

She figured she might as well go ahead and scrap the rest of her disposable income on a taxi, since she wasn't going to traverse Manhattan in a dress that ended just above her fingertips.

The party appeared to have already started, as she could hear it from down the street, and sure enough when the car stopped out front, she had some doubt as to whether she got the time right.

This is what happens when she doesn't have a hand in planning and logistics - the very first time in years that she didn't even know where the party would be until the day of.

She hoped Harry had it under control and that he didn't go out of his way to overwhelm Peter with everything he had organized, but upon closer inspection, there was little chance of him not having gone above and beyond.

As she paid for her ride, she wondered how many times the police would show up to ask them to keep it down during the course of the evening. If they would even show up.

Maybe it's not so bad having connections, but sometimes Harry took it just a step too far.

The townhouse was exquisite: a four-story limestone construction bathed in light and luxury, invoking an air of elegance reminiscent of 19th century architecture.

It was currently housing twenty-somethings that were either drunk or about to be. She didn't want to know what the damage might be by the end of the night, but for once, it was easy to shrug it off when her name wasn't on the insurance deposit.

It was almost 9 p.m., and she was starting to get a weird feeling in her stomach. The three or four people lingering outside for a smoke looked like they'd been there a while, but she didn't know any of them well enough to go ask. Her invite text said 8:30, and though she was a little late, she wasn't that late.

Making her way up the steps carefully, the door opened right in her face, startling her backwards and nearly off the last step, until an arm pulled her right into him.

There he was. The birthday boy.

Looking like a million dollars and smelling even better. Dark navy dress pants. A white button down dress shirt. Three scandalous buttons left open. Rolled up sleeves.

A pout that made her lips tingle.

Her knees felt gooey.

"There you are. I thought you weren't coming.", he said, and there was something about his tone that indicated he wasn't chastising her for being late. He was serious.

"Why wouldn't I come? My text said 8:30."

"The party started at 7."

Seven? Seven?? She was going to kill Harry.

"I need to have words with -

"I think I'll have words with him.", Peter interrupted, seeming like he was going to right at that moment. She pulled him back towards her with her free hand, and she knew that if she managed to get him to stop, it was because he let her.

"Later."

"Yeah. Ok, later.", he conceded.

There was a brief pause, and with a small smile, she reached into her handbag and retrieved the neatly wrapped present that she'd been transporting with the utmost care. She decided then to be brave.

Holding it out towards him, she leaned up on her toes and placed a soft kiss to his left cheek that she hoped didn't linger too much. He smelled intoxicating and his jaw was freshly shaven.

"Happy birthday", she said gently, looking into his eyes.

He didn't reply. He didn't say anything for long enough that she began to worry.

"Are you mad that - "

"You look beautiful."

Oh.

He looked so sincere that it made breathing just a little harder, and his eyes so intense that she couldn't look away.

"Thank you. You clean up pretty well too."

She wanted to tell him he looked good enough to eat, but customs dictated not to put the cart before the horse.

"New suit. Harry took me shopping."

"Oh, a new suit. What's wrong with the old one?", she jested.

He caught on quickly, a small chuckle leaving him.

"Inappropriate. Little tight in the wrong places. Which is to say everywhere."

Laughing together, she remembered the present he had yet to take from her and she held it out again. She was well used to this routine by now, of Peter pretending not to even see it, then avoiding the subject, then finally - sheepishly - accepting it.

Yes, there it was. The embarrassment for being celebrated.

"What is it?", he asked shyly.

"Be careful with it. It's… important.", she said instead of answering, shivering involuntarily when their hands brushed together.

"Guarding it with my life.", he promised.

"That's potentially ha-"

"There she is! Can't believe you made it. Now he can finally stop pouting and ruining the party!"

Harry. Just who she wanted to see. He approached from down the hall, or whatever one might call the expanse of space that led to the entrance. She was sure there was some special term for these residences.

Harry wound an arm around Peter's shoulder, the other holding a drink. He was dressed smartly also, and maybe she could go a little easier on him, given that he had a hand in the way Peter looked tonight.

"Yes, I can't believe I made it either. Any later and I would've come just to say goodbye. You wouldn't happen to know why my invite said 8:30, would you?"

Harry didn't even pretend to be ashamed.

"Ohh.. I think we forgot to send you the follow up. See, it was at 8:30 initially, but some stuff got mixed around and we settled on 7.", he explained, not remorseful in the slightest. Of course.

"And everyone got a follow up but me…", she inquired, eyebrows raised.

"Hey, I'll take it up with Clara if you want, but you're here now! Come on, we're gonna have a good time now that Mr. Parker doesn't have a cartoonish storm cloud above his head anymore."

"I don't have a -"

"Buddy, everyone's been asking if you're not feeling well or something."

She pretended she wasn't elated that Peter apparently valued her presence so much as to just not enjoy his party if she wasn't there. If what Harry was saying was even true. He had a reputation for teasing Peter every chance he got.

Guided by the host of the evening, they finally left the doorway and traversed further inside. From what she knew, Peter had been here before a few times, but it was a first for her.

Everywhere she looked, there were things she was afraid to touch, and she marveled silently at how relaxed the other guests were. She recognized some of Harry's friends, and dispersed around the space were her and Peter's common friends and a couple of their coworkers. However, most of the list seemed to be made up of strangers, but one look at them confirmed their status: New York socialites.

She supposed one had to fill the venue with an appropriate number of people to call it a party, otherwise most of their actual acquaintances would have fit in the living room.

It didn't take long at all for Harry to be called away to some other gathering, leaving them both with drinks and a promise to come back before they had to cut the cake. It was lying in the center of the kitchen island, a five-story monstrosity that was, in actuality, quite beautiful. She just didn't know where the wedding was.

She let a sound of admiration escape.

"Yeah… Couldn't talk him out of any of this.", Peter said, scrunching up his nose.

"It's alright. He loves you, and I think that's just how he shows it."

"I don't know that many people here.", he pointed out in return, looking around.

"Oh yeah, who all is here by the way? I saw Liam and Cindy on the way over. And Marcie too."

"Natalia, Georgie, Jordan, Kaya - uh… Sam and Ty and a couple others. But everyone else, I don't know. Feels a little weird accepting gifts from strangers."

A sly smile found its way to her lips.

"What, did Nicholas Augustus Devon III ask you if you went to Harvard or Yale?"

"He asked me which trust fund I'm managing, actually.", he chided.

"Was that before or after giving you his business card?"

"Fuck off."

Giggling like school children, they were again in their own little world, comfortable and safe even amidst strangers who spent more money in an afternoon than they'd ever see in their lives.

She noticed that both of Peter's hands were occupied, one holding her present and the other holding the crystal glass Harry served him his drink in.

"Do you wanna maybe put something down?", she asked quietly.

Peter shook his head.

"There's a table in the foyer stacked to the ceiling with boxes I'm afraid to open. I'm keeping this one close. Don't want it to fall over."

"Oh, the foyer…", she teased.

"Shut up.", Peter glared humorously.

She was glad Peter wanted to keep her gift on him, but there was just as much risk of the delicate watch inside tumbling to the floor as the night went along and people got piled with alcohol. Plus, it had to be uncomfortable to walk around with it, even if it was decidedly small.

"Maybe you should ope - "

"Look who decided to show up! Thought you were giving us the slip!"

They both rolled their eyes simultaneously, turning to greet their closest friend.

"Thought I'd show up later and not have to endure your presence for longer than necessary.", she deadpanned at the same time as she sank into Liam's hug.

"If we're gonna talk endurance, try being around this one for two hours of sulking.", he quipped right back, smirking at Peter.

"I wasn't sulking. I was - "

"About to cry?"

"Liam, I'm gonna mess you up."

"Uh oh. You gonna do me dirty in front of your girl? Watch out, she might ditch you for one of the civilized attendees."

It sucked. It sucked so badly, being referred to as Peter's girl when she knew she wasn't, but it was a fantasy she couldn't help indulge in as inconspicuously as possible. She didn't even berate Liam for it.

"Liam, Peter's the only one in this room that I would save in a fire.", she said in a monotone.

"Oh, sweetheart, I think you mean the only one in the city, don't you?", he mocked.

"On account of people with bodyguards being around, I won't hit you for that comment.", she responded.

"I think you could do anything you wanted with this one backing you up.", Liam continued, a positively devilish expression on his face as he jutted his chin at Peter.

"Alright, that's it. Break it up.", another voice intervened.

Thank goodness for better halves.

"Cindy - come collect your cro-magnon man before evolution wipes him out.", Peter said when the blonde woman was close enough.

"Nah, that's too slow. My hands work just fine.", she said pointedly, throwing her boyfriend a look.

"Yeah they do, baby."

Both her and Cindy sputtered, Peter shook his head with a huff, and Liam had a shit-eating grin on his face.

They continued on for a good while, laughing and catching up, having contests over who could guess what the food lined up around the room even was. Having said hello to their other friends and colleagues, she found herself in need of a new beverage and left the group to get one. At the very least, Harry listened to one request: no servers. That would've been really awkward for all who were not accustomed to this lifestyle.

She just about managed to pour herself a drink and make it back to them, when she was ambushed.

It's fine. Be sociable. Be nice. If he's a dick, tell him to fuck off.

"Hi there. I'm Nicholas."

She almost burst into laughter, having to choke it back at the last second. She hoped she didn't sound too much like a strangled cat.

Offering him her name in turn, she would've gone for a hand shake - but she was ambushed again, and her hand intercepted for a kiss.

That was new. Not a bad new, but somewhat unsettling in a way. She didn't know how to interact with these people.

"Are you a friend of Harry's?", he asked.

"Only since we were sixteen.", she answered honestly. She did consider herself a friend of Harry's, but she wasn't extremely sure of the reverse. They didn't really hang out that much, but they knew enough about each other to warrant closeness.

"Ah, so not that long ago."

She was twenty-five. Hm. Smooth, even if uncalled for.

It turned out, the guy wasn't really that unpleasant after all, and the longer she talked to him, the more comfortable she felt being honest. She wasn't reading any judgment on his face, or perhaps he was very good at hiding it, because there was no way he hadn't yet decoded that they were not of the same socioeconomic status.

Her dress, though expensive for her, could not be traded for even a sleeve of his shirt, she was sure.

Before they could move on to anything more than superficial small talk, however, he got called away by one of his friends, and he made his way upstairs, but not before leaving her with another kiss on the back of her hand and a 'pleasure to meet you'.

It must've showed on her face - the surprise - because her own friends were extremely quick to call her out for it. Apparently, they had seen some of the interaction.

Liam was a menace, and with his accomplice Sam by his side, they really did their best to make it seem like she was destined for the good life. Except for Peter, who looked like there was a math problem in front of him that he couldn't solve.

"All I'm saying is this: you drive him crazy, marry him - no prenup - and then you eat him black widow style.", Sam explained to her, having to be immediately shushed by everyone else.

But then everyone got quiet themselves, because Peter chose that moment to interject, when previously he'd been quiet.

"Black widows don't always eat their partners."

Crickets.

Oh, Peter.

"Huh?", Sam asked.

"I'm just saying. Black widows don't always devour their partners. And even when they do, their partners actually offer themselves up. Like, literally. They want to be devoured."

"And why do you reckon they do that?", Liam asked, arms crossed.

She could read the mischief on him a mile away. No -

"Well maybe because that's it for them. They don't want anyone else. They're happy with just the one.", Peter said.

More crickets, but also, a flutter.

Of her heart, specifically. She wasn't sure what to make of his little spider lecture, and she would have found it funny - in an inside joke sort of way - if she wasn't desperately trying to decode what the hell it meant.

If it even meant anything. She hoped it meant something. Why was he being so weird all of a sudden?

"Well, my advice is, if they're happy with just the one, they first need to get the one. And then they can die in peace. Or you know, pieces.", Liam broke the tension.

Various eye rolls followed his comment, and she took the opportunity to pull Peter aside under the guise of showing him something.

Finding a quiet corner of the giant residence was not difficult, but it did require a trip upstairs, as downstairs was just too swarmed. Once inside a quiet room lined with bookshelves, likely a library by the looks of it, she let go of his hand and turned to face him.

"You okay?", she asked.

He shook his head in confusion.

"Why wouldn't I be? I thought you wanted to show me something, but I know you've never been here before."

"So why did you come with me?"

"Because you asked me to."

"What was that little anecdote of yours about?"

"What anecdote?"

"With the spiders."

"That wasn't an anecdote."

"Oh, no?"

"No! Do you want to show me something or not?"

Well, that was a bit harsh, and it probably showed, because she looked away, trying not to tear up. She couldn't believe she brought him up there like an idiot, thinking he might - what? Confess? Yeah, fat chance.

God, you're so stupid.

"Um… no, I don't.", she said, doing her best to keep the emotion out of her voice. She didn't look at Peter to see his.

"Then why did you bring me up here?"

Unable to answer, she took half a breath and just walked past him, opening the door and leaving the room, though she didn't make it far before she bumped into someone.

"Whoa, hey - Oh. Hello again."

"Nicholas - hey…"

Maybe he'd be a good distraction, but with the sound of Peter huffing behind her and then, quite simply, walking past them without another word, that wasn't looking so likely. She wasn't sure where exactly the night went wrong, but she was cursing her decision to bring him up there. Maybe she just weirded him out for no reason.

At first, it was hard to focus on what Nicholas was saying, but when Harry made another appearance, things went a little more smoothly. One really nice thing about wealthy New York socialites was that you didn't have to struggle to fill the space with words - they did that just fine.

She was listening to one of Harry's "never-before-heard" stories on the 2nd story outside patio when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Liam didn't even wait before pulling her aside by her wrist, over to a corner of the beautiful interior garden.

"Think you might wanna come back any time soon?"

"Oh, what - you miss me?"

"About as far as I can throw you. It's not for me. It's for the birthday boy."

She looked away.

"I don't think he's very interested in my company."

Liam scoffed.

"He's barely mumbled two words the past hour. I don't know where you two went or what you did but -"

"We didn't do anything.", she scowled.

"Well, that's probably the problem."

"Excuse me?"

"You're not excused. You're making this way more miserable and drawn out than it has to be. Look: it's clear that he's too chicken to say anything, and I've lived with this long enough. I'm drowning in guilt, positively devastated, etcetera."

He took a break, sighing and pursing his lips.

"He's in love with you. He is wilting, downstairs, because he thinks you're sweet on a guy who could buy his life with spare change. And I'm sorry, but one of you is going to have to take the high road and 'fess up, because the alternative is Spider-Man moping for a week and getting hit by a truck. He's done it before."

She didn't even realize she was shushing him until her hand was over his mouth.

"Liam, what the fuck? What are you talking about?"

He pushed her hand off with an eye roll, but he didn't let go.

"You're really gonna act like you don't know? Damn, I bet you two thought you were being real sneaky, huh? I live with him. Of course I know. And I know you know, because you're so focused on protecting him, I don't even think you heard the first thing I said."

She did. She did hear what he said, but - yes. Liam was right. Protecting him took precedence, and it was almost an instinct at this point.

She was quiet for a long time before she managed to gather her words.

"He's been hit by a truck?", she asked quietly.

"Pff, yeah. He didn't tell me, but I saw it on TV. Later that night he comes home and tells me you went on a date, and I already had my suspicions, but that really sealed the deal. I honestly think the truck hurt less.", Liam recalled.

"Liam…", she whined sadly.

"You don't believe me? Look me in the eye and tell me you two haven't been playing this game for years. Everybody in our friend group knows. Everybody. Not the Spider-Man stuff, just about you two. I mean, I told Cindy, but -"

"Liam!"

"She's my girl, what do you want?", he defended.

Fucking hell.

"Oh my God, he's gonna freak out…", she muttered.

"Not if you give him something else to chew on."

"You're disgusting."

"I meant, information. Just tell him you love him. Make him happy. Come on, it's his birthday! What better gift can you get?"

She had an idea.

If she got over the shock of Liam's news, she could access her brain power in order to execute it.

Motioning for him to follow her, they left the garden without being intercepted and headed downstairs, but before they descended the last flight, she stopped.

"Ok. Is Peter still holding on to a little brown box?"

"Yeah. We’ve been asking what that thing is all night."

"It's my gift for him. I need you to get it from him."

"You want me to tackle Spider-Man? He won't just give it up.", he mocked.

"I want you to be discreet. Use your mind, not your muscle. You'll go downstairs, ask Peter for help because you just knocked something over and you can't lift it back up by yourself. You'll tell him to leave the box with Cindy and then I'll go get it from her. And when he asks, tell him she's outside. I got the rest."

Liam stared.

"Do you do this often?"

"I have to create diversions for him sometimes. So he can change into his suit."

"You two are just -"

"Alright, go. I'll wait up here, otherwise he's gonna hear me coming."

"What?"

She looked at him, confused.

"What?", she asked.

"He's - he can hear you coming?"

"Liam, he has super hearing. I'm honestly not sure if he hasn't heard us talking."

"..."

It took only a second to work it out.

"He's heard a lot worse than you and Cindy getting it on, I'm sure."

"I'm sure he's about to."

With another glare, she sent him downstairs and took care to hide inside an empty room and not make any noise. It took several minutes, but she soon heard Liam leading Peter upstairs, telling him how he messed up and couldn’t afford to go into debt for an ugly sculpture. Laying it on a little thick there, but it was getting the job done. Once she was sure the coast cleared, she exited the room and made her way downstairs, quickly locating Cindy and explaining the situation briefly. The blonde wished her good luck with a wicked smile, and thus she collected her jacket and the present and left the townhouse, thankful for the summer breeze and the silence.

She had maybe a few minutes to pull herself together and stop being a coward, but there were pins and needles in her arms and legs. She was going by what Liam had said, and even though she wanted to believe him, there was still a part of her that doubted and that didn't want to ruin a good thing.

Deep breaths.

This was Peter. A lifelong friend she couldn't help but love with everything she had, and if, for some reason, they wouldn't get together, then… they'd continue to be in each other's lives.

And sure, the rejection would sting, perhaps even singe - but she'd never give him up for the sake of not having to long for a romantic connection. She missed him terribly when he went away for a week's vacation; she'd never be able to distance herself from him for something so trivial as not having her feelings returned.

Deep in thought and further down the street as she was, she didn't hear the door open, so she startled and nearly dropped his gift when she heard him.

"Alright, you got me."

Turning around with a hand on her chest, she looked to see a sour expression.

"I'm not sure what that was for, or why you wanted to get me out here, but I'm here.”

With a quick plea to the universe, she bit her lip to wake herself up a little. This was it.

"I wanted to give you your gift.", she said slowly and softly, already tired of the tension between them.

Peter huffed through his nose, looking away.

"You took it back through some scheme so you can hand it over again?"

"No, I took it back to see if you'd go get it.", she said pointedly.

Peter looked back at her none too gently.

"What is this? What's with you tonight?"

He sounded hurt, and it solidified in her mind the desire to just get it over with.

"Nothing. I came here to celebrate my favorite person. I'm not sure where things went wrong, but I don't even care. I'm tired. It's exhausting, knowing you're upset with me. It's even worse knowing it's on your birthday, but I think I know how to make it right."

Closing most of the distance between them, she stopped a couple of feet away.

A fancy street in the summertime, wearing a dress for the first time in years just for him, holding a watch that cost the same as her rent… and yet, there was nothing she wanted to give him more than,

"Peter, I love you. I'm in love with you. This isn't how I wanted to say it, and honestly, I think I was so in love with the idea that you might say it that I never thought I could just… do it myself, if only to find out, finally…"

She felt out of breath, looking away. The rustling of leaves and the faint murmur from the house were the only sounds on the dimly-lit street. You'd have thought there'd be better lighting on the Upper East Side.

A small breath in attracted her attention, pulling her eyes back to him. What she found brought swift tears.

"I thought… that when I finally said it… I'd be sweeping you off your feet or something. I thought of a million ways to say it, but I didn't think I'd be yelling at you right before it."

"You didn't yell.", she corrected, voice shaky.

"I was mean."

"You were a little mean. But it's ok."

"It's not ok.", he shook his head.

"You can make it ok by not keeping me in suspense. I feel like my brain is melting.", she pleaded.

He made it to her in one step. His eyes seemed to be drinking her in, running over every inch of her face as he brought a hand up to the side of her neck. She forced her eyes to stay open.

"I've never seen this dress before.", was what he said - softly, as if he were telling her a secret.

"You haven't seen any dress.", she pointed out just as softly.

"Not recently, no. But I have an imagination."

Her breath got caught again, and that feeling in her chest expanded to just about everywhere. Such ease, the one with which he was reducing her to a shallow little puddle. She'd evaporate under the smallest hint of sunlight.

Her eyes fell closed momentarily when he brought his forehead to hers and she could breathe him in. It was just…him. Just Peter.

"Sweetheart… look at me."

So tender. So reverent. She thought she was dreaming, but his eyes were sparkling so brightly.

"Why have we danced around this for so long?"

"I don't know.", she whispered.

"Can't believe we got through college like this. Look at us."

She matched his watery smile and held back a sniffle.

"I'm actively losing brain cells here. Is that what you want?", she asked.

"I'm thinking. I don't know what to do first. I'm having a really hard time not kissing you."

The whimper couldn't be held back.

"You can do whatever you want.", she admitted, knowing just how true it was.

Peter shook his head lightly, brushing his nose against hers.

"Don't say stuff like that. It's gonna go to my head."

His breath on her lips was making her dizzy.

"Peter, please…"

"Don't say that either. That's worse. You know how that's worse, don't you?", he mumbled. He was so, so close.

Her heart felt like it would explode from his touch, his words, his scent. She'd crumble if he didn't -

"I love you. I'm in love with you.", he repeated back to her, lips nearly touching. She gasped against them when they did.

She supposed there was no time to waste on little pecks and tentative kisses after all the years they've dreamt about this, and she gladly welcomed the way his mouth devoured hers. With a mind erased and limbs going slack, it was hard to keep up, and she didn't even notice when her hold on the small box began to slip. She gasped again when she felt it drop from her hand, and even Peter's reflexes couldn't catch it, occupied as they were.

"No!"

Quickly parting from him, she bent down to get it, feeling like she was going to cry.

"Hey, it's ok. Whatever's in there, I'm sure it's fine. Why are you crying?", he asked, hands finding her face and wiping a small tear away.

"Because it's important.", she sniffled, looking the box over.

"Can't be more important than what we just did.", he added.

Looking at him, she saw just how sincere he was, eyes wide and a little glazed over. She fell in love again just from that.

"It's still pretty important. And I really think you should open it now."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Holding it out to him again, he accepted it, but not before stealing another kiss and mumbling a 'thank you' when he parted. Carefully pulling apart the elegant wrapping and handing it to her, an unassuming brown leather box was revealed, but to Peter it stirred memories.

"What is…", he muttered, lifting the lid from the middle.

His tiny gasp was adorable. She was also happy the watch was intact.

She studied his face carefully, growing more emotional by the second as she saw how his brows pulled together and his bottom lip moved without making a sound.

"Ben… Ben had one just like this. It's really beautiful. ", he said raggedly. She couldn't help smiling.

"I think you should look a little closer."

At her indication, Peter removed the watch from its cushion with care, giving her the box when she held out her hand. Looking it over, he wasn't sure what he was supposed to see, until he saw it.

Forever family,

Richie and Ben

"This is… I thought this was lost.", he whispered, eyes misty and wide, looking right at her.

"It was. I've been looking for it since June.", she replied gently.

"May told me he sold it at a pawn shop when the recession hit.", he continued, hands grasping at the watch delicately.

"Yeah, she told me that too. That's how I found it."

"Sweetheart, this must've cost a fortune. It's a vintage watch. I know it's expensive, because Ben only wore it a few times. How did you get this?"

She chuckled lightly.

"Is Spider-Man going to arrest me if I say I harassed the guy until he sold it to me? It wasn't technically up for sale."

"Can't believe it. My girlfriend is a criminal."

"Oh, your girlfriend is?"

His stammer was delightful, as were his cheeks - dusted pink the longer the question remained unanswered. It was clear he hadn't meant to let the title slip. She'd let him off easy… this one time.

"Well, as long as my boyfriend looks the other way when I commit crimes, I think I'll be ok."

The smile that lit up his face was worth the stars in the sky.

"You could take down New York, nobody could stop you."

"Yeah?"

He nodded, coming closer and taking the box from her, carefully handing her the watch and his left arm. It was hard not to melt at what he wanted her to do. With as much care as possible, she wrapped the band around his wrist, checking with him that it was properly fit before doing up the buckle. The watch fell right over the small marks left by his web shooters after years of wearing them, and there was a metaphor somewhere in there, but she couldn't find it.

"There you go", she mumbled.

"Thank you, baby."

She barely had time to register the pet name before he was kissing her again and taking her breath away with the intensity. It would take some getting used to, this unbridled show of affection that she's dreamt of for years, but they had years more ahead of them and a lot to make up for.

She was quickly learning that Peter, despite not being very practiced - at least from what she knew - was an excellent kisser, as well as a little more ignorant of basic needs like breathing than the average person.

She was almost panting when she found it in herself to pull away, while he was barely breathing a bit harder.

"What? D'you forget you were kissing a superhero for a second there?", he teased.

Glaring was less effective when one was trying to catch their breath.

"A cocky superhero, apparently."

The wrong thing to say.

"Baby, I'll show you - "

"Ey!"

She didn't even realize what happened when she found herself pushed behind him, covered almost entirely by his body - and then he relaxed just as quickly, moving back.

It was Liam, coming towards them with the world's worst smirk.

"Whoa, nice moves. Afraid someone's gonna steal your girl, Spider-Man?"

She balked. Peter was in shock.

"Liam!", she chastised, looking around the empty street.

Peter turned to her, eyes wide.

"You told him?!"

"Hey! Have a little faith - she didn't tell me anything. Do you really think you can just sneak out every night and I'm not gonna notice?"

"Seriously, Liam?"

"What? I thought we were confessing tonight. Did you kiss and make up?"

They sighed simultaneously, but had to confirm.

"Nice. So listen: when you get married, I expect my contribution tonight to be recognized."

"Your what? His what?", Peter asked, looking between them.

She shook her head in disbelief.

"Liam…"

"And I don't care what Osborn says - he didn't accomplish anything. It was still me, alright?"

"Explain?", Peter asked, at his wits' end.

"He didn't know where you were, so he asked me, because he thought he fucked up. That guy that was all over you? Osborn put him up to it. And he said something about making sure you were late, but fuck if I know why."

Neither her nor Peter said anything for a while.

Apparently, their friends were adamant that they quit their nonsense and just get together, and if even Harry - normally reserved, withdrawn Harry - was willing to get involved, that was enough to let them know they really waited a long time.

And though Liam was very happy taking all the credit, every one of their friends was delighted to explain their contribution at length when they went back inside, hand in hand.

The night continued in a different tempo, with intimate looks and tender moments, and enough teasing from everyone to last a lifetime, the cherry on top coming from Liam, as expected.

"Promise you won't wait another ten years to get married, yeah?"

Peter shoved his face in the cake later that night.

- fin -

A/N: Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always appreciated and cherished. I’d love constructive criticism from readers and welcome that also. Wishing you a great week ahead :)

#peter parker x reader #tasm!peter x you #tasm!peter fluff #tasm!spiderman x reader #tasm!peter x reader #peter parker x you #peter parker imagine #fanfiction #spiderman x you #fluff #romance #andrew garfield!peter parker x reader #andrew garfield!spiderman x reader #andrew!peter x reader

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urimaginespimp · 4 years ago

Text

How You Get The Girl (This Love Final Part)

Bucky x Reader (elemental witch)

Set on TFATWS last episode

Note: Thank you to everyone that's tuned in, gave feedbacks, and liked/reblogged. I had to so much fun writing these! After this I’ll be working on oneshots completely unrelated to this story of several prompts.

We got a new Cap!

Previous Part: Untouchable

Marvel Masterlist

--------

“I’m serious, Shuri. I am over him.” you groaned as Shuri won’t wipe off the smug, disbelieving look on her face.

“Sure, Jan.” She replied getting up to continue on what’s she’s working on.

“Hey, I know that reference!”

“I’m just saying... Seven years of pinning over the guy – which five of it was when he was practically dead, by the way – and you’re telling me it took one confrontation for you to get over him.” She shrugged.

Some of the Dora Milaje were also in the lab, and you haven’t been vocal about it, but you didn’t miss the knowing looks they’ve been exchanging every time Bucky was brought in the conversation.

“Well, it would really be nice if you’re being supportive right now.” you sulked in your seat. Yeah, who were you kidding. Maybe you’re not completely, completely over him, but now you’re sorting to the fake it ‘til you make it method and so far, you’re doing well.

“Okay, fine. Want me to set you up with someone? My brother has some contacts around the world and I think with some buttering up he’d consider setting you up to bachelor royalties.” She wiggled her brows at you.

“May I suggest the Prince of Brunei? The internet says he’s looking for a wife.” One of the ladies snickered, making the others hum in approval.

“T’Challa knows him?” this piqued your interest. “He’s pretty hot.”

“Well make up your mind. It’ll take me a few business days of persuading my brother.” She raised her brows at you.

“It wouldn’t hurt to start dating. I’ll think about it first.” you muttered, missing how Shuri winked at the other ladies in the room. Ayo had told her in private about Bucky’s little confession to Zemo, and the princess has a few tricks up her sleeve to speed up the matchmaking process.

“I’m only staying for a few days more. It’s been a few weeks and Val’s been complaining from lack of sleep.” She’s been taking over your nightly escapades, and it’s starting to irritate her to be surrounded with so much booze but not being able to indulge.

Just then, Okoye enters the lab. “Check the news. There’s a live coverage of a hostage in New York. Sam and White Wolf are on it.”

--------

Bucky was looking over proudly as Sam was talking to the Senator.

Seeing Sam now walking over to him, he straightened up and cleared his throat. “Sorry, I uh was texting and all I heard was um a black guy in stars and stripes.”

They both chuckled, now walking side by side. “Nice job, Cap.”

“Thanks.”

--------

He’s done it. He told Yori the truth. Though now that might have been the end of their friendship, he knew the old man deserves the closure for his son.

Now back in his apartment, he took the notebook Steve once owned from his pocket, and opened it to the page where his list is. Looking over it, he saw that the only name left uncrossed is yours.

Just then, his phone pinged twice. One message was from Sam, and the other one from Shuri.

Sam’s read:

I wasn’t kidding when I told you

back on the boat that I’d get the

younger ones here to give you a

crash course on romance.

Check your email.

He rolled his eyes and opened the one from Shuri.

Y/N’s explained everything to us.

We saw you save those people,

White Wolf. Wakand is proud of you.

Brother says you’re welcome to

visit anytime. Take care!

p.s.

It’s good to know Y/N and you are

are on good terms. It finally allowed me

to set her up with one of the princes

mother’s been pestering me about. One less

off of mother’s list for me.

“Damn it, Shuri.” he groaned, reading the last part over and over again. He had to move fast. Heading over to his email, he opened the one from Sam.

The subject says:

21st century romance for reformed dummies.

There was an attached 60-second video. Clicking on it, he chuckled when Sam’s voice started booming behind the camera, where it showed two young girls and one boy, all around below 10 years of age.

“Okay, I gathered you here today because a cyborg friend of mine is need of help. I already filled you in the details necessary earlier, and all you have to do now is give him quick tips. Remember, talk slow.”

The boy on the middle spoke up. “Is she an avenger?”

“Not important, but yes. It’s the one with similar powers to an avatar.” Sam answered, followed by the two girls saying they know which one, and the boy to mutter ‘damn it I always had a crush on her...’

“Okay the first step would obviously be to say sorry.” the girl on the right said directly to the camera.

“Oh! Extra points if you do it standing like a ghost outside her door and it’s about to rain.” the other girl from the left perked up.

“I said he’s a cyborg, not a weatherman.” Sam commented, still behind the camera.

“Say you were afraid to tell her what you want.” the first girl spoke again.

“Six months is a long time to be afraid, man.” the boy in the middle spoke up this time.

“Try years.” Sam muttered.

“Then you say you want her for worse or for better!” The cheery girl exclaimed once again.

“You’ve been playing too many fake weddings, but yes, that could work.” Sam told her, making her beam, showing a missing tooth.

“Tell her you could wait forever and ever.” the boy added.

“I mean he’s already old enough to be your great grandpa but go on I guess.” Sam was snickering, causing the camera to slightly shake.

“Remind her of how it used to be. That is if he was good to her.” the more mature girl was pointing out. “Saying you’ll put her heart back together could also work.” she smiled, and the other one fake swooned on where she was standing.

“She’s right!” she exclaimed, while boy nods and says “that’s how it works.” at the same time.

Now turning the camera, Sam was now in frame.

“And that’s how you get the girl, Barnes. Straight from the local’s experts. Don’t fuck it up.”

And three voices scolded him for saying a bad word as the clip ends.

--------

It didn’t take long for him to take a flight straight to Norway where New Asgard was. This time without the aid of Zemo’s jet, he had to find the means to travel from the airport, while trying to calm his nerves.

As if the universe was on his side, a couple claiming to be heading back to Asgard allowed him to hitch a ride with them.

Now on the backseat, he tried to make small talk.

“So, uh, how are you guys settling in the planet?” he asked.

The lady on the passenger seat turned to face him with a smile. “It wasn’t easy, really. But the princess went out of her way to educate us about life here on Midgard. She’s so good at it, you’d forget she hasn’t even been living here a decade.”

He smiled. They claim you as their princess despite only being adopted by Thor. He recalls how you once rambled about being scared that they’d be indifferent towards you once Thor brings you to Asgard, one of the reasons you’ve been making up excuses to go with him.

“Why, would you look at that. We’re just in time before it starts raining.” The man driving commented.

Peeking through the window, sure enough, the sky was getting darker.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” he muttered. He might just take the little girl’s advice after all.

After getting out of the couple’s car, he ran straight to where he remembers your home was, just in time when Val just got out of your house.

“Hi. I don’t think we’ve formally met. I’m Bucky.” He greeted extending his ahand to her which she took. A skeptical look on her face.

“Call me Val. I’m sorry what are you doing here?”

“I need to speak to Y/N, please.” He answered truthfully.

“Well it’s about night time so she’s getting dolled up.” She answered

“I know, I know, it’s for her date. But that’s why I’m here.”

Val raised a brow, confused about what date he was getting all bummed about when you were only getting ready to go back to looking out for people out and about at night. But then it dawned to her that maybe this was some of your friend’s doing.

“Y-yes... the date.” She decided to play along, holding back a smirk. Just then, rain started slowly pouring, along with thunder. “Well shit, I have to help some folks get their kids back inside their homes now. You’re free to knock on her door.” She excused herself.

His own clothes were starting to get drenched when he finally knocked on your door.

No answer. He knocked again, louder this time. Now footsteps were heard coming to the door, and the knob turned as you opened it.

“Damn it, Val, the door’s not even lo-” You stopped talking, surprised at the figure that greeted you.

“Bucky... are you insane? Don’t just stand there, come in it’s raining hard.” he urged him to get in and closed the door behind you.

Facing each other, he was taking you in. Val wasn’t lying when she said you were getting ready for your date. He can’t believe he was already getting jealous of a faceless punk.

“So uh... what brings you here?” You decided to break the ice, fidgeting where you stood, still barefoot as it looked like you were gonna have to stay at home if it was going to rain this hard all night.

“Don’t go on the date.” he pleaded, confusing you.

“What?”

“Please don’t go on the date.” He repeated, now walking towards you.

There is no date, but now you were wondering why he’s telling you not to.

“Why?”

“I love you.” he answered without missing a beat, now stepping closer to you. Instead of the reaction he was hoping for, you scoffed and took a step back.

“Don’t pull a Laurie on me.” you replied, a frown etched on your face. He was confused.

“A Laurie?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen enough adaptations of Little Women to know that you’re pulling a Laurie on me.” You spat as a matter of fact. “You’re being really mean, stop it.” you crossed your arms in front of your chest.

“What? I- I haven’t even thought of that reference!” he defends himself, cheeks reddening from embarrassment. “Amy was gonna get married, Y/N.”

“Oh then by all means, feel free to come back just after he proposes.”

“W- We’re getting sidetracked here, doll. I came here hoping there still an ounce of you that loves me. Please don’t tell me you’ve completely moved on from me.”

“What, like it’s hard?” you replied. It surprised you when his brows shot up from recognition of that line.

“Now you’re pulling an Elle Woods on me!” he pointed at you in an accusatory manner.

“Don’t point that finger at me, Barnes. How was I even supposed to know you’ve seen that movie?” you rolled your eyes, walking past him.

“I watched all the movies you told me about back in Wakanda.” he spoke up, making you stop in your tracks to face him again.

“Yeah, that’s right. I watched every movie, I listened to every song, read every book you recommended, and visited every internet site you once said I might like. I was always listening even when I made it seem like I wasn’t.”

You stared at him for a second looking for any indication that he was lying. Recovering from the mild shock, you pursed your lips. “I hope you know the Porn site was a joke. Sam did it to Steve once and I just thought it was hilarious.”

His mouth twitched. Walking over to you once more he stopped when he was only a step away, not breaking eye contact.

“I’m really sorry, Doll. I know it’s bold of me to even ask you, but please give me the chance to make it up to you. And I don’t care if it’s me that has to wait for you this time. Take all the time you need, just please don’t go on that date.”

“Bucky, there was never a date. I have no idea what date you were referring this entire time.” you confessed, making him bring his hands to his face and groan, muttering Damn it, Shuri.

Hearing Shuri’s name, you put two and two together. “Is this about Shuri trying to set me up with a prince?” he nodded as answer. “Well, I did tell her I was gonna think about it.”

He removed his hands away from his face. “Please say no.” He whispered. “I’d tell you what the kids told me what to say if I have to.”

“What kids?”

“Sam got a bunch of kids on video to teach me how to win you back. I’ve already stood under the rain outside your door just like what one of the girls suggested.” Judging from the grin on your face, he was now regretting even mentioning them.

“Well go on, then.” you urged. “Let me see how much you’ve learned.”

“The first time I saw you at the airport, I got so distracted looking at you just casually sitting on top if the ramps while we were preparing to fight. That wink you sent me that day is still engraved in my mind by the way. Then I was so taken back when you bluntly told me you’re attracted to me. I-”

“I don’t think the kids taught you to remind me of my attempts to flirt with you.” You cut him off, embarrassed at the memory. He chuckled at your expression.

“Okay, okay.” he took a deep breath.

“I think I started catching feelings for you the moment they woke me up from my cryosleep and you were there to be the first one to welcome me back. I didn’t think you were still gonna be there like you told me. But you were there, beaming at me like a ray of sunshine. All my years under HYDRA, every time I was woken up, I was only ever treated as an asset. But you welcomed me like I was a friend.” his eyes were starting to get glassy with tears, as he tried not to choke up.

“And then every time you were near, or even when I’d get a whiff of your perfume, I’d start feeling all warm inside and my entire body would be at ease, knowing you were an arm's reach from me. You were the last one I saw as I disintegrated from the blip, and you were the first one I sought out the moment we came back.” he was surprised when you reached forward to wipe away a tear he didn’t even realize had run down his cheek.

“I lied when I said I made a mistake kissing you. It was the first thing I wanted to do the moment I saw you again. But something inside me was always telling me that all I could ever be is someone grateful for your kindness. That it was impossible for the universe to even grant me someone like you after everything I’ve done." He let out a breath before continuing.

"But it was also you, Steve, Sam, and heck – even Zemo– that made me realize that I am worthy of a chance. And I’m sorry it had to take you telling me you were moving on, to have the courage to accept and take the chance that has been long offered to me by the world." He took your hand and gave the back of it a small kiss.

"I love you, Y/N.” Now it was him that had to wipe away your tears away. “Please don’t cry, doll. That wasn’t-”

“Just fucking kiss me already, James.” you laughed, in between sniffles.

He grinned down before you. “You’re my angel with a potty mouth, and I love you.” he whispered, leaning down.

“I love you too."

---------

You and Bucky were out with the Wilsons on their community's afternoon barbeque.

Sarah and you got along with ease, and she was telling you all about their old family business when Bucky hugged you from behind.

"Sorry to interrup, ladies, but I have to show you something Y/N." he said, kissing your cheek.

"Ew, man. I still can't believe your old ass has a girlfriend." Sam commented beside Sarah who was laughing

"You do know I'm older than him, right?" you chuckled.

"I know, but you don't look it." he replied, causing Bucky to flip him off.

Excusing yourself, both of you walked by the docs.

"What's up, old man?" you grinned at him.

"You know what, doll. Most couples would have endearing nicknames for each other."

"I'll call you something sweet once you tell me what that thing you call me when we're alone means."

"What, мое солнце?"

"Yeah, that one! Tell me or else I'll keep calling you ridiculous ones." you threatened, trying not to smile.

"Anyway, мое солнце, I just wanted to show you a text I got from Shuri."

I am yet to have any news that you

manned up and told Y/N you love her,

White Wolf. I was joking before, but now

I really might set her up on a date.

You both chuckled at Shuri's threat.

"I got this." you pulled your phone out of your pocket and dialled her number. You placed it on loud speaker once she picked up.

"Y/N! So nice of you to call."

"Hey, Shuri! Listen..." you feigned seriousness in your voice before releasing a deep breath. "I'm finally over Mr. Smokey eye. I think I'm ready to go on that date now." Bucky was playfully glaring at you for the nickname.

There was dead silence from the other side of the line for a second. "Oh! About that... uh turns out he already has a girlfriend. Planning to propose soon, I heard. Oops!"

"Well that's a bummer. How about the other bachelor royalties your family's friends with? I recently found an article with a list. I can send you one right now. Preferably ones that don't look much like blue-eyed grandpa." you grinned at him as he rolled his eyes. He knows what you were trying to get him to do.

"Uh... turns out my brother isn't that friendly after all." She let out an awkward laugh. "Hasn't Barnes contact you at all?" you could hear the frustration in her voice.

"Oh, that discount prophet, I haven-"

"It means my sun." He finally caved, rolling his eyes.

"What?" you asked him, immidiately forgetting that Shuri was still on.

"WHAT?" she screamed through the phone after a second.

"мое солнце means my sun." he grinned at you.

"Is that Barnes with you?! Hellooo?!!!"

"Talk to you later, princess." you turned off the call when she was about to protest. Facing him again, you stepped closer and put your arms around his shoulders, both of you sharing a grin.

"I love you, мое солнце."

"I love you too, minn stjarna."

"You gonna tell me what that means?"

"You wish."

fin.

--------

@eternalharry @iheartsebandchris @lizzarooni @the-ayo-lit @tanyaherondale @knowyourworth-sellyoursoul @eliwinchester-barnes @ebxny27 @just-a-littlebit-of-everything @fadingdreamersportsmaker @drama-queen-aa

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absolutebl · 4 years ago

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This Week in BL

May 2021 Wk 3

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs.

It’s a cray cray Friday when Vietnam gets its eng subs up before GMMTV Thailand. What alter-reality are we in? Well, the Vietnamese offerings are better right now anyway. (Oooo, feel that burn.)

Ongoing Series - Thai

Top Secret Together Ep 2 - pulping it up in the best possible way. Sure sound and production values are pants, and in classic Thai fashion the editing in post is exacerbating (rather than fixing) pacing issues, but it’s still CUTE AF. I don’t even mind the added university storyline, because they’ve got good chemistry (and a confident gay fresher after a panicked gay hazer is an old favorite... what can I say, SOTUS was my first love). We aren’t spending too much time with any one couple, so it’s weighted a lot better than Brothers was, but also character development is slow.

Siew Sum Noi Ep 2 - Unfortunately, it’s just too hard to find, plus no subs. I’m dropping it in the hopes it comes back on my radar some day.

Y-Destiny Ep 8 - (Thurs) It’s rough having a ghost boyfriend, half your friends are scared, the other half think you’re crazy, and kissing shortens your lifespan. This was a cute couple even if I wasn’t wild about the surrounding story.

Close Friend Ep 5: (Dear My Star/JimmyTommy) - about high school penpals. It had to rely entirely on voice over work as the actors only meet face to face at the end. It’s a good thing they are appealing screen presences on their own, with good vocal control. It’s hard to imagine any other BL pair carrying this kinda plot. It’s by far my favorite of the series so far, and I’m not even a big JimmyTommy fan.

Fish Upon The Sky Ep 7 - no subs. Do we care? Not really. Because we have...

Nitiman Ep 3 - currently my favorite out of Thailand. It’s the university Thai BL i’ve been waiting for since... when was the last good one? My Engineer? Yowza. Anyway we got: head on my shoulder, baby is a floppy drunk (but still wants to be in control), proximity alert, boyfriend’s closet, seme gets seriously jelly, and a cute twist on feeding him. There’s something fun and complex about Jin’s character. He’s not a panicked bi. He knows exactly what’s going on, he just hasn’t decided if he wants Bb or not. He clearly enjoys being looked after, the compliments, and the attention, but he’s not sure if he’s going to like what happens if he gives in. I like that twist on the usual tsundere uke archetype a lot, cautious rather than willfully obtuse or freaked out. We can see Jin realizing in stages: I like this person, I like that they like me, I like the romantic attentiveness. But in the background is... do I actually want to f*k him? It’s a dynamic we don’t often see on BL.

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

HIStory 4: Close To You (Taiwan) Ep 10 fin - the most ridiculous show using BLs worst tropes in a sort of weird smoothie of bitter greens and too ripe banana. The ending was the sappiest cheesiest thing ever, like cheese syrup tapped from the cheese tree. So of course I loved it, but I’m pretty sure I giggled through all the bits meant to be profound. Because, in the end, to tolerate this show at all, you just can’t take ANY of it seriously. RECOMMENDED (with some SERIOUS reservations and trigger warnings.) Full review here.

Be Loved in House: I Do (Taiwan) Ep 1-2 - I don’t mind a damaged seme character but this one is a bit weird for me. Like creepy Cheese in the Trap level weird. On the bright side, the story has given our tsundere uke good motivation for his angst and great existing friendships, loyalty, and likability. Plus I’m invested in the cafe owner/innocent puppy side dishes. So if it’s only the seme character I’m not jiving with, and he’s the most established actor, it should all turn out fine. I believe in you, Taiwanese BL.

Papa & Daddy (Taiwan) Ep 6 fin - speaking of belief. This such a good show but they gave us a cliffhanger ending. Now we must hope against hope for season two. That’s never guaranteed with Taiwan tho. So, I’m docking a few points and saying, RECOMMENDED so long as you realize it’s a cliffhanger.

Love is Science? (Taiwan) Ep 1-9 (BL subplot) - this is a good het romance, but the fact that the BL subplot is a beautifully acted disaster bi + confident gay means you’re hearing about it whether you want to or not. Plus they just added in some GL! Come on! I gotta support Taiwan normalizing queer to this extent. They are fighting the good fight and if I also have to watch a career lady and her much younger softest straight boi get it on, too? Twist my arm with that service sub subtext. Go on Taiwan, TWIST IT. It’s on Viki. Join the revolution. * Incidentally if you actually like the D/s het dynamic of this show, I highly recommend Japanese Kimi wa Petto - career woman keeps a hot young dancer boy as a pet. Oh yes, an actual pet, that IS the pitch. Never doubt Japan when kink is on the line. It’s also on Viki. Go get your kink on, thank me later. (If it helps: That was not a request.)

Most Peaceful Place 2 (Vietnam) Ep 2 (AKA 5) - love triangles aren’t my thing, but if you’re gonna do it short form, by all means bring in the lead’s other BL pairing so the chemistry is on point. Now I've no idea who I want him to end up with. Can’t they just be in a poly triad?

My Lascivious Boss (Vietnam) Ep 7 - I’m still enjoying it a lot. It’s still unabashedly queer and the tension is ramping up. We now have secret identity, blackmail, femme fatale, faen fatale, and incoming seme confrontation. Best of all, the series is still airing, which makes it longer than any other Vietnamese BL I’ve seen (aside from Tein Bromance - which is just too weird to count).

Gossip - Thai BL

SEVEN PROJECT TEASERS

No one is entirely sure what Studio Wabi Sabi’s Seven Project/7Project will entail.

It might be like Close Friend (1 episode per couple, no linking),

or Y-Destiny (2 episodes per couple, loosely linked),

or The En of Love (4 episodes per couple, linked but independent consecutive stories).

They’re giving the couple’s arcs separate titles. So each one would be what? Seven Project: Once Upon a Time or the like? We’re in Taiwanese title territory people and NO ONE WANTS TO GO THERE. Anygay...

Once Upon a Time is the BounPrem (og UWMA) anchor story, and seems to be the most dramatic and likely saddest. These two can handle most of what’s thrown at them at this juncture, so it should be good.

Vs Love is a BoomPeak (og Make it Right) university vehicle. Since I thought Boom was done with our nonsense, I couldn’t be more thrilled and surprised this pair is doing another show together. I don’t think either of them are the greatest actors but I find Peak very endearing and Boom charismatic on screen, so I’ll watch.

Would You be My Love is the hotly anticipated SantaEarth launch. They’re a (cultivated) IRL ship and Earth is an established BL actor. They have great chemistry and high energy so this could be lots of fun.

We are also getting a GL from this series from established BL actresses Samantha and Pineare. Nothing teased yet on that, but I’m looking forward to this installment the most. Also curious to see how the ladies handle the branding and promo side, not to mention the culture. (Thailand variety shows gonna force *girls* to play the Pepero game?)

Secret Crush on You upcoming Thai BL with no release date, co-produced by and featuring (but NOT staring) Saint and directed by Cheewin (sigh) with all fresh faces. (Previously known as Stalker the series.) It looks like pure pulp and I’m not wild about the plot but could be better than expected as it’s adapted from a novel. Cheewin is an okay director when he has an actual story to follow.

Don’t Say No the series. Coming from the producers of TharnType this is the JaFirst vehicle many have been waiting for. Friends to lovers + a good boy/bad boy pairing on a sports romance foundation. It’s basketball so they tapped Meen as well (he’s semi-pro). The bad news? You get one guess as to who is writing the darn thing? Yep it’s MAME. So, ya know, expect some slam dunk kidnapping, a light dribbling of rape, and me turning into a basketcase. AKA...

Will I have to live blog this series in order to survive it? That seems to be the only way I can. So probably. Which means the bad sports puns will continue. Look, if I’m suffering, SO ARE YOU!

Rumors of a new YinWar vehicle The Best Story (mini series) coming in July. Also rumors that their previously announced Love Mechanics (full length series) has either been delayed, is facing money issues, or is moving studios, or all three.

Breaking News

DELAYED (I’m talking these three off the watch list until we get new airing dates)

Love Area’s release was pushed out but it got a trailer.

Golden Blood was supposed to drop Weds but comments in MDL report that it is delayed due to C19.

Love’s Outlet (Taiwan) is supposed to have started a 50 episode run (only 3-5 min each, what utter nonsense). Sadly, this delay is due to a surge in cases in Taiwan which was doing so well, but also doesn’t have many inoculations.

Bad Buddy has started workshopping at GMMTV actual.

Kang Insoo’s BTS for Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding is SO FLIPPING CUTE. You have to watch it. Trust me, I don’t rec behind the scenes stuff often.

Next Week Looks Like This:

Some shows may be listed later than actual air date for International accessibility reasons.

Upcoming 2021 BL master post here.

Links to watch are provided when possible, ask in a comment if I missed something.

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sunbaekery · 3 years ago

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Coming Soon: Kiss and Tell

I’m super excited to introduce my newest Special — Kiss and Tell. It’s a project I’ve been thinking about for a while now and while I’ve only been writing drabbles or short oneshots, I really wanted to try my hand at writing longer stories. I don’t know how long each story will be and I don’t know how long this project will take, but I hope that you’ll support me on my writing journey.

These stories will be written in a 3rd person limited (members thoughts) with fem ocs.

Teaser(total): 0.8k

For centuries, kisses have been a way to express emotions, and whether it's a passionate liplock between lovers or a loving kiss from parent to child, each kiss has a story behind it. Kiss and Tell follows the lives of 7 young men, all at different stages of life, and the story behind their kiss.

Jisung's Story

Jisung is your standard awkward high school student: he plays video games till 2 a.m., cleans his room only when his mother nags him for the hundredth time, and struggles to form coherent sentences in front of the girl he's been crushing on: Kim Yeri. With the annual summer fair coming up, The Carnival, and college looming on the horizon, he finally plucked up the courage to ask her out, and to his surprise, she agreed. This should be it: he's finally getting his chance at the sappy high school romance he's been waiting for, so then why can't he stop thinking about the little mole on the lower right corner of his best friend's lips

Item: Bites, Desert

Allergen Warnings: Profanity, Crude Humor, etc.

Expected Release: In August

Haechan's Story

Haechan has always been the funny guy, always putting a smile on other people's faces and making them feel as if they've known each other for years, even if they've just met for a few minutes. So when he finally meets the girl with impeccable timing for jokes that almost rivals his… almost, you can bet he married her as soon as he could. But life has a funny way of sneaking up on you when you least expect it, and Haechan's idyllic life is shattered in an instant.

Item: Bites, Namericano

Allergen Warnings: Major Character Death, Pregnancy, Grief, etc.

Mark's Story

Mark is twenty-two years old, a recent college graduate, young, capable, and ready to face the world. Sure, he earned a degree in Musical Composition, which, in hindsight, may not be the safest career choice. Still, it was a crucial part of him, and with a support system like his, his loving parents, sympathetic brother, and an angel of a girlfriend, who wouldn't pursue it. But Mark wasn't prepared for the world to come to him; he is offered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the only problem being that it is halfway across the globe — truly putting the distance in long distance. Mark must decide whether his love or his dream is more important to him.

Item: Bites, Namericano

Allergen Warnings: Not Applicable for now

Renjun's Story

Renjun is eleven years old... okay, ten and a half, and he's about to start his last year of elementary school. He's a big kid now, but he doesn't feel like it; in fact, he misses his parents, who are constantly shooing him away with excuses about working hard to achieve a pormoshin... promortion... or something like that. He is tired and irritable, and all he wants to do is curl up into a small ball and hide from the world, which he does most of the time because students and teachers prefer to ignore him rather than deal with his tantrums. With the start of a new school year comes a new teacher, one who doesn't seem to take no for an answer. Will Renjun finally open up, or will she, like everyone else, lose interest in him?

Item: Bites, Mocha

Allergen Warnings: Anxiety, Bullying, Negligence

Jaemin's Story

If someone had told seventeen-year-old Jaemin that at age twenty-seven, he would be living in a much too small apartment, having an affair with his much older, married neighbor, who always promised to leave her husband for him, but never did, and still hadn't pursued his photography dream because he was too much of coward and still cared about what people thought of him, he would have punched that person in the face, and obnoxiously yell very choice words. And yet here he was, exactly that; there was no need to beat around the bush, Na Jaemin was a complete loser.

Item: Bites, Mocha

Allergen Warnings: Age-Gap, Suggestive Scenes, Cheating, Insecurity, etc

Chenle's Story

Chenle is a "late bloomer." Not professionally, of course, graduating from the country's top business school at the age of 18, starting and successfully building a fortune 500 company by the age of 25, and now owning a thriving business empire at the age of 40, Chenle was undoubtedly fortunate in that aspect of his life, his romantic life, however, not so much. So at the age of 40, Chenle decided to try his hand at online dating, and after some questionable, read disastrous dates, he's finally met a serious-relationship worthy woman and Chenle swears he can smell love in the air. Little did Chenle know that trouble was on its way, in the form of the woman's 15-year-old teenage daughter, who was determined to put an end to Chenle's relationship.

Item: Bites, Namericano

Allergen Warnings: Break down, Divorce, Absent Parent, etc.

Jeno's Story

Jeno has two loves: singing and partying, a combination that is destined for disaster. After experimenting at a party, Jeno's behavior reaches a new low jeopardizing not only his singing career but also his relationship with his junior singer that he may or may not be falling in love with.

Item: Namericano, Bites

Allergen Warnings: Age-Gap, Drugs, Partying, Reckless Behavior, Hallucinations, Violence (etc.)

Guide to Sun Baekary Diction

Bites = Slice of Life

Namericano = Angst

Mocha = Feel-Good/Motivational

Desert = Fluff

Allergen Warning = Trigger Warning

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thoughts-on-bangtan · 4 years ago

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Let’s talk: Grievances and Cuteness - BTS on You Quiz on the Block

by Admin 1

Today BTS were guests on You Quiz on the Block, a very popular Korean variety show on tvN, and it was a wonderful mix of fun and hilarious, but also serious, vulnerable and honest. Seeing as we don’t have subtitles yet, merely the things our marvelous translator ARMYs managed to translate for us—the episode was 100 minutes long so there was a lot going on and being said—I don’t want to get into detail in this post and instead will wait with that until we have subs and I’ll be able to sit down and watch it properly again, focus on things that stick out to me and I would want to talk about. So that I can do their words justice.

Instead I want to use this post to air some of my grievances, directed at fellow ARMY, “ARMY” and shippers, as well as just gush a little about a few cute moments. The more serious things will be in a different post sometime soon. I hope that’s okay.

Grievances

What is the point of Bangtan going on a show like this, especially one that is broadcast on national TV and very popular with the general public? It’s to share not only their funny side but also their honest and genuine one, share stories that, though some we’ve heard before as ARMY, they’re things the general public doesn’t necessarily know. The point of them sharing vulnerable moments and memories with us is to simply be honest and transparent, something they’ve always highlighted as important to them.

What is the part we play in this, what is it that we should do? We are simply supposed to listen, understand the things they are telling us, put things into perspective so we know what they felt in certain moments and periods of their lives, understand that they’re human too with struggles, fears and sadness, and we should cherish the fact that they tell us any of it at all. They could just as well only show up whenever there’s a new album and comeback and then disappear again, share nothing personal at all and put on entirely fake personas. But they don’t. And we should be grateful for that and happy because of it.

Now, the reason why I even wanted to write this in the first place is this:

Many, and I mean many have decided that instead of doing what I’ve highlighted a moment ago, a far better course of action would be to twist their words, manipulate them, use them to victimize the members (and especially Seokjin), and try to overanalyze them in favor of their desired narratives and especially their ships, even if whatever was being said had absolutely nothing to do with any ship at all.

Before the episode even finished airing, solos/mantis were already up in arms “crying” about mistreatment and victimizing Seokjin because *insert demands they have no right to make at all* and when Seokjin, bless him, was on weverse, he actually replied to a post where he basically said that parts of what he said were too sad/depressing, so he simply asked the You Quiz staff to cut them out, which would explain why he seemed to have “less to say” during his interview section with Yoongi. Did that help? Of course not. Even though it showed not only that he did say more, that he likely said more vulnerable things, but also that he made the decision for himself that he did not want to share that yet, because he’s not ready for it or because he came to the conclusion that he simply doesn’t want to period, and that his wish for them to cut it out was met. Even though it wasn’t BH controlled content, but You Quiz.

More below the cut:

What does this tell us? The members have control over what is aired and what is not. If they feel something is too personal or would come across wrong, they can voice objection and chances are their words will be met and followed. They aren’t victims in need of saving, aren’t helpless boys with no idea what they’re doing. They are serious musicians, respected and treated well. This is a good thing and I’m glad he told us that, even if many don’t want to hear it and immediately claimed that “oh yeah BH told him to shut us up”. The mental gymnastics some are willing to do to make things fit their agenda truly baffles me sometimes.

On the other hand, I’ve seen shippers try to twist words or put others into the members mouths to push their agenda, and we’ve even had one or two asks being sent to us basically sadly wondering if maybe Tae isn’t who we thought he is for Jimin, and neither is Hobi, because of something Jimin said. Even though the thing Jimin said had quite literally nothing to do with either Tae or Hobi. In a way, I get where such vminnies are coming from, as vminnies we would love to just hear vmin talk about each other all day because it’s cute and we love their bond and stories, but it’s not like we didn’t get that. Because we did. Unprompted. Jimin mentioned Tae during their trio interview and told a story, even if we’ve heard it before to a certain degree. And yet it still wasn’t enough? Like come on, please don’t do this. Don’t reduce everything the members do and say to just ship related and non-ship related (thus uninteresting) statements and actions, as though the latter is worth less.

Here is the moment in question:

The way I see it, the only thing we should take away from this is that despite these very human fears and struggles, wonderings if people only care about Jimin because he is BTS Jimin and not Park Jimin, he still had and has good people in his life that’ll remind him that he is appreciated and loved for who he is, and not just for his celebrity status. Friends even outside of Bangtan. Why do we have to take something so incredibly personal, this moment of vulnerability from Jimin, and try to overanalyze it? To twist it to fit a ship? Regardless which one. Or to twist it to fit some kind of narrative, whatever one it may be? Please don’t do that.

Sure, Admin 2 noticed his use of ‘chingu’ when talking about this friend that told him that, and sure it reminded me of what Jimin said to Tae in the FESTA 2020 Rolling Paper, but neither Admin 2 nor I will go and claim that oh he must’ve been talking about Tae but didn’t want to use his name to avoid XYZ because we are not in his head and, at the end of the day, it’s irrelevant who exactly said that to him. That wasn’t the point of that story. Like at all. So why are some people disregarding the point in favor of speculations? Why are some completely ignoring his words, downplaying them as just potential ship material instead of appreciating the fact that he told us that at all?

It’s unfair toward Jimin, and the other members as well when they tell similar stories. Their lives aren’t fictional stories that revolve around romance. They are real people with real lives and more friends than just their fellow members and that’s a good thing since it surely gives them the opportunity to feel less isolated, cut off from the world by nature of their occupation and status. Besides, in the past Tae said something similar as well, how he used to be a social butterfly and make friends easily wherever they went but eventually he understood that people didn’t really care about Kim Taehyung and instead just wanted to know BTS V and be able to use that to brag, so he stopped being so outgoing. And we’ve also seen Jimin talk about cutting out friends in the past if they said something negative about Bangtan, then, a few years later, saying that he’s grown more as a person and learned to not allow these things to affect him as much, to surround himself with genuine people.

So, in light of what he said in that segment, we should be happy for him. And that’s it.

We also saw people use what Tae said about his dad to push the he must be 100% heterosexual because he said he wants to be a dad narrative which, where do I even start. Perhaps with the fact that this statement relies on a mistranslation? Because he didn’t say he wants to be a dad but that he wants to be a person like his dad, that’s his dream. Perhaps with the blatant homophobia this statement is laced in? The disregard for how queer people can also want to have kids, be parents, just like anyone else? Perhaps with how these things oddly seem to just be done to Tae and Namjoon, and especially Tae to use it for ship purposes?

Instead of jumping to conclusions, overanalyzing stories we are not supposed to analyze but instead to simply appreciate, please wait until we’ll have the full episode with subtitles (even though from the past we know that some of it may be simplified so reading what our translators wrote is also a good thing to get the whole picture) and even then, just enjoy their silliness and listen to their words of honesty. Listen to the fact that their fame was and continues to be a heavy weight on their shoulders, how instead of becoming cocky assholes they remained humble and genuine because that’s the kind of people they are and want to be, listen to what they want you to hear and now what you want to hear.

Also, to shippers—this isn’t the place to look for ship content of any kind, for some romantic confessions or whatever, because this was about Bangtan as seven members and their stories of the last ten and a half years since Namjoon joined BH and the idea for BTS was started.

Cute and silly things

Now that that's done, let’s talk about some fun and cute things to lighten the mood, shall we?

One of my favorite moments was when the MIC DROP ARMY came in as a surprise for the members, her confidence was off the charts and the guys looked so genuinely happy. After all it’s been so many months since they’ve last seen ARMY! And I’m so glad she was such a wonderful representative for us all, how she didn’t react with fear or shyness, didn’t scream or cry, but instead did her thing like a Queen. And the way the members reacted when she sent them a finger heart during one of the dances? Absolutely adorable!

Also, she truly must’ve saved some kind of nation, or maybe two, in her past life since she also was gifted a chicken leg pillow by Tae. He’s just so kind and lovely.

Then we had the members play a game of trying to guess a song merely by the first second (I think) and then having to sing it, though who sang which part didn’t follow the actual order in the song but was chosen by someone off screen which meant that, for example, Tae was doing one of the rap line verses as well as singing Jimin’s part in another, Hobi showed off his vocal skills, and of course, the highlight, Namjoon singing a part from Spring Day. Even though we know Namjoon’s skills when it comes to singing are not the greatest, which I mean in a very loving way, no tea no shade, and yet he still went for it. It was hilarious and cute and showed that he is willing to be silly even if others might laugh at his expense.

Sometime after the episode aired Namjoon actually came onto Weverse to talk about the episode and, among other things, apologized for not singing Seokjin’s guide all that well. One thing I’d like to point out is how, originally, he wrote Jinhyung but then changed it to Seokjinie hyung, which is just a small and precious little detail:

Another cute moment was during ‘dance mafia’ when Tae turned to Jimin to ask him if they did well and Jimin replied that yes, he did well (both using this adorably soft tone with each other), they also hugged for a moment while smiling brightly. See, I said not to look for ship moments, but this is just cute regardless if you ship vmin or not. Admin 2 though would like to comment on how they could’ve given us that hug from a camera that’s a little further away so we could have a more proper look, or a longer shot of it, please?

Honestly that game was hilarious and the members who were mafia did a wonderful job tricking the others, particularly JK was fantastic at it since the second time around no one suspected him at all. Also, the fluffy ear muffs with cat (?) ears on them were adorable. At the end of the segment they were all supposed to strike a pose but Tae didn’t manage to put his ear muffs back on, so they fell to the ground and so Jimin lightly hit/caressed his chest and turned toward the MCs to ask if they could try again so that Tae could look good in it as well.

Actually, speaking of adorable in regard to Jimin, when they were introduced at the beginning of the show as RM-jagi-nim, jagi-nim being the name used for all the guests on the show and also the name on the necklace (given to guests who are fans of the show by the producers) Jimin showed off on weverse in his selcas, Jimin corrected the MC that it’s not Jimin-jagi-nim but Mini-jagi-nim which just…my heart. Too cute.

Lastly, I want to mention how all of them were asked what the first sentence would be if their lives were a book and their answers were just so very…them.

Namjoon: Predictions in life often turn out to be wrong

Tae: I’m a chameleon

Hobi: Dear, people who’ve helped to lead me here

Yoongi: You lived life to the fullest/hard/well

Seokjin: Dope, worldwide class!

Jimin: What kind of life do you want to live?

Jungkook: Hello?

Overall it was an amazing episode that was so fun to watch even without really being able to understand any of what was being said. Still the members genuine personalities shone through brightly and I’m glad they had fun and felt comfortable, especially since it’s been a while since they were last on Korean variety shows and some of their past experiences were…not great. I can’t wait to watch it again once we have subs and to write a more proper post about it then. I hope you didn’t mind this more…serious and “angry” post and understand where I’m coming from with my complaints, but also that you enjoyed the cute moments I highlighted.

#BTS #BTS You quiz on the block #Namjoon #Seokjin #Yoongi #Hoseok #Jimin #Taehyung #Jungkook #vmin

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sometimesrosy · 4 years ago

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Hi Rosy, I have a question if you feel comfortable answering. I followed you back during S3/4/5 and you were always super adamant that Bellarke shippers were too negative and that the story is leading up to them romantically being together (even if it ends in a tragedy). Obv, things didn't work out that way, but looking back do you think those shippers had a point/were actually right? Do you wish you put less faith in JR and in the story in general?

I actually do NOT think those shippers were right. I think it WAS leading up to romance and it was being played as a romance, confirmed by Bob and Eliza.

There was a big swerve in season 7 to take it away from romance. And taken only in itself, season 7 was NOT romantic Bellarke. There was no story leading to Bellarke romance in season 7. Period. It wasn’t there. They weren’t doing it.

But there WAS Bellarke romance written into the story from season 1 to season 6.

Something happened between season 6 and 7 that changed the story from Bellarke romance to nothing. Season 7 ERASED the Bellarke romance.

But in order to erase something, it had to have been there to be erased.

In fact, it was so imbedded into the story that in order to erase the Bellarke romance, they had to erase Bellamy completely and erase Clarke’s strength of character, and erase Octavia’s guiding character traits, and erase Echo’s loyalty. Season 7 was like a different show. The core of the show was gone. The spine. It was told in an entirely different way. It became an ensemble show instead of one with a hero and a dual protagonist, who had been there since season one. They literally took him out of the show and relegated him to a minor character who had no emotional connections to the other characters. Weird. Very weird.

They erased “the head and the heart”. Which was the center of the narrative of The 100. They just erased it. And pretended that it wasn’t a part of the story to begin with. Along with that, they erased Monty’s insistence that they be the good guys and do the right thing. They erased CLARKE being the hero of the story. They erased Clarke saving humanity but Bellamy saving Clarke. It was a dumb move and just deciding that Clarke and Bellamy weren’t the center of the show meant that they denied the audience the catharsis that we had been waiting for for seven years. Even WITHOUT a romance, we still needed that catharsis, because Clarke and Bellamy were the spine of the show. They held it together. But removing that romance meant removing Clarke and Bellamy nearly completely. If it wasn’t there to begin with, they wouldn’t have had to do such a hatchet job on the main characters to get rid of it.

It is the unfortunate truth that a lot of the time, Hollywood stories sell out. They start out strong and then somewhere along the way, they swerve and sell out for money or politics or who the hell knows, a desire to be edgy. I don’t know why they do it, but it is a known phenomenon and you can go back over decades of good stories that go down the tube by the end of the series.

I DID trust JR to tell a good story, and I thought it was evident that he was staying true to his story as he began wrapping up storylines in season 5 that seemed to say he had a Bellarke, Clarke and Bellamy centered storyline to finish. And we got that, all the way up to the second to last scene in season 6. THAT was romantic, no doubt.

But in season 7 it was gone. As if it had never happened.

I consider that a failure in storytelling, because you can’t erase canon. You can CHANGE it, but you can’t erase it. And since they didn’t change it to undo the bellarke romance, just erased it, they messed up. They could have stayed true to their story and had Bellarke TALK about their feelings and address them, and then say “but we aren’t romantic and we should stay platonic friends.” There were many ways they could have done that addressing the romance written into the story. They did not. They just pretended it wasnt’ there, and in so doing, removed the main characters and their effect on the story. I ended up being wrong about my prediction, not because the story wasn’t going there after all, but because it was, and JR changed his mind and swerved. Or maybe he never intended for them to actually achieve a physical romance and he just wanted to tease us with it. Although if Bellamy was supposed to be there on that beach, then that would have given them end game even if they never consummated it in the series. Is that why he refused to allow Bellamy to be there? And contorted the story to make him absent? IDK. Seems particularly vengeful.

Do I regret trusting JR? no. Because it meant I could enjoy the story as it was, even up to mid season 7 when it became clear he wasn’t pulling the story together, but ignoring it and erasing the main characters so he could do that.

I honestly don’t analyze a story that isn’t there. Bellarke was there 1-6. It was not there in season 7. None of us can tell the future. We don’t know where people are going to take things, but good stories are supposed to be consistent and follow through with the world they’ve built. If they don’t, that’s a failure. So it was a good story, but it failed to stick the landing, ultimately falling apart at the end in a spectacular way.

Why it fell apart? Why JR dropped Bellarke and erased Bellamy and turned Clarke into the only person not worth redemption I don’t know. Maybe some day we’ll find out why.

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trafalgarlawsdepression · 3 years ago

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PLEASE TELL US ABOUT THE SEASON TWO IN YOUR HEAD

OKAY CURRENT PROGRESS ON SOUL EATER SEASON TWO THAT LIVES IN MY HEAD.

hm okay so first of all it takes place a few years after the og series, I'm thinking like six to seven? point is the gang is all split up, maka was offered a teacher position at dwma but turned it down to travel a bit and consider if she's comfortable with working for dwma considering all the secrecy they're doing. soul is with her because that's what he does and crona is with her because Do Not Separate Them. blackstar and tsubaki are also out seeing the world but less to philosophize and more to get stronger because they're tsubaki and blackstar, possibly incorporating tsubaki's cool new forms from the manga. kid is still in death city and basically I think it'd be interesting if he's slowly preparing to take over as death god with full knowledge of what that would entail for lord death, since that would kinda put a new spin on it compared to the manga. also on the side he's also doing his own scheming because I think that would be fun.

anyway, plot stuff is that dwma have been using angela and mifune to get in contact with the witches and there's talk of a truce, once again incorporating stuff from the manga. the plan is to send kid to do some preliminary negotiations with a team to look out for him, and he asks to take maka and blackstar rather than like, stein or someone, partly because friendship and partly because they're more likely to go along if he starts scheming. this is how we reunite the gang, minus crona who would be wildly unsafe going into with territory considering their connection to medusa and because there's a chance the witches might want to study up on the black blood, in which case crona is the best test subject.

before they leave for the negotiations some way or another it comes out that kim is a witch, which the gang promises to keep secret also I think it'd be cute and sweet if the whole b-team knows and are looking out for kim. anyhoo through kim they find out a bit more abt what the current political situation in the witch world is, which angela and mifune had not been let in on since he's a human and she's like ten. basically, as eruka said in the og series mabaa is getting old so they're also prepping for a change in power, and the title of supreme witch or whatever is slated to go to one of three chosen young witches who have been trained from birth. the gang decide to keep this to themselves for now, partly to keep kim safe and partly because of kid's scheming.

(it should also be noted that there needs to be so many heartwarming reunions also also blackstar is still the shortest he's the token manlet of the group)

anyway they get going and eventually meet up with a witch who uses magic to transport them to where mabaa is hanging out, maybe the witches have a cool witch city that's like. a pit or something whatever it is it needs to be dramatic. negotiations start and kid reveals that he's not only interested in a truce, he wants an active partnership, hence the scheming. mabaa at least isn't outright opposed to the idea but notes that the dwma have been hunting witches for ages so the larger community is bound to be at the very least hesitant. the whole witch election is brought up and mabaa agrees to set up meetings with the three witches with the understanding that if the gang so much as lay a hand on them or in any way try to meddle in the process she will personally see to it that the dwma/witch conflicts escalates to an all out war.

after this I'm kinda fuzzy on the plot, but the first one they see is maggot witch, who's not interested in a partnership. she gives the group brain worms which they manage to get through by the power of friendship or something, and which blackstar has a problem with bc he has a hard time asking from help because that's a sign or weakness or whatever, once again I'm unsure on this. around this time is also where crona shows up because they only managed to keep still for like a day before they started worrying abt maka since they have a lot more experience with witches than she has. they've gotten a lot better over the years, they're still very sheltered but their partnership with ragnarok is much more stable and they can make a joke or two I think. I feel like they deserve it.

next they probably take a quick break at some kind of safe house to recover and build character dynamics, after which they go see bee witch. bee witch is a lot more fun to be around, she throws big parties and has a laff, and she says she'd be interested in working with dwma, because she has a personal loss in the conflict. here we find out that a witch she was really close to (maybe her mom idk) was the witch maka's mom killed to make a death scythe, which maka is smart enough to shut up about but which makes the potential alliance a bit shaky since it's one thing to talk abt it in abstract and a whole other thing to have a shot at revenge within arm's reach. they leave not feeling entirely sure and with crona deeply uncomfortable since they had to endure a party scene press f.

last with they see I haven't drawn or developed a whole bunch yet, but she's a dragonfly witch and doesn't really care either way abt working with dwma since she's not interested in the leadership position in the first place. she has a lot of feelings abt being raised for this One Purpose and not getting to be a person, especially with the risk that she's not even going to get to serve that purpose, which hits home with crona. after this I have. no idea what happens but probably something goes wrong, maybe because of kid's scheming since lord death is bound to find out at some point.

additional notes: I think soul and crona should get to bond over being the most introverted, like just seeing them look genuinely comfortable sitting away from the group and not saying a word to each other. maka's mom's achievements kinda coming back to bite maka in the ass I feel like would give some nuance to the way maka idolizes her mother and constantly tries to follow in her footsteps. I think maybe since this is soul eater season two that lives in MY head I should get to sprinkle in some romance who's to say. I could back it up with how it would add to the themes if I wanted to but it's embarassing and this post is already filling up my embarassment quota for the night, so ask me like. tomorrow if you want to know. I cherish you so much for asking me abt this though make no mistake. I dip you like a dancer

#posts that are too long. help. 😔✨#ses2tlimh

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cherryeol04 · 4 years ago

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Boyfriend (M)

Pairings : Changbin x Reader Genre: Smut, funny, romance, cute Word Count: 2.4K Warnings: This story contains smut. If you are not comfortable with it, please skip!

The one thing Y/N is grateful for, is the fact that on Tuesdays, she doesn't have classes. That meant she was free to sleep in as long as she wanted, do whatever she felt like and she didn't have to worry about getting up and going somewhere. Unless she wanted to go out shopping with a friend, then that was a different story. But for the most part Y/N spent her days off in her cozy little apartment, just enjoying herself. Sometimes she would do a little cleaning, after all she tended to have her boyfriend over often and he wasn't the best at cleaning up behind himself. But bless his heart, he tried. Changbin was a terror normally, walking around the place like he owned it. Y/N was actually surprised that there wasn't a bigger mess when she got up that morning. All of his music producing equipment had been packed up and sat neatly in the small corner of the bedroom that Y/N had deemed his area.

He had complained, saying he should have a bigger spot. But she had countered that he hadn't moved in with her and wasn't helping to pay the bills. Once he did that, he could have as big an area that he wanted. It effectively shut him up because despite the fact they had been dating for over seven months now, moving in was a step that neither one of them was ready to make. It was hard to spend time with each other usually. If Y/N wasn't busy with classes and assignments, then it was Changbin who was locked up in a studio at the university with his friends and co-workers Jisung and Chan - working on their latest track for classes or to upload on Soundcloud. Changbin usually wouldn't leave the studio until the early hours of the morning, to sleep for maybe an hour or two before getting back up and heading to class. It was difficult for them to see each other, but they tried.

Though not living together, they did leave things over at each other's places, an excuse they used to be over at odd hours of the day. Like yesterday when Y/N really needed a pair of shoes that would match her cute sundress, she had to drive all the way over to Changbin's apartment to get them. It was worth it because she saw his inability to care for himself and ended up making him dinner for that night and lunch for the next day, all neatly stacked in containers and left in the fridge with a sweet note waiting for him on the counter. It was the small things that made this relationship worth it. Because even if she didn't see him as much as she wanted, finding the sweet notes or receiving the crazy sleep deprived texts always put a smile on her face and reminded her how much she loved him.

Of course, those things didn't negate the fact that she was still a woman and she had needs. Strong urges and desires that struck at the most inopportune time. Recently she had been fighting a bout of horniness that always hit her right in the middle of her afternoon class and by the time she got home, it had left, leaving her very frustrated and unsatisfied. She had a plan, however, to fix that. Since it was her day off, she might as well spend it getting off to the thoughts of her boyfriend. A few good orgasms, a hot shower and Netflix sounded like the perfect way to spend her afternoon.

After making sure the apartment was in better condition than it had been, she started her little robot vacuum and made her way back to her bedroom. Stripping out of her pajamas, she situated herself on her bed and reached over to her nightstand, opening the bottom drawer. She was greeted with the sight of the many different sex toys she owned. A few dildos, but most were vibrators of different size, strengths and looks to them. She had one that mimicked the look of a real dick, but the rest were mostly pink and purple, some with bulbous mushroom heads. For the most part they were smooth and rounded, perfect for an easy glide inside, though she could never deny how much she loved the feeling of a head spreading her hole wide. She took a moment to think, eyeing each toy before she grabbed one of the smaller vibrators, purple and made of silicon. It almost mimicked the look of rubber and she loved it's squishy texture.

Grabbing the lube, she closed the draw and laid the items out next her as she made herself comfortable. Parting her legs lightly, she slowly ran her hands over her thighs, just feeling herself for a moment - enjoying the pleasure brought to her. Working herself up was what she wanted to do as she grazed her fingers over every inch of skin she could reach, thighs trembling as she occasionally teased her clit. She wanted to take it slow, build it up. After all, she had all day to herself.

———

Changbin hadn’t planned to go over to Y/N’s place. But when he got the email stating his class was cancelled for the day, he decided that maybe he could get in some early work at the studio and then spend the evening with his girlfriend. In his mind, it was a great plan, except for the fact that he had left his equipment at Y/N’s place. It’s not that he minded going over there, it was just that he couldn’t remember if she had classes today or not and he really wanted it to be a surprise that he was coming over.

He could just simply not work and spend time with her now, but he knew that Jisung and Chan were at the studio already working, and he really wanted to go and help. Maybe he could just sneak in and sneak out? Or if anything he could just say he needed his things for after class. With excuse in mind, Changbin made his way to his girlfriend’s apartment, only a short 5 minute drive from the school.

He easily let himself in with the key he had and when he didn’t see Y/N in the living room or the kitchen when he passed by, he figured that she probably wasn’t home. Which was great news for him. Walking to the bedroom, he had just pushed open the door when a moan filtered through his ears and he froze in his tracks. His eyes landed on the bed, watching as his girlfriend played with herself. Her hand twisted, moving as she thrusted a toy in and out of herself, vibrations growing louder before fading with each thrust. The fingers of her other hand worked over her clit shamelessly, pulling louder moans and sighs of pleasure.

“F-fuck, Changbin.”

Changbin’s dick twitched at the sound of his name and he bit down on his bottom lip to suppress a moan that wanted to escape.

“Deeper. Harder.” Y/N’s hand did its best to fulfill her wishes but even Changbin noticed it just wasn’t delivering the power she wanted.

“Well, well, well. Isn’t this such a lovely surprise.” Changbin called out, voice conveying a sense of confidence he didn’t think he could muster with the way his heart was pounding rapidly in his chest. The noise surprised Y/N and she jerked, all movements stopping as she stared at her boyfriend with a guilt express.

“What are you doing here?” She whispered, voice slightly horse from the loud whining and moan she had been doing moments before.

“Well I came to get my mixing equipment but instead I found a sexy little minx on the bed, all spread out and playing with herself.” He said, watching as she closed her legs around her arm, trying to hide herself from his hungry gaze. Not that he hadn’t seen her like this before. They’ve had sex plenty of times before. This was just the first time Changbin had caught her playing with herself.

“I-I-“

“Want some help?”

Y/N nodded her head slowly, carefully pulling out the vibrator from within her and turning it off. She was thinking that if Changbin was offering help, he would fuck her. She didn't expect him to walk over and take the toy from her grasp and turn it back on as he knelt on the edge of the bed. His eyes raked over her naked body, taking in each and every curve - admiring how hard and beautiful her nipples were. Chuckling to himself, he moved closer, sitting between her legs and making himself comfortable. Y/N shivered at the new position and once again tried to close her legs and hide herself from view, but Changbin's hands reached out quickly, pushing her thighs apart once more.

"Don't do that." he said lightly, voice barely above a whisper, even though there was no reason to be quiet. He stared into her eyes, gaze soft as he tried to convey reassurance and acceptance to her. It seemed to work as she slowly relaxed and let her legs fall open, putting herself on full display for the other. Licking his lips, Changbin grinned as he leaned forward, fingers twisting the top of the vibrator to turn it on the lowest setting. Reaching down, he carefully brushed the tip of the toy against her clit, chuckling as she jerked at the sudden touch to the sensitive nub.

"Oh fuck." she panted softly, her back arching slightly. Her hips jerked as her abdomen tightened and she tried to pull away from the touch, but the toy followed. "Changbin." she whimpered softly. Changbin chuckled as he moved the toy, rubbing it against her while watching the way her body spasmed against his touch.

"You're so beautiful baby, do you like this?" he asked. She nodded her head quickly, soft whimpers leaving her as he moved the toy down further to press against her opening. The tip slipped in and vibrated against her sensitive walls and she keened for more - for Changbin to go deeper and harder. He didn't though. Instead, he pulled the toy out and brought it back up and teased her clit once more. A loud cry left her quickly and she jerked and trembled under his touch, chest rising and falling with quick breaths. "I want you to cum for me." he whispered. "Can you do that?" Y/N nodded her head, ready to cum for the other. She had been teasing herself relentless for who knows how long and she had been getting close to the edge when Changbin walked in.

"Please." she begged almost pathetically, head falling back as she let the pleasure wash over her body - back and hips arching to get more of the pleasure from Changbin. The toy slipped down once more and slipped into her, a deep gasp leaving her as it was turned up in volume and the vibrations increased. Changbin pushed the toy in deeply and Y/N cried out, feeling the vibrations through her core as he shallowly thrusted the toy in and out. "Chang-" Her plea was cut off as Changbin's hot, wet tongue ran over her clit and she spasmed at it. "Oh fuck yes." she cried out and whimpered. Reaching down, she ran her fingers through his hair once before tangling them into the soft strands. Her hips jerked down, rocking down against his mouth and hand. He thrusted the toy in harder, angling it upwards as it stroked her walls - grazing against her g-spot every now and then to heighten the pleasure. His mouth worked over her clit, sucking and licking on it hungrily as his noisy slurps filled the room.

Y/N was tense under him, toes curling as the pleasure mounted inside her. She could feel it, the pressure getting ready to be released and she was so ready for it. "Changbin." she breathed out. "I'm going to cum." she gasped out. It was the only warning she could give as the pleasure reached its peak too quickly. She cried out as the tension released and her body jerked, hole clenching around the toy that was still moving inside her. "Oh fuck! Fuck!" she cried out, panting heavily as she rode out the waves of her orgasm. As she slowly calmed down, Changbin slowly turned down the vibrations of the toy, letting her get used to each level before turning it off slowly and slipping it out. Pulling back from her, he smirked, licking his lips clean of the sweet juices he had been lapping at. Tossing the toy onto the bed, he leaned over and ran a hand gently over her stomach, dragging it up and over each breast, teasing her nipples light with a smile.

Whining, Y/N smacked at his hand lightly, but didn't push him away as he went back to rubbing his hand over her body. Leaning down, Changbin pressed a gentle kiss to her lips, followed by a few more kisses to her neck and one to her forehead. "You did so good baby," he whispered. "How do you feel?"

"Amazing." she whispered and looked up at him with a wide smile, eyes sparkling with the remnants of pleasure and love and adoration. "Thank you baby." she whispered. Changbin chuckled and gave her another kiss before sitting back on his heels.

"You're welcome." Shifting, he climbed off the bed and grabbed the covers, pulling them up and over her body, tucking her in. "Take a nap babe."

"What about you?" she asked, frowning as she looked down at the obvious boner he was sprouting, before looking back up at him.

"I'll be fine. I need to go and do some work." he told her and pressed a gentle kiss to her temple before pressing his face against the top of her head gently. "Get some sleep okay? I'll see you later tonight. We can play then." he assured her as he pulled back and stared down at her.

"Promise?"

"Promise."

She wasn't happy, but she accepted it and after pulling Changbin down for one more kiss, she let him go and curled up on her side. She watched as he moved and grabbed his things, blew her a kiss and left the room. She could hear his footsteps echo lightly as he walked down the hall and eventually the door opened and closed as he left. Alone once more, she let her eyes close, ready to nap with the knowing promise that she could return the favor to him later. And she honestly, couldn't wait.

Tags: @runningonkpop @clandestine-lixie @jisungsjheekies @luminouskalopsia @straysrachaa @mrbangchannie (to be added, go here)

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per-ineptia-ad-astra · 4 years ago

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Star Trek Episode 1.24: This Side of Paradise

AKA Yet Another Creepy Utopia Planet

Our episode begins with the Enterprise heading in to orbit around an Earthy-looking planet named Omicron Ceti 3. Omicon Ceti is a real star, by the way—also known as Mira or Mira A, it’s a red giant and part of a binary star system with its sister Mira B. It’s not a real likely place to go looking for such a nice homey sort of planet, though, because Mira is a pulsating variable star, which means its size and brightness is constantly fluctuating, and it’s hard to evolve life when your sun keeps flickering like a neon sign in a noir movie all the time.

Uhura reports to Kirk that she’s been transmitting a contact signal every five minutes just as he ordered, but she’s only getting dead air in response. Kirk tells her to keep it up until they get into orbit, then moves on to talk to Spock. “There were one hundred fifty men, women and children in that colony,” he says. “What are the chances of survivors?”

Looks like the chances are, uh...not great. And by ‘not great’ I mean ‘nonexistent’. Spock explains that ‘Bertold rays’ are a recent enough discovery that there’s still a lot not known about them, but one thing that is for sure known is that exposure to these rays causes living animal tissue to disintegrate. Nasty. Evidently this planet is heavily exposed to these rays, because a group of colonists-- “Sandoval’s group”-- came here only three years ago and Spock says there’s no possibility they could have survived. Well why the heck would anyone build a colony in such a place? All Spock can say is “They knew there was a risk.”

Kirk questions whether they can risk sending a landing party down under such conditions, but Spock says the disintegration doesn’t start immediately, so they’ll be alright if they don’t stick around too long. The helmsman reports that they’ve successfully established orbit, and he’s found a settlement—or at least, something that was a settlement at one point. Kirk tells Spock to equip a landing party of five to accompany him down there, including a biologist and McCoy. That’s gonna be a fun mission briefing. “Yes, we're beaming down to a planet bombarded with deadly radiation, but no need to worry, crew, your tissues will probably only disintegrate a little bit."

Sometime later, the landing party—Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu, a blueshirt and a goldshirt—materialize into a meadow near a dirt path and a picket fence. They’ve thoughtfully arranged themselves into a nice alternating pattern.

[ID: A shot of a sunny meadow with a dirt road, a few trees and a white picket fence in the background. Newly beamed down are six Enterprise crewmembers standing in two rows: in the front are Kirk and Spock, in the back are McCoy, a goldshirt, a blueshirt, and Sulu.]

The goldshirt, incidentally, is DeSalle, who we last saw back in The Squire of Gothos. The character was originally written for this story as Lt. Timothy Fletcher, but was changed to DeSalle after the production crew realized they’d cast an actor who had already appeared in the series. Yes, really. AGAIN. The blueshirt is Kelowitz, who showed up briefly in The Galileo Seven and Arena, and likewise started out as another character but was renamed after being cast. I don’t know how this situation managed to happen so often on TOS, but apparently it did. At least they both seem to have managed to hold onto more or less the same positions that they had the last time we saw them, a rare feat for any minor TOS crewmember.

The group walks forward towards some nearby farm buildings arranged around a dirt yard, with a horse-drawn cart sitting out in front of one of them. But there’s no horse to be seen, and no people either. They wander through the yard and over toward what looks like a paddock, but without any animals in it. Everything seems quite thoroughly deserted.

Kirk leans on the paddock fence and glumly muses, “Another dream that failed. There’s nothing sadder. It took these people a year to make the trip from Earth. They came all that way...and died.” Hold on, it took them a year? What, do they not give colony ships warp drives? Did they have to hitchhike here?

“Hardly that, sir,” someone says, and suddenly we see three men in green jumpsuits standing at the edge of the yard, looking very relaxed and also very not dead.

As the landing party all turn around to stare in shock the man in front strides forward and says, “Welcome to Omicron Ceti 3. I’m Elias Sandoval.” McCoy looks like he’s getting ready to spray the dude with holy water.

After the titles, we get a brief captain’s log to sum things up, just in case everyone forgot what happened during the commercial break:

“Captain’s Log, Stardate 3417.3. We thought our mission to Omicron Ceti 3 would be an unhappy one. We had expected to find no survivors of the agricultural colony there. Apparently, our information was incorrect.”

The colonists start happily shaking hands with the landing party—but happily as in “oh, it’s so nice to meet you” not “oh thank god you came to rescue us we’re all on the brink of death”. Sandoval says they haven’t seen anyone outside the colony since they left Earth four years ago, although they’ve been expecting someone to come by for a while. Apparently their subspace radio didn’t work right and they don’t have anyone who could “master its intricacies”. Now, I’m no expert on establishing colonies on alien planets, but ‘person who can work our only communication device’ does rather seem like a position you would want to make sure was filled before you left.

Kirk has to explain that they haven’t come to visit because of the dead radio. He does not explain why they did decide to come when they did. Spock’s comment about the colonists knowing there was a risk indicates that whether or not Bertold rays specifically were known about before the colonists left, they at least had reason to believe there was something dangerous about the planet. So why’d the Federation let them go and then wait another three years before sending anyone to check up on them? Eh, probably just another failing of twenty-third century space bureaucracy.

Sandoval’s not bothered about it, though. He tells Kirk that it doesn’t make much difference—the important thing is the party is here now and the colonists are happy to see them. Then he invites them on a tour of the settlement and casually strolls off, leaving the landing party to stand there and try to process what the hell they just witnessed.

“Pure speculation, just an educated guess...I’d say that man is alive,” McCoy says. Thanks Bones.

Spock says that his scans show that the planet is getting ray’d just as their reports indicated, so that’s not the issue. Under this intensity, the landing party could safely hang out here for a week if necessary, as per the usual Star Trek rule that you can be exposed to a deadly thing and be just fine up until the exact moment it kills you, but there’s a mighty big difference between a week and three years. Or as Kirk succinctly puts it, “These people shouldn’t be alive.”

“Is it possible they’re not?” Sulu asks. Great out of the box thinking there Sulu, love it.

Kirk takes a moment to consider that, which is fair—compared to the kind of weird shit they’ve encountered so far, the walking dead wouldn’t even stand out that much. But McCoy points out that when they shook hands with Sandoval, “His flesh was warm. He’s alive. There’s no doubt about that.” Spock fires back with a reminder that, “There’s no miracle connected with [Bertold rays], doctor, you know that. No cures, no serums, no antidotes. If a man is exposed long enough, he dies.” Okay dude, calm down, all McCoy said was “he’s alive” not “my god! Bertold rays have been fake all along! wake up sheeple!"

As Kirk points out, this whole debate is pretty pointless anyway for the moment—they’re arguing in a vacuum, and they’ll need more answers if they want to get anywhere. So they go to follow Sandoval, who leads them towards a nearby farm house, while a few colonists do various farm chores nearby. Sandoval explains that the colonists split into three groups, with forty-five people at this settlement and two more settlements elsewhere on the planet. Apparently they thought that arrangement would give each group a better chance for growth, since if some disaster struck one group the other two would probably still be alright.

“Omicron is an ideal agricultural planet,” he says. “We determined not to suffer the fate of the expeditions that went before us.” It’s rather vague what expeditions he’s referring to here, since at no other point in the episode are any previous attempts at settling Omicron Ceti 3 mentioned. But given that Sandoval specifically mentions the possibility of disease afflicting one group as a reason to split up, and Spock earlier said that Bertold rays were a recent discovery—and that the colonists knew coming to Omicron Ceti 3 was risky-- it seems possible that previous groups tried to settle the planet and, without knowing about the Bertold rays, mistook their effects for some kind of disease native to the planet. Of course that doesn’t explain why this group of colonists decided it would be a good idea to try to settle here again anyway, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past few months, it’s that not everyone sees the possibility of dying to a terrible disease as a compelling reason to change their plans in any way.

As they stand in the farmhouse talking about this, a woman steps forward from another room in the house. She’s in soft focus, just in case we might forget she’s a woman, and instead of the green jumpsuit all the male colonists are wearing, she’s wearing green overalls over a lavender shirt, a combination that somehow manages to be an even worse fashion disaster than the jumpsuits themselves. She starts to say something to Sandoval, then stops in surprise as she sees the landing party. But for once the romance-o-vision isn’t for Kirk—it’s Spock that the camera zooms in on as the woman stares at him.

“Layla, come meet our guests,” Sandoval says cheerfully, oblivious to the wistfully romantic background music. He introduces her as Layla Colomi, their botanist. Layla says that she and Spock have met before, but “It’s been a long time.” Kirk gives Spock a bit of a side-eye for that, but Spock offers no details.

Well, all romantic tension aside, they do still have a mission to attend to here, as Kirk reminds Sandoval. Sandoval tells them to go ahead with any examinations or tests they want. “I think you’ll find our settlement an interesting one. Our philosophy is a simple one: that men should return to a less complicated life. We have few mechanical things here, no vehicles, no weapons. We have harmony here. Complete peace.” Oh yeah, that bodes well. Remember the last place we saw complete harmony and peace? At least that explains why everyone on this farm is using equipment straight out of Stardew Valley, which is presumably not the most advanced agricultural technology available by the twenty-third century. I’m not sure why Sandoval’s idea of a simpler lifestyle excludes vehicles, though. They’re not exactly the most recent thing on the timeline of human technological advancements.

Sandoval tells the landing party to make themselves at home, and they all head off. All except for Spock, who lingers just a few seconds more to give Layla a completely neutral look before walking away as well.

Everyone goes off to conduct their respective investigations. Sulu and Kelowitz wander through a yard over towards another farm building. Kelowitz isn’t sure what exactly they should be looking for, though. “Whatever doesn’t look right—whatever that is,” Sulu replies, climbing up to sit on a railing on the building’s porch. “When it comes to farms, I wouldn’t know what looked right or wrong if it were two feet from me.” I hope you enjoyed that line, because “didn’t grow up on a farm” is about all the backstory TOS is going to give us for Sulu until the movies.

[ID: Three screenshots showing Sulu pulling himself up to sit on the railing of an old-fashioned farmhouse as he says, "When it comes to farms, I wouldn't know what looked right or wrong if it were two feet from me." Growing up from the ground nearby are two large plants with thick brownish-purple stems and large pink flowers on top.]

Hey Sulu, what's that about two feet from you? Oh well, I'm sure it's not important.

Kelowitz opens up a nearby barn and notes that there’s no cows there—in fact, the barn isn’t even built for cows, just for storage, and indeed it only looks big enough to be useful for holding cow, singular. Having a storage barn isn’t itself that weird, although the fact that there is nothing currently stored in the storage barn is a bit strange. But also, as Sulu points out, come to think of it, they haven’t seen any animals here, native or imported. No cows, no horses, no pigs, not even a dog. Which is a bit odd for an agricultural colony. They must have had or expected to have animals at some point—otherwise what was pulling that cart?

Back in the house, Sandoval is asking Layla about Spock (once again referred to as a ‘Vulcanian’). She says that she knew Spock on Earth, six years ago. Sandoval, apparently having noticed the dreamy background music by now, asks if Layla loved Spock. She says that if she did, “it was important only to myself...Mr. Spock’s feelings were never expressed to me. It is said he has none to give.”

“Would you like him to stay with us now? To be one of us?” Sandoval asks. Layla smiles at him. “There is no choice, Elias,” she says. “He will stay.”

Elsewhere in the house, McCoy is scanning a colonist. He doesn’t look exactly happy with the tricorder result he gets, but all he says is, “That’ll be all, thank you very much,” and the colonist leaves, passing Kirk coming in. Incidentally, I can’t help but note that this room contains two paintings on the wall and what appears to be a cabinet full of china. I suppose the paintings could have been done by a colonist, but the china could surely only have been brought there. Who decided to pack fancy china on a year-long space voyage to an agricultural colony?

[ID: A shot of the interior of a farmhouse with blue walls, with a large wooden table in the middle of the room, a cabinet with china and glassware in the corner, a wooden desk with a copper tea kettle and some other kitchen items on it against the back wall, and a painting hanging on the wall showing some blurry trees. Sandoval, a middle-aged white man with short brown hair wearing a green jumpsuit, walks past the camera as he says, "Oh, captain, I've been looking for you."]

Kirk asks if McCoy’s found anything yet. McCoy replies that he’s surveyed nine men so far, ranging in age from twenty-three to fifty-nine. And they’re all in perfect condition. Not just healthy—perfect. Textbook responses across the board, from all of them. “If there are many more of them,” McCoy muses, “I can throw away my shingle.”

At that point Kirk’s communicator goes off. It’s Spock, calling in from one of the crop fields. He’s made the same observation as Sulu—there’s no life on the planet aside from the colonists and the plants. No animals, no insects. Spock doesn’t have any explanation yet, so Kirk tells him to carry on with his investigation and hangs up.

McCoy notes the absence of animals as peculiar, and Kirk says it’s especially so because the expedition records show that they did bring animals with them to raise for food. And pull their carts, presumably. But it seems none of them are still around. McCoy says he’d like to see the expedition’s medical records, a request Kirk has apparently anticipated because he’s got the floppy disc on hand with him.

Sandoval comes in and says that he’d like to take the two of them on a tour of the fields, to show off what the colony’s accomplished. McCoy says he’ll have to bow out, since he’s still working on the medical examinations. “However, if I find everyone else’s health to be as perfect as yours...”

“You’ll find no weaklings here,” Sandoval says, which uh, sure is a hell of a way to phrase that. “No weaklings! None of those miserable, pathetic sods with imperfect health! Only the strong survive! THE SLIGHTEST BLEMISH SHALL BE CAUSE FOR EXILE!”

Leaving McCoy behind, Kirk and Sandoval head out to the fields, where Sandoval gushes to Kirk about how great this place is: they’ve got moderate climate, moderate rains all year round, and the soil will grow anything they stick in it. Which is pretty miraculous, considering there’s no such thing as growing conditions that are perfect for every plant. But as we’re about to see, that’s not the only weird thing going on with their farming practices.

The conversation is interrupted by DeSalle arriving to give Kirk the biology report. Sandoval excuses himself to attend to work elsewhere, leaving Kirk and DeSalle alone to discuss the report. At first, it seems to be just as Sandoval said: they’ve got a variety of crops growing here successfully. The weird thing is that they don’t actually have very many of those crops. There’s enough to keep the colony going at the size it currently is, but barely more than that. Which tracks with what we’ve seen of the place so far: a couple of tiny fields that look more about the size for someone’s backyard garden than for a prosperous farm, tended by the occasional person idly scratching at the ground with a hoe. For a supposedly bounteous agricultural colony, that’s pretty weird. What have they been doing all this time?

“It’s like a jigsaw puzzle all one color,” Kirk muses, taking a moment to stroll a few steps away so he can say this dramatically in the distance instead of actually talking to DeSalle. “No key to where the pieces fit in. Why?”

Kirk’s communicator goes off. It’s McCoy, saying Kirk had better get back over there. “Trouble?” “No, but I’d like you to see this for yourself.” Of course. No one can ever just explain something over the phone, can they.

So Kirk heads back to the house, where the thing that Kirk just absolutely has to see for himself turns out to be McCoy just telling him what he’s found out, but he definitely couldn't do that over the communicator for, uh, reasons. What he’s found out is pretty interesting, though: McCoy checked up on Sandoval’s medical records from right before the colonists had left, which said that Sandoval had had an appendectomy, and had scar tissue on his lungs from childhood pneumonia (the weakling!). Yet when McCoy scanned Sandoval himself today, the results came back just as perfect as all the other colonists’. Kirk’s first thought is instrument failure, but McCoy says no, he thought of that and tested it by scanning himself, and it recorded him just fine, down to “those two broken ribs I had once.” Which sounds like an interesting story. But Sandoval’s scan? No scar tissue, and one healthy appendix. That’s right, Sandoval’s apparently managed to regrow an entire organ. Do you think you would notice that happening? Like, would it itch?

While Kirk and McCoy try to figure that out, Spock is hanging out in a field scanning with his own tricorder, while Layla stands nearby smiling ominously at him. Spock muses that there’s “Nothing. Not even insects. Yet your plants grow, and you’ve survived exposure to Bertold rays.” Yeah, how are those plants growing without insects? Presumably the native plants have evolved some way around that, but the ones the colonists have brought from Earth would need some help. Are the colonists just manually pollinating everything? Maybe that’s why they haven’t grown very much.

Layla says this can be explained, but when asked to do so, she just says, “Later.” Spock looks annoyed and remarks, “I have never understood the female capacity to avoid a direct answer to any question.” Hey! Cut that bullshit out. No one on this colony has directly answered a question since you got here, there’s no call to go ragging on a whole gender for it. Besides, just saying “Later,” is hardly a stunningly deft diversion, it’s not like she threw a smoke bomb down and disappeared.

“And I never understood you,” Layla says, walking over and placing a hand on his chest. “Until now. There was always a place in here where no one could come. There was only the face you allow people to see. Only one side you’d allow them to know.”

[ID: Three screenshots of Spock and Layla, a white woman with a lot of long blonde hair wearing a lilac shirt and green overalls, standing outside in a field with a large tree in the background. Layla, seen from behind, is pressing her hand to Spock's upper chest and saying, "There was always a place in here where no one could come." Spock replies "you know that's not where my heart is right".]

If Layla was hoping this little speech would prompt Spock to cry out that yes, she’s figured him out, he does love her but has never been able to show it! she’s disappointed, because he just looks uncomfortable and steps away. He tries to steer the conversation back onto the mystery of the colonists. “If I tell you how we survive,” she asks, “will you try to understand how we feel about our life here? About each other?”

That’s a pretty vague thing to make a promise about, so Spock deflects by saying that emotions are alien to him; he’s a SCIENTIST. “Someone else might believe that—your shipmates, your captain—but not me,” Layla says. Oh sure! Obviously none of the people who have lived, worked, and risked death alongside Spock can be expected to know anything about Spock. Only you are the Spock Expert, gifted with incredible insight by virtue of having a crush on him.

“Come,” she says, sauntering off through the field with her hand outstretched to him. Spock rather pointedly folds his hands behind his back instead and follows her.

Back in the house, Kirk and McCoy are struggling to have a conversation with Sandoval. Kirk tells Sandoval that he’s received orders from Starfleet Command to evacuate everyone on the colony, since, y’know, deadly rays and all that. He expects Sandoval to start making preparations. But Sandoval, calmly, casually, says, “No.” It’s not necessary, he insists—they’re in no danger.

But...but the Bertold rays. Sandoval is unmoved, pointing out that as McCoy’s own instruments show, the colonists are in perfect health and there have been no deaths. Okay, what about all those animals? What happened to them? “We’re vegetarians,” Sandoval says blithely. Which, as Kirk points out, does absolutely nothing to answer the question. Actually it raises further questions.

Sandoval remains thoroughly unbothered and thoroughly unhelpful. “Captain, you stress very unimportant matters. We will not leave,” he says, and goes back to gazing out the window, evidently considering the conversation over.

Elsewhere, Spock and Layla are still walking, and Spock is getting annoyed that Layla still hasn’t explained just what it is they’re going to see. “Its basic properties and elements are not important,” Layla says helpfully. “What is important is that it gives life, peace, love.” Oh boy.

Spock is dubious, but Layla pulls him forward, over towards another one of those large pink flowers. “I was one of the first to find them,” Layla says. “The spores.”

[ID: A gif of Spock approaching a large pinkish-purple flower and saying, "Spores?" The flower then sprays a cloud of white spores all over his face and torso while Spock recoils.]

For a moment Spock just looks startled, but then he starts clutching his head and falling onto his knees in the grass, dropping his tricorder and gasping, “No--” For the first time all episode, Layla’s absolute serenity starts to fracture slightly. Over Spock’s agonized protests, she insists that it shouldn’t hurt—it didn’t hurt any of them. But, as Spock gasps out, he’s not like them. Whoops, did the biologist forget to account for biological differences before handing out a facefull of spores? I bet you didn’t even check if he had any allergies first, did you?

Just as it’s looking like this might put actually put a crack in Layla’s blissed-out impassivity, Spock stops thrashing about and starts seeming less anguished and more confused. Layla’s concern vanishes once again, and she goes back to smiling happily while stroking his face. “Now...now you belong to all of us...and we to you. There’s no need to hide your inner face any longer. We understand.”

Spock still seems unsure, but then he takes Layla’s hand in his and smiles. Not the slight hint of a smile or sardonic quirk of the lips you’d expect to see from Spock, but a huge, broad grin from ear to ear. “I love you...I can love you,” he says, and then he kisses her.

Hoo boy.

After the break, we get a quick Captain’s Log to recap:

“Captain’s Log, supplemental. We have been ordered by Starfleet Command to evacuate the colony on Omicron 3. However, the colony leader, Elias Sandoval, has refused all cooperation and will not listen to any arguments.”

Sure enough, we see Sandoval exiting the farmhouse, followed by McCoy and an extremely frustrated Kirk. “Captain, your arguments are very valid, but do they not apply to us,” Sandoval says, as calm as ever. He tries to walk off, but Kirk grabs his arm and pulls him back.

“My orders are to remove all the colonists,” he says, “and that’s exactly what I intend to do with or without your help.”

“Without, I should think,” Sandoval says, and strolls off, leaving Kirk standing there fuming.

Sulu and Kelowitz come walking up to report that they’ve checked out everything and it all seems normal, except for the missing animals. Of course, they also both said they had no idea what to look for in the first place, so maybe take that with a grain of salt. Kirk tells them about the evacuation orders, and says he wants landing parties to start gathering the colonists and preparing them to leave. And by the way, where did Spock and DeSalle go? Sulu says they haven’t seen either one in some time, but McCoy says DeSalle was going to examine some native plants he found. Native plants, huh? I think we can guess what happened to DeSalle.

Since Spock still hasn’t reported in, Kirk gives him a call. Or tries to, at least—Spock doesn’t pick up. On the other end of the line, we see why that is: Spock's communicator is laying abandoned on the ground, while Spock himself, now dressed in the same horrible green jumpsuit as the colonists, is stretched out on the grass with Layla, watching clouds. The communicator beeps away while Spock happily describes how one of the clouds looks like a dragon. "I've never seen a dragon," Layla says. BEEP BEEP. "I have." BEEP BEEP. "On Barengarius 7." BEEP BEEP. "But I've never stopped to look at clouds before." BEEP BEEP. "Or rainbows." BEEP BEEP. "You know, I can tell you exactly why one appears in the sky, but considering its beauty has always been out of the question." BEEP BEEP.

"Not here," Layla says (beep beep), and they smile dreamily at each other before going into another makeout session. Meanwhile, Kirk is still on the line, and not getting any happier about it. Layla finally picks up the communicator and holds it up for Spock, who takes a break from kissin' to say, "Yes, what did you want?"

Naturally, this throws both Kirk and McCoy for a loop. While McCoy stands there with a "what the fuck" look on his face, Kirk takes a moment to recover and then demands, "Spock, is that you?"

"Yes, captain, what did you want?"

"Where are you?"

"...I don't believe I want to tell you."

[ID: Three shots of Kirk and McCoy standing in front of the farmhouse, Kirk holding his communicator while McCoy looks on. Kirk has a stunned expression on his face and looks around with his mouth open, trying to figure out what to say.]

Kirk plows on ahead, telling Spock that, whatever the hell he thinks he's doing, he's got orders: they're getting the colonists out, and Spock is to meet back at the settlement in ten minutes.

"No, I don't think so," Spock says casually. "You don't think so, what?" "I don't think so, sir."

Kirk has to take a moment after that one. It's rather amazing that McCoy's made it this far into the conversation without saying anything himself. Presumably he's just in shock. Eventually Kirk tells Spock to report in immediately, but by now Spock and Layla have gone back to kissing, leaving the communicator open but abandoned in the grass once more.

"That didn't sound at all like Spock, Jim," McCoy says, putting in his bid for the Enterprise’s bi-weekly Massive Understatement contest.

"No, it--I thought you said you might like him if he mellowed a little."

"I didn't say that!"

"You said that."

"Not exactly,” McCoy protests, and then somewhat grudgingly adds, “He might be in trouble.”

I'm sure McCoy did say that, or something like it, but "I hope Spock has his brain taken over by alien spores" was presumably not where he was going with it. He obviously sees this sudden change of behavior as something to be concerned about--even moreso than Kirk, who seems more irritated than anything. But then, it's only been a couple episodes since McCoy had his own run-in with an alien influence making people act a lot more mellow than usual, and he didn't enjoy that experience at all, so it's not surprising that "trouble" is his first thought here.

Kirk tells McCoy to take over the landing party detail and start getting the colonists up to the ship, and to make sure the party works in teams of two, with nobody being left alone. Meanwhile, Kirk himself takes Sulu and Kelowitz and heads off to find Spock, using the open frequency from Spock's communicator as a homing signal. They follow a dirt path out of the main settlement and soon find said communicator, laying open and abandoned in the grass just off the path. As Kirk picks it up, they hear laughter nearby, and Sulu points in astonishment further down the path, where Layla is watching Spock dangle upside-down from a tree branch like a kid on a jungle gym.

[ID: A shot of Spock and Layla among some trees at the end of a dirt path. Layla is standing on the ground and holding hands with Spock, who is hanging upside-down by his knees from a large tree branch, laughing.]

For a moment all Kirk can do is stare weakly at this weird spectacle. Then he collects himself with a stern AHEM and marches over like a principal about to deliver some very serious detention.

Meanwhile, back at the main hub of the colony, the landing party seems to have gotten well underway with preparations for departure, with several colonists and crewmen piling up luggage and equipment in the middle of a field while McCoy stands nearby overseeing everything, a job I’m sure he’s enjoying since we all know administrative work is McCoy’s favorite thing. Then DeSalle arrives, carrying a couple of the spore flowers and tells McCoy to take “a good, close look” at them, because they’re very interesting. McCoy steps forward to check them out right before the scene cuts away again, leaving us with little doubt as to what’s about to happen next.

During that little interim, Kirk and his crew have made it over to where Spock and Layla are cavorting. Spock just grins happily at Kirk, clearly not bothered one bit, even as Kirk asks if Spock’s out of his mind. He didn’t report to Kirk, he says, because...he didn’t want to.

Kirk glances back and forth between Spock and Layla, who’s standing there smiling rather smugly, and tells Layla that she’ll need to come get ready to evacuate with the rest of the colonists. Spock cheerfully says that there’s not going to be any evacuation. “But perhaps,” he adds, “we should go and get you straightened out.”

That really doesn’t bode well, but rather than ask just what Spock means by that, Kirk tells Sulu that Spock is under arrest in Sulu’s custody until they get back to the ship. Which will certainly work out well because it’s not like Spock is strong enough to chuck Sulu all the way across the field barehanded or anything. Not that Spock seems especially perturbed about being under arrest; instead he just shrugs, drops down from the tree, and says, “Very well. Come with me,” before heading off across the field, leaving else to follow in confusion. That’s how you arrest someone, right?

Of course, Spock leads them right to another group of spore flowers, which the group stops and stares at obligingly for a moment. Then the flowers explode a bunch of spores at them. Somehow, even though he’s standing right next to Sulu and Kelowitz, Kirk manages to totally avoid getting any spores up his sinuses, while the other two are immediately affected. “Yes...I see now,” Sulu says blissfully, with that trademark Very High grin that George Takei does so well. “Of course we can’t remove the colony. It’d be wrong.”

Kirk grabs him by the shoulders—Kirk’s go-to method for snapping people out of it--but when this somehow fails to bring Sulu back to his right mind, all Kirk can do is say that he doesn’t know what these plants are or how they work, but “you’re all going back to the settlement with me, and those colonists are going aboard the ship.” This stern proclamation has absolutely no effect on anyone. The whole group just stands there happily watching Kirk stomp back toward the colony. “I can see the captain is going to be difficult,” Spock remarks.

Kirk’s day isn’t about to get any better, because upon making it back to the colony he’s greeted by McCoy, who we can immediately tell is under the influence as well because his accent is absolutely out of control. It’s so thick even the subtitles pick up on it.

[ID: A screenshot of McCoy walking through a meadow with his communicator out, saying, "Sho’nuf."]

“Hiya, Jimmy boy!” McCoy very happily says to a very unhappy Kirk. “Hey, I’ve taken care of everything. Now all y’all gotta do is just relax. Doctor’s orders!” With a very resigned look, Kirk asks how many plants McCoy’s beamed up to the ship, and McCoy says it must be going on a hundred by now.

So Kirk beams up to the ship and heads right to the bridge, where he tells Uhura to put him through to Admiral Komak at Starfleet, though what he expects Komak to do about all this I don't know. But it’s too late. Uhura turns around to show that she’s smiling as happily as everyone else, and says, “Oh, I’m sorry Dave, I mean, captain. I can’t do that.” She’s short-circuited all the ship’s communications, except for ship-to-surface, since they’ll need that for a little while yet. Then she leaves, pausing in the door of the lift to tell Kirk that it’s really all for the best.

Kirk stands there seething for a moment, then stomps over to grab a plant that’s been left in Spock’s chair. He throws it across the bridge, and the camera lingers ominously on it as Kirk heads back into the lift.

Things aren’t any better on the rest of the ship. Kirk soon finds a long line of crewmembers of all different shirt colors, patiently waiting to transport down to join the colony. Out of what I can only assume is some desperate futile hope that someone will follow his orders if he just keeps trying, Kirk orders them all to go back to their stations at once. Unsurprisingly, they all ignore him. Kirk points out to one of the redshirts that this is MUTINY! but it doesn't get him very far.

[ID: A gif showing a young white man with brown hair wearing a redshirt as he says, "Yes, sir, it is." The camera then zooms in very dramatically on Kirk's stunned face.]

So...they’re all going down to join the colony? All four hundred thirty of them? Or four hundred twenty-nine, I guess, if Kirk refuses to join the fun. That’s almost ten times the amount of people the colony currently has in it. That seems like it could present a bit of a problem, because if you’ll recall DeSalle told Kirk earlier that right now the colony’s growing enough food to feed their current population, with little left over. How are they going to handle such a large and sudden influx into their population? Do they have housing for all these people? Or are they just all going to eat dirt and sleep on the ground because they’re all too high to notice anyway?

After we’ve had a commercial break to contemplate this shocking turn of events, Kirk takes some time out to give vent to his feelings in a captain’s log:

"Captain's Log, Stardate 3417.5. The pod plants have spread spores throughout the ship, carried by the ventilation system. Under their influence, my crew is deserting to join the Omicron colony, and I can't stop them. I don't know why I have not been infected, nor can I get Doctor McCoy to explain the physical, psychological aspects of the infection."

And indeed, just in case we had any doubt, we then see McCoy strolling through the field and happily telling Kirk, “I’m not interested in any physical, psychological aspects, Jim-boy. We all perfectly healthy down here.” Kirk grumbles about how much he’s been hearing about things being perfect lately. “I bet you’ve even grown your tonsils back.” “Sho’nuf!”

Kirk tries desperately to get McCoy to do something to figure these spores out—run a blood test, take a scan, type the symptoms into WebMD, something, anything—but McCoy is more interested in rambling on about mint juleps. Meanwhile, back in the farmhouse, Sandoval’s having tea with Spock while they talk about how nearly everyone’s beamed down from the ship and things are “proceeding quite well.” Kirk storms in and demands to know where McCoy’s gotten to, and Spock says he went off to make that mint julep. Which could prove quite difficult unless this tiny half-assed farm colony has somehow managed to set up a working distillery around here somewhere, but Kirk’s got bigger concerns right now than where McCoy’s going to get his bourbon.

Sandoval wants to know why Kirk won’t join them in their private, spore-sponsored paradise. Kirk asks where these spores came from, anyway, and Spock exposits that there’s no way to know—they just drifted through space until they arrived at this planet, which is perfect for them because it turns out they actually thrive on Bertold rays. The plants act as a repository for the spores until they can find a human—or half-Vulcan—body to inhabit. No explanation is forthcoming as to how Spock knows any of this.

Spock and Sandoval insist that the planet is “a true Eden” with belonging and love and no needs or wants for anyone, but Kirk is skeptical. “No wants, no needs. We weren’t meant for that. None of us. Man stagnates if he has no ambition, no desire to be more than he is.” Of all the things wrong with this situation I’m not sure “BEING TOO HAPPY IS BAD FOR YOU” is the take I would go with, but okay. Spock says that Kirk doesn’t understand, but he’ll come around...sooner or later.

Kirk, disgusted with this whole conversation, goes back to the ship. The bridge is dark, silent, and utterly empty. We get a slow pan of the blinking lights and displays of the consoles, with no one left to man them. Kirk walks over to his chair, hits the intercom, and starts calling one part of the ship after another, with no response from any of them. With nothing else left to do, he sits down in his chair and starts glumly recording a captain’s log so angsty it could be a LiveJournal entry:

"Captain's Log, Stardate 3417.7. Except for myself, all crew personnel have transported to the surface of the planet. Mutinied. Lieutenant Uhura has effectively sabotaged the communications station. I can only contact the surface of the planet. The ship...can be maintained in orbit for several months, but even with automatic controls, I cannot pilot her alone. In effect, I am marooned here. I'm beginning to realize...just how big this ship really is, how quiet. I don't know how to get my crew back, how to counteract the effect of the spores. I don't know what I can offer against...paradise."

Hold on hold on HOLD ON what do you MEAN the ship can be maintained in orbit for several months? Every time someone takes their hands off the controls for five seconds we get told that the orbit is decaying and they’re gonna plummet into some hapless planet within a few hours at most but now all of a sudden it’s fine to hang out up there for several months? MAKE UP YOUR MIND.

Kirk gets up to go sit at the helm, just to get a change of scenery mid-mope, and as he finishes his log/rant the camera slowly pans down to reveal the spore flower that he chucked across the bridge earlier. Which is weird because we just got a wide shot of the bridge and that flower definitely wasn’t there then.

[ID: Two shots. The first is a wide shot showing Kirk alone on the empty, darkened bridge, preparing to sit down at the helm. There is nothing in on the floor in front of the helm. The second shot is a closer shot of Kirk sitting at the helm with his chin in one hand, now with a large spore flower poking up in the front of shot.]

The flower promptly shoots Kirk in the face, and for a moment he just continues to sit there with spores in his hair and a “yeah, this might as well happen” expression. But then he slowly starts to smile, suddenly as happy as everyone else. Exactly why Kirk’s been unaffected by the spores up until now, even after hanging out for quite a while on a ship that’s supposedly been thoroughly contaminated by them, is never really explained. Maybe he's just on a lot of Zyrtec. But it seems even Kirk’s determination to not be happy can’t hold out against a point-blank spray in the face. He calls Spock to say that he finally understands now, which Spock is happy to hear. Kirk says he’ll be down just as soon as he packs up a few things, so Spock says he and Layla will wait for him at the beamdown point.

So Kirk goes off to his quarters to pack up a suitcase, the contents of which seem to mostly consist of uniform shirts. Apparently paradise for Kirk does not include one of those green jumpsuits, which, really, who can blame him. He opens a small vault by his bed and pulls out a couple of black cases, one of which he opens to reveal a medal. This seems to stir some sense of conflict because he sits down and stares at it for a long moment, but then puts it aside and heads to the transporter room, where he puts the suitcase on the platform and then prepares to set the controls.

But then Kirk hesitates, and stands there for a moment looking conflicted. Possibly he’s still having feelings about those medals, or maybe he’s having second thoughts about whether he packed enough shirts. In any case, he eventually exclaims, “No...No! I...can’t...LEAVE!” Then he punches the console for good measure.

Apparently this little emotional outburst is all it takes to cure the spores, because Kirk gasps a little, looks momentarily confused, and then seems to be back to his old self. “Emotions...violent emotions. Needs...anger,” he tells the empty room. “Captain’s log, supplemental. I think I’ve discovered the answer...but to carry out my plan entails considerable risk. Mr. Spock is much stronger than the ordinary human being.” Then he treats us to this remarkable line:

[ID: A shot of Kirk in profile at the transporter controls as he says, "Aroused, his great physical strength could kill."]

Down on the planet, Spock and Layla are still waiting at the beamdown point when Kirk calls Spock up and says he’s realized there’s some equipment on the ship that they’ll need for the colony, and he needs Spock’s help to get it all beamed down. Really, you’d think there’d be quite a lot of equipment on the Enterprise that a farming colony could make good use of, but I guess they’re really determined to stick to the whole no-technology approach. Despite this, Spock cheerfully accepts the explanation, gives Layla a quick smooch, and beams up.

But upon materializing, Spock is greeted not with a smiling Kirk ready to go move some equipment with his bro, but Kirk standing there holding some nonspecific heavy metal rod thing that he’s smacking threatening against his hand. “All right, you mutinous, disloyal, computerized half-breed,” he says, “we’ll see about you deserting my ship.”

Spock reacts to this bar-brawl-starter with nothing more than a nonplussed expression and polite correcting Kirk on his syntax. Kirk, determination unshaken, continues laying into him with a stream of insults that would have made that fucker from Balance of Terror go, “Whoa, hold on there a minute.” Undeterred by not being able to use any actual expletives, he compares Spock both to a machine and to various fairy-tale creatures, makes fun of his ears, and rounds it all off by having a go at the entire Vulcan race. He even insults Spock’s parents.

[ID: 1. A shot of Spock standing in the transporter room looking perplexed as Kirk, off-camera, says, "Whose father was a computer and his mother an encyclopedia?" 2. A gif from Monty Python and the Holy Grail of John Cleese as the French knight on the battlements yelling, "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"]

Spock stands there taking it all stoically for quite a while, even as the background music gets increasingly tense. He finally starts to crack when Kirk goes after Spock’s relationship with Layla, and when Kirk keeps going despite Spock angrily telling him, “That’s enough,” Spock finally flips out big time. You know what that means, it’s time for a STAR TREK FIGHT SCENE! This one’s got it all: close-up shots of the actors intercut with long shots of very obvious stunt doubles; cardboard props getting punched; even people picking up random unidentifiable bits of starship equipment that may or may not have ever been there before to use as weapons. The only thing we’re missing is Kirk doing some kind of weird wrestling move.

[ID: Three gifs showing a fight scene between Kirk and Spock. First we see a long shot where Kirk and Spock are clearly being played by stunt doubles, as Spock punches a metal rod Kirk is holding, bending it in half. He then punches Kirk in the jaw, sending him careening into the wall. Then a close-up of Nimoy and Shatner as Spock advances on Kirk and throws a punch but misses, denting the control panel in the wall behind Kirk. Kirk dodges out of the way towards the console, and Spock throws another punch that hits the side of the console. Then back to a long view with the stunt doubles as Spock throws Kirk into the opposite wall, which Kirk careens off of, falling on his back on the floor, while Spock picks up something resembling a square metal stool or stepladder and raises it over his head. Finally, we see Nimoy and Shatner again as Kirk lays on the floor looking up at Spock, raising the thing he's carrying over his head.]

We dramatically cut to black as Spock stands poised above Kirk, raising whatever-the-hell-that-thing-is over his head threateningly. Apparently the ad break gives him enough time to cool down, though, because instead of bringing the thing down on Kirk’s skull, he hesitates.

“Had enough?” Kirk asks. “I didn’t realize what it took to get under that thick hide of yours.”

Spock slowly lowers the thing, looking a bit regretful about having to do so. Kirk says he doesn’t know what Spock’s so mad about, anyway. “It isn’t every first officer who gets to belt his captain...several times.” Dude, you just stood there and unleashed a screed of personal and racial insults at your best friend here. A “sorry” probably wouldn’t go amiss here.

“You did that to me deliberately,” Spock realizes, and then realizes that the spores are gone. “I don’t belong anymore.” Kirk explains that since the spores are “benevolent and peaceful,” violent emotions overwhelm and destroy them—that’s the answer. Which...definitely makes sense, chemically speaking. Sure.

Spock, still looking pretty glum about all this, points out that Kirk’s method might have worked out alright for curing one person, but they’ve got over five hundred infected people down there, and trying to pick a fight with all of them probably isn’t going to go so well. But no worries, Kirk’s got another plan. He wants Spock to rig up a subsonic transmitter that they can hook up to the ship’s communications system and then broadcast to all the communicators. Spock says he can do that, but hesitates as Kirk turns to leave. “Captain. Striking a fellow officer is a court martial offense,” he points out.

Kirk mulls over that one for a moment. “We-ll...if we’re both in the brig, who’s gonna build the subsonic transmitter?” he says, and Spock concedes the point. Besides, it’s a bit late to be worrying about striking fellow officers now.

[ID: A gif from The Naked Time of Kirk and Spock standing in an Enterprise conference room. Kirk slaps Spock across the face, and Spock retaliates by backhanding Kirk so hard he is thrown across the table in the center of the room and falls onto the floor on the other side.]

But what with the insults and the punching and de-sporing and everything, it seems that something has clean slipped Spock’s mind: Layla’s still down there waiting for him to come back. As she stands around the field, McCoy wanders over and asks what’s up. When she tells him that she’s been out here for some time now waiting for Spock and Kirk to come back, he gentlemanly offers to fix that for her and calls the ship. Spock picks up, and Layla asks if everything’s okay up there.

With obvious discomfort, Spock tells her that yes, he’s...quite well. Layla, oblivious to anything being wrong, asks if she can come up there, because she wants to talk to him, and besides, “I’ve never seen a starship before.” Wait a minute, never seen a starship before? You’re on a planetary colony! What, did you drive here?

Spock asks if she’s still at the beamdown point, and if McCoy’s there. Layla says yes to both, so Spock tells her to give the communicator back to McCoy, since she won’t need it to transport, and he’ll have her beamed up in a few minutes. One might think that at this point they might take this easy opportunity to also beam up McCoy and get him cured (it shouldn’t be hard, McCoy is already 85% comprised of negative emotions to begin with), so he can start investigating these spores, just in case Operation Go For the Eardrums doesn’t work. But they don’t. Kirk awkwardly asks Spock if he’s sure about talking to Layla while she’s still spore’d, but Spock just nods and heads to the transporter room.

He beams Layla up, and she happily runs over to give him a hug—they’ve been parted ever so long, after all—but when he just stands there stiffly, not reacting at all, she slowly pulls back and says, “You’re no longer with us, are you?”

Spock says it was necessary. Layla begs him to come back to the planet and belong again, but he says he can’t. She starts crying and saying she loves him. "I said that six years ago, and I can't seem to stop repeating myself. On Earth, you couldn't give anything of yourself. You couldn't even put your arms around me. We couldn't have anything together there. We couldn't have anything together anyplace else. But we're happy here. I can't lose you now, Mr. Spock, I can't." Look, if the only time the relationship you want can possibly work out is when the other person is being mind-controlled by alien spores, I think it may be time to consider whether this is really a relationship you should be pursuing in the first place.

“I have a responsibility to this ship...to that man on the bridge,” Spock gently tells her. “I am what I am, Layla. And if there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine can be no worse than someone else’s.”

Layla soon realizes that all this anguish has resulted in her getting de-spore’d as well, and she’s not happy about it. “And this is for my own good?” she demands angrily. Well...yes, I mean, it is, but Spock doesn’t say that. Nor does he respond when she asks, “Do you mind if I say I still love you?” but she hugs him again anyway.

[ID: Layla tearfully embraces Spock and says, "You never told me if you had another name, Mr. Spock." Spock replies, "You couldn't pronounce it."]

ROMANCE

We’re obviously supposed to read this little story arc as the tragic tale of true love destined never to be, because Spock is only able to express his feelings for Layla under the influence of the spores. He has experienced paradise, but alas, he cannot linger there, and so on. It’s never set all that well with me, though. The problem is we never really get Spock’s side of the story and so it leaves open the question of how much he actually did want this relationship in the first place. Layla said earlier that “Mr. Spock’s feelings were never expressed to me” so evidently he never outright said “I love you but I can’t be with you” or anything of that sort to her. When they’re alone in the field before Spock gets spore’d he seems stiff, standoffish, awkward, and deflects all of her overtures with what appears to be discomfort, even annoyance. He clearly has no interest in talking about whatever history they had together, even when they’re all alone. For all that Layla goes on about how she can see a side of Spock that his crewmates don’t, we see interactions with those crewmates multiple times throughout the show that prove that Spock is perfectly capable of showing people that he cares about them, even if the ways he does it are usually a bit atypical. We don’t see any of that in his initial interactions with Layla.

If we accept the premise that the spores only make people act as they would if they had no inhibitions or fears holding them back, then yes, Spock saying he loves Layla after he’s been spore’d would indicate that he did secretly love her all along. The problem is that we know the spores make people do things that they would not ordinarily want to do. You think all of those four hundred thirty people on the Enterprise secretly longed for a quiet life among the soil but all chose to instead join the space navy for some reason? Should we believe Scotty is actually deep down perfectly okay with abandoning his beloved ship to a slowly decaying orbit? I doubt that Kirk has always harbored a subconscious desire to give up exploring the final frontier to pursue a peaceful agrarian lifestyle, but he very nearly does do just that. So the question of how much a relationship with Layla is what Spock “really” wanted seems to be a bit hazy.

Mind, I’m not saying this makes Layla an evil person who deliberately drugged Spock so she could have a relationship with him or anything like that. It’s clear throughout the episode that the spores induce those who are infected by them to spread them around to anyone nearby who’s not in the spore fandom yet, so there’s no reason to believe Layla would act as she did if she wasn’t under the influence herself. I just personally find it hard to buy into the tragic romance of a star-crossed relationship when the thing crossing the stars is that one of the participants is only enthusiastic about the whole thing when they’re not fully sober. It makes me question how much of their previous relationship really was Spock having feelings for Layla but being unable to express them, versus Layla projecting a lot of feelings onto him and writing off his disinterest or discomfort as denial.

Kirk and Spock go back to working on the signal, while Layla deals with her heartbreak by disappearing into thin air for the rest of the episode. Spock says that the sound they’re going to send out is on a frequency that won’t be heard so much as felt, but apparently it will be felt quite emphatically. Kirk compares it to putting itching powder on someone. Which may seem like another silly technobabble deus ex machina, but speaking from personal experience, driving someone into a frantic frustrated fit by playing an obnoxious noise just on the edge of hearing sounds totally legit. All they need to complete the sensory overload meltdown experience is find a way to simulate some flickering florescent lights and put tags on the backs of the uniform shirts.

And indeed, as the device starts to work, we see Sulu and DeSalle working in one of the fields—for a certain value of ‘working,’ anyway, they’re kind of just digging around aimlessly—when Sulu accidentally elbows DeSalle in the back. He apologizes, but DeSalle shoves him back, and before long they’re having a full-on brawl right there in the field, which can't be good for the crops. As the device on the ship hums away, two more crewmembers start their own fight over by the farmhouse, and when a third tries to break them up he promptly gets dragged into it as well.

The effects haven’t quite reached everyone just yet, though, as we see McCoy chillaxing under a tree with some unspecified concoction. Sandoval strolls up and says that he’s been thinking about what sort of work he could assign McCoy to. When McCoy protests that he does one kind of work and that’s doctorin’, Sandoval says that he’s not a doctor anymore—they don’t need any doctors here.

This does not go over well.

[ID: A gif showing McCoy reclining against a tree in a grassy meadow, a stalk of grass in one hand and a grass of something brown with several leafy stalks in it. Sandoval is standing over him. McCoy says, "Oh, no?" and then slowly stands up, tosses his grass stalk aside, looks Sandoval in the eye and says, "Would you like to see just how fast I can put you in a hospital?"]

Undeterred, Sandoval says that he’s the leader and he’ll be assigning McCoy whatever work he wants to, but when he tries to walk away McCoy pulls him back and snarls, “You’d better make me a mechanic. Then I can treat little tin gods like you.” Sandoval throws a punch at him, but McCoy dodges and whacks Sandoval in the stomach, putting him out flat on the ground. See, I told you it wouldn’t be hard to cure McCoy. Everyone else on the Enterprise was perfectly happy to give up their careers to go do a bit of light farming, but tell McCoy he can’t be a doctor anymore and no amount of spores are going to save you.

While Sandoval is busy rolling around on the ground, McCoy stands there looking confused for a moment, then—presumably having only just now noticed that instead of a mint julep he’s actually been drinking a coke with a bunch of cilantro in it—throws his drink aside and admits that he’s not sure why he just clobbered Sandoval. But Sandoval has other concerns for the moment. With a look of dawning horror familiar to all us chronic procrastinators, he abruptly realizes that they haven’t actually been doing anything all this time. “No accomplishments, no progress. Three years wasted. We wanted to make this planet a garden...”

McCoy points out that the colonists really will have to leave—they can’t survive here without the spores handling all that radiation for them. But the dream’s not over; the colonists could be relocated to start again somewhere a bit less deadly, if that’s what they want.

“I think I’d...I think we’d like to get some work done,” Sandoval muses. “The work we set out to do.”

McCoy calls Spock and says that Sandoval wants to talk to Kirk. Spock notes to Kirk that the crew are all starting to rather sheepishly call in by now. Sandoval tells Kirk that the colonists will fully cooperate with the evacuation now, and Kirk tells him to start making the preparations. Real ones, this time.

Sometime later, everyone’s back on the bridge getting ready to head out. McCoy reports that he’s examined all the colonists and they all remain in perfect health. “A fringe benefit left over by the spores.”

One would think that this would have been quite the eventful afternoon for the medical sciences, given that they just discovered spores with such incredible healing powers that they can make people regrow organs, and McCoy just confirmed that anything healed by the spores stays healed after the spores are gone. Sure, they’ve got some side effects, but Kirk’s already discovered a simple way to get rid of the things once they’re no longer needed. Strap someone to a bed, give em a facemask full of spores, let them lay there for a while having a nice buzz while they heal their cancer or whatever, then play an irritating noise at them until they sneeze the spores back out again. Boom. Done. You’ve solved medicine. Or, y’know, we could vacate the planet and never speak of it ever again, that works too.

Notably unmentioned by anybody during this little denouement is the fate of the other two settlements on the planet that Sandoval mentioned back near the beginning of the episode. The length of the timeskip isn’t specified, so it’s possible that the crew went and collected them as well in the interim, but we never get any details as to how that little adventure went, assuming that it did happen and that the Enterprise isn’t about to get halfway to the next starbase before Kirk realizes he forgot something.

As they watch the planet diminish behind them on the viewscreen, McCoy muses that this was “the second time man’s been thrown out of paradise.” Kirk disagrees. "No, no, Bones, this time we walked out on our own. Maybe we weren't meant for paradise. Maybe we were meant to fight our way through--struggle, claw our way up, scratch for every inch of the way. Maybe we can't stroll to the music of the lute. We must march to the sound of drums."

Spock remains unimpressed by this bit of philosophizing. “Poetry, Captain. Nonregulation.” Kirk notes that they haven’t heard anything from Spock about this whole ordeal, since, y’know, that definitely seems like something Spock would want to talk about. He says he’s got little to say about Omicron Ceti 3.

[ID: A close-up of Spock on the bridge as he says, "Except that for the first time in my life...I was happy."]

oh my god someone needs therapy

On that INCREDIBLY CHEERFUL note, the Enterprise flies away and the episode ends.

It’s somewhat baffling to me that of all the quite reasonable objections available to the whole situation with the spores, the main problem that Kirk—and by extension, the episode—seems to have is that “the spores make things too EASY and mankind was meant to STRUGGLE!!!” I mean, effectively what we had going on here was people being drugged without their consent into a state that overwrote their own desires, ambitions, emotions and much of their individual personalities and replaced them with bland, happy conformity to a goal and lifestyle none of them actually chose. That seems a bit worse to me than “people weren’t working hard enough.” Kirk goes on and on about how the spores made things too easy, but what they really did was make people apathetic to whether they succeeded at anything or not. Sandoval’s horrified when he’s cured of the spores because the colonists had much different plans for their colony; far from making those plans easier, the spores made them impossible. The dreams and desires of the Enterprise crew for a life of exploration among the stars would have been forever unmet if they had permanently joined the colony, they just wouldn’t have been able to care. Kirk seems to believe that the ultimate evil of the spores is that they deprive people of ambition; to me it seems that the worse evil is that they deprive people of their individuality and their autonomy.

Then there’s the fact that while the spores make people happy and friendly, they also make them remarkably blasé about the well-being of anyone who isn’t part of their collective. They have to be—caring about whether someone else is upset or hurt would make them unhappy, after all. Spock and McCoy are completely unconcerned with the mounting distress of their best friend, and beyond peer pressuring him to get with the program and take the spores like everyone else, they don’t seem to much care if he remains the only unhappy person on the planet. The colonists seem completely unbothered by the fact that all the animals they brought with them died a rather grueling death by radiation poisoning. Everyone on the Enterprise is happy to abandon the ship and join the colony with no message left behind for Starfleet, with apparently not a thought to spare for any friends and family back home, who would only ever know that their loved ones disappeared into space never to be seen again.

Or at least, they would if things actually went according to plan, which they probably wouldn’t, because the spores also made everyone cheerfully oblivious to the idea that anything could potentially cause a problem or pose a threat to them. After all, if Kirk hadn’t had a recovery at the last minute, the Enterprise would have been left unmanned in orbit around the planet, with no way for anyone in the colony to get back onboard. Uhura also goes out of her way to make sure that they no longer have any off-planet communication. So it’s probably not going to be long before Starfleet notices that one of their prize starships has abruptly gone incommunicado, and I’m willing to bet they’d be a bit quicker on that investigation than they were about checking on a tiny backwater colony (although it is Starfleet, so who knows, really). And since they know exactly where the ship was headed on its last recorded mission, it probably won’t take them long to find it. If Starfleet sends another ship along to investigate quickly enough, they’ll find the abandoned Enterprise hanging out in orbit around the planet, and Kirk’s log clearly lays out what happened, so all the other ship has to do is figure out how to neutralize the spores and everyone’s going to get rescued from Omicron Ceti 3 pretty quickly whether they want to be or not.

If Starfleet doesn’t show up in time...Kirk says the ship can be “maintained in orbit” for several months, but then what? It can’t stay up there forever. Sooner or later, the orbit will decay and the ship’s going to crash into the planet, and if it crashes anywhere near one of the colonies, their magic healing powers are going to be put to the test. Also their magic agriculture powers--rich soil and mild weather is all well and good, but is that going to be enough to carry all those crops through the ensuing environmental effects of an impact that big? Especially since, as already mentioned, the colony has enough to feed them and that’s about it—so they really can’t afford to lose any crops for very long.

Sure, maybe the Enterprise wouldn’t crash close enough to any of the colonies to ruin them, but why take the risk? All they had to do was have a helmsman set it on a course out of orbit, then take a shuttlecraft back to the planet. Doesn’t occur to anyone, evidently. Nor do we see anyone bothering to bring any supplies or equipment from the ship to the colony, even though there’s gotta be lots of stuff up there that would be useful. All in all, it seems quite likely that Paradise would have eventually collapsed in on itself simply because the spores make people unable to pay attention to any potential threats or obstacles long enough to do anything about them.

So what’s the moral here? ‘Society can’t survive if everyone is stoned all of the time’? I mean, okay? Sure? Cool? Glad we sorted all that out.

That said, despite having ranted for the past nine hundred words about the weird moral, I’m not saying this episode is bad. As a serious point about human nature I don’t find it especially compelling—YMMV, but I just personally tend to side-eye stories that center around the idea of “wouldn’t it be awful if we all had it too easy??”--but as fifty minutes of extremely Star Trek-y silliness it’s glorious. We’ve got Spock hanging from a tree and talking about dragons while making out in the grass, McCoy going full Georgia and wandering about with something he thinks is a mint julep, Kirk stomping around in increasing agitation as he tries to get some sense out of somebody and then making emo log entries while he sits on the bridge alone...it’s great.

The original draft of this episode apparently had the romantic subplot be for Sulu, who would have been motivated to stay with Layla after having been diagnosed with a serious medical condition that was cured by the spores, kind of like the eventual plot with McCoy in For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky. D.C. Fontana rewrote the story to focus on Spock, since if you have an episode about something that causes a strong emotional reaction, throwing Spock and his ever-present internal conflict into the mix is kind of the most immediately obvious way to generate some pathos and drama. The spores originally granted those affected with them telepathic abilities, enabling them to link with everyone else who’d been spore’d and form a hivemind. There are some traces of this in the final episode with spore’d people talking about “joining us” and “being one of us” and so on, but without the telepathy part it just kind of makes it sound like they’re in a cult. Also, the cure for the spores would have been consuming alcohol, so presumably in that draft McCoy never got infected.

For the purposes of the Trek Tally I’m going to count the spores as a Space Disease, which might be broadening the umbrella of that term a bit but hey, close enough. Next time we’ll be looking for life, Jim, but not as we know it, in The Devil in the Dark.

#star trek #star trek TOS #star trek TOS season one #recap tag #star trek TOS recaps #1.24 This Side of Paradise #1.24 This Side of Paradise recap

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yuzukult · 4 years ago

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effortlessly pt. 8 || jungkook & reader

title: effortlessly pairing: jungkook x reader genre: fluff, romance, school!au, smut some chapters words: ~3.5k notes: just a couple more chapters + epilogue left!!!! :) also hpbd jungkook

series: part one || part two || part three || part four || part five || part six || part seven || part eight || part nine || part ten || epilogue

“Jungkook thinks I should be a coach.”

Sitting outside of a convenience store on a weekday night in your track pants and a hoodie, Yura sits across from you at the table, dressed in something similar with sweatpants. It had been a while since the two of you spent time together, and you were longing for a female companion.

“That’s... interesting,” She says, lifting up the plastic covering of her ramen that cooks in the disposable bowl. “So, you gonna do it?”

“You think I should?” You ask, observing her expression. Honestly, you had expected her to ask more questions and poke for further details as to how and why Jungkook came to that conclusion.

Yura nods, pushing bowl in front of you before grabbing the other that sits beside it, replicating the same actions before handing you a pair of chopsticks. “Yeah... so you gonna do it?”

You wrinkle your forehead, leaning onto the back of your seat. “I... you think I’d be good at coaching? You don’t think it’s a bad idea?”

Shoving as much noodles into her mouth with her chopsticks, she inhales the food, cheeks full before chewing and swallowing with a nod. “Uh, yeah.” She wipes the soup remains that drips to her chin with her sleeve. “Don’t you coach Jungkook already?”

“You think I coach Jungkook?”

“Yeah, do you not?” Yura waves her hand to gesture you to the bowl of ramen. “Eat up, the noodles are getting swollen.”

Blindly following her instruction, you take a portion of the noodles into your mouth, slurping up the remains. Looking up to your friend, you look at her questioningly. “Do you think I’d be good at it?”

“Uh, Jungkook is pretty much an Olympic level kind of swimmer... so I say, yes? You coached the entire swim team, basically. They’re all doing very well.”

“They have their own swim coach.”

“Yeah, but doesn’t he just keep having practices when he’s not around? And he makes sure you’re there if he’s not, right? Pretty sure that means something.”

“Yura...”

“Hey,” She wags a finger in front of you. “You brought this up, we’re gonna talk about it. Why are you so hesitant?”

“Because...” You sigh, slouching. “I’m not sure if I like it. Do I love doing it? Is it my passion?”

Yura rolls her eyes, placing her chopsticks down. This was getting serious, you note, because Yura never pauses her time eating just to talk. “Eat first, talking second,” she’d used to say to you when you’d interrupt her slotted breakfast schedule during homeroom.

“Listen, you don’t need to love the idea of it right away and be as passionate about it like Jungkook and Taehyung are about swimming. You just have to like the idea enough to try it, and life sucks but the good thing about it is that you have time to figure whether or not it’s for you. If you find out that coaching isn’t your thing, then you move onto the next idea.”

“But—“

“But you’re good at coaching. Just because you’re good at it doesn’t mean that you have to have a career in it either. I’m great at eating but you don’t see me getting into competitive eating, don’t you?” Tempted to tell her that she probably should, you bite down your tongue from making the comment. “Just try it, why don’t you?”

Yura made a point— yet again, and as constantly brought up from before, you’d never tell her. It would just stroke her ego, you think, but you love her nonetheless for being so supportive and rational.

Maybe you’d look more into coaching. What it requires, what it means to be one.

That very same night, you’re up for hours to the point that the only light in your room is from your computer screen, brightly displaying onto your face. You’re straining your eyes, forgetting how much time has passed from being engrossed in your research.

“Why are you still up?”

“Shit—” You curse, eyes wide as you stumble off your seat. Turning to the voice, you notice Jungkook sitting by his window sill, hair rustled and rubbing his eyes tiredly. He’d just woken up from his sleep. “I just got up to use the bathroom and noticed light from your room coming into mine. Why are you still up?”

Clicking off the screen, you turn in your swivel chair back into his direction, mimicking his position by the window while resting your chin on your arms. Distressed, your fingers fidget on the fabric of your sleeves, humming in thought. “I started looking into prerequisites for coaching.” Jungkook doesn’t look like he just woke up anymore, attentive to your words.

“You were?”

“Yeah,” You nod, gazing off to the streetlights outside of your houses. “I don’t know if I’ve ever considered that before.”

He stares at you longingly, observing the expression on your face. Jungkook is hesitant about what he should say, how he should comfort you because he doesn’t want you to feel like you should force a decision from his suggestion. “You don’t have to do it just because I said it, you know. I think you’re great at it. Talented, patient, encouraging, and understanding— you have the characteristics of what it means to be one.”

“Why does it feel like my decision right now will determine the rest of my life?”

He pauses. How do you convince someone that it’s not true after they’ve already drilled the idea in their head already? How does he get you to see yourself from his eyes? He wants to tell you that there’s more to life than choosing a career at the age of eighteen and coming to the conclusion that it’s all you have, but that you’ll eventually find pleasures in other things— like your hobbies, spending time with friends, and being with the love of your life. How he made it seem like his own dreams and aspirations are what determines his own life, but in reality, he had just learned a couple days ago that it doesn’t stop there for anyone.

“It doesn’t.” Jungkook ultimately speaks up. “But know that whatever happens, I’ll be by your side through it all, whatever you choose.”

Despite spending most of the night tense from being glued to the computer screen, feeling frustrated with yourself and debating what next steps to take, Jungkook’s words were comforting in a way, whether or not he’d result in keeping his promises.

You smile at him, and he swore in that moment that his heart was swelling to the point it would burst out his chest.

“Jungkook, I think you’re an impressive swimmer. Have you ever considered going to college for it?”

“Well, of course. It’s only my dream, really.” He jokes, mouth dry while repositioning his hands yet again. His palms are drenched in sweat, and he only hopes he’s not soaking the sleeves of his blazer. He already had to loosen the first couple buttons of the shirt that you had picked from him that morning, preparing for this meeting, hoping that with your help he’d be more confident. He’s still anxious, nonetheless.

The woman sitting at the desk across from Jungkook smiles. She notes that he’s nervous but all the applicants are coming to meet her. But Jungkook is different, he’s built of talent and drive, more than all the people she has met recently.

“I know you probably weren’t expecting anything after the outcome of your last swim meet. But I saw a couple of the ones you had previously, and despite the loss, you’ve shown the same amount of energy and motivation for all. I’m fascinated.”

“Thank you,” He retorts quickly, bowing to her. “It really means a lot from you. I didn’t know you attended those other matches, there weren’t many people there.”

“If I’m being honest, I was there for someone else, but a colleague of mine was interested in you, so I decided to attend for the two of you.”

He creases his brows in confusion. “Was there another swimmer that you had in mind?”

She shakes her head at his question, slipping off the glasses that had sat on the bridge of her nose. “No, actually, I was searching for someone who would be almost like an apprentice for a coach at our University. There’s been a rumor that she helped Kim Taehyung from your team get to where he is now, and seeing that she wasn’t even part of the team had caught the ears of those in the industry. I’m sure you know who she is?”

“I got the scholarship!”

Mouth agape, you drop your backpack in the hallway, arms open and welcoming Jungkook into a tight embrace. At this very moment, you’re not confusing that feeling in your stomach for jealousy anymore, but pure happiness for the boy you love, the boy you watched grow up to be the person he is today, chasing his dreams and working as hard as he does.

He pulls away just barely, lips pecking the tip of your nose warmly. “Thank you. For being there, for telling me that I could do it. I can’t believe they offered me a scholarship. The school of my dreams offered me a scholarship. They want to train me and hopefully get me far.”

“I don’t doubt you for a minute.”

“There’s... something else,” He says, finally letting go of you. “And you’ll figure it out later, but I’m debating if I should be the one to tell you.”

You roll your eyes at the male, standing back to cross your arms against your chest. “Who else would tell me besides you if you’re the one saying it like that? What is it?”

“Actually, come to practice today after class.”

You slouch, disappointed in the decision he concluded with. “I’m always there at practice, do you even have to ask?”

He grins. “Just making sure you’ll be of attendance is all.”

Hoseok is walking with you on route the gym, the tips of his hair peculiarly drenched wet. He hasn’t even started swim practice yet, how is he already on the path of being soaked?

“Why are you so freaking sweaty, Hoseok?” You ask, glancing over at him. He was perspiring more than usual. “It’s not even hot out. Are you anxious about something?”

“No,” He mutters quickly, shaking his head.

“And why are you walking with me to the pool? You never walk with me. You’re being suspicious.” Stopping in your tracks, you turn to look at him, hands in the pockets of your zip-up jacket. “Spit it out. What’s happening? And where’s Jungkook?” You suddenly notice, tilting your head to the side in confusion.

“Uh, he left to go to practice early.”

“Did he ask you to walk me or something? I’m a big girl, you know. I don’t need someone else walking me to the gym.”

He sighs, slightly frustrated and defeated. “Can’t we just go? It would make more sense if we just... walk into the gym.”

Shrugging, you abide by his instruction and follow him. He opens the doors to the arena, and you swear the humidity is worse than on an average day. You’re grateful you made the decision to tie your hair up in a ponytail that day because if your hair was down, it’d be blown up by now.

Making your way to your everyday spot on the bleachers, you throw your bag onto one of the benches, sliding off the hoodie before you notice Jungkook.

“Hey,” He says, jogging up to meet with you. He has on a smile that exposes his teeth from excitement that you’re not sure from what. “You made it.”

You stare at him questioningly. “I always make it to your practices. Except maybe like... once, but I told you I wasn’t coming.”

“I want you to meet someone.”

There’s a woman who comes from behind Jungkook, dressed in casual business attire, hair let down and fallen on her shoulders as she bows and extends her hand for a shake. You take her offer, hand in hand as you mimic her bow. She introduces herself as the recruiter that gave Jungkook the scholarship, and you thank her for giving him an opportunity, yet you find the greeting ambiguous.

“Jungkook here was able to clear up a couple things for me.”

“Clear up a couple things? What were they?” You ask, playing along to what you weren’t sure with.

She takes a seat on the bleachers, patting the seat beside her for you. Complying, you settle yourself in the spot. “I actually came several times in search for you and wanted to discuss some things with you. Rather, you’re quick on your feet, aren’t you? You leave fast.”

“Jungkook takes too long to get dressed, I like to wait in the car before him.” You jokingly admit.

The woman smiles, letting out a light laugh. “Rumor has it, you are Kim Taehyung’s personal coach.”

You scoff in disbelief. “Kim Taehyung’s coach? His coach is Coach Choi from our high school, the one standing by the pool over there.”

She shakes her head in disagreement. “No, no. He’s different. Taehyung had mentioned before that there was someone on the team that gave a lot of the guys advice and suggestions that they took, improving consistently. I’ve also heard here from Jungkook himself that you’ve pretty much trained him his entire life, ever since he wanted to get into swimming.”

“I—“ Before you could even finish, she interrupts you mid-sentence.

“Just once summer. That’s all we’re asking. One summer being an apprentice of our University’s coach before you start your semester. We’re hoping you’d take up our admissions offer as well, it would be an honor for us to mentor you into a career that could benefit us all. You have so much potential. We’re hoping to be able to help mold you into being better than all of us.”

Smack! Jungkook winces, rubbing his arm with a frown on his face. “Baby, what was that for?” The two of you are standing outside in your school’s parking lot beside his car, in public where anyone could witness you giving Jungkook a beating, but you could care less. “It really hurt.”

“I’m glad,” You say through your clenched teeth, feigning another hit in his direction and he flinches. “Why didn’t you warn me?”

“I was going to, remember what I said this morning? But I thought if I mentioned it, you’d get too scared and back out. I needed you there, so I asked Hoseok to make sure you came since I had to meet with her first.”

“I wasn’t going to back out!”

He pulls the handle of the passenger door, opening it for you as he gestures you to get inside. “Yeah, like I believe that.” You frown at his response, sliding into your seat, waiting for him to get to the driver’s side, slamming his door close.

“So, are you going to take the offer?”

“Huh?” You respond dumbfoundedly, as if you never expected him to ask. “Oh. I’m not sure.”

“You’re not?” You shrug in response, slouching in his seat that shifts back slightly— one of the flaws of his worn out car. “I don’t know. What if I’m wasting their time after I find out that this isn’t for me?”

“Then that’s something to worry about in the future. What about now, do you want to do it?”

There’s a lot of uncertainty that lies on the surface, especially since everyone else says you’re good at something but you’re not sure yourself if you feel confident enough to do it. How does a doctor gain enough courage to do what they do everyday? What about a nurse? An engineer, a business owner, an artist, a producer... all of the above? How does one leave the house every morning, ready to go do what they’re considered a profession in, and not feel that insecurity?

“... what if I’m not good at it?” You confide, voice gentle and quiet. There’s no hint of aplomb, just pure apprehensiveness that seeps out of each word that escapes from your lips. “I don’t want to disappoint anyone.”

Jungkook’s orbs soften. You know you shouldn’t be so dependent on someone when it comes to your confidence, but it was hard to be self-assured when you spent half of your life listening to people who didn’t believe in you. “I get it, I shouldn’t be so... negative and putting myself down. It’s just hard knowing that I might actually disappoint someone.”

He shakes his head, turning the key in his ignition as his car does its signature stutter before starting the engine. “You’re not going to disappoint anyone, everyone knows this. The only obstacle right now is yourself.”

Jungkook sounds harsh, harsher than he’d like to admit, but he wants nothing but the best for you. If anyone talked lowly of you, expect him to be first in line to defend you, and even though it’s you that’s talking down on yourself, you’re no exception.

“I wish you saw yourself through my eyes. The amount of potential, the amount of effort you put into certain things. You don’t need this to be your passion, there’s people out there enjoying the small things in life and they’re just as happy.”

He’s hushed for the rest of the car ride, lost in thought and on a course that he doesn’t inform you where the destination is. The sun is setting over the horizon, the warm pink, orange, and yellow tones remind you of those late cool summers nights you’d spend with Jungkook, laying on a picnic blanket at a park, sharing stories of memories that the two of you shared together. During those times, there weren’t as many responsibilities, no worries in mind.

“I hope you know that high school isn’t what we’re making it out to be.” Jungkook’s voice shatters the silence, peering a quick glance at you. “We’re making it sound like high school determines the rest of our lives, but it doesn’t. Everyone I know says otherwise. There’s more out there than this.”

“You think so?”

“I know so,” He confirms, a warm smile shooting in your direction. “And I’m going to be there for all of it.”

“What’s all of this?”

He places a light brown wicker basket onto the red checkered picnic blanket that lays on the grassy field of a location that you’re unfamiliar with. You expected Jungkook wanted to go for a drive tonight but this was not what you anticipated.

“I don’t think we’ve had a real date since we started dating. Plus, I owe you an apology for what I said that day. I was a real dick,”

“Yeah, you were definitely a dick,” You ratify, sitting down with your legs crossed. “But, depending on what’s in that basket, I might just forgive you.”

There’s an assortment of foods— bento boxes full of eggs, vegetables, rice, stir fry chicken, and so on. He didn’t even forget to pack another set of fruits for dessert, and juices for drinks. It’s strange, you think, that Jungkook is putting this much effort because he would usually whine and make you do the packing with him whenever you’d go on picnics or trips together that required cooking food.

“What— how?”

“It’s our first date, no? Aren’t I supposed to whip out all of the skills to impress you?” He grins innocently. You squint your eyes at him, shoving him slightly. “But you were at practice. We didn’t even drop by at home— did you leave the food in the car the entire time?”

He scoffs. “I’m not stupid! I actually asked Yura to help me. A bit risky because she could’ve eaten all of this. Kind of surprised she didn’t.”

“She... cooked all of this?” He nods, unpacking all the foods. “Yeah, I mean, I probably should have but I was on a bit of a time crunch. She was very helpful.”

Pouting, you pull open the clasps on one of the containers. “I didn’t know she cooked.” Picking up a pair of chopsticks, you pick up a rolled egg omelet that Yura had cleanly sliced, taking a bite. Abruptly, you pause.

“What? Something wrong with it?”

If Yura was better at anything else than eating, it would hands-down be cooking. The flavor of such a simple egg omelet bursted in your mouth, causing it water, yearning for more. “What—Oh my god.” Quickly, you snatch up another slice and shove it into Jungkook’s mouth, who opens up despite being confused. Chewing slowly, his eyes gradually widened in shock. “Oh— ooh. I thought she would just be average but this... this is really good.”

Then a thought pops into your head. Were you so blinded by your own problems that you didn’t even get to celebrate the success of your friend’s? Yura had been with you through thick and thin— from when you were just someone who was friends with the Jeon Jungkook, crushing on him indefinitely, to someone who pushed you to get out of your comfort zone and express your feelings until now, motivating you and putting you in place when you needed it during your doubt in yourself.

Yura had been there for everything, supporting you throughout everything. Your own personal cheerleader. So did you mess up for not being hers?

#jungkook #jeon jungkook #bts #bts smut #jungkook smut #jungkook x reader #jungkookxreader #jungkook & reader #gyukultfics #fanfic #kfanfic #bts fanfic #jungkook fanfic

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jungcity · 4 years ago

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bane of the devil. | x

genre: romance, fantasy, erotica

pairings: vampire!jaehyun x college!female reader

words: 12k

warning: bane of the devil deals with themes of deaths, physical, mental, and sexual abuse as well as toxic relationships. which may be upsetting for some readers. you are advised not to continue if you feel uncomfortable to these types of plots.

“You can romanticize me all you wish, but the devil wrapped in silk is still the devil.” — A Word to My Lovers

“With all due respect, Juana, but are you like…” Jaehyun paused as he shifted casually on his seat, a cigarette bud adorning his fingertips. “... sick in the head?” he asked, finger pointing to his temple to visualize his insult towards the witch.

“Every hunter had done it! I don’t see any reason why Y/N must refuse,” taunted Eva, which earned her a solid look from Lucas who was sitting beside Jaehyun.

Jaehyun echoed a humorless laugh as he leaned back on his seat, casually reaching for your hand with his. Hands that you have learned how to love these past few months of being in the Academy. It was insane how a simple gesture could give you a lot of strength during this dreary time. Jaehyun has that impact on you.

When no one answered, Eva straightened her back and plastered you a smirk. “Besides, the ball is in a month. It’s only right to test Y/N’s abilities to know if she’s qualified to kill… Alena.”

Your heart made a jump. It’s been months since you’ve known that Eva knows your true intentions for coming to the Academy. But she was too bold to admit that now. Yet Juana didn’t even give her a warning look as she remained composed on her own seat. Lucas was the only one who kept judging Eva.

“So… the truth has been unveiled. You really do know my intentions,” you sarcastically stated. Since Juana lied to you, it wasn’t far-fetched to expect some apology.

But she only smiled, the endearing and youthful one that betrayed her deception of you. “Eva’s really talkative, don’t you think, Y/N?” she sighed, “But I hope you don’t mind me telling her about your plans. She’s my most trusted hunter alongside Lucas,” Juana pronounced while holding Eva’s arm.

What about the collateral damage? You wanted to ask, but you kept your mouth shut and flashed her your jovial smile instead. They think they’ve deceived you, little did they know that you were better than that.

“Of course, Madame. Eva has been good to me ever since, after all,” you said that with a lingering stare at Eva’s frame. Both of you held each other’s eyes for a minute before she looked away. An infinitesimal triumph, but triumph nonetheless.

“So… it is settled then? Next week, Y/N, be prepared—”

“No one’s preparing because she’s not doing it. You are a mad witch—”

You cut off Jaehyun before he gave way too much information and insult, “Next week, Madame.”

Jaehyun’s burning gaze bore into you, his blatant judgement about your decision evident in that pretty face of his. You stood up before a scream would erupt from your throat. Being in a room with these deceitful people felt as if poison clawing in your veins.

You pressed a palm on your chest and gave the witch a low bow before pivoting on your heels and walking away. Jaehyun’s reassuring presence followed behind you. As the door to Juana’s chambers closed, you let out a heavy sigh.

“What were you thinking?” Jaehyun snapped. “You are going in a suicide mission!”

Forcing yourself to be strong in front of the witch and her hunters have sapped all your energy. Treacherous tears threatened to fall from your eyes as you looked at Jaehyun. His hard gaze softened upon beholding your weakness that he quickly enveloped you into a tight hug.

Against the warm embrace, you mumbled, “What would you have me do?”

In his moderate voice, he answered, “Quit. Now. We’ll find another way to avenge your parents.”

“We have another way, but I need Juana’s protection,” you whispered before pulling away.

Jaehyun wiped your tears with his thumb, “Can’t Rhianon do that?”

“I’ll have to ask her. But Juana’s the one who cursed Alena. I believe her protection would be the strongest against the Primus.”

He nodded before placing a kiss to your head. “Let’s go to Rhianon. We have to plan everything now.”

At your nod of approval, Jaehyun held your wrist and walked side by side with you. Thankfully, no more students could be seen walking in the corridors and Juana’s chamber was a private place, you don’t have to worry about venatrixes seeing you hold hands with a vampire.

It has been two months since you came to the Academy. One more month until the dreaded gathering would take place, and Juana has never been stricter to you. Once in a while, she would supervise your eating. Doing so much as to sit across from you in the canteen to watch you eat. She has been observing your training to see how strong you’ve become since joining the Academy, too.

There were improvements, according to Jaehyun and Lucas. Your bones had become stronger because of sparring with the hunter in daylight, and training with the vampire at night. It was tiring and bone-jarring, but fulfilling nevertheless. Muscles have developed and your stamina has been boosted. But they don’t need to tell you that it still wasn’t enough to kill Alena. You have never seen her, and didn’t dare ask them to describe her to you. A small part of you was surely scared— no, a large part of you. But when you stare at the ceilings and remember your parents, all fear vanishes.

You opened the door and spotted Rhianon sitting on the floors, stacks of books were sprawled in front of her. She has been working non-stop to study the spells that would be useful for your case. At the sound of the door opening, she quickly closed all the books.

“It’s me,” you announced with a smile.

Rhianon breathed a sigh of relief before opening her books for the second time. “I thought there were some unwanted visitors— oh.” She whistled upon seeing Jaehyun’s frame entering the room.

Jaehyun gave her a small smile before joining you in sitting across from Rhianon.

“How was the meeting?” she asked as she adjusted her glasses.

You shared a glance with Jaehyun, then you cleared your throat, “Juana… well, it was stupid—”

“It really was,” Jaehyun muttered.

You gave him a look before proceeding, “She would enchant the whole forest so the season would be winter over that specific place—”

Rhianon slammed her book shut and stared at you with her brows knitted together. “She would what?!”

Running a hand through the thin pages of one of her books, you sighed, “You heard me, Rhi. She’s a powerful witch so she’d turn the season to winter over the forest and would leave me there alone to fight off entities she hadn’t bothered to describe.”

After your sparring with Jaehyun, Rhianon came dashing towards the both of you and told you of Juana’s summoning. It was past seven p.m. then. Eva and Lucas were already sitting on the couches when you and Jaehyun arrived. Lucas’s apologetic look gave off the storm that was about to take place. And it did.

Juana waited for you to sit comfortably on the sofa before breaking the dreadful mission: she would enchant the forest and turn the season to winter. She would leave you alone in the forest and would observe your strategies on how to survive such desolate and cold places. Not only that, she decided to include different types of monster of her own craft to make everything much worse and dangerous for you. That’s why Jaehyun had gone batshit over the meeting— he didn’t want you to do it.

“And for what?” Rhianon scoffed, “To ged rid of you?”

“Perhaps that’s the true reason behind this foolishness. But Eva also stated that every hunter goes through this mission.”

“Well, that’s bullcrap. I haven’t heard of that before.”

Some part of you knew that. The mission could be a trick made to finally oust you out of the Academy and from the Earth for good— because according to Juana’a description, nobody would survive her mission. They view you as a collateral damage, and that’s how they treat you. What a sickening joke. You wanted to kill them for that.

“As expected. They are trying to deceive you, Y/N,” Jaehyun uttered beside you.

“I know. But I am deceiving them, too, by this—” You motioned the books splayed on the floor, “— if we could find the right spell to find Hubert’s lost tongue before next week, I wouldn’t have to do Juana’s mission.”

Rhianon hummed, “That’s right. And the three of us could fuck right off this Academy.”

“What’s the spell you’re searching for?” Jaehyun decided to ask.

“Something about restoration and divination. But the latter is my priority. We won’t be able to restore Hubert’s tongue if we don’t know where it is,” Rhianon explained while pulling another book out of the stacks. “And before I forgot… we have to have something of Hubert’s possession to locate his missing body part.”

“We have to revisit the cemetery and ask Hubert if we could borrow anything from him,” you chimed in.

Jaehyun crossed his arms. “I know that ghost. He’s old and ornery. If we want something from him, we have to steal it.”

“With that, I need to read about ghost-binding spells. We don’t want Hubert to follow us after,” Rhianon suggested.

Information suddenly weaved its way through your mind. Upon weeks of reading Latin because of Rhianon’s books, you have known some things already. You hurriedly searched for the book who has a tight binding on it and splayed its contents wide to search for the spell.

“It’s here. The ghost-binding spell.” You pointed to the text. “We have to bring candles and salt.”

Rhianon leaned and craned her neck to see the text herself. Then she nodded while whispering the words, “Alright. This is easy and I’m confident that I can do this. We could visit the cemetery tonight.”

“I’ll take a shower and get ready,” you stated before standing up. Rhianon and Jaehyun both nodded at you then you left them to continue their readings with a wide smile plastered on your face.

—

The cascading water from the shower was the only noise that could be heard in the whole room. But Jaehyun’s other senses could pick up elements which couldn’t be seen by the naked eye. It was Jaehyun’s first time to go back here after the night with you. But the scent was strong. And this pungent scent that was incessantly piercing his nostrils was surely getting on his nerves.

No, it wasn’t Rhianon nor Y/N’s smell. Jaehyun has grown accustomed to the former because of spending time reading books and discussing plans with her. The latter, Jaehyun has already memorized like the scent of his favorite perfume. This couldn’t be your smell.

Because it was Sicheng. What was he doing in this room?

Jaehyun feigned reading to observe Rhianon. You trust her. But Jaehyun couldn’t do the same. He needed answers before he could do that.

If they would do this together, he has to trust Rhianon. And the girl must give her a reason to.

“Rhianon,” Jaehyun stated. The girl looked up to him while raising both her brows. “What was Sicheng doing here?”

The woman didn’t even blink, let alone act surprised. She only sighed and placed the book from her lap to the floors. Jaehyun heightened his senses for any attacks nor incantations, but Rhianon only leaned her back to the sides of her bed.

“How do you know him?”

Jaehyun answered, “He’s a friend of mine.”

“It took you awhile to notice,” Rhianon sighed, “But… let’s wait for Y/N to finish up so I could tell you both.”

As if on cue, the door from the bathroom suddenly opened. You stepped outside wearing fresh jeans and a simple shirt. The tension from Jaehyun could be felt to where you stood. It drew your forehead in a crease but you shrugged it off and sauntered up to them.

“Aren’t you showering, Rhi?”

But instead of Rhianon, it was Jaehyun who answered. “She has something to tell you.”

So, there was truly something going on while you showered. You could only hope that whatever Rhianon has to tell you, it wasn’t terrible.

Rhianon glimpsed at Jaehyun before clearing her throat and talking, “This is something that I should’ve told you before. But I really wasn’t sure whether I could trust you with this secret.”

You reached for her hands and squeezed them with yours. “I understand,” you said. It was true. And you know how it feels like to want to trust someone but couldn’t because of inhibitions.

“My… my brother went here months ago to visit me.”

“You have a brother?”

She chewed on her lower lip before speaking, “Yes and he’s a vampire.”

Your jaw dropped. Rhianon has a sibling, and he’s a vampire. “Wha… how? Are you a vampire, too?” You glanced at Jaehyun, who was looking at Rhianon with a careful examination.

“No, silly. I’m not,” Rhianon chuckled lowly, “My brother… he was turned.”

“Turned? Like Juana—” Your words were halted as realization dawned on you. You stared at Rhianon, wide-eyes with your mouth dropping to the floors. At your perplexed bearing, she nodded.

“My brother is her son.”

If your eyes could roll off from their sockets, they surely would. Everything seemed to make sense right now. “That’s why you are helping me. To save your brother.” You huffed out a breath, “I would help you, Rhianon.”

“That’s the thing, Y/N. My brother, Sicheng, doesn’t want to be saved. Juana only crafted it in her mind that he needs her help. But no. Sicheng’s turning was consensual.”

You have tons and tons of questions in your mind but one thing is for certain: Juana lied to you, over and over again. She convinced you that she needed to save her son. But here was the truth, slowly unraveling itself to you.

“How… oh my God. Then Juana is your—?” Sweats formed in your forehead by the realization. If Rhianon truly is Juana’s daughter, how could you guarantee that the witch isn’t privy of your plans?

Rhianon quickly put a finger to your lips before you could utter the word. “Yes. But she doesn’t know how to raise a child so I’d appreciate it if we don’t call her my mother.” At your confused expression, Rhianon added, “We weren’t really on good terms, Y/N. Trust me. And I didn’t tell a soul about your secrets. I’m merely telling you this to let you know that there isn’t any need to kill Alena and put your life in danger while doing Juana’s dirty work.”

That explains all her book of magic and enchantments, of her little vials of potions, and her ability to understand Latin. And that also confirms your question of her true nature. Rhianon truly is a witch.

“What’s in it for you?” Jaehyun chided in. He bore a flat expression on his face while asking the question. You know, deep in your heart, that Jaehyun would dive into every detail to make sense of Rhianon’s revelation. For that, you are thankful. He was always the steady flame beside you: prepared to burn brighter if needed.

Rhianon let a bitter smile on her lips. “I love my brother. He’s the only relative I have out there who cares for me.” Then she looked at Jaehyun, “He’s your friend, right?”

“He’s your friend?” you repeated dubiously. He didn’t tell you that. Then you remember that you have no idea about Jaehyun’s life aside from him, being a vampire.

“Yes. But I didn’t know that they were brothers and sisters,” Jaehyun explained, “I caught Sicheng’s scent here. So I decided to ask.”

“Don’t worry, Y/N, Jaehyun doesn’t really know,” Rhianon chuckled at your agitated face. “That’s it. I love my brother. And I want to end Juana’s rashness. Sicheng’s contented to have a life of his own: one he didn’t had the chance to experience while being a half-mortal and half-witch before.” Sadness made its way to Rhianon’s face, her lips frowned by the memories flashing in her mind. “If you’re a boy and a witch at the same time, you’re next to nothing when it comes to the witches. And… this might sound wrong, but I’m really thankful that Alena took him. Now, he has a purpose, albeit being a Primus’ dog.”

Jaehyun made a sound. “You wanted to prove Juana wrong. You wanted to defeat her without fighting her.”

Rhianon nodded at Jaehyun while holding your hands tightly. “She thinks of me as a weak girl who won’t cast a simple spell in her life. But I’ll prove her wrong.” She smiled at you, her dark irises twinkling with what you could only perceive as hope. “I’ll prove her wrong and I will help you, Y/N. So let’s buckle up and find your parents’ murderer, shall we?”

—

The moon was a ball of white light in the heavens that night. A witch was engaged in murmuring incantations under her breath to heighten the magic pouring from her system. Latin echoed through the silence with the soft whispers of the wind against the curtains through the open windows commixing with the sound.

Juana counted the days since she’d lost her son to a vampire— to her worst enemy. Alena Detritius, the vampire Primus of this wretched town.

They say it was her fault. Her late husband's mother, Sicilia, had pointed her fingers at Juana and told her wretched names, accusing her of letting the witches kill her son. Her own daughter— Rhianon— has never failed to remind her of her weakness and the dwindling magic in her veins. She won’t let that child render her impotent. If it comes to that, Juana won’t hesitate to drive her knife through the girl’s chest. This magic in her blood is hers and hers alone. She hasn’t eaten mud and dust, struggled to survive against other witches’ cruelty just to let this happen to her.

The glory is hers. And it is no one for the taking.

The words pouring out from her mouth have become stronger and sinister. Juana raised up her arms to call upon the known incantations and the power behind them, drawing them closer and closer to her— when a presence suddenly caught her attention.

Juana opened her eyes in alarm. There is someone in the shadows. Someone with a wrath so great it could rival Lucifer’s. Juana drew her fingertips to the air to intensify the glow of the candles. They made a hissing sound as they burned brighter to illuminate the dark corners of the room.

“Show yourself,” Juana commanded.

The shadow emerged from the darkness, revealing a man whom Juana yearned to hug all her life.

“My son,” she gasped before stepping out from her circle and walking towards Sicheng.

He backed away while raising his hand in warning. “I’m not here to reunite with you, and I’m not here to play games, either,” he declared, stabbing the hope of the witch, “Who is Rhianon’s roommate?”

Juana withdrew her hands and placed them on her sides instead. The question wasn’t something she had seen coming, still she struggled to remain unruffled. “An aspiring hunter. Her parents were killed by a vampire, she’s here to learn what befell them.”

She heard her son’s sardonic chuckle as she turned her back against him. Juana walked towards her wooden table to pour herself some wine. The night is cold and jarring and she needed something to warm her veins.

“Aspiring hunter?” Sicheng hummed, “Or maybe… she’s a hunter that you’d send to rescue me, no?”

“All of this is for you, Sicheng. To rescue you—”

Sicheng bared his fangs and hissed, “I don’t need saving!”

Juana gulped down the contents of her glass. “You do. That vampire took you and turned you without your consent—”

“No. She didn’t. You know that,” Sicheng said with enough hatred, “I crawled my way towards her when the witches failed to kill me.” The vampire took a step towards the witch. “Where were you when they had me flogged?”

Juana whirled on her son, cheeks damped with the shed tears. “What would you have me do? I was becoming a Supreme, Sicheng! They wanted me to prove that I have power in my veins—”

“By watching your son being tortured to death?!” Sicheng screamed, his eyes widening in utter fury. “And you still call yourself a mother after that?” he asked with repugnance.

Tears fell like waterfall from the witch’s eyes, yet the vampire’s heart in front of her doesn’t beat no more. And even if it could, it won’t certainly feel any ounce of pity.

“I am your mother,” Juana sniffed, desperation laced with her voice, “You won’t ever change that.”

“You disgust me,” Sicheng seethed, “As long as I live, I will always despise you.”

Juana felt as if her innards were being hurled out of her by the words. She knew that her son hated him— but it never failed to hurt whenever he reminded her of it.

“I will become better for you.” Juana desperately clutched Sicheng’s shirt when he turned to leave. But the man only looked at her as if she wasn’t her coven’s Supreme. As if she wasn’t powerful. As if she wasn’t his mother— and swatted her hands away with a raging touch.

“Do me a favor and fuck off,” Sicheng spat, “mother.”

With that, the vampire turned to leave through the windows. He gripped the windowsill tightly and jumped, leaving a devastated witch alone in her chambers.

—

Whatever he does, and whatever he says, Sicheng’s wrath couldn’t be quenched. He never wanted to see Juana’s face again. Her mere shadows could pull Sicheng back to the night where he was whipped to death in a circle made by the witches.

Juana stood on the sidelines then, her face inscrutable. She watched as Sicheng bled and wished for death.

All he wanted was to live; to bask in the sun and swim in the ocean, to feel the crisp wind at night and hear the owls hooting from the trees. He was a simple boy with simple dreams in a simple town.

Sicheng once believed that he was untouchable. His mother is a witch, the next Supreme. But what was his age when the world proved him wrong? Eighteen. He was a fruit ready to ripen, but they plucked him from the branches before he could be something. Because of what? Because he was born as a man in a coven of witches.

He never understood it, no. Why would you suffer for being born the way you were? Why did the witches decide him as nothing because of the male hormones in his system? He could be something. But they took that away by flogging him— too many times to count.

It was a ritual— Juana said. It was a ritual for the greater good. For the protection of the witches. But Sicheng was a witch, too, right? Why would they sacrifice their likes for their protection? Wasn’t that hideous?

Bound and gagged, nobody heard Sicheng’s prayers nor scream but his little sister, Rhianon. She was eleven years old when she defied the witches. In the dead of the night, she and her grandmother risked their lives by helping Sicheng flee from the sordid situation he was into.

With his wounds screaming at every step he took, Sicheng struggled to run for his life. The gods had listened— but their ears were of consequences. So Sicheng ran, towards nowhere. Until he fell face first to the ground in front of Alena’s mansion.

She gave him another life. Purpose. And for that, he was forever grateful.

“How was your visit to your… mother?”

Sicheng shook off his thoughts when he heard Alena’s sultry voice. She was in her usual place, at the end of the hall, sitting on her throne. Silver against the moonlight infiltrating from the gothic windows behind her, Alena’s hair was bound in a tight coil at the back of her head.

He stood rigid before bowing. “The girl’s parents were killed by a vampire and she wants to be a hunter, she said. But I know that she’s meant to rescue me,” he explained.

Alena’s lowly chuckle echoed through the hall. “She’s a crazy bitch, don’t you think?” Then she stood up and walked languorously towards Sicheng. Her feet were bizarrely white against the stygian floors. “How about my beloved fiancé? I could smell the particulars from you already,” she hummed.

Jaehyun is his friend. But Alena is his Primus. Even if he lied, Alena would know the truth one way or another.

So Sicheng cleared his throat. “I saw him at the Academy and told him about the incoming gathering. He refused, my lady.”

Sicheng couldn’t perceive the emotion in Alena’s face, for it was forbidden to look at her in the eyes. But he could feel the unleashed animal roaring inside Alena.

“Why?” The word was laconic, but the danger in it was overflowing.

“He… he’s protecting a student. I was told— by Jaehyun himself— that he would kill for h—”

Alena heckled, “What an imbecile son-of-a-bitch.” Then she sighed. “But we couldn’t really choose whom we love, could we? Imbecilic or not, I love that fool.” Her gown swooshed as she whirled towards her throne. “It’s time I meet the girl.”

“Do I bring her to you?”

Alena sat and propped up her chin to her palms. “No. She’s coming on her own.”

—

With the same eeriness and mystery to it, the name of the cemetery greeted you by prickling the hairs on your neck. Unlike the first time you visited, the wind was balmy tonight, making droplets of sweats to coat your forehead. You tried not to view the atmosphere as an ominous sign and proceeded to walk alongside Jaehyun and Rhianon.

“Where’s Hubert?” Rhianon whispered beside you while holding her flashlight.

“We still have a long way to go,” you whispered back.

Jaehyun didn’t need any flashlight because of his vampiric vision, so he walked ahead of you. “Be careful of the mud,” he reminded.

Despite the stifling weather, the cemetery was surprisingly damped. Murky patches of soil could be spotted here and there, caking the soles of your sneakers with mud.

“Where do you plan to do the spell?” you uttered before hopping over a muddy plot of earth.

Rhianon followed suit before answering you, “Near Hubert’s lair. Or in his exact lair.”

After minutes of trekking the familiar pathway, the rusty railings of Hubert’s den loomed from afar. Crickets sang their songs as you drew nearer, with the hooting of owls to join the sound.

Jaehyun roamed his eyes around, probably searching for intruders or any unwanted guests. “Alright. You could start your spell now,” he announced.

You helped Rhianon set the candles to the ground, with Jaehyun guarding your backs. The earth was dry, it was hard to dig a small hole to make the candles stand.

“We have to make another circle.” Rhianon, then, fished for the salt inside her small bag and clutched a handful of it. She sprinkled the salt in a circular shape. “Shit,” she muttered, “I forgot the matchsticks.”

Jaehyun walked towards you and offered his lighter. “Here.”

Rhi took it from his hands but before she could light a candle, the air blew harshly. The hair on your nape stood immediately, not because of the cold, but because of the entity standing in front of Hubert’s den.

It was Hubert himself. And he doesn’t look happy as he took in the circle on the ground.

“Hurry,” Jaehyun hissed, “I’ll draw him out. Y/N, you know what to do.”

You gulped and nodded. Jaehyun has planned the stealing on the way to the cemetery. You would be the one to steal from Hubert, and because of him being a ghost, you would have to try and make your way into his den to search for something, anything. While Rhianon would work on the ghost-binding spell.

“Hubert,” Jaehyun said with his endearing smile, “This is a misunderstanding. The girls are only—” He didn’t finish his sentence for Hubert let out a snarl and sauntered up to you and Rhianon.

“Shit, shit,” you muttered incessantly.

Rhianon have successfully kindled the candles. She was whispering Latin while Hubert drew closer. You gave Rhianon one last look before dashing towards Hubert’s den.

He let out another roar when he noticed what you were trying to do. Instead of interrupting Rhianon, he focused his attention solely to your running form. Jaehyun stood before Hubert, blocking his way to you.

Your eyes grew frantic, realizing that Hubert was nothing but a phantom. He could easily walk past Jaehyun— or so you believed.

The balmy air grew brisk as some energy exuded from Jaehyun’s frame. You have no idea what it was, nor how did he do it. Perhaps it was his being half-dead which drew Hubert in a halt. You wasted no time to ponder what happened and sprinted inside Hubert’s den.

It was no larger than a cubicle in a public bathroom. And it was empty. There was nothing but dried leaves, dust, and rust.

“There’s nothing in here!” you shouted as you peeked your head to the corroded railings.

Rhianon was still kneeling on the ground, with Hubert’s spirit slowly stepping back to be captured by the circle. Jaehyun snapped his head towards you, his fangs visible with the glint of red on his pupils. Seeing him in his vampire stature never failed to amaze and creeped you out at the same time.

He sauntered up towards the small space of Hubert’s den, and sniffed the air around him. You stood in the corner, anticipating Jaehyun’s next move. Then he walked to the wall behind you. You watched him pull out a brick to reveal a small niche. A small paper was inside it.

“What is that?” you asked, peering into the paper on Jaehyun’s hand.

It was a picture. A picture of a woman and a girl.

“Is that Hubert?” You pointed to the man standing beside the woman who’s carrying a small girl in her arms. The three of them were donned in Victorian clothing. Written at the back of the paper were the words, ‘1861. Agatha and I yearn for you, my love. Please, return safe. — Diana’

“His wife and… daughter,” Jaehyun uttered.

Something pulled on your heartstrings. Time had taken its toll upon the paper. The edges were slowly decaying, leaving Hubert’s arm missing. This could be the last memory of him or his family. It would be wretched to steal it away.

“We… we can’t take that. Let’s find—”

Jaehyun looked up to you. “This is his last possession, Y/N.”

You rolled your lower lip with your teeth. “That’s why we couldn’t simply take it away.”

“I know this is hard. Trust me, I’m having second thoughts myself. But this is the only thing that belongs to him. If we don’t take this, we won’t have a chance to make him talk.”

He has a point. No, Jaehyun was correct. In order to make everything work, you have to do this. You took the picture from his hand and stared at it for a while before nodding.

When the two of you exited Hubert’s home, he was already standing in the circle, with Rhianon watching him in amusement.

“Did you find anything?” she asked.

You glanced at Jaehyun before nodding at Rhianon.

At once, Hubert wailed as he realized what you’ve discovered. Feeling as if your heart was nailed to the ground, you sauntered up towards Hubert and put a distance between you.

“I know you know what we’ve found.” Literal tears fell down his cheeks at that. You sharply inhaled. “I promise I will return it to you as soon as possible. You love them, I know. I understand you. I lost my parents, too. And this is the only way to find their murderer— I’m sorry, Hubert.”

He tried to move, but he was bound to the circle. You fought off tears as you turned your back against him. The poor man’s ghost wailed until you were out of his sight.

Rhianon and Jaehyun exchanged suggestions on how best to perform the divination. But your mind was clouded— unable to think clearly. Hubert’s cries haunted you back to the Academy.

He had a family. What happened to them… and what happened to him? It’s 20**. The picture was taken back in the 1800’s. Almost two hundred years. Certainly, his family had already died. But why is his spirit still tied to the mortal realm? Why hasn’t he seen the white light yet?

“Y/N?” Jaehyun clutched your shoulder softly, willing you back to Earth.

You blinked. “What is it?”

“Rhianon and I have decided to do the divination tonight. Is that alright with you?”

Gulping, you smoothed your shirt and gave them an encouraging smile. Your bones felt sluggish, but you have to do this as soon as possible. “Yes.”

The trip back to your room was occupied with tiptoes and elated hearts. It is not pleasant to prowl these spaces in the dead of night. The security guards are extremely harsh when it comes to reckless students.

Rhianon shut the door, wasting no time to grab something inside her closet. As you sat on the floors yet again, you occupied yourself in reading the contents of Rhianon’s first book of magic. Jaehyun did the same.

“Could you understand Latin?” you curiously asked. He was skimming way faster than you did which made you inquisitive.

The edges of his lips turned upwards, revealing a small smile. “My vampire nature had somehow made it possible.”

And perhaps it was his favorite part of being a vampire. It was a dead language, but his eyes had an unusual enthusiasm to them as he scanned and read through the letters. You felt your heart ramming against your chest at the sight of him. As if all the burdens in his shoulders have been lifted.

“Oh, there it is. Divination,” Jaehyun uttered in amusement while tapping the word on the parchment. Then he caught you staring as he looked up to you. “We’re one step closer, Y/N.”

“Thank you,” you whispered.

Reaching out for your cheek, Jaehyun uttered, “Anything for you.”

Rhianon suddenly cleared her throat, gaining both your attention. You shifted and looked up to see her holding a cup. She sat and took the book from Jaehyun’s lap.

Pointing at the golden cup in her hand, you inquired, “What’s that for?”

Different types of pebbles rolled off the floor after Rhianon threw the contents of the cup. “For guidance.” Then she stretched out a hand to Jaehyun. “What did you find?

Familiar stinging wrapped your throat as Jaehyun pulled out the picture from his back pocket and handed it to Rhianon. With sadness like your own, Rhianon observed the picture.

“This is… his family,” she said. “I wonder what happened to them.”

Laying the picture flat on the flooring, Rhianon circled the air above the picture with open palms. She stared hard at the picture, brows furrowed and jaw clenching. It was clear that she’s having a rough time locating Hubert’s tongue.

What if it couldn’t be detected at all? You shook off the thoughts. There is no point being pessimistic right now.

Rhianon murmured something under her breath, hands steady above the picture. You heedlessly reached out for Jaehyun’s hand and grasped tightly. Agonizing minutes had passed, yet Rhianon continued to murmur Latin.

Then she gasped, as if she was punched in the gut. Your knuckles were white, holding Jaehyun in a bone-crushing force.

“A mansion,” Rhianon began, “Its floors were the blackest of stones. There is a throne… at the edge of the hall— and— shit.” Veins protruding, Rhianon’s hands trembled. “A huge tree. Oak.”

This time, it was Jaehyun who grasped your hand firmly. It didn’t hurt, but there was something in it that made you look at him. His face was ashen as he waited patiently for Rhianon’s next words.

“In its roots there lay a wooden box.” Then Rhianon stilled. “Something inside it belongs to Hubert.” She retracted her hands to her sides and looked up to you. “I… I’m not sure if it’s his tongue, Y/N. It’s… blurry.”

You forced a smile despite the failure. “At least we now have a starting point. We only have to search for that place.”

“We don’t have to search anymore,” Jaehyun chided in. Both you and Rhianon looked at him. His jaw was clenched in concentration. “I know where it is.”

A wide smile spread out on your lips. Destiny was still on your side in this battle. Delightful, you held Jaehyun’s shoulder. “Where is it?”

“Alena’s mansion.”

—

Like a winking white flame in the heavens, the stars scattered themselves throughout the whole vastness of the skies. You sat on the grass, with Jaehyun playing with your hair.

Yesterday, you had ventured to the cemetery and stole a family picture which belongs to a ghost. After that, your witch friend performed Divination using her power. And you have found out that Hubert’s tongue has been kept in the backyard in Alena’s mansion because of your vampire lover, Jaehyun.

Yet you felt as if the supernatural occurrence was still far from ending.

“How did you know that it was Alena’s mansion?” You turned your head sideways to ask Jaehyun. He seated himself behind you, attempting to tie your hair to whatever bun it would fit.

The man wrapped his arms around your torso. “I’ve lived with her since I was turned. That’s why.”

Alena turned him. And he’d lived with her ever since. They were engaged. So you cleared your throat. “Did you love her?” You did your best to sound indifferent as possible.

Jaehyun hummed, placing his chin to your shoulder. “To be honest? I think so. I won’t tolerate everything she’d done for me if not.”

When you anticipated for a little pang in your chest and felt nothing, you leaned your head back to his own shoulder. “What did she do to you?”

He chuckled— so deliciously masculine that you won’t mind hearing it forever. “That’s a secret.”

“We couldn’t hide secrets from each other, you know. Lovers don’t do that.” The word tickled your insides— like butterflies fluttering their wings in your stomach.

“Oh. We are lovers?” He faked amusement. You wiggled yourself free from him, but Jaehyun held tight. A rumble of chuckles echoing through him again. “I love you.”

You stilled, then whirled to face him fully. “What did you say?”

Adoration danced in his irises, paired with a smile which transformed his whole face into something… human.

Jaehyun took your face with his hands, cupping your cheeks protectively before placing a kiss on your lips. He drew back in an inch, then whispered the words again, “I love you.”

You didn’t know what it was— but tears seared the back of your eyes. The words were full of love for a person whose heart doesn’t beat.

“Are you sure?” You breathed. “I… Jaehyun, I am a human. I—”

Jaehyun shut you up by kissing your lips again. He pulled away, still wearing his smile. “Let’s not worry about that.”

You couldn’t help but worry. You are a human. No matter what relationship you would build after all this chaos, the eternity of him and your humanness inside you would hinder a happy ever after.

What would life be with Jaehyun? If he’s half-dead, if he isn’t human? There would be life— yes— if you would force destiny to bend at your will. Yet you didn’t want to fool yourself. However strong the love you have for him, it’s not enough to ask him to bite and turn you. You love this life— you cherish the humanity in you.

“I would die. One day,” you persisted, “And you will live, for as long as time exists.”

“Angel,” Jaehyun whispered as he placed his forehead against yours, “Yes, I am afraid to lose you. Fuck, it makes me mad just thinking about it. But whatever this life would offer us, no matter how constrained it might be, I’ll be forever grateful that once in my lifetime I’ve met and loved you.”

Wrapping your hands around his neck, you inhaled sharply. “Oh, Jaehyun. I love you too.”

He breathed you in and embraced you tightly. “We’ll do everything. Together.”

—

“Are we ready?” Rhianon asked, strapping her dagger to her waists and knives to her legs.

Securing every strap on your suit, you did the same to your weapons. “I am.”

A night after finding out where Hubert’s tongue could possibly be, the time has already come to finally retrieve it from Alena. If you were having second thoughts on whether to kill the Vampire Primus, you shook all the uncertainties off. The one thing you have been yearning to find is located at her mansion. You needed to come to her one way or another.

But in the deepest part of your heart, you wished that the night would show you mercy and would let you leave her mansion unscathed.

Truthfully, you could ask nicely. However dumb it might sound— you truly could. But if Alena has something to do with that part of Hubert’s body, you weren’t certain if she’d let it go by simply handing it to you.

Why was it kept hidden six feet under the ground if she’s not hiding something, right? There must be a reason for that. Chopping off a ghost’s tongue isn’t usual, even for a vampire. Not unless she’s hiding something— and only Hubert knew what it was.

Rhianon suddenly handed you a vial of clear liquid. “It will not save us from the vampires, but it would lower the chance of them sniffing our scents.” She took another vial from the pocket of her suit and drank it straight. Rhianon wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I’ve worked on that the night you went out with Jaehyun.”

You stared at the vial. There were tiny bubbles inside. You pulled the stopper out and drank it wholeheartedly. It left a bitter taste in your tongue, like ants biting the flesh. But it gradually lessened until it vanished.

Rhianon took the empty vial from your hand and threw it to the trash can. “Let’s go.”

You nodded and started walking behind her. It was ten p.m. according to the wall clock.

Both your gasp echoed through the whole room as Rhianon swung the door open and saw Lucas standing in the doorway.

He stared at the both of you— eyes wide. “Where are you going?”

Rhianon reached for your hand and squeezed tightly, willing you to speak on her behalf. You couldn’t even speak yourself, lest you would burst open all your plans to Lucas. “I— we… are going to practice!”

His brows furrowed in confusion. “It’s ten p.m.. No hunters are allowed outside anymore.”

“Why don’t you come inside for a while? Hm?” Rhianon offered, turning her body sideways to let Lucas walk in.

He glanced at the both of you, confusion and intrigue tattooed in his eyes. But he walked in nonetheless.

You cleared your throat when Lucas had finally seated himself to Rhianon’s swivel chair. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m checking up on the students.”

“That’s new. Why?” For someone who claimed to be enthralled with Lucas, Rhianon surely has improved to conceal her feelings. She looked at Lucas with nothing but curiosity.

Wandering his eyes through the whole of your room, Lucas answered unambiguously, “Juana’s command.”

Rhianon, from beside you, let go off the steam from her body by snorting loudly. “We’re quite fine. You could tell your master that.”

Lucas whirled, hurt clear on his features. “She’s not my master. I serve the corporation, not Juana.”

You wanted to get this over with. Whatever was Lucas’s intention to be visiting at this ungodly hour doesn’t sit well with you. Yet you didn’t know how to tell him to nicely fuck off.

“Are you done? Could we carry on with our business now?” Rhianon folded her arms together.

“Why are you so eager to get rid of me?”

Sighing, you massage your temple. Is this some lover’s quarrel unraveling in front of you?

Rhianon didn’t answer. Then she sauntered up to her closet. You stood there, watching her as her hands grasp something from inside. Sand? You weren’t quiet certain.

“Where are you—” Lucas didn’t finish his sentence for Rhianon blew out whatever was on her palm towards his face. The hunter slowly blinked, trying to fathom what was happening. Then his eyes slowly drooped, as well as his body, and he fell asleep on the floor.

You blinked, confused as to what just happened. But Rhianon clapped her hands to wipe off the last bits of the something in her palms.

“Let’s go. The magic only lasts for thirty minutes. We have to hurry,” Rhianon informed before wrapping her hand around your wrist and pulling you out of the room.

You gave one last look at Lucas’s lethargic state before letting Rhianon guide you away. He’s good to you, but he’s Madame’s hunter. His royalty would always lie to her.

According to Jaehyun, Alena’s mansion was miles away from the Academy. He reckoned that it would take at least three hours to arrive there. If you were swift, you’d arrived at one a.m.: not so perfect time to carry out this mission.

You wanted to do this in the daylight, but Madame didn’t allow you out of her sight. As the gathering gets nearer and nearer, she remained strict. Here and there, she would remind you of her challenge. Once she does that, you wouldn’t be able to gulp down your food no more. And Eva… well, she’s Eva: spiteful, irrational, and brash.

Jaehyun was leaning on a black Camaro with a cigarette adorning his lips when you arrived. Tossing his cigarette like a clapper, he beckoned you closer. “What took you so long?” he asked.

“Lucas saw us.” You gave him no time to speak. “But Rhianon already took care of it.”

He raised a brow at Rhianon, while the latter only shrugged. She ran a hand through the roof of the Camaro, fingers leaving traces because of the dust. “I missed this car.”

“It’s yours?”

“My grandmother’s.” She opened the door for you. “You sit on the bullet.”

Jaehyun would drive, it was planned out already. You hopped on the bullet seat, while Rhianon made her way behind. When all of you had settled yourselves comfortably, Jaehyun revved through the night. Copse became a blur as he picked up the pace, then the Academy behind you became smaller and smaller.

You rode in silence, the tension inside the vehicle was staggering. Guilt wrapped its claws around you as the realization that two lives would be in forfeit tonight because of you hit. You would’ve done this on your own. Truly. And yet behind the courage, you are merely a girl. A human one at that— and you were still scared.

Admitting trepidation doesn’t make one weak: that, you have learned from your parents. It’s alright to ask for help. But this isn’t a normal favor: you would break inside a Primus’ house. No sane human being would offer to come with you— but two souls did.

“I don’t know how to thank the both of you,” you began, eyes still roaming the quiet streets ahead of you. “But… as long as I breathe, I want you both to know that I’m forever in your debt.”

Rhianon stretched out a hand to hold your shoulder. “I’m glad to help you, Y/N. We’ll do this together. You’ll find out who killed your parents and we will exact vengeance.”

You placed a hand above hers. “Thank you, Rhi.”

“I’m here. I’ll protect you as long as I can. And I’m a hard bastard to kill, angel,” Jaehyun chimed in, laying his hand on your thigh.

You placed a hand above hers. “Thank you, Rhi.”

“I’m here. I’ll protect you as long as I can. And I’m a hard bastard to kill, angel,” Jaehyun chimed in, laying his hand on your thigh.

The fear in your heart has been replaced by something that you could only regard as courage. You have your heart, and it is enough. This is for your parents, for your brother. And for your own peace.

The road ahead was deprived of any life. Darkness blanketed the asphalt sinisterly. Insects danced ahead as they were captured by the light provided by Rhianon’s vehicle. Then a huge mansion peeked through the thick fronds of trees covering its vastness.

Jaehyun killed the engine before you could see the whole image of Alena’s mansion. From your distance, even her vampires won’t catch any scent of you— nor hear a beat from your heart.

“We’re here,” Jaehyun announced.

Crickets sang in unison the same time the three of you opened the car doors. Since none of you could see through the dark enshrouded surroundings, Jaehyun led the way.

The sound of squelchy grasses joined the crickets as you entered the groups of tall trees. Not even the moonlight could peek through the thick leaves, resulting in little to no light to guide your way.

“The oak tree you’ve seen is located in her backyard. The walls are high, but not high enough to stop us,” Jaehyun whispered, his head busy scouring the surroundings for any unforeseen danger.

You tried to locate Rhianon with your human eyes, but to no avail. Hands gripping the hilt of your snake dagger, you focused on following Jaehyun instead.

At last, after the long trek towards Alena’s backyards, the tall cemented wall greeted you. In this area, no more trees obscured the moonlight, allowing you to take in the vastness of the wall.

Rhianon deadpanned, “You mean, not high enough for you?”

There was no way you could climb this bland wall. It wasn’t even a gate, but a literal wall. You wouldn’t be able to climb it yourself. There was no niche— nothing.

“This is a thick wall. Once I throw you up, there’s space for you to hold on to.”

“What?!” You and Rhianon exclaimed by whispering in unison.

“There is no other way. This mansion is guarded by vampires. The only area they don’t give much attention to is the backyard,” Jaehyun sighed, “Would you rather knock on her front door and be killed? Trust me, I know my way here.”

You gave Rhianon a shrug before sauntering up to Jaehyun. “Alright. Let’s do this.”

“Don’t be scared,” he teased.

“I’m not.”

He chuckled before standing behind you. Jaehyun placed a hand to both your waists, sending bolts of electricity down your spine. His touch was always fire and thunder against your skin, leaving marks in the deepest parts of your soul. You prayed that after this night, you would still have your vampire beside you.

“I’m ready,” you exhaled.

Jaehyun’s grip tightened, then he threw you upwards. The experience made your stomach curl, as if your insides were being tickled. You quickly grabbed to the top of the wall where the space he was talking about was located. Your body couldn’t even fit, so you stayed crouching, gulping down the fear that you might fall.

Vast was an understatement to describe her backyard. Trees lined up the premises, with the back of her mansion looming from the distance. As an architecture student, you’ve reckoned that the space could still allow two residential houses.

There was a thud beside you, followed by Rhianon’s curses. Not a second after she landed, Jaehyun followed suit.

Like cats over the wall, the three of you crouched. Rhianon almost slipped, earning a gasp from you. But Jaehyun caught her arm before she could fall and break all her bones.

“Fuck, Jaehyun. You said we could fit in!” Rhianon seethed.

“We are fitting in, Rhianon,” Jaehyun chortled, as if he was enjoying the sweats streaming down your faces, “I’ll jump and catch you below.”

You blew out a breath. “Here we go again.”

“Let me jump first, Y/N,” Rhianon gulped.

After Jaehyun made a soundless landing, he once again roamed his eyes around the vicinity. Then he glanced up to Rhianon and gestured to her to jump.

“My ghost will haunt you if I die, Jaehyun,” Rhianon warned before jumping. Just like how Jaehyun threw the both of you, he caught Rhianon by her waists, too.

Rhianon rubbed her hands together before looking up to beckon you to make the jump. You closed your eyes before jumping. The familiar tickles inside your stomach frenzied as you felt the whip of the wind and the fall all at the same time.

Strong hands caught your waists with ease. You opened your eyes to see Jaehyun’s own staring at yours. A ghost of a smile smeared his lips as he put your stray hairs behind your ear.

“Uhm… excuse me? Could we please, you know?” Rhianon chided in, breaking the moment you shared with Jaehyun.

You straightened and rubbed your hand in your hips. Jaehyun’s silly smile grew wider by your embarrassment.

He cleared his throat. “This way.”

But your steps were halted as someone spoke from behind you. The voice was lurid, but the edge was there. It was crooked and it was dangerous as it said: “Welcome, hunters.”

Frozen on your feet, you remained standing. The tautness of your muscles was like a painful numbness. You were caught— without even taking your first step towards the answers.

Jaehyun was the first one to pivot his heels. “Alena,” he said.

If your nerves could scream, they clearly would have. Alena. Jaehyun’s fiancée. She’s here. One circle of your heel would allow you to see her, finally. As much as your curiosity wanted to cage you in its grasp, you couldn’t find the strength to whirl around and face her.

“Rhianon?” Someone gasped from behind you when Rhianon turned on her heel. The voice was masculine, with a particular softness laced with it.

“Sicheng,” Rhianon laconically stated.

Sicheng. Her brother... he’s here with Alena. Somehow, the reality of all that was leafing right now was a lump blocking your air passage. Is there any escape to this chaos? To this danger?

“Welcome back, my love.” Alena’s voice was like a song. A lullaby. For its emotion, you would believe that she had nothing but rainbows in her chest and roses in her heart.

Drinking the last bits of courage to prevent yourself from shaking, you pivoted on your heels.

A woman wearing a dress as red as blood, her skin porcelain and white as bone and hair like a piece of moonlight in itself, smiled at you with red luscious lips. You must admit— you have never seen a woman so beautiful, so alluring at first glance. She was like a goddess, a divinity in her utmost glory. Her dress hugged her body perfectly, revealing the soft curves of her waists. And the plunging neckline displayed her full breasts.

It wasn’t the perfect time for jealousy. But taking in Alena’s features have proved you something: it won’t be a surprise if ever Jaehyun had loved her before.

“What are you doing here Rhianon?” Sicheng asked before giving you a once-over. You stood rigid.

“Oh.” Alena smiled, flashing her pearlescent teeth. “Is she your sister?” she asked before she sauntered up towards Rhianon with leaden steps. Rhianon didn’t back nor flinch away when Alena touched her cheek with her finger. Her proximity allowed your nose to inhale her rich perfume— a sharp smell of a flower you couldn’t name.

Jaehyun took your wrist and pulled you behind him. The action didn’t go unnoticed as Alena snapped her gaze towards him with dead eyes. Then she tugged on Rhianon’s hair forcefully, eliciting a painful groan from your friend.

“Rhianon—!” You took a step forward. But Jaehyun stopped you with his arm.

Sicheng didn’t even move a muscle to where he stood, baffling the wits out of you. Why isn’t he doing anything? Has Alena’s omnipotence rendered him hard-bitten? Is that what a Primus could do?

“Your sister’s a bit of trouble, don’t you think?” Alena catechized before she turned her full attention to Rhianon. “What are you doing here, little dove?” When Rhianon didn’t utter a word, Alena inclined her head towards Sicheng. The latter brought out a dagger from his belt, then handed it willingly to Alena, giving his sister a hard look before returning to where he stood earlier.

You grasped Jaehyun’s arm to wrench it away from you. But he caught your wrist in a viselike grip.

“Don’t move. I beg you,” he whispered, eyes glued to Alena and Rhianon.

Alena faked a sob. “I am hurt, my love. You have never shown me that affection before.” Then she drew the blade closer to Rhianon’s open neck.

You wanted to scream, but your mouth didn’t allow you. This is a trick. If Jaehyun would continue protecting you from Alena, Rhianon’s life would be in forfeit. You’d lose Rhianon, or you’d lose yourself one way or another. The realization of what lies above this night has left a painful throbbing in your heart. How did it go so wrong?

“Again,” Alena hummed, “What are you doing here?” Rhianon still didn’t speak.

You wanted to vomit from the trepidation. This is defeat. And it turned your heart ice-cold. Alena pressed the blade to Rhianon’s neck, drawing blood from her skin. She inhaled the scent, then licked her lips.

Jaehyun must’ve felt something in your bones— the gnawing force to succumb to this trick and save your friend, and the growing fear poisoning your heart. “Don’t say a word, Y/N,” he warned.

Rhianon screamed as Alena slowly dragged the blade along her neck. You saw how it sliced her skin open, allowing blood to stream violently from her neck.

“Please! Stop! Stop!” she shouted. “It hurts!”

Tears pricked the back of your eyes. You shut the world around you as you shouted, “We are here for me!”

A fresh smile had spread out on Alena’s lips as she withdrew the dagger. She snapped her fingers, then two figures emerged from the shadows. The other one held Rhianon by her arms.

“I’ll kill you if you touch her,” Jaehyun bared his fangs towards the other vampire.

Alena chuckled. “Such huge ball sacks for a pea-sized brain, my love.” Jaehyun tensed from the words. Your eyes grew harder as you stared at Alena’s frame. Then the Primus sighed. “Shall we play this game, then?”

Once again, Alena inclined her head to Sicheng. Things happened in a blur, but you felt the sharp air as Jaehyun unsheathed your snake dagger and spun around so fast. Then you stared in horror as he wrapped his hand around Sicheng’s neck, the tip of the dagger pressed to his chest.

“Touch her. And I’ll drive this dagger to your chest,” Jaehyun warned.

“Jaehyun—” Sicheng tried to speak but Jaehyun drove the dagger deeper. Its tip disappeared, making Sicheng hiss in pain.

You glance at Rhianon, who was sitting on the ground while clutching her wounded neck. Her hands were bloodied, but the color of the suit obscured the blood that has surged from her neck. You wanted to run to her, but Alena was standing right in front.

“Let it go, Sicheng,” she echoed.

The tip of the dagger was red with blood when Sicheng backed away. Jaehyun gripped the hilt tightly, not letting his eyes stray away from his friend’s walking figure. When Sicheng arrived at Alena’s side, he crouched and held his sister by her shoulder. With the remaining strength from Rhianon, she flinched away.

“Leave us,” Alena commanded. Her face impassive, intensifying the danger that lies behind her eyes. “Tend to your sister, Sicheng. Once I saw her in my house again, it would be the last time you’d see her.”

You purse your lips together as you watch Sicheng lead his sister away. Rhianon backed away, as if disgusted to be touched by her own brother. Sicheng’s lips formed in a thin line, his eyes speaking a language only the two of them understood. Rhianon gave you one last apologetic look before she left with her brother and the two other vampires.

In the dead of the night, a human stood together with two vampires in a place she didn’t know, waiting for the predator to finally pounce and cage her like a weak human being that she was. Still, she refused to falter.

You remained standing, chin held up high despite the weakness in your knees. She would never have the satisfaction of knowing that she scares you.

“Let her go in peace. And I’ll do as you like,” Jaehyun said out of nowhere.

“Jaehyun!” you seethed. You won’t go without him and Rhianon.

“What’s the fun in that?” Alena smiles your way. “I want to know my visitor. What’s your name?”

She was only standing there, her hands behind him. But her presence was like a slap to your cheek.

“Don’t speak,” Jaehyun commanded as he looked at you. If you’d do as you were told, you would only irate Alena. None of you knew what would happen then.

“I’m Y/N,” you answered. Jaehyun shut his eyes.

“Y/N,” Alena repeated, as if your name was blood and she’s tasting every drop of it. “I know who killed your parents.”

Your forehead drew in a crease. Glancing at Jaehyun who had the same confusion etched through his face, you purse your lips. “What do you mean?” The gods only know how hard you tried to sound strong. Alena’s mention of your parents felt like centipedes crawling down your spine with their thousand legs.

“Come closer, and I’ll tell you.”

“Damn you, Alena,” Jaehyun hissed, “Stop this nonsense.”

Her laugh boomed against the wholeness of her backyard and against the silence. “Fascinating, my love. I’m utterly entertained.” She cocked her head towards you. “But I do know who killed her parents. All she has to do is to come closer, and her sleuthing would finally end.”

Tempting, it truly was. Because you know, deep in your heart, that you’d do anything to know who killed your parents. And if jumping into the claws of a Vampire Primus would give you the right answers, you would dive head first. But the promise of danger in her smile was a risk you didn’t know how to take.

“The madmen might listen, but we are not mad, Alena.” Jaehyun stood his ground. You would’ve held his hand and thanked him for his courage. But Jaehyun now stands between you and the possible key to your questions. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps the madmen are listening, and you are one of them.

You looked at the ground with clenched fists. “Do you really know who killed them?”

“Y/N!” Jaehyun spun around to face you with dilating pupils. Pain was evident in his eyes as you looked up to him. You could almost hear him begging you. “We’ll find another way. Don’t do this.”

Jaehyun knew: compared to the power Alena has, he was nothing. The defeat was swirling around you with its acrid taste.

“You are here. I am safe,” you whispered with a smile. You wanted to believe that love would protect you tonight.

When he perceived the certainty in your eyes, Jaehyun let go of you. He knows you need this more than anything. “I’m with you,” he said.

Alena’s boredom was loud as she picked on her nails. “Darling, walk faster,” she ordered.

You took a step towards her without a backward glance at Jaehyun.

With a malignant smile, Alena caressed your cheeks with her cold hands. “What beauty,” she pronounced in wonderment, then she snapped her head towards Jaehyun, “No wonder you’re in love with her.”

Your eyes widened as Alena pressed her lips to yours. She penetrated your mouth to taste the flesh inside, and all you could was whimper. She pulled away with a sneer. “Tell me, did he put his cock inside you?”

You choked on your own saliva and you’ve found it hard to answer. Is that why she kissed you? To taste Jaehyun with your mouth?

“No.”

The next thing you felt was Alena’s palm on your cheek. You gasped at the intensity of her slap.

“Liar,” she sneered the same time Jaehyun shouted your name. “Don’t fucking move, Jaehyun,” Alena warned as she grabbed a handful of your hair.

Jaehyun was on his edge. He had his soles buried to the ground. One movement and he would sprint towards Alena with his bared fangs. But he didn’t do it. For there was a dagger pressing on your side, straight right to your ribs. He knows that however swift he could be, Alena was still a vampire. She has the same fleetness as him. If not more.

You gulped down a cry. Everything will be alright— you forced yourself to believe.

“Now, I’ll ask again,” Alena whispered, “Did he put his cock inside you? Did you make him fuck you like a whore that you were?”

“N—”

“You underestimate my power, human. I could taste him in your mouth: the pleasure, your moans, the way he climaxed because of you.” She let out a peevish chuckle. “I know it all. Because we’ve fucked each other all around this mansion. Jaehyun fucked me right where you stand.” She pressed her lips behind your ear. “So, don’t lie to me.”

You gulped the shame and the fury all at the same time. “I’m not lying to you— ah!”

“Stop, Alena! Stop!” Jaehyun stepped forward. You cried out as Alena pushed the tip of the dagger to your ribs. Then Jaehyun stood still, his teeth bared in utter rage. “I will kill you.”

Her laughter pierced your ears, then she grabbed your hair forcefully, hurting your neck in the process. “1803 was the year I crawled out of my mother’s womb,” Alena began. “How many years have I been a vampire, Y/N?”

“Two hundred years!” you whimpered.

“I’m old, am I?” She chuckled. “But I know someone younger than—”

Bits of soil stuck to your cheek as you fell to the ground. It happened too fast— Jaehyun sprinting and pouncing Alena behind. You crawled and stood up on your feet, clutching the back of your head as it throbbed painfully.

The sound of muscles slapping to one another dominated the night, willing you to face around. Then you saw Jaehyun combatting Alena. Their teeth were bared— their pupils raging like lava. With a blow, Jaehyun staggered.

“Run!” he croaked before he toppled over the ground once more.

Where do you run? You have no idea. Your heart was beating too painfully inside your ribcage, and the pulsating of your wound from Alena’s dagger slowed you down.

You have to find the oak tree. All isn’t lost.

Once again, you tasted the bland soil when someone attacked you from the back. Doing her best to snap your spinal cord, Alena clutched a handful of your hair from behind. Again. You cried out in pain, but it didn’t last long. Jaehyun grabbed and tossed her to the ground before jumping on her. He had her dagger right in front of her chest, while she had her hand wrapped around Jaehyun’s throat.

You sat and crawled away from them. Whimpering and fighting the sore vibration of your bones.

“But I know someone who’s younger than me,” Alena managed to say. Jaehyun struggled to draw the dagger nearer, for Alena’s grip on his neck was viselike. “Why don’t you tell her when did you become a vampire, Jaehyun?” Her chests rumbled with the familiar laugh she echoed.

You tried to catch your breath. That… you didn’t surely know. When did Jaehyun become a vampire?

“Ask him,” Alena ordered.

You wanted to grab the nearest stone and throw it right to her face. But the question left a cumbersome force to your chest, pulling you under until you find it hard to breathe once more.

“R… run, Y/N,” Jaehyun stated through his suffering.

You stood up and ran. Towards where? You don’t exactly know. If Rhianon is still inside, now is the best time for her rescue. But before you could make it a meter away from the brawling vampires, Alena echoed something which drew you in a halt.

“Tell him when did your parents die!”

You whirled and saw Jaehyun clutching his stomach to the ground, with Alena’s foot on his side. Your eyes widened but before you could do anything, Alena picked up the dagger from his hand and sprinted towards you.

Alena was behind you when she whispered, “I promise, I’ll let you both go to live your love story. Just say the words.”

Jaehyun stood up. “Don’t listen to her.”

“I swear on the Athanar, and to whatever god there is, I’ll let you go in peace,” she said, you could almost drink the sincerity with it. “Say it.”

With parched lips, you said, “My parents died ten years ago.”

Jaehyun stilled, as if he was punched by a solid mitt.

Alena sneered behind you. “Ten years ago, I turned Jaehyun. It’s a coincidence, is it not?”

Your heart dropped. The rope of hope that seems to hold you had already snapped. If Alena would let go of your arm, you would surely collapse to the ground.

What a cruel joke. A tear slid down your cheek. All this time— the murderer was right in front of you.

“Did you kill my parents, Jaehyun?” you managed to cry out.

He was lost for words— lost for anything as he stared at you, flabbergasted beyond reckoning. “I… I didn’t—” Jaehyun’s eyes widened. “Y/N!”

His apoplectic snarl was the last thing you heard. Along with the sound of your flesh tearing as Alena drove her dagger behind you. You gasped and looked down at the protruded tip before froths of blood bubbled from your mouth. As you felt the life slowly leaving your lungs painfully, you knelt on the ground.

Alena’s voice was vacant as she said, “You love her. Now, mourn for her.” She disappeared, leaving the dagger into your body.

Before you fell face-first to the ground, Jaehyun caught your body in his arms. The world faded away as the life in your eyes died. Your irises were coated with unshed tears, staring up at the heavens lifelessly.

Vampires couldn’t cry. So Jaehyun held you with his arms, his mouth hanging open by grief. “No, no, no,” he chanted hopelessly, brushing away the strands of hair from your face, painting your cheek with your own blood from his fingertips. “Don’t do this to me, Y/N.” He shook your body while screaming your name.

But he was a devil. So the gods didn’t hear his prayers.

“Y/N!”

Jaehyun sat there, with your lifeless body. With the moon and the stars staring down at him with pity.

No one heard him— no gods had saved you. They didn’t allow you to have answers. They let you die without knowing who really killed your parents.

Jaehyun couldn’t tell himself. He was dazed when he crawled out of his grave. But one thing is for sure— he wouldn’t let you die in vain.

… and he wouldn’t let you die at all.

Jaehyun took your wrist. He bared his fangs, allowing vampire venom to coat the tips of his teeth.

The stars stared in horror, and the clouds grew heavy with grief. The rain fell.

With the moon as the witness— Jaehyun bit you.

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