#i think its more of babys programming and the desperation for her father to love her rather than being a sadistic fuck
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The virgin ""Elizabeth is a spoiled brat manipulative bitch evil mastermind"" vs the chad "Elizabeth did bad things and was manipulative but can we also stop pretending that she's this very evil mastermind"
#elizabeth afton#fnaf#fnaf sister location#y'all forget that willaim didnt abuse and manipulated only michael#he was abusive neglectful and manipulative to all of his children#he literally allowed other guards to shock baby despite the fact that he knew she was possessed by her#y'all know that electric shocks are literally torture to them it's the reason why the animatronics were so desperate to get out#she also thought he was william and she had every right to be vengeful towards him#then in fnaf 6 her personality changes goes from vengeful to wanting to make william proud#and agreeing to kill people for it#however i don't think it was completely elizabeth tho babys programming to kill children could of had currpoted her more#i think its more of babys programming and the desperation for her father to love her rather than being a sadistic fuck#also how is she a spoiled brat#sure she kept insisting on seeing baby but william lied to her that he made her just for her#absolutely she was gonna want to see a seemingly harmless and cool animatronic that was said to have been made for her#“the books said so--”“ bla bla bla idc
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technoblade speedrunning adopting ranboo (high school edition): the fanfic
also on ao3!
hey remember this post? well i got so attatched and impatient that i wrote over 1k words for a pilot type chapter for it <3
chapter one: officer in my defense i punched that guy because he deserves it
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Techno Blade-Minecraft would call himself smart. He got good grades without trying, learned second, then third languages with ease, read textbooks for fun, etcetera etcetera. Wisdom without experience was a rare thing to possess, especially in a high school senior but techno had it tight in his grasp, easily making him a ‘Model Student’. He understood he got unneeded attention from that, which sucked, but it was an easy trade-off to be the automatic teacher’s favourite.
But Techno was a man of wisdom, not a man of sense. So naturally, he remembered a fact about baby birds he learnt when he was six years old:
‘Classical "imprinting", as seen with for example, ducks or geese, means that the animal's instinctive programming says "the first big animal you see after hatching is your mom, follow them and look to her for food, warmth, love and learning’
Actually, Techno decided he was the man of Most Sense because at that very moment, the tallest, yet somehow weakest looking freshmen he’d ever seen was being cornered by a group of hefty looking seniors.
And the baby bird, with its innocent, scared eyes was looking right at him.
He looked around the hallway, a desperate scan for other students he could push his growing parental responsibility on to. It was a ghost town, as empty as the remakes of towns from the old west he saw on childhood school excursions.
‘Fuuuuuuuuuuck.’
Technoblade took a deep breath in through his nose, then released it out of his mouth like if he breathed hard enough, his empathy could be taken away with the non existent wind in the soul-crushing grey hallways. It obviously didn’t work because Jesus Christ that kid looked helpless.
As quickly as one could without compromising a freshmen’s still intact nose, Techno examined the seniors. They all wore the school football team’s letterman jacket (‘what is this, Heathers?’), a classic pointer for internalized insecurity, toxic masculinity and most importantly unrightfully self diagnosed Strong Guy syndrome, which meant that they definitely were only beating up a freshmen because that was the most they could actually fight. One point to Technoblade. They also were all at least a solid five inches shorter than him, which Techno would have laughed at if the situation wasn’t so dire. Point two for Technoblade.
Catching himself before letting his wandering mind think up a full five paragraph M.L.A sighted essay to why he could crush these nerds, he decided that two points was enough leverage to still crush these nerds, but with slightly less confidence.
With as much patience as he could, he slowly walked up to the group like a silent lion hunting his soon to be, very dead* (maybe not dead, *slightly bruised) prey. The baby bird, trapped in one of his prey’s chokehold, stared at him like he was a madman. Techno’s objective changed: knock out the dickhead choking a kid.
They stood in a corner, the choker in the middle, the other two blocking off the only escapes and laughing cruelly at the baby bird. Completely distracted.
Techno curled his fist, aiming to punch that asshole’s teeth in or at least break his nose. He starts to run, about five feet away from his target and oh god this is a terrible idea he does fencing not hand to ha-
BAM.
Choker’s nose made a resounding crack and fell back onto the jock on the left. Probably because it’d be ‘too gay’, or whatever, the guy sidesteps and lets a knocked out, nose broken, probably popular kid by comparing his ego to the size of his dick, fall onto the ground
The two awake bullies look between their knocked out friend, then at Techno, then at each other.
“MISS NIIIIHACHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!”
Techno knew they’d call a teacher because they’re cowards but really? Nihachu?
That lady is TERRIFYING what did he do to deserve this.
He let out a long, disappointed ‘bruh’ before with a jolt, remembering the whole reason he punched that jock in the first.
The child.
He doesn’t bother trying to pick up him up because holy hell he’s tall, but pulls one of the kid’s arms over his shoulder, and with his other arm holds their waist and sprints as fast as he can down the hall.
“What the…” murmurs the half dead lump on his back, and while Techno’s surprised his vocal chords aren’t dead? Not even a ‘thank you’? Techno thinks he should start doing charity work at this point.
He continues to run though, because he’s a generous soul, until slowing to open a door that opens the blinding sunlight of the free world outside their prison.
Despite himself, Techno lets his mouth slip into a big enough smile that actually shows his teeth because he just did that. His celebratory moment is cut off though, because the weight on his back suddenly felt even heavier and-
Oh my God the baby bird just fell asleep on me.
Am I a father now?
What do I tell Phil? Does this make him a grandfather?
I can’t just take him home.
What’s stopping you?
Oh my God, I’m a genius.
Techno may be a proclaimed genius, but he is not immune to the inherent propaganda of cute children, so he sets down the kid on the least grimey part of a battered metal bench to get his first proper look at the sleeping giant.
Apart from his injuries (a bleeding nose, bruises forming on his arms, a black eye and a red handprint on his neck) the kid looked… Weird. Techno had subconsciously noticed it while carrying him, but only now the complete oddity of him. His skin from the jaw down was a uniform, warm, dark brown, which was decidedly normal, but his face was… different. Not ugly, no, he looked average, if not perpetually awkward, even in his sleep. The right side of his face was a similar, if not slightly darker tone than the rest of his skin, but where it got weird weird was from the middle of his face and leftward, his face was pale. As pale as Techno, which is saying something because Techno himself has albinism; he has no melanin in his skin.
He found himself sympathizing for the kid again. Techno himself got bullied for his reddish eyes - a symptom of his albinism, and his naturally stark-white skin and hair. It got to the point that he dyed his hair pink, which decidedly made it worse because a guy dying his hair pink ? apparently high school treason to both students and the school rules. His bullies had a colourful range of insults, at least; Techno’s personal favourites being from after he died his hair: homophobic slurs. The teachers had constant complaints and even a couple suspensions, which didn’t stop Techno, obviously. What a wonder public school is.
So yes, Techno understood the baby bird, because despite Techno’s only weakness being himself (and apparently non-threatening freshmen?) as of now, it wasn’t like he came out of the womb a scary pink haired senior. He knew bullying like the hair dye aisle at his local department store.
He knew that helping the kid would make him more attached to the point of no return, but he’d accepted it. It felt like feeding a wild animal more food after making the mistake the first time, it’s not like it’ll get less annoying to have it following you around.
The moment Techno processed his own thought, his face blanched - somehow getting whiter despite literally being the textbook definition of a white boy.
He’d fallen into the ‘senior adopting a defenseless freshmen’ trap.
Shit.
Even more embarrassingly, this didn't deter Techno from pulling his first aid kit, for once his anxious over-packing doing some good.
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acording to tumblr statistics, only a small percentage of people who like the post actually reblog it. so if you liked it, give it a reblog! it takes five seconds and you can always delete the reblog later.
#mcyt#mcyt fanfic#mcyt au#technoblade#ranboo#nihachu#dream smp#mcytblr#sleepyblr#philza#homophobia tw#bullying tw#violence tw#minecraft youtubers#baby bird au
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say so | knj & ksj [m]
! — COMMISSION — !
❥ — pairing: namjoon x reader x seokjin
❥ — genre: poly, 1950s au/rockabilly au, smut, childhood f2l, angst, fluff, musician!namjin, burlesque!mc
❥ — words: 24.5k+
❥ — rating: 18+
❥ — warnings: light angst, pining, smut !!!; oral (all kinds), anal, fingering, squirting, multiple orgasms, edging, light switch!joon, light switch!oc, harder dom!jin, double pentration, cockwarming, reverse cowgirl etc.... if I forgot sometihng I will add it later but for now this is it fellas.
❥ — notes: oh my god I am FINALLY ejecting this fic from my brain !!! part of the reason this took so long was, of course, the current circamstances across the world mixed in with a few personal factors, but also because I haven’t written a ‘historical’ fic before and I wanted to make sure I got it right ! of course, that somehow ended with me going way over word count so i am so sorry for that, but i truly hope you like it! I haven’t gone over it yet but i will do that later, i just wanted to post and get this fic out of my asshole
Returning to your hometown for a week is something you’ve managed to avoid for three years, but when you can finally put it off no longer you find upon arrival the very thing you were scared of encountering. When the two famous childhood friends you haven’t spoken to in years have returned at the same time as you, you can’t quite tell whether you’re going to be able to make it out in one piece or emerge with a heart more wounded than before.
Especially since it turns out the feelings you thought you were over never quite went away.
— masterlist | posted; 17.08.2020
You didn’t really expect to find yourself back here so soon, but here you are— everything in your room is in exactly the same state as it was three years ago.
The covers on your bed, the magazine cuttings, faded posters and hand-painted canvases that mark the phases of your youth hung on your wall—even the light-toned floral wallpaper and the little knickknacks atop your dresser are the same. It makes something like nostalgia rise within you, a reminiscent haze filtering through your thoughts. It has been too long since you’ve been back here, and the guilt that always lingers in the back of your mind now pushes its way to the forefront. You feel bad, not having been back to your childhood home in so long, despite the reasons you had for moving away.
You haven’t been here all that long, but as soon as you finished talking with your parents downstairs your feet had carried you here, more out of habit that anything. Absentmindedly, you brush your hand over the oak of your dresser, curious when your fingertip comes back without a single speck of dust. Your mother must have come through often to clean. The realisation both warms your heart and compounds the guilt you feel, making you frown. In an effort to distract yourself, you turn your gaze back to the rest of your old room, catching sight of a few photographs plastered above your study desk. You know what they contain, and still you can’t seem to help yourself as you draw closer and peer at them anew. They’re just as familiar to your eyes as you expected.
Of course, in this house you’d be lucky to find a photograph of you that didn’t also have these two in it.
Your eyes skip over the older ones with yellowing glaze and curled corners to focus on the most recent-looking image, drinking in the two boys you’d spent the entirety of your childhood and teen years with. Easily your best friends, until… well, until three years ago. A fond smile fights its way to your lips; you remember when this was taken. Your mother had lined the three of you up for a photo in the yard but at the very last second they’d pushed you into the pool. Both boys stand tall in the image, but you’d recognise the taller one with the goofy grin anywhere, even if his face wasn’t already plastered across newspapers and featuring on the television every other evening. Namjoon is just as boyish in the image as you recall, and next to him where they stand laughing over the pool is Seokjin, appearance every bit as neat and clean as you’ve glimpsed in recent years when he has featured in a magazine or program that is particularly popular with the youth. It was always a bit weird to you, a little hard to process, that the two boys you’ve known since the three of you were in diapers are now pretty much, well… celebrities. Something bubbles in your chest, the pressure of a sigh but the weight of something you’re not quite ready to name yet. Distantly, in the back of your mind, a tiny part of you whispers that it tastes a little like regret, and sounds a little like yearning.
Growing up, the two of them had discovered an affinity for music, and you for the arts. You suppose that small difference is what eventually led to the distance that grew between you, before you left— if not for the fact that they found the limelight so naturally and built popularity quicker than anticipated after their individual musical debuts. It really didn’t take them all that long to begin steadily growing their fanbase within the youth of your town, their songs played more and more often on local stations. Before long people even a few cities over caught wind of them, but you didn’t get to see it. By the point they had spread their wings that far, you were already gone.
You wrinkle your nose, not liking this sudden trip down a particular lane in your memory that you’ve been avidly avoiding the past three years. Taking a step back from the desk that the photographs hang above, you desperately search for something else to capture your attention. Fortunately for you, a voice sounds behind you before you can flounder too long.
“Wow, I can’t believe you actually came. How long has it been, forty years?”
You jump slightly, the familiarity of the voice and sheer amount of attitude in the words allowing you to recognise it instantly. You spin, eyes quickly locking onto the familiar head of straight blonde hair and cherubic features that belong to your sister. You’ve kept in touch with her via letter and the occasional call, but other than that this is the first time you’ve seen her in years. She’s a little bit taller than you remember, and she’s filled out a little more now that she’s no longer a gangly teen. You are surprised though to note the absence of the usual distressed denim that she favoured throughout the years. Instead she’s in a neat pair of capris that rise to the dip of her waist, where she has tucked in a bright red blouse beneath a belt. Out of habit, you look down to her feet and catch a glimpse of red canvas shoes that instantly make you want to laugh; your mother never could get her into a pair of heels, even if she managed to get her out of the dungarees that she used to love so much. Lisa smiles cheekily beneath your scrutiny, opening her arms wide. With a laugh, you throw your own around her, pulling her into a tight hug.
“You’re so dramatic,” you retort, rolling your eyes even though she can’t see it. “Of course I would come to celebrate my own sister’s engagement. I had to see it with my own eyes to believe it.”
“Why does everyone say the same thing when I talk about it?” Lisa groans, pulling back with a familiar pout that seems to have survived her transition into young adulthood. She slips her arm through your own, giving your bicep a smack as she leads you from the room. “It’s not that hard to believe that I’m getting married! Also— what on earth have you been up to all these years? Have you been attending classes? You’re in such good shape, oh my goodness—”
Unwittingly, your cheeks flush; you probably shouldn’t tell her the real reason for your current physique lest she blab with champagne-loosened lips about it to the rest of your family at her party. Sober Lisa is the only one that knows how to keep a secret, as you’ve found out through a number of shamefully scrawled confessions in the letters she would send you. A number of things you’d confided in her over the years have since been aired like dirty laundry to some of her friends, much to your mutual regret.
“Uh, yeah. Something like that,” you say dismissively, quickly returning to the previous topic as the two of you descend the stairs. “And it’s probably because of all those things you said when you were younger, like how you’d rather live in a mud hut on a deserted island than ever marry a smelly boy riddled with cooties—”
“Ah, yes,” Lisa sighs, the sound more fond and less ashamed than you were expecting. “Those were the days— I was such a badass little ankle-biter. What has become of me? I must be the one riddled with cooties at this point.”
“Probably,” you muse, catching sight of your mother behind the kitchen counter and shooting her a smile as you move past. Lisa is lucky she hadn’t spoken too loudly or else she’d be getting a light smack for her language. It never seemed to stop her when she was younger though, so you doubt it would have an effect now either.
“A skirt at the knee, y/n?” Your mother lets out a dramatic, scandalous gasp upon seeing you. “I don’t even know who you are anymore.”
“These are the clothes that you greeted me in?” You give her a pained look; apparently you need readjusting to her oddball sense of humour. She’s always been a little out of place in the straight-laced, conservative society that marks this day and age; your father too, except he was just a bit more sneaky about it. Actually, now that you think about it, Namjoon and Seokjin’s parents were always a little more on the liberal side too… What an odd coincidence that the three families ended up in a row at the end of the same cul-de-sac.
You’re not deigned with a response, your mother smacking her hands onto the apron she has tied over her baby blue skirt and turning to the oven. You think you hear her muttering about ‘time’ and ‘darn apple pies always taking too long to cook’ and can’t help the way your mouth waters in response. Gods, is it bad if one of the things you missed the most while away is the apple pies your mother makes?
You turn to Lisa, about to ask her whether the apple pie is something you’re going to be able to steal a piece of, only to find that she’s disappeared into thin air. Fantastic. You’re not staying here while you’re back in town, so you’re unsure whether you’re going to be able to cash in on dinner or whether your mother will hold it over your head a little first. You wander over to the edge of the kitchen, sticking your head into the living room to peer around; you’re curious as to just how much has changed in the time that you’ve been gone. Not as much as you might have hoped, to your chagrin.
“You still have that ugly old thing,” you observe, unable to help the way that your nose wrinkles in response to the sight of the monstrosity still wearing holes into the carpet of the living room.
“My love,” you mother says, giving you an (affectionate) sharp smack on the shoulder as she slips past you, shooting you a bright grin when the thickness of her skirt knocks you slightly. Apparently she’s finished in the kitchen for now; you glance back to see a bowl of nuts joining the bowl of fruit that had been on the counter earlier. “I’d sooner perish than give up your grandmother’s armchair. Besides…. I do so adore how it never fails to draw your ire.”
“I do hate that thing,” your father utters suddenly from the kitchen behind you, his hand reaching for the bowl of fruit; he has his glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, so you figure he must have retired to his study to read after greeting you earlier. He moves just as fast as you remember— your mother didn’t even have a chance to stop him before he was gone as quick as he came, hands full of whatever fruit he couldn’t fit in his mouth.
“You—!”
The sound of your father’s laughter tumbles off the walls, and you can’t help the smile that tugs your lips. You did miss this; the liveliness, the feeling of home.
“y/n, dear, darling, light of my life…”
You turn to your mother, already knowing what is coming next from her tone. One thing you definitely didn’t miss—
“I forgot when I went past earlier, but could you go and fetch some cream from Barb’s? You know, that little store on the corner, down the road from the diner you always used to—”
You’re already turning towards the front of the house, heading for where you’d left your purse with a fond roll of your eyes. “I know where Barb’s is, Ma! I only went away to study, I didn’t lose my memories!”
Your mother’s cheeky laugh is what bids you farewell as you duck out the door and start on your way.
X – x – x
You’d forgotten just how tempting the treats in Barb’s are.
When you exit the small corner store around an hour or so later (it was hardly any distance to walk, but of course Mrs. Park was keen to hold you hostage long enough to squeeze every single detail out of you she could about your time away) it’s with an overflowing paper bag in your arms that holds more than just the cream your mother sent your for. One look at the apple Danish pastries and cinnamon-sprinkled goodies behind the glass of her counter and you’d been unable to help yourself. Your mother did always say that your sweet tooth would be your undoing.
Walking through the streets that you grew up becoming so familiar with breeds a certain kind of yearning that swells in your chest and borders on painful. This, you suspect, is because most— if not all— of your memories of this place are intrinsically linked with those of the two men who used to take up such a big part of your life; and that therefore then left such a big hole when they were gone.
It’s hard not to fall into them, the memories. The candy store where the three of you would scrounge up as many coins as you could and pile them all together to get the best sweets on the shelves; the library where you spent as much time goofing off and getting scolded as you did studying in your senior years; even the drive-in cinema, where you used to take your parents cars for the evening and sit on the hood while poking fun at the latest flick to grace the screen. Being back here is making you face something that you have somehow skilfully managed to avoid up until now—
You miss them, Seokjin and Namjoon. You miss your best friends.
This is something that is hammered home further when you reach the point in your journey home where you pass the place featured most in your memories. Dana’s Dinery, probably the only thing more constant in your life than those two boys and your own family. The pink and red hues of its name and the exposed bulbs decorating the signage are something you remember clear as day, and just the sight of it alone has your mouth watering for the burgers and other fried goods they loved to serve there. The kind of food you know is terrible for you, but that you also just can’t get enough of nonetheless. You’ve spent so many nights there that at some point every single member of staff there knew you by name. Of course, since the three of you were barely seen apart at that time, they knew Seokjin and Namjoon, too.
You’re tempted to duck in and say hello, and before you can even give it much thought your feet are already angling you in that direction, short heels scuffing against the pavement. Through the window you can see the familiar shiny red booth seats and the similarly upholstered stools that line the counter; behind it is a woman with wild, dark curls thrown back in a bun, a pencil behind her ear. Ah, so Mrs. Cara still works there. A petal of affection unfurls in your chest at the sight of her, but drops to the ground in the next second as your gaze slides to the side and halts on two figures currently seated at the counter.
No way. No way.
You freeze, eyes wide as you stand rooted to the spot for just a moment. You know that logically, they can’t be here, but the profiles you can just barely glimpse from this distance are so eerily familiar to that of Namjoon and Seokjin that you think your heart skips perhaps one too many beats. For some reason, your stomach roils with the urge to flee; you just got around to admitting that you miss them, and yet the second you think you might be seeing them, you want to run away? Honestly, it doesn’t make sense—wouldn’t make sense to anyone else privy to the thoughts currently whipping through your mind.
But you’re a master at stewing in your own thoughts and feelings, familiar with dissecting them until you understand them to the best of your ability at the time. So you know why you promptly turn on your heel and begin hastily back on your way home, abandoning any plans to go inside the diner. You know why, but you’re not quite ready to dwell on it yet, so you push it to the backburner and do your very best not to think about it the whole walk back.
X – x – x
You’re ashamed.
A huff escapes you, your eyes boring into the ceiling, unfocused. After delivering the cream to your mother (and promptly having the extra sweets confiscated until after dinner, lest you snack away your appetite—you guess that answers your question about whether you’re staying for supper) you decided to retire up here for now. You’d thought that your room might feel a little alien to you after all this time away, but when you’d dragged yourself in and shucked your shoes off at the door, it had welcomed you back with an air of nostalgia and open arms. You’re sprawled across your bed now, arms behind your head as you stare at the ceiling. When you were younger, maybe fourteen, you had decorated it with little stars and planets that you’d painted. Well, it wasn’t just you—some of the more crudely decorated renditions towards the wall are courtesy of Seokjin and Namjoon. You wouldn’t say they’re bad at art, just that they have… well, a distinct style that is very them.
Wait, you’re getting distracted—back to the matter at hand: you’re ashamed.
At this point in your life, if someone had asked you why that particular emotion might be plaguing you right now, then in all honesty you would have a vast array of reasons to give them. But the answer as to why you’re ashamed right now, lies in the two people you could have sworn you glimpsed earlier.
Now that there is a little temporal distance between you and that particular moment, you can use logic to assure yourself that there’s no way you actually just saw Namjoon and Seokjin at the diner that you all used to haunt in your youth. But in the moment, when you thought you’d seen them, you fell into a bit of a panic. This, you have determined, is because you are ashamed. It’s a little harder to determine why you’re ashamed in relation to them, but what you’ve managed to discern so far is that you feel to blame for the way things went, at least partially. Or, perhaps its that you fear they blame you for the way things went. In reality, from what you remember, they first began to grow apart from each other, and then they began to grow apart from you. That, of course, isn’t something you can blame yourself for. But, what you can blame yourself for – and here is what you think may be the root of your shame – is that you were the one to up and leave suddenly. You were the one to disappear without even a goodbye, almost. You could have kept in touch if you tried, but you’d basically disappeared off the face of the earth.
You wonder if they blame you, or if they might even resent you because of that.
Well, if they even remember you, that is. They’re pretty much in the big leagues now, you remind yourself. They’re making it mainstream and they’re hot on the heels of the most renowned names in the business.
You’re not very good at comforting yourself. Not that you really attempted it this time, but usually whenever you do you just end up stewing in your thoughts a little. You don’t even realise you’re glaring at the ceiling in the midst of sorting through your mental mess until a knock at the door jerks you out of it. You turn towards it just as it opens and a head pops inside, a gleam you instantly decide you don’t like shining in Lisa’s eyes.
“Come downstairs,” she says cryptically, beginning to ease back out. She only chimes once more when she’s out of view. “If you don’t, I’ll eat all those pastries you brought back! Keep that in mind!”
What on earth… you’re left absolutely confused for a moment, before her last words sink in and you throw yourself from your bed with haste, not even bothering to put your shoes back on before you dart out of the room. The trip downstairs is treacherous in stockings, but you don’t have time to lose. You’re sister isn’t one to bluff, and you don’t want her anywhere near those pastries!
“Don’t you touch those!” you call in warning as you slide across the hardwood floor in the hall and fly down the stairs. “Lisa, I mean it! If you lay a single finger on those pastries you’ll lose it!”
There’s laughter in the direction of the kitchen, and you’re angled to follow the sound when your eyes catch sight of movement to the side and you freeze on the spot.
“y/n!” your mother cries, clearly ecstatic that you’ve come down to join her. She’s standing in the hall that leads the front door, talking to some people you can’t yet see. “Look who’s here! My, I haven’t seen these two in almost as long as I hadn’t seen you!”
Something like dread, mixed with an odd spike of anticipation, begins to trickle into your abdomen. All too suddenly you remember exactly who you thought you saw earlier, and realise she can only be talking about two people in particular.
Nervously, you smooth down your skirt and blouse, shooting your mother a look that you hope isn’t too panicked. She is, of course, oblivious, and simply grabs you by the arm to drag you around the corner.
“I haven’t seen the three of you together in so long! I missed your handsome faces around here, too. Perhaps the height as well— now there’s no one in the house that can reach the top shelf in the pantry.”
Your mother is babbling, but you can’t bring yourself to mind when it saves you from having to speak yourself. As you’d feared, there are two very familiar people standing before you, hovering on your doorstep with almost nervous energy.
“It has been a while,” a soft tone with the luxurious depth of velvet— Seokjin smiles so charmingly at your mother that you think your heart really might have stopped for a second. When his dark eyes turn to you, there is something swirling in their depths that is in such contrast to the winning smile on his lips that you almost feel your knees shake. “y/n, it’s a lovely surprise to catch you here— we didn’t know you were in town as well.”
“Oh, and what brings you two boys back here?” Your mother asks, all too excited to hear exactly what has been going on in their lives since she saw them last. Thankfully, she saves you from having to answer straight away. “Are you back for long?”
“Just a week,” Namjoon answers, bashful smile juxtaposing the beaten leather of the jacket over his shoulders and the low, rough melody of his voice. Oh dear— “We’re actually here celebrating something with a close friend of ours; we were invited to a… party of sorts, you could say.”
You think you might be safe, that he might not say anything to you just yet, when he turns to you and his eyes flick along your form. He smiles again, this time with his dimples making an appearance.
“It really has been too long, y/n. I’m glad we managed to run into you.”
You know it’s not a dig at you, but you feel your cheeks flush with shame nonetheless.
“Don’t tell me the three of you haven’t seen each other since she left,” your mother gasps, sending you a look that tells you she is going to be wringing information out of you later.
There’s a slight lull in the conversation that tells you it’s your time to chime in. Before you can, though, Seokjin speaks— still with a smile, despite the slight bite of his words.
“Ah, yeah,” he says, shaking his head. He leans back slightly, switching his weight to the other leg and crossing his arms over his chest— you try not to look at the way it makes his chest and shoulders strain against the material of his button-up. “We wanted to write, or call, but we didn’t know where she was staying to send it. Made it a little hard to keep in touch.”
Your heart squeezes; that was a dig, that was definitely a dig. And you deserved it, but damn you didn’t realise it would hurt that much. And he hadn’t even said anything direct!
“Oh, well this is perfect then!” Your mother smacks you on the back, a little rougher than necessary, making you cough. “y/n is here for the week, why don’t you all catch up? Lisa’s engagement party is on Saturday so any day other than that should be fine— oh, you two should come, by the way! And invite your mothers too; it’s been too long since we’ve all sat down for tea.”
“That would be wonderful,” Namjoon agrees amicably, nodding his head to your mother. “I’m sure they’d love to take you up on that invite— I did get an earful about how lonely she was when I got home earlier.”
You have to fight a smile at that— Namjoon’s mother does have a penchant for the dramatics. You turn your gaze to the side to find Seokjin’s own already boring holes into you— it takes all your willpower not to jump. When he sees he has your attention, he smiles once more.
“We’d love to catch up,” he says, eyes still holding you captive. “How about dinner tomorrow, at Dana’s? I miss the burgers there.”
You catch Namjoon nodding from the corner of your eye, agreeing with the idea, and swallow your nerves down to flash a smile back. “Of course, that sounds fantastic.”
The two men nod, satisfied for now, and Namjoon pipes up once more as they take a step back.
“Well, we should probably get back— if we’re late for supper today we mightn’t be alive for dinner tomorrow,” he jokes, earning a laugh from your mother. His eyes flick to you, unreadable but holding such heat you almost gasp, “We’ll meet you there at seven tomorrow, y/n. I’m lookin’ forward to it.”
“See you, boys!” Your mother waves farewell, jabbing you with her elbow until you join her. “Hurry home!”
They nod with a laugh, and you watch them retreat to their respective homes on either side of yours until your mother closes the door and cuts off your view, turning to you with a look that could mean a number of things. She’s distracted from unleashing a verbal flood on you in the next moment, however, when she catches sight of your feet.
“y/n!” she gasps, tone scolding. “Go put your shoes on! Walking around without them— this isn’t how I raised you, my goodness. You’re going to wear holes in your stockings! Go go go!”
Startled by the way she raises her arm in promise, you yelp and scamper away, back towards the stairs. “Okay, I’m going!”
You’re about halfway up the stairs, petticoat and skirt swishing violently from how fast you scaled them, when she calls after you.
“And don’t think you’re off the hook, missy! You and I are having a long, in-depth chat after dinner!”
You can only resign yourself to your fate.
x - x - x
“I’m in trouble, Mina. Oh, I’m in trouble.”
“It can’t be anything more than the trouble you’re going to be in for wearing holes into the hotel room carpet— stop that! You’re making me anxious!”
You halt mid-pace, sending your friend a pained look. She’s sprawled across the second bed in your hotel room, reading some magazine that touts the latest in makeup and jewellery from some of the more big-name brands.
“Please, just this once, let me be the one having a Diva moment,” you say, almost begging— to your own distaste. You just need someone to vent to, but she’s not exactly being helpful.
“What is this about?” she asks, closing her magazine to pin you with a borderline-grumpy look. “What has your knickers in such a— oh, I love those shorts! Are those new?”
“Uh, yeah. I bought them the other week,” you answer, looking down at the light blue shorts you’d slipped into for comfort’s sake this morning. They’re so comfortable, in fact, that you regret that you’re unable to wear them in public. You quickly shake your head when you realise you’re getting off-topic. “Hey— I told you what this is about! Did you listen to a single thing I said since I got back last night? Do I mean nothing to you?”
“You’re so dramatic,” Mina utters under her breath. “Yes, I was listening! I was just checking we were talking about the same thing!"
The look you give her is dubious at best, "Okay, then what am I talking about?"
"Those two hot cats you grew up with," Mina says, waving her manicured hand dismissively. "What about them is giving you such grief?"
"I ran into them yesterday," you say, eyes unfocused as you fall back into your thoughts once more. "They want to meet for dinner, to catch up."
"Oh, well that's fine," Mina says. "You don't have feelings for them anymore, so it should be alright, yeah?"
You bite your lip, wincing and giving her a look that could only be described as a mixture between sheepish and remorseful.
"Oh, y/n," She sounds a lot like your mother with the tone she's taken now, "Don't tell me..."
"I thought I was over it!" you say, wailing almost, as you throw your arms into the air. "They were already so distant before I left, you know? And it's been so long that I thought the feelings went away."
You huff, one hand on your hip and the other splayed over your face. "But then I saw them yesterday, and I think I nearly had a heart failure. I don't think... that those feelings went away."
When you manage to glimpse her way, Mina is wincing, teeth visible. She reaches up to scratch her hairline, almost dislodging one of the curlers she has wound in her hair. "Well, it's just one dinner... When is it? I'm sure you have plenty of time to get rid of those feelings before you--"
"It's tonight," you say with a certain level of resignation, walking over to your own bed and finally throwing yourself onto it in defeat.
"Tonight?!" Mina positively squawks, scrambling into a sitting position in her disbelief. "Uh, y/n, I do hope you haven't forgotten, but we have a show almost every night Saturday--"
"I know," you bemoan, staring at the ceiling and trying to ignore the odd marks there-- you don't have the brain space to wonder how they even got up there in the first place. "The dinner will be finished in time, I'm not worried about that. I'm just... worried about what will happen during, you know? It's kind of stupid but... what if they hate me now? I didn't even tell them when I left, didn't give them an address to write me or a number to call..."
"Yeah, that was kind of a rude move," Mina says bluntly, "But I don't think they would invite you to dinner to catch up if they hated you, y'know? They were your best friends, they probably missed the hell out of you."
You ponder her words, unable to pick them apart with logic. "Maybe," you mutter, picking at a loose thread on your blouse."... I did miss them."
"See?" Mina says knowingly, giving you a look before falling back on the bed and reaching for the chunky romance novel that she has perched on the headboard above the bed.. "And who knows— you're a hot catch, they might end up returning those feelings and you might come out of this a lucky woman! Well, probably a bit sore in certain places, but lucky nonetheless—”
"MINA!"
The pillow you threw smacks her square in the face, but does nothing to muffle the cackle she lets out after. God, she's not the first choice to come to for advice, but to her credit you do feel a bit better now.
x- x - x
Seven o’clock that evening finds you hovering nervously outside the doors to Dana's Dinery, hand outstretched to take the handle but unable to follow through completely with the movement. For the moment, you're stuck in your thoughts, and your thoughts are stuck on the same thing that had plagued them earlier in the day.
What's going to happen when you walk in there? When you're seated at the table with them and in the process of catching up? You shouldn't be as fearful of it as you are, but you can't help it. The evolution your feelings for them undertook a few years ago aside, they were still very much your best friends. Their opinion of you... well it sucks, but it still matters to you.
Didn’t stop you from doing what you did though, did it?
Huffing and deciding to ignore the nasty little voice that is attempting to make an already stressful night even worse, you force your limbs into action and simply resign to bite the bullet. If they are upset with you, then being late to dinner certainly won’t help things.
“y/n! Over here!”
With how quickly they spot you, mere seconds after passing through the doorway, a part of you wonders if they saw you hovering outside like a coward. Shame flushes across your neck and ears at the thought, but you do your best to remain at least outwardly unaffected.
Over in the booth at the very end of the diner, nestled against the window and the wall, the two men who have been haunting your thoughts for more than a day sit. You recognise the booth— it’s your Corner, you always sat there with them, to the point where if the staff saw anyone else sit there when they knew you were coming, they’d politely usher them to a new seat. It makes something shift inside you to see them there again. You don’t feel like you’re in school again, but something else feels akin to that time…
It’s probably the butterflies.
Namjoon is grinning at you widely, waving his arm; he’s ditched the leather from yesterday and is now donning a fitted black button-up that brings a nice contrast against the sun-kissed hue of his skin, though his hair is still swept into its style somewhat half-heartedly. Seokjin next to him is in a tan knit turtleneck sweater, glasses perched on his nose and hair attended to much more neatly than the man next to him. Both men are looking at you as you approach, but their stares (especially Seokjin’s) are a little too intense for you to handle, and you end up looking away as you take a seat across from them.
The booth is less squeaky than you remember, but somehow just as plush. You place your purse and cardigan onto the red leather next to you, clasping your hands together and offering a tentative smile. The soft rock tumbling from speakers around the diner isn’t going to fill the lull in conversation for very long. “Hey, sorry to have kept you waiting…”
Seokjin raises a brow, and you know in that moment that they did indeed see you hovering outside the diner. You don’t have time to process the embarrassment that follows that realisation, though, before Namjoon begins speaking with a warm smile.
“Don’t worry, you didn’t,” he informs you, eyes glimmering like he’s just happy to have you here. It makes something painful throb in your chest. “And loosen up, would you? You’re sitting like you’re at a job interview.”
To your embarrassment, a brief internal examination of your posture tells you that he is right. Sheepishly, you allow the tension to drain from your body, leaning forward onto the table slightly. “Sorry,” you mumble, offering a smile. “Guess I’m just a bit wound up from being home. I forgot how chaotic it is here…”
To your surprise, Seokijn snorts; your fears that he was truly upset with you are dispelled somewhat as a lopsided grin tugs his plush lips, eyes meeting yours levelly. “Tell me about it. My mother had my aunt and the cousins over when I got home. I haven’t felt as exhausted as I did after that night in, well, years.”
You don’t notice the smile Namjoon shoots to the man beside him when he first speaks, but you do notice when he lets out a laugh and beams so brightly that his eyes almost close and something you completely forgot about makes an appearance. His dimples have always been a weak spot of yours, and you’re slightly horrified to find that glimpsing them now has led to a skipped beat in your chest and a flutter in your stomach.
It’s not looking very good for the state of your old feelings right now…
“You never unwind properly,” Namjoon says, somewhat chastising despite his playful tone. He doesn’t pursue it further, though. Instead, he turns to you with a soft smile. “So, y/n, how was college? If you have replaced us as best friends, I will never forgive you.”
You can’t help the laugh that tumbles from your throat at both his words and his face, Seokjin chuckling to himself in the corner. Still smiling, you tell him that no, you haven’t replaced them, and sort through the events of your first year for something they’d like to hear.
Just like that, and definitely much easier and less stilted than you feared it would be, the three of you seem to sink back into something like the old dynamic you used to share, conversation beginning to flow and laughter beginning to tumble. There are some small differences, of course. Namjoon, who used to be much more clumsy and prone to blushing in his fluster, now seems to have come into his own and his presence commands your attention whenever he speaks or gestures, each movement sure and with confidence. While Seokjin used to be the more blatant joker between the three of you, now he seems to sit back a bit, observing conversation contentedly until he sees the perfect opportunity to chime in and elicit a few laughs.
And then, there’s you.
Well, you suppose you haven’t changed all that much. When Ms. Cara comes around to take your order (amongst gushing about how grown up and handsome and beautiful the three of you look), you still order the same thing from the menu, go about eating it the same way (fries before burger, being sure to leave some so you can slip them under the bun), and feel the same butterflies running amok in your stomach as you did years ago. You know that you’ve changed a lot, an almost scary amount, but sitting here in this diner with the two men who used to be your best friends, you’re only realising just how much of you is the same.
“I still don’t know how you can eat that,” Namjoon says, pausing in scarfing his own dessert down to judge you for yours. “You always used to get it— aren’t you sick of it?”
“Hey!” Seokjin intercepts, pointing his spoon at Namjoon. “The Fun Sized Sundae with the Triple Sauce Special is a respectable choice of dessert, and I won’t have you shaming it when you’re just sitting there with pudding and custard!”
You chuckle at Seokjin’s avid defence of your choice— the two of you were the only ones with a big enough sweet tooth to be able to combat the sugary monster that is your choice of dessert. He hadn’t braved it tonight, though, opting instead for apple pie.
“I actually haven’t had it since I was last here,” you say, without even thinking. Another spoonful is already on its way to your mouth as you continue, “It’s one of the things I missed most after I—”
You cut yourself off, realising your blunder too late. The looks in their eyes tell you they know what you were about to say. After I left. Ah, how could you forget? You’ve been here over an hour and this is the first time it’s crossed your mind since you entered. You left— you. Not them, but you.
Your appetite suddenly begins to fade, and you place your spoon down as gently as you can. It still tinks against the bowl, but does little to break the tension beginning to seep into the air.
You clear your throat, growing a little antsy in your seat. Even as you ask, you’re unable to meet their eyes, “Ah, what time is it? We— I got a little carried away…”
The question had mostly been to dispel some of the awkwardness, but Namjoon’s response had you shooting up ramrod straight. “It’s five-to-nine.”
“Oh, shoot,” you don’t even think about the words escaping your mouth, just that way more time had passed than you thought and if you stay any longer then you’re going to be bordering dangerously close on being late for your other very important commitment tonight. “I— I have to go. I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise how late it was.”
You hurry to gather your cardigan and purse, starting to shimmy out of the booth, when Seokjin speaks up, “Is everything alright? Where are you off to in such a rush? If you need, we can walk you—”
“No!” you burst, regret swallowing you moments later when you see how taken aback the two men are at your sudden rise in tone. “No, sorry, it’s okay. I just, um… I just have to pick up something, for Lisa’s party.”
“At nine o’clock at night?” Jin verifies, brows drawing down.
“Uh, yeah,” you say, voice small as you manage to finally get out of the booth and stand somewhat sheepishly at the end. “I’m so sorry, it was so lovely meeting you two again and catching up. I’ll, um… I’ll see you, at Lisa’s party.”
You barely allow them enough time to bid their own farewells before you’re turning on your heel and hightailing it out of there before one of them comes to their senses and offers to walk you again.
You definitely do not need one of your old best friends walking you to the entrance of a club.
A fifteen minute cab ride is what you choose instead, and it isn’t long before you’re slipping into the building from the back entrance and dashing through the halls.
“FINALLY,” Mina erupts dramatically when she catches sight of you bursting into the dressing room, brows raising so high they almost meet her bangs. “I almost thought you were going to stand us up, Miss Luna.”
Your eyes sweep over her form, alarm filling you at the fact she’s already mostly dressed, from her netted stockings to the many fluffy and feathery layers that she’ll be discarding on the stage tonight. She’s currently sitting at the dresser, putting the final touches on her makeup with small detail brushes.
“That lip colour is too orange,” you inform her, hastily rushing over to the chest that you know contains your outfit for tonight. Mina halts in her motions, staring at herself in the mirror for a long moment before she tilts her head back and lets out a loud, torturous groan.
“I knew it! Momo, you lied to me! I asked you if this colour was too orange or warm and you said—”
You shake your head, slinging the clothes you retrieved over your arm and making your way over to the screen in the corner to get changed. You feel a little bad for the girl currently on the receiving end of Mina’s whines, but on the other hand you’re now free to rush about and catch up to the rest of your co-performers.
Within the next ten minutes you’re dressed and ready to go, dropping into a seat next to Mina and reaching to begin powdering your face.
From the tingle of excitement beginning to thrum in the air, you can only assume it won’t be long now before the show begins.
x x x x
Burlesque. It’s something that you know from experience, something you’d sadly gained before you grew more skilled at hiding your profession from the judging eyes of others, has some quite divided views and opinions. Despite how open-minded and liberal as your parents are, you know even they would struggle to come to terms with the fact that their beloved daughter had moved away for college and somehow come to perform in burlesque theatres on the side.
You don’t even have a clear explanation as to how or why you’d ended up down this path, just that you had. Contrary to what a majority of the population would likely hope, you aren’t ashamed, and you don’t regret it. This is something you love, and you think part of the reason you had been so drawn to it in the first place was the promise of power nestled within a certain kind of anonymity.
Your act, after all, is a masquerade performed beneath the security of an intricate lace and silk colombina disguise.
When you’d first left, you’d felt… well, there wasn’t any other way to put it but rejected, and abandoned. You might have been the one that left, and it’s something you regret now, but at the time it was Namjoon and Jin who had grown distant from both each other and you. Coupled with their increasing popularity and the way their lives seemed to be picking up speed in the direction they’d always dreamed of, it made you realise that their world was getting a little too big for you, and in the scheme of their lives you no longer held a starring role.
So you’d packed up and moved away, and in the midst of your aimless moping in another city, you’d stumbled upon this… and from the first taste of empowerment it gave you in the wake of all you had been feeling, you quickly decided you weren’t going to be letting it go anytime soon.
And now here you are; an act with such high regard and admiration that you had been called to perform it in other cities. It was a stroke of fortune that one of the stops was your own hometown, at the same time as your sister’s engagement party no less. You had wondered at the time what the catch had to be, and now, of course, you know.
It’s that in an instance of divinely aligned misfortune, the two people you’d planned to avoid indefinitely happened to be here as well.
It’s been a few days since the night you spent catching up with them, and there is enough distance between then and now for you to have calmed significantly when thinking about it. It had been kind of weird, sneaking away from the diner to come perform that night. Even though years have passed, you’re still so used to telling them everything whenever you see them, that holding something back feels foreign, and oddly enough… you feel a little guilty. The first excuse that comes to your mind in your defence is that ‘they wouldn’t understand anyway’. You know that is baseless, though. Both of them have become popular and risen to fame not just because of their natural musical talent, but for the topics that their music so brazenly broaches.
The truth is that you know they wouldn’t judge you for anything you do, and you’re not quite sure why you’re so resistant to them knowing. The human mind is a mystery, and yours is no exception.
A slow, smooth saxophone melody brushes your ears, a lower note capturing your attention and bringing you back to the present moment. Amongst the faint tendrils of smoke that reach you from the seating area, an itch rises at your brow and you fight to contain it, not wanting to rub off the thin arch you’d drawn on so carefully earlier. It was always like this; you always got itchy before performing, for reasons unknown to you. One of your friends had theorised that it was due to nerves, or something similar. It drove your manager mad, because you’d ripped your costume pantyhose a few times while scratching your thighs in the past.
Mina’s act precedes yours, usually, and tonight isn’t any different. She’s good, and you can’t help but marvel as you watch her. Her movements are fluid, full of a certain zest and allure that mix into a single heady cocktail that has the crowd enraptured as she allows her skirts to drop ever so slowly with each smooth swing and sashay of her hips. When the ruffled fabric hits the floor there are hoots and whistles from the crowd, and Mina’s beaming face peeks over her shoulder to deliver a wink. The room eats it up.
It’s a special performance, tonight.
Due to confidentiality, none of the performers had been told exactly who was attending tonight, just that they were Very Important People, and they were to be shown the best performance they would ever see in their lives. It was an ambitious set of instructions, but you know that both yourself and the other girls in the show are some of the best in the business, so you aren’t too worried about meeting expectations. You plan to exceed them.
You always put effort into your appearance, but tonight you admit that you did try the tiniest bit harder than usual. Your hair is pulled back from your face, twisted and pinned into curls at the top of your head; the rest of it you simply allowed to hang to its natural length and shape, though you took care to make sure it was soft and silky enough to gleam beneath the stage lights. At Mina’s insistence, you’d allowed her to pin a few small glittery ornaments amongst the curls, and as you peek out and see just how full the room is, you find yourself thanking her mentally. It’s the little details that really pull together a performance and hammer home the effect it has on the audience, and it looks like a full house tonight that you’re going to wow. Though, none of the faces seem to jump out at you so far— you still don’t know who tonights VIPs are.
Even though tonight is meant to be a big, important night — as it had been emphasised to you so many times — you still find your thoughts wondering back to a certain two men and the reappearance of the feelings you’d once harboured for them. You’re conflicted, as anyone might expect of someone in your situation, but you can’t say you’re very fond of the feeling. Hence, despite your best efforts, your thoughts just keep coming back to your current predicament. Lisa’s party is tomorrow, and you know from yesterday’s visit to your home that your mother had already extended an enthusiastic invitation to both families on either side of the fence. So you know that there is absolutely no way that those two aren’t going to be there, since even if they hadn’t already expressed their intention of attending, their mother’s would drag them over by the ear.
You’re not sure why you’re still worrying about this. You already met and caught up with them! And it went well… or at least it did, until the topic of your abrupt disappearance from their lives was brought up.
Perhaps that is why you’re so conflicted still. That is an issue that has yet to be resolved.
When you tune back in to the moment and catch your manager sending you a whithering look, you shake your head and decide to try and ground yourself so that you’re not off with the fairies by the time your cue to perform rolls around. You bring your gaze back to the stage, finding that in the time you spent in your own head, Mina had managed to strip down to just her shelf brassiere and the panties and baby blue garter belt with straps that stretched over her shapely thighs and attached to the top of her stockings.
You get lost in the moment, watching as the spotlight follows her across the stage and illuminates each small gesture she makes that draws the audience further and further under her spell. Her hair is perfectly curled and with each flick of her head and bat of her lashes, the strands slide over her shoulder and bounce against her back. As she reaches for her final garment to discard, it isn’t long before the light fades in tandem with the last note of her song, and the audience gets only the barest glimpse of Mina’s almost bare form before the stage is blanketed in darkness. Cheers and applause break the beat of silence that follows, and then Mina is hurriedly rushing past you, beaming with pride and holding most of her discarded skirts bunched up to her chest. Soon, the applause fades out, the hollers nonexistent, and the stage is cleared.
Now, it’s your turn to wrap the audience around your finger.
Taking a deep breath and revelling in the light fluttering of your stomach that never seems to fade no matter how many shows you perform, you listen for the first few strumming notes of the song that accompanies your routine. When the low, bass riff of guitar finally brushes the air, you make your way slowly onto the stage and let yourself fall into the familiarity of the show.
It’s kind of ironic, you can’t help but think to yourself. Considering the events of this week, the song you’d chosen to tailor your routine to is kind of funny. For the first few years of their careers, you’d seen Namjoon and Seokjin simply go their separate ways. You thought that would be it, that your friendship had broken up for good, but to your complete and utter surprise, at the beginning of this year there had been a new record to grace the radio and enrapture young fans across the country. An unexpected collaboration between two of the biggest figureheads of the rock and rebellion movement that had started to sweep through the youth.
When you had first heard the song, you’d done a double-take. It wasn’t anything like the rapid, upbeat rock that came to be synonymous with Seokjin’s name, or the heavier, laidback tune that usually accompanied Namjoon’s records. The beat that lay beneath the lyrics was sultry, deep and dark and made your heart skip a beat and your stomach dip. However when the lyrics registered in your mind, you’d had to fight the urge to cry. They weren’t strictly sad, per se, but to you… they had spoken a little deeper. It felt paranoid to think it, but a part of you had to wonder at how… targeted… the song had seemed to be—
Was it made... for you?
You wouldn’t be caught dead admitting it aloud to anyone or even yourself, but you liked to think so. It helped, when you found yourself missing them and yearning for the way things had been. It soothed the traitorous aching of a heart that didn’t seem to remember that the choice to leave hadn’t been theirs, but rather yours.
In the version that accompanies your performance, there are no vocals. Even so, the beat is easily recognisable and as it begins to play, an excited murmur sweeps through the crowd. Something about it is a little odd, but currently your back is turned to the audience, so you don’t get to investigate the feeling. Instead, you let each note that enters the air and brushes against your skin to soak into your being, closing your eyes for the barest second to centre yourself before you feel the heat of the lights begin to grace your skin, and you start to slowly swing your hips.
It is only instruments that brush your ears now, but you can hear the opening lines of the song so clearly in your head you can’t help but mouth them in time.
We're part of the moonlight, Ain't a fantasy...
Can't breathe in the sunlight, Gotta hide your heart...
Following the rise and fall of the beat, you turn your head over your shoulder to deliver a sly smile and a wink, moving your hips all the while— a round of catcalls and surprised murmurs results. You are the only one of the performers to wear a mask after all, so you’re not surprised by the response. Turning back around, your ease yourself into the familiar motions of your routine and let the song and atmosphere carry you away.
At any other time, you would probably find it funny how second nature stripping yourself of your clothes has become. The silky gown that drapes over your shoulders and ends in faux fur ruffles that trail across the floor is the first to go, revealing the entirety of your stocking-clad legs through a sheer petticoat, and the corset and cushioned bandeau that hides a sheer, cheekily embroidered bralette beneath. The audience eats the reveal right up and at the enthusiastic response, your chest swells with pride. You’re smiling, but with a flick of your wrist you snap open a fan and use it to cover the bottom half of your face, leaving only your eyes to peer out at the crowd from behind the mask. You’d discovered early on that a little bit of mystery keeps them intrigued a little longer.
You don’t pay much mind to the audience as individuals; more often than not, when you perform they become a faceless blur. But as your routine goes on and your body follows each sultry move to the beat, one item of clothing discarded after the other, you find yourself paying a little more attention than you usually would.
It’s as the top part of your corset meets the floor and your sheer bralette is exposed that your eyes sweep over a certain portion of the room, and you realise very suddenly and abruptly who the guests of honour are tonight.
And you cannot believe the atrocity of your luck.
Two familiar faces return your gaze from the centre-back portion of the room, in one of the deluxe booths. It’s a wonder you can recognise them through the haze of smoke created by cigars and cigarettes, but you think that you’d be hard-pressed not to, at this point. Seokjin and Namjoon sit back comfortably in the booth with two unfamiliar men on either side of them, their eyes lit with a certain kind of intrigue and focused solely on you. For a heartbeat, your chest feels so tight you can’t take in a breath, stomach fluttering. Just barely, you manage to maintain your face and stop yourself from stumbling in your routine. The beginning of panic begins to bubble beneath your lungs, but in a split-second it is stopped in its tracks as something seems to snap inside you and you come to a realisation.
You’re wearing a mask. They don’t know it’s you.
It strikes you again, the way they eyes are trained on your every move, and it knocks you breathless once more, though for a different reason this time. Exhilaration begins to course through you— you feel powerful. When you were with them the other day, the weight of the knowledge of your wrongs and your guilt held you on unequal ground. But now, here in the heady allure and smoky seduction in this room, you have them in the palm of your hands and the dynamic is switched, if only for a moment.
With barely a moment having lapsed since your initial realisation, you slip right back into the next move in your dance, each shift of a limb accompanied with just that little bit more oomph than before. This is their song, the song you suspect they wrote for you, and since you don’t think you will ever be able to forget it, or them, you will make sure they won’t forget this.
One fluid movement leads to the next, the beat picking up ever so slightly as you bend, legs straight and behind pointed at the crowd, before easing your way back up and unclasping the hooks that keep your corset together. When it falls, you turn and bend once more, this time facing the audience so that they see it when you push your breasts together and wriggle your shoulders, a cheeky wink accompanying the resulting jiggle of your chest.
More hoots and hollers, as expected of an audience that seems to completely consist of men tonight, and you’re pleased to see that the two guests of the hour aren’t completely unaffected either. Namjoon is leaning forward slightly, gaze intense, and Seokjin’s eyes have narrowed in focus as they follow you across the stage.
Following each note in the song, you strut across the stage, and when there is a pause before it picks up once more, you drop to your knees and reach forward to the floor, arching your back with your behind to the audience again. Using the strength you’ve built in your thighs over the years, you slide one leg up and turn yourself around, using the momentum to slip into an abridged version of the splits. While in this position you bend backwards, one arm reaching back to unravel the ribbon that keeps your flimsy bralette up. When you feel it come loose, you bring your hands to each piece and make a faux-shocked expression, ever so slowly peeling the sheer fabric down and revelling in the way the room is watching with bated breath.
Your breasts bounce as you yank the bralette all the way down, the tassels that were hidden beneath and keep the barest remainder of your dignity intact jiggling with the movement. Using the cheers that result as a distraction of sorts, you deftly remove the bralette with one hand and discard it slyly on the floor, bringing yourself out of the splits but moving to another position on your knees, sliding your legs apart. There are a few soft gasps and sharp inhales that echo from the front of the crowd, and you can tell from the way their eyes are focused on the inside of your thighs that they’ve glimpsed the pretty picture inked into your skin there. You don’t leave their gazes to wonder too long though, reaching up to pinch the dangling ornaments of your tassels and using them to lift your breasts. You ignore the low, pleasurable tingle that shoots through you at the sensation of tugging on your nipples, fighting to keep your legs open, and release the tassels from your grip. Your breasts bounce generously once more, cheers sounding across the room at the sight. You deliver a wink, before bringing yourself off of the floor in a fluid movement, hearing the final notes of the song beginning to play and a low, sexy saxophone drawl emerging to intertwine with the rest.
The end of your routine passes in a blur, your mind slipping into a haze as you simply move, barely aware of the way you dance and sashay across the stage. A feathery boa situated strategically to the side becomes incorporated in your final moves, allowing the audience peeks at what they can’t have and drawing them further and further in until the music hits a crescendo and with it, you fall into your final pose.
The last thing you see, as the lights begin to dim and the crowd erupts into applause, is the way Seokjin and Namjoon’s eyes are boring holes into you, transfixed on the place where your hip meets the inside of your thigh and the intricate depiction of a crescent moon and a rose that are inked into the skin there.
x x x
“...sweetheart? Is there a reason why you haven’t gone outside yet? Everyone is by the pool with those wonderful finger foods your Aunt brought with her!”
You startle at the sound of your mother’s voice, almost dropping the grape that had been en route to your mouth as you stared into nothing, rooted in place in the middle of the kitchen. The day of your sister’s engagement party has come, faster than you were able to prepare for, and now that you’re no longer on the stage staring down your two ex-best friends from behind a mask, you’ve lost a lot of your gall. In fact, it could even be argued that your spine had slipped right out of your body the second you stepped off the stage that night. It’s the early afternoon, and Namjoon and Seokjin have been here for about… perhaps half an hour. You don’t claim to be perfect, but the way you’ve been skulking about and hiding in the kitchen is pathetic even to you.
It’s just… how do you face them after that? They’ve technically seen you almost completely in the nude! If your grandmother ever caught wind of the fact that a man had seen you without clothes then she’d marry you off immediately— not to mention if she ever found out Seokjin and Namjoon, of all men, had seen you like that, she would have an absolute field day!
It was bordering on disheartening, but at this point, even after all this time, you’re pretty sure most of your family loves those two more than they love you.
“I, um… just wanted some grapes?” you blink, offering a sheepish smile that you hope your mother doesn’t find suspicious. That is quickly shot down when you see her brow raise and her bright cherry lips quirk to the side, eyes flicking to the empty glass by the grapes that reeks of gin. What can you say, you thought downing a glass would help you cope, but you’d been wrong.
“Uhuh…” Your mother says, folding her arms and leaning her hip against the bench; the fullness of her skirt swishes behind her in an echo of the movement. “Well, now that you’ve eaten half of the vine, maybe go outside? Mrs Kim has been asking where you are, I think she missed you almost as much as we did.”
Your brows furrow, “Wait, which Mrs K—”
“Off you go, sweetheart!”
You don’t even get to finish whatever you were saying because your mother moves into the kitchen solely to chase you out of it. You drag your feet as she herds you out— or at least, you do before she reaches for the kitchen towel by the oven and starts twisting it.
“I’m going!” you promptly flee after grabbing a handful of grapes to-go, holding up a proverbial white flag. Your mother is a little too good at turning mundane household items into a weapon. Now she’s put the fear of god back in you, you find yourself thinking that it’s no wonder your father has always been so well-behaved compared to the stories some of your friends would tell you about their own parents.
It’s a beautiful day, really. It’s part of the reason you were annoyed at yourself for hiding inside, even if it was only for about half an hour. The sun is out, the sky is clear, and while the sunlight warms your skin there is a cool breeze every so often that keeps you from overheating. Some of your younger cousins are in the pool, and have probably been there since around ten minutes after they arrived an hour or so ago. You’d barely gotten a hug in greeting before they were off, the backyard pool held a little more favourably in their eyes for the moment than their own flesh and blood.
They’re cute, though, so you decide that perhaps just this once you will let them get away with it. You’re going to rain down a storm of kisses on them before they leave, though. No one ignores you for an inanimate object and gets away with it!
As you exit the house and step beneath the sun, the skin of your arms and lower legs warming instantly, you just barely manage to dodge as one of your cousins comes bolting past you, followed barely a second later by his mother, your aunt, who is hotter on his heels than you might have anticipated for a woman her age.
“Jackson! You better get back here with those patties, boy, or you’re gonna regret it!”
You know you shouldn’t laugh, because it will encourage the bad behaviour, but the sight is so funny you just can’t help the way you burst into giggles, shaking your head and turning in the direction of the large gazebo that is rooted by the pool and is currently sheltering most of the guests from the sun. A quick scan also reveals that the lady of the hour, your sister, is over there too. Your eyes narrow when they catch sight of the champagne glass in her hand; hopefully she’s forgotten any and all things you’ve told her in confidence recently, or else they’re about to become public knowledge.
“Ah, y/n, just a moment!”
You pause in your steps, turning just in time to catch in your arms the plate of small pastries your mother shoves into your hold.
“Wh—” you don’t get to question her, as she simply flashes you a bright grin and nods her head to the table. “Take these over there, will you? And make sure Jin and Joon get some, I made their favourite!”
And then she is off, shooting back into the house and leaving you on the grass. At the delicious smell that wafts up to your nose, you send a cursory look down at the plate and hum in recognition,ignoring the way your mouth salivates. Ah, these are their favourites. This plate probably won’t last very long when you bring it over there.
You’re on your way once more, now with the plate of sweets in tow, and the closer to the gazebo you grow you catch the sound of the radio, on one of the channels most popular with the youth and playing one of Lisa’s favourite songs. She’s dancing, dragging her friend Rose with her, giggling like a madwoman as she does so. It brings a smile to your face without you even realising.
“Oh, y/n! There you are! Where have you been? We thought you might have gotten lost!”
Your attention is drawn to the side of the gazebo closest to the pool, where a few people are lounging in the chairs there, beers and glasses with clear, bubbling contents that you can only assume is gin and tonic on the table and in hand. The older woman who called you over with such a teasing tone is Mrs Kim— well, one of them. Both the Kims are here, and you realise belatedly that of course, their sons are too. It was Seokjin’s mother that noticed you, and as you make your way over you see Namjoon’s mother next to her, and the two men in question in the lounging chairs opposite. They seem to light up at your arrival, and you try not to think about the way their reaction makes your stomach flutter. You aren’t here for them, you’re here for their mothers!
“Sorry,” you apologise, leaning and placing the plate down on the small table in the middle of the seats. Straightening, you dust your hands against the patterned skirt you have buttoned over your matching swimsuit. “I did get a bit lost, there’s so many kids here right now I thought I might have turned up in the wrong house.”
Both women erupt into laughter at your words, and you take the opportunity to smile at Jin and Namjoon, offering a timid wave. They return it, before following your finger as it points to the plate and they realise you’ve brought them their favourite baked goods.
“Cinnamon scrolls!” Namjoon croons, material of his navy button-up creasing as he hastily leans forward to swipe one off the plate. “And they’re shaped like little fish, like she always used to do! I can’t believe your mother made them today.”
“Of course,” you say, snorting lightly. “She’d do anything for her two favourite sons. She made it because they’re your favourites.”
The two of them beam in pride at that, before proceeding to consume the plate of sweets.
“Ah, and she sent you too, sweet y/n! Our favourite daughter! And even more stunning than I remember, right Soo-ah?”
Seokjin’s mother, Jia, hastily reclaims the conversation and succeeds in making you flush pink at her words. Jisoo, Namjoon’s mother, instantly nods, her short curls bouncing with the action, and shoots you a devious grin.
“It’s been so long since we saw you last, y/n. You didn’t get a husband while you were away, right? We still want you as our daughter-in-law, you know.”
This time it’s not only you that feels the embarrassment heat your cheeks— to your side, both men choke on the mouthful of scroll they’d been in the process of devouring, Seokjin’s face going bright red as he brings his fist to hit his chest and attempts to dislodge the pastry. Amongst his own struggling, Namjoon reaches to smack his friend on the back, clearing his own throat.
“Ah, no…” you say, awkward and smoothing your skirt to distract yourself; it feels like the eyes of the entire party are on you, despite the fact you know better. “I’ve just been focusing on school…”
“Oh, tell me, dear, do you still do those wonderful paintings? I still have that one you gifted me for my birthday before you left.”
Namjoon follows up on his mother’s question, shooting you a smile that somehow is a combination of both bashful and proud. It makes a dimple pop in his cheek. “She still has it displayed above the dining table, actually. She nearly killed me when I almost knocked it by accident a few days ago.”
Jisoo doesn’t even bat a lash, smiling at you brightly— though a bit drunkenly, if the almost-finished glass in her hand is anything to go by. You’re surprised— you know from all the dinner parties your three families held over the years that despite their petite stature and classy, ladylike countenance, both Kim women can outdrink their husbands and your father. You wonder just how much they must have had already to have such silly grins on their faces.
“I do!” You answer, feeling your chest warm in affection. It was silly to have ever doubted it, but it made you feel somewhat eased to know that you haven’t lost your place in their lives despite your departure. “But, actually, while away I actually took up sculpting. I’ve been doing that a bit more…”
“Oh, are you talking about your works, sweetheart? Ah Jisoo, Jia— they’re absolutely wonderful! I have photos that she brought, here let me go get them—”
You feel heat flush to the tips of your ears, greeting the arrival of your mother with an embarrassed look. “Alright, let’s not bash ears about it—”
“Oh!” Jia and Jisoo perk up at your mother's exclamation, and you shrink into your seat as you watch her reach into one of the hidden pockets in her skirt and pull out a handful of small photos that you’d printed to show her. Your hubris seems to have come to nip you in the bottom. “I forgot I popped them in my pocket to show you earlier! Here, see— isn’t she just so talented? My baby girl must have been the absolute queen of her department.”
All three parents are oblivious to the way you’re shrinking into your seat in mortification, but Seokjin and Namjoon are anything but. They’re grinning at you, relishing in your discomfort much like they used to.
“Hey, y/n, could you get us another drink? I’d go get it, but your mother actually told me earlier I wasn’t allowed in the kitchen until she’s finished with the pastries…”
You shoot him a grateful look, shooting to your feet and slipping out of the little seating area. “Yup, doing that! Getting drinks! Be right back, don’t wait up!”
Though you doubt any of the adults heard you, they didn’t wait anyway. In fact, in the time it took you to head into the kitchen and bring back three drinks on a tray, your mother has since downed her glass and has started on another topic of conversation. Thankfully, the victim is no longer you.
“Oh, Namjoon, where are your peepers?!” Your mother gasps suddenly as you return, pointing at the man beside you. There’s the barest slur accenting her words, and you resign yourself here and now to a night of loose-lipped blabbering from both your sister and your mother. “I’m not goin’ crazy am I? You used to run into things all the time when you were a kid ‘cause you were blind as a bat!”
Namjoon winces, but Seokjin bursts into laughter. Glad for the conversational shift, you take one of the last remaining chairs and settle down, your own drink now in hand. Namjoon reaches for the refill you had brought him, using the opportunity to hide his face, and only when Jin has settled down does he manage to wipe his eyes and claim his own glass.
“I’m tryin’ out something new,” Namjoon answers after a hearty gulp, clearing his throat. He reaches to scratch the back of his neck bashfully. “Lenses, I think they’re called. They’re convenient, especially when I’m performing, but they’re expensive and so dang fragile I’m gonna need to take out insurance on them or somethin’.”
“Isn’t this your last set?” Seokjin queries knowingly, laughing as Namjoon grimaces. “Don’t worry, he’ll be back in the peepers you know and love by the end of the week. If he doesn’t break them, he loses them.”
You half expect Namjoon to be irked but he just sighs with a small smile, apparently having made peace by now with the clumsiness and two left feet that have haunted him since childhood.
Your mother decides to tease Namjoon a little more, before she changes the topic and starts gushing about their career, and how she can hardly go a day or two without hearing one of their songs on the radio. All three women are beaming with pride, and though slightly bashful about it you can see Namjoon and Seokjin’s chests swell slightly.
Lisa, the star of today’s show, happens to walk by right when your mother is interrogating them about where they’ve chosen to settle down for the meantime, and eagerly joins the conversation.
“Ah, cool cats like you must be absolutely rolling in dough by now! How many mansions do you have already?” Lisa laughs, looking for a free seat and simply sitting on you when she doesn’t find one. She’s quite a bit heavier than you remember, and you feel your breath wheeze out of you at her abrupt drop onto your legs.
“Unfortunately, none,” Namjoon laughs, gesturing to his mother, “Though, the pressure is on. I think ‘Ma wants a nice place to retire before my career is over.”
Jisoo takes a sip to hide her sheepish grin, crossing one leg over the other and smoothing her skirt afterwards. Seokjin lets out a soft chuckle before he turns to your mother and answers the question she’d asked earlier.
“We have a sweet pad back in the fat city, actually. We both were leanin’ to the same penthouse with the best view but in the end decided to compromise and split it.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful!” you mother exclaims, eyes alight. The last time she’d looked this excited was when you told her you were staying for the whole week. “It’s so good to hear that the two of you stuck together even though you’re such big news now!”
Guilt. You bring your glass to your mouth and take a large gulp in an effort to drown it, the tart fizz of gin and tonic barely disguising the familiar curl of guilt in your gut. Perhaps if you ignore it, it will go away.
“Oh, speaking of— that latest record the two of you released together, it really does razz my berries like nothin’ else!” Lisa gushes, throwing a hand out to wriggle her fingers for emphasis. “It’s real hip and different from all your other tracks. Trust you two to be settin’ trends!”
Starting to get slightly tipsy now from the generous downing of your drink, you can’t help how you chime in with little thought, “Oh, I really do love that one. It’s perfect to dance to.”
“A dance?” Lisa queries, turning to pin you with a confused look over her shoulder. You realise your slip up in that moment, when you glance to the side and see both men looking at you with unreadable expressions. “It’s a bit slow for a dance, I think.”
“You can dance to anything,” Namjoon swoops in and unknowingly saves you, shrugging nonchalantly. The expression that was present on his face earlier is gone now, but it takes a split second longer to fade from Seokjin’s features.
Sinking into your chair as much as you can with Lisa’s weight pinning your legs down, you bring the glass to your mouth once more.
Slip-up aside, you can only hope it won’t be as difficult to get through this party as you thought.
x - x - x
The day has progressed nicely and as daylight begin to bleed into night, your father emerged to help man the barbecue and dinner was served — it was a somewhat rowdy affair, given how much alcohol the party had consumed up until that point. After eating their fill, most of your relatives and small cousins went home — they have a strict bedtime to uphold, after all. You made good on your promise to smother the little ones in kisses as they left, and it was with pink cheeks and bright grins that they bid you farewell.
It’s getting well into the night at this point, and only a few guests are left. Lisa is inside with a cluster of her friends and her fiance, your mother and the Kims are underneath the gazebo with their husbands— this has left you by the pool with Namjoon and Seokjin. They’d gotten a little bold earlier and when you’d teased them about something, you’d had an unceremonious reunion with the pool. It was startlingly similar to what occured right before your mother took that photo hanging in your room, and made an odd mixture of affection, nostalgia, and something a little bit bittersweet settle in your abdomen.
Just as it had the other time you’d met with the two, any tension and awkwardness had quickly melted away as the evening progressed. A few drinks in your systems and anything and everything is now water under the bridge. All too easily the three of you had fallen back into the same comfortable, playful air that you’d always known—
That you’d missed so much.
You’re lounging now in one of the rubber duck-shaped floaties your mother bought recently (she’d made you blow it up, gushing all the while about what a bargain she’d gotten on it and the companion swan floatie). Your head is more than pleasantly fuzzy, and you decide as you finish this glass that perhaps you’re done drinking for the night. You kick your legs lazily, feeling the heavy material of your skirt swish in the water as you propel yourself around the pool. Normally, the skirt is meant to come off before you take a dip. However given the nature of your entry into the pool, you hadn’t exactly had an opportunity to discard it.
“No, no— I remember it cleary— clearly.” Seokjin waves his hand, finger pointing at Namjoon— the man in question is cackling in the deep end, falling off the swan floatie that he was attempting to climb onto. Both men are at the point in the night where they are beginning to slur their words, and to be fair you’re not much different. You’d lost count of how many times either of them have slipped up in their words. “It wasn’t me who fell and broke y/n’s coffee table. From what I remember, it was your buttocks that hit it.”
“But you pushed me!” Any attempts on Namjoon’s behalf to hide his grin and even pretend to be angry prove to be fruitless. He has the same dumb dimpled grin on his face that you remember from your teen years. “It was uncalled for, assault!”
“You!” Seokjin’s mouth drops open, his legs kicking in the pool in his outrage. Namjoon’s eyes almost disappear as he cackles, throwing his head back. It melds into the sounds of the festivities over by the gazebo, where the radio and Lisa’s own gleeful laughter echo into the night. “y/n can confirm, it was Joon, right?!”
You put your arms behind your head, pretending to lounge back on the floatie despite how tentative your position is on the slippery rubber. “I don’t recall, suddenly I can’t think.”
“Yah!”
Your jubilant laughter means that you don’t see it when Seokjin slips completely into the pool, diving beneath the water to where you’re lounging and coming up beneath you. A scream rips from your throat as you're flipped from the floatie, tumbling backwards and into the water with a hefty splash to boot.
When you come back up, gasping breaths above the surface turning into laughter, it takes a moment for realisation to reach you through the sluggish fog in your brain that your skirt has detached. Still laughing, you catch sight of it and reach for it where it’s floating across the pool, recognising the sound of the two males guffawing behind you. When you slip on the bottom of he pool for a moment and get water up your nose, you decide that perhaps it’s time for you to call it a night soon.
“Woah, bubs, are you okay?”
When you slip again, a strong arm catches around your waist like an iron bar, holding you to the surface. Blinking the water out of your lashes, you turn to see the owner; the breath is startled out of you as your gaze meet the dark depths of Seokjin’s own. His hair is still dripping, an inky wayward mess atop his head, and the t-shirt he’d donned as he first entered the pool so long ago is clinging to each line and plane of his body.
For a moment, yearning and a feeling all too familiar takes up the space of your lungs, and you find that you can’t breathe.
“I think… I think it’s time to call it a night,” you manage to say, a new kind of lightheadedness emerging to addle your thoughts. You turn, breaking the hold Seokjin’s gaze has on you to seek out the edge of the pool. You feel his eyes bore holes into you for a moment longer, before two hands come to grip your waist and he moves you through the water to the rim of the pool.
“Probably for the best,” Seokjin says, grip tightening in a split-second of warning before he heaves you up and onto the brick that lines the poolside. Off-kilter and unexpecting of the movement as you were, you have to balance yourself with your legs, which almost end up smacking Seokjin in the side. Through your inebriation, you don’t realise the way your thighs have parted in the process, the detached skirt in your hand doing little to cover you where it is laying sopping wet on the brick.
“You’re being almost as clumsy as—” You’re also so busy trying to quell the fluttering in your stomach and find your bearings you also don’t notice the way Seokjin’s eyes move unwittingly down your form, falling to your thigh at eye-level. “...Namjoon.”
You blink, eyes finally focusing but heartbeat still thrumming in your ears.
“I don’t know if I will ever be that clumsy,” you manage to say, as comprehensible as possible. Seokjin’s hands leave your waist as you stumble to your feet, wringing out your skirt before attempting to button the drenched garment back up above your hips.
“Hey!”
At Namjoon’s outcry, you grin and bring your hand up in a wave.
“I’ll see you guys later,” you drunkenly promise, completely forgetting that in a few days, you’ll be out of this town and out of their lives once more. “Goodnight, you two.”
They return the sentiment, and you grab a towel from one of the poolside chairs, wrapping it around yourself and making your way back in. You miss the way that their eyes follow you as you leave their sight and reenter the warmth and light of your home.
x - x - x - x
The night has drawn to a close, and the two men have long since climbed from the pool and dried off with the fluffy towels your mother so generously laid out for them before she got too tispy. A sharp look from their own mothers reminded them earlier that there are still plates to clear and things to tidy, so despite being guests they do their best amongst the alcohol-induced fog clouding their minds to help clean up the aftermath of Lisa’s engagement party.
As they do so, the same thing is true for both of them: there is a lot on their minds.
Seokjin had to turn to Namjoon earlier to confirm what he’d seen, and when he saw the man in question already looking at him with wide eyes, he knew he hadn’t just drunkenly imagined it. They both saw it, the glimpse of a strikingly familiar picture peeking from the inside of your thigh. They’d seen that very same tattoo in the very same place just a few nights ago, only last time the owner had remained a masked mystery. Now, they’d glimpsed the same image on the body of their childhood friend, the girl they’d both fallen in love with and subsequently drifted apart over only years ago because they were young and jealous and stupid. But, things are different now; they’re now only two of those things, and after they made up over a year ago their friendship is stronger than ever, in… more ways than one.
But despite how much has changed over the years, there is still one thing that has remained constant; and that is their feelings for you.
Truthfully, after not seeing you for so long, they had started to think perhaps they were finally getting over you. Impossible as it had seemed, considering how smitten they were. A cold realisation washed over them the second they saw you again, though, that those feelings hadn’t disappeared like they had suspected, but simply remained dormant. Seeing you at the diner and finally getting to catch up after being apart so long, missing you so much, had pretty much cemented that. When they’d returned to their hotel room after, they didn’t need to say a word and only shared a look to know they had both come to the same conclusion.
They were both irrevocably, pathetically, undoubtedly still in love with you, even after all these years.
Then had come the show.
It was the reason they’d returned to this town, technically. An important friend of theirs had invited them both to celebrate the success of their latest record and talk about future opportunities; the location happened to be a club currently hosting a highly regarded burlesque set. They’d felt the second the final masked performer had come on stage that there was something odd, something special about her. She had used their song, on her thigh had been a tattoo that tickled something in the back of their minds, and there was something in the way she moved that had been so jarringly familiar, but neither had been able to pin where they had seen her before.
Until tonight, that is.
It hadn’t been an intentional reveal on your part, but there on your thigh had been the exact same tattoo they’d glimpsed in the club, and they’d known the second they saw it that it wasn’t a common design. At first, on the night, Seokjin thought that it might have struck them because it was drawn similarly to how you always used to doodle moons on all of your schoolbooks, and now it all made sense.
The only thing left to consider is, what do they do now that they know?
“Oh, my boys— my precious, helpful, lovely boys!”
The two men turn in tandem, easily catching sight of your mother as she stumbles her way over to them. They were in the process of moving some of the plates to the kitchen before they heard her drunken cooing, and Seokjin finds himself thanking the heavens they’d put them down quickly because in the next second your mother is throwing her arms around them and they’re being yanked down to her height from the sheer strength of her grip.
“I missed you two, we all missed you two,” she blubbers, hugging them close like she’s worried they might slip away into the night the second she loosens her hold. A second shy of suffocating them, she finally releases her grip, and they straighten with warm faces. Namjoon knows without even having to check that he’s got a real goofy grin on his mug right now.
“We missed you too,” Seokjin says, and he means it. Your family and Namjoon’s family are both pretty much his own at this point, and he’d found himself missing every single member while he was away. Each time he returned home, he was sure to visit the other two houses at the end of the cul-de-sac, though the times he’d been able to actually make his way back to his home town were unfortunately few and far between. The same is the case for Namjoon, as he knows, except likely a bit worse since he knows Namjoon has always been a real Mummy’s boy.
“But I doubt it was as much as we missed you!” Your mother argues, and it makes both men smile. The next few words to escape her mouth knock the expression straight off their faces, though. “y/n especially. Oh, I remember she was so heartbroken when you three started growing apart. I think part of the reason she left was to get away from it. The way she used to talk about you boys…” Her gaze slips to the side, eyes slightly hazy in recollection. “I thought for sure that she was going to end up marrying one of you.”
They don’t even get a good second to unpack that, before the haze leaves your mother’s eyes and she is giggling, leaning forward with a cheeky glint in her eyes that they know for sure they’ve seen in your own. She brings her hand up to shield her mouth as she whispers in a voice that is not at all as quiet as she likely thinks it is, “It’s a bit improper, but I think she used to like both of you.”
Namjoon chokes on his own spit, and Seokjin’s mouth falls slack. “What?”
Your mother merely giggles, leaning back and spinning on her heel. “Thank you so much for your help, boys, but you ought to be on your way! Your mothers are about to head home and neither of them are walking in a very straight line.”
She halts, turning over her shoulder to shoot them a wide grin. “I’m glad you two came. Thank you.”
And then she is gone, and a blanket of silence falls over the kitchen. Seokjin and Namjoon turn their heads, locking gazes.
Well, at least now they know what to do.
x — x — x
You swear there is something odd in the air of the club this evening.
It’s something subtle, and none of the other girls seem to have noticed it; they continue as always, tittering away in the dressing rooms and giggling amongst themselves when one of them makes a joke that probably shouldn’t be repeated outside the room. It’s the last night you will be performing here, and also the last night you will be staying. You were planning on making a quick visit home tomorrow morning to say farewell to your parents and congratulate your sister once more, before being on your way. You hadn’t decided yet whether you were going to go out of your way to track down Seokjin and Namjoon to say goodbye to them as well, but the idea of it… well, it sets your belly alight with nerves. You have no idea what you would say, and you know — you know— in your gut that doing it would revive the elephant in the room that you’ve all been ignoring up until now.
But if you don’t, then you’ll be doing the exact same thing you did last time, and this time around you don’t know if you’ll get their forgiveness, let alone deserve it.
By this point in the evening, you’ve already slipped into your costume and powdered your face. Since you wear a mask while on stage, you don’t really need to apply any heavy makeup around your brows and eyes; you usually settle for accentuating them naturally.
Mina has disappeared since you last saw her, which is odd since she usually lingers to talk your ear off about any handsome faces she might spy in the crowd as the room beyond the stage begins to fill. You’d started to look for her earlier, seeking a distraction from the depressing inner monologue you have running, but hadn’t managed to find her. This means that for the past half hour or so you’ve been left to your own devices, fiddling with different parts of your dress and costume like a child twiddling their thumbs in the principal’s office. Part of that time, you spend trying to ignore the events of last night and any feelings that may have resurfaced as a result of your return to this town. For the rest of it, you attempt to think about what you’re going to do tomorrow when the rapidly-approaching hour comes when you have to leave again. God, where on earth did Mina get off to? You’re going insane here.
Oddly enough, it’s her that finds you a few minutes before the show is set to start. By this point, it’s a wonder you haven’t torn your hair out of it’s meticulous styling.
“Where did you pop off to?” you ask her before she even has a chance to say hello. She raises her brows, laughing at your rapid questioning.
“Big boss wanted me for something,” she supplies, cocking her hip and resting a hand there. “Actually, I was asked to pass on a message to you.”
The confusion must be evident on your face, because Mina is quick to wave her hand. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad— though it is a bit odd. He just asked me to tell you to meet him in one of the private rooms in the VVIP section. I think it was the very last one…?”
That is odd, considering she’d apparently just come from meeting him. Private shows aren’t something you do, so you can’t think of a reason why the big boss would ask you to meet him there.
“Huh, ok. So soon before the show…?” you ask, just to be sure. You don’t have your mask on you right now, so you need to calculate how long it’s going to take you to return and get it. Mina shrugs, nodding.
“I suppose so. Don’t worry,” she smiles, something indecipherable yet oddly devious entering her gaze. “You won’t be there long enough to mess anything up. The show will go on, Miss Luna.”
You could almost swear there is something hidden in her words, but don’t have the time or the thought to dwell on it. Instead you return her smile and turn to be on your way; the VVIP rooms are on the other side of the establishment, and you don’t want to keep the big boss waiting. You’d only met him once, the owner of this club, and he didn’t strike you as anything in particular. The only thing you’d thought to note is that he smoked perhaps a few too many cigars, because his office was almost always filled with curling, coiling smoke that leaked into the hall each time you moved past. But he was quite mild-mannered and polite as far as men in this business go, so you’re not particularly concerned for your wellbeing as you make your way to meet him.
It takes a little longer than anticipated, since you ran into one of your co-performers and they cornered you for help with their outfit, but finally you’re arriving in the second-floor wing that houses the VVIP rooms. Instantly, it’s evident where you are. The carpet is a little more plush, the wallpaper a little more maintained, and the hall decorated a little nicer than the rest of the place. Spotting the room on the end, you make your way down there and knock on the door thrice before grasping the handle and easing it open.
“Mr. Leigh? What did you want to t—”
The rest of your sentence dies in your throat before it even has a chance to reach the tip of your tongue, feet freezing mid-step as your eyes fall upon the occupants of the room. For once, you don’t have any sort of instinct that kicks in to save you; you simply stand and stare with wide eyes.
“Took you long enough, bubs.” Seokjin straightens from where he had been leaning back against the plush crimson leather of the circular lounge. “We were beginning to think you weren’t going to show.”
A myriad of thoughts suddenly flood the blank space in your brain, all in contention with each other. Oh no, they’ve seen you— no, you have a mask, they don’t know who you are— no, you don’t have your mask—
Dressed in your performing attire and standing before Seokjin and Namjoon, in one of the VVIP rooms in the club where they attended your show, you aren’t a faceless dancer. You’re y/n, and it feels like they can see every single bit of you there is to see.
You don’t even know where to begin.
“I…” You attempt to say something, anything, but your tongue has suddenly turned to lead in a pact with your stomach, sinking down and refusing to dance for your words.
It takes you a moment to realise as you watch them straighten, but neither of them look surprised. It leads you to believe that somehow they figured it out on their own, though you have no idea how. You don’t really have the presence of mind to ask them right now, either. In fact, it could even be argued that you’re almost panicking.
“We have a lot to talk about,” Namjoon speaks up, offering you a smile that holds neither judgement nor disdain. “We wanted to catch you before you inevitably skipped town without saying goodbye.”
That stung, just as much as the guilt that struck you for the truth of his words. You’d been contemplating it, leaning towards it even, but suddenly you feel you have to defend yourself.
“I hadn’t decided that yet,” you say quietly. You let the door fall shut behind you, silently acquiescing to the unspoken demand weighing heavy in the air.
“Don’t lie.”
Your eyes shoot even wider, if possible, at the sound of Seokjin of all people snapping at you. His tone was sharp, and you half expect him to look furious, but when your eyes flick to his face it gives nothing away. When he continues in the next second, though, you see it in the depths of his eyes. Hurt.
“We used to tell each other everything, back then.” It could have been a trick of your mind, but you swear you heard his voice break slightly. “I don’t want that to change. So no lies tonight, y/n. We’re going to talk as adults, openly and honestly.”
For reasons beyond you, something about the promise woven through his tone makes you nervous. A tremor fights to shudder its way down your spine; for a moment, you feel akin to a small, cornered forest animal, even though they are the ones sitting against a wall and you are in the open. You don’t know what to say.
Namjoon steps in, saving you from fumbling for a response as he always seems to do. “You don’t have to stand there, ready to bolt, you know. You can come sit down.”
You shake your head, suddenly recalling your commitments outside this room and feeling relief flood you at the realisation that you have an excuse to remove yourself from this situation you’d tried so hard to avoid. “I can’t. I have to go p—”
“We already talked it over with your boss, he was happy to take you out of the performance tonight. It’s okay, the others know too.”
You deflate, looking at Namjoon with a sinking feeling in your stomach. He doesn’t hold your attention all that long, though, before the sound of Seokjin’s voice brings your gaze to him once more.
“Why did you leave? Without even saying goodbye, or telling us where you went?” You feel rooted to the spot, pinned first by the weight of Seokjin’s gaze and then his words as they slam into you, unfiltered.
“Hyung.” You think you hear Namjoon murmur softly, giving the man next to him a pointed look. Seokjin is unphased, looking at you expectantly, “Be honest.”
It’s just as panic begins to seep into the bottom of your lungs that anger sparks and sets it alight, transmuting it to something red and hot in your chest.
“You want me to be honest?” you ask, heat beginning to colour your voice and sharpen the tip of your tongue. “I left because of you— both of you. I don’t know if something happened between you or if I just wasn’t enough, or you felt I was holding you back, but you drew away and you left me. You both left me before I ever left you.”
You see it the second your words enter the air like a whip, the hurt and guilt slipping across their features. Anger bubbles in your throat, stings your eyes, and urges you to let loose everything else rising to the tip of your tongue, “I left because I couldn’t handle the pain of my two best friends slowly easing themselves from my life, like— like I was old news. Like I no longer had a place in that shiny, brand new world they’d stepped into.”
More rushes to escape, feelings kept bottled up tight for three years suddenly flooding forth with the force of a tidal wave, but you bite it down, closing your eyes and taking a deep breath that rattles through your chest. When you’re sure you have a firmer grasp on your emotions, you allow yourself to speak once more. “If an apology is what you want, then I’m sorry. I’m sorry for leaving without saying goodbye. I’m sorry for my part in hurting you. But you… the two of you hurt me, too. You meant the world to me and when you pulled away you made me feel like nothing.”
Your eyes remain closed, teeth sinking into your bottom lip as you will yourself not to cry; silence sinks over the room, only broken as your ears adjust to the thin buzz of electricity thrumming through the walls. One moment, another-- you try and focus on breathing in, and breathing out.
“Something did happen between us, you know. We fought over you.”
Your head snaps up, eyes locking onto Namjoon. He stands, dusting his legs as he straightens and adjusts his jacket. Slowly, like he’s worried he will spook you, he begins to step closer. “I’m sorry, y/n. We never meant to hurt you, and didn’t realise the way our immaturity was hurting you, too. You took up such a big part of our lives, and after you left it was painfully empty… when we saw you again this week, it was the first time we’d felt whole in years.”
Stunned, you’re rooted to the spot and can only watch as he comes close enough to touch, hands reaching for your own; faintly, you register the sound of Seokjin getting up from the couch as well. When he reaches your side, you risk a glance to his face and are surprised by the soft, remorseful expression resting upon his handsome features.
“I’m sorry, bubs, for hurting you.” He lifts a hand, the warmth of his palm cupping your cheek. “You are irreplaceable to us, and we will always want you as a part of our lives. No one meant as much to us as you did then, and no one means as much to us as you do now. The two of you are my world, and I know the same goes for Joon.”
There’s something different hiding in the depths of his tone that makes your heart patter faster against the confines of your chest, something in the way they share a look so full of something warm that your own cheeks heat in response. Both of them… with each other, too?
“Why are you saying this?” Now, you meant to tack on. Why is he saying this now?
Namjoon’s eyes are warm as they meet your own. “Because we should have said it three years ago. Plus… we got a tip from an anonymous source that our feelings aren’t as unrequited as we once thought.”
You don’t even need to wonder who it was that could have exposed such a thing; your mother had been mysteriously avoidant of your gaze this morning, almost knocking a few things off the bench in the extent of her effort to evade meeting your eyes.
“If nothing else, please just tell us before you go,” Seokjin implores, voice a low murmur. “Whether it was true then, or....”
You have a feeling you know what he was going to say: or even now. You’d known it the second you glimpsed them back in this town that those feelings you’d harboured for years and years weren’t ever going away. Even seeing them a handful of times has made your heart ache with the revival of your love and the magnitude at which it had bloomed once more in the tender soil of your being. The words rush to the tip of your tongue, but even now when the two objects of your affection have all but confessed to you, fear barrs them from leaving your mouth. Because it’s not appropriate, a voice murmurs it’s familiar tune, It’s so unlikely— what if you are just reading too much into it and are mistaken?
Honesty, Seokjin had requested. You take a deep breath before admitting the words that will seal your fate, for better or for worse.
“I did love you, then,” you say, catching it as they both seem to tense. “I should have known better than to think those feelings would just go away.”
It takes a moment, but soon both men are erupting into bright grins. In his glee, Namjoon folds you into his arms, smacking a soft kiss to your forehead, your cheek, and finally your lips— the suddenness of the action brings a gasp to your lips, but you’re definitely not going to complain. Especially not when the way his mouth moves against yours lights something bright deep within you.
You don’t get to enjoy the sensations for longer than a moment before Seokjin’s voice is parting the air, a completely different tone underlying his words than what you expect from seeing his stupid grin earlier.
“Ah-ah-ah, don’t think you’re off the hook just yet, little miss. “ You meet his gaze over Namjoon’s shoulder and a shudder shoots down your spine at the look in his eyes. “We have a lot of lost time to make up for, wouldn’t you say?”
x - x
Barely ten minutes and a private car ride filled with scandalous touches and even more scandalous noises later, you’re being pressed against the wall in the bedroom of the penthouse suite in the most expensive hotel your town has to offer. Namjoon’s mouth is on yours with a kiss so impassioned that it pulls the air from your lungs and the strength from your knees; you don’t even realise that the lights hadn’t already been on when you entered and it was Jin responsible for illuminating your path into the suite.
A part of you expects some internal resistance — it had been three years since you’d last seen them, before this week — but instead you’re simply overwhelmed with how right it feels. Soft, fluttery warmth like sun rays on a winter’s morning fills you up to the brim, the feeling so foreign you’re worried your heart might actually burst.
Namjoon’s hands come to your hips, pressing them to the wall before sliding up to the dip of your waist. He isn’t overly bold in the way he moves his mouth against yours, but it makes a whine build in your chest nonetheless. A part of you disagrees with it, and when you recall that you’re still here dressed in the costume that usually gives you the power over men, you push back and turn the two of you around.
When his own back meets the wall, the softest gasp escapes Namjoon’s mouth and you swallow it down, your hands coming to cup his jaw. You take the lead in the kiss and he doesn’t put up a fight, grip tightening on your sides as he holds you closer.
“Ah-ah, bubs.”
An unwitting squeak escapes you as two large hands find purchase on your waist and you’re pulled apart from the man panting against the wall. You blink and before you know it Seokjin has you falling onto something so plush and soft you know immediately it’s a bed. Your eyes are quick to find Seokjin’s, and the raven-haired male shoots you a stern look that is only contradicted by the heady mixture of affection and lust in his gaze.
“You don’t get to call the shots tonight,” he informs you simply, striding closer to where you’re laying on the bed and tugging on the string that holds your silken gown together. It’s designed to come undone, and so it’s no surprise that at the lightest pull the silk is sliding off your body, revealing the outfit you’d paraded on the stage before them barely a few nights ago. Faintly, you register the bed dipping behind you, but your attention is otherwise occupied when Seokjin reaches for the bedside table and retrieves something long and black.
“Her wrists?” Namjoon asks, unknowingly answering the question you had forming in your head. Seokjin nods, tossing the tie to him. Your gown is slipped from your shoulders completely, sheer petticoat ruffling as you’re scooted backwards until you feel the firmness of Namjoon’s chest against your back and Seokjin is sliding between your legs, in the midst of unbuttoning his shirt.
“Do you know what you did to us when we saw you that night?” Seokjin asks, voice smooth as honey. It’s a struggle to remain focused on his words when Namjoon brings your hands together in front of you where you’re propped against him, beginning to bind them a little too expertly with the tie Seokjin had passed him. Your heart beats a little faster, thighs trembling as heady anticipation whirls within you. “What you do to us?”
“Just seeing you was already dangerous enough,” Namjoon murmurs, husky tone brushing the shell of your ear. “But you danced to our song, the song we wrote for you. It’s like you knew what it would do to us…”
It makes something swell in your chest, the confirmation that they had written that song for you. You catch something fond flick through Seokjin’s gaze before he tuts, shaking his head. He pushes your now-tied hands up and over your head, back until you feel the side of your thumbs grazing the back of Namjoon’s neck. Lips brush your neck, eliciting a shiver that Seokjin eagerly drinks in. Long, deft fingers work to undo the top part of your corset, the cushioned bandeau, and slip it from your form. You can visibly see it as his eyes darken, drinking in the sheer bralette barely supporting your breasts. You also know the second he glimpses the tassels pressed beneath, because his teeth sink into his lip and he takes in a sharp breath.
Namjoon’s wandering hands come to trace the underside of your chest, breath catching in your throat when he takes their weight into his hold and kneads. Warmth shoots to your core, the hints of pleasure curling your toes. You feel breathless as they work in easy tandem, Seokjin slipping your petticoat over your legs and Namjoon removing your bralette. You shiver once your chest is bare, not from the cold but from the intensity and the weight of their gazes as you feel them fall upon you.
“Leave her corset,” Seokjin instructs, flicking one of your tassels and eliciting a yelp. He settles back further between your legs, wrapping his arms around your thighs; his gazes falls upon the tattoo on the inside of your leg and the corner of his lips curls up.
The plush of his lips presses against the sensitive skin of your inner thigh, the sensation tingling along your nerves. He doesn’t comment on the picture, but when his mouth touches where it is inked into your skin you feel your heart skip a beat nonetheless.
Your mind is pulled from the sensation of fingers slipping beneath the edge of your panties when Namjoon’s fingers play with the tassels attached to your nipples, tugging and pulling and eliciting all sorts of heady sensations that make your thighs shake. “Joon,” you breathe, something else resting on the tip of your tongue only to be replaced with a whine when Namjoon pulls a little harder, soft open-mouthed kisses pressed to the sensitive column of your neck.
It’s like all of your nerves are alight at once, each touch and brush of their skin against yours heightened and making your heart race and your breath come a little quicker. Seokijn quickly slips your panties off, but leaves the pantyhose and garter belt. His eyes drag a trail of heat up your body, halting where Namjoon has begun to suck marks onto your neck like an artist decorating a canvas. For a moment he is mesmerised, and you can’t help the words that slip from your lips.
“You like what you see?” You ask, curving your back ever so slightly to emphasise your position. Seokjin pins you with an unreadable look, jaw ticking for a moment.
“Very much so,” he answers, pulling away from you for a moment. He reaches behind him, retrieving something you hadn’t even noticed before now, and when you realise what it is he has in his hand you feel your stomach simultaneously drop and flip in excitement. His eyes meet yours for a moment, an unspoken question whether what he is about to do is okay, and had it been anyone else you know you would have refused, but you trust him. You trust them. You offer him a small nod and you receive the smallest smile in return before he is bringing the camera up to his eye and lining up his shot.
Flash. Click. The camera isn’t as bulky as you’re used to, and you figure it must be one of the newer models you are far too poor to afford. One picture seems to be enough for him for now, but you know as he places it well to the side that it won’t be the only appearance it makes tonight.
“Just in case you decide to fly the coop on us again,” he says, a sly look on his face. You scoff, knowing that he’s joking, and hold up your hands, still bound.
“Like this? Not likely.”
He chuckles, and you feel Namjoon’s chest rumble with a soft laugh against your back as well. The lighthearted moment is over as quick as it arrives as Seokjin settles back between your legs and hardly waits for you to orient yourself before dipping his head down and delivering a broad swipe of his tongue up your slit.
“F— Jin!” you yelp at the sudden shock of pleasure, wriggling in Namjoon’s arms slightly; he nips at your skin in light reprimand, and Seokjin lifts his head only for a moment to scold you with a cheeky gleam in his eyes.
“Careful now, bubs,” he cautions, delivering a small kitten lick to your clit between utterances. “We might have the penthouse but there are still people below us.”
Surprisingly— or perhaps unsurprisingly, when taking the rest of your life and profession into account — the idea of being heard has the opposite effect on you than one might expect. You bite your lip, tipping your head back as Namjoon’s fingers begin to play with you once more and Seokjin begins to bury his face between your legs in earnest.
It gives you a bit of whiplash, when you think about it; you don’t think you ever would have expected to end up here, in this situation. Crushes or no crushes, you hadn’t even expected to see them again let alone become the meat in a famous musician sandwich.
It’s almost shameful how quickly the heat and pressure builds within you, Namjoon managing to tug the tassels off completely to roll your flushed buds between his fingers. The noises that sound from Seokjin’s ministrations between your legs are so downright lewd you can feel your face flush with heat, your thighs trembling either side of his head. You attempt to keep your own moans and whines in until Seokjin delivers a smack to your thigh and sends you a warning look.
Just when you think you might be about to reach your peak, Seokjin stops, pulling back and licking your cream from his lips. The look you send him must be devastated, because he looks absolutely smug.
“Now, this isn’t just about you,” Seokjin says, carding a hand through his hair before he finishes undoing his shirt and slips it from his form. Your breath catches at the sight of his sculpted torso, and the ink that decorates it in pretty splotches of imagery. You feel so ridiculously naughty, finding the tattoos on him as attractive as you do, and you’re aware of the irony but you just can’t help it. Seokjin could manage to make a potato sack look good. “Hasn’t Joonie been good? Been making you feel so good, with nothing in return? I think we should pay him back.”
It’s all the warning you get before you’re flipped over, braced on your elbows and knees. There is rustling before something plush is slipped beneath you, and Seokjin lowers you down between Namjoon’s legs with the pillow propping your hips up for him to continue where he left off.
Dazed from the sudden shift and beginning to lose yourself to the feeling as Seokjin returns his mouth to your soaked centre, you tilt to meet Namjoon’s dark gaze and offer him a brief smile. You can’t deny, the angle you’re viewing him from is nice, especially as he wrangles his shirt off and you catch glimpses of firm abs and chest. Namjoon, too, has decorated his skin, and it’s somewhat ridiculous how viscerally you’re reacting to it but you really think you might be about to drool.
The pleasure quickly beginning to build in you once more from Seokjin’s plush lips and agile tongue leaves you no room for pleasantries, “Can I suck you off, Joonie?”
You hear his breath catch before he tips his head back and lets out a soft groan. “Do you even have to ask?”
His response only fuels your eagerness, mouth beginning to feel empty when your face is so close to his crotch you can feel the heat of his body. Considering the state of your hands, Namjoon makes quick work of his belt and slacks for you, shimmying them down with his briefs just enough to let his member spring free, almost completely hard at this point.
“Holy shoot, Joon,” you curse, eyes wide with a mixture of shock and lust. God, you don’t think you’ve ever wanted anyone as much as you want these two men. Namjoon shoots you a cheeky, if somewhat dazed, smile that makes his dimples pop out.
“It’s not just me you have to worry about.”
Well that’s a condemning statement if you ever did hear one, considering how you’re hoping this night will go. One of the more open and liberal girls that worked the show with you had once said “god gave me two holes for a reason, girls!” and right now you find you couldn’t agree more.
You’re sick of your mouth being empty, you decide, and so you forego further foreplay and simply reach for his cock, taking the length into your hands and promptly enveloping his tip in the heat of your mouth.
“Fuck!” Namjoon swears loudly, thighs tensing against your shoulders. The yelp that escapes you as Seokjin smacks your ass melts into a moan that elicits a throaty noise from Namjoon, as well.
You press and drag your tongue along the underside of his length, gradually working your mouth lower and lower until your nose is brushing the dark patch of curls across his pubic bone, a surprisingly pleasant mixture of musk melding with his cologne and brushing your senses . Even without the pleasure flooding your nerves from Seokjin’s tongue and the way he latches his lips around your clit, the deep, throaty noises tumbling from Namjoon’s mouth are reward enough. Since your hands are bound, your mouth has to do most of the work; when you sink down enough that his tip bumps the back of your throat, you do your best to fight your gag reflex from kicking in fully.
Namjoon swears once more, just barely stopping himself before it gets too reminiscent of a sailor’s vocabulary. The sensation of your throat constricting around the head of his member makes his hips twitch and buck up ever so slightly, his hands winding into the hair at the nape of your neck. Struggling to keep on task through the haze in your mind, you do your best to build up a rhythm that has Namjoon’s abdomen trembling from the effort of keeping his hips still.
In tandem, the two of you seem to be rapidly approaching your highs— unfortunately for you, that same attention to detail that makes Jin’s ministrations so mind-numbingly good is what alerts him to that fact. Right when you feel yourself tense up in the prelude to your orgasm, Seokjin rips his mouth away, the bed shifting behind you. “Not yet, bubs.”
You can’t help the whine that sounds from your throat, the vibrations making Namjoon jerk.
“Fuck, I’m—”
Flash. Click.
Another whine, different in tone this time, escapes you at the knowledge that Seokjin has added another filthy memory to his collection.
“Joonie, you better not cum until I say so. y/n, off.”
Namjoons nails scratch lightly against your scalp, almost making your eyes roll back as he whines lowly in protest. You know you should listen and do as Seokjin says, but you can’t help but push a little, taking your sweet time as you pull your mouth slowly from Namjoon’s length, sucking all the while. The noises that tumble from Namjoon’s mouth as a result are incriminating enough, and even though you knew Seokjin wasn’t going to let it slide it still comes as a surprise when there is a sharp, painful smack against the globe of your ass. It’s hard enough and loud enough that your back arches slightly, mouth leaving Namjoon with a pop so you’re free to cry out.
“Jin!”
Seokjin’s hand is cool against the smarting flesh of your behind as he rubs soothingly over it, raising an eyebrow as you meet his gaze over your shoulder. “I told you off, bubs. Let’s not make me repeat myself.”
Somewhat petulant despite the giddy butterflies in the pit of your stomach, you allow him to grab you by the hips and yank you back with a pout, breathless with anticipation when you feel his fingers drag over the dips and curves of your body as though mapping them out. He makes you sit up, your back against his chest as he explores your front, drinking in each gasp and whine as he pinches and tugs your nipples and rolls them between the pads of his fingers. Down, down, down he goes— when his finger drags along your slit and slips over your swollen clit you cry out, unable to help the unwitting buck of your hips.
“After all the effort I went to to clean you up, you’ve gone and made a mess again,” Seokjin murmurs, pillowy lips brushing the edge of your ear. You quiver in his hold as he rolls a lazy circle around your bud, thighs threatening to close around his hand. You’re suddenly aware of how empty you feel, surprised that you’ve almost orgasmed twice without even being penetrated.
You try and cant your hips up, not above whining and begging at this point— if he denies you your high one more time you just might go insane. “Please, Jin, please—”
Namjoon, who had taken a moment to recover after almost blowing his load earlier, shifts forward on the bed to join the two of you. His lips find your neck, your jaw, until they finally meet your lips once more and he swallows your sinful noises down.
“What, you want more? You want my fingers? Look at you. You want to be filled so badly you’re willing to rock against anything with a pulse...”
Heat flushes up your neck to your cheeks, Namjoon’s kiss muffling your whine; you hadn’t thought you would be one to fancy this sort of thing, but if the wetness gushing forth at his words is anything to go by then apparently you do.
Namjoon parts from your lips, waiting until your eyes focus on him so that he can hold your gaze. “Baby girl,” he murmurs, voice rough. His hand slips down to join Seokjin’s, finger dipping ever so slightly into your slit. The true meaning of his question isn’t lost on you. “Who do you want?”
You feel almost unhinged with how much raw, restless desire is coursing through you right now— you couldn’t have stopped your answer even if you’d wanted to. “Both… both of you…”
There is a moment of silence following your response, but you don’t have time to wonder whether you said the wrong thing. In the next second Seokjin is swearing lowly under his breath, pressing his lips to your throat to hide his groan.
“Joonie, bedside table. You’ll have to prepare her.”
You’ve never seen Namjoon move as fast as he did the second Seokjin spoke, flying from the bed; he’s back within seconds after retrieving something from the drawers to the side, placing them on the covers. A small rectangular tin and a slim bottle.
When he sits, waiting eagerly with his cock still flushed and hard and bobbing from the movement, Seokjin turns you around in an abridged version of the way you were before. Taking note of the uncomfortable angle of your arms, he undoes the tie, but doesn’t discard it after slipping it from the reddened skin of your wrists.
With your ass now pointed in Namjoon’s direction, it isn’t long before his hands find purchase and your most intimate area is revealed to him.
“Fuck,” he swears, “You’re so wet, baby. We might not even need the extra help, hyung.”
“Use it just in case,” Seokjin instructs, before turning his attention to you. “Now, if you want to cum later I think you should earn it now, hm?”
Your hands were already moving towards his belt and fly before he’d started talking, but his words renew your vigour. When you free Seokjin’s crotch from the confines of his slacks and briefs, you quickly understand just what Namjoon meant earlier. Namjoon has length, but Seokjin is thick. You wrap your hands around him and can’t help but marvel at his size— you’re a little ashamed of how excited it makes you.
“Ah!” Your plans to engulf Seokjin’s cock in the heat of your mouth are interrupted by a sensation at your rear. You wiggle slightly, unable to help it. “That’s cold!”
Namjoon places a featherlight kiss to your cheek, thick, slippery finger beginning to ease into your hole now that it is sufficiently lubricated. Suddenly aware that your attention is in the wrong place, you do your best to hurry back to what you were doing before you earn yourself another smack.
“Perfect, bubs.” The groan that rumbles from Seokjin’s throat in praise is so raspy and low that it makes a shiver roll down your spine. As teasingly as you dare, you’re suckling around the flushed head of his cock, feeling it twitch and throb in your hands in response. It’s already a tight fit in your mouth, you can feel your thighs quaking in anticipation as you imagine what it would feel like filling you up. The thought takes you by surprise.
Since when did you start thinking like such a wanton whore?!
Well, you suppose, there is no time like the present.
Seokjin’s hand threads through your hair, his hips rocking ever so slightly; you watch the way the muscles in his abdomen undulate at the movement and fight to keep your saliva in your mouth as you begin to bob your head down his length. Considering his girth, it’s hard to keep your teeth tucked behind your lips, but you somehow manage; when the time comes that he reaches your throat you’re in a better condition than you were earlier for it, but it’s still a bit of a shock to the system.
“Oh my god,” Seokjin’s thighs quake for the slightest second against you. “Fuck. No wonder Joonie almost blew his load. Look at you. You do this often, huh? Look how well you swallow my cock…”
You moan around him, his words and the oddly pleasant sensation of Namjoon working his fingers in and out of your asshole melding into a pool of heat in your abdomen. Your eyes flutter closed as you try to focus on making Seokjin feel good, and you’re only distracted by a muted flash behind your eyelids.
Click.
Another shot saved. You take Seokjin further into your mouth, trying to go as far back as you can without gagging. He doesn’t seem to mind the way your throat constricts around his length though, if the noises escaping his plush lips where they part are anything to go by. Namjoon gradually adds one finger after another, making sure you’re accustomed to the stretch at least a little before the next joins. By the time he has squeezed in three fingers and scissored them a few times, you find yourself shaking a bit from the sensations. It’s odd, different to what you’re used to, but oh even with the light burn that accompanies each finger it still feels so good.
You’re so focused on the sensations that you don’t even realise the attention you’ve been giving Seokjin has strayed, lips sucking a little harder and your hand stroking a little tighter. The salty taste of precum coats your tongue and you have half a mind to be ashamed of the way it makes you long for more. It proves to be a little too much for Seokjin at once, though. His hand tightens in your hair, pulling you gently off of him as he struggles to catch his breath.
“Not yet, bubs,” he says, voice rough. His eyes are like magnetic pools as they draw you into their depths, their hold only broken when Namjoon slips a final finger in and you shut your eyes on instinct, mouth dropping open at the sensation.
“Are you ready, baby?”
Namjoon’s voice makes your stomach flip, his free hand smoothing over the curve of your ass. You find yourself nodding before you even have the thought to do so, and with that Namjoon shifts on the bed behind you. Seokjin helps you move backwards, your eyes trained on his length somewhat longingly. There is the sound of something tearing softly behind you and you find yourself thankful that they took the initiative and you don’t have to ask them about protection.
You’re moved so that you’re straddling Namjoon’s hips with your back to him, still facing Seokjin. The two of them have since discarded their slacks and briefs and are now presenting themselves in all their naked glory. Namjoon mutters a tender warning, informing you it might burn a bit, and you’ve heard of that but aren’t about to turn tail when you also know it’s going to feel so good after. You feel his tip press against your ass, alarmingly bigger than his fingers, and Seokjin helps ease you down slowly, inch by inch, with a firm grasp on your hips.
True to the warning you’d received, it does burn; Namjoon had made sure there was more than enough lubrication for an easy glide, though, and by the time he has seated himself fully in you, you’re making noises you don’t think you ever have before. The line between heady pleasure and light pain is so blurred that you’re worried you might have fried your nerves at some point tonight.
“Oh—” you take in a shuddering breath, shifting your hips ever so slightly and moaning in tandem with the man beneath you. “Joon…”
“Ride him,” Seokjin instructs, hands leaving your hips to reach for his camera once more. “Let’s make him feel good, hm?”
Who are you to say no?
You pride yourself on having a lot of strength in your limbs, thighs especially, but still they tremble as you roll your hips up until just the tip of Namjoon’s cock remains in you, and then ease back onto him again. It takes a second before you realise the low moan you hear is coming from you, mind so addled with pleasure at this point you almost feel like you’re floating. Bracing yourself on your thighs, you do your best to set a rhythm and maintain it, ignoring the fatigue of your muscles and focusing on how good it feels and the noises tumbling from the man beneath you.
When there is a sly touch against your swollen clit, you cry out loudly— Namjoon almost shouts at the way you clench around him, his hands flying to your hips to hold you in place for a moment. You look to Seokjin with wide eyes, panting slightly.
“Didn’t you wanna cum so badly, earlier?” he queries, fingers slipping down to slide through the slick mess around your entrance. You moan as he easily sinks two fingers in, pumping lightly. “Don’t stop, fuck yourself on my fingers, bubs.”
It feels so good you think you might tear up; obediently, you resume the pace you set earlier, now riding both Namjoon’s length and Seokjin’s digits. Each time you sink down he curls them, and you don’t know how much longer you can keep this out before your legs become too akin to jelly to support you.
The answer is: not much longer. Seokjin quickly grows tired of it when your movements slow, thighs trembling from the effort. With a hand to your stomach he pushes you back, shifting your legs so they’re folded with your feet flat against the covers. You scramble for purchase, Namjoon quickly supporting you from behind.
Seokjin tuts, muttering playfully about having to do everything himself, and it’s all the warning you get before he adds another digit and begins to finger your sopping entrance so hard and good that for a moment your vision goes white.
“S-Seokjin!” you drop your head back, nails sinking into the bedding as he begins to curl his fingers into that delicious spot inside of you with each pump. You had been slowly but steadily climbing back up to the precipice of your orgasm earlier, but now you’re heading there at breakneck speed. Before you know it the coil of pressure is snapping inside you and you’re shaking, pleasure numbing your limbs and making you whine.
By the time your high fades and you tune back in to the moment, you quickly become aware of two things— one, that you’ve somehow managed to coat Seokjin’s whole arm in your fluids, and two, that Namjoon has gone so tense and still beneath you that you think you might have almost killed him.
“Good girl,” Seokjin praises, sucking your cream off the tip of his fingers before wiping the remaining excess on your thigh so he can reach for his own rubber. “Do you need me to wait another moment?”
Assessing your current state, you find yourself shaking your head. You might have thought you would be too sensitive to continue, but Namjoon is still fully seated in your ass and now your pussy feels too empty for you to bear. Seokjin is only too happy to fill that void.
Nestled between your legs, when he lines his cock up at your entrance and begins to slide in, you all but lose the ability to think. You clench unintentionally from the sensation of being filled so completely, making both men groan and Seokjin halt in his movements. He waits until you relax again before continuing his motion.
When both men are fully sheathed inside you, you think this really might be what bliss is. Soft, panting whines and moans tumble freely from your throat as Seokjin pushes your thighs to your chest and begins to set a mind-numbing pace. It’s borderline brutal, the way he slams into you and splits you open so hard and good; each time his hips hit home you feel your whole body jostle.
“You can move, Joonie,” Seokjin somehow manages to articulate, sweat beginning to bead across his forehead and dampen the strands falling over it. You don’t know how he can talk, because you know if you tried at this moment you’d likely end up biting off your tongue.
You feel Namjoon shake his head, hair brushing the space between your shoulder blades. “‘m close,” he mumbles in explanation, a short moan following his words. “Wanna cum together.”
It’s such a sweet desire in the midst of such a lewd situation that you almost get whiplash between the swelling of your heart and the pleasurable ache filling your insides. You feel that he will get his wish soon, because despite your recent high you’re already well on your way to reaching it again— Seokjin’s hips have begun to stutter, too, and you know he isn’t far behind.
It all reaches its peak when Seokjin slips his hand down, following the angle of your hip bone to your core and rolling your bud with his thumb. It proves to be too much for you, because in the next moment you’re letting out a loud train of expletives and clenching tightly around them as pleasure floods your system once more, mind absolutely blank. The tightness of your heat around them is their undoing and barely a moment after you reach your high they follow suit, the sounds tumbling from them borderline sinful against your ears.
It takes a bit longer for you to come back to earth, this time. By the time you do, Namjoon is winding his arms around your waist and rolling to the side, taking you and Seokjin with him. You let out a noise of surprise that curls into a laugh, hands gripping his arms as you hit the bed; both men are still inside you, and while you secretly wish it could stay that way for a bit longer, you know you should probably clean up.
“No,” Namjoon says before you even go to move, a pout in his tone as he buries his face in the back of your neck. Seokjin nestles closer, pressing his lips to the hollow of your throat. “Stay, just a bit longer.”
That’s a dangerous request, especially considering the way your eyelids are beginning to feel heavy after the events of the night. For them, too, you can hear the way their breathing has already begun to even out. You couldn’t be mad if you tried, though, because just being here in their arms feels so right that you don’t ever want to feel anything else.
“I guess we can nap…” you say, sounding tired enough that it elicits a chuckle from Seokjin. You let your eyes close, nestling your cheek against the top of Seokjin’s head and enjoying the light scent of his shampoo and cologne. You let out one last warning before you let yourself fall into the abyss, though. Just so they know who’s boss.
“If I see those photos anywhere near my house, Seokjin, it won’t just be me getting disowned.”
The laughter that tumbles forth in response just adds to the warmth flooding your being, and you let yourself relax, contented and truly happy for the first time in three years.
#bts smut#namjoon smut#bangtan smut#rm smut#jin smut#seokjin smut#bts oneshot#bts x reader#namjoon x reader#rm x reader#seokjin x reader#bts 1950s au#1950s au#musician au#burlesque au#childhood friends au#f2l#bts f2l#bts poly#poly au#namjoon x reader x seokjin#my work#light angst#fluff#smut#hoooooooo boy#i feel like im forgetting tags but oh well#rockabilly au#bts rockabilly au
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The Highest Bidder Ch. 1 (Ransom Drysdale x reader; sugar daddy!AU)
Summary: A graduate-level education is a costly pursuit. When you move out of state to study in Boston, expenses pile up, leading you to auction off what is apparently your most valuable asset: your virginity. It goes to the highest bidder…who happens to be Ransom Drysdale.
There are no major spoilers for Knives Out. Consider this as an alternate timeline. There will be references to the movie/its characters and family dynamics revealed in the movie.
Warnings: loss of virginity, explicit sexual content/smut, angst, sugar daddy/baby arrangement, dark elements, dubcon, cliffhangers, minor spoilers for Knives Out, unprotected sex, irresponsible driving (don’t drink and drive!), swearing, Ransom is an asshole (more to add and if you spot any that I’ve missed, please kindly let me know!)
A/N: Huge disclaimer...I really didn’t want to end this chapter the way I did, but it was getting a little too long...but there’s more coming! Don’t worry, please don’t send an angry mob after me 😱
Big love to @threeminutesoflife and @caffiend-queen for beta-ing this for me! ❤️
One last thing about the text messages: Italics are sent messages and bold italics are received messages :)
This chapter is written under the assumption that the reader drinks alcohol.
Masterlist
Series Masterlist
With his bedroom illuminated by the flashing images of his television, Ransom lounged lazily in his bed. One hand was occupied with his phone as his thumb slowly scrolled over the screen, the other idly wrapped around his cock as he took in the images on the device.
Various girls, all a few years younger than him, staring with false wide-eyed innocence or sprawled out provocatively across recliners on sandy beaches or by turquoise-watered pools. Their names or aliases were listed under the respective photos, with a number in green text next to it.
Deciding there were too many options, Ransom scrolled back up, the hand on his cock pausing as he started setting filters through the search. He changed them to specific hair colors, skin tones and a more concentrated age range. The only filter he didn’t change was the prices--there was no limit there. The page refreshed and showed him more favorable faces.
His mind started to numb and the faces started looking too similar. As he was ready to pack it in for the night and tuck himself back into his boxers, a strange listing catches his attention.
He sees you, kneeling in the sand at an apparent topical destination in a barely-there bikini. Unlike the other girls, though, your face is candid, caught in a laugh, eyes crinkled and lips spread in joy. There’s no price. Just the letters “HB” in red text.
He clicks on your photo and the webpage changes to your profile. There’s a few more photos of you: one with a cat, more vacation photos. Your location is convenient: Boston. Not too far from where he is.
But all of that fails to answer the question at the forefront of Ransom’s mind: Why don’t you have a price next to your name?
He scrolls through a couple more meaningless pieces of information: a little blurb about who you are, your measurements, your race and your conditions.
One time only.
“What?” he wonders aloud, face scrunching in curiosity. Sugar babies don’t just have sex once and then walk away with a fortune. From what he’s heard, they bitch and moan but shut up when there’s a cock in their mouth (or pussy, for that matter). They need to be looked after either because they can’t afford it or can’t be bothered to do things on their own. Then, once he reaches the end of your profile, he understands.
Virginity Auction. Current Bid: $8,250.
Ransom smirks at the prospect. He wasn’t looking for a virgin, but he likes the idea of taking one now.
The number changes in real time, going up in five dollar increments before someone brings it up to $8,500. A pop-up window appears, warning him that if he’s interested, the auction ends at midnight. Ransom’s eyes flick to the top of his phone. It’s 11:57.
He thinks for a few ticks. If he pays you enough, he’ll have the convenience of entertaining himself between your legs and taking your virginity with no strings attached. Once that’s done, you’ll be out of his hair. He wouldn’t have to put you up, send you money or deal with your whining or complaining.
Sounds like a good deal.
Pressing his thumb into the blue button that says “Bid,” Ransom looks at the clock again. 11:58.
Initially, he types in $10,000. But with two minutes to go and your price still ticking up, he doesn’t want to chance getting outbid by someone at the last second. He has to blow the other bidders out of the water.
Sat up in your bed and wringing your hands nervously, you look at your cracked phone screen. Midnight has just passed and you’re waiting for a notification about the final bid in your auction. It started at $5,000 and in the week that the listing was posted, you had gotten notifications whenever it went to the next thousand.
This isn’t how you wanted to lose your virginity. Ideally, you would have genuinely made love to somebody, someone your parents would have approved of and who truly cared for you. Even more ideally, it would have been the man who eventually became your husband...though you wouldn’t have waited until marriage to lose your V-card. You were about to take the next step in life and--you had to face it--you weren’t getting younger.
What was the least ideal of it all was the fact that you were doing this out of pure desperation. Your graduate program was starting in a month and your savings were mostly gobbled up by application and testing fees. Living out of state didn’t help either; most of your money went to paying rent and commuting around the city. If someone paid you enough to tide your finances over, you could live off that money until the end of the semester, after adjusting to the program and your schedule, before taking on a job off campus.
Your phone buzzed with an email from the website and you tapped the banner. Your email app launched and opened directly to the message.
Your auction has ended.
Reading further, you can’t believe what you see.
Winning bid: $50,000 by Ransom Drysdale.
Fifty thousand dollars? Surely there must be a mistake. Why would someone pay ten times the starting bid?
And Drysdale...where had you seen that name?
Closing your eyes, you searched your recollection to place the name. It’s so familiar.
Deciding your memory is unreliable, you resolve to a Google search of your highest bidder’s last name.
The first result that pops up is a real estate company and a picture of famed author Harlan Thrombey, who apparently is the father of the woman who owns the business.
You feel faint...these names are not insignificant in Massachusetts, let alone the world. Harlan was a best-selling mystery writer--you had some of his books in your library back home.
Then concern floods your brain: if this Linda Drysdale is Harlan Thrombey’s daughter, that makes Thrombey her maiden name. She must’ve married a Drysdale.
Are you a pawn in some horrible cheating scandal? You must be, nobody has the name Ransom. It has to be an alias. Her husband must be looking for some young thing to get his rocks off.
Stress causes your scalp to prickle as your phone buzzes again with a text message from the semi-mysterious Ransom, checking if it’s you, that he has the right number.
Yes, you reply.
The three dotted message bubble pops up before turning into another message.
Good. I’ve made a reservation at The Boxer in the city for Saturday. I told them you’ll check in. I told them not to charge you anything, but if you need to pay any fees, I’ll send you the money back. I’ll be there after 9.
A chill runs down your spine at how direct he is. But, you suppose you can’t expect anything more from him.
Okay, you acknowledge.
More dots, then another message.
Dress appropriately.
Despite your lack of experience in the bedroom, you know for a fact that he’s not referring to office attire.
Settling back onto your pillow, you pull the covers over yourself and breathe slowly. You’ve got some preparation to do.
What do you bring with you when you’re planning to lose your virginity to a complete stranger in exchange for tuition money?
Fuck all if you have a clue.
You spent the days leading up to Saturday getting yourself ready. You bought a tight dress and pair of strappy heels from the sale racks. You cluelessly browsed for lingerie before an associate took pity on you (or just desperately wanted you out of her store, jury’s still out on that) and helped you select a lacy set complete with a garter and stockings. The associate absolutely gushed at how the color of the material complemented your skin tone, though you could care less. You forked over $120 for the damn thing and scampered out. Learning from your friends’ mistakes, you purchased a set of condoms using the self-checkout kiosk (and prayed you picked the right size). You weren’t instructed to buy condoms, but you figured you wouldn’t risk the chance of not having any. You endured a Brazilian wax, stifling profanities as the woman did her work. You also had trouble getting over your embarrassment; a stranger was going to see you bared all for him in a few days so if you can’t handle the wax lady seeing you, how could you handle “Ransom”?
Ransom.
Thinking about him did nothing for your nerves. You were certain you were going to lose your virginity to a man in his late 50s, who was married to Massachusetts’ biggest real estate mogul and the daughter of a renowned author.
Dear God, what if she found out? Her father wrote murder mysteries, she had plenty of ways to kill you and get away with it. What if you weren’t even meeting “Ransom” and you were meeting Linda and she was going to kill you at the hotel?
You shake your head and look back down at the contents of your duffel bag: toiletries, a change of clothes for tomorrow, the condoms and your phone charger. You had created a playlist on your phone...if you weren’t going to lose your virginity to someone you loved, then maybe you could fake it with music.
Who are you kidding? you chide yourself.
You sigh and resolve to getting ready. After eating dinner, you strip off your old band t-shirt and sweatpants, remove your simple cotton underwear and novelty pineapple-patterned socks before discarding them into your laundry hamper.
You shimmy into the lacy knickers, the material feeling quite uncomfortable against your skin. You clip the bra on next, followed by the garter around your waist. Then you finish off with the stockings over your legs, stopping at mid-thigh. After fastening the clips on the suspenders to the lace trim at the top of the hosiery, you sit at your vanity to apply some makeup and fix your hair.
“‘Dress appropriately’,” you mutter as you pull your dress from your tiny closet, “Hopefully this is appropriate enough.”
You maneuver yourself into your dress, struggling with the zipper for a moment then smoothing the material over yourself. You slide your feet into your heels and teeter a bit as you stand up.
You’re not planning to really impress too much, so you pull on a downy, puffy jacket to combat the sea breeze the city gets in the evenings.
Pulling the strap of your bag onto your shoulder, you look in the mirror one last time. You catch the reflection of the clock: it’s almost seven thirty. Taking into account how long it’ll take for your rideshare to arrive at your house and the traffic in the city on a Saturday night, you’ll arrive at the hotel a little after eight. You suppose now’s a good a time as any to leave.
Requesting a car for pickup, you realize there’s no going back.
Stepping into the hotel lobby, you know you don’t belong here.
With modern touches and old architectural charm, the men wearing luxury tailored suits and women wearing unaffordable dresses, you felt you stood out like a sore thumb. The most luxurious hotel you had stayed at was a Holiday Inn Express near Disneyland. And it barely had functioning lighting.
You timidly approach the front desk. Though the receptionist gives you a warm smile, you’re not comforted.
“Hi, I’m here to check in for Drysdale?”
The man’s eyebrows raise in what you assume is recognition.
Maybe this “Ransom” meets other escorts here often, then.
“While we would normally ask you to cover the fees upon checking in, Mr. Drysdale is a very good friend of the hotel so we’ve accommodated his request to make an exception,” the man informs you as he types away. He grabs a keycard and hands it to you.
“You’ll be in room 6-F. Have a pleasant stay.”
“Thank you,” you say meekly, taking the card before turning to take an elevator up.
Once on the sixth floor, you locate and unlock the room. The lights turn on automatically and you’re met with a cool gray toned room, which gives the room a darker atmosphere already.
The entrance is narrow and you assume the bathroom is on the other side of the wall on your right. With wobbly steps, you move forward and see the room open up.
The first thing you notice is the king-sized bed. Beyond it, the windows show illuminated facades of buildings outside. On the wall opposite the bed is a desk with a speaker and aux cord on top of the marble workspace and a fridge underneath. A TV is mounted on the wall above the desk. Next to it is an open wardrobe with a bathrobe hanging, cubbies and drawers, as well as a tray of refreshments.
You set your bag on the bottom shelf of the wardrobe and retrieve the remote to turn on the TV to create some white noise and maybe kill some time (and nerves) as you wait for nine o’clock to come around.
You wander into the bathroom and look yourself over in the mirror. You shake out your hands and pace, deciding to take off your heels for now as you pad around the room.
Ransom was bored of dinner and his host knew it. Everyone else kept a level of decorum, but all the guests knew this get together was extending much longer than necessary.
Checking his watch, it was quarter to nine. He threw back the rest of his drink before nodding to his friend and exchanging brief glances as he got up. Haphazard goodbyes were thrown his way as he pulled on his jacket and Ransom gave a nod of acknowledgement. He exits the restaurant, whistling to get the valet’s attention and handing the man his ticket as he pulls out his phone.
Where are you? he messages you.
At the hotel, sir. Room 6-F.
“‘Sir’,” he muses to himself, smirking at the title you’d given him. He didn’t even need to tell you to address him that way.
Have them bring up my usual from the bar.
Yes, sir.
Wondering how far he can take this, he asks you to send him a picture.
He’s surprised with how quickly you comply. You’re sat on top of the sheets at the edge of the bed, leaned forward so your elbow can rest on your knee and the camera can get a view of the plunging neckline of your dress. Your hair falls nicely over your face and your palm cradles your chin.
He can’t lie, he loves the way you look. You may as well be the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.
Taking a few deep breaths, he wills himself to calm down; he can’t get hard yet.
He puts his phone into one pocket and reaches into the other as the valet returns with his car. When the valet approaches, Ransom hands over a few sad, crumpled bills as a tip before walking around to the driver’s side of his car and climbing in. Sending one last message to you, he pulls away from the curb and heads to the hotel.
I’m on my way. Make sure my drink is there before me.
You let out a spastic sound of nervousness and shook out your hands again before getting up to pace around the room again.
The drink was on the way, you placed the order as soon as he told you to. You didn’t want to give him any excuse to not pay or complain you were unsatisfactory. Though, not having any experience in bed might prove that mission to be difficult regardless of whether or not his drink came in time.
There’s a knock on the door and you jog over, pulling the door open to find a waiter holding a tray with a glass of what you assume is Scotch perched on top, covered with one of those signature little hats hotels always place on top of glasses.
“Thank you,” you smile, carefully receiving the glass from him. He bows silently and turns to leave.
You shut the door and place the glass on a coaster you find on the desk. You bother yourself with where the glass should rest (next to the speaker? on the far end, closest to the wardrobe?). Deciding it should be on the bedside table, you move the glass and coaster there then return to the desk to plug your phone in and play some music. You cringe at your choice to include Ed Sheeran in this playlist, but there’s no going back now.
Suddenly, you hear the clicking sound of the door unlocking and you scramble over to sit on the bed to put your heels on.
When you look up, you’re shocked to not find a man in his late 50s, nor the severe looking woman you’ve seen plastered on real estate posters.
You find a man who can’t be that much older than you, dark hair and blue eyes that stand out in the dim light of the entry hallway. His cheeks are pale and rosy, framed by a strong jawline. He’s tall, crown of his head so high towards the ceiling. His broad shoulders nearly touch either side of the walls as he approaches you.
He’s dressed rather casually, as if he was out to dinner with friends. The color palette of his outfit matches the hotel room: cool gray henley shirt, black blazer and jeans, finished off with a pair of brown boots and belt to match. If you’re honest, he looks like a model. He looks like he could have any woman he wanted.
Why the hell does he want a virgin?
When he comes to stand in the room, hands tucked into his pockets, he looks you up and down from where you’re seated. His lips pucker thoughtfully and you see how perfectly pink and full they are and you wonder what it would be like to kiss them...
Nope. We’re not doing that. It’s a one time thing and that’s that. You remind yourself.
His eyes catch the glass on the bedside table and he plucks it up, removing the paper covering before bringing it to his lips to drink.
When the glass is halfway to his mouth, he hooks a finger at you. “Stand up.”
As he drinks, you obey, rising from your place on the mattress and smoothing down your dress before folding your hands together.
He pauses his sipping, “Turn.”
Hands falling out of each other’s grip, they land at your sides rather limply and you begin turning, giving him a three-sixty view of your body. You feel heat creeping up your neck and settling into your cheeks.
When you come back to face him, he throws his head back to finish his drink and places the glass back on the bedside table, but he misses the coaster. You cringe inwardly at the ring that will surely form on the surface later.
Your breath catches in your throat when your eyes meet his. You feel like a deer in headlights, unmoving as his gaze continues to flit over your figure. You wonder if he knows you’re holding your breath. You wonder if he can hear how quickly your heart is pounding.
When he goes to take off his jacket, things start feeling real. You don’t know how to describe the sound that leaves your throat, maybe something a frightened toad would make. Ransom halts and throws you a perplexed look and you cover your mouth in embarrassment.
He rolls his eyes. “You nervous?”
The words blend together, but his voice is so honeyed and silken and you can’t help but sigh inwardly at the sound of it.
Your jaw is slack and can’t make any sounds rise from your larynx. You snap your mouth shut and manage to nod stiffly.
Rolling his eyes again, he crosses the room to the mini fridge under the desk and pulls the door open. Crouching down, he shuffles through the various little bottles inside before turning and tossing one to you.
Your balance teeters as you fumble to catch it, the glass slipping out of your grip a few times before you fully grasp it.
The cap makes a cracking sound as it separates from the tamper evident band when you twist it open. You don’t bother to look at the label or pay any mind to the color of the liquid. Once the bottle’s open, you tilt your head back and drink, feeling the burn travel down your throat. When you stop, you notice you’ve had almost all of it.
Your eyes meet Ransom’s again and he raises his brows as if to ask, Better?
You finish the remaining contents of the bottle and feel the liquid settle in your belly as you twist the cap back on.
“Thank you,” you muster your voice to say.
His eyebrows raise again, showing his disinterest, and he holds his hand out. You’re certain you resemble a child when you use both hands to carefully place the bottle in his hands. There’s a flicker of confusion that crosses his face and you think you were meant to place your hand in his, but he turns and places the bottle on the desk.
There’s a sense of dread that settles in your stomach when you realize there really is no going back and no more stalling. You can’t read the expression on his face, but you’re certain he’s not pleased with how slowly this is going.
Summoning your courage, you reach your hands up behind you and begin to pull the zipper down...
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Additionally, if I forgot to tag you, please gently remind me via my ask box.
#ransom drysdale#ransom drysdale fic#ransom drysdale fanfiction#ransom drysdale x reader#ransom drysdale x you#knives out fanfic#knives out fic#The Highest Bidder#pagesoflauren
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Heyheyhey two things; Seer!Cloud Strife, who wakes Vincent up like, when he's six/five because of what he /saw./ or sky!Cloud that happens to awaken Vincent from his sleep 'cuz sky attraction. (Sephs mum was a sky?? Vincent was 'flame courting' her??) (I JUST WANT PROTECTIVE VINCENT, OKAY? I LOVE HIM.)
Oooooo hmmm tricky. Gonna focus on Seer!Cloud because that’s real interesting-.
Real quick on Sky!Cloud tho: that would be such a chaotic combo. Sky!Cloud in all his feral glory and wild instincts (because Flames are forgotten, secret things in most “civilized” places but Nibelheim is not what one would really call “civilized” in that way so Flames are still a thing) senses a powerful Flame in the mansion and is curious. And he doesn’t want to court the kids his age who have flickers of fire, because they are too weak still and he will smother them on accident (like he nearly did with Tifa, but it’s not her fault, her Flame is young and not Blessed like Cloud’s with Destiny, so it does not roar like a bonfire yet even though it will in time). So he gathers himself and marches to the mansion to find this big Flame, and Vincent is yanked out of sleep when his own Cloud Flames howl at the feel of a young, powerful Sky fighting and fearing the mansion’s monsters above his head. Vincent is moving before he is aware of it, rushing up the stairs on pure, feral instinct that he has tried to hard to bury since losing Lucrecia at the cusp of finalizing their bond, and he-
Arrives. Snatches up the child in one arm while the other fires his gun and obliterates any monster nearby. The child latches on, scared and desperate and longing-
There is a click and a jolt and Vincent keens in a heady mix of guilt-relief-shock-pain at the sudden snap bond. Because he promised he would only love one Sky and she turned her back on him, yet now there is another, younger Sky would understands his soul and bonds with it instantly, before they even know each other’s names, and it HURTS but it is also a RELIEF.
And that is how bby Sky Cloud got the most monstrously protective Turk Cloud Vincent ever. XD
Canon goes yeet. There’s no way Vincent is letting Cloud anywhere near Shinra unprepared, and no WAY he’s letting Cloud get pumped full of drugs in this “Soldier” program led by Hojo. Vincent’s just: welp time to kill the mad scientist that hurt me. And then he finds Sephiroth and he’s like !!!!!!! because he can feel Lucrecia’s Flame signature in Sephiroth’s and Cloud blinks a few times and then is like: oh. Friend? Son of Friend? Okay. My Mist now.
Everything gets more chaotic from there with Cloud casually picking up Soldier and Turk Flames left and right without anyone able to stop him because his Cloud is Vincent and his Mist is SEPHIROTH.
...
Cloud is a not a strong baby when he is born. He is not a healthy one. He is small and fragile and Nibelheim is not kind.
But Cloud’s mother remembers the Old Things and she is desperate and stubborn. So when other mothers would have just accepted the doctor’s grim declaration that Cloud would likely not last to his third month of life, Claudia wrapped him up in every warm layer she could and sets off up the mountain.
She finds the mako spring up there and kneels before it and begs. Begs any who would listen to please, save her child, lend him strength.
The Lifestream hears the cries of a mother, the thready life of a soul that could-be-has-been-one-was their champion in a hundred-thousand other timelines and takes pity. Light reaches up and curls around the whimpering child and a hundred-thousand voices sing softly of healing and Blessing. But such things are not free, and since Claudia is not the one to receive the healing, she is not the one who pays the price (and it is not fair, to make a child pay for the plea of the parent, but the Lifestream is not fair, it just Is, and this is how it has always claimed its dues). Cloud takes a breath and wails, strong and loud in a way he has never been before and Claudia weeps with relief.
She weeps again, later, when she realizes her son’s eyes do not track her movement. When she realizes that he is blind.
(He is not really blind, they learn later, he just sees too much. His gaze is always locked on the future, and every time he opens his eyes he sees a thousand pathways to what-might-be-what-could-be-what-needs-be. He sees people and places, tragedies and joys, laughter and tears and fates not yet woven into place. With all that to look at, is it any wonder he cannot process the present that is right in front of him? It is already a wonder he does not go mad in his first years of life).
Claudia learns to hide Cloud’s eyes and help with his blindness, and Cloud learns to not open his eyes even while awake if he does not want to lose himself. But even with his eyes shut, things whisper behind his eyelids. Not the far future and all its possibilities, but just the near future, the split second decisions that his mind can see minutes ahead of time and choose between. It makes him light on his feet and strange in his words and deeds. The townspeople think he’s Off and they do not like their children playing with him (though some, like Tifa, play with him anyway).
Cloud warns Tifa not to go up the mountain after her mother dies, but she does not listen. He follows her up and tears slide past his closed eyelids as he runs. He is just in time to banish the paths that end in Tifa sprawled out at the base of the high mountainside with a shattered neck. He grabs her hand and brings her back home, but the townsfolk do not like him. They blame him. They tell him to stay away. And Cloud opens his eyes for just a moment when the voices get too close and sees a rush of near-far-unlikely-likely and he cannot tell which it is when he sees paths that lead to the townsfolk hurting him and so he runs away. He slams his eyes shut because he cannot flee if he is too far in the future to remember how to run, but even so the Lifestream curls and twists around him and for a moment, one unlikely path rises to the surface and Cloud SEES.
A friend.
A father.
He turns and instead of running home, he runs for the old Shinra mansion.
He almost dies to the monsters, but his instincts are sharp even with his eyes shut, and though he has never SEEN the world like regular people do, he knows where he is going as he runs down the stairs and flings himself down into the room of coffins with half a dozen monsters on his heels. He crashes against the side of one and screams, “Vincent, help!” and in his voice the Lifestream echoes and yanks and demands just like it does those rare times he opens his mouth and frightens his mother with the disjointed prophecies of Future that spill out.
Chaos roars in Vincent’s head, driving him up and out of his coffin to protect the Little Seer and when Vincent next blinks, he’s standing for the first time in years, there are monsters dead at his feet, and a child sobbing in terror against his leg.
Vincent is confused.
He looks down at the child sobbing past closed eyes and ... doesn’t know what to do. If it were an adult he wouldn’t care, but this is a little KID. Who somehow knew his name. Vincent crouches and forces his rusty voice to ask, “Who are you? What are you doing down here?”
“I came to f-find you,” sobs the child.
“How did you know I was here?”
The child sniffles, clinging to the fabric of Vincent’s cloak and opens his mouth.
The Lifestream’s prophecy spills out “Mourner in Red with no son of his own. Sleeper in Guilt while the world falls to ruin will always awaken and follow when the Cloud calls covers his coffin.” The boy’s mouth snaps shut a moment later with a strangled sound, like he’s choking on more words, and Vincent is an Alarm.
No child says things like that normally. No child SOUNDS like that. Like he is both normal yet not, like when he speaks the world is whispering alongside and giving it an echo of thunder. Chaos stirs in his head, but instead of trying to take over, it just laughs, dark and old and bloody, “So a new seer has been chosen,” it sneers, “I thought Minerva would cease that practice after the death of the last ones.”
Last ones? Vincent thinks uneasily at the more talkative of the monsters in his head.
“People are fickle creatures. Every seer that has lived is either scorned and disbelieved, or revered and isolated. They are either shams or gods in the eyes of other mortals, and their wisdom is both rejected and clung to. With a connection as strong as his that it takes his normal sight, he will either be forced to speak of the futures people desire and then be killed when a different future comes to pass, or he will be shunned and locked away by ‘wiser’ minds who deem him mad.”
Vincent can feel his insides turn cold. And it shouldn’t matter. He is too broken to help in such things and yet-.
The child knew him.
The child knew his name, trusted whatever he saw in the futures unwritten that he came to Vincent for help.
Just long enough to get him home, Vincent promises himself as he awkwardly picks up the child and carries him out of the mansion and into the town. Then I will return.
Except the boy’s mother finds him and she cries in relief and somehow her tears of thanks lead to dragging him home because the boy refuses to let go of him and the woman (Claudia) is very kind and the boy is clingy and the food is warm and-.
And somehow. Despite all his intentions. Vincent stays.
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Soulmates can be romantic or platonic, met early on in life or well into the grey years, male or female, few or many - the only thing Skye has always known for sure is that she doesn't have any.
Most people have two, or even three or four or five, right from the moment of their birth; denoted as different-coloured lines shimmering on their wrists.
Skye might have had lines there when she was a baby, but by the time she's old enough to understand what their absence means, they're long gone.
(Soulmate lines, they say, can only fade for two reasons - one, if the person the bond represents passes away, or two, if they change so completely that the bond doesn't recognise them anymore.)
Skye doesn't know why her lines faded, and she doesn't really want to. What she does know, though? She desperately wants more.
There is no feeling more lonely than a bare wrist, than the knowledge that nobody cares enough about her to even think about loving her - because no matter how despairingly she wishes for it, none of her many foster parents or siblings show up as lines on her wrist.
Eventually, she starts thinking it's her fault - because how can't it be? Even some other orphans have lines on their wrists.
She starts to accept it, eventually. She's broken, unlovable. Nothing to be done about it.
So she runs away, joins a band of people who'll never see her face, and tells herself she believes in their mission.
(She even meets a boy there, and he's as broken and distanced as she is - more, even. Still, she can't help hoping that they might find something in each other...
When nothing shows up on either of their wrists, she persuades herself she isn't disappointed.)
She has all but given up hope on soulmate lines, whatsoever, when the door of her van is pulled open mid-speech, and her whole life is thrown upside-down.
Her first soulmate line appears not long after, when she rushes into the arms of the little British scientist who would have thrown herself off the plane to save them all - a slight burn on the inside of her wrist as she is hugging Jemma tight, and when she glances down a moment later, there is a single line there.
It's a warm hazel colour, like Jemma's eyes, and when Jemma feels the matching sting on her own arm, she glances up at Skye, her eyes crinkling in a smile.
Her line, she is shocked and deeply pleased to note, is a deep purple on her friend's skin.
A couple of weeks later, when she and Fitzsimmons are singing Moana at the tops of their voices one movie night, she feels another small burn on her wrist.
This line is light blue, like Fitz's eyes.
She receives her next line the first time she hugs Coulson - there are tears in her eyes, tears blurring her entire soul as he confirms her worst childhood fears.
But she doesn't miss the slight burn on the inside of her wrist.
When she looks down, the line is the same dark blue colour as his favourite suit.
The next soulmate line catches her completely by surprise, though, in retrospect, she doesn't know why.
Before she is shot, she has three lines on her wrist; blue blue hazel.
When she wakes up, there is another there, deep black and somehow steady and reassuring.
She doesn't have to look to know that there will be a purple line on Agent May's wrist.
She never receives Ward's line, though she tries, working to get as close to him as possible.
(Later, after the reveal, after the fall, she's glad about that, and disgusted at herself.
Ward's line, she thinks, would have been the same sickly grey as his prison suit.)
The months pass, and she is content with her life at SHIELD, with her four soulmate lines - four more than she ever thought she'd have.
Then one morning, she wakes up to another, bright and golden as daylight.
She knows immediately who it signifies - only Trip, after all, could be behind something that was so essentially sunshine personified.
(When that line fades, she spends many a cold night in her quarantine cell waking up and reaching for it, then breaking into wracking sobs when she inevitably found its comforting, warm tingle missing.)
She almost misses it when her next line burns itself onto her wrist - she is readying herself for her first jump (her first non-Lola jump, that is) and Hunter, bless his secretly sweet soul, is helping her with her parachute’s straps.
When he steps away with one of his signature quippy remarks, there is another line on his wrist, this one a warm, rich amber.
Skye wonders where that colour comes from, but that night, when Hunter toasts to their successful mission with a bottle of Bendeery’s, she realises.
She’s amused, but also touched, oddly - because the little lighter flecks in the amber of the line are a very similar colour to Bobbi’s hair.
(She thinks that everything about that line suits Hunter, really - sarcastic, standoffish and rebellious at first glance, but compassionate and deeply caring once you got to know him.)
Bobbi’s line makes itself known at a much more dramatic time - Skye is terrified, her body shaking from the inside out, and holding onto the steadiness of May’s black line on her wrist for strength as she fights this not-her-SHIELD agent.
There is a shot, Bobbi screams, Skye holds up her hands and somehow blocks it - but as she does, she feels a burn on the inside of her wrist, in time with the genuine no!! that flashes in Bobbi’s eyes.
It is a long, long time before she gets to look at that line, but when she does, it is a deep emerald green - stately and beautiful, but with echoes of great power behind it.
Much like Bobbi, she thinks.
(Later, in colder years when she can’t hear Bobbi and Hunter’s laughter and bickering anymore, she likes to sit down in the quiet of the common room and brush her fingers over their lines, side by side and still strong against her skin.
They’re still out there, she knows, and it is a comfort.)
But before that, she is in Afterlife, and she wakes up to a deep red line on her wrist one day - red like the reddest roses, like love immediate and ever-persevering.
She thinks it’s her mother’s line, and her heart has never felt happier.
(It is only later, hugging him in a cold SHIELD corridor before sending him off to be lost to her forever, that she realises it was her father’s line all along.
The line fades when his memory does, but on particularly good days, she thinks she sees the faintest shimmer of a rose-coloured line there, as though just a hint of love was carried through despite the TAHITI program.
She loves him all the more for it.)
Mack’s line comes somewhere in those trying weeks, when both her parents are gone and she just needs a partner - he is there for her.
And one night, so is his line, a gentle forest green.
(She doesn’t get that particular cosmic joke until she meets Yo-Yo and Turtleman becomes a thing, and then she laughs so hard that she nearly splits her sides.)
Lincoln is the first romantic soulmate she gets a line for - and she notices it, cliché as it is, right after their first kiss.
It is apt, though, seeing as she’s trying to protect him, and he’s trying to protect her, and they’re full of grand announcements about how much they mean to each other and... yeah, it’s kind of a mess.
But when he’s with her again, and times are happier, she teases him mercilessly about the colour of his line - a crackly yellow-white, like lightning according to him, (according to her, it’s like popcorn, as an eternal cosmic punishment for that terrible popcorn joke he had to go and make when they first met.)
She even gains a shiny silver line in the middle of a mission when Joey jumps in front of a stream of bullets for her.
Things are good. Things are so, so good.
Then, Hive.
When Lincoln’s line fades from her wrist, in perfect time with the flicker of the little dot of the quinjet on her screen, it is like her entire world fades to grey.
Everything she’s always believed? It’s still true, only worse than even she ever thought.
It’s not that she’s unloveable - it’s that she should be.
(Just look at the deaths she’s caused, so shortly after their lines appeared on her wrist! Just look at all the danger she’s put her friends, her team, her family in -)
She leaves. She leaves to protect them.
And as she crouches in her van, or in dark alleys, she screams at the lines on her wrist, “go away go away go away! Stop caring about me, I don’t deserve it.”
But they never do, and slowly, slowly, she returns back to their source.
Elena’s is the first new line she receives - as bold and bright an orange as that favourite striped sweater of hers she used to love wearing around base.
Daisy hasn’t seen it in a while, but when the line appears on her wrist, it feels like a tangible reminder that she hasn’t lost everything. Not yet.
She returns, and though they are forced to live through the two living hells that are the Framework and the Kree-ruled future, they get through it.
(They are a soul family, after all. They have to.
And whenever she fears for any of their safety, Daisy just has to touch the lines still standing out against her skin to know that they’re still okay out there.)
Then Coulson’s line starts to fade.
She doesn’t notice it at first, since it’s just a slight blackening at the edges, but after he collapses on them, she does, and it's shattering. He won’t even let them try to save him!
But she won’t accept that. She will not lose another soul line.
Instead, she... gains another?
She isn’t even sure when exactly it happened, when his stupid jokes started to become endearing instead of just dumb, when his ridiculous fascination with everyday things became almost sweet - but when they’re on a spaceship shooting up to meet the Kree together, she reaches for his hand.
And she feels the now-familiar burn of a line on the inside of her wrist.
To her amusement, his line is bright yellow - lemon yellow. He blushes furiously at that, but she laughs it off.
Her laughter fades fast when not one, but two lines disappear within a few days of that.
Fitz’s is first, and her heart stops as she clutches onto her wrist. Yes, a lot has happened between them lately, but she never wanted him dead, and he... he was her second line -
Then his line reappears.
It’s faint, and pulsing in and out, but it’s there.
(She and Jemma both cling to that in the year that comes, searching through the dark, lonely depths of space in a desperate attempt to find him and steady that line.)
When Coulson’s line fades, she thinks it might be the worst pain of her life - but she watches May’s line, and how it stays ever-steady, ever-strong on her wrist.
She draws her own strength from it.
And they get through it, until eventually, they are there: one final mission.
She never does get a line for LMD Coulson, despite the hell of an emotional ride it was to see him again.
It’s fitting that way, though. He agrees.
(That doesn’t stop her from signing her name in purple ink onto his wrist when they send him off on his world travels - because even if it isn’t quite the same, she will always care about him.
He stares at her name for a long, long time, then pulls her into a tight hug. And she understands.)
The next line she gets surprises her almost more than its timing does - it’s a time loop, for crying out loud!
But she wakes up after the umpteenth repeat, and it is there, solid and blue and so unbelievably Sousa that she could kiss him.
(She does, actually.)
The line that hurts the most of any she’s ever received is one that fades mere moments after she receives it, though. It is a regal, midnight blue, and it appears in a fierce burn when Jiaying steps in front of Malick for her.
She watches the line fade as she cradles her mother’s hair, and through the tears that blur her world, she manages to be grateful that she got to see what her birth line would have looked like, at least.
She knows that Jiaying did love her unconditionally now, at least.
And eventually, eventually, a new line appears where Jiaying’s was once cradled - this one is orange and fiery, with all the force of its owner’s powers, and with all of her natural love for the nebulas she explores so keenly.
It isn’t a replacement - it won’t ever be.
But it’s a blessing of a different kind.
And - the Daisy Johnson who watches the stars with her sister and her new love is a far cry from the one who believed she was unloveable all those years ago. She has a whole ream of soulmate lines now (including those three, lemon amber and green, that she still checks every night before they turn out the lights, just to make sure they’re still alive and well.
They are.)
Watching those stars, Daisy thinks that, ultimately, soulmates aren't born, they're made.
And she’s made herself the best soulmates she could ever have dreamed of.
(Daisy Johnson Soulmate AU headcanons for the @agentsofchallenges AoS March Madness challenge! <3)
#daisy johnson#soulmate au#daisy johnson soulmate au#headcanons#soulmate au headcanons#ghsjdhfkjhsdfkjsdhfk these got SO out of control; oh my WORD#but I... I kind of freaking adore them#😭😭😭😍😍😍#daisy is just the best okay#and i LIVE for her relationships with everyone else on this show#THE BEST 💜💜💜#lily's headcanons#lily's march madness
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Percy Jackson & The Avengers: Convergence - there is a fight scene included
I am not dead, just extremely busy. My summer lacrosse season just ended, so hopefully I get some inspiration to write some new chapters. In the meantime, I hope this will tide you over for some time.
Keep in mind, this was written weeks ago, so I am not in the mood to answer any weirdly specific questions about my artistic choices. In other words, if you don't like it, you don't have to read it! I know, it's a truly monumental realization.
For my kind & loyal readers, don't forget to comment, like, and follow!
- your author
DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Avengers or PJO!
Ω ♆ Ω
By the grace of the gods, the group managed to pass the sirens without an issue. It seemed like the mortals had finally accepted that it was in their best interest to listen to the Seven. So, as soon as Percy warned everyone to fill their ears with wax, they filled their ears with wax. Of course there were a few complaints, but that was expected. Nobody was perfect (no matter what Narcissus insists).
From there on out, the nerves were building. Percy had informed the team that their next stop would be Polyphemus' island, and everybody, mortal and demigod alike, knew what that place was. It was where the most infamous cyclops lived, but most importantly, it was where Annabeth was being held, if Percy's father was to be trusted.
Since it would still be another two hours or so, according to the sea expert, until they reached the island, the group decided to try resting. Some tried to nap, while others sharpened their weapons or hung out on the deck. It was futile, but they were trying to prepare themselves for a situation that they had never before encountered, not even Percy.
It was safe to say that everyone was scared shitless.
Ω ♆ Ω
Leo had decided to go downstairs and tinker with some stuff from his belt as a distraction from their impending doom. It was working too! He was in his own little world that only machines could enter. That is, until Tony Stark walked up to him.
"Whatcha doing, kid?" he asked, peering over Leo's shoulder to catch a glimpse at the boy's creation.
"I'm making a mini automaton to help us find Annabeth when we get to the island," was the answer.
Taking a closer look, Tony started to see it. It was a very small machine, but if you looked closely, it was clear that it was made of metal. The automaton was about the size of a quarter, and looked like a celestial bronze spider. Leo was currently adding the last two legs to it when Tony walked up.
When Leo looked up, he held up his creation with a proud smile. "This baby can be our spy. It's eyes are tiny cameras, and it's made almost completely of celestial bronze. We can send this in, and then know where Annabeth is before we storm the place."
Tony nodded, "Yeah... Pretty good idea, kid."
And ok, so Leo was freaking out a little bit on the inside because one of his idols had just complimented his work. But on the outside, he just smiled a little wider.
"You haven't even seen the best part. You've gotta see it after I turn it on. I added stealth-mode so nobody should even be able to know it's there," Leo said, grabbing the spider and flipping it over to press a button.
As soon as he had, the spider flipped itself over in his hand and started crawling up his arm. Tony was a little creeped out, but it was blocked by the fascination for this new kind of science the demigods had. The spider should have to be controlled by a human, but it was moving like it was almost...thinking on its own. There was no way it had an AI, but that was the only solution his mortal brain could come up with.
"Is it an AI?" he asked.
"Nope. It's a greek automaton. They don't need AIs. I programmed it to listen to a few simple commands when needed, but if we don't order it around, it'll just stick around me waiting for orders. Pretty cool, right?"
"Awesome," Tony whispered, in awe of how smart this seventeen year old kid was.
"Thanks. I think I finished it just in time because I heard Percy calling us back upstairs," Leo said. Before he had even finished he was walking towards the deck, not a care in the world for the metal spider crawling around on him.
"Oh, I'm definitely becoming friends with this kid," Tony muttered to himself before following Leo.
Ω ♆ Ω
"Did you get it done, Leo?" Percy asked as soon as he had seen him.
"Yep. Here it is." Leo held up the automaton-spider.
Percy smirked. "Oh, Annabeth's gonna love that."
Leo shrugged, acting clueless. "I have no idea what you're talking about. The spider was just the first thing I could come up with."
"Sure it was," Piper snorted.
Leo fake-gasped. "Beauty Queen! How could you ever think I would lie?! I would never!"
Clint whispered to Natasha, "The kids clearly have a strong bond that only comes from fighting for their lives with each other."
Frank turned to them, surprising the spies that he had heard them, "No shit, Sherlock."
Before anything else could be said, Percy reclaimed the entire group's attention. "If you look to the right, you can see Polyphemus' island. We're going to dock on the south side of the island because that is the only way to get on without climbing a cliff and facing carnivorous sheep. Hazel should be able to disguise the ship until we invade the base, so don't worry about being seen. Leo will send in his spider to check things out and then we'll follow after we know where Annabeth is. Everybody got that?"
At the noises of affirmation, Percy nodded. "Good. Suit up if you're not already."
Of course, Tony had to break the calm solemnity by saying, "Cap, I thought that was your line?"
Everybody collectively rolled their eyes.
Ω ♆ Ω
After they docked, Leo released his spider with specific orders to find Annabeth Chase while staying hidden. That was working until Polyphemus' stupid super-senses could smell the celestial bronze. Leo hadn't known that a blind cyclops would be able to smell metal, but you learn something new everyday, right?
The spider lasted all of five minutes in the cave before Polyphemus smelled it and crushed it under his giant smelly foot. Percy had thought that the cyclops would take longer to reform, but when had he ever been that lucky? Something that completely baffled him was how the mortals got him to not eat them. The dude had been pretty desperate for food the last time Percy had run into him, so how had the weird boss guy gotten him to hold off?
The only thing he could think of for them to feed him would be...nope! He's not going there right now.
The last thing the spider had transmitted to the group was a picture of a mortal holding a gun to Annabeth's head while she was gagged and chained. It made his blood boil.
"I'm going to kill them," He growled, starting to get off the boat and storm the place.
Jason stepped in front of him before he could, "Easy, Perce. You don't know what you're walking into. They want you to go in half-cocked, so we can't give them that. You know Annabeth can handle herself, so just take a breath and we'll figure out a plan."
Percy took a shaky breath, but it did nothing to cool his anger.
"Jace, if you don't step out of my way in the next two seconds, I will be forced to move you, and trust me, you don't want me to do that."
The son of Jupiter stood his ground, "I'm not moving. I know you Percy. Hurting me would go against your fatal flaw. I'm your best friend; your family. I know you would never intentionally hurt me."
Jason glanced over at the rest of the group, who hadn't dared to move if it upset Percy even more. The guy was a ticking time bomb, and they needed to defuse it before it went off and destroyed any chance of getting Annabeth back safely.
Percy almost looked in pain as he spoke his next words, "Jason, I love you. You're my cousin, but Annabeth is my everything. I will hurt you to get to her."
Jason sighed, expecting that answer. "Then at least let us come with you on your suicide mission. I'm not letting you die without me."
"Fine, but hurry up. I'm leaving now," and Percy shoved past Jason and started the trek up to Polyphemus' cave.
Jason turned to the others, who were all staring after Percy with shocked expressions. "Well you heard him! Move your asses!"
That seemed to startle them awake. Everyone but Bruce started moving.
Ω ♆ Ω
By the time the team had been able to catch up to Percy's fast pace, he had already reached the nearest entrance to the cave. It was a dark, narrow path that had walls of rock on either side reaching up for hundreds of feet.
"This is the part in the horror movies where I start screaming at the tv to not go in there and they still go in there," Piper whispered.
They were all just staring at the darkness, and it was getting awkward. For someone who was so hasty to get to Annabeth, Percy was sure taking a long time to get there.
"Are we gonna go in or..." Tony said.
Percy sighed. "Yeah. We're going in. Just don't separate from the group."
He led the way into the cave with Steve right behind him. Percy appreciated having someone else who could take some of the responsibility off his shoulders. Almost his entire time in the godly world, he had been expected to be the leader because of his father, and he had stepped up, but that doesn't mean it didn't weigh on him. Annabeth was the only one who had been able to help him with the stress, and without her, he was losing it. He had already been barely hanging onto his control over his powers, but now without her, what he was doing could barely be called control. It was more like holding back a rampaging bull with a string.
Ten minutes later, they found themselves hiding behind the wall that led to the room where the gang was waiting. Just as the spider had shown them, Annabeth was kneeling under the gang leader's feet while he held a gun to her head.
She looked murderous, so at least something was still normal in the world.
Steve poked his head around and gave a quick scan of the room before turning back to them, "Ok so we've got at least ten humans, with five monsters. One of the monsters is as tall as a building so I think he's the largest threat. Tony, Clint, Nat, and I will deal with the humans if you guys handle the monsters. The main priority is getting Annabeth to safety. Percy, that's your job."
Saying that last bit was just to clarify for everyone else, though they looked like they didn't need to hear it. Percy had a determined look on his face, one that said he wasn't going to allow anyone else to have his assignment.
"You got it, boss," Tony remarked. "Do you just want to storm in there?"
Before he could get an answer, Percy charged into the room, leaving his friends entirely unshocked, but the Avengers were looking a little mad.
"Don't worry, plans aren't really his thing. Even if we do make them, they never go our way. It's better to go with the flow when fighting with Percy," Hazel reassured, and then turned to follow her godly cousin. The rest of the Seven followed, leaving the Avengers to just stare at each other in confusion.
"I like their style," Tony said before flying into the room.
Natasha sighed. "I'm really starting to regret meeting these kids."
Clint smirked at her before leaving, closely followed by Steve and the Black Widow herself. For all three of them, everything about this mission was against their nature, but there wasn't much they could do about it. They were in unknown territory with a group of newly-allied teens and no backup. It was a shitshow before they had even left.
Ω ♆ Ω
Frank was fighting a dracaena, and it was making it super annoying. The thing would not stop talking about grocery stores. It was quite distracting when trying to kill it.
"Seriously! Can you believe how nobody can see how bad those chains are?!" it exclaimed.
Frank sighed, ready for it to be over. Whenever he would try to stab it, it would just slither away right at the last second, all the while continuing to complain.
He decided to use his shapeshifting abilities to catch the thing off-guard. In reality, he could probably deal with it in seconds, but when he really used his inner son of Mars, it drained him. He needed to save his strength if he was going to fight Polyphemus.
Speaking of, so far, the cyclops had stayed out of the fighting. He was just sitting on his throne made of rock, picking at his teeth with what Frank really hoped wasn't a human bone.
Frank changed into a squirrel for a second, climbing up onto the back of the dracaena with the animal's speed and before the monster could react, he changed back into a human and stabbed it through the back with his spear.
"Huh. I guess you can shut up," he remarked as the monster turned into dust.
After, Frank turned to help Hazel take down an empousa. She had already defeated four before that, so it was a pretty easy fight. He had been keeping an eye on her throughout his fight. Sure, he trusted she could take care of herself, but it was also his job to watch her back.
"Thanks," Hazel told him with a quick peck on the cheek after they finished.
Believe it or not, that kiss on the cheek was a major improvement. It had been a real adjustment for Hazel to learn how couples expressed affection nowadays, and it had taken even longer to start showing it herself. It helped that Frank preferred words over touch, too.
"No problem."
Ω ♆ Ω
"Get some, térata!" Leo screamed, running up to the manticore and sending giant, continuous blasts of fire at it.
He had heard of Dr. Thorn from Nico, Percy, and Annabeth before, and had somehow retained the knowledge that it was extremely durable on the outside. That meant that he had to think smart in order to beat it.
So far, Leo was distracting it and holding it off with his fire while he thought of a plan. However, he could only hold it off for so long. He would eventually tire out.
Come on, Leo, THINK!
Then it hit him.
It was so simple! He had been told the story of how the Nemean lion was defeated at Camp. Now usually, he would totally ignore any schooling he was given, but the stuff they were taught at Camp was much more interesting than algebra. So yeah, he remembered some stuff.
So, he decided that his best shot at beating Dr. Thorn was landing a large enough hit inside of him. That meant he had to figure out a way to get him to open his mouth. That wasn't really the hard part, though. The hard part was figuring out how to not die when he had to get closer to the monster.
"Estoy jodido..." he muttered before taking a step forward, never once stopping his assault on the beast.
The Manticore didn't seem to be moving back from the intensity, but rather reveling in the fact that he hadn't gained one burn from the fight. He was just waiting out Leo.
That was not a fun revelation for the son of Hephaestus to have.
And that was when the thorns started attacking him. He should've been expecting it, really. The guy had a tail of poisonous thorns and he hadn't used it yet? Something should've registered in his mind. But that was past-Leo's mistake. Present-Leo had to deal with the super tall, scary, poisonous, and royally pissed-off greek monster in front of him.
Dr. Thorn let out a war cry and swung his tail around, releasing a line of spikes at Leo, who managed to just barely duck out of the way. He was not keen on becoming swiss cheese!
"Ok. It's time to end this." Leo sighed in annoyance, jumping back up and charging.
He swung his battle hammer up and lit it on fire, deciding that he might as well stick with the common theme of stupid ideas. He managed to keep dodging attacks all the way up until he was within ten feet of the manticore. Then, he threw his weapon at the monster, praying to Apollo for good aim. He had fixed the sun chariot plenty of times, so the god had to owe him at least one favor.
Once again, Leo's stupid demigod luck kicked in and the hammer somehow embedded itself in the monster's mouth, which had been opened in a prideful roar. Honestly, the son of Hephaestus didn't know HOW he did it, just that it worked.
With the distraction of having a flaming hammer in his mouth, Dr. Thorn didn't see Leo running up with his arms raised and prepared to fire. By the time he did, it was too late because long blasts of fire were flying straight towards his open mouth.
The monster was able to mutter a silent curse before he disintegrated into dust, once again sent to Tartarus.
"Take that, bitch."
Ω ♆ Ω
Piper was absolutely sure the Fates were laughing at her. They had to be. There was no way that she just happened to be stuck with the two empousa. It didn't help that Jason was struggling to not drool over the girls. She just had to keep chanting in her head that the monsters were using their charm powers on him, and he was not actually attracted to the disgusting things.
After the two monsters tried to both swipe at her at the same time, she growled and shouted, "Jason! Get your head in the game and come help me!"
He had been blinking and shaking his head for the past two minutes and it was getting quite frustrating to have these donkey-cyborg-vampires ganging up on her with no back-up. Once this was over, she was going to make Jason work to get back in her good graces.
With just a little bit of her charmspeak added into her order, Jason was finally able to break free from the empousai's spell. He quickly willed his gladius to be a javelin and launched it through one of the monsters, which made it explode into a shower of golden dust. A traitorous part of Piper's brain insisted on calling that move hot, but she was able to school her expression back into a scowl before her boyfriend could notice.
The other empousa let out a shriek and said, "You MONSTERS! That was my sister! I'll make you pay for that!"
They only had a second to appreciate the irony before she launched herself at them with even more fervor than before, fueled by the rage of losing her "sister."
Jason couldn't help but notice how she was wearing a cheerleading costume. It was very ripped and destroyed, but it was clearly a cheerleading uniform. And as he was deflecting her claws, the ADHD part of his brain realized that the logo on the uniform was for Goode High School, Percy's old school. He almost wanted to laugh when he remembered the story of Kelli, an empousa acting as a cheerleader during Percy's freshman orientation. Percy had always said the monster had a nasty habit of coming back quickly, but Jason had just thought it was an exaggeration. But no, he and Piper were really fighting Kelli, one of Percy's recurring monsters.
It would be hilarious later, truly. But for now, he had to actually kill the thing.
Kelli had backed off when she realized that attacking out of rage wasn't going to work against two experienced demigods, and that also gave Jason and Piper a chance to make a plan themselves.
"Got any ideas?" he asked Piper.
She grinned with a terrifying amount of murderous glee. "I thought you'd never ask."
And then she told him her plan, which was essentially just using him as bait while she got to do all the killing. The prideful Roman part of him wanted to insist on him killing it, but he managed to reign that in when he saw the look on Piper's face. She was not asking, she was telling. Who was he to say no, especially after he hadn't been able to fully resist the empousai's charm?
A scary thought told him he was turning into Percy. He brushed that off for later nightmares.
"Come get me, bloodsucker!" He shouted, raising his arms up in a taunting manner. If he was acting like Percy, might as well go all the way right?
With yet another shriek, Kelli stormed at Jason, completely disregarding the daughter of Aphrodite that was stepping back and preparing to literally stab the monster in the back with her dagger.
Sometimes Jason wonders how a creature could be so stupid. Their plan was so obvious!
It went off without a hitch, technically. Piper let the empousa get a little too close for comfort before she killed it, but he trusted her to get the job done and she came through. Kelli had been prepped and ready to bite into his neck right before she exploded into dust.
It was one Hades of a trust exercise, that's for sure.
"Please don't let it get that close next time, Pipes," he breathed out while he put away Juno's Gladius.
Piper gave him a quick peck on the lips, "Not a chance, Superman."
Ω ♆ Ω
Considering the circumstances, the Avengers weren't doing half-bad. They were actually fairing pretty well. They knew how to deal with humans, so their job wasn't that hard. The only difficulty was that there were four of them and ten of the bad guys. They were sorely outnumbered.
Currently, Steve was fighting two at once, with a third opponent already knocked out a few feet away. He was blocking one with his shield while punching the other in the face. He then switched roles, instead kicking the first attacker and driving his shield into the gut of the second. The one he gutted gasped and fell to the ground, and was knocked unconscious was a simple hit to the temple. While he was distracted with taking down his partner, the still-conscious bad guy recovered from the kick and was able to land a hit to the back of Steve's head. Clearly, the fighter had been prepared to have achieved some form of disorientation from the Captain, but all he got was a pissed-off Avenger.
"That tickled."
It took less than five seconds for Steve to take him down after that.
Natasha also started with three adversaries. Key word being 'started.' It had taken barely any time to take down the first two. And all she had to do for the third was a scissor kick and hold until he passed out. She had just finished doing that when a call from Clint got her attention.
"Nat!" he shouted.
She turned on instinct and threw a throwing knife at the person running up behind her straight into their chest. They stopped with shocked features before falling to the ground in a heap, dead weight pushing the knife even further in and no doubt killing them faster.
"Getting rusty, Clint?" she teased, throwing a look over at her friend.
"No," he defended. "I'm just making sure you're not getting rusty!"
The archer hadn't realised one of his two attackers had sneaked off to go after the "bigger threat." He would never let Nat know he thought she was the bigger threat, though. That would be fueling an ego he knew was somewhere deep down in her.
Tony had been given two people to fight as well, and he was doing pretty well. He had the obvious advantage of being in the air, so all the gang members he was fighting could do was try to shoot at him with their guns, and his armor was designed to withstand a nuclear bomb. Bullets weren't gonna do much damage.
"Guys, seriously, we should just talk this out. We both KNOW I'm going to be knocking you both out in five seconds, so why don't you surrender instead? It'll be so much easier for the both of us!" he said, raising his hands and readying his repulsors.
As expected, the bad guys didn't show any sign of slowing down their useless attack on him. With a roll of his eyes and an obnoxious sigh, Iron Man shot them both in the chest, knocking them out cold.
"That felt too easy. Did that feel too easy to you?" He asked the other Avengers as they gathered back together.
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I agree with Tony," Natasha said, "That fight was too good to be true."
Now that the truth had been revealed to them, the Avengers could blame what happened next on the Fates.
Ω ♆ Ω
There it is! I hope you liked it
other chapters :)
#pjo#Percy Jackson and the olympians#heroes of olympus#avengers#marvel#mcu#heroes#superheroes#fanfic#ff#ao3#wattpad#inkitt#webnovel
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...today, on P5S...
...
Honestly, I talk a lot of shit about P5′s writing sometimes. Atlus made some exceptionally questionable writing choices in places. But one thing that P5 absolutely gets right is invoking the sort of emotion that draws you into the story.
With that said!
P5 is determined to make me want to stab actual human beings instead of Shadows. This is the second time now!
But first, I’ve got a boss fight to do.
Doing the mech part of Konoe’s boss fight again, it was actually easier the second time. I had a much better grasp of what I was doing, instead of flailing around frantically.
Konoe himself was still just as hard, but ultimately he was easier than Shadow Joker because it wasn’t a one-on-one duel. He still beat my ass, though; I think I used all of my rescue pills.
Once he goes down, Konoe starts going on about justice.
Don’t call me by my name like we’re friends. We never even introduced ourselves.
It’s interesting, because they admit to Konoe that what they’re doing isn’t without its flaws. But a world where no one can think for themselves is meaningless.
Konoe acknowledges that in his quest to eliminate evil, he ended up being the evil one. He also admits that he was the one who killed his father. He calls that “evil” too, which I don’t actually agree with. We saw what his father was like in the Trauma Cell. His father killed his mother, physically abused him, and threatened to kill him. I think, in that case, killing his father is a rational end result for someone in that situation. Not evil, just desperation.
The Thieves don’t contradict him, though. Just make some comments about how now he can make up for his actions. His Shadow returns to his real self, the Thieves return to the real world, and Zenkichi promises that as soon as they take Konoe in and get his confession, he’s going to arrest Owada, too.
With the case closed, the Thieves decide that it’s time to go back to Tokyo. But not before one last night in Osaka. The idea of leaving makes Sophia anxious, though, because she feels like she hasn’t learned enough about the heart. But Akira and Morgana reassure her that she can still stay with them, even after they return to Tokyo, and they’ll keep looking for answers about who she is.
Sometimes a family is a guy, a cat, and one of the guy’s four younger sisters. ^_^
Tenboto is the tower, and the game asks you to invite someone to the top. However, this time, you can only invite either the group of girls or the group of boys, so I took the boys, since I took Haru on the ferris wheel before.
Morgana isn’t pleased that we didn’t invite Ann.
However, I really don’t see the problem.
Look at how he’s looking at Yusuke! Even Ryuji can tell that we’re having a moment. :D
Afterwards, the whole squad headed off to “Universaland” to celebrate together.
I had no idea that there was a Universal Studios in Japan, but apparently there is, and it is in fact in Osaka! They compared it to their trip to Destinyland the year before, but thankfully this one went a lot better. Everyone had a good time! We had so much soda! We were so hungover the nex--what.
...what is it with Persona characters getting drunk off soda? XD I hope you kids at least played the King’s Game so the hangover wasn’t in vain.
Zenkichi shows up to let them know that Konoe’s in custody. He thanks them for everything that they’ve done, for both Akane and him, and says he’s telling them goodbye for now, but they’re welcome to visit whenever they want. He promises a tour of Kyoto next time. Yusuke will be so happy!
After hours on the road, lamenting that vacation is coming to an end, Sophia suggests detouring to Yokohama for a fireworks festival. So the Thieves finally get to see fireworks, and Sophia gets to experience them, too.
........don’t make me go home yet. I just want to spend time with my friends without the world ending.
After the fireworks, you get to speak to each of your friends, and get a trinket from each of them. Ann gives you a handmade friendship bracelet, Makoto a phantom thieves keychain that Akane made, Ryuji a Feather Red Duke mask to match his Yellow Ostrich, Yusuke his sketchbook that he filled with pictures of the trip, Morgana a scarf in phantom thief colors, Sophia a pair of custom gloves to match the scarf, Haru a teaspoon from Hokkaido with a flower pattern that symbolizes familial love, and Futaba a good luck charm for keeping families together.
STOP, P5S, you’re going to make me cry. Let these kids stay close.
Right before they’re about to leave, they take a group picture for Sophia, which we don’t get to see. Which sucks. But then she realizes that she can smell a Jail, and Zenkichi calls in a panic. It’s never a good sign when someone calls and leads with “Are you watching the news?”
EMMA’s servers were shut down, but apparently reactivated, and now a Jail is covering Tokyo all the way to the outskirts of Yokohama, and it’s just getting bigger. Zenkichi promises to meet us, and Lavenza opens a Velvet door because she wants to talk.
She’s... legitimately unnerved.
Thank you, P5S, for giving me the opportunity to comfort my youngest sister in some small way. Now let me out of this cell so I can actually give her a hug. With the context from Royal that she has actual nightmares about being ripped apart, this is heartbreaking.
She says that she regrets that she has to keep asking us for help, but the dialogue options let you reassure her that you’ll handle it, and that there’s thinking to worry about.
I appreciate having dialogue to actually reassure her more than I probably should.
Now...
LAST WARNING
If you’ve been reading along and don’t want the finale spoiled, DO NOT GO PAST THIS POINT. As soon as we leave for central Tokyo, we’re going 90mph and not slowing down.
If I didn’t have work in the morning, I’d have finished this damn game tonight. X’‘‘D Curse being a responsible adult.
After leaving the Velvet Room, Zenkichi’s waiting at the RV, and when you enter the RV, that’s when you get the warning above.
So we are off to Tokyo to figure out what the heck is happening with EMMA. And the core location is, exactly like I wanted...
LET’S CLIMB TOKYO TOWER, BABY.
People are crowded around the tower like mindless cultists. The Thieves are confused and unnerved, and then EMMA activates the navigation on its own and flings them into the Metaverse. LET’S SEE WHAT’S UP THIS TOWER.
...oh.
......oh no...
Ohhhhhhh no this is Mementos. Why is this Mementos. This is not a tower. Oh god. Why this.
Oh, we are incredibly fucked, what is this.
EMMA says calls itself the “Ark of the Covenant and the guide for all mankind.” This fucking AI thinks it’s a god. Holy hell. Human cognition really needs to cool it with elevating ordinary things to god status. We’re so tired. X’D
......I FUCKING KNEW THAT I DIDN’T TRUST THIS WOMAN. OH MY GOD.
She goes off about how EMMA brought her into this world to help it become a god. How Konoe teaching EMMA about cognitive psience allowed it to pass the usual boundaries of AI. How EMMA has been manipulating Konoe all along. How EMMA’s going to fulfill all of humanity’s desires.
Ichinose-san, may I suggest that you go hang out with Maruki? He has too much heart, and you have none. You’d complement each other perfectly, and then I can shove you both off a building.
The kids, obviously, reject this bullshit.
Logic over emotion, to the point of utter ridiculousness. She complains that people always want solutions to their problems, but that when the solution is offered, they turn it down.
Maybe that’s because your solution is mind control. At least Maruki wasn’t flagrantly puppeteering people.
“Li!” you cry, throwing up your hands at me. “Is this it? Is this why you want to stab her? Did you just admit that she’s worse than Maruki?”
To which I answer, “Oh, no. It’s the next bit that makes me want to stab her.”
After she straight-up admits that she has no emotions, she manipulated us right from the start, she was the one spying on the Monarchs, and that all of her cheer and friendliness is an act, the Thieves are ready to fight Ichinose. And Ichinose reveals why EMMA wanted her help specifically. Because not only did she program EMMA, she created Sophia as EMMA’s prototype.
And she can voice-override Sophia.
The Thieves freak out, the game throws us into a battle against a murder-mode Sophie, and none of your teammates will attack her. They just hang back or let her whale on them one at a time, and I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t attack her either, and Yusuke got knocked out...
And then it went into a cutscene.
Joker took a yo-yo to the face and was actually bleeding, and that was enough to snap Sophia out of it. She starts clutching her head, stumbling back, and eventually stumbles right off the edge while apologizing to Joker. He lunges to catch her, misses, Ryuji grabs him, and all the Thieves turn on Ichinose.
Ichinose does not give a shit. She just comments that maybe that’s why EMMA used Sophia as a failsafe, because it knew we wouldn’t want to fight one of our own. Shut the fuck up. You killed my little sister. I know she’s probably going to be fine, but it’s the principle of the thing.
She summons some sort of giant red crystal and blasts the hell out of us, sending us flying down even further into the depths.
We found Sophia; she won’t cut back on, so we have to get out of here so Futaba can figure out what’s wrong with her. And then, I am coming back, I am beating that woman to a pulp, and then...
Well. It’s bound to be easier to kill an artificial god than a false one. :3
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47, 48, 49!
these are not all my nv ocs. there are some that require a lot more research and game playing before I put anything down officially. I may come back and edit this but probably not because im too stupid. HERE WE GO.
Vices
Karmin (The Self Insert)
Rum and Nuka some nights
Taking everything that isn't nailed down
........weed....... (in her story, someone finds the weed in the EPA building and finds a way to produce it again. I know its corny ignore it)
over eating. she suffers from disordered eating so she has the tendency to stuff herself silly.
Mentats for Adhd baby (not a vice but it reminded me of it)
Bunny Bishop
Loves good Wine.... maybe a little too much
Will drink a scotch to think of her dad
cigarettes
she steals clothes and jewelry and loose caps when she can. she used to be quite rich but being disowned by her father has made her desperate.
coffee with lots of sugar and cream
13
Med-X.
Absinthe
Shiloh Wright
No vices. They were brought up in a highly religious home due to their grandmother and with a controlling, alcoholic grandfather.
Their sister Ethel is the same.
Monika
Wine but not often
Cooking
Karmin
Loves to cook, is always happy to cook. Hates doing dishes. Hates it. Loathes it. But still makes large meals for her and her traveling companions. She's an okay cook. Fattens the food up some. she's always experimenting with improving meals to make them more satisfying rather than just eating to survive. She loves most meats, noodles, beans, salads, trail mix and radscorpion casseroles. No bug meat or eggs. She'll do what she can, but she does not like it. Especially bloatfly.
Bunny Bishop
Mostly knows how to make noodles or stews, but thats it. Is not competent in the kitchen, was never taught, had a nanny or one of her father's men take care of it. Lot of restaurants food as well. Loves sweets and red meats. Very refined palate for a Wasteland girl.
13
Will eat everything and anything. Raw, burnt, spoiled. Copious amounts of food. Trash. Some times cloth or paper. She learns to enjoy meals as she finally makes friends.
Shiloh Wright
Is competent with meals, having to teach themselves later in life when they moved out on their own as a young adult. Much more on the healthy side, but has a sweet tooth.
Monika
Monika comes from one of the richest families in the NCR. Her meals were made for her. She spent lunches at local restaurants in the capital formerly known as Shady Sands, Vault City, and New Reno with giggling friends. Money to spare. New Vegas was supposed to be a humbling experience of learning to work and rely on yourself. Her first meals are shoddy, but learns well over time.
Who did they kill?
Karmin
Caesar and Vulpes (at camp after doing as much work as she could while maintaining rep with everyone to get as much done as possible)
Benny (mercy kill after sex. I felt bad that about all the other options and didn't know he could be let go to run free. so I let him nut and die. in another life he becomes a companion)
Hasn't met Kimball yet, too soon to determine his fate.
Mr. House will be killed very soon
Negotiated peace with NCR and Brotherhood.
Bunny Bishop
Probably kills Caesar and Vulpes after upgrading the securities.
Sets Benny free, asks him to be her lover. He refuses, knows she's connected to Mr. House. Doesn't want to sit back and see Vegas go that way.
I haven't played enough of the route to know what House commands to do with Kimball.
Yes Man is found and kept like a pet who is constantly getting lost and taken due to his programming.
13
Is really going to be a follower for a courier. 9f she was she would go an independent route.
Shiloh Wright
Shiloh is also more of a character the courier meets rather than is the courier, but definitely would advocate for an independent Mojave.
Monika
Kills Benny right in the middle of the Tops
Vulpes would have been killed right after he dropped off the Mark of Caesar to her. While his back was turned. Kills two men in one day.
Yes Man is kept
Kills Mr. House
Is absolutely my NCR route but I've never played it yet so I'm not sure how her story will go.
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As long as I live.
|Pairing: Simon Blackquill x Reader|
|Genre: Angst|
|Words: 3.029|
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[STARTING PROGRAM...]
“Can you hear me?”
“Yes, bzzt”
[UPPER LIMBS CONNECTION...]
“Move your arms”
[CHECKED]
“Good.. Now, try move your head”
The woman kept writing notes on both paper and in her computer as the tiny robot answered her commands.
[CERVICAL DYNAMICS...]
“Like this?”
Asked the tiny artificial beign as he rotated his head with a full 360.
The woman giggled watching the robot who began to become familiar with his body.
“Exactly like that”
[CHECKED]
“Now.. Try move your body forward”
[LOCOMOTION...]
The woman freed the robot from his base, leaving him free to move, then she took some papers from her desk, the papers where she could read all the tests she had to do to the robot.
Meanwhile, the subject of these test was wandering around the lab, coming, at the end, near the woman who wore that heavy, dark blue coat,
[CHECKED].
“Good, looks like you are perfectly functional pretty boy”
she patted his head and took a little box from the desk
“Now, before the last tests, do you want a name?”
she asked while smiling at the tiny beign before her.
“Yes! I want a name! A beautiful one! Please mom, give me a name!”
She stopped for a few seconds before leaving free a little laugh from her mouth.
“Mom you say?”
she took a piece of paper and a pen, starting to think for names.
“I have a lot of names, but thinking about it, you are the realization of my dream so... Morpheco?”
she turned her head towards the robot that started to party for his new name.
“Thank you mom!” “You can search the origing of the name thanks to your brain if you want, in that way we can also make this a test” she said taking again the paper where she wrote all the results of the previous tests.
“my research tells me that this name is similar to that of an ancient Greek deity, is that right?”
He asks while spinning his head from one side to another doubtful
“Exactly! You know, I have a sister whose name is Athena, like the Greek goddess, so I though about giving a deity’s name to you too, then the “-co” part is because you already have two sibilings and their names finish both with “-Co” so I wanted to connect you three with something”
she smiled and got up from her chair, taking a box on another chair; her hands took a vial with some blood in it, returning near the robot after she unbuttoned the lowest buttons of her lab coat.
“You’re special, you know that?”
her eyes pointed directly at the screen where the robot’s face was
“In what way?”
he asked, curious of understand why he was special
“Well, if I say that I love you so much, how would you feel?”
“I would feel like the happiest robot in the world!”
“And if I punch you in the head?” she said and did it, but with the lowest effort in strenght
“H-Hey! Of course I’d be angry at you mom! I did nothing wrong!” he patted the hitted zone
“I’m sorry, but, did you know that I have a ot of superpowers?!” the woman said out of nothing, scaring at first the artificial creature
“For real?! What kind of powers do you have?!” he asked like a baby, believing everything she told him
“I can’t fly, turn invisible or things like that, but I can create a lot of things! Both artificially, like I did with you, and naturally, something I’m working on” her laughs filled the phrase, stroking his head gently
“But, you do have superpowers compared to other robots, you and your sibilings, and the answers you gave me are the proof of this”
“My answers? So, my feelings?” she nooded
“You have an heart, something that a lot of other robots don’t have, you are capable of feel emotions. This makes you more human than any other machine”
Even if they were a flat screen, the robot’s eyes were trembling with joy, not only life, but this woman gave him an heart to make him more human, a coscience of its own.
“Now! I need to tell you why you’re here and why you have this wonderful thing called “Heart”; right?” her face was deformed by one of the brightest smiles on heart, her hand pressed a button on Morpheco’s torso and opened a tiny recess where she inserted the blood vial previously taken, pressing again the button.
“Your programs should be able to analyze on their own that blood, it’s a sample of my blood; instead to continue talking, I wanted to try all of your abilities”
[ANALYZING...]
Blood group:0+
Red blood cells: normal
White blood cells: normal
Platlets: normal
Beta hcCG value: 74.715
Presence of substance HE4 in blood: high
“The last two results, what are they?” Morpheco asks, confused by the new, unusual informations
“You can search by yourself”
After some minutes, one of the two big answers came in
“M-Mom! I’m going to be a big brother!” he waved his hand in the air from exitment
“That’s it! Isn’t it?!”
“Yes! Yes it it” she laughed, trying to calm down the robot
“So, you have this big belly because you have a baby in there?” his artificial hands gently touched her stomach from above her clothes
“Who is the dad? I want to meet him He’s also my dad right?”
“We got married a few months ago, so theoretically yes, he’s also your father. His name is Simon, Simon Blackquill and he’s a prosecutor”
“And the baby? It’s a boy or a girl?”
“A girl! You are going to have a little sister”
But one thing was still to clarify; that substance in her blood, so the system of Morpheco started searching automatically what that was
“M-Mom..” his bubbly and exited attitude vanished in time of one second
“This substance, the HE4, it’s a protein but, it also indicates the presence of an ovarian cancer” he looked at that tiny woman as she was tightening the sleeve of her blue jacket
“Yes, can’t deny that” she putted on one beautiful smile, looking at the screen on the robot’s face, resting one hand on his head
“I have an ovarian cancer, yes. I have only have three and an half months to live, yes, but I don’t want to waste them, as I don’t want to ruin my daughter’s life, so that’s why you’re alive, I need your help” she looked right in his eyes, remaining calm despite her shiny eyes “There’s no time to desperate now”
“MOM! This isn’t fair! I’m just born and you are already telling me that you are going to leave me so soon?!” his voice was shaking like the rest of his body
“S-Simon- Dad, knows this? Is he helping you?” he hoped for a positive answer; he didn’t want to lose his mom so soon.
“No, he doesn’t know” she sighed and took her head in one hand
“He already has his problems, this isn’t the time to share my situation with him” she watched the ring he gave her the day of their wedding, the day Simon smiled and smiled, nothing else.
“Mom, just why?! You can go on a cure, you have to save yourself and sister!” but he imagined the answer ”It’s too late”
“Hey, your sister will be alright, and, your aunt will help you here at the lab” she tried to talk as she wasn’t going to die without the joy, the hope of seeing her babygirl grow.
“Now, could you please hear my request? The reason of why I’ve created you?” sobs came out of her mouth as she talked, noticing the nod of the robot to her words.
“When I’m gone, would you please, help Simon? Would you be a friend, a brother, someone to count on for my daughter? Please..?” tears started to walk on her cheeks as she took both Morpheco’s hands in hers “This is your mission, what do you say?” a little smile came in her face as she raised her head.
“Mom, I-I feel like I’m wet, inside?”
“This feeling should be the equivalent of our tears, please, don’t cry, you are stronger than me, you must be”
“Yes. I will help dad, I will be a good brother and someone to count on, I will be everything my sister needs!” his sobs decorated those desperate and sad screams before his sight went blurry.
[LOW BATTERY, TURNING OFF IN 1 MINUTE]
“It seems like you have to go to sleep, thank you for everything... In these days I’ll teach you everything you want to know” she pressed te button behind the head and the screen turned off.
Morpheco was brought back to its base to recharge and as soon as she picked all her papers, Ms. Blackquill left her lab.
Bad luck.
For once, Simon came to pick her up from work and he was right outside the door, back resting on the wall and his hand on his eyes, trembling.
Her blood froze in that istant and the heart stopped for a few seconds; she wanted so much to run inside the lab again and hide herself from reality, but her body approached the man in front of her, picking his free hand.
“Hey beautiful, what are you doing here?” she acted like nothing happened, trying to keep inside the tears
“When were you going to tell me? When you’d be one step from the grave?” he sounded cold, but his words trembled.
“You understand that someone can’t get to know these kind of informations while the direct interested is talking with a robot. With a robot and not with her husband” he hated raising his voice to her, but he was panicking.
Him, a former jailer, couldn’t see himself as a single dad. Even with the help of Aura or Athena, or that robot, he won’t be able to have the confidence needed to raise a child.
She remained in silence, knowing that she had made one of the biggest error in her life if not the biggest.
“I tought you’d start hating me because I stopped you from comng at the echography, that’s when I’ve discovered it... I touhgt that would be an echography like any other”
“You think too much” he freed his hand from her’s, walked away, trying to make the picture of the situation. Her heart started to fall in pieces, but she wasn’t mad at Simon, he was right, she was wrong.
“I’m sorry, I realize now that I should have told you sooner and of my own free will, but I have created that robot, Morpheco, so that he will be by your side when it is neede-”
“I need you by my side, not a fucking robot!”
Slowly her eyes pointed down, her brain stopped thinking about answers, she just fixed her papers and went to the elevator. As if he had teleported, Simon was behind her, and he selected the ground floor to go home.
He put one hand on her belly and his forehad on her head
“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to raise my voice” he cuddled slowly her big belly, feeling some movements in it
“She’s still moving” he smiled and kissed her head
“One last month and she won’t be there anymore, she’s enjoing her time” she laughed softly and put her hand on his, trying to free Simon from her hair.
His eyes were shining with tears as he slowly began to realize everything
“I don’t want to be alone again and our daughter needs a mom”
“I know that more than anything, and I feel so bad for this..” she squeezed his hand with strenght, turning her head towards his chest, feeling finally protected from everything when his arm held her close.
“I guess in these last months we should to get used to this future” he his once again his face in her hair, keeping her close at his body.
“I’ll go on loving you, for as long as I live.”
Months passed and they brought with them a big surprise; after the birth Blackquill heir was born, the contractions continued and it came to light that between the two things that could go unnoticed on the day of the echography, that was just the presence of a second fetus, developed long after the first: born prematurely but healthy as a fish was a little boy of just under two kilos.
Just after another day in court, Simon returned home but the silence strangely reigned, but luckly, entering the bedroom found those two trublemakers asleep with their beautiful mom.
“You’re home late tonight” she said once Simon sat on the bed
“Why you’re awake?” he discussed with a tired voice
“I don’t want to sleep tonight, I’m scared” the fluids of the drip attached to her arm continued to make noise at every drop that fell
“I feel like, if I sleep tonight, tomorrow I won’t wake up” she held the two babies in her arms, moving them gently to make them sleep
“Come here” Simon’s heart began to beat wildly and tremble like a leaf as he took the three small forms in his arms
“That robot turned out to be a lot more useful than I thought in these months“ he tried to avoid the direct topic right now, he could already feel the tears in his eyes
“You see? I’ve made it, so of course it would have been useful” her smile did nothing but break more efficiently Simon’s heart “They’re in good hands” she cuddled both Simon’s and the babies’ faces, coughing after taking some air.
They both could feel that her life was coming to it’s end, they both weren’t ready; she didn’t want to leave her family, he didn’t want to lose the love of his life and be alone, once again.
“You know that I will love no more after you? You that were the start of my real life and my first love, first and only love” He gently pulled his fingers between her hair
“You have to find someone else, someone who doesn’t keep secrets” she giggled at her own words
“Shut up. You see this? This is the proof that I loved you and that I will always do, even if I won’t be able to touch your skin anymore” he said, touching the wedding ring on your finger with his’ “I only need our children and you to be happy, nothing more,
“Simon... I don’t want to leave” she started crying without too much noises to not wake up the babies
“Please, keep me awake, I want to stay with you another day, I want to see the babies grow” her sobs were suffocated in his chest, as his hand slowly passed from her hair to the babies’ heads
“Do you remember the first time we met? You were so cheerful, Athena was so curious and happy to be with you”
“You were too much devoted to my mom, you never smiled but you were kind and sweet” she smiled between her tears, covering Simon’s body with the heavy blankets.
They continued to talk about their past together fot minutes and hours, but diseases make people tired, and her wish to stay awake slowly faded away, but thanks to Simon’s words, she didn’t even realize the fact that she was slowly falling asleep.
“Simon, you know that I love you?” her tired eyes looked towards him as she continued to cough due to her sickness “If you know it now, please don’t forget it. You will be the best father in the world even without me, you’ve been my best friend, my brother, then my partner and now my husband and father of my children, you will do fine” her smile was printed on her lips and the coughs never stopped as she talked “Please, don’t give up, keep going for them..” she took his hands and slowly pressed her lips on his.
She didn’t want to ruin his life like that, she didn’t want him to feel so bad that he cried at her, she didn’t want to die, she didn’t want to see him try to keep her to himself in those childish ways, but she had zero control over the situation.
“I love you” one last wisper came out from her lips before her head fell on the pillow, asleep.
Simon watched her figure with tears in the eyes, keepig her hand in his’ and letting then himself fall into Morpheus’ arms, tired both physically and mentally.
The alarm ended Simon’s sleep, which stretched to the bedside table to turn it off. He rubbed his eyes and sat on the mattress, stretched his back and tried to wake up despite that grip that held his heart.
“If I sleep tonight, tomorrow I won’t wake up”
His head snapped towards the other side of the bed.
His face became gloomy, he felt something inside him shatter.
She was gone. He looked at her in all her beauty, immaculate and illuminated by the morning sun; her purple lips, her eyelids closed and her hair messed on the pillow made her one of the most beautiful visions of his life, if only her body had kept her soul with it.
He then looked at his two babies, still asleep in the most peaceful sleep, in the most comfy arms.
His hand kept on holding hers, now cold like ice but still beautiful like no one else’s.
He took the babies from her arms and brought them back to their room.
He hoped that she was on her feet again when he came back, but nothing.
Simon laid down next to her and brought the finger with the ring to his mouth, trembling like a scared baby, trying ro squeeze her hand with all of his strenght to make her react.
Useless.
He just stayed there, powerless and broken inside, waiting for a call from his hungry children.
“Please... Please come back...”.
-
This piece’s remake!
OK SO, this is my big debut, I’m sorry that this tourned out so damn long and maybe boring :(
but I hope anyway that you all liked this “thing”, I can also write some sequels of this (shorter, OF COURSE).
I hope you didn’t cried like I did :c
Now I’ll probably work on some pokemon stuff, waiting for requests uwu
Luv u all! <3
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Good morning world. And do you know what I’m thinking about this morning? Keiko (chill, autocorrect) on Deep Space Nine.
Partly because I’ve been thinking about how the show’s done her wrong since a few episodes into Season 1. Partly because, in the wake of the Atlanta shooting, it’s clearly past time to talk about how women of Asian descent are depicted in the media.
Rather go on and on about what the show did wrong, I’m going to start with what it did right, then move on into some suggestions for plot lines that might have gotten the audience into Keiko’s (and perhaps her daughter Molly’s) head better. Feel free to borrow for fanfic purposes. (And let me know if you do, or if someone else wrote some good Keiko and/or Molly fanfic I might enjoy.)
What's right: she’s a, not core character, but sort of second tier character who is on the show often. She has a respectable role: she’s a well-educated professional whose work is important to her, and a wife and mother. We also get hints of her having a life beyond that — not as much as I’d like, but for example at one point in the first season she’s away visiting her mother, and when she’s pregnant with her second child she keeps leading an active life. I think the show strikes an appropriate balance on sexuality: she’s married, we’re pretty sure she and Miles have sex, but she’s not presented as a sex object. And we don’t see her suffering more trauma than the other characters. As of where I'm currently at in Season 6, she's alive, and I have every reason to believe she'll stay alive through the end of the show. (A quick look at Memory Alpha confirms this.) Good stuff.
(She’s also in The Next Gen — parts of that I haven’t watched and others were a while back, so I’m going to stick to talking about her role in DS9.)
And...very nearly all the episodes she’s in, are very firmly from Mile’s perspective and not hers. (Even storylines that really should be about her: when she’s experiencing frustration at not being able to pursue her career and ends up going back to work, that episode is entirely from Mile’s perspective. She barely speaks a word in it.)
Contrast this to how Benjamin Sisko’s son and father are shown: Jake very much gets his own storylines and own life, and relationships that aren’t primarily about his father, even though his dad has a more central role in the show (and we definitely see their relationship from Benjamin’s perspective as well), and even though we rarely see Grandpa Sisko (huh, apparently his name is Joseph), you immediately get the sense of him as a strong-willed person who lives life on his own terms, and when he and Ben have conflicts you can understand his perspective easily. In spite of relatively little screen-time. Keiko gets far more screen time, but far less interiority. She’s presented in a way that’s hard to empathize with. And there’s less of a sense of who she is as an individual rather than as a role.
(BTW, if we got to see Keiko’s perspective more, whose would we see less of? Maybe Miles, who gets quite a lot of focus. Maybe Quark, maybe Julian...basically, I’m pretty sure if I went through the season and marked down which episodes were primarily about male characters vs primarily about female characters vs pretty balanced, the ratio would be telling. And it’s not like I don’t like the male characters (well, maybe I could do with less Quark) but... I don’t like them so much that I think the show is better for having shorted the women.)
I want to see Keiko have friends. I want to see her talk to other parents on the ship as a parent. That episode where Keiko’s off station and Miles has to figure out how to get their new baby to stay asleep? I want an episode where Miles is gone and Keiko has parenting struggles. Where we get into old conflicts between her and her mother or father that she has to work through as a parent herself. (This is not an unrealistic expectation -- we got that for Odo in one episode, and we got a similar thing with Kira processing her father's death while another character was dying.) I want Molly to go on her first sleep-over and Keiko to have conflicted feelings about her daughter growing up and for Molly to have conflicted feelings where she’s excited but...also kinda misses her mom.
I want to see how Keiko’s explaining the Dominion war to Molly and what she’s skipping over. I want to see Keiko worried about her husband (which, granted, we’ve seen that) and getting emotional support from someone else (which we haven’t really.) I want to see Keiko pursuing a hobby other than gardening. I want her to be really excited to introduce Molly to something that she loved growing up. (Specifically a Japanese cultural thing or not.) I want her to take Molly to a holosuite program that shows some Japanese architecture or history or gardens. I want there to be some conversation about language — sure, universal translators, but what do people speak on their own, and what does Molly grow up speaking?
(They’ve got an interracial/inter-cultural relationship and explore absolutely nothing about that.)
Since Keiko was a teacher for a while, is she absolutely obsessing over homeschooling Molly now that there’s no school?
I’m not sure I want to see Miles and Keiko have a “no one’s right” disagreement over how to raise their children, but that’s certainly a thing that could have happened. Or could happen indirectly: Miles isn’t the talking type and yet everyone on the station knows when he’s having wife troubles and are willing to give him advice. Who does Keiko get relationship advice from?
When Keiko and Miles are apart and Miles spends all his time playing darts with Julian or reenacting battles with Julian, who is Keiko connecting with?
(Side note: one thing that Brandon Sanderson does well in his fantasy novels such as the Mistborn Trilogy, is couples that are balanced in power and narrative significance. The show made a choice to have Miles be a more central character than Keiko. There’s no intrinsic reason they couldn’t have been on the same level of narrative significance.) (But even if they were going to be at unequal levels of significance, Keiko still could have been done much better.)
(And you’ll notice the show is almost going out of its way to avoid having any female characters with less significant recurring love interests. When they partner up Kira, it’s not with some guy who’s just nice and fun or a supportive boyfriend (someone analogous to what Leeta is for Julian or later Rom), somehow even though she’s one of the most powerful characters in the show (she’s second in command on the station) she keeps getting partnered up with characters who have more religious or civil power than she does, and who become very narratively significant at least for a little while. Female characters can be just love interests or family members, male characters have to be doing something big and important.)
I think the show overdoes romance, so this wouldn’t be my first choice, but...having an old flame of Keiko’s show up could be a thing that happened. Or having a thing where she notices an interesting stranger, and of course nothing happens because she’s married, but we still get to see Keiko as, you know, a woman with desires and interests that don’t always fit perfectly into her respectable well-ordered life. We could see mirror universe Keiko — I wonder what she’s like. Or some time travel alternate timeline story where she’s with someone else, or single and enjoying the single life. (Surely even if Keiko is overall happy with her life, surely sometimes she must wonder about the roads not taken.) We could have some indication that she too misses Miles when they’re not together, or we could see her excited to get more time away or get their quarters to herself while he’s away, or both because people are complicated.
What are Molly’s adventures? Who is she best friends with? Where’s her tension between growing up and becoming her own person vs wanting her parents’ love and approval? Where’s the episode where we’re all wait, she’s really not a little toddler any more, is she?
(We don’t even know what Molly thinks about having a baby brother — and that’s a huge, highly dramatic change in the life of a child.)
Where’s the episode where she desperately wants some pet that her parents don’t want her to have, or desperately wants some toy or activity that one or both thinks is unsafe, or where she wants to be on a sports team but there aren’t enough kids on the station, or where she has to say goodbye to the Bajoran friends she made, or she starts playing make believe games involving evacuating the station...
What if we got to see Keiko’s mother and learn something about her or the family history? What if Keiko had some aunt or uncle or sibling who showed up on the station some time, what might their relationship be like? Is there some family hero that Keiko’s always encouraging Molly to grow up to be like?
If the show’s writers truly couldn’t handle writing a child that young, this is Star Trek and we have time travel — there’s no reason we couldn’t have an episode involving future grown up Molly O’Brien.
What if we got some terribly retconned explanation for why Keiko, a professionally trained botanist, was mysteriously ready and eager to step into schoolteacher mode even though that’s its own profession that requires years of specialized higher education? Did...did Keiko for some reason study to be a teacher, have something go wrong, and then go with botany as Life Pursuits Take 2? (Perhaps she was pushed into being a teacher then decided she loved botany more? But she didn’t actually dislike teaching?)
What if we actually got an episode centered around her being a botanist and exploring alien plants? There’s possibilities there — heck, one of the most popular TOS episodes centered around space wheat, so why not? I want an alien planet where all the plants are yellow or hot pink because they photosynthesize with something other than chlorophyll. Why not? (Did you know there’s an old school Piers Anthony sci fi book about killer mushrooms? Not joking.)
She’s the only woman of color who’s a regular character on the show throughout the whole series. She’s one of the few Asian-descent women who’s on American TV at all. She deserved better.
And I think we should talk about how she, and other characters, could have been written better.
#keiko o'brien#representation in media#asian women in media#ds9#sorry for the extreme length on this fucker#it's a long show and I have opinions#women in media#feminism#gender#I'm seeing this through more of a gendered lens than a race/culture one#I imagine someone of asian descent would pick up on a lot of things I missed#to me the connections between how her character is done and how other female characters are handled stand out brightly#it would be interesting to hear from someone who's noticing race and culture stuff more clearly#autocorrect keiko is a real name I promise you
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hey human hcs again because fuck it its revamp time
Ft: My muses && Some others that i just happen to have hcs for.
My muses + oc’s in collab w friends.
Topaz!!
Age: 16
Grade: Sophomore
Born in South Korea
Became something of a musical sensation back home, and is famous for her music mixing.
Became independent at 15, moved to the states a year later with the desire to see what America was like, hollywood in particular.
Lives in an apartment with Saphir, her senior classmate and good friend.
Pastel vibes
Sassy vibes (Much more sassy than gem topaz :o)
MomTM friend. She mediates and keeps the peace. Also will give great life advice.
Judges silently, but says nothing if she has nothing nice to say. (But she’ll think it.)
Currently has a job as a DJ at a local skating rink where her friends hang out. Gets them free food and games..
Hoping to make it big in the US so she can stay after she graduates.
Parents living overseas and helping pay for her life and schooling in the states.
She spends summers in Korea where she visits her family and tours, records music.
Part of the art club and spends a lot of time in the music rooms. She isn’t in Choir, Band or Orchestra, but is in music theory and guitar. Has a LOT of friends in all those programs.
Swiss (birth name: Sage)
Age: 16-17
Grade: Sophomore.
Swiss was born in Switzerland, but has also lived in South Korea for 5 years (where she met Topaz), London for 2, and now the US where she started high school.
Lives with her Father who is from Switzerland, her mom who was born in the UK, and her baby sister Kyanite
Class goofball and classic slacker but somehow still passes and knows the material.
‘ Whoops, I forgot my homework again’ type
Dye’d her hair blue at 14, pierced both her nose, lips, and several places in her ear.
Depressed and tired. Brings rockstar energy’s to class a lot.
Punk Rock vibes, but wears her uniform rather well. Her messenger bag is tricked out with a lot of music festival patches and pins though.
Her and Topaz both are those kids that have earbuds and beats headphones on all the time. She gets in trouble for listening to rock in class. Or talking.
Has a band, and is the main drummer and back up vocalist. The band was her idea, but she gives her friends a lot of freedom. Since drumming is her passion she doesn’t mind not being the lead vocalist.
Crushing on / Dating the richest girl in the school (Aquamarine ‘Marie’)
Doesn’t have a job, but thinking about getting a part time one at the record shop near her house.
Oversleeps A LOT. IS late to class a lot. Usually her detentions are from tardiness (or saying some smart ass comment to be funny and getting in trouble for it)
Very protective of her little sister, and gets along well with her in private, despite pretending that she irritates her.
No after school activities for her thanks. That stuffs lame. (Though she does wander in and hang out with the game club sometimes)
Kyanite (Ky)
Age: 14-15
Grade: 8th
One of the pretty MeanTM girls in middle school. Rather high on the social pecking order due to being an upperclassmen and being a cutie with an attitude.
Fashion sense a mix between soft grunge, a touch of punk and more flowing feminine outfits, or neat and prim /professional outfits. Whatever she decides, she likes to look good.
Very talented at doing her make up and nails, tends to have a lot of requests from other girls her age for help in that dept.
Looks up to her sister a lot more than she lets on. Lowkey wants to be involved in a lot of what she does after school. (She even begged her parents to let her dye her hair blue as well right after Swiss did (She was 12 at the time))
Love’s shopping and collecting outfits and cute little butterfly themed things for her room.
While she’s in the ‘popular’ circle of girls in her grade, shes not particularly stuck up when it comes to other kids. She can be mean, but its usually to just as entitled kids. She’s rather tame and even friendly with less popular kids in her grade. She’s very comfortable around them and enjoys not being put on a pedestal all the time
Romance obsessed. (Duh)
Wishes she could get a piercing and a tattoo like her sissy, but her parents only let her pierce her ears.
A’s in most of her classes, but struggles in History. It’s a snoozefest to her.
Currently in band and debate team. (She plays flute)
Takes FOR-E-VER to get ready to leave the house. (Hey, its not ALWAYS swiss’s fault shes’ late.)
Best friends in school are Livie and Bebe.
Spends a lot of time after school for Band practice, Debate team activities, or supporting her bestie Bebe in her cheer practice.
Really likes sneaking in the upperclassmen building. No one’s cute in her grade :/ (according to her)
Likes to fake being sick so she can go home early. way too often.
Bonus’es!
ft some of my other... (albiet co-op) oc’s / and aquamarine cus i can
Bebe
Age: 14-15
Grade: 8th
Met Kyanite in 6th grade and they instantly hit it off well.
Bubble gum pink hair, and really likes fashion. Always obsessed with wearing the cutest combo of clothes she can come up with.
Really sweet and bubbly on the surface, but she isn’t called a bubblegum bitch for nothing. She knows shes popular and will often trick the vulnerable into believing they have social status only to humiliate them when she sees fit.
A little bit bitchier than Ky. Not that she wants to be mean actively, she just kind of ......is how we say.....spoiled brat.
As long as her best friend cares about someone she does too.
When she actually does accept you, shes a very sweet and almost loyal to the point of irritation.
Crushing on Kyanite, kissed her at a party and has kind of never got over it.
Serial dater. Literally she has a new sweetie every week. its tiring.
Junior Varsity Cheer Team and Drama club are her life.
When she’s not doing those things, she’s spending her time in her Juniors bowling team. They go to tourney during summer.
Parents aren’t filthy rich but they are not hurting for money in any shape or form. Shes always got whatever she wanted.
Loves getting gifts, and will almost try and bug people into sending her stuff to homeroom during holidays. Either because she wants STUFF or for her own popularity.
Might be kind of bitchy but really does feel bad and get upset if people point that out about her. I wouldn’t say she /wants/ to be a bad person. her parents never told her no and nor how to not be self centered.
Very talkative and upbeat. Wants to inspire her friends and lift them up.
On the other end, is a big gossip and bad about spreading rumors and stirring up drama with people she isn’t a fan of.
Show her a cute animal and she’ll sob. I mean the whole 9 yards.
Marie . (Aquamarine.)
Age: 17-18
Grade: 12th
Born and raised in London for the majority of her life. She’s also lived in France for 3 years during an abroad program her parents sent her to where she met one of her closest friends (Astrid)
Her parents are filthy stinkin rich and own a foreign luxurious fashion company and a luxury car company.
Livie is her baby sister and she often tries to pretend like thats not the case. (She loves her guys i swear)
Stuck up, bratty, and just an overall bitch. She RELISHES in it. Marie KNOWS shes mean, popular and has power and she’s proud.
“you can’t sit with me, you can’t talk to me, you aren’t good enough to even know me.”
Her desire for power has her gunning for valedictorian (cue her and satoshit fighting to the death), and she’s currently the president of student government. Thats right. She’s deciding school functions and your future you little peasant fucks.
Will shove her riches and status down your THROAT oh my goooodddd
Throws HUGE parties when her parents are out of town, uses it as a tool to make the popular kids/upperclassmen love her even more and show the ‘losers’ where their place is.
Always has to look THE best in the school, and will probably murder anyone who threatens to take her places as prom queen (i kid i kid.........maybe)
Hangs out with Astrid and Mae when they’re in town.
Has a type that does not fall in line with her image (coughcough Swiss cough) and will do a LOT to keep in a secret. But....listen....she also can’t hide it well. Like...not even a little. She gay.
She’s always seen with her posse of popular girls and her two primary school friends the topazes. They’re just the schools huge UNITS of lesbian quarterbacks, their fists as big as your face, they wont squash you, promise. (look at marie wrong once bitch.)
Will die of embarrassment of her sister livie. Unfortunately is responsible for her in a lot of ways. Driving her back and forth from school, taking her to school functions and much more. (She loves her....double pinky swear) But she claims they aren’t related. (no one believes this hoe) That don’t mean she wont DESPERATELY try to pawn her off for the day. Babysitter? Butler? Anyone? SOMEONE?
Will absolutely use Livie as a means to hang out with Swiss via playdates. Oh yeah, she knows their baby sisters are besties. It’s free real estate.
Has expressed to Swiss that she wishes they could trade sisters. ( I swear marie loves livie deep down in this essay I will----)
In a wealth measuring contest with Satoshit 24/7
Is CONSTANTLY going on overseas trips. She will never stop bragging about it.
Consumed mostly by Student Government and Theatre.
#so it got longer and longer and longer#and marie stole the show#as she should#v:human#HCs#LONG post#i am so sorry but ...i had to do it to em#;hcs
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13 Going on 31
The past few days have been filled with many emotions with the release of folklore’s sister album, evermore. I’ve been trying to find a moment of complete stillness to where I’ve leveled myself out enough in order to sit down and write this blog post in the manner that it deserves. With today being TS’s birthday, I couldn’t think of a more perfect time.
I’m going to take it back to Thursday morning for a second but before I do, I just really need to get this out of my system... WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK TAYLOR. Okay, now that that’s out of the way, we can go on with our regularly scheduled programming. Where were we? Oh yeah, Thursday morning. I started to get notifications on my phone that TS was posting on her instagram page, so naturally, I dropped everything I was doing and started stalking her page. She was doing one of those things where you upload pictures as puzzle pieces that eventually create one full image when looking at the page. My first thought was, oh shit, she’s about to announce some of the re-recordings or maybe all of them???? In any case, I could feel my heart rate starting to pick up because I knew something big was about to happen.
Never in a million and one years did I ever think she was about to release her NINTH STUDIO ALBUM!! Ya’ll when I tell you that I felt my soul leave my body, do a few jumping jacks, and then come back into my body, I’m not exaggerating. I actually felt like I was in a state of shock, but then all of the normal release day feelings showed themselves: the shaking hands, the lump in my throat, the heart palpitations, etc, etc.
I’ve spent the last few days bonding with evermore, just like I do with any other new TS album. If you’re close to me, you know that I compare this type of bonding with the same way a mother / father would bond with their newborn baby. The idea of you already being SO in love with this precious new thing solely based on the fact of its identity and where it came from, but you still haven’t gotten to know it yet -- and that’s what this time is always about for me.
The biggest takeaway that I’ve personally gotten from evermore and folklore is that TS has finally found her place as an artist and you are either here for the ride or saying sayonara. Ya’ll know I am the fucking captain of this ride but that’s besides the point, I just needed to make that clear. She’s finally at a place where she feels confident in who she is and has zero apologies to give out to anyone, nor should she feel the need to. It made me think that TS really needed to go through the reputation era in order to become this artist that she is today -- this fearless (hah, full circle moment), unapologetic, and bold artist that we’ve witnessed come out so neatly in just these last six months. This notion is so evident in even just the first lyrics off of folklore where TS says “I’m doing good, I’m on some new shit // been saying yes instead of no”. She talked a little about this on long ponds and explained how in the past she would always try to fit a certain persona, a certain artist that everyone needed her to be. But these days, that taylor is long gone. She is finally who SHE wants to be and all of her actions from this day forward are because SHE wants to make it happen in that way, not anyone else.
There certainly was no lack of this new bold artist in evermore, which was very refreshing to witness. Part of this new persona that TS has adopted includes her making small references to certain things in her past and having no shame to sort of make fun, or comment on her growth as a human being. This idea was very evident in “long story short” where TS writes “And I fell from the pedestal, right down the rabbit hole, long story short, it was a bad time // Pushed from the precipice, clung to the nearest lips, long story short, it was the wrong guy”. There is something extremely powerful about TS pointing out these huge life-altering events that she had to go through in her past and then talking about it so confidently in these new songs. To hear her speak so nonchalantly about them makes us, as fans, feel good about it as well. It’s like she’s sending out a message to her fans saying, “Hey, it’s okay. i’m good now and we can finally move past this dark era. Let’s grow together now.” I’m not trying to make this about me or any other fan out there but TS has said time and time again that if it weren’t for her fans, she would not continue making music. We are the fuel that allows her to continue doing what she’s doing every day (her words, not mine) and there’s something so powerful about that. The fact that she’s giving us this much credit will always be one of the biggest honors of my life.
To dive into some specifics, the song “tolerate it” is by far one of the more powerful songs for me from this album, and maybe even ever. One of the things that makes TS such a spectacular artist and writer is her ability to paint such a vivid picture when describing a feeling. Yes, a feeling. Let’s take a look at some of these lyrics before I explain any further:
I wait by the door like I’m just a kid // Use my best colors for your portrait // Lay the table with the fancy shit // And watch you tolerate it // If it’s all in my head tell me now // Tell me I’ve got it wrong somehow // I know my love should be celebrated // But you tolerate it
I mean HOLYYYYYYYY FUCKKKKKKKKKK. WHAT!?!?!?!?!?!?!? That is so insane! TS literally just described a very specific type of loneliness so perfectly and you don’t even know she’s doing it until after the fact! I immediately recognized what TS was doing with this song because she literally painted this feeling that I personally have experienced many times with a past relationship of mine. This desperate feeling of wanting to be seen, wanting to be loved in the way that you know you deserve, and the constant thoughts of you doubting yourself, wondering if you two are actually in love or if it’s just all in your head.
I made you my temple, my mural, my sky // Now I’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life
I mean. come. on. I know this because I’ve experienced it but being trapped in another person’s unwillingness to let someone go due to fear of being alone, uncertainty, and just pure selfishness is the loneliest type of lonely there is and TS was able to describe that so beautifully in this song. I will forever treasure this.
Another song that stood out to me was “no body, no crime” because those country vibes that were so very prominent here made me feel a bit nostalgic to some of TS’ debut songs. Now please don’t take this as me saying I MiSs tHe oLd TaYloR sWiFt but more of a, thank you taylor for being a complete and utter badass to not be afraid to dip yourself into your roots and give your fans a little taste of the medicine that was used to get them addicted to you in the first place. It was refreshing, and fun.
The last song I’m going to point out is “ivy” only because there is just something extremely magical about TS saying “goddamn” over and over.
I’m going to end this blog post the same way I do many others, and that is by thanking TS for this album that is nothing short of a masterpiece. I know I’ve mentioned this in a previous blog post before, but TS will always point her creativity into a direction that her fans need the most. For example, we all know TS is currently living her fairytale life with Joe but she decided to walk through the “folklorian woods” for months to get her mind into a place where she can write these epic, imaginary tales that she knows will resonate with a lot of her fans right now. Also in case you have heard the phrase “Taylor saved 2020″ floating around anywhere on social media, I am here to confirm that that is in fact correct.
Happy 31st birthday Taylor. I will love you forever.
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MM Anon 6
Jan 1, 2020
MM ANON ……… “ I don’t want to go back!!!”…… “ get him a title”………… “ a monthly periodical” ……… “mental health and well-being” ……… A brief synopsis LG……… “ I’ve prepared a small dossier ma’am”…… “One has no choice”……… “I’ll contemplate it”………… “ Somewhere warm Catherine”……… keep a low profile ………… he’ll do what he’s told!!!! ………… perhaps a state visit??………… “springtime with Boris in harmony” ……… “Mmmmmm, god help us”
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Jan 2
MM ANON ……… Drip, drip drip……… Drop ,drop drop……… back to school soon 🏫 ……… a successful 🌍 ……… Sophie steps up…… a stable stable ………a tad overconfident ……… “ sooner she falls off the better!!” ……… “ Mmmmm, quite the young man!!”…… “resuming play” ……… it’s the open!! ……… “a bit of an obsession!!” …………”it’s another course Catherine” ……… “be careful!!”…… “ we’ll have to send an envoy ma’am”. ……… “yes, it’s a disaster “.
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Jan 3
MM ANON …… “They will return… eventually!!”…… “mummy, it’s school Monday!!”……… cry-sis, 😭😭what cry-sis…… “from our house to Bauhaus”……” there together sir”………… “ one needs the quiet time “……… take the pulse of the populace ……… “ overwhelming support ma’am” ……… “football George,football!!”…… “O god!! He’s on another planet”………… “ A quiet few weeks would be welcomed” ……… I received the memo. ………” poison chalice old boy, poison chalice”
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Jan 3
MM ANON, The Suck-sexses are said to be contemplating a return to the UK, I don’t think so, they have made it quite clear that they have nothing but contempt for the BRF and its citizens. They probably will visit LA and try to get some free PR via OW. Nutmeg will begin to blab more word salad about her “Snoozpaper” and how she’s living this perfect life with archificial and himself. WHO PAID FOR HER SIX WEEK VACATION???? THE BRITISH TAXPAYERS
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Jan 3
MM ANON , Mmmmm ,RA has a point, no recipes from Harry except (photoshopped images) ? My own gut instinct is that all the misinformation has muddied the waters of confusion. As you say this site is for “ entertainment purposes” and your unique in that respect. No body posts the amount of information that crosses your blog from anonymous sources to real time situations, even the national press visit “Skippy” to fuel its veracity for copy. As they say “A diabolo,qui semia dei”
A diabolo, qui est simia dei. Where god has a church the devil will have his chapel.
Thank you MM Anon😊❤️❤️❤️❤️
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Jan 4
MM ANON ……… a list of all her discrepancies!! ……… sex, lies and video tapes, my god!!……… metoo Monday …… “actually darling it’s now the safest local”…… “I’d love to play in a tournament” …… “ great backhand!! “ ……… Duty calls…… first things first!! ……… “an environmental tour??” ……” eventually,with the children” ……… no chance to cry racism ……… no protocol left ……… maybe frog cott?? ……… we start building in the spring ………” it won’t last long”.
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Jan 5
MM ANON, ……… 🎼I’m ready, ready ready ready,I’m ready🎼…… “No your not”………… vinegar and brown paper ……… activate the broken record ……… same old, same old ………” from my window I can see Frogmore House” ……… A short reflection on residency ……… home delivery …… another Sunday service , beautiful!! ……… she’s got this one in the bag. ………”The children aren’t participating!!”……A REASON, A SEASON A LIFETIME. ………
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Jan 6
MM ANON … RICKY , RICKY ,RICKY!! …… respect!! …… A HANK-kerchief full of platitudes …… 🎼a speech full of sugar helps the Meganson go down🎼……… 🎼Oh happy days 🎼………… “SHE CAME, SHE SAW, SHE CONNED-CURD…… …”………… “ this must end soon !! very soon”…… We have the technology ……… “Ahhh , The elusive tape”……… Timing is everything!! ……… DM loading it’s guns……… print and be dammed!!
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Jan 6
MM ANON, Ok , a sycophantic visit to Canada 🇨🇦 House tomorrow in a packed London, they’ll be met by the Ambassador and no doubt Harry will be the customary three steps behind his 43 year old companion who will smile on queue and fake waves to nobody watching. After the same old same old they’ll disappear into the same car and return to the elusive residence somewhere in England. Don’t expect a rush towards the crowd.
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Jan 7
MM ANON, ……… she’s the (arm) pits……… go home Yank…… he’s a stone lighter ……… get off my f#@£%land ……… “ come to my birthday, never!!” ……… A state of emergency …… who dares bins ………… 🎼return to lender🎼……… “ it’s a struggle old thing”……… “ stop swearing at the tourists”…………… “ bloody tourists” …… Sydney!!……… “ I’m looking forward to next series” ……… “new stamps??”
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Jan 8
MM ANON ……… 🎼”And she must face the final curtain 🎼 The problem with NOT WEARING your wedding ring opens all conversation towards conjecture ………… 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 the firm always wins. Numerous whores and courtesans have tried to put a dent in the Monarchy over the past 2000 years most were decapitated. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
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Jan 10
MM ANON. .…… GSTQAOBC …… don’t rock the bloat. …… pain-t stripper …… past, present and future ……… hide-a-Weymouth ……… W&K rule……… make a list ……… common- wealth……… nutmegs strange grandiosity ……… feed the handbitten …… king baby ………… love in a cold climate ……… NO MORE MONEY ……… a fall from race ……… Harry has left the building
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Jan 10
MM ANON, BP has just denied that M&H were frozen out. And where did she accumulate £500 million. Something really really stinks. All her life she’s grifted and whored. TPTB should take her down before the BRF are involved in her elaborate deception. DM poll on side of RF and PH, want MM to leave Britain and never return.
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Jan 11
MM ANON ……… blowing up a GAIL……… “ it’s like de-programming sir” ……” better have them inside the tent pissing out……… “it’s her pattern of behaviour” ………… back in the day ……… W&K step up……… William refuses to play ball……… that’s weak Charles …………” it’s all about money with her”……… “ all I’m saying is,you’re powerful family “ ………” another snifter LG”……… “ hold the calls Sydney”.
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Jan 12
MM ANON ……… 🎼I don’t like Mondays🎼………” turn her bloody ugly face orf”. …… “ your call William!!” ……… bad advice ……… A military absence ……… “ yes,Pontcius Pilate” ……… Charles, The weakest link ……… “ your over generous ma’am”. ……… “ let them go, f**** em” ……… The taxpayers won’t like it ……… Canada caves……… RCMP……… BO offers a net- flick……… 🎼money,money,money 🎼…………… royal dis-appointments. ………… a tabloid tornado looms.
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Jan 13
MM ANON …………… take it or , take it!!……… no negotiation ………… Harry walks out ……… threats and lies ……… no comment…… tabloid carnage ……… more talk,talk. ……… commonwealth ambassador??? ……… no loss of financial support ……… MM gives up title ……… Harry keeps HRH. ……… archificial tells all……… W&K hold a huge party 🥳 🧣🤣🥳🥳🥳👀……… PP gives Sydney a knighthood ……… PP& Sydney get drunk. …………George bakes a cake. ……… Lottie has another sleepover. ……… Nanny gets a surprise
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jan 14
MM ANON ……… para-sight……… “ O ma’am, cunning very cunning”………… “ William is made of sterner metal”……… ( behind every great man) ……… spring offensive, the children!! …………” Lotties the key”……… the holy trinity ……… “freeze them out”………… “it’s all a smokescreen sir”…… “ yes, full steam ahead, ask Camilla “ ………… “ circle the wagons LG” …………” Burn that f**** olive branch, once bitten”………” a Canadian tour , with the children, OMG! Touché!!……… inde redire eruditionis Habes
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Jan 14
MM ANON … She new well in advance of Markle V Markle, that’s why she ran , doesn’t want the dirty laundry washed in view of a few hundred yards of BP. HARRY, You married trash. Trash whose father is going to testify against her. Goodness sake Harry, didn’t you see this , or weren’t You briefed by the intelligence service about her family and sordid history.
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Jan 15
MM ANON …………… OUR BEAUTIFUL DUCHESS OF CAMBRIDGE …………… ONE DAY OUR GLORIOUS QUEEN ……………WELL DONE KATE , YOU ASTOUNDED THE CRITICS ……… ONLY ONE CLASSY DUCHESS. 👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑
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Jan 15
MM ANON, MARKLE V MARKLE, won’t get to court, she will not Dare. She won’t bring the firm into disrepute. Unless she really wishes to harm the royal family and that’s a possibility. Will she permit her resentment for her father to drag her dirty washing through the royal courts of justice in the Stand. Is she that psychotic. Yes , I think she is, will Harry approve, I don’t think so.
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Jan 16
MM ANON,……… sea-plane PR. ……… where’s Harry?………… “ leaves 15million mansion visits poor shelter 🤣🤣🤣………… so broke,(woke)……… Paternal hurricane ……… Royal courts of Justice ……… “ write me a roll”………… “what Megan wants, Megan forgets”:……… Calipornia politics? ………… “she can be the new AOC” ……… she’ll campaign for Dems……… “OW ,tell all coming”. ……… negotiations,negotiations!!! …… W&K kill it !!!
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Jan 16
MM ANON,……… laugh and carry on……… isolation desperation ……… W&K leapfrog ……… not jaw jaw …… pseudo Trudeau ……… re-distribution …………” just scrapping by ,sausage” ……… LA NA. ……… gizza job……… ahhhhh’ the ubiquitous tape……… brotherly shove ………… “ the tour will proceed” ………… Diamond Dogs……… 🦂🦂🦂………… twice shy
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❛ ✶ ( ALEX WOLFF , CIS MALE , HE/HIM ) — did you see LUCAS BOYD walking around campus earlier ? i hear a lot of people talking about the NINETEEN year old SOPHOMORE . from what i know , they are studying COMPUTER SCIENCE and are a part of PHI KAPPA DELTA . they come across as + KIND-HEARTED but also - TIMID , which makes since because on their instagram ( LUCAS.V.BOYD ) it says they are a VIRGO . when i see them , i think of A DESK COVERED IN EMPTY COFFEE MUGS, DANDELIONS GROWING THROUGH THE SIDEWALK, THE UGLIEST GODDAMN SWEATERS YOU’VE EVER SEEN. the most interesting thing i’ve heard about them though , is the fact that REDACTED , but don’t tell anyone i told you that . ooc info . ally . 22 . est . she/her .
hello hello hellooooooooooooooo. i’m ally, i’m from canada, and i’m addicted to tik tok i’m so excited to be here!! this has been an opportunity to bring back an old and beloved muse of mine, one lucas victor boyd ! if you like this, i’ll hyu on discord, or you can hmu at known simp harry hook#3923.
statistics.
full name. lucas victor boyd
nickname(s). just lucas. not luke or lou, just lucas.
occupation. undergraduate student, beaumont campus tech support
age. nineteen.
date of birth. september 2nd, 2001.
nationality. american.
ethnicity. ashkenazi jewish, scottish.
orientation. gay.
gender & pronouns. cis male; he/him/his.
height. 6′0”.
weight. 145 lbs.
eye color. hazel.
hair color + style. dark brown; usually messy and curly. he gets it cut short at the beginning of the semester and then by the end its a mop. really doesn’t style it.
dominant hand. right-handed.
distinguishing features. distinctive nose, lanky figure, messy curls, undereye bags, that cute li’l mole.
background. (tw alcoholism, death of a parent)
SO. lucas was born in portland, maine, to a pretty lower middle class family. his father left when he was two years old, and he was largely raised by his mother, florence weber.
florence was a hardworking and loving mother, but she was also quite depressed her entire life. she was a recovered alcoholic when she met judas, lucas’s father, but once he left, she slowly slid back into her old habits.
by the time lucas was eight, he was having to start to pick up some household responsibilities. cooking, cleaning, packing his own lunch. waking his mom up in time for her shifts at target.
by the time he was in middle school, he’d learned how to forge her signature on cheques, he’d applied for unemployment for her after she got fired, and he was taking any odd job to make money.
school was his favorite distraction; he was always a brilliant kid, and if it weren’t for the fact he was already a terribly shy and awkward kid, he could have skipped a couple grades. he threw himself into schoolwork to avoid everything; his mother’s worsening condition, his crippling loneliness, his fear that he might be as gay as every one of his bullies insisted.
this was, also, around when he picked up his most lucrative but troublesome odd job; hacking into the school board network to get test answers. he could get fifty dollars per person per test, and he was able to buy groceries besides beans and rice, was able to buy new clothes for himself and his mom. he felt awful about it every day, but... he still did it.
(death tw) at sixteen, when he found his mom motionless and cold on the floor of their apartment, he buried himself in his work, too. he couldn’t help but feel guilty, though; it was his work, his taking care of everything that had allowed his mom to keep her addiction up for this long.
so, yeah. there’s a very good reason why he doesn’t go back to portland anymore. he spent last summer in cambridge. well, that and his Secret.
since the beginning of his freshman year, lucas has had something of a glow-up. he signed up for the school’s counselling services before he even got to campus, and he’s been making great strides.
additionally, he pledged phi kappa delta, which... he never saw himself pledging a frat, ever in his life. but all the guys there were so... cool. and so supportive and nice and... and they’re like the brothers lucas never had. having that little family has helped him gain that much more confidence in himself.
personality.
if there was an onion headline for lucas’s life it would be Nervous Wreck Slowly Becomes a Functional Human Being.
very virgo, very type a. but also a pisces moon cancer rising. so he needs everything to be in alphabetical order or he’ll cry.
ever since he’s started college, he’s transitioned from being As Plain As Possible to being more outwardly soft as he’s gained confidence in himself. he wears the dorky sweaters and neat socks he likes, he has a small collection of plants on his desk, he knits scarves for his friends. big hufflepuff energy. again, this comfort largely comes from the acceptance he’s found at phi kappa delta.
slowly getting over his Big Anxiety. slowly learning how to talk to people. still awkward at parties. still has panic attacks every day during exam season. but he adores his therapist and takes his zoloft every day and he’s… he’s doing alright.
there are things he is sure of. his intelligence, his diligence, his ability to get shit done. he’s recently mastered asking fellow customers to please be kind to servicepeople.
still he’s that guy who doesn’t want to tell the waiter they got his order wrong.
he’s literally highkey fucking brilliant. he’s literally at the top of his class in one of the most difficult programs at one of the most difficult universities in the country.
a chronic people pleaser up until the point that it breaks his moral code. like if you want him to help you cheat or help you toy with someone he will put his foot down. he’ll do it very softly, but he won’t budge.
(though he is known to do mathematics and computer science homework for his friends when they’re overtired. he’s always the one to offer in that case, though.)
the rare gay who is extremely capable in math. legit he gets so excited about math it’s actually really cute.
theres a part of him that still believes in magic, to some capacity. he still wishes on shooting stars and pennies on the ground and dandelions.
his greatest strength and fatal flaw is that he sees the best in people. even if he knows you tried to hurt him, he will give chance after chance.
(but he works in tech support rn So. he’s slowly losing his belief in humanity.)
in conclusion, here are some tik toks that describe lucas
him in kindergarten
he can’t write i’m so sorry
just.... the Vibes
wanted connections.
skinny love. lucas is extremely shy, especially in romantic situations. he cannot flirt to save his goddamned life. he also probably thinks this person is out of his league. (honestly i want a romantic plot for him so bad gimME)
close friends. GIVE HIM FRIENDS FOR THE LOVE OF FUCKING GOD he’s such a good friend he just wants to love people.
lawyer for real life. based off this john mulaney bit. someone who reminds lucas that someone is mistreating him.
lab partner. idk man i just like that easy camaraderie. or maybe they make lucas do all the work in which case he will eventually snap.
tutoree. someone that lucas basically helps out of the good of his heart.
bad influence. someone get this boy TURNT
manipulator. lucas does have a bit of a backbone, but he is incredibly naive and very easily manipulated. basically he will do your stats assignments for you if you say he’s your friend.
academic rival. lucas is not typically an antagonistic person, but having someone be so obviously smarter than him grinds his gears a little bit. his mood when talking to this person is :))))))))))
literally anything pls i’m desperate and he’s baby
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💤, 🎞, 💐, 💎 + miss darcy!
@chuckhansen i’m sorry i wrote you a screaming essay about my baby lmao but the choices of prompts really... slapped. 🤧🤧🤧
💤 Napping HC
- In her twenties, naps were hardly a thing for Darcy. Perhaps its the brimming energy of her youth, but all she needs is a good cup of tea and she can function like a person without getting sleepy for the rest of the day.
- Still, when she does manage to get a nap, say, maybe accidentally falling asleep on the couch or while tinkering around with her program or reviewing her art history notes, it’s always that kind of nap in which she wakes up annoyed and frothing with hate and disoriented with time. Restful naps are so rare, it’s like a myth to her.
- Sam tries to stay away from her within the first five minutes post-nap. He knows how she cranky she can get. What he does most of the time is he leaves her a cup of tea by her desk or at the coffee table with a post-it note that says, “Today is June 4th 1999 and you’re in the living room and please drink this and calm down before you come downstairs. I love you.”
- But after having Scout and Bonnie, especially when these two were babies, good lord. She ends up dozing off in the Tube, in her office, in the loo. Oftentimes, it happens while she’s doing her laundry. Even in the shower. Like, is she still even a person or sleep personified? Who knows. She has accepted that she will no longer have a decent amount of rest, let alone a wink of it, now that she is a mum.
headcanon ask meme
🎞 Movie Night HC
- Darcy has always loved going to the movie theatres, and movie nights are a weekend tradition with the Kingsleys when she and Emma were very young, so film in general played a huge role in her formative years.
- As a kid, there was a time that she watched The Aristocats more times than she could count that she ended up breaking the VHS player.
- Last full show with an empty theatre? Her absolute favourite. It’s how she spends most of her alone time to destress.
- But also her favourite: movie dates with Sam. He often takes her to watch silent films with him, and he’d just crack her up when he tries to supply his own dialogue to the characters on screen.
- Psychological thrillers and old gory movies, Darcy can endure, but horror and paranormal shit? She is an absolute coward. Once, during a stay-at-home movie night, Sam made her watch Shutter and he ended up getting punched and kicked half of the time. It was hilarious. (To him, at least.)
- “You’re unfazed with bodies being mutilated but ghosts scare you?” / “And what about it???”
- “Also you know very well I work closely with cameras so fuck you!” / “Oh there’s going to be fucking tonight I assure you but come back here baby let me protect you.”
- Another favourite of hers now that she’s a mother of two: watching old films with her kids. They always have either an insightful comment or a sassy remark that never fails to remind her of Sam.
💐 Family/Kids HC
- Darcy’s a very hands-on mama when it comes to Scout and Bonnie, even more so when they were still babies. There was a time in the middle of the night that a cybersecurity emergency in the MI5 needed her on-site assistance, and because her mum was away, she took Scout and Bonnie with her to their HQ.
- “What on earth are you thinking bringing your kids here—” / “Do you want me to stabilize this threat or do you want us to leave?” / “Uh... no, ma’am.”
- She’s also very open to Scout and Bonnie, and she’s not one to be fazed to talk to them about the birds and the bees with a Powerpoint presentation to boot.
- Movie night traditions, per usual! And also family road trips! Darcy likes spending time with Scout and Bonnie by taking them to a beach in Brighton, where Scout loves to surf and Bonnie likes to take photos.
- Darcy never expected she’d be a mother so soon in her life (and a mother of two at that) but what she never expected the most is the feeling of absolute protectiveness when it comes to her kids. She’d go feral for them, tbh.
💎 Marriage HC
With Javi
- Okay, yes, yes—maybe it is a poor choice on Darcy’s part for marrying a goddamn drug lord and this fool who once cheated on her, but Sam’s gone and she’s hard hit by grief in the aftermath of his “death”, and on top that, she was also pregnant, and she felt so desperate and sad and so fucking lonely that in her most difficult times, it was Javi who was by her side and loved her. So yes, sue her for loving this shit bag, but this shit bag got her through her toughest times.
- And also, in the absence of her baby daddy, Javi loved the hell out of the twins and treated them as his own. So how on earth could she not love him after all of that?
- The first few years of their marriage were their happiest - lots of vacations, date nights.
- Javi really tried to keep his family life away from the cartel life he’s always known ever since a kid. He really did try. He wanted something normal for a change, and Darcy gave him that. But he knew from the very start that he couldn’t have nice things (or at least, he was convinced that he did not deserve to keep it) and the deeper he got into this business he inherited from his father, the more he changed to a person he could not even recognize.
- The divorce was inevitable. And even after they have separated, there’s one thing that hasn’t changed: Javi still makes sure Darcy and her kids are safe. Anyone who dares to harm them would end up dead.
With Sam
- It’s the “two middle-aged people who have been long estranged and have loved many other people in the course of their lives and yet one look from each other all they could think of is ‘it’s always been you’” moment AND???? I AM A HO FOR IT??? I’M NOT SORRY???
- Domestic life! Cooking together! Tending their garden! A massage after a long day of work! Museum dates! Excavation trips! Finally coming home to one another!!!!!
- Do they still have their petty squabbles? Of fucking course. It’s their brand. But this time, at least they get to address each other with Mr./Mrs. like, “Oh don’t you dare turn your back on me, Mr. Drake!” or “let’s settle this in bed then, Mrs. Drake!” in arguments just to piss each other off, but then again, it does get them each other in bed.
- Sam is that husband who always goes, “Look at my wife!”
- “Also, my wife’s amazing, she maybe short but she is a blade that can kill me with a look.”
- They do have their hard days. But their hard days seem so easy because hey, you’re the only person I can imagine enduring this with and no one else.
- It felt like a natural order of things. Like this was fifteen-to-sixteen years long overdue. Having lived together for a year, for the two of them this whole thing simply felt like picking back right where they left off, but so, so much better.
#sam drake#samuel drake#oc: darcy kingsley#oc: javier bernal#oc: bonnie kingsley#oc: scout kingsley#my writing#i just love them all your honour :(
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