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yandere-sins · 1 day

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A yandere with a darling who is kinda worse than they are but are still into it.....I don't know how unhinged you'd have to be for the yan to be like "Are you ok? Like if you need to talk about it I've put listening devices in the vents but still..."

I didn't want this to go into compliant darling territory or the darling being the yandere for someone else (though I did laugh a lot at the idea of telling the darling that the vents are bugged just in case they need it lol that's a good one). But this somewhat brought me a kind of different idea which you probably didn't intend, but I hope you like it all the same!

Warnings: Yandere, Violence (Descriptive acts of murder, stabbing, punching other people, breaking bones, getting bloody, a lot of blood actually, burying bodies), Sexual Content (Mentioning of non-con, dub-con, taking advantage, doing it in the blood of victims and next to dead bodies), Mentioning of drugs, Mentioning of knives, Patient/Doctor relationships, Murderer/Admirerer relationships, Reader is a serial killer, Yandere captures people for reader to kill, Yandere is also mad but so is reader, Reader doubts yandere's reasons for liking them, Reader is genderneutral but gets lifted into a bridal-style at the end, I once again didn't compile these warnings while writing and editing so I might miss some, sorry :(, Mentioning of wanting to throw up, Reader doesn't actually want to get better, it was different but really fun to write, Long post?, I feel like there are more warnings... but I can't remember anymore, if you made it this far and still want to read it, I hope you enjoy it!

»»———————— ♡ ————————««

Click

You sighed, holding your head in your hands, arms squeezed between your torso and legs. Your head was throbbing with the headache of the century. One you hadn't had in a long time... like five days.

"You're a fucking dick, you know that?"

Groaning, you heard your own voice echo through your dizzy brain, nausea building as you felt like you were on a ship, everything moving unsteadily around you. The blinding lights flooding the off-white room didn't help soothe the feeling either, and your whole body kept tensing up, readying itself to throw up. You tried deep breaths, but they barely did anything. Not like they ever did something. You were too far gone for that.

"I did what was necessary," his voice rang out through the speaker in the top left corner, accompanied by the screeching of technical issues. You whined loudly, tearing your hair out as your head felt like it would burst. "My bad," he added, turning down the volume.

"What was it this time? Double the dose, triple? Must you keep drugging me? Some doctor you are..."

"I tried something new," he admitted, a cheeky grin in his voice.

"Worked great..." you slurred, listening to him chuckle.

For a while, you gave in to the need to collapse, putting your arm over your eyes to escape the lights while you thought about the last few things you could remember. Therapy was going well... at least that's what you were told. But the nurses—ugh. That one bitch.

"She did it on purpose," you mumbled, hearing the softest of agreement through the speaker. You knew that if it wasn't against regulation, he'd be sitting next to you, brushing your hair out of the way while you'd tell him your woes. He was that kind of sicko. A doctor, yet fascinated with you, his patient. Even though he merely sat behind the cameras, watching you, you could hear the sickening affection he held for only his favorite patient in every one of his words.

In a way, he wasn't that different from you.

"You beat her up real good, smashed her face in. Got yourself into a frenzy and just tore open all your stitches from your last fight while you were at it, you really..."

He sighed. He was disappointed. Upset. This was a significant setback for him, too, after all.

"She called me too stupid to ever recover properly and I was trying this time, really! How else should I have reacted?"

"You could have told me."

"And you would have dealt with her how?"

A brief chuckle rang out before he replied, although, had you been less delirious, you wouldn't have needed to ask. You knew what he did to people who behaved poorly with you. "I would have taken care of her, as always. You know you have my unending support."

You couldn't help a smile creeping over your face, the memory of burying the last nurse who bothered you in the asylum's cemetary resurfacing. Digging out the grave had been hard work, but you had to agree with him that the physical labor did wonders to soothe your ever-agitated mind.

"You're terrible," you mumbled, unable to hide your smile.

"Ah! There it is! Look at those little dimples! I'm glad my services are appreciated by my darling. I was hoping to take you out on a rendevous once the dust settles. Maybe we can do that sooner than I expected."

"Who'd want that, you sicko."

Groaning, you finally sat up, looking down at the cushioned floor while you adjusted to being awake. Standing took a few attempts; the cushions aligned along the wall, not actually graspable, even if they looked like it. Everything about the solitary cell was so safe, it made you feel helpless. But eventually you managed to get to your wobbly feet, sighing in exhaustion once you stood.

"There you go, breaking my heart," he sighed, and you shook your head with a laugh, knowing he didn't mean it.

"No straight jacket this time?" you asked, raising your arms and, for the first time since you awoke, realizing your movements were unrestraint.

"You weren't in a condition to restrain you. I prioritized your healing over that awful jacket."

"You just don't like it because it does nothing for my figure."

Again, you heard the grin in his voice as he said, "Busted. You're too cute to walk around constrained. Even though I love how crazy you look with it."

"Sicko..." you mumbled, your nickname for your doctor, endearing only in his ears.

Your limbs were terribly heavy as you moved them towards the door. Part of you wanted to collapse on the ground again; simply pass out where you were. But knowing him, he'd definitely use the opportunity to take advantage of you, especially now that he could get a video of it.

You didn't always mind what your doctor did to you. In a way, he was helpful even if everything you two did was against any laws in this country. If anyone knew what you two were getting into when no one was looking, you'd both be put down like rabid dogs. But that's just how you two were—feral.

The sicko kept telling you how he'd get you back on track. How he'd "fix" you just enough so you could go home with him. There was no way you'd consider living with him if you ever did get out. Still, he liked to paint the picture whenever he crawled into your bed while on night duty, hugging you and telling you about his ideas. You told him often enough that, given the chance, you'd kill him outside the safety of this institution, but so far... you hadn't.

You had enough chances, enough people he let you murder, watching you while you did it and helping you to hide the bodies once you were satisfied, but you never once turned the knife on him. Maybe it was because of his studies; perhaps he knew more about you than you about yourself. Or it was because he was just as insane. Fucking your patient in the blood of their victims was definitely not normal, even you knew that. So what other reason could he have for it except insanity?

"Earth to my darling, I repeat: Are you thirsty?"

You felt the heat spread over your face as you felt called out by his question, almost as if he was reading your mind. It wasn't like you two were lovers. There was no chance in hell you'd get together with someone like him—or anyone for that matter. You didn't want the burden of someone clinging to you while you did your dirty work.

But the sex after releasing all your pent-up anger? Out of this world.

Perhaps his doctorate was in fucking instead of psychiatry, but he knew how to work every part of his body. And he knew just how to get you in the mood, too. An explosive combination, mixing his lust with your madness.

That didn't change much about your feelings for him, though.

"I'm not," you muttered, trying to hide your face, which probably showed the embarrassment you felt, thinking of the last romp you two had. You tried the deep breaths again, but the thoughts kept popping back into your mind. Must be the drugs, you thought.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Of course!"

His excitement was loud and clear as it rang through the microphone, and you weren't sure if you should smile at it or sneer. For some reason, you both held each other in a tight grip, unable to be separated, yet most likely toxic for each other. But he still got excited over any kind of interest you had in him and you about all the things he did so you could live out your best life—even though you were locked away for a reason.

"Why me?" you asked, standing in front of the door, not looking up. Even if he was just the voice behind a camera at the moment, somehow, this question left a bad taste in your mouth. You didn't want him to see the conflict on your face; didn't want him to know that you were doubting how deserving you were of his favor. It wasn't insecurity, wasn't a need for reassurance, but how could anyone look at you and think, "That's the one!"? You killed people, went into violent rages, and weren't considered safe enough to be reintegrated into society, probably ever again. There was nothing you had to show for yourself. Nothing that could justify the feeling of adoration your own therapist held for you. Especially not he. He should have been one of the good ones. And you weren't. It made no sense to you why he'd behave like he did.

"Why you what?"

"Why do you like me so much? I mean, come on! I mean, look at us! We're batshit crazy! This isn't some romance movie on television, we're actually doing bad shit, and yet you keep shielding me, doing me favors, telling me you love me. I'm sure there are others out there who you can fix and fuck if you like. It's not like..."

Biting your own tongue, you wondered if it was the new drug combo he tried on you that made you feel especially irritated with his feelings that day. You let him do all this stuff to and with you, but now you were getting weirded out by it? It wasn't like you to get so worked up over him; you were more of the cool type, spitting-in-his-face-type if he pissed you off. You didn't even want to validate his feelings for you, but also... being self-aware enough to know you were a danger to humankind, you couldn't shake the feeling he might just be using you for his own sick desires. And that made you angry again. You'd not be a pawn or a means for no one.

Click

"Wow, okay, you bastard." Your grumbling fell on deaf ears as he turned off the microphone. "Sure, I'm going through something here, but by all means, stop listening. Not like it's your job or anything..."

Unprepared, you jolted back as the door to your cell suddenly yanked open, revealing the pitch-black corridor that lay behind. Apparently, it was late at night, but you couldn't focus on that as your doctor appeared from the shadows, a deep frown etched into his beautiful face. He should have been a model. At least that job wouldn't have led him to meet you.

"Do you doubt me?" he asked, stalking forward, undeterred by the open door, not thinking for a second that you'd try to escape. "Do I need a reason to love you for you to believe it?"

He caught your chin between his fingers, tilting your head back as he matched the steps you were taking backward. Soon, you'd run out of space to back into, but perhaps that was his goal.

"Can't I just love you because the first time you caved in and told me about the things you went through, things just felt... right? Everything just clicked in my head, and I thought, "Wow, I want to see them happy!" Must there be any other reason for me to love you?"

Your back hit the wall just as his eyes lowered to your lips, his thumb reaching up to brush over them. "I dream about those lips. I can't help but think about you no matter where I go. In the evening, I imagine you curled up on the couch next to me; sometimes, I hear your laugh when you aren't even there. I want that picture-perfect life with you, but the moment I step into your room and see you covered in blood, your eyes showing just how far gone you are, it just..."

He looked up again, his eyes swirling with all the emotions he tried to convey in his words. But when he met your gaze, the color drained, leaving behind what you could only describe as pure, unfiltered madness.

"It drives me insane."

His second hand raised to the side of your face. He cupped your cheek in his palm for a moment, a soft smile creeping over his lips. "I like you like this. Docile, calm, sweet. I like it when you ask me things, I like it when you beg for something. I like it when you only let me do things to you. I want to help you, I do! But..."

His hand sliding down, you looked away, trying to catch it before it slipped around your throat, pressing into it, squeezing so hard you felt as if your head was going to detach from your neck.

"I want to ruin you. I want you worse, I want you deranged. I want you to kill everyone and then me, so I'll be the last of your victims, the only one you remember. I want to be ruined by you so badly that every day, I hope you tell me about yet another staff member we get to kill, and then you can use me to satisfy your needs. Can't you understand? This is love. No one will ever love someone like you, but. I. do. I understand you, I care for you. And I will continue to do so, with no other reason than I love you. I love you so much."

You gasped for air at this point, fingers grabbing his arm. It was hard listening to him, but it was harder to breathe. You knew he wouldn't kill you. This was nothing compared to other things you two did to each other. It stung a little when he said no one else would ever love you, but he was right. Not unless the change everyone expected from you was also something you wanted.

But why would you?

The pressure on your throat disappeared, only for your breath to be stolen by his kiss. You hated this man. You hated him because he was a little bit too much like you. Too unhinged to be likable. And at the same time, he wasn't at all. He was too supportive, too nice, too forgiving. It disgusted you, honestly. Yet, you reciprocated, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood. Before he could back off, you caught his cheeks in a squeeze between your fingers to draw him back to lick off the red fluid, reminding him he wasn't the deranged one here.

"Don't question me again about my feelings, please," he asked, out of breath, too, as he bumped his forehead against yours. "I love you, I really do."

"You're a sicko, you know that? And your beard is stinging me, you should shave."

At this, he laughed out loud, raising his head to the ceiling. "I spent three days waiting for you to wake up. You can deal with some stubble."

"No, I don't like it."

Grinning, he lowered his face to you and gave you another peck on the lips. "It's gone tomorrow, I promise."

"Can I go back to my room now?"

He hummed thoughtfully before shaking his head. "Someone's awaiting their punishment still. You really want to miss out on that?"

Now it was your turn to grin as well. "Aww, you shouldn't have! Are we gonna cut up that bitch now? For real?"

"Anything for you," he mumbled, raising your hand to give it a quick smooch. "But let me change your bandages first. I don't want you to accidentally get sepsis if your wounds are still open."

"Surprisingly, you're still a doctor at heart."

"That's not true," he gasped, feigning indignation about your statement.

"Are you not?" you asked, watching him bend down to pick you up, bridal-style even. You weren't mad since your legs felt even weaker than before, and you really wanted to conserve your energy.

"I'm afraid it's no longer medicine that has claimed my heart."

He looked at you, smiling softly. "It's all you."

"And I can't help but love you more, realizing I am becoming more like you every day."

#yandere doctor #yandere!doctor #yandere therapist #yandere!therapist #yandere #yandere imagines #yandere headcanons #yandere scenarios #yandere fanfiction #yandere writing #yandere stories #yandere oneshots #yandere oneshot #yandere drabble #yandere x reader #yandere x darling #Yandere TW

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bambi-slxt · 17 hours

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vampire!triplets:

✨a concept✨

crack/smut lmao

nick is Not A Fan™ of his new life.

"the fact that i have to drink- to consume another being's blood, just to survive, is fucking ridiculous."

but when the urges overtake him he goes fucking feral.

matt doesn't feel very strongly about it. his need for blood is an annoyance, sure, but he knows there are options.

matt begins to frequent an affluent BDSM dungeon, where people have a heightened understanding of consent (which he always asks for) and are more likely to enjoy pain, thus making his meals much easier and actually enjoyable for all parties involved.

"it just makes the most sense, it's literally the obvious solution."

he always was the smartest of the brothers.

chris is. something else. he wants to feed all the time.

chris's first meal was a girl he pulled into the bathroom, kissing her lips and cheek like a man starved, slipping his hand up her skirt while she wrapped her legs around him.

he bit down on her neck and plunged his fingers into her pussy at the same time.

"listen," he said, trying and failing to wipe away his blood-stained smirk with the back of his hand, "it's not the worst thing in the world."

nick has many conflicting things to say about his new condition.

car video, filmed at 2:21 am on a friday: "i mean i don't go out in the sunlight enough to really be bothered by that, so who gives a fuck?"

kickback at Tara's, exactly 10 hours later: "if i have to put another squirt of sunscreen on my skin, i'm dropping a motherfucker from the rooftops."

"squirt was crazy."

matt forms friendships with some of his more willing victims partners and a surprisingly close bond occurs between him and one of his edgier girls.

"do you like how i make you feel?" he purred, swiping a droplet of blood from her neck and letting her suck his finger, cradling her head against his chest. "that's how you taste. you taste like life."

chris discovered his body could withstand much more pain and ran with it - literally.

"I CALL THIS ONE THE FLYING PTERODACTYL-"

"i didn't think the motherfucker would drop himself from the rooftops."

request to be on the taglist here

tags: @pinksturniolo @malirosee @st7rnioioss @nonat-111 @cindylcuwho @evie-sturns

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comradekatara · 3 days

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i read somewhere that, after the war, zuko at least hands hama over to the swt instead of keeping her in fire nation prisons 'till the end of her life. Which is nice, I think. But I'm also curious as to how that would work out.

Most notably: how do you think it'd go down if she were to meet Pakku? given they both have some sort of connection to kanna's life, the idea of them being forced to interact even once entertains me very much. like, old waterbending master pakku—white lotus member—who has grown up in a patriarchal society and actively forbidden women from training to fight, under the precedent they are somehow ontologically weaker, fragile, and belonging in the healing huts... THAT guy, meeting his former fiancé's old friend: (or current wife's if you go by canon, which, eugh) A woman who not only fought in the front lines but ended up becoming one of the most skilled, creative, and deadly waterbenders in history. How would he react when finding out that a woman came up with blood bending? How badly would Hama mind-fuck him?? Because I'm confident they'd hate each other's guts-- no way she'd tolerate him,,,

And on a similar note—how would Kanna feel upon reuniting wirh Hama and discovering what she put Katata through, in your opinion? Idk, I'm just full of puppetmaster thoughts today. Hama is incredibly interesting and I wish she wasn't handled so much like a Halloween Specisl creepy witch, (even though katara herself is handled and written pretty well in this episode, i think. but i digress.)

i mean obviously i think about this all the time. i personally think that zuko hands hama over to the swt upon katara's request, and she and aang personally deliver her on appa (sokka is not there, for the very deliberate reason that if he knew what they were doing he would very vocally disapprove). and so katara is sort of retraumatizing herself by doing this, but she also feels like it's necessary specifically because she needs to be able to look hama in the eye and tell her why they're not actually the same (especially now that she actually did bloodbend someone in cold blood). katara has the love and support and safety to step back from her anger and her pain and her grief and hang onto her own humanity and allow herself to be the bigger person even in moments of abject rage and acute trauma, and hama doesn't. hama is a victim of her circumstance, and that's part of what makes her so uniquely terrifying to katara, because katara has that same capacity to make people hurt, she has the same tools at her disposal, and she has the same justifications to exercise that power. but unlike hama, she hasn't actually been pushed past her limits. sometimes she can see the cliff's edge, and sometime she even teeters on the line, but hama was fully just shoved off without a parachute, and that's really what separates them above all. i think katara should be allowed to acknowledge that and forgive herself for that, even if hama doesn't directly apologize to her (although in my mind she does, and it's not enough, but it's also so much more than katara ever expected to hear). even if it is too late for hama, katara deserves to heal.

frankly, i don't really give a shit about pakku or his reaction to hama. i also don't actually think that he thinks woman are ontologically incapable of being talented waterbenders of whatever; he's a pretty worldly guy, the reason he clings to these traditions isn't born of the belief that they're grounded in logical evidence like sokka's is, it's because he believes in the preservation of a system that benefits and valorizes him. pakku thinks katara belongs in the healing huts because he comes from a culture that dictates that women belong in the healing huts. like, he might also subscribe to the bioessentialist logic that women are better healers and men are being fighters, but that honestly doesn't really matter, because (unlike sokka) his epiphany lies not in the fact that woman can fight, but in the fact that his role in upholding these systems has actively driven his loved ones away due to his cruelty. he decides to be kinder, to women and in general, because he realizes that being an asshole has negative consequences. but frankly, who cares what he thinks of hama. realizing that your sister tribe in the south deserves aid and protection after being subjected to a century of genocide is kind of too little too late imo. unlike katara, sokka, aang, or kanna, who can approach this situation from the perspective of being a genocide survivor who even remotely understands hama's trauma, pakku really has no place in this conversation to me.

as for kanna...... god. hama/kanna reunion is genuinely one of the most heart-wrenching concepts to me in all of atla. as a sidenote, hama/kanna fanfic goes so hard every time. there's a total of like 15 fanfics for them on ao3 (last i checked) but they're all sooooooo. fucking delicious. tide locked........... ugh. anyway. i cannot fathom kanna's reaction upon learning that her closest friend once upon a time is not only alive, but also a convicted felon, for crimes including but not limited to manipulating her granddaughter, violating her (and sokka's) bodily autonomy in cruel and perverse ways, and forcing her to participate in that mode of violence in a way that traumatized her forever. even if you don't read them as former lovers (although it is indubitably better that way) it's so gut-churning. kanna lost so many people over the course of her life, and to learn that one of them has returned but in the worst way possible must be mind-boggling and distinctly unreal. like how do you even process that. first, how do you process how much pain she must have went through to become the kind of person who is capable of doing this, and then, how do you process the knowledge that the person you once loved most in the world irreparably hurt the person you now love most in the world? obviously she would always prioritize katara's safety over anyone else's no matter what, but god. kanna has led such a fascinating and impossibly difficult life, and it's not over yet.

#kallianthi #asks #analysis #postwargaang #hama #katara #pakku #kanna #hamaxkanna #hama&katara #also i didn't mention it in the post itself bc i've talked about it before but yeah i very much agree that i wish hama had been framed #differently because i do feel like making her into a cackling witch kind of undermines the whole point of the episode #she's someone who is deserving of our empathy and understanding despite her violence and by reducing her into a caricature #we lose that nuance #but otherwise it's such a fascinating episode....#kataraaa.... katara i love you katara <33333

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aleksanderscult · 3 days

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“I think sometimes people want to be told who is good and who is bad. They want it to be very clear, with some definitive line. I believe that the people who are the most dangerous are not the people who enter your life wearing a sign saying “I’m a bad guy”, and they’re not the people who are missing a nose like Voldemort. They’re the people who are charming and manipulative and also probably carrying their own wounds, their own baggage. They can be brooding and beautiful and be monstrous. That’s what I was setting out to show with the Darkling.”

- Leigh Bardugo

Generally, she's not wrong here. In real life that's how the bad guys mostly are and there are even real life examples (like Josef Mengele) who used charm and lies to fulfill their own cruel purposes.

But with the Darkling it fails because he has a selfless goal and was never a self-centred character. She presented a character that has lived for hundreds of years, witnessed first hand a genocide that was still ongoing by the start of the trilogy and is one of the victims of this persecution.

It's very easy to judge with your finger while sitting at the comfort of your house but when you are being hunted for powers that you are born with, when they cut you to pieces like a guinea pig, when they burn you alive to pyres and when there is no safe place on Earth to stay, rest easy and live then the terms "good deeds" and "bad deeds" feel unimportant in the face of survival.

And the Darkling felt responsible to try and save thousands of them. He felt that with his near immortality and power he could do something to shift things on a large scale.

And how can things like that change?

With big decisions.

But, alas, these same decisions needed to be cruel and therefore condemned him to be seen as evil and a monster.

So even though her view is not wrong, she tried to present it with the wrong character whose goal was sympathetic and incredibly difficult to fulfill since he was surrounded by people that didn't want him and hated his guts.

#and as for his “manipulative methods” she never properly fleshed them out #Alina spent very few scenes with the Darkling and the book needed to be longer #it's like she has good ideas but has no clue how to present them #and that's why she also fails as a decent writer in my eyes #the darkling #pro darkling #leigh bardugo #aleksander morozova #pro aleksander morozova #shadow and bone #grishaverse trilogy #grishaverse

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atopvisenyashill · 3 days

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seeing how some greens act like rhaenyra being groomed by her uncle, and subsequently being unable to let go of him, is HER personal failure turned me into a rhaenyra extremist when i simply enjoyed her character beforehand.

im really glad you're speaking about it because even though it's fiction, it still perpetuates a very dangerous rhetoric

wait this gives me an excuse to ramble, pls excuse me if i phrase things maybe a little crassly here, it’s a delicate topic i’m speaking indelicately about but also, i think i should be allowed bc [redacted] BUT-

obviously i don’t like, love, some of the changes to the show but i think the first half does a great job of setting it up to where you can see both alicent and rhaenyra are surrounded exclusively by much older men who want to fuck them, and have just no way of knowing who is being genuine with them. because no one is really! so you have episode 4, where alicent is sleeping in a room with pornographic art on the wall and being called to her husband’s bed and she can’t say no, and he’s not going to do anything to make the whole thing even marginally easier for her. and then you have rhaenyra, pulled from her bed by her uncle to a brothel, and she’s completely exposed, and she’s experiencing new things, and he’s purposefully trying to make this feel good but also overwhelming for her, then abandons her drunk & confused & half naked. this is The Same Thing - they’re both being used and manipulated by a much older man, but because that manipulation looks different, they react different. but it’s still manipulation.

yes, the type of abuse is different when it’s like, your ugly ancient grandpa grooming you vs a handsome 30 year old stranger you met online that you tell all your high school friends is your boyfriend, but ultimately, both the grandpa and the 30 year old boyfriend are abusers but more importantly, the granddaughter and the high schooler are both victims!!! i think a lot of people when analyzing this whole thing, will pin daemon as a groomer but then completely forget that this also makes rhaenyra a victim. some people will even hee hee haw haw over it because “oh your feminist icon would rather marry her groomer uncle than her gay cousin in the book” DO YOU HEAR YOURSELF. could it possibly be that rhaenyra prefers daemon to laenor because daemon has manipulated her into thinking she is only free with him? she is only safe with him?? could it possibly be that he has been giving her gifts and taking physical liberties with her for her whole life, and being the Good Cop, Sweet Confidant to her parents Bad Cop her whole life, that she feels taken in by him because he is all she knows???? in the same vein that alicent just swallows all the poison and bullshit from otto because that’s her father, and his protection is all she knows????

honestly part of like ~the discourse~ that’s most frustrating is that most greens just refuse to see rhaenyra’s pov or see that she’s also a grooming victim grasping for power to protect her own children, again just like alicent, but on the flip side, most of the analysis from the blacks side is like “if you think nyra is a victim of grooming you are just as bad as the people calling her a whore for having children out of wedlock” and like, how do you even engage with that. with either of those opinions. you can’t wksjd so if youre, ya know, like a normal fucking person who can see how both girls are being manipulated, but you have like a fondness for nyra specifically, it’s just constant bad takes. there’s nowhere to go to escape the bad takes.

i thought we had already hashed out this idea that being aware or unaware of your victimhood doesn’t suddenly mean you’re not being oppressed during the main show with arya and sansa but no, we’ve actually just taken this exact same annoying fandom discourse about which teenage girl is dealing with being abused in the most acceptable way and made it a thousand times worse.

#and like the ~analysis~ side will be like ‘nyra is a dumb bitch for trusting daemon’ but if you said that about ali and larys you’d get shot #and i’m not even exaggerating the way people talk about her it’s always this ‘she should have known better’ HOW #if u get that ali couldn’t have ever known better when it comes to her own kids. why does this not apply to nyra.#perhaps………….it is bc you cannot concieve of her as anything but the aggressor.#asks #anons

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suempu · 1 day

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II. small things you do for them

part I

characters: kabru, rin, mickbell, namari, shuro

kabru. although he’s all calm and collected, his room is messy as hell. you frequently scold him for it while helping him tidy it up. the landlord once heard you from upstairs and started to join in on the lecturing. kabru can only smile sheepishly and kiss the scowl on your face as you pick up the random clothes on his bedroom floor while he sweeps.

rin. when she’s off practicing spells in her own time, you peel and cut slices of fruit for her to eat when she takes a break from training. on afternoons you can find her in the fields, wand in hand, murmuring small incantations. you sit under the shade of a nearby tree with apple slices, berries, and her favorite dried fruit.

mickbell. he takes naps in the most random places, while he usually uses kuro as a pillow, you’re also one of his victims. sometimes he just craves to be soothed, and the way you pat and rub his back without making him feel stupid scratches an itch in him. don’t tell the others though, he’s defensive about showing his vulnerable side.

namari. whenever she comes back from a rough crawl through the dungeon, she usually goes to the tavern to relax and drink. but lately she’s been lessening her visits since you keep her at home to make her spare ribs. she sighs in content, happy and satisfied that she got to enjoy her favorite food made by her favorite person.

shuro. he’s easily stressed, sometimes even ignoring his own health and needs. you remind him to eat his meals and encourage him by pinching his ears and dragging him to the table. he’s a stubborn man, what do you expect? you basically have to force him to listen to his body’s needs and throw him into the nearest pool of water just to make him bathe. he thinks you’re scarier than maizuru because of this.

#kabru of utaya #rinsha fana #mickbell #namari #shuro #dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #kabru x reader #rinsha fana x reader #mickbell x reader #namari x reader #shuro x reader #delicious in dungeon x reader #dungeon meshi x reader #dunmeshi x reader

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total-feminism-takes · 2 days

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I might get flamed a bit for this but… I do genuinely believe this fandom has a bit of a misogyny problem when it comes to sierra.

Now I understand that there’s absolutely no justification for almost all of her actions and what she did to Cody is beyond disgusting. However, it irks me so much that Cody isn’t held to the same standard. “Oh but what Cody did to Gwen can’t even begin to compare to what sierra did to him!” True, but you gotta remember that regardless of Cody’s victim status he still did some really creepy shit. The two things I want to highlight in particular are Cody’s actions in the Amazon and Jamaica episodes- first off, cody flashed his privates at Gwen; she genuinely believed he had underwear on and let her use his x ray glasses knowing she was gonna see his dick without warning if she did and didn’t even try to stop her. He also took a photo of himself getting in her personal space while she was asleep which led to her hand getting seriously burned. Again, sierras numerous violations of Cody have no excuse but it does feel like there’s a big misogyny factor when there are people who will straight up block you for saying anything remotely positive about sierra or coderra because she’s a “predator” yet have Cody as one of their favorites claiming that he’s some precious person who’s completely innocent.

Also with how many people claim that sierra is a bad character because “she’s nothing without Cody.” Sierra has a lot to her character- namely her hyperfixation on the show and how she’s incredibly knowledgeable about all things total drama. I do agree that they should have utilized this trait more but sierra isn’t just some damsel in distress like the fandom makes her out to be, she’s an incredibly intelligent force to be reckoned with and uses her intensive TD knowledge to absolutely kill it in some challenges. There’s plenty of male TD characters who don’t have much going for them aside from their one (1) gimmick or their love interest yet I don’t ever really see this type of complaint made about them.

-🐈

- 🧡

#total feminism takes #total drama #mod emma #td sierra #td cody #td gwen #cat anon(?)#is that right?

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lotte22324 · 2 days

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Hi, this is my first Oneshot ever and I am kinda nervous for yall to see it. This idea randomly popped into my head, I don’t know why.

Also, English is not my first language, so please ignore the mistakes.

Warnings: mentioning of the case and connected SA (but only in the beginning)

Summary: You are a profiler at the BAU. You specialise in linguistic analysis and also in having a pretty cutsie style. You and Spencer are both working late on a case and his stupid long hair annoys him but you luckily got some hairclips with you :)

(These are the bows that I am talking about btw)

You and the team were on the way to Cleveland, attending to a particularly disturbing case. Multiple mutilated victims were found, all indicated signs of sexual assault, post mortem. All of them were women but none of them looked alike. The only thing that they had in common were the position in which they were found. They all were layed down carefully with their arms crossed above their chest.

"The arms are a sign of remorse right?“

"Yeah, it’s clear that the killer has a conflicted conscience in the connection to the murders.“ said Reid. You turned your head to the right side to see your fellow profiler. His hair was long, longer than ever before, he was wearing a purple dress shirt with s simple tie. His converse were matching to yours, the only thing in common with your wardrobe. You were wearing a skyblue blouse with a dark blue pair of pants. The outfit was professional, the hair not so much. You wore two hairclips in the front of your hair because they would often fall in front of your face which annoyed you. The clips had two pink bows attached to them and they matched your pink earrings and nails.

"If the unsub feels guilty about the murders, we might be able to convince him to give himself up“ remarked JJ. Emily looked at her skeptical and held up the letter that the unsub left at the last crime scene, one of six: She will never stop, only I can fix it! "This says otherwise“

"It is weird that he shows signs of remorse but he also seems extremely certain of his resason to murder, what does he need to fix?“ asked Reid while he knitted his eyebrows together, like he always did when he was thinking. It looked too cute, you couldn’t stop the smile creeping up on your face. "Linguistically, it’s clear that the "she“ that he speaks of is one specific person, probably some sort of authority figure for him, probably a mother“ you remarked. Hotchner nodded his head, a plan already in mind. "Y/l/n you will do a linguistic profile, try to find a pattern or identification marks in all of the letters. Reid, look at the geographical pattern, the locations where the bodies were found might give us a clue where the unsub lives. Morgan and Rossi, you two go to the last crime scene, Emily, you and I will interview the families. Lets catch this guy!“

„I guess your stuck with me at the precinct, pretty boy!“ you said playfully to Reid but all he did was blush and turn his head awkwardly to the side. Morgan shoot him a knowing look but you didn’t think about it too much.

Later that evening, you and Reid were the only ones left in the room designated for your investigation. A hot cup of coffee was standing in front of you, you knew you were in for a long nighty You had been looking at these letters for hours on end, trying to find identifying markers. The only thing that became apparent is that the letters and the murders are definitely about the unsubs mother. They were all about 60, the letters showed clear signs of conflicted hatred and love toward the mother and connected abuse. Maybe she hit him or she was just a very dominant personality who commanded all the men in her life and broke their will if she needed to. Reid was also standing in front of his map for the last few hours, rearranging the pins and drawing new circles and xes on it. Looking over, you did not see a clear pattern at all but maybe his genius brain could make sense of all of the colors on the board. Your eyes shifted from the map to him and the way he kept adjusting his hair. He wanted to tuck it behind his ears but it fell into his face again and again. "Ugh, why? Maybe I need to cut my hair again“ he mumbled annoyed. "Nooo, please don’t! I like your hair like this“ you answered quickly. "But its always in my face and whenever I tuck it back, it falls in front of it again“ Reid remarked, pushing his hair back aggressively. But all it did was fall back infront of his ear and Reid let out an annoyed groan. You stood up and moved towards the man: "here, take one of my clips! My hair is long enough so that I can easily tuck it behind my ear“ you said, quickly taking one of the bows out of your hair. As you kept going, the clip in your hand, he looked at you skeptical: "thank you, y/n but I don’t think that would suit me as much as it suits you“

You blushed involuntarily at that indirect compliment, "oh come on, no one is here anymore, you won’t be less of a man if you wear this pink bow in your hair!“ you rolled your eyes as you halted infront of him with a questioning look. „Okay, fine“ he hesitantly answered and you gave him a reassuring smile. You leaned forward, pushing his hair back as you clip in the pink bow. You felt how soft his hair was. As you let your hand trail down his head, you let it linger a bit too long. Just as Spencer cleared his throat, you realized that and let your hand fall quickly to your side. "All done, you look cute“ you blushed as you took a step back. But your blush didn’t compare to his. The minute he saw himself in the reflection of the glass board where he drew his map on, his face turned as red as a tomato. The pink bow clearly on display, matching to yours. Now not only your shoes were matching but also your hair. "Uh, thank you y/n“ he said after a while. But you didn’t even realize what he said because all you could do was stare at him. He had never looked this cute in his life. Not with his glasses, not with any of his haircuts. You felt a fluttering feeling in your tummy. Here he was, Spencer Reid, wearing your pink bow in his hair. You couldn’t believe the sight you were witnessing. Even though you didn’t have an eidetic memory, you would never forget this. As you kept starring at his face, your brain filling with all the accessories of yours Reid could wear, he kept staring right back. But instead of thinking about all the different hair clips you had, he couldn’t stop thinking about how pretty you looked. The slight blush that spread over your face, the blown pupils as they were looking at him. The way your mouth was slightly opened, the curve of your lips perfectly kissable.

"Yo, I forgot my-" Morgan stepped insight, both of you taking a step back, not realizing in the moment how close you two were standing and looking embarrassed towards Morgan. "Uhm, sorry for…disturbing, I just forgot my wallet here“ he said, moving toward the table. Your eyes shifted, there it was, lying underneath all the letters you had just looked at. "Alright, have a good night you two! Pretty bow, Reid, your lil girlfriend should lend you her things more often“ Morgan winked as he walked out of the room. Both of you stood there in silence, looking down onto the floor. Spencer raised his hand in embarrassment and tried to detangle the bow from his hair. "Noo, you look so pretty with it Spencer, you shouldn’t give a damn about Morgans opinion!“ you reassured him. He gave you a smile as his hand slowly fell down. "You know that is not fair“ Reid remarked. "What isn’t fair?" You looked confused. "Well, I would wear anything as long as you think i‘m pretty even if that would be the most impractical thing on this planet.“

"That can’t be true!“ you laughed.

"Do you remember four months ago when we saw that shampoo ad on some billboard in Texas with a man on it with long, shiny hair?“

Honest to god, you really didn’t. "Uhm, not really…“

"Well, you said that you love men with long hair and it seemed like you looked right at me. I, obviously had short hair at that time. But from that moment on, I decided to let my hair grow longer“ Spencer confessed.

"You grew your hair long because of me? Because I said that I find men with long hair prettier? That makes no sense, why would you care what I think about y-" then it hit you. He wanted you to find him attractive. He wanted you to see him as pretty. You took a step towards him, his gaze avoiding you, he seemed more focused on his shoes than on you. "Reid" you said quietly, him still not looking at you. "Spencer, if you don’t look up now, I’ll leave and you’ll never find out what I’m thinking about right now“ you threaten, his gaze hastily rising. You took another step towards him, this time a bit less sure than before. It seemed like time froze as you slowly raised your hand towards Reids face. "May I touch you?" You asked hesitantly, knowing that he wasn’t the biggest fan of non-consensual physical touch. He nodded his head and finally met your gaze. His eyes shifted up and down, between your eyes and lips. As you cupped his cheek, it seemed like the spell on him was broken. His face inched closer and closer until his lips met yours. The tension that you felt for the last few months finally found an escape and both of you seemed to feel relieved. His hands found your waist, as he pulled you closer to his body, your other hand tangling itself up in his hair. After a few moments both of you had to pull away to gasp for air. Smiles crept up on both of your faces as you realized what had just happened. He didn’t let your waist go, you didn’t want him to do that anyway. "You know what, Reid?" You asked humorously.

"What?" He asked back.

"I wanted to do that even before you let your hair grow out“ you answered him truthfully. Ever since you joined the team, you wanted to kiss him. It didn’t matter what his hair looked like or if he wore his glasses or not.

"You’re joking right? All of this agony for nothing then?“ he asked dumbfounded, pointing at his long hair.

"Oh no, definitely not for nothing! I got to see you wearing my pink bow and that is a sight, that I will never forget!“ you giggled and pulled him into a hug that he happily reciprocated.

P.S.: I hope you guys liked this, it is kinda strange to always read fanfic and now actually writing it. I guess my Spencer Reid obsession made me do it :) yall will probably understand, hahahaha.

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #criminal minds #fluff #pink bows #y/n #first kiss #crush #spencer reid fluff

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sceirlose · 2 days

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I feel like all the Skittles have SOME sort of weird thing that's going on with them. Tw mentions of blood and dissecting

Barty is batshit crazy. Wild, messy, and all over the place. Almost terrifying. He makes ur mom jokes and threatens to kill or hurt or fuck someone who's messing with him. He also learned how to do his own tatoos and piercings, thats why he has a new tattoo or piercing every month. He finds it fun and silly to be stabbing his ear and shoving a piercing through it, likes the sting cause it gives him adrenaline

And there's Pandora who says the most out of pocket shit. She has weird visions sometimes and seems to be everywhere and knows everything. And she's so incredibly calm while saying the wildest shit ever that it scares some people. People never hear her footsteps, and she just shows up randomly. Her voice is so calm and peaceful that it really doesn't fit her liking in scary creatures

Then Evan, who is just as off-putting as his sister. Unlike Barty, who is chaotic, he's more reserved and calm. But sometimes does creepy stuff and acts like it's normal. He is weirdly fascinated with disecting humans and animals. Also has a weird interest in teeth and dead animal corpses. He probably learned how to preserve them somehow. He has a like thing where dead butterflies are stuck to and he wakes up everyday to admire it as a way to start his day.

Dorcas has an interest in lucid dreaming and shifting and all things psychological. Sometimes she'll say stuff like "oh I sent a message to you in your dreams, you got it, right?" Most of the time, you probably won't get it, but it happens sometimes. Mostly to the slytherin Skittles and Marlene. She also learned to do nonverbal spells earlier in her years because it helps give her more control over her own mind. She has definitely learned and did research on why the imperius curse does what it does to its victims

And Regulus, though never to admit out loud, fucking loves astrology. He learned about it through Pandora, and since then he's been doing astrological readings. He just finds it cool how something like a time of birth, the position of a planet, the moon phase of your birth, and all can say a lot about a person.

Anyways it might not fit some characters but it's how I think of them and I love them this way cause imagine like Pandora walking up to Barty and say "certain plants can bloom above dead corpses" and Barty suggests that they have to see it happen for themselves

Or Dorcas coming up reg like "did you get my message?" And Regulus said "yeah, it's written in the stars that your relationship will go well don't worry and stop pestering me in my dreams"

Or Barty making a new piercing and Evan suggesting that he should make a piercing out of one of his insects legs and Barty was really close to doing it before Reg stopped them

Or Regulus catching squirrels for Pandora to keep in her little squirrel cage and have as a pet that'll probably die because Evan keeps feeding it the wrong food

Sometimes, the Skittles all get hurt except for Dorcas, and she says stuff like "yeah because the universe is protecting me. I'm their favourite mortal"

Barty getting slightly unsettled and maybe a bit flustered when he sees Evan so focused on learning how to use his new dissecting tool, just tweaking it here and there for his own liking yk

Regulus in a bad mood cause today's horoscope says that it's going to be shit.

Yeah they're weird

#slytherin skittles #dorcas meadowes #barty crouch jr #evan rosier #pandora rosier #pandora lovegood #regulus black #dinara hcs

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spidernuggets · 2 days

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Ngl, if I was joker daughter reader and I had to experience everything I did, I’d probably never feel safe, even with Jason and probably stay living in the abandoned building. Sure, I’d try to have a relationship with Jason again, but I don’t think after all he said, I’d feel like it’d be way for him to sort of switch up on me like that so there would be this level of distance I keep. Don’t know if you’ll do a part three (I know ur not taking requests), but I think it’d be super interesting to see how her and Jason’s relationship would be like cause like, I feel like there would be this level of unhealthness where reader would be in such a out of self loathing and feeling like they genuinely can not open up to Jason about it (cause how can you?) and not feeling like she can fully trust him and be completely self reliant (cause she’s probably had to be her entire life considering most of her life was living under intense abuse by the joker, and it’s not something that would be immediately be fixed, especially with being and living with one of the jokers victims and still feeling guilty for not doing anything or not enough)

You know, a part 3 was never a thought of mine, but after this, it does seem like a good idea to bring out the aftermath and continuation of readers and jasons relationship.

So if people want a part 3, who am i to deny the request 🤔🤔

If more people want a part 3, I'll be happy enough to add it to my list of planned fics for the summer 🫡🫡

#mickeysideas #jason todd #jason todd x reader #red hood #red hood x reader #jason todd is my life #titans jason todd #i love jason todd #dc titans #jason todd titans #jason todd headcanon

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deluweil · 1 day

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To be honest the way part of the fandom has treated this Tommy character as a god makes me dislike him more. Unfortunately the Buck bi arc was tainted for me because it all feels force. Also what doesn't help is that Eddie was to much involved in that storyline.

The way people are acting like it's a perfect relationship and yet we barely saw them together feels just weird.

Also I don't like how some literally push Eddie away for this new white man.

This is Taylor Kelly all over again. The sad part is that the season is short and people wAnt to to spend their time giving more to the new guy.

I hope him and Marisol are gone, but I'm afraid. These two characters took the joy out of the Buck and Eddie storyline for me.

The fandom, I think, in this case, is definitely the problem here,

Lou is completely unassuming and enjoying the process and being a buddie shipper just like us - if one actually bothers to read the interviews and not just pick and choose what to talk about.

That is what makes me like Lou.

The fandom has somehow glorified Tommy's character after a couple of episodes and yeah it rubs the wrong way, because, what about the story we had so far?

Is season 7 a reset to 911? and everything that came before that doesn't count? Why not just make it 911 abc pilot then?

I don't think that's the case, but I think the last minute switch between Buck and Eddie kind of ruined it for the Tim because, yes, in a way it feels forced and out of left field.

Supposed that Buck was indeed vying for Tommy's attention, why do it like that? and why involve Eddie in the first place?

I have a lot of questions and my main problem here is not that Buck is experimenting with Tommy, it's the way they practically propelled this ship off the cliff into a dangerous spin, they went from zero to 200 in a second. - That is not how you build a relationship.

You don't try to figure out what you want, mess up the first date, then invite said date to an apology coffee and then invite him to family wedding on the way. It just doesn't work that way.

I may be straight, but I have gay and bi and lesbian friends, neither one of them has ever brought a second or even a third date to so much as a friends get together before they were sure that this is something that would last, before they brought the intended victim to be judged by friends and family.

And people who talk about Tommy as being established in the 118 family, that is not true. He has a connection with Chimney in that that he owes him his life and an acquaintance with Hen, who is clearly not very fond of him, because of obvious past she had with him and their old house before Bobby came into the picture. - Remember - Chimney was her ONLY lifeline in that house.

Tommy was not a liked character before.

Arguably Buck had more history with Taylor than he did with Tommy (which is none at all) - But Taylor is a strong opinionated and often self-serving woman (not unlike Buck mind you), emphasis on woman. - That is the only reason she never stood a chance. Because the writers could have made her and Buck the greatest love story this show has seen, but they continuously managed to ruin any fondness for any female LI to ever grace that set.

And this season is short, to bring in a new LI kinda defeats the purpose of re-establishing the team and this show, because it does feel the same as any of Buck's old relationships that were being pushed for the benefit of 'god forbid Buck actually learns how to be alone and healthy and happy' - the only thing that changed in Buck this season is his sexuality and nothing else, and that vexes me.

My problem is not with Tommy, it's the perpetuation of 'poor baby Buck' society. - I love Oliver and I love Buck - I am tired of the ever repeating pattern of forgiveness for his self serving ways without any accountability that we keep seeing.

I don't think Buck's or even Eddie's firsts or you know what? even seconds should be each other, I am more than happy to make this journey with them, but let it be a marathon not a sprint to the finish line - they knew they would get renewed for another season, they could have written and built it better than what we got - because the moment they switched gears after the second episode, the story became written in the same messy last minute way both S4 and most of S5 were written.

There is no grand plan, at this point they are merely winging it and see where the wind takes them. - And that is idiotic, they had SO MUCH TIME to make this a well written story with the strike and long break after that, to write as they film is lazy and stupid and mostly childish.

And yes this is Taylor all over again, not in that they are the same type of people, but that Buck is jumping head first into a relationship without actually knowing how he got there. - Bobby said that himself - and it is the same, because who in their right mind invite a second (kinda) date to a family event? Like dude have you ever dated before? Do you how this works?

It is a LOT of pressure and not even for Buck himself - because he brought this on himself - but rather for Tommy (aka the intended victim) to be first introduced to the family after a couple of dates when he himself has no idea where he and Buck are standing.

Marisol, has indeed sucked the joy out of the Eddie's story, I don't get why do either of the boys had to be in a relationship starting this season to begin with. Like, she is literally a handbag, the token hetero symbol, so to speak, what she is doing there? is beyond me.

The catholic guilt of her being a nun is bullshit, and as Bobby said himself, Eddie has no problem committing to certain people/things. She serves no purpose this season other than a seat warmer/ glorified babysitter since Buck is otherwise engaged.

They could have gone for Eddie finding his way in the department, Eddie dealing with his mommy issues, Eddie trying to figure out what and who he wants in his life, Eddie trying to navigate Chris' terrible teenage years.

They could have explored the fact that a guy going with his supposed gf/wife in the golf course checking Eddie's hot ass (6X17) - Oh wait, they were going to... the ground for Eddie's coming out was all laid out and they took a sharp turn to left field in the second episode of S7 and made it all about Buck again, because the Natalia actress couldn't come?? what kind of a weak ass reason is that?

And yes, the cliche of receiving the odd white man out (who played a controversial role in early seasons) rather than the regular casted poc male or the guest starring woman, for that matter, better is all kind of f-ed up, but no one would talk about that, of course. 👀

Anyway, I am hoping that whatever is coming next will be worthy of our time and attention because so far we got about more of the same as far as Buck and Eddie are concerned - except that Buck has just broaden his variety and has a bigger pallet of mate choosing at his disposal.

I have two very close bi friends, so I know how their minds work, because God knows they share with me more than I ever wanted to know lol. And one of them is watching 911 with me and she is happy for the rep as well, but unhappy with how it was developed too.

At the moment, I have decided to put any Buck and Eddie topics aside and just want to get the LONG AWAITED Madney wedding, if anyone deserve a happy ending, it's them. ❤️

#911 ask #evan buckley #eddie diaz #tommy kinard #marisol whatever her last name is #buddie #911 spoilers #911 speculation #don't you dare to rb this with an opposing opinion - i don't care that you think tommy farts rainbows out of his ass make your own post #and if you don't like what i write block me so you can save me the trouble of blocking you #not directed to this anon #just a warning to toxic fandom groopies that has done it before - naturally they were blocked #I am entitled to my opinion just like you are entitled to yours #deluweil replies

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livingbrother · 3 days

Text

LO and it's portrayal of S/A

A rant by someone who just finished EP. 98 and is incredibly furious

Cw: Mentions of S/A, it's effects, too much swearing, ED mention, personal stuff that happened to yours truly, lots of other stuff too, just no idea what to tag it as

Don't read this if you're not mentally doing well, I don't want you getting hurt because of my post, I love you, feel better soon

Boy. Oh fucking boy. I just got through episode 98 of this shit show and, I'll just say, I am beyond furious. Livid, in fact.

For context, I am a survivor or sexual abuse and mental abuse, I have dealt with those who act sort of like Apollo, I was never raped, but I was molested as a child. I, as a survivor, feel nothing but rage at how Rachel portrayed Apollo being a rapist. The way he acts is incredibly unrealistic for an abuser, as somebody who dealt with two abusers with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (I'm not saying everyone who has NPD are villains, I'm just saying what I went through), I see what Rachel was trying, but oh so tragically failed, to do. He tried to control, manipulate, and gaslight Persephone. Only for none of it to work, that's not how ANY of it fucking works!

Where is the fucking control, other than just fucking raping her? I get he wants to take the power away from her and be the one to control her, but I've seen none of that! I get she has PTSD over it (I'LL GET TO THIS POINT AGAIN). I NEVER GOT THE SENSE THAT SHE WAS POWERLESS EXCEPT FOR THAT ONE SCENE. I HAVE NEVER SEEN HER QUESTION IF THAT WAS HIS INFLUENCE PICKING HER DRESSES, OR FUCKING EVEN HER FOOD! WHEN I WAS LIVING WITH ONE OF MY ABUSERS, SHE'D PICK OUT MY OUTFITS, ONE'S I HATED, AND I STILL CHOOSE SOME OF THOSE OUTFITS, TO THIS DAY! WHERE WAS HER LOSS OF CONTROL? SHE NEVER FELT ISOLATED, SHE NEVER FELT LIKE SHE WAS TRAPPED. YES. SHE WAS TRAPPED IN THAT ONE ROOM WITH HIM, BUT EVEN THEN! SHE HAD LEVERAGE OVER HIM WITH THE FUCKING LYRE. Ugh.

About her realizing she was raped, um. Excuse me? A lot of victims don't realize they were raped or abused until like, months or years later. I'm glad for the ones who instantly realized it, good for them. Given Persephone's personality and experience with the world, she wouldn't have known it was rape because she's not accustomed to dating and sexual culture. On top of that, she isn't really seen actually distressed when she remembers, oh, and lets not forget that she WAS FUCKING FINE WITH TOUCH AND PHYSICAL FLIRTING DAYS AFTER HER ASSAULT. Let me remind you that I have been through this thing myself, you do not just omg I was just assaulted! time to go let someone touch me! Nonono, you spend years jumping when people touch you, years of moving when someone tries to grab your shoulder, years of pushing someone's hand off your arm, years screaming when you get a hug. And then, maybe from flashbacks, maybe from googling things, you discover you were molested! And then it alllllll makes sense. I understand if she became hypersexual, cause same, but that usually doesn't set in until a good long while.

I also hate how Apollo is written, he should have stayed as a shitty ex boyfriend or whatever the fuck Rachel was gonna make him, he just comes across as a cartoonish villain than an abuser. The man just fucking rubs his hands together and fucking goes I'll get you next time my pretty! I fucking HATE his writing so goddamn much. I understand wanting to make him pushy, egotistical, and insecure, they're some of the hallmarks of the pushy nice guy she was going for. But when it comes to him being abusive, it's like watching a bad joke. Rapists don't usually, you know, CATCH FEELINGS FOR THEIR VICTIM (correct me if I'm wrong), unless it's to lure them back in to hurt them again. She made him so obviously evil it hurts, abusers don't usually act that way, they put on a pretty smile, act kind, and behind closed doors, act shitty. I respect 97-98 for getting that part right, but too many times, too many fucking times Rachel has gotten that wrong. I have dealt with this myself, my mother did this exact thing, she even put on the pretty smile for me so even I, somebody who knew he was being tormented, questioned whether or not I was being abused! We never see this with Persephone! We never see her getting gaslit with this, she never questions her reality! She knows everything that's going on for sure! I know what Rachel was aiming for, and she failed miserably!

God, on top of this, we never really get to see Persephone's PTSD unless the story fuckin says Apollo's here! She's never really fucking affected by her rape, we don't see her jump from touches, refuse sexual advanced from Hades, yeah, sure, we see her afraid of camera flashes, but that's about it!!!!!!!! She never really experiences the effects of s/a! I developed an ED and agoraphobia from my abuse! Where the fuck is that?! That would have been a lot more fucking interesting than the slop we fucking got!

I know I've missed some things, but I need to calm down before I pop a blood vessel. I might revisit this post when I'm less angry, I just needed to rant.

#lo critical #anti lore olympus #anti lo #rant post #rant #cw s/a #cw: ed #huge ass content warning

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shojizbae · 22 hours

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Gone South

Spencer Reid x Reader

This was not edited so if there’s hella typos I’ll prolly fix it later

Warnings: angst/comfort, gore, torture, attempted SA

Things could not have gone worse.

The case had been going on for a week and a half. Everyone was exhausted. And now, you were gone. Well not gone, the team had clear visuals via the many cameras the unsub (the team knew his name, Cooper McNamara) had set up. Garcia was monitoring you from the seven angles Cooper had.

The team always takes it to heart if someone gets hurt. But, when someone got taken in. When Spencer had been taken by Tobias they felt like the world stopped spinning. Now their sun had been stolen.

That’s how the team refers to you—human sunshine. Now you were gone. There, but gone. Penelope was monitoring each feed with tears in her eyes.

“All right, mama, any luck triangulating the IP address?”

“No Derek I’m sorry it keeps rerouting to different locations.” Her voice keeps cracking and she’s doing her best not to let her tears drip onto her expensive keyboard.

“That’s okay, just keep working on it.” He grits his jaw

“Derek,” he removes his hand from the hang-up button, “you’re going to get her right? There’s no way this guy gets her.” The hope in voice is palpable

“No way mama you just keep tracking her.” He sighs and spins to the team. Rosie has his eyes on the feed as well as McNamara is hovering over you. You’re strapped to some medical tables with old leather straps.

“Reid please tell me you’ve got something.” Spencer is a wreck. Everyone could tell that he was madly in love with you but he would not make a move. Now someone could strip naked in front of him and it could not break his focus.

“I’ve been staring at this map and going over everything she’s sadi since JJ put this on the screen. I have no idea where she is.” His hair is beyond tousled form the amount of times he’s stressfully run his hands through it

“That’s fine, just keep going.” Morgan demands and joins Hotchner with the deputy

“Hotch, team’s loosing morale. We gotta go back to the drawing board.”

“That’s what I was thinking. Let’s refresh and restart the profile.” they get some shitty police precints coffe and some stale donuts to try to revamp their energy. They join Emily and JJ at a table and ask JJ to get David. She disapears and Rossi takes her place rubbing his eyes.

“Dave, we’re going to look at this iwht fresh eyes. Coopers has gone off the reailsand taken in an FBI agent. That’s an escalation from prostitutes and drug addicts.” Morgan reflects on when you disapeared. You were canvasings where he had picked up his last three victims. You were being your usual sunny self. giving patience to the angry locals and offering water or snacks as a subtle bribery. He turned his back for five seconds when you disapeared. He was feeling the brunt of the guilt and it was manifesting as him acting like an overly abusive boss.

“Alright, on all of the victims there was several injections in their back thigh, but toxicology was clean.” Emily looks over some of the reports.

“Did you say the back of the thigh?” Reids suddenly comes storming into the meeting room

“Yeah, why?” Morgans eyes are begging for answers

“That spot reminds me of something. Often times when a psych ward patient is acting out they will inject them with certain medications. The most common sedtive is Midazolam but most of them are comprized of natural hormones. If you inject the body with enough adrenaline they would pass out.”

“Which would explain that why it doesn’t show up on toxicolgy.” Emily concludes. Reid bounds over to the phone and calls Garcia, she picks up almost immediately

“What is it my birds of prey?”

“We need you to look into asylums and sanitariums nearby. Look for medical malpractice or lawsuits that slipped through via non compus mentus. look into owners of these hospitals that may have some allegations specifically of sexual nature.” he demands

“Anything, find my girl.” she clicks away looking through all the yucky of the nearby hospitals. They were in the middle of the midwest where everyone had secrets.

“They’re going to need a private space to inflict a much torutre without raiing suspicion.” Hotch adds

“Guys you need to get in here!” JJ calls from the computer room. The man was livestreaming you leaning over your head and heavily breathing on your face.

“Oh, you want me so bad.” He used a sultry tease but you looked disgusted. You were staring hard in his eyes. You had dirt and a bit of blood smeared on your face and your normally slicked bun had been tugged apart.

“Tell me, Ms. ‘FBI agent’,” he finger quotes and uses a mocking tone “What your name.”

“You have my badge Cooper McNamara, you know my name.” your gaze hardens more and it looks like you could spit in his face, “Tell me where we are.” you order. If you could get out you would have beat that man to a pulp but your wrists, ankles, waist and chest were bound.

“Unh unh unh, don’t get too cocky, Ms. FBI we both know who has the power here.”

“He’s a narcisist. He’s flexing his muscles on (Y/n). He wants his viewers to know that he’s strong enough to take down an FBI agent.”

“It’s more like he’s preening his feathers.” Emily offers

“Alright, my fabulous frenulum I’ve got three asylums with icky enough histories to raise suspicion in the 50 mile radius.”

“50 miles that seems extraneous.” JJ sighs

“I figured becuase this is the midwest there’s more ground to cover alos they’re not going to keep your cuckoos in the town square.” The Deputy nods in approval

“But that’s too vague so I cross referenced that with the nme Cooper McNamara and zilch. I went thorugh med school flunkies in the known area. I kept running the name and there are zip

Cooper McNamaras in this area. So I just used the last name Mcnanara and there was a doctor named Charles Mcnamara with a son named Jeffrey was in and out of juvie at the age of seventten for attempted sexual assault.”

“What’s his current adress We’ll send a team.” Reid declares

“That’s not your call,” Derek orders, “But yes, Hotch, Prentiss, you go to his house and see if there any clues as to which hospital he’s affiliated with.”

‘Cooper’ was hovering over you this time dragging a swiss armry knife slowly over your shirt

“Alright I’m going to do some bad things Ms, Agent and you’re going to be a good girl.” He’s straddling the chair and he laughs a little at you. Quickly he slices the blade across your shirt and it comes undone with the blade. Your bra is exposed as well some of your navel. The team can clearly see the red cut across your chest.

“Oh my god what is that slimeball doing to my girl.” Garcia whimpers

“Garcia she’s fine, continue your background search of the McNamara family.” Hotch reassures

mostly to himself

“So far I’ve got some ick-ick icky dirt on Charles. He had to his medical liscene in pschiatry suspened 17 years ago, when his son, Jeffrey was around ten years old.”

“Why was it suspended?”

“Medical malpractice and the excessive use of electro-shock therapy.”

“the use of ETC is almost never necesarry in fact it dos more damage than it helps.” Reid borws are in a constant furrow. Theyre drawn out of their brainstorm a ‘Cooper’ shreds the rest of your shirt open.

“I’ll hand it you,” He reaches for the cup of your bra, “you have have some tits officer.” you grunt out a ‘fuck you’ as he fondles you.

“Maybe I just will,” He sneers. He makes the fatal mistake of looking at the cameria kense and you follow his eyeline. You spot the lense and by memory locate the six others. You feel some internal relief that at least the team knows you’re alive and they’re watching you.

“you get off on rewatching this or are we live? Or maybe you’re recording?”

“Oh someones mouthy.”

“I’m just bored.” You taunt

“What is she doing?” JJ Panics

“She’s getting him to talk. Shes profiling him. She’s our profiler.” David smiles and the team too feels your humanity return. You’re not a victim. Not yet at least. You’re still their wisecracking little sunray.

“You bitch, I’ll shut you up.” He reaches for his belt and launches at you. Your first instict wa to bare your teeth shut so he can’t slip something in your mouth. Your mouth is shut tight and he relaxes.

“Good choice.” he snorts

“He doesn’t want to hurt her.” David notices “She’s way too powerful for his comfort. He knows she’s smart.”

“If he’s able to get his website to continue rerouting we should probably verify that Jeffrey McNamara has some sort of tech background” Reid metions and Garcia digs into Jeffrey’s background it shows that 5 years ago he flunked out of the local community college with a major in computer science. Finally, the IP adress lags on the same three cell towers for the fourth time and Penelope Verifies that there are two sanitariums in that radius.

“Alright there is St, Joan of Arc’s Penitentiary and Whitfeilder and Collins Mental Institution.” Garcia clicks away.

“Garcia isn’t there a church nearby-“

“St. Joan of Arc’s Holy Parish.” She cuts off getting a small burst of hope

“Alright cross reference that with our boys see if we could get any dirt.” Rossi orders as you stare this torturous serial killer in the eye

“I think my knife and I should have some fun with you, pig. Are your gonna squee for your boss.?”

“He doesn’t know I’m here.” Everyone freezes

“What’s she doing?” JJ begs

“What do you mean?”

“I was only asking locals if there was something they needed. I work in the low income control division of the FBI. I was on a routine check of the neighborhood to makme sure that some new medications that were sent out in the local clinic.”

“Oh so you’re one of those libtards who thinks junkiw should get freebies?” your eyes dart quickly to the blinking red light while he inspects the red tool. He flicks his swiss army knife back open and runs it tantalizingly down your chest, “Oh no tears agent? Usually they start crying by now. Don’t worry you’ll cry soon.” He sinks the blade in right by your ribs. You grit your teeth as warm blood spills down your side.

“What’s she doing? why would she egg him on?” JJ starts to break

“She’s giving us the element of surprise.” David sighs in relief

“Oooh someones a tough girl.” He teases. He slides his blade across your stomach and your muscles tense below the blade. Tears pool in your tear ducts against your wishes and a grin splits his face like the cheshire cat.

“There you go. don’t worry it’ll all be over soon.” He fakes a soothing voice

“Ding ding ding, Ive got a hit. There was an latar boy who plead secial assault twenty years ago at St. Joan of Arcs and I mangaed to dig through the St Joan Hospital emplyment record to find one Dr. Charles McNamara employed for over thrity years where he specialized in child psychology.” Garcia gulps, “He spent a weekend in jail for assaulting the preist who allegedy molested his son, Jeff. Afterwards he deovolded. He started drinking lots of alcohol and expirementing with electro shock therapy. After three years of nearly fatal expirements He lost his liscense after a one Suzanne ’Suzie’ Addams passed due to exhaustion in his office.”

Rossi’s hand held rings and he answers the phone for Hotch

“Well Dave it’s not looking good here. There’s news paper clippings with every know victim taped to his wall. Theres even some miscellanoes crime pannels logging there recent spike in missing persons cases. There’s very little furntiure at his house. He’s got bills stacked up on his counter. He’s a walking cry for help.”

“Alright any other pysical evidence? We’re going to send a team to St. Joan of Arcs Penitentiary that’s where we suspect he has (Y/n). You keep digging around and we’ll stay in touch.”

Derek orders JJ, and Reid to suit up and gather the officers. Reid already has his hand reaching for his bulletproof vest. “Rossi I want you to stay behind on the line with Garcia and Prentiss in case he escalates the torture. Due to the agrarian location of the hospital they dispatch forest rangers to canvas the woodlands. The sanitarium had been closed for upwards of five years. Reid get’s the drivers seat and starts the car before Derek can get out the door.

“Slow down man we got visuals on her.”

“One of our best Agents is in danger and we have a location. Why wouldn’t we race off to her?” He slams his palm on the drivers wheel.

“Alright well calm down man,” As he tries to soothe hsi phone rings

“He’s back Derek.” Rossi states plainly sending the link to his phone. And impressive feat for the old man, Morgan gets in hte dirvers seat and clicks the link to see the man sitting on your lap palming himself.

“You know you’re kinda pretty for a pig.” He leans forward and hold your jaw and you gnash against his hold, “Oh oh oh let’s not get violent now.” you bite his hand and he draws it back immediately, “You bitch!” he slaps you and you gasp but he quickly undoes his buckle and reaches for the fly of his jeans. He slides the leather out of the denim loopholes and folds it once and puts it in your mouth. He reaches in his pants and you thrash against your holds.

Jeffrey fishes himself out and you slam your head against the medical table. Your time your cheek and grit your jaw but he forcefully pull you square with him. The look of indigence could’ve killed several monarchies and Rossi takes a note not to piss you off as not to receive that glare. Derek puts the screen down and grits his jaw. theres a bit of gagging before the man rears backs

“You bitch! You bit me?” He screams like you betrayed him and he punches you so hard your nose starts bleeding. Tears slip out of your eyes but you don’t dare sob. He leaves the view of the camera and the team hears metal crashing around the sounds cords being plugged in. He curses and punches what sounds like a metal box. He comes back with two metal probes and a menacing smile.

“You’re gonna get it now. You know what these are?” He waves them around like they’re toys “these are the electrodes I’m going to use on you.” Reid floors it as he hears the button click on and a distant buzzing sound fills the film.

“Here,” he violently pulls his belt from his jeans, “wouldn’t want you to shatter those pearly whites.” This is the one command you will obey. You take the folded material between your teeth because if you do survive this you’d rather not waste your vacation bonus on orthodontics. And if you didn’t you at least would like to have a nice smile in the after life.

Morgan and Reid peel out of the town sirens ablazing. They try not concentrate on it as you scream around the hunk of brown leather between your teeth. Not matter how much he concentrates on the road ahead of him he count every bawl you let escape. Every time he makes a mental note. As he takes the exit that lead to the woods he sighs, seven. He pictures your sun shiny smile in the morning.

How you would skip over to his desk with an extra-sweet cup of coffee and a good joke you had heard on your weekend away to New York. Eight, he thought of how intently you had listened to him ramble about string theory on the plane ride over and how when he stopped himself to apologize you begged him to keep going.

Nine, when the case came around the table your eyes darkened with a bit of sorrow which was drowned by your hope and determination to crack it. Now you were ten, letting him practice brewing your hair in a motel just because the skill fascinated him. Man your hair was so soft and smelled to good. And you just melted under his hands as he apprehensively finger combed it.

The sanitarium is in the middle of the woods. A small commercial concrete building. There officers confirmed that there was a car out back and garcia checked the plate regitration was for a Charles Mcnamara. They quietly burst through the front doors which were ajar. Spencer lead the charge follwoing the sounds of your pained screams. He runs down a flight of staris and kicks it open. Despite his panic for his coworker Morgan was incredibly proud of Reid for kicking it open.

McNamara is straddled over you and he swings his head to see Reid. Before anything can happen Spencer shoots him in the knee and Morgan barks an order and jumps on the man. Reid bolsters his gun and darts over to you. You look a mess. Blood and possibly some other body substances on you. He slides the belt out of your mouth and you lick your lips. He sits by your side and undoes the buckles on your wrists

“Hi (Y/n),” He sighs soothingly. Your eyes are locked on his and there’s something animalistic and wounded in them.

“Spencer?” your voice is broken but there is so much hope

“Yeah I’m here,” He works the second buckle off your wrist. “You did so good.” he reassures. He undoes the strap across your chest and you sit up and rub your wrists. He takes a step back to unshackle your ankles. Once you’re free, you swing yor legs to the side of the medical chair. Spencer stands next to you and guides your arms arond his neck. You sink all your weight against his chest and he gently coaxes an arm under your knees and picks you up.

“I did good?” You start sobbing into his chest

“Yeah you did fantastic (Y/n). and your safe now, I’ve got you.”

#criminal minds #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #mathew gray gubler #torture #angst with a happy ending

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luvknow · 3 days

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after her | yang jeongin

summary: a lonely yang jeongin, fresh from a break-up, finds what it means to be happy again while living with his best friend in the big city. you fall victim to his signs of affections, struggling to define if he’s emptying what’s leftover from his relationship or if they’re truly meant for you. you’d live through the endless heartache if it meant he would smile again. characters: female reader x yang jeongin & stray kids ensemble. genre: romance, friends-to-lovers, hurt with comfort, happy ending. additional warnings: alcohol consumption, university party, some mature dialogue and situations, song lyrics. wc: 11.2k

Jeongin placed the last of his boxes in the living room of his new place you two shared. While you were away at work, he employed an off-duty Minho and Jisung with promises of pizza and beer as payment.

A low whistle escaped Jisung’s lips as his eyes scanned the condo. “Pretty decent for the price in the middle of the city.”

Jeongin wiped the sweat off his brows. “It helps that _____ is a functioning adult.”

“You’ll get there in a couple of months,” Minho patted his head. “Relax while you can before your job starts. The adult world is not kind.”

“What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”

Jisung shrugged. “Find a hobby. Adopt a pet. Read a book. Don’t worry about anything! What more can a bachelor want?”

“Go to the club, hop on a dating app,” Minho suggested before Jisung hit him.

The first box Jeongin opened was one he wasn’t supposed to. On top, it wasn’t labeled, but on the side in big bold letters was, ‘TRASH. BURN. DONATE. WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT OPEN!!!!!’ On the top layer of stuff was a framed picture of him and his ex-girlfriend under the cherry blossom trees, her eyes curled like sparkling moon crescents and him looking at her like she was his whole world. Beneath were various memorabilia from blind box trinkets to old sweaters of his that still smelled like her perfume. As his heart cracked a bit more, he flopped on the couch face-first, groaning muffled by your decorative pillows.

Minho hit Jisung back. “I told you not to bring that one in!”

“He took it from me before I knew what box it was!”

The two were left unloading the Rent-a-Truck alone as their youngest friend tried to not let too many tears ruin the fabric of the couch. They’d give him a pass this time, but the next warranted multiple rounds of drinks. Jeongin’s energy bled from his body and was absorbed into the cushions, gluing his cheek down until a permanent imprint of the weaved fabric formed on his skin. His eyes stared blankly at the door after his personal mover-bros left and until you walked in, home from a long day of work. A total of six hours where he didn’t move, barely breathing, hoping evolution would kick in and he’d be able to live his life photosynthesizing.

You smiled sympathetically at the damage before you; a pile of boxes, untouched take-out, and an unmoving boy with redness around his eyes that stared off into nothingness.

“Hey, bud,” you began awkwardly. “How’re ya doin’?”

You received a lazy groan in response. He turned over to face the back of the couch, unwilling to elaborate further.

Jeongin called you last Sunday at 2:13 AM. Your first feeling was irritated, as he had better be in some deep shit to be waking you up at this hour on a work night. What you got was worse. Way worse. In a fit of tired, breathless, chest-squeezing sobs and snot-filled sniffles, Jeongin confessed that his girlfriend of just over a year had broken up with him. It was a shitty time to do so, as he was in the middle of signing for a lease after she begged him to move to the city to be closer to her. Luckily, the leasing agency was sympathetic and he went forward with canceling the signing.

The conversation that led him here in your home occurred after he was able to breathe through his tears, wondering what he was supposed to do with his new job contract, and it went like this:

“You’re already mentally prepared to move to the city. Why not do it anyway?”

“What’s the point?” he had asked with a voice so tired of crying. “There’s no reason for me to be there anymore.”

“I’m here,” you replied, offended. “You get to hang out with the most important person in your entire life -”

“By default.”

“I’m going to give you a pass on that because you’re hurting, but you called me, remember?” you had scoffed. “The city will be good for you. Better food, better drinks, things to do, people to meet. Things to distract you, y’know?”

“I can’t do this alone.” There was a long pause before the sniffling and sobs filled the silence on the other end. “If I live alone, I might never leave my apartment.”

Without hesitation, you had said, “Come live with me.”

“What?”

“Yeah! Come live here with me! We’ll turn my office into your bedroom, and voila; casa de _____ and Jeongin.”

“I can’t do that to you. You worked so hard for that place to be your haven.”

“You are my haven,” you had emphasized. “Let me be yours, too.”

A short chuckle on his end. “Cornball.”

Progress was far from linear and the hardest point was ascending from zero. Jeongin was in the negatives. Probably because he had opened a box full of outdated signs of love he and Sieun had given each other the past year and two months. Your face wrinkled in disgust at the sight of her glowing face in a heart-shaped frame. And Jeongin had called you the cornball… Maybe you were a certified hater, but you had to get rid of this box of trash now.

When you bent to pick it up, he gripped your wrist and stopped you.

“Don’t,” he muffled into the pillows.

“Keeping this isn’t good for you.”

“Neither will throwing it away.”

“How about we compromise,” you sighed. “Let’s store it in my closet until you’re ready to toss it. Out of sight, out of mind.”

His answer was letting go of you and allowing you to touch the most tender parts of his heart to store away in your dark, cold, lifeless but stylish closet for it to wither away. You didn’t want any parts of her near your room at all, but you kept muttering, ‘This is for Jeongin. This is for him because you love him, for some reason,’ as a reminder.

You’d repeat that reminder maybe ten times a day for the past week for stupid shit like him not washing his dishes, not putting the toilet seat down, drinking all your specialty alcoholic beverages you liked to save for after-work woes, but what pushed you over the edge was the empty stash of your favorite snack.

“Ok, I’m done!” you yelled. After a long day of Teams meetings and smiling at sleazy men twice your age, all you wanted was a little treat! A little snack! But when you opened your pantry, you were left with an empty box. He couldn’t even throw the damn box away!

You opened the door to his room where he sat in his gaming chair, yelling at his bros on Discord. He paid no mind to the noise, since his gaudy headphones blocked everything and likely bruised his eardrums. So when he couldn’t hear you calling his name, you went up to the microphone.

“Sorry, boys, Jeongin has some chores to do!” You heard a muffle of ‘boos’ from Chan and Felix on the other end before unplugging his set-up.

“What the hell, _____! That was a ranked game!” he whined.

“You!” you seethed, grabbing the remnants of your snack bags before chucking the empty box at his face. “You gluttonous squirrel-faced stupid, stupid boy!”

“Ooh, yikes. I know that tone.”

“You couldn’t bother texting me that we were out?!”

“They’re just snacks, we can buy more.”

“We, who!? Who’s paying the mortgage here? Who’s the one with an actual job at the moment?!”

“I start next month, ok?! And you agreed to a prorated rent because of that!”

“Being jobless doesn’t give you the right to live in my home like a slob! There are responsibilities for adulthood! There are chores and rules for living under my roof!”

Jeongin had this stupid face he’d put on to get whatever he wanted. It worked with Sieun, and sadly worked for you, too. He wheeled himself over on his new four hundred dollar chair (“For ergonomics!” he had argued) and pulled you in between his legs. His arms wrapped around the back of your thighs and his chin rested on your stomach. The stupid, adorable, troublemaker face was up-turned brows, pouting lips, and eyes that twinkled from the lighting above.

“I’m sorry,” he began. “It just… feels nice to be taken care of right now.”

Ugh. Maybe you were being too harsh. A week’s worth of annoyance was nothing compared to a week’s worth of trying to glue back pieces of his heart together when they kept falling apart. Or maybe that was the spell he put you under with his dreamy eyes talking. You couldn’t think straight with your constricting office wear on.

You kissed your teeth. Your hand grabbed a chunk of his curly brown mop of hair and pushed him off of you. “You stink. Shower and get ready; you’re buying me new snacks at the grocery store.”

“But I don’t need to go grocery shopping.”

“You have one pack of instant ramen left; yes, you do.”

–

One of your first memories with Jeongin was the day before you both started secondary school. The last day of summer was spent under the stars on a trampoline in his backyard with empty cans of cola scattered out on the grass. Your heads touched while bodies were oriented in the opposite direction, semi-Spiderman style.

You were the first to voice what you feared most. “Do you think things are going to change?”

He shook his head adamantly. “Never.”

“Nothing is ever non-zero.”

“Must you nerdify everything?”

“It’s not on purpose. I can’t help it.”

“Except you could.” Jeongin sighed, whether out of disappointment or enjoying the feeling of the cool night air, you had long forgotten. His black, too-short-for-a-bowl-cut pin-straight hair poked your ears whenever he turned and knocked his head against yours.

“Ow,” you whined. “What?”

He pointed to the sky. “See that?”

“Stars.”

“Do you recognize the constellation, smartass?” Astronomy wasn’t your strong suit. “Scorpio and Lupus.”

You shrugged. “Who do you think would win in a fight: ten scorpions or one wolf?”

“That’s not the point of my question,” he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “But the correct answer is ten scorpions.”

“What’s the point, then? Of anything, really?”

He pointed to the sky again. “Things will change only when the stars do.”

“Apocalypse-style?”

“Exactly. When they do, it’ll be the end of the world.”

You giggled, tilting your head closer to his. “Cornball.”

“What is a cornball, anyways? Like, a chicken nugget made of corn?”

“Genetically-modified corn in the shape of a ball.”

At thirteen, you both thought these conversations made you comedic, thought-provoking geniuses. They were typical teenage nonsensical word-smithing that’d later evolve into witty adult assholery, but they were ones you’d cherish ‘til the end of time.

“Never change, _____ _____.”

“You, too, Yang Jeongin.”

Tonight, the night sky was as clear as the night before secondary school. It’s been a couple of weeks since Jeongin moved in and progress was there, but it was slow. Some days, he’d spend all day in bed under the covers and you’d have to force-feed him sustenance and flip him over to prevent bed sores. Some days he spent the entire day deep cleaning the tile grout with a toothbrush until his knees were purple. The worst nights were like tonight, where you’d come home to an empty bottle of some mystery brown liquor you didn’t remember purchasing and him passed out on the couch.

It was exhausting for this short amount of time. It was a rollercoaster of emotions and outbursts and constantly having to take his phone away from doing something stupid like calling or texting her. This wasn’t the Jeongin you were used to; you wanted the one who sang tunes and trot jingles, the one who burned mac ‘n cheese on accident, the one who’d wave to little kids when you were out together. The unmoving body was just a shell of him, and just as he struggled putting the pieces of himself back together, you struggled holding the ones he was able to find in place.

You lifted his head by his curls and plopped it back on your lap after taking a seat.

“Careful,” he groaned. “There’s precious real estate up here.”

You didn’t speak, distracting yourself by playing with his hair. His eyes were bloodshot and cheeks stained with drool and salty tears. Sniffles filled the silence.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, words a bit slurred. “I don’t like when you’re quiet.”

“Ask yourself that question,” you replied, mouth full of salt.

“You’re mad at me.”

“I care about you.”

“You’re mad because you care,” he nodded, understanding, or at least pretending to. “I care about you, too.”

Caring wasn’t enough. No amount of love and tenderness from you could replace the one Sieun gave him, and that was evident. How were you supposed to hold him together when she was his reason? You could only do so much, and your best was never enough.

He pointed to the ceiling. “Do you think Scorpio and Lupus are out tonight?”

“It’s cloudy.”

“Oh. Is it?” he sighed. “But they’re still there?”

“They’ll always be there.”

“Together?”

“Together. Forever, of course.”

“How do you know that?”

Was he asking with underlying intention or drunken oblivion? “I just do.”

Jeongin snorted. “Boooo.”

“Boo, you!”

“Ugh, stop moving!” His lips pursed as he rolled off of you. “Nope. I need to throw up.”

You followed him as he crawled into the bathroom, hunching over his toilet bowl. You held his hair back for a bit before realizing you could tie it back.

“It’s so long now,” you admired while tying back his front pieces.

“Sieun hated it,” the toilet echoed.

“I liked it. Very ‘bad boy’. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

“Yeah. She’s stupid, right?”

“So stupid.”

“Yeah! And so bossy!” He paused, gagging into the toilet. “Bossier than you! Can you believe that’s possible?!”

“I’m not bossy, I just know what I like when I like it and how I like it,” you patted his back a little too harshly this time, “nothing bossy about that.”

“And it’s a wonder why you’re single.”

A sharp pang pierced your chest. Your relationship status was a touchy subject. It’s not that you preferred to be single, but your job was mentally demanding and sometimes required long hours past sunset. It wouldn’t be fair to your partner when your life was devoted to your career and climbing the corporate ladder. Dates were few, and not too far in between, but none of the prospects were worth the trouble when half of them expected you to pay the whole bill when they found out your occupation.

You loved love. It was beautiful, it was kind, it meant always feeling whole. Of course you wanted to be in love. Of course you wanted to touch, to kiss, to always be intertwined with someone. Life was young, and there was time, but the shroud of loneliness grew longer and larger as the days passed. Suffice to say, your single status hit a nerve.

You patted his back hard enough for him to gag one last time. “Good luck not puking your guts out.”

“No, wait -” but you had already shut the door.

It was the kind of topic that elicited a long, hot, reflective shower until the water ran cold. Were you one of those working women who were doomed by capitalism to serve as a corporate slave until you could withdraw from your 401k at fifty nine and a half? To live a mediocre life and settle down with a five-rated coworker for the sake of reproduction and contributing to lowering the birthrate? To settle for the mundane and predictable? That wasn’t the _____ you knew. At the peak of your young life, when did owning your first place meant that it was the beginning of the end?

When you walked out of the steam cloud, Jeongin was buried beneath your duvet, staring at the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the tired, but still awake city. When he first moved in, he mentioned how jealous he was of your nice bedsheets, and you wondered, in that moment, how many times had he napped in your bed without you knowing. Annoyed, but willing, you crawled in behind him, too tired to argue.

He wiggled back, making sure your bodies touched, though he wanted to keep looking out. “Being single isn’t bad… right?”

Was it bad? No. “I like my alone time.”

“But isn’t it lonely?”

It’s never ending. “Only a little.”

“Even when I’m here?”

Especially now, more than ever. “Just a little.”

“What’s your metric of ‘little’?”

Astronomical. “Like a pinch of salt.”

His breathing slowed, body ready to shut down for the night and hopefully awaken before noon. He wrapped your arms around him, begging for a hug, a bit of human connection, something to satiate the pain of wanting to feel whole with someone again. When you gave in, he melted into your touch. This feeling was familiar, but it wasn’t the same. You would never be her.

Just when you thought he fell asleep, you felt his chest jitter, suppressing a mouthful of sobs.

“I hate this,” he said, voice cracking, hands gripping your blankets while you played the big spoon.

You could only nod into the crevice between his wingspan. “I know.”

“What did I do wrong?”

“Sometimes, there’s a reason; sometimes, there isn’t.”

“Then, what’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing,” you confirmed and squeezed him tighter. “People fall out of love all the time.”

“Isn’t that fucking terrifying?” he sobbed. “One day, you’re flying, high on life with someone you thought could make forever feel like a day. Next, they tell you they don’t love you anymore.”

“Love is complicated.”

“But it isn’t! When you know, you know. It just isn’t as complicated as many people make it seem. So, what? She knew she didn’t love me anymore? That’s it?”

Complicated isn’t only when someone who once lit up your life now felt like their own fire within fizzled in the darkness. It wasn’t waking up one morning and deciding that they stopped loving you. Complexity was built with intention and time, overthinking and self-reflection. It’s as complicated as math; despite the many ways you could achieve an answer, there was only one answer. Sieun wasn’t a bad person; in fact, you liked her for the time they dated. You figured despite all her might and the many times she tried, she couldn’t force herself to love him anymore. It’s not like she woke up one morning and thought, ‘I don’t love him anymore.’ It’s never just, ‘that’s it,’ as Jeongin claimed its simplicity.

Complicated is spending every moment of free time with someone who knew the deepest parts of you without letting the romantic feelings slip through the cracks. It was intending to confess and ruin a decade’s worth of bonds, all for it to stay hidden with your many secrets when he admitted to finally asking out the cute girl he met through a mutual friend of Jisung. It was saying, ‘I love you,’ to end a phone call while suppressing the ache in your chest as he’d say it to someone else the same evening.

To Jeongin, it was just that. Love. How could one make it so difficult? But to you, there were layers, and someone had to peel them back before you revealed the true nature of your heart. Because after this, after Jeongin was healed and you were left with no one to hold you together the way you had for him, you’d have grown an infinite number of layers to protect yourself. Your future partner would have a lot of work to do.

“Love is an organism. Organisms are complex. It comes in different forms and has different functions. When I say, ‘I love you,’ you think I mean, ‘I care for you,’ right?”

Jeongin didn’t answer. Verbally, at least. His leveled breathing and rhythmic chest rises told you he was fast asleep in a drunken stupor while you had contemplated your answer.

“Yes,” you sighed, snuggling closer, “you do.”

–

Most psychologists would agree that the stages of grief had an order to them. Jeongin, PhD in grief, would say otherwise. In the span of a single day, he’d go between as many as three of the stages. Lately, it was a cocktail of denial, depression, and anger. Today, there was only anger. The drawers would be shut a little too loudly, he’d chew his food a little too aggressively, and his volume and colorful language on Discord closely resembled a sailor.

“Where’s the damn support?!” he screamed into the mic.

“You said you’d be in Zone A!” you heard Jisung yell through his headset.

Jeongin didn’t bother with a response and hung up the call. After whipping his headset on his bed with the strength of a baseball pitcher, he ran a hand through his tangled mop and swore under his breath.

You leaned on his door frame. “Trouble in paradise?”

“Shut up,” he whined.

“You know what would make you feel better?” You drew a rectangle with your pointer fingers, then wiggled the rest in a wave of flames. Then, boom! Big boom!

“No.”

“Jeongin -”

“You said I could wait until I was ready.”

“I think you need to be ready now.”

“I don’t want to hear anymore about that stupid box in your stupid closet with all the stupid fucking shit in it!”

If there was one act you wouldn’t tolerate from anyone, even with a bond thicker than blood, it was raising their voice. You had barely lifted your hand to point an accusing finger at him the same way his mom would, when he shut his eyes and realized his grave mistake. He knew he fucked up when your eyebrows were raised in that, ‘what did you just say to me?’ manner. He was also regretting how much time you spent with his mom.

“... Maybe we should take the box out,” he muttered.

“Yeah, no shit. Grab the hammers.”

Two adult-sized adult-aged children in hoodies carrying a mysteriously heavy box and a couple of hammers at a public park past sunset was not one would describe as inconspicuous. Jeongin was far from ready to address the box, you realized, when you were forced to carry it all the way and he refused to look at it. Even when you prepared the garbage bag and shuffled through the contents, he avoided any sight of strawberry blond hair and scents of neroli and jasmine. Semi-slicked with sweat, you took the box to the top of the jungle gym and dragged the big baby up to meet it.

“You left the trash bag down there,” he noted.

You nodded. “Grab that picture frame.” The first one was the red one shaped like a heart. You tilted your chin overboard. “Slam it.”

“Like, on the ground?”

“Yup.”

“That’s not very nice... Why can’t we just throw it?”

“Because I can’t be sure you won’t dig through the dumpster and drag filth across my floors.”

“Who do you think I am?!”

“Break it with all your might!” you demanded, pretending to be angry and Hulk-smashing on the stable platform. “Rah! Into the trash bag, though, please.”

“She gave this to me on our two-month-iversary. She said it was a symbol of her heart,” he reflected, gentle fingers wiping the dust that collected.

“And what did she do to yours?”

“Break it.”

“She stomped on it.”

“Yeah…”

“Crushed it!”

“Yeah…!”

“Stabbed it with a blunt butter knife!”

“Yeah!”

“And did it hurt?!”

“Like a bitch!”

“Rue the day!!”

“Rue the roux!!”

Someone’s hungry. “Yeah, sure!”

With a guttural scream passionate enough to elicit goosebumps, Jeongin chucked the heart frame into the trash bag that splayed on the cement. The plexiglass shattered into big chunks and the frame split in two, shards of wood scattering about. It was a picturesque and artistic display of anger and heartbreak, but you’d never admit how you admired the symbolism to Jeongin’s face.

“That felt good,” he panted.

“Yeah? Do this one,” you said, handing him a mug.

“We painted mugs to give to each other at one of those stores in the mall. She said I didn’t have enough pink things in my life, so pink would be her color for me.”

“Fuck the color pink!”

“I mean, I still like the color -”

“Innie, I’m giving free therapy right now and I need you to work with me,” you hurried him alone by rolling your arms.

“Ok, ok! Jeez. But even you look good in pink -”

“Jeongin!”

“Pink sucks…!” he admitted hesitantly before chucking it into the pile. A satisfying shatter of ceramic echoed into the cloudless night.

“Ooh, heartbreak ASMR,” you sang.

Jeongin pulled a pink lop bunny Sonny Angel, those naked baby blind box toys that will put you in crushing debt one day, from the pile of infinite junk. He twirled it in his hands carelessly. “Don’t you like these, too?”

It was a rarer, sought-out-by-collectors type. You and many others had fingers twitching over the overpriced pay button on the resale apps everyday. “No…” your voice cracked.

“How am I supposed to break this?”

“Pop its head off.”

“What?”

You pointed shakily to its cute, pink ears as it smiled innocently. Your hands pretended to yank apart the head from its body. “Decapitate it.”

Jeongin jumped at the low-effort strength it took, which masked your pained groan. There goes a hundred dollars. Then, he plucked away its appendages. You couldn’t bear to look when he tossed the innocent body parts. May you wish no ill will on any collector to ever witness such a murder.

The rest of the box was junk to a stranger, treasure to Jeongin. Things like concert tickets, an empty wine bottle, dried flowers, cologne, sweaters, and jewelry joined the garbage. The last piece was the final boss; a shadow box summary of everything they’d done in the past year. A collection of restaurant receipts, themed matches, movie tickets, polaroid pictures, and loving post-it notes of cheesy poems and ‘I miss yous’ were stabbed into the felt and protected by a thick cover of glass.

“I can’t,” Jeongin sighed, sharp eyes scanning through the memories. He shook his head. “I just can’t.”

“You know the ‘break for emergencies only’ thingies for the fire extinguishers?” you asked and pointed to the pink box. “This is an emergency.”

“She put so much time into this. Almost everything we’ve ever done is preserved… Just for her to throw it all away two months later.”

When he offered this perspective, perhaps your speech on love not being complicated was more introspective than universally accepted. Two months to know you stopped loving someone was not a long enough time. It took much longer than that to no longer be on the same page, or in the same stage of life, or, for fuck’s sake, fall for an affair partner, right? No matter what the answer was, it made you upset.

You could only offer an affectionate rub on his arm. “Do you want to save this for next time?”

Jeongin took an eternity to answer, as if he read every line of every receipt and every ticket or memorized the way she dotted her i’s and crossed her t’s. Then, he pulled you to him in a side-hug.

“There won’t be a next time.”

The frame of the shadow box split by the seams and only cracked the glass. The felt board was kept intact, of course, save for a few loose polaroids. He wrapped his second arm around you in a full hug, resting his cheek atop your head as your bodies swayed with the wind, needing the comfort of his best friend to protect him in this very vulnerable moment.

“You ok?” you muffled into his chest. He smelled of vetiver.

“No,” he admitted confidently, “I hope I will be one day.”

“You will! You will.”

You two remained on the top of the jungle gym overlooking the twinkling skyline in each other’s arms. His fingers traced little shapes across your shoulder blades, some recognizable like stars and moons, others a choreography of squiggles. Your arms rested holding his lower back. In the quiet night, miraculously not in fear of being arrested, you could have fallen asleep right there.

Tonight, you witnessed no tears or any evidence of them. No pink cheeks, or stuffy nose, or bloodshot eyes. Progress was here for now, and though it was too early to celebrate, you’d both bask in the little victories.

“I’m so proud of you,” you encouraged.

“Really?” he hummed.

“Of course! Always.”

His throat bobbed, swallowing down emotions that threatened to escape. “It still hurts so much.”

“I know,” you agreed empathetically.

“But the destruction helped.”

“See?” you boasted. “Who’s always right?”

“_____’s always right,” he squeezed, “always right and always kind.”

“And always here for you.” No matter how painful it’d be.

The night ended with slow dancing under the stars. Hand-in-hand and the other his shoulder, you led the steps to the beat of his songs.

–

Jeongin found no comfort that was better than your bed. The second you left for work, just as the sun rose and tinted the condo in blood orange, he’d sneak in and crawl under your duvet. When the softness of linen and the weight of the feather down knocked him out hard and for the first time in a month, he was able to fall into a deep sleep and would make this his routine until work started. His body had never felt so refreshed, even before the break-up. It smelled like you; like cherries, cream, and tonka bean. A scent cocktail that was so warm and sexy it was like he was put under a spell.

When you were kids, your room wasn’t dirty, but it was cluttered after falling into the feminine urge to gather all things shiny and trinkety. Now, he noted, adulthood hadn’t knocked that part of your brain out while still developing your frontal lobe. You didn’t have as many rocks lying around anymore, but your decoration consisted of naked baby toys and other colorful vinyl blind boxes, music albums, movie posters, and pictures of your loved ones.

Jeongin had looked through every picture in your room about a thousand times already, but only had now noticed that he was in almost every single one. Some were just with you and your parents, but even many of those had him in it. He liked the ones in your younger years; going through the gross and oily phases of puberty, matching ice cream-stained camp t-shirts, teenage-year birthdays, and his favorite was the one from prom night. You wore the sparkliest, glitter-sheddinng, not-the-most-flattering silhouette of a gown that many other girls matched in different colors. But he was just as ridiculous; too small in his poorly-tailored suit, sleeves folded, loose matching tie, and a crooked boutonniere. You both refused to do the prom pose because, ew, touching. So, you dabbed instead. Double ick.

If there was a picture with Jisung, he was in it. Minho? With Jeongin. Your girlfriends? Jeongin photobombed it somehow. He may have ruined some of the compositions, but he was your Jeongin, how were you supposed to throw them away?

Jeongin’s parents once asked if he would consider marrying his best friend. Knowing them, they were serious. At the premature age of twenty, he had gagged at the idea of marriage. Not to you specifically, but tied down? Early into his prime years of bachelorhood? No, thanks.

Then, he met Sieun, and thought maybe marriage was meant for him after all. Forever with the one person you loved so dearly, what could be bad about that? But forever meant really forever, not just a few years, or a few decades, it meant ‘til death do you part and into the afterlife, if that was even real. Maybe that’s what scared her. The thought of Jeongin being her soulmate crushed her world; the thought of her not being his soulmate crushed his. So, now he was back to square one, and he’d rather rot in your bed than make any progress.

Snuggled deep in between your plushies and pillows, he held above him a picture of you on your birthday. You were sitting next to him in front of your cake and had buttercream smudged on your nose while he was bent backwards in an evil cackle. He replayed the memory in his mind. You weren’t mad, but you wanted revenge, and shortly after had also smeared some under his nose in a stylish mustache.

In bed, he couldn’t help but snicker. In between sessions of handheld video games, he’d shuffle through more pictures until time passed by too quickly and the day was spent.

“Jesus -” you gasped, clutching your chest as you entered your room. “Yeah, sure, come in.”

“Thanks,” he sang half-heartedly.

“Have you been doing this every day?” He responded by shrugging. “He’s in pain, he’s hurting, and you love him…”

“I don’t like this picture of me.” Jeongin held up a recent one at a dinner party Hyunjin hosted for his condo-warming. His face was unprepared for the picture and his eyes were closed and mouth open. “I’m not even looking at the camera.”

“Yeah, but I look good,” you boasted.

He tossed it to the side of the bed in a pile of likeness dubbed, ‘throw these ones away’. “I like this one in front of the art museum, though.”

“I do, too.”

You hopped next to him on top of the covers, shuffling through the different piles he made. It was clear which ones he liked, disliked, and didn’t care for. “You don’t like this picture of me and Changbin on our graduation day?”

“Am I in it?”

“No?”

“Then, no.”

“You like this one, though?”

It was a solo picture of you on the same day. He found it hidden in a box of other pictures that were either blurry or of you alone at special events or academic and career achievements. You wore your gown and held your cap that was decorated with plastic jewels that spelled, ‘So Done with this B.S.’, high above your head with the brightest smile on your face. Around your neck was a necklace that he got you for your graduation gift: a petite padlock on a simple chain from one of those boutique brands all the girls liked.

This was one of the most important days of your life. You were happy, sunny, and beautiful. Of course he liked this one.

“Meh,” he shrugged. “I guess you look all right in that one.”

You spent the night in bed recalling stories and social media posts of times past with oily take-out from the corner restaurant downstairs. The quiet weeknight was livened by your giggles and ugly snorts and Jeongin couldn’t remember the last time you two did something like this. It lasted until it was too late to care to kick him out of your bed and you both fell asleep covered in film and prints.

If forever meant forever with you, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.

–

Clubbing was a past time that Jeongin probably shouldn’t partake in due to his borderline alcoholism, but when it was for Jisung and Felix’s wombo-combo birthday bash (their words, if you’d even call them such), no one was safe from the heavy pour of Hennessey or bottom-shelf tequila down one’s throat. The weather was still appropriately warm to show off skin, and both you and your roommate took advantage of that, claiming that it was still hot-girl summer and this would be the best time to show off how perfectly fine everything was.

Jeongin rested his chin on your bare shoulder as you stared into the mirror. He had shown his affection more in a physical form after the destruction of his romantic paraphernalia. You should probably set some boundaries… Next time, maybe.

“You might as well go topless,” he teased, poking at your skin-tight top.

His touch tickled and your body stupidly reacted to it more sensitively than any other man who once touched you. “I’m sure you’d like that.”

He neither confirmed nor denied, only nuzzled his curls deeper into the crook of your neck. He styled it in the half-ponytail way you both came to love and work all black, sparkles of silver and pearls adorning his neck. Just as you had barely-there clothing, as did him, exposing hard-earned results of his efforts in the gym. His daytime clothes of soft linens and cottons dyed in innocent shades of blues and oranges matched his aura more than this edgy alter-ego that came out in the presence of alcohol. Soft Jeongin would be in a deep sleep tonight.

“Pearls?” you scoffed. “You slut.”

“Too much?”

“No, but you’re certainly sending the, ‘I’m single and very much looking,’ signal.”

“Perfect!” he shrugged. “When was the last time you went to a pregame, anyways?”

“When did you turn twenty-one?”

“Ok, grandma.”

You threw your hands up in defense. “I’m sorry I am a working woman.”

Skin touched more skin when his arm hooked your neck and dragged you to the door. The closer the taxi approached the condo, Jeongin’s hands more frequently wiped on his pants.

“Do you think she’ll be there?” he asked, sensing your concern.

“I don’t know,” you lied.

A couple weekends before this, you had personally asked the two celebrants to not invite her to the pregame. If they felt so inclined to invite her to the club for the sake of keeping the peace, at least then Jeongin wouldn’t have to be in close proximity and you could drag him away. Jisung was the one who tried to protest, but after begging and bribing them five rounds of drinks on the night-of, he caved in, though claiming he was going to not invite her anyways. He just wanted to see how far you’d go for your ‘beloved “friend.”’

“I need a drink,” he groaned.

“Look at me.” When he wouldn’t, you had to force him by grabbing his bare shoulders. They were much bigger than you remembered. “Say it with me; I am smart, I am sexy, and I am fine.”

“I am smart, I am sexy, and I am fine?”

“I need more gumption, babe. Give me some umph!”

“I am smart, I am sexy, and I am fine.”

“More!”

“I am smart, I am sexy, and I am fine!”

“Yeah!”

“Smart, sexy, fine!”

“Yeaaahh!”

“Let’s drink!”

After tipping the taxi for suffering through your pregame to the pregame, you and Jeongin did more breathing exercises outside their condo to the tune of the hip-hop music inside. All charged up, he opened the door and you stood in awe just how many friends two boys had post-university. The floors were already sticky with juice and liquor, and there was barely room to get to the crowd of people you actually knew. Luckily, Jeongin was tall, and he grabbed your hand to lead you in. This, for some reason, felt more intimate than slow dancing at the park, and that’s when you knew you were embarrassingly touch-starved.

Jisung squeezed himself in between and slung his arms across the shoulders of his close friends. “Long time no see, sugar mama!”

“Hello to you, too, mooch,” you smirked. “Happy birthday, I guess.”

He landed a big wet one on your cheek. “Thanks, babe!”

“Ugh, ew. Where’s the other child?”

“_____! Jeongie!” the deep voice of an Australian boy slurred. He handed you two plastic neon shot cups of brown liquid and no chaser. “Shot o’ Henny! House rules.”

“You disgusting, gross, icky boys…” you groaned.

“C’mere,” Jeongin urged. He twisted his arm around yours so they’d cross, causing your faces to inch closer. His dimples poked his cheeks. “Bottoms up!”

That was the motto of the pregame. One after the other after the other after losing games in humiliating succession made your vision double and made walking feel like you were on a ship. Chan had to catch you not once, but twice, from tripping or bumping into someone. It was as simple as one hand on your waist and pulling you into his chest, to which you so shamelessly placed your hand on when he hugged you close.

“We keep running into each other,” he grinned, biting his bottom lip.

“Must be fate,” you flirted back.

For the second time, Jeongin had to pry you away from the hottest man in the room. Annoyed, you followed anyway, because tonight you were supposed to distract your best friend from falling into a hole filled with existential crisis, not trying to sleep with someone he considered his brother. Still, you shot Chan a hand sign to your ear. ‘Call me!’ you pouted.

“Why would you cockblock me like that?” you whined.

Jeongin didn’t answer right away. He cleared his throat. “It’s time for the club, silly.”

You two shared a sedan with the birthday boys and Minho. One person above the normal limit, but the driver didn’t care and would rather hurry to do the drop-off.

Jisung patted his lap. “Got your seat, sugar mama.”

“No,” you and Jeongin said in simultaneous deadpan.

“Felix, move up,” Jeongin demanded. He man-spread as much as Jisung and Minho allowed, making a small seat in between his legs.

You’d be the first to admit that sometimes you and Jeongin were a little too close to be considered friends; even strangers had mistaken you for a couple once in a while. But you’ve never been close to him like this before. Your hesitation was long enough that Jisung had to yank you into the car. You did your very best to settle in, moving your ass as little as possible, struggling with how you could make this any less awkward and cover the least amount of surface area.

Jisung wrapped Jeongin’s arm tight around your waist and slapped his triceps. “All buckled in!”

As Jisung and Minho yapped each other’s ears off, you and Jeongin remained silent. If you turned to talk to him, your ass would graze his pants, and that was weird, right? Yeah, weird, and it seemed he had a similar thought. The exception was tapping his fingers on your waist to the beat of the radio. His breath tickled the skin on your neck, and your body betrayed you by heating up your face. Touch-starved was an understatement. No, horny was not the right answer; you’d refute it.

You couldn’t have crawled out of the sedan faster. The other boys rushed in to line up at the bar (“Don’t forget what you owe us!” Jisung whispered (yelled)). Behind you, Jeongin scanned the crowd. You followed suit and couldn’t find a beautiful short girl with strawberry blond hair. Ok, this was a good sign. Maybe she wouldn’t come! He let out a breath of relief; or was it disappointment? Regardless, he joined you on the dance floor and weaved between people, dancing against the oontz-oontz.

In this moment, while your veins were half-filled with alcohol and both of your closest friends closed in with over-filled cups, you watched Jeongin forget his woes and sing to the sad up-beat electronic music. A circle would open up in the middle at the peak of the song; Changbin would break dance; Minho and Jisung would body roll; Felix did the worm; and Jeongin would force you into a connected chain reaction of shoulder and arm waves. In these moments, he smiled. Grinned, even; dimples as deep as they could be and eyes twinkling under the neon lights from the DJ.

When the boys dispersed for another drink after a couple of hours of burning calories, you two were left alone again. In those hours, you couldn’t count how many times you made eye contact. After locking eyes again, feeling the highs of euphoria and the lows of heartbreak, he looked like he was going to say something. Then, he broke it, and his face dropped. You didn’t have to turn to see who it was, but like a moth to a flame, you were attracted to the pain.

She greeted Jisung and Felix at the bar on the opposite side of the club. It was too easy to spot her in the dark with her bright hair. She introduced the boys to someone next to her, touching his arm and leaning against him affectionately, making it as clear as the vodka shot in her hand that’s who she was with and he was hers.

How quickly the human heart beats for a lover, just for it to dance to the same rhythm for another.

Jeongin seemed apathetic. Not angry, not sad, and maybe unable to distinguish between if this was the ache of betrayal or the nostalgia of closing a chapter that begged to end.

Speaking of nostalgia, an old EDM song that premiered in your early years of middle school began, the familiar notes from a piano causing the whole club to scream.

You reached out to your soulmate. “You love this song.”

He smiled, eyes tired and filled with sadness, though without the reflection of a pool of stars. “I do love this song.”

You led him to the front where the DJ played Clarity. Lost in the crowd packed like sardines with strangers, you and Jeongin were free to sing out the shadows that slept in your hearts.

“Hot dive into frozen waves where the past comes back to life,” you sang at a horribly off-tune. “C’mon, I know you know it!”

“If I fear for the selfish pain, it was worth it every time,” he sang in perfect key.

“Louder! Hold still right before we crash ‘cause we both know how this ends!”

“A clock ticks ‘til it breaks your glass and I drown in you again.”

You forced your heart to sing its song and it retaliated in waves of tragedy. As your lips stretched to retain the smile, you screamed with the crowd, “‘Cause you are the piece of me I wish I didn’t need!”

And he joined in, matching your volume, matching your energy. “Chasing relentlessly, still fight and I don’t know why!”

In unison, you threw your heads back, crying into the air at the peak of the song. Like shadows, the crowd mimicked each other with hands curled into fists and hearts raised to the sky. “If our love is tragedy, why are you my remedy? If our love’s insanity, why are you my clarity?”

“Let’s go!” you cheered.

The beat picked up and the crowd jumped to the chorus. The bass of the song reached your heart and pumped blood through your veins, tired from fighting with rationality. You would take these short five minutes to let go, let your heart confess to the boy in front of you in the form of a 2013 poetic masterpiece. Despite the meaning, the beat was too sick and you couldn’t help but grin from the fun. Jeongin wasn’t one to hide emotions for the sake of saving face, but it was like he forgot why he was screaming as he headbanged his way through the wordless chorus. You both burst into a fit of giggles, blinded by the lasers that cut through the smoke machine.

As the song progressed, the more your bodies pressed together. Side by side, mixing sweat with sweat, you both screamed at the DJ the second verse and would turn to each other again for the iconic bridge. His dimples carved into his perfect skin and this would be a core memory you’d lock away forever despite the molotov cocktail of despair that ignited in your gut.

The line you screamed to your best friend was the one that branded itself into your whole being. It was the one line he refused to sing.

“You are the piece of me I wish I didn’t need!”

He didn’t continue the pattern of bouncing off lines from each other. He stopped jumping, brows furrowed in a way that concerned you more than it concerned him.

“What?” you paused.

Jeongin closed the gap between your bodies. Surrounded by violent waves of people, you blocked them out within the bubble, unable to hear the song anymore. His hands cupped your cheeks. Your mind registered a second too late that he was wiping something with his thumbs. It felt wet and warm, freshly flowing on your numb face.

His hands left your face and found your arms. You watched as he wrapped them around his neck and his dropped to your waist. The strength of his grip was desperate and longing, filling an emptiness that physically you could replace, but lovingly couldn’t replicate. You begged your body to step away, to run out and find Chan or anyone else; to go home even, but tonight your heart controlled your mind and overwrote the command. This was what you wanted, what you needed, what you dreamed of since secondary school. To be in the arms of the one you loved fulfilled the one level on the hierarchy of needs, but was a threat to the one below it. Your body was struggling to respond to its fight-or-flight, understanding that you had long crossed the thin line between friend and lover long ago with a size thirteen shoe, but it had betrayed you and glued your heels to the sticky dance floor.

Why was Clarity the longest fucking song in the world?

The smell of his pink peppercorn and cedar hit your senses and brought you back to life. You felt his forehead against yours, nose touching nose, his breath tickling your lips, and saw his eyes float between them and your now dry eyes.

“Why?” was all you could muster against his lips.

He answered by swallowing your words. You never understood the comparison of the softness of rose petals until you felt his. You kissed him shyly, waiting for him to pull away in a shocking realization of regret and prepared for the aftermath. But when you wouldn’t respond how he wanted, he pressed harder, moving his lips hungrily and mouth open and welcoming to receive. Your tongues danced and tasted the bitterness of tonight’s drinks, old lovers, and repressed confusion. But it felt good; so, so good. To be the one he wanted for once, whether it was real or for convenience, was an opportunity you pathetically couldn’t pass.

And your heart, how it soared! With wings made of wax, you were high above the clouds, tangling yourself with him and exchanging euphoric hums. But your dreams were sculpted by Daedalus and delusion was the sun, and though you wished to remain here forever, your wings began to melt and reality wouldn’t be kind enough to soften the fall.

When you broke for air in the middle of the next song, you felt pressure rise in your nose and eyes as a million tears collected. You knew this wasn’t what he wanted; or rather, you weren’t what he wanted. He wanted the same memory, the same cry of song, the same touch, the same kiss, the same taste of breath; just not yours. He wanted hers. You knew in the deepest corner of your heart that he imagined holding her instead and that her breath was the one he’d breath in. In the ideal scenario, you’d be out by the perimeter watching your best friend win back the woman of his dreams and he’d hold her so tightly, afraid that she would drown in the crowd. You were meant to be his biggest fan, not his greatest love.

“Why?” you cried again.

He shook his head. “I just thought -”

“This isn’t right.” But you wished it was.

Outside, the busy streets in the middle of the night were deafened by the bass and proximity to the DJ. It was a miracle you heard the honk of a nearby taxi that’d take you home.

No, you wouldn’t confess to your best friend in a club downtown. No, you wouldn’t confess any other time regardless of circumstance. This was a secret the recipient of an unrequited love was supposed to bury with them to their grave because it was the deepest sin committed between two best friends. As long as you didn’t confess, the bond wasn’t severed and the damage could be repaired. That’s how it was supposed to work, anyways.

For the night, you’d lock yourself in your room. You’d close off any and all avenues in order to protect and repair the critical condition of your heart. So much of it had been chipped away and given in pieces to fill the gaps that Jeongin was missing, but now he was confusing kindness for love and familiarity with feeling whole. How would you get back the pieces of yourself you so willingly gave up? Would your heart know to create those pieces into something new, or would it reject anything that came in its place that wasn’t from him?

You arrived home and washed away the sins until your skin burned from all the scrubbings. The sky was cloudy tonight as you looked outward into the lively streets of young adults who could party until the sun snuck above the horizon. The stars wouldn’t show themselves tonight.

Would Scorpio and Lupus be there tomorrow?

–

When your door handle wouldn’t give, Jeongin gave up and retreated to his room some time after 3:00 AM. He laid in bed and hated the feeling of his bed sheets. They weren’t as soft and they didn’t envelope him in a blanket of clouds as yours did. Though the ceiling color was the same as yours, in a sense, it still wasn’t the same, as he was in his own room and not where he belonged.

You had burned into his soul. The way your lips felt, the way your tongue swirled, the way your hands pulled him in, was the answer of how much you yearned for him. He was no stranger to signs of affection. No friend would do all of this with their heart in platonic mode. You didn’t look at him the way Felix or Chan or the others did. You, with your softened eyes and gentle touch, had him in your heart, for the Gods only know how long.

Jisung was the one to kick him out of the club and kick what little sense was left in him. “Go after her, you idiot!”

His lips were tingly. The feeling of your hands through his hair, fingers gentle and tracing the map to your heart, was carved into his scalp. His tongue swiped across his lips, lonely and aching to have another taste.

You infected him. You forced poison down his throat that made him unable to sleep, torturing him with a recording of your body pressed on his. He blamed you for how it planted itself and festered into something more salacious; a similar scenario, with tangled limbs and messy hair, but in the privacy of your bedroom and much less clothing.

In the days that followed, you pretended that night never happened, but something changed. Your responses were shorter, your cheeks were pinker, you couldn’t hold eye contact without faltering to his lips, you wore baggier clothes, and couldn’t even spend more than fifteen minutes in the same room without having to leave to ‘get water’ or ‘go to the bathroom’.

Why, for the love of all the Gods, hadn’t you confessed yet? Isn’t that the rational next step?

“Why would she?” Minho snorted while kicking his feet up on your coffee table. Jeongin would wipe that down later.

“Why wouldn’t she?” he repeated.

“You understand you live here, too, right?”

“So…”

“So… isn’t that weird? What are you going to say? ‘Cool, I’m still not over Sieun though, sowwy. Can I still live here, though’?”

“But I am!”

“Yeah, right.”

“I swear. Seeing her with that guy… sure, it sucked ass, but I don’t know. No one ever likes to see their ex with someone else.”

“No one likes taking care of someone they love who loves someone else, either.”

Jeongin pulled the string on his hoodie and hid inside. “I just feel like a confession would get rid of all this tension -”

“Sexual tension.”

“Regular tension.”

“And change the trajectory of your friendship and lives forever, so much so that the stars would misalign and chaos would ensue. Just as the prophecy foretold,” Minho rolled his eyes. “You know what, Jeongin, you’re right - _____ should confess her undying love to her best friend of over a decade who just broke up with the first love of his life after they made out on the dance floor to fucking Clarity, of all the damn EDM songs in the world, and then all would be normal, right? Nothing good has ever come out of tongue dueling to an EDM song.”

“I don’t need your sass…”

“Yes, you do, because you’re acting like an idiot. I don’t care what Jisung says, he’s too much of a loverboy. Think rationally, here; she’s not going to confess to someone who she knows doesn’t feel the same way. It’s that simple.”

Love was an infectious disease and Jeongin didn’t have the proper antibodies to defend himself against your poison. His heart, his mind, and his body were firing alert signals to each other whenever he saw you. His body would block them when you came home in your work-out clothes; his mind couldn’t focus whenever you spoke to him; and his heart wrenched when your smile didn’t match your eyes.

“Earth to Jeongin!” you snapped, waving in front of his face.

“Hm?” he asked, pretending your chest wasn’t in his face. His mind did a double-take when it registered your outfit.

“I said I’m going out for the night. So, you know, don’t light my home on fire.”

“Out where?”

Your back stiffened. “On a date.”

–

When Minho hit you up during your lunch break on a Friday afternoon, you were half expecting him to ask when the meeting was with the developers. The other half was not expecting a proposition.

“I don’t date co-workers,” you deadpanned.

“Not me, genius,” he scoffed. “A friend.”

“I’m not interested in Jisung.”

“How we got promoted at the same time is beyond me. I have other friends!”

“Do they look like Chan?”

“Sadly, no. They don’t look like Jeongin, either.”

Since the clubbing-turned-friendship-destroying wombo-combo, Minho made it his mission to terrorize you about it every working hour, either in person or over Teams with kissing, tongues, and eggplant emojis. Each time, you couldn’t suppress the burning on your face and in your chest. Your showers had to be ice cold for you to not remember how his hands gripped your waist and to forget how warm his tongue was around yours. At work, you often found yourself dazed, looking out at young couples that passed the streets below, daydreaming about kissing Jeongin again every time a couple would kiss at the stop light before crossing the road, or kiss each other goodbye, or just because.

You were sick with the lovebug and there was no remedy available. What made Minho think a date would work?

“No,” you said.

“Come on, _____! Live a little!”

“No!”

“So you’re saving yourself for a man who only kissed you because he felt sorry for you.”

If anyone was going to tell you the hard truth, it would be him. That didn’t make it hurt any less. “You think I can’t get over him.”

“I know you can’t.”

“That’s not fair. I didn’t ask for this.”

“You wanted it.”

“Of course I did, so what?!”

“You need to either move on and forget it happened, or fuck each other and see where it takes you. Which would you rather tell Jeongin?”

Minho was brash, but he was right, in a sense. If you couldn’t feel comfortable in your own home, you’d be drained of all life and cease to exist, living as a hollow body that went to work and came home to sleep. But was moving on or sleeping with your best friend truly the only two options?

Maybe you were an idiot. “Not a date. A drink.”

“Same thing. I’ll set it up tonight.”

“Tonight?!”

“Take it or leave it.”

There was some satisfaction in the way Jeongin’s face twisted when you admitted to a date. Yes, you put on your tightest clothes; yes, you put on your favorite perfume; and yes, you weren’t wearing a bra. All of which Jeongin realized, based on the path his eyes traveled.

“A date,” he muttered. “With whom?”

“I don’t know. Minho set it up for me.”

“Minho?” he sneered, then shook his head. “And you’re going?”

You swallowed the lump in your throat. “Yes.”

“Don’t.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Don’t go.”

“Jeongin -”

He stood from his seat on the couch. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I can’t -” you stuttered, unable to form the words you wanted to say in order. “I’m going.”

He blocked your path to the door. “I think we should talk.”

“About what?”

“About that night.”

“Now?” you scoffed. “Right now?”

“Yes.”

“This is something I want to do. Please,” you begged, “let me go.”

“I think you don’t want to go.”

“You don’t know what I think.”

“I think I do.”

“Well, you’re wrong.” The familiar sting on your nose returned. “You don’t know anything.”

“I think -” he paused, voice caught in his throat. “I know what I felt from you that night.”

“You know,” you chuckled bitterly. “You know what, exactly?”

“I felt you. I felt ten years of frustration, of anger, of-of desire, of everything that is both good and bad -”

“Jeongin -”

“How can you say that I didn’t feel how your heart beat against mine, how your lips pressed deeper -”

“Stop -”

“No!” he cried out. “I won’t stop! I can't! I-I need to know.”

“Are you asking for something? Are you looking for an answer that you already know?”

“Yes!”

“Why?!”

“Theories can be proven wrong.”

“But why does it matter?”

His voice cracked and he couldn’t manage to look you in your glossy eyes. “We need to lay everything on the table for this to work.”

“What’s not broken doesn’t need to be fixed.”

“But it is broken! Everything’s broken! It’s all a shattered mess of pieces that don’t fit together and we need to repair what’s broken when it’s all laid out in front of us.”

“Why?” you stuttered. “Why tonight? Tonight, of all nights, when I have something that’ll make me forget about that night for just a couple of hours?”

Jeongin couldn’t answer. It could have happened any night. But the game of life threw in a time-sensitive prompt that changed the whole plot. The fact that you wanted to forget, but couldn’t, might be the only confession he’d get.

“I can’t keep revolving my life around you,” you whispered. “I can’t keep loving you the way I do and maintain the friendship you need from me.”

There it was, the confession he was looking for, but not in the way he expected you to admit. He thought you’d do so while looking at the ground, hiding your smile the way you would act shyly, and maybe it’d be a little embarrassing. But as you stood before him, you were standing strong, refusing to break eye contact, with tears streaming down and dripping from your chin. It was in a way that begged for him to see you for how you really felt; like he was ripping your heart from your chest with his bare hands.

Your hands curl into fists in an effort to stop the tears. “If I lay the pieces of my heart on the table, I can’t take them back.”

He stepped closer. “Why not?”

You stepped back. “Because I won’t be able to put myself back together.”

“I’m here. I was made for you; to help keep you together.”

“Not in the way I want. In the way I need.”

“Yes, yes to both!” Jeongin grabbed tissues to dab the tears from your precious face, as if your skin was coated in porcelain. “I want to make this work.”

“This friendship.”

“No.”

“I am not her!” your voice cracked. “I am not her and I can’t fill in for the gap she left behind.”

“I don’t want her. I want you.”

You still couldn’t accept it. It just didn’t make sense. You were made to care for him from afar, not stand by his side. “You don’t mean that. You had ten years. Ten years! It only changed because, what, you're desperate for touch and you're going after the easiest catch? It's pathetic. You're pathetic!”

Your sharp tongue was your greatest weapon, but Jeongin was left unscathed. You were hurting and had a decade's worth of hardened shells that were crumbling in front of him. Yes, this was all too sudden, and it didn't make sense, but he was losing you and he'd rather break you down into a million pieces and deal with the puzzle later if it meant you'd stay.

“_____,” he whispered. He pressed his forehead against yours as if the closeness would allow you to read his mind and hear his heart scream. “I can't stop thinking about you.”

You sucked in a breath. Those words felt like a spell that lit your body in flames. Your mind said to run, but your body and heart had overruled. You tilted your head and your noses touched. “What if this doesn’t work?”

“Theories were tested repeatedly to be deemed true.”

“Tested a lot of times.”

“A billion times.”

“That takes a very long time.”

“I’ll take forever with you,” he breathed on your lips. “If you’ll have me.”

Your iron grip on his sweater would surely leave a mark later, but you were too afraid to let go, too afraid that this moment was a dream and he’d disappear if you faltered. “I was yours for ten years. I’ve been waiting to have you.”

One soft kiss. “I took too long.”

Another, more needy, kiss. “You can make it up to me later.”

And another, one that mimicked the hunger from that night. “Now.”

“Hm, I don’t know… I have a date, remember?”

“Yeah, with me in your bed.”

Your giggles echoed throughout the condo when Jeongin threw you over his shoulder and ran to your room.

And so your heart soared again. Above the ether was the unknown, in the mythical heavens and forbidden territory. But you'd get there together, while your arms tangled with his and noses rubbing affectionately as your breaths combined in between long and slow kisses under your (and his) blankets.

The fine line you once refused to cross bent and folded with your bodies.

–

EPILOGUE

“Yo,” Minho greeted the phone.

“Hey, I don’t think I can make it tonight -”

“She’s sick!” Jeongin interrupted.

“Oh, shit, I forgot about that. Well, thank God!” Minho sighed.

“Huh?”

“Yeah, that was a lie.”

“What the hell/What the actual hell is wrong with you?” you and Jeongin yelled in disbelief.

“Because Jeongin is a possessive simpleton and _____ is a cheap date. Did my master plan work, or not?”

“Well, yes, but -”

“My work here is done, bye!” Minho hung up.

#yang jeongin #jeongin #yang jeongin fic #jeongin fic #skz #stray kids #skz fic #stray kids fic #i had to tw song lyrics cuz i have never gotten a writing ick so bad in my LIFE #TO THAT SONG OF ALL SONGS TOO #but it was fOr tHe pLOt

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