#these are the things that spin around in my tiny skull

[luminarai]

I’m actively feeling like a caricature of woman from a 90s comedy because I just spent half an hour trying and discarding outfits, ending up with a bedroom covered in clothing, still feeling like I have nothing to wear and everything looks stupid and feels wrong. All because I have an appointment at the hair salon later.

[hannie-dul-set]

줄다리기 / JULDARIGI — one.

SYNOPSIS. the moment you step foot into the neighborhood you’d sought to forget, you find yourself caught in a seven sided tug-of-war with the longings of the past, and the restraints of the present.

FEATURING. seventeen’s yoon jeonghan, nct’s na jaemin, txt’s choi soobin and choi beomgyu, enhypen’s park sunghoon, zb1’s shen quanrui, bnd’s han dongmin. GENRES. drama, suggestive, psychological, yandere reverse harem (yeehaw!!!), college! au, richkid! au. CHAPTER WARNINGS. swearing, arson, child abandonment, obsessive and possessive behavior, ominous vibes overall, but things are still pretty mellow at this point BWAHAHAH.

WORD COUNT. 13.6k TAGLIST. open.

NOTE. my insanity begins. this reads like a very bad soap opera-ish kdrama with all the cliches you can think of, including terrible male leads HAHHAHAHAHAHA. nothing major happens in the chapter, but a lot of teensy tiny hints are being dropped. would love to hear everyone's dissections of my collection of messed up characters. enjoy!!!

MASTERLIST | NEXT >

THERE IS AN AQUARIUM IN THE KIM HOUSEHOLD.

A large, rectangular box in the space where the hallway and living room meet, filled with rocks, driftwood, plants and a multitude of colorful fish, large and small, all drenched in a glaze of cerulean blue. One of the angelfish swims right in front of you, following the direction of your eyes as you scan it from left to right, almost knowing that you’re looking at it by how it slows down the moment it enters your field of vision— watching you in return with its blank stare.

Seeing this reminds you that your home used to have three. One in the foyer. One in the dining room. One on the second floor landing where you used to play house with your friends. You also remember that you had a koi pond in the garden, of which you’d visit every morning and had once nearly fallen into after leaning over the bridge railing too far after trying (and failing) to count the number of fishes swimming and swirling around.

But that was ten years ago. Maybe nine. Now, the only fish you count is the supply of dried pollock you keep in the store for the bugeoguk on the menu.

“Hey, it’s time to bring the deserts in. Quit spacing out.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you grunt, spinning your heels back into the direction of the kitchen. You pull the towel loosely hanging from your right shoulder, following the footsteps of your co-worker into the hallway. It’s funny how things can just suddenly go wrong— how you can have three aquariums and a koi pond and have it all disintegrate into thin air right before your very eyes.

You walk into the large kitchen, a cart full of sweets and cakes and pastries waiting for you to push out into the backyard dining area of the house. The warm lights lining the wraparound porch are reminding you of what you used to have. The sounds of champagne glasses and cutlery clicking and clattering feel like distant but familiar reveries that leave a bitter taste on your throat.

“Oh, I’ve been dying for something sweet.”

Wordlessly, you set the dishes from your cart onto the table, careful to not brush against the handful of people dining on the table. You’re careful. You’re so, so careful yet you can still feel the stares drilling into your skull while you keep your head down, the hushed yet audible whispers that assault your ears the moment you finish serving one person before moving onto the next. It’s more annoying than anything, really. But you can’t let that expression show through your face.

You make the mistake of locking eyes with one of the members of the dinner, however. It’s brief— no longer than three seconds. Yet three seconds was enough for him to recognize you, and for you to detect his recognition. 

There’s nothing but shock and surprise in those eyes of his.

All the deserts have been served. You retreat back into the kitchen with the now empty cart and thank the heavens that you don’t have to come back out there tonight.

“Whew. Rich people chatter way too much.” 

You laugh, looking over at Soonyoung who lets out a tired sigh the moment the kitchen doors close. “Work’s not over. Time to clean up.”

Soonyoung and you met just earlier, yet you’re already trying to trip each other over while carrying stacks of dishes to the washing station. He’s a pretty easy going guy. You two would be good friends, but your shift is nearly done. You don’t have anyone to serve here in the kitchen so you two can mess around as much as you want. “Good work today,” says your catering manager after handing you your salary. “I was unsure when I saw you walk into the kitchen today, but you seem pretty experienced with this line of work.”

You smile, blindly counting the number of bills in your hands. “I’ve been waitressing for a long time.” A hundred-fifty thousand. Right on the dot.

He mirrors your expression. “How about working with us permanently?”

“Ah, sorry. I don’t think my schedule can manage. Call me if ever you need another pair of hands to cover for you, though.”

That was the end of today’s job. One of your friends, Seungkwan, called you earlier saying that he had a part-time opportunity for you— working as a server for a catered private family dinner in Pyeongchang-dong, Westwind Crossings. It’s bound to pay well, and you weren’t wrong after earning much more than your daily wage at the diner.

You pack up your things, leaving your apron behind before sneaking off to one of the servant hallways that the head maid showed you earlier. The Kim’s don’t want to see their workers in the same space as they regularly cross, apparently. You grunt and pick up your pace, only to get caught in the mess of corners and turns. Wait, did you have to go left this time or right? Gosh, big houses are so confusing. This is just making you appreciate your cramped home in downtown Seoul even more.

Biting the bullet, you turn left, and what emerges from the other end of the hall isn’t the exit at the side of their house, but what appears to be a lounge area. It had been roughly thirty minutes since the dinner ended. A knot begins to form in your temples the moment three pairs of eyes land on yours.

Shit. This is gonna get annoying. You quickly snap your head back and start to book it, but your feet stutter at the first step.

Your name is called out. God damn it, you really didn’t want to deal with this.

“I knew it!” one of them exclaims. Kim Haera. The eldest daughter of the household and, well, an acquaintance of yours. Former acquaintance really, since the last time you’ve seen here was eight fucking years ago. “Holy shit, the rumors are true! I didn’t want to believe it, but here you are!”

You bite your tongue. You ignore her and start walking again, but you hear a pair of footsteps quickly catching up to your direction and you’re pulled back by the arm, eyes widening, now face-to-face with Kim Haera’s bright and curious eyes. There’s a smile on her face. A big one, like she can’t contain it. “Hey, don’t just run off. We haven’t seen each other in years. C’mon, let’s talk and catch up. I’m dying to know what happened to you.”

From what you can remember, Kim Haera has always been a bit of a bitch. Looks like the years failed to fix her nasty personality.

Haera tugs you out of the tunnel, inside the lounge with three people you’d prefer not be around. “Guys! Do you remember her? Stupid question, of fucking course you do, we used to be over at their place all the time.” Then she abruptly stops, causing you to stumble a little. She turns to you, a snide expression of her face, and the knot in your head tightens. “Well. That was until things went to shit with your family eight years ago, right?”

Your jaw clenches. You manage your breaths. You remember her being awful, but it was never directed to you because she always used to follow you around. To talk shit about everyone in your circle with you listening to make herself seem better than everyone else. Because it was your home that everyone used to frequent. Because it was your family that used to host these dinners, these gatherings, these whatevers.

No, you don’t envy the house you’re standing in right now. You’re just mad that you can’t say anything back because you still want the fucking catering company to give you a call in the future.

“Well, say something.”

“Noona,” a voice interrupts. You look and see it’s Kim Donghyun, Haera’s younger brother. The other kid, Lee Sanghyeok, looks like he isn’t even listening to what’s going on— which you’d have preferred over whatever the fuck Haera is doing.  “I think that’s enough.”

Haera ignores him. “Seriously, what happened to you?” she presses on, and you stifle a sigh.

“Mrs Kim disallowed any of the catering staff to enter unauthorized areas and to talk to any of the guests and members of the household,” you finally say with a tight-lipped smile. “I apologize for the intrusion. If you’d excuse me—”

“I’m not done talking to you.” 

You’re yanked back, a strain in your shoulder socket as you stifle down a swear. She looks down on the sleeve she wrinkled— the server uniform you’d been wearing all afternoon to evening, stained-white in color. She breathes out a snicker. 

“You might’ve been used to looking down on me when we were kids, but it looks like things are different now.” Your head hurts. It’s like maturity never befriended her these past ten years. “Now, tell me. Did you just choose to move after your house burnt down? Or did the Choi’s really screw you guys over?”

“Noona!”

“You just disappeared into thin air after that happened,” she remarks. “The least that you could’ve done was give me a heads up that you’re coming back to work here. I could’ve handed you a pretty handsome tip while you were serving the table.”

There’s only so much shit you can take. One more jab, and your patience might just run out. But at that moment, you hear the door to the lounge slide open. Your heart races in panic, fearing it might be one of their parents, but it isn’t.

You’re not sure if the person that just walked it would make this situation better or worse.

“Haera.”

It’s the second time you’ve made eye contact with Na Jaemin tonight. The first two times after ten years and seeing him all grown up is still a huge slap in the face. His hair is bleached, almost white, which is a surprise knowing how uptight his parents are. He called out Haera’s name, but you can tell he’s looking at you. He’s looking at you with the same expression that he wore at the dining room table earlier— shock, surprise— pleasant or otherwise and you can’t really tell, but he quickly brushes it off to the side when Haera lets out a gasp and runs up to him.

“Oppa!” she exclaims. “What are you doing here? Did you come to see me?”

Na Jaemin simply smiles. “Mr and Mrs Heo are about to make their leave. Your parents want you to see them out.” 

Seeing the disappointment in her face is almost funny. Haera lets out a groan. “Donghyun, let’s go.” And her brother scuttles along with her too, giving you a single hesitant glance before turning away. This is your cue to leave. You quickly turn again, facing the open mouth of the servant hallway just as you hear Na Jaemin’s voice echo in the room again.

“Sanghyeok, you too. Jiyeon refuses to leave until she gets to see you.”

Huh. You don’t remember seeing Heo Jiyeon at the dinner table. You want to push forward, yet again you feel a familiar stare drilling into the back of your skull, so you take a peek over your shoulder. You see Lee Sanghyeok let out a tired grunt and forces himself off the couch, muttering a thank you to Jaemin before leaving the room as well, but the latter stays. 

He’s looking at you again. You can practically see the cloud of words floating above his head as tries to come up with an appropriate thing to say. It’s not like he can ignore you at this point. He’s been looking at you too much for it to slither under your notice.

Then, after much thought, he finally comes up with something to say.

“Do you know the way out?”

You pause. That’s interesting. No re-introductions. No musings of how he didn’t expect to ever see you again. No gripe about how low you’ve plummeted since he last saw you.

“No,” you reply. He makes his first steps towards you— past you, leading you through the intricacies of the servant tunnels, and before you know it, you’re outside just in the time for the sun to set, and Na Jaemin is looking at you again like he has so many things to say, but decides to say just one thing instead.

“I’ll walk you out the subdivision.”

Once more, you pause and think. What does he want? Is he stretching his time with you to get you to say something? To dig into why you left this neighborhood and how you ended up back here ten years later as a different person, just like Kim Haera? You can’t get a read on him. You never could, not ever since you were kids and first introduced to each other. As someone you should get close to. As someone who’d be a good match for you.

He’s still the same as ever. His face is still pretty. And he still stands an arms length away from you— never too close, and never too far.

“Na Jaemin,” you start. “I can still remember the directions and streets and twists and turns of Westwind. You don’t have to. It’s fine.” You finish it off with a smile on your face, albeit somewhat forced. 

“It’s getting late,” he responds, practiced and polite, and you almost laugh. “I should at least make sure you make it your ride home.”

“Well. Alright,” you finally say, and like earlier he brushes past you, a little ahead of you, and you start walking in rhythm down the familiar streets of the neighborhood. Much to your surprise, he’s quiet. It’s been a few minutes since the Kim’s house has gone out of sight, but he hasn’t started prying yet. Then again, you don’t remember him being as much of a snob as Haera. In your memories, Na Jaemin has always been quiet and polite— smiling when he needs to, talking when he needs to. He never does anything more than necessary. 

At least to you. He’s a little different when he’s around his friends. With the Lees, who live just a block away. He smiles more with them than when he does with you. Then again, you two aren’t exactly friends nor strangers, but it isn’t fair to just call him an acquaintance.

Na Jaemin notices you drilling holes into the side of his face and stops walking. It’s payback from earlier. He’s waiting for you to talk. So you do. 

“Aren’t you gonna ask?” 

This catches him off guard. Your mouth twitches. It’s barely a smile.

“Like, oh my god, what the hell happened to you, you used to be the most privileged rich kid in the neighborhood— why are you serving tables and letting Kim Haera spit on your face?” you rattle on, taking one step and more and this time it’s you taking the lead ahead. You spin your heels, walking backwards with your hands tucked behind your back. Na Jaemin looks like he’d been exposed. You laugh and turn back to face the right side of the road. “I know you’re curious. You’ve been looking at me like you want to pick apart my brain since I first intruded into your dinner.”

“Would you answer?” he says gruffly, trying to match your pace, but he can’t quite keep up with the bounce in your step as you near the exit of the subdivision.

“If you ask nicely,” you hum. “Considering our history, I think you deserve to know. More than Kim Haera at the very least.” 

This prompts a huff from him, close to a laugh. You smile. “I remember the fire that occurred, and you and your family left the neighborhood not long after,” Na Jaemin finally starts. “I thought you’d just left while waiting for your house to get repaired, but a few weeks passed and your home was still in the same state.”

You’ve reached the outside of the neighborhood, past the toll gate, and much to your surprise, Na Jaemin is still walking with you. He’s managed to overtake your lead, headed towards the bus stop. 

“When I asked my parents about what happened, the only thing they said is that you had a stroke of bad luck and I shouldn’t concern myself with you again.” Na Jaemin turns around, stopping underneath the waiting shed outside the premises of Westwind. You remember being in this same spot with him a few times before, but the shed is smaller than you remember. Or maybe you two just grew taller. 

He’s still bad at asking for what he wants though. He’s looking at you patiently to answer his unasked question. You relent, looking up at the slowly darkening sky. 

“A stroke of bad luck seems just about right.”

Your mother comes from old money, and your father not quite. He was upper-middle class at most, and her family didn’t approve of him. They were already pressuring her to break up while they were still dating, and eloping with him didn’t elicit a great reaction. She got cut off. At the very least she kept the house you, your parents, and grandfather had formerly lived in under her name, as well as a trust fund that still ensured her a more than comfortable rest of her life. Your father didn’t slack either. He managed to build himself up with two of his friends by investing and starting a finance firm.

It didn’t take long for your family’s wealth to grow, and by the time you were born, you were already handed a silver spoon.

But things go wrong just as quickly as they go right.

Your grandfather had a gambling addiction. The only reason why you found out about it is the yelling you’d overheard from your dad’s study every week. That enough wouldn’t be enough to squander off all your wealth, but it was the first domino that caused everything to collapse. Not long after, your father got betrayed by his business partners. You didn’t know the details since you were only fourteen when it happened, but you knew well enough to understand that your picture perfect life had started to crumple.

The dinners your family hosts every week suddenly stopped. Your household had to retrench, downsizing the number of workers, maids, gardeners, cooks, drivers and you started catching the bus to and from school. 

Perhaps some of the employees that got laid off grew resentful. Their resentment came in the form of being woken up in the middle of the night by your mother. You still vividly remember every beat of the scene— the warm and arid air, the smell of something suffocating, and the unusual bursts of light pouring from the outside. From the garden. And then your mother practically dragged your small frame out of the room, down the stairs, until you finally reached outside where you saw black smoke replacing the clouds in the sky, and the sound of sirens quickly growing louder and louder by the second.

“I don’t even know why I’m telling you all this.” You and Na Jaemin are now sitting on the bench under the shed, waiting for your bus to arrive. “I guess coming back to this neighborhood again reminded me that I’m still bitter.”

You flit your eyes up, trying to gauge Jaemin’s expression, but of course he’s still impossible to read. Is it sympathy? Pity? Derision? You have no idea.

“Haera was dying to find out how my life got royally screwed over,” you let out with a stretch. The aftermath of working for five hours is starting to hit. You’re gonna have a cold shower once you get home. “Feel free to spread the news like wildfire because I’m pretty sure the other kids want to know, too. Might as well make a novel out of it.”

The headlights of a bus come into sight. It stops briefly on the side of the road before you. Then it passes by with the hum of the engine.

“What makes you think I’m the type to gossip?” he asks. You don’t even catch a single ounce of offense from his tone.

“I don’t know,” you reply. “We never really talked much.”

Jaemin releases something short of a laugh. “That’s true.” Then a pause. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

“Why would you be? It’s not like it’s your or your family’s fault,” you say. “I’m pretty happy with my life right now. Got into uni with a full-ride scholarship and I just made a hundred thousand in one day. I’m pretty sure a nice and warm meal is waiting for me when I get home too.”

He hums. “Where do you study?”

“KSU,” you reply. “You? I remember you’ve been preparing for med school since elementary, so I’m guessing NCIT?”

“You seem to know your universities well,” he quips. “And I’m surprised you even know of that.”

“Of course. You were practically my de facto fiancee from when I was nine to twelve. My parents make it a habit to advertise you over dinner without fail. Everything I know about you is against my will, Jaemin.” You joke, laughing. The corners of Na Jaemin’s mouth twitches upwards too, a little flustered when his head turns down a little, and you can see the length of his eyelashes hovering above his cheeks. “To be honest, I really thought we’d end up getting married with how much our families kept pushing us together. But I guess it’s another funny swing of fate that my circumstances made sure that neither of us would fall into an arranged marriage.”

It’s official. You simply aren’t equipped to understand the makings of Na Jaemin’s head based solely on his expressions. He’s stopped looking down, eyes directed at you with a gravity that nearly overwhelms and you want to ask what? Why are you looking at me like that? What exactly do you want to know and why can’t you just say it?

Still, you keep those questions locked in your throat because another bus approaches, and the sky is now more black than orange. Maybe you shouldn’t let this one pass by.

“Anyway, thanks for walking me out and waiting with me, Jaemin,” you say as you ready to stand up, dusting your trousers and your already stained white shirt. “And thanks for, you know, being a decent fucking person.”

The bus comes closer. You take this as a signal to leave and bid this neighborhood goodbye— maybe for good this time— but right before the bus makes a screeching halt before the waiting shed, your steps stagger from the sound of Na Jaemin’s voice behind you.

“Do you miss it?” 

You pause. You look over your shoulder and see Jaemin standing underneath the shade. The streetlight nearby flickers on. It illuminates the right side of his face.

“The life you had before,” he says. “Do you want to get it back?”

Regardless, it’s still impossible to decipher his expression, to figure out what he wants and what he means.

You hear the bus pull over, the sound of the door exhausting open. You give Na Jaemin one last smile before turning around, getting on the vehicle without a reply, and he doesn’t stop you to hear one.

*

“Shhh! Your footsteps are too loud, you’re gonna wake her up!”

“Isn’t that what we’re here for? To wake her up?”

“Yeah, but that’s no fun. Let’s scare her awake.”

“Uh, no thanks? I don’t want to get punched in the face.”

“Just let her sleep, she must be tired.”

“Booo, you’re two are so lame.”

For a second, you thought your friends had managed to pry themselves into your dreams, disturbing your sleep in the most inelegant way possible. Then you realize that their voices sound a lot more vivid, a lot closer than you thought. Like they’re in the room with you right now. So when you groan and peel your eyes open— indeed, lo and behold, here they are: Jay Park, Jake Shim, and Park Sunghoon in the flesh.

Jake is frozen and hovering above you like he’d just been caught committing theft. Sunghoon is trying to pull him away from your mattress. Jay is by the doorstep, pretending like he has nothing to do with this and immediately spinning his body one-eighty the moment you meet eyes.

You squint at Jake. He flinches back. “O—oh, you’re awake, haha.” 

Sunghoon successfully shovels Jake away. “Did we wake you?” he asks, replacing the latter’s spot on the left side of your mattress. 

There’s a guilty look on his face. You make it worse when you respond with, “What do you think?” propping yourself up with your elbows because you don’t particularly enjoy being looked down on. 

“Hey, your mom gave us permission to drag you out of bed,” interjects Jake. “Get up and get ready. Today’s the opening festival. You promised you’d attend this year!”

“I promised to watch Hee perform,” you correct. “He’s not gonna be on stage until the afternoon. Let me enjoy my morning off, you home invaders.” That was your ending statement before burying yourself into your pillow again, turning your back to the boys and then you hear Jay’s footsteps finally joining in the party.

“It is the afternoon,” he informs.

You jolt. Jay is now squatting at the foot of your mattress. “Shit, really?” 

He snorts. “Go check.”

Your hands scramble for your phone that you remember you left charging on the floor nearby somewhere. Sunghoon finds it before you. He pulls it out of the socket and hands it to you, and you confirm that it is in fact the afternoon. One-thirty, to be exact. You mutter a swear. “Fuck.” You nearly trip over your blanket when you stumble out of bed, promptly banishing the three of them to the downstairs diner while you get ready.

“Mom, you should make these idiots pay for their meals.” 

That’s the first thing you announce while running down the stairs, knowing full well that those three are already helping themselves to some gukbap and kimchi, and they don’t disappoint. Jake pops his head up from the table, cheeks puffed up and beckoning you over like this isn’t your family’s own restaurant. “Come get yours, dear,” your mother calls out from the kitchen, emerging with your own bowl of rice soup, and you quickly pad over to take it from her. 

“Seriously,” you start, moving over to the table, slotting yourself into the empty seat next to Sunghoon and in front of Jay. “We can open up a new branch if you total the amount they’ve been leeching for the past two years.”

You set your meal down with a clatter. Park Sunghoon stops eating at your declaration. His spoon hovers five centimeters away from his open mouth.

“Hoon, I’m joking.” Your hand lands on his wrist. You lead the spoon into his mouth and shut his jaw. “Eat up. You look like you’ve lost weight recently.”

“I only eat well when I’m eating auntie’s food,” he retorts, muffled, and takes another spoonful for himself. Sneaky guy probably noticed that your mom was coming over to earn a few points from her. Which works, because your mom looks extra happy when she presses her hands on the edge of the table, watching the four of you eat with eyes glazed in satisfaction. Your eyes flit down to her hands— rough and calloused with a band aid and a wedding ring wrapped on the fourth finger. 

“You know, you kids are welcome here any time, right?”

It’s been three weeks since your last visit to Westwind. At the Kim’s. But Na Jaemin’s parting question seems to find its way into your mind whenever you let your thoughts drift for too long.

Do you miss it?

This bite is suddenly hard to swallow. You set your chopsticks down with a clang.

“Where’s dad?” 

Your mom looks over to you, cutting her conversation short with Jay. “Making a delivery,” she replies. A huff escapes your throat. 

“Don’t you think it’s about time we hire part-timers?”

Jake sees this as an opportunity. You can literally see his eyes sparkle. “Auntie, hire me!” The table shakes. “Ow!” You snap your head to Sunghoon, who’s feigning innocence with his meal while Jake gives him the what gives? face. 

“We can still manage the store by ourselves,” your mother argues. “And Jungwoo and Jeonghan come by sometimes to help when you’re not around.”

“You should call us if you need any extra hand, auntie,” Sunghoon says. “Our schedule is pretty lenient this semester.”

“What do you mean lenient, we have four major—”

Sunghoon also cuts Jay off with an under the table kick and a smile. You mom laughs. “I appreciate the sentiments, but you kids should focus on your studies.”

You open your mouth to retort, but she ultimately shushes you and says she needs to organize some things in the kitchen. “Hey, finish your food,” Jay scolds, pushing your bowl closer to you. You stick your tongue out and pick up your spoon again. “I think we need to head out in fifteen minutes. Jungwon texted that the field is already getting crowded.”

The four of you finish your meals. Gukbap has been your diner’s specialty ever since your mom mastered how to cook it after countless trial and errors. It wasn’t easy adjusting from having ready to eat meals the moment you sit on the dinner table to having to curate your own menu just to make a living. After the losses your family incurred, you had to scrape up whatever you had left and moved to an affordable place in downtown Seoul. Both your parents had to start working, and it was your grandfather that always greeted you the moment  you returned home from school. 

However, when he passed away, the three of you moved to a new place that’s smaller and bigger at the same time— a two-storey building that you rented out to serve as a diner downstairs and a home at the top. You exit through the fogged doors with the sound of a jingle, stopping to turn around and follow the building’s height. It’s not too tall, wedged between two other rental spaces. A hair salon on the right. A computer shop on the left.

The life you had before.

Once again, Na Jaemin’s voice echoes in your ears. 

Do you want to get it back?

You see the blur of Sunghoon’s mouth move, but you don’t hear anything. You blink. A car zooms by. A flock of birds flutter away. You clear your throat, refocusing your gaze on your friend. “Sorry, what was that?”

His eyes are fixed on you, brows slightly knitted. “Nothing.” he mumbles. “You have something on your face.”

You flinch a little when Sunghoon suddenly brings a hand to your cheekbone, eyelids blinking rapidly in surprise as his thumb and index finger brush lightly against your skin, revealing a barely visible eyelash strand when he pulls his hand away. There’s a subtle smile on his face when his gaze lingers on the stray lash before glancing at you.

“Make a wish,” he jokes. You scoff, rolling your eyes with a grin.

“Hey, put the PDA on hold. We have a bus to catch,” Jay interrupts. Sunghoon clicks his tongue in response. He flicks the lash away and stuffs his free hand into a jacket pocket, extending his other arm behind you to hook around your shoulders, and your feet skid against the ground as you bump into him.

It’s nothing that catches you off guard nor surprised. The four of you are walking to the bus stop, yet it isn’t just the four of you occupying the neighborhood. It’s early afternoon. The sidewalks and streets are busy. Park Sunghoon has the habit of pulling you as close to him as physically possible. A middle-aged man in a suit approaches from the opposite direction, you in his line of collision, and Sunghoon quickly steps to the side and pulls you closer to evade the fast approaching businessman, who was way too caught up in his call over the phone to pay you any mind. 

The gesture is impossible not to notice— Jake and Jay included, but they never say anything about it. Neither do you. Neither does Sunghoon.

Your bus arrives. All seats are taken. Any space you once had to breathe diminishes to nonexistence as you try and balance yourself amidst the standing crowd. “You okay?” Sunghoon’s voice is a mere whisper reserved for you to hear. You’re standing in front of him, arms glued to your body because you lost the opportunity to grab the handgrip before you got squeezed stuck by the rush of passengers flooding in.

“Never better,” you let out a strained laugh. Sunghoon frowns a little. The bus rattles. He presses a firm hold against your back before you could even stumble. You notice his gaze flicker into a glare, jaw clenched and pointed at the stranger near you who’s unintentionally digging his elbow into your shoulder blade. You clear your throat, catching his and the other two’s attention. “Park Jongseong, what’s the purpose of your car if you don’t even use it? We would’ve been sitting comfortably and moving faster by now. What a waste of an investment.”

That was half a joke, half not really. Your commutes to campus are always a grueling one-hour experience. Jay narrows his eyes at you, unamused. “You guys keep abusing my vehicle rights. Don’t you know how exhausting it is to drive all of you home all the time?”

“With great power comes great responsibility,” Jake jives in. You nod solemnly. Jay’s mouth hangs open. He looks at Sunghoon for backup but the poor guy is simply ignored.

“Imagine all the time and money we’d save if you were more charitable,” you continue. “Hoon, don’t you agree?”

Park Sunghoon doesn’t give you the answer you’re looking for. “Should I get a license?” he instead asks. You blink at him. He blinks back. 

“Will you drive me to campus every day?” you hum, smiling in jest. 

“I’ll take you anywhere you want,” is his answer. His gaze has softened. You hear Jake cough from next to you. Jay gives up his retaliation. The bus halts. Everyone leans to the back and you’re reminded by Sunghoon’s firm hold. He presses you into him closer if it’s even possible, if there’s even any space left between you to swallow— and if there is, you don’t see nor feel it. The only thing you feel is the heat emanating from his skin that’s seeping into yours.

A few bodies finally get down from the vehicle. You breathe. You take a step away and grab onto the now vacant handgrip closest to you. Sunghoon’s hold loosens, but his fingers still linger on the curve of your spine. It stays there until you arrive at your stop right across the street from the campus gates. From the bus windows alone, you can already see the staggering amount of people flooding inside. 

It gets worse the moment you actually step foot on campus. The first person you lock eyes with— Kim Taerae, welcoming committee since last year— hits you in the face with his business-smile, wide and tight and brimming with sweetness. “Hey, traitor. How dare you show your face here?”

The student council also asked you to be part of the committee. Of course you fucking said no. “Aren’t you gonna welcome me in?” you jab. Taerae’s smile twitches, but a group of actual freshmen walk in and he’s forced to start his welcoming protocol.

Even after getting off the bus, Park Sunghoon is no less closer. You say goodbye to Taerae and greet Seok Matthew, who’s wearing the university fox mascot (which arguably looks like a fursuit, but you digress), with a wave and a camera pointed at him, and Sunghoon maintains a steady hold on your arm as you navigate further into campus grounds.

“Later, Matthew!”

“See you around!”

Yet your path towards the field next to the courtyard keeps getting interrupted. 

Every now and again, you’re stopped by a familiar face to exchange greetings. This is why you don’t usually attend university events and festivals. On normal days, people usually stick to their class and extracurricular schedules. But on days like these, everyone is out and about. Meaning, your chances of bumping into someone you know is one in twenty. Renjun from the astronomy club passes by with a hello. Chaewon from one of your electives stops you and tells you to visit their department booth later in the evening.

“Let’s catch a meal sometime!”

Honestly, you’re used to it. Ever since you were a kid, you’ve been conditioned to deal with people and manage your web of relationships in order to seamlessly fit into the ‘elite’ social scene. Every party, every dinner, every event, you’re introduced to a new acquaintance, new same-faced adult, new person to the point where you had to dedicate an entire space inside your brain just dedicated to the faces and names you needed to keep track of.

The space was made up of rows and rows of filing cabinets, sorted according to the people most important to you, the people you may or may not meet again in the future, the people you resent. The son of the neighbors across the block. The daughter of the lawyer that you used to sit in silence with. The kid you met over vacation who always seemed to be crying. The countless adults who’d compliment you for being so well-mannered, so pleasant, so sociable even as a child. 

But at some point it gets overwhelming. And when your life turned upside down, you stopped seeing a point in maintaining all these relationships. The cabinets were left unopened, catching dust and cobwebs in that one corner in your brain. That was until a senior of yours back in high school gave you some advice. Something you’d held onto until today.

This is why you shouldn't push people away, he had once told you. Don’t you think it'd be better if you let your thoughts out instead of getting drowned by them?

And that was when the filing cabinets started to get filled again. The classmate you surprisingly shared a lot of interests with. The teacher who helped you with your college applications back in high school. The junior from high school who always kept picking fights with everyone. And the four current friends you have from your year and major, who had somehow wiggled themselves into the near barren drawer saved for the people that mean the most to you, in spite of all the space available underneath.

“Hee texted,” you announce, holding up your phone. Sunghoon nudges his face closer over your shoulder to take a peek. “There’s a delay in the program. They won’t be up for another thirty, forty minutes.” The three expectedly groan in annoyance. You are also annoyed. You could’ve slept in a bit more had you known about the delay, but you quickly swallow down any displeasure from your expression because you spot yet another familiar face amidst the crowd. One of your classmates from a general education. It’d be rude not to say hi. “Hyeju!” you call out. 

She spins around, annoyed surprise brightening into a more pleasant expression upon recognizing you. “Oh, hey! How was your break?”

“Nonexistent,” is your very eloquent reply, smiling. Hyeju laughs in sympathy. “Did you see who our prof for the semester will be? Jesus, I’m already predicting dread for the next five months of— whoa!” Suddenly, you’re nabbed and spun around and all you can see is a whir. Click, you hear while your vision is still wobbly, and when your gaze refocuses, you recognize the culprit with the camera in hand, and your forehead wrinkles. “Seonbae, what the fuck?”

Kim Mingyu lowers down his camera to reveal a widely grinning face. “Smile. I need a pretty face for the news update.”

Hyeju taps your arm to inform you she’s leaving. You look at Mingyu, arms crossed and unamused. “Where’s my appearance fee?”

“I’ll buy you coffee,” he responds, signaling to your other three friends (that you momentarily forgot about) to join in the picture as well. You relent with a sigh, beckoning them to come over. Jake hops over and asks if he’s getting coffee as well. Jay wordlessly strides over and puts up a peace sign behind your head. Sunghoon wedges himself between you and Jake and throws an arm over your shoulder. These guys are so overbearing. Mingyu counts from three with his fingers. The camera clicks. He shoots you a grin with a thumbs up. “Thanks. Love you!”

That guy is also a handful. Your sigh is heard by the three of them. “Is this why you hate attending festivals?” muses Jay.

“The woes of being a wanted woman,” you lament. Jake snorts at your woes. You elbow him in the rib.

“You’re so full of yourself.” Jay rolls his eyes, and that’s when he sees something from his peripheral. “Looks like you’ve got another friend, Miss Wanted.”

You follow his eyes and your gaze stops at an approaching Park Gunwook. His jog slows to a walk once he’s within your earshot. “Oh my god, just the person I wanted to see,” your junior starts. Well, that’s never a good conversation starter. “Seonbae, are you busy? Do you mind lending us a hand?”

Exactly as you feared. “What for?” you ask with preemptive exhaustion.

“Our booth sign,” he explains. “Kwan-hyung disappeared. He was supposed to be the one to— ack. Nevermind. Can you help? You’ve done calligraphy before, right?”

The time you take to think about Gunwook’s request coincides with the amount of time Gunwook is sweating in nervous, hopeful anticipation. He’s giving you puppy eyes, respectfulll offering up the marker with both palms open like he’s offering it up for the heavens. You sigh again and take the marker from him. “You three go look for a spot. Call me when Hee’s about to perform.”

Jake simply laughs at your misery. Jay is the only decent one enough to give you a response. “Sure, no problem.” The two already start walking, but Sunghoon is lagging behind. You give him a smile and wave off. “Sunghoon, let’s go,” Jay nudges him. He relents with a grunt and tells you not to go off on your own for too long.

Now, with three men gone, you thought you’d finally get some breathing room.

Unfortunately for you, doing a favor for one cute junior also means doing favors for all of your cute juniors. And you’ve collected many cute juniors in the three years you’ve wasted away in this university. You thought Gunwook’s sign was the end of it. “Noona!” you hear from your left, and it’s Jungwon and Sunoo trailing behind him. “Can you write ours too? Sunoo-hyung’s handwriting is so bad.”

“It’s not! What I made wasn’t even half bad!”

Why exactly are you peers making the second years and freshmen take care of the booth shit? These kids are supposed to be the ones enjoying the festival right now, for fuck’s sake. You’re in the middle of angrily scribbling onto a piece of chipboard when a classmate of yours enters your line of sight. These useless seniors. If they don’t want to work, might as well not show up, like what you’ve been doing for the past semesters.

“Noona!”

“Hold on.”

“Seonbae—”

“Your sign is on the chair over there, Gunwook.”

“Thank you, I love you, you’re the best.”

“Noona, ours too!”

“Sure, give me a second—”

“Noona.” 

“Yes?” Admittedly, you’re getting quite annoyed, but you don’t want to misdirect your attitude towards these poor kids who just got work tossed to them. “What is it?” you ask without looking up from the current sign post you’re working on— a free hugs sign for the physical education majors— hunched over on a low stool. You assume it’s just another one of the dozens of kids asking you to write a sign, but you’re surprised to feel a tug on your shirt.

You sit straight and turn around. You’re met by a face that you don’t remember seeing before. Sharp features. Dark hair. A little lengthy to the point that the framing strands touch his lashes. A mole under his eye— and the irises seem glassy. Your brows furrow. Who’s this? Is he a freshman? He doesn’t seem familiar at all.

“Noona,” he repeats. But the way he pronounces the honorific is. The soft cadence, the gentle pitch. The way the syllables roll off his tongue triggers a fuzzy sense of familiarity in you. Yet your attempt at reminiscence is ruined when you feel him grab your shoulders and jerk you forward, dropping the sign you’d been working on in the process and nearly stumbling off your seat. But you don’t. Because you’re suddenly caught in a suffocating embrace by someone you can’t quite tell if he’s a stranger or not. Your eyes widen. His frame is swallowing you whole. “It’s really you. I thought I was seeing things. It’s you. I missed you.”

“Excuse me? What are you—”

A familiar scent hits you. The ocean. The sea. A breeze on the shoreline brushing your hair off of your cheeks, and the wind of nostalgia disappears the moment the strange guy’s trembling grip starts to loosen as he pulls away, taking the scent of the sea away with him. His eyes are frantic— almost like he’s looking for something in the confused wrinkle of your expression. “Don’t you remember me?” he says. He looks like he’s about to cry. And that’s when it hits you.

“Oh— oh!” 

A distant summer when you were twelve. Before everything in your life got washed up by the waves.

On vacation you found a boy underneath a coconut tree on the far side of the rocky shore— a far too dangerous place for two children, yet you were interrupted from your seashell hunting by the sound of someone crying amidst the crashing waves. 

“Ricky! Ricky Shen! Oh my god, is it you?”

He was the boy you found that day, sobbing because he got separated from his parents during a vacation abroad. When he looked up at you with big eyes stained red by countless tears, you immediately took his hand and traversed the rocky path to take him back to your father for some help. 

It took you a while to understand his situation. You didn’t speak the same language. However, throughout his stay with you while waiting for his parents to return, you were able to teach him a few words and phrases.

“Noona.” That was one of them— spoken in the same tone he’d always used even when he was a kid. “I thought I’d never see you again.” That phrase wasn’t any of what you taught him. He’s gotten better, but isn’t…this sentiment a bit much? You’re happy to see him well and alive, but if you remember correctly, he only stayed with your family for around a week, and that doesn’t warrant such an intense reunion, so you’re a bit taken aback.

Yet you also consider that he was a kid back then— a kid who got lost in a foreign country who thought he’d never come home again. To you, it was just another week. To him, that another week stuck with him more than you could even begin to understand.

You want to ask him a bit more, like how did he end up here again, why is at your uni, how long until he has to go back—

“Seonbae!” 

—but you lose the chance when you’re interrupted by another one of your juniors. Kim Gyuvin runs up to you in a hurry. You duck down and pick up the chip board you dropped earlier. “Here’s your sign, you knucklehead,” you say, handing it over to him. Gyuvin happily takes it from you and stretches out his arms to read it.

“Oh, thank you!” he says. “But, ah, wait. Right. Someone’s looking for you. I told him to wait by our booth over there.”

“My god, who is it this time?” you grunt. No matter how life fucks you over and turns itself upside down, the amount of people that require your attention just can’t seem to decrease. The filing cabinets in your head can only take so many names. You hop off the stool, ready to leave, before remembering. “Ricky, can you wait for me here? I’ll be back in a sec.”

You start moving but your arm lags behind. You turn to see Ricky still holding onto the sleeve of your shirt, and really— he’s never changed. He might’ve gotten taller, might’ve gotten prettier, but he’s still as cute and clingy as you remember. The one week he spent at yours, the kid would tail you around like a lost kitten all the time.

“Let’s talk more later.” Smiling, you place a hand over his knuckles, and let his loose grip fall completely. He looks like he wants to say something, but he resigns by just nodding instead. “Gyub, where did you say they were?”

“At our booth! Come buy something from us while you’re at it.”

This kid thinks he can extort you. You head off to their booth and check your phone along the way, and you find a missed call and a text from Sunghoon asking where you are. HRM majors booth. Is Heeseung about to go up yet? you reply. Pocketing your phone, you hurry to your destination, squeezing through the barrage of bodies because if Hee is indeed about to perform soon, then you better hurry your ass up, else he’d get mad at you for being ‘such an unsupportive friend.’ His words. You’d rather not have anything that could be used against you.

When you reach the booth, you realize that you have no idea who exactly you’re supposed to be looking for and should’ve asked Gyuvin for a name or description or something. You look around, trying to find someone you know, but in the middle of your search, you feel something…soft drop on your head, falling over your eyes and obscuring your vision. 

The hell? You whip your head around blindly, annoyed. Then you hear a laugh. And you quickly remove the object obscuring your face to make sure that you’d just heard that correctly.

Your annoyance quickly disappears into pleasant surprise the moment you’re able to see the culprit’s face. He’s smiling pretty generously, you notice— not the held-back half smiles that he’d very also rarely display, but the kind you once called pretty and he told you to shut the fuck up with a prostesting grunt. It’s just one familiar face after another. These reunions never seem to end.

“Taesannie!” 

“Seonbae.”

You want to tease him for the rare occasion that he’s in a good mood, that he isn’t all grumpy and moody, but you want to savor this rare sight of him smiling as much as you can. You pull him in for a hug— which causes him to stiffen a little. He’s uncomfortable and you know it, and you laugh. “I haven’t seen you in ages,” you say with a wide grin, pulling back a bit. “How have you been, idiot? Have you been causing trouble again?”

“I messaged you on IG,” he says, wiggling out of your prison just enough for him to be able to hold your arms above your elbows. “Three months ago. When I got accepted to KSU. You never responded.”

Now, it’s your turn to freeze up. “Oops.” Since graduating high school, you realized you’ve never given him your number. “That’s—that’s my bad. But you know I don’t use social media.”

“I know,” Taesan huffs with a smile. He pulls down your left arm, fingers tracing down your skin until they reach your hand— the hand that removed his cap earlier and he snatches it off from you, fixing it on the top of your head again, gentler this time when he tugs down the visor, just enough for you to keep seeing his face. “That’s why I figured to just look for you myself.”

You feel a bump in your throat.

He’s so tenacious. He’s always been.

You simply laugh and shake your head. “Thanks for being so considerate to your unreliable, unthoughtful, and forgetful senior, Dongmin-ah. I’m glad you didn’t report me to Principal Lee for ghosting you.”

“He retired last year.“ Your face stiffens again. He laughs out loud. He’s been enjoying your mistakes a lot. What a handful. “Anyway, I at the very least hope you haven’t forgotten your promise, seonbae.”

“Promise?” you raise a brow. Crap, did you forget something again? Taesan’s smile disappears the moment you express your lack of remembrance. Your brows furrow, trying your best to recall, but you really don’t remember promising him anything because that’s just not something you would do often just to forget. 

“I got accepted to your university. I’m gonna start going to school with you again from now on,” he says, as if that’s enough to jog your missing memories. “Two years was a long time to wait, seonbae. I really don’t want to wait any longer.”

Your confused eyes try to trace hints from his expression. He did get accepted to KSU. He is going to uni with you now. The ID and lanyard he’s wearing is a proof of that— but so what?

So what, you try and tell yourself. But you know exactly what he’s talking about.

“Seonbae.”

Taesan looks at you expectantly. It’s difficult to meet his gaze. It’s difficult to get yourself out of this all by yourself. So when you feel the presence of someone approaching you from behind, you take the opportunity to whip your head back and see who it is. Yet rather than finding an opening, what greets you is another closed door. It’s Ricky. “Noona,” he calls out. “You said you won’t take long.”

Somehow, you’ve found yourself caught in a troublesome situation. Your balance stumbles a little. It’s Taesan tugging you back by the shoulder, fixing you closer to the ground right in front of him. “Who the hell are you?” He’s not looking at you— he’s looking right past you, straight at Ricky, who isn’t looking at him at all because the weight of the latter’s stare focused right on you is making you feel like you’re being sunk into the ground.

“Noona,” he repeats, ignoring Taesan altogether. “Let’s go look around the festival together.”

This is...very troublesome indeed. You can feel a throb on the right side of your head. The festival. Right. Has Heeseung’s performance started yet? That’s the only reason why you showed up today, anyway. 

Your attempt to pull your phone out of your pocket is blown off by a blunt pressure on your shoulder blade. You look behind to see the hostility in Taesan’s expression scrunching up even further. It’s like you're a mouse caught in between two starving cats. Good god. The only thing you can hope for right now is for someone to swoop in and get you out of here.

And that’s when you hear the sound of your name being called out.

You snap your head to the left to identify your savior. It’s Park Sunghoon with a bitter look on his face. You let out a quiet sigh of relief— but not silent enough to slip past Taesan’s notice.

His gaze flickers down at you. What? What are you going to do? Leave? the glint in his eyes seem to say. He doesn’t look very happy. Neither do the other two men within your premises, and Sunghoon calls out to you again. “Heeseung hyung is about to perform.” A hand around your wrist. Sunghoon pulls you away from Taesan with a firm tug. “Let’s go.”

“Wait, Sunghoon, give me a sec—” You pry yourself out of his hold, patting around your trousers for the marker you used earlier, and calling out Gyuvin from their booth just a few steps away for a piece of scrap paper, on which you scribble down your number. When you look up, it’s fortunate that Ricky and Taesan are still there, albeit not looking too happy. You’re pretty sure the one waiting behind you isn’t amused either with your stalling. “Hey, it was nice seeing you two kids again, but I need to go. Let’s catch up some other time, okay? Here’s my—”

You’re pulled back, the sheet with your number on it slipping past your fingers and brushing through the wind before you could finish your sentence or hand it over to either of them. 

Surprised, your head turns to Sunghoon, who’s dragging you off at an impatient pace. “Hoon,” you try calling out. He leads you into a tight crown. Your shoulders and elbows bump into people you don't know. “Hoonie, you’re grabbing me too tight, hey!”

You tear yourself away from him. You’re in the midst of a crowd in the middle of the courtyard— all jamming to the music from the front, stage lights flashing and flickering and flitting around as it starts to get dark. You look at him, brows knitted together, but bite your tongue from saying anything too rough upon seeing the expression he’s wearing.

The only way you can describe it is that he looks like he’s about to die. 

“Park Sunghoon,” you start, concerned. “What’s wrong?”

Sunghoon doesn’t answer. His eyes leave you when a group of students suddenly come rushing over in the heat of the party, and he closes the space you put in between the both of you by pulling you out of the way of the incoming mob. “Who were they?” he asks. “I know you’re friends with a lot of people, but I’ve never seen those two before. Who were those two?”

Your open palms are pressed against his chest. “One of them, I picked up from the beach when I was a kid.” You use them to push yourself back once the noise from the group has already passed. “The other was a junior in high school. I think they’re both incoming freshmen this year. More importantly, where’s Heeseung? I thought he was about to perform?”

Attempting to look through the large crowd ahead of you, you stretch yourself up with the tips of your toes. “Are you close?” Sunghoon asks again, finding a spot on the small of your back to keep you balanced while you look over his shoulder.  “They acted like they were close with you.”

“I don’t know,” is your only reply. “Hey, Jake and Jay are over there! Heeseung, too! Hoon, let’s go!”

Sunghoon does not pry further. He lets himself get tugged along by you as you fight through the crowd, making it just in time to where Jay and Jake are standing before they could call either of you as Heeseung walks up the stage with a huge smile. Right. This is the only reason why you came here today. Everything else is just secondary— stored up in the back of your mind, behind all of your current priorities.

Which is why the moment Heeseung finishes, you immediately excuse yourself from the other three.

“Already?” Jake whines. “C’mon! We were planning on grabbing drinks after this.”

“You still have your shift at the laundromat, right?” Jay asks. “At least say goodbye to Hee first before leaving.”

“Tell him I’ll send him a long sappy message later!” you shout through the noise. “See you guys tomorrow!”

Before you go, you glance at Sunghoon. He wants to say something, you can tell that much. Your lungs grow heavy. All you want to do is just unload washing machines and wipe the floors and windows clean at Suds right now with your music at full volume. Sunghoon finally settles with a simple, “text us when you get to work.” This elicits a look of surprise from Jake.

“Whoa. You aren’t gonna offer to take her there?”

Sunghoon only grunt. You smile and bid them farewell, and for once, you aren’t stopped or interrupted by anyone, and your walk towards the exit gate off the campus runs smoothly along with the setting of the sun. When you take your first step on the pavement right outside university premises, your phone buzzes to a text. [seonbae. it’s taesan]. Followed by another. [what time do your classes end tomorrow? wanna grab dinner together?]

At least you know they got your note. You balance yourself on the bus ride to your part-time job as you think of a response. Tomorrow. What’s on your schedule, again? You have classes from ten to four, and your lunch break is most likely gonna be spent with the four idiots. Tomorrow’s dinner is already booked, too, and your dinner date might get sulky if you cancel on him again this time.

[Will Friday work? Sorry, I’m booked today, Taesan. But we can have a mini-celebration at the end of the week for your KSU acceptance :) what do you say?].

*

The next morning, when you come down for breakfast, you see your dad wearing a suit.

For a second, you almost completely gloss over it, greeting them a good morning as you walk over the counter for a glass of water. Then you notice he’s not wearing his bike helmet. And when you sniff your nose, you can smell the scent of musky perfume. That’s when you notice.

“Whoa,” you remark, setting your glass down onto the counter. Your mom is helping him fix up his tie. You quickly twirl open your phone to snap this gem of a photo. “What’s the occasion? I don’t recall you having any friends’ whose weddings you can attend.” 

You receive a scolding from your mom and a hearty laugh from your dad. 

“How do you know I don’t have any friends?” he responds with a smile. “C’mon, kiddo. Let’s grab a taxi, I’ll drop you off at your school.”

Even though that doesn’t answer your questions about his plans for today, you neither pry nor push because you know their standard protocol for these things. If they get a catering offer for a big event, you’re the first one they tell. If the electricity bills go up or if a debtor showed up while you’re outside, you wouldn’t even know unless you dig into it, unless you ask a neighbor or a friend or find some evidence they left behind somewhere in the restaurant. 

The entire taxi ride is uncomfortable. Not in any way because of the conversation your father is attempting to strike. But because the car’s air conditioning is making your head spin and nauseous. “Why didn’t your friends come by today, by the way?”

“They were too late in fixing their schedules, so they have a 7 a.m. class today,” you snort, laughing. You sometimes wonder why they even bother coming around so often, considering your place is an hour-long commute to and from campus, and Jay never brings his fucking car around. 

Your dad makes a comment about which one of them is more your type. You hack out a cough and cover your ears to block his amused laughter out.

“Hey, I’m just asking! My only dream is to see you happily married before I die, you know.”

“Change your dream. I don’t want to be the reason if you live an unfulfilled life,” you groan, face burning up. “Hold on. I’m getting a text from Jeonghan-seonbae.”

“He’s a pretty good candidate too.”

“Stop it! Oh my god, you’re the worst.”

You quickly unlock your phone to read the message. [hey, busy bee. just texting to make you’re not canceling our plans again later 🥰🥰]. You’re pretty sure that this is a threat. How many coffees, lunches, drinks, and dinners have you ruined with him because you had a sudden deadline that day, a work opportunity that same evening. He’d always been understanding, but you never fail to feel guilty after all he’s helped you, and you can’t even give him a few hours of your time. [I’m not!!! I’ll see you at Eojetbam, promise 😞].

“You’re seeing him later, right?” your dad asks.

“Yup. He’s treating me to dinner at this fancy restaurant downtown.”

Unlike usual, your father doesn’t make a comment at your subtle bragging. There’s a look on his face that you can’t pinpoint. “That’s nice,” is all he says after a momentary pause. “Ask him to drive you home tonight.”

“There’s no way I’m doing that,” you disagree. “I still have a bit of shame left, you know.”

You reach campus, and attempt to pay half of the taxi meter but your father simply shoo’s you away. With heavy steps and defeated shoulders, you make your way inside the gate and are greeted by Yeojin, your classmate for the first class you have on your schedule, who just happens to arrive at the same time as you after grabbing a coffee from Drip across the street.

“First day of the semester and I’m already tired,” she tells you with a dejected sigh. “On more exciting news— we got new eye candy on campus. My friends from the fashion and design department told me that two cute new freshmen caught everyone’s attention during the orientation. Their building is right next to ours. God, I hope we bump into one of them today. Just the energizer I’d need.”

All you do is laugh at her news while entertaining the faintest idea that you might know who one of those two is. Last night, you’d called Taesan upon getting home to compensate for turning him down. You caught up a bit, exchanged schedules and he told you his major— fashion merchandising, which caught you by surprise. Well, considering it still falls under business, you could believe it a little better.

Anyhow, if he finds out that he’s been crowned as his department’s cute new eye candy as a title, you’re sure he’d be pretty fucking annoyed. And you intend to capitalize on that. More teasing fuel for you.

“Good morning, everyone. Let’s not waste time on introductions and head straight to our course outline.”

What a way to start the semester. You hold back a million yawns while taking some notes of Prof Yang’s overview of the syllabus. Yeojin asks if you want to hit the cafeteria for a snack in between classes. You shoot her a thumbs up and the moment Prof Yang dimisses, you’re both out the door and into the hallway.

“Hey, hurry up!” you call out to her when she stumbles over her undone shoelaces. “The guys from the phys ed department usually flood the canteen at this time, you know. They’re gonna sweep up all our portions.”

“Not on my watch, they won’t.”

You laugh as you walk ahead, your line of sight lagging behind your body because you want to watch more of her struggling to re-tie her laces as quickly as you can. This causes you to not look at where you’re going— and where you’re going is straight into the body of another person, bumping your nose in the process. “Ow!” you exclaim. “Sorry about that!”

“Noona.”

Oh. You pause, looking up to take a good look at your victim of negligence, and it is indeed Ricky Shen. “Ricky!” you greet. “Did you get home safe after the festival last night? How did you know I was here?”

He smiles as a response. You hold back the urge to squish his face between your palms, reminding yourself that he’s not a kid anymore. “I asked around. Turns out our buildings are next to each other, noona.”

That urge isn’t easily suppressed. “Wow!” you exclaim. Your hand somehow finds itself reaching for the fluff of his hair, and Ricky tips his head down in response, allowing you to press light pats on the crown of his head. “Good job. Now you won’t have to worry about getting lost anywhere anymore.” It hits you as an afterthought though— he could’ve just texted you to ask. Why bother asking someone when he could’ve asked you directly. Taesan got your number even amidst the rush, after all. Ricky must’ve too.

“Noona,” Ricky’s voice interrupts your thoughts. “My back is starting to ache a bit.” 

You flinch and snap out of it. “Oh, sorry.��� You retract your hand, pulling it close to your chest. “Force of habit, I guess.” If your recollection serves you right, Ricky was very much shorter than you. He’s two years younger, and in the brief week he’d spent with you in your household, you’d been used to him looking up, trying to communicate with you the best that he can with the help of those big, sparkly eyes of his repeating, ‘Noona. Noona! Can we see the pond again? The koi pond?’

Now, you’re the one looking up at him. And a memory begins to surface.

‘Noona.’ It begins with the usual gentle timbre of his voice. ‘Can’t I just stay here with you forever?”

A laugh from Ricky stirs you back into the present. “I was just joking, I don’t really mind,” he hums, smiling. “You can touch me anywhere you want, noona.” 

Whoa, whoa, whoa— hold on. You manage a stiff smile. Whoever was his vocabulary teacher needs to get a demotion. This kid can be a bit much can he? You brush his comment off. Ricky’s gaze is as patient yet expectant as ever. “Anyhow, I’m off to the canteen with a friend of mine. Yeojin.” You point your thumb back at her. Said friend has been trying to sneak in the opportunity to insert herself into the conversation, but never got the opportunity. “Do you want to join us?”

He nods firmly. You laugh. His over the top-ness aside, Ricky can be painstakingly cute, and it’s taking everything in your power to prevent yourself from treating him the same way that you’d done before.

The cafeteria run only lasted briefly, considering you two still have a class to catch in less than fifteen minutes. After getting a vegetable wrap and Yeojin’s rice bowl, you had to bid Ricky farewell and return to your department building. On the way, right at the moment that you’d left Ricky’s earshot, Yeojin starts freaking the fuck out. “Whoa, what the fuck?! Dude, that was fashion department cutie number two! The one I mentioned earlier!” she shrieks into your ear, shaking you by the arm. “I hear he’s the son of SQR Fashion’s Chairwoman. What the hell? Why is a rich heir like him bowing his head down for your headpats and paying for our snacks?”

“Listen, I’m just as taken aback as you are.” You’ve known about Ricky’s background when his parents came back for him after his one-week missing period. “I met him once when I was like, twelve, and only bumped into him again yesterday. I’m surprised he still remembers me. He’s barely even an acquaintance.”

You’re not lying. You’re happy to see him, but it still puzzles you why Ricky is acting like this.

“How in the world would you have gotten acquainted with someone like him?!”

All you could do is smile and thank the heavens for the interruption in the form of your phone buzzing to an incoming text. It’s from your dad, asking if you’ve eaten yet, and reminding you to go home straight after your dinner with Jeonghan. Yet another display of weird behavior from a man in your life. He never usually texts you, not to mention what had happened earlier this morning. You might get some information from your mother later. You should pack some leftovers to bring home.

You receive another text. It’s a photo from Jay of Sunghoon, arms crossed and falling asleep in class. There’s drool on his face. You cackle and press save. Yeojin tugs you into the classroom. “We’re not late aren’t we?”

“No, not yet.

“Oh, hey!”

“Wow, you’re taking this class, too?”

The rest if your classes end in a flash, considering it’s only syllabus week, so you manage to get off earlier than you’d initially planned. Yeojin had already split up with you since she has other friends to meet. The four idiots are stuck here at uni until six in the evening because they screwed up their schedules for the semester, and you took a day off from your shift at 7-Eleven today because of the dinner you have scheduled.

That means, for the first time in a while, you’re all alone right now. All alone with nothing to do.

Should you pick up some hobbies? you think to yourself as you aimlessly walk through the streets of downtown to kill time. You’ve never really pondered on these things— not that you’ve ever had the privilege to. Picking up something like crocheting would only be a waste of money. It’s not like you have the time to get into a sport, either.

Your feet stop moving right in front of a bookstore. Open, the sign says. You look at the books on display through the glass. The owner smiles at you from inside. You turn your head, and your feet start moving again.

These books can be downloaded online. There’s no need to spend money on physical copies.

“Ah, my life is so boring,” you lament, continuing your mindless stroll. There’s a taiyaki cart in the corner. You buy a few pieces before making a turn, and that’s when you notice something that’s been bugging you since earlier.

When you make a turn around the block, you notice the same black car you’d been seeing since earlier make a turn as well. It’s only a hunch, but you proceed to move forward further into the street, before spinning your heels and going back into the same direction you came.

The car stops in its tracks. It attempts to make a u-turn at the intersection. 

Your hunch is correct. What the hell. You should have never made that remark about your boring life. Quickly, your eyes scan around for an alley you could disappear into, and there you find a narrow opening wedged in between a study cafe and a pharmacy. You push yourself forward before the car could finish its turn— yet the moment your soles stomp into the concealment of brick walls and dusty pavement, you hear the abrupt ringing of your name being called out.

The sound of the voice stirs a rush of nausea from the pits of your stomach. It’s familiar— yet unlike the fondness of seashores that Ricky brought with his, this voice carries the crowbar hitting the latch of all of your pent up emotions for the past decade. 

You’re greeted by the face of the man you’d used to see at every dinner, every gala. Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday emerging from your fathers now burnt down study. Every weekend when you’d come over to visit, asking how was your week with a kind, smiling expression.

“Mr Choi.”

How much more forceful reminiscing do you have to undergo this week? Quite frankly, you’re getting so fucking sick of it.

He repeats your name. The car is left on the road beside the sidewalk. He’d up and left just to talk to you in the middle of this dingy street. “Do you…have a few minutes to spare for a chat?” You bite your tongue. You turn around and ignore him, yet he knows exactly what to do to snag your attention. “I met your father earlier.”

And it clicks. It clicks so well that you can hear the sound echoing in the chambers of your brain. Your dad wore a suit for the first time in forever. His out of character texts to check on you. And here you have the person who ruined his life suddenly showing up for god knows what reason— and you know that if you ask your father, he wouldn’t tell you a single damn thing. You don’t think you can stomach it if your life gets fucked and flipped around again, right under your nose without your knowledge.

“For what?” you ask, voice firm. Mr Choi looks around first, eyes scanning the area before drawling out a hesitant response.

“Let’s…let’s talk in private.”

The next thing you know, you’re sitting in front of this bastard in the private booth of a restaurant your eyes failed to register the name of. There’s a full course meal sitting in front of you— sushi, salad, and a clear broth soup. The ice cubes are melting inside the juice. You feel sick to your stomach and a single bite might cause you to vomit on the spot.

Mr Choi has not touched his meal either. He’s finding his footing to start the conversation. “You should…you should try the soup. I’ve eaten here with my sons before. Do you remember them?” You don’t intend on making it easy for him. He clears his throat when you don’t grace him with a response. “I came looking for you and your father today because I’d like to sincerely apologize for what I’d done to you and your family, sweetheart.”

You hold back a scoff. This is ten years overdue, isn’t it?

“I was—I was blinded by my greed back then. I’m so sorry. Sihyuk had been giving me ideas that your father would eventually buy all of the company’s shares for himself and kick me out of the business, and that we needed to beat him to it before he could.” Mr Choi starts explaining, but to your ears, it’s nothing but listless prattles. “I know your father would never do that, but I was paranoid. And I assumed he’d have the capability to bring himself back on his feet anyway, but I didn’t expect things to turn for the worst when your house employees also turned their backs on you and started a fire on your property.”

“It’s all in the past, sir,” you hum, peeling off a piece of salmon from the platter, lifting it into the air before sending it straight to your tongue. It’s a hard swallow. “Besides, you wouldn’t have been able to treat me with this expensive meal if you didn’t do what you had to, right?”

You stare at him dead in the eye as he shifts uncomfortably. It’s unfortunate that you can’t snap a photo of his discomfort. Mr Choi clears his throat once more, his food still untouched, and tries to grab rein on the conversation yet again.

“I’m—I’m really sorry, sweetheart. I know nothing I could say here right now could grant my forgiveness. But I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make amends,” he starts. “I talked to your father earlier. I offered him a position at S&B, but he declined. Understandably so after what I’d done to him. Which is why I turned to you, instead. I thought I could maybe right my wrongs in a different way.”

“What? Are you dying soon, or something?” you scoff. “Are you trying to clean your resume for heaven before your time is up?” You catch Mr Choi’s jaw clench at your remark. What can you say? Your father is barely home from making deliveries around the clock at every house. You see your mother’s callouses every single day when she sets down the tray for your breakfast, even though you insist you can just buy something from the cafeteria on campus. And there’s this piece of shit thinking he can fix or undo everything with a sorry, with the throwing of his scraps— for the sake of his own guilty conscience.

It’s revolting. It’s pissing you the fuck off.

And yet here you are, in spite of your disgust and anger, you’re swayed by the temptation of a piece of juicy meat being dangled right in front of you.

“Can you get to the point, Mr Choi?” you say. “Do you want me to convince my father to take the offer?”

He releases a smile and a laugh. “I don’t think even you could get through to him, sweetheart.” As much as you hate to admit it, he’s right. You inherited your stubbornness from somewhere, after all. “But I don’t want to give up yet. I’m truly sorry for the consequences my actions had made. I have been made aware of your current living situation, and how you’ve been juggling multiple jobs just to ease the burden from your parents in paying the bills and your tuition.”

Your bones stiffen. You lock your attention on Mr Choi.

“You were correct when you said I just want to clear my conscience, even just a little,” he continues. “Let me pay for your tuition and offer you a place near your school to stay until you graduate.”

There’s a pulse in the air. You can hear it. You hear it clearly.

Mr Choi pulls something out of the inner pocket of his coat. He slides it down the table for you to see and receive.

“You don’t have to give an answer now.” It’s a business card. His number is on it. “But my line is always open once you’ve made up your mind, sweetheart. Please take the time to consider.”

줄다리기 / JULDARIGI. © hannie-dul-set, 2024.

[fandomwriterstuff]

Sparks Fly

Poly!Marauders x fem!reader

Words: ~7.4k

Loosely inspired by Sparks Fly by Taylor Swift

You would be attending your seventh year at Hogwarts in the next few days, and, as a muggle-born witch, you would be sorely missing your iPhone. Modern things like cell phones, smart watches, and ballpoint pens weren’t allowed on castle grounds. So there you were, the day before taking the train back to school, downloading as many songs as you could into your old iPod nano. It was old tech, but it was sturdy, it could hold a charge, and it was easily concealable. Muggle contraband was frowned upon but you figured your head of house would be understanding if you got caught. 

Professor Granger-Weasley was a legend, and you were lucky to be in Gryffindor house under her watchful eye. You’d heard even more wonderful things about her predecessor, Professor McGonagall, but that was before your time. Professor Granger-Weasley was one of the rebel witches and wizards who took down Voldemort in the second wizarding war. 

Professor Longbottom was also among the list, but you had a huge girl crush on your head of house. It was hard not to, she was independent and powerful while still maintaining her femininity and soft touch. 

The only thing you weren’t looking forward to this year was seeing your ex-girlfriend. A Ravenclaw who was more focused on her studies than your relationship, you were still shocked and heartbroken this past spring when she broke things off. 

However, you thought as you walked up to the castle for your last year, this is going to be my busiest year yet, no room to worry about romance. 

You see, you’d be taking extra classes this year. Your head of house had expressed to you that you could use her time turner to make sure you could attend all the classes that you wanted. You were ambitious, and headstrong. It was going to be awesome. 

The issue, however, was that as you were going to use it for the first time on day one of the school year, your ex ran smack into you, causing you to lose your grip on the spinning rings that encompassed the tiny hourglass. It also caused you to crash into the corner you were hiding in and knock your head into the wall.

Suddenly your vision was filled with a blurring whirlwind of students, all in Hogwarts uniforms, walking as if rewinding on double speed. Once you regained your ability to move (ow, your head hurt), you paused the spinning of the time turner and took a deep breath. 

Fuck. 

“Fuck,” you groaned, rubbing the back of your head and coming out of the corner. You needed to figure out what time it was. Unfortunately, you were met with another student running straight at you, red and gold tie flying out of his cloak and fluttering behind him as he looked back. “Fuck!” You backed up but there was nowhere to go, he turned at your voice and all you got a glimpse of was a pair of wide eyes behind a pair of thick glass and a head of curly dark hair. He knocked your head back into the wall and the only thing you could think of as you felt a searing pain in your skull was that there was no way you’d gone far enough back to see Harry Potter’s days at Hogwarts.

When you woke up, you were in the infirmary. Blinking, you looked around and the bespectacled boy, who was decidedly not Harry Potter (but who had a very strong resemblance to him), perked up at your alertness.

“Hey, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to run into you. Was in a bit of a hurry. Madam Pomfrey’s taking good care of you, though,” his words blurred into the background as you took in your surroundings. Things looked similar, but your infirmary had a different nurse by a different name. You didn’t know a Madam Pomfrey. You must have gone back further than you thought. The thought sent a panicked jolt through you as your heart rate skyrocketed. Fuck.

“What… Um,” you paused, not sure who to trust with this information. But you didn’t have anybody else, and this guy had waited by your bedside to make sure you were okay. “What year is it?” His tanned skin blanched and his eyes went wide. 

“Have you got a worse concussion than I thought? I didn’t think I ran into you that hard. I’ll call for-” you reached out and grasped his arm before he could stand. 

“That’s not it,” you sighed. “I was using a time turner and my ex girlfriend ran into me and I messed up my calculations and I was supposed to go back about an hour and a half and I think I’ve come back like… several years.” You put your best pleading look on your face to make yourself seem genuine, you needed him to believe you. 

“Well,” he drew the word out, and you sort of liked the way his lips wrapped around it. He had a nice voice. “I can help you figure that out, even if it does sound a bit unbelievable. What year did you come from?” He was smiling awfully disarmingly, and you sighed, internally bracing yourself. 

“Twenty twenty-four.”

Your assailant went through what looked like all the stages of grief before landing on hesitant acceptance. So you were further back than you thought. 

“I hate to be the one to tell you this,” he said in that smooth voice, and you closed your eyes against the headache you knew was coming. “It’s nineteen seventy-seven.” 

“James, did you hit the poor girl so hard she forgot what year it was?” Another voice approached, but your mind was reeling. 1977. You were trying to think of any famous James’ but that’s such a common name and you were always awful at wizarding history. 

That was, until the second person walked up. Sirius Black. A very young Sirius Black.

“Sirius Black?” Your brain-to-mouth filter must have broken. 

James looked over at you, eyebrow raised, as if saying I thought you were from the future.

“He’s,” you paused, both their inquisitive sets of eyes on you. “He’s famous where I’m from,” you muttered, eyes searching around. If that was Sirius Black, this must be James Potter. Oh, Merlin. You were in for it. 

“She’s from the future,” James deadpanned to his friend, and you facepalmed. Like, literally. You slapped your hand to your face. 

However, Sirius seemed to take his friend at his word, only raising an eyebrow at that bold declaration.

“Please don’t tell anyone else,” you groaned and turned your legs over the side of the cot you were on to make your way to standing, despite your pounding headache. 

“Well we’re going to have to tell Moony and Wormtail,” James added matter-of-factly. “Friends don’t keep secrets this big from each other.” You groaned and stretched, cracking your aching back in the process.

“You can do that. I need to make a plan,” you took a step forward. Or, you tried to. Maybe you were actually concussed, because you wobbled a bit and nearly fell over. You would have crumbled to the floor if not for James and Sirius’ quick reflexes. 

“I may be worse off than I originally thought,” you grumbled. “But I am fine,” you pulled your arms and waist free from their strong arms and took a much slower step. “See? I’m fine.” You were a bit lightheaded and your head hurt more than a bit. But if you were going to fix this, you’d need to see the headmaster. 

You knew they were watching you, and you were studiously ignoring it. So studiously, in fact, that when you finally made it to the entrance, you ran into what must have been either an immovable object or an unstoppable force for the millionth time that day. Yet again, before you crumpled into the floor like a broken toy, strong arms reached out and helped you up. 

“Sorry about that, beautiful,” you blinked slowly and looked up into another magnificent face. This one was littered with scars and freckles. 

“They don’t make boys this pretty where I’m from,” as soon as the words left your mouth you wished you’d died on the spot. However, the boy (who must have been Remus Lupin) only smiled at you indulgently.

“On second thought,” James called out. “I think I knocked her into the wall harder than I thought.”

That was your introduction to the Marauders. You met Peter soon after. He’d been distracting the professor James was running from. They walked you to the Gryffindor common room, explaining that it might be best to recuperate while the headmaster was out of town. 

“I really am sorry for running into you,” James was apologizing for the umpteenth time, and you were beginning to get the feeling that he was a real softie. Big muscles, strong jaw, but a big teddy bear inside. 

“It’s alright,” you said for the millionth time. “You were the second person to knock me into a wall headfirst today, and the first time I think was on purpose. So you’re really in my good graces. You’re just clumsy.” 

“Someone knocked you into a wall on purpose?” Remus looked rather concerned, eyebrows pulling together from where he perched in a comfy looking armchair in an even comfier looking sweater. 

“Oh yeah, you did say that your ex ran into you,” James nodded to himself. “Though I didn’t think she did it on purpose.” You were trying to ignore the raised eyebrows of your new acquaintances. Maybe people weren’t cool about bisexuals in the seventies? 

“Yeah well she was a Ravenclaw. They are notoriously bad at interactions with other people,” you grumbled. “I thought I could change her,” you shrugged humorlessly. “I was wrong. She still harbors ill feelings towards me.”

They were still looking at you quietly.

The silence dragged on. 

“Look, I know it’s like the nineteen hundreds but if you’re homophobes we’re going to have issues,” you put on your deadliest glare (or… whatever you could put on your face with the headache plaguing you).

Peter barked out a laugh, which seemed a bit unlike him. He’d been a quiet and nice boy, nothing like the traitor you knew him to grow up to be. Four sets of eyes snapped to him and he rolled his eyes.

“You don’t have to worry about us being homophobes,” Peter elaborated, and, well… You supposed you would have to take him at his word. You shrugged. 

“So, if the headmaster is gone, what do I do? I don’t want to mess with the time turner and end up even further back. I don’t even know if it goes forward,” you asked when the night was deepening. 

“You could talk to Minnie in the morning,” Sirius recommended. Right, they had mentioned Professor McGonagall at some point earlier. You were going to fangirl to death.

“But I don’t have clothes or a room or identification. All I have is what’s in my pockets which is literally just my,” you reached in and felt around. “A handful of galleons and my iPod.” You were met with questioning looks and you sighed. Right. 1977. “It plays music.”

You pulled it out of your pocket, the old corded headphones all knotted up. As you untangled them you explained that you could download digital music onto it. You weren’t sure if it made any sense to them, so you told them you’d show them some other time. 

“It’s muggle tech, and it’s from the early 2000s. So it’s old by my standards,” you shrugged. 

“Hey, what am I famous for?” Sirius finally asked after a beat of silence. You swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. You couldn’t just tell him that he wrongfully spent twelve years in Azkaban. You’d have to word it carefully.

“You saved the child of the prophecy and helped in the effort to win the war.” 

“The war?”

“I feel like I am genuinely going to fuck something up if I tell you any more,” the words were said apologetically. You weren’t sure what else to say. 

“Well, we can always ask Lily if they have an empty bed. Her roommate is always sneaking off to Ravenclaw tower to stay with her boyfriend,” Remus was back on task and you were grateful for the reprieve. 

“Nah, they’re all there tonight. They’re having a lovers’ quarrel,” James replied, and your hopes of getting a good nights’ sleep shriveled up. 

“Well then,” Sirius made a show of looking thoughtful. “You could stay in our room, though it’s against school rules to have a girl in the boys’ dormitory.” You weighed your options and only came to one conclusion. 

“Rules were meant to be broken,” you smiled awkwardly. “That is, if you all don’t mind. I can sleep on the floor if you have an extra pillow.”

“Nonsense,” Sirius stood and reached his hand out to you, which you gratefully took. You were still a bit unsteady on your feet. “I’ll share with Jamesie and you can have my bed.”

James groaned loudly, complaining that Sirius was a cuddler and a portable heater once asleep, but you could see his tanned cheeks darkening with a flush. That was curious. 

“As long as you don’t-” Sirius cut you off with a wave of his hand. 

“Don’t worry. It’s not a hardship to help out someone in need,” he smiled over at you, and you tried to think back on his history. You were always awful at history but if you remembered correctly he moved in with the Potter’s sometime during his teenage years. Maybe he was paying the kindness forward. 

The issue, however, was that you were in a room full of four boys in various states of undress. Pajamas was a loose term for what they wore. And you were still in your uniform. 

“Here,” you looked up to see Remus leaning against Sirius’ bunk with a pile of clothes folded neatly in his grasp. “We’ve given you a few options since you don’t seem to have any sleeping clothes. James will keep watch outside the bathroom door if you want to clean up.” You looked over and the muscular boy was giving you a thumbs up. “We can send your uniform to be cleaned by the house elves overnight.” You nodded mutely, overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers. 

“Thank you.” With that, you collected the stack of pajamas and James led you to the bathroom, which he quickly scouted and declared clear. 

Once inside, you exhaled deeply. This was a ginormous clusterfuck. 

You were glad, however, to find a towel and a bar of soap at the bottom of the stack. Cleaning up would definitely help clear your mind. 

Once clean, you changed into a pair of sweatpants that were too long for you, a white t-shirt, and a sweater that must have belonged to Remus. 

“Hey,” you cracked the door open and found James’ back facing you. 

“You done?” 

You hummed your assent and he turned, giving you a goofy smile. 

“Those don’t fit you very well.”

“Not everyone is ten feet tall, you know,” you rolled your eyes and followed the boy back into the dorm room. 

Once you were sat on Sirius’ bed, you felt the weight of your situation closing in on you, your heart pitter-pattering at breakneck pace. 

“So,” you started, drawing the word out as you picked at your nails. “I think I’m probably gonna have a menty b pretty soon, so if you don’t mind I’ll just close the curtains and consider my existence in silence.” There was a pregnant pause and you battled on. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I need to deal with the feelings I’m feeling right now.”

More pause.

“What, in Merlin’s name, is a ‘menty b’?” Sirius’ eyebrows were up in his hairline and you choked on a laugh that sounded more like a sob. 

“Uh, mental breakdown?” It sounded like a question when you said it, but it took a moment for you to realize that slang was a lot different in 1977 than it was in your time. 

“Are you going to be alright?” That was Remus, and you were beginning to get the sense that he was reading your facial expressions and tone of voice more effectively than the others. 

“Probably,” you shrugged. “But my other option is succumbing to the crushing meaninglessness of life, so,” you paused for drama this time. “I can suck it up, I just need a good cry and I’m not about to do that in front of four strangers.” 

“Fair enough,” Sirius muttered to himself. 

“So is everyone in the future so nihilistic?” Peter asked you, and you quirked an eyebrow at him. “What?” He asked, defensive. “Nietzsche was a wizard. He just dabbled in muggle philosophy from time to time.”

“Well, to answer your question, I would say that my generation is. But like nihilistic in the ‘nothing matters so I can do what I want’ way. Whereas the generation that preceded me is more ‘nothing matters and I’m fucking depressed about it’ way.” 

You were met with confused looks. You sighed, there was no way you could explain the nuances of millennials, gen z, and gen alpha in one night. 

“I’ll explain later. Goodnight, boys!” You smiled more cheerfully than you were feeling, and shut the curtains to Sirius’ bed, casting a silencing charm as you did so. 

You inhaled deeply, and exhaled until you couldn’t anymore. 

There’s nothing I can do tonight. Not until the headmaster is back. Tomorrow I’ll talk to the head of house and see about going to classes.

Until then…

You tucked your earbuds into your ears and selected a playlist that would maybe take your mind off the situation. 

The way you move is like a full on rainstorm

And I'm a house of cards

You're the kind of reckless that should send me running

But I kinda know that I won't get far

And you stood there in front of me just

Close enough to touch

Close enough to hope you couldn't see

What I was thinking of

Drop everything now

Meet me in the pouring rain

Kiss me on the sidewalk

Take away the pain

'Cause I see sparks fly, whenever you smile

Get me with those green eyes, baby

As the lights go down

Gimme something that'll haunt me when you're not around

'Cause I see sparks fly, whenever you smile

You had the mind to turn off your iPod when you woke in the middle of the night, not wanting it to die. The next time you woke, it was to a knock on the wood frame of the bed. 

 “I’m up, I’m up,” you groaned and pulled open the curtains, the pinkish yellow early morning sun shining in. 

“If you want to talk to Minnie, you’ll have to catch her before breakfast,” James was whispering, and you peeked out to see Remus, Peter, and Sirius still asleep in their beds. 

“Why are you up?” You rubbed at your eyes and swung yourself out of bed, pleased to see your uniform had been returned by the house elves. “I mean, thank you,” you offered him a soft smile, which he returned tenfold. “But why are you up?”

“Gotta go for a run. I’ll see you later, no more running into walls, alright? Don’t want you doing any more damage to that pretty head of yours,” and with that, he was gone, leaving you flushed in the morning light. 

Jeez, handsome and flirty. I’m not going to survive it here. 

It wasn’t hard to find Professor McGonagall, and when she saw you, she stopped dead in her tracks. 

“Hi, Professor, I’ve been looking for you,” you approached her slowly as she raised an eyebrow at you, and you took that as your sign to keep going. It all came out in one long sentence, but your nerves were getting the best of you, to be fair. “So I was using my time turner to go back to take an extra class but someone knocked into me and it went back too far, like fifty years too far approximately, and I don’t know how to get back and I’d like to talk to the headmaster but I hear he’s not here right now,” you inhaled super deeply and pushed on. “And I’m a really good student I swear, I just don’t want to miss any classes until I get back so I was wondering if you could help me out?”

Stunned. Flabbergasted. Shocked. That’s what you were expecting. What you got instead was exasperation. 

“If this tomfoolery has to do with the mischievous boys in your house, I suggest you stop it now.”

“The - who?” Was all you could get out, and the exasperation only increased. 

“Potter, Black, Lupin, Pettigrew. Do these names ring a bell?”

“Well yes, but only because I’ve just met them. I promise I’m not lying. I’m in Gryffindor, I go to Hogwarts, I’m a seventh year student and it’s autumn of 2024 where I’m from.” 

She looked at you for a long time then, and you figured she could tell you were being truthful based on your desperation. 

“We will discuss this with the headmaster as soon as he returns. I will have a schedule prepared for you by the end of the day and you will start tomorrow. You would do well not to bring attention to yourself Miss…”

You gave her your name. 

“If you’ll excuse me, my day just got busier.”

When she was out of sight, you let out a big breath you’d been holding.

I can do this, I just need to lay low until the headmaster shows up.

“Hiya,” you whipped around at the new voice and cursed yourself for it, your head spiking with pain that you’d forgotten about. Maybe quick movements were to be avoided for the time being. “Haven’t seen you around here before, but you’ve got a Gryffindor tie on. Are you new?”

You were staring. You needed to stop staring. Start talking.

“Yes, I transferred from Beauxbatons.” The lie flowed out of you so smoothly you almost felt guilty. 

“Why on earth would you leave a posh school like that to come here?” She was laughing, she had such a pretty laugh, and you found yourself smiling. 

“It’s a long story,” you shrugged. 

“Well, Miss Mysterious, I’m Lily Evans, you can sit with me at breakfast today if you’d like.” 

It was just then that your stomach growled audibly. 

But more importantly. Lily Evans. Holy shit. 

You followed her to the great hall and sat down all in a state of numbness. She was an icon. A total badass. And you’d just met her. 

“Hullo, boys. This here is my new friend. She just transferred from Beauxbatons. Go on, introduce yourself,” she was looking at you expectantly and you turned to look at the rest of the table. A few other incredibly attractive women and the four boys you met last night who were giving you wide eyes. 

You gave your name with a tight smile and prayed they would play along. 

They did, for now, but you weren't sure how long you could keep up lying in front of these legends. Sure, the boys knew about you, but you couldn’t expect them to keep a secret forever. Especially Peter, a known secret teller. 

You explained to them that it was a short notice transfer and you wouldn’t have a schedule until tomorrow, but you’d been sorted into Gryffindor. Luckily, they didn’t ask any more questions and you were left to eat. 

The day flew by and if you were being honest, the next few did as well. Professor McGonagall gave you a typical seventh year schedule so your first few days weren’t stressful. She also assigned you a single room in the girls dormitory and gave you more uniforms. It meant you were lonely a lot, and you found yourself sitting in the common room a lot, reading or doing homework while you plotted your return home. 

It was Thursday of your first week in 1977 when Remus came to sit with you. You finished your homework reading and looked over at him. He was nice to be around, you could work in silence and still feel comfortable. 

“Haven’t seen you outside of class in a few days, we’ve been a bit worried you’d gone back to the infirmary for that concussion,” he was giving you a disarmingly gentle smile and you found yourself returning it. 

“No, just a headache now. And I’m really just waiting for the headmaster to get back so I can figure this all out. Though, I miss my roommates. Living in a single room is lonely.”

He frowned at that. 

“Can’t have that, why don’t you come to Hogsmeade with us this weekend? You can grab some essentials that I’m sure you’re missing, and we can get some more time with you.”

You found, yet again, the heat rushing to your face at the thought of time spent with such handsome boys. You nodded anyway. 

“I would like that.”

So, there you were, that Saturday, sitting in the Three Broomsticks with Sirius, James, and Remus (Peter was behind on his potions essay and was staying back). James and Sirius sat on one side of the booth, rather close together. You were beginning to think the three of them were in some sort of polyamorous situationship based on their casual proximity, their familiarity, and the sheer amount of physical contact they had with each other. But then you were seated next to Remus, whose sweater smelled of pine needles and wood and warm cozy things. And the reason you knew what he smelled like? He was seated so close to you that your thighs were maybe an inch apart, his arm slung across the back of the booth as he lounged back. He looked ever-so casual, but you were intensely aware of his presence.

His proximity to you and the general flirting you’d been the recipient of the last few days from the boys you sat with were the only reason you thought maybe they weren’t in a relationship. Because why would they flirt with you if they were? It was all so fucking confusing. 

Your attention was drawn back to the topic at hand by a slight tapping against your shoulder. Sirius and James were arguing about something, and despite his touch, Remus looked engaged in the debate.

“What do you think, sweetheart?” James suddenly turned to face you. 

“Yes, what do you think? Do you think Hufflepuff is going to beat us in the Quidditch finals this year?”

You scoffed a laugh. 

“Hufflepuff hasn’t won a Quidditch final in sixty years. There’s no-” you cut yourself off abruptly, heart in your throat. “I need to stop talking.”

James was grinning, though. 

“Told you so,” he stuck his tongue out at Sirius, and things were back to normal.

The next few days you were much more careful about what you said about the future. One slip up was minor, but it was really hard. The other thing you were struggling with was that the longer you stayed in 1977, the less you remembered why you had to keep your distance, why you had to be careful.

So, there you were, seated in the Gryffindor common room later that month, worried sick. The full moon had passed a few days ago and you hadn’t seen any of the boys outside of class since. 

Gnawing your lip, you tried to get back into your novel. 

“You said Sirius was famous where you’re from,” Remus suddenly dropped into the space beside you with a soft sigh, his arm draping around your shoulders. 

You hummed your confirmation as Peter, James, and Sirius all filed through and greeted you on their way to their room. 

“What about the rest of us?”

“What about you?”

He sighed, and you only noticed you were staring at him when he turned to look at you. 

“You’re being intentionally obtuse,” he didn’t say it meanly, but you still felt guilty. 

“I don’t think I should tell you why you’re all famous,” you mumbled, thinking about all of their horrible lives. His fingers started tracing shapes into the skin of your arm where they laid, and you found it difficult to concentrate. 

“I suppose that’s fair,” and again, you were staring. You saw the muscles in his jaw tense and release as if he was thinking about something stressful. “I just want to know,” he pressed his free hand into his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I just want to know what you know about-” he paused and seemed to lose his nerve, sighing deeply and resting his head against the back of the couch. 

You took a short moment to admire his profile before putting him out of his misery. First, though, you checked that you were alone in the common room. 

“You know, I think we all have issues. I mean, Sirius comes from a shitty family. Peter always gets left out of things. James always gets underestimated. My family disowned me when they found out I liked girls. But what I’m trying to say is, we all have issues and we have to find the people that care about us despite them, and love us because of them. That’s what we in the future like to call a Found Family. And yeah, family isn’t always the one you’re born into. Sometimes a family is a werewolf and three unregistered animagi.” 

You’d been looking into each other's eyes since the start of your little rant, the soft look in his gaze turning into bewilderment. 

“Really, it doesn’t matter why you’re famous, or what I heard about you before I met you,” you continued, taking a risk and gently holding his free hand between both of yours. “What matters is that you all helped me when I needed it, and I won’t forget it. And I’m forming my opinions of you based on what I know from your actions now, not what I read in a Daily Prophet clipping.” 

“You’re amazing,” the words were quiet, spoken reverently. You were forgetting again why it was a bad idea to give in to their flirting. 

“I mean, if you thought I was that amazing, you could just kiss me,” you shrugged, giving him a little grin. “Just saying.” 

He huffed a little laugh through his nose before he leaned down and kissed you with the softest lips. It was so gentle and wonderful and you felt his eyelashes tickle your cheek as he cupped your jaw and it was all perfect. Just perfect. 

“I meant to talk to you earlier about something but then the full moon happened and you were sitting here looking all beautiful and worried and I couldn’t help but ask if you thought I was a monster.” He pulled away a few inches to look at you, his long fingers still cupping your jaw. “But I don’t think I should wait. Because it would be dishonest,” you raised your eyebrows, asking him to go on. “Sirius and James and I are sort of,” he visibly struggled with the word he was looking for. “Well we’re sort of romantically involved, but it’s not a thing with a label,” he was grimacing, as if he knew you’d be mad at him. All you could do was smirk. 

“I fucking knew it.” 

“You - what?” 

“Yeah I could absolutely tell.” 

“Oh. Is that why you haven’t flirted back with us?” 

“Well to be fair, only you and James have been flirting with me.”

“Sirius hasn’t? He talks about how pretty and nice and special you are all the time.”

“Well he thinks I’m a lesbian so maybe he’s just respecting my boundaries.”

“He-” Remus paused, thinking. “He definitely thinks you’re a lesbian.”

“I think we should prank him,” your statement got a good reaction, Remus laughing joyously and nodding along. 

“Okay, what do you have planned?”

“Well, I’ve already somehow gained your affections,” he balked at you, unbelieving. “What? You’re like in the five most attractive people I’ve ever seen in my entire life, you’re smart, funny, popular, and you’re fucking kind. And I am a homeless time traveler with one pair of pajamas to my name.” 

“You don’t give yourself enough credit, darling. But I'll have more time to convince you of that. Tell me about this prank.”

“I mean really it’s all to serve my selfish wants,” you laughed a little. “But if the three of you are in an unlabeled but ongoing polyamorous situationship, and all three of you are interested in me, I just think it could be… Let’s say mutually beneficial for the four of us to recognize and act on those feelings. And I think it would be funny for Sirius to find out I’m actually not a lesbian in a dramatic way. However,” you suddenly remembered your exes of years prior. “Who’s to say if you’re even interested in me in any way other than physically. I don’t know that, and I’m being awfully bold in assuming so. So maybe it’s a bad idea? Oh, fuck I’m going to actually have to move schools this is awful.” You were spiraling. 

“Please, breathe,” Remus was looking down at you, frown twisted in concern. “I’m speaking for myself here, but I bet the boys would agree, I’m definitely interested in you. You’re gorgeous, dove. But you’ve also shown yourself to be strong willed, warm hearted, and a trusting and genuine person. The three of us boys have some weird will-they-won’t-they thing going on, and it’s frustrating because we have real feelings for eachother, but I’m pretty sure Jamie is the only one who has fully developed emotional skills. And, yeah, we’ve been intimate, but how does one tell his best mate that he wants more than that?” Remus rolled his eyes at himself. “It’s hard. But you made it so easy for us to fall for you. It’s so easy to care about you, so easy to want you.” You were too busy in your panic before to make eye contact but now you were looking into Remus’ blown pupils. “So it’s not crazy, what you’re suggesting. And I definitely think it would be mutually beneficial.”

So you sat on the two-seater sofa in the common room for several more hours whispering into the night, cuddled up to Remus and hatching a plan to get James to make a move on you, and how to reveal your bisexuality to Sirius.

My mind forgets to remind me you're a bad idea

You touch me once and it's really something

You find I'm even better than you imagined I would be

I'm on my guard for the rest of the world

But with you, I know it's no good

Things came to a head sooner rather than later. It was a Gryffindor victory party and James and Sirius were celebrating with the team. You’d spent the week sneaking glances with Remus, kissing sweetly in shadowed corners, and curling up together to read in the common room. You also spent the week being flirted with by James, who always knew how to make heat rise to your face. 

You were maybe a bit tipsy an hour or so in, and a boy you didn’t know was asking you about your time at Beauxbatons and telling you how much better Hogwarts was. He was so glad you had come to this party-

“-because I’ve been wanting to talk to you-” you were saved by a similarly tipsy James slinging his arm around your shoulder. 

“Hello, lovely,” his smile was brighter than the sun. Truly. You felt blessed just to have his gaze on you. “I saw you in the stands today, I’m glad you came,” the other boy wandered off, but you barely noticed. 

“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” It was the right response, because you were gifted another beaming smile in return. “Plus, you look really good in the uniform.” 

“Is that so?”

“Is what so?” Sirius was grinning as he walked up with three cups balanced in his hands, passing one to James and one to you, which you gratefully took. 

“I was just telling James how delicious he looks in the Quidditch uniform,” you blinked innocently, and you could see the gears start to turn in Sirius’ head. 

“Delicious?” James breathed the word, as if he hadn’t expected such a descriptive adjective to come out of your lips. It was just then that Remus swept Sirius away while he was distracted, and you clasped your fingers with James’, pulling him towards a darkened alcove. 

“And where are you taking me, pretty girl?” His charm was back in full force and you preened under his attention. 

“I just wanted to talk to you alone is all,” you replied, letting your back rest against the wall and using James as a privacy shield against the noise and lights of the party. 

“Well, you’ve got me,” your fingers were still loosely clasped, and he laid his free hand ever-so-gently on your waist. “What is it you wanted to talk about?”

“I have been scheming,” you started, and his dark eyes had an amused glint to them. “And I’ve been trying to get you to kiss me or ask me on a date, but it’s taking so long,” you drew the word out, whining, but in what you hoped was an endearing way. “And Remus and I thought-”

“Oh, so you’ve roped our dear Moony into your schemes now?” He was smiling softly, his affection for Remus and for you shining through. 

“Yes, well, he’s the brains of the operation, I’m the muscle.” you drew your manicured fingers up to grasp at James’ bicep (and what a wonderful bicep it was).

“So, what did the two of you cook up then?”

“Well, Remus is off getting Sirius into position, and I am here seducing you.”

“And what does Sirius have to do with you seducing me?” It was nice, having him this close, only centimeters between you. You could feel the heat off his body, his breath against your cheek. 

“Well, I’ve already gained Remus’ affections, and you flirt with me all the time so I was hoping seducing you would work and not totally backfire,” he was amused with your candor, you could tell. “And Sirius, well I’ve also got a major crush on him but he thinks I’m a lesbian.” You shrugged and James let out an incredulous laugh. 

“You really were scheming, weren’t you?” 

“Well when you’ve gotten emotionally attached to three amazing and beautiful boys who also seem to be pretty emotionally attached to each other,” you gave him a toothy smile. “You’ve got to jump at the chance.” You bit your bottom lip, the tiniest bit of anxiety creeping in. “Which leads me here, to you, in this dark alcove, baring my soul to you and hoping you’ll kiss me.”

“Well how could I deny you when you ask me so politely?” He whispered, adoration shining in his eyes for just a moment before he pressed forward, closing the gap between the two of you. James kissed you like he did everything he cared about: with passion and finesse. He was a great kisser, and he seemed happy to be kissing you, which was a wonderful experience.

The hand on your waist pulled you closer while the other rested at the nape of your neck, gently tilting you so he could explore your mouth better. You found yourself reaching up and feeling the muscles adorning his stomach and chest, your fingers trailing up until you could wrap your arms around his neck. 

You only broke away to breathe, and when you looked into James’ adoring eyes, your heart picked up the pace. You hadn’t felt this way since… well, ever. James, Remus, and Sirius made you feel wanted and cared for. It was wonderful.

“So, in this scheme of yours,” James started, laying a few kisses on your exposed neck. “What exactly are Sirius and Remus supposed to be doing right now?”

“Sirius should be walking over in a few seconds, jealous of me for kissing you or of you for kissing me. One or the other, maybe both. And then, well I’m no mind reader,” you peeked over James’ shoulder. “He’s coming over now so I guess we’ll see.”

It only took a moment for the elder Black brother to make it over to the alcove you were partially hidden in. 

“Tell me,” he spoke as he approached, shouldering in to stand next to James, eyebrow raised in question. “What have you got our sweet Jamesie in this dark corner for?”

“It’s the art of seduction, Sirius,” you smiled at him indulgently. “I wanted Jamie to kiss me just as much as I wanted you to realize that I like boys as well as girls. Got two birds with one stone.”

“And what are your intentions with him?”

“You should be asking what her intentions are with the three of us,” Remus was leaning against the wall, looking handsome as ever, and Sirius’ eyes shot over to him before landing back on you. He took a moment to process, and then he asked you, with a barely-there smile, what your intentions are with the three of them.

“I have feelings for all three of you, you three clearly have something going on with each other, and I am hoping and praying that you also have feelings for me. In which case, we have three options,” you held up three fingers and put them down as you started listing. “Option one, you don’t like me like that, you let me down softly, and we pretend this never happened. Option two, we go have really great sex because you think i’m attractive but you don’t have feelings for me. Option three, and this is my favorite one, we go on a date. All of us. And see where things go.” Your bravado was wearing thin, your heart in your hands as you waited for a response from any of them. 

There was a pause.

“I don’t want to pretend this never happened,” Sirius' voice was quiet and contemplative. “I don’t want to do option two either.” He paused, and you thought you could cry (but you weren’t sure why, you just felt overwhelmed). “I like option three the best, personally, but I’m going to have to consult the board on this one,” he was starting to smile more, that charming twist of his lips that you loved to see. “Boys? What do you think about that?” 

“Dating you two and this gorgeous angel? Literally my wildest dreams come true.” James was nearly vibrating with excitement and the three of you turned to Remus. 

“Why are you looking at me like that? I literally helped come up with this plan,” despite his words, he softened and reached out to stroke Sirius’ back and lock eyes with him and  James in turn. “There was never a doubt in my mind that I wanted to be with you, and our delightful schemer helped make it happen. And isn’t she a sight tonight?” His words had you flushed with heat, the attention of all three suddenly on you.

“Let’s dance, darling,” Sirius reached out to link your fingers together and pulled you out onto the dancefloor. You looked back only for a moment and caught a glimpse of James and Remus embracing in the alcove. “Eyes on me now, pretty girl. They already got to be on the receiving end of your seduction,” his hands were on your hips and yours were around his neck, playing with the baby hairs there. “I also find it unfair that you haven’t kissed me yet,” he was mock pouting in the most endearing way, and you couldn’t help but indulge him, so you pressed your lips to his. For once, everything was falling into place.

Masterlist

[moni-logues]

The First Cut

Pairing: Bangchan x reader (she/her)

Genre: strangers to not quite lovers lol, single parent! reader, hairdresser!Chan

Word count: 2.1k

Summary: Your son needs a haircut and has hated every hairdresser he's ever met. Until he meets Chris. You grow a soft spot for him, too.

Content: literally none to warn for. this shit is as SFW as it gets lmao I use 'Chris' for Chan throughout.

* * *

To say you were nervous would be an understatement. You had to remind yourself, again and again, to relax your grip on your tiny boy’s shoulders; you didn’t want him to feel your stress. You knew he was stressed enough already. You both were. 

The last time you had attempted this left you both in tears, but your friend had sworn up and down that Chris would be different. That he would work some kind of magic on your son so that, not only would his hair be cut, but he would not be traumatised by the experience.  

Or re-traumatised. 

And you wouldn’t be either. 

“Hi, Lucas? My name is Chris!” 

For some reason, you had expected him to be the older guy you had seen walking in and out from the back room—something about years of experience and wisdom that made you assume it would be age that gave him his skills—but this Chris was young, with a bright smile and dimpled cheeks. He sank to a squat in front of your son and held out his hand.  

Lucas clung tighter to his Transformers toy. Chris didn’t seem to mind. He simply nodded, still smiling, and then directed his eyes at you.  

Something unlocked. Loosened. It was certainly a friendly face. A trustworthy face. You took a deep breath and decided to believe that this could work. You realised that he had spoken to your son first, not to you. That he hadn’t, in fact, spoken to you at all. The other hairdressers and barbers you’d been to had barely acknowledged Lucas at all.  

Maybe this would be different. 

“Alright, Lucas, I’m going to cut your hair today, mate! Does that sound good?” 

Lucas looked back at you with eyes, saucer-wide. You gave him an encouraging nod and he turned back, but didn’t answer. 

“If you can follow me to this chair here,” Chris continued, unperturbed, spinning a chair around from a mirror for Lucas to sit in, “then we can talk about what we want to do.” 

Lucas climbed carefully into the seat. So far, so good. But they’d got this far last time. 

“Ok, first thing, buddy: do you want a drink?” 

Lucas shook his head. 

“What about your mum? Does she want a drink?” 

It took you a second to realise he was asking you and you similarly declined. You hovered, anxiously, near Lucas’s elbow, trying to keep your stress from radiating outwards. Trying and failing.  

“Wow, your mum looks pretty nervous, huh?” Chris asked Lucas, as he had directed all his speech so far. “What do you say Mum sits down in this chair?”  

Without breaking eye contact in the mirror, Chris reached out and pulled the chair at the station next to him closer.  

“There, now your mum can sit and relax, just like you—right, buddy?” 

Chris’s chatter was charming; there was something hypnotic in the way he rabbitted on, always smiling, not minding that Lucas stayed mute, that he clung to his hard, plastic toy like a life raft.  

You had told him on the phone that Lucas had never had a haircut before. Not because you hadn’t tried, but because he had a meltdown every time. Because he didn’t want anything near his head, because people kept trying to use clippers on him and he hated the noise, the feel of the vibrations against his skull. It was a problem anyway but it had become an even bigger one, as each failed attempt made Lucas worse; you hadn’t been able to brush his hair for over a week. He wouldn’t let you.  

It had been over five minutes but Chris still hadn’t touched Lucas’s hair. He had taken a seat on his other side and was flicking through magazines, showing hair models to Lucas, talking about their styles, the cuts, the products. You could see that Lucas felt it, too: Chris’s calming influence; the sense he gave that you were the most important people in the room; his patience, which it didn’t seem like you were trying. You let yourself unclench a little. 

Eventually, Lucas picked a hairstyle. You cringed when you realised just how much hair was going to have to come off to achieve it. Your heart thumped in your chest when Chris shook out a gown and Lucas would have to let go of Optimus Prime to slip his arms through the sleeves. 

“Don’t worry!” Chris chirped. “These arm holes are so big, I bet you can fit ’im right through!” 

He could. Lucas barely had to let one hand leave plastic in order to get the gown on. You braced yourself, tensing again: Chris was reaching for a comb and scissors. You saw Lucas tense, too: saw his watchful eyes follow the instruments in Chris’s hands carefully.  

“Ok, Lucas, like we talked about, this hairstyle is much shorter than your hair, right? So I’m going to have to cut a lot of it off. Is that ok?” 

You started. No one had asked that before. No one had even asked Lucas what he wanted. They’d asked you. How short do you want it? What are you going for? All questions for you, not for him.  

Until now.  

You met Lucas’s gaze in the mirror and gave him a smile—a genuine one, not a forced grimace of faked encouragement. His eyes flicked to Chris’s and he nodded.  

“Perfect.” 

Chris didn’t start by combing Lucas’s hair. You were grateful for that, knowing that it was tangled and knotted and any attempt at smoothing it would’ve hurt, would’ve made Lucas run for the hills (or at least out the door). He picked up a section, held it between his fingers, and chopped.  

“There you go, mate!” he said, dropping the chestnut brown locks onto the surface in front of Lucas. “That’s your first cut! How was that? Was that ok?” 

“Yes,” Lucas replied, keeping his head studiously still, and his voice almost inaudibly quiet.  

“Great! Can I cut some more?” 

“Yes.” 

And so it continued. Chris was careful and considerate and his hands worked softly over Lucas’s bird’s nest of hair. He checked in before he did something new: touched Lucas’s ears to cut behind them, brought out a comb to rake through his newly shortened tresses, brushed over the back of Lucas’s neck to remove the cut hairs.  

You wondered how long it was taking, refusing to look anywhere but at your son’s miraculous face—he was smiling now, too, looking at himself in the mirror with a cheeky, toothy grin. 

“Mama!” he cried, when Chris had finished. “I did it!” 

You choked on a sob and held back your tears as you celebrated with him. He was such a perfect little boy and now he looked like it, too. Smart, clean, soft.  

Chris had him jump up and remove his gown; he brushed more hair from his neck and face, which you were amazed he tolerated. He held his hand up for a fist bump and your mouth gaped when Lucas actually returned it. Then he direct Lucas back to the waiting area with Optimus Prime and a hair magazine and turned to you. 

“Oh my god, thank you,” you said, your words coming out in a rush, catching at the end on tears. “I... I had no idea it could be that easy.” 

You imagined Chris’s cheeks must hurt, the way his smile never left his face.  

“People forget that kids are people too, y’know?” he said with a shrug. “Talk to them like real people and they’ll respond, right? I’m not about forcing anyone to do what they don’t want to, whether you’re 3, 30, or 300.” 

“Get a lot of 300-year-olds in, do you?” 

“Oh yeah, all the time!” 

You laughed, giddy with relief, and looked past him to see Lucas, not playing with Optimus Prime, but looking at himself in the mirror, brushing his hand over his hair.  

“Seriously,” you began, turning back to Chris, “I can’t thank you enough. I thought I’d never find anyone who could do it and I knew I couldn’t do it myself.” 

“Yeah, no problem! Any time!” 

You tried to tip him 100% and he refused. You tried to tip 75% and he refused. He somehow negotiated you down to almost nothing but the promise that you would return.  

* 

And return you did. More frequently, to start with, to get Lucas over the fear of it, to get him used to the hairdryer and having his hair washed at the sink. Then, less often, but probably more often than strictly necessary, because you couldn’t stay away.  

It wasn’t just that he looked like that (though he absolutely did), it was everything else about him, too. Silly jokes, crinkly smile, the way you felt as though you’d trust him completely, with anything—with the most important person in your life, your son. He started talking to you more, too much, if you asked Lucas, who frequently grew bored waiting for your conversations to finish after his haircut.  

You hadn’t been doing the dating thing since your split with Lucas’s dad. Told yourself you didn’t have the time, which wasn’t untrue, but it wasn’t the whole truth either.  

You hadn’t wanted to attempt it. You were a parent; you had baggage, that most dread of all things. Lucas wasn’t baggage to you, but you knew men would see him that way and you weren’t prepared to face that.  

Sometimes you felt like Chris was happier to see Lucas than to see you. Then he would turn around and blast you with his blazing grin and you’d think, maybe not, but he certainly didn’t see him as a burden, as an obstacle. As anything less than the little guy that he was.  

You wanted him to ask. You didn’t want to risk it, not only the rejection but the loss of Lucas’s hairdresser, the loss of one of his favourite humans, which Chris had become. So he had to ask you. You wondered if he ever would, if he even wanted to.  

 

“Y’know, I’ve wanted to get my hands on you for a long time,” Chris said, fingers deep in your hair. 

“Oh?” you asked with a nervous laugh, eyes flying open to see only the salon’s ceiling while Chris grabbed the showerhead to rinse shampoo from your hair. 

“Yeah, you’ve got beautiful hair!” 

“Beautiful hair...” you replied, musing. “So beautiful that you desperately wanted to change it?” 

Chris chuckled. 

“Who said anything about desperate?” 

You imagined that he winked. You couldn’t see him so would never know for sure, but you could see it in your mind’s eye. Then could hear the little shy chuckle that always accompanied any line that even bordered on flirtatious.  

“I did,” you replied, all the bolder for not being able to see him.  

He answered with a little hum as he wrung out the ends of your hair with a towel.  

* 

“You do have beautiful hair, y’know,” Chris repeated, sitting behind you on a stool, cutting off all your dead, split ends. “Just needed a bit of TLC.” 

You scoffed before you could stop yourself. 

“Yeah, the rest of me could do with a bit of that, too.” 

Couldn’t stop yourself saying that, either. 

“Yeah, I get that.” 

“Yeah, I’m looking pretty haggard these days, but I was cute once, I think.” 

Chris sat up straight, scissors poised in his fingers but no longer cutting. 

“That’s not what I meant at all.” 

His eyes met yours and, of course, you were the first to look away, couldn’t face seeing yourself as he might see you—as you wanted him to, as you didn’t want him to, as you ‘really’ were (whatever that was)? No one had looked at you like that, not for a long time. 

The moment passed and Chris carried on with your cut. By the time he had finished, you felt like a new woman. Looked a bit like one, too.  

“Wow,” you breathed, running your fingers through hair—able to run your fingers through it for the first time in months—feeling how soft and silky it was, seeing it shine under the horrid, fluorescent lights of the salon.  

“See? Beautiful.” 

You felt sure he felt it. He had to, didn’t he? It wasn’t just you?  

Your butterflies swarmed as you stood and walked with Chris to the reception desk.  

“You’re coming in with Lucas next week, right?” he asked, flicking through the diary. 

“Yep. How much do I owe you for this one?” 

Chris lifted his head and grinned, something glinting in his eye. 

“One dinner.”  

[itwasthereaminuteago]

|| When You Come Home ||

Frank Castle x female reader

I wrote a lil thing to go with my gorgeous commission by @bunnelbie ! 😍

The sound of an engine pulling up outside has you dropping the knife and vegetables you had been preparing down on the counter. He had sent you a text earlier in the day telling you that he'd be back today and you had been buzzing, almost unable to concentrate on anything other than just waiting for him to walk through that front door.

When he'd left, the first couple of days had been fine. He'd send you updates, just checking in to let you know he was alive. Then it would go quiet for a while and of course during those times your head was full of worry, but then he'd always get in touch again to let you know he was safe.

One time he had called you, late at night just as you were settling down in bed. He had filled your ears with sweet promises of everything he was going to do to you when he came home, and the memory of it now dances just underneath your skin.

You go to the door ripping it open just as he's getting out of his truck, seeing him standing there with his bag slung over one shoulder. Then you're running the short distance across the drive barefoot, throwing your arms around him.

"Frankie!"

He grins so wide, dropping the bag and returning your tight hug. You're never letting him leave for so long ever again, you think to yourself. The sound of his chuckle as you frantically pepper kisses all over his face fills you with a syrupy warmth that you've been missing for almost a month. Your Frank is finally back in your arms and you're so grateful.

"Hey you," his grizzled, out-of-use voice meets your ears and only makes you squeeze him more before pulling back and kissing him properly.

"Goddamn baby I've missed you." He lifts you off the ground and you squeal with delight as he spins you around. When he lets you down you don't fail to notice the slight groan he makes.

"You're alright? You're not hurt?" You hurriedly inquire, your hands touching almost every bit of him as you scan for anything more serious than the scrape on his cheek. He looks tired and you're sure you'll find some bruises later on, but other than that you're satisfied that there's nothing concerning.

He starts to walk you backwards into the house. "Nah I'm not hurt, don't you worry. You gonna let me come in huh?" He kids, and you laugh, pulling him inside and closing the door as he puts his bag down on the floor. As he shrugs off his jacket your eyes catch a glint of silver on his wrist. "Oh my god, you're actually wearing it?"

Frank glances at the bracelet around his right wrist, surprised that you thought he wouldn't. "'Course I'm wearin' it, you got me it!"

"I know I- I just thought you might think it was silly."

You had one too, a silver chain with a charm. A heart with a tiny skull etched on it.

Frank steps up closer to you, nudging his nose against yours before kissing the tip of it. "Ain't silly, every time I see it I'm reminded of you, sweetheart. That's all that kept me goin' some days."

He smiles softly as your eyes go Bambi-wide at his admission and you look like you're about to burst into tears but when he strokes his fingers through your hair and thumbs over your cheek it tempers the strength of your emotion. "I love it baby."

He looks over to the countertop distracting you from getting overwhelmed. "You cookin'?"

You nod. "Yeah, just making some dinner. Wasn't sure when you'd be back exactly or if you'd even be hungry, but I thought I'd get it started anyways."

"Oh yeah I'm hungry alright. Let me wash up real quick and we can finish it together, how 'bout that, hm?"

You grasp at him, scrunching your fingers in his shirt like he's going to disappear again but he just smooches you over and over promising he'll be right back in just a minute. You go back to the chopping board in the meantime and when he returns he slinks his hands around your waist, his chin settled in the crook of your shoulder and neck.

"Oh, is this what you call helping?" You tease, but you're full of love at the easy contact between you. It was like he'd never been gone.

"Mhm," he hums, kissing into your hair again as he continues shadowing you.

You giggle, trying to get stuff done with him hanging on to you, but he does eventually chip in to get everything prepared and in the oven. It was usually Frank who did the cooking when he was home, and he was really damn good at it. He kept you fed in a multitude of ways.

After dinner the washing up is left as tomorrow's problem, because right now you just want to spend quality time with your man. He's back from battles he's not quite ready to share, and even when he is ready to open up about it you doubt you'll get the full story, but that's alright.

Frank sits down on the couch, spreading his legs wide and beckoning you to join him. When you climb right on him making yourself comfortable in your favourite place, on his lap, he quietly chuckles, taking you in his arms.

You kiss him.

Yeah you had kissed earlier but this was different. Now, you knew he was safe, he wasn't going anywhere, you could slow down, revel in the feel of each other, his soft, warm lips on your mouth like you'd always dream of when he was away. Tonight, you wouldn't be alone in your bed, he'd wrap you up in his arms and be yours, and you would be his. But for now the taste of him is your focus, and the light scratch of his day-old stubble against your skin is so welcome as he seeks gentle, tentative permission to deepen the kiss. You open for him, always looking for and finding ways to be closer. As your tongue dances against his, your fingers card through his hair. It's grown out a little and you smile against his teeth when his familiar grunt meets your ears as you give a sharp little tug on it and he bites your bottom lip in flirty retaliation.

His fingers hook around the back of your knee anchoring you to him. As if you're going anywhere. He drinks you in as the sun is setting, calloused fingertips trailing your bare arm and raising goosebumps in their wake as you make out like teenagers behind the bleachers.

"I love you," He says softly after a while when you part to catch a breath, forehead leaning against yours, "so goddamn much, baby."

"I love you too, Frank." You close your eyes, feeling his heartbeat under your fingers and trying to press the words in there, rebrand them deep and fresh.

"Can I take my woman to bed?" He asks you with a sly smile. "Because if I recall a certain conversation correctly, I promised her a whole lot of lovin' when I got home…"

"Mm I haven't forgotten. You've got it coming too y'know, Frankie." You trace your lips along his jaw causing him to let his head fall back and grant you the space to lightly nip and kiss at his neck. An appetizer of what's yet to come. He makes a low sound from deep in his chest and can't wait any longer, scooping you up and carrying you bridal style to the bedroom.

"I'm all yours."

[shares-a-vest]

@flufftober Spring Edition Day 1: New Beginnings

wc: 590 | Rated: T for Canon-Typical Swearing | cw: One mention of cigarettes

Tags: First Apartment, Moving In, Steddie Cat Dads, Robin Buckley, Erica Sinclair, Dustin Henderson, Wayne Munson

Note: For the next two weeks, I'll be writing little ficlets within my Joanie Munson AU for this Spring Edition of Flufftober. Hopefully, I can fulfil each day – that's the goal anyway seeing as I couldn't participate too much last Flufftober. Nothing too elaborate, all stand-alone ficlets (as always) in this AU.

‘Steddie’s Tiny First Apartment’

Steve sets down the last moving box, placing it amongst the others. He stands upright and hums contentedly as he looks around the cramped, already messy, box-filled apartment.

His new beginning with Eddie.

Eddie who is coming up right behind him, so hot on his heels with excitement (and not a thing in hand) as he steps inside, he knocks square into him.

Steve yelps and stumbles forward.

But Eddie catches him, one hand on his polo sleeve, the other looping around his middle at break-neck speed.

“Easy there, sweetheart,” Eddie playfully warns, pulling them flush and bringing his other arm up to lock Steve firmly in an embrace.

“You ran into me,” he quips, giggling.

“We’re here,” Eddie sing-song whispers in his ear, a grin evident in his beaming, gleeful voice.

Steve nods, smiling as he leans into his partner’s touch.

He wants to stay like this – the two of them together.

In this place.

Their home.

“Cats incoming!” Robin announces, pushing through the doorway.

She bumps into them hard and Steve’s knee connects with a rather solid box, the contents of which gives a thud.

That one must be Box Number Twenty of Eddie’s books...

“Fuck – Rob!” he splutters, rubbing at the pain as Eddie continues holding onto him for dear life.

He watches on as he best friend tip-toes about, dodging boxes and knickknacks, misplaced furniture and random clothes, records and already-wilting houseplants as she cradles a very displeased – and freed from the confines of his cat carrier – Ozzy.

She only just makes it to the haphazardly placed thrifted couch when the demonic scamp leaps from her embrace with a bellowing meow! and scurries away.

“Why did you take him out of his carrier?” Eddie whines, practically shouting into Steve’s already-sensitive ears.

“That boy needs to roam free!” Robin argues, stretching her arms out wide and spinning around to make her point, “Besides, he started hissing at me in the car.”

She continues moving and almost runs off-kilter into Claudia Henderson’s old coffee table.

“Well, now he’s going to – ” Eddie begins, cut off with an elbow to the ribs as Dustin barges his way into the apartment.

“Precious cargo!” he yells, his voice reverberating around them as he carries Eddie’s DND folder and screen across his arms, keeping them steady and balanced with what looks like Herculean effort.

Erica follows not a second later, holding nothing but a purple string bag she swings about with abandon.

Steve can feel his eyes bulging out of his skull at the lack of assistance being carried out by two individuals who all but forced their way into the Beemer for the no-longer-final trip to Chicago.

But Steve doesn’t manage to get past open his mouth to complain because Eddie lets go of his steel-grip hold on him and launches himself clean over the aforementioned last box to snatch up the string bag.

He opens it up to expect the contents, mouths a count of his dice and brings the bag tight to his chest.

Eddie looks up and his face promptly drops as he looks over Steve’s shoulder – likely to the source of the sudden, strong scent of cigarettes.

“You were supposed to come back down to the truck, boy,” Wayne Munson grumbles, huffing away as he brings in a box labelled, ‘KITCHEN’.

Eddie begins muttering some excuse but Steve can’t find himself caring too much about the impending Munson Squabble.

Their new home could really use a collectable coffee mug or ten.

[gilverrwrites]

Meet Cute Uglies

GN!Reader/Black Mask, ≈800 words >[Bruce | Dick | Jason]<

CWs: Swearing, implied threats of violence, mentions of: cheating & messy break ups, vandalism.

There’s a hostage situation taking place with Joker down at the peer, no cop is gonna care about a tiny bit of vandalism. At least, that’s what you tell yourself as you thread your keys through your fingers and ‘casually stroll’ across the street towards your ex’s car.

The lying POS had been cheating on you the whole relationship, sneaking around with the one co-worker he’s told you not to worry about, taking them on dates and fucking them in your shared bed when you were out of town. You’d wanted to keep the break-up amicable, if only to avoid the stress, but he’d been set on making it as messy as possible; airing your dirty laundry, trying to turn your friends and family against you, showing up at your work and causing problems until you snapped and told him that if you ever saw him again; you’d make him regret it.

It had been weeks since you’d last seen him, so you were pretty certain he’d gotten the message. Until today, when you’d spotted his car parked up outside your apartment building. You’d done a double take at first, but no, that was definitely his car. You could recognise it a mile away, a black 79 Mustang, it was a rarity in this day and age, his pride and joy, and it made a very satisfying CREEEAK noise as you dragged the tip of your key along the driver's side door. A sadistic sort of joy washes over you as you circle the vehicle twice over, destruction in your wake, but it’s not enough, not yet. You’re two letters into carving the word ‘CHEATER’ on the bonnet when a voice calls out to you, stopping you cold.

“What the fuck are you doing?” The voice does not belong to your ex. It’s angry, gravelly, Gothamite through and through, and kinda sexy, but you don’t turn to look at them. If it’s a cop, you’re already busted, and if it’s anybody else they should mind their own business.

“Keep walking.” You instruct as you continue on with your masterpiece.

“I don’t fucking think so.” The voice is closer now, you can sense the presence of its owner close behind you, close enough to touch you. Who the hell does this guy think he is?

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you the golden rule of Gotham?” You ask, making light work of the ‘A’. As you move on to the ‘T’ you wonder if you can make it look like a penis. “If you see something; No, you didn’t.”

“I think the only person that needs to be taught a lesson here, is you.” And then he grabs you, a firm, leather-clad hand clutching onto your upper arm and spinning you around to face him. Your keys clatter on the hood of the car.

“What the fuck is your prob- ” Your sentence is cut short as you comprehend who you’ve been arguing with, who currently has you locked in the palm of his hand. It’s an unseemly sigh up close, the mask, skull-shaped and pointy. Its expressionlessness only serves to strike more fear into your heart, but what the hell does Black Mask care about you vandalising your ex’s car for, it’s not like he hasn’t done worse things for less.

“My problem…” He jerks you closer, using your captured arm as leverage until you’re pressed against his chest, his mask inches from your face. Up close he smells like wood and smoke, like fine whisky. “is that’s my car.”

Shit. Shit shit shit.

“No.” It’s a stupid, instinctual response. Your brain is trying to deny your impending doom. If only the ground would open up and swallow you, that would probably be less painful than whatever he has planned. He nods, pointing at the license plate which you hadn’t checked in your moment of rage, and you struggle to peek at it over your shoulder. “I’m sorry?”

It’s a pathetic little squeak of an apology, a pointless plea for leniency that makes him laugh. “Oh, you’re sorry huh?”

“Yeah, see, I didn’t know it was your car. I thought it was my ex’s and he’s such a jerk and… you don’t care.” He neither confirms nor denies, he just continues holding you close. You can see steely eyes boring into you through the eye holes of his mask. “Are you gonna shoot me?”

He laughs again, realising your arm. Before you can make to leave, he presses forward, caging you between his body and the aesthetically destroyed car. Somehow the new position makes you feel just as trapped but more relaxed than the previous. “Haven’t decided yet.”

You’re not sure what he’s debating between, you’re not sure you want to know, but you ask anyway. “Why?”

“Been a long time since anyone had the guts to talk to me like that. It’s cute.” He’s nodding at you, or maybe to himself. “I’m kinda into it.”

[maccreadysbaby]

Project: Killcode

batfamily + oc insert

tw: none

wanna read more? here’s the table of contents!

want to read the first fic in the hundred days series so you understand what’s going on here? here it is!

just a cute chapter with a little ANGST sprinkled in, your favorite

part thirteen

❝ DESCENDANTS AND A SADIE HAWKINS ❞

SUNDAY — JULY 22 — 12:47AM

"YOU OKAY, RED? You haven't said a thing since we got here,"

Bentley snapped back into reality, glancing across the table at Vera and Layla over the strawberry milkshake they convinced him to buy. He hadn't as much as sipped out of it. 

The ice cream shop hadn't been as far as he'd assumed — it was only maybe a minute off of campus, out of the most populated area of the city. A small, stand-alone parlor made to look like a diner — red tables, checkered floor, neon lights and all. Apparently that was popular, although it didn't have the waitresses-on-roller-skates thing they had going on where Georgia worked.

Ah, Georgia. The one thing he couldn't seem to stop thinking about.

"I'm fine," He murmured, running a hand through his hair to force himself back into some semblance of reality. "Last night was just... a lot. I didn't sleep much."

"I feel you. The party crew was pretty crazy," Layla commented. She had a huge banana split in front of her that was about the size of her face, while Vera had a plain vanilla milkshake that the blonde dubbed boring. Layla was wearing a sundress — pink, with tiny flowers — with her hair all curled and nice. Vera, in true Vera style, was wearing black jeans and a gray t-shirt with questionable looking symbols all over it. She had her gigantic bomber jacket in her lap.

He glanced up at her, and she was staring at him intently, brown eyes seeming to bore into his very soul.

"Don't," He ordered immediately. She blinked, lifting her hands up in surrender.

"Fine, fine,"

"I'm serious,"

"Okay,"

A moment of silence passed, and Bentley sipped his milkshake. It tasted nothing like real strawberries, but it definitely tasted like... pink, he guessed. It was good either way.

"Okay. I have an idea," Layla suggested, taking a break from vigorously mushing up her bananas into an unidentifiable sludge. "We hardly know anything about each other, really. So let's play truth or truth."

Vera glanced over at her with a deadpan look on her face. "Truth or truth?"

"Yeah," Layla announced, glancing between them. "It's like truth or dare but no dares. Just... truth. Truth or truth."

"Couldn't we just ask each other questions, then?" Vera asked.

After a moment of silence passed, Layla nodded. "Oh, yeah. I guess."

"Okay, genius, you start then,"

Bentley cringed. Being barraged with questions wasn't exactly his kind of thing — especially since about eighty-five percent of his life, between secrets and superheroes and kidnappings and the like, was off limits for sharing. (If only his father wasn't a psychotic raging supervillain. If only his dad wasn't the superhero who defeated him. Then maybe he'd have a shot at conversation.)

"Alright," Layla said, smiling lightly, averting her gaze to Bentley. "B. Have you always lived in Gotham? I heard it was scary there."

Bentley blinked once, twice, ignoring the way both of their pairs of eyes seemed to drill into his skull. "No. I used to live in another town. With my real father."

Layla hummed in curiosity. "What happened to him?"

"Layla!" Vera scolded, turning and whacking her in the shoulder. "Are you serious? You don't just ask people that!"

"Oh,"

"It's fine," Bentley murmured, spinning his milkshake cup around on the table. "He's in prison."

Silence ensued, and when he looked back up at them, Vera punched Layla again, harder. "Good job, doofus."

"It's really fine. I have no connection to him anymore," Bentley shrugged lightly, glancing between them, then down at his drink. "Except the way I look, I guess."

A moment of silence passed where Layla and Vera just looked at each other — the latter was probably scolding the former in her mind, Bentley assumed.

"Your turn," Layla stated, glancing over at him with a sort of temporarily hurt look on her face. (He wondered what Vera told her.)

He blinked a few times before he managed a couple of coherent thoughts. "Why did you guys show up to the gala if you live here?"

"That's easy," Layla replied with a sudden smile, expression flipping immediately. "Vera's aunt is like, super-mega-rich-business-woman. Vera lives with her, so when she goes out, sometimes she takes us."

Bentley glanced over at Vera, but to his surprise, she didn't do any scolding that time.

"We've been all over the place," Vera smiled lightly. "Almost all fifty states. I think North Dakota and New Hampshire are the ones we're missing."

"Wow," He breathed. Bentley couldn't imagine going to forty-eight out of fifty states. He'd only been to New Jersey and New York, and his life had been quite adventurous enough.

Vera hummed. "Your powers. You were born with them, right? Did you-"

She trailed off, apparently because Bentley did a bad job at keeping his face blank. He looked down at his milkshake as she continued: "...You're not a natural meta?"

He shrugged. There was no point in hiding things from a girl who would read his mind anyways, he guessed. Plus, his reaction had made it painfully obvious. "Nope," He deadpanned.

She and Layla shared a few wary glances. "You mean someone did this to you?" Layla muttered, slightly stunned. "I've never met a lab meta before."

Lab meta. That sounded like a nice thing to be called.

"I mean, I've definitely heard of them around school and stuff but... huh. Cool," She continued. "Do you like them? The powers?"

Again, Bentley shrugged. He'd probably have died a handful of times without them, but, in hindsight, they were typically the reason for his near-demise. Memories of being tossed around like a ragdoll and impaled in the biggest battle of his life flashed here and there, and he pushed them away with a sigh. "I guess. Not sure what I'd be doing without them."

"Does that mean Asten's were from a lab, too?" Vera questioned, and Bentley met her eyes for only a second.

"Yeah," He replied.

"Fire and water," Layla muttered. "Funny scientist."

Yeah. Funny.

Layla's phone suddenly dinged, and Bentley was thankful for it, because it took their eyes off of him. She pulled out a phone with a blindly pink case (did her dress have pockets?) and tapped on it, and within three seconds, was snapping Vera repeatedly in the arm and bouncing in her chair with this absolutely ecstatic look on her face. "V!"

"What?" Vera questioned, exasperated, shoving her hand away at the same time she was leaning toward the phone.

"The Spring Musical is Descendants three!" She exclaimed so loud some people around them turned to look. "I'm so excited!”

Vera looked at her blankly. "Last year we did Descendants one and two, Layla. Of course we're doing three."

"Don't ruin my moment. I'll get to play Evie again!"

Bentley blinked a few times, taking another sip of his milkshake. "What's Descendants?"

They both looked at him like he was utterly stupid.

"A super-cool disney franchise about the kids of supervillains turning to the good side and learning how to live there," Layla explained, almost too fast for him to understand. "I played Evie last year, in the school plays. She's my favorite! You've never seen the movies?"

Bentley hardly heard the last part. The kids of supervillains, turning to the good side and learning how to live there. That sounded oddly familiar, oddly similar to someone he knew. (Someone who's name may have started with a B and ended with an -entley.)

"Uh, no," He replied, fiddling with his straw. "I like older movies. With not so much... singing."

Vera made a painfully offended face at him. "You don't like musicals?"

He shrugged, again. "They just stand up and start singing in the middle of everything, and everyone just goes along. It's weird."

"It's the peak of cinematic experiences," Vera replied. "Layla and I audition for the school musical every year."

"Doing it in person is fine. Just not in movies,"

"Wow. Uncultured," Vera tutted, taking a sip of her milkshake. Bentley did the same, pretending that being called uncultured wasn't both completely accurate and slightly bothersome. (At least he was trying to be a normal teenager.)

"Tell me you've seen High School Musical?" Layla asked, leaning forward like it was a very important question. "At least High School Musical."

"I've seen it," He replied, a small smirk creeping onto his features at their intensity toward the situation. "Didn't like it."

Layla made a sound akin to a dramatic gasp, but a little squeakier. "I can't believe you said that."

"Oh, Layla!" Vera piped up, turning to the other girl as if she'd just remembered something and whacking her arm. She had this sort of mischievous look on her face. They seemed to whack each other a lot — it sort of reminded Bentley of Asten and Nico. "Guess what?"

"What?" Layla was quick to reply, looking over at her. "A new season of HSMTMTS is coming out?!"

"Eh, no. Well, maybe. I don't know," Vera shook her head. "Doesn't matter. What I was gonna say is Summer told me the back to school dance is a Sadie Hawkins!"

Bentley, completely oblivious to what any of that meant, said nothing. 

"A Sadie Hawkins? Wha... oh," Layla trailed off, her face turning suddenly red. "A Sadie Hawkins."

Bentley furrowed his brow. "What does that mean?"

Vera glanced over at him with a funny look on her face. "A Sadie Hawkins dance is a dance where the girls ask the guys to be their date, instead of doing it the other way around," She said, looking at Layla with a massive smirk. "It's next Saturday."

"I've never been to a school dance," He replied, glancing at his hands then back up. "Do we have to go?"

"Well, no," Vera replied with a shrug. "They're pretty fun, though. Not boring like public school ones with stupid slow music playing all night long. And you don't have to have a date or dance to go. It's pretty much a social night and free food and music if you want it to be."

Bentley hummed in acknowledgment.

"But it would be kinda good for you to go if someone asked you,"

Bentley was too busy imagining how weird going to a school dance would be that he missed the way Vera subtly elbowed Layla in the ribs.

"Yeah... it would," The blonde replied, with an additional spurt of nervous giggling.

He glanced back up at them, eyes flicking from one to the other. Layla's face was still dangerously red, and she was staring really hard at her ice cream. "Well, lucky for me, I don't think anyone's interested in the kid who had a panic attack his first day on campus."

Vera said nothing, and Layla erupted into another bout of nervous laughter.

Bentley, with a few blinks, glanced back down at his drink. Girls were really weird.

"Anyways — I'm pretty sure it's your turn," Vera stated, gesturing to Bentley but giving Layla a pointed look. "Ask away."

Bentley tapped his fingertips on the table, spinning his glass around again. "Uh... have you always gone to school here?"

"Yep. Since I was old enough. Layla, too," Vera replied. "Our families are friends with the headmistress — Summer's aunt. So we pretty much had no other choice."

Bentley nodded.

"Um..." Vera started, glancing around the restaurant. "How are you liking New York City so far?”

“I think it’s really cool. What I’ve seen of it, anyways,” He replied, swirling his straw around in his cup. “I thought Gotham was big.”

Vera chuckled. “You seem like… you’d be a farm boy. From, like, Alabama.”

Bentley scrunched his face up in protest. “What?”

“A farm boy. Y’know, with a dumb accent and straw hat. I can imagine you like that,” She replied, scanning him intently. “You don’t really scream city kid.”

He shrugged. “I’m not sure what I am.”

Bentley didn’t mean for it to come out half as solemn sounding as it had, but thankfully, Vera didn’t seem to pick up on it. Her response was a snicker with a quick: “Does anyone?”

Bentley hummed in response. Did anyone? He wasn’t sure about everyone else — they all seemed to know where they were from and what they were supposed to do, how people like them were supposed to work. Everyone had a way about them. Koa was from California, and everyone could tell. Asten was from Crime Alley, and no one was ever surprised when he said it. Vera and Layla were from New York, and it was obvious.

And Bentley was just… Bentley.

—

When he got back to the dorm, a keycard, a few school supplies, and a box of uniforms had been left on everyone’s beds. 

The uniform reminded him of Gotham Academy. There were five of them in the box — consisting of seven parts each. A blazer, black with a dark green and gold crest on the left shoulder, a solid white button up, a dark green and gold sweater vest, a green and gold tie, slacks, white socks, and dress shoes. Each piece was meticulously and painstakingly crafted, probably really expensive. Bentley wondered how much money the school spent just on uniforms for all the kids there. Varian said the kaycards went to the main dorm room door — that the electric locks only engage once the school year starts so there’s no confusion for the move-in days.

After that, he and Asten struggled through a painfully long (three and a half hour), painfully lied-through call with Dick, Jason, and Bruce.

They’d basically demanded they tell them every detail of their entire two days, which mostly consisted of lies, lies, and more lies. They couldn’t tell them they’d left campus (Bentley twice), they definitely couldn’t tell them about the party, and they couldn’t tell them about the drunkenness that happened after. He wasn’t gonna tell them about the panic attack. So really, the call was pretty boring. Bentley took up most of the time by dissecting each of their roommates and explaining everything about them that he knew excruciatingly thoroughly, just to stave their curiosity. He told them about what happened with Bellamy. He told them about Varian trying to teach them phase ten.

That… was about all he could tell them.

After that excruciating call was over, he and Asten exchanged a silent moment of mutual guilt, and then Bentley went to bed feeling like nothing more than a full dumpster with a flimsy Wayne Enterprises sticker dangling off the side.

(He had the name, but what was he, really?)

Then, at five-forty-five in the morning, the day school was supposed to start, someone started screaming.

It was a terrible, gut-wrenching kind of scream that was muffled from being doors and walls away. Bentley, hardly awake, sat straight up in his bed so fast he nearly whacked his head on the top bunk.

Asten’s first instinct was to practically throw himself off the top bunk with a urgent: “B?”

A moment of pause filtered between them as Asten realized it wasn’t Bentley screaming, because Bentley was staring at him, looking pretty bewildered. They blinked at each other for a solid five seconds. Then, when logic and common sense pushed it's way through the fatigue and panic in Bentley’s head, he pulled himself out of his bed and, with a pat on the shoulder from Asten, swung the bedroom door open.

The lights were on in the living area, now, and three out of four bedroom doors were open. Koa was standing in his and Varian’s doorway, looking like he might’ve still been asleep, and Valor was in the middle of the room in nothing more than a pair of shorts. Rockie was hovering near their room, and Varian was bent over at Bellamy’s closed door, messing with the handle. They all seemed on edge, slightly panicked — and Bentley wasn’t sure if he knew it or not, but Valor’s wings kept fluttering and twitching on his back like an anxious bird.

Bellamy’s room was where the screaming was coming from.

Varian seemed to be attempting to open the door, but it wasn’t working, and Bellamy was still screaming.

Bentley jogged over to him with a curt little: “Move.”

Varian did so without argument, and Bentley turned toward the kitchen, summoning a small few threads of water from the faucet. The five of his roommates watched in silence as they twisted and turned like snakes, slithering through the air to the door and slipping right inside the lock mechanism.

Bentley listened closely, allowing the water to feel out the space inside — to weave between parts and through crevices. He listened hard to how it moved.

About five seconds later, the door unlocked with a click.

Bentley didn’t even as much as glance back at his roommates before he swung the door open just enough to fit through.

The room was dark, and Bellamy was on the bottom bunk of his bed, thrashing around like someone was attacking him. Pale, and coated with sweat, he was screaming like it, too — vague sort of half-words that sounded too much like frantic begs for mercy. He was crying in his sleep; no, sobbing, throwing his tiny shred of weight around so hard the bunk beds were moving a little. The entire bed was unmade, the sheets even yanked off of the corners, pillows and blankets and one stuffed frog all sprawled on the floor.

Bentley wasted no time kicking the door closed behind him and crouching beside the bed. “Bellamy.”

He didn’t wake, but he did have some reaction to the word — a more violent thrash and strangled scream.

Bentley reached up and grabbed one of his arms, shaking it lightly, but hard enough to wake him up. “Bellamy!”

Bellamy thrashed himself into alertness with a horrified scream, brown eyes wide and wild, flicking around the room like someone was lurking in the shadows, coming to kill him. He was catapulted into a coughing fit that seemed more like him choking on his own tears, shooting off of his back and coiling himself into an impenetrable little ball on the edge of his bed, against the wall.

“Hey — you’re awake,” Bentley tried, but he didn’t think Bellamy quite heard him — he was crying so hard it was still making him choke, and he couldn’t really seem to breathe. After a moment, his brown eyes finally locked onto Bentley’s.

He wasn’t sure if he was really cut out for this kind of thing.

Without any other words, in one sudden, jerky movement, Bellamy threw himself off the bed and collided with Bentley hard enough to nearly knock the wind out of him. Bentley wasn’t sure what was going on until he comprehended that Bellamy’s arms were around him.

“Oh,” Was his first reaction — not very helpful, he guessed. He brought his arms up and around him quickly. “It’s okay. You’re awake.”

Through the terrible crying and choking, he felt Bellamy ball up the back of his t-shirt in his hands.

“You were dead,” He mumbled almost incoherently, hiccuping over and over like little kids did after long bouts of crying. “You died right in front of me.”

Bentley exhaled heavily, rubbing Bellamy’s back lightly. “I’m here.”

Bellamy said nothing, but seemed to cling to Bentley like he would literally die if he didn’t, so Bentley just let him. Wasn’t that what he ended up doing on his second nightmare in the Manor? With Tim after he saw Tim die? He sighed and rubbed his back again.

When Bentley looked at Bellamy, he saw himself.

(Hopefully, Bellamy wouldn’t become too much like him.)

—

dedicated to @sassenashsworld ❤️

—

tag list! (If you want me to remove or add you, ask in comments!)

@fleur-alise @sarcopterygiian @flyrobinflyy @gayboss-too-close-to-the-sun @xiaonothere @skylathescholarly @beatyoutothatusernameloser

[wolfpants]

10 smutty dialogue scenes/quotes

I was tagged by the lovely @tenthousandyearsx to share 10 smut/pre-smut dialogue scenes! You can read her delicous selection here!

Rules: pick any ten fics, select some smut or pre-smut dialogue, and tag ten people. If you have written less than ten, feel free to share anyway!

Some of these are quite chunky, my guys don't always do a lot of talking. A lot of bossing around though 👀

Mix of pairings, listed next to the quote.

Click for satan

From: Romp and Circumstance Drarry

Harry swallows hard. “McLaggen doesn’t seem like—”

“The submissive type? Potter, you judge too hastily,” Malfoy breathes, rolling his hips. Harry’s hard cock rubs up against the inside of Malfoy’s tightly clothed thigh, an aching throb that makes Harry feel like he has a hand around his throat, cutting off the blood supply to his head. 

Merlin. Sixth year Malfoy, eighth year Malfoy, this Malfoy. 

This is the Malfoy that’s been hiding himself away for so long?

What a waste, Harry thinks helplessly, swallowing back the bitterness of having to hand this over to McLaggen when their agreement is over.

Purred, “I could turn any man into the submissive type.”

“Yes, you could,” Harry breathes.

-

From: Tiny Home Dronarry

“Does Harry do this to you?” Draco asks him, licking his lips.

Ron tries to nod—Draco can feel the minute movement of it—but when he realises he can’t do it properly, he huffs his acknowledgement instead. 

Warmth pools low in Draco’s belly at the image; Harry, perhaps behind Ron, a fistful of his hair as he pushes into him, strong and good—so fucking good, Draco knows this—Ron’s back arched, his cheeks flushed strawberry-pink as he’s fucked to within an inch of his life.

“I forgot to cut it.” Draco repeats Ron’s words back at him, his tone darkly playful. “Sure, Weasley. You forgot.”

“Fuck,” Ron breathes. “Draco.”

-

From: Under Giant Mountains Drarry

Malfoy tilted his head to look at him, breathless, his lips pink and shiny with spit.

“Potter?”

“I—”

Malfoy wrapped his hand fully around Harry’s prick, stroking slowly. Harry had to grit his teeth to stop himself from coming on the spot, had to bite down on the words poised to leave his throat.

I’ve never—

There’d been no one since Smith, that last spring at Hogwarts.

Malfoy pushed his hands against the bench and stood up in one fluid motion, until their faces were barely an inch apart. He grinned at Harry, rubbing the tips of their noses together. Harry puddled, at his mercy, and gripped the edge of the bench harder when Malfoy lifted his hips and helped him out of his pants and joggers fully. He spread Harry’s knees with strong hands, hands that then came up to brace Harry’s throat, to cup his skull and hold it like it was some delicate thing that needed all of his careful, seemingly expert attention. Harry’s chest ached, and he closed his eyes, focusing instead on the heat throbbing between his legs.

“Do you want this?” Malfoy asked him, biting his chin.

“Yes,” Harry hissed, and they kissed again, sinking into it, hot and deep and slow. Malfoy tasted like ale and fresh air.

-

From: If You Show Me Yours Drarry

“You didn’t knock,” Draco says, curling his fingers into the sheets beneath him. He’s still hard, achingly so, his cock tenting his Y-fronts and leaking against the white cotton.

Potter puts a hand on the door, his fingers spread. His other hand, hanging limply by his side, disappears from Draco’s view.

Draco swallows.

“I’m getting revenge,” Draco adds archly once he’s found his voice again. “Tit for tat.”

Tat for tat.

“That’s a low blow, Malfoy,” Potter breathes. 

-

From: All Hues in his Controlling Drarry

Draco spins Harry around and presses him against the wall in the hallway. It’s covered in rich green wallpaper he’d picked out carefully from Liberty of London, ensuring it complimented the drapes just so. 

Harry moans, cheek pressed against the wall, hips tilted back, arse perfectly positioned against Draco’s crotch.

“Do you feel that?” Draco murmurs, one hand on Harry’s waist, the other digging gently into his thick curls on the crown of his head.

Draco rubs himself over Harry, dragging his clothed cock up and down, back and forth, slowly, slowly. “I’m going to have you riding this like a seasoned whore by the time I’m done with you.”

-

From: The Hollow Remus/Draco

“Fuck… Draco, I—ah—” 

Remus continues to grip Draco’s waist in his other hand, sliding it down to his hip, sharp beneath those heavy, restrictive layers.

Draco Malfoy, prim and proper and buttoned up to the wrists and jaw, pulling him off with painful, sublime precision.

It’s obscene. It’s incredible.

“No talking,” Draco is saying, gripping Remus tighter, stroking him faster.

“You—don’t, ah—mean that,” Remus says dizzily, his body curving.

“No talking.”

-

From: Enterrement de vie de garçon Riktor, Drarry, Deamus

“We get like this. Sometimes,” Ron admits.

“Ah,” Viktor says, his eyes roving over Ron’s chest where it peeks out the water, his red hair gone dark with it. Viktor’s ponytail is sagging even more now, loose strands of hair curling at his throat. He is extraordinarily handsome. “I like it. It’s fun.”

Ron swallows. “Yeah.”

That’s all it takes, really. They’re kissing after that, relearning each other’s mouths after five years, and it’s—surprisingly easy.

-

From: The Night Before Drarry

Draco clears his throat. “Hi,” he says, eyes still closed.

Harry bites back a grin. “Hi.”

That thigh inches closer, now rubbing against his own, and Harry groans as it brushes against his hard cock, the erection he woke up with.

“Hi,” Draco says with a low laugh, cloudy grey eyes opening a slit.

Harry snorts. “Hi.” He shuffles closer, any anticipated awkwardness melting away between them. Draco slides a hand over his side, pulling Harry half atop him.

“My breath smells,” Harry says. 

“I don’t care,” Draco murmurs, and he lifts his head to kiss him with impossibly warm lips.

-

From: Obedience Drarry

“Are you nervous about being hard in front of all these people?” Draco asks him hotly. “And not being able to do anything about it?”

“No,” Harry says, swallowing.

Draco hums. “You’re so good for me.” He drops his hand from Harry’s chest. “You’ll meet me outside after. Immediately.”

“Yes,” Harry says.

“Do you belong to me, Harry?” Draco asks, a soft whisper.

“Yes,” Harry breathes.

He spares Draco a quick glance. His grey eyes are alight, his cheeks rose-pink. 

Draco presses a single, gentle kiss to the corner of Harry’s lips. “Break a leg, darling.”

-

From: Nightcall Drarry

“I’m on the tip of Skye looking at the North Atlantic. I’m very alone. I can’t even remember the last time I saw a tree.”

“Then,” Draco huffs gently—an inhale, a sharp exhale, the sound of his shoes clicking against pavement. He’s walking through the hedge maze. “Fuck you.”

Harry licks his lips. “Yeah?” He cups himself over his leather trousers. Slides his thumb over the shifting head of his cock as it grows closer towards his hip.

Draco hums, deep and smooth. Harry tilts his hips up in a slow simulated fuck against his own fingers, heat spreading, sharp and singular, between his legs. “God I want you,” he rasps.

Tagging @lumosatnight @danpuff-ao3 @oknowkiss @sweet-s0rr0w @tackytigerfic @thehoneybeet and anyone who wants to share really!!

[writing-oof]

what am i if not a dog - El (9)

(or: the E.G.G.s have superpowers. this, surprisingly, is only the beginning of El's problems.) (or: or: El Quackity gets rehabilitated like a rabid dog, Quackity yoinks his evil little brother, and A1 is safe and sound at the end of things)

TW: dehumanization, headache, loneliness, trauma

El wakes up with a headache.

It's not really an abnormal experience, feeling as his brain is tugged in a hundred different directions, a thousand tiny strings stretching and coiling around the base of his skull. Still, just because something's normal doesn't mean that he has to like it. Especially when it makes the edges of his vision hazy and his hands a hair shakier than usual.

He groans, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and trying to remember why he thought sleeping in a tree was a good idea.

Something about Philza and birds' nests, he thinks, but his insides are twisted up enough that he might have just been drunk.

Not very drunk, he figures, sniffing the damp sleeve of his shirt only to find a very pleasant mixture of water and monster guts assailing his nose.

He tries to ground himself and ignore the headache as he makes his way out of the tree and towards Roier's home, ducking into the underbrush when he catches the sound of islanders headed his way. He waits until they've passed, and then a beat longer, before hurrying back along.

His head throbs just a bit more. It stings a bit, to be hiding again.

He thought things were going well.

After Fit let him crash inside his base, Ramón poking at him to keep him awake as he shook under a dozen different blankets, things had finally started to shape up for El. For the first time in probably ever, the islanders looked at him without the usual open hostility and hatred he'd grown accustomed to.

And then, probably predictably, things had gotten bad again.

Whatever happened isn't his fault, he's pretty sure, but crashing into Roier and sending both of them sprawling right outside his home probably is.

"Fuck!" Roier says, his usual cheer replaced with something sharp as he scrambles up, "Be careful, man!"

"Sorry," El says, and for the first time in weeks he flinches when Roier's hand settles in front of his face, frozen for half a beat before he clasps their hands and lets the islander pull him up.

"What were you even doing here?" Roier asks with a grin, but it feels sharp and wrong and--fuck, Roier was supposed to be the one normal Islander-- "Were you coming to spy on my house?"

He wiggles his eyebrows, but El feels a line of tension in all of it like maybe he was actually worried about El coming to spy.

"No way, man!" El says, trying to bring the conversation back to normal, even if it means being a bit more excited than usual, "I found a dungeon no one's touched yet. You in?"

"I can't," Roier says, shrugging apologetically, and El rolls his eyes.

"Come on, man," he protests, knocking their shoulders together playfully, "You love dungeons!"

"Yeah, yeah," Roier agrees, picking up his fallen sword and handing El his own axe that had fallen out of its sheath and onto the ground.

"Come on," El needles, and Roier shrugs again.

"I really can't."

El rolls his eyes. "I bet you're just avoiding me, huh?" he says, knocking into Roier again. Roier, who'd been trying to sheath his own sword again, fumbles as it clatters to the ground again.

El can feel the moment things snap. It's like the air itself gets electrified--has been getting electrified--and Roier spins on his heel, his expression twisted.

"Would you stop it, man!?" Roier demands, "I said I can't! Just go find someone else to bother! Or go back and report to your Federation bosses!"

"I--" El feels the words die in his throat. He feels Roier's eyes digging under his skin, frustrated and annoyed, and knows he can't fix this.

El doesn't even know what he did, not really, since his words made it clear that Roier was bothered by more than dropping his sword.

Something sinks deep in El's gut.

Roier lets out a cross between a sigh and a huff, dragging his hands down his face.

"I'm sorry, man," he says, but it sounds uncomfortably flat, "I'm crazy busy right now, you know? Maybe later?"

El just nods, trying to keep whatever's growing in his chest off of his face. Roier sighs again.

"See you later, man," He says with a little wave, and just like that El's alone again. His hands are cold again at his sides. Maybe that's just how things are meant to be.

(Maybe that's what he deserves.)

---

El should have known not to take Roier's advice.

He stumbles down the trail, still not far enough from his superiors' offices to get away with collapsing onto the floor like a tantruming toddler, and he keeps his eyes focused on the path in front of him.

His legs feel like dead weight, suddenly heavy and exhausted. His ears ring, a shaking shriek between his skull, and the space between his temple and his eye throbs. It's going to bruise, he's sure.

That's what he gets for following Roier's ideas and reporting in to his bosses. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but he didn't have anything new for them at all. Worse, he'd tried to stick around and ask questions after they'd dismissed him.

El's lucky a freshly revived headache--his new constant--is all he'd gotten.

Still, it isn't fair.

He gives his whole life to the Federation and they still skirt around him like he's a particularly live wire, a stack of TNT ready to go off at a moment's spark.

El's doing everything for them, but it's barely anything at all.

And no one will tell him anything. He can hear the operatives get quiet the second they spot him peering around the corner, voices hushed and files shoved into drawers like he's spying on the Federation for the islanders, and not the other way around. The sanitation workers won't even meet his gaze anymore, turning away like he isn't even there. Every sense of camaraderie he had with anyone is gone, replaced with a stiff and unrelenting tension.

The helpless frustration tugs at his brain like a really persistent alligator, stretching his thoughts in a billion different directions. It's painful, almost as painful as a boot to the face. His skull throbs and his whole body feels hot with frustration. His eyes well up with embarrassed tears.

El grits out a cross between a scream and a groan between his teeth, clenching his jaw and his fists tightly as he walks.

Why is it all going wrong now?

Just when things started to be almost okay for him?

El wipes at his eyes with the sleeves of his shirt; it's fine. He moves forward, aimless but steeled, trying to redirect his thoughts away from the static that consumes them.

'I'll just go to the dungeon myself,' he thinks, kicking at the ground while he walks. 'Who needs Roier anyways?'

El pauses, processes what he just thought, and then immediately scowls. The guy's so annoying El can't even escape him in his brain. He would never say it to him, but if the islander were some sort of disease, El would definitely have it.

It's like he's an infection, always festering on the forefront of El's mind.

And, now he can't stop thinking about the dismissal, the way Roier used to be with him painfully different from the way he is now. The distance between them stings something fierce, and he grits his teeth harder as the static in his head grows louder, more present, almost like it's zeroing-in.

Then, because he isn't dealing with enough right now, voices come into focus.

"Ḿ̸̻͂̅̔̍a̵̢̻͍͊n̵͉͕̮͈͎̑,̸̡̤̻̦̫͊́ ̷̻̆̕w̸͚̪̓͝h̷̺̪͔͊͊a̷̗͕̝̭͘t̵̲̭̗̠̫̍̎̉͋ do you think?" Roier asks and El jumps, his heart in his throat.

It only takes a second for him to decide to duck behind a bush, pressing a hand over his face in an effort to keep himself quiet. He's already in hot water with the islanders, they already think he's spying on them. He does not need to make that worse for himself.

"I̶͓̼̋͊̚̕͠ͅ ̷̣͇͈͓̗̎̈͛̄̕m̸̢̖̗̋̄̂̈̕è̸͍̺̯̟͈̃͊͘ā̴̻͋ņ̷͐́̒ͅ,̶̧͕͘ who knows," someone--Foolish, maybe--says with a laugh.

El tries to breathe, his headache pounding in full force and only getting worse as his heart pounds inside his chest. His breath comes faster with every second, his lungs aching, and his hands are starting to cramp from the force he's been clenching them.

A pained noise covered in static rings out and it takes him more than a moment to realize it came from him.

"W̴͓̉͌̆̉h̵̯̐̕o̷̰̥̍̇'̷͙̯̦͕̀̾͗͗́͜ș̷͛̔͊̍̂͌ there?" Roier asks, his voice tense and suspicious.

El stills. He can feel the blood draining from his face.

He is so, so fucked.

---

Part 9 of ? First Previous Next

[its-my-whump]

Medwhump May- Day 21

Nausea

@medwhumpmay

Tw: veeery pictured discription of puking (I may have disgusted myself a bit, so be aware)

Part 21 (all others here)

Something felt off, all of a sudden. She had dosed off, after nurse Eve had left. The comforting feeling of having something mildly warm in her empty stomach lolled her asleep.

She woke with a start. The little shock, that ran through her, let the pain in her chest flame up. A painful groan and she sank back a bit deeper into her cushion. Arms and legs just as heavy as the very first time she woke up and could actually remember it. Her whole body was filled with lead. Maybe, she was one of those mutants like Wolverine, her skeleton reinforced with steel and her healing powers were just sapped from her. Her stomach rumble, loudly, painfully. Something was definitely off.

The soothing feeling in her stomach was merely a memory of the past. Now it felt... wrong.

Agonisingly slowly, she forces her eyes to open. The world was spinning, she felt dizzy. Highly dizzy to be precise.

It was dark outside and only dimly lit inside. Since, she was recovering, she had the pleasantries of a room with an actual window and a real view of grey skyscrapers in the distance. But she couldn't see any of it now. Not, that she wanted to, anyway. She just wanted the world to slow down and stop running in circles around her.

Another painful moan slipped out, as she pressed her eyes close. It was not really a headche, more like a pounding, a little dwarf, was producing by splitting her skull open with his axe.

She lay halfway and really uncomfortable on her right side. It was hurtful, but her body dictated her position, already knowing, what was about to come, while her brain didn't understand a thing, when her jaw clenched.

The muscles in her neck stiffened and her gullet jerked. The uprising was short, painful and disgusting. Unconsiously she had managed to turn so far to the side, that the danger of suffocating was quiet small. Nevertheless, a tiny stream of broth, mixed my stomach acid and spit burst out of her, soaking the sheet and only part of it made it over the edge of the bed. It was so watery, that remains dripped from the bedframe, when her stomach revolted again. She tried to get some air in, but it felt, like her hurting chest wouldn't let her. Or maybe, she wasn't trying hard enough, because it hurt so, so much. Nothing more than a whimper happened.

Her ribs protested more. Beside the pain in her stomach, her chest felt, like she was laying on a nailboard. Another desperate whimper was interrupted by an agonising cough, that let her see stars.

Too exhausted to care, her head sank down and her cheek touched the disturbingly warm fluids, that just came out of her intestens. The nasal cannula pinched in her nose and pulled at her right ear. But exhausting and pain were fighting to get the upper hand, she couldn't change that right now.

She knew, she needed to do something, but she didn't know what it was. The feeling, that death would be a relief right now, was bumping around in her head light a flickering light.

Her subconsciousness told her to open her eyes again. 'But why? Wasn't this bad enough, already? She didn't need to see and feel the world spinning additionally.'

Nonetheless, they flew open, the moment she barfed again. The pain, her body was in, was getting worse by the minute. It felt, like she hadn't pulled in one proper breathe since...

Everything was moving, even the little puddle she was laying in. As did the wire right in front of her eyes. Breathing was getting even harder. She pressed her lids close again. Her brain wasn't following. Her insticts took charge and her right hand, she was laying partly on, was fumbling around on the bedding. Her vision was shrinking. Funny effect, cause her eyes were actually close. 'How did she know?'

Her stomach flipped again, but as the last times, nothing was really coming up. There was literally nothing in there. The convulsions of her muscles strained the sutures on her chest and belly. The sob, developed into a painful cry. Big white dots dancing before her black vision for a moment.

Her hand finally found, whatever her subconsciousness was making her look for. Her nose was wet, laying her own watery vomit, the smell was burning in her nostrales, because the nasal cannula was affect by stuff coming up too. Her pipe was burning from stomach acid and the bitter taste was so strong, it felt like more was about to come.

With her last effort, her fingers curled around the call botton and her thumb pressed it down hardly enough, before she slipped into unconsciousness.

->Day22

My masterlist

[leighsartworks216]

The Egos as Things I Did/That Happened to Me in College

Actor: roommate had people over to do stick n pokes on them but it was after 11 and they weren't leaving so i had to blast music and roll over to ignore them

Dark: strolled around campus late at night in Phantom of the Opera garb (fancy vest, cape, skull cane, mask) with friends, one of which wore a dinosaur costume

Wilford: went with friends to the campus pond to scream. some people even screamed back

Damien: crossed the campus during a torrential rain to have a (scheduled) meeting with a teacher who emailed me (as i was sitting in the hall waiting) not to come to the meeting bc of the weather

Yancy: went to an audition with a friend (my first ever) and sang a song way too low for me bc i enjoyed the song so much

Illinois: went with a friend behind a strange fenced in area and found a shit ton of glass bottles and stuff. walked until we found a no trespassing sign and went there again with a third friend later

Engineer: found an old tv by a dumpster. brought it back to my dorm where we gutted and cleaned it with disinfectant wipes. took turns sitting inside it and taking polaroids of each other

Murdock: roommate threw a stuffed animal at me bc i had allergies and was snoring during my nap (he's throwing the stuffed animal)

Bing: walked around with a Magikarp hat on that i made myself and finished the Morning I decided to wear it to my class

Captain Magnum: with the freedom of living alone + having a debit card, i bought spinning rings, an angry corgi plush, a 100 piece tiny baby set, and 175 piece dice collection

Bim Trimmer: gave a presentation about a renaissance art work that basically resulted in infodumping about the work and the artist

Eric Derekson: didn't go to a class for weeks (like two classes per week) because it was in a building i'd never been in before

The Jims: asked the ra's at a friends dorm for condoms so that we could make balloons

Author/Host: wrote a 12 page essay on a subject that was only supposed to be 5 pages

Annus: helped a fallen and weak cicada back onto a nearby tree. couldn't look at the tree for a week+ bc i knew it wouldn't be there

[mentallyilllittleguy]

TW - Ghost trauma (mental health issues, abuse, references to SA) and symbolic NSFW (not explicit)

'A Pearl' by Mitski, told through Ghost and his relationships. (Please note: some repeated lines are omitted for the sake of comprehension and brevity.)

You're growing tired of me

You love me so hard and I still can't sleep

Ghost looks down at Soap. The man is laying on his chest, fast asleep.

An unsettled feeling grows in his stomach. It's two a.m., meaning he should be asleep too, but... he just can't seem to find it in himself.

He's turning those words over in his head, again and again and again:

"I love you, Simon. Even if you're a dead man."

Dammit, that accent made him weak in the knees. It makes his head spin, like he's going to vomit. Sick, like a punch to the gut. He heard those first three words from his mother... once. His brother, a few times, back when he was tiny and ham-fisted. No one had said it since.

You're growing tired of me

And all the things I don't talk about

Roach's eyes, when not covered by a pair of sunglasses, are a soft, chocolate colour. They match his warm brown skin perfectly.

"Ya don't have to tell me, Si," he says, his fluttering lashes and crinkled nose the perfect portrayal of the sadness he reflects from Ghost. "I mean, fuck, I'm glad you even told me what ya did."

Ghost shakes his head, his eyes burning. It's not good enough, but he can't cry now.

"Simon." Roach has cupped Ghost's cheek in his hand. "It's alright, darl'." His Australian drawl is soothing, his touch warm enough to feel as though it's sinking into Ghost's bones.

"I'm sorry," Ghost rasps. His throat is closing up and he knows he's going non-verbal. He quickly signs, "Space."

Roach nods. "That's alright, sweet'eart. You've got nothing to be sorry for, but I understand why you feel like you need to apologise."

He blows a kiss to Ghost and leaves the room, shutting the door gently behind him.

Sorry, I don't want your touch

It's not that I don't want you

Sorry, I can't take your touch

"Ghost?" Soap says, slowly approaching.

The screams keep echoing around Ghost's head. There's pain all over his body, that hook sunk deep in his stomach. He remembers what it was like to have those people touch him, grab him and use his body in the most sadistic ways possible.

"Ghost," Soap says. He kneels down next to Ghost and touches his arm.

Ghost flinches away.

"What's wrong?" Soap asks.

Shaking his head, Ghost reaches out to push Soap away. His throat is full of words and sounds and feelings and they're all clogged up. The push falls short, and Soap creeps closer.

"Ghost, can you tell me five things you can see?"

Still too far away to push, Soap lingers. His fingers are splayed out, hand outstretched as though he wants to touch Ghost. Ghost starts thinking about the texture of skin and the heat of it and the goosebumps it will cause on his own skin and the idea of those sensory things makes him want to throw up, makes him want to rip his skin off, makes him want to scream until his throat begins to bleed.

Soap inches closer and Ghost starts to scream, banging his hands on the floor. It's all too much. Everything is too much. He can feel everything and hear it and see it and smell it and taste it and its crammed inside his skull and he is going to die.

He screams and screams and screams... and when he finally feels like the energy and itch of his body is dispelled, he sees that his fists are dripping with blood, the floor beside him spattered in it.

What he notices next is that Soap is nowhere to be seen. That feels like a stab to the heart. He wonders why he pushes Soap away every single time. And yes, he was having a sensory meltdown but fuck, why can't his brain just let him have one good thing to comfort him? Just one would do.

It's just that I fell in love with a war

Nobody told me it ended

And it left a pearl in my head

And I roll it around every night

Just to watch it glow

Every night baby that's where I go

"You're always there, aren't you?" Roach asks.

Ghost looks up at him, startled. The thoughts that clink around in his head become quieter.

"What do you mean?"

With a sad smile, Roach comes to sit in front of him. They're both cross-legged on the bed they share - small, cold figures of the night. The moonlight from outside reveals the rhythm of Roach's lips as he speaks.

"You're always stuck in all those places where something horrific happened. I can see it. There's this... emptiness." Gentle as ever, Roach's hand cups his cheek. "If you ever need me, take me with you. I love you."

"I love you too," Ghost says. He kisses Roach's palm.

There's a hole that you fill

You fill

You fill

With Soap behind him, inside him, and Roach's hands touching every centimetre of his skin... he feels so whole.

Soap is buried so deeply inside him that he simply feels full, the gnawing ache of the cold in his gut finally sated by the blaze of heat that is Soap's pure and utter adoration for him. Warmth curls around his neck with his huff of Soap's breath, revelling in how tightly those calloused hands hold his hips, rejoicing at the force with which Soap shows his love.

Roach's hands are all over him, palming at his chest and stomach, rolling the muscles and savouring them. His lips work against Ghost's like a lifeline, as if any kind of part between them could bring about their death. He's soft under Ghost's touch, malleable and kind, his breath softly fanning over Ghost's face, wisping through his hair.

Every touch, every breath... it's filling. It fills his heart in a way that can't be described. He allows himself to drift into the tide of warmth, lost to the rhythm of his own heart beating, floating on that high of euphoria.

It's just that I fell in love with a war

Nobody told me it ended

And it left a pearl in my head

And I roll it around every night

Just to watch it glow

Every night baby that's where I go

Just to watch it glow

The more Ghost thinks about it and the more he discusses his past with Soap and Roach, the more he begins to think that a pearl has formed inside his skull. It's something that has taken years to form, created through pressure and duress, hidden inside him until he can be prised open. That opening would reveal soft, vulnerable tissue, nestling a creamy white pearl in its dip. A pearl that is beautiful, yet eerily so. Maybe one day, Soap and Roach will be able to open him up and behold the pearl. Until then, Ghost lets it roll around his skull, smiling and watching it glow.

[darkworkcourier]

tiny little ghost/dancer fic that's been spinning around in my brain for weeks. the background is that ghost and dancer joined the SAS at the same time (they're only a month apart in age) and they're besties. (also FWBs in the future.)

so around this time, they're about 22 years old. ghost's just staring to really become Ghost, but dancer's just dancer.

cw for PTSD, trauma, and a wee bit of gore.

---

"Ghost. Hey. Hey." A hand tapping his helmet, the dull thunk-thunk reverberates through his skull. Then, with a little more insistence, "Simon. Look at me."

He does. Slowly. His neck feels like it operates on an old, rusty mechanism, aching as he turns to look at Dancer.

Dancer, right? At the moment, his mind is a tempest, throwing thoughts around like flotsam after a wreck, misplacing things he knows are supposed to be important. Their mission, what he's supposed to do next, the face of his best friend—

"Fuck," Dancer whispers. His eyes go wide, searching Simon's face for... something. Whatever he's looking for, Simon isn't sure if he's found it or not. He immediately opens the Humvee door and leans out, calling to their captain. "Give me a minute with him, 'kay? Just—"

He must make a motion with his hand that communicates something, because immediately after, Simon hears the captain grunt and say something like, "If it was anyone else," whatever that means.

The door shuts, leaving them alone in the wide cab, engine muttering quietly like an afterthought.

In an instant, Dancer's undoing the clasp on Simon's helmet, removing it and setting it down on the console. Dancer's own helmet follows, and then one of his hands is on Simon's head, fingernails gently scratching over his scalp—grounding him.

"Talk to me," he says. "Where are you right now?"

Hell if he knows. Maybe ten klicks back, caught in the frozen black mud with ordinance firing and leaving a burning taste in his mouth. He's back with a body, left arm missing, right hand gripping a rifle with fingers bent like claws. Fragments of a skull cling to his gloves, grey matter on his fatigues, patches of blood itchy on his face. All the while, the mantra—if I can hold his head together, he'll live. He'll live.

"Simon." Dancer's voice cuts through the chant, his hand firm and warm on Simon's head. "You're here. With me. You're in the back of this same bloody fuckin' Humvee that brought us out here. Captain Whitman is outside right now with our Lt., an' they're probably talkin' about something really fuckin' boring like... like cricket scores. Or that pub that Whitman never shuts up about. The one with the stupid name— what is it? The Hare and the—"

"The Barking Hare," Simon hears himself say.

Dancer grins. It's exhausted, and there's dirt at the corner of his mouth, but it's earnest. "Yeah," he replies. "The hell kinda name is that, anyway?"

Simon shakes his head. Doesn't know.

"Right, so they're talkin' about their stupid pub and cricket scores. And then they're gonna get in here and keep talkin' about it, so we'll have to hear it all the way back to base," Dancer goes on. His voice moves up and down like a song, and Simon feels himself lean into it. His right side is pressed against Dancer's left, and he nods slowly. Dancer's hand drops to the back of his neck, pulling Simon in close so their foreheads touch. "Whitman'll talk about how they don't play cricket like they did back when he was young, whenever that was. An' Lieutenant Foster will just say the word 'right' over and over because he's not actually listenin'."

"Until they start talkin' about rugby," Simon replies.

He feels Dancer laugh against him, a low rumble that draws Simon in even closer. "At least I can talk about rugby."

"Whitman wouldn't let you get a word in."

"No, but you an' I can talk about it," Dancer says.

Simon closes his eyes, smells the gunpowder-smoke-sweat clinging to Dancer. He focuses on the feeling of his best friend's hand running back and forth across the nape of his neck, drops his head a little to give Dancer more room.

Then Dancer asks in a low, soft voice, "What do you need from me, Si?"

Anything. Everything. He needs Dancer to hold onto him like this, to keep Simon from leaping out of his own body like he's a squatter just barely claiming rights. He needs him to scrub out every drop of blood and brain matter violently embossed into Simon's skin from the man he couldn't save. He needs—

"You," Simon replies, wretched and broken up. His throat feels tight. He hasn't cried in years, but for the first time, he feels perilously close.

Dancer's nuzzling up to him, undoubtedly leaving a dirt smear on Simon's face. "You have me, mate," he tells him. "Y'know that."

He does. They've had each other since day one, when they were scraping their way through SAS selection like two desperate animals. Dancer had him the moment he shoved their shoulders together during an exhausted walk back to the tent during their stamina trials, muttering, 'I feel like I fuck up less when I'm around you.'

"I know," Simon replies. One of his hands finds the back of Dancer's head, fingers running through his sweat-damp hair.

And he thinks, I'm less fucked up around you.

[zeldaseyebrows]

Chapter Three of Sacrilege and Sororities is out!

Summary: After an assassination attempt, Link and Zelda must live together and navigate the impending Calamity, grad school, strange dreams, and their complete disasters of personal lives. One of those things is more difficult than the others.

Pairing: Link/Zelda, OG Link/Hylia

Rating: E

Excerpt from Chapter 3 (Hangovers and Hair Bands):

Zelda wakes and thinks that Ganon must have appeared, razed the entire kingdom, and killed her. And then tap-danced on her skull. With spiked platform heels. Since she’s obviously dead and being punished for eternity.

Taking stock of the situation, Zelda realizes that she’s laying on her side in her bed, a wastebasket positioned right over the edge and a glass of water, litre bottle of pedialyte, and a suspiciously pink elixir on the nightstand. A gentle spring breeze blows through the large bay windows, causing the curtains to sway and carve sharp patterns into the light wood floor. On Link’s nightstand, the obnoxious alarm clock announces to the world it’s 1639.

Well,  Zelda realizes, at least it’s a Saturday and I won’t miss any class because of my idiotic indiscretion.

Pain stabs through Zelda’s temples in time with the beat of her heart and her mouth is drier than the Gerudo desert during a drought. The underwire of her bra cuts into her ribcage and the buttons on her pants dig into her stomach. At least she kept her clothes on and was spared that humiliation. Though she doesn’t like him, she trusts Link’s professionalism and knows he would never take advantage of her, even if she tried to strip down whilst sloshed out of her mind. He even averted his eyes and took off his own shirt to give her when she got hit in the chest by a rouge water balloon on the quad. Though him going to lecture topless almost incited a disgusting hormonal riot.

The person here she can’t trust is herself, since she can’t remember most of what had happened since the ill-fated dinner last night. She knows she had a strange dream as well, but she can’t hold onto it, and any memory of crimson and gold slips out of her mind like water through her hands.

Taking a deep breath for strength, Zelda drags her eyes up from where the Master Sword, in all of its glory and ostentation, is propped up on his headboard to the wide-eyed stare she knows awaits her.

Dark circles cling under his bloodshot eyes and an emotion she can’t quite parse is stuck on his face. Concern? Disappointment? Disgust?

Tiny bits and pieces come back to her: Doing body shots off a beautiful woman’s abs, dancing very badly around the spinning living room of the sorority house, Urbosa steering her into the bathroom, a stunning blonde woman picking her up, and something with a storm ditch and a hedge. But there’s hardly any detail and nothing to tie it all together. The night is a big swirl of confusion and questionable decisions.

How can I stop the Calamity and protect anyone if I can’t even keep it together for a night?

Zelda breaks the eye contact and silence first, clearing her rough throat.

“I apologize for my conduct last night,” she tells Link, voice scratchy and strained. “I’m afraid I don’t remember what transpired, but I hope that I wasn’t too much of a burden and that I didn’t do anything unbecoming.”

Link’s eye almost twitches before he shakes his head and responds, “No,” much too fast.

Right then, Zelda realizes that Link is not good at everything. Since Link is apparently a terrible liar.

[sergeantsporks]

Gilded Family

Rating: Teen and Up, Gen

Ch 21/?: Months Ago...

Ch 1, Ch 2, Ch 3, Ch 4, Ch 5, Ch 6 , Ch 7, Ch 8, Ch 9, Ch 10, Ch 11, Ch 12, Ch 13, Ch 14, Ch 15, Ch 16, Ch 17,  Ch 18, Ch 19, Ch 20

In which none of the previous golden guards or wittebro died, actually, they're all fine and living happily together as one big dysfunctional family

Ao3

Goodbye, Golden Guards.

Belos raised his scythe, but it was Phoenix looking down at a terrified Jason and Hunter, Phoenix who swung downwards at them.

“No!” Phoenix blinked up at a starry sky, blinking. “Hrngh?”

A dull ache throbbed in his arms and ribs, but considering the way the skull had fallen apart, he was surprised it wasn’t worse.

“HEYA!” A blue and yellow face appeared over him with a grin. “You’re awake! Fiiiiinally! You were so boring!”

Phoenix rolled out of… a bed? with a yelp, scrambling backwards away from the Collector. “Stay back!”

Collector laughed, flopping on his stomach in midair and kicking his legs. “Re-lax, I’m not gonna hurt you. Right, King?”

The tiny demon kid from the head waved at him from on top of a spinning blue star, now clothed in starry robes and a matching hat. “Uh. Hey. Yep. Not hurting people is our whole thing! Just… just playing games!”

Phoenix rubbed his eyes. “I’m still dreaming. Right? Wow. The other dream was more realistic than this, this is…” He stood up. “This is… are we on top of a tiny planet?”

All around them was endless space and stars, save for a window of bright light, and the little planet they stood on.

“It’s real,” King assured him, “I, uh, I saw you falling on the day of unity, and…”

“And I SAVED YOU,” the Collector yelled, punching one fist in the air. “BAM. Our first owl house adventure, swooping through on a star to catch you, and WHAM! Now you’re back here with us! This is our room, in the archive house!” He tapped his chin. “Maybe I should make bunk beds… those would be fun, or even a TRIPLE BUNK BED! Might make story time hard, though. We’ll see. Hm.” Collector circled around Phoenix’s head. “That liar Phillip said he destroyed all of his grimwalkers, and I couldn’t play with them, but he was wrong, wrong, wrong! And now you’re here, and we can be friends, like he kept saying maybe one day! Ha, take that, Phillip, your grimwalker is my friend now. Right? We can be friends? I saved you.”

Phoenix glanced at King, who nodded frantically. “…Sure… we can be friends…”

“YES! You can be our Hunter, do you know what he’s like? Yeah, of course you do. I bet you know about lots of adventures we could do, Belos sent you on adventures for him all the time. Hey, are there any more of you? Are all of them alive?!”

So he didn’t get Caleb and the others. Good.

“No. Just me.”

“Awwww, we could have had enough players for any game. Oh, well, I guess there’s always the others.” The Collector sat cross-legged in midair. “Are you hungry? I bet you’re hungry, I think mortals have to eat like every three hours or they die or something. That’s why puppets are easier.”

Puppets?

“…What exactly is it that you want?”

“Huh? What a weird thing to ask. Oh, yeah! I forgot!” Collector snapped his fingers, and a bundle of cloth fell down from out of nowhere into Phoenix’s hands. “That’s for you, new friend! So we can all match! Don’t worry, King and I will leave the room so you can change, no peeking, promise.”

The Collector floated out into the bright light, and King hopped towards Phoenix. “Just… play along with what he says, okay? The alternative is… not great.”

He bounced up into the air and out of the square of light, and Phoenix sat back down on the bed with a whump. At least everyone else had gotten out. The kids to the human realm and… hopefully everyone else had just gone home.  

Phoenix shook out the bundle of cloth. The clothes were silky, a deep blue long-sleeved tunic, and pants in a dark lavender. Stars dotted the hem of the tunic, the collar, and the ends of the sleeves. A golden moon glinted up at him from a belt buckle.

Alright. I’ll play for now.

He changed clothes, checking himself for injuries. He twisted his upper torso, wincing as his ribs protested. Yeah. Those were broken, or at least bruised. Bruises, bruises… Phoenix picked at the edge of the bandages around his arms, but didn’t remove them. He’d have to eventually, he needed to check on those wounds, but with any luck, he’d get out of this… archive house… first.

Phoenix yanked the tunic over his head and retied his ponytail.

“Alright… now how… do I…”

Phoenix jumped, the way he’d seen King do, and he rocketed away from the tiny planet with three beds, soaring through the window of light. Whatever weird gravity was in that room disappeared, and his feet tapped onto solid stone at the top of a staircase. Collector clapped his hands.

“Yay! You look great! Okeydokey, so, we have a couple of adults around, don’t worry about them, they’re here to help! Mamadalia!”

A woman with bright green hair stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at the Collector’s call. “Yes… Collector?”

“This is… Uh, Hunter, right?”

“It’s Phoenix.”

“Oh, whew, that’s way cooler. This is Phoenix! He’s been super sleepy and just woke up, so he’s, like, really hungry! Can you get uuuuuuuusssssss… King, quick, what do mortals eat?”

“Uhhhh, food? Fruit… vegetables… pizza bagels…”

“I don’t really need anything,” Phoenix tried, “I’m—"

“Pizza bagels for Phoenix!”

“Why dooon’t I just go with… Mamadalia?” Phoenix suggested, “That way I can make sure there’s enough for everyone?”

“Awww, okay, yeah. Come back soon!”

Phoenix walked down the stairs as quickly as he could without running. “Let’s go.”

“Mamadalia” raised one eyebrow, but turned heel and clicked down a hallway with no further comment. Phoenix chased after, looking behind him to make sure the Collector wasn’t following.

“How long has it been since the day of unity?”

“A day or so. Relax, you haven’t missed anything.”

Phoenix waved a hand at the hallway. “I think I’ve missed quite a bit! Sorry. I’m sorry, what’s your real name?”

“Odalia. Odalia Blight.”

“You’re okay?”

“Do you mean besides the fact that I’m wearing the most ridiculous outfit in the world? But oh, I suppose I’ll survive.”

“Alright.” Phoenix grabbed her wrist and ran towards a window, tugging her behind him. “Don’t worry. We’re getting out of here.”

Odalia yanked her arm away. “What on earth are you talking about? Getting out of here? I may be… Mamadalia, but it’s better than the alternative, thank you! No one is ‘getting out of here’!”

Phoenix yanked open the window.

The Isles fell far, far below them, miles down. The closest any land to the ‘archive house’ was the remaining horn of the titan, and the house was even floating above that.

“We aaaaare… flying.”

“What an astute observation.”

Phoenix brought his head back in and shut the window. “Okay. We’ll find another way.”

Odalia snorted. “There is no other way. You aren’t going anywhere. Try anything, and I’ll call for the Collector.”

Phoenix stared at her, gaping. “Are you serious?!”

“Listen up… whoever you’re supposed to be… I’m not putting my neck on the line for some half-baked escape plan. I perform the role of Mamadalia and get access to one of the most powerful beings in the universe. If I play my cards right, I not only rule this miserable dump heap, but shape it into what I want.”

Phoenix gestured towards the window and the broken skull outside of it. “Do you really think you can control that?!”

“Oh, please. He may be powerful, but he’s a silly child. I know how to handle children.” Her eyes gleamed. “And if I tell him you tried to escape, then that makes me more trustworthy and removes some of the… competition.”

“You know what else would remove competition? Letting me escape. But fine. Fine.” Phoenix stalked down the hallway. “Why don’t you just show me where the kitchen is, and we can leave each other alone?”

Odalia chased after him. “Or… I’m willing to let you in on the spoils if you help me.”

“And what could I, the competition, possibly offer?”

“I haven’t been picked for the role of ‘friend.’ You have. That gives you a closer position to the Collector. And his best friend. If either of us truly has their ears, it will be you.”

Phoenix’s gut roiled. “Can I just—I would like to point out that they’re kids. Kids with insane powers, sure, but kids.”

Odalia sighed. “Oh, please, I already told you, I know how to handle children. I’ll walk you through it, I just need your position. Here.”

She drew a circle in the air, and a purple gem thudded against Phoenix’s collarbone, secured by a black string.

This way, I can talk to you and hear what you’re hearing, Odalia’s voice said in his mind, I can tell you what to say, you simply need say it.

Phoenix halted in his tracks, yanking the necklace off. “No. Absolutely not. I don’t need your voice in my head, and I definitely don’t want you spying on me.”

I’ve dealt with enough omnipresent watchers for one lifetime.

“At least think about it.”

Phoenix opened another window, holding the necklace out. “No.”

“Drop it and I go straight to the Collector,” Odalia snapped.

Phoenix’s jaw clenched, and he slowly dragged the gem back in.

“Put it on. You don’t have to say what I tell you just yet, I’ll give you time to decide.”

“Do I really get a choice?”

“Of course you do. Here, let me show you the other choice.”

Odalia touched the pendant at her throat, and purple light beamed out, forming a picture of the isles, overwhelmed with strange blue plants and sparkles. The view roamed over Bonesborough, empty and silent, and then finally into the Archive House, stopping at a door. Phoenix slowly turned, spotting the same door to his right. Phoenix reached for the handle, slowly pushing it open.

Lifeless, dull eyes stared back at him. People—or, at least, what used to be people—lay collapsed all over the floor, joints bent at awkward angles. Phoenix backed away.

Puppets

That’s what he meant.

“What happened to them?!”

“They didn’t want to play the Collector’s game. So he made them. Those are your options, Phoenix. You can play the Collector’s little game for the rest of your life. You can make a run for it and get stuck a mindless puppet, still playing his game. Or you can play my game, and stand to actually win something. I’m sure you’re a smart man—you haven’t been turned into a puppet yet—but handling children just isn’t your forte, darling.” She patted his shoulder. “Like I said, I’ll give you time. You don’t have to say yes right away. But the clock is ticking on how long you can keep the Collector happy without me. Now, how about that kitchen, hm? Don’t expect me to cook for you, though.”

She strode away, and Phoenix took a deep breath.

Haven’t had to deal with someone like her in a while.

But every coven head had just been another Odalia Blight. Maybe the setting had changed, but competing with a manipulative snake to get in the good graces of a volatile being that had the power to destroy you? He could handle that. Maybe he’d gotten a little rusty with Caleb and the other Grimwalkers, but this was the same game he’d been playing for half of his life.

And that meant there was a way to win.

Xxx

“Does he… even need to eat?” Phoenix whispered, handing King a dragonfruit.

The fruit spurted out a burst of flame, but King didn’t seem to be burned by it. “No idea.”

Collector paced back and forth, waving a squash around in the air like a bat. “Now! Since the real owl lady is… sick… we need a replacement. Phoenix, while you were finding snacks, King and I vetted some possible options, but I want your opinion, too. Did you know the Owl Lady?”

“Only from stories.”

“Hey, me too! Cool, cool, we should both have the same ideas. Candidate one!”

Collector clapped his hands, and a familiar (if older) woman appeared, her eyes darting around and taking in all of her surroundings.

“Terra?!” Phoenix yelped.

She looked him up and down for a moment, then marched over, squinting at the scar that went through his right eyebrow. She gasped. “Rosebud!” Terra reached for his face. “They told us you were dead! But it looks like you haven’t aged a single day.”

Phoenix knocked her hand away. “Don’t touch me.”

“Oh, looks like this rose grew a few thorns, hmmmm?”

Collector floated between them. “Phoenix? Do you know her?”

Phoenix crossed his arms, turning away from Terra. “Unfortunately. You don’t want her to be your Owl Lady, she’s not very nice.”

Terra gasped. “Rosebud. After everything I’ve done for you?!”

“After…!” Phoenix whirled around again. “You have been trying to poison me since I was thirteen!”

“Oh, please, I never gave you anything in deadly amounts. I was trying to build your poison tolerance, Rosebud! I did it because I cared!” She waved a hand. “I did it for your predecessor all the time. Now there was a man who did whatever it took to win.”

The Collector laughed. “Oh, I remember him! He was really good at statues! Although that miiiiiiight have been because Belos petrified him. Huh.”

Petro. He was the guard before me?

Collector tilted his head at Terra. “You wanna try and find out?”

Her face paled. “No, thank you.”

“You should give it a try,” Phoenix snapped, “See if that builds up your tolerance to petrification.”

“Oh, what is wrong with you? What happened to my sweet little rosebud?”

Phoenix waved a hand. “I don’t know! What did happen to him? Did you ever bother trying to find out?! So much for caring, huh?”

Collector floated between the two of them, holding his arms out. “Neither of you are being very nice,” he said firmly, “You are going into time out!”

The Collector snapped his fingers, and the world around Phoenix blurred into a haze of blue dotted with huge golden stars before settling into an empty void, back on the tiny planet. Phoenix jumped upwards, but the window of light vanished, and he fell back to the planet. He flopped onto the bed with a whump.

“Great.”

Well, that certainly was well-handled, Odalia’s voice said. Phoenix pulled the purple pendant out of his pocket, the gem glowing in the darkness. You need my help more than I thought. Maybe I should rescind my offer before you get us both in trouble.

“Oh, be quiet,” Phoenix grumbled, shoving the necklace under the bed, “You’re the last thing I need right now.”

The window of light opened again, just long enough for King to float down. The little demon clicked a lamp on and sat next to Phoenix, swinging his legs.

“So.”

“So.”

King looked up at the void. “Got kinda heated back there.”

“Even before Belos tried to kill me, I’d started trying to avoid her. Trust me, you and the Collector don’t want to be anywhere near her. Once I started mentoring Darius, I kept him far away from her.”

“Yeah, she seems like a real nice lady.

“She has been through three golden guards,” Phoenix burst out, “She was there when the guy before me was on a bloody conquest in the name of Belos, knew him personally apparently, she was there for half my life, and she was there to see Hunter replace me, and she didn’t once think that something might be wrong?!” Phoenix flopped backwards. “She did notice,” he grumbled, “She just didn’t care. I don’t know why I expected anything better from her, I know what she’s like. Sorry, I know you probably have no idea what I’m talking about.”

“Yeah, expecting good things from the person who routinely poisoned you as a kid is a little weird,” King agreed, “You doing okay?”

“Are you? I haven’t gotten to talk to you without… him… around.”

“Mm. Yeah. He’s… I’m still trying to figure him out. For now, I think if I go along with him, teach him new games, he’ll leave the people I love alone, and that’s… that’s what’s really important. I can figure out details later.”

“So… you don’t want to be here?”

“I’d rather be home. With Eda. And Luz.” King picked up a stuffed rabbit, squeezing it tightly. “But Luz is in another dimension. And Eda’s in her Owl Beast form until I can figure out a way to get an elixir to her. Lilith might have been able to help, but… she’s a puppet. And so’s Hooty. And…” King’s eyes welled up with tears. “And I don’t know when I’ll get to see them again, or if… if…”

Phoenix reached out, but didn’t touch the little demon. “Uh… permission to touch?”

King nodded, and Phoenix scooped him up, holding him in his lap. “I know we… kind of just only met properly now. But… look, I’ll help you figure out a way to turn your Eda and Hooty and Lilith back to normal. And… I don’t know your Luz, but she’s with my Jason, and I know he’s not going to stop looking for a way back to his family.”

King sniffed. “Luz won’t either.”

“Then between the two of them, I’m sure they’ll get back to us. And in the meantime, the best thing we can do is… try to stay alive. And try to get out of here. With our loved ones.”

“How are you planning to do that?”

“I don’t know yet. But I’m working on it. And when I do figure it out, I’ll take you with me. We’ll get our friends, and we’ll find somewhere to hide where the Collector can’t find us. Promise.”

“Thanks.”

“Thank me after we’re out of here.”

The window of light opened again, and Collector drifted down, tapping his index fingers together. “Phoenix? Are you… mad at me? I won’t make you play with Terra if you don’t want to. And I’m sorry I put you all alone in time out, it’s not nice to be alone.”

King patted Phoenix’s arm. “It’s all okay, Collector, Phoenix and I had a really long talk, and he feels a lot less mad now. He just doesn’t like Terra very much, and he’s still not feeling too good from Belos attacking him.”

“Okay, then maybe we wait until tomorrow to play? So Phoenix can feel better? And no Terra. Building up poison tolerance did sound fun, though…”

“It’s not,” Phoenix said flatly.

“Really? Man. Okay, we’ll stick to owl house. Do you know how to play, Phoenix?”

Phoenix shook his head. “You’re going to have to teach me.”

Collector’s eyes lit up, and he sat cross legged in the air. “Okay, okay, okay, so first of all…”

He started rattling off rules that sounded more like stories, and Phoenix nodded along, acutely aware of the glowing pendant tucked under his bed, and the fact that Terra was out in the archive house somewhere.

Just like the coven.

Figure out the rules of the game.

Play your cards right.

Win before they do.