#when I feel less like a hibernating animal and more like a person again

[lsdoomed]

mallonia au

[meldingintheunderdark]

Halsin being so aroused he transforms spontaneously into a cave bear is very sweet. His shame and annoyance because of his lack of control... I like to think his wildshape is his oldest coping mechanism.

We know the Silverboughs are all dead because of a combination of illness and misfortune, therefore Halsin faced death and grief early in life. I wonder if his wildshape helped him to grieve his family after he joined the druids. Even as a cub/young male, he was already stronger and bigger than his wood elf self. Fur and fat, claws and fangs, he was at long last able to defend himself, even against the hardships of life. He discovered a way to deal with his feelings thanks to the most primal side of his personality. Maybe it helped to make things simpler. His feelings seemed less daunting. Some animals grieve too. Perhaps living among beasts as a bear allowed him to experience tragic deaths all over again, the harshness and unpredictability of nature as well as its beauty, until he could grieve and find joy once more.

In other words, his wildshape was often used to process intense emotions, hence its overwhelming presence when he’s enraged... or extremely close to the elven equivalent of a rut. Despite the passing years, the habit stayed as an adult. Halsin also mentions hibernating. Perhaps these periods were somewhat akin to “depression naps”, but excessively longer. After all he was the sole surviving Silverbough and one of the rare survivors of the shadow curse.

That’s why the scene is endearing. Such an ancient, childish habit Halsin was utterly unable or unwilling to ditch. His oldest coping mechanism exposed out of the blue to his first lover in a long while. So embarrassing. When the PC accepts and even desires his wildshape, it shouldn’t be reduced to a comical moment. Yes, the traumatized squirrel is funny, fucking a wildshape is a risqué kink, but come on. His lover wants him as he is, imperfections and all, from the wounded kid to the wounded adult. The PC embraces Halsin whole, unconditionally.

Sszazar won't understand how essential this wildshape is to Halsin at first, no time to muse over this when he's going to get railed by his cave bear of a lover, however he will sense it isn't merely about arousal. It's the uncontrollable and purest expression of Halsin's vulnerability.

[lilacxquartz]

TO SAVE A BROKEN SOUL • suguru geto x cursed spirit fem!reader

ao3 • masterlist • mdni < previous chapter • next chapter >>

summary: after much too long in confinement without feeding, you go stir crazy and suguru gets a reminder of what you truly are.

trigger warnings: death, non-con, blood, feeding, violence

Chapter 4: Like Clay

‘Divine Intervention’ is what Suguru Geto called your role in the cult; on occasion, you would be called to demonstrate his capabilities of something that could closely resemble a god—or at least a person blessed—chosen, perhaps.

Although, something strange continued to stir within him, as though he was overcome with a slew of odd feelings that he quite didn’t like whenever he beckoned for something negative to occur.

Whenever he had to watch you feed.

After a while, Suguru made an internal decision to bring you out less and less, essentially confining you to the manipulated pocket in the bedroom instead. There would be times that he didn’t visit you, leaving you to hibernate for perhaps longer than he had intended to do so.

He was a busy man, after all. Why should he worry, if you were capable of being dormant?

Initially, Suguru tried to keep away from you to lessen whatever strange feeling was boiling away from within him, but even as he stayed away, that same sort of carnal hunger continued to stir all the same. He would be gone for days, only returning every once in a while to inspect your form as if almost by routine; treating your statued presence as something close to a shrine.

It wasn’t that you were truly dormant though.

You were hungry, actually.

Maybe even starved.

Oh, you maybe even wanted to consume him just as a means to punish him.

The next time he visited you would have mean almost a full week with no feeding and after such a long break, you couldn’t quite control yourself as well as before.

Lurching forward as soon as he crossed the barrier, you toppled him down with a feral strength that could have matched his own. He found himself quickly pinned down against the floor, trying to wrangle you off of him before you could do any significant damage.

As Suguru locked his own eyes with yours, he managed to contain your outburst, but only just.

Pulling back as he pushed his body away from the manipulated space, he took a deep breath before speaking, “What the hell was that?”

“I’m hungry,” you replied without even skipping a beat. Although, you quickly tried to compose yourself, adopting a more humane tone. Something about him saying that you were capable of mirroring humans stood out to you, leaving you wondering if you could use that to gain sympathy from him. “I usually go hunting in the woods… but I can’t do that right now.”

Nodding, he tried his best to understand you better. “What did you eat before?”

“Wild animals,” you replied.

“And because of ‘Divine Intervention’, I take it that I’ve given you a taste for humans now?” he considered.

You resigned with a deep exhale, almost cautious to admit it. “…Yes.”

Suguru hummed as he thought of a solution, momentarily dulling the manipulation before leading you outside. There was a sort of suburb not too far from the temple, where mostly non-sorcerers resided. He had a dark idea form in his mind as he commuted to it, knocking on the door to a random unsuspecting house.

When an old man answered, he walked you both inside and closed the door. He grimaced slightly, taking in the scent of the house, cursing internally to himself that he had forgotten his disinfectant.

“Go ahead,” he murmured towards you, watching as you twitched, fully understanding what he was implying.

The hunger didn’t wait to kick in that time as you soon lunged towards the man, hearing his pained screams and cries as you tore through his flesh. Your eyes rolled back with almost extract coursing through your bloodstream before the high finally wore off and you had a moment longer to process exactly what he had you do.

Feeling once again disgusted with yourself—as well as him—for enabling such a thing, you leaned against a wall while Suguru dropped the corpse of the man he was otherwise holding in place for you, the body making a dull thudding noise as it hit the floor.

Something new came into his mind, something uninvited that once again tormented him. But he was starting to realise that whenever he watched you feed on others, that he could almost feel something close to… jealousy?

The walk back to his chambers was in complete silence as you resigned to the adjacent en-suite he walked you back into, standing perfectly still and blank eyed as he blotted blood off of your skin.

“Stay still,” he murmured, his eyes determined and locked in with intense focus, keen to disinfect and clean off the areas that he was certain that you touched the man with.

Suguru unfortunately now understood his feelings a little better; it was a familiar feeling, to feel lust. To feel a crush, even.

But he never imagined that it would be with something quite like you.

~~~

Returning you into the pocket of space, he had already concluded earlier today that he didn’t want you to perform ‘Divine Intervention’ anymore. There was a reason to stop with that anyway, as thinning the herd too often meant that there would soon be no sheep left to follow.

“You don’t have to do it anymore,” he murmured, seeming certain of something, “divine intervention, I mean.”

“Are you letting me go?” you asked.

However he shook his head instead.

Some unease played into your senses next, leaving you feeling unsure. “Killing me…?”

He shook his head again, instead stepping forward into the pocket, walking you back up against the wall to stare at you up close, using his fingertips to trace over your skin—his touch almost soft—yet somehow taunting, as though carrying a threat behind it.

It felt dangerous to let him touch you like that.

He focused on your eyes next, trying to convince himself one last time that his feelings were merely diluted. If cursed spirits were the manifestations of human negativity, then how was it that you could exist as something in between?

You didn’t seem negative, but you also didn’t seem positive.

You simply just were.

With this thought, he took a step back and led you out of the space again, gently sitting you down onto the bed. As long as he willingly held onto you, then you could pass through the pocket as needed.

Looking over you, Suguru crouched down ever so slightly as he started to undress you. His eyes intently scanning your body as he at long last reunited with the sight of what drew him in initially. Unable to take his eyes off of your bare form—he couldn’t help but stare longingly at the cursed marks once again—them to tattooed lingerie on marbled flesh.

He followed the blotches of organic ink with his eyes before standing up again, not speaking a single word. He hovered over you as he quietly got himself undressed, seeming tense the entire time while doing so, not quite believing what he was about to do.

(And who—or even—what with.)

Although, something did manage to bother him once again.

“You’re not going to try and stop me?” he asked, barely anticipating your reaction.

“I don’t want to do this,” you admitted, “but that doesn’t make a difference to you, does it?”

Suguru narrowed his eyes as he hovered over you, gently pushing your back against the bed. “Then tell me you want me to stop.”

“Why?” you asked, confused as to what he really wanted from you.

“Just try to,” he almost pleaded with a strained whisper, desperate for you to appear if only the slightest bit human in his eyes. Or not to, so that he could justify what he was about to surrender to.

Remembering the importance of emotion for humans, you tried to do so.

“Please stop,” you said that time, taking on a concerned tone. “I don’t want to do this.”

“Tell me to stop again,” he murmured again, positioning the tip of his cock against your entrance, his hands pushing apart at your legs.

“Stop,” you repeated, “I really don’t want this—“

“—keep begging me,” he encouraged, almost, spitting over his tip to further lubricate his entry into your cunt. He gasped as he slipped himself inside, feeling your firm yet soft walls take him in.

“Y-you’re hurting me,” you continued to say, adding more desperation into your tone, giving into the humanity you didn’t know you had, “please.”

However, Suguru had no plans to stop from the beginning. None at all. He pushed himself into you, shuddering at just how tight you felt clenched around his shaft, relishing the pleasure he felt from you taking him in.

You felt so unreal to him, as if perfectly sculpted to fit him, as if you were made for him and him alone.

“Try to fight me off,” he grunted, rutting into your cunt at unforgiving pace, unable to physically part his flesh from yours. His eyes were wide and manic—his expression almost bordering feverish—desperately consumed by how much he could lose himself in you, mesmerised by your form. His fingers continued to press into you, marring prickled crescents from his nails into your skin like bruising clay; marking you with fingerprinted petals that stained your flesh.

You pushed at him, but the position he had you locked in felt compromising and you couldn’t do a single thing. His chest pressed against yours, trapping you beneath him—his body soon produced sweat that rolled against your form—beads of it rolling off of your body and staining the mattress instead. He pounded into you instead, his hands roaming around your body like a sabotaging sculptor daring to claim you as his own, his hands intent to remodel you as his.

Suguru then presented you with his forearm, pressing hit right against your lips as he positioned himself even more over you. His eyes trained on your teeth, feeling confused as to why you were resisting and not feeding on him.

“I can handle it,” he challenged, seeing the hunger that was now familiar to him forming in your eyes. A beautiful hint of yellow that swirled around in the void, like a star lost deep in space.

You however continued to resist, turning your nose away and fixating your gaze onto the ceiling instead. Despite what he was doing to you and how much he seemed to be enjoying it—it felt like a trap to accept.

Reworking his approach, he withdrew his arm slightly. “How much do you need to take when you feed?”

“Not a lot,” you curtly replied, still feeling some hunger leftover from before. Blood was something you savoured much more than flesh, but your instincts could seldom be controlled when you fed.

“You’re hungry right now,” he stated, momentarily anchoring down his arm to steady himself, pushing harder to impale you with his spearing cock. “I can tell that you are,” he added, making sure to press himself harder into you, “so feed off of me. I can take it.”

Suguru melted over you, positioning his forearm once again over your mouth in an almost submissive and surrendering display, finding that the second time that he did so, you couldn’t help but give in. He grunted as he seethed, feeling your teeth grind into his now bleeding flesh—his body tightened—his inner instincts recoiling, his emotions tense, yet as he watched you feed, his eyes couldn’t help but soften.

As though it was something that was freshly awoken, his movement against your sore cunt became rougher, harder, almost violent as his own pleasure quickly built to an almost dizzying state. It was a feeling that was beyond his own understanding, but as he finally tore his arm away from you—before you completely drained him—he couldn’t help but give into his clearly sick obsession.

With an almost breathless grunt, still pounding into you, his tone of voice became aggressively possessive, “I’ll be the one to satisfy your cravings from now on, just as you’ll satisfy mine,” he panted, his expression momentarily grimacing at the bite marks. Undeterred, he rammed himself against you with more vigour, his release finally closing in at long, long last.

Picking up the pace a final time, he whined an almost pained guttural moan as he finally relaxed against you, the final thrust being just enough to milk him completely.

He fell limp over you, moulding himself against you, leaving traces of him behind and sculpting you into something sickening, maybe even something darkly beautiful, but ultimately, his and his alone.

Suguru shuddered as he felt himself empty, surrendering to your body that he tried to seek comfort from and yet found none from. He remained still confused, but almost devastated otherwise that you still didn’t seem to truly oppose him. That you didn’t cry from the pain nor try to fight him off anymore, despite claiming to not want this just moments before.

Your eyes and the now lacking light within them only continued to upset him, yet he could have sworn that he felt so seen in such a delicate moment.

So seen for who he truly was.

So, who really was the real monster here?

(Or rather, who was really a prisoner of who?)

~~~

this is part 2 of lilac’s bite sized yandere nightmares

[bweeeb]

🎄Christmas collection

PASSING LONELINESS

THEODORE NOTT X READER

Part 2 of loneliness

Warnings: Angst, maybe too much drama, maybe bad writing ( but give me a break because English is not my first language. )

Summary: Theodore returns to the castle and finds a huge mess of tears from his girl on the freezing couch in the common room.

The castle remained quiet, something that wouldn't be the case if Theodore were there with her. Theo raced up the stairs, eager to reach the Slytherin common room as quickly as possible. He didn't want to have gone home without her, he didn't want to have left her without saying goodbye and letting her simply go home alone. Theo didn't want to have spent this Christmas Eve with his father who had finished a bottle of whiskey in less than an hour and gone to bed without even saying goodbye. He regretted how he had behaved in their relationship and kept repeating to himself that she deserved better, that he wasn't worthy of her love, and much less that she should be there for him after such a fucked up year for her.

With a cigarette between his lips, Theodore blew out the smoke and scanned the common room, checking to see if anyone would give him trouble. Another drag on his cigarette and the anxiety didn't dissipate from his chest. In the middle of the week he had sent a letter to the girl but never got a reply, he knew he should maybe go to her house but if she hadn't given him an answer it was because maybe she didn't want to see him during the most important holiday of the year for her.

Throwing himself onto a sofa at the beginning of the common room, Nott's gaze was lost in the darkness of the room and only when he noticed the dim, red embers in one of the fireplaces closest to the only windows there, did he frown and decide to get up, try to grab some of the recently extinguished heat and maybe even light the fireplace again, it was one of the coldest years in five years, it wouldn't be a bad idea to warm up a bit, he thought.

His feet took him to the sofa that was positioned in front of the fire and his eyes fell suddenly and surprisingly on the huddled body of the most important person in his life, shivering in her sleep, with fresh tears that hadn't dried on her cheeks and nose, she had a pout forming on her mouth and the way she hugged herself gave the feeling that she was trying to push something away from herself. Maybe loneliness.

Theodore didn't understand why she was there, she still had a house, a comfortable bed with all her stuffed animals that he recognized she hugged when she came home on holidays, a blanket made of so many cottons that warmed her to places where it wasn't possible to warm up even with a heater, she had soft pajamas with hoods that made her look like a hibernating polar bear, she had feather and cotton pillows and there she was, on a hard leather sofa, without any pillow on her head, hugging herself while shaking all her bones to keep warm in the Slytherin common room.

Theodore stood there for about five minutes, watching her with confusion in his eyes, she had never seemed to be in so much pain as at that moment, he didn't like it, she was supposed to be comfortable and well on her favorite night of the year. Nott walked around the sofa and crouched beside her, removing a hair that had fallen on her face and stuck to her wet tears.

His thumb gently passed over her cheek, wiping away what was wet and that made his girl open her eyes startled.

— What are you doing, Amore. Why are you here?

Theo asked in a whisper and she raised her torso from the sofa and leaned on her left arm as she looked at Theo with other tears starting to appear in her eyes.

— Where should I go?

She asked so softly, afraid that her voice would fail more than she would have liked. Theo could crumble just from the lost look she had inside her, she wasn't like that. He was, not her.

— Home, you should be home, in your bed, with your pillows and comfortable blankets.

His voice was so soft that she felt more like collapsing right there. Her eyes overflowed and a lump formed in her throat, she was on the edge of the cliff.

— But there's no one there.

She shook her head.

— My house isn't my house if there's no one I love there.

She denied, sniffing as her tears began to pour from her eyes.

Theodore hated himself, hated himself for being so stupid, for letting his pride coerce him once again.

Nott pulled her towards him and cradled her in his chest, she didn't fight his touch or try to move away like he thought she would, she wanted him there.

— I'm so sorry for not being here. I'm so sorry.

He said against her hair as she sobbed into his chest, whining that she hated it all until her head shot up quickly, eyes swollen, cheeks flushed and despair imminent in her expression.

— Theo. I swear to you, I would never trade you for anyone in this damn castle. Please believe me.

She said through tears and continued to tremble.

— I can't lose you too.

Her crying increased and Theodore pulled her closer. He wanted to warm her, he wanted to give her affection, he wanted to take that pain away from her and kill anyone who made her cry again.

— You'll never lose me Y/n Y/l/n. Do you understand me? Fuck, you're the love of my life, if I let you slip through my fingers I'll go crazy.

Theodore put both his hands on each of her cheeks and rested their foreheads together so that he allowed a tear to fall there. He felt her small thumb pass over his cheek and there she was with eyes full of tears.

— You're crying.

She sniffed smiling.

— You never cry.

— Your pains are mine too, bella. I won't leave you alone anymore. I promise you.

He said placing a kiss on her lips and hugging her as if his life depended on it. And it kind of did.

— Let's make your Christmas as good as they used to be.

___________________________________________

I hope you enjoyed this and I wanted to say that requests are open, talk to me!

[sarcasticsciencefictionwriter]

Trick or treat!

Why, hello, the first trick-or-treater my door! Come in and have your treat, a piece of The Abnormal X-File that I have pried from hibernation to drop into your bucket tonight.

🍬🍭🍫🍬🍭🍫🍬🍭🍫🍬🍭🍫🍬🍭🍫🍬🍭🍫🍬🍭🍫🍬

"Good morning, Agent Scully. Agent Mulder." Declan's accent wasn't like Dr. Magnus and Dr. Watson's. It was more rough, less refined, at least in Scully's opinion. "Here's your breakfast. Dr. Magnus wanted me to tell you that she'll be with you shortly."

Declan set the tray on the table beside Mulder's bed.

"Thank you." Scully said.

Declan nodded. "You're welcome."

"Thanks." Mulder added. He was staring at Declan a little intently. If they had been close enough, Scully would have kicked his leg.

Declan nodded to them and left. Once he was gone, Scully turned to Mulder.

"What?" Mulder asked.

"Why were you staring at him like that?"

Mulder didn't answer, turning to the tray. Scully folded her arms over her chest.

"You were trying to see if he's…..weird, aren't you?" she asked.

"Maybe a little."

"He's not a patient, Mulder."

"Then what is he?"

"As far as I understand, he's Dr. Watson's protege. Or second-in-command. I'm not sure."

"Hmm."

They sat together to eat breakfast. It was a better breakfast than Scully had had in months, which she thought was a little sad. Or just a good thing about the Sanctuary. They certainly seemed to take good care of their 'guests'.

Dr. Magnus turned up after they were done, Mulder dubiously eyeing the tea that had accompanied the meal. It smelled very flowery and Scully couldn't identify what it was. "Good morning, Agents." Dr. Magnus said, scaring them both. "I trust you both had a good night?"

"Very well, thank you." Scully said. "Yes, thank you." Mulder echoed, surprising Scully a little by not jumping straight into his questions.

Dr. Magnus certainly looked more presentable and put together than Scully felt. In contrast to last night's leather and dark jeans, she was wearing a dark blue blouse and cream colored skirt, brunette hair loose, save for the strands around her face, which were pulled back with a clip. She wore an open lab coat easily and well. Tailored to fit her, it fit better than any lab coat Scully had ever worn, reminding her again she was wearing yesterday's clothing, which had blood and dirt on them and had brushed her hair with her fingers.

"I feel confident that I can discharge you this morning, Agent Mulder."

Scully could feel Mulder's disappointment without even looking at him.

"I was actually wondering if I might….if you might be willing to show me what you showed Scully last night. And answer some of my questions." Mulder had stood up and taken a step forward.

Dr. Magnus looked at Mulder with a slightly hard expression. She was a tall woman, able to look Mulder in the eye easily enough, and her height added to the imposing air around her. Scully felt that Mulder was about to bite off more than he could chew.

"Agent Mulder, you have done nothing to make me wish to show you any of my patients. Certainly none of my files. As for your questions, I imagine that they run along the same line as last time?"

Mulder clearly wasn't fazed by this. Scully wondered if that was bravery or stupidity. Probably a little bit of both, if she knew Mulder.

"Dr. Magnus, you can deny everything all you want. But I do have evidence of what it is you're denying. You haven't managed to erase your full impact on people or history. I saw those things last night--the animals you call tanuki. I believe Scully when she says that you have a pterodactyl. I understand that you want to protect the people under your care. I don't want to harm them or go telling everyone in the world about them. To me, it would confirm a personal truth. Tell me that I'm not crazy for believing."

Mulder was being surprisingly honest and Scully had a feeling that Dr. Magnus knew that. The woman seemed to size Mulder up.

"I can not tell you that aliens exist, Agent Mulder. Frankly, I don't believe that they do and if they did, I would like to think that any advanced race would have much better things to do than abduct humans for the simple means of experimenting on them."

Scully saw the gleam in Mulder's eye, surprised that he wasn't annoyed by the denial of the beings he had spent his whole life pursuing.

"You say humans as if you're not one of us." he said.

"Let us just say that I do not feel human and have not, for the majority of my life. But I will tell you this--extraordinary beings do exist, Agent, and I have made it my life's mission to protect them. The definition of how they are extraordinary is subjective. You say alien--I say nature creating something strange and beautiful that humans, sadly, fear and hate more often than not."

"So everything that can't be explained or every disorder or defect is nature just playing games with the human race?"

"Evolution has not simply stopped."

Scully understood Dr. Magnus's side of this debate, even though the woman was not giving Mulder anything more than she already had. She was dressing up the words more, but it came down to the same thing she had said when they first met. Mulder, however, looked thrilled with the woman's views.

"Doctor, I mean no disrespect. But you are avoiding my questions." Mulder said.

"Ask any you like, then. I cannot guarantee an answer and I will throw you out of my house if I see fit."

"Fair enough."

"Oh boy." Scully murmured.

But before Mulder could ask, Dr. Magnus gestured them to come with her. They followed her.

"Was your father Gregory Magnus?" Mulder asked.

"That was my father's name, yes."

Mulder glanced at Scully, clearly thinking the phrasing meant something. Scully felt like she was walking alongside two psychos, one of whom was playing the game much better than the other.

[seventeendeer]

I still haven't gotten into rain world, I played it for an hour or so but it was a bit too slow paced to really grab me at the time. I really wanted to like it but I haven't touched it since. can you convince me?

I will convince you AND anyone else reading this who might be interested in rain world !! >:3c or at least try to lol

quick summary for anyone unfamiliar: Rain World is an indie sidescroller where you play as a little animal trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. the player characters, 'slugcats', must eat enough food during the short dry seasons to be able to hibernate through the deadly torrential rain seasons - without getting eaten by bigger animals. as you venture deeper into the game, you learn more about the long-gone civilization whose ruins you're now traversing.

reasons to play Rain World and stick with it despite the frankly harrowing difficulty:

the atmosphere! the nature-is-reclaiming-but-boy-is-it-harsh atmosphere is my personal favorite part of the game. the world only becomes stranger the further you delve into the game. old ruins, old worlds, old religions, old mistakes, old ghosts ... all in a world that feels lush and new and alive despite.

music is used sparingly, but it's gorgeous when it's there, especially during cutscenes

speaking of which, the cutscenes are essentially beautiful digitally painted slideshows. again, full of atmosphere and feeling

the game itself has a deliberately coarse, almost brutalist look, which I think fits the vibe extremely well. unusually for these types of games, all character animation is generated in real time, with each part of a character's body being affected by physics. this creates some very fluid, realistic animation and some ... frankly very janky gameplay, that nonetheless feels very satisfying when you get the hang of it. the learning curve is steep, but once you get really good at movement, you can zoom around the map at much-higher speed!

it may not look like it on the surface, but this game got crazy good AI. it's more or less a fully functioning, procedurally generated ecosystem. every individual enemy lives its own life, including off-screen. each type of enemy has its own unique personality (members of sapient species even have unique personalities generated for each individual!), and almost every being in the game is programmed to try to feed and find shelter before the rain returns, just like the player. the vast majority of beings in the game also develop a relationship to the player that changes depending on how you behave around them - you can actually tame enemy animals and make friends with sapient species! or you can kill enough of a species to destabilize the ecosystem, causing invasive species to appear, among other things. the AI is super intricate and complex, and I highly recommend looking up how it works, just so you can fully understand what you're experiencing in-game. a lot of things that seem random are decidedly not. it's deeply fascinating!!

while it's light on story and there's very little dialogue, what is there is strange, abstract and very poignant. it's a "glass half full" type of story at best, but the almost ... tender(?) way the bleak story is handled really made it stick with me personally. I highly recommend seeing the story through, if nothing else by watching someone else's playthrough. it goes some truly mysterious places that I at least in no way predicted.

as much as I personally love this game, I do also have to disclaim that it's not ... perfect. it's a niche game (I think?) for a reason. the fans love it for the same reasons critics hate it - it's hard, it's weird, it consciously refuses to conform to a lot of the traditional principles of what makes a "good game", and its near-total lack of in-game tutorials makes it almost hostile to new players. it frequently leaps back and forth between "hard, but worth it" and "I will give you 2 dollars if you climb that telephone pole 47 times!" type difficulty, and all you can really do to combat it is to pick and choose which challenges are enjoyable to you and which to leave alone.

I personally gave up on the hard mode campaign completely because I wasn't having fun - the standard campaign was already difficult for me. I also looked up a lot of the lore that is technically available in-game because I found the way to obtain it to be a boring grind at my current skill level.

Rain World is difficult and not in a balanced, fair way, like Dark Souls or Hollow Knight. it will fuck you over at the drop of a hat, for no reason, with no way to recover. it will render the last two hours of gameplay moot if you screw up in the last five minutes. it is not always, strictly speaking, a "well-designed game."

but it is a beautiful game, an immersive game, brimming with emotion right under the steely surface, and if you enjoy simply being in the world and you want to learn more about it, I highly recommend sticking with it in whatever capacity is fun for you.

and then look up all the lore you missed by being a rational person + watch some video essays on youtube about how that insane AI works because understanding what's going under the hood of this game is going to make the slow-paced parts SO much more exciting

everyone who likes fucked up animal stories and getting their shit dismantled by RNG ad nauseum go play rain world right NOW it's FANTASTIC and I LOVE IT SO MUCHH IT'S SO SPECIAL DESPITE THE. THE ALL THAT. THE PAIN

[antiloreolympus]

7 Anti LO Asks

1. Do you know what really gets my blood boiling about this comic? Persephone and Demeter's relationship.

In the myths, Demeter and Persephone loved each other more than anything. Their reunion is so important - it marked the coming of spring and growth. A whole cult was dedicated to this for crying out loud. Yes, the myths were far from perfect, but the Persephone and Demeter myth showed the strength of a loving mother-daughter relationship with Demeter searching endlessly to find her child that was ripped away and had her innocence forcibly taken.

Now, RS is not the only author to make Demeter this over-bearing mother type in order to put more positivity onto the Hades-Persephone relationship. However, RS takes this trend to a whole new level - to the point where I would even consider it misogyny.

How is it, she takes this beautiful mother-daughter relationship and makes it out to be an abusive and controlling one, and then takes the Hades-Persephone relationship from a forceful one to a loving, perfect relationship with no problems? How is it ok to ruin one relationship to elevate another?

I understand that many versions of the myth try to downplay Hades' actions, and even make it so Persephone actually falls in love with him and there is no rape. But it doesn't change that this relationship was problematic, and meant to represent the loss of innocence.

Then fans have the gall to claim this comic is feminist and then claim on top of that that Demeter and Persephone's relationship was the same in the myth? These fans clearly don't know the myths, and neither does RS.

Making Hades a good person is fine. Changing it up a bit to make Persephone's loss of innocence something else is also fine. But ruining Demeter and Persephone's relationship? Especially when Persephone has to spend half the year with her? So horrible. 

2. im sorry, but rachel cant introduce KRONOS coming back and then dropping it for several episodes to focus on a stake-less trail and persephone not knowing what lingerie to seduce hades in. like thats too much of an earth shaking development and huge stake plot point to just ignore for months to focus instead on something as minor as hxp's relationship, which only points out a huge flaw: why is hxp's relationship so minor in this? isnt the whole point supposed to be about them?

3. I think LO completely dropped the ball over Hades’ characterization. 

From the first ep I thought ok, this is good, we have some bones to see he’s not that lucky in love and is just tired and lonely, and while ignoring the creepy actions towards Persephone, I thought ok, Artemis hates him, Hestia hates, even Ares hates him, maybe once Persephone finally sees the underworld and probably gets to know him it’ll be a clever twist and they’ll be proven wrong. The underworld will turn out to be fair and just, the citizens will love Hades, he’ll be revealed to be a good leader and king and not like his brothers, it’ll be like everyone saying Hades of myth isn’t actually that bad, and it’ll help reinforce why this sweet and bubbly Persephone wants him, she sees the real him, not the mean rumors and assumptions, this is perfect.

And then it just didn’t happen. The exact opposite happened, actually.

We’re shown the LO underworld is cruel and unjust, where the poor dead are forced into slavery and Hades created a harsh class divide with him and him only on top, the citizens hate him, the underworld gods don’t trust him and openly seem ok if he’s taken out of power, he’s not a good leader and king and doesn’t even want the job yet keeps it for his own ego and grip of power m, and on top of it all he is just like his brothers, if not worse. He loves to get violent over any little slight against him, he hoards wealth and resources to enrich himself while his citizens starve and struggle to survive, he’s corrupt, he controls all the media and laws to bend to his will, sleeps with his brothers wife for centuries behind his back while claiming to be holier than thou, he has sex with his secretaries who are made dependent on him for any way to survive, and now he lusts after his barely legal intern who is also now dependent on him for her way to survive, and that’s only what I remember off the top of my head.

LO perfectly set up to prove Hades isn’t the devil or the false pop culture assumption that he’s evil and to show some actual facts from myth, and yet Rachel only ended up reinforcing exactly that and even making him even worse with her made up ideas, all while thinking having Persephone ignore or excuse it somehow makes it not bad or even a good thing. It’s honestly kind of impressive just how bad of writing that actually is. 

4. Chapter 172 is not that interesting. It’s setup had me excited to see Hephaestus and Hera and learning more about echo, but it’s cut so short. Because again the story can’t leave HXP out for 2 seconds.

I can also see why Zeus is gonna go insane. 

5. i agree w/ other anon. LO should have pulled a PJO or a BoZ and just made up OCs and have them interact with the gods than whatever Rachel thinks shes doing, which is lying she's being accurate and faithful while completely changing all of it, removing what is needed, and adding what isnt so that it lines up with no actual myth besides like, various 50 shades fanfic she read in 2015 and some popular tumblr text posts.

6 . the animation studio behind blood of zeus literally can only draw one face for the men and one face for the women and they were still able to make the gods all look distinct and hot while LO can't even bother to use more than 6 colors and can only have the women look as tiny as possible with the biggest boobs while the men are all just lego men.

7. ////FP SPOILERS////

Okay so like I stopped reading LO way back before season 1 ended, and a majority of my knowledge of the series comes from what I read here on your blog which is enough for me lol and I decided to read the latest 5 chapters just to see what's up (on zahard. I refuse to give the actual series any views)

And I just. Could not take the whole scene with Daphne running from Apollo seriously? The anatomy and art inconsistency was so distracting that i genuinely could not find it serious. Even when Thanatos discovers her hibernated body I couldn't take it seriously because of how she looked?

And when Hades had that call (??? Was it a call? Or his inner dialogue? I couldn't really tell ngl) with Zeus and said he's causing Persephone unnecessary distress, and that she didn't pose any threat. B!tch??? She killed a ton of mortals??? She has no control over her powers???? She's literally a fugitive for the aforementioned things??? She apparently woke Kronos up? (Idk if anyone knows about that, again my knowledge only spans to whatever I read here) Hello????

And I have a lot to say about the chapters starting the trial but I'll only mention one thing; Hades saying "I don't think blindly supporting my little brother would be doing him any favours (as a ruler)" had me cackling. This is coming from a guy blindly supporting a girl he's literally only known for a few weeks, who's like what, only recently turned 20? Sit tf down Hades you're not cool, you creepy ass overgrown smurf.

Overall I still hate this series lmao. Regarding art though I feel like I wouldn't be so miffed about the anatomy much if the character designs were consistent and the story was compelling. They literally change hairstyles and body types frame by frame, and it's distracting.

The timeline from what I read here is laughable. 4 years in publication with almost 200 chapters and you're telling me only like a month has passed canonically. That's wild and such poor writing.

And as someone who literally will sympathise with any lead character pretty quickly, the story makes me hate them. It makes me want to root against them. I also hate the fact this trash is somehow top ranked on webtoons when so many other stories are far better then it.

Anyway, many thanks to this blog for existing and allowing me to dump so much text here to vent out my hate for this series lmao. You the mvp fam, hope you're having a good day 🥂🥂🥂

[yehet-me-up]

Reboot

Pairing: Jongdae/Chen x reader (female)

Word Count: 26,971 😬 read it in a mobile web browser if it crashes! 

Rating: (PG13) for swearing + sexy vibes (nothing more explicit than a kiss on the page though)

Summary: Chen’s Electronics is a mystery, both how the store came to be and the man running it. When you start working as a receptionist for the enigma that is Kim Jongdae, you’re determined to be the one who unravels the mystery. You’re prepared for anything, except for falling in love with Jongdae himself. 

Part eight of the Exodus Mall series (Can be read independently, but you’ll get some extra backstory if you read the other parts first!)

A/N: I’m SO delighted that Jongdae is getting his IRL happily ever after and I’m so excited to wrap up his fictional counterpart’s story today, so he can have his ending as well 💕

March 15th, 1997

Capitol Hill is in full swing, the promise of spring drawing the sleeping city from its winter hibernation. The silver dress you wear is far shorter than you're used to, but the denim jacket is big enough to properly cover your ass, which is something at least. In your platform boots, borrowed from your roommate Liz, you're almost tall enough to see over the busy street to Cal Anderson Park up ahead.

'Come on,' Liz says with an excited glint in her eye. 'The club's just on the far side of Boylston.'

You nod distantly, eyes wide as you try to take in all the people around you. After spending the last two years buried in a book in the UW library or at internships or in class it feels startling to realize how much youthful, passionate energy beats at the heart of the city so close to where you've been existing. Not that you never go out, but now that you’re approaching the end of your master’s degree you feel like a diver finally reaching the surface to draw breath. You’re ready to celebrate.

A door opens to your right and music surrounds you. An impassioned man sings about an even flow, accompanied by an aggressive drummer and what you can tell is skilled guitar playing. The people on the sidewalk beside you press in, screaming and cheering and trying to shove their way into a club. A faded sign above announces it as Moe's Bar.

Your roommate's hand finds yours and she pulls you out through an opening in the crowd.

Once you’re free again you laugh and brush your hair behind your ears. Dozens of other clubs and bars and late-night restaurants you pass are the same. Men with mohawks in every color of the rainbow. Women in combat boots with plaid jackets tied at their waists. A group of teenagers skateboard down Broadway, hollering into the night as they fly by, the clack of their wheels muffled by the lingering rain dampening the streets.

Everyone seems taken by the revelry. It would be so easy - to disappear into the thriving mass of people celebrating music and community and being alive. Now, with graduation so close you can finally taste it, you surrender to the sensation. Tilting your head back you look at the round full moon above, peeking out through the clouds, and give a joyful, if tentative, howl.

This makes your roommate turn and squeeze your hand. Liz smiles with pride. 'Now that's the spirit!' she says with a fist pump and howl of her own.

The nightclub is unassuming, especially amongst the neon and metal venues you passed to get here. Two simple brass lamps spotlight the enormous carved wooden doors. Bass thumps from within, the slight rattling of the doors is the only indication that life exists within. Shari’s reads the hanging sign.

Liz practically glows under the lights, a North star leading you into a whole new world.

After so many years of keeping your nose to the grindstone - success gained through effort rather than extraordinary intelligence; advanced classes, extra college courses during the summer, every extracurricular you could pack in before you cracked, a high school diploma by sixteen, bachelors by twenty and MBA by twenty two - you would follow her anywhere as long as it didn't involve studying or a business suit.

She guides you through the heavy wood door into a small entry room. A large man with so many piercings he'd have a terrible time at the security scanners at the airport checks your IDs. It's stayed in your wallet, practically untouched, since the official one came last year on your twenty-first birthday.

Finally inside the club you bite your lip to hide a wide, giddy smile of excitement. Bodies fill the dance floor, joyously swaying to the beat. A DJ booth rises from a far corner like Sauron’s tower in the Lord of the Rings. A man with dark hair that falls in his intense eyes runs the booth; a king commanding his loyal subjects.

Liz finds her group of friends from the mall she works at spread over two successive tables with circular cushioned benches behind them. Their names and faces blur together in the low lighting, but everyone is welcoming, offering you a smile or a shake of a hand. A cheerful blonde-haired man, who you swear says his name is Bacon, takes you and Liz’s coats and purses and adds them to an overflowing pile beside him.

Before you can even think of sitting down Liz guides you onto the dance floor. Normally you’re the one in control. The one with the plan. The group leader or the one who organized the debate team fundraiser/supply closet at work/networking mixer. But it’s… nice, not having to be the center of everything, keeping it together with your effort alone. 

She gives you a teasing smile as if she can read your thoughts and you roll your eyes with a laugh. ‘No overthinking this!’ she commands with a raised brow as you find a good spot.

As if I have any other way of thinking. ‘I promise nothing!’ you shrug and smile at her.

Your movements are slow at first, awkward, and you laugh to yourself with amusement. Self-deprecation has never been your poison. Along with an unshakeable drive to make something of yourself you've always had a healthy sense of self-esteem. Who cares if you aren't the best dancer?

You get into the swing after the second song and shake your ass with delight at the energy in the room and the incredible job the DJ is doing loosening you up. He’s remixing “Semi-Charmed Life” with an older techno hit you don’t recognize.

Before long Jongin, Liz’s crush and co-worker from the KOKO exercise studio, captures her attention and you end up dancing with Baekhyun (tragically not actually named Bacon) and a girl who calls herself Hitchcock. You recognize each other from a seminar last school year at UW and take a long break to catch each other up on your lives over shots at the table. 

She tells you about her dual jobs at Microsoft and the movie theater at the Exodus Mall. You fill her in on your thesis project and she offers to look over your resume as you plan to apply to a similar track at the tech giant after you graduate.

When Liz said she was forcing you from your obsessive, ahem dedicated, studying for your research paper you didn’t know what to expect, but it wasn’t all of this. Reconnecting with a friend. A potential foot in the door at your dream job. Dancing so much that your back gets slick with sweat. Laughing with Liz so hard your stomach aches as Baekhyun attempts to breakdance, nearly falling backwards into no less than four people.

As if the night couldn’t get any better, something else catches your eye. Someone else - the DJ steps down from the booth on a break.

His black pants, white shirt, and tie would be overly formal and out of place in the nightclub, but his pushed-up sleeves reveal muscled forearms. The neon yellow sunglasses and loose piano pattern of the tie he wears make him look sexy, in an off-duty retro businessman kind of way. His face reveals none of his emotions as he slips off his shades, tucking them in his jacket pocket. But the corners of his lips tilt up with amusement as he scans the room.

Clearly he’s impressed with the atmosphere he’s created here tonight. As he should be, you think. You imagine for a moment what it would be like if he noticed you. If this was a meet-cute or the start of something. But his focus is on the bar now, not lingering on you or anyone else in the club. Dating for you was a rocky road and absolutely nothing like the way it looked in the John Hughes movies that were your guilty pleasure growing up.

Between your parents' support and your own innate thirst for success, you always felt like an outsider in terms of relationships. Extroverted and empathetic enough to make and maintain friendships, but boys were tougher. You could never figure out dating to your satisfaction in high school and you left when most of your peers were just finishing up Sophomore year.

In college there was hope. Studious and hardworking men with glasses and a love of Emily Dickinson and black coffee. Law school-bound guys who rowed crew and whose confidence was just on the right side of attractive instead of insufferable. John Cusack types with easy smiles and crates of vinyl they carefully collected, who performed at the Comedy Underground in hopes of ‘being discovered.’

It was both thrilling and irritating. You went after dating with almost as much determination as you did your school and career, set on experiencing everything possible.

But the English major wanted someone in a pastel dress and tights, who volunteered at an animal shelter and didn’t eviscerate him at Scrabble. The future lawyer was looking for his future trophy wife, to stand beside him at fancy dinners and fraternity mixers. And the Lloyd Dobler wannabe needed a muse, a beautiful and ethereal woman to be his object of longing, to laugh at his jokes and pass through life without worry about the future.

Not that you were jealous, or even bitter. Just because you weren’t what they were looking for wasn’t anything personal and you never took it like it was. The women they wanted existed and were wonderful in all their own ways. But it grated at you, how you always felt like a square peg in a round hole. Never being the right fit.

All your life you’d gotten used to knowing, and getting, what you wanted. It was insanely frustrating to not have found anything that stuck. Failure in any form made you frown, but thankfully romantic mishaps always took a backseat to school, friends, and your future, so it was easy to ignore. Until now.

The DJ passes close enough to you and Liz that you can see the echoes of dark circles under his eyes and the rich brown of his hair in the passing neon lights. For some reason that same intuition, that same hunger and drive that had propelled you to awards and scholarships and countless other successes, tells you to follow him. Whatever it is about him, your body and your desire react before your mind and conscious rational thought.

'I'll be back,' you yell to your roommate over the music. She nods and gives you a thumbs up as she's drawn into Jongin’s embrace once more.

Like a missile you weave through the crowd, target in sight. You watch as the DJ leans against the end of the bar, carefully positioning himself so he's at the end with no one behind him. You wonder if it's out of a dislike of people sneaking up on him or if he's a predator, sizing up the crowd.

With a casual hand he orders a drink from the bartender and surveys the crowd coolly. Too high on life to care too much, you take the seat two over from him, carefully avoiding eye contact, feigning nonchalance. ‘Self-possessed,’ that’s how your fifth grade teacher described you. Independent and old beyond your years. It always thrilled you, the praise and respect of adults. You wanted to earn more of it, to be seen as capable and mature.

But something about the man beside you makes you feel younger. Raw and playful in a way you’re not sure you’ve ever been before.

Admiring the cut of his jaw, you imagine kissing it. His hands on the bar are graceful, strong, befitting his profession. You want him and you want him to want you. The thought makes you inhale a deep breath, not even sure what that would mean. Adrenaline and delight fill your mind and you briefly fantasize about him holding you close on the dance floor like Jongin does to Liz. His hands on your hips and his mouth teasing your neck.

The bartender reappears on your side of the bar, his bald head gleaming in the lights of the club, and you snap back into reality. The flames tattooed across his knuckles shine as he slides a drink down the length of the bar, towards the DJ. An impulsive, reckless daring you've only ever felt before at debate tournaments makes you reach out and catch the glass of dark liquid before it can reach its desired recipient.

In one smooth motion you lift it to your lips and turn to meet the DJ's deep brown eyes. With a smirk you raise the glass. In two gulps you down the drink, the bourbon burning its way down your throat, reminding you how good it feels to be free, to be alive. 

To challenge someone who feels like a decent opponent.

He watches you, his eyes flaring with surprise before fading back to indifference. He looks like a tiger in a cage at the zoo, pacing in front of a glass divider. His fingers tap impatiently on the lacquered bartop and he tilts his head, watching as you lick the moisture from your lip, savoring the taste. You wonder if he'd be just as heady and strong on your tongue.

You have the feeling that with the slightest pressure in the right place and the glass would shatter, unleashing the beast within. The thought makes you clench your thighs together, a heat filling you that has nothing to do with the people pressing in on you trying to get the attention of the bartender.

The DJ seems just as self-contained as you are. A voice inside you whispers of unstoppable forces meeting immovable objects and you wonder which of you would cave first.

Before you can say anything, before you can even wipe the satisfied smile off your lips or ask his name or offer to pay for the drink, he drops a bill to the counter and slides off the stool. He pushes into the crowd, disappearing as if he'd never been there. As if he hardly noticed you.

But you didn't miss the interest, the arousal, the animal within him rising to your challenge. He slinks back up to the DJ booth and resumes his position of power, thirst unquenched.

You don't know his name, or anything about him. Aside from the fact that the way he looks at you feels so wrong it's right, and that his hands are the first ones you've ever wanted wrapped around your waist so badly you can feel it beating in your palms.

But you know one thing, as you rejoin your roommate on the dance floor, whatever has started between you and the enigmatic DJ isn't finished.

May 21st, 1997

You straighten your blazer, looking in the mirror to make sure your outfit is perfect. It’s not your first interview this week and it certainly won’t be the last, but it is the one you’re the most curious about.

The position as a receptionist and accountant for an electronics repair store isn’t exactly how you pictured your first job after getting your MBA, but the pay and the opportunity to work alongside the enigmatic tech genius Kim Jongdae is a chance you can’t pass up.

All that’s left is the graduation ceremony in June and then you’re free. Your final exams are done, your thesis is defended, and you’ve completed a thorough and perhaps slightly obsessive spreadsheet documenting all your connections who might have an in at your most desired companies. Now knee-deep in the process of interviewing for jobs it strikes you all of a sudden that this is what you’ve been working for… almost all your life.

The lighting in the bathroom of the mall is stark and a moment of uncertainty makes your knees weak.

Since your test results in elementary school came back top of the class it’s been the same refrain. Get good grades. Impress your teachers. Study and diversify your interests and push harder every year and eventually it will all pay off, right? You’re damn proud of what you’ve done, but now, here in the after, all you can think as you watch your own reflection is - now what?

Frowning, you wonder how many other applicants there are for this job. Anyone in the tech circle in Seattle knows about Jongdae. Rumors abound that he was set to be the next Bill Gates when an investment deal went south. Or that he was kicked out of Harvard for embarrassing his professors with his superior smarts. Someone in your Econ seminar once told you she’d heard that he was contracted by the NSA to spy on foreign hackers.

Whatever his history, he currently runs a computer and electronics repair store in a very unassuming mall in Capitol Hill. You want to stand out, and what better way to do so than the track down the mystery of Kim Jongdae, the prodigy turned hermit. You infuse your veins with confidence, knowing you can handle anything thrown at you. Or so you think.

The mall is quiet and peaceful in the mid-morning on a Wednesday. A couple of tables in the food court are filled with older men and women playing cards and board games. A group of moms walks past you talking about a storytime at the bookstore in the mall.

The slow and steady hum of activity in here is a far cry from where you thought you’d be working. Professors encouraged you to head to IBM or Oracle. With your skills, business sense, and intuitive ability to pick up each new trend in technology they told you that you would have your choice of opportunities.

But while you’re no stranger to hard work and a competitive work environment, the idea of clawing your way to the top of yet another group of high achievers just sounds… awful.

You long to travel, to finally see some of the exotic and culturally rich places you’ve stuck photos of to your fridge. You want to be able to actually go out on the weekends and see your friends. Whatever your future holds you want to finally enjoy your life outside of school and work, even if it’s only for a year.

You could always recognize the friends who were interning at Amazon because they looked like they’d come off a week of no sleep. Many of your fellow MBA graduates were flocking there, as the company finally went public earlier this month. But something just felt - off to you. Like a canary in a coal mine.

Purpose, fulfillment, financial security, and a challenging work environment? Yes.

Burnout, no free time, and living and breathing for ‘the company’? No, thank you.

At the salary Jongdae had advertised you could easily continue to afford the apartment you shared with your two roommates and work on paying off the remaining student loans your scholarships hadn’t covered. And you could hide away a small amount of your check every month for the trip to Amsterdam you’ve been planning for years.

The gentle music in the wide, bright lobby of the mall makes you sigh in relief. This job is a win-win and you’re more determined than ever to get it.

You finally see the shop. If you weren’t looking for it, you’d have missed it between the black and neon purple exterior of KMS Music and the narrow security office tucked behind the lively pizza restaurant. There’s a line winding its way in front of the music store and you assume it’s for an album release. Until you realize that the line is leading straight where you’re going and stop in your tracks.

Chen's Electronics. The mall is full of colors and bright shop fronts. But this is almost bleak in comparison, as though it's resisted the outright displays of joy and liveliness that seem to be at the heart of the mall. The sign is red neon against a black and steel facade. A simple poster hangs in one of the two wide windows that frame the door.

We do: - Hard Drive Repair - Internet Connectivity Issues - Computer virus protection - Turntables, record players, and other portable home audio systems - Radios - POS/credit card system repair (For stores in the Exodus Mall only)

We do not: - Sell computers or computer parts. Don't ask.

You raise a brow at the last note. The harsh exterior of the store and the brusque tone definitely match with what you've heard of Chen's Electronics - that the man who runs it is a computer genius, but that his bedside manner leaves much to be desired. Perhaps that's why the job posting emphasized 'superior customer service skills.'

The line you join grows, others coming in behind you, and you wonder if Jongdae told everyone the same 10am time frame or if he staggered interviews throughout the day. As you wait the line slowly dwindles. A woman leaves crying a few minutes later, and you watch her go with surprise and attempt to peek into the store. You’re still too far back to see in, so you’re left to wait and wonder.

Finally you’re next, waiting just outside the store. A printed piece of paper is taped to the door. CLOSED FOR INTERVIEWS it says in big, bolded letters.

The tall man who was ahead of you in line isn’t visible at either of the two work stations set up inside the shop. There must be a back room of some kind. You take the moment to check out the space. The store is organized chaos. Rows of shelves line each of the two walls, full of equipment - computers in various states of disassembly, old transistor radios, a VHS player, a few turntables, and endless coiled stacks of cords interspersed.

The walls above them and the two walls behind the work stations, on either side of the hallway leading to the back, are blank. No advertisements or personalized touches to make the business seem welcoming. Just bland, empty beige walls. One desk has only a computer, keyboard, and mouse. The other is full of parts and tools that extend over the desk to not one, but two shelving units behind it. Like Jongdae was in the middle of a project and the interviews are a rude interruption.

A muffled angry shout comes from the back, behind the gray curtain hung up over the entrance to the rear of the store. The tall man moves it aside with a sneer as he charges across the floor. With a voice practically a growl he shoves open the door and you jolt back to avoid being hit.

He looks you up and down and shakes his head. ‘Good luck. You’ll need it.’

After a last straightening of your jacket you swallow and push through the door. It's quiet inside, almost reverent, as the door closes behind you. The fluorescent lighting overhead isn't the most welcoming and the tan carpet is terribly dated. No one comes to meet you. The man on the other side must be waiting, like a dragon in his lair.

Your hand closes over the strap of your purse and you hesitate at the curtain, not wanting to move forward without being invited. 'Hello?'

Footsteps come down the short hallway and a hand appears, moving the curtain out of the way to reveal a man. Your jaw almost drops. Oh, shit. It's not at all who you were expecting the famed Jongdae to be - a studious man with glasses and a bad tie.

No, this man is handsome in an aggressive way. His black hair is styled back in a neat wave. His high cheekbones and strong brows hold no humor or friendliness. Only the catlike upturn of his lips stands in rebellious contrast to his unwelcoming face.

This isn't the first time you've seen this face either, you realize, and it's like being run over by a train. He seems to connect the dots at the same moment and his eyes widen, eyebrows raising. It’s the DJ from the bar. The drink. The - oh, god.

He presses his mouth together, smothering his surprise and sitting down harshly in the chair at the crowded desk in the main room. 'What are you doing here?' He keeps his voice tightly contained, not minding in the least that the other potential job candidates are surely watching you both right now.

You give yourself a small shake and remember you're not here to hit on him. You're here for a job. 'I have an interview.'

Best case is ignoring the whole thing. It didn’t happen. Not here in the light of day. His poker face might be good, but yours is better. You keep your breathing even and hope that the racing of your heart isn’t making your cheeks red.

He tilts his head to the side, pressing his lips together in amusement. ‘Alright then.’ Turning to the side he stands and holds the curtain open, allowing you to pass by him into the small office behind.

Holding his focus, you pull out the chair in front of the desk and sit down. You place the resume and references on the table between you and fold your hands on your lap, waiting.

Jongdae takes his place opposite you as he slides the papers across the desk. His eyes dart faster than you can imagine anyone reading. He doesn’t seem flustered, but the tips of his ears are just slightly pink, his nose flaring a bit too much, and you realize he’s just as caught off guard as you are.

Finally, he finishes. 'I… don't think this is going to work.' He looks up, his hand resting on your paperwork on the desk. His face gives away nothing, but his eyes are wild and full of emotion you can’t decipher.

'Why is that?' You keep your voice steady, determined. He’s not going to dismiss you so quickly. Realizing the DJ and the tech wunderkind are one in the same has only heightened your desire to show him you’re the best person for the job.

Jongdae stares at you. This time, there's heat in his expression. You feel his eyes move over you, not taking in the professional attire, but clearly remembering the dress you wore from the club instead. 'I think you know why,' he says under his breath.

Clearing your throat you lean forward, drawn to him by some force you can't define. Like something is shoving you towards this job. 'I don't know what you mean. The posting was for an office manager and bookkeeper. I'm qualified in both and I have plenty of experience. Are you really going to decide I’m not a good fit without even asking me a single question?'

He groans and runs a hand through his hair, his composure faltering for an instant. 'Why do you want this position? You know nothing about me.'

He states it like a fact, not an opening for discussion, but you jump on it anyway. 'I know plenty.'

Satisfaction blooms in your chest when he narrows his eyes, raising a brow. 'I do my research, Mr. Kim. I’m top of my class at UW and I didn’t get there by accident. With such a small team I could get a far broader experience than I could being just another cog in the machine at Microsoft. I might not know you personally, but your reputation precedes you. I plan to excel in the tech industry. And to do that, I need to work with the best. Simple as that.'

'And I'm the best?' He leans back in his chair. Resting his elbow on the armrest, he drags a finger across his lips in appraisal.

His quick responses remind you of the competitive tennis you played growing up. The way it felt to thrive when paired with an equal opponent, someone who could match your speed and precision. Someone who gave as good as they got. How it made you better, sharpened your skills and reflexes up against someone who you couldn’t easily defeat.

'Are you trying to tell me you're not?' You cross your arms and look around, feigning surprise and curiosity. 'If you tell me who is, I'll happily go apply to be their office manager.'

He almost laughs in amusement. You can feel it. But he covers it as a cough instead and tilts his head to the side, sizing you up. 'And you know what this job entails?'

You repeat it easily from memory. 'Being the face of the business. Greeting walk-in customers. Helping them figure out if what they need is something we do. Conferring with you about pricing. Scheduling service appointments over the phone. Processing payments. Ordering supplies. Occasional advertising assistance. Other assorted duties as needed.'

'That about sums it up.'

In the charged silence you hear the muffled noises of the mall - children squealing with delight, orders being called out at the pizza restaurant next door, people talking - but it's all separated. You wonder if the distance is intentional. Many stores have roll up gates or at least have their doors propped open to draw in customers. But not Jongdae. It’s almost as though he’s actively trying to keep visitors out.

You favor boldness and decide to push him, what have you got to lose? 'So, when do I start?' Leaning forward, you give him a relaxed smile. ‘Unless you’d like to terrorize a few more applicants before you choose me? I’m happy to wait, Mr. Kim. But you can’t scare me away. And you don’t intimidate me.’

With equal decisiveness he cracks a lopsided grin and shakes his head, with both amusement and resignation. 'How's now for you?'

You give a passing thought to the other jobs, the ones you’d already interviewed for and the ones on your schedule over the coming days. They all go up in a whiff of smoke as you extend your hand across the table to shake Jongdae’s hand.

‘Now is perfect.’ His palm is warm against yours and you do your best not to react to the contact, but you can’t help the soft sigh that escapes you.

Jongdae withdraws his hand quickly, and you note with pleasure that he seems a bit shaken as he stands. ‘I’ll be right back. You can leave your things here.’ He motions to the coat hooks on the wall by the door and the tall, thin bookshelf with a few cubby slots.

Aside from a black scarf and a few extra office supplies on two of the shelves the rest of the space is empty. You wonder what he isn't saying. 'What made you want help, all of a sudden?’ He pauses and turns back to you. ‘From what I can tell you've been in business for a few years. Why now?'

He sighs. 'I'm too busy to keep doing this by myself.'

'Ah. And you hate that, don't you?'

The ghost of a smile graces his lips. 'Yes.'

Jongdae disappears through the curtain. You follow him after putting your coat on a hook and your purse in one of the spotless cubbies. The rest of the space contains a few filing cabinets, stacks of boxes, and a small safe resting on a narrow table.

When you appear back into the hallway you see a door to the left that must lead out the back. And on the opposite side is an archway with a kitchen sink, a microwave, a small fridge, and a few cupboards inside, along with a small circular table. The table has only one chair. You smile to yourself. Clearly he's accustomed to doing everything by himself.

When you emerge the other applicants are dispersing as he peels the taped sign off the door, balling it up in his hands.

Jongdae gets you set up on the computer at the other desk. It’s a relatively simple customer management software and payment system, both of which you pick up in no time. He runs you through the pricing list, pulling a laminated form from the top drawer. His filing system for customer accounts is simple and alphabetized.

Neither of you speak about that night again, but oh, do you feel it - the electricity between you when he stands too close or you meet his eyes.

Until lunch he alternates between training you and assisting customers who come in every so often. It's all straightforward, nothing you haven't managed before, and by the afternoon you're already scheduling appointments in the large old-school appointment book he keeps open to the current week.

Despite the passion and intensity in the music he plays, he keeps an even keel throughout his day job. It's almost as if you went to sleep last night and somehow woke up as someone who's worked here for years. Before closing at 5:30 he remembers other things and hands you a packet on the way out. Tax forms, an employment agreement listing the salary and benefits, and a non-disclosure form. Most of it is standard, but you wonder what kind of secrets he needs to protect at an electronics store.

You gather your things and wait outside while he closes down the shop, turning off the lights as he goes. It’s still quite sunny outside and with a shock you realize that there’s nothing waiting for you, now that the work day is done. No papers to write or projects to finish or internship to head to. The idea makes you feel unexpectedly buoyant, and when Jongdae steps out to lock the doors you give him an easy smile.

He returns it, giving you a small one of his own in response. ‘So, I normally take Tuesdays off and keep the shop closed. Wednesdays are normally pretty slow. How does Thursday through Monday sound to you? I know today is Wednesday, so if you wanted to take tomorrow off instead that’s fine with me.’

‘I’m happy to come in tomorrow.’ You want to wince at the eagerness in your voice, but instead you stand firm, holding your purse in front of you with both hands.

Jongdae slides his hands into the pockets of his jacket and nods, looking at you for a long moment before speaking. ‘Sounds great, I’ll see you then.’

You nod at him too, turning back towards the department store to head out to your car. After a beat you look behind you and see he’s still watching. His gaze is unfocused on the floor before he shakes his head, seeming to come back to himself. He heads the opposite direction, towards the movie theater. In a few seconds he’s disappeared behind the pizza place, out of sight.

Jongdae takes the longer route home today. His apartment overlooking Lake Union is the one he grew up in, his grandfather’s place. When he passed away a year ago he left it to Jongdae and it never occurred to him to move. He walks along the water, breathing in the early summer air, wanting to laugh at himself. How long has it been since he let himself be impulsive? To act on instinct. To want something.

He’d settled into a routine these past few years, since everything changed after graduation. Working at the store. Reading. Playing Go and chess with his grandfather and the other older men that lived in the building. They’d go fishing out on the peninsula or to the local symphonies that his grandfather loved. Routine had saved him when his world fell apart once, but now, with his grandfather’s absence, he’s not sure how to pick up the pieces anymore.

The seagulls on the pier are loud today, hungrily gobbling up the bread and Ivar’s french fries tossed to them by the kids gathered around. They giggle and laugh, running to their parents for more offerings. Jongdae frowns for a moment, the sadness that he doesn’t often acknowledge creeping into his heart.

His parents were gone before he really even had a chance to know them. His father to lung cancer, from the awful smoking habit he picked up in the Navy. His mother moved back to Korea to be with her family, unable to cope being in the city without her husband. Jongdae didn’t blame her, but the distance grew and they drifted apart as he became an adult himself.

Jongdae’s father’s father settled here after World War Two, along with a few of his friends. From what he remembers there wasn’t a discussion about it after the funeral - if he’d stay or go back to Korea with his mother. One day when he was young he knew his father had passed. His mother left. And with two duffle bags slung over his shoulders and little Jongdae in his arms his grandfather had moved him into the apartment with the pretty view of the water. 

And that’s the way it was, ever since.

In school his friends might have joked that Jongdae was an old man himself. Doing the New York Times crossword puzzle on Sundays, getting his hair cut at the same hole-in-the-wall barber shop in Chinatown as his grandfather, and hanging out with more octogenarians than people his own age. But he loved his grandfather and the two of them were so close that he never stopped to question whether he should change to fit in with the rest of his classmates.

The only aberration came when he started DJ-ing at eighteen. The crowd he fell in with and the partying he did was short lived; they crashed and burned, went up in flames. Everything else faded as quickly as it had come, but the club scene was his escape and it stayed with him.

These days it feels like the only time he recognizes himself, now that his grandfather is gone, too. Until you walked into his store today, that is. You looked him dead in the eyes, unafraid. Just like the night all those weeks ago in the club when you came up to him, flirted with him and challenged him.

He doesn’t know how to move on with his life.

He doesn’t know what’s next.

But wanting you, inviting you into his life, is going to change everything. He knows it in his bones and for once change excites him, instead of frightens him.

June 18th, 1997

For an achingly slow two hours on Thursday the only sounds in the shop are your typing and Jongdae’s tools hitting the metallic insides of the radio he’s fixing. You should be processing yesterday's supply orders. Or cleaning up the books to get everything ready for the days' billing before you make a run to the bank.

But instead you watch in your periphery the way the muscle in Jongdae’s jaw moves when he's focusing. How his brows pull together and his lower lip sticks out slightly, making him look as though he's perpetually pouting. You wonder if you would have gotten along with him in school. If he was always so... uptight. Or if he was freer, looser. Not that you’re the picture of ease yourself, but he seems to almost vibrate with tension.

You watch as he turns back to the computer, his fingers fly across the keyboard and you admire the absolute focus he shows toward the screen in front of him. The past few days he’s handled repairs and projects for businessmen and women, families, and two gentlemen in suits that screamed ‘government’ to you. He could be repairing a nuclear warhead in front of you and you imagine his expression would remain the same.

His standard white button-up shirt bunches around his biceps while he works. A mischievous part of you wonders what it would take to make his robotic exterior crack again. What it would take for him to show joy or anger or arousal. Emotion from him is a precious, rare thing and you want to grab them when they do show, holding them tightly as proof they exist.

You jolt, realizing the unintended destination your thoughts have arrived at. Arousal. Where did that come from? With a cough and a shake of your head you refocus on the financial statements in front of you.

If you hadn't seen him that night at the club you'd have wondered if he ever enjoyed himself. He wasn't smiling that night, but the music and the dancing and the palpable energy seemed to soften the hard lines of his face. You want to see more of that Jongdae, the one that feels so much closer to who he really is, underneath it all.

However he started in this business, in the tech scene, he works away at it as though it's his sole purpose in life. He's clearly talented enough to fix anything, code anything. You’d asked him last week how he knows what to do, as you looked into a complicated mess of wires sticking out of a broken CPU as though it were gibberish.

All he’d said, in a gruff voice, was that his grandfather liked to tinker and take things apart before putting them back together, to see how they worked, and that he’d picked up the habit.

'Why do you work by yourself?' The sound of your voice is much louder than intended, breaking the hush in the store. You want to swallow the words, unsure why you didn't stop them from escaping. Instead you bite the skin on the inside of your cheek and watch as he lifts his head to look at you.

Jongdae raises a brow. 'As opposed to?'

You stop typing and lean back in your chair. 'You could have worked for anyone, I bet. After you graduated college. I’ve heard a few of the rumors about you. It sounds like you could have done anything you wanted. What made you want to start your own business?'

He mirrors your pose. 'What makes you think I went to college?'

You blink. For so long your parents' idea of a prosperous life - good grades, extracurriculars, graduate from a top college, get a lucrative, secure job - had been so ingrained that it surprises you to imagine that someone like him didn't go to school. 'You didn't?'

He smiles, the dimple appearing briefly in his cheek. 'Alright, fine. Yes, I did. I went to M.I.T. and I, uhm, graduated at seventeen.'

'Seventeen?' The competitive drive that buried itself in your bones early on wants to prove itself to him, awed by the size of his intellect.

'With my PhD.' He winces. Just for a moment, but you catch it.

'Oh,' you say with a stunned laugh.

He goes back to work with a quick shake of his head and a sigh. 'Yeah, that right there is why I don't tell people.'

You’re surprised by his assumption that you’d view it as a bad or repulsive fact. 'It's amazing. You should be proud of it. Why would you want to keep that a secret?'

His lip pouts again and irrationally you think about what it would be like to kiss him. 'Because now you'll look at me differently. Like I'm some kind of freak of nature.'

'I don't think it makes you a freak.' Your answer is immediate and emphatic.

'Oh really?' He gives you a side-glance, keeping his tone neutral.

'No, it makes you a genius. And intelligence is never a bad thing. Quite the opposite, in fact.' It does nothing to help the attraction you feel for him. Rather than dousing the flames, it pours gasoline on them.

'Tell that to -' he stops himself, pressing his lips together. The bitterness in his voice makes you jerk back in your seat. ‘Nevermind. It was a long time ago. Forget I said anything.’

But you can fill in the gaps, no stranger to the judgement of others. 'Clearly you need better friends.'

He blinks, vulnerability filling his eyes. 'Like you?' His expression softens and he gives you a half-smile.

You blush, realizing what it must look like that you’re so passionate about defending him. 'Sorry, I didn't - all I mean is that it’s attractive.’ You curse yourself and cough delicately, trying to appear impartial. ‘An attractive quality. I just got my master’s and I thought I was advanced for my age. So I just meant to say… I get it. And you’re not a freak.’

The moment stretches out between you, the air in the space seeming to pause. The muted, reverent silence fills the distance once more. But this time it’s charged, tense. Waiting. He breathes in deeply, the shirt he wears stretching across his chest and yet again you long to touch him. For a beat his gaze drops to your lips and he swallows, opening his mouth to speak.

But he’s interrupted by the door opening. The ding of the motion sensor makes you both jolt, turning to see who it is. An older woman comes in carrying a heavy looking bag. She coughs and leans against the door to rest.

Jongdae bolts up from his desk, clearing his throat. 'Here, let me help with that.'

He bows to her with a warm smile, holding his hands out to take the bag. She nods and Jongdae slings the bag over his shoulder, wincing when it collides with his back. With a gentle arm around her back he helps her into the chair opposite his desk.

'Thank you, young man,' the woman says with a smile.

'Not at all,' Jongdae says, resuming his post on the stool. 'How can I help you today?'

You're certain your mouth has fallen open. To difficult customers he's brief, almost condescending, and for the nice ones he’s reserved and polite, but nothing like this. For over an hour he patiently connects the woman's computer to his power strip and walks her through how to use it. 

Again and again he shows her the links and how to work the web browser. Installs a complimentary virus protection program. Makes sure she can find the Solitaire application she loves. And only charges her $20.

But after she leaves the next customer is a businessman dressed in what looks to be a very expensive suit. Jongdae spends the laughably short visit practically sneering at the man. And he charges him at least twice what it says on the pricing list he gave you.

As soon as the door closes you release the laugh you’ve been holding in. 'You know, for someone who runs a business, you seem hell bent on driving some of your customers away.'

He shakes his head, hair falling in his eyes. 'He was a moron. You don't buy the Rolls Royce of computers if you don't know how to drive it.'

'So the only exception here is kind old ladies?'

Jongdae barks out a laugh, meeting your gaze and looking younger than you’ve ever seen him. 'Exactly.'

June 28th, 1997

Moments after you walk out the door for lunch during a bustling Saturday it pings again, announcing yet another customer. This one is probably his scheduled twelve o’clock appointment, Jongade thinks as he looks distractedly at his watch.

He turns to greet them and his entire body recoils. 'What do you want?' Jongdae practically hisses, but he keeps his tone even with all his might.

Since you’ve taken over scheduling Jongdae hardly looks at his calendar anymore. If he’d known Julian Danforth was seeking his help he would have told him to fuck off. Unfortunately Jongdae’s hesitation in talking about his past means you could have no possible idea how much the man standing before him used to matter.

Julian strolls in with a computer in his arms and a smugness on his mouth that Jongdae wants to punch off. His sunglasses are perched on the top of his head and his khaki shorts have neatly pressed lines, clearly not done by the man himself, who drips with privilege.

He'd thought these feelings were long buried, but they roar in Jongdae’s chest. The friendships and the future he almost had are now scattered behind him like a trail of carnage, all the fault of this man. The burn of sadness and embarrassment that fills Jongdae’s stomach was supposed to be gone, relinquished to ashes. But seeing one of his former best friends again Jongdae feels like he's ten years old, stuck in a class with far older students. Young, inexperienced, an outcast.

‘Good afternoon to you as well, old friend.’ Ignoring the daggers Jongdae is staring at him, Julian steps forward, setting the computer down on the desk. 'Like I told the woman on the phone I'm having a problem with some computer virus.'

He says it like it’s a slimy, living thing that had crawled into his machine. Displeasure colors his expression; annoyed at the mere thought that his money and status don’t render him immune from such commonplace problems. ‘You know I don’t trust anyone else with my system.’

After what you did I should smash your computer open. Jongdae doesn't speak as plugs the machine into the power strip he rigged to his desk, not willing to risk what he’ll say.

It's a far more expensive model of computer than most of his clients bring in. Those who purchase such a high end version fall into two camps - enthusiasts like himself who know what they're getting, or the rich and famous who buy them as status symbols and have no clue how to work them. Julian, unfortunately, falls into the latter category.

The computer starts up and Jongdae’s mind goes into work mode, tuning out Julian. The virus has rendered it unusable, only a blur of symbols and lines of code flit across the screen. None of the normal exit keys brings up the desktop. Jongdae purses his lips and slides in the floppy disk he keeps beside his own monitor, an anti-virus he designed.

He leans into muscle memory as he runs through the start up and sets the program to do its job. With any luck the idiot just found some simple malware from some incredibly obvious email spam or downloaded a bug on a porn site. In all social and business sense Julian is a shark; he'd never have fallen for such an obvious scam in real life. But when it came to computers and technology he was hopeless, and thus Jongdae had come into his life years ago.

'How long have you been set up here?' Julian asks with a dismissive glance at the machines and equipment stacked on the shelves.

'Why do you care?' The question comes out harsher than he intends, but the emotion isn't entirely unearned.

Once upon a time he and Julian met in Seattle, after Jongdae was fresh out of M.I.T. and Julian had flunked out of yet another University. They were determined to build a business together. If he had more energy Jongdae would wear this store and his reputation proudly, built from no family connections or money, just his own intelligence and drive. After how thoroughly Julian severed Jongdae’s life he should rub his success in Julian’s face with pride.

Instead he ignores him, determined to move on.

The program finishes its run in rapid time, as though it knows how quickly Jongdae wants this moment to end. The virus dissipates and the desktop loads like normal. He's tempted for a second to indulge his curiosity to see what Julian has been up to. Last he knew Julian had gone to work at his father’s investment bank, dreams of standing on his own cowed by the reality of the world outside of his comfortable bubble. Without Jongdae there’s no way the business and the program held up to scrutiny. 

For a second Jongdae stares at the screen, remembering how good it had felt to have found his people. Tech nerds, hungry to build something that would change the world. Julian, who wanted to cast off his father’s legacy and strike out on his own. Julian’s girlfriend Marissa and her soft heart, who wanted to help people. Their friend Albert, with the plan. 

Once he knew them so well he hardly knew where he ended and they began. But now, all these years later, they’re strangers.

Jongdae looks up and watches Julian as he absently admires the collection of turntables on the wall behind the desk. He knows Julian well enough to know this might be an act of contrition, his way of bridging the gap he created to reach out the olive branch of friendship once more. But Jongdae’s curiosity already killed the cat once, spectacularly, and he has no desire to repeat the mistake.

He unplugs the machine and watches the screen go dark, shoving it with both hands across the polished wood surface towards Julian. 'There. It's fixed.'

For customers who are far more polite and far less acquainted with Jongdae he might have explained what caused the virus or recommended an anti-virus software or even shared best practices to avoid getting one in the future. But, for Julian, he'll do what he was hired for and nothing more.

Julian stands and clears his throat uncomfortably. 'How much do I owe you?' A hint of guilt as he pulls out his wallet.

The motion reminds Jongdae of vacations to Marissa's family home in the San Juans or partying with Julian, Albert, and the rest of them in Capitol Hill. When they turned on him it was like the sun went out. He managed to take his pride and his love of music and DJing and escape. Once Jongae rebuilt his life the doors to the past firmly closed.

Anger finally peeks through as he waves a dismissive arm at Julian. 'I don't want your money. Not spending a second longer in your company will be all the payment I need.' He stands as well. Their business today is done and he lets his memories of the past fall before him like ashes.

An awkward beat passes between them and finally Julian breaks eye contact. With a nod to the ground he pushes out the door and disappears, carrying his computer.

He breathes out a sigh of relief, folds his arms, annoyed at how his position and his continued presence here in Seattle occasionally brings him into contact with people like Julian. He should have moved, he thinks. Gone to Singapore or Berlin or London or New York. But for some reason, he stayed.

Through the front window he watches you laugh with your friends in the food court and smiles to himself, thinking of how you call him Scrooge. It should unnerve him, how quickly seeing you or speaking to you or simply thinking you makes his day better, more hopeful; chases away the shadows that linger in his mind when he's left alone for too long. No, left alone isn't the right word. When he isolates himself.

Jongdae doesn’t really know you, not yet. But already he wants to make all of your dreams come true, he wants to make them real. 

The thought is so sentimental and kind and soft that it brings him up short. He bites the inside of his lip and tries to fight the warm feeling in his chest as he watches you laugh. But as he resumes his work he acknowledges that maybe there was a reason he stayed in Seattle, after all.

The mall is packed during lunch; it’s one of the only days you and your roommates and Hitchcock all work together so you’ve christened it Saturday girl’s lunch time. But Baekhyun and Chanyeol of course crash in, as they always seem to. Loud and raucous and happy. Others from their wide circle of friends drop by to grab slices or to make plans for tonight.

Baekhyun sticks two straws in his nose and makes what are probably very scientifically inaccurate walrus noises. As you laugh so hard you almost snort you can’t help but feel like something is missing. Someone is missing. You look back to the shop, drawn to Jongdae as always.

He works away, resuming his repairs after chasing another customer away with his attitude. You sigh, watching the blonde preppy man carry away his enormous computer, muttering to himself. You rest your foot on the edge of your chair and drop your chin to your knee. From this angle, surrounded by the stark design of the store and the fluorescent lights from above, Jongdae looks like he’s trapped inside of a screen himself.

You bite your lip, debating. He’s made it clear that whatever happened between you at the club isn’t something he will discuss, or repeat. But friendship? Community? You work together five days a week and it wouldn’t kill him to get out of his enclosure once in a while. It’s done you good this month, to be out and about with people. Like you can finally breathe for the first time in a long time. And you decide that it’s high time Jongdae do the same.

Liz and Jane, your roommates, call you ‘determined.’ But they say it in a way that clearly means ‘like a homing missile,’ when you want something. Your nature has served you well; you can cut through the bullshit and figure people out almost instantly. It’s helped you both professionally and personally. Allowed you to know immediately which friendships would last, which ones were worth the effort.

Maybe it’s how Jongdae looks like an island, all alone in the shop. Maybe it’s the large Coke that infused you with far too much caffeine. Maybe it’s your insatiable curiosity. But you can’t keep watching him from afar, not when there’s something you can do about it.

‘I’ll be right back.’ Pulling on your denim jacket, you march over to the store. You lean inside the glass door, holding it open with your shoulder. ‘Hey, you.’

Jongdae looks up at you, confusion tugging his brows together, making him befuddled in the cutest way. You tell yourself to stop thinking of him like that, even if you want to.

He blinks and refocuses on you. ‘Back already?’

‘No, but we’ve got more than enough pizza. Why don’t you join us?’ You grin, making a show of looking around the empty office. ‘It’s finally slowed down, and you deserve a break.’

‘I’m on a deadline with this.’ He gestures to the modem that is scattered around him.

You fold your arms and lean against the door. ‘You can fix that in twenty minutes. I know you.’ He opens his mouth to speak, but you beat him to it. ‘And before you throw another excuse you should know I’m very persuasive when I want to be. I don’t think you have another option.’

Jongdae barks out a laugh, dropping the tools in his hand to the desk with a thud. ‘Determined to drag me from my lair, huh?’ He holds your gaze, his expression filling with something akin to heat. Finally he gives you a rueful smile. ‘You’re not going to give up on this, are you?’

You meet his eyes and raise a brow, smiling with satisfaction. ‘Nope. Absolutely not.’

The certainty on his face turns into sadness, so fast you can’t be sure it was really there. Then he closes off and he’s quiet, more so than normal. ‘It doesn’t come easily to me.’

Wondering what could have changed so quickly you step forward, letting the door close behind you. ‘What, pizza?’

It shakes you how desperately you want to know. To peel back his skull and see inside his brain, just to understand what makes him tick. His history and where his future is headed. That small voice inside you whispers that once you figure it out, it still won’t make you care less about him.

‘Friends.’ He says it on a gasp. Looking at the floor fixedly, avoiding your eyes, he seems haunted.

The silence surrounds you both and he finally meets your focus again, chewing on the inside of his cheek. The pieces start to come together. He’s intelligent, preternaturally so, and so advanced in school you can’t imagine he’s had much experience with people his own age. And now that he’s in his mid-twenties he’s built himself a fortress. Close enough to the rest of the world, but distinctly separate.

Irrationally you want to reach across the space and wrap his hands in yours. Tug him into your growing group of friends and fix the ache in your chest his expression gives you. Not sympathy and certainly not pity, but some sensation that’s like butterflies in your stomach. But- he’s your boss. You’re not his keeper and you don’t think whatever dangerous emotion lives in you is what would help him.

He’s not yours and you don’t have the right to push, much that you want to.

‘Ah,’ you say. ‘I see. Well, more often than not we have Saturday pizza out there. The offer always stands. I’ll leave you be if you want to be alone, but just -’ you swallow and give him a tentative smile. ‘Just know that we’d be happy to have you join us. I’d be. Uhm. Happy if you joined us.’ It comes out in a rush and you groan.

With a shake of your head, an uncharacteristic gesture of uncertainty and embarrassment, you wave at him and push back out the door into the noise of the mall.

It’s a shame you don’t turn back. Or no, he thinks, it’s better this way. Jongdae feels far too much for you to keep it contained behind his normally stony expression.

You seem like the kind of person who would take that moment of openness and pull on it, until he unravels in front of you. Fear tells him you would take everything and when you're gone he'd be even more alone than before, now that he knows what it's like with you here.

Looking out through the glass he watches you rejoin the lively group. Always he’s felt like a science experiment, or some kind of circus exhibit when he was growing up. If he didn’t have his grandfather’s steady support and gentle guidance he surely would have become even more isolated.

With a shake of his head, he attempts to refocus on the project at hand. For some reason it doesn't fill him up like he wants it to, his usual joy and satisfaction is missing when he picks up the screwdriver once more. This is where he thrives. Computers and the internet and coding.

To other people it's a labyrinth, impossible to figure out. A world and a language they can speak and learn with effort and intention and study. But to him it's always been as easy as breathing.

His grandfather took his skills from the military and parlayed them into a business as a prolific handyman. It was the world they shared. A place where Jongdae’s creativity and his intelligence could soar. Anything he wanted to build or make, he could. Coding a rudimentary game to pass the time after school, when he could hear the neighborhood kids playing soccer outside.

It took him many wonderful places that he wouldn't have been able to reach if he was, for lack of a better word, normal. As a child and even in school it was so easy to hide behind his grades and his projects and the pride and hope of the adults around him. But now, at twenty five, there’s nothing to keep him hidden anymore.

When lunch is over you return and join him with a nod. He hopes you don't regret asking. He nearly hopes you'll try again. Maybe next Saturday.

For how confident he feels in some spaces - DJing at Shari's, here in his ‘lair’ - at the thought of joining a group of friends he feels again like a nervous thirteen year old sitting in his first college course. Like everyone around him knew how to do things he couldn’t comprehend.

He keeps his thoughts and his feelings to himself; he’s already shared more than he planned. But you draw him back into conversation easily enough, asking about the afternoons orders to be picked up. You don't shy away from him or give him an angry offended air. Inexplicably you still look at him warmly, openly, and he wants more than he's dared to let himself want in a very, very long time.

July 11th, 1997

He doesn't normally leave the office at lunch, preferring to eat his meals in his back office alone, but today Jongdae braves the food court.

It’s a Friday not a Saturday, but it’s a start. He makes brief, yet friendly, conversation with Chanyeol at the pizza place. The taller man smiles at Jongdae, easily, as though he doesn’t second guess the action. He asks if Jongdae had caught the Mariner's game over the weekend and they talk about how Griffey might finally lead Seattle to a World Series this year.

For once he doesn't feel like going back to the office and burying his head in his work. Jongdae awkwardly pulls out a chair in the cluster of tables between the bookstore and the record store. As he takes a bite of his pizza he hears a familiar laugh. Turning around he sees you through the glass of the bookstore.

You speak to the woman who owns Greyhame Books, standing beside someone he thinks is possibly called Jane. It all seems so… easy for you. Tucking your hair behind your ear you lean against the counter, discussing the stack of books in front of you with your friends.

Jongdae gives a rare laugh to no one but himself.

When he imagined hiring an accountant and administrator for his flourishing business he thought he'd get someone older. A person with experience and a similar level of wanting to be left alone. They could ignore him and he could ignore them, delegating filing and payments and customer questions and not have to think about them again.

An employee was supposed to reclaim the silence and peace that his work used to bring. Technology is so much simpler and predictable than humans and he’d really prefer to cut other people out of the equation entirely.

But you are the opposite of simple, and you absolutely aren’t someone he can ignore. From the moment he recognized you he knew he had to hire you. With your intensity and your impressive resume and the way your mouth pulls to the side when you’re trying not to smirk.

He doesn't regret it. But he feels raw in a way he hasn't allowed himself to in years. Jongdae doesn't let people get close. Not anymore.

'Hey, Jongdae!'

With a pizza slice halfway to his mouth Jongdae spots Junmyeon approaching, waving, a large Starbucks drink in hand.  He wants to turn away and hide in his pizza. He isn't good at this - making friends. For months Junmyeon has asked him to join in their monthly networking events here at the mall, or asked him to get a drink at Flanagan’s after work to chat. Jongdae’s all out of excuses.

He imagines his life as a circuit board. There’s his life now - pieces and wires scattered around him - and there’s the life he could have. If he’s brave and if he tries. He imagines the pieces fitting together and what they might build. He wonders if you might fit in, if you’d want him or let him.

His knee is jiggling and he’s nervous, but he takes a deep breath and waves back. ‘Hey Jun! Want to join me for a bit?’ Jun’s expression is surprised - the man doesn’t know how to keep back any of his emotions. ‘If you have time, I mean. No pressure.’ He stutters, pulse racing and cheeks reddening.

Jun grins and sits down opposite him. ‘Absolutely. About time! I thought you’d turn me down forever,’ he laughs. ‘Thanks again for helping me with that broken radio last month. You’re a pro. So, how’s business?’ He sips his coffee and waits patiently.

They can talk about business, something so easy? Jongdae wants to laugh with relief. Maybe he can do this after all.

Junmyeon is amused.

After ten minutes of talking shop with Jongdae he watches as you and Jane leave the bookstore next to their lunch spot. He’s owned a business two doors down from Jongdae for years, but he’s never seen him smile before. When you pass by it’s like someone flipped on a light switch. Jongdae has always been somewhat quiet, somewhat serious, except when he DJs. Now he sits straighter, his face softens, and his eyes fixate on yours like a magnet.

The two of you claim the other seats at the table, showing off the books you purchased. In between sips of his coffee Junmyeon balances his own flirtation with Jane and observing - okay, spying - on you and Jongdae.

He’s warmed by not just the caffeinated beverage. There’s a soft energy here- It’s a warm summer day and he’s discussing books, one of his all-time favorite topics. His mind whispers the words ‘double date’ and he smiles to himself for a moment before blinking.

“Are you alright?” Jane asks, gently resting her hand on Junmyeon’s wrist on the table.

He blushes and gives her a reassuring nod and asks if she’s read the Octavia Butler book on top of her stack yet. It’s an attempt at distraction and he knows it. But thankfully Jane’s eyes crinkle in the corners when she talks about the author, not pausing or seeming to notice the way he was fantasizing for a beat.

Across from him you and Jongdae are arguing about the merits of Isaac Asmiov. Jongdae is more articulate, more animated, more alive than he’s ever seen him. Gesturing emphatically and saying something about how robots are friends, not foes as you interrupt him by reminding him about Terminator. Neither of you seem to acknowledge the attraction between you. It’s been months since you started working at Chen’s, if Junmyeon remembers correctly.

In his periphery he sees Temptation, the chocolate store, and thinks of how Yixing and his girlfriend met on the job. One of his favorite poems mentions how love mirrors the lover; that everyone falls in love in a way akin to their personality. Yixing, passionate and insatiable and spontaneous, fell for Lavender in minutes and days. He saw what he wanted and after a slight pause to make sure it’s what Lav really wanted, he made the move.

Jongdae is nothing if not the complete opposite. Calculating and reserved and inscrutable.

His potential new friend is falling, if the lingering looks he gives you and the way he’s almost touched your shoulder not once but twice are any indication. But it’s a mystery to Junmyeon if, or when, Jongdae will ever make a move. You aren’t the same kind of romantic as Yixing’s girlfriend, someone playful and open with your emotions. You’re driven and witty and warm in your own way. Clearly you care for Jongdae, but in a quieter sense.

Junmyeon imagines this will be a marathon of love, not a sprint.

Eventually lunch hours end for all of you. There’s clients to see and paperwork to do and as he waves to you and Jane he wonders what will become of you and Jongdae. If you’ll stay as co-workers, always flirting and secretly wondering what might be. Or if either of you will push the other into action. The chess board is laid out, pieces waiting to be moved. It might just be his imagination, but Junmyeon hopes that one of you gets the game going.

He does also, perhaps, focus on you and Jongdae as a way to ignore how his own heart beats a bit faster around Jane. How he can’t stop staring at her dimple when she smiles or the head tilt she gives him when she’s really listening. Like he’s the only person in the world. No, he absolutely doesn’t think about Jane’s feet i n his lap as they both read on the couch in his living room. He doesn’t wonder what it would be like to kiss her or hold her hand. Absolutely not.

Instead he invites Jongdae to the monthly Settlers of Catan night he has with Minseok and some other folks from the mall. Much safer territory than wondering about his own love story and if still waters truly do run deep where he and Jane are concerned.

August 11th, 1997

On a surprisingly rainy yet unsurprisingly dead Monday morning Jongdae forces you away from your insistent attempts to organize his paperwork to the market a few streets over. The quiet bakery on the hill above Pike Place has a view of the misty Sound beyond. He sits close beside you, carefully keeping his knees away, lest he bump yours and you do the same, perhaps letting them linger a moment each time they collide.

It’s nice here, you notice suddenly, as you take the first sip of your coffee. The smell of dark roast and fresh almond scones. The breeze coming in through the open door. The soothing, distant sound of jazz from the overhead speaker. The pleasant warm lighting, far different than the aggressively bland fluorescent kind he chose for Chen's. Everything puts you at ease, wraps around you the way you wish Jongdae’s arms would.  

'This place reminds me of Amsterdam.' You smile, looking down into your cappuccino to avoid Jongdae’s eyes.

‘Have you ever been?’ he asks, voice softer than it normally is.

With a shake of your head you trace the edge of the teal and white ceramic cup in front of you. ‘No, but I’ve seen pictures. I used to love photo books growing up. Atlases and travel guides. It’s always been my favorite section of the library.’

He hums for a moment, considering. 'If you could go anywhere in the world, is that where you'd choose?'

Tucking your hair behind your ears you bite your lip to avoid grinning at him. He’s making you remember long-forgotten parts of yourself. Before school and work became the end point, the be-all end-all that your life was funnelled towards. Back when you imagined exploring every country on the planet. Taking photos and making memories. A long time ago, in the days before you realized how expensive it is to actually be a wanderlust-filled adventurer.

Finally you look at him. Something in his irises makes you swallow; an endless, nameless emotion that lives in him you can never seem to place. Elusive and frustrating and tempting all at once.

‘Yes,’ you admit. Voice dry and heart racing you look back to your coffee in avoidance. ‘It’s my dream to travel there. I’m a bit obsessed with it, really.’

'You? Obsessed?' Jongdae smirks, a boyish grin you want to cover with your own mouth.

You roll your eyes, tracing the handle of your mug. 'Hush. It's such a beautiful city with all the canals and the architecture and history, and the food is to die for. Every quaint European city fantasy in one. What about you, have you done much traveling?'

He shakes his head. ‘Not personally. But - my grandfather went everywhere in Europe, after the war.’ His admission is so quiet you almost miss it. But it’s as if your soul is waiting for every crack in the door to Jongdae you can find, and you don’t pass up the opportunity. ‘What was he like?’

It happens sometimes, when you’re working together. The times there’s no customers around and the mall gets empty and you can’t help but be aware of him. Against your skin and with your hands, eyes feasting on him when the rest of you is forbidden from doing so. In the moments when he isn’t putting on airs of being the tech mogul or the reclusive jerk or the awkward, secretly friendly nerd around Jun or Minseok.

Those times when Jongdae meets your eyes and you see the real him, beneath it all. Wanting and alone and scared. Your breath catches in your throat just as it does now and you long to ask him plainly if he feels the way you do. Being honest with your words and not just your jokes or looks out the corner of your eyes when you catch him watching you too.

But those feel too fragile, too dangerous to utter. So instead you ask him about his family, someone close enough to Jo ngdae’s heart to glimpse the core of him; like a sun during an eclipse you can only look for a moment, lest you get burned.

'My grandfather?’ Brows furrow, the corners of his cat-like lips tilting down for a moment. You nod gently, cupping your drink for something to occupy your hands.

Jongdae looks out at the water for a moment, his mouth tugging to the side as he ponders. ‘You know when you finally solve a puzzle you’ve been working on for ages? Hours of struggling to find the right combination and finally it’s all laid out, perfectly in alignment.’

You nod, trying not to smile and ruin the moment, but softened by him nonetheless. ‘Yeah, I know what you mean.’

When his gaze lands on your hands he pauses, like he’s wondering if the two of you might fit in a similar way. But it’s gone before you can grasp onto the moment. Sadness colors his features then. Not the aching kind that gnaws away like a feral monster, leaving nothing in its wake, but the beautiful, bittersweet sadness of a love greater than grief.

His voice is thick when he next speaks. ‘My grandfather was that person for me. We just - fit. He understood me better than my parents did. More than any of my classmates or the few people I’ve ever gone out with. We didn’t even need to speak.’ Jongdae pauses and taps his fingers on the counter.

You give in and reach for his hand, not to hold it - not yet. But to cover it with your own for a moment of understanding, of comfort.

He smiles at you, the crease between his brows disappearing for a moment. ‘He was fifty one years older than me and he was my best friend.’

‘I’ll bet you miss him quite a lot?’ You realize how incredibly inadequate the sentiment is and shake your head, moving to withdraw your hand. ‘Sorry - that’s - of course you miss him.’

But Jongdae doesn’t let you retreat. With his free hand he holds yours in place. Warmth floods your body from the connection point and you’re unable to take your eyes off him. ‘It’s alright, I know what you mean.’ He traces your thumb with a barely there motion, seemingly without intending to. ‘Thank you.’

‘For what?’ You ask, a bit breathless and unable to mind.

‘For always asking. For always listening.’ He says it simply, as though it’s a novel concept. Perhaps, given what you know of his life, who he is, not many people dare to ask. Or bother to listen.

Soon paperwork and customers and regular life draw you back to Chen’s Electronics. He doesn’t mention the way you reached for him and you don’t either. But when you go to leave that afternoon Jongdae holds out your jean jacket for you to slip on. And when you thank him he gives you the soft, secret grin you’ve learned he saves only for you.

On the way home you think that Amsterdam might be the most beautiful city you can imagine, but that it pales in comparison to a hole-in-the-wall cafe in Seattle, as long as Jongdae is seated beside you.

September 9th, 1997

The summer turns into fall and one Monday evening, seemingly without his noticing, Jongdae realizes that his appointment book is full to bursting.

On Tuesday night he's playing Settlers of Catan with Minseok, Bookworm, Kyungsoo, and Junmyeon. They meet up in the food court after the mall closes at nine, second Tuesday of every month.

Wednesday he has lunch with Jun and some other business owners in the mall for their monthly networking/commiserating 'sesh' as Yixing calls it. That afternoon he's promised to help Minseok install the new upgrades to his store's database software that 'make him want to rip out his hair' in exchange for a few coveted LPs Jongdae's had his eyes on for a 70’s/grunge remix set at Shari's.

Thursday night there’s a L.A. Confidential screening at the theater that Baekhyun talked him into, after their argument about whether or not Russel Crowe could actually act or if he was just handsome.

Saturdays are pizza and raucous laughter to break up the busy weekends full of work and clients and deadlines, followed by long nights of DJ-ing and circling you as if you are a sun, drawing him in with the pull of your gravity. He’s merely a comet attracted by the force you give off and he’s not even upset at the realization.

Sehun, Jongin, and Yixing practically bribed him into joining their 'Sunday morning brunch and biceps' workout group, saying that they need a fourth and everyone else is normally sleeping off their hangovers or works the opening shift.

It’s other people’s names all over his schedule, but what he feels is you. Everywhere, all over him. He knows it’s you. Not intentionally, perhaps. But you opened a door for him with your ease and generosity. One Saturday pizza lunch and somehow he’s gotten to know more people in two months at the mall than he had in the years before combined.

You’d wave him off if he mentioned it or thanked you. With that adorable tilt of your head you would smirk and tell him that all he has to do is give people a chance. That they don’t bite.

Irrationally he wants to do things for you - not just as a friend but in the romantic sense - like buy you flowers or have you by his side at Thursday movie screenings or take you to Amsterdam, just to watch you bloom among the flowers. But that would be… crazy, right? He sits in his favorite armchair unable to focus on the book in front of him and runs agitated hands through his hair.

He’s not your boyfriend or your partner. He’s your boss or your co-worker and possibly your friend. Why does he think of holding your hand and walking along the canals of some foreign city every time you look in his direction?

Why does the once-comforting quiet of his apartment feel more and more empty when you’re not laying on the couch across from him, reading and teasing him? Why does he wake up and wish that someone besides himself filled his bed? Someone with your expressions and your joy and your stubborn insistence.

He briefly makes a mental note to ask Yixing how he ended up dating Lavender before suddenly tossing the book to the floor, standing with a groan.

‘What a ridiculous idea!’ he yells aloud to the empty apartment. Jongdae paces circles in the carpet of his living room and wonders if part of being in love is going slightly insane, if everyone who manages to do so finds the madness enjoyable or if love is simply folie à deux?

He looks at his calendar, spread open on his grandfather’s old, wooden desk and tries to comprehend how his life could be so different one year to the next. Like he’s grasping at straws or wisps of air. Aside from work and his grandfather and music, what did he have before? The occasional alumni event or guest lecture at his alma maters?

For a minute his chest feels too full to breathe, unable to let in anything more. Panic tugs at him for a second. It’s too much, all at once - too many people and too many events. Too many opportunities to mess up and these people? He can’t sever his life completely like he did from Julian and his friends. They're so connected to this space he's made his business in. What will happen when he inevitably falls out of favor with them?

He imagines himself shunned and the idea hurts worse than before. Back then he had chosen isolation; to have it thrust unwillingly upon him, unasked, is too much to comprehend.

Once he walked naively into friendship, believing it was easy and that it would last. That there was no rug that would be unceremoniously swept out from under him. But people change, faster than he can believe.

Jongdae sits on the floor, his pajama pants brushing his crossed legs, and forces himself to steady his breathing. These people are not his old friends at Microsoft, he reminds himself. Nor are they the kids in school who teased him, or his classmates in college who resented him or treated him like an annoyance.

Like he’s always practiced, he turns to facts to calm his mind. He’s safe - the apartment is his and he has plenty of money. Not just from his business but from his grandfather’s life insurance. If he wanted to leave - if he was forced to, he thinks he could do it. But something within him howls at the idea of leaving what he has now.

For the first time in ages he has ideas, plans, and dreams for what to do with his life. Now he has people he cares about, people who he trusts to be kind rather than fearing they’ll betray or leave him. You’re at the center of it, if you let him. Determination takes hold of him and doesn’t let go. After a few moments his panic subsides, washed away by the bright promise of a future he’s never dared to imagine before now. Before you.

September 13th, 1997

By the end of your second drink you contemplate being the one to risk it all and ask Jongdae out.

In the months you’ve worked together you stopped seeing him as a challenge and started viewing him instead as the push to your pull. The yang to your yin. The - you sip on your rum and coke and get lost in the tug of his brows and the set of his lips as he spins rather than finding another apt metaphor.

The first time you met him you knew there was something underneath his hard exterior, but you had no idea how correct you’d be proven. Somehow he walks the tightrope between being harsh and being softer than you thought possible. But rather than turn you off you find you’re drawn to his bewildering mix of wry humor, nerdy fixations, and raw emotion. It unlocks all the jagged parts of you that you try to keep so nicely pressed together.

For someone who has been deemed too much to handle finding a man who seems to do it with ease is staggering. He loves your bossy, charismatic nature and your ideas about new things to try at the store. He listens intently when you rattle off obscure facts about your favorite books and movies. He sees your dreams of traveling, of being part of community here, as a complement, not a detriment to your professional career.

A voice startles you. “So when are you going to jump his bones?” Baekhyun is the kind of puppy dog, glowing cheeks, wide-eyed endearing drunk you wish you could hate.

He waggles his brows at you and you snort, shoving him away with your shoulder. “I have zero idea what you’re talking about.”

You weave your way around the perimeter of the dance floor, trying and failing to not fixate on Jongdae with every step.

“Come on. Admit it. You’ve got a thing for the DJ.” His mouth tugs into a smug grin and you groan. “And word on the street is he wants you too.”

“He’s my boss.” The last of your drink burns your throat and you belly up to the bar to order another. “Get real.”

Always a hoe for gossip, Baekhyun leans one elbow against the bar and drops his chin into his hand to watch you. Rather than speak and risk your wrath again he merely looks between you and Jongdae, waiting.

You pride yourself on not giving into temptation for all of ten seconds and then blurt out - “What are you doing?”

Baekhyun presses his lips together to suppress a grin. He raises a finger and holds it up. “You’ll see.”

The bartender is tied up with a group at the far end so you sigh and turn, resting your back against the bar top. With folded arms you observe the club. “We’re about to be abducted by aliens? Jongin’s going to breakdance? Minseok and Bookworm are -”

He clicks his tongue. “So impatient. You two really are a match made in heaven.”

“Me and Jongdae?” If you weren’t already buzzed you’d deny it more. But the permission to speak openly about your feelings for the DJ is too tempting. “You think so?”

Before he can tease you again a motion up ahead catches your focus. Jongdae looks up without tilting his head. His eyes cut to the left, to the two overflowing booths that are filled with the usual crew from the Exodus Mall. With amusement you follow his eye line as he scans the dance floor, looking for something. He never breaks the movement of his hands, spinning the vinyl and working the controls.

Finally his focus lands on you and Baekhyun at the bar. Jongdae’s eyes widen and that unreadable expression settles on his features, no emotion escaping. Your heart picks up, cheeks heating with awareness. There’s nothing to do but hold his gaze for long seconds while the club pulses with life around you. Isolated and together, even across the room.

And then Baekhyun ruins it.

With a comically large wave he smiles at Jongdae. The motion breaks Jongdae’s focus and he rolls his eyes, shaking his head at his friend’s ridiculousness. A smile tugs at his lips and he gives you a look of commiseration and you laugh, reaching over to ruffle Baekhyun’s blonde hair.

The song changes and Jongdae finally looks away. A second later the bartender appears, asking you for your next order. Baekhyun waits patiently beside you, arms folded against the bar, his smugness a tangible thing in the air between you two.

You bite your lip and look at yourself in the mirror behind the bar, visible between the clear shelves of liqueurs and syrups. Could he feel the same way? Does Jongdae imagine holding you, kissing you, being with you the same way you do with him in your unguarded moments?

The two of you already do so much together - work five days a week. Meals alone or with friends. Nights here, separate but still united in the bubble of the dance club. It strikes you just how thin the line is between friends and coworkers and … something more. A four-letter sinful word that starts with L and implies dangerous things like hands touching hands followed by lips and skin and teeth. A different four-letter word full of softness and commitment that has no place being in your mind at the same time as Jongdae’s name.

A hand rests gently on your shoulder. “I told you,” Baek says sincerely. He disappears after waggling his damned eyebrows one more time and leaves you at the bar, wondering.

Half of you wants to confess to him out of genuine affection and desire for connection; you can’t escape the way he makes you long to be reckless and daring and bold and romantic in the kind of grand gesture sense that you’d have rolled your eyes at before you met him. The delicate balance makes your palms sweat and your glass shake slightly as you raise it to your lips. From nerves or excitement or a mix of the two.

You could make the first move, but the logical half of your mind wins out. Instead you swallow your drink in three gulps and head over to the DJ booth to talk to him and nothing more. Close enough to be comforted by his nearness but keeping your desire closeted behind your fear. Tonight that’s all you can manage.

Passing by Yixing and Lavender dancing is a reminder of all the good love can bring. Yixing’s hands holding her close, her arms folded around his neck and their foreheads together. Intimate words are shared that aren’t meant for your ears, even if you could hear them over the sound of the music.

But just beyond is Baekhyun and Hitch. She laughs and dances out of his way as he tries to tickle her. They’re obviously in love to anyone who watches, so why haven’t they admitted it and had a go at being together? Maybe it’s for the best, you wonder. If trying and failing and ruining what you have it worse than never trying at all.

Before you can wander too far down the road of doubt and consequences you remember how it felt to have Jongdae’s hand on top of yours. The thought of tomorrow and the days after disappear altogether when you feel Jongdae’s eyes on you once more, drawing you closer to him, whether he knows his effect on you or not. When you reach the booth you decide to stop thinking in general, and let yourself feel instead.

Saturday night and he's in his element. In the booth, far away from the rest of the crowd but still a part of it. Adrenaline in his veins. Music is Jongdae’s therapy. An alter ego much like the comic book characters he read about growing up. It's the skin he can put on when he's tired of being himself. A place where he can set down the baggage of his identity for a night and get lost in the beats.

He closes his eyes, savoring the pattern of the vinyl beneath his fingertips.

Suddenly, he feels you. Of course you're here. He's never free from you, he thinks with a rueful smile. First you invaded this place, his escape and his temple. Then you wormed your way into his business as though you always belonged there. Now you're occupying his senses the way you occupy his thoughts at all hours.

For a beat he admires you, standing at the bar rolling your eyes while Baekhyun waves dramatically. He drinks you in with a last look at your fabulous legs before reluctantly turning back to switching out one album for the next. Lately you’ve taken to joining him for a bit while he spins and he hopes that once again you’ll come up to the booth tonight.

He's not a patient man, or a subtle one. If he wanted to be rid of you, you'd be gone. Severed with the kind of brutal finality he showed to anyone from his time after M.I.T. There are no second chances as far as he's concerned. But still, you remain. Infuriating, exhilarating. Never far from his consciousness.

'You look like you're having a good time!'

Sooner than expected your voice breaks his trance and he lifts his eyes to look at you. His heart thumps painfully in his chest and he swallows harshly. He doesn't know how you do it - how you effortlessly change to match your surroundings.

One minute you're his office manager, polite and respectful and skilled. Already he sees the business taking shape, becoming more cohesive and smooth beneath your talented mind and heart. And your feisty insistence that he upgrade and finesse his marketing and finally finish putting together a website for Chen’s.

The next minute you're leaning over the edge of the booth, chest coming forward and revealing your neckline. The red is fitting on you. It brings out the natural flush in your cheeks and makes you look perpetually alive. He feels stagnant by comparison, a man of stone who remains unchanging while the world passes him by.

The tumble of hair across your shoulders and the delight in your eyes are so beautiful he wants to reach for you. To reach for more, be more than who he has been - afraid and alone. Bitterness lives in his heart, swatting away anyone who gets too close. But here you are, knocking once more on the door of his being.

He finds his voice, his hands thankfully moving on muscle memory as he drops in the next remix. 'It's good energy tonight,' he fumbles. 'I love this song.' You nod in agreement.

It’s easy, being with you. Together you talk about work and the music he plays and your group of friends. Chanyeol and Bijoux, who finally got together again after what seems like months of back and forth. Bets on how long Minseok will wait before he proposes to Bookworm, now that they’re an official item. Joking about Baekhyun and Hitch like always.

He shows off for you, just a little. Spins 'Scream' by Michael and Janet jackson with a bit more pizazz than usual. It strikes him as amusing how much he always hated being watched before this. Not that many people pay particular attention to him as a DJ, but he thinks he might like the way it feels to be watched by you.

He wants to watch you, too, for as long as you let him. He already can’t take his eyes off you. No matter how much that idea might terrify him. When he drops the next mix and the crowd cheers at ‘Tubthumping’ he gives you a rare broad smile and it's like being punched in the chest when you return it with an unexpectedly shy one of your own.

Jongdae almost invites you into the booth. He sees it as though it were one of the romantic comedies that are so popular right now. You would take your place in front of him. He'd get to rest his hand on top of yours, guiding your movements. Maybe as you got the hang of it he would slide them to hold your hips, keeping your back to his chest as his mouth finds your neck.

Liz invites you to dance and Jongdae wipes the probably awed look off his face with effort. He needs some cold water, immediately.

Friday September 19th

Jongdae is upset about something. It’s not so much that you now seem to be able to pick up his moods with ease, which is true, but the fact that he is nearly tearing his hair out. A piece of paper sits in front of him on the desk but it’s too far away for you to read.

By the time he groans for the fifth time you finally speak up. ‘Are you alright?’

His head jerks up and his eyes are tired when they meet yours. Not ‘it’s been a long week’ tired, but something sad in his expression that makes him look fragile and younger than his years.

For a moment he shakes his head. Then he picks up the paper and waves it in the air, opening and closing his mouth in rapid succession. The confusion on his normally self-assured face would be comical if it wasn’t such an obviously distressing situation. Finally he drops the paper and leans back in his chair, rubbing a hand along his jaw.

‘I just got word that they’re demolishing the apartment building I live in. I have to move by November 1st.’

Instantly you want to hug him or hold his hand. ‘Your grandfather’s apartment?’

Jongdae nods. ‘They’re tearing it down so they can put in some luxury condos. Yet another classic neighborhood about to be wiped out in the name of progress.’ He sighs, looking at the ceiling to compose himself. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be so-’

‘No, it’s -’ you start, unsure of your destination. ‘It’s an important place. And it’s your home. Don’t apologize for being pissed off about it.’

He nods, taken aback. ‘Exactly. It’s where I grew up. I’ve also never had to look for an apartment or move, either. So this will be dreadful.’

You bite the inside of your cheek. The offer to help practically leaps from your mouth and you hold it close for a moment, making sure you don’t rush into something that’s out of your depth. But as always your logic overrules your fear.

‘I could help, if you like?’ He’s just your boss slash co-worker. It’s innocent. It’s harmless, right? ‘I’ve moved so often with school and everything. I know my way around the city.’

In the ensuing pause Jongdae’s solemnity returns, his mouth and the lines of his face don’t give away any emotion. But, as always, he holds you in place with his expression. And his eyes have that fire within that he seems to only show to you. ‘That would be wonderful, thank you.’

You nod, case closed. Turning back to your computer you lie to yourself further, pretending not to notice how his voice lowered. As though he knew you weren’t just offering for help with his living situation. But something more raw and painful that he isn’t prepared to hold on his own just yet.

For how picky you thought you were about apartments, Jongdae has you beat by a mile. Student housing accustomed you to wonky flooring and cramped kitchens and the charming yet ancient windows on many older Seattle homes. But his grandfather’s gorgeous pre-war unit had made Jongdae’s tastes quite particular.

On Tuesdays and on weekends you pulled up listings and showed Jongdae around the city by way of it’s apartments, condos, and houses. He enjoyed the nature surrounding Greenlake, the affordable houses north of UW in Ravenna, and the vibe of Ballard and Fremont. But he ruled anything north of 520 out quickly as ‘too far from the store.’ The luxury of walking to work on nicer days was something he wasn’t willing to part with.

The same unfortunately ruled out a townhouse in Alki that you had salivated over, a block from the beach. Pioneer Square had some great lofts that would have been perfect for a music-lover like Jongdae, but he vetoed those as well. Along with all the trendy industrial lofts near the stadiums, claiming he hated all the construction going on nearby.

It should have been frustrating, to spend endless hours watching him nix perfectly wonderful places. In Queen Anne he hated the hills. Westlake he disliked the mall. Madrona, Leschi, Montlake, Magnolia, and Lake Union all came close but still he shook his head and said ‘thanks, but no thanks’ to landlord after landlord.

It should have driven you mad, but all it did was make you like him more.

Falling in love with Jongdae isn’t what you had planned. But from the first night you saw him at the club some part of you knew it was inevitable, the way the rain in autumn starts off as a light drizzle and before you know it becomes a torrential downpour, blanketing the city and saturating every exposed corner.

He always brought you coffee and insisted on buying breakfast or lunch. He always picked you up, right on time. Held doors and made sure he didn’t walk too fast and did the thing where his arm hovered over your back when the two of you were in crowded spaces. Not touching, but close enough you could feel him protecting you. On anyone else you would have absolutely hated that, but of course from him, you craved it.

Day after day you listened to music in his car as the two of you drove around little neighborhoods hoping to find something, complaining about how tight and ridiculous the parking situation always is. Joking about your friends or the news or the latest books you’re reading. They hardly felt like dates. No, they felt like something even more insidious. Like being in a relationship with him. Easy and warm and friendly and the kind of thing you could get used to.

But eventually it had to end, before it seemed like either of you were ready.

On a surprisingly warm Tuesday in October the two of you walk into a place that no one could object to. The building is in south Capitol Hill, close to Cal Anderson and only a fifteen or twenty minute walk from the mall. It’s designed in the classic Victorian style of the neighborhood, but was completed just three years ago. Small pane windows and a fireplace with a carved mantle and dark spires on the roof, all with brand new insulation and appliances.

Sunlight floods the corner unit on the top floor and you gasped as soon as the door opened. Jongdae stands beside you as the landlord goes over the details of the square footage and the building amenities, but neither of you are listening anymore.

‘What do you think?’ he asks softly. The five-story building sits on a slight hill and overlooks the rest of downtown, with a partial water view around the tall downtown skyscrapers.

‘I think it’s as close to perfect as you’re going to get.’

He moves closer and rests his palms on the window sill, looking around for a moment before turning his head to watch you. ‘Good.’

After a long pause Jongdae pushes off the windows and politely interrupts the landlord, who is currently opening every single cabinet in the kitchen and giving a detailed run down of his wife’s favorite tupperware, asking about the deposit. The way he phrased it along with the attentive way he waited for your approval makes you wonder if he wasn’t just picking this apartment for himself.

Imagining yourself there scares you. If he was seeking your opinion… surely he would be hoping you’d come over? Neither of you have spoken a word about the bizarre yet undeniable attraction you have, but that hardly forms the basis of a relationship. A boyfriend who wanted to be sure you liked his new place would be one thing, but your friend and co-worker who has never admitted to even liking you is quite another.

You lean against the edge of the window and run a finger along the ledge. A small part of you whispers that you’re supposed to be doing something else, eventually. You won’t work at Chen’s forever, but it wasn’t meant to be this hard to leave. It’s just a stop on the way to your final destination. So why do you want to get off the train altogether and make a home here?

Would it be so terrible, to be with him? It’s been a fantasy for so long that imagining real life with him makes you suck in a breath as though you’ve been punched in the gut. It could be a fresh start for you both. The end of one adventure and the beginning of a new one. You remind yourself that being in love doesn’t mean you can’t travel or change the world. Being with Jongdae would hopefully only encourage your dreams, not stifle them.

As they discuss deposit and applications and timelines for moving into the apartment you wander into the other rooms.

The bathroom has a large tub and dual sinks. You can only imagine what your expression must be like right now, given your swirling emotions, and avoid the mirror altogether. The second bedroom is more like a cozy office, narrow enough for a desk and a couch and perhaps some bookshelves. In the bedroom you hesitate at the doorway, reaching up to play with the pendant of your necklace.

Windows run along both sides, meeting in a corner. You think of plants lining the wide ledges and going to sleep with the setting westward sun and how short of a walk it would be to get breakfast from your favorite bagel shop that’s just a block away. It’s close to the mall and the club. It’s truly perfect.

As you watch cars pass and people walk by down below you space out, the image blurring and becoming Jongdae on a bed in this room, leaning back against the pillows with a book in his lap. Smiling at you and pulling you close since he knows you refuse to get up earlier than you have to on your days off.

Inexplicably you want to cry and you huff out a laugh, squeezing your eyes tightly only to find that they’re damp. It’s not anger that the vision inspires in you or even sadness. It’s frustration and amusement that war inside you as you think about how you fell in love with him without your consent. Rational thinking should have stopped this long ago, but all you can think as you stand there is how nice it is to be with him. And how you wouldn’t mind being with him for a long while.

The only thing that helps ease the tension in your chest is how he looks at you on the drive back to your place. You fill the time with discussions of moving trucks and hiring a company to help with the heavy lifting, but you’re both clearly distracted by other thoughts. He pulls his car up to your apartment and you try to avoid looking at him as you say goodbye, but he briefly rests his hand on your knee to get your attention.

Your hand stops in its motion to grab your bag and ends up nearly on top of his, but you make no movement to break the contact. ‘Thank you,’ he says softly. ‘I mean it.’ Jongdae turns his hand and holds yours, giving it a quick squeeze and looking like he never wants to let go.

October 12th, 1997

You’re eating cheesy bread at Barada with Hitch, but today she’s different - evasive and nervous in a strange way. 'So I - uhh. I have news,' she finally says. She sips her drink and looks at the table rather than at you. 'I don't know if I should tell you though.'

Pausing in your chewing you raise a brow. 'You can tell me anything, you know that.'

She awkwardly runs a hand along her neck. 'No I know. I just -' she huffs out a breath and blows her hair off her forehead..

'You and Baekhyun finally had sex and you're pregnant?' You smirk at her as she chokes on her soda. 'Come on, just spit it out.'

She waves and hand and very quickly says - 'There's a project manager position open in the gaming division. Some new big thing and they're looking for an upstart to head up operations.'

You frown and tear off another slide of bread, not understanding her odd behavior at all. 'Okay… and you're thinking what, thinking of applying?'

'No, you dork. I'm thinking you should apply.' She tilts her head like she assumed your reaction would be more immediate. 'You wanted me to keep an eye out for you, right? I didn't want to say anything since - '

'Since?' you ask, both afraid of what she'll say and dying to know. Terrified it will have to do with Jongdae and the swirling mess of feelings you have for him.

It’s her turn to be wry. 'Since you and Jongdae have been attached at the hip.'

'Really?' You stall, taking an enormous bite.

Hitch tosses a balled-up napkin at you. 'Yes. When I met you in college I thought 'there goes the most intense person I've ever met.’ And then I met Jongdae after he opened Chen’s and he gave you a run for your money.' She dusts off her hands. 'You both could be making millions someday. Taking over countries or saving the world or something. We all know it. I don't know, I didn’t want to mention this because together you guys seem happier. Softer? Something like that..'

'And you think me getting a job there would ruin that?' Her words mirror your fears exactly and your stomach drops.

'It's taken me years to get Jongdae to even look at me after I told him where I worked. He hates Microsoft. With good reason, from what you've implied. I'm sure you could make it work, but trust me when I say if you get swept up into that upper management spiral, we probably won't see you again.'

'I won't completely abandon you guys just because I get a new job.' But doubt whispers in your mind. The long hours and the endless meetings and the extra work to always be the best, to always be ahead. 'Okay fine, I see your point. I still have to try, right? I should at least apply.'

She rests her hand over yours where you have your napkin in a death grip on the table. 'You don't have to do anything, babe. We'll always be here for you even if you become a tech mogul overnight. But will it make you happy? Whatever comes next... do it for yourself, okay? Not just cause you think you should.'

You smile and hold her hand for a moment, wrinkling your nose. 'Thank you, Hitch. I needed that. What about you? You said you were going to apply for that transfer to the NYC office, are you still considering it?'

She blows out a deep breath and pulls her hand back, dropping her forehead to it for a moment. 'God, I don't know. My whole life is here. And I'd have to leave the theater.' She rests her chin on her palm and looks up at you with a dramatic frown. 'My friends are all here. My family. I love where I'm at, but I know that something eventually has to change.'

'Baekhyun?' You grin at her, wondering if the move might finally force them to admit their feelings.

Hitch straightens and looks across the food court to the movie theater. 'Yeah, something like that.' She gives you a dramatic waggle of her brow. 'Jongdae?'

You groan and fold your arms, sinking lower into your seat. Even your roommates ask about him now. Everyone can surely see how you light up around him. The way you gravitate towards the DJ booth on club nights like a moth to a flame. The way you draw him into conversations and brag about him. It should be forbidden territory, as untouchable and unreadable as he is. Not to mention he's your boss.

But worst of all he still hasn't said anything about it, nothing more than the occasional flirtatious comment or lingering look. Even after all your time together and the way he looked at you in the new apartment. For all you know he sees you as a very stubborn employee who happens to force your way into things.

You cover your face with your hands and sigh. 'Something like that.'

Hitchcock stands and takes your shared tray of dishes to the bus station with a throaty laugh. 'That's what I thought.'

November 1st, 1997

Jongdae is frantically packing up more of his bookshelf when the doorbell rings. He smiles on instinct. It's not something he can help anymore, not when he knows it's you on the other side. Right at nine in the morning, just when you promised the movers would be here. With a last look around his living room at the organized chaos he wipes his hands on his sweatpants and stands.

It surprised him how quickly you agreed to help with - well, everything, really.

When he told you about his move he didn’t expect anything would come of it. It's his problem, not yours. He didn't imagine for a moment you'd give the announcement more attention than a sympathetic word or two. But you stepped to his side. Put up with his grouchy persistence in believing that there's no place in the world, let alone in Seattle, that would be as amazing as this apartment. As it always seems with you, he found himself proven wrong.

You didn't let him wallow and guided him with your decisiveness through the checklist of everything he'd need to do. A few months ago he would have waved you off. Decided you were being bossy or nosy and turned down the help with a cold shoulder. 

But now he wants you around for everything and the thought makes him pause with his hand on the doorknob.

He made sure you like his new apartment too because - when he isn't expecting it he imagines you there. Not just as his co-worker or employee or even as his friend. As someone more permanent. Lasting. It's not that he needs you to run his life for him, he's perfectly capable of doing things on his own. It's just that he loves how you barge your way into his world and refuse to let him be alone.

Jongdae doesn't know how yet, but he wants to show you how he feels in return. It's like trying to run with a blindfold on, but he desperately hopes that he can figure out how to care about you in the way you deserve. Bringing you coffee and asking about your day and giving you all the freedom you want at work are a start, but they barely scratch the surface of how much he feels for you.

He's got one idea. A big one. An insane one, that you'll probably call him nuts for suggesting. If he ever gets up the nerve someday.

The buzzer sounds again and he shakes himself out of it. Finally he pulls it open and is greeted by your smiling face in the morning gray light. Hair pulled back in a ponytail and dressed in a long black shirt and faded overalls. He leans against the doorframe, wondering if he's ever seen anything more beautiful than you on his doorstep.

'So, I have a surprise,' you start. With a free hand you nervously brush your hair behind your ear. It's so unlike you that he immediately wonders if something is wrong.

'What is it?'

Before you can answer, noise in the parking lot draws his focus. His front door faces the open-air walkway that leads to the stairs down to the parking lot. He expected a moving truck and several buff men in logoed shirts. Instead it's a scrappy group of your friends - his friends now, he supposes - looking tired but ready to help.

Junmyeon and Jane drink coffee and pull furniture dollys and heavy blankets out of a Uhaul truck. Liz and Jongin are leaning against the cab of Sehun's car and laugh at him as he and Yixing sleep peacefully in the backseat. Chanyeol and his girlfriend are paused on the landing below making out, a tape gun in each of their hands. Another car catches a break in the flow of traffic and pulls into one of the guest spaces. Minseok and Bookworm step out and yawn, tying sweatshirts around their waists.

Jongdae repeats his question. Or at least he tries to, but emotion catches his throat and all he can do is stare at you with a mix of surprise and what he's sure is a very naked expression of affection.

'How did you do this?' he asks when he can finally breathe again.

You tilt your head and grin at him, pride making you radiant even in the dull mist of the morning. 'Is this okay?' For a moment you look worried, tucking your hands in the pockets of your overalls and taking a step back.

'I know I said I'd hire the movers, but I thought this might be better? I didn't think everyone would be here, especially after the Halloween party last night. Soo and Sunshine are working, but I think - wait,' you turn and yell down to the group in the lot. 'Has anyone heard from Baek and Hitch?'

Chanyeol reluctantly pulls away from his girlfriend and replies. 'Yeah, he messaged me at the ass-crack of dawn. He said he and Hitch are fine, but they won't be able to make it until later.'

With a curious look you thank Chanyeol and turn back to Jongdae. 'Okay, so almost everyone came.'

'It's because you're incredible,' he agrees, heart warm and in awe of you. Stepping back, he shoves the door stop in with his foot to prop it open and gestures for you to come in.

He doesn't get two steps before your hand finds his bicep, stopping him. 'No, I'm just absolutely amazing at organizing things,' you laugh. ‘But they didn't just come for me Jongdae, they came because they're your friends. They wanted to help.'

The intensity in your voice makes him pause. Like you're trying to say far more than your words. He gets lost for a moment in your beautiful eyes and swallows harshly. His past, the negative parts, haven't come up much - his failed first business, the trail of broken friendships he's left behind him, the ensuing guard he's had up since - but you've paid far more attention than he realized.

He doesn't miss the meaning behind your words, or the look in your eyes; what you're asking of him. To trust you, to trust them. To release his death grip on the walls he keeps up to protect himself. But no matter how determined you are he knows he has to be the one to dismantle them. His heart is nervous and he instead focuses on your hand on his arm.

For a beat he wants to kiss you, then and there with almost all of his and your friends just outside. Instead he lets his actions speak when his mouth isn't able to and pulls you into a hug. You freeze for a moment, stiff with surprise. But after a moment it melts away and you hold him back, wrapping your arms around his waist. His head spins when you rest your forehead against his shoulder, unable to process the fact that you’re in his arms in reality, not just his dreams.

'You're the most amazing person,' he murmurs against your hair.

The sound of loud voices and thumping of boots on stairs make him pull back. You give him another smile, warmer and softer this time. Something that's private for him only. 'I know.'

He barks out a laugh as Sehun and Jongin come in through the doorway. 'Let's do this!' Sehun calls, clapping his hands together.

'We promise we won't steal anything,' Jongin jokes, looking around Jongdae's place with obvious fascination.

Bijoux organizes the packing party while Chanyeol grabs Jongdae's keys so he and Sehun can take the first load of boxes over to the new place while Junmyeon, Jongin, and Jongdae load up the bigger furniture pieces into the Uhaul. Jongdae lets out a rusty laugh as Junmyeon dubs them ‘the J squad.’ You work around them, collecting all the random trinkets and knicknacks that have escaped other boxes.

He closed Chen’s today to hopefully knock this entire project out in one swoop. Ripping it off like a Bandaid. After the first big load everyone splits up into teams. Sehun and Yixing pack and load the rest of the boxes and smaller items into the cars. Jongin, who is absolutely not trusted around breakable items, goes with Junmyeon to return the Uhaul to the rental shop and pick up lunch and drinks for everyone with the cash Jongdae insisted they take. 

And Minseok leads everyone else on a cleaning checklist he’s created with military precision. It's been so long Jongdae doesn't even know if he has a damage deposit. His grandfather took excellent care of the place and he kept it up in his absence, so he hopes it's not too much work to tidy.

Yixing’s boombox keeps up a steady flow of music throughout the morning and lunch time. With everyone’s help, and of course with the added fuel from the pizza and beverages, things are just wrapping up at the old place. You stay behind with Jongdae to take a last look around and turn in the keys, forcing him to take a few photos in the space to remember it.

‘This is it, I guess,’ he says, holding out the key and laying it on the kitchen counter with a small metallic sound.

‘How do you feel?’ You lean your hip against the fridge and drink from a water bottle.

Sunset over Lake Union is his favorite time of day and it’s hard to stand the thought of missing out on a last one. It’s barely two in the afternoon and it’s hours until golden hour. Rather than lie he simply says the truth. ‘I wish I could see the sun go down one last time.’

You come and stand next to him, close enough he can smell the light scent of your perfume and see the flush of your chest from the day’s exertion. ‘We can wait.’

He thinks of everyone at his new place, unloading boxes. ‘But everyone-’

‘Jongdae,’ you start. ‘They’ll be fine. You know Sehun has probably fallen asleep on your couch already. Baek and Hitch and the openers from Barada will be heading over soon. Some people have to head out for closing shifts but it’s already been decided that we’re doing movie night and Chinese take out tonight at your new place.’

‘Oh really?’ He presses his lips together to try not to laugh.

‘I don’t think you have much of a choice,’ you tease. ‘Trust me, they’ll be fine for another few hours.’

‘Alright then,’ he says after a pause.

The two of you sit on the bare hardwood floors and talk until the sun finally sets, just before five pm. He doesn’t yell his feelings for you at full volume like he wishes he could. He doesn’t dance with you or kiss you slowly in the empty apartment, there’s far too many emotions in his heart today to try and cope with more. But after he locks up and leaves the keys behind he does take your hand to help you into the car. And he does hold it for far longer than necessary before pulling back to shut the door. 

It’s not much, but like his new apartment it’s the start of something.

November 3rd, 1997

You’ve got to tell Jongdae now, but nerves eat away at you and your resolve lessens minute by minute. Since the move he’s been warmer, more open, and you don’t want to ruin that. But you can’t keep this from him any longer.

Applying at Microsoft was supposed to be a long shot, a shot in the dark, or some other kind of shot that never meant to lead anywhere. But still it’s one you took and one that ended up paying off way faster and more successfully than you’d planned. After two interviews last week you sit with a job offer on your answering machine back home and a choice to make.

They need your decision by tomorrow and as Monday winds into early afternoon your deadline approaches. You bite your lip and vacillate wildly between thoughts. On the one hand this could be a good thing - if you’re no longer working at the same place, there’s nothing stopping the two of you from being together, right?

But what if Jongdae can’t see past his hurt and freaks out, assuming you’re leaving him like everyone else has? Or worse, what if he never cared about you that way at all?

Your stomach drops at the thought of walking out of here into your dream job, but feeling empty, leaving behind someone who has come to mean so much to you.

Your roommates Liz and Jane, Hitch, hell even Baekhyun weaseled the truth out of you at Shari’s on Saturday. Stone cold sober and still you let out everything to him sitting in your group’s favorite booth. About how you might in fact love Jongdae and how badly you want this opportunity, how utterly terrifying and exhilarating change can be simultaneously.

None of them told you to choose one way or the other. They didn’t say ‘take the job’ or ‘turn down the job,’ they all said that the decision is one only you can make and that they’d support you no matter what you picked. And maybe each time you cried a little and all of them were good enough friends to just hug you and not mention it.

But all of them told you one thing that now sits lodged in your throat. Whatever else happens, you both deserve to know. Jongdae deserves the truth about what you’re considering, and you deserve to finally know once and for all how he feels about you and what he wants.

After he locks the doors and starts cleaning up, you rise, holding your hands behind your back so tightly your knuckles are most assuredly white. ‘Hey, can we talk for a minute?’

Jongdae nods. ‘Of course. I’ve got something I wanted to discuss with you as well, actually. But you go first.’ He folds his arms and leans against his desk, giving you that affectionate close-lipped smile of his. You desperately hope what you’re about to say doesn’t wipe it off his face.

Not one to beat around the bush you dive in. ‘I applied for another job.’ The words sound blunt and harsh. You swallow and try again, hating how his brow furrows in confusion. ‘Not because I don’t like it here. But Hitch told me about an opening and it sounded - sounds perfect for what I want to do in the long run. It’s on the new gaming system division… at Microsoft.’

He doesn’t say anything for a long pause. Instead of meeting your eyes his have dropped to the ground and you wish you could reach out and touch him. Anything to make sure he hears you, understands you. But a whisper of fear makes you keep quiet, worrying the connection you had wasn’t meant to last, if something so trivial could break it.

‘I thought you were happy here,’ he says finally.

You hold your hands out in front of you, palms up in a gesture of entreaty. ‘I do, Jongdae. It’s not that at all. I thought this might - be good for us. If we’re not working together, then -’

When he finally looks up his gaze is distant, his mouth a thin line. The shutters have fallen over his face. ‘By going to work at the one place I despise?’

Anger makes your skin hot and you fold your arms as well, in defiance. ‘But you talk to Hitch and Baekhyun? They haven’t turned into the devil incarnate yet.’

He gives a quick, harsh shrug. ‘I like them both, sure. But being friends is one thing. This is quite another.’

It’s almost a declaration, yet so far from how you dreamed this moment might go. ‘What are you saying, Jongdae?’ You need to hear it. After so many weeks of trying you need him to at least do you the courtesy of speaking it out loud.

‘You know how I feel about you.’ There’s hope in his eyes. But it’s so buried amongst hurt and suspicion it’s not even close to reassuring. ‘I want you to stay. Here.’ With me, he doesn’t say, but you feel it.

Nothing drives you more up the wall than being told what to do. His words fall against your own shield and the plea within goes unnoticed. ‘Would you really shut me off if I took this job? Does hating them mean more than wanting what’s best for me?’ You finally step forward, reaching a hand for his arm.

‘I’ve supported you in everything,’ you start, unable to stop now that you’ve started. ‘In finding community here. In your move. Even in the business, who was the one who pushed you to keep growing? I don’t intend to stop being there for you, but I need you to support me in this. Please.’

He just watches you, not saying a word. The clock on the wall ticks loudly in the silence. People outside the glass doors go about their day, shopping or getting an early dinner, unaware of the standoff taking place merely feet from them. You wonder what it would take to make his guard truly ever come down.

With how quickly it snapped back into place you feel tired all the way down to your bones. Maybe it will never be enough, even if you did stay here forever.

‘I’ll pay out your PTO in these next two weeks,’ he says softly. ‘No need to come back into the office. If that works for you?’ His last statement is thrown on as a hasty addendum. Like he’d realized how harsh it sounded and he wanted to dull the sting. It’s a sliver of kindness, a glimpse at the man he almost allowed himself to be. But it’s not enough.

‘Fine with me.’ You move past him, into the supply room to grab your purse and jacket, proud of the way your voice doesn’t waver. Pausing in the hallway you turn to look back at him, still frozen against his desk. ‘I’m leaving this job, I’m not leaving you.’

He turns to look at you, running a hand through his hair and messing up the ends. ‘It will go the same way, I know it. In the end you’ll disappear too.’

‘Jongdae, I’m trying. I need you to at least meet me halfway.’

You don’t wait for his reply, if one was ever even going to come. Instead you continue down the small hallway and push out the back door into the mall. It’s only once you’re in your car that you remember he mentioned something he wanted to discuss. You wonder what it was, and if you’ll ever find out.

Jongdae stares after you for long seconds after you’re gone. He doesn’t hold out hope that you’ll come back, not after the way he treated you. Instead he feels stuck in place, like if he holds his breath and doesn’t exhale then the last five minutes didn’t happen.

But his lungs burn and his chest aches, and when he finally sighs it comes out ragged. He fumbles for the switch and the store descends into darkness. Shafts of light still come through, angled in from the glass ceiling of the mall’s concourse. Jongdae stands just outside of it, protected. With no one to see he sinks into his desk chair and drops his head into his hands.

The tears that clog his throat are at first unexpected, but as the minutes drag on he finally gives into them. He should have known they were coming all along. Not just from the moment you walked into his life, but from the day his grandfather died. From the day his father passed and his mother became a ghost rather than a permanent, tangible figure. 

From the day Julian took Jongdae’s designs and credited them as his own to the investors, cutting Jongdae out of not only the business they were building, but out of their group of friends as well.

Misery and hopelessness whisper against his skin and for long minutes he lets himself wallow. He knows it’s no one’s fault but his own that he ruined things with you. His grandfather taught him long ago that other’s actions are theirs, and that it’s what Jongdae does in response that is his responsibility. But he can’t deny that he indulges in thoughts of blaming the cruelty of life for making him so goddamn stubborn.

He swallows and leans back in his chair, feeling as though his body is made of hard, unyielding stone. Maybe it's better this way, he wonders, drumming his fingers on the wood desk before him. Perhaps he should let his worst fears dominate his life, believing that the risk is far greater than any potential reward that love or friendship could offer him.

Is it better to be alone, knowing that he’ll always be safe, free of anyone who might hurt him?

Jongdae groans. The voice inside him that whispers No sounds first like his grandfather, both encouraging and feisty at the thought of Jongdae giving up. Next it sounds like you. He knows you’d roll your eyes and call him grouchy, always thinking better of him than he does of himself. You’d tell him his bark is far worse than his bite and to get over himself already. At this thought, at any thought of you, really, he smiles.

Familiar voices make him look out into the mall. Sehun and Jongin walk by carrying sodas, rubbing their stomachs. He can imagine how they’re complaining about eating too much Barada pizza, as always. 

They pass by quickly but the image stays with him, of their friendship. Jongdae thinks of Chanyeol and Kyungsoo’s, how opposite and yet how similar they are. Baekhyun and Hitch, who are always teasing each other but who he knows would do anything at the drop of a hat.

He’s held himself back the past few months. First a reluctant observer. Then a tentative participant. The endless exhaustion of being careful, keeping his distance, catches up to Jongdae as he sits in that chair. If it weren’t for you maybe he’d never be brave enough to try again after how hard it was growing up. But if he is to be the kind of person, the kind of partner you deserve, now is the time to make the attempt.

It’s up to Jongdae to be the one to try, to reach out. He can’t let others find him anymore. For the first time in a long time Jongdae stands up and goes looking for a friend.

Junmyeon still has an hour before his store closes and he looks up at Jongdae as he walks in through the door of Guardians. ‘Hey, JD! How’s it going?’ If he notices that Jongdae’s been crying, he’s kind enough to not mention it.

‘Are you busy?’ Jongdae’s throat is raw but Jun has a young son, surely tears won’t bother him.

‘Not really, I’m just organizing some shipments going out tomorrow,’ Junmyeon answers. He sets down his pencil and rests his hands on the counter. A crease forms between his brows the longer he watches Jongdae. ‘Is everything alright?’

He wants to do this right, but all he can find are inelegant words. Junmyeon is as close as he has to a best friend at the moment, and he hopes he doesn’t inconvenience him. ‘Not really.’

Jun tilts his head and gestures to the door, picking up Jongdae’s unspoken request and running with it, just like he’d hoped he would. ‘I can close up shop a bit early. Want to talk in my office?’

Jongdae runs a hand over his face and nods. Grateful and relieved he manages a small laugh. ‘That would be great, thanks.’

After Jun locks the doors and flips the sign to closed he motions for Jongdae to follow him. The back room of Guardians is much warmer that at Chen’s Electronics, in style rather than temperature. Jongdae sits on a beige sofa that’s even more comfortable than it looks. The walls are filled with framed photos and art prints and various other pieces that give the space an art gallery vibe.

With a sigh Junmyeon tidies up the mess of papers and crayons and various cups with kid lids. ‘Sorry, Sungmin loves to draw but we haven’t quite nailed the clean up yet.’

‘Don’t worry about it on my behalf,’ Jongdae says sincerely. ‘I’m just grateful you’re willing to listen.’

The space has a narrow hallway leading to a back door and a closet that’s probably full of supplies, much like Jongdae’s store. Jun takes the cups to a small sink in the mini-kitchen in the corner. His brow lifts in confusion. ‘Why wouldn’t I? We’re friends, right?’

Could it be that simple? No need to prove himself or do everything possible to impress Junmyeon, like he did with Julian. ‘Yeah, we are I suppose.’ He laughs and shakes his head. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean to imply I don’t consider us friends, I just - well, have a few trust issues when it comes to that sort of thing.’

Junmyeon dries his hands on a dishtowel and blows his hair off his forehead with a huffed laugh. ‘We’ve all got a few issues, don’t we?’ He moves to the table and takes a seat, sliding a glass of water towards Jongdae and sipping from one of his own. ‘I’ve got the time. So quit stalling and tell me about yours.’

He sags into the couch and drinks from the glass. ‘Alright then.’

For once he doesn’t second guess himself or try to read the minutiae of Jun’s expressions to see if he’s annoying him or being too boring. Jongdae simply tells him the truth, trusting his friend to listen. 

He mentions his family and how hard it hit him when his grandfather passed. How strange and yet unbothered he is by the lack of relationship with his mother. The way he was teased growing up and how he was probably the only person in his Master’s program going through puberty. The fact that the mall is the first place he’s ever had friends his own age since childhood.

It’s satisfying to see how pissed off Jun gets when he tells him about Julian and all the bullshit he put Jongdae through. For a while there Jongdae had convinced himself that he was the one in the wrong, that there’d been something he’d done to earn his exile. That it was a deserved punishment. But his friend’s muttered curses remind him that true friends don’t normally backstab each other for money and notoriety.

And finally, he talks of you.

How much he values you at work and how sassy and insistent you were about bringing him into ‘the fold’ of their friend group. The ways in which he wants to be with you and care for you and all his worries of whether or not he’ll be any good at it, given his lack of experience. Junmyeon is neither surprised by his feelings for you nor willing to let him wallow.

‘I even brought prom tickets,’ Jongdae finishes with a groan. He pulls them from the pocket of his jeans and lets his arm fall to the couch cushion. ‘Me. At a prom.’ He almost snorts.

But Junmyeon just purses his lips. ‘Is that really such a stretch?’

Jongdae hums a noise of contemplation. ‘No. I guess not. All our friends are doing it.’ But before Jun can continue he shakes his head. ‘But I’ve messed this all up, so it doesn’t matter either way.’

Loneliness aches in his bones, his hands tired of not holding yours. Wishing he was enough, somehow, to keep you here and keep you warm; enough to make you stay, to make you happy.

Junmyeon raises a brow. ‘I think you’re missing the point entirely my friend. She told you what she needs. All you have to do is listen. She’s asking you to trust her. This job is something she’s worked for and she’s not leaving you for it. She’s just leaving the job. If you want to know you have to ask.’

He sighs deeply. ‘You’re right. But what if it all goes wrong? What if I try and it’s all for nothing in the end?’

Jun dips his chin to his chest, looking at the ground lost in thought. ‘That’s fair. I know a little of that myself, Jongdae. But all you can do is try. There’s sadly no guarantees here. I think you want to make it work and from what I know of her, she wants you as well. It’s time to make the big gesture. Or any kind of gesture, really.’

He groans and smiles, knowing his friend’s fondness for ‘I think you’re right.’ He even has an idea, two in fact. One that’s lived in the back of his mind for weeks and one that’s brewing right now. ‘Will you help me?’

‘Absolutely my friend.’ Jun claps him on the shoulder, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

November 19th, 1997

It should have been wonderful news to you that it was a clean break at least. No mess, just walking out the door and leaving behind the man and the job in one fell swoop. But of course, it wasn’t.

Microsoft was delighted when you told them you could start ASAP, but honestly you did it to jump into work rather than spend your time missing Jongdae. Filling your schedule proves to be the easiest way to avoid thinking about what hurts. You still had your roommates and Hitch and everyone else to hang out with, even if you weren’t ready for any Saturday pizza lunches or Shari’s nights quite yet. Both brought you far too close to him to bear right now.

Liz and Jane and Hitch are wonderful and you’ve had not one but two sleepovers since ‘the Jongdae incident.’ If not for their friendship and constant presence you’re sure you would have walled up the hurt and hid it away, not one to normally speak about your pain openly. Not while it’s so fresh. 

Distantly you hope that Jongdae is okay and that he has someone to talk to. If he’s even hurting. 

For all you know he’s completely fine and unaffected by the entire thing. Maybe he’s already found a new office manager and has forgotten about you. But those are the kind of rude and painful thoughts that only come to you at three in the morning when you can’t sleep, when dreams of his hands and his voice and his smile keep you up.

Jongdae calls one Tuesday to ask you to swing by Chen’s to pick something up the next day and you’re suspicious. He wouldn’t say any more, just ‘please come by at six. I have something to give you and I’d like it to be in person.’

You put on your favorite black dress and blazer that make you feel both sexy and confident and head to the mall. If he’s just calling you to twist the knife in deeper, you’ve already decided to leave and not bother letting him hurt you more. But if he’s calling to reconcile… you shake your head, not willing to get your hopes up. Instead you park in your old space and fix your make up in the rearview mirror.

It delights you to see that your old desk is returned to its former state. Just the computer, keyboard, and mouse remain. No one’s personal possessions have taken over the space like yours used to. It shouldn’t make you so happy to see he hasn’t replaced you, but it does.

Jongdae sits at his desk. His hair is in its usual perfect wave but his white button down and slacks have been swapped today for a dark green sweater and tan chinos. He looks ridiculously handsome and you grit your teeth, wishing you could turn off your attraction to him with a switch inside your brain.

He looks up at your knock on the glass door. For a moment he simply stands, drinking you in. Then he moves, walking closer to unlock the door and let you in. 

‘Hi. How are you?’

You blink and try not to laugh. ‘How am I? Jongdae, how do you think I am?’

‘Right, sorry.’ He shakes his head. Carefully he looks you up and down, not bothering to hide his own attraction to you in his hungry gaze. With a swallow he remembers himself and grabs a cardboard banker’s box from in front of his desk. ‘Here. I didn’t want to come by and drop it off. It felt wrong.’

The box holds all the random photos and personal belongings you’d left in your desk, in your haste to leave. Postcards from Amsterdam and family photos and lotions and your favorite scarf you’d been missing. He steps back, resting against the corner of his desk and folding his arms. When you take it he doesn’t say anything, which is not what you’d hoped by any means, but silence is definitely less painful than you’d feared.

‘Well, it’s been an adventure,’ you manage. You lean against your desk and move the box under one arm, holding out a hand to him to shake. Ready to be done with this officially.

He doesn’t move. You can feel words held on the tip of his tongue. Months and months later you know how to read his tells. The tightness in his jaw and the widening of his eyes and how his hand grips the fabric of his sweater. But seconds tick on and still he says nothing. 

He should speak or you should leave. One of you should do something. Instead you’re frozen in time. Eventually your arm aches and you set the box down beside you. You could go first, but pride demands he be the one to confess, if there’s going to be any confessions tonight.

Neither of you caves; twin pillars of resolution, stubbornness, and desire. It’s a game the two of you could play for hours. The tension in the air pulls tighter than a violin. His gaze drops from your eyes to your lips, unabashedly. His lids grow heavy as he breathes deeply, close enough to smell your gardenia perfume, but just out of reach of being able to touch you.

So this is what it feels like to meet my match, you think, finally acknowledging just how deeply you want him. Enough nights had been spent imagining kissing him, being with him in far more intimate ways than just a holding of hands or a hug. You want more, but only if he wants you, too.

You'd always been told that you were too driven, too smart, too self-sufficient to attract a man. Even in your MBA program where ambition and intelligence were supposedly rewarded, it apparently made you too something to find a good man to date.

But now there’s one right in front of you, looking at you as if you’re the answer to Fermat’s Enigma; a rare and priceless gem he’d been hunting for all his life. But he doesn’t look at you as if you’re art to be admired, a prize to be won. The guard lifts steadily and when he looks at you now it’s as if you’re the kind of miracle he wants to sink his teeth, his tongue, and his fingers into.

Your cheeks grow warm and you’re sure you look just as amazed and turned on as he does. If you had to guess, you’d bet that the number of people who challenge him these days are few, and the number of people who attempt to see the man behind the curtain even fewer.

While everyone else in the world might just see a monolith of a man, a genius, a hardworking and brilliant anomaly, you see the passionate, warm heart that beats in his chest. You know that the tin man really does have feelings and needs, and your heart almost breaks when you realize he’s been searching for you just as fervently as you’ve been searching for someone like him.

The silence in the room is almost too fragile a thing to break. On one side of the moment is a spark of something, a chance to see if this connection is real and deep, or if this is just chemistry and biology combining into lust. If your mind has taken the small gestures of passion and kindness and friendship from him and built it up to be something more than the sum of its parts.

‘I’ve missed you,’ he breathes, voice catching in his throat. Releasing his folded arms he rests his palms on the edges of the desk.

‘I’ve missed you, too,’ you admit. Your hands curl in on themselves, trying to fight the way emotion and physical longing make it difficult to be in such a close proximity to him.

‘Okay, then.’ He breaks first, moving with purpose and striding to you in two steps, sliding his hands along your jaw with such softness that you gasp. 

And then, finally, you feel his lips on yours. You grasp his hips, hands freed and aching to touch him, to feel his hard body press against yours with surprising heat.

You meet him with equal passion, working your lips against his steady assault on your composure. For a solid minute you’re in awe that you could feel this much, that his lips and his hands could undo you so rapidly. That they could rebuild you into someone who belongs to him in such a short space of time, after weeks of endless doubt.

He groans against your lips in what feels like similar shock and surrender. Who would have thought that he would cave to your touch just as you did to his? How could someone so grumpy and strong-willed also be so open and vulnerable to this tentative thing between you.

But as he drops a hand and brings it to rest securely on the small of your back you realize there’s a name for this feeling.

You could call it fate. You could call it destiny. You could call it that damned four-letter word or you could call it Darwinism for all you care as his teeth bite gently into your lower lip.

You just know that nothing has ever felt as good and right as his hands claiming you for his own and the smell and heat of him wrapping themselves around you and burrowing their way into your heart.

A whine works its way from your throat as he licks along the seam of your lips, seeking entrance. When you open your mouth to him, his tongue slides along your own and you almost lose your balance. With a giggle you could swear you’ve never made before in your life you let him guide you up onto the desk.

He steps between your legs instantly, gripping your hips and continuing his tasting of you. Heat and electricity race down your spine as you fist your hands in his hair, pulling him closer to you until there’s no separation.

Banging on the glass doors and whistles come from out in the mall and you freeze. Instead of jerking back in shock and alarm like you’d expect him to, Jongdae confounds you once again. He pulls back slowly, opening his eyes and lifting his hands to gently cup your face. It can’t have been more than fifteen minutes but in less than the time it takes to watch one episode of Friends he’s turned your world on its axis.

You and Jongdae smile at each other and both turn to wave at your group of friends, who are celebrating and clapping. Baekhyun eats from an enormous bag of popcorn, wearing his theater uniform. Jongin and Sehun take large handfuls and Hitch whoops with joy. Liz and Jane and Junmyeon are all smiling, and attempt to force some of the group away to give you privacy.

Jongdae’s hands flex on your waist. ‘I want to try. You’re everything I want, will you please give me the chance to be what you need?’ His voice is raspy and his lips are red and you can’t help but grin.

‘I just want you, okay?’ You fix his messed up hair with both hands and sigh with relief. ‘And for you to admit you like me.’

‘I far more than like you.’ Jongdae rolls his eyes and kisses you once more. ‘You just want me to say you’re right.’

With a laugh you ease yourself off your desk, standing close within his arms and bending to whisper in his ear. ‘I’m always right. I just love when you admit it.’

‘So,’ he starts with an amused quirk of an eyebrow. ‘Will you let me take you to dinner? Us, officially, on a date.’

Your chest feels as if it’s a balloon, expanding so rapidly it might burst. He looks so young and boyish and hopeful your heart feels like it turns to liquid gold. With a delighted grin you lean forward and press your lips to his again, unable to resist.

Joy swims in his irises as he holds you in his arms. He looks at you through his lashes, his lips tilting into lopsided smile. ‘Is that a yes, then?’

‘Yes,’ you answer. ‘Of course.’

‘How’s right now for you?’ He motions to the doors and your friends have finally been corralled to the side of the walkway, revealing an elaborately decorated table in the food court.

You gasp and grip his arm. Jun and Sehun hold the doors open and Jongdae escorts you out. A red tablecloth is spread out over the circular table. The chairs have added plush cushions and several candles have been lit. A bottle of wine and two glasses rest beside several plates of food. You recognize the pizza from Barada, the rest looks like a mix from the other restaurants in the food court. 

With high fives and hugs from your friends they finally leave you and Jongdae alone. Well, almost alone. It’s not a busy time at the mall, but there’s no way to avoid some of the customers turning to watch with amusement and curiosity as they pass by. You pay them no mind as Jongdae holds out your chair and helps you sit. 

The two of you fall back into conversation easy enough, aided by the enormous amount of food and how you no longer have to move your knees away when they bump under the table. Jongdae reaches for your hand and holds it, in full view. He stares at the joined digits with warmth before looking up at you. 

Doubt passes across his face, marring the beauty that contentment lends his features. ‘I don’t -’ he struggles. ‘I don’t know how to keep this much good in my life. I worry that I’m going to mess it up.’

Neither of you are the type to openly acknowledge such things. Merely the fact that he’s voicing his fears to you shows you he’s doing what he said - he’s trying, he wants to change. And truthfully so do you. 

‘I worried for the longest time that I’d be alone forever,’ you say softly. ‘I didn’t think I’d ever find someone who understood me or who could handle all my - well, you know how I am.’ 

Jongdae smiles then, lifting your joined hands to his lips to press a kiss to your skin. ‘I love who you are.’ 

Your eyes mist at that and you groan, trying to blink them back. ‘Good, because I love who you are too.’ With your free hand you reach for his, needing to hold both of them and all of him at once. Not wanting to give his overly-analytical mind a chance to override the fragile hope you’re both building tonight. ‘You know what to do when a computer overloads?’

He nods. ‘Of course. Often it’s just a simple matter of turning it off and on again.’

‘So,’ you say, lifting your shoulder in a shrug. ‘When we mess up or freak out or say the wrong thing, we’ll just start over again. As long as you want me and I want you, we’ll figure it out.’ 

Jongdae softens, his shoulders dropping and ease coming back into his eyes. ‘I didn’t know I was lagging until you jump started my life.’ He waggles his brows. It’s a gesture that’s all Baekhyun, and a pun so terrible that Junmyeon would be proud. You can’t help but laugh and squeeze his hands. 

‘I’ve got one more surprise,’ Jongdae says, reluctantly releasing one of your hands to pull two narrow slips of paper from his pocket. ‘Do you have any plans for Christmas?’ 

The tickets are in both your names. First class round trip from Seattle to Amsterdam. ‘Oh my - Jongdae, what is this? You and me in Amsterdam?’ 

‘I figured it was about time,’ he says with pride. 

You lean out of your chair and reach for him, tugging him closer to kiss him fully. Noise reaches you - clapping and cheering from the shops around the mall. When you look around you see Sehun and his girlfriend leaning out of Starlight Apparel. Chanyeol and Kyungsoo smiling and fist bumping as they work on closing up the shop. 

Hitch nudges Baekhyun from the theater booth and he jumps in excitement. And from Guardians Junmyeon leans on the counter, resting his chin in his hand, giving a thumbs up. 

You roll your eyes and wave. ‘We maybe should have gone somewhere outside the mall, huh?’

'No, I think this is perfect,’ Jongdae answers. He then covers your mouth with his and holds you so tight that it drowns out the chorus of cheering that echos around the space. 

[sisterspooky1013]

Only One Choice, Chapter 9

Read it here on AO3 / Tagging @today-in-fic

He meets her in the hallway just outside the autopsy bay. She’s changed from scrubs into jeans and a green t-shirt with cap sleeves and his heart leaps when she enters his line of sight. He stands up a bit straighter, buoyed by her presence. He wants to hug her, but he stuffs his hands in his pockets instead. Off limits, he keeps reminding himself. Unavailable.

“Hi,” she says with a nervous little smile.

“Hey,” he responds with a broad grin. “Shall we?” he says as he tilts his head toward the exit.

It’s a wonderfully mild day and they walk the four blocks to Cafe Adamo, the orange Tooms file tucked neatly under his arm. They are mostly quiet as they walk, enjoying the warm breeze and lack of traffic noise. Scully lifts her hand to hoist her purse strap up on her shoulder and his stomach lurches when the sun catches on a large diamond ring on her finger. The ring finger of her left hand. It shouldn’t matter, unavailable is unavailable, but knowing that she’s getting married takes his already dashed dreams and stomps them into dust.

They sit at the same corner table they had on their previous visit and this time she orders an iced coffee, much to his relief; he’s not sure he can sit still through more foam-licking. He orders a drip, and as soon as their waiter leaves the table he has to say something.

“Looks like congratulations are in order,” he says, gesturing towards her hand with his chin.

She looks down at the table and startles a little, as if she herself hadn’t known the ring was there.

“Oh, yeah, um, thank you,” she replies tersely, avoiding his eye.

“When did that happen?” he inquires, morbidly curious.

“Uh, in late June, the twenty-first.”

His eyebrows lift a little. He’s sure she wasn’t wearing a ring the other times he’s seen her.

“That’s, uh, that’s great. Do you have a date set?” Why the fuck is he asking her about this? Right, because that’s what a friend would do.

“Yes, as of recently, it’s October thirteenth, this year.”

He chuffs a laugh, his head dropping close to the table.

“What?” she asks, her eyebrows knit in confusion.

He lifts his head to look at her with an ironic smile. “That’s my birthday,” he says flatly, and pink immediately rises to her cheeks.

“Oh,” she says as though she’s committed an embarrassing faux pas.

“Here, check this out,” he says, changing the subject and sliding the orange file across the table to her. “Eugene Victor Tooms, a seemingly typical, if not a little strange, man who was in fact a liver-eating mutant. He would eat his victim’s liver to sustain his own life, and then build a nest from newspaper and bile where he would hibernate for thirty years before repeating the pattern.”

“Bile? As in stomach acid?” Scully says with a doubtful tone that matches her expression.

“Yes ma’am, I had the unfortunate experience of coming into close contact with it and I can attest to its authenticity.”

“Mulder, humans don’t hibernate, much less for thirty years.”

“Well, Eugene Victor Tooms was hardly human, Scully. At one-hundred-twenty-one years young, he was on a steady diet of three livers per hibernation break.”

Their coffees are dropped off, but the conversation continues despite the interruption.

“The oldest human who’s ever lived is one-hundred-nineteen years old. On top of that, even if someone were to live to be one-hundred-twenty-one they certainly wouldn’t be healthy or fit enough to murder people and eat their livers, then have enough energy left over to build a bile-nest.” She’s animated, her hands punctuating her statements as her face quirks into an ‘I can't even believe I’m even having this conversation’ expression, and he can’t help but smile.

“Okay, if you don’t agree with my conclusions, Scully, then tell me what you think happened,” he says gently.

She pulls in a deep breath and lets it out in a huff, her shoulders deflating. “I don’t know, Mulder. I’d need access to the biological materials, to analyze them in a lab. We’d need to do a full physical work up on Mr. Tooms, genetic testing.”

Mulder bobs his head. “Well, that will prove difficult seeing as Mr. Tooms met his end under the teeth of an escalator,” he replies, and her eyes go big for a moment.

She shakes her head, closing the folder and sliding it back across the table towards him. “Didn’t it bother you, to work all these cases and never have any real answers?” she asks.

Mulder shrugs. “Yes and no. For me, it isn’t as much about the answers themselves as it is the journey towards the one great truth. Doors are opened along the way, avenues cleared, and it all lends itself towards moving me further along on my quest.”

She’s looking at him with soft, affectionate eyes. She’s really listening and it feels so fucking good. It’s not very often that anyone really listens when he talks. Really hears him.

“What do you consider to be your quest?” she asks gently.

“If I were really to narrow it down, to find my sister. Or to understand what happened to her.” His hand is sitting on top of the closed file and he startles a little when she reaches out and rests her palm against his knuckles. She gives him a sympathetic smile and then pulls it back, sitting up a bit straighter in her seat and busying herself stirring her coffee with a straw.

“Priscilla misses you,” he says, changing the subject again, and her delighted smile makes his heart swell.

“How can you possibly know that?” she replies skeptically, even though it’s clear that she wants it to be true.

“You think I can’t communicate with my cat?” he asks in mock offense, “what kind of roommate would I be if I didn’t learn to speak her language?”

Scully shakes her head, the smile still playing on her lips. “So how’d you end up being the one to keep her, anyway?” she asks, “she’s such a sweet cat, I’m surprised your ex was willing to part with her.”

Mulder takes a sip of his coffee before continuing. “At the time that Valerie, that’s my ex, moved out, she was planning to spend some time bumming around Europe so she really couldn't take Priscilla. I think by the time she got back, she felt too guilty about taking her away so she just let me keep her. Prissy always preferred me anyway, so I think she was satisfied with the custody arrangement.”

“So, you’re still in touch with her, then? Your ex?” She’s not making eye contact, trying to act casual, but he can tell she’s curious to know if they’re still involved. He’s curious to know why she cares.

“Oh, yeah, we’re on good terms, always have been. We don’t spend a ton of time together, but I would still consider her a close friend,” he answers honestly.

Scully frowns a little. “Then why did you break up, if you get along so well?”

Mulder sits back in his chair, considering the question for a moment. “I guess there just wasn’t a spark, you know. We looked great on paper, very compatible technically speaking. She was my best friend, a great partner. There was just something missing, for both of us. I loved her, still love her, but not in that way that makes you go ‘shit, I could spend the rest of my life waking up next to this person.’ And we both wanted that, and thought maybe we could have it with someone else, so we broke up.” He leans forward again, elbows on the table top, and takes in her stoic expression.

After a moment of contemplation, she speaks. “How would you know, if you had ‘the spark’ as you call it? What does that even mean?” There’s a mild defensiveness to her tone and it confuses him.

“I think...I think you just know,” he says, meeting her eye. She swallows and then drops her gaze, picking up her cup and sucking noisily at the last drops of coffee that cling to the ice.

[handeaux]

Cincinnati Welcomed Groundhog Day As We Abandoned The Candlemas Holiday Police

Among the earliest references in Cincinnati to Groundhog Day was an announcement by John P. Ohmer, proprietor of Ohmer’s Garden in the East End. Mr. Ohmer, a confectioner by trade, maintained a miniature zoo at his picnic grounds and informed the Cincinnati Enquirer on 10 February 1869 that his own personal groundhog had predicted a mild winter:

“I have a groundhog among my collection of animals in the Zoological Hall. I watched him on the 2d. He came out of his den at precisely two o’clock and has been out, more or less, every day since that time. I have been in the building every day during the winter, and had not seen him before since the 1st of October last. I have been in a business that depends on fine weather for eighteen years, and always calculated on groundhog’s day as a certain guide to go by.”

Although Mr. Ohmer was born in Paris, France, he based his business plan on a superstition widely attributed to Native American tribes. So did the ice harvesters of Urbana, Ohio. Before refrigeration, our ancestors kept food in the ice box – literally a box with a block of ice atop it. To have enough ice to last the year, ice harvesters needed a good, thick layer on northern lakes. The winter of 1862 had been so mild that it looked bad for the ice industry, but the groundhog came through, according to the Enquirer [6 February 1862]:

“We have encouragement, however, from the fact, that on Sunday last, February 2, being ground-hog day, the sun shone out brightly, enabling his hogship to see his shadow, and causing him to retire to his den, which is regarded by many as a sure prognostic of hard weather for some six weeks to come.”

All indigenous poppycock, according to University of Cincinnati Professor of Botany Harris Benedict, who in 1926 told a gathering of garden clubs at the Alms Hotel:

“February was called ‘month of the hunger moon’ by the Indians and many hibernating animals appeared for a new food supply during that period, among them the groundhog.”

Common Pleas Court Judge John A. Caldwell believed that country traditions such as Groundhog Day were valid only in the country, but lost their efficacy in the chaos of urban life. He told the Cincinnati Post [2 February 1905]:

“City chaps, however, don’t put so much faith in the little animal’s prediction or in the many other ways a country man can prognosticate the weather. Who ever heard of [Cincinnati Weather Bureau Director Simon S.] Bassler looking at the trees or sniffing the breeze to find out whether it was going to rain or not? Yet people in the country can tell by the rustle of the leaves and the feel of the air when a shower is coming.”

Despite the dismissal of the scientific community, a variety of Groundhog Day traditions appear to predate the discovery of the North American rodent by several centuries. Groundhog Day happens to coincide with the ancient feast of Candlemas, around which many similar superstitions accrue. The Cincinnati Gazette published one of these Candlemas predictions on 3 February 1866:

“If Candlemas day be clear and bright,

Then winter has taken another flight;

If Candlemas day brings clouds and rain,

Then winter is gone not to return again.”

Although Groundhog Day is rather festive, especially in little towns like Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, Candlemas carried some distinctly macabre connotations. If we see someone’s holiday decorations still hanging in May, we might joke about the “Holiday Police,” but the old folks were dead serious about Candlemas.

Candlemas is also known in various Christian sects as Feast of the Presentation of Jesus Christ, the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the Feast of the Holy Encounter. It marks the canonical end of the Christmas season, and enforcement was brutal. The Cincinnati Enquirer reported [29 July 1863] that all Christmas decorations must be removed from churches before Candlemas. If a single leaf or berry escaped detection, a death would ensue in the family whose pew was polluted by the festive remnant.

“An old lady (now dead) whom I knew, was so persuaded of the truth of this superstition that she would not be contented to leave the clearing of her pew to the constituted authorities, but used to send her servant on Candlemas eve to see that her own seat, at any rate, was thoroughly freed from danger.”

Apparently having dispensed with every speck of holiday glitter, the Cincinnati Business Men’s Club attempted to introduce a note of frivolity into its Ground-Hog Day observance in 1904 by offering “Ground-Hog with puree of split peas” on its luncheon menu. According to the Cincinnati Post [3 February 1904]:

“One well-known business man started to leave the table, protesting that he’d never heard of ground-hog being eaten, and that it made him sick to think about it. He was reassured, however, when he was told that the ‘ground-hog’ was merely pork sausages sailing under a nom de plume.”

The Cincinnati Post reported [2 February 1897] that people throughout the United States universally recognized Groundhog Day, but were thoroughly confused how to interpret the groundhog’s shadow or lack thereof:

“In some localities the saying is that if he sees his shadow Feb. 2 he will be scared back into his hole and winter will rage for six weeks longer. Others have it that if he sees his shadow he will stay out and play with it, because spring is at hand. So it becomes a ground-hog case.”

A “groundhog case,” a phrase no longer in much use, referred to a what was also called a Hobson’s Choice – a choice that was really no choice at all.

[darkobssessions]

Coping Tips for Autistic Women

I am compiling a list of resources for aspie women along with tips to manage symptoms and navigate the world. Regretably, most of my personal experience comes from living undiagnosed and unaware about this for the last 27 years. There was a giant elephant in the room with everything, and I have only recently worked it out. This means that most of my habits prior to this point were ones attempting to cope with a giant unknown, the limits of which were unclear. But they more or less worked, because, as I am realising, there’s always been something they are attempting to address.

With other diagnoses and ways I attempted to explain and understand my difficulties, there were finite causes and treatments. I should have been improving if I tried x, y, or z. And I did improve my symptoms in many ways, but there was something missing from the picture. That is that autism is my personality, my state of being, how I process and view the world. And no tool, medication, process or treatment was ever going to change who I really was. Being misdiagnosed (or being missed and failing to receive the autism diagnosis) means that I have been trying to correct something that you cant ‘correct’, and shaming myself for something fundamentally me.

Some of the tips I learned over time, from how I am as a person, without the framework of reference of neurodivergence or autism:

Sensory:

My sensitivity has always been a big waving flag. I felt and saw things others didn’t. I felt more deeply. I sensed the microeffects and changes in everything. I responded harder and faster to any chemical, environmental shift, any positive or negative event, As we all do on the spectrum, we attempt to navigate our sensory environment. And we come up with coping mechanisms, good or bad, before or after we realise we are on the spectrum. For me this was a strong aversion to the things that upset me, that disturbed my senses. It was an orienting of myself in a way to avoid the disturbances, going inwards, withdrawing and even shutting down. I learned that I could not and did not want to handle crowds, loud places, supermarkets. I lived in a giant simulation attempting to minimise and avoid as much as possible the things that hurt. I learned that I was extremely sensitive, no one else seemed to be, and I just had to manage it. Since discovering autism in the last weeks, I am able to embrace the fact that sensory overload is a thing, and I really do feel pain in my body when things are too much and too loud, and just wearing earplugs has mitigated so much of this. I was gas lighting myself before about feeling a certain way because there was no explanation, that I was aware of anyway.

Physical:

I have had so many problems over the years, since I was a young girl. I used to get food poisoning symptoms really easily. I had hidden allergies. I remember a lot of my childhood spent doubled up with stomach pains, or having a fever. My family didn’t know any better and fed me and treated me as they did every other member. I was not the same, I did not feel the same, but I took it all in. By the time I was in my early teen years, I had cemented my aversion to certain foods, taken the only control I had at the time against an encroaching and controlling mother and turned it into anorexia. I avoided things I didn’t like, again, and set up a system of control that made more sense than the gaping wounds and confusion within me. Starvation triggered bulimia. And a viscous cycle of malnourishment and dysregulation unfolded. I didn’t learn until many, many years later that my system was so sensitive and damaged that if I tried to go back to how I used to eat as a child, I would get terrible symptoms. So my coping tips as I have healed from the eating disorders and become more aware is to figure out what the triggers are, what hurts, and to avoid it. This along with adding in nutrient dense foods and working on the deficiencies has done wonders for me. I’ve done tremendous work on my autoimmune conditions, gut problems, sensitivities and inflammation levels and the difference is like night and day. That I can induce psychotic symptoms by deviating or introducing foods I am intolerant to is no joke. The tip I can share is elimination diets truly do work, the keto diet is recommended, and eating the carnivorous way saved my life. My eating disorders for almost 15 years INCLUDING the 7.5 years I was a vegan, mostly high raw and fruitarian depleted my nutrients so badly that every symptom was enhanced 100% and I was eating pretty much ONLY food I was actually intolerant to. Ahem, plants, I’m talking to you. The peace I feel, the nourishment and rest on a nervous system level having eliminated them is unreal.

Social:

I have always known I was different, in a deep, visceral way. How the adults in my life answered questions was inadequate. I saw through people and things. I was far too intense and serious. I learned to watch and observe humans and pick up cues so as to attempt to fit in. I spent the majority of my life masking, something I am only now finding out about and unraveling. I kept notes on the human experience, and saved colours, sounds, feelings, because I felt like I couldn’t communicate the truth of myself otherwise. Over the course of my life there have been inexplicable (until now) events. Lost friendships and relationships, strings of broken promises, people not acting on what they say, confusions and miscommunications, and many dangerous situations and predatory bonds. I made what sense I could of it from whatever lens I could find. It was the trauma, it was my soul contract, it was what I deserved, it was being targeted- all close, but not quite within the realm of being so naive, open and fundamentally different as you are on the spectrum. I just always assumed everybody was like me. I had to learn the very extremely hard way that not everyone felt and thought in the same way, nor had good intentions. I still struggle with the fact that humans don’t tell the truth. It is of no relevance whether they secretly know it. Most people are more comfortable with illusions. I always knew this, but the diagnosis gives me a lot more peace around it. It’s allowing me to accept the fact that if I look around the majority of the people I see are not walking around processing and over-analysing everything, feeling sounds, decoding patterns and obsessed with hacking the code of reality. Less pressure that way, and more in the way of what can be viewed as natural interaction on my part. I will solve the mystery of the universe out loud otherwise, and get the blank looks and the discomfort. I have found my people, a tribe of likeminded individuals, I have gathered friends over the years that didn’t run from my weirdness. But I am mostly content to be on my own, knowing that I can only use what is around me to try to convey how I feel and who I really am. And that will probably be a book, a movie or a work of art, much better than a 2pm rendezvous when I can’t stop talking about the hidden signs.

Emotional:

With the intensity of my emotions I have developed borderline personality disorder as a means to cope with being autistic and not knowing. I have been diagnosed with both that and bipolar because I have intense stints of emotions. They come and go in waves, lasting hours, lasting days and weeks. I consider it to be an energy management system to cope with the demands and stressors of modern day living. Creatives always withdraw and hibernate, and come out with new insights and art to share. The way that I feel and view the world is special. It’s at the basis of my writing, what I choose to engage with and how. My emotions make me who I am. I feel intensely, I share passionately about how I feel. I snap, I break, I shutdown, I come out again and I am a bright, shooting star. There is an excited little animal that lives within me and it is the strongest most passionate thing known to man. I thought that my negative experiences or trauma killed it, but this is before I knew it IS me and cannot die. So I have stopped trying to cram these emotions in or explain them. Stopped trying to attribute them to whatever script people were following when they dealt with me. Throwing me into the depressive, anxious, panic stricken, eating disordered basket case category. The missing piece now makes so much sense. The ways I responded to being autistic were coping mechanisms, such as developing a personality disorder, to deal with the pressure. My psyche splintered under the weight. My tip here is in embracing your inner life and world, embracing that you are different, so that all of the mental and emotional acrobatics needed to attempt to explain the issues or fit in can be put to rest.

Spiritual:

Being different and feeling differently means I naturally saw and expressed things in quite a strange way. I was convinced of a secret world to reality, behind reality, living on behind a paper shell, so to speak, that would rip if only I could reach out and tear it aside. That conviction was rewarded as year after year my awareness grew, my gifts multiplied, and the experiences I had revealed to me the hidden hand of god. There was very much design to the universe, a pattern, weaving through all things. And i was a part of it, not some discarded afterthought or simple byproduct that had no place. In the early years, I kept my convictions to myself, nursed them with experience. I died a thousand deaths in dark nights of the soul, crashing against the turf of my ignorance. I broke open, and everything I had been so sure of as a child was revealed to me again and again. I was convinced I had a purpose, I could feel the deep tides of human emotion and motion, could feel into the genetic sequence that had birthed me. I felt like an alien, but that slowly over time the map of my operation was being revealed to me. This is what it feels like so many years later to stand here and find out about being autistic and realise that how I felt in my soul all these years was real, and that I can begin to truly fulfill this mission now, to share my experience in words I know others will understand because they feel the same way too. It was the challenges that I never understood, while the gifts were the reason to stay alive. My message to myself and others now is that there is a point, a reason to persevere and understand yourself more. The suffering reveals so much of the true state of things, so that we can protect our tender hearts and build new things that honour who we really are, our souls. 

Resources, movies, literature to follow. I just wanted to share something of a summary now of my realisations since coming home to myself.

[thefatalmarksman]

so anyway i said i would make this post because i want to and no one can stop me:

FFVII AU Luxu’s Murderous Habits That Could Implicate Him As Some Kind of Serial Killer (Part One, I imagine, Because I Don’t Know How to Shut Up About This Kind of Thing)

*** warnings for discussion of serial killings (obviously) and mild n.sfw mentions ***

->->-> so to start it’s important to keep in mind he’s an alien whose main diet is humans. p sure it’s important to establish that while we’re discussing serial killer-like aspects for this headcanon, he’s still uhhhh a fantasy creature capable of unhinging his jaw and swallowing a person whole if need be. and it’s a cool trick that i’m sure would be a hit at parties but unfortunately that’s something to be kept on the DL

->->-> also he’s been killing for 20+ years by this point so lbr the amount of victims he’s racked up is........ high. and though he typically will do a weekly meal interspersed with other types of meats (preferably served raw), sometimes if he’s burning a substantial amount of energy for whatever reason or is just feeling fairly frisky, he’ll have a few people over the course of a few days. the longest he can go without feeding is a couple months if he’s reserved energy for himself, but expect him to be either very hangry or outright unresponsive. remember, he is capable of hibernation until experiencing a stimulation of energy, but... that said, he Needs His Foods.

->->-> in terms of the logistics of targeting his victims, it’s easiest to go after transient individuals, folks who are down on their luck, or out-of-towners. they are most easily missed, and when they vanish, there’s less suspicion because, oh, they probably just... went somewhere else. :/ in addition, he finds that going after healthier-looking folks with more meat on their bones gives him more bang for his buck 

->->-> however, he does have his share of aesthetic preferences he’s developed during his time “playing human” that don’t have a particular bearing on his literal tastes, but that he just finds appealing to look at and stoke the embers of his sexual interests. he keeps a special eye out for folks with freckles (can’t articulate why, it’s endearing---probably something left over from Braig), body mods (piercings, tattoos, etc---he’s BIG into knowing someone he might have a sexual encounter with is durable), or just highly alternative looks in general.

->->-> needless to say, he has no interest in devouring children (too tiny, not enough meat, and they’re just gross), and animals are a last resort if he’s absolutely DESPERATE to feed, but that doesn’t happen too often (plus, the majority of them get Bad Vibes from him and tend to stray away from his presence)

->->-> his typical method of hunting is hanging out in bars or clubs, picking out a stranger, and charming them into getting a hotel room with him. and due to him being an alien that gives off fairly human-like pheromones, he’s able to dial up the heat with a little spritz of that to coax them into accompanying him. of course, if they decline, he does not press the issue---he prefers not to cause a scene, and there are plenty of others he can pursue

->->-> he does prefer to have sex with his victims prior to devouring them, and boy is his appetite... insatiable, in more than one way. :| again, if they choose to back out of having sex by the time they reach the hotel room, then he’ll oblige---however, if they are alone, he most definitely will just skip the appetizer and go straight to the main course

->->-> he most likes to get them into the shower with him, both for the consummation and subsequent consumption. it proves less of a hassle to clean up, and once he’s all finished (it can take anywhere from ten minutes to an hour to consume his prey, depending on various factors, such as their size, how hungry he is, and how much he just wants to savor his meal), he can just shower off, make sure nothing is out of place, and sneak out to find some other place to chill while he digests

->->-> it’s not as though he’s completely avoided stoking the embers of suspicion that there’s a kidnapper (or, perhaps, killer) on the loose, of course, and every potential criminal’s gotta have a cool nickname, right? for any time he’s been briefly seen by an onlooker, the cut of his outfit has been, according to onlookers, nothing more than a black blob of indiscernible detail darting at swift speed through the darkness, thus garnering the name “the Cloaked Stranger”

->->-> however, due to the fact that he’s never left behind a body as evidence, he can’t necessarily be classified as a killer, per se---even though folks out and about have no doubt that’s exactly what he is

->->-> and no “serial killer” is complete without some gruesome habits. one of luxu’s is that he sometimes will leave himself with some leftovers, though it’s usually just one or two fingers that he can pocket for himself and are not completely conspicuous. this is so that, when he’s just chillin’ by himself, he can gnaw on them as an after-dinner snack if he starts feelin a lil hungry again

i’m sure there are things that i have forgotten and might fix but ye. uvu

[joyfulsongbird]

Bruises And All- Chapter 2

the storm still raging about, Eurydice has to keep her walls up despite the kindness of the people that surround her.

tw: past abuse, do what’s good for you

***

EURYDICE is not alright. she is afraid, and shivering, and cold, and wants to sleep forever. she is bruised and young and in a place she’s never been before: in the hands of men who care. her entire body is screaming at her to run out of this place, to hell with the rain, she wants to run right into the ocean. that’s why she came here, for the ocean. she wanted to feel the tangible salt in the air, run her fingers through the sand. she wants to make sandcastles dammit. she wants to sit criss cross like a child and scream as the waves wash to the shore in huge heaps of foam. she wants to regain the childhood she never had, she’s twenty and she’s never felt sand between her toes. she lived a mere few hours away from a beach and never went home with her tongue tasting like salt.

the two men of the house bustle about like she isn’t there. the older man- Mister Hermes- had handed her a bundle of dry clothes but hadn’t told her where to change or where she was allowed to go. and the boy- Orpheus- is now coming up from the stairs carrying some towels in his arms. his eyes have fear in them as he approaches her, she leans back, resisting the urge to take a step towards the tables. but that shows fear, she isn’t weak, she isn’t afraid (she is) and she can’t show weakness.

“h-here.” oh, so he’s afraid too. he’s afraid of a girl who looks terrifying and terrified at the same time. she knows that her black makeup must be running down her face by now like onyx tears. her eyes, just as dark, must contain the emptiness of dozens of people. and maybe, if you looked the right way, you could start to see the purplish blue of a bruise creeping up both sides of her neck, and if she took off her coat, you could make out the shape of a handprint on either side of her neck. she will not being taking off her coat.

“thank you.” she keeps her eyes downcast from his, who does not attempt to not stare at her. and it isn’t an intruding stare but it makes her feel naked. like he can look at her and see the deepest secrets she holds close to her chest. the ones she would never dare speak aloud.

he backs away, walking backwards a few steps before thinking better of it and turning around, only to trip over his feet. clumsy, young, naive. the exact opposite of her.

she opens her mouth, closes it, opens it, closes it. repeats it again and again until she opts for clearing her throat to get Mister Hermes’ attention from his position behind the bar where he is searching under it for something.

“yes?” he says, looking up.

“where can I-” she holds up the bundle of clothes and towel.

“oh!” he startles himself with the realization that she’s a girl and won’t strip down in front of the two of them. “bathroom is up the stairs, first door to the left.”

she thanks him quietly, starting up the stairs with her bag on her shoulder. the wood is old and creaking and has obviously been held up for years and years. it’s worn in places that have been touched over and over, smooth and glossy and finished from years of wear and tear. at one time, she might’ve loved the smell of this place, like beer and the residual scent of bar food. she knows that smell well. some might have spent their childhoods in candy shops, up against the side of a park. her reminiscence comes from cacophony of voices and music, the yelling of gamblers, all squashed into one tiny room. at one time in her life, she would’ve felt nostalgia over these smells.

now, her stomach churns at the memories.

the bathroom is small, with a rusty old sink and a shower head in the corner with an old fashioned bathtub. she’d like nothing more than a hot shower right now but holds back her wants, water bills are expensive these days. some of the less fortunate (herself included) are commonly acquainted with the idea of limited water supply per week. she does however, splash her face with water from the sink briefly before looking in the mirror.

this is not the girl she remembers. she is not the girl she once knew when she looked in the mirror.

no wonder Orpheus was scared, she’s scary. her eyes bloodshot, dark bags underneath them. bruises peeking out of her coat collar. and under her coat, a little body with hips sticking out, arms somehow twig sized and toned with muscle gained over the years. she looks like a creature, like an animal you might find in the depths of the ocean. hair everywhere, cheekbones sharp... when was the last time she had a proper meal? if she’s being honest, probably years. she feels this sense of betrayal looking at herself. she lost herself over what? over her pride, over her sense of self recognition. she needed to be a person so she fought and cried and screamed when they tried to take that away. little did she know that she was destined to be a creature anyways.

she lets her coat fall to the floor in a soaking pile of fabric, next to her bag. her fingers run freely over her neck, tracing the bruises that create patterns crawling all the way up from her collarbones, culminating in clear-ish handprints on her neck. it’s so very obvious that she can barely take it. she tries to convince herself that no one can tell you’re in the clear no one knows no one knows nooneknowsnooneknowsnooneknowsnooneknowsnooneknows

no one can know

she looks away from the mirror, from the creature looking back at her. peeling off all of her other clothes except for her underclothes, she lets them all drop to the floor. she observes each of them individually, a ripped slip dress, old black tights. she removes her boots too, as those are soaked to the sole. she avoids the mirror, she does not want to see those bruises extend beyond her collarbones to where she knows they sit... her ribs burn, her stomach churns, her spine aches. she hurts everywhere.

the clothes Mister Hermes gave to her are obviously childrens clothes, probably Orpheus’. anything else of either of theirs would not fit her. these ones may still be too big. she holds it up to her body... it will hang too loosely, what she has gone through will be on full display. her pain will be there to be looked at and she knows she will be stared at like she is an animal in some zoo.

be brave, be strong, deny it, just deny it, they’ll never know

you can leave as soon as this blows over, you can go to the ocean

she pulls on the shirt, the loose pants she was given too. her toes are cold, but her socks are wet too. everything she is, everything she wore that represented who she was is gone. she is stripped down, she is as naked as any baby. she’s as helpless as the same. or so she feels. stuck in one place, not being able to leave, it makes her feel antsy. she is constantly moving, like the undercurrents of the ocean. ever flowing, ever changing.

deep breath in, deep breath out.

she leaves the bathroom. she doesn’t care what they think of her. they aren’t going to care... and anyways, she could’ve gotten these bruises from falling in the forest or anywhere else.

on the way down the stairs, her heart rate speeds up. to a rate where her entire body feels each and every beat. her chest throbs with every heartbeat, every breathe, every pulsating beat. she’s afraid, that’s the feeling, she’s feeling fear. she wants nothing more than to burrow under the earth, sleep for years and years, hibernate for the rest of her life. to comfort herself, she clutches her clothes close to her chest. despite the fact that it leaves a wet patch on her shirt. it’s keeping her present. the cold of the water is keeping her mind sharp.

relief courses through her that all that she gets in response for walking down the stairs is a frown from Mister Hermes. no one is noticing, this is good. this is good.

“you can put those wet clothes by the door leading to the basement,” he points towards it, not looking at her. “I’ll wash them.”

“Oh, you don’t-”

“it’s no trouble, I’m going to be washing mine, just put them there.” his voice is firm enough that she argues no more. for a moment, her whole body sparks with the instinct to apologize. and she has to remind herself that she apologizes to no one now, she is her own person. her apology is only to be given out to those who deserve it for things that matter.

she puts them by the door.

Mister Hermes leaves the room, to go upstairs, supposedly to go up to the bathroom as well. and Eurydice is alone.

she is alone and can be weak.

[multiverseforger]

In his original appearance, Jason was scripted as a mentally disabled young boy.[91] Since Friday the 13th, Jason Voorhees has been depicted as a non-verbal, indestructible, machete-wielding mass murderer.[92][93] Jason is primarily portrayed as being completely silent throughout the film series. Exceptions to this include in part 3 when he grunts in pain several times when final girl Chris manages to stab him (once in the hand and once just above his knee), flashbacks of Jason as a child, a brief scene in Jason Takes Manhattan where the character cries out "Mommy, please don't let me drown!" in a child's voice before being submerged in toxic waste, and in Jason Goes To Hell where his spirit possesses other individuals.[55] Online magazine Salon's Andrew O'Hehir describes Jason as a "silent, expressionless...blank slate."[94] When discussing Jason psychologically, Sean S. Cunningham said, "...he doesn't have any personality. He's like a great white shark. You can't really defeat him. All you can hope for is to survive."[95] Since Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, Jason has been a "virtually indestructible" being. Tom McLoughlin, the film's director, felt it was silly that Jason had previously been just another guy in a mask, who would kill people left and right, but get "beaten up and knocked down by the heroine at the end". McLoughlin wanted Jason to be more of a "formidable, unstoppable monster".[23] In resurrecting Jason from the dead, McLoughlin also gave him the weakness of being rendered helpless if trapped beneath the waters of Crystal Lake; inspired by vampire lore, McLoughlin decided that Jason had in fact drowned as a child, and that returning him to his original resting place would immobilize him.[96] This weakness would be presented again in The New Blood, and the idea that Jason had drowned as a child was taken up by director Rob Hedden as a plot element in Jason Takes Manhattan.[55]

Many have given suggestions as Jason's motivation for killing. Ken Kirzinger refers to Jason as a "psychotic mama's boy gone horribly awry...very resilient. You can't kill him, but he feels pain, just not like everyone else."[97] Kirzinger goes on to say that Jason is a "psycho-savant", and believes his actions are based on pleasing his mother, and not anything personal.[79] Andrew O'Hehir has stated, "Coursing hormones act, of course, as smelling salts to prudish Jason, that ever-vigilant enforcer of William Bennett-style values."[94] Todd Farmer, writer for Jason X, wrote the scene where Jason wakes from cryonic hibernation just as two of the teenagers are having sex. Farmer liked the idea that sex acts triggered Jason back to life.[78] Whatever his motivations, Kane Hodder believes there is a limit to what he will do. According to Hodder, Jason might violently murder any person he comes across, but when Jason Takes Manhattan called for Hodder to kick the lead character's dog, Hodder refused, stating that, while Jason has no qualms against killing humans, he is not bad enough to hurt animals.[98] Another example from Jason Takes Manhattan, involves Jason being confronted by a street gang of young teenage boys one of whom threatens him with a knife, however Jason chooses not to kill them and instead scares them off by lifting up his mask and showing them his face. Likewise, director Tom McLoughlin chose not to have Jason harm any of the children he encounters in Jason Lives, stating that Jason would not kill a child, out of a sympathy for the plight of children generated by his own death as a child.[96]

In Jason Goes to Hell, director Adam Marcus decided to include a copy of the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, from the Evil Dead franchise, in the Voorhees home as a way to insinuate that Jason was actually a "Deadite", a type of demonic being from that series. Marcus stated the book's placement was intended to imply that Pamela Voorhees had used it to resurrect Jason after his childhood drowning, resulting in his supernatural abilities: "This is why Jason isn't Jason. He's Jason plus The Evil Dead... That, to me, is way more interesting as a mashup, and [Sam] Raimi loved it! It's not like I could tell New Line my plan to include The Evil Dead, because they don't own The Evil Dead. So it had to be an Easter egg, and I did focus on it. It absolutely is canon."[99] In an early draft of Freddy vs. Jason, it was decided that one of the villains needed a redeemable factor. Ronald D. Moore, co-writer of the first draft, explained that Jason was the easiest to make redeemable, because no one had previously ventured into the psychology surrounding the character. Moore saw the character as a "blank slate", and felt he was a character the audience could really root for.[100] Another draft, penned by Mark Protosevich, followed Moore's idea of Jason having a redeemable quality. In the draft, Jason protects a pregnant teenager named Rachel Daniels. Protosevich explained, "It gets into this whole idea of there being two kinds of monsters. Freddy is a figure of actual pure evil and Jason is more like a figure of vengeance who punishes people he feels do not deserve to live. Ultimately, the two of them clash and Jason becomes an honorable monster."[100] Writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, who wrote the final draft of the film, disagreed about making Jason a hero, although they drew comparisons between the fact that Freddy was a victimizer and Jason was a victim. They stated, "We did not want to make Jason any less scary. He's still a brutal killer ... We never wanted to put them in a situation where Jason is a hero ... They're both villains to be equally feared."[100] Brenna O'Brien, co-founder of Fridaythe13thfilms.com, saw the character as having sympathetic qualities. She stated, "[Jason] was a deformed child who almost drowned and then spent the rest of his childhood growing up alone in the woods. He saw his mother get murdered by a camp counselor in the first Friday the 13th, and so now he exacts his revenge on anyone who returns to Camp Crystal Lake. Teenage fans can identify with that sense of rejection and isolation, which you can't really get from other killers like Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers."[86]

As Jason went through some characterization changes in the 2009 film, Derek Mears likens him more to a combination of John Rambo, Tarzan, and the Abominable Snowman from Looney Tunes. To him, this Jason is similar to Rambo because he sets up the other characters to fall into his traps. Like Rambo, he is more calculated because he feels that he has been wronged and he is fighting back; he is meant to be more sympathetic in this film.[101] Fuller and Form contend that they did not want to make Jason too sympathetic to the audience. As Brad Fuller explains, "We do not want him to be sympathetic. Jason is not a comedic character, he is not sympathetic. He's a killing machine. Plain and simple."[102]

In 2005, California State University's Media Psychology Lab surveyed 1,166 people Americans aged from 16 to 91 on the psychological appeal of movie monsters. Many of the characteristics associated with Jason Voorhees were appealing to the participants. In the survey, Jason was considered to be an "unstoppable killing machine." Participants were impressed by the "cornucopic feats of slicing and dicing a seemingly endless number of adolescents and the occasional adult." Out of the ten monsters used in the survey—which included vampires, Freddy Krueger, Frankenstein's monster, Michael Myers, Godzilla, Chucky, Hannibal Lecter, King Kong and the Alien—Jason scored the highest in all the categories involving killing variables. Further characteristics that appealed to the participants included Jason's "immortality, his apparent enjoyment of killing [and] his superhuman strength."[103]

[civilization-illstayrighthere]

indulgences, 3.8k PWP vicar Maximillian desoto / m! Captain fic (spoilers for ‘the empty man’) 

The Captain is stonily silent as they slosh through the shin-deep water of Fallbrook’s River, away from the cowering, but still very much breathing form of Reginald Chaney. Felix keeps nervously glancing between him and the vicar.

“Wow,” He laughs, “That almost got ugly, right?”

There’s silence. Felix tries again: “First time we haven’t rushed into a fight, huh? The guy would have had it coming, though.”

The Captain grunts back a noncommittal answer. Max sighs.

“It’s for the best. Can we drop it, Felix?”

“Yeah, I mean, I was kinda hoping to sock him one, but I guess—“

“Can we drop it, Felix?” The Captain echoes, stopping in his tracks. Max doesn’t like his tone. Felix shrinks. The two of them were close— two oft-obnoxious, dimwitted C&P peas in a pod. Occasionally refreshingly insightful in their ignorance, but mostly annoying, especially in Mr. Millstone’s case. Usually they were the ones to gang up on him, overriding his levelheaded ideas in favor of whatever was louder and flashier—

But, from the glare the Captain spares him as he continues walking, he’s not on Max’s side, either.

He can’t blame him, exactly. He had, after all, been lying to the Captain from the time he saw the man wander into his church with a blood-crusted pulse hammer strapped on his back and Ms. Holcomb following hesitant on his heels. He had been lucky it was her whom he had been paired up with, instead of some of the other inhabitants of Edgewater; she barely knew him from the Architect’s first man.

But it had been a just lie, hadn’t it? The book— the book was in fucking French, a language on Halcyon only spoken in advertisement jingles for mockapple pie a la mode. His fault as well for trusting a convict, but he’s been searching for the answers to the Plan since seminary, for twenty-four law-damned years.

As soon as they reach the shore, Felix is more than happy to split.

“I’m gonna, uh— head on out to the bar,” he jerks a thumb behind him. The vicar rolls his eyes. “I’ll meet you guys back at the rental later, depending on how many drinks I have, you know, don’t expect me back or anything soon, or—“ he doesn’t really end the sentence, more just backpedals away until he’s out of earshot, before turning and jogging down the road.

There’s nothing he would enjoy less than being stuck with Felix Millstone and a bunch of faux-rebellious Byzantium gold-bloods drunk off Spectrum vodka spritzers in a bar, but Max is half tempted to follow.

“C’mon,” As if he could feel Max wrestling with his thoughts, the Captain jerks his attention away, tilting his chin the opposite direction, towards their sublight-sanctioned rental. “We need to talk.”

The vicar sighs. “We do.”

He tries to make himself furious at Reginald Chaney for this, he really does. He’s been furious for fucking years. But he finds he doesn’t have any left in him, as if it drained out into the shallows of the riverbed.

Max had been ready to kill him, rend and tear. He had spent so much time imagining the ways he could inflict the kind of pain that could only pale to the feeling of holding that incomprehensible book in his hands. That’s what his mind kept going back to— the years wasted, the effort, the dogged study he went through, only for his last effort to be the punchline of some sniveling moron’s joke. And the Captain had held him back. Frankly, he hadn’t expected that; the man had a mean temper himself, quick to sour when pushed, turning to intimidation when needed. He would have figured the Captain would have encouraged him to rend that sorry excuse of a man in two.

Instead, he had grabbed Max’s shoulder, said in a low tone that Reggie wasn’t worth it, even as he glowered at the quivering man before them. He didn’t need the Captain’s presence to intimidate; he found himself quite confident in those matters alone. It didn’t hurt, however, to have the two of them doing so. (And Felix in the wings, puffing his chest and throwing out a “yeah, what, how about that” didn’t exactly help, but it at least did keep him occupied.) He’s seen the Captain crush marauder helmets like overripe nanners with a single swing. He was handsome when he smiled; but still in his wilds armor, over six foot with a buzz cut and the facial burn scars from a hibernation pod landing gone wrong— well. He didn’t blame Chaney.

His Captain closes the door of their rental behind them. The click of the lock sounds louder than normal.

It’s Max who breaks the silence. It’s easier that way to take control, speaking in a low and even tone, as if to a wounded animal. The Captain is certainly pacing around the small room like one. “I want to thank you for talking some sense into me back there with Chaney. It has been a long time since I’ve given into my... violent enthusiasm.”

“Cut the bullshit, Max. You lied to me?”

Max bites his tongue. “Not a lie, per se— well—“

“You think I’m a joke, ain’t you?” Captain growls.

“Listen—” Max holds out placating hands, “You’re right. I apologize. I’ve been so focused on this, so focused on finding all of the answers—“ Stomach sinking, Max sighs. Even now, the raw anger hasn’t faded from the Captain’s face. The hurt. Now that he’s come clean, he does feel some guilt for his actions. They had been justified, of course, but he hadn’t meant to truly hurt anyone in the process, save Reginald himself. “I understand if you want me to leave. You accepted me into your crew, the friendship you gave me... but I hadn’t meant to betray your trust in a way.”

“Funny,” The Captain spits, “Didn’t mean to betray my trust by lyin’?”

“I’m sorry.” Max insists, “Captain—”

“I thought as a preacher man—“

“Vicar.” Max corrects.

“Vic-ur—“ The Captain snaps back, mockingly, “Whatever,” he whirls on his heel, “I thought you types weren’t supposed to lie, and all that.”

“We try not to.”

“Try?” He scoffs, “And you did it— you did it so smooth-like, like you were telling the truth. Weren’t sweating none. What else can you lie about?” His frustration is bleeding out, “What else— like, are you even a vicar?”

Max sighs. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

“And your name?”

His patience is growing thin. “I haven’t lied half as much as you think.”

“So that’s—!” He throws up his hands. “Fuckin’ half, then, Max, ‘cause I think you’re just a liar all around, one-hundred percent, so you lie about half of everything?”

“No, just this. And Captain, you must believe me, I regret it— I didn’t know you, and the rest of the crew, when I boarded your vessel like I do now.” It feels like pulling teeth, but it needs to be said. He’s not a sentimental man.

“That ain’t a good reason.” The Captain falters, “Good people don’t lie just ‘cause they don’t know someone.”

“I know. I’m not a good person.”

“Well, neither am I.” He stalks forward, “And if your laws are all about the strong surviving and the weak perishin’, and all,” the Captain leans in. They’re near the same height— which is to say, taller than most— but the Captain was broader in the shoulders and chest, and when he squared them—

It wasn’t fear. Though he would be lying if he said he wasn’t just a shade intimidated at the low timbre of his Captain’s voice, hushed and bearing the promise of violence as their noses just brushed: “Then it’d be downright holy to kick your law-forsaken ass.”

“Is that what you want to do?” Max holds his ground, feels his voice grow rough, the unspent adrenaline from earlier thumping behind the backs of his eyes, “Would that make you feel better, Park? ‘Kicking my ass’?”

He holds his stare. But then his Captain softens, flinches (at his name? Max can’t tell,) looking towards the ground. He takes a hesitant half-step back. “Naw,” his voice is soft, “That’d be real lowdown of me, real hypocritical. Especially after I just stopped you from doing it back there.”

He sags where he stands. Max feels a twinge of regret. His Captain is not a bad man, not at all. Quick to anger, but so was he. Captain Park was a hard, earnest worker. He practically trips over himself to help any person who crosses their path, even if he doesn’t always understand the implications of doing so. “Captain...” He grows quiet, “You owe me nothing. I know. I know this. I’m begging you for forgiveness.”

His Captain says nothing, just stares at the floor, and paces. Max shakes his head. “I promise you, from the bottom of my heart— as much as you and the rest of this crew are convinced I do not have one— I am sorry.”

The Captain is silent, for a moment. He stills. His dark eyes dart down, then back up. “Prove it.”

“Excuse me?”

His lips. The Captain’s looking at his lips. Self-consciously, Max feels himself wetting them with his tongue. A nervous habit he’s always tried to rid himself of. “I can’t trust nothing that comes out of that mouth of yours.” The Captain jerks his chin up defiantly at him. “How am I supposed to know you won’t do nothing like this again?”

It would be easy to excuse his Captain’s wandering eye as simply that, a casual glance. The Vicar crosses the space between them.

He almost looks shocked when Max lays his hand against his chest, unfurling his crossed arms, almost as if to push the vicar off. Max doesn’t give him time to react past that; he leans in, presses his lips to the Captain’s. It’s chaster than he means, closed eyes and closed lips. The Captain’s are chapped, but warm, and entirely unmoving.

Embarrassment starts to curl low in his belly. He pulls back, “I apologize, Captain, I thought—“

His curt defense is silenced as his Captain leans back in, kissing him with voracious, dizzying force. He can feel their stubble catch, scratching with each movement; he hasn’t kissed another man in years, since seminary, and he feels alight from the friction.

“Oh,” The Captain pulls back, and gives him such a dopey stare it makes his chest unexpectedly clench, “Vicar— I, uh—“

“Shh,” He’s quick to shush him, verbally and with another kiss. As inspiring as his Captain’s honesty is, he can’t quite take it now, not with his blood pumping in his ears the way it does when he’s swinging a tossball stick at a marauder.

His Captain’s face shifts; understanding, accepting. Max kisses him again, soft and slow this time, the quiet, wet sound of their lips. His palms feel sweaty when he settles them against the Captain’s hips. He needs this, too, and he knows if he thinks too hard on it, like most things, he will talk himself in circles around it.

The Captain drags him back into the kiss, settles his big hands around his waist. His hands guide him away from the door, towards the bed. When his ankles hit the edge of the bed, he ducks down but not enough, swearing against the vicar’s lips as the back of his skull connects with a crack with the overhang. Max can’t help it: he laughs into his mouth, even as his Captain pulls him down.

“Fuckin’ smarts,” he mumbles against his lips.

The vicar settles nicely into his lap, legs straddling his waist. ��You want me to kiss it better?”

“Does that count as a— what d’ya call it—“ The Captain punctuates his pause with a roll of the hips. The swell of his cock is unmistakable against his ass. “A benediction?”

Max smirks. He can’t find himself annoyed by his Captain’s ignorance when he’s grinding against him like this. He’s ruching his vestments up with both hands, tugging at the worn dress shirt he wears underneath. “Something like that.”

“Let’s get this off.”

He doesn’t have to ask twice. Max has no qualms about the human form; if anything, he considers himself a fine example of being made in the Grand Architect’s image at his age. His Captain’s heavy lidded gaze rakes up his torso, followed by his hands.

“What do you like?”

Max hums, arches his back. “I’m adaptable.”

“What the— adaptable?” The Captain clicks his tongue against the back of his teeth, befuddled annoyance written clear across his face, “I’m just askin’ a simple question— fuck, Vicar, what the fuck does that even mean—“

“You tell me, Captain.” The vicar interrupts, “Do you want to fuck me?”

His Captain groans low in his throat; his hands almost instantly become clumsier, pawing helplessly at the band of Max’s pants, his fingers slipping under to touch the band of his underclothes. “Yes.”

He rolls his Captain over; it’s a tangle of limbs getting each other undressed in the single-sized bunk. Max nearly protests of his vestments hitting the floor in a wrinkled heap, but his attention is quite literally turned with his Captain’s hand squeezing the back of his neck, dragging him back into a kiss. It’s a kind of hard manhandling that makes his eyes slip closed. His Captain tastes like purple berry crunch and the dregs of adreno use still hanging in the back of his throat.

Captain pulls back, squeezes the back of his neck, trails his fingers around against Max’s collar bone.

His hammer-calloused fingers are in his face. The Vicar sucks in a breath as his Captain traces his cupid’s bow.

“Suck.”

“That’s— undignified.” Max groans, unconvincing even to his own ears. His Captain smirks below him, a rare victory, running his thumb down from his lips to the cleft of his chin where the faintest stubble has grown in the days they’ve been traveling across Monarch.

“Sure is,” he tilts the vicar’s chin down. Max’s lips part. He swipes his thumb up, and the tip of Max’s tongue darts out— barely a touch, but by the way his eyes slit, he knows his Captain felt it. “Thought you were gonna be a team member now? An honest part of the Unreliable crew?”

When he presses that thumb to his lips again, Max takes it into his mouth. Warningly, he scrapes his teeth against the pad, and his Captain’s eyes flash dark. But it’s a warning, not a true threat, nothing he wants to act on— Max sucks, swirls his tongue around the pad of his finger. It’s salty and not altogether pleasant. His Captain has thick, thick fingers.

(Something he has never noticed, of course not, never has the good Vicar even once fantasized about those fingers and how surprisingly deft they were at lock picking, the thickness of his knuckles—)

He pulls his thumb from Max’s mouth with a soft pop. “Law.”

As much as Max would be willing to wet his Captain’s fingers until sopping, his Captain scrambles out of bed for something more substantial. He finds a tin of Spacer’s Choice lubrication in one of the drawers, forgotten from the last round of people to have moved through this space.

Max is waiting for him on the bed. Captain’s fingers probe searchingly; Max spreads his legs a little more, sucks in a breath as his Captain pulls him apart and rubs his thumb in maddening circles over his hole.

“I’ll go slow—“

“Don’t coddle me.” Max nearly snaps, arches back against his fingers. “I’m not some starry-eyed school-boy still in seminary. You aren’t my first.”

The Captain chuckles throatily, pushing the tip of his finger in; the burn of the intrusion is welcome, pleasure curling low in Max’s gut. He takes himself in hand, strokes down and makes a show of it as the Captain works his fingers into him.

“Y’know,” his Captain sounds hoarse, “Speaking of seminal-ary.” If he wasn’t being mercilessly fingered right now, his Captain curling and pushing and flexing, Max would have the voice to do more than groan, “Thought, uh. Thought men of the cloth were supposed to be chaste.”

“Not in scientism,” Max gasps, the point and counterpoint of his stroking hand and his Captain’s fingers reducing his ability to speak, “I feel like that’s obvious enough at this point, and I’d prefer not to explain myself when you’re knuckles deep in m— Grand Architect above—“

The Captain twists his fingers again, and Max groans, half-collapsing in on himself and on top of the Captain. “Fair ‘nough.”

He’s thorough, but quick; and Law, Max is thankful for that. He’s well-versed in his body now, at forty-two, and he knows what he can take, even if it’s been a while. And to be honest (which was the point of this excursion, wasn’t it,) he could be satisfied like this, stroking himself with the knuckles of his Captain’s hand bumping a steady tempo against him—

Against the back of Max’s thigh, his Captain has been grinding impatiently. He pushes himself up more onto his knees, and reluctantly the Captain’s fingers slide out of him. Blindly, he adjusts himself; he can feel the tip of his Captain’s cock bumping against his cheek, a wetness from his tip smearing across his skin.

With his other hand, the Captain lines his cock up, removes his fingers. Max looks over his shoulder, shivering as the Captain’s dick slides between his ass. His breath catches. “Don’t be a fucking tease.”

“No?” The hand on his ass slides back to the cleft, pressing his thumb against his hole, “‘cause you ain’t seen teasing, not yet. I could finger your ass all night, vicar, ‘specially one like this, could spend all the time in the world stretchin’ you out until you were begging—“

He’s rubbing in slow, teasing circles, a constant motion, and Max thinks he will be driven mad by it. “Captain,” he interrupts forcefully, “Fuck me, please, ” and then, impulsively, leaving his lips before they fully register in his brain, he gasps, “Forgive me.”

His Captain’s movements stutter. “Yeah?”

That hit a nerve. Max licks his lips, ventures again, “isn’t that what this is all about?” He rocks back, tries not to sound out when his Captain’s finger presses a little firmer against him. He’s aching now from the absence of anything in him. “Forgiving me for my transgressions?”

The Captain groans, clambers to line himself up. He slides into him nice and steady, a hand to his hip. Law above, he’s thick, and he feels him sink down root to tip, the heat of his hips flush against him. It has been— too long, embarrassingly long. Nobody in that muck stained town of Edgewater ever came close to interesting enough to be spared a second glance, though he thinks it laughable now that a sous-chef by trade and a Captain in stolen name only was the one to finally bring him to bed after such a dry spell.

“Good?”

“Move, damn you—“

And he does, he does, and Max groans and swears and collapses face down against the bed, spreads his knees akimbo as his Captain fucks into him.

Max takes his cock in hand, stroking himself in time with his Captain’s thrust. He adjusts, hunched over the vicar, pistoning into him; his hand slides from his waist to the base of his throat. The groan that escapes him is automatic; his cock pulses in his hand as the Captain’s fingers lightly, experimentally, squeeze.

“Yeah?”

Max groans his approval, throws his head back to bare the column of his neck even more. The Captain wraps his hand around him, a warm, calloused heat.

“Forgive me, Captain—“

His thumb digs into the hollow of his neck, presses down— the next breath Max sucks in is delightfully ragged, the pressure and pleasure of it zipping straight to his cock. “Louder.”

“Forgive me, Captain,” Max gasps, words stilted with each thrust, “Fuck, fuck, Law above, forgive me, forgive me—“

The hand around his throat tightens, presses in below his wildly bobbing adam’s apple. Each thrust punches the breath out of him, and each new intake is less than the last; he can feel his head swell, an intoxicating hum of static, his field of view narrowing and narrowing. He imagines if he dies like this, surely, that would have to be according to plan; nothing feels less right than being speared on his cock, gasping and scrabbling and begging for forgiveness, his ever-present thoughts clearing under the physical onslaught. All he can focus on is the Captain in him, the hand on his neck, ever-tightening, the searing pleasure—

He tries to breathe again, and this time, the hand tightens like a vice. He gasps noiseless, breathless. He is dying, he feels, or something so exquisitely close to it.

“C’mon, vicar,” The Captain’s drawl break through the heady buzz, hot against his ear, “come for me.”

When he does, he sees stars, planets and galaxies— and for a moment, his body gives in, slumping in the Captain’s arms, falling forward with the next thrust. It’s a momentary blackout, and he comes to with the Captain thrusting into him, the pace increasingly erratic. He mouths at the shell of his ear, groans long and low as his hips stutter.

Max groans, but no sound escapes him, throat raw. It doesn’t help that the Captain has collapsed on top with his entire weight pressed into his ribs.

“Park,” he finally rasps. His voice is hoarse and foreign in his own ears. He feels weak as a newborn fuzzy cow, his arms trembling too much to even provide the strength to push himself up. “Captain.”

“M’sorry,” the man mumbles, muffled against Max’s neck. He kisses it once— a decidedly tender motion against what assuredly will be very violent looking markings the vicar will have to turn up his collar as high as possible to hide. “Y’okay?”

“Yes, yes.” He clears his throat, but it does nothing for his tone. He braces himself on his forearms. The Captain fixes him with a balefully apologetic look. “I’m fine, thank you. No need to get soppy, now.”

“M’not.” His Captain protests, grinning dopily.

Max rolls his eyes and snorts. “Alright, then. Well.” He nearly smoothes a hand down the front of his vestments, except he’s obviously not wearing them— it’s admittedly strange, to be completely nude (And completely fucked through) with no crutches to lean on in front of the other. “I assume now all is forgiven?”

The most annoying thing about the crew of the Unreliable has been their predisposition to see right through him. The Captain, slowly dragging Max back on top of him with a shit-eating grin, is certainly no exception. “Hm, maybe. But I wouldn’t be opposed to hand out a little more forgiveness, if you’d accept it ‘n all.”

Max shivers as his Captain runs blunt nails down his back, gazing hopefully up at him. Law above and below. “I think,” He tries to sound dignified as his Captain’s hands creep lower, “We may be able to manage one more one-on-one counseling session.”

—-

In the next room over, with his pants shoved down around his thighs, Felix Millstone stares exhaustedly at the ceiling of his bed’s nook.

“Holy fuck,” he mutters, pun neither realized nor intended.

— 

also hi if you’ve read this far— do you hate ‘the captain/his captain’? I can’t decide if it feels too aggressively fanfiction-y if that makes sense. generally in fics w a create your own character i prefer the ‘default’ name but I hesitate to call him Hawthorne. might just go full hog and use Park’s name but. please feel free to crit that (and any other obviously) but would appreciate especially comments on that before i post the polished version on ao3

[adaginy]

Word vomit about my squirrel

This is Sparkplug. She is a thirteen-lined ground squirrel, like a tiny solo prairie dog. I’ve had her for 4 years now. She was only about a month old (based on development/breeding season) when my dog caught her and I’ve kept her ever since. In a perfect world I would have returned her as soon as I was sure she was unhurt, but just the day before I did not adopt a fledgling robin I found, so all my baby-animal willpower was used up. While researching later that year about why she wasn’t hibernating, one of the research papers (they’re used to study hibernation, so research papers exist) mentioned as an aside that they can’t be returned to the wild after more than a few weeks in captivity because all their territory will have been swiped by others. So she is not only my squirrel, she is My Responsibility.  Because she is My Responsibility (and because she is adorable), I want to do right by her, I want her to be as happy and content as a prey animal can be.  In this photo she’s in wood shavings. That’s new as of this weekend. It used to be a foot-ish of dirt with some sparse plants. (It’s a 90-gallon fish tank.) The plants got aphids and I got fed up and decided to replace it with wood shavings For Now and if she hated it I’d refill it with dirt, with BETTER dirt that will grow plants other than “soil amendment seed mix,” perhaps even growing things she will want to eat so that I don’t accidentally bring aphids in with wild plants again, and holding water a reasonable amount so that watering the plants isn’t a precarious effort to grow the plants while also not sending water careening into her hidey holes.  Anyway. Now that the wood shavings are there... New thoughts are happening? And usually I’d deal with brain-churn by talking to myself while I drove to work but haha offices are no longer a thing, so. 

Ways the new bedding affects her [objective-ish]

She has very minimal digging space

She has very minimal hiding space

She has very minimal caching space

Poo is removed fairly promptly, if she doesn’t bury it (In dirt she tends to either dig a toilet den or pile it up behind leaves)

Pee isn’t, unless I see the wet spot and pinch out the shavings (In dirt it soaks into the dirt, which can make the area gross, though I do have an enzyme spray; if I could grow plants it would feed plants)

Ways the new bedding affects me [objective-ish]

Is surprisingly noisy for her to play in and is slightly driving me bonkers

Cannot get running wheel to sit in a way that it doesn’t bang on the bottom when she runs, is also noisy

I get to see her a lot more?

It looks better in pictures

Behaviors Sparkplug is exhibiting/things I think she is thinking [speculative]

Trying to dig anyway; just instinct or does not having underground shelter freak her out?

Is very active; perhaps because everything is new and shiny OR because her hiding space is too small to chill out in?

Drinking a lot more water; was she getting her needs from plant-water before, or are the wood-shavings dehydrating to live in, or is she just THAT much more active?

Apparently she likes to climb on things? (I don’t think she’s looking for escape; I tipped over her running wheel for some quiet time and she jungle-gym’d all over and under it) 

Future concerns [very speculative]

How is she going to feel when I have to take a whole bunch of bedding/ out because it smells? (Picking her up to put in a different box isn’t viable, I did not handle her enough as a wee squirreling, she is less of a pet and more of a personal zoo exhibit, we are acquaintances but not friends) 

Not to mention the newspaper under the bedding??

How much am I going to hate changing her bedding?

 How much of my worry about wood shavings is just because I’ve collected seeds and rocks and sticks like I’m already planning dirt and I subconsciously don’t want that to go to waste? 

I don’t know if this fish tank currently holds water (for after Sparkplug) but her digging in the corners can’t improve those odds.

Thoughts on going back to dirt  [speculative]

What if stuff still doesn’t grow in it (I am not toooo concerned with this, I think that getting good soil should do the trick)

Ugh so much work to put the dirt in, but less maintenance after?

Or am I lying to myself about the maintenance, gods forbid I get aphids again

She eats seeds which makes planting the tank sometimes frustrating