#yes i know it might have something to do with reporting overall getting worse

[ikemenomegas]

ugh, you know you're getting older when you tell your mother you have a preferred newspaper

[phoenixcoin]

❂⭃ @phoenixfiiire asked: ⥷❂

❂⭃ GRIEVED: a scene from my muse's past in which they had recently lost someone / something ⥷❂

Glimpses of the Past

⤛⌠❂⌡⤜

The day that the news came to Byron, he was standing among his peers at a social gathering, and absolutely in the truest sense. A gaggle of men who knew him best from their days fighting together, covered in blood. Being men of action more than they were men of prestige, the lot of them were gathered around, cutting up at each other with vulgar and familiar behavior. They mocked each other to a degree, barking laughter as the group chicken pecked each other and aggressively insulted one another.

All in good fun of course.

And in the midst of the alcohol and the ruckus as servant came into the room and moved quiet as a mouse to Byron's elbow to get his attention.

"A... A letter for you, sir, and a stolas. From Rosalith."

Byron grinned as he turned to look over his shoulder, "What was that? News of my nephew perhaps? Well, don't wait, man, let's see it!"

The servant furrowed his brow, gazing pointedly at Byron's elbow while he talked, "You'll want to take this privately, lordship..."

The odd behavior for what should have been a momentous occasion caused Byron to pause, his own brow mimicking the other but overall keeping his smile on his face, "Alright... Ah, excuse me, gentlemen. I'll return shortly."

Havel scoffed and raised his chin, "Right, then, go sing your praises. No one here cares about your damn coming-of-age anyway."

A round of laughter burst from the other men as Byron waved them off, disappearing into his office with his servant, "This better be damn serious to have interrupted me like that, I hope you know."

"It is, lordship..."

That... Wasn't encouraging... And Byron straightened himself up in a bid to comfort himself as he was led into the room. Standing by the desk was another attendant, holding the stolas on his arm and the letter, along with a scrap of some sort, in the other hand. His expression was as grim as the first, and as Byron took the bird from his servant, he began to feel a sick twist in the pit of his stomach.

He addressed the stolas first, who had a message to inform him from one of the court of the grim news of Elwin and his sons. Spoken with all the sincerity which could be imagined by a member of House Rosalith fairly out of their circles, which was to say very little at all.

"I thought you might want to know, at least. That they were dead? Yes, since you're always all the way in Port Isolde."

Byron's breath shallowed, unwilling to understand, to believe what it was he was hearing. But even as he tried to deny it in his mind, he could feel his blood rushing, pounding in his ears. Turning a paled face to the servant, he gestured to the letter for it to be read to him. He prayed there was a mistake here, that the contents of this letter would not confirm the wicked words from this cursed creature.

However, it was far worse than he could have ever imagined...

The report— for that was what it was, a report full in detail and sparing no flourish— recounting the events of what would later become known as The Night of Flames. The vicious attack from the Phoenix and the rivers of blood and fire that had soon followed. The deaths of not only Elwin Rosfield, but also his sons Clive and Joshua Rosfield, and most of Rosalith's forces. The news came so seriously, so suddenly, that Byron still had a hard time processing it. His eyes hollowed out, empty and confused, and he reached out to grab at the servant's arm.

"It isn't real," he gasped. "Tell me it isn't real. How do you know? How do they know this? Tell me!"

"The... Stolas brought this with it, lordship."

Pressed into his hand was a burnt, torn piece of garment, one unmistakably belonging to his brother, shredded and bloody and torched. A piece of the battle that had taken place and serviceable token to the legitimacy of the news. Byron held the piece close to himself perfectly still as the reality of the situation broke the barrier of his mind's protection and slammed into him all at once, a punch in the gut so hard he would have lost his lunch and his breath all in one go.

There was a moment of stillness, of silence as he whispered through a cracked, tearful voice, "Elwin... Clive... Joshua... All of them..."

And as that rage and sorrow and guilt began rushing up through his spine and tearing a hot path over the rivers of nerves in his body, something finally, finally snapped within him. Through the halls of Byron's estate echoed a billowing, monstrous yell, a scream so bloodcurdling that it put every single guest on edge.

And it did not fade.

All of the energy in Byron's body went to fuel his break, where he knocked everything from his desk and tore books from their shelves and slammed his shoulders into the walls just because he could no longer see them clearly. Slamming his fists against the desktop hard enough for something to crack (his hand, he'd later find out). Throwing and smashing things against the floor (was it expensive? Who cared!? Who cared!? His family was dead!!!). The poor attendants stood cowering in the corner, fully understanding the situation but nevertheless wanting to stay well out of the way of their master.

Byron might have continued on in this manner until he'd destroyed his entire estate, but within minutes Havel burst through the door yelling at the tops of his lungs to command the attention of everyone in the room, including Byron himself, "What in the blazes is going on in here!? Byron! What is wrong you, acting like a mad man!"

A firm grip snatched up Byron's shoulders and stopped him in his tracks, though he was shuddering and tears carved hot paths down his cheeks. It was this pale visage that made Byron's battle buddy understand in no uncertain terms that something terrible had just happened.

Bryon twisted in Havel's grip like a dying snake, but he managed to choke out a response for his friend, "Phoenix Gate! Eugene. The Phoenix went-- went on a rampage...! Everyone! Everyone was fucking killed and--"

"What, your Joshua?" Havel breathed, trying to make sense of it all. "I don't believe tha--"

Bryon flung the scrap of fabric up into Havel's face, "They're dead, Eugene... All of them. My brother... My boys! Gods, my boys! They were so young...!"

In stalwart silence, Havel pulled Byron into a tight embrace, pulling the man's head into his shoulder as he sobbed with cries so hard they wracked his whole body, making him jerk and shake under the solid arms.

"This... This is all my fault," Byron choked. "If I had just been there--"

"You would be charcoal just like the rest of them," Havel spat back firmly. "This is not your fault, Byron. Do you understand me? This is not your fault. Don't you let me catch you saying that again... Listen, you need to get a hold of yourself. This is going to cause a stir, and you need to be ready, for the Duchy."

It almost felt impossible, what Havel was asking of him, with the rawness of his nerves, the vulnerability of his heart right then, the way that every single thing reminded him of his family and of the smiles he would never get to see. The years he would never get to experience. The way he, the strong pillar for his family and brother, had failed to hold them up in their greatest time of need. The way that realization made him feel so useless. But there was something calming about being physically held up, that while it took none of his pain away, it brought some lucidity to the hazy fog of grief taking over his mind. He listened closely to the words, and he shook his head slowly.

"Oh, well, Annabella will usually-- Oh...! Oh, gods, Annie! What must she be going through right now? I have to go home, Eugene, now."

Havel nodded and clapped his arms over Byron's shoulders, "Don't worry about seeing off your guests. I'll take care of that. And if you need anything at all while you're gone, contact me immediately. I don't want to hear you've collapsed because you wanted to be a damn fool overdid it, understand?"

Byron nodded, "Thank you... I... Owe you a great deal for this..."

"Shut up and go."

Byron could not bring himself to smile, but the corner of his mouth did rise just a bit as he turned to head to his bedchambers and pack his bags. He had a long journey ahead of himself and only half of it would he ever understand in the slightest until many years later.

[searchingwardrobes]

Ivory Runs Red: 5/6

First off, massive thanks to the @cssns​, my beta @demisexualemmaswan​, and my artist @cocohook38​. Cocohook created this amazing cover art, and she is working on something else too to go with this story. The rough sketch made my jaw drop, so I can’t wait for ya’ll to see it!

This part  is going to be a little long, but I need to address something that I got multiple comments about. Just bear with me; this is the only way I can think to clear things up. I was really surprised to see that some people were angry at David and Mary Margaret for not doing anything to find Emma and/or "allowing" her relationship with Neal. Others simply expressed things along the lines of "I hope you explain what David and Mary Margaret did about all this." The reason this reaction surprised me so much is because I thought it was clear that they HAD done something. Why would the Golds need to get rid of police files if the Swans never reported Emma missing? Why would issues of the newspaper be missing from the library if Emma's disappearance wasn't reported on? Obviously, David and Mary Margaret did something! As for Neal, they had no idea Emma was seeing him. If you'll recall, in a previous chapter, Emma told Killian she had to sneak out at night to meet Neal. So that wasn't Snowing's fault either. Also, how would any of these characters know what David and Mary Margaret did or didn't do for their daughter? This is almost a hundred years later, and Emma's memories are dulled from being a ghost for so long. The only way I could spell out clearly how Snowing handled their daughter's disappearance would be some sort of convoluted info-dump, and I didn't want to destroy the tone and mood of the story to do that. But just so everyone knows: Yes, Emma's parents were devastated. They did everything in their power to find her, never giving up hope (which is so in character for them!). They died still believing she was either still out there or that crimes against her had gone unpunished. It broke their hearts. The Golds spread rumors that Emma was some kind of slut who ran away with a guy, and the people of Storybrooke overall thought the Swans had gone crazy. So there it is, that's the back story that I just couldn't figure out how to fit in the story, lol.

I'm not mad at the questions, to be clear. I was just surprised by them. I guess I blame the show for ruining these two as parents the last couple of seasons. Maybe that's why everyone jumped on them so fast. I was also honestly worried that ya'll would be upset with me for not addressing the topic, hence this long explanation! No one was rude by any means, so don't go trying to defend me from nonexistent trolls, lol! My feelings have NOT been hurt. I simply wanted to address the questions that were asked and the misplaced anger toward Snowing. (Not anger towards me - but fictional characters!)

Okay, now that I've cleared all THAT up, let's get on with the next chapter, shall we? And I'll go ahead and warn you: this is gonna hurt . . .

Summary: When ebony flashes gold, blood runs cold. When ivory runs red, you’ll be dead. Killian Jones had heard the old rhyme his entire life. Every child did in Storybrooke, Maine. They heard it whispered in the dark at sleepovers as children; taunted as a challenge as teenagers. Killian never believed it was actually true. Until that fateful night …

Rated M for graphic depictions of violence, abusive relationships, and major character death (I mean, it’s a ghost story ya’ll, people are dead. BUT I promise, there is a happy ending. Trust me? *peeks from around a corner*)

Length: 6 chapters, complete, updated every Friday

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four

Also on Ao3

Tagging the usuals: @snowbellewells​ @whimsicallyenchantedrose​ @kmomof4​ @xhookswenchx​ @let-it-raines​ @bethacaciakay​ @tiganasummertree​ @shireness-says​ @stahlop​ @scientificapricot​ @spartanguard​ @welllpthisishappening​ @resident-of-storybrooke​ @thislassishooked​ @ilovemesomekillianjones​ @kday426​ @ekr032-blog-blog​ @lfh1226-linda​ @ultraluckycatnd​ @nikkiemms @optomisticgirl​ @profdanglaisstuff​ @ohmakemeahercules​ @carpedzem​ @branlovestowrite​ @superchocovian​ @hollyethecurious​ @vvbooklady1256​ @winterbaby89​ @delirious-latenight-laughs​ @jennjenn615​ @snidgetsafan​ @itsfabianadocarmo​ @lassluna​ @distant-rose​ @courtorderedcake​ @winterbythesea​ @thesschesthair​ @killian-whump​ @thisonesatellite​ @batana54​ @it-meant-something​ @xsajx​ @therooksshiningknight​ @gingerchangeling​​

Chapter Five: Run

“You’ve got to tell them what you saw - what you’ve learned,” Killian pleaded. 

Graham shook his head, his curly hair falling in his eyes as he stared at the slender hands he clasped in his. His eyes were bloodshot, his jaw sported far more facial hair than it normally did, and Killian didn’t have to ask if he’d slept in the past forty-eight hours. 

“They won’t believe me.”

Killian’s jaw clenched in frustration. “But if I saw Emma, and you saw her, then maybe they’ll believe -”

“That Belle saw a ghost push Mike Gaston off the troll bridge? They’ll believe that? Really?” Graham let out a sarcastic, bitter laugh. “You really are just a naive kid if that’s what you're thinking.”

“But you’re a cop!”

“I’m still only nineteen! They’ll think we’re just over-imaginative teenagers.” Graham paused, reaching up with one hand to trace the curve of Belle’s cheek as she slept in her drug-induced prison. “That will land us in rooms just down the hall with our own IV full of an antipsychotic cocktail. How will I help her then?”

“You’ve fallen in love with her.” It wasn’t a question. 

Graham sighed. “How could I not? And how could he -” He broke off, his blue eyes flashing. “I’m not sorry he’s dead. If I’d been there and saw him hurt her -”

“Shh, I wouldn’t say things like that. Not here.”

Killian’s gaze fell to the bruises around Belle’s neck, and he didn’t blame Graham at all. It terrified him to think what could have happened if Emma hadn’t shown up.

“History repeats itself,” he murmured under his breath. 

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

Killian had scarcely arrived at the bridge when headlights blinded him. He turned away, blinking, stumbling, refusing to be stopped. 

“Emma! Emma!” he shouted. He tripped and dropped his flashlight. It broke as it hit the ground, rolling to the edge of the bridge. Now all he could see was ebony before him and radiant luminescence behind him. 

His palms scraped against the asphalt as Liam hauled him to his feet. His brother gripped his upper arms so tightly it was almost painful, and he gave him a brief shake. 

“You’ve got to stop this!”

Killian fought him. “I have to see her!”

Liam had always been broader than Killian with an unfair advantage in all their childhood tussles. Even now, Killian was no match for him as he lifted him bodily with one arm and hauled him over to his car. 

“You need help!” Liam literally tossed him into the backseat. 

“I’m not going home!” Killian tried to scramble out, but Liam just shoved him back inside. 

“Good, because I’m not taking you home.”

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

“Why won’t you be straight with us, kid?”

Killian glared at the detective with a cynical sneer. The psychiatrist on the cop’s left frowned at Killian’s attitude. The choice of words was cruel considering he was in a literal straightjacket. His vision of the two men was obscured by the long strands of dark hair before his eyes. Haircuts were apparently seen as a luxury on the psych ward. 

“I’ve answered all your questions,” Killian finally told them wearily, “you just don’t like what I had to say.”

“Because we want the truth,” the psychiatrist, Dr. Archie Hopper, said gently. He was clearly playing the part of “good cop.” Or “good doctor.” Whatever.

“I told you the truth.”

“There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

Killian snorted a laugh. “Tell that to Mike Gaston.”

The detective’s voice took on a harsh, warning tone. “Mike Gaston was the victim of murder.”

“The victim!” Killian cried, his voice snapping up. “What about the bruises he put on Belle? Or the fact that I nearly died when he tied me to that bridge!”

The detective’s lips curled up in a lewd sneer as he lit a cigarette. “If some horny teenager likes it a bit rough, that’s none of my business.”

Killian fought his bonds, his jaw clenching at the detective’s insinuation. He was as bad as Neal Gold, maybe worse. He had to be pushing fifty at least, and a pot belly strained at his button up shirt. His eyes widened as Killian raged.

“Bothers you though, I see.” He leaned forward. “Nobody blames you for wanting her, kid. Nobody blames you for being jealous. But murder? That’s a different story.”

“I told you I had nothing to do with that!”

The detective glanced at Dr. Hopper, and the soft spoken psychiatrist took over. “Killian, start at the beginning for us. What did Belle say when she called you that night?”

“I’m telling you, she didn’t call me, she didn’t come to my house. I saw her early that afternoon at the library. That was it. Then my brother got a phone call that there had been an accident, and we came to the hospital.”

“You and Belle were at the library together a lot,” Hopper said softly, “what did you two do there?”

Killian rolled his eyes. He hated the patronizing way the man asked the question. “We studied. Did our homework. We were friends.”

The detective snorted again, and Killian wanted to scream. “Drop the act, kid. You really expect us to believe that you spent all that time with her, all that time with a hot chick, and you never fucked her?”

Dr. Hopper recoiled at the foul language, and Killian thought his own jaw might actually break. 

“You’re just as much a misogynistic, narrow-minded, neanderthal as Mike Gaston.”

The detective grinned and slapped Dr. Hopper on the knee. “You were right, shrink, this kid’s smart.” He took another puff of his cigarette as he eyed Killian. “Smart enough to plan an elaborate murder with your knocked-up girlfriend?”

“That’s the most ridiculous - wait - did you say knocked up?”

“Hm,” the detective mused, leaning back in his chair and rubbing at his five o’clock shadow. “You didn’t know?”

Killian was horrified when a laugh slipped past his lips. Another bitter laugh followed, then another, until before he knew it, he was shaking with them. He was laughing hysterically while wearing a straightjacket. That thought made him laugh even more, and if he didn’t seem like a lunatic before, he sure as hell did now. 

“What the hell is so funny?” thundered the detective.

Killian’s laughter stopped abruptly and he leveled the man with an intense stare. “History repeating itself. That’s what’s so funny.”

A smile that he knew bordered on manic curled his lips. Yes, history had repeated itself, and this time, Emma Swan had won. 

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

They didn’t have enough to charge him, or Belle, or anyone else really with Gaston’s murder. It was officially declared an accident, and theoretically, Belle French and Killian Jones were free to move on. 

Killian wouldn’t say it was easy for Belle. She had severe trauma from that terrifying night, and she ended up losing the baby because of it. Nevertheless, she had Dr. Hopper’s patient help, her father’s support, and Graham’s unwavering devotion. Soon, though it would be a long time before she was truly healed, she was able to go home. 

Killian, on the other hand, didn’t really want to go home. For one, he, unlike Belle and Graham, refused to stop talking about Emma - refused to lie and say he made it up. He didn’t fault his friends for it; didn’t take it as a betrayal. He even understood their reasoning when they begged him to do the same and just play along, damn it. He simply couldn’t do it. Emma was too real, too precious. He knew her in a way they never would. He knew the feel of her skin, the taste of her lips. He wouldn’t - couldn’t - let that go.

The psych ward wasn’t so bad. The drugs numbed him to the point that he sailed on a sea of oblivion half the time. He’d stopped fighting, so there was no more straight jacket, no more bed straps. 

And she came to him. Sometimes the drugs meant he wasn’t lucid enough to really carry on a conversation. On those nights, she curled up next to him on the bed. She ran her fingers through his hair and caressed his cheeks. She pressed kisses to his lips, and sometimes he could respond in kind. 

Other times, though admittedly rare, they would talk. About everything and nothing at all. One night, they talked about their dreams for later, after high school, and suddenly Emma began to weep. 

“I know,” he soothed, brushing her forehead with a kiss, “you fear you can never have that. But maybe we can figure it out. If we somehow get the truth out. About your murder -”

Emma silenced him with a finger to his lips. “That isn’t it, Killian. It’s you. I have no more tomorrows but you can.”

His brow furrowed, and she sighed and soothed the lines away with the pad of her thumb. 

“But not if you keep holding onto me.”

His arms instinctively pulled her closer. “I’ll never let you go.”

She sighed, and sadness filled her eyes. She slipped out of his embrace and rose from the bed. Her skin grew white, her gown floated in an ethereal way at her feet. He frowned and scrambled to a sitting position. 

“I have to say goodbye,” she told him. She said it with an edge of discovery in her voice. Her lips turned up in a soft smile even as a tear slipped down her cheek. 

He shook his head and tried to reach for her, to leave the bed, but he had just enough drugs in his system to make his movements sluggish and ineffectual. 

“I won’t let you see me again.”

“No, Emma, please! I love you!”

“And I love you. That’s why I have to do this.” 

She was already fading away. Killian made a fist and slammed it into his thigh. Tears stung his eyes. 

“Be happy,” she told him, “for me.”

Then she was gone.

[artbyrivaille]

Hair ☕

Okay, so at the outset, I would like to emphasize that English is not my mother tongue and I am still learning. But writing is my hobby and I decided that I will try my skills here too, in English, I invite you to write requests, I hope you will like it!

3,5k words!

=================================

She was strong. She was a good soldier, commander, companion.

But she was also a beautiful woman with an amazing figure who was envied by many. Despite being quite short, because she was only five feet three, she had long slender legs. Overall, she was considered a beautiful woman. However, she had short hair.

Her hairstyle was practically identical to Levi's, but no one accused her of trying to look like him, as she was cutting her hair that way long before Ackerman joined the survey corps.

Oh, she and Levi. It was quite a sneaky topic, let alone the rumors around the body. They were often seen in each other's company, people interpreted it differently.

Some said it was just a friendship and a bond they established when Ackermann was part of her branch at the beginning of his career. And the others insinuated the supposed romance of the two. Well the versions were really different, but the truth was that y/n and good captain Levi were just two great friends. The woman was one of the few people who knew the man's past, and shared with him some facts about her. Because they both came from the Underground, however, and managed to get out of there on their own, and not with the help of scouts, as was the case with Levi.

At first they were not very sympathetic, quite the opposite. They had very similar characters, which theoretically should indicate that they will get along well, but that was only theoretically. In practice, they got on their nerves terribly.

But despite this aversion to a man, it was precisely this that helped him the most after the death of Farlan and Izabel. She provided him with comfort, help and warmth.  Something no one else could give him. It was thanks to her that he recovered so quickly, and he was in the place where he was at the moment.

At some point their relationship began to take a less formal path. More and more often they stayed at each other's offices, helped each other with Erwin's sentences, that is, documentation. They drank tea together, despite the fact that the brunette was a coffee advocate, she made an exception for Levi and almost completely gave it up. They had similar problems, especially those with sleep, may both of them suffer from insomnia, so when the entire corps was asleep, they sat in the two of them over documents, or simply spent their free time together.

Y/n did not even know the exact moment when she began to care in this other, more intimate way on the short captain. It came overnight. Of course, she was behaving the same as before, after all, she was not some horny teen, but a mature woman, but at the moment when she was going to the black-haired's office, or she just knew that he would see him, her body was flooded with heat. And maybe she wouldn't care so much if it wasn't for the fact that she had short hair.

She loved the short haircut, the long hair simply irritated her and disturbed the soldier's everyday life, but she was afraid that they might be an obstacle to any closer relationship with Ackerman.

***

She sat quietly in her office filling out paperwork for Erwin. She nervously tweaked her hair, which was longer than usual, because every time she tried to cut it, something was getting in the way and that was how it was already quite long.

The silence in the office was broken by the sudden opening of the door through which entered a black-haired man with pliers and a towel in his hand. He closed the door with a bang and set the items on the coffee table, then looked at the woman poring over reports and other documents.

"You have long hair." He said suddenly and walked closer to her chair, and when he was next to him, he entangled his hand in her dark strands. She breathed a breath and leaned against the back of the armchair, massaging her temples at the same time giving herself to the caress.

"I didn't have time to cut them off because of the last expedition, and with all the crap Erwin did, I have more work to do than ever. And Hanji keeps following me all the time and asks if I managed to convince Bushbread to do experiments on titans." She explained in frustration then exhaled her mouth with a whistle.

"Tch, fucking shitty glasses. Come on, rest a little, cut off your hair, and you will give me a haircut." He replied then pulled the woman's chair back and, grabbing her hand, led her to the bathroom. She was so tired of it all that she didn't care, and the presence of a cobalt-eyed woman was calming, so she didn't resist. "Get your hair wet." He gave the order, which she followed by putting her head in the shower and then she wet her hair with a stream of water. Ackermann handed her a towel, which she grabbed and dried her hair.

Let the two go back to the brunette's office, meanwhile she took off her jacket and threw it on the couch, which Ackermann only huffed, but said nothing. She sat down without a word on the low stool that the man had prepared at that time. He ran a hand through her hair a few times and began carefully trimming it.

"Can I ask you a question?" She finally gave up y/n, unable to withstand the silence in the room

"You ask them anyway, so why do you ask me for permission." The bored man replied by which l/n raised the corner of her mouth in a small smile.

"What do you think about women with short hair?" She asked, and black hair stopped breathing for a moment. What the hell was that about? Is this some kind of provocation?

"What am I supposed to think. They are no less feminine because they do not have long hair, their appearance does not define a person." He replied quite neutral, not realizing that he had just kindled a little ray of hope in his friend's heart. "And why do you ask?"

"Because I care about someone, and all in all, I wanted to know your opinion." Ah yes. His heart leapt into his throat, and his stomach seemed to have a 3D maneuvering device.  Someone did she like? But who the hell. After all, the only men with whom she spent time was himself, Erwin, sometimes he encountered Moblit in the company of Hanji and Mike. Who could steal her heart enough to make her care about her hairstyle? Probably Erwin. That fucking perfect general.

Maybe Levi didn't have complexes as such, but he was always a little jealous of Smith. He had a perfect body, he was tall, intelligent, had a high position in the military, and he came from a non-poor family. He was nothing compared to the blonde, he had nothing to offer. And he would like so much to have her with him.

"I'm done." He muttered softly brushing single hairs from the woman's clothes. She got up from the stool and unintentionally combed her dark hair. She looked beautiful, but he wouldn't tell her that.

"Your turn." She said and took the pliers from his hand. This time it was he who sat on the stool. He involuntarily smiled under his breath and closed his eyes at the woman's gentle touch. He was literally like a docile kitten. Why couldn't she be his?

***

He had been avoiding her like plague for about two weeks. He was irritated by the lack of a black-haired woman around him, but he knew that if it was like before, he would take the blow even worse.

A blow that would never come.

Y/n really didn't know what she could do wrong. After all, everything was fine, and then overnight Ackerman began to avoid her. Maybe he just got bored?

At first she explained his ignorance with overwork, in the end everyone in the command had their heads off. But when one day in a row she saw him sitting quietly with Petra, she knew it was not it. By the way, seeing a redhead in his company, something broke in her. What did this teenager have that she did not have? Did their relationship really mean nothing to him? So many questions, so few answers.

And this way almost every evening she landed in Erwin's office with Hanji with a bottle of whiskey or vodka, depending on what Smith had in the bar. Erwin and Hange really couldn't comprehend the change in brunet's behavior, and the sight of a really hurt l/n was so pathetic as to be nasty.

And so the next evening the three gathered in Smith's office where they once again debated about the captain's behavior.

"I do not feel it completely, so change the attitude towards people overnight. 

I know that our curly pedantic has its own rules, but without exaggeration." Hanji announced, finishing the rest of the whiskey from her glass.

"Maybe something made him do it?" Smith replied, then grabbed his chin.

"Tch, and this thing is called Petra Ral, really fascinating." Black-haired girl summed up pouring herself and Zoe whiskey.

Their conversations were so loud that they interested Ackerman who was just about to make himself a cup of tea. But when he heard three familiar voices, he stood at the door of Smith's office, listening to what was being said.

"Don't take it for granted." Erwin said and frowned by the high concentration of alcohol in his glass.

"So what could be the reason Levi is ignoring me then? Just like logic Erwin, there are two options, or he has something to me and he distorts what is unfortunately but impossible because he always treated me only as a friend. Or he just shoots with Petra, and that's what I believe more. "Did they talk about him? What romance with Petra? And y/n cared for him the way he wanted it, but he's just an idiot and he broke it? He held his breath for a moment and tried to enter the room, but stopped himself and continued to stand still.

"Like it or not, I have to agree with the above.  Although I keep my fingers crossed for the first version." Squeaked at the end of the woman, which caused a loud sigh of disapproval from y/n.

"Shut up Hanji, I don't want to hope again for something that will never happen." She growled angry and hurt. She really cared about him. Not on any Erwin, Moblit or Mike, but on him. On a goddamn Underground thief with a hard character and misophobic aspirations. Damn it, don't let this be a dream.

He walked away from the door and headed for his office. He has even forgotten why he left it at all. He sat down at the desk and stared blankly at the sky until the very morning, trying to put everything in his head. He must try to fix what he broke.

***

Like a day like every other day. There was no expedition, no surprises, just an ordinary day in the recon. Well, maybe almost. Because Ackerman had been nervous and a little stressed since the morning. And it wasn't just because he wanted to talk to y/n seriously, but largely because he couldn't find her anywhere. As to spite that day, she sank underground, his only salvation could be Erwin. Which office was on his way to. The evening and dinner time was approaching, so he wanted to come to him before her, to look for the presence of a woman at the last meal, if necessary.

He entered the office without knocking, Smith merely looked up from the mountain of documents he had probably been studying since this morning, then turned him back to the sheets of paper.

"What you want Levi?" He asked breaking the silence prevailing in the room. He was pretty sure why this one had come to him, but preferred not to reveal all the cards at once.

"Where is y/n"?  Erwin sighed and then put down his quill and straightened up in his chair. He was afraid of Levi's reaction, but what could he do if the milk had already spilled?

"She went on a mission. She should be back in two or three days at the most." He replied with a straight face in the middle being a bit irritated by the reaction of the black-haired man.

"What mission? And why the hell didn't I know anything about this." Ackerman asked, very angry with the news once again.

"Maybe because you've been avoiding her for a long time? Maybe because it's a secret mission, I'm not obligated to tell you everything, Levi. I respect you and treat you as a friend, so I will give you some friendly advice. Think about what you really want and don't screw it up. I don't think I need to tell you what I'll do to you if you hurt her, not to mention Hanji." A faint smile affected his lips at the end of his speech.

"It's none of your business anymore. Thank you for the information." He replied coolly and, not worried about the threat of his friend, left his office.

So he was supposed to wait? He hated waiting. Uncertainty burst him from the inside, these few days will probably be a real nightmare for him.

***

It was well past nine o'clock, so most of the Corps' soldiers were resting in their quarters. Only a few officers were still in the courtyard. And Levi was watching them from his office.

Week. She has been gone since fucking week.

And he was consumed not only by uncertainty, but also by fear. Because they didn't know anything, not even Erwin, who entrusted the woman with this mission. Through it all, the captain was irritated and angry from day to night. Everyone wanted to be as far away from him as possible. Even Petra must have found out about his bad mood when some two days after y/n's departure, she felt bad for the fact that she smiled at him instead of focusing on cleaning. The last time he was afraid was when he first left for exeption.

Suddenly, a horse ran into the courtyard, on the back of which was a scout, but he was clearly unconscious, barely clinging to his mount. At first, Ackerman did not move from his place, but when he heard the screams about the return of squad leader l/n and summoning the medics, he sprinted out of the office.

When he was already leaving, he saw only a brunette, which two cadets were carrying on a stretcher to the infirmary. There was blood everywhere, and the worst case scenario flashed through his mind. She might have died.

He knew that they would not let him into the infirmary anyway, and the cadets didn't know anything, the only option was once again Erwin. What a mission it was to make her come back like this.

He hurried to Smith's office and threw open the door. He did not care about the surprised face of Hanji, who was sitting on the blonde's couch, but he walked over to the man and grabbed him tightly by the collar of a white shirt.

"What was that mission? And why did you send her over there alone, don't you care that she's just fighting for her life?" He was screaming at the top of his throat, he didn't care what everyone thought of him right now, he didn't care about the consequences, he only cared that he could lose her before he actually possessed her.

"In Stohess there is a man who leads the gang. It interfered with various shipments and the like. They are also active in the Underground. The task was to diversify into their ranks, apparently she did not quite succeed." He replied with stoic calm which made the black-haired man even more angry.

"Have you been really fucked up? Such a mission is not a job for one person, it is for the rest. Such matters should be handled by the MP's, not us!" He shouted and pushed the blonde back so that he almost fell from his chair.

"Only that they interfered mainly with transports to our corps. Mostly those not entirely legal. You know very well that a large amount of drugs and medical equipment we have is not entirely legal, but it is needed. I wanted to send the two of you on this mission, because both of you know the Underground, but she did not agree to you taking part in this mission. Probably because you were not getting along at that point." The man explained succinctly, and Ackerman said nothing. It was his fault, his goddamn fault. If only he wasn't such an asshole, nothing bad would have happened.

Until now, a silent Hanji came up to the shorter man and put her hand on his shoulder, the latter turned towards her, close to crying. Holy shit what she did with him.

"You'll finish later, for now, go to her." She ordered, and he nodded and without a word headed for the infirmary.

***

"When will she wake up?" He asked one of the medics, who was just finishing treating single wounds on the body of an unconscious woman.

"She should wake up in the morning. But probably not for long, he has to rest a lot now. She lost a lot of blood, it is surprising that she was even going here alive." She replied and got up from the small stool, putting the remnants of bandages and other medicaments on a silver tray. "But take it easy, she will get out of this, squad leader l/n is a damn tough woman, not just character.  She will lick it." She added after a moment with a slight smile on her face trying to cheer the man up.

"I know she's strong." He replied quietly, his head bowed and his hands folded.

"So just be patient. I think she survived because she had someone to return to." She laughed softly and just left the room, leaving the slightly confused captain with the unconscious woman.

He slowly walked over to her bed and sat down next to it on the wooden chair. He grabbed her chilled hand and pressed it to his lips, giving it a tender kiss. He had to wait.

And so the hours went by, and Levi spent them thinking about his feelings for the woman and simply gazing at her adoringly.

She was so beautiful, he loved everything about her. From a smile that could not be seen too often, ending with short hair. He was lazily combing them almost all the time, not being surprised how pleasant they are.  He did not even notice that it was starting to dawn, and the soldiers of the corps were slowly waking up to start another day of service. He also did not notice that Erwin accompanied by Hanji arrived in the room in the meantime, but when they saw the man sitting next to the y/n, they only smiled at each other and left, leaving them alone, of course they gave each other high five for fruitful cooperation.

"Wake up now, because these feelings will blow me up soon." The words were coming out of his mouth involuntarily. His eyes were closed, he tried to focus, to be patient. "I overheard your, Hanji and Erwin conversation about me. I really was an idiot. I shouldn't be away from you, that's why you're here at all. If I hadn't, you wouldn't be lying here, I wouldn't have allowed it. I have plans to blame Erwin for letting you go on this mission alone. But you don't know how much I was bursting from the inside by the thought that you care about someone, and that someone is not me. I was so fucking jealous. Ugh, feelings are a pain in the ass. You don't even know what you're doing with me. I just love you, and I love everything about you." There was a silence in the room, and the man breathed a sigh of relief, finally blurted out into the crowd of thoughts.

"Even my short hair?" Silence, a hoarse voice broke the silence in the room. The man immediately opened his eyes and straightened in his chair, a smile spread across his face at the sight of the woman's open eyes.

"Even short hair." He replied and once again ran his hand through it, and placed the other on her cheek.

"I heard everything, you idiot. Love you too." She said and smiled broadly as he reciprocated.

"I love you too." He replied and pressed their lips together in a kiss.

[vagrantblvrd]

So, that time Rebel Alliance pilot Luke Skywalker was on patrol with Wedge  sometime between ANH and Empire and had a run-in with a pre-Imperial gunship registered as the Razor Crest???

Pew-pew dogfight in which the Crest didn’t fire on them which is always nice, but it sure as hell attempted to evade - Luke and Wedge being like, oh, they’re good - and then surprise!Imperial ships, because I cannot not do ridiculous Drama.

Razor Crest and Luke’s X-wing both get hit, go down over a thickly forested nearby planet. Wedge is forced to break off and report back to the Allince - Imperial ships this close to their Rebel base? Apparently more likely than you’d think.

Meanwhile Luke is surveying the wreckage of his X-wing trying to see what he can salvage and whatnot. He has faith Wedge got away safely, because it’s Wedge and he’s one of the best pilots in the Alliance, but any rescue efforts won’t arrive for days, so.

He manages to get Artoo onto solid ground, tries not to smile as Artoo keeps up a steady stream of complaints the whole time because Skywalkers!!1!, kind of the worst, really.

Sometime later he hears blaster fire and looks toward the direction it seemed to come from, and is like.

Hmm.

Because the Razor Crest and if he survived a crash landing on this planet it’s possible the other pilot did too. (Mainly the blaster fire though, seeing as the planet seems largely uninhabited, and anyway. What are the odds it would be anyone else when they went down in roughly the same area.)

So.

Luke could make camp here, stick close to his X-wing which would make it easier for anyone to come looking for him, but also, also.

The surprise!Imperial ships who shot him down and might come looking to finish the job, and anyway, anyway, he’s got one of his Feelings he should search out the other pilot.

Which, you know, he does.

In spite of Artoo’s protests and predictions of gloom and doom, and anyway, it’s better than doing nothing, so.

Off they go, having little adventures here and there because local flora and fauna and that time Luke had to rescue Artoo getting stuck in a giant spiderweb the two of them getting the hell out of there before whatever made it comes to check on it.

They have to stop to make camp for the night and it’s while Luke’s setting up a fire that they hear blaster fire again, something roaring, and other such ounds that indictate someone is possibly having a worse day than they are.

Luke goes to see what it is, Artoo like what, why, and also Skywalkers >:((((((((( but follows Luke anyway because no way is he going to be left behind.

A rescue is attempted, but Din is being attacked by a large predator (I’m picturing something like a cave bear, but maybe  little bigger???) that seems to be impervious to blasters and determined as hell, and would you look at that? There’s  a handy little cave right over there with an entrance large enough for them and Artoo to fit through but too small for the large predator, and anyway, they’re not dumb.

Luke points the cave out, Din is like ??? because where the hell did he come from, but then the Alliance flight-suit and oh, right, and anyway. Din’s the one in armor so it makes sense that he covers Luke’s run to the cave.

And when the large predator takes a swipe of Din that sends him flying, Luke scrambles to get him into the cave and maybe kind of taps into his Force abilities to knock the large predator away long enough for them to get to safety.

Plot Reasons and all.

From there it’s Luke ~fretting over an unconscious Mandalorian while Artoo mutters to himself and overall it a very odd day indeed.

Luke’s exploring the cave, looking for another way out seeing as how the large predator is still outside and looks like it’s going to wait the out when Din wakes up.

He finds several dead ends and a pool fed from snow melt from the look of it, so they won’t have to worry about water, which is the first bit of good news.

(Rebel Alliance and survival courses and having to relocate bases whenever the Imperials find them so he’s picked up some things since leaving Tatooine, so yes.)

Luke makes his way back to the main room of the cave to find the Mandalorian and Artoo in a  standoff of some sort.

“Oh, good,” Luke says, careful to keep his hands in clear view, and doesn’t make any sudden moves. “You’re awake.”

Din is like.

He’s tired and sore, got knocked around in the crash and then had the bad luck to run afoul of the large predator and now this.

(Also, he’s pretty sure he has a concussion on top of everything, so.)

No love for the Empire and all, but no desire to fall in with the Rebels either, he just wants to go about his own business, live his life and so on.

He wasn’t even doing anything questionably legal when the X-wings slid up alongside the Crest. Was minding his own damn business and just.

Bad day all around.

Still, at least the Rebel pilot didn’t remove his helmet - one of the first things he made sure of, because of course he did.

They muddle their way into a truce/understanding between them for the time being seeing as how they’re stuck in the cave and all.

Din is sure he can handle the large predator, but concussion and all, and anyway, he’s still tired enough that the Rebel’s suggestion he get more rest before he throws himself at it doesn’t sound like a bad idea.

Luke shares rations from his emergency kit, and Din likewise salvaged what he could from the Crest before he ran into the large predator.

The good news is they have food and water that should last long enough for any search parties sent for Luke -

And, okay, Luke’s not stupid. Notices the way the Mandalorian goes so very still when Luke says that, just thinking out loud as you do, and sighs.

Guy probably falls more on Han’s side of legal activities than Luke’s, has no reason to be happy about the Rebels coming to the rescue, but he doesn’t know what to about it for now.

(Thinks in the back of his mind that if worst comes to worst, he can always get Han aboard for a tiny little jailbreak. Probably.)

Anyway.

There’s not a lot of talking from them, but it’s not as awkward as Luke thought it might be. The Mandalorian actually answers his questions, when he feels like it

By the third day Luke wouldn’t cal them friends, but they’re not quite enemies and that’s better than he was expecting given the circumstances.

And then there’ the thing where they think it’s safe to leave the cave, but surprise, it’s not!

Large predator is still around and there is a fairly epic fight to chase it off or kill it if that’s what it takes, but Din’s leg gets a little broken and Luke gets a little knocked around and Artoo doesn’t have a great time of it either, what with getting tossed around like a chew toy when he caused a distraction to save the humans.

Anyway, anyway, they end up killing it thanks to teamwork and then it’s a matter of sorting everything out.

Luke’s got bacta in his emergency kit, but not enough to help with Din’s leg or other injuries between them, but Din, okay, Din.

Might have some back on the Crest, but he’s in no shape to make it there now, and no knowing if there are more of those large predators around, and Luke is like.

He’s still mobile, he’ll go.

Din is like, are you that stupid? To which Luke is like, kinda, yeah.

He knows Din’s not fond of droids, hasn’t made it a secret, but the terrain is tricky enough as it is for Artoo, and he’s worried about Din, and just.

He leaves Artoo with Din and goes off on his little trek to the Razor Crest.

Takes him half a day before he gets there and when he does it’s clear the ship has seen better days, but he’s pretty sure it can be fixed made flyable again.

If, you know, Din could get his hands on metal plates to patch up holes in the Crest’s hull.

(Conveniently, Luke happens to know where there’s a crashed X-wing that could be salvged for parts, allow Din to make his way off-planet without having to deal with the Rebel Alliance at all, but that’s a thought for another day.)

Luke finds the bacta and heads back to the cave. Treats Din’s lefg first, the most serious injury to deal with -

“No,” Din says, when Luke’s about to use it all on Din’s leg, because Luke’s got some nasty injuries himself and they’re likely to get infected if he doesnt do something about them, and anyway, it’ll take longer for Din’s leg to heal than any of their other injuries, don’t waste the stuff like that.

And then!

Luke broaches the possibility of fixing the Crest by cannibalizing his X-wing, which has Din looking at him sharply.

The whole Rebel Alliance and underdogs who probably can’t afford to just waste resources, but Luke, okay, Luke.

He just looks at Din and is like, no, no, it’s fine.

(Because the whole survival situation they’re in and risking their lives for one another and this the leas Luke can do for him, alright? So just accept it already.)

Also, it’s been...a little too long since they crashed on this planet and at the very least the Alliance should have contacted him, but it’s been radio silence and Luke would rather not think about why that is. (Yet, anyway, yet.)

Anyway, the next morning Luke sets off to his X-wing to strip it for parts for the Razor Crest. Apologizes, because she’s been good for him, kept him alive since Yavin and the Death Star and thinks she understand, hopes she would anyway, because he owes Din this much, and anyway, anyway, yes.

It takes most of the morning to get everything he can off his X-wing, and then a little longer to fashion a sled to carry parts and whatnot to the Crest.

Stops at the cave to check on Din and Artoo and have lunch. Tell him how it’s going and so on, and Din is quiet as he does.

A little too much, really, even though he’s still not the chatty sort.

“I’m going with you,” he tells Luke when Luke gets ready to head back to the Crest with parts from his X-wing.

When Luke tells him why that’s not a great idea - number one reason being that Din’s leg is still broken - Din shuts him down by saying “It’s my ship.”

Which, not what he means, but Luke gets it, he does.

Thinks Din’s an idiot, but also knows he’d just follow Luke on his own if he doesn’t help him, and just.

It’s less trouble to agree help him hobble along with him rather than risk Din making his leg worse, so.

He has Artoo tow the sled with the parts while he plays human crutch for Din and they make their slow, awkward way to Din’s ship.

It takes a while, because of course, the three of them reaching the Razor Crest at dusk. Thankfully the ship is safe enough to use it for shelter, and Luke lets Din rattle around inside while he secures the parts outside.

Dinner is a quiet affair, Luke and Din exhausted after a long day, but comfortable.

Luke talks about his plans to bring the rest of the parts back the next day, and Din doesn’t quite fidget but it’s pretty obvious he’s not entirely comfortable with this. (Being indebted to Luke, which this isn’t about that at all, but it feels like it is.)

Anyway, next day Luke goes off to his X-wing for the last of the parts and whatnot, and is like oh, no, when he sees TIE fighters in the distance, like they’re looking for something.

Seem to be headed in the opposite direction from Din and the Crest, but he knows better than to think that will be the case for long. Hurries back to Din adn Artoo as fast as he can to find they’ve already started on the repairs.

Luke tells Din about the TIE fighters and it isn’t as though they hadn’t considered it, the Imperials searching the planet for them, or course not. Just. That hope the Imperials dismissed them as not worth the effort to hunt down and the whatnot.

So.

They focus on repairing the ship, working through the night and such in a Montage Sequence, because of course there’s one.

There’s a short test flight just in case, Din letting Luke fly the ship because Plot Reasons, and there’s actual light-hearted bantering going on - Luke, Mr. Fancypants fighter pilot giving Din and his clunky heavy gunship grief while Din may or may not be rolling his eyes at him and enjoying his company - TIE fighters show up.

And it’s like, well, this is unexpected, but also not.

Another exciting pew-pew dogfight takes place, this time with Luke flying the Crest and Din is so conflicted because his ship??? But also Luke is doing a dam fine job of flying it even though he’s not used to the way it handles or its limitations and anyway, anyway.

They get rid of the TIEs and share a look like oh my God, we’re still alive??? which is when a second wave of TIEs show up, and there are so many of them and they’re not going to make it?

So they decide to make a push for space, se if they can jump to hyperspace and all, but there’s an star destroyer in space and entire squadrons of TIEs and it’s not looking great for them?

Which of course is the perfect moment for the cavalry in the form of the Rebel Alliance to pop up.

Or, like. The rest of Rogue squadron and one Corellian freighter and Luke has never been so glad to see them as they keep the TIE fighters off their back long enough for everyone to make the jump to hyperspace.

They make several quick hops to avoid leading the Imperials back to the new Rebel base - they had to relocate yet again after Wedge reported back, too risky not to, which was what took them so long to come back for Luke.

Poor Din is Not Happy at the fact they have a squadron of X-wings flying escort with the Falcon - he is also Not Thinking about who the owner of that ship is or why Luke seems so happy to see them and what even is going on with the Alliance these days - because the whole thing of how this whole mess started?

So Luke is like, “Hey, so,” to Han and the others, and the Rogues stay on guard in space as he lands the Razor Crest on a nearby planet, Han and Chewie following in the Falcon.

Luke is like, so that was fun, right? as he gives Din this little smile, kind of awkward because the Rebels could use someone like him but Din’s made it clear he’s not interested, and anyway, that’s not the point, really.

They say their goodbyes and Luke goes over to join Han and Chewie and Din is like. He doesn’t know what, but following the Falcon out of atmo and getting an X-wing escort until he umps into hyperpace to wherever wasn’t it.

Also, don’t think he doesn’t notice the way Alliance ships leave him and the Razoe Crest alone after that, Skywalker, Din’s onto you.

But yes.

Din goes back to doing his thing and maybe thinks about that whole standed on a random planet with a Rebel Alliance pilot when he sees the mismatced panels and whatnot on the Crest that came from a cannibalized X-wing.

(Also, the little metal ball Grogu is fixated on may or may not have come from Luke’s X-wing in a please let me have this kind of moment of sentimental nonsense what with it surviving the destruction of the Razor Crest and all, memento with double the sentimental nonsense for Din because reasons.)

They don’t see one another again until Gideon’s cruiser, but every so often Luke hears about this one Mandalorian and a pre-Imperial gunship Adventuring about. Din hears about this guy named Skywalker, and when most people scoff and say the stories must be exaggerated, Rebel propaganda, Din wonders, doesn’t put it past Luke to be honest.

And then!

Gideon’s cruiser and “Are you a Jedi?” and Luke is like  “I am,” and Din is like, okay, but when did that happen because I don’t recall that being a thing before. Grogu is like !!! and :DDDDDDDDD because Luke’s a Jedi like him and dad is all warm and squishy feelings in the Force right now, and so on.

Luke is like, well this changes things because he can’t just take Grogu and scurry off now that he’s seen what a strong bond he has with Din, and also Din, so he invites Din to come with them to his Jedi school and Din doesn’t have to think twice about it, you know?

The three of them scurry off to Luke’s Jedi school somewhere, Din taking one of the shuttles.

It’s all kinds of awkward on the trip there, Din a little concerned about how this is going to work out, but turns out he didn’t need to worry because Luke is still Luke after everything.

Still that pilot he met way back when, the one who traded off with Din on the saving one another’s lives thing and sacrificing his ship to give Din his and so on, and it’s like.

He never expected to see Luke again - fighter pilot’s life expectancy in a war and all - but here they are and it’s kind of nice actually.

No survival situation now, so the return of that awkward flirting thing that was barely an idea the by end the first time they met, both of them aware of how ridiculous they’re being but hey, not like anyone’s there to see it.

(Aside from Grogu and Artoo, but shhh, Luke and Din are pretending the two of them aren’t laughing at them all day everyday.)

the awkward flirting intensifies until the day Din presses his forehead against Luke’s, no big dramatic moment leading up to it, just this instinctive little thing, warm and comfortable and natural as anything.

When Din moves away, Luke looks up at him with this expression on his face, little smirk forming, and Din knows, okay, he knows Luke -

“I admit my understanding of Mandalorian culture is lacking, but doe this mean we’re married now?”

And it’s like.

The man is so infuriating? But they’ve also been co-habitating and co-parenting Grogu for almost a year now, become familiar with one another’s habits and quirks and somehow haven’t killed one another over the most annoying ones.

Luke’s friends and family who stop by to check in on him - them - almost definitely have a betting pool on them. (Solo for sure, even if the man still does the I’m Watching You thing to Din every time he visits.)

“Yes,” Din answers, dry as anything, because when it comes down to it they pretty much already are.

[shintorikhazumi]

(Diakko Week) There’s no way she- (2): “There’s no way she did that.”

@dianakko-week

A/N: BOY, OH BOY. I DIDN’T THINK THIS STORY WAS GONNA GO THIS WAY, BUT HERE WE ARE, I GUESS? Please do enjoy, I’m not sure about the quality of this chap, but I personally am enjoying this story so far an I hope you all do too!

Again, Enjoy?

~Shintori Khazumi

Day 2: Trust

“There’s no way she did that.”

Diana was seething at her desk, Hannah and Barbara desperately trying to calm down their long-time friend with a cup of tea and some rationality.

She wasn’t having it however. Not even the tea.

“There’s no way. There is just no. Possible. Way. That Akko would so such a thing!” Diana growled, head whipping in the direction of her poor friends-slash-secretaries-and-attendants. “Right?!”

Barbara nodded wordlessly, clearly unnerved by Diana’s foul mood while Hannah sighed, moving the teacup away from the clearly miffed Diana before any mishaps could occur.

“Yes, Diana. We think so too.”

Diana released a heated sigh, nostrils flaring as she slumped against her leather chair. Today just wasn’t her day.

Never mind it being only her second week of being chosen for the grand magical council and being harassed with much work simply because she was the youngest to enter at the tender age of twenty-three. That same council of old pricks were now interfering with her personal life by giving her a case that made her burn deep with rage.

They dared accuse Diana’s girlfriend of magical misconduct when Diana-for a fact- knew that Akko read the terms and conditions of being a traveling magician- yes, ALL the terms and conditions- back-to-back. Back-to-back to back-to-back. Diana had found it both unnecessary and incredibly endearing, and sweet Akko- oh, bless her sweet soul- had wanted nothing more than to be able to share the magic of dreaming to all sorts of people, gain experience as she traveled; and hoped to overall just help people along the way on her cross-country journey.

Sure, she had left her incredibly stable position as one of the council’s security personnel, and the job paid extremely well- especially for people who were relatively fresh from school. It really did. However, Diana knew Akko was far from happy with that job. In a somewhat similar position to Diana, she had been made a lackey by her seniors and superiors, and though she loved helping people through her job, it just wasn’t worth staying. She couldn’t even be assigned to Diana! Thus, Akko had resolved to go independent, under strict supervision and conditions.

That had been five months ago.

Sure, Diana had missed the other woman dearly and hadn’t seen her for all that time, but Diana knew this was what the other woman wanted to do- to make people smile. She loved making smiles blossom from one person to the other. Diana wanted to support her in her endeavor. She believed in Akko and in what she wanted to accomplish.

And anyway, Akko had always made it a habit to send one of her familiars to bring Diana little souvenirs of her travels, accompanied by the sweetest words on paper, reassuring her girlfriend that she was well and good, and living life to the fullest, and that she’d surely be back in a year.

She was coming back sooner than they’d both expected, and for reasons neither had desired.

Diana ran her fingers through her hair in frustration, massaging her scalp to nurse the quickly growing headache.

She hoped Akko would come home safe at the very least.

//

“Miss Diana Cavendish. Could you repeat those words to me one more time? I might have misheard.”

“I said. I refuse to vote against Atsuko Kagari’s innocence. I know her, and I know her well. She would never ever do such horrid things.”

Diana watched the council secretary bristle, eyes burning at her response.

“You can never know someone too well. You don’t know what people are capable of. They can cha-”

“And I trust that Akko only ever changes for the better.” Diana cut off, casting her own glare over the two high council members who held the papers and a sum of money in front of her. “I know nothing of what the inner circle of the council has been up to, but I can’t believe they would try something so terribly scandalous such as bribery and false report! Dare I assume you are hiding something worse-”

“One more word from you, and you will suffer the consequences. Not that you already haven’t.”

Diana would have lashed out had she not needed to remain calm for Akko’s sake as well.

“This is our final offer, Miss Cavendish. Push for her guiltiness, or lose your seat in the council.”

Diana’s eyes widened, fists clenching. These people-

“You have no authority over this matter!”

She shivered in repulsion at the grins that grew on their hideous faces.

“Oh, but we do.”

//

Kagari Atsuko, twenty-three years of age, stood at the podium in the courts of magic with steely eyes and a rigid frame. She dared not glare at the jury nor the judge, but she would like to at least show them her determination in proving her own innocence.

Chancing a glance at Diana who was sending her worried looks from the jury stands, Akko reassured her with a gesture that all was and would continue to be alright. Returning her attention to the presider of the meeting, Akko readied her words, carefully crafted by herself and her lawyer who ironically just so happened to be Amanda O’Neill. Akko tried her best to keep a grin from forming at the hilarity of that fact. She was, after all, still on trial. She had to keep things professional.

“Kagari Atsuko. What do you have to say for yourself?” The judge questioned after all her supposed ‘charges’ had been read out.

‘Magical misuse, abuse of title as a former council official, trafficking endangered species across borders, and exploiting my audience, huh... Honestly, what a bunch of-’

“Bullshit.”

Akko’s eyes widened, and so did everyone else’ at the accidental slip-up.

“I-I mean... I apologize, your honor. I didn’t mean to say that. Ehem. I’d like to plead not guilty of these accusations.”

With brows raised, the judge continued on with the ruling, the tension in the room not once lowering. Akko just hoped this would end smoothly, and end soon.

She didn’t know what the council got out of this, to be honest. To go so far as to forge evidence against her, what had she done against them? Honestly, this new council, with almost all-new members weren’t doing a good job in succeeding their predecessors.

If the whole jury hadn’t been bought out at this point, she really could only hope for the best.

//

“Thanks for driving me home, Amanda.” Akko bowed to her friend, clutching her suitcase.

“Hey, hey! None of that. C’mere.” Amanda pulled her shorter friend into a tight hug, patting her back firmly. “I’m just glad it all worked out in the end.” She sighed, running a hand through her hair after they pulled apart.

“No kidding.” Akko chuckled. “You’re the best, bud. Totally fit for this job.” She giggled, as Amanda rolled her eyes with a shrug.

“I know, right? Obviously knew this is what I wanted to do for a living all along.”

They shared a laugh before Amanda had to leave, having work to do the next day. Waving at the car until it had disappeared far beyond what her eyes could perceive, Akko turned to the porch, taking careful steps to the front of the door.

Facing that familiar wooden barrier, she took a deep breath before allowing her knuckles to meet with the hard material.

No sounds, no response. Not even the slightest shuffling could be heard from within. Akko’s brows furrowed, teeth biting her lower lip nervously. This was their house... This was the Cavendish manor... right? Amanda was above pranks as evil as this, especially after what had just happened, so there was no way that-

“Mrrmmhpphhggh! Mmrhg!”

Akko struggled against the hand covering her mouth, desperately trying to reach for her wand, however her assailant had already figured her out, catching her hand and holding it against her back...

-before releasing her completely.

“A-Akko?! I! I’m sor- wait, no time to explain, come.”

And Akko was dragged into the house by Diana herself who rushed her up the stairs and into their bedroom.

“Akko, do you have all your essentials in that suitcase you hold at the moment?”

“Huh? Diana, what is... why are you home already? Don’t you have a council meeting running until late-”

“Grab anything you’d like to bring with you. Hurry!”

“But Diana!”

Akko felt a duffle bag hit the back of her head, and she whipped her head around only to find her prepared glare fading at the sight of a scowling Hannah.

“Do what she says, idiot. And make it quick.”

Diana seemed as caught off-guard by the presence of Hannah and Barbara as much as Akko was.

“You two! I... You can’t be here. Go back to your home, and from this point forward, don’t come back to the manor. I’m relieving you of your duties as my-”

If Akko and Diana’s eyes could widen any more, they’d surely be the size of Diana’s large serving plates. Hannah had clapped her hands against both sides of Diana’s face, shaking her lightly.

“Are you truly going to just leave us?!” She hissed.

“Diana... we know we were wrong to snoop around, but... couldn’t you confide in us for something this important?” Barbara said, teary-eyed. “I know we can’t ever replace what Anna was to you, and when she... when she left, we didn’t know how else to help you after losing your only family. But we still wanted to be by your side.” She smiled, placing her hands on Hannah’s shoulders to rub them, getting her partner to calm down.

“Did you really think...” Hannah sniffed, wiping her tears off her sleeve. “That we wouldn’t make you take us with you?” She finished with a grin. “You are never getting rid of us, honestly.”

Barbara nodded, reaching forward to ruffle Diana’s hair before she was met with a deep frown because of the gesture.

“Sorry, always wanted to try that.” She said, not sorry at all. “To sum all this up, Diana. You are taking us. There will be no further argument.”

Diana couldn’t help the relieved smile breaking across her face, her two longest companions also sporting their own. Tears slipped from her eyes as she pulled them into a long embrace.

“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” She sobbed quietly, feeling arms rubbing her back from each side. “Thank you.”

“You better be thankful. We’ll never forgive you if we’re not the maids of honor at the wedding.” Hannah declared, half-joking.

“Wedding?” Diana parroted, pulling away as she wiped her remaining tears away. “Whose?”

Both girls simply rolled their eyes as Hannah walked over to Akko who felt seriously out of the loop. Barbara patted Diana’s shoulder, shaking her head, amused.

“Hannah? Barbara?”

She was promptly ignored from that point onward.

“Come on, idiot. Get packing. I’ll even graciously offer you my superb assistance.” Hannah said with a smirk, opening the closet she knew was designated for Akko’s belongings. “We don’t have all night.”

“I still... I still don’t understand what’s going on.” Akko stated, but began to do as she was instructed anyway. “What are we doing? Where are we going?”

“What part of ‘no time to explain’ don’t you understand?” Barbara quipped, before going over to assist the brunette pair. “I could’ve sworn we informed Amanda about this.”

“Even O’Neill knows?!” Diana continued to be ignored. “Okay, great. So who doesn’t know about this getaway?”

“Calm yourself, Diana. We only told our little circle of friends.” Barbara spoke over her shoulder as they finished closing Akko’s suitcases with a click. “Amanda and Constanze prepared as a cloaked little vehicle until we leave the country. You should be grateful.”

“Jasminka should be here to pick us up any minute now.” Hannah commented.

Diana remained slack-jawed, amazed at the follow-up her attendants had done.

“You didn’t think we’d just let you fly off on a broom in the middle of the night again, did you? Really Diana, we’ve been with you so long, your smarts should have rubbed off on us even the slightest bit.” She grinned. “The magical council really aren’t all that smart, huh? Look at their dullness contaminating our brilliant, Diana.” She shook her head in dismay.

“A shame indeed.” Barbara agreed as they began carrying their luggage out.

“No one’s still told me anything!” Akko announced, scratching the back of her head with her free hand as she followed Hannah and Barbara out with her own possessions.

She turned to Diana at the sound of a lock clicking in place, the former heiress running her hands over the grooves of the wood and the carvings.

Placing her things down momentarily, Akko walked over to wrap Diana in a hug from behind. “I hope we can come back one day. To the place where you began.” She whispered, placing loving kisses against Diana’s shoulders. “I’ll make sure we can.”

Akko’s heart cracked as Diana began to tremble in her arms, a hand going up to cover the sobs that were escaping her lips. All the memories of her family, her mother- they were probably much too painful for Diana to leave behind, but she had to. They had to.

Akko walked the mansion halls one last time with Diana as they locked each door one at a time, Diana embedding every room, every window, every banister into memory.

They finally came to the front door where Hannah and Barbara had awaited patiently, bags already loaded into their vehicle.

“No longer asking where we’re going, love?” Diana questioned Akko who had seemed to accept whatever was happening already.

“Do you trust me, love?” Akko responded with a question of her own, earning her Diana’s smile accompanied with raised brows.

“More than anyone and anything in the world.” Diana replied.

Akko gave her a chaste kiss as they all boarded the vehicle, watching the mansion disappear with an area cloaking spell that would hopefully keep it safe for as long as they were gone.

Squeezing Diana’s hand, Akko spoke. “Then know that I think the same. No matter where we go, how far away we are from here, and what we end up doing, just know... Just like those two dorks there,”

Akko laughed as the two snorted from the seats in front of them, knowing they were rolling their eyes at her.

God, she was thankful for them. For all her friends. For Diana.

Taking Diana’s hand in hers and entwining their fingers together, she placed a soft kiss on the back of her hand, laying all her worries to rest. They would figure things out. They all would- together.

“I trust you with all of my believing heart.”

A/N: WHAT’S GONNA HAPPEN NOW, WHERE ARE OUR BABIES GOING? OOOHHH. SEE YOU ON DAY 3!

~Shintori Khazumi

[hyrule-kingdom-updates]

🌼 any of them

Whoops, wrote a fic

Describe one of your OC’s worst nightmares.

An optimist would look at the world of divination with wonder. The universe is a but a magnificent hall of tapestries, beautiful pieces of art woven into anything you could imagine. Tapestries where you are a hero, tapestries where you are royalty, tapestries where your people live with riches, tapestries depicting your eternal victory over your enemies. The universe is endless and bountiful, for in the future, all futures are possible.

This is how Astor usually can depict the good fortune tellers from the worse.

If they’re an optimist, they’re most likely a faker.

The only true divinator that he had met that was even a bit of an optimist was his mother, and even then, he had always had the sinking feeling that she hid a deeper sorrow behind her simple shoes of colorful flames and shining moon and starlight. No, it was quite hard to stick to true, unfiltered optimism in this field, as while it was true that all futures and choices were possible, that freewill ran its course through all who walked the vast possibilities of the universe, the issue came in the fact that you could not travel it to and fro.

There are futures where you live, there are futures where you achieve your wildest dreams, timelines where your childhood is happier, and timelines where you find true love and satisfaction.

But you aren’t in those timelines. The future you have is this one, and it is set in stone.

Walk all the roads you want, say all the words, read all the stories, but when a seer analyzed exactly what world we live in, exactly what end is destined for this string of the universe, there will be no holding back. There is only the unfiltered, raw, typically pessimistic truth of the end. Savor it.

“In truth, Elane, I hate my job. Fear it, even,” Astor set his teacup down, looking out the balcony towards the inky, midnight view. “I fear one day I will find the prediction—the true, ultimate glimpse into the night, that seals in the fact that we’re doomed.”

The Queen only cocked her head with a smile. “Well, I’m flattered that there’s still a ‘we’ in this scenario. Good to know I’ll be joining you in the lockup when my mother find our contraband cucco nuggets—“

“I’m serious, Elane.”

She only laughed quietly, before leaning back in her chair, and gazing out into the pleasant evening. “I know...”

There was a quiet between them, not quite awkward or stiffening, but quiet in the way that you might hold your breath after someone embraces you warmly. Quiet in acceptance, quiet to make room for the sounds of something rare and fickle.

“I swear, I might retire early,” Astor finally said. “Quit while I’m ahead. Head off to Hateno or Mabe and bury my head in the sand.”

“You might want to try Gerudo then, if sand is what you’re searching for. I’m sure Urbosa would be thrilled.”

“Tsk. I am inclined to disagree.”

Elane chuckled again, and she let the quiet embrace her for a moment.

“Eternal doom aside, for a moment, I would posit that there’s hardly anything to fear. You’ve foreseen my daughter’s growth, analyzed the future livelihood of the kingdom, and predicted our victory over Ganon. I’d say it’s hard to bargain with that.”

“Maybe, but I could be wrong.” Astor circled his finger on the lip of his cup. “It happens, people make a prediction, but miss one star, or slip up one word...or perhaps one cow suddenly dies, or one ember quickly fades, and suddenly we’re actually in an entirely different timeline than predicted.”

“Didymos Astor? Wrong about something? Oh my, I never thought I’d see the day...” Elane smiled to herself again as she lifted her cup for another sip.

Astor clicked his tongue. “Well. You should hope I’m not wrong about anything. If someone of my skill makes an incorrect prediction, it would probably be disastrous for everyone.”

Elane winked as she set down her cup. “Well, good thing you’re a prodigy, then.”

“Good thing, indeed.”

Quiet keep their third company once again. Astor still had not sipped from his cup, but Elane was already heading for her fourth refill, no doubt begging for any energy after tucking her daughter to bed. A young toddler with enough energy to power a Guardian army, Elane has always found it quite odd that she used up a lot of her energy to annoy the Royal Seer. It was charming to see him get put off by a Mallory’s boundless curious aura, but mostly relieving in the sense that the Queen could get a moments rest and trust little Zelda would be alright.

Elane looked back inside through the half open door, and smiled at a bundled sleeping figure, surrounded by an army of stuffed animals. She then turned back and finally noticed Astor’s continued silence on the next refill.

She sighed. “Although I would be saddened to see you leave,” she began, “If a retirement would make you happy, Astor, I would loathe to do anything to stand in your way.”

He looked up at her, analyzing her body language and expression. She was genuine, of course, as she always was in these sorts of talks. Astor finally let himself exhale in peace, as he smiled and shook his head.

“Unfortunately I don’t think it would do me much good, anyways. Location won’t let me escape my own thoughts and visions.” He took a sip of his tea—a bit citrusy this evening, a hint of apple—and relaxed. “I’d imagine His Majesty would miss me dearly, and I simply wouldn’t want to leave him in distress.”

“Ha! Oh yes of course, Rhoam would be crying tears if you left us...” she replied, sarcastically. “Tears of deep, deep sorrow.”

Astor looked out into the night in silence again, not touching his cup.

“But I’ll tell you what Astor,” Elane began again. “If you ever receive that world dooming prediction, whatever may happen that may instigate your view of the deepest hells,” she raised her cup. “You come find me, and we’ll have a drink.”

He raised an eyebrow. “A drink? What sort of drink?”

She shrugged. “Whatever you like. Tea, wine, beer, water or juice if it’s your fancy. Whatever will keep your spirits high.”

Astor smirked, solemnly. “I don’t think you understand just how severe and dreadful certain predictions can be. When we say ‘all futures are possible,’ we do mean all possibilities.”

“And I understand, dear seer. I truly do.” She tilted her head as she kept her cup in the air. “But the way I see it, is that with divination or not, doom and hell come into people’s lives one way or the other. But it hasn’t really stopped the majority from loving their lives now, has it?” Her eyes twinkled like starlight. “Dearest Astor, if our destined doom is predicted one day, I command you to at least smile through our tea party.”

Quiet.

He finally sighed, the corners of his lips perking. His protests drowning in her expression.

“I suppose if you’re the one pouring, it’d be difficult to refuse.” He raised his cup and clinked it with hers.

She was dead eight days later.

With her death came the final factor. The final star.

“Your daughter is destined to fail us,” he said again. “The Calamity shall rise and consume us all, and she won’t stop it in time.”

Rhoam slammed his fists on the desk, but the seer did not flinch. “We’ll train her hard, we’ll start now, even! I’ll get those clerics from the temple to teach her the starting prayers!” he yelled.

“It won’t work.” Astor replied, simply. “Perhaps she might attain them down the line, but she most certainly won’t awaken her powers by Ganon’s rise. It’s over.”

“You told me we could do this!” Rhoam pointed a finger, accusingly. “You saw our prosperity, our victory!”

“That was what I initially saw, yes. But unfortunately we live in world where the Queen of Hyrule is dead, and thus the threads of our future weave accordingly.”

“You’re a liar!” Rhoam bellowed again. “You saw her death, saw our end and lied to us since the beginning, haven’t you?!!”

“Don’t you think that if I knew Elane would die, I would say something?! That I would give ample time for her to say goodbye to you and her daughter??” Astor finally raised his voice, met with equal silence. “I failed to correctly analyze our timeline the first time around, and for that I am sorry. But I can not control what pieces of the future fate allows me to see. It’s not an open novel for you to give me a bad book report grade on. It’s a museum of endless tapestries, of which I am task with analyzing one stroke at a time to identify which is woven to a singular man, and the fact that I have given you a complete enough answer now is a gift within itself, so don’t even try to accuse me forgery and lies.”

The two men clenched their jaws, staring angrily at each other.

Astor finally whispered. “Overtime I might gather more specifics, but overall—this is over.”

Rhoam balles his hand into a fist. “We’ll start a new schedule for Zelda first thing in the morning—“

“It won’t work, it’s futile—“

“We’ll make it work—“

“This is set in stone, this is the world you live in—“

“Well what if you’re wrong again?”

“I’m not.”

“But what if you are?”

“I’m. Not. I’ve read the signs again and again and again, in fact I’ve been reaching the same conclusions repeatedly for the last four weeks. It. Is set. In stone.” He tapped his finger on the wood with each syllable to emphasize. “Perhaps the futures of prosperity are accurate for the Rhoams and Mallorys that live in a different time, but unfortunately for us, we live in one where Elane is dead. This is our reality and you’re doing no good denying as such.”

Silence.

Rhoam made his way towards the door. “You’re a liar.” The seer scoffed. “You’re a liar and you don’t know what you’re saying! Borderline treason if I’m being honest! You’re pathetic, and a rotten fake—“

“If it pleases His Majesty to confirm the integrity of his humble subject,” Astor cut in, sarcastically, “It might be good to know that also I’ve predicted you won’t imprison me, or exile me, or execute me, given you’re still ever reliant on my uncontested skills for more personal matters. That, and you wish to try and keep me around to hopefully prove me wrong, in which you can then tell yourself you’d be in the right to truly punish me.” He stared the regent dead in the eyes. “But don’t worry, you won’t.”

Rhoam slammed the door shut as he stomped off.

That night, Astor has another dream. Or perhaps it was a vision, he wasn’t sure, as the details were so surreal and horrific and captivating that it would have surely been a blessing to chalk it up entirely to vivid imagination.

There were screams and the sound of rocks crumbling. Bones were cracking and monsters were squealing and shrieking. And be felt his arms burn, and he felt his soul drain, and he looked down to see his skin peeling into dark flakes, his muscles, sludge. And in the distance, a young woman with golden hair laughed at him, but her eyes were hollow and gold. And she laughed and laughed as his body was slowly broken to pieces, bones torn asunder, skin burned to smoldering malice, senses vivid until the final moment when he woke.

But the good thing about nightmares, was that...that was it. There was no where else to go. There was nothing left to offer. No more pain to fear.

It made sense of course. Of course, of course. He never went to the funeral, he never offered his sympathies. There was no longer anything to mourn, as he allowed himself to view the world in its true, disgusting form. The people were doomed, and the dead, well...perhaps they might have deserved it. Yes, that was the only way this all made sense, of course. He even stopped trying to warn other folk after a few too many dozen harsh rejections to his character. No, now in complete isolation and resignation of his path, there was nothing else that could possibly drag him back to—

“How do I die?” Zelda Mallory Hyrule asked, one day.

At first, he was confused, and he turned in his chair. “What?”

She was seven at the time, and it was truly an odd and concerning thing to be coming from a seven year old girl’s mouth. Or perhaps it wasn’t, given the circumstances.

“How do I die?” she said again. She was laying down on his worn carpet, fiddling with the frilled edge.

Was she truly that bored? Already out of other questions? Hmph, he had always warned her to stay away, as a seer’s office wasn’t really meant for childish entertainment. Yet still she always came and asked to hide away from her father, and, well...anything to spite that man...

“Why do you ask?” he finally replied. Had someone said something to her? A threat? He clenched his jaw. I swear, if that fool tried to force her powers by—

“You’re always going on about how I’m wasting my time with praying and stuff...but father says I still gotta to stop the Calamity or else we could all die.” She didn’t look up from the bits of carpet string she was playing with (and contemplating on popping in her mouth), “So I figured if you tell me how I die we can settle the debate for good!”

Astor just sighed. “Well, of course you d—“

He stopped himself, but not for the reasons a more put together person, might. Not because of the generally frowned upon action of telling a child how she dies, no, that was not exactly beyond him. No, Astor cut off his sentence simply because it had crossed his mind that—

“...I’m not entirely sure...” he whispered.

He suddenly stood. Walking towards the other end of his office, carefully stepping over the child. “E-Excuse me a moment.”

Why had he never considered this? Of course, he had seen the signs clearly enough, the visions, the stars. A girl cries over a corpse, a light vanishes in the night. Malice plagued the sky and dooms the day. But did the Calamity actually kill her? Does she drown in rubble and malice like the others? Slain by a demon or monster perhaps? Or if not, then, would that mean...?

The princess soon forgot about the question by the next day, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next.

Astor spent nearly eight sleepless nights into finding an answer.

But he never truly did.

These things happened more times than one may think, when it came to predictions. Vagueness was commonplace, but specificities and straightforward answers were about as rare as a green sunset. Of course, he knew she would die, goddess blood or not, she lived the life of a mortal. But how? When? While it certainly wasn’t impossible to predict a person’s death, but whatever the circumstances of Mallory’s was made the process was infuriatingly impossible.

It was possible she would die of malice or suffocation under rubble, even circumstances where she dies at the Ganon’s hand himself. But then there were clear visions of her living, walking through a grassy field, ruins in the distance covered in leaves and moss, her turning and calling to a friend to keep up with her pace.

But no, nonono. She would die during the Calamity’s rise, that was the majority of what the futures offered to her were. That was the probable outcome.

But the factors and visions and signs and alignments were so fine and minuscule in difference, that Astor truly couldn’t a true statement, a true prediction, a true answer to the question. What timeline did we live in?

It taunted him.

Maybe it was better if the question was put to rest, did it even matter?

“Mallory?” he asked. “That’s a stupid name.”

“What?! No it’s not!” Elane laughed and shoved his shoulder. “Please, YOU’RE not one to talk.”

“Well as a victim of stupid first names, I think I’m qualified to speak accurately on the subject.”

“Aha! But it’s not technically a first name.” Elane tapped his head. “It’s a middle name, her first name would be ‘Zelda,’ of course.”

“Yes, and that is also a s—“

The queen shoved his shoulder into the wall before he even finished the sentence. “Oh would you shut up...”

He laughed, unconventionally carefree. Her Majesty’s happiness these days truly was contagious. Or perhaps that was a side effect of pregnancy? Did all expecting mother’s give off this aura?

“I think it’s a wonderful name.” Elane said. “Reminds me of a cute little duck, like a mallard!” She tucked her arms and flapped her elbows to imitate as such. “Quack, quack!”

“This is further adding to my argument actually”

“Hmph! Ok then Mr. Overseer of all names” She tapped a finger to his chest. “If it’s such a stupid name, then when she starts getting bullied for it around the castle, I shall expect you to take care of her in full.”

He scoffed. “Oh, I’ll be sure to do so. She’ll definitely need it.”

Elane pecked his head with a kiss.

“Good! I grant you my blessing lovingly tease her, as well. And I expect the best from you, Astor!”

His face suddenly warmed for some reason, and he couldn’t form words.

“What?”

“.....W...”

He was suddenly whack in the head with a rolled up piece of paper. Astor sprang awake from his desk. “...W...What...?”

“Morning, Mr. Astor!!” Princess Zelda-Mallory beamed. “And happy birthday!!! Sorry I woke you up early, but I needed to give this to you before the winter solstice festival later and—“

She continued to ramble on and on, but Astor simply opened the rolled up paper she had handed to him. It was simply filled with dozens and dozens, arguably hundreds, of hand drawn stars. In the corner was written, “You always look at the same stars so here’s some new ones!” in crude purple crayon. At the time, he failed to notice the accompanying note on the back that read “One for each year of how old you are!” Thankfully he was too busy looking through the different stars, with varying degrees of sparkles and smiley faces.

He finally looked back at the princess, who was still rambling on and on about her day, and her father’s day, and her newest stuffy dress, and her latest adventures with her stuffed toys, and—

“Why are you always here, Zelda?” Astor finally said. She stopped talking, looking at him, quizzically. “I mean...” he grumbled, “You know I don’t really like you, right?

“Eh, I don’t care. I think you’re neat!!” She held out her arms as she zoomed around his circular office. “Your room is so cool! And you got fun books!”

“Necromancy isn’t necessarily what I would consider ‘fun’ reading material—“

“Plus your outfits are cool, and you’re super smart, like my mom.”

He blinked.

“Plus, you’re the only one that’s not mean to me about my dumb powers. But really that’s just a chair on the top!”

“Do you mean cherry on top?”

“No! I meant chair! Watch me!! I’m gonna do a backflip off of this—“

“NO.” Astor immediately stood up, and snatched the girl off of the wooden chair. “NO. No backflips.” He set her down on the rug and pointed to a side of the room which held a broken table, stool, and a few old chairs—the victims of the princess’ previous acrobatic attempts.

She crossed her arms and stuck out her tongue. “You’re no fun!”

“I’m running out of furniture, is what I am.”

“But I’ll let this slide since it’s your birthday! Hmph.”

She started pulling at the loose threads of the carpet. “Don’t know why you had to stop my birthday backflip! Who cares if I get a little scratch?”

“I do—“

“YOU DO?!” Mallory was immediately up and clinging to his robes.

Astor sputtered, instinctively waving his arms to free himself from the child’s grip. But then he finally processed her question, and...

“I...” He looked at her starlight eyes. She had that stupid, naive grin that he always remembered from her mother. A stupid, pathetic, horrible, terrible, optimistic smile.

He finally scoffed. “I just can’t have you getting hurt on my watch, as otherwise, I’d probably be a dead man. That’s all.”

The princess lifted her hands in a “hooray!” fashion, and yelled the exclamation, accordingly. She then resumed her zipping and zooming around the room, much to Astor’s unexpected relief.

That night, he visited the question again.

Why? He didn’t really know.

The question wouldn’t offer him anything, it wouldn’t relieve him of anything—in fact it really did just the opposite. If he found that died miserably, it would be another scream in the nightmare, another nail in the comforting coffin of despair. But if he someone found that she lived, that there was a day after the Calamity, where even a child such as her could possibly prosper...

Having hope and seeing it fail anyway would probably be the most torturous of all.

Again, he had a dream, of a world tainted by blood and malice. But this time he was floating. He was floating and watching the end of it all.

Castle Town was nothing but ruins and ash, and no colors existed but red, black, and grey.

He couldn’t hear anything but a shrill hum in his ears, but he knew there was screaming. He looked to his hand, expecting to see malice or blackened skin, but instead found a strange floating device in his palm. It spin slowly, pink constellations drifting across its surface.

The hum in his ears turned into a groan, and then a whisper. It said something familiar, but he was sure he had never heard it before.

It is time.

The next night he had a dream of a girl standing in a green field, calling out to her friends somewhere behind her. She rested under the ruins of a collapsed pillar, and ate a homemade sandwich with a memorable smile.

Astor reached a conclusion.

In most futures, the girl dies horribly. He wrote in his journal. To be expected, I would assume the rise of the Calamity isn’t exactly easy to survive from.

But what I have discovered is a very specific set of circumstances that lead to a more favorable outcome, at least for her.

I have no way of knowing if it accurately depicts the comings of our time, or another. There are too many variables and specifics. Too long I have spent trying to discern our fate, but the probabilities and possibilities for doom are so interchangeable that it really go either way. The only truth I know is that she lives if—

He paused, tapping the dry quill to the desk again in thought. He dipped it once more.

I’ve decided that if I ever find myself in the scenario where I can solidify her a more favorable destiny, I will take it. I can only hope dare to alter my existing nightmare into something different, there’s really nothing left to lose, is there?

Astor leaned in his chair for a moment, savoring the silence of his office. He looked out the window and took in the night. The stars were gorgeous this evening.

Although if it fails I hope it kills me.

Call it arrogance, but I don’t think I can handle being wrong again.

The seer sighed, then suddenly flipped to the next blank page, angrily.

If I had never met her it would have been fine. If I had just minded my own damn business and continued to work in being resigned to our fate, at least then I could have—

There was a soft knock at his door.

He knew who it was.

Astor pinched the bridge of his nose as he opened it. “It’s past 2am, Princess, what could you possibly have to tell me?”

She looked down and shuffled her feet. “I had a nightmare...”

“Yes, people do have those sometimes.” He immediately closed the door.

Another knock.

After a moment, Astor opened it again. “Don’t you have guards outside your room, how did you sneak up here?”

“Secret tunnel!” She grinned, proudly, as she replied with a sort of sing-song tone.

“That’s nice.”

The door slammed shut again.

She knocked once more. There was the longest pause.

“FFFFFFine!” The world was out of his lips before he even fully swung open the door, and Mallory happily scrambled inside. “But no touching anything, I’m working.”

“It’s ok, I just wanna stay up all night and read your books!” She was already scrambling for the necromancy section, again.

Astor sighed, and went to slump back into his desk. The princess was already sprawled across the floor, distracting herself with another stack of wondrous, ill-recommended book. He didn’t really care.

I don’t really care. He wrote once again. I know there are futures where I dedicate myself to the Calamity, and she dies anyway. I know it doesn’t really matter, I know it’s hopeless to care, and that’s why I don’t.

He looked back at Zelda, he saw her slowly blink back her tiredness. He knew in a few hours or so, he’d have to drop her sleepy figure back off to those useless guards, and berate then for letting her wander off again, as it always was.

If I do this and it’s all for nothing, he began, I fear it will be worse than if I had just stood to the side and perished. It’s already doomed, and this pathetic, foolish optimism might cause me to turn this nightmare into something even worse.

He sighed, and the hours passed as he just sat with his thoughts.

Zelda was using and open book as a pillow.

Astor opened the door, and went to pick her up.

I’m not living through another nightmare. He thought, as he descended the stairs from the observatory. The girl’s breathing was steady as she wrapped an arm by his shoulder.

If it fails I hope it kills me before I see it. He repeated again.

I can’t handle being wrong again.

[scientia-rex]

Reporting back on this whole "how is life as a new attending" thing: well, the good news is I have money and a lot more time. The bad news is I'm still me.

So we're buying a house--it's taking forever but it's also a really great house that's not like a mansion-mansion but is light-years beyond what anyone else I know my age who isn't a doctor or the child of rich people can afford--and I'm really, really excited about it. But I'm also still depressed, on an SNRI for it, getting godawful night sweats because of the SNRI for it, and prone to severe acid reflux and chronic nausea. Also, there's a random spot in my right lower quadrant that occasionally hurts like hell for no apparent reason and deep down I'm terrified that it's my appendix thinking about getting real infected and rupturing, or an ovarian cyst that starts to torse and then de-torse, or an endometriosis explant that's going to finally burrow all the way into my intestines one of these days and give me, I dunno, sepsis or a hemorrhage or something. Any one of those could spontaneously become a life-threatening surgical emergency with no warning. So yes, I still have anxiety.

I have started to resume something resembling a normal human sleep schedule. I only took a week (technically just under a week) off after graduating from residency. I'd already passed the boards so as soon as residency was officially over and my program director submitted the final things I was board-certified. Which is fucking bananas! I'm still me! I'm still just a weird chump with frizzy hair, two to three chins at any given time and slowly developing jowls, a mustache and over the last couple of years a beard I savagely beat into submission with my favorite tweezers every fucking day, the short-term memory of a goldfish, zero ability to remember anyone's face or name but a near-godlike recall for bit-part actors in television shows based on just a few seconds of hearing their voice, a long-term obsession with Sherlock Holmes since the 4th grade back in the early 90s long before Moffat put his greasy mitts all over them, and some weird kinks I literally never talk about because I don't want to. I am such a peculiar, obsessive, hoarding, strident freak! And now I'm a board-certified physician. Jesus Christ. The only thing worse than knowing that I'm a doctor is knowing that my classmates are doctors. Not the ones from residency, they're all cool, but the ones from my actual medical school. You know! The ones who accidentally boned the same woman on an away rotation they did sequentially and then made homophobic jokes about sloppy seconds! Those ones! The ones who wore shirts with boner jokes on them to class while being devout Mormons who thought women belonged in the kitchen! The one who said awful things about Tamir Rice and then said he couldn't be racist because his nephew was black! THOSE ASSHOLES! THEY'RE PROBABLY ALSO DOCTORS NOW! I don't know for sure because I'm not friends with any of them on Facebook because they're horrible assholes and I called them all homophobic and racist and sexist to their fucking faces, but DON'T TRUST DOCTORS UNTIL OR UNLESS THEY SHOW YOU A REASON TO.

Anyway, I've been finding some solace in obsessively looking at different things I might get for our house. We're closing soon, thank God, but the current owners wanted to stay until the end of August because they're building a new house and it won't be done until then (and do I believe it will actually be done then? No.) and we wanted to be very attractive buyers in this godforsaken housing market where you have to bring an elephant's weight in gold and several wine bottles of your own blood to even get a chance, so we said sure, so we're still a month and a half from moving in. UGH. It's worth it, but it's giving me all the anxiety. I feel paralyzed, because I can't do shit about most of the planning and decorating until I'm actually in the space. And somehow I can't do any of my other hobbies, either. I can't write. I can't bake. I've been getting stoned more often than usual, but I did that on Friday night and frankly it just annoyed me because I didn't enjoy losing the ability to string my thoughts together. Sometimes I'm really in the mood to get stoned and it feels lovely and freeing, and sometimes it's just an annoying hindrance.

And I can't drink because my acid reflux is so bad right now. I doubled up on the omeprazole, which I never tell patients to do, and it did help some, but I'm still always one acidic beverage away from feeling like I'm going to die. I threw up a couple of months ago and I honestly think it was from just having too much acid in my stomach for my body to cope with. So naturally I'm worried I've got one of those crazy tumors, starts with a Z, Zollingers? that tells your stomach to make acid. Do I? Almost certainly not! Will that stop me from worrying about it? Boy howdy, no!

However, I have had some really nice moments. Last week I had a patient who had a history of migratory polyarthralgias. He'd never been definitively diagnosed, though he'd been tentatively diagnosed with gout based on presentation and placed on allopurinol. He was sitting in my office with a huge, swollen, painful knee, and I thought, well fuck it he needs a knee aspiration. Have I done one of those before? No! But I've put enough corticosteroids and hyaluronic acid into knees that I figured I had a good shot at getting something out, and it wasn't pretty but I did it. I got a good sample of knee juice all by myself. It felt great. For me. The patient was in a substantial amount of pain. However, it did give us a definitive diagnosis--birefringent monodium urate crystals! That's gout, baby! Sure, it presented a little weird, but because I stuck a big-ass needle into his knee now we know for sure and I wrote him for colchicine, which somehow no one else had???? despite the diagnosis of gout on his chart???????

I haven't really felt completely at sea much at all these first couple weeks of being an attending. I have an MA who is a sweet ray of sunshine and she is very determined to do a good job, and we get along well. I'm slowly settling in. I feel more and more like a real doctor and less like some crazed impostor wearing a doctor suit every day.

There's bad stuff, plenty of it, but overall I'm feeling pretty lucky. Mostly. Except for how today I had a bunch of caffeine and dairy, so my stomach is telling me that this was a Mistake. But! In counterpoint, the Baskin-Robbins Flavor of the Month was really delicious, and I regret very little. Not nothing, but very little.

[mckinlily]

.the force

Summary: Learning the ways of the Force is not always an easy process. Sometimes lessons can take years, even lifetimes to master.

Sometimes your master seems to go out of his way to make it worse.

Shiro felt the chaotic stirrings in the Force just before Keith stormed into their shared quarters. 

“You ASSHOLE!”

A faint warning had him snapping his hand up to catch—

A rock?

It was a decently pretty rock, with nice blue and green flecks scattered through it, but overall no more interesting than any other mid-sized pebble they might pick up on a mission.

Keith fumed at Shiro’s shoulder behind the couch, massive waves of fury and irritation flooding off him in Force. So far, all lessons on releasing emotions into the Force had only taught Keith to get better at projecting his feelings, rather than control them.

Ah, well. It was progress. 

Maybe. 

With deliberate casualness, Shiro put down the mission report he had been reviewing and turned to his padawan.

“Hello, Keith. I could have sworn that wasn’t the correct form of address on Coruscant. Or did I miss a memo?”

“Stop being an ass,” snapped Keith.

Shiro raised his eyebrows. Keith just glared back. So this was going to be one of those conversations. Shiro leaned back into the couch.

“You’re going to have to be a bit more specific, Keith. Precisely what part of my assery do you want me to stop?” 

Then, recalling he was supposed to be a master and not a fellow padawan, he quickly added, “Ah, not that you should be using that kind of language anyway.”

Keith responded with several words under his breath that made it quite clear he was not taking Shiro’s advice.

Shiro sighed. “Keith. If you have something you want to talk about, I’m here. But for that to work, you’re going to have to actually, you know, talk.”

Keith gave an explosive exhale and flung himself over the back of the couch to land in a sulky sprawl next to Shiro.

Shiro bit back the urge to correct. He still wasn’t certain how to be a Master to a padawan learner—wasn’t even sure he knew how to be a Knight— and Kolivan’s old lectures echoed in his ears. Kolivan wouldn’t have let such impropriety slide. But what his master would have done and what Shiro’s instincts said were constantly at odds, and Shiro just didn’t know which one was right.

This time, his instincts won out. Shiro slumped against the side of the couch, and nudged Keith with the toe of his boot. “What is it.”

Keith shoved Shiro’s foot off the couch and scowled. He pointed at the object in Shiro’s hand. “That’s a rock.”

Shiro double checked that he was, in fact, still holding a rock. He looked back at Keith. “Yes?”

“It’s a kriffing rock!”

This time Shiro ignored the language. “Keith, you’re not giving me much to work with here.”

Keith flung in hands in the air. “It’s from Dazibalb! You said it was special!”

“I...did?”

Keith’s face was getting flushed as he waved his hands about. “Yes!”

“Um…” Shiro examined the innocuous stone in his hand, trying to see how it could be the source of the drama with his padawan.

“I spent a year—a kriffing year!—meditating and researching on it because my master—who is supposed to be TEACHING me—made it seem all important and special. And. It’s Just. A Fucking. ROCK!”

Shiro took a single breath in. Keith was clearly worked up. Shiro was a Jedi Knight and Keith’s master to boot. He needed to react calmly, rationally, with precision and compassion. He let out his breath—

And burst out laughing.

“Shiro!”

“I—aha!—I can’t—”

“Stop it!” Keith grabbed a pillow and started walloping Shiro with it. “It isn’t funny, Shiro!”

“Argh! Keith, get off me—a whole year—”

“Stop laughing, you asshat! I spent MONTHS on this! I went to Master Slav!”

Shiro lost the battle and dissolved into peals of laughter. He could barely breathe through his wheezes while tears gathered on his face.

“I can’t—I can’t—Slav?!”

“I didn’t want to fail!”

Keith’s voice—hardly reliable at the best of times, poor preteen—cracked on that, and Shiro, even crying with laughter, recognized it for what it was. He pushed himself upright, failing (though trying) to force down his laughter.

“I’m not laughing at you.”

Keith pulled back and folded his arms. “Yes, you are,” he sulked.

Shiro choked back another bout of inopportune laughter. “I’m not. It’s just—” A snort slipped out of him, his cheeks hurt—and, nope, he was laughing again. “It’s not you. But your face—”

“Really helping your case there, Shiro,” grumbled Keith, looking away, and damnit, Shiro really needed to pull himself together.

He couldn’t stop the snickering, but he could throw his arm around the younger boy’s shoulders and pull him close. “I adore you,” he promised into Keith’s hair.

Keith still grumbled. “You said—I asked if there was something special, and you said it held the secrets to the Force!”

“I was teasing,” said Shiro, slowly remembering a seemingly meaningless conversation from ages ago. He snorted. “I didn’t expect you to take it seriously.”

“How was I supposed to know that?!” snapped Keith. “You’re my master. You’re supposed to be teaching me, and half this Force stuff doesn’t make sense! You said and—I didn’t know!”

And that, Shiro realized, was the crux of it. The Council hadn’t been happy when Shiro took Keith on as a padawan, claiming he was too emotional and too old, and Keith knew it. He worked hard in his classes, but he was up against classmates who had been studying the Force and the way of the Jedi since they were in diapers. Shiro knew Keith worried. Nevermind that he was a prodigy, insanely powerful, and picked up new Force techniques faster than anyone Shiro had ever seen. Keith felt like he was constantly behind.

“Every padawan has fallen for something like this,” Shiro reassured, ruffling the kid’s hair. “Every. One. Someone started a rumor that the Force comes from little microbes in your body, and that rumor still circulates the creche to freak out Initiates all the time. It happens for everyone.”

Keith huffed. “You didn’t have to laugh at me.” He sounded annoyed, but hurt burnished his presence about the Force. 

“I’m sorry,” said Shiro earnestly. Keith’s outrage was funny but not his hurt. “Keith, I would never intentionally make you feel or look stupid.”

Keith flung his arms out. “I don’t know anything! Everyone knows all this stuff, and I don’t know any of it! I’m supposed to be a padawan.”

“You are a padawan,” said Shiro, tugging on Keith’s padawan braid to emphasise the point. “It doesn’t matter what everyone else knows. You’re a padawan learner. The point is to learn, which you’re doing. Where everyone else is doesn’t matter.”

“Younglings know more than me,” grumbled Keith.

“What did I just say?”

Keith rolled his eyes. “Stupid Jedi crap. It’s easy to say when you’re not the one people are calling a non-sensitive in class.”

Shiro snorted. Hard. 

“Not at you,” he said to Keith quickly, shaking his head and smashing down dangerous fury that threatened at the mistreatment of his padawan. He snorted again. “If your classmates can’t tell how strong you are in the Force, maybe they are the ones who are non-sensitive.”

Keith slumped, somewhat pacified but still unconvinced. 

“You know, Master Yoda didn’t even talk until he was fifty years old. His species ages so slowly most of his clan had already become Masters before he even left the Creche.”

“But he’s Yoda,” protested Keith.

“And how do you know that in ten years, someone won’t be saying the same thing about you?” challenged Shiro. “You’re already one of the best pilots in the Order, and you’re not even a senior padawan yet. You might feel like you’re struggling to catch up now, but I guarantee that before long, all of us will be fighting to keep up with you.”

Keith snorted. “Sure, Shiro.”

“You’ll see,” said Shiro, his nose in the air. “I’m right.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “Whatever.” And Shiro let him have that. They wouldn’t break through all of Keith’s issues in a day. Instead, he changed the subject.

“Did you really spend months researching?”

Keith slumped into the couch. “I didn’t want you to think I failed you,” he muttered to the floor.

Shiro’s heart trembled and melted. It was deeply humbling to realize how seriously Keith had taken his offhand remark. And a little terrifying. His padawan trusted him so completely, and he—he wasn’t even sure he deserved his rank of Knight. 

(How did one go about being a master? How did he be a master when he couldn’t even go to his own master for help? When he couldn’t be sure that he hadn’t been Knighted merely because no one had wanted to finish his own training?)

((No one had wanted to train Keith, either, he remembered. Shiro was determined to make sure his padawan never grew up with the same doubts.))

“Did you keep your research?”

Keith looked at him with narrow-eyed suspicion. “Why?”

“I figure if you put in all the work, you might as well get something out of it,” shrugged Shiro. “I bet we could put together a good case for an independent study. Free up your time for more advanced piloting classes.”

Keith’s eyes slowly lit up. “You mean it?”

“Of course, kiddo,” said Shiro. “I didn’t mean to send you on a wild goose chase.”

Keith huffed. Shiro squeezed his shoulders.

“I promise. I’ll be more careful about my teasing. And when I set you a task, I’ll make sure you know it’s an assignment. None of this vague hint stuff.”

Keith grumbled under his breath, but relief whafted off of him in the Force. Shiro really didn’t understand how so many in the Temple described his padawan as unreadable. Keith projected everything. Loudly. If only you took the time to listen.

Shiro tugged on Keith’s padawan braid again. “We good?”

Keith flopped grumpily against Shiro’s side. “You’re the worst,” he said, though the pulse he sent through their training bond didn’t back it up.

“I really am sorry,” said Shiro.

Keith squirmed against his side. “I just feel so dumb,” he admitted in a low mumble. “Anyone else would have known it was just a rock.”

“Well…” Shiro held up the rock, running his senses over it. It had certainly started as an ordinary rock, but things that were in close contact with the Jedi rarely stayed that way for long. Shiro could feel the vague impression of Keith in it, his loyalty and passion, all wrapped up in his fierce determination. Shiro concentrated on the rock as well, focusing on what he felt for Keith, his pride and joy in his padawan, and pushing that into the Force.

When he finished, the sense wasn’t as strong as he would have liked it—Shiro wasn’t very practiced in Force Impressions—but it was there.

“Here,” he said, passing the rock back to Keith. Keith took it somewhat suspiciously, and Shiro felt him prod hestistantly at it in the Force.

“Oh. Huh.” Keith looked up at Shiro, clearly looking for a confirmation that what he was feeling was real.

“Maybe it didn’t start out special,” said Shiro. “But it certainly is now.” He took a chance and ruffled Keith’s hair. “Just like you.”

“Argh!” Keith batted his hand away. “What are you so sappy?”

“Excuse you, I am genuine, charming, and eloquent.”

Keith frowned at him. Then, taking Shiro completely by surprise, he shoved him with the Force, knocking him off the couch and sending him sprawling on the floor.

“Ooof. This is how you repay me?” groaned Shiro from the ground. 

“Yep.” Keith preened, unrepentant from his position on the couch. Shiro took a moment to appreciate how far he’d come from the bitter, scared slave he had been when they first met. Smug and triumphant was a good look on him. 

“All right.” Shiro accepted defeat. “Pass me my datapad. I need to finish that mission report.”

“Your—What? You’re going to work from the floor?”

“Yep,” said Shiro, not even bothering to sit up.

“You are so weird,” concluded Keith, but a second later Shiro’s datapad was dropping onto his face and he snatched it out of the air. 

“Thanks,” said Shiro. He started scrolling through his notes, trying to find where he left off. 

“You’re the strangest master in the Order,” said Keith.

Shiro looked up from his datapad. “Would you rather the Council reassign you a different master?” he said hesitantly, trying to hide how the possibility cut him.

But Keith quickly shook his head. “No. I’ll stick with what I’ve got.”

“Me too,” said Shiro, quietly hiding his relief. “I wouldn’t trade you for any other padawan out there. Not for the entire galaxy.”

“Good,” said Keith. 

But still, the bond between them seemed to hum just a little warmer and stronger after that. 

[hockeyforthefirsttime]

Nolan Patrick- Coaches Niece

A/N: this feels like a mess, and probably is, however i hope someone enjoys it originally it started out as a 4+1, but like i said, messy

Word count: 6.1k

TW: some angst, mentions of cheating, arguing

Pairing: Nolan Patrick + Fem reader

You are headed to Philadelphia for college, as well as for staying with your uncle. He is a man of few words, but he always means well. When you land in Philly and he is at the airport to pick you up, you are a little surprised. You suspected that you would have to hail a taxi to get to his place, but he sent you a text saying where he is in the airport. You are a little relieved, when you realize you don’t have to sit in a car next to a stranger for however long.

It is currently 6:37 am, and you haven’t slept a wink on your flight, so you drowsily head for the luggage claim. The other people from your flight are there as well. One of them is a kid in a flyers jersey, number 19 to be precise. He can’t be more than eight years old, but he has been babbling about hockey the entire flight. You know from him that the Philadelphia Flyers have a match coming up during the weekend, so when you walk out a little behind him and his parents, you aren’t surprised that your uncle is looking at them with a distant smile. Until he sees you. The smile, it’s more there as he walks up to you and takes the suitcases from your hands.

“Hey, it’s been a while kiddo. How was the flight?”

He greets as he pats your shoulder, careful to not overstep any boundaries.

“Hey Alain, the flight was okay. Some kid was gnawing half the plane’s ears off with Flyers trivia though, didn’t sleep much.”  

You hum a little teasingly. Knowing the fact that your uncle is actually head coach for the team.

“Better get used to that kiddo.”

He chuckles as you walk to the parking lot together. He opens the trunk of the car and lets you help him put your suitcases as well as your backpack in. You don’t miss the overstuffed hockey bag that lies there as well.

“Now, I know you probably want to go home and get settled or maybe sleep, but I’ve got morning practice with the team, so you’re just gonna have to suffer through it.”

That would explain the hockey bag. You just nod as you unlock your phone and start scrolling through the messages and snaps you’ve missed on the flight.

----

You’re sort of used to being around hockey, but when you enter the Wells Fargo Centre at roughly 8am, you would rather be at home to be honest. The arena is a bit cold and you’re glad you brought a hoodie inside, as well as your beanie. They are both pretty plain; you hope to blend in with the seats.

“Okay, I’m gonna go through the locker room, but you can find a place anywhere near the ice okay?”

“Sure, Al.”

You say as you pull the hood of your hoodie up over your head, and go in the direction he pointed out for you. You’re rounding a corner when you crash into something hard. For a second you’re wondering if you’ve gone even more blind, but soon knock that thought away. The wall is actually a person, and from his dropped bag, you’re guessing that he’s one of the team players.

“Sorry, didn’t see you there.”

He says with his slightly hoarse voice, whilst bending down to pick up his stuff.

“No worries, partly my bad as well.”  

You give the man a tired smile and head for the door that leads to the rink. You take a seat near the penalty box, propping your backpack up in one chair and lay flat out on the other chairs, so that your head is resting on your backpack. You don’t think anything of the run in with the player.

Unbeknown to you, he thinks of you. He just raises the question to his coach, who looks at him with disapproving eyes as he enters the locker room five minutes late.

“It’s my niece, she is going to be staying with me for a while, so you might see more of her around here, Konecny.”

This piques the interest of the single guys on the team. All except one. He doesn’t really care about girls right now, just wanting to make sure he does the best he can on the ice. That is until he sees the figure laying near the penalty box. His heart does a little clench when he sees this girl that is laying there seemingly unbothered by the ruckus the other players are causing.

You’re not exactly unbothered, but you try your best to keep it all under wraps. You don’t NEED any hockey players screwing you over. Not again. But you should have known, rowdy hockey players will always be demanding attention. And without fail you give it to them.

Your eyes are drawn to the players joking around on the ice, doing warm ups and various reps that your uncle keeps yelling out. The session is nearing the end and the players are all chanting for a practice game, and your uncle concedes, saying that nothing prepares you for a game like actually playing a game.

You sit up, deciding that trying to sleep is going to be futile, and decide to watch the training session, just to entertain yourself. You can’t recognize anyone, more specifically the guy you crashed into earlier.

Following the puck with your eyes, you admire the players chasing it, their technique is pretty good and while they aren’t as serious or quick as they usually would be, you can tell they are still as swift. They aren’t wearing numbers for training, but there is one guy that seemingly always comes closer to your side. You don’t take notice of it at first, but after he crashes into the wall separating the ice and the tribunes, you take a closer look. Starting to follow him around the rink, reading his play. It even seems like he has realized this, that he has caught your attention, because he now plays more all over the ice.

Hes tall, and you can see darker tufts of hair peeking out from underneath his helmet. There seems to be only one other player who has noticed his askew skating. They are currently playing on opposing teams and as they come closer to your side of the rink, you recognize one of them as the man you crashed into earlier. He body checks the taller man into the wall, playfully. You can see his lips moving as he chirps something into the ear of the taller man. You don’t hear it though. But you see the little smirk he sends in your direction.

------

You often come to the Flyers games if you can, and today after a series of away losses you really feel like supporting the team and your uncle. They end up winning against the capitals and some of the guys decide to invite you to celebrate with them, as well as to get to know you better. Even though it’s a wednesday you still say yes, as classes start later on thursdays.

You are waiting outside the locker room as first reporters exit, coaching and staff and later team members. Lately you have been texting TK, the guy you crashed into on your first day in Philly. It was actually him who had invited you out to celebrate, so now you were here standing outside the locker room, just waiting for them to emerge.

“Hey Y/N! How are you?” You look up from your phone and see TK and the taller man from the first day. You now know him as Nolan, or Nols, just to annoy him.

“Hey TK, I’m good, congrats on the win!”

You smile up at him, going in for a congratulatory hug. He lifts you up in his strong arms and spins you around once before setting you down. Nolan just looks at you a bit awkwardly, right hand rubbing his neck.

You ride with the two of them to the bar. It’s filled with the two of them recapping the game and the radio on low. You just sit in the backseat smiling at the two boys talking about the stuff they do best, always trying to do better. It’s a stark contrast to your ex. He usually blamed everything on everyone else.

While everyone is piling in the doors to the bar you enter last with Nolan, who has held your door open, and stuck by your side as you walked to the door. TK was quick out though, eager to get drunk in celebration.

“So what did you think of the game Y/N?”

He almost mumbles in that deep dark voice of his.

“It was a pretty good game, everyone played decently well.”

You smile at him as he opens the door to the bar. It is filled to the brim with people in orange, not only team players, but a lot of fans as well. It scares you sometimes, almost being in on the insanity that is hockey.

“What does pretty good mean?”

He wonders out loud.

“Well, you had some mishaps as well as shots and passes that should have worked out, but overall a good game.”

He looks at you curiously.

“You sound just like coach Alain.”

Trying to supress the laughter that threatens to escape you isn’t as successful as you’d like for it to be, but you think you manage to hide the smile on your lips.

“You have a pretty smile.”

Nolan mumbles, and you almost miss it as you walk over to the bar.

“Hmm?”

You question out of reflex. Looking up at the tall man, you expect him to repeat what he said, just for good measure as you almost missed it due to the loud music playing.

“Oh, nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

He says, ordering a beer. You just shrug, ordering a cider.

“Put it on my tab.”

He says to the bartender. You smile to yourself, but don’t comment on it.

“Well, I’m gonna go play some pool. You’re welcome to join if you want to, I promised TK a round before he gets too drunk.”

You could swear his face falls just a little bit as you mention his team mate, but you try not to overthink it as you make your way over to the tables where the team has gathered. You notice that Nolan has hung back a little. Not following as closely as he did when you entered.

You arrive at the pool tables just in time for a new game. You and Ghostie decide to play against TK and Carter, hoping to win.

Turns out, Ghostie is absolutely terrible at pool. Which means that against the goalie and the forward, you’re barely keeping up even with how much training in pool you have. It doesn’t help that the chirps go to Ghostie's head. Which makes him, if possible, even worse. Just for funsies you throw in some as well, just to mess with him.

Suddenly half the team starts cheering and TK yells out.

“Heyy Patty, just in time to save the damsel from playing another round with Ghostie.”

“I’m not that terrible.”

Ghostie protests.

“My back is literally breaking from carrying the team. I’m sorry man, but you're going to the bench.”

He hangs his head comically low, and you pat it, as he hands the pool cue over to Nolan. He proceeds to wink at you with that stupid smirk all over his face.

That was the birth of the meanest pool duo the team had seen in a while.

----------

You’re in the middle of a lecture when your phone lights up with a snapchat notification. You have turned vibration and sound off, but your eyes are still drawn to the device. As they have been doing for the last few days. Professor Ericsson has been drawing on about the Hidden Markov Model for ages explaining the same thing over and over, going in circles making things more confusing than it has to be. That’s why you decide to pick up your phone with your sweater covered hands and open the snap.

It’s Nolan, he’s sent a message in the chat.

Hey, want to meet up and play some pool later? Just to make sure were on top of our game next time the team goes out?

You smile a little, looking at the screen.

Sure, but I’m in a lecture now, I’ll text you when I’m out.

You type out the message carefully before hitting send, before flipping the phone upside down so you can’t see the response before you leave class.

Professor Ericsson keeps you five minutes past his time, but luckily it’s the last class of the day and you are amongst the first out the door. Tired of all the talking, you plug your music in and open snapchat as you head towards the library.

- Oh shit, sorry

The message reads and you smile to yourself.

- No worries, out now tho:)

Your coat is off  and you sling your backpack to the floor before sending a second message.

- What bar? when?

The response is almost immediate after. You can’t help the little butterflies in your stomach, but you sure as hell can try to ignore them.

- John’s at 8?

He suggests, and you can’t think of any place or time better, so you agree and start studying the Hidden Markov model, trying to get it as well as the examples. Knowing yourself you set an alarm for seven, just to make sure you remember to meet up with Nolan. You have just gotten into the flow of things when said alarm goes off. That is also when you realise that you haven’t got a ride to the bar.

- Hey Nols, mind picking me up at the university? If you’re passing by.

You vaguely know where Nolan lives and hope he hasn’t left yet.

- Sure, on my way!

It’s an actual snap this time, a short video of him opening and closing his door with the text in the middle of the screen. Snapping a picture of yourself with a thumb up, you deem it as enough of an answer. You pack your backpack again and head for the main entrance. It’s cold out and frost is lying heavy on the ground. You pull your scarf higher up so it covers your nose.

Soon Nolan is pulling up and you get into the car, slinging your backpack into the backseats of the SUV.

“Hey, thanks for picking me up Nols”

You smile as he pulls out out of the campus and onto the road.

“No worries, I was gonna pass by either way.”

He answers, as you take in the inside of the car. It smells of energy drink and shampoo, which is explained by the red bull in his cup holder and his wet hair. He’s wearing jeans and a gray hoodie. You assume the jacket in the back is his.

“Straight from practice I’m guessing?”

You ask, looking over at him.

“Yeah, Alain was tough today. Fair warning, I think he might be in a bad mood when you get home.”

Nolan mumbles the last part, seemingly a little embarrassed. That’s when you remember you’ll have to let your uncle know you might be home late, just so he doesn’t get worried.

“That reminds me, I’ll have to shoot him a message.”

You say as Nolan parks the car. He exits before you, after grabbing his coat from the backseat. You type the message for your uncle and hit send. When you hear your door opening you’re a little surprised to find Nolan grinning down at you leaning lightly on the door.

“C’mon, we don’t have all day.”

He smiles. You exit the car, making sure you have your wallet and hear the door shut as Nolan slams it closed and locks the car. Together you walk into the bar. The bartender gives you a nod as you head for one of the open pool tables.

“Want anything to drink?”

Nolan asks politely as he hangs his coat on the back of a chair.

“I’ll just take a sprite, if you don’t mind.”

He nods and heads off to the counter to order. Meanwhile you grab a cue and line up the balls correctly in the triangle. The table is well used, evident by the green felt that has been worn white in some spots.

“I don’t mind if you drink, you know. Even if I don’t.”

Nolan says as he returns with one glass of coke and one with sprite. He sets the glasses down on the table closest to you.

“Nahh, I don’t like myself when I’m drunk anyway, plus I have classes in the morning.”

Nolan nods his head in an understanding way as he grabs a cue for himself.

“Want to split? Or should I?”

You smile, standing at the opposite side of the table to him.

“I’ll split if you don’t mind.”

He answers and goes to the right side of the table, and lines up his shot. You shake your head before you can even begin to admire him. Instead focusing on the game, seeing as he lands one solid into a pocket and the rest of the balls spread sort of evenly across the green felt. You nod in admiration; he still knows how to play.

“That’s good! Let’s see if you can keep it up.”

Chirping him seems to be the easiest way to carry conversation, without it getting too deep. Because if there is one thing you’ve learned about competitive boys, is that you don’t want to have a full blown conversation in the midst of a game. And the fact that he misses his next shot makes it a little more interesting. It goes back and forth like that for a while, you chirping him, and him chirping you.

You’ve played three games now, and even though it's him in the lead with one point, and you don’t want to lose, time is ticking and you should get home soon.

“Okay, this is not finished, I’m still gonna beat your ass in this game.”

You grumble on your way out to the car. Nolan just smiles at you, shaking his head.

“You know, the car isn’t gonna be cold enough for you to wrap that scarf around your head every time?”

He mumbles close to your ear, making you stop your movements as heat rises to your cheeks. He opens the door to exit the bar for you, and immediately you see a shiver run through his body as the cold winter air slithers in.

“No? But it’s still cold outside though, don’t you think?”

You say lowly as you lead the way back to the car. You’re feeling snug and warm, wrapped up in the gray, knit infinity scarf. Nolan never ceases to surprise you with his manners as he opens the passenger door for you, letting you enter the car first. As he closes the door for you, you lean forward and adjust the AC to low, just to mess with him.  

The entire ride to Alain's apartment is filled with Nolan huffing and pulling the sleeves of his hoodie over his knuckles. You guessed right when you thought he was stubborn. He hadn’t even looked at the AC controls, so determined that the car would heat up soon. You are pretty sure he regrets tossing his coat to the backseat again.

He is pulling up on the curb of the apartment complex, and for some reason you don’t feel quite ready to leave, but you know you’ll have to.

“Thanks for tonight, I had a good time.”

You smile, looking at Nolan. A soft, almost shy smile is on his lips.

“Yeah, me too. We’ll have to hang some time later.”

He says, looking directly at you. Maybe hockey boys aren’t as bad as you thought. You pick your backpack from the backseat and open the door, but before you close it completely you turn and look at Nolan with a mischievous look in your eyes.

“And Nols? You should probably turn up the heat on the AC.”

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

Studying is probably the most tedious fun thing you do. Because, while you love system engineering, it’s a tough major and some of the classes are kicking your ass. So when your phone rings repeatedly you take it as a welcome excuse to take a break. However, you regret it just a little when you see Travis’ face light up the screen.

“Waddup, you complete and utter nuisance?”

You answer him before he has the chance to say something first.

“Wazzup, you nerd.”

He smiles back at you.

“Not nerd, it’s called college degree.”

You shoot back at him, playfully.

“You mean to say that my work isn’t actually work?”

Travis acts hurt, you can see the joking glint in his eyes though.

“Yeah, but I can see that it pays your bills though, so let’s call it a job…. for now.”

He laughs while looking at something in the background, before looking back at you.

“So, what big engineering theme are we working on today?”

Travis asks like he cares. You know he doesn’t though so you don’t bore him with small details.

“The Hidden Markov Model, it has to do with probability and stuff like that.”

You can hear rummaging and someone talking in the background of Travis’ end. He looks up at someone before you hear them speak.

“Who are you talking to?”

You could recognize that deep voice anywhere, even though the crackling of your speaker. Of course Nolan is around.

“Your girlfriend.”

Travis answers with a smirk on his lips. Nolan doesn’t show up in the frame, but from the way Travis gives you a cheeky little side eye, you’re guessing Nolan is giving him a death stare.

“Shut the fuck up Teeks.”

You just chuckle, not thinking it is anything serious.

“I don’t date hockey players anyway.”

It’s meant to be light hearted, really, and you don’t think anything of it as you speak up. But when Travis looks at you, slightly shocked and Nolan does appear on the screen, you suddenly feel a bit judged.

“Wait, really?”

Travis questions, looking at you curiously, you don’t notice the way he side eyes Nolan though.

“Yeah? I don’t get the big deal?”

You are confused to be honest. Why would they care about who you date anyway?

“Well, why won’t you date any hockey players?”

Nolan asks. He is trying to play it cool, you can tell. And you have to wonder, if you have sent the wrong signals.

“‘S just, I dated this Penns player a while ago, turned out that he was too busy for me, or never really cared for all I know. He ended up cheating on me while he was away for some games.”

The feeling of  something gathering in the bottom of your stomach makes you feel sick, you would rather not bring all this back up again. It doesn’t help, when you look back up at the screen and see Nolan with furrowed brows and Travis looking generally uncomfortable.

“It’s stupid, I know. And I shouldn't judge people based on him. Anyhow, how are we feeling about the game tomorrow?”

You try to shift the conversation to something else. Of course you haven’t got that much luck.

“We’re playing the Penns tomorrow, you do know that.. right?”

Nolan utters, and all that goes through your head is FUCKFUCKFUCK. Because how in the everlasting fuck could you forget that they were playing the Penns tomorrow? It’s all Alain has been talking about for the last couple of days.

“I completely forgot that’s who you were playing.”  

The sigh that slips past your lips doesn’t go unnoticed by the two boys.

“Well, I’ll be in the stands cheering for you boys.”

Smiling feels heavy and you can tell they don’t really believe it. The silence between the two boys is confirmation enough. And it lasts for a second, until Nolan breaks it.

“Who was it?”

He inquires. The question itself feels a little prying, but by the way he mumbles it you know it’s not intended to be.

“Does it matter?”

You ask, voice almost cracking, hoping he will budge.

“Yeah it matters, he hurt you.”

And he speaks so clearly, there really isn’t any question about it. And in a moment of weakness and hurt you let it slip.

“Marcus Pettersson, okay. No biggie. I’m gonna go to bed now you should too.”

You add before hanging up.

----------

You barely sleep last night, and the sleep you get gives you nothing at all. The hours spent at university are only manageable because of two cans of red bull. For some reason it makes you think of Nolan, about the smell of red bull in his car alongside the shitty shower gel scent that filled up the space. For some reason, the moment you pop open the can, you think it suited him.

“Wanna come out later?”

Alex from your last class asks you as the two of you exit the lecture hall. Usually you would have said yes, considering Alex is pretty cute and you have been harbouring a crush on them for the last few months. However the excitement you thought you would feel is not there. No, because your first priority tonight is a fucking hockey game.

“Thank you for asking, but I have some other plans I have to follow through with, but maybe some other time?”  

You smile at them as you both head towards the main doors.

“No stress then, I will definitely keep that in mind.”

Alex winks at you before holding open the door. You exit together, but each of you head for opposite directions. While they start to head for their car, you start towards the main entrance, where you hope your Uber is waiting. He is in fact not, so you take the time to plug in the earbuds and turn on some music.

When the correct car pulls up, you greet the driver and let him know you’re ready to go. After ten minutes you’re at the Wells Fargo Centre, and you pay, as well as rate the driver five stars.

Using one of the side entrances you start to make your way towards the rink. You’ve been around enough for people to recognize you, but it still feels weird walking around here and hear greetings all around the place. Even if you’re wearing the hoodie, people seem to know who you are.

“Hey sleepyhead.”

But you don’t expect to hear that voice. Not yet. You have barely closed in on the wardrobes. He isn’t supposed to be here. He is supposed to be on the rink warming up. Shit.

“What do you want, Pettersson.”

You almost snarl as you turn around to look at him. He doesn’t look as mean anymore, and the voice he uses isn’t as arrogant.

“To say hey?”

He questions as you look at him, raising your brows.

“It’s been a while.”

He adds, trying to sound innocent. You don’t buy it for a second.

“It’s been a while for a reason.”

You scowl at him, trying to walk away before this turns into something you don’t want to be involved in.

“Wait! Please.”

Marcus says, making you turn around.

“I married her you know.”

He confesses to you softly. And that’s what breaks you for the day. With the little sleep, last night, and him ripping at your old wounds.

“I fucking know Marcus, and that's the worst part! You told me you didn’t want anything serious, you told me you couldn’t commit like that. And not even a year later you’re married! Okay. I get that, I didn’t have to be the one. But I know I deserve the respect of being broken up with in a proper manner. So truly, I know, and I don’t care about it.”

Angrily you wipe the tears that have dared to slip down your cheeks, and nothing is upsetting you more than the fact that he can still make you cry.

“I just wanted you to know, I hope I haven't ruined you for anyone else.”

He almost whispers, and you can’t help but roll your eyes.

“Don’t think so fucking highly of yourself, I’m for no one to ruin.”

You seethe and walk away for the last time. Some of the players from the home team are still outside the wardrobe, which is placed after the away teams. You can spot Carter and Kevin, even Claude is out here. But while your eyes only glide over them, your eyes stick to Nolan. He looks at you, knowing you just lied through your teeth to Marcus, and you hope to some sort of entity that he doesn’t out you for it. And he doesn’t. Even if he looks like he wants to say something.

You brush past the team, up to the VIP booth that has a bathroom connected to it. You look into the mirror, and see a distraught person looking back. With tears streaked through the concealer you used to cover up the dark circles under your eyes, they now seem more prominent.

Digging into your backpack you find some makeup wipes and clean your face before going to your usual spot in the regular stands. You sit there and wait for the game to begin. And when it does, it’s an intense one.

Your uncle seems to be happy for it, cause the guys are playing impeccably. Their passes are powerful and their skates cut across the ice faster than you’ve seen in a while. First period is pretty even though. Both teams are passing great, but at the end the Flyers pierce thought the Penns' defence by having Travis tackle Marcus and Nolan sending the puck flying into the goal. You jump in excitement as the horn blares across the stadium, although you see the angry way the Flyers are playing.  

Second period is the same, however the Penns seem to be gaining on the Flyers and not before long, Crosby scores on Carter. While the other side of the rink bursts into celebration, you sink down into your seat, next to the Flyers' penalty box.

A few minutes before the second period is over, Travis is sent to the box beside you. He gives you a worried glance, which you meet, but then you spot fans standing up in their seats and start yelling. You’re worried, and that worry is not unfounded, because Nolan has dropped gloves on fucking Marcus Pettersson.

You don’t notice it, but your every action is viewed by Travis. He watches with hesitation as you sink down into your seat, and then with surprise as you get up and put your hands to your mouth just as the first hit from Nolan lands in Marcus’ gut. Marcus folds a little, but manages to aim a hit towards Nolan's head. Never in your entire life have you been more happy for helmets. One referee has come over to them and is trying to get in between. Nolan lands a final hit before they each get pulled to their own team. Nolan gets called for a body check and is sent off the ice for five minutes.

Nolan is currently getting checked out by the physio team, and with his previous head injuries, you have to admit that you’re worried. Not one thought isn’t about him and his head, possibly his fists as well.

Before a sane thought can strike your brain you rush to the checkout room. Travis gives a small smile, before entering the ice again. You fly by all the security with a hidden pass you have kept underneath your shirt, and knock on the door before you think twice. But the second it takes them to open the door makes your head spin. You know what it looks like and you don’t want those rumors for either of your sakes. He probably doesn’t even want you there either.

You’re just about to turn around and leave, when Catherine from the physio team opens the door. She looks equals parts shocked and confused when she sees you.

“Hey, Y/N, he can’t really see anyone right now, as we’re still not finished with his check up.”

“Oh, that's okay.”

Your mind is going in overdrive, hoping he hasn’t heard who’s at the door. You don’t have such luck.

“Hey, it’s okay, let her in.”

His voice seems to calm you down. Something about how smooth his voice is. So you take a careful step into the room. Nolan, thank god, seems to be doing alright. His cheeks are tinted pink and he has a slight smile on his lips. That’s also the moment you realise he is shirtless.

Catherine walks up to him and you have no idea how she keeps her cool.

“Now, just stare straight ahead, please.”

She tells him, and his gray gaze settles on yours. Not wavering for a second, not even when Catherine shines a flashlight into his eyes. After a few seconds she puts down the flashlight.

“You seem to be all good, Patrick.”

She takes the hint, from your twiddling thumbs and Nolan's intense stare.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

She says as she closes the door behind her.

“I’m.. Nols, I was so worried about you.”

You decide to say, not knowing if there is a better option. He just pats the spot beside him on the bench, indicating for you to sit next to him.

“You know, I’ve been waiting to do that for quite some time.”

And for a second you feel a little angry with him.

“You’ve been waiting to possibly not be able to play again?”

The question comes out incredulous, and you don’t know how he could risk it like that. He sighs.

“No, I’ve been waiting to knock Pettersson on his ass for a while now. He is, if possible, the the most frustrating defenseman ever.”

He admits out loud. You can’t help but sigh as you know where he is coming from.

“That’s not the only reason though.”

Nolan mumbles, and you can feel his hand next to yours.

“I kind of figured.”

You whisper, letting reality sink in. But, just as you’re about to explain, Alain walks into the room. Things never seem to go in your favour.

“You good to go Nolan?”

He stops dead in his tracks when he sees you.

“Yes, sir.”

You feel Nolan automatically straighten his back, ready to get out there again.

“Y/N?”

Your uncle asks confused.

“I’ll just head out Al.”

“I expect an explanation when we get home, miss.”

You nod your head, and a feeling of blood rushing to your cheeks almost overwhelms you as Nolan squeezes your hand discreetly when you get up.

-----

The Flyers end up winning on overtime, with Laughton scoring the second goal. And while all the players go out, you decide you need to talk to your uncle. You’re sitting in his car waiting for him to do his last few rounds, when Nolan shows up outside your window. He is quiet, when he should be riding on a high from winning. However when you open the door and step out into the frigid air, a warm smile makes its way onto his face.

“What are you gonna tell your uncle?”

You ponder the question for a few seconds, unsure of what to answer.

“I don’t really know. How do I tell him that I want to date one of his players?”

And that’s the one and only second you regret saying anything at all. Nolan's face moves from a slight worried smile, to a full blown smirk, confidence rolling off him in waves, and it’s worth all the chirping. Because he finally looks like he should after a win.

“You want to date me?”

You don’t want to smile, but when he wiggles his brows excessively, while getting closer to you, you can’t help it.

“Fuckin’ yes, okay? I’m sorry it took me so long to realize, Nols.”

He chuckles and wraps you up in his arms, and you positively melt right there. His arms around your shoulders and yours around his waist.

“I wanna date you too.”

Nolan mumbles into your ear, his deep voice vibrating through your head.

[per-ineptia-ad-astra]

Star Trek Episode 1.24: This Side of Paradise

AKA Yet Another Creepy Utopia Planet

Our episode begins with the Enterprise heading in to orbit around an Earthy-looking planet named Omicron Ceti 3. Omicon Ceti is a real star, by the way—also known as Mira or Mira A, it’s a red giant and part of a binary star system with its sister Mira B. It’s not a real likely place to go looking for such a nice homey sort of planet, though, because Mira is a pulsating variable star, which means its size and brightness is constantly fluctuating, and it’s hard to evolve life when your sun keeps flickering like a neon sign in a noir movie all the time.

Uhura reports to Kirk that she’s been transmitting a contact signal every five minutes just as he ordered, but she’s only getting dead air in response.  Kirk tells her to keep it up until they get into orbit, then moves on to talk to Spock. “There were one hundred fifty men, women and children in that colony,” he says. “What are the chances of survivors?”

Looks like the chances are, uh...not great. And by ‘not great’ I mean ‘nonexistent’. Spock explains that ‘Bertold rays’ are a recent enough discovery that there’s still a lot not known about them, but one thing that is for sure known is that exposure to these rays causes living animal tissue to disintegrate. Nasty. Evidently this planet is heavily exposed to these rays, because a group of colonists-- “Sandoval’s group”-- came here only three years ago and Spock says there’s no possibility they could have survived. Well why the heck would anyone build a colony in such a place? All Spock can say is “They knew there was a risk.”

Kirk questions whether they can risk sending a landing party down under such conditions, but Spock says the disintegration doesn’t start immediately, so they’ll be alright if they don’t stick around too long. The helmsman reports that they’ve successfully established orbit, and he’s found a settlement—or at least, something that was a settlement at one point. Kirk tells Spock to equip a landing party of five to accompany him down there, including a biologist and McCoy. That’s gonna be a fun mission briefing. “Yes, we're beaming down to a planet bombarded with deadly radiation, but no need to worry, crew, your tissues will probably only disintegrate a little bit."

Sometime later, the landing party—Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu, a blueshirt and a goldshirt—materialize into a meadow near a dirt path and a picket fence. They’ve thoughtfully arranged themselves into a nice alternating pattern.

[ID: A shot of a sunny meadow with a dirt road, a few trees and a white picket fence in the background. Newly beamed down are six Enterprise crewmembers standing in two rows: in the front are Kirk and Spock, in the back are McCoy, a goldshirt, a blueshirt, and Sulu.]

The goldshirt, incidentally, is DeSalle, who we last saw back in The Squire of Gothos. The character was originally written for this story as Lt. Timothy Fletcher, but was changed to DeSalle after the production crew realized they’d cast an actor who had already appeared in the series. Yes, really. AGAIN. The blueshirt is Kelowitz, who showed up briefly in The Galileo Seven and Arena, and likewise started out as another character but was renamed after being cast. I don’t know how this situation managed to happen so often on TOS, but apparently it did. At least they both seem to have managed to hold onto more or less the same positions that they had the last time we saw them, a rare feat for any minor TOS crewmember.

The group walks forward towards some nearby farm buildings arranged around a dirt yard, with a horse-drawn cart sitting out in front of one of them. But there’s no horse to be seen, and no people either. They wander through the yard and over toward what looks like a paddock, but without any animals in it. Everything seems quite thoroughly deserted.

Kirk leans on the paddock fence and glumly muses, “Another dream that failed. There’s nothing sadder. It took these people a year to make the trip from Earth. They came all that way...and died.” Hold on, it took them a year? What, do they not give colony ships warp drives? Did they have to hitchhike here?

“Hardly that, sir,” someone says, and suddenly we see three men in green jumpsuits standing at the edge of the yard, looking very relaxed and also very not dead.

As the landing party all turn around to stare in shock the man in front strides forward and says, “Welcome to Omicron Ceti 3. I’m Elias Sandoval.” McCoy looks like he’s getting ready to spray the dude with holy water.

After the titles, we get a brief captain’s log to sum things up, just in case everyone forgot what happened during the commercial break:

“Captain’s Log, Stardate 3417.3. We thought our mission to Omicron Ceti 3 would be an unhappy one. We had expected to find no survivors of the agricultural colony there. Apparently, our information was incorrect.”

The colonists start happily shaking hands with the landing party—but happily as in “oh, it’s so nice to meet you” not “oh thank god you came to rescue us we’re all on the brink of death”. Sandoval says they haven’t seen anyone outside the colony since they left Earth four years ago, although they’ve been expecting someone to come by for a while. Apparently their subspace radio didn’t work right and they don’t have anyone who could “master its intricacies”. Now, I’m no expert on establishing colonies on alien planets, but ‘person who can work our only communication device’ does rather seem like a position you would want to make sure was filled before you left.

Kirk has to explain that they haven’t come to visit because of the dead radio. He does not explain why they did decide to come when they did. Spock’s comment about the colonists knowing there was a risk indicates that whether or not Bertold rays specifically were known about before the colonists left, they at least had reason to believe there was something dangerous about the planet. So why’d the Federation let them go and then wait another three years before sending anyone to check up on them? Eh, probably just another failing of twenty-third century space bureaucracy.

Sandoval’s not bothered about it, though. He tells Kirk that it doesn’t make much difference—the important thing is the party is here now and the colonists are happy to see them. Then he invites them on a tour of the settlement and casually strolls off, leaving the landing party to stand there and try to process what the hell they just witnessed.

“Pure speculation, just an educated guess...I’d say that man is alive,” McCoy says. Thanks Bones.

Spock says that his scans show that the planet is getting ray’d just as their reports indicated, so that’s not the issue. Under this intensity, the landing party could safely hang out here for a week if necessary, as per the usual Star Trek rule that you can be exposed to a deadly thing and be just fine up until the exact moment it kills you, but there’s a mighty big difference between a week and three years. Or as Kirk succinctly puts it, “These people shouldn’t be alive.”

“Is it possible they’re not?” Sulu asks. Great out of the box thinking there Sulu, love it.

Kirk takes a moment to consider that, which is fair—compared to the kind of weird shit they’ve encountered so far, the walking dead wouldn’t even stand out that much. But McCoy points out that when they shook hands with Sandoval, “His flesh was warm. He’s alive. There’s no doubt about that.” Spock fires back with a reminder that, “There’s no miracle connected with [Bertold rays], doctor, you know that. No cures, no serums, no antidotes. If a man is exposed long enough, he dies.” Okay dude, calm down, all McCoy said was “he’s alive” not “my god! Bertold rays have been fake all along! wake up sheeple!"

As Kirk points out, this whole debate is pretty pointless anyway for the moment—they’re arguing in a vacuum, and they’ll need more answers if they want to get anywhere. So they go to follow Sandoval, who leads them towards a nearby farm house, while a few colonists do various farm chores nearby. Sandoval explains that the colonists split into three groups, with forty-five people at this settlement and two more settlements elsewhere on the planet. Apparently they thought that arrangement would give each group a better chance for growth, since if some disaster struck one group the other two would probably still be alright.

“Omicron is an ideal agricultural planet,” he says. “We determined not to suffer the fate of the expeditions that went before us.” It’s rather vague what expeditions he’s referring to here, since at no other point in the episode are any previous attempts at settling Omicron Ceti 3 mentioned. But given that Sandoval specifically mentions the possibility of disease afflicting one group as a reason to split up, and Spock earlier said that Bertold rays were a recent discovery—and that the colonists knew coming to Omicron Ceti 3 was risky-- it seems possible that previous groups tried to settle the planet and, without knowing about the Bertold rays, mistook their effects for some kind of disease native to the planet. Of course that doesn’t explain why this group of colonists decided it would be a good idea to try to settle here again anyway, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past few months, it’s that not everyone sees the possibility of dying to a terrible disease as a compelling reason to change their plans in any way.

As they stand in the farmhouse talking about this, a woman steps forward from another room in the house. She’s in soft focus, just in case we might forget she’s a woman, and instead of the green jumpsuit all the male colonists are wearing, she’s wearing green overalls over a lavender shirt, a combination that somehow manages to be an even worse fashion disaster than the jumpsuits themselves. She starts to say something to Sandoval, then stops in surprise as she sees the landing party. But for once the romance-o-vision isn’t for Kirk—it’s Spock that the camera zooms in on as the woman stares at him.

“Layla, come meet our guests,” Sandoval says cheerfully, oblivious to the wistfully romantic background music. He introduces her as Layla Colomi, their botanist. Layla says that she and Spock have met before, but “It’s been a long time.” Kirk gives Spock a bit of a side-eye for that, but Spock offers no details.

Well, all romantic tension aside, they do still have a mission to attend to here, as Kirk reminds Sandoval. Sandoval tells them to go ahead with any examinations or tests they want. “I think you’ll find our settlement an interesting one. Our philosophy is a simple one: that men should return to a less complicated life. We have few mechanical things here, no vehicles, no weapons. We have harmony here. Complete peace.” Oh yeah, that bodes well. Remember the last place we saw complete harmony and peace? At least that explains why everyone on this farm is using equipment straight out of Stardew Valley, which is presumably not the most advanced agricultural technology available by the twenty-third century. I’m not sure why Sandoval’s idea of a simpler lifestyle excludes vehicles, though. They’re not exactly the most recent thing on the timeline of human technological advancements.

Sandoval tells the landing party to make themselves at home, and they all head off. All except for Spock, who lingers just a few seconds more to give Layla a completely neutral look before walking away as well.

Everyone goes off to conduct their respective investigations. Sulu and Kelowitz wander through a yard over towards another farm building. Kelowitz isn’t sure what exactly they should be looking for, though. “Whatever doesn’t look right—whatever that is,” Sulu replies, climbing up to sit on a railing on the building’s porch. “When it comes to farms, I wouldn’t know what looked right or wrong if it were two feet from me.” I hope you enjoyed that line, because “didn’t grow up on a farm” is about all the backstory TOS is going to give us for Sulu until the movies.

[ID: Three screenshots showing Sulu pulling himself up to sit on the railing of an old-fashioned farmhouse as he says, "When it comes to farms, I wouldn't know what looked right or wrong if it were two feet from me." Growing up from the ground nearby are two large plants with thick brownish-purple stems and large pink flowers on top.]

Hey Sulu, what's that about two feet from you? Oh well, I'm sure it's not important.

Kelowitz opens up a nearby barn and notes that there’s no cows there—in fact, the barn isn’t even built for cows, just for storage, and indeed it only looks big enough to be useful for holding cow, singular. Having a storage barn isn’t itself that weird, although the fact that there is nothing currently stored in the storage barn is a bit strange. But also, as Sulu points out, come to think of it, they haven’t seen any animals here, native or imported. No cows, no horses, no pigs, not even a dog. Which is a bit odd for an agricultural colony. They must have had or expected to have animals at some point—otherwise what was pulling that cart?

Back in the house, Sandoval is asking Layla about Spock (once again referred to as a ‘Vulcanian’). She says that she knew Spock on Earth, six years ago. Sandoval, apparently having noticed the dreamy background music by now, asks if Layla loved Spock. She says that if she did, “it was important only to myself...Mr. Spock’s feelings were never expressed to me. It is said he has none to give.”

“Would you like him to stay with us now? To be one of us?” Sandoval asks. Layla smiles at him. “There is no choice, Elias,” she says. “He will stay.”

Elsewhere in the house, McCoy is scanning a colonist. He doesn’t look exactly happy with the tricorder result he gets, but all he says is, “That’ll be all, thank you very much,” and the colonist leaves, passing Kirk coming in. Incidentally, I can’t help but note that this room contains two paintings on the wall and what appears to be a cabinet full of china. I suppose the paintings could have been done by a colonist, but the china could surely only have been brought there. Who decided to pack fancy china on a year-long space voyage to an agricultural colony?

[ID: A shot of the interior of a farmhouse with blue walls, with a large wooden table in the middle of the room, a cabinet with china and glassware in the corner, a wooden desk with a copper tea kettle and some other kitchen items on it against the back wall, and a painting hanging on the wall showing some blurry trees. Sandoval, a middle-aged white man with short brown hair wearing a green jumpsuit, walks past the camera as he says, "Oh, captain, I've been looking for you."]

Kirk asks if McCoy’s found anything yet. McCoy replies that he’s surveyed nine men so far, ranging in age from twenty-three to fifty-nine. And they’re all in perfect condition. Not just healthy—perfect. Textbook responses across the board, from all of them. “If there are many more of them,” McCoy muses, “I can throw away my shingle.”

At that point Kirk’s communicator goes off. It’s Spock, calling in from one of the crop fields. He’s made the same observation as Sulu—there’s no life on the planet aside from the colonists and the plants. No animals, no insects. Spock doesn’t have any explanation yet, so Kirk tells him to carry on with his investigation and hangs up.

McCoy notes the absence of animals as peculiar, and Kirk says it’s especially so because the expedition records show that they did bring animals with them to raise for food. And pull their carts, presumably. But it seems none of them are still around. McCoy says he’d like to see the expedition’s medical records, a request Kirk has apparently anticipated because he’s got the floppy disc on hand with him.

Sandoval comes in and says that he’d like to take the two of them on a tour of the fields, to show off what the colony’s accomplished. McCoy says he’ll have to bow out, since he’s still working on the medical examinations. “However, if I find everyone else’s health to be as perfect as yours...”

“You’ll find no weaklings here,” Sandoval says, which uh, sure is a hell of a way to phrase that. “No weaklings! None of those miserable, pathetic sods with imperfect health! Only the strong survive! THE SLIGHTEST BLEMISH SHALL BE CAUSE FOR EXILE!”

Leaving McCoy behind, Kirk and Sandoval head out to the fields, where Sandoval gushes to Kirk about how great this place is: they’ve got moderate climate, moderate rains all year round, and the soil will grow anything they stick in it. Which is pretty miraculous, considering there’s no such thing as growing conditions that are perfect for every plant. But as we’re about to see, that’s not the only weird thing going on with their farming practices.

The conversation is interrupted by DeSalle arriving to give Kirk the biology report. Sandoval excuses himself to attend to work elsewhere, leaving Kirk and DeSalle alone to discuss the report. At first, it seems to be just as Sandoval said: they’ve got a variety of crops growing here successfully. The weird thing is that they don’t actually have very many of those crops. There’s enough to keep the colony going at the size it currently is, but barely more than that. Which tracks with what we’ve seen of the place so far: a couple of tiny fields that look more about the size for someone’s backyard garden than for a prosperous farm, tended by the occasional person idly scratching at the ground with a hoe. For a supposedly bounteous agricultural colony, that’s pretty weird. What have they been doing all this time?

“It’s like a jigsaw puzzle all one color,” Kirk muses, taking a moment to stroll a few steps away so he can say this dramatically in the distance instead of actually talking to DeSalle. “No key to where the pieces fit in. Why?”

Kirk’s communicator goes off. It’s McCoy, saying Kirk had better get back over there. “Trouble?” “No, but I’d like you to see this for yourself.” Of course. No one can ever just explain something over the phone, can they.

So Kirk heads back to the house, where the thing that Kirk just absolutely has to see for himself turns out to be McCoy just telling him what he’s found out, but he definitely couldn't do that over the communicator for, uh, reasons. What he’s found out is pretty interesting, though: McCoy checked up on Sandoval’s medical records from right before the colonists had left, which said that Sandoval had had an appendectomy, and had scar tissue on his lungs from childhood pneumonia (the weakling!). Yet when McCoy scanned Sandoval himself today, the results came back just as perfect as all the other colonists’. Kirk’s first thought is instrument failure, but McCoy says no, he thought of that and tested it by scanning himself, and it recorded him just fine, down to “those two broken ribs I had once.” Which sounds like an interesting story. But Sandoval’s scan? No scar tissue, and one healthy appendix. That’s right, Sandoval’s apparently managed to regrow an entire organ. Do you think you would notice that happening? Like, would it itch?

While Kirk and McCoy try to figure that out, Spock is hanging out in a field scanning with his own tricorder, while Layla stands nearby smiling ominously at him. Spock muses that there’s “Nothing. Not even insects. Yet your plants grow, and you’ve survived exposure to Bertold rays.” Yeah, how are those plants growing without insects? Presumably the native plants have evolved some way around that, but the ones the colonists have brought from Earth would need some help. Are the colonists just manually pollinating everything? Maybe that’s why they haven’t grown very much.

Layla says this can be explained, but when asked to do so, she just says, “Later.” Spock looks annoyed and remarks, “I have never understood the female capacity to avoid a direct answer to any question.” Hey! Cut that bullshit out. No one on this colony has directly answered a question since you got here, there’s no call to go ragging on a whole gender for it. Besides, just saying “Later,” is hardly a stunningly deft diversion, it’s not like she threw a smoke bomb down and disappeared.

“And I never understood you,” Layla says, walking over and placing a hand on his chest. “Until now. There was always a place in here where no one could come. There was only the face you allow people to see. Only one side you’d allow them to know.”

[ID: Three screenshots of Spock and Layla, a white woman with a lot of long blonde hair wearing a lilac shirt and green overalls, standing outside in a field with a large tree in the background. Layla, seen from behind, is pressing her hand to Spock's upper chest and saying, "There was always a place in here where no one could come." Spock replies "you know that's not where my heart is right".]

If Layla was hoping this little speech would prompt Spock to cry out that yes, she’s figured him out, he does love her but has never been able to show it! she’s disappointed, because he just looks uncomfortable and steps away. He tries to steer the conversation back onto the mystery of the colonists. “If I tell you how we survive,” she asks, “will you try to understand how we feel about our life here? About each other?”

That’s a pretty vague thing to make a promise about, so Spock deflects by saying that emotions are alien to him; he’s a SCIENTIST. “Someone else might believe that—your shipmates, your captain—but not me,” Layla says. Oh sure! Obviously none of the people who have lived, worked, and risked death alongside Spock can be expected to know anything about Spock. Only you are the Spock Expert, gifted with incredible insight by virtue of having a crush on him.

“Come,” she says, sauntering off through the field with her hand outstretched to him. Spock rather pointedly folds his hands behind his back instead and follows her.

Back in the house, Kirk and McCoy are struggling to have a conversation with Sandoval. Kirk tells Sandoval that he’s received orders from Starfleet Command to evacuate everyone on the colony, since, y’know, deadly rays and all that. He expects Sandoval to start making preparations. But Sandoval, calmly, casually, says, “No.” It’s not necessary, he insists—they’re in no danger.

But...but the Bertold rays. Sandoval is unmoved,  pointing out that as McCoy’s own instruments show, the colonists are in perfect health and there have been no deaths. Okay, what about all those animals? What happened to them? “We’re vegetarians,” Sandoval says blithely. Which, as Kirk points out, does absolutely nothing to answer the question. Actually it raises further questions.

Sandoval remains thoroughly unbothered and thoroughly unhelpful. “Captain, you stress very unimportant matters. We will not leave,” he says, and goes back to gazing out the window, evidently considering the conversation over.

Elsewhere, Spock and Layla are still walking, and Spock is getting annoyed that Layla still hasn’t explained just what it is they’re going to see. “Its basic properties and elements are not important,” Layla says helpfully. “What is important is that it gives life, peace, love.” Oh boy.

Spock is dubious, but Layla pulls him forward, over towards another one of those large pink flowers. “I was one of the first to find them,” Layla says. “The spores.”

[ID: A gif of Spock approaching a large pinkish-purple flower and saying, "Spores?" The flower then sprays a cloud of white spores all over his face and torso while Spock recoils.]

For a moment Spock just looks startled, but then he starts clutching his head and falling onto his knees in the grass, dropping his tricorder and gasping, “No--” For the first time all episode, Layla’s absolute serenity starts to fracture slightly. Over Spock’s agonized protests, she insists that it shouldn’t hurt—it didn’t hurt any of them. But, as Spock gasps out, he’s not like them. Whoops, did the biologist forget to account for biological differences before handing out a facefull of spores? I bet you didn’t even check if he had any allergies first, did you?

Just as it’s looking like this might put actually put a crack in Layla’s blissed-out impassivity, Spock stops thrashing about and starts seeming less anguished and more confused. Layla’s concern vanishes once again, and she goes back to smiling happily while stroking his face. “Now...now you belong to all of us...and we to you. There’s no need to hide your inner face any longer. We understand.”

Spock still seems unsure, but then he takes Layla’s hand in his and smiles. Not the slight hint of a smile or sardonic quirk of the lips you’d expect to see from Spock, but a huge, broad grin from ear to ear. “I love you...I can love you,” he says, and then he kisses her.

Hoo boy.

After the break, we get a quick Captain’s Log to recap:

“Captain’s Log, supplemental. We have been ordered by Starfleet Command to evacuate the colony on Omicron 3. However, the colony leader, Elias Sandoval, has refused all cooperation and will not listen to any arguments.”

Sure enough, we see Sandoval exiting the farmhouse, followed by McCoy and an extremely frustrated Kirk. “Captain, your arguments are very valid, but do they not apply to us,” Sandoval says, as calm as ever. He tries to walk off, but Kirk grabs his arm and pulls him back.

“My orders are to remove all the colonists,” he says, “and that’s exactly what I intend to do with or without your help.”

“Without, I should think,” Sandoval says, and strolls off, leaving Kirk standing there fuming.

Sulu and Kelowitz come walking up to report that they’ve checked out everything and it all seems normal, except for the missing animals. Of course, they also both said they had no idea what to look for in the first place, so maybe take that with a grain of salt. Kirk tells them about the evacuation orders, and says he wants landing parties to start gathering the colonists and preparing them to leave. And by the way, where did Spock and DeSalle go? Sulu says they haven’t seen either one in some time, but McCoy says DeSalle was going to examine some native plants he found. Native plants, huh? I think we can guess what happened to DeSalle.

Since Spock still hasn’t reported in, Kirk gives him a call. Or tries to, at least—Spock doesn’t pick up. On the other end of the line, we see why that is: Spock's communicator is laying abandoned on the ground, while Spock himself, now dressed in the same horrible green jumpsuit as the colonists, is stretched out on the grass with Layla, watching clouds. The communicator beeps away while Spock happily describes how one of the clouds looks like a dragon. "I've never seen a dragon," Layla says. BEEP BEEP. "I have." BEEP BEEP. "On Barengarius 7." BEEP BEEP. "But I've never stopped to look at clouds before." BEEP BEEP. "Or rainbows." BEEP BEEP. "You know, I can tell you exactly why one appears in the sky, but considering its beauty has always been out of the question." BEEP BEEP.

"Not here," Layla says (beep beep), and they smile dreamily at each other before going into another makeout session. Meanwhile, Kirk is still on the line, and not getting any happier about it. Layla finally picks up the communicator and holds it up for Spock, who takes a break from kissin' to say, "Yes, what did you want?"

Naturally, this throws both Kirk and McCoy for a loop. While McCoy stands there with a "what the fuck" look on his face, Kirk takes a moment to recover and then demands, "Spock, is that you?"

"Yes, captain, what did you want?"

"Where are you?"

"...I don't believe I want to tell you."

[ID: Three shots of Kirk and McCoy standing in front of the farmhouse, Kirk holding his communicator while McCoy looks on. Kirk has a stunned expression on his face and looks around with his mouth open, trying to figure out what to say.]

Kirk plows on ahead, telling Spock that, whatever the hell he thinks he's doing, he's got orders: they're getting the colonists out, and Spock is to meet back at the settlement in ten minutes.

"No, I don't think so," Spock says casually. "You don't think so, what?" "I don't think so, sir."

Kirk has to take a moment after that one. It's rather amazing that McCoy's made it this far into the conversation without saying anything himself. Presumably he's just in shock. Eventually Kirk tells Spock to report in immediately, but by now Spock and Layla have gone back to kissing, leaving the communicator open but abandoned in the grass once more.

"That didn't sound at all like Spock, Jim," McCoy says, putting in his bid for the Enterprise’s bi-weekly Massive Understatement contest.

"No, it--I thought you said you might like him if he mellowed a little."

"I didn't say that!"

"You said that."

"Not exactly,” McCoy protests, and then somewhat grudgingly adds, “He might be in trouble.”

I'm sure McCoy did say that, or something like it, but "I hope Spock has his brain taken over by alien spores" was presumably not where he was going with it. He obviously sees this sudden change of behavior as something to be concerned about--even moreso than Kirk, who seems more irritated than anything. But then, it's only been a couple episodes since McCoy had his own run-in with an alien influence making people act a lot more mellow than usual, and he didn't enjoy that experience at all, so it's not surprising that "trouble" is his first thought here.

Kirk tells McCoy to take over the landing party detail and start getting the colonists up to the ship, and to make sure the party works in teams of two, with nobody being left alone. Meanwhile, Kirk himself takes Sulu and Kelowitz and heads off to find Spock, using the open frequency from Spock's communicator as a homing signal. They follow a dirt path out of the main settlement and soon find said communicator, laying open and abandoned in the grass just off the path. As Kirk picks it up, they hear laughter nearby, and Sulu points in astonishment further down the path, where Layla is watching Spock dangle upside-down from a tree branch like a kid on a jungle gym.

[ID: A shot of Spock and Layla among some trees at the end of a dirt path. Layla is standing on the ground and holding hands with Spock, who is hanging upside-down by his knees from a large tree branch, laughing.]

For a moment all Kirk can do is stare weakly at this weird spectacle. Then he collects himself with a stern AHEM and marches over like a principal about to deliver some very serious detention.

Meanwhile, back at the main hub of the colony, the landing party seems to have gotten well underway with preparations for departure, with several colonists and crewmen piling up luggage and equipment in the middle of a field while McCoy stands nearby overseeing everything, a job I’m sure he’s enjoying since we all know administrative work is McCoy’s favorite thing. Then DeSalle arrives, carrying a couple of the spore flowers and tells McCoy to take “a good, close look” at them, because they’re very interesting. McCoy steps forward to check them out right before the scene cuts away again, leaving us with little doubt as to what’s about to happen next.

During that little interim, Kirk and his crew have made it over to where Spock and Layla are cavorting. Spock just grins happily at Kirk, clearly not bothered one bit, even as Kirk asks if Spock’s out of his mind. He didn’t report to Kirk, he says, because...he didn’t want to.

Kirk glances back and forth between Spock and Layla, who’s standing there smiling rather smugly, and tells Layla that she’ll need to come get ready to evacuate with the rest of the colonists. Spock cheerfully says that there’s not going to be any evacuation. “But perhaps,” he adds, “we should go and get you straightened out.”

That really doesn’t bode well, but rather than ask just what Spock means by that, Kirk tells Sulu that Spock is under arrest in Sulu’s custody until they get back to the ship. Which will certainly work out well because it’s not like Spock is strong enough to chuck Sulu all the way across the field barehanded or anything. Not that Spock seems especially perturbed about being under arrest; instead he just shrugs, drops down from the tree, and says, “Very well. Come with me,” before heading off across the field, leaving else to follow in confusion. That’s how you arrest someone, right?

Of course, Spock leads them right to another group of spore flowers, which the group stops and stares at obligingly for a moment. Then the flowers explode a bunch of spores at them. Somehow, even though he’s standing right next to Sulu and Kelowitz, Kirk manages to totally avoid getting any spores up his sinuses, while the other two are immediately affected. “Yes...I see now,” Sulu says blissfully, with that trademark Very High grin that George Takei does so well. “Of course we can’t remove the colony. It’d be wrong.”

Kirk grabs him by the shoulders—Kirk’s go-to method for snapping people out of it--but when this somehow fails to bring Sulu back to his right mind, all Kirk can do is say that he doesn’t know what these plants are or how they work, but “you’re all going back to the settlement with me, and those colonists are going aboard the ship.” This stern proclamation has absolutely no effect on anyone. The whole group just stands there happily watching Kirk stomp back toward the colony. “I can see the captain is going to be difficult,” Spock remarks.

Kirk’s day isn’t about to get any better, because upon making it back to the colony he’s greeted by McCoy, who we can immediately tell is under the influence as well because his accent is absolutely out of control. It’s so thick even the subtitles pick up on it.

[ID: A screenshot of McCoy walking through a meadow with his communicator out, saying, "Sho’nuf."]

“Hiya, Jimmy boy!” McCoy very happily says to a very unhappy Kirk. “Hey, I’ve taken care of everything. Now all y’all gotta do is just relax. Doctor’s orders!” With a very resigned look, Kirk asks how many plants McCoy’s beamed up to the ship, and McCoy says it must be going on a hundred by now.

So Kirk beams up to the ship and heads right to the bridge, where he tells Uhura to put him through to Admiral Komak at Starfleet, though what he expects Komak to do about all this I don't know. But it’s too late. Uhura turns around to show that she’s smiling as happily as everyone else, and says, “Oh, I’m sorry Dave, I mean, captain. I can’t do that.” She’s short-circuited all the ship’s communications, except for ship-to-surface, since they’ll need that for a little while yet. Then she leaves, pausing in the door of the lift to tell Kirk that it’s really all for the best.

Kirk stands there seething for a moment, then stomps over to grab a plant that’s been left in Spock’s chair. He throws it across the bridge, and the camera lingers ominously on it as Kirk heads back into the lift.

Things aren’t any better on the rest of the ship. Kirk soon finds a long line of crewmembers of all different shirt colors, patiently waiting to transport down to join the colony. Out of what I can only assume is some desperate futile hope that someone will follow his orders if he just keeps trying, Kirk orders them all to go back to their stations at once. Unsurprisingly, they all ignore him. Kirk points out to one of the redshirts that this is MUTINY! but it doesn't get him very far.

[ID: A gif showing a young white man with brown hair wearing a redshirt as he says, "Yes, sir, it is." The camera then zooms in very dramatically on Kirk's stunned face.]

So...they’re all going down to join the colony? All four hundred thirty of them? Or four hundred twenty-nine, I guess, if Kirk refuses to join the fun. That’s almost ten times the amount of people the colony currently has in it. That seems like it could present a bit of a problem, because if you’ll recall DeSalle told Kirk earlier that right now the colony’s growing enough food to feed their current population, with little left over. How are they going to handle such a large and sudden influx into their population? Do they have housing for all these people? Or are they just all going to eat dirt and sleep on the ground because they’re all too high to notice anyway?

After we’ve had a commercial break to contemplate this shocking turn of events, Kirk takes some time out to give vent to his feelings in a captain’s log:

"Captain's Log, Stardate 3417.5. The pod plants have spread spores throughout the ship, carried by the ventilation system. Under their influence, my crew is deserting to join the Omicron colony, and I can't stop them. I don't know why I have not been infected, nor can I get Doctor McCoy to explain the physical, psychological aspects of the infection."

And indeed, just in case we had any doubt, we then see McCoy strolling through the field and happily telling Kirk, “I’m not interested in any physical, psychological aspects, Jim-boy. We all perfectly healthy down here.” Kirk grumbles about how much he’s been hearing about things being perfect lately. “I bet you’ve even grown your tonsils back.” “Sho’nuf!”

Kirk tries desperately to get McCoy to do something to figure these spores out—run a blood test, take a scan, type the symptoms into WebMD, something, anything—but McCoy is more interested in rambling on about mint juleps.  Meanwhile, back in the farmhouse, Sandoval’s having tea with Spock while they talk about how nearly everyone’s beamed down from the ship and things are “proceeding quite well.” Kirk storms in and demands to know where McCoy’s gotten to, and Spock says he went off to make that mint julep. Which could prove quite difficult unless this tiny half-assed farm colony has somehow managed to set up a working distillery around here somewhere, but Kirk’s got bigger concerns right now than where McCoy’s going to get his bourbon.

Sandoval wants to know why Kirk won’t join them in their private, spore-sponsored paradise. Kirk asks where these spores came from, anyway, and Spock exposits that there’s no way to know—they just drifted through space until they arrived at this planet, which is perfect for them because it turns out they actually thrive on Bertold rays. The plants act as a repository for the spores until they can find a human—or half-Vulcan—body to inhabit. No explanation is forthcoming as to how Spock knows any of this.

Spock and Sandoval insist that the planet is “a true Eden” with belonging and love and no needs or wants for anyone, but Kirk is skeptical. “No wants, no needs. We weren’t meant for that. None of us. Man stagnates if he has no ambition, no desire to be more than he is.” Of all the things wrong with this situation I’m not sure “BEING TOO HAPPY IS BAD FOR YOU” is the take I would go with, but okay. Spock says that Kirk doesn’t understand, but he’ll come around...sooner or later.

Kirk, disgusted with this whole conversation, goes back to the ship. The bridge is dark, silent, and utterly empty. We get a slow pan of the blinking lights and displays of the consoles, with no one left to man them. Kirk walks over to his chair, hits the intercom, and starts calling one part of the ship after another, with no response from any of them. With nothing else left to do, he sits down in his chair and starts glumly recording a captain’s log so angsty it could be a LiveJournal entry:

"Captain's Log, Stardate 3417.7. Except for myself, all crew personnel have transported to the surface of the planet. Mutinied. Lieutenant Uhura has effectively sabotaged the communications station. I can only contact the surface of the planet. The ship...can be maintained in orbit for several months, but even with automatic controls, I cannot pilot her alone. In effect, I am marooned here. I'm beginning to realize...just how big this ship really is, how quiet. I don't know how to get my crew back, how to counteract the effect of the spores. I don't know what I can offer against...paradise."

Hold on hold on HOLD ON what do you MEAN the ship can be maintained in orbit for several months? Every time someone takes their hands off the controls for five seconds we get told that the orbit is decaying and they’re gonna plummet into some hapless planet within a few hours at most but now all of a sudden it’s fine to hang out up there for several months? MAKE UP YOUR MIND.

Kirk gets up to go sit at the helm, just to get a change of scenery mid-mope, and as he finishes his log/rant the camera slowly pans down to reveal the spore flower that he chucked across the bridge earlier. Which is weird because we just got a wide shot of the bridge and that flower definitely wasn’t there then.

[ID: Two shots. The first is a wide shot showing Kirk alone on the empty, darkened bridge, preparing to sit down at the helm. There is nothing in on the floor in front of the helm. The second shot is a closer shot of Kirk sitting at the helm with his chin in one hand, now with a large spore flower poking up in the front of shot.]

The flower promptly shoots Kirk in the face, and for a moment he just continues to sit there with spores in his hair and a “yeah, this might as well happen” expression. But then he slowly starts to smile, suddenly as happy as everyone else. Exactly why Kirk’s been unaffected by the spores up until now, even after hanging out for quite a while on a ship that’s supposedly been thoroughly contaminated by them, is never really explained. Maybe he's just on a lot of Zyrtec. But it seems even Kirk’s determination to not be happy can’t hold out against a point-blank spray in the face. He calls Spock to say that he finally understands now, which Spock is happy to hear. Kirk says he’ll be down just as soon as he packs up a few things, so Spock says he and Layla will wait for him at the beamdown point.

So Kirk goes off to his quarters to pack up a suitcase, the contents of which seem to mostly consist of uniform shirts. Apparently paradise for Kirk does not include one of those green jumpsuits, which, really, who can blame him. He opens a small vault by his bed and pulls out a couple of black cases, one of which he opens to reveal a medal. This seems to stir some sense of conflict because he sits down and stares at it for a long moment, but then puts it aside and heads to the transporter room, where he puts the suitcase on the platform and then prepares to set the controls.

But then Kirk hesitates, and stands there for a moment looking conflicted. Possibly he’s still having feelings about those medals, or maybe he’s having second thoughts about whether he packed enough shirts. In any case, he eventually exclaims, “No...No! I...can’t...LEAVE!” Then he punches the console for good measure.

Apparently this little emotional outburst is all it takes to cure the spores, because Kirk gasps a little, looks momentarily confused, and then seems to be back to his old self. “Emotions...violent emotions. Needs...anger,” he tells the empty room. “Captain’s log, supplemental. I think I’ve discovered the answer...but to carry out my plan entails considerable risk. Mr. Spock is much stronger than the ordinary human being.” Then he treats us to this remarkable line:

[ID: A shot of Kirk in profile at the transporter controls as he says, "Aroused, his great physical strength could kill."]

um

Down on the planet, Spock and Layla are still waiting at the beamdown point when Kirk calls Spock up and says he’s realized there’s some equipment on the ship that they’ll need for the colony, and he needs Spock’s help to get it all beamed down. Really, you’d think there’d be quite a lot of equipment on the Enterprise that a farming colony could make good use of, but I guess they’re really determined to stick to the whole no-technology approach. Despite this, Spock cheerfully accepts the explanation, gives Layla a quick smooch, and beams up.

But upon materializing, Spock is greeted not with a smiling Kirk ready to go move some equipment with his bro, but Kirk standing there holding some nonspecific heavy metal rod thing that he’s smacking threatening against his hand. “All right, you mutinous, disloyal, computerized half-breed,” he says, “we’ll see about you deserting my ship.”

Spock reacts to this bar-brawl-starter with nothing more than a nonplussed expression and polite correcting Kirk on his syntax. Kirk, determination unshaken, continues laying into him with a stream of insults that would have made that fucker from Balance of Terror go, “Whoa, hold on there a minute.” Undeterred by not being able to use any actual expletives, he compares Spock both to a machine and to various fairy-tale creatures, makes fun of his ears, and rounds it all off by having a go at the entire Vulcan race. He even insults Spock’s parents.

[ID: 1. A shot of Spock standing in the transporter room looking perplexed as Kirk, off-camera, says, "Whose father was a computer and his mother an encyclopedia?" 2. A gif from Monty Python and the Holy Grail of John Cleese as the French knight on the battlements yelling, "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"]

Spock stands there taking it all stoically for quite a while, even as the background music gets increasingly tense. He finally starts to crack when Kirk goes after Spock’s relationship with Layla, and when Kirk keeps going despite Spock angrily telling him, “That’s enough,” Spock finally flips out big time. You know what that means, it’s time for a STAR TREK FIGHT SCENE! This one’s got it all: close-up shots of the actors intercut with long shots of very obvious stunt doubles; cardboard props getting punched; even people picking up random unidentifiable bits of starship equipment that may or may not have ever been there before to use as weapons. The only thing we’re missing is Kirk doing some kind of weird wrestling move.

[ID: Three gifs showing a fight scene between Kirk and Spock. First we see a long shot where Kirk and Spock are clearly being played by stunt doubles, as Spock punches a metal rod Kirk is holding, bending it in half. He then punches Kirk in the jaw, sending him careening into the wall. Then a close-up of Nimoy and Shatner as Spock advances on Kirk and throws a punch but misses, denting the control panel in the wall behind Kirk. Kirk dodges out of the way towards the console, and Spock throws another punch that hits the side of the console. Then back to a long view with the stunt doubles as Spock throws Kirk into the opposite wall, which Kirk careens off of, falling on his back on the floor, while Spock picks up something resembling a square metal stool or stepladder and raises it over his head. Finally, we see Nimoy and Shatner again as Kirk lays on the floor looking up at Spock, raising the thing he's carrying over his head.]

We dramatically cut to black as Spock stands poised above Kirk, raising whatever-the-hell-that-thing-is over his head threateningly. Apparently the ad break gives him enough time to cool down, though, because instead of bringing the thing down on Kirk’s skull, he hesitates.

“Had enough?” Kirk asks. “I didn’t realize what it took to get under that thick hide of yours.”

Spock slowly lowers the thing, looking a bit regretful about having to do so. Kirk says he doesn’t know what Spock’s so mad about, anyway. “It isn’t every first officer who gets to belt his captain...several times.” Dude, you just stood there and unleashed a screed of personal and racial insults at your best friend here. A “sorry” probably wouldn’t go amiss here.

“You did that to me deliberately,” Spock realizes, and then realizes that the spores are gone. “I don’t belong anymore.” Kirk explains that since the spores are “benevolent and peaceful,” violent emotions overwhelm and destroy them—that’s the answer. Which...definitely makes sense, chemically speaking. Sure.

Spock, still looking pretty glum about all this, points out that Kirk’s method might have worked out alright for curing one person, but they’ve got over five hundred infected people down there, and trying to pick a fight with all of them probably isn’t going to go so well. But no worries, Kirk’s got another plan. He wants Spock to rig up a subsonic transmitter that they can hook up to the ship’s communications system and then broadcast to all the communicators. Spock says he can do that, but hesitates as Kirk turns to leave. “Captain. Striking a fellow officer is a court martial offense,” he points out.

Kirk mulls over that one for a moment. “We-ll...if we’re both in the brig, who’s gonna build the subsonic transmitter?” he says, and Spock concedes the point. Besides, it’s a bit late to be worrying about striking fellow officers now.

[ID: A gif from The Naked Time of Kirk and Spock standing in an Enterprise conference room. Kirk slaps Spock across the face, and Spock retaliates by backhanding Kirk so hard he is thrown across the table in the center of the room and falls onto the floor on the other side.]

But what with the insults and the punching and de-sporing and everything, it seems that something has clean slipped Spock’s mind: Layla’s still down there waiting for him to come back. As she stands around the field, McCoy wanders over and asks what’s up. When she tells him that she’s been out here for some time now waiting for Spock and Kirk to come back, he gentlemanly offers to fix that for her and calls the ship. Spock picks up, and Layla asks if everything’s okay up there.

With obvious discomfort, Spock tells her that yes, he’s...quite well. Layla, oblivious to anything being wrong, asks if she can come up there, because she wants to talk to him, and besides, “I’ve never seen a starship before.” Wait a minute, never seen a starship before? You’re on a planetary colony! What, did you drive here?

Spock asks if she’s still at the beamdown point, and if McCoy’s there. Layla says yes to both, so Spock tells her to give the communicator back to McCoy, since she won’t need it to transport, and he’ll have her beamed up in a few minutes. One might think that at this point they might take this easy opportunity to also beam up McCoy and get him cured (it shouldn’t be hard, McCoy is already 85% comprised of negative emotions to begin with), so he can start investigating these spores, just in case Operation Go For the Eardrums doesn’t work. But they don’t. Kirk awkwardly asks Spock if he’s sure about talking to Layla while she’s still spore’d, but Spock just nods and heads to the transporter room.

He beams Layla up, and she happily runs over to give him a hug—they’ve been parted ever so long, after all—but when he just stands there stiffly, not reacting at all, she slowly pulls back and says, “You’re no longer with us, are you?”

Spock says it was necessary. Layla begs him to come back to the planet and belong again, but he says he can’t. She starts crying and saying she loves him. "I said that six years ago, and I can't seem to stop repeating myself. On Earth, you couldn't give anything of yourself. You couldn't even put your arms around me. We couldn't have anything together there. We couldn't have anything together anyplace else. But we're happy here. I can't lose you now, Mr. Spock, I can't." Look, if the only time the relationship you want can possibly work out is when the other person is being mind-controlled by alien spores, I think it may be time to consider whether this is really a relationship you should be pursuing in the first place.

“I have a responsibility to this ship...to that man on the bridge,” Spock gently tells her. “I am what I am, Layla. And if there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine can be no worse than someone else’s.”

Layla soon realizes that all this anguish has resulted in her getting de-spore’d as well, and she’s not happy about it. “And this is for my own good?” she demands angrily. Well...yes, I mean, it is, but Spock doesn’t say that. Nor does he respond when she asks, “Do you mind if I say I still love you?” but she hugs him again anyway.

[ID: Layla tearfully embraces Spock and says, "You never told me if you had another name, Mr. Spock." Spock replies, "You couldn't pronounce it."]

ROMANCE

We’re obviously supposed to read this little story arc as the tragic tale of true love destined never to be, because Spock is only able to express his feelings for Layla under the influence of the spores. He has experienced paradise, but alas, he cannot linger there, and so on. It’s never set all that well with me, though. The problem is we never really get Spock’s side of the story and so it leaves open the question of how much he actually did want this relationship in the first place. Layla said earlier that “Mr. Spock’s feelings were never expressed to me” so evidently he never outright said “I love you but I can’t be with you” or anything of that sort to her. When they’re alone in the field before Spock gets spore’d he seems stiff, standoffish, awkward, and deflects all of her overtures with what appears to be discomfort, even annoyance. He clearly has no interest in talking about whatever history they had together, even when they’re all alone. For all that Layla goes on about how she can see a side of Spock that his crewmates don’t, we see interactions with those crewmates multiple times throughout the show that prove that Spock is perfectly capable of showing people that he cares about them, even if the ways he does it are usually a bit atypical. We don’t see any of that in his initial interactions with Layla.

If we accept the premise that the spores only make people act as they would if they had no inhibitions or fears holding them back, then yes, Spock saying he loves Layla after he’s been spore’d would indicate that he did secretly love her all along. The problem is that we know the spores make people do things that they would not ordinarily want to do. You think all of those four hundred thirty people on the Enterprise secretly longed for a quiet life among the soil but all chose to instead join the space navy for some reason? Should we believe Scotty is actually deep down perfectly okay with abandoning his beloved ship to a slowly decaying orbit? I doubt that Kirk has always harbored a subconscious desire to give up exploring the final frontier to pursue a peaceful agrarian lifestyle, but he very nearly does do just that. So the question of how much a relationship with Layla is what Spock “really” wanted seems to be a bit hazy.

Mind, I’m not saying this makes Layla an evil person who deliberately drugged Spock so she could have a relationship with him or anything like that. It’s clear throughout the episode that the spores induce those who are infected by them to spread them around to anyone nearby who’s not in the spore fandom yet, so there’s no reason to believe Layla would act as she did if she wasn’t under the influence herself. I just personally find it hard to buy into the tragic romance of a star-crossed relationship when the thing crossing the stars is that one of the participants is only enthusiastic about the whole thing when they’re not fully sober. It makes me question how much of their previous relationship really was Spock having feelings for Layla but being unable to express them, versus Layla projecting a lot of feelings onto him and writing off his disinterest or discomfort as denial.

Kirk and Spock go back to working on the signal, while Layla deals with her heartbreak by disappearing into thin air for the rest of the episode. Spock says that the sound they’re going to send out is on a frequency that won’t be heard so much as felt, but apparently it will be felt quite emphatically. Kirk compares it to putting itching powder on someone. Which may seem like another silly technobabble deus ex machina, but speaking from personal experience, driving someone into a frantic frustrated fit by playing an obnoxious noise just on the edge of hearing sounds totally legit. All they need to complete the sensory overload meltdown experience is find a way to simulate some flickering florescent lights and put tags on the backs of the uniform shirts.

And indeed, as the device starts to work, we see Sulu and DeSalle working in one of the fields—for a certain value of ‘working,’ anyway, they’re kind of just digging around aimlessly—when Sulu accidentally elbows DeSalle in the back. He apologizes, but DeSalle shoves him back, and before long they’re having a full-on brawl right there in the field, which can't be good for the crops. As the device on the ship hums away, two more crewmembers start their own fight over by the farmhouse, and when a third tries to break them up he promptly gets dragged into it as well.

The effects haven’t quite reached everyone just yet, though, as we see McCoy chillaxing under a tree with some unspecified concoction. Sandoval strolls up and says that he’s been thinking about what sort of work he could assign McCoy to. When McCoy protests that he does one kind of work and that’s doctorin’, Sandoval says that he’s not a doctor anymore—they don’t need any doctors here.

This does not go over well.

[ID: A gif showing McCoy reclining against a tree in a grassy meadow, a stalk of grass in one hand and a grass of something brown with several leafy stalks in it. Sandoval is standing over him. McCoy says, "Oh, no?" and then slowly stands up, tosses his grass stalk aside, looks Sandoval in the eye and says, "Would you like to see just how fast I can put you in a hospital?"]

Undeterred, Sandoval says that he’s the leader and he’ll be assigning McCoy whatever work he wants to, but when he tries to walk away McCoy pulls him back and snarls, “You’d better make me a mechanic. Then I can treat little tin gods like you.” Sandoval throws a punch at him, but McCoy dodges and whacks Sandoval in the stomach, putting him out flat on the ground. See, I told you it wouldn’t be hard to cure McCoy. Everyone else on the Enterprise was perfectly happy to give up their careers to go do a bit of light farming, but tell McCoy he can’t be a doctor anymore and no amount of spores are going to save you.

While Sandoval is busy rolling around on the ground, McCoy stands there looking confused for a moment, then—presumably having only just now noticed that instead of a mint julep he’s actually been drinking a coke with a bunch of cilantro in it—throws his drink aside and admits that he’s not sure why he just clobbered Sandoval. But Sandoval has other concerns for the moment. With a look of dawning horror familiar to all us chronic procrastinators, he abruptly realizes that they haven’t actually been doing anything all this time. “No accomplishments, no progress. Three years wasted. We wanted to make this planet a garden...”

McCoy points out that the colonists really will have to leave—they can’t survive here without the spores handling all that radiation for them. But the dream’s not over; the colonists could be relocated to start again somewhere a bit less deadly, if that’s what they want.

“I think I’d...I think we’d like to get some work done,” Sandoval muses. “The work we set out to do.”

McCoy calls Spock and says that Sandoval wants to talk to Kirk. Spock notes to Kirk that the crew are all starting to rather sheepishly call in by now. Sandoval tells Kirk that the colonists will fully cooperate with the evacuation now, and Kirk tells him to start making the preparations. Real ones, this time.

Sometime later, everyone’s back on the bridge getting ready to head out. McCoy reports that he’s examined all the colonists and they all remain in perfect health. “A fringe benefit left over by the spores.”

One would think that this would have been quite the eventful afternoon for the medical sciences, given that they just discovered spores with such incredible healing powers that they can make people regrow organs, and McCoy just confirmed that anything healed by the spores stays healed after the spores are gone. Sure, they’ve got some side effects, but Kirk’s already discovered a simple way to get rid of the things once they’re no longer needed. Strap someone to a bed, give em a facemask full of spores, let them lay there for a while having a nice buzz while they heal their cancer or whatever, then play an irritating noise at them until they sneeze the spores back out again. Boom. Done. You’ve solved medicine. Or, y’know, we could vacate the planet and never speak of it ever again, that works too.

Notably unmentioned by anybody during this little denouement is the fate of the other two settlements on the planet that Sandoval mentioned back near the beginning of the episode. The length of the timeskip isn’t specified, so it’s possible that the crew went and collected them as well in the interim, but we never get any details as to how that little adventure went, assuming that it did happen and that the Enterprise isn’t about to get halfway to the next starbase before Kirk realizes he forgot something.

As they watch the planet diminish behind them on the viewscreen, McCoy muses that this was “the second time man’s been thrown out of paradise.” Kirk disagrees. "No, no, Bones, this time we walked out on our own. Maybe we weren't meant for paradise. Maybe we were meant to fight our way through--struggle, claw our way up, scratch for every inch of the way. Maybe we can't stroll to the music of the lute. We must march to the sound of drums."

Spock remains unimpressed by this bit of philosophizing. “Poetry, Captain. Nonregulation.” Kirk notes that they haven’t heard anything from Spock about this whole ordeal, since, y’know, that definitely seems like something Spock would want to talk about. He says he’s got little to say about Omicron Ceti 3.

[ID: A close-up of Spock on the bridge as he says, "Except that for the first time in my life...I was happy."]

oh my god someone needs therapy

On that INCREDIBLY CHEERFUL note, the Enterprise flies away and the episode ends.

It’s somewhat baffling to me that of all the quite reasonable objections available to the whole situation with the spores, the main problem that Kirk—and by extension, the episode—seems to have is that “the spores make things too EASY and mankind was meant to STRUGGLE!!!” I mean, effectively what we had going on here was people being drugged without their consent into a state that overwrote their own desires, ambitions, emotions and much of their individual personalities and replaced them with bland, happy conformity to a goal and lifestyle none of them actually chose. That seems a bit worse to me than “people weren’t working hard enough.” Kirk goes on and on about how the spores made things too easy, but what they really did was make people apathetic to whether they succeeded at anything or not. Sandoval’s horrified when he’s cured of the spores because the colonists had much different plans for their colony; far from making those plans easier, the spores made them impossible. The dreams and desires of the Enterprise crew for a life of exploration among the stars would have been forever unmet if they had permanently joined the colony, they just wouldn’t have been able to care. Kirk seems to believe that the ultimate evil of the spores is that they deprive people of ambition; to me it seems that the worse evil is that they deprive people of their individuality and their autonomy.

Then there’s the fact that while the spores make people happy and friendly, they also make them remarkably blasé about the well-being of anyone who isn’t part of their collective. They have to be—caring about whether someone else is upset or hurt would make them unhappy, after all. Spock and McCoy are completely unconcerned with the mounting distress of their best friend, and beyond peer pressuring him to get with the program and take the spores like everyone else, they don’t seem to much care if he remains the only unhappy person on the planet. The colonists seem completely unbothered by the fact that all the animals they brought with them died a rather grueling death by radiation poisoning. Everyone on the Enterprise is happy to abandon the ship and join the colony with no message left behind for Starfleet, with apparently not a thought to spare for any friends and family back home, who would only ever know that their loved ones disappeared into space never to be seen again.

Or at least, they would if things actually went according to plan, which they probably wouldn’t, because the spores also made everyone cheerfully oblivious to the idea that anything could potentially cause a problem or pose a threat to them. After all, if Kirk hadn’t had a recovery at the last minute, the Enterprise would have been left unmanned in orbit around the planet, with no way for anyone in the colony to get back onboard. Uhura also goes out of her way to make sure that they no longer have any off-planet communication. So it’s probably not going to be long before Starfleet notices that one of their prize starships has abruptly gone incommunicado, and I’m willing to bet they’d be a bit quicker on that investigation than they were about checking on a tiny backwater colony (although it is Starfleet, so who knows, really). And since they know exactly where the ship was headed on its last recorded mission, it probably won’t take them long to find it. If Starfleet sends another ship along to investigate quickly enough, they’ll find the abandoned Enterprise hanging out in orbit around the planet, and Kirk’s log clearly lays out what happened, so all the other ship has to do is figure out how to neutralize the spores and everyone’s going to get rescued from Omicron Ceti 3 pretty quickly whether they want to be or not.

If Starfleet doesn’t show up in time...Kirk says the ship can be “maintained in orbit” for several months, but then what? It can’t stay up there forever. Sooner or later, the orbit will decay and the ship’s going to crash into the planet, and if it crashes anywhere near one of the colonies, their magic healing powers are going to be put to the test. Also their magic agriculture powers--rich soil and mild weather is all well and good, but is that going to be enough to carry all those crops through the ensuing environmental effects of an impact that big? Especially since, as already mentioned, the colony has enough to feed them and that’s about it—so they really can’t afford to lose any crops for very long.

Sure, maybe the Enterprise wouldn’t crash close enough to any of the colonies to ruin them, but why take the risk? All they had to do was have a helmsman set it on a course out of orbit, then take a shuttlecraft back to the planet. Doesn’t occur to anyone, evidently. Nor do we see anyone bothering to bring any supplies or equipment from the ship to the colony, even though there’s gotta be lots of stuff up there that would be useful. All in all, it seems quite likely that Paradise would have eventually collapsed in on itself simply because the spores make people unable to pay attention to any potential threats or obstacles long enough to do anything about them.

So what’s the moral here? ‘Society can’t survive if everyone is stoned all of the time’? I mean, okay? Sure? Cool? Glad we sorted all that out.

That said, despite having ranted for the past nine hundred words about the weird moral, I’m not saying this episode is bad. As a serious point about human nature I don’t find it especially compelling—YMMV, but I just personally tend to side-eye stories that center around the idea of “wouldn’t it be awful if we all had it too easy??”--but as fifty minutes of extremely Star Trek-y silliness it’s glorious. We’ve got Spock hanging from a tree and talking about dragons while making out in the grass, McCoy going full Georgia and wandering about with something he thinks is a mint julep, Kirk stomping around in increasing agitation as he tries to get some sense out of somebody and then making emo log entries while he sits on the bridge alone...it’s great.

The original draft of this episode apparently had the romantic subplot be for Sulu, who would have been motivated to stay with Layla after having been diagnosed with a serious medical condition that was cured by the spores, kind of like the eventual plot with McCoy in For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky. D.C. Fontana rewrote the story to focus on Spock, since if you have an episode about something that causes a strong emotional reaction, throwing Spock and his ever-present internal conflict into the mix is kind of the most immediately obvious way to generate some pathos and drama. The spores originally granted those affected with them telepathic abilities, enabling them to link with everyone else who’d been spore’d and form a hivemind. There are some traces of this in the final episode with spore’d people talking about “joining us” and “being one of us” and so on, but without the telepathy part it just kind of makes it sound like they’re in a cult. Also, the cure for the spores would have been consuming alcohol, so presumably in that draft McCoy never got infected.

For the purposes of the Trek Tally I’m going to count the spores as a Space Disease, which might be broadening the umbrella of that term a bit but hey, close enough. Next time we’ll be looking for life, Jim, but not as we know it, in The Devil in the Dark.

[ozzdog12]

2020 Top 7 (and 1)

2020 am I right? We saw an insane amount of games come out and 2 brand new consoles. What a wild and weird year for gaming, and life in general. In case you are relatively new here, and to be honest that would be completely fair considering I don't post very often on Tumblr anymore, every year going on the last 4 years (on here) I have done a Top 7 (& 1) for my favorite videogames of the year. Check out 2019, 2018, & 2017. What’s wild, as I look back on my list of games that I’ve completed and played, only maybe 10 came out this year. 2020 was a huge backlog year. 

Lets get on with the ‘And 1!”

Favorite Game that Didn’t Come out in 2020: Control (PS4)

Control may very well have been my 2019 Game of the Year, had I played it in 2019. I LOVED Control. I wanted to play it in 2019, but initial reports that it was a little rough on base consoles put me off until it was fixed. And Holy smokes what an insanely fun and trippy game once I finally started it. I knew within the first 20 minutes this was going to be the shit when I went down a hall, walked into a room and talked to the “janitor” left out a door behind him and the entire building had shifted. I’ve always liked Remedy games, but from a distance. Max Payne 1&2 and Alan Wake all oozed with weirdness and intrigue, but never enough for me to finish them. I missed out on Quantum Break. The story is Control is just the right amount of mind f*!$ for me and builds a universe I didn’t know I needed. It take some time to piece everything together, then everything just clicks. The game does have a weird difficulty spike when fighting bosses and the checkpoints were too far apart at times, but those were later patched. I spent an insane amount of time within the Federal Bureau of Control building and even more time after that with the Foundation and AWE DLC and it STILL wasn’t enough. I wanted more. Outside of Prey, I can’t think of another game that stuck in my brain more after I’d finished it. Control is absolutely a MUST PLAY title. In a world where everything sort’ve feels similar, Control stands out of the crowd.

Number 7: Astro’s Playroom (PS5)

I never thought in my wildest dreams that a game I had almost zero interest in playing would end up on my list of favorite games this year. Astro’s Playroom is being labeled as a ‘Tech demo’ but that feels like an insult to what it is. It’s a full fledged game and its free! I’ve paid more for less. A charming little platformer that lives and breathes the history of the Playstation. So many cool Easter eggs and references. It certainly centers its gameplay around the DualSense controller and everything it can do, but at its core, its a completely approachable and forgiving 3D platformer. I played it just to see what it was about, next thing i knew I had completed all the levels and wanted to further explore all the nooks and crannies within the game. I wanted to see everything the game had to offer and I had an absolute blast doing so. Makes me kinda wish I’d played the previous game on PSVR (I’d have to have a PSVR too)

Number 6: Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS5)

Another quality title, albeit a spin-off, from Insomniac to add to their Spider Man universe. Gameplay felt obviously like Spider-Man, but Miles has unique abilities that made the game feel different enough, especially the cloak and stealth. I enjoyed the fact that it was short and concise. The issue with most ‘open-world’ games is that they are entirely too bloated with unnecessary filler content (I’ll get to that in a later game), something I felt the first game suffered from, but I also understand why they are there. However I could’ve use one or two more story missions to help flesh out some characters, but it wasn’t required and didn’t change my opinion one way or the other. My one BIG gripe was with Miles himself. He is an extremely smart young kid, but so incredibly naïve. Peter Parker tells him the one thing he SHOULD NOT do is tell people he is Spider-Man. I get it, that’s part of his growth, but Miles thinks he can just solve his problems by revealing his identity and it almost certainly never works out. 

Number 5: The Last of Us: Part 2 (PS4)

The Last of Us Part 2 may be the most polarizing game in the history of the medium, but for the absolute wrong reasons. I’m in the minority that I very much enjoyed my experience with TLOU2, quite a bit actually. Its better in every single way over its predecessor, except the overall story. There are plenty of fair criticisms to be had about the story and various things within the game itself, but I thought the gameplay was so tight and crunchy. There were genuine moments of suspense and terror that I felt that no other game has ever given me. The entire hospital section (2nd time) was so susensful, I had to put my controller down to gther myself. Some of my favorite moments in the series I experienced with a character I wasn’t overly fond of. How many games can do that? The Last of Us Part 2 was meant to invoke emotion, not necessarily joy. I think that's what people lost along the way. Say what you will about the direction Naughty Dog has taken over the years, but you would be hard pressed to find a studio that makes games graphically better than they do. Yes, I know about their crunch culture, but this is not a place for that. I will say, the game was a tad bit too long, which is not something it typically say for a single player, narrative driven game. The pacing and the way the story was told wasn’t my favorite, but I respect what it was trying to do, even if it failed in some aspect of that, I finished the game within the week it was released. Something I RARELY ever do. I’m a father and I related with Joel a lot in TLOU, but I also recognized how wrong he was. There is a lesson to be learned. Your actions always have consequences and while he was doing what he thought was the right thing, it wasn’t his choice to make, and in doing so set up a series of events that were entirely avoidable, but again, that’s the point isn’t it?

Number 4: Grindstone (Switch)

I’m counting this as a 2020 game since it just came to the Switch this year ( less than a month ago) but its not the first time I’ve played it. Grindstone was the only reason I kept my Apple Arcade subscription and when I let it lapse, there was a void I just couldn’t fill. I bought Puzzle Quest on Switch but it just wasn't the same. Its THE perfect game for bite sized play, even though in its addictive nature, you’ll clear a few levels and an hour has passed before you know it. It has the perfect amount of depth that most ‘match’ games don't. You have different weapons, items, and outfits w/perks to use and experiment with to keep it fresh. I went months without playing my Switch and when this was announced in August, I couldn’t wait! Sadly, I had to wait 3 months, but since then I have spent so much time on the Switch. It gave me a reason to play it again. The art style and humour is great. The variety of enemies and challenge is just right. I can’t recommend it enough. Seriously, check this game out!

Number 3: Doom Eternal (Xbox One)

I will be the first to tell you, I did not like Doom (2016). I found it extremely boring and trite. I understood what Doom(2016) was doing and it succeeded, maybe too much. Nostalgia is a helluva thing. So in saying that, I was mildly interested in Doom Eternal. Doom Eternal is nothing like 2016 outside of it being a Doom game that connects to the rest of them (& also being a sequel to 2016). The mechanics are drastically different with more platforming (for better or worse). Eternal is challenging, at times very hard, especially early on. Eternal has no respect for its players, in a weirdly good way. It laughs at how you’ve played FPS before this one and WILL MAKE you play it its way, not your way. Yes, you point and shoot, but ammo is scare and you MUST use everything in your arsenal. No more using just 2 guns for the whole game. The enemies are relentless. Sometimes you have to pause and take a breath after a battle because you go a 100 mph for the whole fight. You have to continuously move or you die. There is an enticing rhythm to it. I categorize Eternal as ‘Blood Ballet’. Its a game where when your feeling it, much like a rhythm game, you get in the zone and there is no stopping demons from getting slayed. Surprisingly, unlike most games in the genre, it seemed to get easier (sans one extremely frustrating platforming section late in the game) the longer you played it. Was that a testament that I ‘learned’ the Eternal way or it truly did get easier? I don’t know, but the final Boss(es) were....easy.. I had more problems and deaths within the first 4 hours than I did the final 8-9 hours. The multiplayer was also surprisingly fun. The older I get, the less interested I am in multiplayer, but I found myself coming back for more for a good month or so. 

Number 2: Gears Tactics (Xbox One)

As 2020 comes to a close, I came to a stunning realization. I might be a bigger Gears of War fan than I had previously thought. Don’t get me wrong. I love Gears, but I seem to love Gears more than I thought. I'm way more invested into the lore than I recall. Anyways, Gears Tactics is everything XCOM 2 SHOULD’VE been. Not only does Gears Tactics utilize the Overwatch action, its makes it EXTREMELY important. The story revolves around the father of Kait Diaz, Gabe and a ragtag group of mostly random soldiers to take down Ukkon. Anyone who is remotely interested in the Gears universe will love the story and references. The gameplay is just so damn satisfying. The bosses are very challenging and different. I actually had to change my strategy to finish the final boss. I experimented with a totally different style of class and was rewarded for it. The post game stuff is also aplenty. This game scratched a VERY specific itch for me and I’m itchy to jump back in. I’m glad this came to Xbox One because I’m current computer could not run it.

Number 1: Ghost of Tsushima (PS4)

I have a very odd relationship with massive open world games. I love them, but I get very burnt out on them. They all have a relatively same-y formula and are often populated with bloat. GoT does have some of that but to its advantage, its not very populated, in a good way. One of the things that I really appreciated about GoT and its side quest is most of them felt meaningful. The thing that really stood out to me about GoT is the absolutely satisfying combat. It just feels SO GOOD. It requires timing and patience. There are different fighting styles for different enemies and even the armor you wear is more than just cosmetic. The combat is so fun and satisfying that I was immediately excited when they announced Legends, a multiplayer add on, for free. Its so much fun and is a blast to play with a group of friends. I’m sporadically still playing the Legends mode. I initially wanted to play the game in ‘Kurosawa’ mode but I am glad I didn’t because the game, even on the PS4 is stunning, and on the upgrade on PS5 is jaw-droppingly smooth. I did play the entire game in Japanese with English subtitles. I still don't know what Jin’s English voice sounds like. GoT does a good job a drip feeding you new abilities and things to keep things fresh. I love stealth and once I unlocked it, I spent the majority of every battle taking out as many enemies as I could while in stealth mode. Ghost of Tsushima does a lot of things very well, that the few things it doesn’t can be easily overlooked.

[flying-nightwing]

Pink and Totalitarianism Always Go Hand in Hand

Here’s the promised crack fic. Disclaimer, this is terrible in every and any form, because it is meant to be that way. If you want quality, structure, a story that makes sense, this ain’t it chief. This is certified Crack. If you finish this and all you can say is something along the lines of “what the fuck”, my work here is done. (Besides, this isn’t edited to add to the overall crack vibe)

Enjoy and good luck, because it get worse and worse as it goes

Masterlist in bio // pinned post

Pairing: Jason Todd x Reader

Word count: 4626

Warnings: Mention of drugs, light non-graphic violence, language

Summary: You’re stuck in a world that does not make sense, alone and surrounded by secret police and spies that will report you to the government. One early morning, Jason appears in your living room. His arrival gives you an opportunity to get the hell out of there for good. 

You had taken a habit of sleeping lightly.

You, who had once cherished your sleep like it was the rarest gem in the world. Yet, you found out you had still severely underappreciated its importance in your life, something you realized only when it was gone. You missed it like an old friend who was gone to war and died on the front, leaving words forever unsaid. What would you do for just one more night in your bed, with your own pillows and that drool stain that just wouldn’t leave anymore, sleeping like a log until the late morning. Or just a nap, that even would be enough. But you were far from home now, and you didn’t have a lot of hope you’d ever come back. 

When you heard a loud thump in the living room, your eyes flew open and your muscles tensed. Pushing off the pink comforter and pulling on the equally pink robe that was draped over the wooden chair, you carefully made your way down the corridor and toward the sound. A man dressed in black and red, with a red helmet complementing his strange outfit was standing there, looking around like he was trying to understand what was going on. You plastered a smile on your face. 

“Hiya there” The corner of your mouth hurt from the strain of smiling so wide. “Can I help you?”

“Uh?” He looked up, and even through his helmet you could assume his eyes were wide with confusion. They wouldn’t get you this time, you’d make sure of it. He didn’t fool anyone. “Where am I?”

“Silly!” You laughed, waving your hand in a small dismissive gesture. “We’re in Happy Town, obviously!”

“Uh?” He repeated, already visibly exhausted. That one agent lasted longer than the last, you had to give him that. His confusion was credible and well played down to the last detail. “Listen, lady, I’m sorry I crashed your house but I need you to point me toward Metropolis”

“Metropolis? I haven’t heard of a city of that name” You didn’t drop the smile. The goddamn smile. “Although, you are quite illegal sir, black and red are prohibited colors”

“... What?” 

“I’m afraid you’ll need to change” You explained. “Luckily for you, I have spares in the bedroom. Come along”

“Wait, prohibited?” He repeated, and you nodded eagerly. A test, it’s always a test. “What colors aren’t prohibited then?”

“Well, pink, you silly goose!”

He stared at you for the longest time. “What the fuck”

You froze. Actual agents were not allowed to swear, under any circumstances. They were physically not able to, even. “What did you say?”

“I said what the fuck”

You let your smile drop and sighed in relief. “Oh thank fuck”

“Hey, stay with me” He waved a hand in your face. “What the fuck is going on? Where am I?”

“Okay, we don’t have a lot of time, but basically” You paused, looking around to make sure all of your curtains were closed. You found a way to disable your microphones, but you had only to sunrise before they turned back on again. It was less suspicious that way, when you could attribute the lack of sound to you sleeping. Besides, you couldn’t risk you saying incriminating things in your sleep. “We are in a side dimension called Happy Town, but things are sketchy here. I don’t know what they are hiding, but if you don’t stick to their gimmick to the letter, you’re going to reeducation camps and stuff. This is some serious brainwashing, and I’m talking worse than Scientology”

“Fuck” He swore, taking off his helmet. “How did I get here?”

“Some portal, I dropped in the same place you did” You spoke quickly, in a hushed tone. “I haven’t found a way out, obviously, but if you came from Earth too, I’m betting there’s something I missed”

“This is insane” 

“You tell me” You scoffed. “And you haven’t even seen how bonkers this place really is yet”

“Do I really have to wear pink?” He flinched, and your eyes widened.

“Yes, you do!” You replied. “They will have you under scrutinization as soon as you step out of this house. If you want to survive, you must follow the rules to the letter. They don’t fuck around, I tell ya. When I first appeared, all the neighbors moved away and were immediately replaced by other creepier neighbors. I swear they’re spies. They’re all spies!”

“Wait, how long have you been there?”

“I don’t know, years?” You guessed. Could have been any measure of time really, you couldn’t know for sure. “I have no idea how I got through their brainwashing sessions. Either I outsmarted them, or they have no idea what they’re doing. It’s better not to take any chance, though”

“This is fucked up” He sighed and sat on the couch. “Besides wearing pink, what do I have to do?”

“Oh boy, sit tight” You began pacing in front of him. You didn’t know him, but he was your best chance at getting the hell out of here. Your bed now seemed a little bit closer now, even though you knew you’d never sleep the same. “It’s not just the clothing that’s pink, it’s any fabric, by the way, because happy people like pink”

It was like he was now aware that every couch, chair, carpet, curtain in your house was actually pink. 

“You gotta smile, always. You gotta look like chuck-e-cheese on crack” You continued, pacing in front of him. “Talking of which, never, EVER eat pie. I don’t know what’s in it, but it messes with your brain. Always find an excuse or distraction to avoid eating it”

“I’m not--”

“Never allude to the microphones you might find, act like you’ve never seen them and have no idea they’re there” You added. “Also, tomorrow we’ll have to get you registered if we don’t want the secret police to storm the house. You’ll have to follow my lead or we’re both dead, got it?”

“Yeah but--”

“Don’t say anything incriminating during the day” You interrupted him again. “I tweaked the microphones so they’re scrambled from midnight to sunrise. But that’s it. Also, always assume anyone you talk to is a spy or a snitch. It’s the Stasi all over again here, you can’t trust anyone who you don’t hear swear, which is nobody”

“Wai wait” He stopped you as you opened your mouth to continue on. “Why?”

“Because the people from here cannot swear, happy people don’t swear, they smile and giggle” You felt your eye twitch as you recited the lines you were fed over and over again. “The people engineered here are not able to, only those they kidnapped from Earth. Bad news is, beside that, they are virtually non-differentiable from each other. And they all wear those stupid pink clothes, only the regular police wears a darked shade of magenta. Other than that, all the same”

Confusion and horror was evident on his face. He sat there, processing it all as your eyes fell on the clock. You had about ten minutes until the first rays of sun showed up and reactivated the mics. “There’s no way back?” He finally asked.

“Not that I know of yet” You wrapped your hands around yourself. “You know, I have been begging for help out of this hell hole. You might be the key. Anyway, we gotta change you into something non offensive before they find out you’re here”

You dragged him in the bedroom, leaving him at the threshold while you rummaged through the dresser. All those clothes had been there too when you popped in the house, as if they had known exactly what they were doing by bringing you here. However, it wasn’t clear whether or not they had planned for their new citizen to be you. Ad judging by the arsenal of weapons on the new guy, ir reinforced your theory that the actual selection was still experimental. You weren’t exactly the shut up and obey type, and you doubted he was either.

“What’s your name?” You asked as you pulled a pink cardigan out of a drawer. It occured to you that you might have to know what to call him. Polite people knew the name of their housemate. You grabbed a yet again pink pair of slacks and pushed the clothes in his hands.

“Uh, Jason” He replied, surprised at the sudden income of pink fabric. You threw him the socks, suspenders, bow tie, belt and dress shirt that was, you guessed it, the exact same color as the rest. He was covered in pink clothes like a coat hanger.

“(Y/N)”

“Hey, I’m not wearing that” He objected as he took a better look at the clothes. His face turned to disdain as he shook his head like he had drank bad milk. ��Nope, no way”

“If you don’t wear pink, they’ll kill you” You said through your teeth.

“No, I’m not talking about the pink” He said, his expression unchanging. He pulled the cardigan and held it up. “This. This won’t do at all. I’m not wearing a fucking cardigan”

You stared at him, wide eyed. You didn’t have the time to deal with that, sunrise was a few minutes away!

“You will wear that cardigan or so help me” You said in a low, yet threatening voice. He recoiled. “Suck. It. Up.”

Wordlessly, he headed for the bathroom on the other side of the bedroom. He changed in two minutes, coming back awkwardly with his pile of dark clothes. You picked them from him and walked to that spot just beside your bed, and kneeled. You unscrewed the floor board, which was already loose, and you deposited the bundle, weapons and all, next to a very, very dusty blue jeans and burgundy coat. You hurried to replace everything like it hadn’t been touched and stood up again to face an all pink, visibly uncomfortable Jason. He was tying his bow, a displeased frown on his face. It made you wonder what was his life before. He changed rather quickly, and didn’t seem confused by the way bow ties worked.

“What now?”

“We gel your hair”

“No” His eyes widened. The wake up siren sounded outside, and like a reflex learned through violent lessons, your face pulled into a pained smile. You still made a zipping motion over your mouth, pointing to the bathroom. With a silent sigh, he complied.

---

His smile looked unnatural.

But again, so did yours probably. So did everyone’s. Smiling that much wasn’t natural for anyone or anything but perhaps a hyena. Or a clown. You walked arms in arms with him, waving at people sending you curious glances, their smiles unwavering. The government was already aware of this presence, either because they zapped him there or because they heard your made up meeting conversation through the microphones. 

“Okay, I see what you meant by everyone is a spy” He muttered through his teeth, making sure his lips weren’t moving. He was holding to his grin like it was a lifeline. And it was. 

“Right?” You replied in the same manner. “So don’t slip”

“I won’t”

“Well hello there!”

You jumped in surprise at the Mayor appearing in front of you, seemingly out of nowhere. You put your free hand on your heart and laughed. “Hi there, you startled me good!”

He laughed. Jason laughed. It all seemed forced. 

“I see we have an addition in Happy Town!” The mayor pointed to Jason, nodding in approval at his attire. “Where did you come from?”

His first test.

“I… Came from Earth!” He replied with enthusiasm. “Although I have to say, I looooove this place. It’s so… Happy!”

Well played, Jason. Well played.

“I am so glad to hear you say that” He placed a “friendly” pat on his shoulder, but he seemed satisfied. “What is your name, lad?”

“Dick Grayson, sir” 

You swallowed back your confusion at his words, but also at the hint of genuine smile that crossed his expression. Keep smiling.

“Well Mr. Grayson, welcome to Happy Town!” They shook hands. “I see Miss (Y/N) is already taking care of you, integrating you nicely in our community”

His gaze shifted to you as a silent warning behind those cold, smiling eyes. You had your fair history of problems with them, but they had every reason to think it was over now. Still, the warning lingered. But those pink assholes wouldn’t catch you this time.

“I’ll make sure he becomes one of us in no time!” You assured, giving a light nod to Jason.

“No doubt you’ll make an amazing couple” He tipped his pink hat and you noticed Jason held back a cough of surprise. “The daily play of the anthem is about to start, I must return to city hall. I’ll see you around!”

He waved. You waved. Jason waved. He walked away with a skip in his step like the happy jerk he was.

“Couple?” He said, coming back to your public mode of communicating. 

“Sorry, I should have warned you” You sighed internally.

“Sorry?”

“Yeah!” You wanted to burst out so bad. “What about it, Dick Grayson?”

“I wasn’t about to give them my real name” He defended, watching around for people noticing your hushed conversation. But everybody was preparing for the anthem, their attention directed to the morning messages man on the giant screens.

“So you gave that poor guy’s instead?”

“Poor? Nah. Relax, he can take care of himself” What you were sure was a chuckle escaped his lips. “Besides, he’s not even--”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, please rise for our national anthem”

You elbowed Jason and stood up straight, the sun hitting the side of your face. He mimicked your posture. The music started, and you could see faltering in the corner of your eye.

“Is this--”

“Yes”

“What the fuck”

“I know”

“Whyyyyyyy”

“Stay with me” You urged silently. You really didn’t know how or why Happy Town’s anthem came to be ‘Yeah!’ by Usher feat Lil Jon and Ludacris, but even if you did, now was not the ideal time or place to get into that kind of discussion. You suspected it had something to do with the exclamation mark after the ‘yeah’. But you could be wrong. You still didn’t understand the bigger picture however, since the lyrics clearly contained the word ‘not’ followed directly by ‘happy’ in the first verse, which made ‘not happy’. It was against the party line. 

“Okay, we stage a coup tonight” He decided as the song ended. “I don’t think I can do this another day”

----

Midnight came slowly.

After a day of mingling and presenting Jason as Dick Grayson and your future husband like the Mayor had most probably hinted at during your morning encounter, of slyly getting out of eating pie and avoiding the police, you were glad to finally breathe. 

“UUUUGH” Jason whined, plopping on the couch. “I can never look at the color pink the same way ever again. I’m sick of it, sick of it!”

“Get it together!” You snapped. “We need to plan our coup. We’ve got one shot for it, and if it fails we’re toast. I need my bed, Jason. MY BED”

“Alright, what do you have in mind?” He asked, taking a deep breath. “You know this place more than I do”

“I say tomorrow night, we quietly follow the police after their curfew patrol round” You began, biting the skin around your nails. “How good is your stealth?”

He looked at you blankly for a good ten seconds before he let out a small, ironic snort. “Above average, I’d say”

It was like he wanted you to ask why he’d think that, but you were too busy thinking about your plan. “Good, good” You nodded. “There must be some headquarters somewhere. All we have to do is get there, threaten them at gunpoint--Your guns are functional yes?”

“Obviously”

“--So they’ll zap us back to Earth. And if not, we shoot the mayor and take control of this hell”

“That escalated quickly,” He stated. “But what the hell, sure, I’m on board. Let’s go”

“Tomorrow the sun sets at 8:07. We’ll need to be changed and ready to go by then”

“Wait, tomorrow?” He sprung up in his seat, eyes wide. “No, no. I can’t take one more day of pink cardigans and pleasant conversations with spies!”

“DEAL WITH IT” You gestured wildly before calming down almost instantly. You didn’t need the neighbors to hear and report a fight. “Patrol is already over for today. Be smart about this”

“Fine” He sighed aggressively. “But if this flops, I’m taking everyone down with me. There won’t be an after tomorrow, I can fucking tell you”

“Yeah I won’t stop you”

“Good”

“Good.”

You stayed there in silence, unmoving for a moment. This was it. The moment you’ve been waiting for. Your liberation. Your bed was less than 24 hours a day if things went as planned, which you hoped it would. 

“I’ll… Sleep on the couch” He mumbled after a while, moving to lay down. YOur eyes widened.

“You can’t” You objected, knowing the government would find a way to find out the scam you were running through that detail. 

“Why not?”

“If the secret police comes for a surprise inspection and your side of the bed is cold, we’re kaputt” You explained. “We’re supposed to be at the very least fiancés, remember?”

“God fucking dammit” He swore, looking up at the sky like it would help him. Ha, you already tried that and it didn’t work.

---

The next day, as you prepared the decaf pot of coffee because happy people didn’t need caffeine to be happy, a knock sounded on your door. Jason was taking a shower in the bathroom, so you went and opened the door. Like you had predicted, two men in dark magenta stood at your doorstep with dangerous looking smiles. 

“Good morning ma’am” One greeted with a tip of his hat. “This is a surprise inspection, warranted by the new arrivant in your household, name Dick Grayson and title husband to be. May we come in?”

Your smile widened as you stepped aside, like you actually had a choice in the matter.

“Of course!” You exclaimed. “Coffee, officers?”

“We’ll have to politely decline, thank you” The other smiled as they came in and observed the clean state of the house. All houses were required to be neat and clean at all times. They looked around for something out of place, slowly but surely directing themselves to the bedroom at the end of the hall. You followed them a few paces away, ready to answer their question if they had some. It wasn’t your first surprise check. 

They finally reached the room, from where they could hear the shower running. Their gazes caught the neatly folded pink pile on the bed, then they surrounded it. They started to feel under the comforter and drapes, on the pillows, everywhere they could spot the presence or absence of another person. You called it, oh you so called it.

The shower stopped, and both officers shared a look. “Alright, everything is in order ma’am. Have a good breakfast and a good day!”

You escorted them to the door, threw them a thank you on the way and silently sighed once the door closed behind them. You returned to your coffee, and not long after, Jason emerged from the hallway all dressed in pink.

“Ooh, who were the gentlemen here?” He inquired cheerily, but you knew what it meant. 

“Some nice officers came to see if we were doing fine here!” You replied with equal cheer.

“Shucks, I missed them” He snapped his fingers, chuckling. “Next time perhaps”

“Of course!” The pep in your voice did not match your eye roll. Thank god there were no cameras. 

You finished breakfast and went to town once again, like you did everyday. You felt like everyone was staring at you even more than usual. Like they all knew what you planned for that night. You might have been slightly paranoid, but Jason’s calm demeanor was helping. He was good at that, like he had practiced for all of his life to deceive people.

The mayor bothered you again after the daily play of the anthem, a song you were sure would elicit a violent reaction from you once you would be back in the real world. Then, you repeated the same daily routine you had had forever. Smile, avoid the pie, smile, talk with the neighbors-spies, smile, think about how life is amazing, smile.

Smile smile smile smile smile smile. 

Eurgh.

That night, the pleasant conversations contained codes to trump the microphones. Jason pretended to dance while you unscrewed the loose floorboard and carefully placed his clothes and weapons on the bed. You picked your old clothes, quietly dusting them off. They smelled weird but you were excited to wear something other than pepto bismol dyed fabric. Making sure the curtains were drawn, you proceeded to change. Jason looked ecstatic to finally be rid of his cardigan, while you took a moment to appreciate your black t-shirt and burgundy coat. While he had his red helmet, he handed you a domino mask from his pocket. You had no idea why he had that, but you took it anyway. It looked cool and rebel. You sneaked through the back door, avoiding the spots of light by either lamps outside your house and street posts. You watched the patrol casually making sure everyone was inside, keeping a good distance in between you and them at every time. They weren’t talking, but whistling some creepy tunes. You had to make a small hike through a hill when they entered a gated tunnel, but you ended up in front of a giant factory where workers dressed in grey buzzed around with crates. YOu gasped.

“Illegal” You muttered.

“What?”

You shook your head. They had gotten to you too much, it was time you left that god forsaken place. “Nevermind. How do we go through that barbed wire?”

He pulled out a medium sized pair of cutters from… You had no idea where, but he had them. You shrugged, gesturing to him to go ahead. In a blink, you were in. You sneaked inside without being seen, navigating the building with guesses and feelings. You finally ended up in the main production room, where crates of products were opened and emptied in a giant bassin. The stirred liquid was purple and smelled strange, but you knew it was to do no good. And right beside, there was the pie filling packaging. 

“I knew it!” You hissed under your breath. “They’re putting drugs in the pie! Can you see what it is? Cocaine? Heroin?

“Doesn’t seem like…” He leaned in. “Wait…”

“Al-- Allegra?” You managed to read the crate.”Never heard of it, but it must be terrible and dangerous”

Jason turned his head and stared at you. HIs helmet bore no expression, but you were sure he looked at you like you were dumb. Did he know what it was? “Are you kidding me?”

“No, why?”

“Allegra is--” He sighed. “It’s allergy medication. It’s… Not drugs per say”

“Uh?”

“God dammit--” He paused as something caught his eyes. It was sparkly, and unfit for this environment. From it emerged five armed guys dressed in earth clothes. They had a bag of white substance, which was tasted by the man who welcomed them. “Of fuck, THAT’s cocaine” 

You waited as they put some of it in a vial, which already had purple liquid. 

“Fuck, they mix it with allegra?” He cursed, mostly to himself. “What kind of fucking insane dimension did I step in?” 

“I told you”

“Okay, so those guys will have to leave eventually” Jason pointed at the visibly Earth humans. “We’ll make sure we catch it as well”

“But they have machine guns” You pointed out, not sure how his mind worked. 

“Wait for my signal” You knew he was grinning under that helmet. Before you could ask him how the fuck he would manage five armed guys, he jumped over the rail and started running toward them. You shut your eyes shut as gunshots went off, then opened them again when it was silent. There were bodies around, but Jason was still standing, wrestling with two guys. You watched for a few seconds when you noticed a pink figure sneakily approaching from behind, a frying pan in his hand.

The mayor!

You jumped over the rail too, but your landing was way less graceful than Jason’s. Actually, you were pretty sure you sprained your ankle. But still, you ran-limped to the man and jumped on his back before he could bonk Jason’s head with his weapon.

“ARRRRRGH”

He did not see you coming, as he lost balance at your attack. You crashed on the ground, where you managed to get on top and start hitting him. But apparently neither of you knew how to punch, so it was a rather pathetic looking fight. You swapped and slapped, pulled hair and scratched, until you got a hold of his pan and made a pancake of his face. 

“Take that you pink fucking nightmare” You spat as you stood up. You turned to Jason, whose shoulders were shaking with silent laughter.

“Wow uh” He covered it with a cough. “That sure was an interesting fight to watch”

“Keep mocking me, mister fucking assassin” You rolled your eyes. “I stopped him from bonking your head”

“Alright, alright, thank you”

“No problem” You replied. “Let’s get out of here”

You went and stood on the platform the dealers came through, then waited. But nothing happened.

“I think we need to activate it” He spoke up. That was logical.

You scanned the room for a panel control, and you believed you spotted it on the opposite wall. You grabbed your shoe to throw at it, before Jason held back your arm’s motion.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Activating the portal” You furrowed your brows, pointing at the panel. A big red button on which was written ‘ON’ was glaring at you from the distance. Practical target.

“Don’t throw your shoe, that’s dumb” He snorted. “Let me”

Before you could argue, he cocked his gun and fired a bullet right on the button. A death sound resonated, but nevertheless sparks began to fly and not just from the ruined panel. The portal opened and swallowed you, sending you through flashes and weird colors until you were spat out in a dull, dark place that smelled bad. Jason seemed to have landed just fine, but you were another story. You pulled yourself up, whining at the pain in your ankle. 

“I didn’t expect to see you here”

A creepy, unknown voice made you both turn around. It was a pale man with an unnaturally stretched smile and bad taste in clothes, and right away it made you think the worst. You had been thrown in Dark!Happy Town. Without thinking, you let out a war cry and hurled your frying pan to the more evil version of the Mayor, knocking him out instantly.

What you didn’t expect though, was the roaring laughter from beside you. 

“Oh--Oh my god” He could barely talk. “I wished I filmed that”

“What? What’s happening?” You asked. Had he gone crazy? “Who’s that? We’re not back home are we?”

“Relax, we’re back” He took a deep breath, his shoulders still shaking. “You’ve just knocked out the most wanted criminal in Gotham city”

“WHAT?”

“Welcome back, (Y/N), welcome back”

[hawks-is-kinda-chicken-little]

High in the Sky

Hawks x Winged! Reader

Key:

(F/c)= favorite color

A/N: Sometimes I just start little fics on the tumblr app and just write away at it when i’m bored. This happened to be one of them. The bigger fics are saved on my google docs so, which would probably be smart for me to get on my phone so I can work on the bigger fic, but oh well. Just know that this trash was not proof read at all so its probably terrible.

————————————————————-

Flying was so freeing. Not being only confined to the ground, able to soar above human limitation. Wind combs through the feathers, caressing each bard with care. Leaving nothing caressed with its attentive breeze.

Taking in every sight from miles above. Wings flapping with purpose through the cloudy blue air.

Or at least that’s how she imagined it. Enviously watching the beings above her dance in the sky. Most people payed no mind to the birds flying above, reaching places they never could. But, she did, she could only dream of flying like they did. Why? One might ask. Well, she has a pair of fluffy (f/c) wings stemming from her back. She just didn’t know how to use them. And to make matters worse she was afraid of heights.

She had watched her boyfriend fly around so much, but she could never bring herself to take off after him. How Keigo is so patient with her is something she can’t even fathom. Never forcefully pushing her to even flap her wings like others in her life. Always walking around on his feet when with her, which was something he didn’t do often before they were together. It always made her feel guilty, like she was holding Keigo back. But, any and all doubts she voiced were quickly countered as he words of encouragement and love to his angel.

It was kinda ironic. A winged angel being afraid to fly. People always comment on how she is just a decorator piece meant to complement Hawks in the spotlight. Or that he will get bored of her and her flightless appendages. The media never failed to poke at the fact that she didn’t know how to fly. Saying that she will always be afraid until she takes the leap.

And those kinds of pokes and prods lead her to where she is now. Sitting on the ledge of a cliff overlooking the vast ocean near the outskirts of the city. Fingers anxiously picking at the grass beneath them. God this was so dumb, but she could stop the nagging feeling that all those people were right. It couldn’t be to hard right? Keigo does it effortlessly all the time. And there just wings, all she has to do is flap them.

Pushing all her doubts aside she hops to her feet, puffing her chest with her newfound courage. She was an overgrown bird, she told herself. Now is the time to spread her wings and soar from the nest.

With bright (f/c) feathers separated and a pep in her step. Pep in her wings? A lighthearted giggle passed her lips with the silly word play. She was now ready for flight.

Legs bent underneath her weight as she sprung up, pulling her wings to give a wind blowing flap over the side of the cliff.

Just as she was about to maneuver her wings to do it again, two scarlet feathers hooked firmly under her arms guiding her back towards the ledge.

Shame. It radiated within her chest as well as on her cheeks upon seeing the feathers.

They anchored her onto the ground. And while she might have been still facing the ocean, she knew he was coming. She could hear him. The sound of wings beating hastily at the air. Hurrying towards her with god-speed.

Cold surges of air made her shiver as he descended to the grounds behind.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

Question after question, spewed from Keigo as he approached her. She didn’t say anything though. Back still facing him, hanging her head low while folding her arms to cradle her sides in a protective manner.

A heavy sigh left Keigo. Lecturing her probably wasn’t the best idea right now. But (y/n) scared the shit out of him, she was lucky he was patrolling the outskirts of the city. Keigo doesn’t even want to think about what might have happened if he hadn’t been.

He stood behind (y/n), eyes giving her a once over for any sort of injury. Thankfully though there weren’t any. But, he did notice a couple of things. Her normally relaxed wings were now tucked tightly against her back. Looking uncomfortable flat against her back. Overall, she was tense and clearly upset. Keigo gently wrapped his arms around her waist. Laying his hands upon her which clasped her sides. All while pressing his head into the crook of her neck, lips pecking kisses over the tense muscle.

His lips were warm and smooth. Keigo took his time, delicately pressing each kiss into her skin.

“Keigo.” He hummed in acknowledgement, but showed no signs of stopping the pampering.

Playing extra attention to any place made her melt into his touch. This continued to the other side, giving it the same exact undivided love and attention.

(Y/n) leaned her back against him, spreading her fingers to let his own slip in and interlock with her.

“Are you felling okay?” He questioned in a worried tone, lips now glazing along her neck.

She gave him a slow nod.

“Can we talk now baby bird?”

She said yes, but told nothing more.

“Wanna tell me what you were doing so close to the edge, my love?”

(Y/n) lifted her head, peaking to the side to see that he was staring right at her.

She hasn’t really been her usually peppy self as of lately. So Keigo instantly thought the worst when he first spotted her hopping over the side of the cliff.

She looked at her toes as they shuffled anxiously under her.

“I wanted to fly.” The voice was so small that even she could barely hear it.

Keigo presses his lips back to her skin giving one more small kiss. Lip staying glued to her neck as a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

Quickly, Keigo turned her around to face him. Arms never leaving her waste as she came to look at him. That previous smile soon faded when he spotted (y/n)’s tear stained face, lips quivering and everything. Bringing his left hand up to her face, he cupped her cheek as he lowered his face, lightly kissing away all tears. 

“Why didn’t you just come to me, baby dove?”

Sniffle

“It’s dumb, It wasn’t something that I should bother you ab-”

“Shhhhhh, none of that.”

“But, I-”

Peck 

He silenced her words with his lips, then resting his forehead against hers. Bodies rocking ever so slightly as Keigo swayed them both side to side, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. 

“Never think of yourself as a nuisance, you are my baby bird. The angel who brought light to my dark life, showing me what it meant to love and be loved.”

“Angels can fly, I can’t- I do-don’t- I-”

The urge to cry again piled in her eyes and throat, making her choke on her broken words. 

“Do you want to fly?”

Vigorous nods answered his questions.

“Can I ask what brought this about?”

Letting out a forced breath, (y/n) explained everything going on through her mind, from the poke and prods on the media, to her own insecurities. All which made Keigo want to beat himself up for not noticing how much weight had been piling onto her shoulders. But, what she said next was not something he was expecting to hear.

“I want- I want to fly with you. Dance around the sky in the clouds. Or in the peaceful night time stars. I wanna be able to be with you. Experience everything that life throws at us with you.”

Though her declaration was far from over, it made his heart well with happiness as he gazed upon her eyes that sparkled with that unconditional love you only see a couple times in life.

By the end they were both in tears. But, weren’t tears of sadness, no, they were far from that.  

“Can you teach me?” The question was overflowing with hope.

With a warm smile Keigo responded, “I wouldn’t have it another way, my sweet angel.”

He had the patients of a saint. Never letting her fall, guiding her through each step. A hand squeezing her own in reassurance as she tried to even herself in the sky. Slowly his hand loosened its grip, removing its presence. It was like watching a child ditching the training wheels, scared at first, but soon learning to balance themselves, experimenting with new speeds and freedoms they never before experienced. 

Years later, Keigo and (y/n) got married. They always helped each other, whether it be at the home, in the sky, or even at his agency. Which is where they currently were, (y/n) was helping out with some paperwork while her husband trained the new interns in the medium sized mat covered arena on one of the lower levels of the agency. 

Wanting to clarify some of the details regarding the report (y/n) headed for the training grounds where Keigo was. She stopped at the doorway when she noticed that all the interns were sitting in a circle around their mentor who was standing at the edge. Now, she might not have been able to hear him, but she could tell by the exaggerated arm gestures and tone changes that he was telling them a story. The expressions on the children’s faces showed just how hooked they were by his words. But, the eyes of the interns shifted from Keigo to her, their eyes all glowing with wonder. Keigo, seeing that he lost their attention, followed their gaze to her. A bright smile formed on his lips as he motioned for her to come over.

With a roll of her eyes she strutted over until she was an arms length away from her from there Keigo, pulled her to his arms, sweeping her feet from under her as he dipped down to kiss her. 

EWWWW!

The poor interns gagged and turned away. Keigo gave a bellowed laugh as (y/n) shook her head chuckling at the childishness of not only the interns, but her husband. 

“What are you laughing at?” He questioned giving her a faked gasp of offense.

“Take a guess, dear.” 

“Mrs. Takami.” A voice called from the circle.

(Y/n) brought her attention to the intern.

“I think its inspiring how you learned to fly.”

The bold proclamation brought some of the other interns sharing their delight and amazement.

After the initial surprise and confusion ran its course, her chest bubbled with a sort motherly love towards the teens. A warm feeling that enveloped her mentally as well as physically, since anyone could see the adoration practically radiating from her face. It was an expression that always made Keigo fall ten times deeper in love with her.

“Well look at the time, you kids better go get yourselves some food, nice work to-”

“But, we literally just started.”

“Well then, kid its never good to train on an empty stomach.”

Every intern huffed a bit as they got to their feet and made their way towards the break room. Once they were gone (y/n) lightly jabbed his side, making him yelp. 

“And just what were you telling them?” She asked in a playfully accusing tone.

“Ummmmmm, that you are really pretty.” 

“Takami Keigo, I swear to All Might.”

“The tiny broccoli kid does the same.” 

“Wha-”

“Don’t even try to deny it.”

“Leave the adorable cinnamon roll alone. Midoriya is a very sweet boy.”

“Hey, i,m just saying.”

“No you’re just avoiding my question.”

“Oof, you got me there.”

“Now, back to my question-”

“The question you already have an answer to.”

Poke! 

Keigo let out another high pitched yelp as she stabbed his sensitive sides with two fingers.

Yes, it was not hard to figure out what he was telling the teens, but he knows that she is kinda embarrassed by it. (Y/n) had come a long way, both of them knew it. Sensing her uneasiness, Keigo quickly comforted her.

“Dove, everyone has a place where they started, where they feel so low that they can’t bring themselves up. Feeling hopelessly stuck or trapped. And some of the interns were asking how to dig themselves out of that damned hole. So I told them about your story, how you learned to fly. You were so determined to do it that you almost jumped over a cliff having no clue how to really take off.”

He let out a light chuckle before continuing, “And how sometimes, you just need a little help to get started, a little guidance to lift you up. I mean, once you got the basics down, you fucking bolted. God, I had a hard time keeping up.”

She smiled at him as she remembered the moment with utter fondness. (Y.n) knew he was restraining himself back then, letting her buzz all around him while he kept a much slower pace. He wanted to make her feel special, feel loved, so he held himself back for her.

“And you heard the kids. It’s ‘inspiring’”

“And you’re a pain.”

“But, i’m your pain,” He said holding up both of their hands with the rings on them.

“Hmmmm, I guess so.”

“Wanna go for a quick fly around the building? Their snack breaks last like 15 minutes and its only been about five.”

“Sure, why hell not.”

They stared at each other for a couple seconds. (Y/n) distracted him with a loving peck to the lips, before slapping his arm.

“TAG.”

“Wha-”

She bolted to an open window just small enough for her to fit through. Of course, Keigo dashed towards her, struggling to shimmy his bigger frame past the tight window. (Y/n) flew a couple yards away watching as he tried to push through. She covered her mouth in a failed attempt to muffle laughter shaking through her whole body as she watched. However, that laughter ceased as too as the window let him through, making him fall before catching the air with his giant wings. 

Once steadied, Keigo’s eyes darted to his wife’s who’s facial expression read ‘oh shit, now I've done it’.

He smirked when a squeak passed her lip as she dashed around the building with him now close on her heels. Keigo let her win for a few minutes before tackling her mid flight. Trapping her in his embrace as he nuzzled into her neck letting out a happy coo. 

It was nothing but playful. They could be free in the sky, free to do whatever they pleased. 

Bonus:  

“Do you think we will ever go one day without witnessing him pull her into a sloppy kiss?” One intern asked as he chomped on a bagel, making another teen gag in repulsion. All 5 of them sat around the lunch table in the break room.

Two other interns replied with a quick “no” in unison.

“That’s just gross.”

“Awww, come on guys its kinda sweet.” Said one of the two female interns as she overlooked the streets from the giant window.

“Honey,” said the other girl, “no.”

The five kept chatting until as a flash of red and (f/c) crossed the window. They watched as their mentor and his wife played around in the skies. The two looked like children who had playground all to themselves; happy and completely lost in their own wondrous minds. 

Though the teens might think that the PDA was a bit gross, none of them could stop the smile spreading across their faces as they watched the two outside. 

“Okay, so its a little sweet.”

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

[downwiththeficness]

A Need So Great-Chapter 2

Summary: Eva Moore is assigned to work the last year of her contract with the DEA in Colombia. She just wants to get to the end of her tenure, but she keeps getting drawn further into a string of murders in the city. It isn’t long before she’s forced to face the ghosts of her past.

Word Count: ~3,600

Warnings: None

A/N: For the purposes of this story, Carrillo isn’t married--or, if you like, divorced. A/B/O dynamics are prevalent, and they come with their own warning. The overall rating for this story is Explicit, although not every chapter will contain adult themes.

Chapters: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8.5, 9, 10, 10.5, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21

Eva had no idea why she’d been asked to come to the scene, just that Steve had called her from the office and asked her to stop by.  There had been a murder. She parked a block or so away and headed to the motel.  When she got there, it was blocked off, but there were no officers around.  With a shrug, she ducked the tape and headed for the open door of the room, hitching her bag higher on her shoulder.

She saw the arm first, blood dripping down and staining the carpet. It was a woman. Eva breathed a bit and called out to see if anyone was there.  An officer popped his head out of the bathroom, looking angry.  

“Hi,” she said with what she hoped was a friendly smile, “I’m here from the embassy.”

He barreled towards her, arms waving angrily.  Confused, Eva slipped her hand into the pocket of her jeans to show him her badge.  That...made things worse.  She was grabbed, the officer yelling, his hand tight on her arm.  Eva felt her fight or flight kick in and she tried to jerk out of his hold. She managed to get her arm free, but he caught her by her purse, yanking her further into the room.  

At the end of it, she was cuffed to the towel rack in the bathroom, her purse sitting by her feet. She’d been told to ‘sit’, and that was about the extent of her understanding of the incident.  Exasperated, Eva waited for him to leave.  Thankfully, he closed the door behind him, giving her the opportunity act unobserved.

“Fuck this,” she sneered, one leg kicking out to snag the strap of her bag.

 Carefully, she tugged it towards her, aware of the sound she might be making. One ear trained to the sounds outside, she made as little noise a possible to get at her goal.  It took some serious finagling, but she managed to get inside. From its depths, she pulled a paperclip that had been holding together a pack of reports, bending it between shaking fingers.  The cuffs were standard—she knew how they worked.  One pin, serrated edges caught on a single lip. They used these in America, too, and she’d become pretty good at getting out of them over the years.

As she unlocked the first cuff, Eva caught sounds of movement outside, voices talking in agitated tones.  She bent to the second cuff, fingers shaking. The door opened and she tucked her hands into her side, hiding the loosened binds from whoever might come at her. Eva knew her expression looked pretty damn guilty, though she hadn’t done anything.  She didn’t have the time to school her features into something more innocent.

The door swung open and Colonel Carrillo—Horacio, as she’d learned—stood in the doorway, looking surprised. He took up the entire space, filling the room even though he hadn’t yet stepped inside. Eva could not help the little spike of...something...that fired up at the sight of him. It was as if her body would scream ‘yes, please’ every...single...time.  Habit had her holding her breath at first, just to get her bearings. If she breathed too deeply of him in the first few seconds, it was harder to maintain any sense of control.

When he didn’t speak, she offered him a trembling smile, “Hi.”

Her wrist turned as slowly as she could, lifting the pin and loosening the cuff soundlessly.

“Hi,” he echoed, before blinking rapidly, as if to refocus. “How…?”

“Steve called, asked me to stop by. I think I scared your officer.”

He looked behind him, she slipped the cuff from her wrist, keeping her hands next to the towel rack, hidden by her body.

When he returned his gaze to her, he put one hand up in a ‘stay’ motion, “I’ll get the key.”

Eva laughed, a short, curt thing, “Don’t bother.”

Turning her shoulders, she lifted both hands, the cuffs dangling from her forefinger. Wordlessly, she offered them to him. His eyes dropped to her outstretched hand, and she could see his jaw clench. She kept her breathing shallow, though there was little she could do about the way her mind analyzed his scent, cataloged his body language. Surprise. Soft amusement. Pride, perhaps. An undercurrent of something dark that she recognized, but refused to name for the sake of her sanity.

He stepped deliberately out of the doorway, gave her a wide berth to exit. Eva was grateful.  Though she rejoiced in the hormones that flooded her in his presence, she didn’t like the thought of making a fool of herself—which, she knew would happen if he got too close. It was enough to enjoy the excited feeling she got when they were in a room together.

It occurred to Eva that it might not be a positive reflection of herself that she was more worried about the alpha in the room than the dead body.  She was aware of him at all times, a wave of heat that fanned out from him to lay heavily on her skin. It was too fucking distracting, but she liked it so much that she gave herself a pass.

Javier walked in with another officer, who took one look at his superior and high tailed it out of the room. She folded her hands in front of her, annoyed that Steve hadn’t even bothered to show up when she wasn’t even supposed to be at a crime scene.

“What am I doing here?”

“You’re here,” Javier explained, “To help us figure out who did this.”

Eva rolled her eyes, “I’m not a crime scene investigator.  I’m a data analyst.”

Behind her, Carrillo shifted on his feet.  The hair on the back of her neck stood on end as she clocked an exhalation of frustration. Her hands tightened as she resisted the urge to run a palm down his arm, to soothe him.

“You’re told us you were here to ‘see what you can see’.  Well—what do you see?” Javier had both hands in his pockets, she could see the butt of his pistol peeking from a holster from underneath.

She stared at him, anxious about what he was trying to prove, or get at. Javier was grumpy, prone to bouts of pettiness and self hatred.  He wasn’t cruel.  She knew cruelty. It was unlikely that he was trying to make fun of her, or trick her.

Looking down at the body, Eva took her in.  She was pretty, mid-thirties, dark hair that was gray at the temples. Naked, splayed on her side, hand tucked into her chin. Her clothes were...nowhere to be seen.  But, the killer had left a scarf, possibly hers.  It was laid across her like a sash, melding in with the curls of her hair.

“This was deliberate.”

Javier scoffed, “Yeah, a murder is pretty deliberate.”

Eva shot him a baleful glare, saying, “Look at her.”

He did.

“Look at how pretty she looks, look at her pose, her face.  Its...art.  She’s like a fucking Botticelli.”

Carrillo moved again and Eva lost focus. She closed her eyes, feeling him edge around her.  When she opened them, both men in the room were looking down at the poor woman.  

“If this guy thinks he’s an artist,” she began, then started over, “With any artist, there is a signature.  Its probably in the room somewhere. Maybe on her body.”

She looked over the limbs and she felt sympathy for her.  Someone killed her to make a statement.

“Why is the DEA involved in this?”

Javier wouldn’t meet her eyes, “She was one of my informants.”

Eva made a sound of understanding, a soft, sad thing.  She’d been killed as an example, not a statement. That made it worse.

“I don’t know what else to tell you,” Eva said, “I wish I saw more.”

Carrillo spoke, he was closer than she anticipated, she jumped a little, “You don’t have to tell us anything else.”

She looked at him, and saw that he was looking at Javier, a silent conversation occurring between them.   It frustrated her more than when they deliberately had conversations in Spanish, keeping her out of the loop.  Eva had picked up words here or there, a byproduct of living in the country, but she couldn’t even get close to following along.

“Yeah,” Javier agreed, eyes dropping to the floor briefly.  “Look, Steve and me are going to get a drink.  Day’s over, anyways.  Why don’t you come with?” When Eva hesitated, he continued, “Connie’ll be there.  She wants to meet you.”

He was inviting her in, Eva realized.  Giving her a little more access to the pair of them than was strictly called for in their professional working relationship. It was an invitation that she very rarely got, and had never accepted.  It surprised her how much she wanted to, now.

“You’re invited, too,” Javier added, gesturing to Carrillo.

Javier lifted his brows in question, looking to Eva for a response. She nodded, turning towards the bathroom to get her purse.

“Where is this place?” She asked, lifting the bag over her shoulder.

Javier gave her the address—it wasn’t far from where she lived, she could walk there, if she wanted.

“Okay,” she breathed, “I’ll meet you there in, like, twenty minutes? I’m parked a bit away—missed the sign the first time.”

“I’ll walk you to your car,” Carrillo said, already heading outside.

Eva gave Javier a little nod and followed him, eyeing his broad form as he walked ahead.  His legs were longer than hers.  At five foot nothing, she had to do a little skip to catch up. They ducked under the caution tape wrapped around little posts, Carrillo holding the tape up and away from her.

“How do you like Colombia?”

The question took her off guard a little.  He’d been extremely polite to her during their interactions, but never veered from discussing the work.  

Eva considered it, “Its pretty, here. I like how green it is. My last assignment was in a literal desert in Nevada, so this is a nice change.” She added, “I haven’t seen much, though, outside of what’s on the road to work. My handlers like to tell me that I’m a consultant, not a tourist.”

Why was she talking so fast? Eva pressed her lips together and gripped the strap of her bag to keep from rambling.

He gave a low chuckle, “If you do decide to become a tourist, take someone with you. It can be dangerous, here.”

She looked up at him, expecting to see a look of condescension on his face.  Poor little omega, protect them at all costs, keep them locked up and safe.  Instead, Eva could only see a kind of hesitant concern. She liked him even more for it.

When they reached her car, Eva unlocked it, throwing her purse in the passenger’s seat before turning to look at him.

“Thank you, for walking me.”

He regarded her with curiosity, and it hit her that this was the first time they’d really been alone together. Their brief encounters always had the buffer of another person, another scent in the air to muddy the waters. Right now, all she could smell was the clean earthy smell of the country, and him.

“Why aren’t you afraid?” he asked, looking genuinely curious.

She let out a soft, amused breath, “Of what?”

“Me.”

The way he said it was so...matter of fact.  As if it would be a given that she should look at him and feel fear.

“Why would I be afraid of you?” she asked, her head tilting to the side.

He ran a hand through his hair, “A lot of omegas are.”

Eva could see why they would be. He had about a hundred pounds on her, could take her down easily, if she ran. She tried not to think about how that thought excited her.

Her jaw unhinged as she tried to respond.  A couple quick quips filtered in and she dismissed them. This was an honest question.  She should give an honest answer.

“You’re not a threat to me.”

He wasn’t.  Not in the way that other alphas had been.  They both knew that he could have pressed his advantage already, could have used her hormones against her to get at something he wanted. She’d heard how he closed his cases, that he was ruthless, calculating, violent. His unfailing courtesy, the space he continually gave her, was noted and welcome.

His head dipped down and to the side and he took a step forward, “I’m not?”

“No,” she confirmed.

Although, she could feel a tense kind of anxiety rise up as he approached. Heat rose to her cheeks, and for once she was glad for the fucking unrelenting sunlight of the country. Eva was always a little pink when she went outside.

“How do you know that?”

She swallowed, watching him advance another step, the movement smooth and unhurried. He was maybe five feet away, now three, “If you wanted something from me, you would have taken it by now.”

Carrillo stepped into the last little bit of her space, hand resting on the open door beside her. Again, he asked, “How do you know that?”

Eva lifted a shoulder, his eyes followed the movement, “You don’t strike me as the kind of man who waits to have it handed to him.”

He smiled, a little sarcasm in his voice, “You’ve gathered all that in, what, five interactions?”

Six, she correctly mentally. Each one burned into her memory as solidly as his scent. It swirled around her and she found herself squeezing her keys into her palm in an effort to keep her body from leaning further forward, from pressing her nose to the sensitive gland just below his ear where it was most fragrant.  She could mark herself with it, with just a little bit of pressure and friction. She could take it with her for the rest of the day.

“I know what man looks like when he wants to hurt me,” she offered by way of explanation. “You don’t look like that.”

His mouth thinned in displeasure, or maybe annoyance.  He tapped his thumb once on the door, stepping away, but not far.

“Its unwise to confuse restraint for,” he searched for the words, “Lack of...want.” Followed by, “See you at the bar.”

Eva watched him go for a few seconds.  He didn’t look back. With a shake of her head, she got in the car and started it.

The bar was dark, despite the daylight still filtering in. Dark, and smoky. Eva caught sight of her coworkers at a table not far off from the entrance. She gave a little wave, making her way towards them.

As she sat, a blonde woman approached, a couple beer bottles in her hand. Eva clocked her as an alpha immediately. She smelled like cinnamon and citrus.

“Hi,” she said warmly, “I’m Connie.”

Eva shook her hand and accepted the beer, “Eva.”

“I didn’t know what you drank, so I guessed,” she gestured to the beer as she sat next to Eva.

Touched by the consideration, Eva simply said, “This is fine, thank you.”

“So, Steve tells me you’re a consultant.  Must be exciting.”

Eva shook her head, sipping, “Its really not.  I just deal with the paperwork. And, apparently, the occasional crime scene.”

Javier had the good grace to look away. Connie smiled and leaned into her husband.  He wrapped an arm around her, kissing her at the hairline. Eva could see that they were very much in love, she hoped it could survive his occupation. Not many relationships did.

“I mostly sit at a desk,” Eva said, to keep the conversation going.

Connie smiled, “So you’re bored out of your mind, reading Steve’s reports?”

Eva returned the smile, “Pretty much.  I’ll take bored any day, though. Beats the hell out of getting shot at.”

Her expression faltered, but Connie recovered quickly, “Where are you from?”

“Louisiana, for the most part.”

“How’d you end up here?”

Eva shrugged, unphased by the rapid questions Connie lobbed at her, “Probably the same way you did. I went where they told me to go.”

“They,” Connie said with emphasis, “Can suck a lemon.”

Clearly, there were some unresolved issues with regard to Connie and the DEA.  Eva thought it might be nice to hear a few stories from her, just to see if she saw the same things that Eva did.

The door to the bar swung open and Carrillo walked through.  Eva kept her expression as neutral as possible, but had to suppress a curse when she realized that the only open seat at their table was to her right. She rolled the bottle between her thumb and first three fingers, offering a small smile of acknowledgment when he sat.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said, flagging down a waitress, “Had to reprimand an officer.”

Eva wanted to ask if it was the same officer who’d detained her. She didn’t.

While the men conversed around them, Connie leaned over, “Are you like them?”

Eva hummed in question.

“Living and breathing the job?” This was said in a conspiratorial tone.  Connie’s expression was both secretive and open, a strange combination of the two.

Shaking her head, Eva eyed the rest of the table, consciously measuring half a second for each so as to not linger where her eyes kept wanting to look, “No. This is just where I ended up.”

“Oh, thank God,” Connie breathed as she grasped Eva’s shoulder, “Finally, I’m going to have someone normal to talk to.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Eva responded, tipping back her beer and setting it on the table, empty. “I could be completely insane.”

“I’ll take it,” she tipped a bottle at her.

Eva huffed, noting that Connie was a little low, “Sure, okay. You bought me a beer, let me return the favor.”

And that was how it went for a while.  Steve telling a story, Javier chain smoking, Connie rolling her eyes, and Eva...Eva did her best to keep her blood at a low simmer. He’d admitted to her that he wanted her, and she didn’t know what to do with that information. Though he looked relaxed, Carrillo had returned to the overly polite manner that had colored their previous interactions.  It made her want to poke at him, just to get a reaction. She resisted, just barely.

“I looked you up, you know.”

Eva was startled out of her thoughts by Javier, “Really?”

“Yeah, found your last boss.” He was looking at her sidelong, gauging her expression.

Forcing her body to relax, Eva gave him a placid smile, “How is Vanessa?”

He lit a cigarette, “She’s good. I asked her what you were like?”

“Oh no,” Eva shot back, rolling her eyes with a little laugh.  

“She said you’re quote-unquote ‘willful’.”

“She’s not wrong.”

Eva could be pretty stubborn when she wanted something, a trait that not even her husband had been able to beat out of her.  A trait that had survived prison and working for the government.  Stubborn trait.

“She also said you get results.”

Eva made tipped her beer at him,“Again, not wrong.”

He waited a beat, his mouth twisting just a bit, “She said we shouldn’t be friendly with you.”

A cold hand ran down her spine. God, it was the same old song and dance with his job, wasn’t it? She swallowed down the disappointment with her next swig of beer.

“You want to tell us why she said that?”

Eva put a hand to her forehead, rubbing at the space between her brows, “The short answer is that its classified.  The long answer is that you already know why.”

He stubbed out the cigarette, blowing out the last of the smoke from his lungs, “If you get results, I guess I don’t care much about the things you’ve done.”

Unable to keep the sneer from her voice, she said, “I’m so glad I have your approval, then.”

“Alright,” Carrillo cut in, hands rising between the two of them, “We’ve been over this. Can we move on?”

Eva glanced at him and made a noncommittal sound, lifting her beer to salute Javier. He returned the gesture.

“You’re going to have to explain all of this to me,” Connie said lowly as the conversation resumed.

Eva laughed a little, “Absolutely.”

“Good, you can do that in aerobics class.”

Eva frowned, “What?”

“I need a partner and you look athletic.”

Eva was athletic, had been her whole life, “Um…”

“Great, there is a class tomorrow night.  Local gym, not hard at all.”

“Um…”

“You’re free tomorrow, right?”

She was, technically, free, “I mean, yeah…”

“Okay, you’re coming with me.”

As Connie pushed away from the table to get another round, Eva looked at the group, “What just happened?”

Steve’s smile was sympathetic, “Sorry, she does that.”

“Is there a way around it?”

“Nope.”

Eva looked back at Connie, then shrugged, “Okay.”

The sun had sunk by the time they left. She’d traded numbers with Connie, agreeing to drive over together after work. When Eva looked through the windshield, before pulling out of the parking spot, she noticed that Carrillo had watched her go to her car. He was standing near the curb, finishing a cigarette, keys hanging from a curled finger.  She gave him a little wave from over the steering wheel, turning the ignition.

[tipsydipsydo]

Improvisation 💻 [M]

Pairing: Sub! Jin x soft Top! Reader

Gender of the Reader: male

Word Count: 5.7k

Warnings: very in detail descripted/graphic sexual content(!); filthy language; swearing; soft Sub-/Dom-Themes (➙ shy but needy and also teasy Jinnie; the Reader is sometimes not the most assertive Dom, Jin's charm kills him 24/7); Cam/Videocall-Sex; Mastubation; Anal Play; Sextoys; Dirty Talk; Praising; light Edging; Mentions of Nudes and Sexting; Mentions of Unprotected Sex (pls stay safe!)

Summary: This wasn't planned. Well, the whole world didn't planned to deal with a damn pandemic in 2020! If everything would have gone "normally", you would be in Seoul with Jin right in this moment and just enjoy that you're finally able to be close to Jin again. But now you two are stucked at home, Jin in his dorm in Seoul and you in your apartement in your town, far away from him. So you have to improvise for now on, how you want to deal with longing emotions and urging sexual desires...

[Links]

My Masterlist for your requests!

My official Masterlist!

『Disclaimer: This fanfiction should not trivialize or romanticize the actual situation! This pandemic itself is worse enough. The reasons why I wrote a fanfic about this very difficult and sensitive topic can be found in my Authors Note down below.』

Author's Note:

(Be prepared, it's gonna be a long authors note but it's important! So please read it.)

I hope you all (and your friends and family!) are okay and that you didn't get infected with the corona-virus... or at least getting through your infection in the best way possible!

Like the majoritiy of the world population, I got house detention from our government as well (Okay, I'm already two weeks at home because of school closing).

I know, some other writers already used this special situation to write some stuff for us, so we're not going completely crazy by our boredom.

And yes, I wrote something about this too, this here is my own version of all these coronavirus-quarantaine-caused writings out there ^^°.

I hope, y'all not already sick of it... I know, the "Corona-Topic" is literally everywhere and at some point, you just can't listen to anything, that is related to that theme anymore! (Even when it's really important!)

But like all writers here, I just try to "make the best out of this horrible pandemic" and help you, to get through your quarantaine in the best way.

And when you (or someone of your friends, your family or your relatives) are not in quarantaine and you/they have to go to work, because they're a doctor, a nurse, a pharmacist, a scientist, a police officer, part of the military, an employee of a supermarket/drugstore, a factory worker, a truck driver, a farmer etc, you deserve my biggest respect, really! (And to be honest from the whole world population!)

They try to fight the virus itself or their Job count to the sensitive infrastructure of your country, that's why they all try their best to keep the health care system/the minimum of infrastructure in their country going! All these peoples are amazing and they should know that!

I know, especially in this crisis just a little "thank you" can't help them. All of them need to get paid a lot better for their job and they need suitable protective clothing, masks, sanitizer and so much more. In particular these peoples that have to work directly with infected patients like doctors, paramedics or nurses. 

They need these utensils to take care of infected patients properly (especially in risk groups!) and to protect themselfs as well! That's why I appeal to you, to donate medical face-masks or sanitizer that you or your family bought in an inordinate amount in of panic buying to your local hospital.

There is nothing wrong with having one or two face masks or a bottle sanitizer at home. But you don't need 10 bottles sanitizer or 50 face masks, when you simply stay at home!

Trust me, they'll need it so much more than you. We can't fight the virus when the medical staff themself get infected. All these peoples out there risk their own health, maybe even life for us! In some countries or regions they're already completely overworked and near to a (systematic and mental) break down.

When we could help them with literally doing nothing and staying at home, then please, please, please do it!

I'm not a doctor or a nurse, but I think when everybody follow their government's rules (or in general, the instructions of the WHO) and help the health care system of their country with simply staying at home, we're able to get through this pandemic somehow.

「So in short: This following story should only be a gentle reminder to stay at your fucking home and to follow your government's rules to prevent that the virus spread even more! Okay? Thank you.」

So, now you're allowed to read. Enjoy~💚

「© tipsydipsydo」

This following story is my intellectual property and belongs only to my blog tipsydipsydo.tumblr.com!

I’ll not accept any kind of reposting, stealing or using/editing my work!

That includes reposting my content on other social media platforms too, even when you link me as the original author.

Thank you.

You sigh and play around restlessly with the cable of the charger of your laptop, which is plugged into it and is just in front of you on the bed tray. Even when Jin and you text each other almost every free minute, you get nervous every time he takes a little longer to answer your video call.

The past few weeks have made you an emotional wreck, especially when suddenly the infections in South Korea are skyrocketed. You contacted Jin immediately and asked him, if he, the members, his family and friends were doing well.

And overall, how the situation in Korea is and with which Strategy his government is now going to deal with it.

In the following weeks the virus continued to spread. Every day new states reported their first cases, infections increased in many countries, more and more nations prescribed school closings and national quarantine for almost all citizens. With each new day, the international infrastructure and thus also the economy gradually came to a standstill. Sometimes it feels like the earth has stopped spinning around the sun.

The whole further development of the epidemic, now pandemic, is still absolutely uncertain. Too little is the knowledge about this new virus and his behaviors. No one knows when an effective vaccine will exist.

So there is nothing else you can do but hope for the best and follow the rules of your own government and the instructions of the WHO. That means self-isolation and quarantine at home indefinitely.

That was nothing you had planned... actually you wanted to be in Seoul since three days and at that very moment you would lying tightly wrapped up with Jin in his bed.

Your visit in Seoul had been planned for months, everything was already perfectly organized and arranged, Jin even got a few days off! And now? Now you both are sitting far away from each other in your bedroom and only have the opportunity to do video calls with each other. Again.

Although your vacation were already planned and your Boss agreed, it hasn't been so clear in the past few weeks anymore if you can still take your vacation days due to this current situation.

The economic situation has become increasingly difficult, especially for the international trading company you work for. In the End, the government destroyed your plans anyway by stopping air travel and the legal prohibition of entry and exit of the country.

Of course, you were incredibly angry and frustrated at first, but in retrospect you realized that it was a good decision to do that. At least to slow down the spreading.

If you had flown to Seoul, you might have been infected. Perhaps the virus can only cause you little or even no problems, but you could've negligently infected risk groups.

And, to be honest, if you would have flown to Seoul, that would be just because of pure selfishness. And you don't want to be responsible for for spreading the virus even more.

That was in general the reason, why you decided to basically stay at home for now on. You only go out for grocery shopping once a week. At least, you try  your best not to get infected and therefore not to infect anyone else. And at the same time not to die of boredom.

Although Jin currently has more time than usual, he still has to work and to practice with the other members. When they have finished their daily routine, Namjoon and Yoongi mostly continue their "quarantine" in their studios and Hoseok and Jimin stay in the dance studio a little longer. Here and there Tae and Kookie keep them company and practice their choreography a little bit more with them, before they come back to the dorm and play video games or do other things.

As usual, Jin takes over the cooking and takes the opportunity to talk to you on the phone as much as possible or to facetime with you. Of course, it's nice that you can still spend so much time together with the help of the modern technology. But it cannot replace a real visit.

They've not met each other for a too long time, for too long it has not been possible for you two to kiss, cuddle or exchange carresses with one another... For too long, you both had no sex. And that with two people who have, let's say, a very healthy sex drive. It's awful.

You had tried a few times to get sexually active with Jin in front of the screen. But it seems like it's not his thing at all. Talking a bit here and there via text message about your dirty fantasies is okay for him. And when your Jinnie is really horny, you can also encourage him with some messages to send you a dick pics or a few voice mails where he's masturbating and moan your name in such a sinful way. When you have brought him to this point, you praise him a lot and assure him, how sexy he is ans how hot it is that he sends you such pictures.

Pictures yes, videos no.

When you ask him then, if he would be comfortable with making phone calls or even video chats of this kind of "talk", Jin will backtrack.

He can't really explain it, but he doesn't feel comfortable with presenting himself completely naked in front of the camera and even doing filthy things at the same time.

But you understand what he's trying to tell you. Jin loves it intense and passionately, with an extensive foreplay and good aftercare, but "really freaky stuff" is not his world. Doing sexual things with his partner is very personal to Jin, and he's also an idol, it would be a catastrophe when a video or picture of this kind would get public.

Therefore you fully accept his limits! After all, there is nothing to complain about, sex with Jin is always wonderful and absolutely satisfying!

Only when you are separated from each other again, you hardly know how to deal with your sexual desire. Well, would you have thought that Jin has completely the same problems and your sweetheart is just a little shy, to make naugthy things in front of the camera?...

You gasp in relief when Jin finally accepts the call and greets you with an apology, that it tooks so long. The environment tells you that he is in his room. You assume that he's sitting on his bed and leaning against the wall, the laptop on his lap.

You smile at him affectionately, reassure him that he doesn't have to apologize just because his boyfriend unwillingly becomes a bit overprotective and worries too much. You know that all this is not good, but you just can't switch off worrying about your darling.

Jin smiles a little shyly at you, his cheeks are slightly reddened. You want to ask if he's really okay, but you bite yourself on the tongue quickly. The virus had been the subject of your conversation far too often. Jin can take care of himself, if there is any suspicion that he may have been infected, he will tell you. At least, Jin and BigHit Entertainment will know how to handle it.

"No, no Y/N. Don't worry, I'm just like you... You should hear how the boys talking about me. They say, that I'm overthinking way too much... But you are fine, right? And how are your Parents in your hometown, are there already the first infections?", Jin asks and looks at you with an insistent look, eyebrows knitted in concern.

This here became to a ritual, for now on you talk always the first five minutes about the current situation. No matter whether using text messages, voices mails, phone calls or videocalls. Every day you ask each other whether the infections in your both country has improved or deteriorated, how each other's friends and family are doing, and what measures South Korea and now your country are taking.

After that, your conversation mostly wanders to other topics. It's good to come up with other thoughts as well, so nobody is going completely crazy. As many politicians, doctors and virologists already said, we have no choice but to keep calm and not to panic before we start acting thoughtlessly.

You're just about to start complaining a little bit about all the work you have to do in your home-office when Jin anticipates you.

"Y-Y/N?"

You look back at the screen and see how the initial slight blush on Jin's face has intensified and spread to his ears. In addition, you've noticed a few minutes before that Jin has become a bit restless and keeps moving back and forth. As if his sitting position is uncomfortable.

"Yes? Darling, is something wrong? You seems to be so restless and that something is uncomfortable for you ...", you answer him and look at him questioningly with a concerned frown between your eyebrows. The blush on his cheeks increases a shade darker and now it has completely taken over his ears. God, if you're honest, it's so cute when he's shy and his ears turns red.

"Would you like to know why it took me so long to answer your call... there is... there is a reason for that," Jin says quietly.

In precaution, he looks at his room door again to make sure that it's really locked. Even when everyone else is not in the dorm right now, you'll never know who would opens the door of his room without expecting anything... indecent.

He takes a deep breath before he puts the laptop down on his bed, positions the screen with the camera at the right angle. You can see how Jin's prominent adam's apple starts bobbing nervously. This sight makes you involuntarily biting your lower lip and a warm shiver trickles down your back. 

Fuck, Jin's throat has always been one of your soft spots. This sight is tempting ypu to spread countless hickeys on his soft skin, want to mark him as your boyfriend. Because he's an idol, you always have to hold back with your little kink, because a dark love mark can't even cover up the best make-up really well.

But sometimes you just can't hold back or you just forgot that you should do it. Like when Jin's moaning and whimpering is so damn sexy, it makes you addicted to wanting to hear it again and again. Besides that, responds so wonderfully to your touch...

You going to be ripped out of your lewd thoughts when Jin turns with his back to you and his precious butt is now on the same level with your eyes. A completely confused expression manifests on your face. What the-

"I-I have a little surprise for you... I hope you like it...", says Jin in a trembling voice and hooks his two thumbs into the waistband of his sweatpants.

Your next breath gets stuck in your throat as your boyfriend pulls his sweats and boxer briefs at the same time down.

Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Your lips open, you want to say something, but no sound comes out of your mouth. You're absolutely speechless. Your sweet, innocent Jin...

Between his perfectly round buttcheeks is a metal buttplug, gemmed with a beautiful turquoise-blue jewel. You had never used toys in your sex life before. Jin is more of a fan of getting fingered extensively from you until he's prepared and relaxed enough to take you slowly all way in.

And now, this beautiful buttplug is enclosed in the most erotic and sinful way by your sweet, rosy musclering.

Fuck, if you only could be with Jin right now, to be able to admire this plug with a closer look, to pull it out of Jin and tease his hole a little bit with the tip of the plug.

You're so fascinated and immersed in admiration that you don't notice how Jin is getting nervous and insecure. You still haven't said anything, even though a minute has passed.

"Y-Y/N?", Jin asks in an unsettled voice. He's already about to turn around and pull his pants up again, when life comes back into your body and you answer him hastily.

"No, no, no! Please stay in this position! Fuck, baby... I don't know what to say... You are so damn sexy!", you're stuttering, you just can't take your eyes from his plug.

"But please explain to me... why... why are you doing things like that? And where did you get the plug? I-I mean, fuck, that's so damn sexy, I'm the happiest man in the world and I wish, I'd with you right in this moment and could tease you a little bit with this cute little plug... but why? I thought such things in front of the camera makes you uncomfortable? Please don't do such things only for me! Just because I'm so fucking horny today again! Please don't do it because you-", but then Jin interrupts your babbling.

When you got out of the shower this morning and looked at yourself in the mirror, you couldn't help it but send Jin a picture of you shirtless, hoping to get him involved in a bit of spicy and horny texting. You've the feeling that this quarantine and the canceled visit makes you horny 24/7. You don't want to admit it, but fuck. You need Jin so much.

"I wanted to try this for a long time... for months it kept coming back to my mind. I was frustrated by myself when you tried to encourage me to do something sexual in videos or directly live in front of you but always pull back again. Because... because... I don't know it clearly. I wanted to do something with you, I-I had countless fantasies about it in my mind... I wanted to be sexy for you, to make you moan and curse with my s-sight... b-but I think, I was just too shy every time. I felt so awkward and ridiculous doing things like that in front of the laptop. Such things that the two of us usually only do together on our own. I was embarrassed by myself... ", Jin mumbled and is glad, that at this moment you only see his butt and not his crimson red face.

Your eyes grew round like bowling balls, filled with disbelief.

"W-What? So that means... you wanted to do these things all day, but you were just too shy? Because you thought you would be awkward and weird?"

"Y-Yes. I want to do... naugthy stuff with you while videocalling... Fuck, Y/N, I miss you so much! I miss your kisses, your hugs, your soft carresses, your tender kisses on my body. Our foreplay, when you gently prepare me and finger me open for you... I-I miss our sex so much and just mastubation with my hand isn't satisfying anymore! I want you... I need you so bad... ", says Jin. Starts whimpering at the last of his sentences.

With these words, a deep growl comes from your throat and some curses leaves your lips, your pants has become so damn tight at the center.

"Fuck, baby, I know. I know how you feel, I feel the same way! I want you so bad, I was looking forward to seeing you again. Fuck, this damn pandemic."

You push the bed tray with the laptop a little away, impatiently you unbuckle your belt and opens your pants. Your cock needs a little more freedom in this moment.

When Jin hears your words and the rustling of fabric, realize how worked up you already are, he immediately feels a little bit more confident. He moves a little closer to the laptop and offers you an even better view. He bites his lower lip in anticipation of what finally seems to follow after such a long time.

"Jin... would you be okay with it to pull your butt cheeks apart so that I can see the plug... a little bit better?", you ask in a husky growl, teasing your hard erection through the thin fabric of your boxers.

By this question, a soft whimpering comes over Jin's lips, with trembling hands he reachs back and placing each one on a butt cheek, pulling them slowly apart to give you the sight you desire for.

"Fuck, Jin Baby, that's so sexy. You're so, so damn sexy! Do you even know how all of this here is turning me on? God, you're killing me!", you groan and rubbing instantly harder over you clothed, rock hard dick.

A little smirk appeared on Jin's lips. When he's already killing you right know, how should you survive these other things that Jin planned for tonight...

"Honey, would you like it when I pull that plug out of me and gonna finger myself... w-while you can watch me?", Jin asks you sweetly with a slightly shaking voice. The thought alone let Jin's own erection twitch.

Oh fuck, Jin is going to be your death someday.

"Please, Baby... I would be so thankful when you allow me such a view. Letting me watch how you please yourself...", you answer in a breathy, hoarse voice and let your head fall back against the wall.

Closing your eyes for a moment, try to prepare yourself mentally for what coming next. This Show, Jin will give you, will be surely unbelievable sexy... but also an absolute torture for you.

You're usual the one with a leading hand in your relationship when it comes to bedroom stuff. But you have to admit, that you're not the most assertiv Top... and Jin knows way too well, where to find and to press your soft spots.

Sometimes it comes to the point that Jinnie is wrecking you more than you him! You think, that your Darling kinda loves the thought to make your knees weak instead of his. And to be honest... you loves it so fucking much, when your big shy bean find his self confidence again and tease the shit out of you, just saying, that he just wants to please you.

As you hear a soft whimper coming out of the speakers of you Laptop, you startle and your eyes snaps open immediatly. A little groan get out of you throat, that rises up from the deepest place of your chest. God, it shouldn't be allowed to be so fucking attractive, you think.

Jin pulled a latex glove of his right hand and is about to reach back to his most precious places, to grab the gemmed base of his plug. His left hand pull his buttcheek a little bit away to give you an amazing view of his action.

Your Boxer briefs has literally a tent at your crotch now and your cock twitch at the sight, is angrily fighting to be finally completely free. God, you're such a bastard for very detailed graphics... like the view Jinnie is giving you now.

You yank your Jeans and your Boxers with a curse down. Gripping your hard length and squeezes it with a firm grip, when you see Jin's rosy, seductively glistening muscle ring stretching open as your Boyfriend pulls the plug slowly out of himself.

He's panting fast when he let the plug fall on a towel beside him and his left hand leaves his butt. His upper body flops down onto the mattress and now, your Jinnie presents himself in the most erotic way you could imagine.

Ass up, sticking his butt out into the air and let you admire his sweet hole, slightly stretched my the plug, clenching around nothing in anticipation for the promised play session that will follow now.

Jin lets his lower body sink down as well, laying on his stomach and turning onto his right side. Allow you a little glance of Jin's adorably pink flushed cheeks and the red tips of his ears. This sight makes your heart and stomach flutter, blushy Jin while doing naughty stuff is just... hitting all of your soft spots in one tour.

He pulls his upper leg, his left leg up to his chest and positions himself comfortably, while he's pouring a good amount of lube onto his latex gloved fingers. Then he's reaching back again.

The pad of Jin's middle finger teases gently his entrance, his body is still moving until he founds a really comfortable position. After the tip of his finger disappeared in himself, the whole length of his finger sinks into his sweet hole as well. Let you watch, how he'll finger himself, enjoying himself, feeding his own desire, give him this desperately needed pleasure when you can't unfortunately. And fuck... that's so hot!

After he needs a short moment to adjust, he starts pumping his middle finger in and out. At first slowly, then faster and faster. Jin is getting even needier when the pleasure of his finger-play arise more and more. It didn't took long until he allows his ring finger to glide into his hot walls as well.

After a few thrusts of his hand, he begins to spread his two fingers apart, scissoring and stretching his sinful tight asshole open, let you watch the movements of his fingers very well.

You're gulping and breathing audibly out of your nose, a longing, slightly even desperate hum leaves your throat. You want to be at Jin's side, want to watch him in real.

You want to see, how he's stretching himself open for your cock, moaning and whimpering you name. You want to touch him. You want to grip his thigh and his left ass cheek firmly, give it a gentle slap and pull the soft flesh up to get a closer look.

Admiring how wonderful his fingers fucking himself, how rapidly he's slamming them into his hole, his noises getting even more whiny and desperate. His hips starts to circle, loud breathy and high pitched moans leaving his lips when his fingertips reaching for a second this sweet spot deep inside of him.

But just for a tiny moment, there is not enough stimulation for your needy Boy. Especially when he knows how good he could feel, when he remember the times when you teased his prostate.

Your thumb grazing again and again over your angry red, precum leaking crown, teasing yourself. The urge is enormous to just jack off in a brutal fast pace to finally satisfy the barely standable desire, that grows in your abdomen.

Your eyes don't leave the screen when you reach to your beside table and pull the first drawer open, searching uncoordinated with your hand in there. You curse under breath when you finally perceive the things you searched for, but can't grab them.

If you want or not, your eyes have to leave the erotic sight of Jin's figure for a moment, when you want to get your needed things out of the drawer.

You bend quickly over to the side, fishing the lube and your fleshlight out of your nightstand. You use this helpful toy when there is not enough friction to get you off or... when you're freaking horny... when you just want to fuck Jin right in that moment.

With it, you can better imagine how you'd be pounding into Jin, laying his legs over your shoulders and gripping his thighs. Let Jin whimper and beg until you allow him to touch his own cock to be finally able to cum. Imagine, how his hot walls gripping your cock tightly, literally squeezing and cock milking you until it's too much and you shoot you load of white, creamy cum deep inside of him.

Fuck, fuck, fuck! You need him so, so freaking bad right now, it drives you crazy!

When you turn back to your Laptop, Jin is panting heavingly and pulls his fingers out of himself right in that moment, throwing the used latex glove into the trash can next to his bed. Now you're the one who starts whining.

"Baby, why just stopped fingering yourself? Fuck, that was so damn hot and I love to see that, why-", you ask him, eyebrows pulled together in desperation and frustration.

Jin's body is trembling, he's panting fast and gasps for breath leaves his red swollen lips. He need a bit time to collect himself again and to be able to anwer you in a throaty voice.

"T-There is another surprise I prepared for you...", he's stuttering slightly and grab his laptop to place you with it in his desk. You're confused, again.

He goes back to his bed, step out of his pants completely now and pulling his green sweater over his head.

Now he's standing in his bare, naked full glory infront of the camera, let you gasp for breath. God, he's beautiful. His body reminds you always of these greek sculptures, his beauty is absolutely beyond all descriptions.

You can't describe him. You have to see him.

He grabs for the bottle of lube and lays it next to you, well, his laptop, on his desk. Without a word, you follow his actions, don't dare to say anything. Even when you two are not in the same room, there is a thick sexual tension between Jin and you through your laptops.

"Y/N... can you close your eyes for a moment? Until I say you can look again?", Jin says in a quiet voice. Looking at you through the camera in dark pupils full of lust and with pleading eyes, to just follow his appeal without asking.

Well, you wanted to protest but with this sight you close your mouth again and nod slightly, closing your eyes as well.

You hear some footsteps, something rumbles like he's moving something around. You knit confused and questioningly your eyebrows together, but you don't say anything. These noises disappears and silence returns to the speakers of your laptops. Just here and there you can hear some soft footsteps of Jin.

Suddenly, out of nowhere you can hear a long, broken moan of Jin that is followed by a soft, sweet "Oh my God, yes!" and a shaky, but so sensual hum that comes out of Jin's Chest.

"B-Baby... Y-You can open your eyes again..."

Even when you opened your eyes again, you can't believe them. That has to be a fucking dream, right?

You squint your eyes more than one time, your jaw dropped and you can't bring any proper sentences over your lips, starts babbling nonsense.

"O-Oh my holy fuck!... Jin, oh fuck... Fuck, fuck, fuck, you can't kill me like that! Y-You can't do this to me, I'll going completely crazy to see you like that... Fuck, Jin Baby, I want you so bad... Oh God, that's so sexy. You're so goddamn sexy."

Jin is sitting with the back to you on a chair with a flat seating surface, gripping moaning and whimpering the edge of the backrest tightly. Lifting himself slowly up and lower his body with the most delicious and tantalizing hip circles again.

Bouncing at first slow, then faster and faster on this transparent pink silicone dildo that is placed with a suction-pad on the seat.

Let you watch how good he can take this fake cock in his tight ass after he prepared himself with fingerfucking so well. How he lowers himself down, stuffing the dildo inch for inch into his stretched and needy hole, filling himself up with this silicone dick.

The way, how he's riding this dildo in front of the camera, so needy and desperate...

The way, how all these moans and whimpers flowing over his lips without any shame...

Let you guess, how much he needed you too, how bad he needed to get fucked by your cock again.

It shows you how much he's missing the sex with you.

You can't see his face, but the red tips of his ears. You don't know why, but it turns you so fucking much on, to see Jin's blushing face.

To see, how he's a little bit embarrassed for being so needy but at the same time he's riding this dildo so fucking desperate, can't stuff enough of this plastic cock into his greedy hole. Bouncing up and down on this dick, moaning your name like he's riding you in this moment, instead of this fake dick.

Let you see, how he would bouncing on you, how he would fucking you when you would be at his side.

And this... this so goddamn sexy that you have the feeling that you'll go insane by your desire for him.

"Jin, Baby... turn around. I want to see your face when you cum. I want to see your blushy face. Flushed red, caused by your embarrassment for doing filthy things in front of the camera, right?", you ask him breathless, a little teasing smirk.

Jin whine and when he hesitatingly turn around, you see that he got even redder. God, your precious baby is so shy doing dirty things with you... you love it!

While he's turning around and re-positioned himself above the dildo, you hastily prepare your rock hard cock and the fleshlight with lube. When Jin sinks down on that dildo, you enter with a deep groan the fleshlight.

The fleshlight is only a poor comfort when you know how tight and hot Jin's walls really are. But you see Jin with the same unsatiesfied desire when he's bouncing on that damn fake dick. Jin knows, how wonderful your cock, only your cock, stretch his ass in all perfect places open and filling him up to the maximum.

But still, it's definitely better than nothing! You'll go through this time together until you're finally able to lay in each others arms again.

You hear in Jin's whines and his needy face expression shows you that he gets closer and closer to the edge, but it's not enough to cum. He's about to wrap his hand around his hard, precum leaking dick, when you start lecturing him.

"Nuh, nuh, nuh! Baby, you know the rule, right? You're not going to touch your cock until I say so, is that clear? You know the reason? Hm?", you say in a harsh, dominant voice and raise an eyebrow.

Jin bite down on his plushy and swollen lip, try his best not to let a whine out. Jinnie's face full of desperation and sexual need is one of your favourite views... that's pure art.

"Y-Yes... I-I'm not allowed to touch myself until you're close too, so we can cum together...", he whimper with a broken voice.

"That's right, Darling... so please wait a little bit longer... for me, yeah?", you wisper in a gentle tone into the microphone of the laptop.

The longer Jin wasn't allowed to touch his dick, the more whinier he got, bouncing breathlessly up and down on his dildo. But exactly that turned you even more on and your hand, with which you hold the fleshlight moved even faster. So it doesn't took much time that you're on the cliff to cum too.

You enjoy how Jin looks at you since the last three minutes. So fucking desperate and needy, impatiently waiting at your sign that he's allowed to touch his cock and jack himself off.

A thin layer of sweat is covering his skin, his bangs sticks to his forehead, plush lips are red from chewing. His chest rises and falls quickly, Jin's breathing is fast. His fingers are clawed on the edges of the seat, his arms supporting him while riding the cute transparent, pastel pink silicone cock.

Your gaze move lower in his body, a satisfied smirk spread in your lips when you see his thick long cock twitching whenever he fills his ass with the dildo up to the base. The crown of his dick is red and precum is spread all over his stomach and the top of his thighs. His plump balls, completely full of delicous cum are shacked up to his body. They're just waiting for release and to be finally able to let the load shoot all over Jinnie's stomach and chest.

You love the sight. Even when you're not there, at the end you're still able to make a complete mess out of your sweet Boy.

Now, you think, he should be allowed to cum.

"Now, Baby...", you said with a teasing smirk and you're literally bathing in satisfaction when Jin gasps in relief and immediatley wrapping his hand into a fist around his cock. He just needed a few rubs until he cum with a high-pitched whine that sounds like a mixture of a moan and a sob. God, he's so messed up.

This sound alone let you blow your load into your fleshlight.

Jin's orgasm seems to be strong, the waves of pleasure leaves his body trembling and oversensitive. He flinch when he's about to get up from the dildo and takes it out of his super oversensitive hole.

God, he's so fucking beautiful when he's messed up.

"Baby, this was undescribable sexy... we should do it more often, definitely! Who know's when we're able to see each other in real life again? Hm, what do you think, Jinnie?"

Jin is gulping, his adams apple bobs in damn attractive way and then, he's nodding with bright red cheeks.

"Yes... please."

Okay, with this fanfic here I've fulfilled my educational responsibility as a fanfic writer!😂😅