#unlike the male versions the girls held hands all the way

[technically-human]

Hello! Hope you're doing well. I'm absolutely in love with your fem!payneland art. If it's not too much trouble, would you consider doing one with the confession™️ but with fem!payneland?

I've been hiding some things from you...

[bellaaldamas]

Here's the thing:

Live Action Eric's mother would have preferred Vanessa, as a wife for her son and as a daughter in law.

That is, if "Vanessa" was a real person and not a ruse used by Ursula who literally changed her body to get the man. And then effectively drugged said man via hypnotic spell, stealing another woman's voice and his free will to gain control. Ariel had already proven to Ursula by that point that "looks and pretty face" (which original animated Ursula referred to in order to manipulate Ariel) were not enough, did not define her as a woman and that Eric fell in love with her because of her enthusiastic, inspired personality. Down to choosing her mute self over the dream/fantasy girl with a charming voice (a physical trait that was constantly suppressed by others when Ariel was living under the sea, mainly by men - her father and Sebastian, in both versions; though Sebastian perpetuating Triton's patriarchal oppression was far more pronounced in the animated 1989 canon, especially when they both organized a propaganda event where Triton's daughters and Ariel in particular were supposed to sing praises to Triton as a ruler and father).

Hence why Ursula/"Vanessa"'s only way to get the man was to take away his freedom of choice - the thing Eric, in both versions, valued above all else and fought with all his might to retain.

But the Queen in the LA version did not know that context about Eric and mute Ariel. She didn't even know about their bonding when Grimsby helped them escape the castle. To her Ariel was just some girl a random fisherman brought to castle who then turned out to be a mermaid (the Queen held prejudice against the sea creatures but as highlighted numerous times throughout the movie it was certainly not exclusive to her - the sailors told legends about mermaids luring men to their deaths and feared them) and brought a series of dangers upon her son (even Ursula/"Vanessa", from Queen Selina's perspective, tricked and hurt Eric because of her beefs with Ariel).

And that's exactly why Grimsby - and not Eric's mother (who didn't exist in the original) - immediately noticed something was wrong and unusual about Eric's behavior when he decided to marry "Vanessa".

That's one of the spins that benefited the LA version, unlike many other changes that sacrificed real empowerment for the sake of pseudo-feminist "girlboss" moments.

Mainly the kiss amnesia which completely removed Ariel's agency (even though the intention was clearly the opposite). This pseudo-"feminist" twist made Ariel an inert, clueless object during the Kiss the Girl scene. Meanwhile, the subjects are Eric, who in the remake is the one to make all the moves on Ariel during the boat sequence while SHE is the one resisting and pulling away. And Sebastian, who repeatedly manipulates Ariel into kissing Eric throughout the movie.

Sebastian even spells it out to Scuttle and Flounder that he is going to act without her consent and against her wishes when pushing the pair towards each other on the boat. Because otherwise Ariel - and Sebastian admits that too - would chase them all away for ignoring her boundaries, as she does at least twice in the remake ("If she sees or hears us, she’ll shut us down. Nah, man. We got to be sneaky about this"). Which means that without Sebastian's "man knows better" interference Ariel ends up, ultimately, in Ursula's hands. LA Ariel is not only not in control of her romantic agency, she is not in control of her life because of that twist.

(more break down of the good, the bad, the very bad and the very good changes in the remake under the cut though it is not exhaustive at all and I'm not even touching upon the climax because that would require a separate novel length post).

To add insult to injury, the subjects in the LA Kiss the Girl are all male. Discounting Scuttle who, while female in the 2023 version, remains the same comedic relief as in the original. However, original Scuttle has distinctive purpose: to have Ariel bond with someone living above the surface (back when Ariel had no means to "explore the shore up above" herself), the world her bigoted father insisted was full of "barbarians". Even though the ultimate barbarian lived under his ocean and scammed his subjects before turning them into hideous, impaired creatures just to satisfy her sadistic leanings, all with Triton's tacit endorsement.

Conversely, LA Scuttle ultimately affects and accomplishes nothing, besides in the carbon copy of the original scene where, in both versions, Scuttle is used as a plot device to discover "Vanessa" was actually Ursula who stole Ariel's voice. In the 1989 movie Scuttle actively serves his narrative function when he rips the shell necklace off "Vanessa"/Ursula. In the remade version we get an atrocious cat-fight scene between two women - Ariel and "Vanessa"/Ursula - which is not progressive or feminist in the slightest (again, contrary to Disney intending to make it a "girlpower" moment).

That said, although the plot changes to LA Scuttle's role in the story were not well executed Scuttle herself, as an individual character, had a very defined and compelling personality (contrary to Jacqueline in Cinderella 2015 who had no personality at all unlike her male counterpart Jaq in the original; she was made female solely for "progressive points"). This version of Scuttle was vastly different from the original, not only in terms of them being a different type of bird (seagull in the original, northern gannet in the remake), but in terms of how they interact with other characters, particularly Sebastian.

In the original Sebastian doesn't think much of Scuttle and his "human expert" ways (deservedly so) and is annoyed by how clueless he can be. The narrative treats Sebastian as the rational and righteous one and Scuttle as an incompetent airhead who is always wrong about everything. In turn, Scuttle, growing frustrated with his own inability to get some of his points across, lashes out at Sebastian even more harshly, hitting him several times against the docks when trying to explain that Eric is actually marrying the sea witch in disguise.

In the remake the antagonism and banter between Scuttle and Sebastian is also mutual but the narrative more often than not sides with Scuttle despite her being just as wrong about human things as her 1989 counterpart. LA Scuttle, in turn, remains unequivocally on the side of Ariel - a clever way to show the narrative is on Ariel's side as well. Especially when Sebastian slips into his "man knows best and by man I mean me and King Triton who will kill me if I don't parrot his propaganda" mode. It is particularly evident in the Part of Your World Reprise scene on the shore, when Scuttle is genuinely excited for Ariel finding love in the form of Eric and literally doesn't give Sebastian's patronizing speeches time of the day ("sorry, what'd you say, again?").

Onto the change with LA Grimsby realizing there had to be more to a sudden decision to marry "Vanessa" on part of Eric. Eric who has just had his arc of growth and letting go of his idealistic dreams of a fantasy girl and was willing to take the next step in his relationship with mute Ariel after bonding with her. Grimsby, in the new version, got to actually witness glimpses of said bonding in the library and when the pair came back from their Kingdom tour which Grimsby helped organize despite Queen's orders to keep Eric in the castle. That change was good and contributed to vindicating the original Eric. Who often tends to be just as misunderstood and mischaracterized as animated Ariel.

In the original movie Grimsby is Eric's main and only parental/guardian figure and yet he notices nothing about Eric's robotic voice and erratic, irrational behavior when the latter announces he is to commit to "Vanessa". Grimsby is more concerned about why Eric wants to marry so soon but doesn't act on this concern at all. Most tragic thing is that, for awhile, animated Eric, after his free will is stolen, remains completely alone in the world, with no support system besides Max (whose 1989 version saw through "Vanessa" magnificently and made it known at the wedding when hissing at her).

The plot with the removal of animated Eric's agency was more brutal than in the remake.

Because animated Eric struggled and fought not so much for his right to not conform to royal rules and lifestyle (unlike both Ariels, 1989 Eric was not subjected to patriarchal oppression and didn't have parents who could force their idea of royal life on him - but he was just as lonely and firm in his defiance of toxic social norms and pressure to act contrary to his beliefs as Ariel was; and THAT was their bonding point in the original). Animated Eric fought for his individuality, values and priorities (another parallel with Ariel who rejected her father's bigoted views about humans and aspired to gain knowledge and information herself instead of being blindly submissive to Triton's narratives or singing him political and public praises - like her sisters - rather than indulge her curiosity and thirst for exploration).

Original Eric, in that vein, fought for his right to exercise his romantic agency the way he saw fit, subscribing to his idealistic view of love and his conviction there was "the one" out there who would "hit him like a lightning". Which is exactly what ended up happening, twice, just not in the idealistic and naive way his dreamer self expected. But in the way which ultimately proved he was right all along about not settling for pressure and looking for the person who would be good for him. Same way animated Ariel was right about defying her father's bigotry about humans being "savage, barbaric fish-eaters" with no regard for anyone.

When animated Eric let go of his idealistic image of a dream girl with the Voice TM he wasn't letting go of his ideals. He came to realize that it was the mute Ariel who shared those ideals. The one who nearly got him killed because she was too eager to drive the carriage herself (after a lifetime of HER agency and independence being suppressed). The one who dragged him around the square paying little attention to him and often not even looking at him but still wanting him next to her. Even when animated Eric lifted Ariel up during their dance Ariel still did not try to kiss him, more interested in where they'd go to explore next.

Instead of using that time with Eric to try to get close to him romantically (and animated Ariel knew the stakes of NOT kissing him before the third sunset), Ariel was having the time of her life. She wanted to share her own excitement with Eric over finally getting the opportunity to "walk, talk, run, wander free" and not be a "reprimanded daughter" (read: an oppressed woman). She was treating him like a partner.

That leads us to a bad change TM in the remake: LA Ariel didn't include Eric in her process of exploring the human world and made no conscious effort to bond with him on a spiritual and platonic level. When they go out for a walk Ariel completely separates herself from him and he doesn't get to witness her most ridiculous, anti-social moments and still fall in love with her, as animated Eric gets the chance to. Earlier in the library it is Eric who finds Ariel first and starts sharing his interests - only then does Ariel reciprocate rather than initiate their communication, showing him the "secret of the seashell". When he starts making effort to get closer to her on the boat, both emotionally and romantically, Ariel once again responds but she doesn't instigate as animated Ariel does. LA Ariel reciprocates, yet again, because Eric - and Sebastian with his "sneaky" help - is persistent enough.

LA Ariel has no idea she has to kiss Eric to remain human, she just follows the lead of two men in that sequence.

In the 1989 version the vital point was that Ariel knew all along she needed a kiss from Eric to remain human like she dreamed long before seeing and saving him. But she preferred - as in, made an informed choice - to play with dolls on the town's square and explore around and do anything and everything but try to seduce Eric. Eliciting frustration from her male friends for NOT caring enough about a man and caring MORE about every other interest she had.

LA Ariel doesn't get to make that informed choice because she doesn't remember about the kiss. Contrary to 1989 Ariel, she doesn't get to pick between herself and a man and still choose herself.

It is not until animated Ariel and Eric end up on the boat and there is nothing to explore but Scuttle's horrendous "vocal stimulation" that Ariel - again, consciously - has her mind go back to the kiss condition and finally pays attention to Eric. Crucial point is that in the animated film SHE made the first explicitly romantic move on the boat and leaned in for a kiss first. At her own pace, in her own time and when she wanted. The initiative in Ariel and Eric's romantic interactions in the original belonged entirely to Ariel, a woman.

Another disastrous change that should have never happened and that robbed LA Ariel of any agency in the situation: giving Ariel the "kiss amnesia" and having Eric be the one to attempt to instigate a kiss.

A kiss - the condition forced on both Ariels by Ursula in exchange for an attempt at gaining freedom and fulfilling their goals. The condition that animated Ariel remained conscious, aware and in charge of up until forces beyond her or Eric's control interfered (Flotsam and Jetsam tipping the boat over on Ursula's orders). Because she was aware of the stakes and deadlines animated Ariel got to decide how and when to proceed. She couldn't control Ursula's unscrupulous actions but she was in control of her own body and romantic agency.

LA Ariel was robbed of that privilege and it's inexcusable. Especially when done under the guise of "feminism". Especially when her father, in the remake, was even more oppressive and vicious towards her than original Triton.

In the 1989 version Ariel is the subject but Eric is no object either. When Ariel leans in for a kiss Eric pulls away. Because "looks and pretty face" were never enough for him. Because he was still committed to his ideals and viewed the Girl with the Voice as an embodiment of them. And, most importantly, because his ideals included taking love and relationship seriously and Eric, per his own words, could NOT kiss a girl whose name he didn't even know.

And Ariel backed away when he did. She did not make fun of Eric for being a "boy too shy" (toxic masculinity brought on by Sebastian - who directed the "mood creating" musical number; and who proved there was a reason Triton's patriarchal self appointed him as his adviser AND a personal spy to invade his daughter's private space earlier in the story). Animated Ariel respected Eric's agency and consent as much as he did hers. Be it throughout the Kingdom tour or in the aforementioned scene where he pulled away and refused to take advantage of the situation and mute Ariel's vulnerability.

It is not until Eric does learn Ariel's name is the physical intimacy between them resumed - because Ariel wants it and takes him by the hand (being the one to instigate physical contact) to confirm (nodding enthusiastically) that he did, in fact, get her name right. Once again animated Ariel is the subject and an active party in the scene.

In the 2023 version Ariel is simply going with the flow in the same scene. She passively follows along with what she is offered by Eric (who in the remake is completely smitten with mute Ariel by that point and easily shifts the focus of his feelings from his "fantasy girl" to her) and Sebastian. Who, in turn, pressures Eric and Ariel into doing something Ariel does not even remember she has to do and shows no consent or interest in doing.

It's Eric who leans in for a kiss here and Ariel who pulls away, feeling tense, confused and uncomfortable. She doesn't understand what is going on while Sebastian is pulling the strings ("Work on the Prince using the power of suggestion") and he and Eric remain active parties who get to decide how the events turn and when the next romantic step should be taken.

In either case, however, the sequence ends with Ariel getting closer not just to Eric but to her dream of remaining human. Whilst Eric ultimately chooses Ariel over his "dream girl with the voice". Despite the kissing failure courtesy of Ursula's minions Ariel and Eric almost fulfill the condition of the deal and take their relationship to a new level in the process and nothing stops them from trying again (that's the very reason Ursula decides to intervene personally and, as mentioned above, actually changes herself into a conventionally attractive younger woman to coerce Eric).

Difference is that where animated Ariel still has agency and awareness of the situation and the deadline LA Ariel is kept in ignorant bliss and has NO control of either the situation or her own life in this case.

However, Disney did right by both Ariel and Eric when it comes to Eric's key development: him letting go of his idealistic dream of the "girl with the voice" and Ariel doing everything to restore his free will after Ursula/"Vanessa" stole it. Moreover, in the LA version the narrative emphasized more boldly the disturbing nature of this act on part of Ursula, having Ariel directly spell it out ("she bewitched you"). LA made it a point that Eric was no less a victim of Ursula than Ariel and Triton were.

Children likely would not perceive the terrifyingly predatory implications of both versions as far as this matter - and the scene where "Vanessa" puts Eric under the spell - is concerned (same for the horrid, taunting “so long, loverboy” line from Ursula). But it does, either time, attain it's purpose of eliciting a reaction of "why does this have to be so unfair" from anyone regardless of age (or whether or not they cared about Eric prior to that scene). Because the scene - in either movie - is the epitome of injustice and pure unadulterated cruelty despite the lack of any physical violence.

The viewer is exposed to how one of the two leading characters whose core identity was built upon striving for independence, who has gone through the process of maintaining said independence while growing out of childish idealism in favor of informed choices (same theme Ariel's arc rested upon, see above) in the face of constant pressure has everything he's worked so hard for be torn from him rapidly and viciously in an instant.

In the animated version Eric's choice of mute Ariel symbolizing both his growth and the triumph of his free will is more pronounced. Eric's youthful romantic nature was what set his arc in motion in the first place and was the foundation for his struggle. He is the one who rejected the princess of Glowerhaven despite Grimsby's best efforts to get him to act like a royal heir ought to. And marry out of obligation to his subjects (rather than, again, by choice) whom Grimsby uses to delicately pressure Eric in the original ("The entire kingdom wants to see you happily settled down with the right girl").

But Eric stood his ground - because he valued his independence and the idea people should form partnerships upon genuine mutual feelings rather than political contract - above societal demands; and that's what got mute Ariel to listen to him so intently and identify with him. Animated Eric was the one who was, literally, hit by the lightning (the way he believed he would find his love) and, metaphorically, by Ariel who saved him (notably, animated Eric had no qualms proudly announcing that "a girl rescued him" and did not feel one bit emasculated about it).

The flute, for the original Eric, represented that idealistic dream and his belief in free choice of partner attached to said dream, of a girl with angelic voice. But when he gets to bond with the mute Ariel he realizes that physical attributes such as the aforementioned angelic voice or his adoration of an image of "the one" who may or may not have been a figment of his imagination is not what his beliefs rest upon. They, as mentioned above, rest upon free will and Eric's commitment to the idea of mutual, unforced feelings between two people.

Hence why when he throws the flute into the waves he lets go of his immaturity but not his identity.

Live Action Eric did not want to be "hit by a lightning" - he was afraid of that as much as he was afraid of the approaching "storm". It is notable that in the 2023 version it is Eric - not one of the sailors - who first notices the storm coming and warns other sailors about it. LA Eric wasn't an idealistic romantic - he was out to prove a point to his mother about their Kingdom needing to develop and not be years behind in terms of progress compared to others (there where the Queen latched on to her more conservative ideas about the direction their Kingdom should go and, presumably, preferred to keep up with the legacy of her deceased husband).

When LA Eric talks about his late father he uses words such as "isolation and fear" which he associates with staying in the castle and conforming to imposed royal routine. That's what he wants to avoid, for himself and his Kingdom and his people.

In that regard LA Eric, in the first half of the film, is more immature than idealistic romantic Eric from the 1989 movie who wasn't avoiding anyone or anything, did not prove any points and adhered to his beliefs. Where animated Eric seeks conflict of heart ("It'll just - bam! - hit me - like lightning") because he assumes he has enough courage and emotional resource to handle it, LA Eric avoids conflict of heart and hides behind ambitious, often reckless plans to expand his Kingdom's business. The Queen later mentions Eric's voyages resulting in more loss than profits so far for the Kingdom. Grimsby is actually being reasonable when he warns Eric about thoughtless risks ("I believe a little fear may be advisable, sire").

What stands out is how those changes in LA Eric's character impact his relationship with Grimsby (which brings us to the original point about the difference in Queen Selina's and Grimsby's reaction to Eric's announcement he wants to marry "Vanessa").

In the LA version the characters of change are King Triton, Queen Selina AND Grimsby whereas in the 1989 version the only character of change is King Triton. Animated Grimsby never gets to have self reflection or development because he, unlike Triton, is never proven wrong. The only time he thinks he is is when "Vanessa" appears at their castle's doorstep holding hypnotized Eric in her literal and metaphorical grasp.

At that point 1989 Grimsby is forced to admit that the dream girl is, in fact, real; and accepts not so much Eric's freedom to choose a partner (their main conflict point from earlier) as the fact that Eric was right in that one instance. He completely overlooks all of Eric's previous developments and bonding with Ariel from earlier. Even though Eric's illogical demand to have a wedding with "Vanessa" "as soon as possible" seems strange to Grimsby ("Oh, yes - of course, Eric, but, er - but these things do take time, you know...") he doesn't give it any more thought and follows along.

In the remake Eric and Grimsby start out with virtually the same conflict (Grimsby trying to pressure Eric into embracing the royal norms and rules he rejects) but the context is slightly different: LA Grimsby has more of an excuse to not show understanding towards Eric. Because in this version he is NOT his fatherly figure or the closest Eric has to an adult guardian. Original Grimsby used his position of emotional - if not social/hierarchical - authority to guilt trip and manipulate Eric (an orphaned prince, with enough privileges to live his life not needing for anything and not having anyone who would have the power to tell him what to do; yet still vulnerable because of the lack of guidance) about hurrying up to get married, as a proper heir to the throne ought to at his age (the aforementioned line about the entire Kingdom waiting for it). Even when original Grimsby doesn't deny the importance of finding the right person that Eric insists upon, he still places the blame/responsibility on Eric, remarking that he wasn't "looking hard enough" for the right woman.

LA Grimsby doesn't manipulate or pressure Eric about personal matters at all (quite the contrary, he supports all of Eric's wishes and decisions in that respect; it's him LA Ariel and Eric owe their alone time during the Kingdom Tour and the boat scene - he went up against the Queen's direct orders to arrange that for them). Grimsby admonishes Eric about endangering himself or forgetting about subordination on the ship when Eric prefers to drink and party with regular sailors. Which is, in fact, a responsible thing for an adult to do (whereas LA Eric, as mentioned already, starts out as less responsible and self aware than his animated counterpart though eventually achieves similar results and developments). Because Eric is the captain and should always keep a cool sober head and maintain authority. LA Grimsby just does that for all the wrong reasons (Eric is royalty and therefore should "act like one"). Those reasons are less a reflection of Grimsby's own views and more him projecting the views of the Queen. Whose wrath he fears to invoke if anything happens to Eric (as Grimsby admits himself in the very beginning of the remake).

That's precisely why LA Grimsby is able to notice something is wrong with Eric on the day of his wedding with "Vanessa". Furthermore, he actually does something about it. Whereas original Grimsby is pleased to see Eric ultimately doing exactly what he had been pressuring Eric into doing all that time - marrying "the right girl" and being the proper Prince (never mind that just an evening ago animated Grimsby gave Eric "wise guidance" about mute Ariel and how a girl of flesh and blood is better than any dream girl - because back then that narrative was convenient for Grimsby, just like Eric's wedding with "Vanessa" was convenient now).

On the contrary, LA Grimsby goes from someone too fearful to disobey or disappoint the Queen to someone actively defying and anti-paralleling her for the sake of Eric's agency. It's not limited to Grimsby assisting Ariel and Eric in escaping the castle for a day to have a good time.

The scene with the Queen giving Eric the family ring for his wedding with "Vanessa" and Grimsby then pushing said ring aside deliberately when it falls to the ground, as to stall the wedding, are contrasts. That is also why the Queen not accepting Ariel right away and being horrified by the reveal of her being a "sea creature" - whom the Queen was as prejudiced against as Triton was towards humans - works within this story. While Queen Selina and King Triton were meant to be parallels she and Grimsby are anti-parallels.

Back to the beginning: yes, Queen Selina would have preferred "Vanessa". From the writing standpoint, it was a well executed Freudian slip when she called Ariel specifically a "sea creature" but did not say the same thing about "Vanessa" transforming into half-human half-octopus. Subconsciously, the Queen must have been disappointed that the wedding with "Vanessa" was a scam and never meant to happen. And glad that "Vanessa"/Ursula took Ariel away and back into the ocean where she "belonged" and would be away from her son. That's why the Queen immediately attempts to stop Eric from going after Ariel and tells him that the sea is not a friendly place and "their whole world is evil".

But that's also what makes the outcome realistic and compelling: while Selina might have preferred a different route for her son, just like Triton preferred a different route for Ariel, she still accepts his wishes. She makes it a point to highlight she does it for Eric's sake and for the sake of her Kingdom, because Ariel has positive influence on both. It requires wisdom to accept your child's decisions even when you disagree with them and/or would have wanted said child to reach a different outcome with their goals and actions.

It is also not random that LA Ariel and Eric drive off to explore uncharted waters together, taking a necessary distance, while Selina and Grimsby, standing beside one another, bid them their goodbyes. That time and space to reflect on the past events and relationships is necessary not just for Ariel and Eric but also for the Queen. With Grimsby's help and perspective she is likely to gradually learn to see the situation and Eric's journey of self fulfillment from a different angle.

Tonnes of changes in the LA version were either unnecessary or outright criminal but this was good writing.

[cinnaminsvga]

Dumbo | Jungkook (M)

→ summary: you know what they say about boys with big noses...

{or alternatively: jungkook has a big dick but he doesn’t know how to use it, but luckily you’re there to help.}

→ genre: humor/crack, smut → warnings: they talk about dicks a lot (i.e. jungkook has a big dick), DICK MEASURING CONTESTS (aka jk gets his dick appraised... just boys bein’ boys), explicit sexual content, semi-public exhibitionism, handjobs, blowjobs, sub!jungkook, whining, light dirty talk, mild pain play, mutual masturbation, jungkook has piercings, accidental edging (you’ll... understand), oc doesn’t have a gag reflex lol → words: 17.2K → a/n: @jincherie... you are my enabler and i will die on this hill only if you die on it with me. but of course i know you will die with me. because we only have one braincell and if either of us die, we both do. thank you for commissioning me to write this btw... even though i was already writing this so you just basically sent me money for free. ANYWAY... WORLD IS FUCK BUT I LOVE RHA!! ALSO JUNGKOOK HAS A BIG DICK!! EPIC!!

The club lights make it difficult for Jungkook to see anything. He doesn’t understand why club owners can’t just jack up the lighting for once; it isn’t like you’re going to be able to find a hook-up through echolocation or something. Though, judging by the way people seem to be groping their way through the masses, perhaps there really is no need for illumination anyway.

Jungkook normally hates this kind of scene. Drinking is all good and fun, especially when he’s with his hyungs, but going to overly crowded places makes his skin crawl with anxiety. It takes almost three shots during pre-game for him to get anywhere near this kind of place and it’s all thanks to Seokjin. That hyung thrives in these kinds of environments, like a clipped butterfly relearning how to fly.

“I’m gonna get shit fucked wasted!” Seokjin hollers, his arm looped carelessly around the only other person who hates being here as much as Jungkook does. He watches passively as Yoongi tries to bite a chunk off of Seokjin’s hand, but despite his inebriation, their eldest hyung is able to dodge it quickly.

“Not before I kill you, then everyone else in this place, and then myself, first.” Yoongi growls, nudging Seokjin off his smaller frame. If the world hadn’t been swaying underneath Jungkook’s feet, he might have offered to help his small hyung do the deed. If there’s anyone who hates nightclubs more than Jungkook, it’s Yoongi. Jungkook is frightened to know how Seokjin managed to convince Yoongi in the first place, and he’d prefer not to find out what sort of terrible blackmail the elder must have under his sleeve to accomplish such an arduous feat.

Just as Yoongi is about to connect his steel-toed boot up Seokjin’s freshly bleached asshole, Jimin returns from the bar with three glasses held precariously in each of his fists. Jungkook wonders yet again how this is possible due to the sheer tininess of Jimin’s hands, but then again... What can’t Jimin do when it comes to alcohol?

“I’m back! Here you go, Jungkookie,” Jimin says, seamlessly handing Jungkook a glass of what he hopes is just a regular beer like he asked. Knowing Jimin, he probably ordered the strongest shit they have. He peers at it suspiciously, but it only takes half a sip for Jungkook to confirm his guess. He grimaces, nearly coughing out a lung at the strength of the poison running down his throat.

“That tasted like fucking metal polish! What the fuck, Jimin?”

“I know! It’s great isn’t it?” Jimin smiles angelically, handing Yoongi one of the drinks. Yoongi looks at the swirling piss-yellow liquid as if it holds the secrets to the universe. It appears as if he’s decided something when his eyes light up.

“Oh my god, this drink is gonna kill me,” he says, not an ounce of fear in his voice. Jimin nods, not even trying to hide his deception.

“I promised the bartender a blowie if he could give me the strongest shit they had,” Jimin shrugs. “Dude literally went to the back room and took out this bottle that looked like it came from Napoleon’s secret stash of hooker piss.” He sniffs the drinks thoughtfully. “Yea, I could believe that.”

“I hate this!” Jungkook cries at no one in particular.

“Tough shit! We’re in this together!” Yoongi groans, downing the entire contents of his drink in one go before promptly being swallowed whole by the crowd. Seokjin hoots, hastily waving goodbye to Jungkook and Jimin before following Yoongi and diving into the sweaty masses like a seasoned Olympian.

“I hope they don’t die like last time,” Jungkook sighs, forcing himself to take a big gulp of his drink. It sears against his throat like a brand, which probably has an inscription saying “Jeon Jungkook has bad taste in friends.”

Jimin shrugs his shoulders. “Well, like Namjoon said a while ago, we’re gonna meet by the bar in 2 hours to check if everyone is still alive and we’ll find out then. Okay, Kook?”

Jimin has reminded him of this for the umpteenth time, though he can’t blame him for being extra careful. Last time the whole gang went to the club, Hoseok had gotten stuck in an elevator at his hook-up’s place and had cried for 5 hours straight before one of them thought to look for him. The time before that, Taehyung had ingested two times his bodyweight of margaritas and he had found himself in Japan the next morning with an extra $500 in his pocket.

Yeah. They’re idiots, but at least they’re idiots who will try not to make the same mistakes as last time. Key word being “try.”

Jungkook looks around the club, but he can’t find any awkward looking lanky people anywhere. “Where is Namjoon-hyung, by the way? Haven’t seen him since we split up.”

“Who the hell knows?” Jimin laughs, the sound drowning out when the DJ suddenly decides to play a death metal version of Dance the Night Away by Twice. Jimin’s eyes light up. “Ooooh shit! This is my song! See ya later, Kook!”

“W-wait, those drinks! Aren’t they for the others––“

“Bitch, you think these are for them?” Jimin begins to double fist his alcohol with the thirstiness of a man in a desert, or a twink confronted with two dicks. Either or.

To Jungkook’s horror, the crowd has seemingly grown thrice in size since they’ve arrived and he watches as Jimin’s body is slowly getting consumed by the masses, though he doesn’t seem bothered in the slightest. He leans into a random guy's back, a look of bliss on his face. He salutes lazily at Jungkook. “Anyway. See you in 2 hours, Kook! Try to have fun!”

Try to have fun, his ass.

Unlike Jimin, Jungkook doesn’t particularly feel like being crushed by sweaty hormonal bodies; instead, he chooses to head to the bar. He surreptitiously dumps his drink into the trash, feeling kind of bad for discarding a free drink, but Jungkook doesn’t want to get shit-fucked wasted like the rest of them are. Perhaps he’ll be the designated driver today, even though his vision is still kind of swimming. Well, he could probably walk in a straight line if he used all his brainpower. Which isn’t a lot, but you know. People learn to make do.

It takes him a while to find an empty stool by the bar and he is unlucky enough to be squished between two couples who don’t seem to be aware that public indecency is a crime. He has to endure being jostled for five minutes straight until the bartender finally notices him and allow him to order his can of coke.

(“Sorry, kid. The banana milk is all sold out. Some girl ordered our entire stock for her friends a few hours ago.” And just like that, Jungkook wants to die all over again.)

He does not know for how long he sits by the bar. Well, that’s a blatant lie, because he knows that he’s been sitting there for 18 minutes and 34 seconds exactly. He’s checked his phone religiously every 2 minutes to see if 2 hours have passed already, just so he can ask one of his stupid friends to go home with him. Perhaps he could coerce Jimin into turning in early for once (which is a pipedream, not when the DJ seems adamant to play Jimin’s favorite Christina Aguilera song 70 times in a row.)

So in short, Jungkook is miserable. He could go home by himself, but also he doesn’t want to end up having to walk to the police station the next morning to bail his friends out after one of them inevitably destroys public property again.

Fuck. Maybe he shouldn’t have thrown away his other drink.

He’s so deep in his thoughts that he doesn’t notice that one of the couples beside him have already left and that another person has taken their spot. He is jarred from his musings when a well-manicured hand is placed delicately on his shoulder, urging him to swivel the barstool around to face his soon-to-be acquaintance.

“Hey,” you say, a sultry smile on your lips. Jungkook feels his mouth immediately fill with cotton as he stares at your beautiful face, the dingy lighting of the club doing nothing to suppress the wicked glint in your eyes.

“Uhh… hey?” Jungkook replies, as charming and verbose as ever. If it isn’t obvious enough, Jungkook is a little lacking in the girls department, or at least, when it comes to girls-who-are-blatantly-flirting with him department. He normally isn’t this socially inept around the opposite gender, but given the connotations of this circumstance, his overactive male brain can only be restrained so much before it starts wandering towards dangerous territory.

It doesn’t help that the neckline of your dress is bordering on obscene, and Jungkook is afraid that if you move one more inch towards him, something very embarrassing might happen to the both of you (probably more so for him, if he’s being quite honest.)

“I couldn’t help but notice you from across the club and thought I should introduce myself,” you explain, gaze unashamedly trailing down his body. Jungkook can feel the heat from you radiating in waves, burning him from the inside out as he tries not to melt into a puddle in a pathetic attempt to get the fuck out of there.

“You saw me? But it’s… so dark in here…” Jungkook wants to fucking murder himself. That’s what he decides to say to you? God, no fucking wonder he’s a virgin. Good looks really aren’t everything when he doesn’t have a brain controlling the rest of his body. There might as well be a fucking hamster running laps inside of his skull for all he knew.

Thankfully (or unthankfully––God knows Jungkook’s stress levels aren’t lowering any time soon), you find his response funny enough to warrant a chuckle. You bat your eyes salaciously at him, which Jungkook didn’t even think was possible. People can be sexy? When they blink? Apparently, you can do that.

You shrug your shoulders. “That’s true. You caught me in a lie, I suppose. I actually knew you were coming even before you arrived.”

Jungkook chokes on his own spit then, nearly spraying you with his saliva like the dog that he is. His eyes bug out of his sockets, his body going tense with nerves. "You... you knew? What... What does that even mean?"

You point over your shoulder, gesturing vaguely at the crowd on the dance floor. "I'm friends with Seokjin over there. He mentioned you were coming with him to the club tonight so I decided to tag along."

"You know Seokjin-hyung?" The alarm bells in Jungkook's head start ringing wildly out of control. Nothing good ever comes out of being friends with Seokjin, especially since his presence alone has the power to make the creases in your brain to smoothen. Take it from someone who's been there, done that.

"Yep," you say, popping your 'p.' "I met him in my first-year English course, though I still don't know why a third-year like him was taking it in the first place."

"It's because he doesn't know how to read," Jungkook says plainly.

"I can tell. He uses voice-to-text exclusively and Siri can never spell Asian names correctly," you shrug your shoulders. "Either that, or he just doesn't know how to spell your name."

"Yea. I'm permanently John Jung Cock on his phone," Jungkook replies. He shakes his head. "Hold on, we were talking about something before this."

"Oh. About how I casually revealed to you that I was stalking you through our mutually insane friend?"

"Y-Yea, basically." Jungkook doesn't even understand what the fuck is happening right now. "I mean! Not exactly? Like, for all I know, you could've just asked hyung who he was coming with and he mentioned my name and––"

"Listen, kid. I straight up just told you I'm stalking you. Let's skip the foreplay and get to the meat of it: I'm literally following you," you say, without an inch of regret, embarrassment, or morality in your tone of voice.

Jungkook, who despite being filled with so much fear and tension enough to kill the small hamster inside his brain, is somehow able to keep his calm in front of the psychopath in front of him. Either that, or he's already in the middle of a stroke and he's lost all his fine motor skills.

"I... I don't know what to say."

"You don't need to say anything, baby," you murmur, leaning even closer to him until your chest was practically pressed against his. The thin layer of your dress and his well-worn cotton tee does nothing to help the situation (both in general and the one in his pants). He can feel your every curve, can smell the sweet perfume you're wearing; you were enveloping his senses. If he tried hard enough, he could probably count your eyelashes if he so desired with how close you were.

He knows he should probably be running away in terror right now, but he finds himself stuck resolutely to the barstool, unable to move. Maybe Jimin was right... Maybe he did have a fear kink or something.

("Isn't that just called masochism?" Jungkook asks, brows raised.

Jimin only laughs, patting him on the back condescendingly. "Nah, dude. You just straight up wanna die by the hands of a hot person, and I can respect that homie. We all have been there.")

“W-what do you want from me?” Jungkook asks, sweat lining his brow. You’re still looking at him like he was a meal, but he finds he probably doesn’t mind being devoured by you.

Your wicked grin returns, full force. “I just want to play, Jungkook. But why don’t we discuss this… somewhere more private?”

Thunk. Was that the sound of his heart dropping out of his ass, or his brain pressing against the left side of his skull, or his dick hitting the roof? Jungkook isn’t sure, but he does know he wants to see where this night will take him.

He lets you lead the way, squeezing through sweaty bodies and elbowing a stray hand or two. Jungkook swears he feels a guy grope him on the way out, but before he can even sock the guy in the jaw, you’re already one step ahead of him. You hiss menacingly at the dudebro, raising your long acrylic nails in a show of dominance like you’re from some wildlife documentary. The guy audibly whines, running away from the two of you with his tail between his legs.

Jungkook stares at you incredulously. “How the fuck did you––”

“I’ve gone to tango classes with that dude. I have his mom’s phone number,” you explain nonchalantly. Instantly, Jungkook feels himself hardening in his pants.

You manage to get to where the washroom stalls are. You brazenly walk past the line of girls at the women’s section, but Jungkook is even more confused when you also pass by the men’s section. You turn the corner, where a bunch of tables and chairs were being kept. Then, you begin to knock down some of the extra chairs stacked against the wall, which is where Jungkook discovers there is an unused wheelchair accessible washroom.

“Why is this washroom being kept hidden?” he wonders aloud, sneaking guilty looks over his shoulder. No one seems to have noticed that the two of you are blatantly trespassing property, but you don’t look all that stressed about it.

You look at him weirdly. “Dude. You can barely walk in this club without getting groped, poked, or doped. As much as I’m all for accessibility, I don’t think wheelchair-bound people are gonna have much of a good time here.”

Jungkook feels as though he should be saying something profound about the need for establishments to be accessible or something, but the strain in his pants really wasn’t doing many wonders on his verbosity right now. Maybe next time.

You make quick work of the barricade and you get the door open in no time. You push him hastily inside, making him yelp as he tries to find his way around the darkened room. You flip the switch on somewhere behind him, illuminating the washroom to find… a toilet. That’s it.

“Well, they certainly didn’t think about interior decorating,” Jungkook says, laughing nervously as you click the door locked. He turns, watching as you pull the black elastic that was on your wrist and begin to tie your hair. You smile cheekily at him, the implications of what is about to happen very much apparent.

“Nah, they didn’t. But the room gets the job done and that’s all we want, don’t we?” You purr, taking the two short steps you need to get close to him once more. You trail a well-manicured nail down his chest, circling around his nipple teasingly but not doing anything more. His breathing turns more shallow, and he knows for sure that his eyes must look crazed to you right now.

You bring your finger lower and lower, grazing the top of his belt buckle and staying there. You look up at him, licking your lips as your gaze trails down to his own. Once again, he feels paralyzed as you take him in and he wishes for all the horny gods from above that you would finally end the torture and finally close the distance.

Taking some pity on him, you rest your lips against his throat, suckling gently enough that Jungkook knows it won’t leave a mark. His hands instantly come up to grab your waist, as if urging you to go harder, to make it hurt.

You smirk against his skin, deciding at that moment to bite down, hard. Jungkook yelps, before the sound morphs into an unabashed moan. His cheeks pinken, embarrassed at the volume of his voice.

“I-I…”

“Don’t worry, Jungkook…” you whisper, soothing the bite with your tongue. You pop off his skin, your lips slightly redder than before. “I’ll take good care of you, darling.”

See, Jungkook doesn’t doubt you in the slightest. As for his own skills at taking care of you when the time comes… now that’s a little bit of a gamble.

Jungkook isn’t a virgin, per se… He lost his virginity during his last year of high school to some girl he met at a party, and suffice to say, he didn’t last long. He’s had a few girlfriends in the past, but none of them ever wanted to get with him once they saw his dick. You see, he had a bit of a problem…

He wasn’t small, by the way. Don’t get him wrong. In fact, he was kinda––

Jungkook is pulled away from his thoughts when you suddenly drop down to your knees, your hands grabbing onto his thighs for support. He’s almost worried that you’d injured yourself from how fast you’d dropped, but you don’t seem all that bothered by how deftly your fingers moved to unbuckle his belt.

When you get it loosened, your hands stop by the button of his jeans and you look up at him with expectation. Jungkook almost whines when your hands drift back to your lap.

You snort, amused. “What? You think I’m gonna do all the work here, buddy? Come on, strip for me.” you say, sitting on your haunches as you wait for him to move.

The strain in his pants was getting downright painful at this point, so Jungkook is more than eager to follow your orders. Still, his hands are shaking the entire time, so it takes him a few extra seconds before he can finally unbutton his stupid jeans and pull down his stupid zipper. Even through his loose boxers, the outline of his dick is very apparent, with a small wet spot already staining the front of his boxers a darker blue.

“Uh, I have to say a disclaimer first though,” Jungkook squeaks, suddenly shy under the intense gaze you were pointing straight at his dick. It twitches slightly, and your eyes follow it like a cat ready to pounce. “I’m… kinda on the bigger side, so I just want to ask if you’re sure––”

“Baby, I was sure even before I came to this club,” you say, trance-like. Your fists clench and unclench by your sides. “Now, shut up before I change my mind.”

“But––” Jungkook doesn’t get to finish his sentence, stunned to silence when you quite literally rip his boxers off of him like a magician trying to prove something. His dick springs up half-way, still not fully hard as it’s always taken him a little bit more goading before he can get to full mast. Yea, he was that big.

You stare at it for a moment, going cross-eyed as you stared at his tip head-on like some sort of perverse gun barrel. You don’t move for so long that Jungkook is afraid that he might have freaked you out with the size of his cock, though you wouldn’t be the first in a long shot. He’s about to apologize, prepared to pull up his pants in shame and walk home with half a log in his crotch. He’s already shifting his jeans back up when you place a hand on his wrist, stopping him in his tracks.

“Wait. Are you, like, only half-hard right now?” you ask, voice quiet.

Jungkook flushes. “Y-yeah… It gets a little bit bigger when I’m fully… You know…” he says, trailing off.

You’re still looking at his dick, but after further assessment, Jungkook realizes that you don’t look horrified in the slightest. In fact, you look pleased. “Jesus fuck you’re huge! Like… almost abnormally so.”

Jungkook literally feels like he’s going to die (and he hates that it’s kinda making him even hornier). “I guess so?”

“That’s a fucking log! You could stand on that thing!”

“I don’t think that’s possible, but––”

“Seokjin had told me you were huge, but I didn’t believe him because, well, the way he described it was that you had a literal third leg hiding under there. Who would have thought that Seokjin isn’t full of shit after all,” you say, awestruck.

“I’m really not that big––wait, Seokjin has talked to you about my dick? What the fuck? Since WHEN?” Seokjin was just out there in the world? Telling strangers about his dick? That hyung is seriously getting smashed WWE style the next time he sees him, and it’s NOT going to be sexy.

You wave him off. “Oh, don’t worry. He doesn’t just tell anyone. He let it slip because he was defending your honor,” you shrug.

In the midst of Jungkook’s mental breakdown at the realization that one of his closest friends just told a random girl that he’s got a meter long King Kong dong, he doesn’t notice that you’ve already stood up from where you were kneeling. You pull down the toilet seat cover, seating yourself on it and rubbing your reddened knees with a pout. “Ouch. Damn, I’m not used to kneeling for men anymore. Sorry, where was I? Oh right!”

You snap your fingers together, smiling gleefully at Jungkook. “So! I dragged you in here to give you my proposition, you see. I have a deal to make with you.”

Jungkook looks down at his cock, which was still red and dripping pre-cum, before turning back to you. “And this has something to do with… my dick?”

“Precisely!” you cheer, glad that he seems to be on the same page as you when he was in fact, not. “Sorry about tricking you, by the way. I’ll suck your dick after this if you’re still game, but only if you agree with my plan.”

“Your plan?”

“Yep,” you say, popping your ‘p’ once more. “You see, I have an ex-boyfriend. His name is Lee Taeyong, ever heard of him?”

Jungkook vaguely knows the upperclassman, though he can’t say he’s ever spoken to him. “Kinda. What does he have to do with me?”

“Well, if you really heard of him, then you’d already be one step ahead. Seeing as how it’s not already connecting for you––” you point to his dick, poking the sensitive head with the grace of a 5-year old at a petting zoo, “––then you don’t know that Lee Taeyong has the biggest dick on campus. Allegedly.”

“Allegedly,” Jungkook repeats. He still doesn’t follow.

“Well, I wouldn’t know either because I’ve never seen his dick, so––”

“Wait wait wait. Wait.” Jungkook’s hamster brain is running a mile a minute. There have been way too many absurdities spoken in the last five minutes and he doesn’t think he’s drunk enough to deal with your insanity right now. “Let’s dissect this one at a time, shall we? First of all, how can you not know how big your boyfriend’s dick is?”

“My ex-boyfriend. And we only dated for like three days, and I don’t fuck until a week has passed, okay? I don’t play like that,” you say as if you didn’t just lure Jungkook to this dingy washroom only to give him blue balls and trauma.

“Okay, whatever. So what if he has a big dick? What does that have to do with me?”

You roll your eyes. “How can you not understand yet? I’m on the hunt for our university’s biggest dick, of course! And you, Jungkook, might just be my ticket to the number one prize.”

There is a long pause. Jungkook stares and stares at you, waiting for you to shout “Surprise! You’re being pranked, bro!” and for all the cameramen to come out and shower him in confetti and dollar bills or something. But no, nothing like that happened. He just continues to stand there with his dick out, while you sit on a dingy toilet seat with your legs crossed comfortably as if you were just two friends having a regular conversation.

After a while, Jungkook comes to a conclusion. “You’re being serious.”

You snort, annoyed as if you were the one being inconvenienced. “Of course I am, dude. I don’t stalk just about anybody to see their dick. I’m not that insane.”

Jungkook feels as though your judgment on sanity should probably be taken with a grain of salt. “S-sure. Right. You’re definitely not insane.”

“And you have a big dick! I’m glad you can see where I’m coming from,” you say, nodding sagely. You peer at his dick once more, brows furrowed as you think deeply to yourself. “Hmm… Yea, I’d say you’d be at least equally as big as him. If all else fails, I can split the winnings and get half the amount of money if you––”

“No,” Jungkook says.

You raise your brow. “Yes?” you try.

“Yes–I mean, what? No!” Jungkook repeats, shaking his head furiously. "Are you even hearing yourself? You expect me to get into a dick measuring contest with your ex just so you can, what? Get revenge on him or something?"

"Not for revenge." You lean closer to him, face inches away from his dick but you don't seem perturbed in the slightest. "It's for money," you whisper, grinning slyly.

"Money," Jungkook repeats.

You clap your hands excitedly. "Exactly! So Taeyong and I didn't actually break up on bad terms. We only got together to make Doyoung, his crush, jealous enough to confess his feelings. But now, that dumb bitch thinks that now that he's with Taeyong, he can make fun of me for not being able to handle Taeyong's dark horse cock––"

"Can you please stop talking like an insane person," Jungkook pleads. His comment remains unheard.

"––so we made a bet that Taeyong doesn't actually have the biggest dick on campus and that I'm dating a guy with an even bigger meat thermometer than he does," you finish, snapping your fingers with a flourish. There's a twinkle in your eye: it's misplaced excitement coupled with extreme insanity, Jungkook realizes.

"That's good and all, but there's just one problem."

"What?" You tilt your head, confused.

"We're not exactly dating, are we?"

"Details, details... What Doyoung and Taeyong don't know won't hurt them," you say, shrugging your shoulders.

Jungkook rolls his eyes. "Of course," he says, leaning against the grimy bathroom wall. He goes to tuck Jungkook Jr. back into his pants, his dick finally softening after the last ten minutes of psychological torture courtesy of yours truly, but you're quick to slap his hand away, making him yelp in surprise.

"No! I like looking at it," you say. You stare at his dick with rapt fascination. "It's kinda like looking at a weird, deformed baby leg. Beautiful, but haunting all at once."

Jungkook huffs, staring at you in equal parts disbelief and awe. If he thought Seokjin was mentally unhinged, then you're definitely on your way towards uncharted psychotic territory. It was kind of amazing how you could just say shit without any brain to mouth filter, in your own twisted way. "Listen, lady. I don't even fucking know what your name is, but I am not helping you win some stupid bet and showing my dick to even more strangers than I have to, okay?"

You consider him, lips pursing slightly. "Why, do you have any other plans this weekend?"

Jungkook falters. "I... No, I don't––"

You shrug your shoulders, as if that's the end of that problem. "Then it's settled! I don't see why you can't just do this out of the goodness of your heart?"

"For the last time, I won't do it even if––"

"I'll split the prize with you? 50/50? That's $1000 for having a huge dick! Every incel's wet dream!"

Jungkook pauses in his rant, choking on his spit. His jaw drops comically, unsure if he heard you right. "Did you say one... grand?"

Hook, line, and sinker. You know you caught him the moment his eyes bugged out of their sockets. You smirk, crossing your arms triumphantly as you gaze upon his desperate and broke college ass (and dick). “So? Having second thoughts?"

Jungkook is quiet for a moment. He opens his mouth, then closes it. He tries to wrap his head around the number, unsure if he should be worried about how ready he is to drop his pants for money. Have I completely lost it? Am I that much of an idiot? he wonders, but then again… He’d be an even bigger idiot for letting free money go down the drain.

“Where is this money even coming from?” he asks, even though he knows his guard is already dropping quickly.

You wave your hand flippantly. “Oh, Doyoung is filthy rich. I imagine that $2000 is nothing to him,” you say, picking at a hangnail. “It’s not much money to me either, but my pride is mostly at stake here. If you want, you could take all the money as a prize, so long as you make that bitch eat his heart out.”

Jungkook feels his dick twitch and he knows that you notice. “Two… thousand…” He accidentally moans, gripping his thighs to prevent himself from nutting. “That’s…”

You tilt your head, arching a brow. “Not enough? I could put in an extra $500 if you’re really against this whole thing. To be fair, I wouldn’t wanna expose my coochie to a random person either––”

“Two thousand five hundred? Are you fucking insane?” Jungkook exclaims, voice cracking at the end. He clears his throat, but it still feels like his lungs are on fire.

“Okay, three grand it is but I’m not going any higher than that,” you huff, shaking your head. “Mr. Jeon, you really do drive a hard bargain, though I always notice that well-endowed men tend to think they deserve the universe, so I’m not surprised.” You chuckle to yourself, as if anything about this situation is worth laughing at. Jungkook feels like that one time he had inhaled an entire helium balloon in one breath when he was younger: kinda nauseous but also kinda euphoric. Is it bad that his dick is stirring awake right now? Hello?

You put your hand out, looking at him expectantly. “Well? Do we have a deal or not?”

Jungkook takes a deep breath and accesses his options carefully. Does he:

Give up his low self-esteem for money and enter an actual dick-measuring contest with some stranger;

There is no other option. Jungkook wants money.

He exhales, a migraine already throbbing incessantly in the back of his skull. He thrusts his hand forward, gripping yours harshly in a firm handshake. “I’m in,” he says, without missing a beat. Your smile brings a shiver down his back, and he can’t help but wonder if this is what Judas felt like when he betrayed Jesus, except he’s betraying no one but his own self-worth.

Well, he always did wonder how much his life was worth and three grand doesn’t seem like that big of a stretch. Oh well.

“Nice,” you chuckle, seemingly vibrating from excitement. You slip behind him, grabbing his phone from the back pocket of his jeans (which were still, by the way, pooled around his thighs because his dick was still out. Just to remind you guys in case you forgot. OP doesn’t want you to ever forget about it.) You flick open his phone, cackling maniacally when you realize he doesn’t even have a password on.

Jungkook squawks. “Hey, what are you––”

“I’m saving my number on your phone,” you explain. He can barely see what you were typing into his phone contacts, but he doesn’t miss the way you attach a heart emoji beside your name. You open his texts, sending yourself an octopus emoji that just so happened to be Jungkook’s most frequently used emoji. You snort. “Octopus emoji, huh? Seems appropriate… Can’t help but think it was a sign that this might have been destiny.”

“I just like takoyaki…” Jungkook defends himself sulkily.

“Yea? Well I like cock,” you say. You pause, furrowing your brows. “Oh, I meant to say chicken. Same thing.”

You hand back his phone, grabbing your small purse that you had thrown aside onto the washroom floor. You straighten your dress, looking to all the world as if you hadn’t just offered a stranger three grand to show his dick. “Well, it was nice meeting you, Jungkook. I expect to see you soon, maybe this weekend if you’re free. I’ll text you the details of when we’ll meet next. Toodles!” you wave, sending him a flying kiss for extra measure. Jungkook’s eye twitches, and he wonders not for the first time tonight if he was trapped in a coma and was slowly passing away.

Just as you are about to head out the door, you stop in your tracks, turning back to face him. You give him a curious expression, gaze dragging downwards until you were staring down the barrel of his dick once more. “Hey, sorry about leaving you hanging like that, by the way. I would love to help you finish, but I have a ride to catch. Raincheck?”

Not waiting for an answer, you saunter away with a spring in your step. The door swings back closed, leaving Jungkook alone for the first time in what feels like forever: just him, his dick, and the promise of three thousand dollars on the horizon.

“I’m so fucking stupid,” Jungkook groans, sliding down to the floor. He fists his cock in his hand, groaning loudly when he feels the pleasure jolt up his spine like electricity. As he listens to the sounds of his heavy breathing and the slick mess in his hands, he can’t help but wonder if Jimin was right… Maybe he did have a thing for insane hot girls who were out to kill him.

x x x x x

After Jungkook cleans himself up, he marches out of the washroom with as much dignity as he can muster. Which is to say that he walked out of there with his head bowed in shame, meekly navigating the crowded club in search of his friends.

It isn’t hard, considering that Jimin was currently hanging on the fucking ceiling from a disco ball. A group of men stand at the bottom, all of them eagerly eyeing his fat ass as Jimin dangerously humped the shiny ball of metal like his life depended on it.

“Okaaaay guys! The moment this disco ball drops, whoever catches me first gets to fuck me tonight so try your best to grab me~!” Jimin singsongs from his perch, howling madly as all the horny motherfuckers scramble all over each other, desperate to catch him lest he meets his maker.

“I. Hate. My. Life.” Jungkook sighs, striding past the group of men easily with his superior upper body strength. “Move, incels. This twink isn’t letting any of you simps touch his ass. He just likes the attention.”

“Aww, Jungkookie! Don’t ruin my fun~! Unless you wanna catch me and we can finally fu––” Jimin screams mid-sentence, just as the cord holding him and the disco ball snaps. All the guys step over themselves to catch him, but Jungkook is stronger and faster. He catches Jimin mid-air, snatching him in an instant and hoisting him over his shoulder. Everyone cheers and hollers, clapping for him as Jimin continues to giggle hysterically into his back.

“Yay! Jungkookie is gonna fuck meeeee,” Jimin pats him on the ass, but Jungkook ignores him. He goes around the club, searching for the rest of his friends until he has five dangling bodies hanging off his body like some six-headed freak.

Well, it’s soon going to be five-headed after he beheads Seokjin, whom Jungkook is certain just vomited all over the back of his jeans.

“I can’t fucking find Yoongi-hyung.” Jungkook grits his teeth, his nose assaulted by the stench of Namjoon’s armpit as the elder contorts himself into a more comfortable position. “Stop fucking moving, you long-legged bastard. Why’d you have to be born with such good body proportions?”

“And why are you so hot, Jungkook?” Taehyung swoons from somewhere underneath Hoseok, who seems to be either passed out or dead; Jungkook didn’t pause to check for a pulse.

“Pretty sure Yoongi went home,” Seokjin slurs, a second wave of nausea hitting him as he struggles to keep the alcohol inside of him a bit longer. “Ugh… Said he saw his roommate and they went home together.”

“God, it better be his fucking roommate and not another person trying to sell his organs again.” Jungkook sighs. “Either way, we’re all going home. We’ve done enough damage for tonight.”

“Jungkookie, did you have any fun at all tonight? Didn’t see you around,” Namjoon quips, managing to wriggle out of Jungkook’s grip and fall face flat on the curb. He whines pathetically, not making a move to stand up again. “Ugh. I didn’t even drink a lot tonight so why...?”

“It’s because you’re Namjoon,” Jungkook supplies helpfully. He lets the rest of his friends down, making sure they are leaning against the wall for support (or sitting against the wall in Hoseok’s case). “Alright, I’m calling cabs. Seokjin-hyung, I’m staying over at your place tonight.”

Jimin, who was already slowly falling asleep where he stands, perks up in attention at that. “Wait, you’re coming home with me and Seokjin? Are we reaaaally gonna fuck?” Jimin tries to wiggle his eyebrows suggestively, but to Jungkook, it just looks like he’s having a stroke.

“I’m done nutting for tonight. We are sleeping once we get home and that’s it,” Jungkook snorts, crossing his arms.

“OOOOOOOH? JUNGKOOK GOT FUCKED AT THE CLUB!”

“GET IT BOY!”

“OH SHIT HE FINALLY USED HIS PURPLE-HEADED YOGURT FINGER!”

“DAMN DUDE? DAMN? DAMN?”

“AW, YOU FUCKED SOMEONE WITHOUT ME?”

Jungkook swears he had heard Hoseok speak amidst the yelling from his friends, but his hyung still remains mysteriously hunched over and dead to the world. “None of your businesses. Anyway, a cab is coming soon and I swear to God, if any of you piss or vomit in that poor man’s vehicle, I will make sure none of you live to see the light of day, okay?”

Jimin turns to Taehyung, who just happened to be beside him. “Not gonna lie, but I kinda jizzed in my pants just now. That was kinda hot.” Taehyung only nods in agreement.

An hour and thirty minutes later, Jungkook manages to get the last of his idiot friends home, leaving only him, Seokjin, and Jimin as they tiredly trudge up the steps to the apartment. It takes an additional twenty minutes for Seokjin to figure out where he’d left his keys, only for Jimin to raise his finger for them to wait as he hid behind some bushes while unbuckling his jeans. When he comes out of the bushes, pantless, he has a key raised with a victorious smirk on his face.

“Don’t ask where I keep this,” is all he says and Jungkook is glad that he had rejected Seokjin’s offer to permanently move in as their roommate.

They all stumble into the apartment, with Seokjin falling immediately onto the couch. He curls up into a little ball, snoring the moment his eyes shut. Jungkook wants to shake him awake, eager to interrogate him about what happened between you and him just a few hours ago at the club. Even if he wanted to wake him up, Jungkook is sure nothing can rouse the elder; this fact is confirmed when Jungkook dumps water on him, only for Seokjin to keep sleeping soundly like a baby.

“Well, hyung is dead. Guess it’s time for me to die too,” Jimin says sleepily, the horniness and insanity from the club already wearing off. He pats Jungkook gently on the head, pointing towards Seokjin’s room. “Sleep there. I’ll hand you an extra blanket because I wouldn’t trust that hyung’s sheets. Let’s sleep, yeah?”

Left with no other choice, Jungkook heads to Seokjin’s bedroom, jumping onto the unmade sheets and pretending not to notice the crusty unknown substance on the corner of the bed. He can’t fall asleep, not when he’s left haunted by the weight on his chest (and dick). Jungkook fiddles with his phone, staring wide-eyed at the name displayed tauntingly on his screen.

Y/N L/N.

He was gonna have a nightmare tonight, that’s for sure.

x x x x x

Jungkook wakes up early, much to his chagrin. He’d really like to stay dead to the world for much longer, but the smell of coffee brewing and bacon cooking is kind of a hard deal to pass up. Jungkook shifts in bed, cringing when he realizes he went to sleep in his jeans, and more importantly, that his pants felt a lot stickier than he remembered.

He lifts the blanket up, confirming his suspicions. “Fuck!”

Well, guess he didn’t have much of a nightmare last night after all.

He shucks off his clothes, disgusted by the mess he finds in his underwear. He hobbles over to Seokjin’s closet, cringing when he finds only one (1) clean pair of shorts left, which just so happened to have “PEE IS STORED IN THE BALLS” stamped on the back in cursive font. Beggars can’t be choosers, he supposes.

Jungkook tiptoes out of the bedroom, confronted with the sight of Jimin pouring three mugs of coffee and Seokjin still slumped over the couch, a substantial amount of drool dripping down from the side of his mouth and forming a puddle on the floor. Jungkook takes a photo, saving it for later.

“Morning,” Jimin smiles from the kitchen, offering Jungkook one of the cups. Jungkook is certain that Jimin has no recollection of the events from last night, though such is Park Jimin’s way of life. He drinks to get fucked up, then he forgets, and then the cycle repeats itself anew. Jungkook wonders how Jimin always manages to wake up without a hangover, though God might have just given him a super liver in compensation for his lack of height.

“Hyung is still dead,” Jungkook states plainly, walking over to Seokjin and peering at him closely. Jungkook sticks a finger into his agape mouth, collects some of his spit, and then proceeds to give him the wettest willy of his life. Still no response.

“Let me try,” Jimin says, sauntering over to Seokjin with one of the cups of coffee. Jimin leans down, hums gently into his ear. “Hyung, wake up. We have coffee for you!”

Seokjin mumbles incomprehensibly in his sleep, snuggling deeper into the couch stuffing. Jimin tilts his head, still smiling. Then, he dumps the scalding cup of coffee all over Seokjin’s crotch.

In an instant, Seokjin screams with the pitch of a banshee, swinging his arms wildly about and nearly knocking himself out with his own fist. Jungkook and Jimin watch passively from the sidelines, waiting for the elder to finish fanning his nutsack before greeting him a pleasant morning.

“WHY ARE YOU BOTH LITERAL DEMONS?” Seokjin hollers, jumping to his feet with his scorched balls and all. Taking pity on him, Jungkook walks over to the fridge, tossing his hyung a bag of ice. And by toss, it’s more like he pitches the bag straight into his dick with the ease and speed of a seasoned baseball player, eliciting another round of pained howls.

“YOU––ASS––” Seokjin seethes, clutching the bag of ice to his nether regions. He sits down on the adjacent loveseat, expression contorting as he cups his balls gingerly. “God, it’s almost like you guys don’t think I deserve basic human decency.”

“That was just a small part of my revenge for you, after you gave my contact details to an insane woman,” Jungkook sneers, miming a punch onto Seokjin’s handsome face. Seokjin doesn’t even flinch, too busy staring at Jungkook’s legs.

“Hey, are you wearing my thot shorts?”

Jungkook looks down at the neon pink monstrosity around his hips. “You call these your thot shorts?”

Seokjin shrugs. “I got dicked down in them once. You should try.”

“Oh, did I hear something about revenge? I smell tea in here,” Jimin says, coming back from the kitchen with his own cup. “Well, I have coffee but same shit. What happened?”

“This––” Jungkook points an accusatory finger at Seokjin, “––asshole sent my location information to an insane stalker lady last night after he told her that I had a huge dick!”

Seokjin squints at him, confused. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about Y/N! She said you told her about how big my dick was and when she asked you where I was, you told her I was going to the club with you last night!”

“Oh.” Realization dawns on Seokjin’s face, which was quickly replaced by incredulity as he stares at Jungkook. “I assumed she asked for your contact details because she had a crush on you. I was just trying to get you some pussy, bro.”

“Yeah, Kook. Not gonna lie, but I’d be dicking down girls left and right if I had a dick as big as yours,” Jimin says, eyeing the bulge in his teeny tiny shorts with interest. “In fact, I’d probably be a top if I had a dick as big as yours.”

Seokjin laughs, nearly shooting out phlegm from the strength of it. “Oh god, don’t tell me. You couldn’t get your dick hard again? Don’t worry bro, if I had a dick as big as yours, it’d take ages for it to fill up too.”

Jungkook flushes, stomping his foot in embarrassment. “That! Wasn’t the problem! The problem is––”

“––that Jungkook nuts too quickly because he doesn’t have any practice,” Jimin tuts sadly, patting the younger with a pitiful expression. “Don’t worry, Kook. Hyung is open to giving you some pointers.”

“That’s not it either!” Jungkook screams, groaning in annoyance. “She came up to me because she offered to pay me $3000 to enter a dick-measuring contest!”

Jimin and Seokjin tilt their heads in tandem, still not getting it. “So?” they both chorus, giving him a blank-eyed stare.

“Are you guys out of your mind? I got bribed into showing my dick to some strangers like some kind of weird prostitute!”

“It’s not prostitution if you’re not engaging in sexual activity,” Jimin muses, taking a long sip from his coffee. He shrugs his shoulders. “Honestly, I don’t see how this is a problem. You show some girls your dick, and you get money. Dudes would kill to be in your position.”

“Oh my God, don’t tell me,” Seokjin leers at Jungkook, and the younger almost can’t stop himself from landing another blow against the elder’s abused crotch. “You got roped into some bukkake orgy and now you’re asking your hyungs to help you? Don’t worry, Jungoo… You came to the right people. You see, Jimin and I have some experience with––”

“LALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” Jungkook jams his fingers into his own ears, screaming hysterically to drown out the sounds of Seokjin and Jimin’s combined laughter. Jungkook pouts at them, glowering pathetically. “Seriously, hyungs! Do you not see how fucked up this is? Who follows a stranger to a club, pretends they’re going to give you a blowjob, only to offer 3K for you to show some strangers your dick?”

“A regular Friday night if you ask me,” Jimin says, shrugging once more. Jungkook stares at him, realizing that maybe it was the wrong idea being friends with these two lunatics in the first place. Knowing Jimin, he’d probably been in much more lewd and compromising situations than Jungkook will ever have. Rumor has it that Jimin had once done a keg stand while having his dick sucked while on vacation in Japan.  

“Well, if you were really against it, then you could have just said no?” Seokjin points out, wagging a finger at him. “I know Y/N, and yeah she’s kind of demented, but she still knows that no means no. Surely, you haven’t considered the fact that you are 1) a pushover and 2) horny for her?”

“Well, yea––No, what––No!” Jungkook splutters, stammering wildly. His two hyungs grin salaciously, gazing at him knowingly. Jungkook can only groan, as he knows that they kind of have a point. He’s always been too weak for girls and money, so when you put those two things together…

“I might be addicted to the BBC tag on Pornhub, but you my friend… You’re in it for the BBCC,” Jimin snickers, patting Jungkook comfortingly on the back. Jungkook groans into his hands, slumping onto the loveseat beside Seokjin, whose icepack had long since melted and caused the seat to be uncomfortably damp.

“BBCC? I’m almost too afraid to ask.”

“Big black credit card,” Seokjin pipes up, wrapping his own arm around Jungkook’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, bud. We all have been there.”

That’s the problem: somehow, Jungkook finds himself much too ready to accept his fate, eagerly awaiting when you’ll text him next.

x x x x x

After a much-needed shower at Jimin and Seokjin’s place, Jungkook tiredly makes his way to the nearby bus stop, ready to go home and sleep the entire weekend away. Screw his Biochemistry midterm on Monday––if he really is going to whore himself out to you, then he’s going to need all the self-care and therapy that he can get. His phone itches in the pocket of his shorts (yes, he’s still wearing the thot shorts), and he wonders if he should text his therapist and ask for an extra appointment later in the day.

Just as he’s about to pull out his phone, he senses it vibrate once, twice. He freezes in his steps, walking out of the way of busy pedestrians on the sidewalk and into a random clothing store. He sees the lone cashier staring at him from the corner of his eye, but he does not check if her gaze is filled with disgust or disgust. Probably disgust, he surmises.

Flicking his phone on, he sees two new messages from you and his heart immediately starts to hammer in his chest. No one has ever made Jungkook equal parts scared and excited, though he imagines you might have that effect on most people, what with how you look like the type to tie up unsuspecting victims to harvest their organs in your summer cottage up in the mountains or something. Or maybe that’s just Jungkook projecting.

from: y/n l/n ❣️ hey! sorry for taking so long to text you. my roommate tried to make cheesecake at 3am last night and i had to supervise in case he burned down the apartment.

from: y/n l/n ❣️ anyway, i was wondering if you were free later? some time after 5 maybe? let me know!

You already want to meet so soon. Jungkook exhales heavily through his nostrils, pinching the bridge of his nose in an attempt to calm himself. Alright, this is fine. Jungkook is a big boy: he can handle going to a girl’s home without losing his mind. You didn’t say anything about this being the actual dick-measuring contest yet, so he can only assume this is just you asking for something else. Maybe to talk more? Maybe he’ll get a down payment for the prize money? Maybe you’ll follow through on your raincheck? God, is it wrong for him to have his dick plumping up in his shorts when you haven’t even done anything to him yet?

(On the contrary, you could say that you have done a lot for him over the past twenty four hours, though maybe not in the way most people would expect.)

from: jjk yeah i can meet you at 5. what’s this for?

from: y/n l/n ❣️ oh, nothing! i just wanted to talk to you about the actual competition and stuff. plus, i want to actually measure your dick, just so i can see how much you’re actually packing down there ;)

from: jjk ….yeah, fine. whatever.

(This really isn’t a “whatever” type of situation, but honestly, Jungkook doesn’t really know what to say anymore. He’s officially lost his singular brain wrinkle. He’s smooth brain McGee over here.)

You follow up by sharing your location with him, and he’s surprised to find that you aren’t that far away from where Jungkook was right now. He really did mean to go back to his apartment first and get changed into something more… morally acceptable, but since he hasn’t been arrested yet for public decency, he should be okay with going to your place in Seokjin’s thot shorts.

There’s something invigorating about going to your place, dressed the way he is… Maybe the shorts are somehow giving him brain hemorrhage by indirect association with Seokjin. Either that or Jungkook simply loves torturing himself by embarrassing himself constantly. Well, at least he showered and combed his hair before leaving his hyungs’ place.

He inputs your address into his phone map, taking his sweet time as he walks the short distance to your apartment. As he passes by the buildings and street corners, he can’t help but think that he might have been around this area before. He tries to rack his brain, forcing himself to remember why this route seems so familiar.

“Oh right. Yoongi-hyung’s new apartment should be around here,” he muses to himself. He wonders if his hyung had gotten home safely last night. He should probably text him to make sure, but he’s got a literal dick appointment to attend to first, so he’ll remember to check up on Yoongi once he finishes up with you.

Does that make him a shitty friend? Probably. But would Yoongi do the same if Jungkook was in his shoes? Probably.

Yeah, Jungkook and his group of friends aren’t exactly role models for a sensitive and loving relationship, though that’s not much of a surprise to anyone.

He arrives at a decent looking apartment complex, complete with its own little water fountain at the entrance. He walks through the automatic sliding doors, peers at the shiny caution tape barring him from using the elevator. He stares at your address on his phone, groaning loudly when he sees “1603” much to his annoyance.

“No wonder she had such great thighs,” Jungkook mutters angrily to himself, preparing himself for the long and arduous journey his glutes are going to endure.

Years later, Jungkook finds himself at your door, his lungs jumping out of his throat as he struggles to catch his breath. He hunches over, elbows digging into his thighs as he wipes the sweat trailing down his neck. He can see your door just near the end of the hall, but just as he’s about to crawl his way over––

“Oh. Oh my,” a familiar voice says from behind him, and Jungkook looks over his shoulder to see…

“Yoongi-hyung?” Jungkook exclaims incredulously, mouth gaping at the sight of his thought-to-be-dead hyung coming out of the elevator. He splutters for a few more moments before pointing an accusing finger at Yoongi. “You used the elevator?”

Yoongi raises an eyebrow, turning to look at the elevator with a thoughtful look. “Oh right. The elevator works. The maintenance people just forgot to remove the safety tape from last week.” Yoongi looks back at Jungkook, gaze lowering to his legs. “I see that Seokjin has provided you with his thot shorts.”

Jungkook doesn’t even try to cover himself, used to his friends seeing him in varying degrees of undress. Like, what was Yoongi going to do? Take a photo of him and post it to his Twitter for his thousands of followers to see? He wasn’t that cruel...

Snap! Yoongi pockets his phone quickly, clearing his throat. “So,” Yoongi walks up closer to him, peering at Jungkook curiously. “What brings you to my apartment? Not that I’m happy to see you, but I assumed you and the rest of our idiotic gang would have died of alcohol poisoning the night before.”

“...It’s a long story,” Jungkook says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Say... Where did you go last night, by the way? I tried to look for you, but Seokjin said your roommate brought you home?”

“Yeah. She went to the club with a bunch of her friends. She offered me a ride with her because she knew how much I hated it there,” Yoongi says, frowning. “Fuck you, by the way.”

“What the fuck? What the hell did I do?”

“I don’t know. You’re wearing Seokjin’s shorts and my ape brain told me to retaliate out of instinct,” he explains. He takes another long, good glance at his shorts. “Color me surprised that they fit you, by the way. I’d assume your huge ass would be making it rip the seams, or perhaps your dick would be saying hello.”

Jungkook pats his junk proudly. “I know, right? Big guy decided to cooperate, for some reason.”

“Will you guys stop yapping it up out in the hall? I’m pretty sure Mrs. Sy can hear you two idiots from the first floor,” a voice from behind Jungkook hisses, causing the two boys to jump up in surprise. Lo and behold, your head is peeking out from behind your door, a perfectly stenciled eyebrow arched in annoyance. “Well? Are you two coming in or what?” You return back to your apartment, assuming that they’d soon follow.

Yoongi looks at Jungkook. “Wait. You know Y/N?”

Jungkook looks at Yoongi. “Wait. You know Y/N?”

Yoongi squints his eyes. “She’s my roommate. She’s a mutual friend of––”

“––Seokjin,” Jungkook finishes. The two of them pause, a metaphorical light bulb glowing above their heads.

“Ah.”

“Ah.”

“I see. The demoness has roped you into some hare-brained scheme, hasn’t she?” Yoongi nods sagely, rubbing his beardless chin. “Can’t say I feel sorry for you since I have to live with the wench.”

Jungkook grimaces. “Man. She’s insane around you too?”

Yoongi shrugs, walking over to your shared apartment. “I’m dating Seokjin, remember? Everyday, I suffer. Everyday, I feel my arm.”

When Jungkook steps into your apartment, he can’t help but be a little surprised. Of course, he shouldn’t have expected to see a medieval torture chamber in the middle of a metropolitan city, but he wouldn’t put it past you to somehow make it happen. Instead, he finds a fairly cozy-looking home, with comfy couches and filled bookshelves, complete with a small balcony that had a few fresh herbs growing in little pots. It looks…

“Yoongi-hyung. You definitely decorated, didn’t you?” Jungkook snorts, fingering the little kitty-patterned throw blanket draped on your couch. It’s soft and expensive, and definitely something only Yoongi would buy. The elder doesn’t even bother looking embarrassed; he just throws Jungkook the middle finger as he walks towards the kitchen.

You come out once more from one of the connecting rooms at the other end of the apartment, presumably your bedroom. You motion for Jungkook to come in. “Yoongi, you’re gonna bake all day, right? Mind if you let Jungkook and I speak alone in my room?”

Yoongi waves his hand disinterestedly. “Whatever. If you guys are gonna be freaky in there, I’m gonna start playing clown music to drown you guys out, alright? And I mean the remix versions with the extra clown honks.”

You roll your eyes. “Yea, yea. We get it. Grandpa needs his special time alone too.”

Jungkook’s heart jumps when you don’t even bother correcting him. Does that mean you guys really were going to do something freaky? Hopefully, Yoongi has learned to differentiate screams of terror from screams of pleasure, though it’s hard to tell if he’d care otherwise.

He follows you into your room and immediately notices the perfectly made bed and the neatly organized desk. Your curtains are drawn close, but the sheerness of it allows the mid-afternoon sun to brighten the room regardless. Your bedroom smells faintly of vanilla and cinnamon, and he notices the small scented candle still smoking from when you’d put it out.

Nothing in the room indicates that he was inside the room of a psychopath, though maybe Namjoon or Taehyung would argue that anyone who makes their bed every day might be a little out of it. Jungkook continues to stand awkwardly by the door, unsure of what to do next except to stare.

You plop onto your bed, giving him an expectant look. “Well? Are you just gonna stand there by the door and have Yoongi see us measure your dick or what?” That gets Jungkook to move. He closes the door, pausing for a second before locking it for good measure. Then, he takes the short two steps that he needs to stand right in front of you.

You crane your neck, appraising him silently as he fidgets from the weirdness of it all. Your gaze trails down and Jungkook is not surprised when you stop to stare at his neon pink shorts. You snort, thumbing the edge of his shorts lightly. Jungkook shivers even though you’re barely touching him and he knows that you notice.

“Trying to get back at me for leaving you with blue balls yesterday?” you muse, letting go of the thin material. Jungkook wants to bring your hand back to his thigh, but he forces himself to keep still.

He looks down. “Not really? But I mean… Is it working?” He can’t help the hopeful lilt in his voice.

You laugh, patting him lightly on the thigh. “No worries, Jungkook. I did promise you a little something last night, right? I admit it was shitty of me to leave you like that, despite what you already might think of me. You probably think I’m just some insane bitch, right?”

Jungkook stares at you. “Do you want me to be honest or...?”

You roll your eyes, but you seem more amused than anything. “Save it. I know I’m weird. But, a promise is a promise…” You trail off, winking at him. “Besides, this works out for the both of us, right? I wanted to measure your dick before we meet up with Taeyong and Doyoung tomorrow, and I can help you blow your rocks right after. Seems like a deal?”

“Is it bad that I’m so ready to have you suck me off that I’m honest to God accepting your offer without any sense of dignity?”

You consider him for a moment. Then, “Nah. I know dudes who would do worse things for three grand and to have their dick sucked. I’d say you’re just doing you.” You place your hands back on his hips, thumbing around the garter of his shorts.

Jungkook groans, not even flinching when you rip his shorts and boxers off in one rough flourish. His soft dick dangles heavily between his thighs. “See, I’m not entirely comforted knowing that you agree with my moral dilemma.”

You clap your hands together, excitement glittering in your expression. “Who cares! Let’s get you all hard and ready, shall we?”

Jungkook squirms under your gaze, getting dick stage fright. “H-hey… This isn’t like porn… I can’t just get hard when I want to, you know? I need… stimulation or some shit.”

You nod, humming thoughtfully. “You’re right… And I remember you said something about taking a long time to get fully hard, right? That’s gonna be a problem indeed.” You lean forward, “So. Tell me, Jungkook. What are your kinks?”

If Jungkook was drinking water, he’s sure he’d be doing a spit take right now. Instead, he just chokes on his own saliva, coughing out his lungs at your sudden inquiry. “M-my kinks? What for?”

“To get you hard, duh.” You leave featherlight grazes around his thigh, leaving goosebumps in their wake. It stirs something inside Jungkook, but not enough to do anything yet. You tsk, your brow crumpling as you decide what to do next. “What if I…”

You dig your nails into the meat of his thighs and inadvertently pull him closer. He stumbles forward, his breath knocked out of him despite how little you’d done so far. “W-wait,” he wheezes, shock running down his spine. “I––”

You smirk at him, digging harder until you’re sure to leave white little crescents littered around his thigh. “Aha. I guessed you’d be into that. You liked it when I bit you yesterday, didn’t you?”

Jungkook can’t even answer. He’s trying to keep his breathing steady, squeezing his eyelids shut. He hears you shuffling in front of him, and he soon senses your body press closer to him, alerting him that you have stood up. You wrap your arms around his neck, bending his head down until he can feel your breath fan across his lips.

Are you going to kiss him? But the contact doesn’t come; instead, your hands snake up to his hair, massaging his scalp for a moment before tugging on his roots harshly. It pulls a whine from his lips, the response surprising even himself. “S-shit,” he grits his teeth, urging you to do it again. He opens his eyes slightly, sees you watching him with rapt attention.

You lick your lips, looking at him like a meal ready to be eaten. The heat in his stomach builds, but Jungkook doesn’t have it in him to be embarrassed anymore. He doesn’t really have any more room in his brain anymore other than his unabashedly horny thoughts.

“Pain slut, huh? Somehow, it suits you.” You sound breathy, as if you were the one being pleasured instead. It makes Jungkook’s cock twitch a little, coming to life in front of you as you continue to assault his nerves.

“Do you like pain everywhere?” Your hands leave his head, coming down to the edge of his shirt. It’s a silent request, and Jungkook allows you to lift up his sweater, leaving him completely bare before you. You throw it somewhere to your right, eyes raking him up and down. Something about you still being fully clothed makes Jungkook’s inside light on fire, and it rushes blood down south before he can even understand why.

You chuckle, looking at his hardened nipples with interest. “Pierced? What a naughty boy you are.” You flick him there experimentally, and when Jungkook’s breath hitches, that gives you a go sign to do more. You fiddle around with the rosy bud some more, circling it with the pads of your fingers until Jungkook was a whining mess before you. “Sensitive… What a prize you are, Jungkook.”

Jungkook keens at the praise, even though he knows you didn’t really mean it in a good way. He finds himself wanting to please you: to get himself hard for you, to make you want him like how he wants you. He honestly can’t tell if you’re enjoying this as much as him, other than the way you’re watching him closely like a hawk.

He’s nearly half-hard, his cock jutting against your stomach. You peer down, figuring out your next move as he holds his breath, afraid he might do something wrong. Your fingers move once more, tracing shapes across his stomach and causing the muscles there to contract. He anticipates your next movements, his dick steadily throbbing.

“I suppose the easiest way to get you hard is to touch you here, right?” you murmur lowly. You grip him by the hips all of a sudden, your thumbs placed firmly into his Adonis’ belt. You inch closer and closer to where he wants you the most, and you watch him amusedly as he clamps down on his bottom lip, unwilling to sound desperate so early in the game.

(Was it early though? He’s been thinking about this exact scenario since last night, even plaguing his dreams. Still, it wouldn’t look cool if he just… busted a nut just from having his dick out. Even he knew that was kinda sad.)

Despite his best efforts, perhaps the desperation is apparent on his face because you eventually do take pity on him. You wrap your fingers around his length, not moving just yet. You smile secretly to yourself when you hear Jungkook exhale and swallow audibly, but you’re waiting for something. You look up at him, batting your eyelashes innocently as if you didn’t have his dick in your hands.

“What do good boys say when they want something?” You’re fishing, but your teasing tone breaks Jungkook down enough to release a ragged moan. He places his hands on your shoulder, using you for support as you slowly inch your hand down to the base of his cock.

He can’t keep the whine out of his voice when he says, “P...Please. Move?”

Your grin is wicked. “Of course, baby.”

Yeah, if you keep this up, Jungkook is going to come embarrassingly fast and he doesn’t think you’ll be quite pleased with that.

There is pre-cum leaking at the tip of his cock, dangerously close to pooling over and dripping all over your carpet. You are quick to swipe it off with your thumb, dragging it down his shaft for an easier slide. Jungkook’s abs tense, his teeth clamping on his bottom lip so aggressively that he almost splits it open. His grip on your shoulders tighten, but you don’t mind. You keep stroking him languidly, not going fast enough for Jungkook’s liking, but the concentration on your face is enough to make Jungkook release a stilted moan. It doesn’t take long until the wet squelch of your hand jerking him fills the room, coupled with the sound of Jungkook’s labored breathing.

“You’re really wet,” you chuckle, watching with fascination as your words urge another drop of pre-cum to collect at his tip. “Are you always like this?”

“N-not… Really?” It takes a while for Jungkook’s brain to connect, caught between wanting to keep his eyes shut and wanting to stare at your cute hands trying to wrap around his dick. Your fingers can’t even circle the girth of his cock, the realization almost making Jungkook come there and then.

He’d never been one to be overly confident about his penis size, to be honest. He doesn’t really go around proclaiming it to the world, and his meager body count doesn’t help the fact that most people are unaware of the extent of his package. He isn’t itching to tell people either, but he’s starting to see why people would be envious of having a large dick. The sight of you struggling to pump his cock really makes for a pretty picture.

“Ugh, my arm is getting tired,” you complain after a while, getting frustrated when you realize that Jungkook is almost fully hard, but not quite. “Jeez. Your dick is so huge that it really takes a minute for the fuel tank to fill up, huh?”

“I-I’m sorry?” Jungkook wheezes, nearly crying out when you flick your wrist in just the right manner. Your hand pauses by the head of his dick, squeezing tightly enough not to be painful, much to his disappointment. Jungkook is still too shy to ask for more.

You let go of him all of a sudden, causing a guttural whine to escape Jungkook’s lips. Ignoring him, you nudge him back a few steps, Jungkook complying wordlessly. He’s still confused until you reach over to your bed, grabbing one of your pillows before dropping to your knees. Jungkook’s jaw drops, spluttering incomprehensibly as you cushion your knees with the pillow.

You look up, giggling amusedly. “Reminds you of last night, huh? Not gonna lie, I’ve been itching to have your cock in my mouth, though I’m not even sure if any of it can fit. That’s not gonna stop me from trying.”

Oh God. Oh Geez. Jungkook is going to die, isn’t he? He vaguely remembers his dream from the night before, how your pretty pink lips had stretched over his dick, barely going past his head. He whines pathetically, another string of pre-cum finally dripping down and landing on your thighs.

You hold him by his hips, preventing him from moving as your hot breath fans across his wet head. You lick your lips, taking one glance up at him before giving his tip a quick peck. It’s nothing to write home about, but the way Jungkook’s breath catches is enough to encourage you to do more. You suckle his head a little, suctioning your lips and moaning slightly at the bitter tang. Your eyes flutter shut, tongue swirling nondescript patterns as you greedily engrave his taste into your mind.

The image of you enjoying yourself is enough to get Jungkook fully hard. He feels like he’s on fire, from his flushed cheeks all the way to his groin. He doesn’t know where to put his hands, unsure if you’d allow him to pull on your hair.

You must have noticed his plight, because one of your hands leaves his hips to grasp his own, bringing it to your hair. You pop off his dick for a second, lips already redder than before. Jungkook wishes he could kiss you, but he’s still so unsure. “You can pull my hair, but if you push me down further than I’m willing to go, I’m stopping immediately, okay?” Your voice is authoritative and your gaze is steely, but it only prompts Jungkook to moan in reply.

He nods, nearly getting whiplash from how quickly his head bobs. You smirk, appeased by his obedience. You return to your ministrations, rewarding him by going further down and bobbing your head at a snail’s pace.

Jungkook’s sanity is barely hanging onto a thread. He wants to thrust into your wet mouth, never having felt this sort of pleasure in his life. He’s beginning to understand why Jimin is such a slut, and he wonders why on earth he’s been denying himself things like this. His eyes are half-lidded, but he’s determined to watch you as your masterful tongue brings him to the edge of hysteria.

When Jungkook doesn’t think your mouth can go further down, you surprise him once again. You go lower, and Jungkook feels your throat swallow around him until he nearly screams. Drool pools in the inside of his mouth, as if Jungkook’s body doesn’t know what to do with the pleasure. His legs nearly give out, but your hands keep him mounted.

His toes are curling, thighs trembling. “Fuck,” he whines, unable to stop himself when he thrusts a little into your mouth. “Shit, I didn’t mean to–”

You glance up at him. Your eyes are tearing up, but otherwise you look unperturbed. You flatten your tongue on the underside of his dick, tracing the vein there as you slowly come up for air. You swallow the mix of saliva and pre-cum in your mouth, licking your lips like you’ve just had a 5-star meal. You look absolutely debauched, though Jungkook knows he’s probably not doing much better.

“No gag reflex. It’s fine,” you shrug, as if you’d just told him about the weather. Your voice sounds hoarse, roughened by the assault of his dick on your throat. “Are you close?”

Jungkook doesn’t want to admit it, but– “Yes,” he says. He’s breathing like he’s just run a marathon, sweat dripping down his neck. You observe it drip down his body, as it curves down his neck and to his chest.

“You aren’t coming until I say so, got it?” You warn. He nods, cock twitching in desperation for your mouth to continue what it was doing.

But instead, you reach back to your bed, and Jungkook finally notices the tape measure that you’d left there. Oh right. Jungkook is brought back to reality, suddenly remembering why he’d gone here in the first place.

“This will only take a second, baby,” you whisper lowly, and Jungkook’s conscience is shot out of his head once more. Call him baby one more time, and Jungkook is sure to bust his load. He’s worried he might gain a Pavlovian response to the word; getting hard every time someone so much as utters “baby” for whatever reason.

You unravel the measuring tape, placing the end of it near the base of his member. You drag it over his length, whistling in awe as the number keeps growing and growing. “Shit, you really are huge,” you gasp in amazement, peering closely at the measurement to make sure you aren’t reading it wrong. “Nearly nine inches. Are you insane?”

Jungkook chuckles in embarrassment, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s… nothing?”

You snort, shaking your head at the pure audacity of this boy in front of you. “No need to humblebrag, baby. Unless you want me to degrade you, then stop being coy with me.”

At the word “degrade,” Jungkook’s erection twitches with interest. Of course, you notice. “Oh? You want me to degrade you?”

Jungkook’s face heats up, forever astonished by your brazenness. “N-no! That’s not what I–”

“You want me to call your cock pathetic, huh? Is that what you want?”

Jungkook whines, shifting from foot to foot as he tries to avoid your lustful gaze. “I…”

“Want me to call you names, huh? Took your cock so long to get hard, struggled so much to get it up. What a useless dick that you have…” you trail off, covering your mouth behind your hand to hide your grin.

Jungkook feels like he’s about to fall over. The pressure in between his legs is reaching his breaking point, and Jungkook really doesn’t want to embarrass himself by coming untouched. He has a sinking suspicion you’d enjoy it if he did, however.

Your hand slides back to his crotch, cupping his erection once more. You run your palm along him once, enjoying the way his breath hitches. He’s undeniably close and it fills you with pride knowing that you did this to him. “You’re close.” You say it like a fact.

Jungkook squirms. “Please… Faster… I’m so close, Y/N. Just a lil bit more, please…”

“I love it when you beg,” you laugh, sounding a little mean. “But since you’ve been nice all this time, I’ll let you.”

Your hands speed up, twisting and pulling him in ways that Jungkook isn’t sure are possible. He’s full-on panting like a fucking dog right now, humping shallowly into your hand like he’s lost his mind. He’s so unbelievably close, the heat in his stomach climbing higher and higher until––

“SHIT! Y/N!”

You stop, confused. That shout didn’t sound like Jungkook. You turn to your closed door, ears straining for the sound again. “Yoongi?” you call out. “Did you say something?”

Muffled footsteps come rushing closer. Your doorknob jiggles, but Jungkook had thankfully locked it when he’d come into the room earlier. Yoongi huffs from behind the door, banging loudly on the frame. “Y/N! Help! I fucking dropped the cheesecake!”

“He dropped the cheesecake,” you repeat dully to yourself. You share a look with Jungkook. The banging doesn’t stop.

“Y/N PLEASEEE THE KITCHEN IS A MESS!” Yoongi screams, uncaring of whatever he was interrupting. “YOU OWE ME! I PAID FOR YOUR RENT LAST MONTH SO YOU GOTTA HELP!”

“I hate that bastard,” you sigh, defeated. You let go of Jungkook reluctantly, giving him an apologetic look. Jungkook wants to cry. “I’m… really sorry for leaving you again like this. I…” you hesitate, looking at the door then back to him. “I do kind of owe him, so…”

Jungkook exhales shakily, bending down to the floor to pick his shirt up. He dresses quietly, cheeks burning. Why must you keep torturing him like this? He thinks his balls might explode at this point. “It’s no problem… I’ll just take care of myself at home.”

You peer at him, feeling incredibly guilty. “I have a connecting bathroom. You could use it if you want?”

“That’d be great, thanks.” Jungkook says before hurriedly rushing out of there. He refuses to look at you as he slams the bathroom door shut, breathing slowly through his nostrils in an attempt to calm himself. He waits as he listens for you to leave before his hands scramble back onto his dick, loudly crying out as he tugs himself to completion.

His legs give out from under him as he slides down to the floor, spurts of hot cum flying past his fist. Wave after wave of pleasure tingles down his spine as he slides up and down his cock. After his dick shoots its last droplet of cum, Jungkook slams his head against your bathroom wall. He’s exhausted.

He closes his eyes, thinks about how his life has led him up to this moment. Jizzing in some near stranger’s home while one of his best friends cleans up his fallen cheesecake.

“Jesus fucking Christ I hate it here,” he says. He gets up unsteadily, washing his hands of his mess.

x x x x x

Fully dressed and unsatisfyingly sated, Jungkook exits your bathroom with a flush down his neck. He keeps his eyes averted from you, but not before glaring heatedly at Yoongi as he turns to leave. Yoongi cocks his head to the side, annoyingly unaware of what he had done.

“You okay, dude? You look like a bull ready to pummel me,” Yoongi snickers, bemused by Jungkook’s flared nostrils. “Seriously. You okay?”

You slap Yoongi on the thigh, huffing angrily as you stay squatted on the floor, your other hand busy wiping off the cheesecake from the floor with a paper towel. “Shut up. You’ve done enough shitheadery today.”

Yoongi looks at the mounted clock on your fridge. “It’s only 7PM. My shitheadery doesn’t clock out until 10PM today.”

Rolling his eyes, Jungkook waves his goodbye. “Well. I guess I’ll see you guys,” he murmurs, inching closer to the door. He walks out in silence, no longer bothering to hide his pouting. He takes the elevator down, ruminating on his existence. When he reaches the ground floor, his phone immediately dings with a notification.

from: y/n l/n ❣️ hey. please don’t hate me. i’m really sorry. raincheck?

Jungkook snorts, stopping in his tracks. It’s always just rainchecks with you. He types up a quick response.

from: jjk it’s not your fault. it’s fine.

from: y/n l/n ❣️ you sure? you got off well by yourself at least, right?

from: jjk yeah. don’t worry about it.

from: y/n l/n ❣️ if you’re down… i could help you through the phone? when you get home? :( i just feel really bad. like, genuinely. yoongi is an asshole.

The offer sounds interesting, but sadly, Jungkook is out of juice for the day. He’s got a lot of stamina for many things, but it turns out he’s out of practice when it comes to his own dick.

from: jjk nah it’s fine. thanks though.

from: y/n l/n ❣️ i hope you’re still down for the contest? doyoung texted me while we were busy a while ago and said that they were free tomorrow after 12?

from: jjk no worries. i’ll be there.

from: y/n l/n ❣️ <3 ty you’re the best!! <3

He groans, slapping himself in the face. God, he is so fucking whipped.

x x x x x

The next day, Jungkook wakes up with a burning headache. He feels hungover even though he didn’t drink at all the night before, and Jungkook wonders if his brain had somehow deflated overnight with how hollow he feels. He grabs his phone from his bed stand, sees a new text from you reminding him of what he’d promised.

You had sent him an address to another apartment complex just a few bus stops away from where he lives and he assumes this must be either Doyoung’s or Taeyong’s place. He shuts his eyes for another few moments, trying his best to remember how to live.

It’s already nearing noon, so he needs to get going if he doesn’t want to be late. He shudders to think what you might do if he ghosts you. Despite how guilty you were yesterday for leaving him mid-nut, he doesn’t think that debt will cover him if he chooses not to show up to the dick-measuring contest.

On the bus, he fidgets in his seat, picking at the rips in his jeans and doing anything to keep his mind busy. He keeps thinking that someone knows what he’s up to, paranoia eating him from the inside out as he darts his eyes left and right, hoping no one can actually read minds. The bus is relatively empty, with only him and an elderly couple sitting near the front. They seem none the wiser, though Jungkook fears what they would think if they knew what he was up to.

He almost wishes he was wearing Seokjin’s thot shorts, as the skimpy excuse of clothing had somehow given him some sort of confidence the day before. Gone is that false sense of (misplaced) bravado; instead, Jungkook is filled with anxiety at the prospect of showing a couple of strangers his dick.

(A fairly human response, but that doesn’t help Jungkook’s current case.)

He arrives at the apartment complex in record time, and he sees you standing by the entrance. You look well-rested, your hands fiddling with your phone. Jungkook has only ever seen you when you were wearing that revealing dress from the club and your pajamas from your home, so he’s kind of shocked to see you look cute in your simple white dress and jean jacket. Not that you didn’t look good those other times, but seeing you look like a normal university student is astonishing, for lack of better word.

You almost look like a regular girl just waiting for her date to pick her up.

“Hey!” You greet him cheerily when you see him approach, waving at him. He waves back, the apples of his cheeks dusted pink from his previous thoughts. She’s not your date, you weirdo. Wait, she’s the weirdo. Get it together man! This shit is fucked up.

“This is their place, I assume?” Jungkook asks, looking at the building. It appears almost identical to your own apartment complex, minus the mini water fountain at the front. Ah, the wonders of living in a concrete jungle.

“Yep,” you nod. You start walking towards the entrance, with Jungkook following closely. “You ready? God, I can’t wait to see Doyoung’s stupid face. He’s gonna be so pissed!”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Jungkook mutters, vibrating with nerves.

You both make your way to the apartment, with you humming quietly while he sweats profusely beside you. At least one of you is having fun, he thinks grimly to himself. You reach apartment 322, knocking three times before a boy with neat black hair opens the door.

“Y/N! Good to see you,” the boy says, reaching for a hug. You hug him back enthusiastically, ignoring Jungkook’s bemused stares. If this boy is either Doyoung or Taeyong, aren’t you supposed to… hate both of their guts? Or at least, not be friends? What even is going on?

When you step back, you point at Jungkook offhandedly. “Oh yeah, this is Jungkook. The guy I’m dating.”

Jungkook nearly chokes on his own spit, but luckily the boy doesn’t notice. Right… You guys are supposed to be dating. It’s not real, though. Get a grip! “Hi, I’m Jungkook,” he wheezes, shaking the other guy’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you…”

“I’m Doyoung,” he introduces himself, a small smile on his lips. “Nice to meet you too. I’ve heard… a lot about you, so to speak.”

Jungkook squeaks, earning a chuckle from Doyoung. “No need to be embarrassed. I think we’re way past that point now. Sorry for roping you into this, by the way. But when Y/N wants to fight, well… Let’s just say I’m not going to be the first one who backs down.”

“Says the dude who couldn’t even beat me at arm wrestling,” you snort, pushing past Doyoung and walking into his home. Doyoung rolls his eyes, gesturing for Jungkook to come in.

“Props to you for dating her, by the way. I’ve been friends with that demon since elementary school, so I know what she’s like. You must be a guy with strong willpower,” Doyoung says.

“I’m… Sorry for saying this, but I’m kind of confused? I didn’t know you guys were friends,” Jungkook says, examining Doyoung’s apartment. It’s a lot bigger than yours, though he does recall you saying that Doyoung was filthy rich. It’s a lot more modern looking for sure, as Jungkook can see that Doyoung has two industrial-sized refrigerators in his kitchen. What kind of university student needs two industrial-sized refrigerators?

“Yeah, we are. She actually only dated Taeyong because she knew we both liked each other but I was too stubborn to make a move, so she did the only thing she knew how to do: be an asshole,” he explains simply. Jungkook nods, needing no further clarification.

“Jungkook! Come with me,” you pop out from one of the doorways deeper in the apartment, beckoning him closer. You point at Doyoung, “And you. Get Taeyong ready. I’m gonna need a few minutes to get Jungkook in tip-top shape!”

Doyoung chuckles, shoving Jungkook towards you. “Well, that’s my cue. I’ll introduce you to Taeyong later, I guess. He’s in my bedroom, so we’ll come out in about 20 minutes? That should be enough time, right?”

Yeah. Right. Jungkook walks numbly towards you, arms rigged by his sides as you pull him into Doyoung’s spare bathroom. You lock the door close, whirling around to face him with your hands on your hips. You’ve rolled your sleeves up, appearing like a demented surgeon preparing to dissect him. “Well! Strip!”

Jungkook is clumsy when he unbuttons his jeans, his entire body feeling like it’s being weighed down by pounds of lead. He shucks them off, leaving him in his boxers (thankfully, with no holes in them. He made sure to double-check before he left this morning.) You appraise him silently, thinking of what to do next.

Before Jungkook can say anything, your hands are already on his chest, pointer fingers placed near his nipples. His piercings are visible through his thin shirt, much to your appreciation. You circle them lazily, much like how you did yesterday.

Jungkook can’t relax long enough to enjoy it, however. His shoulders are tense, fists clenched behind his back. He’s trying to stop thinking about what’s going to happen, trying to enjoy your touch. He grits his teeth, swallowing thickly.

“I… I can’t do this, Y/N.” he mumbles. “I don’t think I can get hard. I’m too nervous.”

You pause in your movements. “You’re nervous?” you purr, voice lowering. Jungkook stops fidgeting to stare at you, sensing the shift in your demeanor. “How can I alleviate that, hmm?”

“What?”

You pinch his nipples, hard. He gasps, whimpering right after from the jolt of pain. “I think I know how to calm you down,” you murmur, staring him down like he’s nothing more than a delicious snack.

“You want me to hurt you, huh? Is that it? Answer me, slut.” You say those words, but there’s a small bit of hesitation in your expression, like you’re worried if he truly likes it. When he nods enthusiastically, urging you to go on, you smile softly at him. His heart hammers in his chest, a small case of butterflies beginning to erupt there. You look kinda cute, even if you have his nipples in a twist.

“If it’s too much, just say ‘dumbo’ and I’ll stop, okay?” Jungkook nods once more, eager to get going.

You smirk, letting go of his nipples and gripping his hips instead. Your thumbs stay innocently above his boxers. “Do you like it when I call you names too, huh? You like being pinched and prodded?”

Jungkook whines, already turning needy. The anxiety from a while ago slowly drains away, leaving only lust to cloud his mind. “N-no, I just…”

“No?” You laugh, your thumbs catching on the garter of his boxers and pulling them down until the tip of his cock peeks out, already in the midst of getting hard. “Then what’s this?”

“Nggh…” Jungkook can’t say anything, can only stare helplessly at you.

“Pathetic. You have a nine-inch cock but it’s good for nothing except earning me a bit of money. Shame, isn’t it? Would be nice if you knew how to use it, then maybe I’d let you fuck me,” you say, edging closer to him until your lips find his exposed collarbones. You suck harshly, giddy when color immediately blooms at the spot. You thread your fingers into his dark, fluffy hair – and tug.

It’s too much all at once – Jungkook isn’t ready for any of it at all. He’s panting, whining, drooling a little. He shimmies his hips a little, his boxers sliding down his thighs and onto the marble floor. His cock springs free, already dripping pre-cum but still only half-hard.

“Ah, there it is. Your big useless cock. My, my… Already dirtying Doyoungie’s floor with your slick, huh? You gonna make the floor wet, baby?”

Jungkook garbles something; did he say something? Who knows. All he knows right now is that 1) you’re making him lose his marbles and 2) he’s embarrassingly close. He’s never gotten this hard so fast in his entire life, and he might be suffering from blood loss or something. His head feels light, like he’s floating. His entire body is thrumming, senses filled with nothing but you.

You gently lead him closer to the bathtub where you sit, still paying no attention to his weeping arousal. Your mouth is dangerously close to it though, but you make no move to hold him in your mouth. Instead, you hike your skirt up until it reaches your waist, revealing your white panties. Jungkook zeroes in on the darkening patch, a shuddering breath leaving his lungs. He’s screwed.

“Show me how you pleasured yourself yesterday, when you were in my bathroom,” you say, caressing the front of your panties. You grind against your palm, eyelashes fluttering as your jaw drops into an ‘o’. You exhale through your nose, laughing breathily. “If you do well, then maybe I’ll show you what I did when you left, hmm?”

Jungkook has never moved faster in his life than he did then. He takes his erection into his hands, sighing with relief when he begins to pump. He moves slower than he usually would, unwilling to finish so soon after getting this far. He’s already wound up from your teasing (and if you count the past few days, then let’s say he’s been edged long enough.)

You study him with sharp eyes, focusing on the movement of his hands. “That’s it. It must be easy jerking off with how wet you are, huh?”

“Y-yeah.” Jungkook speeds up, flicking his wrist and focusing on the sensitive tip of his cock. His attention is pulled when he sees you shift from the corner of his eye. His grip stutters when you push your panties to the side, giving him a full view of your glistening core. He licks his lips, aching to put his mouth there but only if you’d allow him.

“Why’d you stop?” You stretch your leg out, using your foot to urge his wrist to keep moving. “Come on. I want to see you.”

You circle your clit leisurely before dipping your fingers into your pussy two fingers at a time, wet enough for the slide to be smooth. Jungkook quickens his pace, wanting to match your speed. He watches, mesmerized, at the sight of your fingers pushing in and out.

The obscene sounds coming from the both of you is loud enough to mask Jungkook’s desperate mewls. He’s going faster now, wanting nothing more than to cum all over you and your pussy. You’d look good in his cum, the pearly droplets would look good in contrast with your perfect skin.

Your thighs are shaking, your own breathing shallow as you quickly approach your end. You’re moaning in tandem with him, your arousal coating your fingers generously as it begins to run down the back of your hand. You’re scissoring yourself, but it’s barely enough when you compare it to Jungkook’s cock. No, nothing would be enough to prepare you to take him. He’d ruin you, and the thought of him breaking you is enough to help you tip over the edge.

“Fuuuuuuck,” you moan, eyes screwing shut as you are wrought with the strongest orgasm of your life. More wetness drips out of you as you rub frantically at your clit, riding your high. You look at Jungkook through your eyelashes, lips parted. “Fuck,” you repeat.

Jungkook can’t hold back anymore. He knows he shouldn’t cum but the pleasure is skyrocketing at an unparalleled speed. His balls tighten, the heat in his abdomen building until he can’t hold back even if he tried. He shudders once, twice, before jets of his cum spills from over his fist, some of the droplets making their way onto your thighs. He moans at the sight, doesn’t try to change his trajectory as his mind is completely hazed with lust. “Shit, I’m–” Jungkook grinds one last time into his hand, before promptly slumping down onto the floor.

“Jesus, that was a lot of cum,” he hears you say, but he can’t bring himself to look at you. He’s ashamed, having cummed without your permission. He can feel his dick softening underneath him, and he dimly remembers that hadn’t been the plan at all. He was supposed to get hard, have his dick measured, and then finish if he was allowed. And now, he ruined everything because he couldn’t hold himself back.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” he mutters quietly, hiding behind his cum-stained hands. He cringes when the mess enters his eyes, wiping his palm somewhere on his leg. “Fuck. I messed everything up. You were just… It was too much… You…”

“Should’ve used your safety word, Jungkook.”

“It wasn’t because it was bad,” Jungkook’s cheeks flush, “It was… too good.”

You kneel beside him, cradling his chin and forcing him to look at you. He had been afraid to see disappointment in your eyes, so he’s absolutely surprised to see you look… amused. You’re even giggling a little.

“Sorry. I went a bit overboard. Even I get horny sometimes,” you shrug, wiping a bit of cum away from his forehead. Your own fingers are slick with your own cum, so really, you were just making a bigger mess of his face. Jungkook can’t say he’s opposed to a little mess. “You just looked so good that I couldn’t help myself.”

“You… enjoyed yourself, too? I’m not insane for thinking there’s something between us?”

“Honestly, you’re at least a little bit insane,” you laugh at his dumbfounded expression. “What? I’m cuckoo, and you know it. The fact that you got turned on by me even after all I’d done to you… Really puts you into perspective, huh?”

Jungkook grumbles, but he’s no longer frowning. “I guess. My friends tell me I have a type, and I guess you fit the bill.”

You laugh wholeheartedly at that, and it brings a smile to Jungkook’s face. He likes it when you laugh, he decides. “Same here. I guess you’re my type, too.”

You peer down at his flaccid dick. “Too bad about your meat flute, though. Unless you can get it back up in the next 2 minutes, then I don’t think you’re getting that three grand.”

“Please don’t call my dick that,” Jungkook says before shrugging his shoulders. “And it’s no worries. I had the biggest nut of my life and that’s good enough to me. Plus, you said you’d give me one thousand dollars if I agreed to help you out, so you better not back out on that.”

You snigger, patting him gently on the shoulder. “Yeah, whatever. But not before we get out of here and you fuck my brains out, got it? You need to work for it, baby.”

Is it bad that his cock was already beginning to stir once more? Unprecedented, as it usually took Jungkook ages to get back up. Maybe you really were the one for him.

“Deal. Let’s get out of here?”

When the two of you finish getting cleaned up and leave the bathroom with no evidence that you had even been there, Doyoung doesn’t even bat an eye as you walk past him, eager to get out of the door. Taeyong is lounging on the couch with his dick… mysteriously still in his pants, as if he had no intention of taking them off in the first place.

“Sorry, we need to leave. There’s an emergency we have to attend to. See you, Doyoungie!” You tug Jungkook along, who waves his own hasty goodbye.

The door clicks shut, leaving the couple alone once more. Taeyong grins up at Doyoung, “You really are amazing, Doyoung. How’d you know she’d end up with him?”

Doyoung flicks open his phone, showing Taeyong his text messages with none other than Kim Seokjin himself. “All according to keikaku, my love. Kim Seokjin always wins.”

[variousqueerthings]

Daniel LaRusso: A Queer Feminine Fairytale Analysis Part Two of Three

Part 1

Part 3

6. Sexual Awakenings part 1: Love, Obsession, & Size Differences

[Insert that post talking about the creators making sure that Daniel’s antagonists were much bigger than him so that the audience would sympathise, spawning 10000 size kink fics]

I’m sure this won’t awaken anything in Daniel

Corporate wants you to find the difference between these two pictures

The hallmark of feminine fairytales tends to be growing into womanhood, with all those symbolic sexual under/overtones, searching for a prince, encountering monsters (or evil stepmothers), on the surface tending to be quite passive/reactive, but actually being about young girls and women getting out of their environment and choosing to tussle with those deep, dark desires – monsters. They’ve got to function within the limitations of power that they have – escaping an abusive situation through marriage, chasing forbidden desires under the guise of duress, asking questions about sexuality through things like symbolic plucking (flowers) or consumption (fruit) or pricking (needles), etc.

Daniel isn’t striking out to find his fortune or win a girl or a kingdom Like A Man, he’s not a threat to Silver, who – like Jareth in Labyrinth – is in control for almost the whole of the narrative, he’s not actually able to do much more than react until he makes the decision to stop training, and even then he’s immediately ganged up on and assaulted, needing to be saved by Miyagi while he stands and watches, bloodied and bruised. 

Daniel’s journey in the third movie is to be forced into an impossible situation, seduced by Silver, and then prove that whatever violence Silver did to him isn’t enough to destroy him. It is incredibly similar to Sarah’s in Labyrinth, who by the end declares: “you have no power over me,” and that’s her winning moment. Not strength, not wits, not a direct fight, (although Daniel does fight Barnes and gets beat up again – only winning in in the end by taking him by surprise, unlike in TKK1 or TKK2 where you could argue that he proves himself to be a capable physical opponent to Johnny and Chozen), but by declaring that whatever power was held over her is now void.

Daniel’s narrative isn’t satisfying in the same way, because the dynamic of Silver and Daniel only accidentally emulates this - it’s not an intention on the side of the film-makers.

When Miyagi tells Daniel that he has strong roots, when he tells him not to lose to fear and Daniel wins over Barnes (in an almost fairytale-esque set of events), on paper he’s defeated whatever hold Terry Silver has over him. In the film itself though, Daniel never defeats Silver (which will likely be confirmed once he returns in Season Four). Daniel cannot simply say “you have no power over me,” and see Silver shattered into glass shards. 

The film is a contradiction: It wants to be a masculine sports film, but it exists in the same realm as Goblin Kings seducing young girls with the promise of: “Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave.” Unlike Sarah, Daniel doesn’t claim the power that’s been promised to him on his own terms. His subtextually sexual awakening is so corrupted that all he can do is pretend it never happened.

Still, Daniel proves in the film that his strength is not in his fists. It’s in his praying to the bonsai tree that’s healed despite a violent boy brutally tearing it in two.

These looks on Daniel and Silver though?

So why does Silver become obsessed with him? What’s up with all those red outfits (that he doesn’t wear in Cobra Kai)? What does the temptation reveal about Daniel? How does it recontextualise TKK1 and TKK2? Is Daniel bisexual? (yes).

Ah, beach-Daniel, in your red hoodie and your cut-off jorts. Iconic hot-girl summer vibes. 

If you didn’t want me over-analysing this, you shouldn’t have put him in so many red outfits and then have this man leering at him like he wants to eat him alive.

Surface-level it’s not hard to read into a Dude Story: Masculine power fantasies are about strength in a very direct way. Fighting, control, suaveness – and if you’re not the most traditionally masculine of guys, asserting dominance through being a good lover or intelligent or overcoming that unmanliness in some way through beating the bully or convincing the hot girl to go out with you, levelling up in coolness. Being A Man. It’s not too dissimilar from Daniel’s arc in the first movie, if you watch it without taking later events into account, although Daniel is never interested in proving himself as a man, and more in making Miyagi proud. Still, he does win and gain respect, and arguably “get the girl,” although Ali’s interest in him was never dependent on the fight.

7. Sexual Awakenings Part 2: Sexual Assault, Liberation, and Queerness

Feminine power fantasies are often about sex. Metaphorically. More accurately it’s “owning sexuality.” Even more accurately: “Freedom.” They also inhabit a fluid space in which empowerment through monstrous desires and non-consent can happen at the same time. And on top of that, many of these “fantasies” are actually being written by men, so whose fantasy is it really? A lot of them are based in oral traditions so presumably they were originally from the mouths of women, even if modern iterations (starting with Grimm’s collections) are filtered through cis men’s perspectives.

All of that being acknowledged: In Angela Carter’s “The Company Of Wolves,” Red Riding Hood unambiguously sleeps with the wolf. Belle discovers her freedom from expectations and unsuitable suitors (and in some versions, evil stepsisters) by falling in love with a Beast (the original novel was written by a woman, the 18th century Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve). Jareth informs Sarah of his obsessive devotion to her in Labyrinth. To lean into horror for a moment – Buffy is stalked and eventually has relationships with both Angel and Spike, Lucy in Coppola’s Dracula (which I have mixed feelings about) is raped by the werewolf and Mina is stalked by Dracula, The Creature Of The Black Lagoon kidnaps Kay (the lead’s girlfriend) – subverted in both The Shape Of Water in which Eliza forms a consensual relationship with the amphibious sea-god and in the short-lived horror series Swamp Thing, in which the connection is purposefully framed as seductive…

and in The Karate Kid Part Three Daniel LaRusso punches a board until his hands bleed because an attractive, older man tells him to and in this moment he gives in to what he (thinks he) wants.

Not all of those examples are equal. Some are consensual, some are hinted as abusive and/or stalkery, all of them have large age gaps, and a few are outright non-consensual.

But they’re all fantasies.

They’re all power-fantasies.

Except for Daniel, because he’s a man and the idea that being obsessed (lusted) over by an older man who keeps you in his thrall, specifically because you tickle his fancy for whatever reason, because you’re beautiful, breakable, different – could in any way be considered empowering is a difficult concept to wrap your head around. It doesn’t contain that “but I’m a good girl, I’d never go off the path and pluck flowers if a bad wolf told me to, honest,” societal context or the social context of rape culture. It’s closest comparison is closeted (perhaps even unknown until that point) queer identity.

There have recently been some comparisons of Daniel LaRusso to Bruce Bechdel in Funhome (and everyone who says that Ralph Macchio ought to play him in the upcoming movie: you’re right and I’m just not going to enjoy it as much without him). I’ve written a post about Sam being the heir to his legacy and trauma, specifically as a queercoded man. It’s not dissimilar to the plot of Funhome in a lot of ways.

The other interesting source that’s been going around in connection with Daniel is the essay “The Rape of James Bond,” which discusses the use of sexual assault as a plot device for women and not for men: “About one in every 33 men [in the US] is raped. … [your statistically average, real life man] … doesn’t have a horde of enemies explicitly dedicated to destroying him. He doesn’t routinely get abducted, and tied up. Facing a megalomaniac psychopath gloating over causing him pain […] is not the average man’s average day at the office.” That last bit is just a descriptor of Terry Silver, (although I take issue at the blasé use of psychopath).

The two part youtube essay  Sexual Assault of Men Played for Laughs posits that there is nothing more de-masculinising than the threat of sexual assault and therefore any narrative that features this “rightfully” must mock any man who has been a victim or who fears being a victim of sexual assault. It is feminising. There is nothing more humiliating – and therefore unheroic – than a man dealing with sexual assault.

So what do we feel when we see an attractive young man being put into a vulnerable position by an older man? A trope associated with female characters, a trope that is considered unpalatable for men (see reactions that happened when the hint of sexual assault was introduced in Skyfall).

Was it the fact that he was being threatened, or the fact that James’ next line is: “what makes you think this is my first time?”

Some thoughts added by @mimsyaf​ are around the idea of safety in how a lot of cis women might relate to this narrative through Daniel’s eyes. He’s not a woman, he has – societally – more power than a girl or woman would have, which makes this a different watch to, say, if Danielle were to go through the same narrative. Daniel doesn’t carry that baggage of rape culture, or of the male gaze that you might find in a similar scenario of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Christine in Phantom of the Opera (and once more the age differences between these characters and the men who love/lust over them are substantial), which makes the narrative “safer” to engage with.

I agree with that, although as a transmasc person I also come at it differently. I specifically like to headcanon Daniel as a trans guy and find his fraught interactions with masculinity through his own non-toxic lens relatable, as well as the way other boys and men react to it – also I think Terry Silver is hot. I know there are people who write Terry Silver with female OCs, which is also a form of empowerment.

On the flipside putting Daniel in this space runs a risk of fetishising him as a queer youth who is either Innocent and Pure, or a bisexual stereotype that deserves to be assaulted for not being a real man. After all, Real Straight Men don’t run the risk of sexual assault.

 Alas, the road to empowerment never did run smooth. 

The comparisons between the way Daniel is treated by the text and how female characters are often treated in texts are undoubtedly there. Through Ralph Macchio and TIG’s casting and the direction and acting, but also within the text itself. 

It might not be with the same purpose as Neo’s symbolically trans journey, but it puts the whole narrative that Daniel’s going through from TKK1 under a different light than if there had only been one movie that ended on a triumphant sports win and a girlfriend.

Johnny’s masculinity and the use of tears as liberation, now that’s a whole other analysis….

[herstroywritten]

Darn Pigtails

Hello! I genuinely have no excuse for this monstrosity of a piece that I agonized over for the past few days instead of focusing on my uni work. I’ve spent the last month obsessing over Fate and Rivusa (the latter has been a life long obsession and Fate has only added fuel to the fire, with just one scene...). Yes, I am a part of that clown circus and honestly, I’m proud. I’ve always been a writer, but never posted anything but I figure here goes nothing. I was very inspired by some very talented writers in this tiny little club that’s been created on here for this ship (you all know them by now...). I couldn’t resist adding my own (not so) little addition to the collection. I don’t currently have an account on ao3 or anything, so this is just what’s happening. Be warned, it’s long and maybe excessive (8k words, oops). Other than that, enjoy and feel free to let me know your thoughts!

It started with pigtails.

He'd seen Dowling parading her around the square as students fought tooth and nail to kill the fake dummies that seemed to embody their realistic counterparts more than they should have. She's had a raincoat on at the time, not that he would have cared what she was wearing because… how could he notice anything but the pigtails? Fucking pigtails! Long enough to reach her waist, dark enough to have him thinking that the darkest of night skies must have been modeled after that same color, and pin-straight from root to tip. She walked by, lavender sweater and loose jeans, and that's the first thing he noticed. Her pigtails. He felt his tongue move, the tip pressed against the top of his mouth, ready to make a crude comment about how he'd love to tug on those pigtails in more than one scenario because honestly, was he not supposed to with the way that they swung about perfectly matching the sway of her hips? His eyes lit up as he just about let the words tumble out, and then she let her eyes lift to meet his as she made her way through the specialists' training grounds. Brown eyes lingered over his green ones for longer than any normal interaction accounts for, before dropping downward to the rest of his form. His mouth quirked into a smirk.

 "Oh," he thought. "So this is how we're going to play this game."

 Never let it be said that Riven ever backed down from a game or a challenge. And it just so happened that this particular game, the cat and mouse chase, was one of his favorites. So he figured, if she could stare at him like that, it would only be rude not to return the favor. He turned around, let his eyes fully graze over her whole figure the way he'd been too distracted to do before, and that's when he noted the stick she held. Whatever dumb comment he'd been so eager to make about her pigtails was quickly replaced by, "You like holding that big stick?"

 He'd hoped for a reaction. And boy did he get one, a swift and lithe little trick she'd been hiding, seemingly waiting for the chance to pull it out. And even though he'd been training his whole life to defend himself, he just about let her jab his left eye out because he was so very much intrigued by the way her hair swayed to meet her movements and her brown eyes that bore into him with rage. Yeah, this was going to be all kinds of fun.

 "I think I just threw up," she said, her face twisting into clear disdain. But her eyes sparkled and he thought maybe her hair is not the only thing the night sky was modeled after. He'd seen her before, somewhere in the background perhaps. Class? No. If she were a specialist and in his classes, there was no way in hell he wouldn't remember her. The cafeteria? Probably, there was only one place to get food in this godforsaken place and he doubted she hadn't made her way down there at least once. The Alfea hallways? Again, not unlikely. And that's when it clicked into place. She was one of the too many to remember (in his opinion) roommates of Sky's new obsession- Bloom. The four, sometimes five, of them were always together, huddled up beside one another in the cafeteria benches or on the way to classes. Honestly, now that he thought about it, was there ever a time when he'd seen those girls- besides Stella- alone? He definitely had never seen her alone. "Well, better take advantage of the chance," he thought. So, he dug into her, asked about her little run around the training grounds with the headmistress. He wanted to see how far he could push her rage, how willing she was to give him a good show. Between comments about dancing and fairies versus specialists, her eyes flashed purple and he soon realized that he'd bit off more than he could chew. As if her natural brown irises weren't alluring enough, the way they looked when he powers took over held a whole other sense of siren's lure within them. It took him a second to realize what was happening, that she was reading him. And he would have let her continue too, if it meant that he could hold her attention just a little while longer and feel whatever kind of electricity was rippling between the two of them for a few more minutes. Too bad she chose that moment to let him know exactly what she was doing, and exactly how he felt.

 "You really hate being here, don't you?"

 In this school, yes. Here, right now, with her eyes all over him and his hands twitching to edge upwards and brush his hands against those darn pigtails? No. No, he would have loved to stay right here just a little longer. But he was more scared of whatever hell she'd dig up from within him, so instead he told her to stay the fuck out of his head. He caught a glimpse of her prideful smirk, taunting him about this lost battle and her evident win, right before he whirled around and walked his way back to wherever his legs would lead him.

 Passing by the guy he'd seen constantly following her around like a lost puppy dog, the one he assumed was her boyfriend, he murmured under his breath something along the lines of "Good luck with that one."

 And then he was gone. But not before he remembered that he hadn't caught her name. No matter. As previously mentioned, never let it be said that Riven ever backed down from a challenge. She'd won this battle, but he was going to win the war.

_______________________________________________________________

The next time he found himself in her company only, the world had flipped on its axis.

Dowling and Silva were gone and Harvey had turned into a muted professor, almost never seen anywhere except in the greenhouse when he had classes to run. The new headmistress, Rosalind, ruled with a grip tougher than steel. Andreas was  the male version of her, so not any better. Fairies were being forced into combat positions, whether they liked it or not, and upperclassmen specialists were forced into being their mentors, whether they liked it or not. Classes were stricter. You miss one lesson, you make up two class times in personal training with either Andreas or Rosalind herself. At first, everyone'd thought that was a stupid rule. Who doesn’t want a one-on-one with the professors? It took just one dumb third-year specialist missing his first lesson on the first day of the second term for everyone to realize that these training sessions were practically abuse covered with a prettier name.

But the thing that had changed the most, the thing that he couldn't even begin to name, was whatever the hell was happening to his mind. He no longer knew where his day started and where it ended. He knew he must have gotten up every morning and  gone to classes and eaten to sustain his body for the brutal training session that followed and delt with whatever else needed dealing with. And yet, he remembered none of it. None of it except the moments spent chasing Sky around (which inevitably meant chasing the Winx suite around), the moments spent training his new fairy mentee- Musa, and the nightly runs to Dowling's- no, Rosalind's- office where he involuntarily spilled every little detail about his day. His mind had become an utter blur, his thoughts were no longer his own. He knew somewhere in his mind that he needed to stop, had tried endlessly to stop, but the more he held back from Rosalind's spell, the faster his words seem to come out. So, he'd stopped trying to fight it.

It was to his horror when he had been assigned Musa for training. He wasn't sure what he had expected. Of course they were going to pair him with a Winx suitemate, he just had expected it to be Bloom. Bloom was who they wanted details on after all. Even Stella would have made more sense, what with her mother being so very controlling. But no. Bloom went to Sky, Stella to some third year specialist, and he got Musa. If guilt wasn't already shredding him to pieces, it would be now.

He tried to console himself with the fact that he was better prepared to handle her this time. He'd spent enough time with Sky and the girls to have picked up the little details about her. She constantly listened to music to block out the world, she liked wearing shorts and miniskirts (a fact he quite enjoyed), she had an unhealthy obsession with bomber jackets (a fact he could do without when she was also wearing lacy silks under those same jackets), she liked pancakes for breakfast (but only when they were drenched with maple syrup), and the list goes on. His personal favorite fact, however, was that her hair was always immaculate and never the same two days in a row.

The point was, he could do this. All he had to do was train her. No talking necessary. She sure as hell was not about to strike up conversation with him if he didn't bother her. So, he'd keep his mouth shut and just teach her what he needed to teach her. Then he'd leave. That way, when his legs would inevitably carry him to Rosalind at midnight on the dot, he'd have nothing to give her but a good rundown of what moves they had practiced.

How wrong he had been.

He had clearly overestimated his ability to not falter in front of her, because the second she walked into the mat, he knew he'd have to say something.

This time, her hair was in tightly wound braids. Two of them, wrapping vertically down her scalp like fine rope. This time, he wants to undo her hair, to tug the black elastic ties out of place and run his fingers through each threaded piece until the strands lay about her shoulders in waves. He'd like to know what she looks like with her hair down, like fully down.

As if the hair wasn’t enough, she was also dressed in the tight female version of the specialist gear. It's all green woven material that crosses her chest, black mesh that lines her sides, and tight leggings that bring an ungodly amount of attention to her ass.

So, he slips up. "If I knew this is what you'd look like in a uniform-" he starts, but never finishes.

"Don't you dare finish that thought," she warns, voice dripping with a no-nonsense attitude.

"What's gotten into you?"

"It has not been my day. Hell, it has not been my week."

"It hasn't been anyone's week," he feels the need to remind her. And when she looks at him with those eyes, he wonders if she can read right through him without having to use her magic.

"Yeah, well. Let's just say I'm having a particularly more-so-than-average-shit day. So I'd appreciate it if you kept the comments to yourself." She's frustrated, he can see it. She's giving him the perfect out of a bad situation. She's begging him not to talk to her and that's exactly what he needs but goddamn it, he can't back away from a challenge even when his mind is in literal hell.

"What, can't handle me?" She scoffs at that.

"I can handle you just fine. I've been handling other's comments and thoughts since my powers started showing up. That's not the problem.

"What is the problem then?" He's digging, searching for something. For what, he's not sure. She's just finished lacing up her boots. She looks at him then, stares him down.

"The problem is I don’t want to handle you right now, Riven." And with that, she shoves past him to the center of the mat. But he's not done yet.

"You sure about that? I've never met a girl who doesn’t want to handle me before…" He wiggled his eyebrows at her, and she chuckles a little at his antics.

"Yeah, no. But even if I did want to, you'd really have to do better than that.

"What, the line wasn't up to your standards?"

"Was it up to yours?"

"Not my best, I'll admit. But I make do. And you can't tell me Harvey Jr. has done any better." Rage flushes through her features at that particular comment. He watches as her cheeks flush bright red and as the flush slowly spreads to her neck and below the rounded collar of her uniform, slowly cursing whoever created the damn thing for not making it a V-neck. 

"Ooh, a reaction! Go on, then. Tell me what's going on in that pretty little head of yours."

"None of your fucking business."

"It never is, and yet I'd love to know."

"Seriously, Riven. Let's just not talk." She wound up, ready to burst. Her hands are balled into fists by her side and her back is arched towards him in anger. She's a spring ready to jump, and he wants to see how high she can reach.

He goes for the typical line, "Trouble in paradise, then?"

Turns out she can jump pretty damn high, something he expected. What he didn't expect was for her to jump him. She pushes him with so much force that he barely catches himself before he falls. Tears stream down her face as she punches at his chest (hopelessly, he notes… he's got a lot to teach her). He lets her continue the onslaught on his chest, is impressed by her force and strength and persistence even if the form is all wrong. When she finally stops, the tears do too. All that's left are her hiccups and his eyes following her every movement. He watches her dry her eyes vigorously, hears her curse him and the school and herself… and Sam? He's not sure what's happening right now, not sure why his arms suddenly want to wind around her frame and pull her in, or why his heart clenches at the sight of her tears. He chooses to ignore it all.

They continue the rest of the training session in silence, with him only speaking to direct her movements and point out a thing or two about her form. Later that night, after running through his nightly routine with Rosalind, he finds out from Sky that Bloom was especially distressed today because Musa was especially distressed today because Musa and Sam had decided to call it quits. Riven feels light-headed at that news,  and he's still not exactly sure why his body is so adamant about reacting to news involving her.

He rolls into bed, thinking bitterly to himself that he won today. He won this battle. So why does it feel like he lost it?

______________________________________________________________

They continue their training sessions in silence for a while, until eventually a banter sparks between the two of them. He's not quite sure how it happens, just as he's not quite sure how anything happens anymore. He assumes he probably made some joke about how good her legs looked in those damn tights or about how she desperately needed help with her fighting stance. Maybe he just wore her down with his constant questions. He doesn't really care, to be honest. He knows he should care, in the same way that he knows he should actually avoid talking to her instead of showing up every day eager to see her. He just can’t bring himself to do it, not when she shows up in that uniform every day or when she looks at him with so much pride when she finally nails a move they've been working on for so long, and definitely not when she starts to initiate the playful conversations with the same smirk that he would maybe like to kiss off her face. There's so many things he should do at the end of the day, but he does none of them. He just lets whatever happens happen, and it kind of works out for a bit. They tease each other, teeter-tottering somewhere between playful and full on flirting. They fight in close combat corners, sometimes ending up on top of each other. Those days are a personal favorite of Riven's, especially when she's on top of him and he can feel her thighs straining against his waist as she pins his arms above his head. (He may have taught her that one move just for this moment. He felt it was a shame to not put those dance-trained legs of hers to use.)

The perfectly odd tightrope they walk snaps on a Wednesday afternoon, after they've finished training and are walking toward the benches that hold their water bottles. He takes a swing of his water, and then looks up from his seat to see her standing up and chugging her own bottle. A loose droplet slips past her lips and down her uniform's tank top. He follows it with his eyes, not even bothering to hide the very obvious motion even as she finishes her drink, looks at him with a raised eyebrow, and then chuckles at him while rolling her eyes.

"You could be a little less obvious, you know." She calls him out casually. He smirks at the comment before dragging his eyes back up to her brown orbs.

" Subtle isn't really my forte. Besides what fun would it be if you didn't know I was staring at you?"

She rolls her eyes, but her smile gives her away. "You're gonna give some poor girl a heart attack one day if you look at her like that." It's a teasing remark, but he feels his adrenaline hike up at her comment. The game is back on.

"Some poor girl, huh?" He leans into her on the bench, invades her personal space. She blushes, looks directly ahead, and he thinks he's winning another one of the many secret battles they seem to find themselves fighting. Then, she turns to him and looks him dead in the eyes.

"Can I ask you something?" He didn't expect that. Again, he knows he should just leave or say no. Anything to avoid a conversation that could lead to more than just a flirting banter, anything to avoid something that Rosalind may actually be interested in. But she's looking up at him with wide eyes and he's convinced he's become weak and that she's won this battle because he can't bring himself to say no.

"Uh… sure?"

She looks around nervously, as if deciding whether to ask what's on her mind or not. Finally, she leans close to him and asks in a slow and quiet voice, "Where do you sneak off to every night at midnight?" He pulls back from her faster than he thought he would ever be able to pull away from her, blinking down at her now shocked face.

"How-"

"How do I know? You have a roommate, Riven. He hears you leave every night and says nothing about it, but he's been worried about you. He says you've been acting different… For what it's worth, I think he's right. Especially when we're not in training sessions, you're completely out of it. I know this has been a rough mon-"

This is it. She's dug deep enough that she has hit rock bottom, she's found the dead-end at the bottom of his soul. He has to let this banter go now. He can't have her asking questions he'll then have to report back to Rosalind.

"You know nothing." He words are curt and sharp. She flinches at their edge, but doesn’t back down. It's one of his favorite things about her, her persistence.

"You can talk to me if something is wrong, you know? Or to Sky or the girls… you can talk to any of us…" He watches as her eyebrows furrow, traces the line they form down her nose to her lips and then back to her eyes. And that's when he notices that her eyes have changed color to purple. He grabbed her hand quickly and firmly, enough to break her concentration but not enough to hurt her (God, even in his rage, it would never be enough to hurt her).

"I've told you not to do that. Not to use your damn mind powers on me." His voice is strained, laced with anger and something resembling fear. 

"I'm trying-"

"I don't care what you're trying. You shouldn’t be in there. You shouldn't be in my brain. There's nothing in there worth your time or energy and there never will be."

And with that he spins on his heel and marches into the forest behind the training grounds. He doesn’t turn around, but if he did, he would have seen Sky moving out of the shadows and heading toward Musa.

"Did you do it?"

It takes her a second to interpret his question. She still staring into the distance as Riven's figure fades out of view, her eyes finally returning to their normal brown color. She continues to stare at the dot in the distance, unwilling to look away as if she's daring him to turn around and spare her one last glance. He doesn't.

"Yeah. Yeah, I did." She finally turns to Sky. "He's completely blocked from my powers. Dowling was right, he's under some sort of mind control."

______________________________________________________________

It’s 2AM by the time Riven finally makes his way to the room he shares with Sky. He's once again not really sure where his day went or what he did after he flipped on Musa and marched his way into the woods after their little spat. He remembers anger, a lot of anger. He's angry at her for trying to dig into his brain when they had already established that he hated it. He was angry at Dowling for dying (at least, he assumes she's dead because where else would she be?) and leaving the school to the psychopath that is Rosalind. He's angry at Rosalind for manipulating him, controlling his mind. He's angry at Beatrix for getting him into this stupid mess. But mostly, he's angry with himself for letting it all happened, for somehow always making the wrong move at the wrong time, for managing to screw up his own life in such a grand manner that it constitutes an award (truly, he's outdone himself this time). He's mad at himself for not being able to control his own mind, for letting Rosalind take up residence in his brain and being able to do nothing about it. He's even angry at himself for not just standing there and letting Musa read his emotions, because maybe if she did then she'd know the hell he was in. His brain was constantly pulling in all different directions, trying desperately to get away from the constraints of Rosalind's spell. Headaches are nonending and thoughts leave as soon as they come. It's like there's two people waging war within him, but one of them brought swords to a gunfight and is losing horribly. But it’s a war he feels he should fight on his own, and maybe that's why he didn't let her read him. As much as he hates to admit it, the mind control and guilt was breaking him but he could handle that. What he couldn't handle, however, was getting her involved in this stupid mess by mistake, which would inevitably lead to Rosalind getting ahold of her as well. God knows there's only so much room left in hell or sins, and he'd be damned if he hadn't already filled all the available spots.

He was glad for the day to finally be over, glad to be heading to bed (not sleep though, sleep did not exist when his mind was in so much pain all the fucking time). It seemed the world had other plans for him, however, because upon opening the door to his dorm, he was met with a sight that he both dreaded and wanted to burn into his memory for the rest of however long he had to live before Rosalind finally took pity on him and bent his brain to death. 

Perched on his bed, leaning forward ever so slightly, elbows meeting her knees, and head bend toward the floor was Musa. From his angle, he could only see her side profile, but apparently that's all his body needed to be automatically sent into a frenzy. The first thing he notices was, not to his surprise, the hair. She'd replaced her training braids with buns, big ones that hang precariously form her head as tendrils of her dark hair fell in loose waves and framed her face. He again found himself wondering what she would look like with all of her hair fully down. His fingers itched to burrow into those carefully constructed space buns and pull their pins out of place, just to see if she'd look half as beautiful with her hair down as she did with her hair up.

He stood like that for a while, taking her in and letting her continue to stare at the dark wooden floors with her eyebrows furrowed in concentration. He's not sure when, but eventually she turned toward the door, eyebrows first shooting up when she noticed him staring at her, and then falling back into place as she shot him a shy mile from across the room.

"Hey," came her greeting in a small voice.

"What the hell are you doing here?" His question was harsh, but he knew himself well to know that if he even let just one layer of himself down with her, he may as well just lay down all his defenses. She had a way of getting him to speak and break down and he wasn't about to let himself get her mixed up in whatever evil plan he'd been helping construct against his will.

Too bad for him, because it seemed Musa had been expecting a fight and was ready to fire back his quips with some of her own. She simply rolled her eyes and casually stated, "Well, then, straight to it, are we?"

"If you're looking for Sky or Bloom, they're probably in a dark hallway somewhere snogging each other half to death," he answered. She grimaced at the image.

"Yeah, no. I'm not here for Bloom or Sky."

"Then you're not here for anyone." She gave him a pointed look at that phrase. He wisely chose to ignore it and instead made his way to the couch in the middle of the room, throwing his jacket somewhere on it.

"What, that's all you have today? I'm standing on your bed, we're alone in your bedroom, I'm in a miniskirt… and you're not going to make a comment about showing me a good time? You're losing your touch, Riv." She was teasing him, he could tell by the light tone of her voice. Maybe she liked to see his reactions the way he so enjoyed watching her react to his own snarky comments. Maybe she saw enough into his brain earlier to have dug up some of his fantasies. Damn her, he'd been avoiding looking anywhere but her face since he walked in, and now here she was basically challenging him to do more. Damn him and his inability to back down from a game he was so clearly not apt to win at the moment. He turned around and finally got a good look at her. She was indeed in a miniskirt, under which she had tucked a lacy white top that was very clearly meant to showcase the black bra she wore underneath the pitiful excuse of a shirt. Her signature red bomber jacket hung from her shoulders and the black boots she had on were laced all the way up to her kneecaps.

This must be it, he thought. This must be his punishment for spilling his guts to Rosalind every night. Or maybe, his guilt and the pain throbbing through his veins had finally won out and he was finally cracking under all that pressure. That's fine. He wasn't even surprised this is what his brain chose to tease him with at the brink of destruction. He figured she'd be the one to shatter him, it was only a matter of time.

"Hello? Are you even listening to me?" Her voice broke him out of his trance. Ok, maybe he wasn't imagining her.

He sighed, defeated and broken and just tired. "Why are you here, Musa?"

It’s a staring match now. He watches as her eyes soften and the sarcasm leaves her features.

"I couldn’t read you earlier today. In the training grounds-" No. Anything but this conversation.

"Maybe you should consider working on those powers of yours then. Seems to me like you're the one losing your touch."

"I'm serious, Riven-"

"I am too."

"Jesus, Riven, let me just finish!" Anger sparked in her features. "You're loud, Riven." He scoffed at that. "Your emotions, I mean. They're usually loud… but they're also lively and harmonious, in a weird way that I can't seem to figure out. Lately, however, they've been quiet… as if they don't exist at all. And at first I thought it was me, I thought I was getting better at controlling my powers. But when I tried to read you today, I felt nothing…" There is was, she had figured it out, and now she looked at him as if he was a science experiment she couldn’t quite figure out.

"… Maybe my hearts just finally turned to stone." He tried for a joke. She did not find it amusing.

"I know, Riven." He's not sure what that was supposed to mean. What did she know? That he was a horrible person? That he'd snitched on her and all their friends (were they his friends?) to the queen of evil? Or worse, that his body lit up whenever she was around?

"Cryptic, but ok. I guess between that line and the fact that you somehow snuck into my room, you could make the whole 'good girl turned bad, mysterious girl' vibe work. Honored I'm the first you're trying it out on. If you'd like to take it a step further, the bed's right behind you." She may have the upper hand in this game, but he's still a stubborn ass.

"Seriously, Riven. I'm not kidding." She took a step toward him. Wrong move, angel.

"I know you're not. That shirt doesn't exactly scream 'kidding'. Tell me, did you just choose the first thing you found in your closet to put on?" He took a step forward this time, one long stride before they stood chest to chest and he hooked his finger under her chin. "Or is that shirt part of this whole 'mystery girl' scheme? Because, I won't lie, it's working." He sees her shiver at his words and doesn't bother to hide the smirk that graces his face. Finally, things were getting interesting. "Wonder if it looks half as good on my bedroom floor…" He noticed her eyes flicker downward, to is lips, but they moved back up just as quickly. He stared right back at her, watching as she struggled to make up her mind about where to slap him for that last comment. He didn't have to wait too long for a response.

"I'm sure you do." Her words came as a whisper, and the smirk that followed was just as alluring. He barely had time to process the meaning behind it all, before she crashed her body onto him and her lips found his. Her hands gripped into the sides of his t-shirt, keeping him to her with such force that he vaguely wondered why in the world she felt the need to do that when he wouldn't dream of walking away from this, from her. It's frantic and it's rushed. One of his hands find her waist, pulls her impossibly closer to him. His other hand delves into the hair at the back of her head before sliding to the side and pulling at the pins that hold her right bun in place. It takes him pulling out just one pin and the structure falls apart, her hair tumbling around them and cocooning them in place. He hears her gasp, her hands finally unlatching from his shirt as she splays them apart over his muscles, moves them up to his shoulders. 

He's moving backward, whether to ask her if this okay or make a comment about that noise she just made, he's not sure. He never gets the chance. She pulls his to her again, kisses him like she's been starved in a thirsting in wasteland for days and he's the first sign of water she's stumbled upon, bites his lip- fucking bites his lip and sucks on it and pulls it with her teeth… and he thinks that her being here could not have been his punishment. This, right here, her kissing him like this, this is his punishment. This is his pain finally taking over and shattering his soul.

Maybe Rosalind somehow found out about his little crush and is getting payback for the fact that he didn't show up for their nightly midnight story time. Maybe, he's already dead and in hell and some devil out there is playing a cruel, cruel trick on his brain. Maybe that's why his body is shaking, literally shaking, and his mind feels like its tearing apart. He feels Musa's hands on his scalp, her palms splayed out at his temples and fingers tightly wound into his hair. Again, he is surprised at the sheer force she seems to pour into her touch, anchoring him to her as though he could ever want to leave her embrace.

He's so wrapped up in his thoughts and in her touch that he barely hears the whimpers of pain coming from her or feels the tears streaming down her face as she hold him to her. When he finally feels the tears trickle between their lips, be pulls back (genuinely, pulls back because her fingers are still forcing him to her), opens his eyes to find her already looking back at him. But instead of the brown irises she wore when this rough little make out session started, her eyes are now purple. And her face is red. She looks exhausted. He feels exhausted. 

He's about to ask her what's wrong, if she's ok, if her powers are going haywire. But he's so dizzy and so tired and suddenly he's leaning on her and she's pulling him onto the bed. She looks down at him, whispers "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" over and over in his ear and he finds himself wondering what she's sorry about and where the pain that haunted him for weeks has gone before he slowly sinks into oblivion.

________________________________________________________________

He wakes up and she's gone.

It's Sky who sits next to him the next day, Sky and Headmistress Dowling of all people. He mumbles something about being dead and hallucinating, but Sky just laughs and tells him he's happy to have him back.

It takes a good few hours to catch him up on all the shit he's missed while he was being controlled by Rosalind. Apparently, Dowling was stuck under a bunch of plants? The girls somehow managed to free her with some potion from a cousin of Terra's. Turns out they've been sneaking out every night, pretending to go to parties and instead heading outside the barrier trying to find clues on what the hell Rosalind is up to. That would explain Musa's choice of clothing the other night. 

Sky tells him it was the girls' idea to keep him out of the loop at the beginning, worried that his weird obsession with Beatrix and her even weirder obsession with him would lead to Andreas and Rosalind finding out. Sky swears they were going to tell him eventually, and Riven has to tell him that he's glad they didn't. That's when Sky tells him what he'd already guessed. It was Musa who refused to tell him even after time has passed, sensing that something was wrong in his mind. Her being in their room the other night had been no mistake, but an orchestrated move. She'd practiced with Dowling for weeks, training to unlock his brain, pull it apart so that she could mentally remove Rosalind's control from his brain by sheer willpower and might, and then put it all back together as best she could. 

He's instinctively proud of her, she did it. But, he also wishes she'd done it with less kissing and in some less distracting attire, but he probably deserves the type of torture that will surely follow as a result of last night. After they fill him in, Sky throws his gear at him and tells him to get dressed and ready.

"We leave tonight."

"What? Where are we going?"

"That's a bit complicated." It's Dowling who answers this time. "Silva and Professor Harvey will meet us in the woods beyond the barrier. We will lead you the rest of the way. We're going to collect forces. There will be a war, and Rosalind will know that something is wrong when you miss your nightly meeting with her for the second time in a row. The Winx suite is already with Silva and Ben. They're waiting for us."

They leave the dorms using Stella's ring, which she has given to Dowling as a backup to her magic, which Rosalind is be able to track within school grounds. When they arrive to the location in the woods, Riven is only slightly surprised to find Sam among the girls. He's leaning on a tree, talking to Silva and his father, both of which look like they haven't slept for days. The girls are gathered together by a fallen tree. Musa is in the middle of them, huddled into herself, as Terra and a new girl with brown skin and long honey-brown hair rub her back. Stella, Bloom, and Aisha stand back, watching Musa with worry evident in their eyes. 

It's Stella who notices them first. She wipes the worry off her face with mastered ease that only comes with practice, straightens up her back, shoots Musa a look and calls loudly, "There you are! Took you guys long enough!"

From then on, it’s a quick fill-in on what the plan is, an awkward introduction to the Harvey cousin whose name he can't remember because his mind was too stuck on the girl whose hair is back in those buns he managed to loosen yesterday, and a small little "welcome back to the good side" before they're trekking their way through the woods.

He stands behind her the whole time. Watches as she follows the professors, but stands at the tail end of the line the girls have formed. She looks tired, the bags under her eyes tell him that the girls have probably been out here all night. He wonders how much of her energy it took to tear and mend his brain, if anyone bothered to let her rest after she did it. He wishes he was braver, wishes he could walk up to her and… what, thank her? Ask her why she did it? Why kiss him and then cure him? She could have just as easily done it while he was asleep. He bides his time, observes as one by one the girls take turns standing next to her, linking their arms with hers, smiling down at her, whispering who knows what in her ear and earning a laugh form her every now and then. He likes her laugh, it's cute.

He's currently watching as Bloom pull Musa to her and makes some joke about chickens, when he feels a punch land on his right arm.

"Are you as stupid as you look?" He turns to find that Stella has somehow walked backwards and is now next to him.

"Missed you too, princess," he mutters back.

"Oh, cut the bullcrap, Riven. You've been staring at her for the last two hours and I told her I wouldn't say anything but honestly, you two are hopeless. I've never met two people so oblivious in my life."

"I don’t know what you're talking about." he starts.

"Like shit you don't. If you don't know it yet, figure it out." And just like that she's running ahead and linking her right arm with Musa's as Bloom tries for another joke, this one about pigs that fly.

He tries to ignore Stella's stupid comment. Honestly, he figures it's probably safer to stare at her and look like a total creep than try to talk to her and make sense of his feeling about who the fuck knows what anymore. But Stella's words ring through his mind and he lets himself believe that maybe, just maybe…

In the end, he convinces himself that the reason he walks up to her once Bloom goes to hold Sky's hand and Stella moves in on the new girl to make conversation is because Stella offered him a challenge, and he likes to win at those. (He's heading straight for a loss, he's fully aware of that, but whatever.) 

"Long time no see," he jokes when he reaches her side. She cranes her neck up at him, not surprised to see him.

"Thought I heard your loud-ass emotions coming closer."

"Yeah, I've been told they can be quite the riot." He shoots her a smirk and she smiles up at him.

"Who told you that?"

"Oh, you know. Just some girl."

"Some girl, huh?"

"Yeah. Then she gave me a good snogging before tearing my brain to pieces without my knowing it."

"Mmm. She seems like a handful."

"Tell me about it." Her eyes fall downward and he doesn't need to be an empath to see the gears turning in her head.

"I'm sorry," she starts, "About that. I didn't want to do it, I know you have me reading your emotions."

"Yeah, but I hated having them controlled by someone else even more…" There's a pause and he quickly moves to fill it, scared that whatever courage juice that's coursing through his veins will run out soon. "Thank you, by the way." And he means it. He hopes she can sense the sincerity coming from him because he only has so many words in his vocabulary when it comes to her and fears he's already run out of them when she turns to look at him once more.

They've fallen behind the group at this point. He figures he won't get the chance to do this again for a while, so he asks her the question that been running rampant through his mind. It's pathetic, really. They're headed to god knows where to do god knows what and instead of worrying about the fact that war is coming or even being slightly concerned that he's just had his mind abused and prodded around by an evil mastermind, his biggest worry is if this girl really wanted to kiss him or if she just did it for show.

"So, umm, just so we're clear… did you mean it?" If he felt dumb thinking it, he feels like a world-class idiot saying it out loud.

"Mean what?" She stares back at him intensely, and he thinks to himself in an amused manner that they seem to be making a habit of staring at each other for longer than average periods of time. "The part about you being loud? Cuz, yeah, I meant every word. You're a walking catastrophe." She's smirking at him. He rolls his eyes her words.

"Couldn't care less about that. In fact, I'm glad my emotions are as obnoxious as I am- means they've been driving you crazy for a while now." Her smile falters a bit at that line. "What I want to know," he continues. "Is if you kiss everyone whose mind you go digging into like that." He still has not taken his eyes off her, and he's not going to start now, when she blushes and ducks her head under the collar of her red bomber jacket.

"That was a… last minute choice."

"What for?"

"I had to get close enough to you to make contact. I've only been practicing with Dowling for a few weeks and I didn’t want to screw it up. I can't really do the whole mind thing without some sort of contact just yet…" Her words drift off.

"Hand holding didn't cut it? Had to go for a full make-out session, complete with lip biting and everything?" He watches as she shivers into her coat, arms wrapped around herself.

"You would've pushed me away."

"How did you know I wouldn't push you away while kissing me?" She mutters something under her breath. He doesn’t catch it, not between that stupid jacket that she's using to shield her face. He gently takes a step forward, catches her chin between his fingers just as he had done the night before, makes her meet his eyes. "Come again?"

She sucks in a breath, her eyes waver to something behind him when she finally lets it out, "We both know you weren't going to say no to me throwing myself at you."

"And if I did?" He doesn't know who he's kidding, but it’s still a game and he's still playing to… lose?

She's still staring behind him when she frowns and says, "Then we would have seen just how great this shirt would have looked on your bedroom floor, after all."

And goddamn it, her words send his blood boiling. He's about to kiss her senseless, but he refuses to do it if she's not staring at him when he asks one last question.

With his finger still hooked under her chin and them standing mere inches away, he whispered into the air between them, "Look at me, Musa."

Her eyes slowly move to meet his. He gives up his last question, which just so happens to be his first, "Did you mean it?" And when her small "Yes" makes its way through her lips as her steady brown eyes catch his green ones, that's all the confirmation he needs.

His finger leaves her chin and moves to her head and then he's pulling her in, closer and closer and closer until she's all he can feel and smell and see and breathe. And she responds with the same vigor she used last night, wasting no time to wrap her arms around his neck and lock him to her. It's a new kind of game, one where they battle for dominance until they both run out of breath and need to break free. It makes him stronger, it breaks him down, it makes him wonder why the hell he ever wanted to win against her when he could instead let her win and lose himself to her as he is right now. And when his hands pull the pins from both buns from her hair as he kisses down her neck, she groans in half pleasure and half annoyance.

"I'll have to fix them again now," she whines, pouting her bottom lip out, which he takes as an invitation to bite and pull on it.

"You'll manage. Let me just have this now. I've been waiting a while to see you with your hair fully down." She scoffs but lets him stare at her in awe once he finds it in him to pull back from her lips in order to get a view his handiwork.

And to think, it all started with some fucking pigtails.

[skullsandwineglasses]

Love and Redemption Review

Overall, I have to say that the story was really good, maybe even better than the popular xianxia romances that came before it like Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms, Love and Destiny, and Ashes of Love. The romance may be comparable to AOL, but as a whole, the plot in L&R was more interesting and cohesive.

****SPOILERS AHEAD FOR LOVE AND REDEMPTION AND OTHER XIANXIA DRAMAS****

Plot

What sets Love and Redemption apart from the other 3 xianxia romances is that Love and Redemption also feels like a quest/adventure story, while also delivering a gut-wrenching, star-crossed romance plot. What’s interesting about L&R is that the main focus is on the mortal realm and the FL and ML’s current mortal incarnation, as opposed to the heavenly realm and their immortal identities.

The actions of the mortals have consequences across the 3 realms, as opposed to other xianxia romances that only use the mortal realm as a temporary stage for the leads to fall in love. The other 3 xianxias that I mentioned all opened up in the heavenly/celestial realm first, while the mortal realm was just a brief trial that the leads have to endure before returning to the immortal realm. The moral realm in L&R therefore feels livelier and more eventful, and the mortals have more agency and are not easily influenced by celestial beings. Whenever a celestial being does come down to the mortal realm, their powers are limited and are they are bound by the rules and restrictions of the mortal realm (which means that celestial beings can’t use their powers to mess with the emotions and decisions of mortals). 

The drama opens up with a tournament being held at the FL’s sect and members from all the other sects are arriving for the tournament. When the FL and ML meet, they are on equal footing (well, equal in terms of status as disciples, but not so much in terms of magical prowess). It’s like when you were in high school and you meet the visiting basketball team from a rival school, and then end up becoming friends with them.

Love and Redemption also takes the audience through a mystery. What is the true immortal identity of the FL? What’s her relationship to the Star of Mosha? Is she the saviour or the doomsday harbinger? Does the ML have an immortal identity too? Why do they have the same birthday? The drama keeps us on our toes because we learn about the truth and the history of the characters as they’re discovering it, as opposed to the other xianxia dramas where there is very little mystery and few plot twists.

Because of this mystery, the drama is tight and well-paced, since a new piece of the puzzle is always being revealed. Just when you thought that the mystery is solved, there’s a twist, and you realized that the twist was set up from the very beginning of the story, but you just missed it. 

The story also doesn’t stray from the main leads. Yes, there are subplots (as all dramas do), but the subplots here are brief, and they usually relate back to the main leads. Unlike in AOL where the later half of the drama derails and focuses on the two other supporting couples, while the main leads only get about 10 minutes of screen time. 

The Male Lead - Yu Si Feng

Before starting the drama, I read a lot of comments about how much whump and emotional torture the ML goes through and how much he sacrifices for the FL. I thought this was an exaggeration. I mean, Xufeng in AOL went through a lot of Jin Mi too, (and you could make the same argument for Ye Hua in TMOPB, or Bai Zi Hua in Journey of Flower), so I was a little hesitant about the premise since it’s such an old trope, and I was doubtful that it could top the sacrifice that other MLs have done in other dramas. 

But reader, boy was I wrong. Yu Si feng is the definition of limitless, unconditional love. I lost count of how many times he almost died for the FL (not including the 9 times she killed him in their previous 9 lives). He’s spitting up blood and stabbed in nearly every episode. Episodes 37-47 were the hardest to watch because of the escalating chronic angst and misunderstandings between him and Xuan ji that caused irreversible damage to their relationship. Even when she tries to kill him and tells him she regrets having ever known him, he still drags himself back to rescue her. To quote Si feng himself, it’s not a question of whether or not it’s worth it, but it’s a question of whether you are willing to do it. And Si feng is as eager and willing as ever to sacrifice everything for Xuan ji. 

I mean, even Xufeng in AOL and Ye Hua in TMOPB snapped at the FL’s cruelty and aloofness at one point, but Si feng seems incapable of ever being angry with Xuan ji. Even when Si feng purposely tries to avoid her, it’s out of protection for her, not out of anger for everything she’s done. Like??? Si feng is impossibly perfect, even by the impossible standards of xianxia. 

Cheng Yi plays Si feng to a T. He conveys a different type of pain in every crying scene, and so Si feng basically experiences like 59 different types of crushing pain, and you feel it in your bones every time you watch it. The man’s eyes speak volumes.

While it would be easy to say that Cheng Yi carries the drama with his portrayal of Si Feng, the actions of the ML would be meaningless if there were no romantic interest that he was doing this all for.  

The Female Lead - Chu Xuan Ji

Some people may feel that Xuan ji isn’t worth Si feng’s devotion. But, I would argue that the first 37 episodes shows us that she is definitely worth it. 

Xuan Ji is similar to Jin Mi from AOL in that she is incapable of feeling or understanding love. Because Xuan Ji was born without her 6 senses (and also without a real heart, unbeknownst to the other characters), she’s naive and juvenile. But despite not having feelings, she’s still able to care completely about others. She cares about her sister, her father, her sect brothers, and Si Feng. She’s fiercely protective of them as they are of her. To the best of her limited abilities, she is devoted to people as much as she can be. 

Because of her sensory deprivation, Xuan Ji is really curious about the world. She wants to be like everyone else, to feel like everyone else, in hopes of being able to properly reciprocate people’s love for her. She envies people who are able to cry because she thinks that’s an unhindered way of showing love. She regrets not being able to cry when her mother died. Xuan Ji is therefore a self-aware character, unlike Jin Mi, because she knows her shortcomings. She wants to be able to feel, understand, and share pain. 

As such, she’s quite an active character because she has this goal of reviving her senses, which has ripple effects for the other characters in the story since they become a part of her journey, whether by choice or by force. 

Why Si Feng fell for Xuan Ji

Xuan Ji and Si Feng are very opposite characters, and not just because of the obvious difference in their personalities. Si Feng is a boy who feels too much (we later see that he gets his persistent sentimentality from his father), but was taught his whole life to suppress his emotions (I mean, the mask both literally and figuratively prevents him from emoting). Si Feng wants to express his feelings, but cannot. 

On the other hand, Xuan Ji is allowed to be as expressive as she wants, but she is empty on the inside. Xuan Ji represents everything Si Feng wants to be and is expected to be: free and emotionless. 

In this mortal incarnation, SF has responsibilities to everyone, from his spirit beast to his sect. Xuan Ji is the only one who doesn't ask or expect anything of him and yet, for someone who can't feel, she's always thinking of him. she stands up for him, she brings him snacks to comfort him when he’s being punished, she helps steal back his mother's hairpin. These are very simple gestures, but they mean the world to him (no one else has done these things for him before, and he doesn’t understand why she would unconditionally do these things for him), and that's why he's so quick to risk everything for her. Thus ironically, Si Feng actually learned about unconditional love from Xuan Ji. 

He’s never known love, warmth, or friendship in his lonely years growing up in the Lize Palace. And so, when you’re just a 16 year old awkward, hormonal, and introverted teenage boy, it’s easy to fall for a selfless girl who invades your personal space and has no sense of propriety. 

Why Xuan Ji fell for Si Feng

We see that her love is gradual. She falls in love with him without even realizing she’s fallen in love. She cares for him as a friend at first. After all, like she said, Si Feng is the first friend she’s made from outside her sect. But soon, her caring for him surpasses that of what she feels for her sect brothers. Si Feng teaches her about the world, from what different food tastes like, to naming colours. Si Feng doesn’t infantilize her like her sect brothers do. Her sect brothers are either dismissive or protective, like Ming yan, but she is able to find a proper confidant in Si Feng who is willing to be patient with her and listen to her. 

Their 4-year separation when they each undergo training and achieve a boost in their abilities, only made Xuan Ji’s heart grow fonder. She misses Si Feng, and is frustrated to see that things are different between them when they meet again. She doesn’t understand why he’s so cold and distant, and all she wants to do is close the distance between them. 

It’s a meme that Xuan Ji is the one who wears the pants in the relationship. She’s assertive and bold, and I think part of the reason why she fell for Si Feng is because he gives her that space to be best and biggest version of herself, whether in the heavenly realm or in the mortal realm. She’s also fascinated by him. A person outside of her sect who has an endearing personality unlike anyone else she’s seen. He piques her curiosity, and so she’s drawn to him. He’s as much as her romantic and sexual awakening as she is his. 

It’s apt that their ship name is the combination of their last names “Chu Yu”, which sounds similar to the words 初遇, which means “first encounter”. Not only is this drama about capturing the feelings of first love, but Si Feng and Xuan Ji have also had 10 different first encounters because of their 10 reincarnation tribulations. 

The Romance

It’s actually quite fun and endearing to watch because both Xuan Ji and Si Feng are playing hard to get, which frustrates the hell out of both of them. Xuan Ji is trying to win back Si Feng and convince him to stay, while Si Feng himself is trying to win Xuan Ji’s heart, and she doesn’t even realize it. They’re both trying to woo each other, but they’re both being resistant, intentionally and unintentionally. 

I have to admit, though, that the first few episodes were slow. 

There aren’t major sparks during the first meeting between the leads. She just falls out of the sky into his arms, and he’s flustered by her sudden appearance and clinginess. The love story didn’t feel “epic” during the the first 4 episodes because it didn’t feel like there were any stakes. These were just 2 young disciples from different sects who had a stereotypical meet-cute. It was like watching a high school coming-of-age romcom. 

Things start to get serious when Si feng is forced to wear the lover’s curse mask, meaning that he cannot love, or else every time he’s hurt by the one he loves, that mask will release a feather to his heart and he’ll feel unbearable pain. When all the feathers are released, he’ll die. This means that he has to stay away from Xuan Ji, but obviously, the drama can’t let that happen, so he’s constantly thrown into situations with her, he can’t stay away from her, and he ends up falling for her harder and harder against his will. 

Xuan Ji trusts Si Feng completely and unconditionally (until episodes 37-47 that is). She is willing to go against her father and sect in order to protect him. She’s willing to sacrifice herself to save him. She’s willing to go rogue with her powers for him. When no one else trusts him, she does. 

This makes Xuan Ji a very cathartic character to watch because she isn’t frustrating at all. She isn’t easily influenced and has her own views. She doesn’t share the same prejudiced views as the elder sect leaders. She is willing to disobey if it’s the right thing to do. She immediately clears up misunderstandings, like the one between her and Ming yan. We see her gradually become more mature through her increasing protectiveness over Si Feng. 

I think because we see this rational and loyal side of Xuan Ji, we’re able to have a higher tolerance for her ignorance and mistakes later in the drama (but only barely). 

The Reincarnations - What Does it Mean to Love a Soul?

Si Feng fell for Xuan Ji 10 times in the mortal world, not including the very first time he falls for her when they were immortals in the heavenly realm. 

I explained why I think Si Feng fell for Xuan Ji is this 10th reincarnation, but why did he fall for her in the past 9 lives? In the flashbacks, we see that in each life, Xuan Ji is cruel and heartless, and she still had the same unforgiving and ruthless demeanor as when she was the god of war. Is it because Si Feng’s soul is always going to be automatically attracted to Xuan Ji’s soul?

Because we only see brief glimpses of the past 9 lives (more specifically, we only see the ending of these lives), we don’t really know how they met or how Si Feng came to love her in each life. But, I would assume that there was something about Xuan Ji in each of her reincarnations that attracted her to Si Feng and completed him. Also, we know that Xuan Ji is capable of tenderness. As the god of war, she disliked fighting. As Mosha, she cared about Bailing. So, while Xuan Ji’s nature might be violent and cruel, I think that with each life, she learns about love and sincerity. If we assume that the flashbacks of the 9 lives are in order, then it would seem like Xuan Ji becomes more and more affected by Si Feng’s death with each successive lifetime. In the first life, she is completely indifferent to his beheading. but we see that she begins to become affected in the later lives, but tries to shove those emotions aside because they’re foreign and unfamiliar to her. 

We get even less context for how Si Feng might have fallen for the god of war in the heavenly realm. We only know that Si Feng was the Jade Emperor’s son, and only gained a celestial anamorphic form after 10, 000 years. His true form is the Golden-feathered bird. He’s always appearing by the god of war’s side to listen to her vent, but the god of war only sees him as a stray bird who comes by to visit occasionally. Why did he fall for her? Did he empathize with her loneliness? Maybe she was his only friend, like he was her only friend, but she didn’t even realize it. 

We also see that Si feng loves Xuan ji no matter who she is or what form she takes. Her gender doesn’t matter to him, and gender was never even an issue in the drama. The drama doesn’t give an explanation for why Bailing created a female body for the god of war (besides that he wanted to disguise Mosha’s appearance), but it also doesn’t matter. It’s a non-issue, and I love it. We just need to accept it, because the “why” isn’t important.

Xuan Ji has 3 different identities: The Star of Mosha (Luo Hou Ji Do), the god of war, and Xuan Ji the mortal. The god of war and Xuan Ji have the same “soul”, and that soul came from the glass of Mosha’s imprisonment lamp, and also from Mosha’s altered corporeal body. So, she is a part of Mosha, but has also become her own entity. 

To Si Feng, all 3 identities are Xuan Ji. The memories, emotions, and experiences of all the identities are what made Xuan Ji Xuan Ji, and so he loves all of them. 

But what made Xuan Ji finally crack so that she’s now able to love Si Feng in this 10th reincarnation? I think it has to do with her upbringing. We see in her previous 9 lives that she had a troubled upbringing filled with scheming and violence. So she was consumed by the darkest side of humanity and Si Feng couldn’t pull her out. But in this life, she grew up with an abundance of love, which made her want to learn how to love, which allowed her to open up to Si Feng. In this way, the drama shows that Si Feng alone isn’t enough to redeem her, but it took the love of her friends and family to help her grow a heart. 

The Angst

Okay. So. Si Feng has probably suffered more than any male lead in xianxia history. I think someone said that he has a martyr complex. But, I’d like to break down the type of angst that are present in dramas. 

There is angst that is harmless, and there is angst that is damaging to the relationship. 

Harmless angst is usually angst by external forces. Like parents who don’t allow their kids to be together. Like in AOL when Xufeng mistakenly thinks that Jin Mi might be his sister so he can’t be with her. In L&R, this kind of external angst happens when Si Feng mistakenly thinks that Xuan Ji likes her 6th sect brother Ming yan. Xuan Ji isn’t purposely hurting Si Feng, but it’s an unintentional misunderstanding. 

Damaging angst is when the couple turns against each other and become enemies. This happened when Jin Mi kills Xufeng and says she never loved him (which technically is true since her heart was re-sealed so she didn’t even understand what love was when she said it). In L&R, this happens Xuan Ji sides with her sect and attacks Si Feng when he reveals his demon form. This happens again when they confront each other outside the Lize Palace and she announces that she’s done with him and breaks ties with him. This happens again when she stabs him, says she regrets having ever known and loved him, and proceeds to try to stab him again. In Love and Redemption, Xuan Ji keeps saying hurtful things to him. There’s not just one moment of betrayal, but a constant onslaught of betrayals over 10 episodes that make the relationship feel like it’s entered a point of no return. 

The masochistic side of me likes love/hate relationships and damaging angst. I grew up with it. TVB dramas have a lot of it. My favourite is the angst in Raymond Lam and Charmain Sheh dramas like Drive of Life and Lethal Weapons of Love and Passion. But despite over 20 years of watching dramas, I was still not prepared for the pain and suffering in Love and Redemption. 

The good news is that they make up fairly quickly, though some may argue too quickly and easily. 

What I Enjoyed

Other xianxia romances usually only have 1 mortal reincarnation. This has 10 reincarnations (even if only shown briefly), and I love that. The leads have already had such a rich history together, but they don’t remember, and so the romance is about them falling in love all over again in this life, while also slowly remembering the love they had in their previous lifetimes. 

The world-building was also compelling, and the supporting characters were great. They were the voice of reason and talked sense into the main leads to help move the plot forward. I also liked how the ML and FL each had their own personal relationship with the supporting characters separate from each other. For instance, Ming yan has a childhood friendship with Xuan Ji, but he also develops his own friendship with Si Feng. Wu Ziqi was once Mosha’s helper, and also knew the god of war, but also forms his own friendship with Si Feng. Zi Hu is also friends with both Xuan Ji and Si Feng. Having separate friendships with the leads means that the supporting characters are unbiased. They’re not likely to help the ML more than the FL or vice versa, but they’re able to see both sides of things. They help the leads, but they’re also critical of them, and is therefore able to help the leads make rational decisions. It reminds me of the friendship dynamics in Avatar where the characters have unique relationships with each other. Like Toph has her own relationship dynamic with Sokka and Katara, which is different from Aang’s relationship dynamic with them. 

It goes without saying that Si Feng is the best part of the drama. He plays an emotionally repressed character, so it always feels like the heavens opened up when he smiles, and Xuan Ji seems to be the only one who can make him smile. SF's best moments are when he shows moments of vulnerability, like when he begs Xuan Ji not to cut ties with him, or when he's so happy to the point of disbelief and he's afraid of it being true that he begins to slightly quiver, like when he kept asking XJ if she was really the one who took off his mask. You can see him break down and not being able to contain his emotions and how much he’s desperately yearning for his love to be reciprocated. 

I like that the FL has the same personality throughout the drama. I'm always annoyed when the FL's personality takes a 360-degree turn when she has a sudden "awakening" when her past life memories come flooding back and she instantly matures and becomes jaded. In Love and Redemption, Xuan Ji stays her bubbly self, even when she’s burdened with responsibilities. Hell, even when she becomes a mother, she’s still aloof and playful. In episode 52 or so when she burns her leg and refuses to leave Si Feng’s house, she acts like a helpless little girl again. Si Feng tells her that such a small injury wouldn’t even faze someone as powerful as she is, but she reminds him that he once told her that even if she didn’t feel pain, her body would know the pain, and so she should always tell him when she’s hurt. I just like this throwback to the earlier episodes to show that while Xuan Ji has grown and matured, she’s still the same person who wants to be loved and pampered. 

Weaknesses of the Drama

Xuan Ji is a really multi-faceted and complex character (because of her villainous tendencies), but Crystal Yuan doesn’t completely deliver in all of her performances of the character. Crystal Yuan is great when she’s acting cute (though it reminds me a lot of Zhao Liying’s acting in Journey of Flower, even the voice actress is the same actress), but I feel like Crystal Yuan’s crying scenes are a little lacking. Also, Xuan Ji is a character who is often in moral and emotional conflict because she starts to feel emotions that she doesn’t understand since she’s never felt them before, but sometimes Crystal isn’t very convincing when trying to convey this internal conflict. For instance, in the scene when she thought Si Feng was getting married to Ah Lan, I thought that her devastation at seeing that should have been a bit more palpable. I mean, you finally found the love of your life after searching him for over a year and now he’s in front of you, about to get married to another woman. There should be more pain, anger, regret, disbelief, a battle of emotions unfolding on the face. There should have been more deflation, more staggering. I think back to when Tang Yan was watching Luo Jin get married to someone else in Princess Weiyoung, or when Jin Mi was watching Xufeng propose to Sui He in AOL, and the desperation and shock was subtle, but still so strong. You could feel the drop in your own stomach when sympathizing with the female character. 

I also obviously disliked how Xuan Ji didn’t believe Si Feng. But I would have understood why she didn’t believe him (even when he logically explained his innocence) since there are so many people pressuring her judgment, but what I can’t get over is how she had it in herself to physically hurt him. And she already hurt him before too, so she knows how much it pains her to hurt him. She already regretted the act before. But because she mistakenly thinks that he killed Hao Chen, she decides that she needs to kill him? Does Hao Chen mean that much to you that you’d be willing to sacrifice Si Feng in order to avenge him? That was my breaking point for her character. 

I didn’t like how Hao Chen’s arc was resolved. For 1000 years, he thought he was right and never had any regrets. He was obsessed with controlling his friend Mosha to the point of killing him and sealing his soul away. He then created another being, became possessive over that being to the point of falling in love with it (without admitting it), and then follows his creation down to the mortal world, and wrecks havoc on the mortals, especially Si Feng. And when Hao Chen learns that he can no longer control or redeem Xuan Ji, he decides that he needs to kill her in order to prevent Mosha from coming back. But then suddenly, because of a few words and visions from the Jade Emperor, he immediately has a change of heart and sees the error of his ways. It’s just so anti-climactic. Yuan Long’s ending was also underwhelming. I just wanted the good guys and bad guys to fight it out without divine intervention. 

While I sympathize with Si Feng and agree that it's like watching a puppy get kicked over and over again, he honestly gets jealous way too easily and is too insecure. He also keeps everything to himself and sucks at communicating. We blame Xuan Ji for being too quick at jumping to conclusions, but Si Feng also jumps to conclusions too and causes unnecessary pain for himself. 

Overall Impression

Overall, despite the frustrations, I really liked the consistency of the drama. It flows as one complete narrative and all the subplots are well intertwined with the main plot. With other reincarnation xianxia dramas, you could divide the story into distinct arcs, but it’s harder to do with this one since you have arcs that overlap and transcend other arcs. There’s the mask arc, the god of war arc, the reincarnation arc, the demon identity arc, the Mosha arc, etc. Before one arc is completed, another arc is introduced.

If you’re looking for a be-all-end-all, til the end of time and end of the world romance, this is it. While it has many similar tropes to other xianxias like AOL, I think this executes the tropes better. Although if you’ve already watched AOL or other xianxias, you might be more immune to the angst (even though this drama is angstier). But if you watch this drama first, I think it sets the bar pretty high for other xianxia dramas.

The chemistry and sexually tension is also through the roof (and the BTS will have you raising your eyebrows - are costars normally that flirty and touchy feely on set?)

So yes, this drama does live up to the hype. More meta posts to come because I’m still going through withdrawal. 

(Just checked the word count on this review, and it’s over 4700 words. I’m clearly an obsessed mess). 

Other meta posts:

Recurring details and motifs in Love and Redemption

Similarities to other stories in movies and literature

[bluebellhairpin]

The Bane of Zeke Jaeger

Zeke Jaeger X Fem!Reader

A/N: It’s like an enemies to lovers but they’re both still enemies at the end. (Bonus to anyone who can spot the cameo btw.)- Nemo

Summary: You and Zeke have been at each others throats for years. A time comes when he takes it a little too far, and ever since then - with your new power - you decide to start plotting his downfall. 

Warnings: Blood. Violence. Character Death. Needles. Attempted Murder. Insanity (? idk, reader get’s a little unhinged). 

Listening to: ‘Beautiful is Boring’ by Bones UK - ‘Give me scars and stripes. It does not please me to be easy on any of your eyes.’ 

Masterlist 

There was something about Zeke Jaeger. From how calculating he was to how he simply existed. But whatever that something was - it never failed to piss you off. 

From the moment you both met in the Military, you were at each other's throats. You more so than he. The fact you were both candidates for becoming titan shifters sure didn’t help. He was always so condescending, he knew he was the smartest person in the room and he acted like it too - if only to just rile you up. His only redeeming quality in your eyes was the fact he was so useless in physical training. 

Many times in your younger years did you want to simply pop a bullet through the back of his head while you were out. 

No one would know it was you - that you were sure of. 

You see, that's the thing you always had the upper hand in. You never got caught doing anything - it was always Zeke tattling on you that got you into trouble at all. Bastard. 

And now that you were older - yourself entering your late twenties - that same child-like distaste for each other hadn’t changed. If anything it turned, rearing its ugly head to reveal spite, and resent in the form of a very large grudge. 

───────✱.｡:｡✱.:｡✧.｡✰✧.｡:✱───────

“I’ve been away for how long and you still haven’t removed the stick from up your ass, huh?” 

“Shame on you, Ezekiel.” you gritted, purposefully changing his name, grabbing a fistfull of his beard and tugging in down, “All that time spent alone to think and you still can’t speak to a lady properly.” 

He reached up a hand, squeezing your wrist hard enough to hurt, but you didn’t let go, only held onto his facial hair even harder. 

“Let go, you fiend.” 

“You let go.”

“I told you first.”

“And I told you second.” 

“Are you finished flirting yet?” Reiner said, his head resting on his hand from across the table. You immediately sent a glare over to him, your grip on Zeke as firm as ever.

“He started it.” 

“I was not talking to you, (y/n).” Reiner huffed. 

You whipped your head back to Zeke, now grabbing his ear and on it tugging it too.

“You asshole, you need to stop playing up so much!”

“Stop it, that hurts!”

“That’s the whole point!” you said, “Apparently having your ass handed to you by that Ackerman guy wasn’t enough!” He had the audacity to pout at you, and you let out a groan of disgust before letting him go. Finally. 

“Now that you’re both done, can we get on with it?” 

───────✱.｡:｡✱.:｡✧.｡✰✧.｡:✱───────

You felt very lucky - very, very lucky - to have such a prime spot for such a lovely show. 

While Zeke had grown between the boy back in training until the man he was now, he still lacked when it came to non-titan fighting. And right now, Reiner wasn’t. Even though the younger male was mentally struggling since he came back from Paradis, he had all that experience up his sleeves that Zeke did not. 

“Having fun?” Zeke said, only now deciding to take off his glasses and set them beside you on the bench. 

“The only thing lacking is the satisfaction I’d get in having my own foot in your face.” 

“Naturally.” he grunted.

“Reiner’s going to go for your face next.” You said, a sly smile creeping up the edges of your lips. Zeke squinted at you. 

“Sure he is.” Your smile only broadened when he turned. 

He didn’t trust you - even though you never once lied to him - and that only made it sweeter when Reiner had managed to kick Zeke’s face into the dust with just five moves. You meandered over to him, crouching next to him as he sat up. 

“Good thing you took those glasses off, hey Ezekiel?” Now he scowled at you, and you winked at him before setting off again. But you felt a hand wrap around your ankle and pull. 

You landed face-first in the dirt, palms grazed and nose now sore. As you sat up you saw as red as the blood that leaked from your nose. You faintly remember hearing Reiner call for Porco before you flung yourself back at Zeke, immediately clawing at his neck and eyes before someone tried to get behind you and pull you off him. 

“You’re such a pain,” Zeke spluttered, “No wonder you're not getting a titan.” 

The arms around you held even tighter as you thrashed and yelled about killing Zeke. 

───────✱.｡:｡✱.:｡✧.｡✰✧.｡:✱───────

A moment presented itself to you - much as it did every night. 

Sneak to the kitchen. Grab a knife. Loiter back upstairs to Zeke’s room. Cut his throat while he slept. 

You fantasized about that far too often to be considered healthy, but never in your life had it been as tempting as it was right now. 

Zeke had never once brought up your rejected application for becoming a real, proper warrior - one with a titan to call your own. Even he knew how touché that subject was for you. 

You made it so far as the kitchen, even picking out a nice knife, before being stopped at the doorway on the way out.

“Who’re you?” 

“I have an offer for you.” They said, stepping forward.

“No salespeople please.” You countered, even thought this clearly was not a salesman. He laughed.

“What I have won’t cost you anything. Much.” he said, “But I heard you want a titan.” 

“And?” you said, quirking an eyebrow up at him.

“I have one, just for you.” 

───────✱.｡:｡✱.:｡✧.｡✰✧.｡:✱───────

You thanked whoever decided you’d be this titan that this place was so far away from any city. But you also wondered why there was a proper viewing area. 

Across from you was a woman whose posture mirrored your own, however there were chains on her wrists and ankles, keeping her limbs stretched. Unlike you, she was also unconscious, her head lulled forwards and her long braid had fallen over her shoulder. 

You’d been given strict instructions to wait until the viewing box was full before you were to puncture yourself with the needle you were given. In passing they’d muttered something about a war criminal and a thief, and you wondered where exactly this woman had come from. Surely not Paradis. 

You glanced up at the box again, and decided it was full enough. But you did a double take. Zeke was here.

Of all the people, why him? 

You plunged the needle into your arm, and injected the serum. Then your mind blanked, and nothing. Nothing until you felt something in your mouth, and a warm dribble going down your throat. A jolt of electricity went down your spine, and you grew. 

Then you saw everything. 

Black steam clouded the edges of your vision, and you rose to stand on your new feet. You felt a yell rise in your throat, and as it let go you were met with a deafening scream - no doubt one heard from miles. 

There was another flash of lightning, and you turned to see a rather underwhelming version of Zeke’s beast titan. You felt yourself letting out a chuckle, the sound coming out much deeper and distorted than your proper voice. You bent down to his eye-level, almost needing to bend your knees properly to get a proper look. 

“Hey shortie.” 

“Hey big girl.” he said, “You going to stop being a bitch now?” 

“To you?” you asked, and he hummed a yes. You feigned thought for a moment before laughing again. “Of course not. Plotting your demise is much more fun.” 

And plotting his demise you sure did. 

[jaceyneedsabetterusername]

Whiskey Pecan Pie

Pairing: Arthur Shelby x Reader

Warnings: None

Summary: Arthur isn’t known for being the nicest or gentlest person but a certain girl in the bakery makes him want to be a better person. 

Word Count: 2115

A/N: I finally made it a full length imagine! I don’t know about the ending so feel free to let me know what you think about it. 

___________________________

Arthur was pretty sure he was in love with you. Everything about you made him smile and feel warm inside, which usually only his alcohol could do (and even then, that only made him feel warm). Your sparkling eyes and kind smile were a shining light in the gloom that was Small Heath, a gloom that he felt partially responsible for deep down. But you made him want to be the best possible version of himself. 

Your grandparents had opened a small bakery in Small Heath back in the 1860’s and it had been passed down to your parents who’d raised you up in the business as well. Baking was your life and unlike so many other people your age who’d run from their family businesses as soon as they were eighteen, you couldn’t wait to take over yours. 

But your dream was so much more than the basic breads and cakes that your parents made. You couldn’t wait to add pies and cookies and scones and whatever else you managed to create in that kitchen in the back! 

Today, your newest specialty had been posted up for sale: Have A Berry Good Day Cobbler. A display batch had been made up and set behind the glass of the display case while the three other cobblers sat in the back, ready to be bought up and enjoyed. You couldn’t deny, you were pretty proud of this one. 

You sat behind the counter, nose buried in a book, while you awaited customers while your parents baked bread in the back. The little ding of the bell in the doorway drew your attention to the man who walked in. You smiled, immediately recognizing him as Arthur Shelby. “Good morning, Mr. Shelby.” You smiled, hopping down from your stool and closing your book. 

Your kindness always took Arthur off guard. He was used to surliness and concealed emotions, unless it was anger, but with you, you always seemed to have a spare smile for someone. He eagerly took his hat off, careful to grab around the hidden blade, and stuffed it in his pocket. That was what a gentleman did, right? He couldn’t even remember proper etiquette anymore. 

“Please, call me Arthur.” He insisted, finally having the nerve to make your relationship a little less formal. You made him nervous, drove butterflies wild in his stomach. It wasn’t something he was used to feeling. His life was typically fulfilled by cheap whores which couldn’t even be classified as cheap thrills anymore. Just something to fill the void. But you made it as if the void didn’t exist. He almost felt like he did before the war. 

You smiled, “Alright, Arthur.” God, the way his name sounded leaving your lips was intoxicating. 

The eldest Shelby brother had become a regular in your bakery about a month ago, coming in at least twice a week for one of your original sweets. You had to admit that you’d developed a (not so) slight crush on the man over the course of your interactions. 

Arthur’s reputation preceded him. Everyone in Small Heath knew who the Shelby brothers were and most people were smart enough to not get involved with them. But the eldest one had captured your heart with his daily visits to your shop. His abrasive, hostile front was left at the door with the removal of his cap and his grimace was replaced with a cute upturn of his mustache as he smiled. It was clear by how he tried to hide it that it wasn’t a look he was used to having but your heart skipped a beat every time you saw it. 

“So… what’s the special today?” Arthur ringed his hat nervously in his hands, careful to avoid the blades in the brim. 

You turned around to grab the display dish and showed it to him, “Today I whipped up something I like to call Have A Berry Good Day Cobbler. And, yes, it is necessary to having a good day.” You giggled at your own anecdote and Arthur let out the closest thing to a laugh he was comfortable emitting. Your adorable smile that was somehow proud and humble could’ve made Arthur drop dead then and there from how cute you were. 

“I’m sure if you made it, it’s delicious.” He threw out the compliment, looking at the cobbler that did indeed look delicious, “Everything you bake always is.” 

Crimson burned into your cheeks at the compliment from the attractive man. You had one more surprise for him though beyond the treat of the day, “Awe, thank you. But I’m hoping you think the same about another new treat I made.” 

“Two in one day?” He asked, surprised. Every day since he’d started coming in four weeks ago, he’d only ever known there to be one special pastry per day.

You held up one finger, telling him to hang for just a second, and you smiled excitedly as you turned around and disappeared behind a shelf to grab a plate. In all honesty, you were nervous out of your mind. Was this too forward? Was this going to scare him off? If it worked as you hoped, would you regret it? 

When you returned just moments later, a little tart sat on a small plate in your hands, “This is a little something special I whipped up just for you.” You handed Arthur the plate, your fingers gently sliding across each other as you slid it into his grasp. Your heart sped up drastically at the contact and you glanced up at him quickly to see if he noticed it too only to lock eyes with him for a brief, nervous moment before you both looked away again. 

“You-you made this just for me?” Arthur questioned, staring at the little mystery pastry in his hands in shock. Nobody had ever made a gesture like this for him before. People only did things for him out of fear or obligation but this little tart with a perfectly toasted crust and sweet looking filling was made specially for him out of the kindness of your heart, and dare he go so far to say, affection. 

You watched nervously as Arthur looked down at the little pastry in his hands and then looked up to you with a twinkle in his blue eyes that told you this was something totally out of the ordinary for him but he didn’t seem to hate it. With a smile, you placed your hands on the counter that was between you and leaned all of your weight onto your hands, lifting yourself to stand on your tiptoes as you peered over, “Well, um, yeah. I may be wrong but you look like you might be a man who likes whiskey so I decided to try and make a dessert with you specially in mind. This is a pecan tart with whiskey in the caramel-pecan filling." 

Arthur looked down at the pastry and then back up to see you nervously chewing your lip, though still smiling, waiting to see his response, "That sounds great,” His heart swelled with a strange emotion he’d never felt before, somewhere between utter adoration for you mixed with the unknown feeling of being loved (if he could be so bold as to entertain the thought that a girl as amazing as you could love a man like him), “How much is it?" Arthur reached into his pocket to grab his wallet. In any other store, he never paid. If people didn't give him what he wanted, he threatened them till he got it. But he could never dream of doing such a thing to you. He'd always made it a point to pay you for whatever he'd bought in your bakery. 

You put up your hands, "It costs nothing, Mr. She- erm Arthur. This one's a gift. Besides, you didn't order it anyways." You laughed a little, hand going to cover his hand that was extended with several coins in it, ready to push it away but stopping when your skin touched his for the first time. 

Your breath caught in your throat. Arthur’s skin was similar to how you’d imagined, somewhere between smooth and calloused with rougher spots on his knuckles. 

Arthur had a similar reaction. When he finally felt your soft but thoroughly worked hands on his, he nearly choked on his own tongue. Was this what it was like to actually love a woman? To not just want their body for a few fun minutes? Of course, there was the physical attraction to you that was undeniable but he actually wanted to get to know you. He craved you, all of you - body, mind, and soul. The thought of harm ever coming to you made his blood boil. 

“Please, I insist. Let me give you a few pounds at least?” He begged, not making any effort to move his hand away from yours. He also definitely noticed that you hadn’t retracted your reach yet either. 

A blush crept up on your cheeks, as if they could possibly get any redder when he was around, “Can’t you accept a gift, Arthur?” You insisted, your tone sweet but taunting. 

He sighed and pulled his hand away, “Alright, alright. Thank you for the pie.” He nodded, gesturing to the tart. 

“It’s technically a tart I think but you’re welcome. Let me know how you like it, yeah?” Arthur only prayed that his cheeks weren’t as bright as they felt. The way your kind eyes twinkled with pride in your work made your entire face glow more radiant than it already did. You were so intelligent and kind and giving.

“Everything you make is delicious and I’m sure this is no exception.” Arthur complimented awkwardly, shifting his weight on his feet nervously as he did so. Kindness and compliments were far from his usual vocabulary but he felt the need to make sure you knew how amazing you were. It didn’t mean it came naturally to him though. 

“Awe, you’re too kind.” You looked away shyly, giggling at his amiable gestures. Men had seldom looked at you the way Arthur Shelby did. Other girls were beautiful and oftentimes fairly well off, or at least the ones the boys often chased were. You felt like you were always just there, not necessarily the most beautiful girl in Small Heath, nor the richest. You had your pies and cookies but was that really enough? 

But you were so much more than that. Arthur saw plain as day the beautiful soul you were but he could also see that you didn’t see yourself the way he did. 

“Arthur!” A male’s voice startled the both of you from the trances you’d fallen into, lost in each other's eyes, as a man burst into the bakery, the little bell ringing as he spoke, “Tommy needs us back at the shop.” 

Arthur sighed, “Alright, Finn, I’ll be there in a moment.” The door closed again and the smitten look that Arthur always donned in your presence began to fade away into the harder expression you saw him wear around town. Regretfully, Arthur’s hand fell from yours but his heart ached for it to be back in your grasp, “I guess I should get going. Thank you again. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

Your hand quickly returned to the table, suddenly feeling awkward and wrong now that the warmth of his touch had disappeared, “See you then. Have a good rest of your day, Arthur.” You tried not to sound too disappointed that he had to leave but if you had it your way, he’d stay all day. 

With one last small, nearly hidden smile, and a nod of farewell, he took off out the door, brushing his hair back with his fingers and throwing his cap back onto his head. Now that you were alone, you brushed your hair back and finally released the breath of air you weren’t aware you had been holding. “That wasn’t so difficult, now was it?” You asked yourself rhetorically. Clearly, he didn’t reject it. In fact, he seemed to be quite delighted by the gesture which had to be a good sign, right? You needed to stop worrying so much. 

You pushed yourself back off the counter to begin restocking the loaves of bread when you noticed something on the counter, right where yours and Arthur’s hands had been holding onto each other. Five pounds sat on the smooth wood and you rolled your eyes, chuckling as you took the money that Arthur left despite your insistence that the dessert was a gift and put it in the cash box, “So persistent.”

[joonluvv]

forever rain [1]

summary: to greek gods, it was a well-known fact that the fates liked to play tricks. but was this too far? what would happen when they made two unlikely gods have a tugging string in their hearts, yearning for each other?

pairing: hades!jin x persephone!reader

genre: angst / fluff / greek god! au / black swan! au

word count: 7.1k

warnings: isolation, slight manipulation

a/n: please check out the note about this series in my masterlist before reading! (this is the version where you’re shorter than the members) thanks for reading and i hope you enjoy :D

Another warm spring day, with the flowers blooming, birds chirping. An overall happy theme.

You despised it.

How could these people like the constant happiness, the constant smiling, the constant joy? As if everything was right in the world.

It wasn’t.

It hadn’t been in years. As a minor goddess, you weren’t roped into the specifics but, you knew that something was brewing up in Olympus. You couldn’t understand what yet but you knew something.

Your mother, Demeter, had not told you much but you had noticed her retiring in the early evenings to bed, only to overhear some whispers in her room in the dead of night. You knew who it was, who else could give her messages of what was happening up in the sky?

Hermes, the messenger of the gods.

He liked to call himself Jimin. You understood the desire to keep more human names, traits. You had especially liked the name Y/N, it rolled off your tongue and stuck.

Of course, your mother despised it. Just like everything else you did that did not include helping her. She had ‘discussed’ the matter with you once.

“You’re a goddess for Zeus sake! You should keep your powerful name, Persephone.”

You had rolled your eyes at the statement. Even Zeus had his own name, Namjoon. It fitted the god’s wisdom but not his intimate tendencies. You knew Jungkook, Hera, would be fuming whether or not Namjoon was looking at mortal women and men again, but just at the thought. You chuckled and rolled your eyes, you missed that. You missed your friends. You were so close with the gods in Olympus.

Only for your mother to pull you down to Earth to help the mortals survive.

It was a fruitless request, your presence was not needed. There wasn’t any weather changed except the warm sunshine to good rainfall every other day. Crops were thriving and the people were happy.

It was a paradise.

You were useless here.

Alas, you couldn’t disobey your mother, that would give more complications then you would ever want. Her gray eyes and sharp words would often cut through your measly requests of exploration. You didn’t ask for the secret of life, just if you could travel beyond the meadows and into the forest.

You tried to reason with yourself that she was just trying to protect you but sometimes it was stifling. Couldn’t she trust you for more than a few minutes?

You had covered up your curiosity by saying that you wanted to help protect the young men who cut wood in the night. You envied their positions, they had real families. Your mother had rolled her eyes and with a subtle way of words, she had made your request seem like the end of the world. She kept a finger under your chin, holding it up to her face. She pouted, and drawled out a familiar phrase.

“Why? You don’t like living with your mother? I know what’s best for you.”

You knew that something was wrong. Your mother was a bit strict, to put it lightly, but she had recently become even more controlling. It was as if she was running out of time and couldn’t bear the thought of you not being at her side.

Your relationship reminded you of a mortal folktale you had heard of. Nothing to do with gods like they usually were, but a different one. You forgot the name but you vividly remembered the story being told around a fire. It was about a girl with long, gold hair who was trapped in a tower by her conniving mother. The similarities were striking and you knew something was off. You never addressed it, scared that the mortals might get the brunt of your mother’s anger for a made-up story.

So you kept the story and the happy ending inside your mind and it beat in your heart. It was something yours and truly and only yours. It seemed like a treasure that you would never let go off. You liked how in the end, she was able to escape her prison and live an adventurous life. You envied her courage. Her bravery to leave what she knew behind to take the chance of finding something more. And even someone more.

You tried to keep these thoughts quiet, scared if it entered your mind, it would be on the tip of your tongue and your mother would steal it from you. Like your freedom.

Your morning thoughts were interrupted by Jimin’s wings flapping onto the balcony you had been looking out from. The balcony was made of a white marble and it was right outside your room. The room was spacious but not needed. You were a goddess, you didn’t need sleep or have any mortal belongings. But it was nice, in its own way.

Jimin’s light smile always brightened your mood, no matter the time or day. You looked at him as he descended but did not open your mouth, afraid of the response he might give to the question that had been plaguing you.

Maybe another day.

He landed next to you, his soft pink locks bouncing before the small white and gold flecked wings on his ankles disappeared in a bit of smoke.

He was wearing white robes with gold accents, he had a touch for style you knew had been inspired by Apollo, or as he called himself: Hoseok. The mortal depiction of Hermes was that he held a staff of two talking snakes and wore a helmet but a few eons ago, Jimin had rolled his eyes at the tradition and tossed both away. Obviously, he was reprimanded for this by Namjoon so he decided to compromise and just keep them hidden from view. However, if you concentrated, you could make out a gold shimmer in his hair where his helmet ought to be or hear two overlapping voices of the snakes on his staff.

“What do I owe to have the pleasure of seeing you, Jimin?” You asked, turning away from him to lean on the handrail of your balcony. Your hands had felt those rails so many times. It was rough and warm, just like everything in the mortal world.

You wanted to feel something different, something—

“You flatter me, and yourself. How did you know I’ve come to see you?” He smirked and teased.

You flicked your eyes back up at his, only to see them gazing back at you. His eyes swirled with a mix of brown and gold, showing his power. You didn’t yield down and continued to look at him. He sighed softly and looked out to the fields that the balcony overlooked. He brought an arm around your shoulders and slowly pulled you closer to him. You wrapped your arms around his torso and put your head on his chest.

“I miss you, Kore,” He murmured, tired of keeping up appearances, “we all do.”

You hummed in understanding, taking the chance to relish being in your friend’s arms. It wouldn’t have been bad to live in the mortal world, in basically a palace that mortals couldn’t see. With endless food and drinks to indulge. But you didn’t want any of that. You wanted your friends, the people you loved and cared about.

“We all miss our pretty bird. The one who would fly across Olympus because she heard some of us talking loudly. Her feathers glistening in the morning dew after racing Hobi and his chariot to bring the sunrise. Quarreling with Namjoon about little things or when Taehyung scolded you for drinking too much ambrosia. We miss you.”

“I know. I miss you all too.”

Your friends had called you pretty bird after your endearing qualities that you always expressed on Olympus. You would hear an uproar from one side of the throne room and you’d come dashing in to see what was the problem. Your selflessness and compassion had made many of the gods favor you. Even Jungkook, known for his coldness to other gods, had a soft spot for you.

And you used to be a cheeky brat when you were a few eons old. You’d steal ambrosia from Hebe, the goddess of youth. She’d be sleeping when you would find her golden cup, filled with the sweet of the gods. She’d scold you multiple times, but you’d have a smile on your face from tricking her. You were also the one who gave her a mortal name, Taehyung. You later realized it was more so used for males, but she laughed it off. Saying she liked the way it sounded and explained how gender norms were only a mortal concept and that she could embody a man. She did and you started to realize why she— or he rather, was the god of youth.

Jungkook would even side you when you disturbed Namjoon, saying that you were only a child. He would also laugh it off, patting you on the head, while Jungkook would only smile. You didn’t remember much of what your mother used to do. She would come every once in a while to check up on you, before leaving back to the mortal world. You didn’t mind her absence. Demeter was always the one scolding you the most. She’d punish you by saying that you weren’t allowed to leave a certain area until she deemed fit. Of course, during these times, your friends would help you out. The first time they did, you jumped so high that Jimin thought you had sprouted wings. That was the first time they called you pretty bird. You still felt like a pretty bird.

A pretty bird held in golden cage. But you realized that, though the bars might be golden, it was still a cage.

And a bird is meant to be free.

————————————————————

You were roaming around the meadows again, but not alone.

You could never be alone.

“Y/N, where are you going? Come back here and don’t wander off!” Your mother yelled from behind you.

In reality, you had barely been a few feet away from her. You turned your head back at her upset form and nodded in acknowledgment. There wasn’t much you could do but agree.

Though, while slowly walking back to your mother’s side, you looked at the meadow you were in. It was filled with vegetation: flowers, grass, fern, and other herbs. They weren’t all just green, but different shades of greens, browns, and a sprinkle of colors from the daisies or lavender planted there.

A swift breeze passed by you and your dress moved with it. Your hands went to the soft, cotton fabric of your plain, white chiton. Your mother hated the choice of clothing, saying that you shouldn’t conform to mortal standards as you were a goddess. You tried to understand but, it was a simple dress and the gods wore more or less the same thing. It must have been because you didn’t wear a laurel wreath on your head. You despised it, remembering how you loved hiding in cherry laurel when you were younger. There was no point in cutting off a few branches to identify yourself as god. The mortals couldn’t see you, only other gods could. It was useless.

Even in little things you tried to disobey your mother, such as shortening the chiton by a few inches at the bottom. It could help you run through the grass, if you could.

If she allowed it.

You stopped in your tracks to crouch down, holding your arms around your knees while balancing on the front of your feet. You looked in front of you at the baby’s breath in curiosity, it was such a lovely plant and you liked the simplicity. It had always been a favorite.

“I’m sorry for yelling, but it’s getting late and I don’t want you to wander off. Please stay close, okay?” Your mother asked, her true feelings surfacing for a brief second. She held your wrist and pulled you up.

Her fingers pinched your skin, but you didn’t cry out. She dragged you through the baby breath and your feet crushed the plant. Your mother kept walking for a few feet until stopping in front of a cluster of crops that were wilting, most likely from a disease. Your mother folded her arms while you rubbed your wrists to ease the pain. 

“Sorry Kore, I didn’t know I hurt you.”

“It’s fine.”

She looked at you worried, but you shrugged it off and sighed.

Closing your eyes, you tried to stay calm. Your mother wanted to test your powers again, afraid that your talks with Jimin or your curiosity was hindering it someway.

You opened your eyes and took a deep breath in. You felt your fingers tingle and you opened your palm out to the crops. In mere moments, the disease that effected the crops vanished, leaving healthier ones in its stead.

Your mother only hummed and stepped towards you. She stood in front of you and smiled. These were the moments you liked, when your mom was not being completely anxious and worried. Her smile reminded you about wilting flowers, beautifully sad. She took your hands into hers delicately, unlike the way she grabbed them earlier, and rubbed them. You liked the feeling but it was even better when she kissed the top of your head.

“I love you Persephone, I’m sorry if I have been anxious the past few days. It is not your fault. Don’t worry about it, okay?” Demeter gently said before letting go of your hands and walking away.

You liked this version of your mother. Sometimes during the later months of the year, her eyes would gloss over as if remembering something depressing. In those days, her voice and actions were strikingly different from the mother you loved. She would act as if she only cared about what you could do, it was very weird. You knew that wasn’t who your mother was but something made her want to protect and hone your powers. It wasn’t like someone was going to kidnap you, right? 

You sighed and changed your thoughts to something lighter. You wished for a chance to go back and look through all the herbs in the meadow. Mortals thought they had healing powers, and sometimes you laughed at the aspect of mortals. They had no powers, no way to heal themselves, no way to truly hurt each other, no way to protect themselves.

You wished you were human.

You sighed and your eyes flickered behind you, only to see something quite different from what you were expecting. You tilted your head in confusion and suddenly your eyes widened.

It was a forest.

Your eyebrows furrowed and you thought, When had that gotten there?

You were in doubt of what you’re were seeing until the image rippling like a reflection in water. You knew that magic. It was a covering, to stop others from seeing a forest. Your gasped softly in realization, the forest was a lot closer than you had originally thought.

Your freedom was a lot closer than you originally thought.

You took a few steps towards the image and it flickered again, showing the tall trees and darker green grass.

“Persephone? Is everything— what do you think you’re doing?” Your mother snapped from behind you. You turned around to see her steely gaze. You stuttered in a reply, but she only shook her head, repeating how naive you were.

“Do you know how dangerous these parts of the meadow are? Practically anything can happen! Let’s go home, Kore.”

Demeter had a faraway look in her eyes. She strolled over and was about to grab your hand again when another stopped your mother.

It was Jimin.

He smiled sweetly, looking at your mother. His eyes were in crescents but his hand blocked hers from reaching your hand. 

“What a pleasant surprise! Demeter, Y/N, how lovely to see you both.”

Your mother rolled her eyes and eyed Jimin up and down, suspicious of his intentions. Jimin only smiled back and merely glanced at you. He started to gently push your mother in the other direction while holding her forearm. She was shocked and tried to get out of his grip. However, he whispered a few words into her ears and the goddess stayed still. Jimin looked back at you and gave you a comforting smile.

“Why don’t you go along, Y/N? Your mother doesn’t mind anymore. Plus, someone has much to discuss with her.” Jimin stated, already waving and walking away with your mother.

You were astonished how fast everything had happened, but nonetheless would not allow this chance to slip away from you.

You looked behind you once more and took in a deep breath. Waving your hand again, the mirage disappeared and there stood dark pine trees, tall and ominous. You took one step forward, and then another. You kept doing this, slowly, as you were still wary of what might happen. You stopped when you reached the end of the meadow and the start of the forest. Your foot hung in the air, hesitating to step into the different landscape. You knew, once you ventured in, it would be even harder to come back.

You pushed your doubts to the back of your mind and stepped forward. The ground was damp and cold, making your eyebrows rise in astonishment. You looked down and saw dark, brown dirt with hints of moss. You smiled, you did it. You had finally explored out of the meadows, albeit it only being a step away. You gathered up the courage and kept walking through the forest, passing by trees and rocks.

You were blissfully strolling through the forest, your hands swinging from side to side, and a permanent grin on your lips. Before you could continue your journey, you heard a whisper. You turned your head back and forth, trying to pinpoint the origin of the sound but without luck. You tried to shrug off the sound, thinking it was your imagination. About to keep walking, you heard the voice again.

And it was picking up volume.

More joined in.

Your hands trembled and your eyes kept flickering between the tree trunks. You put a shaking foot back, only to hear the voices even louder. Your eyes widened from terror and without another doubt in your mind, you started to run in the direction you came from, only to realize that there was more trees. You didn’t see the meadow or your palace. You could only see more trees, as if the forest had tricked you.

You shook your head to try and rid of the disturbing thoughts. You didn’t know what would happen but you had to leave.

And fast.

You took a few more awkward steps forward, until you were running again. You didn’t stop when you heard the voices getting clearer. You didn’t stop when you tripped on a rock and stubbed your toe. However, the fatigue got to you, it was another human tendency you had to deal with while being in the current form you embodied.

You were out of breath and slowed down your pace. From a few feet away, you saw a cave. It was dark gray and looked like it would crumble at any second. Putting aside safety, your curiosity got the best of you and you continued into the cave. The cave was a lot larger than you had anticipated but you relished that you had some sort of shelter. You tried looking behind you to see the light from the entrance of the cave, only to be met with darkness.

Everything was dark.

You looked around to try and find some semblance of light. There was nothing. It was as if someone had dropped you into the middle of the void.

Maybe going out was a bad idea.

The thought of staying inside your palace, surrounded by white walls and plush bedding, felt like a dream. The sun shining through your balcony and the birds chirping.

Maybe mother was—

“What are you doing, Kore?”

You gasped and twirled around, only to find more darkness. You were scared and couldn’t pinpoint where the voice was coming from. You dug your nails into your sweaty palms to try and stop them from shaking, but it was no use. Your feet slid across the cold floor, littered with sharp rocks that pinched and scratched your supple skin. You winced, not understanding what was happening or who had called out your name.

You heard distant wailing and a growing rumble of voices from a far-off distance. You closed your eyes and put your arms around your ears. You fell to the floor, hunched, as if it would protect you from the scary reality. The noises, the rocks, the darkness, the voices, were all overwhelming your mind.

You shook you head, trying to deny the danger you might be in. You didn’t want to find yourself in such a situation, all you wanted was to explore. And you got that freedom, but for a price.

You made out the same voice midst the wailing, garbled and soft, as if you were underwater. It sounded closer to you now, you curled up further, trying to separate yourself. You hoped that whatever, or whoever it was, would leave you alone. Leave you alone. Alone. Alone. Alone.

Everything stopped as quickly as it started.

Your ears couldn’t pick up anything and it didn’t seem so loud anymore.

Maybe it’s gone? You thought, hopeful that you were alone once more and it was all a weird illusion.

You uncovered your eyes and lifted your head slightly to realize you were in the cave once more. On the floor in front of you, you could see your shadow, meaning a light was behind you.

You could go home.

You lifted your body instantly and turned around. You were about to step towards the entrance when you felt a presence behind you. You steadied your hands and tightened your limbs, ready to run away.

But you couldn’t, your curiosity didn’t allow it. You cursed it in your head.

You slowly moved your body to face behind you, only to be met with a male figure.

His black eyes pierced yours but the presence did not feel as threatening as it should have been. His hair looked light to the touch but you didn’t dare think about doing that. Slung around his neck was a small, black necklace, and attached was a singular black feather. He was wearing a black blouse, tucked into black pants. The dark outfit should have made it impossible to see him in the cave; however, there was a small glow around his body, a tell-tale sign of his power.

Your eyes rested on his collarbone and lowered to see that the first few buttons were unbuttoned. Your gaze lowered and you made out a strong chest, before blinking rapidly. Your cheeks flushed and you looked away, trying to calm your racing heart from seeing such a beautiful man in front of you.

But you had to stay focused, beautiful or not, he could be dangerous. Very dangerous. This man could lead you away from home, or worse.

Man? No a god, definitely. No man could radiate such power and authority.

You heard footsteps and saw that he was now only a few steps away from you. At the same time, it seemed that the light behind you darkened, seeming to be farther away. You didn’t pay attention to that fact, only looking up at the quiet figure’s face.

He was emotionless but his eyes swirled with a purple hint. They were looking back at you without faltering. He slowly reached a hand out in front of you. You stared at the hand, it looked rough and you thought how it would encompass your own. You looked up again, to see his expression unchanged. You looked back at the hand and reached out for it instinctively. Something took over your mind and body and now all you wanted was to hold his hand.

Your fingers touched his rough skin, until they were intertwined. The man tightened his grip on your hand but it didn’t hurt. It was gentle and felt protective almost.

Like a friend.

The feeling of his fingers caused your heartbeat to quicken.

A sudden wind blew through the opening of the cave and you turned to face the dimmed light, squinting at the outside world. Three familiar, overlapping voices whispered into your ears. You could only make out a few sentences.

..It is done…

When the maiden joins her hand with the bringer of death,

she entrusts him with her life and last breath

He must take her to his world

until he has learned

the ways of the gods and humans.

For there they will live together as lovers.

For the rest of their days.

It is done…It is done…

The voices echoed on and in a sudden, the light that was once there— vanished. Your eyes widened in confusion and when trying to move, you realized you were pushed to the ground by an invisible force.

Your knees buckled and hit the ground. You tried to get up, but it seemed that something anchored you down. Or as if your legs had fallen asleep. You shook your head and kept trying, even putting one of your hands down on the ground.

But it felt different.

You looked down to see that you weren’t on the ground at all, but rather in some type of vehicle, with a floor of purple velvet.

You were in a chariot.

You looked up to see that your hands were still intertwined with the man and his eyebrows were furrowed, his eyes set in front of him.

You didn’t know where he was taking you. You recalled the poem from the wind— no the fates, telling a story.

It was your future.

You knew you couldn’t escape what they said. The fates decided everything and it was futile to try and go against it. You knew that those three women were smart enough to know what is right. You’d have to trust them, even if it would be your worst nightmare.

You closed your eyes, but a few tears slipped out. You tugged on your arm once again, to find it still held by the man. His grip was harsher than your mothers’ or any you had felt, but not too restricted. You wanted to leave, you wanted to go home. You didn’t want this.

All you wanted was freedom, but this was another cage. You hoped that this had softer bars than the last. But it didn’t matter.

You weren’t free.

————————————————————

You woke up to the chariot stopping and the man pulling you up by your arms from where you were sitting. Your legs were shaky and still asleep due to the position you had fallen down in.

When you were finally up and didn’t fall down, the mysterious man clasped his hand around/in yours to support you and guided you away from the chariot.

His hand was rough and encompassed your own. It didn’t feel like your mother’s soft, long fingers or Jimin’s tiny, plump hand. It was different and his hand was freezing.

The entire environment was freezing and you started getting goosebumps over your arms, making you start to regret the choice of clothing.

You finally had a minute to look around since he was walking so slow. You realized that his chariot was drawn by these gray horses. They looked like they were shrouded in mist and you could see their forms flicker. It looked like the same magic that hid the forest from you. One of the horses turned to you and it’s eyes made you uncomfortable. They were pure white. They stared at you and you quickly looked away.

You turned around to look where the man was dragging you and saw that you were approaching a palace of sorts. It was made out of black obsidian and marble, with a bronze door. The palace seemed like it would crumble any minute with how old it looked but, it held strong. It was massive, you quickly realized after being in front of it.

You walked up the steps, your hand still held by the man. You looked up at the building, only for you to lose your footing and start to fall backwards.

You yelped out and tried to hold onto the man’s hand when he quickly turned around and tugged you into his sturdy chest. It all happened in a few seconds.

You clung onto his blouse, afraid of falling down the stairs again while your hands were shaking.

He wrapped his arms around your body to keep you from moving back. The momentum made him sway backwards and so his hands held your waist tighter. He regained his balance quickly but didn’t lessen his grip on you.

You eyes stay rooted to the feather on his neck and didn’t dare look up. You knew if you did, you’d be barely inches away from his face. You felt his eyes on you and you couldn’t help but shiver.

You felt awkward and uncomfortable, and embarrassed for some reason. You tried letting go of his blouse after calming down. At first, the man held on tighter and you became stiff. But soon after, he slowly let go of your waist, letting you adjust yourself to the small step you both were standing on.

You rose your head to his and saw that he was still staring at you. You turned around quickly and head up the remaining stairs while trying not to look back, scared of embarrassing yourself even more. At the top of the stairs was the bronze double doors, at least four times your height and as twice as wide as the doors to your palace back home.

To say the least, it was huge.

There was no door handle to turn or pull so you stood there waiting for the man to come up. You didn’t want to look back, still afraid you’d be speechless again or it would just be awkward, so you tried finding something to distract yourself with.

The man was only a few steps behind you and walked up to your right side. You felt his gaze on you but you didn’t look back. You kept your head up and kept looking at the intricate swirls in the marble of the palace. When you felt his vision shift away, you looked to see his eyes trained on the doors and his arm reached out. He placed his palm on the door and murmured a few words you didn’t catch.

“W-what?” You asked, unaware of what he was saying.

He sighed and repeated his words a little louder, “..Give me your hand.”

His voice was soft and steady. He talked with a type of elegance you hadn’t heard before. He didn’t ask for it nor demand it, but his tone didn’t leave room for questioning. Most people back home were either too cocky and brash, getting angry quickly.

You blinked a few times and decided that it would be safe enough to place your hand in his. You slowly reached out and held his free hand with yours. You stood there, confused and furrowed your eyebrows.

You felt connected to the man and electric buzz moved through your body and into his where you where intertwined. You heard a small and similar buzzing sound in the door and it felt like it was pulling you.

Your eyes widened and you let out a tiny gasp and placed your other hand parallel to his on the door. The door and the two of you were now connected.

You felt a bond to the man that you couldn’t quite describe. It felt almost like a string in your heart, tugging the tiniest bit in his direction.

You closed your eyes as you felt a part of your godly energy being ignited in your being. A slow wind blew and repeated a message into your ears.

..It is done…It is done…

The door creaked loudly and opened, making you and the man put your hands back to your sides. The man stayed silent as the door opened to its full extent. Once open, he walked through the door and went inside.

The string got tighter.

You looked back down the stairs and saw the chariot. You couldn’t see much else past that as there was a thick fog blocking your vision. Deciding that it would be better to follow him, you walked through the doors.

In the hallway, it was lit by torches on the wall and so you could barely see the outline of the man in front of you. But you could feel the string inside on your chest, pulling you towards his shadowy figure.

He turned left. You quickened your pace.

You walked for a few more minutes before you reached a smaller white door. Avoiding your gaze, he pushed the door open and walked inside. You followed him to see you were in the middle of a bedroom. Everything was black and the two lanterns in the room didn’t even help illuminate the room. You stayed quiet, looking around and choosing to go sit on the large bed in the corner. You looked up to meet the man’s eyes.

They were still as striking as when you met him in the cave, but they seemed colder, if possible. The two of you didn’t stop staring at each other for a few minutes. You looked away first, too tired from the day’s things to care. You knew what your fate was now.

You were promised to the man in front of you.

You had heard stories about things like this when you were younger. How heroes were tricked into marrying nymphs or evil spirits leading them to their demise for the ‘gods to be happy’. You were a god. This didn’t exactly make you happy.

The man didn’t look like an evil spirit. And if he was, he would’ve killed you by now. You must’ve been promised to marry him. He hadn’t tried anything so you decided that maybe becoming friends would be the best option. You laid your hands on the bed and felt a pillow to your side. It was fluffed up and had a velvet covering. Your hand grabbed the pillow and placed it in your lap before looking up again.

While you were thinking, the man had left the room with the door closed. You realized that this man wouldn’t be with you and you were beyond grateful. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. You decided that maybe sleeping wouldn’t be a bad idea. It wasn’t that you needed to but it was the only thing you wanted to do at the moment.

You placed the pillow back where it was and rested your head on it. You plopped you’re feet on the bed and stretched out in a star shape. You closed your eyes and sighed.

A wind blew through the room again, despite there being no opening in the room. Your bare feet got goosebumps and you shivered. You curled up into a ball and hugged your knees to your chest. You hadn’t felt any blanket so this was the best option to stay warm.

You shut your eyes tighter, trying to fight off the cold and finally went to sleep.

_______________________________________________

Hades wanted to say something to you, but he was pulled away. His servant had called him in his mind and he had to rush out to see what the emergency was. It was a false alarm and Hades was more than furious. A calm god like him wasn’t supposed to show his true emotions and he prided himself on having a calm demeanor. But he was more so confused why he was so angry. It wasn’t an emergency and so nothing bad happened.

Why is there a tugging in my heart?

He shook his head and remembered what happened in the earlier moments of the day while walking back to his room. When he met you in the cave, his first thoughts were flooded by your own. For some reason, he could hear what you were thinking and even he was shocked. He knew how innocent you were but didn’t think that you didn’t recognize him.

He knew you.

Persephone, the goddess responsible of all things green and living in the human world. Also referred to as Kore by your loved ones. He knew about how you liked being called Y/N, like how he liked being called Jin. But that was it.

No one warned him that you were beautiful.

He had been in the presence of Aphrodite— Yoongi, and he strongly believed that Y/N could definitely rival the title: god of beauty. There was a certain aura about you that attracted Jin. You were curious and bold yet clumsy. You had tripped over air when walking up the stairs to the palace doors.

Jin’s hands went to his lightly blushing cheeks. He covered his mouth to hid the ends of his lips turning upwards. He remembered how he had tugged your soft hands towards him and your body hit his chest. Your hands had caught onto his blouse quickly and were gripping them tightly. He had also rocked back and had dug his fingers into your waist a little. He sighed softly and shut his eyes.

He hoped he hadn’t hurt you.

He didn’t want to hurt you. That wasn’t what was supposed to happen. He knew the two of you were promised to each other for some odd reason. The fates liked to play tricks on humans, but even gods? Jin liked to think it was immature, he knew that the two of you wouldn’t fall in love but he did want to be on good terms with you, maybe even friends. Hurting you in one of the first few moments you met was not the plan.

He opened his eyes and looked down to his opened hands. To anyone else, it looked like regular human hands. But what Jin saw was very different. And he hated what he saw.

He saw blood.

His hands were soaked in red and he couldn’t remove that scarring image no matter how much he washed it, rubbed it, or even poured ambrosia over it. It would always be in his memory and what he saw when he looked at his hands. He was the god of the Underworld, he took care of those who had died, both saints and sinners. He had to join Thanatos to wars and famines since the amount that died where higher. Or when a certain person deserved his presence when dying, for good and bad reasons.

With that on his conscience, how could he live without the thought of the dead?

Jin clenched his hand into a fist and closed his eyes, frustrated at the world and everything. He took a deep breath in and relaxed his hands to his side. He opened his eyes again and looked forward.

He knew it was futile to think more but he thought that the addition of you would make his life change. For the better. He knew it was dumb but he had hope. Even if that hope had become the size of a needle from a pillar.

He started walking again to his room, thinking about what you were doing. He should try and find something for you to do. His palace wasn’t at all like the white palace in the bright human world. His palace was black, black, and more black with very minimal lighting. He was sure that it was a huge shock to you.  

He moved quicker through the winding hallways to his room and stopped mid-step into opening the door before thinking twice. He didn’t want to intrude incase you were doing something private. He sighed again and decided on knocking first.

Who would’ve guessed?

The infamous Hades, king of the Underworld and god of the dead, was knocking to enter his own room in his palace. No one, no one would’ve guessed that or even thought of it happening.

He knocked twice. No response.

He knocked again, albeit a little louder this time. No response.

He decided that it would be okay to open the door so he entered the room. He slowly poked his head inside, only to find you curled up in a ball on his bed.

On his bed.

Jin’s ears reddened from embarrassment and shyness. He quickly pat them down to try and alleviate the heat.

Jin shook his head to stop the emotions and thoughts coming into his mind and focused on your shaking form. He realized that the temperature in his world compared to the human world would’ve also been different.

He moved to the side of the bed in front of you and stared at your small form. You were shaking like a leaf, goosebumps on your forearms and legs. He was thinking of what to do when he heard a small noise from you. You had whimpered from the cold and you’re teeth were chattering.

In an instant, he brought his hand to his shoulder and clenched his fist, looking like he had grabbed onto air.

The ‘air’ he grabbed materialized into his huge coat and he yanked it off his broad shoulders. He wrapped the warm material around your form and you stilled. Your teeth stopped chattering as much.

You hummed in relief and at the soft sound, Jin smiled for the first time in eons.

Once he realized this, Jin quickly put on a stoic expression again while trying to understand why his mind was riddled with thoughts of you. He couldn’t understand his behavior, he was never like this.

He was patting the make-shift blanket under your waist to make it snug when your hand found his fingers. He immediately stopped and felt your soft hand.

Your hand was quite cold but you held on tightly to his fingers. Jin sat on the edge of the bed.

He then trapped your hand in between his and blew lightly on it to warm it up. Jin then intertwined his hand into yours and decided to sit on the floor next to the bed. He didn’t want to make you uncomfortable or do something that you hadn’t allowed. He also tried not to think of anything else involving you.

He found a place on the floor and put his back to the bed rails and tightly gripped your hand. His thumb rolled over your knuckles in an effort of comfort and to warm it up. Jin’s hair was ruffled from the times he had run it through while on the chariot or coming back to the room due to stress but he messed it up even further.

He knew how many mortals and deities he had to bring to the Underworld and the other troubles that were happening in the human world and Olympus. If he didn’t leave now, he might face the wrath of Namjoon or Thanatos, neither of which would end well.

He decided to be selfish for once and indulge in the quiet moment. Your presence was having an effect on him already.

He wanted to stay with you.

The string in his heart pulled tighter.

© 2021 by cherryyjjk ;; all writings and other content on this blog are my intellectual property. you may not reuse, reprint, translate, repost, steal, or any other type of stealing of my works.

[fruitwoops]

c. sc // right person, wrong time

light angst, ex-boyfriend!seungcheol 1.6k words

You could still recall that day as though it were yesterday.

Rosy hues had replaced the cyan tones of the sky, and the ivory clouds were now splashes of apricot, allowing the fading daylight to paint the beach a faint glow of honey. The whimsical laughter of children filled the air, mixing in melodically with the soothing movement of low-tide waves, which caressed your bare feet each time they reached the shore.

Seungcheol stood facing you, your silhouettes illuminated in marigold. The backdrop was nothing short of romantic as your boyfriend reached for your hands with a soft smile, running his calloused fingers across your knuckles in the way he usually did when he was nervous. You returned his smile with a fond expression of your own, nodding encouragingly as you weaved your fingers with his. His plush velvet lips parted slightly, trembling as the words spilled out like bullets straight to your heart, “We should break-up.”

-

“I can’t believe you actually cleared your schedule for this,” Johnny laughed, the ice cubes in his whiskey clinking against the crystal glass as he did so. You rolled your eyes as you took a seat at the table which your friends had occupied.

“What? Can’t I want to catch-up with our high school friends?” You defended, glancing through the menu. Your friends shared a knowing look, waiting for the waiter to leave with your order before resuming their inquisition.

“He’s right though,” Nayeon giggled as she pointed her fork at you. “You’re a total workaholic, sajangnim. Plus, like us, you hated most of them. Why would you make time for them?”

“Not to mention, you’re high-key making us attend too,” Hyejin deadpanned. You stared back at your friends before throwing your hands up in mock surrender.

“Okay, fine, maybe a part of me just wants to see their faces now that we’re all mad successful. Especially after all the crap they gave us throughout high school,” you smirked as you raised your shoulders in a “can’t be helped” gesture, the Patek Philippe timepiece wrapped around your wrist emphasising your point.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Johnny reached over to high-five you, a devious glint in his eyes at the notion. Hyejin nodded approvingly, her own countenance morphing into nefarious pleasure as she sunk her teeth into the wagyu. Nayeon merely grinned at you, though that should have been a warning sign for the words that left her mouth as her perceptive brown orbs studied your face.

“I heard that Seungcheol’s going to be there.”

You felt your muscles tense at the name, unsure how you should react outwardly. While the break-up itself was far from a happy memory, it ended up being a beautiful one ; a romantic scene in a movie where a young, selfless boy chose to help the girl he loved to achieve her dreams. Your younger self had been naive and stupid, wanting to throw away everything you had worked hard for, for the boy you loved. But Seungcheol knew better, wanted better for the girl he loved. He broke up with you so that you would take the overseas scholarship at your dream college. And you did.

Truth be told, the real reason you chose to attend the reunion was to see him. You believed it was a case of right person, wrong time. And you longed to find out if you both were to meet again, now full grown and dreams in hand, would it be the right time?

It must have shown on your face, because Nayeon snorted and held her palm out to Johnny, who begrudgingly handed her a 10,000 won note. You groaned at their antics, fighting a smile as Hyejin reached over and squeezed your hand.

“We’ll have your back regardless.”

-

You could feel the stares as you handed the key of your Aston Martin to the hotel valet, basking in the attention that commenced the moment you exited the car. Not that you could forget that behind each awestruck face you laid eyes on were the lingering sneering faces of the classmates who made high school difficult for you.

Yet nothing would beat the collective shock and whispers of recognition and disbelief that rippled through the crowd when Nayeon called out your name, waving to you from where she, Hyejin and Johnny stood by the entrance. She looped her arms with yours once you reached them, whispering into your ear with a cheeky grin. 

“He’s inside with his boys.” 

You glanced into the foyer, catching sight of the male in question. Your heart skipped a beat, excitement and trepidation bubbling inside you instantly. Though that emotion immediately manifested into disgust and doubt when a familiar voice came from behind you.

“Heard he’s married already, or at least engaged.”

You turned your head back, scowl already forming at the sound of her voice. Minah stood before you, her high school posse trailing behind her just like they did in their youth. And just like the old days, they were here to ruin your mood. But unlike your younger self, you were no longer afraid of them or unable to hold your ground.

“It’s been 10 years and you still keep tabs on all of us? Grow up, Minah,” You countered with a scoff, raising an eyebrow at her. Though you could not deny the anxiousness that seeped through your mind at the thought that Seungcheol had already found someone else.

“Besides, how would you know that? I doubt Seungcheol invited you or released any sort of engagement news to you,” Hyejin chimes in. “He didn’t like you one bit.”

Minah looked offended for a second before schooling in her expression to point a finger in Seungcheol’s direction.

“We walked by them earlier and Yura saw a ring on his fourth finger. Go figure.”

Yura nodded fervently, speaking up to back her leader, “Plus, the other boys didn’t seem fazed at all, so their relationship must have been pretty serious for a while now.”

Your heart sank, realising the truth to her words. Of course he had moved on, it had been ten years since you last spoke to each other.

Yet here you were, ten years older, but still very much in love with Choi Seungcheol.

-

Seungcheol’s eyes found your figure the moment you entered his peripheral, breath hitching at the sight of you. You waltzed in with Nayeon and Hyejin, Johnny trailing behind you three with a laugh. The familiar sight took him back to the days where he would stare at you from across the hallways, heart in his throat as he thought of ways to approach you.

The memories seemed to rush back ten-fold now that you were standing in the same space as he was. The playful laughter, ardent touches, languid kisses, and whispered dreams of the future.

Seungcheol had not expected you to show up to the reunion. Ever since he broke-up with you that one summer evening, you had disappeared overseas and had not returned ever since. He could still see your sobbing face in his mind’s eye, and your heartbroken sobs pounded in his ears, all the memories burned into his memories for eternity.

While he had intended for you to leave the country and pursue your dreams, his younger self had not accounted for the heartbreak the both of you had to go through, both alone. That, and the fact that you never spoke to him ever again.

For a time, a part of him had been bitter that you did not understand his intentions, that you did not understand his love for you. But his older self knew better now; the two of you had not been ready for each other.

He shook the thoughts out of his head, fingers subconsciously prodding at the ring on his fourth finger as he focused on what his friends were saying.

Things were different now. 

-

You knew you had to face Seungcheol eventually, yet you remained unprepared when you finally stood before him. The amber tones of the chandeliers overhead cast a warm glow on his features, and the familiarity of the sight almost brought tears to your eyes.

“Hi.” You attempted a smile, though it came out slightly forced and awkward.

Time had done him well, his features sharpening over the years to form a more chiselled version of the face you remembered. Despite the early wrinkle lines that had begun to form around his eyes, Seungcheol still proved dashing as he reached out to pull you into a friendly hug.

“Hi, stranger,” he joked, making your lips curve up into a genuine smile. However, the feeling of metal against your back pulled you out of nostalgic reverie, the smile slipping off your face.

As you pulled back from the hug, you felt Johnny rest a hand on your shoulder, his squeeze of comfort indicating that the trio had seen the ring in question. Your heart ached, but you forced the smile back on at the sight of Seungcheol’s confused gaze. Yet nothing could have prepared your heart for the emotions which ran through your veins when you finally allowed your eyes to fall to the ring on his finger.

The cool metal resting on a chain around your neck almost burned at the sight of its counterpart ; a pair of cheap rings sourced from a capsule machine the autumn you both turned seventeen.

“So, is there a Mrs. Choi?” Minah asked in a faux saccharine tone, casting a snide look your way. You failed to notice, gaze fixated on Seungcheol as he chuckled bashfully.  

“No...” his eyes slid to you, the grin you loved so much adorning his face. “...not yet.”

Perhaps, this was the right time for you and me.

[buffyversefanfiction]

Slayer of Slayers

Warnings: I do not own, nor do I claim to own any of the copyright or characters within the Buffyverse which includes but not limited to the television shows Buffy and Angel, as well as the Darkhorse comics series’ continuation.

15+ Strong to moderate violence, Graphic to mild descriptions of gore, and torture, sexually charged scenes, sexual innuendos, mild to strong language, and practices of witchcraft.

M/M, F/F, M/F, GEN, OTHER +

PART TWO LINK HERE

Part Three: Slayer Supervision

Faith Lehane walked into the room within the Hyperion Hotel that she had made her own every time she came to Los Angeles, walked over to her bed, and pulled a rucksack out from under it, before proceeding to open the bag and pull out her favorite knife, the one Buffy stabbed her with, the one she eventually returned to Faith, and as she began looking the blade up and down she was filled with a dreaded sense of nostalgia as she remembers how much blood she had spilled with this knife, fearing she would soon be spilling more with it. “He has really got to you, hasn’t he?” Angel asked as he walked into the slayer’s hotel room. “Faith, this Theo is not you nor is he the past you, he is something else entirely and if we have to kill him that does not make you the rogue slayer again…” “Doesn’t it? How come I get a second chance at getting this right and he doesn’t? We do not know how hard his life has been? How he came to be in that dive bar full of all kinds of monsters, maybe he was brainwashed or maybe he’s just like us and got lost along the way, maybe he just needs saving like what you did for me.” Faith replied, admitting her reluctance to fight Theo. “And you did me…” Angel said with a sincere smile. “If you think he can be saved then I hope we get the chance to save him…” “Angel…” Faith began to say only to be interrupted by Illyria storming into the room. “I found your so-called slayer of slayers I do not even think he is trying to hide…strange he is meant to be this fearsome foe and I would not underestimate him but all I sense from him now is sadness,” Illyria announced. “I think it may be somewhat kind to put him down now…and I do not know how I feel about that.” Faith could not help but feel guilty over Theo’s misery as she had found herself forming a strange bond with the rogue slayer, she had only met him and Tobias briefly, but it was enough time to realize how much they really cared for each other, and Faith knew how rare something like that was. Things were far simpler for her when she was the one on team bad killing and pretending not to care about a damn thing but despite the complications that came with redemption, she had something now which she had never had before, and that was friends, friends who helped her fight her darkness, and friends who had her back, whereas she suspected Theo only ever truly had Tobias and now he was gone. Faith found herself caring for this stranger far more than she had ever cared for a stranger before, there was a kinship between the two that she could not deny, and because of this, she wanted nothing more than for Theo to have a chance at true redemption, a chance she hoped she could give him…

“If you think you are the only one with surprises slayer then think again!” Theo declared as Faith, Angel, and Illyria walked into an abandoned warehouse, somewhere within the city limits of Los Angeles. “If anything, your surprise was half expected but what I have in store will blow all of your minds.” “What are you human? Your slayer like but not slayer like, there is something more to you than the average blood bag.” Illyria questioned the rogue male vampire slayer. “If I have to break every bone in your body then reassemble you to find out then I will.” “Oh, I’m a slayer alright but unlike the others, I chose my path, I chose this power, and if anything, I am the only true slayer since the first.” Theo willingly revealed to them. “How do you choose to be a slayer? How is that even possible?” Faith wondered. “A witch casting some spell does not make you a slayer it just makes you lucky.” “It’s a little more complicated than that Faith, if we had more time, I’d have told you not only what I am but who I am…the who being far more important in this story,” Theo replied, being as cryptic as possible. “There’s only one of you and three of us,” Angel stated, giving the guy a chance to hand himself over to them, but within seconds vampires began walking in from all the different entrances of the abandoned warehouse. “These bloodsuckers will take mere seconds to kill.” Illyria declared before turning to Faith. “How about you show the petulant man-child what a slayer really is?” As Illyria and Angel charged towards the vampires and began fighting, killing, and slaying their opponents with a little too much ease for Theo’s liking, Faith charged towards Theo beginning a fight between the two slayers, one that Theo managed to hold his own in rather well as he delivered almost as many punches and kicks to Faith, as she did him, proving to be quite a match, but before long Faith got the better of the rogue slayer making it clear she was far stronger than him and victoriously slammed him to the ground before pulling out her infamous knife from her pocket. “It does not have to go down like this kid.” Faith told Theo as she stood above him, knife in hand, while Theo lay on the ground looking at his army being slaughtered easily by Angel and Illyria, knowing he was defeated. “Just kill me already…I’d rather dance in hell with my Tobias again than ever give in to a slayer!” Tobias shouted at Faith, only to be met by the blunt end of Faith’s knife, as she used it to knock the slayer of slayers out cold. “Lucky for you I’m not a killer anymore.” Faith declared, knowing she had just won the fight without having to get her hands bloody.

After keeping Theo held up in the cage within the basement of the Hyperion Hotel, one once used for Angelus, Faith made arranges with Giles to come to pick him up and take the rogue slayer to the Giles and Harris Rehabilitation Centre for the Supernatural, a place established by Rupert Giles and Xander Harris intended to rehabilitate rogue slayers and the odd supernatural creature. Faith knew Theo would be in good hands with Giles, the watcher she wished she had from the start, knowing his center had helped many struggling slayers get back on their right paths but if Theo was truly going to be rehabilitated at some stage, he would, of course, need to want it and that was something that Faith feared would never happen. “Not going to lie when you pulled up in that big ass truck, I got immediate flashbacks of the watchers' council trying to take me in for their version of slayer rehab, but I know you’re a better guy than any of them plus it helps to have slayers on the side at your center, slayers helping slayers and all that, like a sisterhood, except now I guess we have a brother too.” Faith admitted to Giles as the two of them stood in a random parking lot, standing to the side of the truck that Faith had mentioned, a truck that had Theo tied up inside. “You are by far the biggest rogue turned redeemed slayer success story Faith never forget that I would probably never have even considered opening a place as this had you not shown me the amazing capacity one can have to truly change. Look at you’re now the number one girl in demand saving lives all over the place, like the true hero I knew you could one day be.” Giles gushed showing fatherly pride towards the slayer whom he had grown closer and closer towards over recent years. “So, what happens with the boy now? I mean we still don’t know how he is a slayer if he is even a slayer and that whole dormant power thing Illyria was talking about has sure got my interest peaked.” Faith quizzed the former watcher, eager to learn more about the mysterious Theo. “We will do all that we can to help him but I’m afraid our progress entirely rests on him some slayers have good turnaround but then others stay for a long time…perhaps too long but there’s nowhere else for the dangerous ones except under supervision by those who are just as strong if not stronger than them,” Giles informed Faith. “I can tell you really want this one to be a success story all I can promise you is that I will try my hardest to make that happen not only for you but for him too.”

Rupert Giles kept his promise to Faith and over the next few weeks he tried relentlessly to get through to the first male slayer Theo, hoping to break through to him, and find out what it was that Faith saw in him worth saving, but he only got games, awkward flirting, and more games, as Theo refused to break at the hands of the former watcher, or less surprisingly his no so silent business partner Xander Harris who had his construction company help build the rehabilitation center at a reasonable family discount, and had now thought himself something of a therapist but was mostly put up with by the slayer bodyguards because he’d always show up with hot beverages and bakery delicacies. And so, to keep his promise to the vampire slayer, Giles decided to call in a certain redheaded witch who knew a thing or two about coming back from the darkness herself, Willow Rosenberg, best friend to Xander Harris and the infamous vampire slayer Buffy Summers. “I am sorry about the shackles and everything, but you do have super strength and I guess the people working here have to got to have some sense of security.” Willow apologized to Theo as she walked into the prison-style interrogation room where she found Theo handcuffed to the table with chains around his feet. “This place is the best for you even it does feel like a prison…oh boy I never noticed how prison-like this place really was.” “I’ve been in worse prisons in my time although they did not have fancy slayer proof chains that’s for sure, I guess you’re the next interrogator, shame I enjoy the flirting with the old man, but I suppose you are better than that goof with the donuts…admittedly good donuts,” Theo replied to the witch, as he looked her up and down, examining her in her mind, beginning to form the guess that this could be the all-powerful Willow Rosenberg. “Giles is a good guy no he is a great guy the greatest, you’re in perfect hands here, I do not know what you have been through or what led you to hunt down your own kind, but I want you to know we are going to do everything we can for you,” Willow stated with discomfort, trying to hide her own queries about the place that Giles and Xander had set up. “So, you lock me up for hunting my own kind but you lot imprison your own at least my damage on them ends quickly where I guess this little operation here does a lot of damage on the weaker minds, but you do not have to worry about me my mind is perfectly intact,” Theo responded, not sold on Willow’s attempts to sell him this place. “So, tell me, Theo, where did you get your name, have you got the last name, I mean of course you have the last name, where did you grow up, who are your parents?” Willow questioned the rogue slayer, eager to get some answers from him. “Here’s the thing red you seem super cute and everything you know for a witch for the tendency to flay people alive, but I am not going to sit here and spill the details about how I wound up slayer of slayers. Now had Buffy herself had the courage to face off with me then maybe I’d be more willing to spill my guts.” Theo answered her, now knowing from the quirky attitude, and the signature red hair, that this was the Willow he had been described. “So, how about you let me go before I have to go all prison break up in here leading to me killing a bunch of your friends maybe even the old man too.” “Are you seriously telling me you have no remorse about killing all those people, slayers, humans, innocent lives that you ended?” Willow snapped at the rogue slayer, refusing to believe he had no remorse. “You will not be leaving here until there is proof that there is some kind of soul still inside of you Theo and if we cannot find it then consider this place your new home!” “Do not sit there and tell me you did not feel the thrill of literally ripping the skin of a man who took the love of your life from you, the pleasure you got in revenge. Sure, it is easy being all remorseful now that you got your revenge, but I still have people to die before I get my peace, and thanks to everyone involved in taking me here, I

now have even more to add to that list.” Theo admitted to her, unintentionally revealing to the redheaded witch that something had to have happened to him to make him want to seek out revenge in the first place. “I am not proud of the person I became when I lost her…and yes I enjoyed every minute of my revenge but once I got it, there was nothing…I still did not have her and all I did was bloody my hands and betray the ones I love.” Willow said as tears began forming in her eyes. “Whatever revenge you are seeking is not worth it because even if you do get it, then what? Vengeance eats you up until that is all that is left of you and then when it leaves you well, that is when you are truly alone.” “Vengeance was not everything I had…I used to have him.” Theo replied, surprising Willow by opening to her, clearly showing he understood some of the pain she was feeling. “I was happy once, living the boring suburban life and then everything changed…I never thought I would ever be happy again but Tobias, he loved me so intensely, with all of his heart, he showed me love like never before, and then that blue-haired bitch took him from me.” “The fact that you loved him, the fact that you still loved him shows there is some goodness in you and clearly he saw it too. I do not pretend to understand vampires and their souls but if you two were able to love each other then neither of you could be truly evil because true evil does not feel anything let alone love.” Willow advised the rogue slayer, believing she was getting through to him, as she started to see in him what Faith had seen. “I am sorry he was taken from you nobody should have to go through that pain!” “Thanks for the pep talk witch but you either release me now or this prison is about to get bloody!” Theo warned Willow, hiding back behind his virtual mask, hiding his vulnerability which he thought of as nothing but weakness.

After attempting to get through to him and failing, well at least partially failing, Willow walked out of the so-called counseling room, which was clearly more of an interrogation room, and walked into a nearby hallway to find Faith there stood anxiously waiting for Willow’s appointment with Theo to be over, as Willow realized just how involved Faith was becoming in this case. “He has definitely read the rogue slayer playbook that you created in another world he could be the Chucky doll to your Tiffany despite all the weird romantic stuff considering he’s a gay guy and you are not a dude,” Willow mumbled to the slayer as she walked over to greet her. “Oh god, now I’m going to be having wacky nightmares about you and him in doll form trying to kill me.” “Nice to see you too Will but can we just get to the part where you tell me all you got out of the troublemaker?” Faith asked the witch, eager to get new information on the latest rogue slayer. “I think he needs to talk to somebody, and I do not mean any of us, somebody with an actual license in psychology. I get the whole dangerous thing but the person in there that I just met is someone deeply hurting like you were…I am so sorry we did not see how badly you were hurting back then.” Willow revealed to her, as she apologized for failing the rogue slayer many years ago. “Maybe Giles can get a psychiatrist up in here or something?” Faith suggested as she looked around the place that she had found herself in. “This place seems more prison-like than actual prison but at least they had doctors and everything.” “I am going to find out everything I can about Theo, cast some spells, locate family, find records of his life, there must be some kind of paper tracks I can find to find out who he was and what made him who he is now,” Willow said, reassuring her friend that this rogue slayer was not beyond saving. “Thanks, Willow.” Faith replied genuinely. “Hey, you have been a one-man army since Buffy went all recluse on us all and with Xander and Dawn busy co-parenting baby Joyce since their split you have kind of been my most frequently in touch friend lately,” Willow admitted to Faith making it clear that she appreciated Faith just as much as Faith appreciated her, showing how far the former enemies had come since the days of Sunnydale High.

Theo may have been in the so-called rehabilitation center for a few weeks now but they were far from wasted weeks, while they tried to work him out he was busy working out the layout of the player, the techniques of the slayer guards, eying up the weaknesses of not only the people within this prison but the building itself and as he sat in his literal prison cell bed bouncing a small bouncy ball against a wall he knew his escape would be soon. “If your master plan is to continuously bounce that ball against the wall until it breaks then I have nothing to fear about you breaking out of this place.” Faith told Theo as she walked up to the gates of his prison cell. “I hear there’s more than just slayers went bad up in this place and yet I’ve not seen a single vampire, demon, or anything non-human looking here,” Theo replied, noting the double standards of the place that claimed to be for all things supernatural. “I guess you got to look human or it’s straight to the slaying for you guys which sounds about right. You know there are more monstrous humans in this world than there are evil creatures…you cannot tell me every demon you’ve met was evil and yet there is not even one here to be rehabilitated.” “This is not my prison not my rules but if it was, I’d have everything scaly, hairy, or whatever up in here, minus the actual monsters I mean I am not a saint.” Faith told him, making it clear she didn’t entirely disagree with him. “But right now, you should consider yourself lucky that this place’s rules benefit you!” “After the carnage, you caused to me and my people…to my Tobias, you should consider yourself lucky that there are slayer-proof bars on this cell standing between because even if you were able to take me, I’d make damn sure you died with me!” Theo threatened his fellow slayer, once again living up to his reputation as the slayer of slayers. “Listen up you little brat I do not know why I give a damn about your redemption but somehow I do, and I tend to stop at nothing to get what I want so I will get through to your psychotic ass and one day you’ll be thanking me not threatening me.” Faith responded, keeping her cool, making it clear there was nothing he could say to discourage her in her mission to save his soul. At that moment Theo hated Faith, the slayer who came between him and his beloved Tobias leading to the death of the love of his life, but he still respected her nonetheless, she was a badass bitch who seemed to fear nothing, and most of all she and Illyria, her lover’s actual killer, were the only ones so far to beat him in a fight, and he looked forward to one day beating them both, and avenging Tobias’ death.

After her latest altercation with the rogue slayer, she could not find herself to give up on, Faith had agreed to meet Willow at a nearby dinner, Willow remaining rather cryptic about what she had found out, and why she needed to meet away from Giles’ little prison operation and after a twenty-minute ride on her motorbike Faith met up with the witch in a diner that was completely empty of people except for Willow who was sat at a booth holding a cup of coffee, eagerly awaiting the slayer. “Either you certainly have a way with words with folk or you super witched everyone right out of this place.” Faith assumed as she walked over to Willow and sat down next to her. “I’m assuming the latter considering your going all secret spy on me.” “I started off running Theo’s DNA through a criminal database which I swear is getting easier and easier to hack into as the years go by, and I found a bunch of aliases he went by until a clearly fake birth certificate led to me to the people who raised him from a baby right up until their suspicious deaths which judging by the crime photos I managed to get my hands on tells me they were killed by vampires.” Willow impressively revealed her findings to a stunned Faith, who could not believe that she had discovered all this in such a short space of time. “So, here’s when things get uber wacky, I did a blood finding spell from some blood samples Giles had acquired from him to see if there were any living relatives that could help us get through to him…” “Have I ever said how much I love the fact you’re the smartest person I ever met I mean you are pretty super even without the magic?” Faith complimented her friend, eager to learn more about the mysterious Theo. “So, who did you find if you found anyone that is?” “Buffy Summers, Dawn Summers, Hank Summers,” Willow replied, shocking Faith by her revelation. “And no, he is not some long-lost brother or some distant cousin he is Buffy’s son, the one who should only be about a year-old right about now.” “Holy shit!” Faith stated in a sense of disbelief. “When we lost him in that emergency portal that you created, we didn’t lose him to some other dimension we lost him to the past. So, you are telling me Buffy’s son grew up in the past and is now a twenty-something psychopath clearly out to kill his mother…now that’s messed up even for us!” “We all failed him as a baby…especially me I mean I created who he is today by shoving him through that damn portal!” Willow confessed, feeling all the guilt for what they were forced to do. “Buffy will never forgive me for this, I will never forgive me for this!” “Will, we had the whole of hell chasing us wanting the miracle child, we were out-numbered and out of ideas if you did not magic up that last-minute portal, he would have died that night for real and so would the rest of no doubt…or worse we’d live knowing we couldn’t save an innocent child, Buffy and Angel’s son.” Faith responded to Willow, making it clear to her that nobody was innocent that night, but they all did what they thought was best for Buffy’s son, who they know realized was none other than Theo himself. Suddenly, Faith’s determination to get through to him, Angel’s feeling of familiarness towards him, and Illyria’s claims of hidden power, all of it made sense to both Faith and Willow, he was the son of a slayer and a vampire with a soul, Angel had recognized his own son without even knowing it, and Faith’s guilt over him as a baby had transported onto the adult version. Last year they were forced to take drastic actions in order to protect Buffy and Angel’s child from the rest of the world, a child that logically should never have existed, and yet he did anyway, but deep down neither Faith, Willow, or Buffy ever got over the guilt of those actions and now that Faith and Willow learned the result of them, and how it molded that innocent child into becoming Theo, they were more determined than ever before to get through to the rogue slayer.

However, Theo had no plans of being rescued, in fact, he was planning to rescue himself from the Giles and Harris Rehabilitation Centre for the Supernatural which to him was just fancy words replacing prison to help make those working there feel better about themselves and sure a prison for the supernatural made a lot of sense, but just call it a prison already. And so, the rogue slayer kicked off his escape plan by simply bouncing the bouncy ball harder and harder against the wall, now standing closer to his prison cell gates knowing that the nearby slayer powered guard was growing more and more annoyed by the irritation until she could not take it any longer. “Cut it out already!” The female shouted as she marched over to Theo’s prison gates, playing into his plans as he grabs his little rubber ball and launched it straight into the woman’s throat and as the slayer began choking it caught the attention of another one of the guards but before the other guard could come to the woman’s rescue Theo grabbed the choking guard in towards him, snapping her neck with all the force in his hands, before swiping the keys out of the guards pocket and throwing her now lifeless body to the ground, as he used the other guards' shock and terror to quickly unlock his gate and walk out of his cell. As the stunned slayer came to her senses, she quickly charged towards her colleague’s callous killer only for Theo to get the better of her with a single punch before he lifted her body and threw it against the prison bars, the guard crashing off them before hitting the ground with full impact before the slayer of slayers quickly turned his attention towards the other rogue slayers being held captive there. “I am not much of a team player, but I am going to let you all free, kill whoever stops you from getting your freedom and make sure as hell if you get caught you at least slow these bastards down so I can make my escape!” Theo shouted down the prison hallway to all the prisoners he knew were on this floor, determined to cause as much carnage as possible.

After unlocking many prison gates himself he then let the other slayers take over the prison break duties as Theo quickly began his own escape plan, ditching the others as he found himself running through an empty window before reaching the large bay window which looked out towards the nearby river, the prison’s only view, and that view would be the means of his escape, all he’d have to do is survive the rather large fall but as he ran up towards the window he came to a grinding halt when he heard the sound of a warning shot, the bullet hitting the very window in front of it, smashing it into pieces, as he turned around to find Rupert Giles stood there holding the gun, ready to fire at the slayer of slayers if he made another move. “As much as I love doing this little dance with you and feeding my daddy issues, I’ve had enough fun now and I’m ready to blow this joint,” Theo told Giles making it clear not even a bullet would stop him from leaving. “You killed two of my girls and set free a bunch of killers unleashing god knows what madness by doing so!” Giles shouted at the rogue slayer furiously as he kept a firm hand on his gun, making sure not to take his eye of Theo. “You do not cage an animal then blame it for biting you when it breaks free.” Theo taunted the former watcher. “So, you better have one hell of a shot, or else I’m going to get really pissed and there is not enough British charm in your body to make me not break you into tiny little pieces.” “Get on the ground now and put your hands up or I will shoot!” Giles shouted nervously, not wanting to take the slayer’s life but knowing if he had to shoot, he would, and he would not miss, he could not miss. “Oh, please I am not going to die at the hands of some stuffy old librarian who fancies himself a prison warden to wayward slayers.” Theo laughed, mocking the former watcher ruthlessly. “Get on the ground!” Giles repeated one more time, only for Theo to begin to run towards him, giving Giles no other choice but to fire his gun frantically, not once, or twice, but three times, two of the bullets managing to hit Theo’s body, one launching itself into the slayer’s chest, the other straight through his stomach, knocking him backward as he fell to the ground heavily bleeding out. “No!” Willow screamed as she and Faith came running from around the corner, witnessing Theo’s bloodied state at the hands of Giles, the former watcher not realizing he had just shot his slayer’s son. But before either Faith or Willow could get over to Theo to check on him, nurse his wounds, and try to save him, Theo struggled back to his feet, shocking them all by his tenacity as he continued to bleed out, doing himself no favors whatsoever by moving with all his blood loss as he limped his way over to the broken window. “Like I said I will not die at the hands of a stuffy librarian.” Theo struggled to say before he began coughing up blood and just as Faith began running towards her fellow slayer, Theo launched himself out of the window plummeting towards the river and a more than certain death. “No!” Faith cried as she ran towards the window desperately looking for some sign of Buffy’s son, only for her hopes to be met with more dread when she could see nothing but the river, realizing that she had once again failed that same child that she, Willow, and Buffy swore to protect. “He killed two of my girls then set free a bunch of slayers almost as bad if not even worse than him…I did not want to shoot but he gave me no choice.” Giles mumbled, clearly guilt-ridden over what he had just done. “I understand that casualties are bound to happen around here Giles…but this one’s different,” Willow stated with tears in her eyes, grief-stricken by the death she had just witnessed. “You just killed Buffy and Angel’s kid!” Faith shouted at the former watcher, as she turned around to look at him with fury in her eyes. “That baby died over a year ago, he’s an adult that is absolutely impossible!” Giles argued with her, in disbelief by her claims. “That’s what we told everyone when we lost him…and now we

lost him again.” Willow cried as she realized all hope was lost, the chance of Theo’s redemption, the possibility of reuniting him with his parents, to get Buffy back, all that hope of any of that was now truly gone.

Although nobody knew it then their tears were well and truly wasted for Theo’s story was nowhere near its end, and as his seemingly lifeless body washed up on a nearby sandy shore in the dead of night the deliciously delirious and devilish vampire Drusilla appeared from a distance in full vampire form, walking over to the fatally injured slayer, picking him up in her arms lovingly, as if he was a baby, her baby, and in her mind that is exactly what Theo was. “Do not worry my darling boy mummy is going to make you all better and then we will make them all pay for the damage they have done to our family.” Drusilla declared to a seemingly lifeless Theo, ready to nurse him better, and then the games could really begin.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Please, obligatory "hunger games au" please?

[Technically a Catching Fire AU, since I didn’t actually want to write all the protagonists killing each other, but the concept is the same.]

When the announcement of the Quarter Quell comes, past Hunger Games champions to be reaped all over again, Rachel thinks Oh.  Thinks, they were always going to find a way to get rid of me.

She cheated, after all.  Broke the Games, ensuring two winners instead of just one.  The poison passing between her lips and Marco’s.  The defiant dare: that the Capitol could have two survivors, or it could have none.  She and Marco sobbed out their love as they clung to each other later that day, and it’s been enough to keep them alive until now.  But it was never going to last.

When she tells Marco this, he laughs.  “It’s not just us, though.  Think about it.”  He ticks them off on his fingers as he goes. “Erek sabotaged the Arena itself to win.  James was one of the figureheads of the District 6 protest.  Ax is too well-liked by too many important people.  Even your boy Tobias smuggled all of those Avoxes out of the Capitol — no, don’t try to deny it, it’s not like I don’t know.”

“So it’s not just us people are rallying behind,” Rachel says.  “We’re not the only troublemakers.”

Marco winks at her.  “You are the rallying point, my dear.  I’m just your adorable side piece.”

“If it had to happen again, better that it do so while you’re still young and strong and pretty,” Alloran intones.  He’s looking over Ax and Estrid, unamused as always.  “Better yet, Aximili, you could’ve kept your mouth shut and we wouldn’t be here at all.”

Ax shrugs.  He’s one of dozen surviving male champions from District 4, so it’s just bad luck that he’s got an honorable streak he can’t seem to shake.  Ax is pretty sure that if his own name had been called then Alloran would’ve volunteered in his place, which is why he’d volunteered for Alloran.

“We’re both out of practice,” Estrid says.  “I’ve been in biotech labs for most of the last thirteen years, and Ax’s been getting fat entertaining the upper crust—”

“Do not speak about things you do not understand,” Alloran says flatly, and Estrid shuts up.

Ax keeps his expression pleasantly neutral.  He’s very good at it, by now.  “She has a point,” he says.  “We’re both past our prime.”

“Not as far past as I am.”  Alloran narrows his eyes at Ax, almost certainly still angry about Ax not letting him go die in the Games.  Alloran might have been a butcher in the Arena in his own time, but he’s seventy-six years old.

Ax lifts his chin.  “Tell us what you would have us do, mentor.”

“Go on, start making friends,” Nora says quietly, looking over the lunch room.  “It’s high time you got to work on your strategy.  Rachel’s no good at alliances — just look at that kid Karen she helped through half the last games.  So it’s all on you.”

Marco makes no move to go join anyone.  “We shouldn’t delude ourselves about my chances.  Last time, I was up against mostly half-starved kids, and I still would’ve died if Rachel hadn’t carried me through, sometimes literally.  Now?” he says.  “Twenty-three warriors.  Every single one of them a card-carrying baby-killer.  My scintillating wit and charm aren’t going to be enough this time.”

“So you have no strategy at all, then.”  Nora only says it because she knows it’s not true.  She knows his mind; she sponsored him in his own Games, and then they co-sponsored eight other kids.  Hell, after what happened to his parents, and hers, each of them is the closest thing the other one has left to family.

“Probably for the best if my strategy doesn’t depend on trusting any of these people,” Marco counters.

“Not even the District 10 girl?”

“What, Cassie?  Just because she cries over ‘em after she kills them doesn’t mean she’s not still a killer.  I don’t trust her any more than David.”

Nora smiles grimly.  “In that case, you’re probably trusting David too much.”  David won 10 years back by luring several tributes into deadly traps with promises of or requests for aid, and then ripping apart their bodies even after they were long dead.  The first kill he’d made had been the 12-year-old girl from his own district, who’d given him some of her food and then been too weak to resist as he held her face-down in the mud until she’d stopped struggling.

“Maybe I’ll go cower behind one of the Careers, see if that’ll keep me alive,” Marco says.  “Big Jake, for one.”  Jake Berenson of District 2 is from a long bloodline of Career tributes, one that has turned out more champions per dead child than any other.  He’s well-liked, well-fed, and strong enough to kill barehanded.

“Erek King,” Nora suggests.  “You know, the District 3 boy?  He doesn’t look like much, but he probably won’t turn on you.”

Marco snorts.  “He’s only a pacifist until you back him into a corner.  Just like the rest of us.”

“Hold the lift!” someone calls, and Cassie lunges forward to punch the door-open button.  Both District 12 tributes slide into the elevator with her, panting slightly.  They’re no longer on fire, she’s glad to see.

“Thanks,” Rachel says.  She and Marco are still holding hands, as always, but up close it looks like Rachel is holding Marco upright by their shared grip.

Marco barely lets the doors close before leaning heavily into Rachel’s arm and kicking off one of his shoes.  It clatters loudly across the floor, and Cassie realizes it has an almost eight-inch heel — their stylist’s trick to make Marco taller than Rachel.  Marco lowers himself to the floor, standing on his own now, and yanks at the other shoe.  It catches on the hem of his robe, and with a hiss of annoyance he rips that off too, revealing that he wears nothing underneath.

Cassie turns away, feeling her face flush.

“What, like you’ve never seen a naked man before?” Rachel asks, laughing.  “You were at the opening ceremony, you saw what Ax was — and wasn’t — wearing.”

Yes, and Cassie had felt sick to her stomach watching the way the crowd ogled him, a piece of meat that they couldn’t wait to devour.

“Come now, my love, you know style’s all part of the strategy, for that one especially,” Marco says to Rachel.  He’s not wrong: if Ax can play the crowd well enough, the sponsors might even be able to get him another version of that scythe-thing he favors.

“Doesn’t mean it’s not crass, sweetheart.”  Rachel grins at him.  “Kind of like stripping down in an elevator to try and shock the baby tribute.”

“Doubt I interest her, my darling,” Marco says, “seeing as I’m not a muttation.”  He laughs and adds, “not yet, anyway.”

Cassie realizes she still hasn’t said a word.  Not about the nudity, not about the taunting reference to her own victory, earned when she nursed an injured muttation back to life and taught it to kill for her.  And what’s she supposed to say?  One of these two will kill her, likely as not, before the week is out.

The best that Tobias can say about his own interview is that he manages not to let anything show on his face.  He does his best to answer the questions — about District 11, about his feather-patterned costume, about what he thinks Crayak has planned for the games ahead — in ways that are unremarkable and inoffensive.  He and Melissa both won, eight years apart, with the same strategy: they’re small and lithe and easily underestimated, but they’re also able to flit through the trees well overhead of their fellow tributes without being spotted until it’s too late.  Now, the advantage of surprise is gone with the broadcast of his last Games, and the advantage of agility disappeared with the bottom half of his right leg after infection set in.  He’s going to die.  But he wants to die with dignity, he told Melissa last night, even though he knows that probably won’t be possible.

Rachel and Marco both have it easy during the interview process.  All Marco has to do is tell the story of Rachel first trying on her flaming dress, and how beautiful she’d looked to his eyes even while waiting for her hair to catch on fire.  The audience is eating it up, laughing and cheering even as many of them sob openly throughout.  Rachel’s so stunning in her wedding dress, even as it crumbles to ash around her, that it’s easy to fall in love with her through Marco’s eyes.  When she promises to protect what is hers, staring fiercely into the camera with clenched jaw and narrowed eyes, half the Capitol falls in love with Marco all over again.

Cassie’s interview is still the most interesting, in that she gets six words into a protest speech about the treatment of the outer districts before her mic cuts off and a “technical malfunction” shuts down the conversation.  Jake’s is exactly what you’d expect from a Career, lots of shrugging and mumbling and letting his bulk speak for itself, while Ax’s causes no less than fourteen rapturous fainting spells as various audience members are overcome with the power of their love for him.

All in all, Tobias is pretty sure he fades into the mass of tributes — Collette in her wheelchair, Loren who smirks under opaque glasses, Taylor whose beauty remains undiminished by her three prosthetic limbs — whom everyone has written off as unlikely to win.  It’s probably for the best, Tobias assumes.  If it comes down to that, he’ll be just like the rebels and sponsors: fighting tooth and nail to keep Rachel alive.

Rachel buries her face against Marco’s neck, dark hair and blond tangling together.  “I think…” she breathes against his skin, too soft for the microphones to detect.  “I think maybe we can trust the Ellimist.”

She feels his jaw tighten where they’re pressed together.  Marco’s the cynic who dances them away from the worst of the traps; she’s the optimist too stubborn to know when she’s been beat.  They make a good team.  She owes her life to his inspired decision to declare his love for her on live TV just as much as he owes her for the trick with the berries.

“He’s one of the Gamemakers,” Marco hisses.  “Fuck that.”

Rachel shakes her head just a little.  “He showed me…  I can’t explain it, not here.  Just— Do you think you can trust me?”

“Always.”  Marco sounds like he means it, because he’s skilled like that.  “Always.”

Ax does his best to breathe, in the seconds between their ascent into the Arena and the gong signifying the land mines’ deactivation that will release them from their pressure pads to begin the Games.  He’s a warrior, the servant of his district and his family.  He has volunteered twice now, once in Arbron’s place, once in Alloran’s.  Let it be done.

Across the way, he sees that even as Rachel rises into position she’s already making some busy motion with both hands close to her chest.  Ax can’t see clearly what she’s doing, but he sees Tobias’s eyes go wide in alarm.

Tobias frantically shakes his head, but Rachel ignores him.  She scans the lines of tributes until she finds her target.  When she does, her smile grows vicious.  Her right hand flashes out as she throws an object full-force at David’s face.

It’s her belt buckle, Ax realizes.  A nearly-useless weapon, small and blunt.  But does the job.  When it smacks David squarely in the cheek it throws him off balance.  Enough that he staggers back two steps — straight off the pressure pad, ten seconds before the gong.

Wha-BOOM!

The concussion of the land mine triggering breezes against Ax’s face nearly twenty yards away.  And just like that, the 75th Hunger Games begin.

The instant the gong sounds, Marco is off and running.  Headed for Rachel.  She whips around when she hears his approach, sliding into a defensive stance, but she relaxes by millimeters when she sees that it’s him.

Without any discussion, she and Marco and Tobias fall into a loose phalanx, facing outward with makeshift weapons in hand.  All Marco’s managed to grab so far is a piece of the platform he was on, but improvised weapons have always been his specialty.  He’s yanking and twisting sharp edges into place like this is yet another chunk of District 12 fence ripped from its posts, when something whistles over his head.

He ducks, almost too late.  Taylor’s knife flies past, embedding itself in the backpack that Rachel holds up to shield herself.  Rachel yanks the knife loose and flips it around in her hand.  Beside her, Tobias holds a stick like a club, staring around wildly.

Taylor’s second knife never leaves her hand.  Instead she dives forward, headed for Marco’s throat —

Shink.

Taylor coughs hot blood onto Marco’s face.  The steel that killed her yanks loose from her body as Ax pulls his blade back into his hand.  

It’s almost faster than Marco’s eyes can follow.  The chain it’s on whips behind him, then snaps outward again.  This time the scythe-thing takes a girl’s hand clean off at the wrist.  Again Ax snaps it back to himself, coiled and at the ready faster than thought.

Marco sees Rachel go pale as she registers the kusarigama in Ax’s hand.  It’s like a chain mace with a bladed head, a machete attached to the end of a bullwhip.  Not the kind of thing that one finds at a corner store in Panem.  The kind of thing that the Gamemakers must have placed here, after having seen the way that Ax wields one like it’s an extra limb.  The kind of thing they must have put down deliberately, if they wanted him to win.

“We have to go!” Tobias shouts.

Marco gestures for him to lead the way.  There’s no use sticking around to get slaughtered at the Cornucopia, and especially no use risking Rachel.  The three of them take off at a steady run, leaving Ax’s graceful slaughter in their wake.

Jake kills a muttation just as it is sneaking up on Marco and Tobias.  This makes no sense, Marco concludes, but there’s no time to question it.  

Marco takes a thrown hatchet to the shoulder protecting Rachel, because that’s all he can do.  He tells himself that he isn’t hurt when she hisses angrily that there’s no one left to impress so he can just stop with the lover-boy act now.

Ax kills the District 3 tribute who nearly killed Marco, but then refuses to kill Marco even as he’s lying wounded on the ground.  

They don’t seem to understand, Marco wants to shout, that he’s not important.  Rachel — beautiful Rachel, strong fierce tough Rachel, Rachel who can launch a thousand ships with the power of her bravery — is the important one.  Marco’s just the clever little schemer who showed the Capitol who she is, just set dressing in her story.

The Games… don’t work the way they’re supposed to.  Six tributes die of smoke inhalation.  One drowns.  There are four murders, and then no more.  The remaining thirteen, and then twelve, and then eleven, keep allying with each other.  Crayak’s direct intervention, or maybe the Ellimist’s, whittles their numbers, but the survivors keep drawing in tighter and helping one another.  And if everyone is allied, no one is killing.

“So what’s it going to be, then?” Jake asks.  He glances around at all of them, but his eyes meet Ax’s and hold there.  Ax stares steadily back.

There’s a wary sort of camaraderie there, and Cassie knows its source.  In a way, these two are just the same.  Each one is his family’s second chance at a champion.  They are seconds sons, both of whom watched older brothers volunteer and be shipped off to the Arena.  Both of whom watched their brothers’ state-sponsored murder in full technicolor on 20-foot screens.  Both of whom volunteered in their turn.  Career tributes, yes, but the sort of Careers who lack all delusions of glory or honor.

“Let’s do it.”  Rachel speaks first.  She’s the first pick in her own family.  First of three.  And Cassie chills to think of the things that Rachel has already proven willing to do, in order to prevent her little sisters’ entering the Arena.

“You know I’m with you,” Tobias says, smiling sadly at Rachel.  She smiles back, brushing the back of her hand over his.

Those two are cousins, if the Capitol propaganda is to be believed, but Cassie wasn’t born yesterday.  Marco and Rachel are very good at playing the game behind the game — so good, in fact, that they’re engaged to be married and claim to have a kid on the way — but up close, they’re also very obviously playing, their flirtation only a game to them.  It’s Tobias and Rachel who look at each other with real affection, with real desperation.  But their story didn’t advance the cause, and so the Capitol took advantage of a passing resemblance — blond hair, long limbs — for its own ends.

“No offense,” Marco says, in a tone that guarantees he’s about to cause offense, “but why would we ever believe you people?  Some of us who didn’t grow up on three servings of meat a day bought by past kids’ victories need proof that you Careers aren’t just going to turn on us.”

“You have no reason to trust us,” Jake says.  “None of us has any reason to trust any of the others.  But I will tell you this much: the Capitol needs us to hate and fear each other, or else this whole sick enterprise cannot continue.  You can all do what you want, but I’m going to choose to believe that maybe, just maybe, everyone else here wants to go down defying the Capitol rather than continuing to play puppet for their entertainment.”

Ax plants the end of his kusarigama against the ground, expression hard with determination.  “You tell us what to do, and I will follow.”

“Yeah.”  Rachel laughs, tossing her head back.  “What he said.  Let’s start kicking the asses of some people whose asses actually deserve to be kicked for once.”

They’re hiding in District 13.  Turns out that’s still a thing.  Marco got away from the Gamemakers; Nora did not.  Marco surprises himself with how much he misses her, like maybe he did care about her after all.  It’s too late now, though.  The next time he sees her, she’ll be brainwashed and mind-controlled, if she’s even still alive.

“Hi, there.”  Cassie sits down next to Marco at one of the long cafeteria tables.  She turns to follow the direction of his gaze.

Rachel’s sitting across the room, leaning close to talk to Tobias.  The two of them hold hands across the table, able to be affectionate in front of witnesses for the first time in their lives.  Rachel doesn’t seem to realize, caught up in conversation as she is, how easy she is to love.  She doesn’t know the effect she has, and maybe that’s part of her power.  She wasn’t lying when she said she only volunteered to save Jordan, and she’s not lying now when she promises to save all of Panem.

“For you it’s real, isn’t it?” Cassie asks quietly.  “She has no idea, and neither did I at first… but you really are in love with her.”

Marco laughs, tempted to deny it.  But what would be the point?  “Isn’t everyone?”

[propertyofwicked]

Could you do an a-z of dating Tom Blake pls??

ty for the request, i hope this is ok x :)

a-z of dating tom blake

obviously, we’re going to pretend THAT scene doesn’t happen and he just ends up with a tiny surgery nd some stitches :)

warnings: slight sexual references but only like twice lol

a - argue

tom is STUBBORN. that boy will be so wrong yet will be adamant he is correct till physically proven otherwise. this was usually the start of arguments. you too are stubborn, but not to the extent of tom. any argument results in tom going for a walk around the town, to let out all of his pent up anger as he couldn’t bare to shout at you for something so petty. you’d sit in the living room silently, waiting for him to return, which gave you time to think about what to say. once he did come back, he’d sit on the sofa next to you, and take your hands in his, and you’d talk through the problem rationally. since the war, he would get angrier much quicker, the smallest things being able to send him over the edge, so he’d take the time to apologise, as would you, and he’d show you how much he loves you ;)

b - body (his favourite body part of yours)

thomas blake is an ass man. any time he can have his hands on your lower back, resting on your arse - he would. he loves to walk behind you, just to show his appreciation for your curves and whenever he’d stand next to you, his hand would be on your arse squeezing it playfully when nobody is looking. 

c - care (caring for each other when you’re sick)

tom likes to pretend he is tough and no illness can beat him, and because of this, he will work himself to the bone instead of resting. he’d wake up in the morning, his voice deeper than ever as a cough tickled his throat. as much as he tries to hide it, the moment you notice, he’s back in bed with a cup of tea on the bedside table. when you’re ill, however, tom takes the day off work and just lays in bed with you day, not caring if he got ill as well - as long as you were content. 

d - dates (what do you guys do?)

you and tom would have really basic dates, enjoying each other more than an expensive meal. often, in the summer months, you’d walk down to the river and have a picnic, or sometimes you’d lay down in his mother’s orchid, watching the petals fall around you. it doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you’re together. 

e - engagements (how he proposed) 

it would be just dropped into a conversation, nothing fancy and very unprepared in true thomas fashion. like you could just be laying in bed, or cooking dinner and he’d look at you and go “hey, should we get married” and very casually you’d just reply “yeah sure” before realising he was serious and falling into his arms to give him the biggest hug you could. it just so happened he had his grandmother’s ring in his possession so he just used that.

f - friends and family (do they like you/him?)

his family ADORE you. his brother likes you, as you were raised intelligent and could have a good conversation with him - you were also a prime babysitter for him and his wife. his mum loves to finally have a girl tom’s age around, as she had spent 30 years being in an all-male household other than herself. your dad was wary around him towards the start of your relationship, but he soon welcomed him into the family after tom had helped him fix a bookcase. your mum was glad to finally see you happy, glad you’d managed to be comfortably settled down from a young age. since you lived a while away from each other's families, your friends from home never really knew your partner.

g - gifts

you guys are not terribly poor but you’re also not the richest, so surprise presents were fairly rare. whenever tom went home to visit his family, he’d return with a cake baked specially from his mother. sometimes he’d return from work, hiding something behind his back, a shit-eating grin plastered across his face and after asking him what he was hiding, he’d produce flowers that he got on the cheap from the market on his way home. 

h - how you met

you worked as a nurse in the war, so when tom was carried in, blood pouring from his abdomen, it was your job to take care of him. something in you nagged at you to accompany him the furthest you could, which is how you ended up in a base hospital tending to this soldier. over the months he was in your care, you got to know each other well, and promised to keep in contact when you returned home. 

i - intimacy (how often are yall getting down)

thomas blake has the stamina of a KING. he is ready to go to town every night and every morning for as long as you can manage - and the look he gave you before was enough to give in almost every night. 

j - jealousy

tom gets jealous of the relationship between you and his brother. he felt as if he had also been in his shadow, the younger, less handsome brother. it was obvious when he got like this because he’d go quiet, unlike his usual joking self. you didn’t tend to get overly jealous, as you could tell tom was whipped for you and barely batted an eye at anyone else. 

k - kinks

tom has a lowkey breeding kink i reckon, not like 40 kids kinda kink, but he loves the idea of getting you pregnant and seeing you carry his children and raise them. having grown up in a loving family, he wants nothing more than to have one for himself. 

l - long distance

whilst you were both away at war, you tended to be in various areas of france. the only contact you had was letters, where he’d tell you about his day or some funny story he witnessed or overheard. you told him of the wounds you saw, as it was the only way you could really pass them through your mind so they didn’t haunt you forever. it was the best part of the week, receiving letters from tom and he felt the exact same when the post came by and a letter with his name in your handwriting was handed to him. 

m - moving in

you moved in together at the end of the war, in your correspondence, when the days got long and boring, the only thing you could talk about was the future - where you’d live, how the living room would be arranged. it was more optimistic that truthful but when the war ended and you met again, you both knew it was something you had to do. tom was so glad he could live with someone who had witnessed the same pain and distraught he had and you were so glad that you both had each other in the hard nights. 

n - nights out 

you’re not much of a party go-er yourself, much rather preferring to listen to the music on the record player. sometimes, you and tom would go out dancing with scho and his wife but it was fairly rare. 

o - open with each other

the mutual experiences of the war allowed you two to be so open with each other. if there was anything on your mind, something you couldn’t get off your chest, you knew that you could tell tom and even if he couldn’t get rid of it, he’d make it so much better. tom often had nightmares of the day he got injured and every time he woke up in fits of sweats, you would be there to listen to him and tell him how everything was going to be better. 

p - pda

you two aren’t over the top in public but often are reminded with a sly cough from will that you were in fact, in full view of everyone. tom can’t keep his hands of you most of the time, grabbing your arse at any possible chance he got. you prefer to be more cute with your affection, taking his hand when walking down the street or pecking his cheek randomly. 

q - questions (what you talk about late at night?)

as mentioned before, you guys normally talk about the war. it makes it so much easier to cope with the horrors that loom over you like a shadow. sharing the experience allowed you both to cope with your own thoughts a lot better.

r - reproduction (do you want kids?)

Y E S. tom wants a house full of miniature versions of him, and it is something he discusses with you often. you want whatever tom wants pretty much, and having a product of the love you shared was a dream of yours. 

s - surprising (what surprised you about him)

he’s very affectionate when he’s sad. rather than bottling up, tom knows how to talk about his problems really openly with you and he’s not afraid to show emotion. 

t - together (what you do together)

towards the start of your relationship, after the war, you two would go on cute dates in the forest or on the river bank almost weekly, but you now you guys prefer to stay home and make use of that bedroom ;)

u - under the influence (drunk vibes)

tom is even funnier when he’s drunk. he comes home from a night out with will and some other friends and just sits, staring at you. every 5 minutes or so he’d mumble something along the lines of “you’re gorgeous - do you have a boyfriend?”. it was cute to start with but by t eh fifth time, you're laying him down on the bed and trying to lul him to sleep.

v - vacations

tom likes to go to cornwall with you. it’s where he frequently went on holidays as a child, and he loves to take you to the places he visited in his youth. 

w - wedding

you guys have a small wedding, just in the church near your house. you couldn’t afford a massive wedding and you didn’t really want one. so you held the ceremony with your families and your closest friends and chose to spend the reception at your house, listening to music on the record player and having a roast dinner. 

x - xray (when he’s hurt)

obviously, you had cared from him in the war, but sometimes the scar on his stomach would cause him pain if he moved it in the wrong way. there wasn’t much you could do, but you would lay with him and comfort him, or bring him medicine with his food. 

y - you (a random headcanon) 

“tom have you seen my glasses anywhere?” you called out to the house, hoping and an extra set of eyes could help.

“no, sorry! where did you last see them?” he called back.

“i can’t remember. they were here one moment then the next they weren’t” you trailed off as tom made his way into the kitchen. he took one glance at you, then burst into laughter, leaving you standing there in confusion.

“what? what are you laughing at?”

“baby, have you checked the top of your head?”

“oh my god!” you said, realising they had been there the whole time, your face going a new shade of red in embarrassment.

“awh bless, you really do need glasses,” tom smiled coming over to you, taking you in his arms.  his lips pressed to your head in a quick peck before he walked back to where he had been sat before. 

z - zzzzzzzzzzzz’s (sleeping routine)

you’re usually in bed first, choosing to read a book before packing in for the night. tom would stay downstairs longer, reading the paper or going for a shower. but when he did come upstairs, he’d just stand in the door frame and gaze upon you, like he had never seen something so angelic. once he got into bed, you’d mark the page and close the book, leaning into his side and his arm moving to wrap around you. 

[kkachi95]

New canon information from The Rise of Kyoshi

Alright, so I’m little bit over 42% through The Rise of Kyoshi and I’m HOOKED.

This book does a lot of worldbuilding and the new characters are well-developed.

I’ll be consolidating new information I find from this book on this post. I’ll keep updating the list as I progress through the book!

SPOILERS, obviously

1) KYOSHI

Kyoshi was abandoned as a child by her parents, who were leaders of an underground criminal organization.

Her mother was a rogue airbender hailing from the Eastern Air Temple. Yep, you heard it right, Kyoshi is half air nomad. Her mother apparently became a master at young age and fell in love with Kyoshi’s father, an outlaw, while traveling. Kyoshi’s mother modified her arrow tattoo into a serpent and her airbending ability lost its power due to her attachment to worldly concerns. She compensated with a pair of fans, which Kyoshi inherited.

Kyoshi’s father is from a family lineage that traces back to Royal Theater School in Ba Sing Se. Kyoshi inherited her make up and headdress from him.

Kyoshi was very tall even in her young age. In her teenage years, she is constantly described with terms like “giant,” “massive,” and “towering.” Since she’s taller than most men, I’m going to assume she’s at least 6 ft.

She spent her early childhood as a street urchin in Yokoya and was neglected by the villagers until she was discovered and taken under the care of an air nomad named Kelsang, who was a companion of Avatar Roku. She was, and still is relentlessly bullied by other children in Yokoya.

Kyoshi is initially very shy, non-confrontational, has very low self esteem, and inept at earthbending. Kyoshi is extremely strong for her age as she lifts a man by his neck without any trouble. Also, she has distinct freckles!

She is an extreme clean freak with a constant urge to “maintain order and minimize clutter." She starts out as a serveant assigned to clean up after the (misidentified) Avatar.

I believe Kyoshi is 16+ years old in this story.

Kyoshi’s outfit has chailmain armor underneath it, and she started wearing gloves after suffering major lightning wound on her hands.

2) KYOSHI’S COMPANIONS

As a teenager, Kyoshi has two friends: Yun and Rangi, who are both her age. I won’t go too much into their plot.

Yun is the ‘misidentified’ Earthbending Avatar who is a former street urchin. He is said to be handsome, playful and flirty. He has brown hair and jade green eyes.

He is extremely talented in earthbending and is loved by everyone. He ships Kyoshi and Rangi but also flirts with Kyoshi too (and basically everyone)

He was discovered ‘late’ as the Avatar and genuinely wants to do his best as the new Avatar.

Rangi is a Fire Nation noble girl who is sworn and honor bound to serve as the Avatar’s bodyguard. She is military-trained in the Fire Army Junior Corps. She is intimidating and hot-headed, but also very protective of her friends.

She is said to be beautiful, with delicate skin, porcelain doll face and jet black hair. She has a “charred rasp” voice and “dark bronze” eyes.

She is the "straight man" character of Kyoshi's entourage and takes things very seriously, but she's also the unintentionally funniest character of the group. She eventually becomes Kyoshi's swon bodyguard and depite her best judgement, she's dragged into many questionable situations by Kyoshi. Rangi is definitely my favorite new character. Think of her as a more sane, less murder-y version of Azula.

Her nickname: topknot, hairpins, and hotwoman

Rangi’s mother, Hei-Ran, was a companion of Avatar Kuruk, who gave up her commission in the Fire Nation Army, then later her position as headmistress in the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, to teach the Avatar. Hei-Ran and Rangi are said to be spitting image of each other.

Kyoshi is romantically attraced to both Yun and Rangi.

Kirima is a young female waterbender from the outlaw group Kyoshi’s parents founded.

She has wolf-like features and piercing blue eyes. Kirima is also said to be lithe and light on her feet.

She’s easy-going and likes to tease people, especially Rangi.

Wong is a huge male earthbender in his 30s from the outlaw group Kyoshi’s parents founded.

He is very tall, thick, and has smooth, clean shaven face. He has a very prominent protruding gut and isn’t the most loquacious type.

Lek is the youngest male Earthbender member of the group and is said to be 14-15.

He is from the Si Wong desert and was brought into the group by Kyoshi’s parents, whom he thinks very highly of. This caused Kyoshi to resent him initially.

He values his family and likes to tease other people just like Kirima. Lek has very precise control of small earth projectiles, which he uses as bullets.

Lao Ge is an old, mysterious Earthbending assassin who is said to be hundreds of years old. He pretends to be a drunken fool and only Kyoshi knows of his true identity.

He travels with the group and goes off on his own to kill people he deem unworthy of living. Kyoshi asks him to be her Sifu.

3) THE AVATAR CYCLE

Avatar Kuruk died at the age of 33. He was said to be one of the greatest Pai Sho players in history and a highly-skilled bender, but lacked leadership and diplomatic skills. He spent his time traveling around the four nation seeking pleasure. He was also one of the best hunters to have ever lived.

Two of Avatar Yangchen’s friends and teachers died protecting her from the enemy.

Each nation has its own way of discovering the Avatar and identifying a toddler’s ability to bend

Being the Avatar’s companion was considered to be an honor beyond reckoning that only few got to experience. Those who taught the Avatar held massive influence over the world.

Period between the death of the previous Avatar and discovery of his/her successor is often filled with political turmoil. The Rise of Kyoshi is set in a politically turbulent time as Kuruk died in young age and the new Avatar was discovered much later than usual. This led to the rise of many opportunist criminal factions.

4) BENDING

Unlike the show, bending is openly depicted as being LETHAL in this book. People are impaled, burned, crushed, buried, sliced, and so on.

Seismic sense is a skill shared by all earthbenders, not just Toph. Most people’s skills are extremely rudimentary, though.

‘Dust stepping’ and ‘mist stepping’ are abilities practiced by certain earth and waterbenders to create floating platforms that move with them, which allow them to run through thin air. Rangi mimics this move with firebending after having witnessed it.

Firebenders have naturally warm bodies and they can project heat, which allows them to do things like increasing a room’s temperature by several degrees.

Firebenders' "inner fire" allow them to resist poison.

People in the Fire Nation identify bending ability of their children by placing a bowl full of highly-flammable materials to see if their children can resonate with it. This is done as early as possible to prevent accidental fires as young children don't have good control over their flames.

Lightning bending is a skill so rare that people thought it of it as a folktale or a long lost knowledge. Barely any living witnesses who can confirm its existence exists.

Airbender are seemingly immune to the weather.

5) EARTH KINGDOM

Earth Kingdom is highly fragmented and has multiple kings. This is attributed to Ba Sing Se’s failure or unwillingness to actively assert control over the continent. 

Bandits and pirates plague the countryside. Small settlements and towns have to form militias and fend for themselves as the official Earth Kingdom military seems to neglect their plight.   

Earth Kingdom’s Northern and Southern dialect are said to be so different that they might as well be different language. People of the Si Wong Desert barely share any culture or custom with rest of the Earth Kingdom.

Beifongs were known for their wealth even in this era.

Kyoshi Island was originally known as Yokoya. Farming yields little and people scrape by to meet end’s meet. People here are said to wear blue clothes despite their earth kingdom heritage. Kyoshi was left here as a child and initially grew up as a street urchin because the villagers neglected her for being an outsider.

6) FIRE NATION

Apparently, firebenders are notorious for always talking about honor.

Fire Nation was involved in a conflict with the Earth Kindom in the distant (?) past.

Fire Navy is the most capable Navy in the world.

Royal Fire Nation Academy for Girl holds Agni Kais and there are many “accidental” kills.

Firebending instructors used to maim their students for insubordination.

Hair is heavily linked with honor. Losers of Agni Kai would shave parts of their head bald as sign of humility but would leave the top knot alone since it’s considered sacred. It was never touched except in circumstances akin to death.

7) WATER TRIBES

The Souther Water tribe is said to be poor, undeveloped, and vulnerable. It’s significantly behind the rest of the world in terms of development. Southern Water Tribe doesn’t have a legitimate Navy because it doesn’t have trees necessary for shipbuilding. It is a peaceful nation, though it is involved in a territorial dispute over an island with the Earth Kingdom. It’s ruled by multiple chieftains.

“Tui’s gills!” - Water Tribe equivalent of ‘Oh my god’

8) AIR NOMADS

Air nomads are regarded with great respect and reverence for their wisdom and spirituality.

Head nomad of an air temple is referred to as an Abbot.

9) DAOFEI (BANDITS)

Daofei plays a huge role in the story. A vast underground criminal scoiety with its own code of honor run deeply throughout the Earth Kingdom, which is "too big to police" for the Earth Kingdom Army. 

As mentioned earlier, Kyoshi's parents were leaders of a prominent Daofei group and Kyoshi herself officially swears her Daofei vows to learn bending skills from her parents' old colleagues. Kyoshi absolutely despises Daofei, though.

Several years before the novel’s start, these bandits staged what is known as the Yellow Neck Rebellion, which is an analogue of the Yellow Turban Rebellion (184–205 AD) during Han Dynasty China. In real life, the rebellion led to the tumultuous time period known as the Three Kingdoms Period, where various warlords fought over control of China.

[ansgar-martinsson]

The Best Intentions - Ansgar/Joline Part 1

((A/N - I’ll be reposting parts of this RP with @theothercourse every few days. Revisited it and I enjoyed re-reading it. Hope you do too. Lots of *ahem* in this RP, but that’s par for the course with Ansgar. Plot, too. :) Enjoy and if you like it let @theothercourse know!))

The Best Intentions

Part One

“Mamma, are you sure I can take the car?” Joline bellowed through the craftsman style home that she shared with her mother. She scoffed at the trainers she’d just laced upon her feet and toed out of them again. “I can take my bike.”

The older Lindberg woman sauntered through and handed her daughter a proper pair of pumps. “Wear these. They’re smarter.”

Jo folded at the waist to slip on the new pair heels, hopping on one foot when one shoe refused to cooperate. “You sure about the car?”

“Take it. I’ll ring up Elias to take me to my treatment.” She reached out and caressed her daughter’s hair. “Knock ‘em out today, yeah? Go do justice!”

“I will, mamma.”

“You work too much.”

“So you tell me,” she leaned and kissed her mother’s cheek. “Thanks for the ride. Call my mobile later, yeah? Tell me how it went today.”

Emelie Lindberg nearly pushed her daughter out the front door. “Go. Before I go for you.”

*~*~*~*~

Joline unfolded herself from her mother’s borrowed Mini Cooper and stepped onto the distinguished carpark of @martinssonconstruction. Her knees protested the confines of the stupidly small car. She glared up at the glittering tower feeling under dressed to be standing in the carpark, let alone entering. And she dressed for the occasion, a freshly pressed purple button down blouse over a denim skirt and the Louboutin heels her mother burgled from only she knew where.

The late summer sun beat down, an oppressive heat that made it difficult to breathe. She could feel her natural blonde hair thrashing against her black dye job, fighting to get free of its prison.

Dipping back into the car, she fetched her clipboard of work permits, purchase orders, requisitions and recent estimates for repairs at the Stockholm Opera House. Despite her wounded pride, she also included some of the letters addressed to her of where she failed. Each pointed out just where attention was required in her house. The house manager could do only so much without owner intervention.

Joline rolled her shoulders back, pushed her reading glasses into place high on her nose and marched a steady pace across the carpark. She flung open the glass door and clicked her heels on the marble floor from the front door to the reception desk. Two administrative assistants answered an influx of ringing telephones.

‘Martinsson Construction, won’t you hold please?’ repeated over and over for the onslaught of calls.

After signing her name in the guestbook, notably three pages long for the 28th of July already, Joline stood before the receptionists to ask (insist) that she see Froken Wiessing immediately. But the phone calls didn’t stop…

Against her better judgement, after waiting an exorbitant amount of time, she marched into the President Office. “Froken Wiessing, please forgive the rude and unannounced intrusion, but I must insist. Its imperative that we go over these repairs. The sprinklers in the rehearsal room have been going off at random and the director… is… not… happy.”

She slowed her speech as she realized that her eyes didn’t deceive her. Froken Wiessing and all her family portraits and certificates of accomplishment had been replaced by someone quite different. “You’re not Froken Wiessing.”

The floor didn’t swallow her up.

How she wished it had.

Typically, Ansgar Martinsson hated virtual press conferences. Hated them with a passion. Despised them. Loathed them. Wished the person who had come up with the very innane and fucking stupid idea would have his skin sloughed off in the depths of hellfire and be hoisted upon a pike to rot for eternity.

He much preferred the in-person version. Much preferred speaking his mind, standing on a stage in front of an audience, interacting. He loved charming the shit out of the reporters in the room; both the females who wanted to fuck him and the males who wanted to be him… or in some cases, yeah… to fuck him.

But that time, Ansgar actually relished answering the press’ questions within the solitude of his office, enjoyed being able to shut his door and hide behind his computer screen, where he could take his time, where he could engage his slightly sluggish brain before his motor-mouth. He appreciated his PR VP’s insight into his strangely fragile psyche in that moment. He’d even given Janetta the indulgence of a “thanks,” a handshake, and a “nice job,” when he’d learned she’d arranged for the press conference to be a virtual one instead of a live one.

“It’s okay,” Janetta had said, shrugging. “You need time, Sgar. I get it. I got your back.”

***

… But apparently his receptionist did not have his back. Judging from the way the intruder was ranting, there would be no appreciative “thanks” or “nice job” in the cards for Britta. Just the opposite. Quite the opposite.

“What the fuck?” Ansgar stood quickly, and almost by reflex, wrenched his top right-hand drawer open. His fingers twitched as they hovered over the pearl handle of his Ruger Blackhawk within, ready to snatch it up and shoot - defend himself if need be. “Who are you, and how did you get into my office?”

“Oh, uh… hi,” Jo intoned absently while flipping through her overloaded clipboard, sifting through document after document to search for… well, hell, she didn’t know what. Anything.

“Yeah, I… uh, I used the door.” She indicated with a tip of her head in the general direction of said entry way to explain her appearance.

No sense of humor, noted.

The man growled and gnashed his teeth at her, his jaw rippling with the effort. If he could spit fire, she sure as shit would be singed.

Maybe all the way burned.

Third degree burns by the heat and intensity of the glare from the lion of a man. Then he flared his nostrils, and she wondered if he could in fact breathe fire.

Jo tapped her foot on the marble floor to check her escape route. Only solid.

Damnit! Hard unforgiving marble. Her rescue chasm must be on holiday. No black hole to whisk her away from the wrong place, wrong time, and wrong person.

But she wouldn’t wither, she wouldn’t retreat, she wouldn’t show weakness. The theatre needed her, her performers needed her, her season subscribers, her box office staff, her technical designers.

Could she lie about her identity? Should she? She tried to remember how much she’d gotten through of her rehearsed speech that she wrote in her head during the nearly hour long wait by reception.

Maybe she’d just ignore that bit.

“Yeah, uh… I… this is a matter for Wiessing. I’m here for that.” She clasped her Opera House work file between her palms, holding it up as proof. “May I see her? Please?”

The lion in a suit worth more than her house pressed his hands into the massive desk and dropped his head to his chest. Summoning fire or just breathing, Jo couldn’t tell for sure. But when he lifted his head again at her, he held a broody confused smolder.

A resignation?  A surrender?

Then it was gone again, an exasperated sigh escaped him. The incredulous annoyance returned, his impatience driving off him in a steady current.

Thank Heavens! No fire. No sunburn or heat blisters.

Jo raked her hand through her pin straight hair. “I waited. Out there. For an hour, but I’ve been waiting since February for a meeting. With her, with Wiessing. I’ve got a new season starting in September, companies that need a proper and functional rehearsal space, season ticket holders threatening to pull their patronage if they’re not entirely satisfied, and a sprinkler system that goes off without warning.”

Pressing her luck, she stated, “That’s who the fuck I am.”

Companies… rehearsal space… ticket holders… patronage….

Sprinkler system…

I waited for an hour…

Waiting since February…

If Ansgar was angry at this… this… girl… this girl in obviously borrowed Louboutins intruding into his private office, he’d suddenly and swiftly become furious at her words, and the implications thereof.

He lifted a hand, silencing the tirade he saw coming in the massive inhale of her breath. “Wait, let me understand you,” he said, preternaturally calmly, his eyes narrowing. “Are you telling me you are a representative of the Stockholm Opera House?”

“Yes,” she said, her breath huffing out through her nose.

“And are you telling me that the sprinkler system in the building is… faulty?” He cocked his head. “Do I have that right so far?”

“Yes,” she answered, “and the Prima Donna is….”

“I don’t care about the Prima Donna,” Ansgar barked. And then, after a calming breath, he continued, the words pushed out through grit teeth. “What I do care about is that you represent one of my largest customers, and that customer is dissatisfied.”

“Not so much dissatisfied, but…”

He cut her off again. “And not only that but you have been, quite rudely I might add, made to wait since… since how long?” He squinted, cocking his head as he strode out from behind the desk.

“Um, February.”

He nodded in annoyance. “February,” he repeated. “Your building has had a leaking sprinkler system since February.”

The young woman before him shrugged, her lips pressed together in a resigned moue. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. It’s not just leaking, it’s… it’s going off whenever, getting everyone wet, ruining set pieces.”

“I see,” he said, his own lips twisting into an expression not unlike hers. He nodded again, an irritated, whispery chuckle burbling up through his nostrils. He pushed off the edge of the desk, and turned one of the guest chairs around. “Please, sit,” he gestured. “I do believe we need to discuss how I can make this right.”

And then, he held out his hand, a broad smile brightening his face. “Allow me to introduce myself, I am Ansgar Martinsson. I am the CEO of this company.”

“Joline. Joline Lindberg,” she introduced herself wearily, accepting and shaking his hand. She smiled weakly when his didn’t quite reach his eyes. “House manager,” she stated, “Stockholm Opera House.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” he said automatically, but not entirely sincere in the delivery.

She quipped, “Charmed, I’m sure.” She kept it to herself, under her breath. Jokes landed on executive types as well as water to a flame. A lot of hissing.

She waited. She waited for the usual faux impressed high-pitched, ‘Fancy title for a woman.’ 'How did you get that job?’ Or something as equally as vile. But it didn’t come. Instead she got a solid, “I’m positive we can sort this.”

Okay, so Ansgar Martinsson wasn’t that type of man. From the superior attitude that drafted her way from her intrusion, she assumed male dominance, but no. His was a general arrogance, believing others capable (man or woman), just not as capable as he. She could live with that. Possibly work with that.

Jo hugged the portfolio of problems to her chest as she situated herself to the guest chair. Soothing her denim skirt down for the sake of modesty and decorum, she perched herself on the edge of the seat in anticipation. She flattened the stack of documents in her lap, squeezing her thighs together. She adjusted her thin-rimmed glasses and breathed.

“Your predecessor…” Ansgar began confidently taking another seat opposite her.

“Steffan,” she reminded when he hesitated.

“Ah, yes… Steffan. Forgive me, I’ve been away,” he almost dismissed out of hand, but his eyes gave him away.

“I met with him,” the CEO explained, “a number of times, in regards to–”

“–Restorations!” Jo blurted out suddenly, interrupting them and taking them both by surprise. Her face lit up like a spotlight on the Prima Donna performing her eleven o'clock number.

His name. Ansgar Martinsson. She recognized it from her files, some of the early ones when she inherited the job as manager. A delayed response, but her mind had been running it over and over again as familiar for another reason than the obvious founder of Martinsson Construction.

She muttered, “Sorry. Sorry. I’m so– it just came to me.” She rifled through the files, her fingers walking deeper and deeper into the stack, her back curling forward. “Sorry… I know it’s just here. Somewhere.”

With a ‘aha’, she finally produced at least one of the documents left to her. ‘For the future,’ her colleague had told her. “Plans for the small theatre in the south wing. You’re mentioned, and there are some estimated costs. I’m sorry… I just recognized your name.”

“That’s quite all right. I strive to make my name memorable.” A glint of mischievous joy brightened his features, so much that he almost looked like a young boy.

“I don’t want to ruffle feathers or step on toes or point fingers at anyone,” she admitted softly. “i took over this job from Steffan six months ago. I only want to do what’s best for the theatre but I’m afraid I can’t do it alone. Wiessing kept promising help. ‘Soon,’ she’d say. She was swamped filling your shoes, there simply wasn’t enough of her to go around. So… i guess my plea is, may I have her back please before anyone else gets soggy in my house?”

[thethoughtsfromthreeam]

Sunshine

Pairing: Maxwell Lord x OC (Evelyn “Evie” Blaker)

Warnings: None

A/N: This story is coming to an end, only one more chapter of Sunshine after this and then its on to the next story!

Reminder:  I ain’t ever seen Pedro Pascal in FUCK ALL, I’m just coming up with this as I go along, using imdb.com, wiki, and 84,000 tabs I got open to plan out this shit.  I also write soft versions of his characters so if you’re craving asshole vibes, I ain’t got any but my own to offer.

Tags:  @zeldasayer , @romanticgumchewer, @beskars​ , @coolmaybelateruniverse , @the-feckless-wonder, @lavenderl3mons , @pascalisthepunkest , @mandoandyodito​ , @randomness501 , @fioccodineveautunnale  

Part 9 

Pay Restitution

 “How long are you going to be in town?”  Bette’s voice muffled on the phone as she bent down to pick up Lorraine’s shoes before tossing them towards the front door.  That girl never put her shoes away.  “Will you have time for a lunch date?”

“Oh, please, Bette, it’s already on my calendar.  You still want to try out that gyro place?  I’m dying for some lamb or something.”  Evie tossed her own sneakers into the suitcase opened in front of her, George sitting next to the bed watching her every move like a hawk. “Do you want to try for Monday or Tuesday?”

“Tuesday, I have a department meeting Monday and can’t miss it.  Were you still going to the parade with us on Thursday?  Lorraine wants to see you.”

“Yes, do you mind if my dad joins us?”  Evie closed her suitcase and set it next to the door before going into the kitchen to start packing George’s bag.  The dog walked behind her, nails tapping in excitement.

“Ooooh, your dad is coming?”  Bette’s voice turned teasing.

“Would you believe Max personally called him up and invited him?” Now Bette was laughing.  The domineering Maxwell Lord was turning into a total softy and it made her cackle madly.  “My dad called me, asking why this strange man was calling him to come and stay for Thanksgiving.  I lost it and then told him the whole story.”

“Everything?”

“Yeah.”

---***---

“Max.  I love you, too.”

Maxwell’s head shot up so fast, he pulled a muscle in his neck.  Grabbing at it with his hand, his eyes frantically searching Evie’s face.  He was certain she was mocking him, maybe teasing him.  But her face was honest and open, hopeful even.

“Evie, I swear to god. . .”  His voice was low and cautious sounding.  It seemed almost desperate, so opposite of the powerful businessman who ran one of the most successful companies in the world.  In that moment he was brought to his knees.  “If you’re joking, it will kill me.  I’m sure it will.”

“I’m not joking, Max.  I do love you.”  Her voice was soft, and it felt like a caress against his skin.  He lowered his head and his body curled towards her.  She dropped her forehead to her hands, which were clasped around his free one.  “But what happened Thursday cannot happen again.  Ever.  I will not allow you to hurt me like that.  And if you do, don’t ever think that you can just show up on my doorstep begging for forgiveness because I won’t give it.”

He dropped his head.

“What can I do to earn your trust again?”  His voice was quiet, but eager.  He was sorry and so badly wanted to prove to her that he wouldn’t ever hurt her again.  He dropped his hand from his neck to their joined clasp.  He bent his head to lay it on top of hers and they sat there for a long moment.

“Max.”  He raised his head and she raised hers so they could look each other in the eye. In that moment pretenses and pride were stripped back so the barest of emotions were exposed.  Together, they were both in vulnerable places, but Maxwell felt like he had the most to lose.  She quickly had become his world and he didn’t want to think about it without her.

“Remember when I got sucked into those reports in September?”  He nodded.  “The little things you did for me?  I felt so loved and cared for.  Your texts every day gave me something to look forward to.  That’s when I knew I was in love with you.”

Maxwell brought their joined hands to his mouth and he kissed her knuckles. He was thrilled to know that the things he did meant something to her, that’s what he wanted her to feel.  She pulled their hands towards her and she laid her cheek on his knuckles.

“Knowing that you’re there for me and that you trust me and support me – that’s what I need.  I need your words and your actions.  And I don’t need you calling me a whore.”  She narrowed her eyes at him and he at the courtesy to look chagrined.

“Evie, then let me show you with my actions and my words that I love you and that I’m worthy of your trust.”  He slid off the chair, so he was on his knees in front of her.  He removed his hands from hers and placed them on her face.  She held onto his wrists as he dipped his head and brushed his lips across hers.  If she hadn’t known it was coming, she probably would have thought it was a breeze touching her.  It was that soft and tender and her heart bloomed in her chest.

“Okay.”

---***---

For weeks after their reconciliation, Evie and Maxwell took it slow.   They worked during the week and took turns visiting each other on the weekends, talking nearly daily in between.  Unlike their first attempt, this time, they choose to work to get to know each other, to let the rest of the puzzle pieces fall into place.  Evie found her love for him growing deeper and wide than she ever thougth possible. And she noticed the nights she slept alone were getting worse, unlike the times she slept with him by her side.

She, along with those closest to him, noted a change in Maxwell as the weeks passed.  She wasn’t sure if he realized it himself, but he was chilling out.  Eric told her that he was as firm as ever in his leadership at Chimtech and the company was doing well.  But amongst his friends, they absolutely noticed.

His personal relationships had begun to change – even Bennett and Marnie noticed he took a kinder tone and inquired about their lives and families.  He found his friendships less stiff and more relaxing, taking time to connect with people like Eric and others.  He laughed more, he smiled more, and in general he was more pleasant to be around.

That wasn’t to say he didn’t get mad or frustrated and became moody or sullen.  But even in those cases, he rarely lashed out as viciously as he did before.  Marnie, who knew Maxwell’s father, told Evie on the phone one day that he seemed less like his mother and more like his father – a man with a large heart.  Evie wasn’t going to pretend that she didn’t have anything to do with it, she was too proud of the man morphing in front of her.

This was the man she wanted to love, and she was giddy it was the man she was getting.

---***---

 Taking the train into the city was certainly convenient as she appreciated the time to get some work done during the trip.  But Evie also loved to drive the route whenever she could.  The natural beauty of the Hudson River Valley around her made for a gorgeous drive and the rise of the New York City skyline never failed to thrill her.  

Today, the drive down had been sunny and while the fall colors were long gone this late in November, she still found the trip to be breathtaking.  And with George in the back and her father in the passenger seat, she never felt more content.

“George, stop sniffing my head.” Dr. Blaker groused at his granddog.  Both the human and the animal males were getting restless in traffic and she rolled her eyes.  George stopped on command and instead dropped his head on to the good doctor’s shoulder and rested there a moment.  Evie rolled the window down in the backseat and he immediately stuck his head out the window, preferring this to anything else.

Evie’s phone rang and when she saw it was Maxwell, she smiled and before hitting the Bluetooth button on her steering wheel.

“You’re on speaker with my dad, so behave.”  She didn’t even say hello and the silence on the other end made her smile widely.  She was getting to know him too well for his liking sometimes.

“I wasn’t going to say anything bad, Evie.”  There was a thread of curtness in his tone and now she was grinning and attempting to keep the giggles at bay.  He had planned something for sure.  “I was just calling to see where you were at because Bennett informed me that there is a nasty accident south of Morningside Park and you might want to find a way around it.”

“Oh, then I’m glad I stayed on the 9-A because I figured all the side roads were going to be crazy because of the holiday.  Traffic is a little bad, but I should be there in, oh, half an hour.”

“See you then.  Love you.”

“Love you, too.”  She hung up and she could feel her father’s grin more than she could see it.  “Stop, dad.”

“What?  My little girl is in love, can’t a father be happy for that?”

“Not with that grin on your face.”

“What grin, you aren’t even looking at me?”

“I know that grin, dad.  Don’t start.” The older man grunted in answer, but the grin was still there.  Evie deserved to be happy, he thought.  She told him everything and while as a father he wanted to clock Maxwell for calling his daughter a whore, but if Evie found it in her to forgive him, then he could keep his mouth shut.  They made each other happy and that was good enough for him.

When they final arrived, she was relieved to find a spot directly in front of his house and to see Maxwell standing on his porch waiting for them. He was dressed in a sweater and jeans, hands in his pocket and smile on his face.  He was so relaxed that the worry lines that usually formed on his forehead were completely gone.  

He came down the stairs to greet them, kissing Evie’s cheek, shaking Dr. Blaker’s hand, and giving George a few scratches behind the ear.  He brought in their bags and guided the doctor into the house while Evie took a short walk to let George relieve himself and stretch his legs a bit.  When she entered the house, she unhooked George’s leash and let him bound through the house.

Back when he first learned about the dog, Maxwell assured Evie that George was welcomed to come every time she did and the dog was at home immediately the first time they arrived together.  Now, he acted as if he owned the place and took up what had become his spot in front of the fireplace.  She smiled as she wandered in behind him, finding her dad and Maxwell sitting in the living room, deep in conversation.  She noted they were talking about pharmaceuticals and since she had no interest in the subject, she wandered into the kitchen to say hello to Marnie.  

The older woman had come to dote on her employer’s girlfriend and in turn, Evie welcomed the maternal love she lavished.  The two sat down, chatting about Thanksgiving dinner and a few other things.  The conversation continued even after George wandered into the room.  He sat quietly, staring a hole into the cook, hoping for a treat or two and when Evie turned her back to leave, Marni slipped him some ham with a conspiratorial smile.

The afternoon soon faded into evening and the three sat down to enjoy dinner. Marnie had out done herself and the conversation flowed easily.  Dr. Blaker was much like his daughter and people couldn’t help but to feel comfortable around him as well.  After dinner and dessert, Marnie and Evie cleaned up and the cook took her leave, hugging the younger woman before heading out the door.  She let George out to do his business and the two went back to the living room.

Eventually, the day caught up with Dr. Blaker and he took his leave to bed, leaving the two lovers alone.  George snored gently on the floor in front of the fire and Evie laid against Maxwell’s strong chest, his arms around her.  They stared into the fire, letting the silence envelope them as they relaxed.  Evie felt the rumble in his chest before the words came out of his mouth.

“Sunshine, are you happy?”

“I am Max.”  And she meant it.  They laid there a little longer before the fire died down and they decided to move upstairs to bed.  Evie called to George, who followed them up the stairs, hot on their heels.  They got ready for bed, their routine a comfortable one. As Maxwell passed by her in the bathroom, he dropped a soft kiss to her shoulder and brushed his hand across her lower back.

The chill of the late November night permeated the house as Evie left the bathroom.  She saw Maxwell and George already in bed and she crawled in after them.  Here, she never felt cool between the dual furnaces of her man and her dog.  She snuggled against Maxwell, who had already fallen asleep.  She rested her head on his shoulder and laid her hand on his wrist. She could feel his blood pumping beneath her fingertips and she realized their hearts beat in tandem.

As she fell asleep, she never felt more contented.

---***---

“Why did I agree to come here again?!”  Evie had to shout to be heard over the din of the crowd.  The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade was far better viewed on TV from the comfort of her home and not on the loud and crowded Park Central South.  Evie could handle crowds, but this was almost too much.  Coupled with the freezing cold and she wished she had said no when invited.

“Because you love me?”  Bette was just as loud, her laughter evident in her voice.  She hung onto Evie as Bennett stood next to them with Lorraine on his shoulders.  The foursome was pressed on all sides as people clamored to get a good look at the parade as it passed.  Suddenly, Lorraine was waving her arms as the Young People’s Chorus moved passed.

“Momma!  Daddy! Look!  It’s Claudette!”  The young girl was vibrating with excitement for her best friend.  It was an exciting thing to be in the parade and seen by millions across the country.

“I see, baby!  But do you see what I see?”  Bette pointed and Lorraine looked.  She squealed with excitement and briefly forget she was on her father’s shoulders when she tried to stand up.  Evie and Bette both reached out to catch her as Bennett swayed to kept hold of her legs. They were able to get her back up on her perch as the flamingo floated past.  Lorraine waved excitedly and when the rider waved back, she felt her day had been made.

Soon enough, the parade ended, and the group made their way back to the car. Lorraine chatted a mile a minute about Claudette and the flamingo and a few other things.  Evie smiled, feeling as if the young girl’s excitement as seeping into her now that the crushing aura of the parade had passed.  As they made it to the car, they climbed in and Bennett quickly started it to get the heater going.

“I’m sorry your dad couldn’t make it, Evie.”  Bette turned around to face her.

“Naw, knowing dad, he would have lost his shit the minute he saw all the people.  He’s lived in small cities and towns for a reason!”  Evie laughed. “Besides, I think he wanted some alone time with Max.”

Bette and Evie began to cackle madly, and Bennett rubbed the back of his neck, wondering how this new development was going to affect his boss’ mood. The ride back to Maxwell’s house was pleasant and she hugged everyone before getting out.  As she walked up the steps, a sensation of déjà vu passed over her and she stopped.

Yes, she had walked up these steps plenty of times before, but something about this sent shivers down her spine.  Something was going to change and soon.  Taking a deep breath, she entered the house and was immediately enveloped in the delicious smells of an early dinner.  As she hung up her coat, Maxwell appeared in the foyer, smiling at her.

She smiled back and he leaned in to kiss her, she offered up her lips to his. It was soft and sweet and when she pulled back, Evie almost regretted parting from him.  Maxwell put his arm around her waist and walked her into the dining room.

As they sat down to dinner, they laughed and joked.  Each one of them snuck food to George, who felt as if he died and gone to heaven.  The meal lasted a long time but towards the end, Dr. Blaker pulled out the wishbone from the turkey.

“Here, Evie.”  He handed it off and when she offered him the other half to him, he raised his hands and shook his head.  So, Evie offered it to Maxwell instead and he gladly took it.  They each held a leg of the bone and thought about their wish.

When the moment had passed, they each pulled, and the bone broke in favor of Maxwell.  He laughed and Evie giggled.

“Do you think your wish will come true, Max?”

“I can only hope, Evie.  I can only hope.”