#the special ghost town video

[archivist-crow]

The Specials - “Ghost Town” (1981)

Forty-three years ago today, on June 12, 1981, The Specials released “Ghost Town”. Hailed as a major piece of social criticism, the song was released at a time of strife both within the band and throughout England, as rioting over unemployment, police violence, and racial discrimination was occurring in London and other population centers. The last song recorded by the original seven members of the band, “Ghost Town” spent three weeks at #1 and 11 weeks in the top 40 of the UK singles chart.

[brbgensokyo]

i think what the cyberbunk 2077 and the r/synthwave crowd miss about the aesthetic of cyberpunk in general is the urban decay of american cities in the late 70s/80s. Everything has to suck, it cant just be glass towers and neon

[rwpohl]

ghost town, the specials 1981

[spookypete-94]

Pregnant by Proxy

SimonRileyxPregnant!Reader

Have had this idea in my head for many, many months. Finally just decided to do it- even if it seems strange to some.

Triggers for medical inaccuracies, language, minor angst, still born mentioned

What triggered it all is you not showing up. Being Laswell’s right hand while she was Watcher, given you the opportunity to assist Task Force 141 on multiple missions. So much, they considered you a part of their team.

Here instead, Simon Riley stood back watching you from afar. He had hunted you down and located you in your hometown. Something he was never ever supposed to do. There was a no contact rule for them outside of their work. Price enforced it for safety reasons. But Simon just couldn’t stand not knowing where you were or what had happened. That was unsafe for him. He needed to see you, needed to make sure you were alright.

“I can’t tell you much, just that she will not be attending this mission.” Laswell spoke from the computer screen during their video call meant to be a mission brief for the 4 of them.

“She ok at least?” Price asked, looking up over the stack of papers in his hands up at the camera.

You had made your mark on all of them… but maybe not as dark or inflicted as you had on Simon.

“Medical emergency back at home. I know you guys are worried about her, but I really can’t disclose anymore.” Laswell’s voice firmer, protecting you.  “She deserves privacy and her time off.” Something you had earned away from them.

Simon couldn’t help but pipe up. “When will she be back?” You are an asset to this team, as much to his spirit.

A heavy sigh from Laswell, “We need to focus on the task ahead.” She was putting up a wall. How dare you leave without relaying some sort of word to him…

What had happened to you?

That was the moment Simon knew he needed to find you. You were at risk, something had happened. Did you get sent somewhere without him and hurt? Are you bruised and bloody? Had someone laid hands on you? Dangerous as you were… Simon couldn’t help feeling that you were fragile. He had seen you in the most intimate of ways on more than one occasion. Perhaps that had changed his perception of the clarity of body. Fragile like clay figurine, porous and breakable. Skin smooth, even though littered with scars in places. Special, is the way to describe you to him. You understood him. An extension of his peace.

So, he finished the mission. Angrier than he had ever been at the end of one. Days drawn out, even though it only took them a week to find their target and take him into custody. It was a success, a record in apprehending someone capable of such violence. Little did the Task Force know, Ghost’s unbridled rage of procrastinating the ability to find you, the result of such a feat.

Price knew something was up when Ghost had turned down the interrogation of the suspect. This was his forte. One of his best qualities of finding intel was beating a man into submission. Glancing with a side eye filled with suspicion, Price then closed it. Halfway knowing what Ghost was up to, the fact that Simon now needed this. He needed to know you were alive.

There were a few times you would tell him stories of your hometown and family after you would connect and lay naked together. He enjoyed it. It distracted his mind while his brain would close his eyes and imagine it. Never once did you tell him where you from or the name of the town… but he had seen it so many times in his mind’s eye, he had just an inkling of where it was hidden.

Imagine his surprise when had finally found you outside your favorite coffee house. A small coffee in your hand… and a swollen belly round in front of you as you slowly waddled away from him. He had stood back near the corner about 3 buildings away from you, following you ever so slowly.

Shock had filled his system. He could walk away now… in fact he fully wanted to bolt and sprint in a different direction. He knew you were safe, alive and clearly thriving… but he had more questions now then when he did about your absence.

Feeling like you were being watched made you turn around. Eyes instantly locked on the black shadow that was following you.

“Simon?” Your sweet voice called to him, filled with confusion and happiness.

“Wanted to see you…” Was all he could mumble out as he approached.

Awkwardly you tried hard to lurch to him, hard to do so when your counterbalance was way off.

“I’ve missed you so fucking much,” a rushed hiss to him, as you tried to lay your head into his chest. It was difficult with how round you were, the babe pressing you away.

His finger guided under your chin, lifting it up so he could see your eyes. Tears welled in them that he brushed back with a thumb. Fucking hormones.

“Missed you,” you repeated. Somehow even through all your emotions, the glow on you was so strong and intense. How beautiful.

Simon remained quiet, while he tried to decide how far along you were. The time frame… seemed possible, but he wasn’t entirely sure. The time away from you seemed so much longer. He wanted to ask, he needed to know this now. Sure, he wanted to run at the same time, but you were important to him. This was important to him.

“Is it mine?” He asked his palm spreading over the circumference.

You stood there unable to speak. It was such a long story. Words hindered, closed off. Instead, you shook your head with a slow no. Regret written all over your face.

Instantly, the rage returned to him. Of course he wasn’t good enough for you. That’s why you left. That’s why everyone eventually does. How dare you be so important to him….

Turning on heel, he pushed past the crowd of people nearby trying to get away from you. Anger blinding him, deafening your calling out.

“Simon!! Wait!! She’s not mine either!!” Trying your hardest to run after him.

What?

He stopped dead in his tracks, unable to turn to look at you yet. The same tears that had stung yours now been transferred to his. Had he really wanted this with someone so bad before?

Your hand pressed into his back letting him know you were still there.

“She’s my sisters… it’s a really long fucked up story, but she is my sister’s.”

Abstract. This whole thing was completely abstract and fucking strange. You were being a surrogate to it all.

“What?” Simon said again, finally turning around, his head looking to the side, still not fully able to look at you yet. He needed clarification, needed to comprehend you hadn’t betrayed him.

“I went on leave because my sister was pregnant and went into labor at about eight and half months…but something had happened. She got this blood infection in her uterus causing a still birth. And when it did, it made things happen to her reproductive organs so she would never be able to carry a baby again…They had to take it all out.” A heavy breath left you, as you started to explain, a shake he could hear in your voice, one that and couldn’t ignore.

He turned back around, finally able to look at you again. To you, it was like the break of dawn and the sun greeting the Earth for the first time. He was listening to you. This whole time you were fearful of losing him… but here he was standing before you. Shining like the sun every morning, a wordless pact.

“My sister… she lost her baby and I saw what it did to her. This is all she has ever wanted was to be a mother, and her chance has been taken from her. So, when the doctor said they had saved some of her eggs…I knew I had to do this for her.” Taking his hand, you placed it back on your belly, sprawling his long fingers over it. “This baby isn’t yours… and she isn’t mine. That doesn’t make her any less important though. Just know I had to do this for her.”

His hand was warm. Radiating warmth into you. It gave so much into you, like you had just spewed out back to him.

Did he doubt you?

“I was on my way to an appointment. Why don’t you come with me and maybe that will help you understand.”

A compromise. Let me make this right.

Sliding his hand across your belly, over to your hand he took it and gripped it, squeezing once in awhile. His quiet assurance. So, you led the way. The sail to his boat, teaching and guiding him.

The room was white. White bed, white paper covering it. White walls. White Floor. So much white it hurt for him to look at. Carefully, he stood next to you, letting you climb on the bed to lay down.

“Where is your sister?” A valid question. He would think if this was her baby, she would want to know details, right?

“Work. I think it still hurts her to come sometimes… She has come to a few in the very beginning, but as it gets closer it scares her.”

A valid response.

“You been coming by yourself?”

A slight shrug of your shoulders. “I have…” That hurt him to know you were doing a majority of this alone.

“How did you…?” He said looking down and looking back up at you.

“Conceive?” Unsure if that was what he was asking or not. “Artificial. They planted the embryo after it was fertilized."

Oh, thank God. The relief written on his face makes you laugh.

“Don’t worry. No one else has been inside me in that way. I would never let anyone, let alone my brother-in-law.” Still chuckling.

“Better not.” The only words he could say in his embarrassment of thinking so.

In walked the doctor, who looked over at the mountain of a man.

“Well, hello. Is his him then?” She pointed to him and looked back at you.

“It is.” A smile radiating back at her, truly at your happiest.

The doctor glanced back over at him. “She has talked about you quite a bit and how much she wished you could be here. It’s hard, what she is doing for someone else, but I’m glad her person is here with her now. Your girl’s quite brave.” Rolling across the floor of the room on her stool.

Simon was dumb founded; you had talked about him to someone else? Did he really mean that much to you too?

“Now let’s have a look.”

Rolling your shirt up, exposing that smooth skin to him one more time. It’s been so long since he had last seen it, and here it had changed so much but remained stunning to him.

The doctor measured it before pulling out the doppler to hear the heartbeat. A soft whooshing noise was instantly recognized, making you close your eyes and smile. It was so surreal to Simon. Like he was on the outside looking in. He had the opportunity to see you in this light… and somehow it still was that way for you too. Knowing you were carrying this baby… but it wasn’t entirely yours either.

“Your niece is looking wonderful. See you at your thirty-six-week appointment. Will be once a week starting then.” Niece… A reminder that you were grateful for this baby, but a deep part of you wished it was daughter.

Somehow, he had made it to the checkout desk with you and hadn’t even realized it.

“Can I list you as an emergency contact?” the question that brought him back to reality. Your eyes were looking up at him, pen and paper in your hand before you wrote his name down.

“Sure,” he said taking the pen and paper, scribbling his number down next to his name. Who said anything about no contact outside of work again?

Ending the day, you brought him back to your home. Allowing him to see more of your personal life. Baring it all to him today. His fragile figurine, safe and protected now that he had found her once more. Never again would you be out of his sights. He will see to fix that, all on his own.

Two hands started at your hips before snaking around, his arms fully embraced you from behind. He lifted up on your heavy belly, taking the weight off your hips. A pleasant groan emitted from you. How good did that feel.

“Such a nice thing you are doing for your sister… but next time, the baby in there is going to be ours.” His mouth hot and heavy next to your ear, before running his tongue from the bottom up. It made your skin run hot and cold all at once, goosebumps in the wake on your skin.

“Going to be such a good mother,” his hand trailing down your belly and onto your thigh before squeezing it. “I want this to be safe and healthy for you all, but as soon as you can… I’m fillin’ you with my own. As many as you’ll let me.” Grinding into you, imagining you swollen with his seed making him aroused.

“I missed you.” You whispered out the thrice time today.

Simon "Ghost" Riley Masterlist

[s0me-rand0m-d0rk]

Ok. So, you know that TV show Ghost Adventures? Let's make it Danny phantom.

Danny, Sam, and Tucker are college age. Danny's studying astrophysics and astronomy. Tucker's studying engineering. And Sam's double majoring in occult studies and parapsychology. They're not in Amity Park, I don't know where they'd be but it would probably be a really haunted city/town. They need some extra money so they start a paranormal investigation group kinda like what Ghost Adventures is, but local. They post their findings on YouTube. They basically blow up overnight and get monetized after they get a few videos out there.

Danny is the "medium". (He's not a medium. He just has ghost powers.)

Tucker's the tech specialist.

Sam's the occult specialist.

But instead of provoking the ghosts and being rowdy and screaming all the time (don't get me wrong, the show is funny and I do enjoy watching it, but we all know they're not always respectful of the spirits.), they're actually trying to solve the problem the ghost is posing. They try to compromise with them and help them pass on.

Sam sends Danny into creepy basements by himself just like Zak does with Aaron. She also pulls the most obscure and random occult facts out of her ass. One time, she told the audience that it was possible to exorcise ghosts using music. She proceeded to play Riptide on a ukulele for the spirit of a pre-teen girl and it worked. After the episode is over, people go to look it up, and low and behold, there it is.

Tucker makes progressively more insane and less believable gadgets to contact and interact with ghosts. Their audience tunes in every week wonder what he'll have next. The last episode, it was some sort of ghostly etch-a-sketch. AND THE GHOSTS ACTUALLY USED IT. Did one of them draw a dick on it like a smart ass? Probably.

Sometimes Danny has full on conversations with no one on camera. He waves when there's no one else in the room. He scolded a poltergeist that tried to push him down the stairs. He consistently says that most ghosts just need a hug. Dark spirit? Hug it. Violent poltergeist? They need a hug. Ghostly child? HUG. The audience notices his eyes glowing in the dark. Is it special effects? No one knows.

No one can tell if they're serious or not. They had a literal gun that shoots ghosts. They play music for ghosts. They have ghostly etch-a-sketches. Unless you're from Amity Park, there's no way you're believing that.

But, people who have their properties investigated often say that the activity stops or de-intensifies or changes all together. People may have to change things, like hanging up a photo of the deceased, holding a memorial service, or stopping/changing renovations. But they make the ghost happy or even pass on. That way they stop throwing the good china out of the cabinets.

[playedcrowd5610]

Playedcrowd5610's Complete Guide to Danny Phantom Ghosts - Part 1: Ghost Levels/Types of Ghosts.

Disclaimer: This is how I write my ghosts. Most of these are based on headcanons that I have picked up on my own from watching the show, as well as real-world mythology and stories. They are based on my interpretation of how things work in this universe and are meant to help people better understand my writing and the way I do things.

-

The ghosts in the Danny Phantom universe are made up of three types: Echos, Soul Eaters, and Ecto entities. I will be going over each one, why they exist, what they look like, what the examples are, and what their abilities are.

-

Echos:

Echos are what would be called a level 1 ghost in the Danny Phantom world. They are a person that has died and become ghosts but don't have enough ectoplasm or energy to form a body. So they are merely a soul that is floating around in the air that no one without special abilities can see.

This type of ghost has the most real-world implications and is not the type of ghost shown throughout the Danny Phantom show. Amity Park is rich in ectoplasm and has multiple portals, natural and man-made. So all the ghosts that haunt the town or travel to the town have enough ectoplasm in the air to form a body. Ghosts that don't haunt Amity Park don't have that luxury.

which is where you would get the "traditional ghost" that you would see in ghost-hunting videos and books. The type of ghost most people's minds jump to when they hear the name. The ones that you can't really see or there is just a soul floating around. Sometimes, they can move things with enough effort.

These ghosts are often bonded to an object or a person and always need to be around them and can't leave their haunt without that person or item. They are harmless and mostly just float around and try and gather enough passive energy and emotions from what is around them to form a body.

To people like Danny and other ghosts, Echo looks like a floating core with a pale outline of whatever the person was before. also can't talk because they don't have enough ectoplasm to form vocal cords and can only communicate through emotions.

Their emotions flow from them and feed into the beings around them. All ghosts have secondary communication through emotions and can read the emotions of those around them naturally.

if they manage to get enough ectoplasm to start forming a body they turn into a soul eater, which brings me to my next point.

-

Soul Eaters:

Soul eaters are actually seen in the show. While they are not called soul eaters in the show, this is what I have personally interpreted them as. Our two example ghosts are johnny's Shadow and Spectra.

Soul eaters are in the level 2-3 range of ghosts. Most of the time, they come from Echos that have managed to gather enough ecto energy and now have a body. But the body is not complete this causes them to crave more and more energy to give themself a physical form.

These guys are creatures that look like shadows and blend in with the world around them. they have permanently sharp claws and teeth and use those to fight and try and gain more energy. They almost get more of a lust for energy and seem to not be fully in their right mind all the time, obsessed with at least keeping their form so they don't turn back into echos

Soul eaters can get energy/ectoplasm in two ways:

1) They can absorb ectoplasm or eat it from other ghosts that they might pray on or hang around. An example would be the ghost Shadow, who is permanently bonded to Johnny 13 and follows him around. This gives him enough passive energy to hang around a more powerful ghost so that he can keep a form in the mortal world. In return, he gives his servitude to Johnny and helps fight for him.

2) Absorbing energy from emotions: This example would be Spectra. Soul eaters, if they are more patient, can absorb energy through emotions. Any ghost can also rely on emotions to give them energy. But soul eaters pray on it. They will tend to be drawn to people with strong emotions; hateful and depressed ones are normally the best because they are the strongest. This can sometimes cause a person to feel drained of their emotions because all of their access energy is being eaten. Hence why they are called soul eaters.

Soul eaters are dangerous because they rely more on instinct than they do logic. Absorb and eat. Danny knows that they are just trying to get energy and want a body, so sometimes he can try and make a deal with them for help or just to get them out of there by offering up ectoplasm for them to eat.

Once soul eaters have enough energy to form a full body and can calm down from their aggressive side, they become ecto entities.

-

Ecto Entities:

These ghosts make up the majority of the show's cast and rouge gallery. They are ghosts who were either powerful enough in their obsession and gained enough energy in the ghost zone to have full bodies from the beginning or who have levelled up from either Echo or Soul Eater over time.

They are much more powerful and make up the rest of the ecto scale 4-10. All of these ghosts have the ability to touch objects and people and have solid physical forms when they travel to the human world.

They can have a number of different abilities based on their obsession, what level they are, and whether they have a fire or ice core. But all of these ghosts share a common set of powers: Invisibility, passive ectoplasm absorption, flight, and intangibility.

Ghosts such as Ember, Kitty, Johnny, Skulker and even Danny fall into this category. as well as blob ghosts, which would be closer to a level 4 and tend to be one step above soul eaters when it comes to forming a body. But can still touch things and have physical forms.

-

If you were to take away ectoplasm from one of these ghosts or they were injured or separated from it for a long period of time they will level down the scale going from Ecto Entity > Soul Eater > Echo. They would need to replenish their ectoplasmic energy over time to go level back up.

-

This is my rough explanation of how I see and describe ghosts in the Danny Phantom universe. I may eventually make a full YouTube video about it, but for now, I will post it here.

[vampzity]

a distant memory | ateez

"i know you’re somewhere out there, somewhere far away." — talking to the moon, bruno mars

—✫ pairing: ateez x gn! reader

—✫ genre: angst, fluff??, ateez, one shot, ot8

—✫ synopsis: it’s been a year since the gang went their separate ways, however you can’t help but reminisce all the good times you shared. you constantly hope that one day, it’ll go back to normal again.

—✫ wc: 1.6k

[warnings]: mentions of scars, mentions of violence???, arguing, blood, accusations, yelling, cursing, name calling

—✫ a/n: i’m sorry in advance.. i seen these photos from the special and just felt a whole wave of nostalgia wash over me 🧎‍♀️

“.. and then we can all look through the photos again!”

You sighed heavily, going through the loads of videos and pictutes taken by the cam recorder. Every happy memory playing like a small scene from a movie in your head. No matter what you did, no matter how many times you watched these same videos, it never seemed to fill the empty void they once occupied in your heart.

It’s been a year since the incident, a hell of a year at that, and yet you still can’t seem to figure out where it all went wrong. Why such a tragic moment, broke the bond between you all.

“Y/n-ah! You walk so slow, let’s go!”

You smiled softly hearing Wooyoung teasing you. Even if it bugged you, you hated to admit that you missed someone bothering you every five minutes.

Seonghwa soon came into view, holding his own cam recorder toward yours. His soft laugh echoed through your ears as he made fun of you for recording him, even though he was doing it too. Jongho soon shoved Seonghwa out of the way, bringing his face up close to the camera as he sang to it jokingly.

“Does Jongho ever stop singing?!” Mingi teased.

It’s as if they’ve never left your heart. You looked onto your phone, seeing the groupchat still pinned on your messages. It was now a ghost town if a groupchat could even have one, and each member quietly made their way out of it. You however, chose to stay. So many memories, core memories, resided in that chat. From happy birthdays, to silly pictures that were sent amongst you all, to even the smallest moments of reassurance between members. You couldn’t just let all of that go, and you couldn’t let it go back then either.

However it pained you to see how easily the rest of them let it be. Were they even feeling the way that you were? How could they just up and leave after years of memories that were engraved into your heads.

The moonlight shone through your window. It was fuller today, just as it was that same time ago. You looked up at the moon, a few tears escaping your eyes.

Were they too, looking up at the same moon?

You felt crazy for thinking that any one of the boys missed not just you, but all of them as much as you did. You knew that somewhere out there, the boys were going on with their lives normally, having to carry the weight of that night with them just as you did.

Where did it all go wrong? Was it your fault? If you hadn’t stood against San like that, would you all have worked it out in the end? However, it wasn’t your fault. All you wanted was to stop the arguing, only for it to resort to violence.

You played with the cam recorder, holding it to your face as you sobbed. As much as you wanted to forget about that day, you knew you never could be able to. So many things reminded you of them, which then reminded you of that day. Scars you obtained from your fight with San still remained, even after they healed. Not even your body could forget.

“y/n-ah!”

You lifted your head, seeing the video turn to San as he waved to you. A smile stretched across his face as he grabbed the camera from you, turning it to face the both of you. You pouted at him as he kept it at a high angle, unable to take it from his hands.

“Sannie, give me that back!”

You jumped up to reach it, as all the other members sat around laughing with San. You stopped jumping and punched his arm softly, the boys chuckling around you.

“Ah, you guys suck!”

You sighed heavily, laying down on your bed as you closed your eyes. It’s as if every time you closed your eyes, that very night replayed in your head. No matter what you did to avoid thinking of it, you couldn’t get it to stop. No amount of therapy was helping for that.

☆flashback☆

“San stop!!”

Seonghwa pulled San away as you all stood there in shock. Mingi laid on the floor, hands still protecting his face. You couldn’t believe what you were seeing, only because it’s never gotten to a point like this. There was never a thought that crossed your mind over the boys arguing so bad, that they’d get physical.

Yunho helped Mingi up, his face bruised and nose dripping blood from the attack. Tears escaped Yunho’s eyes as he realized how bad the situation was getting. However it wasn’t just him, you were all unsure of how to help.

It’s been ongoing for weeks, where random members would break out into arguments and it would sometimes get physical. The more arguments that ensued, the more distant everyone became.

“This is getting out of hand! What happened to all of you?!”

You looked at all the members in horror, tears streaming down your face as they looked away from you. Hongjoong walked up to you, his arm wrapping around your shoulders as he tried to offer you some comfort.

“All you ever do is fight with one another, and when things get too far, you guys just resort to violence!”

Wooyoung stood up, an annoyed look on his face as he looked toward the members. Bandages covered his hands and cheeks, reminding you of the fight between him and Jongho just last week.

“She’s right. We all can’t keep going on like this.”

San scoffed, crossing his arms in disbelief as he stood on the opposite side of the room. He rolled his eyes, soon walking up to you and Hongjoong.

“So what? You never seen a group fall apart before?”

His voice rushed through you like cold water, giving you chills as you felt mini to him. No matter how afraid you were getting of the boys and their acts of violence, you refused to let it overtake you. Let alone, be obvious that you were growing afraid of them.

“Shut up.” You mumbled, your eyes straying from him.

He crossed his arms, leaning his face down to you. You felt his breath hit your cheek, making the hairs on your skin stand up.

“Suck it up. You weren’t even apart of our group in the first place.”

The room went quiet. Whenever arguments broke out, you were always the one maintaining peace between the members. Who would’ve known that was only a matter of time before you too have had enough.

“Are you just going to keep being hardheaded?!” you yelled out, pushing him harshly.

“Don’t push me, y/n.” San snarled, his voice low and raspy.

Wooyoung looked over at San, eyebrows furrowed as he wondered what was going to happen. None of the members expected this, especially not from you. When it came to you, everyone had their guard up as they weren’t going to let you be the one who got hurt from them.

“How many times do I need to get this into your head?!” You continued to pushed at San, punching his chest as you cried out.

“All of you! You’re all idiots! Can’t we just stop fighting?!”

San took every hit you gave him, growing increasingly aggravated with you. Tears steamed down your face as you continued to punch at him, wishing for the boys who once promised to never let arguing get as bad as it was now.

“God, quit it!” San pushed you harshly, making you stumble to the ground and hit your head.

He got ontop of you, holding your arms over your head as you struggled out of his grasp. His nails dug into your skin as he glared at you with a rabid look. Hongjoong grabbed onto his back, desperately trying to pull him off of you as he yelled into your face. Wooyoung grabbed onto his arm, using all his weight to pull.

“You’re the reason our group went to shit, you know that?! If you haven’t came in here being all pissy and flirting with all the members— slap!“

With the help of Jongho, he pulled your hand out of San’s grip, allowing you to slap him across the face. Everyone around you froze for a second, seeing your face red from anger and embarrassment after San’s words. San rubbed his cheek, eyes narrowed at you. He grabbed onto your hair, pulling you toward him.

“San! Let them go!! Stop!!”

Yunho rushed over to you, pushing San off of you as the other members pulled him off. It was a bit scary how much stronger San could be when he was angry. Wooyoung and Jongho pulled San off of you as he tried hard to fight back. Yunho held you in his arms, sitting in shock at how San just reacted to you.

“You fucking tramp! This is all your fault!”

Everyone froze, unsure of what to say, as did you. San has lost his mind, everyone did in their own way, though it seemed the group was far from saving at this point. There wasn’t much any of you could do.

You watched as San grabbed his things, making his way out of your home and slamming the door behind him. Silence filled the room, as you all remained speechless. Yunho continued to hold you as small tears ran down your face. What did this mean for you guys now? Was the really just the end of the people you called home?

The people your cherished and loved dearly, were no longer with you, instead living on their own terms. A year later, and you still remained without your home.

☆end of flashback☆

a/n: IM SO SORRY FOR THIS PLEASE DON’T KILL ME. listening to Empty Box while writing the ending of this made it even worse 💔 i love that song so much.

taglist: @skzline @rvereri @evidive @xoxkii @vrtualsins

@sanslovesblog @dvrktvnnel @scarfac3 @honeyhwaaa @sundaybossanova

@kittykat-25 @losrpark @yyaurii @hwasddeongbyeoli @aestheticjoonie @interweab

@roomsofangel @mingtinysworld @minghaoslatina @vnessalau

[catfern]

1 MILLION SUBSCRIBERS SPECIAL

pairing: ghost hunter!ellie x afab!reader (feminine pronouns used)

music: eyes without a face - billy idol

word count: 2.3k

summary: ghost hunter!ellie needs a new assistant to help film her 1 million subscribers special in a supposedly 'haunted house'. good thing you'll do anything she says.

warnings: SEXTAPE, oral (r!receiving) fingering (r!receiving), ghosts? spooky business, ellie is a shitty clickbait youtuber

an: heyyy this came to me in a dream. nothing much else to say. get ready to fuck dirty while ghosts watch idk. this is probably gonna be my only halloween fic while we're still in october. got some other ideas tho so get ready for a spooky november

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

“come on! come on! it’ll be fun! something memorable on halloween.”

“jesus, ellie, you know I don’t believe in that shit.”

it’s a coy laugh. your fingers dance over your phone, unsure what to do. you didn’t believe her when she jumped and screamed, bolstering about her 1 millionth subscriber.

‘The Ghost Detective.’ her youtube profile was almost as shoddy as her Mr. Beast-esque clickbait video titles.

“then it doesn’t matter!” she had a hold on your forearm, intermittent squeezing begging you to fold, “please? the last girl I had thought her dead mom was talking to her and ran off.”

she had an almost pitiful look in her eyes, her eyebrows screwed together as she pleaded. 

fucking hell. you were convinced if you hadn’t met ellie, hadn’t started falling behind her like an obedient dog, you’d actually submit most of your assignments on time.

“fine.”

it wasn’t that your tiny town was particularly superstitious, or religious, or any other ‘-itious’, but it was in unspoken agreement that there was something inexplicable here, on the hill that looked over the lights of the suburbs. a decaying prairie protrusion built god-knows-when, the moon shone high in its fullness through the rotting foundations, casting its shadows over the dead grass, falling at your feet with the cool of the wind.

the whisper in her voice ran up your spine, “gettin’ scared yet?”

ellie seemed all too giddy to be here, a wicked smile and a laugh in her throat. her hair was pulled back from her face, and you could lightly see the ghost of freckles across her cheek in the night. 

“what? no, no. i’m just tired.”

“right,” she was poking fun, the words dripping from her lips like electricity. she dumped her arms-full of equipment in your arms with a huff, before digging around in her backpack. “here,” cold metal in your hand as she took back her stuff. redbull, “we’re gonna be here all night.”

you don’t know how she did it. even as a certified non-believer, the engulfing emptiness of the house, the darkness that settled in the cracks and corners caught up with you, something unsettling pricking the hairs on the back of your neck.

but here she was. she brought a lawn chair from home, said it was her dad’s. equipped with the built-in beer holder and everything, she was relaxed. her elbows settled on her knees, her hands fallen limp in the space between her legs. she had something in her eyes, a glint. something determined, charming as she stared you down. well, the camera.

but you were staring at her right back. memorising what little detail echoed through the lens of the shitty 2008 sony camcorder.

she said it was for the ‘found footage look’. you know it’s just because she’s broke.

“now, legend has it, ladies and gentlemen, that the last owners of this iconic hillside property were satan .. worshippers. and that this house, this very house that i’m sitting in right now, is actually an active portal. to. hell.”

you’ve gotta give it to her. she had a talent for drama.

“i’ll just point to you when i need you to do like, i dunno, a little camera pan or something, yeah?”

ellie was explaining it to you like you hadn’t just been at home binge-watching her channel for the past few days, meticulous research, you called it. to make sure you did a good job as her assistant. not like the blur of her messy hair and her face in the ghoulish green light of the night vision camera did anything to you.

you knew her video structure. front room first, then five minutes in a spooky hallway, then some time left to freak out in one of the bedrooms, find an old haunted toy that definitely wasn’t planted, and then a quick exit with a lot of swearing, screaming and camera shaking.

“right, you ready?”

you nod. 

the front room was, unsurprisingly, boring, although ellie put on her best shiver-me-timbers face, as she calls it. something for the fans.

but when you got back into the hallway, something in the air had changed. you looked to ellie, and you couldn’t tell if what she felt was real, or fake. she just kept looking at you through the camera, the same dramatised ‘concern’ written all over her face.

everything ellie does is scripted. fake.

if there was something wrong, truly wrong, here, you would leave, right?

the feeling was violently oppressive, pushing down on you. run, run, run. a gush of something ran across the back of your neck.

“fuck! what was that? did you feel that?”

“hey, hey,” the sudden normalness of her voice felt misplaced, “just keep the camera on me, okay? eyes on me.” 

you could barely see her fucking eyes. the imposing and suffocating darkness of the house seemed to wrap around you horribly tight, the only thing keeping you tethered to your sense of sanity was the sound of ellie’s breath, so close you could feel it wisp around your cheekbone, warm and inviting. the only comfort fighting the cold in the air.

slowly, your sight adjusts to the dark, and you could barely make out the outline of her face in the dim light of the moon. she was watching you, her eyes lidded, flickering over the shadow of your body. your own breath was quick, adrenaline laced, something sore and deep. you feel a slight graze against your arm and you jump, ellie catching your shoulders in her arms, pushing you upright,

“careful, it’s just me,”

there’s a closeness now, a beat. her grip is strong as it soothes the shaking, the fear, the absolute buzz that you’re convinced is the only thing keeping you alive. you quickly become obsessed with the design of her, you’ve never been this close. suddenly, you recognise the way her hair falls on her face, the look in her eyes, the shine as she looks at you. she clears her throat, and her hands drop, coarsely, from your shoulders,

“come on, you’re alright. let’s keep going.”

yeah, yeah. you fumble your hand back through the strap of the camera, a slight twitch in your hand as you press record,

“fucking hell,” her voice was raspy, deep, a soft but commanding whisper, “the spirits sure are stirred up here… i wonder what happened.”

stay close to me. it’s barely a breath, something not meant to be heard, but her voice is luring, and you nod.

your footsteps were a heavy echo against the aging wood floor, the creaks spreading through the house like a warning. to you, or to others, you don’t know.

the bedroom wasn’t far. you had to hike up a flight of decaying steps, but as ellie talked to the camera, she held a hand firm on your back. she wouldn’t let you fall.

the room obviously belonged to some kids, however long ago. abandoned toys and rotted posters littered the floor, and it almost felt painful to see the life that was once in this house. but why did they leave everything here? kids drawings, toys, a closet full of half-eaten, moth-ridden clothes.

what made them just get up and leave?

wind rattled against the window, it felt like it was rocking the house. something was uneasy here, unnerving. you tried to focus your thoughts on ellie, her dramatic storytelling and perfectly practiced ‘scared’ body language, but there was something here. and it was watching.

one final gust of wind surged against the rocky foundations of the house, and the closet doors flung open, an old wooden puppet flying out to your feet.

you were never a screamer, never. which is why, when you heard a blood-curdling shriek rush through the house, it felt like an out of body experience. something foreign. you fell back and tripped over your own feet, desperate to put as much distance between you and whatever was in this house as possible.

luckily, ellie’s fear is fabricated. she’s quick to respond, stepping in to steady you with kind hands and a charming smile. your heart rate was so intense, it rocked the both of you, chest to back, intertwined something fierce. your breath settles against her chest, and you meet her eye,

“thought you didn’t get scared,” she was being a tease. her hands ghosting over your body gently, carefully, thinly veiled under the guise of simply holding you, caring for you, she was keeping you safe. it was a little self-indulgent.

“i’m not,” you steel yourself, stubborn girl, although a soft laugh bubbles in your throat. there’s something unreal about the steady feeling of ellie’s hands, the roughness of her palms pushing through your clothing. you turn, and she’s smiling, the glint of her teeth in the soft light, mischief an echo on her face. her voice was low as she leaned in, tickles of her hair just brushing the apple of your cheekbone,

“really, baby? i don’t think you would even still be here if it wasn’t for me.”

“you think i’m here for you?” she’s so close you can feel your breath swirl with hers, heat brushing down your jaw and dripping onto your neck. her grip on your waist anchors, and you feel her settle in the crooks of your body, the corners of your skin, like she’s home. she’s looking at you, something jokingly fierce, but unsure, and her gaze falls on your lips, 

“mhm,”

you’d think she’d been starved. restless, choked breaths fall between you in gaps as she pulls you in, heavy, her lips on yours in fervour. her hands are everywhere, tracing themselves in your hair, down your neck, feeling their way blindly along the softness of your skin. god.

her lips draw from yours, dragging a mix of spit and lip gloss down your chin, along the ridge of your neck, a trail glistening in the edging darkness.

“fuck, ellie.”

you barely register the weight lifting from your hand, only a visceral whine as she pulls from you, walking a safe distance to gently place the camera down, out of the way.

ellie finds herself back in the crook of her neck, dragging your skin through her teeth, soft groans rumbling from her throat as her hands pull their way down to the waistband of your skirt,

a skirt? really?

had you planned this?

“come on, sweetheart,” she’s barely audible against your skin, vibrations dripping down your torso as her hands dive under your shirt, lifting it to bounce above your tits, “that’s it.”

her palm cups the base of your tit, dragging soft moans from your pretty lips as she squeezes.

under her breath, she’s praying. vulgar, tenacious, she can’t control herself, lost in the dream of your body as she presses you against a wall she hopes won’t collapse.

fuck-god, fuck, jesus, baby.

if you’re who she’s praying to, it falls on deaf ears. you’re no god, you can’t help her, but fuck, she feels like she could worship you. properly, forever, falling to her knees and cupping her palms behind your thighs, it’s like she’s pleading,

“can i?” she’s soft, her cheek resting on the inside of your thigh, you’re her altar, “god, say yes.”

her nose just graces the wetness of your underwear and you flinch, “yes! ellie, f-fuck-please.”

she loops her pointer fingers into the waistband of your panties, dragging them down your thighs, almost too rough. she loses herself in the heat, the slick dripping from your pussy.

heat poured over your body like molten gold, the feeling of her tongue inside you, raw, animalistic, sending pulses sliding up the ridges of your skin. she hums against your clit, her hand coming down to pull your velvet slick from the rim of her lips.

you convulse, clenching around the encroaching absence of a feeling, of something you didn’t know you needed. 

her.

“fucking hell, sweet girl,” deep, ragged breaths shadow your thighs. she needs air, but its not like she wants it. fuck, she wants you, she needs you. your taste on her tongue is metallic, a memory she’s chasing like a quick withdrawal. her tongue finds your clit and presses, a murmur leaving her drowning lips and echoing through your veins as you moan, desperation clawing through your hands and in ellie’s hair, binding. 

“please, el-f-shit, i need you. i need to feel you, fuck!”

you didn’t need to ask twice.

 fuck, you wrapped around her like you were made for her, godsent, a gift for her devotion. she stretched you, opening you with her fingers and you nearly melted, ellie’s arm wrapped around your thigh the only stability offered for your spent body. your head threw back, digging into the old, rotting wood of the wall, and if ellie looked up, pulled away from her firm spot between your legs, she would have seen you and completely unravelled.

she wasn’t gentle, the way her fingers moved inside you. desperate and completely unforgiving, she needed everything that you were willing to give her, her pace rough, fast, world-destroying.

and there she was, a lazy grin bearing her teeth against your clit, pussydrunk and delirious, tasting you and content enough to die.

she supposed she wouldn’t mind haunting this house, if you came to visit her.

low warbles against your cunt, you couldn’t hear her, even if you were listening. drowning in the push and pull of her touch, in the warmth of her, your head felt like molasses, your body something soft, mouldable to her design. ellie laughed against your walls, sweet and desiring, and you collapsed.

your vision bleary, you could just feel the tips of ellie’s fingers brushing through your hair, smoothing your slick across your skin. your head fell against hers, and you could just make out something blinking in the foggy distance, 

the camera,

“hey, el,”

she sighed, heat in the crook of your neck, “yeah?”

 “does the red light mean it’s on?”

A few days later, the thoughts of ghosthunting weighing heavy on your mind, ellie texts you,

thought you might want a copy <3

my subscribers will love you

attachment: hauntedhouse.mov 

taglist; @whore4abby

dm me to join my sad lil list <3

[sleepy-writes-stuff]

(short continuation to the prompt I wrote, which is linked below. I thought I was done with this, but then @victoria-has-no-secret and @bluerosefox had some ideas to incorporate into it. Screenshots of said ideas are also below but are sprinkled throughout the post too.)

(*) = Me building off of other ideas

TW: mentions of animal death

← previous

✦

After the whole fiasco with the Justice League, Danny gets an idea. Not very many people actually know about Laika, at least from what he could see of the majority of the Justice League who had never learned about her. Although, to be fair, a lot of them come from different planets. Either way, it gives Danny the idea to create a YouTube channel starring Laika to teach the people of Earth about the pup.

The channel immediately garners attention from all around the world, and even winds up on a couple of news stations too! It grows so much that Danny decides to expand further than just Laika, but to the other things that were sent into space in the quest for knowledge: The space rovers as well as many other animals.

Laika even leads Danny to them as he ventures further into space with a specially made camera that can withstand traversing space and the differing atmosphereic conditions of other planets. He manages to find every single one of them, discovering that maybe Laika hadn't been as alone as he'd first thought as he watches and records her playing with the spirits (imprints?) of the rovers, chimps, mice, and many other animals haunting the endless void of the cosmos.

People back on earth are going wild with the knowledge that their hopes, thoughts, and feelings helped to give life to beings that had long been dead/stopped working. They have no idea what to feel about this new information except an amalgamation of pure awe, curiosity, joy, guilt, and sadness. They still mourned the loss of Laika, the rovers, and everyone before and after them, but knowing that their existence wasn't completely lost soothed an ache many didn't know they carried with them when they were there to witness the beginning of such astronomical leaps in technology.

To also know that out of the many stars shooting across the sky, one of them might be Laika happily racing amongst the stars with her friends brought many to tears. At every opportunity, they wished for the sweet pup's happiness and the continuing health of their own furry companions down on Earth with them. They also wished that upon the eventuality that they have to part with their companions that maybe a few of them would join Laika and her friends in stars to keep them company for many years to come.

Although many of these wishes were heard by Desiree, she refused to touch such hopeful and well-meaning wishes for fear of twisting them in unseemly ways, allowing them to form on their own. The other ghosts among Danny's rouges even made a deal with each other to not interfere or attack the town when Danny was recording his videos out in space.

It was beyond bad manners to interfere with another ghost's obsession, after all.

✦

I'm gonna go cry some more. I've learned more about the progress of space exploration in the past couple hours than I probably should. This is the last thing I'm adding onto this prompt. If any of y'all wanna continue it, be my guest!

Notes:

(*) One more thing to add. Where are the ghost hunters/Guys in White during all of this? If they start making a fuss over Phantom and all the ghost animals, do they get a bunch of civilians raiding their government facilities and causing them bodily harm? What's happening with the Justice League? Are they sitting back and eating popcorn while all this goes down? Who knows. :)

[holnnetd]

No rejection under my roof

Tbh, I saw a silly little tiktok and I was like, damn. Me too. So anyway, I'm projecting (it fucking took me ChatGPT to figure out what that word was again) and I truly believe the men are just like that.

So have some silly headcanons:

(I haven't proofread it yet, so sorry for everyone reading this!)

This is only fiction, please remember.

Jonathan Price is... oddly okay with it. You need to work on your career you say? He's sure he could pull some strings. Well, only if you go out with him to that new coffee shop down town. Just to discuss the opportunities of your future. Of course. He's pretty sure he'd look great with a successful lad next to him. He'd show you off, proudly telling that you don't only look godly and make the best spaghetti, but you're also a badass that's hardworking.

Kyle "Gaz" Garrick smiles as you deny him, telling you that it's fine and he understands. Until he shows up to your family home one day, chatting up your relatives like they are old friends? You smile kindly, confused as to why he's here and you just hear your family say what a nice boy he is and that he helped them carry groceries one day. Even helped them cook that dish they'd only eat for special occasions. Really, what s weird coincidence. Oh and they want you guys to know eachother? Maybe date? Huh... Really suspicious.

Simon "Ghost" Riley would stand stumped before you, feeling slightly confused and embarrassed at being rejected. Why would you... Reject him? He can't go back to the team after they told him to go for it. He'd stare at you in silence, believing you straight up just didn't hear him. So with a gruff expression he asks again, "would you want to date me?", just to make sure you hear him right.

Johnny "Soap" MacTavish is absolutely convinced that "I'm freshly after a break up" means "Please make me forget about him" and he takes it as his personal challenge. Without knowing the reason of Saud breakup, he will blame to ex, saying that he should have watched out better for such a beautiful lad like yourself! What batter way to get on your annoying, bad ex then to send him a video of you getting absolutely fucked into next week by a bigger dick then he could have hoped to have? Really, that would crash anyone's ego.

Alejandro Vargas would be pretty persistent. He's a man of passion and I cannot accentuate it enough, but he would do so much for anyone he likes. He knows that maybe he's about to destroy a 7 year friendship with you, but he really can't stop himself from physically kissing up your hands to pepper your pretty, pretty face with every bit of love. You're precious! Please let him shower you with his love. He might start showing up at your house every day if you don't!

Rodolfo Parra listens carefully as you tell him that you have too much on your plate right now to accept. Really it's too much. And he just smiles awkwardly, handing you the bouquet, "we can eat together if it's that much. Two heads is more then one" he says and if you're not swooned, you don't deserve him. He is by your side to help you out with any problem you might have. Too much to chew? Well, only metaphorically speaking, give some to him. (Please don't literally, I swear it's just a metaphor) There is nothing he can't handle with a little bit of stubbornes and persuasion.

Valeria Garza wouldn't take it to heart. She understands being in any shape of form tied to the mafia has huge risks and maybe not everyone's preference, but she stays open for you to come back. Talking you that she will always help out if there is a problem. And problems did came surely. Someone framed you for stealing? The cops were being awfully rude, gave you a speeding ticket and then someone broke into your house? Bad luck, huh? You can't stay in your house after it being demolished, but you really don't want to risk your family with had luck. So the only way out is to grab the hand and become a mafia bosses spouse. Don't worry, she made sure no one else dared to touch you anymore.

Philip Graves wouldn't take no for an answer. No matter your argument. You have a boyfriend? Doesn't matter, dump him. Philip is better. He has money, a charming smile, even more money, and lawyers that could sweep one dead body under the rug. Maybe 3, if you are as stubborn as he is. But when there is no man in your life? Oh, he's so guilt tripping you with his money into dating. He brought you so many gifts, how can you say no while there is a fresh bouquet of flowers in front of your door with a box of jewellery with his initials somewhere engraved on them?

Farrah Karim. Nah, just why would you reject her, really? Don't. No one would. She's sweet.

Alex Keller doesn't understand what you mean. You see him as family? Good, he's a family man! It sounds to him like you want a family with him, and hell who is he to deny his beautiful girlfriend a family. You want a kid? Sure! You don't want one? You two can settle with a dog for the time being, really. He's an open guy, not really wanting to accept denial. It's not really denial at this point. Family loves eachother! So you two have to do that too. And maybe love eachother in bed.

Vladimir Makarov wouldn't even ask to be dating. He'd send not so vague threats and straight up demand of you to be his spouse. You were kidnapped and threatened with a gun to your head to marry him. Yeah. That's... How it went. Very romantic. It's either a, you die now or you die later with me. And hopefully not being stupid you'd rather live with a terrorist for a while, not having to worry about working until you two die. Maybe separately, maybe if you stay loyal and nice to him he will hold you while either of you dies. That's the most romance you will get from this power driven man.

Now come the fake ahh characters that I especially love:

"König" (of course) would be devastated to hear that you cannot date someone like him. Why is that? Is it the amount of dead bodies he had touched with his hands?? He will wear gloves whenever touching you, of course! Maybe it's because of the scars on his body? Don't worry, he will get tattoos over them so you don't have to see any! Maybe it's how he looks??? He swears he will shave his arms and legs and cut his hair- No! It's because if his height, right Schatz? He's to tall, of course... Well don't worry your head, he doesn't mind staying on his knees. Actually he's quite fond to stay there, as long as your legs are on his shoulders and he gets to press his lips into your flesh. Poor overthinking puppy.

Kim "Horangi" Hong-jin is looking at you with a raised brow as you tell him you can't stand him. Well then sit down. He drags a chair over to you, forcing you to sit down on it. You will sit, until you can stand him again. And then you will go on a date. Tired of him? Take a nap, it's not that deep. Hell, maybe a good cuddle session in his bed is what you need! He will drag you to his bed, in uniform or not, force you to lay down before plopping on top of you, making sure you're not tired anymore. Tsk, escaping from the tiger? Please.

[minastras]

dear stranger, do you remember me too? // sunghoon

When you were sixteen, you betrayed Park Sunghoon. Or he betrayed you. Whichever it was, you knew two things for sure: 1) kids were cruel, and 2) you would spend the rest of your life trying to make up your mind. Well, until you saw him again. It was a strange feeling, meeting him in the flesh even though his ghost had been haunting you for three years.

at a glance: childhood friends to strangers to lovers, reformed bad boy! sunghoon, university au, pure angst (i received High Level Clearance from @end-hyphen to put him through the wringer sorry), ft. hyung line

words: 12.3k

warnings: swearing, mild mentions of blood, sexual harassment, and fights (nothing serious), alcohol and cigarette use

——————————

For as long as you could remember, Park Sunghoon had been the centre of your solar system, the axis around which your universe revolved. You’d known him since the day you were born. You lived on the same street, four houses apart, and as the only two kids in the area you naturally bonded instantly with each other. He was your best friend, your confidant, your partner in crime.

As soon as you both were no taller than his coffee table, you spent nearly every day together at the playground behind your street, running through the neighbourhood blowing bubbles and chasing butterflies.

“Do you think we could both fit on the same swing?” You could still hear your voice, light and flowery back then, asking.

“Let’s find out,” his equally childish voice rang back, before he yanked you into his lap and struggled to get enough leverage with his feet to push you both off the ground.

That ended with you tumbling out of the swing and onto the tarmac just by the playground, scraping your knee. You both must’ve been only five years old then, but you didn’t cry, instead stubbornly getting to your feet and ignoring the blood trickling down your calf until you were back in the privacy of your living room.

He had carried you home on his back, even though you could walk just fine, and sat you down on the sofa while he cleaned your broken skin with a tissue.

“You can cry if you want,” he had said simply, in that innocent manner only kids have.

You were with him all the way through kindergarten to middle school to high school. Neither of you had many friends; you were both quiet and shy and somewhat rough around the edges. But that didn’t matter, because you had each other.

As you grew from toddlers to precocious children to teenagers, you continued spending nearly every day together. When you weren’t glued to each other’s sides in school, he was spending the night at your house after class, or you were playing video games in his room on weekends.

You always looked forward to Fridays. Sunghoon finished school an hour after you did and he would wait for you in an empty classroom. Afterwards you would take the bus into town and waste away the rest of the afternoon at the movies or in the arcade. You’d buy fried chicken for dinner and eat in your room, and he would spend the night. In the summertime, you’d climb up to the roof and stargaze and eventually fall asleep beside him, only to be rudely awakened by middle-of-the-night summer showers.

You had never known anything else but you and Sunghoon against the world.

——————————

When you were sixteen, things began to change.

“Do you want to do something special tonight?” Sunghoon asked. You were hanging out in your bedroom, him lying on your bed and you sitting on a bean bag on the floor, listening to music and studying.

“Like what?”

He grinned excitedly and handed you his phone.  “Jeongmin invited me to join him and his friends. He asked me to bring you, too.”

You read the brief text exchange and frowned. “Jeongmin? As in, iljin and leader of that gang of dickheads, Jeongmin?”

“He’s actually nicer than he seems, you know,” Sunghoon told you. “He said he wants us all to hang out.”

You gave him his phone back, incredulous. “Hoon, the four of them beat up Ahn Jinho so badly last month that he’s still in hospital. You can’t seriously be considering taking him up on his offer. He’s going to drag us out into a park and kill us.”

“I think he just wants to show us how to have fun. You know, live a little. Why else would he invite two nerd loners like us?” he asked.

“Because we’re weak, lonely, and easy to take advantage of?” you pointed out. When he didn’t respond, you sighed. “Do you really want to go?”

“I do.”

“Fine.”

He shook his head rapidly. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

“And let you get killed all by yourself? No thanks. We die together.”

——————————

You knew it was a mistake the second the conversation ended, but, as you said, you weren’t very well going to let Sunghoon go alone. And he was adamant, longing for friends, and desperate for an adventure. He clung to your arm as you walked from your house to the abandoned car park, thanking you repeatedly the entire journey.

Regret set in almost instantly. For you, anyway. Sunghoon seemed to be having a blast.

Jeongmin was already there waiting for you, with a case of cheap alcohol in his hand and his three lackeys in tow. You sat in the car park watching as Sunghoon drank and smoked with them, pretending to enjoy himself even though you knew he despised the taste of both of those things.

Jeongmin respected your assertion that you wouldn’t smoke (a shocker), but continued pushing you to drink the entire night. You fidgeted under his leering gaze, only growing more anxious as the minutes ticked by and he kept trying to ply you with alcohol, kept sitting closer and closer to you, kept returning his hand to your thigh no matter how many times you shifted away. Sunghoon didn’t stop him.

At the end of the night, you dragged Sunghoon back to your house and managed to get him up to your room without waking up your dad. He was wasted and reeked of smoke, incredibly lucky that his parents would just assume he’d spent the night at yours like always. You dumped him on your bed, aired out his clothes, and mixed honey and lemon juice into a glass of warm water for him to try and stop his cough.

“Did you have fun?” he asked, already changed into some of his sleeping clothes he kept in your room. His words were slurred and his cheeks were red, but he was coherent enough. “God, my throat feels like shit.”

“Because you smoked half a pack in one sitting like you were cosplaying as a forty-five year old weathered truck driver. Drink your honey lemon water,” you ordered, opening your bedroom windows so the cigarette smoke wouldn’t linger. “And no, I did not.”

He pouted but complied. “They’re not that bad.”

You took the empty glass from his hands and pulled the blankets up over him, touching his forehead. His skin was warm and flushed from the alcohol. “We’ll agree to disagree,” you said, heading downstairs to wash the glass.

“Lie down with me,” he whined the second you came back, somehow having managed to tuck himself into your bed like a sushi roll.

You switched off the lights and climbed into bed beside him, close but not touching. “I really don’t think you should be mixing with them, Hoon. They’re bad news,” you said quietly.

He’d fallen asleep before you ever got the chance to finish your sentence.

——————————

Over the next few weeks, Sunghoon started going out on more of these ‘adventures’. You stopped tagging along, but he still relied on you to shelter him in your room so his parents wouldn’t find out where he was disappearing to. And you continued to keep your phone right by your pillow while you slept so you could go bring him home if and when he called you.

He kept smoking around Jeongmin and his friends, even though he hated it and it made his throat itchy. You had started doing your own grocery shopping so your dad wouldn’t notice how fast the lemons and honey ran out nowadays.

When you and him were together, he acted exactly the same. He was still sweet, thoughtful, and just a little bit snarky. He still stuck to you in school, still waited for you every Friday afternoon, and still followed you to whichever new restaurant you wanted to try out on the weekends. He still lit up with a smile when you came by to his figure skating practice to cheer him on, much to the chagrin of his coach.

But whenever he went out to get wasted with Jeongmin and his gang and you had to go pick him up, you caught glimpses of the person he was becoming. He was picking fights and losing his temper at the smallest things, aggressive and hot-headed and dripping in machismo. No longer charmingly sarcastic with a gentle side, now he was just mean.

As soon as you two were back in your room, however, that all melted away. He would cuddle up to you, apologise, and thank you for always bringing him home no matter how ungodly the hour. If he woke up before you, he would tidy your room as a way to return the favour and leave a snack on your bedside table.

The snack was always accompanied by a yellow post-it note which he took from your desk (you didn’t even use those, but you kept them around specifically for him) with a dumb doodle or lots of hearts or both.

You weren’t happy about this development, but you didn’t do anything to stop it. It was his life, not yours. And you weren’t really in the business of speaking up about things that bothered you anyway. You kept your head down and your mouth shut, and stayed out of Jeongmin’s way.

Until one fateful Tuesday, about two months after the first invitation.

Sunghoon rarely talked to you about his newfound friends; he knew you didn’t approve of them and he didn’t want to upset you. This particular piece of news, though, was just too exciting to keep from you. After all, you were his best friend. He wanted you to be a part of his new life.

“Guess what the guys and I are doing on Sunday,” he said. You nodded for him to continue, somewhat distracted by the cinnamon rolls you were baking together in his kitchen, not entirely sure when ‘the guys’ had become a thing. “Jeongmin’s cousin is in town, and he has a fancy new car. We’re gonna hotwire it, drive it down to the cliff, and set it on fire.”

You stopped dead in your tracks, your jaw dropping open. “What? Sunghoon, that’s too dangerous.”

“That’s why we’ll do it at the cliff. There’s nothing around there that could burn down,” he explained, like that made it okay.

If it weren’t for his completely serious tone and expression, you would have thought he was joking. You set down the mixing bowl you were holding. “No, you could get hurt,” you said, adding, “And what if you get caught? That’s grand larceny and arson.”

“The guy’s an asshole anyway,” he said nonchalantly, not listening to you.

“That doesn’t make it legal, Hoon. Or safe. I’m serious. You can’t do that.”

He folded his arms across his chest, scowling. “You’re just jealous,” he said.

“I don’t want you to go to jail,” you corrected.

“No, you’re jealous I finally have friends other than you. Like, cool, normal, friends,” he snapped, angrier than you’d ever seen him.

Never in your life had he raised his voice at you. You pretty much never fought, aside from short bouts of time when one of you was upset for one reason or another, but you always smoothed things over through calm, measured conversations. Not arguments like this.

You paused, stepping away from the counter, from him. “Is that what this is about? I’m not good enough for you?” you asked, your voice soft.

He had never once indicated he was unhappy with your friendship, with your relaxed hangouts in each other’s houses and comfortable outings to cinemas and restaurants and bookstores. But clearly he wanted something else: to be cool, normal, and have friends that weren’t shy recluses.

You trusted him. He was your whole world, and you’d always assumed you were his too.

“That’s not what I meant,” he said, pulling back his words as you turned to leave. He followed you, pleading, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

“I’m going home,” you stated firmly, rushing out of his house and slamming the front door shut behind you.

——————————

By Sunday evening, you cracked. You had been avoiding Sunghoon for the last two days, and both of your families had noticed. You couldn’t stop thinking about that night, if he would be caught, if he was going to be okay. There was no way you’d be able to talk to his parents without him finding out unless he was out at figure skating training, so you confided in your dad. And he called Sunghoon’s mom right then and there.

“You did the right thing, Y/N. I’m proud of you,” your dad said after he hung up, patting your head.

“It doesn’t feel like I did,” you mumbled, your insides twisting and twisting away.

“I know, honey.” Your dad rubbed your shoulders comfortingly, before offering, “Do you want to go out for ice cream? Take your mind off it? I can call off work.”

You clung to him for a few more seconds, then let go. “I just want to be alone for a while, if that’s okay,” you said, retreating to your bedroom while your dad left for his night shift at the plant.

You weren’t sure how long you lay in your bed staring at the ceiling in complete silence, numbed by guilt, before your bedroom door swung open and Sunghoon barged into your room. In your state, you hadn’t even heard him enter your house. You scrambled to your feet.

“Did you fucking snitch on me?”

He was in all black, with a graphic t-shirt over a long sleeved polo, ripped jeans, and boots. With his hair styled and jewellery on, he must’ve been ready to leave the house, because that was how he normally dressed to meet Jeongmin and his gang.

“Hoon-”

“I told you that in confidence,” he snapped, shutting your bedroom door. His eyes, narrowed in hatred, glowered at you. You walked over to him and reached for his hand, but he slapped you away, recoiling at your touch like you were a hot stove. “How could you do this to me?”

“I was worried about you,” you said, your tone begging, mollifying. You rarely saw him this angry, and never had that anger been directed at you.

“Bullshit. My parents just screamed at me for two hours. Jeongmin’s gonna be pissed at me,” he fumed. “You weren’t fucking worried about me. You didn’t want me to be doing things without you.”

You dug your nails into your palms, trying to stop yourself from crying. It seemed to work, for a while, anyway. “Is that how you see me? As a needy pest who won’t let you go?” you asked, each word a chore to get out, your eyes already stinging. Not from his words, but from the sheer contempt in his expression.

Had he really spent the last sixteen years so desperate to get rid of you, like you were a persistent barnacle on a ship that refused to leave? Did he hate you that much? How had you never known?

He took a step towards you. His eyes were cold, his jaw was clenched, and you couldn’t even recognise him. You stepped back cautiously.

“Oh, like you’re some perfect angel,” he spat through gritted teeth. 

“I’m not. I just don’t want you to throw away your future. I-”

“You know what your problem is?” he shouted, cutting you off. He took yet another step forward, and you again stepped back. The backs of your knees hit your bed frame. “You’re a hypocrite. You hold everyone to such a high moral standard that no one is ever good enough for you. Not me, and not yourself. That’s why you fucking hate yourself so much.”

You couldn’t speak. Your heart was firmly lodged in your throat. For several agonising seconds, the only things you could hear were his furious breathing and your own heartbeat pounding in your ears.

“I think you should go home,” you finally said after a long pause. Your voice was shaking as you held back tears. “We can talk about this when you’ve calmed down-”

“Don’t fucking tell me to calm down!”

Sunghoon raised his hand to push back his fringe, but you didn’t know that. Because when his hand came up, you flinched. 

He lowered his hand immediately, only then noticing that he’d backed you into a corner. Instead of shock or anger or hurt, there was nothing but pure, unadulterated fear in your eyes.

“Did you think I was going to hit you?” he whispered, stepping back.

You squeezed your eyes shut and turned away, walking to your open window and resting your hands on the windowsill. “Please leave,” you said simply, fighting to keep your voice stable as tears began to roll down your face, not looking at him.

He stood and waited for a minute, watching you. You could feel his gaze. But when you refused to turn back around, he sighed and left. You heard your bedroom door close, and then your front door a few seconds later, and then it was so, so quiet.

——————————

You and Sunghoon avoided each other like the plague after that fight, although that torture hadn’t lasted long. Within two weeks, he’d withdrawn from school and vanished. His parents told you he’d gone to a boarding school in a different town, but they didn’t say where or why.

You never saw him again.

Being in your hometown for those last two years of high school was difficult for you. Having to live just down the road from his family home, constantly surrounded by all of your old haunts, made it hard for you to get him out of your head.

After high school you’d gone to a small university to do your first year with a conditional offer from your dream school in your back pocket. You needed time to save up money, and you were hoping to secure a scholarship with your first year grades.

You’d been lucky enough to make a new friend, Heeseung. Like you, he was only in that university temporarily to work his way into a scholarship. Your relationship was initially one of convenience and comfort — neither of you were particularly keen on mixing with the other students you never planned to see again after your first year — but you quickly became genuine friends.

You kept each other motivated, and both managed to secure transfers before your second year started. In fact, you’d done so well that your then-university had begged you to stay, offering you scholarship after scholarship and full fee remissions. But you both turned them down. You had loftier ambitions.

Once you moved away to university, things got better. Of course, the vestiges remained. You still had Sunghoon’s Spotify playlists in your account, your shared arcade membership card in your wallet, and some of his socks mixed in with your own. Before you fought he’d borrowed your favourite pair of red shrimp socks, and now you were never going to get them back.

But you didn’t think about him nearly as often as you used to. He was no longer a ghost living in your head, but a will-o’-the-wisp that occasionally caught your eye when you saw something that reminded you of him.

And now you and Heeseung were standing in the foyer of your new dorm with nothing from your past but a small suitcase each, in the university you’d been chasing your entire lives, ready to start your second year. 

“We made it,” Heeseung whispered to you, still not fully comprehending it all. You were really here.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been this nervous in my life,” you whispered back.

“Me too. If we weren’t roommates I’d be shitting bricks by now.”

The school had been gracious enough to allow you and Heeseung to live together in a small apartment within the music students’ dorm, since you were pretty sure at least one of you would have gone bonkers if you were separated. You would be sharing the floor with another similar apartment housing three students who would meet you in the foyer to help you move in.

Right on time, one of them (you presumed) came bounding down the stairs excitedly. He broke into a broad smile the second he saw your suitcases, his originally stern-looking features softening instantly as he did.

“Are you the transfers? Nice to meet you! I’m Jay. We spoke on the phone.”

You spoke up first when it became clear Heeseung was far too anxious to talk. “Hi! I’m Y/N, and this is Heeseung. Nice to meet you too.”

“Welcome aboard,” Jay said, easily picking up your suitcase before you could object. Heeseung fumbled for his own. “My roommates are just finishing getting your apartment ready. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Shouldn’t that be the school’s job?” you asked, following him up the stairs.

“This place can be a bit of a circus, believe it or not,” Jay remarked, making you and Heeseung exchange glances. When you reached the fifth floor, not a single hair on his head was out of place even though your bag was heavy as fuck.

“Thank you,” you said.

“No problem. That’s us over there,” he said, pointing to the first door on the level, “and this is you guys.”

The apartment was modestly-sized and simple, but clean and otherwise perfect. Jay introduced you to his first roommate Jake, who was sitting at the kitchen counter when you arrived.

“Thanks for setting all of this up for us. It must’ve been a lot of work,” Heeseung said, finally speaking after you elbowed him in the side (be normal, man). “You’ve been so helpful.”

“It’s nothing. Jay and I both transferred here last semester too, so we know how hard it can be,” Jake said kindly, waving away your gratitude. “Our other roommate did the same for us back then.”

“Speaking of which, Hoon! Come out here and meet the new students!” Jay called.

A third voice came floating from down the corridor. “Coming!”

When the aforementioned roommate emerged from the corridor, your heart stopped. Your blood turned to lead in your veins. Your ears began ringing, the sound so loud it washed away almost everything else.

You could barely hear Jake as he said, “Hoon, these are our new neighbours, Heeseung and Y/N. Guys, this is-”

“Sunghoon,” you finished. His name came out of your mouth, but it didn’t sound like your voice. Your hands were numb.

“Y/N,” Sunghoon said, at the exact same time.

Although he was taller now, with a broader frame, a sharper jaw, and a deeper voice, it was still him. He was frozen in shock, looking right at you, unblinking. He had on a white t-shirt that read ‘rise above’ that he’d had since the first year of high school — you bought it for him for his fifteenth birthday. It had been massively oversized on his thin body back then, but now he filled it out nicely.

Right there, as you stood in the kitchen of your new apartment, all the guilt and heartbreak and mourning that you thought you had left behind in the child that died three years ago came rushing back to you, squeezing the air from your lungs.

And in that moment you were reminded yet again of the lesson you had spent the last three years of your life learning day after day after day: movies lied.

The real heartbreak was never the big fight. It was every time after when the other person crossed your mind in idle thoughts or memories, every time you saw or heard something that reminded you of them, every time you pulled up their contact on your phone and read the distant timestamp of your final conversation.

It was every belonging of theirs they left behind in your childhood bedroom, and everything you owned that had been a gift from them. It was every food you ever ate together and every song you ever listened to together and every place you ever went to together.

It was every time they reached out from beyond the grave and touched some part of your life and you had to lose them all over again.

You looked at him, and he looked at you. His eyes hadn’t changed at all. You were sixteen once more: standing in his kitchen making cinnamon rolls, locking your bedroom door behind him after the last time you spoke because you were scared he would return, desperately running away from him in the school halls.

He glanced down at your hands, your fingers laced together to hide the fact that they were shaking. You had a habit of doing that when you were nervous. Around your left wrist was a silver bracelet, one that he’d gotten you on a whim six years ago. You still had it. And you still wore it. And it was you.

Jay smiled cheerily, oblivious. “Do you guys know each other?”

——————————

Your first week of your second year was amazing. You were finally at your dream university in your dream major, with a full-ride scholarship under your belt and your best friend right by your side. It was everything you and Heeseung had worked so hard for.

The building you lived in was a dorm just for music scholars, a small, close-knit group of under thirty students. Most of them, like Jay and Jake, also bled money.

But your experience was somewhat soured by one thing: Park Sunghoon. He was everywhere.

Of course, that was to be expected. It was a small cohort, the only new friends you’d made so far were his roommates, and you were literally neighbours.

After the day you’d moved in, neither of you had spoken a word to each other. You ran into him constantly, and you were always going to classes and grabbing lunch together, but you’d never talked to him directly. He was just always there.

On Thursday, as the five of you left a lecture together, Sunghoon politely excused himself. “I won’t join you guys for lunch today. I need to pick up something from the shops.”

So you found yourself sitting in the food court with Heeseung, Jay, and Jake. When the conversation naturally fizzled out, it was only quiet for a few seconds before Jay clapped his hands together and asked, “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s the deal with you and Sunghoon?”

You looked at Heeseung for guidance. On that first night, you’d already told him everything. He shrugged.

“Uh- well. We grew up together, and when we were sixteen we had a falling out,” you answered cautiously.

“Then you lost touch?” Jake frowned.

“You could say that,” you said, reaching for Heeseung’s hand under the table and adding, “I think Sunghoon should probably be the one to tell you the rest, though. When he’s ready.”

——————————

At Heeseung’s insistence (listen, you’re clearly still hurting over this, and it would be good for you to talk to him, at least), you bullied yourself into texting Sunghoon at the end of your first week. With trembling hands, you asked him if he would meet you in the botanical gardens on Sunday. He replied almost instantly: what time?

Waiting for him on a park bench, chronically early as you always were, you were bouncing your leg so much that the entire bench was shaking. The last time you’d spoken to him was over three years ago, when you’d pleaded with him to get out of your room.

You had drawn up an agreement with Heeseung that morning: if things went south, you would send him an S.O.S. message so he could come by and pretend to whisk you away to tend to an Urgent Apartment Matter. You even programmed your phone to text him automatically if you pressed your power button five times in a row. He called you ‘insufferably paranoid’, which you took as a compliment.

Sunghoon was a minute late, and, by the looks of it, just as anxious as you were.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

He sat down next to you, a polite distance away. It was almost like how you used to sit in your neighbourhood park late at night after you’d aged out of the playground, eating convenience store ramen together until a concerned stranger or annoyed police officer told you to go home.

You both looked around for a while before you couldn’t take it anymore and bit the bullet. “How have you been?” you asked, stilted.

“Good. I’ve been good.” He cleared his throat and rubbed his sweaty palms on his jeans, nodding at nothing. “What about you?”

“Good.” You paused too, searching your brain for something to say.

“I went to military school,” he blurted out, knowing you were too polite to ask him directly. “Um- for the last two years of high school. That’s why I disappeared.”

Military school? So the rumours floating around the town had been right.

“Madam Choi kept asking me about you,” you told him after a while. Madam Choi was the sweet, grandmotherly owner of the convenience store on the corner of your street who always asked how you were doing and chastised you for eating too many snacks even though your unhealthy diets kept her shop afloat. It was the only topic you could think of that wasn’t too painful to bring up.

Sunghoon laughed at that, a sound you hadn’t heard for years. He loosened up, and you did too. Your awkwardness gradually began melting away as he told you about Jay and Jake, about his time at military school, and about all the cool spots in the city you should check out. You told him about Heeseung, your previous university, and how you didn’t know how to navigate your new university’s portal because it was designed to frustrate.

Conspicuously, neither of you brought up the past. Reminiscing was off the table, an arrangement implicitly reached between you two at some point during the conversation. Even when you finally worked up the courage to ask what you’d been wanting to ask for the last three years, you still couldn’t bring yourself anywhere close to acknowledging what happened.

“Are you still mad at me?” you asked.

Sunghoon didn’t hesitate for even a second, which made you smile. “No.”

As he continued talking, however, it became clear that he was considering every word he said before he said it. He was careful, deliberate, holding back.

“I’ve grown up since then,” he said slowly. “I haven’t been mad for a long time. Actually, I wanted to thank you for doing what you did. I could have been sitting in jail by now.” He clasped his hands together and turned to you. “Are you still mad at me?”

You were equally as assured and quick with your own response. “No. I was never mad at you.”

“You should’ve been,” he joked. “I caused you so much trouble, always waking you up in the middle of the night and crashing in your room.”

You laughed and shook your head. “I’m happy things worked out for you, Hoon. And that you got into university despite everything that happened,” you said.

“Thanks,” he smiled. Although the rest of him looked older and more mature, his smile remained the same.

“If I’d done those things I never would’ve gotten a second chance,” you mused, more to yourself than to him, but he heard it anyway.

Instantly, his mood soured.

“Okay, so did you rat on me to protect me and my future? Or because you were jealous? Because that sounds like jealousy,” he snapped.

Shit. You reached for your phone and pressed the home button five times. But he wasn’t wrong.

Yes, you had been worried about him as you’d said back then, but you were also jealous. Not of his new friends, but of his life. His parents were rich, and he had two of them. If he had gone out that night and been caught, there was a non-zero chance that he could have gotten off with a slap on the wrist.

His parents had the money to ship him off to a private military school for two whole years at the drop of a hat, and he’d been able to come straight to your dream university. If you had joined him and Jeongmin that night, you would’ve been locked up without question.

“You ruined my life,” Sunghoon hissed, his eyes now dark and his body tense. “Do you know that?”

“You ruined your own life when you were planning to commit arson and didn’t listen to me when I told you to stop,” you countered.

He set his jaw and turned away with a scoff. “I can’t believe you.”

In the distance, you saw Heeseung jogging over to you. He must’ve been hiding in another part of the park, waiting. You weren’t the only insufferably paranoid one, it seemed.

“This isn’t how I wanted today to go, Hoon,” you sighed.

“Don’t call me that,” he spat, standing up.

“Y/N!” Heeseung shouted as he reached the bench. His face fell the moment he saw the look in your eyes. “There is an Urgent Apartment Matter. We must tend to it right away,” he stuttered, grabbing your hand and yanking you to your feet before Sunghoon even had the time to blink.

The two of you ran.

——————————

You and Sunghoon had swiftly gone right back to ignoring each other, which was pretty impressive considering you were almost always together. Jay and Jake seemed annoyingly hell-bent on taking you and Heeseung under their wing — as fellow transfers themselves, they wanted to help you acclimatise — and Sunghoon didn’t have any other friends. So he was constantly with you in classes, at parties, or hanging out in your goddamn apartment.

He spent more time staring at you than he would have liked to admit. In between gaps in conversations, or when you were distracted by one of Jay’s dissertation-length speeches about some inane topic or stupid fact, he got the chance to really look at you for the first time in years. Every time he did he felt a strange ache in his chest. You were like an actor he already knew playing a character he’d never seen before.

“Dude, why would you even say that? You called them a hypocrite?” Jake chastised, when Sunghoon finally revealed the details behind your falling out in high school a few days after Sunday.

“I just can’t imagine you as that kind of guy,” Jay said, stunned. He was still trying to picture Park Sunghoon, the would-be arsonist. 

Often, Sunghoon found himself staring not when Jay was rambling or Jake was telling you a joke, but specifically when you were with Heeseung. There was something about the way you two interacted that made his heart sting. You were comfortable with him, and he with you.

You knew he liked to sit on the inside of restaurant booths facing the door, and he knew your Subway order by heart. You kept track of the stock of his favourite drinks in your fridge, and he always had a spare charger in his bag for all the times you forgot to bring your own. You were so in tune with each other that you would tell when the other wanted to go home without needing to ask and built effortlessly on each other’s jokes. You even kind of talked the same.

“And then you said it again? Are you serious?” Jay groaned in frustration when he heard the park story. Everyone had noticed the considerable shift in mood between you and Sunghoon since Sunday, but no one had dared to mention it.

“They’re trying so hard with you, man. Why would you do that?” Jake sighed.

Sunghoon pulled hard at his hair, equally frustrated, and flopped face down on the sofa. “I don’t know! It just came out.”

There was a substantial part of him that kmew it was because he was scared he hadn’t changed. That he was still the kind of person who called their best friend a hypocrite and accused them of being jealous when they tried to protect him. That you could see that, and that Jay and Jake would realise it soon too.

The other day at the juice bar Heeseung bought you a warm honey lemon tea. When he ordered it, you and Sunghoon immediately looked at each other before turning away. Windows open to air out the stench of cigarette smoke. Your secret stash of lemons and honey. Yellow post-it notes on your bedside table. All the hours you spent taking care of him, even as he spiralled out of control.

You hadn’t even asked for it; Heeseung somehow knew you had a sore throat that day without you telling him. Apparently he could hear it in your voice, which was (according to him) slightly scratchy and hoarse. Sunghoon couldn’t hear a thing, though. You sounded the exact same to him.

It was clear that Heeseung was familiar with the person you were now, that he knew you, and he knew how to be your best friend. That was a skill that Sunghoon had lost years ago, and clearly he didn’t quite know you anymore.

At the park you hadn’t cried once, although he was sure the sixteen-year-old you would have. Perhaps you just cried less now. Perhaps you’d given up on him and no longer expected anything else from him but to be disappointed.

“You need to apologise to them,” Jake scolded.

“They won’t forgive me,” Sunghoon mumbled into the sofa fabric.

Jay threw a pillow at him. “No offence, Hoon, but from what you’ve told us I think you’re a pretty shit judge of character.”

——————————

You had the apartment to yourself that Thursday night because Heeseung had rented a studio to practise after-hours and wouldn’t be back till sunrise. Someone knocked on your door. When you didn’t answer it immediately, a painfully familiar voice rang out from the other side.

“It’s me.”

Dread was not an emotion you’d ever associated with Sunghoon, but it was all you felt when you opened the door for him. When you were kids he never waited for you to do so; he always just let himself in. You sat down at the kitchen counter together, side by side.

“Since when do you watch Queer Eye?” he asked, noticing your laptop screen.

“Heeseung introduced me to it,” you said, pushing a glass of water across the counter to him. His face darkened at the name, but you chose to ignore it. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Sunghoon bit his lip. “I wanted to say I’m sorry,” he started, wooden. While he’d seemed guarded and on edge on Sunday, now he seemed scared. “For what I said to you. And for- for everything.”

You sat rigidly on the bar stool, self-conscious, not knowing what to say.

“I had a lot of time to think over the last three years, and I realised I was insecure. I was so desperate to be seen as ‘cool’ and Jeongmin knew that. You were right; he was preying on me because he could tell how much I wanted to be a part of his world. You saw right through me because you knew- you know me better than anyone. So I lashed out at you.

“I tried so hard to put that part of my life behind me — I never told Jay or Jake about it, even — and when you came back I panicked. It was a reminder of all the fucked up things I did and the person I used to be. I didn’t want to have to deal with it, and I took it out on you again.

“I’m sorry. And thank you. For always being there for me to pick up the pieces. I never deserved that sort of kindness.”

He watched you nervously, waiting for a response. You reached for the rubber band around your wrist and snapped it. It didn’t hurt, but it helped to distract you. He glanced down at your hand, recognising another of your old habits.

“Stop doing that,” he chided, his eyes watering. At that moment, he sounded just like he used to when you were younger. You remembered him saying those exact words in that exact tone. Of all the things he had said, that was what made you want to cry.

“I missed you so much,” you finally admitted after a long pause, inhaling shakily. “I felt like I ruined our friendship. I never stopped wondering if I made the right decision, I- I thought I’d lost you forever.”

He wrapped his arms around you, hugging you tight. His hugs were just comforting as they had been when you were growing up. He was much stronger than you remembered, although perhaps you should have expected that. He’d changed his cologne since.

“You have nothing to feel guilty about,” he told you, stroking your hair gently. When you separated his eyes were shining with tears. He laughed, sniffling, holding your face in his hands.

“Can we be friends again?” you whispered.

“I’d like that,” he said, letting you go and hesitating for a few seconds before he next spoke. “Do you know what motivated me to change when I was in military school?”

“What?” You hugged him one last time before unconsciously reaching for your rubber band. Catching this, he raised an eyebrow and glanced pointedly at your wrist. You stopped, feeling scolded.

“The last time we talked back in high school, you thought I was going to hit you,” he began carefully. He took a deep breath, suddenly unable to look you in the eye now. “Seeing how scared you were, the fear on your face, I- I never wanted to make anyone feel like that again. Especially not you. I’m sorry.”

He’d started crying. He hardly ever cried when you were kids. You wiped away his tears with your shirt sleeve.

“Don’t be a stranger, okay?” he begged, clutching onto you with a vice grip. Between you and him he had always been the calm one, but now he was shaking and you could feel it.

You squeezed his hand. “I won’t.”

——————————

Something in you was repaired that day.

You were telling the truth when you said you had never stopped feeling guilty about what you did. Not being able to speak to Sunghoon after, not even knowing where he was or what he was doing, it had wrecked you.

For years you’d lived with the thought that the only person you’d ever trusted had always secretly resented you. Maybe everyone did — maybe you were a pest, a hypocrite, a loser. It made it hard for you to form new connections. Heeseung had chipped away at your defences for months before you felt safe enough to call him your friend.

But now you were sitting on the floor of Sunghoon’s living room, sharing a vodka Sprite with Heeseung while you watched the others play Mario Kart, and everything was fine.

You hadn’t spent too much time with Sunghoon alone, although the five of you were constantly together. Jake had even joked about blocking off the fifth floor from the other scholars and just leaving both of your front doors open to form one big apartment for the five of you. Functionally, it wouldn’t be that different from how you were already living.

“I’m hungry,” Heeseung piped up, pouting and nudging you. “Go buy me some chips?”

“Why can’t you go?” you asked.

“My head hurts,” he whined. If he was dehydrated, the smallest drop of alcohol could give him splitting headaches. “Don’t kick a man while he’s down.”

Before you could retort, Sunghoon handed him his Switch controller. “Hee, you play. I’ll go with them,” he offered.

“Thanks, man. Use my rewards card,” Heeseung said, handing you his wallet instead of just taking the rewards card out and passing that to you.

You used to joke that you could so easily max out all of his credit cards if you wanted to, but he swiftly pointed out that you also had a habit of giving him your entire wallet when he asked to borrow money or your transport card.

“I still can’t believe we've been in this city for just over a month and you already have six rewards cards,” you laughed, putting on your shoes.

As you and Sunghoon were walking out the door, Heeseung was still shouting, “Think of the points, dude! The points!”

The convenience store was just across the road from your dorm building, which was, as its name suggested, pretty convenient. Not as good for your heart health and nutrition, but whatever. It was drizzling slightly, but not enough for either of you to have bothered with an umbrella.

“Heeseung is so obsessed with collecting rewards points,” you joked, fiddling with his rewards card.

Sunghoon chuckled. “Is he always like that?”

You nodded. “Since I met him. You like him, though, right?”

“Yeah, I do. He’s fun,” he said. He wasn’t lying; he did actually like Heeseung. But he would be lying if he said your closeness to him didn’t bother him at all. Sunghoon didn’t want to think too much about the possible implications of his jealousy.

“I’m glad. I really like Jay and Jake, too,” you told him, pushing open the convenience store door. “I’ll go get Deungie’s chips, because he likes some weird obscure flavours.”

“I’ll get the normal stuff for everyone else,” Sunghoon said, asking, “the usual for you, yeah?”

You thought of the convenience store in your hometown, of Madam Choi, of your regular weekend sleepovers back in school. Rehearsed and practised, you two were in and out of the store in under two minutes. What did that say about either of you, that you were so skilled at buying snacks that you worked together like a well-oiled machine?

The drizzle was marginally heavier when you left. It was a short walk, but Sunghoon took off his white baseball cap and fixed it atop your head anyway.

“Thanks, Hoon,” you smiled. You never bothered fighting him when he did things like that for you; you hadn’t as a kid and you still didn’t now. He wouldn’t do it unless he wanted to, and he wasn’t the type to accept your refusals of help.

But it felt different years later, and you couldn’t quite put your finger on it.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked, amused.

You quickly averted your gaze, not having noticed you’d been looking at him. “It’s just weird to have you back,” you said.

You’d had this conversation with him at least a dozen times over the last month. It still hadn’t quite sunk in yet that he was back in your life and you were back in his. That you hadn’t destroyed the life of your best friend by being a hypocrite.

Since then, you’d spent a lot of time thinking about the person you used to be: full of self-loathing and insecurity and fear that you would eventually ruin every relationship you had. Heeseung had been slightly hurt that you hadn’t told him about Sunghoon when it all happened. You admitted to him that you were scared he would think of you as a bad person.

Sunghoon smiled. “Is it a good weird or a bad weird?”

“It’s a good weird. I missed this,” you answered, holding up the bag of snacks in your hand. As was your usual routine, you carried the snacks and he carried the drinks, having immediately fallen into step.

He playfully bumped into you as you walked, though not nearly hard enough to knock you off balance. “I missed you,” he said, before reaching for his keys.

The conversation was the same, but the butterflies in your stomach were definitely a new development.

——————————

Since you reconnected, Sunghoon hadn’t been able to stop thinking about you.

“Dude, are you jealous of Heeseung?” Jay asked him one night, out of the blue, after you and Heeseung left their apartment to head back to your own. Well, it wasn’t entirely out of the blue; even he couldn’t deny that.

“Can’t I be jealous of my ex-best friend’s new best friend?” Sunghoon replied, already defensive.

“That’s not why you’re jealous, though, is it?” Jay pressed. “You’re posturing around him and you can’t stop looking at Y/N.”

“Shut up.” He was right, and deep down Sunghoon knew it.

He was never going to be your best friend again, and he wasn’t trying to be. Neither of you were the same people you had been three years ago, and you were different enough that if you met now, you probably wouldn’t have been close. You both had new friends, people who suited your current selves better.

He wanted to be something else.

“You need to tone down the staring, man. It’s getting a little too obvious,” Jake said. “Even Heeseung mentioned it to me the other day.”

Sunghoon swore under his breath. “He did?” Heeseung, of all people, noticing — had he mentioned it to you?

“For what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure they’re just friends,” Jay added, trying to be comforting.

Sunghoon sighed and finished his drink. It was a gin and tonic which he’d made so strong that it was basically straight gin with a drizzle of tonic water. He winced.

“I know, but they do everything together,” he mumbled, just barely self-aware enough to realise he was whining. “That used to be me.”

“They’re happy, you’re happy, and you guys are friends again. Isn't that what you wanted? Why focus on the past when you could be focusing on right now?” Jake asked.

“Because they trusted me for sixteen years and I basically told them I’d secretly hated them the whole time,” Sunghoon said, his voice rising. “I ruined them, and I’ll never forgive myself for that.”

Jay scowled and crossed his arms, kicking Sunghoon’s foot with his own. “You didn’t ruin anyone. They’re fine. You’re not the only thing that’s ever happened to them, and if you keep thinking like that you’ll never fully repair your relationship.”

Sunghoon stared at his empty glass. He needed another drink.

——————————

“It’s been two months since we moved here,” Heeseung told you randomly one day. You were at a ramen bar for dinner with him and Sunghoon to celebrate getting through the first half of the semester. Also, you were all out of food at home and neither of you were in the mood to cook.

“Has it?” You checked the date on your phone. Sure enough, he was right. You hadn’t even realised.

“It doesn’t feel like it,” Sunghoon said. You’d started looking at Sunghoon differently.

Firstly, he looked different. He towered over his former self, his shoulders were much wider than you recalled, and he’d lost some fat on his face, making his cheeks and jaw more angular. He wore his black hair longer than he used to and he didn’t have nearly as many dark colours in his wardrobe.

He’d always been good-looking, but you had never really recognised that before. Now, though, it was always on your mind. Now, when he smiled at you or fixed your hair after he put his cap on your head or leaned over you to plug in his laptop in lecture theatres, you got nervous.

His gestures had always made you feel warm and comfortable, but now they were also starting to make you feel shy. You’d never been particularly touchy with him even as kids — you shared beds with a wall of pillows in between you two — but now you couldn’t even bear the thought of holding onto his sleeve in a crowd so you wouldn’t get separated.

“Oi.” Heeseung kicked you hard under the table and pointed at your nearly empty bowl. “Earth to Y/N. Are you done?”

They were both staring at you. How long had you been zoning out?

“What? Yeah, I’m done. Did you say something?” you asked.

Heeseung laughed and pressed his index finger to the top of your head, pretending to push you down like a button, which he always did when he was making fun of you. He definitely knew what you’d been lost in thought about (do you know how much Sunghoon stares at you nowadays? I think he hates me).

“Heeseung said he’s meeting Jay and Jake at the studio,” Sunghoon filled you in, much more helpful. “So we can go home, or if you want we can walk around some more.” He sounded expectant, like he was hoping you’d agree to the latter. You did.

——————————

Once you saw Heeseung off at the bus stop, Sunghoon brought you to a run-down building four streets away from the ramen bar. In the hip, fashionable district of the city, amidst the trendy shops and cafés, the mould and peeling paint and water damage of the building made it stick out like a blister. 

You looked at the building, and then at him, and then back at the building. “Is this an assassination attempt?” you asked.

“Trust me,” he said, pushing the rusty steel door open with his foot.

“That’s not an answer. And your refusal to touch the door with your hands doesn’t exactly inspire trust,” you laughed, but you followed him with no hesitation.

It felt almost like when you used to go exploring the outskirts of your hometown by yourselves, far too late at night for kids your age. But this time, you didn’t have any snacks with you, nor games to keep yourselves occupied.

Sunghoon made a face at you and ushered you inside. “Shut up. I’m the city native here.”

“You’ve only been here a year longer than me,” you pointed out, looking around. The building wasn’t so much a building as it was a stairwell. Stuffy, dark, and dingy, it made you feel suffocated. “I’m going to die here,” you declared, sighing in resignation.

He rolled his eyes. “Oh my god. It’s not even that bad.”

As if on cue, the door slammed shut behind you, the sound echoing ominously in the tight space. What little light that had been coming in from the street lamps outside disappeared, except for a sliver of amber forcing its way through a gap in the door frame. He cursed under his breath.

“Hoon,” you called, desperately trying to spot him in the darkness, the rising panic clear in your words. “I swear, if I die tonight I’ll never stop haunting you.”

His reply came immediately, calm and measured, reassuring. “I’m right here. Give me your hand.”

You turned around at the sound of his voice and reached out blindly in front of you, hitting his shoulder. He found your hand and took it in his, the feeling of his palm against yours somehow soothing and stressful at the same time.

“You’re still scared of the dark?” he asked, joking, trying to ease your fear.

He used to scold you all the time for always sleeping with your light on, but no matter how many articles he sent you about why sleeping in the dark was important for healthy melatonin production, you never listened. Whenever he slept over in your room, he used an eye mask.

“Shut up, please.” Your voice was quiet and unconvincing; actually, you wanted nothing more than for him to keep talking. You couldn’t see anything, and all you had to ground you was his voice and his hand in yours. 

He squeezed your hand, softening his tone. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realise it would be this dark. It’s worth it, I promise.”

He led you up three flights of stairs by the hand and walked face first into what you assumed to be a locked door. “Ow. Motherfucker.”

You cackled at that.

The room (if you could call it that, since it was barely bigger than a cupboard) was lit with a single filament light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Aside from a couple of cardboard boxes, some pillows, and a bean bag, it was empty.

“That’s your old bean bag. The one you had in your room,” you said, recognising the green fabric immediately. You tensed when he brushed past you to shut the door to the room (supply cupboard?), but you tried your best to ignore it.

“Yeah, I brought it with me. I get homesick sometimes, so it helps,” he told you, sitting down on the small pile of pillows. You took the bean bag.

“It smells worse than I remembered,” you said, patting it. He pushed you in retaliation, laughing at you when you lost your balance.

“I have snacks and drinks in this box, and comics and books in that one,” he explained. “I wanted to get a mini-fridge in here but there isn’t an outlet.”

This was exactly how you used to spend your weekends when you didn’t have to study: snacks, drinks, and reading. Except now he handed you a can of hard seltzer instead of his yoghurt drinks of yore. 

“Is this legal? Does the building owner know you’re here?” you asked, somewhat sceptical. But you opened the can anyway and took a sip. It was warm, but not unpleasant.

“Of course. I’m a law abiding citizen.”

“You just jaywalked about ten minutes ago.”

“I’m generally a law abiding citizen.” He dug around in the box some more and produced a can of sangria (you despised sangria), gesturing to the room. “What do you think? Pretty cool, right?”

“Very,” you nodded, making yourself comfortable in the bean bag. You felt like you were in high school again, although you didn’t recall your spine hurting nearly as much then. Perhaps you were getting old. You needed proper back support now.

He kicked off his shoes. “Fuck off,” he laughed.

“I wasn’t being sarcastic!” you yelled, before you noticed- “My red shrimp socks!”

“Oh, right.” He glanced down at his feet and started casually taking the socks off. “Do you want them back?”

You gagged. “Not right now, dumbo!”

He used to be able to detect your sarcasm perfectly, always reading your tone with no margin of error, although it was probably unfair to expect him to still be able to after so many years.

“Come home with me,” Sunghoon said suddenly, still looking at his (your) socks. You looked at him, puzzled. “After the semester ends. We should go visit our families,” he added.

You thought for a minute and agreed. “I think my dad misses you.”

“My parents miss you too.” He leant back against the wall behind him, closed his eyes, and rested his head on your shoulder, declaring, “I’m tired.”

The room was so dark and small and quiet. His black hair tickled your neck, even though you could tell he was trying not to move around too much. You prayed he couldn’t hear how fast your heart rate had become. He’d always been a sleepy drinker, and you’d all been drinking pretty liberally during dinner earlier.

You tried to relax, as much as you could with his body pressed against yours, and closed your eyes too. So you didn’t see him reach for your hand until you felt his touch directly. He took your hand and pulled it into his lap, interlocking his fingers with yours and fiddling with your silver bracelet. You froze, your breathing shallow and your muscles tense.

“This is from that old charity shop behind the fruit store,” he mumbled, running the pad of his thumb over your knuckles. You could feel the vibrations of his throat against your shoulder as he spoke. “I bought it for you.”

“Hoon,” you said softly, your eyes now wide open. He hummed in response, still playing with your hand. “What are you doing?”

His reply was a non-answer. “I miss home.”

Tentatively, you lifted your hand to his head, stroking his hair in what you hoped would be a comforting gesture. He stayed quiet. His closeness was simultaneously the most nerve-wracking and most comforting thing. In all your life, you couldn’t ever recall sitting like this with him.

“Are you okay? Do you want to talk?” you asked, pulling your hand away, worried now.

He grabbed it and returned it to his hair, moving even closer to you. “That feels nice,” he sighed. His breath was warm against your neck, while the tip of his nose was cold. It made you shiver. “I’m fine. I just haven’t been home in a while.”

You felt terrible for never really having thought about what his two years in military school, being ripped away from his family at such short notice, must’ve been like. As far as you were aware he didn’t get to visit his family until he graduated, and you only knew that because you spent your own high school graduation period locked up in your house to avoid running into him.

Against your best efforts, the guilt came rushing back. You closed your eyes again and continued playing with Sunghoon’s hair, just how he liked it.

——————————

Two weeks later, you still didn’t know what to make of that night. You told Heeseung everything and asked him if you were going insane.

“Do you like him?” Heeseung asked as you two got ready to leave the house. You were going out to get drinks with the others.

“I don’t know,” you groaned, yanking the windows shut much harder than you had intended. He jumped at the sound, and you winced. “Sorry. I hate this, man.”

“Do you want my opinion?” he asked.

“It depends on what it is.”

He snorted. “I think you do like him and you don’t want to admit it. Why is that?”

You rushed to put on your shoes as he waited for you. “I just- what if this fucks up our friendship a second time? There’s too much history between us, right?”

“Well, your heart doesn’t seem to think so,” he said, opening the front door. The neighbouring front door opened too, at the exact same time, and out stepped Sunghoon. He broke into a wide smile the second he saw you.

Heeseung lowered his head and said quietly, “Clearly, he doesn’t think so, either.”

——————————

You were far too nervous to drink even after the forty minute journey to the bar. Heeseung’s words hadn’t left your head for even a second, and he could definitely tell from the way he kept grinning at you.

“Are you sure you don’t want any?” Heeseung asked for the third time, offering you his glass. You had the same taste in drinks, so you usually shared.

“I don’t feel like drinking tonight,” you said, again for the third time.

“Guess who else isn’t drinking tonight,” he teased, way too loud, nodding to Sunghoon and his glass of water. That didn’t even make sense.

“Shut up,” you hissed. Heeseung giggled, already tipsy, and leaned on you. Sunghoon caught your eye from across the table and smiled. If he’d heard what the other man said, he showed no indication of it. You smiled back.

Jake returned to the table, tapping Heeseung on the shoulder.

“I can’t do it anymore. It’s your turn,” Jake sighed, exasperated, collapsing into his seat. He’d been on wingman duty for Jay, and (apparently, because you’d never been unlucky enough to witness it yourself) Jay was a terrible flirt.

Heeseung picked up his glass, downed what was left in it in one gulp, and set it back down on the table with a loud thump. “Alright, here I go,” he declared. You watched him carefully as he walked over to the bar, but he didn’t seem too drunk yet. He’d be fine.

At the booth behind where Jay was, however, you saw someone else who made your blood run cold.

“Hoon, don’t turn around, but Jeongmin is here,” you began. Jeongmin was staring intensely at you. Sunghoon sat up straight in alarm. Maybe you looked familiar to him and he was trying to place you. 

Jake, ever the quick thinker, said, “You guys should leave. I’ll stay and let Jay and Hee know what happened.” Sunghoon was still frozen.

“Thanks, Jake. Pass these to Heeseung for me.” You fished your keys (Heeseung hadn’t brought his own) out of your pocket to toss them to Jake, grabbed Sunghoon by the arm, and dragged him out of the bar.

“Aren’t you sober? Why don’t your legs work?” you grunted, trying to shake him to attention and pull him down the street at the same time. A passing car revving its engine snapped him out of it, whatever it was.

“Fuck, yeah. Sorry,” Sunghoon mumbled. Before you could even ask him if he was okay, what you’d been trying so hard to avoid happened.

“Park Sunghoon.”

You could pick out Jeongmin’s voice anywhere. It was low, rough, and sharp. He somehow looked identical to how he looked back in high school, if only slightly thinner and more tired.

“You. You called the cops on us that night,” Jeongmin hissed. jabbing an accusatory finger at Sunghoon.

“I didn’t,” Sunghoon stated calmly, but you could tell he was on edge. He subtly pushed you behind him.

“Yeah, right. On the one night we get busted the new kid just happens to not show up,” Jeongmin scoffed, taking a step towards you. 

Sunghoon held up his hands. “Look, man, I don’t want to fight. I didn’t call the cops on you.”

Jeongmin squared his shoulders and punched him hard in the jaw without warning. The silver ring he was wearing drew a deep red gash across Sunghoon’s cheek.

As if on auto-pilot, like it was second nature to him, Sunghoon immediately returned the blow with a punch of his own before you even had the time to think. You gasped, Jeongmin’s nose cracked, and Sunghoon took advantage of the distraction to kick him hard in the knee, knocking him to the ground.

Then he grabbed your hand and ran.

——————————

The walk back to the dorm was silent. Sunghoon’s lips were pressed tightly together, his eyebrows were furrowed, and his fists were clenched like he was trying not to cry. You remembered the days when you, not him, were usually the one who needed comforting.

It reassured you to some degree, though, that he wouldn’t hide his sadness from you like he used to. You reached for his hand the second you were out of Jeongmin’s line of sight and threaded your fingers between his. His knuckles were bruised.

Wordlessly, he handed you his keys and you unlocked his front door.

“Do you have a first aid kit?” you asked.

“Under the kitchen sink,” he said flatly, sitting down on the sofa.

You pulled it out from the back corner of the kitchen cabinet with great difficulty, joined him on the sofa, and started cleaning the cut on his jaw. He winced when the alcohol swab made contact with his skin.

“Sorry. I’m almost done,” you promised, tossing the swab aside and covering the cut up. It took all of twenty seconds. “Do you want to talk?”

Sunghoon closed his eyes and sighed, dropping his head. “I shouldn’t have hit him. I thought I was past that behaviour. I don’t-”

He stopped talking. You put your hand over his and waited. His bottom lip started to quiver as he held back tears.

“I don’t want to be that person again,” he sobbed, and the sound broke your heart.

Through the school grapevine you heard about fights with kids of neighbouring schools, breaking and entering, the like. But even now, so many years later, you didn’t fully know what he did with Jeongmin and his gang. You never asked, and he never volunteered that information.

He was crying. “I let my parents down. Every time I see them I just remember how angry they were at me. I’m a terrible son. Nothing I do will ever be able to erase that I humiliated them, I failed them, I brought shame to the whole family, I-”

You pulled him into a hug, feeling how his body trembled as he fought to speak.

“You’re not a terrible son, Hoon,” you whispered, as he sobbed into your hair.

He shook his head and pushed you away. “I shouldn’t have hit him. I think I broke his nose,” he repeated, almost frantic in his insistence. It wasn’t a state you’d seen him in before.

“But he hit you first,” you noted.

Finally, at your childish response, he cracked a small smile. “Weren’t you always the one who said violence was never the answer?” he laughed. His eyes were still glistening with tears, but at least he’d calmed down.

“Usually it isn’t, but I don’t subscribe to universal codes of human conduct anymore,” you told him. “Do you?”

He paused for a bit, staring at you, unable to find the words to reply. You smiled, swiped the tears on his cheeks away with a gentle hand, and got up to put away the first aid kit. It was late, and you were both tired.

“I love you,” Sunghoon said over his shoulder, his voice still thick with emotion. He said that often nowadays, although it wasn’t something he did previously. Neither of you ever felt the need to declare that when you were younger; it was a given.

“I love you too, Hoon,” you replied, still busy trying to make room in the cluttered space under his kitchen sink for the kit.

All the traces of his crying vanished when he next spoke. “No, I’m in love with you.”

You dropped the package of sponges in your hands. Your mind went blank.

There was something about the phrase ‘in love’ that you had never really understood. It implied love was all consuming, like a physical swallowing whole of your being. You felt love for others, but you’d never felt it so much that you were in the state of love.

Until you heard it from him. And then you realised you were already there.

“Say something. Please,” he begged, panicked by your silence.

“Hoon-”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,” he mumbled, cutting you off, leaning back against the sofa with a hand over his eyes.

Sunghoon was not an interrupter. In all the years you’d known him, the only time he’d ever interrupted you was during your big final fight in your bedroom, when you’d snitched on him.

You left the first aid kit on the floor and sat down next to him. He didn’t move. You tapped the back of his hand to get him to look at you. Reluctantly, he did, but only through the gaps between his fingers.

“I’m in love with you too,” you admitted.

He was speechless at hearing his words echoed back to him, frozen for a good ten seconds before his gaze flickered down to your lips.

“Can I?” he asked, his voice quiet.

You nodded, and he kissed you. He placed one hand on the back of your neck to pull you closer while his other hand, bruised knuckles and all, grabbed one of your own. He laced your fingers together tightly, like he never wanted to let you go.

Your free hand ghosted over the line of his jaw, past the bandage you’d just put on his face and down his neck to his chest, warm and solid. He shivered under your touch.

“I love you, Hoon,” you breathed when you separated.

He gave you one last quick kiss on the tip of your nose. “I’ll never get tired of hearing that,” he whispered giddily, brushing his thumb across your bottom lip.

For the first few weeks after you reconnected, both of you had tried to return to what you once were. But it quickly became clear that that was never going to happen. Even after you had paved over the road, underneath the new asphalt the old potholes were still there, and nothing you did would ever fully correct them.

You had to look forward. Sunghoon was never going to be your best friend again, not like before. You would never get back your old relationship, full of childlike innocence and void of conflict. But that was okay. You were here, and he was here, and that was enough.

“Then I’ll keep saying it. I love you, I love you, I love you,” you repeated, leaning into his side and laying your head on his shoulder.

“I love you too. So much,” he said, putting his arm around you and letting you tuck your head into the crook of his neck. “You have no idea.”

He was tired of running and hiding from who he used to be, and going on the defensive and lashing out every time he was confronted with his past. He was done torturing his sixteen-year-old self.

You and him had something new. It wasn’t better, it wasn’t more. It was just different. You had your whole lives in front of you — an endless stretch of even, untouched, fresh road — waiting for you, and it would be stupid to focus on what lay behind you. You still had so much left to explore together.

——————————

thanks for reading <3

-minastras

[geronimomo-spd]

and there we go! the full Confidential Archive!

here are all the episodes, according to tardis wiki list, including all of the mini specials and chrismas specials and most if not all in good quality! the full list of everything is under the cut because yeah, its a longgg list!

all in order, including some youtube videos and dvd rips hehe, all according the the tardis wiki list

SERIES 1 -

1x00 - A New Dimension (a prolog to season one, narrated by David Tennant)

1x01 - (rose)

1x03 - (the unquiet dead)

1x04 - (aliens of london)

1x05 - (world war 3)

1x06 - (dalek)

1x07 - (the long game)

1x08 - (father's day)

1x09 - (the empty child)

1x10 - (the doctor dances)

1x11 - (boom town)

1x12 - (bad wolf)

1x13.1 - The Ultimate Guide (another little documentary right before

parting of the ways, about key aspects about filming the season)

1x13.2 - (parting of the ways)

1x14 - Backstage at Christmas (the nine minutes they gave us from some of behind the scenes of The Christmas Invasion)

SEIRES 2 -

2x00 - One Year On (a general preview for season 2, including the series 2 press launch, a lot more behind the scenes of The Christmas Invasion and some Torchwood stuff)

2x01 - (new earth)

2x02 - (tooth and claw)

2x03 - (school reunion)

2x04 - (the girl in the fireplace)

2x05 - (rise of the cyberman)

2x06 - (the age of steel)

2x07 - (the idiot's lantern)

2x08 - (the impossible planet)

2x09 - (the satan pit)

2x10 - (love & monsters) - (featuring the winning of the contest of designing a monster)

2x11 - (fear her)

2x12 - (army of ghosts)

2x13 - (doomsday)

2x14 - Music and Monsters (the behind the scenes of doctor who's first music show, including some behind the scenes stuff of The Runaway Bride)

SERIES 3 -

3x01 - (smith and jones)

3x02 - (the shakespear code)

3x03 - (gridlock)

3x04 - (daleks in manhattan)

3x05 - (evolution of the daleks)

3x06 - (the lazarus experiment)

3x05 - (42)

3x06 - (human nature)

3x07 - (the family of blood)

3x08 - (blink)

3x11 - (utopia)

3x12 - (the sound of drums)

3x13.1 - (last of the time lords)

3x13.2 - Children in Need Special (the behind the scenes of the special where 10 meets 5, really cute stuff)

3x14.1 - Kylie Special (series 3 christmas special. version 1 - the full version in less of a good quality i found on youtube, bless this youtube channel honestly)

3x14.2 - Kylie Special (series 3 christmas special. version 2 - the shorter version that was up on iplayer)

3x14.3 - Kylie Special (series 3 christmas special. version 3 - the version i edited to include the low quality parts that were missing with the good quality shorter version)

SERIES 4 (INCLUDING THE SPECIALS) -

4x01 - (partners in crime)

4x02 - (the fiers of pompaii)

4x03 - (planet of the ood)

4x04 - (the sontaran stratagem)

4x05 - (the doctor's daughter)

4x06 - (the posion sky)

4x07 - (the unicorn and the wasp)

4x08 - (silence in the library)

4x09 - (forest of the dead)

4x10 - (midnight)

4x11 - (turn left)

4x12 - (the stolen earth)

4x13 - (journey's end)

4x14.1 - The Journey (So Far) (a documentary about the entire show so far)

4x14.2 - Confidential Christmas 2008 (behind the scenes of The Next Doctor christmas special)

4x14.3 - Doctor Who: Top 5 Christmas Moments (a sort of confidential behind the scenes clip show of all of the episodes set at christmas)

4x15.1 - At the Proms 2008 (behind the scenes of doctor who at the proms 2008)

4x15.2 - The Eleventh Doctor (the special they used to announce Matt Smith as the new doctor who)

4x15.3 - Desert Storm (behind the scenes of Planet Of The Dead)

4x16 - Is There Life on Mars? (behind the scenes of The Waters Of Mars)

4x17 - Lords and Masters (behind the scenes of The End Of Time, Part One)

4x18 - Allons-y! (behind the scenes of The End Of Time, Part Two. version 1 - full dvd version)

4x18 - Allons-y! (behind the scenes of The End Of Time, Part Two. version 2 - shortend higher quality version from iplayer, this version has a song in the soundtrack that is diffrent from the dvd version, this is the most accurate version to what aired on tv at the time)

SERIES 5-

5x01 - (the eleventh hour)

5x02 - (the beast below)

5x03 - (victory of the daleks)

5x04 - (the time of angels)

5x05 - (flesh and stone)

5x06 - (the vampires of venice)

5x07 - (amy's choice)

5x08 - (the hungry earth)

5x09 - (cold blood)

5x10.1 - (vincent and the doctor)

5x10.2 Monster Files: The Daleks (a little documentary about victory of the daleks/daleks in general)

5x11 - (the lodger)

5x12 - (the pandorica opens)

5x13 - (the big bang)

5x14.1 - Monster Files: The Weeping Angels (a little documentary about the weeping angels episodes this season)

5x14.2 - Monster Files: The Silurians (a little documentary about the silurian episodes)

5x14.3.1 - Monster Files: The Alliance (a little documentary about the alliance of monsters from the pandoica opens)

5x14.3.2 - Backstage at the Doctor Who Prom 2010 (behind the scenes of doctor who at the proms 2010)

5x14.4.1 - Charlie McDonnell - Runner (the first Charlle behind the scenes videos, pretty quiet - Currently not up on the archives as Charlie has expressed the need to remove her old videos)

5.14.4.2 - Charlie McDonnell - TARDIS (another Charlie video, she explores the tardis set this time -Currently not up on the archives as Charlie has expressed the need to remove her old videos)

5x14.4.3 - Charlie McDonnell - Decorating Bus (another Charlie video, she decorates the food place with christmas decorations, i liked them Charlie - Currently not up on the archives as Charlie has expressed the need to remove her old videos)

5x14.4.4 - Charlie McDonnell - Christmas Presents (badger) (the famus Charlie video where she brings the cast and crew presents! this is where Matt gets his badger puppet - Currently not up on the archives as Charlie has expressed the need to remove her old videos)

5x14.5 - Christmas Special 2010 (behind the scenes of A Christmas Carol)

SERIES 6 -

6x01.1 - (the impossible astronaut)

6x01.2 - My Sarah Jane: A Tribute to Elisabeth Sladen (a special memorial for the late Elisabth Sladen 😭😭)

6x02 - (day of the moon)

6x03 - (the curse of the black spot)

6x04 - (the doctor's wife)

6x05 - (the rebel flesh)

6x06 - (the almost people)

6x07.1 - Charlie McDonnell interviews Neil Gaiman (Charlie interviews Neil Gaiman, appewrently causing some ruckes on Charlie's blog at the time hehe - Currently not up on the archives as Charlie has expressed the need to remove her old videos)

6x07.2 - (a good man goes to war)

6x07.3 - The Monster Files: The Silence (a little documentary on the silence, thank god because i needed that)

6x07.4 - The Monster Files: The Gangers (a little documentary on the gangers, my beloveds)

6x07.5 - Charlie McDonnell Becomes A Dalek (the last Charlie video, released late because it had the 1-4 tardis set, also she gets to ride a dalek in this one - Currently not up on the archives as Charlie has expressed the need to remove her old videos)

6x08 - (lets kill hitler)

6x09 - (night terrors)

6x10 - (the girl who waited)

6x11 - (the god complex)

6x12 - (closing time)

6x13.1 - (the wedding of river song)

6x13.2 - The Monster Files: The Antibodies (a little documentary on the antibodies from lets kill hitler)

6x13.3 - The Monster Files: The Cybermats (a little documentary on the little adorable cybermates because awww)

6x14 - The Nights' Tale (a little documentary on on the nights mini episodes! the last confidential stuff ever made rip)

[kristinhateslife]

KENDRICK, DROP MORE INFO ABOUT CCINO’S CAFE 2.O AND MY LIFE IS YOURS /ref

Okay well this is Capu/capi and uhhhh well u know Ccino.

also again this is the same Ccino type that is in Tcc, so jope y'all notice what I added in ya'll fans out there :) If you know, you know.

anwyay, Capi and Ccino work in a cafe together! Not a cat cafe,,, Capi wont be there for that :) Heh.

Fluffytale 2.0, if it were a video game, would most likely be a visual novel of sorts with minigames and such to complete tasks to get what you need to complete the game. The goal of the game would be getting enough money to either:

Helping everyone out for enough money to pay of town dept to be able to let the monsters of the town leave (True pacifist)

1.Getting enough money by helping out around town or killing some to be able to get a bus ticket out of town (neutral endings, varies on who you kill)

2.Killing everyone in order to get enough money to leave town (Genocide, ends with you being haunted by the memories of your actions from the town ghost)

3.Anddddd a super special secret ending you get by doing very specific things :) (This is the path that has happens to lead up to @ask-the-cat-cafe hehe)

In the game, you either win or lose and have to start over. You don't 'die' you just 'get caught'..... well... maybe perhaps there is a way but spoilerssssss hehe but lets just say if you ever DO die from that super secret way, there would be no way whatsoever to reset. The save file is stuck as is unless you delete it! :3 womp womp uhhh I have some other ideas but that's it until I make more art haha.. :)

hope y'all enjoy

also no, Fluffymare is not canon in Fluffytale 2.0

(doesn't mean its not in TCC, diff timeline n' all)

[wait-this-isnt-itunes]

at the spooky island discotheque - a playlist

Features: Pop Musik - M // Play That Funky Music - Wild Cherry // Smooth - Santana, Rob Thomas // Disturbia - Rihanna // Two Princes - Spin Doctors // Video Killed The Radio Star - The Buggles // (You Drive Me) Crazy - Britney Spears // Psycho Killer - The Talking Heads // Ghost Town - The Specials // This Hell - Rina Sawayama // Roam - The B-52's // + more

[doyourememberrocknrollradio]

The Specials - Ghost Town [Official HD Remastered Video]

[yall-batman-fanfic]

Wayne Family Holiday Traditions | Bruce Wayne/Batman x Reader!Magician

Synopsis: After years of struggling to find the perfect gift, Bruce and Vivian finally perfected gift-giving to one another, and it's something that became a tradition in the Wayne family.

What to give a man who has everything?

That was the question that Vivian Pryor pondered about as she roamed the stores in Gotham’s shopping district for the fifth time that week. She had done all of her Christmas shopping last weekend. Have secured the gifts for her colleagues, for her family in Liverpool, Alfred,  (she got him a really expensive bottle of good scotch), and Dick (she got him the video game that Alfred refuses to let the boy have until he completes a whole month of attendance at school). But Bruce…

She had no idea what to give someone who actually has everything, who can buy anything he wanted. He is a billionaire, so getting him something from the mall feels wrong for Vivian. Since she finished her shopping, Bruce’s name – which was at the very top of her shopping list – was the only one that wasn’t crossed out. At first she thought she could just get his gift somewhere in the week, just so she could have a good long think about it, but then that long thinking led to a rut that she can’t get out of.

One of her friends laughed at her saying: “How do you not know what to get your boyfriend?”

Her reply, “How about you get a gift for a billionaire.”

Her friend’s reply? “I’d wrap myself in a ribbon and wait for him at home.”

Vivian already had that idea but she didn’t want to look like someone shallow and narcissistic to think she was a gift already. Besides, holiday sex is different from holiday gifts. Yes, they come separately – well, to her they are. 

Now, here she was, roaming around the town looking for something to give him. 

Augh! She knew she should have held onto that Grey Ghost toy instead of buying it for him on the spot! But how was she supposed to know that they’ll still be dating until now? She got him that gift during the first few months into their relationship. And she really wanted to get him something that was from his childhood that brought him joy. 

Oh, the smile he had that day when he saw the Grey Ghost figurine, and how his eyes lit up when he told her times he would ask his father if he could stay up just to watch the show. She can’t not get him that toy. 

Food was the safest option, and she already gave him homemade brownies that he could bring for patrol (at that time, Bruce didn’t know she knew he was Batman and just packed the brownies in a way he can easily put in his utility belt). She can’t give him the same thing again. Right?

Well, after they got back together, she most certainly can’t. It’s gotta be something special. 

But what?

What can she give him? 

A vacation? Yeah, right—a workaholic like him won’t use that. 

Dinner out? They always have dinner out.

The sound of her phone ringing pulled Vivian from her reverie and stopped her from staring at the shop selling Batman merchandise. 

It was Bruce.

Great.

“Hello?” Vivian answered.

“Is everything okay, Viv?” Bruce asked, quite concerned with the lack of her usual jolly greeting.

“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine. Just doing some last minute Holiday shopping.”

“You already left campus?”

“Yeah, sorry about not mentioning it. But I’m at the shopping district now, maybe we could meet there and have dinner here?”

“That’d be nice. Just send me a place for us to meet and I’ll meet you there.”

“Sure. See ya, Wayne.”

“See you, Pryor,” she was sure he was smiling then. 

Maybe she should just take a raincheck on that gift now and try again tomorrow.

Bruce arrived a couple of minutes later and they met at the restaurant that Vivian told him about. Unfortunately, the tables inside were already taken, so they opted for the ones outside, even if it meant being in the cold winter. 

“Are you sure you’re not freezing?” Bruce asked her as she held her hot coffee – not warm, hot – and drank it without burning her tongue. And the fact she had her bonnet, and her beige coat. 

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I?” Vivian asked.

“Where’s your scarf?” 

“I… accidentally left it at home, and I was running late so I didn’t bother to go back for it,” she winced as she admitted the childish thing.

Without a word, Bruce got up and moved his seat to be beside her, then placed his own scarf over her neck. 

“Bruce, no – you’ll be freezing,” Vivian tried to give it back.

“Trust me, I’m used to this. Besides, I got all the warmth I need,” he wrapped an arm around her.

Vivian hid her blush by drinking her coffee. “You know, I should be used to this kind of weather, but for some reason I never really got used to the cold.”

Bruce smirked and whispered to her ear, “Maybe I could help you warm up a little when we get to the manor?”

Vivian blushed even more and she tried to hide it. “And what about patrol?”

“That could wait. I can’t let you freeze to death,” Bruce placed a kiss on her cheek. She was cold. Really cold. ��Why don’t you use your magic?”

Vivian groaned and wanted to hit herself. She’s been so preoccupied with finding him a gift that she forgot about magic! Back then she can use her magic easily and doesn’t need to shut if off to warm her in the winter or cool her in the summer. But with her stopping using magic, it was hard to get those habits back again. Especially when she got the pleasures of air conditioning and a working heater to do the job.

Has she become lazy? Yes, she won’t lie about that. She is a lazy witch, but she’s trying to get back on her feet.

Seeing her reaction, he laughed and said: “That’s why we practice.”

“Oh shut it,” Vivian used a spell and spread warmth around her and Bruce. She was about to hand back his scarf but he told her: “No, keep it. I like seeing you wear my things.”

“Is that so?”

“If only we could have the manor to ourselves, I'd prefer if you walk around wearing my clothes.”

“Just your clothes?”

“Just like that morning where you greeted me good morning,” Bruce leaned down to kiss her. That morning he was mentioning it was one of the days she spent the night at Wayne Manor. Vivian had woken up earlier than Bruce on a weekend and decided to stay in the room and relax a bit. She opted to wear one of his shirts instead of her own, as she asked Alfred if she could have them washed along with the others he was throwing in the washing machine. When Bruce woke up he was greeted by the sight of her looking through his personal book collection in the room, only wearing his shirt and nothing underneath. He knew she had nothing because whenever she would get on her toes to reach up for something at the top shelf, he'd see her bare bottom as the shirt would hike up. They spent the entire day trapped his room that day and when they got out for a late lunch, Dick was bored out of his mind. 

“Maybe,” Vivian said back between their kisses. When she felt his hand on her thigh, Vivian placed a hand on his chest and told him that they were in a public place.

“We've done far risky things,” he kept kissing her.

But not out there. 

He was only teasing her, she knew, but the anticipation on the what could possibly happen made her heart beat faster. 

“Where's the bill? Why is it taking so long?” Vivian muttered when she pulled away but ke kept kissing her on the side of her lips, her cheek, her jawline. 

“Impatient?”

“You're making it hard for me to be patient, Wayne,” she laughed.

“Bruce?” A voice of a woman had Bruce stop in his kisses and turn his attention to the woman standing there. She was tall, slender, wore a fur coat, and very beautiful. 

“Hi, um…” Bruce began.

“Stacy,” she supplied.

“Right, Stacy. How are things?”

“Same thing, getting modeling gigs for bigger brands – what about you? I haven't heard from you in a while.”

Oh. Stacy is one of billionaire-playboy Bruce Wayne's former flings, Vivian realized.

“Yes, because I'm now with someone — Stacy, this Professor Vivian Pryor. She works at Gotham University. Viv, this is Stacy, she's a model,” Bruce introduced.

Vivian got up and held out her hand to the woman. “Pleasure to meet you.”

The woman looked at her for a moment, taking her in from head to toe, and then took her hand to shake. Did she just judge her right there? Vivian thought.

“I guess you are in a serious relationship,” Stacy said to Bruce. “You’re not really the type of girls he would bring around every night.”

Did she just say she's ugly without saying she's ugly? Vivian raised a brow. 

“Right,” Vivian muttered.

“Stacy –” Bruce began.

“Where is that bill? I'll just go pay for our meal,” Vivian got her purse, and when Bruce tried to stop her, she said to him, “I'll be right back. Just catch up with Stacy while I'm pay.”

“Viv –”

Vivian left and went inside where she met halfway with the waiter about to bring their bill and said she'll do the transaction at the counter itself. He didn't mind but it did give off the wrong impression to other customers. After getting their takeaways for Dick and Alfred, Vivian went back out and found Bruce waiting for her by the door.

“Where'd your friend go?” She asked.

“She's not my friend, Viv,” Bruce took the takeaway bag. “Listen, whatever she implied — she's just being mean about –”

“Bruce, I'm fine. Do you really think I'd cry about something like that? I'm an adult woman, I've dealt with people worse than Stacy. So, that won't make feel bad. What I did there was just me getting out of an awkward situation. Okay?”

Bruce wasn't convinced, she could see it in his eyes. He wrapped his arm around her and placed a long and loving kiss on her lips.

“I love you, Viv,” he whispered to her.

A smile crept on her face. It was only a couple of days ago when they finally said their first ‘I love you’ to one another. And it was Bruce who said it first, and since then he would always say it to her with sincerity.

“I love you too, Bruce,” she kissed him again. “Let's go home.”

~*~

As promised, Bruce spent the night with her before going to patrol. He only dropped off the food for Dick and Alfred to the butler before pulling her along up the stairs and to his room, and calling out to Dick that they'll go out for patrol in a few hours so he should eat his dinner now. Vivian wasn't someone who was that into a praise kink, but she did appreciate the way Bruce kissed her body and how he literally got on his knees and kiss her thighs and then ate her out.

God, that man knew how to use his tongue. 

After what felt like an hour of love-making and cuddling in bed, Vivian was left lying in bed as Bruce got out of the shower and equipped himself with his Batman suit. 

“You're not getting dressed?” Bruce asked.

“No. Why does it bother you?” Vivian sat up, teasingly dropping the blanket, showing him her nude chest.

Bruce walked up to her and leaned down to kiss her lips. “I need to focus, Viv.”

“Think of this as something to look forward to when you get back.”

“Then I better make sure this patrol goes smoothly.”

“Take care out there, Batman. And look out for Boy Wonder.”

Bruce kissed her again said, “Yes, Ma'am.”

The knock on the door had them fix themselves, with Bruce pulling up his cowl, and Vivian the blanket to hide her body from Dick who opened the door.

“Thought so,” he muttered when he saw Vivian waving at him then turned to Bruce. “How long are you going to make me wait?”

“I'm coming,” Bruce said, making Vivian laugh.

“You two are gross,” said Dick.

“Let's go, chum,” Bruce ushered him out.

“Good luck! And stay safe out there!” Vivian called out.

“We will! Night, Viv!” Dick replied before Bruce closed the door.

Alone in the bedroom, Vivian got dressed in her underwear but wore one of Bruce's shirts and her trousers so she could roam around the manor. Might as well get familiar with the place. In one of her ventures in the manor, she came across a wall where a sword was supposed to be, she'd know because that wall mount was made for holding swords, and the mantle below it looked like it used to hold something too.

“There once was a crossbow displayed there,” Alfred's voice startled Vivian.

“Alfred, you scared me,” Vivian took a breath.

“Apologies, Professor Pryor,” Alfred approached her. “I presume all is well? Are you in need of a Plan B, Ma'am? After the last time Master Bruce went out to get one, I have decided to have one on hand in case of unplanned occasions.”

Vivian blushed in embarrassment. She's known Alfred for two years now and she's not sure if she's that close with him to talk about those things. AKA, her sex-life with the man he raised as a son. 

“No, I — uh — I… we were — Bruce was wearing a… condom,” she whispered the last part. “But thank you for mentioning it – hold on, is that why the last time I slept over there were Plan B pills on the bedside, with a glass of water?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Alfred, we do not deserve you,” Vivian laughed.

“No, you don't,” he joked. But their laughter ceased when they turned to the empty holders on the mantle and the wall. “Up there, there used to be a sword too. Young Master Bruce would call it Zorro's Sword because of how similar it looked to the prop in the film.”

Zorro, Vivian remembered. The night his parents were shot in that alley, they were coming out of the cinema after watching Zorro. 

“I see,” Vivian said. “And the crossbow?”

Alfred sighed and gestured for her to follow. “When he was a boy, there is a myth that parents in Gotham would tell their children about a secret organization dating hundreds of years back in Gotham City, it was said that they were built by Gotham's elite and they are the ones that rule Gotham in the shadows.”

“The Court of Owls,” Vivian said.

“Yes.”

“I read about them when I took a course in Gotham history, and I wrote about them in a section of my book as part of Gotham's history too. They say they wear owl masks too, hence the name… others claim it's nothing but a cover for a sex cult.”

“People's imaginations are much wilder now.”

“How does that connect to the crossbow?”

“Well, after the death of his parents, Master Bruce believed the Court of Owls were behind it and began his investigation. He would escape his room and his home in the middle of the night to investigate, bringing with him the crossbow. The first time he used it was to shoot an owl in the attic, after that I took the thing away and hid it. The young man knew where to find it and stole it and went off with his investigation.

“One day his investigation got him trapped in an old building at Gotham. He was missing for three days. When we found him, he was unconscious, dehydrated and starving. He was in a comatose for three days and when he woke, he finally gave up in his search and said that the Court of Owls,” he sighed. “Do not exist…”

Vivian frowned as she imagined a young Bruce Wayne going through that. He was just a boy and…

They arrived at the study where Alfred opened one of the secret cabinets and showed the crossbow.

“The only place I knew he wouldn't find it, and is under lock and key,” said Alfred. “I never put it back because I thought it would just bring back bad memories.”

“Just like the sword,” Vivian sighed. “I also noticed something missing from there. A photograph?”

“A small portrait of his great-grandfather, Alan Wayne. There were suspicions that he too was a member of the Court but no evidence showed that he was. Master Bruce had it removed… I'm afraid that section of the manor is simply filled with bad memories that Master Bruce would prefer to not see again.”

“I can’ only imagine why,” Vivian frowned. “When I first came here I felt how heavy the manor was. The long history it holds and the tragedy that happened to Thomas and Martha Wayne and how it affected Bruce.” Her eyes went to the portrait in the study, it was of the Wayne family – Thomas, Martha, and a young Bruce.  “I could only imagine how lively this place was when Mrs. Wayne was alive and running the show.”

“It was. In fact, there were many of us staff here. But paranoia got to Master Bruce that he had everyone dismissed but me. His guardian, and the only one he trusted. It took him a long time before he opened the manor again to people, and not just for parties, but for someone to freely walk its halls again,” Alfred's gaze was on her, she could feel it. “May I speak freely, Professor Pryor?”

Vivian's brows furrowed. “Of course, what is it?”

“I do hope you do not take this badly but, ever since Master Bruce brought you to the Manor, and the days you spend here, this old girl started to feel like how it was when Martha Wayne was around. When both of them were here, and when young Master Bruce used to run around causing trouble, bringing laughter in its halls. And though I know that the young Master Bruce will never return after that night, you have brought back a ray of hope and happiness in him, and it makes this old man glad to see him smile again.”

Vivian looked away in embarrassment.

Seeing her reaction, Alfred thought he have overstepped his ground and made her feel awkward with that weight of information and tried to apologize, “I meant, your presence brings light in the manor as well – and Master Dick around, he too livens up the place. I'm not saying that it's just because of you — Master Bruce very much cares for you, Professor Pryor. He cares deeply.”

“I understand what you meant,” Vivian said. “I can imagine how the place would look like in the holidays. I bet the manor used to be its own Christmas village with everyone here.”

“You can say so. Thomas and Martha Wayne would always invite the families of the staff to join us for the Christmas dinners — if they wish the spend the holidays here — and Master Bruce would play with the other children. He was loved by all, Master Bruce, that in the morning of Christmas, the staff would leave trails of little presents for him to look around in the manor. His own little treasure hunt.”

Vivian laughed but an idea came to mind.

“You know, Alfred, you just saved me another trip aimlessly walking around Gotham's shopping district.”

~*~

On the day of Christmas, Bruce woke up later than the others. Nothing new. Oddly enough, neither Alfred, Dick, nor Vivian were in the sitting room, the dining area, nor the kitchen. But there was a note that stuck on the fridge written in Vivian's penmanship that they were having a late lunch at the solar in the East Wing of the manor. Then in Alfred's penmanship saying: I brought the coffee here, Sir. No need to work in the kitchen. Right, he was banned from using the kitchen.

Walking the familiar path to the solar, Bruce looked around his surroundings, to see if there was anything different in the manor. He noticed the new curtains that Alfred had installed for the holidays. It was in the shades of emerald and maroon; then there were the Christmas decorations. He wondered how many trees there were in the manor. There was one in the sitting room, but then there was another in this area but smaller. Have they always had that many in the place during the holidays? 

He made a mental note to tell Alfred to stop with the extra trees. They rarely go to the other parts of the manor anyway. 

Then he saw it. The mantle where the crossbow and the sword used to be, but then something was off. There were other things that took the place of the sword and crossbow. On the wall-mounted holder, instead of the old sword he used to play with as a kid (despite his parents telling him not to) were candy canes that form an ‘x’, the on the wall where he have removed Alan Wayne's photo, in its place was  a photo that he was sure he never saw before. 

It was a enlarged photo booth photo of Vivian, Dick, and Alfred, all wearing Santa hats and were holding a card that says: “Happy Holidays! Congratulations on finding the first clue! We're not in the Solar, but you can find us by solving that clue.”

Bruce looked down on the mantle and saw the Christmas card with a cheesy holiday photo, and inside was a note written with Vivian's penmanship. It was a riddle, a poorly made one and he answered easily, and then at the very bottom she made a post-script: sorry for the shitty riddle, but hurry up!

Laughing, Bruce brought the card with him and went to the next destination. It was to the West Wing gallery. He used to go there and look at the paintings his mother purchased. Now it was empty but for one frame pinned to the wall with a photo of Alfred wearing a Santa Claus getup and a note telling him to wear the the jumper and to answer the riddle.

What jumper? He thought. Then he saw the present on the console and opened the box. 

No.

It was an ugly Christmas jumper. 

He hated those, even when he was a kid.

Inside the box there was another note, this time it was Vivian's handwriting: it's a holiday thing, wear it. Then in Alfred's handwriting, it had cypher. No sweat, he solved it easily and went to the next destination, on the way he was changing into the jumper — it was emerald with Christmas balls going a cross this torso. The next place was at the Great Hall where he would host parties. When he was a boy his parents would host galas there, and he would watch from the top of the stairs.

This time it was Dick's photo he saw with a present. Dick was wearing an elf's hat and ears and was holding the note with the riddle of the next place. The sitting room, he answered, and inside the box was a Santa Hat for him to wear.

Venturing back to the sitting room, he expected them to be there but the place was empty and the same as he left it earlier but for the present that was placed on the table. Opening the box he was met by an old Grey Ghost merchandise and inside was the photo of Vivian holding the last note — he hoped it was.

Say: wohs sevlesrouy.

“Wohs sevlesrouy,” Bruce did what he was told to. Was that a spell? He thought, then one moment the sitting room was empty with just the tree and the small decorations, now there were food on the table, the tree filled with presents, and a fire lit to keep them warm. Looking behind him, he saw Alfred, Dick, and Vivian standing there, all wearing Christmas jumpers and Santa hats.

“Happy Holidays!” They greeted him.

Bruce smiled and let out a laugh. “You did all that so you can set this up?”

“Actually, we were already here when you first came,” Dick said.

“What do you…”

“I did a little spell to get you to do this little treasure hunt that I set up with Alfred and Dick's help,” Vivian answered. “I used a spell to hide us and only when you say the words in this card,” she showed the card he held. “Will the glamor be removed and appear ourselves to you. Merry Christmas, my love.”

“Is this your Christmas gift to me? A little treasure hunt?” Bruce wrapped his arms around her.

“Yes, and that Grey Ghost toy. Did you enjoy it?” Vivian asked.

Bruce leaned down and kissed her lips. “I did. Very much, especially the photos. I think I'll keep them up somewhere so we get to see them… but the jumper.”

“Every family has an ugly Christmas jumper, and since we are a family we should to. So, you cannot take that off, Wayne.”

“Yes, Ma'am,” he kissed her again and again and again –

“Ahem!” Dick called for their attention. “We're right here, and I am starving!”

“Alright, alright, kiddo,” Vivian laughed and released Bruce but took his hand to lead him to the couch to sit as she and Alfred handed over the plates for food and hot cocoa for everyone. “Also, there is another thing for the holidays,” Vivian conjured something from midair. It was an old-looking book. “When I was a girl my dad would always read to me and my Mom, and later my siblings A Christmas Carol, maybe we can read this together later?”

Bruce smiled and took her hand. “We can read it by the fire before heading to bed.”

As they had their holiday meal as a family, Bruce's smile never fell as he watched his family enjoy the holidays, and as new traditions take place.

~ Many Years Later ~

Mastering the art of gift-giving was a skill that Vivian had to learn gradually, especially when it comes to Bruce. Her first successful and real gift became their family tradition of a holiday treasure-hunt for the children around the manor, ugly holiday jumpers, and from reading classic Christmas stories to watching Christmas movies all bundled together by the fire. As the years progressed, her gifts to Bruce had one focal point: family. 

While he looks like a man who has everything with his riches, Bruce Wayne is one of the loneliest person in the world and Vivian realized that the best gift she could give him was something he will remember. Not material things but memories that he will cherish and that would always make him laugh.

And those holiday memories were frozen in time by photos they would take by the tree every year and were placed on the mantle where everyone’s stockings are. Before it was just the photo of Bruce, Vivian, Alfred, and Dick, with their respective stockings – which Alfred made – hanging by the fire; then came Jason and they got another photo the family with him and his own stocking, then Tim, the Cassandra, Stephanie and Damian, Duke, Kate would join occasionally, and the latest one was with Valerie in her holiday onesie and still a baby sleeping in her mother’s arms. 

This year, they plan to have another family photo with Valerie, now two-years-old  and can stay awake with them for a bit longer to get a photo. Also because she requested they take it again with Greg this time. How can they say no to that?

But holiday traditions don’t always go as planned. 

One of the new traditions of the Wayne family was to do volunteer work around Gotham a day before Christmas. With Vivian bringing with her Valerie, who she carried in a carrier on her back (the girl enjoys using that) they were with Dick and Damian at the petting zoo where they helped animals and the children visiting. Valerie enjoyed her time with the animals and the other kids who welcomed her in their circle. At first they were a little intimidated, she was a Wayne after all, but then Valerie fell on the snow and dirtied her clothes and they all realized that she was just like them. A kid who gets their clothes dirty too. 

It was a fun sight to see her daughter play with the other children of Gotham, especially those from the orphanage that Martha Wayne put up.

“The kid’s a natural in making friends,” Dick said while holding Haley in his arms. 

“She is,” Vivian laughed as she saw one of the children holding Valerie and bringing her back.

“Mrs. Wayne, I think she’s freezing now,” the children said.

One cue, Valerie sneezed and snot came out.

“Ew,” the children laughed.

“Okay, time to warm up,” Vivian took Valerie and hugged her tight in her jacket to give her warmth. Dick helped in wiping her nose clean and putting his bonnet on Valerie to keep her warm. “Did you have fun?”

Valerie nodded and pointed to the direction of the children watching her. “Play?”

“Sorry, Val, you gotta get warm or you’ll be sick on Christmas,” the children said.

Valerie pouted.

“Here, we made this for you,” one of the children held out a carved toy out of wood. It was one of the activities in the place for the children to enjoy. Simple wood carving where they can make toys of their own. “It was Peter who made it and he’s really good at carving wood.”

The toy was a nutcracker and Valerie happily accepted it and said thank you.

“She won’t let go of that tonight,” Vivian said. “Thank you. I hope everyone had fun.”

“We did. Thanks, Mrs. Wayne. If Val needs friends she can visit any time – we’ll be right there at the orphanage.”

Vivian smiled sadly and reached out to mess with their hair. “I hope everything is okay there. Is it warm in the orphanage?”

“Yeah! We got the new heaters and the blankets too! Mrs. Hall said we were going to have Christmas dinner too!”

At that moment, Jason and the others who knew how to cook were helping out in preparing the children’s Christmas dinner. An early start but nothing beats a good meal after a day of playing in the snow.

“Why don’t we head inside and have some hot chocolate. I got someone do a run so we can all get warm in there, besides I’m sure the animals are cold now too,” Vivian got up and ushered everyone inside the petting zoo. Inside they were greeted by the sight of Bruce waiting with the table of hot cocoa and snacks for everyone to enjoy, and presents that sat in a huge red sack in the corner.

“Thanks, Mr. Wayne!” The children said as they lined up to get their cocoa and snack.

After greeting the children and handing each of them presents, Bruce went to his family who sat at one of the tables with their own drink and snack.

“Did Val get sick?” Bruce asked when he noticed his daughter’s red nose.

“Nothing I can’t fix,” Vivian winked at him. “She was having so much fun that she didn’t realize she was freezing. The kids brought her back when they saw the snot coming down.”

“Dada!” Valerie reached for him.

Bruce happily took his daughter and let her sit on his lap while he cleaned her face.

“Jason said that the dinner for the children are almost done, we can head back to the orphanage after they finish their drinks and snacks,” said Bruce.

“Good, because that’s all they’ve been talking about. And tomorrow, I can’t wait for our little family holiday tradition,” Vivian kissed his cheek. “Got everything set in the manor?”

Bruce smirked. “Damian won’t find the clues that easily this time, and I made sure that Val can participate too.”

“The Wayne Family Holiday Treasure Hunt. And after that we could watch Polar Express or Klaus for the movies? Those were the top two picks for tonight.”

“We’ll see, let’s have them battle it out the old fashion way.”

“Rock-paper-scissors?”

“Exactly.”

The sound of his phone ringing had Bruce reaching for it to answer. It was Alfred. Upon answering, he was met by the worried voice of the man at the other line with disturbing news. Seeing the expression on his face, Vivian knew what it meant. 

“Understood, I’m heading back now,” Bruce ended the call. He then turned to his wife with an apologetic look on his face. “Something happened in Central Gotham, I need to go. I’ll take Damian with me. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’ll handle things here. Go and take Dick with you too.”

“No, Dick will stay with you. I won’t feel comfortable with leaving you both alone until you’re both at the manor,” Bruce leaned down to kiss her and then he kissed Val on top of her head. “I’ll be back.”

“Dada?” Val asked, feeling that her father was going to leave again.

“I’m sorry, Val, but Dada needs to take care of something.”

As if she understood, Val nodded and placed a sloppy and snotty kiss on his cheek. Bruce didn’t mind, he just wiped the snot off once his daughter wasn’t looking. Getting up, Bruce called for Damian and the two of them were running out of the place. Vivian had to make an excuse that it was some sort of emergency that they needed to see in the manor. 

~*~

Returning to the Manor, Dick, Jason, and the others had to head to the cave and get change so they can join Batman and Robin in the case, this left Vivian, Valerie, and Alfred in the house. As much as they would have wanted to wait for the others to return for dinner, Valerie was hungry and Alfred had medicine he needed to take for his ailments. After dinner, Vivian had Alfred rest for the night, reminding him that she can do the dishes while giving Valerie a bath (“Alfred, the best gift you can give me is seeing you relax,” Vivian joked, “Let me handle these.”).

“Dada?” Valerie asked while playing with her toys in the tub.

“Dada is at work with Damian and the others,” Vivian washed the soap off them both.

Valerie grabbed the Bat-duckie (a rubber-duck with Batcowl that Stephanie saw and bought) and showed it to her mother.

“Yup, Bat-duckie,” Vivian laughed. “Okay, duckie, time to get out.”

After draining the tub, Vivian took her daughter and brought her to the master bedroom’s bed. With Bruce still out, she decided to let Valerie sleep there with her until her father comes home. Besides, Bruce tends to take their daughter from her nursery and have her sleep between them every after his patrol.

Putting on the Batman onesie, Valerie started crawling towards the three books Vivian had put out for her to choose from for tonight’s reading, but Vivian pulled her back, making the girl laugh, so she could finish doing the buttons of the clothes.

“Alright, alright, go pick one for storytime,” Vivian took the chance to finish getting dressed as her daughter crawled towards the books and inspected each one, as if it were the first time she was reading them again. But with how the corners were creased and the pages have seen better days, that was the hundredth time they’ve read those books and Valerie doesn’t get tired of them.

When Valerie didn’t seem to find anything she liked, the toddler crawled down the bed, clutching on the comforter for leverage, and ran to her reading nook at her father’s bedside and choose from the handful of books they keep there.

“You miss, Dada, don’t you?” Vivian whispered as she watched the girl look closely at the Father-Daughter’s pile of books.

Valerie finally found the book she wanted to read and showed it to her mother. It was Disney's Treasure Planet Children's Storybook, one of their daughter’s favorite movies of all after watching it with Dick and Barbara. When she saw that in the bookstore, she immediately showed it to her father and asked him to read it to her. Bruce purchased the book – not caring of its expensive price since it’s one of the collectable items of the movie – and would read it to her every night she would ask him to.

“Let’s go,” Vivian pulled her daughter up to the bed and had them snuggle under the covers. “Where did you and Dada left off?”

Valerie turned the pages until they came across the part where Silver and Hawkins opened the gate of Treasure Planet. They began their story, with Vivian using different voices for each character and – to make it interesting – used her magic to pop-out the characters from the book and move around before them. Valerie listened and watched intensely as they read the story, following the words that would pop out of the pages for her to remember what they look like and sound like. Eventually – before they could make it to the end – Valerie fell asleep.

Yawning, Vivian checked the time –

It was that late already? She thought. Maybe this case was a little too much for Batman and his Robins.

Or not.

The bedroom door creaked open and in came Batman with his cowl pulled down and his gaze never leaving the sight of his wife and daughter in bed about to go to sleep. 

“You’re still awake?” Bruce asked.

“She just fell asleep,” Vivian answered and greeted him with a kiss. “How was the emergency.”

“Handled. It was Faust causing trouble, we handled it with the League. Harley Quinn was there.”

“To lend a hand or cause chaos?”

“Both,” Bruce let his cowl and cape drop, along with his gloves so he could pick up his daughter from the bed. “You finished the book without me?”

“No, we haven’t reached the ending yet. She misses you, that’s why she wanted to read it,” Vivian placed it back on his bedside. Watching him cradle their daughter would always bring a warmth in her chest that had Vivian fall in love all over for him. The look in his eyes as he watched their daughter spoke a thousand words of love; the way he held her looked like someone holding a porcelain doll and a cherished treasure. 

It was as if Valerie didn’t poop or puke on them both as she grew up. 

“I’ll take her back to her nursery,” Bruce said to her.

“What do you mean? Don’t you want her to sleep here beside us?”

“I do, she does every night, and I love it. But I feel like I haven’t been a husband to my wife for a while now,” Bruce turned to her with those blue eyes of his that would still make her blush.

“You haven’t neglected me, if that’s what you mean,” Vivian reassured him.

“I’ll be right back,” With that, he left, bringing with him Valerie who he placed in her crib, tucked in with Echo and Greg the Gargoyle around her. When he came back, he had with him the baby monitor, which he tossed at Vivian’s direction before heading to the shower. 

Hearing the water running and the door slightly ajar, Vivian thought for a moment and decided – fuck it, she can just dry her hair again with magic later. Getting up, she took off her clothes and knocked on the shower door.

“Is there something you need?” Bruce asked but he froze when he saw her standing here in the nude.

“Maybe you want some company?” Vivian shrugged.

He moved aside to let her in, and as soon as the shower door was shut, he caged his wife against the wall and captured her in a kiss. 

“I missed you,” Bruce whispered as he trailed kisses down her neck.

“I miss you too,” she wrapped her arms around him. When he pulled away from the kiss, Vivian thought he wanted something specific and was about to go down on her knees when but Bruce held her up.

“No. I just want you here with me,” He wrapped his arms around her and buries his face at the base of her neck. 

Smiling, Vivian turned off the shower and opened the door. “Okay,” she whispered and held him tight.

~*~

In bed, the couple laid in each others arms as they enjoyed each other's company in silence. It was one of the beauties of their relationship, they can just be there without saying a word or doing anything. Even the silence was enough for them, all that matters was they have each other's company.

“Our anniversary is coming,” Bruce suddenly spoke.

“Bruce, it won't be until April,” Vivian laughed. “You're way to advanced.”

“We didn't do much this year, so I was thinking we take a trip. Just the two of us.”

“Where?”

Bruce adjusted his hold on her, propping her leg over him and holding her even closer. “That's why I mentioned it now because I know it'll take us time to find the right place.”

“Kind of hard since we've gone to most of the cities around the world.”

“Not always for pleasure, most of the time it's because of work. Both our day jobs and the League. Do you have any place in mind you want to spend at least two days of vacation?”

She turned to her husband in disbelief. “You are initiating a two-day vacation? Ha! You are growing old, my love. Back then I can't even get you to agree to one night trip to New York.”

“We had our honeymoon that lasted for two weeks. And come on, it's New York, Viv.”

She rolled her eyes. “The New Jerseyan in you is coming out. What's gotten you to think like this, Batman?”

Bruce laughed and kissed her. 

He's avoiding the question.

Bruce never kept secrets from her, but he does tend to procrastinate when it was something that would make her worry or could possibly ruin the mood they were in.

“Bruce.”

Another kiss.

“My love, tell me,” she softly pushed him away.

Sighing, he admitted: “The other night, I was chasing a teenager who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And in the chase my knee…”

“Oh, Bruce,” Vivian sat up and had him lay on his back.

“Viv, come back.”

“I know, but let me see,” She pulled down the blanket and propped his heavy leg on her lap. The stitches from his multiple surgeries were the first thing she saw, along with the scars she got from being Batman. Seeing them, she leaned down and kissed the part where the biggest scar was. It was when she thought she might have to amputate his leg but Vivian healed him and held him together until they got him to a surgeon that fixed his injuries.

“Did it hurt tonight?” She asked him.

“No.”

She looked at him with a deadpan look.

“There was some slight feeling of discomfort.”

Placing a hand on his knee, Vivian began the spell that spread warmth throughout his veins and muscles and had Bruce sighing in relief.

She scoffed. “Not in pain, huh? Don't even think about sitting up.”

“Yes, Ma'am.”

“Who else knows about this?”

“Oracle.”

“Clark?”

There was a moment of silence before he admitted. “I asked him to use his x-ray vision to see the problem.”

“Good to know that you would go to your husband first before your wife,” she teased him, which earned a poke on the side, which tickled her. “Does it feel better now?”

“Yes. Can you, please, lay down with me?” Bruce pulled her to his side again. “If you're wondering about if I have thought about retiring, it has crossed my mind…”

“I just want you to still be you when you finally decide to pass on the cowl or hang it up in the cave. You're not getting any younger, you know, you're becoming an old man,” they laughed.

“An old man with a young wife.”

“Please, forties is not young.”

“You still look young.”

“I have white hair now, and I'm getting more wrinkles.”

“You're still beautiful, Viv.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t.”

Bruce laughed and kissed his wife. “There are times when I think that this is just a never ending battle. That I should just let it be because Batman can't save people from themselves. I cannot save Gotham from itself. The people here refuse change. This is the world they want.”

Vivian frowned as she remembered the night he said something similar and broke down, he did consider hanging up the cowl but then one night there were no violent crimes in Gotham. Just one night of it gave him hope that it was possible. But now…

“But whenever I see our daughter… I don't want to lose that light in her eyes. I want her to still have hope and to live in this city without fearing its streets.”

“I know,” Vivian held him tight. “It's difficult for you to accept defeat, but Bruce one man can only do so much, and I think Batman has done enough. He has brought not just fear to his enemies but hope to those he helps. To those he protects. I don't care what they say about Superman or Wonder Woman, you are a man, and you are able to do all of this. Batman is and will always be the greatest hero there is, and the lessons you passed down to everyone will be your legacy.

“And though I know it's hard to accept the truth, the truth is… this war you've been fighting won't end with you. And I have accepted that — and I know Val has her father's good and caring heart, she will be the Batman's legacy too along with her brothers and sisters.”

Bruce held her tight. “Would it be alright if you hold on to that watch for a while?”

Vivian smiled and kissed him. “I'll hold on to it until you're ready to hang up the cowl… or maybe I can pawn it for a while… get something for myself while I wait.”

“Smartass,” Bruce laughed and pulled her to lay on top of him. Their digital clock sounded a short and soft alarm. It was midnight now. “Merry Christmas, Viv.”

“Merry Christmas, Bruce,” Vivian leaned down and kissed him. In their kiss, Bruce let out a throaty groan as he felt her pressing down on him. When he pulled away to ask, Vivian answered him by taking off her shirt and her bottoms, then said, “Part one of my gift.”

“I thought holiday sex isn't a gift,” he smirked.

“It's not, but it is the holidays, so gotta have a theme.”

“Please don't tell me you have a Mrs. Claus lingerie with you.”

“No, but,” she reached under her pillow and placed a hat on Bruce's head. It was a Santa hat. “But that will do.”

Laughing, Bruce sat up and kissed his wife deeply and pulled her closer to him as she pulled down his underwear and ground herself on his growing erection. 

“Happy holidays, Mr. Pryor,” Vivian gasped as she sank down on him.

Bruce let out a sigh of pleasure to be in her warmth. “Happy holidays, Mrs. Wayne.”

~*~

When Damian saw his little sister climbing down her crib, he shrugged it off and simply watched as she carefully gripped the handles and took one step at a time until she was down, with the family cats and dogs, and Greg the Gargoyle. 

“Very good, Val,” Damian commended her.

“Dami! Mewwy ‘smas!” Valerie hugged his leg.

“Merry Christmas to you too, Val,” he picked her up. “Let's go brush your teeth then we can wake Mom and Father.”

To tease him, Valerie blew her morning breath at her brother and Damian hummed in displeasure. “Hmm.”

A quick trip to the bathroom to brush her teeth and Damian standing outside the bathroom with the door shut as she did her business, until she called out to him saying: “Done!” And he would go in and help her clean up. 

“Come on, let's surprise Mom with the jumpers she got us,” Damian changed her out of the pajamas and into the Christmas jumpers they would get every year for the family. This year, their theme was Super-Holiday Jumpers. It was Stephanie's idea when she and Tim found the whole set in the mall and bought one for everyone to wear. He was wearing a Robin jumper that had the insignia at the very middle incorporated to the design, and Val wore a red and gold one that had the Wonder Woman symbol at the front. 

“And the finishing touch,” he placed the mini-Santa hat on her head. Val laughed and started pulling him along.

Standing before their parents’ bedroom door, Damian had Valerie stand by the wall with her eyes closed as he knocked loud and called out, “I'm coming in!” then waited a few seconds before opening the door to check. Good, they were dressed in their holiday jumpers, but oddly enough the Santa hat was on the ground at this time of day.

“New wake up call?” Vivian said to him.

“It was my way to make sure Valerie does not have to go through that nightmare of seeing what we all saw then while at a young age,” said Damian. “Coast is clear, Val.”

From the door, Valerie walked into their parents’ bedroom and ran to her father who scooped her off the ground. “Good morning, Val,” Bruce greeted her.

“Mownee!” Valerie said, and right on time her stomach growled.

“Okay, time for breakfast, and once everyone is here, the Wayne Family Treasure Hunt will begin,” Vivian had Damian under her wing and led him out the room and to the kitchen.

With Jason staying at the manor for the holidays, he's taking the task in preparing the meals with Alfred helping in some way. For breakfast, he surprised everyone with a holiday themed meal, and Val's favorite which he served in her favorite plate too.

Not long after – with the dishes washing themselves – one by one everyone was arriving at the manor wearing their favorite super-holiday jumpers, bringing food for dinner, and a competitive look on their faces knowing what's to come.

Gathered in the sitting room, Vivian, Bruce, and Alfred stood before everyone else as they waited for the two teams to finalize each other. Dick's team got Barbara, Stephanie, and Cassandra; and Jason's team got Tim, Damian, and Duke. Val will be participating as a guide for both teams to accomplish all of the tasks. Bruce made some tasks that need both teams to work together so Valerie could play with all of them.

“I'm telling you now, it's not going to be easy this year,” Vivian told them.

“Please, you said that last year and we finished it before you can finish a bottle of scotch,” Jason teased.

“Trust me, this is harder, and you'll need these too,” Bruce tossed them back their coats and helped Valerie in hers. “The clues are not just in the manor, it spans all around the estate.”

All cockiness flew out the window as they realized how big Wayne Estate was.

“You're joking, right?” Barbara asked.

“This will be a test of physical and mental skill, and baby skills too. The living room will be your base for every treasure you find,” Vivian handed Valerie to Jason as she started to make grabbing motions at him. “We made sure to put a line as well,” she gestured the magically conjured line between the teams and the sides of the room. “So no one would go on a territory war. You got until three in the afternoon to finish the task.”

“So, it's that difficult, huh?” Stephanie laughed. “Okay, that's interesting.”

“Everyone starts here inside and around the manor, so Val can play too. But when it's time for the excavations, she'll be having her nap.”

“Gotta prepare for Christmas dinner and movie night, huh?” Tim took a photo of Val and Cassandra playing some clapping game.

Vivian then placed the two Christmas cards with the first riddle on the table. One red and the other blue. “Alfred, do the honors,” she gestured to the man.

“With this, the Wayne Family Holiday Treasure Hunt begins,” Alfred started the clock, and Dick and Jason grabbed the cards and started reading it silently with their teams. 

“Got it!” Tim and Stephanie exclaimed and were leading their teams to the direction of the attic, leaving a trail of laughter, competition, and the sound of Valerie giggling.

~*~

The treasure hunt went on for hours with each team solving puzzles that involved them using what they learned from Batman, and some that they needed Valerie to accomplish. They got five pieces of the piece they were going to build and set them on each of their tables in the living room where the timer was. When the next clue was leading them out to the vast estate, they had to give Val to Vivian, who was now asking for nap time. 

All the fun and excitement got her tired.

“Time's running out,” Vivian noted the clock that was fifteen minutes from the end.”

“They almost got it,” Bruce showed her the camera feed that showed Damian and Cassandra going against each other to get to their piece first. It was Cassandra who got it first and she jumped down for Jason to catch and the whole team ran back to the vehicle they used and head back to the manor, but Dick's team wasn't far off and they were racing back to the manor.

Vivian took the walkie talkie, which they gave to each team lead, and said to all of them, “You better not crash.”

They saw them laughing and stepped on it.

“I tell them to be careful and they push on the gas,” she sighed.

When the teams arrived at the teams arrived, they raced to the living room and were now building the piece that Bruce hid around the estate. 

“Come on, Grayson!” Damian said as they built whatever it was they were building. 

“Jason, get your stubby fingers out of the way!” Stephanie exclaimed and took over.

“DONE!” They all called out.

“And thirty seconds to spare,” Duke proudly said. “What is this, anyway?” 

They were all wondering what that does. It looked like a Christmal tree decor – red and blue.

“Not quite,” Vivian smirked.

Tim and Stephanie groaned and grabbed each of their ornament and ran to the tree, looking for that one piece that was missing in the pattern. 

That's why the tree looked a person with OCD made it! It was a missing piece for the tree!

“Hand it over, Drake!” Damian grabbed the ornament and hung it at the very top where the missing piece is suppose to be, just as Stephanie shoved hers at the bottom that was out of reach.

“HA!” They all declared they have won.

“With ten seconds to spare,” Bruce mused. “Congratulations.”

“What's the prize?” Barbara asked.

“Well, team Blue won,” Vivian got out an envelope for them. “Gift cards for shopping – special gift cards that you can use for anything you want.”

Dick's team cheered and howled in success, all taking an expensive gift card for their spending.

“Damnit!” Jason muttered. He was glaring at Dick as the eldest Robin gloated. “Oh, shut the fu--”

“Mowning!” Valerie entered the living room in her holiday pajamas and still rubbing her eyes to get the sleep out of them.

“Aw, good afternoon, Val!” Vivian scooped up her daughter. “Dick’s team won. Why don't you give Jay and the others a hug too cheer them up.”

Valerie reached out to Jason and snuggled in his arms and then fell asleep again. 

“I guess she's still sleepy,” Jason laughed and cradled her.

“Christmas Dinner isn't until later, so let her sleep,” said Bruce. “Is it alright if she stays with you? She looks comfortable there.”

“Yeah, she's good here,” Jason sat down on the couch. “I guess the presents can wait later when she wakes up.”

“I think we can hand out the other presents since Babs and Duke still have to go to their families,” Vivian shrugged.

They all agreed and gathered around to get their gifts. Vivian and Bruce handed out the gifts under the tree, skipping Valerie's gifts for the girl to open later. When they opened their gifts, everyone was happy to get what they always wanted. The gifts that Bruce got were more sentimental with Jason finally fixing Thomas Wayne's old broken watch and handing it as a gift after all this time, Dick giving him a framed photo from one of the early days of being just the four of them in the manor, and from Vivian was a photo album that collected their memories throughout the years, from their days when they were still dating until their life as a married couple, and now with their family.

The sight of their real wedding had Bruce smiling. Gotham doesn't know about that one, but it was the most intimate and most memorable one for him.

Taking his wife by her chin, Bruce had her face him to place a kiss on her lips. No words, but Vivian knew what he meant and pressed her forehead on his.

“From our first case to our last,” Bruce murmured.

“From our first case to our last,” she said back.

“Val's awake!” Cassandra helped the girl up and handed her a glass of water. “Presents?”

The word had the sleep disappear from her eyes and Valerie jumped down and ran to the tree, dragging Cassandra with her.

“From me,” Cassandra held out the present to Valerie.

As Valerie started to unwrap the presents, Barbara and the others started taking photos and videos of the moment for them to look back to. In their line of work, it's these little moments that they live for. It's also what reminds them of what they are fighting for.