#this is like the most random quote I could’ve pulled from it but it cracked me up

[frmulcahy]

New Contrapoints video slays

[popurikat]

Newtmas essay when?

Finally getting to this, thanks for waiting, I needed to go over a few bookmarks. (Warning, this post contains spoilers from the MAZE RUNNER book and FEVER CODE book, so if you haven’t read either or yet and want the jist of my analysis; just know that in general the fandom interpreting Newt as gay before it was revealed on a twitter post was not just a random headcanon and that Thomas in general is portrayed to have very strong unconditional love for Newt throughout the series; and it shows. To the point that even the director for the movie has stated that Newt and Thomas have a strong bond and portrays that in the movies. I will also preface that I am NOT adding personal opinion anywhere here, these are just backings from quotes and how they are thus meant to be taken/read as. My words are taken as a reader who is currently reading Scorch Trials has yet to fully read Death Cure or Crank Palace.) Anways, without further ado at 3AM today, I’ll try my best to explain how even though Dashner tries his best to make Thomas have other, female love interests; he creates a not so subtle gay subtext for Tommy boy here when in the context of interacting with Newt throughout the lore. Apologies beforehand for any grammar mistakes along the way.

To commence, I am going to start with FEVER CODE, as its supposed to act as the story’s preface to the actual events that play out later. Newt and Thomas upon meeting each other describe their presence as “familiar” and or as a “long lost friend” and they genuinely hit it off from the start to the point that Newt is okay with having Thomas see him cry over the fact that he and his sister are separated since he is doomed to be WCKD’s control analysis as he’s the only one lacking immunity from the flare itself. Once Newt is done being emotionally vulnerable we get our first instance of his personal nickname for Thomas: “That’s the way things are Tommy,’ he said his voice not quite steady. ‘The world outside’s gone to hell. Why should we expect any different here? [...] He said it as if they’d been friends for years” (ch. 14).   An interesting note here is that Thomas doesn’t bother to correct him or stifle the moment by feeling that all this information was too much, he genuinely wanted to hear Newt out and is fine with seeing this side of him; if not slightly taken aback by how natural it is that they can converse about such aspects of their lives. In fact, Newt makes such an impact on Thomas that Thomas ends up that same night dreaming of him: “Throughout his shortened night, he dreamed of Newt and Sonya. Of Newt and Lizzy“(Ch. 14). The thing with Thomas though is that the idea of comfort and connection is very foreign to him as he’s been basically isolated all his life with only the adults like Ava to talk to and the one exception being Teresa as his only kid companion. So Thomas didn’t even think he could make others like him for being himself unless they were vital to the overall production of WCKD. Seeing this portion right before the end of chapter 14: “Alby, Minho, Newt, Teresa. Thomas had friends.” shows that Thomas really had to deep dive to see how he deals with personal connections and why he was excited about the notion of friendship. He could’ve been happy with just Teresa, but only fully cemented her bond to him as “friend” when his circle grew and these kids he got to hang with taught him he can be himself, a concept he didn’t realize was possible when all his life was dictated on what he was supposed to learn or do. It becomes especially clear just how controlled his life is with the aspect of sentiment when later on Teresa’s mental communication evokes physcial pain and fear in Thomas. I’ll get back to that later as its more of a small tid bit of Thomas’ view on his forced love interest, Teresa. And yes, I say forced because multiple sentences with Thomas have him even wish he could cease all communication with her. Moving on, let’s talk about mimicking for a second. As humans, we mimic as a behavioral response to become closer to the person we care about. It’s the reason why yawning or laughter is contagious and or why we copy the posture of the person we converse with face to face. Thomas is seen to do this the most with Newt’s quirks. I’ll give the example in chapter 15: “Newt has been promising them that he was saving something special, and he did that annoying zipped-lipped sign every time [...] the little light in his eyes showed he enjoyed every second of their torture” versus Thomas: “Thomas did Newt’s zipped-lipped gesture, and that got him a sharp poke in the ribs”. So, we know enough that Thomas’ mannerisms are developing as a sign that he wants to be closer to Newt and to continue this sense of playfulness they both enjoy from the other. This is the start of their budding bond and a clear indication that they hold each other at greater fondness than the rest through this unconscious copying. Through this copying, they also pick up on emotional cues the other lets up on. Newt is especially good at noticing small things like when Thomas is anxious or overthinking: “He was just shocked that with all their exploring, the others hadn’t already discovered it on their own. And there were supposed to be TWO mazes. How had Newt and his friends not stumbled upon either one of them? ‘Tommy?’ Thomas realized Newt was staring straight at him, eyebrows raised. ‘Sorry,’ he said embarrassed, ‘wandered off for a second there what did you say?’ Newt shook his head in admonishment. ‘Try to keep up, Tommy Are you ready to see the grat outdoors?” (ch. 15). Also in chapter 23: “Tommy?’ It was Newt, breaking him out of his thoughts. ‘I can see your wheels spinnin’ up there.’ He tapped the side of his head”. This furthers Newts perceptiveness on his friend and Thomas’ ability to pick out when he is being looked after. And they bounce off each other really well in that aspect. To the point that Newt can crack a joke he knows will land right on Thomas’ sense of humor: “Newt waggled his fingers in front of Thomas’ face [...] A laugh exploded out of Thomas’ mouth that sent a spray everywhere. ‘Sorry’ he said, wiping his lips on his sleeve” (ch.15). It’s enjoyable to know that at least at a surface level, they have fun together and can cheer the other up if needed or know when to ground the other to reality. It is also through these instances that as a reader I pick up that Thomas’ nervous ticks perhaps allude to an anxiety disorder he has; of which Newt is aware of and never puts Thomas down on for exhibiting. He in fact understands it and deals with it accordingly as he himself has a similar circumstance. SO, what does all this paying attention lead to? Thomas’ devotion to protect Newt. Yeah, thats right I said devotion. Thomas’ actions are influenced by his developed instinct to protect Newt at all costs. Here is the biggest example that comes to mind: “What in the world happened to Newt? -- Less then two hours later, Thomas had spliced together a series of camera clips [...] Thomas turned off the feed. He couldn’t take it anymore...Newt, Newt, Newt, Thomas thought, feeling as if the very air around him were turning black.”(ch.52). Essentially, Thomas seeing Newt plummet to his near death by falling from the maze wall as a result of Newt’s ongoing depressive state, this is the moment that makes Thomas realize WICKD isn’t as good as they seem and that he is going into the maze to save Newt. Its admirable how much self sacrifice Thomas does for someone he cares so much about, to the point that their name is like a mantra. Thats a sensible area of passion and fighting spirit for someone who is “just a friend”.    Oh and, the feeling of fondness is mutual mind you if I haven’t been clear. After experiencing the horrors of cranks for the first time, realizing Newt was not immune, and watching Newt until they entered the pits it has been months since they last interacted; this is their first reunion: “What’s up Tommy?’ Newt exclaimed, his face filled with genuine happiness at the pleasant surprise that’s been sprung on him. Thomas couldn’t remember exactly how long it’d been since he’d seen Newt. ‘You look bloody fantastic for three in the morning” (ch. 23). I need to preface this that Newt DOES NOT mean that sarcastically and that out of all the people in the room (Minho, Chuck and Teresa are there in this scene), Thomas only reacts this way specifically toward seeing Newt is okay and back.   The characters are also not afraid of being physically close. “Well, look who the bloody copper dragged in,’ Newt said, pulling Thomas into a big hug” (ch.31), “They shook hands, and then the two of them set off...” (ch. 31), and my favorite: “Thomas jumped at the sound, then stumbled. Newt tripped over him, and then they were both laughing, legs and arms tangled in a pile on the ground”(ch.32). I don’t think this far in the novel, Thomas has been AS (emphasis on as) comfortable with touch  with anyone else other than Newt. And thats a big step forward on the aspect of trust in a relationship, being able to be comfortable with the presence of another person enough to be as intimate with them as shown here.  And all this, is just fever code itself. Mind you this is not the MEAT of the novels as it came out later. But even without it, lets look at Thomas in Maze now, I’ll try to keep this segment a lot more brief. Here’s Thomas looking respectively at boys his age: “A tall kid with blond hair and a square jaw...a thick, heavy muscled Asian kid folded his arms as he studied Thomas, his tight shirtsleeves rolled up to show off his biceps [...] Newt was taller than Alby too, but looked to be a year or so younger, His hair was blond and cut long, cascading over his T-shirt. Veins stuck out of his muscled arms”(ch. 2). Thomas’ initial reaction to being surrounded by boys is to deeply analyze their rugged good looks and heavily emphasize their best physical traits. When reading this the first time, my mind immediately thought this boy at the very least is supposed to be portrayed as bi, especially when later down the line Teresa gets a similar descriptor: “...despite her paleness, she was really pretty...silky hair, flawless skin, perfect lips, long legs.” So right off the bat, we know that be it boy or girl, Thomas emphasizes how attractive someone looks in his eyes when he truly does have a sense of attraction to them. Case closed. Within the same chapter we get Thomas also immediately clinging onto Newt for a sense of grounding, it is now ingrained in him at this point that the boy is his lifeline, a person to rely on. “Thomas looked over at Newt, hoping for help.” And help he does, Newt in this chapter helps ease his worries, explain a general idea of what the glade is and even pats him on the shoulder a bit to ease tension. And Thomas doesn’t bat an eye in the same way he’s weary of literally everyone else. In fact, he’s eager to stay put with him as shown with; “If Newt went up there, then I wanna talk to him.” And if none of that seals the deal, we got early bird Newt being so touch starved he flattens himself next to Thomas to wake him up at the crack of Dawn in chapter 6: “Someone shook Thomas awake. His eyes snapped open to see a too-close face staring down at him, everything around them still shadowed by the darkness of early morning...’Shh, Greenie. Don’t wanna be waking up Chuckie, now, do we?’ It was Newt --the guy who seemed second in command; the air reeked of his morning breath. Though Thomas was surprised, any alarm melted away immediately”. This whole scene follows firstly by Thomas once again impressed by how strong Newt is and then Newt giving him a rundown of what everyone else was too afraid to show Thomas, the grievers. And you know, this scene could’ve ended well and everything as totally platonic, but then we have “Newt turned to look at him dead in the eye. The first traces of dawn had crept up on them, and Thomas could see EVERY DETAIL OF NEWT’S FACE, HIS SKIN TIGHT, HIS BROW CREASED.” Now, look me in the eye and tell me there is a hetero explanation on looking at your best bro like they are the sun reincarnated themselves. But let’s not hog all the homosexual undertones with Thomas here. Wanna know what Newt’s initial reaction to having a girl in the glade was? “It’s a girl,’ he said [...] Newt shushed them again. ‘That’s not bloody half of it,’ he said, then pointed down into the box. ‘I think she’s dead” (ch.8). It’s actually a stark contrast to the other gladers eagerly wanting to know her age, how pretty she looked, and calling dibs to date her; Newt isn’t interested in any of that, he’s more perplexed on her status and not even bothering to remark on her looks, he was the only one not to and even remarks a few other instances that girls are more Thomas’ domain. For instance, he makes a joke in fever code when Thomas remarks that the girls in the institution were going to tackle him down, Newt proceeds to point out sarcastically something along the lines of “wait, isn’t that YOUR dream though?” So Newt is pretty out spoken of his disinterest in girls, and his full admiration and attention on Thomas. Oh, and yes, Newt immediately switches over to “Tommy” the moment Thomas mentions he hates being called greenie, and once again it just becomes a thing between only the two of them. Newt is also the one to be straight forward about the whole Runners business. He warns Thomas about the dangers and doesn’t necessarily turn him down on his desire to be one, he in fact encouraged him to just wait until the right moment. “No one said you couldn’t, but give it a rest for now”(ch. 15). So once again, Newt is the voice of confidence and reason for Thomas to prosper. In turn, this time around Thomas is the one to catch when something is bothering Newt. For instance, “Newt chewed his fingernails, something he hadn’t seen the older boy do before...he was genuinely concerned -- Newt was one of the few people in the Glade he actually liked ”(ch.16). Interesting how we went from fever code “friend” to “like”. And also, when Newt explains his concern about the runners not coming back yet, Thomas pieces together how scared Newt is of the Maze without being told and goes to stand next to him as a physical presence to ground Newt as they wait near the entrance. In fact, this piece is trivial to understand why Thomas does what he does next. When everyone else had given up on the Runners still outside with 2 minutes left til closing, and Newt was escorted away from the entrance, Thomas waited. And when Thomas saw them, he yells to Newt, realizes he’s too far to do anything, and makes a decision himself. He KNEW how much Newt cared about his fellow Gladers, they were like family or “kin” as its said in the book, so what does he do? “Don’t do it Tommy! Don’t you bloody do it!’ ... Thomas knew he had no choice. He moved. Forward. He squeezed past the connecting rods at the last second and stepped into the maze”(ch.16). Yes, Thomas does this because of his empathy for the Gladers, but the chain reaction of Newt’s concern is what sets his decision in stone. And yet again, Thomas enters the maze for Newt.  And that’s pretty much the constant for the rest of Maze Runner the book, Newt just sticking up for Thomas and Thomas in turn just being happy that: “He was at least relieved that Newt was there” (ch.17). And thats basically their entire dynamic. Newt just going: “If you really did help design the maze Tommy, it’s not your fault. You‘re a kid -- you can’t help what they forced you to do” to ease the survivor’s trauma Thomas has, as well as saying “I actually believe you. You just don’t have an ounce of lying in those eyes of yours. And I can’t bloody believe I’m about to say this...but I’m going back in there to convince those shanks we should go through the griever hole, just like you said”(ch.51); and I think thats the most romantic thing to hear from him. Just right out being all for supporting Thomas no matter what happens as long as he stays alive and continues to fight, he doesn’t care about what happened before. And Thomas eats that up because it fuels him even more to seek out a means to escape for the people (Newt) that deserve a life outside of running from monsters forever. So essentially, I’ll state again, it’s always been Newt the catalyst for Thomas to run head first into the Maze and seek freedom. And with all this I can clear that these two are shown to if not be romantically involved, at least have unconditional love for the other that transcends the author’s original intention.  And with that in mind, here’s the thing with Teresa as a love interest. I can list here quotes of every time she mind speaks to Thomas and how that affects him, but then this would be too long. And this is a newtmas post gosh darn it. Teresa is gleeful to humiliate, control, hurt, and force Thomas to believe they’re in love. In multiple instances we get her barging into his mind unwarranted making him understand that she has full access to his inner most thoughts. Theres nothing romantic about that, and I think its why Thomas ends up being so perceptive to the smallest of gestures that allow him to think on his own and feel like his own person. Something I’ve seen Brenda do later in scorch, and something I’ve seen Newt do since the very beginning is that they allow Thomas to come to his own conclusions in order to create his own opinions on the matters at hand. Thomas’ love language revolves around words of affirmation. He likes it when people confirm his thoughts are valid and that remind him that WICKD can’t hurt him anymore now that he has the power to be his own person. This is where Newt comes in very handy. He allows Thomas to grow in ways his female love interests have yet to show, sorry Brenda but I’ve heard you were trying to unite all immunes together to the safe haven by the end and in a sense still only using Thomas to get by; I still think she was the better call than teresa of course and I have no remorse for Teresa getting smushed by a boulder. But essentially my point here is that, how do you fail to make your initial love interests clash so badly where one has no real care about the others well being so long as everything goes according to WCKD by using a form of gaslighting and manipulation? AND THOMAS HAS STATED HIS DISCOMFORT ON THIS MULTIPLE TIMES, but the narrative always erases these instances from his mind in place of pity for Teresa’s well being (as you can tell, Teresa through this becomes my least favorite character, I can rant about her some othe time though with proper backing). The narrative in turn treats it all like a joke. I understand there are scenes where Thomas is worried about her and looks out to make sure shes ok, but even then he doesn’t know how to react with mental images of her kissing his cheek or when she screams the next minute that she doesn’t know who he is or how hes speaking into her mind. And thats because they can’t properly communicate their emotions to the other, not even in fever code could Thomas give a forward answer if he loved Teresa or not, she just assumed. Come to think of it, Thomas really doesn’t show much affection to Teresa of his own accord. So then, how DOES Thomas show his affection? Thomas provides acts of service as his love language, if he cares about you enough he will risk his life for you. Why? Because Thomas values putting the people he loves foremost knowing full well they are what help him have purpose and succeed in continuing on. In a way, Newt and Thomas’ dynamic works in this instance because they balance the other out and because they have seen each other at their worst and at their best. In a way, that's why knowing the ending of the books makes it harder to accept that Thomas would just easily take the shot...when all his life clung to Newt’s survival. But that’s a story for another time where I compare the movies (of which let me make that clear, yes I prefer) over the books. For now just know that the book may have done this by accident, maybe not, but at the end of the day theres solid proof that Thomas and Newt care about each other in a way that is separately portrayed from their connection to the other glade members, and have this consistency of soft moments running through the entirety of the series. In conclusion; newtmas. Newtmas. NEWTMAS, etc.

[aerltarg]

2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 26, 27 from ask game

2. Are there any popular fandom OTPs you only BroTP?

oh, it's actually hard to answer bc pretty often my otps can work as brotps for me as well. it also means that when i can't ship some characters they don't work for me as friends either. not to mention that in asoiaf i'm open to many ships, and if i'm not very passionate about some it's not a sign i can't see them in romantic light.

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

may i say any sansa ship? 😭 as well as sansa herself lmao. idk generally i can't ship characters i don't like because i'm just not interested. and it's not to say i don't like book!sansa (show!sansa is another case 💀), i just don't find her arc as intriguing and epic as arcs of some other characters. however, it's absolutely her obnoxious fandom's fault that i don't want to touch anything about her now, pairings including. sansaery? pass. sansan? i used to have a soft spot for them in my heart but now? nah. sansa x anyone? pls have mercy, she's already a fandom bicycle.

and jonsa ofc. i would never mind some crack ship as i do this one if not for their obnoxious stans that did way too much to list there right now. but this burning desire to persuade every rock on the street that your crack ship is canon will never stop being ridiculous lmao

also braime. tbh i used to low-key like them but some of their stans weirded my away lol. i get that not all of them are like that but still. it's generally my great pain when i see braime/brienne/jaime stans who are also dany/targ antis. every time i see them i cackle and run away as fast as i can crying from disappointment lmao. it's really a pity because i'm either very neutral or like in my own way all three of them.

6. Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?

jonrya it is! i never hated them, you know, but they never were more than siblings and brotp to me. however, later i encountered the deluded crack ship fandom that shall not be named and understood that if there is any possible romance for jon with any of his sisters-cousins we all know which one it will be lmao. also their stans are very sweet and i really like many of their takes on arya and jon! i generally love relationships of jon and arya very much so it wasn't that difficult in practice to see them in a quite different light.

7. Is there anything you used to like but can't stand now?

meta culture lmao. reading different analysis and interpretations of the text used to be very interesting to me (and still is tbh but in other fandoms) though asoiaf is a different case. imo many people aren't honest in their so called theories and analyses. i get that all of us are biased but some "meta writers'" denial of their own biases influence fandom in a bad way. it looks like too many people run to them to get answers to their questions about any minor detail as if they were grrm himself. yk instead of using their own reading comprehension lmao. you see how this meta culture ruined fandom just looking at the most delusional stans and shippers who spread their agenda by writing endless text posts full of nonsense and bullshit but styled as oh so intellectual and thoughtful analysis. it's insane how many people actually buy it and don't check canon accuracy of such claims themselves. it got to the ridiculous point when random people try to argue with you with some far-fetched embarrassing "theories" as if they were canon facts or quotes straight up from a fanfic because they read somewhere some other confused soul's post and got from a context that this quote is canon (despite the fact that it wasn't written in grrm's style at all but some people can't use their brains even if their lives depended on it it seems).

anyway it's become too long and rambly already so tldr. because of such "neutral unbiased" analyses i got the habit of fact checking almost everything i see in such posts. there's only a small amount of meta writers from targ/dany/jon/arya stans that i trust because i know by practice and following them for some time that they don't pull anything out of nowhere, back up everything they say with canon quotes, don't decontextualize anything and (that is the most important thing to me) are reasonable and open to discussion unlike so many bnfs nowadays.

8. Have you received anon hate? What about?

ah, not in this fandom yet, god bless! i think i'm not loud enough for the needed amount of time to deserve it lol. but since i'm not going anywhere soon maybe one day i will 😂

9. Most disliked character(s)? Why?

robert baratheon and tywin lannister, obviously. tbh it's pretty hard for me to hate any characters because you know. they're fictional lmao. just lines on paper, they can't hurt you. and even such dudes as tywin or robert don't get real distaste from me if they're written well enough. my problem with them lies not only in their canon crimes and shitty consequences of those but in fandom's (or at least some parts of it) unwillingness to acknowledge that they're canonically written as shitty, not as stan/pity/worship material. tywin isn't as clever as some think and robert is a coward outside of battlefield, not to mention some absolutely disgusting denial of his nature from targ antis only because the man happened to be the most vocal targ hater in-universe so these folks feel like he is their main book representative and whitewash him completely lmao

10. Most disliked arc? Why?

uugh idk even. i'm either low-key interested (or used to be at least so i can stay pretty neutral for the sake of nostalgia lol) or too indifferent to really care.

11. Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn't? Why?

all my faves have their own crowd of haters i'm afraid 😭 but let me say rhaegar. even among some dany/targ stans my man is so misunderstood lmao. it's not even his fault i dare say it's fanon about his half-imagined crimes that somehow got widespread to the unbelievable degree. and when i say they're half-imagined i'm being very generous actually. ofc he isn't perfect, no one in asoiaf is. and yes, he's a pre-series dead minor character but almost all little information about him is actually positive, not to mention the narrative itself that doesn't paint him as a villain or just a shitty dude. on the contrary, he's an idealized to some degree dead prince who could've been a good king (like some other historical targaryens, jacaerys, baelor breakspear, aemon son of jaehaerys, etc.), a mysterious yet tragic figure. i have much to say about why it's so popular to shit on him in fandom but yeah. his haters should send their complaints to grrm instead, no one forced the man to write him like that lol. and i mean that no one has to like him ofc. but it's misinterpretation of the text to claim he was intentionally written as a villain or smth by grrm.

12. Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn't? Why?

i don't know if it counts as unpopular but i would say tyrion's arc as a whole because i enjoy his character and like in my own way. i can get why some people don't like him but this man will always have his own place in my heart i must admit.

13. Unpopular opinion about XXX character?

is this unpopular tho?.. ok but renly wouldn't make a terrible king. i dare say he would be better than both robert and stannis. yes, he wasn't shown as perfect and i don't claim this. he wouldn't be the best or the most brilliant or the most just or noble. yet still better than his brothers. his flaws weren't anything other high lords didn't have, his mistakes weren't anything other lords and kings didn't do. in many ways he would make a better job than robert or stannis, too bad he died so early, even though i get why it was important for the narrative.

26. Most shippable character?

well generally for me it's the ones i love the most lol. jonerys/snowstorm is my never dying otp but i admit my sins, sometimes i just see dany with other characters (often from other fandoms pls don't @ me). however, since dany is THE fave of mine it means i would rather twist the other guy or girl to fit into the good match for her than twist her for another character in my new born crack ship lol. and i never stay for too long with the ships with which i feel they don't really fit and don't do justice for each other lol. maybe that's the reason i'm not much of a rare shipper / crack shipper afshdjdb

27. Least shippable character?

everyone i don't like? 😭 as i've said sansa for the reasons above lol. you can insert many others in her place lmao

[smarmaladey]

The Bad Touch - (1/3)

Chapter 1 - “you and me”

Rating: 🇪

Fandom: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure

Relationship(s):  🐞♡🚺

Words: 4032

Ao3 Link

(For content warnings and additional notes, click read more.)

The recessive vampire genes in Giorno's blood haven't been sitting too well with him lately. AKA, your boss is in heat. Oh god. Oh fuck. 

content warnings: rape/non-con elements, ooc (probably), AU (probably)

Enjoy!

♡🐞♡

Sunday.

4:00 PM.

The first incident.

♡🐞♡

Christ.

Seriously? In your three years working in espionage, this was the most tedious assignment you’d ever gone with? Retrieving a couple godforsaken papers from some insignificant rival group?

Whatever. It was done.

The fruits of your labor were safely tucked in the inside of your coat, ready to be delivered to the big man himself.

You could never fully understand why your boss always made you deliver crap straight to him. Maybe it was a trust thing?

During the span of your near two-year “career” under Passione, you’d managed to be slung up the ranks by the combination of your competence, ability, and tendency to work alone. This meant getting strangely close with the head of the whole shebang, normally taking your assignments straight from the man.

You never really made a big deal out of this. Giovanna was far from a super-secretive man, nor was he cold like one might expect from a goddamn mob boss. Hell , If the lowest, newest, meekest member of a scummy group did one thing that pleased him, he’d probably invite them to dinner at the most prestigious establishment in Rome. Or at least that’s what he came across as to you.

It was kind of sketchy.

But you didn’t really care, nor did you have any right to criticize the guy.

Dwelling on those thoughts wasn’t your style. All you had to do today was: Deliver the file, leave the office, get home, and finally, watch your shows. Simple.

After somehow making your way through his large estate to his office all by yourself, something was a little off.

The door was closed all the way.

You cracked it open a little bit, the too-loud creaking making you uneasy.

“Sir…?”

“Ah,” his voice was much too quiet, and almost...frantic. “Who’s this?”

How the hell am I supposed to respond to that? “Uhm, me?” You took the liberty of letting yourself in, slightly put off by how dim the room was. Facing you was the back of a leather chair.

Giovanna was looking out of the floor-to-ceiling windows at the back of his office, curtains pulled half-open, casting soft afternoon light into the room. “...I’m guessing you have the documents?”

“Wouldn’t be here if I didn’t…” Muttering under your breath, you took the black folder from your coat.

He turned around when he heard your footsteps (because of course he could), being illuminated by the yellow-er light from the ceiling lamp.

The files were gently set down on his desk, and you caught him looking up at your face.

Something you’d been noticing for the past few months, (actually, you were pretty sure it began around his eighteenth birthday) he’d been... adorning himself more than usual…? As if he wasn’t already grandiose enough, he’d been wearing makeup quite a lot more than you were used to.

Giovanna smiled up at you, and successfully got you to avert your gaze. His lips were glossed with a very lovely fuchsia, but what really caught your eye were his cloud-white, glittering teeth. And you had no clue why. Something was off about his teeth, besides the fact that, like the rest of him, they were grossly perfect.

He was clad in a classic; magenta suit with numerous full-golden brooches. (Those ones were new, given to him by a “friend of the organization” apparently, and you had no idea why you knew this) Glancing at his hands on the folder, his nails, manicured into rounded points and painted white, contrasted with the signature black leather of your favorite binder.

Strange. His door was completely shut, as if nobody had seen him for the entire day. Why was he still dressed up…?

Swallowing nothing, you took a step back.

“Let’s see…” Your boss’s voice was still quiet, as he carefully tugged the manila files out and placed them on his desk. “Ah, bravo! These are exactly what we’ve been looking for!”

Before you knew it, he had snatched your hand and was shaking it with both of his. The nails digging into your wrist made you cringe.

”Thank you, Sir...thank you…” You tried with all your being not to sound confused or ungrateful, especially with those...intense turquoise eyes glaring up into your soul.

“I expected nothing less of this, perfect job!” His hands lingered for too long before he dropped to start reading the documents again.

You mumbled something, turned around, and began to leave. Yet, just as your hand was on the tacky flower-themed doorknob, he stopped you.

“Wait,” the jump from his chair was audible. “I, ahem, I never dismissed you.” There was a small giggle in his voice, and you weren’t buying it.

Ugh.

“Awh, but Don Giovanna~~! ♡ I’ve had such a long, looong day, and my poor body’s so, sooo tired! Please let me go home, haven’t I done such a good job already~? ♡ There’s a new X-Files episode premiering tonight, and I wouldn’t miss it for the world~!”

That’s what you could’ve said in an ideal world.  

“Right.” In that world, he’d let you leave right away, “am I needed for anything else, Giovanna?” And then you’d go to your quiet, expensive beach house and get an amazing night’s sleep.

He shuffled in his seat a bit. “Yes, why don’t you hang up your coat?” He spoke without looking at you, scanning the files in front of him. “You must be hot in this room, I know I’ve been all day…”

You nodded once. “I think the air conditioning here might be broken…” your boss’s words mostly flew over your head. “I’ve just been feeling so overheated lately. I even keep the door shut now just so the cool air doesn’t leave this room…” You nodded again. “Do you think I should get a fan?” Again.

When you fully took off your heavy coat, you flinched.

Holy shit, it’s freezing.

With your bare arms exposed, you finally processed how cold it was in the room. No sooner did the temperature register with the rest of your body.

The coat rack, like a lot in the room, was floral themed. The decoration of the entire office was pretty on point, but when you walked back across the room again, something new grabbed your attention.

On the ceiling, the round lamp that hung down had a new look. The paper lampshade had a sort of “Classical Asian Art” look to it, like Japanese “Ukiyo-e” or whatever it was called. Neat.

“Nice lamp.” You said, breaking the silence. Giovanna glanced at you, and you pointed up at the ceiling. “It looks nice.”

“Oh, thank you.”

Sitting across from him, you felt somewhat trapped. Just a little, though. It was just...quiet, with him reading papers and you...not.

This guy…

Your heart jumped when he shut the folder in front of your face. “Could you do me a favor, please?” Giovanna pointed somewhere behind you, at one of the many bookshelves lining the walls. “There should be a…” He cleared his throat, something he had been doing a lot during this meeting. “...a sort of history book on the Holy Roman Empire over there...”

Not bothering to say anything else, you got up. He gave you clarification and you were happy to get a little farther from him.

The books were all similar-looking with hard-to-read spines. It honestly felt like they were all sorted by color rather than title, and perfectly lined up with one another. How can one man manage to be so perfectly organized?

“Sir, which shelf is it?” You weren’t answered, as Giovanna had to clear his throat again. “...are you alright? Have you been ill these past few days?”

He waved at you not to worry. “I should be fine, I’ve just been so thirsty lately…”

“Ah.”

“It’s so strange, my throat is constantly dry…”

“That so? Would you like me to get some water?” You offered, still facing the bookshelf.

Once more, he cleared his throat. “No, that’s not necessary. Don’t worry about me too much…”

Everything seemed to stop awkwardly.

“It’s probably on the fourth shelf down, the title should be obvious…”

And like that, you found it.

“Grazie, grazie!” Giovanna almost cooed to you when you handed him the leatherback book. When he took it from you, his nails hit your fingertips, but you were distracted by seeing his teeth again. Still, you couldn’t tell what was up.

“Yeah, right…” You sat back down across from him, as he almost immediately started looking through the pages. “So why do you need the history book again…?”

He slid a document to you and pointed at some random word. “Well, it seems like in these records, they refer to--” Out. Everything else he said went through one ear, out the other.

“...right.”

“--and in this, this is a--”

“...yeah.”

“--which leads me to this one, which I have…”

When he trailed off, it went quiet again.

“This. I’ve seen this quote before!” He was pointing at the bottom of one of the first documents you snatched.

You were about to respond with another “oh really?” before he pointed out at another bookshelf, this time much closer to the desk.

“It’s smaller, but it’s right over there, I’m pretty sure.” Again, the books were all sorted by size and color, so you couldn’t tell anything from each other. He must’ve taken off the sleeves, too, because some didn’t even have a title on the spine.

You really wanted to snarl something at him. “Where am I looking again?”

Giovanna tried to clarify the location again, but it wasn’t working with you. Just get up yourself, asshole.

And he did! For the first time you’d seen that day, he rose from his chair and stared at the same row of books you were. Maybe the same exact book you were looking at. He must’ve, why else would he be standing so close?

“I could’ve sworn I put it around here…” You could hear his breathing. Stepping away, you watched him stand stiff and stare at all the books.

Your eyes were beginning to hurt. It’d been so long since you’d slept, all you needed was to go. “Enough, what’s the title of the book?” You were careful not to groan or scoff before or after you spoke.

Giovanna touched his chin with his index, looking, frankly, gorgeous from a profile shot. “It was called...ah, Invitation to a Beheading? Something like that?”

Something clicked in your head so fast you could’ve sworn you heard a ring.

“Ohhh! I’m pretty sure I remember my mom reading that book!” A quick memory of the book’s appearance flashed in your head, that matched something you had seen on another shelf earlier perfectly. “It’d be over here-”

Now, what happened next needs to be analyzed, because you were 99.9% sure this single moment was the straw on the camel’s back. The action that began the downfall. The great whore to your Babylon.

All you did was turn around, turn around right next to him, so you could head to another bookshelf.

The thing was, you weren’t paying attention to how you were moving your arms, only focused on the stupid goddamn book. Innocently, your arm swung and, as a result, your hand just brushed against his --Giovanna’s, your boss’s-- upper thigh...area. The back of it. You know, that area, the one between the tailbone and the leg, that one.

To put it bluntly, you touched his ass.

Both you two froze in that moment, you could tell. Maybe time stopped.

"...civetta."

You looked back around, to make sure you had heard that right.

"I'm sorry…?"

"Ah...you're such a little tease, aren't you…?"

Huh?

Blood in your veins went cold when you saw the pure, unadulterated salacity in his eyes.

Your fight-or-flight instinct kicked in, and you tried to look to the side, or even turn around, but it was much too late. Giovanna had promptly moved to you, caged your face with his hands and turned you up to look at him.

The eye contact was brief, his gaze drilling into yours, before he forced you into a kiss.  

A shock went down your spine and made you stiffen. Almost instantly, you tasted the strange (and revoltingly pleasant) flavor of his lip gloss, and grew hyper-aware of not only the shape of his mouth, but the contrast of his body heat against yours.

Eyes widened, you uttered out a shocked, muffled noise that only seemed to make his ever-growing body temperature even warmer.

You tried to push against him, but he just grunted and tugged your body against his. Squishing your eyes shut, you tried pushing and palming at his chest, which only made him hold on tighter.

Eventually he detached for air, a thin string of saliva connecting the two of you appearing only briefly. Giovanna's green eyes were absolutely hazed over, a vibrant pink dyeing his usually white face.

A million words were dashing through your head --why? what? who? how? me? you?-- but your brain was incapable of stringing together anything coherent.

It wouldn't have mattered if it had been, though, because almost as soon as the golden boy had pulled away, he pulled in once more.

This time, he took advantage of your pried open mouth to invade you near completely. In the midst, your tongue ended up brushing against one of his teeth--one of his canines.

Sharp. Too sharp.

With that, it was cut short by you successfully jerking away. While he didn't let you go, Giovanna withdrew again, wiping off his smeared lip gloss with the back of his hand.

"Sir! I--" Idiotically, you had assumed it was over, but surely enough, your wrists had gotten snatched.

Next thing you knew, the side of your face had been pushed up against the nearest vertical surface, with Giovanna mewing your body with his own.

"Gh…no..." Your voice had gotten higher, weaker too, "Sir...ah, Don Giovanna, please...I don't understand...why, what is this…?"

"You 'don't understand'? Really now?"  

You trembled at how close his voice had become, now so close to your ear that you could hear his tongue detaching from the roof of his mouth. “Sir, I--”

“Ah,” he breathed out a small laugh, “don’t try and play coy with me, cara, you knew exactly what you were doing…”

Giovanna had noticed how you reacted to his voice, so he decided to drag his tongue along the shell of your ear, before kissing it directly. Again, you let out a weak noise as warmth shocked your body.

Trying to get away from his voice, you turned forward and pressed your forehead against the shelf, perhaps in an attempt to squeeze yourself between the books and escape.

"Oh, when you tried to leave me earlier," he was beginning to sound almost whiney with how breathy his voice was becoming, clutching your shoulder and hand with an iron grip. "I swear, if you left, I would've…"

He never finished that statement, too distracted by trailing his hand from your shoulder, down your torso, all the way to the bottom of your high-waisted shorts.

"These...ah, did you really expect to come in here, wearing these, and be able to get away~?"

Even with your panic-blinded brain, you knew you had worn these (admittedly, skimpy) pants around him plenty of times before. He never had any problems until now…

"Giovanna, this is- ah!"

Your words were choked back when he had slipped his hand beneath the waistband of your pants. Underwear too, as he wasted little time trying to force his hand between your closed thighs.

His hand had no trouble finding that little rift in your flesh, middle finger delving between and pressing against the sensitive little nub inside.

In a near instant, your legs went from straight to bent, beginning to tremble. You cursed yourself for near literally becoming putty in his hands, but your brain was still fried and unable to think straight.

With a charming, pleased hum, he swirled his finger around, generating more embarrassing sounds from you. He kept his chest firm on your back, making sure you couldn't wriggle away from his grasp.

Giovanna slid his finger lower and curled it, his digit entering your body with a very slight pinch. You yelped again, hyper-aware of the quiet, very muffled squelching sound made.

"Oh, it's so wet here…" he tittered, sending even more polarizing feelings coursing through your veins.

"N-no...not there, you can't…" The softness of his hand, the smoothness of his nail, invading your warm insides made you feel extremely weak, like your body could cave in at any second. Your feet began to slide back on the hardwood floor, so Giovanna took extra care securing his lower body against yours as well.

Tragically, you tried rocking against his hand, begging for relief. That stopped when you realized you could feel his hard-on through the material of his satin clothing.

He decided he'd had enough of whatever this was, extracting his hand from your clothing and backing up a tad. After lapping his finger clean, he took a second to "compose" himself.

"I apologize, I know this isn't the most comfortable place for us, at the moment…" you were gently hugged from behind, him nuzzling into the top of your head a bit.

You wanted to take the opportunity to break away from him, but before you could even realize he had hastily lifted you up. The bright light made you reflexively shut your eyes, but it didn't stop you from trying to wiggle out of his hold.

Giovanna brought you to his large, cushioned chair, sitting himself down and maneuvering your limbs just so you were straddling him. He tried to hug you again, but you pushed yourself away, hands at his chest.

"Sir…please, we have to stop." A tiny, nagging part of your brain knew this wouldn't reason with him, so you added on, "...not now. Not here, at least…"

His engaged expression turned into a soft, content smile.

Holy fuck, did I actually get him to listen? Will I actually get away with my dignity after all?

You nearly smiled at the seemingly good sign.

But instead of letting you go, he spun the chair around, grabbing your wrists.

Actually, it wasn't him grabbing you. Not exactly.

Ghostly white-gold hands faded in, pulling your arms away from each other, as he pushed your torso away, tugged your shins so they dropped from the chair and onto the floor, and secured your pelvis against his.

In the end, the position you had been forced into was both uncomfortable and humiliating, with G • E restraining your arms, the edge of the desk pressing into the small or your back, and to top it all off, your boss firmly holding your groins together.

It made you want to cry, so you did. Just a little bit, though.

"Ah, please don't worry! I don't plan on having briefings with anybody else, so let's not worry about…"

He completely trailed off, losing his train of thought as he looked over your body in silence. It stayed like this for a couple seconds, with him not exactly sure what to do next, and you refusing to look at anything.

Eventually, he leaned forward a bit, reached to the bottom of your top. You glared at his hand as it grabbed onto the hem, and in a single motion, yanked it over your chest. The cold air enveloped your now exposed breasts made your muscles jerk inward, giving the desk a little shake.

In the tense moment, he kind of just stared for a few seconds, eyes round and doe-ish, face very flushed.

He doesn't know what he's doing. And he doesn't even care.

Wetness dotting his yellow lashes, he suddenly wrapped his arms around your torso, nudging up into the crook of your neck and drawing in your scent. You would've wondered why he looked like he was crying, but your mind was occupied with the embarrassment that came with knowing how sweaty you were. Not like he cared.

Giovanna pressed a couple pecks to the bottom of your jaw, before lowering and quickly licking up the side of your neck. He pulled back about a centimeter, and you watched in suspense as  his eyes trailed down to your chest.

He traced a very faint vein with the tip of his nail, one embedded in your breast, until he reached your nipple, erected by the cold air. He took it between the tips of his fingers, rolling it gently.

The muscles in your chest tensed as he cupped your tit with one hand, and slid the other down your body again.

While groping you, he had his lips ghosting the area around your collarbone, wanting to feel every small detail of your skin. His breath felt like it was getting hotter every second, and you were sure that the stuttering little snivels coming out of your mouth were only making things worse.

With a little roll of his chair, Giovanna pushed his groin up against yours, the slight friction made on your vital spot just enough to make you squirm.

His hands really had no right to feel as wonderful as they did, smooth and supple, incredibly warm, and glazed with a sheer bit of sweat. It felt like they were made for your body, as it accepted his touch completely, whether he was groping you or continuing to explore your insides with his digits.

You continued to try and fight back, be it very weakly, by wiggling your lower body best you could. What made you completely give up the quarrel was Giovanna leaning down and taking one of your stiff teats in his mouth. The sudden feeling made you reflexively cave in your chest, as your elbows finally touched the cool wood of his desk. In the back of your hazed mind, you took note of how G • E loosened his hold.

He put more pressure on your body, eyebrows knit, like he was savoring the taste of your skin. As he grew rougher, you felt his sharp canines poke at your supple flesh, and you jerked again.

Giovanna responded by slipping another digit inside, pushing you back a tad more while staying latched on your chest.

Too much. It's all too much.

With seemingly nothing else to do, you let your head drop back. Then, you saw an opportunity.

The lamp.

See, while you had been tangled up in getting restrained by your Boss's Stand, you somehow forgot one critical fact; that you had one too.

The key to escaping this Freudian Nightmare was, quite literally, glaring you in the face.

And all you needed was just another little push…

As if on cue, your arms slid back about a half-centimeter more, and you grabbed the opportunity with an iron grip.

Now.

In an actual blink, Giovanna's ceiling lamp imploded, causing the room to go dark. The minor vacuum caused was enough to make the desk shake, and you slide across and onto the floor ahead.

Despite landing awkwardly on your shoulders, you hastily got on your ass, tugged down your shirt, and rose to your feet.

The relief you felt when you finally reached the door was indescribable, yet you still found yourself glancing back.

Pulverized glass was still falling through the air, what once remained of the most interesting part of the room now glittering with sunset light. Giovanna, on the other hand, had rolled his chair back a bit, adorably rubbing his eyes.

Hit one!

The beat of your heart was racing, yet…

"Giorno, I'm sorry!"

Hit two!

You had no time to dwell on your apology, though, as you rushed out the door.

Hit three! Triple fuckup combo!

You leapt off the mezzanine to the ground floor, and made a dash to the exit.

The cool air of the night came to rightfully claim you. That night, while running across the Italian countryside, you felt rather different.

Needless to say, you missed that night's episode of X-Files.

♡🐞♡

n: thanks to aaron for making the title cards for me, he’s a great skunk man!  I said i was gonna do it, and here i am.  Hopefully this means i’ll be able to start using tumblr a bit more frequently... Or maybe it won’t, who knows? I’ll post the second chapter here tomorrow, and as for the last one...it’s coming, don’t fret :D

[caladblog]

*cracks knuckles*

so i’ve been working on a project. here is your first glimpse of this project.

[wolf 359, canon divergence AU from the start of s4, according to the scripts the mutiny was day 1082 & the contact event was day 1083]

teaser: but what's puzzling you is the nature of my game. Plus, blind loyalty, next quarter's budgets, quantum threading, substandard TV, and all this time.

===

HEPHAESTUS DAY 1101 / MARCH 28, 2017:

On the gravel-covered roof of the main Goddard Futuristics administration building, nestled between two air conditioning units, sits a satellite dish not listed on any blueprints. In and of itself, this isn't suspicious. But apart from its odd location, it isn't marked with a manufacturer's logo or even a serial number, and it seems far too small to provide more than a substandard TV service.

Sprawled on the gravel nearby is Marcus Cutter, fanning himself with a folder of reports from personnel scouts located in minor but secure positions across a wide variety of companies and state departments. "Do you ever wonder," he muses, "where humanity would be without us?"

There is a slim laptop plugged into the satellite dish and a microphone plugged into the laptop and Miranda Pryce is tending to both, sitting cross-legged and heedless of the stifling humidity. "No," she says.

"They'd probably still be stuck in the solar system, bless their hearts." By now, he has gotten used to carrying most of the load during conversations with Miranda Pryce. "A couple permanent outposts on Mars, maybe an aerostatic platform on Venus if they could solve the sulfuric acid thing. Plodding researchers all pulling in different directions, never really getting anywhere significant."

"'Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wilder seas where storms will show Your mastery; where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars'," she quotes absently.

"Yes, exactly. If we weren't around to disturb them, they'd never bother to lose sight of land." He checks his watch, sighs, and continues fanning himself. "I like to think they'd have cracked fusion power, at least. But in my more melancholic moments I remember that it's 2017 and they're still murdering each other for oil."

"There are worse ways to spend an evening," she replies. "Stuck waiting with you when you're feeling philosophical, just as a random example."

"Now, Miranda," he says, very patiently, "we both know that if it was up to me, we wouldn't be waiting at all--"

"Oh, yes, how will you ever find it in your heart to forgive me for wanting a slightly more solid confirmation of outstanding phenomena than the word of Warren Kepler." She stabs the laptop keys in disgust. "That proposal was ill-conceived from start to finish and I don't know what possessed me to sign off on it. Finding someone amusing doesn't make them qualified for the execution of our life's work."

"It isn't only Warren's word--"

"Fine, the word of Warren Kepler and a handful of miscellaneous rejects." Her lip curls. "I've been brushing up on the Hephaestus's active portfolio and I just have to say: of course it would be them. Why couldn't it have been the U.S.S. Anaideia? Or the U.S.S. Themis, that crew has consistently tested in the eighty-fifth percentile for 'blind loyalty' over the last two years they've been in the sky. Which would be really useful right now."

"On the subject of how much you hate dealing with people, unmanned probes have always been cheaper and quicker to build," Cutter points out. They've had this argument before, but if they didn't both enjoy rehashing old arguments one of them would've murdered the other a very long time ago. "We could've achieved this level of coverage by the nineties, maybe even the eighties if you'd just listened to me back then."

"And if I'd listened to you back then, we'd be sitting on two or three decades of useless data," Pryce scoffs. "Unmanned probes aren't a very tempting piece of bait, are they? Can't catch a fish if you're not willing to skewer a few hundred worms."

As the one who gets the most enjoyment out of skewering worms, he really shouldn't protest, but he's bored. "An unmanned probe would've returned these results by now."

"No, it wouldn't, because radiation moves the same speed in a vacuum whether it's being looked at by a machine or an eyeball," she says, saccharine and condescending. "I am not moving forward on the virtue of one data point, Marcus, and if you had a single gram of sense in your entire skull then you wouldn't either."

He rolls onto his stomach facing her and bats his eyelashes. "So you catch me alone on the roof of our workplace at night, and then you start sweet-talking me? Why, Miranda, I never thought that you'd--"

"Quick, shut up," she says, shoving the microphone at him. "Bunker E just started building a live transmission with the Hermes. Outside of Goddard's official channels, the best line-of-sight is an ESA lunar research base to an American telecom satellite."

Cutter sits up, all business. "Who cares if those go dark for ten minutes? Do it."

"Already done."

"Estimated total lag?"

"Four minutes, fifty-three seconds."

He hums, disappointed, and picks up the microphone. "I can just about work with that. Get it down to three and a half next time, okay?"

She mutters something nasty about quantum threading under her breath as the comms channel opens. A third of the message is lost to static, but it's still mostly comprehensible.

"Visual--of Wolf 359 on--and short-range scans. We've sent--raw images from--scope, they're unbelievable. Even--what would happen--wasn't prepared to see it myself, still don't like to think--possible. Repeat: Hermes Actual--independent confirmation of hue change in--59 as reported by Urania upon arrival at Hephaestus station. Further instructions?"

The uplink crackles. Despite the five-minute delay, Cutter drags the silence out nice and long before saying in cold, clipped tones, "That'll have to be sufficient. Maintain mission parameters. I will keep this in mind when reviewing our budgets for this coming quarter."

He doesn't wait for the commander of the Hermes to respond, just closes the channel the moment he finishes speaking and then turns a three-thousand-watt smile on Pryce. "Has that finally laid your atrocious cynicism to rest?"

"So the first step of the process actually happened," she sniffs. "Doesn't mean that all the rest of the steps have followed. But for the sake of expedience, yes, I suppose we can make that assumption." Her gaze drifts upward, to the panorama of stars half drowned by light pollution, and her voice goes soft. "I never doubted our odds of finding them again. Still, after all this time..."

"I know." His gaze drifts upward as well. "Won't be much longer now."

[reikhafaara]

day 14 - commend

Day 14 - Commend

Tags: Theo (Warrior of Light), Ardbert, Theo & Ardbert, crack, old wives’ tales, Ardbert makes a recommendation and Theo follows through purely beacuse Ardbert is cute and stupid

“And with that, I bid you a good night,” the Crystal Exarch says, as he gestures to the door of the room that has become Theo’s chambers for the duration of their stay in the First. “Should you require anything, please do not hesitate to let the staff of the Pendants know, and they will rush to your aid.”

The Crystal Exarch, enigma of a man that he is, bows to them, tilts his head toward the door, and then swiftly turns back down the hall, as if he’s in a hurry to get away from them. They watch his back as he hurries away, until he turns a corner and they can’t see him any longer. 

Theo huffs out a sigh in the empty hallway. There’s something strange about that man, something they haven’t yet been able to put a finger on.

A problem for another day. Theo slips into their room and immediately begins to disrobe, exhaustion heavy through their limbs now that they’ve got a space to themselves and they posturing they’ve become used to as the Warrior of Light is no longer required. These first few weeks in the First have been hard, to say the least, and it’s beginning to take a toll.

Theo stretches and shifts, trying to ease the pain in their muscles. Warrior of Darkness or not, they aren’t quite used to this much continuous fighting. Even in Ala Mhigo things had been more sporadic. Not quite a constant battle for survival against impossible odds and the end of the world.

Theo grimaces as they massage a particularly sore spot on their shoulder. They slip over to the vanity, twisting and turning to get a look at it in the mirror. 

A dark bruise blossoms across their back, deep, dark gray and purple. Theo hisses a curse. “Damned sin eaters,” they mutter as they gently run their fingers over the swollen flesh and darkening bruise.

“That’s an ugly one.”

Theo looks up from their inspection of their back to see Ardbert--transparent, of course, barely really there--looking at them in the mirror. Their ghostly companion has his gaze fixed on the wound, a frown clearly etched into his expression. He takes a few steps forward, hand lifted as if he means to touch it before he pulls away, the frown deepening.

Theo turns to face him, offering the man a smile and a shrug, as if to dismiss the injury.

“It could be worse,” Theo says. “I could’ve lost the arm. All things considered, I think I’m quite lucky.”

Ardbert laughs, but there’s not much mirth in his tone, and his eyes flick back to the dark bruise that Theo knows must be reflected in the mirror. They lift their arm to wave it off, about to tell Ardbert to ignore the injury, before Ardbert’s face lights up with sudden excitement.

“Wait, I’ve got it,” the man says. He begins looking around the room for something, moving frantically--passing through a chair in the process, which makes Theo cringe despite themselves. “Godsdammit I know there’s bound to be some somewhere.”

Theo shakes their head, cocking a hand on their hip as they watch Ardbert’s frantic fussing about. “Some what, exactly.”

Unfortunately, Ardbert doesn’t seem inclined to provide any more answers for his frantic searching, and Theo is left to simply watch the man bustle about the room ineffectually gesturing at various objects as he seeks out his mystery object.

Theo is just about to stop the man and insist he leave, because they are tired, dammit, when Ardbert finally lets out a triumphant holler.

“There we go,” he says, pointing to the table and a small ceramic dish sitting tucked amongst Theo’s books and the various wicker baskets of snacks that the Exarch has sent them. “That’s got to be it.”

Theo steps closer to the table. They pause. “The... books?” Does Ardbert mean to say there’s a cure for bruises in the book?

“No, dammit. The butter.”

Theo blinks. They glance down at the table and the ceramic dish, then lean forward, lifting the lid to stare at the small pat of butter that they’ve largely ignored since beginning there stay in the First.

“I’m sorry,” Theo says, as they sit the lid to the side. “Are you really telling me you just metaphorically tore apart my room to look for butter? Care to enlighten me as to why?”

Ardbert actually looks indigent at this, his face twisting into something almost like a pout. “Because it’ll help.”

Theo, quite frankly, is at a loss for words.

“Come on, you’ve heard that before, aye? Smear some butter on a bruise and it’ll be better before morn,” Ardbert says, in a tone that tells Theo he is very obviously quoting someone who has previously given him such dubious advice. 

“I am not,” Theo says, as they put the lid back onto the butter. “Smearing butter into my wound.”

Ardbert scoffs. “It’ll work. My father used to treat every minor injury with it. Get a bruise out in the field and a little bit of butter will help clear it right up.”

It is the most absurd thing Theo has ever heard, which is a remarkable feat considering the things they heard upon first reaching Eorzea from Sharlyan. And they thought Eorzea was behind in their medicinal knowledge…

“I highly doubt that,” Theo says. They drop into their chair at the table and prop their chin into their palm, unable to resist glancing over at the small pat of butter and it’s kitschy ceramic dish. “Butter has no properties, aetherial or otherwise, that would facilitate accelerated healing.”

They can almost hear Ardbert rolling his eyes.

“Say what you will,” Ardbert says with a shrug, “But I’ve the proof that it works.”

Theo laughs. “You do, do you? Care to show me?”

He can’t, of course, and perhaps pointing that out was needlessly mean spirited, because the sudden drop in Ardbert’s expression makes Theo’s gut do a somersault they weren’t expecting. There is only so much of that kicked puppy expression that they can handle before their willpower begins to crumble, and they reach for the ceramic dish with an exaggerated groan, dragging the little pat of butter close.

Ardbert visibly perks up at his recommendation being actually considered. He looks a bit like an overeager dog with how he’s watching Theo scoop the tiniest bit of butter onto their fingertips, his eyes actually shimmering with excitement as Theo rubs the oily substance into the wound on their back.

It feels… disgusting, really. It even burns, just a touch, from how salty the butter is. 

But they do it anyway, rubbing the butter in and then wiping their fingers on one of the random towels that have found their way onto the table.

“Are you happy now?” Theo says. They’re smiling despite themselves, and Ardbert returns the gesture with a small one of his own.

“Aye,” he says, with a nod. “And you’ll see in the morning.”

Theo snorts. Unlikely, but they will check, if only because Ardbert’s excitement is perhaps a little too contagious for them to resist.

(In the morning, they strip off their sleeping shirt and, bleary eyed and exhausted, they examine themselves in the vanity mirror.

The bruise appears just a shade lighter. Or is that the light? They squint at it, poking and prodding the still aching wound, before giving up entirely.

A topic for further research, perhaps.)

[moonbelt]

»if by chance

↳ soulmate au | college au

⇢ pairing: mark tuan | reader

⇢ genre:  fluff + soft angst 

⇢ word count: 8.825

author’s note: uh, so it turns out i’m a sucker for soulmate aus. thanks anon for requesting! hope this is as fluffy as you wanted!!

It was a stupid idea, you admit, to have a random name permanently inked on your wrist just because you wanted to dodge the bullets that came with not having a soulmate in modern society. It also didn’t help that the name you’d chosen had little to no importance to you and every time you thought of it, it seemed to be mocking you.  

Like right now, as you hastily type the concluding lines of your final lab report and flip through your notebook to find a sentence you planned to quote, it sat there in full black swirling letters.  

Mark, you didn’t even know a Mark. The only Mark you’d ever known was back in fifth grade, and you were sure he wasn’t your soulmate because for whatever it’s worth, the both of you had hated each other. Before he moved across states the day of your birthday, never to be seen again. Even though you were skeptical to this whole soulmate for life thing, you were absolutely sure that the system wouldn’t pair the two of you together.  

You'd picked the name on a whim — it was the first thing to filter through your mind. The tattoo artist had asked you, repeatedly, if you were sure you wanted it but it felt wrong to choose anything else. So you walked out of there with your first ever tattoo.

Raising your head to examine the work you’ve typed up you’re met with a blank screen with a small loading signal as the computer begins the process of shutting down. Frantically, you bang your fists on the keyboard praying to a higher power that what you think is happening is not.

“No, no, no!” You watch as the device completely shuts down, dragging your unsaved hard work along with it. “You can't do this to me!”  

But indeed it does, and for the second time in the span of ten minutes, your eyes fixate on the writing on your wrist. Again, Mark seems to be sneering at you. Your face falls into your palms, just the thought of redoing your report is enough to bring you to the edge of tears. You’d already forgotten to do the last online quiz, so this was supposed to bring your grade up to your standards, but it looks like the Universe was conspiring against you.  

You don’t realize when the first round of waterworks start to fall from your eyes until they land on your hands. God, you’d just dedicated two and a half hours of your life to this lab and to be honest, you’re still in shock that the computer crashed. So here you are, seated at one of the computers sparsely stationed around your dorms study lounge, crying yourself out.  

It is times like this that you wish you had a soulmate that you were inexplicably attuned to. The stories your friends had relayed down to you about theirs always seemed to borderline with them balancing each other out. How if one of them was sad, the other could always find ways to lug them out of their slump. You harrumph at that. What an absolute lie. There was no way someone like that existed, especially for you. When everyone else was busy getting stamped with names on their hands, you got imprinted with static silence.  

High school had to have been the worst four years you could’ve endured. Being embarrassed that you were the only person you knew to not have any sort of mark on your body that tied you to someone else, you remember actively wearing sweaters that covered your entire arms. And it had worked, at first, but then mistakes happen. Suddenly, you were serving as the token soulmate-less in your classmates jokes.  

The recalling of these events brings you to the second round of waterworks. Ah, you hate this. On a good day, you aren't a crier, but you believe it to be justified at this point. Just thinking about the number of words you have to re-write is enough to send you into a fit of madness. At least the study lounge is empty, and no one can see as you break down.  

"I'm sorry but, are you okay?"

Your head whips up from your hands, and through your blurry vision, you observe the person standing in front of you. It's a guy, you think. Your mind is in such a state of disarray that nothing particularly makes sense.  

"Oh my god..." You choke out completely mortified by the turn of events. Great, it was bad enough that you were crying in the study lounge, but it just had to be the icing on the cake that someone would walk-in on you while doing it.  

You're sure he feels awkward by the situation as well, and your thoughts are reaffirmed by the little glances he keeps taking around the room. "Are you okay?" He clears his throat, repeating his question.

"I'm fine. Great actually," you say forcing a smile into your voice. Lifting your hands to your face, you furiously wipe the strains of the tears off, but they keep coming against your will. "I'm not usually like this," you offer a justification. 

He chuckles nervously, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "You don't look too good though. Did the computer crash?"

"How did you know?" Your eyes widen in surprise, and you practically jump in your seat.  

"Two days ago, I was the same situation," he says softly. "Did you save what you were working on?"

You shake your head, sniffling from the aftermath. "No. I was so stupid; trusting technology."

"Eh, don't beat down on yourself. It happens to the best of us." The boy offers you half a smile as he reaches behind him to produce a canned coffee and a packaged granola bar. "I don't know if this would help but here you go." He passes the snacks to you.  

Gratefully you accept them but don't tell him that you're not a fan of caffeine, but you appreciate his efforts. You smile at him, a lesser strained one than earlier. "Thank you. You really didn't have to get this for me though."

He shrugs, his smile widening a bit. "It's no problem. I couldn't just leave you to cry all by yourself  — I was raised better than that."

There’s a pause as you take in his appearance, now without blurry tears clogging your vision, and you’re thrown aback by the faint recognition like maybe you've seen him before ages ago. A red bandana tied around his forehead, a pen planted behind his left ear. You have the insane urge to stretch out and touch him. Check out for yourself if his hair really is as soft as it looks. Shaking your head, you scatter the thoughts away and blame your feelings on the lack of sleep.  

"Thanks," you place the drink to the side of your notebook. "I would have preferred if you didn’t see me cry at all.”  

He waves your gratitude away as he slinks into the computer station next to yours, a grin still gracing his face. "I can pretend I didn't if that's what you want."  

"Do what you like. I doubt I have a say in your actions." You say seriously, pushing the power button on the Computer.

"True," he replies as he cocks his head to the side. "You remind me of someone I used to know."

"Isn't that a song?"

"Yes..." he laughs through his sentence, and you find yourself joining in. "But I swear you do remind me of someone. Don't remember who exactly, but someone."

You flex your shoulders, releasing pent-up tension. Maybe the cry fest you just had was a needed evil. "If you don't remember them, then they're probably not important." The computer screen lights up to the login page, and you quickly type in your credentials.  

There's a slight pause as he logs in to his computer before turning his attention back to you. "Not necessarily. But I guess I see your point."

Ripping the granola bar open, you take a bite of it and relish in it. It had been hours since you'd eaten anything, focusing all your energy on completing semesters work in a few hours. And now you had to rewrite a whole essay in an hour, you didn't have the time to sit around thinking about how much time you'd already wasted. So you crack your knuckles and pull open a new file to begin working on.  

He must sense that you're in no mood for small talk because instead of continuing the conversation, he allows it fall into comfortable silence. Choosing to rather drag his phone from his pocket and resume playing a racing game. Sticking by his promise to keep you company for the next hour. You're not sure why he feels the need to do it, but at the same time, you can't find it in you to complain.  

The both of you spend your time together majorly in silence that’s decorated with your occasional screams of agony every fifteen minutes when you check the time. He laughs every time but still manages to get you to calm down, you don’t know why but his unblemished honesty and somewhat witty humor does the trick.  

As it turns out, he's an English major — something you don’t expect because for some reason he doesn’t look like one. To that, he asks "what is an English major supposed to look like?" And even though you're tempted to tell him you'd always pictured your high school English teacher as the standard, you instead bite your lip before steadily going back to your work.  

When you finally finish the paper, three minutes before it's due and still bedridden with grammatical errors you're too tired to realize exist, you jump up from your seat with hands raised to the heavens.  

"Yes!"  

The boy jumps alongside you, you find yourself grasping his arm and jumping ecstatically unable to hold in your happiness. Your semester isn't ruined, your hard work wasn't for nothing, and most importantly you'd completed the damned lab.  

"It's done, it's actually done." You say, still in a state of shock. "I'm not gonna fail."

"I doubt you'd ever fail but, it is amazing that you finished within the hour." The smile on his face, if possible, widens. "Somehow I feel proud of you. I could never do that."

"Given normal circumstances, I wouldn’t be able to either. I guess you're like my lucky charm."

He scoffs at that, a look of disdain crossing his features. "Nah, that title is reserved for your soulmate. Is it not?"

Your train of thought falters at his words, and you're tempted to scoff back at him. Maybe the title would be reserved if you had one. The system had fucked up, and you knew better than to hold out hope for someone that wasn't going to appear. Unconsciously, your fingers wrap around your wrist in an attempt to hide Mark. From the boy or from yourself, you don’t know.  

"Not really," you mumble. "I mean who does that? Reserve stuff for people you don't even know?"

"You'd be shocked," he offers you a small smile. "Anyways, it was nice meeting you. Hopefully, if we meet again, it wouldn’t be with you crying."

"Don’t you ever get tired of being honest?" You refrain from scoffing at his bluntness by grabbing your backpack from the floor and throwing it against your back.  

Shrugging, he stuffs his hands deep into his pockets. "Not really. If you're honest about things, people know what to expect from you."

"Bet your soulmate loves that." You say with laughter in your voice. Bending down a bit, you log out of the computer and click the restart icon.  

"Mm, maybe..." His voice trails off. "Anyway, I'll see you around," he says, turning on his heel and starting the walk to his room.  

You have no idea why you reach out and latch onto his arm with a sort of vigor you don’t recognize. But once you’ve done it, you can't remember why you decided to hold him back. You stutter a little before the words fall out, beginning and ending with one another.

"Thank you for staying with me. I really do appreciate it."  

"Don’t sweat it," he flashes you a lopsided grin. "Like I said; I was raised with basic manners."  

Prying your fingers from his forearm, you let out a nervous laugh. He cocks an eyebrow at you, maybe he can tell that you still have something you want to say? Whatever it is — that look in eyes — pushes the question out.  

"If you don’t mind me asking. What's your name?"  

He's not expecting such a mundane question, and if you're honest with yourself, you don’t quite understand why you have the overwhelming urge to know what it is. The universe isn't your best friend, it never has, so you can't fathom why all of sudden it feels like the strings of your safely created world are in his hands.

Just as he opens his mouth to answer you, his cell phone lights the room with a ping! And on cue, he pulls it from his back pocket to examine the text message. Quickly he types his reply, and you move to stand at the side wondering what exactly, in the name of all hell, are you doing? This isn't you. Well, to be frank, nothing that has happened so far is you. You don’t cry in the study lounge, you don’t allow someone you don’t know keep you company, and most importantly, you don’t go around asking people for their names because they bestowed one act of kindness on you.  

When he finishes the conversation on his phone, he angles his body your way. An amused smile on his face.  

"Mark."

Now you’ve had your fair share of heart-stopping moments. Once in fourth grade when you fell down a flight of stairs and broke your jaw. Another was in seventh grade when you accidentally mailed your love letter to everyone in your class instead of the one person that mattered. But none of that could compare to right now. Time becomes an inexplicable concept because regardless of how much rationality you have, it stops.  

He doesn’t give you the chance to say anything, not that you have the words anyway before he's waving at you and rushing out and down the hall. Leaving you alone with your thoughts, Mark, and an empty study lounge. Your mind must be in a delusional state because for some reason Mark seems to heat up. You don’t know why you don’t know how. But for everything you do know, you don’t want this feeling to stop.

"I know you said you don’t like parties, but I'm begging here," Jackson says as he pulls you into a hug from behind.  

"If you know what I said why are you making me repeat myself?" You roll your eyes, reaching above your head to the cupboard and pulling out a pack of microwaveable popcorn. "I hate parties Jackson, you know this."  

He pouts, resting his head on your shoulder and tilting it up at you. "But if you don’t come with me I'll be all alone. Is that what you want?"

"You have other friends," you don’t want to laugh at his words, but you do. "Yugyeom would love to go with you."  

"It's different. You're my best friend [y/n]. What kind of friend would I be if I allowed you to wallow in pain alone on a Friday night?" He doesn’t wait a second for your reply. "A bad one, that’s what."  

"But today’s movie night."

"We can have the movie night tomorrow," Jackson releases you from his death grip to flip your body to face him. "But today is the last party of the semester."

You wave the popcorn sachet in his face. "You want me to choose a party over Moana? Do you not know me?"

Sighing, he rolls his eyes and moves closer to the counter to pick up his glass of water. Ah, you know what he's doing. A master of guilt-tripping you into doing stuff you'd never do otherwise. You can already imagine what his next words are going to be.  

"What if you finally meet your soulmate there? You act like you don’t care if you find them, but I know you, and I can tell that you want to."

That’s not quite right. You despise the fact that you haven't told your best friend the truth about the name on your wrist and how it was all made up, but you think you’ll despise his pity even more. The whole reason as to why you got it inked in the first place was because everyone always looked at you some way when they realized that you didn’t have a soulmate. It wasn't quite prejudiced but more 'thank God, that’s not me.' And even though you've had Mark for two years already, you know better than to think it to be the same as the real thing.  

"Plus even if you don’t find them, you get to spend the night with the actual love of your life; me." He says with a smug look as he tosses the empty cup into the sink.  

Throwing the sealed popcorn paper bag on the counter, you admit your defeat. "I'm only going because I know you're gonna get drunk off your ass and call me to drive you home."

He nods his head in mock agreement. "Yes, yes. Thank you for being amazing."

Parties have always had a weird imbalance in your heart. Most times you thought them to be ridiculously loud and all people used them for was to justify why they hooked up with the resident bad boy on campus. On the other hand, it did give you access to free booze and give you a window to human interaction. Albeit a slurry and impaired one.  

And today your body is leaning towards the first half. On a good day, you’ll mingle a bit and get slightly buzzed, but the music is throwing you off. You can’t stop thinking about how your man-made mark had reacted, slightly, to human Mark. The rational part of your brain knew it was simply an illusion but the fanatical part of you was clinging to it like it was the key to life.  

You groan as you grab a solo cup from your friend’s hand and down it in one gulp.

“Whoa, slow down tiger.” Naru laughs as she rubs your back lightly. “I thought you said no drinking tonight.”

Wincing as it goes down your throat, you hiss out. "I thought so too."

She snickers at you, taking the empty cup from your hands and placing it neatly on the table next to her. "Jackson owes me 10 bucks."  

"You guys bet on me?"

"Of course. How long before [y/n] cracks? I said 30 minutes, Jackson said not at all."

You twist your lips up at her. "Really Naru?"

Naru shrugs at you, a smile still on her lips. "What? You looked stressed out. Do you have a crush or something?"

"No..." You don’t exactly know what it is.  

"You do, don’t you?" Naru pipes up with interest. "Did you find The One?" She nudges her shoulder against yours, wiggling her eyebrows.

You shake your head. "Not yet."  

At this point, you’re willing to crawl down a hole and die. No, scratch that. You want to hurl yourself at the sun. You’re ready to go play beer pong, which you suck at, in hopes of getting stupidly drunk, so you don’t have to remember anything for the next hour or so.  

“I need a drink. Do you want any?” You change the topic as you push yourself off the wall. Turning your gaze to the crowd of people littering between the living room and kitchen.  

The place isn’t packed from wall to wall, but there are still enough people around that it makes you feel queasy just thinking about the struggle to get there.  

Naru shudders at your offer. "I feel like I'm about to pass out so no." After a beat, she adds. “Do you know where Jackson disappeared off to?”

"Beer pong, I think."  

She pats you on the shoulder and shoots you a wink as a goodbye before she’s weaving her way down the stairs and into the basement. You take a deep breath before you dive into the swarm and begin navigating your way, avoiding as many elbows as you possibly can.

It takes you more than six minutes to get to the kitchen, and you’re immediately reminded that this is Jaebum's party. He’s the center of attention, bickering with a group of people. Some you recognize from hasty glances in hallways, some you don’t. You catch his eye on your way to the cooler station at the back, and he gives you a small nod of acknowledgment.

You’ve been to a handful of Jaebum hosted parties all because of Jackson’s friendship with him, but you’d never actually hung out with him. Now that you think about it, you never really spent time with any of Jackson’s other friends. Mainly because the few first times you’d met them it had been so awkward that you willingly uninvited yourself to other events they planned.  

Waving at him, you let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding. Maybe you should’ve connected better with Jackson's friends, perhaps then you wouldn’t be stranded in a house party with such a weary way out.  

“Well, don’t you look bored,” the voice comes out in a drawl. “Let me guess Jackson dragged you out again. You’ve got to learn to say no [y/n].”

You roll your eyes as you reach past Yugyeom to grab a canned drink from the cooler. Yugyeom is a friend. You aren’t that close to him, but whenever you stayed over at Jackson’s apartment, he always seemed to be there. Filling up space. He even dragged you along to a dance practice once because he didn’t want to be alone and Jackson had been busy doing… stuff.  

“I did say no. For the past two months actually,” you answer as you pop open your can and take a swig.

He doesn’t say anything after that. Instead, the two of you stand in solidarity and drink. After a while when you’re more than considerably tipsy, the both of you engage in small talk which continues until a guy across the room beckons Yugyeom over. After a minute’s indecision, he obliges. “Anyways, I’ll see you around. We should hang out more often.”

Since you don’t disagree with the idea, you make sure to smile extra wide, so it doesn’t seem like you're faking it. “Sounds good.”

Once he’s slipped past you and gone over to his group of friends you are thrown back to reality. The bass music is pumping at a deafening volume, you wouldn’t be surprised if the cops showed up to shut the party down. People are everywhere. Bumping into you, giggling, dancing, hooking up. You start to feel insignificant compared to everyone else here. All these people trying to make moments in their life while you’re standing in the corner of the kitchen right next to the trash can.  

Your feet have begun to ache. The time on your watch reads 12:04 AM, you let out a strained sigh. You know for a fact that neither Jackson or Naru will be leaving until at least 1 AM. Turning on the heel of your foot you make your way out of the kitchen and try to find the back door. You’ve been to Jaebum’s house enough times to know that his parties never extended to the backyard. There really wasn’t any space there anyway, and you guess it made it harder to manage if people were everywhere.  

Outside the air is fresh and frigid against your skin and you’re tempted to call it a night and just head back to the dorms on your own. You’re so focused on the weather that you don’t notice the figure sitting a good foot from you. Your feet are planted steadily on the back porch, you feel somewhat elevated. Maybe you could just waste time here until you had to leave.  

You plop down on the porch’s steps with a thud and then a scream as you come face-to-face with the one very thing you’ve been trying all night to forget. You're thrown away by how different he looks up-close and with a spark in your system. Almost like you’re staring at a painting. The urge to run your hands through his hair has returned, you thought you had won that war in the study lounge, but apparently, you had not.  

“W-what are you doing here?” It’s a miracle that you don’t fumble your words.  

Mark offers you a slight smile, takes a long gulp of his beer, coughs a little bit before he raises his hand up and waves a little. “You look awfully familiar. Have we met before?”

You try to return his smile, but in the back of your mind, you’re positive that it most likely comes out as a grimace.  

“Uh, yeah we had —” Your sentence is cut off by Mark snapping his fingers. He reminds you of a light bulb with electricity constantly flowing in.  

"You're the crier, aren't you?" He seems pleased with his answer. "It's been what? A week? Since we met, how you holding up?"

There's a stone wedged in your throat at his nickname for you. Fuck, why did it have to be crier of all things? It brings back a memory you had almost forgotten. The Mark from fifth grade had incessantly called 'crier' day in day out. All because you had tripped on air, fell down a set of stairs and broke your jaw. You were pretty sure if you ever came across the Mark from that time, you were going to blow a major blood vessel.  

You nod, not trusting your voice as another breeze sweeps past and you drag your arms closer to your chest.

He sighs as he leans back on his arms and raises his face to the stars. “So, what are you doing out here?”

“Nothing really. I’d just rather be out here than in there.”

Nodding in agreement, he finishes the rest of his beer before he crushes the can to half its size. You look down at your folded fingers. The silence cascading around you is comfortable, and you don’t feel the need to make conversation. It dawns on you that the silence you experience around him has never been awkward.  

“Ah, this feels nice,” Mark breathes out. “Still. Quiet. Sometimes everything just gets so loud, and I can barely think.”

“To be fair, you are at a party.”

He grins at that. You can tell he’s drunk by the asymmetrical smile on his face, but regardless, you can’t help but smile back. “True. Promise not to tell anyone, but I hate these parties. I only show up out of obligation.”

You raise your drink to your lips. “Relatable. Honestly, I came for the booze.”

His laugh is honestly like a barricade of brick walls crashing into each other. So profound and sonorous it makes the hairs on your back stand up straight. You catch yourself laughing along with him. You don’t want to, but you tell yourself to slow your roll, after all, Mark is the epitome of a nice guy. He most likely laughs at all his friends jokes — out of obligation.

“So that’s why you’re here? Not because my sparkling personality drew you in?”

You realize that although Mark is a man of refreshing candor without alcohol lighting his system, he's more if it were possible, honest to a fault with it.  

“I didn’t even know you’d be here.”

The back door swings open right at that moment and a girl stumbles out. Hair wild and untamed. She’s smiling broadly but at the same time looks confused. You watch as her eyes illuminate as soon as they fall upon Mark. She reaches down and flicks his forehead with her forefinger and thumb.

“Have you been here all night?” She rolls her eyes to all heavens. “C’mon, we gotta go.”

In the midst of this, Mark doesn’t lower his focus from you. He seems, for the most part, bent on pretending the girl behind him isn’t here. You drop the empty can from your mouth and place it gingerly beside your foot. With a grunt, Mark lifts his head up and squints his eyes at the girl, you assume to be his friend.  

“Why? This party is finally getting fun. You’re ruining it.”

She scoffs, flipping her hair. “Uh-huh. You’re having so much fun, I’m jealous,” her eyes cast sideways to you. “Jinyoung’s drunk off his ass and keeps asking for you.”

There’s a moment of hesitation before he pushes himself up on the balls of his feet. His gaze is unwavering. It feels surreal just being near him, you don’t know if this feeling comes from how many drinks you’ve had or if it’s something deeper. But you don’t want to question it.  

“In case you don’t remember, I’m Mark,” he says, and immediately you forget the girl behind him. He smirks down at you.

“[y/n],” you quickly stand up as well. All your choices this night catch up to you, and you waver a bit, his hands reach out to stable you. You can feel embarrassment creep up your neck by the second.

"[y/n]," he airs your name out.

He licks his lips, you’re sure he’s not doing it sexually however that doesn’t stop you from interpreting it that way. “I would ask you for your phone number but my phone died,” Mark says, running a line through his hair vigorously with his hands. It falls down in waves over his eyes which hold a semblance of confusion.  

You’re about to offer your phone and get his number instead when he snaps his fingers. Eureka! He has a knack for snapping his fingers when he's drunk, you observe. He reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and brings out a blue pen. Handing it to you he says, “would you do the honors of writing your phone number down?”

“Where?”  

The girl — his friend — is becoming more agitated as the minutes tick on. She keeps tapping her foot and muttering incoherent words under her breath. You focus your attention back on Mark. You don’t know her, and you don’t want to. You cock your eyebrow at him. He chuckles, thrusting his palm forward. Carefully, like maybe he’s glass, you hold his hand and fastidiously write down your phone number. His fingers are slim and long, you kind of want to trace it with yours, but you control yourself.  

Once you’ve finished, he beams at you. Your eyes fall on his lips. You are curious about how they would feel on yours. They look like they could crush you, and you feel like maybe you’d like it.  

“I promise to call you,” his words are almost drowned out by his friend dragging him by the arm.  

“Let’s go, Mark! What am I? Your babysitter?!”

He puts one foot through the door. “Guess, I’ll see you around [y/n].” His grin doesn’t slip away from his face, but it does shift into something smaller.

Before you can even find the words to say the door slams shut and you’re thrown back into the dead air. Confounded, you sit down on the steps once more. There’s a giddy feeling in your chest. Actually no, it's something more. Something you don’t know how to explain. It feels like you’ve reached the peak of a mountain. Exhilarating but scary. A compulsion to run straight through the party and relay everything that transpired back to Jackson and Naru runs through your veins.  

You cover your face with your palms. The smile on your lips threatens to crack your cheeks open. Time seems to, again, have stopped. Your heart beats so loud you wouldn't be surprised if it were louder than the music thumping through the house. For the second time that day you want to crawl in a hole, but it's for an entirely different reason. This time it's because you're afraid, afraid you wouldn't be able to hide how bubble-headed and flustered you feel.

Winter break comes and goes without human Mark calling you, and Mark smirks smugly every time you hold your phone out and wait. You try to push the situation to the farthest point of your mind by drowning yourself in books. But even then, you find yourself researching on the soulmate-less. From what you know, and from what you gather, the population without soulmates is a rarity. And contrary to what your high school peers had told you they do not, in fact, die alone.  

However, that does nothing to lift the weight on your chest and you must not be doing a good job of hiding your emotions because Naru decides, after days of deliberating, to lay down the truth. 

"Are you still worrying about your crush? [y/n], come on, it's a crush it'll fade away." She says now as the two of you move the last of your boxes into your dorm.  

"I'm not thinking about him." 

"Yes, you are. I know you." 

"Honestly, Naru. I'm not," you lie. "I'm just thinking about all the work I'll have to do this semester." 

She rolls her eyes at you as she dumps a box near your bedside table. "Whoever this crush of yours is, it will never compare to the name on your wrist. So, don’t get invested." 

You mutter under your breath while you squat down to tear open one of the boxes. "I'm not." 

"Whatever you say," Naru raises her hands up in surrender and lets the conversation go. "You hungry? I am." 

Abruptly you stand up to your full height, thankful that Naru can read how awkward you get whenever someone brings up this whole soulmate business. You grab your wallet from the table. "I'll go to the vending machine and get something, yeah?" 

Naru flops down on your bed. "Can I get a Cheetos?" 

You nod your head before you're dashing out the room and out to the hallway. You won't lie. The more you hear the word soulmate, the more the weight on your chest seems to cave in. You take a sigh of relief when you realize the pathway is empty and begin making your way to the Laundry room where the vending machine is located.  

It's when your debating what item you want that the door swings open and in comes Mark. He looks stunned to see you there in your Spider-Man shirt and jeans and then he looks quite happy to see you. For reasons, you don’t know. The smile on his lips is full on frontal, and you have to remind yourself that he probably has a soulmate out there and whatever this is between the two of you isn't going to last.  

"Oh God, you're not ignoring me are you?" 

"W-what?" You stutter a bit.  

He moves a little closer, still smiling but wary at the same time. "I don’t know if you didn’t get my messages, calls or if you’ve been avoiding me. So I'm giving you an out if that’s what you want." 

"Well, I did not get anything from you. I thought you were ignoring me," your sentence ends with your nervous laughter as you grab the nape of your neck. 

"Do you think maybe I was texting the wrong number?" The reality of it settles in, and he lets out a wimpy sound. "They probably think I'm a weirdo. Oh God." 

You laugh at his antics as you make a random decision on the vending machine, clicking the first thing you see. "What did you say?" 

He sighs, devastated. "I basically asked you out on a date and got turned down by radio silence." 

You choke on air. "You what?" You give up on trying to constrain your laughter, opting to allow it flow out to the point it brings tears to your eyes.  

"Hey, I made a promise to call you. Even as a drunk, I wouldn't make a promise I can't keep." 

"Honest to a fault." You say as you bend down to grab your paid item only to find an empty slot. "Did it just eat my money?" Hastily you stand up, scoffing at the machine. "Really?" 

"Try hitting it?" Mark offers his suggestion, and soon enough the both of you are frantically smacking the life out of the inane vending machine that refuses to give you your money's worth and laughing so loud that you forget that you're in a laundry room in a dorm housing three hundred other people.  

Once you've let it all out of your body a vertiginous feeling washes over you as you take a deep breath. You don’t know how it happened, or maybe you do, but without warning, you're beyond close to Mark. So close you can feel his little releases of breath that fan against your skin. Your eyes latch onto his lips and for a second time you know he probably doesn’t mean it to be sensual, but regardless your body reacts to it.  

The person to break the silence is him. "Would you find it highly inappropriate if I kissed you right now?" 

"I don’t think I have a problem with that... but your soulmate might." 

"I doubt that," he bites his lower lip and you watch as his eyes light a fire you can't contain. "I don’t believe in assigned soulmates. Some higher power shouldn't tell me who to love." 

You agree, closing the space between the two of you by etching forward. "Right. We should be able to decide who we love and who we don’t." A burning feeling chases up your arm, and even though it stings, it feels strangely calm. 

"I think I'm probably going to scare you away." 

"How?" 

"Because it scares me, how attracted I am to you. It's not even a crush, maybe it is, I don't care. All I know is that life is too short to be classifying the way someone who likes another person into categories. I just want to be around you and make you smile. Maybe I'm exaggerating and giving you too much credit, but it scares me how the most trivial things around you don’t seem that way. It scares me how my body responds to you. It's really fucking scary." 

You can hear the unrhythmic beating of his chest. You can feel the heat emitting from his body. You like the feeling of his heat hitting your skin. And with the expression on his face, you wish for a moment that you could tell him the truth behind your predicament. 

You clear your throat. "If you're gonna kiss me and then say you just want to be friends, get it—" 

Without a second thought, he puts his hands on either side your face and your heart spikes up as the rest of the room fades to dust.  

And when his lips come crashing down on yours, you forget how to breathe. He tastes like butterscotch and mint, and you never knew those two were the best concoctions the universe could've created. He traps your waist in his hands and squeezes once, twice, and sets your lips apart and ablaze simultaneously. It became an urgent need to feel him. You clamp onto his hair and get taken aback by how soft it is. It feels like you're being burnt alive. Butterflies set a nest in your stomach and flutter up to your neck before they break out from your mouth. He feels like the ocean; calm, gentle and serene yet deadly like it could sweep you off into the distance at any time. There's a silent gasp as the two of you broke up for air. 

You're breathing so loud the ramifications hit your skull and fizzle back to your toes. Contrary to other kisses you’ve had, your eyes aren't dazed. No, they are alight. Sparked up with a new flame. You swear to yourself that even soulmates can't feel something like this. And for the first time, you're not hung up on finding that non-existent person. You can't get your heart to stop pounding, and by the look in Mark's eyes, you don’t doubt that he's doing the same thing.  

"That was... interesting," you finally say when you've caught your breath. You remember now that Naru is probably wondering why you haven't returned from war and you burst out in giggles. 

"Wow, you really do remind me of crier," Mark says joining in your laughter.  

Something dies in your throat. "Crier?" Your mind goes back to weeks ago when you'd first met him. "The person you said you couldn’t remember?" 

Running a hand through his hair, he grins at you. "Yeah. We were best friends for two years but I had to move without notice, so I'm pretty sure I'm hated now." 

"What year was that?" 

He upturns his head in thought. "I left after eight grade." 

Your eyes widen in alarm and not from the all-time high that you're on. Your chest fastens up again. "Did this crier trip and break their jaw?" 

"Yes," he snaps his fingers. "And once they even mixed hot sauce in my ketchup. I kinda wonder if I'll ever meet crier again." 

"A-are you Mark Tuan?" 

As much as you don’t know how to feel about this turn of events, you can't deny that a little part of you hopes it's real. It's now when the air seems electrified that you fully recall the details that led to the Mark of fifth grade leaving town.  

You hadn't always loathed him, of course, you hated his nickname for you, but he had been one of the few friends you had back then. And you'll be honest, you did cry a lot when you were younger, and kids made fun of you for that. The Mark from that time had always stood by you, during lunch every day, the two of you walked home together almost every day. Every day had become slightly better with him on your side. 

Then one day, he was gone. Suddenly your birthday that you'd been looking forward to became one of the worst times for your 15-year-old self. You'd decided then and there that you’ll hate him, forget about him, do anything in your power—

"Do you remember me now?" 

"I thought you left," the words come out in a whisper.  

He takes a step back from you, casting a downward look to his converses. "I'm sorry. I shouldn’t have disappeared like that, but I didn’t know I was leaving until the day of. I--I tried to call you but it never went through, and when I finally came back, your family had already moved someplace else..." 

"What about now? Why didn’t you tell me who you are? If you knew who I was why did you hide it?" Your tone is accusatory, but your mind is running laps against each other. Nothing is making sense. And despite the fact that you don’t blame him for what happened or how you handled the situation, you still very much feel... cheated? 

"Because you didn’t even remember me [y/n]," Mark lets out an exasperated sigh. "We had a History class together during Freshman year, and you didn’t recognize me—we sat next to each other. I called out to you in the cafeteria once, maybe you didn’t hear me. Who knows. I thought you were ignoring me and then I saw you crying in the study lounge and—" 

"—and the cycle started all over again." 

Are you okay? 

The possibility of crying is becoming a more likely outcome as the second's pass on. And the more you blink your eyes to keep them at bay, the more your eyes start to glisten.  

"Were you never gonna tell me that it was you?" 

"I wanted you to like me for the me now. Not the me that was your best friend years ago. I've changed, you've changed. I just wanted you to not like someone that may never come back."

You scoff at that. "What's the difference between the two?" 

Mark finally looks up to connect his eyes with yours, and the impression on your chest breaks way. "Me then had a soulmate. Me now does not." 

Scrunching your eyebrows, you cock your head at him. "I don’t understand." 

"I had one, but it didn’t feel right. I had already met you, and they couldn’t compare to it. Not even a little. And I guess when I decided that I could never love them like how I do you, the mark just faded. Everyone acts like predestined soulmates are the best thing but, sometimes they are not. I haven't got a new one since then, so I guess that means the system accepted my begging." 

You throw your arm out and show him Mark. The Mark that you created on your skin. It wasn’t given to you by the higher-ups. Instead, it was something you unknowingly had wanted.  

"I got this done two years ago. I never knew why but it seemed like the only thing I would like permanently."  

He tries to hide the shit-eating smile on his face, but really he can't. It's such a broad smile that you kind of wonder how his cheeks survive the expansion. "Maybe the universe is actually on my side." 

"You think I got this because of you?" You ask incredulously as you fold your arms across your chest.  

Mark shrugs. He doesn’t particularly care why you have his name tattooed on your wrist, the truth is he's beyond ecstatic that his prayers, by some miracle, have come to life. "I pleaded to a deity that you and I get matched up. I don’t need a stupid mark to tell me who I love, but it feels great when you see it stamped in concrete." 

"So what, were you planning on getting my name tattooed on yours? Are you insane?" 

He grins slyly at you as he pulls up his shirt's sleeve to show you his wrist, wherein medium sized letters your name sits proudly. "Maybe so. I got this two years ago too before I started college, and then I met you." 

"You're so fucking insane." 

"So are you. Crier, you got my name on your wrist. I don’t know about you, but I'm claiming you as my soulmate."  

"We're gonna have to start from scratch, you know. Sure we have physical attraction and what not, but that fades away. You have to actually love me. To put in your words: not the me from then but the me now. If I'm taking you as my soulmate, then I don’t want to let you go. Ever." 

In your head, you can list all the problems that come with this. It's a game of tug of war. If you pull too far, then the other person lets go. If you don’t pull at all the other person still let's go due to lack of effort. Either way, there's no winner and— 

Mark moves closer to you. "If you have me now. You have me forever, I promise. I'm willing to change fate with you [y/n]. If that’s not soulmate material, then what in this world is?" 

Change fate, he says. You realize you've started crying when he reaches up and uses a thumb to erase the path the tears are making. But it keeps coming. This is why you hate crying, once you start it just doesn’t stop. Like a waterfall, it pulls and pulls. Mark chuckles at you.  

"What's the thing you're doing right now, crier?"  

You want to punch him. Strike him so hard he feels all the misplaced but warranted hate you harbored towards him for years. How dare he just waltz into your life and try to reclaim the very thing you didn’t want anyone to have?  

"Screw off." 

"I know I've made some mistakes. I thought it over and I want to make it up to you by being honest. I love you [y/n] even if it's a little spark right now, I love you. And our marks might be human-made, but I'd do anything for you."

"Anything?" You ask, looking at him through blurry glasses.  

"Anything." He reaffirms, resting his forehead against yours. "We'll work through anything. I already cheated the system once to get you, and I'll do it again and again and again as long as it means I'll get to spend my better part of forever with you." 

A/N: oh my gosh, i hope people like this and tell me what they think. thank you very much for reading! ahh, please do tell me if you liked this :)

⇢ masterlist

©️ 2017 kai, high-on-food. 

[dcvalentineexchange]

Happy Valentine's Day, Bro

For my amazing Valentine, Casey @just-thought-you-ought-to-know

From @amazinglymyan

Description: It’s Valentine’s Day and Wally is sad. Dick decides to be a bro and cheer him up

Shout out to my wonderful editor. I couldn’t have done it without you. @sleepdivestiture

—

Dick shot an apologetic look at the teenage cashier who looked like she really wanted to murder them, but couldn’t. Cause, ya’ know, that’s against the law.

Dick and Wally were supposed to be having their movie night tonight. They’d been on a mission for a few days, and just wanted to have a nice relaxing few hours where they weren’t fighting for their life.

“Wally, can you just choose something so we can leave?” Dick pleaded, leaning dramatically onto the cart.

“Which one should I get?” He asked, holding up the two different types of chips.

“Why not both?”

“Good point,” he said, throwing both of them into the cart.

“Thank god. Can we leave now?”

Wally shrugged, a smirk playing across his lips. “Race you to the check-out.”

Dick narrowed his eyes. “No cheating.”

“What? Me? Never,” Wally put a hand over his heart to feign hurt.

“Yeah, sure,” Dick said sarcastically, turning the cart around to face where the registers were.

“On the count of three,” Wally said, and Dick nodded in response.

“One-” Dick started.

“Two-” Wally continued.

“Three!” They shouted together.

Wally sprinted off, and Dick put his foot on the bottom of the cart, pushing himself down the aisle. He chuckled as he went past some confused parents. Their kids were going to get some ideas. He wasn’t looking where he was going for a second, and ran into something.

Dick quickly stopped the cart, looking down at Wally, who was now splayed across the floor.

“Owww,” he groaned.

“Whoops,” Dick muttered, coming around the cart to help him off the floor. “Why’d you stop?”

Once Wally was back on his feet and had wiped all the dust off his butt, he pointed down the aisle that was full of Valentine’s day items.

“Yeah?” He asked in confusion. “What about it?”

“I didn’t realize it was so close to Valentine’s Day,” Wally muttered with a shrug.

“Walls, It’s the thirteenth,” Dick pointed out, showing the date on his phone.

“I was so busy with the mission that it didn’t really cross my mind,” he said sadly, running a hand through his hair.

Dick let out a small sigh, putting a hand on his best friend’s shoulder. Artemis and Wally had decided to take a break a few months ago. Artemis was on a dangerous mission, and thought it would be better for them to be on a hiatus. Wally understood, but it didn’t make things any easier. This was the first Valentine’s Day they weren’t going to be together in years.

“Hey, c’mon now. Cheer up. She said it’s only a break. She had good reasons, too. You guys will be back together soon. And, until then, you have me,” Dick smiled, motioning his hand up and down his body.

Wally shook his head, a small smile playing across his lips. “Good to know I can always count on you.”

“Hey, bros before hoes,” Dick smiled back. “C’mon, let’s go check out.”

Wally looked back down the aisle longingly. He missed Artemis. She’d been on the high-stakes mission for months, and would be on it for quite a few more. He hated not knowing if she was okay or not.

Dick let out a breath. “Go get some.”

“Huh?” Wally asked in confusion.

“Just get some chocolate. We can eat it while we’re watching the movie later,” he said, tilting his head toward the heart-shaped boxes of chocolates.

A grin spread across Wally’s face. “You’re the best,” he said, before running down the aisle, grabbing random boxes as he ran.

Dick put his face in his hands. “My paycheck is going to regret this,” he muttered as he watched his friend go nuts.

Once Wally was done picking everything out, he had seven boxes of chocolates, and a huge stuffed animal.

“I said chocolates, not toys.”

“Yeah, but I’m lonely. I need something to cuddle when I can’t sleep at night.”

Dick tilted his head back and let out an exasperated noise. “Fine,” he groaned, watching Wally’s eyes light up. “Get to check out before I change my mind.”

He didn’t need to be told twice. He skipped off to the closest register, which just so happened to be the poor girl that had been watching them earlier.

They loaded the two DVDs, popcorn, chips, chocolates, and stuffed animal onto the conveyer belt. The girl stared at everything for a second before finally starting to scan the items.

“You know, cops don’t get payed as much as you might think,” Dick pointed out as he pulled the wallet out.

“Yeah, but Bruce is also loaded, so you can just get a loan.”

“I’m not a freeloader, Wally,” he retorted, running his credit card through the machine once the girl had finished scanning everything.

“You could’ve fooled me,” he laughed. “Ow!” He muttered, rubbing his side when Dick elbowed him.

The girl smiled at them while Dick grabbed the bags. “You guys make a cute couple,” she commented, making the two splutter for a second.

“Thanks,” Dick said nonchalantly, placing the bags in the cart.

Wally sighed as they walked out into the parking lot. “Why does everyone think we’re dating?”

“I don’t know. You’re not my type, anyways.”

“I’m a redhead,” Wally pointed out. He just shook his head, pushing the cart to his car. “I’m not arguing with you.”

“You have fun when our apparent relationship makes it onto the headlines,” Wally joked. “No, but imagine it, Dick,” he made a grand revealing gesture with his hands.“Richard Grayson, Bludhaven’s newest cop, and Bruce Wayne’s adoptee, gets together with ANOTHER random redhead.”

“Just get in the fucking car.”

***

An hour later, the two were sitting on Dick’s couch, a few minutes into Rogue One. “You know, this isn’t the first time we’ve been mistaken as a couple,” Dick said around a mouthful of popcorn, thinking back to what had happened at the store.

“What’s your point?” Wally asked, his eyes not leaving the screen.

“Well, they usually have Valentine’s Day discounts for couples.”

Wally looked over, his eyes widening in realization. “Free food,” he muttered.

“Free food,” Dick nodded.

“Let’s do it,” Wally grinned.

***

“You know, this isn’t what I thought you meant when you said that you were taking me out for Valentine’s Day,” Wally muttered.

“Are you really complaining?”

“No, not particularly,” He responded, munching on the chocolate covered marshmallow. Dick had taken him to a restaurant that was having a couple’s chocolate day. There was fondue, and later they’d be making chocolate hearts that they got to decorate for each other. “You know, this is actually kind of nice,” he said, sticking a strawberry under the flow of chocolate.

“Would you say this is a satisfactory Valentine’s day with your best ‘boyfriend’?” Dick said, putting air quotes around boyfriend.

“Of course,” Wally laughed.

***

Dick couldn’t stop laughing. This was too much.

They had been told that they had to write something on their heart shaped chocolate that represented their relationship. Wally had immediately started writing something with the white icing they’d been given, without even consulting with Dick. Once he had finished writing, he turned it to reveal what he’d written.

‘How do you get Dick from Richard?’ It read. Dick snorted before starting to write on his.

‘You ask me nicely!’ He wrote, and now the two of them were cracking up so much that the chocolatier was asking if they were okay.

They were not okay.

***

Later that night, the two boys were making their way to Dick’s car. They’d gone out for a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant.

“Thanks, Dick. I had fun. The most fun I’ve had in awhile.”

“No problem, Walls. No one deserves to be alone on Valentine’s Day.”

They both hopped into the car, and Dick started up the ignition.

“I just-” he let out a hopeless shrug. “I’ve been really down ever since Artemis left for her mission. It’s been really hard not having her around all the time, and I miss her like crazy. I get that it’s an important mission, and that she can’t contact me, but it’s hard ya’know.”

Dick nodded, turning to his best friend. “Trust me, I completely understand. And, hey, if you ever need someone to talk to, just remember that I’m always just a call away. Even if I’m on patrol, you can call me. I might not be able to be at your doorstep in two seconds, but you can always talk to me. I know how hard it is to miss a girlfriend.”

“I know,” Wally nodded. “Thank you, again.”

“Anything for my fake boyfriend.” Dick grinned, pulling out of the parking space.

This had to be one of the best Valentine’s Day the both of them had in awhile.