#those two days where i was high as a kite </3 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

bunny-lily · 8 months ago

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Tether Me - Prologue

Pairing(s): Geto/Gojo/Reader Summary: You ran.

It's what you did in life. It's all you knew how to do. You ran, ran, and kept running and never stopped, because if you stopped, it meant you were trapped, chained, a bird with shredded wings in a gilded cage.

So, how did you end up here, tucked away into a little village in rural Japan, falling into the depths of two black holes with no way to escape?

How could you run from this? From them?

…Would you? CW: No y/n | polyamory | slow burn | slice of life | alt au - no curses | fluff | light angst | eventual smut | forgive me, there's internal monologues | I like using big words... | Gojo & Geto are whipped for you | emotionally constipated reader | (most of the tags have been condensed, you can find the full list on my ao3 here) AN: this is just the prologue chapter, sort of exposition. No bois in this one (technically), but I'm posting chapter 1 at the same time as the prologue. As a heads up, my most comfortable place for posting my longer fics like this is ao3. You can find more of my blurb thoughts on there. I'm not the best at tumblr posting, so forgive me pls ;-;

Ch: Prologue | Ch: 1 | Ch: 2 | Ch: 3 | Ch: 4 | Ch: 5 - 1 | Ch: 5 - 2

WC: 9.4k

You’ve always likened yourself to a kite, but less pretty and enjoyable.

Every time you glanced at a kite in the children’s toy section, or watched as thousands flew in the sky during festivals, your eyes stung and something bitter and uncomfortable twisted in your gut. In a way, you saw yourself in them; fragile little creatures tethered to the earth by no fault of their own. So easy to snap – to break.

They were always trapped, chained down, forever bound to either get reined back in after one had their fill of fun, or to fall like tragic angels to the ground when the winds died, and they would once again be unable to travel free amongst the stars where they belonged. All thanks to the threads wrapped around their very bones, far too strong for something that looked so thin and prone to fraying.

Yet nobody ever did release the chains. Who would willingly free their prized, imprisoned bird?

Of those pretty, unfortunate kites, you lamented with them.

You, too, were pinioned to solid ground. Your wings were clipped, feathers torn from flesh one by one until you were born in a body that could no longer fly. Responsibilities, duties, relationships – they all kept you drowning in a suffocating pile of down-stuffed pillows, filled with plumes that were once yours. They progressively got heavier and heavier, locking your limbs between illusions of comfort and safety, sitting on your chest and flooding your mouth until you choked and gagged and couldn’t breathe.

You were different from kites, sure, beyond the very obvious things. You weren’t a pitifully flimsy, inanimate toy, left forgotten in some closet, awaiting the one day you’d be remembered, taken out, and allowed to taste the breath of deities themselves again. But if you could glide in the wind like they could, oh, nothing would bring you more joy, more solace, even if you were still tied down. All for just a kiss of freedom.

You ached to be detached from everything and everyone. An untethered kite, a fledgling bird learning to fly, a paper lantern that glowed its very joy from within for all to see.

Paper lanterns.

You couldn’t stand paper lanterns, because you yearned so deeply to be one. How wonderful it would be to have a warmth alight inside you as you rose to the heavens, lighter than air.

You envied them.

They made you nauseous with longing.

They made you want to stretch your fingers high and try to catch one within your palm like a cascading star.

They made you want to reach your fist past your throat and rip out your heart barehanded, just to make the accursed thing stop pounding so goddamned hard in your stomach as it sank lower and lower with each additional candle that got to join their family of stars beyond celestia.

Because, for fuck’s sake, you belonged up there, too. Free, flaring, blazing and flickering so spectacularly that philosophers would wax poetic about you for ages to come.

It wasn’t fucking fair for you to be stuck on Mother Nature’s spine like this, burdened by the neutron star in your body that just grew more and more dense, urging you to dive into the ocean and let it snare you into its depths. You didn’t choose to spawn with a spirit disconnected from the flesh that acted as its prison, you didn’t choose to be jailed like this.

So, why?

Maybe that’s one of the reasons you were drawn to kites. You pitied them. You pitied yourself.

You weren’t a kite. You didn’t want to be one, to have your boundless form fettered down. But when you caught a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, that’s all you could ever see staring back at you. A kite with faded, worn out paints that barely clung to the tattered paper, feebly held together by thin strips of bamboo that had been aged and mottled from the inside out by time.

You hated paper lanterns. You hated kites. You hated yourself.

As the years dragged on, from the moment your brain snapped into your body with the sudden realization that you were a conscious, living, breathing person, those ugly feelings festered and spread like a fungus that refused to abate even a trace, just a second so you could catch a breath of fresh air that didn’t reek of mildew.

The seconds spanned on for eons without prejudice, destroying your cells at the molecular level with each passing birthday that trudged reluctantly along.

In the back of your mind, the sensation of being asphyxiated by your own feathers that had been shorn away from you etched itself deeper and deeper into your psyche. You became restless, antsy, the variegated world around you fading rapidly. Colors you once saw as a child, before you could latch the inherent sense of wrongness in your chest to a concept, gradually dulled until all you were left with was a world tinged heavily in gray.

The streets you were raised on grew denser, despite the amount of people living on them never actually changing noticeably. The verdant grass of your backyard turned into a dominating presence everytime you laid your eyes on it, unruly and all-consuming, demanding an undivided attention you did not want to give. The orange beams that hung over black asphalt instilled a sense of panic in you that wasn’t there before.

You used to be fond of walking around your neighborhood in the middle of the night, when you rightfully should have been sleeping. An inverted circadian rhythm suited you well when you were young, unaware that the crushing sensation under your sternum would only get worse.

Now, though, the thought of straying out where there wasn’t enough light to see straight ahead made sweat form on your chest and palms while your teeth clattered from a nonexistent chill.

Everything caved in on you. Not in a rush, not in a cataclysmic flood. No, you didn’t discern you were fighting for air until you were already gasping fruitlessly. Lost, terrified, unsure, you could only bear witness to the collapse of your own mind.

Then, one day, a soft voice whispered in your ear.

Run.

It wasn’t a threat, not some ominous warning of death looming over your shoulder. It was a suggestion, an offering, an olive branch towards that freedom you coveted. It was salvation.

Who were you to ignore the hand of deliverance?

The first time you changed your scenery, moved elsewhere, even if it was only a few streets away from your childhood home, felt incredibly liberating. After so long that you had forgotten how it felt, you got the chance to gulp down air as if you had surfaced from beneath the perdition sea after spending your whole existence beneath it.

Color returned to your world, excitement formed anew, everything felt right. Achromatic wastelands turned into kaleidoscopic meadows, fulgent and lucid. You savored it, reveled in it, frolicked and danced and lived.

…It didn’t last.

Not long. You exhaled, and it all vanished, sand swept away by an uncaring and spiteful hand.

Once you had become used to the environment, when you no longer had to actively remember where your flat was, or how long it took to get to the store, everything was washed out; water dumped on a painting that had yet to form defined shapes.

That crushing sensation had returned, and with it the reminder that, as much as you wished you weren’t, you were a kite. Tethered, perpetually confined, worn bamboo strips and thin paper threatening to rend under the drag.

Thus, you ran again. A new town, a new city, a new skyline. Euphoria nestled cozily under your breast like a second heart, purring contentedly as it curled up on the nest of blankets it created for itself.

New places, new faces, new people. All of it was fascinating to you beyond measure. It interested you to no end to learn about other human beings; their thoughts, their perspectives, their preferences. What they despised with grit teeth and barely restrained anger clenched in trembling fists; what they loved so dearly that they could never drown beneath the same waves that followed your heels, tide rising progressively.

They glowed from within, bright and budding and vibrant. Their eyes flickered with life, glazed so clearly that stars sparkled in the depths of their hues. You were drawn to them, a moth to mesmerizing fire.

You felt free. You rode that high as much as you could, for as long as it would allow.

Until a realization struck you with the force of a bullet train one night. A man hung onto your arm, easy laughter shared between the two of you as you let him take you home. Alcohol tinged his breath, but not enough to give him anything more than a slight buzz. He was a total gentleman through and through, and you listened with eagerness as he spoke about his upcoming work project, his excitement palpable with every word.

His hand linked with yours, fingers intertwined, his warm palm engulfing yours. There was a comfort in that transient window of time, one you held to your heart. It was so unfamiliar, so addictive. And as you stopped before your door, having completely forgotten of your lack of wings, you waited with bated breath for him to slant into you.

A pair of infirm lips, minutely chapped and tasting of wine, pressed against yours, and dread exploded in your gut.

He pulled away from you, lovestruck in the way his eyes shone as he looked into your own, and reality crashed down on you with horrors in three measures, shattering like broken glass in the vortex of your conscious thought.

When you stared at him, watched the way he opened his mouth to speak, you made the connection.

“I really like you,” he had murmured to you that night, nearly shy. Yearning. Hoping.

Paper lantern.

“I want to ask you out properly.”

Tether.

His words sank into your skin like ice, digging deep, burrowing into your marrow.

Kite.

The illusion of pellucid skies of the richest shades cracked, the lush plains you fantasized of often turned to barren heaths, and all those tormenting feelings came back to choke your breath with a vengeance. Sickly fingers wrapped around your throat, sunk into your mouth, dug past your gag reflex, wrapped around your ankles and wrists until you could barely lift your feet just to move forward.

You remembered with great disdain what you were. You had managed to sever your thread by running off from the pod you were born in, but it wasn’t a clean cut. The string hung off your fragile wooden bones loosely, just waiting for somebody to grab and yank, to shred your freedom away from you once again, to leave you knotted around a pole to sit like decoration and stay.

You were not free.

You were not a paper lantern. You did not gleam from your soul like he did. You did not pour light from your heart and words and touch.

You’d do anything to forget that, to prove that sentiment wrong, to show the world that you weren’t a rock thrown into a pond. You’d do anything to change the narrative, to force a rewrite. So, you did what you always did.

You ran.

You found somewhere else to live, blipping off the radar unannounced. One moment you were there, the next you had cut your lingering thread an inch shorter, following the wind blindly like a duckling to your next destination.

Each time you settled down somewhere, you had this silent hope: maybe this is where I’ll be happy.

You clung to that hope, fervently ignoring the screeching whisper in your ear that said otherwise. The next place was never the final one. It never would be, no matter how hard you tried to delude yourself into believing you weren’t a lost soul, unable to move on. Some pathetic ghost you’d make, if you weren’t one already.

Whenever you let yourself rest for a heartbeat too long, the rope you had trimmed ever shorter was skimmed too close by too-warm fingertips, and you fled again, and again, and again.

That’s all you seemed to know nowadays.

Perhaps proven now, as you sat on a train in a foreign country, absentmindedly watching rural landscapes race past the window. Your knuckles pressed indents into your cheek, the sensation unpleasant and nearing on painful, though you had stopped paying any mind to it a while ago. Your thoughts laid scattered at your feet, and you couldn’t be bothered to pick them up.

Rather, the white matter of your brain was being filled with the empty, buzzing tune of songs you’d heard a hundred times over playing through your earbuds at the loudest volume possible. It made things easier to manage during this grand, several-thousand-mile-long trip. The less thinking you had to do, the better. It was the absolute last thing on your bucket list, loitering just under the cutoff line, hoping to sneak in a few words you refused to listen to.

You couldn’t let yourself regret this. You wouldn’t.

Not now, not after you’d already dropped everything and dissipated beyond the welkin’s gaze. You had only one place you could go to at all now, and you were already on your way there.

So if you had to blast your eardrums out to bridle the whisper-shouting voices spurned by overthinking, so be it.

Rice paddies blurred by, blending in from one farm to the next. The sun reflected off the waters the stalks soaked in, absorbing the warmth the light provided and feeding the plants with the fruit of life. Somewhere along the way, you had begun counting each field you passed for no particular reason.

You thought it’d lull you to sleep like counting sheep, subconsciously desiring to sink into a dreamless abyss and catch up on the hours that had been eluding you every night for months up to this point, given how far away you still were from your destination. But your cerebrum was not kind to you, and your body refused to succumb to the tempting allure of nothingness.

Thus, you remained as you were, counting paddies as the day never quite moved forward. The sun dwelled high, trying to glare down on you, but it couldn’t get the angle right to invade the shade of your tiny cabin room on the train.

It stayed stuck to the center of the sky, mighty and proud. But then, after what seemed like only a few seconds, you blinked, and suddenly it was hanging off the horizon’s ledge.

With a slight jolt, you realized the train had decreased in speed, and was continuing to lose momentum as it approached an isolated station, all alone in the countryside. You checked the time on your phone, your eyes feeling unusually heavy and sticky. It was only early night, but you were worn down to your sinew.

Right. Jet lag. You had hopped on a plane and traveled to the other side of the planet on a whim, another desperate attempt to grab onto the concept of freedom you craved. It didn’t take you longer than a week to find a small house deep in the pastoral lands of Japan, where mountains wrapped around the valley like a scarf. You chose Japan, if only because you learned the language when you were studying abroad some years ago.

It resided in a town of such a low population, blissfully around 600, it was a wonder you could even find a train that took you this far to begin with. Of course, that meant the house was decently rundown, with a community small enough to consider it unnecessary to repair. You couldn’t care less. All that meant to you was that it was cheaper to buy it outright than rent a more maintained structure. Buying it was a risky move, given your track record of up and ditching the last bed you slept on without any hindrance, but, at this point, you were tired.

You just wanted to be somewhere for longer than a month or two. Maybe owning a house was contrary to your desires to be unbound, with no board to pin your tattered and thin wings to, sure, the pros far outweighed the cons.

Cheap shelter, little to no people, far, far away from anywhere you’d been before. Three for three.

It’d still be a 45 minute drive or so before you actually got to your new residence, but you weren’t in any particular rush. You chose the most isolated place on purpose. Less people, less deafening sounds, less claustrophobic, brutalist structures that loomed higher and higher.

Less chance of being tied down.

With a hiss and a loggy wheeze, the train settled into place, jostling you as you got to your feet and stretched your arms above your head. The muscles in your back and shoulders twinged from sitting in the same position all day, and your legs stung like sparklers, but it was nice to work your joints properly again. After tucking away your phone and earbuds, you tugged your luggage down from the overhead rack with a grunt.

You were hopeful that there’d be taxis outside the station, and that you wouldn’t have to walk to the village. Who knows how long that would take. You’d probably keel over after the first mile. The thought made you snort while you squeezed down the aisle, suitcase with your bag stacked on it rolling behind you, purse strapped across your torso. The conductor – a sweet, older man – nodded silently to you as you disembarked, waving a farewell to you, which you returned. He was nice, you remembered him greeting you when you first boarded.

He didn’t talk much, just a polite, “welcome aboard,” while the ticket collector pointed you in the direction of your cabin, which you greatly appreciated after hopping off a plane and hurrying your ass over to your required station. You were too spent for conversation.

Leaving the station was much easier than you expected. Unlike your home country, where you could get lost just by turning 45° to the left, Japan seemed to prefer neater environments that were easy to navigate. And, upon stepping out of the building, you rejoiced at spotting a few variously colored cabs waiting along the curb. Outside of one stood a man, roughly in his 50s or so, who waved you over.

“Need help getting somewhere, miss?” He questioned, and you nodded as you pulled out your phone, scrolling through your emails to find the one confirming your purchase of the listing.

“Yeah, could you take me here?”

He glanced down at your screen when you showed him the address and chuckled quietly. “Well, that’s a surprise. Last time I visited that house was some twenty years ago to take the owner to the station, rather than from.”

You blanched nominally. Twenty years? Had your house really been abandoned for twenty years? The listing claimed it was only ten max, that estate bastard. A sigh left through your nose. Too late to deal with that now, you figured. “I just purchased it.”

The man nodded as he popped open the trunk and assisted you in slotting your luggage inside. “You look like you’ve come from far away. It’s rare for foreigners to choose to live in such a distant location. Not a fan of the city?”

I fucking hate cities.

“Something like that, yeah,” you assented, thanking him as he opened the back door for you.

You appreciated his efficiency as he wasted no time dilly-dallying around. As soon as he was buckled up in the car, he was on the road, taking you down the last leg of your trip. The world outside the window streaked by in shades of violet and blood orange as the sun hovered on the edge of the skyline, reluctant to rest for the night.

“Ah, apologies. I’m Hayato Kazuhiko, you may call me Kazu, if you prefer,” he quickly introduced himself, and you followed suit. “Why’d you choose this little village of all places? It’s very small.”

You hummed. “That’s exactly why I chose it. I’m not a big…people-person, if you know what I mean.”

The older gentleman chuckled lightly. “My wife is the same,” he nodded as he peeked at you via the rearview mirror. “She had to visit the small town I used to live in one day, and it was love at first sight for us. She was immediately drawn to country life, and we’ve lived out in the neighboring town here ever since.”

“How long have you been married?”

“Twenty-five years,” he nodded, and you could see the pure love and devotion in his eyes as he spoke about his spouse. It was wholesome, and softened your heart a sliver.

He was surprisingly relaxing to listen to. Pleasant voice that didn’t grate on your ears, a few stories shared about his wife, the occasional tale about some significant structure or location. It was calming, in an odd way. He’d point out a shrine or hiking trail you’d pass by, and offer to take you to them one day to teach you its history and meaning, and you actually considered it.

It could’ve been the harmless nature about him. Even as night descended and you could only really see his silhouette, inspecting him reminded you of your father, but…better, for lack of an accurate word. You weren’t afraid that he’d suddenly raise his voice, or take you down a suspicious road – or, hell, back to the train station to send your sorry ass right back to where you came from.

“Mr.–” you cut yourself off and cleared your throat, mildly embarrassed about slipping back into your mother tongue. Japanese honorifics were something you continued to struggle with. “Hayato-san, do you have children?”

He gave a mellow laugh and shook his head slightly. “Please, just Kazu is fine. And I do, three of them, in fact. A younger son, and twin girls about your age,” he estimated roughly.

So the fatherly air to him you picked up on wasn’t imagined. That brought you a form of reassurance you couldn’t distinctly name.

“My twin girls are all the way up in Tokyo,” he continued, chest puffed with pride, “and my son is still in highschool, causing chaos.”

“Chaos?” You raised a brow.

“Yes, but not the type you’d think,” he hummed. “He’s a gentle child, but his kind nature means he’s unfortunately quite gullible and gets himself into trouble.”

A voice, the faint echo of a memory long lost, intoned in the far reaches of your lucidity; someone shaming you for getting caught up in an issue that wasn’t even your fault. Your stomach twisted with dread, and your head snapped to peer at Hayato, expecting to find disappointment shining in his eyes when you studied them through the rear-view mirror.

Except, there wasn’t any.

Concern at most, a crease in his brow as he warred within himself between protecting and helping his kin, or letting the kid learn on his own. There wasn’t any disappointment, or anger, or exasperation. You could see him reminiscing as he stopped talking, focusing more on the twists that followed the mountain’s curve, and all you saw was just…love, and happiness.

The churning in your gut settled, instead replaced with a sense of hollowness. Not the kind that made you sick; rather, it was like you had a gap in your chest where a puzzle piece was missing, while his was filled with a perfectly fitted heart.

Bittersweet, possibly, but only distantly so. You felt happy for someone who was borderline a complete stranger to you, someone you shouldn’t even care about beyond tipping him well for driving you to the middle of nowhere in the dead of night, but you did anyway.

Maybe I could have had that too, your thoughts mutedly supplied, if I was normal.

Then again, you didn’t want that, not really. Though you couldn’t tell if that was just who you were as a person, or a result of the coals perpetually under your feet, it didn’t change your mind.

Nothing could.

You were sure of it.

Smooth concrete eventually became a densely packed dirt road when Kazu turned off the main path, the car vibrating as the wheels rolled over loose stones and gravel. It didn’t last long, thankfully, as the shabby looking pile of wood came into view, albeit dark since the stars overhead were too dim to illuminate anything much.

“Where we are, miss,” he spoke as you both climbed out of the vehicle and met at the trunk. He opened it to retrieve your luggage, and you pulled your wallet out of your purse and counted off a few bills, wondering what the right amount to give to him would be.

It was hard to translate currency worth when things were valued differently in this country. Your trip abroad was a long time ago.

“Is this enough?” You peered up at him and held out the bills.

He took one glance at them and chuckled deeply. “That’s far too much, really,” he replied as he pulled only two of the strips out of the small stack you were holding. “Be careful with your money while you adjust to the currency of this country. Do you need assistance with your luggage?”

“Oh,” you analyzed the remaining money in your hands before tucking it back into your wallet. You really hoped he took the right amount needed and didn’t undersell himself. “No, I’ll be okay. You got me here in one piece, that’s all I could ask for.”

“Are you sure?”

Your head bobbed as you inspected your suitcase and bag, popping out the handle. “Yes, I am. Drive safe, Kazu-san. Thank you for taking me here.”

His chest rumbled with a laugh. “Please, it’s my job. You are pleasant company.”

“Likewise,” your lips rounded into a smile as you bowed politely. It was small, and you were tired, but it was genuine, the first one you’ve had for a long while. “Goodnight.”

Kazuhiko waved his hand in farewell, bidding you good dreams as he climbed back into the taxi and drove off, leaving you alone.

Your lungs deflated.

The air here was crisper, stinging your throat in a pleasant way as you inhaled slowly. Faint hints of pine and sap drifted across your senses. Nothing indicated any heavy stenches of smog or gasoline or gods know what litters the streets of every downtown city you’d been to before.

It would probably take you a while to get used to, and you oddly didn’t want to, if only so you could admire the fresh fragrance every time you stepped outside. Your muscles relaxed, surprising you as you hadn’t noticed just how tense you were until you were perched outside the front gate of your brand new (old) lodging.

Turning to face it, you groaned upon the realization that it was on a hill. Said hill was tiny, mind you, but a hill nonetheless. You found you couldn’t give much of a shit right now, just yearning to lay down and pass the fuck out for a while. Maybe the rest of tomorrow, too. A few weeks, actually, if you were allowed to choose. A coma sounded wonderful.

“Home sweet home,” you mumbled to nobody in particular as you pushed open the gate and virtually jumped out of your skin at the near shriek it gave. Okay, it had to have been longer than 20 years, that was loud.

With your heart fluttering rapidly, you made a note to deal with it (and everything else) later and trudged up the incline, almost eating shit and dying when the toe of your boot caught on the edge of a stepping stone. Another thing to add to the “deal with later” list. You had a feeling it would just keep growing exponentially.

Finding the key was easy, for better and worse. It simply sat in the door knob’s lock, very safe and secure and definitely not putting your house at risk of…what?

There was nothing in there, evident when you pushed open the front door, which wailed just as loudly as the fence gate. You felt the blood drain from your face. Sure, the interior was empty, but the house was a wreck. Peeling walls, strange, crusty scent, and a sticky floor at the entrance that made you grimace when your sole pulled off it like velcro. You knew that it was custom in Japan to take off your shoes at the door, but fuck that. Absolutely not. You were not walking in any part of this house either in socks or barefoot.

Everything was virtually pitch black as you delved further in, so you depended on your other senses, and the ability to smell was one you wished you didn’t have. Your nose wrinkled as various rotting odors welcomed you, making you immediately regret going through all this.

Morning. You’d deal with it all in the morning.

Practically sneaking on your tip-toes, you explored the open space, trying to find the room that smelled the least and was passable to sleep in. Granted, there were really only two actual rooms down a hall going opposite of the kitchen besides the restroom and washroom, but the bigger one seemed decent.

At least you had a sleeping bag and wouldn’t be conking out on the bare floor. You went through the motions of prepping for bed mostly by habit, doing the bare minimum seeing as you didn’t have much of a choice. You brushed your teeth with the water from your tumbler, located and unrolled your sleeping bag, and climbed under the rustling top after yanking your shoes off, zipping it up as far as it went.

Admittedly, the setup was kinda janky, but it got the job done.

You couldn’t be bothered to change into pajamas.

With your head plopped on probably the least comfortable pillow you had found to bring with you (also the only one that would fit in with the rest of your shit, it was practically a pillowcase filled loosely with sporadically placed lumps of stuffing), you closed your eyes, and your body finally let sleep take over.

─────•(-•ʚɞ•-)•─────

Morning was not pleasant. Surrounded by the musty scent of gods-know-what, back aching from the restless sleep you got from your pitiful sleeping bag and the hard floor, you were groggy beyond belief and desperate for fresh air. And a massage. And a cigarette.

You didn’t smoke, finding the heavy and pungent funk nauseating, but the temptation was there. You felt you gained a little more understanding of smokers.

Brushing the thought aside, you pushed yourself up into a sitting position and rubbed the heel of your palm against the sore spot on the side of your skull. You would have believed someone replaced your pillow with a rock if you hadn’t intimately known that lump of fluff. Or, rather, lack thereof.

Red lines, tender to the touch and tingling a little, were pressed onto the arm you laid on for most of the time you slept, causing you to hiss when you traced your fingers against them. It seemed to be barely past dawn when you reviewed what was out your window, leaving you questioning just how long you slept, if at all.

Figuring you wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep anyway, you shoved yourself out of ‘bed’ and groaned when every joint in your body popped and every bone creaked. Hell, you weren’t sure you’d be able to sleep tonight again. Not here, anyway. More problems for future you.

She’d certainly be happy about that. She already had so much shit to handle.

The growl of your stomach reminded you that food was something you needed to consume to continue living.

Reluctant as you were to do anything, you figured going out by starvation was 1) probably not the best idea, and 2) you wanted to be out of this dingy torture shed.

What was unfortunate was that you, like a smart person, didn’t bring anything more than snack bars and those weird trail mixes with the fruit cubes that you just threw into your bag without much care. It was really the only motivation you needed to walk your sorry self out the door.

After you brushed your teeth and changed your clothes, of course, being very careful to not let anything touch the floor.

Stepping out of your home through the shabby and creaky door with your purse slung across your chest, you were met with the grandiose sight of mountains surrounding you on every side. They rose high, aching to brush the sky and touch a star, just one, just once, just for a second. Covered in thick greenery, you figured the faint yet present scents of cedar, pine, and other woodsy tones were carried down into the valley from the steep inclines.

You couldn’t see any of these details nearly as well when you were dragging your tired ass to this place with ink covering the sky in a thick veil, but it truly was breathtaking.

Had nature always been this green before?

Having only done some cursory research on the village – namely, population – you didn’t bother giving yourself time to actually inspect photos of the tiny rural town. From what you’d seen anyway, pictures could never do it justice. A velvety breeze brushed against your cheek, prompting you to tuck your hair behind your ear and pivot towards the direction the gale came from.

Your breath left you in a silent ‘oh’, mesmerized by the incredible view of the rising sun you had. It shone valiantly and radiantly through the gaps it had carved out between the towering peaks itself, illuminating the land in shades of brilliant gold with its splendor.

For perhaps the first time in your life, you felt…nothing.

Not a sense of hollowness, nor a void in your chest, no. A peaceful kind of nothing, as if not a thing in the world could take your mind away from this newfound elysium you found in sharing the morning’s shine with its source.

Invisible fingers caressed your jaw, threading through your hair with the gentle touch of adoration, as if you were delicate.

You hated to be treated like you were easily breakable, as fragile as glass, but this sensation was consoling, rather than degrading. The wind cherished you, not akin to a brittle figurine, rather as someone who was beautiful and worthy of gentleness unsullied by pity or licentious intentions. As if you were someone to be worshipped and revered.

A mother combing her fingers through her daughter’s hair, humming a lullaby only she knew the tune of.

Perhaps it wasn’t impossible to find what you were searching for. You didn’t know what it was exactly, a question without an answer, but it gave you a place to start.

With a deep breath swelling behind your ribcage, filling your soul with air untouched by sickly city pollution you were so accustomed to, you turned and began heading down the beaten dirt path that led into the heart of the village. The early summer warmth was pleasant on your skin, not too hot given the time. It seeped into your cold fingers and made them ache a little less with each minute going by.

While the town you had chosen was visually quite a bit older in style, with smaller structures dotted about reflecting traditional Japanese designs, there were some modernities. Electricity was, fortunately, one of them.

Based on the fact that you found and bought the listing online, you figured there was likely a way for you to get your hands on some Wi-Fi here, too. You’d probably die without it.

The nearer you drew to the center of the population, the denser the structures became. Not to say they were rubbing walls, but neighbors were only a short few steps away, compared to the distance between your own house and the one closest to it.

Minka houses in significantly better condition than yours spanned either side of the road as the terrain shifted from soil to asphalt. They were beautiful, and you bet that living in that kind of house in this kind of place was either absurdly expensive, or dirt cheap, with no real in-between. You were personally on the latter end of this, which probably wasn’t a good thing.

Doomed by the narrative once again.

Off in the distance on an elevated surface, you could see what you thought was a Wayo Kenchiku temple, if you had to guess. Its overlapping roofs were a deep green in shade, nearly black. They protected the desaturated brown walls of the building, and you were taken aback by how easy the temple was to see from where you were.

It sat across a wide river, one surprisingly calm as you approached it. It rushed along, springing with glimmering waves that shimmered under the light and frothed white around raised boulders. Despite it coming across as fairly deep, you could see clear through to the bottom, with the water itself being a refreshing shade of clear blue. A bridge spanned the rift, made of sturdy wood that had dark railings protecting either side of you, matching the aesthetic of your surroundings.

The bridge whined under your weight, but didn’t shift, giving you some reassurance that you wouldn’t go crashing through the planks. It led into the most packed section of the whole area, with structures built closer together, bearing a more modernized likeness, while retaining its unique characteristics.

In truth, though you remained apprehensive, the voice that scratched at the back of your skull everywhere you went and pestered you to run, run, run, had quieted. You hadn’t registered it, the silence, too focused on taking in your new surroundings as a serene blanket covered the thoughts that usually pranced wild and free in your cranium, putting them to rest with a whispered mercy:

This feels right.

It didn’t take you long to spot what you figured was the local grocery store. The bell above the door chimed as you stepped inside, peering at what products you could see on the shelves and aisles from where you stood. Being an anxious little creature, you double-checked to make sure you had your wallet, as well as the translated bills within. Last thing you wanted was to embarrass yourself in a place where everybody knew everybody.

Reassured, you chose a random aisle and headed down it, skimming the products to see if any of them appeared even vaguely familiar to you. Besides cans of soup and tubes of Pringles, there wasn’t much for you to grab onto. Sure, there was ramen, but you didn’t have a way to boil water. Cereal and milk, maybe?

Shit, no, you didn’t have any cutlery or dinnerware. Unless you wanted to be a sad raccoon and eat raw cereal straight from the box, but you weren’t that desperate.

Yet.

Mentally crossing out your options as you went through them, you nearly knocked over an entire row of items when you almost ran into an older lady who stood in the middle of the strip, watching you.

“Oh! I’m so sorry!” You hopped back a foot, raising your hands in front of you placatingly. “I-I didn’t see you there, am I in your way?”

The woman laughed and shook her head, her smile reminding you of a grandmother that’d sneakily give her grandkids candies while their parents weren’t watching. “You’re quite alright, I was actually wondering if you need help?”

“Oh, uh…” Bashfully scratching the back of your head, you glanced at the various bags of foodstuffs beside you and debated your choices. Say no, when it was painfully obvious how green behind the ears you were, or set down your pride and ask for assistance.

Your stomach chose for you, warning you to suck it up and get food before it began eating itself.

The woman’s chuckle was heartier the second time around, her eyes glimmering with mirth as she motioned for you to follow her. Feeling a bit like a scolded child, you trailed after her while she wove her way around her store towards the produce section at the back. She pulled a random fruit from the thunder-rain-shelf-thing (you honestly had no idea what it was called) and rubbed it against her apron before handing it to you.

“Eat,” she insisted.

You blinked rapidly, peeping the fruit, the sign for it, then her. “How much…?”

The lady waved her free hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it. Eat, I insist.”

You were going to argue further, but a deep cramp in your gut had you sinking your teeth into the sweet and wonderfully-textured treat. As embarrassing as it was, you borderline moaned as you chewed, quickly taking another bite. Whatever it was, it tasted divine.

This time, when she directed you to move with her, you followed without hesitation. “Thank you so much,” you mumbled as she pulled out a chair from behind the counter and urged for you to sit on it.

“It’s nothing, I can’t let you go hungry, now,” she swept away your worries. “You’re new here,” she stated, rather than asked.

You nodded through another bite, waiting until you swallowed before continuing the conversation. “Yes, I got here last night.”

“Oh? Are you visiting someone?”

“No, I moved here.”

Her brows raised. “Really, now? Who are you staying with?”

Mid-bite, you stopped to address the matter. “Oh, no, I’m not living with anyone. I purchased the house just outside the village.”

The way her eyes widened was nearly comical. “That place? Now, that’s a surprise.”

If you had a nickel.

“That’s the second time I’ve heard that now,” your lips tugged into a frown and you stifled it with another chomp into the sweet object in your hand.

At that, she simpered mutedly. “I apologize. I’m merely awed that it was still standing, let alone that someone had bought it. Last I heard, there hasn’t been anyone living there for, oh, maybe 20 years or so.”

The realtor, that dog. He did lie to you after all.

You scornfully hoped he was enjoying spending your money.

Picking at your cheek with your free hand, you looked away with a nervous giggle. “Yeah, it’s…not in great shape. I have a lot of work cut out for me.”

“You’re going to try to repair it?”

“Yeah. Keyword being try.”

“I’m not sure that’s a wise choice.”

You sighed. “Me neither, but I don’t have much of a choice now.”

The woman shook her head, smiling regardless. “You let me know what kind of help you need. There are plenty of handymen in this village of ours, I’m sure they’d be happy to help.”

“Oh, that’s very nice of you, but…I’m sorry, I didn’t ask for your name,” you pouted, hurriedly introducing yourself.

“Just call me Granny. And I won’t take no for an answer, missy,” okay, now you really felt scolded. “I won’t stand for you trying to fix up that cluster of wood by yourself, it’s far too dangerous. And you shouldn’t be staying there while it’s in that condition, either. Give me a moment, let me find someone you can stay with.”

Panic rose up in you and you waved your hands frantically in front of you. “N-No! It’s fine, I’ll– I’ll figure something out, really, don’t worry. Please.”

Granny eyed you suspiciously, her hand hovering over the landline on the wall. “Are you sure?”

“Yes! It’s fine, I’m fine, I promise.”

Her eyes remained squinted, even as she lowered her arm. “Alright, if you say so. But if you need any kind of help, big or small, come to me right away, okay?”

Relieved you wouldn’t have to interact with more strangers, you nodded and deflated. “I will.”

“Promise me, young lady.”

“I promise.”

She grinned brightly and ruffled your hair. “That’s a good girl. Let me pack you a few things to take with you so you have something to eat.”

“Ah– wait, I…I’m not very good with currency yet,” you halted her sheepishly. The prices were still confusing as fuck to you. Man, how the fuck were you going to manage this when you get a job? If?

“Nonsense, it’s on me. I won’t charge you.”

Sorry, what? Did she do that for every person she met five minutes prior?

“But– but that’s not–”

“Finish up your peach,” she asserted as she was already walking away with a bag in her hands that wasn’t there a second ago. What was it with grannies and having some weird, innate magic?

Your eyes darted down at your half-eaten peach, surprised to learn that it wasn’t some foreign fruit you’d never even heard of before, let alone tried. It was an exceptional blend between succulent and rich; easy to bite into and chew without pouring juice all over yourself.

The fuck kind of peaches have you been eating before?

Sensing you might be buying these often if they were this good, you had well-nigh inhaled the rest of it by the time Granny came back with a stuffed bag.

“Here you go, dear,” she held out the shopping bag to you, which you took graciously after tossing out the peach pit into the small trash can by the counter.

Glancing into the bag, your lips shifted downwards. It was filled with a few different fruits and veggies, a couple bags of snacks, but mostly packaged food that looked like it could be eaten as is without needing to worry about cooking it. Your guilt skyrocketed. “Granny, this is too–”

“Don’t worry about paying. Save your money for the repairs of that home of yours.”

Your head shot up, eyes widening. “I can’t–”

“You can because I say so, young lady,” Granny puffed out her chest proudly, using a motherly tone that easily put you in your place, much to your bafflement. You didn’t even listen to your own mother like this. “Come back in the evening, I’ll have something cooked up for you.”

“You really don’t–”

She made brushing motions with her fingers, shooing you off the chair. “Off you go. There’s a lovely little pergola in the park, go have breakfast there. Just turn right when you leave and keep walking straight.”

Flustered, you let her push you along out the door, your confused brain trying to catch up. “Granny–”

“I’ll have a list of handymen for you when you return,” she informed you right as she managed to get you out the door. “Explore the town while there’s still daylight!”

And just like that, she was back in her store, sweeping with a broom that you swear materialized out of nowhere. You stared at the shop for a good minute, blinking dumbly until you processed whatever just happened.

You still weren’t wholly sure. You went in, expecting to grab a bag of something random to ‘feed’ yourself with, and left with a bag full of free food from a woman who spontaneously decided to give it to you.

The fuck. She’d go bankrupt if she just kept giving strangers sustenance off her own back.

Your own feet seemed to carry you along as you exhaled through your nose and took her instructions to heart. Too late now, you’d feel bad if you went in and returned everything. It’d be insulting at this point, and you were hungry, anyway

A cooked meal did sound lovely as well, discomfited as you were. You had never met your own grandmothers – not in person at least, so you had no idea if grandmothers were simply like that or not. Regardless, you had a feeling she was going to fill that role in whether you liked it or not.

Luckily, you were drifting towards like. She did give you free food, after all, and was going to find help for you. That part you were more apprehensive about, however, stubbornness and introversion making you want to be stupid and attempt to pick up carpentry out of nowhere.

All you could do was try to accept it and sigh, taking in the sights, stores, and dwellings as you walked past them and towards the park. A couple shops caught your eye, particularly a clothing boutique, and what could possibly be a hardware store. You weren’t certain, and didn’t want to find out yet. The prospect of entering one and facing the big ass sign that said ‘you don’t know what the hell you're doing!’ was too daunting to approach for now.

It didn’t take you long to get to the park. In fact, it was such a short walk that it bemused you. A population of 600 people seemed larger on paper than it was in reality. Most of the town was behind you, granted, but the uncanniness was uplifting, in a way.

It didn’t feel claustrophobic. The trees in the park were closer together than some of the buildings outside it, and they smelled so good that it knocked you back a step. The entire wild garden carried the fresh perfume of sweet and fresh vegetation, from blooming flowers scattered about and the grass underfoot, to the rustling leaves above. You couldn’t recall the last time you were in a park, let alone one that was as vibrant and alive as this one.

The pergola was easy to find. It resided in the center, right beside a large pond that you saw was filled with koi fish when you got close.

They swam to-and-fro, carefree, intermingling, playing, and searching for food.

Your stomach twisted when you made an unintentional connection in your mind. They reminded you of kites. Pretty, ultimately trapped.

The koi fish, however, didn’t seem to mind one bit. Not that you could understand fish language. They just went about their business calmly. It perplexed you, didn’t spending their lives in a single body of water bother them? Didn’t it make them depressed?

Could fish feel depression?

Shaking your head to rid it of the peculiar journey your mind had gone off on, you set the bag down on the table under the pergola and settled into one of the chairs, reaching to dig through your options. Of the items present, you opted to munch on a sandwich Granny had tossed in with everything else, bundled in saran wrap and clearly made by her.

While you were skeptical of pre-made food bought in a grocery store like this, one sniff had you biting into it ravenously. You were way hungrier than you thought as you devoured it, trying to will yourself to slow down enough to at least savor the taste of it. Your earlier guilt and trepidation disappeared three bites in, and you were now very much anticipating Granny’s handmade cooking if this was the kind of sandwich she was capable of creating.

You questioned again if all grannies were like this, or if you lucked out. Either way, if it meant you didn’t have to struggle with food for the time being (or ever, if Granny let you mooch off her forever), you didn’t mind getting spontaneously adopted by her at all.

About halfway through your meal, the koi fish in the pond caught your attention again. They were gorgeous animals, graceful and sleek with scales that twinkled iridescently when the sun flickered over them from between the gaps in the canopy above. They had you mesmerized, sights focused solely on them as they showed off.

Maybe they had managed to hypnotize you, because you decided to tear off a piece of the ham, rip it into tiny pieces, then throw it towards the pond. There was a large splash as all the fish rushed towards the food, making you snicker.

A sort of childish glee bloomed within you, persuading you to indulge them a smidgen longer before you finished off your food. The park seemed like a sacred place where nothing could touch you, where the lands would remain lavish and healthy, and where you could let all your worries fade away.

Arcadian – that was the best way you could describe it. Placid, halcyon, grounding, mellow. You could go on and on, really, but you–

The hairs on the back of your neck prickled when you sensed that someone, or something, was watching you. Heat grazed against your nape, slow, measured breaths right behind your ear. A kiss from a pair of soft lips that never reached your skin. A demanding presence wrapped around your figure, a prey caught in the trap laid out precisely by a steadfast and salivating predator.

Ghostly fingers slid down your shoulders, crept over your forearms, and encircled your wrists, holding them in place with a deceptively lax hold. Something firm and wide pressed against your shoulder blades, keeping you between it and the table.

Your heart kicked in your throat, preventing you from swallowing anything more than a tiny gasp.

And, like the cornered quarry you were, you shifted slowly to peek from the corner of your eye, avoiding any sudden or abrupt movements. You expected to find a beast hovering over your shoulder, eagerly anticipating your reaction.

There was nothing.

Only foliage greeted your wide-eyed inspection, expansive and untouched since you came here. The feeling of being hunted on had evaporated as soon as you checked, and though uncertain of this verdict, you chalked it up to being in totally unfamiliar territory. A result of a soundless, featherlight brush of wind, a critter in the foliage envying the fish you fed, lasting no more than a sigh.

Your brow furrowed as you searched through the plant life, seeing not even a hair out of the ordinary. That dovish sensation the park carried returned like it had never left to begin with, coaxing you to let it go and relax.

Maybe that was your cue to leave.

You shook off the lingering sensation with a shiver. Everything was okay in the wooded pasture, and as tranquil as your surroundings were, you knew you’d have to face the elephant in the room eventually.

You dusted yourself off as you got up to dislodge any lingering crumbs, carefully packed everything back into the bag, and took one final look around. This place would become your safe haven, you determined. Already, you were thinking of coming back, the memory of your adrenaline spiking fading rapidly. Imagining returning here gave you that minor push you need to fill your lungs with courage and turn to head back out the way you came.

You could explore the town later. Right now, you needed to address the state of your new stead and gauge what laid ahead of you first. Maybe it’d give you at least an idea of what you required to get started on all of this, though you doubted you’d come out of witnessing it in the full glory of the sun knowing more than you did now.

Absentmindedly, the milieu filtered into your subconscious, automatically noting small landmarks here and there to assist you in finding your way around the streets while they still confused you, until you had learned to traverse them and knew every path and alley like the back of your hand.

(Just in case, you assessed the back of your right hand. You know, to reacquaint yourself with it.)

Glumness overtook. You knew you probably wouldn’t stay here for too long, no matter how much you liked it. You could fix up the house, flip it, and head off someplace else again in pursuit of something that probably didn’t exist.

It’s always been this way for you. The same old pattern, the same old story, the neverending book that looped in on itself over and over, caught in a wormhole where the exit was the entrance.

So it was easy to convince yourself to not get attached to the valley, nor the people, nor that damn sticks-on-bricks abode. Not even the grass filled with flowers and protected by tall trees you had already found yourself longing for.

It was easier this way. This was all you knew, after all.

You had it all figured out.

Didn't you?

banner by cafekitsune ♥

#Tether Me #jjk x reader #gojo x reader #satoru x reader #satoru gojo x reader #gojo satoru x reader #geto x reader #suguru x reader #geto suguru x reader #suguru geto x reader #satosugu x reader #chimera writes

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magnificentsapcaddy · 10 months ago

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For those of you with a keen memory, you may recall that this year, my New Year's resolution was "make a brand new type of soup every month". Two months in, two soups down! This time around, we're making another Eastern European classic (though I think also lumping in France and Austria with "Eastern Europe" might be a stretch), liver dumpling soup!

There's this tendency in the Anglosphere, I think, to really turn your nose up at liver, but it's not bad. Like, for a food where saying "what am I, a version of this food?" is supposed to mean "do you think I'm the most detestable and least important thing you can imagine?", it tastes fine. I'd even be bold enough to say that it's good! This one happens to be a chicken liver-based soup, for the record - I know people use calf liver or pork liver, but I wanted to put that out there before we continue.

For the recipe, click on the readmore below!

Now, loathe though I may be to be a recipe blogger who has a big preamble before the recipe: I do have a funny little story. And besides, you can just look downscreen for the recipe without waiting for fifty thousand ads to load.

My mom's friend Jim was (and, I suppose, still is) a Slovenian-American through and through, and he married someone just like him. They both take a lot of pride in their culinary heritage, even if it seemed unimpressive to the layman; to this day, for their anniversary every year, Jim makes his wife a tray of "roasted roots" (beets, parsnips, carrots, potatoes), and one of the happiest times I ever heard him was when he found a nine-pound cabbage for $1 at a farmer's market (for his wife's birthday, this time). So, naturally, at their wedding, they had a very traditional Balkan spread served for the dinner.

To the shock and horror of some (but not all), the starting course was a hearty bowl of liver dumpling soup. Jamie was one of those counted among the "not all". Jamie was every bit as eccentric as Jim was Slovenian, and by eccentric, I mean "he smoked a lot of weed". Characteristically, he showed up to Jim's wedding high as a kite. When he found out the starting course was liver dumpling soup, he was beyond ecstatic. It amused him to no end. As the seating began for the reception, Jamie started a chant: "Liver dumpling soup! Liver dumpling soup! I'm gonna get me some liver dumpling soup!". Being told to quiet down by my grandfather did little to dissuade him. In fact, it had quite the opposite effect - by the time the first bowls were being served, Jamie - a thirty-something man, mind you - was skipping up and down the aisles, clapping his hands and doing backflips, leading the venue in the chant, "LIVER DUMPLING SOUP! LIVER DUMPLING SOUP! WE'RE GONNA GET US SOME LIVER DUMPLING SOUP!"

This, sadly, is not the recipe from that infamous night at the Slovenian lodge; I am taken to understand that that soup had a flour-based dumpling with chunks of pre-cooked chicken liver. This, instead, is a bit of a looser dumpling with egg and breadcumbs, more akin to the meatballs in a wedding soup, but is certainly still worthwhile.

INGREDIENTS

Dumplings: - 7 ounces raw chicken livers - 1/2 teaspoon marjoram - 1 teaspoon minced garlic - 3/4 cup plain breadcrumbs - 1 egg - Salt and pepper to taste

Broth: - 3 cups of water (more or less, as desired) - 1 tbsp butter - 1/3 rib of celery - 1 medium carrot - 1/2 medium-large sweet onion - 2 cubes dried chicken stock - 1/2 teaspoon black pepper - 1/2 teaspoon marjoram - 1/4 teaspoon ground thyme - 1/4 teaspoon rubbed sage

DIRECTIONS

Clean your chicken livers. They should already be mostly fine by the time you purchase them, but you definitely want to take a knife and trim off the long, white strands of connective tissue that connect the lobes of the livers.

Pulverize the chicken livers in a food processor until you have achieved a fine slurry. Add in your spices and mix again.

Move the liver mixture to a bowl and add your egg and breadcrumbs before mixing once again. This will be runny - don't worry. You now are going to leave this to sit for 30 minutes or until firm. If it doesn't firm up, add more breadcrumbs.

Now with the dumpling mixture made and set aside, we can begin on the broth. This is my go-to broth for any chicken-based soup, and I hope you'll like it as much as I do. Start by putting a medium saucepan on high heat and melting your butter in it. Then, turn it down to medium-high heat, mince your onion finely, and add it in. Chop your celery and onions as desired (I always do it very finely to maximize the surface area of the vegetables and thus maximize the flavor they impart on the soup, but if the spirit moves you to leave them more chunky for a heartier soup, then go for it), and add them to the pot as well. Finally, add your spices and let cook until the pot is aromatic and the onions have begun to clear.

Add your water. I know in the ingredients I said 3 cups - I did not measure. I just made "half a pot", whatever that measurement may be. You can add more for a greater portion of thinner soup or less for a lesser portion of a more flavorful soup. Follow your heart! But whatever you do, add your chicken stock here and bring to a boil. Let cook for 8 minutes, or until the celery is very nearly fork-tender.

Now we return to the dumplings. Once the celery has mostly softened, reduce the heat from a boil to a simmer, such that the water is still steaming. Take two table spoons (they need not be literal tablespoons - just "the big spoons you use for dinner" as opposed to "the little spoons you use for dessert"). Take one spoon and scoop up half a spoonful of dumpling mixture. Submerge your spoon in the broth for five seconds, or until the dumpling has turned from pink and soft to brown and solid. With your other spoon, scoop the dumpling off and repeat the process. By the time the final dumplings are being poached in this fashion, the first ones should be beginning to float to the top.

To ensure that all dumplings are thoroughly cooked, turn the pot to high heat and bring back to a rolling boil, then decrease the heat to medium-high and cover the pot. Let cook for 5 minutes more. Pay attention to this final note, because it may be the most important part: to ensure that the dumplings have finished cooking, find the largest dumpling and remove it from the pot. Slice it in half. If there is any trace of pink, it is not done cooking; if the insides are the same shade of brown as the outside, the soup has finished cooking and is safe to eat.

I will leave you with this final note: I don't think this is a bad soup at all. I would give it a B+. However, it is a very rich soup, so this is something you may want to make for a group instead of for yourself. I thought the dumplings were delicious - they functionally taste the same as a pork meatball, but with a very distinct and very pleasant tang from the liver - but they are also very, very rich. I was so enthralled by the first bowl that I went and got a second, and by the end even I was like, "I swear to God, if I have to eat another of these stupid dumplings..."

Again, I promise you it's good, and I do sincerely hope you'll like it if you try it, but at the same time, it's best not to overexert your palate, lest you end up with a predicament as mentioned above.

#personal blatherings #recipe #recipes #soup recipe #monthly soup quest #tw food

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harrowharkwife · 1 year ago

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tell me about i wanna hold the hand inside you <3

i wanna hold the hand inside you (strange you never knew)... LOTTIENAT FIC MY BELOVED!!!

this is the pre-crash '96 lottienat best friends to lovers fic where, bless her heart, nat's crush on lottie has her juuuuust lovedumb and besotted enough to not realize that when lottie says things like "oh i stopped drinking a couple hours ago so i could drive you home from this party," or "oh you should just stay at my place tonight so i can keep an eye on you," or "next time you drop acid you should do it at my house so i can tripsit you," what she MEANS is, yes, "i care about you and want you to be safe," but ALSO, "i'm so in love with you it makes me look stupid and have thus painstakingly crafted a seduction plan i like to call Harm Reduction-ing My Way Into Your Heart"

snippet!!

Which, like, in her defense- she's high as a kite, and Lot's wearing that long lilac satin slip dress she stole from Macy's last summer over a black high-neck pussybow blouse with long, gauzy sleeves. Knowing Lottie, she's willing to bet good money that it's the kind of blouse that has a neat row of buttons running all down the back, the fancy gumdrop-shaped satin ones that always remind her of old wedding dresses. Lottie likes that kind of thing. It's the kind of outfit that somehow manages to make Nat feel downright Victorian despite its overall modesty: a bizarre sort of dizziness at the sight of exposed wrists or a bare neck, like she might faint just from glimpsing an inch or two of shin. Ridiculous. Lottie being unreasonably pretty is nothing new, but it's also just one of those facts of the universe that's generally easier to deal with if Nat avoids looking straight at it. In any case: it's a day that ends in -y, Natalie Scattorcio is privately salivating over a pretty girl again like one of Pavlov's gay little purse dogs, and Lottie Matthews is hurtling over speed bumps like it's her job, none of which are surprising in the slightest. Especially that last part. Lot's just like this, is the thing. Nat would like to think she's gotten used to it by now, but that might just be wishful thinking on her part, because no matter how zen you are in the passenger seat, Lottie Matthews can seemingly always manage to find another curb to hit. They get home safe in the end though, of course- they always do. Lottie's careful where it counts. Which, speaking of- "Careful, watch the step," Lottie cautions, as if Nat's traversing this driveway for the first time or something, which is laughable in light of the fact that she'd arguably spent more time at Lottie's place than her own over the course of the summer. But the laugh in her voice rings warm and rich in Nat's ear, and she reaches out to steady her with a hand at her waist, so Nat says nothing in lieu of letting Lottie fuss over her a little. Which is probably for the best, because she trips over her own feet ten seconds later, and Lottie's grip on her waist is the only thing that narrowly saves her from tumbling ass over tits over bootlaces as they make their way up the front steps of the Matthews McMansion. Her luck ends there, though: Lottie manages to keep her upright, but not even Mother Mary herself could have saved Nat from the humiliation of puking, rather violently and spectacularly, over the railing and onto Mrs. Matthew's bed of marigolds. "Oh, honey. At least you've got good aim. Let's get you cleaned up, c'mere." "Please, let's," Nat agrees, weakly. Hail Lottie, full of grace.

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abrahammutton · 4 months ago

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This gon' be a long one, folks

I had a really weird experience in 2018. For those of you who’ll read my stuff more often, you’ll see it was a really impactful year. Anyway, I don’t know if I can call it a near-death experience, but it certainly felt like it.

For context, I recently quit my job as a cook after 2.5 years. I was about to get promoted as I got the owner's trust. He asked me to keep him updated on how things are running and if anything I noticed could be fixed to make work easier for all of us. I was thrilled to hear this, and after a busy brunch service on Sunday, I had my first critique.

My sous chef was relatively young and inexperienced, so it should be no surprise that she didn’t help us much. To make matters more complicated, the entire line cook staff was relatively new, with the sole exception being me. So, my critique was to get everyone more experience on the other stations so service could go more smoothly. This feels pretty harmless, right? Well, I woke up the following day to a text from my sous chef telling me that I should ‘shut the fuck up and know my place.’ I was a ‘stupid line cook who knew nothing they were talking about.’ She said she was way better than me, and I told her, ‘If you think I’m so useless, then have fun running the kitchen yourself.’

Yup, I quit and never looked back. I heard from a friend that she gave her two weeks less than a month after I left and stopped going to work after 1 of those two weeks since she broke down crying, not being able to handle it.

This seems like a win, but it sparked something deep in me. I realized I hated who I was and that no one liked me there. The sad reality is that while she was horrible for saying those things, I wasn’t doing much better by being a total dick to so many people cause I hated myself.

To prove my point, I got the last write-up to fire someone because he wasn’t the fastest worker, talked a lot, and the sous chef didn’t like him. I closed the kitchen with him and found something he had done incorrectly. I told the sous chef about it, and he was gone. People hated me for doing that, and rightfully so. But even then, I was the one who stayed with him after work, talked with him for hours, and kept him company, not them. Anyway, I'm going on a tangent, but I will say that I admitted what I did to him after I quit and apologized, and he forgave me and said he’s way happier.

So, I felt like I was an asshole, no one liked me, and I was fat, but I wanted to change. On my first week free from work, I thought, when was the last time I liked who I was? When was the last time I was happy? It was the last time I went to church and was religious. That was around 2014, 4 years from 2018, and as if no break existed, I picked up my rosary and started praying.

With one part done, my next goal was to lose weight, and this is where things get weird.

I was always obsessive, especially when working out. There was no building up to an athlete level; it was all or nothing. I had a bike with a trainer so I could bike in place. My dumb ass decided it was a great idea to push my heart rate all the way to probably 164-170 for one whole hour after over two years of no exercise. To make this even crazier, I drank a lot, smoked a pack a day for about six months, and had a blood pressure of about 150/100. Some of you probably know where this is going.

After the second day of this insanity, my chest started to hurt a lot. I thought it wasn’t a big deal until 2 hours go by. Then, 3 hours, 4 hours, 5 hours, to the point that I start feeling this dread. It's like something terrible is about to happen. It’s getting harder and harder to breathe, and then it gets horrifying. I can feel the left side of my jaw going numb. At this point, I’m painfully aware of what’s happening. My brother, high as a kite on weed in the next room, is passed out. My mom’s at work, and I’m freaking out. I didn’t end up calling an ambulance but succumbed to my rapidly approaching fate.

I had thoughts of how my mom and brother would find me dead on the floor, and it scared me. I freaked out that I was a low-life good-for-nothing who never did anything useful. I internally screamed, ‘I’ve done nothing! How can I die now?!’ But what happened next is that I decided that if God wants me to die, then so be it. It’s my time to go. A whole insane series of events happened after, but I’ll save that for another post.

Obviously, I didn’t end up dying as I’m here writing this today. I don’t actually know what happened. I’ve had EKG readings after, and no abnormalities were shown. My blood pressure is now around 125/80, and I’m no longer overweight. I also don’t exercise like a maniac but slowly build my strength.

While I’ll never know if what I experienced was real, it had a massive impact on me. It made me free from regrets and ready to die any day because I felt like I almost died at my worst. If I’m okay with dying at my worst, then I’m okay to die any day. Now, I live my life in the way that I feel is most suited to me. For me, it’s not the cliche statement: live every day as if it’s your last, but accept yourself if it is your last day. If I never do anything huge and impact people's lives positively, then I’m okay with that because it’s meant to be. Life will happen as it must, and if I die the next second, then I’m okay because I’m satisfied with how I live.

#near death experience #death #worry #inner thoughts #introspection #discover #thoughts #understanding #connection #religion #christianity #spiritual awakening #spirituality #heart attack #no regrets #acceptance #psychology

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dovabunny · 1 year ago

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Part 3

(special thanks to Syn on Twitter for helping me out the plot hole!)

Ghost bursts through the hospital doors, unconscious Junior in his arms. "Help! Please, he-"

Bonus of a small town hospital is that there was a nurse and a doctor with him immediately.

"What happened?" The doctor asks as he guides Ghost to put the boy down on this hospital bed...

...like it wasn't terrifying for him, like it was easy to let go of this his baby - he doesn't care anymore that it's someone else's flesh and blood, or that legally his father his Price - little John Simon Price was a part of his heart and soul and the idea that he had failed his pup somehow...

"Sir?"

"I didn't see it happen, just heard a crash and screams. He was running, and seemed to have slipped and fell against the window shattering it. I was a few steps behind, found him with broken glass and cuts..."

The doctor frowned a little, but focused on carefully parting Junior's blood stained curls to assess the damage. He and the nurse work in wordless tandem to pick out the remaining glass shards from his hair, the nurse cleaning around the wounds while the doctor starts to compress the most urgent ones.

"Do you have your son's medical records? Kids bounce back fast, but he's losing a lot of blood - might need a bag."

Ghost hands behind to tremble. "I'm not...I'm a guardian. Appointed by his adopted father."

The doctor looks up at him, really looks at him and Ghost knows what he sees. Huge, scary, scarred, imposing, dangerous.

"Do you...have any proof of that on you, right now?"

"No, it's back home."

"And his father?"

"He's unreachable right now, he's a captain in the army, he's away on a job right now."

He doesn't miss the look the nurse and doctor shared. Doesn't miss the way she glances at the phone at reception.

"I'M NOT LYING!" Ghost bursts out, his hands and voice trembling. He fists his own hair, a blood streak across his chest and cheek where he'd had Junior pressed close, now brushed into his hair. He was teetering on a panic attack. He hasn't had those in...over a decade. But just the thought that they might not believe him, that they might send him away, might... Might...

"-ir? Sir! I need you to breathe!"

"He's mine, I swear, his kindergarten is Little Bean Burrow, you can call them and ask, they have copies! His father is Captain John Price, his favorite food is carrot sticks, his first word was bubble, I promise, please!"

Years ago, Ghost would've threatened, intimidated, and refuse to be moved. Simon begged. He should be ashamed, but this wasn't about him, his life hasn't been about him for since he met Junior.

"Okay, we believe you, please calm down." The nurse spoke kindly, her hands hovering. Her gaze softened, she must've seen what she needed.

"We're a small clinic, we don't have any blood stored on site. Do you know if you're match?"

"I don't know, you can test, right?" Ghost was already rolling up his sleeve.

The doctor nodded to the nurse who sat him down and jumped into action.

Two hours and 14 stitches later, Ghost sat next to the little bed smiling softly at his loopey, giggling pup laughing at Paw Patrol on the tv, still coming off the pain meds.

Little bodies lose a lot of blood fast, but luckily with Ghost speeding like a lunatic to the clinic, and the quick work of the doctor they had it under control pretty fast. Ghost was a match and a bag was quickly prepared and transferred.

He had tried to call Price and Laswell, but neither were reachable - as he suspected. It was times like this that he really wished he had a partner, someone to lean on, to share in the good and the bad and the scary.

(Knowing he would never want anyone else than Johnny, no one else would ever make him feel whole the day Johnny did)

The doctor came in, frowning at a report in his hand. "Mister Riley? Could we speak?" He indicated to the corridor with his head. Ghost thought it was weird but followed, a quick glance back showed Junior was still happily high as a kite and entirely fixated on the tv.

"Mister Riley... You said that you're the child's guardian, and the legal parent adopted the boy after the mother died in childbirth. Correct?"

Ghost furrowed his brows. "That is correct."

The doctor pursed his lips at the report. "Then... I don't know what to make of this. The blood test we ran to check your compatibility? Well... Turns out you're very compatible. Extremely so. In fact..."

The doctor looked up at Ghost over the rim of this thick glasses. "These results suggest you're the child's biology parent, Mister Riley."

Ghost felt his world implode.

"PRICE! WHERE IS HE!?" Ghost demanded as he marched right past the guards onto the base, right through the entrance without a care for rules and procedures.

- - -

A (probably well meaning) soldier tried to block his path but even with a child on his hip the old 'Ghost' made an appearance and with a glare alone the man paled and backed off. Junior, knowing he was always safe with 'uncle Si', didn't even bat an eye at the yelling, just curiously looking around from his high perch.

He marched himself right to Price's office and threw the door open, interrupting their debrief from the mission they just returned from.

Seeing the dark fury rolling off Ghost, Price and Laswell's objections seemed to die on their tongues.

"You're excused, well continue this later," Price said to faces around the room Ghost didn't even bother to look at.

The moment the last one left and the door closed, Ghost yanked the report from his pocket and threw it on the table.

"You want to explain to me why two blood tests have found that Junior IS MY BIOLOGICAL SON!?"

"Oh boy," Laswell muttered under her breath and Price averted his eyes.

Ghost stood firm, glaring, demanding an answer.

Finally Price sighed and fell into his chair. "Sit down, Simon. This is gonna take a moment."

Laswell takes Junior so Price and Ghost can talk, but Ghost insists they stay in the room 'where I can see him!'. She grumbles but, she understands why his trust in them is fragile. She digs in her bag for something to occupy the bouncy bean with. It ends up being a couple of markers, old reports, and a medal she forgot she had in there.

Once he's sure Junior is settled, he finally gives Price his full attention with a 'go on then' motion.

He listens as Price tells him why he really left the base that night, how he followed Soap home, how he watched Soap being rejected by his family, lived and gave birth alone, and how he broke down when he left the baby at the orphanage.

"...then..."

The more Ghost listens, the more it feels like everything he's known and thought was wrong. He followed, but he couldn't keep up.

Ghost turns to look at Junior happily scribbling away, sees the twinkle in those familiar blue eyes, the way his tongue always pokes out a little when he draws just like Johnny's, the shape of his smile just as familiar... His pale skin and blond curls...

"He's yours. Junior, he's your and Soap's boy."

"How did I never notice..."

"Because you were trying too hard to forget him," Laswell answered his rhetorical question. She glares at Price. "And your Captain is a scheming menace."

"You boys needed time, to have forced it then would've done more harm than good."

Maybe he was right. Ghost was angry, Soap was broken...

"Where is he now?"

Price pulls up his laptop and clicks away a few times. "Village called Glencoe in Scotland, works as a ranger and rescue in the national park." He clicks again and a page prints. "Here's his address and schedule."

Ghost stared down at the page. It's a clear surveillance report. Price had, in his own way, been trying to keep an eye on their family.

"Go get get your man, Simon."

The train ride across England and Scotland was a blur. In their little private compartment, Junior was happy to entertain himself with the new colouring set 'gampa Price' got him, and Simon was once again so thankful he was an easy child because he was barely holding it together.

The past five years keep replaying over and over in his mind.

From Soap's weird behaviour (pregnancy hormones and the insecure impulses of an unmated pregnant omega), Soap's withdrawal (because he was scared and alone) to every little moment Junior did something that reminded him of Johnny, or that made him see himself in his boy. How their pup seemed to accept Ghost was his dad from the start, reaching for him the moment he saw him, always calm and happy in Simon's arms...

And Johnny...

He couldn't even imagine the pain Johnny must've been in...

...all because he made his omega feel unwanted.

That realization hits him like a punch to the gut, he hunches forward and can't fight the tears that turn into chest rattling sobs. Junior, little Johnny, their sweet perfect pup, just gently pets his hair and tells him "its okay, it's okay uncle Si, I'm here", mirroring what he usually said if Junior was upset. Simon laughs through the tears and snuggles his boy into his lap.

"Bean, you know how you call me uncle Si?" Simon smiles wetly.

Junior nods and tries to wipe away Simon's tears with his little chubby hands. "Uh- huh."

"How would you feel if I asked you to call me dad, instead?"

Junior's eyes go wide, a look of wonder and excitement that Ghost now completely recognizes. "Really? I can? You'll be my dad?"

Simon wraps his big hands gently around his perfect little bean's head and kisses his forehead. "I am your dad, love. Always have been."

Ghost wonders if he's ever been this nervous. Not since Mexico...

According to Soap's schedule, he should be leaving from his shifts at the tourist information centre any time now. It's a miserable, rainy day but he can't exactly leave Junior in the hotel room, so they're both sitting in front of a little cafe under a canopy. Ghost scanning the shops and parked cars for a mohawk and blue eyes while Junior is losing himself in Nutella pancakes.

"Oops," Junior mutters and Ghost looks to see a big dollop of cream and Nutella on Junior's new green sweater. Worried blue eyes peer up at him. "'m sorry, I didn't mean to, dad."

Ghost smiles softly. "That's okay love, we'll clean it off."

He's so distracted with the extra tissues the elderly lady at the table text to them gave him to help clean up that the voice catches him off guard.

"... Simon?"

Ghost's head whips up at the sound, his favourite voice to hear his name in.

"Johnny."

"Johnny, I-"

It's Soap, his Johnny. Eyes just as blue, voice still his favorite sound. But standing in the rain he looks... Smaller, thinner, his hair is grown out and his shoulders are hunched where they were always proud.

He sees Johnny's eyes flick between him and Junior, his expression crumbling.

"I... I need to go." Soap takes off.

Simon shoots up to follow but then looks at Junior. The old lady smiles, her eyes knowing. "Go get him. I'll watch over the little one. I have no where to be."

He doesn't know why, but he trusts her.

"Johnny, wait! Please!"

He rushes off after Soap, calling out to him.

It's a good thing Junior kept him on his toes because Soap tries to lose him a few times through cars and shops, but Simon spots the car he's aiming for and sneaks up on it from the side. The moment Soap unlocks the door and jumps in, so does Simon - dropping into the passager seat just as Soap locks the doors.

Soap drops his head on the steering wheel for a few deep breaths, before a defeated weight falls from his shoulders. He turns and Ghost is left speechless at how devastated Soap looks, his bright eyes brimming with tears.

"What do you want, Simon? Why are you here?"

"I- I came here looking for you."

Soap looks away, trembling like he's trying to get himself under control. "Why. You made your feelings about me quite clear. Told me clear as day you didn't want an omega, never would. But now it seems you just didn't want me, seeing as you found yourself one you liked enough to have a family with."

Ghost carefully reaches out, hating seeing Johnny hurt like this, but Soap just smacked his hand away.

"No! You don't get to pretend you care! Getting over you, leaving... It was the hardest thing I've ever done. Ive spent the past years desperately keeping myself from falling apart every time you came to mind. And I was getting better. Can't you... Can't you see how cruel you're being, Si?"

At how Johnny's voice broke on his nickname, Ghost gave in to the wailing alpha in him. He firmly wrapped both his arm around Soap, crushing him to his chest, as he pressed his face into Soap's neck. Deeply inhaling Soap's scent, even tinged with bitter heartache and fear, settled a raw part of Simon's soul. He focused on using his own scent to soothe and comfort Johnny.

It seemed to work as Soap stopped thrashing but let himself be held, melting into his embrace.

"There's no one else, Johnny. How could there be? It's always only been you. I'm sorry, I'm so so fucking sorry - please believe me. I would give anything to go back and undo what I said and did. But I'm here now. I'm here for you. And...there's someone I want you to meet."

It took a few minutes of just holding Johnny, murmuring soft apologies and comfort into his hair, using his scent to convey his care and love. Eventually his omega settled enough to listen. He agreed to follow Simon and hear him out.

As they approached the cafe again, his darling boy waved and called out to them "Dad! I made a bunny! Come look!"

At dad he saw Soap flinch, but a steady hand on his lower back kept them moving till they were at the table. Simon pulled out a chair for Soap as he thanked the old lady who waited with Junior.

"I'll be right back, going to get you a coffee." Simon said with a small smile.

Before Soap could protest he was alone, sitting across the little table from the boy. The boy looked a little uncertain, and Soap cursed himself - no reason to make a child uncomfortable or scared because of his own hurts.

He tries to smile at the boy. "Is that the bunny you made?"

Big blue eyes stay fixed on his, curious and mesmerized, but he nods and pushes his plate towards Soap. Using what looks like leftover pancake and banana bits, there was an arrangement that did actually look like a bunny.

Soap's eyebrows raised. "Wow, that's pretty good!" His is real this time.

The little boy blushes and fiddles with a napkin between his sticky fingers. "Thank you."

"Did your... Dad, teach you that?"

The boy shakes his head, wild blond curls bouncing. "No, dad can't even draw a dog. He's really bad. It looked like an ugly car." The boy says with a sigh.

Soap relaxes and leans forward, closer to the boy. The mental image of Simon trying to draw a dog and it's so terrible a little kid is embarrassed for him warms his heart. "Then where did you learn to be so good, wee lad?"

Big blue eyes flick down then back up a little nervously. "Dad said... My mom is really good with drawing and art stuff."

It should hurt, or.. something. But Soap's mind is a blank, his heart should ache but it's warm and steady in a way that should scare him but just...doesn't.

"That so?" He asks softly, the little boy staring up at Soap in wonder and curiosity.

"Uh huh. Dad said I got my art and my eyes from my mom."

For a moment there's silence. All Soap hears is the rain.

"Lad... What did you say your name was?"

"I'm John Simon. I'm called Junior, gram-pa price says there's too many Johns."

Soap starts shaking, his breathing unsteady... It can't be. He thinks about the date he has inked over his heart.

"Junior, when is your birthday?"

Simon watches from inside the quiet cafe as it dawns on Soap. He could've just told him, but it was important that Junior - their perfect, beautiful, smart little pup - be the one to talk to Johnny first. So he gave them their space for a moment, letting them introduce themselves without him there.

Johnny falls to his knees, his arms open and Junior runs to him. Cats out the bag it seems.

His lip trembles as he joins them outside, a tray of hot chocolates on the table before he joins them on the floor to wrap his big arms around his omega and their perfect little boy.

He wraps his arms around his family, hearts Johnny's bright laughter and happy tears, hearts the twinkling of Junior's giggles, inhales the sweet scent of happy safe omega.

Simon feels happy, whole. For the first time in his entire life, Simon Riley feels whole.

And he swears to spend every day for the rest of his life protecting and loving this family of theirs till his last breath.

Want some omegaverse GhostSoap baby drama?

Ghost (alpha) dumps Soap before the omega could tell him he's pregnant. Soap was devastated from the break up, but couldn't get it over his heart to terminate. So, he decided to retire - effective immediately, without honours. The only person on base who knew was the dedicated omega doctor who could only cover for him so long before he couldn't hide it anymore.

He slips out in the night.

But he didn't realize someone was following...

Price had gone to his office at 2am looking for his favorite lighter when he found the letter under the door from Soap about his immediate resignation and retirement. He rushes out in time to catch Soap sneaking off base with just his bag.

He was suspicious that Soap had maybe crossed them, that he was deflecting. He overhears 'the airport' between Soap and the driver who just pulled in. In a mad rush he runs to his room to grab a backpack then set out to follow the man from a distance.

Soap had been distant for the past few months, increasingly so. His doctor had him booked off active duty, only allowing office work and recruit training but even then he was withdrawn. It didn't help his suspicions.

He follows Soap all the way to Scotland to a small town.

He watches from afar as a very nervous Soap knocks on the door of a cozy family home and is greeted in joy. An hour later he watches Soap fling the door open and leave again, screaming and cursing can be heard from inside. His face stained with tears, a red bruise on his cheek.

Had he gotten in trouble with an informant? Was his superiors not happy with his report or performance? He'll wait till he calls Laswell. He needs more Intel first.

He quickly sends Ghost a text that said 'till I'm back you're in charge'.

He follows as Soap takes the late train to the next town and checks into a small motel. Over the next few weeks he mostly stays in, sometimes visits the hospital. Is that where he meets his contacts? Is the motel a front? Slowly Price's suspicion turns to concern, and worry.

Then an ambulance is called to the motel. Price spots Soap being loaded in.

He can't fake the local accent to blend in so he stays outside the small-town hospital for a day and a half before Soap appears again...

... carrying a small bundle in his arms.

But something doesn't add up, something is off.

Soap seems devastated in a way that breaks Price's heart. He smiles through the tears at the little one in his arms as he slowly walks down the street into the night air.

A few blocks down he stops in front of the small orphanage next to the church. He places the warmly swaddled little one at the orphanage's steps, knocks and quickly leaves sobbing.

Before the door can even be answered, however, Price finds his body moving. He dashes out of his hiding spot and swoops the wee one into his arms, quickly walking away as he hears the door being answered to nothing and no one.

A block down, once he's sure it's safe, he peeks down at the curious little face.

And sees blue eyes like Soap...and pale skin and blond hair - like Simon.

It doesn't take much to deduce what happened. He had noticed Ghost had also been withdrawn and taking riskier solo missions since he and Soap stopped being each other's shadow suddenly. In fact, he'd been so busy trying to stop Ghost from getting himself killed or killing a recruit who happened to catch him on a bad day - that he'd not realised this probably had something to do with Soap's withdrawal too. Too busy and distracted to put two and two together.

They were both hurting. Soap clearly felt he couldn't take care of the wee one, but wanted it to have a chance. Even if it meant leaving the army.

As he walks he pulls out his phone to make a call. Laswell pulls some strings and files, and before he gets to the hotel the Captain's official records included that of his newborn son: 'John Simon Price'.

Till his boys are ready, he'll keep their little one safe and happy. Grandpa Price will make sure of it.

#soapghost #ghostsoap #cod mwii #johnny soap mactavish #cod mw2 #simon ghost riley #john soap mactavish #my writing

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tinytveit · 4 years ago

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bro i have been on like 3 - 4 hours of sleep everyday the whole of this week

no i am not ok????

#i slept for 3 hours last night?#5-7am to be exact #im not in pain?? i mean im in discomfort but theres no Pain:tm:#i definitely did do an oopsie and like. roll onto it by sheer dumbass 1 braincell brainpower #my hips r still killing me. but only if i roll #onto them. you know?#idk how im surviving on this #little sleep?? at what point do i crash #like im tired??? but not sleepy???#@ bodyclock wyd #tmi #big gun emoji 🔫#i could honeslty be like anxiety sleepin. like fully aware i Have to be awake in the morning so im just barely resting.#i had the best sleeps while i was high off of the last of the anesthetic and morphine lmao #those two days where i was high as a kite </3 #its just been a downhill slope from then chfjdjfjfj #send help

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denkamis · 4 years ago

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hc’s about falling in love with your childhood best friend.

masterlist.

warnings: swearing ig?? it’s fluffy, mainly. i tried to make it fairly gender neutral in terms of the reader.

notes: hi uh these were supposed to be for the dekusquad but they ended up being SO much longer than i originally intended so i cut down on the characters ;-; i struggled with bakugou’s but his ended up being the longest??? idk man, hope you guys like it <3 these are seriously just drabbles in disguise

izuku midoriya

you met at an author meetup at the local bookstore. the book was a biography about all might, ofc you were bound to meet

you were in front of him in line and he shyly complimented you on the all might t-shirt you had worn

you two basically spent the entire time talking to each other about your favourite pro heroes as you waited in line

by the time you got to the front, you were so engrossed in your own conversations that both inko and your mom figured it would just be better to take you two home for a playdate instead

since you were friends with midoriya, that meant bakugou was also in your little circle

you stood up to him a couple times and always checked up on midoriya after kacchan’s tiny tantrums

midoriya appreciated that, and you two were practically inseparable

bakugou always accused you two of teaming up against him

you would simply link arms with midoriya, tilt your chin up high and say that you were a full package deal. two peas in a pod. two halves of a whole, always

midoriya’s face seemed to be permanently red that entire day

you two were pretty dedicated in school, with you wanting to persue your top picks for high school. that meant that there were lots of study dates between you two

during those study dates, midoriya couldn’t help if his gaze lingered on you just a bit more than his notes about quirk laws

he realized he was in love with you when you had stayed after school to look for the notebook kacchan had burnt

“you don’t have to do this, y/n. i can find it on my own… i don’t want to make to make you stay any longer.”

“don’t say that, izuku. i don’t mind. besides, we always stick together and we will even after you get into ua!”

“a- after i get in?” he spoke in a disbelief. everyone had doubted him, everyone had told him that he needed a quirk in order to get in but not you

you stayed. you supported him. you believed in him.

he grabbed your hand on instinct, startling you. “i- i-” he began stuttering, eyes darting about as the feelings he hadn’t realized resurfaced

“thank you.”

you gave him a gentle smile, chest feeling light as your hand encased in midoriya’s squeezed his own comfortingly

“full package deal, remember?”

he nodded, his smile jittery and shy. you giggled, blush dancing on your cheeks as you went on your next rant about how kamui woods could totally beat mount lady in a fight

midoriya gripped the straps of his backpack, chest feeling light and his head feeling dizzy with all the new thoughts of you flooding his mind

oh yeah, he was definitely in love with you

shouto todoroki

you were his neighbour

well, more accurately, your grandparents were his neighbours and you visited often

your grandparents made you get the mail in the mornings and sometimes you would see him outside in the front yard with his mother. you would wave to him, and he would give a timid wave back after some encouragement from his mother

you would play outside with your grandfather, flying your tiny kite and playing catch with him

until you noticed there was a boy lingering near the fence separating the both of your houses

he was watching the relationship you had with your grandfather curiously, almost as if there were a bit of envy in his eyes

being the kind child that you were, you went over to him and passed the small ball between the rungs of the fence to him

shouto was hesitant, but eventually took the ball from your inviting grip and tossed it back and forth between his hands testingly

this began a little game between you two

he would toss the ball over the fence, and you would throw it back over to him

you didn’t quite understand why he couldn’t come on the other side of the fence to visit properly, but that was okay

you two would spend hours by the fence, sitting and talking you would give him tiny daisy chains made from the flowers in your grandma’s garden

he wouldn’t tell you, but he kept each one you gave him on his windowsill

he would compliment you a lot, too

not that he knew what that meant, he was simply stating facts to you

“i like your hair. it’s very pretty.”

“you’re very strong. you throw over the ball like it’s nothing.”

“you want to become a hero? i think you would be the best one.”

“your smile makes me want to smile, too.”

all of his words make your heart do somersaults

sometimes when you’re sitting with your backs to the fence, leaning up against each other, you feel the heat of his left hand ghosting your fingers. you don’t know why that made you feel shy, but it did

one day before you were supposed to go back home to your parents’ house, you went to go say goodbye to shouto

he was sitting there normally, but his head was hung low so you couldn’t quite see his face

as you approached him, you noticed that there was a bandage covering his left eye

“sho?”

he said nothing as you sat down

“mom says i have to go now,” you tell him. he says nothing, again

“um… are you okay?”

an indiscernible noise comes from the small boy. you press your face right up against the one barrier separating you two. he looks up to see you worried. you didn’t like seeing him so upset

then an idea came to you

“before i go.. let me kiss it better.”

shouto looked at you in bewilderment

“you’re not… afraid?”

“no, why?” you asked in a confused manner, yet shouto remained hesitant

“come here, please,” you asked of him, “before mom catches me kissing a boy.”

pink dusting over his cheeks, he slowly crawled his way over to where you still kept your face against the fence. your gentle lips met the fabric of his bandage. the scent of something burnt catching in your nose as you did

“you’ll come back?” shouto asked quietly. you nodded, promising him

he nodded back in understanding, the tiniest of smiles appearing across his features

“i’ll be waiting.”

katsuki bakugou

you had been in the same class since kindergarten, meaning that you knew him before he had his quirk

even so, you thought he was pretty cool

the reason for that? well, you weren’t exactly the most well liked kid in school. children were ruthless, and there was always a bottom of every social ladder between preschoolers

you got teased a lot. they pulled your hair, made fun of the way you cried, poked fun at the shoes and shirts you wore despite them being your favourite ones

you were different. they didn’t like that

the world seemed completely against you

during a colouring activity, the box of crayons you were holding was smacked out of your hands. your bottom lip quivered as the same boy taunted you to no end about how clumsy you were

you simply bent over to pick them up before hearing another voice call out

“oi, picking on small fries like that is lame.”

looking to your left stood katsuki bakugou, looking bored and disinterested in helping you out. but your bully stopped in his tracks. being called lame?? by the great tiny katsuki bakugou??

no one had ever stood up for you like that

even though he didn’t help you pick up your crayons, it felt like you had some type of ally in this class

slowly, you connected two and two together

if you stayed around bakugou, no one could pick on you anymore! so you glued yourself to him practically every day

at first, he found it annoying, but after seeing that you admired him up close, he liked the attention that feuled his ego, so he kept you around

because you followed him around so much, you picked up a lot of things from him. he taught you how to defend yourself, and you taught him that some extras didn’t deserve as much attention as he was giving him. it was better to walk away sometimes

you ate lunch together, he came over to your house to play heroes and villains, he even showed you his secret all might poster collection. you were his person to talk to

he even had a katsuki bakugou™ nickname for you: small fry

you two were quite the duo. bakugou went from simply tolerating you, to gradually beginning to care for you being around

and as you grew up with him, he caught himself beginning to admire the strong, gorgeous person you had become all on your own. it seemed he had developed a bit more than just a simple friendship bond with you

did he ever tell you that? fuck no

you knew bakugou had always been rather… brash

but you absolutely drew the line in the sand when he wouldn’t stop picking on midoriya for being quirkless. that one day where you walked into that classroom to meet bakugou and his group of friends only to see bakugou telling some green haired kid to jump off the building because he would never make it into ua without a quirk. he was different

bakugou turned to leave and he saw you standing in the doorway with a bit of an angry, hurt expression on his face

“small fry, thought you were never gonna show up.”

“... lame.”

“hah? what did you say?”

“i said it’s lame picking on small fries like that just because they’re different,” you spat at him. his eyes stayed fixated on you as you walked past him, helping the smaller boy off the floor and asking if he was okay

normally, if it were anyone else, bakugou wouldn’t care. at all

but it was you

you were different

and all he did was act like he didn’t care. why? he didn’t know. but what he said to you that day came out rash and hurtful. you two had your fights before, but this had struck a chord with you. no one deserved to be treated like how you were back in preschool. that hurt

he didn’t realize how much you meant to him until you stopped inviting him over, you stopped eating lunch with him, you stopped texting and that bothered him

the one person who he wanted to admire him didn’t anymore

so it was a surprise to you that he waited for you to be finished your club after school to talk

“small fry, listen. oi! i said listen up!” you kept walking, but he stopped you by grabbing your wrist

“what? what is it? what can you possibly say to make things better? how could you treat people like that?”

“come back.”

“what?”

“i said, fuck- come back, y’know, eat lunch with all the extras again.”

“no.”

the frustration showed true on bakugou’s features. his cheeks were turning red, you figured from the anger he was feeling towards you yet his voice dropped

“i didn’t mean that shit back there. i was angry. fuck, i.. you want me to apologize or some shit, right. heard you small fries like that.” he shifted uncomfortably, his clammy hand still holding your wrist in a firm grip, as if you would walk away from him any moment now

“sorry, or whatever.” he mumbled out in the smallest voice you had ever heard bakugou speak in

your heart stopped as he looked at you with such sincerity. you held his gaze, eyes locked on his before you shook your head

“i don’t forgive you for saying what you said and doing what you did, but i do trust you. and i know that you’re better than that. you’re not lame. but if you seriously do that again, i’m not giving you any more chances.”

relief came flooding back to bakugou at your words, but his face fired up almost instantly as you moved your hand so that your fingers intertwined with his

“now c’mon, the new all might special is airing tonight, if we hurry we can still make it to my house.”

“don’t speak so fucking loud! ... damn small fry.”

all works © denkamis 2021.

tags:

@meilbox

want to be on the taglist? see this post!

#mha headcanons #bnha headcanons #shouto todoroki x reader #izuku midoriya x reader #katsuki bakugou x reader #mha x reader #bnha x reader #midoriya x reader #todoroki x reader #bakugou x reader #denkamis.hcs

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homerforsure · 3 years ago

Note

for the Fun Fact Prompts ! why are you in a tree?

Dear Anon! It's more of a first line prompt than a fun fact prompt, but given that I instantly knew the second line of this as soon as I read the first, I'll allow it.

This got very silly and very far away from me, so the bulk of it is under the cut <3

“Why are you in a tree? No, wait, wait don’t tell me. K-I-S-S-I-N-G?”

“Maddie, can you focus please?” Buck whines into the phone. “We’re stuck.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” she laughs. “Tell me again. Where are you guys?”

Buck explains their location in the park, the fallen ladder, and Maddie agrees to come and rescue them as soon as she can.

“Of all the times for Albert not to answer his phone,” Buck grouses as he shifts on the tree branch to get his own back into his pocket. “He wouldn’t show up and sing at us.”

“Sing?” Eddie asks.

“K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

“Did she say how long-?”

“Just whenever she can. She’s gonna have to pack the baby up so we could be here for hours. You didn’t have anywhere to go right?”

“Me? No. Sitting in an oak tree was my only plan for the day.”

“Sorry,” Buck winces.

It's his fault that they’re stuck. It started with a kite. A big blue one lodged high in the branches of a tree that he spotted when he was biking through the park. A couple of kids were standing below it, looking up with sad expressions and making valiant efforts to boost each other up onto the lower branches. The tree was too big for them though, the branch too far from the ground. Buck had slowed to a stop beside them.

The branch was out of reach for him too, even when leaning his bike against the tree and trying to climb up on the seat. Fortunately the park had a concession stand--closed now, open just for little league games--and the stand had a ladder leaning against the side of the building. It was nothing for Buck to jog over and loosen the rusted brackets holding the ladder in place, then to brace it against the tree and start climbing.

The tree was full of sturdy branches, easy enough to climb. He just… needed to find a route. The kite was further up than it had looked from the ground, tangled in leaves and dangerously far out on the limb.

As Buck stood contemplating, another strong breeze had come through (it was perfect kite flying weather after all), making him wobble on the branch and sending his ladder crashing to the ground.

The kids had shrieked and run off without their kite, completely ignoring Buck’s pleas to just put the ladder back and then vanished over the nearest hill. The stiff wind and unseasonably cool weather had left the park more deserted than usual and Buck had had to swallow his pride and call Eddie who only laughed at him a little.

That wind blows hard again, chilling Buck through his training jersey and making the branches sway. He reaches up to grab the branch overhead, trying to feel a little more stable and Eddie reaches out toward him automatically, even though he’s too far away to reach. The other man is sitting against the trunk of the tree, leaning back, serene and stable, as though he’s on the ground and not 10 feet in the air.

“You were wrong, you know,” Buck says, once he has his balance back.

One of Eddie’s eyebrows quirks up as if to say, Wrong? Me?

“You could never have gotten up there from the other way.”

“Well it’s not like your way worked out that much better.”

When his boyfriend (and wow did that term send shivers up and down Buck’s spine every time he thought it, new and fresh as it still is) had turned up at the park, he’d righted the ladder immediately, expecting Buck to climb back down. Instead, knowing he had a stable route down, Buck had turned his attention back up toward the kite and called back that he’d be down in just a minute.

“Which way are you going?” Eddie had asked. So Buck had pointed out the route to him.

“No. No way. You’re gonna get stuck at that skinny branch and you’ll never make it. You’ve got to go up the other way.”

“What other way?”

Eddie pointed it out and Buck scoffed, “Now that’s ridiculous. You’re not even going to be able to reach it from there.”

“Wanna bet?” Eddie had said.

So now they were both stuck on the branch, kiteless.

“You should come over here,” Eddie says, frowning as the wind shakes the tree again and Buck holds on against the sway. “The branch doesn’t move as much.”

“You worried about me?” Buck asks, smirking over at Eddie who just rolls his eyes.

“It’s not a secret anymore, Buck. You breaking your spine is going to seriously fuck with my weekend plans.”

His weekend plans with Buck. The two of them alone. For the first time since Eddie had pinned Buck against his kitchen counter and kissed him senseless. If Buck had ever had any incentive to stay out of the hospital it was for this promise of whatever Eddie wanted to do next.

“Well I’d hate to do that,” he says, looking over at Eddie through his lashes with faux remorse. “I already ruined your afternoon.”

“Will you just get your ass over here?” Eddie replies, trying not to look ridiculously pleased as he holds out his arm to coax Buck over.

Buck needs very little coaxing. He stands because it’s easier than scooting, walking the tightrope of the tree branch until he’s directly beside Eddie, then dropping down again. “Hi,” he says.

“Hi,” Eddie replies.

It’s dangerous to let himself get distracted when he’s perched so precariously, but Buck can’t help it. With his right hand reached overhead to grab the next branch for balance, he holds out his left for Eddie to take. That Eddie does without hesitation, that he squeezes tight, that he smiles at Buck with that soft, happy smile he doesn’t give to anyone else, still feels like a precious gift. It’s so new, what they have. Buck wants to melt into every moment. Cherish it like it may never come again.

“So,” Eddie says, running his thumb over the back of Buck’s hand. “How do people kiss in trees do you think? It seems pretty dangerous to me.”

Humming as though he’s giving the matter serious thought, Buck says, “A tree house probably makes the most sense.”

“Sure. If you were smart enough to plan ahead. But if you weren’t…”

“If you weren’t,” Buck says, taking his hand back so he can move again, carefully, carefully swinging one leg over so he’s straddling the branch. “I think there’s still a few options. You should, uh, get as close to the trunk as you can. With your back to it, probably.”

Once he’s sure that Buck’s stable, Eddie takes the instruction, using that taller branch to lift himself up just a little, turning, shifting one leg over the branch like Buck has, and settling back against the tree trunk. At the stoutest part of the branch, Eddie almost has a stable seat, though he still crosses his legs tightly below the branch to hold his position. “I can see how this would work,” he says. “If you were careful.”

“Oh careful is the most important thing,” Buck says, inching forward, hand over hand above his head. “It helps to have a strong partner. One who won’t let you fall.”

When he reaches Eddie, he keeps his knees pressed close to the branch so he can try and fit himself between Eddie’s legs, so they can get as close as possible. Buck sees Eddie’s eyes flash with concern when he moves his hands from the branch down onto Eddie’s shoulders and immediately feels one strong arm behind his back.

“One hand on the branch,” Eddie says, his breath close enough to tickle Buck’s ear. “Please.”

“Chicken,” Buck says, lifting his left hand again to clutch the branch.

“Daredevil,” Eddie replies, lifting his own hand and clutching Buck’s fingers over their heads.

“You like it,” Buck teases, unable to stop himself from grinning as he stares into Eddie’s eyes to see exactly how much he does.

“You’re awfully full of yourself.”

“You like that too. You pretend like you’re so mature and by the book, but you like me getting you all riled-”

The rest of his sentence is lost to Eddie’s mouth on his. Buck gives himself over to it immediately, letting Eddie’s firm hand on his back push him forward just a little bit more. He lets his own arm slide behind Eddie’s neck, feeling the bark bite into him on one side and Eddie’s soft hair tickling on the other. Buck loses himself to it, quickly losing his balance as he does and he squeezes tightly to Eddie’s hand anchoring him in place.

“I like all of it,” Eddie whispers, once they pull apart. “I like you.”

Buck has just enough time to enjoy the little shiver that those words send through all his nerves before Eddie’s kissing him again. The chill of the wind, the height from the ground, even the uncomfortable feel of the branch beneath them all fades into the background. Eddie’s kissing him and Buck’s as secure as he’s ever been.

It’s only Maddie’s voice that pulls them out of the moment, sing-songing from the bottom of the tree as she lifts their ladder, “Buck and Ed-die, sittin’ in a tree…”

If you know any fun facts, send them to me and I'll see if I can't make a ficlet out of it!

#911fic #writing prompt #ask #am writing #evan buckley #eddie diaz #deeply silly fluff #k-i-s-s-i-n-g

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shijiujun · 4 years ago

Text

Time for some BL/Danmei novel recs!

You guys have probably (maybe) seen my novels list here - [X] - but it’s more for my own tracking than anything else, so here’s a brief list (I’ll probably do full ones of the ones I really love in another post, probably on Minmo).

The ones elaborated on below with the asterisks are the novels I’ve actually finished reading.

*since everyone more or less knows MXTX’s works - TGCF, MDZS and SVSSS, I’ll skip those!

1. SCI 迷案集 | SCI Mystery Series by 耳雅*

Summary: Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao are childhood friends and rivals that end up working together under the newly established SCI unit as co-leads, with Bai Yutang providing the brawn as Captain and Zhan Zhao the brains as Vice Captain and the team’s resident genius psychologist. They solve cases together and slowly unravel a wider conspiracy that involves their parents’ generation and beyond. At the same time they also realize that they’re meant for each other!

Other CPs: Bai Jintang (Bai Yutang’s older brother) & the medical examiner, Gongsun Ce, Bai Chi (Bai Yutang’s younger cousin) & magician Zhao Zhen, and at least three other gay pairings, one of which is considered another main couple of sorts from Vol. 2 onwards

Status: Incomplete (Began in 2010, author is still going on strong with one chapter every one or two months, we’re halfway through Vol. 5 right now and it’s been 10 years ;-; Love that the author is going on strong!! Everyone on JJWXC are like “please author it’s okay if you go slow as long as you keep going we’re here for you” and jfc I understand the fear of this not completing, also when will Vol. 5 be completed and printed?!! I need to complete the collection)

Translations: Unfortunately, only the first volume has been translated well so far on novel updates. The one on Wattpad seems to have caught up, but I would not recommend that one.

Drama/Live-Action: Season 1 was filmed and released in 2018 under the same name with slightly changed names for the characters. Season 2 was supposed to start filming this month but... oh well. First season basically covered Vol. 1 novel from start to end.

*I love this one only because it was my very first danmei and so it’ll forever have a special place in my heart, and also because it’s still ongoing so ya know, I relive how much I love this every month

2. 成化十四年 | Cheng Hua’s Fourteenth Year (The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty) by 梦溪石*

Summary: Tang Fan, a prefectural judge, and Sui Zhou, a high ranking officer in the Embroidered Uniform Guards, meet while trying to solve a murder case. Both of them end up partnering very well together, Sui Zhou ends up inviting Tang Fan to live with him, and the rest is history. Through their days living together and solving cases + a larger conspiracy involving the royal palace, they fall in love. Adding to this mix is also Wang Zhi, a powerful, young eunuch who befriends the pair, and the three of them basically help the crown prince to overcome challenges and his enemies to become the next Emperor

Other CPs: None XD

Status: Complete!

Translations: Ongoing on several websites. I’m only translating relationship highlights, but here’s an introduction post I did for it, if you guys would like somewhere to start without getting too invested - [X]

Drama/Live-Action: The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty was released earlier this year, directed by Jackie Chan and starring Darren Chen and Paul Fu, but cases are a little different and there are new characters in the show that weren’t from the novel etc.

3. 杀破狼 | Shapolang by Priest*

Summary: Set in a steampunk universe where flying boats named ‘kites’ and flying armour exist. Young teenager Chang Geng lives with his mother and stepfather - the former abuses him and the latter neglects him, and the only person that he cares about (and cares about him) is Shen Shiliu, his (very young) godfather. He realizes his identity as a royal prince when the Man tribe invades his city and Shen Shiliu, whose real name is Gu Yun, turns out to be an army general whose duty was to protect Chang Geng in secret (among other things).

Chang Geng has been critically poisoned by his mother (who’s not actually his birth mother, if I recall she’s an aunt) which leads to him getting terrible dreams frequently with the end result of him being driven into insanity, while Gu Yun is half blind, half deaf due to poisoning + injury when he was much younger, and he can only regain his hearing and sight fully when he takes a medicine that is slowly losing its effectiveness with every dosage he has.

The both of them navigate learning about each other again, falling in love a few years later when Chang Geng is all grown up and also unravel conspiracies and fight bad guys (both external threats and internal as in the current Emperor and other parties) XD

*Note: The age old debate is that Gu Yun ‘preyed’ on and also ‘groomed’ Chang Geng, but I disagree and stand by the fact that Gu Yun was 90% of the time not around while Chang Geng grew from a teenager to a young adult as he was fighting wars elsewhere, while Chang Geng refused to stay at the Gu manor and insisted on running around, travelling on his own and seeing the world for a few years before they met again. And it was Chang Geng who’d always loved Gu Yun and devoted himself to caring about him, making advances on him etc. when he became an adult

Other CPs: Shen Yi (Gu Yun’s second-in-command) & Chen Qingxu (a renowned physician who ends up healing both Chang Geng and Gu Yun of their ailments)

Status: Complete!

Translations: Fully translated the last I heard, it’s up there in the list of holy grail BL/danmei novels, so I’m sure it’s done hahaha.

Drama/Live-Action: Filming in progress!

*This is up there in the hall of fame for danmei novels for more than just the amazing content and writing - It’s also famous for being one of the most complex novels ever. I don’t know how the translations team did it because DAMN it was complex and I read all my novels in Chinese without much issues but I was honestly STRUGGLING WITH this one and I went through some existential crisis while reading because I was like ‘did I ever learn Chinese, am I even Chinese’ XD

4. 默读 | Silent Reading by Priest*

Summary: Luo Wenzhou, a police captain, and his team including best friend and partner Tao Ran, face a few challenging cases that end up being small parts of a larger conspiracy, and end up having to consult with Fei Du, a flamboyant, charming and flirty, young and rich CEO, who Luo Wenzhou describes as someone who is an expert at ‘crimes’. Not deduction, not solving crimes, but someone who is familiar with how the murderer or culprits would commit crimes. Both Luo Wenzhou and Tao Ran know Fei Du well, because they first met when Fei Du was in high school, when he called the police because his mother had hanged herself in the house, and since then Tao Ran and Luo Wenzhou look out for him, spending holidays with him, giving him presents here and there. Luo Wenzhou and Fei Du overcome their misunderstandings of each other and fall in love while solving all the cases and the larger conspiracy behind it.

Other CPs: Tao Ran and someone he knew first from his school days or was a neighbour when he was younger, I can’t remember, but they meet again at a blind date and end up living in the same building on different floors XD

Status: Complete!

Translations: Complete!! There’s a huge post floating around on Tumblr with all the links (I can’t find it right now) and on Twitter you can also find the collated, epub versions etc.

Drama/Live-Action: Rights for a live-action was signed, no casting confirmation or set dates yet

5. 犯罪心理 | Criminal Psychology by 长洱*

Summary: Police captain Xing Conglian drags psychologist Lin Chen out of seclusion/hiding to solve a case that is indirectly tied to him. Lin Chen was involved in a case a few years ago that led to four deaths - these four victims were the sons/daughters of four of the five huge old-money (super rich) families in the country and these family members sought to make Lin Chen’s life very difficult for him afterwards by making him lose all the jobs he can find, by surveilling his every move and ensuring that he’s not happy etc. Because of that, he backed out of the police force as well and quietly lived as a school dorm administrator, which is where Xing Conglian finds him a few years later. Lin Chen fakes his death after the first case (not deliberately but kind of a by-the-way thing), but as fate would have it, he ends up meeting Xing Conglian on another case, and he decides that he’ll move in with him and also involve himself again, consequences be damned, and they fall in love!

Other CPs: None XD

Status: Complete!

Translations: I think it’s not complete yet.

Drama/Live-Action: None that I know of.

6. 死亡万花筒 | Kaleidoscope of Death by 西子绪* (MY ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE)

Summary: Supernatural setting where people who are about to die get a second chance to live. These individuals are either in the midst of a dangerous situation (for e.g. a shootout or a deadly mugging incident) or are about to get into accidents (for e.g. an entire bus going off a bridge or a chandelier dropping from above and crushing the person underneath) or are ill (recently diagnosed with cancer or are terminally ill with a condition for e.g.) - The list is endless, and in the situation between life and death, 12 doors will appear before them.

It is said that once these individuals finish all 12 doors, they will truly get a second chance at life and survive whatever cause of death they were imminently facing.

Each door represents a creepy, supernatural mystery, and Lin Qiushi finds himself in a strange place after opening a door when he was trying to enter his apartment one day. He meets Ruan Baijie, a beautiful, tall woman who he happens to meet, and they realize that in this strange world, he and other individuals who came through the door have to complete a given task, find a key and an exit door, and make it out alive. The others in the team (some of which have already gone through several doors) explain to Lin Qiushi, who is a first-timer, what the doors are about.

The catch is, if they die inside the door, in the real world, they’ll die immediately, by accident, throwing themselves off a building, or just throwing up blood until they die (just to name a few)

On the first night, however, three people are slaughtered and eaten by a long-haired ghost/creature. The good news is, Ruan Baijie isn’t all that she seems to be (for one, she’s not exactly a woman) and she takes a liking to Lin Qiushi immediately.

Other CPs: None XD

Status: Complete!

Translations: I think it’s not complete yet!

Drama/Live-Action: None that I know of, but honestly, this novel would be fricking EPIC as a live-action, and really creepy, but this is my all-time favourite novel, I kid you not!!!!

*I’m definitely doing a longer and more detailed to-read for KOD on my translation account, gosh you guys have no idea how much I love this.

7. 当年万里觅封侯 | Those Years in Quest of Honor Mine by 漫漫何其多

Summary: Yu She and Gu Wan were close friends for a short period of time when they were younger, but unfortunately their identities and positions meant that they were opponents. Yu She’s family was for the Second Prince and Gu Wan was taken in by the Sixth Prince’s family, but in the end it was the Second Prince who ended up getting to the throne, while the Sixth Prince was accused of treason and died somewhere far away at war after being captured. Gu Wan’s only wish was to keep the Fifth Prince’s children - Xuan Rui and a pair of twins, Xuan Yu and Xuan Congxin safe, and so he moves them to another province and asks the Emperor (the Second Prince) to demote Xuan Rui’s status to prove that they are no threat to the Emperor, if only to stay alive for another day.

However, their days of hardship have only just begun, and Gu Wan decides to namedrop Yu She, whose family is so powerful now, and claims that Yu She loves him and that he was wooing Gu Wan back in the days they knew each other so that officials and others would treat the children under his care better. A few years pass and Yu She doesn’t expose Gu Wan. Gu Wan thinks they can go on like this forever, until the Emperor asks Xuan Rui and the twins to head back to the palace for a visit.

Gu Wan meets Yu She again, but the boy he knew, who was gentle, a stickler for rules and a proper, well-mannered person, has changed almost completely. Cue palace conspiracies again, brothers fighting for the throne, scheming consorts etc. XD

Other CPs: None XD

Status: Complete!

Translations: I think it’s not complete yet but I’m not super sure on this

Drama/Live-Action: None that I know of!

*They came out with a new reprint edition three days ago and it’s gorgeous! And comes with amazing freebies, and I am a sucker and read it on the day of the printed novel release because I saw the art and loved it, wanted to see if the story was any good, and damn after chapter 2 I WAS GONE and then I checked out two copies from different stores for the two different sets of freebies

A list of those I haven’t read but I see are highly raved about:

1. 二哈和他的白猫师尊 | The Husky & His White Cat Shizun by Meatbun

- I’ve already been spoiled and I know what goes on mostly, and there are a lot of warnings for a reason, but I’m still a fan, and let’s not get into the debate on the content, I know I have to read this but the angst level is apparently ridiculous, so I need like some mental preparation before I sit down for it.

2. 千秋 | A Thousand Autumns by 梦溪石

3. 烈火浇愁 | Lie Huo Jiao Chou by Priest

4. 将进酒 | Qiang Jing Jiu by 唐酒卿

- A really good group of translators picked this up initially on Twitter, but then assholes were complaining that they were being too slow and insisting that machine translation (MTL) did an equally good and faster job, so the OG dropped it, and then another nice team picked it up, but MTL team is still being an asshole XD I’ve heard really good things about this one, it’s apparently quite complex as well, I’d liken it to Shapolang level? But it might be even more complex (with a lot of politics and stuff), so much so that apparently the printed novel comes with a relationship/character chart so readers are at any point in time clear on the characters which is like amazing XD

#danmei #bl novels #novel recs #sci谜案集 #kaleidoscope of death #silent reading #shapolang #犯罪心理 #成化十四年 #the sleuth of ming dynasty #2ha #priest #梦溪石 #meatbun #西子绪 #耳雅 #长洱

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impala666 · 4 years ago

Text

The One With The Stoned Guy Part 4 (Still Do)

Here it is! Finally the ending to another episode. I know it took me like forever to finish this episode, but hey at least it it finished! It may take a while, but I am determined to finish this show!!! I am so excited for the next two episodes since it’s a two part episode and it is going to have so much drama!!!

Last Part (Part 3), Series Masterlist

You were standing outside of Joey and your brother’s apartment about to knock, but you honestly had to take a minute even though you felt like a thirteen year old girl who was afraid to face her crush, well you were. You shook your head at yourself, you were starting to wander into what you wanted to think but Joey wasn’t letting you. Letting out a long breath you raised your hand about to knock on your old apartment to announce your arrival, but a voice caught you off guard. “Hey, Y/N,” Phoebe’s voice rang from behind you in the hallway.

“Hey, Pheebs,” you turned to look at her but noticed the man walking next to her. “Hey, man with Pheebs.”

“Y/N, this is Steve my massage client; the one with the restaurant, and Steve this is Y/N my friend.” You smiled and went to shake his hand as Phoebe introduced the both of you, but your pleasure to meet him was gone.

“Woaaah,” Steve’s jaw dropped and his eyes shone like he saw the treasure he had been looking for all along when he looked at you. So naturally, you took your hand back and rose a brow at Phoebe.

“What can I say, he’s high as a kite, I’m sorry.” Phoebe shrugged nonchalantly.

“Oh, well that makes sense,” you brushed it off as you noticed how red the man’s eyes were. “Well, good luck with that.” You smiled at Phoebe who stuck her tongue out at you playfully without Steve seeing.

“Yeah, well good luck with that.” Phoebe sounded like she was joking when she motioned toward Joey’s door. “No seriously, he totally trapped you into this.” With that Phoebe and her guest turned around to knock on Rachel and Monica’s as you turned and forced yourself to knock on Joey’s.

“Hey,” you greeted the man shyly as you nibbled on your bottom lip out of nervousness.

“Hey,” Joey greeted with a small smile and shine in his brown eyes. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

“Didn’t really give me a choice,” you shrugged. Still standing in the hallway, “sorry, that was bitchy.”

“Well, if you don’t want to you don’t have to come in. I don’t want you to feel like you were forced.” You could tell that Joey was being sincere, plus you were always the one person that Joey couldn’t lie to. You rolled your eyes at how awkward the both of you were being and put one foot in front of the other and walked past Joey and into his apartment. Now it was just the two of you standing in the kitchen, looking at each other trying to think of something to say.

“Well, this isn’t awkward at all,” you joked under your breath as you felt sexual tension starting to build ever so slightly. “How was your day?” Asking as you set your purse down and sat down on the stool that was by the kitchen counter.

“It was good, I had an audition,”

“Oh, that’s great!” You cheered, not knowing you were jumping to conclusions.

“But I didn’t get it.” Joey finished, smiling slightly at your automatic response.

“Oh,” you blushed which was probably obvious. “I’m sorry, but remember what I always told you that just means it just wasn’t right for you and you’ll get something better.”

“You were always my number one fan,” Joey smiled thinking about all the times the both of you would be laying in bed after he didn’t get an acting job that he really wanted and you cuddled him and made him feel better while telling him what you just said word for word.

“Hey,” you reached over and placed your hand on his, “and I always will.” You smiled sweetly. “Now, give me some wine.”

“Got it. I ordered some pizza too. I figured it would be okay since I know you love pizza as much as I do.” Joey talked as he filled a glass for you, grabbed a beer for himself, and walked over and sat on the couch.

“Yeah, that’s great,” you smiled as you got up to sit next to him. Close enough that it’s okay to as friends, but not close enough that it would be wrong since the both of you were broken up and you had a boyfriend. Bryan, who you liked a lot. But you couldn’t help it if your mind wandered to Joey every now and then, like now, when your eyes kept looking down at the man’s lips.

“So,” Joey shook his own thought of it out of his mind as he looked back up at your eyes. “How’s school?” You immediately lit up in excitement, you couldn’t wait to tell him. Because then maybe the two of you could get back together after he heard the news that you only had a few months left of your program (it was a 6.5 month program, and you had 3 months left). But wait a minute you had a boyfriend that you really liked and whom really liked you, Bryan.

*******

“What a tool,” Joey scoffed after Monica told him, you, and Ross was Phoebe’s massage-restaurant owning client did to Monica. Apparently since the man was high he kept trying to grab things and eat things without even waiting to eat the food the Monica spent hours making.

“You don’t wanna work for a guy like that.” Rachel sympathized with her friend, you nodded in agreement from your spot on the armchair as the others nodded along with you.

“I know. I just thought that was, you know...it.” Monica explained what you all understood.

“Hey, you’ll get there. You’re an amazing chef.” Ross told her as he rubbed her shoulder.

“Yeah,” Phoebe chimed in. “You know all those yummy noises? I wasn’t faking.” Phoebe told Monica, helping to make the woman feel better. Once that was done Ross made his way to the counter for a refill and Joey followed him to obviously talk about something, so Rachel, Phoebe, and Monica took their opportunity to ask you about your night.

“So, how’d it go with Joey? Was it weird?” Rachel asked as all of the women turned their attention to you.

“It was really weird at first, there was so much sexual tension,” you sat forward in your seat.

“Are you kidding there’s always sexual tension between the two of you.” Monica said.

“Well I know,” you smirked at that fact. “But this time it was like we wanted to do something, but we knew we couldn’t. But the whole time I was over there he was so nice to me, the man wasn’t even trying anything.” You pouted as you spoke solemnly.

“And you didn’t like that?” Phoebe asked confused and a little sarcastically seeing as that was what you said you had been wanting from him; to just be friends with Joey again.

“No,” you sighed disappointed in yourself. “I still love Joey.”

“Nooooooo,” all three of the women let out sarcastically.

“Oh come on,” you looked at them to get serious. “But it doesn’t even matter because he doesn’t want to be with me, plus I have Bryan. So even if I wanted to do something, and I do. I really do, but I can’t so that’s that.” Monica, Rachel, and Phoebe all sat there blinking at you like they didn’t believe a word that you were saying. “Oh, whatever.” You quickly waved off, just so this discussion could be done and you weren’t torturing yourself over things you could not have.

“You guys want to catch a late movie, or something?” Phoebe asked loud enough for you ladies and Ross and Joey to hear, to which everyone agreed.

“Woah, shouldn’t we wait for Chandler?” Rachel asked, making all of you realise that your brother wasn’t there with you all.

“Woah. It’s late, where the hell is he?” Joey asked as he checked the time on his watch to see that it was about 9:00.

But it turned out Chandler was exactly where he didn’t want to be. In his office, late at night, yelling at someone in his office that he wasn’t pleased or happy with the W.E.N.U.S. (Weekly Estimated Net Usage Statistics) which everyone knew was Chandler Bing’s worse nightmare.

Taglist:

@vampiregirl1797

@kellysimagines

@shizzybarnaclee

@bi-lmg

#friends rewrite #friends #Joey Tribbiani #reader #bing!reader #sister!bing #joey tribbiani x reader #chandler bing #ross geller #rachel green #phoebe buffay #monica geller

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plentyelegant · 3 years ago

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never mind about the shape I'm in, I'll keep you safe

(alternative title: Klaus just loves his baby sister send tweet)

Summary: After getting bested by their umpteenth threat to the world's continued existence, the siblings not only get scattered across the city, but their powers scattered amongst them. After waking up without his powers, a clue which of his siblings' powers he did have, or where his siblings actually were, Klaus starts looking for them... only to see possibly the most heartbreaking sight he could have imagined: Vanya, obviously burdened with his powers of seeing and hearing the dead... in a cemetery.

Words: 3.8k

Pairings: PLATONIC Klaus & Vanya (and some platonic Klaus & Allison near the end)

Warnings: Hurt/Comfort. Sensory overload/panic attack. Discussion of seeing/hearing ghosts. Mentions of death, drugs, and Reginald's abuse (The Mausoleum). One mention of insanity (klaus being worried his powers might drive vanya insane).

A/N: This is my first tua oneshot! I've been working on it since Friday because... well... the idea wouldn't leave me alone until I got it out in a fic. I actually did it instead of finally finishing s2, so... it might be a bit ooc? But I hope you like it! Title from "S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W by MCR. Based on the second addition of this post of mine. <3

---

Well, Klaus thought, isn’t this just swell?

“Swell” was probably, by far, one of the most inaccurate ways to describe this debacle that he could come up with. Just earlier that afternoon - Oh, what a nice afternoon it had been! - he and his siblings were dealing with some threat. Maybe it was more nefariousness from the Commission, maybe they were preventing the apocalypse of the week. Who knew? Who kept track, anyway, of the fires they’d been putting out?

(Well, Five probably did. But that wasn’t the point.)

But it just so happened that this fire they’d been putting out had been able to best them and scatter them across the city. What’s more, this fire wasn’t an ordinary fire, but one like themselves, or that chameleon-esque one from the 60s. Maybe that fire had intended to erase or absorb their powers, and the act had been botched, or this was their intent all along. It didn’t matter, really; all that mattered was that this fire managed to give his and his siblings’ powers a whole switcheroo before scattering them.

(Alright, metaphors aside, it wasn’t a fire. It was a villain.)

Klaus’ only reassurance that their powers hadn’t been erased entirely (or taken by the villain for themself) was that, after they’d sent a blast out at him and all of his siblings, leaving the six positively reeling, Klaus had seen a very confused Luther start “blipping” everywhere, ala Five’s teleportation, before they’d all been scattered. Oddly enough, he’d been grateful for seeing that; if Luther had Five’s powers, it stood to reason that each of them had the power of another sibling instead of their own… right?

Well, it was what Klaus was going with.

But when he came to without any of his siblings around, a clue where they were, or that power-swapper in sight, he decided against trying to figure out which of their powers had been thrown at him. He may not have been the smartest of the bunch (that was either Five or Allison, really. Probably Allison. Yeah, it was Allison.), but even he knew it would have probably been a bad idea to see if he could control things’ directions like Diego, or rumor things into existence (or nonexistence) like Allison, or make use of Luther’s super strength.

And he could only imagine the catastrophe that might come about if he tried to use Vanya’s powers. The only one who knew how to best handle them was Vanya herself. And even she wasn’t exactly well-acquainted with them!

No, no, no. The best plan - if he could call whatever the fuck he was improvising a plan, which just didn’t seem like the right thing to do - was to find the others, figure out who had whose powers, and realize which one he had through process of elimination.

Speaking of elimination, as Klaus searched through the streets for where the other five ended up, he’d at least been content with the power-swapping ensuring that he wasn’t hounded by the dead as he attempted to round up his siblings. Silence from the ghosts was a pleasantry he’d never quite been used to, especially silence that hadn’t come along with either being as high as a kite or drunk as a skunk. At least, it made it easier to look for the others.

“Allison!” he called out as he walked the streets, “Vanya! Diego!”

Of course, sober or not, he still drew stares from passers by as he called their names. That was fine. He just had to find them as soon as he could. They couldn’t have been far!

(Well, they very well could have, but right now, Klaus took quite a liking to trying to reassure himself through falsehoods so he didn’t panic. It was fun.)

After an hour or two of searching fruitlessly for his brothers and sisters, he eventually turned into a lesser-populated street of town - a street which harbored a cemetery.

He winced at the sight of the large plot. He always hated going into graveyards; they only bombarded him with ghosts (which he’d never forgotten Reginald taking advantage of with that fucking mausoleum). Of course, the dead couldn’t do much to him now, since he’d been stripped (or relieved?) of his usual powers that afternoon, but that didn’t stop him from grimacing.

But his grimace fell when he saw someone in a patch of trees far off on the opposite side of the property from where he’d stood outside it’s gates.

“Oh no,” he mumbled to himself as he shook his head, “Oh, no, no, nononono-”

He wished he was mistaken in thinking he recognized that quivering little frame, curled up against a tree with her forehead against her knees as she kept them close to her chest; he wished he didn’t recognize her all-black outfit from earlier, or her brown hair which she’d had her hands dug into as she covered her ears.

He’d recognized that posture all too well. Not from her, but from himself; from his days locked in the dark of that mausoleum, trying to cover his ears to block everything out and make himself small, because he felt small - and he was, he was just a kid - and curling into a ball because he’d had no one there to hold him but himself.

It was Vanya.

Vanya had his powers.

...And she got dropped in a fucking cemetery.

“Oh, fuck!”

Klaus half-ran, half-stumbled into the graveyard. Thankfully, it was nearly empty, and the few people there paid no attention when he ran across the yard, dodging and hurdling over headstones when he’d needed to. He’d dodged them on instinct and reflex alone, because all he could think about was that scared little ball up against that tree. He didn’t try to call to her; not only was he almost out of breath, but he feared that trying to call her name while she didn’t see him would just add to the bombardment of voices that no doubt rang out in her head.

As he got closer, the sight just became more and more heartbreaking, but it was at its worst when he’d gotten right in front of her, and he could hear her sobs.

“Go away.” she pleaded, a little muffled with how her head had been ducked behind her knees, “Please, please just go away.”

Klaus knew she wasn’t talking to him, but the ghosts. She wasn’t even aware of his presence yet. And he couldn’t let that stand, so he dropped to his knees and put his hand on her arm.

“Vanya-”

“NO!” she jerked away from his hand with a sob. He didn’t blame her - he would have done the same, after being left alone with the ghosts for…

...Oh, fuck, it had been hours since they’d been scattered. Hours since she’d ended up here. In a cemetery. With overwhelming powers of seeing the dead. Alone.

“Vanya!” he said louder, trying to speak over the ghosts if he could have. Gently, instead of putting a hand on her arm again, he placed both his hands on her shoulders.

Finally, her head snapped up, and when he saw those big brown eyes shine with tears that hadn’t already joined the others that streamed down her face, it took all Klaus had in him not to start crying too. Instead, he just put his hands over hers. It wouldn’t do much to actually deafen the ghosts, but he hoped it at least gave her some comfort.

“It’s me, Vanny.” he said, hoping she’d hear it, or at least know what he was saying, “It’s just me.”

Her lips, which had been relaxed as they trembled from shock, contorted into a grimace.

She hugged Klaus so tightly that it almost winded him. Even with her powers being as incredible as they were, he always got surprised at how much physical force could be inside one little violinist. Still, he hugged her back, tight enough to reassure her while not making her feel restrained. No one really hugged him when the ghosts got too strong before, but if they did, this was how he would have liked it.

Klaus could feel Vanya grab fistfuls of the back of his shirt and hold them in what he aptly assumed was a white-knuckled grip. That was alright, he was just glad she hadn’t scratched him in the process.

“There’s-” she started, her head nestled against the crook of his shoulder, her voice shaking, so little, “There’s - there’s so many of them-”

Even though she couldn’t really see it, he tried to smile reassuringly.

“Ohhh,” He tried to make his voice as reassuring as the smile she couldn’t see. “Don’t pay any mind to those silly gooses, Vanny. All their snarling and shrieking’s just for show.”

Klaus could hear her sniffle against his shoulder.

“...Geese.”

Klaus twisted his neck a little to look at what was visible of Vanya’s face, “Hm?”

Vanya picked her head up a bit.

“Not gooses.” she said, her voice strained and her eyes red, both obvious byproducts of crying as she was bombarded by the spirits of the dead in a cemetery for hours, “Geese.”

Klaus rolled his eyes in mock exasperation. Of course, of all the things that helped ground her, it was correcting his grammar. Still, he took what he could get.

“Oh, so you write one bestseller, and now you know everything about grammar, don’cha?” he said, smiling and giggling when he’d finished so she’d hopefully know he’d been trying to be lighthearted.

Apparently, it worked, because a smile twitched at the corners of her lips, and she laughed a hoarse little laugh…

...until her little smile fell, and that laugh turned into more shaking breaths again, getting deeper and deeper until she gasped with every breath.

Oh, no.

Of course, it hadn’t grounded or distracted her for long; she hugged him tighter and nestled her head against his shoulder again. But this time, she screamed against his shoulder, a sound that wasn’t made one bit less heart-shattering by being muffled. As he tried to stop his own lips from trembling and his own eyes from watering, he just hugged her tighter.

“Shhhh, it’s okay, Vanny, it’s okay.” he said, his shushing more to sooth her than to actually make her be quiet, which he knew wouldn’t work the moment she shrieked again, “You’re okay. Just focus on this. Just on me.”

“I can’t.” she choked out, “I can’t - I can’t do it - I can’t-”

As hysteric as she was… Klaus knew she was right; she couldn’t withstand this. Not for much longer. Even after almost thirty years with the ghosts, he still had a hard time keeping them at bay. For years, he couldn’t. That’s why he’d started the drugs. But even his experience with the ghosts all his life, as nightmarish as it had been, was nowhere near as bad as what had been thrust upon Vanya. He, at least, had ways to withstand it, or keep it drowned out. Vanya didn’t have that.

And it was killing her.

It was killing his baby sister.

Maybe it wasn’t killing her, but without a way to quiet it, or keep it at bay, Klaus didn’t have any doubt that… that it could drive her mad. He feared it for himself, some days in his childhood, but that fear became so much more real - and so much worse - as his sister shook in his arms.

“Klaus. Please. Help me.”

But he didn’t know how.

She was in too much hysterics to walk out of here, and he wasn’t strong enough to carry her. He didn’t have any drugs on him either - even if he did, he was not going to give them to Vanya; there was no way in hell he was going to fuck her up like that. She didn’t have any of the mood regulators she used to take, either, which might have dampened the ghost-seeing powers just like they did her moon-blow-uppy powers before.

He didn’t know what to do. His little sister was in pain and terrified and he didn’t know how to make it go away.

...He had an idea.

There was one thing he could try - something he’d wished and asked fruitlessly for often when he was little. He didn’t know if it would work, but he didn’t know for sure that it wouldn’t work, either. If it could help Vanya, it was worth a shot.

“Vanny, I have an idea,” he pulled his arms away, “But you have to trust me, okay?’

He felt her head move in a frantic nod.

“I do, I do, I do, just - just do something -”

He put his hands on her arms and gently pulled them away and pushed her back a bit so she was right in front of him, and he could look into her eyes. He didn’t know if eye contact was necessary for this, but why risk messing it up if it was?

He took a deep breath and said something he wished countless times to hear as a child; something he’d probably look really, really stupid for saying if this didn’t work, and he didn’t get the power that he really, really hoped he did.

“I heard a rumor that the ghosts went away.”

…Vanya’s eyes clouded over.

Klaus didn’t think he’d ever felt so relieved in his life. Not even after he’d been brought out of the mausoleum, or when he’d needed anaesthetics to wire his jaw shut after he fell down the stairs, and he realized that drugs shut the ghosts up. No, this was more of a relief than all of that, guaranteed.

After a few seconds, Vanya’s eyes cleared up, going from milky white back to their normal brown. Immediately, she closed them as she brought her hands to the sides of her head, her little frame sagging with fatigue.

“Did it work?” he asked with a tilt of his head. Letting out a deep breath, she nodded.

“Thank you…” she mumbled, exhaustion evident in her voice as she opened her eyes, though her eyelids were heavy.

Klaus smiled again.

“Pure luck, Vanny.” he said, “That’s all that was.”

“Mhm…” she nodded a little, sleepy nod before her eyes fell shut and her head lolled to the side…

And the rest of her body followed.

Though she was still kneeling, and it wouldn’t have hurt much if she hit the ground, Klaus still caught her as she fell unconscious, keeping her back and neck supported as best he could as he gently laid her on the ground next to the tree she’d been curled up against. Of course she collapsed; he knew how exhausting this must have been for her.

So, Vanya has my powers, I have Allison’s, and…

Klaus thought back to earlier, when he’d seen Luther frantically blipping around.

...Luther has Five’s. Great.

Well, it wasn’t like he could go searching for the others and figure out where the other three powers ended up. Vanya, laying flat on her back in the shade, was already dead to the world, and would probably be for a while yet, and Klaus would never just leave her here. Also, since he didn’t exactly have Luther-like super strength (or, depending on who got it in the switch… Allison-like? Diego-like? Five-like? Oh, now that would be rich.), or as much upper body strength as he’d like, he couldn’t carry her out.

No… the best thing to do was wait here. Whether he was waiting for one of the others to find him, or for Vanya to wake up, or for someone to kick the both of them out when the graveyard closed, he wasn’t sure. But he knew he’d wait right there for one of those things… preferably any but the latter.

Resigned and relieved, he moved over to sit up against the tree, next to his sleeping sister. With his back against the bark, he let his head loll back. Until now, he hadn’t realized how exhausted he’d been in all of this, after walking the streets for hours, running to poor Vanya, and finding her as he did…

It had been a full afternoon, and he decided resting his eyes for a bit wouldn’t hurt.

---

Klaus was lured back into the realm of the conscious by the sound of voices.

“There they are!” he’d heard.

No, not the voices of the dead he usually heard. Those would be with Vanya when (if at all) that rumor wore off (and honestly, he hoped it wouldn’t).

No, it was the voices of his siblings.

“Klaus!” he heard Five’s ever-snippety tone.

“Vanya!” he heard the worry in Allison’s voice.

He opened his eyes to see the rest of his siblings coming towards them; Allison and Five, who he heard moments before, as well as Diego and Luther. He let out a sigh. Thank fuck. He’d been worried that he might get kicked out first, as that would’ve been his luck.

It didn’t take long for them to make their way over to them.

“What happened-” Luther started, a little loud due to his concern. So it didn’t wake Vanya (or disturb nearby mourners), Klaus brought a finger to his lips and shushed him.

He pointed down to Vanya, still sleeping at his side, and put up his hands - and their ouija board-esque tattoos - in a flourish, a clear gesture saying that Vanya had his powers.

They all got it immediately.

“What about you guys?” he whispered.

“Well,” Allison started, still glancing at Vanya. “After I tried seeing if I could control where things I threw went, I figured out I had Diego’s powers.”

She nodded to Diego as he stood behind her, looking over her shoulder to stare down at Vanya with a troubled gaze, which almost looked… restrained, as if he was trying to keep his emotions at bay.

“I landed by a lake, so it was easy to find out with skipping stones.” she explained. Of course, leave it to Allison to find the most practical way to deduct which power she’d gotten.

(It must have been fun holding the family’s brain cell.)

“And after a few broken streetlamps,” Five announced, hands in his pockets, “Figured it would be best if Diego here kept a cool head for a while.”

So, he’s got Vanya’s powers. Klaus figured out. Makes sense.

It didn’t, but none of this did. Nothing in their lives ever did.

“And it took a bit to find Luther when he kept blipping across the street every time he sneezed.” Allison said, eyeing a very sheepish Luther behind her.

“Sorry.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

“That means…” Five trailed off.

Klaus nodded.

“I’m all…” he brought up his hands and wiggled his fingers, “rumory.”

Allison looked between him and Vanya. “Did you use it?”

Klaus nodded again.

“Just to get the ghosts off her back.” he assured, looking down at his sister, “Ohhh, they just terrified poor Vanny. She was crying her eyes out when I found her.”

He looked back up at them.

“She alright now?” Diego asked. Either he was doing a terrible job at keeping his worry for Vanya out of his voice, or he wasn’t trying at all.

“Oh, yeah, yeah, she’s fine.” He waved his hand as nonchalantly as he could manage, as if it didn’t feel weird to talk about how “fine” his sister was after he found her crying her eyes out. “She’s just… out. She ended up passing out all on her own.” He shrugged and shook his head. “Wasn’t me, or the rumor. She was just tuckered out, poor thing.”

Five walked forward until he was right in front of Vanya, crouched down, put one arm under her back and one under her legs, and - much to Klaus’ surprise - lifted her with no trouble. Klaus’ eyes widened at the sight, and his eyebrows raised.

“Super strength.” he said, completely and utterly matter of fact.

Oh. Klaus held back a grin and stifled a giggle. Of course.

“Which means,” he grit his teeth, “it won’t be hard to throw one of these headstones at you if you let out that laugh you’re doing a shit job at holding back.”

Keeping a poker face, Klaus put up a thumbs-up.

“Come on.” Five turned around, “Let’s figure this out.”

Five started to lead the pack of power-mismatched siblings out of the cemetery, and even though he wasn’t sure where they were going, Klaus followed where Five was leading. That always took him and his siblings to the most lovely destinations, didn’t it?

He ended up falling in stride with Allison, who kept looking at the ground.

“So…” she lifted her head back up and looked at him, “You used a rumor on her?”

Even though she’d already asked that, Klaus nodded.

“If there’s one thing I know, Allie,” he started, “it’s how bad the ghosts are. Especially somewhere like…”

He gestured around them.

“...this. I felt pretty out of options, really. I didn’t even know I had it. Pure luck - that’s what we usually run on, right? Luck, I think, is the lifeblood of the Hargreeves.”

“You sure it’s not things going wrong?” she asked. Klaus shrugged.

“Hey,” he said, “the family can have two lifebloods.”

Allison seemed to agree. “God knows we need it.’

After another moment or so of walking, she laughed a little laugh - not really a laugh, but close enough to one that any other word would have been too inaccurate.

“I remember…” She let her gaze fall to the ground. “When we were kids, you’d always ask me to use it. All the time. When we’d come back from missions, when you’d have nightmares, when Dad let you out of…”

She didn’t finish that thought. Instead, she shook her head.

“...and I never did. I wanted to, but-”

“Alliiie, you don’t have to explain yourself.” He waved it off with a shrug, “I get it! Dear ol’ Dad would’ve lost his marbles. I never held that against you, and neither-” he put his hand on her shoulder, “should you.”

Allison nodded before she said…

“It might not wear off.”

Klaus gasped, putting a hand over his mouth.

“Oh, nooo! That's... the opposite of a problem!”

Allison rolled her eyes.

“Klaus...”

“Come ooon.” he said, “Seeing ghosts all the time is, surprisingly enough, not all it’s cracked up to be. Kinda spooky, actually.”

“I'm just saying,” she said, a little exasperated by her brother’s sarcasm, “It might be permanent. Even when we do get our powers switched back. Sometimes… rumors stick around for a while.”

“Well…” he winced, “I guess we’ll just burn that bridge when we get to it.”

“You mean cross that bridge?”

At that exact moment, they both heard a loud sneeze and whipped their heads forward at Luther - or at least, where he was. Much to the other four’s exasperation (Vanya didn’t respond, as she was still asleep), he’d blipped across the graveyard.

“...Nope.”

#the umbrella academy #umbrella academy #mine #tua #tua fanfic #klaus hargreeves #vanya hargreeves #my writing #allison hargreeves #luther hargreeves #diego hargreeves #five hargreeves

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wonderlustlucas · 4 years ago

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jack pot ; part 1 - hwang hyunjin

⇢ prompt You know it’s bad when you’re high as a kite and he’s still on your mind. ⇢ pairing hwang hyunjin x female reader, seo changbin x female reader for like 2 minutes ⇢ word count 7.5k ⇢ genre fluff, angst (not heavy, just in a slow burn kind of way), slight smut ⇢ warnings drug use!!! & lots of it (marijuana), grinding, implied smut ⇢ summary College is a matter of working hard and playing hard. It’s an opportunity to start fresh, to grow as an individual and to blossom with those you befriend. People come and people go, leaving their mark on your life and showing you all the parts of becoming an adult. Some, however, do more than leave their mark. Some take just as much as they give. Things become complicated once they take the entirety of your love because you outright offered it to them.—college!au ; stoner!au ; friends to lovers!au ⇢ a/n yo!!! disclaimer: this initially was going to just be a long one shot but i decided to split it up into 3 parts, so just to let u all know part 1 & 2 does not have a ton of hyunjin interaction, they’re more character/plot building. part 3 is when things will get spicy ♥︎ i hope u enjoy! if u rb make sure to let me know what u thought in the tags mwah also i finally switched from ___ to yn are u guys proud of me :)

prelude.

Sometimes you really, truly, honestly think you could go right ahead and kill Han Jisung.

You say it all the time. Sometimes it’s a simple, “I will literally kill you,” or when you are feeling extra spicy, “Sleep with one eye open tonight.” He, of course, laughs it off like you aren’t vibrating with the urge to kick his kneecaps in. You seriously have lost count of all the times he has brought you to the brink of insanity.

And honestly, you have watched enough murder documentaries on Netflix that you probably could do it, but, you know, spending the rest of your life in prison does not sound that appealing. Plus, there’s the ever-troubling detail that Han Jisung is the closest thing you have to a best friend. So, it sort of goes against your basic human morals to backstab—literally—the most important human in your life.

But he really makes you crazy. Why you agreed to share an apartment with him in the first place is a mystery, but the fact that you leased it again for junior year is what really makes you lose sleep at night. Because, while he may be your best friend, Jisung is the epitome of a little shit. If such a compound word was in the dictionary, it simply would say ‘Han Jisung.’ Somehow, though, it makes you love him even more. Maybe it’s true that ‘opposites attract,’ or, perhaps, maybe it’s because no matter how much embarrassment and general self-loathing he may have caused you in the past, it has benefitted you in the end.

For example, his constant teasing about your lack of friends eventually led to you befriending a group of girls you always admired from afar. His snarky comments concerning your nonexistent social life finally got to you and now you can proudly wear the title of one of the best beer pong players in your class. His presence in general has taught you to stand up for yourself and what you believe in, whether it’s against him, your parents, a toxic friend, hell, even a professor. Proving people wrong, especially Jisung, is your favorite pastime.

Sometimes, though, it’s not that easy.

There’s one area in your life where you have accepted defeat. One area in your life where Jisung has his most fun. One area, or, perhaps one person, where you simply cannot step beyond your comfort zone.

Hwang Hyunjin is your Achilles tendon and Jisung is the arrow. There are times, along with all the times you’ve considered strangling Jisung in his sleep, where you have sat and actually prayed to the gods to send someone else. Someone not nearly as perfect as Hyunjin and someone not nearly as unattainable. Alas, these prayers, hook-ups, Tinder dates, anything to get him off your mind has proved futile; because here you are three years later, stuck with this stupid, absolutely infuriating crush on the only boy who has ever owned your heart because you outright gave it to him.

one.

You are beginning to think the two bubbly junior girls who led the campus tour you attended last year lied about the dining hall.

Correction: they one hundred percent lied.

Because even though the newly renovated food court looks nice—unscratched linoleum floors, shiny marble countertops and all sorts of seating to choose from—there must be something fishy going on with the cooks. Literally. Just last week, an upperclassman had a breakdown when she forked into her tuna (why anyone would want college seafood is another story) to find a worm right there in the middle of it. You have found little shards of glass in the yogurt and bugs even at You-Cook, but that’s all a part of the college experience, right?

“Are you sure there’s no spiders or anything? Did you check?” Beside you, Maddie watches with furrowed brows as you spoon a hefty serving of scrambled eggs onto your plate. Chuckling, you move down to grab a few sausages and a chocolate chip muffin before they are gone for the rest of the day; Lord knows, you are only a month in and carbohydrates have quickly become your emotional support, just like everyone else. “Yes, I checked,” you assure her, hiding a laugh with your hand as she leans over to further scrutinize the eggs, “I didn’t see any arachnids.”

“Good,” she hums, satisfied with your answer, “can you grab a banana muffin for me? They’re usually at the bottom.”

Nodding, you turn back to the blessed muffin basket, pushing away blueberry, corn, double chocolate, all because Maddie has to be different and go for the macadamia nut banana.

“Are those the dinosaur socks they were selling on move-in day?” In front of you, someone asks, and your first instinct is to look down at your feet just to confirm. 8:30 calculus simply turns your brain to mush and remembering how you dressed for the day is near impossible. “Yes!” Laughing, you lift your leg to get a closer look at the cute green t-rexes on skates. “I was sold once I heard they were a dollar.”

Tearing your gaze away from said socks, you look up and suddenly feel as if you have bumped into an angel. Maybe there were spiders in the eggs, deadly poisonous spiders that crawled up the spoon while you weren’t paying attention and bit your hand and now you are dead and this is the angel leading you to the heavens. That, or this simply is the most beautiful human you have ever seen up close and your brain does not know how to process it. Well, maybe that’s a little extreme, but you definitely have never been so starstruck in your life.

The boy in front of you says something but you don’t hear it, senses and thoughts momentarily Off™ as you gawk at him. Aside from the deep undereye bags you all have claimed the past few weeks, this stranger is as close to perfect as you can get. Sure, Seungmin and his roommates are pretty cute—but what the fuck?

Something tells you that you have been silently staring at him, wide-eyed and mouth hanging open for far too long when his brows raise in a mix of confusion and expectation. Shit. What did he say? Synapses suddenly shooting like fireworks in your brain, you desperately try to remember his reply but instead, all you had focused on was the plumpness of his lips as he spoke and not the words themselves.

Clearing your throat, you blink once, twice, hoping you were hallucinating the whole time and the boy in front of you is not Hercules incarnate.

Lucky for you or him, you can’t tell, but he is still as attractive as he was two seconds ago. “Sorry, what?” You blurt, loud, too loud, flinching at the sound of your own voice. Instead of recognizing that you are totally off your rocker, he smiles, a soft, toothy smile that has your muscles turning to goo.

“I said I bought them, too,” cutest-boy-in-the-universe repeats, looking down and you follow his gaze, “my roommates were making fun of me, so I’m glad I finally found someone who bought them.” Alas, as he tugs at the fabric of his jeans to slightly lift the cuff you see that he, too, wears the same socks. You think you’re in love.

“Well, your roommates clearly have no taste,” you deadpan, shakily meeting his eyes once he looks back up. He laughs softly, eyes scrunching at the action and you positively swoon until silence settles over you and he takes the opportunity to regard you, gaze sweeping down your frame and up again. You hold your breath because, 1) holy shit, you would get on your knees for him right now and 2) you suddenly wish you were wearing more than the ‘just-woke-up-to-get-pegged-by-calc’ fit.

“I’m Hyunjin,” he finally says and you release all the air trapped in your lungs. “YN,” you return, grasping his outreached hand and thanking the heavens it is as sweaty as yours. “Well, it was nice to meet you, YN,” Hyunjin proceeds, releasing your hand and offering a gentle smile.

“You too, Mr. Sock Man,” you grin, rocking on your heels and realizing with a pang of disappointment that your breakfast has probably gone cold. Well, that’s okay, because right now you are totally content standing here in the middle of the dining hall, silently staring at this Hyunjin with a stupid smile plastered on your face. And the best part? He apparently is just fine doing that, too.

“YN!” Somewhere behind you, Maddie calls your name and it thrusts you head-first back into reality. “Did you find a banana muffin? I can’t find— oh. Who’s this?” Appearing beside you, visibly shocked having found you in a staring contest with a very tall, very cute boy. “Oh, uh,” you huff out a laugh, scrambling to get yourself together, “Hyunjin, this is Maddie, my roommate. Maddie, this is Hyunjin. We have the same socks.”

Brows shooting up at the puzzling introduction, Maddie bites back a laugh and looks back and forth between you and Hyunjin. “Well, you don’t hear that every day,” smiling to hide her confusion, she offers him a small wave with her hand full of muffin packs, “nice to meet you.”

Hyunjin smiles in return, gaze quickly returning to you. “I’ll be off, then. Gotta get the waffles while they’re still warm. I’ll see you around.”

And before you know it, he’s off toward the other end of the breakfast counter.

“Um, what the fuck?” Maddie whispers excitedly as you make your way toward your usual table, elbow repeatedly jabbing into your side. “I have no idea what just happened. I think I’m dreaming,” you sigh blissfully, relieved to find that Jisung and Seungmin were able to claim your favorite booth. “No, definitely not dreaming. He’s totally into you. You have to hang out.”

“What?” You sputter, nearly tripping over your own two feet. Then, lowering your voice as you near the two boys, “I – no, he isn’t. How can you tell? That was like, the cutest guy I’ve ever talked to, and you think he’s into me?”

“Who’s the cutest guy ever?” Jisung pipes up, eyes lighting up and you curse him and his fucking bat hearing.

“No one,” you grumble, smiling softly at Seungmin when he gets up so you don’t have to sit on the end, leaving Maddie to sit next to the other one. “Is it me?” Jisung grins with a flutter of his eyelashes. He’s convinced the only reason you dislike him is because you’ve actually fallen in love with him, but that’s far from the truth. You don’t even dislike him—he’s just one of the first guys you’ve met who meets your sarcasm with as much ferocity, and that is a hard pill to swallow.

“In your dreams, Han,” you sneer, gracing him with a dramatic eye roll before tearing open the bag of your muffin. Comfortable conversation quickly falls into place as you eat, complaints about your classes, Seungmin trying to convince you to join them at the first party they will be attending while Jisung mocks you for wanting to stay home, Maddie asking where Felix is and Seungmin explaining that he got so high last night he ended up staying up past four playing Overwatch and is currently sleeping past all his classes.

Then, in the midst of guzzling your apple juice, Jisung leans out of his seat to call down the aisle. “Hwang! Come pull a chair over!”

Curiosity peaked, you wipe your mouth with the back of your hand and crane your neck to see over Seungmin’s fat head for who this ‘Hwang’ could be until, like the universe is really trying to kill you, the Hyunjin you met not even ten minutes ago has reached your table. “Hey,” he grins brightly, dabbing up the two boys before he glances to you, mouth promptly falling open. Certain you mirror the same expression, you struggle to find your words as Jisung and Seungmin look between you in shared confusion. “First we share socks, now it’s these dumpheads?”

Ignoring the way they scowl, Hyunjin giggles shamelessly and grabs a chair from an adjacent table to sit at the head of your booth. “It would seem that way.”

“Woah, woah, woah. Slow down. You guys know each other?” Jisung scoffs in disbelief, pointedly looking at you as if you’ve gone and disproved everything he pegged of you. “We just met,” Hyunjin replies with a shy smile, sparing you a quick glance before cutting into his waffle. Jisung looks to you and you offer an affirmative nod.

“And how are you guys friends?” Maddie asks, sensing your panic. “He’s Changbin and Minho’s roommate,” Seungmin answers.

You choke on a mouthful of juice.

“Christ, you good?” Seungmin snickers, offering a few slaps to your back. With a muffled yes, you look to Hyunjin with pleading eyes. “Please don’t tell them I said they have no taste.”

He laughs, arching a brow at you. “No way. They’ll get a kick out of that.”

“Oh, Christ,” faking a cry, you bury your face into your palms, “so much for making friends.”

“It’s okay, YN,” Jisung soothes with faux sympathy, “no one wants to be your friend anyway.”

Scoffing, the table quickly falls silent when you look up with rage in your eyes. “I bet when someone asks your parents about you, they change the subject,” you spit, shooting daggers at him before stabbing your fork into an innocent chunk of egg. To your utmost surprise but total delight, the other three burst into a fit of laughter, leaving you smirking smugly and Jisung sulking.

“Anyway,” Maddie promptly changes the subject back to her chemistry professor who has started every class playing Britney Spears. Tucked away in your corner finishing the last of your sausage and stifling the urge to get up for more, it isn’t until Hyunjin begins to speak do you realize that you have been quietly watching him the entire time. You would blame the soft morning sunshine shining through the windows and illuminating the right side of his face for making him look so ethereal, but you know that isn’t the case; from short, messy black hair, silver hoop earrings, thick, defined brows, the soft curves of his nose and the pouty fullness of his lips, you are totally, completely mesmerized.

And then, the sole of a sneaker is slammed right into your shin. “OW!” You yelp, loud, and for a moment you forget the pain in favor of the embarrassment that comes with the number of heads that turn to look at you. “Sorry. Bit my tongue,” you lie, earning an unconvinced look from Maddie. “Go on,” you nod toward Hyunjin to continue whatever he was saying before directing a furious glare to Jisung, who fails to hide his triumphant smirk as he enthusiastically types on his phone.

Just as you have bent down to rub at your throbbing leg, your phone vibrates twice against the table.

han jisung [now] stop staring, ur lucky hwang is as dense as a rock or he would have left a long time ago bc of you

han jisung [now] so THAT’S the ‘cutest guy ever’ huh? so ur straight after all

Squeezing your hands into fists, you prepare to fire back a reply that will have him crying. But he has different plans.

“Oh, Hyunjin, did YN tell you she’s a dancer, too?” He exaggerates your previous mention of dancing and has the audacity to wink at you. Thanks, Mr. Match Maker.

“Really?” Hyunjin gasps excitedly, eyes lighting up and totally missing the flabbergasted what? that sputters from your lips.

“I – well, no,” you hiss, scowling at Jisung, “I used to do ballet when I was younger but that’s it. Why, though? Do you dance?”

“He’s here on a scholarship,” Seungmin explains, “and minors in creative writing.”

“Oh,” you squeak, glancing to Hyunjin who is all but smiling like a cherub, completely oblivious, “that’s amazing. You must have a crazy schedule.” Chewing the last of his waffle, he hums in agreement. “Yeah, it gets really stressful at times. But it’s worth it,” Hyunjin chuckles. Then fucking winks.

Unable to hold his gaze, you whip your head back around in a panic and reach for the mere sip left of your juice. “Speaking of crazy schedules,” he hums, slapping both Jisung and Seungmin on the shoulders, “I must head out. This was fun. I may start crashing the party more now.” Rising from his seat, Hyunjin swings his bag over a shoulder and grins brightly. Realizing it would be rude to not say goodbye, you force yourself to look back to him and offer a feeble wave.

“And YN, don’t bite your tongue when you eat, yeah?”

You’re going to pass out.

two.

Felix likes to think of you as his corrupted child when it comes to smoking weed.

A few weeks before you would all be returning home for winter break, he came knocking on your door with a proposition. “No one wants to smoke with me. Do you want to?”

This, for sure, was not what you were expecting on a cold Tuesday night in December. Despite the general curiosity and always wanting to ‘try it’ simply to feel like a teenager breaking the rules, you told him you never smoked before. “I know,” he said with a smile, “that’s why I’m asking.”

So, you agreed. Reaching for your hand, Felix snuck you out the window and led you halfway across campus to the junior parking lot, giving you ample opportunities to back out when he felt how badly you were shaking. “Whose car is this?” You laughed in disbelief when he unlocked a beaten-up Nissan near the outskirts of the lot.

“Kim Woojin. The junior?” He replied once you settled in the passenger seat next to him. “Oh.” You blinked, confused. “He lets you smoke in his car?”

“He gets me weed, too,” Felix giggled, reaching into the pockets of his sweatshirt and coming out with two tightly wrapped blunts, each about two inches long, “I’ll turn the heat on a little so we don’t freeze but we have to keep the windows open. I’m not going to have you hotbox for your first time.” You had no idea what that meant, but you agreed nonetheless.

With a brief lesson on what to do that truly made no sense until you tried it for yourself, Felix lit the blunt, took a few small hits to get it started, and then passed it to you. Holding it gingerly between your thumb and index finger, you brought the unlit end to your lips and sucked as he instructed ‘like a straw,’ breathing it into your lungs and ignoring the faint taste of smoke. Unsure of when to stop, it wasn’t until your throat felt as if it was on fire did you realize just how much you had inhaled.

“Shit,” you wheezed, coughing and choking and watching with wide eyes at the amount of cloudy white smoke that left your mouth and nostrils. Passing it back to Felix, you scrambled for the cold water bottle he brought along, downing half of it in one go to soothe the burn. “Good?” He asked, blowing out the window and turning back to you with eyes full of concern.

“Yeah,” you huffed, “give me a few, though.”

Humming in agreement, Felix connected his phone to the car’s Bluetooth and began playing what he calls his ‘getting high playlist,’ and before long, you fell in love with the feeling.

When break was over, you were dying to try it again. Felix was more than happy to be of service.

For all of March, it turned into a daily thing.

Now, you try to smoke only once a week for the sake of not dying, or something.

australian felix kjellberg❤️ [now] come hang at 201?

When the text notification pops up in the corner of your laptop screen amid your YouTube binge, your bones jitter with a mix of dread and excitement.

Dread, because that’s Hyunjin’s room. Excitement, because that’s Hyunjin’s room.

Maddie must hear your sigh. “What’s wrong?” She asks from her cozied position in bed, hand deep in a bag of popcorn.

“It’s Felix,” you start, “but he said to go to Hyunjin’s room.”

She blinks, unfazed. “And? I don’t see the problem here.”

“Well, I don’t know,” you count on your fingers, “first, I don’t know how to act around Hyunjin sober. Second, I don’t know how to act around Hyunjin high. Third, I am very touchy when high. Fourth, Hyunjin is always touchy.”

Maddie scoffs. “That’s a pretty lame argument, YN,” she laughs, “isn’t that what you want to happen?”

“Well,” she’s got a point, “yes, but it still makes me nervous. He makes me nervous.” Closing your laptop, you shimmy out of bed and debate changing out of your cotton shorts and tee shirt. Nah. You’ll probably end up going back to Felix’s and sleeping there. You put a sports bra and deodorant on and call it a day.

Maddie finds this hilarious. “You know what should make you nervous? The fact that you’re usually the only girl getting high with, what? Six guys? You know they all want to fuck you.”

“I try not to think about that, actually,” cringing, you try to erase Felix’s voice when he’s high as a kite or Changbin’s arms from your mind, “and you don’t know that. Sometimes Ryujin and Lia are there. Or, you know, you could always come. You don’t have to smoke, just come hang out. I know you want to give Minho a fat smooch.”

Her nose wrinkles in disgust. “I love you, and I appreciate the invite, but I don’t feel like babysitting a bunch of stoners, even if Minho is there.”

Laughing, all you can offer her is a shrug. “I don’t blame you,” grabbing your phone, wallet, and charger, you make your way over to her and bend over to press a goodnight kiss to her forehead, “if you need me, don’t. I’ll probably be dead.”

“Oh Lord,” Maddie cackles, watching you struggle to open the window, “don’t die. I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“I’ll try,” you grin, military saluting once you’ve managed to flop over the ledge. With one last wave, you close the window behind you and thank admissions for giving you a room on the first floor.

[9:34 PM] YN: omw now, gather your forces to help me in :)

Nights in 201 are always interesting. First, their room is on the second floor, so climbing through the window is an experience. Things would be a hell of a lot easier if you could just walk in and out of residence halls as you please, but with the officer at the front desk documenting who comes in and who goes out, there would be a knock at the door at midnight asking you to leave. Second: as Maddie said, 201 means the whole squad is showing up. And when the whole squad shows up, you’re bound to feel a mix of anxiety and desire deep within your bones no matter how hard set you are on Mr. Hwang. And third: you know you’re in for one fucked up night.

[9:42 PM] YN: hereee

Standing awkwardly behind their building, you try and calm the nerves that always come when you know you will be with Hyunjin. Considering how close the two of you have become over the past few months, one would think you would have gotten a grip on those pesky feelings.

Yet again, it’s kind of hard to do that when he looks and acts like that all the time.

When the window slides open, you are expecting Changbin to hang halfway out for you to grab on to with the rest of them holding onto his legs. Instead, a tall, metal ladder of sorts is pushed out until it lands with a thud! at your feet, granting you a perfect staircase into the room.

Well, you certainly don’t see that every day.

Blinking in confusion, you do not know whether to focus on the crowd of boys waving at you from above or this abomination of a stepstool that was practically thrown out a window for you. Accepting the chain of events as just another fever dream of an experience in 201, you shake your head and begin to ascend on shaky legs, graciously taking Jisung’s hand and clinging to both him and Seungmin as they help you into the room. “Thanks,” you huff, giving them both a hug in return to their chivalry. And they dare say it’s dead!

Behind you, Changbin and Hyunjin lift the ladder-stepstool mutation back into the room and it isn’t until they have folded it into a more compact piece and set it against the wall do you speak up.

“Did you… buy a ladder?”

“Yes!” Minho bellows, thrilled by your successful entrance. “Isn’t it great?” After pulling back from a hug, he keeps his hands on your shoulders just to shake you like a bobble-head.

“Yes,” you grunt once he’s released you, head swimming, “a lot easier than hauling both me and Changbin through the window, right?” Looking to said boy, you can’t help but melt into his side when he pulls you close. “No worries,” Changbin beams, rubbing your arm, “at least we have some funny memories now.” When he moves to flop onto his bed, you realize with a shudder that you are alone with Hyunjin.

Well, technically not alone since they are all right there, but alone in the sense that they are not paying attention to you nor him.

“Hey, YN. I missed you,” he singsongs, engulfing you in one of his monster bear hugs. Disregarding the heart palpitations they may cause, Hyunjin’s hugs are truly the best and you wish you would initiate them more if it didn’t seem like such a big deal in that smooth brain of yours. “I missed you, too,” you mutter into his chest, squeezing your arms around him as if to engrave this feeling into your mind forever. “We saw each other, like, five hours ago,” he reminds you, finally pulling back and taking your will to live with him. God, he has no idea.

“And? You’re the only one here who doesn’t make me suicidal,” you lie because, in reality, he actually does. Just in a different way. “Aw,” he coos, large hand squeezing your side and you think you could orgasm on command, “good thing we have tonight, then, yeah?”

“Yeah,” you squeak, finally remembering to breathe when he steps away to sit beside Seungmin on his bed. Suddenly, you are feeling incredibly grateful no one is next to Changbin because, well, 1) he is closer to Felix and 2), you need a distraction.

“Hello, Felix,” you greet the boy sunk deep in a bean bag chair, busy grinding leaves and packing them into the bowl of a bong. “How are you this fine evening, YN?” He asks once you have settled beside Changbin, brows knitting together when the older boy drapes his arm around your waist.

“Good. Tired, though. How ‘bout you?”

“You didn’t have to come if you’re tired! We all know you work your ass off, no one’s gonna judge if you chose to stay home and sleep,” Felix expresses, giving you a look that screams ‘mom.’

“No! I’m not that tired,” you assure him, reaching for his hand and squeezing for extra effect, “you know I wouldn’t miss this. You’ve made me a pothead.”

With a proud smile, he returns to his designated job and begins working on the second, smaller bong. “So,” stretching to set your things on the desk beside Changbin’s bed, you turn to him with a knowing smile, “how’s the album coming?”

“Great!” He beams, eyes lighting up at the topic. “Jisung is a great addition. Did I tell you we started meeting with someone else, too?”

“No, who?”

“He’s a sophomore, Bang Chan?” Somewhere behind you, Felix passes a bong to Jisung for the first hit. “Bang Chan? Holy shit, Binnie,” repeatedly punching his arm to express your excitement, “that’s amazing! I didn’t know he was into music production. Not that I’ve ever talked to him, but.”

“No, I get you,” he hums, giving your side a firm squeeze, “he’s really awesome making beats. I hope we’re successful.” Then, reaching past you, he takes the second bong and a lighter from Felix. When he resituates himself, he’s considerably closer than before. You don’t mind.

“Ladies first?” Changbin offers with a crooked grin, handing them to you. Then, on second thought, he holds onto the lighter to do the honors. “Sure. Thanks,” you laugh, glancing across the room to find everyone arguing over which color to set the lights to as they wait for their high. Bringing the tube to your lips, you offer a miniscule nod to him and then he is setting flame to the bowl. Sucking strong enough to generate bubbles, you unplug the bowl once he stops and breathe in as much as your lungs can handle in one go. Then, once you have exhaled, you quickly finish what’s left in the tube before passing it to Changbin with a pleased smile.

“That was a lot,” he points out once you have handed the bong back to him. “Hey, you’re the one who kept lighting it for thirty seconds. Mother would be proud,” you joke, reciprocating the same service and lighting the bowl until he glares at you beneath his bangs.

The best part about being high is the fact that you are constantly laughing. Things won’t even be that funny, but once someone starts laughing—you’re done for. You laugh so hard it hurts, and then once it’s all over, you realize it wasn’t funny at all. “Has anyone ever told you that you look like a squirrel?” Minho asks Jisung at some point. You absolutely loose it. It quite possibly is the funniest thing you have ever heard.

Pouting, Squirrel Boy leaves Minho alone on his bed to come crash beside you. “How are you, my tender oozing blossom?”

Squinting at him past the way your eyes burn, you make grabby hands and pull him close to wrap your arms around his teeny waist. Changbin grumbles in protest, but he’s too transfixed on the light’s soft in and out fade of different colors to say anything else. “Please, don’t ever call me that again,” you mumble into Jisung’s mop of brown hair.

“What?” He gasps, tilting to look up at you with puppy eyes. “You didn’t like it?”

“Nope,” smiling lazily, you rest your head atop his, “I love you, but I’m not ready for pet names yet.” His face morphs from a frown to one lit with excitement. “Holy shit, did you just say you love me? Do my eyes deceive me?”

“That would be your ‘ears,’ but yes,” you hum, brain simply not capable of denying it the way your sober self would. “More than Changbin?” Jisung whispers.

“Yes, but don’t tell him,” you return quietly, biting back a laugh.

“More than Hyunjin?” He counters. At this, you look up to find said boy sat with his legs to his chest across the room. Next to Seungmin, he looks like a giant; but a happy, pouty giant that keeps talking about how much he could go for a winter melon tea right now.

“Never.”

One and a half (half because it was just the rest of Minho’s terribly big hit that left tears streaming down his cheeks) and an unfinished game of Cards Against Humanity later, you find yourself in a blissful headspace. The song playing quietly through Felix’s speaker makes it feel like you are bouncing down stairs and then going up again, and the lights are oh so pretty, pink fading to red, yellow to green, blue to purple and so on. Things are fuzzy but crystal clear at the same time, the popcorn you’ve been shoveling into your mouth tastes heavenly, and your body feels like it is engulfed in a warm, comforting hug.

Or, that could just be Changbin.

Somewhere in between trying to get more comfortable and him yanking you to stay next to him when you attempted to get up and hug Seungmin for something sweet he said, you now find yourself on your back with a clinging Changbin on your side. You are so comfortable, but also insanely hot, and as you begin to slowly come down from your high as the hours tick by, you begin to realize it’s for another reason.

What started as an innocent hand on your side turned into his thumb rubbing meaningless patterns against your shirt, which then turned into his hand slipping beneath to splay against the warmth of your skin. Growing increasingly needy as the minutes go by, you turn to look at everyone around you. Jisung, who found himself returning to Minho, appears to be passed out with him on the far end of the room. Seungmin, curled up on the floor with a pillow and a heap of blankets. Felix, who finished off the rest of his weed, scrolls aimlessly on his phone still at the peak of his high.

And Hyunjin, who you assume has been fast asleep on his bed for a while now if the arm flung over his face tells you anything. For a moment, you feel sick with sadness. So close, but so far he lies, always a step out of reach. But you can’t deny how Changbin makes you feel—for right now, at least. And it would be a shame to miss out on an opportunity with someone else because the one you want is unattainable.

Right?

Changbin must sense the way your breathing increases, must feel the way your body reacts to the slightest of touches, yet he takes his time. He is soft in the way his hand travels up your arm, rough fingertips grazing over your collarbones before smoothing down over your chest and abdomen. It isn’t until you are about to burst at the seams does he give your ass a strong squeeze and urge your leg over his hips.

“Changbin,” you sigh, biting your lip to keep from whimpering when he begins pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses down the length of your throat. “Please touch me.”

He only makes a sound of agreement, savoring the way you squirm and grip onto his arm for dear life. When he offers an experimental roll of his hips to grind against you, you practically go feral. The last time you were touched in such a way was at a party in the beginning of the semester Jisung and co. physically forced you to go to, and Changbin has barely even touched you and it’s already better than the rushed sex you had that night.

“Wait,” he huffs, pausing his ministrations no matter how difficult it is to do so, “we can’t.”

“What?” You hiss, trying to keep your voice quiet, “why?”

“Because you’re high, and I’m high, and I’m not going to do anything unless you really want me to,” Changbin explains, pressing a gentle kiss to your lips when you frown in response. “But I do want you to,” you huff, chasing his mouth for another, “I trust you one hundred percent.”

“Are you sure, YN?” What about Hyunjin? is what he really means and you know he’s right. You should have never told Felix.

Trying to ignore the wetness of your underwear, you turn to lie on your back. “Whatever. Never mind,” you mumble, and when you glance back to him, you can’t help the way your heart soars with him still pressed closely to your side, blinking tiredly at you. But like he said, it’s not Hyunjin. “Just get some sleep, Binnie. Forget it happened,” smiling past the tears that threaten to spill, you ruffle his hair and press a softer kiss to his forehead.

“I’m sorry,” Changbin whispers, returning the affection with a kiss to your shoulder. In minutes, he is snoring softly beside you.

You can’t fall asleep to save your life.

Reaching for your phone to check the time, you grit your teeth once you realize it’s almost four and you definitely have been staring at the ceiling for more than an hour. For starters, you are freezing now; unlike these passed out hooligans, you are showing a lot more skin and not being under the blankets is not doing you well. And secondly, it’s hard to fall asleep when your thoughts are flying miles a minute.

Is this how it’s going to be, then? Whenever you see someone, will the little guy on your shoulder whisper in your ear that it’s not Hyunjin? Or will people deem you off limits because they know of your infatuation? People who know, at least—Changbin is the first, apparently.

Just need to get comfy, you decide, trying to ignore such thoughts and turning to lie on your stomach. Bless Felix for leaving the lights on, too—you may be coming down from your high, but the vibe is simply immaculate. Tucking a hand under your cheek and following the ropes of light on the ceiling and up the walls, you find this to be enough to calm your nerves. Enough to make your eyelids heavy. Finally.

Someone lets out a monster train snore. Seungmin, you think, biting your lip to keep from laughing. Or, it could be Hyunjin. The thought is so amusing you can’t help but squint at the boy across from you to better see his outline, hoping he will do it again just to confirm.

No, not Hyunjin.

Because he’s facing you, eyes open, a soft smile plastered on his face. Well, fuck.

No reason to panic, you console yourself, returning a gentle smile in the assumption he can even see you. And you stay like that for a while, simply watching one another for an infinite amount of time. It’s not much, but it means something, you think, lost in the way the contours and highlights of his face change with each color the lights fade to. Just as you remember the whole point of getting on your stomach was to fall asleep, Hyunjin moves. Reaching for his phone, you watch in confusion as he brings it close to his face and starts typing.

hwang hyunjin👁👄👁 [now] Come sleep w me?

You almost throw up in your mouth. You must be dreaming. Surely.

Blinking against the harsh light of your phone, you cannot help your smile as you reread the text.

[4:02 am] YN: wont that b a little sus for bin

[4:02 am] hwang hyunjin👁👄👁: If anyone asks just say he kept kicking u or something

You don’t need to be told twice. Now that he has turned onto his side facing the other direction, Changbin does not stir once you slowly move to sit up and stand, nor when you reach for the quilt crumbled at the foot of the bed to pull over him. It’s not much, but hopefully it will keep him from waking in a few hours freezing to death. Then, as you tiptoe your way over to Hyunjin’s bed, avoiding Felix now that he’s sprawled half way off the bean bag, you cannot tell if you are still shivering from the cold or if the fact you are going to be sleepingwith Hyunjin in one, tiny single bed is finally clicking in your brain. Like Maddie said, this is something you want, right?

As you draw closer, Hyunjin shifts to make room and lifts the covers for you to quietly slip beneath. “Thank you,” you whisper, pulling the blanket up to your chin and trying to ignore the feeling of being so close to him. “Of course. You looked real cold over there,” he smiles tiredly. Then, his arm cautiously curls around you to rest by your head, fingers swiping stray hairs away from your face.

“I was,” you admit. Eyes level to his lips, you strain to look him in the eyes to resist the temptation now that he’s pulled you so close. “Changbin fell asleep and I felt bad waking him.”

Hyunjin doesn’t reply. He seems momentarily lost in thought, brows slightly furrowed as he chews on the inside of his lip.

“Do you like him?” He finally asks, voice shaky with hesitation.

“What?” You sputter, shocked at such a presumption. Yet again…

“No, no I don’t. I mean—as a friend, yes, but, you know,” you trail off, squeezing your eyes shut. You desperately wish you were not having this conversation right now. “He was touching you, though. And it looked like you liked it,” Hyunjin whispers, thumb swiping against your cheekbone.

“I mean, well yeah, I did. But I’m not close enough to like him like that. It’s just a physical attraction,” realizing you are discussing what went down with Changbin to Hyunjin, you suddenly pull back and lean up on an elbow to get a better look at him, heat now spreading up your limbs like fire. “Were you watching us, Hwang?”

“Yes,” he admits, “it’s kind of hard not to.” Your heart stops beating.

“I – what?” You manage once you have remembered how to breathe. “I didn’t know you were awake, we wouldn’t have… what do you mean, ‘it’s kind of hard not to?’”

“You know what I mean, YN,” Hyunjin mutters, arm slipping around your waist and pulling you to lie down with him again, this time, your chest pressed to his. “I like looking at you. You’re very pretty.”

You definitely must still be high, because you are seriously having a hard time wrapping your mind around Hyunjin calling you pretty, as well as being so close, and somewhere deep in your mind wonders if he knows. If he knows how your heart is on the line here. Knows that with him moving closer, you are taking a huge risk.

When Hyunjin kisses you, you forget that this could be the worst mistake you’ve made in a long time. Wrapped around his fingers, you pray this is his way of saying he feels the same.

“YN!” You wake to Seungmin gently shaking your shoulder. “YN, wake up. Your phone has been vibrating for twenty minutes now. It’s Maddie.”

The wave of panic washing over you dispels the grogginess you feel from suddenly being yanked from sleep, as well as the recognition of where you are and who you’re with. Frantic, you sit up and nod in thanks to him before taking the call. “Hello?”

“Oh, thank God you answered,” Maddie cries, voice choked, “I’m sorry, I know you’re still out, but I just threw up and I feel so terrible and when I get up I feel so nauseous. Can you come home?”

“Shit, Maddie, don’t apologize,” you whisper, rushing to grab your things as Seungmin unfolds The Ladder as quietly as possible, “I’m leaving now. Don’t move, you don’t want it to get worse. I’ll be there as fast as I can, okay?”

“Okay,” she whimpers before hanging up.

“Thank you, Minnie,” pressing a kiss to his cheek, you begin to climb down. “Is everything okay?” He asks, watching as you go with a worried frown. “Yes, it’s fine. Just a little emergency, don’t worry,” praying no one is out and about watching as you climb from the back of their building, you rush back to help Maddie as fast as you can.

You stay back in your dorm with Maddie for the rest of the weekend, fetching her water and ginger ale and food she can handle, helping her to the restroom, and binging all sorts of shows and movies with her. Seungmin, Jisung, and Minho visit Sunday evening, joining you for a few hours to watch Pokémon. You think it’s just because Minho knew it would be a good opportunity to snuggle with Maddie.

You can’t help but feel disappointed when Hyunjin isn’t with them. You refrained from telling Maddie what happened in 201, too caught up wanting to make sure she was alright, and by now you are starting to feel as if it wasn’t even real. Maybe you made the whole night up in your marijuana-infused brain. And snuggled up with Jisung, you can’t help but wish it was this annoying shit you were falling in love with.

On Monday morning, Hyunjin doesn’t show up for breakfast. On Tuesday, you find out he has been hanging out with a girl he met at his favorite boba joint and apparently won’t shut up about. First, you run back to your dorm to cry to Maddie, having to explain all of Friday night to her. When she leaves for her lab, you call Felix for an emergency smoke session. When Maddie texts that she is going to be out late working on a project, you call Changbin to tell him that you really do want him to.

Like you said, it’s just a physical attraction, right?

⇢ part 2

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zontiky · 4 years ago

Note

au where the apocalypse was never a threat or a concept to begin with

*cracks knuckles* now i could make this a decent upbringing au OR i could make it EXTREMELY COMPLICATED and you know me you know exactly what im about to do ;)

reginald THINKS he’s prepping them all for the apocalypse but reginald is a child-abusing FOOL and an alien BASTARD and there’s no apocalypse there never was there never will be. the world is safe and sound but the hargreeves children aren’t.

five runs away from home and gets thrown into april 1st, 2019. the world is thriving. he did it. he tries to get home but he can’t because he’s stuck and im now realizing that everyone reading this post has seen a million fics with this exact concept but FUCK YOU THIS IS MY CITY NOWWW

so he’s stuck in 2019 and he’s like ah fuck ah SHIT what now! and goes to the academy and it’s not like he was super far away from it in the first place. he didn’t even make it a mile away it’s like a 5 minute walk back home lmao

now because reggie thinks there IS an apocalypse he still killed himself and i hate him a lot so cough ahem anyway

five shows up on the mansion and expects dad to be sitting there in his office, doing his evil dad evil villain thing yk the drill

but instead he comes in to an empty house. mom is unresponsive. he cant find pogo (dont ask where pogo is. hes doing monkey butler things ok). and diego is climbing in through the window

five freaks out because WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU THIS IS MY HOUSE and jumps diego and diego goes down HARD because WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT MY DEAD BROTHER?? MY BROTHER WHO DISAPPEARED 17 YEARS AGO?? WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCKKKK

so they try to beat the shit out of each other for a second and by that i mean five tries to beat the shit out of diego whos gained his senses by now and is trying to convince his brother (his BROTHER) that technically he lives here too please stop punching me

luther comes downstairs.

“IS THAT FIVE???”

“SHUT UP AND HELP ME THIS LITTLE FUCKER CAN PUNCH”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”

they manage to calm him down when five catches sight of diegos tattoo

WAIT I FORGOT THAT THE FUNERAL WAS BEFORE APRIL FUCK NEVERMIND SCRAP THE PAST 13 BULLETS ABORT MISSION

so five lands in april, goes to the house, and by then the hargreeves have cleared out and are back to doing their own thing more or less. he comes up to the door and grace (pogo has fixed her by now because i said so) welcomes her son back home like he never even left

she gives him a hug

reginald is gone and she hasnt seen her sun in years and dammit, he deserves that hug okay? she gives him a hug.

five pulls away. mom hasnt hugged him for years because he stopped letting her and he’s not about to change his mind now

“where’s everyone?” he asks. he doesn’t even consider that everybody is gone, because where would they go? or maybe it just hasn’t hit him exactly which time he jumped into, maybe he still hasn’t made the connection exactly what age his siblings are now, maybe he has but he still hopes he can deny it for a little while longer

grace wants to hug him again but she refrains. she calls his siblings

one by one, in the span of the next week, she gets ahold of them and calls them back to the academy. “important news,” she says. “you’ll want to -- you’ll need to be here,” she says. “your brother,” she says, and her children listen and come back home

luther is at the academy when five gets here. because, where would he go? he can’t go back to the moon, and dad is gone, and he’s never even been on a bus alone before, where would he go?

when five sees him for the first time he almost cries, because he’s so much bigger and taller and older and what happened to him??

this is his new reality. this is the new luther

but it isn’t, it can’t be, because five is going to get back home and he’s going to fix it, he’s going to fix this and he’s going to grow up just like his siblings did, and it won’t even be long before he’s back home almost two decades ago.

vanya is next to arrive, and five almost -- almost -- smiles at her and gives her a hug and teases her how she’s still shorter than him, but she has such a blank expression on her face and the way she looks between the portrait of him (he hated that portrait from the beginning, he wanted to burn it because hes back now, isnt he? and he’ll go back home and not leave again, but pogo didnt let him) stops him. it will only be a couple of days and he’ll be going home already, he tells grace, so maybe the others dont even have to come here. she nods and smiles and says nothing

diego comes a day or so later, dragging klaus along, and five is stunned by how they look once again. diego looks battle-hardened and angry like he never did just last week, five’s last week, but now he scowls and doesn’t stutter and dresses himself in black and he lives alone and diego looks so lonely but five doesnt think about it because its not his business and he knows better and its diegos own damn fault for cutting contact, isnt it? and even if it weren’t five will go back and fix it all

five knows klaus has been doing things for a good year or so know, but this -- living on the streets, giggling even as diego forces him inside, making lewd jokes with his eyes out of focus -- he couldn’t have even imagined. he stamps down the feeling of i should have been there to help stop him and doesn’t think how sad and angry at their father seeing klaus like this makes him feel, instead he forces thoughts of it’s his own fault he ended up this way and i’m going to get back and fix this (but that’s not a thought he has to force. he will. he has to. it won’t even be another week before he figures out how to get home)

allison gets there next. she took the first plane she could get on to get home and pushed off all her appointments but she had a family emergency just last week and it was hard to get away and she looks so sad even when she opens her arms for a hug and five cant help but relent and give her one. diego scoffs and allison lets loose a dig thats more of a barb thats more of a sharp sentence splitting the air and hitting her brother square in the chest. five doesnt say anything but his stomach twists. just a week or so and he’ll fix it because even as children they never said things like that to each other

he waits for ben to come last. he must be the most adjusted of them all, right? ben read a lot last five saw of him, and hes one of the smartest of them, and secretly five always thought that ben deserves to have friends that he doesnt live with

ben doesnt come

he asks mom and she smiles and he asks the others and they look away and he asks again and someone -- and it doesnt matter who because his ears are ringing and hes stumbling back and falling onto the couch -- says that ben died. ben died years ago.

ben died four years after five left

fives head is spinning and he needs to get back, he needs to stop it he needs to fix it he needs to make it all better because it was never supposed to be this way

(you thought this would be a happy au didnt you?? haha bitch think again)

(it is but they have to get there smhhh)

klaus laughs and elbows the air next to him and five asks, he doesnt beg, he asks him if he can summon ben

everyone scoffs. rolls their eyes. klaus is high as a kite and hes holding a bottle of whiskey and he looks like he hasnt been sober in days. weeks. years. and he’s a liar and ben is gone for real, im sorry, five. i know this must be hard for you

that can’t be right. five wasnt there for all of klaus’ lies and stealing and drunken sobbing. five remembers klaus rolling a joint at the breakfast table like it was last week -- and it was, it was, he’ll fix it still, but to five klaus is still just his brother. just klaus

he asks, not begs, five doesnt beg but he comes damn close in this moment, to tell him the truth

and klaus looks around and ben whispers please, klaus, just try and five is looking at him with wet eyes and he’s thirteen he’s so young and -- he can’t say innocent. none of them have ever been innocent, not since reginald hargreeves adopted them all those years ago. but five...

he tells the truth. and five believes him

so anyway five cant get back and then they decide well ok five while youre staying here we might as well buy you some clothes. ones that arent literally 20 years old. jesus these uniforms are ugly

my jaw is clenching so hard and im cold asdflksdh so im gonna end this here and maybe rb it and continue lated idk 😳😳

WHOOP this is getting away from me i know u didnt come here for quote poetic unquote bullshit but weihfsdkjdhskf THATS WHAT UR GETTING I GUESS XX <3

#asks #ftag #five hargreeves #nopocalypse au #aus #tua #the umbrella academy #im not reading over this. all the typos are there for the Authenticity and Flavor #misc #hfhkjwjkfdsaihshf #I HOPE U LIKED IT IM OUT OF PRACTICE DOING THESE 😭😭#not!fic

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obsidianfr3sk · 4 years ago

Text

true colors

@renegadesnet event 10: pride

↪ [ “But everything was temporary. And pain was one of those things. Well, except love. Everything but love was temporary. Or that was what he liked to believe.” ]

Summary: Two years after the supernova, after Tamaya notified them the gearboxes that contained the lights had gotten soaked and that she needed the money to buy more before the next day (June 1st), Simon realized they were not enough for him anymore.

Simon wanted a bigger flag.

No. He wanted two. The biggest pride flags he could find.

AO3

Hello, friends!! I hope you’ve been having an excellent pride month and have been eating a lot rainbow cake and pissing off a lot of conservatives with the mere fact of your wonderful existence:’) As my contribution to this month and the event organized by @renegadesnet, I decided to write a fic focused on my favorite gay dads and their sons (bc I’m me, and you should have seen this coming.)

Before you read, I want to give a trigger warning: at the start of a fic I talk about a homophobic attack, which is not graphic or violent per se (it’s someone in the middle of the night taking away the flag they put outiside the house), and I do discuss about internalized homophobia during some parts of the story. If you read it and are sensitive to this kind of stuff, proceed with caution and take care of yourself <3

Also, this entry is a collaboration with my talented mother @healing-winston-pratt, who is going to be uploading some fanart of this in a near future, so keep an eye on that👀 she’s the best skjhkjds thank you for accepting to collaborate, I feel this is a great bonding activity and I hope we can do this more often✨

I need to update my tag list because a lot of the people who were included are not active as active as they were before/changed their URLs. But I’m going to tag @the-wee-woo-rita @lackadae @all-weather-is-bad @chiyuki-hiro bc you guys are the only ones who are still active users who I had on my previous tag list lol

With that said, I hope you enjoy this fic. I think that despite the angsty parts, it came out really fluffy and domestic, it was fun to write. And to all my queer silbings who are reading this: I am very proud of you.

But I see your true colors shining through.

I see your true colors, and that's why I love you.

So don't be afraid to let them show.

Your true colors,

true colors are beautiful like a rainbow

Simon couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t know he was gay.

There was a time when he didn’t know he was gay, of course. He was probably too young to even comprehend the meaning behind that word. And there was also a moment in his life when he felt embarrassed about it, and sad, and angry, and really, really scared, and probably thought that no matter how hard he tried, he was never going to be happy living the life he wanted to live.

That the pain was never going to end. That he was going to be miserable for the rest of his existence, and that maybe, there was no point in existing if he was going to stay like that until the day he died.

But everything was temporary. And pain was one of those things.

Well, except love. Everything but love was temporary. Or that was what he liked to believe.

That was the reason why, the first year after the Day of Triumph, he told Hugh they should get a rainbow flag for their house. They went to one of the first stores that opened at the mall (that had just been remodeled after twenty years of being abandoned) and bought one at a not so affordable price. Simon offered himself to install it on one of the fence pillars and had to spend thirty minutes listening to Hugh telling him that maybe he should let him do it, that the ladder Kasumi had lent them was ratty, and that Simon was going to fall.

Fortunately, Simon didn’t. He did almost fall, though, when he was about to pass out from stress because seeing Hugh getting all anxious, made Adrian cry and he started to basically beg him to come down, given that now he was convinced he was going to fall, and hearing his dad saying “Look what you’ve done to the kid, Simon” didn’t help at all to make Adrian (or Simon) feel better.

That night, there was a thunderstorm and Adrian used it as an excuse to sleep on their bed. As soon as he cried himself to sleep, two hours later, after their dads did everything in their power to calm him down, hugging him, giving him kisses, and assuring him his aunt Tamaya wasn’t going to let the storm hurt them, Simon raised his hand to high-five Hugh and tell him that they were amazing parents, just to realize he was already asleep. Simon silently judged him for sleeping so soundly while his son was having a crisis instead of sleeping.

When he woke up (at five in the morning) Adrian was looking out their window, with the Baby Indomitable blanket on his shoulders. The sky was still cloudy, but it wasn’t raining anymore.

“Darling, what are you doing?,” Simon told him. “Today’s Sunday. Let your daddy and I get some more sleep—”

“The storm took our flag,” Adrian blurred out.

Hugh was already awake too. “What?”

“You said the storm wasn’t going to hurt us,” Adrian said, turning around to see them, “but the storm took our flag.”

Simon got out of bed, looked through the window...

And, yes, the flag was completely gone.

But for some reason, Simon knew it hadn’t been the storm.

“Why would the storm do something like this?” Adrian asked.

Simon didn’t know how to answer that. Luckily, Hugh did.

“Because the storm is homophobic, son.”

Adrian laughed out loud and then asked his dads if they could have pancakes for breakfast. He had already forgotten about the storm and the flag.

They didn’t. Neither of them ever forgot about it.

While Simon and Adrian ate their pancakes, Hugh went to his office because, according to him, he needed to check something. When Adrian finished his breakfast and went back to his dads’ room to watch TV, Simon stayed in the kitchen, doing the dishes, and Hugh finally came downstairs. He was pretty quiet, and Simon thought that it probably was because he had told him to eat the burnt pancakes he didn’t dare to throw away, but after he finished them all, he said:

“I lied.”

Simon threw a glance at him. “When did you lie?”

“When I said the storm was homophobic,” Hugh answered.

“Well, of course, you lied, love. Storms don’t have strong political opinions about gay people.”

Hugh didn’t laugh. “What I mean is— that it wasn’t the storm.”

Every joke Simon’s brain could come up with disappeared at that moment. So he continued doing the dishes, and Hugh, thinking he hadn’t made himself clear, continued talking.

“It was someone else. It was a person. I saw them on—”

“I know,” Simon interrupted him. “I know. I’ve always known.”

But even if Simon knew, he still told Hugh to show him the footage because four eyes were better than two (especially considering that the owner of those first two eyes needed to wear glasses). It was all useless, though; the storm made the image all blurry, and the only thing they could see was someone taking it and running away in the middle of the night.

Simon wanted to think that it was just some dumb teen whose friends had challenged him to do it. But when it came to things like those one never really knew.

On Monday, they had promised Adrian to take him to the park that was a few blocks away so they could teach him how to fly a kite, but the thought of going out made him feel as if something bad was going to happen to them if they did, so Simon told Adrian that he and Hugh were feeling sick and that they would stay in their room to get some rest. Adrian asked them if they minded that he stayed there too because he was in the middle of watching a movie he had never seen before.

“Only if we can watch it with you,” Simon answered.

It was a weird day to be alive. They really just stayed there, watching silly cartoons with their kid and listening to him ranting about the weird proportions those characters had.

During the afternoon, Adrian told them he was hungry, so Simon went downstairs to look for something they could eat. He was thinking that maybe they should order something from that Chinese restaurant Tamaya had taken him the other day, when Hugh entered the kitchen and told him Adrian had asked him if he could bring him water.

Simon felt his hands were trembling while he looked inside his wallet for the paper where he had written the restaurant’s phone number.

“Do you want to get another flag?” Hugh asked him.

And something hurt.

Something hurt inside of him. Something started to cry, and to scream, and to flicker, trying to make him invisible to the world.

And it told him, the same way Adrian had told him he was hungry, that someone had taken him by surprise and made a deep cut on his chest.

But Simon didn’t allow it to come out.

He just said: “No.”

And Hugh answered him: “Me neither.”

He called the Chinese restaurant to order some food, while Simon went to their room with Adrian again and cuddled with him, trying to tend to the wounds of that something that was bleeding out inside of him.

Little Simon was crying, and screaming, and flickering, and needed adult Simon to take care of him.

The next day, they talked about the incident with the rest of the Council during their lunch break. It was one of those few occasions the six of them were together in the same room during their work hours. Tamaya was furious about the flag situation. She ranted for a good five minutes without anyone interrupting her about how fucking horrible people were and that she was going to find that little piece of shit and cut his hands off. Kasumi nodded in approval while drinking some horchata she had bought for herself, probably thinking about how to ask Tamaya to let her join her revolution (something she didn’t need to do, since Tamaya always included Kasumi in everything she did). Evander, on the other hand, was very quiet, something that made him feel a little bit relieved because he was not a sensitive person and Simon didn’t want him to... Evander the situation.

He didn’t say anything insensitive that day, though.

In fact, he said something… helpful, even.

“What about a flag made of light?”

Hugh rubbed his eyes and Simon knew what he was going to say before he opened his mouth.

Because he said that phrase constantly.

“Shut the fuck up, Evander.”

But Evander didn’t shut up. “Dude, think about it. No one would be able to take down a flag made of light.”

And everyone realized that, now, it was not only one of those strange occasions when the six of them got together to have lunch during their work hours; it was also one of those strange occasions when Evander had an idea that was actually good.

So after spending another hour discussing how they were going to make it work, they decided they were going to lit up the building in rainbow-colored lights.

Tamaya and Hugh were the ones in charge of almost all the operation because Evander said he had already given them the idea, so he didn’t need to do anything else (and then got mad at Hugh when he told the media he was the one who came up with it). Kasumi helped them, but was especially insistent about putting a trans pride flag somewhere in the building, and after they agreed with her, she personally hung it on the main entrance of Headquarters.

They started turning the lights on each night of June since that yeat.

Hugh and Simon still didn’t get a flag. Three nights after they told their friends about what had happened during the thunderstorm, Simon was woken up by the sound of someone crashing against the trash cans and almost jumped out of the window with his dagger on hand to slay whoever was trying to break into their house, but when he peeked out to see what was going on, he realized the “robber” was Kasumi, who had put a bunch of small pride flags on some pots they kept on their porch and started crying as soon as she realized Simon was watching her, not because she was upset the surprise she had for them had been ruined, but because now she was covered in trash.

(That week was like a sign Georgie was sending them from the afterlife to tell them they needed to install a better security system.)

Those were the only flags they kept around the house. They were small and discreet, and, most importantly, no one had taken them away. Why? Well— because they listened to Georgie’s sign and installed a better security system. Not because there weren’t any more homophobes out there who were willing to do it.

Until that moment, those flags (the little ones Kasumi had given them in a rather unconventional way and the one made of light that Evander had come up with) had been more than enough for them. But, two years after the supernova, after Tamaya notified them the gearboxes that contained the lights had gotten soaked and that she needed the money to buy more before the next day (June 1st), Simon realized they were not enough for him anymore.

Simon wanted a bigger flag.

No. He wanted two.

The biggest pride flags he could find.

***

That was the reason why, after having pancakes for breakfast (because it had rained during the night), he took the car, took the other three people living in that house with him, and after he was able to read the map, they arrived at a store that, among other things, sold flags like the ones they were looking for.

“I want one too,” Adrian told them when they were at the flag section of the store. “For my room, you know. And I want to get ones for Danna and Nova because I don’t think they have any. They would’ve told me.”

Usually, when Adrian asked for something Simon hadn’t agreed to buy him, like some candy, an action figure, or a pair of sneakers, he would turn around and ask him if he had the money to buy any of those things himself, which would anger him so much he would stop wanting that certain thing.

But that day, he felt like buying them everything they wanted. As if money grew on trees (something he always told his kids didn’t happen.)

“Of course, darling,” he answered, “get them everything you want. It’s pride month.”

“It’s May 31th,” Max said. He was inside the shopping cart Hugh had grabbed the second they entered. It was something he always did, even if they weren’t going to buy a lot of things because, according to him, it felt weird and wrong not to.

“It’s almost pride month,” he corrected himself.

“So can I get something for Nova?” Adrian asked again, just to make sure.

“You can get something for Nova,” Hugh assured him, smiling a little bit.

Adrian quickly turned around and started looking for the flag he wanted while texting Nova about something Simon couldn’t read (not like he was trying to, anyway).

After making sure Adrian stayed on the same aisle as them, they started walking around, gazing at the flags and posters available. Simon felt pretty progressive because he was able to name every single sexuality and gender they were supposed to represent. He imagined Hugh was doing the same thing, but with a lot more difficulty than him. He kept his eyes fixated on each flag longer than Simon did, as if he were trying to remember what they meant, and when he did, he pushed the cart (with Max still inside of it, playing a game on Hugh’s phone because he had forgotten his tablet at home), and the cycle began again.

But suddenly, Simon saw ones that he didn’t recognize.

After three seconds of standing in front of those little flags, someone hit him in the butt with their cart. He turned around immediately, ready to say a really threatening “Hey” to whoever had done it.

Hugh was the only other person who was there. He had been the one who had hit him with the cart.

Suddenly, Simon felt a little bit stupid for thinking someone else had done it.

The two of them maintained eye contact for a couple of seconds until Hugh started looking at his own hands grabbing the cart’s handle.

“Simon.” Before Simon could ask him what happened, he added, with a deep voice: “Move.”

Simon didn’t move. Instead, he hit the cart with his hips, just out of spite. Hugh hit him again with it, making Simon feel the unexpected need to grab the cart with his two hands and use his own weapon against him, but Max was there and they couldn’t act like kids in front of him. So he just hit the cart with his hips again, a little bit harder than the first time, and left it there.

He realized he was just going to be wasting his time asking Hugh if he knew what that flag was supposed to represent.

“Cherub,” he called Max. “Do you recognize this flag?”

Max looked up from the screen. He usually didn’t like it when he called him “cherub” in public, but this time, he didn’t seem mad about it. “Um… no? Ask Adrian—” and continued playing.

Adrian came back with a basket full of pins, and for a second, Simon almost asked him if he really was that naive to believe he was actually going to pay for all of them. But then, he realized that it was only the basket where they kept all of the pins they sold and that Adrian had taken it to show them to them.

“Look, they have so many pins here—” he started taking random pins “—this is the aromantic flag… this is the genderfluid flag—”

“Interesting,” Hugh interrupted him, “but which flag is that one?” and pointed at the one Simon didn’t recognize.

Max took a random pin from the basket and started looking at it with curiosity. Adrian almost didn’t pay attention to it, and after a few seconds, he said: “That one’s yours.”

Simon frowned and took one. It was a handheld flag with green and blue stripes, with a white one in the middle. He touched the polyester with his fingertips as if that was going to give him the ability to communicate with it.

“But we don’t have a flag,” Hugh told Adrian. “I’ve heard of the lesbian fl—”

Adrian took a pin of the lesbian flag. “This one.”

“Yeah— but gay men don’t have one.”

“The rainbow is ours,” Simon said, without taking his eyes away from the blue and green flag he was holding. “Like, it’s for all queer people.”

Hugh directed his attention to Adrian again. “You’re messing with us.”

“I do mess with you a lot,” Adrian admitted, “but this time I’m not because if I do and you get mad, you won’t buy me all the stuff I want to get.”

“Huh.”

Simon knew Adrian and Max were a lot of things, but "dumb" wasn't one of those. And Adrian was especially intelligent when it came to convincing his parents to buy him things.

So he decided to believe him.

“Well, I like it,” he said. Then, he asked Hugh: “Do you like it?”

Hugh grabbed one and observed it for a while. “I like that it has blue on it,” he finally answered, nodding a little bit.

Simon noticed Max was spacing out while playing with the pin he had taken, so he waved the flag on his face, making him laugh and sneeze because the damn thing had a lot of invisible dust Simon didn't notice at first.

“Oh, sh—”

“You know? Maybe we should get two of these,” Hugh said, waving it too, but in his case, not on the face of one of their kids. “For our offices.”

“Matching flags, very romantic.”

Max rubbed his nose. “Why don't you get a big one for the house?”

Simon quickly started to look everywhere on that aisle, and he saw a lot of big versions of the flags he had recognized before (and some of the ones Adrian had mentioned), but there were no gay flags in sight.

“Maybe next year, I guess,” he shrugged. “I don't think they have them here yet.”

He grabbed two of the rainbow flags that were there, inside their respective plastic bags, gave them to Max, and he put them on his lap, still holding that pin. Simon made a quick mental note to remind his future self they needed to pay for that (he didn’t know if it had to with the fact that Max had been spending a lot of time with Maggie, Nova’s sister, but he had developed this weird habit of stealing the most random objects one could think of. Luckily, he limited himself to stealing things from his dads and, one time, from a store.) (Kids went through weird phases when they were Max’s age.)

(Because… it was a phase, right?)

Adrian received a text. “Danna says that she already has a flag, so I’m getting her a pin,” he said after reading it. “And Nova says she wants one too.” Then, his whole face lit up. “And I could get one too so we match.”

“Copycat,” Simon accused him, jokingly. “Your dad and I got matching flags, and now you want to get matching pins with your girlfriend.”

Hugh shook his head, disappointed. “I cannot believe you have betrayed your own family like this.”

They stayed at the store another 30 minutes to buy some other things they needed for the house, and from time to time, when he or Hugh grabbed something, they pretended they didn’t see Adrian and said: “Um, but the copycat may be listening” to a point he told them to stop, and refused to forgive them until they agreed to buy him the flag he didn’t intend to get anymore, but now was going to.

He got the last bisexual flag there was at that store.

***

The first time the four of them were together in their room was last June. Something went wrong with the A/C system of the entire house and the only room where one could stay without having a heatstroke was theirs because their A/C hadn’t broken down for some reason. Adrian and Max were sleeping on the air mattress until Simon (who hadn’t been able to sleep lately) heard that one of them woke up and asked Hugh something. He sat down on the bed, at the same time Hugh moved a little bit to allow Adrian to lay down between the two of them.

Then, in the middle of the dark, his eyes met Max’s.

He looked tiny. Young. Pretty young.

And far away.

Simon couldn’t remember who did it. He didn’t remember who talked that night. It could have been him, even. But he was sure that, at that moment, someone whispered:

“Get in here, kid.”

And Max obeyed. He crawled, raised his arms towards them, and Hugh grabbed him carefully by the collar of his shirt and placed him between him and Adrian.

It was a peaceful night. The bed was big enough for the four of them, and Simon was able to sleep and actually rest for the first time in weeks.

At least until their A/C turned off with a weird sound, and the four of them woke up at the same time, sweaty, uncomfortable, and almost at 11 AM, not because they weren’t necessarily willing to stay there longer, but because the heat was starting to get unbearable and suddenly the bed was too small for three adults and a little kid that was not that little anymore.

“This isn’t a room, this is a— a freaking oven,” Hugh said, while Adrian tried to push him out of bed to get the hell out of there and seek comfort on the air mattress he had abandoned in the middle of the night.

“And we are the... cookies,” Max giggled.

“The turkey,” Simon added.

Max turned around. His whole face was red and his hair was a little bit wet. “The lasagna.”

Simon grabbed him by the cheeks; a discreet way to check if he had a fever. “The cake.”

“The ham.”

“The—”

“Dad. Move.”

Later that day, Simon called someone to fix the A/C, and that was the end of the story.

When they arrived at the house, Adrian wanted to hang his flag as soon as possible, on one of his room’s walls, but Simon insisted that they should iron it first so it looked nicer. Hugh said that he was planning on ironing the ones they had bought for the house and offered Adrian to do the same with his, but when he insinuated that he didn’t trust him enough not to mess up his flag the same way he had messed up his favorite shirt (the one he wanted to wear to take Nova to a nice place during her birthday), Hugh reminded him that the only reason he kept doing that for him was that Adrian didn’t know how to iron yet, and decided that he was going to use that moment as a teaching opportunity. Max made the mistake of laughing at his brother when he thought no one was paying attention to him, but Adrian was and dragged Max into the teaching opportunity with him.

Simon joined too. Just because.

And suddenly, the four of them were in their room again.

With the A/C on, of course.

He didn't know if Hugh had noticed, but he had been so invested in his own explanation, that after he finished ironing the two rainbow flags, he started ironing Adrian’s without realizing it. Adrian, instead of giving up and stop pretending he was paying attention, was looking, kind of mesmerized, how he opened the bag of his blue, purple, and magenta flag, and proceeded to put it on the ironing board, now telling him that when Georgie had tried to teach him how to iron his clothes, she accidentally burnt Evander.

Simon was half-listening to the story, half-listening to the music video that Max was watching on the TV. He was sitting on a big and old ottoman they had bought a long time ago but had never found the perfect place to put it and just stayed there for years until they forgot about it. Max was in front of him, sitting on the floor and resting his back on the ottoman, while he covered his blond hair with small butterfly hair clips he had found at the store and bought just because he thought they were cute (who knows, maybe Nova wanted them for Maggie, or Kasumi could use them for herself, she loved them when she was little).

When all the hair clips were on Max's hair, he took a small mirror they kept in the bathroom (but Simon borrowed it for a minute) and gave it to him so he could see the final result.

“Look at me,” Max exclaimed, laughing. “I look so pretty.”

Simon grabbed one of the hair clips and pulled it a little. “Butterfly hair clips are a popular trend this time of the year.”

“This is definitely going to make me the most popular kid in the playground.”

“Definitely.”

He leaned forward to start taking the butterfly hair clips off Max's hair and was putting them on Max’s open hand when he noticed that he hadn’t let go of the pin they bought him at the store.

(Simon did remember to pay for the thing, but if he hadn’t done it, Max wouldn’t have said anything.)

“That was really nice of you,” Simon said.

Max looked at him, confused. “What?”

“Getting a rainbow pin—” he took his other hand and started putting the hair clips on it so none of them would get lost “—to show support.”

Max didn't say anything and Simon continued with what he was doing. After the music video finished, and another one started playing, Hugh gave Adrian his flag and told him he could go and hang it in his room, and as soon as Max heard that too, he gave Simon the hair clips and followed his brother out of the room, asking him if he could help him with it.

Simon, after realizing the bag where the hair clips came in had been destroyed by Max punching holes in it with the pin, took one of the empty pill bottles he kept in his drawers and put them there.

He closed the pill bottle and realized Hugh had been gazing at him during all this time, slightly leaning on the ironing board. “What?”

“That’s my pill bottle, Si,” he told him.

“Ah—” Simon pressed his lips “—can I have it?”

“No.” Hugh smiled at him. “Yes, you can.”

“So funny. Come here—” and patted the bed mattress.

Hugh, being extremely careful not to touch the flags he just ironed, lied on the bed and sighed.

“Do you want me to play with your hair?” Simon asked him with a soft voice.

He closed his eyes and nodded.

After a while of the two of them just being silent, he said, “Hey… I heard what you told Max, by the way.”

“The butterfly hair clips trend?”

“The pin thing.”

“What about it?”

Hugh opened his eyes, just a little bit. “Just don't tell Max I told you, all right? Because he told me he wouldn't tell anyone else until he was sure, but… I think it's important the two of us know,” he explained.

Simon was starting to feel his palms get a little bit sweaty. “Okay— but just tell me, please.”

He checked overhearing their conversation one last time, and that the kids were still at Adrian's room. “Max told me a couple of days ago that he has been thinking about… what he likes.”

He stopped playing with his hair for a second. But then, he continued.

It was his way of coping with the feeling of his stomach twisting inside of him. “What he likes?” Hugh nodded again. “Huh. And has he— does he has an idea or—”

“No, he doesn't,” Hugh answered. “He just knows that he doesn't like girls. Or that's what he told me.”

Simon raised his eyebrows and scoffed. “That sounds like a lot of things. Not liking girls.”

Hugh scoffed too. “That's what I told him. And that he can take all the time he needs to figure it out. Because he can—”

“Yes. Yes, of course, he can,” Simon assured, with determination. “Life is longer than we think it is.”

They stayed silent again. And Simon couldn’t help but feel relive inside his head the moment he called Max an ally, feeling his stomach twisting even more at every second it passed.

“I feel bad.”

“Why?”

His palms started to sweat again. “Because I called him an ally.”

“It’s all right. You didn’t know.”

“I shouldn’t have assumed anything.”

“You didn’t know,” Hugh repeated.

But Simon didn’t listen. “Si.”

Then, Hugh grabbed him carefully by the wrist, and, a little bit surprised, Simon tilted his head. Hugh usually didn't interrupt him when he was playing with his hair.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

“No, what’s wrong with you?” he deadpanned

Simon knew him well enough to know he wasn’t trying to be rude. It was just his way of asking things. Especially when he was genuinely worried and didn’t think about modulating his tone so it It fitted the situation better.

He sighed. Because he didn’t want to lie to him. “I assumed Max was straight.”

As soon as he said it, he realized how silly it had sounded phrased like that. But he also noticed his voice had broken and he had to put a hand on his mouth so he didn’t start crying.

And Hugh, instead of saying the encouraging phrase he expected him to say…

He smiled.

And for some reason, that made him want to cry even more. “Ew, why are you smiling?” he asked.

Hugh took his time to answer him. “Oh, it’s nothing. I think I'm just… happy.”

“Well, I’m not.”

Hugh smiled more. “I know, love, I know… It's just one of those things…” he tried to find the right words this time. “One of those things I didn't think we were going to go through together,” he kept saying. “Like… we're going to be together when Max finally discovers who he really is. Like we did with Adrian. And like other people did with us. And that makes me happy.”

Simon wanted to tell him to shut up and let him cry and be dramatic as much as he wanted because he considered he deserved it. But he tried to do it, the only thing that could come out of his lips was almost imperceptible “Yeah…” and then, a small tear started running down his face. Hugh quickly noticed this and wiped it away with his finger. Simon scoffed and looked away, rubbing his nose.

“Hey…” and he moved aside so Simon could lay beside him.

The space they had was a little too small but he didn’t mind because now he had an excuse to be closer to him.

And there it was again. Little Simon. Little Simon was there again with them.

Just that this time he wasn’t crying, or screaming, or even flickering. He was just… existing.

And all he wanted to do was to exist.

When Hugh held him that way, sometimes he felt as if it was the first time he did it. Which made Simon (and the sad, angry and scared part of Simon) wonder if there was a sad, angry and scared part of Hugh that also craved that comfort and validation, and if it was the one who hugged that younger version of Simon until they convinced each other that everything was fine.

That there was nothing wrong with neither of them.

Because sometimes it was as if people didn’t remind them that as many times as they needed. So the only option they had was to be there for the other, and tell him that it was okay to hug, to kiss, to touch, and to share until the one who was talking ended up convincing both of them.

Love wasn’t temporary.

And their love was as powerful as they wanted it to be.

Those younger versions of themselves wanted to stay like that forever every single time. But their adult versions knew they couldn’t do it because they had other responsibilities that they needed to attend.

Installing those two pride flags that were next to them, for example.

Their younger versions were excited to do that, but they also asked them if they could rest together a little bit longer. And neither of them had the heart to tell them no.

Hugh started to play with a lock of Simon’s hair. “We’ll be there to catch him.”

He knew he wasn’t talking about either of them. Even if, with his eyes closed, he could see little Hugh and little Simon holding each other’s hands and throwing themselves into the world, a little less sad, and angry, and scared than before, without being sure if there was going to be someone down there to catch them if everything went wrong.

“Together.”

And Simon agreed. “Together.”

***

“He’s going to fall.”

Simon rolled his eyes.

“No, he’s not,” Hugh told Max. “I’m here.”

“But what if—”

“Done,” Simon announced before Max could even finish his sentence. “Now, let’s just hope these things stay there as long as possible, because this ladder makes me anxious. I was trembling while putting the first flag.”

Max clicked his tongue. “It’s a windy day. The wind could have pushed the ladder or something.”

Now it was Hugh’s turn to roll his eyes. “Take my hand.”

Simon went down the ladder without letting go of his hand. Then, while Hugh took it and quickly went inside the garage to put it there, Adrian pricked his little brother up with his own rainbow flag pin, and in response, Max punched him in the stomach with all his might (which wasn’t that much). Adrian laughed and pretended to be hurt, but immediately asked him if he wanted him to help him with his pin.

Simon noticed that Adrian had already put his pin of the bisexual flag on his clothes, and watching him pull Max a little bit closer so he didn’t prink him again (now by accident), while Max gazed at his hands, trying to memorize his movements so he could do the same thing when he wanted to wear that pin again, made his mouth curved into a smile.

When his husband came back from the garage, he thought he was going to tell them to stop blocking the sidewalk and get in the house so they could continue with their day. But instead of doing that, he walked towards them and looked at their waving flags, flying on their mansion for the first time in years.

Adrian grabbed Max by the waist and carried him on his shoulders so he could have a better view. And he realized that there would be a day when they would throw themselves into the world completely alone, without knowing how people were going to act and aware that two of them were brave enough to take whatever blows that they were going to throw at them.

But they weren’t going to do it alone. Because Hugh, Simon, and their hurting parts weren’t going to spend a day without reminding them that they were going to be there, ready to catch them every single time they needed it.

Simon started to look for Hugh’s hand just to realize, Hugh was already looking for his too, and when they found each other, he couldn’t contain himself and stood on his tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. Then, Hugh smiled and kissed him back, this time, on the corner of his lip.

Simon felt proud of what they were.

He was really proud.

And he hoped they were proud too.

#renegades #archenemies #supernova #renegades trilogy #hugh everhart #simon westwood #adrian everhart #max everhart #everhart-westwood family #the warden and the captain are sitting in a tree #obsi's writs #i should get an oscar for the homophobic storm joke

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