#children drinking out of muddy puddles
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Anyone else going insane thinking about Palestine tonight or just me
#I am going insane dude#men with white flags being shot??#children drinking out of muddy puddles#??#women using tent scraps as pads??#people proudly protesting blocking aid trucks??#telling them to go to rafah and then bombing rafah?? during the Super Bowl??#i am losing my mind
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All in an hour
pairing: felix x reader
summary: A lot can happen in one hour...in other words during what's supposed to be a fun night with all of the others felix instead suffers through a night of desperation, need and finally, pleasure
warnings: dom reader, sub felix, voyeurism (pretty much all of the others watch as felix gets ruined), mommy kink (though the reader's gender is never mentioned) nipple play, biting, marking, humiliation, degradation (felix's called a slut like once or twice), possibly more that i forgot
word count: 1.8k
a/n: yes it's short, i'm working on the changbin fic rn so take what you can get!
A lot can happen in one hour.
In 60 minutes. 3600 seconds.
It's funny how when you break it down like that it seems smaller, more insignificant.
Or sometimes it's the opposite, when your eye is on the clock, counting down the seconds time seems to slow just for the fun of making one suffer.
Funny...
Funny how Felix has been sitting here for exactly that long. Three thousand, six hundred seconds. Each tortuous one feeling like an eternity.
He's experiencing the latter of the two. Watching the analog clock that sits on the side table by the tv. He swears it's broken, the seconds can't possibly be moving that slowly.
But they are.
And he's endured a whole sixty minutes of this insanity.
Of clenching his thighs together, trying to stave off the inevitability of his neediness. Especially in front of all the others.
And friday nights are usually his favourite of the week too.
Because it's the agreed upon day when they all get together, him and all his bandmates and sometimes you if you're off for the night.
The one night a week when they get together in one place, set aside work entirely and watch a movie, play games, eat junk food and be normal people for once, not perfect idols with unblemished skin and the vocabulary of puritans and priests.
Not worrying about their idol images and able to act as they are. Young people who if they weren't in the eye of the public would be in college, running around, experiencing the world of sex, drugs and whatever the hell they wanted.
And for one night, in the privacy of one of the three dorms or possibly your place they could do that. Be that.
But tonight he really can't help but want this to be over as soon as possible.
Really, truly, Felix doesn't want to be rude to any of his friends, the guests of the night but it is anything but his fault that your hand brushes over his inner thigh under the comfort of the blanket that covers the two of you, making him wanna kick them to the curb so that you can have a bit of privacy while he lets you have your way with him.
"Okay Hyunjin, truth or dare?"
And this annoying game, the one that Jisung is having way too much fun with, the lightweight he is, all giggly and fidgety as he points at Hyunjin, shouting as if they aren't sitting next to each other.
"Hmm, truth."
They all groan."Pussy!" Minho clears his throat, giving a good fake cough for measure.
Hyunjin glares but doesn't budge even when Han begs him to.
That's all he's picked all night and anything juicy has been extracted from the first few questions, leaving only the dry and boring yet strange ones that Han's drunk mind will come up with.
"Hmm, let's see,"
Felix nearly jumps out of him skin as you touch him again, a simple brush over his hips, it really should be nothing but he really can't help how sensitive they are and the sweat that begins to run down his temple only prove how easy it is to break his composure.
He zones out just in time to hear the question that Han comes up with.
"Would you rather eat an entire block of blue cheese in one sitting, or drink a whole glass of water from a rain puddle? That children have been jumping in, like all muddy and s..."
His voice tunes out, your hands sliding up and higher, twisting and playing with his already hard nipples. And he doesn't even care anymore. He's ready to kick all of these nerds out right here and now. Or, he's not even sure if he has enough energy to do that-at this point he's willing to let them watch.
Watch you make him cry and whimper and beg, play with his body and use it however you'd like.
He can imagine 50 different positions that you could fuck him in right now.
Missionary and mating press and doggy, you riding him, him riding you; him with his back against your chest just like this, legs spread wide open all on display fo-
"Oh~"
He gasps and you smile. "You have such pretty tits baby, just keep quiet and I'll keep playing with them."
You're practically all over him at this point, groping his tits with one hand, pinching at his swollen nubs, twisting them so hard he has to bite his lip to keep quiet. The other higher up, holding his throat in place as you pepper kisses all over his neck, nipping and licking, laving affection onto every freckle and spot with your tongue.
The blanket does almost nothing to hide your stolen touches. It's not hard to see the bump of your hand on his chest and paired with the fucked-out expression on his face and the fingers wrapped around his throat there's very little left for interpretation.
He can feel their eyes on him. Feel the attention he's gained and can't help the way he flushes under it.
His body burns under the weight of it. Humiliation searing through his body like liquid heat, his panting coming out heavier and more ragged.
No one talks anymore. The game seems to be over and even Han's drunk self has seemed to sober up with the show presented in front of him.
"Isn't he pretty?" You coo, nuzzling gently against his ear before nibbling at the lobe.
"So pretty," Felix isn't sure who said it, his head isn't working right, his vision is blurring and a pathetic whine slips out, shivering against you at the praise.
"Oh, he liked that." you laugh, an edge to your voice he's very sure is matched with a wicked grin even if he can't see you. "You like be called pretty by your friends? Like be watched while I touch you like this?"
He gasps like a fish out of water, nodding and squirming, goosebumps breaking out across his skin. You roll a nipple between your fingers again, pushing the blanket down and off onto the floor, forgotten before grabbing the hem of his shirt, pulling it up his chest. Plain instinct takes over as he opens his mouth wide, allowing you to press the fabric into between his lips-red and swollen from being bitten for the last hour.
Part of you is possessive. Part of you wants to keep this pretty, blushing, begging boy to yourself, away from the hungry eyes of the others. His whimpers to your ears only though that's unlikely wherever you are given how loud your baby is.
Instead though, all you can think of is the fact that he's all your's, only your's and you now get to prove that. Make him cum his brains out in front of all of his friends that you pretend not to see looking him with gazes lingering for too long. Force them to see what they will only ever see all while you can play and tease and deny and overstimulate him as much as you want. All while they have no choice but to watch.
"Mommy please, it feels-feels so good!" His hands grasp at yours, pawing at your fingers with no real intent, only clawing at your wrists like his body has no idea what else to do with itself.
He's always been particularly sensitive but it's only been increased by the tenfold now. He's sure he could come from this and this alone, From your fingers and your lips and the weight of hungry eyes devouring the scene in front of them.
"Please Mommy, please don’t stop." His hips buck up into nothing and you place a hand there, pinning his pelvis down with surprising strength.
“Baby," your tongue laves attention over his jawline, voice dropping low. "Putting on a show. You look like a slut.”
Others murmur agreement and his entire body burns in white-hot shame, unable to help the way his hips thrust, trying against you until you pinch his hip, hissing for him to behave.
He wants you to say it again. More than he should.
To his delight, you do.
"Presenting yourself to the entire room like a cheap slut." you say it nonchalantly, so much so that it makes him feel dizzy. "Moaning like a pornstar, look at you. Why, you're practically a natural." Pursing your lips and continuing on, tilting your head like you're telling him the news, how the weather is. Talking as if you're not degrading him within an inch of his life and he's not about to cum from the words alone.
Like it’s normal conversation.
Like this is a normal occurrence.
“Yes! I-I'm” The word crumbles on his lips, voice cracking into a high pitched mewl when your mouth slots against the hollow spot of his collarbone, tongue dipping in before you suck his warm skin. "I-" he gasps, "I can't."
Your mouth moves higher, right beneath his ear. "You will."
And then you bite him-hard.
Right on a pretty little freckle, teeth digging into his neck in a way that feels so inexplicably good that Felix keens.
Too much.
Back arching away from you, mouth falling open in a silent scream as his eyes flutter open and closed for a few seconds before rolling back completely.
Too good.
With the eyes on him. With your fingers rolling his nipples between your fingers. With your teeth sunk into his skin and the way your tongue laves attention around it, soothing the bite, warm and wet.
He's so fucking pretty, is all you can think, is all you're sure anyone can think.
Especially now, like this. All open and vulnerable like he's being presented. It's a wonder that your fingers haven't danced their way down to his sweatpants where an obvious bulge makes itself apparent.
The reality hits him as his head spins, his breath a heave.
He just came in front of all of his friends.
And an even harder truth hits him when he realizes just how much he wants you to do it again.
Of just how much he wants you to now overstimulate him to hell and back. In front of all of them.
--
my taglist is open here, @hobihearteu, @lemonhongjoong, @laylasbunbunny, @d7dream, @abcdefgiwsmcty, @missrobyn81, @maru-matt, @hahagay,
#dom reader#stray kids smut#stray kids#stray kids x reader#sub stray kids#sub skz#lee felix x reader#felix x reader#felix smut#sub felix#sub lee felix#lee felix smut#sub kpop#sub idol#sub!stray kids#sub!felix#sub!kpop#sub!idol#sub!lee felix
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Promptober: Day One
Eddie Munson x fem!reader
879 words.
Honestly, Eddie didn’t really know what to expect when you asked him to take you to Millbridge farm. Apparently there was a pumpkin patch there and all the kids were demanding they needed the biggest ones in order to win the carving contest.
Which Eddie thought was extremely bratty of them considering they all had school and were pestering you instead of Steve about it. But the other boy shrugged his shoulders and mumbled something about overtime and how Eddie’s van would fit more pumpkins in it than his car could.
And besides, Eddie had learned very, very quickly, that he couldn’t say no to you.
So there he was, on a cold Sunday morning, standing between pumpkins and looking very out of place amongst the families with their matching raincoats and children in strollers.
“Sweetheart, you’re gonna break your back,” Eddie grumbled, slopping through a muddy puddle in order to grab the too big pumpkin you were trying to wrestle from its roots.
It had been a game of chase from the start, Eddie following you around orchards and through vegetable patches as you excitedly buzzed through the farm, telling him that he needed to hurry or all the good ones would be gone.
The boy had rolled his eyes, not unkindly, but continued to mumble about kids and ‘why the fuck weren’t the little gremlins doing this themselves?’
“They’re all going to Lucas’ basketball game, be nice Eddie,” you’d replied.
He stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the crowd, his sneakers swapped for combat boots and a black hoodie underneath his leather jacket for a change. But apart from that, he was still very Eddie looking, just a little cosier.
You loved it.
And apparently he was rather taken with your autumn wardrobe too, his eyes fond as the too big bobble hat that Joyce had knitted you wobbled comically on top of your head. You were all soft sweaters and a scarf that was close to trailing in the mud and Eddie swore you now constantly smelled like cinnamon and sugar, a pleasant after effect from all the baking you were doing with El and Robin.
So he didn’t really mind when you piled his arms with pumpkins, some big, some adorably small, some fantastically orange and others in pretty shades of sage and cream. He didn’t really mind at all.
‘Cause after every time you settled another in the crook of his arms, you beamed at him, cheeks flushed, eyes bright and you waited patiently for him to stoop down to your height.
You gifted him a kiss, some on his cheek, one on his nose, and when he got really lucky, you’d glance around to make sure no one was staring before sliding your lips over his. You were soft and slow with it, your cold nose pressed to his rosy cheek, your gloved hands curled around the leather cuff of his jacket so you could hold him to you.
You kissed him until he was pink, the boy being more than pleased with your affection and suddenly Eddie didn’t have much to moan about anymore. You helped him back to the van with your haul, murmuring apologies when you saw the mud that littered the floor of the back cab, but Eddie waved you away with a dismissive hand.
“She’s seen worse than a little dirt, sweetheart, it’s okay.”
You promised him a treat for helping you, hiding your smile when the boy grinned roguishly at you in return. But he let you take his hand in your smaller one, let you pull him over to the small farm shop with its adjoining cafe.
You tried your damn hardest to pay when you both picked out a cake with a coffee each, the small hall smelling like apple pie, toffee and lattes. But Eddie made the cashier laugh by pulling you into his chest by the nape of your neck, crushing the money in your hand against his tummy and handing his own to the waiting lady.
She’d grinned, fussing over giving you both extra sugar and cream for your drinks, telling Eddie that he was ‘such a gentleman,’ and ‘aren’t you two the sweetest thing in here?’
Eddie was more than smug when he grinned down at you all pretty, head tilted and hair a little messy from the cold wind outside.
“Oh, we’re adorable alright,” he told you.
He smiled harder when you flushed, digging your fingers into his ribs not unkindly, just embarrassed by all the attention. He took your hand in one of his, holding the tray in the other as he led you to a quiet table by a fireplace.
Eddie split his brownie with you even though you protested and he happily bit a chunk out of your caramel tart when you offered it to him over the table. It was warm and sweet, like him, like the day had turned out to be.
You decided then that the boy was fall, he was warm colours, rich shades, sugar and spice and everything you wanted to wrap yourself up in. And when he took you home to his trailer, the day turning darker and gloomy, you tumbled into his bed with him and did just that.
#eddie munson#eddie munson x reader#eddie munson x you#eddie munson x y/n#eddie munson fluff#eddie munson blurb#eddie munson fic#eddie munson oneshot#eddie munson imagine#eddie munson fanfic#upsidedownwithsteve's promptober
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15:05 – London Low Line
The rain falls in thin, translucent sheets. The smell of a Quarter Pounder, of sesame oil and tallow, is transported down the street in brown paper bags. The air is fat with the image of patties on a hot plate and the primitive urge to turn into the warm, yellow outlet. At the restaurant front, a young girl sits beside a life-sized doll, still boxed. Both don pigtails. She feeds the doll and then herself. The McDonald’s arches flash reflections about the wet – dictated by the light and movement in the street. Once in a puddle, flash, then in the book shop window, flash, superimposed over the upper deck of the 188. The yellow arches zoetrope over an approaching taxi, the opening door.
15:14
Like pound coins, the discard of bottle caps shine amongst the shrubbery bed of a five-story estate. The hinge along a corridor of bin storage doors swings open – Number 13, a single mottled mattress, a nest of coats. A man saunters out between cars, yelling a corridor of expletives. His teeth jar like a series of muddied castle battlements.
15:16
Cross Bones Graveyard, a post-medieval burial ground on Redcross Way. The gate is weighted with weather-worn trinkets, ribbons, and bug-eyed soft toys. The shrine lies a mile from the Shard – its needlepoint obscured in cloud. The bodies of 15,000 prostitutes, paupers, single mothers, suicides, and lost children lie beneath the cement. Denied a Christian burial, the outcasts were piled upon a former plague pit.
15:17
“Individual 99”
This is a replica of a 16-year-old girl’s skull. It was the 99th skeleton found at Crossbones. The hole in her skull was caused by third stage syphilis. Third stage syphilis only occurs after 8-10 years of continually sexually contracting syphilis.
The bronze-cast skull shows an opening as large as my hand. The eye sockets collect with rain.
The quiet corners sit with cross-legged plastic skeletons, pallid-faced Marys praying, fake flowers burying themselves in the earth. A rusted studded wristband lies amongst the coppers of funeral garb. A browned pipe leans against a flock of china geese. The ‘Winchester Geese’, the derisive name given to the brothel (stew) workers, were licensed, and taxed under the Bishop’s religious ordinance. Geese – birds that flaunt their white chests to mate.
15:22
A CCTV camera surveilles the dead. Above an electricity cable box, a sign warns: DANGER OF DEATH. Below, a small man victim to a large lighting bolt.
15:25
And well we know, how the carrion crow doth feast in our Cross Bones Graveyard – John Constable, 23 November 1996
15:27
Borough Market: £15.50 Wild Mushroom risotto is slopped into warm styrofoam. The olfactory of rosemary, wet deodorant, and rubber. Mushrooms grow from fungal spores that thrive in damp, dark conditions. They require a medium that is high in decaying matter.
15:31
Turning left, a crowd of college students bid on another good night. The women preen in the window of an off-licence. The acrylic signage promises Ting drink in unfamiliar flavours. A bus surges water atop the pavement and the group move on.
15:34
With the wind, the purple flower spike of a Buddleia pokes to and fro between the window of a hollowed house-front. It gingerly crawls back through the window frame like fingers. The hardy plant has been recognised as London’s symbolic shrub. It was the first plant to grow amongst bombsites after The Blitz. A Rumour: Romans brought it to England from the Himilayas in their sandals.
#writing excercise#creative writing#creativewriting#creative#writing#writing community#writblr#writers block#writes#writers and poets#poetics#poet#prose poetry#poets#poetry on tumblr#poem#poetry
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Book the First—Recalled to Life
[X] Chapter V. The Wine-shop
A large cask of wine had been dropped and broken, in the street. The accident had happened in getting it out of a cart; the cask had tumbled out with a run, the hoops had burst, and it lay on the stones just outside the door of the wine-shop, shattered like a walnut-shell.
All the people within reach had suspended their business, or their idleness, to run to the spot and drink the wine. The rough, irregular stones of the street, pointing every way, and designed, one might have thought, expressly to lame all living creatures that approached them, had dammed it into little pools; these were surrounded, each by its own jostling group or crowd, according to its size. Some men kneeled down, made scoops of their two hands joined, and sipped, or tried to help women, who bent over their shoulders, to sip, before the wine had all run out between their fingers. Others, men and women, dipped in the puddles with little mugs of mutilated earthenware, or even with handkerchiefs from women’s heads, which were squeezed dry into infants’ mouths; others made small mud-embankments, to stem the wine as it ran; others, directed by lookers-on up at high windows, darted here and there, to cut off little streams of wine that started away in new directions; others devoted themselves to the sodden and lee-dyed pieces of the cask, licking, and even champing the moister wine-rotted fragments with eager relish. There was no drainage to carry off the wine, and not only did it all get taken up, but so much mud got taken up along with it, that there might have been a scavenger in the street, if anybody acquainted with it could have believed in such a miraculous presence.
A shrill sound of laughter and of amused voices—voices of men, women, and children—resounded in the street while this wine game lasted. There was little roughness in the sport, and much playfulness. There was a special companionship in it, an observable inclination on the part of every one to join some other one, which led, especially among the luckier or lighter-hearted, to frolicsome embraces, drinking of healths, shaking of hands, and even joining of hands and dancing, a dozen together. When the wine was gone, and the places where it had been most abundant were raked into a gridiron-pattern by fingers, these demonstrations ceased, as suddenly as they had broken out. The man who had left his saw sticking in the firewood he was cutting, set it in motion again; the women who had left on a door-step the little pot of hot ashes, at which she had been trying to soften the pain in her own starved fingers and toes, or in those of her child, returned to it; men with bare arms, matted locks, and cadaverous faces, who had emerged into the winter light from cellars, moved away, to descend again; and a gloom gathered on the scene that appeared more natural to it than sunshine.
The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground of the narrow street in the suburb of Saint Antoine, in Paris, where it was spilled. It had stained many hands, too, and many faces, and many naked feet, and many wooden shoes. The hands of the man who sawed the wood, left red marks on the billets; and the forehead of the woman who nursed her baby, was stained with the stain of the old rag she wound about her head again. Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask, had acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth; and one tall joker so besmirched, his head more out of a long squalid bag of a nightcap than in it, scrawled upon a wall with his finger dipped in muddy wine-lees—blood.
The time was to come, when that wine too would be spilled on the street-stones, and when the stain of it would be red upon many there.
And now that the cloud settled on Saint Antoine, which a momentary gleam had driven from his sacred countenance, the darkness of it was heavy—cold, dirt, sickness, ignorance, and want, were the lords in waiting on the saintly presence—nobles of great power all of them; but, most especially the last. Samples of a people that had undergone a terrible grinding and regrinding in the mill, and certainly not in the fabulous mill which ground old people young, shivered at every corner, passed in and out at every doorway, looked from every window, fluttered in every vestige of a garment that the wind shook. The mill which had worked them down, was the mill that grinds young people old; the children had ancient faces and grave voices; and upon them, and upon the grown faces, and ploughed into every furrow of age and coming up afresh, was the sigh, Hunger. It was prevalent everywhere. Hunger was pushed out of the tall houses, in the wretched clothing that hung upon poles and lines; Hunger was patched into them with straw and rag and wood and paper; Hunger was repeated in every fragment of the small modicum of firewood that the man sawed off; Hunger stared down from the smokeless chimneys, and started up from the filthy street that had no offal, among its refuse, of anything to eat. Hunger was the inscription on the baker’s shelves, written in every small loaf of his scanty stock of bad bread; at the sausage-shop, in every dead-dog preparation that was offered for sale. Hunger rattled its dry bones among the roasting chestnuts in the turned cylinder; Hunger was shred into atomics in every farthing porringer of husky chips of potato, fried with some reluctant drops of oil.
Its abiding place was in all things fitted to it. A narrow winding street, full of offence and stench, with other narrow winding streets diverging, all peopled by rags and nightcaps, and all smelling of rags and nightcaps, and all visible things with a brooding look upon them that looked ill. In the hunted air of the people there was yet some wild-beast thought of the possibility of turning at bay. Depressed and slinking though they were, eyes of fire were not wanting among them; nor compressed lips, white with what they suppressed; nor foreheads knitted into the likeness of the gallows-rope they mused about enduring, or inflicting. The trade signs (and they were almost as many as the shops) were, all, grim illustrations of Want. The butcher and the porkman painted up, only the leanest scrags of meat; the baker, the coarsest of meagre loaves. The people rudely pictured as drinking in the wine-shops, croaked over their scanty measures of thin wine and beer, and were gloweringly confidential together. Nothing was represented in a flourishing condition, save tools and weapons; but, the cutler’s knives and axes were sharp and bright, the smith’s hammers were heavy, and the gunmaker’s stock was murderous. The crippling stones of the pavement, with their many little reservoirs of mud and water, had no footways, but broke off abruptly at the doors. The kennel, to make amends, ran down the middle of the street—when it ran at all: which was only after heavy rains, and then it ran, by many eccentric fits, into the houses. Across the streets, at wide intervals, one clumsy lamp was slung by a rope and pulley; at night, when the lamplighter had let these down, and lighted, and hoisted them again, a feeble grove of dim wicks swung in a sickly manner overhead, as if they were at sea. Indeed they were at sea, and the ship and crew were in peril of tempest.
For, the time was to come, when the gaunt scarecrows of that region should have watched the lamplighter, in their idleness and hunger, so long, as to conceive the idea of improving on his method, and hauling up men by those ropes and pulleys, to flare upon the darkness of their condition. But, the time was not come yet; and every wind that blew over France shook the rags of the scarecrows in vain, for the birds, fine of song and feather, took no warning.
The wine-shop was a corner shop, better than most others in its appearance and degree, and the master of the wine-shop had stood outside it, in a yellow waistcoat and green breeches, looking on at the struggle for the lost wine. “It’s not my affair,” said he, with a final shrug of the shoulders. “The people from the market did it. Let them bring another.”
There, his eyes happening to catch the tall joker writing up his joke, he called to him across the way:
“Say, then, my Gaspard, what do you do there?”
The fellow pointed to his joke with immense significance, as is often the way with his tribe. It missed its mark, and completely failed, as is often the way with his tribe too.
“What now? Are you a subject for the mad hospital?” said the wine-shop keeper, crossing the road, and obliterating the jest with a handful of mud, picked up for the purpose, and smeared over it. “Why do you write in the public streets? Is there—tell me thou—is there no other place to write such words in?”
In his expostulation he dropped his cleaner hand (perhaps accidentally, perhaps not) upon the joker’s heart. The joker rapped it with his own, took a nimble spring upward, and came down in a fantastic dancing attitude, with one of his stained shoes jerked off his foot into his hand, and held out. A joker of an extremely, not to say wolfishly practical character, he looked, under those circumstances.
“Put it on, put it on,” said the other. “Call wine, wine; and finish there.” With that advice, he wiped his soiled hand upon the joker’s dress, such as it was—quite deliberately, as having dirtied the hand on his account; and then recrossed the road and entered the wine-shop.
This wine-shop keeper was a bull-necked, martial-looking man of thirty, and he should have been of a hot temperament, for, although it was a bitter day, he wore no coat, but carried one slung over his shoulder. His shirt-sleeves were rolled up, too, and his brown arms were bare to the elbows. Neither did he wear anything more on his head than his own crisply-curling short dark hair. He was a dark man altogether, with good eyes and a good bold breadth between them. Good-humoured looking on the whole, but implacable-looking, too; evidently a man of a strong resolution and a set purpose; a man not desirable to be met, rushing down a narrow pass with a gulf on either side, for nothing would turn the man.
Madame Defarge, his wife, sat in the shop behind the counter as he came in. Madame Defarge was a stout woman of about his own age, with a watchful eye that seldom seemed to look at anything, a large hand heavily ringed, a steady face, strong features, and great composure of manner. There was a character about Madame Defarge, from which one might have predicated that she did not often make mistakes against herself in any of the reckonings over which she presided. Madame Defarge being sensitive to cold, was wrapped in fur, and had a quantity of bright shawl twined about her head, though not to the concealment of her large earrings. Her knitting was before her, but she had laid it down to pick her teeth with a toothpick. Thus engaged, with her right elbow supported by her left hand, Madame Defarge said nothing when her lord came in, but coughed just one grain of cough. This, in combination with the lifting of her darkly defined eyebrows over her toothpick by the breadth of a line, suggested to her husband that he would do well to look round the shop among the customers, for any new customer who had dropped in while he stepped over the way.
The wine-shop keeper accordingly rolled his eyes about, until they rested upon an elderly gentleman and a young lady, who were seated in a corner. Other company were there: two playing cards, two playing dominoes, three standing by the counter lengthening out a short supply of wine. As he passed behind the counter, he took notice that the elderly gentleman said in a look to the young lady, “This is our man.”
“What the devil do you do in that galley there?” said Monsieur Defarge to himself; “I don’t know you.”
But, he feigned not to notice the two strangers, and fell into discourse with the triumvirate of customers who were drinking at the counter.
“How goes it, Jacques?” said one of these three to Monsieur Defarge. “Is all the spilt wine swallowed?”
“Every drop, Jacques,” answered Monsieur Defarge.
When this interchange of Christian name was effected, Madame Defarge, picking her teeth with her toothpick, coughed another grain of cough, and raised her eyebrows by the breadth of another line.
“It is not often,” said the second of the three, addressing Monsieur Defarge, “that many of these miserable beasts know the taste of wine, or of anything but black bread and death. Is it not so, Jacques?”
“It is so, Jacques,” Monsieur Defarge returned.
At this second interchange of the Christian name, Madame Defarge, still using her toothpick with profound composure, coughed another grain of cough, and raised her eyebrows by the breadth of another line.
The last of the three now said his say, as he put down his empty drinking vessel and smacked his lips.
“Ah! So much the worse! A bitter taste it is that such poor cattle always have in their mouths, and hard lives they live, Jacques. Am I right, Jacques?”
“You are right, Jacques,” was the response of Monsieur Defarge.
This third interchange of the Christian name was completed at the moment when Madame Defarge put her toothpick by, kept her eyebrows up, and slightly rustled in her seat.
“Hold then! True!” muttered her husband. “Gentlemen—my wife!”
The three customers pulled off their hats to Madame Defarge, with three flourishes. She acknowledged their homage by bending her head, and giving them a quick look. Then she glanced in a casual manner round the wine-shop, took up her knitting with great apparent calmness and repose of spirit, and became absorbed in it.
“Gentlemen,” said her husband, who had kept his bright eye observantly upon her, “good day. The chamber, furnished bachelor-fashion, that you wished to see, and were inquiring for when I stepped out, is on the fifth floor. The doorway of the staircase gives on the little courtyard close to the left here,” pointing with his hand, “near to the window of my establishment. But, now that I remember, one of you has already been there, and can show the way. Gentlemen, adieu!”
They paid for their wine, and left the place. The eyes of Monsieur Defarge were studying his wife at her knitting when the elderly gentleman advanced from his corner, and begged the favour of a word.
“Willingly, sir,” said Monsieur Defarge, and quietly stepped with him to the door.
Their conference was very short, but very decided. Almost at the first word, Monsieur Defarge started and became deeply attentive. It had not lasted a minute, when he nodded and went out. The gentleman then beckoned to the young lady, and they, too, went out. Madame Defarge knitted with nimble fingers and steady eyebrows, and saw nothing.
Mr. Jarvis Lorry and Miss Manette, emerging from the wine-shop thus, joined Monsieur Defarge in the doorway to which he had directed his own company just before. It opened from a stinking little black courtyard, and was the general public entrance to a great pile of houses, inhabited by a great number of people. In the gloomy tile-paved entry to the gloomy tile-paved staircase, Monsieur Defarge bent down on one knee to the child of his old master, and put her hand to his lips. It was a gentle action, but not at all gently done; a very remarkable transformation had come over him in a few seconds. He had no good-humour in his face, nor any openness of aspect left, but had become a secret, angry, dangerous man.
“It is very high; it is a little difficult. Better to begin slowly.” Thus, Monsieur Defarge, in a stern voice, to Mr. Lorry, as they began ascending the stairs.
“Is he alone?” the latter whispered.
“Alone! God help him, who should be with him!” said the other, in the same low voice.
“Is he always alone, then?”
“Yes.”
“Of his own desire?”
“Of his own necessity. As he was, when I first saw him after they found me and demanded to know if I would take him, and, at my peril be discreet—as he was then, so he is now.”
“He is greatly changed?”
“Changed!”
The keeper of the wine-shop stopped to strike the wall with his hand, and mutter a tremendous curse. No direct answer could have been half so forcible. Mr. Lorry’s spirits grew heavier and heavier, as he and his two companions ascended higher and higher.
Such a staircase, with its accessories, in the older and more crowded parts of Paris, would be bad enough now; but, at that time, it was vile indeed to unaccustomed and unhardened senses. Every little habitation within the great foul nest of one high building—that is to say, the room or rooms within every door that opened on the general staircase—left its own heap of refuse on its own landing, besides flinging other refuse from its own windows. The uncontrollable and hopeless mass of decomposition so engendered, would have polluted the air, even if poverty and deprivation had not loaded it with their intangible impurities; the two bad sources combined made it almost insupportable. Through such an atmosphere, by a steep dark shaft of dirt and poison, the way lay. Yielding to his own disturbance of mind, and to his young companion’s agitation, which became greater every instant, Mr. Jarvis Lorry twice stopped to rest. Each of these stoppages was made at a doleful grating, by which any languishing good airs that were left uncorrupted, seemed to escape, and all spoilt and sickly vapours seemed to crawl in. Through the rusted bars, tastes, rather than glimpses, were caught of the jumbled neighbourhood; and nothing within range, nearer or lower than the summits of the two great towers of Notre-Dame, had any promise on it of healthy life or wholesome aspirations.
At last, the top of the staircase was gained, and they stopped for the third time. There was yet an upper staircase, of a steeper inclination and of contracted dimensions, to be ascended, before the garret story was reached. The keeper of the wine-shop, always going a little in advance, and always going on the side which Mr. Lorry took, as though he dreaded to be asked any question by the young lady, turned himself about here, and, carefully feeling in the pockets of the coat he carried over his shoulder, took out a key.
“The door is locked then, my friend?” said Mr. Lorry, surprised.
“Ay. Yes,” was the grim reply of Monsieur Defarge.
“You think it necessary to keep the unfortunate gentleman so retired?”
“I think it necessary to turn the key.” Monsieur Defarge whispered it closer in his ear, and frowned heavily.
“Why?”
“Why! Because he has lived so long, locked up, that he would be frightened—rave—tear himself to pieces—die—come to I know not what harm—if his door was left open.”
“Is it possible!” exclaimed Mr. Lorry.
“Is it possible!” repeated Defarge, bitterly. “Yes. And a beautiful world we live in, when it is possible, and when many other such things are possible, and not only possible, but done—done, see you!—under that sky there, every day. Long live the Devil. Let us go on.”
This dialogue had been held in so very low a whisper, that not a word of it had reached the young lady’s ears. But, by this time she trembled under such strong emotion, and her face expressed such deep anxiety, and, above all, such dread and terror, that Mr. Lorry felt it incumbent on him to speak a word or two of reassurance.
“Courage, dear miss! Courage! Business! The worst will be over in a moment; it is but passing the room-door, and the worst is over. Then, all the good you bring to him, all the relief, all the happiness you bring to him, begin. Let our good friend here, assist you on that side. That’s well, friend Defarge. Come, now. Business, business!”
They went up slowly and softly. The staircase was short, and they were soon at the top. There, as it had an abrupt turn in it, they came all at once in sight of three men, whose heads were bent down close together at the side of a door, and who were intently looking into the room to which the door belonged, through some chinks or holes in the wall. On hearing footsteps close at hand, these three turned, and rose, and showed themselves to be the three of one name who had been drinking in the wine-shop.
“I forgot them in the surprise of your visit,” explained Monsieur Defarge. “Leave us, good boys; we have business here.”
The three glided by, and went silently down.
There appearing to be no other door on that floor, and the keeper of the wine-shop going straight to this one when they were left alone, Mr. Lorry asked him in a whisper, with a little anger:
“Do you make a show of Monsieur Manette?”
“I show him, in the way you have seen, to a chosen few.”
“Is that well?”
“I think it is well.”
“Who are the few? How do you choose them?”
“I choose them as real men, of my name—Jacques is my name—to whom the sight is likely to do good. Enough; you are English; that is another thing. Stay there, if you please, a little moment.”
With an admonitory gesture to keep them back, he stooped, and looked in through the crevice in the wall. Soon raising his head again, he struck twice or thrice upon the door—evidently with no other object than to make a noise there. With the same intention, he drew the key across it, three or four times, before he put it clumsily into the lock, and turned it as heavily as he could.
The door slowly opened inward under his hand, and he looked into the room and said something. A faint voice answered something. Little more than a single syllable could have been spoken on either side.
He looked back over his shoulder, and beckoned them to enter. Mr. Lorry got his arm securely round the daughter’s waist, and held her; for he felt that she was sinking.
“A-a-a-business, business!” he urged, with a moisture that was not of business shining on his cheek. “Come in, come in!”
“I am afraid of it,” she answered, shuddering.
“Of it? What?”
“I mean of him. Of my father.”
Rendered in a manner desperate, by her state and by the beckoning of their conductor, he drew over his neck the arm that shook upon his shoulder, lifted her a little, and hurried her into the room. He sat her down just within the door, and held her, clinging to him.
Defarge drew out the key, closed the door, locked it on the inside, took out the key again, and held it in his hand. All this he did, methodically, and with as loud and harsh an accompaniment of noise as he could make. Finally, he walked across the room with a measured tread to where the window was. He stopped there, and faced round.
The garret, built to be a depository for firewood and the like, was dim and dark: for, the window of dormer shape, was in truth a door in the roof, with a little crane over it for the hoisting up of stores from the street: unglazed, and closing up the middle in two pieces, like any other door of French construction. To exclude the cold, one half of this door was fast closed, and the other was opened but a very little way. Such a scanty portion of light was admitted through these means, that it was difficult, on first coming in, to see anything; and long habit alone could have slowly formed in any one, the ability to do any work requiring nicety in such obscurity. Yet, work of that kind was being done in the garret; for, with his back towards the door, and his face towards the window where the keeper of the wine-shop stood looking at him, a white-haired man sat on a low bench, stooping forward and very busy, making shoes.
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Reflection 2 - Scott Harrison's Personal Story
Scott’s story is unbelievable. It is always incredibly inspiring seeing stories such as these, where one person’s kindness seems to have an infectious effect and is able to spark a truly global movement. The scenes near the beginning of the video, where children are drinking handfuls of muddy, bug-ridden water out of puddles and streams is heartbreaking, and seeing the smiles and joy on their faces after seeing clean water wells installed in their villages was incredible. This was not even Scott’s original plan to help those in need, it came about while helping those on board a hospital ship in Liberia, and just goes to show that if you see a problem, there is a way to help.
When Scott explained Rachel’s story I could not stop tears from running down my face. To be that young and that selfless is heartwarming, and seeing the gift that she was taken from everyone’s lives so young was awful. Yet, seeing that her legacy and impact continued to grow after her passing was amazing.
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A Tale of Twwo Cities - Book 1: Part 5
In 45 parts.
The Wine Shop
CHAPTER V.
The Wine-shop
Alarge cask of wine had been dropped and broken, in the street. The accident had happened in getting it out of a cart; the cask had tumbled out with a run, the hoops had burst, and it lay on the stones just outside the door of the wine-shop, shattered like a walnut-shell.
All the people within reach had suspended their business, or their idleness, to run to the spot and drink the wine. The rough, irregular stones of the street, pointing every way, and designed, one might have thought, expressly to lame all living creatures that approached them, had dammed it into little pools; these were surrounded, each by its own jostling group or crowd, according to its size. Some men kneeled down, made scoops of their two hands joined, and sipped, or tried to help women, who bent over their shoulders, to sip, before the wine had all run out between their fingers. Others, men and women, dipped in the puddles with little mugs of mutilated earthenware, or even with handkerchiefs from women’s heads, which were squeezed dry into infants’ mouths; others made small mud-embankments, to stem the wine as it ran; others, directed by lookers-on up at high windows, darted here and there, to cut off little streams of wine that started away in new directions; others devoted themselves to the sodden and lee-dyed pieces of the cask, licking, and even champing the moister wine-rotted fragments with eager relish. There was no drainage to carry off the wine, and not only did it all get taken up, but so much mud got taken up along with it, that there might have been a scavenger in the street, if anybody acquainted with it could have believed in such a miraculous presence.
A shrill sound of laughter and of amused voices—voices of men, women, and children—resounded in the street while this wine game lasted. There was little roughness in the sport, and much playfulness. There was a special companionship in it, an observable inclination on the part of every one to join some other one, which led, especially among the luckier or lighter-hearted, to frolicsome embraces, drinking of healths, shaking of hands, and even joining of hands and dancing, a dozen together. When the wine was gone, and the places where it had been most abundant were raked into a gridiron-pattern by fingers, these demonstrations ceased, as suddenly as they had broken out. The man who had left his saw sticking in the firewood he was cutting, set it in motion again; the women who had left on a door-step the little pot of hot ashes, at which she had been trying to soften the pain in her own starved fingers and toes, or in those of her child, returned to it; men with bare arms, matted locks, and cadaverous faces, who had emerged into the winter light from cellars, moved away, to descend again; and a gloom gathered on the scene that appeared more natural to it than sunshine.
The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground of the narrow street in the suburb of Saint Antoine, in Paris, where it was spilled. It had stained many hands, too, and many faces, and many naked feet, and many wooden shoes. The hands of the man who sawed the wood, left red marks on the billets; and the forehead of the woman who nursed her baby, was stained with the stain of the old rag she wound about her head again. Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask, had acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth; and one tall joker so besmirched, his head more out of a long squalid bag of a nightcap than in it, scrawled upon a wall with his finger dipped in muddy wine-lees—blood.
The time was to come, when that wine too would be spilled on the street-stones, and when the stain of it would be red upon many there.
And now that the cloud settled on Saint Antoine, which a momentary gleam had driven from his sacred countenance, the darkness of it was heavy—cold, dirt, sickness, ignorance, and want, were the lords in waiting on the saintly presence—nobles of great power all of them; but, most especially the last. Samples of a people that had undergone a terrible grinding and regrinding in the mill, and certainly not in the fabulous mill which ground old people young, shivered at every corner, passed in and out at every doorway, looked from every window, fluttered in every vestige of a garment that the wind shook. The mill which had worked them down, was the mill that grinds young people old; the children had ancient faces and grave voices; and upon them, and upon the grown faces, and ploughed into every furrow of age and coming up afresh, was the sigh, Hunger. It was prevalent everywhere. Hunger was pushed out of the tall houses, in the wretched clothing that hung upon poles and lines; Hunger was patched into them with straw and rag and wood and paper; Hunger was repeated in every fragment of the small modicum of firewood that the man sawed off; Hunger stared down from the smokeless chimneys, and started up from the filthy street that had no offal, among its refuse, of anything to eat. Hunger was the inscription on the baker’s shelves, written in every small loaf of his scanty stock of bad bread; at the sausage-shop, in every dead-dog preparation that was offered for sale. Hunger rattled its dry bones among the roasting chestnuts in the turned cylinder; Hunger was shred into atomics in every farthing porringer of husky chips of potato, fried with some reluctant drops of oil.
Its abiding place was in all things fitted to it. A narrow winding street, full of offence and stench, with other narrow winding streets diverging, all peopled by rags and nightcaps, and all smelling of rags and nightcaps, and all visible things with a brooding look upon them that looked ill. In the hunted air of the people there was yet some wild-beast thought of the possibility of turning at bay. Depressed and slinking though they were, eyes of fire were not wanting among them; nor compressed lips, white with what they suppressed; nor foreheads knitted into the likeness of the gallows-rope they mused about enduring, or inflicting. The trade signs (and they were almost as many as the shops) were, all, grim illustrations of Want. The butcher and the porkman painted up, only the leanest scrags of meat; the baker, the coarsest of meagre loaves. The people rudely pictured as drinking in the wine-shops, croaked over their scanty measures of thin wine and beer, and were gloweringly confidential together. Nothing was represented in a flourishing condition, save tools and weapons; but, the cutler’s knives and axes were sharp and bright, the smith’s hammers were heavy, and the gunmaker’s stock was murderous. The crippling stones of the pavement, with their many little reservoirs of mud and water, had no footways, but broke off abruptly at the doors. The kennel, to make amends, ran down the middle of the street—when it ran at all: which was only after heavy rains, and then it ran, by many eccentric fits, into the houses. Across the streets, at wide intervals, one clumsy lamp was slung by a rope and pulley; at night, when the lamplighter had let these down, and lighted, and hoisted them again, a feeble grove of dim wicks swung in a sickly manner overhead, as if they were at sea. Indeed they were at sea, and the ship and crew were in peril of tempest.
For, the time was to come, when the gaunt scarecrows of that region should have watched the lamplighter, in their idleness and hunger, so long, as to conceive the idea of improving on his method, and hauling up men by those ropes and pulleys, to flare upon the darkness of their condition. But, the time was not come yet; and every wind that blew over France shook the rags of the scarecrows in vain, for the birds, fine of song and feather, took no warning.
The wine-shop was a corner shop, better than most others in its appearance and degree, and the master of the wine-shop had stood outside it, in a yellow waistcoat and green breeches, looking on at the struggle for the lost wine. “It’s not my affair,” said he, with a final shrug of the shoulders. “The people from the market did it. Let them bring another.”
There, his eyes happening to catch the tall joker writing up his joke, he called to him across the way:
“Say, then, my Gaspard, what do you do there?”
The fellow pointed to his joke with immense significance, as is often the way with his tribe. It missed its mark, and completely failed, as is often the way with his tribe too.
“What now? Are you a subject for the mad hospital?” said the wine-shop keeper, crossing the road, and obliterating the jest with a handful of mud, picked up for the purpose, and smeared over it. “Why do you write in the public streets? Is there—tell me thou—is there no other place to write such words in?”
In his expostulation he dropped his cleaner hand (perhaps accidentally, perhaps not) upon the joker’s heart. The joker rapped it with his own, took a nimble spring upward, and came down in a fantastic dancing attitude, with one of his stained shoes jerked off his foot into his hand, and held out. A joker of an extremely, not to say wolfishly practical character, he looked, under those circumstances.
“Put it on, put it on,” said the other. “Call wine, wine; and finish there.” With that advice, he wiped his soiled hand upon the joker’s dress, such as it was—quite deliberately, as having dirtied the hand on his account; and then recrossed the road and entered the wine-shop.
This wine-shop keeper was a bull-necked, martial-looking man of thirty, and he should have been of a hot temperament, for, although it was a bitter day, he wore no coat, but carried one slung over his shoulder. His shirt-sleeves were rolled up, too, and his brown arms were bare to the elbows. Neither did he wear anything more on his head than his own crisply-curling short dark hair. He was a dark man altogether, with good eyes and a good bold breadth between them. Good-humoured looking on the whole, but implacable-looking, too; evidently a man of a strong resolution and a set purpose; a man not desirable to be met, rushing down a narrow pass with a gulf on either side, for nothing would turn the man.
Madame Defarge, his wife, sat in the shop behind the counter as he came in. Madame Defarge was a stout woman of about his own age, with a watchful eye that seldom seemed to look at anything, a large hand heavily ringed, a steady face, strong features, and great composure of manner. There was a character about Madame Defarge, from which one might have predicated that she did not often make mistakes against herself in any of the reckonings over which she presided. Madame Defarge being sensitive to cold, was wrapped in fur, and had a quantity of bright shawl twined about her head, though not to the concealment of her large earrings. Her knitting was before her, but she had laid it down to pick her teeth with a toothpick. Thus engaged, with her right elbow supported by her left hand, Madame Defarge said nothing when her lord came in, but coughed just one grain of cough. This, in combination with the lifting of her darkly defined eyebrows over her toothpick by the breadth of a line, suggested to her husband that he would do well to look round the shop among the customers, for any new customer who had dropped in while he stepped over the way.
The wine-shop keeper accordingly rolled his eyes about, until they rested upon an elderly gentleman and a young lady, who were seated in a corner. Other company were there: two playing cards, two playing dominoes, three standing by the counter lengthening out a short supply of wine. As he passed behind the counter, he took notice that the elderly gentleman said in a look to the young lady, “This is our man.”
“What the devil do you do in that galley there?” said Monsieur Defarge to himself; “I don’t know you.”
But, he feigned not to notice the two strangers, and fell into discourse with the triumvirate of customers who were drinking at the counter.
“How goes it, Jacques?” said one of these three to Monsieur Defarge. “Is all the spilt wine swallowed?”
“Every drop, Jacques,” answered Monsieur Defarge.
When this interchange of Christian name was effected, Madame Defarge, picking her teeth with her toothpick, coughed another grain of cough, and raised her eyebrows by the breadth of another line.
“It is not often,” said the second of the three, addressing Monsieur Defarge, “that many of these miserable beasts know the taste of wine, or of anything but black bread and death. Is it not so, Jacques?”
“It is so, Jacques,” Monsieur Defarge returned.
At this second interchange of the Christian name, Madame Defarge, still using her toothpick with profound composure, coughed another grain of cough, and raised her eyebrows by the breadth of another line.
The last of the three now said his say, as he put down his empty drinking vessel and smacked his lips.
“Ah! So much the worse! A bitter taste it is that such poor cattle always have in their mouths, and hard lives they live, Jacques. Am I right, Jacques?”
“You are right, Jacques,” was the response of Monsieur Defarge.
This third interchange of the Christian name was completed at the moment when Madame Defarge put her toothpick by, kept her eyebrows up, and slightly rustled in her seat.
“Hold then! True!” muttered her husband. “Gentlemen—my wife!”
The three customers pulled off their hats to Madame Defarge, with three flourishes. She acknowledged their homage by bending her head, and giving them a quick look. Then she glanced in a casual manner round the wine-shop, took up her knitting with great apparent calmness and repose of spirit, and became absorbed in it.
“Gentlemen,” said her husband, who had kept his bright eye observantly upon her, “good day. The chamber, furnished bachelor-fashion, that you wished to see, and were inquiring for when I stepped out, is on the fifth floor. The doorway of the staircase gives on the little courtyard close to the left here,” pointing with his hand, “near to the window of my establishment. But, now that I remember, one of you has already been there, and can show the way. Gentlemen, adieu!”
They paid for their wine, and left the place. The eyes of Monsieur Defarge were studying his wife at her knitting when the elderly gentleman advanced from his corner, and begged the favour of a word.
“Willingly, sir,” said Monsieur Defarge, and quietly stepped with him to the door.
Their conference was very short, but very decided. Almost at the first word, Monsieur Defarge started and became deeply attentive. It had not lasted a minute, when he nodded and went out. The gentleman then beckoned to the young lady, and they, too, went out. Madame Defarge knitted with nimble fingers and steady eyebrows, and saw nothing.
Mr. Jarvis Lorry and Miss Manette, emerging from the wine-shop thus, joined Monsieur Defarge in the doorway to which he had directed his own company just before. It opened from a stinking little black courtyard, and was the general public entrance to a great pile of houses, inhabited by a great number of people. In the gloomy tile-paved entry to the gloomy tile-paved staircase, Monsieur Defarge bent down on one knee to the child of his old master, and put her hand to his lips. It was a gentle action, but not at all gently done; a very remarkable transformation had come over him in a few seconds. He had no good-humour in his face, nor any openness of aspect left, but had become a secret, angry, dangerous man.
“It is very high; it is a little difficult. Better to begin slowly.” Thus, Monsieur Defarge, in a stern voice, to Mr. Lorry, as they began ascending the stairs.
“Is he alone?” the latter whispered.
“Alone! God help him, who should be with him!” said the other, in the same low voice.
“Is he always alone, then?”
“Yes.”
“Of his own desire?”
“Of his own necessity. As he was, when I first saw him after they found me and demanded to know if I would take him, and, at my peril be discreet—as he was then, so he is now.”
“He is greatly changed?”
“Changed!”
The keeper of the wine-shop stopped to strike the wall with his hand, and mutter a tremendous curse. No direct answer could have been half so forcible. Mr. Lorry’s spirits grew heavier and heavier, as he and his two companions ascended higher and higher.
Such a staircase, with its accessories, in the older and more crowded parts of Paris, would be bad enough now; but, at that time, it was vile indeed to unaccustomed and unhardened senses. Every little habitation within the great foul nest of one high building—that is to say, the room or rooms within every door that opened on the general staircase—left its own heap of refuse on its own landing, besides flinging other refuse from its own windows. The uncontrollable and hopeless mass of decomposition so engendered, would have polluted the air, even if poverty and deprivation had not loaded it with their intangible impurities; the two bad sources combined made it almost insupportable. Through such an atmosphere, by a steep dark shaft of dirt and poison, the way lay. Yielding to his own disturbance of mind, and to his young companion’s agitation, which became greater every instant, Mr. Jarvis Lorry twice stopped to rest. Each of these stoppages was made at a doleful grating, by which any languishing good airs that were left uncorrupted, seemed to escape, and all spoilt and sickly vapours seemed to crawl in. Through the rusted bars, tastes, rather than glimpses, were caught of the jumbled neighbourhood; and nothing within range, nearer or lower than the summits of the two great towers of Notre-Dame, had any promise on it of healthy life or wholesome aspirations.
At last, the top of the staircase was gained, and they stopped for the third time. There was yet an upper staircase, of a steeper inclination and of contracted dimensions, to be ascended, before the garret story was reached. The keeper of the wine-shop, always going a little in advance, and always going on the side which Mr. Lorry took, as though he dreaded to be asked any question by the young lady, turned himself about here, and, carefully feeling in the pockets of the coat he carried over his shoulder, took out a key.
“The door is locked then, my friend?” said Mr. Lorry, surprised.
“Ay. Yes,” was the grim reply of Monsieur Defarge.
“You think it necessary to keep the unfortunate gentleman so retired?”
“I think it necessary to turn the key.” Monsieur Defarge whispered it closer in his ear, and frowned heavily.
“Why?”
“Why! Because he has lived so long, locked up, that he would be frightened—rave—tear himself to pieces—die—come to I know not what harm—if his door was left open.”
“Is it possible!” exclaimed Mr. Lorry.
“Is it possible!” repeated Defarge, bitterly. “Yes. And a beautiful world we live in, when it is possible, and when many other such things are possible, and not only possible, but done—done, see you!—under that sky there, every day. Long live the Devil. Let us go on.”
This dialogue had been held in so very low a whisper, that not a word of it had reached the young lady’s ears. But, by this time she trembled under such strong emotion, and her face expressed such deep anxiety, and, above all, such dread and terror, that Mr. Lorry felt it incumbent on him to speak a word or two of reassurance.
“Courage, dear miss! Courage! Business! The worst will be over in a moment; it is but passing the room-door, and the worst is over. Then, all the good you bring to him, all the relief, all the happiness you bring to him, begin. Let our good friend here, assist you on that side. That’s well, friend Defarge. Come, now. Business, business!”
They went up slowly and softly. The staircase was short, and they were soon at the top. There, as it had an abrupt turn in it, they came all at once in sight of three men, whose heads were bent down close together at the side of a door, and who were intently looking into the room to which the door belonged, through some chinks or holes in the wall. On hearing footsteps close at hand, these three turned, and rose, and showed themselves to be the three of one name who had been drinking in the wine-shop.
“I forgot them in the surprise of your visit,” explained Monsieur Defarge. “Leave us, good boys; we have business here.”
The three glided by, and went silently down.
There appearing to be no other door on that floor, and the keeper of the wine-shop going straight to this one when they were left alone, Mr. Lorry asked him in a whisper, with a little anger:
“Do you make a show of Monsieur Manette?”
“I show him, in the way you have seen, to a chosen few.”
“Is that well?”
“I think it is well.”
“Who are the few? How do you choose them?”
“I choose them as real men, of my name—Jacques is my name—to whom the sight is likely to do good. Enough; you are English; that is another thing. Stay there, if you please, a little moment.”
With an admonitory gesture to keep them back, he stooped, and looked in through the crevice in the wall. Soon raising his head again, he struck twice or thrice upon the door—evidently with no other object than to make a noise there. With the same intention, he drew the key across it, three or four times, before he put it clumsily into the lock, and turned it as heavily as he could.
The door slowly opened inward under his hand, and he looked into the room and said something. A faint voice answered something. Little more than a single syllable could have been spoken on either side.
He looked back over his shoulder, and beckoned them to enter. Mr. Lorry got his arm securely round the daughter’s waist, and held her; for he felt that she was sinking.
“A-a-a-business, business!” he urged, with a moisture that was not of business shining on his cheek. “Come in, come in!”
“I am afraid of it,” she answered, shuddering.
“Of it? What?”
“I mean of him. Of my father.”
Rendered in a manner desperate, by her state and by the beckoning of their conductor, he drew over his neck the arm that shook upon his shoulder, lifted her a little, and hurried her into the room. He sat her down just within the door, and held her, clinging to him.
Defarge drew out the key, closed the door, locked it on the inside, took out the key again, and held it in his hand. All this he did, methodically, and with as loud and harsh an accompaniment of noise as he could make. Finally, he walked across the room with a measured tread to where the window was. He stopped there, and faced round.
The garret, built to be a depository for firewood and the like, was dim and dark: for, the window of dormer shape, was in truth a door in the roof, with a little crane over it for the hoisting up of stores from the street: unglazed, and closing up the middle in two pieces, like any other door of French construction. To exclude the cold, one half of this door was fast closed, and the other was opened but a very little way. Such a scanty portion of light was admitted through these means, that it was difficult, on first coming in, to see anything; and long habit alone could have slowly formed in any one, the ability to do any work requiring nicety in such obscurity. Yet, work of that kind was being done in the garret; for, with his back towards the door, and his face towards the window where the keeper of the wine-shop stood looking at him, a white-haired man sat on a low bench, stooping forward and very busy, making shoes.
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Kisses Like Wine Part 2
Summary: We go back before the first heist to see things from the Theif’s point of view.
Warnings: None really. Blank canvass — this is from his point of view, but I am careful not to describe “you”
Special thanks to @hnt-escape for brainstorming and encouraging.
A few weeks before the first theft…
The theif looked up at the looming fake battlements of the castle, wondering, not for the first time, at the quirks of rich men. He knew from the blueprints that he’d managed to secure that it was a complete replica of a French Castle (Spanish castles were better, in his opinion, owning an actual one himself) combined with the latest technology.
So much money, and for what?
He went back to sweeping up grass clippings, bagging them up, studying routes in and out. This was the part he enjoyed. The planning. No one looked at the help…the rich would spend thousands on security, but the help would always be an achilles heel.
He puffed out his cheeks, leaning on his rake as if taking a breather. It was not entirely an act. The in would be easy. The out…well. If it was easy, what would be the fun?
He crossed the yard to a patio, where the three children of the house were finishing up lunch. The eldest brother, Terry, his sister Marie, and you. The youngest sister. You didn’t match the others, and he knew it was because you had different mothers.
It was interesting, watching People he’d studied from a distance. How close the eldest two were. How they ignored the youngest, who took it calmly. Looking at the garden, enjoying the day, reading a book. They were about what he’d expected, from their social accounts, from everything he’d pulled together. You. You were different.
It entertained him, how easily you ignored being ignored. Like it was nothing.
The eldest two were studiously pretending he was not there, sweating away with a sharp tool that cut away weeds from the edges of the paving. But you. You smiled over your book at him.
For a second he wished he wasn’t dressed as he was, clad in a sweaty, filthy blue cotton tee shirt that had been washed too many times, sandy hair in a shaggy style that changed the shape of his face, theater makeup that changed the depth of the skin around his nose to make it less sharp, contacts that muddied up the color of his eyes.
When Terry and Marie left the table, you brought over a glass of water and a leftover cupcake on a small plate. “No sense it going to waste,” she said when you protested.
“Thank you,” he accepted the water, drinking carefully.
“You’re new, aren’t you? I think I’ve met all the people who usually do the yard work.”
Of course you would know them.
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “I used to work with another company, but the guy retired. I feel lucky to have landed a spot.”
“Do you like it? I know it’s hard work, but I know that some people like it because it’s outside.”
“It pays the bills.” He needed to get out of this. This much contact was not safe, even in costume. But he found himself…liking this. Liking sitting on the ground while you sat on a bench next to him, looking at him like he was…real. People looked at him all the time but he was good at not being seen. You were not looking, you were seeing him. It felt nice and terrifying at the same time.
“So…no then.”
He smirked and broke the cupcake top off, shook his head.
“I probably wouldn’t like it, either. But jobs are not easy to find.”
He arched his eyebrow, mouth too full to make a comment, and you blushed. “I know. What does a girl who lives in a castle know about employment rates?”
Your name was called, and your head came up sharply, as if analyzing the tone. The next call was not so sharp, and you shoulders relaxed. “Excuse me. It was nice talking to you…thanks for letting me bother you.”
“It wasn’t a bother,” he said meaning it. You smiled over her shoulder and rushed off.
The next time he saw — well, heard — you with your family, he was hidden in a wall, fiddling with some useful bit of neglected wiring when he heard your voice again. It made him smile as he worked, strain to hear, until he actually heard what was being said to you.
Then there was the time he was a footman.
Then there was the time he was there to repair some molding.
And each time he heard you talking to your family, he was treated to conversations of such insidious smugness that he wanted to punch someone. He listened to you getting yelled at for flirting too much. Not flirting enough. Buying a — to them — cheap and ugly car. Spending too much money.
And a lot of it was delivered in loving tones, as advice to help you have a better life. Because they were so, so worried about you.
And you took it calmly. Nothing seemed to bother you. As he looked up at you from his vantage point on the floor, this time dressed as a red-headed brawler with a black eye — he wondered if you were a saint.
It made him furious.
He almost left the job. He was getting too close. Sometimes literally. Like the time you almost backed into him in the dark. He was making an…adjustment to security…when you came wandering down the hall. He stood stock still as your steps slowed, as you paused in a puddle of faint moonlight and looked around the shadow clad room. You turned away, took a few steps backwards as if you knew somethingw as off but could not place it.. You were close enough that he could feel your warmth. He drew in a small slow breath, you smelled of vanilla, cinnamon…he was not sure. Sweet. Comforting.
He wondered what you would do, if he drew you into his arms, if he showed you who he really was. Took off all the masks.
You left. So did he. Safe in his bolt hole he poured himself a drink and thought, I need to run.
He’d spent a lot of time on this job. He was careful. He was good. He had never been caught. He never left so much as a hair for them to trace him with, just built upon his legend, his reputation, to wear like armor and keep him safe. Meticulous. Smart. Distanced. These were the things that kept him alive.
And one of his rules was never, ever to fall in love. The first time had ruined him. The second time had almost killed him. He had sworn there would not be a third time.
But he found himself thinking of you. All the research he had done became a guilty secret, he knew everything public about you, just like he knew the rest of your family. He spoke to the servants and he listened, he watched. He knew, probably, more than he needed to. What did knowing what books you’d read on Goodreads have to do with the job?
He closed his eyes, as if to ward off a blow.
A wise man would leave now, before this became something real. Before his stupidity got him caught. There were people much nastier than Interpol or the CIA who wanted him. One mistake and the whole house of cards would fall.
He didn’t leave. If he was a wise man, he would have stopped being a theif a very long time ago.
Besides, he thought, I’ll just steal the crown an the Star and be on my way.
And a kiss. Just one kiss. A kiss and then disappear and never be seen again.
So when he he held you against him in that tower room, hand around the soft pulse of your throat, body pressed so tight and yeilding against him, and the words “Come find me” tumbled out of his mouth, it should have been a surprise.
But it was not. It was like the kiss — a slice of perfection, a decision, a revelation. He wanted you more than the jewel in his pocket, the stolen crown.
And he never, ever denied himself anything that he wanted.
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The Exam
→ [1/7] of the Society Series
→ summary: Three societies. Two dead lovers. One test. In a world that prioritizes intelligence and the ability to regurgitate textbook information, will you choose love and poverty or splendor and solitude?
→ pairing/rating: taehyung x reader | PG-15
→ genre: 99.9% angst, 0.1% fluff (if you squint) | dystopian!au & utopian!au
→ warnings: profanity, death, mentions of tuberculosis and leptospirosis, blood, extreme poverty, extremely brief mention of cannibalism and overdosing, undiagnosed depression and mild anxiety, brief mentions of the afterlife and physical violence, this shit ain’t happy pple
→ wordcount: 21.4k
There's a strange stench that permeates the air in the city of Dystopia.
It is the odor of death. The dark, muddy soil reeks of decaying bodies, of rotting rats and excretions. Deteriorating child flesh even has its own distinct smell, but you've become so used to it, you don't really mind it as much anymore.
Every day is a festival for the unusually large rats that inhabit the city. With their matted-fur and worm-tails, the rodents feast on decomposing human bodies, ripping apart the dark, putrid meat and leaving dried blood splattered on the barely-paved streets.
Bodies are everywhere.
Sometimes it's hard to tell if a fallen child is dead or asleep in the towering masses of waste. There are too many orphans wandering lost on the streets with no bed or home to conceal them in warmth. There are too many people who never know when their next meal will be, or if there will be clean water to drink for the day. Hell, most of the huts in the dystopian city are on the very verge of crumbling down.
You're lucky.
Your home has semi-working electricity and plumbing. But every now and then, the lights will refuse to turn on and the pipes will leak—or even burst if it was a bad day.
Most citizens of Dystopia, however, roam the streets, homeless, until death finally whisks them away. Nobody knows what happens after death. But everybody knows it is better than Dystopia.
This place, this Dystopia, was home for your childhood memories. Shamefully enough, it was also your birthplace. But you don't live there anymore, thank goodness. You live in Purgatory now, a smaller city with slightly more opportunities and fewer rats.
But Purgatory isn't that much different from Dystopia either. Death still hangs over the heads of the weak, ready to take their hands and lead them away when the time comes. Purgatory is a wild place full of children and teenagers from ages ten to eighteen. They're there for one sole purpose: education. Rigorous education that may come with the price of death.
It's how the whole damn system works.
Every Dystopian-born must suffer ten years of life in that hellhole; if they are still alive by then, they are relocated to Purgatory where "equal opportunities" are given to all with mercy. At least, that's what the authority claims. Really, you see it more as a ruthless competition. It's not "equal opportunities" or whatever bullcrap the government was trying to sell to the people. You see it as a game of sharks and minnows—a game of exceptionally robust predators and abnormally frail prey.
Annually, every student who is eighteen in Purgatory is required to take an exam. An exam that determines their entire future.
Every year, the highest-scoring students—or student—are whisked away by the government with silk draped around their hunched shoulders, layers of soft mink coats keeping their frayed bodies warm and their dirty tresses bathed with the richest, fragrance oils. Then they are granted access to Utopia.
Utopia, the city of the rich. They breathe expensive air there, bathe in priceless tea and wear extortionate silks and furs. They deserve it. Because they're the most intelligent people in all three cities of Atna. At least, that's what the government says.
It is merciless when they throw every other eighteen-year-old who 'failed' the Exam in the city of Dystopia. You'd think they'd spare their precious Utopian-borns—the children of the men and women who proved their intelligence by reigning over every other student in Purgatory. But they don't. The Utopian-borns are dumped into Dystopia as well. Into a foreign place where the air is dead, baths are infrequent and clothing is for the greatly fortunate.
Yet that's rare. Most often, Utopian students always tie for the highest-score and are taken back to their luxurious birthplace. It's too advantageous for them. It's unfair. Unreasonable. They train from their birth until the last second before they leave the warmth of their Utopian homes for the Exam. Of course, they would score the highest.
One year, out of the hundreds of eighteen-year-olds who took the Exam, twenty-three of them made it back to Utopia. All Utopian-borns.
Still, a handful of Utopians are tossed into the slums—they are a disgrace to all of Atna for they had the advantage and didn't take it.
You've seen those sad individuals your whole childhood. They were the ones who weren't used to horrifying conditions. Consequently, they were always the last to eat and first to die.
When you were the adventurous age of nine, you and your best friend Jimin would sit outside the shabby, repulsive place that you called home and would watch the Utopian-borns straggling across the streets.
They wailed and begged as their eyes reflected one sole emotion: fear.
"I bet she's Utopian-born," Jimin huffs as he points at a girl frantically cramming her mouth full of scraggly weeds that had somehow sprouted from the fetid grounds. Both of you silently watch as her bloody fingernails pierce madly through the mud, uprooting the plants with surprising success. "Doesn't she know those are poisonous?"
You shrug, staring blankly at the girl. "No, she's not Utopian-born. Doesn't look over eighteen. Maybe she doesn't want to take the Exam." Taking Jimin's hand into yours, you sigh, "I bet he's Utopian-born, though." Your small finger points at a young man huddled up against a pile of rubbish, completely naked and rocking back and forth, as if that action would save him from the wraths of Dystopia. He had stripped off his tattered clothes and had unskillfully attempted to wrap them around himself to combat the harsh weather. A simple but deadly mistake.
A Dystopian-born would know better.
"He's going to die," Jimin says, cocking his head. "Let's go help him." He starts to tug you towards the unclothed man but you forcefully pull your friend back, eyebrows twisting downwards into a deep frown.
"Leave him." Your cold eyes stare right past the Utopian-born, gazing at the bright neon poster behind him. It reads Utopia, a wondrous place for deserving people.
And below is an image of a gorgeous, healthily plump woman in a spotless, white bikini, skin sparkling and well-tanned and her hands immaculately manicured. Her hair is loose, glossy and looks like it smells of flowering spring roses. She's holding a gleaming bottle of fizzing golden liquid in one hand and a handsome man's hand in the other. The man smiles brightly, revealing a row of pearlescent teeth as he boasts shiny, black sunglasses and wears a watch made of dazzling rubies and diamonds.
Behind the couple is a house—actually, a mansion made of polished glass with luscious trees decorating the purlieu and the pool filled with glimmering water tinted a light shade of azure. The sky is cerulean blue, and the clouds resemble cotton candy.
Everything speaks perfection.
These identical posters are littered everywhere across Dystopia. It is a painful reminder for the Atnatians who have failed the Exam—even more so agonizing for the Utopians who had been banished from their previous home.
The propaganda posters are the only clean, resplendent objects in the slums. But personally, you think they're revolting.
Your unsympathetic eyes trail back to the naked man. You take another glance at the stupid government propaganda poster behind him before you squeeze Jimin's hand. "Yeah, let's leave him," you repeat.
The pick-the-Utopian-born-from-the-crowd game abruptly halts soon after when Jimin comes over to your small hut one day, crying profusely, his tears leaving clean streaks on his dirt-covered face.
"He's dead!" he cries, fat droplets of tears dribbling down to his chin.
You frown in confusion, eyebrows knitting into a small frown. With the mortality rate of Dystopia, your best friend could either be talking about your neighbor from the next hut over or the other fifty bodies left dead and abandoned on the streets. "Who's dead, Jiminie?"
"T-That Utopian-born," Jimin whimpers, dirty hand reaching up to wipe away the tears obscuring his vision. Although there were many Utopian-borns roaming around Dystopia, you had a clear idea of who he was talking about. "The rats... they—"
You grab his filthy hand before it reaches his eyes. "Don't rub your eyes, remember?"
Jimin nods dejectedly, his head dropping low as his tears dripped to the floor, leaving wet puddles of brown dirt. "Sorry, Y/N, I forgot..." He sniffles, which didn't help the snot that was leaking out of his soot-covered nose. "But the rats..." he trails off, hand reaching up again to wipe away his tears. But he pauses, thinks better of it and tries to blink them away instead.
You nod, knowingly. "And it's not the first time you've seen that happen, Jiminie. Don't cry..."
Your friend whimpers, kicking the wet dirt beneath his feet. "But if we had helped him... The rats wouldn't have eaten right through his guts! They wouldn't have bitten him to pieces or drunk his blood!" he wails. You are silent, never great at solacing. "If we had helped him..."
Time is running out for both of you. You'd soon be relocated to Purgatory and you know Jimin is starting to get anxious for the both of you. He would cry in fear and grief for every dead corpse on the street, bite his nails hard enough to draw blood even though you would tell him not to, and try to help all the suffering Utopian-borns, despite your avid protests.
Jimin had always been too soft-minded, too kind. Death frightened him.
But you weren't afraid of death. Never have been. Never will be.
You are fucking terrified of death. It is the only occurrence that will keep you from scoring the highest, and as a seventeen-year-old, the Exam was looming closer than ever. You couldn't die now. Not after all the years of rigorous studying. You'd skipped nights of sleep, countless meals to get to this position.
To you, Purgatory would always be a second Utopia; for one, the conditions are immensely better than that of Dystopia, maggots no longer crawling in your food and clothes not as battered and ravaged by irritable rats or insects. This city is your one chance where you can prove yourself deserving to live in Utopia—to confirm that you can outlast, out-study and outsmart everyone in your year.
You eat, sleep and breathe your studies, something only a few students can manage to do. One of the only things that keep you motivated to wake up at the crack of dawn and open up a dusty book is the fact that no one's ever secured a perfect score on the Exam.
But you know you'll be the first.
You'll be the first and only person to obtain a perfect score. And thus you will be the only eighteen-year-old going to Utopia in your year.
It is a fantasy. A dream. A goal. But you thirst to achieve it.
In fact, you haven't left the library in weeks. You've practically been glued onto the same hard, wooden chair for what seemed like days now. You have also never ceased to flip the pages of your colossal textbooks. You're quite happy to say that the other students aren't studying as hard as you—most of them have given up by now.
Logically, it makes sense to surrender to the Exam.
Although you're given eight whole years to study in Purgatory, most students use that time to stuff themselves full of savory victuals, sleep in cots instead of in fetid mud and live without the shadow of death appended to their feet. Obviously, the conditions aren't as astounding as Utopia, but anything's better than the slums of Atna. It isn't worth it, they say. It isn't worth the eight years of miserable studying, only to be beaten by someone better (there's always someone better) and thrown into Dystopia without ever being able to live. But 'surrender' isn't in your vast vocabulary.
As much as you hate cheesy platitudes, you're in it (ahem, forcibly) to win it. Besides, your competition is dropping like flies on a scorching hot day. You suspect it's from that nasty tuberculosis that's been going around for a while.
There's only a year left before the Exam now. It's such little time for you to finish reading everything in that library, and such little time alike for the other students to live their last year to the very fullest in Purgatory, the downgrade of Utopia but the upgrade of Dystopia.
But especially for you, a year definitely isn't enough. You're just a tad bit off schedule—you were supposed to finish reading and memorizing everything in the library last year so you'd have two good years to review. Now you only have one.
It adds on to the multitudes of problems that no one truly knows what's on the Exam. They say anything in the grand library is fair game, but besides that, you don't know much. And because of that, you and what's left of your competitors have been reading everything in the library from novels to textbooks to published theses.
As a matter of fact, you're just one book and a page shy from reading everything in the damned library. Your eyes bore into the paper overlaid with equations and one too many graphs, forcing your brain to memorize every detail, every print and word. You know you shouldn't frown when you study. Someone you'd once loved had told you an unpretty, permanent crease would be etched on your forehead—but now you can't help it—frowning helps you concentrate.
Especially now. The library is usually dead silent except for the soft crinkles of paper as students flip the pages of their reading materials, yet you swear at least half of the students in the room have tuberculosis. There's heavy coughing every ten seconds, the infected splattering crimson blood on the thin, worn-out pages of the textbooks. And that's how the disease has been spreading.
They're going to die before the Exam. You swear they are—how pathetic of them to spend the last days of their lives cramming study material in their heads.
You don't care much for the infected, as long as they keep their distance from you. You don't know what you'll do if you catch the disease as well. But in your mind, nothing is worse than the mortality rates of Dystopia. At least no one in Purgatory dies from famine.
Still, there are never adequate treatments or vaccines and you can recall at least ten people who you haven't seen since tuberculosis first broke out. Not that you care, though. In the end, you're just glad you're not one of the diseased. You've always had a strong immune system, anyway.
You let out a soft sigh, feeling the urge to rub your dry, tiresome eyes but thinking better of it. Shutting the heavy textbook with a gentle thud, you place both hands on the wooden table, steadying yourself. You slowly close your eyes, relishing in the comfort of the darkness—you haven't slept in nearly three days, haven't left your seat to eat either. Your empty water canteen stares back at you, begging for it to be refilled. You swallow, your throat feeling unbearably scratchy, but you don't succumb to its desperate demand.
Now you only have one more book to read. Just one more and you'll be done. You'll treat yourself to an actual meal and a few hours of sleep (not too much because you still need time for review). With the Exam inching closer every minute, every second, you really don't have time to waste.
Water will have to wait for later.
Besides, you know for a fact that the last book you have to read isn't too long—just a hundred pages or so. You slowly open your eyes, vision slightly blurry as you force yourself to stand. Immediately, your legs threaten to give out and you have to stagger forward to use the dated bookshelves to steady yourself.
Step by step, you carry your barely responsive body to the special corner in the library that you haven't touched in the seven years you've lived in Purgatory. The unfamiliar, gray, tattered book catches your eye and you continue to wobble closer and closer to it. Family Studies, it should say.
Quite the ironic book to read about in a world where families are ripped apart by the government and their indecent tactics. But it's not like you have a choice. You need to get to Utopia—you've made promises...
You may be broken on the inside and out, but you won't let yourself break a promise.
Wearily, you force yourself to lift up your shaking arm to touch the book's spine. But you gasp, nearly jumping back with the little energy you have as your cold hand comes in contact with something warm.
Flesh, you finally register in your head. I've touched flesh.
Your head jerks up rather painfully, leaving your eyes struggling to adjust to the sight in front of you. A boy. A tall boy. His figure towers over you, and he frowns deeply, eyes bloodshot as he looks you up and down. In one hand he clutches a frayed brown blanket draped comfortably over his shoulders and the other stubbornly grasps the book—your book.
But you don't acquiesce, glaring at him as you tug the book closer to you. The boy glances your way tiredly, no emotion displayed on his malnourished, sculpted face. "Excuse me," he croaks, tugging the book closer to himself.
"Excuse you." Your voice comes out much raspier than you had expected, making you instantly regret opening your mouth to speak. But the desire to have the last book in your hands is far greater: "I need that." You pull the book back.
The boy scoffs—even that comes out as a dry cough that makes you flinch back just a bit. "I need it too."
You hate the parched feeling tickling the back of your throat, and you let out a little scream of frustration before instinct gets the better of you. You quickly slap the boy's hand, taking advantage of his surprise as an opportunity to snatch the book from the shelf. Once the book is safely cradled in your arms, you turn to the boy and give him the side-eye. "Well, I need it more."
With that, you attempt to hobble away with the best of your ability, but you fail when the boy grabs the back of your threadbare shirt, stopping you from moving any further. "Please."
He sounds so desperate, voice dripping with misery—something you were once so familiar with. His hands shake, grasping the fabric... You hate yourself for turning around to see his forlorn face. His eyes are full of suffering, of so much pain—that too is so familiar to you."Please..." he whispers again as his grip loosens on your shirt.
You're silent. It hurts. It physically pains you that the only human interaction you've had in months, maybe years, reminds you so much of him.
"Pleaseeee!!" Jimin drags out, a burst of giggles leaving his throat as he tugs excitedly at your arm. "Please! Let's go, let's go!"
You grumble, begrudgingly dragging your feet as Jimin pulls you towards unfamiliar territory. "I'm not hungry," you whine. "Can we just stay in the dorms?"
"We've got eight years to stay in the dorms, Y/N. Eight! Please? Just a few minutes in the cafeteria? I heard they serve actual food! Maybe if we're lucky, we'll get to snag some snacks!" Jimin exclaims, his cheeks tinged pink with elation.
"Where did you hear that from?" you mumble in protest before giving in to Jimin's persistence.
"The ones who failed," he answers lightheartedly. "I've been asking around."
"Oh."
You can't really say much more. There's nothing more to say.
The cafeteria is larger than at least ten Dystopian huts combined; there are rows and rows of rusty lunch tables and a long, metal countertop with a few baskets of bread on top. You and Jimin manage to salvage some before the rats get to it. You force yourself to ignore the angry squeaking and chattering around your bare feet.
The slices of white bread are only slightly moldy, which already makes it better than anything one can forage from your birthplace. You take each bite slowly, chewing steadily to keep the flavor on your tongue just a little while longer. But all too soon, it's gone. Though you'd denied it earlier, you are definitely hungry. Maybe even starving.
You look up to see Jimin swinging his feet back and forth, his hands grasping the side of the old bench, keeping his body balanced. He notices your eyes on him and looks at you, giving you a small smile. You smile back.
"This is already better than Dystopia, isn't it?" he says, small hand tentatively moving towards yours to encompass it. You nod your head in agreement. "We have eight years..." You nod again. "Then we'll be able to go back home."
You don't hesitate, a faint smile appearing on your lips. "Of course."
"Not dead, yet, huh?" you sigh, facing the boy next to you, scrutinizing his every movement. When he doesn't answer right away, you slam the textbook down in the middle of the table to get his attention—and to spite him, of course.
The boy scoffs as he glares at you through the tired slits of his eyes. Any sense of the weakness he had shown from practically begging you to share the book with him yesterday is gone. The feebleness might've been just an act—a sly trick to get you to help him. "Sorry but I plan on going to Utopia as well. That, we have in common," the boy bites right back. "Our only difference is that I'll actually make it there."
You blow air through your nose, prying open the previous book titled Family Studies and muttering death threats under your breath. You clear your throat before you speak again. "Yeah, right. Please shut up before I regret sharing my textbook with you."
"For your information, that's not exactly yours," the boy snorts. "It's the government's. And you've seen the shit that happens when you mess with them."
There's a sadder undertone to his voice that you pick up immediately. He sounds cocky but ruined at the same time—you would know because that's the façade that you had put up for yourself for years now. You can't stop yourself from asking the question that falls from your lips quite easily: "Why? Someone you know messed with them?"
The boy averts his eyes from you, looking down at his feet covered up in tattered shoes. "More like someone I knew." He shrugs, turning his head up so that his dark eyes pierce through yours. "But it doesn't really matter anymore."
Something stings inside. You wish you could say the same.
"It's only been a week," you giggle, watching Jimin stuff his face full of soup made of mystery miscellaneous ingredients. "Shouldn't you have gotten used to having enough food by now?"
Jimin pauses his vehement eating to give you a 'duh' look. "Silly, I'm going to store all the food now when I can. You know, before we have to go back. When's the last time Dystopia had meal times, anyway?"
"Never, of course," you laugh. The rats or some other pesky rodents chatter right along with you. But they only sound as if they are wryly laughing with you and Jimin. A bit embittered, you kick your feet in an attempt to shoo the rats away—or at least shut them up. "Too bad this place still has rats."
Jimin nods. "I've seen some of them around our food too." He makes a disgusted face. "Think about it. What if this mystery soup is made of rat droppings and piss?"
"Oh shut up. Don't be like that," you sniffle, turning up your nose in complete distaste. "That's disgusting."
"I'm only joking," Jimin chuckles, taking another spoonful of his soup, exaggerating the action and making you mock-gag in repugnance.
As annoying as he sometimes is, having Jimin around is something you always have been thankful for. It was everything to have a friend be by your side. You've seen what happens when people are left alone for too long. They go bat-shit crazy. Completely bonkers.
Being tossed back to Dystopia is inevitable; neither of you was going to stop it. Yet even just your best friend's presence is your very own incentive to wake up the next day with a hopeful smile on your lips. He matters so much to you.
"Let's have the time of our lives in Purgatory," he'd told you over and over again. So much so that you can still hear his voice today, tainted with hope and faith. "Then we can go back to Dystopia together."
You grit your teeth, catching your lip between them and biting so hard you taste blood. The strong taste of iron drives you to focus. You furrow your brows, staring at the pages of the textbook and reading thoroughly, mulling over every word in your head with careful precision. When your eyes reach the end of the page, you're just about to look up and ask the boy if he's done reading, but he's one step ahead of you.
The boy flips the page over and smiles at you smugly. You frown at him disdainfully, but without another word, you concentrate on the content once more. Until—
"Taehyung."
You sigh, reluctantly looking up at the boy. "What?"
"Taehyung. My name's Taehyung," he says. "Just thought you ought to know. There are 98 pages left in this book, so I just thought it'd be better to introduce ourselves. We'll be sitting together for a while."
You squint your eyes at him, pondering over his words. But he does make quite a good point. You suppose you and the boy—Taehyung—had gotten off on the wrong foot. Although he was kind of a cocky asshole, you guess it wouldn't hurt to at least tell him your name.
"Fine," you say, upturning your nose. "I'm Y/N."
"Cool." Taehyung grins. For a guy who's been living in unkempt conditions for several years, his teeth look pretty near to goddamn perfection. It's a little irritating if you do say so for yourself.
You're about to pick up where you last left off in the textbook when Taehyung scoots closer to you. You lean away, frowning at him as you shoot him a 'what the fuck are you doing' look.
He seems oblivious to your stone-cold glare. "Sooo, Y/N," he says. "What's making you study this hard?" he asks. "I thought I was the only crazy one here." He laughs wryly. When he sees that you're ignoring him and still reading from the damned book, he huffs and slams it shut.
"What the fuck, Taehyung," you spit out, jerking your head towards him. "Can't I study in peace?"
"Didn't anyone tell you it's rude to ignore?" he counters.
"Give me the book back."
"No." He grins, pushing the book away from you as he crosses his legs confidently, leaning back in his chair. "Answer the question. Please," he adds hastily. "C'mon. If we stay cooped up reading all day, we'll die before even getting to live in Utopia."
You let out a frustrated groan, but he's right in a way. You should take study breaks now and then—possibly to keep your sanity. "What's making me study so hard? Fine," you huff. "We all have our mad-person reasons. Happy?" But upon Taehyung's disappointed look at your vague answer, you let out a deep sigh. "And I made promises I don't want to break," you elaborate reluctantly.
"Promises?" Taehyung says. "Interesting... You look like you've been through some rough shit."
You scoff. "Me? Says you. You're Dystopian-born too, right?"
"I'm that obvious, am I?" He grins. "It's true though. I've seen bad shit in Dystopia."
"Yeah, well, I've seen the worst shit right here in Purgatory," you mutter. "So I think I win."
"Oh?"
You ignore him. "Give me back my book," you demand.
"First of all, it's not your book," Taehyung laughs. "And secondly, worst shit in Purgatory? Must be an interesting story behind that. Do tell."
"No."
Taehyung huffs as he leans back even further in his chair. "So you've lost someone you love, then."
You freeze. How did he—
Biting your lip again, you contemplate whether to answer. Finally, you let out a small, "Yeah. Two, actually."
"Damn, two?" Taehyung gawks. "Wow. Um, I'm sorry. You weren't kidding about the bad shit you've seen here."
"I really wasn't." Now you're definitely not in the mood to study. Not when Taehyung, single-handedly, in just a few minutes, reminded you of them. "It's dumb, but I use them and the promises we made together as an incentive to study. That's my mad-person reason," you confess.
Why does it feel better to tell someone else about yourself?
"That's not dumb," Taehyung offers, his eyes mirroring your own sadness in them. "It's good to have someone you love to be your incentive." He pushes the textbook back towards you. "Sorry for pestering you. You can study now if you want."
You nod curtly as you quickly open the book to the page you had left off. It seems that Taehyung does have the smallest bit of sympathy in him. You suppose he's not a completely horrible person (as you had thought before).
Sighing, you try to read through the sentences on the page, but you find yourself reading the same phrase over and over again. Damn. Your stomach flips and you begin to feel a little queasy as melancholy washes over your head. Shit. Now you really can't concentrate.
"You're, okay, right, Jiminie?" you beg, frown lines appearing on your forehead as you take both of the sick boy's hands in yours, watching his tense face relax ever-so-slightly from your soft touch.
"It's probably just something I ate. I'll be fine!" he manages to answer enthusiastically. "I'll throw it all up by tomorrow and you'll see me stronger than ever!"
He was wrong.
As the long days rolled by, he got sicker and sicker. Most of your week was spent in Jimin's room. It became a daily routine to watch him throw up whatever you suggested he eat. It became a reoccurring attempt for you to try to calm his sweltering fever. Every day you were more exhausted than the last. And so was he.
You were losing hope, but you tried not to show it. You knew he was dying, but neither of you mentioned it. You were losing your best friend and you couldn't do anything about it.
No one cared either. Everybody turned a blind eye to the ten-year-old boy suffering in overwhelming pain. They either had been preoccupied with studying or didn't want to catch whatever Jimin had. To them, Jimin, your light and life source was nothing but another body to be tossed in the graveyard at the end of the day.
And just like that, he passed away.
You can still recall the misery reflecting in his eyes, his quiet whimpers, his delusional words. You can still remember him. Quite clearly, too. He didn't know who you were the last few minutes before he blinked half-way and never woke up again. The moment you knew he was dead, you'd cried, clinging to his body and letting out the sorrow, the weakness, that you had hidden from him when he was alive.
To the ten-year-old you, his death was a mystery.
But it was leptospirosis. You know that now, after years of flipping the pages of those medical textbooks. It was a rare disease from animals, but mostly rats. Those damn rats. You wish you can kill them all.
"Those fucking rats!" Taehyung slams his fist hard on the wooden table, immediately stopping the persistent chattering of the damned rodents. "I swear to god, they're one of the worst things about Purgatory, other than the goddamn Exam itself!"
You nod in silent agreement, sighing as you play with the leftover crumbs of your breakfast. "I'd even argue that they're the worst things to ever exist. Besides the Exam."
No matter how annoyingly vocal Taehyung is about his pure hatred for rats, it feels good to have someone to talk to while eating your breakfast. You haven't had company in years.
Taehyung lets a smile loose, a boxy grin that has some sort of weird way of making you feel calm. It's impossible to believe that he's supposed to be your competition when both of you have developed a friendship over the past several days. It wasn't easy for Taehyung to befriend you—especially since you've shut out every other person in your life since... since Yoongi. But he was persistent, and you admired that about him. So slowly, very slowly, you began to open up to the boy.
You told him about Jimin, and you have to admit, it felt fucking fantastic to have someone else mourn for Jimin—to have someone else besides you who didn't ignore his death. And now you're just beginning to tell him about Yoongi upon his stubborn urging.
"You should continue," Taehyung says. "You were telling me about your preteen boyfriend?" he asks with his mouth full of bread—his words are just barely discernible and you crinkle your nose in disgust.
"Gross. Haven't you read those etiquette books? Thought they would've taught you a thing or two about not talking with your mouth full," you huff. "And don't call him my preteen boyfriend. That sounds wrong. Not to mention... it takes away so much of the meaning of my relationship with him."
"Okay, okay, sorry," Taehyung says, but chewed up bread crumbs escape his mouth and land on the metal lunch table. You make a face. "But," Taehyung continues, paying no mind to your disgust, "at the end of the day, I just wanna know if all Utopian-borns are bastards or not."
You roll your eyes. "Oh, c'mon. Do you really think I'd love a bastard?"
"Well, you're quite unpredictable, dear," Taehyung swallows his food (thankfully) before he laughs. "You thought you were going to study alone for the rest of your time here. But look at you, with me, sharing a textbook."
"You better not tell me shit like 'you didn't know love when you were ten,' Taehyung," you say as menacingly as you can. "I'm not gonna tolerate shit talk. And besides, Yoongi was definitely not a bastard. He—" you pause abruptly. "Ah, shit," you say, trying to blink away the tears that had suddenly sprung upon your eyes. Your fingers grip the hem of your shirt and you clear your throat before you continue. "He died so he didn't have to deal with bastards."
"Oh, shit," Taehyung breathes when he realizes you're close to crying. "I'm sorry... You don't have to tell me about him if it's gonna make you feel bad. I was joking about the whole Utopian-born-bastard thing anyway."
"No, I want to tell you," you say. "I need to tell someone. I can't just pent these things up inside of me, Taehyung. Don't you know? I'm using you as my personal rant-listener." You grin at him, though your tears roll down your cheeks.
Taehyung looks confused at your juxtaposition of tears and happy grin. "Okay then," he says. "If you're really sure." He frowns, tilting his head. "I just don't get the part when you said he died so he didn't have to deal with bastards. He can't choose when he dies or not—"
"Oh, yes he can," you cut him off. "Think about it," you say as more tears trip down your face. Taehyung gives you a perplexed look, his confused eyes meeting your sad ones. You sigh. "You can choose when you want to die sometimes," you whisper in a shaky voice. "Intentional death."
You've lost your appetite ever since Jimin passed away. But you come to the cafeteria every day to pay tribute to your best friend, who had announced one too many times when he was alive that the cafeteria was his favorite place in the whole world. So you sit down by yourself on the lunch tables, staring at the bread but never reaching out to take it.
Without Jimin, your world is drained of color. Life loses its meaning. There is no point. You were supposed to go back to Dystopia as adults—together. That had been your one wish. Your only wish. And now it couldn't happen. Not when Jimin's not with you anymore.
Large men in spotless white suits had dragged his limp body off of the small cot as you were begging, wailing on the side. You asked them to bury him, to give him a proper memorial. But they ignored you, pushed you away to the side. They didn't even have the decency to respect him, to cover him up with a blanket or sheet. You had to watch his clothes collect dirt and his face drag in the mud as they pulled him by the legs.
Even after they'd yelled at you, you'd watched, followed them as they flung his body into a deep pit reeking of death.
They burn the bodies in the pit every Sunday; then the week starts fresh with an empty abyss for the dead.
You want to jump in the pit after Jimin. Maybe you can conveniently dump your body in the hole a few minutes before they set fire to it—maybe you can be with Jimin that way.
It feels like a knife in your heart when you think about his last few delusional words. He'd told you fitfully, in a full sweat, that he was in so much pain, but he'd rather be in pain than die. He was afraid of death.
You aren't. You are in so much pain, you want to die, unlike him. Ten years of life is enough, you decide. Whatever is waiting for you after death has to be better than what you are living in right now.
So you plan it out. You wait until Sunday, until five minutes before they're supposed to come to burn the pit of bodies. You're going to jump in. Find Jimin. Burn to death with him. Simple.
Not so simple.
You stand exactly three feet from the pit (you measured it yourself, with your own feet), thinking it would be better to have a running start of some sort. But your feet are frozen as well as your mind is. You just can't seem to get yourself to move. You've pictured yourself jumping into the pit at least a hundred times before, so you can't help to wonder why you can't seem to do it now.
It frustrates you. Your mind tells you to run, to jump, but your legs are glued to the ground.
"Gonna jump?"
You nearly lose your balance at the sudden voice that comes from behind you. You quickly whirl around to see a lanky boy with tousled black hair. He's leaning against the exterior of the common building, staring at you with cold, judgmental eyes. He's taller, bigger than you, so you discern that he must be one of those older kids. You scowl at him. "And what if I did jump?" you retort.
"Wouldn't recommend it, kid," the boy says. He laughs coldly. "First of all, they're not going to burn that shit for several hours. Do you really want to lay around rotting bodies before you die?"
"What if I don't care?" you answer defiantly, crossing your arms.
"What are you? Dumb?" The boy scoffs, leaving his place against the wall and starting to walk towards you as he casually stuffs his hands into his pants pockets. "Get out of here," he says menacingly, eyes narrowing and mouth set stern. "And don't come back."
You admit you're slightly scared, but you don't back down. "No." You glare. "I don't want to."
The boy laughs, shrugging. "It's always the dumb Dystopian-borns. You can't be more than ten-years-old. What's got you so suicidal, huh?"
You narrow your eyes. "I'm not dumb!"
"Hm... Prove it... idiot."
You fume, face turning bright red as you stomp your feet. "Shut up! Leave me alone!"
The boy laughs. "I will if you get out of my sight."
Angry tears slip from your eyes as you grip your fists tight. "I don't want to! I-I want to die! My best friend's down there. And I'm going to be with him!" you yell as snot runs down your nose and your cheeks are wet with hot tears. You feel pathetic. But you need to get your point across to this mean, older boy who isn't leaving you alone. "You can't make me leave!"
There's an uncomfortable silence that follows, yet you stand your ground and glare at him. But to your surprise, the boy lets out a small sigh and begins to walk up to you. He crouches down to your level and he wipes your tears (and embarrassingly a bit of your snot) with the sleeve of his frayed (but obviously high-end) sweater. "It's okay kid," he says. Before you know it, he's pulling you into a tight hug. "Stop crying, hm? It'll be all right, kid."
Nobody's ever hugged you like that before. Not even Jimin—because he knows how much you don't like physical affection. But you needed his hug; it was long overdue.
You hiccup, crying out the rest of your tears as the boy holds you into his arms. It takes you a few minutes to calm down, and when you finally pull away from the boy, you notice that your shirt is slightly wet as well. And not from your tears, but from his. You look up to see the boy's back turned on you, hiding his face from your view.
"Let's go get something to eat, kid," he says, and you can hear just the hint of tears behind his voice. And when he sniffles, it confirms everything.
Cocking your head in curiosity, you begin to follow him—
"Wait, wait!" Taehyung interrupts. "Before you go on any further, you need to address the elephant in the room, Y/N. Why the fuck is he crying?"
"Yeah, well, I didn't know then either," you say. "It's complicated. I mean, I only found out the reason way later. If you'd just let me continue—"
"Oh, sorry. Continue, then."
"Yes, thank you—"
"Wait, lemme interrupt just one more time," Taehyung interjects again. "Just one last question." You groan, but you nod, telling him you're all ears. "Exactly how much older is he than you?"
You sigh. "He was three years older."
Taehyung sucks in a deep breath. "Right... He's, uh, dead. But damn. You were into a Utopian-born that was older? You really broke all the boundaries."
You shrug. "I guess I always didn't really give a fuck about societal norms or whatever the shit people call it."
"And yet you're conforming to the largest societal norm in Atna by studying for the Exam," Taehyung points out. "Times have changed."
You smile sadly, shaking your head. "I'm only doing this for Yoongi. He made me promise... So, here I am, trying to fulfill his wishes. Will you let me continue now?"
"Yeah, yeah."
"Anyways..."
Yoongi watches you devour the bread, but you're too hungry to care about his incessant staring.
"You should slow down," he says. "We don't want you to choke to death or anything—" he pauses, eyes turning wide before he mutters a "Shit, I gave her a fucking idea."
"I heard that," you say.
Yoongi visibly pales.
"It's okay," you assure him, setting down a loaf of bread to stare right back at the boy. "I feel better now. I don't think I've eaten for days."
"Damn," Yoongi mutters under his breath. "What kind of best friend was he for you to be this distraught over his death?"
"Distraught?" you say, blinking blankly at him.
He sighs, "Right, right, you're only ten. Distraught means sad. Upset. Depressed. All those fun words."
"Oh," you murmur. "Jimin was everything to me," you say shyly. "He promised me that we were going to go back to Dystopia! Then we could share a house and live together as adults..." you trail off, losing yourself in the figments of your wildest imaginations. "We were supposed to have so much fun in Purgatory..."
Yoongi cocks his head. "Kid, I think you liked him."
You frown at this strange comment, crinkling your nose. "Of course I liked him, he was my best friend."
"No, kid. You like liked him. Maybe you loved him. I don't know," Yoongi says, shrugging. "Think about it. Wait no, don't. Forget about him. Don't make yourself sad. Talk to me. What do you wanna do? Wanna go to my room? I have some stuff back from home there. You can play with them if you want."
You squint your eyes at the boy, staring at him suspiciously. "Why are you trying to be nice...?"
"Nice?" Yoongi scoffs. "I'm just, uh, I'm just trying to get rid of stuff that I don't need anymore. I'm definitely not being nice. So you better follow me 'cause I don't want a lot of things."
You don't buy his lie, but maybe that's a good thing. In your eyes, this boy is, indeed, nice and he's trying to help you take your mind off of Jimin. He even prevented you from leaping off the ledge and falling to your own death. You hope he sticks around.
And stick around he did.
Yoongi is bossy, straight-forward and frankly rude sometimes, things that Jimin totally wasn't. But he is also generous, thoughtful and emotional (on a good day), and that's all you needed to stick by his side.
He is so generous that in the first week that you met him, he gave you nearly a closet-worth's supply of thick sweaters and jackets for the upcoming winter. In that same way, he is thoughtful. You took the clothes gratefully, never once having held such expensive material before in your life.
On late nights when you slept over in his room, he always asked if you could tell him stories of your childhood. And you'd gladly oblige. That's when he got emotional. Though you never see him cry, you always hear it when you tell your stories. Yoongi tries to hide his emotions to the best of his ability, but frankly, he's a loud crier, so you hear him every time. But you let him think he's good at hiding his tears for the sake that he's your friend.
One day, though, you come down with some sort of throat sickness, and Yoongi practically orders you not to speak for the next 24 hours. He had his own medicine cabinet in which his rich parents gifted him before their only son was shipped off to Purgatory from their grand mansion. So you were getting the best treatment anyone in Purgatory could get.
Yoongi even offered to tell you stories that night. To repay you for being an amazing storyteller.
"I've always wanted to hear about Utopia," you croak despite having a painful burn in your throat. "I hate that place. But I want to know more about it."
"Stop talking so much," Yoongi sighs. "Do you want to get better or not?" When you're silent, (having passed his rhetorical question test in which the correct answer was to stay quiet) he smiles to himself and continues. "I hate Utopia too. It's not as great as it seems. You know that every Utopian-born is a slave to education? I think the moment I was born, I got tossed in tutoring. From six in the morning to eleven at night I was tutored. Seven days a week, no breaks. It's probably illegal, but my parents had a lot of copies of the books in the library in Purgatory. They made me get a head start on everything. After a while, you start to think about what the whole point of education is...
"My parents always told me that I was only suffering in my younger years—that I'd only have to suffer until I'm eighteen and if I scored well on the Exam, I'd be able to come back home safely and have the time of my life in Utopia. But I just didn't want to become a slave to education," Yoongi says. "I was sick of it. Sure, I'm privileged. Sure, I had everything I wanted growing up, but I didn't have one thing you Dystopians have—freedom.
"When you're studying all day every day, you don't get a lot of chances to make friends," Yoongi says. "I grew up with adults breathing down my neck and telling me to memorize useless facts. That was the closest thing to friends I ever got. I'm not sure if every Utopian-born is forced to live like this, but I can damn well infer it. Anyways, my parents aren't here now, so I can do whatever the fuck I want."
You laugh. "You don't want to go back home?" you say in your sick, gravelly voice
"I'm just tired, Y/N. I'm tired of everything," Yoongi exhales. "You'll understand when you're older."
"You're only three years older than me, though," you pout. "Do three years change that much?"
"Yes," Yoongi replies as a matter-of-fact-way. "I don't even want to take this stupid fucking test. But I also don't want to rot in Dystopia—no offense. I know I won't last there."
"Yeah, you won't last," you tell him with a giggle.
He huffs. "That's real comforting, Y/N."
"I know," you rasp. "Please tell me about Utopia, now. Are the skies really that blue? And does everyone have a pool? What do you eat there? Do you get your own room??" The last question throws you in a coughing fit, and Yoongi looks at you worriedly. He waits until you stop before he continues.
"It was always blue outside, yeah," he says, slowly, carefully as if he was taking his time to form his words to match his visualizations. "Sometimes we had scheduled rainy days for the private gardens and stuff," he says nostalgically. "I think I had about three pools in my home in Utopia, but I’m not sure if other families had them too. You know, I didn't get around much. Always stuck inside and studying." He sighs. "At least the food there was good. Way better than the crap we're forced to eat here. Barbecue ribs with generous amounts of sauce, slow-cooked potatoes in a bonfire, roasted lamb chops, fresh fruits and vegetables picked up from the nearby food-growing facilities... Caviar, licorice, cotton candy, chocolate, cakes, pudding... And if I ever ate bread, it was with fresh strawberry jam and smooth almond butter."
You don't understand half of the stuff he's saying, but whatever it is, it sounds delicious.
"I could talk about the great food there forever," Yoongi says. "The only thing I miss about Utopia is the food... It's really lonely there. I had my sleeping chamber, my pool room and my study room, but I was always in there alone. Whatever. Do you want to hear more?"
You nod. "Yoongi?"
"Yeah?"
"You cried when I first met you. Why?"
Yoongi visibly stiffens. Knowing him you expect Yoongi to wave off your question or ignore you altogether, but to your surprise, he doesn't.
"You made me feel bad," he confesses bluntly.
"Me??"
"It was just so strange for me to see someone else get upset over a friend..." he trails off. "You were going to die for him. You were going to leap into a pit because you loved your friend that much. You couldn't bear to think of a life without him. So you were going to die with him. And that just..."
"It was stupid, I know," you pout. "You don't have to say it again."
"It was stupid, yeah," Yoongi agrees. "And I'm saying it again because I can. But at the same time, it hurt me. You know, I made up my mind to jump that day too."
"You did??"
"Yeah and imagine my surprise and annoyance when I see some ten-year-old Dystopian-born in my way," Yoongi sniffles. "Pissed me off."
You huff. "Well—"
"And I was still pissed off at you until you told me you were going to do it to be with your friend," Yoongi says. "Do you know why I was going to do it?" You shake your head no. "Because I'm selfish and I didn't like my life and I didn't want to continue living in this hellhole by myself. Because I wanted to give up. And also because I didn't have a purpose to wake up to another day, but that's just one part of a plethora of other reasons. They were all selfish. It made me just... feel something when I saw you. And you were just willing to die for someone who wasn't yourself. Even though that's fucking stupid, it made me realize how I've never really lived before. And maybe you were the key to my first friendship? I don't know."
"Wow," you mutter.
"Is that all you have to say?"
"Yes, well, no? My throat's hurting again, Yoongi," you whine. "You told me to stop talking minutes ago."
"Oh, well, in that case, just go to sleep," he says. "You'll feel better in the morning."
"Thanks," you whisper against your cotton pillow. You snuggle in your cot below Yoongi's bed and let out a small sigh. "You're not that selfish, Yoongi," you say.
And you mean it. Yoongi's shown you nothing but generosity. He's shown you that he's caring when he tries to be. Even though he's unbelievably bossy sometimes, he does it for your own good. His quiet demeanor is a façade to the overwhelming emotions inside, and you can see right through it.
Yoongi doesn't answer for the longest time, so you wrap your arms arm yourself to preserve warmth and fall asleep. You wake up the next morning with an extra layer of blanket on top of you.
Taehyung begins to tap his feet on the ground restlessly, consequently making your chair shake underneath you. You try to ignore it for minutes, but the constant shaking is making it hard for you to concentrate on the textbook sitting between the two of you.
"Taehyung," you say.
"Hm?" he asks, his eyes boring into the pages of the book. "What?"
"Can you stop?"
"Stop what?"
"You're shaking my chair."
"Oh," Taehyung says. He finally looks up from his reading and makes eye contact with you. "Sorry," he apologizes hastily. "I didn't mean to do it... I just got nervous. This book is just... It's weird. I mean, when was the last time we put emphasis on family?"
"Never, of course," you say. "I barely even remember what my parents look like."
"Really?" Taehyung's eyes are large as he stares you down with curiosity mixed with just the slightest bit of pity. "Do you miss them?"
"No."
"What? Really?" Taehyung gasps. "You really don't care at all?"
"They're not prominent figures in my life," you say. "It was always Jimin. And then when Jimin died, it was Yoongi..." you trail off. "I do regret not being close to my family. I don't think I said goodbye when I had to leave to Purgatory."
"God, well, that's harsh."
"I know. What about you? Were you close with your family?"
"Oh, very," Taehyung replies. "I had three older brothers and one younger sister. My sister and two brothers didn't make it out in the world. So in theory I only had one older sibling."
"I'm sorry," you say.
"It's fine. It was in Dystopia. Too many people die so the deaths start to become irrelevant," Taehyung shrugs. "I miss them, though. My brother's dead now, but I miss my parents."
"Dead?"
"He tried to start a revolt in Purgatory eleven years ago," Taehyung says. He frowns, shaking his head in disbelief. "I didn't think he was that dumb to actually go through with the rebellion. It was a man-slaughter, by the way. Everyone in his year was killed."
"Everyone?" you say. "Even to me, that sounds severe."
"Yeah, well, it was easier for them. Assumed that everyone in that year was a rebel. And rebels deserve to die, apparently," Taehyung says. He grits his teeth, fisting his hands in slow-coming anger. "You do know why they have the fucking Exam, right?"
"To choose which people are worthy of being in Utopia?"
"That's part of the reason," Taehyung says. He leans into you so suddenly that you gasp quietly. "The government does it to weed out the feeble-minded ones. Haven't you heard rumors? In a few years, they might just exterminate Dystopia and Purgatory altogether. There aren't enough resources to keep everyone alive," he whispers with urgency, and you can feel his hot breath on your cheeks. "So they're trying to grow a stable society with highly intelligent individuals. They want to get rid of the excess. The unworthy. They do it by hosting the Exam."
He looks satisfied at your rather shocked face and decides to give you some space, leaning away and taking away the warmth on your face.
"They're going to get rid of Dystopia?" you whisper. "And Purgatory? That's not fair to the people living there. They're gonna close off Utopia forever? That's bullshit."
"It's rumored." Taehyung shrugs.
"Is that why you're studying so hard to go?" you say, cocking a curious brow at him. "To avenge your brother?"
"Maybe," Taehyung grins. "I mean, I'll see what I can do."
"You shouldn't," you tell him with a frown. "They're gonna kill our whole year because of you."
Taehyung raises an eyebrow at you. "You know what they're doing is wrong," he says. "Don't you want to right the wrong?"
"No," you say. "I don't. I'm not going to risk my life or any other lives to fix this stupid system. The only fool-proof way to beat them is to beat the Exam—by that, I mean get a perfect score. Think about it. It's a huge middle finger to the government. Imagine if only one person out of hundreds gets to go to Utopia for scoring the highest, and, you know, assuming that only one person gets a perfect score because it's that unheard of. If that keeps up year after year, Utopia will die. They'll be underpopulated. The government will realize the system is flawed with time."
"That would take years and years. And a lot of assumptions to make," Taehyung scoffs. "You're talking about one person from every fucking year having the will and intelligence to score perfectly. Statistically impossible."
"So what?" you say. "You think a bloody revolution will solve everything?"
"A bloody revolution would obviously take less time than what you're thinking of," Taehyung says. "There are people fucking dying out there. There are people eating dead bodies. One bloody revolt can do a lot for the future."
"It won't do a lot for the present, though," you argue.
Taehyung sighs. "You know what? I'm sorry we even fucking got into this damned conversation. Whatever. Let's just finish up the book."
You clench your teeth but you don't say anything, merely nodding to show your agreement.
For the next thirteen hours, it is completely silent. After the small argument, neither you nor Taehyung feels the need to speak to the other. There is obvious tension and awkwardness between the two of you—like it had been in the beginning. You try to ignore it, immersing yourself into the contents of family studies, no matter how tedious you found it. Night rolls around and both of you end up skipping dinner.
Breakfast the next day is skipped as well.
By the time lunch comes, you and Taehyung have finished reading and reviewing the last book in the whole library. He slams the textbook shut and slides it across the table. The sound isn't as jarring as you expect it to be. So you just blink your dry eyes and try to steady yourself to prepare to stand up from your seat. Maybe you should leave Taehyung alone for a while... Maybe he doesn't want to talk to you anymore. And maybe you shouldn't hang around him... He could get you killed. He could rope you around in his master plan that his older brother had left with loose ends. You don't want to die; you don't even want to think of the possibility of death.
The only way you can beat the goddamn Exam is to be the only person to score 100 percent. And you're going to accomplish that. For years you've set your mind on this one single goal. Sacrificed food, water and sleep for it. You're not going to let it slip from your hands this easily—not when you're this close to it.
You wobble away from the chair, never looking back at Taehyung as you try to walk away from the table.
"Wait."
His tired voice echoes in the nearly empty library and it rings in your ears. You stop walking but you don't turn around.
"What, Taehyung?" you say through gritted teeth. Though you try to hide the slight waver in your voice that would indicate your exhaustiveness, it shows quite obviously.
"Let's grab lunch together. Please," he says—no, pleads.
God, he must know how much that word affects me. He knows about Jimin, so it probably wasn't so hard to use that knowledge to his own advantage.
After contemplating for what seemed like minutes, you finally turn around to face Taehyung. It surprises you when you meet his eyes almost immediately.
"You didn't finish telling me about Yoongi," he says. "I hate cliffhangers."
It occurs to you that both of you are too proud to apologize over an argument; in fact, this was Taehyung's way of apologizing to you without uttering the words, 'I'm sorry.' Your apology would be something similar.
You nod. "C'mon," you say. "Let's go to the cafeteria."
For two whole years, you were the happiest you've ever been with Yoongi. He made you almost forget about Jimin, but you made sure you honored your dead best friend by visiting the pit every now and then. It had been the last place you'd seen him.
Yoongi likes to come with you when you go to the pit. He's been getting anxious these days when you're not by his side.
Actually, you notice that he's been acting a bit strange. In the past few months, he began lecturing you about famous inventors and world leaders. He taught you the locations and capitals of countries you didn't know existed. He's been telling you the events of history as if he'd lived through them himself. The most annoying part was when he tried to make a damn math problem out of everything.
You only assumed that the pent-up knowledge inside his head was finally getting to him and he had to let it out to someone before he exploded. So you went along with it. And you suppose that sometimes, the lessons Yoongi taught you were enjoyable.
Until it got to the point that he began to quiz you on the material you learned from him.
You groan, eyes fluttering open to greet the morning sunlight that floods through the faded curtains in Yoongi's room. You had a rough night with a bad dream. You've never been this glad to finally wake up from your sleep.
Aside from the sunlight, you're also greeted by Yoongi's loud voice the moment he catches you awake. "Capital of Senegal?" he demands, pointing at you as if you had just committed a crime.
You squint your eyes at him, frowning as you stifle a yawn. You're still cranky from having a bad dream (that you can't remember now that you've woken up), so without so much of the slightest blink of an eye, you tell him to "Please, stop."
Yoongi snorts. "No, seriously," he says. "What's the capital of Senegal?"
"I dunno," you lie even though there's no way in hell that you don't know at this point in time because Yoongi's been making you memorize the world capitals for weeks now. But frustration starts to bubble up inside of you. You thought Yoongi would know a thing or two about maintaining personal space. Making you answer stupid geography questions the moment you wake up for six days in a row was downright mean and he deserves to hear a mouthful from you. "Yoongi what the hell is up with you?" you huff. "What does the capital of Senegal have to do with anything??"
"It's Dakar!" Yoongi yells, throwing up his hands. "Fucking Dakar, Y/N! Is that so hard to remember?"
"Why does it even matter?!" you yell back at him.
"I'm trying to help you!" Yoongi shouts. "I'm helping you learn, goddammit!"
"Why would I have to learn??" you say absolutely confused out of your mind. "You know how much you hated being stuck in tutoring. Well, I hate it too!"
"Oh, shit," Yoongi curses, collapsing on his bed with his hands buried in his face. He realizes that you'd just made an extremely valid point, and it puts him to shame. "I was just trying to help..."
"What? Help me pass the Exam?" you snort half-jokingly. "Yoongi, I want to go back to my home, Dystopia, with you."
"No, Y/N," Yoongi says. "I'm not going to Dystopia."
"Then wha—"
"I've been thinking, Y/N," Yoongi cuts you off, patting the spot next to him for you to sit. You do, rubbing your eyes and trying to tame your bed hair as you wait for him to continue. "I've been thinking a lot..." Yoongi says, "about the future. I've thought about every scenario in my head, and I don't think I'll ever be content."
"Aren't you happy with me, here?" you say. "I thought we were having fun..."
"Sooner or later, Y/N, I'll have to take the Exam," Yoongi says. "I'll fail, as expected. I'll be tossed into Dystopia and I'll have to wait until you come back home. But I'll most likely die in less than a year so you'll never actually get to see me again."
"Don't say that!" you shriek. "Don't even—"
"I'm obviously not going to make it in Dystopia. I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth and waking up in this dingy room in Purgatory every day disgusts me. Think about how horrible it'd be for me in Dystopia when I can't even stand it here. Then the only solution left is for me to go back to Utopia," Yoongi explains. "And that's not going to happen because I don't intend on learning new material anymore. I'm not a scholar. Was forced to be, but never wanted to be. I give up."
"You're giving up??"
"I'm giving up."
"But Yoongi..." you breathe but no further words come out of your mouth. You don't want to put words in his mouth, but you're scared of what he's thinking of doing to himself in the future. Yet you don't have the guts to ask him about his plan out loud.
"I know, Y/N," Yoongi sighs. "But I'm not bringing you down with me."
"What??"
"You're going to Utopia, Y/N," Yoongi says. He's so nonchalant with an atrocious statement that you wonder if he has a concussion. But when he's staring at you so intently, you realize with a heavy heart that he's dead serious.
"It's too late, Yoongi," you protest. "I would never beat the Utopian-borns... I'm already two years behind the game, and if you factor in the time the Utopian-borns have studied, I'm twelve years behind!"
"It's not too late," he argues. "Think about it. Utopian-borns like me—unless they're batshit crazy—aren't trying as hard anymore. Their parents aren't there to supervise them, and they're probably insanely cocky about how much they already know."
"What's your point?"
"You can easily beat them with willpower," Yoongi says. "And I already tried teaching you some stuff that I remembered too—whether you were paying attention is solely on you, though."
You huff. "I was paying attention," you say. "And that's impossible. I'm not a genius, Yoongi. Intelligence is genetic. You told me so yourself."
"I did," Yoongi admits, "but it doesn't matter how innately intelligent you are. What really matters is willpower. And I have none. But you have a lot. I'm just saying, Y/N. Utopia... it's not really a life for me. I don't really give a shit about education and being intelligent. I don't really give a shit about anything. But I think Utopia is a life for you. It's a life you deserve."
"I can't just accept what you're telling me, Yoongi," you say.
"Yes you can," he says. "I want to leave soon, you know. I don't want to distract you from your studies... And besides, Purgatory's food fucking sucks. I bet they have better food in the afterlife."
The afterlife. It's then when it truly dawns on you of the atrocity that your friend would commit to himself.
"You can't just kill yourself," you scoff, twisting your body towards Yoongi in complete bewilderment. "What about me? I never agreed to any of this!"
"You've wanted to go to Utopia the moment I started to tell you about it," Yoongi says. "You think I wouldn't know? I'm helping you get there."
"But I don't want to be alone!" You sniffle, chin pointing to the ceiling so the tears that are starting to well in your eyes dry away. But it's no use. The more you think about being abandoned again, another person you genuinely cared for leaving you into the afterlife... it makes you feel broken.
"Well, I don't really want to live," Yoongi says. "We're all selfish. It's human nature."
"I thought you cared about me!" Your voice rises two octaves. "We were supposed to spend the rest of your time in Purgatory together! You can't just leave early because you feel like it! What am I going to do without you??" You're sobbing now, the tears running down your face in fat droplets that blur your vision.
"Hey..." Yoongi murmurs. "Y/N..." He gives you some space to cry, to let out the worst of your emotions. Then he encompasses you in a warm hug in which your face is up against the soft material of his sweater and he pats your back comfortably. "You'll get over me."
"I won't," you whimper. "That's a promise."
"C'mon don't waste a precious promise on that," he whispers.
"I will so waste a stupid precious promise on that," you whisper back. You hate him for doing this to you. For telling you that he was going to leave you so you knew what was coming—now you were dreading the moment he was going to abandon you instead of relishing in his presence, his embrace, his warmth.
For hours, the two of you bask in complete silence. You've calmed yourself down to the point that the tears roll down your face sporadically, but not in steady streams anymore. Yoongi runs his fingers through your hair, an act that he only does to ensure you that everything will be all right. It's rare that the two of you are ever this close in proximity, and you want to cherish this moment before he's gone. But curiosity pulls at the strings inside you and you just have to ask—
"W-When are you going to do it?"
"Hm?"
"When are you going to commit suicide?"
"I'm not going to tell you."
You pull away from Yoongi, scowling at him. "Why not?"
"You'll try to put a stop to it," he says. "I need to get through with this, Y/N. You can't change my mind."
"I want to say I hate you, but now I feel like I need to be nice to you," you confess, running a hand through your hair in confusion.
Yoongi smiles, shaking his head. "Act normally." He hesitantly reaches out for your hand, and when you give it to him, he holds it perfectly—not too tightly nor not too loosely. "Just promise me one thing." When you don't answer, he turns to you, squeezing your intertwined hands for emphasis. "Get to the top for me, will you?"
"I can't promise tha—"
"And please don't frown when you study. You're gonna get a permanent crease on your forehead."
"Fuck, Y/N," Taehyung chokes, blinking away a tear that was starting to become too heavy for his eyes. "That's it? You let him just... leave you like that?"
"I feel like I should've put up a bigger fight too," you admit, playing with what's left of the bread crumbs on the lunch table. "I should've helped him. Nursed him back into a healthy mental state. But what did I know? I was fucking twelve then. I didn't know shit about mental health or psychology."
"You know now at least," Taehyung offers.
"I'd rather not know," you say. "Now that I know that I could've helped him... it just feels worse." You let out a deep sigh that takes the heavy weight off of your chest. "He overdosed about four days later. They found him before I did... And since then, I've been alone, studying my ass off."
"I can't help but admire your determination," Taehyung says. "You honestly can't beat human willpower. Yoongi's right."
You smile, shrugging nonchalantly. "I just want to keep my promise with him... And maybe I want to live in glory for the rest of my life, but who am I to blame? Everybody wants that life."
"Everybody deserves that life," Taehyung says. "No one should have to go through near-death experiences to get to it."
"Life's never fair," you say. "Deal with it."
Taehyung snorts. "I know. I'm trying." He pauses, placing a pensive hand on his chin and looking off into the distance as if he were thinking hard about something. "Hey, you know, the best way to retain information is to repeat it out loud or teach it to others."
"That's exactly what Yoongi made me do," you say. "All those random quiz questions throughout the day... I didn't appreciate it then, but I'd sure appreciate it now."
"Then we can be study buddies," Taehyung declares. "We'll quiz each other. We have about a year left before the Exam. We'll review every concept in the whole damn library together. Two heads work better than one!"
"Aren't we supposed to be competitors?" you say. "I'm looking to get a perfect score, Taehyung," you grin. "If you can't keep up with my rigorous schedule, you shouldn't even be proposing this plan to me."
"Oh yeah?" Taehyung cocks an eyebrow as he grins right back at you, revealing his perfect teeth and boxy smile. "Bring it on, Y/N."
Bring it on? Oh, you'll bring it on, all right. Taehyung won't even know what hit him.
Having someone else to study with you doubles your competitiveness, which is a feat in it of itself because you are definitely more competitive than at least one hundred of your peers combined.
Every day, you've been trying to wake up earlier than Taehyung to get to the library first. The only problem is, he's been doing the same as well. You thought you had him beat when you sauntered into the library at 4 a.m. feeling quite refreshed after an hour night's sleep, but it turned out that Taehyung never even left the library. He'd grinned at you, practically staring into your soul with bloodshot eyes and croaking, "I win!" so victoriously that you really had to accept his triumph over you.
But when the two of you start to play a little game of who-can-stay-awake-for-longer, Taehyung has to put a stop to the madness when you start to mumble jumbled sentences in Latin after he asks if you need some water.
You and Taehyung look out for each other almost by habit at this point. It's become a routine for you to wake the other up if you were the first to awake. Now morning trips to the library are done together, and you have to admit it feels much better to be able to walk side by side next to someone who is willing to babble his head off to wake you up a bit more.
Dinner is skipped Mondays through Fridays to make extra time for review. On Saturdays, you and Taehyung indulge in the full three meals that Purgatory has to offer while also finishing up your studies. But Sunday, Sunday is the holy grail of the week. No studying, no library, just you and Taehyung taking some time off (for once).
Surprisingly, you'd come up with Special Sundays, after Taehyung had a huge mental breakdown over plumb-forgetting how to graph polar curves on one typical Saturday night. And the special day has stayed since. Neither of you wants to get rid of something that is the only non-study related activity of the week.
Most Special Sundays are spent in either Taehyung's room or your room. Taehyung prefers your room because you have extra blankets that Yoongi left for you, and as winter comes by, any additional coverage is very much appreciated.
This Sunday, however, you managed to convince Taehyung to hang out in his room—only because his mattress is softer than yours and you've been getting bad back and neck pains these days.
"By the time I'm twenty, I'll be suffering from a fucking herniated disc," you tell Taehyung as you groan, shifting your position on his bed for what seems like the hundredth time. "I feel so fucking stuffy. Like I need to crack my back but I can't. Don't even get me started on my fucking neck."
"By the time you're twenty, you'll be in Utopia and the special doctors will be all over you to treat Atna's very own princess," Taehyung snorts. "They'd do anything to keep the perfect scoring girl alive and well."
"Princess my ass," you laugh. "I'd like to wish. How's the cot, by the way? Kinda feel bad about making you sleep there while I take your bed."
Taehyung shrugs. "I don't mind. I honestly don't even feel a difference," he says without skipping a beat. "And we don't want your back messing up your chances. On the day of the Exam, it'd be worse to have your body betray you than your mind."
"I'd literally fucking cry if my stupid back is still like this before the Exam, Taehyung," you say. "All these years I spent with my nose buried in a book... Only to fail because my body couldn't handle it."
"That's the worst," Taehyung sighs. "But if you stretch every day, it might get better. Honestly, we need to start taking care of ourselves better. We need to reserve time to rest... to take our minds off of studying. Even if it's only one day per week."
"Yeah," you agree. "You know what's fucking sad though? We're still talking about the stupid Exam even now. It never escapes our heads."
"We're slaves to the system," Taehyung bitterly murmurs. "What do you expect?"
"That's true," you say, wincing as you try to shift your position on the bed again. "I don't expect much at this point. Not from the people who've turned the library into a battlefield and the students into soldiers."
"The Exam is the war," Taehyung says. "Losing the war means death, mostly. I see no difference."
"We are so depressing," you sigh. "But it's all true."
"I know," Taehyung says. He turns over on his side to look up at you on his bed. "You ever think about the worst-case scenario?"
"You mean like... we don't make it to Utopia?"
"We?" Taehyung smiles. "So you think we'd get perfect scores together? What happened to being competitors?"
"Oh, shut up," you snort. "We're a team. I thought it was obvious. And I am not talking about not making it to Utopia. We are not going to self-sabotage months before the fucking Exam."
"You're just going to ignore the chances? You're going to ignore the chance of failure?"
"Yes!" you say, turning on your side to face Taehyung. "Of course I am. Do you really want to lie here talking about failure? We shouldn't even plant the thought of that in our heads right now. It's all about victory. We're the smartest, most capable people in our year, so if we don't get to Utopia, no one will. Understand?"
Taehyung belts out a laugh that has you frowning. "Your confidence deserves a gold medal sometimes," he says. "I do understand you..." he continues, "but only to a certain extent."
You scoff, "Oh, come on, Taehyung. What happened to the cocky bastard I met months ago??"
"That was such a mask behind the real me, Y/N," Taehyung laughs. "I thought you knew that by now. I'm fucking terrified of failure and even the slightest thought about failing makes me want to crawl in a hole and just... vanish."
"I swear to god, Tae, if you talk about vanishing like that again, I'll seriously make you want to vanish," you threaten him with the most menacing voice you can muster up. "We're already victors to this stupid game, winners of the war. Don't you dare think otherwise."
Taehyung smiles, eyes twinkling when he realizes you'd called him by his special nickname (that he kept trying to get you to call him) for the first time. "I'll try not to," he says. "But I'm not making any promises."
"Well, that's still good enough for me."
Four months until the Exam.
You're both physically (your back pains are gone) and mentally (you've always been) ready. But your friend is another story. As more days pass, the more anxious Taehyung begins to feel. He's never able to sleep, so he steals a couple of library books back to his room every night to read while everyone else is salvaging every hour of shut-eye they can get.
His insecurities are catching up to him. And you've always been quite loud-mouthed and confident, so you don't understand him very well. Yet, you're a team, and you do not leave team members stranded.
Motivational pep talks are not really your thing, but they have become your thing these past few days. You walk Taehyung to his room from the library every night, telling him that he had nothing to worry about—that he was going to do superbly well on the Exam. Sometimes, you feel like you're repeating the same phrase over and over again to him, but Taehyung reassures you that whatever you say helps him calm down.
But the mental breakdowns are becoming more and more frequent. Taehyung can't seem to sit still for ten minutes without starting to shake his leg and vibrate the whole table. He has to stop reviewing the Exam material to catch his breath, wipe away his tears and relax the tensed muscles on his face.
You let him take his time. You're always there for him to lean on, to help him catch up on the study time that he missed. And he's forever grateful to you.
"I don't think anyone's been this understanding of me," Taehyung sniffles as you pat his back comfortingly as he blows his nose on a scratchy napkin you handed him before. "Back home, my brother used to tell me to man up when I started to have my panic attacks. He was always the mentally stronger one of us."
"That wasn't very nice of him to say that," you remark. "It's normal to feel uneasy, especially at a time like this. The Exam is four months away... Not too close but not too far either..."
"God. I wish I wasn't so anxious all the time," Taehyung sighs, crumpling up his tissue and pocketing it. "I wish I was like you. Not afraid of losing... Not afraid of failing... Just so confident all the time."
"You can be like me," you say. "Just stop worrying so much."
"Easier said than done," Taehyung scoffs. "You're going to Utopia for sure. There's literally no doubt, Y/N."
"You're coming with me," you argue. "Not to avenge your brother's death or whatever. But just to enjoy the wealthy living since we both deserve it at this point."
"I'm not a charismatic leader," Taehyung shrugs. "I would've never been able to help start a revolt like him. I'd really like to go with you to Utopia... If we both got in, do you think we'd keep in touch?"
"Of course!" you exclaim. "We kept each other company in the loneliest of times. Have you seen anyone else in our year who's serious about taking the Exam making friends now? Everyone's too busy thinking about competition."
"What did I say?" Taehyung grins. "Teamwork works, and two heads are definitely better than one."
"Very true," you smile. "Remember when we fought for that book? The very first time we met?"
"How could I forget?" Taehyung laughs. "I thought you were going to murder me with that look of yours, honestly."
"Oh, wow. I'm not that scary, am I?"
"Oh, yes you are," Taehyung argues. "Do you know how hard it was for me to literally act tough in front of you in the beginning? So you wouldn't take me as some kind of wimp?"
"You acted tough for me?" you giggle, resting your hand on your cheek as your elbow sits on the table. You stare at Taehyung with an amused look on your face. "So you're just actually a big ol' softie?"
"W-Well, I wouldn't call myself a softie per se," Taehyung blushes. "I'm just uh..." he trails off. "Damn, Y/N. You put me under the spotlight."
You shrug, grinning as you watch Taehyung squirm under your intense gaze. Maybe you're a little mean, but making him blush is pretty funny. Teasing him is even funnier.
"It wouldn't be the first time. And definitely not the last," you say with a mischievous grin playing on your lips. Taehyung huffs, but his face looks much more relaxed than it had been several minutes ago—even the redness of his eyes are slowly fading away. He looks much better. He looks ready. "Hey, wanna go back to where we left off now?" you say. "If you're feeling better?"
"Yeah, sure," Taehyung smiles. "Thanks."
Goddamn. His smile is insanely contagious. It must be those perfect teeth and that boxy smile.
"No problem," you manage to murmur, feeling yourself start to blush thinking of Taehyung's immaculate smile. "Um," you hesitate, "yeah, so as I was saying before about Einstein's theory of relativity..."
Three months.
Something fishy is going on here. The closer the Exam looms over your head, the more you expected yourself to become miserable—stressed about the last-minute study material you could've forgotten over the years. Yet you find yourself rather relaxed.
It occurs to you, however, that you're only this relaxed because you have to be—for Taehyung. One of the two of you has to show strength to help the other. Pretending to be so strong-headed and confident (even when you fell into the familiar pit of self-doubt), helped you actually become confident in your knowledge and predestined success. There's really nothing to worry about, you tell yourself and Taehyung. If it's not the two of us, then it can't be anyone else.
The more you comfort Taehyung, the more he opens up to you, and the more you open up to him. Your friendships in the past have always been a little lopsided—with Jimin, you constantly comforted him, cared for him, and with Yoongi, he had been the one to take care of you. For once in your life, you had a relationship in which you both gave and took; Taehyung is your balance. The in-between of Jimin and Yoongi.
The platonic relationship with Jimin is mirrored in your relationship with Taehyung, but sometimes blush creeps up your cheeks when Taehyung teases you back or when your hands graze each other. So maybe you're not completely platonic with him.
And maybe you're just missing someone to love.
"Do you think we'd be happier if we just... never studied for the Exam?" Taehyung whispers to you as you lie side by side on your bed. The midnight moon is bright enough to illuminate just a sliver of Taehyung's face as he stares at the ceiling of your room pensively. "We would be hanging out... never going to the library... Making friends..."
You hum thoughtfully. "I don't know," you say. "I guess maybe we would be happier—just for the eight years we're in Purgatory, anyway."
"That's right," Taehyung says. "That's a good point, actually. I feel like what we're doing right now is right. We're suffering now to make gains later. And..." he trails off. "And... um, if we don't make it, at least we'll know that we tried."
You nod. "Yeah, I guess. It would be better than being tossed back into Dystopia and wondering for the rest of our lives what would've happened if we did study for the Exam."
"Exactly," Taehyung says. "I think it's crazy that we only have three months left," Taehyung says. "But weirdly... I feel less stressed than before. Maybe your optimistic preachings are getting to my head," he laughs quietly, nudging your shoulder playfully.
"Me? Optimistic?" you snort. "That's the first."
"It's true," Taehyung muses. "My anxiety isn't as bad as before, and I'm pretty sure you had a part to play in that."
"In three months, you won't have any anxiety ever again," you reassure him. "You won't even need to hear me babble on about optimism and self-confidence."
"And we'll be having the time of our lives in Utopia," Taehyung breathes.
You smile to yourself, nodding silently. The two of you let the silence consume you, letting Taehyung's last words echo in your head; it's a good way to end the conversation—on a positive note. A lasting note of hope and faith.
It's then when you feel something warm on your hand. It takes you a moment to realize it's flesh. It takes another moment for you to realize it's Taehyung's hand. When you don't flinch away, he quietly almost hesitantly encompasses your hand in his. Delicately, your fingers intertwine and lock perfectly together.
Immediately, your cheeks heat up but you refuse to speak about it. Reassurance floods through you as the two of you lay side by side in the comforting darkness of your room with your hands held tightly together.
And neither of you speak until the sun peeks out from the horizon to paint the skies with another morning, another day. You don't need to talk to Taehyung to know he's thinking the same thing as you.
We'll have the time of our lives in Utopia.
Two months.
The last-minute crammers crowd the library so much that there is a line to enter it. You and Taehyung found a very effective way to battle the sudden influx of students, though. Every day, the two of you enter the library as early as three in the morning (to ensure that little to nobody was there) and take six to seven books with you, hiding them under your jackets and sweaters.
Studying in your rooms is much better.
There are less judgmental eyes, fewer chances of catching a stupid cold that's been making its way through the younger kids in Purgatory and you and Taehyung can lounge on the beds when you get tired of sitting straight.
Two months to the Exam is shockingly close, so close that your back pains have been plaguing you once more. Taehyung tells you to stop slouching when you sit, but you find it hard to sit straight and read the tiny text of the textbooks. So you end up ignoring him.
But on some days, it hurts for you to turn your body, your back aching to the extremity that you started believing one uncalculated movement could leave you paralyzed for the rest of your life. It's on those days that you wish you listened to Taehyung earlier. You push on though, too stubborn to admit to Taehyung that he's right and too impatient to try to fix your pain at such an urgent time.
Except you're not too good at hiding your discomfort and Taehyung catches onto you.
"We should take a break," he says, closing an astrophysics textbook and practically tossing it over his head.
When you hear the loud thump of it hitting against the wall, you gasp. "Tae! You can't just throw the fucking book. We're not even supposed to have these in our rooms!"
"Maybe that was a bad idea," Taehyung says, fidgeting his hands. "A little too late now, though, isn't it?" He shrugs. "We need a break."
"I'm fine! I swear!" you say. "We'll study for a few more hours."
"Your back's killing you, isn't it?"
You scoff. "N-No!"
"You stuttered."
You groan, wincing quietly as you try to sit up straight. "I'm not gonna die because of this. I think I can keep going."
"If you don't fix that now, you probably won't be able to sit down for four hours to take the Exam," Taehyung tells you. He takes your book and throws it over his head, making you grimace when it thuds against the wall. "I'm gonna loosen your back muscles!" he declares.
"What are you gonna do? Step on my back and make it crack?" you snort. When you see that Taehyung actually looks like he's contemplating it, you quickly say, "Please don't."
"Don't worry. I'll try not to make it hurt," Taehyung grins. You look at him so threateningly that he has to raise both of his hands defensively. "Oh, c'mon! I'm trying to help."
You give him a nervous look. "So what? You're gonna give me a massage?"
"It'll help!" Taehyung says. "Just get all comfy and lay flat on the bed. Stomach on the covers, please."
The mere thought of his hands roaming on your back makes your face heat up. God, this is going to be intimate. Maybe that's why Taehyung suggested it... and maybe that's why you're actually complying with him.
Hesitantly, you situate yourself on the bed, laying your face on your arms. "Just my back," you tell him.
"Yeah, of course," he says. "I have credentials, technically."
"Oh?"
"I found a magazine about it," Taehyung says. "So I'm very much qualified."
"Oh god."
You hear Taehyung rustle behind you and you try to twist your body to see what he's doing but your back prevents you from moving. In frustration, you ask, "What are you doing?"
"Rolling up my sleeves and staring at your back. Why?"
"Why the fuck are you staring at my back?"
"I was trying to figure out where it hurts," he answers, "but I guess I could've just asked you instead."
You snort. "God, Tae. It honestly hurts everywhere. But especially around the shoulder blade area."
You can just imagine Taehyung nodding professionally, with his sleeves rolled up and his hair slicked back to prevent stray strands from poking at his eyes.
"Okay, I'm gonna put pressure there," he says. "Deep breath out..."
You obey him, closing your eyes and blowing air out of your lips, simultaneously relaxing your body. The moment you feel his hands on your back, goosebumps checker your arms. No one's ever been this close to you; no one's bothered to be this intimate with you.
"Feel good?" Taehyung asks.
He sounds closer to you than you expected him to be, and your breath hitches quietly. "Y-Yeah," you stutter. "A little lower."
Taehyung listens, rubbing your sore back with such care and calculated pressure that you have to bite your lip from letting rather embarrassing sounds from escaping your mouth. You don't realize how tense your body was until Taehyung calls you out. "You're so tense, Y/N," he remarks, his hands dealing with the clumped muscles on your back. "Try to relax."
You're red-faced, unable to admit to him that if you do as he says, you might just let out a moan and it'll really be game over then. You are not going to embarrass yourself in front of him because Taehyung would never let you live that down. And if you're really going to spend your days in Utopia with him, you'd rather not let him have any memories he can use to tease you.
"I am relaxing," you lie through your teeth. But when Taehyung gets to a particularly sensitive part on your back, you hiss through your teeth. "Ow..."
Taehyung immediately stops his ministrations. "Do you want me to stop for a second?" he asks with so much worry laced into his voice that you almost feel guilty for making him question himself.
"No!" you exclaim. "I mean, no. I'm fine. I guess my back was much worse than I thought..."
Taehyung laughs. "Well, if I do this for you occasionally and you stretch every day, you'll be in good condition again."
"Thanks," you mutter. "Really, Tae, I mean it."
You can just imagine the boy grinning ear to ear behind you. Though you expected him to say something cocky or silly, you received silence in response. "Tae?" Gritting your teeth, you try turning over on your back, which was easier than expected—Taehyung's massage had already done wonders.
With a little oof, you flip over to finally get a good look at Taehyung. "Cat got your tongue??" you tease him, raising an eyebrow and gazing at his rather blank face.
"No... no," he answers right away. "For a second I thought..." he trails off. His handsome face morphs into a look of worry, of nervousness.
"You thought...?"
"I thought I..." he trails off again, much to your impatience.
"Oh, come on, Tae," you sigh. "Spit it out!"
The boy grins, shaking his head. "For a second, I thought I heard you moan, Y/N. Enjoying yourself a little too much, aren't we?"
Okay, you had not expected that. The color quickly drains from your face and your mouth drops open rather unflatteringly. You sputter to think of an excuse, any excuse that would whisk you away from the embarrassment consuming you at this moment.
"I'm just kidding," Taehyung says as he nearly falls over in a fit of laughter. "You should see your face!"
"That's not funny!" you yell, sitting up on your elbows and glaring at the laughing boy.
"No, it was definitely funny," he says, grabbing your hand and helping you sit up. The action brings heat to your cheeks and you have to look away. "Oh, c'mon," Taehyung whines, "learn some humor, Y/N."
He must mistake your embarrassment as anger. You'll play along.
"You can literally shut up," you huff.
"Damn, you're not very scary when you pretend you're mad," Taehyung says, grinning mischievously at you.
"I am not pretending!"
"You're still holding my hand, Y/N," he teases.
Oh shit. He's right. That's the second time that's happened in one month. Is it strange to seek physical comfort? Or is it strange to feel so comfortable with Taehyung? "I-I," you stutter embarrassingly, unsure if you can even finish your own sentence when Taehyung interrupts you.
"It's okay, Y/N," he says. "I don't mind holding your hand."
You gape at him in shock—so much so that you're sure you don't look too attractive at the moment with your mouth hanging open and your eyes bulging.
Taehyung tightens his grip on your hand as he tugs you closer to him. His eyes sparkle with something you recognize as mirth, which is funny to see in a student's eyes just two months before the Exam.
Hm. You like the way his warm hand encompasses yours, and you adore the way he stares into your eyes as if he knows you and cares for you.
Before you know it, you're breathing out a rapid, "I don't mind holding your hand either."
You didn't know it was possible for Taehyung to grin even wider but sometimes even you're wrong.
One month.
This is the official crunch time. The time when existing contenders of the Exam become vicious and violent to ward off competition. The time when those who never cared for the Exam begin to host parties to live their best and lasting moments in glee. The time when some cocky Utopians begin to study—they think they're so above everyone else that they only need one month to prepare.
But you and Taehyung relish together in the time left in Purgatory together. You'll see him again in Utopia, but Purgatory is the place where you met him and got to know him. It's special, no matter how much you hate the dingy library and cramped dorms. It's special because, without the given situations, you would've never even met Taehyung. You would've spent the last year in Purgatory alone, haunted by the thoughts of Jimin and Yoongi. You couldn't have survived. Or maybe you could've. But Taehyung's helping you survive with a huge smile on your face. And happiness has never been so close to your fingertips.
Your hands are intertwined with his larger ones as the two of you stand against the wall of the building, staring into the empty pit of the dark abyss.
At this point, you're not quite sure where you stand with Taehyung, but you don't care as long as he's here to comfort you every day and you're there to hold his hand.
The cozy wool of Yoongi's sweater keeps you warm in the brisk night air as does Taehyung's presence right next to you. You look out at the pit, and for once, your stomach does not sink with misery. Paying your respects to the dead loved ones has never been this peaceful before.
"Do you think they're watching over you?" Taehyung whispers, judging you softly as he gazes up at the sky dotted with nighttime stars. "Maybe they're wishing you the best on the Exam."
"I actually have no idea..." you say, looking up at the sky with Taehyung and squeezing his hands. "But I miss them."
"You'll reunite with them one day," Taehyung tells you.
"Yeah," you say, "I definitely will."
"In the meantime, I bet Jimin's having the best time eating good meals and getting good sleep on a comfy bed..." Taehyung trails off as he looks at you. "And I hope Yoongi found his happiness by now."
You nod to yourself. "Me too, Tae."
"Only a month left, Y/N," he answers. "And strangely, this is the most peaceful I've been in my whole life."
When you look up, you find that Taehyung's already staring right back at you. A small smile stretches across your cracked lips. "Trust me, it'll be even more peaceful on the day that we're finally admitted into Utopia. We're in this together, right?"
"Definitely," Taehyung says. "I'm not nervous anymore. Not since you convinced me that I don't have to be afraid."
"Still gonna start a violent revolution?" you whisper. "Follow in your brother's footsteps?"
"Not now, not ever," he answers. "The system works. Why would I bother changing it when the people who truly deserve it are going to Utopia? I'm not brave enough to revolt... And I'm not putting you at risk for my dead brother."
"Thank you... Tae, that means a lot," you say. "Do you ever think there will be another revolution, though?"
"There are always revolutions," he replies. "There will always be more revolutions. Not everyone can always be completely satisfied with the authority's actions. It is what it is. Even if I have to take the brunt of it."
"You won't," you tell him. "We'll be long gone in Utopia before that happens."
"Y/N..." Taehyung mutters. He turns you around to face him, studying your features before pulling you in for an embrace. "I know you don't like it when I talk about this... but," he pauses, unsure. Yet he takes your silence as the cue to continue on. "In the case that we are separated after the Exam... In the case that something goes wrong... we... we should just continue on with our lives."
"And ignore whatever separated us?" you murmur against his shoulder. "We won't have to worry about that though. I told you not to worry. We're going to Utopia."
"I'm saying, just in case," Taehyung whispers. His hands run through your hair as he rests his chin on your shoulder. "But I'm sure you're right. We'll be in Utopia in no time."
You hum, basking in the warmth of Taehyung's arms. "Of course."
One week.
The library is swarming with teenagers in your year, desperately fighting over books and arguing over facts. It's funny only because you and Taehyung had once been in that state of animosity. It seems such a long time ago, though.
You and Taehyung lounge about in your room, reiterating textbook information out loud to each other over and over again so the material is ingrained in your memories. After a while, it occurs to both of you that you know too well about every book in the whole library. It's no use regurgitating the same information repeatedly when you already know it. So the two of you spend more and more time talking about your futures.
"Do you think they'll let me work as a family counselor when we get to Utopia?" Taehyung asks as he tosses another textbook against the door to your room.
You laugh when he hits the target on the door and shrug. "I don't know, honestly. Do you think they even have family counseling there?"
"You're right," Taehyung scoffs, shaking his head. "We know so little about the place we want to be in so badly."
"Maybe the more we know of it, the less we'll want to be in it," you say. "It's like that thing... that saying..."
"Ignorance is bliss?"
"Yeah, that," you say. "I'm sure we'll have good things to do in Utopia, though. Whether there is a family counselor position or not."
"But I guess we'll have to find out in a week."
One day.
You feel sudden unrest in the air. People are biting their fingernails so hard, they bleed. Others are pulling out their hairs. Some are picking at their scabs.
You and Taehyung hold each other the whole day, whispering little facts here and there to ensure complete memorization. You would be lying if you said you weren't the slightest bit nervous. Yes, you're intelligent, yes, you deserve to be in Utopia and yes, you've been diligent for years... but Taehyung's right. There are some scenarios that might just happen.
Maybe you and Taehyung earn perfect scores along with six others. Or maybe you and Taehyung earn the same scores as fifteen others. Or maybe you and Taehyung don't earn the same scores at all, leaving you separated forever.
You try not to dwell on the negativities too much. After all, it's no use to think of such thoughts anyways, they'll only distract you while taking the most important test of all time. Positive thoughts, only.
Tomorrow will be the very last day in Purgatory. For four hours, you and the hundreds of other students in your year will take a life-changing test. The Exam results will be kept confidential for a painstaking two hours after the final student finishes the Exam. Then men in white suits will whisk away the highest-scoring ones without another word. You will know when you didn't score the highest. Because the men in white will not give you a second look. They will walk past you like you are the scum of the earth. You've seen it happen; you've seen how much that can break someone.
You swear that you will not be broken. You will be the victor who is escorted out with the men in white. You will be accepted into a wealthy society. You promised Yoongi. And Jimin would've wanted to see you like this.
Most of all, you and Taehyung are in this together.
You visit the pit with him in the dead of the night one last time. There are already a few dead bodies piled up in the dark abyss and the stench of death protrudes up your nose quite uncomfortably, but you manage to ignore it. This will be the last time that you will see the last place you saw Jimin and Yoongi. If it weren't for them, you wouldn't be here, so confident about acing the Exam with another man you see your future with.
When you close your eyes, you can imagine your ten-year-old self standing at the edge of the pit, contemplating jumping to be with Jimin. You can see Yoongi scoffing at your stupidity before taking you into his arms and reassuring you. You can see your ten-year-old self crying. You can see a younger version of Yoongi crying. And every year after Yoongi's death, you've visited the pit by yourself. Until this year. Until you met Taehyung. And now you're not so alone anymore.
"Are you tired?" Taehyung asks, placing a warm hand on your cheek.
Your eyes flutter open immediately and you shake your head. "No, I was just thinking. I don't think I'm going to miss this place, but I'm going to miss the memories I made here." You fist the fabric of your sweater—Yoongi's old sweater, which is surprisingly still pretty large around your frail, petite frame. "It's too bad I don't really have a token of remembrance with Jimin..."
"He was all of your childhood," Taehyung soothes you. "I'm pretty sure you don't forget your childhood best friends."
"That's true..." you sigh. "God, I really don't want to forget anything that happened in my life. I need to remember all of this," you gesture towards you and Taehyung. "So we can recall it in the future."
"You'll remember us for sure," he says. "How can you forget? When you'll see me every day, pestering you for the rest of your life?" Taehyung teases, poking at your cheek playfully.
You roll your eyes. "Fun."
"Damn right," he coos, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. "We deserve the fun."
"I know," you say, smiling at his unfiltered flirtiness. "C'mon," you tell him, grabbing his hand and dragging him into the building, "we should sleep early today."
"Good idea," Taehyung giggles. "To getting perfect scores tomorrow!" he yells to the sky, his eyes squeezed shut as he dwells in the last few euphoric moments of being in the fresh, night air before being tugged into the dorms by you.
Your heart flutters when he grins widely at you, revealing his row of pearly whites. Damn. You used to hate those too-perfect teeth, but now you love them as much as you... god, as much as you might love him.
To getting perfect scores tomorrow indeed.
One hour.
One hour before the Exam, everyone is lined up to enter their own private room, which is barely a room at all from what you've heard. The space is hardly enough to fit a desk, but it's decorated with bright fluorescent lights and spotlessly white walls. Apparently, it looks more like a mental asylum than an Exam room.
Some may be sensitive to such a small, suffocating place, but you don't really mind. As long as the information is in your head and you don't come down with amnesia in the middle of the Exam, you're fine. You're more than fine. You're going to win this thing—with Taehyung of course.
You and Taehyung hold each other's hands, strangely not as nervous as the jittery teens around you. It's strange for the two of you to be in silence for so long, but it seems fitting in such a loud environment. You probably couldn't hear each other even if you did speak.
There are peers who are already crying. Those who are missing because they jumped into the pit the night before. Those who are physically unwell and have failed to take care of their bodies. Those who look confident on the outside but their eyes brim with fear and uncertainty. And then there is you and Taehyung—radiating confidence.
Taehyung squeezes your hand when the men in white come into the halls, starting to drag the students away by random to shove them into the private Exam rooms. The process takes forever, according to the others, given that there are hundreds of students and hundreds of small rooms.
"It's hilarious how they haven't come up with a more efficient system," you whisper to Taehyung, shaking your head in disdain. "You'd think after taking away the smartest people in Atna that they'd somehow make this process less time-consuming. But they didn't."
"What?" Taehyung whispers back, looking confused as he sees you talking but he can't hear a single word.
"It's hilarious how—" you stop yourself, "NEVER MIND," you say, raising your voice. He wouldn't be able to hear you even if you did yell. And you weren't going to risk a sore throat before the Exam.
Taehyung nods at you, squeezing your hand. The two of you are reduced back into a state of silence as you watch your peers being taken away before you. The men in white are getting closer and closer, and for the first time, you're nervous. You've waited six years for this moment. Four hours are going to decide your future.
Taehyung must sense the tenseness building up in your shoulders because he places his hands on them, wordlessly telling you to relax. You thought in the last moments, you'd be comforting him, but you suppose it's the other way around.
The tables have turned.
The two of you are closer to the men in white than ever. Both of you are going to be whisked away any second now. Taehyung turns you to face him and hands you a tiny ball of paper, grinning.
He mouths something that you do not hear over the incessant roar of students, but you can make out exactly what he says. 'I'll see you in Utopia.'
The small amount of pressure on your shoulders is immediately lifted. 'I'll see you in Utopia,' you mouth back, tightly clenching your fist around the tiny ball of paper he had given you. He gives you a bright, reassuring smile before a man in white takes him away. You watch him leave, mirroring his smile and letting out a deep breath.
When a man in white finally whisks you away into your cramped Exam room, you can't help but feel reinvigorated. Even if your desk is shaky and your chair squeaks when you shift in it, you're absolutely hung up on the fact that you need to finish the Exam as quickly and carefully as possible to read whatever Taehyung had written on the small piece of paper.
The countdown commences, the camera in the room zooms in and out to check if you were keeping your integrity... the Exam booklet sits in front of you.
God, you're so ready.
Confidence surges through your body. You're going to make it out alive. You're sure of it.
Well, that wasn't so bad at all.
You don't want to brag, but the Exam was a piece of cake. The questions were never about understanding the material—instead, they focused on the specifics. The stuff you couldn't common-sense your way out of. The stuff that you either knew or didn't know. But you're a strong memorizer so the questions—even the oddly specific ones—were easy.
The men in white already took your Exam booklet away to score it. Now you're forbidden to leave the testing room for two hours while they grade it. But it's boring in here.
Your neck is a bit sore from looking down at the paper and your fingers ache from gripping your pencil. Maybe once you get to Utopia, Taehyung can give you one of his insanely therapeutic massages?
There's nothing really to do in the room except stare at the camera that's still watching you or counting the number of cracks on your desk. You contemplate for a short while whether to open the note Taehyung had handed you, but you don't want to risk an accusation of dishonesty.
If you're accused, you're likely to never be seen again.
So you make use of your time and doze off. After taking the Exam, you realize that there's no doubt you scored extremely well (you might've even gotten a perfect score!) and all the nervousness you had over the past several years (which wasn't that much) have vanished into thin air. You're confident enough to sleep.
In your dreams, you see Jimin, Yoongi and Taehyung. The four of you are best friends in a world that looks like Utopia but isn't. There is no Exam that determines your whole future. There is no Purgatory, no Dystopia... No horrible education system. No rats... No pit... It's a utopian world that's better than the Utopia that you know today.
And you're only woken from your heavenly dream when there's a knock on your door. It opens before you can stay anything and a man in white gestures for you to walk out of the room. Rubbing your eyes and shaking away your drowsiness, you obey him. The man closes the door once you are out of the room.
Left and right of you, there are hundreds of students standing outside of their rooms. The tension, the nervousness in the long hallway could be sliced with a knife. But you don't contribute to the sea of worries. You lean against the door, waiting for you to be whisked away, waiting to meet Taehyung at the end of the hallway. Waiting to be driven away in some grandeur vehicle.
You wait for only two people to be taken away. Or maybe there are others who scored a perfect score? No matter. At this point, you only care if you and Taehyung made it.
Everyone holds their breaths as the men in white start to walk through the halls. You see Taehyung ahead of you, already giving you a silly look and smiling confidently at you. You breathe a huge sigh of relief before turning your head to watch the men in white.
So far, they haven't taken anyone from their stance in front of their Exam rooms. Your heart beats loudly in your chest when they come closer and closer to you. God, they must've passed at least two hundred people to get to me. And still no high-scorer.
You and Taehyung have an enormous chance now.
You hold your breath as the men in white come closer and closer.
Any minute now...
You grit your teeth, tensing your shoulders when they're so nearby, if you reached out to them, you could touch their white suits. Your ears ring, drowning out the cries of the students who were standing behind you and were left stranded by the men in white.
Closer and closer and closer...
Your nails dig into your skin.
Closer...
You nearly scream in victory when a man in white stops straight in front of you. He nods in your direction and then places a hand on the small of your back to escort you away.
You can feel the burning eyes of jealousy digging daggers on your back as you begin to walk. But you can't help feeling like royalty. This is the moment you've been waiting for. You've been selected. You've scored the highest. You're going to be Utopian.
Taehyung catches your eye and gives you a huge thumbs up from afar. You're grinning from ear to ear as you begin to approach him. As soon as a man in white officially deems that he is coming with you, you're going to proudly hold his hand and walk through the hallway like you owned all of Purgatory. You're going to spend the proudest moment of your life with him by your side. Knowing that you made it through with him. And then you're going to read his note in the vehicle, on the way to Utopia. You have it all planned out in your head. It's going to be wonderf—
Wait.
The man in white who is escorting you is not slowing down, and the other men around you aren't looking to stop either. Wait.
You're going to pass Taehyung at this rate. Wait a fucking minute.
You suddenly break out in cold sweat as you and the men come closer and closer to Taehyung.
There's no way.
He had to have done extremely well. He has to come with me.
Taehyung looks a bit taken aback as well. His eyes reflect fear and the worry lines pressed on his forehead indicate no less than that.
You don't lose eye contact with him as the men continue to escort you down the hallway.
"Taehyung," you murmur when you're directly next to him. "Taehyung!" you yell. Your voice echoes eerily across the corridor.
"Y/N!" Taehyung yells back.
He's behind you now. The men won't let you stop walking.
"Taehyung!" you scream again, trying to turn around to look at him. "Tae!"
"Don't turn around, miss," the man escorting you speaks gruffly.
"There's been a mistake!" you cry. "Tae-Taehyung is supposed to be with me! Taehyung!"
"Don't make this difficult," the man answered. The hand on your back suddenly seems threatening.
"Y/N!!" Taehyung shouts again. His eyes brim with tears and he sinks to his knees.
"Get up!" someone yells at him. "Stand up, boy!"
"Y/N!" He ignores the command, sobbing with his hands reaching out for you and eyes pleading for safety, for your comfort.
You twist your body around, shaking off the grasps of your escort as you yell his name so loudly that your voice echoes across the vast expanse of the hallway.
"Behave," your escort grunts with gritted teeth as he tugs you away, gesturing the other men in white to block your view from Taehyung.
Tears stream down your face as you beg the men in white to let you see Taehyung one last time. They don't budge. It's not until you hear the beatings and Taehyung's agonizing screams that you try to kick the men's shins and escape. But they catch you, hoist you up and carry you away.
You thrash, scream, "Please don't hurt him!" but the screams, grunts and kicks never stop. You always thought your walk down this hallway would be glorious—the glory only lasted for a few minutes. You were supposed to walk down here hand in hand with Taehyung. Now Taehyung might be dead for disobeying orders.
You were supposed to be draped in silk and mink coats. You were supposed to be spritzed with sweet fragrances and treated like a princess. But everyone—even your peers—look at you with what you recognize as pity. Or maybe even disgust.
They must think you're crazy for not being thankful for being a high-scorer on the Exam. Some would kill to be in your place right now.
You hadn't expected—after your eight years in Purgatory—for your journey here to end like this. You're embarrassingly carried across the shoulder of the man in white, forced to dangle over him like a dead animal. You can feel the scrutinizing gazes of your peers. The ones who didn't get chosen.
It strikes you that you're alone now.
No more Jimin. No more Yoongi... And no more Taehyung.
You squeeze your eyes shut, praying for another person who scored the same as you. Maybe you'll find a new friend? Maybe you won't be alone again.
But the hallway ends and opens up to a door and you're still the only person the men in white have escorted. Your heart sinks. You're alone.
They shove you in a shiny black vehicle where the inside is air-conditioned and smells of roses. There are unfamiliar snacks in elaborate wrappings and ice-cold fizzy drinks around you—all for you—but you aren't hungry. The tears won't stop.
Were the riches and wealth worth the loneliness that will consume you for years to come?
You are a legend. A model figure. A genius.
The first to ever score 100% on the Exam. You're dragged from here to there, paid by the richest of Utopians to tutor their young children before they're sent off to Purgatory.
Frankly, you're upset at the lavishness of Utopia. There is always more to eat—so much so that one-fourths of every meal goes into the trash. The people here put ice cubes in their water to cool it. In Dystopia, there was never enough to eat and water was scarce. Purgatory never had a diverse array of food, and water was always lukewarm.
You're not sure if you belong here.
You miss Taehyung more than ever these days. Your new home is far too large for one person. You feel empty, cold inside. Even basking in the sunlight shining through your gold-rimmed window isn't enough to warm you. You tug the sleeves of Yoongi's sweater over your hands. Even after all these years in Utopia, you can't get accustomed to the fancy, frilly clothes here. You like Yoongi's old, frayed sweaters much better. And it's your only token of remembrance of him. You feel like you did him well because after all, you kept your promise. But Yoongi was wrong about one thing: the life of a Utopian did not suit you.
You can't help but think back to the days of Dystopia—of you and Jimin. Taehyung's right, you never really forget your childhood best friend. You've written down all of your memories about Jimin in a black leather-bound journal, which you keep out in the open by the window sill. On harder days, you like to read through the entries to refresh your memories and recall the stories that make you laugh or tear up with nostalgia.
The magnificent garden outside your home looks empty despite the plethora of flowers and colorful vines that sprout and bloom across the expanse of the healthy, verdant grass. Sighing, you clutch the silver locket resting between your collarbones. You've been wearing the necklace ever since the day you were first admitted into Utopia.
Inside the locket is a neatly folded up note. The piece of paper is old and crinkled and it has obviously been ripped out from a textbook called Family Studies. Taehyung's writing is etched onto it in black ink. You've read over the note so many times that you know exactly what it says by heart.
Y/N,
I was saving this to tell you in Utopia, but I can't wait for that day, even if it's tomorrow. I need to tell you now that I love you. Thank you for being by my side. Thank you for dealing with me. Thank you for calming me down.
You're welcome for those back massages. You're welcome for listening to your stories about Jimin and Yoongi. You're welcome for being by your side. I do it so much because I hate seeing you lonely.
Utopia will be great, Y/N. I think we'll live a great life there, don't you think?
I just want to say that if anything happens, we need to continue on with our lives. Because whatever the Exam decides, we deserve the results.
Nevertheless, I'll see you in Utopia, Y/N~
You tear up every time you open up your locket and study Taehyung's handwriting and his last words to you. Of course, you love him too. And it kills you that you don’t even know whether he's alive.
How cruel it is to live in such a wealthy place but feel worse than you had been in Dystopia and Purgatory.
The Exam is a curse. There is no way you could've beaten it, but you'd very much rather be hauled back into Dystopia with someone you care about than being stuck in this fast-paced, artificial world with no one but yourself.
It dawns on you horrifyingly. You did not beat the Exam. You did not win. You survived it.
And for the rest of your life, you must suffer the casualties.
—masterpost
—masterlist
#ficswithluv#btswritersnet#btswriterscollective#bangtanfairygarden#bangtanidx#tae#taehyung#kim taehyung#taehyung imagine#taehyung fanfic#taehyung fanfiction#bts#bts fanfiction#the exam#this story kinda hurts lmao#i was reading it over yesterday and damn it hurts yikes#some of the details are important to remember for the secOnd part of the series (:
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Snow and Fur
(You may need to click the image for better quality)
Happy New Year to @itstrulyastrangerthing! You were my giftee for the @sincerely-us winter gift exchange! I had such a fun time painting the fanart above and writing the fanfic below. I adored your first prompt, but you will find a little bit of your second prompt in the fic. I hope you enjoy, and may the new year bring you good things! <3
Quick Disclaimer: This is an AU where Connor is still alive, and there is healthy Bandtrees!
Ao3 Link
Evan fumbled with his hands. A mix of excitement and nervousness sat inside of him.
When Zoe brought the idea of adopting a dog to him one day, he thought it was perfect. The two had more than enough time to take care of one with the holiday season. Though Evan never had any experience with pets, Zoe recalled having a golden retriever, Sadie, in her childhood.
“Excited?” Zoe asks, remaining her focus on driving. The roads were a little icy in the late December weather.
Evan nods, “A little scared, but I’m excited.”
Zoe pulls into the parking lot of the animal shelter. The cold wind welcomed Evan’s face and lungs when he opened the car door, sending a chill down his spine.
Zoe intertwines her fingers into Evan’s hand.
“You ready?”
Evan looks at Zoe’s face. She gave him a subtle, reassuring smile. It was almost as her calm demeanor was seeping through her fingertips, transferring it to Evan’s hand.
Evan squeezed her hand tighter, nodding.
The shelter had a thick odar hanging in the air when the couple walked in. A lady greeted them, and Zoe explained what they were looking for. She led them to an array of dog kennels. Each dog they looked at, the lady told them their story.
Zoe looked up at Evan each time. What do you think?
Let’s keep looking. Evan would reply by shaking his head.
Soon, a dog finally caught Evan’s eyes.
A smaller dog sat in the corner of the cage. It’s back was to them, so all you could see was it’s thin light brown coat.
“This is Buddy,” the kennel lady explained to him, “six years old. We aren’t quite sure what breed he is, but we believe he is part corgi and part beagle.”
“How did he end up here?” Evan asked.
“Previous family abandoned him when he got older. They preferred cuter puppies, and traded him for a much younger, purebred dog.”
Evan’s heart ached for the dog, even feeling a little sympathy. His own father left, and traded him and his mom for another family. Evan remembered feeling hurt because of it.
Evan knew exactly what Buddy needed.
“Buddy barely moves though,” the kennel lady says, “there are more dogs over here.”
“Um… could I try to…?”
The kennel lady shrugs before unlocking the cage.
Evan slowly enters the cage. Buddy turned his head slightly, looking at Evan. Evan noticed he had amber eyes.
Evan crouched down. He extended his hand outwards, towards Buddy. The dog slowly, and cautiously, stood up, and began to approach Evan. Buddy extended his muzzle to his hand, sniffing Evan’s fingers.
Buddy inched closer. Evan slowly lowered his hand on Buddy’s back. Buddy tensed at Evan’s touch. The dog looked at Evan, and Evan worried he startled Buddy. However, Buddy relaxed, and melted in his touch.
“Well would you look at that,” the kennel lady said, “Buddy usually doesn’t like to be touched by others.”
Evan looks at Zoe, who is smiling at him.
“Can we get this one?” Evan asks.
“I don’t think we have a choice.”
-
Evan was getting used to having a dog around their apartment, and Buddy was used to having a home.
“You two look comfy,” Zoe smiles, holding two mugs of hot chocolate in her hands. Both mugs visibly had tall whipped cream dollops, and were sprinkled with crushed peppermint candy canes.
Evan was on the couch, Buddy on his lap. They were wrapped in a fuzzy blanket, and Buddy was enjoying the gentle scratches Evan was giving him.
Buddy had started to be relaxed when Evan or Zoe had touched him. The dog had let it’s guard down to them, and was more and more cheerful each coming day.
“Come join us,” Evan patted the spot next to him.
“Hold on, I need a photo of my two favorite boys,” Zoe pulls out her phone, setting the hot chocolate on the nearby coffee table.
Though Evan was usually camera shy, he gave Zoe a huge, goofy smile, making Zoe laugh as she snapped the photo. She then sits next to Evan on the couch. Evan wraps her some of his blanket.
“This may be my new favorite photo,” Zoe comments, “look how cute you both are.”
Evan blushes as Zoe puts her phone away. She reaches over to Evan’s lap, stroking Buddy’s fur. Buddy licks her wrist in return.
“Are we ready to start movie night?” Evan asks, sipping his drink.
“Yep,” Zoe says, popping open a fresh bag of plain popcorn. Buddy looked at Zoe, eyeing the snack. Zoe passed him a kernel. Buddy graciously accepted the treat.
“Zoe!”
“Relax,” Zoe says, “it’s not going to hurt him. Connor and I used to feed our old dog popcorn all the time.”
Evan could imagine Zoe and Connor as children, taking turns to feed Sadie handfuls of popcorn. He could also imagine Cynthia reminding them to stop feeding their dog (of course, they wouldn’t listen).
“Okay. What type of movie do you want to watch?” Evan asks, clicking the remote, scrolling through different genres.
They decided on a dog movie. It seemed fitting, since Buddy was in their arms to watch it. As Evan clicked ‘play,’ he curled into Zoe’s side.
“This is the best way to beat the cold,” Evan says, taking in the warmth of Zoe’s body.
“I’d have to agree.”
-
“He looks ridiculous.”
“Everyone needs to be bundled up,” Evan says, picking up Buddy, “including pets.”
Evan had dressed Buddy in a thick winter coat. Booties were on each of his paws, and the outfit was topped with a knitted dog hat.
“Besides, I think he is rocking the outfit,” Evan jokes.
Zoe hooks the dog leash to Buddy’s collar, “Whatever you say dear. You ready for a walk Bud?!”
Buddy wagged his tail, and began to pant excitly.
“Before we go, one more person has to put on some winter clothes,” Evan eyes Zoe.
“I’m wearing a coat!” Zoe exclaims, “and it’s just a walk.”
Evan grabs a scarf and hat, “It’s still twenty degrees outside. We don’t want mommy to be cold, right Buddy?”
Buddy barks in reply.
“Fine,” Zoe allows Evan to wrap her scarf around her neck, and slip her hat on her head. Once he’s done, he gives Zoe a quick kiss on the cheek.
Just as Evan is about to open the door, Zoe grabs his hand, pulling him closer to her.
“You missed,” Zoe smirks.
Evan closes his eyes, and leans into Zoe, pressing his lips to hers. Zoe’s hands wrap around the bare spots of his neck that his scarf did not cover. Evan a breath hitches at the touch, and he wraps his arms around her lower back.
A yip interrupted them. Zoe and Evan break apart. Buddy was patiently sitting on the floor, looking utterly betrayed. Zoe and Evan blush and giggle.
Zoe gives Evan one last kiss before opening the door, the cool air welcoming their faces. Buddy quickly jumped outside, hopping into the fresh, fluffy snow from the previous night. He rolled around until snow covered his muzzle.
Buddy led the way during the walk, eager to look at everything ahead of him. Evan had his arm linked to Zoe’s, admiring the winter wonderland in front of them. Dark pine trees were coated with snow. The sky was blue, and not it’s normal grey. The sun was brightly shining on their faces, and snowflakes were lazily descending from the sky.
“The weather is nice,” Evan says.
Zoe nods, “Buddy is enjoying it.”
Buddy was attempting to catch falling snowflakes into his mouth. Evan and Zoe giggled.
The only downside to the winter weather is that when snow mixes with a dirt road, then it becomes muddy. Mud puddles were formed all over the road they were walking on.
Unfortunately, Buddy jumped right into a puddle.
Evan and Zoe gasped, but Buddy loved it. He rolled around and splashed in the sticky dirt.
Evan lifted him up, holding him arms length out. Buddy was smiling as mud was dripping off him.
“Looks like someone will need a bath.”
-
Zoe carefully lowered Buddy into their bathtub. Buddy had a look of fear on his face. When Zoe mentioned that he needed a bath, Buddy did whatever it took to avoid it.
Even if it meant trailing mud into their apartment.
“See Bud? It’s okay,” Zoe says once his paws dipped into the water.
Buddy splashed the water, still uneasy.
“I cleaned up all the mud,” Evan enters the bathroom, “how are things going in here?”
“I’m just trying to get Buddy to calm down.”
Evan sits next to Zoe. He reaches his hand over to Buddy, scratching his ears. Buddy was still tense as Zoe gently set him down.
“See? Not that bad,” Evan assures the dog.
Zoe squirts dog shampoo into her hand. She allows Buddy to smell it before applying it, lightly massaging it into his fur. The soap helped the mud slip off with ease. Buddy became more relaxed with Evan’s presence and Zoe’s gentle motions.
“The warm water must feel nice after being in the cold,” Evan says, helping Zoe rinse the soap off.
Zoe wiggles her eyebrows, “What if we did this once we finish cleaning Buddy up?”
“I like the way you think.”
A mist of water droplets hit the couple as Buddy began to shake himself dry. The two turn to each other, before laughing.
“Guess he already showered us off,” Zoe chuckles.
Evan reaches for a soft towel, and Zoe lifts Buddy out of the tub. Evan dries the dog off before wrapping him up.
-
Evan was thankful that the cafe allowed dogs.
“You ready to see mommy perform?” Evan cooed, holding Buddy in one arm, and a bouquet of lavender and carnation flowers in another.
Zoe had gotten a gig to perform at a winter event at a local cafe. Evan was ecstatic to watch her perform (despite listening to her practice a couple times).
Evan finds an open table. A waiter comes by to ask him what he would like, and he just orders a tea.
The show began, and numerous small and local musicians arrived on stage, each singing a song, and playing many different types of instruments.
When it was Zoe’s turn to arrive on the stage, Evan’s heart sprang with excitement. As Zoe got her acoustic guitar tuned, her eyes traced around the crowd until they found Evan and Buddy. Once she did, Evan moved Buddy’s paw to make it look like he was waving at her. A smile appeared on Zoe’s face.
Zoe began to straighten up, and took in a deep breath. She began to strike the first chords of White Winter Hymnal. She began to sing softly and smoothly.
“I was following
I was following
I was following
I was following
I was following the pack
All swallowed in their coats
With scarves of red tied ‘round their throats
To keep their little heads
From falling in the snow
And I turned ‘round and there you go
And Michael you would fall
And turn the white snow red as strawberries in the summertime.”
Zoe stopped singing, still strumming her guitar. The guitar produced a soft, warm sound. She hummed along to the song. Evan closed his eyes, enjoying just the sound of her voice and guitar.
Zoe repeated the chorus a couple more times before finishing the song. The audience, including Evan, clapped for Zoe. Buddy began to howl, cheering on Zoe. The audience chuckled.
Zoe grinned before exiting the stage, allowing the next performer to take the stage. Evan left his seat, following Zoe behind the stage.
She beamed at Evan when he approached her.
“Amazing job! You sounded… gorgeous,” Evan compliments.
“Thank you. That means a lot.”
“Buddy also thought you sounded amazing,” Evan states.
Zoe holds her arms out, and Evan places Buddy in them. Buddy nuzzled into Zoe’s chest.
“I also got you these,” Evan displays the flowers to Zoe.
“Thanks Ev,” Zoe leans to him, and Evan pulls her into a hug.
“Do you think you can sing for us again tonight?”
“Always for you two.”
-
“Evan! How does Buddy look?”
Evan adjusted his tie as he looked over at Buddy, who was in Zoe’s arms. He wore a sparkly black bow tie. Evan and Zoe were planning to take him to the Murphys’ annual New Year’s Eve party. He would be able to meet Cynthia, Larry, Connor, Heidi, and their friends.
“Awwww, he looks so handsome,” Evan pet Buddy’s head.
“I tried putting the rest of his tuxedo on, but someone wasn’t cooperating,” Zoe says.
Buddy gives them a guilty look. Evan laughs.
“I think he looks amazing,” Evan says, “and so do you.”
“It isn’t too flashy, is it?” Zoe asked.
She wore a black top with a metallic gold skirt. It matched Evan’s black suit and gold tie.
“Nope. You look perfect. Don’t you agree Buddy?”
Buddy licks Zoe’s face.
“Thanks Bud,” Zoe presses a kiss to Buddy’s head.
“Could I get one?” Evan smirks.
“Buddy, could you give daddy a kiss?” Zoe teases, reaching the dog towards Evan.
“Zoeeeee,” Evan whines, giggling as Buddy licks his face as well.
Zoe playfully sticks out her tongue before kissing his cheek. Zoe sets Buddy down. Zoe noticed her phones started to buzz on the table. She picked it up. There were numerous different texts from her mom.
Cynthia: Are you and Evan coming?
Cynthia: The party has already started.
Zoe looked at the time. They were thirty minutes past the time they were supposed to arrive.
“Hey Evan.”
“Hm?” Evan asks as he combs his hair.
“We were supposed to be at my parent’s house thirty minutes ago.”
Evan stops, “I knew we shouldn’t have waited for Buddy to wake up.”
“In my defense, he was sleeping on my lap. What was I supposed to do, move and wake him up?”
“Fair point.”
-
“There you two are!” Cynthia scolds Zoe and Evan when they walk into the Murphy house, wearing a dark dress and holding a wine glass in tack, “what took you two so long?”
Before Zoe can explain, Cynthia sees Buddy in her arms.
“Did you guys get a dog?!”
“Mom, meet Buddy!” Zoe says.
“Well aren’t you the cutest!” Cynthia gushes over Buddy. Zoe sets Buddy onto the ground. He sniffs Cynthia curiously before allowing Cynthia to touch him. He curled up against Cynthia’s touch.
“He’s also such a sweetheart!” Cynthia coos.
Cynthia calls for everyone. At the moment Cynthia said the word “dog,” everyone quickly rushed to see. The moment eyes were laid on Buddy, he was all anyone could rave about.
-
“I think he’s enjoying the attention,” Evan chuckles.
Jared, Alana, and Connor were crouched on the ground. Jared got the brilliant idea of using his tie for a game of tug of war. Alana and Connor were cheering Buddy on as he pulled the tie, determined to win. Earlier, Larry slid small pieces of chicken for Buddy under the table during dinner, and Cynthia and Heidi had been showering him with belly rubs and kisses throughout the night. No one even noticed when midnight hit the clock. All eyes were on Buddy.
Evan and Zoe were sitting on the couch, watching Buddy like proud parents.
“He’s the star of the show,” Zoe agrees.
“I’m glad we adopted him,” Evan says, resting his head on Zoe’s shoulder, “he makes everyone happy. He makes me happy.”
“He makes me happy too,” Zoe plants a kiss to his forehead, returning her focus to Buddy, who tore the tie out of Jared’s hands. Alana scooped the dog in her arms as Jared claimed he let the dog win.
Evan smiled, closing his eyes. He wanted to savor this moment forever.
#dear evan hansen#deh#bandtrees#evan hansen#zoe murphy#deh fanfic#deh fanart#my writing#my art#okay but this is like my first fanart im excited
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Bear Hug - Chris Redfield x Reader
Summary: You hid your child from Chris for months, but it all comes crashing down when he finds out about her in bad circumstances.
Word Count: 1,619
A/N: i was inspired by @alex-brooklyn ‘s fic called Monsters and i wanted to write my own take on that prompt! i love their work so make sure to check them out! i'm not sure what chris this is...maybe between re5 and re6? not quite sure, anyway! enjoy this cute fluff ❤️
When you and Chris met, you didn't tell him you had a daughter. You couldn't, after all everyone always runs away when they find out you are a mother. But you also never had the chance to tell him. It wasn't supposed to happen the way it did but when Chris bursted into your home with Leon and Claire, you refused to hide her anymore. Honestly, you weren't even trying to hide her, both Claire and Leon knew about her, you just didn't tell Chris because you didn't know why you should. You also didn't want to scare him off. It wasn’t like you were dating or anything but you were partners, and very close. You should have told him, after all you had been working together for three months at this point. You just didn't know how to bring it up in conversation. What would you even say? ‘Hey Chris. By the way I have a daughter, who’s Father fucked off when she was born because he couldn't deal with it.’ But when he realised you didn't tell him, his heart broke.
The three of them rushed into your house and sat around the table, papers in hand. You could tell something big was happening. You stood there, bottle of milk in hand. You didn't know what to say. Just as you were about to talk, your daughter waddled out her room and towards the adults. Chris’ face dropped and he just looked at you. She looked just like you. Claire noticed the awkwardness and staring between you two so she picked up your daughter and took the milk from your hands. “I’ll put her down for you.” And with that she left the room. Leon couldn't deal with the awkwardness of the situation so he decided to join Claire in the bedroom, leaving you and Chris to sort out whatever was happening between you two.
“What’s happening then? Something urgent?” You ran a hand through your hair and walked towards the table, looking at the papers. Chris was gobsmacked that you could just continue working as if nothing had happened. You could feel his eyes on your head as you looked around the notes. “Y/N..” You ignored him and continued to figure out the situation. You couldn't do this. Chris grabbed your arm and turned you around so you were facing him. “Why didn't you tell me?” Chris furrowed his brow and looked at you. He looked hurt. “I didn't feel that there was any need. Lottie has nothing to do with my work, so I keep them separate. She doesn't need to get involved in my work life.” Chris scoffed. “You don't think that I'm more than just ‘work’? Claire knew? How long has she known?” You shook your head and looked away from the man.
“Hey!” Chris pulled you up to him fast, so fast you hit his chest. “Fucking hell Chris!” You swore at him and sighed. “Claire has known for a long time. I worked with Claire first remember!” Chris bit his lip and looked around your house, seeing the baby photos of your girl and professional photos of you and Lottie. “How old is she?” You scratched your neck. “Two. Three in December.” You told him. The room went silent and you didn't know what else to say. You pulled yourself away from Chris. He watched as you disappeared down the hall, into the same room where Claire and Leon went. Chris put his hands over his face and rubbed his eyes. “Fuck.” He swore underneath his breath.
------
The sun went down but your daughter refused to sleep. She was struggling to sleep for a couple nights now so you were wide awake at 10pm with your daughter on your chest, watching Peppa Pig. Your mind was slowly going to mush as the programme was on loop, listening to the British pigs talk about muddy puddles and rubbish that you would remember for the rest of your life. You hadn't spoken to Chris much after the situation that happened the other week. He had sent you multiple messages apologising for the way he acted but you didn't reply, you only replied to one message telling him you won't be in work because you couldn't get child care. This made Chris realise how many days of work you missed because you couldn't get childcare. It upset him that you did it all alone.
After an hour straight of watching Peppa Pig, there was a knock at the door. Luckily your daughter wasn’t asleep yet, because if she was, you could have murdered whoever was at the door. You held your daughter to your hip as you walked to the door, looking through the peep hole. Chris. You swore underneath your breath before unlocking and opening the door, looking at the man. He looked tired, like he hasn't slept in days. “Y/N..” You cut him off by opening the door move. “It’s chilly. Come inside.” You invited him in and he didn't argue. He walked inside the house to see that it had become more messy than it was when he was last here. But you did have a toddler, so he let you off. He saw the empty wine bottles on the kitchen table as well as some take away wrappers and some empty milk bottles. “She isn't sleeping, so Peppa Pig will have to do until she drops off.” Chris nodded and walked to the couch, taking a seat in the dark room. The screen was blaring light that bounced off every shiny surface of the house. He watched as you grabbed another bottle of milk for your daughter. You did everything one handed like you've been doing it your whole life. You looked like an expert. He wanted to get up and ask you if you want some help but by the time the thought popped into his head, you had already done it and were walking back to the couch. You sat next to Chris, allowing Lottie to slide between you and Chris. She looked at the man and tilted her head, confused who he was. “That’s Chris. Say hi Lottie.” You told her. She waved at the man before cuddling into her mother’s chest and drinking her bottle.
You and Chris sat there in silence, listening to the children’s television show in the background. You had moved your hand that was underneath your daughter to the top of the couch for comfort, since Lottie wouldn't move. Chris moved one of his arms next to yours and held your hand, playing with your fingers before he took your hand into his. You felt heat begin to rise on your cheeks as he did so, wanting your daughter to sleep now so you two could talk.
Finally, after another hour, Lottie dropped off. You couldn't move without waking her so Chris picked her up and walked her to her bedroom. You followed behind, watching as the man laid her down in her princess bed and tucked her in. He placed a kiss on her forehead and passed her the teddy that was next to her. You smiled and walked up to Chris, before leaning down yourself, placing a kiss on your daughter’s cheek before leaving her nightlight on. You left the room and walked back into the living room, turning over the channel and sitting down on the couch. “I don’t think I could take much more Peppa Pig.” Chris joked and looked at the you, running his hand over his eyes before putting his hand on your leg.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I just didn’t want to mess anything up.” Chris shook his head and looked at you, moving his hand to yours, taking your smaller hands into his. “You couldn't mess anything up.” He shook his head and placed a kiss on your lips before pulling away, holding your head to his chest.
------
You woke up with the sun blaring through the blinds. You moved in your bed and put your arm over your face. Chris grunted next to you and pulled you closer, rubbing his hands up your back. “Morning grumpy.” You smiled and kissed his chest, rubbing your hands up and down his shoulders. Chris rubbed his eyes and pulled you into his chest, kissing your head.
The room was silent until you could hear footsteps enter your room. “Mommy? Chris?” Lottie rubbed her eyes and looked at you two in bed. “What’s up, Princess?” Chris asked and turned onto his back. Your daughter waddled over to Chris’ side of the bed and rubbed her eyes. Her favourite teddy hung from her other hand as she stood at Chris. “Can I cuddle?” She whispered into his ear. You smiled at the scene; your little daughter whispering into the ear of your large boyfriend. It was very cute. Chris nodded and picked up your daughter with ease, rolling over so she was in the middle of you two. “Oh hello there.” You laughed and showered your daughter with kisses. Chris joined in so your daughter was smothered by you two. “Stop!” She laughed loudly and kicked her legs around. You pulled away and watched as Chris tickled her and giggled along with her. After they calmed down, you kissed Chris gently. Your daughter fake vomited and looked at the two. “Gross!” She joked and looked at you two. “You are so dramatic!” You told her and kissed her cheek. “I love you.” You put your hand on your daughters cheek and looked at Chris. “I love you too.” He replied and gave you two a bear hug.
“Ah! You’re squishing me!” Lottie screamed out.
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As time goes on
Summary:
“I will say this: I’m happy to be here with Jack. With you. And I love you. I love you both.”
This is a short fic Kate(@rathxritter) and me, Trev(@profoundchaoscomputer) wrote for the Destiel Partner Project (@destiel-partner-project). Thank you so much for this opportunity!
Kate, you were an awesome partner, all of our ideas complimented each other so well that that adding stuff and editing from you or me was always a delight, thank you so much!--Trev
Fic under the cut, alternatively you can also read it here https://archiveofourown.org/works/30576530
As time goes on
Late November. Knotty and naked branches tower themselves against the sky, dark outlines in the afternoon sun. The ground is covered in leaves and the grass is barely visible like winks of a long gone summer, spotted amidst the sea of warmer colors - yellow, orange, red and rich browns seem to make the universe that time of the year. It's a breathtaking and ordinary scenery, autumn always is. Everyday beauty is often taken for granted, but for Cas it will always be a new miracle. The sidewalk, on the other hand, is mostly clear, yet there are some areas of it where the leaves remain untouched, rotting away as they are being walked on, cracking under people's shoes as their heels click on the pavement.
Sometimes Cas thinks he is like those yellow checkered rooting away leaves.
...Once had he basked on the glory of a foolish leaf, proud stagnant, evergreen, timeless, aimless, clutching blindly to the tree, rain, wind, snow, only knowing of heaven above, but never about the dirt of the ground...to be still is to be alive?
Only after he fell, he understood, to fall is to become alive, it hurts, unthetered, weightful death sentence, to decide to root away.
And it took too much time to realize, but isn't all life beautiful because it's so ephemeral? so the past is treasured, today is a miracle, and tomorrow is a gift: to become a golden leaf and covered in spots, proof of every breath, copper, orange, red. The leaves fall and Cas falls, wrinkles and lines, aching muscles and tender joints, alone at times, but now trying something, with Dean, Jack, a family found along the way. Dancing along the wind, against tempest and arid times, getting muddy and dirtied, alive, along warm gusts and gentle times, and becoming crumpled leafs, laughing and crying at the mercy of time.
So times moves and flows away and now is a worthy day to note, It's a sunny day, as warm as the later autumn afternoon allows, and the, otherwise clear blue sky, is studded with some solitary clouds - dirty white that verges on grey, they look as if someone painted them on a canvas using the finest watercolours and the most exquisite brushwork.
It's a sunny day and the air smells of rotten apples, oozing resin, and frost. It's the smell of death and destruction, of glimmering hope. A welcoming smell, the smell of life, so lulling and comforting, that fills people's nostrils as they go on with their day. The smell of home, an active reminder that life is to be treasured.
"How does the story end?" asks Jack as he hands Cas a paper bag, the bookshop's logo printed on it with bright red letters.
"How do you want it to end?" Cas asks, smiling.
He knows the stories that Dean tells Jack, the ones he half reads and ends up making as he goes, stuffing in his own share for who knows what reasons. The thing is they both laugh and the red hooded girl surely doesn't have a shapeshifter, last time he checked. Overheard some of them while passing through the small living room in order to get outside and speak on the phone with Sam.
It's their thing and he tries not to cross lines and wriggle in - Dean tells stories and does all the voices, Jack laughs, Dean laughs: a complete picture that doesn't quite need him there, an intimate bubble of two as he has his own with Dean and another one with Jack too and its Dean's "job" to put Jack to sleep. So he doesn't ask, Dean doesn't speak about it. It's healthy for Jack to grow different relationships with them on their own.
Still, he does know about them and listens more often than he would care to admit, from behind the door, feeling like a stranger in his own house.
About the ordinary tales of overcoming evil and suddenly there are Vampires and Djins and it's always about not giving up no matter how scared and angry one may feel. It's about children being allowed to be children even in a world of danger and Dean's voice oozing vulnerability as well as hurt.
There were times he had considered taking his hand only to step away before he could be seen, Dean has allowed himself to be this vulnerable in front of Jack as his own kin. He couldn't mess up this trust and growth with selfishness.
Jack looks down distractedly and kicks some leaves, causing them to rustle, crack and scatter. Soon enough found a clump of leaves and decided it was good enough to swim on them. It's the contrast that makes Cas think and stop a bit, Jack so joyful on a blanket of cracked corpses, life playing with death, handfuls of leaves on Jack's hands, a handful of ashes, ashes to ashes, a pool of dead yet life stills blooms so beautifully and hopeful, death and creation, hand by hand, as time goes by.
"I don't know," says Jack as he picks up an acorn from the mess he just made and studies it attentively before stuffing it into the pocket of his Jacket. Lately, they've been the hiding place of all sorts of hidden treasures - acorns, buttons, funny looking rocks, and empty shells - later taken out and displayed on the shelves in his bedroom, right next to his Paddington books and carved animal statuettes.
He laughs, "Dean always puts a lot of death in them."
"Does he?" asks Cas.
"Sometimes they are all alone. I don't mind, they make me want to live!" he says, his chirpy laughter echoing through the air, soon followed by thunderous stomping: Wellington boots, yellow with a bee pattern printed on them, splashing water from a puddle on the grass.
Castiel sighs and carefully sits down on the battered bench in the small park. Its wood is ruined and the paint is peeling off and soft moss is thriving in those places where the material never quite manages to completely dry off. A wet bench, but still appreciates it with a crack of back bones.
"Well," he says, holding back a grimace of pain. "I think you and Dean may both be right when you say that it's about feeling alive."
Jack nods solemnly in agreement. "And what about the children? They climb trees and drink lemonade, but what happens after that."
"They do everything their own way and they are good at that."
"Dean can do it better." Jack puffs loudly.
"Then you should ask him as soon as he comes back." Cas smiles.
"I think I will. Can I give you something?" asks Jack.
"Yes, of course."
"I'll get it soon," he says and walks away, running around through the leaves, freely, squealing in delight.
A knot forms at the back of Cas's throat as he watches his son play in the autumn scenery. Life and death keeping each other company, effortlessly interconnected in an endless cycle. So loud the sound of his youth, Jack waranders off, bubbling with raw energy, entropic in a contagious way that Cas can't help but melt a bit on this warm brightness and he laughs too. Bittersweet, yeah, that's life for you. Something hopeful, the sound of a child's laughter and his fatherly love, brightening everything - precious and blossoming, always, amidst death and horror preventing the future from turning into ashes and mingling as equal with the past.
"This is for you," says Jack, out of breath, proud, stretching out his arm and handing Castiel a yellow leaf with green edges. "You can press it and frame it like they showed me in school."
"Thank you, Jack. This is... lovely. This is lovely, I like it." He smiles softly, fondness washing over him.
He looks at the gift, studying it as he turns it around, and wonders how much Jack knows about his own state. Does he know he chose to be a rooting away leaf too?
Cas fell, a long time ago, changing so completely, that his former self is nothing but a distant memory. Now Cas can look at the situation with more clarity of judgement, as he clearly lacked for more time than he could care to admit: in falling, he became alive and while it hurt and had at some point felt like a death sentence, life was, is, and will be beautiful with its alternating ups and downs.
But again, being alive is always too much, so stuffed with messy feelings, whirling fiery tempest, it becomes crowded, on edge, flammable as well as vulnerable, scalding in a slow simmering way, such that he would call worse than falling.
Meeting for the first time fear in a not immediate war or easily numbing adrenaline to survive, and thus being laid bare to see himself in the mirror and being bombarded with all the truths he didn't want to hear, scared of being alone, despite having Jack, Dean, and everyone else too; afraid of this too good looking second chance usually so monomaniacally forbidden and his guilt biting so hard he feels like choking on every breath, whispering his worst thoughts, over and over like broken record, all his faults, all his "greater good" soaking his hands in blood, what is to deserve when one has betrayed, what is a right when one has killed and done the unspeakable, what is to have freedom when each breath tastes of regret, what is peace when silence draws despair. On top of it now powerless, his own human body with the aching joints and cold bones… being at the mercy of time rather than being above it.
Because time now moves and flies away, slipping through his finger. Ticked away by clocks. Irrevocable hours leaden circles travelling through the air and ultimately dissolving.
Blinding shrieks of fear and self consciousness slowly started to become a hum and then days turn into weeks and weeks into months, one season following the other and the world changing, subtly at first, adjusting to the rising and dropping temperature and the inclement weather. Too hot and then too cold, and the months of adjustment in between for a couple of weeks with perfect temperatures and no sudden changes. Soon, it will be winter once more: the first frost has already started to beautify the windows, leaving white and translucent intricate patterns on glass, and the weather is changing - rain and strong winds as announced by the weather forecast daily after the six o’clock news.
Some of it, he'll never get back. Those sorry months and years he'd relive by reentering the moment and changing it radically from within by doing everything right are long out of question and he wouldn't risk fate and destiny to make a miracle again to break from Chuck's narrative. This time, he'd do everything right by being less prideful and avoid arguments to grow bigger and bigger until the smallest of things, enlarged in disproportion, left nothing but annoyance and anger in their wake - arguments breaking like thunder, rumbling, filling the air and making it unbearable to stand there and wonder, even for just a moment, whether love may not remain buried one day, out of reach.
The first year had been the most difficult: they had discovered at their own expense that love declarations and dreams of a speckless wonderful future were hardly enough and never actually helped in making things easier. Nothing would ever be enough. One simple truth then, which they had learned the hard way: happy endings did not exist, only endings, and even those were neutral and subject to change. No happy ever afters that tied up all ends at the last page, no sweetly dull every day epilogue. Life simply kept going, as ugly as it was before, as beautiful as it was before. They kept being the same people they were before, with all their faults and virtues, all their nightmares and dreams. Defeating the "biggest bad of the book" did not erase all of their inner troubles, maybe one or two, yes, but how many more were inside of each of them?
Dean's fear of abandonment and Cas' own desperate need to be useful had proven to be the most explosive and dangerous mix. And thing is, they couldn't forgive each other, not a particular one big reason, just too many piled up and carried over the years and while they could forget and move on, deep in their heart they couldt forgive, not really, and the topics they so desperately tried to ignore stood in their way, holding them back.
So twelve months of Castiel repeatedly leaving, he needed to hunt, to be useful, got himself head first into the line of fire so to see that his hands, while bloody, still saved lifes; sound of gunshot to shush his mind out of the accusing mirror, a warrior will always be a warrior and he had been a commander of garrisons, and so he went out and jumped from hunt to hunt with all kinds of hunter strangers until exhaustion could give him a good night sleep, weeks upon weeks and Dean's accusations following him out of the door, you'll always abandon me.
So twelve months of Dean drinking, as Cas's remarks no doubt rung in his ears, you're slowly becoming like your father. Dean didn't know what to do with his life, depression weighing him down so hard there were only some days he could get himself out of bed, tearing at the seams without a fight to pull himself together and so he drank, Cas's words ringing into his head like poison along the bitter aftertaste of a finished bottle.
Neither of them should have said those things although he couldn't find the strength to do anything but hold his refusal to stand on Jack's side against Dean. Dean should have asked him to stay, he should have made it clear that there was no need to be useful in order to stick around. A vicious cycle, separating them more and more, and not quite a trial - had it been one, there wouldn't have been one person who wasn’t guilty.
The second year had no room for openings, just anger as they moved like in a quagmire, the snappiness of the first year replaced with inertia. Dean threw himself into work, dirt on his jeans. Cas went to the bunker with Jack and a duffle bag stuffed with their belongings. The bunker had become some sort of hunter's sanctuary and he enjoyed the work. They did talk, but simply not enough, and refused to show themselves vulnerable - no mutual consolation, no touching, and the frail assumption that they were still on each other’s side crumbling in front of them and leaving them dismayed.
After two and a half years, on a ghastly hot summer evening, Dean leapt for the first time, really, showing nothing but fearfulness and saying, as he looked at Castiel stripping in front of him, were you going to tell me that you almost died or… It had been an accusation, the tone used made it clear, the half healing wound still patched on Cas's side inbeetwen them and their heavy silence, but there had been something else too - genuine worry and affection. They had shared a bullet of a look. Then they had kissed, desperately, hungrily, and had sex - consuming their relationship: They understood it and enjoyed it, but were still out of their depths when it came to the rest: awkwardness settling as soon as they were back in their clothes. He and Jack had left the following morning and the rest of the year had been spent abroad working on helping the international community of hunters to create a network bound to help supernatural creatures rather than killing them.
It had been the year of endless night and unsparing insomnia, wondering how to rebuild a relationship when you were also mourning one? Different versions of themselves are forever lost in time, the angel and the soldier boy, the runaway and the righteous man, the falling and the protagonist. He had spent so much time looking for something, a warning sign that they had somehow ended that loop of misery, to face the present and stop grieving the past, sorrow and unhappiness that he hadn’t actively recognized the beginning of it all, only widening the gap further. Polished surfaces and volcanoes inside - a mess of feelings, a mess of thoughts, and no way to escape them and make sense of it all. They had been prisoners of their own fears and their history had stood between them. They had spent the end of the year, retreating: each question met either by silence or elusive answers that ultimately meant nothing. It had been fake and lacked depth, the peace they tried to build when both lacked courage: they had built up a facade and spent their time together pretending that they could start from scratch. They couldn’t. He was still angry at Dean, Dean waa still angry for a multitude of reasons Cas didn't even want to know, and still for what happened with Jack, Cas didn’t dare breathe a word. And every word that wasn't about the truth, it was another shovel to bury the thing that was between them.
At the end of the third year, they had come back and they had stayed at the bunker for two whole weeks rather than a couple of days.
He had spent some ten months trying to find the right words to tell Dean that he was considering hunting less and less - wounds healed too slowly and he wasn't getting any younger. He had tentatively enquired about Dean only to find out that Dean was doing better - therapy and AA meetings and the Impala had been sold to some teenage girls. They had met, Castiel had asked about Dean’s new lodgings, Dean told him. Dinner. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. On and on like starting from scratch. Things settled, slowly, by falling into place and one night Dean asked him to sleep in his room rather than on the sofa and they talked, opened their hearts, raw and exposed, the darkness making it less awkward and easier: like talking to the idea of a person, depersonalization at its best, a space that had welcomed them and liked them as much as they liked it. Hours passed and in the morning things were different - calmer, easier. They had no more tears left to cry and no more apologies to make.
It seems almost impossible now, four years on, to remember life as it was in all its tiniest details - the bigger picture there, but lacking the intrigue and the excitement there might have been on different occasions. It’s no longer bloody and vengeful, an endless and vicious cycle where violence only led to more violence, spiralling out of control and slipping away, out of fingers, no way out. The feeling of it is familiar yet new, something that he had a long time ago, perhaps briefly, a fading memory that never existed, to begin with, secluded to the realm of dreams and conditionals. Something missing, always and unconsciously so, the feeling of longing always blooming in his chest: for something. Pointing his finger and putting a name to it is easier now as things slowly begin to come into shape.
Castiel closes his eyes, tilting his head back, chin held up high. The sun is warm on his skin, shining in through the naked branches, but his cheeks are reddened by the cold. Wrapped in his winter coat already, all buttoned up and one hand stuffed in his pockets. The sunbeams look golden and create dancing shadows on the ground, and he just stays there, still and motionless, and at peace, as he listens to Jack play in front of him.
Somewhere, through open windows, a song plays faintly though he may just be imagining it, lyrics echoing in his mind for days on end. Come and take my whole life, you are everything I want. You are everything… Mulling over them and wondering, impossible to stop, rolling and rapid. It’s peacefulness as if he spent an entire afternoon crying while sitting on a chair, though he can’t really claim to be an expert on the subject. It’s contentment and residual happiness that sometimes mixes with annoyance and anger, arguments breaking out like thunder, rumbling. Yet, still, love and happiness at simply existing, being alive, being human. The fullest and most satisfying existence, feeling things, and waking up in the morning with the sun shining in through the window, filtering through the curtains and painting the room gold as dust dances in the air in a mesmerizing pattern. Next to Dean too, a couple of moments in amicable silence before the day begins - lying there, mouth filled with the metallic taste of sleep, lazily and whispering, good morning. Time for healing.
When he opens his eyes again, the air is luminous, like St. James’ Street on a summer morning right after a decent drizzle. The light reflects on every surface and makes the air appear bright and filled with light, the edges of reality seem softened and the appearance is almost dreamlike. From down the street, Dean walking towards them holding the bags with the shopping.
“Look at who’s coming,” he says, catching Jack’s attention.
“Dean!” squeals Jack, delighted, as he runs towards him.
“Cas. No need to get up, just make us some space, will you?” Dean replies as he puts the shopping bags down, leaning them against the bench's legs. Then, before taking Jack into his arms, holding him close, he kisses Castiel’s cheek and adds, “Jack, buddy, I’ve missed you too. I’ve got something for the two of you.”
“What’s that?”
“Wait,” He stretches his arm out. “Here you go. First tangerine of the year, not too expensive. Hell, thought we deserve some after everything we went through.”
“I want a segment!” Yells Jack. Jack grabs for the piece of fruit in Dean’s hand, looking at it with fascination and entertainment at the uneven sphere of the citrus, before handing it over to Cas.
“Thank you.”
As soon as Cas starts peeling the citrus fruit, the smell fills the air. He always liked the smell of it - upbeat and cheerful, penetrating and warm. Reminiscing of cedarwood and lavender, clove too. Christmas-y. One of the happiest and most irrelevant things, easily going unnoticed, every gesture is done dismissively, instinctively and without paying too much attention. Fingertips digging into the exocarp, passing through the albedo, and removing the peel altogether - one piece at a time. Dean’s eyes are on him, he feels it, sees it with a sideways glance, studying his every move, as Jack wriggles and gurgles, impatiently waiting for his segment.
“What?” asks Cas without turning around.
“Nothing,” Dean replies as he accepts a segment just as Jack stuffs his into his mouth. “Jack, you’re making a mess of yourself. - a pause, again to Cas - I mean, this… all of it. - Dean looks at the autumn scenery, gestures widely, to the leaves and the threes, Jack, the clear sky, Cas, dazed but in a good way - I don’t know. I like it. Hell, I love it.”
“Selcouth.”
“What?”
“The word you’re looking for, I think. Rare and extraordinary.”
He’d add ‘unexpected’ to the list too, but that one to himself. It’s one thing to say that one wouldn’t be happy anywhere else with anyone else, another thing to make it work. Admittedly it took some time, irrelevant weeks after twelve years of tentatively tip-toeing around the other - this far and no further, deferring and agreeing, evading and never thinking about it, not really, not after the first couple of years. They seem to have the grasp on the ongoing juggling of the time at their disposal and days are uneventful, repetitive: he works, Dean goes to therapy and cares about the house, they play with Jack.
Twice a week Dean attends AA meetings and evenings are spent trying to make Jack sleep without having to read ten different bedtime stories and doing all the voices. And time passes, seasons change. A whole year, he sometimes reminds himself. Unbelievable. Selcouth.
And Cas examines amused these little white threads of tangerine he tears from his own segment, frail as the heart, wonder and fear, with care, like life, weaving silly braids for the sake of it, fingers clumsy, vines lacing fingers, each feels like a promise, for you, for me, feeble yet together so strong, sometimes they break, frustrated, yet not giving up, sometimes we manage a fine work, proud of a miracle yet so natural, a string of hope, a string to life, life is a tangerine and we are leaves along the wind.
Maybe he should marry Dean - Cas distractedly thinks, to which he can't help but feel the corner of his lips pulling.
“What?”
“You’re in a good mood,” says Dean.
“Could say the same thing about you.”
“Oh, look at you,” says Dean looking away, retrieving a clean handkerchief from the pocket of his Jacket and wiping Jack’s face clean.
“I need you to be honest with me, Cas.”
“I am honest with you, Dean.”
“I don’t wanna lose you. I don’t want you to die out there.”
“I’m not going to die out there, not violently.” Castiel nods and smiles fondly, affection and tenderness washing over him in waves. It's a warm silence, a promise, the sun is out and about today. Dean looks at him like the only thing in this world and leans in for a kiss, making him feel as if he swallowed a box of fireworks instead, and this time the kiss has a citric aftertaste. Shooting stars on a summer night, dropping like a thousand suns, speckled fireworks, sunny galaxy to cup in his hands, warm and ticklish, rumble laughter and stubble, soft and rough, sweet and bitter, bliss and life, so alive, for a moment Cas is again grateful of falling: so beautiful, so much like Dean.
“I will say this: I’m happy to be here with Jack. With you. And I love you. I love you both.”
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Hi Lazarus! from the hurt/comfort prompts: “Hey, just look at me. Breathe.” Thank you!!
this story got completely out of control, but I vomited up 2.5k words from this prompt! thank you for sending it! I had a lot of fun with this little story, and while I don’t think I managed to bring it to a successful resolution, it taught me a lot about pacing!
to recap, you inspired a whole story idea with the first hug prompt you sent me. I was thinking about what Hawke & friends must have gone through, escaping Kirkwall, and how utterly miserable and emotionally shattered every single one of them must have been. what would that emotional catharsis have looked like? then ellie-elfie sent me a few prompts, which I looped into the story you inspired here, and then ended with this. I posted it on AO3 as Catabasis, though I realize I stopped the story before they go back underground.
Thanks again for inspiring this. This was a lot of fun!
The warm wet of the woods washes away the ash of the last of Kirkwall. Merrill winds them through the muddy woods. She makes them take their shoes off to confuse their tracks, despite Anders muttering about hookworm and Varric’s hatred of dirt, and routinely casts a spell to shift the leaf litter back over their prints.
“It’s going to look like elves were travelling, if they’re looking at all,” she says. “Not four humans, a dwarf, and Dog.” Dog barks merrily at the mention of him and Fenris shushes him.
“In Seheron, we had caligo lagoenae,” Fenris says. “Can you do something similar?”
“Fenris, I don’t speak Tevene,” Merril says shortly. Hawke puts their hand on her shoulder. She is still irritated over the grammar argument in the cave, and Hawke knows she has refused to learn Tevene as a point of principle. Bethany’s said that the best way to learn old magic is to read the magisterium’s journals. Merrill has said the only elves who know Tevene are slaves and slavers, and she would rather not. She continues, “Do you know it in Common? Or is it a spellword?”
Fenris snaps, “Don’t patronize me,” and now it is Anders’ turn to step in and diffuse the situation.
“I can work up a fog,” he says. “But you’re better at nature magic than I am, Merrill.” They don’t bother asking Bethany, because Bethany is best at curses and massively destructive rift spells. Hawke smirks to themself. Their family always makes a splash, wherever they go--good thing Merrill knows how to cover it up. Merrill weaves and thickens the humidity of the already cloying woods into a thick fog. Bethany summons a small flame and leads them forward, Fenris at her side, checking for signs that his underground left.
Aveline sighs. “Creeping through the forest with a thick fog, as if that’s not suspicious.” She shakes her head. Fenris made her change into a light leather armor and leave her guard’s uniform behind. She looks close to the worn woman that Hawke met, all those long years ago, with the security of Kirkwall of her back. She still clutches her sword. Hawke is sorry they made her throw away the Amell family shield. They cannot help but suspect Fenris took some pleasure out of ordering Aveline out of her uniform. They’ve wanted to do the same for so long too, but they know the only way to balance their friends is to step out of the way. Aveline is an idealist, perhaps even more than Anders is; she finds her disillusionment in her own way. Hawke mutters a curse as they step into a particularly noxious puddle of mud. They’ve pushed her further down it, certainly.
“Dunno how you stand this,” Hawke says. “The mud. The bugs. Fungus. Do you ever think you’re going to get infected with, like, mushroom people?”
“Mushroom people,” Varric mutters. “That’s a good one. Better than lizards.”
“No, really,” Hawke protests, scraping the mud of their feet on a tree. Merrill, irritated, waves a hand and the mud hardens and falls off. Hawke blushes: right, that’s a very clear mark a person was there. “Sorry. But, we’ve all seen some strange things in our time in Kirkwall. Amulets that turn into strange witches who can turn into dragons and eat darkspawn. Trees that turn into angry men-spirit-elf things that guard tombs. An actual ancient elvhen god, living in the sewer.”
“You know, it’s not so clear Xebenkeck was one of my people’s gods,” Merrill says testily. “She is referred to as both a Forbidden One in our lore and a Forgotten One in the Chantry’s interpolation of the Tevinter text, and--”
“Pedant,” Hawke says fondly. “But given all the weird shit we’ve had to fight, I feel like we’re due for some mushroom people springing up on us.”
Merrill says, “That’s not how the Fade works. This is land still roved by the People. Think about it like a garden. A good Keeper prunes back the rot and the overgrowth, and leaves space for growth. And burns it out, when necessary. Kirkwall hasn’t had a good Keeper in a long time.”
“Or First,” Fenris says nastily.
Merrill says, “That demon took Marethari, Fenris. Not me. And if you’re not able to understand that, I don’t understand how you’re able to tolerate Justice and Anders and not what I did with Audacity.”
“Because Justice isn’t a demon,” Anders says angrily.
Merrill sighs. “I haven’t the time to argue Chantry propaganda with you. You can lead a halla to the water, but you can’t make him drink. I don’t understand how you can hate the Circles and still impose the way they shape the Fade--”
“Oh, come off it, you’re worse than Velanna,” Anders says. “Even you have to admit, that time Hawke dragged us into the Fade, that demons mirror Andraste’s teachings on the seven deadliest sins.”
“Only because Andrastians outnumber us now,” Merrill argues. “Because when I dream with my clan, we see spirits inherently different--which implies that there is no set form, as you say. What’s the line between Justice and Vengeance, anyway? Between Pride and Fortitude, Audacity and Courage? Fenris, you must have seen how Seheron feels differently than, say, Minrathous, or Kirkwall, or even Wycombe and the Friendly Homes. Where the Fade touches the Waking World--”
“They’re going to go on like this for hours,” Varric says. “And I don’t understand shit. Sunshine, why don’t you ever join in?”
“Both of them are far too proud to be fun to argue with,” Bethany shrugs. She pushes the lick of flame over her head and nudges it onward. It warms her tired face. Hawke thinks that she looks like their mother, as beautiful as her too, and Leandra would be furious to see the mess their children had made of their lives, on the run again. But she would be happy that they were alive.
They troop through the forest, wet and muddy and irritable, and eventually even Anders runs out of things to argue about. Hawke grows comfortable in the smell of Merrill’s petrichor spells. Though the mud is admittedly unpleasant, they like the feel of wet grass sticking to their feet and legs. The woods are loud, Merrill’s magic feels like a hug from her herself, and they feel like they may just get through this. The ground grows rocky as they climb into the Vimmarks. Varric, though he hates inclined surfaces, argues that it is safer to stay in the mountains and follow a winding path past Ostwick rather than risk crossing them and skirting so close to Starkaven.
“Prince Charming won’t think we’ll go up,” he says. “Trust me. One thing Sebastian knows about me, is how much I hate hiking.”
They set up camp in rock shelters Merrill picks out. She knows this part of the route better than Fenris. Rain sets back in at night. Hawke wonders if Merrill inadvertently summoned it, with her fog spells. It is hard to gauge what a mage can do, because their friends regularly do the impossible. Varric has plucked arrows out of the air, Fenris can pass through walls like a lyrium-infused ghost, and Aveline took down the eldritch horror of a rock wraith in the Deep Roads.
The feel of the caves is fantastic. The air tastes good, somehow, fresh and hungry, and the walls are inscribed with runes, layered through the ages. Some of them Merril can read, and she and Fenris sit down with a notebook and they go over them together, Merrill saying the words aloud and Fenris trying to write them down. Anders sits next to Hawke as they watch them. They are all tired, but the tension has been easing the further they get away from the city. They are not sure any of this can be resolved, but right now, they are too tired to fight.
“Has Fenris been teaching you his dialect?” Hawke asks. “Merrill tries with me, she’s very particular about it. Says my accent is adorably shit.”
Anders says, “Justice knows Elvhen. I--sometimes I know it when he says it, sometimes I don’t. It’s easier when the Veil is thinner, but gives me a headache.”
“Huh. So spirits speak Elvhen.” Hawke turns to Bethany. “How does that work?” She is the Fade expert, out of the trio, though Bethany disengages with grace whenever Merrill disagrees with her.
Bethany shrugs. “Dunno. Maker’s first children? Anecdotally I’ve heard that elvhen mages are more susceptible to the Harrowing--”
“That’s not true,” Anders interrupts, “that’s because of templar bias and the way they’re discriminated against--”
“Let me finish, Anders,” Bethany says, irritated. “As I was saying. There seems to be a stronger pull between elves and spirits, and Merrill thinks is has to do with Dalish cosmology, though that wouldn’t make sense because Orsino--well, no one has actually studied it. And now no one will, not with what’s happening with the Circles. If they don’t just kill us all.”
“Fiona won’t let that happen,” Anders says, face hard. “The Liberati have enough of a majority to push for a vote.”
Bethany snorts. “Didn’t know you were that engaged in Circle politics.”
“I voted,” Anders protests. “Until it was no longer useful for me.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Hawke says. “I’m gonna go talk to Varric instead.” The days proceed much like the rest. People talk. Hawke listens. They learn that Isabela, Anders, and Merrill have all met the hero-wardens of Ferelden before. Merrill comes from the same clan as Warden Mahariel, though Sabrae split before the Blight. Anders still corresponds with Surana, who lives in Amaranthine to avoid the stress of warden politics and to support Warden Tabris, who Isabela hooked up with in Denerim. Isabela also slept with the Left Hand of the Divine, they discover, and the King of Ferelden’s lover.
“Though we couldn’t talk him into bed with us,” she sighs. “Though Zevran and Tabris and I really tried. He just--I think he got overwhelmed by all the anatomy. Poor boy.”
Hawke snickers. The days go on like this, aching their way through the Vimmarks. These are the paths the Dalish take, and escaped slaves, and occasionally mages. They find marks of all three groups overlapping, though Bethany casts enough obfuscation hexes to keep them from intersecting that she collapses in her bedroll at the end of each day, shaking. Likewise cleaning their tracks begins to take a toll on Merrill. She withdraws into herself, focusing on relentlessly hiding their trail, and not even Varric can get her to laugh.
“I’m tired,” she says. “And I need to focus. Please stop.”
Hawke decides they need a rest day at the border of Hercinia and Wycombe. Fenris knows a cave system that will take them directly to his friends from Clan Lavellan, who promised him refuge the last time they saw him. He claims it will only take two days, but it will be two days without sunlight, and Hawke remembers how depressed Varric got without the sky. They camp in a treehouse built into a grove right below the mouth of the cave. Everyone is quiet, for the most part, curled around the fire. Aveline hums as she patches a shirt for Isabela, and Anders goes through his medicine bag to reassure himself they have enough to heal them through to Wycombe.
Varric stares into the fire. “When I write about this,” he says, “I think I’ll keep this for myself.”
“Why?” Bethany asks.
He purses his lips, thinking. Hawke wraps their arms around Merrill, who is already half-asleep, and enjoys their friends. It is always fun to watch Varric think, he’s the cleverest out of all them, except maybe Merrill. Merrill buries her face in their arms, and they look down, concerned. She is upset, and there is nowhere private to ask why.
The fire casts shadows over his face. Varric looks old. They all do. It has been a hard month. He says finally, “Because there’s no romance in it. No one wants to read about the Champion and their friends all fighting, and not really coming to any consensus besides that they want to stop fighting and be safe. There’s no moral in it, nothing uplifting. Just that people fight, viciously. That we make mistakes we can’t fix. And we just have to live with it. It’s not compelling. Not like our story in Kirkwall, which is more about Kirkwall. Who are we without the city in the background? I don’t know. I think I’ll end it in the docks. Or maybe with us watching the city burn. So people can assign us closure. Choose their own happy ending, because I don’t know what ours will be yet.”
Isabela says, “Nothing special, just pieces.” She stretches again. “Keep talking like that and you’ll end up a Qunari. Our story doesn’t need a moral, Varric. That’s not how life works.”
“I know that,” he says. “But that’s not the point. The story isn’t life. So I can make it work however I want.”
Merrill pushes herself up in Hawke’s lap and whispers in their ear, “If they all start arguing again I will either scream or cry, I haven’t decided yet.”
The journey has taken its toll on her. Hawkes examines her closely and sees the shadows like smudges under her eyes. She’s paler than usual, and she starts shaking. Hawke inclines to the edge of the treehouse with their head and quickly they move as far as they can from the others. Bethany looks at them questioningly, but they shake their head sharply. Mercifully they are left alone. Bethany is a good sister. She knows exactly when to look the other way and cause a distraction--and that she does, wheedling Varric to read a piece from his book.
As the others laugh at the mess Varric has made of them, Hawke turns to Merrill. They ask, “Are you alright?”
The fire casts light into Merrill’s eyes like a cat’s. When she looks at them, her eyes shine and Hawke cannot help but remember how otherworldly she is. She bridges both worlds, the Dalish and the human, but sometimes the old magic wills out. Merrill says, “Clan Lavellan doesn’t like me much. Because of Marethari. I don’t get along with their First. And I’m not sure how their Keeper will respond to me.”
“Then they’re idiots,” Hawke says, “and we’ll keep moving. Send Aveline to resupply in town, and move onto Rivain. Dairsmuid or Llomerryn, or that Dalish town Isabela talked about.”
Merrill is shaking harder now. “No.” Hawke takes her hands, but she pulls away. “I wish it were that easy, vhenan. But there won’t be anywhere to go. Not with the Dalish. Because of me.”
“Hey,” Hawke says. “Just look at me. Breathe. That’s not true. Look at me.” Merrill’s eyes flash back to blue. “We got this far, okay? And I’m okay with--I didn’t grow up as nomadic as you, but I can do it. It could be fun. I liked moving, as a kid. Bethany and I are used to it. And if we can get another ship, well, that’ll make things easier. And you know Isabela’s going to get us on a ship at some point. I know everything is changing. If the Divine calls that Exalted March...well, you remember what that dragon lady said.”
“Asha’bellanar,” Merrill corrects, lips twitching. “And it was a prayer to Mythal that revived her, there’s something in that.”
Hawke sighs. “Well, you remember what she said.” They close their eyes and focus on the words, which has haunted them since--partly because the delivery had been so terrifying. They quote, “‘We stand upon the precipice of change. The world fears the inevitable plummet into the abyss. Watch for that moment...and when it comes, do not hesitate to leap. It is only when you fall that you learn whether you can fly.’ And, well, we’re lying up in the sky right now, so I think we’re doing alright.”
Merrill smiles despite herself. “How do you remember that?” she asks. “I don’t even remember it like that.”
“Varric wrote it down,” Hawke confesses. “And it sounded so cool I memorized it. It’s good advice.”
Merrill turns to the fire, where Aveline is holding a book with a luridly pink cover over the fire while Anders and Isabela cackle and Varric jumps, protesting. She says, “I know I shouldn’t have let Keeper find out about Audacity. She thought I was weak, but I knew her pride, I knew her arrogance. And her fear, since Tamlen died. I should’ve written to Mahariel, who could’ve convinced her. Or gone to the Applewood--but I didn’t. And though I lost my clan, I still have you. My aravel.” She gestures to their friends. “Walkers of the lonely path, who never submit.” She smiles sadly. “I think I fell into that abyss, Hawke. And now I’m starting to float up.”
Hawke takes her hand and kisses it. Her nails are bitten to the quick. “You’ve been pushing yourself too hard,” they say. “Can you teach Anders that spell?”
“No, vhenan,” Merrill shakes her head. “It’s--it was part of my duties as First, to clear the tracks of the aravel. I can’t teach a human that. I love you all, but that is for myself.” They accept that, and all the ways Merrill pushes herself too hard, and hand-in-hand they get up and rejoin their friends at the fire. There is a touch of mania to the conversation. Everyone is utterly shattered, but they do not want to go to sleep. No one knows what the next day will bring, and they are clinging to the routine they have set up. Hawke blinks and pretends that they are at the Hanged Man for a moment, but the bar has run dry, so they are all stuck being sober and chummy with each other. It doesn’t work. It feels dishonest, and the woods smell too good.
Finally, Aveline takes charge. “We need to rest. Especially you, Merrill. Those spells couldn’t have been easy. We’ll get up before dawn and head out then.”
Fenris speaks up. “And Clan Lavellan will hide us, for however long we need.” He looks at Merrill steadily. “First Lavellan promised me that. They will not abandon their vhenallin. And she owes me a favor, anyway.”
Varric says idly, “There’s a story in there.”
Bethany groans. “Not more stories, please,” she says. “Aveline’s right, we do need to rest. This part’s nearly over.” She banks the fire to keep it burning low through the night and they set up their last camp before the descent.
Hawke is struck by the faith they have in them, going through their nightly routine. They have been two weeks on the road, camping through the woods, and though they have spent it mostly at each other’s throats, they have made it through. So little has been resolved, and there is still so much unknown. As Flemeth predicted, they stand balanced on the precipice of change, and they know they are about to launch themselves off that cliff. But they have their friends to slow that crash, and by this point, who knows? Maybe the witch will turn them into a dragon. Settling into their sleeping roll, Hawke cannot help but grin. They faced down the Blight, the long march to Kirkwall, the Deep Roads, their mother’s death, and the start of a revolution. What could possibly happen next?
They whisper to Merrill, “I feel like this world is dying. It’s monstrous.” They smirk. “Monstrously exciting. Can’t you feel it? A new world is trying to be born.”
#catabasis#dragon age#dragon age fanfic#fanfic#hawke#merrill#anders#fenris#aveline#dog#varric#bethany#hawke/merrill#anders/fenris#musetta3
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Gotta Have You
Music had always been a part of Jaskier's life.
In childhood, nursery rhymes, and songs mothers would sing lovingly to their children as they fell asleep. As a teenager, a method of showing off how brooding you were, how "deep" your thoughts were, and of course, women loved men who could sing.
As an adult, it was his way of life. It was a salve in times of pain, and a celebration in times of joy. It was how he kept from starving--most of the time, anyway--and it was his way in to all the places he loved to go. Parties, bars, et cetera. "Food, women, and wine," and all the other things in life that there were to love.
But he had gotten too comfortable. He had allowed all of his songs that he loved to perform be about one person. Always a mistake. You break up with that person, and all of those songs become painful. Of course, it's not like this hadn't happened before. On again-off again relationships seemed to be something that he had grown accustomed to. No one seemed to be able to handle him being, well, himself in more than small doses.
It was foolish to think that the person he thought was his best friend in the whole world was any different.
He had been with Geralt on the mountain. Yennefer had just left in a huff--not sure he wanted to know what that was about--and he had tried to comfort his longtime friend. For the first time, Geralt snapped. He had always joked around with Jaskier, that he wanted him to go away, that he was a poor traveling companion, and that he was going to leave him in a tavern somewhere. At least, he thought they were jokes. Apparently not. The look on Geralt's face implied that he would have slit Jaskier's throat if he didn't leave, and quick. Nothing in the words implied "Come back when I feel better, Jaskier," or "You're an idiot but you're still my friend, Jaskier." He never wanted to see the bard again. Jaskier managed to squeak out a "See you around, Geralt," but deep down he knew it wasn't true. When Geralt wanted to avoid someone, he avoided someone. "Destiny" be damned.
He managed to hold in his emotions until he saw Roach waiting patiently among the other horses. She had finally grown more comfortable with him, and when Geralt let him touch her she leaned into him. She knew his touch as the touch of a friend. He let out a sob when he saw her, breaking out into a run down the rest of the hill into the town. He ran through the town and halfway to the next before his tear-clouded eyes betrayed him and he fell face down into a muddy puddle. Collecting himself the best he could, he leaned up on a nearby tree, only to remember he had no food, no coin, and not a single friend in the world. Geralt might as well have left him to die. In a moment of clarity, he had decided that he was going to move on, go to the next town, and return to pubs and taverns all across the Continent as an entertainer.
Of course, when he got there, he couldn't bring himself to sing or play.
He had hoped to charm his way into a room in the inn. If he was being realistic with himself, they gave him the room because they felt sorry for him. Spying his face in the mirror was quite a sight to see. Muddy, scraped, with two very telling tear tracks plowing their way from eye to neck. He was completely and totally alone. No one at the tavern spoke to him, and he couldn't bring himself to burden anyone else with his once-bubbly personality. The barkeep always gave him a free drink or two, sometimes wine, sometimes coffee. He wasn't sure why. It was otherwise a lively place--often having other bards and troubadours performing, even a female minstrel a few times--but he couldn't stand to listen to the songs of love and adventure anymore, instead departing to the room he reluctantly called "his." Worse was when he retreated to the barren room and he could hear the entire bar in a rousing chorus of "Toss A Coin To Your Witcher." It was all he could do to cradle his head in his hands and sit on the small bed. He didn't even cry anymore. There was no point.
The passage of time didn't matter. He lingered in that town for nearly a fortnight.
--
A strapping, shockingly muscular woman was laughing, strumming a lute and crooning alongside two older men, also equipped with instruments of their own. "Instruments of torture," thought Jaskier, sitting in his customary place at the far corner of the bar. He always faced away from the other patrons, not wanting to see women kissing husbands and men carousing with their large groups of friends. He just looked out the window. It was a rainy day today, and it was at least pleasantly warm inside--between the groups of warm bodies and the fire roaring at the other side of the room.
In an effort to avoid recognition, he had gotten rid of the red trousers and doublet he had come here in. They were filthy, anyway, and he had barely enough energy to remain alive, let alone do laundry. A simple white cotton shirt and grey breeches were enough. He nursed his pint of ale. He was always thankful for the free alcohol but it was never enough to get sufficiently drunk. The woman began singing softly, finally deciding it was time to stop messing around and earn her keep. The other patrons grew quiet.
"Another damned love song," he thought. "Might as well stay and listen. Have to get back to these eventually, and it's time to rip the bandage off."
Gray, quiet and tired and mean
Picking at a worried seam
I try to make you mad at me, open and prone
Red eyes and fire and signs
I'm taken by a nursery rhyme
I want to make a ray of sunshine and never leave home
Hot tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. He set his jaw and sighed, determined to hold together, fingers running through his hair, his other shaky hand pulling the ale to his lips. A stray throught crossed his mind about the only person he knew who could always stay stoic, and his shoulders began to shake.
No amount of coffee, no amount of crying
No amount of whiskey, no amount of wine
No, no, no, no, no, nothing else will do
I've gotta have you, I've gotta have you.
The tears fell. He set the half-finished ale aside and placed both arms on the table, leaning over. His face was twisted in sorrow. "This is so stupid," he thought, choking back a sob. "Stupid, stupid, stupid. Just like everything else." His cuffs were wet with salty remains of silent weeping. The door to the bar opened and some of the patrons began speaking again, softly, amongst themselves. A gravelly voice ordered a drink. The minstrel woman kept singing, undeterred, one of the men deftly harmonizing.
The road gets cold, there's no spring in the meadow this year
I'm the new chicken clucking open hearts and ears
Oh, such a prima donna, sorry for myself
But green, it is also summer
And I won't be warm 'til I'm lying in your arms
"That's it," he thought. "I'm leaving. Fuck the chorus, fuck this bar. I'm going to bed." He downed the rest of the ale, despite the tightness rising in his throat, and managed to rise from his seat. "Just in time for the verse," he thought. "Wouldn't want to miss this." He couldn't even help being sarcastic when it was himself on the receiving end. The tears had stopped, and he wiped a few cold, lingering drops from his jawline.
I see it all through a telescope:
guitar, suitcase, and a warm coat
Lying in the back of the blue boat, humming a tune
He began walking toward the stairway that led to his room. The single newcomer sitting at the bar was turned slightly, doing his best to ignore the wistful atmosphere in the bar.
The man's eyes flashed, golden. He called out. "Jaskier,"
Jaskier couldn't hold back a sob. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve and kept walking.
"Jaskier, come here,"
"No." The man was following him now.
"Jaskier, I'm sorry--"
"I could have been on the coast by now, Geralt," tears were shedding freely now. He turned to face the tall, oppressive frame. "Was it too much to ask? To have a friend for once?"
Geralt's eyes were shockingly soft. "That's not why I asked you--"
"I don't care why you asked, Geralt, and for that matter you didn't ask, wait, stop--"
Geralt was gripping his shoulders, jaw set. The intensity of his gaze stopped the bard's speech immediately.
"I'm sorry, Jaskier." He sighed. "I shouldn't have said those things to you, and I'm sorry. I waited for you, in the first town. I thought you would come back, and when you didn't, I got worried that you got into trouble, so I came here."
"Well, that certainly doesn't excuse--"
Geralt stooped to embrace the smaller man. Jaskier stopped speaking and started wailing, embracing him back. The witcher waited for a moment before shushing him and beginning to stroke the back of his head with a free hand. When the wails slowed to sniffles, he pulled away, resting his forehead on Jaskier's.
"Look at me."
Blue eyes, stained with sorrow, met amber.
"You are a worthy traveling companion. No one else, in the whole Continent, as worthy to travel with me as you. Alright?"
"But you said--"
"Fuck what I said."
Jaskier let out a small laugh. "Alright," he said, rubbing the last tears from his eyes.
"Now, I plan to stay here a night, and then go to the coast." Jaskier nodded. "And you're coming with me."
"On a hunt?"
"No. Just for..." The white-haired man trailed off. Jaskier waited a moment, to see if his friend would finish his sentence.
"For fun?"
"For fun."
No amount of coffee, no amount of crying
No amount of whiskey, no amount of wine
No, no, no, no, no
Nothing else will do
I've gotta have you, I've gotta have you.
#songfic#the witcher#geralt of rivia#geralt#jaskier#dandelion#emotional whump#hurt/comfort#emotional h/c#h/c#fanfic#gotta have you#i edited the lyrics but only slightly#my writing
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NONVERBAL RP STARTERS. | accepting.
@cllgood asked: Pull my muse onto a dance floor/up to dance from ALL THREE of the Allgood children, ALL THREE PULL HIM AT THE SAME TIME.
It had been their brother’s idea. A mad, quipping thought, a dog jumping in the air with jaws of delighted crimson. Their brother’s thoughts were often like that, a jerk of orange-red in the clouds, fox-sunlight, sunset escaping the wild chase of the hunt for another cool summer night. Bright, sudden. A starkblast of synapses.
They couldn’t bring them to the Club. Cuthbert had floated the idea as briefly as Roland had been quick to react to it, and his eyebrows had gone up, up, up, which had made Cuthbert laugh that much harder.
No Club, then, and say thankya. Lest the Deschain-tete suffer an early death, by apoplexy.
But there were other places, of course. The shining city held dark alleyways to fill two young ladies of the court with thrills enough to leave them golden, reeling, with excitement. And they needed a second chaperone, with Al sadly busy, and Jamie and Thomas both on patrol duties, and, besides, Cuthbert needed a jack to dance with.
No Club, then, but Low-town. Improper. Scandalous. What would their mother say? To her, perhaps, they could lie and lie convincingly (a night at the theatre, mama, nothing more!) but to Robert Allgood? He’d guess, sure as day, perhaps only because it was something he’d done with his little sister, too, when she was green and he was dizzy with youth.
(There was such fun in being able to trick Dorcas Allgood into thinking the outing innocent, not tinged with the revelry, the cheap wine, the too-fast music, the sweaty sour joy that felt so much like a trail -- a world that Judith, as a lady, should never have known).
Nor should Ethel or Edna. A lady of the court shouldn’t smoke (at least not in public), and a lady shouldn’t get lost in the bowels of Lower-town, and she shouldn’t get the hem of her dress muddied, and a lady shouldn’t, and shouldn’t, and shouldn’t.
But if their father had taught them anything, it was this: rules are not to be followed. They’re to be pushed to their breaking point, either by curiosity or adventure or both, and then they’re to be fashioned into something new once they do break, the new cracks filled in with gold.
Ethel laughs, and Edna shushes her on the edges of her own laugh. A giggle, then, behind their teeth, as Cuthbert and Roland make sure the coast is clear in the Allgood parlour, at such late an hour, before herding them across muffling carpets, expensive wood, into a crisp almost cold evening of early autumn. Cuthbert slowly closes the heavy oak door behind them, and then they’re down the steps and in the central courtyard. It already feels like a victory, in the girls’ blood that’s rushing in their ears. Their laughter is louder, now, a puddle they hop from mouth to mouth, their teeth splashing in the water, making ruckus. Roland shushes them and then half-smirks, “Victory’s nowhere near us yet. Pull your hoods up.”
It’s almost overkill. But it’s most, if not all, of the fun -- while gunslingers, even of the Elder Blood, aren’t entirely a novelty in Lower Town, two courtly ladies seen meandering those lamplit alleyways would certainly raise more than a few eyebrows and set more than a few tongues a-wagging -- and, of course, not even a whisper of this ought to reach Robert Allgood or the Gilead-dinh, lest the honour of the Allgood froglets be be-spoiled forever and ever-a (in Cuthbert Allgood’s, heir and nuisance, own words).
They both tie their skirts above their ankles, to avoid the mud after the cobblestones and pavement. If Palace Hill is the soul, and the Old Quarter the brain, then the dark alleyways, the buzzing energy, the bright laughter of crooked teeth that is Lower Town is the frenzied heart, the Bacchic anima, the last dredges and drudgery of a world that the great threat of civilisation has failed to cannibalise. A stubborn, raucous fragment of the West clinging to the side of the city like barnacles to an old ship hull.
From sandstone to brick to wood, from electricity to oil, from buzzing lamplight to the thick smoke of a fireplace. From the sweat of a well-danced pol-kam to the grit and the roar of a fast-paced jenkka, all feet, all heart, all hands.
Per Cuthbert’s suggestion: the Drunken Crab it is. The girls can finally pull their hoods down, and the brief breath of curiosity comes not for them (though even if not too ostentatious, their clothes catch the light a different way) but for their brother and his jack, and, of course, their bright brilliant guns. But it’s a moment, where the stale air of the room takes stock of its new occupants, and then the laughter and voices, the hacking coughs, the drumming on tables: it surges, a wave, and hits Ethel in the chest up, up, into her cheeks and that laugh. Edna sees, and Edna slips her hand in her sister’s, gives the excited squeeze Ethel was expecting.
They throw their cloaks on a nearby empty chair, and are gone, a whiz of curls in the crowd as the band starts a new song. A piper, a fiddler, a drummer. Their boots hit the hard wood in rhythm, and the dancers make a circle.
Cuthbert snorts and turns to Roland. Gesturing at where his sisters have just vanished.
“If they get lost, Bert, you’re the one who’s gonna have to do all the explaining to your father.”
That makes Cuthbert bark, head back, hair wild. “Nonsense! As if those girls ain’t got the same trig blood. They’ll be just fine.”
He sits on one of the chairs next to the one with the girls’ cloaks, and folds his arms behind his head. “Would my dinh be so kind as to fetch me a drink, if it please him? Graf. Cold.”
“What, drink before dancing?”
“Just whettin’ my appetite, dear.”
He nudges Roland’s hip with the tip of his boot. Roland looks down, and then up, at the grin and the arched eyebrow, and pushes Cuthbert’s foot away from him.
“Boring.”
But boring isn’t no. Cuthbert watches him disappear into the packed crowd, the opposite way his sisters went, squeezing between tables and patrons and harlots and merchants of madness. He, on the other hand, cranes his neck to try and catch a glimpse of his sisters. It’s not hard: that commala of curls, those hands always intertwined, and that laughter. They’re hand in hand, twirling away, laughing loud enough it’s shrieks, and it’s luck (maybe, or just fraternal foresight) that they bump into their table, and their brother, and not a disgruntled patron. He laughs, too, “Oi, froglets! Careful now.”
“Where’s Ro?” Ethel asks, catching her breath and wiping her forehead down.
“Why, fetching his jack a drink, and I’d expect enjoying it, too,” Cuthbert explains, and catches a glimpse of Roland coming back to their table. He grins and grabs his sisters, a hand for each, “but not for long.”
Roland, more a fool than anyone else in this room, for thinking that three Allgood children would ever leave him in peace. He sees Cuthbert stand and whisper something, a quick word for each sister’s ear, and sighs.
“Ain’t no escaping it, Ro.” Cuthbert says, as Roland places the mugs down on the table.
“Wasn’t part of the agreement.”
“Agreement? What agreement? There be no bargains between lions and sheep!”
Cuthbert’s looped an arm around his shoulders. Roland scoffs at him, but then Ethel’s grabbing his left hand, and Edna his right, and they tug will Cuthbert leads. The circle at the centre of the dancefloor claps and turns, hands crossed over each other, grabbing their companions’ on each side.
Music isn’t in his blood like it is in the blood of the three beside him. There’s something raw in their blood, a laughter always cantering along the arms and feet, as close as the great Song of the Turtle as a heartbeat can be. Roland doesn’t have that luxury, doesn’t know that breathlessness inside him.
But he sees it. Every day, he sees it, and he loves it. Even now, when it drives him mad and drags him into a sweaty Lowtown line-dance. Even now.
Especially now.
#cllgood#drabbles.#verse. let this darkness be a bell tower. (the dark tower)#arc. take these scars upon my back. (youth)#IA –– DINH TETE.
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Just Friends - Part 7 (Paul McCartney x Reader)
Words: 3.2K
Warnings: Minor Sexual Themes
Summary: Paul, finally, shows you the farm
A/N: Thank y’all so much for reading! I’m planning to write 2 more chapters, one being the final and then an epilogue. I sincerely hope that you all loved this story. It’s been fun to write, not only fueling my Paul love, but yours also. <3
A MONTH LATER
Fall had now fully come into effect. It had been a wonderful summer, so many events came and happened. Mostly happy, some sad. It was nice though, for the weather to start simmering down. You loved the summer, but there was always something so special about Autumn. The air was more crisp, and every step you took was followed by the sound of a crunching leaf. You also started to incorporate fall pastries into your bakery, so, more business was filtering in due to pumpkin pies and warm apple cider.
Over the past month, since your father's funeral, you threw yourself back into work. You worked overtime at the bakery, making up for the lost sales. You had also been working more to keep up your promise to your mother- to send money back to home to help with your siblings. Mom had also told you that Cindy started working at a diner to help with the bills, and David tended to the neighbors gardens. Each family member was pitching in and doing their part to help. It was sad that it took your father's passing to finally bring all of you together, but it is what it is.
Paul had also gotten swept back into work. He worked long hours at the studio, recording and writing for his new album. It was hard, to not see Paul, but you two talked on the phone the days he couldn’t make it to visit. Ever since the two of you showered together, the feelings you tried to deny were too strong to fight. It was a long time coming, I mean, there was moments before you were naked together that you had realized those feelings. But now, you finally acknowledged them. You were inevitably, undeniably, in love with him.
The thought of him brought butterflies to your stomach, it would cause you to smile and bite your lip. You would find yourself drifting off thinking, no- dreaming about what life would be like if you were together. You dreamt of the family home, the domestic lifestyle. Making breakfast for him in the mornings, dinner in the evenings. You get the drift. Sometimes you would get so caught up in these fantasies you would forget about the customer, waiting to be served.
The cool morning light peeled it’s way through your curtains, casting across the room. It was a Sunday, which meant the bakery was closed. You sighed, and threw the covers off yourself, getting up to stretch. It’d been a week since you last saw Paul. He was busy recording, which was unfortunate. However, you were also busy at the bakery. You looked at your alarm clock, reading 9:23 A.M. You made your way to the kitchen and set on a pot of coffee, and put a bagel into the toaster. You then opened your apartment door, grabbing the newspaper. You scanned the sections before one headline caught your attention.
PAUL’S NEW LOVER?
What? You read the sentence over and over again. It echoed throughout your brain as you frantically flipped to the page containing the article. A picture of Paul and Linda covered nearly a full page.
“...McCartney was seen last Wednesday with Linda Eastman wrapped around his arm. Will the former lovers rekindle that spark?...”
You tossed the paper onto the counter top, feeling a lump in your throat form. You were an idiot, of course Paul wasn’t in love with you. You two were just friends, and were to remain that way forever. You felt stupid, angry, betrayed. It’s not like you two were dating, nobody had made that clear. Your conscience stepped in, trying to calm you down. He had even talked to you about how their relationship just didn’t work out, they were always fighting about this and that. There had to have been a reason that he was with Linda, I mean, her father was his manager for god sakes.
You still couldn’t push past the picture. She was smiling up at him, while he smiled into the cameras. Her arms were wrapped around one of his, and they seemed to be walking together outside the studio. That should’ve been me. You thought, feeling a deep cavern form in your chest. You bit your lip and shook your head, trying to force the tears back into your eyes. It was stupid, it was like seeing all those pictures of him and Jane. You felt like a teenager again.
As if on cue your telephone rang, you knew it was Paul. You sighed, wiped your eyes and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Hey Love.” You loved how his voice sounded over the phone, so soft and always eager. It made you want to jump into his arms, but your heart was reminded of the picture with Linda wrapped around him.
“Hey, Paul.” You said softly, mixing creamer into your coffee. You could fake it, right? That you weren’t hurt? It’s a tabloid, you kept reminding yourself.
“Listen, I’ve been thinking. Would you like to come over?” Paul hadn’t invited you to his house since, ever. This would be the first time. You always thought it was strange, the fact he hadn’t invited you over.
“Um, Paul, I’m feeling a little under the weather.” You said, cringing with each word that came out. You were letting that stupid article get to you. Internally you knew that you were doing that self-sabotage thing you do. As soon as something wonderful happens to you, you ruin it for yourself.
“Come feel under the weather with me.” He spoke so smoothly. Maybe that how he charmed Linda back into his arms.
“That’s very sweet of you, but-”
“I’m sending the car over. I expect to see you soon.” Okay. So, there was no getting around this.You huffed, slamming the creamer back onto the counter a little hard.
“Fine.” You gave in, though you were finding it hard to be excited. Stupid article. You needed to find out the truth from Paul.
“Lovely, I’ll see you soon, Kitty.” With that, the dial tone signaled. That nickname always sent you over the edge. You wished he’d whisper it in your ear with a string of sweet-nothings. You groaned, wiping your face with your hands and then grudgingly getting dressed.
The driver showed up an half an hour after Paul called, and so started the adventure to Paul’s house. You didn’t even know he’d settled in Scotland until you pulled up to the home. Once past the gate, a gorgeous stone house came into view. Vines had grown up the sides of the home, and the stone work was covered with moss spots. A small garden patch was planted in front of the home, and you could see various vegetables growing. A few barns stood past the home out in a field and a handful of horses grazed the grass. You were awestruck; Paul lived in a medieval fairy tale home. Something you’d always dreamed of, in fact you talked about it with him when you were children. He always boasted about having a mansion with seven maids when he grew old.
The driver parked, and you thanked him whilst climbing out. Immediately sinking your foot into a puddle of mud. You groaned and pulled your shoe out with a shluck! sound.
“Oh, I should’ve told you it’d be muddy.” You heard Paul say. You looked up, your eyes drinking in the sight of him. He stood with his hands in his pockets and an amused smile on his face. He was wearing a basic long sleeve polo shirt with jeans and tall rubber boots spackled with mud. You sighed dreamily, he looked so good.
“That would’ve been nice.” You said dryly, snapping out of your dream state and stepping away from the mud.
“Welcome to the McCartney Estate.” He boasted, arms wide with a wide smile on his face. “I’ve been wanting to bring you here for a while.” He greeted you, and let you wrap an arm around his so you wouldn’t step or slip in any more mud. “Tour? Followed by breakfast?”
“Sure.” You said, checking your wrist watch. It was 10:37 in the morning, and you hadn’t had coffee yet; even though you did make some. You might as well get through the tour, though you’d be thinking about breakfast the whole time.
He lead you into the home, and took off his boots setting them aside. He also asked you to take off your mud soaked shoes as well. You looked around the home, absolutely astonished at how beautiful it was inside. A large kitchen was straight across from the living room, equipped with a fireplace and television. The bathroom stood down the hall, along with the backdoor of the house. A staircase in the living room led up to the bedrooms; 4 of them. He showed you around each room all of which were clean and tidied. He then took you to the basement and showed you the basic recording setup he had.
“Paul, this home is beautiful. You waited over three months to show me?!” You exclaimed, lightly punching his arm. He mocked hurt and rubbed his arm.
“Well, I was remodeling.” He defended as you two made your way back to the kitchen and living room. Breakfast had already been made, by someone who probably wasn’t Paul, and sat neatly across the counter-top. There were pancakes, fresh fruit, sausages and bacon, as well as syrup and whipped cream. Paul, being a gentleman, fixed you a plate with a little bit of everything and sat you down at the table.
“Paul, what’s all this for?” You asked, feeling slightly suspicious as to why he was making such a big deal over this.
“Can’t I just make you breakfast?” He had a slight hesitation before he replied. He fixed himself a plate and then he sat down in a seat across from yours. You assumed that was the best answer you were to get out of him, and just enjoyed your breakfast. He’d even gotten you a cup of coffee. Paul watched as you ate, feeling happy. This is how it should be, you in his home, eating breakfast slightly grumpy. He smiled warmly at the thought of you two waking up together, making breakfast, you complaining about this and that. Spending your days tending to the farm, feeding the chickens, riding the horses.
After breakfast, he gave you a pair of too big rubber boots and he showed you the farm. He owned three horses, all named something obscure. He also owned two pigs, five chickens, and even two goats. Each had their own pen, and small shelter. There was a large barn that held a small tractor, and a few bales of hay. It also harbored the other animals feed.
“I always remembered how you wanted to live on a farm.” Paul spoke softly, watching you spread the chicken feed. He thought you looked adorable in his spare pair of boots, that were indeed much to big for your feet. His heart warmed at the thought of this becoming a regular thing, tending to the animals together. Of course, you’d have your own size rubber boots by that time.
“I told you that when we were so young.” You spoke, setting the pan of seed down onto a nearby fence post. You looked up at him now. He had a look of adoration, leaning up against the chicken coop. Had Paul bought this home and farm for you? That’s just a ridiculous thought.
“(Y/N), I have something to confess.” He said after a few moments of consideration. You watched his face carefully, trying to assess what he was about to say. Did it have to do with Linda? “I- I’ve been feeling this way for a while.”
Oh god. Here it comes. He loves Linda. They’re back together, and she’s pregnant. You know it. Your chest tightened with each moment he didn’t speak. He was fiddling with one of the gate latches.
“I saw the article Paul.” You interrupted to him, not waiting to hear what he was going to say. You kicked some mud off your too big boots, and then looked up to see his reaction.
“Article?” He looked at you puzzled, now standing up straight.
“With you and Linda. I know. I know that you were with her.” You blurted. “I saw it in the newspaper this morning. You two, wrapped around each other looking happy go lucky. The picture was dated from three days ago.” Paul still looked at you puzzled. He shook his head, and ran his hand through his hair. You looked back down at the ground, feeling that gaping hole in your chest only grow in size. Him not answering only confirmed your fears. Well, you had a lovely run. As friends.
“I get it, we’re just friends. Paul, I- I-” You started, but Paul was quick to interrupt.
“No, you Idiot.” Your eyes raced to meet up with his, giving you a slight crick in your neck. “I’m in love with you.”
You gasped as the cavern in your chest immediately filled. Warmth filled your body, bringing feeling back into your fingers and toes. If you were holding something, you probably would’ve dropped it.
Paul’s body quickly wrapped around yours, as he rested both of his hands on the sides of your face, pulling you in for a kiss. You kissed him back, just a fiercely as he did to you. You grabbed his shirt by the sides and pulled him flush against you. It was like a typical, cheesy romantic movie. The kiss felt like twenty fireworks had been set off at once. Love was in the air; the cool, Autumn air.
“I love you too.” You managed to stumble out once you both broke for air. Happy tears stung your eyes. “I’ve loved you since I was 14.”
His hands slid down your back, now holding you tightly. He rested his forehead against yours, smiling softly. It was beautiful, with the chill Autumn air and sunshine billowing down onto you. The ambiance of the farm added to the romance.
“I knew the second I met you.” He spoke.
“You were eight years old.” You chuckled, kissing him again.
“I know a good bird when I meet one.” He winked. You shook your head with a giggle. You didn’t want to kill the moment, but you still had to ask what Paul was doing with Linda the other day. It was eating you up. If he loved you, then why would he be spending time with his Ex-Girlfriend.
“Paul, can I ask,” You paused, biting your lip, “What were you doing with Linda the other day?” You spoke softly, stepping out of his embrace.
“She was taking promotional pictures for the new album.” He replied. It didn’t even occur to you that Linda was a photographer, and her father was Paul’s manager. Of course. You’re an idiot, jumping to the worst conclusions.
“...Right.” You finally said, which a short laugh. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed.” You kicked a few rocks, looking at your giant booted feet. Pauls hand gently grabbed your chin as he directed your attention up to him. He then kissed your forehead, and wrapped one arm around your waist.
“You know believing those stupid tabloids is rookie mistake number one.” Paul joked, finishing off with a quick peck to your lips. You savored the moment, being here with Paul. You knew at some point your Romantic-Comedy movie moment had to end. You wished it could be like this forever, but of course tomorrow you’d have to return to the bakery, and Paul would return to the studio.
“What will your fans think? Of us? I mean, You’re the last bachelor of the Beatles. I’m sure a lot of girls are going to be very disappointed.” You spoke up, while you and Paul walked back to the house. His hand held yours and it made you feel giddy. Sure, you’d been holding hands before but now there was meaning behind it and it was different.
“They’ll have to deal. I love you. Period.” He said, you could hear the happiness in his voice. It gave you butterflies. It’s crazy how three simple words could change your whole life. You two winding up together was such a fairy-tale moment.
You looked around at his vast property before entering the home. The chill air was starting to get to you, and you shivered slightly before the warmth of the fireplace brought you back to life. You poured yourself another cup of coffee, took off those ridiculous boots, and sat on the couch that was near the fire. Paul joined you a moment later, wrapping his arm behind you. You sighed, resting your head onto his shoulder. This is how life should have always been. You two should’ve been together years ago. However, if you did get together years ago he’d probably be working a dead end job, and you’d be a simple housewife.
“Do you want to know a secret?” Paul asked, after you two had been warmed back up by the fire. You adjusted your sitting position to look at him better.
“Yes, you know I love gossip.” You smiled wide. He laughed at your comment.
“I used to live in London, when we first reconnected. I-” He paused, a smiling interrupting his speech, “I bought this home and farm shortly after our first dinner. I knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my days with you. I never forgot all those rantings of you dreaming about owning a small farm, growing vegetables, raising animals.”
“Do you want me to cry?” You spoke, a happy tear running down your cheek. You laughed shortly and kissed him hard, straddling his lap. He rested his hands on your hips, occasionally grabbing your bum as you kissed. No, you two hadn’t had sex before. Though as teenagers there were a few close calls. Mostly being drunk from going to parties, especially after Paul joined The Quarrymen.
You two kept kissing, each one getting more hot and heavy. Paul was now firmly holding onto your bum, while your fingers were tangled in his hair. You could feel him progressively getting turned on, his hips occasionally coming up to meet yours. You would break the kisses with soft moans, which only fueled Paul to continue. He grabbed you tightly and flipped the two of you so he was now on top of you on the couch. He quickly helped you get rid of your sweater, leaving you in jeans and a bra.
“God, I’ve forgotten how gorgeous your chest is.” He muttered, littering your chest and the tops of your breasts with kisses, occasionally leaving a love bite. You continuously ran your fingers through his hair, moaning at the sensations of him. Paul sat up straight and took his long-sleeve off, revealing his torso. You bit your lip, running your hands all across his chest. You’d always been sexually attracted to Paul, who wasn’t?
“Do y’want to go up to the bedroom, Kitty?” He whispered in your ear. His accent getting heavy. You feverishly nodded, and the two of you stood up, practically running up the stairs and to the master bedroom.
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