#were clearly covered up with this brush pen. and the 'flames' going in every which direction instead of caring about a specific movement.

[wormonastringtime]

quick redraw of sil from 6 years ago... my god!!

[stiltonbasket]

how my love springs deep

by stiltonbasket

(read here on AO3!)

Summary:

My Lan Zhan, his husband calls him. Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan.

Or, the one where Wei Wuxian feeds rabbits, and Lan Wangji reads a love letter.

(brief a/n: this fic was inspired by this heartbreaking work of beauty by @pakhnokh--I had to write Lan Wangji getting adored after witnessing it, come join me on the angst parade T~T)

____

My Lan Zhan, 

    It has been two years and more since I last wrote you a letter, for marriage has joined us both at the hip, and ensured that we are never more than a touch or a cry away from one another. I have you by me always, in every hour of every day; and every love-word that crosses my mind finds its way to my lips in the very moment of its birth, and reaches your ears just as quickly, for I could no more keep silent in my devotion to you than swim the full length of the Songhuajiang against the current. And so I go about my days hence, calling “Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, my Lan Zhan” all the while: but today I have woken before chenshi, and you are still asleep beside me with Xiao-Yu in your arms, and though my every nerve and vein is aching for love of my husband, I cannot bear to wake you to say so. 

    Lan Zhan, sweetheart—when we were first married, you told me once that I colored the world for you the instant we met, and brought every shade of the rainbow with me from Yunmeng to make the Cloud Recesses beautiful. You said that the air that touched me at the gate smelt as if lightning had passed through it, and that the very stones I knelt on in the lanshi’s courtyard began to glitter after I departed, though they had never done such a thing before—and that the Cloud Recesses itself, having been a place of peace and reflection before my arrival, was filled with delight and warmth after my coming, as if that first day was the dawn after a long, long night, and I the sun who gifted it to you. 

    Heaven knows I had no equal words with which to worship you then, my darling, for I was young and still bewildered to know that you loved me. But I have been your husband for nearly three years now, and so I must tell you this—you have driven me mad for love of you, Lan Zhan, and it has been so since we first crossed swords on the rooftop gate when we were eighteen. 

    How mad, you ask? The classics say that love is a proper, courtly thing, to be shown with modesty before others and in its full force only in confidence. But I have never been proper, and so I must tell you that if you were a flint and steel, seeking only to light a flame and a tinder-heap to light it in, I would take form as a sun-parched forest, and set myself afire at your touch so that I might be beside you thus. If you were a god, roaming the heavenly kingdoms while my mortal flesh kept me constrained below, I would take the habit of a priest and devote myself to your prayer; and if you were a grain of sand in the Gebi desert, and I a traveler sick with thirst, I would fall to my knees and sift through every dune and basin to find you before drinking even a drop of water. 

    If I were freezing in the great mountains above Gusu, whose peaks are lush in the springtime but shrouded in snow in the winter, I would be well and happy if I had the warmth of your hand in mine; and when I am in my jishi, with the doors thrown open to let in the wind, I drop my knives and tools at the sound of your voice and stand there enraptured until you fall silent again. My heart nearly beats out of my body with everything you say, and everything you do; and when you look at me I lose all knowledge of speech and reason, recalling nothing but your name and your smiles unless some show of wit is necessary—which it very well might be, with you and I being what we are, and all our doings riddled with puzzles that would have bewildered even the scholars who founded our clan. 

    Lan Zhan, I love you so desperately that to be away from you is torment, and to be with you has always been paradise, even when you were sitting on one side of the library pavilion and reading Lan An’s poetry, and I was on the other with my brush and parchment, pretending to copy lines while I sketched a portrait of you and painted flowers into your hair. You have made me more your own with every passing day, though in every moment I fully belong to you, and there is no strangeness in it—as if new pieces of my spirit are formed shichen by shichen, and bound unto you before drawing their first breaths.

    I could go on endlessly, xingan, and exhaust even the lanshi’s stocks of paper in my adoration—but it will soon be breakfast time, and the hens have not been fed, nor the eggs collected, and neither have the rabbits been given their greens. I must go and tend to them now; only wait for me, and I will be back at your side again before you have time to miss me. 

    Ever yours, my husband—

        Wei Ying.

    P.S.—I left a pot of ginger porridge on the table by the bed, if you should wake and be hungry before I return. There is only a little, since the rest is still cooking in the kitchen, and you and A-Yu will still have an appetite for breakfast if you finish it all. 

_____

After Lan Wangji wakes and reads the folded letter on his bedside table, he scarcely glances at the tiny blue pot of ginger congee before stumbling out of bed and putting his shoes on. He is dressed in nothing but a thin white undergown, since he gave up dressing warmly at night when he first began sleeping beside Wei Ying; but he does not bother putting on a coat, and pauses only long enough to tuck a sleepy Xiao-Yu back under the covers before bounding out of the jingshi and hurrying downhill in his nightshirt. 

“Wei Ying!” he calls, when he passes the tidy chicken pen—home to ten brown hens, which Lan Wangji brought to the Cloud Recesses as a gift for Wei Ying before they were married—and finds the chickens pecking away in the yard, eating grains of fresh corn that had clearly just been thrown out by Wei Ying’s dear hands. But Wei Ying must have finished collecting the eggs, and gone on towards the warded field on the fringes of the bamboo forest to scatter vegetables for the rabbits; so Lan Wangji presses on, running with the wind at his back and the sharp pebbles underfoot almost piercing through his slippers. He reaches the rabbit field in less than a minute, careening between stalks of bamboo like a man possessed, and throws himself at Wei Ying so forcefully that he knocks his husband backwards into the soft grass at their feet. 

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying wheezes, as his lettuce basket flies out of his hand and lands near the entrance to a burrow: mercifully, the basket of eggs must have been set aside somewhere else before Wei Ying arrived to feed the rabbits. “Lan Zhan, sweetheart, what are you doing here? Is Xiao-Yu—?”

“Do not worry. Xiaohui is still asleep,” Lan Wangji assures him, bringing Wei Ying’s sun-warmed hands to his mouth and kissing them. “I came to find you because I read your letter.”

Wei Ying smiles, beaming from ear until Lan Wangji finds himself gasping for breath at the beauty of the sight before him. “I thought you must have. You were cuddled up against me when I woke up, and you were holding Xiao-Yu between us to keep him warm...and I couldn’t help it, Lan Zhan! You were so sweet that my heart could scarcely bear it, so of course I had to write it down for you.”

“Perhaps I should take up the habit of writing you love letters,” muses Lan Wangji, kissing Wei Ying’s delighted grin straight from his lips. “What do you think, xingan?”

“I think that waking to find you beside me every morning already brings me so much joy I could burst, darling. If you really did start leaving love letters for me to find, I would fold myself into your arms and never come out again.”

“Mm, perhaps you would. But that would please me greatly, so I suppose I will have to do it.”

His husband pinches his cheek. “Lan Zhan!”

“I am listening, beloved. With all my heart.”

Wei Ying covers his face and tries to roll out of Lan Wangji’s grasp, wriggling about six inches away before Lan Wangji takes him by the waist and draws him back. “Lan Zhan,” he wails, as a couple of baby rabbits hop up onto Lan Wangji’s back. “You can’t say such things, you silly man! See how my face is burning, look!”

“I’m looking,” Lan Wangji teases, tracing Wei Ying’s red cheeks with the pads of his own pale fingers. “I am always looking. I love my husband dearly, and he is very beautiful to look at.”

“Well, my husband is not so young as he used to be. Perhaps he is mistaken.”

“Oh?” He punctuates the inquiry with another searing kiss, pulling Wei Ying up into his arms and holding him so close that he can feel the stutter of his breathing, and his pulse beating quickly against Lan Wangji’s wrist. “Do you really think so?”

But the only reply Wei Ying gives him is a tender look that shakes Lan Wangji down to his jindan, and leaves him struggling for air all over again as Wei Ying wraps his arms around him. 

In the end, they do not leave the clearing until nearly half an hour later; the grass is as comfortable a cushion as two sweethearts could want, and the rabbits keep leaping around them and making Wei Ying laugh, so they lie there, cheek to cheek and chest to chest until they remember Xiao-Yu, all by himself in the jingshi with no one to hear him cry if he wakes up frightened to find himself alone. 

The thought of their son has Lan Wangji leaping to his feet with Wei Ying’s hand in his, and then they bolt back towards the house and retrieve the basket of eggs on the way, running nearly fast enough to outstrip Wen Ning at his swiftest before Wei Ying throws the doors open and barrels into the bedroom. 

“A-Yu!” he calls, letting out a shout of laughter as Lan Wangji comes jogging up behind him. “Xiao-Yu, baobei, what are you doing?”

“I’m eating ginger porridge,” Xiao-Yu chirps. The little lotus-shaped pot of congee is nestled snugly in his arms, and A-Yu is eating out of it with the large spoon Wei Ying left behind for Lan Wangji. “Papa and A-Niang went out, so Xiao-Yu is having breakfast.”

“Aiyah, Xiao-Yu,” Wei Ying groans, taking the pot away from A-Yu and wiping his dirty face with a handkerchief. “That was for you and Papa, sweetheart, since I was going to be late back. How will you eat your breakfast properly now?”

“But A-Yu is still hungry,” the little boy insists, trying to grab the spoon. “A-Niang, let me finish?”

“Wait a little longer,” scolds Wei Ying. “I still have to cook the rest of the porridge with steamed dan, and make chicken soup to go with it. Now be a good child and go with Papa to take your bath, and breakfast will be ready when you finish dressing.”

Xiao-Yu nods and jumps off the bed, scurrying off towards the washroom on the other side of the house, and leaves his parents to embrace each other once again before they part to attend to their own duties. 

“What do you want this afternoon, qinai?” Lan Wangji murmurs, as Wei Ying’s head falls onto his shoulder. “The tradesmen ought to have sent up the day’s groceries by now, so I will make lunch while you teach your talisman class.”

Wei Ying blinks, very slowly, and then he stands up on his toes and plants one last, lingering kiss between Lan Wangji’s eyebrows. 

“Teach my talisman class with me,” he entreats. “When we get back, we can make lunch together.”

(And so they do, and just like all the other dishes Lan Wangji has shared with Wei Ying, that afternoon’s luncheon tastes fresher and sweeter than every meal before it.)

[baby-n-boo]

Pink is not a girl’s color- regressor! Tommy, finally big brother tubbo, cg! Wilbur

Tommy was little. There was no two ways to put it. And, as if it wasn’t obvious enough from the fact he hadn't sworn in a whole ten minutes, His thumb was inserted firmly in his mouth as he gamed one-handedly, a small piece of paper over each of the webcams on his monitors, in case someone saw. He had finished his stream that day in rather a hurry, logging off of the dream SMP almost as soon as the confirmation came through that the stream had ended, already feeling the pull of the headspace on his mind, and knowing he wouldn’t have been able to hide it from his friends should he have fully slipped. But, for now, he was idly wandering around a solo server he had made for himself, trying to remember where he had built his home last time he had been on the server. His chair creaked in protest, as he tried to bring his knees up to his chest, resting his feet on the very edge of the seat, making him jump. It wasn’t that he was easily scared when little, but the fact he had become accustomed to the silence that seemed to surround him when he was small, since nobody ever wanted to talk to him without being mean.  

But it was ok. He could look after himself. He was a big boy, really! Mumbling to himself, around his thumb, he tried to direct his character over to the little hill he could see in the distance, not noticing the river running between himself and said mound, and promptly falling right in. At the sudden change of perspective, Tommy panicked, pulling his hand away from the keyboard like it had burnt him, in the hopes it would be fixed if he stopped. But it didn’t, leaving him arrested in fear, watching as the pretty bubbles went away, and his character started taking damage. He didn’t want the pretty red hearts to go away, they were nice!  

Whining slightly as the last one slipped away, and the death message popped up on screen, shading everything in a dim sort of red, Tommy shoved the mouse away too in frustration, refusing to respawn. He wore a stubborn pout as he spun on his chair to turn his back on the screens, just in time for a knock to sound on his door. Worrying for a moment, he yanked his thumb out, and minimised the tab, not wanting anyone to see, before calling out a “Yeah?” that sounded too loud and brash to be right, even for his normal self.  

Wilbur, poking his head through the door carefully, smiled to see Tommy not doing much, before starting to speak. “I, uh, I saw your stream ended? I was wondering if you wanted to come spend some time with real people now?” he joked, referencing how little time Tommy actually spent socialising. Despite how much he really really wanted to nod yes, and go with him, Tommy shook his head, carefully measuring his voice to reply. “Nah, you’re alright, I have masses of women to talk to.” he tried to joke back, his smile just a little too wide, the usual bravado missing from the tone, though Will shrugged it off, sure that if something was up, Tommy wouldn’t hesitate to complain about it.  

“Well, if you change your mind, don’t forget, Toby and I ’re right downstairs.” He reminded Tommy, with a slightly stern look, before ducking back out the door frame. He tried to nod an affirmation, turning as if to go back to his game, but, as soon as he heard the door click back into place, and the creak of the stairs, he pushed up off his chair, padding over to his bed instead. He wasn’t big enough for gaming, right now, and certainly not to go face his friends. Don’t get him wrong, he was glad they had offered to come over and keep him company while his parents were away for some business trip or other, but it was hard to hide his little space from them when he knew they would be watching his streams, and constantly reminding him to actually care for himself. Especially since it had saved him the embarrassment of his parents hiring some babysitter that never actually did anything, once they found out how old he was.  

Tummy rumbling as he sat down cross-legged amid the rumpled sheets, and pulled his favourite blanket out from under his pillow, Tommy whined, having run out of fruit snacks the previous night when he had been streaming till two in the morning. Normally, it wouldn’t be an issue, him just having to sneak down and grab something from the cupboards under the guise of still streaming, but he knew, as soon as he set foot on the stairs today, his friends would be dragging him into a switch game tournament, or a conversation, or, even worse, a trip to the store. Shuddering at the very thought of going outside, Tommy shook his head. No, going hungry was much better than whatever they had in store for him.  

His PC kept chiming with discord messages, probably from his other streamer friends to wonder why he had ended so fast, but he merely ignored them, balling up under the ratty sky-blue blanket, and trying to get his head to stop being quite so fuzzy. It didn’t help as his thumb crept back into his mouth, brushing against the cold metal of his braces, and he curled tighter, the scratchy material of his jeans starting to irritate him, as he slipped further and further. It was only a matter of time before something bad happened, so, desperately clinging to the last shreds of his adult mind, Tommy stumbled over to his closet, kicking off his jeans and baseball shirt in a frenzy of unstable movement.  

Once he was sure that it was all off, he glanced nervously toward the door, and quickly grabbed a bundle of material, throwing it onto the bed before someone could burst in and see it. Yanking a pair of shorts over his boxers, he quickly scurried back to the comfy area, hiding between the sheets as he fought his way into the other thing, a hoodie that was clearly multiple sizes too big, smelling of a foreign but comforting cologne. He’d picked it up from Wilbur’s bag the first night he had been here, thinking it had been his own, and had been reluctant to give it back upon discovering it, in fact, was not, something about how it made him feel small making it appealing.  

Flipping up the hood, so it fell over his eyes, Tommy giggled, flapping around the oversized sleeves in a childish manner, entertained by even the slightest of things in little space. By this point, his adult mind had entirely slipped away, replaced with the simple, cotton candy thoughts of the child Tommy now was. Confused as to why he was being so boring and lying round in bed all day, he pushed back his coverings with a smile, before gasping, looking around for Henry - his cow plush- in between the all-together too mature sheets. Black circles were just so grown up! Where were the dinosaurs? Or the racing cars!  

Temporarily distracted from his search by the thought of cars, Tommy gasped, running over to his cupboard, where he hid away all his colouring books, dragging out some nice-looking ones, and his big box of Crayola pens, giggling as they rattled noisily. Throwing them to the floor, Tommy lay down on his tummy across his rug, pushing up the too-long sleeves until he could see hs fingers. Wiggling them around, he couldn’t help but beam, it being such a silly movement, especially as they all bunched up to try picking up the slippery box of pens, only for it to bump back down. Kicking contentedly as he tried again, it wasn’t long before it was tipped upside down, the rainbow of colors spreading across the rug in a mess only a child could make, blues bouncing and reds rolling. In fact, every color other than pink.  

Not that Tommy noticed this lack, grabbing up his favourite colour, and flipping to a random page, cheering as it was a cool race car, with flames up the sides, all waiting to be coloured. Uncapping the pen with his teeth, he kept the lid in, chewing on the tip of it as he scribbled messily up and down the door of the car, smiling as it got bluer and bluer the more that he scribbled. Even if it didn’t particularly stay in the lines. Blue was nice, it was a boy’s color, like the sky, and the sea, and blue race cars that go nyoom! Will once said blue was a happy color, so that must mean it was good! Why else would he say it?  

It wasn’t like pink. Bleh, pink is a girl’s color, why would he want /that/? Pink was all flowers and dresses and bubblegum, blehhhh. Pulling a disgusted face, sticking his tongue out, which, in turn, made the lid fall out, Tommy shook his head. No, pink was most definitely not for a big boy like him. In his daydreaming, he hadn't heard the stairs creak, nor the tentative knock on the door, not realising as Tubbo crept into the room. “Hey, Tommy? Wilbur said we could ord- oh.” he started, before noticing his friend on the floor, surrounded by coloring pens. Tommy, spinning round at the familiar voice, smiled to see Tubbo, waving gently with his uncapped pen, but making no effort to get up, instead turning back to his coloring once he was done. “Well, I was gunna ask what pizza you wanted, but it’s ok, I'll just say pepperoni. Have fun with … what you’re doing.” Tubbo murmured, not wanting to disturb Tommy when he seemed so concentrated, instead shutting the door behind himself, and heading back down the stairs to where Wilbur was waiting on the sofa.

“Hey. What’d he say?” Will greeted, his laptop open to some takeout website, smiling gently as Tubbo relayed the information for pepperoni, before placing the order quickly. “Alright, that’s done, is he coming down?” he asked, shutting his laptop once he was done, just as Tubbo settled back in the armchair and picked up his switch. “Nah, he’s little.” he spoke simply, as if it was common knowledge, reopening his animal crossing island to keep fishing, like he had been. Confused, Wilbur tilted his head, brushing aside his hair as it flopped over his eyes, and let out a quiet “Huh?”, making Tubbo look up, and meet his eyes. “What do you mean little?” he asked, curiously, not understanding as the teen clammed up, looking mortified. “I shouldn’t have said that. I should /not/ have said that.” He muttered, hiding his red face behind the console. “It’s not my place to say.” he tried to wriggle out of the situation, but, with a stern look from Wilbur, he was pinned in place.  

“um...wow, how to put it...” he fidgeted in place, trying to find the words to explain to a rapidly more and more concerned WIlbur. “um...he’s thinking like a kid...not Tommy?” he tried, but, from the blank look he got back, he knew that wasn’t enough. “It’s...It’s like a response to stress? Or...or just cuz...?” he tried again, watching as Will nodded slowly. “Um...he’s coloring right now...i don’t think he wants to be bothered?” he interrupted, as Will stood, to go up the stairs. “I could...i could try to find a website to explain to you, if you wanted? I'm... I'm not too good at this.” Tubbo offered, reaching for his laptop, silently relieved as Wilbur sat back down.  

“That would be nice, actually, I'm lost.” He admitted, handing it over, and watching as Tubbo struggled to type out whatever he was trying to, eventually finding a page that seemed right. “Uh, it’s a Tumblr page but...i think it’s got the stuff on...” he mumbled, passing the brightly coloured page back over to him. Credit to him, as Tubbo watched on nervously, Will didn’t seem disgusted, reading with genuine intellectual curiosity, before sitting back. “Woah, okay. That’s intense.” He commented, letting out a deep exhale, and rubbing his eyes. “Why is he little, did you say?” he asked, but Tubbo froze. “I’m...i’m actually not sure. Tommy does it both ways, on purpose and not. Maybe the lore stream today? He did end quickly...” he commented mostly to himself, then rubbing his upper arm. “He normally comes and DMs me after if it’s been a hard stream though... maybe cuz you’re here, he didn’t want to talk about it?”  

Throwing out theories, Tubbo tried to hide his confusion and slight hurt that the little he liked to think of as his baby brother when he was in headspace, hadn't told him, chewing on his nails a little. “I do know he calls you his brother though...maybe he was shy in case you didn’t like him doing it?” he murmured, eyes flicking up to the bespectacled 24 year old watching with rapt attention. Luckily, he looked amused, adjusting his beanie. “Hey, it wouldn’t be the only time, I'm practically his older brother all the time.” He chuckled, casting an eye over the page still up on his screen. “It says here about something called...CGs?” he sounded tentative as he looked up to Tubbo again. “It does, and before you ask, No, he doesn’t have one. And yes, he really should, the chaotic doesn’t go down.” he replied, feeling a lot more comfortable now they could make fun of his friend again.  

“Should...should we head upstairs, go make sure he doesn’t like...set fire to something?” Will suggested, after a few moments of chuckling, right before a loud thump interrupted Tubbo’s beginning complaint. “Ok, Ok , maybe that’s a good idea.” he smiled, putting his switch to the side before standing. “I’ll go warn him.” He held out a hand to stop Will mounting the steps before him, smiling as he feigned offense. “Trust me, you wanna prepare for this, he might still be Tommy, but he’s... different.” Running up the stairs, best as he could, with the nerves he now had in every vein, he quickly pushed open the door, to see the little tugging at a stuffed animal wedge in a cardboard box. Carefully pulli ng it out, he easily identified it as Henry, pushing it into Tommy’s arms with a smile. “I have a surprise for you, Toms, you ready?” he asked, keeping his voice gentle as Tommy nodded enthusiastically. “Awe, good!”  

Awkward, shuffling footsteps were the only indicator Will was coming in, before he rounded the corner, with a small smile. “H-Hi Tommy.” his arms were held awkwardly in front of him, crossed across his chest like he didn’t know how to react. But it wasn’t too much of an issue, since, as soon as he saw Wilbur, Tommy jumped to his feet, running to him. “Wilby!” he cheered, hugging him tightly. “Missed chu!” he grinned, as Will hesitantly pet his hair. “Uh, hey kid, whatchu up to?” he asked, as Tubbo watched on with a soft smile, perching on the bed.  “I heard you were coloring?” he asked, looking to the teen for confirmation, as he nodded enthusiastically again, and dropped to his knees, grabbing his pens to keep going.  

“Yeah! Iz blu!” he smiled, thrusting a cyan pen to the elder one. Carefully sitting down between him and the wall, Wilbur smiled and nodded. “You’re right, it is blue. Do you like blue?” Clearly that was the right question, since Tommy started speaking, so fast they could barely get a word in edgewise, about the color, kicking his legs happily as he started to scribble again, starting to color in the fire on the side of the car now, under the watchful eye of his friends.  

Furrowing his brow slightly at the missing color, Will spoke up, after some small humming being the only thing to break the silence. “Hey, Toms, where’s your pink?” he wondered aloud, jumping slightly as Tommy shouted a “No!”, rather vehement. “No,no, no! Pink for /girls/.” he mumbled, when Will shushed him. Curious, he tilted his head, his hair falling agin, and ‘hmm’d  slightly. “Pink isnt a girl’s color, Tommy, what makes you think that?” he didn’t understand, not even as Tommy sent him a disbelieving face. “Pink...pink for princess” he struggled to explain, making Tubbo nod quietly from where he sat.  “But, I like pink, Toms, am I a princess?” he chimed in, taken aback as Tommy giggled, and nodded. “P’incess tubby!” he smiled, making Wilbur chuckle and nod. “That’s right, kid, Toby’s a princess now.” watching the teen stand and mockingly spin around, before carefully bopping Tommy’s head, like a fairy. “ding, ding, Tommy is now a kid!” he laughed, moving over to the cupboard that usually housed the colouring, pulling out a shameful looking pink tub, and placing it on the floor beside the kid. “Let’s try these ones too, huh?” Will prompted, picking up a pastel pink, and doodling a small flower in the corner.  

Tommy nodded, gently, slipping a little, pink pacifier into his mouth when nobody was looking, and hesitantly choosing a maroon pen, trying a clumsy smiley face, soon joined by tubbo doodling a bee, of course. Laughing, Will tried another flower, and a heart, wanting to keep what he did simple, making Tommy smile as a little of the ink went over his fingers. Catching the pen before he tried to draw on his own face, Will tutted gently at Tommy, his new little friend. His little...brother? Before they realised it, the scribbly car had been overshadowed by their doodles, Tommy having branched out into pink the more his friends didn’t seem to mind it being there, slowly smiling more and more, until he was giggling loud and free, fully convinced now, that Pink was, in fact, not a girl’s color.  

[sooibian]

Trespassing is Prohibited!

Pairing: Baekhyun x Fem!Reader ft. Chanyeol

Genre: Fluff! Fluff! Fluff! Crack. Friends to Lovers AU, University AU (ish) 

Description: Byun Baekhyun has had enough. He finally wants to ‘man up’ and make you his. But things continue to spiral out of control all thanks to his friend, philosopher, and guide (a.k.a. The Worst Wingman Ever) Park Chanyeol.

Warnings: A very rambly Baekhyun and a longwinding confession

Word Count: + 3k

-------------------------------------------

“You want me to talk about the weather?” Baekhyun squeaked into the phone after having breathed in helium from the blown up balloon in his hand.

“The weather, politics...the economy even.” Heaving slightly, Chanyeol spoke after a moment, his usual gruff and masculine voice reduced to a wafer thin high pitched squeal, sending Baekhyun into a fit of helium suffused giggles.

Taking another drag off of the balloon, Baekhyun warbled and piped, “Say...say that again. Say economy again!”

“Eco...econo-” Chanyeol’s extreme outburst of laughter at the sound of his own voice, rendered him unable to pronounce the final syllable.

All along, you stood at the door, comfortably leaning against its frame and eavesdropping on their conversation or the blatant lack thereof. Chanyeol suddenly wanted Baekhyun to talk about the weather, politics, and the economy? You thought you’d grown immune to your best friends’ antics but they continued to up the ante and left you baffled, amused, or both every single time. 

You cleared your throat to catch Baekhyun’s attention but it fell on deaf ears. He rolled around in bed, breathing in helium, laughing hysterically, chanting the words ‘economy, weather, and politics’.

“BAEKHYUN!” You screamed at last. He scrambled to face you, wearing an expression of a deer caught in the headlights. You finally had the entirety of Baekhyun’s eight second attention span all to yourself.

“YAH! YAH! YAH! What are you doing here?” Baekhyun retaliated and then whispered something into his phone, stuffed it inside his pocket, straightened his shirt and sat primly on the edge of the bed like a child who’d been caught eating forbidden candy. He threw you an accusatory glance but there was an unmistakable hint of embarrassment and panic in his eyes.

Peering over your glasses, you snapped at him, “I’ve come to pick up my phone charger because you obviously lacked the courtesy to return it!”

“Oh!” His lips protruded into a pout and he tilted his head to the side as if in deep thought, “I’ll bring it over in the evening.”

“Why are you acting so….dazed and confused?” Slouching, you took careful, deliberate steps towards the bed and sat down next to him. Leaning into his frame, you sniffed his neck and whispered, “Are you...Baekhyun don’t tell me you’re on something!”

Levelling his face with yours, he searched your eyes before flicking your forehead in response to your wild allegation. “Shut up! The audacity! You’re the one barging into my house in the middle of the day. Trespassing is prohibited!”

Confused, you pulled away from him and asked, “What are you saying?”

The corners of his lips drooped. Brows knit together, he replied, “You should’ve called first!”

His extremely out of character standoffishness made you uncomfortable. You were clearly not interrupting anything other than a helium infused gala which, truth be told, you were greatly annoyed at not being invited to. Neither were you inconveniencing him in any way. You were to simply fetch the electronic device and head home. And this wasn’t anything out of character for you either. You’d always felt free to walk into his goshiwon as you did your own. Yet, here he was, dark hair unkempt, dressed in his usual baggy clothes, accusing you - his best friend, his emergency contact, the one he moved cities with for University, the only one who had the passcode to his goshiwon - of breaking and entering. You knew Baekhyun since the day you’d learnt to walk and in all these years he’d made you feel a lot of emotions - happiness, sadness, mostly anger but not once had he made you feel unwelcome. 

Your heart sank to your stomach at this abrupt coldness.

“Baekhyun, you took my charger, remember? My phone died.” Fighting the lump in your throat, you explained politely and proceeded to rummage his desk drawers for the said item.

“Wait!” He came trotting after you barefooted as you dashed out of his room. He grabbed your wrist to hold you firmly in place. 

While you were no stranger to physical contact with Baekhyun, these past three months since your break up had started to get increasingly excruciating for you. A slight brush of his hand with yours sent tingles through your skin, made your cheeks flame, your legs turned to jelly, and alarms blared inside your head. At first you thought it was just your hormones messing with you - he was an attractive man and you’d only recently been deprived of love and attention but you’d slowly begun to realize it was something far beyond that. Something you had an inherent knowledge of but were not quite ready to confront yet. 

“I’m leaving.” You replied matter-of-factly. Yanking your hand free from his grasp, you didn’t bother to look at him. “Helium makes you stupid!” You yelled instead, and banged the main door shut behind you.

.

.

.

After a week of radio silence (though he was still clearly avoiding you at campus) Byun Baekhyun had finally started texting you again and you realized that he was now a changed man.

He'd gotten...boring.

Every morning he'd send you a no effort good morning text along with, lo and behold, weather updates! Bland messages ending with the same emoji. Mostly alternating between 'Good morning! Don't forget to wear a mask today, the fine dust level is scary! ☺️' and 'Good morning! Don't forget to carry an umbrella today, it might rain! ☺️'

You'd almost always reply with a disinterested 👍 but he remained undeterred. 

Now it was as if Baekhyun and Chanyeol came as a package. The duo seemed to be joined at the hip and they walked in the opposite direction every time they caught you approaching them. Movements frantic, whispering in each other’s ears as if they were plotting to start a rebellion to overthrow the Government. But the Morning Daily from Baekhyun remained unchanged. Until one day, you snapped and replied with an emoji depicting another special digit used to indicate an entirely different sentiment from the sweet old 👍.

.

.

.

Later that evening you were dressed up for a double date set up by your classmate Jiwoo, your only “friend” other than Baekhyun and Chanyeol. She was to introduce you to her boyfriend’s friend who she thought was your type. Not looking for anything more than just a stress free and light evening, you decided to dress to the nines, let your hair down, and forget all about Baekhyun’s pigheadedness. 

Dabbing on just a hint of blush along your cheekbones, you gave yourself a quick once over in the mirror. It was then that a familiar beeping reached your ears and you rushed out of your bedroom to greet the unexpected visitor with a snarky comment.

“Trespassing is prohibited!” Crossing your arms over your chest, you glared at Baekhyun through your glasses. Dressed in a black hoodie, head covered in the Nike cap you’d gifted him for his birthday, twirling a pen between his fingers he just stood there, smiling sheepishly with a bag from your favourite desserts cafe in his other hand. It seemed like he’d come straight to yours after his lectures.

His gaze hesitantly roved over you and he questioned softly, “Going somewhere?”

Slinging a shoulder bag on, you averted your eyes and remarked, “It’s none of your business.” 

“Yah! Don’t be like that”, he said with a soft chuckle yet his voice bore a hint of dejection and apology.

“That’s rich coming from you. Allow me to remind you how strange you and Chanyeol have been acting since the last two weeks!”

“I’m - I’m ready to..talk about it.” He quipped, awkwardly proceeding to put the box of desserts in the refrigerator. He then very comfortably took a seat at the kitchen table.

Hands on hips, you sauntered to the main door and shook your head, gesturing for him to leave. “Not today, Baek. I’m running late.”

He pulled back the chair next to his, and drummed his fingers on the table nervously. “Come sit. I won’t take too long. I promise.”

Letting out a deep sigh, you dragged your feet to the table and slumped into the chair.

“You look nice.” Lips stretched into a thin line, he stole a glance at you and said to his cuticles instead. 

“BAEKHYUN!”

“Okay..okay sorry… so the day you came home?”

“Please stop doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Drawing out sentences in a question.”

Inhaling deeply, a slightly irate Baekhyun replied, “I’m trying okay.”

“Listen, first of all I am really annoyed at not being invited to that helium balloon call? So I’d advise you to think twice before saying anything stupid. Tell me...why did you two think it was a good idea -”

Embarrassed, he interrupted to get that part of the discussion out of the way. “Chanyeol and I just wanted to know what we sounded like… over the phone, you know? We sounded..err...squeakier.”

“Okay...I hate to say this but ...makes sense, I guess? Why wasn’t I invited?”

“Because - ”

You leaned in closer, questioning eyes locked with his.

“Because -”

“Baek, I’m running late!”

“It’s because we were talking about you!”

“No? You were talking about politics -”

“Politics, weather and -”

‘The economy’ The two of you said in unison, face averted from each other to keep from laughing at the recent memory of Chanyeol’s oddly peculiar way of saying it.

“Yes..so Chanyeol and I were discussing how you probably don’t see me as a man? Like … a man man?”

Face scrunched into an expression of pure confusion, your mouth fell open to answer Baekhyun but no words came out. His lower lip had begun to wobble slightly and he rubbed his palms on his thighs before continuing. “He was of the opinion -”

“You’re literally the only one to ever pay heed to Loey’s opinions!”

“Yah! Don’t shit talk my Loey!”

“Yah! He’s my Loey too! Moving on”, pinching the bridge of your nose, you urged him to continue with a curt nod.

Baekhyun straightened his spine, threw his shoulders back and explained, “We had a thought.” 

“Both of you? The same one?”

“Ye-yes?”

“This is not going to end well. I can feel it in my bones.”

“Can you stop acting like you’re better than us? Just for a moment?”

“Fine! Go ahead.”

“We thought that it was about time you started to see me that way.”

“That way?”

“The way you used to look at your greasy vermin of an ex?”

“With sheer contempt and disgust?”

“That was after. I mean like before.” Hands balled into fists, Baekhyun looked at your expectantly.

“I don’t get it.”

He gave you an exaggerated smile as if to centre himself before throwing more vague questions your way. “What is the one thing - the only thing - I can actually cook?”

“Haejangguk?”

“Exactly! Do you get it now?”

“I have a thousand of reasons ...or ideas as to how you and Chanyeol would manage to relate Haejangguk with politics, weather, and the economy but I’d rather not dive into that cesspool. Instead I’ll allow you to explain.”

Baekhyun’s eyebrows shot up in concern as he explained softly, “Haejangguk helps with your hangovers. It took me fourteen tries to master! And it was Loey who ate every single spoilt batch. Without any complaints!”

“I wouldn’t say you’re any good at it even now but...sure whatever.” Rolling your eyes, you murmured.

Your phone chimed with a text from Jiwoo but before you could answer, Baekhyun snatched it from your hands and shoved it in the pocket of his hoodie.

“Pay attention. This is more important than that loser you’re going to meet.”

“Baekhyun!”

“No, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t watch you go from one idiot to another.”

“I’ve literally only dated two guys! Why are you suddenly getting territorial?”

“I am not getting territorial! What I’m saying is…  I spent these two weeks rehearsing the right thing to say to you but - screw that! And listen. You cannot do this anymore!”

“Do what?”

“You cannot waltz into my thoughts anytime you like! For instance I’m eating a tangerine, I think of how it would magically taste sweeter if I could only share it with you. Your face suddenly flashes before my eyes and I lose my mind while I’m doing the most mundane things like riding the subway or having a meal or talking to someone. I go grocery shopping and the first thing I pick up is strawberry milk and it’s not even my favourite! But I bought a whole damn carton because you love strawberry milk! I have cucumbers! Cucumbers! In my fridge because what if you crave oi muchim with your ramen some day and woe betide me if I DO NOT HAVE CUCUMBERS! I waste 4,050 Won every week on cucumbers but it DOES NOT MATTER because it would be nothing short of a tragedy if you want something and I can’t give it to you. Like, have you looked at yourself when you get upset? When your lips stretch into a thin line and your eyes ever so slightly lose their sparkle. It makes me want to pluck the bloody stars from the sky and lay them at your feet if it means that I can make you smile again. Do you know how warm you are? I mean, like, physically warm. Especially when you’ve woken up from a nap. So, so warm. I feel like wrapping you in my arms, putting your head on my chest and just...staying like that. Freezing the moment in time. Freezing the moment in time! Look at what you’ve done to me! I'm saying these cheesy things and I'm doing boring things like studying politics and understanding the state of affairs and keeping up with fine dust levels just so that you see me differently! So that I can somehow make you believe that you can rely on me. Think of me as more than just a friend who used to pull your pigtails back in the day.” 

The beat of your heart boomed in your ears. You hugged your coat tighter around yourself as if to conceal its conspicuous sound. Your throat felt dry and your spine liquified in the face of his overwhelming confession. You had a million things to say to him. And there was one specific thing you were dying to do the moment your eyes landed on his soft, strawberry pink lips.

Eyebrow cocked, you said in a low whisper. “Why not buy a jar of oi muchim instead? It’ll surely last longer than a week.” 

He buried his face in his hands and let out a shallow, pained wail and continued. “I'm done.” He looked up at you. Eyes droopy, lips pouty. “Put me out of my misery. Look, if you don't like me back the way I like you just ...forget that I said any of this. We can go back to being what we were at 7 o’clock. It's 7:30 now, we can rewind, 30 minutes. But don't...don't...what the hell how can you just sit there and act like you're watching a freaking movie. React! Say something! Actually...don't! Oh my god this is a trainwreck! I had rehearsed the right thing to say...but I got distracted by the indentations on the corners of your lips..I think I'm having a full blown breakdown… I just want to - ugh!"

"You just want to what, Baekhyunnie?"

You took his fists in your hands, eased them open and laced your fingers with his.

He clamped his eyes shut, slouched to make himself small, and muttered. "Don't call me that!"

Giggling softly, you repeated, "Baekhyunnie?"

Baekhyun flicked his eyes open. Unabashedly studying the curve of your lips, he whispered ‘Stop.’ His hand gently rested on your cheek, eyes seeking approval. You nodded in response, feeling your face flame. His honeyed gaze darkened as he leaned in closer, a sweet scent of bubblegum wafting in the space between you. His hand found the back of your neck, lips ever so slightly parted. Finding his movements excruciatingly slow you gravitated towards him while your breath hitched in your throat. He took your hand and placed it on his chest as his silken lips melted into yours. He held you like you were fragile, like he was experiencing the sensation of your skin on his for the very first time, committing every slight brush, every single touch to memory. You felt the wild hammering of his heart against your fingers despite the thickness of his cozy hoodie, your own reacting in likeliness. 

Baekhyun held you by your shoulders and gently pulled away, breaking the most delectable first kiss you’d ever had. Tilting his head to the side he looked at you briefly before making vague hand gestures and shaking his head. He opened his mouth to say something but found himself at a loss for words. Face flushed, he opened his mouth again after a while only to clamp it shut. 

Byun Baekhyun was processing.

After having had your fun with his perplexity, you smiled at him and raised an eyebrow questioningly, prodding him to speak.

“So...does this mean we’re?” He asked, voice faintly tremulous.

Pursing your lips to stifle a giggle you teased, “Yeah?”

“Am I your...I mean...are you my….girl-girlfriend?” Averting his eyes from yours, he inquired, while shyly rubbing the back of his neck.

Half shrugging, you answered, “Depends.”

Baekhyun’s face fell. “Depends?!” He exclaimed, almost in falsetto.

"Depends on whether you want to continue sending me daily weather updates.” You deadpanned.

“This feels like a trick question.”

“Yes or no?”

“N-no?”

“Then, yes. Byun Baekhyun, congratulations, you’ve earned the unequivocal and irrevocable right to call me your girlfriend.”

“Does it mean that you didn’t like the new and improved version of me?” He asked hesitantly, face clouded over with caution.

“That wasn’t the Baekhyunnie I fell for.”

“Yah!” Surprised at your sudden blurry confession, his eyes grew into large brown circles but the moment his gaze met with yours, his expression softened again. He smiled sheepishly and spoke tenderly, “Okay...noted. You too can call me your”, he cleared his throat, took your hand in his, placed a soft kiss on it and used his most dulcet voice to say, “boyfriend.”

-------------------------------------------------

A/N: hello, hello @you-did-well-moon​ hope you enjoyed this very cheesy confession from Baekhyun! 

@exolssecretsanta​

[writingsbychlo]

smoke and fire (01)

word count; 6959

summary; after making a somewhat reckless decision in the heat of the moment, newt gives you some harsh truths, and some good advice.

notes; this first part isn’t all that exciting, admittedly, but these first few parts set a grounding for the rest, so you just have to rock with it.

warnings; reference to injury, building fire, reference to dementia.

Stepping into the main room, you glanced around, catching the eye of your friend and colleague, the blond who was waving at you from the tall counter. His foot was propped up on one of the taller stools, a plate of pancakes in front of him as he held a pen between his teeth, the newspaper out before him. 

Striding across the room towards him, the fireman you’d come to know as ‘Fry’ due to desperate love for cooking when he wasn’t on a call was grinning, flipping a couple more pancakes over the stove, and he reached for another plate, placing it in front of the Empty seat. Lifting his foot down, Newt left the seat available to you, and despite the chatter in the room, you could still hear his excited ‘hello’, even if it was spoken around the pen in his mouth, which promptly dropped, and he fumbled to catch it. 

“You’re chipper this morning?”

“I got here before Brenda, which means I get the puzzles in the paper.” He waved the paper at you, before putting his pen down on it and picking up his fork, not bothering with the knife as he tore off an extra piece of the pancake, syrup dripping from it as he lifted it to his mouth, a drip falling down his chin. “She always does the crossword before I can get there, and she messes it up by putting the wrong words in and quitting halfway through. Not today, though.”

“Close your mouth, you’re so gross!”

He made an extra loud smacking sound as he ate, leaning in as he chewed with his mouth open, and you cringed, laughing as you leaned away, the hot breath with a sickly-sweet undertone washing over your face. The plate before you was piled with three pancakes of your own, a bottle of syrup being passed over to you, and you turned to Fry, flashing him a grin and a nod in thanks, before picking the bottle up. Raising your hand, you pushed Newt away from you, laughing a little. 

The main door scraped loudly, your attention directed over to it, and the lieutenant you had already managed to get on the wrong side of was already staring at you both. His brows were furrowed, jaw tense, and eyes cold, and despite it all, you tried to offer him a polite nod, one which he simply ignored as he tore his eyes away from the pair of you, and watched you leave the room. He wandered away, taking a seat at the table with the rest of the crew, and you were happy to simply ignore him, knowing that engaging with the issue was only going to make your time here more miserable. 

Turning to your food, you focused your attention back on Newt, who had turned the newspaper around to sit equally between you both, his hand under the edge of your stool to pull you closer to look over it all, and you squeaked a little as you were dragged in his direction. “I need a nine-letter word that’s a synonym for ‘fair’. Starting with ‘I’.”

“I’m no good at crosswords.” You teased, taking a chunk out of your stack and bringing it to your mouth, chewing happily as he gave you a mock glare.

“Well, what fucking good are you as a partner then, huh?” You grinned, knowing he was joking, despite how hard he was trying to keep his face serious, the glint in his eyes and the twitches at the edge of his lips making it hard for you to take him with anything severity. “Fine, what kind of puzzles do you like?”

“I’m a sudoku fan.”

You tapped a finger at the empty blank grid, only a few of the numbers already put in, and he rolled his eyes with a groan. “You’re awful, the absolute worst, actually.”

He shoved at your arm, trying to push your way from him once again, and as he did, your body jerked, the food on your fork dropping down your front and rolling over half of your shirt to come and sit on your pants. You stared at it, the sticky food covered in fibres from your shirt and your pants, your brows furrowing and lips pursing, and when you looked back up to Newt, he was biting down on the inside of his cheek to hide his grin. 

“That was an accident. I swear it.”

“Uh-huh.” You picked the sticky chunk up, groaning a little at the golden sauce that had made a stain along the crisp white paramedic’s shirt you were wearing. You let out a sigh, brushing your fingers over it to try and clear the spot, but it only got worse, your skin getting sticky. “I’m going to have to go and change now, when I get back, you better be ready to do the sudoku instead.” 

He snickered under his breath, nodding his head and watching as you got up to leave the room, his eyes lingering on you as he went. 

Another set of eyes were lingering on you, every step you took until you had left the room, and Thomas huffed a little once you were gone, his gaze snapping over to his friend, who still had a small smile on his face, and evacuating his seat to travel towards his best friend, filled with the intentions for a not-so-subtle interrogation and questioning, he crossed the room, taking a seat in the stool you’d evacuated. 

“Well, you two looked awfully cosy.”

Newt looked up at him, raising a questioning brow, a cocky grin on his face, before he took in Thomas’ expression, and his facade fell away as he realised his best friend wasn’t joking. “Not quite my type, in case you haven’t noticed. I prefer my lovers with a little more cock.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Thomas huffed, and Newt ignored him.

“She’s exactly your type, though.” Thomas’ jaw dropped, the idea of such a thing making pure fire burst through him, anger surging in his system just at the idea of you. You irritated him, you made him want to pull his own hair out, and he’d only known you for two weeks, but in those two weeks, you were steadily growing on his nerves. “Paramedic, smart, cute, scalding kind of humour, pretty eyes. Worked for you last time, are you sure all this hatred you have for her isn’t just sexual tension?”

Thomas squirmed in his seat, and Newt waited for the laugh, for any kind of reaction, before sighing again. Thomas didn’t look up, instead, he busied himself with playing at the hem of his shirt, swallowing thickly as memories of the last paramedic the house had carried came flashing through his mind. 

“Okay, look, I’m sorry for bringing up Teresa.” Thomas finally glanced up, seeing that his friend really as sorry, and so he gave in, never being able to stay angry at him for too long. “You have to give her a chance, though. She’s sweet, she’s good at her job, and you were the one that kicked things off on the wrong foot, so-”

“I was clearly in a bad mood. She was eavesdropping and then held the things I said in the moment against me. That doesn’t count.”

“Uh, yes, it absolutely does.” Newt’s voice was monotone, and he knew not to argue with him when he got like this, because not once in over two decades of friendship had he ever won a fight when Newt took on that tone. “Listen, you two have been chafing at the bit to scream at each other once again, but I’m impartial here, an-” His face lit up, turning back to the paper in his hands, and he let out a loud cheer, writing the word ‘impartial’ down into the box, the final piece to complete his crossword puzzle, and that did earn a chuckle from Thomas. “What was I saying?”

“Nothing important.”

“Hey! Everything I say is important.” Newt grouched, flicking the pen at him, and as the main doors, scraped back open, all eyes darted up to you for just a second. 

Thomas was sitting in your seat, a steely look on his face as Newt sat beside him, folding the paper over to face the side with the sudokus on, and before you had a chance to think about how to approach the pair, you were being saved by the bell. The loud blaring of your signal call was sounding out, and everyone went quiet, waiting to see who was called from the slightly crackling speakers. 

Thomas and his team moved first, squad being called tot he scene, and before even hearing for medical assistance, you knew you’d be going along too. Newt fell from his chair, following after the crowds as they went, Brenda still with a piece of toast clamped between her teeth, breakfast being abandoned as the first call for whats was clearly going to be a long day coming in, and you followed after newt, a slight jog to your movements as you made your way to the van. 

Hoping up into the passenger side, your vehicle was the first to go, the trucks following only moments later when the gear had been grabbed and regular shoes swapped out for heavy-weight boots, neat rows of shoes matching up as the garage was emptied. Instructions were already flashing up on the dashboard, loud and clear, your fingers fumbling for the siren as the busy roads of rush hour traffic, mother's on their way for the school-run and office workers desperate to get in on time blocking the streets, and the loud wiling overhead took over. 

Smoke was visible from four blocks away, a mid-rise building of apartments curling up in flames, the acrid black clouds billowing up into the air, and Newt severed a little as he came crashing up onto the pavement. Police had already arrived, a perimeter being set u by offices and volunteers as groups gathered around, the pressure once again falling on you as your team took the spotlight. The public could be fickle, it was a problem you were familiar with, having seen so many good firemen, paramedics, doctors and all workers of the good fall, one bad story and a career would be ruined, and you could only wish that would never be you. 

Climbing between the seats and into the back of the vehicle, Newt rounded it, unlocking the doors from the back as you began to search for the equipment, still a little unfamiliar with the layout he held, half a month not giving you much time to adjust to everything inside. With a pack slung over your shoulder, blue flashing and the deeper honking of the horns on the fire trucks signalled their arrival, and you watched as each team disembarked from the vehicles. 

Swinging your pack up onto your shoulder, you chucked newt his own, hopping down from the truck and shouldering your way past civilians to reach the firemen of your house, Newt following, until you could find where they were all pulling on their masks, sitting atop their heads and ready to be pulled down, helmets in their hands as they waited for their instructions. 

Thomas was staring up at the flames, lips parted a little as he licked at them to keep them wet, the orange glow casting flickered across his face, and you could practically see the cogs whirring in his mind. 

“Okay, truck on the lower floors, search and rescue operations get everybody out to Newt, we’re not working on putting anything out until every soul in the building is clear.” 

Gally nodded, helmet on the top of his head as he adjusted his gloves, ensuring every patch of skin was covered, and despite the bickering that went on in house, the jokes and petty rivalries that ever lasted, it all seemed forgotten in the field. There was no denying that Thomas was a natural-born leader, he was undeniably the right choice, and everybody else seemed to know it too, because the pecking order became apparent when lives were at stake. 

“Brenda, I need you on equipment. I want the ladder up to the fifth floor. I’ll be sending people from the higher floors down to truck team, so be ready for that. I need you quick, because I’ll be climbing as you position it.” Thomas turned, glancing up at the building for his entry point. “There, north-face window. Already broken. That’s where I’m going in, Minho, you’re with me. Once we’re in, pull the ladder back, we’ll sweep the floors and come down.”

“Where do you want me after that?”

“Hoses, high as you can get them, truck can take them inside and we can start from the bottom, and work up, make it safe to get people out. We all clear?”

A symphony of mumbled agreements rose up, the team snapping into action, and you and Newt moved back to the truck, setting yourselves up for the task ahead. The loud whirring of the crane ladder set off, Brenda at the controls as she stared up at the building, and you stood in slight awe as you watched her work. 

This was your first call in which the squad engine equipment had really been used, your last house not having been big enough to have one, and this was your first time seeing the ladder unfold with your own eyes. Thomas was standing on the top of his truck, masking down and helmet on, staring up at the building as he waited for the ladder to move, and before it had even begun extending it’s second set, he was moving. 

Crawling up at the steep angle, it was barely a climb as it still began to raise, placing unwavering faith in his teammate as he went, moving toward the end of the ladder, the second set unfolding, and as he crawled onto it, he paused, letting it drag him closer to the building as it extended, before he was getting closer once again. His body was ducked down, the closer he drew to the broken window, the thicker the smoke got, the flames roaring out into the air, and he disappeared from sight as he slipped into the burning building. 

Minho was next, already moving up the ladder in chase of his commander, and when he disappeared inside too, your eyes snapped away. The splintering of wood, Gally kicking the locks open on the front of the building as the doorframe began to give way, the doors too hot to try and push with hands, and next up was the truck team. In the truck team went, the ladder retracting from the moment Minho had vacated the rungs, and Brenda was pulling it back down to the roof of the vehicle. 

Clint and Winston were unrolling the hoses from the truck vehicle, Chuck was screwing them into the hydrants dotted along the street, and then more of your team was running into the building. More of the team. You closed your eyes, dragging your gaze away from the building and reminding yourself not to get too attached to them all, because you weren’t even sure if at this rate you were going to make it sixth months here, never mind an entire year, or your career. With every house you moved to, it made it seem more and more likely that you just weren’t going to find your home.

Newt nudged his elbow into your arm, snapping you front he wallowing thoughts you were having to be able to look up, and the first two firemen were leaving the building, guiding a group out from the first floor, people who had been stuck there and were covered in soot and dust, eyes bloodshot and trembling violently in the shock. You took a deep breath, clearing your mind of everything that didn’t matter in this moment to be able to focus on what did, and as your thoughts cleared, you received the first person. 

Sorting the group into most needing of assistance to least, you started with the older members of the group as Newt worked with the kids, a packet of Disney-themed band-aids out to be used as he started to patch up cuts and clean the grazes, fingers wiping tears from little cheeks as he kept a bright smile, and you admired him. 

You didn’t know who the person who came before you was, and you weren’t too sure what happened to Newt or what made her leave, but you weren’t sure why she’d ever want to. If she’d been accepted by the people here, if she’d become a part of this family, you had no idea why she’d ever throw that away.

In the few weeks you’d been here, you’d already noticed that they were not only a team, but they were all connected. Every bond was special, even when they bickered and fought it was out of love, every teasing jab being made with affectionate undertones and bitten-back smiles, and you envied the way they never had to worry about someone having their back, about fitting in or not being accepted, because they had a home with one another. 

Volunteers of people on the street were volunteering to help, offering phones to the people who needed to call their families. Those who lived nearby had found blankets, bottles of water and supplies that they had brought over, the neighbourhood coming together to help one another in a crisis. Friends and family who had heard what happened, receiving desperate calls or watching the news had arrived, searching for their family members, and as you found a contact for every person coming out of the building, you made them fill out forms before being taken to the hospital. 

The squeaking of the hoses made you realise that the flames were slowly dying out, the smoke getting thicker and heavier as it was dampened, but the glass was no longer smashing and there was no more snapping of the building’s foundations to be heard. The lower floors were put out, the temperature in the air surrounding you beginning to drop down as it started to cool, the blazing inferno the building had once been was now being contained, and Gally emerged, from the doorway, large frame filling the entrance as she walked, an older lady carried in his arms as she trembled, and you moved to pull out the stretcher for her, knowing that she’d be needing to go to the hospital. 

She looked to be in her late eighties, possibly even early nineties, and as she was placed down, you smoothed her hair back, trying to offer her a soothing smile as you lifted an oxygen mask over her face. 

“I’m (Y/N), I’m going to get you all sorted out, and then we’ll take you to the hospital, okay?” 

She only nodded her head weakly, and you snatched up another form to begin filling out for her, the crowds beginning to dissipate slightly at the excitement and shock of it died down, situation being handled, and as less eyes were on you, watching you work, you felt like you could breathe a little better once again.

“Can you tell me what your name is?”

She nodded, a hand coming up to lift the mask off gently, and she coughed a little, fresh air not being as helpful to her as the pure oxygen had been, gasping slightly as she caught her breath. Her jaw dropped, lips moving to form a word, but no sound came out, and her brows furrowed slightly as she did. “Where am I?”

“You’re outside the apartment building, ma’am. There was a fire, but you're fine, it’s all just a  little disorientating.”

Just as you said those words, a loud explosion took off behind you, a rush of glass, dust and smoke racing over everyone, your eyes screwing shut tightly against the blast, and the firemen on the floor rallied once again, a gas main having burst that hadn't been turned off, and Brenda pulled on her own mask and helmet, following Gally back into the building as the flames took up again. 

She was startled, the elderly woman looking around frantically in her panic, and you took her hand, trying to calm her down, worried she may actually worry herself into a panic attack. “It’s okay, the team has it all under control, okay? They’re the very best at their jobs, you’re safe, alright?”

“Where’s that young girl gone?”

“Which young girl, ma’am?” Your brows furrowed, worry seeping into you once again, and before she could answer, there was a name being called out, louder and louder as it neared you both, before a woman who couldn't be any older than thirty appeared, looking completely and utterly frazzled, taking the older woman’s hand from yours. “Are you related to the patient?”

“This is my grandmother.”

“Great, okay, can you fill out a form for me while I do a check over?” You passed her the pen and the paper as she agreed, and she got to work on filling it out, letting you do your job as you lifted the ramp on the back of the ambulance down, unhooking it and securing it to the floor. Carefully as you worked, you secured her down, helping her to lay back in the pillows as you strapped her in, before rolling the trolley up and into the back. Fastening it down tightly, you set about, lifting a pressure cuff from the shelf and placing it along her arm, the beeping on the machine starting steadily as her granddaughter sat along the cushioned seats, still scribbling on the paper. “Ma’am, you said there was someone else with you, can you tell me who?”

“The young girl with the red curls.”

“Where was she?” You questioned, moving her from a portable oxygen tank to the one equipped with the truck, a steadier source of air that she wouldn't have to hold onto. 

“In my apartment. She was right there with me, a-”

“No, nana, nobody else was there.” You turned to look at the auburn-haired woman behind you, raising a questioning brow as she looked at you. “She has dementia, she’s thinking of me. My hair was more of a fiery colour when I was young, and very curly. She’s just confused.”

“No! No, there was a young girl with red hair!”

You nodded, stepping away from the pair for just a moment before reaching the front of the ambulance, wiring it to the right frequency and lifting it from its holder. “Any member of the team, this is the ambo’, is there anyone left inside now?”

“All upper floors are clear, truck is out, we’re working down on a final sweep now.” Thomas’ voice was filled with static as it came over the airwaves, and you gave a small nod to the woman. 

“See, nana? There’s nobody left in there.”

You moved back over, watching as the report you’d found had the exact opposite effect, the woman only seeming to become more on edge and upset, trying to sit up in the stretcher as she took the mask off completely. She coughed, violently at the sudden actions, and as both you and her granddaughter moved to try and lay her back down gently, she pushed your hands away, fighting to get free. 

“She’s in there! I know she is! The girl with the red hair!”

She was on the verge of a panic attack now, and you helped her put the mask back on, her relative taking over with breathing exercises, and the gnawing in your gut just wouldn’t go away. “Which floor does she live on? Which apartment?”

“She lives on the third floor, apartment fifteen.”

You hopped out of the truck, shielding your eyes with one hand as you stared up at the flaming wreckage of the building, asking Newt take over for you, before you were rounding the vehicle to the front once again. “Team, this is the ambo’ again, are you absolutely certain? Floor three, apartment fifteen, I have an elderly woman insisting that someone is inside.”

“I’m on the third floor now, I’m checking.” He left the mic open on his shoulder, just so ensure that you could hear everything that was going on, to reassure the panicking elderly woman you had hyperventilating in the back of the truck. His voice called out, signalling that it was the fire department and asking whether there was anyone left, telling you as he moved, asking four times, and silence coming back with each and every one. “There’s nobody here, I’ve checked, there’s no call out, and the smoke is getting thicker. It’s all clear, okay?”

“All clear, got it.” You clicked the radio off, turning to look at her, and there was a frazzled look in her eyes, shaking her head as she mumbled to herself. 

You’d seen it before, working in medicine did that to you, but it was still shocking every time you witnessed it, watching the fog suddenly clear, even if only for moments, watching the dazed kind of confusion clear on a persons face into something more determined and confident, as though a whole new spirit had taken over the body and mind. “No, it's not.”

“I’m sorry?”

“My nurse, she went to the kitchen, she was getting my medications. Our rota changed a month ago, she comes on Sunday’s instead of Saturday’s now. She’s trapped under the rubble, the roof fell through.” Her words were spoken clearly, no trace of her being lost or under the influence of her past, but instead, for just a few seconds, she was completely present in the moment. 

Hopping down out of the truck, you grabbed at your tatty rucksack, the medkit inside fresh, the good luck charm you carried everywhere, only slung over one shoulder as you made it to the door, Thomas’ figure emerging from inside as he stripped his helmet and mask from over his head. 

“There is someone still inside!”

He turned to look at you, raising a brow, a scowl on his lips. “I cleared the room, I called out, there’s nobody in there. I know how to do my damn job, alright?”

“No, she wouldn’t have replied. The woman’s mind cleared, just for a second, but her nurse is trapped under debris where the roof collapsed in.” He paused for a second, brows furrowing as he tried to process your words, before shaking his head, an incredulous laugh on his lips. 

“You’re taking the word of a woman with dementia?” You nodded, string up at him expectantly. “How do you know she isn’t still confused? Huh?”

You stared at him for a second longer, heart racing in your chest as you thought about the woman who was still trapped inside, before shaking your head at him. “Because I’m a paramedic, Thomas, and I know when her mind clears. I know how to do my job.”

You didn’t give him a chance to retort, shoulder past him and slinging an arm over your face, eyes stinging from the second that you were carried into the building, feet pounding against the floor. Only ten steps in, and the temperature was so hot sweat was lining your brows, your throat was stinging despite the arm you were breathing against, smoke seeping in to burn at your lungs, and tears were lining your eyes as you tried to see where to go. The lobby was glowing a dull orange, but the flames were burning bright, and you winced a little further.

Stairs just ahead of you, still standing string, and you headed straight for them. You almost put your hand down on the railing, flinching at the metal that was almost glowing from the heat it was under, and you snatched it back, skin singed a little just from hovering over it, and you regretted your decision only a little, fear crawling in at the back of your mind to combat the adrenaline, and you quashed it down. 

Only three floors, six sets of stairs, and you were there, fighting your way through a corridor you could barely see, squinting to find the numbers on the door. You were certain you’d found apartment fifteen, sure enough that you’d bet your life on it, and you were, because if you had the wrong one, you certainly didn’t have time to keep looking. 

The room was destroyed, flames crawling up the walls, and the tears in your eyes were now leaking down your cheeks, the air becoming too thick to breathe, and you were running on limited time. You let out a little sigh of relief as you spotted the pile of rubble, assessing it carefully, and catching sight of a hand that wouldn’t be able unless you were looking for such a sign in the right place, dropping to your knees beside it. Your fingertips burned as you touched the hot mess of stone and drywall, pulling it away, your nails ripping with each catch on jagged rocks, and you hissed a little under your breath. You could see her, leaning in close enough to press your fingers to her neck, and you let out something between a relieved laugh and a sigh as you felt a pulse under her skin, albeit incredibly weak. 

A hand landed on your shoulder, pulling you back, before a mask was being dropped down onto you, an oxygen tank beside it. You snatched it up, barley bothering to adjust it before you were pulling it on, taking deep and gasping breaths of the fresh oxygen, the pounding in your head making you squeeze your eyes shut, the rush of fresh O2 in your blood making your head spin and ache for a moment a sit rushed to your brain once again.

Her face was revealed, the fireman beside you having better luck with the debris, gloves making it a burn and pain-free experience, and when there was enough cleared, hands hooked under the woman’s arms, pulling the rest of her body free. Dropping your rucksack, you tore it open, zip running rapidly along its track and you searched for the cloths, a water bottle following it, and you soaked the rag, ringing it out quickly, before laying it over her face. Lifting her up and into his arms, the man waited only a second for you to bundle the oxygen tank and medkit into your arms, following behind him as he began to guide you back out of the building. 

The floors were creaking and giving way, shaking under your feet as you ran after him, down stairs that were beginning to grow weak, the metal bannisters now a bright orange and you flinched away from them, hissing slightly as your jacket brushed against them, zip getting hot just from the brief touch and burning across your hand. 

Hoses at the main entrance, spraying down everything they could reach without entering the collapsing residence once again, and as you stumbled out into the light once again, Newt was already waiting with the stretcher to receive her. She was placed down, dark red curls on her head that had fallen out, blood spilling from a cut along her head and she was matted with dust that almost made her unrecognisable, but she was wearing a distinctive nurses uniform, and pride welled up within you form the second her heart beat on the monitor, Newt fixing a cuff on her arm, before wheeling her to the ambulance again.  

Following after him, you noted that the elderly woman had moved to sitting beside her granddaughter, clearing the stretcher for the nurse, and before you could board the vehicle or help Newt load the stretcher, a large hand was wrapping around your upper arm, jerking you roughly and spinning you to face the one who’s grabbed you. 

Helmet dropping to the floor and mask torn off over his head, you were met with a face that he'd more rage than you’d ever seen him have for you before. His nostrils flared, jaw clenched so tight you worried his teeth would shatter, and his eyes were dark with the kind of anger that genuinely scared you. 

“Are you fucking insane?” You took your own mask off, everything under your arm dropping to the floor, the tank clanging loudly as it hit the pavement, but you didn’t even flinch, staring right back at him. “You are reckless, that was so stupid, you have no concern for the other lives you just put at risk!”

“We just saved a life!”

“And what if we hadn't, huh? What if you ran in there, and I had to follow you, and two people died, instead?” He made a valid point, but he was failing to see the fact that you’d save a person’s life, someone who must’ve fallen unconscious from smoke inhalation, trapped under rubble and thinking they were going to die, and they were saved. “You have no regard for the rest of the damn team, yo-”

“You just saved a life, Thomas.” His jaw snapped shut, confusion stitched into the anger on his face as he stared at you, head tipping to the side just a little, gaze never leaving yours as he continued to tower over you, shadowing you from the building, shoulders rising and falling quickly as his chest heaved for breath, adrenaline stile acing through him. “She thought she’d been left behind, and that she’d die. You just saved her. She gets to live because of you.”

He was breathless, everything seeming to halt for a long second, before he was taking in a shaky breath, letting it go as a long sigh, and his shoulders slumped a little as he did his best to quell his rage. Your heart was racing in your chest, and his head ducked down, for a moment, maybe two, before he was looking back up. 

“Maybe you should think about that the next time you want to act like a dick, for no reason.”

You heard a sigh behind you, knowing Newt had been waiting with bated breath for the calling of a truce between you both, but you didn’t back down easy, you didn’t cave just because a big and tall man got angry, and Thomas looked angry once again. “It was selfish. Even if you don’t care about the rest of us, you almost killed yourself.”

“I thought this was a team, if me taking a risk is such a burden to you, don’t follow me next time.”

Shoving the mask into his chest, he barely had time to grab it, before you swiping down to scoop up your bag, and turning your back on him to meet Newt. He gave you a look, shaking his head slightly, and you could read it perfectly, knowing that it had been the perfect chance to try and patch things up with Thomas, but you didn’t regret your actions because the woman who was still unconscious with a steadily rising heartbeat beside you was alive thanks to you, and so as he took a seat in the front and started up the vehicle for the hospital, you took over caring for her, and pushed it all away. 

Maybe it had been selfish, and maybe everyone else would see it the same way Thomas did, but it was clear this wasn’t going to be your permanent home anyway, and so it made it a little harder to choke back the anxiety as you realised you wouldn't have to deal with it for much longer anyway. As soon as a new transfer came up, you’d be recommended for it, you were sure.

It was silent for a long time, all the way to the hospital, the tension in the vehicle thick as you knew Newt was mad at you, the radio having been suspiciously quiet, and on the return from calls, it was normally buzzing between all trucks and vans with chatter and congratulations, but you had no doubt that due to your actions, it had gone silent. 

You checked in the elderly woman, who’s mind had slipped away from you once again, and the nurse, who was in and out of surfacing, the doctors taking over as the two of you were left alone, and Newt wandered away toward the vending machines. You made you way back to the truck, the pains and aches of the day beginning to set in, and you realised he’d taken the keys with him, leaving you to lean against it. Placing your bag on the hood, you pulled out a disinfectant wipe, using your teeth to tear it open, wiping the blood from torn nails and wincing a little at the skin, before trying to wipe your face and arms down too. 

You had acquired a lot more subtle grazes and burns than you’d realised, but each spit flared up in pain when the wipes moved over them, making sure you wouldn’t get an infection, and it was as you were applying burn cream in the reflection of the window that Newt finally approached you again. 

Turning to face him, his lips were set in a thin line, and you frowned, knowing just how much you had disappointed him, but still trying to be strong, swallowing thickly on a dry throat and putting the cream away, zipping up your pack and barging it onto your shoulder, turning to face him for the verbal beat down. 

“You scared the hell out of me, y’know.” You sighed, arms wrapping around yourself a little, because when someone was shouting at you, you could hand that, but the puppy-dog eyes he was fixing you with now and the wounded tone of his voice was a crippling attack. “Didn’t expect to see my partner running into a burning building alone.”

“There was someone in there and I know you’re mad at me, bu-”

“I think you did the right thing.” It was your turn to be speechless, caught off-guard by him agreeing with you, and he chuckled a little at the startled look on your face. “I agree with you, alright? It’s just terrifying. I know Thomas isn’t easy to get along with, you shoulda’ seen the rivalry he and Gally had for years, but forgive him for getting mad, alright? He’s got a big heart, but he’s been hurt a lot, and he locks it up pretty tight. He cares about his team.”

“I don’t think that curtesy extends as far as me.”

“Just give him a chance, he’ll come around.” Newt offered you a water bottle, and a candy bar, both from the vending machine in the hospital halls, and you unscrewed the lid, his eyes on you in a scrutinising manner as he watched you take a sip instead of replying, and you didn’t like that look, somehow feeling like he was staring right into your soul. “You’re going to transfer out again, aren’t you?”

“We both know I don’t fit in here, Newt.”

“Bullshit!” You now knew what real anger looked like on your blonde colleagues face, the look flashing over his features as fast as lightning, and you tore your gaze away, busying yourself with your drink. 

“Another transfer will come up in a few weeks, and we both know that Thomas won’t hesitate to sign the forms to get me gone.”

“One year.” You frowned, turning to look at him, your face painted with puzzlement, and he crossed his arms over his chest. “You want the harsh truth?”

“Not rea-”

“You skip between houses without ever giving them a chance. Maybe some bad shit happened, maybe you just don’t fit in, but you’re not trying hard enough. Plant some roots, because I happen to think that if you just give us a chance, you’ll be a perfect fit for us.” You huffed out, lips rolling as you contained what you wanted to say, not used to someone speaking to you with such a crass attitude. “Give it a year, stick around here for a year, and if you still don’t think you belong here, then I’ll write you a personal letter of recommendation myself, and I’ll get both Thomas and Gally to sign it.”

“I’ve been at other houses longer than that and still not found my home, Newt.”

“You’ve never found us before.” Silence took over between you both, and he licked at his lower lip, glancing away from you for a second, eyes flickering over the car park, before looking back. “I like you, I think we make good partners, I want you to stick around. I think you should give us a go, even if it is awkward for a while. Just brave it through, for once. I think you’re running away from houses and refusing to settle because you’re scared, not because you can’t.”

Your breathing hitched in your throat, and you sighed, shaking your head at him, words coming out as a whisper; “That was mean.”

“Yeah, well, it was the truth and you needed or hear it. What are friends for?”

You glanced up, fiddling a little with the snack you held, the plastic crinkling, anything to break the tense silence “You’re my friend, then?”

“Of course, I am.” He cracked a grin at this, nodding his head, and stepping in close enough to nudge you, with a roll of his eyes. “Now, get in the truck, eat your cereal bar, and think about what I said. We have the team to get back to.”

[wafflewarriors]

A Rewrite of History

Chapter 2—Wendigo

According to the show, Sam and Dean sweep around Stanford for a week. Of course, what was supposedly canon was now slowly getting changed as you interfered, and it was going to become harder to gauge what was next. And if that didn’t terrify you, the thought of being on the Winchester’s hit list did.

Aware that you theoretically had a five day head start, you decided to take on the Wendigo case before the Winchesters caught it in the papers. How hard would it be?

What were you kidding—you weren’t a hunter. This was going to be the hardest thing you’d ever faced.

You knew that your destination was Lost Creek, Colorado, but you stopped in Grand Junction to try and settle everything out. Your first stop was at a gas station, where you took a few minutes to stretch and think.

Homesickness had hit you twice through that long morning of driving. It was heavy and demanding. You missed watching shows with your best friend. Frankly, you missed when Supernatural was just a show.

The nozzle clicked, signaling that your tank was full, and you grit your teeth. There went nearly thirty dollars, all in one day. Down the drain.

Issue was, you were hungry. Walking into the gas station, you realized you didn't know what you were going to buy. What do people buy to eat when they’re completely broke? You thought for a minute, then remembered: college students. Duh.

You grabbed a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter for pbj's, a bag of dried fruit, a box of granola bars, a container of daily vitamins, and a cheap, refillable water bottle. You'd be eating cheap for a while. A very long while.

You breathed through your anxiety as you paid for the items, walking back out to your car; that was more money than you had planned on spending.

Next stop: the county library. They closed at nine, and it was eight p.m. You had one hour to do your research at their computers. If you were so ahead, then why did you always feel a step behind? An hour wasn't long, so you made a beeline for the computer, feeling self-conscious of your search history.

And, right. The computers were the size of microwaves. Fun. Let's just see if you could even work this thing. Hesitantly, you managed to open a browser. Good start.

You typed: wendigo.

You needed the wendigo sigils, or whatever they were. Because while you knew what the cases were about, you didn’t have 'dad's journal'. After scrolling through three useless articles linking to books, you found a lore site. They were called anasazi symbols. Protective circles to keep them away just like salt would. They were a bit complex, so you borrowed some paper and a pen at the desk and traced it over the computer screen. You were thorough with your research, because one bit of false information could leave you in the wendigo's den.

The Winchesters would be coming anyway, but you didn’t want to see what they'd do if they found you here. You were a suspect to Jessica's murder, after all.

Every time you shut your eyes, you saw Sam’s grieving face. You were probably beating yourself up more than Sam was. If you hadn’t taken that one rest, you would have been there. Jessica would have had a chance.

You wished you could tell him, tell Sam what happened, that it wasn’t you, but it was too late for that. Showing your face would be suicide, even if the mysterious note promised to keep you on the side of the living. There was only so much they could do before the Winchesters figured out a way to put you down and keep you down.

"Are you doing a ritual or something?" someone said behind you. The disgust and repulsion in their tone was as clear as a church bell.

You jumped and spun around, startled by the librarian behind you.

"Uh, no. No. Just a writer," you said. You weren't lying, really. You'd written some fanfictions here and there.

"Ah," she said, but she was still clearly judging you and the suspicious looking symbols. "Well, we're closing."

Damn. It was already nine? "Oh—right, okay. Thank you."

She walked away, and you stole two pens and notepad off her desk, stuffing it in your bag. You were probably going to need them.

///

As it turns out, you can't just impulsively buy flamethrowers. Not only were they hard to get, but they were also expensive. Way too expensive for your budget. In result, you were going to have to DIY and build a less desirable flamethrower.

You pulled up to the supermarket with a very odd grocery list in hand. You bought hairspray and a lighter. You just hoped it wouldn't burn your hands off.

You also hoped that soon you wouldn't have to burn a hole in your pocket. You'd spent close to one hundred dollars today in total.

The note did say that they wouldn't let you die, though. So that was something. You didn't really know what it implied, but they literally made you appear in a different universe, so you didn't want to mess with them. Not yet. Not until you had the Winchesters on your side.

That wasn't looking too promising though.

Pushing the thought away, you filled up your water bottle in the supermarket, knowing that it would be needed if you were trekking through the forest.

It was dark out. You know it'd be stupid to try and light the thing in the night, where it was more adept to hunt. You would sleep in the car, then head to Blackwater Ridge in the morning. That was the plan. A plan that might have you cross paths with the Winchesters—the last thing you needed.

You were already pulled into a 24/7 supermarket parking lot, which was nice. You sighed and rubbed your eyes. It was late.

You locked the doors, pulled the keys from the ignition, and crawled into the back seat. The way it curved your spine wasn't all that great, either, and you knew if you did this for too long, you'd be ensuring future back problems.

The leather was worn and sort of cold, but it cushioned you enough. It really did make you wish you had a blanket.

Instead, you hugged your little bag to your chest, thinking of your best friend, and also fearing for their lives.

///

Morning hit you pretty fast. The sun was blinding and soon the car was too hot to stand. You stretched, exiting the vehicle and appreciating the cool breeze for a while. This was the big day. The prize fight, huh?

Nah. This case wouldn't mean hardly anything to history in the long run. All it would do is tell the Winchesters to keep looking for their dad.

It was still changing history, though, right? Like, maybe they'd get to the next town faster, at least.

You didn’t really know what else to do. You couldn't just sit around and wait for history to change itself. You had a friend to fight for. You had to do something. Anything. Sitting around wasn't an option.

You weren’t cut out for this, though. You weren't prepared for what hunting entailed. And you certainly weren't ready to take on a Wendigo.

You flipped the hairspray in your hand, reviewing your choices. Not that there were much of any.

You sat in the back of your car, with the door opened wide to let a nice breeze in. You tinkered with your materials, taking off the cover of the lighter, and began adjusting the adjustment wheel so the flame would be taller.

You climbed out, standing in the middle of the parking lot and looking around. It was about five in the morning, so there weren't many people up and about yet except you.

Curiously, you raised the can of hairspray. Holding it far from your body, you pressed. The flame burst forward, much larger than you had expected. "Holy—!" Startled, you flinched and backed into your car.

Damn.

After shaking off the shock, you smiled to yourself, and promptly threw them both in the back of your car. Shoving your nerves down, you got in the driver's seat.

Once you got on Interstate 70 and there was no going back.

After a quiet minute of thought, you had the car purring with life.

///

You pulled up to Blackwater Ridge feeling underprepared. You had one or two days before the Winchesters showed, and you wanted to be far out before they did. Not only was there a wendigo out there, but bears. Bears and bear traps. And, by god, you had a lighter and some hairspray.

Who were you kidding, you were screwed.

Be that as it may, this was happening. You were going to hunt this thing, find it's little cave, and torch it. You could do this. A little hike. That's all this was.

There was a sign on the side of the road as you walked up, announcing that chances of wildfires was 'High'.

Great.

This kid, Tommy Collins, was out there somewhere though. And the faster he got help, the better. So scrounging up every fiber of courage in your body, you stepped onto the forest trail, which was worn-down from past campers.

The trees started out thin and weedy, but as you trekked deeper, the shrubs thickened and the branches became knotted and gnarly. The trail got more scattered, and the brush got thicker. But maybe that was your imagination.

You gripped the hairspray and lighter like it was your lifeline—and it was, if you were being honest. It was the only thing keeping the monster and its claws from you, at this point.

You knew it was smart. Smarter than you, considering you had no back up. Just you, the woods, and it.

And freaking bears.

You decided to set camp for the night. These woods were large, and it would take a while to track down the wendigo's hiding spot. You replicated the anasazi symbols in the dirt with a stick. You made them large, so you'd have some space.

You chose a little patch of land where the dirt was fine and chalky; people had probably camped here in the past. There was a stump in the center—the break was natural. It must have been wiped out by a storm. It had moss around the base, and you hoped it would provide enough of a cushion to rest on.

Lastly, you had to get a fire going, but that would be the easiest part. You collected some dry wood, making a little stack. Then, you torched it. You were happy with the result.

You were a little lean on wood. You would need some more the last you through the night. Maybe two more handfuls and you would be satisfied.

You made sure not to venture too far from your camp. Gathering dry wood and dead brush was easy—Blackwater Ridge was high risk for wildfires half the time.

You dropped the first load onto the fire, then went back for one last bundle. You didn't notice at first—the crunch of dead leaves against your feet and your rough breath covered it up. But then, you heard it.

It wasn’t the noise that worried you; it was the lack of it.

No crickets or cicadas.

Nervous, you decided to call it a night, running off to safety like a child scared of turning off the light in the basement.

You made it to base camp, but your heart was going nuts. You really really didn't want to become wendigo-chow. You clenched and unclenched your hands, steeling yourself against the stump. You were safe. It couldn't get through the symbols. That is, if you drew them right.

What calmed nerves, anyway? Food? Right, food. You needed to eat anyway. You'd skipped lunch.

With shaky hands, you took out the bread and peanut butter from your bag. Shamefully, you spread it on with your silver hunting knife. Just on the tip. Better than spreading it with a stick or something. It wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t like it couldn’t stab anymore. You cleaned off the knife with your shirt, which was already soiled from a day of hiking.

The sandwich was heavenly. Just to eat something after ignoring your hunger all day was calming you down a ton. You sighed, curling into yourself. The fire brought relief to your muscles, your stomach was happy, and you were safe—mostly. Hopefully.

You'd have most of tomorrow to gank this thing before the Winchesters came. Assuming you didn't run into trouble.

You were finally getting comfortable, when an unfamiliar man's voice rang out into the night. "Help!"

You startled up, glancing out into the forest. There was a man out there. Who was that? Who— You sagged in realization. Voice mimicking. It was trying to draw you out.

You didn't know if that was supposed to make you feel better or worse.

The wendigo knew you were here. And you were no longer the hunter. You were the hunted.

///

You couldn't sleep that night.

The orange glow of the campfire illuminated the trees and exaggerated the long shadows and threatening silhouettes. Not to mention the wendigo wouldn't shut up. It was trying to exhaust you. And damn, it was working.

Morning came aggravatingly slow. You knew the wendigo was close, because the birds refused to chirp, even though it was late morning. It was still watching.

You weren't in the greatest position. It could sit there all day, watching from the trees, but you couldn't. The only way you could get this thing in firing range was to step outside the circle. And it was definitely faster and stronger than you were.

"Come on out, you coward!" you yelled. "You want to kill me, and I want to kill you. So let's do it already!"

There wasn't an answer for a moment. But then you heard laughing. Deep, eerie laughing that the thing must have heard from past campers, and was now repeating.

It was mocking you.

"I see how it is," you said.

Your odds weren't great. You also had your silver knife, which could potentially kill it, but you didn’t think that was the best option here.

Then, you got a little idea. It was stupid, reckless, but it had the potential to buy you a little time. Maybe even kill the stupid thing. It was perfect weather for it—the sun was out, the vegetation was brown and dry.

So you torched the trees.

The thing shrieked somewhere above you, rustling and scrambling to get away from the flames. But something must have burned it, because it fell from the tree like a rock, growling and writhing in pain.

Cautiously, you made your way over, just in case the creature decided to get back on its feet. But it stayed, scratching at the ground.

You put the bastard out of its misery. It was more than it deserved.

Now to find Tommy.

You were walking a ways before you began to hear voices. People. You watched from behind a tree as the Winchesters and the Collins best friend came around the bend of trees. From where the mine was. They must have already found Tommy. Looked like Roy was alive, too. Probably because you had kept the wendigo busy for the night.

They hadn't seen you yet, their eyes were on the wildfire that was slowly spreading, but there wasn't much time before they realized they weren't alone. And you didn't want to be there when they figured it out.

Dean was the first one to spot you. When he did, his entire tone changed. "Hey!" He yelled, his expression became murderous. "Bitc—!"

You shot off like a rocket. You needed to get the hell out of here.

Dean wasn't far behind you. He yelled in your direction. His words were distorted by the thrum of your heart in your ears, but his tone was clear as a bell. He knew who you were, and he was out for your blood.

You faltered in your step. You forgot your bag. You needed your bag.

You hesitated, still intending on running away from Dean Winchester. But, hell, you needed that bag. It was all you had. And the further you ran, the less likely you'd be able to get it.

Cursing yourself, you turned around and ran past Dean Winchester.

He certainly wasn't expecting that. He was too stunned to even grab at you. He just skidded to a stop to process what you were doing before tearing after you again.

You weren’t far from your camp. You just needed to get your bag and then you'd be running for the hills again.

You reached your bag, but Sam Winchester was there, at the line of your anasazi symbols. Dean Winchester was behind you. They had you cornered.

You met gazes with Sam, whose eyes were filled with murderous intent. You completely understood where his hatred and anger came from. Jessica's death was the most recent grievance in his life. And to see your face? And to see the fire? It had to be tearing him apart.

You knew this was only cementing the Winchesters' views of you. They thought you were a killer who played with fire. Something 'thing' they had to gank.

But, man, you were trying your best. Changing the future was harder than it looked.

"Who are you," Sam demanded. It looked like he was holding every part of himself back to avoid killing you then and there. He had other matters at hand—Jess was dead, but he needed to find his Dad, and you were the only lead.

"Look," you said, rushed. "I didn't kill your girlfriend."

"Right," Sam sneered. "Like how you didn’t just light up half an acre?"

"I was smoking out a Wendigo. I did your job for you. Sue me," you said.

"Oh, I'm going to do more than sue you—"

You did not like that tone. You backed away as Sam closed in, only to find that Dean was also advancing from behind you.

Without even thinking about it, you rose up the can of hairspray and aimed for Sam's eyes. You pressed.

He immediately cried out, stumbling back and wiping at his face.

"Sorry!" You blurted. You stumbled back, raising the can to get Dean, but he anticipated the move and tackled you.

"Can't do the same move twice. Not on us."

So you slammed the hairspray can into Dean's temple. He fell to the side, groaning, and you rolled away. Clutching the bag to your shoulder, you began running.

You made the mistake of looking back, and stopped in your tracks. Damn it. You couldn't leave them like this.

You were going to make a sacrifice today, it seemed. One you would regret later. You dug in your bag, pulling out your water bottle. You tossed it their way, grumbling to yourself. What had that been, ten bucks? Ten bucks. Ten bucks so Sam could keep his sight and pour water in his eyes.

You ran off like a madman.

///

Tags: @rosaren2498​ , @pillowjj​

[crystalgirl259]

The Flame and the Dragon Ch5

Chapter 5: The Kitchen Catastrophe

Bansha remained silent as Morro ranted and raved in the privacy of the carriage. He had lost whatever grip he had on his temper as soon as the carriage started taking them back home. Morro looked ready to kill somebody, most likely Lloyd.

"That insolent little brat! How dare he insult me!"

"Lloyd or Kai?" Bansha spoke out of turn, something she instantly regretted when Morro's scowl turned on her.

"Lloyd, of course! If it wasn't for that little brat or their ugly sister, I'm sure Kai would be mine by now! Doesn't he realize those two are the ones who are holding him back?! I could give him anything and yet he still refused me!" He ranted, clenching his fists in rage. "I mean, how naïve can he be? What must I do to persuade him to pop the question?" He scowled critically. Bansha could only shake her head. Morro was without a doubt a prodigy, but he lacked the most obvious common sense.

Kai was a dreamer, it didn't matter how rich Morro was or what society deemed appropriate.

He wouldn't chase Morro like everyone else. No, he was chasing the foolish dream of finding true love. A frivolous illusion of course, but nevertheless Kai believed it. Bansha had no doubt Morro would never have his 'precious darling' unless he convinced him to love him. Something she knew would never happen. She knew Morro well enough. The duke always got what he wanted.

"Why are you so obsessed with him?" Bansha spoke aloud and Morro's attention turned to her. Bansha hadn't meant to speak out loud but Morro could tell she was only curious. "I mean, you could have anyone you wanted, yes, Kai's beautiful, but personality-wise, he's the complete opposite of the man you want; why do you keep chasing him when you could have people so much more charming, obedient, and wealthy! You're the Duke! You're wealthy, well-educated, people throw themselves at your feet every day! You could replace Kai in an instant! Why do you waste your time with him when you could have anyone else?"

Morro chuckled darkly, a crackling sound that would make even the bravest of hearts shiver in fear.

"You've just answered your own question, Bansha." He smirked. Everything she said was true of course. Kai's appearance was in every inch the way a fairy tale prince was supposed to look, but it was his personality that needed work. Kai was perfect, but he was too brazen, too wild. He needed to be tamed, and he was the only one to do that. After all, as a Duke, he needed not only the perfect partner but also someone who would never challenge his authority.

In business or in bed.

"Because I can have anyone else."...

****************

The enormous landscape surrounding the Smith home was a sight to behold. A wide golden field and stables with a large pond in the corner bordered on two sides by woods and a house large enough for a large family flew by, unnoticed by its two youngest occupants as both Kai and Lloyd bolted across the yard and up the stairs to their house. Both ran surprisingly fast for all the bags they were carrying. Then again, it was Nya who was in the kitchen.

That alone was cause for alarm.

Both practically broke the door down, causing more smoke to erupt from the house. Lloyd batted the inky wisps away and coughed harshly before Kai found him something to cover his mouth with.

"NYA!" Kai howled, furiously, before stomping towards the kitchen, with Lloyd behind him. "GOD HELP YOU IF YOU'RE IN THE FUCKING KITCHEN!" He warned as both brothers dropped the books and groceries on the dining room table and stormed inside. The kitchen was still intact, but the smoke was everywhere, pouring out the open windows now that it had an escape. Huge spots of soot and ash covered the floor, the counters, and the stove which was wheezing smoke.

The wood from the old-fashioned brick stove had burned itself out leaving only ashes.

The bowl on top of it was covered in ash and looked even more charred than the inside of the hearth. Nya, the younger twin, was on the floor, coughing and wheezing, covered from head to toe in thick soot. Her midnight black hair tied in a ponytail was the only thing dark than the soot as her stunning blue eyes seemed to light up her face. Her tanned skin was revealed through the ripped jeans. When she stood to her full height in an attempt to brush the ashes off her, she stood a few inches shorter than Kai.

She also had a small beauty mark on her right cheek.

Even in her ripped, paint-splattered jeans and the light blue shirt she wore when she painted or invented and hiking boots caked in oil, paint, and covered in soot, Nya looked ravishing.

"Nya," Kai said dangerously low with a clearly angry smirk on his face as he glared down at Nya on the floor. "When Dad said you were never allowed in the kitchen again, what made you think he was joking?"

"You two were late." She replied, crossing her arms and trying to look as casual as possible.

"We're always late! That doesn't mean you have the right to try and burn down the kitchen! AGAIN!" Lloyd scolded. "What did you do this time? Forget to take the plastic off?" He asked and Nya's eyes widened guiltily, assuring them both that was exactly what she did. Despite being an excellent painter and even better inventor, Nya wasn't so good in the kitchen. That's why cooking the family meals was Kai's job. The eldest Smith sighed and smacked his forehead.

"Nya, you can't cook to save your life!"

"Doesn't mean I can't try!" She smirked, rubbing the soot off her cheeks. "At least I didn't burn anything." She mumbled. Both brothers glared at her referring to the black soot covering the kitchen. "You know what I mean." She snorted, ego deflated a bit. "What took you so long anyway?"

"We stopped at the bookstore, and Dr. Saunders found Kai's writing."

"That's it?" Nya raised a cool eyebrow in disbelief. She knew full well that her brothers could live at the library if given the choice but even they always came home on time.

"We ran into Morro on the way back," Kai growled.

"That explains it." She rolled her eyes. "What did he want this time?"

"Same old shit he wants every time," Kai replied, tossing a bag into Nya's lap, which she hesitantly caught in her surprise. "Help us put the food away otherwise no one's eating until breakfast." He ordered. Nya was on his feet in an instant, her stomach winning over her pride.

"You should've seen his face when he thought Lloyd insulted his!" Kai chuckled, making their little brother blush. Nya only blinked in surprise before grinning.

"Well hopefully after next week, you won't have to deal with him anymore."

"You finished your invention!" Both boys asked with hopefulness. Nya smirked and grabbed both their wrists before pulling them out of the kitchen and upstairs, where their bedrooms were located, as well as the room she and their parents used as a workshop. Kai sometimes painted something if he was bored, but he hasn't done it in a while. Nya threw the door open, revealing the wooden floor covered by paint-splattered sheets and blotches of paint-decorated walls.

The wall opposite the door was made entirely of glass, like a giant window allowing air and sunlight inside.

Blank canvases and stacks of papers and scrolls lined the opposite wall while easels with trays of oil paints, watercolors and charcoals cups filled with pencils, pens, and brushes of various, shape, size, texture, and design covered the table by the sink where water cans and jars held paint-caked brushes. In the corner sat her newest invention, while a tray of oil paints in various colors rested on the table next to it. The machine itself took Kai and Lloyd's breath away.

It is a wooden machine containing various types of gadgetry, including an ax.

This machine was intended to be used to chop wood, supposedly making it easier than chopping with an ordinary ax.

"Wow!" Kai gasped.

"It's amazing, big sis!" Lloyd hugged her. "Now I know you're going to win this year!"

"Let's hope so." She beamed as she wrapped her arms around her two brothers and pulling them both close in a hug. "Then maybe we can get out of here."

"Finally!" Kai cheered.

"Now, I'm gonna get changed." She released her siblings before strolling down the hallway to her room. "Unless of course, you want me to help you clean the kitchen and-"

"NO!" They both said with such force she was taken aback. Nya meant it as a joke but it seemed neither Kai nor Lloyd were taking the chance.

"Oh and since Lloyd will probably be too busy cleaning the kitchen you'll just have to suffer pasta with my sauce," Kai warned teasingly, following Lloyd downstairs, smirking when he saw Nya cringe. Kai's sauce was incredibly hot and spicy. It hadn't taken too long to clean the kitchen, since Nya had only caused smoke and soot to cover the house and fortunately hadn't really burned anything. Still, it took at least an hour to clean the kitchen and make dinner.

Those were two things Nya was not allowed to help with since all her elegance and grace with creating and movement seemed to cease the second she entered the kitchen.

Once they finished, the trio spent the rest of the night the way they always did. Closing up shop and enjoying the night until Lloyd finally fell asleep, resulting in Nya carrying him upstairs and putting him to bed. Nya could only smile at the adorable sight.

"What?"

"Nothing." She shrugged her shoulders, still smiling. "Just wondering what you're still doing here?"

"What does that mean?" He asked confused, before turning back to Lloyd's sleeping form.

"I don't mean, here as in with the family, I meant here in general." She explained, sitting down next to her brothers.

"Let's face it, I don't fit in here." He groaned. "I mean, no one here gets me, and I have no one to talk to except you, Lloyd, and the librarian; and if you say Morro I swear to God I'll scream!" He threatened her and Nya burst out laughing.

"I wasn't going to, but remind me again why you don't like him?" She teased and Kai snorted.

"He's not my type."

"Poor Morro, maybe if he'd stayed the same, he might have a chance."

"I doubt it; honestly, I just don't wanna get married, I wanna be in love when I get married, not just settle down for the sake of it, or give myself up for money; I wanna travel and write and make my own happiness before I start looking for someone to share my happiness with." He explained. "Morro doesn't care about me, he just doesn't understand me! I want someone who loves me for me, and who can show me they love me like even without saying the words, I'll know they love me."

"Sounds cheesy," Nya replied with a teasing smile, before placing her hands on his shoulders. "Lloyd's right, you are a hopeful romantic." She giggled. Kai blushed before playfully punching Nya's arm. She just laughed before smiling sadly. "But seriously, Kai, that's a pretty amazing thought." She promised and Kai blinked at Nya's sudden change of tone. They sat in silence for a little while before Kai took a deep breath to settled his nerves.

"Nya? Do you think I'm odd?" He reluctantly asked, scared of the answer. His sister froze and looked at the brunette as if he'd suddenly grown an extra head.

"Is this because of what those idiots in town keep saying?" She asked angrily and Kai looked up to meet her saddened eyes.

"It's not that," He replied looking away. "It's just... I don't know, I obviously don't fit in, but sometimes I wish I did; then maybe I could find someone who actually understands me aside from you and Lloyd." He added and suddenly found himself wrapped in a warm hug by Nya before he was released. Nya's gaze rested on him with a look of firm affection.

"Kai, you're an artist like Mom and me, just with words, that means you see the world in ways other people can't or simply don't understand and it's your gift, to see the beauty and the horror in ordinary things, it doesn't make you odd, or strange, despite what the idiots in this town seem to think, just different, and there's nothing wrong with being different." She explained like it was a fact that needed to be memorized. Kai wasn't sure whether to smile or laugh at his silliness so he did both.

"Thanks, sis."

"Anytime," Nya laughed and got up before kissing Kai's forehead and then Lloyd's before turning to leave the room. "Night, big bro." She smiled and winked. "And remember, Lloyd and I are leaving tomorrow so we gotta get up early."

"I remember." He smiled, before getting up and retiring to his own room for the night...

[solcheeky]

unwind

summary: jung jaehyun has the hands of a god and kisses like the devil. and you’re all but subject to him. (3k)

genre: college!au, fluff, smut? warnings: mature content, suggestive, language a/n: idk how to categorize this since its not technically a smut. honestly it’s just a nonexistent plot-line with make-outs and insinuations of sex

“What are you doing here?” Your face contorts at the sight of your boyfriend standing—uninvited—at your door.

“A little birdie told me you were still working,” Jaehyun gives you a squishy cheeked smile. His notorious dimples and fluffy bed-head hair effortlessly stirring a gentle flutter in your chest.

“And it’s midnight,” Jaehyun breaks eye contact with you, his gaze falling on whatever seemed to be on your face, “so I came round to.. check up on you...” And for a second, you worry about his distracted stare and tilt of his head, wondering whether you’ve embarrassed yourself with crumbs on your face or dried toothpaste. But like always, Jaehyun reads your mind and laughs a little at your cute puzzling stare.

“No, you got pen here.” Thoughts stumbling past his pretty lips as he quickly swipes his thumb over his tongue before carefully rubbing the mark off your cheek.

Jaehyun had always been like this you know, his ways of showing how much he was so absolutely in love with you always so subtle yet sophisticated. It was the reason why you were so absolutely in love with him.

Jaehyun gently pushes your hair behind your ears with his pretty fingers then draws his palm back to your cheek, thumb delicately stroking the reddening apples of your cheeks.

You hate that he has the ability to make your heart swell over such trivial things.

“Thanks. But you can tell Yuta, your little birdie, to stop worrying about me.” You push his wrist to the side knowing all too well you’d melt into a puddle if he held your face any longer. “Especially since he likes to act as if he doesn’t care at all.”

“You know what Yuta’s like.”

“And you. I know what you’re like.”

Jaehyun quirks a brow at you as if he has no clue what you’re talking about. Which is an overt lie. You both know what ends up happening when he insists on helping you with work.

“I really just want to finish up some work tonight. For real this time.” The distressed knot between your eyebrows telling him how serious you were. “You can come and distract me tomorrow.”

Jaehyun’s bottom lip pokes out in a pout, “So you’re not going to let me in?”

You give a him dry look.

“I won’t say anything,” his words incredibly unconvincing, “I promise I’ll just stay on your bed. Then he pretends to zip up his lips, lock them with a fake key and throw it into thin air. You try to hide a giggle at his sweet, humble smile with an eye-roll.

“First of all, I’m on my bed.” You fold your arms over your chest, “if I’m on my bed you can’t be on my bed.” 

“Says who?”

“Says me.”

Jaehyun breathes a laugh into your hair as he briefly kisses your temple, clearly not taking your response seriously at all. He knew you were going to let him in the moment you opened the door, your silly eye-rolls and crossed arms were never enough to cover up the truth bared by your rosy cheeks.

“Says me Jaehyun,” you repeat, “the one aware of your nonexistent self-control.” But your words never seem to reach his ears because before you know it, he’s already brushed past the barrier of your body and strolled into your dimly lit room.

There’s paper splayed all over your bed, scattered like confetti around your laptop that’s sunk into the middle of the mattress. At the sore sight, your boyfriend peers over his shoulder at you disapprovingly.

“What?” Your tone challenging the shake of his head. “You don’t get to judge me for actually doing work.”

You watch as he moves some sheets to the side and places some closed textbooks on top the pile you had already accumulated on the floor. Then he grins up at you once he’s made himself comfy amongst your mess, back leaning against the wall with his legs spread open.

“Come here.” He pats the space between his legs. “Let me keep you company.”

At first, you’re reluctant, but when his lips press together in that soft dimpled smile, you can’t help but give in. And soon enough, Jaehyun’s arms are loosely guiding you from around your waist to help you settle snugly between his thighs as you pull your laptop onto your lap. He waits till you’re content before he pulls you closer into his arms in a brief hug, chest flushing against your back and nose nuzzling into your hair. You fall drunk at his sinfully sweet fragrance all over again.

That was all you needed, a simple hug from the one who made your heart sore; it was all that it took to release the tension in your shoulders and clear your mind.

You feel Jaehyun grin against your neck. “Told you.”

“Fine.” You consider yourself lucky that he couldn’t see the stupid enamored smile you had plastered on your face. “Now let me work.”

And just like he had promised, Jaehyun stayed quiet, letting you type away for little longer and stay focused on whatever you needed to do. He had given you the space you needed with his arms now loosely draped around your hips and chest no longer flushed into yours.

Until— “Jaehyun.” The tone of your voice is stern. 

“Yes?” He whispers ever so innocently against your hot skin as if he hadn’t just kissed the back of your neck.

“I’m not done yet.”

“I know. But you’re overworking yourself.”

A sigh is your only response. Because you know he’s right. You just hate to admit it. But undeniably, you were exhausted. The frequent sighs that had left your lips every time you rolled your neck around in stress was just the beginning of the display of fatigue manifesting across your body.

“It’s been long enough,” Jaehyun slips one arm away from your waist to brush your hair away from the nape of your neck so he could press his soft lips against your bare skin. “You need to take a break.”

However, as much you wanted to say yes, a small part of you wasn’t ready to give up. You were so close to the end. Your day full of research after research after research, and nose deep in dusted books wouldn’t be worth it if you couldn’t end it fully accomplished. You had worked through so much! Drinking endless coffees to stop your heavy eyelids from closing after every boring sentence in every boring book you had used—the campus librarian probably thinks you work in the library since you’re there so much.

Yet, that was all the more reason why Jaehyun knew you deserved this.

Your breath hitches when he seals his lips over another spot on the column of your neck.

“Jaehyun you were so good for the past few hours.” You try to refocus on the screen of your laptop. “Just a little longer please?” But contrary to your pleads, your words fall thin and are hiccuped by weightless sighs. 

“And so were you,” Jaehyun’s words are like honey, spilling over your skin and sweetly unraveling every little part of you. “You were so good baby, so good.” He plants a soft kiss onto your nape. “You deserve a break.”

Powerless, your eyes flutter closed when you feel his lips latch back onto the side of your neck, your head lulling back onto his shoulder when he sucks a little harder, his tongue doing wonders in the one spot he knows makes you weak.

His name can’t leave your lips without an airy sigh. “My.. My laptop Jae...”

“I got you baby.” He pulls the laptop off your thighs and pushes some paper away to make just enough room for you to lie down flat on your stomach.

Jaehyun knees straddle either side of your hips and his pretty fingers wander up under the hem of your top to press into your lower back.

A stammering sigh tumbles past your lips when his thumbs push harder into the dimples of your back massaging circles across your skin in attempt to rid the knots tied in your tensed muscles.

“Jaehyun…” You don’t mean for his name to come out so prurient.

A hum rumbles from his throat in response.

“What… are you.. What are you doing?”

“Helping you relax.” He says adding more pressure into your back again, a sigh escaping your throat when he rubs circles higher up your waist.

It was unexpected to say the least; his skillful hands finding their way to every knot under your skin in a stress relieving massage. Just like the smooth tug of a ribbon bow slipping free from its shape, each rounding circle of Jaehyun’s thumbs effortlessly pulled you into a dazed state of mind.

“Can I take this off?” You feel Jaehyun tug at your top. So you nod eagerly, unable to speak without stammering from the dizzying high of his fingers rendering you into a pool of molten heat.

“Okay, arms up.”

And you obey.

Carefully, Jaehyun pulls your top upwards, the desire in his heart to mark every little part of your exposed back bursting like a flame at the tip of his ears.

“God you’re so pretty.” He thinks out loud at the pleasant surprise of your bare back, your choice of wearing no bra stirring thoughts of how many ways he could make you feel so good. If only he could stop time and cherish this moment of you forever. Where you lay await for him, and for him only; your breath fumbling ungodly whispers of his name and cheeks flushing at his every touch. Only you could create this perfect storm of emotions burning in Jaehyun’s chest, every single bit of him wanting to devour you and give you the love he knew you deserved.

Jaehyun slips your top higher till it reaches the end of your arms and pulls your wrists together, the stretch in position allowing his wet lips to find their way back onto the nape of your neck. One of his hands holds your bare waist, gripping fingers guiding the back of your hips into his, the other is in a fist, bunching up the fabric of the shirt that clung around your wrists. All the while his lips heavenly mark the side of your neck.

Your heart stumbles in your chest at the blossoming bruises Jaehyun litters all over your skin. He knew how to work your body like the back of his hand. With such ease, your body dissolves at the tickling brush of the tip of his nose against the space under your jaw and you know there was no turning back now. 

The sheets under your gripping fingers crease heavily as he flitters entrancing kisses down the dip of your shoulders, and when he sinks his teeth into your skin, a muffled groan erupts from the back of your throat and drowns into the depth your mattress.

His hands still fixed, Jaehyun lifts his mouth away from your bruised shoulder to press a small peck onto your shoulder-blade beneath. Fingers at your shirt finally unclasp the wrinkled fabric and leave it slack around your wrists in order to affectionately interlock fingers with yours through the back of your hand.

“Let me take care of you.” His lips linger over your tasteful skin as he gives the back of your hand an assuring squeeze. “Just relax.”

You comply so easily, humming in agreement as you let his honey-like words take over every atom in your body.

For a moment, Jaehyun’s nose stays buried in your back, his heart filled with a desire to savor the heavy ocean of your heated aroma. If he couldn’t stop time he could at least slow down and take a moment to revel in you. 

And that was completely fine because it was almost embarrassing how hard your heart was thumping your chest. He had descended you into pleasure so quickly that boring essay of yours had slipped from your mind as a whole and was replaced with a storm of indecent thoughts.

Likewise, Jaehyun was absolutely hooked. As with every hot contact, his body grew more reluctant to listen to his brain; he could barely seem to pull away from your heated glamor at all. You were like a pool on a hot summer day he had only taken a dip into—just the tiniest taste—and every part of him ached to drown in the rest of your physical indulgence.

You were so tempting, so delicious, he had to force himself to tear apart from you. 

His panting breath lingered down the pebbles of your spine and the tip of his nose left a glimmering trail of goosebumps as he took all the time in the world to sit himself up again. Through his lashes, Jaehyun gazes down at you, heart overwhelmed at the sight of your flushed body.

Christ, how did he get so lucky?

Jaehyun loved you so so much. And he would give you the whole world if he could. He wanted to show you how much you meant to him, how much you deserved and how much he knew you needed this. So he took it slow; thumbs kneading into the dimples of your back massaging higher and higher till he reached the dip between your shoulder-blades.

God, it felt so good.

So good, you don’t even know how much time passed from when Jaehyun first started his massage. Time simply slips through your fingers fleetingly as you plummet into the abyss that was Jung Jaehyun. 

Another low moan slips from the back of your throat before you can stop it. Honestly, you don’t intend to sound so lewd, but the work his hands lay over every knot under your skin was sinfully transcendent.

“You good?”

You don’t have to open your eyes to know that Jaehyun had a smug grin on his face.

“Oh shut up.” Your lazy chuckle gets muffled by the duvet your cheek is squashed into.

“Tell that to yourself,” Jaehyun leans down to press a sweet kiss on the top if your spine, “I’m not the one making all that noise.”

Your jaw goes slack. Wow. The fucking audacity. You pretend to inch away from another kiss he tries to plant onto your back feigning annoyance. “I swear to god Jaehyun—“

“Okay,” Jaehyun chuckles into your skin, “Okay, okay.” He fails to peck your shoulder-blade without smiling, “It’s okay.” Another kiss. “I like it.”

Your body jolts when he squeezes his thumbs into the dips of your waist.

“Especially when you..” He starts to pepper more up the slope of your shoulder until his nose burrows into the warmth of your throat.

You jaw clenches when the peppers turn into slow, open-mouthed kisses. “Ah— Jaehyun!” His lips leave no spot untouched, sucking your skin raw while his fingers unbind every coil tethered across your back.

“..Say my name.” He pulls away to look at your fucked out face, biting his bottom lip to hold back a smug grin. Jaehyun was the type to take pride in himself for making you whimper under his lips and writhe against his frame, god knows what he would’ve done to you if you weren’t so exhausted.

“Wait.” Jaehyun hands reach up to your shirt, pulling it down from your wrists and back over your torso before he flips you over.

With your hands finally free, you hook your arms around his shoulders. A shaky exhale escapes your mouth as you wait for him to continue. But he doesn’t.

Instead, Jaehyun marvels at your unblemished front, your creamy skin untouched and as empty as a blank slate—the complete opposite to the kisses that brand your back and the nape of your neck—before his eyes flitter up to your supple lips.

His stare makes your face burn.

“What?” You ask blinking up at him.

“Your lips. I want your lips.”

Then without a second more to waste, Jaehyun lewdly bites down onto your bottom lip before you can say anything else, pulling at it till he’s reeling you into passionate kiss. Tingles explode across your skin at the fresh feeling of his bruised lips on your virgin ones. A wave of heat runs down your pulse and ignites at the pit of your stomach. Profanities turn over in your mind, capsizing your every thought as he pushes and pulls at the soft flesh of your lips with want.

He was so good to you. So fucking good.

Jaehyun’s arms slips under the back of your knees allowing his body to mesh perfectly into yours. You fall breathless when he tilts his head to the side a little more to coax your lips open further, a dizzying heat of emotion whirling in your chest as his plump lips slide wetly against yours. As usual, you were a mess under his touch. It was the result of his intoxicating self you indulged in so generously.

Jaehyun finally pulls away from you, his chest heaving as he breathes a light smile. Your heart trips over itself when his hand comes up to hold your face to guide his lips to your forehead. Momentarily, you bask in his affection, eyes fluttering closed and lips turning up in a giddy smile.

“Still want to finish that essay?” Jaehyun teases as he rolls over onto his back beside you and tucks you under his chin.

Your smile trades in for an eye roll, “I hate you.” You muffle into his chest.

Jaehyun snorts at your cute retaliation. “Yeah.” He hums into the top of your head. “Sure.”

A conversation your tired selves found no reason to continue any longer.

A quietude washes over the both of you, calming your hearts and hushing your surroundings into a quiet haze as though you were slipping in and out of slumber.

Time distorts when you lay in Jaehyun’s arms. His hand gently strokes your hair for what feels like both forever and never, until the slow rhythm of his breathing and warm embrace lulls you to sleep.

There was nothing more you could ask for.

[harunoheart]

Oneirophrenia C6

Oneirophrenia C6

———————

Sasuke Uchiha

———————

She fell asleep so peacefully.

I remember when we used to go on missions as Team 7, Naruto would pass out snoring and sprawled out so falling asleep around him was always difficult.

But without the dobe taking over the space everything felt different.

Once her breathing evened out I opened my eyes. The moonlight filtered into the tent just enough to see her outline.

I tilted my head so the hair that was covering my left eye shifted and suddenly she was much brighter.

The Rinnegan, for all its cursed power, has allowed me to see a lot of things more clearly, in the literal sense.

Sakura’s face was suddenly bathed in blue moonlight, her lips gently parted as she drifted off to sleep.

I watched her shoulders rise and fall with each breath and drew my eyes up to her forehead which was now glowing green as I could see her chakra being channeled there. It was a small trickle of movement, just the barest minimum of chakra flowing to her forehead at all times. It was impressive, really. She’s been storing chakra a little bit every single day for years to achieve that reservoir. That control is so second Nature to her now that she can do it in her sleep too.

I watched her sleep for just a moment more before closing my eyes and drifting off myself.

—-

Sakura’s chakra spiked rapidly and quickly. It felt like an electric shock waking me up from a deep sleep. Sakura sat bolted upright and panting for air.

I reached out to try and comfort her but she instinctively slapped my hand away. She quickly pulled her hand back after realizing what she had done and apologized. Her right arm was draped over her stomach, caressing it with her thumb as if to insure that she was still in tact.

“Gomen-ne, Sasuke-Kun. I didn’t mean to wake you.” She reaches into her bag and grabbed her water bottle and a small pill from her bag.

Before she could pop it into her mouth I grabbed her fist with my hand.

“What are you taking,” I asked. I was too tired to beat around the bush.

“Daijoubu, it’s just Melatonin. Good for going to sleep.” I released her wrist and she popped the small pill in her mouth and took a swig of water to wash it down. She tucked her hair behind her ears and took a deep breath.

“Are you ok?”

She looked at me, surprised by the question. “A-ah.. I’m fine,” she smiled softly.

I looked down at her hand still clutching the spot on her abdomen. She realized what I was looking at and released her grip on the spot.

“Misete.”

Her eyes widened for a moment before lifting up her shirt to show a scar that was much bigger than I thought. It was about six inches or so long and was a thick keloid that looked hastily healed. I pulled the hair in front of my rinnegan out of my eyes and got a better look at it in the dark.

It looked aged and settled into her skin. This was a rather old scar.

“There’s one on my back to match,” she said, chuckling to herself and pulling her shirt back down.

She laid back down to go to sleep but I couldn’t stop thinking about what kind of weapon made a scar that deadly, and how she could’ve possible survived the wound. The bleeding alone would’ve been fatal with a gash that size straight through her kidneys.

It seems Sakura has more demons that I realized.

I reached out once more...but her back was facing away from me this time. I let her withdraw and go back to sleep but now I was wide awake and all I could think about was someone putting their sword through her.

I thought about how I made her believe I had put a Chidori through her chest. I wondered if she woke up from nightmares about that too.

—-

She was gone.

I felt her absence before I even opened my eyes. The sunlight pouring into the tent was blinding. Once my eyes adjusted I saw her abandoned pillow, covered with a few pink hairs that caught the light.

I could feel her distant presence nearby, her chakra had a very unique quality to it. Sakura’s chakra control had always been so precise that it ebbed with her breathing.

There was only one problem. Waking up I felt unnecessarily aroused by the thought of her. I furrowed my eyes in annoyance at the inconvenience. Either it will go away on its own or I’ll be have to deal with it.

It’s been more of a problem lately than it ever had before.

I felt dirty, after her nightmare last night. I shouldn’t be thinking about that while she was suffering through ptsd. But this feeling in the pit of my stomach, that worry of protecting her at all costs was the only thing I could think of as I struggled to fall back asleep last night.

Sakura frequented my dreams in ways that haunted me. A different kind of ghost than Itachi’s memories and a little more guilt and regret on my end. I wanted to pull her closer, to protect her.

I reached down and grabbed it, then immediately regretted it.

“Fuck.”

I slammed my head back into my pillow. I hated dealing with this fucking problem. It was hard enough going to the bathroom in the morning.  

I sat up and tried opening the door of the tent. When I got to the mesh screen I could see Sakura stretching at the other end of the campfire. Her face was relaxed and serene, with no signs of the panic she showed last night. Sakura knew that whatever bothered her was just a Dream...And I envy her for that.

“Ohayo Sasuke-kun!” She shouted as she bent at the waist with her hands and feet on the ground. Her hair was brushing the grass as her head hung upside down.

I watched as she changed into a plank position and lowered her body to the ground before she arched her back in an elongated pose.

Meanwhile I was at full attention. Watching her body move was mesmerizing. She was wearing a sports bra and shorts, her muscles moving slow and deliberate as she flowed from one pose into the next. Her abs were flexed and defined. Her legs were strong. Everything about her body looked strong and capable. She is beautiful. And My body ached to bring her closer to me.

In our years as a team I never took the time to look at her enough. I took her for granted as a kid. But now Sakura isn’t that little girl anymore... In more ways than one. As I watched her move and shift with so much confidence and strength I realized that the dobe was right.

I love her.

I felt a strange feeling in my chest, as if I unshackled a weight I didn’t know I was carrying around with me.

I’ve been lying to myself for a long time.

I’ve loved her for a long time.

I just never thought I was worthy of her. And now, looking at the woman she has become, I know that I will never be worthy of her. She never gave up hope for me to be happy.

And I know I never want to break her heart again. Every time I felt like I had to do it, it killed me. Betraying her trust and her faith in me was one of the hardest things to do. Almost killing her was the most selfish thing I’ve ever done and I can’t believe I fell so far.

I was such a stupid kid.

At least that train of thought got rid of my problem. I climbed out of my sleeping bag and put on a black Undershirt and my pants.

Getting used to only having one arm has been interesting. I’ve developed my technique by now but it’s finally starting to feel almost normal...or at least as normal as my life could be.

Bringing Sakura on this trip has been an interesting decision, though not an unplanned one. I just needed the right reason; the right timing. Her optimism was a breath of fresh air from my last travel companions. And without Naruto there was no bickering or posturing to worry about. It felt almost peaceful...

I looked out at her again. She was balancing in a headstand and lowering her legs into a split.

Being this close to her and alone was dangerous, if only for the fact that I feel like my self control is being tested. This is new territory for me, and I’m not sure how I should approach the subject. I half expected her to bring it up first but she seems to be content tiptoeing around it.

“It’s your move, buddy.”

I hate that he’s right.

————

“Alright Sasuke-kun, what’s first?” She asked, skewering the fish she caught for breakfast while I handled the campfire.

“First, we establish an escape route.” I said. She nodded and stuck the last stick next to the flame. “Our main objective is to explore Kaguya’s castle, but to get there we have to enter Kaguya’s core dimension.”

“The one with the mountains.” Sakura chimed in.

I nodded. “The one where she is currently sealed inside of the new moon we created. So there is that to think about.” I poked the fire a few times and turned one of the logs over to get a more even burn. “We will have to start there, before we travel anywhere else. We have to learn as much as possible about the kind of toll it takes on our bodies, on our chakra, and what kind of environment it is and if it’s survivable should we get stuck.”

“That’s where I come in,” she said proudly.  “I also had a few theoretical questions I wanted to look into while we are dimension-hopping. For example, does our geographical location in our dimension affect where we end up in Kaguya’s dimension or if there is only one ‘doorway’ we can enter through.”

Now there’s an interesting thought.

“Every little bit of intel we can get from this will help us. So if you notice something, even if it seems insignificant, tell me. And write it down.”

Sakura pulled out an empty scroll from her backpack and a pen. On the front of it she wrote the kanji for Mountain 山. She opened it up and began to write.

“Here’s what we know so far. The Mountainous dimension is a core dimension. We know that this is the center linking our dimensions with hers, so through here we can access the other doorways. Kaguya can recharge her chakra from the victims of the infinite Tsukiyomi here so it has some properties of transference... the entire dimension is likely to have its own chakra network.” She said, scribbling away. She paused and looked up at me, “How much dimensional travel have you been doing alone?”

“Just once. I landed in the Mountains and lost the use of my sharingan for 24 hours. Luckily I had brought rations with me and waited it out but realistically right now I am not capable of efficiently traveling on my own.”

“Don’t worry Sasuke-kun,” she tapped the diamond on her forehead with the back of the pen, “I’ve got you covered.” She smiled.

“How long does it take you to restore your reserves?” I picked up one of the fish and handed it to her. She took it and then I grabbed one for myself.

Through a mouthful of food she said “about a week, if I’m at zero.” She swallowed and continued, “If I’m channeling the chakra to you and not fighting, it may be less. My base chakra will restore overnight much like yours if my body isn’t damaged and healing.”

“We should try to keep at least one of us in fighting shape at all times. We are no use to each other if we’re both injured. How good is your Kenjutsu?” I nodded towards the sword that was resting by my pack. Sakura looked at it and scrunched her eyebrows together.

“Not great, I’ve been training more with axes lately.”

“I’ll train you.” I said. She looked surprised.

“Really?”

I nodded, “If, for whatever reason, I become unable to use it, you should know how to wield it as well.”

I finished my fish and grabbed my water bottle.

“Let’s get started.”

———————

Sakura Haruno

———————

“Ok now shift all of your weight to your right foot, and twist your hips, dragging your left foot behind your right.”

I shifted my stance the way he instructed and the hilt of the sword naturally fell into my hand. The movement was subtle and quick.

“Now, step back and draw the sword.”

I tried to do it in one fluid motion, but Sasuke’s sword was long. The tip of the blade got stuck at the opening of the sheath and I had to completely readjust my position to get the whole thing out. I sighed in embarrassment over how clumsy I was.

Why can’t I just punch things? That’s so much more straightforward.

We’ve been practicing for about half an hour and that’s just been the basics. At least Sasuke was more patient than Tsunade-shishou...

“Try it again,” He said, “this time stop when you step backwards, don’t draw the blade.”

Shift.

Twist.

Step.

My hand gripped the handle and I froze, like he asked. Sasuke came over to me and looked at my stance.

He adjusted the sheath so it sat lower on my hips instead of my waist and pulled my shoulders back. When I dropped my eyes to watch what he was doing his knuckle lifted my chin back up and straight ahead.

“Don’t take your eyes off your enemy,” he said softly. He pushed my rear foot back a little more and then his hand cupped my waist and pulled me backwards, shifting my weight to my rear foot. I kept my eyes locked onto the tree that was supposed to be my target but all I could focus on was the way his touched lingered.

He circled back around to stand in front of me.

“Draw.”

I pulled the sword smoothly out and watched the tip of the blade slice across Sasuke’s figure, just a hairs breadth away from being cut. I heard the air pushed away by the blade.

Sasuke smirked.

I could feel the smile on my face.

He was so tragically beautiful. Honestly it was unfair. It blows my mind how much he’s changed since he was a kid...but at the same time he was so familiar. Like I had forgotten this part of him still existed. The part of him that could be playful or happy. Even for a moment.

“You look happier, Sasuke-Kun,” I said. He looked taken aback and embarrassed. I laughed.

“No, really. You look...lighter. If that makes sense.” I handed him back his sword and he put it away next to a tree.

“I feel lighter.” He said looking back up at me.

“I’m glad.” I said softly, looking at the wind moving through the trees. The sound of the wind was so nice to hear after having been stuck in a hospital for the past few months. I couldn’t remember the last mission I carried out... was it the Daimiyo’s daughter...?

“What happened?” Sasuke asked, breaking my train of thought.

Shit...I kind of expected him to pretend it didn’t happen. I don’t get nightmares that often but last night I couldn’t help but think of Chiyo baa-sama. My subconscious sort of spiraled from there.

“I’m fine Sasuke, really. It was just a dream.” Or rather, a memory.

“Not last night,” he pointed to my shirt, “How did you survive that scar.” He asked.  

He caught me off guard again.

“I...ah...” I stammered, unsure of where to begin.  “It’s a long story...”

“Who did that to you?” He asked instead. A simpler question.

“Akasuna no Sasori.”

His eyes got wide. He looked back down at my shirt where the scar was hiding.

“That was you?” He asked. “I had heard he was defeated by his grandmother and a young kunoichi...” He asked, visibly processing the information.

I nodded my head as we walked back towards our campsite, picking up a few sticks and logs along the way for more firewood.

“It was an honor, fighting by her side.” I finally said. “She was truly a great ninja.” I smiled, thinking back on how skilled and experienced she was. Watching her fight was a sight to behold and I will never forget it.

“So the puppet master left you with a scar through your kidney?”

“I jumped in front of the blade, actually,” I confessed. Sasuke stopped walking as I said that. I turned around and saw him scowling at me, His fist was clenched at his side.

“You did...what?”He said slowly, through an obviously clenched jaw.

I immediately went on the defensive. “What, are you gonna call me stupid? Reckless? Or tell me I shouldn’t have gotten in the way?” I crossed my arms, kind of irritated at the attitude he was pulling.

He let out a breath and stretched his fingers out, trying to calm down. “No. That wasn’t-“

“I’m a ninja, I have to be prepared to die.”

“You’re a medical ninja, Sakura. If you die who heals everyone else?” He bit back at me. His words echoed with Tsunade’s voice behind them.

She told me the exact same thing when we were training how to dodge enemy attacks.

I turned around and kept walking towards the campground with Sasuke trailing right behind me.

“Sakura. Sakura, wait.” He said, flash stepping to catch up to me. He grabbed my wrist and spun me around to face him.

Our eyes were locked on each other’s, both equally frustrated.

“What.” I spit out. I regretted how bitchy it sounded but I can’t take it back now.

Instead of blowing up at me like I expected, Sasuke took a deep breath and stepped in closer. He looked at me with this deep sadness in his eyes that immediately made my chest want to collapse.

He held my hand tightly in his palm and pulled it to his chest.

“Tell me the whole story.”

—————

So I told him.

Starting with the forming of Kakashi-Han, the bell test... Gaara getting kidnapped, Kankuro getting poisoned, the antidote... everything.

Much to my surprise, Sasuke sat and listened to the whole thing. He asked a few questions here or there that sent me off on another tangent but overall he seemed to be absorbing all of the information I was giving him.

“I knew the blade was poisoned...and I knew that my antidote had worn off. But I wasn’t strong enough to battle him alone so it felt like the only way I could be useful. Provide Chiyo baa-sama with an opening.”

I nibbled at a granola bar as we sat and at lunch by the river.

“I began to heal the wound with the sword still in me... I could at least stop the bleeding that way but I thought the poison would’ve gotten me for sure. I felt it...” I touched my hand to my Ribcage and felt the scar through the fabric. “It was...excruciating. Like slowly being burned alive from the inside. But Chiyo she...she didn’t take the antidote I gave her. She shoved it into my leg and then at least the burning stopped but I still had a sword going through my body and every slight shift of my weight opened a new wound.” I ran my fingers up and down the length of the scar, remembering how much it hurt just to stand.

“She found her opening. Got him right through the last piece of his humanity sticking out of his chest. In the embrace of his mother and father puppets...”

I closed my eyes and could see him whisper to me about the rendezvous at the bridge. About Orochimaru and his spy. I could hear the clicking of his jaw as the chakra faded from the puppet he inhabited.

“You told me how you survived the poison, but how did you survive the sword?”

I smiled up at Sasuke, grateful for his questions. “Reanimation jutsu. Life force for a life. It’s how she saved Gaara too.” I looked down at my hands, “I carry her with me wherever I go.” I closed my hands into fists and put them behind me, leaning backwards with my feet dangling in the water. The sound of the water trickling through the rocks filled the silence for a moment.

“I understand.” He said finally. “I carry by brother with me.”I looked over to him with his fingertips touching his eyelid. “These eyes... “ he paused. It was like he was looking for the right words to speak. He dropped his hand instead and looked out at the water.

“That’s right, I kinda met your brother for the first time right before I fought Sasori.” I said, trying to encourage the conversation. Sasuke looked up at me, a little unsure of where this story was going.

“Did he hurt you?”

“No, he fought Kakashi and Naruto. I stayed out of it for the most part.” I explained, “I remember thinking...you two looked a lot alike, and he was terrifyingly strong...” and I hated him for what he did to you... “but it wasn’t even really him, it was a jutsu where he could take over someone else’s body. A diversion.” I clarified.

“My brother was...rigid.” Sasuke said. He took his cloak off and began to relax his posture. I think he’s given up on trying to explore a dimension today. I felt bad but I was also enjoying the opportunity for conversation. “He was always disciplined... I suppose he had to be with how deep undercover he was.” He picked up a rock and threw it into the river with a ‘plop’.

I hesitated to tell him the truth of what I knew, afraid that he would be mad at me for meddling in his past...but I felt like I had to be honest with him.

“When Naruto left to train with Jiraya I had a lot of time to myself in Konoha,” I said, picking up a rock and throwing it into the river just like he did. It felt really satisfying and helped to ease some of the anxiety I was feeling. “I scoured through as much history and records as I could trying to learn about you....about your family and what happened...” I started picking at the grass as a distraction from how fast my heart was racing. I didn’t dare look up at him. “I found entire bookshelves of redacted scrolls. Sealed with the blood of the Sandaime Hokage. I learned what I could from newspaper articles and the investigative report of the crime scene that called it an open and shut case but...there wouldn’t be that much redacted information for a massacre like that without there being a dark secret behind it.” I finally turned to look at him.

“There are answers. I know where to find them but-“

“I don’t need any more answers, Sakura.” He said gently. “I spent a lifetime mourning their deaths. I want to try to remember how they lived.”

He looked solemnly at the water and took a deep breath, “I’ve been thinking about my mom a lot, actually.”

I turned towards Sasuke, eager to listen.

“What was she like?”

———-

End chapter 6

Thank you so much for reading!

I wanted to explore Sasuke and Sakura’s conversation and communication dynamic more in this chapter especially after the Boruto Episode

Gives me all the feels.

[kristallioness]

Healing old scars

Summary: Kya is given a chance to help a close friend and rekindle some of her memories with Aang.

Word count: 1,637

Author's note: I blame "Turf Wars: Part Three" since there was this little tidbit that I mentioned in my review, which immediately gave me this idea and I just had to write it down before those feels went away. My favourite (lesbian) cloudbaby helping others (and thinking about her daddy fondly), just like her mommy back in the day.

----------x----------

"Come back as soon as you start feeling worse, okay?"

Kya guided the young girl out of her tent and returned to her table. She sat in her chair, which was hidden in the shadow with a sliver of sunlight falling on the table so she could see her writing. She arranged some of her medical instruments back in place, then wrote down a few notes about her last patient.

There were rows of sick refugees waiting in line in front of a dozen similar tents. Days passed and it didn't seem like there was an end to them. Living in such poor conditions had certainly taken its toll on their health.

Kya supported her chin on her palm and let out a sigh as she finished filling in the form. She thought that she finally understood what her mother had to go through in her youth, helping sick people tirelessly in her hospital every day.

Katara was the reason why she'd returned to Republic City again. As soon as she'd heard the news about the crisis in the capital, she'd urged her daughter to go help her old employees and friends. Kya didn't have the heart to say 'no' when she knew that people needed the second best healer in the world.

"Next!"

She called in her next patient. He brushed the cloth of the tent aside to enter.

"Umm.. Good morning, Kya!"

Her cerulean eyes widened in surprise and she dropped her pen as she lifted her head to look at the familiar face.

"Mako? Hey, how have you been?"

She stood up from behind the table and walked over to him so she could wrap him in a soft embrace, which he gladly returned.

"I'm doing fine, thanks for asking."

"Are you here on police business or..?"

"I got an hour off work so I could go to the hospital for my treatments."

Kya quirked an eyebrow and glanced behind him, eyeing the silhouette of the tall building her mother had established in the heart of the city. It was visible all the way to the refugee camp.

"So, why are you here?"

"Korra mentioned that you were back in the city. She told me that I should come and see you since you're one of the best healers in the world."

Kya stood there dumbfounded for a minute. Memories from her childhood ran through her mind. Korra, her father's reincarnation, had sent one of her friends to see her. She clasped her hands together and grinned.

"Of course! Come here, take a seat! I'd be happy to help."

Kya patted the mattress on the examination table and let Mako sit down before she stood in front of him to help him pull off the sling.

"It's okay, I've got it!" he protested by holding up his free hand for a moment to stop her. She pouted and landed a hand on her hip, watching how he was clearly having trouble getting it off. His arm was still causing him slight pain since he groaned several times. She couldn't stand to see him suffer any longer, hence she grabbed both his hands to hold him still and calm him down.

"Nonsense, let me help."

She slipped the strap over Mako's head in the blink of an eye, then carefully removed the cloth from around his arm and dropped the sling next to him on the bed.

"There.. Now let's have a look, shall we?"

Kya pulled the chair under her bottom and scooted closer to him, gently grabbing his elbow in one hand and his wrist in the other to have a closer look at the burns. The healers at her mother's hospital had done a good job. She could tell by the way the lines on his skin had healed as she tenderly ran her fingers over them.

"How many appointments have you already had?"

She looked at him when he didn't answer immediately. She could tell by the pensive expression on his face that Mako was calculating the sum in his head.

"27, today's would've been 28."

"Is there anything specific that I should know about this injury?"

"Other than the fact that I got it from bending lightning into spirit vines that were powering Kuvira's gigantic mechasuit?"

Kya chuckled and waved a hand.

"Ha-ha! Nope, I already knew that."

He frowned and averted his gaze to the low grass beneath his own, as well as her grey boots. It'd been treaded on by so many patients that the green blades had lost their vibrant colour and turned muddy brown. He sighed.

"I can't firebend with it."

Kya's hand covered her mouth and she gasped. Mako didn't see it, but her face dropped completely.

"Oh.. Well, let me see what I can do for you today."

She opened her grey pouch, which she'd received as a present from her parents when she was very little, shortly after they'd discovered that she was a waterbender. Summoning the water around her hands like gloves, she pressed them on Mako's arm and began healing the scarred tissue.

He observed how the glowing water lit up the inside of the tent. Her saddened features showed in the shadows that the blue light cast over her face.

"I can see where you get that caring personality from."

Kya gazed at him for a moment, smiling at the unexpected compliment.

"Thanks."

But her smile disappeared just as fast as it'd appeared. His attempt at cheering her up had failed miserably. Mako tilted his head to look into her cerulean eyes. He didn't understand what he'd said that made her seem so downcast.

"Are you okay?"

Kya stared at him with wide eyes.

"Yeah! Yeah.. It's just, when you told me that Korra sent you here, it reminded me of the times when I was little and used to play healer with my dad."

She wore a wistful smile and a twinkle in her eye when talking about Aang. Mako noticed it.

"Really? What did you two do?"

"You know, the usual stuff that happens when you go to the healer's. Dad would pretend to be sick so I could practise my healer skills on him. I measured him, took his temperature, checked his throat and ears. Mom let me borrow her stethoscope so I could listen to his heart. And she also let me wear her healer's hat so I'd look like a real healer."

"Heh, I can imagine a smaller version of you running around the temple with a hat like that. You must've looked adorable."

"Yeah, mom and dad always told me I was.."

She paused for a moment, taking a deep breath.

"But, most importantly, sometimes mom would let me try to heal the huge scar on dad's back. The one he got from being shot with lightning."

"Oh, right.."

Mako scratched the back of his head with his other hand and looked away. He realized that it must've been a similar situation to this one - that she could never heal it completely. He knew about the Coup of Ba Sing Se and what'd happened during those events.

"Your dad was an amazing Avatar, wasn't he?"

Kya looked up at him and a warm smile formed on her lips.

"Yeah.. but he was an amazing dad, too. An even better dad."

She remembered being disappointed about not being able to heal the scar on her daddy's back. How her mommy would comfort her and say that it was okay and she did her best. She felt the same way when she saw that her healing session hadn't helped Mako much either.

She waterbended the water back into her pouch and hastily rubbed at the corners of her eyes to not break down into tears in front of him.

"I'm sorry.. I wish I could do more."

She peeked at him from between her fingers when she felt a hand land on her shoulder.

"Hey, don't work yourself up. Your mom is the best healer in the world. You learned from her. If you say there's nothing more you can do, I believe you."

She sniffed and wiped her cheeks dry against her armband.

"Well, yeah.. Maybe mom could heal you a bit faster than me."

"I'm in no rush. I still have my feet, my mouth and my other hand for firebending."

"Heh.. Okay," she chuckled, sitting up straight to pull herself together.

"I just need you to do one more thing before you can go for today. Can you try firebending with it for me?"

Mako held his palm up and clenched his fingers, but nothing happened. A few beads of sweat ran down the side of his face when he tried with all his might, but he still couldn't firebend.

"No-no, don't strain yourself! It's okay if you can't yet, considering how your arm was injured in the first place. You can still firebend with the other one, right?"

He repeated the same gesture and, in a split second, a small flame burned above his right palm. Kya smiled, she was pleased. She grabbed his sling and helped him put it back on.

"Tell Korra I said 'hi' when you see her. And.. tell her I said 'thanks', for sending you here."

Mako returned her smile as he stood up from the examination table and wrapped his free hand around Kya to hug her.

"I will. Thank you for everything, Kya!"

"No, thank you, Mako. It felt great talking to a friend for a change."

She let him go and watched how he nearly left her tent.

"Hey, Mako!" she shouted to him. He jumped and turned around one last time to peek inside through the opening in the tent.

"Same time tomorrow?"

He smiled back at her.

"Sure. It's an appointment."

[sapphicscholar]

A/N: For @performativezippers - hope you're starting to feel better, friend!

HELLLOOO! I'm back from the world of PhD applications--a little sleep deprived and so much poorer than I was a week ago, but back! And overjoyed to be done with that process! I'll be taking some time to get out a nice long update for Undercover(s) and to work on my Secret Santa prompts, but then I'll be getting back to pull a few from the queue that have been waiting. But I've also got 2 AUs in the works, one of which has been plotted and planned obsessively for about 9 months now, so they'll be taking more of my time and attention for a while because damn I do love a good long-form AU...

Hilariously, this story is plucked from my real life. Except I didn't meet Alex Danvers; I met a very flustered, awkward, burly security guard. And Zipps mentioned my life might make for a pretty cute Sanvers story. So voila. Please enjoy.

Fun fact #2: Every title mentioned was plucked from the bibliography of my paper, so they all exist, and you too can find them in your local university library and have a go at finding love or just the awkwardness I did XD

Chapter Text:

“Excuse me!” Alex yelled at the student shuffling through the entrance without stopping by the guard desk.

“Hmm?”

They always looked so innocent, the impossibly frustrating “who me?” look, as she thought of it. As though finals week was the first time they’d ever been to the library. As though they didn’t know that ID was required to get inside. As though they didn’t notice the line of people waiting to flash their student cards to her before going in. “I need to see your ID.”

“Oh, I just need to return something,” the student replied, waving in the general direction of his bag like it held some magical proof that made him exempt from following the same rules as every other person in line.

“And I just need to see your ID,” Alex nearly growled, her tolerance for bullshit having all but disappeared over the past few days. She’d taken the guard job as a way to make a bit of extra cash, since her graduate stipend was livable, but didn’t quite cover some of the luxuries she’d come to enjoy: a nice bottle of whiskey, say, or a new leather jacket. And for the most part, it wasn’t a bad job. It forced her to go to the library most days, and early morning shifts left her with long stretches of quiet time to do her work. But when finals hit…suddenly the library was the hot place to be, and she was left feeling like Charon and Cerberus and Hades all at once as she ushered in awake, if anxious, students, only to watch them stumble out hours and sometimes days later looking like haggard shells of their former selves, their eyes dull and souls deadened.

With a show of huffing and grumbling and rummaging in his bag, which appeared to be full of crumpled papers and snacks that Alex just knew would end up leaving sticky residue all over whichever desk he used, the student finally produced his card, flashing it in Alex’s direction until she waved him away, satisfied that he was a student. The next students in line at least had the decency to have their cards out and ready, and a few even thought to say hello and thank her or wish her a good day.

Eventually the rush dwindled to a slow trickle of students, most of them having settled in for the evening. Alex listened as the antiquated intercom system crackled to life and one of the on-duty librarians announced: “This is a last call for check out. You have ten more minutes to bring any books to the check out desk. As a reminder, the front desk will be closing at 9pm sharp. Thank you!”

Over the next few minutes a few students came rushing out of the elevators and stairwell, piles of books clutched to their chests as they got in the line that had begun to curl around the front desk. She chuckled at the sight of one girl nearly too short to see over the stack of books in her arms staggering out of the elevator and toward the check-out desk. Alex most definitely did not find her gaze lingering on her ass—no, that would definitely be unprofessional, even if it was obviously an ass worth noticing.

As the librarians got everyone through the line, Alex wished the ones who decided to pull all-nighters back in the comfort of their dorm rooms and apartments a good night, pulling out her own work again when it seemed like she might get a few minutes of peace. Of course, moments later, the girl with the great ass appeared in front of her, the stack of books now crammed into an overstuffed backpack.

“Have a good night,” the girl called out, giving Alex a small two-finger salute that made her stomach flutter—not that she’d admit to a thing as childish and Kara-esque as butterflies.

“You too. Don’t study too hard.” Alex cringed internally; she never made small talks, and she certainly wasn’t the type to make dad jokes. Yet here she was. Doing both.

The shrill beep of the alarm going off when the girl walked past the sensors saved them both from having to either laugh off the lame attempt at a joke or come up with an adequate response.

“I swear, I went through, and they got all the books!”

“I believe you. Still need to go through them one-by-one, though,” Alex offered with a shrug. Some of the scanners were a bit old at this point, which meant she’d gotten used to the process of scanning the titles and the receipts, making sure they were all listed before she sent the students on their way.

“Oh, um, you know it’s cool, I can just work here.”

Alex cocked her head to the side; the woman looked oddly on edge, the easy way she had carried herself before replaced with a stiffness to her movements. “It’s fine, really. I’m not saying you stole anything! I just need to go through and check your receipt.”

“Yeah, but I’ve, uh, I’ve got so many books—wouldn’t want to bother you. You’ve clearly got homework too.” She gestured to Alex’s notebook, which was littered with complicated graphs and notes in a scrawl that Kara had deemed indecipherable.

“Seriously, it’s fine,” Alex insisted.

With a grimace of a smile, the student plopped her bag down on the edge of the desk and began unloading the large stack of books. Once they were in a neat pile, she handed over the receipt and turned her attention to the floor tiles in front of her. She wondered if they might do her the favor of opening up into a surprise sinkhole that would save her from this moment.

Alex spun the books so that the spines were facing her and began skimming the first title, pen in hand, ready to begin checking the books off the receipt. The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure. Oh. Hoping her cheeks weren’t already the same flaming red color as the book cover, Alex checked it off the receipt and moved it into a new pile, looking for the second title. Coming to Power: Writings and Graphics on Lesbian S/M. She heard the student clear her throat and caught sight of her fidgeting with the zipper of her leather jacket. Lesbian Erotics was up next, followed by Beyond Explicit: Pornography and the Displacement of Sex.

“It’s for a research paper,” the girl finally said.

“That’s what the kids are calling it these days?” Alex couldn’t help herself. It was joke about it or ignore the elephant in the room—or, even worse, accidentally risk letting slip some hint of the images that had filled her mind about all the ways they could perhaps practice lesbian eroticism and BDSM together some night, maybe in the stacks, not that it was a thought that had ever flitted through her mind during exceptionally long, lonely night shifts. No, never.

The student relaxed at that, arching an eyebrow playfully as one side of her mouth curled up into a wicked smile, bringing out dimples that had Alex biting at her lower lip. “Mm, I prefer to be direct. Otherwise you end up with girls who didn’t realize the flannel and the flirting and the winking meant that what I called a coffee date really was a genuine date.”

“Not just two gals being pals?”

“Exactly. I’m Maggie, by the way. Maggie Sawyer.”

Alex nodded, like she hadn’t already looked at her name on the receipt. “Alex Danvers. Resident library security guard.”

“That title come with cuffs and everything?”

“Tragically no. Just a panic button that I don’t think even works.”

“Very fancy. They really went all out, huh?”

“Only the best for us guards.”

Maggie smiled and let Alex get back to work, finishing up with her stack of books. After a few moments, though, the silence got to her. Gesturing at the large textbook, Maggie asked, “Bio major?”

“Uh, bio-engineering, actually. Grad student.”

“Impressive. Sorry, didn’t mean to mistake you for an undergrad there,” she laughed.

“Oh, you’re fine,” Alex brushed off the apology. “I mean, by my age, I guess I really should still be an undergrad.”

“One of those child prodigies, then?” Maggie teased, though, given the look of the notes in front of Alex, she wasn’t exactly joking either.

Alex shook her head. “More like summer classes and a desperate need to live up to my mother’s impossibly high expectations.”

“Sounds fun.”

“Very. What about you? Undergrad?”

“Senior,” Maggie answered. “Had space for a few electives, so…” she trailed off, gesturing at the stack of books in between them. “Thought it would be fun to take a sexuality studies course.”

“Is it?”

“It was.”

“Oh no, what happened?”

“Oh just a little thing…you know, having to hand over a whole stack of books on porn and lesbian sex to a pretty girl…just a tad bit embarrassing.”

“I’m sure she’d tell you it wasn’t embarrassing.” Maggie looked unconvinced. “Or that it was just as embarrassing for her as it was for you.”

“Could I maybe make it up to her?”

Feeling a rush of boldness that could have come from the days of built up sleep deprivation, or the rather X-rated image flashing up at her from the next cover in her stack, or the sight of a very gorgeous woman flirting with her, Alex smirked up at Maggie. “Gonna impart all the lessons you learned from this—what’d you call it again? Research?” Alex teased, finding herself beyond pleased at the throaty laugh that spilled from Maggie’s lips and drew the ire of a student just trudging in from the night, ID card clutched in fingers turned red from the cold.

“I was thinking coffee, but I’m not opposed to, as the kids call it, Netflix and chill-ing.”

“Why don’t we start with coffee and see if you can’t entice me with all the thrilling facts you learned…”

“Challenge accepted, Danvers.”

[nancydhooper]

Kenneth Eng Is On The Other Side of Viral Now

Kenneth Eng is on the other side of viral now, where it's hard to see him.

11 years ago, in 2007, it was easy to see him. He achieved a brief burst of viral infamy for writing a column titled "Why I Hate Blacks," inexplicably published by the now-defunct AsianWeek. He had every quality we require for online notoriety: he did something we feel good about hating, his response to criticism was unrepentant and odd (he defended his column and declared himself an "Asian Supremacist"), and a little digging into his background revealed things we could easily mock, like his authorship of really awful science fiction:

[The Darkaeon] slashes the Universe with a blade of dark flame.

UNIVERSE: AAAAHHH!!

He experienced — and perhaps enjoyed — widespread condemnation and ridicule in blogs and forums, and on sites like Wired and Gawker. A few months later, he enjoyed a short resurgence of infamy when he was arrested for bizarre threats, making the pages of the New York Post and the Village Voice. Then, like a uninspired meme, he slipped from our consciousness, making room for the next freak-of-the-week and the next and the next after that.

Where do people like Kenneth Eng come from, and where do they go after their virality pops like a soap bubble? Surely they differ. But Kenneth Eng came from mental illness, to which he returned. How many other people we gawk at are like him?

The cover of Kenneth Eng's book.

Kenneth Eng's journey to fame and back takes on a very different tone when you start at the beginning rather than in the middle.

Eng is schizophrenic. This is how his lawyer described it in 2008, seeking a probationary sentence on federal threat charges:

Mr. Eng suffers from schizophrenia, a severe, lifelong disorder. He takes an anti-psychotic, with strong side-effects. Yet, with a somewhat grim prognosis for a lifelong affliction, the report notes Mr. Eng is making fair progress on treatment goals. The fact that he is making progress bodes well for him.

Counsel has noted a remarkable softening of Mr. Eng’s affect since he entered the treatment environment. Conversations with him are rather pleasant.

His severe mental illness was well-known years before his brush with modern fame. In 2003, he enraged and terrified fellow students, professors, and administrators at NYU, where he studied film. We know this because he attached much of the NYU email correspondence to his 2014 pro se federal civil rights complaint against everyone he could remember from NYU ten years before. Eng's version of events is not particularly exculpatory: he claims he was mistreated for refusing to work with "Negroes," for using racial epithets, and for proclaiming that he worships Hitler. He also claims to be the victim of anti-Asian racism, but his complaint is full of patently paranoid, bizarre conclusions, and hints at how terrifying he could be to others:

For the past 3769 days, I have wondered about what it would feel like to exact my revenge on this cowardly woman. I will never recover from the damage she and her ethnic group have inflicted on me, and the pain I feel every day because of cravens like her.

The NYU emails he attaches suggest what it was like for the people around him. "I want to go on record that keeping Kenneth could have serious repercussions," wrote one administrator. "It is my belief that Kenneth poses a real threat to the [NYU] community and has the capacity to harm or kill someone," said another. One professor told of getting an insulting, threatening call at home from Eng; another told of two students "so terrified" that they locked the classroom door after Eng left after a heated dispute. This was not always the case: one professor found him "intelligent, creative, talented, and fun to have as part of our class." But expressions of concern soon outweighed these positive reports. Eng was erratic, confrontational, sometimes incoherent, floridly racist, threatening, and generally a nightmare to those around him.

In 2004, after a confrontation in a NYU counseling session, the NYPD detained him and transported him to Bellevue Hospital, forcibly medicated him, and confined him for two weeks. We know this because in 2006 he convinced attorneys to file a civil rights lawsuit on his behalf against New York authorities. Eng dropped the suit based on an undisclosed settlement in 2007. That is the last time, as far as I can tell, that lawyers sued on his behalf; his many subsequent lawsuits are all pro se. But it was not the only time he was confined at Bellevue; he was committed again in 2009. He complains of that confinement in a 2014 pro se civil rights complaint replete with assertions that he was mistreated because he is Asian, because of his racial views, and because he was confined with African-Americans.

A wired article on Eng, typical of the tone of coverage of him.

We all knew perfectly well in 2007 that Kenneth Eng was crazy. But we pointed and laughed anyway.

I knew. I had no excuse not to know. Looking back at forum comments (it was before the time of this now-venerable blog), I see that I referred to him as crazy. That did not leaven my ridicule.

Eng, who was clearly not successfully treated by Bellevue, somehow won a columnist position with AsianWeek. This is consistent with the accounts of many who said he could be brilliant, articulate, and dedicated. He wrote his loathsome and bigoted column, and the paper made the inexcusable decision to publish it. Spectacle followed. Eng doubled down again and again, affirming his racism and proclaiming himself an "Asian supremacist." Journalists and bloggers gleefully dug up his science fiction and his imperious communications promoting it.

The coverage does not age well in light of what we know about Eng's schizophrenia. We knew that he was crazy, but only envisioned him as crazy in an entertaining way. "Deep Inside Kenneth Eng's Brain With His Unfinished Screenplay," teased Wired, promising an "obscure literary treat," and mocking his writing at length. The same author collected what she called "gossip" from NYU and confessed herself "fascinated" with Eng's "bizarre career," concluding "Yup, Eng truly is 'God.' Too bad he gets called names when he leaves the house once a month. Now you too can read his work." Eng later harassed the author, who penned a follow-up telling him he should "chill out." Gawker called him a "wacky Asian racist" in a column detailing his second arrest for bizarre threats. Gawker — which had a Kenneth Eng tag — maintained that tone throughout 2007. "Remember Kenneth Eng of 'Why I Hate Blacks' fame? He sure hopes you do" chortled Gawker when Eng gave an interview saying he thought and hoped he had inspired the massacre at Virginia Tech.

Fox News invited Eng on television to explain himself. The resulting interview is, in retrospect, sick and excruciating.

A few months later, Eng hit the news again when Village Voice published an interview in which he celebrated the Virginia Tech massacre and, decrying racism against Asians, proclaimed he would have done the same thing at NYU if he could have afforded a gun. The Village Voice's tone is no longer quite so jolly, but still strikes me as oddly detached. Eng got more publicity when he was arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced to therapy for threatening a neighboring family with a hammer. This news did not notably change the tone of coverage of Eng. Angry Asian Man (which, as a parent of Asian-American kids, I find to be an indispensable source of information about Asian-American struggles with racism, culture, and advocacy) reported on Eng's new legal troubles rather lightly, referring to him as "everyone's favorite "Asian Supremacist'" "the dragon master," and "krazy-ass Kenny."

But someone was genuinely concerned about Eng's deterioration — his family, and oddly, the federal criminal justice system.

The caption to the federal criminal complaint against Eng.

"Kenneth Eng Threatened A 'White Pussy' With Violence," the Village Voice leered when federal officials took him into custody after his state conviction. The feds — through the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York — prosecuted Eng for an incident years before during his troubles at NYU. The affidavit in support of the federal criminal complaint tells the tale: in 2004 Eng got into a confrontation with another student at NYU who objected to Eng derisively calling another classmate a "Negro," Eng spat in the classmate's face and called him a "white pussy," and in 2005 Eng called the classmate and jeered at him "remember me? I'm the one who spit at you." This call formed the basis of a felony charge of threats through interstate communication.

Two things are clear from the complaint. First, the feds were deeply concerned about Eng. The phone call is an extremely marginal basis for a charge, as they would soon see. And the complaint has information about Eng's Virginia Tech rant, even though that happened years after the charged offense. In looking at the record, it's clear that the feds, Eng's parents, Eng's lawyers, Eng's doctors, and an extremely cooperative federal court were using the prosecution as an instrument to compel Eng to submit to ongoing treatment. Eng's parents had the resources to post a $500,000 bail in one of his state cases and to hire a series of lawyers and psychiatrists, and the government's resources, of course, are formidable. The record reveals six years of everyone involved going to extraordinary lengths to make Eng get treatment, to deal with his relapses and outbursts, and to help him.

But it was not enough.

The first problem, oddly, was legal. Eng fairly rapidly agreed to plead guilty to the charge in exchange for five years probation. But the court, after very thoughtful analysis, rejected the plea, finding that it lacked a factual basis because the mocking call was not a "true threat" and therefore not a violation of the statute. True threats, as Popehat readers know, are threats that are intended, and reasonably interpreted, to be expressions of genuine intent to do harm. Here, Eng called his victim and made fun of him for having previously spit on him. The judge decided, not unreasonably, that nothing about that was a threat of future harm.

At this point, in a standard scenario, the government would have appealed the determination or the defense would have tried to convince the government or the court to dismiss the charges. This was not a standard scenario. Eng eventually agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of interfering with someone's right to education through intimidation. The goal remained the same — his family, his lawyers, his doctors, and the government wanted him to get a sentence of probation with mandatory treatment. When the probation office recommended jail time, the government argued vociferously against it, supported by Eng's own lawyer's bleak assessment of his illness. Let me assure you as a federal criminal defense attorney that this is not a typical course of events.

Eng got his probation and his mandatory treatment. But the next five years were fraught with the sort of repeated problems we should expect with an intractable mental illness. Eng fell in and out of treatment, he was repeatedly cited for probation violations. He was arrested and prosecuted by New York authorities for harassment and stalking, which led to more federal probation violations. The attorneys, doctors, and the judge made extraordinary efforts to avoid prolonged incarceration and to continue treatment — the judge held multiple hearings with physician testimony.

Everyone did everything they could.

It was not enough. In wealthiest country in the history of the world, a country with the power of an angry god, with weight of doting affluent parents and lawyers and doctors and an utterly out-of-character criminal justice system, it was not enough. This is, perhaps, the most grim part of the story, grimmer even than our indifference and casual cruelty. If Kenneth Eng can't be helped successfully, what's the hope for the millions out there in worse circumstances, some of them potentially violent? Kenneth Eng didn't slip through the cracks. He got support that, if you described it in a story, I would dismiss as fanciful. What about people without those resources and without that support?

Kenneth Eng's federal probation ended in 2013. We can trace his life for a while thereafter through his campaign of federal lawsuits. He filed two dozen, all pro se, in 2013 and 2014 in federal court in New York. He sued people for posting his books online, and he sued people for using ideas he claimed he invented, like space dragons or the character name "Terrordactyl" and the concept of a sentient universe. It would be easy to laugh at them, as we often laugh at crazy lawsuits, as we laughed at his bizarre racist rants. You'd need a heart of stone not to laugh at Eng v. Philosoraptor. He did, in fact, get a little coverage of these intellectual property suits. There was no coverage of his other suits — the ones claiming racial discrimination, the ones claiming he was discriminated against because he was a racist, the ones engaging in virulent racism and using racial epithets, the ones relitigating his treatment at NYU and Bellevue and Rikers. His vexatious litigation reveals bits of his out-of-court life in 2014. The suits describe his unsuccessful efforts to maintain work in the face of his inability to interact with others, his public confrontations, his repeated brushes with law enforcement, his subsistence on disability and unemployment payments. The quality of his filings steadily degraded, varying from meritless but coherent and neatly typed copyright claims to enraged, barely legible scrawls incorporating racial epithets into the case captions. Courts dismissed all of the suits, usually by refusing to let him file them without filing fees.

When I was a prosecutor, we used to get lawsuits and motions from prisoners. They stank of cigarette smoke, a stink that penetrated the plain manila envelopes containing them. Eng's lawsuits stink of untreated madness. I might ordinarily mock them. I've mocked ones like them before. It's harder after reading about who he was, who he is.

Towards the end of 2014, with the last of his lawsuits dismissed, Kenneth Eng dropped from sight. I can't find more references to him. I do not have the heart to go beyond the web and research whether he is confined, whether he continues to relapse without notice, whether he's even alive. Maybe he's even better. Maybe.

Why are we the way we are? Is Kenneth Eng a schizophrenic whose illness finds expression through florid racism? Or is he a racist asshole who is also schizophrenic? It makes little difference to the people he abused or threatened or assaulted, the people terrified that he would go on a violent spree, or the people repulsed to see the seemingly mainstream AsianWeek publish his racist screed. It is right and fit that we should support those people and acknowledge how they felt, whatever Eng's motives were. It is appropriate to protect them. But how should we treat Kenneth Eng? Not, I think, with carefree laughter.

Kenneth Eng is on the other side of viral now, and it's hard to see him there. But we can still see ourselves, and the view is not always pleasant.

Copyright 2017 by the named Popehat author. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8247012 https://www.popehat.com/2018/02/25/kenneth-eng-is-on-the-other-side-of-viral-now/ via http://www.rssmix.com/