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sweetchup · 4 years

Text

N.E.R.D.S

Type: Shalnark x reader

Au?: None

Word count: 3,000+

Warnings: Slight Mature content, Slight Yandere/Stalkerish themes, and Shalnark being a Shark

Today was going to be the last day. The last day at this terrible job. After this shift you were going to call up your boss and officially quit.

At first working at a nearby Cyber Cafe sounded fun. It was close to your flat and had a reasonable paycheck. Plus being surrounded by video games and fellow nerds sounded even fun. Yet it wasn’t. You should’ve walked out on your first day, for in the very first moments of walking into the place you stepped onto a melted, probably expired as well, chocolate bar. In your brand new shoes as well. It was disgusting and tragic, yet not the worst thing that has happened at this job.

In a simple sense while you worked here you weren’t an employee of a fine establishment, you were basically a servant. You were called upon again and again to make food and drinks for people, picked up after people when they left, yelled at when prices were too high or you told them what to do, jeered at by your boss, deal with horrible and lazy coworkers and had to fix the computers when they broke down (instead of taking it to a proper tech shop).

Most of the time, you could deal with that. You would just bite your tongue and give your most friendliest employee smile. But in no ways you could handle the many costumers you were groped or harassed by. Half the time you just wanted to take one of the electric cords, wrap it around their neck and just strangle them. But you were a reasonable person, a responsible adult so you would just report it to your manager. Though, of course, the situation was mostly just shrugged off. According to him, customers know best. What a load of bullcrap.

If customers truly knew best then why were you on your knees cleaning the 33th piece of trash scattered at this computer station. Hell you had filled 1 ½ trash bags just by yourself from cleaning up after people. That was too much. They should know how to pick up after themselves, you aren’t their mother.

Stretching and popping your back, you stand up. All the empty stations were finally sparkling cleaned. Though it did come at the price of your back. You’ll probably need to see a chiropractor or at least get a message from all the leaning and bending over you do at your job.

It also didn’t help that your coworker, Susan, called in sick last minute so you were stuck with an extra shift today and the graveyard shift at that.

“Sick my ass..” You grumbled under your breath, making your way back to your desk in the corner.

Since the place wasn’t busy tonight you could probably get away with watching anime or playing a new game. Hell even a nap if you got comfortable enough. Yet you stop when you see someone. His head was down on the desk but you knew it was him just from his golden hair being lighted up from the computer screen.

‘What was his name again? Shalnark? Yeah shalnark.’

Shalnark was an unfamiliar face. He showed up randomly at the cafe three days ago. It was pretty hard not to notice him. Wearing a lilac purple outfit and a constant smile on his face, he hadn’t moved since he entered. Tapping away constantly at the computer in front of him. He had been pretty nice to you and even cleaned up after himself. You actually liked talking to him the few times you talked. Though it was somewhat creepy when for some reason he knew your name when he first checked in. Though that was probably due to your name tag or maybe you had met once before at a party or something, you seemed close in age.

On top of that it was gobsmacking, yet pretty impressive, that he has slept once in the 3 days he’s been here. The other coworkers caught onto it as well in their shifts when you weren’t here. Yet it seems even Shalnark can’t run away from Father Sleep. Especially based on the fact he was currently faced down on his desk, with empty coffee cups surrounding him of course.

Suddenly you shiver as another puff of cold air comes out of the air conditioner. That was another thing you didn’t understand about the owner. Why in the world did he keep the cafe at freezing temps? Even in the winter right now. Biting your lip and rubbing your hands across the thick sweater on your arms for warmth you look concerned at Shalnark.

Was he cold? Normally you wouldn’t care about customers but he seemed like a nice guy, well except for the first time you talked but even then, it was probably your name tag. You just couldn’t help but be concerned since he was wearing a tank top in the winter.

Making up your mind you grabbed one of the many blankets and pillows in the lobby and walked over to him. Shakily you stand over him, slightly scared to wake the attractive man up from his slumber.

As you think over your decision you notice something interesting on the computer screen in front of you.

“The Dragon Eye Collection…”

It was on his notepad too. Why was he researching the Dragon Eye Collection? Sure they were a collection of 5 of the most beautiful fire opals in the world. But they were owned by the emperor, more like dictator, HuinYa Fushi of the Baiys Region. Due to his way of ruling with an iron fist, no one knew what they looked like or where they were exactly located, all that people knew was that they definitely exist. What in the world would Shalnark want with that? Was he maybe a reporter or even a Gem hunter? Though that wasn’t any of your concern. You shouldn’t pry into someone's life or business like that anyways.

Placing your hand on Shalnark’s shoulder you ever so lightly shake him. How was he asleep? His skin was practically frozen to the touch.

“Mr Shalnark?”

After a few more soft calls of his name he finally awoke. Sitting up, he squints under the computer’s harsh glow and looks over to you. He blinked a couple of times more, clearing struggling to keep himself awake. Though the bags under his eyes already told you he was plenty sleep deprived.

“I’m sorry for waking you, Mr Shalnark. But I came to bring you a blanket and a pillow. I wouldn’t want you to hurt your neck or catch a cold.”

You hold out for the blanket and pillow for him to take but he only shakes his head. His usual smile across his face, though it was less pleasant now with the bags under his eyes.

“Thank you (y/n)! But, please, there’s no need. I need to get back to wor…….”

The smile across his face disappears and his head droops down. He seems to practically, almost, pass out right then and there but he thankfully catches himself. Trying to somehow play it off, he leans an arm against the desk.

“To work! Yes work! I'm a very busy man after all.” Shalnark laughs off. Giving you a wink, he turns his attention back to screen in front of him.

Biting your lip you don’t know what to do. You definitely don’t believe he’s ok yet you also can’t force him to sleep. You two are strangers after al—

“Oh!” You let out in surprise and shock.

With a quick reflex you lung forward and catch Shalnark before his head hits the desk. Thank goodness you were still standing there, that could have really hurt. You lean him back but Shalnark stops you as he grabs on one your arm that was holding onto his shoulder and a little across the front of his chest. With tired eyes he shoots you an apologetic look.

“Sorry I didn’t know what came over me at that moment.” He apologizes; squeezing your arm.

You bit your lip again for the third time tonight. He needs sleep. He can’t continue going on like this, he could actually get hurt or even sick. Ever so lightly you push him to lean back into his chair. He goes to rebut you but you lean down to his face, making him go quiet.

“I’m sorry Mr Shalnark but I think you should go to bed.”

“But—“

Playfully you hold a finger up to his nose and boop it.

“No buts Mister. It’s time for bed.”

It was unprofessional and even childish of you to boop a grown man’s nose and tell him it’s time for bed. But you could easily see he was obviously trying to fight back and hooping his nose seemed to stun him.

While he was still stunned, you reclined the big office chair and put the blanket and pillow on him. It wasn’t as comfy as a bed but anything is better than sleeping hunched over a desk at this point.

As you finally get him to settle in his eyes begin to droop, yet he seems to continue to try and fight against it. Reaching a hand out you rub and groom Shalnark’s hair. He looks up at you as you shoot him a small smile.

“You need to go to bed, Shalnark. It’s okay to take a rest sometimes you know.”

His eyes go wide for a second and he opens his mouth wide like a fish.

“It’s you…it’s actually you. I can’t… the troupe is relying on me… I need to stay awake to figure out the location… the boss is relying on… me…” Shalnark mumbles out. His voice getting quieter and quieter.

And with that Shalnark was out cold.

Well at least you figured out that he does know you from somewhere. You wonder where. Also, the boss huh? He had to do something for him?

You looked over to the computer screen and notes in front of you. No wonder he was stressed out. You would be too if your boss and all of your workplace was relying on you to figure this out.

You could…you could always help him. You check the clock behind you. It was around 2am. Even if you took a nap now it wouldn’t be for much time and you did want to quit after tonight.

Making a decision you pull a chair over and look around you. The coast was clear as no one seemed to be watching. Stretching your fingers you put them to the keyboard and activate your aura.

You didn’t use Nen often but you were a talent transmitter. Through vigorous training you had managed to turn your Nen into data and electric signals. It was useless in battle for all you could do at most was glitch your body but, then again, you were never much of a fighter either.

Glitching and hacking through vast codes on the computer you finally make it onto the secret government site of the Fushi Empire. That was a piece of cake for you. You could probably even sneak in an episode of Bokemon after all this was done before you had to leave.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“What do you mean you quit?!?”

Sighing you leaning against the counter. Tapping your fingers against the surface. “Like I said before I quit. It’s just not the right job for me.”

“You can’t! I won’t allow you, you un—“

Done with your manager's bullshit you hang up the phone and take a sip from your coffee. After a couple of more sips you were able to finish the cup. Walking around the desk you toss the cup into the trash.

Taking one last look at the place around you, you grab your bag. You would like to say you will miss the place but… you definitely won’t. This place could burn in hell for all you cared.

Wrapping your jacket tighter you step out of the building and into the cold. Wow you didn’t even realize it was still snowing from last night. It was actually nice to see snow in the city for the first time.

Your phone suddenly dings, a text from your landlord?. Oh! Someone had finally accepted your roommate's application for your flat. That’s awesome. Biting your lip, you just type back ‘yes’.

You technically should’ve looked into the document she sent along with the text which was about the roommate. But you just really need someone to split the rent with you so you honestly didn’t care who it was at this point.

“(Y/n)!”

Jumping, startled and surprised, you turn around fast at the call but are suddenly knocked over and in a snowbank. Now wide awake, you moan in discomfort as Wetness seeps into your jacket from the snow and you begin to wiggle at the coldness at your skin.

“W-What the hell?! Get off of me!” You yell out, startled and still unsure who is above you. Was this some creepy stalker? You hoped not. Wiggling more faster now, you try to get out of the snow.

You stop dead in your tracks as you hear a groan above you. Finally able to see the person, you realize it was no other than Shalnark above you. His mouth slightly open and a dark expression on his face.

What had you— oh god. You blush a crimson red. Could this get anymore embarrassing? You hadn’t realized that while you were trying to get away you hadn’t also, unintentionally, rubbed against his crotch.

Apologizing profusely, you somehow now get up and hold out a shaky hand to help him up as well. Shalnark smiled at you. Though it wasn’t like his usual smile it had an unnerving tint to it now that sent a shiver up your spine.

Startled and uneasy you decide to look away at something else. Wow did the wall get a new crack in it? Oh man that sure is interesting. Did Mrs Glain change out the lilacs again? That was nice of her—

“(Y/n)?”

You grow stiff at Shal’s voice and hesitantly meet his gaze. It still made you uneasy. Everything was the same about him yet you can’t help but feel on edge and slightly violated in his presence now. You just couldn’t figure out why.

“Y-yes?”

“I just wanna say thanks for the information you got me! Boss will sure be happy. Hmmmm….I’m not sure how you got these, you must be a really skilled hacker.”

He expressively gestures to the papers in his bag that you printed and wrote on.

“Oh yeah umm no problem.” You nonchalantly answer. Trying to ignore his hacker comment.

“I’m just wondering... how did you get into those websites (y/n)? It sure was hard for me.”

Shalnark asks and secretly shuffles a little closer to you, still an unchanging smile on his face. He was weirdly sneaky about it. Now this was just starting to get creepy. Then you suddenly realize something, did he not realize?

“A-ah I just had to find out the right codes and inputs and stuff you know?”

You start to shuffle back. You didn’t mind being asked questions or someone moving closer. It’s just… you just realized... Blushing you start to move a little faster away.

“Ah-h I really have to get home you-u know? Work just finished and stuff and I have to get rested up for my next shift. You—you know being a good employee and stuff. I’ll see you again sometimes.” Stuttering and tripping over your words you finally walk away from Shalnark. You were just glad you were out of that mess. That was so embarrassing and creepy.

Sighing, you grab your phone from your pocket and turn it on. You scroll through your apps for a little before stopping and selecting “Bokemon Go”. You needed to see if the new bokemon “Baporine” was in the area after all.

“Oh you like Bokemon Go as well. I didn’t take you as such a nerd (y/n)~”

Startled, you let out a ‘eep’ and crane your neck to see that Shalnark was literally right behind you. He literally got as close as he could without touching. It also didn’t help that he still had…

Face red again at the thought you fast walk to the bus stop. Though that didn’t work for Shalnark was on your tail the whole time, constantly asking questions.

“I was just joking (y/n)! I love that game as well.”

“Oh have you caught the new Baporine?”

“Wait, do you also know Nen? I think I see aura around you~.”

“Hahah you totally do. What category are you?”

“Do you—“

Reaching the bus you had finally had enough of his antics. Pulling him down by his collar, you glare at him.

“Why are you following me?” You whispered yelled at him. He looks confused for a second before letting out a teasing smile.

“So we are whispering now? Is this a sec—“ You cut him off.

“Answer my question.”

He opens his mouth to do so but before he can, the thing you couldn’t look at or say is, is finally said out loud. And by a young child at that.

“Mommy. Why wrong with that man’s pants? Why is there a bump in the front—“

The mother doesn’t make it better, of course, and lets out a screech in shock. Quickly shielding the child’s eyes and pulling the child away. Leaving you two alone at the bus stop.

Your face beet red and frozen in embarrassment you look at Shalnark’s face.. He looks down at his *ahem* problem and looks back at you. And he, I shit you not, looks you dead in the eye and says.

“Ah so that’s what’s wrong?” He says. Kind of amazed, yet kind of shrugging it off.

“WHAT THE HELL?!? HOW DID YOU NOT REALIZE IT BEFORE” You screech out. Totally losing your cool.

He pouts at your freak out.

“I just didn’t realize it.”

Rubbing your temples you take a deep breath and look at the most likely mid-twenties man in the eyes.

“How do you not realize you are walking around with a full on erection??”

“Well It just doesn’t usually happens. I usually don’t get excited by a girl easily. Though I do usually like to toy with the smart ones,” He suddenly looks down at your chest. His face blushing a little and a small smile spreading across his face. “It also doesn’t help that you have the perfect pair of—“

You clamp your hand over his mouth before he can finish that sentence. You didn’t want to know what he was thinking. You were honestly tired. Working two back to back shifts wasn’t easy.

“Shalnark. Please just… just go home.” You say exhausted and defeated.

You drop your hand from his mouth and he only looks at you confused.

“Hmm? But I am?”

“Hah?!?” Now angry you grab the man by his shirt. You might actually fulfill your life long dream of strangling a man today, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?!?”

Shalnark smiles; an unsettling one at that and grabs his phone from his pocket. As you look at the red phone your stomach drops to the ground. Oh. That number and conversation means. Oh god.

Shalnark giggles and leans over to your ear. His warm breath against the shell causes a shiver up your spine. Taking a gulp and you hear him whisper two dreaded words.

“Hello roomie~”

You should’ve checked the document.

Bonus:

(On the bus)

“Hey (y/n)~ now that we are roommates you wouldn’t mind if we fuc—“

“Shal. Just take a cold shower”

“Huh?!? You're so mean (y/n)! You’re nothing like the girl that took care of me last night. Oh~ Mr Shalnark~ your so handsome Mr—”

“F***king hypocrite”

“Why did you hit me?! That hurt!”

#hxh #hunter x hunter #phantom troupe #hxh scenarios #scenarios #shalnark #shalnark x reader

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write-like-you-mean-it · 4 years

Text

A Hunter’s Prey: Flowing Out like a Current

While lying on the too empty bed, a groan escaped my lips. Calling Milluki is a hell that I didn’t want to experience. Out of everyone else, he’d have the information that I needed. I took out the phone and dialed the home number.

A butler’s voice answered from the other end of the line. This time it was a woman. Usually it was a man who answered the phone. “Hello, Zoldyck residence speaking.”

“Hi, this is Illumi’s fiance,” I said. “I was wondering if you would be able to put me through to Milluki. I’m on a mission and need some guidance.”

There was a short pause before the response, “yes, one second.” The phone clicked over to another line.

“Who is bothering me this late into the night?” shouted Milluki. “You should know this is time for me and my woman.”

“Milluki,” I sigh while my head rests firmly into my hands. On the other side of the screen, I could hear a woman’s voice talking. It was so high pitched and fake that the sound almost made me gag. “This is Y/N. I need your help with something.”

A muffled gasp came across the line which was followed shortly by keystrokes being pounded into the computer. “I’m so sorry M’lady. I hadn’t meant anything by my statements. The butler told me it was my brother on the line. Not your beautiful voice.”

I massaged my temples as the feeling of the throbbing headache started to take over my body. “It's alright. I need you to tell me everything you know about Gon Freecss.”

There were a few more clicks of the keyboard before the girl's voice shut off. “Anything for you. It will only take a second, princess.” A cold shiver ran down my body with the pet name. If I weren’t desperate, I would’ve hung up right then and there; however, he was the only Zoldyck in my arsenal.

“Gon Freecss,” said the voice from the other end. Somehow, it sounded more out of breath than before. Maybe this was the first time actually talking to a girl that wasn’t related to him. “He’s the son of Ging Freecss who has an impeccable track record for a Hunter; terrible record for being a good father. Gon is Killua’s friend. He passed the Hunter exam a few years ago. Him and Kill fought at Heaven Arena recently. His talent is called Jajanken which seems to be like rock, paper, scissors. He was recently part of the Chimera Ant Extermination Team. He was injured while fighting and was in the hospital for awhile. Now he resides at Whale Island with his aunt and grandma. That is all that I could find, princess.”

A small gag couldn’t have been helped. “Thank you Milluki,” I sighed. “Is there anything else that you could tell me? Are you sure that’s it?”

“I can look for more. Why do you need to know this? Is Illumi pushing you too hard? YOu can always come back to me. I’ll treat you well.”

The longer I was on the phone, the more bile rose in my throat. As much as I wanted to scream misogyny against this perverted soon-to-be brother-in-law, I had to keep him on my side. It’s a disgusting balance between morals and obligation. “Thank you, Milluki,” I repeated. “If you find anything else, please call me. Only call me for those details. I’m undercover so answering things will be hard.”

“Be safe, my love,” purred Milluki. “Come back to me whenever Illumi betrays you. I’ll be-” Click. If I’d listen to any more of his dribble, I was going to be sick. My arm cascaded back to the bed as a sign of defeat. There must be more about this boy if Illumi would tell me to see him specifically. A nice sleep will become my only solace in this mind game of my life.

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

I awoke later than expected. Sleeping had felt like a chore before. It was an end to a mean. Last night, it was hard to fall asleep. I’d been surrounded by someone else for the past few months so that the lack of people made me anxious.

My mind was still groggy from tossing and turning throughout the night. A cup of coffee and a warm shower should ease the throbbing head and aching muscles. Water cascading down my spine felt like a dip into my peace. A calming sensation washed over me with every inch of water. Once I got out, I felt refreshed and new. Only the cup of coffee and I’d be like myself again.

I changed into a different pair of clothes before meeting the small boy from before. He said to go to the marketplace so that is where I will be until he returns. A single step outside the hotel showed the marketplace. The courtyard turned from a desolate wasteland to a thriving, bustling town. People shouted and called their wares for sale. A lot of fishermen’s wives were selling fish caught in the morning tides while their husbands stayed out late.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw the little boy running around the shops. He seemed to be looking for something. His eyes fell onto a small candy stall where he bought a piece.

“Gon,” I called while waving my hand in the air. The boy turned to look at me as his eyes narrowed.

“Hi,” she says while walking up to me.

“Follow me. We’re gonna get away from people.” I cocked my head before following the small boy away from the group of people. He led me to a ridge of the mountain top that overlooked the ocean.

The ocean was a beautiful shade of deep blue in the cascading sunlight. Only a glimpse of the lighter shades would appear when the current washed over the sides. The pushing and pull of the current was transfixing.

“Why do you want to meet Killua?” asked Gon. He was getting straight to the point. He was intimidating for as young as he was. I could see deep within his eyes that there was a caution to his tone that was not there for long.

“To be honest,” I sigh while taking a seat on the cliff edge. “I don't know. Actually, Illumi told me to stay far away from Killua. I was only to find you.”

“Huh?” he asked while sitting next to me. “Why were you looking for me?”

“To see where Killua is.”

“I’m not going to tell you. He’s too important to me. Plus you’re with Illumi.”

“Well I’m with him but not physically. He’s gone for awhile and I have no way to contact him.” The crashing sound of waves became the intermediate sound between our voices. “He’s gone on a mission.”

“Killua doesn’t want to be like Illumi,” said Gon. “He doesn’t want to be like his family at all.”

I turn to look at Gon’s stoic face as he stares across the ocean. But if he is to be the heir of the household, how can he not want to be an assassin? “Interesting,” I sigh while kicking a small rock off the cliff side. “Gon, what happened? I heard you were involved in an accident. Are you alright now?”

A brief pause filled the hot air. This pause was different than when with Illumi. Gon’s pause held more desperation and sadness than Illumi’s.

“I got hurt because I was too strong. If it wasn’t for Killua, I wouldn't be here. That is why I have to protect him.”

“So, Killua means the world to you?”

“Yes.”

“He sounds like a good friend. I recently almost saw my best friend die. A few of my other ones did. It changes a person. If it wasn’t for Illumi, I would’ve been dead.”

“Illumi?”

“Yeah. Hisoka would’ve killed me.”

Gon’s face turned to look at me. His stoic demour paused for a second to see the child-like wonder held deep within his eyes. “You almost died by Hisoka? Why didn’t he kill you?”

“Long story, kid,” I sigh while watching the water once again. “Did you hear what happened in Heaven’s Arena the other night?”

“No. Aunt Mito told me that I have to finish my homework instead. I’m lucky that she let me meet you. Normally I’d be doing my chores about now.”

“If you need help with them, I’d gladly help. I have to make up with you missing part of your day talking with me.”

“Thanks! That’d be really nice of you.” For the first time, I saw him smile. “But what happened at Heaven’s Arena?”

“Oh. Hisoka versus Chrollo battle. Hisoka lost and went on a rampage against the troupe. Which is why I’m worried for Illumi and Machi. He’s already killed-” Tears filled my eyes but I refused to let them drop. “He killed Shalnark and Kortopi. His goal is to kill the rest.”

“Wow. Hisoka lost a battle. I’ve never even seen him get close to losing. I was only able to punch him in the face.”

“You battled that lunatic?” I questioned.

“Only because he challenged me,” said the hyper boy. “I could only become a Hunter if I was able to hit him in the face.

“Was that one of the rules? Truly, I’m new to all this stuff. Being a Hunter was never my top priority so I never took the test.”

“This was after the test. We had to learn Nen to get to the 200th floor. We were able to train while fighting. It was so cool. I was able to-”

My thoughts shifted to the battle once again. All the chaotic elements mixed together. It must’ve been a different battle than the one I witnessed. I doubt he would have battled this child to death. Why would Illumi want to be friends with a monster that would hurt a child?

“-So do you know Nen?” I realized that Gon was still talking as I finally came back to reality.

“Yes I do. I’m not that great at it yet. How about you?”

Sadness filled his eyes once again. “Yeah. I learned about it. But because of the accident, I can’t use it at the moment. That doesn’t mean I won’t try. I just have to figure out how to get it flowing again.”

A thought popped into my head. “Gon, you know Nen well, right?”

“I wouldn’t say well. I still get confused with the harder stuff.”

“How about I show that I’m trustful while you train me? That way you can practice Nen even when you don’t have it and I can learn more.”

“Okay! I haven’t had a student before!” With that, I could see excitement once again fill his eyes.

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Full Masterlist

#illumi #illumi zoldyck #illumi x reader #HunterXHunter #hxh #a hunter's prey #chapter 34

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one-boring-person · 4 years

Text

Who's Side Are You On? (Part Five)

Terminator (1984) reader insert

Warnings: homophobia (I hated writing these parts), mentions of violence, bad language

Context: (Y/n) is trying to get to grips with what is happening.

A/N: This is kinda a bit like a filler chapter, so enjoy, I guess! (I'm really sorry for the homophobic parts, I do not agree with any of the views expressed by the character showing this trait.)

Masterlist

Red welts are already forming around my wrists as I pull on the tight handcuffs holding my hands together, my jaw clenching in frustration as the superintendent before me taps away at a keyboard. As she works, her mouth opens into a gaping yawn, which she barely manages to stifle, her entire attitude that of lethargy and fatigue, despite the multiple bottles of high-sugar drinks littering the desk in front of her, which she has most likely consumed. Every so often, she looks up at me, sending me glances of disgust as she takes in my bruised face and gaunt features, my head still slightly woozy after my blackout earlier, though my mind is alive with thoughts of the whereabouts of the Terminator currently on the loose, somewhere in civilisation.

Totally unaware of the reason why I'm here, in a foreign building, being questioned by some grumpy police worker, tied to a chair, I continue trying to wrench myself free, gritting my teeth as I feel my skin split slightly on my right wrist, a thin line of blood slowly making it's way down my palms and to my fingers, thankfully leaving the new clothes that were given to me clean. When they pulled me inside, a woman handed me a pile of spare clothes, which just so happened be another police uniform, but one that actually fits this time, my bruises and cuts quickly cleaned up, though the branded barcode on my wrist gave them all pause for thought, my obviously unusual way of speaking odd to them, the terms I use sounding alien to their ears. Even now, I'm getting strange looks from the people around us, so much so that the lady ahead of me gives me another harsh stare.

"Can you keep it down? I don't want you drawing attention to me, freak." She spits at me, though i only frown and lift an eyebrow.

"I'll do what I want, i don't take orders from those lower in rank than me." I respond, looking over her soft curves and feminine figure with a slightly critical eye.

"Lower in rank? What kind of talk is that?" She scoffs, rolling her eyes and taking a drink from a mug on the desk.

"Tactical talk. You just don't know it." I laugh dryly, "Not that you ever will; you'd never fit in."

I don't mean to come across as rude, only honest, but from her sudden angry expression, I can tell I've upset her.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean, freak?" She bites out, venomously, scowling at me.

I lock eyes with her, staring her down until she looks away, knowing that I won't reply to her demands until she treats me with a little less disdain, my completely different build and mentality giving her the answers she needs, in any case. Where she is all soft curves and a thin layer of puppy fat, I'm hard edges and well-used muscle, my mind sharpened and honed into a battle-trained state, always thinking tactically and strategically.

"Anyway, you're one to talk about "not fitting in" and all." She sneers, returning her gaze to her keyboard as she starts tapping again, pointedly ignoring me when I frown.

Somewhere behind us, a man calls out a name, "Amber" to be precise, which makes the woman across from me look up, a brief expression of surprise crossing her features as he then commands her to go to him, leaving me unattended for the time being. Slumping back into my chair, I watch her gather up a notebook and pens, before she steps away, going to whoever called for her attention, but not until she's shot me a scathing look, first. Grinning crookedly back at her, I decide to observe the room around me, starting with her desk, where I notice that there is a photograph pinned to the lampshade, the image depicting two people, one of whom is the woman named Amber, the other another woman I don't recognise, the two of them in beautiful, long, flowing pearly white dresses, broad smiles adorning their faces as they stand before a tall building, a group of people lingering in the background with equally broad smiles on their faces. Underneath the image, a date is written, followed by the words "Until Death Do Us Part" in neat, cursive handwriting, which I find oddly morbid, the words resounding dully in my head as I read them over. Frowning to myself, I tear my gaze away from he picture, looking to the bin placed just beside her desk, where a curling piece of crumpled paper is just visible, the writing on it legible enough for me to read: "I hope death does part you two, but I doubt even the devil will take people as foul as you." My body tightens as I read this, growling to myself as I realise why she was so tense earlier, a feeling of terrible guilt biting at my throat as I realise how harsh my words will have seemed.

Looking around, I spot a young man watching me, the guy leaning across to whisper something into the ear of the woman beside him, both of whom start laughing as they continue staring at me, though they quickly stop when they see me staring, though my eyes are fixed on something completely different. A note is stuck to the lampshade in his desk, the handwriting matching that of the writing on the note in the bin, giving away the sender of the vile words instantly. Cocking my head I make a quick decision.

"Hey, you! I need a drink of water or something, can you get me some?" I call out to him, giving him the sweetest smile I can muster for a sick creature like him. He furrows his brow momentarily, before smirking and standing, going to get me a cup of water from the dispenser a little way away, bringing it over to me and helping me take a sip of it.

Drinking a large mouthful, I swill it round my mouth, before suddenly spitting it back out again, all over his shirt, drawing a shout of surprise and disgust from him.

"What the fuck was that for?!" He snaps at me, using one of his hands to wipe at the mess, glaring at me.

"Being a homophobic piece of shit." I snarl back at him, spitting at him again, only to duck my head down as he throws the remaining water into my face.

"Gay people do not deserve to exist, it is wrong and disgusting-" He starts before I cut him off.

"Oh, just like you then?" I fix him with a stare, "One day the most powerful people in the world will be homosexual people, and you will learn, too late, that you have disrespected the wrong community. No one wants to help fuckers like you."

"Listen here, you little bi-" Once again, the man is cut off, but this time it is by a resounding crash, the force of which makes the floor tremble. Instantly, a few people stand, the men reaching for the guns at their belts, the sight of which causes me to panic; I can't switch here, not now, not this close to so many people...

As I hear the first gunshots, however, I know it is already too late.

Part Six

#terminator imagine #terminator 1984 #terminator #arnold schwarzenegger #michael biehn #linda hamilton

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dramarising-replacement · 4 years

Text

This game isn't fun.

First off, if you enjoy FR for what it currently is: great! I'm so glad you can have fun with it, and don't let the opinions of me, some stranger on DR, make you feel bad for that :)

Anyways, I joined in 2015 and fell in love with the game for a long time. I never understood those people with dead, empty accounts or those who had went inactive. But now I do. The game just... Isn't fun.

1. Coliseum. Coliseum is the main way to profit in FR. Most of the 'well-off' people in the FR community grind Coli. It's one of the only places you can find rare items, and yet, it is nothing but pain. Coliseum is meant to be fun, and it can be in moderation, but i don't know a single person who genuinely enjoys grinding it. We shouldn't have to strain our wrists performing ultra-repetitive actions of "scratch, scratch, scratch, elim, elim, elim," in order to accumulate wealth and rare items in the game. It's time consuming, boring, has a broken and set meta (magic-using dragons and 90% of the battle stones in the game are worthless), and everyone seems to give it a pass. I see so many forum posts that go "haha, tfw your wrist is broken after grinding coli for an hour!" It's terrible that one of the main/only ways to 'succeed' in the game is to participate in a terrible and broken minigame.

2. A lot of the main fun to be found in the game is dragons. As a petsite, collecting dragons is the objective. Unfortunately, the main purpose of the game is limited behind lair expansions with huge paywalls. If you don't grind Coli, better be prepared to play Fairgrounds for a hours each day in order to get enough treasure.

3. Festivals. They're repetitive. Gather or, again, grind the broken Coliseum to find special currency to buy 2 unique items, 1 flight variant standard item, and the damn emblems that have been in there for eternity. There should be more to do on festivals. The only enjoyment I get out of them is user-made events on the forums. People who participate in those are great, but truly, you shouldn't have to pick up all the slack staff leaves when it comes to events.

4. Coli again. Dominance, festivals, genes, special items, dragons, succeeding financially in the game--they're all dependent on this broken coliseum system. If you have wrist issues like I do (this sounds stupid but I genuinely can't grind Coliseum because I have a joint disorder in my wrist. Even when I use keyboard controls it hurts), or have a job or school or other commitment, or are simply a sane human being who doesn't want to do repetitive button-pushing like a monkey for hours on end, Coli isn't for you. And therefore, you're barred from training up fodder, from accumulating exterior wealth during festivals, from finding rare items and genes, from being able to buy lair space and other dragon-specific upgrades, etc. Coli is broken and needs to be fixed because all actual-fun features rely on it.

5. Staff. Staff is unresponsive. The suggestions forums never get looked at, and all serious suggestions are deleted. I suggested better, fairer wording on the gem purchasing screen. (Changing "Gem Packages are instantly applied" to "directly applied." I bought gems a while back and it took ~2 days for them to be delivered. Since it said 'instantly,' I thought I made a mistake and bought more gems. They refused to refund me and, despite tons of support on my forum post, deleted it. They said to email the suggestion instead, which I did, but to no response. I spent actual money under the promise of 'instantly' [wanted to buy something from an auction] and although i'd expect maybe 20 minutes of delay, 2 entire days isn't okay.) But anyways, the only suggestions on the suggestions forum that get left up are people's fan-breeds that staff, of course, will never implement because they're community-made. Also, some of the staff members are just plain rude and tyrannical. They regularly delete posts that make them look bad and respond terribly to all criticism, no matter how kindly it's worded.

6. There's no rarity. In most pet games, there are things to aspire for. Rare breeds, mutations, ultra-rare items, etc. The only items that can be called rare are the sprites, early apparel and Kickstarter stuff, but those are so expensive that it's pretty much impossible to get old sprites and stuff. There needs to be more modern rare items imo. They've gotten better w/ rare eye types and ancient breeds, but there's still very few rarities to aim to collect.

7. Fairgrounds. The games are fun, but everyone tries to choose the highest-paying game as quickly as possible in order to get treasure out of it, instead of playing games leisurely that they actually enjoy. Games are meant to be enjoyed! Staff should make all the games pay generally the same, and maybe add drops specific to each game--for example, special water-themed apparel in the bubble game, or cool electric-y familiars in the shock game. Then, people would have incentive to try out other games and have fun doing so, without making FG another chore like Coli.

8. Flight equality. Some flights are over-represented, like shadow getting basically two shadow-themed holidays. Some flights are under-represented, like Nature not really getting their own breed (wildclaws are plague-based too according to the lore) or Plague being stripped of its gorey, creepy aesthetic. Also, small flights like Earth have unfair dominance advantage, while big flights like shadow have unfair burden in dom. There needs to be greater representation for all flights, and a balanced-out playing field for dom battles.

9. Unfair moderation. Touching on the M from earth thing, what they said was really stupid, unfunny and a tasteless joke. But they're 15. I was an edgy idiot at 15, too. Staff should have more leeway, since many of those who play FR are (no offense) unwise teens and edgy minors. A temporary ban, ability to appeal, or alternate punishment would've made more sense instead of banning a kid for a dumb joke and making all of their customers lose out on the gems they paid real money for, and treasure they spent hours earning.

10. All of trading post, actually. You've got Roundsy's, with odds so unlikely that you'll probably get struck by lightning before winning. You've got Baldwins, a tedious task where you have to check in every 30 minutes and load their ads to boil down garbage you get from gathering. Crim's, you sell the garbage you get from gathering for a measly 500 each, and at Tomo's, you answer questions you've seen a billion times for very little payoff. At Swipp's, you ask RNG for the one trade you want, and at Pinkerton's, you typically get even more garbage that you'll either hoardsell or melt down at Baldwin's because 95% of the game's items are useless or dirt-cheap.

11. .......yeah that's it this was long lmao. I'm gonna quit FR for good, I think. Maybe I'll rejoin if they fix coli or add adventure mode like they promised to do years ago. Or if they ever continue the storyline they set up with the water flight that they seemingly are ignoring. Thank you, the FR community, for making everything I've enjoyed about the game. Truthfully, my best and funnest experiences on FR have been on the forums admiring all of your creativity, kindness, and fun events like secret Santa, Trick-or-Treat or Tarot readings. Thank you! :)

#Drama #Coliseum #Rant #Flight Rising #Staff #Dominance #Festival #Confessions #submission

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constantwritingblock · 4 years

Text

Stolen Worlds 5

Queen of Thieves: Takes place just after the MC breaks up with Nikolai.

Avengers: Takes place during The Winter Soldier, but with additional characters.

Unknown!Nick Fury x reader, (previous) Nikolai Stirling x reader, platonic!Natasha Romanoff x reader, (eventual) Steve Rogers x reader.

Also just a statement, for any other languages spoken in this piece it will be done in bold and in English so that you are aware characters are speaking a different language. I find this easier than finding a bad translation.

Warnings: Strong Language & Violence. There are also some cuts of the film in this chapter, I have tried to edit as much as possible so that they aren’t the exact same...

Summary: A new hideout made things all the more difficult to get a certain Nick Fury in and out without catching the glare of cameras surrounding the bustling city of New York, though Y/N is up for the challenge. Remy makes a deal with Casimir to not tell the others about what they witnessed, the only issue is, can the infamous conman stop Nikolai’s cousin from spilling the beans? Natasha looks into this Agent Z character a bit further now that she has nothing to go on, meaning easy bait for Hydra. Perhaps there’s something more she can uncover. Meanwhile Steve is still adjusting to the fact that ‘Z’ is not who she says she is.

If you had to ask her how things were going, Y/N would most likely respond with everything falling to pieces. She suspected that her cover was going to be blown by Hydra soon enough, meaning that reasoning with the Winter Soldier will not happen any longer. Moving to a more secure safehouse, well, safe-apartment, she continued on her hacking duties, remaining indoors. Unfortunately when she was in the zone, she tended to ignore the outside world, ergo, Steve’s messages asking when they could meet next.

She didn’t have time at the moment, she needed to ensure things were going to plan in her books or it would be the end of the road for all of them. Hydra would win. Something within her struck like lightning to her brain. The soldier! Fury, who had been accustomed to her silence for a long time now, perked up. “I take it you found something.”

“More like remember something. The Winter Soldier, he has a string of words and numbers that trigger him into the monster assassin that he is known for. I… speak to him, to get him to cooperate within the Hydra ranks. He’s softening, in the words of Pierce.” The older man raised a brow at her words, wanting her to continue. “As bad as it sounds, I could see about programming him to snap out of it? The only issue is that I have no doubt that Hydra are pushing their agenda faster… I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s not there anymore. Most likely trying to kill Rogers and Romanoff.”

Cracking her knuckles she tapped away at the keyboard in front of her, accessing files, while ensuring that her IP couldn’t be traced back to their current location. “He’s out… to kill Sitwell. He’s with Romanoff, Rogers and Wilson...”

—

It certainly was suspicious timing for Steve to come across this Z. In all fairness the man may have been from the 40s but given the danger they were in, Natasha presumed that he would be more careful who he spoke to. She was obviously wrong. Hell, the name Z is a bit odd, not even giving him an actual name. So she spent her time now sitting through encrypted data that is hard to bypass. But the name has popped up a few times. Agent Z, joined recently after Fury died.

Wait what? After he died… Hydra aren’t that careless given that they had been planning this for years… Something wasn’t right, but as Nat was about to put her finger on it. “I got food, if you want some…” Sam’s voice called out, momentarily taking her gaze away from the laptop. “Ah, thanks.” Slamming it shut, she pounced on her feet, nimbly moving across the floor.

“You look like you’ve got a lot on your mind… care to share?” Filled the silence between the two as she helped herself to some pasta. Nat kept quiet for what appeared to be an hour, but then remembered she needed to trust him, especially since Sam has let them crash at his place. “Just this Z person. She’s an agent in S.H.I.E.L.D.. My guess she was a part of Hydra, but the only piece of information I have is that she joined recently… as in, shortly after Fury died.”

Wilson was quick on his feet to contribute. “So what you’re saying is, either Hydra is getting sloppy or…”

“Or she’s our person on the inside.”

—

Steve wasn’t far from Sam’s home, he was merely a couple of paces away. Luckily the man’s neighbourhood was a quiet area. Hopefully there wouldn’t be S.H.I.E.L.D. agents running amok and causing chaos for the civilians. His head was reeling still at the thought of Z, he assumed it was short for Zoe or something could be his enemy. I must have fallen hard to get caught over it. Natasha was trying to be a friend to him, he valued honesty and if Z couldn’t do it then he’d get it out of her. She hadn’t responded to any of his messages he sent her via burner phone. She probably knows I’m on to her. All he wanted was to talk to her, if she was Hydra then maybe being taken in was the best to get more information out for them.

“I got something on Z.” Turning his head to face the spy, he headed inside to hear what she had to say. “I am still unsure on whether she’s Hydra or not, still nothing on that matter, but I’ve got something I need to deal with, a loose end…” Brows furrowed together at her cryptic words, Steve chose to just ignore it for now, after all, even if he asked it wasn’t as if she was going to give a clear answer, she would’ve done so to begin with. “Do you need any help?” The nod of her head shocked the captain, but he began to prepare.

—

Pushing his longest friend’s cousin against a wall was something the other man had not expected from the conman. Remy hushed any complaints out of Casimir. “Listen to me and listen to me carefully. There’s no need for Niko to know this. If you really want to value family then I suggest for the better, you keep your mouth shut about Y/N.” It was an out of character threat, but Remy understood that Y/N would’ve said something if she wanted anyone to know this side of her life. The side that was linked in with death and violence. As much as he didn’t want to assume anything, Remy trusted Y/N enough that she can handle herself. She was right after all. The Poppy doesn't get involved in anything violent or purposefully taking from the innocent. What she was doing must go against their beliefs, but that doesn’t mean that they would abandon her.

The cold stare she gave him spoke words to him, more than anyone else would. She’s doing this for herself and also for the man that was with her. He means something to her, and she to him. What, was something he would hopefully find out later. Shouts of names were called out as the rest of the band of thieves showed their faces. Quickly setting Casimir back on his feet, Remy frowned and shook his head. “Sorry, but she wasn’t there when we got there, it appears that Y/N has disappeared.” A solemn look crawled onto all faces of the Poppy, except Nikolai. His expression was more of pain and worry. He was griefed with fear that something bad had happened to her, much to his willingness of admitting it.

“Gathering from what I could see and find, she’s living fine, not terribly, but whoever is causing her to run, they frightened her so much that she thought we were them.” Looking down apologetically, it appeared everyone else seemed to buy it, Nikolai was more cautious than anything. “You’re positive you didn’t see her?” One guilt riddled shake of his head was all it took to convince the Thief Lord.

—

The fight on the bridge was a losing battle. Sitwell had most likely been killed off and now Sam was arrested alongside Natasha and Steve. The juddering movements of their confined vehicle caused them to bob, as vibranium-made restraints cuffed the trios wrists tightly.

“It was him.” Steve was the first to speak after a good 10, maybe 20 minutes of utter silence. Glancing in his direction, Sam observed the man’s expression, one of haunting. “He looked right at me… and he didn’t even know me.”

“How is that even possible? It was like 70 years ago.” It didn’t take long for Steve to put the pieces together of what had happened before he rescued Bucky the first time.

“Zola. Bucky’s whole unit was captured in 43, Zola experimented on him. Whatever he did helped Bucky survive the fall.” There was something that irked Sam with the way Steve was acting. He understood the first time round was the fact that this Z woman could possibly be Hydra, but this one held more pain, like he was remembering losing Bucky for the first and second time, the latter being for good, or so Steve thought. “They must’ve found him and-”

“None of that’s your fault Steve.” Natasha seemed to be the right person to speak up then. If Sam did, it wouldn’t have been pleasant. Yet, it caused an uncomfortable silence for what lasted hours, when in reality, a few seconds. “Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky.” The conversation came to an end. Though, Sam caught on quick that Natasha wasn’t looking so good.

“We need to get a doctor here. We don’t put pressure on that wound, she’s gonna bleed out here in the tru-.” His eyes widened in horror to see one of the guards getting electrocuted by their fellow colleague. What the hell was going on? Panic ensued him as he had no idea who had hijacked their truck, when all three were under restraints. The helmet soon came off alongside the voice of Maria Hill.

—

It was getting rather late for some, Y/N had disappeared off to do god knows what in order to keep her cover under wraps. According to her Rumlow had been questioning her whereabouts and so she had to meet with him to get him off her back. Exhaling slowly, Fury never had peace for this long in his entire life. He may have been a trained spy but a part of him still held a small ounce of regret for dragging Y/N into this mess. She was the only other person he could trust in hiding him. She was a loyal person in general, even after she disappeared. He knew she kept tabs on him in secret when she could. He always knew. The young woman cared too much for her own good.

The peace didn’t last that much longer though, as his eyes snapped open to the sound of multiple footsteps. Seeing Rogers, an injured Romanoff and a new guy, he couldn’t resist a retort. “About damn time.” After an explanation of what had been hit with during his own assasination attempt, Romanoff was getting patched up from her own wound.“You’re looking good for a dead man.”

“Supposedly dead man. You can’t kill me that easily, trained assassin or not.”

“Why all the secrecy? Why not just tell us?” Rogers was never one to shy away, always one to get straight to the point. “Any attempt on the director's life had to look successful.” Thankfully Maria had stepped in for him, but he continued.

“Can’t kill you if you’re already dead, besides, I wasn’t sure who to trust…” The trio shared a look between them, but Natasha was the one to speak up first. “It’s clear you trust someone. They are going through a lot of effort for you to stay alive?” From her query, as much as it did imply Maria, he understood exactly who she was on about. Staring down at the assassin and spy, he took in her posture and expression, scanning for anything that could possibly be a trap. Noting how Rogers and the other man were giving similar reactions for a demand of an answer.

“The kid’s my niece. Been watching out for her since she was six. And the reason she chose that lifestyle… well I’m sure you’ve definitely heard the news.” And Natasha did. She knew what he was on about, though, Steve and Sam, not so much.

“What do you mean Fury? You’ve got a kid niece?”

#steve rogers x reader #queen of thieves #nikolai stirling #natasha romanoff #avengers #sam wilson #remy chevalier #bucky barnes #vivienne tang #zoe banks #nick fury #maria hill #the winter soldier #Black Widow #falcon #captain america #jett slater #leon kwan

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human-south-of-north-pole · 3 years

Text

Obligatory Cyberpunk 2077 rant

(Spoilers, duh; also I'm an absolute noob)

Somehow I didn't enjoy the game, and I think I may have figured out why.

I guess I approached the game with the wrong expectations.

I expected there to be more gang politics. You had a goddamn trailer about gangs. I expected to make allies and enemies. To fight in battles between them. Turn the streets of night city into a warzone. I didn't expect all gangs to still exist once I finished the game. Or at least make interacting with them in any way more meaningful than changing the voice lines of your enemies/friends. Change the items shops have to offer. I didn't notice a diffence in combat styles, but I may just be inattentive. You changed the cars, why not the rest?

I expected to not only see the skyscrapers from the outside (with a few exceptions). I expected to have firefights on rooftops and apartments, to jump across skybridges. Maybe fly from rooftop to rooftop in a helicopter?

I expected the corporations to not be distant entities which do... Something? I expected to be involved in their actions. To work for various employees. To hack the cameras of boardrooms, steal files, to manipulate, persuade or blackmail my opponents. (Don't get me wrong, there are "steal file" type missions, except they don't matter at all)

Perhaps I even hoped to be able to play my enemies against another. Frame a rival gang for the murder of a corpo.

This is the big one:

And I guess I didn't expect the world to be so horrible, the story so unsatifyingly sad. I was under no illusion that I would be playing in a dystopia. But I was also expecting that I would be playing as an overpowered protagonist killing machine (and in combat, you do). From this I concluded that I would be able to "fix" the world. After all, noone can stop me. Except the plot, apparently. In cp2077, "mission completed" has a good chance of meaning either "nothing I cared about happened" or "someone I cared about died, and there was nothing I could do". And I'm not talking about a dramatic death; I'm talking about pointless deaths ofscreen, without me even beeing there. All important choices are between bad and worse (and of course the npcs will blame me for it). (Or maybe these are just the parts that I remember).

I expected to win. Or at least to be able to. To save my life. "Oh no, your body started rejecting you because the relic overwrote it with johnny. We only have an AI a that can swap engrams at will and the relic still stuck in my head. It was even designed to work on dead bodies. There is definitely nothing we can do. /s". And why? I get that raising the stakes last moments is a plot device or something, but not after I did all the things, shot all the npcs, made my way to the big glowing monolith and pressed the button labeled "you win". Not with zero foreshadowing. At this point I expect to have the credits roll, wake up and continue playing side missions (properly after the mission, none of that "reload last save" bs)

The last two paragraphs were major story complaints. People sometimes use the term "emotional rollercoaster", but rollercoaster engineers are artists. Every bend is just wide enough to not actually hurt you, every acceleration is just low enough to still be fun, and once you get off it, you enjoyed it. Cp2077 is a pair of rocket boosters and infinite 90° angles. The game can't decide if it wants to be a lighthearted power trip or whether you should experience total helplessness, leading me to enjoy neither. I do not care about floating items, t-posing enemies or what must be worst car AI since forever (even though I do appreciate the "drives to side of lane to let you pass easier" part), if you just make sure your game doesn't feel like it was designed to make you feel bad. I guess I expected the "game of the decade" to be happy. (Also, does anyone else find it weird that the ending clearly labeled "none of your friends die" is considered the bad ending?)

I am actually quite happy that you almost didn't do the whole "Skillchecks for better endings" and diplomacy skill bs, because it would have turned the game into "how must I invest my skill points to pass the next check", which I consider extremely boring. Slipped up in the last Delamain mission though.

There are a couple of small letdowns like that actually, for example, why is a 90k €$ motorbike worse than Jackie's arch, which you get for free long before you get 90k €$?

On the topic of €$, I actually quite like the 2077 slang.

Another note: what tf is the deal with max tac? They get their own special introduction in the into-car-trip and an ominous loading screen tip, and then just don't show up for the entire game???

I guess I also expected more diversity in items, especially Cyberware. The current one is fine, but I exped more than fine. There is still a bit of stuff locked for me, but my point still stands. You could have done something more with eyes and legs at least. Increase movement speed? Reduce fall damage? Increase max-tagged enemies count? Detect enemies though walls short range? Display camera fov? Honestly, I'd pay just to make the enemy highlight less obnoxious so that I can see if they are standing before or behind cover.

I expected crafting to be less boring. You have a whole skill tree for that! But it's installing generic mods, creating items, and a generic "upgrade" option that just adds a bit of damage. I expected to take my guns apart, build or configure scopes, firering-patterns, magazines, barrels, stocks, ammo types,... But I do absolutely love the "turn any weapon non-lethal" option.

And I expected this game to have a descent UI. Ignoring the glitchy HUD (actually, don't ignore it, pleaaaase make the minimap zoom out while driving), what's up with that inventory menu? How am I supposed to navigate that? Find aything? I get that you have to optimize for controllers, but seriously? Is there any real structure? You have your main page, which is nice, but then you have all the subpages, form which you can navigate to some others. Sometimes there are random elements dotted about? The Messages and shards menu are almost unusable. Have you never heard of "sort by new"? And the grouping is off anyway. Also, why tf do car advertisements not include the car's ps / curb weight?

Worst part is, I will come back to the game. I can just leave a broken world. I enjoy the combat. I even started to like driving with a keyboard. The scenery looks beautiful. But for some reason they need to keep telling me how terrible the world is and don't allow me to do anything about it. Maybe realistic, but if I wanted realistic, I wouldn't play a videogame. Overall it's not fun, at least for me.

Does anyone feel about the story like I do? The reviews mostly praised it iirc, but it just make me feel bad, and not in the enjoyable melancholy way.

</rant>

Sorry you had to read that.

#cyperpunk 2077 #rant

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dragonrajafanfiction · 4 years

Text

Battle Simulator Pt. 2

Finger rolled over to reach his phone, spilling crumbs from his shirt. His PC had given him a small chime, indicating that there was some odd behavior from the system AI.

Despite there being hundreds of students on campus, humans and hybrids were creatures of habit. Most had a schedule and a time of day they preferred doing things. No one was usually at the training simulator this time of night.

He rubbed his hand through his hair and leaned over, pressing a few confirmation inputs on his keyboard. When the notification popped up, the man gasped.

Someone had challenged Johann Chu’s battle avatar? Who was it?

“You do not have sufficient clearance to access this information.”

“Psh. Whatever.” He type in another code to imitate an A rank.

“You do not have sufficient clearance to access this information.”

That narrowed it down to three. It was either the Principal, who was never spotted training, Mingfei Lu, who was currently MIA or... “Carli? Why would she...? EVA!”

“Yes?” Her blue avatar appeared in the corner of his screen.

“Why are you letting Carli face that simulation?” He yelled.

“That information is classified.” The computer was abruptly kicked off the network. “You don’t have clearance. Please refrain from spoofing your rank.”

Finger stood up and hopped into his shoes without socks. “She’s gonna get destroyed!”

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

The simulation closed the distance between us in the blink of an eye. The blade slammed into my metal rod with his full force and weight. I didn’t have the physical strength to keep the guard up under this single blow, and I wasn’t ready when his foot caught me hard in the side of the head.

I hit the floor and rolled, barely avoiding his blade coming down on me. I climbed to my feet, raised the staff again, prepared for another hit, but he slipped the flat between my body and my staff and hooked me, drawing me into his fist. My vision exploded into a bright flash.

I staggered and ran, desperate to put distance between us again.

Unlike any other human, simulations didn’t care about their opponent’s feelings. They had no past or future with the person they were assigned to.

Johann’s simulation was a cold eyed monster.

And it was still a step down from the real thing.

I couldn’t stay passive. My staff’s reach was longer than his sword’s. Every attack I tried was dodged and blocked, but I had to press him and stop him from coming near again.

The simulation kept trying to reach me, dodging side to side. I had to focus everything to keep up with him. It increased its speed. The tempo of the clash of metal and silver flashing arcs of blades quickened double time, triple time. My pulse sang in my ears and I still couldn’t land a single hit!

He was gone from my vision. Left? Right?

“Up!” His face was a breath from mine. The simulation looked surprised. His downward momentum carried him right into my staff’s upward thrust. The force of the two combined registered as battle ending.

Johann’s form dissolved into static. I dropped the staff with a dull clang. My head throbbed terribly.

EVA was silent a moment. “Unexpected. But I won’t ask you for a round two. Though your dragonblood purity should protect you from any serious injury, I recommend you review the symptoms of concussion and check in with the clinic if any manifest.”

The lights went back up.

“Due to the classified nature of this event, the results will not be recorded.”

I picked up the staff and walked out. As I opened the door to the hall to exit, I thought I heard another door shut somewhere. “Will the holo-disguise work do you think?”

“Possibly...briefly. I’ll run some tests to see if it can be improved.”

“Alright then. Record the result. Only classify my name.”

“Instructions received.”

“I’ll come if he challenges me.”

I kept my head down and hoped no one would recognize me in the dark on the way home.

#Dragon Raja #FanFiction #Writing.

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i-am-church-the-cat · 5 years

Text

Play Me A Memory

So, I finished it. It was long. I wrote the last few parts about ready to keel over so don’t kill me, please. Anyway, here’s the singer!Cyrus and pianist!TJ fic I promised y’all

Word Count: 10k+

--------

Cyrus and Jonah paced around backstage, both boys trying to not have panic attacks. Andi looked at them with a concerned expression, trying to think of a way to calm them down. She played with her girlfriend Buffy’s fingers as she thought, leaning back into the other girl. Buffy was pretending to be exasperated by the boys’ nervousness, but Buffy was also worried about what was coming next. The friends were about to perform a set in front of hundreds of people. Plus, scouts from Westerlin Music and Sound Academy were rumored to be in the crowd.

Westerlin Music and Sound Academy was the top music school on the continent. It had been the band’s dream to go there since they had made the band back in freshman year. Jonah had started in music in seventh grade and when track and basketball season had both finished, Buffy had ended up letting her dad teach her how to play the drums. In eighth grade, the two had found out that Andi had a secret talent: she could play the keyboard. They just happened to discover this talent when they overheard Andi playing a song she was going to use to confess her feelings to Buffy. It worked pretty well, in the girls’ opinions.

They now had a drummer, a keyboard player, and a lead guitarist/lead singer. Bowie had even let them use the Red Rooster for practices and loaned them instruments. The only problem was that Jonah couldn't cover all the vocals himself and Andi and Buffy were both hopeless in that aspect. Plus, all great bands had a bassist, Jonah implored. So, they went in search of one. They did auditions for weeks, but they were no closer to finding anyone who fit with them. They had officially given up the summer before sophomore year. Then one day, Cyrus came with them to one of their practices at the Red Rooster. He was doing homework while the band worked on one particularly difficult song.

“Uggh”, Jonah exclaimed after missing another note. “I can’t do this. This song is supposed to be split between a bassist and an electric guitarist. It’s too much.” The girl’s looked at the singer nervously, trying to figure out a way to calm him down, but they knew he was right.

“Let me see”, Cyrus said, grabbing the sheet music off of Jonah’s stand. He examined it before looking over to the girl’s and asking if there was more. They found another copy and gave it to him. Cyrus set the copy on a stand, grabbed a bass off of a stand in the corner of the room, and then nodded at Buffy to count them in. She did and started playing, Andi joining in and soon Jonah. They were coming upon the point where the bass was supposed to join in and they were sure it was going to be terrible. But the notes came and Cyrus did the unimaginable. He played perfectly, his notes fluid and precise. But he wasn’t done. Jonah started singing and Andi was preparing to try to do back up, but before she could, Cyrus cut her off. His voice was surprisingly pleasing to hear and he hit the notes almost better than Jonah. The band played the entire song all the way through and when they were done, Jonah, Andi, and Buffy turned to stare incredulously at the Jewish boy who was giving them a bright smile.

Finally, Buffy couldn’t take anymore, “How in the world did you know how to do that. You can play bass? You can SING?! Why didn’t you tell us, you knew we were looking for a backup singer. How did we not know this?”

Cyrus’s smile turned shy. “My step-dad had been teaching me how to play the bass. You guys were all so musically talented and I wanted to be able to do something as well, too, so I asked him to teach me. Then, when my voice changed, I found I could sing really well. I already knew I had perfect pitch but I had never been able to actually hit the notes before. So, I practiced a little bit before I was confident enough to show you guys. I was planning on surprising you, but I figured that you needed me right now.”

The group continued to stare at the boy in shock. Suddenly, a large smile broke out on Jonah’s face. “Well girls, It looks like we have our last member.”

Ever since then, they had been practicing and performing together in Shadyside and surrounding cities. Not everyone liked them, but the amount of support they got was a pleasant surprise. They had a small following and were known throughout Grant as being “surprisingly pretty great for a cover band”, comments of the school newspaper. They had gotten better over the last two years and had decided to participate in Utah’s Battle of the Band’s their senior year. They had gotten all the way to the finals, where the two band’s that were left would perform a set of about five songs. The had argued about the set list for days before eventually settling on:

“Runaway” Bon Jovi

“Lady Madona” The Beatles

“All the Way from Memphis” Mott The Hoople

“Should I Stay or Should I Go” The Clash

“Let It Be” The Beatles

Buffy and Jonah had argued that they shouldn’t do two songs by the same artists, or if they were it was going to be Bon Jovi, but Cyrus and Andi had argued that, though Bon Jovi was a rock classic, The Beatles are indisputably one of the best bands of all time and would be more likely to gain them favor with the judges. In the end, Buffy and Jonah couldn’t dispute that, ergo, two Beatles’ songs.

Now, here they were, about to perform in front of the largest crowd they had ever faced(except for Buffy who had played and won the girls state championship all four years of high school) and two of their members were about to spontaneously combust. Buffy would have joined the boys in their pacing, but she was busy holding Andi, her girlfriend of four years now. As the nerves started to get the better of her, Buffy pulled the smaller girl closer to her chest.

The boys were still performing their destructive thought processes when a stagehand came up to the group. The four immediately whipped their heads toward them and they took a slight step back. “Uh, you’re on in five”, they told the group before hurrying off to whatever their next task was. This, surprisingly, seemed to calm Jonah, Buffy, and Cyrus down. The four of them exchanged glances with each other before heading over to the side of the stage. They looked out onto the stage where their competition was currently performing. They were good, that was a fact none of them could deny. But they were going to win. They were going to play until their bodies gave out until they couldn’t produce one more note, and they were going to win. It was a fact no one could dispute.

The other band finished their set and were met with roaring applause. The members smiled smugly at the small town kids as they passed them. The group was unfazed. They approached their respective instruments calmly and got set. They faced the crowd and they each took a deep breath. Buffy counted them off and then it was only them and the music. They had practiced this set so many times, they had had dreams of playing it. Even the toughest music critic wouldn’t be able to find a flaw in the band’s performance. The songs might not have been their own, but it was their music. They made it come alive unlike anyone in that hall had ever seen. The crowd was in awe.

As the last note faded into silence, the band became acutely aware of the crowd. Jonah was sure he was about to start panicking when a roar went through the crowd. The audience rose like a wave, cheering louder than even when Buffy had scored the winning basket in the state championship a few months ago. The band looked out in wonder as the crowd chanted their name. It was something out of a dream. Buffy, ever the leader, took Andi by the hand and pulled her up to where the boys stood together. The other band trudged onto the stage solemnly. The two competitors stood next to each other as the announcer called the winners. The other group never had a chance.

-----

Two weeks later, Cyrus woke up to his phone ringing off the hook. “Hello”, he answered, not even bothering to check it.

“CYRUS!”, screamed Andi on the other line. “Guess who just reached out to Bowie?”

“A hand?”, Cyrus answered jokingly.

“Westerlin Music and Sound Academy, dummy”, Buffy, who had taken the phone from Andi, answered. Cyrus was awake.

“No way, what did they want to talk about?”

“They want a meeting with us”, Buffy replied. Cyrus could hear Andi squealing in the background.

“Oh my god, does Jonah know?”, Cyrus asked, not believing his ears.

“No, we were just about to tell him”, Andi answered, having reclaimed the phone.

“Here lets all facetime him”, Cyrus offered, pulling the phone away from his face. Andi hummed her consent and hung up. Cyrus opened the facetime app and got on a joint call with Jonah and Andi. Andi picked up and the window showed her and Buffy curled up together on the couch. Buffy’s dad was on a business trip for the weekend, so Buffy was staying with her girlfriend. Cyrus had been so excited when they had gotten together, even if he did end up third-wheeling a lot. They were so perfect together and Cyrus couldn’t be happier.

Jonah picked up on the third ring, looking rumpled and sleep-deprived. “What’s so important that you have to call me at 9:40 in the morning?”, he asked blearily.

“JONAH!”, Andi and Cyrus shrieked in unison, causing the older boy to jump. “Westerlin Music and Sound Academy want to meet with us!”

The Boy’s face broke into a huge smile as he sat up in his bed. “No way, that’s awesome! When?”

“This Friday at one o’clock at the Red Rooster”, Buffy answered. The band had made the Red Rooster their official headquarters junior year, the same year that Bowie had bought it from its owner to keep it from becoming another chain store. The band had performed to raise money to put in a small recording studio for when they started recording some of Jonah’s songs. It was the perfect place to meet people who had an interest in them.

“Oh my god, this is so amazing”, Andi squealed again. Cyrus and the others agreed. They had been hoping for something like this for forever. Cyrus wasn’t surprised, though. Everyone had been great at the BotB. It was something these guys deserved after all the long hours they had put in. Not to mention how stressed Buffy and Jonah were.

The band talked for a while before deciding to meet at the Spoon for celebratory milkshakes. Buffy said you shouldn’t celebrate before the game is over, but one look from her girlfriend ended that argument. They weren't going to meet until noon, so Cyrus decided to pull up Westerlin’s website for like, the umpteenth time since the boy had heard about them. Its header was a sprawling picture of the campus with a menu bar below it. Cyrus scrolled through the upcoming events before his eye caught one:

Classical Training Program Auditions

Monday, May 8th, 9:00 am

Robert Basil Music Hall, Hansen, Utah

Hey, that isn’t too far from here, Cyrus thought. Maybe he could convince the others to come. Then, he thought of the implications of the band at a classical audition. Nah. Cyrus was really the only one in the band who could enjoy the intricacies of classical music. The others, though able to enjoy a few pieces every now and again, would not be able to sit through multiple hours of music without lyrics in a fancy hall. Despite this, Cyrus felt an urge to go. If he was correct in assuming that Westerlin wanted him and the band to attend the school, he should start paying attention to other genres and potential rivals. The thought of being against anyone was slightly disconcerting, but Cyrus knew that if he wanted to attend the school, he would have to outperform the best of the best. The only problem was that he needed to find the best, first.

Cyrus continued to scroll through the University’s website until it was time to leave. He told his mom that he was going out with the others and that he would be back in a few hours. Cyrus grabbed his wallet and keys and was soon walking down toward the diner. Normally he would drive, but he wanted to enjoy the scenery that came with Shadyside in the springtime. He was always so stressed about school or the band or his future, that Cyrus rarely took time to just look around. The walk was not too long but it gave him ample time to just relax and take everything in. He enjoyed the relative silence knowing that it would be quite ruined when he reached he and his friend’s normal hangout. Cyrus was almost tired of being right.

As soon as the boy walked into the confines of the blue and white eatery, he was assaulted by loud sounds and the invasion of his personal space. The Spoon was packed. People were spilling out of the booths and crowding around the tables. Some friends and significant others were sitting on each other's laps. Cyrus was sure that they had exceeded the legal limit for customers, but he shook that thought out of his head. He looked around and found his friends sitting in a secluded booth in the corner. The small teen pushed through the crowd to reach his three friends.

Andi squealed when she saw him approaching. “Westerlin, guys! Can you believe it?” Her cry was answered by a fond look from Buffy, a small shake of the head from Jonah, and a bright smile from Cyrus. The group talked about what could happen at the meeting, all the sets they would play at the annual music presentation put on by the school, and what classes they could end up taking. The group talked for hours, the diner slowly emptying of its other patrons. When it started getting the dark, the band realized the time.

“Oh, we should get going”, Andi said, nudging her girlfriend.

“Date night?”, Cyrus asked as the couples slid out of the booth.

“Date night”, Buffy confirmed before they were out the door. Cyrus got up and switched to the other side to talk to Jonah better. The other boy gave him a smile, though it was clear to Cyrus that the boy wasn’t all there. Probably thinking about song lyrics, Cyrus thought as he sipped his drink. The two boys sat in comfortable silence while the sky steadily got darker. Cyrus supposed he would have to go home soon, but his thoughts were interrupted when he noticed Jonah staring at him.

“What?”, Cyrus asked, coming to attention.

“I think I like someone.” This was quite a shock to Cyrus. Jonah had had a plethora of girlfriends in middle school but after his second break-up with Amber, he hadn’t dated anyone. Cyrus had started to think that maybe Jonah was ace/aro and that dating the girls in middle school was just what he thought he should do, like what he did with Iris. This was a relatively big announcement.

“Really?”, Cyrus said loudly and Jonah gave him a look. “What’s her name?”, he asked in a quieter tone.

“Um, well”, Jonah began, looking down at the table, his hands fidgeting nervously. “It’s not a girl.”

Cyrus smiled and took Jonah’s fidgeting hands. The other boy looked up and Cyrus gave him the most reassuring smile he could muster.

“What’s his name?”, Cyrus asked softly.

“H-His name’s Reed. You don’t know him. I met him at the concert a few weeks ago and we’ve been talking. I-I think I really like him, Cy”, Jonah said softly. “Also, I’m bi, by the way.”

“Well, I’m glad you could come to me with this. Does Reed know you like him?”

“I don’t think so, I only figured it out while I was sitting here.”

“Well you can be a little oblivious, Jonah Beck”, Cyrus teased. Jonah rolled his eyes and nudged Cyrus’s arm. The two boys smiled at each other for a bit before Cyrus realized that he should probably leave if he wants to get up early enough to make it to the audition’s tomorrow. The boy’s exchanged ‘good-nights’ and went there separate ways.

-----

TJ tugged at his suit nervously adjusting his collar and his cuffs. His friend Reed noticed his fidgeting and tugged his hands away from his clothes.

“Hey, calm down. You’ve been practicing for weeks, and even my punk ass knows that you’re awesome. You’re going to rock this”, he insisted, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him as if it would help loosen him up.

“He’s right, dude”, his other friend Marty agreed. “You’ve practiced your butt off. There’s no way they won’t take you.” TJ smiled gratefully at his friends. TJ had known Reed since kindergarten, and TJ and Marty had played basketball together before track took over Marty’s life. TJ and Reed dated in middle school, and TJ had really gotten to know Marty after Marty broke up with Reed freshman year. TJ had also dated Marty for a bit, but they had soon come to terms that they were better off as friends.

Reed and Marty had made a duo thing sophomore year, and they had already flown through their audition last week with their guitar/drum duo. They wouldn’t be getting their results for another week, but it was pretty clear that they had been the best group there. Now, TJ was at his own audition and he was freaking out. But not about what his friends thought.

“Thanks, guys, but I’ve worked harder for this than basketball. It’s just”, TJ paused, scanning the crowd again before turning back to his friends. “He’s not here.”

The two bandmates exchanged glances before turning back to the pianist. Marty offered him a sympathetic smile, but Reed gave him a look. TJ knew how they felt about his boyfriend, trust him he knew, but Alex had been TJ’s constant since his dad left. Yeah, he had Reed and Marty, but they had been to close to the situation and they didn’t really know how to help. Alex had held him up while TJ tried to take care of his mom and sister, and they had been together for the last two years. In those two years, things had become more strained between them, though, and the relationship probably wasn’t worth what TJ did to maintain it. Still, he didn’t want to give it up, and it wasn’t like Alex was trying to destroy their relationship. Though, he wasn’t doing much to preserve it, either.

Like today. Alex had been busy with family stuff the past few weeks, so they hadn’t gotten to see each other as much. He had promised that he would come to TJ’s audition and support him, but it was almost time for him to go on and Alex was nowhere to be seen. TJ checked his phone again, but there were no new messages from his boyfriend. The performer on stage was coming to their finale and it was almost time for TJ to go out. He turned back to his friends who were giving a mixed look of sympathy and encouragement before the stagehand indicated that it was time to go out.

TJ walked out and stood next to the piano before turning to address the judges. “Good morning. I am Tobias Kippen, and I will be playing Liszt's Liebestraume No. 3.” The judges jotted down a few things before the head judge signaled for him to begin. TJ sat down on the bench and took a deep breath before scanning the audience one last time. But the door stayed closed and Alex was nowhere to be seen. His eyes landed on a brown-haired boy at the end of a row. He couldn’t make out much of his features due to the lights in his face, but he could see that he was paying rapt attention, even more than some of the judges. TJ grinned for a reason he didn’t really understand before laying his fingers carefully on the keys. TJ closed his eyes before bringing the first notes to life.

TJ started off rather formal, playing the song as it was written. But as the pace got faster and the notes got louder, he pushed all of his feelings into them, the emotions roaring. The song cooled down and he got smoother, the notes coming out like buds in springtime, as he delved farther into the song. The notes seemed to communicate with each other, sometimes soft, sometimes crying out in bursts. The emotion in the song was the reason why he picked it, he could make people feel things through this song, but now he was regretting putting in so much emotion. He felt like he was tearing out his soul and was showing it for all the world to see. As the song faded out, he was scared to open his eyes. Gently, he pulled his hands away from the instrument and stood up.

Slowly, he turned to face the audience. He meant to look at the judges but he found his eyes landing on the brown-haired boy. His features were still obscured, but his eyes glowed. It was like the boy could feel the same emotions TJ himself was feeling. He found the boy staring right back at him and he was unable to look away. The audience applauded and he realized it was time for him to go. He tore his eyes away from the boy and walked to the eaves. Backstage, his friends were fist pumping and congratulating him. TJ smiled, but his mind drifted back to the boy in the audience. I wonder what his name is, TJ thought before heading off to change. He wouldn’t learn the results for a while, so there was no point in hanging around.

The trip made their way to a diner that they frequently populated and slid into a booth. It wasn’t too busy so a waitress came over right away.

“Hey guys”, the waitress, Sam said. Sam was an honorary member of their group. They had met her the start of sophomore year when she moved from Boston. She was epic, she had the best wingtips TJ ever saw and they really brought out her grey eyes. She had blond hair that was always highlighted with different colors, today’s being purple and green. She had come out as a lesbian at the end of junior year and had stolen Reed and Marty’s potential interests more than once.

“Hey Sam”, TJ said, while the other two scarfed down the fries Sam had knowingly brought to the table.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t go to your audition, Teej, but how did it go?”, Sam asked.

“It was awesome!”, Reed exclaimed, though his mouth was full so it came out more like “if hars aresome”.

“Yeah”, Marty continued. “Seriously, I’m pretty sure that’s the best you’ve ever played, dude.”

TJ shrugged and slumped back in his seat. Marty and Sam exchange looks while Reed continued to fill his mouth. TJ knew why they were concerned, they thought he was hung up about Alex. In all honesty, TJ hadn’t really expected him to show up. Sure, it would’ve been a pleasant surprise, but TJ could tell that whatever Alex had going on was just a way to avoid TJ and their crumbling relationship. No, TJ was bothered that while his relationship was worn and fraying, he was caught up on some guy he saw, one who he wouldn’t even recognize if he saw him again. TJ sighed. I’m all kinds of a mess, he thought. At least I can do music well.

————

Cyrus walked up to his friends who were freaking out in the backroom of Red Rooster Records. They all look quite frazzled, but Cyrus was unusually calm. Maybe because he wasn’t entirely focused on the meeting about to take place. Cyrus hadn’t been able to get the image of that blonde guy at the piano, nor the sound of the piano. He had found the song that the guy, Tobias, had been playing, but it sounded nothing like the way he played it. It just lacked the emotions that the guy’s playing had given him. He could still hear the song playing faintly in his head.

He was snapped out of his memory by Bowie approaching them with a man and a woman in formal attire. They exchanged pleasantries before heading into the studio’s meeting room. The woman explained how they had liked their performance and that they thought the band could go quite far in the music game. They ended their pitch with scholarships to Westerlin for the four of them, and even though they tried to play it cool, Cyrus thought Andi had replied a little too eagerly.

The rest of the meeting was filled with signing papers and discussing the terms of their scholarships. They would all go to classes and they would perform at school venues regularly. They would be playing with other bands that share our style regularly, so it was a key factor to get the best spots in the show so that you more well-known when the entire year plays at the showcase in the winter. The band nodded along, understanding. When they had finished everything, the two officials had shaken their hands and left, leaving the band to freak out in peace.

Cyrus smiled at his friend’s antics as they jumped around the room, Buffy spinning Andi around and Jonah fist pumping. I wonder if that guy got in, Cyrus thought as Bowie patted him on the back.

-------

TJ paced around his room while his sister Amber lounged on his bed. It was a week after the audition and the results were supposed to be sent out today. Reed and Marty had already gotten their letters and were going to start moving up there next month. Sure, TJ had gotten a lot of offers for basketball, and he had some pretty good schools to fall back on, but it was more the fact knowing that even his best couldn’t get him into a school like this.

“Calm down”, Amber said, not even looking up from her phone. “There’s nothing you can do right now. If you get in, you get in if you don’t, you don’t.”

Amber had gotten into NYU last year and according to her, she was “on top of both the class and the social ladder”, though TJ wasn’t so sure since she was home at least two weeks early and checking her messages every other minute. She claimed that she had just finished her exams early and she was looking to see what classes she could sign up for next year. Ok, Amber, flashed across TJ’s mind before the worry set in again. When TJ started to think that maybe he was overexaggerating, his computer pinged.

All thoughts of overexaggerating left his head as he dove toward his desk. He saw the new notification badge and an email from Westerlin beneath it. Now that the email was here, TJ started freaking out even more. He stared at his inbox for a while before grabbing a small rubber basketball he had on his desk and tossing it between his hands. Again, he started to pace, still tossing the basketball. Amber, supposedly sensing his distress, finally looked up from her phone.

“Did you get in?”, she asked, confused.

“Haven’t looked yet”, his simple reply came. She gaped at him before throwing a pillow at his head.

“Well, look already!” TJ glared at his sister before sighing and turning back towards his computer. He sighed and, knowing he had to do it eventually, stalked over to his laptop and clicked on the notification. Amber threw another pillow at him.

------2 MONTHS LATER: MOVING DAY FOR THE GHC+JONAH

Cyrus hauled his luggage up the stairs, trailing behind Jonah as they made they’re way to their dorms. Buffy and Andi had their own buildings across the street and the boys had already helped them up to their dorm, though they had stayed behind to set their’s up. They said that they would help bring up the rest of the boys’ stuff when they were done. So now, Jonah and Cyrus were hauling what they could carry up the dorms to find they’re rooms. Finally, they made it to their floor.

“Looks like we’re across the hall from each other”, Jonah said. There were whiteboards on all the doors, and on two parallel entrances were the names ‘Cyrus Goodman’ and ‘Jonah Beck’, both below two unfamiliar names. Cyrus sighed, disappointed to not be with his friend, but he shot the boy a smile and went to open his door.

Cyrus had opened the door and was carrying his suitcases into the room before he noticed two people lounging on a bed. He looked up suddenly to see two blonde boys, one rather skinny, the other obviously experienced in years of athletics, and rather familiar.

“Oh”, Cyrus said surprised, straightening up. “I’m sorry I didn’t know anyone was in here.”

The athletic boy laughed, and sound that gave Cyrus a slight tingle in the bottom of his stomach.

“It’s no problem dude, Cyrus?”, he asked, standing up and offering his hand, which Cyrus shook, not taking his eyes off of the boy’s. “TJ Kippen. This is my friend, Reed.”

Cyrus was reminded of where he had seen the boy when Jonah appeared.

“Hey Cy, need any…”, Jonah trailed off as his eyes landed on the blonde boy on the bed. Reed’s eyes seemed to shine less with mischief and more with pleasant surprise when Jonah appeared.

“H-Hey”, Jonah stuttered, cheeks darkening.

“Hey”, Reed answered, sitting up a little straighter. The boys just stared at each other while the two roommates looked back and forth between them.

“I’m guessing your Camp Guy?”, TJ asked Jonah, breaking him out of his boy-induced daze.

“Camp Guy?”, he asked with his usual obliviousness while Reed threw a pillow at TJ, giving him a glare. TJ laughed as Reed started to ramble.

“It’s nothing, he’s being an idiot, as usual, let’s go outside”, Reed pulled Jonah from the room and down the hall before Cyrus could interject.

TJ watched the two go with a smile on his face before turning back to Cyrus. He looked over his stuff before picking his luggage up and carrying it to the other bed. Cyrus, already quite surprised at the revelation of his roommate's identity, was even more confused when he did this. Nonetheless, he was able to get some form of thought out.

“I know you”, Cyrus blurted. TJ turned back and raised his eyebrow and Cyrus quickly carried on. “At least, I saw you, at the classical auditions. Y-You were really good. But you introduced yourself as Tobias.”

TJ got a strange look on his face, a mix between surprise, recognition, and another emotion Cyrus couldn’t make out. Suddenly, he was really close and he was staring into Cyrus’s eyes. Cyrus felt like he couldn’t breathe as he stood frozen underneath the other boy’s gaze. With his eyes boring into him, Cyrus couldn’t help but get a little bit lost in them.

“It’s you”, TJ murmured, before his eyes really started to focus on Cyrus. The boys stayed frozen, just looking at each other. Suddenly, TJ seemed to realize what he was doing and quickly backed out of Cyrus’s personal space. Cyrus could immediately feel the lack of his presence.

TJ looked down and cleared his throat nervously. “Well, uh, do need help moving your stuff?

-------FIRST DAY OF CLASSES

TJ cracked open his eyes as his alarm continued to blare. Across the room, Cyrus groaned and rolled up tighter in his cocoon. TJ smiled tiredly at the sight before reaching over to shut off his alarm. Inch by inch he got out of bed, before finally escaping his comfort cave. He sighed before grabbing his bathroom stuff, shaking Cy a little bit to get him moving, and heading to the showers. On his way there, he contemplated the last month since he’d met Cyrus.

It was obvious--to TJ anyway--that they had been drawn to each other from the start, something that could be quite dangerous in the long run. Especially since TJ was still with Alex, though you wouldn’t know unless you had talked to Reed or Marty, which, unfortunately, Cyrus had. Now that Reed and Jonah were dating/not dating and Buffy and Marty had basically been joined at the hip due to their bi-ness and love of percussion, their friend groups were properly tangled. Which might not be the best thing when you’re interested in someone who wasn’t your boyfriend.

As TJ properly tried to decipher the mess he got himself in, he quickly got ready for the first day of classes. Well, the first day of general classes, TJ and the rest of the classical program had already had their first uniform lessons. The classes for the less specific programs and the general course classes only started today. These were the classes the others were taking and the few courses TJ would share with the rest of his friends, some of which also had specific courses.

TJ went back to his room, where Cyrus was stumbling around, gathering his stuff in a tired daze. A smile formed on his face at the sight and help direct the tired boy around the room and out the door. When his roommate had gone, TJ gathered up his stuff and shoved them in his bag, though he doubted he would need many books. He paused for a minute, before getting Cyrus’s stuff ready as well. Cyrus came in, showered, dressed, and a little more awake, while TJ was rechecking their class schedules. TJ looked up with a smile to find Cyrus looking at him sleepily, making TJ’s heart stutter.

“Uh, um”, TJ articulated gracefully, pulling his eyes away from the brunette. “We should get going. Is Jonah up?”

“Uh, yeah, he said he’d meet us downstairs”, Cyrus replied, turning his face away, but not before TJ caught a slight blush on it.

“Cool, I guess we should head down, then”, TJ said offering Cyrus his bag, which he accepted bashfully. The two roommates then made they’re way downstairs where they found Reed and Jonah talking with Marty shooting Reed looks that he was ignoring.

“Hey, y’all ready to go?”, Marty asked, seeing the boys coming down the stairs.

“Let’s roll”, Reed replied, draping his arm across Jonah’s shoulders and making the other boy blush. The five of them headed out and met up with Buffy and Andi, also draped against each other. When they reached the main school building, Andi, Jonah, and Marty split off to their own classes, leaving Reed, Cyrus, Buffy, and TJ to head to their morning class.

The four walked into the building with little thought of the class inside. Cyrus seemed to be the only one paying attention because the other three nearly walked past the classroom. The four entered the room to find a few rows of rafters, different instruments scattered around the room, a desk at the front, and about 20 kids scattered across the room in groups. Reed and Cyrus went to check out the guitars, Buffy the two sets of drums in the corner, and TJ walked over to the baby grand in the back, the only abandoned instrument. Guess there aren’t a lot of classical musicians in this class.

------

The kids wandered around examining the instruments for a while when suddenly the door opened again, revealing a middle-aged man in jeans and a leather jacket. Everything about him reminded Cyrus of Bowie.

“Well, you guys sure seem excited”, he said with a grin, walking over to the desk and shrugging off his jacket and revealing a t-shirt for a band Cyrus didn’t recognize. The kids chuckled and settled down, lounging on whatever free area there was in the room as the teacher went through roll call.

“Ok”, the man began, clapping his hands together. “Welcome to General Sound 101. In this class, we’ll be combining all different type of musicians together to create sounds that aren’t very mainstream. I know a lot of you got here through your own bands, but our goal in this class is to pull apart and reorganize people to create something new.”

The kids nodded, though a few seemed apprehensive of the idea, Cyrus included. He didn’t know how well he could play without his bands. Sure, he knew he could in essence, but it wasn’t something he was very confident in.

“Reed Glas, Jonah Beck, and Buffy Driscoll”, the teacher said, drawing the classes attention. He waved his hand and they came up to his desk. He said a few things before handing them all sheet music and directing them toward their respective instruments. Buffy got her sticks and sat at the drums, and Jonah and Reed both picked up guitars before saying a few words to each other. They seemed to come to an agreement because they soon started playing. Cyrus knew exactly what they were playing and grinned as Reed began to sing.

“I’ll be strumming my ax in a basement dive, with my totally kickass band…”

The trio really started to get into it as the reached the chorus.

“When I climb to the top of Mount Rock. And I’m there staring down from the heights…”

The class really started to get into it and Cyrus was very amused by the fact that they were singing a song from a musical, knowing Buffy’s and Jonah’s opinions on them. They were starting to reach the piano part and Cyrus was wondering how they were going to pull it when he heard the notes coming from the back. TJ was sitting at the instrument like it was made for him. He spared a look up and he and Reed shared a grin as the song got faster and Buffy and Jonah joined back in. When the trio was back to their pure rock song, TJ slid off the bench and strolled over to Cyrus as the watched Jonah riff. The song ended to applause from the class.

“Well, I see you know your musical theater”, the teacher said, also clapping.

“Musical theater?”, Buffy asked in disbelief causing Cyrus to burst out laughing. The teacher grinned before heading back over to his desk.

“Cyrus Goodman”, the teacher suddenly called, causing Cyrus to snap his head up. “Don McLean, 1971.”

Cyrus grinned. Way too easy, he thought as he pulled a confused TJ toward the piano. There was sheet music on the stand and Cyrus didn’t have to shuffle around too much before he found it and set it in front of him. Cyrus turned around, hoping to get some help, but one guy was already getting on the drums, and a girl and boy were strapping on an electric guitar and a bass. They looked up and nodded at Cyrus who grinned and indicated for TJ to start.

“A long, long time ago, I can still remember how that music used to make me smile…”, Cyrus began as TJ started to play. As he sang the opening verses, he started making his way over to an acoustic guitar, strapping it on.

“I can’t remember if I cried when I read about his widowed bride. But something touched me deep inside, the day the music died....”

Cyrus started strumming as he sang and he knew that’s when he caught them. Buffy and Jonah stared at him just like that first day as the others joined in. The song was long, but it was definitely one of Cyrus's favorites. Unlike most of the songs today, it told an actual story. It was one of the only songs that made Cyrus feel like he could do anything in the world. He closed his eyes as the music washed over him. He could tell it was affecting the class as well. Cyrus had never played with any of the others who had risen to help, but he could feel the connection the song was giving them. The song faded back to piano and Cyrus relaxed walking back over to TJ, who was focused intensely since he’d never played this song before.

“And they were singing, “Bye, bye, Miss American Pie…”

Cyrus strummed as the others joined in making up the chorus. The last notes fell away and Cyrus was hit with an overwhelming sense of calm. The class applauded and Cyrus thanked the people who had helped, before heading over to his friends, who were still awestruck.

“So, what did you guys think?”, he asked, knowing he was being a little cocky.

“Cy-Cyrus”, Buffy got out.

“When did you learn that?”, Jonah asked.

Cyrus shrugged. “My dad played it a lot, so I figured I would learn how to play it, though I only know the vocals, bass, and acoustic guitar parts.

Reed shook his head, “Well, aren’t you full of surprises.”

Cyrus chuckled before turning back to TJ who was smiling back at him.

“Thanks for coming to help. I didn’t know any other piano players”, Cyrus said.

“It was no problem, Cy. It’s a good song, and if you like it so much, maybe I should learn it.”

Cyrus blushed, but before he could answer, their professor was calling up more people and the process started again.

------

It was two weeks later and Cyrus and TJ were in their room working on assignments, Cyrus strumming his bass and TJ trying out cords on the keyboard he had gotten. Suddenly, Reed burst through their door.

“Dude”, he said quickly. “Did you know Alex was here?”

“What?”, TJ said jumping up.

“I saw him in the lobby”, Reed cried. “I rushed up before he could see me.”

“Are-”, TJ was cut off by his phone ringing. He felt like an animal trapped in a corner. That’s absurd, you haven’t done anything, he thought, but he just because it was true, didn’t mean he believed it. TJ grabbed his phone and clicked the answer button before answering.

“Hey, babe, what’s up?”, he asked on reflex.

“Nothing much”, he answered. “Just hanging out in the lobby of your dorm building.”

“Really?”, TJ asked, trying to sound surprised.

“Reed told you, didn’t he?”, he replied, unimpressed.

“Yeah, but it’s still a surprise. I’ll be down in a sec okay?”

“Yeah, see you in a bit.”

TJ hung up and slipped his phone into his pocket before throwing on a shirt and slipping on his sneakers. He was just about to leave when a voice made him stop in his tracks.

“Your boyfriend’s here?”, Cyrus asked from his bed. Seeing him sitting there sent butterflies to his stomach and a stake through his heart.

“Yeah”, TJ answered. Cyrus nodded and looked down at his bass, strumming out a melancholy chord. All TJ wanted to do was sit back down and maybe listen to Cyrus sing again, but he didn’t. He made himself turn around and head out the door, making his way to his boyfriend. Your boyfriend, TJ’s head reminded him. Who came all the way from SLC to see you.

TJ’s head was still full of worries as he walked into the lobby. He looked around and saw his boyfriend leaning up against a wall staring down at his phone. The sight of him used to send butterflies to TJ’s stomach, but now he just felt guilty. TJ took a breath to steady himself and made his way over to Alex. When he got close, he looked up and his signature smile appeared on his face, though his eyes didn’t quite match it. TJ forced a smile before kissing him, but it was like kissing a stranger.

“Hey babe”, TJ said, trying to sound happy. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, I had some business here and so I figured I’d come and surprise you”, Alex said, pushing back his too-long brown hair. “I haven’t seen you since I helped you move up.”

“How long are you staying?”, TJ asked, hoping not for too long.

“I have to meet some guys today, but I figured we could go get dinner tonight? My treat of course.”

“Y-Yeah”, TJ agreed surprised. It’d been months since Alex had planned a date. “Yeah, of course. What time?”

“Uh, seven?”, Alex suggested. TJ nodded and he flashed TJ a smile before kissing him on the cheek and taking off.

Once Alex was gone, TJ released a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He sighed as he turned back around to find Reed standing a ways behind him. He had his arms crossed and was giving TJ a look that he promptly ignored. TJ headed back up the stairs and only relaxed once he had gotten to his door. He shot Reed, who had followed him up, a look before heading inside.

TJ didn’t look at Cyrus as he headed back to his bed, but he could feel his eyes all the way. He plopped onto his bed and pulled his keyboard back into his lap before glancing at Cyrus.

“What?”, he asked though it wasn’t defensive.

“Are you not going out with your boyfriend?”, he asked unabashedly.

TJ shrugged. “We have plans for later tonight but we both have stuff to do right now.”

“Oh”, Cyrus said quietly. TJ glances up to see Cyrus looking down at his sheet music, a slight smile on his face. TJ’s heart skipped a beat before he looked back down at his own music.

—————

Cyrus watched as TJ moved around their room, getting ready for his date. Thinking about TJ’s boyfriend downstairs sent a pang to his heart, so he moved his eyes up to his roommate. That wasn’t such a good idea he realized when he saw what the blonde boy was wearing. TJ might have been an athlete, but he was always finding ways to break gender norms. He had on dark-wash jeans and a pink cropped hoodie. He had done his eyeliner in Winehouse style and wore a little bit of foundation, but other than that his face was clean. He wore his hair mostly ungelled, but he wore his contacts since he was going out. Stunning, was the only thought Cyrus’s gay disaster brain could form.

When he saw Cyrus looking at him, TJ smirked in his usual infuriating way. He turned around and rummaged in his closet before pulling out two pairs of shoes. One pair were some uber-expensive kicks TJ almost never wore and some low-rise heeled boots.

“Whattya think?”, TJ asked, holding up the two pairs of shoes for Cyrus to see.

“Um”, Cyrus articulated gracefully. TJ quirked an eyebrow and Cyrus knew he was enjoying Cyrus’s meltdown.

“Boots”, Cyrus said suddenly. TJ gave him a slightly surprised look but nodded and put the sneakers back. He sat down on his bed to put on the boots. When he stood up, he was even taller, though the height difference between him and Cyrus was already so large, the added inch didn’t really do anything. TJ nodded, satisfied and smiled at Cyrus before giving him a small salute.

“See you later, Goodman. Don’t have too much fun without me”, TJ said as he grabbed his keys, phone, and wallet and left the dorm.

Cyrus sat on his bed for a while. He didn’t like how attached he’d gotten to TJ. Good job, Goodman, he thought. You went from crushing on straight guys to crushing on gay guys with a boyfriend. Cyrus groaned and flopped backward, hating life at that moment. He laid like that for a while before he felt his phone buzz. He checked it and saw it was his band. Apparently, they had been able to find an unbooked practice room and was wondering if he wanted to join them.

Cyrus didn’t even think about declining, standing up and pulling on his shoes and grabbing his keys and phone. He walked out of the dorm, his anger rising steadily higher. What was he angry at exactly? Cyrus couldn’t tell you. Maybe it was himself, maybe TJ, maybe TJ’s boyfriend, maybe the whole universe, but the only thing that mattered to Cyrus was that he was mad. He walked to the training rooms in a haze. He walked down hallway after hallway before finding the door. Cyrus slammed the door when he entered the music room.

“Cy?”, Andi’s concerned voice asked as the boy grabbed his bass. Instead of standing at his normal mic, he walked to center stage, prepping his guitar. He was too angry to feel guilty about not asking first, but the others seemed to know what he wanted. Cyrus scrolled through the electronic music sheets on the iPad standing in front of him. He finally found the song and sent it to the others. It wasn’t his normal genre, but it got the point across. He took a deep breath and the band began to play.

“Hey, hey, tell me what you want me to say. You know I’m stupid for you...”

Cyrus got lost in the music of the stupid song. He pushed all the emotions that he’d been holding back for the past few weeks and just played the new song as best he could. If his band was bothered or surprised, they didn’t show it. Cyrus doubted they had ever heard the song before, Cyrus didn’t until Marty had showed it to him, but none of them were complaining. If anything, Jonah was playing just as hard as Cyrus, though he didn’t know why since this limbo state he and Reed were at is usual where Jonah flourished. Things must have changed in the last four years.

Cyrus could feel his anger draining away as they closed out the song. He was breathing heavily and when the last notes where played, he flopped down onto the floor. He just sat there with his head buried in his arms while his band looked at him worriedly. Cyrus heard the door open and close, but he didn’t think anything of it. He only looked up when he felt another body sit down beside him. Jonah just sat next to him in silence for a bit before deciding to start talking.

“I don’t know where things are going with Reed”, he said, looking at his hands. “I know where I want things to go, but neither of us are the “let’s discuss our relationship” type of people.”

Jonah sighed. “I just wish I knew what he was thinking.”

“Why don’t you ask him?”, Cyrus asked quietly, his head still laying on his knees. Jonah shrugged before turning toward Cyrus and giving him a small smile.

“Why don’t you ask TJ what he’s thinking”, Jonah countered.

“That’s different”, Cyrus mumble, looking away. “He has a boyfriend.”

“Does he want that boyfriend?”

“I’m not going to let TJ cheat on his boyfriend because I like him”, Cyrus exclaimed exasperated.

“I never said you should”, Jonah replied. “I just meant that you should ask him if he would rather be with you.”

“I can’t do that Jonah”, Cyrus sighed. “I can’t get in between him and his boyfriend. And what if he says no? Then I have to share a room with a guy who rejected me because I asked him to break up with his boyfriend for me. Does that sound like a reasonable thing to do?”

Cyrus was quite exasperated now, but Jonah just shrugged and laid on his back. After a minute, Cyrus groaned and flopped back.

“I just don’t know what to do”, Cyrus groaned. “I can’t share a room with the guy I’m pining for! It just...it’ll hurt too much.”

Cyrus’s anger had long drained out of him. Now he was just a mess. Cyrus was pretty sure TJ already knew Cyrus liked him but living with a guy he knows he could never have. It shouldn’t feel as bad as his crush on Jonah was, but it was, and that’s how Cyrus knew he was in some deep trouble. Way too attached, Cyrus thought as he just stared at the ceiling. It seemed like he had only been lying there for a few minutes, but when he finally sat up, he found himself alone, and hours have passed. It wasn’t unusual for Cyrus to lose time thinking about stuff but it had been a while since it last happened.

Cyrus staggered up and slowly walked out the door. Laying on the hard floor had not done good things to his back, neck, and shoulders. Cyrus tried to massage his muscles as he made his way through the hallways. He was about to turn a corner when he heard soft notes coming from a room down the other hall. Cyrus cautiously approached the room. It had been dark for a while and the only light in the room was coming from the iPad on the piano that showed the sheet music. The notes coming from the instrument were soft and sad. Cyrus made out light green eyes and wavy hair leaning over the piano. TJ.

Cyrus tiredly made his way across the room, careful not to scare his friend. There was a couch in the corner, so Cyrus slinked onto that. He sat for a while just listening to the song. He could tell that TJ was aware of his presence. Cyrus closed his eyes, letting the song wash over him. He started to drift off to the sound of TJ’s heartbreak.

————

TJ had walked out of the dorm confident. Well, as confident as you can be when you’re going on a date with a boyfriend that you didn’t love anymore. He knew the very-not-subtle flirting he had done while he was getting dressed wasn’t fair, not to Cyrus nor to him. But he had needed to know if Cyrus felt the same if he was going to finally do this. Alex was his safety net. The only way he could cut himself free from the boy was if he knew that someone was there to make sure he didn’t break. Of course, he won’t know he can catch you if you never tell him how you feel, TJ’s mind shot back. It was too smart.

TJ sighed as he walked out of the dorm building. He was just about to check his messages when he feels a hand touch his elbow. He looked up to see Alex looking up at him.

“Hey”, he said. “Ready to go?”

TJ nodded and they started walking. They fell into silence, not awkward, but not comfortable either. More routine. TJ could feel it, the thing they had become. They weren’t a couple, TJ had realized when Alex had shown up. They hadn’t been for a long time. Now, they were just each other’s safety nets. Alex was following TJ through the town, but TJ wasn’t going to a restaurant. He might’ve been dressed up for a date, but it felt more like business, so he made his way to a small all-hour cafe TJ and his friends had found. Alex was confused, but he followed TJ in. They sat at a table and silently waited to be served. The waitress came and went but neither of them talked until their drinks were cold.

TJ sighed. “We can’t keep doing this.”

“Doing what?”, Alex asked, playing dumb.

“This, us. Neither of us are happy. You’ve been so distracted lately and I’ve”, TJ paused. “And I don’t love you anymore.”

“You love someone else”, Alex completed the sentence TJ wasn’t strong enough to. TJ nodded feeling guilty. Alex had been looking down at his drink the entire time. He finally lifted his eyes to TJ’s.

“You’re right”, Alex complied. “I haven’t been a boyfriend to you. I got so used to the idea that’d you’d just be there, that I started taking you for granted. That’s my fault. I’m sorry.”

TJ nodded and they stared at each other before Alex started to get up. He was about to leave when he called over his shoulder, “For the record, I did love you, Kippen. I hope this guy of yours knows how lucky he is.” And with that, he was gone.

TJ has wandered around for a bit, trying to think of a way to explain all of this to Cyrus. He finally decided to go to the training rooms to clear his head. He played a few songs varying between sad and freeing. The song he was playing was particularly sad when Cyrus wandered in, looking exhausted. He stumbled to the couch as TJ continued to play. Even after Cyrus had drifted off to sleep, TJ played. Finally, TJ was too tired to play another note. He went over to the couch but Cyrus wouldn’t wake up. TJ groaned but picked up the smaller boy anyway.

TJ carried Cyrus through campus and into their form building. TJ glared at the stairs before he broached the challenge. Eventually, TJ made it up the stairs and down the hall. He carefully opened the door to their room and laid Cyrus on one of the beds. TJ tiredly wiped the makeup away from his face before collapsing into the other. Sleep quickly overtook him.

———— TWO MONTHS LATER

It had been two months since the breakup and Cyrus and TJ were still dancing around each other. Their friends constantly complained about it, not understanding, but the two boys knew they couldn’t jump into a relationship immediately. So here they were, two months later and stuck between friends and the need to be closer than that. Cyrus found that it was significantly easier to live with the guy he was pining after when he was pining after him too. But the most infuriating part was that neither of them knew when to say enough was enough. How long were they just going to flirt and glance at each other across rooms and go on not dates before they turned it into a relationship?

Two months apparently.

Now, Cyrus was sure it would’ve gone on for longer, much, much longer, but luckily for them, one of them wasn’t very good at keeping things a secret. Well, at least that’s how Cyrus saw it anyway. TJ still thinks it wouldn’t have happened if Cyrus hadn’t been Spotify stalking him, but it doesn’t matter. The important thing was that it happened. And yes, it was because of music.

It was like any other day for Cyrus, TJ woke him up, he rolls out of bed and tried not to stare too much when TJ came back from the showers, showered, headed to breakfast with his friends, goes to class, has lunch, comes back to the dorm and plans on studying. Except Cyrus didn’t have any homework. And TJ had an extra class that day. So Cyrus was just sitting there, bored to death. Music usually helped, so he went to Spotify, but he couldn’t get interested in any of his playlists. So he goes over to TJ’s account and looks through his public ones. The most recently played one was titled ‘Play Me A Memory’. Despite the reference, not one Billy Joel song was in there. Instead, the first five songs were the set Cyrus played with his band. He got curious, so he listened to the playlist.

Oh, Cyrus thought as he listened to the songs. He played our memories. The second song was the one TJ auditioned with. The second and third were the ones they played in class. Then there was the song Cyrus had sung the night TJ and Alex broke up(how he knew about that, he only guessed one of his friends). Then there was the song that Cyrus had heard when he first walked into the room TJ was playing the piano in. After that, it changed. It went from songs that involved them, to songs that must have reminded TJ of him.

Cyrus day on his bed in shock. He knew that TJ liked him, maybe even loved him, but this is beyond what he thought TJ could feel for him. The more he listened, the stronger his emotions got, and the more he just wanted to run out of the room to find him. But Cyrus just continued to listen as his eyes filled moth tears. That’s how TJ found him, kneeling on the bed, crying to a playlist TJ had made about him. When TJ walked in the door, Cyrus marched up to him and kissed him, without any hesitation. No more dancing around. TJ was surprised, but he returned the kiss quickly. When they separated, Cyrus buried his face into TJ’s chest.

“I can’t believe you”, Cyrus said quietly. When TJ just gave him a confused look, Cyrus rolled his eyes and gave TJ one of his earbuds. TJ eyes widened when he heard the song. He tried quickly to explain, but Cyrus just held up a hand.

“You could’ve just asked me out, you know?”, he asked, a slight smirk on his face. TJ rolled his eyes, but then looked down at Cyrus rather seriously.

“Cyrus Goodman. Will you go out with me?” And oh, it was the sweetest song Cyrus had ever heard.

So now, here they were, two weeks after that and now on their third date, which Buffy and Andi insisted being a triple date with Reed and Jonah. They were hanging out around campus and just enjoying the company. Adding more memories to the playlist.

yeah, so that was fun. love posting at four in the morning. (anyone who liked the post was tagged unless problems occurred)

@judgemental-llama @thattyruslover @babytaters4life @paytonotinthemood @itslynxa @that-multi-fandom-boi @optimisticbailiffpurseempath @tyrusmuffins @forthemystery @dearrinsecurity @tyrusgavemerights @tyruswimgs @a-bittersweet-gal @meanie13 @aka-introvert @sadiesviolets @lolabug722 @godshrimpdick @lillianpage019 @spawnofthemarauders

#Andi Mack #tyrus #bandi #jonah x reed #marty by himself #Singer!Cyrus #Pianist!TJ #fanfic #tyrus fic #oo oo it's finally done #now i can go back to my other six things

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thesealfriend · 5 years

Text

5 Things tag!

@queer-cosette tagged “anyone else who wants to do it” and I’m on my lunch break & love this sorta thing so here goes! All the fave ones are in no particular order (and liable to change within half an hour) bc god knows I can’t pick my favourite anything.

5 things on your desk

work brochures. so many brochures.

cup of coffee

water bottle

pen organiser thing

an augmented reality card thing for a company we work with

5 things in your bag

drawing tablet

headphones

gloves

nintendo switch

a roll of scotch tape, apparently.

5 favourite meals

spicy tofu with udon noodles

mac & cheese

mushroom/veg korma

tomato soup & cheese toastie

very specific mushroom burgers from norway that i’m craving currently

5 favourite drinks

bubble tea

hot spiced apple juice

oat milk latte from Espresso House (can you tell I miss norway)

iced coffee/frappe

lemonade (like, real lemonade, cloudy, not sprite)

5 favourite movies

Les Mis

Brave

Rogue One

Howl’s Moving Castle

The Babadook

Last 5 songs listened to:

Back in Black (AC/DC)

Like Real People Do (Hozier)

Skinny Love (Bon Iver)

Something Just Like This (Chainsmokers/Coldplay)

Fade to Black (Metallica)

Last 5 Shows watched:

Bates Motel

Great British Bake Off

some spooky british thing that i can’t find the name of on Netflix

Doctor Who

Riverdale

Last 5 Google searches:

search history keyboard shortcut chrome mac

power bi (it me)

iyaz replay release year (it was 2009. 2009.)

donkey kong once meme

echoes lyrics pink floyd

5 favourite Songs:

Into the Unknown (P!aTD from Frozen 2)

De Værste Bedste År (Rasmus Seebach)

Be Fine (Madeon)

Look Alive Sunshine/Na Na Na (MCR)

Tamacun (Rodrigo Y Gabriela)

5 favourite Anime:

Death Note

YuGiOh (battle city era, new ones are terrible)

Ouran High School Host Club

Free!

Elfen Lied

Tagging the first 5 folks that come up: @smoldragonborn @gambitsobsession @bellbottom-jeans @1000diodesinatrenchcoat @unironicallyenthusiasticknitter but also anyone else! (i hate tagging folks in things, no pressure if you’ve been tagged and don’t wanna, but also feel free if you haven’t and do!)

#tag game #5 things tag #long post

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taekookbook · 5 years

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Mayhaps..?

Genre: Fluff

Pairing: Taehyung x Jungkook [Minor MinJoon and YoonJin]

Length: 6182 words (I can’t believe I hand wrote so many words?)

Summary:

Taehyung is clumsy.

Jungkook is just trying to do his job.

(the author is really sorry for not posting for ages)

Yoongi would like a new son, please?

Part: 1/1

Note: Thank you to everyone who has stuck by me and continues to read my content - your support means the world to me!

Constructive criticism is welcome/encouraged but mean comments are not. If I made any mistakes, feel free to kindly point them out.

Thank you and I hope you enjoy a little bit of TaeKook 😘 💞

Kim Taehyung is a lot of things.

He’s creative, friendly, outgoing, kind, funny, clever and he has a gigantic heart too.

But most of all Kim Taehyung is clumsy, which is how he finds himself in his current position in his brand new apartment that he just moved into today, staring between the broken clothing rail in his cupboard and his shirts and jackets that are now on the floor of said cupboard.

Jimin comes rushing in when he hears the noise of the clothing rail breaking and everything falling to the floor, and promptly bursts into laughter at the sight before him.

“Jiminie, it’s not funny!” Taehyung whines, pouting petulantly at his best friend who is trying and failing to reign in his giggles.

“You’ve been here all of an hour and a half and have already managed to break something, I’m sorry Taehyungie but it is at least a little bit funny.” Jimin calms down enough to reply and walks over to his best friend to pat him on the back.

“It’s not even a lot of stuff though, why do things like this keep happening to me?” Taehyung has now flopped onto his bed and throws an arm across his eyes dramatically as he thinks about his terrible luck.

“This may not be a lot of stuff to you, but to most normal people that is a lot of clothes Taehyung. And to answer your question, I don’t know why this keeps happening to you, maybe you did something only kind of bad in a past life and this is your punishment?”

“Excuse you Park Jimin, but I resent that.” Taehyung huffs in annoyance and shoots a playful glare Jimin’s way who just snorts and shakes his head, walking over to sit next to Taehyung’s form that is sprawled across his bed.

“What am I going to do?” Taehyung mumbles after a moment of silence and Jimin is quiet for a few minutes before responding.

“If it were me I would phone the Landlord and ask for help, he should know someone who can fix it?”

“But I just moved in today, he’s going to think I’m a bad tenant.” He really doesn’t want to be kicked out of this apartment. It took Taehyung ages to find one that was both in a decent area and affordable, he doesn’t want to have to start looking again. Also packing and unpacking is a bitch and a half and there is no way he wants to do that again either.

Jimin just shrugs at his statement and gets up to go help finish unpacking Taehyung’s kitchen stuff that he had been busy with before being interrupted by what shall now be referred to as The Cupboard Incident™.

“Thanks for being so helpful dear Jiminie.” Taehyung calls out sarcastically, although it still mostly sounds like a whine, and all he hears in response is Jimin snorting and then breaking into laughter again.

But as much as he may whine and pout about his lack of fortune, Taehyung is a grown man and damnit he is going to act like one!

Pulling out his phone from the pocket of his sweat pants, Taehyung unlocks it before going into his contacts and searching for the newly added one labelled LANDLORD.

His finger hovers over the call button for a few seconds before he bucks up and presses it, bringing the now ringing phone to his ear. As he waits for the short, but intimidating man to answer he goes over his little speech in his head and crosses his fingers that he won’t be kicked out for his clumsiness.

“Hello?” A voice says and Taehyung is slightly startled as that’s definitely not what his Landlord sounded like when he showed Taehyung his apartment.

He checks his screen quickly to see that he pressed the correct contact and when he sees that he did his brows furrow.

“Hello, um, I was looking for Mr Min? Is this the correct number?” Taehyung responds carefully and prays that he didn’t further mess up and save the wrong number when his Landlord gave it to him earlier that day.

“That depends, why are you looking for him?” The voice replies just as carefully.

“He’s the Landlord for the apartment building I just moved in to and I needed to ask him something about it, if this is indeed his number?”

“Oh,” Comes the short response followed by a sweet laugh that Taehyung honestly wouldn’t mind hearing again, “then yes this is the right number. Dad was just busy with something so I answered for him, hang on one second.”

There is the sound of someone walking around followed by a shout of ‘Dad, phone!’ before the line crackles slightly and a gruff voice that Taehyung finally recognises, speaks into the phone.

“Yoongi speaking, what do you need?” Mr Min mutters and Taehyung crosses his fingers again.

“Mr Min, uh hi, it’s Taehyung.” He clears his throat and tries again, “Kim Taehyung, I moved into the empty apartment on the third floor today.”

He gets a grunt in response and takes that as his cue to continue.

“Sorry to bother you, I know you’re probably doing other Landlord things.” Taehyung face palms at his own words but carries on, “I seem to have had a bit of an accident? Nothing terribly bad, but I was hanging up my clothes in the cupboard and the clothing rail kind of broke in half and I was wondering if you possibly knew someone that could help me fix it?” Taehyung is biting his bottom lip now and quickly releases it when he remembers what he wanted to add, “I’ll totally pay for the damage and repairs myself, I just wanted to know if you knew anyone.”

The line is silent for a few moments save for their breathing and the sound of fingers typing away on a keyboard coming from Mr Min’s end and Taehyung wonders if he’s already typing out an eviction notice.

“The one on the third floor you said?” Mr Min finally answers and Taehyung nods his head before remembering that Mr Min can’t see him and responds with a ‘yes’.

“That cupboard actually needed replacing anyways and I just hadn’t gotten around to it yet so don’t worry. I’ll either come up myself or send someone up tomorrow to come take a look and sort it out, does 10am work for you?” Mr Min asks and Taehyung wants to yell, he wants to run to the rooftop and shout in excitement at his luck that his Landlord is this cool and helpful, and that he doesn’t have to find a new place to live.

“Yes of course, 10am is fine, I’ll be here.” Taehyung says with a grin and just has the time to murmur a small ‘thank you, bye’ before Mr Min hangs up on him.

Filled with the joy of not being evicted, Taehyung jumps off his bed and runs to find Jimin who is sitting on his kitchen floor carefully packing away the mountain of Tupperware that Taehyung somehow acquired in his 4 years since moving away from home.

“Jiminie, I am saved!” Taehyung all but yells while playfully messing with Jimin’s hair.

“Saved saved, or can I borrow money and I’ll be saved saved?” Jimin retorts, not even batting an eye as Taehyung continues to make his hair go in directions it usually never does.

“That was one time-”

“Four times TaeTae, four.”

Taehyung momentarily huffs in annoyance before sitting down next to Jimin on his kitchen floor, grinning at his best friend.

“Saved saved Jiminie. Mr Min said that either he or someone else will be by tomorrow at 10am to have a look and sort it out.” Taehyung sighs in relief and Jimin reaches over to pat his thigh twice.

“I’m happy for you Taehyungie. This doesn’t mean you can stop unpacking though, so get your ass up and help because I’m not unpacking your stuff alone.” With one more pat to Taehyung’s thigh, although it felt more like a slap, Jimin continued his uphill battle with the Tupperware while Taehyung pulled himself off the floor and trudged back to his room.

_____

The next morning Taehyung woke up to loud knocking on his door, which he was ready to be angry about until he glanced at his clock and saw the time.

10:15am.

“Crap!”

With a yell, Taehyung all but fell out of bed and rushed to his bathroom to do a quick gargle of mouthwash because a) there was currently no time to properly brush his teeth and b) he did not want to kill the poor soul at his door with his morning breath.

Practically skidding all the way to his front door in his socks, Taehyung quickly opens the door only to want to slam his own head in it.

Not because his short, yet intimidating, Landlord was standing there fuming. No, it was because possibly the most attractive man Taehyung has ever seen, was standing before him in a worn, white t-shirt, ripped blue jeans, worker boots and an honest to God tool-belt with another toolbox at his feet while Taehyung was there in his mismatched socks, giant grey t-shirt that had paint splatters on it and his blue boxers that are covered in tiny, white, cartoon clouds.

Could it get any worse?

It was at that moment Taehyung caught a glimpse of his reflection in the glass of one of the pictures on his wall and it had managed to get worse.

The bedhead, the horribly astounding bedhead he was currently sporting from going to bed with damp hair, would now be the cherry on top of the worst possible way to be seen by an actual angel™.

“I’m sorry.” Were the first words out of Taehyung’s mouth and the slight frown that was on the angel’s™ face disappeared, only to be replaced by the sweetest smile Taehyung had ever seen.

“Ahh, don’t worry about it. Late night?” The angel™ asked and the exhaustion from the previous day decided to reappear with vigour at that moment and Taehyung slumped against his open door, his eyes suddenly becoming heavy again.

“I’m really sorry. Jiminie and I were unpacking until midnight, and then we still had to eat and tidy up, and then I had to shower and move all my clothes off my bed so I could sleep and so I may have overslept.” Taehyung mumbles sleepily, rubbing his eyes with one hand while he stifles a yawn with the other.

“It’s fine, really. Although you are lucky it’s me and not my dad who came to help.” The angel™ responds and Taehyung perks up a bit at the way he said ‘my dad’.

“Your dad as in?” Taehyung trails off and crosses his fingers behind his back, hoping that it’s not what he thinks.

“The Landlord. I’m his son, Jungkook.”

Double crap.

Resisting the urge to frown at his terrible luck, Taehyung remembers that there is indeed a reason for the angel™ Jungkook being at his door and so he sticks out his hand.

“I’m Taehyung, thanks for coming to fix my cupboard.”

“Nice to meet you Taehyung-ssi, it’s no problem.” Jungkook replies as he shakes Taehyung’s outstretched hand, the smile not leaving his face which was starting to make the beginnings of butterflies to start forming in Taehyung’s stomach.

Letting go of Jungkook’s hand, Taehyung clears his throat before gesturing down the passageway.

“My bed… I mean bedroom… uhm broken cupboard is this way.” Taehyung stumbles over his words as he leads the way and silently thanks God that Jungkook can’t see his bright red cheeks from behind him.

It’s very faint but he thinks he hears a stifled giggle behind him, but when he glances back Jungkook looks as composed as ever as he follows behind Taehyung.

When they get to his room Taehyung briefly prays he didn’t leave too much of a mess, but opens his door that had swung shut slightly.

“Excuse the mess but uh, here it is.” Taehyung points to what once was his cupboard, rubbing his neck sheepishly with his other hand as Jungkook assesses the damage.

Jungkook places his toolbox on the floor before taking a couple steps forward to get a better look. He crouches down to reach for the broken wooden railing, straightening up once the rail is in his hand before leaning in to get a look at the inside of the cupboard.

While Jungkook is busy with his assessment, Taehyung takes the chance to move over and sit on his bed, cuddling a pillow in his lap as he watches Jungkook take measurements, noting them down on his phone and then double checking the hinges and shelves too.

And Taehyung… Taehyung just keeps watching until he is snapped out of his daydream by Jungkook clearing his throat.

“So uh, I think it’ll just be easier to replace the whole thing. I already messaged my dad and he agrees. Don’t worry about the cost,” Jungkook holds up a hand as Taehyung is about to ask, “it needs replacing which is our job and cost to cover.

I could probably get it done today, but that means I’ll also probably be in and out getting the new cupboard and a few other things and it’ll get kind of noisy while I take apart the old one and put together the new one – I don’t know if you’d rather go out?” Jungkook asks politely and Taehyung shrugs.

“I could stay while you get everything sorted and pop out while you’re busy with the taking apart and building stuff?” Taehyung suggests, already contemplating buying lunch for Jungkook as a Thank-You.

“Sure. Dad ordered the cupboard so I’m just going to fetch that and a few other things and I’ll be back.” Jungkook replies, giving a small wave before going back the way they came, closing the front door behind him.

Taehyung waits a few moments to be sure he’s gone before lunging for his phone.

“What Taehyungie?” Comes the groan as soon as the call connects and Taehyung is practically bouncing on his bed.

“Jiminie, stop cuddling Joon-hyung and listen up. I have so much to tell you, starting with how I saw a real life angel.”

_____

When Jungkook had gotten back with his cupboard, Taehyung had already finished telling Jimin (and Namjoon, who had decided he also wanted to know) about everything, he’d had a shower, got changed into his good™ jeans and one of his shirts that show off his collarbones, styled his hair and tidied up a little.

He was not getting caught off guard again. So what if he had to rush through his shower and not enjoy the heat like he usually does. At least he managed to also brush his teeth in the shower and got everything else done in time.

Sure, that may have been the fastest he’d ever gotten through all of that, and yeah he might have been out of breath, but at least he no longer looked like a hot mess.

And while a large part of his mind keeps reminding him that as his Landlord’s son, Jungkook should be off limits. An even bigger, louder part keeps going on about how this is a once in a lifetime Man-Angel™ and he’d be stupid to let him pass by.

The reaction from Jungkook, although small, was worth it though. When he came back and Taehyung opened the door, the way Jungkook’s eyes widened slightly and his neck flushed, made Taehyung all kinds of giddy.

Jungkook was quick to compose himself but Taehyung had seen it and that was enough.

As he left Jungkook to do what he needed, Taehyung shot him a grin and did a little wave, causing Jungkook to look a little flustered from the brightness of his smile, aka his secret weapon.

But when he returned home a couple hours later, fried chicken in hand as his Thank-You, he almost dropped said chicken when he walked in on Jungkook putting the last door on his new cupboard. Not because the cupboard was horrible, or because something bad had happened, it was all because Jungkook’s biceps were bulging from all the lifting and carrying he undoubtedly did and Taehyung’s poor heart almost stopped.

He managed to keep it together though and got through Jungkook cutely thanking him for the food, and them eating together while maintaining a friendly conversation.

It was only much later when Taehyung was already in bed that he realised that the new cupboard Jungkook had put together for him was almost double the size of the old one and had a full length mirror unlike the one he’d accidentally broken.

It’s safe to say that he went to bed grinning that night.

***

“Hi Mr Min, I’m sorry to call again so soon but my kitchen light seems to have fused and I was wondering if I could borrow a step-ladder to replace it?”

“No need, I’ll send Jungkook to sort it out, we already have the bulbs. Who is it for again?”

“Sorry, it’s Taehyung, on the third floor. You replaced my cupboard 2 weeks ago.” Taehyung sheepishly replies, raising an eyebrow when he hears what sounds like a cough trying to cover a laugh.

“Ohh that Taehyung. Yep, I’ll definitely send Jungkook to sort it out.” Mr Min answers before hanging up.

Taehyung stares at his phone momentarily in confusion before hovering his finger over the redial button, ready to call back and ask when to expect Jungkook when a text comes through.

From: Landlord

Kid will be there in 20.

A small yelp escapes Taehyung’s mouth as he drops his phone onto his kitchen counter, wasting no time racing around to tidy up as much as possible before Jungkook arrived.

He knows it’s probably useless and that someone as attractive as Jungkook is probably already taken or straight, but he can’t stop himself from at least trying.

Taehyung manages to tidy up with enough time to sit for a few minutes to catch his breath before there is knocking at his door that makes his stomach flip. He takes his time walking the few steps to his door, taking a deep breath before pulling it open and smiling at Jungkook.

“Taehyung-ssi, my dad said you needed some help with a light?” Are Jungkook’s first words to him and Taehyung can’t help but dislike the formality of his greeting.

“You already installed a new cupboard for me and had a meal with me. I think that means you can call me Taehyung.” Taehyung jokes, but he hopes Jungkook takes him up on his offer.

“Well then, you can call me Jungkook, Taehyung-hyung.” Jungkook replies with a sweet smile which Taehyung returns while stifling a giggle.

“Taehyung-hyung?”

Jungkook flushes at Taehyung’s amused expression, shrugging before responding.

“Dad has everyone’s information on file so I know that you’re older than me.”

“Oh really, so you looked at my file?” Taehyung teases and Jungkook’s flush deepens.

“N-no.” Jungkook clears his throat and tries again, “I mean, it’s only polite to know how to address you.”

A bunch of ways for how he’d like Jungkook to address him pops into his mind, but now is NOT the time for that. Taehyung mentally shakes his head to clear his thoughts before grinning at Jungkook.

“I’m just messing around with you. My name already has ‘hyung’ in it so just call me Taehyung and it’ll be like you’re calling me Tae-hyung, see? Sorted.”

With that Taehyung cocks his head in the direction of his kitchen and pushes off from where he was leaning on his door.

“Come on, kitchen is this way.”

He starts walking towards said kitchen and glances back once after hearing his door close to make sure Jungkook is following him.

He is.

When they get to his kitchen Taehyung points to the light that is no longer working, before hopping on to his kitchen counter to watch Jungkook work his handyman magic.

Jungkook takes that as his cue to go ahead and places the bulb next to Taehyung where it can’t roll off the counter and break, before opening the step-ladder and placing it under the light.

Just before he climbs the first step though he stops and turns to Taehyung.

“Is the switch off?”

Taehyung thinks about it for a second before nodding his head and replying with a ‘yup!’

Jungkook looks back and forth between Taehyung and the light and decides there is no harm in double checking. However he is wrong; because as soon as he goes to see that the switch is indeed off, Taehyung gasps, one hand held to his chest in shock.

“I can’t believe you don’t trust me!” Taehyung playfully yells and Jungkook is about to defend himself when he notices Taehyung’s cheeky grin.

Sighing in relief, he moves back to the step-ladder, climbing 2 of the 4 steps before reaching up to remove the old bulb.

“Sorry, but I don’t feel like getting shocked today.” Jungkook jokes as he climbs down the steps, placing the old bulb in his toolbox.

“So not today but some other time then?” Taehyung jokes back, handing the new bulb to Jungkook.

“More like never. I enjoy being alive.” Jungkook snorts in response, taking the new lightbulb from Taehyung before going up the 2 steps again to put it in.

“Well good, I like you being alive too.” Taehyung replies without thinking, his eyes going wide a few seconds later when he realises what he just said.

“You do?” Jungkook is quick to ask, eyes probably as wide as Taehyung’s.

“Yeah uh… because who would fix my cupboard or lights if you were gone?” Taehyung manages to respond, throwing in a fake laugh in the hopes that Jungkook won’t realise how terrible he is at lying.

“Oh yeah, totally.” Comes Jungkook’s reply as he chuckles weakly, both of them avoiding eye contact as they compose themselves.

It’s awkward as Jungkook folds up the step-ladder and Taehyung hops off his counter, and it doesn’t stop until they each mutter a ‘Goodbye’ and Taehyung closes his door.

Leaning his head against the cool surface of his door, Taehyung pulls his phone out of his pocket and hits speed dial 3, bringing his phone to his ear as he rubs a hand over his face.

“Why am I awful at even speaking to anyone attractive?” Taehyung groans into the receiver, turning around so his back is to his door which he uses to his advantage to slide down and sit on the floor.

“Start from the beginning and tell me what happened.” Comes Jimin’s response and Taehyung just sighs.

***

“Kook, I’m super sorry. You didn’t have to come here so late.”

Jungkook sighs at Taehyung’s greeting as he’d opened the door, just raising an eyebrow in response.

“Firstly, Kook? And secondly, you messaged my dad at 11:30pm on a Saturday night because your smoke detector magically broke? Of course he sent me because there is no way he will get out of bed once he is in bed unless his actual bed is on fire.” Jungkook is busy massaging his forehead so it’s only when he looks up does he realise that there are 3 people looking back at him instead of just Taehyung.

“Uhm, hi?”

“Hello” The other people reply in unison which makes Taehyung face palm.

“Firstly, just go with the nickname, I’m trying something. Secondly, I messaged your dad because it is 11:30pm on a Saturday so I didn’t want to disturb him by calling. I thought he would just reply in the morning, not send you right now. And thirdly, this is Namjoon-hyung and Jiminie, they’d both be hyung to you. They sometimes talk like that because they’ve been dating for so long they may as well be one person.” Taehyung gestures to Namjoon and Jimin as he introduces them, wincing when Jimin jabs him in the ribs.

“We’re cute okay?”

“Yes, the cutest.” Namjoon soothes Jimin while he sticks out a hand for Jungkook to shake. “Jungkook right?”

Dazed at the scene that he had just witnessed, Jungkook shakes his head to clear it before nodding and shaking Namjoon’s outstretched hand.

“Yup, that’s me. How do you know me?” Jungkook asks the tall, dark haired man whose hand he just shook and Namjoon and Jimin turn to smirk at each other, before Namjoon directs his at Jungkook and Jimin directs his at Taehyung.

“Oh, we know all about you because Taehyu-” Jimin is cut off by Taehyung’s hand covering his mouth as Taehyung smiles sheepishly.

“Ignore them, they were just leaving.” Taehyung emphasizes the word ‘leaving’, making Jimin roll his eyes before grabbing Namjoon’s hand and slipping past Jungkook to the elevator.

“Text me!” Jimin calls out once they are in the elevator.

“Only if you text me when you’re home safe.” Taehyung calls back.

This makes Jimin roll his eyes again, but the fond smile on his face tells a different story.

“You know I will you worrywart. Love you!”

“Love you too and I am not a worrywart!” Taehyung manages to get out before the elevator doors close and all that can be heard is Jimin’s muffled laugh as it descends.

“Sorry, where were we?” Taehyung turns his attention back towards a confused looking Jungkook who shakes his head a couple times to clear it again.

“Right, uh… broken smoke detector?” Jungkook responds and Taehyung let’s out an ‘ah’ before gesturing with his head for Jungkook to follow him.

They make their way to the one in Taehyung’s lounge and Jungkook stares at the detached smoke detector now laying on the floor before shooting Taehyung a pointed questioning look.

“I can explain.” Taehyung holds his hands out in defence as if Jungkook was ready to attack, which considering Jungkook was losing valuable sleep right now, didn’t seem too far of a possibility.

Jungkook waves his hand at the mess on the floor as if to say ‘Go on’ and Taehyung bites his lip before sighing.

“Myself, Joonie hyung and Jiminie were all hanging out and for some reason they started doing their weird couple play fighting and Jimin got up to run from Joonie who was trying to tickle him, but Joon grabbed him and then threw him over his shoulder, and so Jimin started flailing and accidentally hit the smoke detector with his foot and it came off. And yeah, Namjoon is tall enough to reach where it used to be without some form of step-ladder, but he is also even more prone to breaking things than I am so I messaged your dad so I could sort it out in the morning, and long story short; I basically need new friends.” Taehyung finished with a deep breath and Jungkook couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

The whole situation combined with him being tired just amused Jungkook and he carried on laughing to himself; even as he unfolded the step-ladder, picked up the smoke detector, climbed the ladder and reattached his reason for being woken up.

Taehyung pouted at his laughter at first but it was so sweet and contagious that he ended up joining in, and they were both still giggling even as Taehyung walked Jungkook back to his front door.

“I really am sorry that your dad made you come fix this now.” Taehyung apologised and Jungkook waved it off.

“It’s cool, I mean I would prefer to have been sleeping, but it’s a smoke detector so I had to make sure it would still be functional and at least I got a laugh out of it.”

“Okay well, thank you again Jungkookie, sleep well.” Taehyung smiled softly and Jungkook was so awestruck by it that he only managed to mumble back a ‘you too’ before Taehyung closed his door and he made his way back to the apartment he shared with his dad.

It was only once he was in bed that he realised what Taehyung had called him and it only took until the next morning for him to decide that he liked it.

***

“Kook, I need you to go fix something please.”

“Please don’t be for Taehyung, please don’t be for Taehyung, please don’t be for Taehyung.” Jungkook mutters under his breath as he walks to his dad’s office to see what he needs.

But as soon as he stops in the doorway, he knows who it’s for by the smirk on his dad’s face and the way he suggestively wiggles his eyebrows.

“Oh come on, again?” Jungkook all but yells, running his hand through his hair in frustration. “He’s been here for 4 months and I’ve already been to fix things there more times than some of the people that have lived here for 2 years!”

“Maybe he’s clumsy? All I know is that he’s a sweet kid, he pays his rent on time and doesn’t hassle me besides the occasional call or text to fix something.” His dad responds and Jungkook huffs out a sarcastic laugh before glaring at his dad.

“Occasional. Occasional? Yeah right, I’ve been there so often I could probably find my way around in the dark. And don’t try pretend this is anything more that trying to get him on your side because you saw he’s friends with Seokjin hyung.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about?” Yoongi feigns nonchalance towards his son before gesturing to the door. “Come now, don’t want to keep Taehyungie waiting. I already texted him to tell him you’re coming.”

“You text him?” Jungkook gapes and Yoongi just smirks before turning around in his desk chair to face his computer again.

“Don’t worry, as soon as you buck up the courage you could be texting him too. You can even save his contact with a heart next to his name.” His dad teases him and Jungkook grabs one of the throw pillows off the tiny couch in his dad’s office and proceeds to throw it at the back of his chair as he huffs and walks off.

“Ahh young love.” Is all Jungkook hears as he storms off, grabbing his tool belt, toolbox and the step-ladder as he stomps towards Taehyung’s apartment.

Might as well bring everything because he was too annoyed with his dad to actually ask what needed fixing this time. When he gets to Taehyung’s apartment he knocks harshly on his door 3 times, tapping his foot as he waits for the older to answer.

As soon as Taehyung opens the door Jungkook strides past him and goes straight towards the living room, setting his stuff down and starting to pace as he waits for Taehyung to join him.

“And hello to you too Jungkookie.” Are the first words out of Taehyung’s mouth and Jungkook loses it.

“Stop. Stop with the ‘Jungkookie’ or ‘Kookie’ or ‘Kook’. Stop with the stupidly bright, beautiful smiles of yours and buying me food or banana milk or anything as a Thank-You. Stop walking around in those bloody big shirts that show off your collarbones for the world to see and opening the door when you’re sleepy and look adorable as heck. Do you know how difficult it is for me? I have one job, one, to fix things for the people that live here and I used to love it because I’m good at it and it was helpful and they appreciated it. But then you had to move in with your nice laugh, deep voice, cute moles, and amazing personality and make it a million times harder for me to do my job. And I’m tired because you keep running through my mind all the damn time, which doesn’t help because I’m always busy fixing stuff, mainly for you, and I’ve have enough so can you please just stop.” Jungkook finished his rant with a deep breath and it only takes a couple seconds for what he said to sink in, but once it does he slaps his hand over his mouth and goes bright red.

Taehyung stares at him with his mouth hanging open before he smiles and takes a step towards a blushing Jungkook.

“Did you just confess to me, by yelling at me?” Taehyung asks and Jungkook gulps.

“Uhm, no?”

“You don’t seem so sure about that?” Taehyung is grinning now as he takes another step towards Jungkook and Jungkook takes one back.

“Uhhhh…” Is all Jungkook can get out as Taehyung keeps taking steps forward and he keeps taking steps back. That is until his back hits the wall and he has nowhere else to go.

“Jungkookie, do you like me?” Taehyung asks, caging him in with his arms.

“Uhhh… mayhaps.” Jungkook stumbles over his words, his mind not being able to work properly with Taehyung so close.

“Mayhaps?” Taehyung repeats, raising an eyebrow.

“I started to say maybe and then changed my mind to perhaps, and then it just came out like that.”

Taehyung grins even more at Jungkook’s explanation, watching as Jungkook flushes all over again.

“Well Jungkook, mayhaps I like you too. Mayhaps the reason you kept having to come here to fix things was partially because I wanted to see you and partially because my friends and I can be clumsy at times. And mayhaps I would really like it if I could kiss you?” Taehyung is now blushing as he finally admits his feelings to the Man-Angel™ that is Jungkook, which seems to be enough to snap Jungkook out of his daze.

“Mayhaps I would like to kiss you too.” Jungkook murmurs back before leaning in and softly pressing his lips against Taehyung’s.

***

“So let me get this straight, my son confessed to you by yelling at you?” Yoongi asks as he stares at Jungkook and Taehyung who sit across from him in the little café next to their apartment building.

“Yup.” Taehyung replies, his signature, boxy grin on his face.

“And then you kissed?”

“Yup.” This time it’s Jungkook who replies, blushing as he answers his dad.

“And now you two are boyfriends?” Is Yoongi’s final question and Taehyung and Jungkook glance at each other before facing him and answering in unison.

“Indeed.”

“Fucking finally!” Yoongi almost yells, his own smile making its way onto his face. “If I had to go one more day hearing Jungkook whine about ‘why is Taehyung’s smile so pretty’ or ‘I wish I could hold Tae’s hand’ I would have probably just come and confessed for him.”

Jungkook has gone red from his neck all the way to the tips of his ears by now because of his dad’s teasing, but he has a determined look on his face that Yoongi doesn’t notice until it’s too late.

“Oh really dad? I was bad? Should I go on about how you walk around mumbling to yourself ‘how can someone be as handsome as Kim Seokjin’ or ‘do you think Seokjin-ssi remembers me? Maybe I should tip extra big next time so he will’.”

“Jungkook-” Yoongi warns but Jungkook just ignores him in favour of continuing to tease his dad.

“’I wonder if Seokjin-ssi is eating well’, ‘its cold today, I hope Seokjin-ssi is warm’, ‘Seokjin-ssi really has the prettiest lips, I’d love to-” Yoongi reaches forward to slap his hand over his son’s mouth but it’s too late.

“You’d really love to what, Mr Min?” The Owner of the café, Kim Seokjin, had walked up behind Yoongi while Jungkook was teasing his dad and Yoongi stiffens.

“Uhh, nothing Seokjin-ssi, just ignore my BRAT of a son.” Yoongi stutters out and Seokjin shakes his head, pulling out the last open seat at their table and sitting down.

“Nonsense, I think I’d quite like to know what Jungkookie was going to say, although I have a feeling I already know.” Seokjin winks at Jungkook before turning to flash a smile at Yoongi who has now frozen in his seat.

“Dinner, tomorrow night, you’re cooking and maybe we can finish that thought you had that Jungkookie was talking about. Also, men who think I’m handsome, pretty and worry about my well-being, get to call me Jin.” Jin smiles at Yoongi again before standing up and pushing his chair back in.

This action causes Yoongi to ‘defrost’ and turn to catch Jin’s arm before he walks away.

“Yoongi… You can call me Yoongi, that’s my name.” Yoongi manages to get out and Jin shoots him one last bright smile before walking away, only stopping once to look back and respond with a wink.

“I know.”

Just that small interaction has Yoongi smiling his bright, gummy smile that Jungkook wishes he could see more often, although he has a feeling he’ll be seeing a lot of it soon.

“Man, your cousin really is something TaeTae.” Jungkook laughs, nudging Taehyung’s side softly.

“Cousin?” Yoongi snaps his attention back to the boys in front of him and their eyes widen at the same time.

“Uhhh…”

Fin.

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