#stop randomly poking my shoulder left and right on purpose

[cheeto-flavoured-pasta]

why is it that some jock-y cishet fuckboys will see a somewhat androgynous dude passing by in the hall and think “oh my god I HAVE to be weird and not treat him like the average stranger”

[just-another-wasteland-merc]

Em and Mac (fallout). One of them turns into a ghoul 👀

This hurt dude. What a way to return.

Hey, you can request stuff from this post.

It's under the cut. Bring some tissues.

But seriously, thank you for the ask :)

The change happened so gradually at first that neither of them really noticed. The loss of hair, Em contributed to her condition- she had always had a small amount on her hands after a shower. Cramps were a normal part of her life, even the pain that shouldn’t be in her bones at her age. Everything was just written off as her PCOS symptoms that she no longer had control of due to the lack of estrogen to counterbalance the raging hormones. Her periods had stopped, and she just shrugged it off. They came and went as they pleased, Em just figured it was a time where they just didn’t come for a few months. Mac didn’t notice a change either, just randomly would ask if she was doing okay, and the answer that usually came was a form of “yes”.

Until they had a talk one morning and he saw it. The corners of the sclera in her eyes had started to turn black. Later, after her shower, he saw the open sore on her shoulder. She didn’t believe him at first- Mac had to push her to a mirror to see herself. And held up a handheld to see the sore she couldn’t twist herself to view on her own. Grief struck her harder than watching the Institute melt into itself those few years prior. Mac was just as comforting as he usually was with her, but she couldn’t stand to have his arms around her that moment. She pulled herself away, and with every shout of her name, she picked up her pace as she left the house. A fast walk turned into a trot to almost a flat out run as she hooked to the right, across the familiar footbridge. Splinters and slivers caught themselves on her bare feet, but she didn’t care as she pushed herself faster up the hill. Em only registered any feeling when hands gently touched her arms. She blinked.

“Hey,” Mac had seemingly appeared in front of her. His tone was soft. “Come on. We need to get you off the platform. I think your feet are burning on the metal.”

She felt numb as he guided her to the dirt, then to the grass as they poked at her toes. The scraggly remains of the ground never seemed to have recovered from the nuclear blast two hundred years ago. And Mac was right- the ground was noticeably cooler than the elevator platform he had found her at. Em’s knees shook before she basically collapsed to the dirt. He helped haul herself to a sitting position before he lowered himself purposely in her view.

“This doesn’t change anything between us,” he softly declared. “It’ll never change how I feel about you, or how Duncan thinks, nothing.”

“It’s.. it’s not that,” she finally said. Her voice was hoarse, from running, or screaming, she honestly didn’t know.

“Then what? Tell me.”

“I won’t… I won’t get to grow old with you.”

He touched her cheek and used his thumb to wipe a tear that had fallen from her eye. It was the only evidence to know she was crying.

“What do you mean?”

“That’s what I wanted, RJ. You and me, for.. well.. forever. I meant it when we got married. I wanted us to freak out when we got our first gray hairs, or when our joints got stiff from sleeping wrong, or…” her arm gestured to nothing in particular as it swept between them to convey the continuation of things she couldn’t suddenly say anymore. Her voice shrunk to a whisper.

“I wanted to die with you.”

Her vision blurred, but Mac pulled her to sit in his lap and held her as she clung to him. She took fistfuls of his duster as more tears stained the leather. He tried his best to soothe her, but when wetness settled onto her hair, Em knew he was crying too.

“Your parents,” he finally croaked out. “Your parents seem.. Happy with who they are.”

“My parents have each other. I wouldn’t have you. I’d be alone.”

“We still have a long time. It could happen to me, who knows?”

She leaned back enough to force him to look at her. “Don’t you dare do this to yourself,” she warned. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

“I’m not saying I’m going to purposely do it. I’m saying it's a possibility that it could happen to me. It can happen like it’s doing to you.”

“I don’t want it to happen to you at all.”

Mac sighed. “I know. C’mere.” He rubbed her back soothingly as she sunk back to him. “We’ll figure it out, Em. We always do.”

She nodded, not trusting herself to say anything else. The kiss on the top of her head was savored by her, as well as the small weight of his cheek resting against her.

“We’ll get through this, bluebird,” he murmured. “I know we will.”

[shhhlikeme]

“Losty Aone” / “Losty Mountain Man🏔” Series:

Outtake Collection #15:

———————————

A/N: last one! I hope you guys liked it and I’d love to hear your feedback! Thank you so much for reading and being on this Losty journey with meeee🥳💕💕💕

TABLE OF CONTENTS

———————————

A Pair Of Broken-Hearted Losties Have To Pair Up For An Assignment 📚🤩

Over the next few weeks, at the advice of Kenji and Kogane, Aone avoided you at all costs 

Every morning he sat there thinking about you and trying to figure out what he did wrong.... ultimately feeling worse and worse

It was incredibly difficult seeing you around school, but if it is one thing Takanobu knew how to do it was make himself scarce when it came to you, so at least you’d be fine. After all, it took you two years to even notice his existence 

Aone decide to have lunch in the library now because you’d never go there by your own free will. 

He spent that time going over his own homework, or helping his two friends with theirs, or just staring out the window doing another type of math calculation: the heart wrenching attempt to calculate how in the world he convinced himself that you would settle for him when you could get any guy you want

He should be glad you even gave him a chance for a year.

To be honest, Every day was a struggle for Aone to get out of bed—even weeks later—but he did it because he kind of told himself in some weird pathetically twisted way that you’d find him more attractive if he did; if you saw him as someone who could withstand hurricaines.

At the advice of his friends, when Takanobu would see you in the halls, he’d just look away or walk faster…. Knowing that his heart wouldn’t kill him as much if he only moved rapidly

The only time that was truly difficult was in the class mountain man had with you— the same class you first noticed him in when he defended you against the class snitch—the class where you sat only two seats to his right. 

It took everything in mountain man not to stare at you for the entire hour like he’d grown so accustomed to doing, remembering how when you two were dating you’d wink at him when you caught him staring, making him blush profusely 

It literally took all of his concentration to stare ahead at the teacher or down, and even then he still slipped up and caught himself enamoured with your side profile and new found quietness, when before you were always chatty… then again whether you could probably speak alien and Aone would still be in love with you. 

When he failed to not be captivated by you at least once a day and glanced over at you, Aone kept falling in love over and over again. 

His best friend would kill him if he admitted it out loud but Aone couldn’t bring himself not to like you anymore simply because you didn’t like him. 

Besides, He’s been in this position before and it never wavered his emotions. Sure, he’s hurt—he is really hurt, but the heart knows what it wants.

You didn’t lose your beauty or perfection, simply because you didn’t want him: Go figure.

 His heart just couldn’t take the whirl of opposite emotions. Love and Hurt. Why did you have to be his dream girl? Why couldn’t he think about anything else but you? Why was his biggest dream in life to be your husband, still? This was torture. Pure torture. 

Before, Aone used to be sad about it, but when he caught himself staring at you in class and felt like his chest was empty of a heart because it had been shattered in pieces again, he had never been happier that graduation was right around the corner. 

At least in University, you wouldn’t be in his classes

Anyway, as usual, Kenji would meet Aone outside of that class everyday, and Kenji couldn’t help notice the look on Aone’s face whenever he left that class. It looked eerily and alarmingly similar to Aone’s face when he was standing in the snow that night. 

Fuck. 

Things got worse when the teacher announced assigned partners for this small project he wanted the students to work on as a major final project.

As luck would have it, Aone was randomly paired up with his heart & heartbreak: you. 

“Hi,” You said quietly as everyone including you swapped seats to sit next to their partners. 

Aone just nodded, not trusting his voice.... 

This was like some awful deja vu. 

he’s absolutely screwed 

His heart beat 5x faster than normal when you came closer, like always. Mountain man had to let his mind work overtime so that he didn’t just beg you to give him another chance 

He felt like the green school tie he was wearing was getting tighter by the second, and this was all so hard for him 

You surprisingly took the reins on this small school project, knowing from Kusa that your ex boyfriend wasn’t speaking much lately, which Aone decided he liked you more for. 

He was falling harder for the girl who broke his heart. How morbid is this? 

The deprecating thoughts persisted.

Yep, he is screwed for life. 

When you got answers wrong, Aone would point to it and shake his head kindly, offering his hand for the pencil and then starting to write the correct answers

When he looked down at the paper, you took this opportunity to take in the man’s gorgeous features…

his dark, broody demeanour on such a light palette of colours: the white of his hair, the beige of his skin, the light pink on his cheeks….You wanted to sigh. He really does look like Santa & Mrs. Clause’s son that models for GQ. 

Geez, Aone Takanobu is so...................sexy. 🤤

It had been so long that you’d been near him. 

All of your nights consisted of thoughts of him. But your days consisted of actively avoiding him, hoping that he let another girl in then hoping that he didn’t 

You cried basically every night.......and the only nights you didn’t was when you fell asleep on Group FaceTime with Katana and Kusa. 

You missed Aone with ever fibre of your being. But you were doing this for him. He would never break up with you, so you had to.

And while you had to fight back tears at school every time you saw him speaking to another girl because you didn’t know their relationship, all of that only made this moment to admire him when he wasn’t looking more crucial: you had to take advantage of this project and this temporary closeness that you’re basically addicted to. 

Because it may just be your last.

Instead of just staring at the background of your iPhone where there displayed a picture of Aone and Perdu, you took this chance to check out this incredibly attractive mountain man in the flesh:

Your eyes roamed unabashedly from the tip of his scribbling pencil over his long, beefy arms: obviously muscular even through his Date Teko jacket....

up to his broad shoulders that were perfect to hold on to during intimate time.....

your eyes cascaded over his neck where his Adam Apple bobbed and made you whisper ‘all man’ in your mind......

up to his pink lips that were pressed together in a straight line.

Those LIPS. YOU’D ALMOST FORGOTTEN. 😩😩😩

you couldn’t help but recall the force and passion behind those heavenly babies on your lips when he was gripping your hips and forcing you down on him in a successful attempt to cause friction on his erection...... 

Even though you were dead-set on putting Aone first like he deserved, just like he did for you all those years when he crushed on you— sticking to your guns about this breakup so that he could find someone better was absolutely the brutal. Oh god, did you miss him. And oh god, did you want him to grab you and fuck you silly just li—

“Y/N?” 

You were pulled out of your daze momentarily when those lips you were staring at called your name in question. 

Aone had finished writing down the answers at about the same time your eyes reached his neck on their little journey, and he’d been staring at you staring at him ever since. He realized you didn’t notice he caught you staring, because you probably would have looked away. But like the whipped man he is, even now, he purposely waited to stop you because he liked being stared at by you. It made his cheeks flare up like a cherry and his heart soar. Not to mention when you were staring at his arms, neck and neck you looked one way—but when your eyes stopped on his lips for longer than a minute something in your expression changed—and you were staring at him like: 

Which evidently made all the blood from poor Mountain Man’s cherry cheeks waterfall down to his groin. Maybe he had been misreading your look as one that communicated sex, but it was pretty hard to decipher now when his penis was screaming at him for months worth of negligence. Aone’s poor mind went straight to the gutter, wanting to take you and have you sit on his face for hours on end. Holy, shit, you can’t look at him like that! Takanobu had to stop you then, only because his urge to consensually bend you over this desk was getting way too strong way too quickly. He had to remind himself that you broke up with him because you don’t want that with him. So, he reluctantly called your name. 

The man had no clue that you would have wanted nothing more than to satisfy him right here and now.

“What? Me!? Ummm yes?!” 

“The bell just sounded. We did not get too much done today, but we can continue in class tomorrow. And perhaps meet up outside of class, if you are comfortable with that. We have all week to start.” 

All week...? You pretended to ask. So I can continue checking you out until my panties are wet tomorrow too....? Oh God. 

It took you a second for your thoughts to catch up to what Aone was actually was saying to you and not Dream-Aone. You forced an excited nod. “Oh. Okay, um.... tomorrow., then. Um, bye.” You smiled at him sheepishly, scurrying out of the class behind all the other students. 

***

Five minutes later, Aone remained seated there at his desk. The class was empty. It’s not like he could get up yet with how hard he was currently, anyway, so he was waiting until his member calmed down. When Futakuchi poked his head in the classroom because he was curious as to where his friend was, Aone groaned and threw his head back, covering his agonized face with both hands. 

“Uh oh. It’s Y/N, isn’t it? 😒” Futakuchi guessed while walking in slowly. Kenji did not need confirmation, but Aone nodded anyway. 

“What did she do this time? Talking to other guys in front of you?” 

Aone groaned and shook his head again, still covering his face with his hands. 

“……Oi, is she being a bitch? Giving you the cold shoulder or something?” 

Another groan and shake of the head from mountain man. 

“Wait. Don’t tell me she asked out another—“ 

“No.” 

“Then what is it! Why do you look like you’re about to sink down to the damn floor? What is Y/N doing?!” 

Aone spoke through his hands, his smooth voice muffled by his wrists. “She’s being beautiful. I have absolutely no self control around her, Kenji-san, she is the most attractive person I.have.ever.seen. And now we’re partners for the final project. I am so in love with her, and on top of that she—How can I ever get over a girl that looks like that?” 

Kenji rolled his eyes, annoyed, but a realist through-and-through.He figured right away the Y/N must have unintentionally turned Aone on in class. That would explain why he’s still sitting down with red cheeks.

Kenji sighed. “Yeah, I do wish Y/N wasn’t so hot. But I mean, you just have to do the project and then we are off to College together and she probably won’t get in with her grades—“

Speaking negatively about the love of Takanobu’s life was a sure fire way to get his erection to soften. Aone should thank his friend. But instead, he groaned once again, shaking his head. “Cheerleading... scholarship.” 

Futakuchi deadpanned. 

“.......Shit.” 

A nod. 

“When you look at her for the rest of this project, just imagine it’s like a dead squirrel or something. I can spam your phone with dead squirrel pics all class if that will help.” 

Aone sighed, finally removing his hands from his face and sitting upright. His response surprised Kenji, making it known to both of them that this breakup was going to be harder no pun intended than either of them thought. Aone still couldn’t get the visual of you checking him out seductively out of his head, and it was not only making him hard again, it was screwing with his hormones and emotions and just everything, FUCK.

“Send the photos, Futakuchi-san. Please. I have a feeling I will need all the dead squirrels I can get.” 

After weeks of feeling depressed, Aone was guiltily able get himself off that night. ✨

———————————

Mountain Man: The Sequel (Post-Nut Clarity) ✨💫

After mountain man arched his back, his entire body trembling due to force of yet another orgasm that had been waiting to be released for months, he discovered something. 

He doesn’t need Futakuchi and Kogane’s plane when you are simultaneously Aone’s destroyer and healer.

You are like no other girl he will ever meet in his life. This Aone knows for sure.

This is clear due to the fact that now that Aone is working alongside you for a project, he has been able to crawl out of depression the more time he spends with you, simply because your mere presence made him feel better. THAT says something.

Aone wants to be anything to you but a stranger. It’s the only way his heart stops aching and if all you can give him is a friendship after this project is over, then that was what he would willingly accept

Aone realized that even though he struck out the first time and failed to make you choose a life with him, he had nothing to lose if he tried again. 

He just had to prove to you that he’s deserving….somehow.

For years, Aone left his love life and his desire to be with you up to chance..... hopelessly pining after you and being way too shy to ever make a move until you did. 

But, tonight’s post-nut clarity changed everything. That old Aone who waited for you to make the first move was long gone. Now replaced by an Aone that goes for what he wants! 

And what he wants is you. 

***

The next morning, the K_nji’s were woken up by the amazing smell of breakfast wafting into their guest rooms at Aone’s house. 

They both drug their feet into the kitchen, Kenji tired - Kogane excited…. and they were flabbergasted by the scene they were greeted with. Their jaws dropped and their eyes widened like:

Standing there in his apron, whisking around the kitchen..... was their best friend—the same broken hearted best friend who rarely spoke the past few weeks, who rarely smiled, and who disappeared every chance he got to sulk in his room alone— that same best friend was making breakfast......and whistling. 

They’d never heard this giant whistle in their entire lives. 

“Aone-san…? Kenji whispered , rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, wondering if he was still dreaming. Upon hearing his name Aone had just noticed their presence, looking up and smiling only with his eyes. 

“Good morning! I made you both breakfast!” Mountain man greeted in a higher tone—still monotone— but the loudest they’d ever heard him speak with. 

Futakuchi stuttered. “Aone-san.... wha—why—?” 

Takanobu grunted and shrugged. 

“I thought I’d do something to commemorate the first day I...... well, the first day I put a plan I have in place.” 

“What plan, mom?!” Kogane asked, no longer shocked and digging into the rice. “This tastes amazing…”

Aone chuckled lowly, which is also so out of character for him! Futakuchi’s heart dropped because not only was this the fucking Twilight Zone, for the first time in his life the Justin Bieber look-alike is not able to read his best friend. Futakuchi tried hard, and came up with nothing. 

“What is this plan?” The brunette asked apprehensively.

Aone took a second to think about his wording before giving both friends a determined look. The blonde visibly stood straighter, speaking with conviction: 

“My plan to take charge of my love life for the first time in my life. In other words, grab a plate and allow me tell you both about my plan to.... to get the girl of my dreams back.” 

———————————

Outtake #16: CLICK HERE!

[penaltbox]

your side of the bed - roman ahcan

feedback & reblogs are always so appreciated!! if you like it, let me know your favorite line or part 😊

word count: 3k

__

You glance up from your phone, seeing the tv show playing far later at night than you needed to be awake, but not remembering a single thing that had happened during that episode or any prior. You glance over to your left and see the back of someone who had been there plenty of times now but who you still weren’t used to. 

Technically speaking he was your boyfriend. He did everything you asked, went out of his way to be sweet to you, and his mom thought the world of you. From the outside looking in you had it all and you felt like you owed him for all the good things he did for you, but something always felt missing. Something was always off. He didn’t feel like home the way Roman had. 

__

You think about the night everything fell apart more frequently than you wanted to admit. The two of you didn’t always get along but you didn’t fight every time you were together either. You were quick to butt heads on some things, but being together always had a spark that you knew you’d be chasing your whole life. 

You were out with Ro and his friends one night, trying to wind down after a long week and two tough games on their end. You’d been a little irritated that day, but you didn’t think you were super crabby. He had other thoughts though and made them known. 

“If you’re gonna have an attitude all night just go home. I don’t want to deal with it,” he says, shaking his head after you glare at some girl who had come to try and talk to the boys. 

“What are you talking about?” You ask, not realizing your face had betrayed your thoughts that way. 

He laughs a little, but there’s no humor behind it, “don’t act better than her just because you hang out with my friends now. You used to be in her position not that long ago.”

“I didn’t even do anything. What’s your problem?” You ask, your temper flaring a tad over his accusations. 

“Oh don't start with that. Why do you always have to pick a fight when I put you in your place?” He says, quickly backing you against the wall so he can keep the inevitable argument between you two. 

You lean back against it and glare up at him, knowing this tactic well. It wasn’t your first fight at the bar and sometimes you both lost your temper so he’d started corralling you to try and keep things calm. It worked sometimes, when he didn’t talk down to you like he was now, but other times the boys still picked up on the problems that would arise as your voices got louder and would usually have to intervene. 

“I’m not picking the fight. You started this!” You poke his chest, knowing it would start him up. 

He takes a deep breath before he mumbles through his teeth, “don’t fucking poke me like that.”

“Or what? What are you gonna do, Roman?”

“I’m gonna tell you to shut the fuck up and check your attitude. Why are you so goddamn crabby tonight?” He asks, his voice raising a little already. 

“I wasn’t crabby but if you keep being a dick and telling me what you think I am, it’ll change really fast,” you roll your eyes and try to push him out of your way. 

“I’m not dealing with this tonight. I’m not your babysitter,” he scoffs, but puts his hands on the wall on either side of you to keep you in front of him. 

You clench your jaw then, hating that he was pushing you around in public, “let me go. I wasn’t in a bad mood until you started being an ass and telling me I was. You won’t stand here and act like you’ve got all this power over me because you can hold me in place.”

He smirks then, like this is some game, “you never seem to complain when I hold you in place in bed.”

Your patience has worn out and his comment is ill-timed. You push his arm down and step around him, determined to go back to your drink and talk with people like you had been before he decided to unnecessarily give you a hard time. 

“I’m sick of you treating me like a little kid when we fight,” you say, looking over your shoulder at him, “why can’t you just be fucking nice to me?”

“Are you kidding me?” He asks louder than you expect, but he’s quick to glance around. A couple of the boys look over and you know you’re being watched after that outburst, “I am nice to you and it’s not fair for you to try and say that. I’m just trying to make sure everyone has a good time tonight by checking your attitude early.”

You feel your jaw tense again and you somehow cool your tone down as you explain, “I’m not a child, Roman, and I would really appreciate it if you let me be my own person rather than making sure I fit into your little group here. If you want someone that just does what you say then I’m not the girl for you.” 

Roman’s jaw drops a little at how even your tone is and how serious you sound. He’s quickly stuttering, trying to spit out an apology but you’re quicker than him. 

“I’m fucking done. I can’t deal with the bullshit that comes with you and this team anymore,” you say, a statement that would end up being so untrue but you had no clue then, “We’re done.”

You weren’t sure exactly what you expected, but suddenly Roman straightens up and shrugs his shoulders. You frown a little at the action and he seems to finally know what he wants to say. 

“Fine, go then but don’t talk to us anymore either. This isn’t your group to be friends with,” he says, his tone cold and unfamiliar. 

You glance around at the boys you’d become close with, the ones who you’d spent so much time with over the last half a year, and especially the ones you really liked. You swallow hard but know you have to play it like this doesn’t hurt. But it really fucking does. 

You look back at Roman and give him a little nod before turning and brushing past Owen who calls your name softly. You can’t look at him, your composure wavering at the sound of your name coming from him, but you swear you hear him yell something at Roman as you stay on your path out of there. 

You make your way out of the door, spilling out onto the sidewalk of Lake Street. You have to take a couple deep breaths as you try to stop the tears from falling but it doesn’t work. You turn and head towards your apartment, not having any patience to wait for an Uber. You hardly make the turn onto State Street when you hear your name called. 

This had to be a sick joke. He embarrassed you like that in front of so many people and now he wanted to chase you down and make amends? You feel the sadness start to quickly switch over to anger as you quickly turn towards the voice, tears still burning down your face. 

“What do you want?” You spit out, but you gasp right after, “Mike, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was you.”

He gives you a little smile as his hand scratches the back of his neck, “he shouldn’t have done that. He shouldn’t argue in public with you just because he thinks you were in a mood. It just makes problems for everyone.”

“Oh,” you mumble as you wipe at the tear tracks, surprised by the closest thing you’ll get to an apology for the situation, “thank you?”

Mike blushes a little and gestures randomly towards the street, “I didn’t want you to have to walk home alone either. That’s not safe.”

“You coming with me then, Vorlicky? Am I the chaperone here or is that you?” You joke, finally smiling a little. 

“Hey now,” he laughs, walking past you down the road, “you coming with, pretty, or are you just gonna cry in the street all night?” 

It’s your turn to blush then as your stomach flutters a little. You duck your head to try and hide your smile, but you quickly match his pace. It had been a long time since you flirted the way you and Mike did that night. It was light and the banter came easily. He’s good at getting your mind off the issue at hand and before you know it the late hours turn into early morning and you let him crash on your couch eventually.  

When you didn’t hear from Roman for the next week, you figured he really was over it. You’re heartbroken and you hate that it ended the way it did. You had so many questions and problems with him just giving up on you two, but Mike provided a pretty good distraction that you didn’t expect to have. 

—

You knew Roman’s friends hated you. How could they not? You had broken up with one boy and then pursued another on the team. They didn’t say anything out loud but you saw the looks you got from his group whenever you were all in the same place. 

You never brought it up though. You opted to stay quiet and take on a different approach than the first time. You didn’t get drunk around them anymore or argue loudly, even when you had an opinion on something. You kept to yourself unless one of them asked you something and you always deferred to Mike when a decision needed to be made. 

You hated every minute of it. You were a shell of what you used to be but you had yourself convinced if you just got through school then things would turn out okay eventually. You wouldn’t have to see the team anymore and you wouldn’t have the reminder of the one you’d lost staring you in the face every time you wanted to see your new boy. If he even lasted that long. 

It wasn’t like Roman was completely gone though. It wasn’t just seeing him with the guys that happened every now and then; no, there was more than that. There was still this odd level of contact that was happening and it was on purpose from you, but you weren’t sure about him. Every Instagram story was checked by one another, always being one of the first few to watch it. Neither of you had unfollowed the other on anything and you refused to take down any pictures from vsco. That didn’t set extremely well with Mike but he never said too much on it either. You couldn’t quite let go of him even though you technically had someone new. 

You stare at your bed one Saturday, silently thinking about all the nights Roman has been taking up the space, and some of yours as well. You can’t help but wonder what would have happened if you tried harder to get him back. When you look back on things you know he deserved an apology, too. You’d gotten a little out of hand and let your temper run the show. Not once did you take a step back and tell yourself to calm down for a second rather than escalating the situation. 

You know you could have done things differently but you didn’t and now you had what you had. You were stuck home on a weekend but you were more than okay to have the place to yourself for once and you were soaking in the quiet. 

You would finally get to sleep alone that night, the boys having plans to go out and you definitely didn’t get those invites anymore. As you get changed, you swap his shirt out for one of Roman’s to wear to bed that night. You know you should have gotten rid of it when you broke up but you just couldn’t do it. You knew it wasn’t right, but you stored it in the back of a drawer and only pulled it out when you knew Mike wouldn’t be around. 

You slip into bed, mind racing all over again. It was quickly nearing 2:00 in the morning and yet you couldn’t seem to slow down. You realize you’re laying on his side of the bed and you pull an extra pillow closer, hugging it tight. Your heart strings tug a little as you remember how much he used to beg to be the little spoon. You never denied it, but you did pick on him just a bit for it. 

—

“You’re too big for this,” you giggle, but do your best to wrap your arms around him. 

“No, it works! I promise,” he says, his laugh easily filling the quietness of the room with a sound you loved to hear. 

He scoots down the bed a little and wraps his arms around your waist, lifting your leg up over his hip. He finally gets comfortable and lets out a sigh as your fingers begin to run through his hair, gently massaging his head every few swipes. 

“I love that you always do this,” you admit quietly, barely above a whisper. 

He hums and keeps himself squished against you, “I’m glad you still let me. Don’t tell the boys.”

“And risk you not doing this anymore?” You ask, “not a chance.”

—

You never did tell any of the boys about it and you never would. It was too intimate of a moment, only a memory to you now, for other people to know about it. It was also something you didn’t have with Mike and you weren’t sure you ever wanted him to try. He didn’t ask for it or pull you close and bury his head in your chest like Roman would. He liked to have his hair played with but everyone pretty much does so you never saw it as a big deal. 

Sometimes you really missed having a big tough hockey player all curled up and needing some extra attention, especially once it got dark outside and you were left alone with your thoughts of how things used to be. 

You know you’re not about to fall asleep so you do what you’d been doing for the last couple months since things ended: Post a story and see what Roman would do about it. He would be the only one who would know you weren’t on your side of the bed and you wondered if he even remembered or not anymore. 

It’s a simple picture, one that someone else would glance over in an instant. The soft glow from the string lights over your bed showed the side you were on and a little slip of red fabric - his shirt - with your tv on in the background. You put a little ‘no sleep’ comment with a crying emoji and shrink it, placing it right above the spot where you can see the shirt. 

It’s all so subtle that you’re not sure he’ll even realize it but you have this feeling that you need to just post it. Your heart is hammering for some reason as you tap through the screens, posting it to your story and then making sure it uploads right away. 2:03am is what your phone tells you and you sigh, swallowing at the lump that formed suddenly from your next thought. He probably had someone else keeping his attention. They were out at the bar and some new girl probably was getting that signature smirk from him instead of you. He didn’t need to check on you anymore. 

You lay back down and get comfy all over again, still holding the pillow close like it would somehow make things feel better and make the tugging feeling in your heart go away one of these days. Your mind wanders to the last time he was in your bed and you have to shake your thoughts. 

He was gone. He wasn’t yours to miss anymore. Why couldn’t you just accept that and move on?

You feel your eyes finally getting heavy as you do anything you can to think about something, anything else but him. You’re about to doze off when your phone vibrates in your hand. You frown and lift it up, heart stopping when you see what the notification is on the screen. 

‘roman_ahcan3 sent you a message.’

You read it over and over, trying to see if you’re imagining things, but you’re not. You open your phone to pull up the message as quickly as the page will load and you’d be lying if you said the contents of it didn’t take your breath away. 

‘That’s not your side of the bed’

You have to pull yourself together and read it again. He noticed. He had taken the time to watch your story, look at it, and then send you a message. You can’t believe this played out the way you’d wanted it to.

But why now? Why did he choose this story to respond to? There had been plenty of other chances to say something or make a comment. This wasn’t the one you expected to get a reaction from. 

‘No, it’s yours’ 

It’s bold and feels too forward. You regret it immediately and consider unsending it but he reads it almost as quickly as you send it. You’re panicking now because you’re sure he’s about to tell you to knock it off or that you can’t say that anymore. But he doesn’t. 

‘Is it really mine though? Still?’

You know your response as soon as you read his questions and you type it out faster than you can even process it. Every word is honest and you know you mean what you’re saying. 

‘If you come back it is.’

[barbika1508]

Hiwaga (Vampire! Jeongguk x Reader)

Part 1

Words: 11,1 k

Genre: Soulmate AU, Reincarnation AU, Enemies to Lovers, Action, Romance, Smut

Pairing: Vampire! Jeongguk x Reader

Warnings: Brief mentions of smut, Cursing

Summary: Life was good, playing out better than it has been ever before. My future was bright and full of promises and wishes coming to realization. All up until she showed up. She stormed though the front doors ruining everything along the way by her mere presence derailing my goals and purpose in life. A puny mortal, a child, a complete nuisance, and yet…The key to an unimaginable life, to the truth all along.

Author's note: Hiwaga – mystery; full of wonder Words in italics are dialogues or thoughts that Jeongguk reads from others. So I’ve done research with this fic, and used certain words that need explanation…given that there can be A LOT I’ve put a dictionary just below the fic if anyone is interested :3

Jeongguk’s POV:

‘’Stop it.’’

I barely flinch at the hiss the presence that settles on my left expected, to which my glare remains unfaltering ‘’She’s just…infuriating.’’ I sigh quietly, trying to relax my clenched jaw but just settle right back into pressing my teeth tight together while my fingers curl into fists, annoyance brewing.

‘’Why is that?’’ the question has me rolling my eyes inside my head, as I shift onto my right foot and away from the broad-shouldered vampire, keeping my composure in case of anyone looking towards us.

‘’I don’t know, I just really, really don’t like her.’’ I grumble glaring at the girl that’s grinning widely showing of her blunt teeth advertising to everyone that she’s not like us. She’s literally making herself a bait, even though Yoongi hyung made sure she was doused in his scent not even an hour ago.

She’s chatting away with a middle-aged guy, his wife looking interested as she eyes the regular girl up and down her thoughts not promising anything good. Right now, I’m cursed having the abilities that I have, easily reading through the crowd of people that’s surrounding us. I hate big gatherings, or any gatherings for that matter. Its bothersome to keep my concentration up at all times, to prevent all the voices from flooding my mind. Well except for hers. Not hearing her thoughts, is one of the most infuriating things.

‘’We know that Jeongguk-ah. It’s been a well-known fact since the moment she stepped a foot past the front doors.’’ Jin hyung chuckles clearly amused by my brooding and misery, as I recall not even a month ago how she loudly shrieked a greeting, and then just ran up to Yoongi hyung. He offered her a SMILE! HE SMILED AT HER AND LET HER HUG HIM!!!

The scene as I remember it is still bizarre and sort of unrealistic. How easily everyone accepted her, even though she isn’t of our kin. We’ve turned away, orphaned fairies, witches and even shapeshifting dragons which could have given us great amounts in the power dynamic. And yet there’s Y/N. Ugh even her name has me rolling my shoulder back, as my nose briefly scrunches, Jin hyungs hand landing on my shoulder reminds me that I need to keep a calmer attitude. Glancing over to him he’s completely amused as he looks at me.

‘’You are stewing in your anger without a real purpose youngling.’’ He teases the nickname a pain in the ass ‘’Relax, Jeonggukie.’’ He leans in closer still smirking but looks me directly in the eyes hovering up close There’s plenty of girls here. Some with royal statues or skills you can only ever imagine of. he wiggles his eyebrows at me suggestively. This time around I do roll my eyes for him to see, shaking my shoulders and him off as he ends up giggling not taking offense in my behaviour.

In a regular setting or just a regular gathering as this one is, I wouldn’t miss any single opportunity to tease him, or make fun of him blatantly but given the new guests I’m not in the mood whatso ever.

I do look at the wives, girlfriends, mistresses of our guests that fill our spacious ballroom besides the variation of men, that had me tune out their thoughts the moment the first 5 arrived. And granted they are all gorgeous, youthful, pale complexion mostly with vibrant eyes full of life, and deadly fangs poking from their lips proudly. My jaw unclenches, while I raise my chin up in interest once a blonde girl, walks past us quite a distance but I don’t miss how she flutters her eyes towards me, keeping on a shy smile which is a pretence but the visual has my attention. Her long blonde hair is cascading down over her exposed shoulder the ends curled up meticulously. Her front is a bit on the flatter side, figure smooth and flawless as the red wine dress that’s running and falling down her body like an endless seem of water while a thin vail that covers it, sparkles in the lights at times making her look more out of this world.

I raise an eyebrow in curiosity ready to start this game of chase. Watching intently, she offers a wider smirk steps slowing down, when suddenly she disappears from my view thanks to the group of chattering vampires ahead of us. Looking left and right she doesn’t pop up. Interesting.

‘’That’s it Jeongguk-ah. Our fearless maknae on the prowl.’’ Jin pats me over my back smirking his words making me smile but from half embarrassment and half amusement ‘’You know I’ve picked up on certain gossip that’s been floating around.’’ The implication has me turning to my older hyung fully in curiosity.

‘’Do spill thou secrets, dearest hyung.’’ another voice replies, Taehyung joining the two of us smirking knowingly. He probably knows where this is going, being the coven’s expert gossiper and a professional drama queen so to speak. He knows the ins and outs of the vampire world, dipping his toes into the werewolf pack’s and mere-folk communities as of lately. I simply slide my hands into the pockets of the black suit creased trousers I have on. I paired my outfit with a black long-sleeved saint Laurens shirt, and over it I’ve gone with a white suit jacket with golden detailing on it.

Jin hyung has gone more with a professional (regal) look, wearing a midnight black 5-piece suit, with the difference in the dress shirt which is a darker purple colour. The tie he has one, is more visibly purple adorned in small golden accessories that state which clan he belongs to by the logo being pined near the knot. He’s not only displaying regal colours but also the wealth, the rank and honour that was given to him, when he reached a milestone in his old age which not many vampires do anymore. The status and extra titles are appointed according to age and actions and Jin hyung has made it pretty high on both of those simple to-do lists as I’d like to call them.

Taehyung on the other hand is like me dressed in all black, going with a matching 2-piece suit lacking the suit jacket which leaves him in a more of a blouse type of dress shirt that has white squares doted randomly across. He has tucked the shirt into the slightly high waisted trousers, which makes shapes up his figure to the tens.

He quirks an eyebrow as he smiles mischievous standing on Jin hyungs left, giving me a knowing look.

‘’Rumour has it, amongst our lovely ladies mainly but in a wider circle nonetheless…’’

‘’Meaning everyone, yes hyung.’’ Taehyung pips in encouragingly licking his lips as he points his stare at the elder. I quickly shush him smirking as I glance between the two Taehyung grinning while Jin shakes his head but remains humoured.

‘’…it is said, that after a night with our Jeonggukie here, even as a vampire you’ll be having problems walking the next day.’’ His eyes are fixated on me gauging my reaction while I meet Taehyung’s gaze just knowing exactly what he normally would say. I don’t even have to read his mind to know.

But he loudly snorts instead ‘’You’ve left out the juicy part of the rumours hyung.’’ I lift my chin up again but look away from the two trying to see and detect if anyone is listening into our conversation. There’s a group of vampires that is standing close to us. Some have picked up on our talk but they are occupied discussing something else that has their complete attention, two women snickering to themselves quietly ‘’Our Jeonggukie even though is the cutest and the most innocent looking as a cherub doesn’t cuddle. Or kiss after he’s done fucking your brains out. How about that?’’

Turning back to the two, the elder gives me a disapproving look meanwhile Taehyung is strictly mirthful clearly finding this amusing ‘’I’m not looking for love. It’s simply an exchange of pleasantries and then it’s back to regularities.’’ I shrug turning away as the dark-haired vampire coos, chuckling while Jin hyung who has dyed his hair into a faint purple colour tsks.

‘’Oiii we didn’t raise you like that young man.’’ He chides while my eyes finding the blonde once more. Her gaze is already on me, clearly taking me in up and down shamelessly ogling me. To keep this interesting I refrain from reading into her mind, and offer a smirk back, taking her in as well. She’s joined into a conversation which she barely participates once our gazes interlock ‘’Yahhhh don’t ignore us! Don’t prove those rumours right!!!’’

‘’Let him be hyung.’’ Taehyung defends me, chuckling ‘’He’ll learn eventually, after getting punched into the balls enough times.’’

That has me quirking both eyebrows in question as I turn to the black haired male, his hair having grown out making him look all the more attractive in the period of a few months since he let it grow ‘’Have you learned that from experience hyung?’’ now I’m the one amused at the implication. But the mischief simply rolls of him.

‘’it’s a possibility.’’ He challenges back ‘’But it’s also well known what a gentleman I am first and foremost.’’ he wiggles his eyebrows, right hand rising up fingers wiggling, the suggestion obvious which has Jin let out a dry laugh.

‘’You younglings are just so cocky.’’ The elder condemns crossing his arms.

‘’Ah hyung I’m sure you were the same as we were at one point in your long and richly filled life.’’ Taehyung half sings stepping closer to the taller male, that simply smirks, his gaze now trained forward onto someone ignoring the antics of the younger vampire who cuddles up to him. I mimic our hyung turning forward in search of the blonde again, that once more has disappeared. Damn.

‘’I’m not telling you animals anything. You’d only take it as a challenge. And then I’ll just have more work to do cleaning after you.’’ Jin ends up grumbling the bickering going on put to the back of my mind.

With the wine-red colour in mind, I scan the growing crowd finding 4 more girls with a similar dress offering gleeful smiles, and even winks in return. Even though they look nice, I can’t help but to want to find the blonde. She had this quirky smile to her, and the fact that she put on an innocent face has me guessing she’s into something kinkier than she’d led onto.

Just as I’m about to head forward and find her by myself my intentions gets stopped.

‘’Oh, waw would you look at that.’’ Only now I notice that my two brothers have fallen silent, and are both staring ahead at something at the same time. Glancing at the two, Jin is amused while Tae’s expression is sort of blank. I follow their line of sight, finding an odd pair near middle of the room conversing. My blood runs cold at the sight. The 4 men that surround them are obviously body guards, the notion simply a sign of his power whilst is completely useless.

I sigh through my nose as other’s thoughts fill my mind, the curiosity and excitement and want for bloodshed rising in each and every vampire in the room.

The vampire that’s in the middle of the 4 man is Wangseja. Nobody actually knows his real name, as far as I know and have been told it’s been centuries so everyone just addresses him by his title. He is a descendant of the royal family, and has been meant to inherit the throne in his human life time. But obviously as he’s still here, breathing and undead something must have happened for him to have has to stray away from the human world and path of life.

He is not the only vampire that’s considered being one of the oldest here. There are a few more in this very room, one being our Yoongi hyung, and Jin following just close behind, after 3 others.

The 8 gifted with the title ‘elders’ are considered being in charge, with everything that’s regarding our vampire community and largely covens as they’ve tried to portray it as if we’re families. Which we aren’t. Coven wars still happen most often than some would like, and not enough to others.

Back to the former crown prince, he’s wearing a Gonryongpo which translates to Dragon Robe. He has the famous yellow dragon woven over his back which simply makes me assume that even though he puts on a friendly face and demander he’s a cocky asshole. He must be. Those clothes are generalized as robes that government officials and royalty wore but it’s well known that they were mainly emperors clothing. A bit pompous if you ask me.

Of course, the other 8 elders are dressed similarly to him, but in comparison they are dressed in downgraded versions.

His colours are the ones of red and to my misfortune of not being able to make fun of him later he isn’t wearing the traditional hat along his attire. He is however strapped with a Samjeongdo at his side. Again, it's all telling me he's a prick. I don’t even have to peek into his mind to see him as a sheep in wolfs clothing. A dangerous sheep with incredible power nonetheless. My nose scrunches up as his laughter can be heard all the way here, the ballroom having gotten quieter, everyone’s attention and ears focused in on the conversation at hand, the odd pair presenting curiosity amidst my kin. I bet the next gossip is going to revolve solemnly onto what’s happening right now. Ugh, great.

The girl that’s standing before him sports a bright smile unbothered by the many eyes that are fixated on her, taking in every error that’s marked over her skin, every imperfection that lies over her features and hair that even though has been styled looks messy to me.

She stands out from everyone else, simply by the colour choice of her dress which happens to be a soft lilac that edges on white, and grey. Ridiculous!

The ladies in the room, are for the most part dressed in designer clothing, with jewels, glitters, and modern sewing, styled to perfection which is an overused word, but that’s just what vampires tend to do. Dress to impress, every detail smoothened and detailed 100%.

Her dress is draped from her waist down pooling shily around her feet, her neckline all but shy as the V-neck is deep showing of her collarbones and extra skin, the odd scar littered here and there ruining her darker completion, pale not being in her vocabulary. Her fingers are adorned with golden rings, same goes for her ears where golden earrings dangle in the bright lighting of the chandeliers. More gold has ben simply strewn over the mess of her hair, the style which is supposed to be elegant has had my head shaking even before.

The cuff on her bicep even though displays her prominent muscular and athletic figure highlighting her arms is unnecessary, as is the leaf belt around her waist that makes her hips look wider. I’m sure there’s plenty of men lusting after her plump figure alone. I bet her flesh is soft, and easy to hold onto, the covered-up skin probably littered with more scars that seem to litter her every inch of her body. Unlike most people she shamelessly displays them.

What irks me, and leaves me in complete puzzlement is the sword that’s strapped to her hip. I’ve been told she’s a swordswoman, and that she has had the training of it as I’ve stumbled upon her and Yoongi hyung sparing one day randomly in the gym. The space is big and can have a boxing ring in it if we wish to, other activities such as practicing martial arts, and archery enabled by its spaciousness.

The already what looks like an exaggerated grin grows wider her animated looking speech bothersome. Her right hand is the one to move around fingers twitching, constantly touching the handle of her sword, awkwardly almost while her left hand is preoccupied with holding a glass that contains alcohol in it the content unknown to me. She’s the only one with a drink in hand making her even more obvious that she doesn’t belong here. She doesn’t belong with us.

And yet the prince seems to eat her right up with his eyes alone. He’s completely entranced by her. I don’t understand one bit as to why - she’s full of imperfections like I’ve said, the fact that she’s a foreigner isn’t the issue, but the word she chooses to say are at times very disrespectful as she doesn’t know better clearly her Korean obviously lacking while her mannerism are those of a child.

Still irked I tilt my head tongue darting over my teeth and cheek as I focus my gaze onto the man, the sound of my inner voice fading back, as the haze behind my eyes and fogginess that surround me starts to lift up. It would be way easier to close my eyes, but that would make it obvious that I’m trying to do something that I shouldn’t be doing.

As I blink a few times, I find myself in the prince’s shoes which are uncomfortable but he’s keeping that at the back of his mind. He notes how she’s so small and fragile looking compared to him, easily to take, steal away if it were the older times. Okay old man.

She’s just like a child! So excited and clumsy, its adorable. That sword on her hips must be a mere toy. Something to add sparkle and value to her in a sense. But the display of it does raise questions; Why did Min Yoongi let her wear that? And the style of it, very much so foreign to our own Geom’s and sword styles in Korea.

He probably dressed her up himself, given that she’s absolutely drenched in his bitter scent. Ugh mint. I’ve grown to absolutely hate it as it’s a reminder of him whenever the scent hits my nose. If it weren’t for him, I’d be king, and all these fools and idiots would have already been kissing my feet.

So why is he displaying her off like this? He has staked his claim, but hasn’t marked her. It must be a bribery? No Min wouldn’t stop so low he’s too prideful for that.

Look at her go, rising chuckles from my chest with almost ease which is sort of unusual how her humour seems to be in tune with my own. Even though she’s more than meets the eye, she’d be fun to play around with. Tie her down, or simply hold her as she’s useless against my strength...then use all her holes us, and drain her…fuck what would I give for a taste of her blood. Even though the mint covers her up, her own sweetness has started to seep through. She smells like the freshest batch of strawberries, mint ruining it into acidness. I want to ruin her…

A backhanded hit over the back of my head, brings me accidentally to another place in the Prince’s mind, seeing the image of the human girl being tied up inhumanely, and him fucking her. The scene has my stomach churning and if I was still human, I’d be throwing up right here and now. If my blood was ice cold before it quickly warms up, as that’s no way to threat any woman or man for the matter human or no. As I blink rapidly coming back to my own stiff body, I offer a glare towards the Prince one last time before turning to a fuming Seokjin hyung that’s glaring at me hand still holding onto the back of my neck, with an underlaying treat resting heavily between us.

‘’Are you fucking crazy?!’’ he hisses pupils starting to glow more prominently red as his anger rises. Only now I notice Yoongi hyung on my left, that’s neutrally staring at me clearly disappointed but there’s this sort of glimmer in his eye that I can’t exactly read ‘’Out of all the things we’ve told you not to do and you go straight ahead and spit in our faces?!?’’ his anger is basically radiating in waves from him, as he leans in closer to me to my neck, hand tightening forcing me to hold my head still.

Taehyung was quick to move and stand in line of sight trying to block out anyone from seeing what’s going on where we are near the balcony that has remained unusually unoccupied this evening.

‘’It was me.’’ Yoongi replies neutrally. It’s that sort of neutral that’s plainly terrifying as you cannot know what direction his emotions are swinging at. Even though he is my creator, my saviour and the one I’m closest to in our coven, he is after all a very old creature that with only a stare can make anyone cry and flee ‘’My order.’’ He adds eyes finding my own, voice easily filling my mind.

Is there anything you’d like to share with me? his face remains the same, whilst Seokjin lets go off me and steps away, angrily mumbling under his breath. With a glance towards Yoongi and a barely there nod Taehyung is scurrying away after Jin, meanwhile Hoseok hyung is quick to join us out of thin air it seems, settling himself on Yoongi’s right keeping an eye out.

Readjusting my clothes and posture I offer a glance towards the Prince and Y/N that’s down’s her glass and makes a goofy expression looking like she’s having the time of her life. Ignorant fool.

He wants to steal her. Literally. turning to the platinum blonde vampire he sighs heavily through his nose looking forward with his eyes narrowed.

What else?’

My lips tighten into thin lines the blonde woman from before coming into my line of sight. Shit. Cursing further I turn to the pair in the middle of the room again, watching as the prince daringly leans closer, the girl to my surprise dodging his touches, his hand now and then reaching out seemingly casual Her sword. I admit trying hard to push down the image of the two of them, and the way he wants to torture her for his own pleasure He hates your scent. But hers is starting to come out more which has him all the more curious and wanting.

Frowning as disgust raises again, I keep my eyes on the elder on my right, not missing the way his lips tug downwards. He looks displeased.

‘’Hoseok-ah.’’ With a single word and a look, Hoseok rushes away, disappearing as if he wasn’t even here in the first place. As I turn forward to look across the room ready to observe thoughts of certain vampires the blonde catches my eyes again. She’s standing much closer now but has been roped into another group of females that are clearly gossiping way to loud for their own good. Her eyebrows furrow as she looks at me as of saying ‘Help.’.

‘’Your punishment will be decided on tomorrow.’’ Yoongi speaks monotone getting my attention. I quickly lower my head down in understanding, hands pulling behind my back as I take a step behind him ‘’Even though you’ve earned a pass, your actions have earned Jin hyungs anger.’’ He spares me a glance but I don’t lift my head and gaze from my shoes, the leather polished so that it reflects the closes chandelier to us in them ‘’Taehyung-ah will take care of your position while you join Namjoon and Jimin.’’

Instantly I grind my teeth together, wanting to retort back a denial but know better than to go against him especially where anyone can hear and see us in a crowd like this.

‘’So much for waiting for tomorrow.’’ I grumble squaring my shoulders, picking up on soft patting of feet the person I want to burn in hell approaching us. Hyung doesn’t reply, just keeps looking ahead instead even though I know I rubbed him the wrong way with my comment. But he also knows how I detest her. It really is a cruel punishment as he’s putting her safety onto my shoulders. I hate this so much, ugh why me?!

I was supposed to be Yoongi’s hyung backup. I was supposed to start learning to be his left-hand man, as Hoseok is always there when he needs him. But no, she had to fuck it all up didn’t see? Just by coming here she fucked up years of progress I’ve made. Years of hard work to be the best, in all categories that hyung needs me to excel at.

‘’Hello gentlemen.’’ She cheers gleefully completely unaware of what’s happening. Looking up she spares a wide grin and proceeds to drink more of her newly refiled glass, a waiter following her around since the start.

‘’Aren’t you being a bit careless with the amount of alcohol intake?’’ Yoongi asks sounding soft and affectionate, as she smacks her lips which are coloured into a nice pinker shade, that complement the soft pastel tones of her makeup. So annoyingly human.

‘’Me careless never.’’ She snorts giggling ‘’I’d offer a toast but given your current lack of beverage, I’ll keep on trooping on for the both of us.’’

‘’How courageous of you.’’

Another puzzling matter is the amount of alcohol intake. I know humans drink, but isn’t this too much? It’s getting to a lethal point for her livers at this point ‘’Continuing on my legacy firmly.’’

My frown deepens as Yoongi chuckles half amused ‘’Did you enjoy your chat with your newest admirer?’’

At this I spare him a glance. His expression hardens but he isn’t giving anything off his expression and posture relaxed and well masking his real emotions while she on the other hand muses and obviously turns back toward the Prince, that’s already staring towards us, offering a smirk. She hums and turns back crossing her right arm over her front while she bends her left holding the glass up near her face the posture making her look ridiculous as she fake toasts, the Prince mimicking the gesture right back.

‘’Very much so, he’s quite charming.’’ She confirms her eyebrows jumping expression seemingly too happy for her to actually be normal. How can she be so cheerful and easy going? Again, with the animal references but she’s a lamb set right now in a den of lions, ready to be devoured. She’s acting so oblivious, she is oblivious idiotically so, her attitude and the way she’s acting want me to tear out my hair.

‘’Did he ask you about your heritage?’’ at this question I furrow my brows as I look at hyung in confusion. Why is he asking her that? For sure he has paid attention to every word they’ve exchanged like everyone else so why the unnecessarily of talking about this out loud??

‘’Yes.’’ She taps the handle of her sword visibly ‘’But he didn’t get the memo quite yet. He did compare me to a princess nonetheless. I should add that to my resume.’’ Her voice that’s this dreamy aspect to it. Another sip of the bubbly liquid she tilts her head to the side smirking at hyung. The next word she speaks I cannot even phantom to pronounce or repeat - it sounds almost like she is making a sound, which for a moment I assume she just burped or something, but Yoongi hyung nods curtly. Did she just speak in another language?

‘’Oh!’’ she states in wonder turning around as music starts to play louder now the hired coven that acts as a smaller performing orchestra coming to life with a lively tune. Couples are quick to line up in the middle of the room, ready to dance ‘’How wonderful.’’ she mumbles to herself continuing to sip on her drink. With her back to me, I’m drawn by the expanse of her back the dip of her dress reaching just where her kidneys are. Harsher looking scars litter her skin, which are confusing by all means. They are long and overlapping. That must have taken a long time to heal. It almost makes me flinch.

Yoongi’s silence gets my attention and a desperate wish to peek into his mind, to see what storm is brewing there.

‘’Remember that one time, when you asked me to dance on your own free will??’’ the girl wonders sounding reminiscent while the vampire moves to stand in front of her. I feel as if I’m intruding the moment, so given my new position I walk over to the side, to a giant column that’s keeping the heavy roof intact above us. I’m close enough to them to intercept anyone, and far enough to stop any danger. But instead of focusing on my surroundings I listening in onto the two.

‘’…you’re not getting that. Even if you drag me.’’ hyung finishes amused, standing closer to her. Way too close that’s necessarily, the proximity bothering me. She’s going to give him a bad rep and he’s just letting her. I am surprised I have to admit, about the lightness of their conversation having fully expected them to start talking between one another in the foreign tongue that nobody knows about, which they usually converse in.

‘’Aigo Yoongi-yaah! Stubborn as ever!’’ I close my eyes for a moment just breathing in an out, my mood sour-ing all the more. Even though I’ve told her myself many times, that when addressing your elders, you need to call them appropriately she still goes against it acting dumb and continues to call hyung in a belittling way.

I don’t understand why he doesn’t correct her! Why is he letting her act like that? If it were any of us, we’d be dismembered, missing a limb for a few years. (Not us necessary I’ve seen him cause pain to lesser vampires that were causing too much chaos in the human world)

‘’It’s just one dance.’’ She tries hand sneaking around his waist the contrast between her brighter colour and his darker blue shaded Gonryongpo is a huge contrast furthering on her difference from us.

‘’It’s been centuries since I’ve danced this waltz. Can’t even remember certain steps.’’ he entertains her further. Ever since she came, I’ve seen him smile more times than I have ever before I feel like. Whenever she’s around him, there’s always a somewhat smile on his face.

‘’I’ll lead, it’s not like I’d be the first time.’’ she whispers as they both chuckles.

‘’Running an imaginary headache there Jeongguk-ah?’’ I glance up towards Namjoon hyung who smiles at me clearly loving my suffering.

‘’You could say that.’’ Looking at the girl, she’s basically nuzzling into Yoongi’s side not minding the many curious looks others are giving her in passing. Or plainly staring at the pair. I try to relax my features understanding Namjoon’s subtle words, in correcting myself my concentration having gotten the better of me.

‘’It can’t be that bad.’’ He pats me over the back reassuringly, eyes darting towards our hyung and the girl that finishes her drink once more.

‘’How can she drink so much?’’ I find myself asking silently not wanting her to hear me ‘’She’s practically killing herself as we speak.’’ Looking up at Namjoon his eyebrows are furrowed as he silently nods. He’s the one that’s most fascinated with humans out of all of us, and has studied human medicine for a lifetime a decade ago. So, he must know better than me, that her eating and drinking habits are unhealthy ‘’Ugh.’’ I groan as she slips and starts conversing in another language, Yoongi seemingly easy to follow along a concentrated expression drawing itself on his face.

‘’Pretentious.’’ I grumble, while Namjoon looks absolutely fascinated ‘’Don’t.’’ I warn as he looks between them and me, gaze fleeting for a moment as he smiles.

‘’This must be…’’ he counts on his fingers but ends up pointing a 5 in his mind ‘’…language that she seems to be fluent in. That’s utterly fascinating.’’ I can see how the wheels are spinning in his mind, picking up on She must be a linguist, that’s why Yoongi called her for this gathering.

His thoughts sort of do make sense. My gut feeling tells me otherwise, doubt quick in questioning Namjoon’s logic for I think the first time in my life. Her being human doesn’t make any sense, for her to still be here.

‘’I’m sure you’d be a better choice for that.’’ I point out ‘’Or me for the matter.’’

He immediately tsks crossing his arms as he stands more on my side, looking at me incredulously ‘’Jeon Jeongguk are you jealous?’’ he asks my gaze getting captured by the blonde woman again, having reached only a few steps away, waving at me a moment later getting roped in chatting with a girl similar to her. Both of them glance towards me and end up giggling.

‘’Never of her.’’ my reply is instant as I turn to glare at hyung in anger, his demander sort of knowing and confident.

‘’Hm sure. Whatever you say maknae.’’ He teases but straightens up once Yoongi approaches us, glancing after Y/N that has sat on the couch behind us. She frowns once she’s down, but accepts another refill the waiter dutifully doing his job.

‘’The meeting is going to start soon.’’ Hyung starts which has us both straightening up, and at attention ‘’I want you with me, I still need to go greet the Jeju coven and given that they’ve taken a liking to you…’’ he trails off smirking both of them exchanging looks. I expect the seriousness that settles over hyungs features once he turns to me, his dark red eyes fixating on me the feeling of him reading into my soul present for a brief moment ‘’Keep an eye on her. And be nice.’’ the last part is a warning because he doesn’t even spare me another glance. He’s moving away with Namjoon hyung that’s getting his head in the game mind elsewhere. I’m sure he’ll come and talk to me later in the morning after all this ordeal is done. I can’t really chase the feeling away of being unwanted for a moment.

‘’Many thanks, truly but I will have to continue with politely declining your requests.’’ Her voice is easy to pick up on as I’m left almost alone with my brothers mingling everywhere around the room and nowhere in my sight.

Taking in a deep breath I turn around spotting at least 3 men offering their hands over to the human, that has a rosiness to her cheeks at their advances.

‘’Just one quick dance, m’lady.’’ One tries persistently making me scowl and approach them. They do look at me, one straightening up immediately while the two others scoff.

‘’The lady already politely declined you already. Don’t turn yourselves into gossip for others by getting rejected thrice more, gentlemen.’’ I point out standing on her left, making sure I’m acting as a shield. The men eye me one insinuating that he’s going to do something more in his mind. But he does take a step back nodding, the two following as they offer their greetings and start to walk away. As I watch them give me the stink eye, I don’t miss the blonde that keeps appearing in my eyesight. Again, she has that innocent expression on, but this time she tilts her head to the side a clear invitation to move elsewhere more private.

‘’Thank you for that.’’ Her more croaky voice pips up. I spare her a glance, as she slumps against the couch again, her sword laid improperly over the couch and her lap ‘’Yoongi-ah told me to be nice so…’’ she trails off quietly for the first time this evening looking exasperated. But only for a moment as her lips quirk up, as a pair passes us bowing down offering a greeting going along and away.

‘’Don’t mention it.’’ I mumble slipping my hands into my trousers again the itch on following the blonde kind of present, but I’ve fucked up enough this evening to keep still and do as I was told.

‘’So, are you having any fun?’’ again she addresses me, and I don’t really see the point in this small talk. Because it’s coming from her mainly. It sounds unfair and mean but I’m getting really tired of her.

‘’Sure.’’ I find myself replying stoically as I look around, returning a smile or nod here and there, spotting some of my friends that are strewn around in the crowd.

‘’You know…’’ she starts and pauses. For a moment I get an image that she’s choking silently which has me turning sideways to look at her. But she’s just sitting there a bit un-lady like her legs spread instead of folded which she does after my brief thought ‘’…if you want to go chase after the blonde you can. I’ll be fine on my own.’’ At this I raise an eyebrow in question startled that she actually noticed that ‘’She seemed nice. Even asked about you.’’ At this new information my eyes raise to the crowd, spotting her wine-red dress near the entrance of the balcony on my sharp right.

‘’You’ve talked to her?’’ I frown turning back to the human, her lipstick that has gotten smudged all the more irks me immediately. Must have rubbed of the glass too much. She should stop drinking.

‘’Uh huh.’’ she replies licking over her lips, my eyes darting onto her own finding her staring straight at me. They look so…normal. Her eyes. So plain so, boring. It’s the first time that I’m actually standing so close to her, and yes, I’ve once been a human myself this shouldn’t surprise me as much as it does – it intrigues me more – but her eyes seem beautifully normal. ‘’She approached me initially having figured I’m with you only after Hoseok addressed me casually.’’ To her boring explanation I offer her a curt nod and turn to the crowd while she takes another sip of her drink ‘’So you can go to her, I’m sure Jiminie or someone else will be here to replace you instantly. Yoongi-ah worries too much, he always has a plan B, C, D, E and so on in mind.’’

I faintly smile at the statement for the first time agreeing with her. Hyung is very organized and ready for anything, partially thanks to Namjoon, but I bet his experience shaped him into who he is today. As for her I’m not so sure. She’s acting way to reckless right now even more than she does when it’s just us. She almost broke one of Bernini statues that Yoongi hyung is very proud of, that’s located in his study. How she did that exactly as it weights tons don’t ask me, the screaming match they’ve gotten into has left us all wondering in confusion as to how and why.

Again, breaking limbs isn’t uncommon to teach younglings lessons, but his way of dealing with her was to after the screaming match as over - rolled his eyes at her and pushed her out taking her to get ice cream. ICE CREAM!!! A child is what she is!!! Even if her mortal age is above twenties, she acts as if she’s 9. Even children of 5 are more respectful than she is.

‘’Are you trying to get rid of me?’’ I find myself asking as she shifts behind me, nails tapping over the metal. I can hear how her heart beat is slightly rushed thanks to the alcohol, her breathing remaining steady.

‘’Hm, not at all.’’ she replies quietly. I can feel her eyes on me, and I refuse to look back at her keeping my eyesight ahead. The Prince comes in sight as he finishes the dance with one of the many mistresses her has, or concubine I’m not sure what title to use with anyone anymore ‘’You’re the realest one tonight to be honest.’’ I can hear her whisper to herself clearly taking another sip after. Glancing back, she picks herself up not faltering as I’d assume, she would. She steps forward standing next to me expression serious and for a moment calculating as she scans the room. Thanks to the high heels she has on, she actually stands taller next to me. Even without them she stands tall, at a sort of an average length – it isn’t enough to tease her for her height.

The heels add an edge to her ‘’Ugh I’m too sober for this.’’ She complains silently at the Prince that starts approaching us. Luckily enough he gets distracted by another lady that literally steps in front of him. Glancing at the human girl her smile falters, eyes meeting my own ‘’If it were up to me right now I’d be upstairs, settled in that gods-sent fluffy bed and would have a controller in my hand, just annihilating one person after another either in Overwatch or I don’t know. Maybe replay Last of us.’’ At this revelation I look her up and down whilst she greets the waiter with a grin who hands her a new glass instead.

So, she plays games huh. Wouldn’t peg her to be the type but what do I care. I’m sure I’d beat her with ease, she has nothing on me.

‘’And what would you do, if I was there right next to you?’’ comes a flirty remark from an orange haired Jimin hyung that offers Y/N a golden tube of lipstick that probably matches the one on her lips. Only now I notice upon taking a closer look how her lips despite the fade-ness in the middle, how plump they actually look. Bite-able.

‘’That depends.’’ Y/N remarks back accepting the lipstick and small mirror handing him her glass, which he takes a sniff of ‘’Where would you exactly be? Next to me? Behind me?’’

I roll my eyes at her poor attempt of flirtation scrunching my nose up ‘’Why under you of course.’’ Ghhhhhhh.

She simply muses for a moment in silence, probably giving him a flirtatious smirk or something, which is a grimace I bet. With the corner of my eye I half watch as she opens up the lipstick ‘’Hm interesting proposition. Unrealistic but courageous in attempt. You think you could handle me?’’

I want to facepalm so hard it’s not even funny. Jimin the bastard he is giggles like a little girl almost, watching her intently, whilst I spot the blonde again talking with another guy, that’s clearly showing interest into her. Fuck.

‘’Oh, little mortal there’s not that much to handle from what I can see. I think I’ll take my chances without a second thought.’’ He shamelessly ogles her.

‘’Are you willing to bet on that then, Jiminie? Stick to your words?’’ she dares back. I spare him a glance surprised at seeing him faltering. Her head is angled in a way where I can’t see her expression, but I can see that she isn’t necessarily smiling. Huh.

He visibly gulps ‘’You’re trying to raise the stakes, aren’t you?’’ he muses confidence having faltered, so he settles for a cute approach smiling exaggeratively for a moment ‘’All or nothing, huh darling?’’ he’s putting out all his cards, posses, smiles, and the looks he gives her. And yet I know for sure somehow that she has him hocked around her finger. All done with a single look nonetheless. Not a lot of creatures let alone humans can get to him and here she just did. He is a touch but to crack so to speak.

‘’All or nothing.’’ she repeats recapping the lipstick and is quick to hand both items back to the pink haired man, accepting her drink back ‘’From what I just saw I’ll choose the latter, kitten.’’ The remark has me rising an eyebrow power balance shifting. Knowing very well that Jimin is a switch and that it sometimes takes him only a word or a motion to render him putty this is highly amusing and interesting indeed. And I think judging by the silence, she broke him sort of. Glancing towards him yeah if he was human, he’d be blushing all over, the puppy eyes telling me everything I need to know.

‘’Let’s get this show on the road boys.’’ she comments off handed. I miss completely as people start to gather around the middle and end up clapping, the orchestra being thanked for the wonderful tunes, a speech from the Prince ensuing. All the while I stare as Y/N down’s her drink, and gulps it like its water. Getting a whiff, I’m seriously questioning her will for life. That’s the scent of strong clean, vodka with a hint of peach in it.

She smacks her lips again and turns to me ‘’Do I look okay?’’ she asks the question completely flabbergasting me. But I do automatically take her in, head to toe. Her dress is still in place not even wrinkled. And this close up, I can see more scars which don’t deter me away anymore. The gold on her fingers, the rings add elegance to the look more completing it, and the earrings are a cheery on top not glinting much under the lighting up close. Her hairstyle the messiness I understand it, and same goes for the gentle touch on her makeup.

Looking at her lips they look perfectly drawn and arched. I dumbly nod instead, taking a glance at her sword. The blade being a kopis, has the handle curved the detailing on the grip is shaped as a pouncing lion the underside of the guard has a winged horse on each side the wings sort of creating the handle . This is the heritage they’ve talked about as the blade is traditionally Greek. She’s turning away faster than I can assess her weapon further more. I watch as she puts on a smile, letting out a heavy breath and hands of her glass to the waiter that’s ready to refill her glass.

She offers him a silent thank you, and then steps forward. It takes me a nudge from Jimin to register that I should follow after her. So, keeping up a distance but remain relatively close I mingle into the crowd keeping her at the corner of my eye at all times noticing the way the draping of her dress elegantly seems to float behind her.

I join in the clapping as we come to a stop reaching the middle of the room. I’m surprised to see Yoongi her and remain standing in the back watching as the human steps right over to his side, bowing respectfully to the elder coming from Jeju that’s the closest one next to her.

The murmurs that raise, confirm my hunch – nobody is protesting her position in their lines but they are all questioning it. Out of the gathered mass my friend Yugyeom makes and appearance across us trying lowkey to keep a surveillance of the room, but he ends up looking straight at me. Crossing my arms, I shake my head amused at his fresh blood so to speak. I know he has been put in charge of protecting, their coven’s linguist Jackson. He simply smirks in return and disappears into the crowd. The other linguist or advisors’ steps next to their elders same as Y/N did while the Prince continues on telling a war story, probably meant to inspire everyone and instead I bet it has everyone wanting to stab him or someone else to end his miserable tale.

‘’…for the future!’’ he ends his speech soon after but not soon enough. The claps arise once more, while the elders start moving towards the end of the room, where a door will lead them into another room which happens to be our grand library, expanding up into the second floor as well.

One by one they make their way inside, the Prince getting distracted by his own advisor standing near the back. But I think for the most part everyone’s attention is situated on the only being that’s not of our kin in the room. The human accepts Yoongi’s offered arm, wrapping her own around his as they follow everyone else ignoring the rumours and different expressions offered towards them.

If I had a heart, I think it would be beating out of my chest by now. My body doesn’t necessarily lack all human traits but the stillness keeps emotions hidden luckily more times than not – I feel the heaviness settle in my stomach like a boulder invading my senses. For some reason I get a bad, bad feeling about this. My anger returns as this just crosses all the lines doesn’t it. And by some snarls once the two of them pass the doors lets me know I’m not feeling this alone.

My friend’s presence next to me, stops me from reacting too strongly like some vampires do hisses and protests rising. We both watch in silence and with frowns as the party mood turns tense. Some of the more mature meaning older vampires start to protest loudly, some going towards the doors where Taehyung has settled himself, along with mainly Prince’s extra guards. There’s an official speaker that’s been left outside trying to calm and charm the defiant bunch. Hoseok and Jimin hyung aren’t far away trying to get the party started once more doing a way better job than the assigned guy. Jin and Namjoon entered the meeting as well, leaving the responsibility onto us; mine being mainly security and basically manhandling if someone turns out to act too unruly.

‘’Interesting developments.’’ Yugyeom comments quietly. Glancing over at him, the turtleneck he has on wants me to make fun of him, but this situation prevents me from doing so. Dressed all in black and with freshly dyed black hair, he looks aged somewhat. The fluorescent yellow hair he had not even a month ago made him look younger.

‘’Uh huh.’’ I simply hum tearing my eyes away from the doors and crowd ‘’I’m surprised you’re still here.’’

Sparing him a glance my friend doesn’t seem phased at my question, just snorting in response at first keeping an eye out as I do too ‘’Gotta earn my place in due time.’’ I tilt my head to the side briefly rising my head up as I smirk knowing those words all too well myself ‘’So what’s this whole infuriation thing going on with the flesh bag?’’ he asks, motioning for me to start walking. The nickname he uses for the human strikes a weird chord deep withing me. I keep silent at first, as we make our way towards the other side of the room, and the balcony that’s closest to the library. No guards are settled here, which makes it seem as a lack of good strategy having been put in place. Anyone can jump through the windows to get the elders attention – this is getting strange and not in a good way.

The terrace is illuminated by the outdoor lights, as well as the half of the moon that’s glowing above us. The chilliness of the air is welcomed, even though I literally can’t differentiate temperatures as much as I did when I was a human in a sense of them bothering me.

‘’Rumours are already spreading.’’ The vampire next to me says keeping his tone down, as he leans against the railing, offering me a cocky smirk. I frown at him, turning my back to the gardens while I glance towards the library. The wall has been built in a way that you can barely see inside. And right now, the curtains have been drawn close. So, I glance inside at the calmed down vampires, spotting newcomers. It’s easy to detect their fastened heart beats, excitement rising. The main course of the night has arrived.

‘’Oh, do tell.’’ I grunt again spotting the blonde that seems to be haunting me this whole evening. She’s dancing with a human male, that’s almost literally slobbering over her.

‘’Where to start.’’ Yugyeom chuckles clearly amused ‘’Some say, she’s just a new pet Yoongi hyung found. Some have the impression of her being his concubine seeing her skin so battered. Others speculate that the scars are from fighting, as in some being former fighting and even sword wounds. The huge scaring on her back someone said is from whipping which isn’t it kinky ey?’’ he wiggles his eyebrows snapping his fingers, acting ridiculous.

My brows furrow at new gossip, and his words and implications. Fighting wounds? Whips. I know how whips feel, how whipping…how…

With some difficulty I swallow the lump in my throat. I can’t find myself imagining her being whipped, it just doesn’t make sense. She’s to chirp and loud and, full of life to have been put through something traumatic such as whipping. The rock in my gut just seems to have been set on fire, as nerves settle more prominently.

‘’Hah yeah.’’ I fake a smile which he does buy into it and continues on.

‘’Some are into the aspect of fucking her.’’ my lips go into a thin line as he says that cheerfully ‘’I think as a fetish more or less or something I’m not sure.’’ He pauses for a moment ‘’Do you think I can have a go at her too?? If hyung is willing to share her that is. Price and all included.’’ legitimately he looks eager and suddenly hungry pupils dilating slightly.

I simply glare at him the growl grumbling in my throat unexpected and has me freezing. But he gets the hint and raises his hands up a bright grin settling over his features ‘’No harm done bro! Understood loud and clear.’’ He even winks at me raising up a finger gun acting as bad as she does ‘’Man why do all exciting things happen to you and none to me?! It’s pretty boring sometimes. You should visit sometimes.’’ He’s quick to switch the conversation tension that has risen between us deflating halfway. But it’s still present.

I love Yugyeom I really do; we grew up together when we were humans so he’s more like a real brother to me. But right now, I’m finding myself disliking him, and the way he was led to think about Y/N. I’m the first person wishing for her to just leave us alone, but I would not want her to fall into the hands of these fuckers here. Everyone that attends these sorts of gatherings hold themselves way to fucking high up, as if they are royalty. In reality we all, came from dirt – and the ones that have not are pretentious pricks that have been handed things on golden platters unfortunately.  There’s no in between in our society.

Screams raise up from the inside, fright loud and clear in the air as the invited humans try to run away. Its soon after that moans replace the terror the flip quicker than the usual. Our guests were hungrier than they led on.

‘’When all of this excitement goes down I will.’’ I promise smiling feeling my shoulders relax as the scent of blood reaches my nose. It has my friend straightening up as well shifting from one foot to another ‘’We’ve got a bet to settle, don’t we?’’

He wiggles his eyebrows chuckling, pushing himself away from the railing ‘’Wanna end it now?’’ he challenges. The bet is ridiculous and downright douche-y. I won’t go into details right now, as the nerves of the mere thought of trying at it, does the opposite of exciting me.

I shake my head at him waving my hand in dismissiveness ‘’Next time. I’ve had my fill earlier today.’’ I lie smoothly. He must be really hungry because he nods and is backing away instead of trying to wrestle me inside.

‘’Your loss bunny boy.’’ I roll my eyes as he reaches the doors ‘’More for me!’’ and with that he’s out of sight easily catching a fleeting girl twirling her around. Not wanting to see what follows, I spare a glance at a man that has another one pressed against a column, draining him hands roaming all over the human’s body who looks like he’s in pure bliss.

Another pair has settled on the ground shamelessly grinding against one another. With a bitter taste in my mouth I turn my back to all of them, and lean onto the stone railing, looking across the garden. Even though there’s so much going on behind me, I do pick up on pitter-pattering of creatures ahead of us. There’s a forest not far away from our estate, the back gardens connected to it. So many creatures do have access and roam freely around it by daylight mainly, sensing us as we sense them.

The smell of blood, and heaviness of sex whisks past me, the mixed smells raising the all too familiar itch to start scratching at my throat insistently so. Even with years of self-discipline and learning control the hard way, by being chained up most times than not it’s hard to ignore my instincts. I do want to just run in, and sink my teeth into some girl, or guy to drink them dry. This is the only time where we can do it, as usually our food comes from donors these days.

What I don’t understand is why for the first time something is holding me back. The blood doesn’t smell right, its either to sweetened or bland. Same as the noises and screams; nothing in particular arouses me, not even my own thoughts of the blonde. Her red wine dress, tugged up legs spread wide open beneath me, as I take her right where I’m standing here it’s just…I bet she’d moan nicely and beg to be fuck hard to the point before breaking. Her eyes would glow nicely wouldn’t they…

But the glow feels wrong. Her flawless skin would match my own under my palms, it wouldn’t be heated up, or fleshy to grope. Same as her melodic tone, it wouldn’t be raspy like I want it to be. Her scent is probably all wrong too, I bet she smells nothing like strawb…

‘’There you are.’’ as if I’ve called her or have pulled her straight out of my mind she’s right there at the doors. Turning around I raise an eyebrow upon seeing her, dragging another human girl that’s panting and has a leash around her neck. She visibly shivers at the change of temperature but the blonde pays her no mind ‘’You’re a hard man to catch.’’

Smirking I straighten up half turning around watching as she licks a bold stripe up the human girl’s neck making a show of it ‘’Hard to believe that. I wasn’t hiding or running away from you.’’

She muses pursing her lips, as she stands on the humans left side groping her whilst her eyes are hungrily taking me in ‘’Duty before pleasure I presume.’’

‘’Afraid so.’’ I nod in return, as the blonde whispers something in the girl’s ears. She moans hungrily eyeing the blonde that pushes her against the wall and shushes her down promising to do filthy things to her. It doesn’t take much for the human to comply, her hands flying under the skirt of her dress eyes shutting closed. My attention remains on the blonde instead as she turns around and approaches me still musing.

‘’Politics are such a bore.’�� She states standing next to me, looking across the garden ‘’Like life sometimes.’’ Looking at her she looks up at me curiously ‘’But I bet you can’t say the same.’’

‘’Hmm define the word boring.’’ I tease back her lips quirking into a smirk.

‘’Ah you know the usual. Feed, seduce, feed more and so on so on.’’ she replies stepping closer to me ‘’Now you’re turn.’’ Her hands are quick to rank up my suit jacket, nails a contrast that doesn’t go together with my outfit.

‘’Not much difference. Feed, train, feed more and train a bit more.’’ I almost neutrally reply, holding in my breath as he hands reach just beneath my collarbones abandoning my suit jacket in favour of testing out how firm my chest is.

‘’Hard to believe there’s nothing more, exciting to fill up your schedule.’’ Her eyes meet my own. And same as in my day dream, they glint briefly brightly red. She is laying all her cards on the table. And I’ve waited all night for this to happen. Granted I wanted to chase her down, like a gentleman but she’s here either way in my grasp.

Straightening up, I place my hands over her hips keeping silent for a moment further as I slide them shamelessly to grip her ass, the action having her breathing hitch. It doesn’t feel all that nice. Leaning down, I hover inches away from her thin lips shaded into a matching colour to her dress.

‘’There’s a possibility I like keeping that part of it to myself.’’ at this she arches an eyebrow showing of her sharp teeth as she smiles. As I intake a breath her scent fills my senses completely. She smells like roses, and butterscotch the combination wanting to be sweet and yet – I don’t find it nice.

It lacks that real tender sweetness, and fruitiness.

‘’Do you reveal it to only a handful of people then perhaps?’’ she breathes out eyes glowing brightly red, as I tug her left thigh upwards pressing her to myself shifting so that she can’t exactly feel me against her. I’m not hard at all. Not even semi-hard. Okay maybe a tiny bit but it’s worrisome that I’m not feeling any attraction to her anymore.

I take a look at her up and close trying to get my body to react, or convince myself to at least think that’s she’s attractive. Her blonde hair seems fake up close, features way too symmetrical and off putting for whatever reason. Her makeup is heavily put on, lines not visible. Glancing down at her body and how she’s pressed against me…the hold I have on her…it’s lacking. She’s very plain. The perfection I praised not long ago, is now just dull and uninteresting.

‘’We can share.’’ She adds probably detecting my hesitance ‘’Kitten won’t mind it once bit.’’ the nickname she uses throws me off further. Even though I do look at the human girl that’s shamelessly uncovered her lower part and is rubbing herself for us to see, moans filling the night air – it’s not convincing enough. I’d rather take the human girl for myself instead of sharing.

Grunting I let go of the blonde’s leg realizing in the back of my mind that I don’t even know her name. She looks at me with furrowed brows, as I take half a step away distancing myself.

‘’Found you!’’ a voice sings cheerfully from the doors. Both of us look towards the orange haired male, that grins widely, his mouth smeared in red ‘’Oh what do we have here.’’ He’s quick to skip over to the human, taking her in ‘’Yah Jeongguk-ah you are so selfish.’’ He pouts, running his hands over the trembling girl’s side.

‘’Jimin-ssi when I told you to beat it, I meant it. With all due respect.’’ Blondie pips up crossing her arms and looks annoyed while my hyung remains playfully touching the human girl, that’s panting louder.

‘’C c c Dahyun-ah. That’s so mean coming from such a sweet girl like yourself.’’ He pouts crowding behind the girls back. He hocks his chin over her shoulder as he gives us puppy eyes. I smirk at his antics thanking him quickly in my mind, that he was so quick to answer my call not even 2 minutes ago. Given by the silence of the blonde – or apparently Dahyun he has her hocked.

‘’Why don’t you teach her some manners hyung?’’ I propose crossing my arms as I lean back against the railing. She turns to look at me stunned mouth opening to say something, but Jimin in a bat of an eye is right there crowding into her space blocking her view away from me.

‘’I really should, shouldn’t I?’’ he growls lowly hand reaching under her chin to keep her focus on him ‘’You think you can handle it baby doll?’’

I frown instantaneous turning away eyes trailing off to the library, mind switching to the image of Y/N. Those are almost the same words that she used to tease him. Turning back to the two, they have ended making out – plain and simple. But once he opens his eyes and grins, she continues licking at him like an animal trying to get every trace of blood from his chin and cheek.

Jimin doesn’t say anything just sends me a wink and a I owe you one Jeonggukkie dragging both Dahyun and the human girl back inside in mere moments. He even closes the balcony door. A gentleman indeed.

My shoulders just sag, as I sit myself on the railing climbing over it, letting my legs hang over the edge as I stare at the moon at first watching as it lowers down slowly, orbiting around us.

What a stupid and weird night. I run my hands over my face trying to gather my thoughts that are in disarray. So much has happened, and still is happening. There are so many mysteries too, more than I thought there would be resolving one simple human. She should have stayed hidden upstairs away from everyone’s greedy gazes and thoughts, far away from the centre of anyone else’s attention. Rephrase that she should be here in the first place.

Saying she’s hyungs long term friend is stupid. I’ve known hyung over 190 years given that he was the one who saved and turned me. I’ve never seen her before; he never even mentioned her name or anything.

Even if he does have meetings in the city, there’s no way they could have hung out. Either of us would smell her on him, even if he did change clothes before coming home. Which we know he’s too lazy to go through that much trouble. He’s not hiding her away right now, meaning he didn’t give her a second thought then either.

There are so many questions to answer some completely illogical on their own.

Looking towards the library, nothing has changed. Not even the boulder in my stomach that weights me down. Something is about to happen. Changes are coming. She’s the initiator of it all. I just hope it’s not something of a downfall for us. It sure feels like it.

Part 1 / Part 2

Copyright 2020© by barbika1508. All rights reserved.

Dictionary: Wangseja - Crown prince, the son of the king who appointed as heir to the throne. Gonryongpo – Dragon Robe/ were the everyday dress of the emperors or kings of China, Korea Vietnam and the Ryukyu Kingdom. Samjeongdo - the sword given to newly promoted Korean military generals each year by the Ministry of National Defence. Kopis - a heavy knife with a forward-curving blade / the Ancient Greeks often used single-edged blades in warfare, as attested to by art and literature.

[colorseeingchick]

Hello, colorseeingchick, I hope you’re having a nice day, and congrats on reaching 200 followers! I wanted to say I really like your Kuroko no Basket posts. I was recently looking for some small fanfics of Kuroko no Basket and I am glad I’ve found yours. I am also looking forward to reading your “Oh! Baby Series” of Tsukishima.

For the 200 Follower event, I would like to request a Kuroko no Basket matchup. I’d prefer to be matched with a male and my pronouns are she/her. I am currently 16 years old, I have brown skin and dark brown eyes. My hair is a dark brown color(almost black), very curly, and it reaches toward my mid-back. I’m 5’2” in height and I am an Aquarius(For Midorima).

I usually like to watch anime and read in my free time. I really love chocolate and exercising. I dislike people that lie a lot, peanuts, peanut butter, pecans, almonds, avocados, and onions. My hobbies are writing, drawing, reading, watching tv, singing, and playing the Piano. I think I’m particularly talented at writing since everyone seems to like my writing very much and right now I’m practicing my creative writing skills.

Personality: When I first meet someone, I tend to be quiet and just observe everyone. If anyone comes up to me, I usually just introduce myself, and depending on who the person is I may strike up a conversation. If I don’t then the person that’s talking to me will usually make conversation and I will quietly listen. I would usually just nod or say things like (yea, right, mhm) to show that I am listening. If I begin to feel comfortable I will give my opinion on the subject or try to strike up my own topic. But once I get really comfortable with that person I can become very goofy. I’ll start randomly dancing in the hallways and make weird sounds when I’m with that person. And depending on the person this can either increase or decrease in weirdness. I’m very good at listening to people especially when it comes to a person talking about their passions. My friends and family tend to laugh at a few things I say. They’re never really jokes there just situations I’ve been in and Apparently, they’re funny. I don’t tend to touch people, the most I really do regularly is either is put my hand/elbow on the person’s shoulder(Doesn’t matter if they’re tall or short) or begin poking them in odd places.

Negative Things: If someone is sad or insecure about something, I don’t know how to react, I usually just stare at them while they cry to themselves. I would not suggest that any of my friends come to me for emotional support. Unless they just want someone to listen to them. I don’t know how to take compliments. Once someone compliments me I usually just stare at the person or say thank you very slowly.

Additional: Since me and my friends were in chorus, we would usually just begin singing our chorus songs very loudly. It didn’t matter where we were, we would just begin singing. There was a time where my friend called me super sweet because I was checking up on them during the pandemic. My friends also said I give the best presents and truthfully I struggle trying to find presents. I want to give my friends something they can use or they really like. For example, I gave my friend a drawing notebook and some art supplies since they like to do art. I’ve been told that I have a mean resting face and that I act more mature for my age. I also asked my friends to describe me and they said, “Beautifully, Creative, Loving, Silly, Writer, Fashionable, Pretty, Innocent, and Nice Hairstyles.”

I swear I don’t where they’re getting these nice compliments. Hopefully, this is not too long.

Hello noodleman!!!! This was perfect do not worry. They compliment you because you're amazing haha. I always see you in my notifications and it makes me so happy :) I’m very excited to do both your matchups! For KNB, I’ve matched you with…

Akashi Seijuro!

We all know Akashi is a powerful man who’s been through a lot. As a girlfriend, you would be the one to both compliment his power and balance out his emotional state, even if you don’t intend to. And that would be the source of the beauty of your relationship with him.

You were a student at Rakuzan who would mind her own business. Akashi was in your class (ranking at the top) for the new school year, and you two sat next to each other. Akashi (this is the OG Akashi- the nice one) would introduce himself to you, and you would do the same. You observed Akashi quietly. The way he was so put together. His calm demeanor. His pretty eyes and how they were keenly watching everything. You didn’t realize he was observing you as well. While you both were just normal acquaintances at that point, things were about to change.

One day, you heard Akashi talking about basketball next to you. You could hear how passionate he was about it from the way he talked. The person he was talking to walked away, but you couldn’t help but ask him about basketball. Watching him talk that way was so enticing.

He looked at you for a second before smiling kindly and asking, “would you like to learn about basketball?” From there, you two would have a very engaged conversation with Akashi fanboying in a way that was as classy as fanboying could get, while you were listening attentively. You had to leave for the end of the day, but you left with a smiling Akashi out the door of the classroom.

The next major interaction between you two happened a few days later. You were doodling in your notebook when you heard him speak. “You’re very talented at drawing.”

You smiled awkwardly at the compliment, unsure of how to respond, so you just looked at him. He didn’t mind though. He just smiled back. “If you draw again, I’d like to see.” He then left soon after.

While you didn’t doodle again, you decided that maybe you were comfortable around Akashi, more than you thought you were.

A major shift in your dynamic happened one day when you were writing down intensely into a journal, stopping only when your hand hurt, taking time to think about your next words when you felt a light tap on your arm.

“Excuse me, if you don’t mind me asking, what are you writing?” He genuinely looked interested, which caught you by surprise.

And so you explained the short story you were writing. Akashi asked questions about the characters, the plot, where you got the idea from- all sorts of things. You both didn’t realize everyone else had already emptied out. “If you would like to share your story with me sometime, I would love to read it. And if you’d like to come by and watch my basketball team play, let me know.”

He was surprisingly easy to talk to. And that was the point where you both got closer. As you got closer, talking and learning more about each other, you both started to fall bit by bit. You both had a long list of hobbies and talents, much of which overlapped. Akashi was mesmerized by your singing, though he knew you wouldn’t like to hear the compliment if he gave it to you. Instead, he just asked you to always sing and gave you his full attention when you did. It went without say he loved your writing. He was a talented musician himself, and you found his game pretty entertaining- the way he dominated on the court.

He asked you out after Rakuzan had taken a big victory before the winter cup. You’d come to watch the game.

“Will you celebrate with me?” He asked you.

“With your team?”

“No, actually.” He’d smile at you and step closer, but had not invaded your personal space. “I’d like to actually get some time with you, on a date.”

He was pleased you said yes. The date went well. He’d learned you were mature, which is what he was looking for in a partner. He already knew you were talented and a good listener. It wasn’t long before he asked you to be his girlfriend officially.

Your dynamic with Akashi was well tailored. Being the captain of Rakuzan, he had an image to maintain- one of power. And having a girlfriend who he knew to be intimidating as well (your resting face was intense) was a fitting situation. He knew you observed and listened well, which is why he could trust that you would be thoughtful- something that was also very important to him. You also cared for efficiency and purpose. But what he didn’t realize he needed so badly was your goofiness. After you two had gotten as close as you were, he learned how funny your stories were and saw you in your most comfortable states. He loved your fun goofy side. It helped him live a little, too. He enjoyed elbowing you back when you did it to him (it was the most innocent playful thing he’d done). It didn’t bother Akashi all that much that you didn’t know how to deal with other people being emotional. He wasn’t one to show negative emotions all that much and didn’t project that expectation onto you, which made it a bit easier. He knew that if he needed to talk it out and have someone listen, he could always go to you.

Overall you and Akashi managed to balance out on a lot of your ideologies, world views, hobbies, and life practices. While some were the same, others were different- but in a complimentary way. It’s quite a beautiful dynamic, really.

~~~

Ahhh I really hope you like it! Lemme know what you think hehe. I'm excited to do your MHA one too!

[radiorenjun]

Lavender Antics

→ Pairing: Han Jisung x Reader

→ Summary: Shooting in a drama with him was your absolute nightmare. Working with your enemy and pretending that you were love interests has been the most frustrating experience of your life. Though, after saying your farewells, the scent of lavender never leaves.

→ Genre:enemies to lovers au, idol au, romance, angst, slowburn, comedy.

→ Warnings: Explicit Language. Antics. Mentions of insecurity. Alcohol, Making out. Suggestive?

Chapters: 2, 3, 4

The first thing you heard when you regained consciousness was a loud obnoxious voice booming through your room. You groaned as you reached for your phone on the nightstand of your hotel, trying to check what time it is.

You arrived at the hotel at 3 am, as soon as you entered your room, you literally collapsed and fell asleep. You were eternally grateful for taking your team members' advice to use sweats and hoodies to the airport.

When you finally grab a hold of your phone, you plugged it out of its charger and turned it on. Squinting at the brightness you, which forgot to lower last night, you managed to rub the sleep out of your eyes to see what time it is for someone to be ringing their alarm so loud.

6:10

3 hours. It's been three hours since you got some actual sleep?

Who in their right minds would set up an alarm that early? You put your phone down as you continued to ignore the loud muffled ringtone booming through the walls next to you. You put your pillow over your head, trying to think who could possibly be making that racket.

Your co-stars rooms were right beside you, but most of them don't use alarms since they're mostly actors and actresses unlike you idols who trained early in the morning til late night. You pulled your blanket over your head, groaning loudly, annoyed and willing to murder whoever interupted your sleep.

The room to your left was Jeongin and you knew for a fact that Jeongin wakes up on his own, which you question as you couldn't even find the strength to wake up and instantly do activities without falling back asleep. The room across from yours was the director, but he said he wouldn't be awake til 11 am.

If to your left was Jeongin, and across you was your director. Then that means, the wall right beside you was none other than Han Jisung. "God dammit, Han!" you groaned loudly, slamming your face against the pillow repeatedly.

Maybe if you just bare with it for much longer, Jisung would wake up and turn it off?

With every passing second you endured, your blood boils and your fists clenching the soft silky fabric of your pillow tighten. "I wanna sleep!" you cry, slamming the sides of your fists against the bed sheets.

You sat up as you began banging your fists against the wall as hard and loud as you could while screaming at the top of your lungs. "Han Jisung! Wake up for fucks sake I want some sleep!" you screamed repeatedly, some curses and swears spilling out of your throat as your anger grew when you realise he wasnt waking up.

"You donkey! I need some sleep!" you breathed out before you gave up. Collapsing onto the mattress before you, rubbing your eyes angrily as you forced yourself to get up and march into the man's room so you could get your precious sleep. You gulped down a glass of water and got up.

You grabbed your phone and put on a jacket over your thin tanktop, not bothering to comb your fingers through your hair to make yourself presentable. You slipped on some soft slippers and grabbed your room key before marching to the door next to you.

You gripped the phone in your hand and banging your other against the door. "Donkey, turn that alarm off! Or so help me, I'll spill hot boiling coffee on your pants on purpose!" you threatened, your voice croaked as you still felt very sleepy.

You groaned as you took out your phone and began calling him, you could hear the sound of his ringtone over his loud alarm as you kept pounding on the door as loud as you can. You bit your lip to prevent yourself from screaming in anger as you tucked your phone in between your shoulder and your ear before you used your free hand to press repeatedly on his doorbell.

6:42

You had been pounding on his door the loudest you could, ringing his phone repeatedly and ringing his doorbell all at the same time for 30 minutes straight. At this point you were about to just break the door down and yell at him, you were losing your mind if you don't get some sleep in the next five minutes.

As if heaven had responded to your desperate calls, you heard subtle footsteps walking towards the door. You heard the door click, finally pulling away as you eye twitched in annoyance. There he was, sleeping beauty himself.

Han Jisung stood in the doorway, his fist rubbing his eye as he squinted at you. He was in nothing but a baggy white shirt and some boxers, his freshly dyed black hair was disheveled in all different directions.

His alarm stopped ringing that incredibly annoying tone and his phone stopped ringing when you hung up on him. Leaving in an awkward silence in the atmosphere as Jisung stood sleepily in the doorway. In all honesty, he looked adorable. Of course you weren't gonna admit that, especially when he wasted 30 minutes of your sleep time.

"Look who finally decided to wake up" you snapped, with a sardonic laugh. You were sure that your eyes had dark circles darker than the urges of wanting to slaughter him right then and there.

"Good morning to you, too, l/n." he yawned into his mouth before leaning against his hand, elbow supported against the wall as he had a small smirk plastered on his face. "What do I owe a pleasure of seeing your face such early in the morning?" he slurred, his eyes closed due to the sleep taking its toll on him.

"Mind telling me why your alarm, which could awaken the people from another universe, goes off at this early of the day?" you almost yelled, which made him raise his brow at you, looking up and down your form. "And why aren't you wearing pants?" you groaned, trying to not look down.

He giggled at your reaction, "sorry, y/n. I usually get up this early to practice back at the dorms. I'm a pretty heavy sleeper and usually my members helps me wake up since my alarm wakes them up. I guess I forgot to turn it off when I got knocked out last night," he chuckled at your grumpy expression.

"Whatever, if this happens again. I will not hesitate to break down this door and throw your clock out of the damn window," you growled, rubbing your temples in frustration. "You couldn't be bothered to at least put on some pants?" you complained.

"Look in the mirror, l/n. You couldn't be bothered to tame that mess of a mane you have." he nodded towards the mess on your head. You huffed before shoving your hand against his chest while walking back to your room.

"You look shitty, by the way!" he exclaimed, his head poking out to reveal that shit eating grin of his as you slide your room key against the slot. "Oh give a girl a break, would you?" you growled, flipping him off with your middle finger before entering the room. "Finally, peace and quiet." you mumbled as you shrugged off your jacket and engulfed yourself in the feathery soft sheets.

This was going to be a long month.

You walked down the road with your head looking forward, it was already 9 pm and you were taking a stroll through town. "Man, I should go to Tokyo when I'm older." you spoke to yourself, relaxing at the quiet peaceful aura that surrounds you.

You passed by a bush of lavender, the scent filling your nostrils as you paused in your step to turn to look at it. "Who would plant lavender's in their backyard?" you asked with furrowed brows. "Japanese people." a voice replied shortly, causing you to jump in surprise in your place.

You turned to look at Han Jisung who was smiling at the purple plants in awe beside you. 'What are you doing here? It's late.' you asked, pulling down your headphones so that you could hear him clearly. "Same reason as you. I went on a stroll," he shrugged with a small smile plastered on his lips.

"Plus I'm craving some boba." He grinned, showing you a halfly finished boba drink which he shook in his grasp, making the drink let out a rattling sound as the ice hits the plastic and the liquid swivels around. You watch him take a small sip of the drink and he waved the drink at you.

"Want some?"

You smiled as you took the drink from his fingers and drank from the same straw. "You seem upset, what's up?" he asked, a hand on your shoulder as you both began walking on the road. You chuckled to yourself, shaking your head to say that it's nothing he should be worried about.

"Was it those chocolate balls Jungha made? I told him that him being in the kitchen is basically a sin but he didn't listen!" he exclaimed exasperatedly, causing you to laugh. "He's a hazard to society, I must admit." you shrugged, chewing on the tapioca pearls.

"I think I lost a gazillion brain cells and got shit developing in my brain ever since I ate those disgusting chocolate truffles." you made a face which caused Jisung to snicker. "Relatable. I gulped down thirty gallons of water to wash that shit down my throat," Jisung joked.

"Youngmin got a freaking aneurysm when he spotted him actually making something in the kitchen." you joked. "Not surprised, I would be too if I had seen him pour fourteen cups of vinegar into a large truffle mixture." he shook his head at the thought.

There was silence between the two of you. As you walked down the path, thinking of all the things you could say to spike up another conversation. You just randomly said, "I like axolotls." which caused him to look at you with the most perplexed yet interested look he's ever given you.

"When you said you had shit developing in your brains, you didn't mean it literally right?" he asked with a concern look on his face. You laughed, smacking him on his shoulder with your sweater paw. "You idiot, of course not!" you bawled out laughing.

"Not my fault I thought bout that. I mean, one moment we're talking bout disgusting chocolate truffles that our classmate made, with the probability of having the intention of food poisoning us to you talking bout who knows what you were saying!" he exclaimed with a giggle.

"Wait. You don't know what's an axolotl?" you asked, turning your head slightly in surprise. "What the fuck even is that?" he furrowed his brows in confusion which made your mouth drop to the floor in shock. His confused expression turned into an offended laugh as he started explaining himself.

"What do you think I am? A grammician? How am I suppose to know what the fuck that is?" he giggled in between words. "Okay, okay. First of all, it's Grammarian. You're making it sound as if being someone who's good at grammar, a magician." you cleared your throat.

"They are though." Jisung mumbled under his breath, which you ignored, only giving him a wtf face in response before shaking your head and continuing with your sentence. "Two. An axolotl is kind of like a sea salamander thing? They have the cutest little smiles and the cutest little yawns-"

"Yawns?!"

"Yes, let me finish my sentence, for fucks sake!"

"They're also teeny tiny that you just wanna squeeze them. They're also really cool creatures," you finished with a bright smile. You find Jisung smiling down at you in astonishment, his expression almost looked lovingly.

"Um, you okay?" you teased. "You're spacing out, dude." you added. Jisung's soft smile never left but he took a few steps toward you, you unconciously walked backwards as you nervously glanced up at his tranced gaze boring into your eyes. "Uh.. You okay?" you asked.

"Dude?"

You felt your back hit the wall, letting out a small squeak at the soft impact. Jisung kept getting closer towards you, his arms beside your head as his forearms lay flat against the wall. His knee in between your legs to keep you trapped in his arms.

His eyes staring lovingly into your nervous ones before searching all over your face and gazing at your lips. "Dude.." you whispered almost inaudibly, as his smile faltered, his eyes half lidded as he leaned his head towards you slowly.

You let out a small noise of surprise when you felt his breath on your skin, his half lidded eyes gazing at your lips as he bit his own. He leaned closer and closer until you both practically breathed each others air, his lips a few centimeters away from yours.

You were stuck in a trance when his eyes went up to look at yours, becoming half lidded as well. His nose grazed yours slowly as his lips parted slightly, his minty breath hitting yours. You felt as if your were being hypnotised.

In a second, it was all ripped away. Jisung shook his head with wide eyes before pulling away from you, his cheeks flushed red in embarrassment as if his boldness had evaporated into thin air. "Sorry," he mumbled, looking everywhere but you.

You nodded wordlessly, putting a hand at your chest to feel how fast your heart is beating. "It's cool." you whispered to him, unsure if he could hear you but the small nod he gave you reassured you he did.

"And cut! Perfect!" the director exclaimed through the speaker before going through his papers once again. You groaned, collapsing on the floor as you sat down in exhaustion. You have been shooting for eight hours nonstop, you were beyond tired.

"Oh my god, someone please get me some mouthwash. I shared a drink with that human being!" you gasped exasperatedly, point at Han Jisung who was gulping down large amounts of water from his waterbottle. He paused to look at you with an annoyed look, his puffy cheeks filled with water.

He gulped down before sticking his tongue out at you. He wiped his mouth with his towel which he used to wipe the sweat off of his brows during breaks. He tossed the wet towel towards your exhausted figure, causing you to avoid it with a shuffle.

"Dude, gross! What were you raised in a barn? You're gonna a get me the fucking corona virus, you little shit" you spat, kicking the towel away with your shoe as your make up artist gave you your waterbottle. "Oh please y/n. We all know that you're the uncultured swine here," he shot back in a bittersweet tone.

"Plus, if I had the virus. I would probably got it from you, considering you sneeze 24/7 and sound like a dying whale when doing so." he snickered. "Bro, if you actually get me sick, I'm gonna pass it back to you by kissing you if I have to!" you growled, standing up to grab your phone.

"You're gonna kiss him sooner or later, so you don't really have to say that." Jeongin smirked as he took a bite of the chocolate truffles handed out during breaks. You and Jisung gave the younger boy a death glare which made him grin and shrug before continuing to hog all the sugary treats displayed on the table.

"Oh my god you're such a pain in the ass." you whined, rubbing your temples in frustration. "Said the one with a stick up her ass," Jisung muttered as his fingers lightly tap the screen of his phone. "Can you shut up please?" you put your hands together with a small clapping sound and Jisung chuckled.

"Sweet y/n should keep her head out of the clouds because God knows that shutting up isn't in my vocabulary." he smirked before giving you a mocking look of sympathy, "did I say sweet? I meant, salty."

You could practically see the smoke steaming out of your ears like a boiling tea kettle. You were about to pounce on that boy and choke him to death (as kinky as it sounds), until you heard the director announce his long awaited announcement.

"Alright, that's it for today folks. It's late and y'all need rest for tomorrow. We'll be travelling to a much furthur place, so be prepared!" the director announced before looking at you and Jisung. "Especially you two, we have only 7 episodes left to shoot. You two are gonna get real lovey dovey this month," he said in a serious tone.

You and Jisung let out a loud gulp. Your heart raced a bit at the thought of being closer to Jisung. No matter how annoying he was, you always look through his good looks and comedic personality. He was practically your ideal type if he wasnt such an asshole. There's no acceptions to this guy.

im sorry this took me so long I was rlly rlly busy

[brokenjardaantech]

captain allen appreciation week 2020 day 1 + 7: vacation + acceptance

notes:

i combined day 1 & 7 as they happen to be the theme of the same story. it's also a prequel to a fic that i haven't written a word yet.

a little bit background since i think things can be confusing:

allen's full name is Louis White Allen. his dad's french and his mom american, though he's raised in alaska. his sister, anna allen, is a commissioned officer in the air force. the siblings speaks both english and french fluently.

sara ryder replaces elijah kamski as the inventor of androids.

this fic is set in september 2038, about a month after connor was first deployed at the phillips' hostage situation.

tags: griefing, family issues, brief mentions of childhood neglect and parentification

ao3 link if that’s what you prefer

-----

To this day, Lou's heart hammers when he sees a call from the military. Last time he received one was ten years ago, and he ended up with more questions than answers, answers that he knows he and his father very likely will not get in their lifetime. Staring at his phone vibrating on the coffee table, Lou debates whether to induce his cats' wrath - one sleeping on his lap and the other he hasn't stopped petting since they finished dinner - by standing up and interrupting their naps. It's not like he's at his full mobility anyways; his cybernetics still needs about half an hour to sync with his nervous system properly and to download the newest software. Whoever the fuck is in charge of calling the family of a soldier who went AWOL in Göttingen can wait.

It seems that the universe has other plans, as the air suddenly becomes charged with static and the phone launches itself towards Lou's chest. The tip of his fingers are numb, a common occurrence after his and his sister's unexplainable outbursts, but he manages to catch the phone before it hits his chest or, heaven forbids, his cat, who is startled awake and promptly returns to sleep after her favourite bed has no intention to move.

He accepts the call. 'Allen speaking. I don't think I have family members in the military anymore.'

'I don't know how many of yours are with us,' the voice from the other end lacks the robotic quality of an android's, so it seems the military is still using humans to contact family members, 'but this concerns your mother, Commander Deborah White. You're the only next of kin we can reach, Mister Allen.'

Lou does sigh. Just as he thinks he can leave her behind after all these years... 'What about her?' Not that he feels strongly that she was gone, as she wasn't quite there for her family to begin with, but something about a Commander going missing on the flagship of a fleet always sits wrong with him; as poor of a mother Deborah White was, a woman with her service record didn't deserve to simply vanish. 'I thought she went MIA more than twenty years ago.'

'She was until a few hours ago. I wish I can break it to you more gently but... we found her. Her remains, at least.'

The beat of his heart suddenly becomes too overwhelming. The air swells with the familiar buzz of static, and it takes all of Lou's self-control to not break everything in the living room with a shattering hazard. There is also the urge to hang up, to pretend that this is just one of those weird dreams he never can remember the details of, because he doesn't need to be burdened with a closure; he wasn't close enough to her to want that, he tells himself. Knowing that she's gone is enough. However, 'How?' is what he says in the end. He closes his eyes, free hand buried in his cat's fur, trying to convince himself that he is doing this for his father.

'Your mother's bones were found in a sealed compartment in the USS Blue Ridge when we were scrapping her. She must've been sitting there for years. Her skull indicates that -'

'Thanks, but I don't think I need to know that,' Lou swallows, willing himself to not think of the implication of an intact skull. It would've been a horrible way to die, sitting in cold seawater for days, feeling her skin rot away before dying of starvation; he'd rather her snap her neck upon impact and go painlessly. 'Anything more?'

'Yes. How would you like to deal with the body?'

Something tickles Lou's chin. When he opens his eyes, he finds the third cat trying to squeeze himself onto his already-occupied lap and purring as if having sensed the human's distress and wanting to soothe him. He recalls how his mother joked that she would probably die at sea and his father's reluctant acceptance of the entire affair; Papa's resignation after he received the news, saying, 'At least she got what she wanted.'

'She spent most of her life at sea,' he replies. No need to rub salt on his father's wounds. 'Let her rest there as well.'

'Very well. If you wish to, a memorial will be held in two months' time. Families of other deceased will attend. You may find support there.'

Support my ass, Lou thinks. It's been twenty-something fucking years. Yet, for some reason, he still promises that he'll consider going before hanging up. His finger hovers over his father's contact afterwards, but remembering that it's midnight in France and that he has a month worth of leave accumulated, he opens his browser instead and starts searching for plane tickets.

----

A month later, Lou finds himself in the commune of Gâvres with a large backpack on his shoulder and missing his cats very dearly. They aren't even his cats, technically; his neighbours keep them as outdoor cats, and Lou, unable to stand the thought of them suffering out in the winter cold of Detroit, took them in, and now they spend more time at his than at their original owners'. Having dropped them off at Hank's - that man takes better care of his pet (now pets) than himself - Lou isn't worried - he doubts his neighbours will even notice that their cats are gone. Emotions are terrible things, however, and the purpose of this trip alone makes it different from all the time he has visited his father before. At least he hasn't just recovered from nearly dying from implant rejection this time.

'Louis?'

Lou turns when he hears his father's voice and the awkward weight reminds him that he hasn't taken off his backpack yet and has been standing in the living room of his father's house staring at nothing for the past few minutes. Not waiting for his son to take it off, Papa Allen crosses the room and embraces Lou, sweat and all. 'How are you?' he asks in French, and when Lou answers truthfully in the same language, 'I missed you,' somehow everything in the world goes right again. Fuck the deviant crisis, fuck the android-infested America that makes his nerves buzz every single waking moment, fuck absent mothers still managing to make a comeback years after she died. He's just Louis Allen, absolutely not a SWAT captain, not the only survivor of the Blast, not the pioneer/guinea pig of CyberLife's groundbreaking cybernetics technology.

He has to let go of his father. 'I hope it's okay. What I did with Mom.'

Papa sighs. 'How about you take off that thing first,' indicating the backpack, 'and settle down for now.'

So Lou walks up the stairs and deposits his backpack in the room designated as his, and, catching sight of the other bed in the room, his legs suddenly feel weak, and he lowers himself, trembling, onto his mattress. Smart, fearless Anna, whose brain always runs - ran - a lot faster than the rest of the world.

Who graduated top of her class and as the Valedictorian of the academy, and subsequently disappeared without a trace.

His left leg twitches. The feeling of something foreign using his body returns, and when he leans forward - with a difficulty that wasn't there before - to take off his sock, it reveals white and grey chassis. A stark reminder that he owes her his life two times over despite her being the younger sibling.

‘How come I’m still alive?’ was the first question he asked after he regained his voice. ‘Ryder threw a fucking building on me.’

‘I dug you out, Lulu,’ replied Anna. ‘Freaky glowy telekinesis finally has its use. I was hungry for hours afterwards.’

At that moment, Lou made the mistake of looking down and seeing his pure white leg. ‘What the hell happened to my leg?’

‘CyberLife’s newest tech.’ As if to demonstrate how he should use his new leg, she gave his feet a poke, and Lou nearly screamed from the sensation. He did not expect to feel anything at all, but apart from the looks, the leg felt...real. ‘Fucking building crushed half your pelvis, your entire left leg and a rib. It’s already minced when I uncovered you, so they need to rebuild everything from scratch. I asked them to add something that can help you control the telekinesis better as well, so we’ll need to test it out later. No more randomly exploding shit. And before you ask, yes, your junk’s unharmed.’

Lou’s coma-addled brain struggled to process the influx of information, and all he got was, ‘I should’ve died.’

Anna hit the break to what seemed to be the beginning of a technical jargon-filled rant. ‘Well yes,’ she gestured just like the meme, ‘but you lived.’

‘No one survives after being crushed by a building, Anna,’ he said, voice rising. Then he asked in French since English felt too raw, ‘Exactly how much tech is in me right now? And how long was I out for? Why did CyberLife choose me?’

She looked away.

‘Anna?’

‘I don’t fucking know, okay?’ she replied in the same language. ‘You were on the brink of death when I dug you out, and there Ryder was, offering to save your life for no cost. You were in a medically-induced coma for one month and was out for reconstruction for another. It took your body two weeks to get used to the cybernetics and...here you are.’

‘Ryder offered,’ Lou said slowly, ‘to save me? As in Sara Ryder?’

‘Yes.’

‘Anna, she was the one who threw the building on me!’

‘I know. One more reason to let her save you.’

‘But you did it anyway.’

‘I did.’

‘Even though you know it’ll probably come back to bite our asses.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘You know the answer, Lulu.’

And Lou has stopped denying that he does a few years ago. Anna joined the Air Force to fly, to be closer to the sky, but he knows that it wasn’t enough; from the way she turned her eyes towards the aurora when they were young, the attention she paid towards all news related to space observation and exploration, to the talks about leaving the wasteland that is known as earth behind and finding a new home in the cosmos - Anna belongs to the abyss of space. The military was simply a stepping stone towards something greater, a greatness that she must be working towards somewhere on this god-forsaken piece of rock.

The place where Lou’s flesh meets his implants aches in anticipation of the storm that will no doubt force them to remain indoors for days. Grinding his teeth in the numbing pain, he uses his hands to put his non-functional left leg onto the bed and lies down sideways with his back towards his sister’s bed, his phone buzzing in his pocket to notify him of an unexpected software error that may take hours to fix. Switching on do-not-disturb, he shoves the offending piece of technology underneath his pillow and loses his fight against jet lag and pain.

----

Lou wakes up cold and hungry. He is covered by a blanket that wasn't there when he fell asleep, so his father must have checked on him when he realized that his son was doing more than putting down his luggage, and the dark sky outside the window almost brings him back again before it flashes.

Then the booming thunder reminds him that it isn't dusk at all.

He successfully rolls over on his other side, which means that his cybernetics are functional once more. Kicking the blanket away, he sits up and grimaces at the taste of his mouth.

He feels better after his regular morning rituals, though the lack of three furry friends harassing him and brushing against his feet is something that he'll need to get used to, and his father is cooking lunch when he reaches the kitchen.

'Morning, Louis,' Papa says as he hands the pan over to his son. 'What did they drag you through to have you sleep for so long?'

Lou is glad that he can use concentrating on not burning his food as an excuse to buy himself a minute. Should he tell his father the truth, or should he avoid talking about work just like many people do during their vacation? 'Things are getting bad in Detroit,' he decides in the end as going on a vacation at one's father's house isn't exactly normal either. 'Androids are breaking their programming and starts having their own thoughts. CyberLife's trying to cover it up, but I've dealt with enough violent deviants - that's what they're calling those androids - to know it's gonna be a problem real soon if they don't solve it now.' A pause to think of how to continue. 'I'm glad you're not in America anymore.'

'It must be exhausting,' is his father's reply, and that's all Lou needs to realize that his father has no idea what he's talking about. Then again, the man moved back to France before androids were a thing, and although they kept in frequent contact, Lou never talked much about his work; the police getting reformed means that SWAT is deployed only when peace is not the option - that means seeing people get hurt or die constantly. Androids aren't really a thing in Europe, so his father never experienced the 'androids taking over everything and making everyone lose their jobs' shit. He won't understand.

'That's why I'm here.'

They lapse into silence as Lou finishes cooking and empties the content of the pan onto two plates. Never one for formality, Papa brings them to the living room, sitting at the corner of a couch while Lou retrieves his plate and fork and curls onto the window sill. At this proximity, he can feel the raindrops hitting the glass as if he is standing in the rain.

Papa clears his throat. 'About your mother, Louis.'

Lou tears his eyes away from the raindrop he's betting on to win. He hastily shoved some eggs into his mouth to buy himself some time to mentally prepare for the conversation. 'What now?'

What he actually says isn't what Lou expected. 'I'm glad about what you did with your mother's body.'

'Her skeleton, you mean,' he replies. 'What's left of it anyways. I don't think they found the whole set.'

'Still,' Papa isn't looking at him. 'That's what she would've wanted. And by I'm glad - I'm not opposed to it.'

'That's it?' Lou turns back towards the rain. 'That wasn't your reaction when they told you that she was MIA.'

'I was young - younger - back then,' a sigh. 'It wasn't fair to you. Or to Anna. Especially to Anna. I'm sorry.'

No it wasn't, Lou wants to say, but - 'I've made peace with it a long time ago. Mom, me and Anna, Alaska; that was all you knew. I... I don't blame you for it.'

He has to close his eyes and press his forehead against the glass. He considers switching to German to further detach his emotions, but then he realizes that nearly everything has fled his mind from disuse. Why does he think spending his vacation with his father right after they discovered that his mother might have died painfully a good idea?

'That's what I thought I'd react when you called me, you know?' Papa says. 'I thought I'd break down. Then I realized that I've moved on and... that's it. Hard not to after more than twenty years.' Even with his vision gone, Lou can still feel his father's gaze on him. 'You've done that for your mother. Have you, for Anna? It's been ten years.'

'Have you, Papa?' Lou asks instead of answering even though he knows his answer. 'Can you stand the thought of your daughter gone as well?'

'After your mother?' the father feeds himself a mouthful of food and swallows. 'Kind of have to.'

'Of course you did. I raised her, not you.'

That is the last thing he says to his father before the storm goes away.

----

Emotionally exhausted, Lou goes to sleep early despite waking up not ten hours ago.

He knows he’s dreaming as soon as he opens the door and discovers his childhood living room behind it. The room is dark, so the lights must have been switched off, and even though it feels like he has smacked his hand all over the wall it’s on, he still can’t find the switch. It does bring him closer to the window, outside where a storm is going on at full force and paints everything white, and although he knows that what he is seeing isn’t real, he dreads the upcoming and necessary shovelling.

The world is suddenly lit up from behind him, followed by the voice of Neil deGrasse Tyson and the clicks of a keyboard. When Lou turns, Anna is there sitting in front of the couch, her brother's homework scattered in a semi-circle around her, and an old, bulky laptop snug between her crossed legs. It should have been a normal day in their house in Anchorage had Anna been a child but not an adult, which is the form Dream Anna is appearing in - she is younger than him by nearly eight years.

‘Where’s the light switch?’ Lou asks, looking around for good measure. ‘As much as you enjoy Cosmos, a documentary about space isn’t sufficient lighting.’

‘Relax,’ says Anna. ‘Eye problems aren’t in our genes.’ Then, waving at the papers around her, ‘Everything’s done. Your teachers didn’t suspect a thing,’ she gets younger and younger following each syllable until her age makes sense, ‘but you asked me to do it on a separate piece of paper, so I did. Feel free to copy directly if you wish.’

That is when Lou realizes that she’s playing games on the notebook, something that looks like a simplified version of Temple Run but set in space. ‘No thanks,’ he says. ‘I’d like to keep the creases on my brain.’ Then he notices that his sister didn’t really answer his question, so he asks again, ‘How am I supposed to switch on the lights?’

‘With your phone,’ is the matter-of-fact reply. ‘Don’t tell me you uninstalled the fucking app for cat pictures.’

‘For one last time, Anna, I don’t download cat pictures.’ And it hits him. ‘Wait, phone? The house isn’t automated when you’re at this age.’

‘Is it?’

Anna stands up and stalks closer to her brother, and she grows and grows and grows until they’re off the same height and she looks... older, how she should look like if she’s alive she’s still here. She is now Major Anna White Allen of the United States Air Force, dressed smartly in her dress uniform except for her cap, which she holds in her right hand. Their surroundings have also changed to that of the Phillips' penthouse terrace, harsh wind whipping around them.

'You aren't real,' Lou breathes, feeling light-headed. ‘You - you’re gone. Just like Mom.’

‘Open your eyes, then. End this early if you want to. Forget that this ever happened. I don’t mind.’

It is followed by a terrifying moment of wakefulness, the images blurring and then regaining clarity as he stays asleep. ‘And Papa wants me to let you go,’ he says with a sad chuckle.

‘Why?’

‘We found what’s left Mom. How long do we need to wait to find what’s left of you?’

‘Why are you talking like I’m dead?’

‘Cause you probably are, like Mom?’

‘I know you think we’re alike,’ an eye roll, ‘but we’re different.’

‘Say you’re not dead. Where the hell are you?’

‘Does it matter?’

A blink. They’re floating in space, Anna dressed in some form of armor, and Lou in normal clothes. He attempts to draw a breath and wakes up choking and crying, the dream completely forgotten save for the faint image of Anna falling towards earth and getting burnt to crisps.

----

A few days later, Lou finds himself walking on the beach with his father. The sky is cloudy and the wind is strong, so it is cool even though it’s September and Lou grew up in Alaska. They started throwing questions back and forth ten minutes into their walk, some of them silly and simple and give them a good laugh, but the others -

‘Answer me honestly, Louis. Do you think Anna’s dead?’

It is easy. ‘No.’

‘Where do you think she is, then?’

Lou’s face suddenly becomes too hot to bear. ‘Does it matter?’

‘If it affects you, yes.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it. She wouldn’t want us to speculate.’

‘But she’s not here, is she? Maybe you’ll feel better after you say it out loud.’

Lou sighs, oh how the turntables… ‘In space, probably.’

‘You’d think we’ll hear about that.’

‘Secret space programs exist, Papa.’

‘Not in America.’

‘I never said it’s an American program,’ Lou says as he kicks a rock away. ‘Do you know what they said when I received the first call from the Air Force? They asked me if Anna has ties with other space agencies even though she’s never been in NASA; she just talked about other countries’ space programs so much that they suspected her having ties with them.’

‘Hmm.’

‘What does that even mean?’

‘You know you won’t see her again, right?’

Lou halts his steps. Anna? Gone forever? ‘Does it matter?’

Papa sighs. ‘You’re in denial, Louis. You didn’t do this with your mother.’

How dare he - ‘Of course I didn’t, she was barely there!’ he has to put a few steps between them. ‘I raised Anna! How do you think that’s even comparable?’

‘I simply don’t want you to live in uncertainty for the rest of your life.’

‘You just don’t know your daughter,’ he counters. ‘She told me she’ll come back.’

‘You know -’

‘You don’t know shit!’

He runs. His lungs and legs are strained when he gets home, his father’s home, but he doesn't stop at that. He packs his stuff (not that there’s much to put back into his backpack), jumps into his rental car, and is back in Brest before he knows what he’s doing. His return flight is next week, so he has a lot of time to kill.

In the end, he takes a trip around the country alone, going to places he both never had time for and, if he’s been there before, misses dearly. He may have forgotten what they’ve talked about, but he remembers Anna visiting him often. The images flee his mind whenever he tries to recall them, but he doesn’t think they’re talking on earth, and he always wishes that he at least remembers some of it.

A few months later, he’ll learn that his speculations are closer to the truth than he thinks. A few months later, Louis Allen will prove his father wrong.

But he doesn’t know that yet. Therefore, after collecting the cats from Hank and unpacking his luggage, he takes all of Anna’s things and puts them into a box, telling himself that it is the first step towards admitting that maybe, it’s a big fucking maybe, he will never see his sister again.

[gothpanda]

A Little Bit of Attitude Ch.29: Goodbye

WORD COUNT: 6.0K

A/N: I hope everyone enjoys this chapter! 

WARNINGS: angst at its lowest

TAGS: @madamsixx​ @emariehorror​

Read On Ao3

Previous/Next

May 20th, 1986

Sitting under an outdoor umbrella table in a small corner coffee shop that opened 6 months ago, Sammi stared out into the distance with wrinkles of irritability deepening on her face. She slowly twirled a spoon in her coffee that clanked against the white ceramic mug every so often that would annoy anyone. Her mind wandered as it always did, thinking of the list of tasks needed to be done and other lists of tasks wanting to do. It felt like a never-ending wave of chores Sammi had started, begging why she did this to herself.

"Sammi," Sammi continued to stare out into the distance, pursing her lips out and squinting into nothing. "Sammi!" Emma shouted, shaking Sammi's hand gently to break her out of the daze she was in. Sammi snapped her head to Emma, blinking rapidly, looking like a deer in the headlights. Emma chuckled at Sammi, surprised how fast Sammi was able to daydream when she was alone. "I got you a chocolate chip muffin. They didn't have the coffee cake one that you like," Emma said, catching a tip of whip cream from her iced latte and taking a joyful lick. Sammi shook her head, sipping her coffee that had been spun around multiple times.

"Where's S?" Sammi asked, picking a piece of her muffin.

"Right here, I ran into a guy I had a class with. I forgot how cute he was," Sabrina said, tucking her skirt underneath her legs as she sat down beside Sammi. Sabrina could see the quiet expression on Sammi's cheeks, noticing her pecking at her sweetbread. Sabrina and Emma exchanged a knowing look at one another as they carried out their usual manners. Emma sipping on her iced beverage while Sabrina tore a piece of her croissant. "So what's got you daydreaming?" Emma asked Sammi, Sabrina raising a quizzical eyebrow to her left.

Sammi scrunched her brows together, glancing between the two friends. "I wasn't daydreaming, I was thinking. There's a difference,"

"Okay then what's got you thinking so silently, you forgot where you were for a second? It's amazing how fast you're able to do that," Sabrina teased, smirking at Sammi, drinking cappuccino.  

"What I need to do before next week. If I need to finish anything right before I leave. If there's anything I want to do before leaving. If I need to stop thinking at high speed for once in my life," Sammi said, pulling out a pack of Camels from her silver purse and bringing one to her lips. She lit the cigarette, blowing out the smoke away from her friends, Emma stealing one for herself. Sabrina shifted away from any smoke that hit her face. Emma purposely let out a puff of smoke to Sabrina, giggling at the sour expression.

"You wouldn't need to be thinking so much if you just stayed down here," Emma said.

"Why did you have to accept a school all the way in San Francisco? How else am I going to get second-hand smoker lungs?" Sabrina asked with a small pout.

"You can blame Mr. Harrison's connections in convincing me to go to San Fran. Maybe do it on your last day at Elektra next week," Sammi teased. Sammi would be lying to everyone if she said she wasn't grateful for how the opportunity fell in her lap. Mr. Harrison was happy to help Samantha on her journey to a career path, knowing her endless potential.

"She may have also accepted because she needs a fresh new life far away from everyone in this place. Or at least that's what I keep telling myself," Emma said, pouting out in exaggeration.  

"You're not wrong. It's good to have a fresh start every once in a while especially for school. You guys are lucky I'm staying in California. I could've gone all the way to Texas if I was that desperate. Or New York City," Sammi said, blowing out another drag of her cigarette.

"Thank god you're so considerate of others, but you still could've stayed here," Sabrina said with a smile that made Sammi's mood shift a bit. The girls stayed silent for a moment, basking in the quality time together before Sammi's final day in Los Angeles. In truth, Emma and Sabrina were happy Sammi was doing something for herself and only herself. Sammi didn't ask anyone if she should go back to school or where she should go. But of course, as all friends are, they would miss knowing Sammi was in the same city as them, and they could pop in. Their Friday night dinners will only consist of Emma and Sabrina from now on, Sammi only joining when she comes for a visit. They were beginning to grow up into full adults. It was scary but needed for everyone.

"If I'm being honest, I don't want to leave but I know it's the right thing. Now more than ever since my shit show," Sammi said, shrugging her shoulders in sadness.

"Hey, may I ask you something, Sam?" Emma asked, biting her lip with the look of worry that made Sammi worry.

"Sure?"

"Has 'you know who' tried calling you after the wedding?" Emma asked with hesitation. Sammi sighed as she shook her head, flicking the small dub to the street, then taking a sip of her coffee. "Is it weird if I say I feel bad for both of you? Just not seeing you two together right now is weird. It feels like my parents got divorced and I should know," Emma said, finishing her cigarette.

"No, it's not. I feel bad for myself so join the petty party. Sabrina? Want to join this party of two and make it three?" Sammi asked, resting her head against the palm of her hand. Sabrina slung an arm around Sammi, bringing her in for a side hug.

"You feel bad because we liked Nikki even if he was an asshole to others, he was nice with Sammi. Now he's doing something that's harming himself which affects people who care. It's different then most relationship dramas," Sabrina analyzed, taking a sip of her cappuccino.

"I wish it was because he's an asshole and move on with my life, but it's more complicated than that," pouted Sammi.

"Of course it is, it's Nikki. It's never easy with those guys," Emma tried to poke fun of, shrugging her shoulders. Sabrina shot Emma a glare like a mother, Emma mouthing a sorry to her.

"Am I dumb for still caring and wanting to work things out?" Sammi asked, looking down at her cup with a low head.

Emma cocked her head to one side, sympathy beginning to show more for her friend. "You're not dumb because you have a heart, Sam. It's natural to still care about an ex at times. I still wonder about Athena randomly at times and it's been months,"

"You'd still worry about Athena if she used hard drugs and got aggressive because of them?" Sammi asked with a hint of sarcasm. Emma shrugged her shoulders, not knowing what to say to make it positive. She didn't think this whole situation could be favorable.

"I'd like to think so. I'm not sure about working things out, but I'd like to know if she's being healthy. It's drugs, Sammi. Anyone with a heart would still care about the person. I'm surprised Nikki's able to hide it from people so well,"

"He's not. You just said it yourself. He's not around people with hearts that care, at least not sober people. He's a musician who created a successful band and can make money off of it. It's different," Sabrina explained, turning to see if Sammi was becoming sadder for this conversation. Sammi lifted her head up, squaring her shoulders straight, and smiled with confidence.

"It's whatever now. I'm happy. I really am. I'm getting to live in a new city. I've been here my whole life. Maybe I'll like San Francisco and want to live there permanently after I graduate. Two years is enough time to fall in love with a city," Sammi said in an attempt to lift the spirits of the table. Her friends didn't believe it but tried to join in.

"The selfish part of me says please don't but I know it's good. Hell, I came down here to leave Sacramento. It's only fair you do the same thing, Sammi," Sabrina said with a sad smile.

"So are you gonna have a going away party or disappear randomly one day?" Emma asked.

"No. No party. I don't want a going away party at all where people might start crying. But I do want to tell everyone goodbye alone. That way everyone gets a nice goodbye," said Sammi.

"Even Nikki?" asked Emma, raising an eyebrow. Sammi sighed out and took a sip of her coffee, thinking if she should tell Nikki. Sammi wasn't hiding from anyone about her move, telling almost everyone in their own times, except Nikki. Respectfully, she should speak Nikki about her plans and not cause a bigger mess than she'll ditch. Then again, Sammi wanted to act selfish and petty, focus on herself instead of a man.

"Yes, even Nikki. I still have some little things at his place that I should probably get," Sammi muttered.

"If you need us to go with you, we could. We'll wait outside while you say your goodbyes," Sabrina offered.

"Thanks but I need to be a big girl and do things on my own. Especially if I'm going to be alone in a new city," Sammi said, sighing out into the warm, clear sky.

May 29th, 1986

Sammi had a list of people she wanted to personally say goodbye to with their own time. The first person Sammi had on her list was Vince, to her own surprise thinking Vince would be the last person on the planet to give farewells. Sammi walked up to the white modern beach mansion, the place she called a second home for a few months. The doorbell rang out, Sammi shifting her weight from one foot to another, looking away into the neighborhood as she waited. It was early in the morning; Sammi hoped Vince decided to be an early bird this summer season. When the grand finally opened, Sammi smiled right away, Vince holding Skylar right on his hip. Vince smiled back at Sammi, puzzled for a moment before remembering what day it was.

"Hey, Vin. Hi, Skylar," Sammi said, waving her two fingers to the small child, winning a happy smile from Skylar. Vince stepped aside to let Sammi in with a low head, Skylar moving around in his arms to be set free. Once she was on the ground, Skylar waddled her best to Sammi, hugging her leg. Skylar smiled up at Sammi, two little teeth showing. "Aww she still likes me," Sammi said, picking Skylar up and resting her on her hip. Vince grew a smile at the two girls, folding his arms across his chest. Sammi bounced Skylar on her hip, earning giggles from the young baby, Vince admiring more at the two.

"I couldn't imagine someone not liking you,' Vince said, slowly stepping towards Sammi. "It's the end of the month. I didn't think it would come so fast," Vince fixed a piece of Skylar's hair from her face as she played with the shiny rings Sammi wore. Vince sucked the front of his teeth, stuffing his hands in the back of his jean pockets. "Please don't tell me you came all the way out here to say goodbye,"

Sammi smiled with sadness, shrugging her shoulders. "It was going to happen at some point, Vince. Thought I wasn't gonna say goodbye to you?"

"No. I was kind of hoping you had changed your mind and didn't want to leave this beautiful city," Vince said, walking the girls to the living room. As the three sat down on the white sofa, Sammi let Skylar crawl off to the floor to find a toy to play with. "Maybe you rejected San Francisco and went to school here. Where your family is. And all your friends. Where people who care about you are,"

Sammi sighed out, pushing locks of hair away from her face, looking down at Skylar. "Vince, I need this. I want to get out of here and see other places that aren't from a tour bus. Besides I promised myself I'd go back after a year of working, I need to follow that,"

Vince sighed out, slumping further into the sofa. "I'm going to miss you, you know. It's going to be weird not having you around,"

"I'm not dying, Vin!" Sammi smiled at Vince.

"I know you're not dying! But let's face it I doubt you'll come visit when you have free time. You'll probably only come for the holidays then leave again. San Francisco is pretty far away if you haven't figured it out," Vince teased, poking Sammi on the shoulder. Sammi gazed down at her hands, realization beginning to creep up on her.

"You're right. I probably won't have enough free time to just drop everything and come down," Sammi uttered, fidgeting with her nails unkempt.

"Doesn't mean that we can't though," Vince said with a small smile.

Sammi turned her head to see the smile, raising an eyebrow that matched Vince's expression. "You'd come up to visit me?"

"Yeah just to make sure you're not dead," Vince said, chuckling as Sammi shoved his shoulder playfully.

"I'm going to miss you too. Promise you'll do a good job taking care of this little one?" Sammi asked, picking Skylar to sit her between the two of them. Skylar laid down between the two, slowly closing her eyes for her nap. Vince rubbed Skylar's cheek with the back of his hand, smiling down at his daughter. Vince then gave a similar smile to Sammi.

"I promise. Promise you'll try to visit on your own?"

"I promise," Sammi said, holding out her pinky.

Instead, Vince stood up in front of Sammi with arms open wide, hoping she'd accept the hug. Sammi stood up with warm eyes and a smile and wrapped her arms around Vince's waist, feeling him hold her in a warm embrace. Vince kisses the crown on Sammi's head, reminding himself to respect the girl's boundaries. "I'm proud of you, Sam. And I'm sorry for everything," Vince mumbled into Sammi's hair. Sammi shut her eyes tight, staying in the embrace for what felt like forever. A feeling of tightness beginning to form in the pit of her stomach. Sammi wasn't enjoying this feeling by any means.

*

Mick was surprised to hear his doorbell ring out in his home, placing his guitar flat down on the sofa. Mick rarely had guests pop in on him, liking his home's secluded area to relax before the chaos of music erupted again. When he opened the door, his firm, confused, an irritating glare that Mick always had melted away as a smiling Sammi stood at his steps. Mick raised an eyebrow, opening the door wider. "What's up, little girl? Here for a visit?" Mick asked.

"More like a goodbye. I'm leaving tomorrow remember?" Sammi said, stepping into the cozy home. Mick groaned out, closing the door shut and led Sammi to the kitchen. Sammi looked around the complete house, getting after herself for not visiting Mick here more often. She felt bad that she came for goodbye and not a regular time to hang out. Sammi promised she'd spend time with Mick when she came down to visit.  

"Oh I remember but I was betting you only said it because you were mad at Nikki. I didn't think you'd actually leave," said Mick, grabbing two bottles of cokes from the fridge, sliding one to Sammi on the kitchen island.

"Wow thanks, Mick. Am I really that dramatic to you?" Sammi asked sarcastically, sipping her drink. "It's not like I've wanted to avoid everyone before by disappearing," Sammi smiled at Mick, earning a chuckle from the older man.

"Are you doing your rounds with everybody or just me?" asked Mick.

"Everyone. I thought it would be swifter in one go to say bye and not cause too much of a scene," Sammi uttered, tapping her finger on the glass bottle. "I'm not really in the mood for tears,"

"So are you still mad at Nikki? Is that why you're leaving?," Mick asked.

"No, I'm not leaving because of him. It's entirely because of school and wanting new experiences," Sammi said, glaring at Mick.

"Are you still mad at him though?"

"I guess I am. He hasn't bothered calling me after Santa Barbra, and I haven't bothered calling him. I doubt he cares much about anyone but himself at this point," Sammi said sadly, Mick giving her a sympathetic smile. Mick could read Sammi's face clear as day, Nikki's topic being a sore spot for the young woman.

"Don't worry. I'll look after him while you're gone, it's the least I can do for the both of you," said Mick. Mick felt inclined to worry about Nikki or the others generally, due to being the oldest and least intoxicated from the bunch. With Sammi added to the mix, Mick felt even more inclined to keep an eye on Nikki and Tommy as these were her two boys. "I promise,"

"Thanks, Mick. Can you also promise me one other thing?" Mick nodded. "Please take care of your back. Take your medication and don't mix it with alcohol as much. And please go to your doctor's appointments and schedule them. Ask Doc to get you an assistant maybe to help,"

Mick lips parted in shock, scrunching his eyebrows together. He cleared his throat, tapping his fingers against the island gravel. Mick thought he was either hiding it exceptionally well or nobody who was around cared enough to ask. Clearly, he was proven wrong. "You could tell?"

Sammi nodded. "I don't know what you have exactly, but I know something's up and you need to take care of yourself. It's important to keep up with your health especially when you go out and perform,"

"It's Ankylosing spondylitis with a bit of forming scoliosis. I got diagnosed when I was around your age," Mick said dryly, having a small bit of happiness to know someone could see. "I thought I was doing a good job at acting normal,"

"Mick, I was always able to see something was up. I just didn't know how to bring it up with you," Sammi said.

"Well after you come back, I'll come to you when I need new meds or a new doctor," Mick said, chuckling a small bit.

Sammi smiled at Mick, reaching over to place her hand over his. "I'd be happy to help with that," Sammi said, gently squeezing Mick's hand. Mick didn't want to say it out loud, but he was going to miss the little girl as much as everyone else. It hurt him thinking Sammi wanted to get away from everything, be pushed over the edge by Nikki. Mick wanted to shake some sense into Nikki, hoping the bass player would come back to the light but knew it would never work. Mick only hoped things didn't blow up too much after this.

"I know I don't do a whole lot of talking, but I am going to miss you, little girl," Mick said, looking away from Sammi and sipping his soda.

"I'll miss you too, Mick," Sammi said, smiling sadly at Mick. The two didn't hug, knowing it was a rarity, and Sammi did not like the feeling of hugs today. Instead, they stayed in silence as they finished their sodas in the kitchen, Mick wanting to give Sammi a quiet space to think.

*

"Please, don't leave me! I beg you!" Tommy yelled in the air, embracing Sammi in a tight hug. Sammi was smothered in Tommy's chest, not hugging him back as the siblings stood in the newlyweds home's living room. As soon as Sammi rang the doorbell, Tommy ran out of the house to hug his sister, dragging Sammi in for Heather to see her. Tommy didn't want to let go of his baby sister, not wanting her to leave ever. She tried to pull away from her brother, only to be hugged tighter. Heather smiled at the two as she sat on the expensive sofa, finding Tommy's desperation of Sammi's departure amusing. Sammi finally had enough strength to push Tommy off her, gasping for air and dropping herself down next to Heather. Tommy pouted down at Sammi, falling right between the two girls.

"Babe, be happy for your sister. You should be proud Sammi's going back to school for pharmacy. It's a big deal," Heather told Tommy, running her fingers through his hair. Tommy still continued to pout, being another who wished to be selfish for a happy occasion. Heather had to be the positive one from the two, reminding of the accompaniment. Sammi poked Tommy's puffy cheeks, giggling when he reacted annoyed, hiding his face in Heather's neck. Heather rolled her eyes, patting Tommy on the head to soothe him.

"Yeah, Tommy, be proud of me. Remember I'm the normal sibling. I need to go to college and get a regular job unlike some people," Sammi said, smiling at Tommy.

"Sammi needs to spread her wings and fly. Experience new places!" Heather said to Tommy.

"I'll pay for your apartment and school if you stay here," Tommy said, lifting his head up. His hair covered his eyes, making Heather and Sammi laugh at Tommy.

"We were going to do that anyway, babe," Heather said, fluttering her lashes to her husband and smiling mischievously at her sister in law. Slowly squaring her shoulder with scrunched eyebrows, Sammi shifted her eyes at the couple in confusion. She couldn't register what Heather just said as if it was a regular thing. Tommy slowly began smiling at his sister, Heather, unable to contain her excitement any longer.

"What? What do you mean you're going to pay for my stuff? I have everything covered," Sammi asked with wide eyes. Tommy sat up straight, grabbing Heather's hand like Mr. and Mrs. Bass when they had to announce something to their children. It was any other circumstance, Sammi would laugh along with the two but not today.

"Heather and I were talking about you going back to school and how you're going to be stressed with studying. San Francisco is way more expensive than L.A is so we wanted to help out," Tommy said.

"It's the least we can do. You shouldn't be stressed about money and only think about your studies. It's going to be hard doing all of that alone and in a new city," Heather said.

"Yeah but I have school covered. I have scholarships and I was going to get a job on campus," said Sammi. "I saved up a lot this past year for my apartment up there,"

"We know that, Sammi. We know you've always been independent with everything since you moved out of Mama and Dad's house. But you deserve a little help for once after always being there for everyone. Consider this as a thank you," said Tommy.

"Plus if we're being honest, we don't have to think about how much stuff costs, so we're fine paying for your expenses. You wouldn't have to worry about paying us back a penny," Heather reassured Tommy, nodding along.

"How exactly would this work?" Sammi asked, still hesitant about the offer.

"Basically like a monthly allowance to cover rent, bills, and your own spending money. And for school, it's by semester so you can just call us with the bill! It's that simple!" Tommy said, clapping his hands together as if this was a typical case in their lives. Sammi scratched the side of her head, contemplating if this was a good idea, looking at Heather and Tommy's convincing faces. The couple didn't feel entitled to do something nice for Sammi; they wanted to do this from their hearts. Tommy wasn't happy about Sammi leaving, feeling this was her new method of running away. In the eyes of the Bass family, this news came out of nowhere, only having three weeks to say goodbye. Heather tried to sway Tommy's worries away with no luck, the stubborn man believing in his theory. "Just say yes, Sam. It's a perfect plan," Tommy begged, turning on his sweet puppy dog eyes.

Sammi sighed out as they twisted her arm to agree. "Alright I accept your guys offered to help. I really appreciate it," Sammi said, smiling at the couple. Tommy and Heather jumped out of their spots to engulf Sammi in another hug, feeling as if this is the most she's ever been hugged in one day. Sammi let out a yell in protest, shimming away from Heather and Tommy but with no luck.

"You're going to be great up there," Heather said to Sammi, pulling away slightly. Sammi only smiled, beginning to feel the knot in her stomach again. It was only 3 in the afternoon.

*

To Sammi's luck, Athena's apartment wasn't far from Tommy's home, making the drive short west. Sammi gripped tightly on the steering wheel, her knuckles turning white as she tried to calm her breathing. "You're going to be fine. You're going to be fine. You're going to be fine," Sammi whispered to herself, parking in front of a brand new apartment building. Walking up the front door steps, Sammi pressed the button that read Athena, waiting for her sister to answer the call.

"Hello?" Athena answered.

"It's Sammi. Let me in," Sammi shouted into the speaker. Athena didn't bother to give a response, buzzing Sammi into the building. Sammi walked up to flights of stairs, dragging her feet up at each step. It had been a short time since Sammi spoke to Athena, distracting herself with the excuse of packing. Athena paid no attention to this, knowing that she would go to her if Sammi needed to talk. Sammi gently knocked on the red wooden door, looking down at her feet as she could hear Athena's footsteps. When Athena opened her door, she smiled at Sammi with a reminder to be nice to her baby sister.

"Hey!" Athena said, stepping aside to let Sammi pass. Sammi played with her hands as she walked straight to the sofa, dropping her purse beside her. "Do you want anything to drink? Food?" Athena offered, walking over to the small kitchenette that connected to the living room. Sammi shook her head, eyes following Athena sit down on the accent sofa chair near her. She tucked her legs in, chin resting against her palm, ready to hear anything Sammi has to say. "Is everything going well? You're finished packing?" Athena asked.

Sammi nodded. "I had the last of my boxes shipped this morning. All I have in my apartment is a suitcase and a mattress on the floor. I can't believe I'm leaving,"

"Really? I thought it would be the other way around. Everyone not believing you until you were already gone, thinking you were just lying,"

"Why does everyone keep saying that?!" Sammi snapped, frowning at Athena. "You, Mick, Vince. Why do people think I was bluffing about leaving?"

Athena pressed her lips firmly together, knowing now was not the time for a fight. "It's not that we think you were bluffing. It's just no one wants you to leave so we're in a bit of denial. I'm proud of you for going back to school. I want you to know that,"

Sammi sighed out, leaning back against the sofa in lousy posture, folding her arms against her chest. "Thanks. I didn't think my leaving would make everyone so sad. I didn't think I was that special,"

Athena raised an eyebrow at Sammi. "You don't think you're so special everyone would be bored or sad without you? I know we fight a lot, but I would rather have you around all the time than none at all,"

Sammi smiled at Athena, emotions beginning to erupt, but Sammi knew how to withhold them. "I'm sorry for being a bitch so many times. I shouldn't have been so spitful when you said your opinion,"

"I'm the one who should apologize. I should've never been so harsh on you with Nikki. I should've listened instead of being mean, and I'm sorry you two broke up after the wedding," Athena said, giving Sammi a sympathetic smile.

"It's whatever now. He hasn't bothered with me and I'm not going to bother with him anymore," Sammi said, chipping away nail polish. Athena frowned at Sammi's sad tone, having a bit of doubt to Sammi's statement.

"Careful when you see Mama and Dad. They might ask about Nikki,"

"If they do I'll just lie. I wouldn't want them to worry about him or anything that they don't need to," said Sammi.

"You really did care about him, didn't you? You're still protecting him even now," Athena said.

"Yeah, I guess I did," Sammi mumbled. "It's whatever now. Maybe I'll find a regular guy in San Francisco who's a saint and never even looked at a drug,"

"Don't push yourself to meet someone. Take your time and focus on yourself. You're young and can have years to find someone else," Athena advised, studying Sammi faces to the best of her abilities. Athena was able to see the hesitation on Sammi's face, the small eleven wrinkles between her brows almost becoming permanent from thinking. The older sister didn't know if she should object Sammi from leaving but knew it was the right thing to do. As much as Athena herself hated the idea, she knew Sammi needed a breath of fresh air even if she was afraid of it. Athena didn't want to push to fright Sammi, only wishing to stand by her when needed. She felt guilty for her tantrums, realizing how selfish they all were. Athena walked over to Sammi's side of the sofa, wrapping her arms in a hug around the younger girls' shoulders. Sammi didn't hug back, only leaning her head on Athena's shoulder.

"I'm going to miss you," Sammi muttered under her breath.

"I'm going to miss you too, Sam," Athena whispered. The two staying in silence for a moment longer, Sammi forcing down any emotions.

*

Pulling up into the driveway of Mr. and Mrs. Bass tugged the heartstrings, Sammi turning off the ignition and shutting her eyes to let out a few calming breaths. She could see the light bleed out from the living room window, Mr. Bass's car parked right next to Sammi's impala. It was with heavy feet that made Sammi walk to the front door, trying to find her original house key. As Sammi pushed open the door, she could hear music playing to her right, seeing her parents dancing all around the living room. She quietly closed the door behind her, smiling happily at the couple as they were in their own little world, not noticing Sammi. It wasn't until Mr. Bass dipped Mrs. Bass that he noticed Sammi standing in the wide doorway, a broad smile growing on his lips. He twirled Mrs. Bass one last time, making her stop right to see Sammi.

"Oh, Lovebug! We've been waiting for you! Your food is ready!" Mrs. Bass exclaimed out, clapping her hands together. Mrs. Bass gave Sammi a warm quick hug before cascading her way down the hall. Mr. Bass smiled at Samm, giving her a kiss on the cheek before following Mrs. Bass to the dining table. Sammi didn't move at first. She stood frozen in the doorframe, folding her arms in front of her chest. Sammi walked at a slow pace, seeing a plate of spaghetti and meatballs waiting for her. Mr. and Mrs. Bass set down forks and glasses, pouring in freshly squeezed lemonade for their daughter. Sammi mustered up a smile as she sat down, noticing how happy her parents seemed to be for her last day. The three ate in relative silence, Sammi switching gazes at her parents every so often. "Are you excited for the drive tomorrow, lovebug?" Mrs. Bass asked, breaking the silence as she wiped her mouth from any food.

"Yeah, hopefully, I don't have to deal with so much traffic in the morning," Sammi said, placing a napkin on a half-empty plate. "I'll be taking off at 8,"

"The morning drives are always the best kind of drives," Mr. Bass said, taking a sip of his lemonade. "The sun is just beginning to rise. Picking up fast food breakfast with a nice hot coffee. It's the best," Mr. Bass smiled at himself at the memories of his youth.

"Actually dad, driving in the middle of the night is way better. It's so peaceful. I loved it when I was up late on the bus with the guys, and I'd look out the window to see the moon. It was always the best," Sammi said, pressing her lips together, leaving a bittersweet memory in her mind. "But not this time! It'll be fun getting to San Francisco on my own and getting to unpack,"

"Remember you have to call us once you get to your apartment so we know you're safe," Mrs. Bass said, grabbing the dirty dishes to leave them in the sink.

"Yes, Mama. I'll remember," Sammi said with a smile. "Do you guys have any last-minute parenting advice before I leave tomorrow?" Sammi asked, resting her chin in the palm of her hand. Mr. and Mrs. Bass looked at each other for a moment, pursing their lips as they thought of something.

"Don't get a ticket when you're parking the car somewhere. And if you, pay it right away or it can pile up," Mr. Bass said, pointing a strong finger at Sammi.

"I think Sammi meant words of wisdom for leaving," Mrs. Bass said, rolling her eyes playfully at her husband. "Lovebug, I know the feeling of moving away from your home. It's going to be scary and you'll question things almost every day, but this is something great for you. I want you to always remember that," Mrs. Bass said to Sammi, holding their hands together gingerly.

"And don't worry about being selfish. If you want to leave, you should leave and find a better way for yourself. The world is big enough to explore," Mr. Bass added to Mrs. Bass's advice, Sammi smiling both at her parents.

"Thanks, mama and dad. I really appreciate it," Sammi said, swallowing away more of the emotions that have been building up.

"We love you," Mrs. Bass said, kissing Sammi on the cheek.

"And don't forget it," Mr. Bass added, kissing Sammi on the crown of her head. "Do you want to watch some tv before you leave? It's still pretty early by the looks of my watch," Mr. Bass asked Sammi, glancing down at the brand new watch Tommy gifted on his wrist. Sammi only nodded to her father, seeing Mrs. Bass began to load the dishwasher as she slowly rose from her seat. Sammi followed her father down the hallway's short distance, Mr. Bass flipping channels on his recliner. She laid on the sofa, relaxing, enjoying the last few moments of this consistent bonding with her parents. Sammi bit on the nail of her thumb for a majority of the time shared, glancing at the clock on the fire mantel before it was time to go. After driving for a few miles in utter silence, Sammi finally let down the tears she withheld from the day. She then remembered one last person she wanted to say goodbye to, making her cry even more. Sammi parked the car off the side of the dark road, clenching onto the steering wheel as she hurled over, letting out a weeping cry. Sammi gasped for air as she continued to weep, hot tears crawling down her face.

"I'm sorry, Nikki," Sammi whispered to herself, breathing in heavily as she squared her shoulders in her seat. Sammi wiped away the stains on her cheeks, turning her car back on as she drove out into the night.

[bananaink]

KeGO December Day 5 - Look how cute they are, urgh!

Aizawa was troubled. He couldn’t exactly say what troubled him, but he was troubled. And he could feel it souring his mood.

Kirishima – frozen as if Aizawa wouldn’t be able to see him then – stared at the ground while Midoriya excitedly flapped their intertwined hands in front of his guardians' face.

“Look! I’m holding his hand, quirk active, but he’s still soft! Look!”

Midoriya pinched Kirishimas arm to show what he meant.

“And I can shift his hardening around! Look!”

Then he held Kirishimas arm up, showing him his sharp elbow and how the hardening slowly wandered around, down his arm and up to Kirishimas intimidated face. He looked up and accidently met Aizawas eyes, boring into his, and quickly let his gaze nervously wander up the ceiling. Which gave Midoriya the leeway to point at Kirishimas hardened left cheek and then the squishy right one. He poked into the soft skin mercilessly.

“This is so fascinating – you're not doing anything, right Kirishima?”

“No, I don’t.”, the boy answered dutifully and Midoriya made that excited jazz-hand Aizawa was always a little surprised to be blessed with.

“No, he doesn’t! I’m doing it!”

“Midoriya, stop poking Kirishima, he’s not a stress toy.”, Aizawa said, despite Kirishima seeming fine with the prodding, submitting to Midoriyas sudden inability to keep his hands to himself. Fiddling with a hardened strand of hair, Midoriya leaned even closer to Kirishima.

“I never had the chance to feel my quirk work like this! It’s like pushing it- no, coaxing it to- to follow my lead! It’s reacting to me and my quirk it- it's so easy and it feels warm and safe, as if it’s protecting me, too!”

Kirishimas cheeks slowly turned red at the praise, while Midoriya suddenly jerked and viciously pinched his own arm.

“But it’s not actually transferring, it’s just a feeling, so am I connected to you then? Through your quirk? Is that it? But why would I be able to manipulate it, if I’m just connecting because to manipulate, I’d have to actually tap into...”

Aizawa blinked a little bit and watched Midoriyas mouth form words and actually sounding them loud out. Red-faced and uncomfortably stiff in front of his homeroom-teacher, Kirishima kept on avoiding eye-contact with him, just as Midoriya pulled Kirishimas arm up to examine his elbow. In the back of the teachers-lounge, Snipe lifted his head over the backrest of the couch to see what the big commotion was about and out of the corner of his eyes Aizawa saw Hizashi giggling behind his hands. Aizawa sighed and let his arms drop into his lap.

“Well, can you stop using it?”

Midoriya flinched and pulled Kirishima close as if Aizawa was about to take him away, surprised and indignant at the same time. Protectiveness flooded Midoriyas eyes, hot and gleaming, before he frowned and turned his face into a contemplating grimace. Immediately Kirishimas quirk spluttered and randomly hardened his body, showing Midoriyas internal struggle. The redhead shifted uncomfortably, sometimes jerking in a way that suggested he had hardened at an unexpected place but otherwise stayed still as Midoriya fixated him with a glare. Concentrating.

“Wait, I think-”

Aizawa carefully observed the interaction, noting how Kirishimas quirk was jumping all over the place but just like a hit-a-mole-game, every time Midoriya managed to stop the quirk at one place, a sharp edge appeared somewhere else. Frustration began to creep up his mouth and at the first ragged inhale from Kirishima... Aizawa leaned forward.

“Easy there, he’s getting exhausted.”, he said and watched as Kirishima pulled himself together under Midoriyas sudden crestfallen stare. He wanted to let go of the redhead but Kirishima squeezed his hand with slightly hardened fingers. Blushing a little bit more.

“I’m fine! I can keep going!”, he reassured Midoriya and Aizawa at the same time with the most trustful and determined look - that was fairly unnecessary in this current situation. But he sounded raspy, breathless. Sweat had started to roll down his face again and Aizawa knew he had been training with Bakugou only half an hour prior to this demonstration because unlike Kirishima, Bakugou had actually signed out of the training-grounds.

“Don’t overwork yourself. Especially in an unauthorized training session, Kirishima. Do I need to give more assignments since you are obviously having enough time? Or maybe another training session?”

Kirishima instantly went white and rigid – the left side of his hair hardened as Midoriya stepped forward, free hand on his hip and his chin jutting out in a challenge.

“Don’t be mean, we accidently did this.”

“So you accidently trained without my permission? How does that work?”

Midoriya rolled his eyes and gestured with one hand in the air. Absentmindedly Aizawa noted how expressive Midoriya was today. Body moving without his usual jittery nerves, hand – for all its flapping – controlled and more focused than ever. His scarred cheek didn’t twitch in thought but rather followed his thoughts and painted them right onto his face. He was obviously in thought as he tried to convince his guardian that they hadn't been messing with each-others quirks on purpose. A sentence his ward had started to use more frequently.

“He just- I helped him with a quirk thing – over a week ago, and it was in class so no rule-breaking here, you can stop glaring – and he wanted to tell me how it went. And we just talked and suddenly I realized we were holding hands and I was able to just reach out and feel this warmth spreading through my arms. Or, not really warmth because that would be weird, right? Maybe I’m connecting nerve-cells with another body through my skin and the sensation translates over to me? Kirishima, are you hot?”

The redhead immediately blushed at Midoriya who suddenly had turned around again and was just about an inch away from his face.

“Uh, maybe?”

“So, your quirk feels hot when you use it? How does it feel when you turn it off, do you get cold? How do you even tell if it’s hot or cold when your skin hardens, you said nothing can hurt you but is it more like a shell or like a blanket? Can you feel temperatures? Can you feel Bakugous blasts? I now you can hold them off but-”

Everyone in the room turned their heads at the sudden flood of words drowning the atmosphere without an end in sight and Aizawa felt a hand on his shoulder. Hizashi leaned forward, close to his ear.

“Holy shit, what’s going on?”

Aizawa stared at Midoriya currently bombarding the poor overwhelmed Kirishima with a thousand questions a minute.

“To be honest, I have no idea.”

Yamada slapped Aizawas shoulder a few times, excitement pouring out of him and he could feel his best friend grinning right beside his face.

“He is so excited; I’ve never seen him talk that much! And poor Kirishima is trying so hard, Urgh! They are so adorable! My heart! Can I buy him a new sweater? I promise it’ll be reasonably priced and only three-colored.”

Aizawa was about to tell his friend no, when Midoriya started tugging at Kirishimas hand. The redhaired boy wasn’t answering fast enough and his ward had probably decided to check some things himself so he poked him again in the face and arms and shoulders and chest-

“Okay, that’s enough.”, Aizawa said sternly, just as Midoriya was about to tug Kirishimas shirt out of the way right in the middle of the teachers' lounge. Kirishima – still beet-red – looked up gratefully and – to Aizawas surprise – a little disappointed when Midoriya flinched backwards and hit his lower back at Aizawas desk. They were still holding hands, which Aizawa now identified as the source of his troubled mind and Midoriyas word-vomit abruptly cut off.

Silence fell upon them and Kirishimas whole arm hardened up to his shoulder and over half of his face. Midoriya quickly released him and then pulled his sleeves over his arms and hands.

“Uh, sorry, uhm, I didn’t realize-”

Regret and a pang of guilt stabbed Aizawa in the chest as he saw how Midoriya closed off again, crossing his arms over his chest, shoving his hand under his arms and worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. But one look at the panting Kirishima, shutting off his quirk and smiling a little tiredly reminded the adult that he had to draw some lines here. For both their sakes. Kirishima waved Midoriyas apology off.

“Don’t sweat it. I’m just happy to help, dude.”

At Midoriyas miserable jumping eyes, obviously taking in Kirishimas slightly slumped shoulders and sweat running down his skin, Kirishima tried for a more convincing smile, holding his fist up.

“Maybe we can try this again later? With permission, of course.” He quickly looked at Aizawa for confirmation and Aizawa had two pairs of eyes on him in an instant. Kirishima nervous and exhausted, Midoriya waiting for his final words. All of his previous excitement stifled and simmering under his usual mask of uncertain indifference.

Hizashi nudged him in the shoulder and he sighed.

“I can schedule some time for you two tomorrow in the gym. Kirishima, clean yourself up and get home. Midoriya, you can help him but no more quirk-testing, am I clear?”

His ward nodded and when Kirishima invitingly shook his fist in front of him, Midoriya rapped his knuckles gently and short against his.

Immediately Kirishimas trademark grin reappeared and lifted the heavy atmosphere Midoriyas sudden silence had left behind from their shoulders.

“Awesome, dude! Maybe you can tell me more about how my quirk feels! You said it’s like a heat?”

Looking at Aizawa with one quick glance, Midoriya pushed himself away from the desk and led the way out of the room.

“Uhm, no, it- it's more like a- uhm- a hug, I think...”, he mumbled and Aizawa heard his nervous embarrassed stutter resurfacing. Kirishima followed, oblivious or ignoring Midoriyas closed off body language, hovering around him and keeping his distance as they passed Yagi on the way.

“Awesome! Like a manly bro-hug or more like a manly manly-hug?”

“What- What’s the difference?”

“Well, a bro-hug, is like-”

And then the door fell shut behind them, mercifully saving Aizawa from the explanation Kirishima was about to give his foster child. He rubbed his eyes. He would probably still have to hear about it tonight. Hizashi cackled beside him, slapping his shoulder.

“Man, that was so adorable! How fast can this boy even talk! Did you catch what he said? So many questions, wow!”

“That was a first for me, too...”, Aizawa grumbled and Hizashi let out a loud whoop.

“And Kirishimas face! Did you see it? Hoo, boy, this is going to be great!”

Aizawa miserably groaned just as Yagi sat down at his desk, looking confused.

“Did I miss something? Why is everyone looking so surprised?”

Turning in his chair, Aizawa let his head fall on the table and tried to forget how starstruck and red-faced and helplessly smitten Kirishima had looked. How he had held his foster child's hand and easily went with everything he had asked for. And how ecstatic Midoriya had filled the air with babbling and mumbling, voice full of life and melodic wonder. Hizashi kept on slapping his shoulder and then his back in excitement, hollering with laughter.

“Have fun teaching that, my friend!”

“What? What happened?”, asked Yagi in alarm and Aizawa tried to kick Hizashi from his slumped form. But his friend just walked away snickering, unharmed.

“I need to call Nemuri right now!”

Aizawa glared with his quirk after him until he ducked out of his field of vision.

Traitor.

________

This was so much fun to write!! :D Babbling Midoriya is a happy Midoriya :D

Crossposted here on AO3 and check out @banashee , her Day 5 was as adorable as I hoped it would be!

And have a great day everyone!

[ashenious]

Out of My Hands - Chapter 1 of 2 (The Witcher)

For This Chapter: Rating: Mature (If you can watch the show/play the games then you can read this) Warnings: Canon-Typical Violence, Blood Additional: (Jaskier) Whump Word Count: 3943 A/N: I fell down a rabbit hole and now I'm here. My brain only had the idea "Hurt the bard" and the trope of a knife pinning someone to a wall in mind, and somehow this came to be. I also need angst somewhere after episode 6 so that'll be reserved for part 2 as this fic got way too long somehow.

AO3 Link: Part 1/Part 2

Part 1/Part 2

         Jaskier didn’t have many things to fear, after all, he was usually traveling with Geralt of Rivia, the White Wolf, the infamous Witcher of the continent, and he had never let anything bad happen to Jaskier. Geralt would have begged to differ, as his experiences with Jaskier only seeming to be those that were ridiculous and troublesome and often taking a turn for the worst. Even in those situations that would change to Geralt having to save Jaskier from trouble he had gotten the pair into, Jaskier never walked away too terribly harmed. Despite his confidence that Geralt would most definitely save him on any given day, Jaskier still couldn’t stop himself from shrieking and attempting to run away at the first sign danger.

         It was the shriek from behind the wall of foliage that alerted Geralt to danger in the surrounding area, a shriek that Geralt couldn’t help but sigh at as the noise hit his ears while he was attempting remove Roach’s pack from her back. Setting the pack back down and gently patting Roach on her side, Geralt drew out his sword with his other hand before taking off in the direction of his bard’s out cry, wondering exactly what kind of trouble the man had gotten to in the middle of a forest. Again.

         Busting through a thicket that was particularly stubborn, Geralt let his eyes glide over the small opening before him as he took his stance, almost positive that he had heard Jaskier from the exact spot that he was standing in. Eyes still moving about the area, Geralt turned his attention to any and every noise that he could hear, hoping to catch a sign of where his bard had gone. None of the noises around him were unusual however, just the sounds of leaves brushing against each other as a light wind blew over head, and the sound of the creak flowing nearby that Jaskier was supposed to have gone to to grab some water from.

         The sound of something cracking caught Geralt’s attention after a few moments of listening around, but as the sound seemed to be coming from 2 different places, Geralt felt his face tighten as he chose to look in the direction of where the noise seemed closest. Seeing nothing in the area from where the noise seemed to be, Geralt turned his head to look toward the other area where he thought he had heard the cracking noise. It was only but a second later that Geralt felt something strong hit the side of his head, something that hit with a purpose as Geralt felt his vision quickly fade from his eyes.

         He didn’t feel himself hit the ground as he lost consciousness, so as he felt the spots of his sight coming back, Geralt curiously shifted against the feeling of something solid at his back. It took a few moments for his vision to return slowly, but the first thing that Geralt noticed when he was able to see fully was that 2 people were shuffling their hands through Jaskier’s bag. Blinking at the sight to try to clear his vison of the last few specks of darkness flickering about, Geralt’s ears picked up the sound of someone to his right.

         “Come now, whatever’s in my bag that you think you may need, I’m sure we can talk this through! There’s no need to be brutish toward our belongings!” Jaskier said as Geralt turned to face him. Seeing his lute being tossed to the side as the people continued to empty out his bag onto the ground, Jaskier let out an overly loud gasp that made the 2 people before him turn to face him. “Not my lute! Oh, the dirt is not good for the strings!”

         “Ah, the Witcher is awake…” one of the persons mumbled as their eyes crossed over to Geralt. Turning his gaze to the people as Jaskier turned his eyes to him, Geralt locked eyes with the person who had spoken and waited for them to speak again.

        “Oh, Geralt! Oh, thank the heavens you are alright!” Jaskier said before anyone else spoke. “Can you please tell this overly brutish pair that there was no need to tie us up just to riffle through our stuff? We would’ve been more than happy to share…whatever it is that they needed from us had they just asked us.” Hearing Jaskier continue to talk, Geralt assumed that he wasn’t injured by the 2 still looking at him.

        He hadn’t seen any visible injuries on the bard when he had looked at him either, only scruffs of dirt on his doublet. For most people, Geralt would’ve assumed that they were alright by the fact that they were talking, but not Jaskier. The bard talked through any state he was in, even in his worst states where it was best for him to remain silent, so Geralt took the lack of blood on the man as a sign he wasn’t harmed. Had the bard remained completely silent, Geralt would have assumed the worst had happened while he was unconscious.

         “I’m afraid we have nothing of value in our packs that you may be searching for,” Geralt said simply as he glanced between the people before him.

        “Oh, I don’t believe that. A Witcher has to have something of value with him on his travels,” the other person said as they turned back to Jaskier’s bag. Dumping all the remaining contents onto the ground, Jaskier let out a groan at the sight.

         “If you want a Witcher’s stuff, then pray tell why you are going through my belongings?” Jaskier said as he squirmed a bit. As the person still looking at him broke eye contact, Geralt looked over to Jaskier and his squirming. The man was normally an active and animated person in any situation, but never so much so one for wiggling around seemingly randomly. Jaskier kept his eyes on the people before him, and as he continued to ramble on about the dirt collecting on his things while the pair began to go through Geralt’s bag, Geralt noticed the almost free movement of his arms behind the bard’s back.

         Feeling his own arms bound by something, Geralt wondered if the people who had tied them up didn’t see Jaskier as that much of a threat and so didn’t tie his arms back as strongly as his own, or if the bard’s incessant wiggling was able to loosen the holds on him. Either way, as Jaskier continued to talk on and on, Geralt could see the focused look in his eyes as he stared forward and continued his squirming.

          Moving his eyes from Jaskier to the area around, Geralt spotted his swords thrown haphazardly into a bush nearby, taking note of exactly how far away they were before turning his eyes back to Jaskier. Meeting the bard’s eyes for a second, Geralt nodded gently and turned to watch as his bag was roughly shook to remove all his belongings from inside.

        This method of escaping his bindings wasn’t Geralt’s preferred way, but it seemed that the robbers weren’t up for discussion in the current moment, and the sun was going to set soon. Hoping to be able to intimidate the 2 before him once he was free, Geralt only glanced at his swords for a second as he confirmed their location should the people proved more violent once he was free.

         The pair still hadn’t turned their eyes back to Geralt and Jaskier as the talkative man finally pulled his arms free, and Geralt kept his eyes in front of him as he saw the quick movement of Jaskier’s arms in his peripherals. Seeing a hand coming at him from his right, Geralt prepared himself to stand up and run toward his swords.

         Just as Jaskier’s hand disappeared behind the limits of his sights, Geralt saw the person on the left turn around suddenly, and just as suddenly as they turned around, their hand flew through the air and released something toward the Witcher and his bard. Feeling his teeth clench at the sight, Geralt tried to throw himself to his right, and tried to use his body to push Jaskier out of the way.

         Finding his body stuck to the tree behind him despite his attempts, Geralt let out a small grunt as he was kept in place just as he watched a knife pierce through the palm of his bard’s outstretched left hand, quickly pinning him to the tree that was behind him. As soon as the knife went through his hand, Jaskier let out a scream from the pain that surged through his arm, his other hand coming up to grab at his forearm tightly.

         As he screamed, Geralt watched as another knife flew past his eyes and into the left side of Jaskier’s belly. Curling forward on impact, Jaskier reached his still free hand down and placed it around the knife poking out of his stomach, his middle finger and ring finger clenched tightly around the handle to prevent it from moving.

         “Jaskier!” Pulling on his bindings again, Geralt watched as Jaskier released ragged breaths of pain and his shoulders shook with his breaths. Hearing laughing coming from his side, Geralt turned his head to see the robber that had thrown the knives laughing and juggling 3 more knives in their hand.

         “Going somewhere, bard?” they said before they turned back around to again go through Geralt’s stuff. They continued to juggle the knives in their hand as they watched their partner sort through the things on the ground, and Geralt couldn’t stop his face from scrunching up in anger.

         “Well, I was… trying to!” Hearing a bit of movement again, Geralt turned and watched as Jaskier tried to reach his free hand toward Geralt’s arms again, his hand trembling as he got closer. He stopped just out of reach of Geralt’s arms, and Geralt tried to close the distance between them, unsuccessful as he still remained held in place against his tree.

          “Fuck…” he heard Jaskier curse as the man continued to reach. Seeing the blood that was beginning to stain the bard’s clothing, Geralt gritted his teeth.

         “Stop. You’re bleeding too much.” Geralt whispered harshly at Jaskier, who simply ignored him and continued yet to extend his hand toward Geralt. Blood continued soaking through the Jaskier’s doublet, and as the edge was reached and blood began to soak into his pants, Geralt cursed. “Jaskier!”

         “Almost…” Jaskier whispered as he tried to inch his hand closer still. The robber who was still juggling their knives glanced back at the bard, and again they laughed at the sight before them before they turned back around to their partner who was examining a bag that held Geralt’s recent payments.

         As the juggler turned away, Jaskier yanked his hand away from Geralt, causing the man to furrow his face at the action, and as Jaskier’s hand grasped onto the knife keeping his other hand in place against the tree, Geralt couldn’t help but clench his fists. Jaskier sucked in his breath sharply, and he slowly let it go as he glanced at Geralt. Clutching tightly on the handle of the knife, Jaskier ripped it out of his hand quickly, a sharp intake of breath accompanying his movement as he fell over toward Geralt.

        Jaskier’s breaths returned to their rapid and ragged exhalations, and blood began to flow from his hand as it fell and then lay on the ground next to him, small twitches of his fingers moving the blood off his hand faster. His other hand was still clenched impossibly tight on the handle, his knuckles white and his finger nails digging into his palm when he pushed his good hand forward, quickly slicing at the binds that held Geralt down just as the robber before them turned and again threw at knife at the bard.

         Geralt didn’t hesitate for a moment, his arms quickly pulling free from their place behind him and flying forward, palms open, as one flew over Jaskier and as the other cast Aard toward the incoming knife and toward the petty thieves. Both were blown back by the wave of energy, the knife flying into the body of the robber that had thrown it, and the bodies of the pair flying back past the trees that lined the clearing. Geralt quickly pulled himself to standing as the thieves flew in the air, his feet quickly taking him over to his discarded swords.

         Picking one of them up, Geralt heard the crunching of leaves, his head quickly turning toward the noise to see the pair beginning to run off, their legs moving them as fast as they could through the trees and surrounding bushes. Geralt huffed at the sight, and gently set down his sword against the nearest tree before he turned back to Jaskier who was still breathing harshly behind him.

         “Looks like they couldn’t handle their own poisons,” Jaskier laughed quietly as Geralt moved closer to him. “Stab me a few times, but they run at the thought of being stabbed by a Witcher? I’ve never seen such cowa—”

         “Jaskier, shut up,” Geralt said as he knelt down to the bard. “Give me your hand,” he commanded as he reached his hand out to Jaskier. Jaskier lifted his good hand to Geralt and set it gently in the Witcher’s hand, who only proceeded to move his away quickly. “Your injured hand, Jaskier.”

        “Oh, uh.” Glancing down at his still bleeding hand, the bard twitched his fingers a few times before turning back to look at Geralt. “I don’t think you’ll want this hand, it’s bleeding quite a bit. It’s got a mind of its own too, won’t listen to me trying to not move it at al– oh, you’re just going to grab– have at it then I suppose!” Grabbing and then examining Jaskier’s hand, Geralt tried to not move it too much as blood began to slide onto his own hand. Reaching down pulling a large polishing cloth from the pile of his discarded items, Geralt gently began to wrap it around his bard’s hand as the man watched him with his face contorted in a bit of pain. “Oh, that smarts a bit!”

        “You’ll live.” Geralt said simply as he finished tying the wrap. “However.” Turning his eyes toward the knife still sticking out of Jaskier, the man followed Geralt’s gaze and then turned quickly back up to meet the Witcher’s eyes.

         “Oh dear, is this going to hurt as bad as the last knife?” he asked, a bit of panic in his eyes. “We could- We could just leave it! Yeah! No need to cause any more harm! Doesn’t even hurt anymore, actually. Just feels like a little pinch, and I can live with that. It’ll make for a great story to tell! ‘Why the bard lives with a knife in his belly!’ or maybe ‘How a simple bard got stabbed and saved the White Wolf!’ So, let’s just be on our wa—” Geralt reached his hands toward the bard slowly, one gently pressing on the rambling man’s stomach around the knife as the other grasped onto the handle. “Geralt! Are you even listening to me?” Jaskier gasped as his good hand flew down and grabbed onto the wrist of the hand pressing firmly onto his stomach.

         “About as much as you listen to me,” Geralt said simply as he looked over the knife. “It’s a short knife, so the harm should be minimal. We’ll cover it, and ride to the town we passed a short ways away.”

         “We can’t just leave it in and instead find a healer who will help me in a gentler, less painful way?” Jaskier asked, his hand still gripped tightly on Geralt.

         “No.”

         “Can I at least have something to bi—”

         “Jaskier.”

        “Oh alright! Get on with i—!" Geralt didn’t even wait for the man to finish his sentence before he pulled the short knife out of Jaskier, a loud outcry coming from the bard immediately as Geralt quickly closed his hand over the freed wound. Ragged breaths again escaped the bard as Geralt tossed the knife to his side, and Jaskier’s hand continued to hold onto his wrist as he did so with a grip that was impossibly tight but not affecting the Witcher’s movements. “Fuck! That hurts! Must you press so hard on me?”

         “Do you wish to not be able to tell the tale of how you were stabbed?” Geralt asked flatly, his hand not letting up any pressure on the wound below it as he reached his other hand to Jaskier’s doublet.

         “Oh, alright, keep pressing then!” Jaskier conceded, his hand finally letting go of Geralt’s. “This will turn into an epic tale, I suppose. I—hey, what’re you doing?” Feeling the buttons on his doublet slowly become undone by Geralt’s hand, Jaskier looked at the man in confusion. “I do truly doubt now is the best time for me to strip down, the sun’s almost gone down! I’m going to freeze to death before I bleed to death!”

          “It’s already ruined with blood; you’ll use it to hold down on your wound whilst we travel.” Geralt growled as he kept on unbutton the bard’s doublet, slightly irritated at his bard’s resistance to being helped. Pulling the last button free, Geralt yanked at the sleeve of the shirt on the bard’s right side. “Take it off.”

         “Are you this bossy with everyone you strip down?”

         “Jaskier.”

        “Alright, alright! I concede!” Jaskier struggled to pull off his doublet, his right arm flailing a bit in as he struggled to remove the garment from himself, and as the top finally began to fall off of him, he struggled to free himself from the sleeve entirely as Geralt kept his hand pressed firmly down on his still bleeding wound. “This would be tremendously easier if I didn’t have a brute’s hand holding part of it in place.”

         “I’m keeping you from bleeding out everywhere,” Geralt growled as Jaskier finally removed his arm from his sleeve. Reaching about the bard, Geralt pulled the doublet off of Jaskier’s injured arm and around his whole torso before beginning to ball up the garment over Jaskier’s wound. “Hold this here.”

         “Do I have to hold it as hard as you were doing?”

         “Yes.”

        “Do I really though? Is the pain it’s causing me not a sign I should—” Feeling a bit of cloth shoved into his mouth, Jaskier let out a muffled yelp as he realized that a clean part of his doublet was now preventing him from talking. Looking at Geralt with surprise, Jaskier saw the man about snarling.

         “Press.” The Witcher commanded, his finger pointing directly at the doublet on the bard. Pulling the garment out of his mouth, Jaskier huffed at the man, but listened and began to press down on his wound with his doublet. Geralt sighed as Jaskier listened, and then turned to the area behind him where his and Jaskier’s belongings were still spread about on the floor. He stood up and began to gather everything, not caring about whose stuff was going in whose bag, instead just gathering it all as quickly as he could. Once everything was in someone’s bag, Geralt turned to Jaskier, and hauled up the pair’s bags onto his shoulder before saying, “Stay sitting. I’ll get Roach ready, and then we’ll leave.”

         Stepping out of the area, Geralt made his way quickly to where Roach was, happy that she didn’t seem like she had been bothered by the robbers from before. Patting her gently on the side again by habit, the Witcher quickly and messily loaded his and Jaskier’s things onto his horse before he returned back to the area where Jaskier was waiting.

          Glancing at the bard who had actually listened and remained sitting, Geralt watched as Jaskier stared at his injured hand that still lay on the ground, the wrapping on it slightly peaking a bit of blood through it as it remained still. From Jaskier, Geralt moved his gaze to the sky, the sunset close as the shadows of the trees covered everything in the area. He wanted to have had camp set up by sundown, the fire he was going to make long since started and warming up the area that would soon be close to freezing cold as the sun disappeared. Travelling at night was never his preferred time, but Geralt knew that Jaskier wouldn’t be capable of not moving and not exacerbating his wound til it bled him dry during the night.

         Stepping over to the man, Geralt knelt down to Jaskier, who jumped a bit as he did so. Giving the bard a questioning look, Jaskier only shook his head a bit, a forced smile appearing on his face as Geralt stared at him.

         Geralt reached down and grabbed Jaskier’s injured hand gently, and as he set it gently over the bard’s body, he let out a light and short hum.

        “How far away was that last town? The sun is setting pretty quickly, are we really go—Whoa!” Barely listening to Jaskier, Geralt quickly put his arms under the man’s legs and arms and lifted him up as he stood with ease. Jaskier tensed up immediately as Geralt lifted him, his injured arm uncomfortably pressed between himself and Geralt’s chest, but he continued to press down on his doublet with his better arm despite discomfort. “Oh, this is less than dignified! Must this be how we move?”

         “You need to keep pressing on your wound, and this will keep you from moving too much,” Geralt explained as he began to walk back toward Roach, carefully stepping as to avoid making any sudden drops.

         “I can keep pressing on it as I walk! Oh, my epic tale is becoming less epic with each passing moment,” Jaskier complained as he watched Geralt walk through the thicket. “If I’m to keep myself from moving, pray tell how I’m supposed to get onto Roach without doing so?” Geralt glanced down at the man for a second, his expression unreadable to the bard as he walked closer to Roach. Lifting his hand for a moment, Geralt grabbed Roach’s reigns, taking a second to allow them to wrap around his wrist before returning his grip onto Jaskier’s shoulder. “Wait. Am I not getting on Roach?”

          “No. The ride would be too rough,” Geralt said simply as he began to walk toward the path, Roach following closely at his side.

        “Oh, just take all of my dignity from me!” the bard huffed, the side of his head pressing into Geralt’s shoulder firmly. “This is the most undignified outcome to the day!”

         “Hm,” was all the Geralt mustered forward as Jaskier complained. The bard continued to complain about his ‘epic tale’ as Geralt walked toward the nearest village, and it was only as the sun had finally set completely that Jaskier finally grew quiet. Geralt almost reveled in the silence but keeping his eyes forward and ears on the alert, he focused instead on making sure that he wouldn’t be surprised by any people who may also be traveling during the night. So focused on the task at hand, Geralt was unable to see Jaskier as his eyes stared down at his injured hand as he attempted to move it, unable to do so despite his best efforts. Scrunching his face as he attempted once more, the bard finally gave up and turned his eyes toward the road.

[justjessame]

Silence Chapter 3

While I seemingly crossed paths with Negan more and more, the scarier moments came when I could see him, but he had no idea that I was nearby. Watching him turn the same charm on that he seemed to ooze onto the leader of the animalistic group made my stomach churn and bile threaten to force its way free.

If he used this tactic on her for some shady purpose, then what purpose was he using it on me?

During downtime, which I had an ample surplus of, I had to decide whether reflection of the past was warranted or wasting time on a future that seemed less and less possible was a better use of the time.

Memories? My dad-single or widower, depending upon which relative or narrative was easiest to swallow at the moment, a therapist who was more in touch with his patients’ issues than his own. Remember the old saying, “a shoemaker’s children always go barefoot”? My father took it to heart and made damn sure that I would be fine, he just wasn’t as careful with his own mental health.

His death, coming a full year before the rest of the world went to shit, was something of a gift. If I’d had to- no best not to even THINK it- OK memories were a NO.

A future daydream then-alright.

Let me think about it. First, we’d need a cure. A cure for anyone bitten by one of the infected or dying with the infection inside them. We need a humane way to end those who would rise if they do die, something that would allow us to keep our humanity in check. And let’s figure out how to keep one another from going full on feral.

So we have: Cure for bitten and dying? Check.

Humane end for the risen? Check.

Feral humans put back to sorts? Check.

That just leaves-

“Elara-” Damn it. He’d NEARLY gotten the drop on me. Almost. I’d heard the snap of a twig on his approach. The slight scent of that gruesome mask, hell even the undercurrent of his musk. “You look like you’re pretty fucking focused on something.”

I shook my head and stretched. Refocusing on him. He looked- Like he needed a distraction too.

“What’s wrong?” He barely breathed, but I could make out the gentle rise of his chest. A small sigh. “Pull up a patch of dirt.”

He sat, across from me, his long legs framing mine. “You said you aren’t a joiner.” I nodded. “Ever?”

“Clubs in school, I guess.” I settled more comfortably against my tree. “Why do you ask?”

“I’ve been a-” he shook his head like he was trying to convince himself. “Leader, a prisoner, a follower-”

“Any of them fit?” His eyes met mine and he smirked. “Ever try just being yourself?”

Huffing out a short breath, he shook his head. “And who the fuck is that?”

I shrugged. “Negan.”

I wander for a ton of reasons. Sometimes I get bored. I feel nomadic and I want a change of scenery. I like being near water, for washing, for fresh drinking, and for the calming effect.

I like to move so I can get a new perspective. Looking at the same thing over and over, even if the view is nature isn’t healthy. So I wander to get a fresh view, fresh air, fresh ideas.

Food is another reason. Be it for hunting or foraging, I like to have variety. Sticking to the fringes keeps me out of known territory, giving me plausible deniability if I’m ‘caught’ by one faction or another. It also keeps me apprised if I have to run, hide, or keep out of the fucking way of whatever wave of violence is coming next. Because while the monsters are real, humans are still just as fucking dangerous.

As I’m on one of my foot powered trips, I hear it. It’s as familiar to me as it is to any human being. Even if you were spared the rod like me, you’ve heard the sound of a whipping. It’s been used in movies, it’s been heard in music videos and in sex play, so the sound isn’t as foreign as one would like to imagine. And as much as I’d love to pretend otherwise, I’d heard it many times as I’ve flitted around the territory of the weirdos that Negan was making time with.

It shouldn’t have shocked me, really it shouldn’t have, that he’d be taking part in this round. Or that it would be a ritual between him and Alpha. They were doing a weird tug and pull, those two, and I had no reason to see it as anything strange or abnormal. I barely knew the man, afterall. Yet, as I stood far out of sight, watching as they whipped one another’s arms, as the chanting began warning me to seek shelter far away from what was sure to come, something told me that I knew him far less than even I’d thought possible.

I knew, regardless of how I felt about the chanting, whipping, really gruesome and sadly anticlimactic S&M imagery, that I needed to get my ass hidden in one of my MANY hidey holes. One of the other side effects of wandering is that I had a cache of places that most survivors barely glanced at that would not only keep me safe, but offered me a place to tuck away to and ignore the rest of humanity until they got their shit back in order.

Some were clearly old hunting cabins, others were shacks, and some bore the tell tale signs of being former moonshine stills. Regardless, four walls at least and a roof were my requirements. Bonus if there was a stove or fireplace of some sort, and God fucking praise Jesus if it was furnished.

Of course, I should have known, given my luck since meeting Negan for the very first fucking time at MY bathing spot that he’d find my spot. That out of ALL of the shacks in ALL of Godforesaken fuckoff Virginia Negan would manage to bring Alpha to MINE.

I was writing in my notebook, killing time as the quiet was cloaking me like a soft blanket when I heard the first hint that it was being broken. And then, arrow notched, shoulder against the side of the shack, I watched as he walked behind HER as they approached MY spot. My heart was pounding SO loudly in my ears that IF they were speaking I couldn’t hear the words. I knew the moment she saw me. I saw the surprise on her face. The confusion. I was shocked, because I expected an attack, but she only turned to him, a question on her lips, and then with a flash across her neck, she had a matching wound to his. Only hers was far more effective at quieting her than his had been.

What happened next? I sat down, back to the image of him and her, to whatever was outside MY shack. My back against the wall of the shack, my bow on my knees the silence returned or the pounding of my heart so loud again that I was rendered deaf. I didn’t see what happened after the flash of his blade, or after I turned away. I didn’t want to.

I’m not sure I was still in the shack, honestly. I thought about when I was a little girl. When my dad was seeing patients from his office at our house, a huge red brick Victorian on a tree lined street in southern West Virginia. The sidewalks were rippled by the roots of the trees, imperfect and I remembered jumping over the humps. Creating hopscotch boards on the sidewalk was difficult, so we had to go to the playground or the park.

I remembered my grandma fussing at Dad about a pair of white knit leggings he bought, and how he’d been so distracted with his schedule that he hadn’t paid attention to the panties I wore under them, so when I came home that evening, she’d had to point out that the very bright primary colored rainbow ones I chose weren’t appropriate and that he’d have to show as much concern to his kindergarten age little girl as to the crazies that were coming and going each day.

“Elara?” Hoarse, his voice sounded hoarse. My eyes were locked on the dust motes dancing in the late day sunbeams shining through the cracks of the shack’s walls. “Can you say something?”

“Is she dead?” Just as quiet and hoarse as his, I wondered, idly if he’d buried or burned her body. He knelt in front of me, in the path of my dusty dancers, forcing my focus on him. “Well?”

He nodded, eyes locked on mine, but hands to himself. “Yeah, she’s dead.” My turn to nod. “I need you to come with me, Elara.” I tilt my head, studying him. “Please?”

I want to argue with him on this. I don’t join anyone. Especially men who randomly cut a woman’s throat in front of another woman, but he cut a woman’s throat in front of me, so perhaps now is NOT the best time to poke that particular bear. I nod my ascent. He helps me to my feet and waits while I get my pack and shit together.

“I have to meet with a few people,” I’m thinking about the giant that is Beta, now that he’s killed their Alpha, he gets that designation. A leader, like he was before. “And, I need you to trust me.”

Easier said than done, I think, but say nothing.

Negan talks as we walk. He asked me if I listened as he and Alpha came to the shack. I don’t speak, honestly there’s not a hell of a fuck ton to say. He takes my silence as a ‘no’, so he tells me the story of his past.

“I was married,” I listen, thinking if nothing else it gives me something other than the bag he’s carrying or the knife I know he has to think about. “Before everything went to shit, I was married to a woman named Lucille.” He’s walking beside me, measuring his steps to match my shorter strides, keeping pace with me. “She didn’t tell me she was sick, not until it was too late to do anything to help her. She died right when-” When he stopped I understood, when he would have to make a choice that no one should have to make. “I couldn’t do it.” I thought about how I felt about Dad dying a year earlier, knowing that I didn’t have to make that choice. A gift. “My emotions? Gone. It changed me into-” he sighed, and biting his lip, I felt his gaze land on me. “I told her,” I knew he meant Alpha, “that I’m dead inside. It’s gone, I have nothing left.” I should be afraid then, right? Isn’t that the warning of a killer? Someone who wants to murder and rip people apart? “I lied.”

I swallowed, but kept walking. I didn’t know what he wanted. I didn’t know who he was, what he was, but I truly fucking hoped I wasn’t about to die at his hands. Or at the hands of whomever he was insisting I go with him to meet.

[themadlostgirl]

Not Dead Yet (Part 81)

*Thank you all for over 800 followers! I love you guys! Lets see how many followers I still have after this though.*

Pairing: Reader x Peter Pan

Warnings: language

I didn’t turn around immediately. I knew once I looked at him I wouldn’t be able to change my mind. I need to choose right now.

“Y/N?” He spoke and I clutched the pearl necklace around my throat.

Do it now.

I turned around and met his clear green eyes. My choice cemented.

“Peter.”

“I’m sorry for trapping you down here. Know I had no other choice.” he pulled out a bowl full of food, “I brought you something to eat in case you were hungry.”

“Thanks.” I set the bowl on the table and took his hands. The action seemed to surprise him but he didn’t pull away.

“You know that I don’t remember being Y/N.”

“Yes.”

“You know the others brought me here to help rescue Henry from you.”

“Yes.”

“Did you know that this wasn’t what I wanted?”

This caught his attention. He furrowed his brow at me. “What do you mean?”

“Before Henry was taken, before everyone labeled you a villain, I had already wanted to come here. I thought it would give me answers...memories.”

“But then I had a new purpose. One that was more important.” I stood tall, “Henry is a great kid. He has helped me so much and I don’t want him to get hurt. I don’t want any of them harmed.”

“Because you don’t know better.” Peter squeezed my hands.

“I do. I know that what happened to me is unforgivable in your eyes but it isn’t their fault I don’t remember. I crossed the town line on accident. I have no one to blame but myself.”

“No. You’re smarter than that.” He stepped away from me, “You wouldn’t have accidentally done something that made you forget who you truly are.”

“I don’t know that. I don’t know anything about Y/N except for what I was told.” I reached out and wrapped my arms around him from behind, “But I want to. I want to remember. I want to be Y/N again. You’re the only one that wants that too. Tell me what to do. How can I help? If it can give you the power to restore my memories and bring back the real me then I want to be of assistance in any way I can. Then I can remember. Then we can be together again, like we’re supposed to be. Like I want us to be.”

“How can I be sure this isn’t a trick?” He muttered softly.

“You can’t. You can only take my word and believe that I’m telling the truth. It’s a leap of faith.” I rested my forehead in the space between his shoulder blades, “Faith, trust, and a little push.”

I could feel the quiet rumble of a laugh that didn’t make it past his lips. “That’s what I said to you before I shoved you off a cliff.”

“Then I flew.” I nodded, “Small things like that have been coming back to me since being here. It isn’t much but it could be so much more.”

He brought me around so we were facing each other again. “If there is one thing I believe in this world, pet, it’s you. You’re still in there. I want to believe that.”

“So I can help?”

He studied me for a long time before finally nodding. “Yes. I believe you.” He kissed my forehead, “Let’s get out of here. There isn’t a moment to lose.”

He pulled a ladder down from the ceiling. I took a deep breath and followed him out. I felt horrible lying to Peter like this. He was putting so much trust in me.

As much as I wanted what I said it was only a half-truth. I want to remember, I want to know who Y/N was, but I can’t be with Peter. I’m not Y/N anymore. I’m Marigold. The only place I can truly belong is Storybrooke with the people that have helped me all this time. I couldn’t let this guy I’ve only known for a couple days uproot everything I am now. No matter how much it hurt to do so. No matter how much a part of me did want to stay.

I would not let him kill Henry.

Crawling back to the surface I was met with Peter’s beaming face and an outstretched hand as he helped me out of the hole in the ground. Why does the right thing have to feel so wrong?

~~~

We walked through the jungle, Peter’s hand interwoven with mine as we made the trek back to camp. Randomly he would mention something about our past or kiss the back of my hand. Each mention and each sweet action made me feel sick.

He trusted me so easily. And all I had to do was betray everything I wanted for what I knew was the right thing to do. I know you can’t always get what you want but damn it all to hell I wished just this once I could. I didn’t want to get it out of sacrificing another’s life though.

The guilt settled in my stomach like a heavy stone. Each soft look and gentle kiss only adding to the weight until I was sure it would drag me straight to the planet’s core.

I did my best to ignore the concerned gaze of Henry as I walked back into camp on Peter’s arm. I need to keep this up until I can get to Wendy. Even if Peter trusts me I doubt he’d let me run off on my own long enough to get to the others now that I had lost the looking glass.

It was getting rather late and we settled down for bed. I clung onto Peter as we lay side by side trying to rationalize away the act. It was all bullshit though. In the morning I would be a filthy traitor in his eyes and I wanted one last chance to steal some of that happiness I could only feel in his arms. The steady beat of his heart against my ear lulled me to sleep.

Is it a wonder that I dreamed of being caught out in a storm that night?

The morning came too quickly. It would hurt to much to keep on lying here with him knowing that I was just delaying the inevitable. “Peter?” I whispered poking at his face until he woke up, “Peter, wake up.”

“Good morning to you too.” he chuckled and rolled me on top of him. “Sleep well, pet?”

“Mhm.” I hummed. “Is it okay if I go see Wendy today?”

“You don’t need to ask my permission to see your friends.” He kissed me, “Go have fun. I need to do some more work on Henry if I’m going to get his heart in time.”

“Yep.” I nodded. I couldn’t help it and kissed him once more before tugging my shoes back on and leaving.

Once I was clear of the camp I was in a dead sprint to Wendy’s. I climbed up and barged in. She was still asleep and sat up in alarm at my sudden intrusion. “Y/N? What is it?”

“There’s not much time.” I paced the room, “I need you to find Emma, the woman I told you about, and get a message to her.”

“A message? What about that looking glass you had?”

“Lost it. Peter knows that I’m not myself but I convinced him to trust me anyway. That being said he will not let me anywhere near the adults so I need you to go in my place. I know what Peter has planned for Henry and he needs to be stopped now. I think we can get a plan together but only if we act fast.”

“What do you need me to tell them?” She asked much more awake now.

“If they have a way off the island then to be on the west beach at sunset tonight. Be ready for a fight and I’ll take care of the rest.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Something I really wish I didn’t have to.” My hands started shaking. “Just get that message to them. We’ll figure out the rest after we know if we have a way off the island.”

Wendy nodded and started to get dressed. She left to talk to the others and I waited in growing paranoia until she finally returned. The good news was that they did have a way out and would be there at the beach tonight. Also apparently Neal survived and was on the island too. How he lived through being shot was strange but I didn’t want to dwell on it. The bad news was that now I had to go through with my plan.

The boys were laughing and playing as the day went on. I stayed near Peter playing my part until the sun started to dip lower in the sky. I had been purposefully avoiding Henry all day and now he looked completely distraught. I couldn’t risk letting him in on this plan. Too much was at stake and I needed him sad for this.

“Peter, it looks like Henry’s not doing to well over there.” I pointed him out while Peter and I danced around the fire.

“Seems so. Should we go talk to him you think?”

“I think it could help. Maybe get him out of camp for a bit. He’s probably going stir crazy being trapped here all day and night.”

“True. I know exactly what to do too.” Peter grinned and pulled me along to where Henry sat.

“Still down in the dumps?” Peter asked. Henry glared. “Come on now, Henry. You’re here to save magic. It’s a happy time.”

“No it isn’t. I’m trapped here.”

“Then let’s go for a walk. There’s something I would like to show you.” Peter offered his hand but Henry continued to glare at it.

“Henry,” I spoke up, “Please listen.”

I tried my best to plead with my eyes. It must have worked since he stood up and nodded at us to lead the way. As I suspected Peter was walking us straight to the west beach which sat across the way from Skull Rock.

Peter was monologuing to Henry about his importance in bringing back magic when the heroes appeared around us. Peter’s grip on my hand tightened as he took in the adults surrounding him. They were all together weapons raised.

“Now this is adorable.” Peter scanned them, “All of you banding together to get the boy. But I fear that this is where I stop you.”

“No it isn’t.” I said and Peter turned to me.

“What?” he looked lost.

“You’re going to let Henry go and you’re not going to put up a fight.” my voice wavered but I held strong.

“Y/N, you said…” he sighed, “I’m sorry, precious, but I’m not letting him go.”

“Yes you are.” the heroes edged closer.

“And why is that?” I could feel the hell he would unleash upon the others growing closer if I didn’t act soon.

“Because if you hurt any of them,” I took the dagger from my hip and held it to my own throat, “I’ll be going down with them before you can blink.”

He let go of Henry and I nodded to him to go. Regina and Wendy had Henry and was ushering him further down the beach where the Jolly Roger had now dropped it’s cloaking spell.

“Y/N?” Peter stared at me in abject horror as I stepped away from him and towards the heroes. Stabbing myself with the knife would have hurt less than the look of utter betrayal on his face. I wasn’t just a traitor right now...I was breaking his heart. Only seemed fair this was breaking mine as well.

“Peter, I--” I choked out, “I’m sorry. I wish I didn’t have to but--but I can’t--I can’t let you hurt Henry.”

“But you can kill me.” he clenched his fist and I felt the ground under me start to tremble slightly.

“Please, understand I--”

“You don’t need to explain anything to him.” Emma started to usher me away. “We need to go.”

“Y/N, no, please!” Peter shouted after me, “Please don’t leave me again!”

I couldn’t have stopped the sob that escaped my throat if my life depended on it. I looked back in time to see David hit him over the head knocking him unconscious. This isn’t right.

Hook started to walk towards Peter with his sword drawn.

“No…” I broke away from Emma and ran back across the beach towards where Peter lay. Hook had his sword ready to stab him.

“No!” I swung my club at him deflecting the blade.

“Marigold! What the hell are you doing?” Emma yelled at me.

“I won’t let you hurt him.” I growled at them. “We have Henry and a way off the island. There’s no need to kill him like this.”

“Yes there is,” Hook stepped closer. His sword was still aimed at us. “He’s a monster, the only way anyone is going to be safe is if we kill him now.”

“He’ll be dead soon anyway. Let him be till then.”

“No. That boy has caused far too much trouble. I’m taking my revenge.” He lunged and I let instinct take over as I defended myself and Peter from Hook. The others were shouting at us to stop but I refused. I don’t care what Peter had done in the past. I don’t care that he would have killed Henry given the chance. I wouldn’t let him die like this. He deserved to go out on his own terms. Not skewered while he was powerless by a pirate.

I don’t know how I managed it but I swiped Hook’s legs out from under him and pinned him to the sand. My knife was at his throat. Even now more memories started to break through. Apparently this was something that happened a lot before. “Leave. Him. Be.”

“Or what? You’ll kill me, Marigold?” Hook smirked and I pressed the blade closer. A small ribbon of blood traced the line between metal and skin.

“I may be on your side but don’t forget that there was once a time I would have stabbed you through the throat already, captain. Be thankful I am Marigold and not Y/N. I doubt she would be merciful after what you’ve done.”

“Marigold…” Mary Margaret laid a hand on my shoulder, “Let him up. I promise we won’t hurt Pan.”

“Mary Margaret--” David tried to protest.

“David.” She silenced him, “You know why she won’t allow it.”

David looked at me for a long moment before nodding. “Let’s get out of here then. While he’s still unconscious please.”

The others started heading towards the ship. I looked down at Peter. That same ball of guilt was now a black hole sucking away all the happiness I had found here. “I’m sorry.” I took off my necklace and placed it in his hand. “Truly I am.”

I stood and raced to catch up to the others. Don’t look back. Don’t look back.

~~~

Gods above that hurt. Peter tried to clear the fogginess from his head. There was something in his hand. He looked down and saw Y/N’s pearl necklace in his palm. What--

The world snapped back into focus. Y/N! He felt for her presence and his heart sunk as he felt it growing smaller.

Up above him Peter watched as the Jolly Roger lifted into the sky. He would have been apoplectic with rage at their escape if it wasn’t for the one face he saw watching from the side of the ship. Y/N was on it. She was leaving.

Even from the growing distance he knew she saw him. It was bad enough having her used against him but to see her leaving with the heroes hurt worse. He had sworn that whenever she came back he would never let her go again. He imagined a reunion where she ran into his arms and they never parted.

Now here she was, leaving of her own accord. A life of lies trapped in her head with no way out. He wasn’t mad at her for not knowing who she was. He was mad at the so called heroes. They took her identity, her memories, her life away and molded her to fit their needs. They didn’t care about Y/N. They just wanted to be able to use Marigold.

The only solace he found in her departure was that she wouldn’t be here when his curse finally ticked away and he died. She’d be safe at least. And that’s all that mattered.

The ship was high in the air now. Sailing closer to freedom. Peter was about to turn away, he couldn’t watch her leave him. Then he saw someone come up behind Y/N. Rumplestiltskin. Before Peter could even sneer at the sight of the bastard he watched as the Dark One shoved Y/N over the side of the ship.

“NO!”  the cry ripped itself out of Peter.

Immediately he was in the air shooting through the sky. The wind was deafening as he flew forward to intercept Y/N’s hurtling descent.

He caught her before she could hit the water. From so high up it would have been like landing on stone. She clung onto him as he quickly brought them back to the shore. He didn’t put her down nor was she looking to let go of him when they were safe on the sand.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

She was shaking rather violently but that seemed to be more from the near death experience than any injury. Still he waited until she nodded to relax. The adrenaline that had been coursing through his veins ebbed away leaving exhaustion in its wake.

The rescue had sapped what little energy he had left. The curse was going to take him soon. There was no more staving it off. He collapsed back against the sand.

“What’s wrong?” Y/N hovered over him. “Why did--”

“Shh,” he hushed her and reached into his pocket. He pressed the last magic bean into her palm. “There’s not much time left. You need to get off the island. Go anywhere so long as it isn’t here.”

“No.” she shook her, “I can’t just leave you.”

“You already were. It’s okay. It’s not your fault.” he closed her hand around the bean. “Go, be safe.”

“Why did you do it?” she asked, “Why did you save me? After I lied to you and betrayed your trust you still caught me. I don’t understand, I’m not the girl you want. I may have her face but it isn’t me. I can’t remember--I can’t--”

She was fighting back tears. Tears for him.

“You’re my Lost Girl. Whether you remember it or not. I’ll always catch you.” He touched her cheek. “I could never see you in pain.”

“Peter…”

“There isn’t much time. Take the bean and get out of here before the curse swallows the island.”

“I’m not leaving you. Not again.” She bent her head down and left a kiss on his forehead. The small act of intimacy was all he needed. He drew in one last breath of her scent and fell into oblivion.

(First) (Previous) (Next)

[weirdoldmanhoho]

Hey, happy fma day! Could you please do a prompt or like headcanons ideas of what would have happened if Ed and Al and the homonculi were siblings/cousins? (whichever inspires you more) it would be wonderful and funny, sure as hell

Happy FMA day! OMG yes this is my favorite ridiculous, silly au. Prepare for some ridiculousness.

Okay, so Father shows up randomly at the Elric (Hohenheim?) house a couple years into Hoho living there and is just like “hello, my dearest, oldest friend, so good to see you.” (Hoho is like, yeah, I’ve been rethinking our relationship ever since you literally committed genocide in front of me.)

Father tells Hoho he’s turned over a new leaf. No really, he says, no more murder. He’s content to live out the rest of his life with the one Philosopher Stone he already made and definitely has no plans whatsoever to make another one – what? How could his dearest, oldest friend – who he NAMED and cared for before anyone and helped gain him his freedom – doubt him? What is he talking about that the map of Amestris looks suspicious? Does he really think he could control how an entire country was built? His oldest, dearest friend (“seriously, stop calling me that”) has too high of expectations for him.

Anyways, Father says he showed up because he ended up with 7 kids somehow (“totally an accident. Just happened.” “…uh-huh.”) and he has absolutely no idea how to handle them and they’re all driving him absolutely crazy, and he heard that Hoho has two boys of his own (congrats, by the way, didn’t know you had it in you, your wife is lovely, good job) and maybe he’s managed to figure out this whole fatherhood thing better than he has, so can he bring the family and stay for a while? Just a bit?

And because Hoho is ultimately a sympathetic sap, he says yes. (Trisha literally might kill him. She won’t talk to him for two days. She threatens to take Ed and Al and run away. “This might be good for him, Trisha. He might actually learn to be better and care for people if he lives around humans for a while.” “If any one of his ‘children’ touch our children, I WILL find out how to kill an immortal and after I’m finished with them, I’m coming after you.” “I love you so much.”)

So the family moves in. Ed and Al meet their “cousins”. The homunculi meet the Elrics under strict orders not to hurt them. It goes about as well as you can expect.

Envy really likes screwing with Ed and Al. Their favorite hobby is transforming into one of them and trying to get in as much trouble as possible (pulling Winry’s hair, throwing things at Den, hitting the other real Elric brother, etc.) Jokes on them, though, because Trisha has gotten REALLY good at figuring out when it’s Envy in disguise and just happens to “accidentally” hit them with things. Like, she “accidentally” trips when Envy is in the kitchen as Ed and drops a metal pot on their head. (“Oh no! Edward, honey, I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you there!” She definitely did. She definitely aimed for the head on purpose.)

(In secret, all the Elric/Hohenheims have come up with tells to let each other know they’re not Envy. They might be putting up with them living here, but damn it all if Trisha is just going to passively let them torment her family.

Greed and Envy hate each other, so Greed teams up with the Elrics to help harass his sibling, and ends up actually becoming a big brother figure to them. And somehow, damn it all, he’ll deny it until his dying breath, he’s actually grown a little fond of the tikes. He lets Ed try on his ugly fur vest once. He puts on the invincible shield and lets them hit him with things (look just because he actually tries to play with the kids doesn’t mean he knows anything about appropriate games for human children. Envy and Lust and him hit each other all the time – and usually with a lot more blood and death involved – surely that’s fun for his little “cousins” right?)

Trisha walks outside once and sees her sons just beating on Greed with any weapon they can find and just…walks away. She doesn’t even care anymore. As long as it’s her sons beating one of the homunculi and not the other way around, she’s not going to stop it. She considers that this might be teaching her children bad lessons for the future – such as its okay to just beat people with sticks – but considering it’s also teaching them it’s okay to beat up homunculi, she thinks the pros outweigh the cons.

Lust tries to act like she’s above everything, but she usually gets dragged into arguments. She just kind of randomly flip-flops between helping Envy screw with the kids and teaming up with Greed to defend them like a guard dog, with no apparent rhyme or reason to which she’s going to do on any given day. Ed and Al are both terrified and slightly in awe of her. It’s pretty much exactly how Envy and Greed feel too.

One of their “cousins” looks suspiciously a lot like the former Furher of Amestris (who randomly disappeared a couple months ago, stating “family emergency” before vanishing). Wrath wears a whole bunch of ridiculous disguises every time he takes the boys into town. I’m talking like fake moustache over his real moustache and sunglasses. Really ridiculous hats. Hawaiian shirts. A fake nose once. (“This is just sad,” Envy tells him. “I’ve seen humans disguise themselves better than this.” “I’m not taking advice from someone who willingly walks around looking like that.” Envy has to be held back from trying to maul Wrath by Lust, because Envy has already lost FIVE LIVES since living here – one of them might have been from Trisha, but she won’t confirm or deny anything and only cackles quietly to herself when she looks at Envy sometimes – and if they keep it up they’re going to actually die FOR REAL by next year. “DO YOU THINK PHILOSOPHER’S STONES GROW ON TREES?” Father booms, then goes immediately to Hoho and is like, “That was the right phrase, right? I also tried grounding like you suggested.” “You’ll get this fatherhood thing in no time. Also, you can’t end the grounding no matter how sad they look. That’s what Trisha says.”)

Side note: Mrs. Bradley definitely moves in with them too and now she knows exactly what her husband and son are and still loves them just as much. Pride is confused and slightly mortified, but also touched – he’ll never admit it. Wrath just really loves this human woman he chose. He and Hoho trade stories about their adventures wooing strong-willed, slightly scary mortal women. They get drunk together once and cry into the night about how wonderful their wives are and the fact that their children are growing up before their eyes – “I don’t grow, Wrath, what are you talking about?” “My son sounds so grown up!” Both men sob harder.

Trisha and Mrs. Bradley become fast friends. They run a So-You-Married-an-Immortal support group. Currently they’re the only members. Meetings basically consist of them exchanging stories of the weirdest things they’ve ever seen their husbands do.

Pride becomes weirdly protective of the baby Elrics. Mostly because he believes Father wants to keep them safe and he’s the most loyal devoted son who will do anything Father wants, so he takes great pride (ha) in protecting the baby Elrics from every harm he can think of. He also looks the most similar in age to them, so he lets Father enroll him in the local school and watches over them while in class. The rest of the class and the teacher are absolutely terrified of him, because he mostly just sits behind Ed and glares at everyone who moves too close.

Ed and Al grow up with a really weird understanding of shadows – ie, convinced that they can definitely move independently and are physical things you can touch, because that one time Al tripped, a bunch of shadows definitely grabbed him before he hit the ground, placed him back on his feet, and patted his shoulder reassuringly for good measure.

Sloth does nothing, of course. He’s just happy he doesn’t have to dig that tunnel anymore. He mostly sleeps and Ed and Al try to figure out how much they can stack on him before he wakes up. Or how many times they can poke him. Or how loudly they can shout. Etc.

Somehow it turns out mostly okay though. Ed and Al make it into their teenage years without dying or any serious maiming. (Only Greed and Envy have been maimed, but their injuries heal so it’s fine.) They have at least two homunculi that are fiercely protective of them, one that usually at least has more fun fighting their enemies than them, one who acts like a weird uncle and showers them with gifts and random melons, and two that are pretty indifferent as long as they’re left alone. And Envy, who definitely still wants to make their lives as miserable as possible, but is at least usually outvoted by the other homunculi.

The Elric/Hohenheim family is very weird, but most of them (and Resembool) have accepted that. Trisha definitely would still kill any of them if they hurt her sons though.

Thanks for the prompt!

[jackslittleavery]

Locked In Love- (Zach Herron x Reader)

 Request: You and Zach hate each other but you are friends with the rest of the boys. Eventually you and Zach are left alone one way or another and realize that you have feelings for each other. But neither of you want to admit it. The rest of the boys begin to realize and try (and succeed) to get you two to admit it. I will let you take it from there.

Summary: We loathed one another’s guts. He hated me, I hated him. We despised each other. Or so we thought. 

Warnings: Definitely cursing, a quick mention of sexual activity and a rude reader and rude Zach.

Author’s Note: I hope you guys enjoy this imagine! This was requested by @lovableherron love ya girl! And [Y/N] is a singer in this imagine.

As I alternatively rolled onto my sides for what seemed like the thirtieth time since I’ve woken up about ten minutes ago, I knead my knuckles into my closed eyes, attempting to rub the exhaustion out of my eyes. 

After a couple more seconds of procrastination against my morning necessities, I worked up the strength to throw the multiple blankets off my body, and begin my morning. Trudging my way to the bathroom, I noted that the door was locked, bringing to my attention that someone was in there. 

I gently knocked on the door and waited for a response. “I’m in here, give me a second.” I groaned in agony just hearing his voice. The voice that belonged to Zach Herron. The rudest, most disrespectful, child alive. He was extremely ill-mannered and he disgusted me. Just in case you couldn’t tell, I hated him.

I held no problems against his friends Jonah, Daniel, Jack, or even Corbyn, considering I lived with them all. But, I had so many problems with Zach.

I’ll admit we never connected from the jump, but the better I got along with the other boys, the worse our relationship turned. Every conversation I had with the boys, every time I spent the night over at the boys, was another dent engraved into our tainted alliance. So you could probably already assume that when it was time for me to move in with them, all hell broke lose.

And in case you couldn’t tell, he hated me too.

“Ugh,” I complain. “Hurry up, will ya?” I say, rolling my eyes, and making my way back to my bedroom to wait. Before my palm could completely come into contact with the door knob, I hear the bathroom door open, causing me to turn my head.

Poking his head out of the door, he squints his eyes at me before speaking. “Oh, it’s just you. Now I know to take extra long,” he smirks and closes the door behind him. “Oh, my god,” I groan, already knowing that he wasn’t kidding about taking long on purpose.

3 minutes later. 5 minutes later. 8 minutes later. 10 minutes later. 15 minutes later. Alright, now this is just ridiculous. 

I spring off of my bed and out my bedroom and power walk my way back to the bathroom that I should’ve been in a long time ago. I bang on the door, getting fed up with the selfish boy’s antics. “Dude, what are you doing, jacking off? Hurry and get out, we have to be at the studio in half an hour.” 

Right before my fist can pound the door again, it swings open revealing a fully-clothed Zach, except for his shoes. “Oh, I’m ready to go. And so are all of the other guys. You woke up a lot later than us, actually. Knowing you, you’re gonna take a million hours to get ready but don’t worry you can just take an Uber by yourself,” he smiles at me, beginning to walk away, blowing a kiss and tapping my shoulder, knowing full well it would annoy me. 

My eyes fall down to my phone, reading the time displayed on the lock screen. 12:28 p.m. I mentally applaud myself for getting ready on time, with two minutes to spare. I brush the ends of my hair out, and afterwards, walk downstairs, to retrieve my shoes to match my simple outfit.

As I slip my shoes on, I look up ahead, and notice Zach looking at me, with a slight smile sketched across his face, as a confused expression finds it’s way onto mine. As if my face flipped some switch in his mind, he quickly turns away a walks into the kitchen, where the rest of the guys were. 

You couldn’t blame me for being perplexed as to why Zach was randomly smiling at me while I doing something so simple, like putting on my shoes. But the more I think about it, the more believe that he was possibly just thinking of a good joke about me. 

Hearing my stomach growl, I settle on the idea of grabbing a quick snack before heading out. 

“Good morning,” I smile to the boys that I haven’t seen all morning. “Morning,” they say all at once, except for one person that doesn’t know manners. “Afternoon,” he says with his smart mouth, squinting his eyes at me and leaning up against the refrigerator, that I was about to look in for food.

“Can you please move from in front of the fridge, please?” I ask, trying to sound as polite as possible to avoid another petty argument. “You know, [Y/N] there’s a much shorter and politer term you could use that’s very effective for-”, he says, very sarcastically before I interrupt. “Excuse me,” I breath out, trying to rush this confrontation along. 

“Excuse me, who?” he says, planting his index finger behind his ear lobe and moving his head closer to mine. “Excuse me, Jacob.”

“Who the hell is Jacob?”

“Jacob Sartorius, please stop asking questions and just move, I’m hungry,” I say pushing him out of the way, with the rest of the four boys chuckling at my discreet insult. I grab yogurt out of the fridge before hearing Jonah call out, “Alright are we ready to go?” Once everyone responds with a “yeah”, we head outside to the car to get to the studio. 

Once I was done singing my part of the song, it was Zach’s turn to record his verse, but Daniel had other plans than to wait and listen to his band-mates recording. “Alright you two, me, Jack, Corbyn, and Jonah are gonna grab lunch. Zach, record your part while we’re gone, okay?” Daniel says, picking up his wallet from the small table in the soundproofed room. 

“What about me? I already recorded my part,” I say, silently praying that Daniel would decide to bring me along with them. “Someone has to work the soundboard while he’s in there,” he replies. 

“Why can’t Jack stay here and I go with you guys?” I pout, I really didn’t want to be left alone with the boy, it would turn into world war three. “Don’t worry, we’ll be quick,” Daniel responds to me again, kissing my forehead, for a token of good luck. 

Once, the door fully closes behind the four guys that were keeping my sanity in check, Zach turns his head to me and says, “You’re cute when you’re mad, you do this thing where you scrunch up your nose, and you put your hand on your hip, as if I’m scared of your tiny ass,” he chuckles, smirking at me watching me blush from his random compliment.

“What, do you like me or something?” I say, teasing him, knowing that he didn’t but still wanting to put his buttons. He looks up at me with wide eyes, as his cheeks get rosier by the millisecond, quickly catching himself and shaking his head in denial, “Hell no.” 

I quietly giggle at his flustered reaction to my question. The way his eyes got so wide, like he had been caught in doing something wrong and the way his cheeks turn to the brightest shade of red within seconds, it was cute. Wait, did I just call Zach Herron, cute? The same Zach Herron that I couldn’t stand just a few hours ago?

“What are you thinking about?” he asks me quietly, sitting down in the seat across from me. “Nothing,” I say, shaking my head, just like he did. “What, do you like me or something?” he says, copying my words, smirking while waiting for my flustered reaction just as he had when I asked the exposing question. 

I tried to hold it back. The blushing. The wide eyes. They all came so quickly and all at once but time seemed to go in slow motion as I kept my eyes locked onto his. 

“Hell no.”

*Back at the house, late at night*

As the night seemed as though it was coming to an end, Jack got a sudden idea that could bring the day back to life. “Let’s play Truth or Dare, guys,” he says, sitting up in his seat. I normally don’t agree to playing these kinds of games because they almost always end in two strangers kissing or even worse, but I decided to play along tonight.

After everyone agrees, Jack declares that it was my turn to go first. “Alright, [Y/N], truth or dare?” 

I thought for a while before settling on being a little adventurous and choosing to go with a dare. “I dare you to go in the closet,” Jack says, with murmurs coming from the other guys in obvious confusion. “Why, what’s in the closet?” I say, getting up anyway. “Nothing’s in the closet, just trust me,” Jack responds, gently pushing me towards the tight-spaced room. 

I close the door behind me, and listen closely at what was being said in the living room a few feet ahead me. “Alright Corbyn. Truth or dare?,” Jonah asks. 

“Truth.”

“Is it true that you want a mix-tape for your birthday?”

“Of course, man.”

“Great, now I know I don’t have to spend money on you.”

I quietly chuckle along with the boys that were sitting comfortably in living room, while I was squeezed up in this closet. “Zach, it’s your turn. Truth or dare?,” Jack asks. 

“Dare.”

“Get in the closet with [Y/N].”

“Dude, are you-,” Zach protests, but gets interrupted.

“You asked for a dare, you got one, now get in the damn closet,” Jack orders. I hear footsteps approach the door, before hearing Zach turn back and say, “Your dare is gonna be much worse, Jack, you just wait.”

The door knob turns as Zach steps towards me, my heart beginning to flutter. Only twelve hours ago, I would’ve been annoyed and irritated, but I was over the moon. Just as Zach steps inside, Jack runs up behind him and shuts the closet door. I turn my head to Zach when I hear the lock on the door turn from the outside. 

Zach puts his hand on the knob and tries to turn it, but it denies him and keeps itself locked. “Jack, what the fuck?” I yell through the door, making sure he can hear me. “I’ll open the door when you two admit to each other that you like each other.“

“What are you talking about, Jack? You’re just talking crazy at this point.” Zach says, pulling at the door knob, trying to force it open. “I heard you guys at the studio earlier today. I know you like each other, so stop this fake beef you two got going on,” Jack says, as his voice gets quieter, signifying that he was walking away from the door. 

 “I mean, he’s not wrong,” Zach says, fumbling with his fingers. “I do like you, I just didn’t want to admit it to myself I guess.” He looks down at his feet and even though it’s almost pitch dark in the room I could see his cheeks getting rosy again. 

I nod my head in agreement with him and continue from where he left off, “I thought I did actually hate you, but after we were talking in the studio today, I realized I do like you.” 

 His eyes light up when he makes eye contact with me sand he says,“If I promise to stop pretending like I hate you, will you let me take you on a date?” 

“I’d love for you to take me on a date,” I smile, before hearing a muffled “aw” coming from all the guys in the living room.

[softromxnce]

Blue Side

Gif credit : @hoseokb

Pairing : Hoseok x Reader

Genre : Up for you to interpret

Word Count : 1,733 words

—————————————————————

How can a relationship between two people start out so strong, only to end in madness? How can someone sleep at night knowing that they ruined someone’s life by one simple action. How can one action lead to a massacre? Everything was perfect with him, well, not perfect but it was a very good relationship. Occasionally had a few arguments here and there, you both had individual dreams to achieve, you both had dreams together down the line. Both of you started dating privately for a while, it was challenging to hide, but he had to come out about it sooner than later. Of course, dating an idol had ups and downs, however, that’s natural in relationships. Some fans sent positive comments, speaking highly of you both, but some fans straight up sent you death threats, some even jumped you, criticized you based on your ethnicity and appearance, accused you of using him for fame, and began stalking you. Reluctantly, you refused to tell him, he was busy with his hectic schedule, he already had enough on his plate.

It’ll probably die down soon, you foolishly told yourself every day. Every day you wake up, every time you leave the complex, and every time before going to sleep. A hopeless, useless words of encouragement.

However, like everything in life, somethings come to a boiling point, and end.

—————————————————————

“Y/N, please I beg of you. Don’t leave me. I didn’t intend for everything to turn out like this! We,” Hoseok begged continuously, his eyes darting everywhere as they build up with tears, threatening to escape, hands pulling strands of his pitch-black hair. It hurts so much. You occasionally get brief moments of Hoseok breaking down in front of you. It hurts so much, you can feel his big heart snapping into two or more pieces. His shaky hands come up to wipe tears that unknowingly escaped from your socket, it was hard not to melt into his touch, but this is right, for the both of you.

“H-Hoseok, we had a good run, didn’t we? We had our own moments, and I helped you the best of my abilities. However, I believe that you should date someone that isn’t a commoner like me.” Trying your best to remain calm, things like this wasn’t easy at all, but you’re right, he deserves someone who can be there for him, and someone on his social level. His other hand that wasn’t caressing you, began to form a fist, but stayed by his side, he plants his head on your shoulder, finally letting the trapped tears escape.

“Y-Y/N, I don’t care what anyone has ever said to you or about you, I don’t care about your social level, appearance, nor ethnicity. No one knows; however, I know me, you’ll forever be my girl.” He managed to say while sobbing in between words, his shoulders shaking, his grip on your arms, loosen, drastically.

You struggle to stabilize your breathing, your shaken hands stroking his back to soothe him. This doesn’t feel right, how can people do this? Everything was going so well, our house made of cards well stable until now. You both fall to the ground still holding each other, cries now become sobs. Every action has consequences, every action has a good or bad outcome at some point, but why, why did it have to come today? Is fate really this jealous of us?

“P-please don’t leave me. I won’t be able to forget you nor move on, I’ll do my best for us.” He shattered the silence between both of you, his sobs finally dying down, occasionally sniffing, and uneven breathing. Will things still be this difficult for you both if you decide to go through with it? Will they still attack you randomly? Who knows. You gentle tap his shoulder so he can remove his head from your shoulder, but shakes his head in protest, chuckling slightly at his childish actions.

“Even if you say it’s a hopeless dream, please just stay a little longer. Even if you attempt to say, ‘we can’t make it’. I keep hoping, even at the end of this, if you’re still with me, I’ll be okay.” He whispered so quietly, that you could’ve almost by passed it. You didn’t know that it was possible to have your heart break into even more tinier pieces. The next thing you know is your shared apartment complex window shattered, the Hoseok screaming your name, and a dark red liquid is forming a puddle around you. Soon after, everything around you is fading into darkness, and the remaining of your senses fade out.

—————————————————————

Unsure when your sense came back to you but feeling someone click near your left ear woke you up faster than anything had. But you weren’t in your apartment complex anymore. Your hands tied up, a .44 magnum revolver directly next to your temple, and Hoseok standing on the ledge of the building. Fearing for his safety and yours, you slowly tilt your head up. His bright orange hair blowing in the wind, his plump lips form a sadistic smile. You hesitantly divert your eyes to the hands welding the revolver, small chubby hands, then looking over at Hoseok, the height. Hoseok was taller than this man, for the last time, diverting your attention and senses to the grip he has on your wrist, for someone with this soft appearance, his strength is extremely concerning.

“Ah, our – I mean your sleeping beauty finally awoken, Hyung~!” The smaller man announced to Hoseok, staring down at you with a cold gaze, while poking your temple with the muzzle of the gun. Hyung? It must be one of the boys from the maknae line, but the only boy who matches the description of him, is Jimin.

“J-Jimin? Wh-“ cutting you off your sentence with one sharp and fast kick behind your knee. His sickening smile disappeared faster than anything, his grip made its way to your wrist, making you wince in the process. Hoseok remained on the ledge with tears brimming his eyes, his body consumed in anger from the younger man’s actions. Diverting his attention away from you and now focuses on Hoseok, his sickening grin appeared once again.

“Hyung! Don’t move or she gets this,” he signals to his revolver, and cocks it, “Anyway, why don’t you explain to Y/N why the hell I’m here.” He chuckles slightly at the end of his statement. Your eyes move away from Jimin to Hoseok, tears escaping from his left eye. Your eyes begging him to do something besides standing there dumbfounded. Hoseok opens and closes his mouth multiple times before finding words to put into a sentence.

“W-what do you mean, Jimin? Explain exactly what to her? She shouldn’t be involved with this, especially when it’s between us two.” He hesitantly spat at the younger member before purposely slowly stepping off the ledge, his once emotional face, switching to a stone cold one, he began forming fists. Where did your Hoseok go? This isn’t the man you fell head over heels for, the man you craved a future with.

Don’t look up at him Y/N. Don’t look up at Jimin.

Disobeying your own thoughts, you slowly tilted your head to meet Jimin’s stone cold face. You’ll be lying if it didn’t scare the living daylights out of you, what happened to the once cheerful man? The once happy facial expressions they both gave you, suddenly gotten colder by the second, the once loud, bustling sounds of people returning home from work at night has suddenly disappeared. Your once calm and peaceful life is damaged by one action, what did you do? Where did you go wrong?

“Just, just shoot her already, Jimin-ah. She’s suffered enough because of me, and she seen too much,” Your heart stops beating for a second, your eyes become full of tears, the silent night around you, is now full of your sobs. Your knees buckle under you, but thanks to Jimin’s grip, he catches you. Feeling Jimin’s eyes leave your face to look at Hoseok, the barrel of his pistol left your temple and now is aimed towards Hoseok. Your eyes widen in horror and panic, you sobbed even more and much louder, turning your head to look at Jimin.

“Hyung, are you just going to give her up so easily? Why? After all she’s done for you, after all the years you been together. You’ll give her up like that?!” Jimin raised his voice out of anger, he threw you to the ground and placed his other hand on the handle of the gun, and pulled the trigger directly aimed at Hoseok’s heart.

“HOSEOK NO!” You screamed in disbelief as his body meets the cement.

—————————————————————

You woke up with tears streaming down your face, short of breath. Turning your head to see Hoseok sleeping soundly across from you, it feels like your heart is going to jump out of your chest because of how fast it’s beating. You finally broke down and collapsed onto your pillow, your sobs filled the bedroom, startling Hoseok. He sits up, rubs his eyes and turned on the lamp on your nightstand, he directs his attention to you and pulls you into his chest. He rubs your back gently and softly as he strokes, and plants kisses on your head. You slowly begin to melt into his touch, and your sobs fade away slowly except for a few hiccups.

“I’m still here, I’ll never leave you. Shh, Shhh. Baby girl, breathe,” He whispered into your ears, “Do you want me to sing you a song, so you can sleep again?” He asked while still rubbing your back, you nodded your head against his chest, “Can you sing your outro, Blue Side?” You whispered against his chest. You both laid down, Hoseok moved over to switch off the lights, played the instrumental version of Blue Side, and laid back down to face you. He grabbed your hand and made small circles with it, while staring deep into your eyes.

“Blue Side,

Blue Side,

Blue Side,

Blue Side

Nae paran kkumsoge neol dameullae anirago haedo nae nun soge. (Inside my blue dream, I want to contain you, even if you say no, inside my eyes.)

Nae paran kkumsoge neol aneullae an doendago haedo nae pumsoge. (Inside my blue dream, I want to hold you, even if you say we can’t, inside my embrace.)

Blue Side,

Back to Blue Side,

Blue Side,

Back to Blue Side,

Blue Side,

Back to Blue Side,

Blue Side,

Back to Blue Side.”