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1kook · 4 years ago

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youtube & use lube

part 7 of my netflix and chill collection!

summary: You can’t believe this is Jungkook’s preferred sick day treatment; YouTube, cuddles, and an ugly amount of lube. warnings: smut in the forms of nipple play, handjobs, spit kink, face riding, unprotected, flavored warming lube, riding, praise kink, soft femdom, missionary bc his eyes are pretty, tit sucking, more jk has an impreg kink, oh and this is all subby kook rating: mature (18+) miscellaneous: domesticity baby!! fluff, soft scenes /.\, jk is sick:((, doyeon is A Doctor, yn sees an opportunity and she grabs it, surprise ending <3 word count: 8.7k

notes: finally…. 7 parts later and we get ~✨💓sub kook💓✨~ this was honestly my fave to write I think because I was obSESSEDDD with his softness and yn leading hehe /.\ also yeah we time jumped 6 months bc uhmmm 😎 story progression also here’s [ THE KOOK U SHOULD IMAGINE FOR THIS 😡 ] also if see a typo ummm no u didn't .

let me know what u think! a simple ask goes a long way <3

Despite what past experiences may dictate, Jungkook’s body is actually quite resilient. It’s due in part to his obnoxiously healthy lifestyle; avocado breakfasts, gym rat tendencies, and a normal person’s circadian rhythm (you could never relate). He lives the life health professionals can only dream of writing down in their notes, so careful of his well-being that it’s almost annoying. Of all the habits you help him break, the rituals he sometimes forgets, his health is never one and it’s actually one he ropes you into quite often. The ladder accident last summer had truly been an odd occurrence, and for a while after, you doubt anything else will ever happen to him.

And then winter comes.

Now, Jungkook, with all his superior bodily systems and strict lifestyle, is still not immune to the common cold. So when he comes down with a stuffy nose, a saggy frame, you’re not too surprised. It’s right after New Year’s, which you had spent it at one of Taehyung’s classic overcrowded parties this year, shivering on a rooftop as he kissed you silly under the fireworks, so one of you was bound to get sick. And you were sick for Halloween, so it’s only the universe’s way of leveling the playing field when he gets sick after New Years.

What does surprise you is when he doesn’t bounce back right away. Usually, Jungkook’s high caliber immune system has him in tip top shape about two days later. But this time around, it takes a while. In fact, it takes longer than usual, and you don’t realize until you’re coming over on a Friday night, met with an unusual silence at the Jeon household.

As you slowly grew accustomed to your life out of school, you and Jungkook accepted that you didn’t really have time to be glued to each other’s hips at all hours of the day. It was only natural that sometimes you had too much work, were too tired, or were just not in the mood to visit each other. That was fine, and you’ve come to quite appreciate this new routine, because it only made your heart flutter faster than before when you did see him next. You don’t have to see each other everyday, and that was fine; it was part of growing up together (and growing old together, your sappy heart says).

But today, this separation ends up being your downfall. Jungkook first showed signs of a cold on Monday, and now it was Friday and you hadn’t heard from him in two days. You’re beginning to suspect he’s come down with something severe— maybe that strain of the flu that he forgot to get vaccinated for this year —or even worse, dead.

Luckily, Jungkook isn’t dead, just sadly slumped across the end of his bed, nose a bright red and hair a tangled mess. “Oh no,” you frown, but there’s not an ounce of distress in your voice, because boy, was he cute.

He groans at the sight of you. “Don’t look at me,” he whimpers, hands fisting the sheets. “I’m ugly.”

You bite down on a smile, hang your bag on the hook behind his bedroom door. He’s barely making an effort to stay on the bed, clinging to the side with such powerless hands. “Absolutely hideous,” you play along, arms wrapping around his middle. Registering your touch, your support, he immediately releases what little grip he had and almost sends the two of you tumbling to the ground. “My poor baby,” you croon, manhandling him back into the comfort of his sheets.

Perhaps the reason you believed Jungkook was so immune was because, well, he never let you see him sick.

He was picky about his presentation to the world, always wanting to show his best side. And well, you were in that world. Hell, you were probably the main person he wanted to show off for (not to toot your own horn), so he avidly avoided showing you his unpleasant sides. Even in college, when you had been practically stuck to his side, he had always made a big deal of pushing you away when he was sick, calling off dates and hiding away at his house.

You sort of knew why. Namjoon had told you once that Jungkook when drunk was the equivalent of a needy, whiny baby. You could attest to that because wine drunk Jungkook and vodka drunk Jungkook were quite the experiences to haul home. And apparently Jungkook when sick was more or less the same. He was all doe eyes and pouty lips, magnified by his weakened appearance. He was adorable.

He’s wearing a lot of layers, but it’s still winter so you don’t think too much of it. Dark long sleeve sweatshirt, the front tucked into some cute brown and black checkered pants. You see it as just some casual at home attire until you reach for his covers, hand brushing his hair from his face, only to find it ice cold.

“Oh, you’re freezing, honey,” you frown, for real this time. Jungkook whimpers, snuggles into the sheets you pull up to his chin. He dozes off soon after, pouty lips chapped to hell and back. You reach for your chapstick, deciding to get one good use of it on your own lips before contaminating it with Jungkook’s sick germs. Even in his sleep he’s a good boy, rolling his lips together after you’ve applied it on him.

With Jungkook knocked out, you pad back downstairs and into his kitchen. You can more or less infer that he’s come down with something a little more intense than a cold. His skin was cold, and his nose was runny, but, oddly enough, he wasn’t sweating. You decide to consult a professional.

“The little gremlin is sick?” Doyeon repeats, a comforting buzz in your ear as you get to work making Jungkook your famous Get Better Soon Soup, idly waiting for the water to boil over. You confirm. Doyeon, legend that she was, accidentally sat an entire physiology class one semester (and passed), so this is the closest you’ll get to a doctor friend. “Hm,” she says, “what’re his symptoms?”

You press your phone between your ear and shoulder, clattering around Jungkook’s kitchen for ingredients. “Runny nose and colder than your ass that one time you passed out in the snow,” you supply. “Oh, but not sweating.”

Doyeon hums over the line, tells you to give her a second, and disappears. “WebMD is saying fever, but you said he’s not sweating?” You confirm again. “Throw him in front of the heater and make him sweat then. He has to burn it out somehow.”

“I can’t do that,” you sigh, pausing when you hear some vague sound from around the house. It’s not Jungkook, so you return to your call. Anyway, Jungkook’s house is, like, perfect. Always warm when need be and always cold as well. You don’t even think he knows what a space heater is. “He’s sick sick. Like, can barely hold himself up sick.”

She scoffs. “And I care why?” You huff, go to scold her for their weird rivalry, but then she’s moving on. “Babe, just give him some pain relief and call it a day.”

“Fine,” you mumble. “Wait, can you look something else up for me?”

Anyway, Jungkook probably has a fever, except it’s weird because he’s not sweating it out. He wakes up about an hour later, but this time he’s more self aware. He eats his soup and takes the medicine you offer him. Afterwards, he can’t go back to sleep so he huffily asks for his iPad and begins watching some weirdly specific YouTube videos you don’t think you’ve ever seen him watch before.

You have absolutely no idea what he’s watching, some niche videos of guys in Singapore turning random forest areas into underwater pools? You don’t know. Jungkook seems interested, though, for all of ten minutes until he falls asleep again.

He’s still cold, poor baby, nose like an ice cube that just won’t melt. You find a heating pad you left over in his closet and place it on his chest. Your thought process is that if his heart, the source of all energy, was warm, then certainly the rest of him will warm up soon enough. Yeah, you missed the last three seasons of Grey’s Anatomy; you were a little rusty.

So with Jungkook fast asleep and nothing else to do, you assume the age-old, patriarchal task of cleaning around the house.

His house was usually neat and tidy, mostly as a result of Jungkook’s virgo manifestations, but even those varied. His living room tended to be spotless, but his personal office was a different story. But with him having been out of it this past week, the entire house is littered in tiny garbage that would make Normal Jungkook burst a blood vessel.

There’s a pile of Reese’s wrappers in the downstairs bathroom, on the sink next to his toothbrush. The sight makes you sad, because your poor boy must have been struggling if he was eating candy in the bathroom, where he… uses the bathroom. And then that thought makes you even sadder, thinking back to all the times he was sick and alone, fending for himself out of his weird embarrassment of showing normal body functions.

You had thought he was cute when you first arrived— he still was —but he was also so weak and frail, bulky muscles rendered useless by whatever bacteria was attacking his body, making him sleepy and in pain for god knows how long. With a resolute nod, you sweep all the wrappers into the trash and decide to do your very best at helping Jungkook get through this sickness and bounce back better than ever.

Before leaving his bathroom, you ransack his cabinets, deciding he probably keeps most of his antibiotics here. It’s a spot you never really snoop around, because Jungkook always keeps a fully stocked basket in his closet filled with your typical necessities— from conditioner to pads to nail polish remover, he kept it all. And furthermore, you always tended to use his upstairs bathroom anyway, so that’s where your toothbrush and the like were kept. There was really no need for you to ever look through the downstairs bathroom’s cabinet. So the downstairs bathroom cabinet is practically the other side of the world to you, a culture shock so strong it has you plopping down in front of it to thoroughly sift through.

He’s got a disgusting amount of hair products, none of which you actually think you’ve ever seen him use, and a maniacal amount of tooth stuff. Now, you were quite possibly the biggest proponent for dental care, but this was ridiculous. Four packs of floss on reserve, and about three cases of those dental picks. A whole family pack of toothbrushes and one of those cute little cases for his retainer you’ve seen a few times.

So overwhelmed with his ungodly stash of dental hygiene utilities, you almost miss the pretty pink tube hidden in the very back corner.

You’re thinking it’s some makeup primer you left before that he mistook for moisturizer, probably dumped it with all his other things, only to find out you are very, very wrong.

Sensation Warming Lubricant: NOW! in strawberry flavor

You blink.

Lubricant? Jungkook was using lubricant? Strawberry, sensation warming lubricant?!

Somewhere in your mind you had convinced yourself that Jungkook was a simple man, a lotion at his bedside drawer type of man. He had you for the last one and half year, and you two fucked like rabbits, so you hardly doubt he was jacking it alone these days. And even if he was, why on earth was he so specific about the type of lube he uses?

You turn the bottle around, eyes scanning for an expiration date or something of the like, only to find that the copyright symbol was under this current year. The year that had just started, like, two weeks ago.

Oh, so this was new.

You turn it over, eyes scanning over the warnings like it’ll tell you something about your boyfriend you don’t know yet, some other hidden secret that he’s maybe held from you. Granted, owning lube isn’t really a big deal, but the fact he’s got it so hidden away (not really, it was casually sitting beside his sunscreen) was definitely something to zero in on.

Strawberry flavored, you read again, warming, stimulating, edible? Forget his weirdly extensive floss collection, you had stumbled upon something amazing in here, the goddamn Hope Diamond among snooping girlfriend finds. You’ll confront him about this later, you decide, when he’s back to normal and not whiningly calling your name from upstairs. You pocket it for now, tucking it into your cardigan pockets for said later interrogation, and bound up the stairs to him again.

He’s sitting up in bed like a very angry and confused toddler, brows furrowed sharply like he’s mad. Actually, he just can’t see, the light from the hallway blinding him, so you shut the door and flick on his bedside lamp for him instead. “Hi, honey,” you coo, sitting down on the edge beside him. He’s still waking up, leaning a little too heavily into your palm when you cup his face. “How’re you feeling?”

“Terrible,” he rasps out, but he’s definitely looking better than before. You don’t know if you imagine it, but there’s this slowly accumulating sweat that forms along the base of his neck. “Please don’t leave again,” he says softly, droopy eyes glassy.

Something shoots straight to your heart— an arrow from Cupid himself! —that makes you stroke his cheek tenderly until his eyelids are fluttering shut again. “I won’t,” you promise, feeling around for his iPad. He doesn’t seem like he’ll fall back asleep, sitting up with more strength than he had that morning.

You end up climbing behind him, let him be the little spoon you know he secretly craves to be, as he watches his weird YouTube videos again. His body is so warm against yours, but his skin is still so cold. If what Doyeon had said was true, it’s no wonder he’s kept the same sickness all week. The rhythmic sound of machetes hacking at the earth and water trickling through bamboo pipes grows on you, makes you fall into a sense of comfort behind him, arms tracing circles over his chest.

It’s a mindless habit, one you actually do a lot. Most of the time, it’s when he’s at his desk and stressed out, your masseuse hands making an appearance to soothe the muscles in his neck and chest from being hunched over for so long. Even now, your fingers unconsciously press into the fabric over his pecks, tickle up his sternum until he’s melting against you.

It takes one quiet whimper from him to let you know exactly how he’s feeling. “Everything alright?” you inquire, halting your movements over his chest. Jungkook nods shakily, head lolling forward. The nape of his neck calls to you, whispers for a kiss that you tenderly bestow upon it. It makes Jungkook jolt, another pretty sound leaving his lips at the press of your warm lips against his sensitive neck.

“No more,” he mumbles, rolls his head around until it’s resting against your shoulder, giving you a clear view down his chest. You slide your hands back up from where they’d gone stiff just around his ribs, let them palm over his pecs. Jungkook’s hips buck, a minuscule movement you almost miss.

His heart thunders like the inside of a horse race track beneath your palm, breath picking up just from the simple motion of your hands on his chest. It’s on the fourth circle around his pecs that you feel your pinky briefly catch on something. “Poor thing,” you sigh, running the pad of your pointer finger over the hardened nipple that peaks beneath his sweatshirt. “Is this what was bothering you?”

A shaky exhale in response, hands tightly clutching at his iPad and beloved YouTube video genre. “N-No,” he denies, but you chance a peak at his face, where his lips are bitten a rosy pink color, its slightly muted sister rushing down his cheeks, over his neck.

You press the lightest of kisses to the side of his neck, and he shivers. “Need me to take care of you?” you purr, trail your hands down his chest towards where the hem of his sweater sits. You run your finger over it twice, before moving to slip your hand beneath. Your fingers brush along his abs, contracted tightly at your touch, and slowly make their way back up his chest.

Fingers find his pebbled nipples, a gasp escaping his lips. “Does this feel good?” you ask softly, pinching the swollen nubs between your fingers. Jungkook groans, body arching just the slightest as you rub his nipples, tug and twist them until he’s a whining mess. “Need you to tell me, honey,” you encourage, lips ghosting over his neck.

The second kiss has him flinching as well, head rapidly turning the other way as you slowly kiss over his neck. “___, please,” he pants, knuckles pale on the sides of the iPad. You're afraid it’ll snap, if not from his grip then from the way he pushes at it, like he’s breaking a wooden board over his knee. It’s still on YouTube, playing another video from the same collection, volume competing with Jungkook’s tiny sounds.

Pressing your lips to his neck, you kiss along it slowly, reveling in the lovely noises that Jungkook produces the more you rub his nipples, lower body squirming animatedly before you. Your kisses grow wet for a short period, suck purple blossoms across his skin until Jungkook is quivering like a leaf. “E-Enough,” he begs, voice a wobbly mess that is so light and airy.

You grin, giving his rockhard nipples one last flick before sliding your hands down his chest, over his stomach to toy with the elastic of his pants. He inhales sharply, iPad nearly snapped in half mid video. Ready to play with him some more (and slightly afraid for the future of his tablet), you reach out a hand to move it away, set it off to the side.

But Jungkook doesn’t release it. In fact, he clings to the damn piece of tech tighter than before. “Hmm?” you murmur, bottom lip brushing against his neck once more. “Not letting go, sweetheart?”

He shakes his head, soft crown of curls bouncing from the movement. “Can’t, can’t,” he shivers. His knees shift back and forth, move between being casually spread and flush together. Like he’s hiding something, using the iPad and the videos on screen as cover. You tug at his wrist and Jungkook shakes his head again.

You change tactics, hand sliding around his wrist instead. The other travels up, up, up, comes curling around the base of his neck. Jungkook whimpers, tilts his head back for you cutely at the first brush of your fingers against his Adam’s apple. “Thought you were my good boy?” you ask, eyes zeroed in on the tremble of his lower lip.

Jungkook exhales shakily, a rather torn expression crossing his features. “I am,” he insists, fingers still tight “I am your good boy.”

You smile, stroking the front of his neck softly as you lean down to press a kiss against his cheek. “You are, aren’t you?” He whimpers. “Then let go, honey,” you murmur, hand on his wrist giving another experimental tug. Still, his grip remains solid. “Jungkook,” you snap, “let go.”

“Y-You’ll laugh,” he cries, yet his grip slowly weakens. It’s with a swift tug that the iPad tumbles to his side, presses against his hip, and shows you the raging hard-on that stirs beneath the front of his cotton pants. Pressed nearly beside your ear, Jungkook shivers.

Ever so slowly, your hands return to their place around his waist. “Why would I laugh, sweetheart?” you mumble, marveling at the way his cock twitches and jumps beneath his pants before you can even touch it. His shirt is hiked up just above his abs, your hands tenderly stroking over the skin beneath his navel, but it’s got Jungkook writhing. “Hips up for me,” you instruct.

He shakes even when he pushes himself up, knees wobbling as you slip your hands beneath his waistband and tug them down his thighs. Afterwards, his legs flop forward flatly, spread out with his beautiful swollen cock on display against his hip.

You trap it at the base and Jungkook mewls, hands fisting the sheets now that his beloved iPad has been snatched away. It’s still playing his videos, interrupting his saccharine moans with corny ads every few minutes. A hand snaps up to join, opposite of yours, until your fingers are entwined around his dick. How romantic, you think, discreetly rolling your hips back against the mattress. “Gonna help me make you cum?” you ask instead, give him a light squeeze that makes him jolt.

“Uh huh,” he responds, feathery.

You reward him with a kiss to his cheek, reaching up to brush away the hair that’s begun sticking to his forehead. In the very back of your head you recognize this as being good for his fever, but the rest of you is more concerned with the pretty pout on his lips. “Hold tight for me,” you smile, releasing his cock to press your finger against the very tip of his cock where a pearly drop of precum has begun forming. “So pretty, Jungkookie,” you praise, teasing the length of your finger over the slit on his head. It has that juicy droplet coating your finger, gliding seamlessly over and over again.

The simple touch makes him buck, has him blindly wrapping an arm around your bent knee that was pressed to his side this whole time. He squeezes around you rather weakly, the majority of his strength going to holding his cock tightly like you’d instructed. He’s such a good boy for you, trying his absolute best, even when you’re very obviously overwhelming him.

You roll the flat side of your finger over him, his mushroom tip slowly growing more and more slick as he produces more precum. It’s shiny, fits perfectly between your clasped fingers when you squeeze around his head. Jungkook’s breath turns labored.

He’s always so well kept down there, skin so smooth and free of hairs, and you know he does it because he wants to impress you. “So pretty, baby,” you hum, acknowledging his efforts. Your praise makes Jungkook moan, suddenly fucking up into his hand. It’s accidental, because he hisses at the drag of his dry palm around his relatively dry dick immediately.

“Hurts, hurts,” he whimpers prettily, lower lip caught between his teeth.

You frown, slide your wet fingers down the base of his cock until they’re wrapping around his and Jungkook’s little gasps even out. “I’m sorry, baby, you gotta be patie—“

Something presses against your hip, something distinctly hard that you had hastily picked up from his bathroom cabinet earlier, and a whole new door opens before your eyes. “Hold still for me,” you tell him quickly as you release your grip around his cock. Jungkook wails at the separation, but you’re more concerned with wrestling the tube out of your pocket with one hand. It’s heavy in your palm, turning over until that big fat label on front comes into view again.

Jungkook explodes at the sight. “Wh— Where did you find that?” he stammers, cheeks ablaze. “I-I don’t know where that came fro—“

You ignore him, hold the bottle of lubricant over his stomach as you uncap it, a gooey pink substance spilling over into your hands the moment the lid pops off. Jungkook is still rambling away about the origins of the bottle, as if you care. You set the bottle on his tummy, the cold plastic makes him shiver. But you know what’s not cold? The warming lube in your hands that only takes three rubs of your palms to activate.

You latch down like a crazed animal around his cock. With both your hands fighting to grip at his cock, you’re pressed closer against Jungkook, lips against the shell of his ear.

The initial touch makes him sob, back arching and legs kicking at the sheets piled at the foot of the bed as your slick hands track the lube over his dick. “No!” he cries, hands wildly reaching out to grab whatever he can as you slowly get to work pulling him off. “I-I can’t, __, I can’t.”

“You can,” you coo, watching the translucent pink substance coat his cock, join his sticky precum.

Maybe you get overexcited in your efforts, forget Jungkook is the way he is right now because he was still a little weak from his fever, but you go crazy on stroking his cock. One hand lingers around the base, squeezing and rolling over his balls, palm pressing against the hardened sac and squeezing there too. The other focuses at the tip, does most of the actual stroking over his cock. His head is leaking precum now, every stroke and squeeze making him shudder and push out another drop, until it’s mixing with the lube to form a sticky sweet substance that you wanna lick at so bad.

So you do.

You release one hand to curiously bring it up to your face, turning it over and around as you examine the stickiness on your fingers, the fat drop that unintentionally drips onto the front of Jungkook’s sweatshirt. He sobs at the sight of your lips around your fingers, squirms and bucks into the hand still on his cock until he’s embarrassingly coming. “I’m sorry,” he wails, hands fisting the sheets, fucking into your hand like a virgin. “I didn’t— I didn’t mean to.”

You draw your hand away, watching in slow motion the cum that just spurted from his cock come dribbling down the slowly softening length now. “Oh, sweetheart,” you croon, hands on his tummy. The bottle of lube slips to the side, meets the still playing iPad at his hip. It’s sticky and gross to touch him like this, especially when you know Jungkook hates being unnecessarily dirty, but you can’t stop yourself from softly caressing him, soothe him after such a hard-hitting orgasm.

Honestly you had thought he would hold up a little more, let you get in a few more strokes, but he must’ve been more sensitive than you thought. “I’m sorry,” he cries again, head lolling to the side to meet your gaze with watery eyes.

You tilt his head to the side, angle him just right for you to bestow your first kiss of the night against his little pout. Jungkook hiccups, melts against you as you slowly guide him through the kiss. He’s sloppy and shy, moves nothing like your normal Jungkook, and that fact alone has you slipping your tongue past his lips. He doesn’t fight back, just lets you play with him and sighs all delicately against your mouth.

There’s something about this, his soft and submissive attitude, that has you pulling away to look at him. Big brown eyes, glassed over with unshed tears, and plush lips that call your name. And yet.

“Open,” you murmur, hypnotized by the way that tiny mouth moves.

“Huh?” Jungkook flushes, but he’s so good, he’s your good boy, and does so anyway. Lower lip quivers as he parts his lips, stuttering exhales creeping through as you purse your lips, let the saliva collect on your mouth, before rudely spitting into his. He flinches, whimpers softly, and swallows. He looks at you with these expectant eyes, like he wants to hear how much of a good boy he is, so you do exactly that.

You brush his bangs away lovingly. “Aren’t you just so good for me,” you purr, revel in the way his eyes flutter shut at your touch, like you could never hurt him, and you won’t.

As sweet as the moment is, there’s a raging fire in your core begging to be stroked, and your hyperfixation on Jungkook’s mouth lets you know there’s only one way to chase the feeling. “Up,” you tell Jungkook, who whimpers sadly when you finally escape from behind him.

But you don’t get too far, settling beside him on the bed until you’re looking at the damage you’ve caused from the front. His skin is sticky in some places, pink sheen of the lube decorating him from your incessant touching. Pants around his thighs, shirt against his chest. His face is flushed, all the way down to his chest and up to his ears, so rosy and pink all for you. He shies away under your gaze, drops his head to his chin bashfully.

You grin, shuffle forward to turn those pretty eyes back towards you. “Messy little thing,” you tease, slotting your mouths together again. Jungkook moans this time, lazily kissing you back. His lips move in slow motion, trembling hands reaching for your face to cup, your name falling from his lips when you pull away slightly. “Need you to help me out now,” you murmur, hand on his jaw. “Can you do that, honey?” Jungkook nods hurriedly, eyes foggy and on your mouth. “Lay back.”

He does so, rushes to lay against the pillows until he’s flat on his back. You get to work on your clothes, shed your cardigan and languidly tug your top over your head in the way you know makes your breasts bounce. Beneath you, Jungkook whines at the sight. “You too,” you remind him, wiggling out of your jeans. At your instruction, he begins fumbling with his clothes, pants and underwear haphazardly thrown over the edge of the bed.

By the time you’re naked, you’re met with a rather amusing sight.

In his haste to take his clothing off, Jungkook seems to have gotten himself tangled in his long sleeves, shirt awkwardly bunched up around his wrists and twisted over some. You chuckle. “Help please,” he asks so politely, shaking his arms back and forth above his head. But you’re genuinely confused as to what he did, because one of the sleeves wraps around the other, pins the bulk of the fabric to his skin, and then the other wraps around that. A mess you don’t bother dissecting, simply climbing over him. He complains, of course, soft huffs you wave off.

“Don’t need them anyway,” you shrug, can’t help the lovesick look you send him when you brush his hair away for the umpteenth time. Jungkook leans into the touch sweetly, rosy cheek pressed against your palm. “Lemme see your pretty little tongue,” you order, pussy clenching when he does as told and rolls his tongue out for you, tip pressed against his bottom lip. “Good boy.”

A soft whimper, and then you’re shuffling over him, pretty doe eyes watching with amazement when you finally hover over his face. “For me?” he asks so softly, so sweetly.

It’s a question you’ve heard him utter countless times before in similar settings, always with a cocky grin and mean eyes, ready to send you to hell and back with his tongue or his cock. But it’s different now, big shiny eyes looking at you like you’re the greatest thing to ever happen in his life, so pliant and demure beneath your touch like he lived to serve you.

“All for you,” you assure him, get comfortable, and slowly lower your pussy over his face. His eyes flutter shut immediately, pink tongue ready for you by the time your dripping cunt nears his face.

You can’t help the moan that tears itself from your throat, a soft cry as he begins lapping against your folds. He’s so tender, so careful. It drives you crazy. Hands above his head squirming as you slowly grind your pussy over his face, more mindful than usual because he was so delicate tonight, like a baby bird that shivers with the simplest touch.

His tongue is smooth, circles around your clit. He nudges your bundle of nerves back and forth a few times, sends an initial wave of tingles down your spine, before taking it between puckered lips. His slurps it into his mouth, where it’s so hot and wet, it makes your grind stutter. “Oh,” you pant, reaching down to tangle your fingers in his hair. “P-Perfect,” you mumble.

The praise makes his features twist up cutely, mouth desperate to get more out of you. “You like that?” you gasp, holding his head still as he runs his tongue along your folds. Jungkook nods, eyes glazed over as he messily begins eating you out. “Like when I tell you you’re a good boy, Jungkookie?”

He lets out a broken whine, the vibrations shooting up your spine and making you shiver. Tongue pressed in at your entrance, prods gently like it’s his first time (it’s not) and he’s gauging your reactions. “Oh baby,” you shudder, fingers tightening in his curls.

He looks like an angel beneath you like this, halo of curls artfully splayed across the sheets, arms knotted above his head. Big pretty eyes that make you want to lay down and be his bitch instead, their power just so strong even when he’s whining and whimpering against your pussy like this. His tongue dips into your cunt, makes you buck against him by accident. “I’m sorry, angel,” you breathe, so caught up in your thoughts that the name just slips. It makes Jungkook’s cheeks flush a pretty pink, arms tug at their makeshift restraints. But his brain is scattered, torn between releasing himself, eating you out, and being shy.

He settles soon enough, ends up just sticking his tongue out flat for you to grind against, using the grip in his curls to drag your pussy over his face. His scalp feels warm, sweat clinging to his hairline. He sighs endearingly against you, and it’s that final puff of warm air against your folds that has you coming, cum dripping over his lips and chin sinfully.

When you finish, you quickly get off of him, lay down beside him. Jungkook is panting softly, tongue peeking out to taste the cum that splattered against the corner of his lips. “You were so good for me,” you praise, idly dragging your finger across his skin, collecting your cum on the tip.

Jungkook looks at you with a heavy gaze, knotted wrists slowly returning to rest over his abdomen. “Can you… Can you call me that again?” he asks hesitantly, so shy and polite.

“Hm?” you ask. “Angel?” His lips part, an awfully aroused look crossing his features. You smile, press your cum loaded finger against his lips and he opens, sucks around your finger and moans. “My pretty little angel,” you purr, slowly thrusting your finger in and out of his mouth. Before you can stop yourself, you’re leaning over to kiss him again, swallowing his cries in your desperate need to taste yourself on his tongue. Jungkook is more active this time around, daringly challenging your tongue with his before ultimately giving up, languidly following the pace you set for the kiss. You pull off with a pop, leave him dazed and trailing after your mouth cutely.

You pat his cheek once, offer him a tender smile, before moving to get up and clean up. Jungkook whines at your departure, and it’s only once you’ve sat up that you realize why.

Half hard cock at his hip, fattening slowly but surely. Instantly, it’s like the post-orgasm fatigue is yanked away, pussy throbbing at the sight of your angel and his cock, swelling from eating you out and kissing. He was too good to be true.

“Oh, you poor thing,” you sigh dramatically, shifting onto your knees at his hip to look at him. Something pokes your leg; it’s the stupid iPad playing his dorky YouTube videos that you click off and chuck to the other side of the bed. You had had enough of that by now.

He’s not at full mast yet, and he’s not getting there quick enough for your liking. So you take matters into your own hands. (Besides, what was stopping you tonight? Certainly not this soft, pliant Jungkook.)

Kneeling between his legs, you reach for the forgotten bottle of lube, squirt a fat glob into your hands, then decide that isn’t enough and squirt it directly onto your chest. Jungkook watches with wide eyes, lower lip caught between his teeth. “What— What’re you doing?” he stammers, can’t even sit up with his hands held together. “__, y-you don’t have—“

Squeezing your breasts together, you slip his cock between the crevice, watch as his angry head comes out on the other side so easily, so slippery. Oh, this was gonna be post-work, shower-time, spank bank material for months.

Jungkook sobs, loud and unfiltered at the sight, expression torn as he watches you slowly work your tightened breasts down his quickly hardening member. “T-Too much, too much,” he cries, squirming and bucking beneath you. “I-I’ll come—”

“Don’t,” you snap, stilling your moments to flick your eyes back to him. His head is rolled back, jaw strained, but when he manages to lift it up and look down at you, there’s tears that streak his cute face, trails that glisten when the lowlight of the lamp hits him just right. “Don’t fucking come yet, Jungkook.”

He sniffles weakly, more tears spilling from his eyes. “But I— it feels,” he blubbers, knotted hands reaching down for the base of his cock. You slap it away. “___, please,” he wails, face flushed from all his conflicting emotions.

Ignoring his cries, you get back to work, moving your upper body to and fro to simulate the thrusting motion he is too weak to do himself. He whimpers pitifully, more tears leaving his eyes when you lean down and spit on the head of his cock when it emerges next, make it join the rest of the ungodly fluids painting your chest. Honestly, you’re certain it’s that damned strawberry flavored, sensation warming, edible lube that makes this experience so enjoyable, so mind-blowing.

Jungkook seems to agree, stuttering out a messy whine. “Feels weird,” he snivels, only to be cut off when you release him from in between your tits. Immediately, he begins lamenting the loss.

Slowly, you ease him back in. You’re beginning to understand the intensity of that damned warming lube, because with each glide of his cock between your breasts, it’s like a tingle of nerves sparks within you, insides folding in on themselves as they channel all their energy to that one area of hastily spread lube. It feels so good and wet and messy, Jungkook’s whiny sniffles only fueling the experience. His cock twitches dangerously, and you flash him a glare. “Jungkook,” you warn.

“I’m sorry,” he weeps, thrashing back and forth as if that makes it any easier. “I just— I want,” he chokes, hips bucking into the suction you’ve created between your boobs. Tentatively, you stick your tongue out, let his tip brush against it on the next thrust. Jungkook curses, a feral groan escaping his lips. “Wanna fuck,” he seethes, “now.”

It’s but a slight peek into his regular personality, his normal mannerisms. But something about it now annoys you. In fact, it pisses you off, seeing him be so complacent and sweet just to try and overthrow you at the last second. And it’s with this same train of thought that you release him, climb over him like a crazed sex demon, and press your hand to his throat.

“You're supposed to be good,” you spit, scowl turned on him and it immediately has Jungkook drawing back with his tail tucked, falling into line as he should. “You’re supposed to be my angel tonight, remember?”

Jungkook nods, big round eyes looking at you like you’re insane, but the cock that presses against your ass tells you that he likes it. “I-I’m sorry,” he stutters, shrinking back into the mattress. Sticky hands around his throat, probably make him warm and tingly, but all you can think about is those pretty eyes. Sensing your wavering emotions, he takes advantage by tilting his chin forward for you cutely, pink lips trembling as he silently asks for a kiss.

You release him.

“Stupid angel,” you huff, mouth against his. “Gonna make me mad if you don’t act right,” you remind him, pushing his sweaty curls away from his face. He whimpers against your mouth, let’s you play with his hair as you calm down. He’s a blushing mess beneath you, every inch of him flushed and warm and sweaty.

You shift back and are met with his still rock hard member against your ass. You touch him appreciatively, reaching back to stroke him with a half-assed grip. It makes him moan nonetheless, pulling away from your lips to mewl against your shoulder. “Wanna fuck?” you hum, curling your hand over the tip like he likes, watching his head roll back against his pillow at the sensation. Jungkook groans, doesn’t seem to hear you now. You try again. “Wanna fuck my pussy, baby?”

“Yes,” he gasps this time, jolts when you press the tip of your finger against the slit on his head, plug his cock from releasing any more precum. “Please, please,” he begs, the hands on his chest straining against the shirt he still hasn’t managed to shake off.

One last kiss is delivered to him, a chaste one against his pout that makes him whine. “Whatever you want,” you purr, line him up.

Your hands are still sticky with the lube and so is his cock. Everything is sticky; his cock, you folds, your tits, his neck. It’s a big sticky, slippery mess, but you can’t even be annoyed because everything feels so good. Your tits tingle from whatever they put in that damn lube, nipples rock hard and extra swollen today, like if you don’t touch them you’ll die. You sink back into Jungkook’s throbbing cock, and the second his cock spreads the lube along your walls, you’re jolting because it just feels so damn good.

You can’t believe this is Jungkook’s preferred sick day treatment; YouTube, cuddles, and an ugly amount of lube.

His cock pushes past your folds, fits snugly inside of you just like it belongs. It still feels like the first time, feels like your first day where he was so perfect and sweet. Part of you wonders what would have become of you two if he had reacted like this that day, soft and whiny, when you first prepositioned him. Maybe the sexual aspect of your relationship would be entirely different today, maybe you’d be one the always leading.

But… you’re not sure if you’d want that. Leading is fun— hell, you’re certain this moment will be what you get engraved on your tombstone —but you were a pillow princess at heart with occasional dominant tendencies. You drool over this moment now, but if he asks for this again tomorrow you might actually bend over and die. It was a lot of work, keeping the energy going, and you find yourself having this newfound sense of respect for Jungkook as his cock slips past your folds.

Anyway, when you sit on his cock, fingers teasingly tightening around his throat, Jungkook’s eyes are weirdly focused on your tits. He’s been doing that a lot lately, losing his mind by just staring at your tits. On some occasions he puts them in his mouth, gets possessed by some titty loving monster and sucks on them until you’re trembling. It’s fine because it’s quite frankly a huge ego boost, but something him now makes you want to pick at him for it.

“They’re yours to taste, angel,” you hum, slowly rolling your hips over his fat cock. Jungkook whimpers, softly ruts up into your heat the next time you press down. “Tell me what you want,” you exhale, a breathy moan.

He doesn’t say anything, just drops his mouth open for you with a trembling lower lip. Tongue peeks out, eyes glazed over in his lust, looking every bit like those hentai ads he hates so much. But you fulfill his wishes, help him sit up until he’s flush against your chest. His awkwardly bound hands get squished in the middle, and he says, “m-my hands...”

“I’ve got you,” you soothe, undo his self-made restraints and toss them to the side. Immediately, he’s wrapping his arms around you, pulling you flush against him to latch his lips around your breasts. “S-Slow down,” you whine, hands on his biceps as he sucks your tit into his mouth, twirls his tongue around your nipple. He’s good with his tongue even when he’s sick.

He pulls off with a pop, ragged breathing only making you more sensitive as it fans over the thin layer of saliva he leaves on your tits. “Tastes like strawberries,” he groans wondrously, head against your chest. You use the lull to get back to fucking yourself on him, but Jungkook’s got other plans. He rolls the two of you over, pins you beneath him with his hot and sweaty body. “I’m sorry,” he moans as he begins jackhammering his thrusts into you.

Your back arches, legs thrown around his waist as the sudden change of events. “Fffuck,” you heave, “harder, angel— gotta fuck like you mean it.”

Jungkook shudders, hands looped around the small of your back. His cock rams into you over and over, each glide of it against the walls of your pussy making you unravel in his arms. His lips latch around your other boob, suck and suck like he’s expecting something to come out.

That’s when it hits you.

“N-Nothing there,” you tell him, arms wrapped around his shoulders. His lashes are wet, eyes pinching tighter at your reminder. He pulls away almost to protest, but then you’re guiding him up to your face, hot breath mingling with yours. “Nothing there because you haven’t given me a baby yet,” you murmur darkly, watch the emotions flood his features as you tap into that taboo kink of his.

He chokes, grinds his cock into you and holds it there. “I-I didn’t,” he sniffs, “we never— you never said,” he whines, “...you wanted one.”

You cup his face in his hands, feel slightly mean for the pride you get from his tear stricken appearance. “I do,” you purr, lazily kissing him. “Want one if it’s from you. Don’t you?” He nods like an antsy puppy, quivering against you as he slowly and shallowly ruts into you. “Don’t you wanna see me like that, angel?” you egg on, hands looping behind his neck, idly playing with stray waves and curls. “Tummy so big and swollen because you did something bad, because you couldn’t pull out.”

Jungkook sobs, pulls you impossibly closer until the head of his cock is missing your cervix repeatedly. One of your legs is pressed nearly to your chest, hip tight from the force in which he holds you. “I-I want,” he agrees, more tears spilling down his cheeks.

You smirk evilly, kissing the corner of his mouth gently as he slowly picks up the pace of his thrusts. “Then fuck me hard, Jungkookie,” you demand, “fuck me full of your cum.”

Jungkook nods with a sniffle against your shoulder, fingers tightening against your skin as he slowly but surely begins nailing you into the mattress. He’s a good boy, always, because he does exactly what you tell him to. Uses those bulky muscles to hold you down, makes it impossible for you to move as he pistons his hips, cock sheathing itself inside your cunt.

Every drag makes you unconsciously clench, the raw feeling consuming your thoughts. His cock is so big and wet today, certainly due to that stupid lube from beneath his cabinet. Your entire pussy feels like it’s on ecstasy, stupidly geeked up by that lube, and you’re sure Jungkook’s cock feels the same. It makes the glide so much better, so much easier, each ram of his cock feeling so easy. “Oh, fuck,” you whimper, nails digging down his spine. Jungkook is a sobbing, sniffling mess against the crook of your neck, absolute gibberish falling from his lips.

But you’re no better, tongue seemingly set on a chaotic rampage to validate every single one of his fantasies. “Gonna fuck me while I’m pregnant?” you pant against his ear, fingers tugging at his hair. He doesn’t offer more than a strained cry, thrusts momentarily falling out of rhythm. “You would like that, huh? Fucking me when you’re not supposed to. You’re so bad, Kook-ah,” you gasp, eyes rolling to the back of your head. “Only pretend to be an angel but really you’re just a dirty, little pervert.”

He wails loudly, slams his hips so hard into you that it makes you sob as well. “N-No,” he blubbers, tears against your skin. “I’m good— I’m a good boy,” he stresses, fingers bruising their prints into your skin.

He presses so close, cock practically making your stomach bulge, but neither of you see. “Dirty angel,” you spit, yank his hair back roughly until he’s forced to look at you with that watery gaze. “So horny you’re willing to get me pregnant.”

Jungkook cries out, snaps his cock into you like he’s trying to break you in half. “No,” he heaves, tears dripping down his cheeks and onto yours. “I-I-I’d do it right,” he defends weakly, hips losing their demonic pace as his orgasm sneaks up on him. “Ma— Marry first… then, b— ba— bab—“

You swallow his words with your lips, kiss him like you’re on the verge of death in a desperate attempt to hide your tears from him. They paint your cheeks in stark strokes, trail down your skin and make everything blurry, but so does your orgasm.

You come first, heart and body trembling at his unexpectedly sweet words, as you become a whimpering, teary mess beneath him. Jungkook follows, cries out your name one last time as he busts inside of you.

Sticky and gross, he falls onto the pillow beside you. Poor baby is so tired, curls covering half of his face, but lips cutely puckered against the pillow. He’s sweaty as hell though, which you now vaguely remember was your original goal with all of this so you count this as a success.

You think he’s fallen asleep, sitting up slowly and reaching for that t-shirt that bound him together earlier to clean up. He shudders when you run it against his skin, obviously still overwhelmed. You shift around the bed in search of today’s MVP. “Where’s the lube?” you mutter to yourself.

Jungkook groans. “YouTube?” he asks, voice dry as all hell.

“No, honey, the lube we used,” you respond, running your hands over the sheets for any signs of the pink bottle.

“Want YouTube,” he mumbles, lets you swaddle him up in the blanket again. You roll your eyes and reach for the forgotten iPad that had long since tumbled to the floor. When it turns on, that same video from before is on pause so you don’t bother changing it as you hand it back to Jungkook. “Nice,” he murmurs, “underground water slide.”

You snort. “Weirdo.” He glares cutely, eyes barely open at this point. “Watch your YouTube.”

“Use your lube,” he sasses back softly, nonsensically, and then rather anticlimactically passes out.

There’s something soft in your chest, something so big and overwhelming, that has you bending over his sleeping figure, mouth brushing against his. “Hurry and get better, angel,” you whisper, wish on it with all your heart.

To no one’s surprise, you get sick two days later. Doyeon laughs and laughs for hours about it, tells you that’s what you get for using sex as medicine. But Jungkook’s back to normal, which means he stays over and coddles you to death.

“Hurry and get better,” he says, spoon feeding you your famous Get Better Soon Soup that you passed on to him. “I have a question to ask you.”

There’s a little black box in his downstairs bathroom cabinet that you swear you’ve never seen, but Jungkook knows you’re lying.

It fits perfectly.

epilogue

She scoffs. “And I care why?” You huff, go to scold her for their weird rivalry, but then she’s moving on. “Babe, just give him some pain relief and call it a day.”

“Fine,” you mumble. “Wait, can you look something else up for me?”

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flickeringart · 4 years ago

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Mars Retrograde in the natal chart

I’ve written about planets in retrograde in the natal chart before, find the post about Mercury, Venus and Mars here and the post about Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto here.

In this post I’m going a bit deeper into Mars Rx.

As we all probably know, Mars is the planet of personal drive, aggression, assertiveness and outward directed energy. Mars it works on behalf of the personality as the warrior – as forward movement, strength and desire. Mars enables us to be goal oriented, to stand up for ourselves and have a sense of direction and momentum. Depending on the sign Mars is in, the style in which one goes about one’s interests will vary. For example, an Aries Mars will be direct, impulsive, straightforward, loud, non-apologetic and open in taking action. Taurus Mars will be calm, patient, stubborn and energy preserving. Gemini will be cerebral, creative, mischievous and all over the place. Cancer Mars will be careful and protective of emotions while trying to secure a goal. Leo Mars will be demonstrative, proud and demanding. Virgo Mars will be purposeful and practical, going over the steps required to reach a specific goal. Libra Mars will try to smoothly get other people to get on board with one’s direction without ruffling any feathers, usually through using reason and logic. Scorpio Mars will assert its will “undercover” often through subtle yet effective emotional blackmail and strategy. Sagittarius Mars will be bold and restless, potentially quite clumsy and funny. Capricorn Mars will be serious, patient, mature, responsible and steadfast. Aquarius Mars will potentially be acting on behalf of a collective mission and thought-movement, considering what lies in the best interest of the “group”. Pisces Mars will be easily directed by influences from the environment, compassionate, soft and a bit confusing.

Having Mars direct in the natal chart means that desire is merged with action. In other words, action is employed in the name of desire. In the most basic sense, a person sees something of value (Venus) and Mars is the one who is in charge of conquering it. Venus and Mars can’t really be discussed separately for this reason because something has to catch one’s attention (Venus) in order for there to be anything to attain and achieve. Simply put, Venus is the object, person, place of esteem and Mars is the force that is in charge of closing the gap between the person and that which is desired.

When Mars is retrograde in the natal chart the drive to achieve is equally as strong as with Mars direct, but it is turned inward instead of being directed outward. This causes inner frustration, pent-up energy and often feelings of being ineffectual – unable to directly go after what one wants. Many sources state that since Mars is a masculine planet, Mars Rx is more bothersome for men, as women tend to not suffer from lacking in masculine traits as acutely because of identification with femininity (Venus). This is probably true, yet women will similarly experience the debilitating effects of Mars Rx – sometimes through the lover and partner of choice.

Some sources state that natives with Mars Rx had a childhood where they were not allowed to get angry or to stand up for themselves. Perhaps no one listened or bothered, perhaps displays of aggression were forcefully disapproved of and punished. There could have been a lack of support of the native taking initiative and paving his or her own path. I have had the reverse experience of being accused of not being assertive enough. I have Mars Rx in Virgo in the 3rd house and I was constantly criticized for lack of extroversion growing up, particularly in school (the 3rd house rules lower education) by teachers and peers. I was “too quiet”, “too inhibited”. In a sense, I was attacked for my “lack of Mars”. Unfortunately, I think this is quite common for people with Mars in Rx, we seem to invite aggression (in my case criticism because Virgo rules my 3rd house) in the area of life (house) that Mars is placed. I never attempted to “strike back” but kept my own pent up anger inside feeling worse and worse about myself, humiliated, yet for some reason unable to project the intensity outwardly – probably because it would only have caused me more reprimanding. However, the positive thing I’ve noticed with Mars Rx is that I have the ability to act independently of outside influences. In a sense I can act without desire being merged with action. Or rather, I can choose to redirect the build-up of intensity into unrelated activity. It’s definitely counter-intuitive, but it’s very useful in situations where one is required to act despite of a goal. Since people with Mars Rx have an obscure desire nature, there’s the ability to simply put one foot in front of the other and see what comes of the action.

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There’s something to be said about inviting aggression from the outside with Mars Rx. Other people seem to want to cause a reaction by provoking the Mars Rx person to make them stand up for themselves and display some assertiveness. This never works because Mars Rx people don’t react defensively to personal attacks on the spot. They sit tight, face the situation calmly yet is feeling a build-up of energy that is likely going to erupt later, when the situations has passed and when it’s no longer relevant. They get angry with themselves for not acting on the spot, for not saying the things they wanted to say and display the strength that they really do possess. Mars Rx people often question their potency and can beat themselves up for not being more willful. As stated, the bouts of anger come only at a later time, which does nothing to gain the individual a reputation of being impactful. The moment has passed and the opportunity to strike is gone. It’s important to not be too hard with oneself, Mars Rx isn’t a character flaw, it’s part of one’s unique blueprint and one would do better focusing on the benefits rather than the down-sides. Mars is after all about confidence and there’s no reason why Mars Rx should settle for feeling “less than” confident. The key is to not look for external proof of one’s potency and be content with knowing that one is powerful despite appearances of lack of assertiveness. With Mars Rx one should avoid comparing oneself to other people. Comparison and competitiveness don’t benefit these people, for obvious reasons. Measuring one’s strength against another will leave one feeling neither strong nor confident because the strength of Mars Rx is passive and felt internally.

In order to not feel emasculated with Mars Rx, one has to be squarely doing one’s own thing and avoid caring about what other people think one should do or even what oneself think one should do based on social values. This is the only way to be happy with this natal planet in my opinion. Stop competing = stop depleting, stop comparing = stop caring. Mars Rx people have the opportunity to be real individualists when they start valuing their internal integrity rather than the outward display of it. In a sense, Mars Rx is a very pure Mars. It’s simple action, unmotivated and unresponsive. It will not win us any battles in the moment; Mars Rx doesn’t build any momentum, energy is extended outward in bursts, starts and stops. The approach that works the best is to let action flow through, rather than directing it deliberately. This is usually going to translate into a quite soft energy but it can be quite beautiful. The famous male ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov had Mars Rx – he was especially admired for his gracious jumps and seemingly effortless soaring in his dancing. He’s a good example of Mars Rx manifesting in a very powerful way – he uses his Mars to move independently in a non-confronting “Venusian fashion”. Yet, no one could claim that he lacks strength. The famous basket player Michael Jordan also has Mars Rx and he is widely considered one of the greatest basketball player of all time. It makes sense that dance and sport should suit these people because these activities require starts and stops more than building momentum.

Mars Rx has a reputation for being sluggish and lethargic. I think this is inaccurate to accept as a rule, but it is certainly possible for these people to seem like they are. Other people often perceive Mars Rx people to be at least very chill and calm, which is not always the case, it’s just that the boil hasn’t reached the surface yet and when it does, it’s out of tune with the outer situation and its momentum. The Mars Rx person might sit tight in a social interaction, never showing any sign of annoyance or agitation, despite being pissed off. It might be frustrating to not be able to release energy directly but Mars Rx energy is better channeled into purposeful activity, into independent action. Some sources claim that Mars Rx can be prone to self-destructive behavior and self-harm because of pent-up energy and unexpressed anger. I think this is true, especially if one lives in a very hostile environment and has a hard time, because of one’s Mars Rx, to do something about it – to fight back, to spontaneously immerse oneself in “combat” and defend oneself. It could also be because one’s aggression, when openly displayed, is turned to a social disadvantage. People might claim that one is “over-reacting” because the anger response is out of proportion with the situation at hand. “Over-reacting” is common problem for people with Mars Rx, because they’re typically calm, until they burst – and then they’re commonly labeled crazy or even abusive. There’s no way to “win” socially with Mars Rx, I find – either one is accused of being too passive or too reactive. This social disadvantage could easily turn into self-hate and self-rejection, because one doesn’t get any approval from the outside. Depression is sometimes linked to planets in retrograde, and this is quite understandable, in the light of everything that they imply. Depression is after all often associated with repressed anger, of a blocked drive and frustrated desire.

People with Mars Rx say that it gets better with age and that Mars is gradually more easily expressed because of experience and understanding of oneself. This might be partly due to Mars going direct in one’s progressed chart, however, one cannot make Mars go direct in one’s natal chart, it is a fixed blueprint that one will have to contend with. This is not to say that one cannot become more conscious of one’s own psychology.

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mogsk · 4 years ago

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So I watched an anime called “Violet Evergarden” recently, the elevator pitch of which is basically “feral girl is taken in by military man, turned into a child soldier, military man dies, but not before telling her ‘I love you’, but she doesn’t know what that means, so after the war she becomes a ghostwriter with the ostensible aim of figuring out what ‘I love you’ means through other people’s expressions of love via letter-writing.

It’s a good little concept, and while I enjoyed it, it’s also stuck in my brain as being profoundly odd from a storytelling perspective.

Like, the initial premise is v strong, Violet’s driving objective is to understand the last thing she heard her father figure, “The Major”, say to her before she blacked out and woke up with no arms. She was a feral orphan child with little grasp of language or expression, and so she is burdened with not understanding what this very important person to her was trying to convey before they parted ways. Good shit.

And it seems to carry this fairly well at first. Each episode varies in how much it advances the central plot, but each boils down to Violet having to learn a lesson about how people express their feelings for each other, how they express love through words, or how they fail to do so, and so slowly she goes from only being able to produce very precise and terse letters which read more like military reports, to being able to swoop in and fix people’s interpersonal problems with the power of a well-dictated love note.

Where it kinda falls apart for me is about halfway through the series, where we see that Violet has more or less grown into her role as protagonist in an anime about the power of letter writing and the meaning of love (-ish). She’s gotten so good she’s tasked with facilitating one half of a romantic correspondence between the nobles of two nations whose relations are still tense after The War (which Violet fought in), and so have decided to arrange a marriage between their noble children -- a 14-year old girl and a 24-year old man.

Now up to that point, the messaging around the central theme felt odd, but it made sense, like, Violet is growing to understand love, and so how the show does this is by giving her a lot of weird and fraught situations around that theme: we have a woman who is in love with a man, but she wants to play hard to get which Violet ruins by writing a letter that just directly states ‘I have no feelings for you, please stop calling on me’. So then she goes to letter-writing school where one of her classmates has an alcoholic brother who she wants to express her love and thanks towards, but doesn’t know how to pierce the barrier of grief surrounding him due to the death of their parents in The War.

It keeps on like this p consistently, the central question “What is love? What does someone mean when they say ‘I love you’?” is addressed fairly cleanly, but then, once the issue of Violet’s struggle with being able to convey people’s emotions becomes effectively resolved, we kinda start to leave the rails!

Back to the mid-point episode, so, through trying to properly convey this 14yo princess’ feelings, Violet learns what her true feelings are. No, it’s not that she is discontent with being forced to marry a man ten years older than her because, you see, they already secretly met at a royal party when she was, like...10?? And he found her crying and was, like, “Hey kid, you okay?” and that was the first genuine expression of human emotion outside of her dutiful maid she’d ever gotten. You see, what her discontent is is that she knows the man she met, with a heart so simple and pure he feels compelled to comfort a crying child, would never write these letters, and so Violet conspires with the prince’s ghostwriter to allow them to have a more honest correspondence (which is then reprinted in all the newspapers around both countries.)

What got me about this episode is how it, like, throws all these different narrative threads in the air around this central theme of “What is love?” -- the concept of arranged marriage, the idea of confusing appreciating someone’s kindness for having other feelings for them, the MAID who is, like, the princess’ closest friend and confidant, but who has to explain that, once she’s married off, they will have to part ways because she doesn’t serve the princess, she serves the royal family and there’s this great scene where the princess is weeping after she says that and the maid is like “I cannot accept that command, I will continue standing here right by your side” and it’s really intense!

But then...it all gets dropped in the interest of the final note being...yeah sometimes you have to marry a guy in his twenties when you’re just a teenager, but love’s just funny like that ig!

Which sounds ungenerous, and like, I wanted that to be the case, I wanted it to be setting up something, like, “Despite Violet gaining proficiency in letter writing, she still is struggling to understand the more nuanced dimensions of love and so her shortsightedness will come back round to bite her in the ass” (it does not, we even get a montage of all the people she’s helped including the newly married royal couple smiling happily at the camera.)

We then get more episodes like this, where Violet’s done learning about Love and is now in effect teaching it to others. She does this by...sitting and looking pretty with a guy while they wait for a comet to go by, imitating a playwright’s dead daughter so he can be inspired to finish his play, and...writing a bunch of letters on behalf of a mother dying from anime mom disease, but who wants to be able to speak to her daughter as she grows up through a series of pre-written birthday letters.

And, like, in isolation, it’s all very moving! Each story has a very touching emotional drive to it, but it seems like the question of “What does ‘I love you’ mean?” p much falls to the wayside, even after we get the big 3/4s of the way through reveal that the Major is dead and Violet didn’t know! So we’re treated to flashbacks of their relationship, including the moment where he repeats that damning phrase!

But then we really don’t pick it back up again? It kinda superficially grows in relevance as we approach the conclusion, but it’s never again properly addressed until after a sudden spat of military drama breaks out with people trying to reignite The War and Violet suddenly having to put down her typewriter and pick up her combat knife, but now, for some reason, she refuses to kill people because...she isn’t just a tool?

And I think this is what ultimately frustrated me, is that those are two great themes “Discovering what it means to love” and “Can a person conditioned to fulfill a specific purpose ever be free to choose their own path?” but the problem is, the series really has centered itself on the former while kinda sorta implying the latter, but in the final scenes, we are suddenly given a resolution to the latter (which is basically Metal Gear Solid, “You are not your DNA”, “Just live Snake” that’s been done beautifully and with more thought already by, well, Metal Gear Solid) whereas the former, what was the entire driving force behind Violet’s character development is kinda sorta hand-waved off as “What is love? I still don’t think I know, but maybe that’s just how it is!” which is fucked up coming from someone who by the midway point is basically counselling or facilitating love between people!

So, like, I enjoyed it a lot, there were some great moments and the supporting cast, while mostly one-dimensional save for Violet herself, made for at least nice scenery, but I’m just so blown away by how they seemed to manage to forget (or ceased wanting) to tell the story they laid out in the beginning in favor of some p uniform military drama that suffered precisely because most of the series was dedicated to developing the central theme that it ultimately seemed to abandon, or perhaps came across as being burdened with having to carry into the conclusion.

Also it was super fixated on dads, like, The Major is basically Violet’s dad, his best buddy who goes on to hire Violet as a ghostwriter has a big reveal in the end that he’s been writing letters to his hypothetical future child, the sad dad playwright with the dead daughter -- I dunno what to do with all this besides the usual base level of suspicion I have for all dead-heavy content, but yeah!

There’s two movies, a side story from mid-way through the series and a sequel, and I feel like I almost have to watch them at some point, just so I can tie a neater bow on how I experienced this whole story, but yeah, Violet Evergarden, come for the cool metal typing hands, stay for the heartfelt explorations of what it means to love people, shift nervously in your seat when dads suddenly become involved!

#spoilers

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sariasprincy-writes · 6 years ago

Text

The Man in Black - ItaSaku

For @vesperlionheart Happy birthday!

Also thought I’d try my hand at fantasy/myth…stuff…and then weather came into the anchorage and yes, I know I’m late (what else is new???)

The Man in Black ItaSaku

Sakura saw him the first day at her new job. The hospital was always full of people of different looks and sizes. She never took a second glance at the young man in a black shirt and black jeans. Especially not when there was a code blue on her floor.

The next she had seen him had been a few days later. He had been dressed in a black suit. His sleek, dark hair tied back and falling down his shoulder. He said nothing. Only sat with one leg over the other and his hands clasped neatly in his lap. Like some businessman waiting for a meeting. Sakura paused when she recognized him but she had been unable to stop and speak with him as another code was called.

Months passed. And every so often Sakura would see that same man. He dressed differently each time, but always looking his best. A suit, a nice pair of pressed jeans, a silk dress shirt.

Sakura began looking for him everywhere. In the cafeteria, the doctors lounge, the parking lot. Only her mysterious visitor was never there. He always remained outside the patient rooms. Sitting quietly. As if he had nowhere else to be.

“We’ve checked our sutures, the patient’s stats are stable and there’s no sign of any distress,” Sakura told the class of to-be-surgeons. “We are free to close the patient up. Any questions?”

She looked up then, eyeing first the few young doctors in the operating room before gazing up at the audience in the observation deck. Most were interns, dressed in scrubs with notebooks and pens in hand. There were a few fellow surgeons as well, but it was none of them that gave Sakura notice.

For in the back was a man with dark hair and darker eyes dressed in all black.

Through the glass, their eyes met. And in that moment, the blood in Sakura’s veins froze. Her mouth moved before her mind did.

“Stop!” she told the surgical nurses, halting them in their tracks. “We missed something.”

They stared her with obvious surprise in their eyes but said nothing as they handed her tools back to her. No one spoke as Sakura returned to the patient, her hands exploring their open chest. There was nothing, nothing wrong. No bad sutures or missed clots. Everything was fine…

The same instant Sakura found the bleed, the screen monitoring the patient’s vitals sounded.

It took nearly an hour and a hell of a fight. The small bleed ruptured and the young woman on the table crashed twice. Each time, Sakura brought her back, calling for tools and more blood, fighting until her patient was finally stable once more.

When Sakura finally walked out of the OR, she was exhausted, weary but relieved. Nearly high off the adrenaline of such an intense surgery.

A long sigh passed her lips as she slipped onto the bench just outside the surgery floor’s changing rooms. She smiled her thanks as a few fellow surgeons congratulated her on her success, but she didn’t chat long. All she wanted was a warm shower and a bed. It had been a long day.

And that had been Sakura’s plan. Until she looked up just in time to see the last of the interns file out of the observation deck, leaving the room empty. All except one.

Exactly where she had seen him earlier was the same man. With little regard for anything else, Sakura did her best not to outright sprint across the floor, her eyes never leaving him lest he disappear like he always did.

He didn’t move. Only turned his head to watch as she nearly slammed the door shut behind her, locking them in together.

It was the first time they had been this close. The first time they had been alone. There was something a little off about him…something she couldn’t quite name. She studied him quietly, carefully. Like the scientist she was, taking everything in before acting, deciding.

He was a very handsome man. With high cheekbones and a straight nose. His eyelashes were long, nearly sweeping his cheeks with every blink. They framed those eyes the color of coal. The ones that had long ago been burned into her memory.

It unnerved her a little she couldn’t quite guess his age. He appeared young, the pressed shirt and dark jeans making him appear boyish. But his eyes, his soul felt old. Like he had witnessed the beginning of time, like he had been there before it.

“What are you?” Sakura asked, the question tumbling out of her mouth.

She half-expected him not to answer. Half-expected him to laugh, as if he was anything but human. Instead he inclined his head fractionally, as if he was seriously considering her question.

“That would depend upon your beliefs and perceptions,” he said, his voice rich and yet spilling out of his mouth smoothly like gentle water over stone. It filled Sakura’s chest, soothing the misgivings and unease building behind her breast bone.

“I believe in science,” she told him.

“Then I do not exist in your world.”

“But you do,” she said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

The stranger canted his head minutely, studying her as something shifted behind his gaze. Vague interest, perhaps. Sakura wasn’t sure if the look brought her comfort or took it from her.

“Who are you?” she asked, breaking the silence before it could settle too deeply in her bones.

He shrugged one shoulder gracefully, as if he had been asked that vary question many times over. “I have been given many names. Some are kinder than others, though I do prefer Itachi.”

“And what is your purpose here, Itachi?”

This time, a small smile settled over his features as he regarded her. “You ask many questions. May I first ask one of my own? You have not yet given your name, Doctor.”

She hesitated, not quite sure if she should tell him or not. But she supposed it wouldn’t be terribly hard for him to learn it if he truly wanted to know for malicious purposes. The internet was an incredibly resourceful tool.

“Sakura, Doctor Haruno Sakura.”

“Sakura,” he repeated slowly, as if memorizing the word. Then he blinked and that calm, easy expression was back upon his face. “As a scientist, you must have come to some of your own hypotheses of who or what I am.”

And she had. Initially, she had thought him a family member. Or perhaps that he worked in the hospital. Only the more she saw him, the more she came to realize he was only ever present right before a death. He never spoke. He hardly ever moved. Just sat outside the patient rooms. The ones coding or about to code, and disappeared as soon as time of death was called.

Sakura laughed quietly, as if trying to emphasize her own ridiculousness at the next words out of her mouth. “I would say you’re Death, but no such thing exists like that in the world.”

Itachi didn’t share her amusement. Only stared back. His fathomless, black eyes boring into hers.

Sakura’s smile fell slowly, a heavy feeling of unease settling down and down into her chest. Dug a hole so deep she thought she might not draw another breath. “You’re Death,” she stated.

He didn’t respond, but his gaze fell downcast. She didn’t understand the look until she recalled his words. Sudden guilt struck her, melting her fear like ice dunked in boiling water.

“Itachi,” she corrected softly.

He looked up again. This time, she couldn’t quite read his expression. It seemed to shimmer across his face like a photo that changed shape at different angles. It was oddly comforting. But also left her uneasy.

Why was he here?

Automatically her eyes dropped down to the operating room where a worker was quietly wiping up the blood from the floor. When she turned back to Itachi, he was still watching her. Waiting for her to speak.

“That woman was supposed to die, wasn’t she?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“And I stopped her,” she said quietly, trying to keep the rising dismay out of her voice. “So, what happens next? Are you going to take a life for a life?”

A small smile appeared in the corner of Itachi’s mouth. Not sinister or menacing. More an amused, little quirk of his lips. “Death is not so malicious. I am not here for revenge,” he told her. “Rather, death fluctuates. A man crossing the street increases his chance of dying but it does not mean death will take him for certain. There is no invisible clock above your head. I am simply here to escort those that may cross over.”

Sakura felt her breath draw a little easier at that but the heavy stone that had settled in her chest still hadn’t quite faded. Staring back down into the operating room, it didn’t take her long to recognize the feeling she had tried since med school to push aside. Sorrow.

“Then that means my patients…”

“Age, race, wealthy or poor. Death does not discriminate. As a surgeon, even you must accept that you cannot save everyone.”

It was a fact every doctor knew, but it didn’t make the pill any less bitter to swallow. When she glanced back at Itachi, he was still watching her, an understanding smile upon his face. It eased her own self-directed frustration and grief.

Then she blinked and the look was gone. Itachi straightened. “I must go. I am needed elsewhere.”

Sakura didn’t know what she was expecting. Perhaps for him to stand and walk out of the room or to at least melt into the shadows. He did neither. He was simply there and then he was not.

Blinking, Sakura took a step back before she peered about the room. There was no evidence he had ever been there. No sign or breeze or whisper. She half-wondered if she made the whole conversation up. Her own exhausted mind playing tricks on her.

As it turned out, her mind was not playing tricks on her. Sakura continued to see Itachi. She didn’t entirely understand why. It began to unnerve her a little. So much so that she took to internet searches and even a couple of glimpses in the local library to find any information. To her disappointment, there was nothing. No forums or websites full of stories of people seeing Death.

Itachi had seemed pleasant enough, but even as the weeks turned to months, Sakura couldn’t help but feel a little apprehensive every time she saw him. For he was still the man that escorted the dying to the dead.

On this particular day, it had been a busy shift for Sakura. So much so that for the first time in months she had forgotten about the man in black that always sat just outside the rooms of her dying patients. Her first two surgeries that morning had been a success. The next one had caused her a little trouble and by the time she had gotten out of it, her pager hadn’t stopped going off.

Sakura hadn’t even eaten lunch by the time dinner rolled around, but she didn’t notice her hunger. Not over her adrenaline as she pumped on a woman’s chest, doing everything in her power to keep the new mother’s blood circulating. In the background, her newborn cried, the sound almost drowned out by all the commotion in the room.

“What’re her stats at?” Sakura asked, stepping back to let another doctor continue compressions.

“Not good,” was the answer.

A deep frown settled on her mouth as she wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her wrist. She peered up at the monitor. Her pressure still wasn’t registering and they had yet to get a solid rhythm.

“Let’s push one more of Eppy,” Sakura ordered only too aware they were quickly running out of options. The dose of artificial adrenaline was their only chance left.

The room bustled with activity as the nurses and doctors jumped into motion. So much chaos in such a small space that she nearly missed the man dressed in black in the corner. Nearly.

No one else in the room seemed to notice him. All the attention on the unstable mother and the wellbeing of her newborn. A flash of cold went through Sakura the moment their eyes met. But it wasn’t fear for herself. Rather, for her patient.

In an instant, Sakura was moving again. She pushed the younger doctor’s hands out of the way to take over chest compressions once more. Whatever exhaustion she felt vanished as she worked with renewed vigor.

“Come on,” she chanted to herself and to the young mother below her. “Come on, come on. You can’t give up now.”

Sakura wasn’t sure how long she fought for. It felt like seconds had stretched into an eternity. And just when she thought there was nothing more she could do, she heard it. That familiar beep of a regular heart rhythm.

Sakura’s hands stopped, her eyes glued to the monitor, half-wondering she had imagined it, half-expecting it to stop when she saw she hadn’t. When it didn’t, she glanced at Itachi only to find he wasn’t looking at her. His eyes turned down as he tucked something into the pocket of his black suit.

Her confusion grew. She didn’t know what had happened. If he had intervened or if it had just not been the new mother’s time to go. However, Sakura wasn’t given the chance to wonder for too long. There was still a patient to attend to.

When Sakura finally left the room, it was late. The evening hours slunk into the halls as the night stole the lingering light on the horizon. For some reason she wasn’t entirely surprised to find Itachi standing at the window, watching the dark encompass the day. The dying sunlight threw his profile into harsh contrast and cast a long, creeping shadow behind him so dark she nearly couldn’t tell where it ended and he started.

Itachi didn’t greet her upon her approach and neither did she to him. Side-by-side, one living, one dead, they gazed through the window pane.

A long silence passed before Sakura spoke, “That woman was going to die. And then she didn’t.”

When Itachi didn’t answer, she glanced at him. There was no recognizable expression on his face but she got the impression that if he let her see, there would have been a frown upon his lips. When he did finally turn towards her, the feeling was gone.

“No, she did not,” he told her.

This time, it was Sakura’s turn to frown. And she let it show, not appreciating the vagueness of his reply. “She was down for a while. Medically speaking, she shouldn’t be alive. Nonetheless awake and talking. You did something. I know you did.”

“There is no reason to be so accusatory,” Itachi said. His expression remained unchanged as his gaze returned out the window once more. “Medical miracles have been known to take place before this instance.”

“I’m not so certain I believe in those anymore,” she told him, unable to keep the lingering suspicion out of her voice.

Beside her, Itachi shrugged, his hands deep in the pockets of his jacket. “Beliefs can change. After all, you did not believe in my existence until recently.”

“I’m still not sure that I do,” she told him, her tone giving away her skepticism. “It’s far more likely that I’m just going crazy.”

Itachi peered at her again, a faint smirk upon his lips. “You would know better than I. You are the doctor, after all.”

Sakura wasn’t quite sure she appreciated his teasing. Lest not when she was as exhausted as she was on this particular day but she let it go. “Why are you still here?”

Again, he shrugged. “I am always here. Even when you do not see me.”

Her brow furrowed. “Why?”

“Because I go where I am most needed. And I am needed here,” he told her, his attention falling back to the outside world.

Sakura followed his gaze, watching the last traces of light vanish under the all-encompassing black hands of the night. A dozen stars were already sprinkling above, quiet little sparkles of hope in an otherwise empty sky.

They stayed that way for some minutes. Neither speaking. Just silent company as they both harbored their own thoughts. And just when Sakura considered walking away. To find food or a bed or both, Itachi spoke. His voice calm and collected as it always was. But also haunting.

“I’m sorry, Sakura,” he murmured sincerely.

She looked back at him, not understanding. “For what?”

“For everything that happens next.”

There was a strange look on his face. One she couldn’t place, but that stone tumbled down her chest and settled deep, deep in her stomach. She turned towards him as cold washed over her. “What did you do?” she demanded.

He said nothing. Only stared right back.

The stone sunk deeper. And in the next moment, she turned on her heels the same instant Itachi was gone. Already sprinting back towards the young mother’s room as a code blue was called.

Sakura wasn’t sure how much time passed after that incident. She did everything in her power to ignore the man that haunted her. Her reality. Her dreams. But the more she blocked him out, the more she seemed to think about him. He was always there.

Their last conversation rolled over and over in her mind. Like a horrible song that wouldn’t get out of her head. She was angry. Indescribably so. She lost count of her sleepless nights and the number of meals that tasted of ash on her tongue as that frustration continued to burn inside her. So much so that some of her closest friends began to ask if she was alright. Still, she made a point to ignore the man in black. Refused to acknowledge his presence with even so much as a glance in his direction.

She didn’t understand why Itachi had done what he did. Why he would bother saving the woman just to let her die less than an hour later. He was a monster. He was Death. And she should have known better than to think of him as anything other than such.

But Sakura was a curious person by nature. And as the weeks turned to months, she had more questions than hate, and the burning rage slipped away to something quiet, softer. Death was death. And in the end, there was no saving anyone from it.

Tonight was a quiet night. Uncommon but welcomed in Sakura’s line of work. She took the brief moment of downtime to sit in one of the plastic chairs provided by the hospital. A moment to relieve the ache on the bottoms of her feet.

She was not surprised in the slightest when she felt another join her some minutes later. Itachi didn’t immediately speak. Just let the normal hum of the hospital fill the silent between them.

“Are you going in there?” he asked eventually.

Sakura stared ahead to the patient room across the way. Inside was an elderly woman. The monitor showed her stats as stable but Sakura was becoming very familiar with what Itachi’s presence meant. It was the very reason she had sat outside this particular room.

“No,” she said quietly. It was early morning. Only one or two nurses on the floor, but she didn’t dare break the easy silence that had settled over the halls. “Her family has requested no extraordinary measures be taken. They’re ready to let her go.”

Sakura felt Itachi’s gaze linger on her, but he didn’t speak. They simply sat side-by-side as they tracked the heart monitor. Waited for that moment when the woman would no longer be in Sakura’s care as she turned to Itachi’s.

After a few moments, Sakura glanced at the man beside her. He was dressed nicely but comfortably in a dark grey sweater, his hair tied neatly with his bangs framing those dark, dark eyes. However, it wasn’t his style of dress that interested her. She stared at him, really studying him as she took in his youthful features. He appeared her age, but his poise and manner of speech gave her the impression he was old. Much, much older than her.

“That woman was going to die. And then she didn’t,” Sakura said quietly, repeating the very same words she had said to him those weeks ago. Because even though she was still mad about the incident, she wanted answers. “You stopped her from dying.”

Itachi didn’t look at her but she could just as easily see the frown upon his face. “I cannot stop death. I can only slow its demise,” he corrected, his voice just as soft as hers.

“She died less than an hour after her heart restarted,” Sakura stated. Trying to get the facts out in the air. Trying to understand what they all meant. “Why would you do that if only for such a short time?”

He didn’t answer but his expression was full of purpose. As if he was waiting for her to draw her own conclusion.

She still didn’t understand. She had run it over and over again. What reasons he could possibly have. Of all the times Sakura had seen Itachi, he had never once interfered as he had for that woman. So, what had made him do it for the new mother?

Oh.

“You wanted to give her time with her baby,” Sakura concluded.

Again, Itachi remained silent but he looked away. Either unable or unwilling to show his thoughts to her. She didn’t have to ask to know she was right. Tears nearly sprung to Sakura’s eyes as unexpected emotion welled in her chest.

Spending so much time around death and sorrow, she had thought Itachi to be cruel and unjust. Now, sitting beside him with his soothing company and gentle eyes, she realized she’d had the wrong idea all this time. Death was not a monster but rather a blessing. A kind spirit who helped those who had died find their way to their final resting place.

Guilt washed over her but she didn’t voice her apology. Itachi was already looking at her with forgiveness in his eyes. As if he had already forgiven her long ago.

They sat in comfortable silence after that. Waiting, watching as the time passed by.

Eventually Sakura spoke again, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Just one?”

She couldn’t help but smile sheepishly. “Perhaps more than one.”

Itachi side-glanced at her but there was a small quirk in the corner of his mouth. He nodded his permission.

“You’re not the only one of your kind, are you?” Sakura asked. “I mean, I don’t fully understand the afterlife, or whatever, or your purpose, but it isn’t possible for you to lead everyone who has died to the other side all on your own. Right?”

When Itachi didn’t immediately answer, Sakura peered at him only to find he was watching her with a small smile. Like he was enjoying watching her work through her theory aloud. The expression nearly made her look away in embarrassment.

“No,” he said before she could. “There are many of us. Reaper is the name most of us have taken but we are referred to differently elsewhere in the world. I am not sure where the title originated. That is just what we were called long before I became one.”

“Became one?” Sakura repeated, her brow furrowing. “You weren’t…I don’t know, born one?”

Itachi laughed but shook his head. “None of us are born one. You become one. You are chosen after you die.”

“Then you were a person once,” she said, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice.

“I was.”

Sakura peered into the patient room again. Stared at each track of the woman’s heart rhythm as she considered her next words. “Can I ask…?” she hesitated after a moment.

“How I died?” When she nodded, he leaned back in his chair, unbothered by the hard plastic beneath him. “It was many years ago. So long I cannot even remember how much time has passed since. I died protecting my brother. He was young and reckless. Acting without considering the consequences for his actions.

“Where I grew up, we had a lake just outside of town. The children used to play near it, swimming in the summer and sledding in the winter. It was a beautiful place and I have many fond memories there,” Itachi told her, a faint smile playing on his lips.

“So, what happened?” she pressed softly.

Like a cloud over the sun, his expression shifted, taking the light out of his eyes and darkening his features. “Winter came late that year. And the ice had not fully set in,” he told her quietly. “Sasuke went sledding that morning at the top of the hill. He landed on the lake and cracked the ice. I was able to push him out of the way before it broke completely.”

Sakura just stared at Itachi, observing all the faint emotions passing behind his eyes. She didn’t know if he had drowned or frozen to death, and she didn’t ask. Because even if his death had occurred life times ago, there was no mistaking the wistfulness in his gaze. She wondered who else he may have left behind. His mother and father. Best friends. Perhaps even a lover.

“I’m sorry,” Sakura murmured. Truly and honestly.

Itachi blinked the memories away before he turned to gaze at her. He smiled faintly, if only to lessen her sympathy. “It is nothing to be sorry for. I am relieved I was able to save him and he lived many years before passing on. I am happy now to help those who cross over.”

Still, Sakura couldn’t shake the hollowness that had settled deep in her gut. She didn’t speak for some minutes, even when a nurse walked by. The young woman nodded in greeting, her eyes never drifting to the man in the next chair over.

Sakura waited until the other woman was out of ear range before asking the one question she did and didn’t want to know: “Why is it that I can see you?”

Beside her, Itachi exhaled slowly. “That I cannot say. There is a fine line between life and death. One many walk every day.”

A frown settled upon her features at his answer. Sakura wanted to ask him more but she wasn’t given the opportunity as an alarm abruptly sounded in the patient room across the way. Both she and Itachi looked up at the same time.

Sakura knew that was her cue to go, but she didn’t immediately move to stand as she chanced a look over at Itachi. Only he was no longer there. The plastic, blue chair empty.

Without even having to check, Sakura knew the elderly woman was already gone. And for the first time, it wasn’t sadness that lingered deep in her chest. But rather warmth. Knowing that Itachi was there to help the woman cross over to whatever adventure awaited them next.

The days began to blend together. The summer heat fading into the cooler autumn before the frost of winter began settling in during the early morning hours. Life continued as it normally did. Sakura went to work, performed whatever operations she was needed in before saying hello to Itachi as she checked on her ongoing cases.

Their conversations never lasted long, but she was becoming familiar with his manner of speech and his quiet, subtle humor. She found he was actually quite funny, his humor dry but sharp and quick-witted. It made her long shifts bearable and even rather enjoyable. Something she thought she would never think, knowing somewhere in the hospital someone was drawing their last breath.

But in her line of work, it was the little things that helped her push through during the worst of her worst days. Days like today.

Sakura exhaled through her mouth slowly, trying to keep her emotions on the inside of her body. She glanced down at the labs in her hands again, confirming for a fourth time what the results were telling her.

“Are you okay?”

Sakura recognized Tsunade, her former mentor and colleague’s voice. “I’m fine. My patient is not,” she told her, passing the chart over.

Without a word, Tsunade accepted it. Only the sound of paper flipping back and forth to fill the silence. Eventually the older woman passed the labs back. “This is your heart kid?”

“Yeah,” Sakura murmured.

Four years old and born with a heart that didn’t want to work properly. Sakura had been on the boy’s case the minute he was born. She had performed every operation, supervised every procedure and ordered every test she could think of to keep this boy alive. She had pushed his body to the limit. And now it was no longer responding to any treatment or drugs she ordered.

Swallowing back the knot at the base of her throat, Sakura looked over the nurses’ station towards the patient in question. The little boy – far too little to ever be in a bed in this building – was fading in and out of consciousness. One of the Cardiac nurses was in the corner of the room, helping keep him and his exhausted father comfortable.

“He won’t survive the morning,” Tsunade said gently. Understanding and sympathy warming her usually cool, professional tone.

Sakura nodded, unable to look at her. Knowing if she did, those emotions she was trampling down so hard would claw their way to the surface. “I know.”

Tsunade said nothing else. Just rested a comforting hand on her shoulder before she left.

Sakura sat for a minute longer before she made her way towards the hospital room. The hall was quiet, empty. But when she reached the sliding glass door, her gaze caught a lone figure sitting in a chair behind her. She hesitated, her eyes briefly meeting Itachi’s in the glass’s reflection. The lump behind her breast bone grew bigger, heavier.

He said nothing. And neither did she. Merely slid the door open and entered.

About thirty minutes before sunrise, Sakura called time of death, leaving the father in the nurse’s care when she could no longer be of any further comfort to him. In the early hours before the hospital halls came to life, Sakura went in search on an on-call room. A place to catch up on the sleep she had lost that night.

What she found instead was an empty staircase. She lowered herself onto a middle stair and exhaled a breath from her soul. Emotion welled in her chest. It crept up slowly, like a weed rising from the ground. Growing, spreading, blooming until even her heart struggled to beat correctly. Tears slipped down her cheeks as she buried her face in her hands. A soft sob spilling from her lips as grief made itself at home in her chest.

“Sakura.”

She had felt Itachi kneel in front of her before he spoke, his comforting presence becoming familiar. But she didn’t acknowledge him. She didn’t know if looking him in the eye would make her feel better or worse. And she certainly couldn’t handle worse at that moment.

He called her name again, his voice settling over her and mixing in with the hurt. Two conflicting emotions tangling together and warring within her chest. She didn’t know how to speak, how to voice everything she wanted to say and couldn’t. In the end, she simply shook her head. Wishing he would just leave.

Hoping he would stay.

And he did. He didn’t speak. Simply straightened a hair that had fallen out of place before his fingers wrapped around her wrists. With a gentle tug, he pulled her hands away from her face, leaving her utterly and completely exposed to his viewing. She didn’t know what she was expecting. Certainly not the warm smile on his lips or the softness in his gaze.

“You are a kind soul,” Itachi told her. “You fought so hard. You did everything right.”

His words brought more tears to her eyes. She tried to look away but Itachi wouldn’t let her. She shook her head, letting slip a few more. “But it still wasn’t enough.”

“Do not take the blame for this,” Itachi murmured, his voice gentle with understanding. “It was his choice. He was ready.”

“He was four,” Sakura countered sharply.

Itachi didn’t take any offense to her harsh tone. He merely exhaled through his nose before he smiled again, one hand reaching up to wipe the dampness off her face. “He was an amazing boy. And full of so much more life and energy than his body could handle. But he was tired and he was ready to let go. He will miss his father, but I promise you this will not be the last they see of one other.”

Sakura wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. Itachi had always been vague with what laid beyond but she trusted him enough with this. The hurt in her chest throbbed again. No longer an ache that stole her breath away, but to something duller. Something manageable.

Sakura didn’t speak but she let her head rest in his palm. He eased her pain so flawlessly it nearly escaped her that it was the first time they had touched. For some reason, she had believed that he wasn’t allowed to. Or perhaps he simply couldn’t. Two souls side by side, yet an entire world apart. It surprised her to find that his hands were just like any other man’s. Soft and warm, yet strong and capable.

Sakura wasn’t sure how long she sat there, with her face in his hands, taking comfort in his touch. She didn’t remember moving from that spot. Didn’t recall climbing those last few stairs to reach the on-call room where she woke some hours later. She nearly wondering if she had dreamt of Itachi in that stairwell.

But she could just as well feel his soothing aura, curled and wrapped around her like a blanket as if he were there with her. That same emotion swelled in her chest again. Unhindered and free to take hold without her grief overshadowing it. She recognized the feeling but didn’t dare linger on the implications.

Because Sakura was a doctor. And Itachi was Death. And they could not both survive in the same world.

That realization didn’t stop Sakura from continuing to think about him. Her dreams remained filled with thoughts of Itachi. But where unease and distrust lingered, warmth and happiness filled the void. She took to spending nights at the hospital.

Sitting in the quiet places where she could speak with Itachi privately without the eyes of the other staff. He always came. Sometimes their visits were cut short, but he always found her wherever she may be in.

Sakura sat alone at a table in the cafeteria. This late at night the kitchen was closed, the oven cold and the food stored away. Only the coffee machine in the corner still worked, but it was cheap and made the drinks a little too watery. She was certain no one would wander this way.

Outside, snow drifted down. Little flecks of white filling in the darkness, casting the world into a hush as if all were in awe of its beautiful. Sakura made herself comfortable, sipping from one of the two steaming mugs of hot chocolate as she watched it fall.

“It’s a beautiful night,” Sakura murmured.

She sipped from her mug before she turned her head towards Itachi. He looked so terribly handsome in his black sweater with the snow falling behind him, his dark hair tied neatly with his bangs framing his eyes just so. Her body warmed with heat that had nothing to do with her drink.

“It is,” he said, his eyes meeting hers unwaveringly. Then they fell to the mug laid out for him. “What is this?”

“It’s hot chocolate,” she said before she frowned as a sudden thought occurred to her. “Although, I wasn’t sure how exactly that worked with your…status and all.”

“My status?” Itachi repeated, his tone pitching slightly with amusement. “I can confidently say I have never heard it referred to as such.”

She flushed but smiled again when Itachi raised the deep blue mug to his lips and drank, his eyes never leaving hers.

“I feel no hunger nor thirst,” he told her quietly as he studied to contents of the cup. “But I recall I did used to have a sweet tooth. It drove my mother mad when I filled up on sticky bread before dinner. This is delicious. Thank you.”

Sakura drank from her own mug again, if only to distract from the way his words warmed her down to her very core. When she peeked back up, she found Itachi was still watching her, that easy smile on his mouth.

“And what about you?” he asked. “You have never told me.”

“If I have a sweet tooth? I’m pretty sure my body is fifty percent sugar at this point. The rest is caffeine,” she teased.

However, Itachi shook his head. “No, about your mother. You have never spoken of her.”

The smile faded from her lips as her gaze fell to her mug. “I don’t remember much of her. She left home when I was six. My father raised me, but our relationship was never that strong. I see him during the holidays but we don’t keep that close in contact.”

She looked up when Itachi reached across the table to lay his hand over hers. His touch still made her skin tingle, sending little sparks of pleasure shooting up her arm. “I am sorry about your mother,” he said.

Sakura shrugged it off. “It’s okay. It was a long time ago.”

“Even time cannot heal all wounds.”

She wondered if he was thinking about his own mother. Or perhaps even his father or brother, but she didn’t ask. Instead, she turned her hand over, tangling her fingers together with his. Sakura wasn’t entirely sure who moved first. All she knew was in one moment Itachi was sitting beside her and in the next he was kissing her. His hands cupping the curve of her jaw as his mouth moved softly against hers.

It was short but sweet, leaving Sakura a little dazed when he pulled back. She blinked against her swimming head, their eyes meeting as their breath mingled.

“This is never going to work,” she whispered.

Itachi’s eyes never wavered from hers. “I know.”

She didn’t know what any of this meant. She opened her mouth, already her overactive mind beginning to move, but Itachi didn’t let her get too far. He kissed her again, pulling her closer than before. His kiss reaching down into her soul and trying to pull it into his own body.

He filled her with a warmth she had never known before. It left her breathless, frazzled. She wanted him more than anyone she could ever remember and she took everything she could, her fingers digging into his sweatshirt. Feeling his solid warmth beneath her palms. Wondering how she could have ever thought him to be Death. Cold and indifferent.

They passed the next hour wrapped around each other, whispering words for their ears only, between stolen kisses and lingering touched. Even after their hot chocolate had gone cold and the ground had turned completely white. Ignoring the complications and impossibilities of what they were doing.

It was Sakura’s pager that broke the serenity that had settled over the cafeteria. She pulled out of Itachi’s grasp just far enough to grab the device before she read the message with a quiet sigh. “I have to go, but I’ll see you soon.”

Sakura pressed a brief kiss to Itachi’s mouth again before she stood and was gone.

And in such a hurry she was, she missed the deep sorrow that settled across his face. “Yes, you will.”

Sakura woke early that morning, long before her alarm roused her, excitement filling her with more energy than even the strongest coffee. The sun was still below the horizon by the time she arrived at the hospital. But she wasn’t the only one there and ready.

Interns and residents swarmed her before she reached the Attendings’ Lounge. She smiled at their enthusiasm and answered questions as she weaved around the young doctors in-training. It was after all an exciting day.

“Are you ready?” Itachi asked, appearing the moment her scrub shirt was over her head.

She smiled, expecting his arrival. He greeted her every morning since that night in the cafeteria less than a week ago, and always with that smile. The one that made her stomach flop and her heart beat just a little harder. Only this morning, she was already bouncing with energy.

“I’m always ready,” she told him.

“Then how are you feeling?”

Sakura pulled a hair tie out of her bag before she piled her hair into a secure bun. “Nervous, but excited,” she told him honestly. Because even if there was a reason to lie to him, she was comfortable enough to tell him the truth. “But I’ve been doing my research and double checking all the labs. I can pull off this heart transplant surgery.”

The small smile in the corner of Itachi’s mouth stretched wider. He said nothing as he stepped towards her, looking so terribly handsome in his jeans and black button up shirt. He stopped in front of her, his eyes dropping down to smooth out the collar of her shirt before his hands ran up her arms and her shoulders.

“I believe you will,” he told her, his voice reflecting back her own confidence.

Goosebumps rose across her flesh where he touched her. But it was those words that made her body hum. Because Itachi was Death and he had an understanding about the world she did not.

Sakura’s smile stretched wider. “I have to get ready for the surgery, but I’ll see you afterwards, yeah?”

Itachi nodded his answer. There was an unusual look in his eyes that she didn’t recognize, but she didn’t have time to ask. There were people she needed to talk to and labs she had to check once more. She would have to ask him about it at a later date.

The rest of the day was madness for Sakura. Enough so that she had already forgotten about Itachi and his weird vibe by noon. Both the observation deck and the OR was full. Both trainees looking for experience and doctors with curious minds filled the room, taking note of Sakura’s technique and knowledge. The surgery itself took a little over four hours, her steady hands ensuring every suture and every stitch was perfect.

With bated breath, she stood still over her open patient. Watching, waiting for that still heart to begin beating on its own. The rest of the OR waited with her. Not a breath taken. Not a movement made.

Then it happened. A pulse. And then another and another.

“We have a steady rhythm,” the surgical nurse at the monitor said.

Applause erupted throughout the room and the observation deck. Sakura exhaled the breath she had been holding with a quiet laugh. Behind her mask, her mouth stretched into a wide smile as she accepted her thanks from the other surgeons around her. Some with a few decades more experience than herself.

It was the lightest she had felt in days, the stress from the surgery weighing her down. A constant pull on her mind. It made her want to celebrate. To go find her friends and share every detail she had just experienced.

It made her want to talk to Itachi.

Automatically, Sakura lifted her eyes to the viewing gallery. The entire room was filled with excited faces. Every last person dressed in white, doctors’ coats. All except two. Both in black. The one on the left she didn’t recognize. From his long, dark hair and broad shoulders.

The other was Itachi, dressed in his finest suit. But it wasn’t his dress or even his presence that caught her notice. It was his face. The sadness expression she had ever seen tearing her soul wide open. He met her gaze for a brief moment before he bowed his head.

And that was the last thing Sakura saw before excruciating pain erupted deep in her head and the world went dark.

When she opened her eyes again, she wasn’t sure how much time had passed. It was bright, too bright. Blinking hard, she waited for her eyes to adjust before she gazed around. To her surprise, she found she was in the same place. In the middle of the OR. Only she was alone. All the doctors and interns were gone. Even her patient had vanished. And in his place, Sakura had taken up occupancy on the surgical bed.

Confused, she looked down at herself only to find the blood stains on her scrubs from surgery were gone, leaving them clean and utterly spotless. With a quick examine, she found no wounds or stitches on her own body. She seemed perfectly fine.

“Sakura.”

Snapping her head towards Itachi’s voice, she found him standing on the other side of her bed. He looked no different than he normally did, his suit pressed and fitting his form so perfectly. But he felt different. A little more real, a little more like their souls were no longer worlds apart.

Sakura didn’t reach for him, her confusion twisting into something more akin to fear. She moved slowly, her eyes never leaving him, as she slid to her feet. The bed the only barrier between them.

A million questions rolled around in her head but her tongue remained still. Because she could still read that expression on his face. Feel his sorrow and grief from here.

“I’m so sorry,” Itachi murmured. Regretfully. Truthfully.

Something began to build in her chest. It took her a moment to realize it was panic. She took a step away from him. “What happened?”

“You had an aneurysm rupture in your brain,” he told her.

“An aneurysm,” she repeated. Both not understanding and understanding.

Because the dots were not hard to connect. His sorrow, her pain. This place and his presence.

A shaky breath escaped her as she took another step back. Itachi looked as if he wanted to reach for her, but he refrained much to her relief. Her chest tightened again as reality began to settle in.

“No,” she shook her head, trying to deny what he was telling her. “I didn’t die.”

“You were rushed into surgery after you collapsed but the doctors were unable to repair the damage to your vessels. You died from massive intercranial hemorrhaging,” he told her. His voice gentle but steady and his gaze unwavering.

She shook her head again. “My patient…”

“He survived.”

“But I didn’t.”

When Itachi shook his head, that mournful look in his eye, Sakura took another step back, tears springing to her eyes. She tried to release a shaky breath. What came out instead was a choked sob. Because she knew he wasn’t trying to be insensitive. He was simply acquainted with her well enough to know that she would want all the facts. Even if it ripped her heart out.

“You said death fluctuates,” she murmured through her tears as realization began to dawn on her. “I could see you because I had aneurysm. I was always on the verge of death. One strain, one stress away from it bursting.”

Itachi nodded woefully. “Yes.”

“You knew this was going to happen.”

Regret passed behind his eyes but he nodded again. “Yes.”

Sakura wanted to feel betrayed. Wanted to hurl angry insults and biting words so that perhaps he would feel just as hollow and empty as she currently did. But there was no use. There was no changing what had happened. There was nothing anyone could say or do. A situation she had seen many lovers and parents and family go through in her job.

She had never felt so helpless.

Feeling her knees begin to shake, Sakura lowered herself into one of the clean, metal chairs kept in the OR. They were hard and cold, only this time it wasn’t. It supported her weight comfortably. She dropped her head into her hands, trying to hide how much she was truly shaking.

Some minutes passed with just the faint echo of her own breathing as she tried to accept what had just come to pass. How she was supposed to possibly move on.

“I am so truly sorry, Sakura,” Itachi murmured.

She looked up when she felt him straighten a strand of her hair. He had knelt before her, looking so incredibly guilty and so incredibly remorseful. Against her desire, her heart went out to him.

“Things were not supposed to happen this way,” he continued softly. He was unable to meet her gaze but he couldn’t seem to pull away from her either. “We were not supposed to know each other as we do and I…and I was never supposed to fall in love with you.”

In all her life, Sakura swore she had ever been this full of emotion. Her heart was breaking and sealing back together all at once. She was torn. She wanted to push Itachi away. She wanted to pull him close, remembering all those nights they had shared. Talking into the dark, sharing hot chocolate and their deepest thoughts.

It would be a lie for her not to say she hadn’t considered this outcome. She knew things could not remain the way they had been. He was Death. And she had life. One had to give. And death only took.

Reaching out, Sakura ran her fingers through Itachi’s hair so featherlight, she barely felt its softness on her fingertips. He looked up as she pushed his bangs away from his face before she traced the ridge of his cheekbone.

“So, what happens now?” she asked.

“That remains to be seen,” another said.

Sakura followed the voice to find a man standing off to the side of the room. It was the same man she had seen in the observation deck. This close, she could make out more of his features, finding that his hair wasn’t black as she had first thought, but rather a dark brown. Just like Itachi, he gave off a certain wisdom. Only older, much older than the man kneeling before her.

Itachi didn’t move from his spot as the other man approached, his face still resting in her hand.

“You’re a Reaper,” Sakura said, not entirely sure if she was asking or stating.

He nodded. “I am Hashirama, the Elder Reaper. And I am here now to tell you that you have completed your job. You are released. You may continue to onto the afterlife.”

Her brow furrowed, not entirely sure what he was saying. Only to realize it was not her he was speaking to. But rather Itachi.

She looked down at him where he still had his face pressed into her hand. If he had heard Hashirama speak, he showed no indication. Sakura opened her mouth and tried to pull her hand away, but his own hand tightened around hers and kept it from moving away.

“If Sakura so chooses, I wish to spend it with her.”

Sakura’s confusion grew. She glanced at Hashirama before turning back to Itachi, both looking so out of place in this too-clean OR with Hashirama’s crisp sweater and Itachi’s fitted suit. She had so many questions and so few answers. Perhaps this was her afterlife. She had never given much thought to what her own would be like. Having spent so many hours in the hospital, she hadn’t had much time to give it much imagination. Maybe that was why she found herself here.

But if she could change it, there was no telling where she would like to end up. It’s not like there were any friends or family waiting for her. She was the first to go.

Emotion built in her chest again but before it could erupt, she realized Itachi was waiting for an answer. His black eyes peering up at her, so full of hope. Again, she thought of those late nights, just him in the dark as they talked about everything and nothing.

Or maybe there was a telling of where she would.

Smiling through her drying tears, Sakura pressed her palm against Itachi’s cheek again. “If I have a choice, I choose more late nights and dark on-call rooms. With hot chocolate on snowy nights.”

“I can give you that,” he murmured before his mouth met hers. Kissing her so sweetly it was as if it was their first again.

This time when she opened her eyes, they were no longer in the OR. But rather standing side by side on a hill overlooking a small village with a lake below. A boy some years younger than them was running towards them, his hair and eyes the same colors as Itachi.

He smiled wide, waving one hand over his head. “Itachi! Itachi! You’re finally home.”

There was a faint look of astonishment on Itachi’s face when Sakura glanced at him. Then he smiled. Warmth and happiness filling his expression and making him no longer appear years beyond his age.

“Sasuke,” Itachi breathed.

Then he looked at her, all the love and devotion clear in his eyes as he grabbed her hand and led her down the hill. “Come, my brother is waiting for us.”

the end

#itasaku #itachi #sakura #the man in black #death!au #sorry this took so long!#I was not anticipating this to be 9k words...#hope you enjoyed - not sure this story went the direction I had first intended ha #I didn't mean for this to get so dark either #idk what happened #long post #saria writes

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venusgoths · 7 years ago

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character wip

Name: Juandalynn 'Jude' Rivera-Carvajal Birthday: August 2nd, 1998 Alignment: Kinda fluid between true neutral and chaotic neutral Age/Year: 17 - 12th Gender/Pronouns: Demigirl, she/her & they/them Orientation(s): Pansexual

BIO Jude has no true familial birth, and therefore has no true biological parents. But, the woman she considered her mother was the one who dragged her out of the molten lava, in the boiling depths of the volcanoes of Chile. Carved by the gods out of volcanic rock and magma, the ash and fire turned to strands of thick hair eventually, and the jagged rock was shaped into brown skin, and thus became Jude. Her mother named her Juandalynn, but when she had gone to live her life with her father in America, the frustration of people not learning to pronounce her name birthed her preferred name, Jude.

The story of her parents was as such; a Cuban volcanologist, photographing and studying volcanic activity in Chile, happened to stumble upon and photograph local cherufes. The man was fascinated by the creatures who would very rarely pull themselves out of the magma pools and volcanoes, unsure of what he was seeing, and was approached by Jude's mother. The two were enamored by each other, a kind of naive and infatuated love, and when Jude was birthed from the lava, her father made frequent trips out to Chile to visit the two. Eventually, though, the unfortunate romance between her parents was cut off, as her father's visits to the tiny region where her mother lived were a subject of interest to the locals. Her mother was hunted and killed when Jude was approximately 14 years old. And so, her father took her with him, and Jude continued the rest of her life in America.

While her father was Cuban, because of his scientific work, he lived and raised Jude in varying cities across the US. Jude was unable to live in colder weather conditions, unfortunately. At first, they had gone to New York City, but the winters left Jude exhaling pillars of smoke and soot as her fiery core smoldered out slowly, and it was harder and harder to find her a warm place to live. After a year and a half of frustration, culture shock and Jude's stubbornness to change, they subsequently moved out more west. They tried living in California, upon the west coast, but Jude couldn't enjoy the beaches and too-perfect weather. Being so close to water at all times scared her. Eventually, they landed in a sun-bleached desert town in the boons of Arizona. Jude's childhood was somewhat rough - she had the appearance of a young teenager, but had to go through the trouble of learning as much as she could of information from pre-k to high school. English came somewhat easy, growing up in an English speaking environment, but Jude's Spanish is extremely fluent.

The girl faced identity issues for much of her youth in America, not only with the knowledge of being so inherently different, but because Americans made everything so damn complicated. She considers herself half-Chilean and half-Cuban purely because of her parents. She also faces problems with anxiety and paranoia, caused after witnessing the death of her mother. The deep-seated issues of fear because of her mom manifested into anger issues, and so Jude struggled a lot as she managed through a couple of years of American middle and high school. Being a cherufe didn't make her life any easier either. Emotional flare-ups came with burnt school desks, piles of ash that were once homework and notes, and on one awful occasion, the west wing of a school being reduced to blackened soot. Teenage angst mixed with fire equaled a sucky youth.

Jude's relationship with her father was strained, but not entirely unhealthy. She just wished he had been around longer. Sadly enough, her lifespan is longer than normal humans, and the devastation of her mother's death was then added on with her father's death. He had always been caring and protective, but she could see how she wore him down over the years. Raising a kid wasn't easy, but raising what was essentially a fiery lava entity in the form of a teenage girl was something else entirely. At first, Jude had blamed him for her mom's death, but his love and genuine care for her soon changed her thought's on the subject. She was somehow both very dependent on him, and completely independent and wanted to be her own person. Without him, Jude would have either stayed to live in the magma pools with the rest of her kind, and eventually been hunted. But, she wanted to be her own person and didn't like the idea of relying on one person so much in her life. Because of this, Jude went through her 'emo' phase, and that eventually turned into the grunge-y hybrid that she is now. Her father kept them afloat through teaching; he had abandoned his career as a volcanologist, and instead taught college classes about enviromental science and similar subjects. She thinks fondly of her father, though her death and watching him age took a toll on Jude.

When her father died was when Jude felt true devastation for the second time in her life. She felt as if she was withering, the fire inside being stamped and smoldered out, anger and anguish being exhaled along with soot as she sat crying in her burning home. When Jude came to, she laid under blackened wooden beams and debris, calm and burnt out. She knew she had to return home. By the time the firefighters got to the house, she had used whatever money her father left for her to book a flight to South America. Despair boiled in her gut as the girl made the trek into the mountains for the first time in decades. Jude thought of her mother, and every barefoot step left the ground charred. When she reached the summit of the volcano, her clothes slowly flittered away into ash from the pure heat, and she flung herself into the mouth of the Earth. The heat was comforting, and her kind greeted her eagerly, but Jude truly felt lost in that moment. When she surfaced from a magma pool, a slightly burnt brochure for Wollstonecraft Academy lay on the black rock nearby.

Now, for the last three and a half years, Jude has resided at Wollstonecraft but continues to isolate herself for the most part because of her anger issues and volatile powers. On-campus therapy sessions and her own drive prove that Jude is trying to best to make a good life for themself, but its proven difficult due to trauma and general social anxiety. She actively enjoys alternative rock music, something she picked up while living in the States, and is very into the punk scene and older music. She has taken up learning the bass guitar, and tries to write songs for a band she hopes to create one day. Music is what she uses to cope, most of the time, but the girl also enjoys movies, literature discovered through her ELA courses, and is currently trying her hand at sports. She enjoys playing soccer casually, but couldn't make it on the team due to her aggressiveness when it came to competition.

SPECIES Appearance: Jude's appearance in general seems to exert warmth and heat, from burning red hair to warm dark skin - she is 5'8", and has a lean lithe stature, though isn't particularly muscled or athletic. She doesn't seem very approachable, with a perpetually angry square face, a strong jaw, slightly pointed nose, and her thick ginger brows casting shadows over her brownish-hazel eyes, also framed by pale lashes. Her skin is a warm golden brown, and dark freckles from days spent in the sun can be seen on her face and shoulders. Jude's hair is thick and unruly, a fiery ginger curly mass of its own as it lays over her shoulders and down her back, as well as a few shorter strands falling across her forehead. The girl is half-Cuban, half-Chilean. Being a redhead, most can spot her from a mile away, and it only gets harsher to look at as Jude is closer to whoever looks at her. Her fashion sense is a mix of simplicity due to laziness, and a grunge-y garage band type style. An avid lover for flannels, plaid skirts, old painters jeans, boots, and hipster 'vintage' 90s t-shirts that she can find online. While she's not the best at makeup, Jude does enjoy tinted lip balms and mascara, sometimes pencil eyeliner scribbled on her lids as well if she feels more intense. Her whole look in general though is...kind of intense. You can't escape the intensity of fire when it's your core, after all. Jude wears prescription glasses as well, though not regularly.

Species/Rules of species: Jude is a Cherufe; an evil man-eating creature said to be made of rock and magma, and who inhabit magma pools in the volcanoes of Chile and are the supposed cause of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Rumor has it, the Cherufe's appetite for flesh was only satisfied by a virginal human sacrifice, thrown into the depths of their volcanoes, and some ideas described them as reptilian humanoids. In reality, Jude was created and 'birthed' in a volcanoe, deep in the magma of her mother's country, but not really man-eating or the cause of earthquakes. Jude is most definitely humanoid, but blurs the edges on being able to pass as a 'human'. Her core is fire and lava, and gives her the power to create and control fire at will. It manifests both outwardly from her body (such as a flame in her hand, breathing out fire, etc.), and also physically in her appearance when in full use. It doesn't happen every time, but a notable feat is Jude's hair appearing to be on fire, and her skin is constantly almost searing hot to the touch. Her powers are like a crappy life metaphor for her anger, something Jude feel's can be uncontrollable and combustive.

#mingebump

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twxntrash · 8 years ago

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Homeworld Police Department Ch. 2

The bus took approximately two hours after Peridot had boarded it, having to make multiple stops along the way to pick up various other police cadets to bring to the academy they would all be attending. The bus hadn’t exactly been empty when Peridot first boarded, but, it was certainly packed after the final stop before reaching their destination. She had underestimated just how many Gems would be attending for the next nineteen weeks. There were Gems of all different cuts. She saw Rubies squished together and laughing, that Gem type always grouped up with itself in various ‘Ruby Squads’. But, she also saw large Jaspers, Amethysts, Carnelians, Roses’ and even a handful of Bismuth Gems on the bus. Not that it was easy to see when all the large bodies cut off her field of vision.

Peridot herself had ended up squashed between a Rose Quartz whose hair was in a short, curly pink bob, and an Amethyst with a gem on her neck who kept laughing rather loudly at even the slightest of thing. It wasn’t the most comfortable of places to be and Peridot was grateful that she wasn’t an easy Gem to poof or else she’d have retreated into her gem by now from all the crushing pressure put on her from the gems beside her, not that her seatmates seemed to care, or even notice.

By the time the bus did finally pull up to the academy, Peridot was immensely grateful to be off it and in possession of her personal space once again. Her entire body felt cramped and she had to stretch to get the kinks out and loosen her stiff limbs.

Her first thought when she saw the academy was that it looked much more like a prison than a school. But, she supposed that it was only fitting. The group was led by one of the staff to the dorms where they picked their bed and dropped off their things. Given exactly ten minutes to settle in and change into their new uniforms before they would have to meet up in front of the building to meet their instructor for orientation. The Gems practically ran and shoved each other away in what Peridot assumed was jokingly and friendly on their way to the dorms. Throwing their bags on the beds, diving onto them and making the bunks creak and rock and cause Peridot worry of them breaking.

She managed to find herself an empty top bunk above one of the Rose Quartzes attending the academy. It was a bit of a climb, and the beds rather spacious considering they were designed to hold larger gems. But, she got the top, dropped her bags onto the mattress and was quick in making her bed and doing all she needed. She could leave her clothes in the bag, no reason to take them out right now.

With the ten minutes up, she was next found kneeling on the cool grass with all the gems of her class, watching as the instructor paced in front of them.

“Alright, Cadets, first thing you need to keep in mind is that you will need to be able to adapt to the various environments of all the different cities and colonies,” Holly Blue Agate declared as she held her arms behind her back, “Each colony is designed to match the environment best suited for the primary Gem their Kindergarten produces. But big cities like Homeworld, they have multiple environments to meet the needs of all the Gems living inside.” She drew her hand back and summoned a whip, with a flick of her wrist it cracked on the ground right in front of the cadets making them flinch back. “City Central! District One; Frosty and slippery ice! District Two; Fire, lava, and intense heat! District Three: More than enough water for a gem to go missing in! District Four: High treetops, vine, and thick vegetation! To name a few!”

There was a chorus of murmurs among the Gems as they shared thoughts on the primary districts of Homeworld. The ones Holly Blue had listed were rather large districts in the massive city, and the usual types of biomes for colonies to have. Peridots own Colony was most closely related to City Central, in fact, and Garnet told her her colony she was made in had been the same biome that District Two was. It was exciting thinking of working all the different districts in one city, and Holly wasn’t even bringing up the many smaller districts the city had!

“The cities aren't safe and cozy like some of you may think! You'll need to learn how to move about in each district,” Holly Blue yelled as she came to a stop directly in front of the Gems, bringing her whip behind her once more, it cracking at the feet of one of the Amethysts, her expression harsh and serious, “Or you’ll be shattered in the line of duty.”

Peridot felt her heart stop in her chest for a second at that way of phrasing. She felt for a moment her instructor was staring right at her as she said that.

Training started the very next day, with the first evening having been spent familiarizing themselves with the buildings and rules. While Peridot found herself best with the textbook work; learning and memorizing the entire books they were given and aced any question she was asked. When it came to the quizzes on laws, tests on what the proper procedure in a scenario would be, she’d ace it.

The physical part of her training was something else entirely.

The different fields were made to match the various biomes they may have to deal with on the force. They were made to match the biomes in the most extreme conditions, in fact. And the academy certainly didn’t pull any punches on them either.

Scorching lava bubbles. Sure, they weren’t actual lava pools being used to mimic District Two’s extensive magma veins, even Holly Blue wasn’t going to risk killing her cadets. But the red dyed waters were at a boiling temperature and painful to touch, no one wanted to be the one to fall into the scalding water. There must have been a Lapis Lazuli somewhere out of sight controlling the ‘lava pool’ to make it bubble and shoot up as it did to mimic the spastic eruptions of District Two.

The Ruby gems didn’t have a problem. They just ran on forward, ignoring the heat and the burns they could have gotten. Many even ran right through the water without hesitation. Peridot supposed that being a Ruby and all, they were pretty well immune to the Districts environment. Even the larger Gems who struggled to stay balanced on the loose pieces of rock floating in the pools made good progress in their run forward to the ‘safe zone’.

But, Peridot wasn’t having much luck. The stepping stone rocks that were positioned to help them get across the fake lava pool were spaced too far apart for her, and far too loose for her to stay balanced for long. She could barely get from one stone to the other and was moving at a painfully slow pace. Her suspect would have already been gone and the pursuit failed with the rate she was going at. Almost halfway forward she’d misjudged the distance and ended up falling into the boiling water.

With a scream of panic and pain, the green Gem scrambled to get out of the water as her entire body burned.

“You’re dead, 5XG!” Holly Blue screamed from the sidelines.

Thirty-foot tall ice walls in District One was not anything uncommon, and the one at the academy was almost that height but not quite. It was as though they were in a corner of the district, the air was freezing and the ground was covered in ice and snow with the base of their ice wall a freezing pond with ice of varying thickness. The gems raced, with the larger ones in the lead; the ice shattering under their feet only to freeze back over a second later. The climb wasn’t easy for anyone, especially not for Peridot.

The small green Gem kept slipping, losing her footing on the ice or snow which came up several inches on her legs during the running half of the course. While she did make it to the ice wall before anyone was able to climb over it, she didn’t do much better. Peridot got maybe a foot up the ice wall before she’d lost her grip and fell, the ice she landed on broke sending her into the freezing cold water. If she thought District Two’s lava pools were bad, this one was even worse.

“Shattered, Triangle-Head!”

District Four was heavy rainfall while trying to cross slippery, vine covered monkey bars raised up high above the ground. The environment was for agile, smaller Gems and ones who worked best with plant life, or just Gems who wanted to live a thousand feet above the ground despite the dangerous and deadly fall they were at risk of. The water was making it hard to grip the bars for everyone, and they weren’t the firmest, constantly bending under the weight of the Gems just as the branches would in the district.

For Peridot, she did a little better than the previous ones, but about halfway she’d lost her grip and fell the twenty feet right onto her face into the mud below.Thank the stars she was very durable or her gem might have cracked.

“Broke your gem, tech-head,” was the shout from the instructor at her failure and a series of chuckles from some of the Gems up on the bars still moving forward.

When she was put in the boxing ring against a Bismuth to stimulate a hostile suspect resisting arrest, well, it was to the surprise of no one that she was sent flying with one hit and was seeing stars when she hit the post. Holly Blue just shouted ‘cracked’ and that was that.

That was what the first half was like, a symphony of ‘Dead, broke, cracked,’ at every exercise she failed.

It was infuriating being told again and again by not just her instructor, but by her fellow Gems to go home. It was clear that the others were looking down on her, she was incompetent in their eyes, unfit to be here. A comic relief for the other, stronger Gems. “Go home Tech Gem.” “Go back to your colony and get a job fixing machines, short stuff” “We don’t need a mechanic, go back to where the other Peridots are Technogem.”

She laid in her bed, body throbbing from the bruises she’d received from the day and previous day’s exercises. Around her was a harmony of snores from sleeping Gems (Their kind may not need to sleep, but it seemed like Quartz gems rather enjoyed the time-consuming task) but the snores were better than the mocking laughs the other gems gave her, teasing her for her inability to do what they claimed were simple tasks. She glared at the ceiling as she thought it over.

As though the training wasn’t bad enough, her classmates were horrible, rude and just idiots. Constantly mocking her because she was the odd one out. They had no respect for her, all they saw when they looked at her was a technician trying to play cop. Always calling her Tech Gem, Tech Gem.

For Star’s sake! If she had wanted to be a technician or mechanic, she wouldn’t have applied for the police academy!

It was like a light bulb had gone off in her head as the thought ran through her mind.

She was quick to sit up, her eyes wide as the small green Gem scrambled to find her notebook from her bag hanging from one of the bed posts on her bunk. Finding it and a pencil, she threw the blankets over her to offer some privacy as her gem produced a bright green light to shine on the notebook as she turned to a blank page. Her mind was a whirlwind of thoughts and ideas and a smile formed on her face.

She began sketching out blueprints.

“You want a Tech Gem, I’ll show you a Tech Gem, Nyeheheh!” she had to keep herself from laughing too loudly as she got to work.

It took weeks, months even. Slowly but surely Peridot began to improve, her drive and ambition renewed to the point she wasn’t letting anyone stop her. Her personal project which she’d finished within a week had been a great help as well; gloves that had retractable claw like appendages, and she even modified her shoes to hold the same property.

Of course, they did nothing to help her physically; her speed and strength were improved all by her own determination and hard work. From her spending her free time and the entire nights practicing and training on her own, in fact. She didn't bother wasting her time with unneeded commodities like sleep, and it certainly paid off. Her prototype limb enhancers only offered her a better grip for some of the obstacles. The boots digging into the ground to keep her from falling or slipping, the claws digging into the ice walls and monkey bars so she did fall down.

Eventually, as their class came to its end, she had reached the top. Peridot was outrunning the other gems in the races, climbing over the ice wall the fastest. She was even able to beat the Bismuth during the boxing match thanks to her studying several different boxing videos and matches on MyTube. What could she say? Peridots were fast learners. Just building up the muscles to go along with it all took some time.

When graduation rolled around, she couldn’t have been happier. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping and the air nice and warm. The ceremony was outside, all the cadets were lined up with their instructor, Holly, at the front. Chairs were spread out and the friends of the graduates watching with joy, cheering them on. Peridot easily spotted Garnet and Pearl at the front row, the lithe gem practically crying as she smiled.

Everyone snapped to attention when the microphone turned on and a throat cleared. Eyes training forward to the Homeworlds two mayors who stood in front of the crowd.

Pink and Blue Diamonds, two of the former matriarchs of Gemkind, now serving as elected mayor leaders of the city. No longer were they the massive gems that demanded and commanded respect wherever they went, though they still commanded respect with their presence. The Diamonds had compressed their physical forms to be closer to the rest of Gemkind in terms of size back when Homeworld began striving for equality among the people. They still towered over all the other Gems, but they weren’t so big that they could carry multiple Pearls in one hand anymore. They could still go to their original heights when needed, but, there was rarely an occasion where they needed to be so massive anymore.

Blue took the podium, looking as regal as always as Pink stood to the side, “As leader of Homeworld, I am proud to say that our world and our people have taken yet another great step towards becoming a society where every Gem is given an equal opportunity in their life to be what they want,” she spoke to the crowd, her voice soft and soothing even now. The crowd let out a few cheers and many applauds during the small pause she took, “In police work it was astonishing when a Bismuth joined the previously Quartz only force, then a Ruby joined the lines and everyone was shocked to find that size did not matter in the line of work. Now, I am honored to introduce the valedictorian of her class, our very first Peridot officer; Peridot 2F5L 5XG.”

A few of her fellow classmates gave her pats on the back as they nudged her forward, whispers of congratulations to her. Unable to wipe her smile from her face, Peridot made her way to the stage as the crowd applauded.

“Peridot! That’s our Peridot! We're so proud of you!” Pearl yelled as she jumped to her feet, clapping louder than anyone as she cheered, drawing the attention of many Gems. It was nice, but a bit embarrassing how vocal Pearl had to be at this moment. At least Garnet wasn’t doing anything embarrassing- no. Never mind. She’d brought a sign.

The green Gem couldn’t even bring herself to look at them as her face burned a blue, but she kept her head high as she approached the Diamonds.

Pink smiled taking the few steps towards her and kneeling down as she pinned the golden badge to Peridot’s uniform. She was smiling so brightly and proudly and even remained kneeling beside the small gem as Blue continued talking.

“Peridot, it is my honor to assign you to the heart of Homeworld,” Blue Diamond said as she looked down at the Gem, her expression warm and proud as more Gems applauded in the graduations audience. “You will at Precinct One, City Central.” Oh, Stars. If Peridot smiled at wider, her face might split in half.

The younger Diamond held out a hand to her, “Congratulations, Officer Peridot.”

“Thank you, Pink Diamond, I won’t let you down,” Peridot said as she took the hand and gave it a shake, trying to appear serious but broke into grins only seconds later as she said softly to the large gem, “This has been my dream since I came from my Kindergarten, I almost can’t believe I’m actually standing here!”

Pink smiled bigger at that and glanced around them, “Well, it’s a big, proud day for all Gemkind,” she whispered back. It was no secret to anyone that Pink Diamond was the most active and vocal when it came to making Homeworld an equal place for every Gem, so being here, seeing a Peridot become a police officer was without a doubt a victory in her books.

The other Diamond, Blue, slipped over to stand on Peridot’s other side, kneeling down as she nudged the new officer to stand to face the crowd, a hand on her shoulder as Pink did the same. “Come on, Officer, let’s show those teeth,” Blue said as she smiled brightly for the flashing cameras and newsmen.

It was midnight, the moon high in the sky and the stars shining brightly, but they weren’t outside to be able to enjoy the beauty of the night. Instead, she was inside in one of the places she so often frequented.

The room was filled with a smell of alcohol, a haze of cigarette smoke and the ever reverberating beat of the music, slot machines, and gems letting out hoots and hollers. The casino was packed with gems bustling about to throw all their money away in an attempt to get rich off machines and cards. The place was lit with flashing lights from the machines and low-lit ceiling lights, but overall it was mostly a dim building. The casino wasn’t the high town type, but being a back alley, mostly illegal gambling ring that had plenty of crooks and mob bosses hanging out inside didn’t make it any less popular.

Blue eyes watched as a handful of red and green chips were pushed onto the felt table, “Raise twenty-five,” the Charoite called to the other players who were all a mix of different gems. A few grumbled but that was how it went.

“Heard on the news that some runts joined the police force here,” a bulky Aventurine commented as she added her chips in to meet the raised bet, pausing to take a sip from a beer bottle beside her. She let out a loud laugh as lowered the bottle and continued talking, shaking her head, “A damn Peridot of all Gems, can you believe it? Next you'll see a frail, skinny little thing like a Pearl out in uniform.”

A Ruby next to her raised a brow as she sent in her bet, “Oh, yeah, I saw it on the news too. Some tiny tech gem from a small colony I bet. She’s not going to last at all out here. Probably get crushed by a drunk Jasper.”

It was her turn, and the blue Gem pushed forward a few black chips, “Raising,” she told the table with a neutral expression, a cigarette held gently between her lips, “And, what does it matter if this new cop is a Peridot or a Diamond? Just another cop who’s useless at her job.” she added with a hint of annoyance and a dash of bitterness.

There was a chorus of whistles at the large raise, a few hands folded.

“I just think it’s funny is all. A Peridot? I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard of a Gem that small in law enforcements. Other than Rubies, but, they were made for fighting and what not. Former soldiers and all.” Charoite replied with a shrug as she put her cards down and leaned back in her chair, “Folding. Not dumb enough to risk that much money.”

“But dumb enough to risk missing out on winning that much,” An Emerald nudged her with a laugh, pushing in some chips to meet the bet, ”But, come on, Lazuli, she’s right. It’s just plain silly that they’re assigning her to the big city of all places. She’ll be eaten alive in the first day!”

Well, they weren’t wrong about anything they were saying. Out of the over two thousand years that Lapis Lazuli had existed since she'd popped right out of the Kindergarten, she’d never once seen anything like this. Sure, she had about a hundred years of missing time, but, even she knew nothing groundbreaking had happened during the century she was absent from. Poor Gem probably thought she was going to be some kind of superhero or some BS like that coming out here as a cop. Probably watched to many movies and had some fantasy idea in her head. Didn’t know the kind of life she was going to get, especially with this police force.

“Before the month is out, I bet she’ll go back to her home colony all upset and angry because police work didn’t work out for her,” Lapis said as they laid their cards out onto the table, showing their hands. A small smirk formed as she reached out and pulled the betted chips to her side, “Well, I think I’m going to collect my money now and bid you all adieu.”

She was given a collective groan from the players when she won the round but watched as the money was fished out and handed to her from the other gems. This was how Lapis generally was, she’d make a big bet, usually win it, and leave after earning a good amount of money before she could lose it all. So far she’d made a fair amount of money that way, but she’d lost a fair amount too. Oh well, it was poker, she knew better than to complain.

Ruby waved Lapis off, “Well, be safe ya hear? City is a dangerous place after all.”

#HPD #Zootpoia!AU #SU!Zootopia #Lapidot #steven universe #cam writes shit

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phoebeconrey · 6 years ago

Text

The Colours of Him

Chapter 1 - Purple

Words: 2500 Type: Short Story Series Summary: A deaf girl who can see auras of colour surrounding people that changes depending on their mood seems to be transfixed on one particular boy. Peter James. A boy who’s senses always seem to peak around the quiet girl that he sees on his university campus, can’t seem to understand why. But, he won’t ask. Warnings: none

Prologue

If you make any moodboards/art for this series you can send it to me

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Most people were grey during finals. Books held dangerously in their hands as they rushed about trying shove as much information into their overworked brain as possible. There were the occasional dots of red and a few blues but mostly it was grey. It was the biggest reason she hated this time of year - particularly during fall exams it always seemed to be worse. Exams didn't bother her as she always studied months in advance but it devastated her to see everyone just so grey. Colour is one of the only ways she could communicate on an emotional level and exam time was like having her hearing being ripped from her grasp all over again. She felt alone and isolated in a sea of grey and cold bodies. She had been looking for him on that particularly cold autumn day, the wind blowing at just the right speed to make it unbearable. People hurried around bundled up in scarfs and large jerseys with black boots protecting their toes. Orange and brown leaves blew lifelessly about as a metaphor for the student's grades. It was on this particular day that she had yet to see any colour at all - the biggest reason she was looking for him. Most exams would be starting soon, he was bound to show up at some point.

At the moment she first saw him, he seemed to outshine the sun, the yellow hue surrounding seemed to pulsate slightly almost as if it was reaching out towards her, welcoming her in. She had been slightly obsessed with him ever since. She had never seen anyone quite that shade of yellow, quite so bright, so happy, and so inviting. Almost instantly it became her favourite colour.

But just behind the bright colours that lined his formed body, there was always the tinge of black. Turning the colours into a muddy grey closet to his being. A perfect outline designed specifically for him. Only him. She was curious. She always had been. But something about him was different, he was never simply one complete emotion. His bright personality was always slightly anxious. Slightly fearful. It radiated from him in a way only she could see. She felt like he was sharing a rare and untold secret and story with her. A secret wrapped up and hidden away under foundation cover bruises, thick scarfs, carefully constructed walks that made it seem that there weren’t bruises scattering his body in varying degrees. But most of all this was hidden deep by a string of lies that were as extravagant and carefully chosen as letters to a forgotten lover or ink-friend.

She would quietly watch for him every day after that. She didn’t know who he was, didn’t know his name, age, what his major was or anything about him for that matter and yet she felt closer to him than anyone in the world. Although she had been watching him all semester he never appeared that same shade of yellow. She yearned for it, she needed it.

She could never quite tell what the emotion of that particular person was, every colour meant something slightly different for every person. Sometimes it was overwhelming to see all the colours glimmering around the people. Her temples would ache because of it and some days she just didn’t even get out of bed to go to school. She would just lie in bed waiting for it to calm down. At times like these, it was, however, overwhelming with everything being the same colour. It was as if the world had shut down its individuality and turned the inhabitants into mindless bots. Breathing not living. At times like this, it was hard to not let their emotions seep into her being and drowning her in it. It was hard not to just become a vessel of emotion and not a being with their own emotion.

The dragging of the feet and hung low heads as they furiously read through their notes one last time before the exam was all she was able to perceive and it was making it hard for her to step out of it and remember that she had emotions too. Ones that were entirely her own. She didn’t just feel her life vicariously through others, she was real and human. Today was particularly hard.

The start of a migraine was building behind her eyes as she refused to remove herself from the freezing bench beneath her. Clenching her eyes shut, she tried to push the feeling that she couldn’t breathe to the back of her mind. Her body was draining into the sea of grey surrounding her, her whole being disintegrating into nothing more than a sponge on the bottom of the sea floor absorbing the waste left over from fully felt emotions. She didn’t feel so good.

The cold of the bench was seeping into her skin at this point, she was shivering and couldn’t seem to stop. The chattering of her teeth caused her headache to exacerbate to the point that her brain exploded every time her teeth hit each other. She knew she was probably being stupid. She didn’t have an exam today or any of the other days that she had sat on that bench and waited for him while the wind howled relentlessly around her. She had finished over a week ago and she had last seen him over a week ago. She woke up every morning telling herself how dumb she was being and yet every morning she climbed out of bed, got dressed and went to wait for him. She had missed one day, and the entire day she felt like something was missing. Her slight obsession was quickly becoming a necessity. The addiction of seeing him impacting her daily life.

When she first saw the glow of purple she thought nothing of it. Until she saw the mop of brown curls and tan skin, books were touched tightly against his chest and a large overcoat covered his torso to protect him from the fierce winds that howled around them. He was walking briskly towards the great hall. He wasn’t late per say but he wasn’t early and even though Peter didn’t really care about school in high school. He sure as hell did now, this was his future and he wasn’t going to let all his hard work go to waste.

A familiar warmth spread through her chest as she watched him move. His body uncharacteristically agile and precise. She felt her body relax, he was okay. It’s okay. He wasn’t grey, she felt relief at this. He wasn’t just a face in the crowd, he was different and full of something.

She felt the headache begin to ease and felt her own sense of feeling begin to come back. He was pulling her out of the sea of grey. Her breathing evened out and she felt the heat of her own emotions push through her body.

That was the thing about feeling through others emotion, it was always so cold.

He stopped. His headed turned to the side to look at her. Their eyes met, a boiling heat rushed over her body. His gaze was intense yet so soft and careful, the slightest smile tilted his lips and his one hand gave a small wave in her direction. His grip on his books loosened and he nearly dropped all of them. He quickly regained his balance and a faint pink dusted his cheeks as he briskly walked away. She felt her whole body tingle from the interaction and watched his purple turned pink body walk away. The smallest smile tilted her lips.

The wind ruffled his curls as he walked onto campus. It was too cold to be writing exams. It was too cold to be outside. It was nearly too cold to be outside. His head was tucked into his scarf tightly wrapped around his neck and his study file and books were clutched to his chest as he tried to trap any remaining body heat that he had. Leaves swirled in circular motions in the frosty wind and they seemed as lifeless as his soul. It was his last exam – thank goodness – but the stress of this final one was building up on his shoulders and making it difficult to remain calm.

As he got closer to the Great Hall, he felt the familiar feeling of safety and calmness wash over him and suddenly he wasn’t so worried about his exam. He felt his shoulders relax as he continued to walk, the tingling became stronger and he let it set his whole body alight and relished in the feeling. The hairs on his arm stood up on end and he let his senses go off. He was becoming accustomed to the feeling and it was something that he wished he could have every second of the day but he had still yet to discover the source and had no way of knowing how to keep it by his side every waking moment. It was his alleviator. It removed the pain and the worry from his bloodstream and it felt like he was finally breathing. It felt like he was finally coming home, it felt like his first drink of happiness.

He continued to walk along the path, the relief the feeling was giving him was indescribable. But as he continued to walk, he could feel a pair of eyes watching him intently. Faulting his steps, he turned to the side and noticed a girl sitting on a bench, her hair was slightly failing in her eyes and he had a strong urge to brush it out of her face. Her lips nervously tucked into each other as they rubbed together and her eyes seemed to glint mischievously when they met his.

He sent her a small wave and a timid smile. He felt his books begin to slips from his hands and he tried to steady them in his hands again, nearly losing his balance as he did so. His heart accelerated as he made a fool of himself while staring back at her and he quickly walked away to stop the furious beating of his heart and the glowing pink of his cheeks.

He had seen her around campus before, she seemed to carry a silence about her. Her ideas and emotions seemed to be non-existent and he couldn’t quite read her. She was always walking around alone and her steps were heavy like they held a world of stories in them, ones that he couldn’t understand or explain. She radiated an air of complicatedness.

He stepped into the warmth of the café, the hot air blowing in his face, making his way to the line to wait to order his food and drink. A familiar head of hair stood in front of him, he felt his heart jump slightly. He was standing so close he could taste her perfume and feel her comforting silence envelop him and calm his pounding heart and busy head.

He anxiously rocked from the balls of his feet to his heels as he contemplated tapping her on the shoulder and introducing himself. He anxiously waited, trying to decide what he should do. Unthinkingly, he rather hardly prodded her in the back and then silently cursed himself for not being gentle feeling like he wanted to kick himself. She turned around to face him with her forehead drawn in a frown but when she saw him her eyes widened a little and she gave what could only be described as a startled smile. Smiling softly back, he awkwardly started the conversation, “Hey, I’m – I’m Peter.” He noticed the way her eyes seemed to be transfixed on his lips as if she was analysing them. It just made pink bloom in his cheeks once again. She could feel the warmth of positivity sweeping off him and let his cinnamon mint scent invade her nose, the cold feeling from the day was alleviated the moment he touched her and although she welcomed it, she wished for the cold to come back, good things come with a price. “I’m Dalila” She hoped her words came out as they were meant to as she could not hear them herself. Peter noticed the way her voice cracked and pitched in certain ways that sounded foreign. It was like she wasn’t used to speaking or how you sound with headphones on and your music too loud.

He grinned back at her, glad he was finally making progress with the foreign and lonely girl of silence. Just as he was about to continue the conversation or properly begin it she turned around with a swish of her hair and began ordering.

After he finished collecting his drink and food he went to find her in the café to maybe talk to her for a bit but he found that she had already disappeared out the door taking her silence with her and allowing the pitching of voices and soft music to echo painstakingly in Peter’s ears. His heart pulsated in pain and he felt like he was finding it difficult to breathe. The weight of cement weighing down on his back and chest. His smile dropped as his eyes continued searching.

Glancing down at his watch he suddenly remembered that he was about to be late for a very important meeting and rushed out of the French café with the word ‘shit’ streaming from his lips. Her presence and the interaction temporarily forgotten

Her back slammed into the door behind her as she loosened her scarf to try and breathe again, the feeling she was drowning never leaving her chest. Tears burned behind her eyes as the intense pressure continued to build and her head felt like it was exploding over and over again. Her knees collapsed as she slips to the floor, gasping breaths leaving her lungs and she tries to breathe, even just the smallest amount of oxygen to stop the pounding pain in her chest and head. She knew something was wrong, the moment the cold lifted. Everything comes with a price. That’s the first rule. This was her price. Her moment of relief, her moment of calm and warmth in comparison to the chaos and cold was brought with her shallow breaths and the brief moment of death seeping into her vision and warning her of one thing, she was here to serve and she was nothing but worthless if she did not.

As tears flew from her eyes she clawed at her useless ears trying to block it all out. Her eyes squeezed shut as the emotions of the world pushed their way into her head and being. Begging to be seen – begging to be heard.

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