#i know it sounds shitty but always have some kind of leverage because situations like that can go bad fast | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

milstrim · 3 years

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Comfort in My Shadow

Chapter 7: Perfect

By @iwritedumbshit for @iron-mum

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Minor Pepper Potts/Tony Stark

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Ned Leeds, James “Rhodey” Rhodes

Summary: Soulmates are definite in the universe. Nobody knows exactly why they exist, or what dictates who is bonded to who, the only thing known is that they are never wrong. But Peter’s not so sure about that.

Living at the group home had taught Peter a lot about laying low and how to stay alive when nobody cares. But he’d always clung to the hope of the shadow at his feet reflecting his soulmate that had watched over him for years.

Typical that his soulmate is actually a superhero that Peter is convinced shouldn’t want anything to do with him. Maybe, just this once, the Universe was wrong.

But Tony Stark is desperate to prove that it is right.

Ch 1 // Ch 2 // Ch 3 // Ch 4 // Ch 5 // Ch 6 // Ch 8

---

Everything went black. Not because Tony had passed out, but because the world had been consumed by thick piles of dust and a dozen layers of crumpled concrete. A ringing silence pursued after the ceiling had collapsed, leaving him unable to hear anything but the aftereffects of the explosions that he'd attempted desperately to shield Peter from. Not that it had gone very well.

Tony tried to move, gritting his teeth at the pain in the lower half of his body, pinned against the floor by what was probably hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds of concrete and metal. He was unsuccessful in even moving an inch, reduced to only wiggling under the smothering weight. At least his head and upper body had managed to avoid being hit. But he didn't know the same for Peter.

"Kid?" he called, his voice raspy. He coughed a few times, sucking in gritty air and blinking rapidly, trying to find the teenager in the low light. "Peter? Where are you, bud?"

There was a grunt, and then the grating of concrete shifting. Tony turned his head in the direction of the noise, squinting. He swallowed down a gasp as he finally caught sight of the kid.

He was not too far from Tony, his entire body crushed between two slabs of rough concrete. Only his head and a shoulder poked out, the material crumbling as the boy shifted. The two were separated by a wall of rebars, snapped and sharpened from the collapse of the ceiling. Whatever Peter had done in the chaos as the roof had fallen, it had saved Tony from the worst of it and left the kid there instead.

"Peter?" he tried again.

There was a whined groan in response, followed by the rumbled grinding of concrete and the clatter of stone falling. It was hard to make out through the darkness, but the kid's head picked up at his call. He could barely distinguish his bloodied and dirtied face, only his swimming eyes broke out from the oppressive darkness.

"Mr...Mr. Stark?" Peter rasped, his voice croaky and strained. His eyes picked the mechanic out in the darkness, settling on him easily.

"Right here, kid," he responded. "Can you move?"

There was a scrabble and the sound of primitive rustling. Tony squinted harder, trying desperately to make out the kid. He could see the movement of limbs scraping against the floor and the flurried panic of a tired struggle. He expected it to die down after a few moments once the teenager realized he was trapped, but, if anything, the scraped movement only picked up in its furor.

And then there was the gasping of wheezed breaths.

"Kid, you gotta calm down." There was no response. "Peter--"

"Mr. Stark!! Please, please, please. I’m stuck, I’m stuck. I can’t move. I can’t..."

"I'm right here, kid. Right here," he tried to assure. "It's okay, kid. It's gonna be okay, you can relax."

Peter shook his head. "No. No, no, I should've--I've got these powers and I couldn't even...I can't even get us out... You were right about the suit, Mr. Stark."

Tony stared at the kid who was keeping his head down, shoulders slumped. He swallowed.

"Maybe I was." Peter flinched, head picking up to stare at him through the maze of rebars, eyes wet. "But you're more than a suit, Peter."

"No I'm not," Peter muttered. "I couldn't even take down the vulture guy with the suit, and I've been here for two days. I should've been able to escape."

"I was in Afghanistan for three months, in an admittedly pretty shitty situation, but with access to materials. Nobody would've expected you to get out from here, kid. I didn't." Peter glanced away from him. Tony dragged in a rugged breath, thinking back to everything horrible that Peter had told him before the ceiling had collapsed. "I said later, but now's as good a time as ever I guess. You're my soulmate. And I'm proud of that."

"But--"

"I don't want to hear any 'buts' on that. Not one. I have waited my entire life just to meet you, and I am not disappointed in the slightest. I never even thought of that as a possibility." A pause as he let that sink in. "You asked after the ferry why I cared. I think that's a ridiculous question, but I'll answer it now anyway: You're my soulmate. The little shadow I've been dreaming of meeting for fifteen years. And let me tell you, kid, dreams don't measure up to you.”

He could see glistening tears running down Peter's face, a confused expression scrunching up the boy's features. Piecing together a puzzle impossible to do alone.

"What's eating at you? Let me fix it." A moment of pure desperation. "Please."

There was a moment, a teary sniff, and then, "You said, "forever," and--I thought you didn't want to see me again."

Tony flinched, jostling the pain spiking his trapped legs. But whatever level the pain was, he deserved it for causing this good and kind kid. He forced out a harsh sigh.

"I...I didn't mean it. Not like that. Never like that, Peter. There is nothing you could've done that would have made me never want to see you again... What I said that day--I was scared. I was scared for all those people and I was scared for you." He took in a deep breath, unused to being this vulnerable. For just tearing down his walls like this. But Peter needed him. Peter needed Tony to be honest and open. "I was scared of losing you, and I freaked out and I didn't handle it great and...and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Peter."

"Not forever then?"

"No. Not forever." He tried for a smile. "I was going to call you tonight actually, to make sure we were still on for Friday. I didn't realize you'd put your phone in your mask. Or your other stuff. You're getting all of it back when we get out of here, by the way."

"How are we getting out of here?" Peter asked. "I can barely move."

Tony twisted as far as he could, squinting into the darkness. "We need some leverage. If I can get this off of me, I might be able to call for help. Oh, and stop Mr. Vulture from stealing my whole plane."

"What?"

"Later. Anything near you that could give us a good purchase on this shit?"

---

Peter searched around at Mr. Stark's request, looking desperately for something that might free the man. His lower half was trapped underneath a concrete slab, so he just needed something that could let him reach it. Maybe dislodge it a little so that they could hope his phone wasn't broken.

After a few seconds, Peter's eyes landed on the wall of broken rebars between him and Mr. Stark. There were a few long ones, easy enough for him to reach and long enough for Mr. Stark to use. He grunted, reaching out and gritting his teeth in pain as the concrete and metal clamped down around his ribs.

Mr. Stark turned to look at him from where he'd been searching in his area, eyes narrowing as he caught sight of Peter finally wrapping a hand around a rusted rebar. With a grunt, a snap, and a tear, the skewered metal was free, the end he was holding slowly being covered in blood from where it had cut at his hand. But it was free.

"Here," he said, pushing it through the wall of rebar. Mr. Stark grabbed it immediately, pulling it over to his side.

"Good work, kid," the man complimented. Peter watched with sharp eyes through the dark as he twisted, jabbing the metal underneath the slab and heaving. Pushing the rebar back and forth, the concrete began to shift, wiggling backwards. After a few minutes, Mr. Stark was, well, he was still trapped, but he was allowed much better movement now.

The man dug into his now free pockets, pulling out a phone, grimacing, and then grabbing another phone. Another grimace. "Phones don't work. All broken."

"Nothing else in your bag of tricks?" Peter asked. Mr. Stark shook his head.

"I've got plenty of trackers on me, but there's nothing to do until someone realizes we're missing."

That you're missing, not me, Peter thought, but he didn't voice aloud. Instead, he stared down at the ground, wheezing in rattled and wet breaths. Vulture guy was going after the plane, filled to the brim with Avengers stuff and Mr. Stark's inventions and all sorts of dangerous weapons. The guy had built a business on scraps, the thought of what he could do with all of that other stuff was terrifying. And he couldn't let it happen.

Peter grit his teeth, sucking in a deep breath as he braced his shoulders, tensing them up against the concrete. It began to shift above him, grating and scraping and tearing at his still ringing ears. He couldn't help the pained grunt, but it was working. There was enough free space that he could twist his arms, shifting the weight.

He was aware of Mr. Stark staring at him, but only dimly, as he raised onto his knees and then his feet, flinching at every piece of concrete that crashed down around him. He bit down on every scream that tried to tear its way through his throat, but he couldn't completely keep them in. Short outbursts of pain escaped, but then the weight and the pain was gone. There was a deafening crash as it tumbled behind him, stirring up a cloud of dust and dirt so thick he couldn't see a thing as he dropped onto his knees, coughing violently.

"Kid?" Mr. Stark called.

Peter wheezed in a shaky breath, forcing himself back to his feet. "Here! I'm okay, Mr. Stark."

There was a relieved sigh as Peter jumped shakily over the pile of rubble, gripping onto the top and then dropping onto the ground right next to where Mr. Stark was still trapped. The man stared up at him, a proud smile on his face.

"That was impressive, kid. You did good."

Peter grabbed the concrete slab, lifting it easily. His ears burned at the praise.

"Thanks." He held out a hand, which Mr. Stark accepted, pulling the man up. He stumbled for a moment, a hand resting on Peter's shoulder for support. The teenager thought back to the fingers that had curled into his skin and left dark bruises and darker nightmares. But this hand was soft, strong and everything Mr. Fowler wasn't. Peter was okay. "Okay, let's go find the vulture guy. He can't have gotten too--"

Peter was cut off as Mr. Stark wrapped him in a hug. The teenager stood stiffly, confused as gentle arms bundled around him and Mr. Stark's head pressed against his own. After a hesitant moment, he raised his own arms and, after not knowing how long it had been since he'd had a hug, his arms grasped around Mr. Stark. Tight and tired and desperate. He closed his eyes.

Safe.

With a pat on his back, Mr. Stark let go.

"C'mon, let's get moving. We've got a plane to catch."

Peter followed his soulmate quickly, stumbling after the man and out of the broken rubble, his legs more than a little sore. "How? Aren't your armors on the plane?"

"They are, but they'll be good for something else other than fighting tonight."

Peter blinked, more than a little confused, but he followed Mr. Stark out of the building nevertheless. There was a sleek car waiting, still rumbling with the keys in and the door flung wide open. Mr. Stark slipped into the driver's seat and, after a moment of hesitation, Peter got in the shotgun.

"Hello, sir, glad to see you're still alive," greeted a cool voice. Peter flinched in surprise.

"Yeah, yeah. Can it, Fri, I need the plane's location right now."

"It is currently twenty minutes out from the compound on its projected course."

A screen popped up in the car, showing the path of the plane. Both the man and the teenager's brows furrowed, glancing at each other. That wasn't right.

"Okay, I want you to keep an eye on it and see if anything's tampered with it," Mr. Stark started, grabbing a pair of glasses from the glovebox and slipping them on. "And track Mark Forty-Nine while you're at it. Let's see where these bastards really are." A second dot appeared on the screen, veering off from the projected course of the plane. "Gotcha."

"But how are we going to get there?" Peter asked. Mr. Stark thought for a moment.

"Rhodey's got the only other suit right now, but he's in DC. And Vision's in Europe for a little honeymoon or whatever, so that just leaves us."

"A man with a heart condition and a teenager."

"A teenager who just lifted several thousand pounds while trapped. And my heart's fine, thank you," Mr. Stark countered. Peter gave him a look but it fell as he took in the man's expression, clearly warring with himself. Fear and apprehension and scary determination. After a moment, Mr. Stark sighed, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a familiar red fabric. It was placed on the console in between them. "You're our best bet right now, kid. Lives are going to be lost if we don't get that stuff back before they can start selling it."

Peter grabbed the scarlet mask hesitantly, glancing between the narrowed eyes and Mr. Stark. There was a shake in his hand, accompanied by murky brown eyes and the stench of overpowering beer. Of a hand on his shoulder and the horrible inability to fight back. The teenager shook away the memories flooding him as subtly as he could. He voice shook as he said, "I don't think I'm ready."

Mr. Stark fixed him with a steady stare. These brown eyes weren't murky, they were bright and strong. He didn't smell of rank beer, instead roasted coffee and faint motor oil. The lines on his face weren't fixed in anger and worn away by the harm he'd caused, but rather a comforting mix of laugh lines and memories of regret.

As if against his will, Peter was instantly soothed, his racing heart calming and his nerves quieting. Mr. Stark's words only amplified the safety that had cocooned the teenager ever since gentle arms had wrapped around him.

"We never are, kid. But the world doesn't wait." Peter ducked his head, brow furrowing and mouth frowning. Confusion and fear and doubt all warring and showing clearly on his face. At his silence, Mr. Stark added, "You can do it, Peter, I know you can. You're going to be the best of all of us one day."

Peter's face burned. His heart swelled. His resolve hardened. With a sharp nod, Peter gathered up the suit and hopped into the back of the car. It began to speed off immediately, but Peter stuck himself to the car floor easily, beginning to pull on the suit.

"How are we going to catch up?" he asked. A horn blared and Peter looked back to see someone honking at them as they cut them off.

"If they stay on their course, they'll be going over Jersey in ten."

"We can't make it to Jersey in ten."

"How fast can you swing to Jersey?"

"From here? Not fast enough."

Mr. Stark thought for a moment, eyes focused on the road. "Friday, are the drones still ready to be deployed from the compound?"

"Yes, sir."

"Get one over here, and then attach it to the plane's coordinates."

"Done."

Peter leaned up front, his mask pulled up over his hair. Mr. Stark glanced at him from the corner of his eye. "What's the drone for?"

"Much faster than a car," he answered. "Get on the hood, it'll take you to the plane in time. I'll try to catch up and keep under you, but right now, it's up to you."

The window rolled down for him. Peter glanced between Mr. Stark and the opening. He gave the man a smile, pulling the mask down. "I won't disappoint you, Mr. Stark."

"You never could, Peter-butter."

Peter, already out the window, peaked his head back in. "I'll be back with an embarrassing nickname for you. Just you wait."

"I don't doubt it."

---

The drone arrived quickly. Peter's spider sense picked up on it quickly, barreling in from behind him. He narrowed his eyes at it, unfurling from his crouch on the car. With a perfectly timed leap, he jumped off of the car's hood, attaching himself to the drone and holding on as it climbed higher. He swallowed nervously. Heights were kind of his thing, but flying and swinging were very different.

"Incoming call from Tony Stark," Karen said in his ear.

"Connect him," Peter said, nervously readjusting his grip on the drone. A closer look revealed it was the same model as the one that had helped piece the ferry back together. It was pretty cool, actually, able to contort itself to be just a little bigger for Peter to hold onto.

"Hey, kiddo. How's it hanging?"

"Do not joke about this, Mr. Stark."

"Don't tell me you're afraid of heights."

"I swing, I don't fly, Mr. Stark."

"Same difference," Mr. Stark said. Peter grumbled, immediately planning a time to swing the man around. He'd get his revenge one day. "Okay, the cameras on the plane are playing on a loop, so I can't see what's going on over there. You're going to go in blind."

"Okay, okay. Plan. We need a plan. Right?"

"I've got one. I'm gonna stay on the phone with you. When you get in, I'll walk you through resetting the plane's route and activating the Iron Man armors. They'll take it from there."

"Okay, okay, okay. Solid--solid plan."

"Eyes on the prize, kid. ETA in five minutes."

Peter nodded.

Five minutes came and went too quickly and too slowly. Either way, the teenager wasn't quite prepared when he broke through the clouds, the screen in his mask picking the reflective plane out of the air. He squinted at the strange lump poking out of it, realizing after a moment that it was the vulture's wings.

"I see the plane, Mr. Stark," Peter reported as the drone flew him closer. Once he was underneath, he let go, sticking himself to the plane and attaching a securing web just in front of him. The drone flew off, but he could still hear it buzzing around. "I don't see anyone, but the guy's wings are here. I think it's covering his entrance."

"Do you think you can move it?"

Peter crawled over the metal, getting on the other side and securing himself once more. He gave it a heavy kick. It moved, but not much. "I think so, yeah."

"Okay, get to working on that."

Spider-Man kicked again, pushing with all of his available strength at the metal encasing in front of him. A jolt of pain shot up his leg with every movement, but he didn't stop. He kicked and kicked and kicked until--

It moved.

Alarms rang inside the plane, and Peter couldn't help the way he flinched.

"Okay, so uh, it moved, but not enough and I think he knows," Peter reported.

"Are you sure?"

The wings opened, revealing a flash of bright green eyes that he only saw for a second before they were lost in the clouds.

"Uh, yeah. Yep. Pretty sure, Mr. Stark. Pretty sure." Peter glanced up at where the wings had been, disappointed to see no opening for him. He began to climb up the side to where the door should be. "Uh, his opening is gone."

"Can you still get in?"

The wind swept Peter back when he reached for the door, making him grunt in pain as his bruised back was slapped against the metal. He opened his mouth to answer when his senses spiked. He whipped his head around, letting out a yell of surprise as wings broke through the clouds. He shot out two webs on instinct, hitting the metal wings that he barely had time to dodge before they slashed through the metal just inches above his head. The vulture continued flying, pulling him and his web along. He shot another one at the plane, suspending him in air.

"What the hell was that?" Mr. Stark. Peter grunted.

The web snapped.

Peter was trapped in air for a fleeting second before he was shot through the air, the plane still moving ever forward. The jet whirred, angry metal teeth whirring to swallow him. He let out a raspy yell, his throat scratchy. He shot out his arms and shot what looked like half of his web fluid. He squeezed his eyes shut, expecting pain. When there was nothing, he blinked his eyes open to see himself snugly caught in the stuffed propeller.

The propeller fell, and he barely managed to cling on. He reached out an arm, grabbing on and kicking the broken motor. It creaked out before falling through the clouds with a deafening whoosh. He slipped back into the circle where the motor had been.

"I can't believe that worked," he said with a relieved gasp. He began making his way onto the top of the plane so that he could try and reach the door again.

"What worked? What's happening?"

"I thought you had the Baby Monitor protocol," Peter snipped.

"You disabled it," Mr. Stark responded. "I put the suit in the box and didn't look at it. I'll fix it tomorrow."

"Great. Maybe change the name, though."

"No can do, Peter-butter."

Peter opened his mouth--to quip or groan he didn't really know--but any thought of snide remarks was washed away by the raising of his hairs and the pounding of his skull. The Vulture returned, shooting out of the clouds. Peter rolled out of the way, narrowly avoiding the sparked slashes left behind by the metal wings where he had been only a second before.

The wind swept him back as he struggled to get a grip, the whirring of another engine screaming danger behind him. He forced out his back leg and splayed out his hands, trying desperately to stick to the sparking plane. He looked underneath himself to glance at the jet, his head snapping back up at the scraping of metal as the Vulture returned once more.

A wing struck out, and, seeing no other escape, Peter let go. He managed to get a grip again by attaching a web, but the wing came for another slash, digging into the plane where he had been barely a moment before. It snapped the web, and the teenager was dragged back.

Peter flew up as the Vulture came for him once more, the wind carrying him. His senses spiked, but he managed to narrowly miss the jet, instead knocking against the side and flying back. He shot out another web, flailing out behind the dashing plane, the jet catching on fire and blowing a trail of harsh smoke into his face.

"Peter, you're dropping real fast. What's going on, bud?"

The teenager couldn't find it in himself to answer, his breath shot as the plane began to careen downwards. Peter pulled himself forward by his web, squinting his eyes and glaring over the rapidly disappearing clouds. A city was in view.

"Oh, my God."

Ignoring the Vulture digging into the plane and Mr. Stark's demanded question, Peter turned, shooting out a web and forcing himself to his feet. He pulled, letting out a harsh yell at the pulling on his arms, though it was washed out by the groaning of the wings as it turned.

"Please turn! Please turn!" he yelled.

The sparking plane began to tilt, carrying them over the city where it disappeared to be replaced by the twisting rides of Coney Island and the sand that stretched beside it.

The web snapped, whipping him into a tumble onto the plane's wing where he barely held on, curling himself into a tense ball on the flashing metal. There was no time for goodbyes or terrified thoughts or anything of regret. There was only approaching land and a tired fear in his choked throat.

"I'm really sorry, Mr. Stark."

The plane crashed.

Sound left Peter. Reason and understanding left him too. All he was aware of was the pain as he was launched from the plane's snapped wing, rolling a million times over. The sand was hot against him, even through the suit, the high friction tearing and scratching at him through the suit. The heat tore at him, clawing at him worse than anything else.

Peter finally came to a rolled stop in the sand in the middle of dark plumes of smoke and the harsh brightness of red and orange flames. He was sure that the plane was sparking, the wind roaring, and the fire crackling, but there was nothing for him to hear except for the ringing. He was aware dully that Mr. Stark was speaking for him, but nothing made sense as he struggled for a coherent breath.

The teenager took in a gasping breath, forcing himself onto one of his elbows and tugging at his mask with shaky hands. He tore off the fabric covering his face, peeling it off of his sweat and and blood covered face, throwing it into the sand in pain. He stumbled back onto his elbows with the force of his rattling coughs. After a moment, he picked himself up by his arms and knees, finally forcing his stumbling and shaking feet into use, allowing him to stare around the turned up beach.

A tingle ran up his spine. He turned, squinting into the surrounding fire. Green eyes and sharp claws burst out of the sparks and plumes.

He gasped in rattled fear, the reality of the world returning in a loud rush of overwhelming sound and heat as the sharp metal claws clamped around him, pushing him back down into the sand. He let out an unwilling scream as the metal tips tore through his skin.

There was a whine and a whir as Peter was lifted into the air by his wounds. He struck out his hands, tugging at the metal claws until they let go. Peter dropped, grimacing as he turned in air to shoot a web, flinging himself back up and into the man's metal suit. The Vulture was forced to dip low as the teenager unbalanced him, but it left Peter unbalanced too.

The boy snapped against the loose sand, a pained mumble escaping his tired lips, blood tricking from them. The Vulture approached slowly, threateningly. A hooked feather extended, reaching forward and aiming towards his chest. Peter swallowed painfully, staring up at the man through the grit in his eyes and a fiery red lens, sure that this was it.

He could barely move, he could barely even talk. He wished he was at least wearing his mask, just so that he could say goodbye.

The feather jabbed forward. Peter flinched and closed his eyes.

There was a sharp, reverberating clang.

The pain never came.

---

Tony stood over Peter, a metal encased arm raised in front of him, a metal feather knocked against the Iron Man gauntlet reaching up to his elbow that he had barely managed to grab from the plane's rubble before rushing over. He glared at the Vulture hovering in front of him, the green eyes piercing. Behind him, he heard Peter mutter lowly, "Mr. Star'?"

"Mr. Stark," the Vulture echoed him mockingly, the metal feather still slashed against Tony's upheld arm. "I didn't know you care so much to put yourself in harm's way. Perhaps you're right. I don't know everything."

"No. You don't," Tony answered shortly, narrowing his eyes up at the man through his glasses. He glanced beyond the man at where boxes of his stuff sat idly in the fire, resisting the desperate urge to turn his head and look at the kid. "Now's your chance to run before anyone else shows up."

"How generous, Stark," the man said. "But I'm not leaving empty-handed."

"Then you're not leaving at all."

"Contrary to your usual position, I'm the one with the power now."

"Oh, yeah?" Tony challenged, taking a step forward. The man hovered back, just a little. But it was enough for Tony to confidently lie out of his ass. "Big talk for a man in a bird-suit. You think I didn't have a contingency for this? I have contingencies for my contingencies. A functional War Machine armor and a vibranium android are on their way right now. Three minutes. Your choice."

The feather withdrew from against his gauntlet, the Vulture hovering backwards. Tony held his bright green stare, a furious glare written harshly across all of his features. The man didn't turn away, instead glancing over Tony's head and raising his wings. He flew at Tony, forcing the mechanic to duck down to avoid the wings that sliced the air overhead.

He expected an attack, but nothing ever came. He turned to glare at the man, his eyes narrowing as he watched metal clamp down onto a leaking metal box, glowing arc reactors slipping out. He wanted to yell; to shout and run and defend the power sources only moments away from being stolen, but his shadow flashed underneath him, dragging the mechanic's eyes down to the kid trying to stumble back onto his knees, one arm clutched around his chest.

Tony let him go, dipping down low to kneel beside the kid. It was selfish, and he knew it. Those arc reactors could cause a lot of damage in the wrong hands, but Peter was infinitely more important to him.

Tony pat the kid's back even as he tried to stumble to his feet, murmuring reassuringly, "It's okay. Take a seat, kiddo, you did good."

Peter glanced at him from where he was staring at the Vulture, beginning to lift off into the air, flames trailing after him. There was a terrified stiffness to the kid. His voice was shaky as he said, "Mr. Stark--Mr. Stark, his wing suit. His wing suit's going to explode!"

Tony followed Peter's gaze to stare at the Vulture's wings. They were fizzing and sparking. His immediate thought was, good. He won't get away, but Peter was different. Peter was better. The kid flicked out a shaking hand, a white line streaking out from the metal on his wrist and attaching to the Vulture's suit.

Peter stood, Tony followed suit, unsure of what to do. He didn't have super strength, he couldn't exactly help, so he stood by the kid, a metal arm raised up in warning as the Vulture turned around, clearly confused by the resistance on his suit. Peter only pulled back tighter.

"Time to go home, Pete," the Vulture said.

"I’m trying to save you!" Peter yelled. Tony just glared, refusing to move a muscle as the Vulture raised a wing. He snapped through the web. Peter was flung backwards with the force, landing harshly in the sand. Tony startled, cursing and kneeling beside him as the kid tried desperately to shoot another web. He sent a terrified glance Tony's way as he realized that he was out of fluid.

Heads twisted to glance at the Vulture, the fizzing and sparking crescendoing. With a split second realization about what was going to happen, he forced Peter to the ground, guarding the kid from the heat that exploded behind them and grabbing his head protectively. Peter curled up underneath him, one hand clutching into his jacket desperately.

When the initial force was over, the two unfurled from one another, turning to stare at the crackling fire.

"No," Peter murmured. The teenager flinched and squirmed, rushing to his feet. Tony grabbed his arm.

"Kid," he breathed.

"Mr. Stark, I gotta--I gotta go get him."

"Peter--"

Their shadows stretched out from them, switched. A spindly thin teen reflecting a spindly thin teen and a ruffled and sharp man reflecting a ruffled and sharp man. The teenager tore his arm away, the shadows returned, and one terrified and regretful look was sent to Tony.

He ran.

"Peter!!" Tony yelled. The kid was already gone into the burning flames, and, without a moment of hesitation, Tony followed.

The fire scorched at him through his dark suit, licking and crackling at his skin. He hissed, forcing down pain and squinting through the smoke to make out Peter's red and blue suit. The kid was crouched down beside a heap of metal, a yell of pain escaping him as he touched it. Tony ran over, catching Peter by surprise as he turned up to look at him.

There was apprehension, and then there was understanding. A sliver of trust thrown his way.

Tony gave Peter a nod, digging his metal encased hand underneath the burning heap. Peter followed suit, forcing his own fingers underneath the sand. With equally heavy grunts, the metal lifted, revealing the soot covered body of the Vulture. No mask, no wings. Just a man.

Peter grabbed him, throwing the man over his shoulder fireman style. Together the two stumbled out of the fire. Peter dropped the coughing Vulture onto the sand, stepping a few feet forward before collapsing to the ground himself. Tony laid down beside the gasping kid, wheezing in rasped breaths himself.

Two heroes and a vulture, all collapsed on the sand, coughing smoke out of their lungs like lunatics. Tony didn't know whether to laugh or not. As if it would provide an answer, he turned to stare at the kid, catching Peter's eye, who turned to stare at him as well. Tony smiled. Peter followed suit tentatively, doe eyes swimming.

"I've got your nickname, Mr. Stark," Peter rasped. Tony huffed a laugh.

"Yeah? Lay it on me."

"MacaTony. Like--like macaroni?"

Tony laughed. Full on and hearty and completely disregarding the smoke choking his lungs. He didn't care as the coughs were mixed with his crazed giggles, resting his head back against the sand and staring up at the sky. After a moment, Peter's own laughs joined his, mixing with the crackles of pluming fire.

Their shadows stretched in the orange light, their own kind of happiness flickering in the dark silhouettes, like they knew that their souls had finally met. Finally understood.

Or maybe the goofy grin stretched across Tony's face was making him delirious with joy, but Peter's own bright and sooty grin was enough to make the world feel right even in the rubble of an invisible plane on a burning beach.

Ch 1 // Ch 2 // Ch 3 // Ch 4 // Ch 5 // Ch 6 // Ch 8

@annabanannabeth here ya go!

#friendly neighborhood exchange #tony stark #peter parker #Iron Man #spiderman #irondad #spiderson #irondad and spiderson #ironman fanfiction #spiderman fanfiction #marvel fanfiction #soulmate au #platonic soulmates #not st*rker

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the-littlefangirl · 3 years

Text

TFATWS episode 2 rewatch commentary

We should've guessed John Walker was going to be an asshole the moment it was revealed he played football in high school

That remix of star spangled man is my villain origin story JEEEEEEESUS i want to punch something

They literally mass produced a Walker action figure in two weeks what the fuck

"Your new Captain America" GAAAAAAAAAAh * angry noises *

"For those who aren't familiar with John's resume" thank you GMA lady

My face during that whole speech: wtf and indignation intensify

Bucky's face: yep same.

Imagine being Sam and everywhere you go you're seeing your one (1) mistake spit in your face overandoverandover again that's g r e a t

Tbh that sambucky reunion was anticlimatic as fuck but i actually liked that, it was like WELL HERE WE GO AGAIN they can’t look at each other for 5 seconds before they need to start bickering

"You think it didn't break my heart" SAM SWEETIE

YeAH TELL HIM SAM

The way I know this clip by heart help me. It's still hilarious but it's even better now that I know that they literally just met and they're already bickering can you PLEASE stop you children

T H E B I G T H R E E

Spoiler it was a thing

Love how nonchalant Joaquín is about this entire situation lmao

"You sure about that"

*Fakes smiles* yeah, * screams *

Congrats at least you didn't rip your arm off this time that's what I call progress

is he… is he wearing high wasted skinny (jeans) combat pants?

Redwing i'm sorry for what's about to happen :(

"Look at you all stealthy" PLEASE

"it's white wolf, actually" n e r d

SAM MATERIALIZING OUT OF THIN AIR SAFHAJSFHA this is the second time that happened it’s so funny

H E LLO H O W A R E Y O U?

GOOD! WHAT DID I MISS! NOTHING

They're literally 5 CHILDREN CHILDREN PLEASE STOP

AND I CAN FLY WHO GIVES A SHIT fsdjhfadjkfh

L e t m e s e e

Four

Yeah

Five!

YeaH

“So they're strong. W h a t e v e r”

SFHJDASKFA we're superheroes ma'am vibes

3 supersoldiers what could possibly go wrong

REDWING MY BELOVED FAREWELL

"I always wanted to do that" *gets punched in the face* you deserved that

YEAH BABEE look at those wings

Why do the knockoff duo have a special handshake jesus fucking christ i hate them

“SAM JOHN WALKER CAPTAIN AMERICA” Sam: *Glares harder*

Sam is having a very shitty day

So are we going to ignore that Bucky did t h e t h i n g with the shield? Ok? Ok.

You can't tell me he wasn't thinking of just grabbing it like a toy and not returning it in the middle of the fight sfj

LOOK AT THOSE W I N G S

*whispers* t h e e arm thing

*Stares at the wall* I CAN'T WITH THAT SEQUENCE WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO MEJSFHJASFAH PLEASE they didn't have to go that far with the grunting noises PLEASE

John Walker getting his ass served is something that can be so personal<3

Also, I like that they've now established that he CAN lose a fight, which makes me wonder if he's also going to use his political influence as leverage against sam and bucky once he goes berserk

"It's one of the big three" "Aliens, androids or wizards" "pretty sure" lmao yeah I don't think that's the vindication Sam was looking for

"Look, I've done the work, okay" SHUT THE FUUUUUUCK UP

"You ever jump on top of a grenade" bucky finding out about it in the middle of a briefing during the war fic trope intensifies

"It's a reinforced helmet" well you're fucking losing the point there then you naive clown

Captain "Kind of the government" America??? NOPE NOPE GOODBYE N O P E NOOOOOOOOOOOPE

"Usually said by the people with the resources" daaamn

“I'm Battlestar. John's partner" A clown that’s what you are

Bucky: YES I'VE REACHED MY LIMIT STOP THE FUCKING CAR

"It'd be a whole lot easier if I had Cap's wingmen on my side" FUUUUUUUUUCK YOUUUUUUU

"It's always that last line" yeP

Erin Kellyman is??? So pretty???

"The GRC care more about the people who came back than the ones who never left" love how they keep putting those random bits since otherwise their position sounds??? Extremely reasonable?? BUT THEY ARE V I O L E N T R E V O L U T I O N E R S fuck off

"Let's take the shield, Sam" oh you BET he's been spiraling thinking about 3224 strategies on how to steal the shield during that flight

Sharon name drop:)

YES I KNOW YOU WERE ON THE RUN FOR TWO YEARS I'D REALLY HAVE WANTED TO SEE MORE OF IT JFC @marvel i hate you so much

The whole Baltimore sequence * chef's kiss *

ELI SWEETIE

Friendly reminder that Isaiah Bradley won a fight against the Winter Soldier. Proceed.

"I'm not a killer anymore" bucky sweetie

"You think you can wake up one day and decide who you wanna be" OOOOF

Carl Lumbly's acting f u c k

"How could nobody bring him up" SAM SWEETIE

I'm going to go ballistic now excuse me:))

This whole scene is so well written jesus fucking christ

Have you praised Anthony Mackie's performance today?

Twitter is this clear enough for you?????

Tbh i'm actually surprised marvel allow them to go there even if the situation didn't escalate.

They put the tiiiiniest handcuffs on bucky lmfao

How many more "bucky"s from Walker's mouth until someone punches him?

"He's too valuable of an asset to have tied up" YEAH BEEP BEEP ALARMS GOING OFF RIGHT THE FUCK NOW UHM THOSE WERE SOME… WORD CHOICES… THAT WERE USED… fuck you Walker

"It's something I use with couples" oh coME ON

SFHAJSDFH this is ridiculous i love it

Malcolm Spellman: * agressively takes notes on Stackie's interviews *

SOUL-GAZING EXERCISE LMFAO

THEY'RE SO STUPID I HATE THEM

Sambucky: *chaotic leg positioning*

Dr Raynor: WOW ALL RIGHT

I love that the staring contest thing is the conclusion of the bucky staring joke lmao

AND DON'T SAY SOMETHING CHILDISH

this is literally not about you bucky

"Maybe this is something you or Steve will never understand. But can you accept that I did what I thought was right?" YEAH!!!!

Why is everyone, on the show and outside of it too, acting as if Sam made that decision of out the blue and didn't think about it for six months straight, and look what happened! He got fucking played! He's feeling enough remorse as it is jfc

"Thanks Doc for making it weird I feel much better" LMFAO

Oh you KNOW that the shoulder clap is going to come back unironically and it's going to be soft as fuck

"I feel better" "I feel awful" props for the honesty boys!

"It wouldn't make sense to work with you" more like you're the fucking government's lap dog and we wouldn't touch that with a twelve feet long pole. Let's fucking go Sam let's fucking go

10/10 building of Walker actually being a fucking asSHOLE

The Power Broker name drop!

Yes Bucky SHOULD beat the SHIT out of Zemo. As a treat.

"We're going to go see Zemo" *CLASSICAL MUSIC STARTS BLASTING IN THE BACKGROUND*

Oh I love that last bird eye's shot at the end of the scene

Overall thoughts: This episode was MUCH MUCH better on second viewing. I do think it’s a little bit too fast paced so a lot of things keep happening and there’s not enough time to process them in between?? Again the best moments are the quiet ones like the flight back and the Baltimore scene, but mad props to everyone from jumping between comedy and drama so fucking well. Even though there are, in tone, some very opposite atmospheres in the episode it never feels chaotic, and the situations that happen are very well connected and don’t feel disjointed at all.

The highlight of the episode was definitely the two different ways Sam and Bucky are (avoiding) grieving over Steve, and how his legacy hangs between them at all times. It makes so much sense for Bucky to take the entire situation so personally because Steve was the One thing he knew he could trust, while Sam is trying to see the bigger picture and not just what Steve demanded of him.

Hope that makes sense!

#tfatws commentary #tfatws #tfatws spoilers

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exeggcute · 3 years

Note

Would you mind elaborating on your job search experience? I found your sankey chart really interesting and informative!!

Did you get something related to your degree?

In my experience most job applications I hear back from turn out to be spam or BS. Which is SUPER exhausting and SUPER disheartening. What are some warning signs you have learned to look out for that something is sketchy or exploitative or scammy?? Thanks for anything you’re willing to share 🥺

yeah for sure! I'm glad you liked the chart, tracking my job applications in a spreadsheet finally paid off lol.

I may be a bit of an outlier in the typical millennial experience of Job Search Hell (at least this time around) because I finally managed to get a foothold in my field and have pretty concrete experience for a specific job title that (1) has consistent hiring demand, albeit with a fair amount of competition among candidates and (2) was already remote-friendly prior to the pandemic so it's somewhat easier to scour job listings when you aren't restricted to your immediate geographic location. (granted, the wider selection of remote roles to choose from is somewhat offset by the fact that everyone else in the applicant pool is also unrestricted by location, so you have more choices but also more competition. the ratio likely evens out overall). I exclusively applied to (or considered) remote roles, but there's a handful of on-site jobs in my area (at least in the Before Times)—though those only crop up sporadically and are also hypercompetitive.

for context, my 2018-2019 job search (immediately after graduating college) spanned nine miserable months, although not continuously; I had three separate false starts where I quit a shitty internship, quit a shitty online job, and got fired from an in-person job, but over the course of those nine months I probably sent in like four hundred applications total and had about a dozen interviews, most of which were fucking bananas. nearly all of these job applications were for in-person roles, and I was applying for stuff pretty much at random—unlike this last time around, when every single job I applied to (or was approached to consider) either had the same title as my last role or was functionally identical in terms of job duties but had a slightly different name. all of this is *related* to my degree, broadly speaking, but in practice almost nothing I studied in college applies directly to my job. it's a weird situation because you can technically major in this exact field (or enroll in certification programs for it) but very few people do. having SOME kind of degree is pretty much a requirement (undergrad at a minimum, grad school is nice but not necessary unless you're really specialized), but having a BA in english or communication is about as common as having a BS in comp sci or engineering. (literature major here.) the preference for a BA or BS varies between company and specific sub-industry (more specialized roles generally prefer people who have a degree in that particular area), but once you have a few years of experience under your belt people stop caring for the most part.

getting my foot in the door with experience was 100% the most difficult part of this—and honestly, was the main differentiating factor between this job search and the last. I did have some pre-graduation job experience that I was able to leverage at the end of my nine-month search that landed me my last job, but I didn't figure that out until way too late in the game. it's not a one-to-one analogue with what I do now, but it was close enough that I figured out ways to classify it as relevant experience and boost my "years doing X role" number from 0 to Not Zero. (the "you need experience to get experience" paradox is only solved by a bit of creative reframing, lol.) once I had that purported experience under my belt, I was able to get a job that gave me actual tangible experience, which blows the whole thing wide open on future job search cycles.

which is all to say: there's nothing wrong with twisting things a bit for your benefit, so long as it's not something that'll bite you in the ass later. reframing particular skills or experience to suit a potential role is a workable strategy as long as you know you're actually capable of doing the things that role requires. don't lie about knowing how to build rockets if you’re applying to a job at NASA.

the spam shit is way too common with job applications these days, whether it's outright fake listings or vaguely scummy shit masquerading as a cool place to work. specific red flags vary, but some things I look out for:

job listings that don't clearly name the company you'll be working for. exceptions obviously apply, like if you apply through a specialized job board or staffing site that anonymizes its clients, but if a listing just says it's an "exciting opportunity" or "fun workplace," it's probably not. if there is a name, google it.

check out glassdoor ratings from past employees. if a place has a really shitty rating or reviews that consistently mention egregious shit in the workplace, you're better off saving the effort. certain places will also have ratings from applicants and interviewees, which might give you more insight into whether it's worth looking into.

anything that requires you to pay the employer for the privilege of working there.

for writing gigs specifically: any freelance gig that requires you to submit fully-completed work but doesn't guarantee that they'll pay you for each submission, only the ones they approve, and you won't know if it's approved until after you already wrote it. content mills suck across the board but these are the worst of the worst.

general corporate bullshit speak like "work hard, play hard," "fast-paced environments" where you "learn on the job," any indication that you'll "always be in a working mindset" or that "you're never truly off the job," or job listings that make it sound like you'll be doing completely random things on any given day with no consistent job duties.

any place that lists "free coffee" under a list of employee benefits. it doesn't sound like a big deal, but I swear it's a huge red flag... if cheap instant coffee is their best shot at convincing you it's a good place to work, it's gonna be a nightmare.

#sorry this was WAY longer than I expected it to be #also if you're searching right now best of luck!!!

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laruna · 4 years

Text

— interloper.

characters. lim yuri, min yoongi, kim namjoon.

word count. 21.1k

genre. angst, fluff, friendship, romance, slow burn

warnings. underage drinking, hospitals, car accidents, mentions of family issues

summary. when yoongi feels like an interloper, yuri reminds him that he belongs.

November 7, 2011. Big Hit Entertainment Building, Seoul.

While Namjoon signed his contract until earlier that year, he still had to wait until the dorms were built to move in. Yuri gave Hitman Bang an earful when she found out he had signed him as a trainee when the company didn’t even have fucking dorms yet, but Namjoon fully assured her that it was okay and quelled her rage long enough to stop her from biting the poor old man’s head off.

But it all worked out eventually. Namjoon moved in when the dorms were built back in August, and without the awkwardness that parental presence at his house entailed, Yuri invited herself over as often as possible, practically making the dorms her second home.

It’s almost a kind of domestic bliss, the way her and Namjoon lived before, cooking for each other and cleaning up the shitty company building until they get so tired they fall asleep on the floor. Sometimes, if she’s really lucky, he’ll offer to let her share his bed. You know, since all the empty beds are going to be occupied by other trainees eventually, and it’d be rude to give someone a used bed, right? Of course.

It’s a Monday when they go to the dorm and actually find the bed across from Namjoon’s occupied.

“...hi.”

The new trainee’s name is Min Yoongi. He’s only a year Namjoon’s senior, but despite the closeness in age, he doesn’t seem willing to bond with them at all. If anything, he barely talks to either of them. According to Hitman Bang, Yoongi is from Daegu, and the only speaks so little because he’s still trying to get used to Seoul’s dialect and is embarrassed that his satoori keeps slipping out.

Yoongi only talks when necessary, like a coworker. They spend the first week or so not talking about anything but work—music, in their case—but even that they can’t be friendly about. Despite their similar interest in hip-hop, Yoongi and Namjoon have very different approaches to rap music. To music in general, really.

Yuri can’t help but feel as if Yoongi has kind of an edge over them. On top of being a year older, he’s also both a producer and a rapper. Yuri is only the former and Namjoon is only the latter, so it’s like he’s got the force of them both combined. She can’t help but feel a little bit small, next to him.

When they argue about something in the studio, he tends to use this as leverage, telling them to just listen to him because he knows better about this kind of thing. That escalates into arguing, which usually consists of Namjoon and Yoongi yelling at each other while Yuri desperately tries to mediate the situation. The current tally she’s been keeping in her journal shows that Namjoon having won two arguments, Yoongi having won six, and Yuri having successfully distracted them from finishing eleven. She likes to believe that means she’s winning.

Hitman Bang begs to disagree.

He finds out about it one day when he comes to visit her when she’s alone in the studio. The old man never knocks before entering, Yuri notes the invasion of privacy with annoyance. Even so, he kicks it up a notch by glancing over at the journal she’s left open on the corner of her desk. He laughs when he sees the page headed argument wins, pointing to the to the tallies by her name.

“I’m not surprised you’re in the lead,” he laughs. “You’re a menace.” She cringes when she remembers his first impression of her. She wasn’t exactly… tactful about it, but it got the point across well enough. Now that he’s her boss, though, she worries it’ll give him more reason to check up on her, and she would rather selfishly indulge in having some alone time with Namjoon.

“I’m not!” she defends herself, flustered. “I just know better than to waste my time arguing with boys. My points are for when I stop them from arguing, okay? Not having to hear them try to bite each other’s heads off is a win for me.”

“Hm.” He purses his lips at that, regarding her with a look she can’t quite read. She hates how unreadable he is. Her instincts have rarely failed her, but the old man is one of the few people whose energy has yet to come to her.

“Don’t be afraid of fighting,” he tells her after a bout of silence. “They should be able to fight if they’re angry. You should let them fight, let them yell if they’re angry. Even fist fights are fine. It’s okay to fight. Fearing fights only makes conflicts grow bigger.” Yuri shifts uneasily in her seat.

“I don’t like fighting. I don’t like yelling. I don’t like fists,” she says. “I get enough of that at home.” She doesn’t mean for it to slip out, doesn’t even realize that it does until the old man makes that face.

“Oh, Yuri.” He says it more sincerely than she’s ever heard from anyone at the dad age.

“Oh my God, no,” her voice cracks as she speaks. “We’re not doing that. We’re not having, like, a moment. I’m not emotionally prepared for that. I’ll cry and I’ll hate you.” He just nods at that, before awkwardly clapping a hand down onto her shoulder.

“Just remember that you can’t solve everything between them,” he says. “Let them resolve some of that on their own. You won’t be around to resolve things forever.” It feels like a jinx, the way he says it, but she still nods along.

“Okay,” she says. Sounds like simple enough advice to follow.

“And try to befriend Yoongi, okay?” he adds. She wrinkles her nose. That one seems a little harder.

“Okay,” she says anyways. She’ll definitely try.

Namjoon wrinkles his nose when Yuri proposes inviting Yoongi to the Lim household.

“He doesn’t really know anyone else,” Namjoon rationalizes. “Wouldn’t it be a bit awkward for him?”

“That’s the point, dummy,” she says, “I think it’d help him learn to get along with everyone, is all. Including us, hopefully. I don’t know.” Namjoon sighs, if only because she’s been getting harder and harder to say no to these days. He’s not sure why.

“Alright,” he agrees.

Unexpectedly, it’s significantly harder to get Yoongi to agree.

“I barely know you guys,” he deadpans, and Yuri winces. The I told you so look that Namjoon shoots her doesn’t help, and only reminds her of how much she’s always struggled with making friends.

Hoping to spare her pride, she persists. This is the only opportunity she has to have everybody over in a while—she doesn’t know the next time her father’s going to be working overtime and they’ll have the house to themselves. Knowing him, the old man would probably bite her and Kyunghee’s head off if he came home from work and saw everybody over on a daily basis.

“You can,” she offers softly. “Get to know us, I mean. Please?”

Yoongi only raises a brow, seemingly unconvinced.

“We have alcohol?” she offers, but the inflection makes it sound more like a question. Namjoon smacks her arm at that, only for her to shoot him a look that says, What? It’s true! Awkwardly, she adds, “Also, um, free food.”

And that’s enough to convince him, apparently.

Yoongi looks starstruck when he first enters the Lim household, suddenly feeling very small. Or at the very least, smaller than usual. He was easily the shortest of the company’s trainees, second-shortest of everybody in the building, towering over only the perpetually tiny Lim Yuri. He almost has a heart attack when said tiny girl takes his shoes from him to put in the garage. It’s her big-ass house, after all. Shit, just being here makes him feel like he should be the one serving her.

Yuri and Kyunghee explain that their father is out working overtime and... doesn’t really say anything about their mom, but the others know better than to bring something like that up unprompted, so they don’t.

The alcohol is present as promised, provided by none other than resident adult, Ikje. Was it illegal? Yes. Was that going to stop any of them? In the words of Donghyuk, ‘hell nah!’

What terrible, terrible influences, Yuri thinks.

She’s never had alcohol before, nor does she plan to have it anytime soon. Not for any legal or moral reasons, mind you—with the amount of alcohol so freely available in her household, she could probably sneak as much as she wanted whenever she wanted. Personally, she just thinks it smells weird and makes her dad act like a crazy person.

She’s only fifteen, but they make it seem fun. They take the thin metal tail of the soju bottle’s metal cap and tighten it into a straight, brittle line. Everyone takes turns flicking it until Kyunghee’s fingers finally break it off. He makes a face when Ikje fills the shot glass in front of him with soju as punishment.

Yuri doesn’t miss the way he side-eyes Donghyuk before downing it, like he’s trying to make sure that he’s watching. Like he’s looking for approval. She wonders if that’s how she looks at Namjoon. She wonders if that’s how Namjoon looks at her. He’s on her brain too often, these days. Namjoon, Namjoon, Namjoon.

They’ve gotten even closer since they made up, and she’s learned a lot more about him since then. He’s still the stickler that refuses to drink in public where he could get in trouble, but he still still laughs and encourages the others’ antics in private, maybe even allowing himself a shot or two. He is also more than the sexless smart dude that she stereotyped him as when they first met, as she has come to learn through his awful, nasty jokes.

She really was right when she said that he had a whole solar system in his head. Whenever he seems like he could fit into some mold, he immediately proves her wrong. Kim Namjoon is everything.

In contrast, Min Yoongi isn’t much to her at the moment.

When she turns over to look at him, she immediately feels bad for not really paying attention to him the whole night, especially when she was the one to have invited him. The only reason she’s even paying him any mind right now is because he’s just situated himself next to her at the table, as a now drunken Ikje has thoughtlessly occupied his previously-claimed spot.

Yuri isn’t sure if it’s because he’s not comfortable enough to drink around them yet, but she finds the way he innocently refuses to drink is a little endearing in the same way she found endearing when Namjoon refused to do so back in Hongdae. Instead, Yoongi opts to eat his entire body weight in meat, and is on what she believes is his third plate of fried chicken wings. Respect.

It’s a nice environment, and Yuri really is still adjusting to the fact that this is actually her life. She has a solid friend group that eats and drinks and laughs and plays stupid games together in her house. It’s relaxing. It’s safe. It feels like home. They feel like home.

It’s when they hear her dad’s car pull into the driveway a couple hours earlier than anticipated that makes Yuri remember, oh yeah, home kind of sucks.

In the next few minutes, their living room descends into absolute chaos. Kyunghee moves to swipe all the food and shot glasses off the table and into the sink, Yuri helps load them all into the dishwasher, Ikje is scooping all the soju bottles up into his arms, and everyone else is drunkenly scrambling out the back door. Once they’re all collected, Ikje climbs out the back window, for whatever reason. She blames it on his batshit drunkenness.

Everything is in the clear by the time their dad steps in. The entire scene is inconspicuous enough, Kyunghee passing Yuri plates from the sink to load into the dishwasher like they just ate a nice dinner. They even go so far as to force awkward smiles for their father, but he simply nods at them in acknowledgement before rubbing at his temples and makes his way upstairs, clearly still stressed from work. Kyunghee breathes a sigh of relief when he hears his father’s bedroom door click shut.

“We’re good,” he says, clasping a comforting hand on his sister’s shoulder. “Go lock the back. I’ll finish up the dishes.” Yuri nods, before making her merry way off to follow her brother’s orders. She nearly jumps out of her skin when she’s about to lock the back door and sees a male figure standing ominously in the shadows instead.

She turns on the back light, and lo and behold, there stands Min Yoongi, eating a fucking chicken wing on her back porch. And he has the audacity to look surprised, like she’s the one who shouldn’t be there on her own porch. Heaving a sigh, she steps outside, closing the door behind her as quietly as possible.

“What are you doing here?!” she whisper-yells. “Why didn’t you go with the others?!” It comes off as more aggressive than she intended, but the last thing she wants is for him to get caught and in trouble when she’s the one that invited him over in the first place.

“Namjoon went to sleep over at Donghyuk’s place,” he explains awkwardly. “Ikje went to sleep over at Hunchul’s place and, uh. I wasn’t invited to either. Ikje dropped me off here from the dorms, so… I don’t really know how to get back to the dorms from here.”

Yuri heaves a sigh. She’s going to have to give everyone a stern talk about the importance of camaraderie and the no-man-left-behind policy. After shooting a quick text to her brother, she uses the house key hanging off of her lanyard to lock the back door.

“I know Seoul like the back of my hand,” she says. “C’mon. I’ll walk you back.”

“I don’t know how I feel about you walking back home alone so late at night,” he says. “It doesn’t sound very safe for you.” His genuine worry makes her heart warm. Those unexpected moments of sweetness he has always throw her off. Not in a bad way, though. It’s nice.

Unfortunately, the rest of the walk is significantly less nice. They spend the first ten minutes arguing over whether or not it really is safe for her to be walking back home alone so late. He feels bad that she’s out because of him, but she insists that it’s fine as she’s done so many times before.

“Taking the subway home and walking home are two very different things,” he admonishes her. She resists the urge to roll her eyes at his patronizing tone.

“Relaaaax. I’ve got pepper spray,” she justifies herself. “Also, I hold my keys between my fingers.” She even holds up her hands for emphasis.

“I’m sure you could give a good stabbing if you wanted to,” he snarks. He doubts the tiny girl before him is capable of causing any physical damage, even with a deadly weapon in hand.

“Are you making fun of me?” she whines, and he snorts, because it really should be obvious. “I’m just trying to make sure you get home safely, and this is the thanks I get?”

Yoongi stops in his tracks to think about it for a moment, cheeks flushing with embarrassment as he does so. She obviously means well, as annoying as she may be. She’s also his junior, and when he thinks about it, he’s just being mean to her for no good reason.

“Fine. I’m sorry for being an ass,” he relents with flushed cheeks, more for his conscience than anything else. “It’s just that—I just like being alone with my thoughts when I walk, that’s all. You’re not annoying.”

Or at least, not that annoying, he doesn’t say.

“I know I can be annoying,” she says so matter-of-factly that it makes him feel even worse. “And my brother can be the same way. He likes just thinking, too, so I can just be quiet if that’s what you want. I just want you to get home alive, that’s all.” His eyes soften.

“I’ll be fine,” he assures her. “I can defend myself if I really need to. I was on my school basketball team, you know. Boxing, too.”

“With these noodles?” she says bluntly, reaching over and taking hold of his arm. “And how did you get into the basketball team? Aren’t basketball players supposed to be tall?”

“You don’t have any right to talk about height,” he says, staring down all 150 centimeters of her frame as he snatches his arm back from her. “And my arms are not noodles just because I’m not built like The Hulk.”

“We can’t all be Kim Namjoons, I guess. He’s got biceps for days.” Yoongi gives her an amused look at that, and she flushes uncharacteristically. “Sorry. That was weird. Just don’t—nevermind. I’ll stop talking now.”

“No, by all means, keep going,” he teases. “As long as you don’t mind me telling him about it later.” She gasps at that, smacking him in the arm.

“Oh, so now you want me to talk!” she huffs, smacking his arm. “You will be telling him no such thing, Min Yoongi! You don’t even talk to him about that kinda stuff, anyway!” He laughs as he jumps ahead to get away from her playful smacking, smiling so wide that Yuri can see his gums showing. They’re cute. She decides that she likes them.

“You really like him, don’t you? Namjoon?” he chuckles, far too blunt for her liking. It’s a special kind of adorable the way that she so visibly shrinks at his words, he thinks.

“We’re not dating, I, um—” she sputters. “Is it obvious? That I like him, I mean.”

“Relax,” he says. “It’s not. Really, I don’t think he knows. I don’t think anyone knows except Kyunghee, and I only know because of him.”

“My brother knows?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck that guy.”

Yoongi laughs at her sudden vulgarity. She really got really blunt and fiery when she wasn’t thinking, even with her seniors like him. It makes things feel a little bit more comfortable.

“Relax,” he repeats. “I think he just knows you? Because he’s your brother, I mean. He was like, ‘I just have to tell someone and nobody talks to you so it’s okay.’ So I doubt he’s told anyone else.”

Yuri nods, inclined to agree. She’d never tell Namjoon about Kyunghee’s crush on Donghyuk, and she has enough trust in her brother to know that trust goes both ways. Still, she feels bad that the exclusion Yoongi goes through on the daily is so obvious, even to her socially-awkward brother. But she has her own relationships to worry about.

“Just don’t, like. I don’t know. Interfere in whatever is happening, okay?” she huffs. “You’re the only one who knows, as far as I know. I just… don’t try to plant any thoughts in his head, okay? I want whatever happens to happen naturally. Because he likes me for me, or something.”

“Spoken like a true romantic,” he says sarcastically.

“Oh, stop it,” she whines. Yoongi laughs.

“I won’t,” he assures her.

He doesn’t know when they started walking again, but it feels just a bit less awkward and stilted now. Yuri’s just a couple steps ahead of him, guiding the way. Wrinkling his brows, he stops dead in his tracks.

“This isn’t the right way,” he says. “You take a left here.”

“No?” she says. “The subway pickup is right here.”

“I’m not taking the subway, I’m walking, remember?” he says.

“What?!” she says. She didn’t mind the fifteen minute walk to the subway, but this was too much. “The whole way? The whole walk back to the dorms is like, an hour, Yoongi! Jesus, if I knew we were gonna be walking the whole way, I wouldn’t have come.”

“Well, you don’t have to walk me home if you didn’t want to,” he says. “You’re the one who offered.”

“I didn’t think you were a crazy person!” she huffs. “Why don’t you just take the subway?”

“I spent all my money on chipping in for dinner, how the hell am I gonna afford a subway ticket?” he snorts. “Look, I can walk however long it takes, but I can’t spawn food out of thin air like you guys can.” He tries to say it as casually as he can possibly manage, but the venom still leaks through. Her face visibly drops when he says it.

“Oh,” she says, her voice tiny. “I didn’t… sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Stop that. You’re being weird,” Yoongi says.

He hates this part. He hates the pity looks he gets from rich people like the Lims who have year-long subway passes their father bought—who, by the way, probably gets to sit pretty in a big office telling other people what to do while overworked laborers like his parents carry the South Korean economy on their backs.

But he digresses. He doubts she’s the kind of person who’d want to listen to his long-winded spiels on the economy or the government or the Gwangju democratization movement, anyway. Really, he doubts she’s type to need or think about funds at all.

Much to his surprise, she does.

“Okay, but like—just to make sure—money for that kinda stuff isn’t an issue for you guys, right?” she asks. “Like, Hitman Bang is feeding you guys?” There’s a level of threat to her voice that reminds him of the story Bang PD told him when he first joined the company, of her marching into his office to make demands for her friend’s safety. Loathe as he is to admit it, the image of it is equal parts genuine and endearing of her.

And maybe that’s why he feels the urge to spill his guts to her so suddenly, then. Maybe it’s also the warm, almost disarming energy in the way she talks to him now that they’re finally speaking one-on-one, despite his previous assumptions. Maybe it’s how innocent her eyes look when they shine under the Seoul streetlights.

“You know, I… I used to make beats out of a studio in Daegu,” he confesses. “Most of the time, I’d get scammed out of them, though. The guys who went in and out of the building would rip my shit off or use them but never pay me back, so like… I didn’t make much. But I stayed there because I still wanted to make music and using the studio was cheaper than buying equipment on my own.”

“Oh,” is all she says, pressing her lips together in a thin line. It’s definitely not the kind of thing Yuri and her brother ever had to worry about, seeing as they were so well-off. Hell, they were giving away the shit that Yoongi was slaving his life away over for free.

“So I couldn’t really pay for food or transport that easy, you know?” he continues, against his better judgement. It’s the first time he’s ever talked to anyone about this, and fuck, it feels so good. He can’t stop himself. “In front of the studio, there was this Chinese restaurant that sold jajangmyeon for 2000 won, and down the street, there was this place that sold janchi guksu for 1000 won, and like… I don’t know. It sounds stupid, but I had to worry about that shit everyday. If I ate the janchi guksu, I’d be able to get the bus and if I ate the jajangmyeon, I’d have to walk 2 hours to get home. So. I don’t know. I’m just stuck thinking like that, I guess. I know it’s not like… a thing anymore, but I feel using public transport still makes me feel guilty.”

“Mm.”

“Sounds stupid when I say it out loud.”

“It doesn’t,” she reassures him. “I’ve just, um, never had to think about stuff like that. I’m sorry you had to, though. It sounds shitty.”

“Not your fault. Don’t apologize for something like that.”

“Okay,” she says, smiling up at him. “Thank you for telling me, Yoongi.”

“Uh. Yeah. No prob,” he says, cheeks flushing in embarrassment. His flush only darkens when she shoves a couple of won in his hand, and he realizes she’s been slowly guiding him in the direction of the subway station this whole time. “Wait, h-hey—”

“No, no, I don’t need it,” she says when he shoves the money back into her hands.

“But—”

“It’s fine,” she assures him, soft smile still gracing her features. “I’d rather not walk all the way back to the dorms. Just take it, you’ll be doing me a favor. You don’t have to pay me back or anything, either. It’s not that much, anyway.”

Yoongi frowns. As much as he wants to argue with her, he’s tired enough as it is, and he has no doubt she’d stay up all night just to stay here and debate this with him.

“Okay,” he relents. She grins in what he believes to be triumph before gently taking hold of his hand in one of hers and placing the money back into his grasp with the other. She waits outside for the subway take off, like she’s afraid he won’t do as she says unless she sees it happen. When the train lurches to a start, he watches her figure retreat through the glass windows.

There’s a stark contrast to her soft hands and the fussy way she thrust her money at him, he thinks.

Lim Yuri is a strange, strange girl.

Namjoon jumps in his seat, startled when Yuri suddenly marches in, plops in to the studio chair next to him, and looks up at him with crossed arms and a very non-threatening scowl on her face.

“I have a bone to pick,” she says, and his brain immediately kicks it into panic mode as he rakes through his mind for anything that he could have possibly done to upset her within the past week.

Namjoon likes to consider himself a considerate person who wouldn’t want to upset anyone, but for some reason this feels different from pure consideration. At the beginning, Yuri was just Kyunghee’s kid sister who happened to help make good music. These days, though, she feels more like a peer than a junior, more like a friend than a dongsaeng.

For whatever reason he can’t quite pinpoint, her opinion of him has become quite important to him as of late. The idea that he’s done something she disapproves of makes his hands sweat. Even so, he manages to keep his composure, nodding as calmly as he can manage.

“What’s up?” he asks, cringing at the way his voice cracks. The way she sighs as she scoots her chair closer to his amps his anxiety up to eleven.

“You guys need to be nicer to Yoongi,” she says sternly, “You all really excluded him last week. He said you guys all went to each other’s houses after bouncing out last week and he just had nowhere to go. Why didn’t you guys plan for that or something?” Namjoon droops inward, like a kicked dog.

“Sorry,” he says, face hot with embarrassment despite immediately trying to justify himself. “It’s just—it was just kind of weird because nobody is really close to him or anything. The only person he really talks to is Ikje, and they’re not really even friends. We didn’t know how to broach the subject with him, or if he already had plans or anything, you know?”

“You could’ve asked,” she huffs, “I mean, I walked him to the subway station so he could ride back to the dorms, so everything turned out okay in the end. But—”

“By yourself?” Namjoon cuts her off. “That’s dangerous. Did you walk back by yourself, too? That late at night? Something could’ve happened. Why didn’t you ask Kyunghee to do it?” Yuri shakes her head fondly at his worrywart antics, and he sighs in relief when she smiles. It’s a warm reminder that she’s really not that mad at him.

“You sound like my dad,” she giggles, gently shoving at his arm. “Stop that. I’m trying to be mad at you.” He can’t resist cracking a smile back at her.

“Sorry.” He doesn’t sound apologetic.

“Anyway,” she continues, her tone considerably lighter, “Yoongi and I talked a bit when we were walking to the station, and like… I don’t know. It just made me realize how excluded he really was from everyone else. So can you just talk to him more, or something? And please try to get the other guys to talk to him more, too?”

“Yeah, of course. But for future reference, you could’ve called for a group discussion for this,” he chides, playfully adding, “I thought you were just mad at me for something. I really thought I did something wrong and didn’t know about it. You gave me a heart attack for no reason.”

“Sorry.” She laughs shyly now that it’s her turn to apologize. “It’s just—you’re the only one who really listens to me, you know? I feel like the rest of the guys kinda just see me as a little kid. I mean, I get it, because Kyunghee is my brother and Donghyuk is his best friend and Ikje is old, but like. I don’t know. I don’t feel like they respect me like you do, sometimes.”

Everything she says comes out in that nervous, rambly tone that she uses when she wants to keep things light, no matter how serious it actually is to her. Namjoon frowns.

“Sorry,” he says again. She shrugs.

“Not your fault,” she says, “I think things are gonna get better with Yoongi around, anyway.” Namjoon raises a curious brow at that.

“Oh?” is all he says. Yuri nods, like that’s an answer.

“He’s cool,” she says. “He was a little rude at first, but he got really shy and apologized when I pointed it out. Can you believe it? A man! Apologizing! Men never apologize, Namjoon!”

“I resent that statement.”

“Shut up, man,” she teases. They both chuckle at that. “Anyway. I think that you should try to talk to him, if anyone. I can’t tell you everything he said ‘cause that’s his business, but I will say that you’re both really passionate about music, so I think you’d get along really well.” Namjoon wrinkles his nose at her idealism, not quite sure about that one.

He supposes she’s sort of right, seeing as music is probably the only thing he and Yoongi can agree on. Even saying that is a stretch, because their very different methods of music-making lent cause to many studio debates. It’d probably be more accurate to say that music was the one field in which they respected each other enough to discuss things amicably. If the conversation wasn’t about music, they spent more time throwing passive-aggressive one-liners at one another than talking about anything else.

“I don’t know about that,” is all he decides to say.

“It can’t be that hard,” she says, pouting. “Yoongi is a nice person. And even if there are things you don’t agree on, you can’t deny that he works really hard. So at least try? For me?”

“That walk to the subway really changed you, huh?” he jokes. He’s expecting her to laugh or roll her eyes or smack him or something, but she nods sheepishly instead.

“He gives me good vibes,” she says like it’s an explanation.

“There you go with your vibes again,” he says. It comes out a bit more passive-aggressive than he’d have liked.

The atmosphere is a bit too fragile for him to start another debate, but it bothered him that she could dislike people like Hunchul because of the bad vibes she got from him, yet expect everyone to drop everything and befriend Yoongi because he gave her good vibes. She says that it’s just her intuition, but he thinks it’s just an excuse. Even without him saying all this, though, she rolls her eyes when she picks up on his implications.

“Yoongi really is a good guy, okay? I can feel it,” she tries convincing him. “I actually saw him smile, Namjoon. And he never smiles! And it was all cute and gummy! I know he comes off as kinda cold, but he just seems soft underneath it all. I just think he’s a person who’s been through a lot.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you have a crush on him,” he teases. For whatever, the prospect of that makes him more uneasy than it should.

“I’m being serious!” she whines, smacking his arm. “I’m not asking you to stop fighting or arguing with him or whatever if that’s what you want. Just… try to make up after you fight.”

“It’s just weird,” Namjoon admits sheepishly. “It’s not like I want to fight, so I don’t. Especially if it’s over something stupid. I just try to ignore the little things. But then all those little things pile up into one big pile of resentment until I get mad at him for something stupid and he thinks I’m crazy and I’m still mad at him and it’s weird.”

It sounds stupid when he says it out loud, but the way that Yuri purses her lips and nods in understanding as he speaks makes him feel a little less crazy about it all. She’s always been someone that people just feel comfortable around, and Namjoon himself is no exception.

“It’s not weird,” she reassures him. “Fighting isn’t bad, I don’t think. I don’t love it, obviously, but Hitman Bang said the other week that being afraid of fights is only gonna let stuff like that and make the conflict big and worse. All I’m asking is that you at least talk to Yoongi.”

She looks up at him with those doe eyes when she says it, big and hopeful and pleading, and he can’t possibly bring himself to say no.

“Alright.”

Ever since his talk with Yuri last week, Yoongi has been finding instant ramyeon cups in his desk.

At first, he thinks it’s a one-off thing, maybe Yuri’s apology for saying something she thought was insensitive because he made her feel bad and she needs to soothe her conscience. But once he’s run out, they quickly get restocked when he’s not looking, and he has to admit that it warms his heart. He didn’t expect his words to affect her nearly as much as they currently seem to.

He appreciates that she doesn’t give him the noodles directly or even say anything about it. It lessens the guilt he already feels from receiving free food from his junior. Yuri doesn’t ask for any thanks or even any acknowledgement, not breaching the topic beyond asking if he’s eaten yet.

Lim Yuri, he’s come to find, is not as bad as he thought. A little naive, to be sure, but nothing like the selfish, spoiled little girl he’d conjured up in his head when he first met her. He feels bad for the image he’d once conjured up of her in his head, the little brat surrounded by shiny, foreign production equipment who was no doubt born with a silver spoon in her mouth.

Lim Yuri is kind and generous and even thoughtful when she wants to be. She feels too hard, so sentimental that she cries when a beat she’d been working on for the past six hours fails to save before her computer shuts off. He tells her she can just remake it, but she sniffles and shakes her head, saying that it just won’t be the same as the last one.

“That beat was, like, my baby, Yoongi,” she explained to him that day. “I can’t just replace it, you know?” He doesn’t quite get what she’s getting at, but nods anyways. Over time, he comes to find those weird antics of hers he once found annoying to be kind of… cute? Even if he doesn’t get them. Even now, as she whines cutely, all he can offer is a couple of comforting pats atop her head. He wishes he had more to give.

Maybe that’s the worst part of being the poor kid, he decides. Everyone is impossibly kind here, and he’s probably making an ass of himself by meeting that kindness with a cold distrust. So he brushes off their niceties knowing that he has nothing to give back in return, and thus is seen in a doubly awful light. He tries to comfort himself with the knowledge that at the very least, that prickly demeanor means that nobody is expecting anything of him.

After all, Yoongi doesn’t do well with expectations. He’s not the son his parents expected him to be, who’d get good grades and go to university in pursuit of a business degree or something before slaving away at a desk from nine-to-five everyday for the rest of his life, nor does he want to be.

But he has to be something.

Hence why he’s in need of a job. Not one of the office jobs that his parents suggested, mind you, but a simple part-time job to hold him over on top of being a trainee so that he doesn’t feel like a useless moocher. Thankfully, he’s already got it in the bag. As expected, they can’t just hire anyone, so they’ve just got one little test for him before they can officially put him on the employee roster.

What he doesn’t expect is to run into Lim Yuri, numerous plastic bags in hand.

“Yoongi!” she shouts when they make eye contact, running up to him excitedly. He’s never seen anybody that excited to see him, even back home in Daegu. It makes his heart feel a little funny.

“Hey,” he says, “I didn’t expect to run into you. What are you doing? Are you alone?” As annoyed as she wants to be, she can’t help but be endeared by the concern she shows her, the same kind that he showed her back when she walked him to the subway.

“Well… yes. But it’s fine. I’m not a kid, you know? Don’t worry about me so much! Really, you just sound like a grandpa when you talk like that,” she teases, “I bet one of these days I’ll come into your studio and you’ll be sprawled over the floor because your back gave out or something.”

“Hey, Hitman Bang says I’m an old soul,” he jokes, a wry grin on his face. She rolls her eyes.

“That’s just a polite way of saying he’s surprised that you’re this young and already depressed,” she snorts, but he can tell that there’s no malice to it. Still, it’s so unexpected of her that he has to do a double-take before bursting out laughing.

He doesn’t even notice the pedestrian light flash on until she links her pinky with his and walks him across the street. Surprising even himself, he can’t bring himself to really mind that much. In due time, he’s found himself growing adjusted to her touchiness. It’s kind of nice, when he thinks about it. It makes him feel a little less like an interloper. Makes him feel like he belongs where he is.

“It’s fine!” she assures him. He doesn’t look very convinced. “We’re in broad daylight, Yoongi. I just finished grocery shopping.” She lifts her bag-lined arms up for emphasis. “It was my turn this week. Kyunghee and I take turns with groceries since our mom isn’t around.”

“Makes sense,” Yoongi says. Now that she mentions it, they’d only ever mentioned having to avoid their father whenever everyone came over to the Lim household. He’d always just assumed their mom was out or at work or upstairs—never that she wasn’t around at all. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t curious about it, but it seems too heavy of a topic to pry about right now, especially when he already has somewhere to be.

“What about you?” she asks. “Where’d you come from? Or are you headed somewhere?”

“Work,” he explains. “Sort of. It’s just a part-time job. I haven’t technically started yet, but I’m going to. It’s a delivery thing, so I’m just going to test the delivery bike so that they can see that I actually know how to drive and won’t ride around like a crazy person.”

“Like a motorcycle?” she asks enthusiastically. “A real one? You know how to ride a motorcycle?”

“Yeah,” he says as nonchalantly as he can manage, secretly revelling in how much it impresses her. It’s cute of her, he thinks, the way she’s so wowed by the little things. It’s like every conversation with her is an ego boost.

“Can I come watch?” she asks hopefully, eyes glittering with excitement.

And how could he possibly say no to that?

It’s a little silly, how bouncing-off-the-walls excited she is when they get there. Even the old couple who own the restaurant he’s supposed to be delivering for are enamored with her, wrapped up in conversation about meat buns or something. She really is genuinely sweet with them, so much so that they barely take notice when Yoongi mounts the bike they’ve prepared for him to test-ride.

It’s an older Yamaha model, the ‘YD250’ on the scratched up by what he assumes can only be years of wear and tear. He thinks nothing of it as he revs the bike up to life, but before he can take off and begin driving, he’s cut off by Yuri’s voice.

“Hey, hey, hey!” she calls out. “You should be wearing a helmet!”

“It’s in the box,” the old man explains.

“I’ve ridden without one before,” Yoongi mutters, resisting to roll his eyes at their safety concerns. And Yuri calls him the old person. Even so, he opens the delivery bike box mounted on the back of and reaches in to grab hold of the big black helmet so that he can put it on. “Happy?”

“Very,” Yuri says, sounding far too pleased for his liking. The old woman chuckles at their banter.

Yoongi takes off in a flash after that, quickly riding around the busiest blocks and most bustling streets a couple times, the image of Yuri’s enthusiastic eyes as he rode away on the motorcycle burned into his mind. It’s nice to be admired so deeply. It’s the only reason he’s still on board with the whole idol thing, after all. He doesn’t want to rely on his parents and their money for everything, though, so right now he just needs this job to help support his training.

He’s officially got the job, they inform him when he gets back. They also tell him that Yuri has been vouching for him in the mere minutes that he was gone. She ducks her head to hide her blush at that, and he finds her shyness in the moment impossibly cute. It only intensifies when she pipes up.

“Can I join you? On the back, I mean?” she asks bashfully. “I’ve, um, never ridden one before. I just think it’d be neat. You can just take me home, if you want. It’s not super far from here, I think.” In any other circumstance, he’d say yes in a heartbeat, but she’s asking him this question in front of his employers. Thankfully, the two nod when he looks to them for permission.

He can’t but feel kind of mortified by the way the old couple coos at him when he takes off his helmet off and places it atop her head, taking extra care to fasten the buckle tight.

“Cute,” she says. “But what about you?” It’s the little things like these that remind her how thoughtful and softhearted he is, even if he doesn’t really care to show it.

“I’ll be fine. I’ve ridden without one before,” he echoes his earlier sentiment. She doesn’t look convinced, but the old man speaks up before she can get a word in.

“Get your girlfriend home safe, alright?” he says, clapping his hand down onto Yoongi’s shoulder a little too forcefully. Both him and Yuri send each other an embarrassed glance at his assumption, but neither can find it in them to correct the old man.

“Yes, sir,” is all Yoongi says.

The ride back home is a lot less nerve-wracking than he had expected. Yuri’s soft from head to toe, he notes, like a little human pillow. Against his expectations, the feeling of her form pressed against his back throughout their ride in the city feels more comforting than restricting. So much so that he actually feels a little bit disappointed when they get to her house and she has to let go.

He helps her unload her groceries from the delivery bike box, watching as she takes every bag but one. He reaches in to grab it until he sees what’s inside—ramyeon. The exact kind that spawns in his desk every week. At that moment, he realizes that she left that specific bag inside on purpose.

“This is for me,” he says. It's a statement, not a question.

“Mmhm,” she replies. “It’s my favorite brand. It’s got that little egg brick in there, you know the one? These things are mostly carbs, so I think it’s a good source of protein. Good for building muscles.” He frowns, baffled as to how she can be so nonchalant about all this.

“You don’t have to keep doing this, you know,” he says. “I have a job now, so I can buy my own food if I’m ever craving anything beyond those cardboard chicken breasts Hitman Bang gives us.” Yuri giggles at that. “I’m serious. I’ve already gotta pay you back for the last couple of weeks. I’m not sure if my salary is gonna be able to keep up.”

“Hey,” she says gently, staring him down a bit more earnestly now. “You don’t have to pay me back for anything, okay? The ones I get for you are only, like, 1200 won per little cup.”

“Isn’t 1200 won kind of a lot?”

“It’s not,” she assures him. “It’s not that big of a deal. It’s fine. It’s really fine. It doesn’t hurt me at all. If it did, I wouldn’t keep doing it.” Yoongi pulls a face, not entirely convinced.

“You may not feel bad, but like—I feel bad.”

“Well you shouldn’t.”

“But I do,” he says. Yuri sighs.

“Yoongi—”

“It’s not just the ramyeon, you know?” he says, staring mindlessly at some spot on the ground. Anywhere but her face. It’s a daunting task when he speaks so earnestly. “It’s just—you do so much for everyone all the time. And I’m just—I don’t even talk to anybody.”

“Hey.” Yuri speaks softly, taking one of his hands between both of hers in what he thinks is an attempt to comfort him. Her hands are just as soft as they were that night by the subway, he muses. “You can’t blame all that on yourself, you know? I know the other guys aren’t the best at being friendly and inclusive and all that, but that’s not your fault. It’s more of a time thing.”

“A time thing?” he asks.

“We’ve all known each other for, like, two or three years before you came here,” she explains. “ So I think they’re just trying to get used to you? But they don’t dislike you! If anything, I’m sure they’ll like you soon. I mean, I already like you, so it shouldn’t be too hard for them to follow suit.”

“Okay,” he says, thinking nothing of the flush that spreads up to the tips of his ears.

Namjoon supposes that now is as good a time as any when Yoongi steps into his studio.

He doesn’t know why he’s so nervous. After all, Yuri points out, Yoongi is the one alone in Seoul with nobody to talk to. When she puts it like that, it makes them all sound like assholes. Maybe they are. But it’s fine, because Namjoon is finally going to be nice and converse with him about something not music-related. The bar is on the floor. All he needs to do is open his mouth and say something.

“We need to talk,” Namjoon says. He immediately knows he’s said the wrong thing when Yoongi’s eyes widen like saucers, anxiously backing up until his back hits the door like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t be. “Oh God, no, not like that. You’re okay. You’re not in trouble.”

“Oh. Alright,” Yoongi says, visibly relaxing.

“I just, um. I wanted to talk,” he repeats. “I feel like I’ve been… mean? But I’m not trying to be. It’s just that I’m supposed to be the leader, but you’re the hyung. “And you also produce a lot of our songs—which I’m really, really grateful for, of course. I just don’t know how to talk about things as a leader without seeming disrespectful. I try to keep my mouth shut about it, but I guess that’s how things like that build up, you know?”

“My mom gave birth to me,” Yoongi says, seemingly out of the blue, and Namjoon laughs. It’s that loud, booming laugh of his that always fills up the whole room.

“What—?!” he laughs incredulously.

“Let me finish,” Yoongi says, hopelessly fighting to the smile off of his face. “My mom gave birth to me. My mom is older to me, obviously, and she’s done a lot for me, too. And of course I’m grateful for that, but that doesn’t mean I won’t fight her on some things. Doesn’t mean I have to agree with everything she says, because I haven’t. Neither have you—if we did, neither of us would be here right now. We’d be like, I don’t know, doing cram school or preparing for university shit or something like that. I think I’d resent her if that’s what I was doing right now just because I wanted to please her. That’s why it’s okay to fight. If we don’t, then all that resentment just grows.” Namjoon smiles fondly at him.

“You really are an old man,” he chuckles, prompting Yoongi to raise a brow at him. “Hitman Bang said the same thing, you know? About fighting being good, since conflicts just get bigger if you don’t fight.”

“Well… he’s right.”

“Wiser words were never spoken,” Namjoon replies.

“So no more not-fighting?” Yoongi asks. It’s so ridiculous, the way he has to phrase it—but Namjoon nods, so he supposes that it gets the point across well enough. “We’ll try to resolve problems instead of avoiding them completely.”

“No more not-fighting,” he agrees. “Resolving things. Not avoiding them.” He holds out a pinky.

It’s a ridiculously silly sight, Yoongi thinks, the way Namjoon’s large hand offers out a pinky for what he thinks must be a pinky promise. Seeing someone as big as Namjoon do something so childish is unfairly endearing. He must’ve picked up from Yuri, he muses. Yoongi can’t help but laugh.

“Did you just giggle?”

“Huh?”

“That was kind of cute, hyung.” Yoongi flushes a dusky pink.

“…shut up.”

Yuri doesn’t come in late on Sundays anymore, Yoongi muses.

She always used to come in late on Sundays, which was a stark contrast to her appearances right after school on weekdays and her early morning entrances on Saturdays. He doesn’t know how he didn’t notice before, but he supposes it’s a good thing that he does now. It means that at the very least, they’re taking note of each other’s presence.

Yoongi does think it’s weird, but for as curious as he is, he is not nosy enough to ask about it. Normally, it wouldn’t even cross his mind to do so, but with the talk he had with Hitman Bang last week about getting along better with everyone, he’s having second thoughts.

Yuri may not be a fellow trainee, but she’s still a member of their team. He only just started talking easily to Namjoon, so Yuri is easily the most comfortable person to talk to. After a rather heated internal battle, he gives in and brings it up to her.

“I’m glad you come in on Sundays, now,” he says, as nonchalantly as he can manage. “What cleared your schedule up?”

“Oh!” she says, pleasantly surprised that Yoongi is taking the first step in making conversation. “My mama worked as a vocal teacher before she divorced my dad and moved away, so my little brother Daniel and I would go over there to help her, especially with translating stuff since her Korean wasn’t very good. I used to go over to help the other lady who works there on Sundays since she’s nice and I liked singing! But Daniel handles all that now, so I’m free to work here with you guys.”

That’s certainly a can of worms. He’s learned more about her and her home life from this single conversation than he did from the night he was over at her house, but he doesn’t want to make her uncomfortable by pressing further about the deep shit, so he keeps his digging as shallow as he can.

“You sing?” he says, and she flushes.

“Yes,” she admits. “But like. Not in front of other people. That’s scary.”

“Like stage fright?”

“Sort of,” she says. “It’s different. More like, scary in the sense that you have to share your art that you’ve poured all your heart and soul into for so long. Because then when people reject it or don’t like it, you feel like they don’t like you. On top of that, people also care about visuals and dancing and aegyo, and like… how am I supposed to fulfill all those categories?”

“I get that,” he says. He always knew that music would be a big part of his life, but he never imagined he’d be performing for other people. The thought of scrutiny had always made his stomach churn, but that’s basically all that idol life was. He’s not sure how he’ll handle it. “You don’t think you’ll ever be singing on a stage one day?”

“Maybe? I don’t know. Maybe one day,” she says. “Maybe if I was more… you know.” She grimaces as she makes a vague gesture with her hand.

“Mm-hm.” Really, he doesn’t know, but it seems like a touchy subject.

He deems it better not to pry.

Big Hit and Source Music are due to debut a girl group soon, Hitman Bang says.

Unlike the boys, they’ve even got a name—GLAM. Yoongi, however, has yet to know the group’s trainees beyond seeing them in passing. After all, Source is the one handling all the management and promotion and all that fancy stuff.

(Hitman Bang says he’d never be able to manage a girl group because he doesn’t understand women. It takes all of Yoongi’s willpower to stifle a laugh when Yuri says she’s not surprised.)

Meanwhile, all Big Hit has to do is help make their music.

Yoongi feels a bit of pressure when faced with the prospect of making music for somebody else. Music has always been a very personal process for him. The thought of someone else interpreting his work was both exciting and overwhelming. While the prospect of someone interpreting his work or liking his work enough to perform it piqued his interest, the idea of someone either fucking up something he made or pitching his work to someone who’d only reject it was anxiety-inducing.

To his relief, that is not what he is currently doing.

At the moment, he’s currently mixing a demo for one of GLAM’s future songs, touching up the vocals so that they stand out above the instrumental’s bouncy synths. It has a nice vibe to it, he muses. It’s in English, but he understands enough of it to make out that it’s about getting ‘too close’ to somebody who’s supposed to be a friend. Hitman Bang must’ve purchased it from some overseas songwriter. He’s not sure why. It seems like it’d be an expensive process, and even after buying it they’ll have to translate it back into Korean. What was the point of all that hassle?

At least it sounds nice, Yoongi supposes. It’s a cute, pop-based little R&B track with airy vocals. The high notes are clear and smooth, with a distinct little squeak at the end of the high notes. It’s almost familiar, he muses, but he’s listened to a lot of music in his lifetime, so—wait a minute.

Yuri. That’s Yuri’s voice.

He recognizes those little squeaks anywhere, reminiscent of the whiny tones she makes whenever she’s being stubborn about something. It’s harder to pick up on when she speaks in English, which he supposes he should’ve assumed she’d know how to speak. He recalls Namjoon offhandedly mentioning that she was his English tutor a couple of times, as well as Yuri mentioning translating for her mom. Still, he’s never actually heard it come out of her mouth. It’s kind of jarring.

Against his better judgement, he asks her about it.

“Oh! Um, yeah, that’s me,” she admits, laughing sheepishly. “It’s kind of embarrassing.”

“It’s good,” he assures her. “Your voice is pretty. The lyrics you wrote are catchy. I bet you could be an idol, if you wanted to.”

“Uh-uh. I don’t think so,” she says just a bit too forcefully, “I’m perfectly content just producing for you guys. Seriously.”

“That’s selfless of you,” he says. She shakes her head.

“It’s actually a little selfish, when I think about it,” she laughs nervously. “To be honest, I think a big part of my support comes from living vicariously through you guys. Saying it out loud makes it sound kind of awful, but you guys are doing things I could only ever dream of doing. I’m just here to make sure you guys are as successful as possible at all the things you’re doing, you know? Even though I’m not actually, like, putting in all the work and being on stage and all that.”

“You could, if you really wanted to,” he says encouragingly. She shakes her head.

“I mean, I don’t think I look very idol-like,” Yoongi muses.

“You do!” she argues. Poking at his pale cheek to emphasize her next point, she says, “White as sugar, just like old man Bang said. You’ve got that glass skin, you know?”

“That’s because I don’t go outside,” he says, self-deprecating as ever as he swats her hand away.

“Oppa,” she whines in a way he thinks is unfairly cute of her. “Just accept the compliment, okay?” He rolls his eyes, but relents to her wishes anyway.

“Thank you,” he says.

“You’re very welcome,” she says, sounding far too pleased with herself. “Don’t be like that, okay?”

“Like what?” he says, wrinkling his nose.

“Well… you know. Mean to yourself about how you look,” she explains. “Namjoon is the same, which is sad. And also just not great for an idol, you know? You have to be at least a little confident in your looks, or you’re gonna be miserable every time the stylists dress you. It takes them longer than you’d think. Or so I’ve heard.”

“There’s not much to be proud of,” he deflects, not missing the way that Yuri rolls her eyes like that.

When she raises her hand, he thinks she’s gonna flick his forehead or prod at his face again or something, but instead she places a finger on the tip of his nose. He furrows his brows together.

“What—”

“Your nose is cute,” she says matter-of-factly. He can’t help the strangled noise of surprise that escapes him at that, face growing hot as he flusters. “And your pale skin makes it easier to see when you blush, too. That’s a strong charm point as well, I think. You’ve got lots of charms.” He turns away, shaking his head in disbelief.

Still, it’s nice to know that somebody thinks so.

Yoongi presses the end call button on his phone just a little too forcefully.

Another phone call, another argument with his parents. It was instances like these that made him not want to call them at all. He’s always in this limbo of guilt, grateful that they paid for his trainee contract while also being angry at the way they constantly voice their disapproval. He slams his phone down onto his desk in frustration.

Apparently, it was louder than he thought. His studio door opens up a sliver, just enough for Yuri to peek her head in.

“Hey,” she calls softly. “Everything alright in there?” Yoongi pulls a face that makes it obvious that no, he is not alright. “Can I come in, then?”

Upon his nod of approval, she files into the room, gently closing the door shut behind her. She walks over and settles into the seat across from his, sliding it over next to his so she can lay her head on his shoulder. Her touch is comforting, he thinks.

“Talk to me,” she says. “What’s wrong?”

“Sometimes, I think I should just… I don’t know. Anything to stop shit like that from happening,” he sighs. “My parents nagging me, I guess. Just go back home. Go to college. Get a nine-to-five. Have a nice family, or something.” And Yuri frowns, because she gets it.

It’s something she’s spent many days and nights comforting Namjoon over when he’s just had another argument with his parents over the same exact thing. She wishes she could relate or understand, or anything to comfort him—but she can’t.

She’s glad the two can talk to each other about it now, but she can’t help but feel a little jealous that she can’t be a part of the conversation and can help them. She almost scoffs at herself for envying them being able to bond over their unsupportive parents. How fucked up was that?

Heaving a sigh, she hops up and takes a seat on the edge of his desk, careful to mind his production equipment. She swings her feet up into his lap, in that very casually touchy Yuri-esque way of hers. Impulsively, he brings a hand up to gently tap at her shin. She tries not to giggle at the ticklish sensation.

“Yoongi,” she starts, as seriously as she can manage. “Not to be, like. A downer or anything. But when your parents are gone, where would that put you? Stuck in a job you hate for no reason?”

“Six feet under,” he snorts, and she gasps.

“Not funny!” she whines, kicking at his hand. Her assault on his poor palm only gets worse when he bursts out laughing. “So not funny!”

“Sorry, sorry,” he says, but he’s still laughing.

“I really am trying to be supportive,” she huffs, a bit less childishly, now. “But I can’t like. Get it, get it, you know? The only reason I have any idea what to say here is ‘cause I’ve had this talk before. You know, if you two tried talking to each other more about personal stuff, I think you’d see that you and Namjoon are more alike than you might think. I’m not going to spill his business, but. I’ll just say that I think if anyone were to get it, it’d be him. It took some coaxing from my dad, but both my parents are okay with me pursuing music, now. As long as I took the producer route and not the idol route, at least. But still. It’s a good start. I’m lucky. I’ve got it better than a lot of people do, I think.”

“Would you?”

“Hm?”

“Take the idol route,” he clarifies, looking down at her shoes. “If you were given the choice.”

Sometimes, Yoongi feels like he’s never been given a choice. It feels like he’s been given every setback in the world. He’s never had the support or the funds or the hunger for fame that so often accompanied those pursuing music. He can barely remember why or when or what began his relationship with music, but he so vividly remembers feeling it, feeling like music chose him rather than the other way around. He can’t help but wonder what someone who seems to have been given almost all the choice in the world has to say about the only restrictions she’s been given.

Not much, it seems.

“Oh, um, nah. I don’t think so,” she laughs nervously. “I’m just—I’m not really pretty enough?”

“You are pretty,” he says, too quickly and too naturally to be insincere. He doesn’t miss the way that she ducks her head to hide the flush flooding into her cheeks.

This must be the vague ‘you know’ thing she was always talking about, Yoongi muses. He really should’ve picked up on it from the moment she said she didn’t look very idol-like. He’s never been the type to kiss up, so he hopes she knows that he means it.

“You’re so—stop that,” she whines, embarrassed. She half-heartedly attempts to kick at his hand again, but makes no move to try again when she misses. “You’re too much.”

“I’m serious,” he says.

“I know,” she squeaks, hands flying up to cover her flushed cheeks up in embarrassment. “That’s the embarrassing part. Get some taste or something.”

“Don’t be a hypocrite, Yuri,” he says, rolling his eyes. “You always tell Namjoon and I not to be insecure about appearances, but you act the same when it comes to yours.”

“That’s different,” she whines, “You and Namjoon are gonna be in front of the cameras. I’m gonna be behind them. I don’t need to muster up any kind of confidence for that. Which is good. Because I don’t have it.”

“Looks don’t matter to me,” he says flatly. “But confidence does. I’m not gonna hold your hand and tell you that you’re pretty all day, even if I think it’s true, ‘cause you’re not gonna believe it no matter how many times I say it.”

“Ouch.”

“Let me finish,” he continues, “Even if it isn’t your looks, you deserve to at least be confident in something. Your music, your grades, your music, whatever. You’re generous and thoughtful. Don’t let society make you miserable just because all they care about is appearances.”

Yuri doesn’t say anything, her face still buried in her hands. More than a little bit concerned at this point, Yoongi flicks her forehead through her bangs.

“Hey, you good in there?” he asks. She doesn’t reply. Just sniffles. Oh, fuck. “Uh, sorry, I—” Yuri shakes her head, finally lowering her hands.

“Don’t be,” she laughs nervously, still teary-eyed. “That was one of the nicest things a boy ever said to me. You should be, like, a motivational speaker or something.” He snorts.

“I can’t give advice to like. People I don’t care about,” he says, grinning awkwardly, “I’d just tell them to get their shit together and I’d get fired.” Yuri can’t fight the smile off of her cheeks at that.

She’s sure she’d know that he cares through his Yoongi-isms alone, but it’s nice to hear it from the man himself. He wouldn’t be giving this advice if he didn’t care.

Min Yoongi cares about her, and it makes her heart feel warm.

Lim Yuri has become an unexpected addition to Yoongi’s delivery sprees.

Yuri’s arms, small and gentle, have become a comforting presence as they wrap around his waist. The old couple doesn’t seem to mind the extra person joining him on his trips, content with her politeness and the fact that she isn’t demanding any money despite providing help. They coo about the highs and lows of young love whenever Yuri arrives to join him on his trips, and Yoongi can’t find the energy within himself to correct them.

Things go on like this for a long time, hours, days, weeks, of this halcyon. Her arms keep him warm in the winter and her cold hands keep him refreshed in the late months of spring. The old husband hands them a bag of leftover food for them to eat together, an wistful smile on his face.

They eat in the midst of impromptu therapy sessions, which usually consist of Yuri comforting Yoongi as he complains about his problems. It’s okay, though, because she likes to give advice and she likes how deep his voice is when he talks and she doesn’t have many problems of her own to complain about, anyway. When she does talk, it’s always lighthearted, talking about a song she wrote or something dumb Kyunghee and Daniel did or how cute Namjoon’s dimples were on that particular day.

One day, curiosity kills the cat, and Yoongi asks a question that’s been killing him from the start.

“Why do you like Namjoon so much, anyway?” It’s something Yoongi asks out of the blue, so much so that he doesn’t even realize he’s asking it until it slips out. He’s not sure what he’s expecting until she answers, and when he does, he realizes that his expectation was literally anything but what she says next.

“No reason,” she says, and he’s so thrown for a loop by the words that leave her that he practically stumbles over his feet when he hears them.

“Wait, seriously?” he says. “I’ve read your lyrics, you know. You’re good with words.”

“I am?” she says, sounding far too surprised for his liking.

“Yeah. Which is why I thought you’d have a way better answer than that,” he says. “I expected you to talk about…” He pauses as he sifts through his brain for all the things that he personally finds attractive about Namjoon. “…I don’t know, his dimples or his height or his good grades or something.” All things that he lacks, Yoongi muses with insecurity.

“Oh my God. Those are all, like, great and all, but they’re not like… why I like him,” Yuri giggles. “He’s just—I don’t know. There’s a lot of things about him that make me like him, but I can’t, like, come up with an itemized list. It’s not like one day he reached a quota in traits I liked and suddenly I liked him. I just realized I did. I just… felt it. It felt right. He felt right.”

“Oh.” Yoongi feels a pang of jealousy at that, like an itch he can’t scratch. Maybe it’s because a tender part of him can only dream of being loved so dearly.

He silently wonders what it would be like to be loved by a person like Lim Yuri.

Namjoon has been feeling himself growing fonder and fonder of Yoongi in these past months.

Finally learning to talk to him without being all weird has helped with that. Without the formalities, they’re both able to speak a lot more freely. In the time that they’ve done so, the two have been able to talk about and bond over their rocky family situations and their choice to pursue music.

What’s fueled his fondness more than anything, though, is Yoongi’s little habits—the way he runs a hand through his jet black hair as he shyly recommends jazz and art study because they seem like the type of thing you’d like, Namjoonie, the way he always wears those grey jacket and sweats because they’re warm and winter is starting to trickle in, the way he smiles with his gums just like Yuri said he would.

Those two have gotten impossibly close lately, Namjoon notes. Now, he doesn’t think he’s the most perceptive person in the world, but it’s hard to miss the tenderness in their actions. Every time he steals a glance in their direction, they’re exchanging knowing glances or whispering softly to each other or linking pinkies in the way that Yuri loves to do so much.

It’s only natural to conclude that Min Yoongi and Lim Yuri are involved.

He doesn’t know why it bothers him so much. It has no reason to, right? But it does. He combs through his mind for any possible reason that it should. Maybe it’s because Yoongi, who’s agreed to be more honest with him, hasn’t told him about it. Maybe it’s because Yuri, ever perceptive, has been one of his closest friends for years and yet seems to have no intentions in telling him about it despite how painfully obvious their interactions make things.

The familiar sting of loneliness rises sharply in his chest when he sees them interact, like they’re in their own little world, with seemingly no room for him. He feels like he’s spying on their relationship when he shouldn’t be. He feels like a voyeur. He feels like an interloper.

Maybe this is how Yoongi felt when he first came to Big Hit, he muses. If this is how he feels just watching him and Yuri, he can’t imagine having to watch everyone who’s known each other for years talk and laugh together from the outside. The more he thinks about it, the more he feels selfish and ridiculous for being so bothered by it. After all, who was he to meddle in their affairs?

Maybe it’s high time he finds one of his own.

Yuri’s sheets are soft, Yoongi thinks.

They’re at her house today, Yuri not feeling very keen on having this conversation in the Big Hit building for fear that Namjoon might walk in on them while they’re talking about him. Right now, she’s half-heartedly producing something on her bedroom computer and venting to Yoongi as he lies on her bed.

She rants about how Namjoon has been talking a lot about girls lately, clearly bothered. She especially seems bothered by the fact that Namjoon won’t let her be as touchy with him as she used to be. Normally, Yoongi wouldn’t give a damn about other people’s affairs, but things are different, this time. While he’s not personally bothered by it, he doesn’t like the fact that it bothers her so much, for whatever reason he can’t quite pinpoint.

Dear Lord, she even goes into detail, describing each and every pretty girl in a way that is far less flowery than he believes Namjoon would speak about a girl.

“And then there’s Jieun, who they all say is a good kisser. What does that even mean? Like, what the hell makes someone a good kisser? You just jam your lips together, right?”

“You’ve never been kissed,” he says, more a statement than a question.

“Yes?”

“Kinda late, don’t you think?” he says. Yuri gasps as she smacks at his arm, clearly mortified.

“No it’s not! Shut up!” she says indignantly. He’s trying to take her seriously, but her squeaky little whines make that hard.

“Sorry—” he tries apologizing through his laughter.

“You don’t sound sorry at all!” she whines. “It’s not funny, okay? It’s fine! I’m still young!”

“You’re sixteen already!”

“I’m only sixteen!” she huffs, crossing her arms and turning away from him. “I-I have time, okay? We can’t all be heartbreakers, Min Yoongi.”

“Heartbreaker?” he repeats. “I haven’t had a girlfriend since middle school.”

“I never said you were one,” she defends herself.

“You implied it.”

“I—whatever!” she huffs. “I’m saving my first kiss for someone special. And it’s gonna be somewhere magical, like under the cherry blossoms at the Goyang Flower Festival or on a picnic blanket under the stars on New Year’s or something.”

Oh my God. He’s trying so hard to stop his laughter.

“Did you swallow a fucking romance novel?” he laughs. “My first kiss took place in the hallway after gym class, so like. Don’t be surprised if it sucks and you mess up and slobber all over them or something like that.”

When he turns to look at Yuri, she looks incredibly nervous. She’s come to a still in her spinny chair, nervously pulling her hair over her face as she ponders his words with utmost seriousness.

“Do you think that?” she asks, voice small.

“What?” he asks. Wordlessly, she sighs, wheeling her chair backwards over to where he’s lying on her bed. She cranes her neck back onto her bed, coming face-to-face with him.

“Do you think I’ll mess up my first kiss?” she says softly. Not that she needs to speak anything but—she’s so close he can feel her breath against his nose. He pulls away, face aflush.

“You’ll be fine,” he mutters, voice cracking.

Yuri gives a huff, seemingly dissatisfied with his answer. She hops down from her chair—there’s an inherent cuteness in the fact that her feet don’t touch the ground when she sits on it, Yoongi muses—and up onto the bed, right next to him. He rolls his eyes when she settles onto her knees and urges him to sit up, too. He obliges, in spite of his annoyance.

“What was your first kiss like? Aside from the whole being in the hallway thing?” she whispers, like they’re telling secrets. There’s nobody else in the house but Daniel (who’s probably got his headphones cranked up to a hundred percent), so Yoongi can’t help but find her antics endearing.

“My first kiss was just a kiss. Nothing bad. Nothing mind-blowing,” he says with a shrug.

Even that’s a bit of a stretch. They were both gross and sweaty and their teeth clacked together. But he already feels kinda bad for making her doubt herself so much, and he doesn’t want to aggravate her worries.

“So how did… did you just…” she gestures awkwardly with her friends as she trails off, unable to articulate whatever she wants to say. He gets it, though. He always does.

“You just go for it,” he says, “It’s the kinda thing you just feel your way through. Just don’t think too hard about it. You’re good at doing things without thinking, so it should go well for you.”

“Gee, thanks,” she says, rolling her eyes at the back-handed compliment. “It’s just—I don’t wanna mess up in the future if I ever… you know.”

“Just say kiss,” he teases. “It’s not as sacred as you’re making it out to be. It’s just lips-on-lips. If humans never decided it was a thing to kiss people you liked, it wouldn’t be important at all. It’d just be an exchange of germs.”

“It’s important to me!” she bristles, so aggressively that it throws him for a loop. She takes note of her overreaction, coughing awkwardly before returning to her normal volume. She repeats, “I-It’s important to me. I just want it to be nice. I don’t wanna be disappointed. And I don’t wanna be someone else’s disappointment. That’s why I’m asking you this.”

“What are you asking?” he says, raising a brow.

“Augh!” She buries her face into her hands, miserably failing an attempt to hide her flushed cheeks. Peeking through her fingertips, she gently continues, “Just… hypothetically… purely for practice reasons… it wouldn’t count as my first kiss if you could, um. Help me. Try. Practice. I don’t know.”

The room goes impossibly quiet. She can’t say a word after that, the pair just staring at each other in awkward silence, him impossibly floored at the suggestion. Their faces go blank as Yuri processes what the hell she just did and Yoongi processes what the hell just happened.

When it all finally clicks, Min Yoongi has the audacity to fucking smirk, gums showing and all.

“Practice,” he repeats, no lilt to it, no bite. His attempts to remain straight-faced are to no avail, because her pouting up at him is all it takes for him to burst out laughing.

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” she yells, pushing him back down onto the bed. “Just forget it! Forget I said anything!” She hooks a leg over his waist, pinning him down before grabbing a pillow and smacking him as hard as she can with it. The pain does little to quell his laughter.

“Get off!” he laughs in-between smacks. “You’re too much!”

“Are you calling me heavy?!” she asks, more fake-offended than anything.

“What—no! What the fuck made you think that?!” he tries to sound indignant, but he’s still laughing, and before he knows it, she’s laughing too. When the laughter subsides and the room goes quiet, they both realize what kind of situation they’re in. Yuri’s still got him pinned down, having just talked about first kisses. Kisses in general. Having just proposed that they kiss. The air goes tense.

“So,” Yoongi says, cutting through the silence.

“So.”

“I didn’t. Uh. I didn’t say no.” He has the decency to look embarrassed, now, cheeks flushed and eyes blown wide. “Unless you don’t want to.”

The two stare at each other for a moment after that, like they’re waiting for the other to back down. A Clint Eastwood-style duel of the eyes, so to speak.

“I won’t start something I can’t finish,” she says decidedly.

She leans in as promised,

presses her nose against his—

“I’m sorry!”

—and promptly places both hands over his mouth.

The motion isn’t harsh enough to hurt too bad—only a light sting—but it is very sudden. Yoongi blinks up at her a couple of times in surprise just to reassure himself that whatever that was actually just happened.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats. “For um—yeah. I’m sorry. I don’t think I can do this? Because, um, you know. If someone asks me when my first kiss was, I’ll have to say, ‘Oh, it was on my bed at like, 11PM when I was in high school. A-And that already makes me sound terrible! And then when they ask with who, I’ll have to say, ‘Oh, just with my friend that I work with so I could practice kissing for the future since I was in love with our friend!’ And that’ll be my stupid goddamn answer! And that’s… that’s, um… that’s kind of not very romantic…”

Her voice tapers off towards the end, quieting in what Yoongi thinks is embarrassment as she takes his hands off of his mouth. It really does sound kind of ridiculous when she says it out loud. Maybe Yoongi was onto something when he laughed at her for sounding like she ‘swallowed a romance novel.’ To her relief, his next response is anything but patronizing.

“Hey,” he says, “Relax. Don’t apologize for changing your mind, that’s just—that’s just weird. Don’t force yourself to do shit you don’t want to. That’s weird.”

She’s so close. They’re still nose-to-nose, breath tickling each other’s lips every time the other speaks. He awkwardly pats the back of her thigh a couple of times, which she reads as a signal to roll off of him. She obliges. Even though she knows he doesn’t mean much by that little touch, the intimacy of it still makes her blush. Thankfully, he can’t see it with the both of them laying back down onto the bed and staring awkwardly at the ceiling above them. Yoongi pretends to find interest in the faded glow-in-the-dark stars on her bedroom ceiling.

“Okay,” she says.

“Okay,” he repeats.

“Sorry,” she says again.

“It’s fine,” he reassures her, because as mortifying as the situation is for them both, it really is fine.

She blindly reaches her hand out to find his, feeling around until their fingers meet. When he fondly links his pinky in hers, the way she always does with him, she decides that a kiss isn’t the kind of thing she should be rushing into, anyways.

Yoongi just assumes it isn’t weird.

After all, Yuri settles against him so naturally, her face buried into his neck and her studio chair sidled next to his as he sits at his desk and works on mixing what he hopes will end up being a song on their first album, whenever that comes out. Were it not for the way that her breath hit the sensitive skin of his neck, he would barely even register that she was there.

Well. Maybe not barely.

She’s so warm, the way she presses against him. She’s always warm, except in her hands, but it’s fine because his hands are always colder. Her cold fingers thread through his hair, and it reminds him of how accustomed he’s become to her touchiness. It’s just a habit of hers, he’s since learned. She has a lot of little habits he once found weird, but now only sees those habits as things that make her Yuri.

Yuri who hides behind her hair when she’s shy or nervous. Yuri who only wears half her jacket and leaves the other half hanging off for no reason. Yuri who wordlessly leaves ramen cups on his desk. Yuri who has to link her pinky with someone else’s when she’s nervous. Yuri who awkwardly bends her hands to link both of hers together when she doesn’t want to be a bother.

But it’s come to the point where she’s never a bother anymore. If she were, he wouldn’t have situated himself in her life as the outlier, the one person who coaxes her to talk about all of her problems because she’s the one resolving everyone else’s. Yuri taking always feels like giving, because he takes in her little habits and private thoughts that she shares with him and nobody else. It makes him feel more important than it makes him feel annoyed.

She has a special bond with everyone at Big Hit, and even with the Source Music and JYP trainees they practice with—she wouldn’t be going out of her way to force them all to resolve their conflicts, otherwise, even if they see her as nosy and meddling because of it.

In everyone being special, he supposes, he has gone full circle in no longer being special. Maybe he is, but he’s not as important to her as say, Kyunghee, her own damn brother, or Namjoon, who she stares at like he holds all the world’s answers. With that, Yoongi takes his place in her heart at a solid bronze (at the very most), which stings a little more than he’d like to admit.

He hasn’t had much opportunity to grow as close to anyone at Big Hit—hell, anyone in Seoul—yet. Maybe that’s why he’s grown so attached to her like this. As sad as it is, she is quite literally the one person in the whole city that he’s close to. Listening to all her problems like this makes him feel like he’s just as important to her, so he can feel a little bit less pathetic about holding her so close to his heart. Even if the problems that she tells him reveal anything but.

“I’m so stupid,” she whines against his neck. Her warm breath gives him goosebumps.

“Jeez, you’re not. How many times do we have to go over this?” He’s been comforting her over this for the past half-hour now.

Namjoon has a girlfriend now. A tall girl from his advanced algebra class with great math skills and pale skin and sharp eyes—everything that Yuri does not have. He knows she’s insecure about it from the way she wrinkles her nose when she sees her reflection in the mirrors of the practice rooms. It makes him want to throttle Namjoon, despite him probably not having a clue.

“Sorry,” she says, her voice small, “For dumping all this on you, you know? I don’t wanna be that friend who only ever talks to you when I have problems. I kinda feel like I’m using you.”

“Hey, hey. It’s fine. Relax,” he says, feeling her nod softly into his neck as he continues, “It doesn’t bother me.” In fact, he prefers it, is what he doesn’t tell her. Humiliating as it is, he revels in feeling like he’s giving something, when he always feels like he’s taking from her. Like everyone is taking from her.

He knows what it’s like to be a producer, always behind the scenes of it all. She says she’s perfectly content with it, but he once said the same thing back in Daegu. But even when he chose to do things and make things for other people like this, there was always that underlying feeling of feeling like something has been taken from you. Sometimes it was just wanting the same amount of recognition as the people singing the songs you made.

Being young in society meant a desire for acceptance, and what bigger acceptance was there than fame? He recognizes the stars in her eyes whenever they practice with the other trainees in JYP’s big, shiny entertainment building because his own eyes held them once, too.

He’s still a trainee, so maybe they still do.

But for now, he’s letting himself dream small, living in the studio whenever he doesn’t have to practice those stupid dances Hitman Bang has them do. For now, music comes first, especially with his current job as one of the company’s main producers.

Producing is a lot harder with one hand, he muses, noting that she has at some point monopolized his left one when he wasn’t paying attention. He interlocks their fingers in spite of it all. With his ability to perform keyboard shortcuts impaired, he delegates the task of manually clicking things to his free hand. It’s annoying, but the feeling of her hand fit so snugly in his makes the inconvenience feel worth it. They sit like that for a while, quiet as one of her hands threads through his hair and the other softly strokes at his hand with her thumb.

“I like your hands,” she says. “They’re nice to hold.” Yoongi swallows. She’s so close to him that he’s scared she’ll hear how fast his heart is beating. To his relief, she says nothing of it.

“They’re just hands,” he says as nonchalantly as he can manage. “Cold hands.”

“Usually when you hold someone’s hand they get all hot and sweaty and clammy and gross, which is why I do the pinky-linking thing,” she muses, “Yours don’t do that, so they’re nice to hold. And they’re honestly not even that cold.”

“They are,” he argues.

“I don’t think your hands are ever that cold,” she says, her voice a teasing lilt. “I think you just keep saying that so you have an excuse to have your hands held. I bet you secretly love skinship.” He rolls his eyes, tightening an arm around her tiny frame.

“Watch it. Your life is in my hands,” he says, as flatly as he can manage for maximum ominosity.

With a squeak, she flies off of him like he’s on fire. He can’t help but smile, wide and gummy, at her Yuri-esque antics. Even when she turns away, shaking her head fondly, he can feel his heart swell in his chest as he looks at her. It reminds him why she’s the first one at Big Hit he was able to really talk to. Everything feels easy and comfortable with her, the way he felt back in Daegu.

His reverie is interrupted by Namjoon’s voice booming from the studio next to his.

“Yuri!” he calls. “Can you look at this for me?”

Hearing this, she does a little happy dance with her feet. It’s a habit he usually finds endearing, but right now it just makes his stomach twist. She waves him off, dropping everything—she even forgets her water bottle on his desk—to run off and attend to whatever Namjoon needs her for.

“I’ll be back,” she says in a sing-song voice as she’s out the door.

He knows she will. She always comes back to him whenever Namjoon isn’t available.

Yoongi runs a frustrated hand through his hair, not sure why it bothers him so much. The fact that he doesn’t know why it bothers him so much bothers him more than anything else.

Yuri is awake at the Big Hit dorms at two in the morning.

This is nothing out of the ordinary, though. Whenever their dad was out of the country on a business trip, she always took the opportunity to stay out past curfew as a chance to spend her nights at the Big Hit studio while Kyunghee played video games with Donghyuk in the dorms. She always had to hide in the studio until early dawn so as to not get caught by Hitman Bang, who made it clear that he detested the idea of someone so young being out late just to work for him.

Today is different, though. Today, she’s in the dorms, taking a well-deserved break from work as she lays on her stomach next to Yoongi and watches a movie with him. She brought the DVD over from her house, thinking nothing of the way her father’s old American movies lined the TV stand until the day Yoongi bashfully mentioned wanting to watch it.

So here they are, watching a Korean-subbed version of Scarface on the tiny screen of his laptop. Yuri can’t enjoy the movie very much, finding it a bit too bleak and violent for her liking. And it just never gets better. It’s just hit after hit, one bad thing happening after another. She’s sure that if she squinted hard enough, she would be able to appreciate the cinematography and whatever deeper meaning the film holds, but that sounds like too much brainpower to be using at two in the morning.

Yoongi seems to find it interesting, though. He’s enraptured by every word that leaves the main character’s mouth, so much so that Yuri would be surprised if he forgot she was there. It really seems like he’s in his own little world. Instead, she finds her entertainment in his little gasps of delight, the innocent widening of his eyes, the way his grins of anticipation look as they’re illuminated by the dim light of his laptop screen.

It’s unfair, she thinks, how pretty Yoongi is. Perfect skin and catlike eyes and gummy smiles and he’s not even trying—hell, he doesn’t even have a skincare routine! God really does pick favorites. Yuri absentmindedly brushes a strand of hair out of his eyes, one he’s probably too entranced by the movie to notice. She hums softly at the way he leans into her touch without thinking.

She wonders if anyone is ever going to look at her this way.

There’s no time for her musings to continue when she hears what sounds like someone throwing their guts up in the bathroom. It stops for a moment before continuing, and Jesus, that sounds pretty brutal. She nudges Yoongi with her arm.

“Sounds like someone’s dying in there,” she says. He furrows his brows together in concern.

“Huh?”

“Someone’s not having a good time in the bathroom,” she says. “Did Namjoon undercook the chicken breasts again or what?” As if on cue, the poor guy is retching again, and Yoongi shakes his head.

“Jihoon,” he says, pausing the movie before he stands up and dusts himself off. “He hasn’t been feeling well for a while, now.” Yuri gets up and follows Yoongi when he makes his way towards said bathroom, cringing at the distinct sound of dry heaving as they draw closer. Yoongi knocks on the door before entering, his frown deep-set when he sees Jihoon hunched over the toilet.

“Hey,” Yuri says softly, stepping forward and placing a comforting hand on the small of his back. “Are you okay, buddy?” Yuri and Jihoon aren’t exactly the closest—of all the Big Hit trainees, Namjoon and Yoongi nabbed that spot—but he’s still nice to talk to, always offering to walk her home when it got too late like a good oppa. Seeing him like this breaks her heart.

“‘M fine,” he rasps, despite the pain in his voice telling them all that he is anything but. “Probably just food poisoning. No big deal.”

“Food poisoning for three days?” Yoongi says, obviously in disbelief. “It could be a stomach bug. Or God forbid, appendicitis. You really need to get yourself checked out.”

“It’s fine, hyung. I—” he begins, but the need to heave again cuts him off. Yuri rubs comforting circles into his back some more, unsure of what else to do. She sends a questioning glance Yoongi’s way, who looks just as concerned as she does.

“We’re taking you to the hospital,” he says. Jihoon groans, but doesn’t have the energy to resist.

The drive to the hospital is tense, Yuri filing in the back before Jihoon so he can lay his head against her shoulder and she can make sure he doesn’t throw up anymore. Meanwhile, Yoongi pushing is the edge of the speed limit, eyes darting back and forth between the road and the rear view mirror to make sure that they’re holding up okay in the back. Yuri sends him a reluctant thumbs up.

Yoongi insists that they take Jihoon to the emergency room, where they take Jihoon to the back. As soon as he’s out of eyeshot, Yuri watches with wide eyes as Yoongi takes out his wallet and puts down a hefty payment for the walk-in fee.

“I can pay for it,” she says, shaking her head as she fishes for her wallet in her own jacket pocket. Yoongi smiles, a bittersweet thing, at the unspoken words—she knows how much he’s struggled with money in the past. Even so, he shakes his head, reaching out to tenderly fit his hand into hers.

“There are worse things to spend my money on,” he says. “You can’t really put a price on anyone.”

Something in the way that she sees Yoongi snaps, then, but she has no clue as to what it is. She’s not sure if it’s the lack of sleep or the lateness of the night that makes her think this, but something about him reminds her of the moon, at that moment.

They stay like that the rest of the night, side-by-side in the seats of the hospital waiting room. Yoongi’s lashes flutter dreamily at the way a sleep-deprived Yuri noses against him, softly muttering sweet things against the sensitive skin of his neck and meaning every word.

“Your heart is warm, Min Yoongi.”

Yoongi can’t help but notice the way that Yuri’s wrap around him a little bit tighter during their deliveries, these days. More than that, he can’t help but notice how much he likes it.

He’s slowly accepting the fact that this might be a thing that he will have to address in both himself and with the rest of the Big Hit team later. Yuri being her normal touchy self was one thing, but him finding himself enjoying her touch rather than just allowing it was… new. It’s scary and exciting all at once, but mostly the former. For now, while it isn’t a problem, he chooses to ignore it.

He still puts the helmet on her head himself, pulling the buckles tight and making sure it’s fully secure before anything else. He takes extra care with it these days, tender in the way he always does it for her like it’s the first time. He feels like a little kid all over again, the way he cares like this.

It’s easy for him to psyche himself out of things, convincing himself that she’s just being all touchy because that’s how she is, but then she does little things that make him think it isn’t all in his head. Just last month, she gifted him with a black Yamaha helmet, covered with stickers of Kumamon and logos of brands he likes and Scarface, even though he remembers her having a pointed disinterest in the film while they watched it on his bedroom floor.

He never anticipated that he’d actually need it one day.

He doesn’t know how it happens, who went too fast or too slow or turned when they weren’t supposed to. All he remembers is tightening his arms around Yuri as they tumbled off the bike and onto the ground, hoping that she’d be okay.

She always kicked in his protective instinct, being so small and so delicate. The thought of her getting hurt because she wanted to help him out makes him feel impossibly guilty.

Yoongi’s fading in and out of consciousness, vaguely registering Yuri’s voice sobbing into her phone on what seems to be a 1339 call.

“He’s—he’s unconscious,” he hears her sniffle, “Oh my God, he—um, no, no, he has a helmet on. His head is under the car. His body’s sticking out from under it. I just—I don’t wanna move him, ‘cause, oh my God, what if I hurt him? Oh God, what do I do? I don’t know what to—no, ma’am, the street is—um...”

When he wakes up, he’s lying in a hospital bed, groggy and miserable and aching to the joints. He’s in the emergency room, he realizes, the same one he drove Jihoon to only weeks ago. His heart sinks when the doctor informs him that he’s got an incredibly bad shoulder injury—no more boxing, no more basketball, he tells him. It was nearly dislocated, he says, so don’t move too much. Don’t put too much pressure on it. Just relax for a month or so.

This sends him into a full-blown panic. He doesn’t have a month. He’s never been much of a dancer—of everyone, she should probably be practicing the most. This sets him back far behind the others. How is he gonna catch up? How is he gonna make up for that?

As soon as the doctor leaves, the weight of the whole world hits him all at once. He can even feel himself hyperventilating, but is halted by the shock of a gentle hand reaching out to grasp his. When he turns, he sees Yuri sitting on the hospital chair next to him. Lord, he was so out of it he didn’t even realize she was there. She’s got bandages on her legs, but other than that, no major injuries. He breathes a sigh of relief.

“Hey,” she says softly.

“Hey,” he says, slowly blinking up at her.

“Why did you do that?” she says, voice cracking.

“Huh?”

“You, um, kind of,” she begins, “…broke my fall? You held me. I don’t know. I crushed your shoulder. That’s why it’s all fucked up. Why would you do that?”

“I—I don’t know,” he admits. “I wasn’t thinking. I just felt like it was the thing to do at that moment.” She whines pitifully at his answer, squeezing his hand as tight as she can.

“I just feel like I owe you one,” she says. “Something. Anything. I don’t know.”

The tender part of him tells him to assure her that she has no need to do any such thing. After all, nothing was more important than other people—especially Lim Yuri—but the scared part of him takes over.

“Make me a promise,” he says softly. She leans in to hear him better, nodding as she does so.

“Anything,” she says.

“Promise me you won’t tell the others about this injury. Please.” Yuri furrows her brows and widens her eyes upon hearing this, obviously not expecting that answer. She practically rips her hand from his at that, pulling back from him as if appalled.

“What?!” she says. “Yoongi, no! They have to know about this!”

“They’ll worry. They’ll bench me. They’ll pull me out,” he says. “I promise you, it’s better if they don’t know.”

“What, so they can make you dance and exercise and all that shit with your injured shoulder? If it was sprained, that’d be one thing, but this is a serious problem! You’re only gonna hurt yourself further by not telling them.”

“I don’t care. It’s fine.” Yuri shakes her head.

“I just don’t get it,” she says, sniffling. “How you can care so little about yourself when I—when everyone—cares about you so much.”

“I’ll be fine,” he assures her. “It’ll heal. Everything will, alright? I just need you not to tell anyone about it.”

“Of course,” she says, as flatly as she can manage. “I owe you one, after all.” Yoongi knows her well enough to sense the bite in her tone. He rolls his eyes.

“C’mon,” he clicks his tongue. “Don’t be like that.”

“Don’t be like that, then,” she says, pressing her back to the opposite wall of his little hospital room. “It’s just—it’s just so stupid, Yoongi.” She slides down against the wall and onto the floor, looking impossibly small and hopeless in a way that only makes him feel guiltier. “You don’t have to pay anyone back for any of the nice things we do. You think we do all that just to kiss ass, or what?”

“What—no! Of course not.”

“Then why am I keeping this a secret, huh? Tell me that,” she says.

Yoongi pauses for a moment, deep in thought. Every single thought falls upon him, all at once. He thinks of the evaluations next weekend and he thinks about his family back home. He thinks about the money they spent on his trainee contract and he thinks about the amount they’ll have to pay off, regardless of whether or not he debuts. His heart beats wildly in his chest. His head pounds away. His lips press together into a thin line.

“There’s so much at stake,” is all he can offer as an explanation. What else can he say?

“All the more reason to trust us, then, isn’t it?” she says desperately. “Come on. No way anyone would let the company drop you. I’d fight for you, you know that! We’d fight for you. No one else can rap and produce like you. Don’t you remember what Namjoon said? You can debut before him, or he can debut before you, but it’s important that everyone supports each other, always. He’d be here for you, if he knew. He wants to be there for you. We all want to be there for you. You’re so loved. You just have to trust us. You just have to let us in.”

“Sorry I don’t remember every little thing Namjoon says,” he scoffs. “I’m not you.”

“Are you really talking about that right now?!” she bristles. “This is serious, Yoongi!”

“I’m being serious,” he says firmly. “You’re the one bringing up Namjoon while I’m lying in a hospital bed. He’s the leader. He’s the one I’m worried most about. The whole group is built around him. I don’t know if I can trust him not to tell any of the staff about this. If he does—, if anyone does—they have a reason to drop me as a trainee. I can’t let that happen, Yuri.”

He doesn’t know why he’s saying these things. He’s talking out of his ass right now. After all, he trusts Namjoon. He likes Namjoon. But the pain in his shoulder and the claustrophobia of the tight little hospital room makes him feel anxious, restless, paranoid. He wants to get up and move and run or do something. But he can’t, so all he can do is project every negative feeling bogging down on him onto other people.

“If you can’t trust Namjoon,” she says softly. “Can’t you at least trust me?”

A beat of silence is her only answer, Yoongi’s lips pressed together into a thin line as he looks away.

“I can’t believe you,” she says, voice cracking. When he hears her begin to sniffle and sob, he has to force himself not to look back at her, guilt and shame bubbling up in his stomach.

He doesn’t even get to see her as she storms out, slamming the door shut behind her.

Yoongi feels incredibly alone.

He really shouldn’t, though—after all, his family comes all the way down from Daegu just to visit him while he’s in the hospital. They bring him all sorts of different foods, agreeing with his complaints that hospital food really, really sucks. After repeated assurances that he’ll heal just fine, they ask him about trainee life, about his food, about his friends. On the third day, they ask why nobody else has visited him. He lies and says that they’re all too busy training, when in reality they don’t even know that he’s here.

The insecure, self-loathing part of himself wonders if they’re even worried.

Rationally, he knows they are, because he misses them, too. They’ve been in such close proximity that it’d be impossible for them not to grow as close as they have in these past months. He chuckles softly whenever he thinks about the way they were so rarely separated, bonding and laughing over situations where Hoseok was using the shower while Donghyuk used the toilet and Namjoon brushed his teeth, all at the same time.

It only makes Yoongi feel worse about the last conversation he had with Yuri, making an ass out of himself over Namjoon of all people. Namjoon who he’s lived with the longest. Namjoon who he gives his shirts to when they come in two sizes too big. Namjoon who he holds so dearly.

He wishes he didn’t have to be apart from everyone for so long to realize what an ass he was being.

It hits him the worst on the sixth day his family visits him and they bring him a cup of a very familiar brand of ₩1200 ramyeon. He saves the little egg brick for last. It tastes bitter in his mouth.

As he reluctantly finishes his water, listening to his brother, Geumjae, and his parents chatter about their dog and their work and the weather in Daegu. Usually, catching up with them felt like a much-needed break, but right now he just feels restless.

He’s been lying in this hospital bed for too long. Listening to nothing but their idle chat for too long. He’s been drifting in and out of sleep so much that he probably wouldn’t even know how many days he’d been in the hospital if his phone didn’t tell him. The repetition of it all ends one day when the nurse informs him that somebody’s coming up to visit, even though his family is already there in the room with him.

After a set of gentle knocks, Lim Yuri appears from behind the hospital door like an angel.

She introduces herself to his family a bit too formally, bowing more than she needs to, like she’s trying to impress them. It’s cute of her. What’s even cuter is the way she blushes and flusters in surprise when they ask if she’s a Big Hit trainee and she waves her arms around as she explains that she’s a producer. She looks nothing like an idol, she says. Geumjae jokes that Yoongi doesn’t look anything like one either. He glares at his brother from the hospital bed.

Yuri looks shy as she tells them something too softly for him to hear, but they nod in understanding and send Yoongi a knowing look as they file out of the door with promises to visit tomorrow. His cheeks flush in embarrassment as he realizes he’s going to have a lot to clarify for them then.

His flush deepens when she sets the plastic bag in her hands on his side table, clambering up the bedside to take a seat beside him. He moves to make space for her, revelling in the way the warm skin of her thigh presses against his arm.

“Did you eat?” she says softly. “I brought you food.”

“Yeah, I ate,” he says. “Thanks, though.”

A beat of silence. She reaches down to grasp his hand, which fits so perfectly into hers. When he squeezes it, she squeezes back. Everything feels like it’s falling back into place where it belongs.

“I didn’t tell anyone, like you said. I told them all that you went back to see your family in Daegu. Said it was a family emergency that you didn’t really wanna talk about,” she says softly. “Told Hitman Bang, too. I think you should be okay if you want to stay here for the next week or so.” He shakes his head.

“It’s okay. I’ll be discharged soon,” he assures her. “Next two days, maybe. It won’t be completely healed, but I’ll just tell them that I fell down the stairs back home or something. I don’t know. Gonna try to play it off as nothing major.”

She hums in reply, squeezing his hand again. He can tell she still disapproves of his secrets, but is willing to keep them if that’s what makes him comfortable. She slides down so she’s laying next to him, legs slotted nicely next to his. He feels a wave of comfort wash over him as she gets touchy with him, like nothing has changed.

Seeing as Yoongi has never been the touchy-feely type, one would think that this would annoy him. To his own surprise, it doesn’t. If anything, he finds himself reveling in her affections. It’s weird even to him, the way he likes her touch so much.

Wordlessly, she starts playing with his hair. She’s always liked his hair, she’s said before, all sleek and smooth—she doesn’t like her own hair and the way they curl at the ends. And he’d frown every time she talked about herself like that because he thinks she’s one of the cutest people he knows.

Not that he could ever tell her that without shrivelling up and dying of embarrassment.

He’s snapped out of his thoughts by her wandering fingers, which have moved on from playing with his hair to prod at his ears. The sensitivity makes him cringe, but it isn’t an entirely unpleasant thing. He gasps sharply when her fingernails nip at the shell of his ear in a way that feels like the sensitive skin is being bitten. Mortifying as it is to admit, the goosebumps that rise on his skin stem from a sensation more pleasurable than it is uncomfortable. It feels good. Suddenly, the touches that he once found curious and innocent—childish, even—make his face go hot.

“You have something you’re not saying,” she chides. “You can tell me, you know, if it’ll make you feel better.” He turns in closer to her, close enough that her breath tickles him.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “For saying stupid shit that I didn’t mean. I was jealous and stupid and angry.”

“Apology accepted,” she says immediately, trailing her finger back down from his ear to prod at his bready cheeks. “I’d forgive you even if you didn’t apologize, you know. I missed you too much.”

“I missed you, too.”

She freezes, then. They both do. Yoongi doesn’t even realize what he says until it’s slipped out—it’s probably the most intimate thing he’s said out loud. The closest thing he’s ever said to I love you.

“Can I kiss you?” she asks suddenly. “I just—I know it’s not super romantic to ask, but I don’t just wanna do it without your permission, so—” Yoongi’s face burns a dark crimson as he cuts her off.

“Yeah,” he chokes out. “Go ahead. Please.” He can’t trust his voice to say much else. His hands are shaking.

When she presses her lips against his, everything feels different.

It’s like every shitty romance movie he’s ever watched has come to life in his bones. Every cheesy metaphor—the sparks flying, the angels singing, the flowers blooming. It’s the way he finally understands why wars have been waged and empires have fallen for a single heart. It’s the way Yuri smells like cherry blossoms and whatever else is in her girly lotions. It’s the way he’s never felt like this before.

It’s different from his first kiss. It feels exactly like Yuri said it should feel. Maybe because it’s her.

And Min Yoongi finally understands why Lim Yuri put so much importance into a single kiss.

Yoongi doesn’t know how long he’s been avoiding her.

It’s not like he immediately iced her out after the kiss. It was a gradual thing, each interaction slowly becoming more and more unbearable. The first time he can recall feeling things start to fall apart was when he made some rude joke that he can’t even remember now. All he can remember is the way she laughed afterwards, so naturally and so easily that he couldn’t help but to think about how everything with her was just easy. Easy to tease, easy to joke with, easy to share secrets with.

That’s how things should be, right?

And then it spirals. Makes him think about his girlfriend from middle school, a smart girl with pretty hair that sat in front of him in class, who began going out with him when he shyly asked her out via letter. He could talk to her normally before, could ask her for pencils and for homework help, but once they began dating he couldn’t even do that much.

It’s weird, the way he acted so differently once romantic expectations were set up. There’d always been this tense aura of awkwardness around them, and he could vaguely tell that it annoyed her, but he was too chicken to do anything about it. He never thought it could happen with Yuri, who he always felt so comfortable, but here he was now.

He feels pathetic, agonizing over this when she’s probably thinking about Namjoon. Even if she does like him back, there’s a clawning fear in his gut that tells him that he’s never going to compare. He wonders how long she’d do that, seesaw herself over to him whenever Namjoon was unavailable. Moreover, he wonders how long he’d let her.

Everytime her little hands found themselves laced in his, the rate at which his thoughts dissipated and his heart melted became laughable. If she asked, he’d probably let her do whatever she wanted with him forever.

The tiny, selfish little devil on his shoulder whispers to Yoongi that he would possibly-maybe-kind-of be more compatible with her than Namjoon. Even without thinking too hard about it, he knows it’s a terrible thought just from the way it makes his stomach churn with guilt.

Namjoon and Yuri have known each other for several years longer than he’s known either of them. He’s nothing more than an interloper in this relationship, and it’s conceited of him to even think he has any kind of chance when he probably isn’t even in the running. The possibility of being in the running scares him more than it excites him, at this point.

So he ices her out.

With how frigid he’s gotten, it should come as no surprise that she wants to hang out more with the trainees at JYP and Source. These days, she’s been over in their dorms more often than she’s been in theirs. He only ever sees her in the studio. Even then, he only speaks to her indifferently, replying to her when it has to do with music and brushing off her attempts at small talk. It reminds him of his interactions with Namjoon back when they first met, tense and awkward and professional.

And speak of the devil.

“Hey,” he hears Namjoon say, his voice deep and distant at his studio door. “May I come in?”

“Sure,” he says thoughtlessly, not even bothering to look up from the song he’s producing on his computer. That changes when Namjoon seats himself on the seat next to his and he can practically feel the air go tense, forcing him to turn and give Namjoon his full attention. The way that his leader, who was a year younger than he was, could command so much authority with his presence alone was both admirable and terrifying.

“You’ve been avoiding Yuri,” Namjoon says. He immediately knows there’s no beating around the bush with this one. Regardless, he pushes his luck.

“I haven’t,” he lies through his teeth. Yoongi has never liked lying about matters of the heart. If it were anybody but Namjoon, he wouldn’t have, but he’s stuck between a rock and a hard place. Namjoon sighs, obviously in disbelief of the lie. Yoongi doesn’t blame him.

“Look,” he says. “I’m not asking you to tell me what’s wrong, or what happened between you two or whatever. If it was between two members of this group, then I would have to. It’s my job as leader to be responsible for you guys. But whatever is going on between you and Yuri? That’s your business. It’s not my job to keep up with our producers, no matter how much I might want to.”

“But you do want to,” Yoongi clarifies.

“Of course,” he says. “I mean, she’s not just a producer to me. She’s my friend. And so are you. So I’m asking you this as a friend, and not a leader.” Yoongi raises a brow.

“What are you asking?” he says.

“I don’t know. Just don’t be mad at each other anymore. Please.” Namjoon sounds impossibly desperate, hopeless in a way that feels incredibly out of character for him. “I don’t like seeing you guys mad at each other. Remember what Hitman Bang said? It’s okay if you wanna fight or yell or whatever. Just sort it out. I don’t know what she did, or what happened between you, but everyone seems pretty miserable without her around, including you. So please make up soon. Please don’t be mad at her anymore.”

“I’m not mad at her,” he says, and it’s the truth. If anything, he’s mad at himself—but not at her. Never at her. “It’s just… weird. I don’t know. But I’m not mad at her.”

“You think she knows that?” he says, and Yoongi’s heart immediately sinks.

“Probably not,” he admits, suddenly feeling a large wave of guilt wash over him. Now that he thinks about it, she’s probably been blaming herself this whole time. Yoongi’s face burns hot with shame.

“Then you should let her know.”

“Hey, can we talk?”

Yuri practically jumps in her seat, eyes widening like saucers as she whips around upon hearing the voice of Yoongi of all people at the studio door. She hesitates for a moment, but it’s not long before she gets up to let him in. Over the months, he’d gotten harder and harder for her to refuse.

“Okay,” she says as she unlocks the door, letting him into the studio. They’re face to face now, so much so that his incredible closeness reminds her just how much he towers over her. He always said that he was short, but he’s pretty tall to her. It only makes her all the more nervous.

She hasn’t had the opportunity to talk to Yoongi alone like this about something non-music related in months. She can’t beat around the bush with this one—she doesn’t know the next chance she’s going to get to say what she wants, so she has no choice but to say it outright.

“Let’s not fight anymore,” she says, gently dropping her head against his chest. It comes out soft and sad and a thousand times more pathetic-sounding than she’d originally intended. “I won’t kiss you anymore. We can pretend it never happened. Just talk to me again. I miss you.” The way her voice cracks breaks his heart into little pieces.

“We’re not—we’re not fighting, Yuri,” he assures her, stern and gentle all at once. Hesitantly, he brings an arm up around her to rub gentle circles into the small of her back. “We’re… disagreeing.”

“You’re not mad at me?”

“I’m not mad at you,” he says. “And even if I was, it wouldn’t be because you kissed me. Why would I be avoiding you because of that? I said that you could, didn’t I?”

“But you are mad,” she says.

“At me,” he clarifies. “Not at you.”

“Why?” she asks. “Yoongi, tell me.” He flushes, feeling incredibly trapped by the way her doe eyes look up at him. Refusing her wishes feels impossible, these days, so he supposes that honesty is the best policy in this case.

“Because I wanted you to kiss me again,” he admits, cheeks burning hot with shame. “Even though everything was fine as it already was.” Yuri blinks slowly at him upon his admission.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“I think I get it,” she says, and despite being forgiven, he can’t help but frown at how understanding she’s being—it’s more than he deserves at this point, if he’s being honest.

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s scary.” Words are hard right now.

“I think it’s why I could never say anything,” she continues. “It’s so easy to love someone without them knowing, because you get to live off these happy little fantasies of being together and everything being perfect in your head. I think that’s why being loved back is scary. Because then anything is a possibility. It’s kind of like—it’s kind of like finishing a really good webtoon.” He chuckles softly at the comparison, fondly bumping his nose against hers. “It is! Because then you have nothing left and you’re hit with that post-webtoon depression, because the fun and the fantasies and the excitement are over and then you’re left to deal with the real world. And sometimes the real world means that everything changes, or that even if the person you want loves you back right now, they might change their mind later on. And that’s scary.”

“I still want to be able to talk to you like we used to,” he says. “But I also still want to kiss you. I don’t know. It’s weird.”

“Kiss me, then,” she says. “We don’t—we don’t have to think about it or talk about it or decide anything. Just kiss me. Please.”

And so he does.

It makes him shiver, the way she seems to shrink when her back presses against the wall, the way she feels so small when he cages her between his arms, the way her tiny hands find purchase against his chest before travelling up to wind behind his neck.

Yoongi can’t find it in himself to be afraid at that moment. He’d kiss Lim Yuri forever, if she let him.

#era.glass #fic.interloper #laruna.conn #laruna.dev #ship. yoonri #writings

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heartslogos · 3 years

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newfragile yellows [932]

“I don't know how to say this nicely, so I’m not going to bother to try. Don’t fuck this up.”

“Wow, Boss. If I were a lesser man I might get hurt over that. I don’t know why this is being directed at me specifically. If there are people you should be warning not to impress our oh so important visitors from the south who might be giving the Inquisition funding in the near future I’d start with Sera. You know her, right? About this tall, blonde hair that she cuts by herself and you can tell and she’s really proud of the fact that you can tell that she cut her own hair with a dull knife? Laughs at anything vaguely Dalish and will take any opportunity to talk shit about their religion because she thinks that it’s stupid that her racial heritage is tied to, and I quote, a bunch of dummies who got conned by some demons?”

“I’m starting with you and working my way down a list,” Evelyn replies. “And I’m starting with you because you don’t have to try to get people irritated. I’d hate to see what would happen if you put some actual effort into it.”

“The Qun, at this moment in time, is more focused on Tevinter in regards to mage led nations,” Bull says. “The Dales stay quiet, the Qun stays quiet. Until Tevinter is out of the picture. And this whole thing with the demons being shat out of the sky is sorted. The Dales is pretty low on the Qun’s list of things to worry about.”

“That’s a surprise,” Evelyn muses. “Doesn’t matter. You still need to behave. And if you can’t do that tell me now and I’ll arrange to have you sent off to help Edric with analyzing dwarven ruins or doing combat exercises on the Coast.”

“Sounds like you want to send me away to have a good time.”

“I wouldn’t be sending you away as a punishment, Bull,” Evelyn shakes her head.

“Anyway, isn’t it too late to be doing this now?” Bull asks.

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, our visitors from the Dales are already here,” Bull says, leaning his head back at an angle so his horns can clear the window frame. “I heard them coming in about an hour ago — nothing like the screaming of deer being antagonized by dracoliscs and giant nugalopes to announce your presence.”

“Oh fuck.”

Bull’s eye flicks back to Evelyn. “Maybe you need to give yourself a talk about fucking this up.”

Evelyn presses the heels of her hands to her eyes.

“They came early?”

“Surprise. Hey, this should be nice. Someone who’s punctual, yeah? So punctual they show up early for the event.”

“Not in this situation. It is not good in this situation. Look — were you given the brief?”

“Lord and Lady Lavellan, siblings, coming up from the Dales to poke around and see if they want to invest in the Inquisition and provide money, manpower, and possibly food resources if a trade route can be established. They had already attempted to reach out when we were based in Haven, but Orlais made a big ass fuss about not allowing them to pass through on their side of the Frostbacks and if they had to take the other route that skirts the border they would have to wait for a change in seasons. And now that we’re in Skyhold and have some modicum of political leverage, Montilyet was able to send an extremely apologetic letter asking them if they’d like to give us another shot.”

“Right, that’s about it. So you do pay attention at the war tables even when your eye is closed.” Evelyn glances around. “Shit. I should probably get changed.”

“Too late, they’re already here,” Sera calls down from above them. “I saw them from my window. Shame about them being nobles from a dumb country, the sister is kind of cute.”

“You stay exactly where you are,” Evelyn whirls towards the stairs, taking two at a time as she bounds up. “We’re going to have some words. Bull, whatever you do, don’t fuck this up.”

“I’m just sitting here, what’s the worst that could happen?”

Bull glares at the back of Aclassi’s head as the man smothers a laugh.

“Why would they even bother coming here anyway?” Bull asks. “It’s just a tavern.”

“It’s where all of us weary soldiers come to heal our souls,” Krem replies. “Surely our future sponsors would want to know if we’re getting up to any sordid activities or if we’re completely lacking in moral character.”

Before Bull can respond to that the door to the Herald’s rest opens and the Ambassador’s and Maxwell Trevelyan’s voices can be heard coming in.

Bull tunes both of them out, for once deciding to follow Evelyn’s request. Bull turns his attention back to the book he has splayed open on his leg. If there’s anything important Aclassi can tell him about him later, or alert him to it as it’s happening. De Fer has been on him for the past month to get his opinion on this book and Bull’s almost starting to regret letting a bit of his intelligence seep through in their conversations. It’s a weakness of his. A powerful woman asks him to jump and he responds with how high and do you want me to do a flip?

“Well,” Aclassi says, “Guess we’ve already blown in.”

Bull glances up and freezes.

It’s like a scene out of some shitty novel. One of Varric’s novels, probably.

Lord and Lady Lavellan are standing in the middle of the Herald’s Rest, frozen mid turn and staring directly at him looking like stunned deer.

“If I pretend I didn’t see this,” Lord Lavellan says to the near dead quiet room, “Do you think we could all pretend I didn’t see this?”

“The Iron Bull is one of our most trusted allies,” Josephine hurries to say, “I assure you. His Qunari roots — “

Lady Lavellan and Aclassi both start into sharp giggles, slapping their hands over their mouths as they turn to make eye contact.

“How awkward is this going to get?” Krem asks. “You know, before we figure out how to look at each other and not want to go running or fall down laughing?”

“You never said you were a lady,” Bull says.

“I didn’t think I had to say it, I mean. Normally when one wears a dress they’re considered a lady. Though I do appreciate you not making the assumption as that isn’t always the case.”

“I meant lady, capital l,” Bull replies, slowly standing up and setting de Fer’s book aside. This thing is never going to get finished at this rate. “Well, shit.”

“So is that a no on pretending we didn’t see each other?” Mahanon turns towards the bar, “I need a drink. I hope this is a functional establishment. Ambassador, Trevelyan, if you could come with me and suggest one of your strongest spirits I would be most obliged. My alternative is to see the terrible reunion between my sister and her — gods, I don’t even know what he is.”

“I beat him at cards three times and wiped him clean,” Ellana says, “And then he got me back at darts. And it escalated from there.”

“Chased each other all over the damn border of the Dales.”

“It was the best few months of my entire life.” Ellana scowls. “And then you disappeared!”

“I didn’t disappear, I told you exactly where I was going.”

“Yes, and then when I got there you’d gone somewhere else but that time you didn’t leave a note!”

#heartsfic #gather your party and venture forth

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duhragonball · 5 years

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Dragon Ball Z 229

Last time, Vegeta blew a hole in the Budokai stadium!

What do you have to say for yourself, Vegeta? “I’m a baaaaaad wittle boy.”

The crowd flees the arena, and even 18 is disturbed by Vegeta’s actions. She says she’s never sensed a ki like this before, wait, since when could 18 sense ki signatures? She couldn’t do that before.

Babidi, on the other hand, is thrilled, because 200 people were killed. Wait, why should that matter to him? That doesn’t help him reach his goal, unless he just enjoys innocent people dying on sheer principle. Babidi’s a terrific villain. He’s kind of underappreciated, really. The ranking should be 1) Cell, 2) Vegeta, 3) Buu, 4) Babidi, 5) Frieza.

The crowd pleads for Mr. Satan to save them from this tiny golden monster in their midst, so he steels himself and tries to get tough, but then he backs down and asks them nicely to settle down.

Vegeta ignores Mr. Satan completely, and tells Goku to fight him, unless he wants more people to get killed. At this, Goku suddenly realizes that Vegeta might have let himself get mind-controlled, just so he could make an ultimatum like this.

Vegeta’s only response is to shoot another part of the stadium. This isn’t a bluff, and it’s not a negotiation. If Goku won’t fight, then Vegeta will keep killing people until he does.

And you can tell that this pisses Goku off. Yeah, he wanted to fight Vegeta too, but not like this.

Gohan tries to intercede, but Vegeta just shrugs him off. He’s not listening to anyone except “fighting with Goku.”

So Goku turns Super Saiyan, and it looks like they’re going to throw down right here and now.

Vegeta basically admits to doing all of this on purpose. If Goku’s so intent on saving the world from Babidi during his one day back on Earth, then the only way Vegeta can get his undivided attention is to join Babidi’s team. Right now, the only way to stop Babidi is to go through Vegeta. Literally.

Here’s what makes this so awesome. I feel kind of goofy even explaining this, because it feels self-evident to me, but maybe there’s someone reading this who hasn’t watched DBZ before. In which case, dude. This is the stupidest possible way to experience DBZ for the first time. Just watch the show and come back later. This liveblog will still be here. Unless Wordpress shuts this site down.

Where was I? Oh, right. So what makes this work is that the Supreme Kai is absolutely right to call Vegeta’s stunt foolish.... but. But! Anyone who’s watched the entire series up to this point gets it. As horrible as it may sound, on some level, we wanted Vegeta to do something stupid like this, to piss Goku off, to really get him riled up, so that they would finally have their big rematch.

I remember when Goku first turned Super Saiyan. For a while there, they had all this Super Saiyan Goku merch, and Vegeta looked so ordinary in his regular non-Super Saiyan form. I thought it made sense for Goku to have this epic ascension, but it seemed like a waste that Vegeta would never be able to match it. How could their rivalry continue like this? They could never fight each other again, because Goku was so far ahead of him that it would have been pointless.

Then Vegeta turned Super Saiyan, and it looked like they could finally settle things, just as soon as they got all those damn dirty androids out of the picture. Only by the time that finally happened, Goku was out of the picture too. Now the rivalry was truly impossible, because they would never see each other again.

Then Goku comes back, for one day only, and it looks like we finally have this narrow window for Goku and Vegeta to fight. They even got paired off in the tournament bracket. First round, so there was no chance of Goku getting disqualified against Mr. Satan in some unlikely hijinks. The fight can finally happen. Goku vs. Vegeta, they’re both Super Saiyans or Super Saiyan 2′s or whatever, even steven, let’s see who comes out on top.

But now, here comes Babidi and the Supreme Kai, with all this Majin Buu bullshit, and Vegeta has to wait inside a spaceship for like an hour. And both sides of this conflict are idiots. The Supreme Kai has no idea who he’s dealing with. He didn’t know what Super Saiyans could do, he didn’t know Dabura and Yakon were on Babidi’s team, and his sidekick Kibito was the first one to die. The whole thing was dumb and quite frankly not nearly as awesome as Goku and Vegeta punching each other.

And let’s face it, after all these years, Vegeta’s still mad that Goku overpowered him way back in Episode 30 or whatever it was. Since then, Goku’s saved his life, first from Krillin, then from Recoome. Why, it’s gotten him so riled up just thinking about it that his face is all twisty. What the hell...?

Is it stupid? Yeah, it is. Like I said, the Supreme Kai is right. This is absolutely ridiculous. Vegeta’s risking the fate of the universe so he can settle a petty grudge. No one thinks this is worth it. No one gives a shit whether this sawed-off asshole gets his do-over. Well, I mean, the audience probably does. I know I always did. What I’m saying is that no one in-universe ever cared about this guy getting to avenge his pride.

But Vegeta cares, and the fact that he’s the only one who cares is probably why he’s so desperate and upset about making this happen.

I think this is what makes the character so appealing to people. In spite of all the shitty things he does, people can relate to Vegeta’s passion and to the sheer loneliness of that passion. We all have things we alone care about that other people dismiss as meaningless or unimportant. What’s the big deal? It’s just a TV show. It’s just a drawing. It’s just a story you wrote. It’s not that important. Meaningless, really. Let’s go back to what’s really important, which is making Gohan feel better about whizzing that fight with Dabura, or congratulating Mr. Satan for his championship victory. What a kooky character he is!

I think we’ve all been there before. I’m not saying we’ve killed 200 people to make the point, but we’ve been in situations where everyone laughed it off and dismissed how we felt because “what’s the big deal anyway?” And that’s one reason Vegeta leaves a lasting impression with people, because he’s powerful enough that he can make people understand why it’s a big deal to him.

Against all of this, all Goku can say in response is to call out to Babidi. He demands to be teleported someplace where there’s no bystanders. Some place, like... I don’t know... Goku Town.

We did do it, Babidi. This is awesome. Good job, everyone.

Then the Supreme Kai gets in between these two, and he’s all “No! This fight is too metal. I can’t allow it! If you’re going to fight Vegeta, you’ll have to fight me first!”

And Goku’s like “Sir, that was a very metal thing you just did, but please, get out of the way before I kill you.”

The Kai is stunned. Goku’s not bluffing here. He will kill the Supreme Kai right here and now, if that’s what it takes.

But the most awesome part is Vegeta’s reaction. He looks just as surprised to see how determined Goku is to settle this. He’s been so focused on getting this battle that he forgot who he was dealing with.

Defeated, the Supreme Kai stands down. He did a brave thing, stepping into Goku Town, but he knows he can’t pay the rent.

Man, this episode rules. The Surpeme Kai is just so... despondent. He’s completely lost control of the situation.

And Babidi’s convinced that he’s won. Once Vegeta and Goku start fighting, it’ll only be a matter of time before Vegeta inflicts enough damage to transfer the energy needed to revive Majin Buu. And nothing can stop that fight from happening. Everything’s coming up Milhouse Babidi.

So he grants Goku’s request and teleports them away. Mr. Satan is relieved, because this means he can claim they ran away before he could unleash his righteous fury.

So, I think this is the Giskard Wasteland, but I’m not up on my Dragon World Geography. This may even be the same setting as the original Goku/Vegeta fight, but I don’t feel like looking it up.

From here, the Supreme Kai bows to the inevitable, and accepts that Goku and Vegeta will fight. All he can do now is force open the hatch to Stage 4, so he and Gohan can proceed down Babidi’s ship and stop him before Majin Buu can be revived. Of course, that means he’ll have to risk jolting Babidi’s ship, which could accidentally break Buu’s seal prematurely, but at this point he has to risk it.

Note that this is precisely what Vegeta wanted to do at the start of the last episode. If the Kai had gone along with it then, he would be in the exact same predicament he’s in now, except he’d have three Super Saiyans backing him up instead of just one, and he wouldn’t have the ticking clock to worry about.

But Babidi has no intention of allowing the Supreme Kai to leave Stage 3 so soon, and he orders Vegeta to kill him and Gohan before they can carry out this plan.

But Vegeta refuses, insisting that he doesn’t care what Shin and Gohan do, so long as it doesn’t get in the way of his objective, which is to kick Goku’s ass.

Babidi has some sort of leverage here, as it seems to cause Vegeta physical pain to resist him like this, but he remains steadfast. Babidi might control him body and soul, but Vegeta still has his pride, which must be satisfied before he’d ever consider anything else.

Babidi is astonished, as this has never happened before. It begs the question of whether Babidi could ever truly control Vegeta. Maybe if he defeated Goku in battle, Vegeta might become more pliable. Or, perhaps beating Goku is the only thing keeping Vegeta and Babidi on the same side.

But Dabura convinces Babidi that they’re better off letting Geets and the Supreme Kai have their way. If Vegeta’s so determined to fight Goku, let him, because that’s good for Buu. And they might as well let the Kai and Gohan out of Stage 3, so they won’t accidentally break Buu’s seal early. It’s not like they can win on their own, since they’ll have to go through Dabura.

So Babidi opens the hatch, but before Gohan goes through, Goku gives him a senzu bean, because he remembered he still had some from when he got them for Gohan’s girlfriend. I like how Goku just casually says that, when the situation is too tense for Gohan to object. “Hey, son, before we start our epic laser battles, I just remembered that thing I got for that girl you’re in love with!”

Then he gives him one last piece of advice: Get angry, like he did when he fought Cell. Goku seems convinced that if Gohan is furious enough, it’ll make up for his ring rust.

Gohan takes minute to lament that Goku’s one day back in the living world ended up this way. It is kind of sad. Gohan just wanted to hang out with his dad, and all of this crap happens. It’d be kind of funny if Babidi controlled Gohan’s mind, and he blew up the stadium demanding a hug.

So they leave, and now it’s just Goku and Vegeta. Goku’s like “Fuck this, I can’t take any damage in this fight, so I’m gonna go balls to the wall, right now.” Well, that’s not his exact wording, but you get the idea.

So Goku turns Super Saiyan 2! Good job, Orange Brick DVDs. It’s worth cropping Goku’s head so we can see all that stuff on the sides.

Of course, no one calls it Super Saiyan 2, because he term hasn’t been coined yet. Vegeta just notes that Goku is stronger than Gohan was when he fought Cell, so you get the idea.

So then Vegeta powers up and now he’s a Super Saiyan 2, too!

When I first watched this arc, I honestly didn’t get that “Ascended Super Saiyan” was meant to be a distinct form, because it looks virtually indistinguishable from the original Super Saiyan. I learned to tell the difference eventually, mostly thanks to the video games, which allow you to compare the models before and after, but in this leg of the anime, it’s just about impossible. I think the animators had trouble keeping this straight.

The main feature I picked up on is that Goku’s SSJ2 form has beadier eyes, at least initially, and more of his bangs stick up. With Vegeta, I don’t even get that much to work with. His hair looks a little more “knife-y”, but that’s about it.

Anyway, Goku realizes that this will take a lot longer than he planned.

And this is it. Goku-Vegeta II. The fight we’ve all been waiting for, but at what cost?

#dragon ball #2019dbliveblog #babidi saga #goku #vegeta #gohan #supreme kai #babidi #dabura #mr satan #world tournament announcer #android 18

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tiny-maus-boots · 5 years

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The Art of Renegotiation

A/N: Part 6 of The Debt Collector Series.

A/N 2: Thank you everyone for sticking with this sometimes brutal ride. This was hands down my favorite project and is left intentionally open ended in the event that I revisit this world.

Super big thank you to my bestie and beta @chloes-yellow-cup who puts up with me when I’m annoying (which is all the time), and STILL is kind enough to read and edit for me.

AAAAAND a very special thank you to @kate-harper because look at what she made!!! It is the greatest thing I have ever seen. It’s beautiful and I love and I have it saved as my lock screen so I can stare at it all day at work.

Aubrey

Aubrey paced the length of her bedroom, hands in her pockets and brow furrowed as Doc Beale looked Stacie over. Her pulse was thundering in her own ears and she was working hard to control her breathing and tightening her control on her rapidly growing anger. It wasn’t just anger at Weston, she was pretty pissed at her own stupid arrogance. She had pushed too hard, worked him a little too close to the line without thinking about how he would react. It was sloppy work and her dad would be disappointed. His voice was so clear in her head she could have sworn he was in the room with her.

‘Shit rolls downhill kiddo. Sometimes it’s not about the power in the punch, it’s the way it’s delivered. Keep it tight, keep it close, keep your target focused on you.’

Her delivery was for shit and she had given Weston too much slack to maneuver with. And her arrogance had cost a heavy price that Stacie ultimately paid. She was sick to her stomach over it and wearing a track in her plush dark gray carpet. Aubrey turned and paced the other direction the weight of her guilt making every step heavier than the last.

“If you don’t stop pacing I’m going to drug you into a three day coma.”

The blonde stopped in her tracks and turned to face the doctor shining a light in each of Stacie’s eyes. Doc Beale didn’t look at Aubrey as she worked competently to diagnose her patient. Aubrey could respect that and settled onto the chaise in the far corner of the room. Stacie tried to smile but she could see that the movement hurt and the knot in Aubrey’s stomach tightened again making her look away quickly.

“Good, no concussion. Let’s take a look at your hip.” Doc made a few soft humming sounds as she quickly checked the area and tested Stacie’s mobility, range of motion, and ability to bear weight.

“So what’s the damage Doc?”

She knew Stacie was kidding and trying to make the situation lighter but her anxiety ratcheted up another notch and she realized she was convulsively clutching her fists. Aubrey forced herself to stillness, needing to close her eyes for a moment to create that calm center. It was more of a struggle than it had ever been in her life.

“Well you’ll be sore for a few days, at least a week with the hip, but you’ll live.” There was a long silent pause as she cleaned up the blood on Stacie’s forehead and addressed the laceration there with careful, gentle hands. “This isn’t too deep. A little Dermabond and you should be good to go. So you want to tell me how this happened?”

Aubrey frowned slightly when the doctor, while talking to Stacie looked over her shoulder directly at her. Her normally laughing blue eyes, cold and angry in a way she had never seen before. Shame made her face hot and she looked away quickly unable to meet the fury on the doctor’s face. This was why her mother had left her father, someone was always caught in the fallout and it was entirely her fault that this time it was Stacie.

“Not particularly.”

The good doctor was used to seeing Aubrey and her crew a little messed up from time to time but this was the first time that she’d had to patch up an innocent bystander before. The redhead’s shoulders tightened as she worked at sealing the cut cleanly. But she was bothered and it was obvious. As soon as she was done, Doc pulled her gloves off and tossed them in the trashcan, her gestures suddenly sharp with a quiet rage.

“Are you protecting the person that did this because you’re afraid?”

It was said so quietly that Aubrey almost didn’t hear it making it pretty clear that Doc assumed Aubrey had done the damage herself. While she didn’t actually raise a hand to Stacie she might as well have because it was her choices and actions that had led to this moment. Aubrey’s shoulders slumped and she stood slowly to make confession of her sins.

“No. Not once, not ever. Aubrey didn’t do this to me.” Stacie’s voice was sure and clear and she held Doc Beale’s gaze for a long time before she sighed and let her shoulders roll in a slight hunch. “My husband is…”

“A dead man.”

It was the first time that Aubrey had spoken since she had called for the doctor. She had wanted to play him, run him down and break him, but now she just wanted him dead. Doc Beale looked at them both evaluating the truth before she nodded and relaxed.

“Well, as a doctor I’m bound to do no harm.” Doc Beale tucked her equipment back into her bag and closed it firmly. “Maybe being stuck in this life has fucked me up but…good. He isn’t a good man and he deserves what’s coming to him.” There was still a hardness to the doctor and Aubrey knew the red haired woman wasn’t quite done yet. It was the first time she had ever stood up to Aubrey in such a way and they had a long shared history.

Dr. Chloe Beale was a brilliant surgeon, well known and well-liked by patients and staff alike. But she had her problems like anyone else. Problems that had brought her to Aubrey’s door in need of a big favor. Some people like gambling, some liked sex, some, like Doc Beale, liked booze. It had landed the doctor in bad hit and run situation that could have cost the woman her practice, her license, everything. Aubrey had paid off someone with nothing to lose and only money to gain to take the fall for ‘stealing’ Chloe’s car and committing vehicular manslaughter. Doc Beale had been grateful and Aubrey had taken advantage of that gratitude by having the surgeon on call for times when things went sideways.

It hadn’t helped Doc’s drinking problem any and Aubrey maybe felt a little shitty about that. Sometimes. It wasn’t the easiest of working relationships at times but it had led to something deeper when work didn’t get in the way. Chloe was the only person Aubrey actually trusted with her life. Sure she trusted Happy and Lilly but they were practical people and business was business. The Doc however…she was all heart, and Aubrey trusted that. They’d become friends even if Aubrey did occasionally use her leverage to coerce the doctor into helping them.

“Walk me to the door Posen.”

Aubrey nodded and reached out to bring Stacie’s hand to her lips to kiss softly over the other woman’s knuckles. “Be right back.”

Stacie nodded with a smile and Aubrey flicked her gaze at Lilly. The smaller woman nodded and settled into a chair to wait and keep an eye on Stacie. Of course they were absolutely safe in her house but she wasn’t keen on letting the brunette out of her sight any time soon. Aubrey followed Doc Beale to the front door, hesitating before opening it.

“Look Doc, thanks. I know it’s late. I’m sorry for dragging you out.”

Chloe watched her for a long moment before she took a step closer to Aubrey and let herself finally say what she had been holding back in front of Stacie.

“Let’s be clear on things Aubrey. I don’t like what you do, it’s not right, but I owe you and I’m in too deep to ever get out now so I just deal with it. But if you ever hurt her…I swear to God I will ruin you and I don’t care if I go down in flames with you. I have lines, don’t cross mine.”

It was the harshest thing she’d ever heard the doctor say and oddly Aubrey respected it. She gave a short nod and stepped back. The challenge was unexpected but it validated why she trusted Chloe with her life. Because Doc Beale was a good person, and for all her mistakes she was strongly committed to protecting the innocent ones that couldn’t or wouldn’t protect themselves. The blonde’s lips twitched in a slight wry smile.

“I believe you Doc.”

“Good. That being said…” The ice melted from Chloe’s eyes and she nudged Aubrey’s shoulder playfully. “She’s beautiful and I’m glad I finally got to meet her. I wish it had been under better circumstances. Next time?”

“Sure. Dinner. I’ll make the shrimp and vodka sauce you like, it’ll be a thing and I’ll even invite people. You could maybe meet someone.”

The doctor gave her a look and shook her head. “If you try to set me up with your crooked cop pal one more time I’m going to stop giving you anesthesia when I pull bullets out of you.” It wasn’t an idle threat, Aubrey had experienced it once before and did not enjoy it one bit.

“What? Bec is great and you know she makes good money.”

Chloe rolled her eyes, shoved her again and swung open the door. “No.”

“You could do worse.”

Doc Beale flipped her the bird as she walked out to the driveway. Aubrey watched her get into her car and drive away before she shut the door. Happy came in from somewhere down the hall and held out the blonde’s cell phone. The usual smile she wore was gone, a scowl in its place. “Whitman.”

Aubrey’s lip curled and she took the phone from the other woman with a slight nod.

“You have my money?”

There was no preamble, it wasn’t necessary and she was working hard to keep her voice even as it was. Adding small talk would just be that much more difficult. The line was silent for a moment before he spoke. He sounded so sure of himself and so sure she would be pleased with him.

“Yes, I have it here. I’m at home if you want to come pick it up.”

She didn’t like it. She didn’t have any control over the environment and this time she wasn’t taking any chances. Aubrey shook her head and sighed. “No, you can come to The Bird. Twenty minutes.” She hung up before he could answer and handed the phone back to Happy. “Call Detective Mitchell. Tell her to meet us there.”

Aubrey headed upstairs and padded into the bedroom. Stacie was standing at the bathroom sink looking at her bruised face in the mirror and she stopped in the doorway unwilling to come closer. The brunette watched her reflection in the glass somehow understanding why Aubrey was keeping her distance.

“You didn’t do this to me Aubrey.”

“Didn’t I? This blood is on my hands too Stace and I am so so sorry.”

The guilt crashed down on her and her shoulders bowed under the weight. Stacie turned away from the counter and stood directly in front of Aubrey. “Stop. Don’t you dare take responsibility for this. Do you honestly think this wouldn’t have happened for any other arbitrary reason? Because it would. Something else would have set him off if not tonight then any other random night.”

She was silent still, unwilling to give up her blame in all this. Stacie sighed and leaned into Aubrey’s body needing to feel the warmth and safety of the blonde’s arms around her. And she complied willingly, glad beyond reason that Stacie wasn’t running for the hills yet.

“Aubrey, he hurt me because I fought back. I stood up to him for the first time in years. If you want to take credit for something, then take credit for giving me back my voice.” Stacie’s lips were soft when they brushed against her own and Aubrey sighed into the kiss feeling the knot in her gut ease marginally. “He might threaten me, he might try to hurt me, he might even ruin me…but he’ll never own me. I won’t go back to being that woman and it feels so good to be me again.”

She wasn’t about to let Weston ruin Stacie, let alone try to put his hands on her again. And while it was good to hear that Stacie was slowly rebuilding herself it didn’t really absolve Aubrey of her sins. She nudged at Stacie’s nose with her own and sighed. “I’m going to take care of it, I promise.” She let go of Stacie reluctantly and backed away so she could leave but Stacie held on tighter, face buried in Aubrey’s neck, just breathing her in.

“I want to go with you.”

Aubrey held her breath at that trying to gauge exactly why Stacie wanted to go. It wasn’t going to be a fun time for anyone and she wasn’t exactly sure she wanted the brunette to witness all that. “Stacie…”

“Please.”

She couldn’t say no to the request and didn’t really want to. However bad it was about to get she didn’t like the thought of Stacie being too far away. Maybe Stacie didn’t either. So if they were going to do this, they were doing it together.

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“Miss Posen.”

Aubrey looked up from lining up her shot with a simple roll of her eyes. Weston stood nervously at the far end of the pool table. Her arm came back in a smooth fluid gesture to hit the ball she had previously been so intent on. The shot went wide after the bank and cue ball rolled right past the 5 and into the corner pocket.

“Scratch.”

A long breath eased out of her as she slowly stood, eyes never leaving his face. She knew he was baiting her by even commenting so she let her lips quirk into a grin that didn’t match the predatory intensity of her gaze. Aubrey tapped the butt of her cue stick on the ground as she made her way toward him, gesturing with her free hand for Happy to close and lock the door. It was after closing anyway but she didn’t want someone to randomly wander in while she was in the middle of business.

Her eyes tracked to the camera above the bar wondering what Stacie was thinking right then, or if she was even watching at all. A part of her hoped that she wasn’t watching at all, hoped that Detective Mitchell was keeping her entertained and distracted while Aubrey let her darkness bleed all over Weston Whitman. But that wasn’t the kind of woman Stacie was and even though she couldn’t know for sure that Stacie was watching she almost felt the other woman’s presence through the lens.

Her eyes traveled back to Weston then the table as she reached into the pocket to retrieve her ball. “Did you bring my money?”

Weston nodded a little too quickly, his nervousness screaming out to everyone there. He would have been an easy mark in a card game, he had no poker face whatsoever. He raised his bag and Lilly snatched it from his hand, not giving him a chance to reach into it for anything. Just in case. Aubrey gave her a nod and Lilly opened the bag and pulled out the stacks of cash, laying them out neatly on the felt top of the table. It wasn’t enough and she let out another slow breath having already expected it.

“I know it’s not everything like we agreed but I can get it. I have the money, I have plenty of it.”

There really wasn’t anything to say so she put the cue ball down lightly on the table and rolled it to bump against the money lightly.

“That’s disappointing.” Her body coiled tightly and Aubrey pulled her fist back before rocketing it forward hard into his ribs with three quick powerful jabs. Weston doubled over, wincing away to protect his injured side. Aubrey tossed her stick onto the tabletop and reached out to yank his left arm away from his body, another hard blow catching him just below the armpit so he was too hurt to pull away. “Our deal was not for partial payment Mr. Whitmore.”

He wheezed but managed to pull his arm out of her grip. Weston moved back a couple of steps and shifted his body to guard his side as she started to circle him. It was a defensive move she had hoped for. She wanted him to fight back just enough for her to break him. “I can get it. I swear I can get it.”

“You can get it? Or you have it? Which is it Weston?” She gave a testing little jab that wasn’t meant to land just to fluster. Whitman ducked and weaved a little though not as quickly as he would have had his ribs not been sore already. “Because if you have it, it would be on my table right now with the rest. So either you’re lying to me or you’re holding out on me.”

One of her testing jabs caught him on the chin and he lashed out instinctively. It was a shot she blocked easily, leaving him wide open for a hard punch to the gut that left him on his knees gasping for breath. She backed up a step and slid the jacket from her shoulders, laying it neatly over the back of a chair. She took the time to roll up her sleeves while he tried to suck oxygen into lungs gone tight and empty. This time when she grabbed his hand he didn’t resist.

“Can get. My wife…”

What little control she had gained over her emotions burst and she kicked sharply at his ribs with the point of her toe knowing it would crack the bones easily. “Lots of excuses. Sounds like holding out to me. You know what holding out is Mr. Whitman? It’s stealing.”

Aubrey placed his hand flat on the table even as he struggled to get to his feet. Breathing was still an issue for him so she didn’t expect him to chime in with anything. “Stealing is a serious offense. Stealing from me…that’s an unforgiveable sin.” She gave a quiet hum just as her long fingers closed around the cue ball. The weight of it felt good as she lifted it high and brought it down hard to smash his hand. Weston screamed out in pain and her hand fisted around the ball, bringing it around for a hard left hook that toppled him back to the floor.

Whitman tried to crawl away from her but Happy stood directly in his path, blocking his way to freedom. “You want me to finish him, Boss?”

“Not yet.” Because Weston Whitman would die, of that she was sure. Just not until she was ready for him to die. Aubrey spared another glance at the camera before hefting the cue stick. Weston curled in on himself trying to protect his soft middle but she was fine with the parts of him that were exposed. She swung the stick around in a whistling arc to land against his unprotected back, each blow falling harder than the last to punctuate her words until the stick snapped with the force of it. “Where. Is. My. Fucking. MONEY!”

He was crying and begging for forgiveness but she just couldn’t seem to find the pity in her heart. How many times had Stacie begged him to stop? How many times had she cried out in pain? Aubrey tossed the broken half of the stick away, standing tall while he cowered like a worm on the ground. The blonde woman worked the knot of her tie down and unbuttoned the top button hoping it would cool the heat pulsing in her chest like a slow thick lava.

“I swear I can get it. I swear. My wife…” She wanted to hurt him more every time he mentioned Stacie because he didn’t deserve to think about her let alone speak of her. Aubrey stalked forward and reached down to grip one of his ankles, pulling his leg taut. Weston kicked out in a weak attempt to push her away and she had to use all her strength and focus to keep her grip. When he struggled too much she landed a swift kick to his groin and jerked his leg hard, twisting the ankle and breaking it with a sick crack. Weston screamed out again, and she smiled down at him clearly enjoying his suffering. “P-please. She has it. She has all of it and more. Please let me call her.”

Aubrey considered it a moment then settled casually on the edge of the pool table. “What makes you think your wife is going to just give you the kind of money that you owe? She’s that loyal and loves you that much?”

He didn’t know, still hadn’t put all the pieces together in his head, but he was with it enough to know lying wasn’t going to help him now. Weston shook his head and laughed humorlessly. “Fuck no. She hates my guts but I have dirt on her. She’ll pay. I know she will.”

There. There it was. The one thing she’d been waiting to hear. Aubrey snapped her fingers and Lilly held out a cigarette and lit it for her while she evaluated Weston from her perch above him. Of course he would be the type of man that needed to control everyone by holding their dirty little secrets over them. She took a long drag, letting him sweat out the seconds as she pretended to think about things. “What kind of dirt?”

She could tell he didn’t want to tell her so she gestured to Happy, the curly haired woman beaming brightly when she pulled back her leg and kicked him hard enough to flip him on his back. Weston groaned and cradled his mangled hand to his chest, trying to keep it somewhat protected. “Wait wait. I have videos. Things she’d never want to get out. It would ruin her, ruin her name and all her work. I promise she’ll pay.”

Happy brought her foot up to stomp on him but Aubrey gave a slight shake of her head and moved to kneel over Weston Whitman. The smoke from her cigarette curling around them in a pale gray haze. “It’s not about the money anymore. You see, you lied to me, you held out on me, and you come into my house and insult me by being short on what you owe. Paying up your debt doesn’t even begin to cover making us square, so unless you have something worth your life…”

Aubrey stood and turned her back on Weston, letting Happy land a few hard kicks and stomps that left him sobbing brokenly on the floor.

“Give me something worthwhile Wes.” The muscles in her shoulders twitched when he crawled the few feet to her and rested a bloodied hand on her ankle. Aubrey kicked off his hand and pushed him over with her foot. “Anything?”

“Drive. You can have the drive. It’s everything. She’s not the only one on it, you can extort very important people. People with more money than God.”

Finally. Aubrey ashed out the cigarette and smiled widely. Finally. She stared down at him, her eyes contemplative and calculating. “Where is it?”

“I can get it.” This time it was Lilly who kicked out at him and he whimpered piteously.

“You think I’m stupid? You’re going to take us to it.” Aubrey watched as her girls picked Weston up and half dragged him out the back door to the car. She waited a few moments until he was tucked in the back of the trunk before she made her way to the office behind the bar. She wasn’t sure what she was going to find when she opened the door so she steeled herself against the possibility that this was going too far for Stacie.

She cracked the door open and took a breath ready for whatever judgement she saw waiting for her. Detective Mitchell was sitting at her desk, feet propped on it, enjoying a glass of Lagavulin while watching the security monitors. Her amused smirk the only indication that she’d actually seen what happened. Stacie was sitting on the edge of the desk, close enough to the monitors to have seen if she wanted to.

“It’s time.”

Stacie turned bright eyes toward her and nodded solemnly. There was a shadow in her eyes that worried Aubrey a little and she held out a hand cautiously hoping it wouldn’t be rejected. Stacie took it, warm fingers lacing with her own and she let out a held breath.

“Okay you guys are gross.” Beca stood and pushed past them, finishing the drink as she went. “It’s making my Scotch taste bad, and the gratuitous displays of affection, jeez. Keep it in your pants maybe.” Detective Mitchell winked teasingly at them and headed out for the car, leaving them alone for a moment. Aubrey chuckled softly and turned to meet Stacie’s gaze.

“Are you…are you alright with this?”

Stacie tugged Aubrey closer, drawing her into a kiss before touching foreheads. They were still for a moment just breathing in the silence. “Not gonna lie and say it was easy to watch. It wasn’t. But am I okay with what you had to do? Yes. Yes I am. I’m with you until the end.”

It was all she needed to hear. Aubrey kissed her softly, all of her love lingering with the sweetness of the kiss. They’d make it through this and anything else that came their way. She didn’t have any more doubts about that.

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

Aubrey looked around the plush interior of the cabin and shook her head. It was beautiful and opulent and everything that she expected from Weston Whitman. It was exactly the type of place women went to and were never heard from again. She had to hand it to him, it was pretty brilliant. No one would ever think to look on a boat for the type of evidence to prove Whitman’s crimes. And out at sea no one would ever hear the screams of his victims. He was so full of himself he had even named his boat ‘Lady Killer’, so sure no one would ever catch on to the truth.

Happy and Lilly led Weston down the few stairs to the cabin, helping him none too gently into a chair. Aubrey looked around at the living room area, reaching out to pick up a glass chess piece from the set on the table. She rolled it in her hand, using the gesture to help her keep her cool. “Nice place.”

He watched her taking everything in with a critical eye, hate etched deep in his weighty gaze. Aubrey turned to stare at him when he shifted uncomfortably in the chair. Pain and humiliation making him belligerent and brooding. But she had ways of making people talk. “Go fuck yourself.”

Aubrey chuckled and pulled her gun out of the holster. Her steps brought her around in a tight circle around him and she poked him hard in the back of the head with the barrel of firearm. “Don’t get cute Whitman. You still have a lot of bones to break. Where’s the drive?”

“Up your cu…” A scream cut his words off when she aimed and shot into his knee, obliterating the cap without so much of a flicker of emotion. Weston squeezed his thigh above his knees with his one good hand, his breathing growing erratic and she wasn’t entirely sure he wouldn’t pass out. Steps sounded on the stairs and Beca took in the scene with a questioning raised brow. The sound of a gunshot bringing her down to investigate. Aubrey shrugged innocently at the cop and trailed a finger over the hard plastic case of the flare gun.

“Hey Richie Rich.”

The look he gave her was dark and if looks could kill Detective Mitchell would be gasping out her last bloody breaths. “You’re a cop…d-do something.”

Beca made a show of patting her all her pockets before reaching into the inner pocket of her leather jacket and pulling up her middle finger with a smirk. “Looks like I forgot my badge at your mom’s last night.”

“You bitch.” Aubrey smacked him on the back of the head with her gun.

“Don’t make me ask you again.”

Weston sighed and pointed to the wet bar along the wall. “In the cabinet, in the bag of coffee beans.”

He watched as Beca moved to the cabinet and started pulling things out and tossing the over her shoulder until she found several bags of coffee beans. She opened them and upended them until something clinked on the floor. She picked it up and tossed it to Aubrey who caught it one handed and inspected it. Two flash drives hung from a chain and she glanced around looking for something to play them on.

She spotted a laptop and quickly booted it up, placing the chess piece next to her gun on the table. Aubrey clicked off the sound and waited for all the videos to load. They were conveniently labeled by dated folder and she opened the first. Weston was watching her carefully, noting the ticks and twitches on her face as she skipped through the videos. None of them were Stacie but all of them were horrible and sick. Some of them were just Weston, some of them had his friends. Aubrey even recognized a few of them, one of them she was sure was the man that had tried to manhandle Stacie at the charity event.

Aubrey pulled the drive out and put in the other one. There were less videos but they were longer and all of them featured Stacie. She swallowed hard as she watched the woman suffer at Weston’s hand over and over again. It was disgusting and she could tell that he was waiting for her reaction, ready to savor it. Aubrey closed the laptop and pocketed the thumb drive in her vest. The blonde whistled softly and tossed the other one back to Beca before gripping her gun lightly again.

“What’s this? Christmas in July?”

“You wanted a case, now you have one.” She jerked her head in a short nod toward Weston before holding Detective Mitchell’s gaze. None of this would be happening if Beca hadn’t played her part so well and truthfully she wanted all those son of a bitches to pay for the things they’ve done. What better way than to let the law take care of them? “Consider it a bonus for a job well done.”

Beca looked at the drive and then at Weston as if she were weighing the benefit for her career versus the amount of work it would take to see it all through. After a second she shrugged and headed for the stairs up to the deck. She gave them a parting look as if she might say something but she thought better of it and kept walking, a silent testimony to Aubrey’s control. Weston watched her leave suddenly realizing he was a pawn the entire time.

“So this was the game all along wasn’t it? Get your little friend to blackmail me just so you could loan me money I could never repay? You set me up.”

Aubrey picked up the glass piece again and gestured to the game board. “Do you play chess Mr. Whitman?”

He gave her a terrified and confused look, frowning at the question. Now that she had what she wanted he was just a loose end. He probably longed for it, longed for a moment of pain free bliss of his death. She would have if she had been in his place. And there really was no reason for her to keep him alive other than the fact that she wanted him to suffer more than he had ever suffered in his life. “Are you going to kill me or what you miserable bitch?”

“I ask because I play chess. I like seeing all the pieces on the board, and moving those pieces to exploit my opponent’s weaknesses.” She chuckled softly and as she moved to the corner of the room and raised her foot to the tip the gas can over that Lilly had left for her. “If your opponent doesn’t appear to have a weakness you create one. You see Wes…I knew who you were before you even set foot in my place. And no it wasn’t your financial prowess that preceded you. I knew your face though.” She moved to another corner and tipped another can of gas. She hadn’t prepared to have this all go down on a boat but she couldn’t deny the fact that it was a convenient way to get rid of him. She stopped in front of Weston, the stairs to the deck behind her. “I knew your face because I saw it in the wedding photo on your nightstand when I was fucking your wife in your bed. I’ve taken everything you had Weston. Your car, your job, your money, your reputation, your good looks and now…now I’ve got your wife.”

The blood drained from his face and she watched as he crumbled in on himself. She could hear steps on the stairs but didn’t turn to look because she knew who it was already. She hadn’t expected Stacie to come down to face him but she wasn’t exactly surprised by it either. Aubrey didn’t blame her for needing some kind of closure to whole affair. Weston had plagued her for long enough.

“Stacie…you bitch, you goddamned bitch. I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking kill you.”

Aubrey took the drive out of her pocket and handed it over to Stacie without the other woman asking for it. The brunette opened her mouth to say something but Aubrey gently closed her fingers over the drive and raised it to her lips for a soft kiss. They didn’t need to talk about it ever again and Aubrey would never hold it against her. It was finally over for Stacie, and she could control her own life from this point forward.

“No Wes…you won’t. You won’t touch me ever again and the memory of you is already fading from my mind.”

Stacie leaned in for a warm kiss, showing Aubrey exactly how she felt without having to say a single word. When they pulled apart Aubrey turned and placed the glass queen on the table beside him and smirked.

“I’d kill you but that’s too easy Whitman. You’ll survive this, you’ll be damaged permanently I’m sure, but you’ll be alive. You might even be able to make a deal with Detective Mitchell to rat on your buddies. It might make your prison time a little more pleasant because make no mistake, if you survive those wounds you will go to prison. Probably for the rest of your very short life.”

“You fucking piece of trash…”

Aubrey raised the gun in her hand and pulled the trigger. It was sharp and loud but nearly as loud as the wailing keen from Weston as he toppled out of the chair trying to cradle his other wounded knee to his body. She tucked the gun away into its holster and adjusted her jacket over it, concealing it from sight. Stacie turned Aubrey toward her, tightening and straightening the dark purple tie she wore. It was sweetly domestic and she liked that Weston watched every gesture between them with disbelieving eyes.

“You should be thanking me you know. That dental work I did for you will make you really popular where you’re going. If you’re real nice to the right people you can earn yourself from protection with it.” She took Stacie’s hand when she was done fixing her tie and led her to the stairs and up onto the deck. She could hear the soft sobs from the broken man in the cabin and it only made her smile wider.

Her boat was bobbing gently next to the one they were on and she led Stacie over to it. A loud thump hit the bottom of the stairs and she peered down to see him laboriously trying to climb up. “You’re a dead woman and you don’t even know it. You think you won the game Posen? You don’t even know who you’re playing with. You’re so dead.”

Aubrey nodded. “Maybe. But not by your hand and not today. There’s a flare gun in there, if you make it to the deck you might be able to signal for help before you pass out from blood loss.” She closed the hatch door on his sputtering threats and made her way over to her boat. Stacie waited by the rail at the stern of ‘The Queen of Hearts’ and she carefully made her way across to the other vessel. When she was safely on board she gave a nod to Beca who gunned the engines to pilot them away from Weston’s boat.

Stacie laced their fingers together and they smiled at each other. No matter what happened now Weston was going to suffer for it all. Aubrey slid her sunglasses on and watched his boat shrink the further away they got. “You good, Stace?”

There was silence a moment longer before the orange glare of flames tinged the horizon where Weston’s boat dipped and rolled with the gentle movement of the water. “We’re together and I’ve never been better.”

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ikesenhell · 6 years

Text

High Wire

Bloodline, Chapter 10 and the Finale. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here. NOTE: Gun violence, explosives, blood, death, etc, all are featured in this. Potential major character death.

It was sheer luck alone that the Takeda-Uesugi unit and Masamune were both free and within the three hour window. Masamune arrived first at the cabin. No doubt he’d broken a couple driving laws to get there, but Ieyasu was unspeakably grateful for it.

“Got here as fast as I could. Mitsuhide brought me up to speed.” Masamune stripped off the dress shirt he wore and untucked the undershirt from his jeans. “Had to get out of a Pentagon thing, but I couldn’t leave you hanging here. What’s the plan?”

“Once the other team gets here I’ll fill you in.”

It didn’t take long. The other four descended on the location only a half hour later, and the small group piled around the small cabin kitchen table. Fortunately she’d been paying enough attention to the bunker layout that she managed a relatively good map. Kenshin, Shingen, and Masamune winced at it.

“That’s not much space.”

“There’s a word for that in Spanish that my mom taught me,” Masamune half joked, “’Shitty’. Shitty is the word.”

“Yeah, that’s a hell of a terrible position to be in,” Shingen agreed. “Sasuke, would you...?”

The man didn’t respond; he just nodded and shouldered his rifle, heading out the front door. Yuki followed close behind him with a wave and a, “I’ll be his spotter!”

Ieyasu scowled at the map. “The issue is this; from what I’m understanding of the phone call I fielded, they’re not only aware of my presence here, but I’m interpreting it as a direct threat on the real Tokugawa.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they decided to off him,” Kenshin answered idly. “He’s a liability.”

Masamune patted himself down for cigarettes and lit one, opening the window. “Yeh. We don’t have much time to get him out, but that bunker is a death trap. I don’t know what we can do here without a little intervention.”

---

Dr. Tokugawa was not the kind of man that liked being in someone else’s hands, and he was aware now more than ever that he was just a loose end in freefall. If he’d identified that strange woman as a possible ally (and god forbid if he were wrong, but he was very, very certain in the near two-decades of captivity that she was a safe bet), it was only a very short time until everyone else knew what he’d done.

No time to second guess. Now was the time to act.

The cameras on him were constantly monitored. Messing with it would render the situation very tenuous indeed. Instead he focused on doing exactly what his captors always wanted him to do: making a bomb.

This one was small scale, to be certain, but that didn’t matter. All the components were there. He’d put off doing the damn thing so long that he was very sure no one thought him capable of creating it in such tight time constraints, but he knew exactly what he was doing.

Almost two hours later, he had something.

Now time was of the essence. At last, Dr. Tokugawa slipped off his lab coat and flung it up toward the camera. Success! It caught there, obscuring his movements. As swiftly as he dared with the high-yield ordinance, he crossed the room and tacked the bomb to the door, locking it three times over.

No more would they try and use him.

With a shaking hand, he scrawled a note on a piece of paper and slid it under the door. If you attempt to open this door and remove me, the resulting explosion will level the whole bunker.

If the FBI were here, it would lend them valuable time.

---

It was nearly midnight when Yukimura radioed back to the others in the cabin.

“There’s activity here,” he whispered. “Lots of it. People are packing up boxes into a couple of vans.”

“It doesn’t seem smart to evacuate,” Kenshin mused, but they threw on their coats anyway. Even she went to join them, but Ieyasu shook his head.

Masamune shrugged and double checked the chamber of his shotgun. “I’m assuming they think they’ve got a bit of a head start until we are like flies on them. I don’t know how much food they’ve got down there, but I guess they figure it’s just as dangerous to stay under and risk getting stuck.”

“If that were the thought, I’d imagine they’d have started evacuating well before now.”

Ieyasu’s skin prickled uneasily. “It’s because of me.”

Kenshin narrowed those mismatched eyes at him. “And why is that?”

“They know I’m here. I have to be part of their leverage on--on him.” He couldn’t bring himself to call this stranger his Uncle yet, but the word hung heavy on the tip of his tongue. “Now that they don’t have my cooperation or ignorance, there’s no incentive to keep him in line. He’s going to be killed.”

Shingen handed out a couple walkie-talkies. “No point in speculation. We’ve got an assumed hostage to save, and there’s no saying how long they’ll keep him alive. We should get the drop on them while they’re in transit.”

---

No more sneaking. When the vans rattled down the street, the small strike team was ready for gunfire. Their opponent didn’t disappoint. In the blue darkness, bright orange flashes cracked out over the lumber yard.

“Contact!” Shingen shouted into the radio.

“On it,” Yukimura huffed back.

KRA-KOW! Return fire lanced from the forest, no doubt from Sasuke. Ieyasu barely waited for the transport to stop before he flung open the van door.

“I’m point!” Masamune vaulted out of the door and kicked off the main event with shotgun spray. Screams echoed in the mountain dark. Ieyasu sprinted to cover in the lumber yard and nearly slammed into one of the terrorists; without a second thought he brought the butt of his pistol crashing down into the man’s skull. His target crumpled. Ieyasu licked his lips and tasted blood.

“Got the southern point!”

“Clearing in through the far end,” Masamune followed up in the radio. “Encountering pretty heavy resistance.”

Kenshin’s voice slipped in not long after. “We’re not seeing the hostage. Assumed that he’s still below. Probable high risk. Sasuke and I will push through to the underground and try to make contact while you distract up here.”

“That’s a fucking suicide mission,” Yukimura snapped.

“Yep.” Ieyasu unloaded a single shot into another terrorist, taking mental note of the bullet count. “I’m coming with.”

The three men converged at the edge of the office. Her notes had been very good; they found the door without difficulty, still propped open. Kenshin took point. Down the narrow stairs they went, the three of them gunning down resistance until the walls were spattered with entrails and bodies slowed their descent. Gunfire echoed against steel and concrete until Ieyasu’s ears rang from impact, his senses dulled from adrenaline and recoil.

“How many are there?” Kenshin asked wearily. “This is a much larger bunker than I’d thought.”

They reached the landing and encountered.... nothing. The silence was eerie. No guards awaited them, no resistance--just three turrets pointed at a door that she’d indicated to them was the lab. They were in time. If the terrorists had planned on killing his real uncle, they hadn’t yet.

Ieyasu nearly ran to it, but Kenshin latched a hand around his shoulder and pointed at the door. “I wouldn’t.”

There, perched on the outside of the door, was a massive bomb.

“Fuck,” Ieyasu muttered. No wonder they were evacuating. The organization had plans on just leveling the damn place--Dr. Tokugawa inside. “Fuck.”

“It’s got a timer.” Sasuke gazed through his scope. “We’ve got about twenty minutes.”

“How far out would the nearest team for that be?”

“At least four hours, if we could even get them on radio, what with the Quiet Zone.”

Kenshin clicked his tongue. “Right.”

“I can take a good crack at it.” Sasuke shouldered his weapon and crept cautiously closer, investigating. “I’m not an expert, but I can try.”

“Is there anyone even in there still?”

That was a good point. The very real possibility that they’d just executed his uncle to begin with surged cold in Ieyasu’s blood. As carefully as he dared, he snuck closer to the door and called out, “Tokugawa?”

A beat. For a moment, it seemed like his fears were justified.

“That’s me,” came a voice from the other side. “Who is out there?”

He almost couldn’t speak. What could he even say? Hi. I’m your nephew. We’ve never met, but I’ve wanted to meet you my whole life. We have everything to catch back up on. Will you be proud of me? Can we be the family I thought I’d never have? What happened to my parents?

Instead Ieyasu just cleared his throat. “FBI. We’re, uh.... Sarutobi, Uesugi, and, uh.... Tokugawa.”

A pause. “Ieyasu?”

He held his breath until he was very sure he wouldn’t cry. “Yeah.”

“Oh.” The man inside the room sounded just as emotional. “Oh. Gee. I sure wish we were talking on better terms right now.”

Sasuke pried open the casing to the bomb, investigating the wiring with a sigh. “Mr. Tokugawa, your odds right now aren’t excellent. Are you aware there is a bomb on the outside of this door?”

“And the inside.” He laughed faintly. “I set mine up to make sure I had leverage, so I can disable it, but that one--I don’t know what they’ve got going on there. I guess it figures. I assumed I’d at least force them out into an arrest.”

Above ground, Ieyasu heard the sound of something exploding. God damn and bless Masamune Date in equal measure. “Well, you did make some things easier for us.”

“Listen.” The voice inside grew very serious. “Ieyasu--Ieyasu, I’m sorry, your mom, your father--they didn’t make it.”

He balled his hands into fists. “I figured.”

“They held on for a very long time, but they were only being kept to try and make sure I’d make this bomb. I’m so sorry, Ieyasu.”

“Hell,” Sasuke muttered at the bomb, squinting at the wires. “You two should probably evacuate, just in case this doesn’t work and it detonates.”

“I’m not leaving,” Ieyasu announced firmly. “I’m staying. And you don’t need to apologize to me, it wasn’t your fault.”

“It was. If I’d never written that scientific journal...” He paused. “They picked me because back in the eighties, I wrote a study on the properties of combustion and other chemical compounds--I was an expert--”

“Bad luck. I get it.”

“Right.” And Dr. Tokugawa paused again. “They told me you graduated Summa Cum Laude. I’m proud of you.”

Hot tears stung his eyes, but Ieyasu swallowed them back. “Thanks. We’re going to get you out of here.”

“Evacuate. I mean it. There’s no guarantee--”

“I’m not leaving,” Ieyasu snapped savagely. “I’ve waited twenty years to meet my real uncle. I’m not letting a door hold me back.”

Sasuke muttered a curse and prepped his hand around part of the machine. “Moment of truth, gents. It’s been a pleasure.”

“Likewise,” Kenshin agreed, not moving.

Exhaling deep, Sasuke pulled.

---

The cool fall wind whipped through her hair. She stood on the corner of the street and inhaled deeply, letting the crackle of the leaves skitter around her shoes. For a moment the whole world was still and quiet in a way it hadn’t been in months. The sunlight danced over her cheeks and turned her into a vision of light.

But he couldn’t stare forever.

Ieyasu shoved his hand into his pocket and took her other one in his, entwining their fingers. She blinked and smiled at him.

“Parking meter reupped?”

“Meters with no mobile option should be criminalized,” he huffed. “No one carries around all those quarters and nickles anymore.”

That got a smile from her. She squeezed his hand twice, brushing the hair back from her face. “You and your uncle really do sound alike.”

Ieyasu soaked in the idea that he sounded like someone in his family at last. He and his uncle were spitting images of one another, proof positive of his resemblance to his father’s side of the family. Even after all those years apart they did have some of the same mannerisms. Nearly two decades of captivity had done a number on the older man, but now--now he could heal. Now they could know each other.

He thumbed at the hospital. “That one isn’t so bad, as far as hospitals go.”

“I imagine any hospital is better than being kept in an underground bunker. He seemed to be doing quite well, all the trauma considered. I guess the Tokugawas are just a tough bunch.”

He wrinkled his nose at her teasing and gathered her in his arms. “Listen here.”

Her smile was sunlight itself. “I’m listening.”

What could he say to that? As gently as he dared, he leaned in and kissed her once, twice, three times, each of them lasting longer and delving deeper. By the time he pulled away, she was flushed and panting from want.

“Unfair,” she murmured. “We’re in public. I can’t have what I want here.”

“I should think not. I’m not Shingen Takeda.”

She laughed and swayed back and forth in his arms. “So what now? Wanna go get lunch?”

“Mm, maybe.” There were ten thousand places to take her nearby. Where to start? He knew a couple of bartenders in the area, and there was a great grill... Ieyasu checked his phone, suddenly regretting putting more coins in the meter. “Actually, I’ve got a thought.”

“What’s that?”

“I never did get to take you to that breakfast place on the mountain.”

She paused, eyes wide. “Oh my god. No, you didn’t.”

“Yeah.” He huffed a laugh. Between all of the insanity in the bunker and the subsequent arrest and prosecution of his former ‘uncle’, the idea of breakfast had entirely slipped his mind for the last few months. But now? Now they had time, time to really enjoy and share. He dropped a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll just call in to work tomorrow. I’m going to have you to myself for a while.”

Her eyes glittered in the bright light. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. You deserve it.”

#Ikesen #Ikemen Sengoku #Ikesen modern au #ikesen spy au #Ikesen Ieyasu #Ieyasu Tokugawa #Spy Ieyasu #Bloodlines #Bloodline #High Wire #ikesen fanfiction #my writing #violence tw #blood tw #kenshin uesugi #sasuke sarutobi #shingen takeda #masamune date #yukimura sanada

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jflashandclash · 6 years

Text

Traitors of Olympus IV: Fall of the Sun

Fourteen: Ajax

I Set Up a Play Date in Exchange for a Canadian

As soon as Thanatos vanished with Reyna and Calex in his comforting, Slenderman, trust-me-this-isn’t-the-first-time-I’ve-abducted-children-way, Pax searched around their makeshift racetrack and the Roman’s body-collection tent. Pax had to wonder if Slenderman could shadow travel—what he assumed Thanatos had done. You know that situations are desperate when taking a creepy stranger’s hand and getting into his metaphoric car is the best options.

It was a good thing Pax’s apples worked. Having the damnation of Calex’s soul and his not-death on Pax’s consciousness would have probably been added to Pax’s Daily List of Traumatizing Experiences. He wondered if the death counter on the Silver-Tongued Helm would have gone up if the plan had failed, or if Eris and Phobetor would have popped up with a fireworks display to celebrate the failure.

“An errand, Ajax?” Alabaster asked as soon as Thanatos, Reyna, and Calex melted away. “What are you planning?”

“Planning? I never plan. I just get ideas.” Pax stepped in a sweeping circle, glancing around. His brain chattered in broken sentences, the way he imagined Ares would if Axel ever got his hands on him again. Had to be here. Too good a show not to watch. “Ideas that involve me being in a place of potential ruin, where I’m about to make a likely dumb decision that could result in a lot of mischief.”

“This sounds like a shitty idea,” Alabaster grumbled.

A hand touched his shoulder.

Pax yipped before he realized it was Kally. She gave him a worried smile. “Ajax, what is going on?” she asked, holding one hand out like Pax was the wild, cute baby panda he was.

Why did he always tell his lovers his weakness? That he had a hard time speaking indirectly when they called him by his first name and looked at him like he wasn’t just comic relief? That and bullets, but he figured his weakness to celestial bullets was pretty general knowledge.

“With Jason, Thalia, Leo, Axel, and now Reyna off doing hero things, we’re missing five heavy hitters—Calex doesn’t count. What happens if they don’t make it back in time for the party?” As Pax spoke, he ruffled his hair. He hoped the sweat and grossness of a hero’s shower schedule and constant pain would act as Hair Gel de Natural. “We need as many fighters as we can get, since Percy is—ha ha—benched and Annabeth is spreading the kissing disease to the table with how much she’s napping. Plus… I want leverage if the Romans decide to take vengeance on the Triple A Chimera. It’s always good to have a little blackmail.”

Important father-to-son life lessons.

“Leverage?” Alabaster asked, his glare softening.

Kally took a careful step towards Pax. Amazing to think that the one time she wanted to hold his hand again, he would have to shriek and run from her if she did. “A lot is going on. I—Axel wouldn’t want me to let you do something…”

“Stupid?” Alabaster supplied.

“Rash.”

As if that was the magical summoning word, Pax saw Atë.

He puffed up his cheeks and popped them.

A chill went down his spine as the smoke twisted up off her clothing. She lay, stomach down, on the ground, kicking her legs behind her. A black tarp—an empty body bag?—acted as her picnic blanket. Points for unnerving creativity. Pax just hoped there wasn’t an annoyed ghost in the tent, wondering where its deadtime blankets went.

Her white T-shirt’s sleeves hung off her shoulders. That and the cloth’s looseness let her shirt collar hang away from her skin and rest on the ground. Several chain necklaces encircled her neck and dangled against the ground atop the material, except one cord that clung tightly to her skin, running taunt down her chest, like a divider for her black and red, very noticeable, bra. That chain must have been attached to her belt. Her shorts were black and white checkered. Fishnets ran down to her muddy, bare feet.

As per Atë mode, her skin was smudged with dirt. Her jagged, black hair had streaks of red, magenta, and white. In one hand, she held Frank’s stick, pressing it against her lower, crimson lip, so the lip jutted to one side.

Pax swallowed. Amazing how he could forget that his super hot sister wanted to seduce him.

Like the best cockblocking knights from a heroic tale (or, from what Pax had heard, like teachers at a school dance), Alabaster and Kally stepped between where Pax was standing and Atë lay.

“Ajax…” Atë cooed, leaning to see around where Kally had withdrawn her Argonaut statue.

“Don’t call him that,” Alabaster snarled as he withdrew the deck of cards from his back pocket.

“You’re fraying around every edge,” Atë said.

“You’re not wanted here, Atë,” Kally snapped.

“I don’t want you to unravel,” Atë continued, those lifeless, red eyes giving their most expressive I told you not to come back to camp look that lifeless eyes could manage. Under Lapis’ command, she had warned Pax, not to come back, but there was no way for Pax to know it was to prevent some good ol’ fratricide.

Pax swallowed again. He forgot a pivotal point in his plan: his ability to talk with words and sentences. That, and his ability to speak to her without his cockblocking knights preventing him from a potentially terrible decision.

Hoping Atë could do some cool god thing to fix this, Pax summoned the best devilish smirk that he could, sidestepped more into Atë‘s view, winked, and nodded towards the death tent. Perfect romantic location.

Pax cleared his throat. “I found Calex’s potentially suicidal ultimatum with his godly stalker inspirational.”

Pax liked to think Kally and Alabaster both made sounds of disapproval: Alabaster’s hopefully sounding like a stuffy, old British gentleman. That’s how Pax would write Alabaster if he could write fanfiction.

The sounds came out muffled.

During one breath, smoke twisted in front of him, icy fingers touched his hand, then he was sitting down in a dimmer place. The sun warmed the tent walls like God decided to catch some humans with a Styrofoam cup the way a child might catch an ant or a tiny leprechaun. Pax stayed firm: if centaurs existed, then so did tiny men with golden pots that shot marshmallows. Kouta could never lie to him otherwise: that the marshmallow thing was an ad campaign for a cereal company. That was just what the leprechauns wanted you to think.

The tent flap was shut, cutting off the view of the outside. The sunlight that glowed through the fabric felt smothered. A few real rays shined through the poles of the tent.

Pax couldn’t decide what was worse: that Atë chose an occupied bodybag as a picnic bench or that she’d smoked into existence, sitting close enough for their knees to be touching.

If Atë could just teleport, Pax wondered why she bothered with any of this fighting stuff since she could relocate all of her enemies into far away cruise ships or convenient wood chippers. Pax shouldn’t ask that though, since that might give her idea—

“Why don’t you magic all your enemies into romantic hovels?” he asked.

Atë kicked her feet against the dirt. She stared at the two corpses in front of them. Leave it to a child of Eris to pick the center of the room, so they could be surrounded, from both sides and below, by corpses. Now Pax was waiting for Thanatos to deposit one from the ceiling for good symmetry.

Outside, he could hear the muffled voices of Alabaster and Kally as they panicked.

“I can’t. It’s easier with you, because you wanted to come in here and you’re more god than mortal,” Atë explained.

“Yep, that totally checks out in my book of not-lazy godly physics.”

Atë leaned back, so she could put one hand behind Pax. With the other, she tapped Frank’s stick against her off-sleeve shirt. “You’re asking me to trade Frank’s stick… for a date with you,” she said, those glassy eyes boring into him.

“I’m touched by how easily you read me,” Pax said. He tried to think of how he would treat this if Atë were Kally or Alabaster, but the scenery was a little distracting. “A playdate. Yes.”

“What kind of date?” she asked. Pax couldn’t tell if she was playing coy. He supposed it fit the “mischief” part of her moniker.

Pax puffed up his cheeks and popped them. He had decided this was it: his moment for inspirational character development, where he took control of his life, where he stopped being protected and became a protector. He didn’t have Axel’s strength or courage, but he was skilled. He’d earned the name Silver-Tongued Snake for a reason, and it wasn’t just because of that paint-eating incident in Alabaster’s laboratory.[1]

He just wished it happened somewhere sunnier with… cuter surroundings.

Only one thing had to happen before he acted on his epiphany.

“Off the corpse,” Pax said. He slipped one arm under Atë’s and slipped the other under her knees. Repressing a shudder at the chill of her legs and back, Pax carried her a few feet away from the bodies, sat down on the ground, and kept his arms around her. He whined at the pain in his right hand.

Atë blushed and stared at him with those unblinking eyes. Either that or she’d smudged some blood on her cheeks. Probably the latter, from puppy corgis? As Pax watched, her typically blank face cracked into a small smile. He remembered how much fun he had with her when they searched Rome’s files to discover the identity of Mount Othrys’ spy. She said that he was always nice to her. In her thousands of years, had Atë never been romantically carried by someone before?

“Your dad and our mom used to flirt a lot while seated on corpses,” she giggled.

“Atë, you know that little voice inside your head that tells you stories like that don’t need to be said out loud?” Pax said.

“I don’t have one and you don’t either,” she said, then repeated, “What kind of date?”

Ideas for how he’d treat Kally or Alabaster raced through his mind. “We can start by playing some video games. We’d go get ice cream, of course.”

Atë cocked her head to the side. Chains rattled against her neck.

Right. Child of Strife. Goddess of Mischief and Ruin. He didn’t need to pretend.

“We can dress up as monsters and scare kids walking home from school,” he said.

Atë rocked in his arms with a laugh. “We can recruit the weasels to help us wreak havoc.”

Pax sat up in excitement. “We could ride Hunnie into battle and Baller could—wait—no—I mean, yes to weasel recruitment. But, let’s leave specific weasel anarchy idealization until later.”

“What happens after destroying children on their way home from school?” she asked.

Pax chose to ignore her choice of verb. “Afterwards, we could find some local church picnics and pass out pamphlets on the good word of Discordia.”

“In wizarding robes,” she said.

“Pointed hats and brooms included. And lastly…” Pax wasn’t great at doing that whole think before you speak thing, but this next part needed to be worded carefully. “I’ll take you back to my place and we can watch Deadpool, use the hot tub… get to know each other a little better.”

Atë stopped laughing. Her expression went blank again. “The Paxmobile doesn’t have a hot tub and Axel would never leave us alone.”

The sound of Alabaster and Kally’s voices were getting closer.

“Holy Kronos—we should install a hot tub in the—right, sorry!” Pax struggled to keep focus. The idea of a mobile hot tub complete with trick telekhines was distracting. Percy could do water tap-dancing for Alabaster’s entertainment. “I meant my place my place. Not the Paxmobile.”

Atë didn’t respond. He had hoped she’d dramatically repeat his line in confusion, but Pax guessed he’d have to continue explaining without theatrical prompting.

“The temple/club/house/building that the Pax boys are about to inherit from our Dad’s will. You know… once we get Axel’s name cleared up with the police for that whole ‘kidnapping me’ thing. You and I would have to follow house rules for the date, since that’s what we’d be using, like don’t run by the hot tubs.”

Pax remembered how hard Lapis worked to be able to go out with… would it have been Sapphire? It happened right before he and Axel ran away the second time. Pax felt nauseous about moving back there, to his room with a blank, bare corner, designed so Dad wouldn’t get blood everywhere when he beat and whipped Pax for acting out.

At least his father had been considerate to the cleaning staff.

“But yea, it has a fancy hot tub, lots of private rooms, and a labyrinth of back passages that would leave Axel’s head spinning for hours. We could make it into a game. How many places we can…” Pax tightened his grip on Atë’s legs and dug his nails into her back as best he could with the ruined tendons. He leaned his forehead against hers. The musk of dried blood was—surprise—not a cure for his nausea. “Do stuff without Axel being able to catch us.”

One of Atë’s hands clutched his neck, where she’d bit him. Despite the rapid healing from his extra godly blood, and Kally’s attempts with her Apollo magic, the discoloration remained. Perks or curses of fooling around with a goddess: eternal hickies. Pax wondered what Ares’ neck looked like after a good Aphrodite fondle and vice versa.

It was like a mark of ownership, like how the tattoo on Pax’s hip made him feel like—even in death—his Dad still owned the part of Pax that could have been happy.

Pax felt his eyes watering. Focus, he snarled at himself. He had to make sure Atë felt the sunshine and rainbows, or, in her case, bunnies with chainsaws. He tried to think of how giddy he would be to hold Kally like this—albeit gentler—or be held by Alabaster.[2] The hand on his neck and the cold, red eyes made it hard to imagine Kally’s caring, shy smile and touch or the glint of knowing humor behind Alabaster’s expression and caress. Either one perfecting the balanced look of adoration with simultaneous annoyance in their green eyes.

With Atë’s other hand, she pressed Frank’s stick into his chest. Pax felt compelled to remind her that he wasn’t a vampire and there were, in fact, easier ways to kill him. Maybe his vulnerability to celestial bullets was less well known than he thought.

“Do you swear on the River Styx to all the terms listed above?” Pax asked.

Thinking about the others brought on an icy flash of Flynn. How he held her like this when she was sobbing over Jack’s chopped up corpse, about how she wished she could have seen Jack one more time to say goodbye.

Pax swallowed the memory. His mouth moved without his mind, saying what he knew he should be saying, since his brain was preoccupied with the whole trauma thing. “I’ll even give you a private tour of my room. Only Kally’s gotten that.”

He winked, giving Atë a devilish smile. Tiny Baby-Panda Pax marveled at how his body didn’t feel like his own, the smooth confidence of his exterior belonging to some other, darker, older Ajax.

Atë rubbed her fingers along his neck. “We could always make a tent in there and turn it into an exclusive slumber party.”

“Shake on it, and we’ll make it binding. All that and all you need to do is give me Frank’s stick as a forward payment,” he said, releasing her legs to offer his hand.

Atë pouted, an expression uncomfortably similar to something he’d practiced in the mirror to adorable perfection. “Kiss on it,” she said, biting her lower lip.

Pax puffed up his cheeks and popped them.

He felt cold and numb, watching a movie reel that some other person had already acted. Internally, he wondered exactly what consent Atë thought kissing gave, since she seemed to think a hug consented to making out. Externally, Pax tilted his chin down, pressing his mouth against hers.

Atë went still. For a horrifying moment, he feared she’d poofed away and put one of the corpses in her place as a practical joke. Ha-ha! Made you kiss a dead person! Then she sat up with a soft noise, so she could lean more into him. Atë dropped Frank’s stick.

This was opposite how he expected her to react after how aggressive she’d been the night she tricked him into a romantic prelude to decapitation the night before. Her words fluttered through his head, You’re always nice to me and you’re fun. Most people are really mean when I’m around.

No one had been nice to her. No one had made her feel special. Maybe, she only knew to mimic the way their mom flirted with his dad, like making out near corpses and sending cards that pre-apologized for future abuse.

Sympathizing with a tiny psychopath like Atë was dangerous. But, for a few dizzying seconds, Pax softened his touch to make the kisser proper to what he thought a kiss should be, instead of what he assumed Atë wanted.

When the panic mounted to the point where he wanted to ask Atë if she’d eaten nuts before their kiss, he firmly removed Atë’s mouth from his own.

“Atë,” he said and slipped Frank’s stick into his pocket, “Big Sis. You know how children of Strife always hurt those we love the most, especially the more we’re around them? And you know the definition of ‘cruel irony?’”

Atë’s small smile flattened. “What?”

Pax stood up and gently set his half-sister down. Relief made him add a dance to his step as he backed towards the exit. “I should have warned you, my dad had a lot of rules. Like, no messing around in the house. No one was allowed to touch a Pax kid without Santiago’s direct permission, and he’s dead now, so that’s a little difficult, huh? You’d have to ask the next head of the house, Kouta—oh no.” Pax tilted his head pensively to the side, crossed his arms, and tapped his chin. “He won’t do—oh! I guess that would be Axel. According to the terms of our agreement, we’d have to get direct permission from Axel to do anything physical or too romantic. Shucks.”

Pax snapped his fingers, like he was disappointed.

Atë opened and closed her mouth. “You tricked me.”

“Yes and no.” Pax shrugged. “I’m still really excited to have a play date with my half-sister where I get to wreak havoc and get to know her better and spend time with her as a friend.”

He gave her a gentle smile. Pax knew what it was like to feel like the whole world was a cruel place. If Axel and his other siblings hadn’t been there to show him protection and kindness, Pax would have probably turned out a lot less fluffy. “Just because I’m the first person to be nice to you, doesn’t mean I’ll be the last. And you don’t need to express appreciation of that through possession or forceful cuddles. We’re siblings. And yea, we’re children of Strife so, we’re pretty fucked up, but I think we can work together to have a healthy, fun friendship.”[3]

Atë didn’t seem to know how to react.

Pax nodded at the sentient. “But seriously, you touch me sexually once and the date is over.”

Pax pivoted to push open the tent flap, only to slam into Alabaster. Alabaster’s Stygian staff was drawn, and he was prepping spells under his breath. He grabbed Pax’s arm, like he feared Pax would dematerialize again.

“Pax!” Kally shouted in relief behind him. She fingered her Argonaut statue. “We thought Atë kidnapped you.”

“Aw, it would have been much more dramatic and movie-like had you showed up when Atë and I were making out,” Pax said. All that water that he’d stored in his eyes glistened to the surface. Seeing these two made him want to collapse in a puddle on the ground, Phobetor conscilepsy style. But, Pax reminded himself, he was Strong Pax. In-Control Pax. Pax that Waits Ten Minutes to Start Crying Pax.

Pax snuffled back a few tears.

When Atë stepped out of the tent after him, he almost screamed. Instead, he held Frank’s stick aloft. “We need to go shove this in the face of the others, so we can tell them that we have blackmail on Frank.”

“You mean that the concussed Canadian can fight in the battle tonight?” Kally asked warily. She pulled both boys further from the death collection tent, towards Percy’s fancy light up sign and throne.

“That’s what I said,” Pax said, like Atë had just vanished as she should have in his internal plans.

“Mom was going to use that stick to light the Big House on fire. Something about using the fires of life to start the wave of death?” Atë said, stepping with them towards the ping-pong table.

After Pax had his whole family-time-happy-speech, he didn’t feel right telling Atë to get lost, but she was kind of on the wrong side of their fight. “Very poetic,” he admitted.

“We thought so too. Frank would have probably been the first casualty.”

“Pax,” Kally whispered, taking the hand not holding Frank’s stick. Her touch made Pax feel all gooey inside, encouraging those tears that he kept trying to repress to come to the surface. “What did you do?”

“And why is she still here?” Alabaster growled.

As they got closer to the ping-pong table, Pax could see it was mostly empty. The other campers must have been tending to defenses. Annabeth napped on a pillow beside Percy. He held her hand on the table, glaring at the sand timer. Piper sat a few feet away from him.

“Uh—guys?” Pax could just hear Percy say with some panic in his voice. He held up the sand timer.

“Atë, you can go back to Mom,” Pax said, knowing it would be much simpler if he only had to manage two-sort-of-not-ex-lovers.

Atë put her hands in her black and white checkered pockets, tilting her head back to look at the sky. “Mom never left. Why do you think everyone has been so unproductive and argumentative?”

Alabaster rolled his eyes. He focused on whatever was happening at the ping-pong table. “I thought Eris was best for inspiring people to productivity,” he said sarcastically.

The sarcasm seemed to miss Atë. She removed her fingers and flexed them. A tire iron appeared in one hand and a baseball bat with nails appeared in the other. “Jealousy, spite and strife are excellent motivators. But the productivity doesn’t matter anymore. You’re out of time.”

Pax blinked. His stomach twisted as he felt some sort of shockwave ripple through the air. “Uh, no,” Pax said, “Mom told Percy she’d be back when the sun comes down.”

“And it’s noon now,” Kally said.

Children of Apollo: better than any clock.

A buzzer sounded.

Party poppers popped.

The neon sign above Percy’s head flashed wildly like the ball drop on New Year’s Eve. A digital timer went to zero in the colorful mix.

Hiro’s mirror still floated beside Percy. From what Pax could see, Hiro ran to the edge of the mirror, pressed his face against it, and looked up in excitement.

Clouds darkened the sunlight.

Kally screamed and, in the distance, Pax could hear a chorus of children of Apollo joining in the cacophony.

When Pax glanced up to stare directly at the sun—something Axel had tried to stop him from doing dozens of times—he didn’t find himself blinded. Apollo’s sun chariot was too close, easily observed by the fact that everyone could see his Sun Chariot. The image blurred between a Lamborghini Diablo and a cart drawn by four horses. From what Pax gathered from science books and mythology, Apollo was supposed to have a fairly set path.

He had altered it.

Pax choked.

A wave of darkness descended from the east. The rapid approach gave Pax vertigo as it engulfed the landscape like an apocalyptic cloud.

Despite Apollo’s attempts to either step on the accelerator or spur his horses on, the blackness was gaining.

When Pax squinted, he could see what it was: a woman. A terrifying woman with her own chariot and horses. She was so void of color and substance, Pax would have thought her a churning swirl of ash and smoke. Her chariot seemed to suck the light from around it. Her indigo wings and whirls of black locks trailed madly behind her, twisting into coils of blackness that cast the net of her cloak. That blackness asphyxiating the landscape was her cloak.

Terror shook Pax. A deep sense of wrongness made him want to hide in the Paxmobile and refuse to come out.

Nothing would have changed though. None of their heroes would return in time: Jason, Leo, and Sadie wouldn’t have had time to fight Lapis yet, Calex and Reyna would have just met up with Axel and Thalia in Tartarus, and Merry had likely just gotten to Hiro and Percy’s little sister. That meant Percy also wouldn’t be able to fight. Annabeth could barely lift her head off the table.

It was just them, a concussed Canadian, a recently plague-ridden daughter of Aphrodite, and a daughter of Pluto that was probably frantically trying to keep her unconscious brother out of the shadow realm.

The primordial goddess of night’s chariot intercepted Apollo’s.

The sun fell out of the sky.

They were enveloped in darkness.

As Pax’s eyes adjusted to the sudden blackness in the middle of the day, he panted with panic. He almost laugh-cried when Alabaster set a hand on his shoulder, until he realized it wasn’t Alabaster.

“Oh, my little Terror Muffin,” Eris whispered sweetly into his ear. “It’s beautiful isn’t it? How much a mother will do for one of her favorites when that favorite is threatened with annihilation by execration or Kronos’ staff?”

That joker-like hysterical laughter filled the air.

“Now that Nyx has taken care of the sun…” A light flickered beside Pax. He could see his mother toss a lit Molotov Cocktail up and down, “Let the festivities begin!”

Sorry for the delay, guys! I hope you enjoyed the Pax family madness :D They could probably benefit from some family counseling. May your Fall festivities be as mischievous as Pax’s, but, you know, without the trauma.

Tune in next week to Axel: If you’re tired of being electrocuted, clap your hands! (or: On the Shore of Two Underworlds).

Footnotes:

[1] Alabaster said we had to put a warning label out here: do not eat paint. You are not Pax (unless you are Pax) and you will not survive an acrylic slurpee (and even if you are Pax, stop trying to eat paint. Alabaster is tired of cleaning your throw up).

[2] Though not frequently the other way around. Pax has done everything in his power to pretend he’s physically weaker than Alabaster, including frequently fainting into his arms when they were younger. One problem with this: Alabaster opted out of catching him.

[3]Public service announcement where Pax and I differ: if you have a family member that is acting sexually aggressive to you, tell someone and take action to prevent anything further from happening to you or to others. If the person you tell doesn’t believe you, keep telling people until you find someone who will listen. Whether or not you know the aggressor, even if they’re a family member, you owe them nothing. You definitely don’t owe them silence. But, you DO owe yourself and you DO deserve a safe, healthy environment. And, you owe open communication to others in to the aggressor’s path to assure that the aggressor won’t hurt anyone else.

And, regardless of what anyone else might tell you, including other family members, you don’t need to keep talking to the aggressor, as Pax decides to do. Blood-related doesn’t mean indebted. It doesn’t mean an annulment of wrongs. It means you’re supposed to keep each other safe and healthy, and taking advantage of someone’s trust isn’t safe or healthy.

Now, if you’ll excuse me for this bout of seriousness, I have a baby panda to catch to tell him to talk more openly with his friends. *chases after Pax*

#Heroes of Olympus #Percy Jackson and the Olympians #PJO #HOO #Fanfiction #Traitors of Olympus #Pax #Ate #Kally #Alabaster #Eris #SHIT GET REAL!!!!!#*cries* I have no time to write this week T.T

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lightsandlostbells · 6 years

Text

Druck episode 8 reaction

just making my way through the tumultuous lives of German youth! some of this is outdated since I fell way behind

Episode 8

Clip 1 - Hanna and Mia = so happy together

Hanna resting her head against Mia’s shoulder = awwwwww. Also cute is Mia hyping up her musical taste and getting Hanna to join in.

Here comes Alexander to ruin the moment!

For some reason it’s hilarious that he offers to sing with them. What if Mia was like yeah, let’s harmonize, show me what you got?

AHAHAHA OK, I know people want there to be a hint of ~flirtation and ~attraction on Mia’s part but you know, I fucking live for her just tearing into him and telling him off and that she’ll report him for harassment. Resounding applause!

On the other hand I cannot buy her falling for him in the slightest. By making her so firmly against him they’re making it an uphill battle convincing me that they’ll get together, especially since Mia seems perhaps the most outspokenly feminist remake Noora.

Hanna smiling and being like, “You’re so cool, Mia,” and Mia all like, “Thanks, I read this thing in an article about pickup artists using the wrong names for women to make them feel submissive!” And then the two of them happily go back to singing? This version of the scene is incredible.

Like Mia read some PUA bullshit about men trying to make women feel small, and she turned it back on a shitty man who treats women like crap! How can you not appreciate that?

Also I take back what I said previously about Mia and Hanna not being flirty compared to this pairing in other Skams. The end of this scene was total girlfriend goals.

Clip 2 - Nein, Kiki

Amira and Sam - the cutest. I would pay to see them operating that canine squad.

Well, I kinda hate Kiki again. That was a hell of a segue from her Amy Santiago-ing the party security setup to talking shit about Hanna.

I do love Hanna telling Kiki to drop it. I feel like we’ve begun to see more of a backbone on her. And Mia coming to Hanna’s defense, of course.

The reveal of the Hanna and Leonie friendship breakup is underwhelming compared to some other versions. It’s more focused on Kiki being an asshole than Hanna’s internal anguish. However, they did throw in one detail, about Hanna snagging Jonas at Sarah’s birthday party which I liked, because I’ve always wanted even more details about how they got together. I can’t remember, but did we ever hear about Leonie crying on Hanna’s shoulder while Hanna and Jonas were sneaking around behind Leonie’s back? Or is the implication that they hooked up at the birthday party and Leonie found out pretty soon, and that was that?

“Honestly, Hanna, you shouldn’t be surprised that everyone’s calling you a slut.” What the hell, Kiki. She delivers it so smugly.

Mia and Amira defending Hanna, I sure love these girls. And while Sam’s comment about “slut” being a compliment is not really the best thing to say considering the context, she was trying to be nice.

Mia also points out that it takes two to tango, it’s not just Hanna’s fault, and then Kiki says something spot-on despite her general unpleasantness in this scene - she mentions Jonas (not just Toilet Sam) for being a “slut” too, which I don’t think anyone in any of the Skams has yet done. I think it’s usually focused on the P-Chris character also being slutty? Not that I agree with the “slut” terminology specifically, more than I don’t think anyone ever singled out Jonas as a cheater, and I mean, I love him but it’s true. It’s not fair at all that the Evas have to bear the burden of the homewrecker label alone, especially when Jonas was the one already in a relationship.

Sam’s comment about “I don’t care about Jule, and Leonie is a bitch. And Jonas and Hanna are way cuter together” almost feels like commentary about the audience. Because that’s how it would be - we know almost nothing about Jule except she attacked Hanna, so who cares about her, and we’ve seen Leonie only through Hanna’s POV as an aggressive mean girl. And well, Jonas and Hanna are twelve kinds of cute. But of course that’s only one side of the story. Jule and Leonie are both wronged parties here and feeling hurt and betrayed for valid reasons even if they don’t express it in the best way. Kiki is right, Leonie is the victim here, whatever her other faults.

And again, Sam says this to help Hanna, it’s just not that helpful.

“In your Muslim gangster world, wouldn’t she have been attacked by acid by now or something?” WOW WOW. I sorta liked Kiki, but I’m definitely wanting to retract that statement.

Really, she unleashed that on Amira for absolutely no reason! Amira was just sitting there, not saying anything!

I think Kiki is lashing out like a wounded animal though. She’s trashing her friends with a viciousness that I don’t think Vilde had.

I love love love Amira though. Really, I would love to see S4 about her (with heavy rewrites, heh). You can tell that she’s really hurt by what Kiki has just said and needed a moment to compose herself.

Amira’s prayer alarm going off right then was a good clincher to that moment, a reminder of Amira’s Muslim-ness just to rub it in for Kiki, and probably to twist the knife a little for Amira, tbh. People will always judge her on her religion.

Also, great moment from Sam asking Kiki why she always needs to fight. It’s a big difference from Chris just sitting out this scene in awkward silence and trying to avoid conflict. But you can tell that Sam was trying to help out Hanna and perhaps neutralize the tension in this scene, she just doesn’t always know the right thing to say. I think it’s consistent characterization for her to ask why Kiki needs to be confrontational.

Lol, Kiki left her stuff behind when she marched out.

Clip 3 - Hanna and Jonas being sad together

Ahhh, it’s Jonas playing the guitar! Is that an existing song or just a tune he made up?

There’s a slight shift in context to having them sit in a bedroom (an intimate location) but far apart at first when they have this discussion, rather than in a public place like a skate park, but with seemingly less distance between them. The skate park is more like a neutral ground for them to meet. This is Hanna going into Jonas’ private space and being unwelcome. She knew it and started off putting space between them. It felt kinda uncomfortable.

Also, major props to the Druck team for making Jonas play the guitar, which is clearly something the actor does in real life, and not a skater just because original Jonas/Marlon Langeland was a skater. I like when they can adapt the characters to the actors’ strengths.

The Jonas actor is doing a great job of conveying his hurt, and not just because he has a guitar to air out his sads and to use whenever words aren’t enough. Hanna too - she looks still and like a shell of herself as he questions her entire character.

Nice detail about Hanna suddenly being into the bands Jonas likes, as a way to add support to the “she doesn’t have her own opinions” line of development.

This scene really got across the theeeeme/message and showed how hurt they both were - of course it’s not nice for Jonas to say that, but you can tell he’s genuinely confused and torn about what she’s doing and he’s not just saying it to lash out at her, and of course Hanna is devastated because it always hurts to be told you don;t have your own personality, plus Jonas just laid out the reasoning in front of her.

Clip 4 - Menstrual message

Lol, not that this is funny in context, but I think Hanna’s the only Eva who throws the note in the trash instead of dropping it on the floor? Good for her, that way no hapless janitor or other student has to come across someone’s period blood in the hallway. Though I certainly get the instinct to drop it, I mean ... ewww.

(By the way, am I the only one who has questioned whether this letter, in any/all iterations, was really written in menstrual blood? Not that I would interact with the letter long enough to find out, if it were me, but is it possible it’s just paint or something and was called “period blood” just to get some extra intimidation for Hanna?)

They kept in this conversation with Kiki which is good, though she doesn’t clarify that she’s left the party because she thinks the girls hate her. I think if you didn’t know the plot, you could assume even worse of Kiki and think that maybe she quit to rid herself of the girls, the school slut and the scary Muslim. Her departing lines to Hanna do feel rather brusque.

Clip 5 - Matteo trying to do damage control

The music sounded a little upbeat for what’s supposed to be a low moment for Hanna, though the lyrics are melancholy. But it cracked me up that Matteo’s presence was announced by what sounded like a skateboard and yet Matteo did not appear to have a skateboard.

I love that they have this conversation in person, though. Matteo sought her out to sit down and tell her that it’s unfair everyone hates her so much. Even though, you know … he caused it. But I think it’s a mark of how much he regrets his actions already.

I noticed he did the trademark Isak reptilian lip-licking at one point. Common enough gesture but I am always gonna associate it with that duplicitous Norwegian.

Matteo’s message didn’t seem to sink in during the conversation as much, with Hanna getting frustrated more than anything, but it’s great that he tells her it’d be a pity if she left right before he leaves.

Clip 6 - Hanna, Leonie, and Jule

We didn’t get the scene with the older girls, or with Mia/Amira telling Hanna that it was Leonie who hooked up with Sam. I guess because Leonie didn’t actually hook up with Sam in this version. Actually, it’s great that Hanna confronts Leonie without using the knowledge that Leonie made out with Sam as leverage; she just does it on her own in order to make her school situation more bearable.

Also, there’s no incentive for how the situation will impact the other girls, neither Hanna nor the other girls think the rest of the school is retaliating against them all for their association with Hanna. It’s just Hanna acting independently. Kudos.

As with the Jonas scene, we have Leonie sitting down against the wall closed off to what Hanna’s going to say, and Hanna at first puts distance between them but later tries to lessen it. This time a little more successfully.

Hanna talks about how at her old school she was the “fat girl that everyone bullied” - that adds a lot of pain to her backstory. In OG it was that when Eva switched schools, no one wanted to talk to her because of her accent and Ingrid was nice to her, I don’t recall any talk of bullying prior to that. This detail makes Hanna’s situation even worse. Especially if you think about she was planning to switch schools again this episode, and that this would be the second time she has switched schools due to bullying. At least I think that’s implied although she could have switched schools the first time due to a mundane reason, like moving. But it would also add some extra weight to Matteo’s talk about running away when things get difficult, and support why she would choose to confront Leonie on her own like this.

This is a pretty stark conversation with the lack of accompanying emotional music and the echo from the mostly empty room. Everything comes from Hanna baring her soul, basically.

Lol, Leonie just gets up and leaves at the end, which is fine, I guess. She’s not chased out by Jule about to beat her ass. Hanna discovers on her own that it was Jule who sent the threat letter, so good for her for connecting the dots.

Unfortunately they rushed this conversation with Jule, although at least they got the right points, with Hanna saying that she didn’t know Samuel had a girlfriend but apologizing for it anyway, and pointing out that it isn’t fair for Jule to be mad at her but not him. It was definitely disappointing that Jule wasn’t humanized that much, though, and that she walks away still having a chip on her shoulder, plus the reveal that it was Matteo felt forced.

I do love this closing song (”Devil’s Whisper” by Raury). A great RUN BOY RUN song to lead into Hanna realizing she needs to throttle Matteo.

General Comments

It’s too bad that they left out some very strong parts of the source material. For example, the older girls giving their wisdom to Hanna aren’t there at all, though I can see how with the changed context why it might have been hard (why would the older girls give a shit about ostracizing the kids working security at their party). Also Jule just doesn’t get the amount of time necessary to make us feel better about her. I think Druck has done a decent job of some of the Girl Power moments and those probably would have been executed well if giving the right amount of time.

Tbh this episode is full of material where that lays out for me why it’s good to have younger actors in these roles. They make so many mistakes and there are such little moments of hurt and frustration, and it just seems more real when you can fully absorb that these are kids.

I don’t speak German, so if I misunderstood something, feel free to correct me.

If you got this far, thank you for reading!

#druck reactions

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pinksweatergettingbetter · 6 years

Text

warning, the following has mainly snarky (and possibly furious) opinions on Spirit of Justice. Reader discretion is advised.

Alright, on to part three, where Phoenix’s big fat mouth gets Apollo and Athena into deep doodoo.

QUICK CHILDREN, INTO THE MANHOLE!

SDUFGDGSF YOU CAN ‘MOVE’ WHILE YOURE BEING CHASED

way to ruin the moooooood XD

well athena if its any consolation, smelling like a rotten egg will probably delight sadmad.

y’know. cause youre a putrid egg yolk.

“Once a rebel, always a rebel!”

apollo was never a rebel

you sent him back to America before he could do any rebelling.

>OH MY SNARK IS CONFIRMED BY APOLLO

oh everyone’s met up now

“It was like watching a pair of ostriches bury their heads in the sand”

the FUCK does that mean, Phoenix?!???

“dubious hovel”

whats wrong with athena? i thought she was huddling up in the corner because she saw something unnerving, then maybe because of all the sudden people there–– but it’s implying she’s disgusted by the shitty state of the place?

what, is Athena a germaphobe now??

“He said he hopes you’ll come back and take over this office someday.”

“M-me?”

“Those were his words! He might have been half-joking though.”

I’m not sure which I’m more offended by; the fact that Dhurke still assumed Apollo would make a shit lawyer, or the fact that Apollo does indeed take over. Spoilers. Haha.

“must’ve been because of you, dhurke!”

no it was because of Phoenix Wright because he was a cool guy, once upon a time. also because, unlike every other lawyer in the gotdamn series, Apollo just really friggin loves the law. He thinks lawyers are legit cool and he wanted to be one because he just happened to have a passion for litigating. He’s not a prop in your stupid story, he’s his own interesting person.

“Dhurke was never a hands-on kinda dad...”

you can motherfucking say that again, vore machine.

“...but not a day went by that he wasn’t thinking of ya. That much I’m sure of.”

yeah he sure was

thinking of the favours he could one day ask of him.

“Doesn’t get more paternal than that!”

Athena, you don't even have a dad. Your opinion on the subject is completely worthless.

“(Dhurke... And to think, I really did spend my days trying to forget you...)”

god apollo you don’t deserve this. you deserve trucy and klavier and thalassa (being an actual mom for once) HELL you deserve your ACTUAL, REAL DAD.

“The victim’s passport and any pictures of him were burned up in the fire. Without knowing his real name, no divination seance could be performed.”

So you’re telling me Jove brought every single glossy of himself into that blaze? And after the fire, nobody bothered checking the dental records on the corpse/asking where that neato musician from the other night went?

Once again, DDSOJ police, at their best. If there wasn’t a coverup involved, I’m gonna be pissed.

( My real dad... I was never really interested in learning about him. )

While this is a totally understandable and natural reaction... I really wish–– Actually, no; it’s best Apollo never learned that he once had a father who actually gave a fuck about him. That’d probably break his heart.

“As the son of the terrorist Dhurke, Nahyuta was expelled from the royal family.”

i.... why did Dhurke keep him in Koooraheen, anyway? He really couldn’t have sent him to a happier life in America with his half brother?

huh i think that face-palm is a new expression for Vore Machine. he almost looks reasonable.

“As his son, Yuty no doubt got the cold shoulder at every turn.”

amazing. not only was Apollo abandoned in America in some shit orphanage with zero contact from anything he knew as family, but Sadmad was forced to stay behind in a country that hated his guts. The perfect situation for both boys!!! No wonder they’re both so fucking grouchy all the time! Dhurke, you parental genius!

“Dhurke’s the kinda guy who can become fast friends with just about anyone!”

guess that explains the fandom popularity

“Lol come over n play some jams bro”

“Ok dawg is it chill if i bring my kid my wifes uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

“Yeah its cool I'm great with kids”

“tight”

“It’s like Dhurke’s done nothing but save me all my life” yeah... from messes he made.

“Jangly Justice”

god. i want to root for Jove but like. He looks like a tool, he sounds like a tool, his stage name is the tooliest thing ive ever heard...

originally this section was me ranting about how Thalassa would never have just ‘stopped looking for Apollo’ when she heard that Jove perished in the flames, since Apollo’s corpse was never found and the rebels were out looking for her to give him to her– but instead I’m just gonna leave you with ‘that excuse is mad weak and the writers need to try harder.’

“You should try on the jacket, Apollo!”

“Yeah, yeah!”

Look, I can excuse Athena, because she doesn’t know. But Datz knows its mold infested and disgusting. And he just finished talking about APollo’s tragic past. What the everloving fuck is up with this sicko?!

Also Athena, you can’t laugh at him wearing an eyepatch when he just got done wearing one all last year.

“I’d recognize those horns anywhere!”

“Is that really the only way anyone recognizes me?”

cue Phoenix harrumphing from the corner and brushing his spikes

yknow maybe ive mentioned this before but why /hasn’t/ the queen found the safe house? It’s Dhurke’s old law office; that’d be like, the first place I’d check. Its like wondering if Dumbledore’s Army is based in Hogwarts.

I mean I guess you could say the Queen assumes theyre not stupid enough to hide in their old main haunt but... they’re stupid. they’re really, really stupid. it’s been proven like 800 times.

so we just had a ladder convo about lizards?

also what do you mean geckos like to live in houses? i thought they just climbed around outside them. aLSO WHY ARE THEY EATING THEM

... I appreciate that it ended in a Bugs Bunny Switcharoo though.

...And Phoenix ends it with “theyre just a plain old lizard”

I guess Phoenix doesn’t know flowers or lizards.

i really don’t know why none of the revolutionaries think sadmad’s playing the long con. they’ve all just completely given up on him. what if he was pulling a snape??? they talk about trust and shit and yet none of them trust their own leader’s son? shameful.

“It seems like Gar’an has some serious leverage over him”

okay, they suspect he’s being controlled with some kind of blackmail... and yet do nothing to help him? they’re dumb enough to risk their lives doing something like that, but not compassionate or caring enough?? to their leader’s son???? what the fuck??????

aww i missed Beh’leeb. I hope she and her (born/ unborn? cannot tell if she’s pregnant or not) kid are doing ok.

“So she’s trying to help the revolution along... in her own special way!”

that sounds enormously patronizing phoenix, shut up. she’s pregnant and she has to deal with fucks like Datz running around blowing off firecrackers at government officials.

...youre giving the orb to datz.

ill eat my hat if nothing happens to it.

“We’ll attract undue attention if we go in too large a group”

oh also because youre dressed like baby’s first paint set but

“AAAH!!”

“Do you know something about this?” “Nope! Just felt like shouting is all.”

yes, this is definitely the guy who should hold onto the orb for you. also i presented the attorneys badge. guess he has nothing to say about apollo’s proof of profession, eh?

“Yeah... You’d think Nahyuta might’ve cut his old man some slack, but no.” Dhurke you thick son of a bitch

wow. one single flashback occurrence where Dhurke wasn’t a dick. Well, 1/1000 ain’t too shabby...

“What? You came to visit me and you didn’t even bring me a present?”

What, like your plate of ‘my son is NOT a failure” sushi, Dhurke ?

“But I’m not a rebel.”

“Don’t be ridiculous– You’re a member of the defiant dragons simply by being my son.”

HE’S NOT YOUR SON YOU FUCK

If you present him your attorneys badge he jokes about dying happy and apollo makes it explicit that he means via execution

dhurke. that means apollo would die too. stop fucking joking about him dying you prickwad.

Apollo: Hey Dhurke know anything about this necklace

Dhurke: OOOAAHHH!!! OHHH!! AHHH!!!!

Apollo: So thats a...

Dhurke: Hahahahah its a no son give it here

Apollo: Yeah ok i see nothing suspicious about that at all and i sure hope the secret behind it wasn’t important to this case or anything..........

me: jeez i hope that stupid necklace was the last thing we had to present

phoenix, appearance from god knows where: hey maybe ask about the hostage

me: bless you baby. also i forgot you were here

Phoenix: Sounds like the minister has someone you really care about, cause you totally obeyed everything he did.

i know what youre trying to excuse here SOJ staff but no, straight up lifting right out of JFA will never be ok.

“Is there a new lady in your life?” “WHAT?! DONT BE RIDICULOUS SON!”

I’m gay now! Hahaha. But seriously. Nobody wants to date Dhurke.

“Amara was the love of my life, but she’s gone now, and there will never be another.”

cue Dhurtz shippers furiously jamming their fingers in their ears and whistling

what the

fuck is happening

to his aRM

“You tensed up” HIS BROKEN ARM STARTED VEINING SO HARD THAT IT SHOWED RIGHT THROUGH LIKE 2 LAYERS OF CLOTH

THATS SOME KRISTOPH DEVIL HAND SHIT RIGHT THERE

JESUS CHRI

oh there’s something hidden in there THANK GOD THAT SCAREDTHE FUCK OUTTA ME

“Oh I see– so youre hiding a woman’s photo up your sleeve”

oh yeah, a 3D photo. that has bumpy bits. absolutely apollo.

“You don’t need to keep secrets like that from me– You’re an eligible bachelor now. But you’ll... introduce her to me at some point, right?”

this has that creepy ‘parent insists you have a crush on that one kid’ conversation vibe to it, especially since it’s not like Apollo ever had an attachment to Amara to make him see her as a mother; she was ‘dead’ before he could even walk.

“Mon dieu! Are you into younger women, Dhurke?!”

Athena,,,,,,,, athena,,,, Apollo,,,,, he’s

it’s

oh never mind.

“Heh heh. Dhurke, you old dog, you. You got yourself a younger lover.”

ACTUALLY, YOU KNOW WHAT, NO, NOT NEVER MIND. YOU HAVE A PHOTO OF AMARA. YOU KNOW WHAT AMARA LOOKS LIKE. YOU KNOW HOW TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PAST AND PRESENT DHURKE BECAUSE THERES NO WAY HE COULD JUST RANDOMLY CUT HIS HAIR AND THEN HAVE IT GROW BACK THAT FAST.

I KNOW YOU THINK SHE’S DEAD BUT AT LEAST FUCKING SAY YOU THINK IT’S HER TWIN SISTER YOU UTTER UTTER NUMBSKULLS

“This is Amara before she died. If you look closer, you’ll see that I was younger, too.”

“Hey. You’re right.”

“Aww, that’s no fun.”

MY ULCERS ARE NO FUN BUT GUESS WHAT NEITHER IS LIFE

“Wait a second... Haven’t we seen this woman before?”

DAAAUUUUUUUGGGGHHHHHHH

GOOD FUCKING BALLS PLEASE PLEASE LET THEM BE TROLLING DEAR GOD AAHGGDFKAFAGF

i really love that photo though. everything about it is generally just really nice.

wait hang on. they. they just. they kept her around? after her fake assassination? they just–– WHERE YOU COULD GET A PHOTO OF HER?!

EXPLAIN–– THERE’D BETTER BE A GOOD EXPLAIN

“She was confined within the grounds, but she was fit as a fiddle.”

Ga’ran. Ga’ran. Ga’ran. You stupid, stupid, stupid bitch.

“She was being held under virtual house arrest, so I freed her, and we made a run for it.”

“Of course, we didn’t just proclaim it to the people so that they’d realize Ga’ran was a dirty bitch; that would have been way too easy hahaha.”

Ohhh I see. They didn’t know Ga’ran was the one who did it. Except Ga’ran was the one who kept her under house arrest and faked her death so... It’s pretty obviously her? Amara would know that by putting 2 and 2 together? But no... Apparently Amara was suspicious enough to suspect Dhurke of being the arsonist like Ga’ran said, but brave enough to ‘accompany him so she could ascertain the truth for herself.’

hey remember when i said brave. i meant stupid. she was stupid enough to go with someone she thought might have tried to kill her, completely unsupervised. though i guess you'd have to be that dumb to actually fall in love with Dhurke in the first place.

AH, and she was immediately recaptured. Because Dhurke sucks.

Waaaaait wait wait. How long and when did he ‘rescue’ her? The incident was 23 years ago, but Rayfa is 14– and Amara would need the usual 9 months to gestate– plus, the room she’s holding Rayfa in has the Defiant Dragons handbook in there, so it’s probably someplace of Dhurke’s––

Meaning there was a nine year gap but they still didn’t show her to the general public to depose gar– AGHHH. ITS ALL TERRIBLE!!!

“Apollo. We need to grill the queen about Amara when we have the chance.”

Hobo Nick’s ghost: Hey uhh me, that might get you uhhhhh murdered i thought we got over that after von karma tasered the shit out of u––

SOJ Nick: DOOOOHHOOOHOO I LIKE SOLVING MYSTERIESSS

Apollo: hey maybe the baby Amara’s holding is me.

Athena: Nah it’s too cute to be you.

Apollo: ....i just want to have proof that I’ve known the loving touch of a mother at least ONCE ATHENA OKAY???

“Hm? Oh... well, either way, it’s not you, son.”

yeah fuck you apollo the Sadmahdis only love their REAL children

also its Rayfa. it was in the safe next to Rafya’s letter; Rayfa basically identified it as herself when she saw it, it’s Rayfa.

Apollo: wow youre sure acting vague and suspicious about this; guess i’ll just accept it for what it is.

Dhurke: [tells apollo’s he's going to die and leave him fatherless again]

Apollo: [immediately assumes its another of Dhurke’s jokes because Dhurke’s jokes are horrible and always at Apollo’s expense]

phoenix: ...are you sick?

NICK

OH MY GOD

i shriek laughed

Apollo: [clearly emotionally distraught]

Dhurke: [continues to dance around the issue, thus prolonging Apollo’s suffering]

(Why is this happening now? Just when I was finally starting to feel like you really are my...)

HE DOESN’T DESERVE YOU, APOLLO

GET OUTTA THERE

So far Apollo hasn't said “i’m gonna do x and x and x, or die trying!” and honestly i know it’s a bit on the nose but it’s more true for this situation than any other ones it’s usually said in.

Dhurke: I’ve got a big secret

Apollo: You’ve been hiding something *ELSE* from me?

Dhurke: I’m afraid I can’t tell you what it is. I’d be betraying a certain someone if I did.

WHY DID HE EVEN BRING IT UP THEN!? WHY IS DHURKE JUST THE FUCKING WORST?!!!

“You’ll discover a truth that is hard to accept. But I know you. And I know you can handle the truth, no matter what it turns out to be.”

After all, you’re super great at accepting all the misfortune my existence has heaped upon you! Hahaha!!!

“Apollo... Are you okay?”

“...I’m fine.”

they ask you how you are, and you just have to say that you’re fine, when you’re not really fine, but you just can’t get into it b

h e r e c o m e t h e r e b e l s

and once again you have to manually move there.

action bomb over here from Vore Machine

also beh’leeb sweety youre doing amazing

“Dhurke belongs to the people!! Give him back!!!”

he what now

(sigh)

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................hi.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................sadmad...............................................................................................................................................................................

“They’ll be arrested? Just for protesting?!”

Apollo... you live in the real world, r–– oh well technically he doesn't hm

that point’s moot

“They are aiding and abetting a criminal by seeking his release”

uh pretty sure that’s BS yut

“Her Eminence, Queen Ga’ran, has ordered they be arrested and judged en-masse”

ok im fucking

I'm wheezing so bad not ONLY do we have to save a revolution and Dhurke the rebel leader, but we are now about to defend most of the population of an entire country at once. Stakes RAISED bro

good fucking lord apollo stop being all “weren’t you a defiant dragon once?!wehh!!”

even Phoenix, with his Edgeworth obsession, didn’t really question it when Edgeworth was being his shithead prosecutor self.

Nahyuta: Sigh. Guess I can’t escape you. I mean I could use my magic beads to tie you up and then prance off but i have a plot to advance.

“Enough with the zen monk act, Nahyuta– Tell me how you really feel!”

Damnit, Sadmad, it’s not like we have someone who can read emotions by listening to-– oh yeah.

“She’s being held in secret where nobody is allowed to see her.”

second time’s the charm!

Apollo, simply bringing up the reason he’s doing what he’s doing won’t get him to stop. Remember the Phoenix and Maya situation? Until you can guarantee her safety, Sadmad’s just going to keep steam rolling along.

OH FINALLY

ok athena dish the dirt

alright, here we go, folks. time for Nick to get all their asses killed. i mean just listen to that ominous music :/

i love her laugh sprite.

“a lawyer AND a comedian, HOW DROLL”

the royal guards weird me out a bit though. its those masks. I'm getting high lady gaga gives

lady gagaran

Apollo: better give her evidence to burn–– i mean, jog her memory with some evidence.

Ghost of hobo nick: future me!! stop this!! don’t you remember what always used to happen?!

SOJ Phoenix: DOOOHOOOHOOO WE GOT HER NOW, APOLLO!

...........that worked

....no it didn’t. just spring you damn trap already, gagaran.

Apollo: Hm better not tell the people, that could stir up the revolution and actually make it happen. Especially since there might be REAL terrorists hiding out there, just waiting until someone goes, “Hey, that dead queen isn’t really dead!!”

lol

something went wrong?? no way

“Eeeek! Apollo! Don’t strip here!!!”

why is athena such a ditz in this case???

I HEARD A BELT

wow. apollo’s ass canonically bared in AA6

klavier gavin cries a million miles away

“HE WASN’T HIDING THE BULKY ASS ORB IN HIS CLOTHING, YOUR EMINENCE”

“damn i really thought he was hiding it in his skintight pants and vest. also ignore the other two, they couldn’t possibly have it.”

oh lord pls don’t hurt rayfa

“Your mind has been poisoned by the barbed one.”

“It was an honour and pleasure, your eminence”

phoenix i know that was highly badass and all but youre literally sitting pretty to be executed

“”””discipline””””

“Well, Apollo, let’s head back to the safe house for now.”

yes, just in case any spies follow us! so that the queen can get her hands on the orb that much fast!!

oh hi edgeworht, youre in this game

WOO YOU TELL’EM EDGEY

DOWN WITH PLUMED PUNISHER!! DOWN WITH PLUMED PUNISHER!! DOWN WITH PLUMED PUNISHER!!

“Moving along to things that actually matter...”

it’s true, but he shouldn’t say it

“Yeah, it’s like the more we learn about this case, the less we understand.”

just like me and this game’s writing process

“A trial without evidence...”

there’s evidence, you wankers, what do you think that photo of amara, the old case files and the necklace are????

“Athena, you’re too young and extra to die. Sit this trial out so we can save on sprite space.”

“Gotcha, chief.”

“Plus, there’s prosecutor Blackquill to think of. he said he’d use me for sword practice if he put you in harms way.”

Yeah, if Athena dies, who’ll his new punching bag be??? don’t think i haven’t forgotten story teller. i will not forget. i will not forgive.

“Remember; the worst of times are when lawyers have to force their biggest smiles.”

ugh, finally it’s used semi right.

And so, we come to the end of another frustrating chapter. It’s finally time to move on to the final trial. I’m actually kind of curious to find out how everything went down– though something tells me my suffering won’t end when i do.

Welp, friends – till next time. The final hurdle is at hand. Or at least, part one of it.

#sulking over SOJ #ooc #we're almost done... just the final trial still to go...]#spirit of justice spoilers #soj spoilers

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fangirlingnextgen · 7 years

Photo

Hell can look appealing (part 2)

POV Alexis

January 3rd

I roll my eyes as Max walks away. Why does she have to be so dramatic? It’s just… Brandon.

“Your sister is the weird one!” He screams at her, even if she is already in the corridor.

“WHAT IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?” I yell. I am not weird!

“Why does she call us weird?” He prefers to ask, probably knowing like me that it would lead us to another one of our numerous fights. I don’t know if I miss them or not. I can’t really decide now, it’s only our second normal conversation. I need more time to make a decision about it… even if it means talking to him more… Something I don’t mind as much as I did before. “Do we,” Brandon goes on, “I mean I, look weird?” He touches his hair, looking like one of these narcissistic actors. I try to force a grimace but it is so ridiculous that I laugh anyway. “Right now you do.” Even stupid, but I forgive you because it makes me laugh.

“Excuse you!” He exclaims.

“I told you it would kill me!” I chuckle. It’s not even a lie. I hate apologizing.

“You think I could kill you?” He raises an eyebrow. “You’re the one running around with a bat.” Correction: Mom runs around with a bat. I just use anything as a possible weapon… including, that’s true, bats.

“You… could make me angry so much that I would have a heart attack. Or an asthma attack.”

“I don’t even have to do anything for that it seems. You should be glad I knew CPR.” He makes a proud face as I frown, confused. Why is he talking about CPR?

“You… what?”

“What? What part is confusing?” He asks, as lost as I am.

“Why are you talking about CPR?”

“How else did you think you woke up? My magic wand?” He makes a short pause before adding: “Wait that sounds wrong..uh.” It sounds indeed wrong, but that’s not what bothers me on the moment.

“Wait… you… used… CPR… on me… your lips…” I feel like I am going to faint, or throw up. That is just so gross. Brandon who… “ARGH OH MY GOD THAT’S DISGUSTING! IT’S LIKE YOU KISSED ME!”

He doesn’t seem surprised by my screaming as he quietly replies. “Correction: Saved your life, and you’re welcome.”

I start pacing up and down in front of him, letting my thoughts get out of my mouth. “HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO LOOK AT YOU NOW ?”

“As a hero? Your breath smelled like alcohol by the way.” I glance at him and see him shrugs. “Why is it such a problem? It didn’t mean anything.”

BECAUSE I AM A DRAMA QUEEN LIKE THE REST OF THE WOMEN OF MY FAMILY.

“I DRANK OF COURSE IT SMELLED ALCOHOL.” I only answer, keeping the drama queen story for me. He’s already making fun of me, so I better shut up. I suddenly stop, his last sentence finally getting to my brain. It didn’t mean anything. “Wait… you’re right.”

“Of course I am.” He says as if it was the most natural thing ever. And I just admitted he was…

“Fuck you.”

“No, it was just CPR darling.”

I frown at him, fighting the envy to kick him in the balls just because he annoys me. “Fuck you.” I repeat.

He sighs. “Do you ever learn?” The answer is so obvious that I don’t need to say anything. “But no awkwardness then? You didn’t tell anybody right?” He goes on. I don’t understand why he cares so much about people knowing anything about our interactions. We don’t care since they don’t mean anything… right?

“Max?” I only say.

He sighs again. “Of course…”

“I had to tell her. Or she wouldn’t break up with the other Ken.” I explain for no reason. I realise too late that he doesn’t need to know that. “What a shitty name.” I add, hoping he won’t ask questions about the first sentence.

“That is an idiot name.” He only comments. Thanks God, he doesn’t seem to care at all. “Fine.” He eventually says. “No wonder she thought we were weird then.”

We were not weird. We’re still not. I rather keep talking about my sister and her ex than that.

“For once we agree on something… I’m glad she found the courage to get rid of him. He was bad for her.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Is she okay?” Okay maybe he cares actually.

I shrug, minimizing how much he hurt Max. Brandon doesn’t need to know that. “She will. Being here and not see him will help I think.” Abort mission Lex, you’re talking way too much. “Anyway, I have to unpack, so option 1 you leave or option 2 you help.”

He smiles at me. Why the fuck is he smiling? Luckily it doesn’t last and he quickly goes back to his normal face. “I heard bras, I’ll help.” He winks. Of course he will. He really only thinks about sex or what? Every time he can, he shows how much of a pervert he is. I look at my suitcases. Uh oh… “Fuck i forgot in which suitcase I let my underwears…”

He laughs. “Don’t worry, I’ll yell when I find them, and will not touch them.” Yeah, sure.

“You’ll yell or get hard?” I ask in a jocular way, as I turn around and open the first suitcase.

“I don’t get excited that easily dear, it’s not something new or anything.” Ugh, I don’t need to know his sexual life. And when will it stop giving me pet names? It get my hackles up… probably the only reason why he does it. He gets to another suitcase and starts to unpack.

“Given that you jump on everything that moves, excuse me if I was wrong to think that.”

“Ah, wrong again. I flirt with almost everything that moves, yes..” He doesn’t finish his sentence.

“As long as it’s not with me.” I roll my eyes and start placing my clothes in the closet, a thought crossing my mind. He already did.

“Don’t flatter yourself.” He’s denying? Good, because I am determined to do the same. “Having to touch those lips was bad enough.” Given the tone his voice, he must be smirking.

“DON’T REMIND ME OF THAT THANK YOU.” I automatically scream, going back to the suitcase.

He laughs. “Oh finally some leverage.”

I take the first cloth in my suitcase and throw it at him. I start being done with him. “Fuck you.”

He grabs it, and I realize it is panties. Oh fuck. He holds it with just a few fingers, far away from him. “You make it look more and more like you actually want that to happen.” He says, wrinkling his nose. I’m personally glad to see we are on the same wavelength about that. (Who knows with Brandon, he always wants to get the girl.) The situation still is very awkward though. I take the panties back quickly and can’t help my cheeks from blushing. “Certainly not.” I stumble, trying to keep a normal voice but totally fail.

“Glad to hear so.” He coughs, which somehow reassures me. He feels as uncomfortable as me. “I think I’d better go. Homework and stuff..”

“Homework ? Does it mean you even do something of your life?”

“Yes. Yes I do. I don’t live to annoy just you, I have teachers and classmates for that too.” He looks almost tired by my constant barbs.

I think I surprise the both of us when I ask: “What do you study?” I gesture awkward. Everything is awkward now. Fuck. “Just curious.”

“Geometry and trigonometry.”

“Too much math. That’s boring.”

He looks vexed by my comment. Sorry man, I’m just saying the truth. Maths are boring. “Oh yeah? What do you like, besides making out with guards while drunk and burning cars?” He answers. Why don’t people stop with that burnt car? I didn’t burn it damnit! If they want to underline how much crazy I am, they can find another of my exploits! There are a lot of them!

“I didn’t burn the car, I told you.” If I repeat it enough, maybe he will stop with that. But probably not. He likes to do anything which could annoy me. Piece of shit. After a short pause, I answer his question. “I like medicine.” Maybe I enjoy too much his astonished face. You didn’t expect that piece of shit, huh? “You do? As in helping people?”

I can’t help it and smile devilishly. “As in opening human bodies.” I laugh at his face.

He shakes head. “Just when I thought you might be human…”

“More seriously I like that medicine is real science that helps people. Not like physics or even math… it’s too much theory.” I explain, ignoring him. I am too lazy to make a speech about what makes me human, including my violence. Sorry innocent little Brandon, but mankind is violent, it’s not something exclusive at my family.

“I can see your point yes..” He scratches back of head. Just when I started thinking the awkward moment was behind us. “It’s just all I do? I-I’ll find purpose some day.”

“You’re older than me and have no purpose, that’s kind of sad.” I notice, but not to make fun of him for once. It’s just a statement.

He looks hesitant, which intrigues me. “I know..I know..” He shakes his head. “I-I should go.” Is Brandon Jefford stuttering? I don’t know how to react at his sudden loss of confidence. This is not a behavior I am used to with him. I am not even used to having a normal conversation. As far as it is normal I guess…

I look down at my stuff, not daring to face him. “Hum… yeah.” I gesture at the stuff on the bed, which has barely changed since he arrived. “You’re not really helping anyway.” I quickly add, trying somehow to get away with this weird situation. To get away with this weird feeling.

“I don’t think you expected me to be any help.” He replies too seriously. Actually, yes. Why would I have asked him to help me if I didn’t? Pff… Idiot. “I’ll see you around I guess..” His shoulders slump as he turns around to walk away.

“I’ll try to be a little quieter.” I say without thinking twice. “But I can’t promise anything.” I make a little smile, internally yelling at myself. Why the fuck am I trying to be nice with this piece of shit? Since when do I care about what he feels?

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep right?” He grabs himself together and winks, but it isn’t natural.

“I’m just promising I’ll try. Not that I’ll succeed.” If I am awake at 3 am and in the mood to practice my music, I’ll do it for sure. But… I guess I can wear headphones when I play video games… and try not to scream. Gosh the last part will be hard. Why did I say that, I’m supposed to be intelligent…

“Good, good” He sounds more uncomfortable than ever, close to what I personally feel. “I’ll be uh next door. Bye Lex.”

“Bye Bran- piece of shit.” Damnit, I was going to say his name. Rather die than I let it happen one day! I hear him chuckle as he walks away. I look at the panties I am still holding and throw them in the laundry basket. What an idiot.

January 5th

I’ve been in the palace for two days, and it’s already a mess… at least in my bathroom. I opened all my vanity cases, threw everywhere my beauty products, breaking a cream pot in the process, and now it smells vanilla in the whole room (I buy everything with a vanilla scent, it’s my favorite perfume). Still. My shampoo is nowhere to be seen. I mean, yes I have shampoos, but not the ones I need. I grab a bottle of shampoo for dyed hair, wrinkling my nose. I am not hopeless enough to use that, certainly not. I look at the other bottles. My hair isn’t dry or greasy, I have no dandruff… I own all the shampoos for every capillary problem… except normal hair. I forgot normal hair. How could I forget normal hair, that’s the one I use the most! Then I remember that I finished the bottle Monday and just forgot to buy a new one before moving to the palace. I sigh. What do I do now? I won’t wash my hair with another shampoo type, no, rather shave it! I can’t ask Max, I always make sure she uses the assortment for curly hair. I won’t go out of the palace to buy some either, I will never have time to do my blow-dry before dinner. There is only one solution left. I have to borrow some to someone here. Hmm… who has normal shampoo in this palace? Probably a lot of people, they’re too stupid to take care of their hair correctly by buying the shampoo adapted to their hair type. Stupid stupid stupid… Of course! I have someone stupid just next to me! Brandon! This piece of shit must have normal shampoo! I immediately leave my room to go to his and knock on the door, impatient. “Hey piece of shit! I would need your help.” This last word should make him react for sure… but I get no answer and roll my eyes. I know he’s here, I heard him slam the door when he came back. And he is supposed to be the quiet neighbor… I open the door -not even locked, really an idiot. “You’re deaf or…” He’s laid on his bed, asleep. “Or just sleeping.” I sigh. Poor baby Brandon, so tired after his day at university. At the same time, he studies maths… really tiring indeed. He’s forgiven.

I slam the door behind me, but still get no reaction from him, except some weird sounds. I raise my eyebrows. “I didn’t think you were a heavy sleeper.” I say aloud, even if he can’t hear. I get closer and climb on the bed, standing above him. I try to ignore his muscled body, visible even with his shirt. After watching probably too long, I eventually clear my throat and scream to him to wake up -of course I don’t forget the “piece of shit”. He screams a loud and non masculine “AAAH”, slamming around and falling out of his bed. I burst out laughing. The way he fell… I regret not to have filmed that. Now he’s on the floor, his blanket around him. His sleepy face is almost cute. Almost -I’m not ready to admit that Brandon Jefford can be cute, okay? Or even… hot.

“What are you doing here?” He groans.

I’m here to annoy you and take advantage of it to check you out at the same time. If I stop lying to myself, it’s the only reason why I chose to borrow his shampoo.

“I need shampoo.” I only answer.

He looks at my body and blushes. “Uhm…” I frown. What’s the problem? He doesn’t like that I am standing on his bed? He shakes his head. “Yes… I have that.” I ignore his weird tone and jump off the bed. “Cool!”

“You sure you want to smell like me?” He asks getting up.

I don’t really have the choice idiot. I can almost feel my hair begging to be washed.

“I’m too lazy to go to Max’s room.” I lie. “And I hate her shampoo. Strawberry perfume, ugh.” Telling that is easier than explaining the differences between her shampoo and mine. And he’s a man.. how can he understand that?

“No who would want something sweet huh?” He sighs and I notice he looks everywhere except at me. I stare at him, trying to guess what’s his problem with my body. I place my hands on my hips. “Are you okay?”

“Uh.. yes of course! Don’t I look okay?” He makes a bright smile but it looks fake. I roll my eyes. “Nah you don’t look okay, you’re avoiding to look at me.”

“I’m just uh respecting your choice of clothing by not staring?”

I frown. What’s the problem with my choice of clothing? I wear that everyday… but he doesn’t see it. That’s the principle of underwears… I’m so used to walking around like that that I didn’t notice I was going to his room in underwears. “Ohhhhh.” I say when I understand. Then I shrug. “I wouldn’t mind if you looked.” It’s just a human body, man. Grow up a little. You saw other girls wearing less than that before me, and they were probably hotter. It’s nothing, really.

“It’s weird.” He says, taking off his vest and throwing it at me. Men said a lot of things about my body, but I’ve never heard weird. Thank you Jefford for remembering me you are a piece of shit.

I throw the vest away. “It’s too warm here.” I only answer, which isn’t even a lie. And I feel good dressed like that, I won’t put a vest on just because he doesn’t like it. “They don’t have air conditioning in this palace?”

“No not really.” He walks over the bathroom. I follow him.

“I feel like I’m roasting.” I go on.

“Yes… you’re right, maybe I should open a window.” Finally he admits I’m right! It’s like hell here!

“You should.” I agree.

He throws me the shampoo -always so gentle- and walks over a window to open it quickly. I rub the top of my head with a grimace. I received the bottle on the head. He’s not even able to aim correctly.

“Bran, have you seen your mo-” It’s Uncle Ray, who entered without being heard. He’s good at being discreet… and now he’s looking at us like we’re aliens.

Brandon turns his head in the direction of his father’s voice. He’s as red as the bra I bought for Max.

Uncle Ray blinks seeing me. “Oh no… I-Uh-” Always so good with words…

I smile. “Hey Uncle Ray! How are you doing?”

“A little uncomfortable at the moment.” He clears his throat. “Brandon?”

Brandon groans and rubs his forehead. “She just walked in dad. I swear..”

There’s something I don’t understand. I hate not understanding. What’s the fucking problem now? I probably said something aloud because Brandon gives me an angry glance. I keep my “fuck you” for me.

“Brandon, do you have any idea what your mom… and Tracie…!”

I frown and decide to finally ask what’s the problem. “Why would mom be involved? I just wanted shampoo.” I’m old enough to handle my hair problems without her… I am even the one who helps her with hers.

Uncle Ray sighs. “You’re your mother’s child…”

“It doesn’t sound like a compliment.” Being compared to her is rarely a compliment. They have been knowing her for years but sometimes she is just the psycho for them. I’ve always admired her but I guess not everybody does.

“I wonder why..” Brandon says.

“Fuck you.” Don’t insult my mother asshole. Yours eats brownies all day! That is not normal.

“Just-” Uncle Ray starts. “I’ll walk away now.” He turns around shaking his head.

“See at you at dinner!”

“Uh yes, please change before then.” And he leaves without saying anything else. Once I’m sure he’s far away, I ask Brandon. “Why do I feel so lost?”

He scratches the back of his head. “You feel lost? You?” He shakes his head, mumbling. “Oh never mind.” He goes back to the bedroom and picks up the vest I threw away.

“A little bit, yes.” I answer following him. I prefer to ignore his last sentence.

“Why?”

“I don’t get what is the problem. Your father and you were acting so weird.”

“You’re in your underwear!!!” He screams. What? It’s always that the problem? I’ll stop wearing them if they mind so much… pff.

“And?”

“I give up.”

I roll my eyes at his behavior. “C’mon, you saw hundreds of girls in their underwears. It shouldn’t touch you so much.”

He gets angry. “Hundreds?! So you’re trying to make fun of me or something?”

I stay strangely calm when I answer, but I already know that it won’t last. The fight is coming. “No. I just exaggerated. Something I often do, in case you didn’t notice.”

“Why not just wear clothes huh?” Because I was about to take my shower and was in underwears when I realized I didn’t have shampoo? “What is your point!” He exclaims.

“I’m just saying you got many girlfriends. That’s all.”

“Sure. Fine. Real original.”

“I’m not trying to be original.”

“Succeeded.”

“You’re annoying.” I sigh. His anger just doesn’t make any sense.

“So what? This is what we do? Annoying each other?” I hold back a “yes” as he goes on. “And you do that by walking around half naked?!”

I finally start screaming. “I just came for shampoo! Why does it drive you so mad?!” If he wasn’t so complicated, I would be already gone and washing my hair!

“You’re impossible!!”

“You’re even more impossible!” I yell back.

“Well if I dated so many girls, you’re more impossible than all of them!!”

And now he has a problem with the fact I think he dated a lot of girls! He should rather feel proud! Is it not a compliment?

“It’s not complicated, you never stay long enough with them to discover how a pain in the ass they can be!”

He gets closer to me. We’re face to face now. “I heard you are just as bad!”

“I have good reasons! I doubt you do!”

“What reasons?” He asks. “At least I stay friends with most of them!”

Men are just selfish idiots who don’t care about hurting people, especially girls. Not getting too close just enables not to become one of this naive girls with a broken heart. And Brandon Jefford is on the top of the list. And he can still die to know that. I look down and ball my fists, and surprisingly, it makes him calm down. “Wha-what? I’m sorry Lex.. are you okay?”

“You? Sorry?”

He sighs. “I try?”

“Then keep trying.” I say nastily, taking the shampoo. “I should go.”

I think he didn’t expect me to clam up. I can hear regret in his voice when he replies. “Oh right, okay.. Good luck washing her hair?” He adds with embarrassment. If he thinks it will save the situation, he is kidding himself.

“It won’t be difficult, my hair is short.”

“My room is the closest.. If you wanna… you know talk or something.” It must be a surprising proposal coming from him, but I stay cold.

“No thank you.”

“No sure.. Good, I didn’t want to listen anyway.”

“Fuck you.”

He smiles, and somehow it makes me want to smile too. But then he says. “That works.” which makes me groan. “What works?”

“Uh…” What lie is he preparing? “The shampoo! Great for volume, look at this!” He runs his hands through his hair. “Huh? Huh?”

He looks so stupid that I can’t help but laugh lightly. “I’m not sure it works then.”

He smiles. “See you at dinner, smelling like me.” He winks. Idiot. The smell of the conditioner will cover the one of the shampoo.

“Pff…” I only say, and leave without waiting for an answer.

Few hours later, I am quietly painting my nails in pink, set on my bed. My hair is now brighting and perfectly brushed. I feel so much better.

Barbara is sleeping next to me, on a pillow. She loves big pillows like that. This dog is such a diva. Suddenly she raises her head and barks at the closed door, which opens on Max.

“I need to talk.” She says with a panicked voice. I blow on the hand I just paint and pat the bed with the other one. She comes there quickly, doing her awful puppy look. It’s almost impossible to resist to that face. That’s probably how she charmed all her exes…

“Do I need to kill someone?” I ask nonchalantly.

She rolls her eyes. “I need to talk, nothing more Lex.”

“Okay okay. Talk then.”

But as I still blow on my hand, nothing comes. She stays incredibly silent.

“Max?”

“I KISSED DANTE!” She screams out of nowhere. “Well… he kissed me…”

Oh fuck. I really didn’t need that. I look at my feet. The pedicure won’t be for now. I sigh and look up at her. “Tell me everything.”

January 10th

“Where are you going?”

Max enters my room. During two seconds, I hope it is actually Brandon, coming to annoy me or just to talk. I shake my head. I think about this idiot too often, I want to see this idiot too often. My twin raises an eyebrow, reading in me as always.

“He’s not in the palace, even I know that.” She tells me.

I frown. I know too, I heard him leave in the morning, probably to go to college.

“Anyway, you didn’t answer. Where are you going?”

She points my bag on the bed and the stuff in my hands. Curious Max is not what I need right now. I think it’s time for a distraction.

“Have you talked to Dante yet?”

She immediately blushes but looks maybe a little bit sad. “Uhm not since…”

“Your drunk party. Got it.” I nod, smirking. I like teasing her about Dante. I noticed the glares she gave him few months ago. At the beginning, I used that as an once of the several reasons she should break up with Ken. “Max, you can’t have a crush on a guy who’s not your boyfriend!” And now… it’s a little bit more complicated. It’s still funny to make her blush about it, but they kissed and I wonder if a serious relationship is possible for them. As long as she’s happy, I guess it’s okay… Even if this guy seems to be a mess. She always dates messes. And I always have to clean up after.

“You aren’t avoiding him at least?” I ask, putting a grenade in my bag while she’s looking somewhere else.

“I can’t avoid someone who stays in his room all day long.”

Thanks for this answer, Max. You’re avoiding him.

“And I can’t avoid someone who’s not there either.” I say. She perfectly knows who I am talking about. Oh fuck, she’s gonna ask questions. Time to disappear. I take my bag. Damn, I didn’t think it would be so heavy. “See you… probably tomorrow.”

She crosses her arms and blocks the door. I sigh. I don’t need stubborn Max either.

“Are you going outside without me?” She looks shocked. I understand. I would be already screaming if she was leaving the palace to do a dirty trick in town without me. But she just can’t go with me this time.

“Yep. Take care of Barbara for me.” My French bulldog raises her head from her basket, hearing her name, and barks. Stupid dog. I wanted her to bark at Brandon’s door to wake him up but all she can do is sleep and eat. I feel like I own the dog version of Max.

My sister squints. “I’ll have my revenge.”

“There are more chances Dante takes you to a date than it happens.” I laugh and get out of my room.

“I hate you, Alexis!” Max screams.

I wave at her and disappear in the corridors.

I look at the tree I have to climb. How will I do that with my small and non muscled body? I shake my head and adjust my backpack. Max should stop dating weird guys. Every time I have to get revenge for her. I don’t know how I succeed, but I climb that stupid tree, with the skin of my hands all grazed. I ignore the pain and sit on a large branch, taking my binoculars. From where I am, I have a great view on Ken’s bedroom. The asshole is there, working at his desk. He can work, surprising. He doesn’t look in my direction, good. I take the grenade in my bag. I hope I won’t miss my launch, I have only one chance. Okay, Lex, you can do it. I pull the pin out of the grenade and throw it through his window, luckily open. I watch the gas contained in the grenade spill in his room. In ten seconds, he’ll be sleeping like a baby. I smile when I see him fall against his desk.

“Thank you so much, Mom.” I say out loud. She creates great weapons. I just hope she didn’t notice that a sleeping grenade was missing before she left for Swendway.

I wrinkle my nose when a thought suddenly crosses my mind.

HOW WILL I GET DOWN OF THIS TREE NOW?

I look down at the grass. Goodness, this is so high. I take a deep breath. Okay Lex. You climbed until here. So you can go down. I look into the bag, praying to find the grappling iron. Obviously I forgot it. I curse and wrap my arm around the trunk. I don’t really have the choice anyway. Or I call 911 and I explain what I was doing here. Hm… I already dealt too much with the police. Let’s climb down and hope not to die.

I successfully climb down, until the last two meters. Or maybe three meters. Anyway, I break a branch and miserably fall on the ground, obviously on the ass. I insult all the mothers of the world while I rub my poor ass. Probably flattened until my death.

I stop complaining and take the binoculars again, turning on the thermal view to check the inside of the house. There’s nobody except Ken. Good.

I unlock their main door with a credit card and enter, half disappointed. It’s so easy that it’s getting a little boring.

I go upstairs and look for the bathroom. Quickly find it and seek for an electric razor. Go to his room and smirk at his thick hair, laid on the desk.

The revenge may start.

On my way back to the palace, hours later, I can’t help but sing softly, feeling light. I did what I had to do for Max. And now I know for sure that he won’t stalk her or something.

I feel so light that I don’t notice that he comes back at the same time as me. I scream when he appears in the middle of the bushes. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

“Shhhhhhuuuuuuussssshhhh” He says, looking a bit tipsy. “I just had a little fun.”

I raise an eyebrow. “A little fun, that’s right.” Can’t be as fun as my fun though.

“You?” He gives me a nudge.

“Got my revenge on someone.” I answer coldly. He doesn’t need to know more. Every time I see him, he finds a way to make me tell something I wouldn’t usually.

“What did you do now?” He laughs.

“You don’t need to know.”

“You never tell me anything huh?”

“Because I feel like it’s a bad idea to tell you things.” I answer honestly.

“You don’t trust me?”

I do, that’s all the problem.

“I don’t trust myself.”

“What? Why?”

Because I am talking to you and enjoying it piece of shit.

“If I tell you something, I can’t help telling something else, until you know things I don’t want anyone to know.” I don’t know what makes me so direct tonight. I don’t watch my words like I usually do when someone is around. I am close to confide things to him to be honest. Things I keep secret. But I don’t mind as much as I should.

“You burned a car and I know that. How bad can it be?”

Why does he keep bringing the burning car story?

“I didn’t burn any car.”

“Right.” He looks down. “Sorry.”

“But… I maybe got my revenge from the one who did it.” I say before thinking, a smile strangely playing on my lips.

“That’s awesome!” He shouts, raising a hand for a high five. “I mean… Uh kinda cool?”

The smile grows up. “That’s incredible.”

He keeps his hand raised, waiting for that high five. He looks pathetic.

“Why would you deserve a high five?” I tease. “I did it on my own.”

“Rude! I wanted to celebrate with you!”

I roll my eyes and raise my hand.

“Yes!” He exclaims, now looking like a happy puppy.

“You’re an idiot.” But I make the high five.

“Won’t deny it.” A curious light appears in his eyes. “So what did you do to the guy?”

With a sigh, I tell him the story.

And a lot more.

I need approximately two days to understand that he is avoiding me.

When he first ran away after that night, I didn’t mind, too happy that I didn’t have to face him after what I told him, after I cried in his arms, after I showed him my weakness. I was secretly thanking him for that, I needed time to think alone.

I figured that Brandon Jefford made me like him.

When he avoided to look at me during the dinner, while I was right next to him, it arranged me. I was too afraid to stupidly blush like a thirteen-year-old girl with her first crush if he looked at me. He left the table before everyone, and I watched him disappear, wondering how I could have such mixed feelings for him, powerful and frightening at the same time.

I figured that Brandon Jefford made me fall for him.

When I went to his room and knocked on his door, I was way too hopeful. The shampoo I was holding was just an excuse to talk to him, to see his damn charming smile again. Seeing he wasn’t answering to my knocking, I turned the doorknob, ready to enter on my own. But it was locked. I frowned and looked down… and saw his shadow under the door. I dropped the shampoo. He didn’t want to see me, or to have anything to do with me. I stepped back until I was leaning against the wall, and let myself slump on the carpet of the corridor, the warm tears burning my cheeks as they rolled down.

I figured that Brandon Jefford made my heart break into pieces.

#happy birthday cass!!!#party 4

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